Extraordinary Genius #1-1400
Author: 穷四
Date: 2021-10-20T00:00:00+00:00
Publisher: anonymous

Table Of Contents

- Table Of Contents -
Chapter 1 – Rebirth to 1988
Chapter 2 – Tragedy must not happen again
Chapter 3 – Bear
Chapter 4 – Returning home
Chapter 5 – Selling the bear
Chapter 6 – Future brother-in-law
Chapter 7 – Foreign currency exchange
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11 – Treasury Bonds
Chapter 12 – All the money is gone
Chapter 13 – Increase manpower
Chapter 14 – School
Chapter 15 – Video Lounge
Chapter 16 – The real Director Xu
Chapter 17 – Top student?
Chapter 18 – Rich man
Chapter 19 – The news is out
Chapter 20 – The price rises
Chapter 21 – The excited Li Shiqiang
Chapter 22 – Li Shiqiang is quitting
Chapter 23 – News from Brother Ki
Chapter 24 – Can’t refuse
Chapter 25 – A lovely Kirilenko
Chapter 26 – Registering a Company
Chapter 27 – Sentiments
Chapter 28 – The lost Wen Dongjun

Chapter 29 – Business negotiations (Lowering prices)

Chapter 30 – Buying cars
Chapter 31 – Who’s earning more?
Chapter 32 – The approval
Chapter 33 – Isn’t this?
Chapter 34 – Fan

Chapter 35 – No one wants to use their trademark

Chapter 36 – Wind and Rain fan
Chapter 37 – Consignment
Chapter 38 – Sales of Wind and Rain fans
Chapter 39 – Arrogant Workers
Chapter 40 – An even more arrogant boss
Chapter 41 – Setting the rules
Chapter 42 – Continuing Orders
Chapter 43 – Mom and Dad are here
Chapter 44 – choosing a House
Chapter 45–shopping at the mall
Chapter 46 – Brother Ki’s team
Chapter 47 – Importing secondhand luxury cars
Chapter 48 – Cars Assembly
Chapter 49 – The wait
Chapter 50 – Playing by the riverbank
Chapter 51 – The idiot Wen Dongjun
Chapter 52 – Increasing the brand recognition
Chapter 53 – Song Xiaofeng
Chapter 54 – Nightclub
Chapter 55 – Yuan Yuan
Chapter 56 – Too much!
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59 – Opportunities to create trouble
Chapter 60– Amulet
Chapter 61 – Small tricks
Chapter 62 – Everyone can act
Chapter 63 – War (Part 1)
Chapter 64 – War (Part 2)
Chapter 65 – Serious Issue
Chapter 66 – History had changed?
Chapter 67 – Eunuch Song
Chapter 68 – Year 1 Freshman
Chapter 69 – A Nouveau Riche’s face
Chapter 70 – An Arrogant Freshman
Chapter 71 – Changing the School Culture
Chapter 72 – Drunken Rage
Chapter 73 – Infamous
Chapter 74 – Fu Guangzheng

Chapter 75 – This Incense Burner is an Antique

Chapter 76 – Antique Seller

Chapter 77 – The popular farming machines (Part 1)

Chapter 78 – The popular farming machines (Part 2)

Chapter 79 – The Company was suspended

Chapter 80 – From Farming Machinery to Production Facilities

Chapter 81 – The Harvest
Chapter 82 – The Woes of borrowing money
Chapter 83 – Raise Funds
Chapter 84 – Choosing the factory location
Chapter 85 – Money is not a Problem
Chapter 86 – Premium Oil
Chapter 87 – Soft-sell advertising
Chapter 88 – Specially Catered For
Chapter 89 – Television Advertisement
Chapter 90 – Technology is most profitable
Chapter 91 – An unexpected invitation

Chapter 92 – Using Technology to Exchange for Shares

Chapter 93 – Feng Xingtai is setting up a company again

Chapter 94 – Successfully becoming a shareholder

Chapter 95 – Partnering Fu Guangzheng
Chapter 96 – Hong Kong Businessman (Part 1)
Chapter 97 – Hong Kong Businessman (Part 2)

Chapter 98 – Tai Hua Factory’s Future Development

Chapter 99 – Settling the Sales Channels
Chapter 100 – Asking for too much
Chapter 101 – General in Heavens
Chapter 102 – Obsoleted Trucks

Chapter 103 – The Development of the Machinery Company

Chapter 104 – Wen Dongjun and Fat Chick
Chapter 105 – Tian Peng pig
Chapter 106 – Selling Pork
Chapter 107 – Humidifier
Chapter 108 – The Influence of Leaders
Chapter 109 – Noble and Prestige
Chapter 110 – 3 Parties Cooperation (Part 1)
Chapter 111 – 3 Parties Cooperation (Part 2)
Chapter 112 – Pager
Chapter 113 – The kid who sued a foreigner
Chapter 114 – Wind and Rain Logistics
Chapter 115 – The Man who can eat in a pigsty
Chapter 116 – Ice hole
Chapter 117 – Bad luck
Chapter 118 – A New Start for the New Year
Chapter 119 – The Grand Wedding
Chapter 120 – Wedding Banquet
Chapter 121 – Development Plan
Chapter 122 – Every fatty has potential
Chapter 123 – Constant Good News
Chapter 124 – Registering the Patent
Chapter 125 – Product placement (Part 1)
Chapter 126 – Product placement (Part 2)

Chapter 127 – Foreign businessman came knocking on the door

Chapter 128 – Kameda? On your knees?
Chapter 129 – CCTV Advertising Division
Chapter 130 – Program Sponsor

Chapter 131 – China’s style business negotiations

Chapter 132 – Giving lessons to the people at CCTV

Chapter 133 – The rich can speak loudly
Chapter 134 – Business blooming everywhere
Chapter 135 – One-time business

Chapter 136 – Clouds thinking of beautiful clothes; flowers thinking of countenance

Chapter 137 – I want to be a secretary
Chapter 138 – Peaceful and Stable life
Chapter 139 – Bladeless fans
Chapter 140 – An Invitation Letter
Chapter 141 – International Summer Camp
Chapter 142 – Fighting for the places
Chapter 143 – Voluntarily withdraw?

Chapter 144 – The Teachers who jumped the queue

Chapter 145 – First time aboard
Chapter 146 – Just landed and disappeared
Chapter 147 – Famous
Chapter 148 – The theme is Arts
Chapter 149 – Soviet Union’s light industries
Chapter 150 – The strange teachers from China
Chapter 151 – Soviet Union’s Motorcycles
Chapter 152 – Returning Home

Chapter 153 – The Golden Period of the Stock Market

Chapter 154 – I want everything!
Chapter 155 – Sweeping the Stock Markets
Chapter 156 – Loans
Chapter 157 – Getting Dad to sign
Chapter 158 – Continue to Raise Money
Chapter 159 – Getting more loans

Chapter 160 – Light Industrial equipment wholesales

Chapter 161 – Seed germination
Chapter 162 – Money makes the mare go
Chapter 163 – Unexpected help
Chapter 164 – Swiftness
Chapter 165 – Nothing to do with me
Chapter 166 – The Dust Settles
Chapter 167 – Motorcycle Factory
Chapter 168 – Completion of the first step
Chapter 169 – News that were brought forward
Chapter 170 – Brainwashing
Chapter 171 – Donation to build schools
Chapter 172 – Master Designer?

Chapter 173 – This is the real Master Designer!

Chapter 174 – Investing in a Design Company

Chapter 175 – New Motorcycle Model

Chapter 176 – Reselling CCTV advertisement slots

Chapter 177 – Celebrities endorsements Part 1
Chapter 178 – Celebrities endorsements Part 2
Chapter 179 – Filming Starts
Chapter 180 – Celebrity Influences 1
Chapter 181- Celebrity Influences 2
Chapter 182 – Distributors Part 1
Chapter 183 – Distributors Part 2
Chapter 184 – The Second Step of the Plan
Chapter 185 – Annual Meeting
Chapter 186 – Alarmist Part 1
Chapter 187 – Alarmist Part 2
Chapter 188 – Alarmist Part 3
Chapter 189 – The Rich Old Feng
Chapter 190 – Changes in the New Year
Chapter 191 – Bladeless fans
Chapter 192 – Talks for the New Factory
Chapter 193 – Aggressive
Chapter 194 –Reassignment or Profits
Chapter 195 – A major event
Chapter 196 – Brainwashing Brother Ki
Chapter 197 – Upright Character
Chapter 198 – Sleight of hand tricks

Chapter 199 – Tender for advertising slots at CCTV Part 1

Chapter 200 – Tender for advertising slots at CCTV Part 2

Chapter 201– Tender for advertising slots at CCTV Part 3

Chapter 202 – Buying into Le Ha Ha Part 1

Chapter 203 – Buying into Le Ha Ha Part 2

Chapter 204 – Astronomically Priced Electric Fans Part 1

Chapter 205 – Astronomically Priced Electric Fans Part 2

Chapter 206 – Child Endorsement

Chapter 207 – Major Shareholder of Machinery Company

Chapter 208 – Meeting at the City Government

Chapter 209 – Meeting at the City Government Continued

Chapter 210 – Killer Move Part 1
Chapter 211 – Killer Move Part 2
Chapter 212 –  Subduing Li Mingde
Chapter 213 – Audio Cassette Tape Shop Part 1
Chapter 214 – Audio Cassette Tape Shop Part 2
Chapter 215 – Calling the shots
Chapter 216 – From the big to small
Chapter 217 – Xiao Feng is Giving Gifts Again
Chapter 218 – Brother Ki is here again
Chapter 219 – Brother Ki’s future business

Chapter 220 – Getting loans with Brother Ki’s help

Chapter 221 – Uncle
Chapter 222 – Concerns of Zhang Ruiqiang
Chapter 223 – Kameda looking for a job
Chapter 224 – Aiwa Co.

Chapter 225 – The opportunity to get the controlling stake

Chapter 226 – Sony Vice President
Chapter 227 – Even if it is at Premium Price
Chapter 228 – Good News
Chapter 229 – Shares of Aiwa
Chapter 230 – The Fu Family acted fast
Chapter 231 – Going to the Soviet Union again
Chapter 232 – Special treatment

Chapter 233 – The generous Kiev Second Generation

Chapter 234 – Should I agree?

Chapter 235 – There are no problems with High Interests

Chapter 236 The Soviet Union Ball (Part 1)
Chapter 237 The Soviet Union Ball (Part 2)
Chapter 238 – Brother Ki’s misunderstanding
Chapter 239 – Shooting (Part 1)
Chapter 240 – Shooting (Part 2)
Chapter 241 – Driving a Tank
Chapter 242 – Dealing with the Bank Manager
Chapter 243 – Loans (Part 1)
Chapter 244 – Loans (Part 2)
Chapter 245 – Setting the trap
Chapter 246 – The Greedy Fu Rongjing
Chapter 247 – Exchanging Rubles for USD
Chapter 248 – Sixth Sense
Chapter 249 – London Gold Exchange
Chapter 250 – Lehaha becomes Popular
Chapter 251 – Shanghai’s stock exchange opens
Chapter 252 – Fu Rongjing broke down
Chapter 253 – Fu Rongqi
Chapter 254 – The Fu family Apologized?
Chapter 255 – Going to Hong Kong again
Chapter 256 – Be friends with him
Chapter 257 – Sichuan Airlines
Chapter 258 – Leader of headquarters
Chapter 259 – Two good news

Chapter 260 – The Civil Aviation Procurement Team

Chapter 261 – Which side are you on?!
Chapter 262 – Good Friend of the Soviet Union
Chapter 263 – Zhang Ruiqiang’s Questioning
Chapter 264 – Believe him or not?
Chapter 265 – Playing in the Snow
Chapter 266 – Selling the stocks
Chapter 267 – Shorting Crude Oil
Chapter 268 – Interview with the University
Chapter 269 – Zhang Han’s background
Chapter 270 – Advice for Zhang Ruiqiang
Chapter 271 – Tycoon Feng Xingtai
Chapter 272 – Oil Prices plunged

Chapter 273 – Getting a stake in Mining Enterprise

Chapter 274 – Feng Yu’s Investment

Chapter 275 – High-profile Feng Xingtai

Chapter 276 – Celebrating Lunar New Year in Hometown

Chapter 277 – Feng Xingtai’s family is not Simple

Chapter 278 – Technologies exchange (Part 1)

Chapter 279 – Technologies exchange (Part 2)

Chapter 280 – I want to manufacture automobiles

Chapter 281 – Going through the Back Door

Chapter 282 – Building cars behind closed doors

Chapter 283 – The furious First Automobile Works (FAW)

Chapter 284 – Heavy Industrial Facilities’ Sales (Part 1)

Chapter 285 – Heavy Industrial Facilities’ Sales (Part 2)

Chapter 286 – Special Enlistment?

Chapter 287 – Military to Civilian, Civilian to Military

Chapter 288 – The Great Bull Market
Chapter 289 – Jealousy
Chapter 290 – Master Lu’s Invitation
Chapter 291 – The Automobile Dream

Chapter 292 – Current status of China’s Automobile industry

Chapter 293 – City’s Marketing
Chapter 294 – Bing City Government Meeting
Chapter 295 – A National Brand
Chapter 296 – Change of Attitude
Chapter 297 – Li Dafu

Chapter 298 – Come, let’s talk about our dreams

Chapter 299 – Everybody has dreams
Chapter 300 – Increased investment in Lehaha
Chapter 301 – Flying kites (Part One)
Chapter 302 – Flying kites (Part two)
Chapter 303 – Fu Guangzheng
Chapter 304 – Graduation

Chapter 305 – Wen Deguang’s promotion to the Chief of Farm department.

Chapter 306 – Dad, you should develop this way

Chapter 307 – Aiwa’s positioning
Chapter 308 – All of you are not interested?
Chapter 309 – AIWA Walkman is a learning tool

Chapter 310 – AIWA Walkman, learning languages anytime

Chapter 311 – Sony’s Retaliation (Part One)
Chapter 312 – Sony’s Retaliation (Part Two)
Chapter 313 – What? AIWA repaid the debts?
Chapter 314 – Get Sony out of China
Chapter 315 – Beating Sony in the home ground
Chapter 316 – Catching the Train

Chapter 317 – Taking precautions against Feng Yu

Chapter 318 – University, a small-scale society

Chapter 319 – Skipping Military Training
Chapter 320 – Negotiating with the Professor
Chapter 321 – Last Batch of equipment
Chapter 322 – Sponsorship is for making money
Chapter 323 – Dream big, Kameda Masao

Chapter 324 – Out of Asia, Set your sights on the world

Chapter 325 – 10 Billion Yen Goal

Chapter 326 – AWIA, Master of Core Technologies

Chapter 327 – Friend, you must be brave
Chapter 328 – Bringing her home
Chapter 329 – Let’s watch a movie

Chapter 330 – The next stage of the relationship

Chapter 331 – Energetic
Chapter 332 – Peaceful school life
Chapter 333 – Developing VCD
Chapter 334 – Dreams
Chapter 335 – Money + Dreams
Chapter 336 – Preparations

Chapter 337 – Huh, suing us for monopolizing the market?

Chapter 338 – Alliance

Chapter 339 – Multi-functional

Chapter 340 – We did not get an award? We shall organize one ourselves

Chapter 341 – The awards ceremony will be a gala dinner?

Chapter 342 – Convincing CCTV

Chapter 343 – Formation of the Judging panel

Chapter 344 – Dad, you want to show your face on CCTV?

Chapter 345 – Getting the Performers

Chapter 346 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 1)

Chapter 347 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 2)

Chapter 348 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 3)

Chapter 349 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 4)

Chapter 350 – Trouble at the Association

Chapter 351 – Close the door, release Master Lu

Chapter 352 – Getting a 2nd generation follower?

Chapter 353 – Piracy beating originals

Chapter 354 – The Little Tyrant Video Games Console

Chapter 355 – Girl, make me happy

Chapter 356 – Cheers and placards on Gala Dinner (Part 1 of 3)

Chapter 357 – Cheers and placards on Gala Dinner (Part 2 of 3)

Chapter 358 – Cheers and placards on Gala Dinner (Part 3 of 3)

Chapter 359 – Meeting the in-laws?

Chapter 360 – This was the only usable version?

Chapter 361 – Gathering

Chapter 362 – Broadcast of the Awards Ceremony

Chapter 363 – The after-effects of the award ceremony (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 364 – The after-effects of the award ceremony (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 365 – Super Fan enters the market

Chapter 366 – The higher-ups’ attention? (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 367 – The higher-ups’ attention? (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 368 – Tian Peng Pig Farm wins
Chapter 369 – The Post-Soviet era
Chapter 370 – Taken advantage of
Chapter 371 – Since it had already happened……
Chapter 372 – The evil mining company’s boss
Chapter 373 – Shortage of farmers in Russia?
Chapter 374 – Supplying Farmers?
Chapter 375 – Perplexed Zhang Ruiqiang
Chapter 376 – Everything is for Bing City!
Chapter 377 – You will still need me
Chapter 378 – I had also contacted Australia
Chapter 379 – Something’s wrong

Chapter 380 – You must be a determined traitor

Chapter 381 – Double spy

Chapter 382 – Life is like a play, it all depends on your acting skills (Part 1 of 3)

Chapter 383 – Life is like a play, it all depends on your acting skills (Part 2 of 3)

Chapter 384 – Life is like a play, it all depends on your acting skills (Part 2 of 3)

Chapter 385 – Old Xu, I am disappointed with you

Chapter 386 – Hard to set up a hospital

Chapter 387 – We had owned a hospital all this while

Chapter 388 – Why can’t the hospital make money?

Chapter 389 – The best hospital in Bing City
Chapter 390 – Petition
Chapter 391 – Meeting
Chapter 392 – Give an inch and take a mile
Chapter 393 – Employees general meeting

Chapter 394 – External Grandson is not as good as our own grandson

Chapter 395- The district should develop this way

Chapter 396 – This is how you play Mahjong.

Chapter 397 – It is actually simple to ask the farmers to return their fields

Chapter 398 – Lend him the money
Chapter 399 – Deceiving Li Shiyou
Chapter 400 – How do we cooperate?
Chapter 401 – Small batteries, big business
Chapter 402 – Buying a computer
Chapter 403 – Useless computer

Chapter 404 – How can I forget about Ningbo Bird?

Chapter 405 – Ningbo Bird in poverty

Chapter 406 – Fast Acquisition

Chapter 407 – You will become a multi-millionaire

Chapter 408 – VCD player Prototype
Chapter 409 – Sony’s outraged
Chapter 410 – Learning Machine

Chapter 411 – Why does he want to sell medicine?

Chapter 412 – Persuading Zhang Ruiqiang

Chapter 413 – Wu Zhigang’s superiority

Chapter 414 – Speaking with facts!

Chapter 415 – The formulas are worthless?

Chapter 416 – These medical formulas are valuable!

Chapter 417 – Everyone has their uses
Chapter 418 – Stock up
Chapter 419 – Disgustingly in love
Chapter 420 – Buying advertisement spaces
Chapter 421 – The Complacent Duan Yongping
Chapter 422 – Compete with yourself

Chapter 423 – Aiwa learning machine, learn at your own pace

Chapter 424 – The Little Tyrant’s premature death

Chapter 425 – Buying the Little Tyrant
Chapter 426 – Everyone is cursing Aiwa
Chapter 427 – Brand Killer
Chapter 428 – Military Training
Chapter 429 and 430 – Organize an exhibition
Chapter 431 – Songjiang Concept Car

Chapter 432 – Opening Ceremony of the Exhibition

Chapter 433 – Making comparisons
Chapter 434 – Taking a step too far
Chapter 435 and 436 – Penpal
Chapter 437 – Pirated VCD appeared
Chapter 438 – Someone named Song
Chapter 439 – How do we sell cars?
Chapter 440 – Visiting CCTV
Chapter 441 – Test drive
Chapter 442 – National Automobile Brand
Chapter 443 – Recover the capital first

Chapter 444 – Brother Ki, do you want to buy cars?

Chapter 445 – Brother Ki is a foodie?

Chapter 446, 447 and 448 – Buying hen and selling eggs

Chapter 449 – I took that seriously
Chapter 450 – The City does not need to pay
Chapter 451 – Major Crackdown in the City

Chapter 452 – Sufficient funds were raised in one day

Chapter 453 – Taught a lesson by Zhang Ruiqiang

Chapter 454 – Brother Ki, think about your Russian army

Chapter 455 – Old Hou, do you have friends in the army?

Chapter 456 – Bargain?
Chapter 457 – This is also my product
Chapter 458 – Huh? That person is coming?
Chapter 459 – The Leader knows me?
Chapter 460 – Questions (Part 1 of 3)
Chapter 461 – Questions (Part 2 of 3)
Chapter 462 – Questions (Part 3 of 3)
Chapter 463 – Exchange Student
Chapter 464 – Rigged Auctions
Chapter 465 – Product placement in Gala night

Chapter 466 – Come to Beijing to watch the Gala night

Chapter 467 – The never-ending product placement (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 468 – The never-ending product placement (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 469 – Export tax rebate
Chapter 470 – Brothers in bad mood
Chapter 471 – He is finally here
Chapter 472 – Hao Haitao’s fustrations
Chapter 473 – Good Cop Bad Cop
Chapter 474 – Good Cop Bad Cop (Part 2)
Chapter 475 – Aggression

Chapter 476 – Everybody wants to be exchange students (Part 1 of 3)

Chapter 477 – Everybody wants to be exchange students (Part 2 of 3)

Chapter 478 – Everybody wants to be exchange students (Part 3 of 3)

Chapter 479 – Feng Hua VCD (Part 1of 2)
Chapter 480 – Feng Hua VCD (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 481 – Network access license
Chapter 482 – China’s own pager (Part 1 of 3)
Chapter 483 – China’s own pager (Part 2 of 3)
Chapter 484 – China’s own pager (Part 3 of 3)

Chapter 485 – Ministries and Commissions recommendations (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 486 – Ministries and Commissions recommendations (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 487 – Sudden increase in sales

Chapter 488 – Sports Meet

Chapter 489 – Overrun of health products in the market

Chapter 490 – Ma Family Army’s reputation

Chapter 491 – Persuading Deputy Station Chief Jia

Chapter 492 – Groundbreaking news
Chapter 493 – National uproar
Chapter 494 – The Leader’s attitude

Chapter 495 – Sixth Sense is going to be listed

Chapter 496 – Are you familiar with the TV stations?

Chapter 497 – Old Ma’s grudge

Chapter 498 – I am the one who caused the Ma Family Army to be disbanded?

Chapter 499 – Name sponsor of training grounds

Chapter 500 – Team endorsement
Chapter 501 – Household medications
Chapter 502 – Suboptimal health status
Chapter 503 – Instilling new ideas
Chapter 504 – Every Chinese lacks nutrient
Chapter 505 – All these honor should be mine
Chapter 506 – We are the ones!
Chapter 507 – All Japanese lacks Zinc
Chapter 508 – Hong Kong University
Chapter 509 – I am gay
Chapter 510 – Stupid Mainlander
Chapter 511 – Surpassing in all aspects
Chapter 512 – Fu Rongbing’s invitation
Chapter 513 – Matchmaking?
Chapter 514 – Fu Mengying’s resentment
Chapter 515 – Meeting Liu Chuanzhi
Chapter 516 – Opportunity to invest in Lenovo
Chapter 517 – Heard of Self-assembled PC?
Chapter 518 – I also have technologies
Chapter 519 – Inducements (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 520 – Inducements (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 521 – Liu Chuanzhi’s hard work
Chapter 522 – Stupid rich man
Chapter 523 – Losses or gain?
Chapter 524 – Successfully invested in Lenovo
Chapter 525 – I want to set up a TV station

Chapter 526 – Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary

Chapter 527 – The two devise a plan
Chapter 528 – Drawing lots
Chapter 529 – Bullying the customer
Chapter 530 – Going out to Sea
Chapter 531 – Little Superman
Chapter 532 – The Little Superman’s ambitions
Chapter 533 – The Fustrated Little Superman
Chapter 534 – Because he is investing
Chapter 535 – You can’t cheat me
Chapter 536 – Superman Li’s guess
Chapter 537 – Making friends
Chapter 538 – Supermarket idea

Chapter 539 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 1 of 6)

Chapter 540 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 2 of 6)

Chapter 541 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 3 of 6)

Chapter 542 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 4 of 6)

Chapter 543 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 5 of 6)

Chapter 544 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 6 of 6)

Chapter 545 – Issues of a partnership (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 546 – Issues of a partnership (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 547 – Little Superman was reprimanded

Chapter 548 – Discussion of the Gold Market with Fu Rongqi

Chapter 549 – Wind and Rain Consulting Company’s developments

Chapter 550 – Huge investment
Chapter 551 – The Fu Family
Chapter 552 – Charity Ball (Part 1 of 3)
Chapter 553 – Charity Ball (Part 2 of 3)
Chapter 554 – Charity Ball (Part 3 of 3)
Chapter 555 – Charity Auction
Chapter 556 – They had come to invest

Chapter 557 – Recording of Happy Dictionary starts

Chapter 558 – Professor lost to a worker?

Chapter 559 – Professors are applying as participants

Chapter 560 – Wen Dongjun also want to take part

Chapter 561 – Quanjude

Chapter 562 – Creating a Hero from the Police force

Chapter 563 – Jiang Xianjun
Chapter 564 – Let me be a shareholder
Chapter 565 – Looking for connections

Chapter 566 – No Choice but to agree (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 567 – No Choice but to agree (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 568 – Entering the F&B industry
Chapter 569 – One year had passed again
Chapter 570 – The Fu Family went crazy
Chapter 571 – Hotpot
Chapter 572 – Cargo Vans
Chapter 573 – Pub in the Embassy Area
Chapter 574 – Elena’s feelings

Chapter 575 – Key shareholder of a Mining Company

Chapter 576 – Human Ham

Chapter 577 – The third-party benefits from the tussle

Chapter 578 – The third-party benefits from the tussle (Part 2)

Chapter 579 – CCTV’s report (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 580 – CCTV’s report (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 581 – Tai Hua Ham
Chapter 582 – Heard of Supermarket?

Chapter 583 – Our Supermarkets are extraordinary

Chapter 584 – Free repainting of the public buses

Chapter 585 – Veterans placement
Chapter 586 – Celebrity Wen Dongjun
Chapter 587 – Liu Jichuan’s return
Chapter 588 – Questions
Chapter 589 – Come and work for me
Chapter 590 – I want all of them

Chapter 591 – Lunar New Year visit to Li Na’s house

Chapter 592 – Wind and Rain Private Security
Chapter 593 – Testing their capabilities
Chapter 594 – Huh? Bodyguard?
Chapter 595 – Eye protection device?
Chapter 596 – The Furious Zhang Ruiqiang
Chapter 597 – Mother******!
Chapter 598 – The poor Sun Fulin

Chapter 599 – Bing City Pharmaceutical developments

Chapter 600 – Medical plaster (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 601 – Medical plaster (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 602 – Exclusive Supplier
Chapter 603 – Medical Plaster strategy

Chapter 604 – Partnership with Quanjude (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 605 – Partnership with Quanjude (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 606 – China’s food chart

Chapter 607 – The frustrated Li Dafu

Chapter 608 – To be the market leader (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 609 – To be the market leader (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 610 – How do you want to invest?

Chapter 611 – Having the same views (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 612 – Having the same views (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 613 – Changes to the ownership structure

Chapter 614
Chapter 615 – The Dismal Li Zekai
Chapter 616 – Superman Li is impressed
Chapter 617 – The nosy Li Zekai
Chapter 618 – Super VCD

Chapter 619 – Philips request for collaboration

Chapter 620 – Thomas’s surprise

Chapter 621 – Setting the Industry standards together (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 622 – Setting the Industry standards together (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 623 – The Amazing show flat
Chapter 624 – Full cooperation
Chapter 625 – Full cooperation continued
Chapter 626 – Industry Standards race

Chapter 627 – Giving out authorization like crazy (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 628 – Giving out authorization like crazy (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 629 – VCD brands
Chapter 630 – Nurturing the market
Chapter 631 – Returning back to China
Chapter 632 – Promotions (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 633 – Promotions (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 634 – Separating from the rest

Chapter 635 – Opening of the Supermarket (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 636 – Opening of the Supermarket (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 637 – Iron-fist Zhu shopping in a supermarket

Chapter 638 – Immediate success
Chapter 639 – Mutual benefits
Chapter 640 – Channels sharing
Chapter 641 – Advertising campaign
Chapter 642 – One thing leads to another
Chapter 643 – DVD Forum (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 644 – DVD Forum (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 645 – The era of two formats
Chapter 646 – The long-awaited letter

Chapter 647 – Thieves in the Supermarket (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 648 – Thieves in the Supermarket (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 649 – Tricks (Part 1 of 3)
Chapter 650 – Tricks (Part 2 of 3)
Chapter 651 – Tricks (Part 3 of 3)

Chapter 652 – Killing many birds with one stone

Chapter 653 – Selling cards for money (Part 1 of 4)

Chapter 654 – Selling cards for money (Part 2 of 4)

Chapter 655 – Selling cards for money (Part 3 of 4)

Chapter 656 – Selling cards for money (Part 4 of 4)

Chapter 657 – Teachers’ Day, Teachers’ Day Suffering

Chapter 658 – It’s easy to get a postgraduate recommendation

Chapter 659 – Everyone is giving shopping cards

Chapter 660 – Everyone is giving shopping cards part 2

Chapter 661 – Huh? Setup a bank?

Chapter 662 – Meeting Liu Yonghao

Chapter 663 – Guangcai Program

Chapter 664 – Do these companies qualify?

Chapter 665 – The supermarket have competitors!

Chapter 666 – Adolf’s frustrations
Chapter 667 – Beverage wars (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 668 – Beverage wars (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 669 – Young spokesperson
Chapter 670 – Meeting the Little Tigers
Chapter 671 – My Good Mood
Chapter 672 – Does your company needs money?
Chapter 673 – Should we acquire them?
Chapter 674 – Creative Person

Chapter 675 – Suppliers’ headaches (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 676 – Suppliers’ headaches (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 677 – Milk Tea promotion
Chapter 678 – Refusal
Chapter 679 – Got sued again
Chapter 680 – Support
Chapter 681 – The man behind the curtain
Chapter 682 – War of words on Media
Chapter 683 – Pollution

Chapter 684 – The fire spread to home (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 685 – The fire spread to home (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 686 – Hitting someone when he is down
Chapter 687 – The Higher-ups acted
Chapter 688 – Iron Fist Zhu’s conditions
Chapter 689 – Tomiichi Murayama’s Decision
Chapter 690 – Public Apology
Chapter 691 – The world’s shock
Chapter 692 – Buying out at bottom prices
Chapter 693 – Taking part
Chapter 694 – A wealthy fool (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 695 – A wealthy fool (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 696 – The Enthusiastic Victor (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 697 – The Enthusiastic Victor (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 698 – Chartering a flight
Chapter 699 – The lucky Victor
Chapter 700 – The plan
Chapter 701 – It’s too little

Chapter 702 – Bluff (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 703 – Bluff (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 704 – Got it

Chapter 705 – Using a medical formula to invest again?

Chapter 706 – Zhang Ruiqiang’s decision

Chapter 707 – Didn’t come in vain

Chapter 708 – Can we change the name of the village?

Chapter 709 – Use money

Chapter 710 – Start selling

Chapter 711 – Some laughs, other cries (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 712 – Some laughs, other cries (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 713 – Everyone loves Teacher Li
Chapter 714 – Who will teach who a lesson?
Chapter 715 – The pathetic Zhao Yan
Chapter 716 – Cordless phone
Chapter 717 – Getting listed?
Chapter 718 – It’s not the time yet
Chapter 719 – The troubled Zhang Ruiqiang
Chapter 720 – Refusal
Chapter 721 – Social Security
Chapter 722 – Merger
Chapter 723 – Decision
Chapter 724 – Conditions
Chapter 725 – Domineering Xu Changyou
Chapter 726 – Agricultural Industry Plan
Chapter 727 – Huh? Beidacang?
Chapter 728 – Let the farms invest
Chapter 729 – Crying babies get the milk
Chapter 730 – “168” Strategy
Chapter 731 – Capital usage
Chapter 732 – Thesis Defence
Chapter 733 – Fighting over him

Chapter 734 – My ambition is to be a businessman

Chapter 735 – Goodbye University
Chapter 736 – Different Treatment
Chapter 737 – Beidacang Group was set up
Chapter 738 – Good Strategy
Chapter 739 – Brand Cooperation
Chapter 740 – You think I am a fool?!
Chapter 741 – On my terms!
Chapter 742 – Special Privileges!
Chapter 743 – Are you all regretting now?
Chapter 744 – Future plans

Chapter 745 – Sixth Sense Company’s developments

Chapter 746 – Wait and See
Chapter 747 – Market Opens
Chapter 748 – Losses
Chapter 749 – Ambitions
Chapter 750 – Hi, Bill!
Chapter 751 – Two conditions
Chapter 752 – Win-win situation
Chapter 753 – Bill Gates’ decision
Chapter 754 – Agreeing to the conditions
Chapter 755 – Tony’s surprise

Chapter 756 – Microsoft Board of Directors meeting

Chapter 757 – Steve’s doubts

Chapter 758 – Another Steve

Chapter 759 – How did you get your money from?

Chapter 760 – I would like to buy a house
Chapter 761 – Seattle
Chapter 762 – I want both of them
Chapter 763 – Advertising message and Reality
Chapter 764 – Housekeeping staffs
Chapter 765 – High salaries
Chapter 766 – When did it start?
Chapter 767 – Price war
Chapter 768 – The effects of position
Chapter 769 – Tu Hao (Rich man)
Chapter 770 – Surprise
Chapter 771 – Ballmer’s request
Chapter 772 – Jeff
Chapter 773 – Investing in dreams
Chapter 774 – Change in attitude
Chapter 775 – Jeff decision
Chapter 776 – “Chance meeting.”
Chapter 777 – Brother Ki comes to America
Chapter 778 – Meeting Elena again
Chapter 779 – The proud Kirilenko
Chapter 780 – Cooperation
Chapter 781 – Set up a museum?
Chapter 782 – Liu Chuanzhi’s decision
Chapter 783 – Lenovo Kingsoft
Chapter 784 – The Irresponsible Director

Chapter 785 – You don’t need to make any reservations at this restaurant

Chapter 786 – Don’t ever buy it.
Chapter 787 – Analytics software
Chapter 788 – Comparison
Chapter 789 – You still need to hire people
Chapter 790 – Empire State Building

Chapter 791 – Change it to China State Building

Chapter 792 – Donald’s decision
Chapter 793 – Kameda Masao
Chapter 794 – For your sons
Chapter 795 – Wolf of Wall Street
Chapter 796 – No dividends
Chapter 797 – Lenovo Kingsoft is set up
Chapter 798 – Forever
Chapter 799 – Must have an open mind
Chapter 800 – Sponsors
Chapter 801 – Child of Wealth
Chapter 802 – Journey to Olympics

Chapter 803 – With an excuse, there will be a Gala night

Chapter 804 – You have been conned again
Chapter 805 – Want Respect?
Chapter 806 – Old Brands are treasures
Chapter 807 – Grain storage
Chapter 808 – Grain depots become Warehouses
Chapter 809 – Little Nephew
Chapter 810 – Repairing the Dam
Chapter 811 – No one can understand him
Chapter 812 – Province is going all out
Chapter 813 – Exposed
Chapter 814 – Master Lu’s danger
Chapter 815 – Secret

Chapter 816 – Acquisition for the Empire State Building completed

Chapter 817 – Conspiracy theories
Chapter 818 – Invitation for cooperation
Chapter 819 – BML
Chapter 820 – Li Jingwei’s troubles
Chapter 821 – New investment’s direction
Chapter 822 – Mortgage Loan
Chapter 823 – Gift from heaven
Chapter 824 – Li Jingwei’s plan
Chapter 825 – Strategy and conditions
Chapter 826 – Crisis
Chapter 827 – Foreign Business Group
Chapter 828 – Capable person
Chapter 829 – Beverage industry association
Chapter 830 – Conditions
Chapter 831 – Fu Guangzheng’s decision
Chapter 832 – I want a specialized counter
Chapter 833 – Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s shock
Chapter 834 – Lucky draw promotion
Chapter 835 – Fire in the backyard
Chapter 836 – The ones holding them back
Chapter 837 – Spokesperson
Chapter 838 – Combination punches
Chapter 839 – Endless troubles
Chapter 840 – Who’s backing is stronger?
Chapter 841 – Sudden invitation
Chapter 842 – Sudden invitation

Chapter 843 – The disgraceful opening ceremony

Chapter 844 – This will not end
Chapter 845 – Changing history
Chapter 846 – Sued for Discrimination
Chapter 847 – Broadcasting stopped
Chapter 848 – Anywhere except for that place!
Chapter 849 – Olympic Games bombing
Chapter 850 – Disappointment
Chapter 851 – Clinton apologized
Chapter 852 – Who is the best?
Chapter 853 – They really won the gold medal
Chapter 854 – Aggressive advertising
Chapter 855 – Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao
Chapter 856 – Everyone wants to cooperate

Chapter 857 – The markets must be based on population

Chapter 858 – It’s the opposite
Chapter 859 – Weird Japanese
Chapter 860 – Curiosity kills the cat
Chapter 861 – Mobile phone
Chapter 862 – Obsolete within 5 years

Chapter 863 – They will be doomed if they don’t invest in technological developments

Chapter 864 – Aiwa is here again

Chapter 865 – The wolf is here

Chapter 866 – Brother Ki, this phone is for you

Chapter 867 – Futuristic product

Chapter 868 – Heitaro Nakajima wants to be listed

Chapter 869 – Looking at the future

Chapter 870 – Different types of handphone flip cover

Chapter 871 – Voice recorder
Chapter 872 – Impenetrable new market
Chapter 873 – Finding another way
Chapter 874 – The letter
Chapter 875 – Not winning a single bid
Chapter 876 – Complain
Chapter 877 – The Old Man wants to meet you
Chapter 878 – Try this
Chapter 879 – KTV
Chapter 880 – Southeast Li Jiaxing
Chapter 881 – Invitation
Chapter 882 – Some places cannot be touched
Chapter 883 – So, that’s the reason
Chapter 884 – Fundraising
Chapter 885 – The higher-up’s attention

Chapter 886 – Dad is going to be a government official

Chapter 887 – Problems with State-Owned Enterprise reforms

Chapter 888 – Get listed
Chapter 889 – I am patriotic
Chapter 890 – Lots of problems

Chapter 891 – Representing the Country to thank you

Chapter 892 – Green lights all the way
Chapter 893 – How do we sell?
Chapter 894 – Internet Advertising
Chapter 895 – Meeting Professor Liang again
Chapter 896 – Operation Starts
Chapter 897 – Preach to Deaf Ears
Chapter 898 – Starting to lose money
Chapter 899 – The future Head of the family
Chapter 900 – Thailand’s economic situation
Chapter 901 – Many reasons
Chapter 902 – Full-fledged Attack

Chapter 903 – Sudden closure of Futures Contracts

Chapter 904 – Ah… My phone is out of battery again

Chapter 905 – Thailand’s retaliation
Chapter 906 – Professor Liang’s worries
Chapter 907 – Shocking news
Chapter 908 – Irritating Soros
Chapter 909 – Extreme Policies
Chapter 910 – Boss, we are at our limits
Chapter 911 – The Proud Thai Central Bank
Chapter 912 – Chris Patten
Chapter 913 – Rejection
Chapter 914 – Start from the daughter
Chapter 915 – Comeback
Chapter 916 – Defending the backyard
Chapter 917 – Leading them on
Chapter 918 – Nibble
Chapter 919 – Haha, we still have money
Chapter 920 – Rekindling hope
Chapter 921 – Resignation
Chapter 922 – Family comes to Hong Kong
Chapter 923 – Hong Kong’s Return
Chapter 924 – Floating Rates
Chapter 925 – Thai Baht dives
Chapter 926 – Abnormal Hang Seng Index
Chapter 927 – Invest rationally
Chapter 928 – Fu Rongqi can’t wait
Chapter 929 – Hang Seng Index dives

Chapter 930 – Joint venture automobile manufacturing

Chapter 931 – Volunteering to be the scapegoat

Chapter 932 – Launching of the New mobile phone

Chapter 933 – Strong Competitor
Chapter 934 – Choices
Chapter 935 – We are friends
Chapter 936 – Switching of position
Chapter 937 – Harvesting Chives
Chapter 938 – Soros’s motives
Chapter 939 – Hang Seng Index Battle
Chapter 940 – First win against Soros
Chapter 941 – Hidden worries
Chapter 942 – Be a hero
Chapter 943 – Copying Song
Chapter 944 – Requesting for Song
Chapter 945 – Fu Rongqu’s mistake
Chapter 946 – New battleground
Chapter 947 – If we had known
Chapter 948 – Why must it be here?
Chapter 949 – Fight
Chapter 950 – He will ask for a truce
Chapter 951 – Fame and Profits
Chapter 952 – Dividing the loot
Chapter 953 – How much did he make?
Chapter 954 – Crystalline silicon industry
Chapter 955 – I am in the retail business
Chapter 956 – Celebration dinner
Chapter 957 – Internet + Physical business
Chapter 958 – Expanding the mining industry
Chapter 959 – Meet in 1998
Chapter 960 – Wind and Rain Design
Chapter 961 – New Joint venture vehicles
Chapter 962 – Building low-cost cars
Chapter 963 – Technology export to Russia?
Chapter 964 – Watching from afar
Chapter 965 – Hesitation
Chapter 966 – Joint-venture
Chapter 967 – Small cars’ performance
Chapter 968 – Genie
Chapter 969 – Li Mingde’s retaliation
Chapter 970 – Old Zhang will be promoted
Chapter 971 – Marketing
Chapter 972 – Differences
Chapter 973 – Another invitation
Chapter 974 – Forbes evaluation
Chapter 975 – Allen’s rage

Chapter 976 – Buying a basketball team for fun

Chapter 977 – Another Donald
Chapter 978 – Buying Clippers
Chapter 979 – Building a team
Chapter 980 – Staples
Chapter 981 – Naming Rights
Chapter 982 – Page and Sergey
Chapter 983 – Brother Ki loves to imitate
Chapter 984 – Yen starts to fall
Chapter 985 – Japan’s tragedy
Chapter 986 – Feign attack on Hong Kong
Chapter 987 – Pot calling the Kettle black
Chapter 988 – Weird interview
Chapter 989 – This is not right
Chapter 990 – Trap
Chapter 991 – The Proud Soros
Chapter 992 – How did this happen?

Chapter 993 – Western countries are implicated

Chapter 994 – Plans to buy at low prices
Chapter 995 – Quantum Fund Crisis
Chapter 996 – The Happy Brother Ki
Chapter 997 – Business planning in Russia

Chapter 998 – Brother Ki also has his troubles

Chapter 999 –Technology firms
Chapter 1000 – Nothing to worry
Chapter 1001 – Tai Hua Consultancy
Chapter 1002 – Tai Hua Consultancy
Chapter 1003 – That’s him?

Chapter 1004 – Entrepreneurship Support Program

Chapter 1005 – Tai Hua Holding Corporation
Chapter 1006 – Restructuring starts
Chapter 1007 – Stop hiding
Chapter 1008 – What’s your name again?

Chapter 1009 – Setting up a business magazine agency

Chapter 1010 – Wind and Rain Business Magazine

Chapter 1011 – Three prominent tech firms

Chapter 1012 – Receiving treatment

Chapter 1013 – Is it him?

Chapter 1014 – Is it you?

Chapter 1015 – It is hard to meet, but hard to part too

Chapter 1016 – Shi Dazhu

Chapter 1017 – The rise and fall of an industry

Chapter 1018 – The frustrated Sun Zhengyi
Chapter 1019 – South Korea trip
Chapter 1020 – Legend of Mir’s company
Chapter 1021 The game is full of bugs!

Chapter 1022 – You have gotten yourself a bargain

Chapter 1023 – Guidance on game development

Chapter 1024 – Recreating the classics from his previous life

Chapter 1025 – If we cannot buy them, poach their staff

Chapter 1026 – Kameda’s dream

Chapter 1027 – Wind and Rain Games start operation

Chapter 1028 – Gbox
Chapter 1029 – Overbearing
Chapter 1030 – Feng Yu’s advantage
Chapter 1031 – Microsoft’s internal conflicts
Chapter 1032 – Given an inch, want a mile
Chapter 1033– Jensen Huang
Chapter 1034– Hardware
Chapter 1035 – Problem
Chapter 1036 – Demon and monsters
Chapter 1037 – Reality
Chapter 1038 – Buying technology
Chapter 1039 – Mobile phone’s development
Chapter 1040 – Too expansive
Chapter 1041 – Legend of Mir’s Public Beta
Chapter 1042 – Industry Leader
Chapter 1043 – We can also assemble
Chapter 1044 – Lenovo wants to be listed
Chapter 1045 – Public Beta ended
Chapter 1046 – One Million online players
Chapter 1047 – Reported on the news
Chapter 1048 – Making it on the list
Chapter 1049 – Getting belittled
Chapter 1050 – Scapegoat
Chapter 1051 – LA Wind and Rain
Chapter 1052 – Start Running
Chapter 1053 – We can win the Blazers

Chapter 1054 – All the teams are thrashing the Blazers

Chapter 1055 – Allen’s plan
Chapter 1056 – On what grounds?
Chapter 1057 – Going separate ways
Chapter 1058 – The excited Allen
Chapter 1059 – The excited Allen
Chapter 1060 – Aiwa is being sued
Chapter 1061 – MP3 players
Chapter 1062 – High Compensation
Chapter 1063 – Sony was sued
Chapter 1064 – Product launch
Chapter 1065 – Hunger marketing
Chapter 1066 – Sony’s defective products

Chapter 1067 – MP3 and Data storage technologies

Chapter 1068 – Let them sell
Chapter 1069 – Being a good host
Chapter 1070 – Black sesame wine
Chapter 1071 – Try the dishes

Chapter 1072 – I promise there are no bugs this time

Chapter 1073 – I will not eat anything even if I starve to death

Chapter 1074 – Investing in Xiao Ma
Chapter 1075 – Bundle Sales
Chapter 1076 – Meeting in the game again
Chapter 1077 – Destiny
Chapter 1078 – Zhou Kexin’s new job

Chapter 1079 – Microsoft Office is not selling

Chapter 1080 – Lenovo is getting listed

Chapter 1081 – Getting listed one after another

Chapter 1082 – Get ready to dump your shares
Chapter 1083 – He sold his Microsoft shares
Chapter 1084 – The Furious Allen
Chapter 1085 – Microsoft’s share prices fell
Chapter 1086 – Everything is ready
Chapter 1087 – Meeting Allen again
Chapter 1088 – The bubble burst
Chapter 1089 – Share prices are inflated
Chapter 1090 – Financial Fraud
Chapter 1091 – This is the evidence
Chapter 1092 – Fall, fall, fall…
Chapter 1093 – <Fortune> is a joke
Chapter 1094 – Winners and losers
Chapter 1095 – A bubble had formed in China
Chapter 1096 – Qiandu

Chapter 1097 – Shi Dazhu returning to his peak again

Chapter 1098 – Frustrated Sun Zhengyi

Chapter 1099 – The forums must be regulated

Chapter 1100 – Multi parties’ cooperation (Part one of two)

Chapter 1101 – Multi parties’ cooperation (Part two of two)

Chapter 1102 – China’s internet Summit
Chapter 1103 – Where are the awesome people?!
Chapter 1104 – Who do you want to interview?
Chapter 1105 – Old Sun, Stop him!
Chapter 1106 – The stunned Alibaba!
Chapter 1107 – Got the wrong script?!
Chapter 1108 – Using people to decide
Chapter 1109 – Ma Yun asking for advice
Chapter 1110 – the Lucky Zhou Kexin
Chapter 1111 – Fate
Chapter 1112 – Everyone is smart
Chapter 1113 – Going to Moscow again
Chapter 1114 – Fengshui
Chapter 1115 – Elena loves to sing
Chapter 1116 – Genius
Chapter 1117 – Meeting Brother Ke again
Chapter 1118 – Throw him out!

Chapter 1119 – He is more important than anyone else!

Chapter 1120 – The fish swallowed the bait
Chapter 1121 – Logistics Development
Chapter 1122 – Exchanging shares
Chapter 1123 – Third-Party payment software
Chapter 1124 – Internet Bank

Chapter 1125 – Art pieces which are hard to appreciate

Chapter 1126 – Chance Encounter
Chapter 1127 – Ah… I made the wrong bid
Chapter 1128 – I am helping you
Chapter 1129 – The marriage of Pierrette
Chapter 1130 – National Treasure?
Chapter 1131 – Master Lu returns to Beijing
Chapter 1132 – Mobile Phone’s new feature

Chapter 1133 – They are not our match even if they join forces

Chapter 1134 – Apple had launched its MP3 players

Chapter 1135 – Conquest of the Three Formats
Chapter 1136 – Isn’t this Little Med?
Chapter 1137 – Launch of Gbox
Chapter 1138 – Sony’s cooperation intention
Chapter 1139 – Not interested
Chapter 1140 – Price War

Chapter 1141 – The Little Tyrant is getting listed

Chapter 1142 – Mobile Power Bank
Chapter 1143 – Battery Pack and Car Battery
Chapter 1144 – Amazon is making profits
Chapter 1145 – Direct funding
Chapter 1146 – Something Fishy

Chapter 1147 – One man’s meat is another man’s poison

Chapter 1148 – Probing
Chapter 1149 – Paypal is also mine
Chapter 1150 – Mobile Payments and Paypal
Chapter 1151 – Sharing their cakes
Chapter 1152 – Payment software
Chapter 1153 – Email marketing
Chapter 1154 – Everyone wants to invest
Chapter 1155 – Sa Wukong
Chapter 1156 – Know-It-All
Chapter 1157 – Break up
Chapter 1158 – Conditions
Chapter 1159 – Fighting for power
Chapter 1160 – I have the final say here!
Chapter 1161 – Northern Construction
Chapter 1162 – It’s you?!
Chapter 1163 – Complicated feelings
Chapter 1164 – Impersonating Feng Yu?!
Chapter 1165 – Rock paper scissors
Chapter 1166 – Change
Chapter 1167 – Yue Lai Inn
Chapter 1168 – Industry Standard
Chapter 1169 – Members
Chapter 1170 – Nvidia
Chapter 1171 – WorldCom’s downfall
Chapter 1172 – Another scandal
Chapter 1173 – Arthur Andersen
Chapter 1174 – The proud Jerry Sanders
Chapter 1175 – Exchange
Chapter 1176 – Allen’s resentment
Chapter 1177 – Ah… we won again
Chapter 1178 – Let the Nets win next year
Chapter 1179 – Cooperation with IBM
Chapter 1180 – Lenovo’s competitiveness
Chapter 1181 – Who is in charge?
Chapter 1182 – Conspiracy theory resurfaced
Chapter 1183 – E-cigarette
Chapter 1184 – National Debate
Chapter 1185 – Smoke rings competition
Chapter 1186 – Suspicion
Chapter 1187 – A story
Chapter 1188 – Proposal
Chapter 1189 – Unable to keep it simple
Chapter 1190 – Tragic event

Chapter 1191 – Stock Markets crash, Gold rises

Chapter 1192 – Making Soros the scapegoat again

Chapter 1193 – Even making money have worries

Chapter 1194 – Gold prices will rise during troubled times

Chapter 1195 – War
Chapter 1196 – Sky-high consulting fees
Chapter 1197 – Real color screen
Chapter 1198 – Imitation phone design
Chapter 1199 – Leading the trend
Chapter 1200 – LCD vs. Plasma
Chapter 1201 – HD DVD
Chapter 1202 – The fight over members
Chapter 1203 – Teaching Fatty Huang

Chapter 1204 – Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) must also set standards

Chapter 1205 – Portable DVD

Chapter 1206 – The frustrated Li Zekai

Chapter 1207 – The Zheng family wants to cooperate

Chapter 1208 – Big Customer
Chapter 1209 – Buy, buy, buy
Chapter 1210 – Undrafted NBA players
Chapter 1211 – Europe’s Top Billionaire
Chapter 1212 – The benevolent Brother Ki

Chapter 1213 – The Current Situation of the Beverage alliance

Chapter 1214 – Setting sights on their future celebrity endorsers

Chapter 1215 – Internet TV Station
Chapter 1216 – Sohu Channel
Chapter 1217 – Talent search
Chapter 1218 – Huayi Brothers
Chapter 1219 – Sending Artistes overseas
Chapter 1220 – Need to tell a story
Chapter 1221 – High ratings
Chapter 1222 – Start-up Heroes

Chapter 1223 – Do you dare to watch a movie with me?

Chapter 1224 – Someday
Chapter 1225 – Imitation Electric bikes
Chapter 1226 – Two-pronged approach
Chapter 1227 – Influencing the public opinion

Chapter 1228 – Turning bad things into a good one

Chapter 1229 – Electric Skateboard

Chapter 1230 – Self-balancing personal transporter

Chapter 1231 – The Arrogant Brother Ki
Chapter 1232 – Brother Ki’s way of winning
Chapter 1233 – Developing World of Warcraft
Chapter 1234 – PC games era
Chapter 1235 – Football League
Chapter 1236 – Setting up a Company
Chapter 1237 – Must start from young

Chapter 1238 – The Olympics Games lacks funding

Chapter 1239 – Increasing the sponsorship’s benchmark

Chapter 1240 – The speechless Coca Cola
Chapter 1241 – Double Happiness
Chapter 1242 – Technology breakthrough
Chapter 1243 – Toyota’s anger
Chapter 1244 – Automobile Industry Conference

Chapter 1245 – Not talking about relationships

Chapter 1246 – Crash Test Laboratory
Chapter 1247 – Test Laboratory Park
Chapter 1248 – Shot himself in the foot
Chapter 1249 – Internal and External Troubles
Chapter 1250 – New car model authorization

Chapter 1251 – These are all weakened versions

Chapter 1252 – Olympic Games Partner
Chapter 1253 – Another Forbes Interview
Chapter 1254 – Becoming the Richest Man
Chapter 1255 – The regretting Steve
Chapter 1256 – Tai Chi
Chapter 1257 – Undervalued
Chapter 1258 – Intentions to delist
Chapter 1259 – Talks
Chapter 1260 – Rejection
Chapter 1261 – Delist
Chapter 1262 – Minor issue
Chapter 1263 – Corporate Email Account
Chapter 1264 – Fake Tycoon
Chapter 1265 – Tencent games
Chapter 1266 – Stimulating Consumer Spending
Chapter 1267 – The invading Tencent

Chapter 1267 – An opportunity during a gathering

Chapter 1269 – Chinese Web
Chapter 1270 – Real-name system
Chapter 1271 – Pilot test
Chapter 1272 – Taobao
Chapter 1273 – One Month
Chapter 1274 – Whitman
Chapter 1275 – Persuasion

Chapter 1276 – How are we going to market this?

Chapter 1277 – Emotions
Chapter 1278 – This is called ‘Like.’
Chapter 1279 – Oh, Tie Ba

Chapter 1280 – China’s Top Ten IT influential men

Chapter 1281 – Buying a Satellite for fun

Chapter 1282 – The Satellite Market’s Current Situation

Chapter 1283 – Help me get one too
Chapter 1284 – TV Set-top box
Chapter 1285 – Name
Chapter 1286 – Domestic made is also fine
Chapter 1287 – Similarities and differences
Chapter 1288 – Being busy is good
Chapter 1289 – Dumbfounded Donald
Chapter 1290 – Play until the seventh match
Chapter 1291 – Star-studded New York
Chapter 1292 – Unexpected Ending
Chapter 1293 – smartphone

Chapter 1294 – The most expensive and the cheapest

Chapter 1295 – Smartphone race
Chapter 1296 – HDV
Chapter 1297 – Different Camps
Chapter 1298 – Strategic Product
Chapter 1299 – Every company should have
Chapter 1300 – Bing City Beer’s Development

Chapter 1301 – Smaller Company Acquiring Bigger Companies

Chapter 1302 – Beer Festival’s opening
Chapter 1303 – Joint Venture
Chapter 1304 – Many benefits of a cooperation
Chapter 1305 – Beverage Empire
Chapter 1306 – Busch’s Representative

Chapter 1307 – Shocking news during the closing ceremony

Chapter 1308 – I am not doing this business
Chapter 1309 – Big business
Chapter 1310 – Don’t get involved

Chapter 1311 – If you are not interested, I will do it

Chapter 1312 – Huh? Aircraft carrier’s technologies?!

Chapter 1313 – This is not easy
Chapter 1314 – Minsk
Chapter 1315 – Big Appetite
Chapter 1316 – Everyone is exhilarated
Chapter 1317 – Business delegates

Chapter 1318 – Making the best out of a bad situation

Chapter 1319 – Poor and Unreasonable
Chapter 1320 – Package price
Chapter 1321 – Payment Method
Chapter 1322 – Worries

Chapter 1323 – Position will determine the mindset

Chapter 1324 – Many issues with the new product

Chapter 1325 – Introducing DV video footages
Chapter 1326 – The Dismissive Sony
Chapter 1327 – Dominating the low-end market
Chapter 1328 – Sudden surge in sales
Chapter 1329 – Zhikang, you will endorse it
Chapter 1330 – Bear Grylls
Chapter 1331 – Settled
Chapter 1332 – A different type of show
Chapter 1333 – It should be filmed this way
Chapter 1334 – Unexpected Ratings
Chapter 1335 – Good Reviews
Chapter 1336 – Purchasing Chinese Brands

Chapter 1337 – Blocking the marketing channels

Chapter 1338 – What are they trying to do?
Chapter 1339 –
Chapter 1340 – Gained support
Chapter 1341 – An Army of Lawyers

Chapter 1342 – Come, let’s see who has more money to burn

Chapter 1343 – Changing mindsets
Chapter 1344 – Backing off
Chapter 1345 – Firm response

Chapter 1346 – Showing the graciousness of a strong nation

Chapter 1347 – We should own the controlling shares

Chapter 1348 – I am willing to help
Chapter 1349 – Giving the Leader a lesson
Chapter 1350 – The importance of the market
Chapter 1351 – Pilot Episode
Chapter 1352 – The business from TV shows
Chapter 1353 – Business Ecosystem

Chapter 1354 – How are we going to do this with an Entertainment Company?

Chapter 1355 – No foresight

Chapter 1356 – Investing in Qidian

Chapter 1357 – Online novel website should be like this

Chapter 1358 – Shocking the industry

Chapter 1359 – I will tell you the outline, and you just write accordingly

Chapter 1360 – Cultural significance

Chapter 1361 – Seeking assistance from alma mater

Chapter 1362 – English is a skill

Chapter 1363 – Chinese Classics and Feudalism Teachings

Chapter 1364 – There’s a price to pay for a publicity stunt

Chapter 1365 – Kexin’s Parents
Chapter 1366 – Daughter, it’s him
Chapter 1367 – Decision
Chapter 1368 – Zuckerberg
Chapter 1369 – Persuading Zuckerberg

Chapter 1370 – Google is also going to do Video sharing

Chapter 1371 – Softbank’s Director
Chapter 1372 – Same Motives
Chapter 1373 – Ralph’s thoughts
Chapter 1374 – The Li Family wants to invest
Chapter 1375 – Brother Ki’s rhetoric
Chapter 1376 – Sports Mogul
Chapter 1377 – Will not merge

Chapter 1378 – It’s fine to cooperate this way

Chapter 1379 – Let’s see who will be finished first

Chapter 1380 – Raising the standards
Chapter 1381 – Microsoft’s strategy
Chapter 1382 – Microsoft’s strategy
Chapter 1383 – Fighting for markets
Chapter 1384 – Pushing closer
Chapter 1385 – Break them up
Chapter 1386 – IE is outdated
Chapter 1387 – Enmity increases
Chapter 1388 – Softbank is in trouble
Chapter 1389 – Devastating blow
Chapter 1390 – Cooperation and plotting
Chapter 1391 – The Market is the King
Chapter 1392 – Bill’s China visit
Chapter 1393 – Coincidence?
Chapter 1394 – Crazy Expansion
Chapter 1395 – Suing Microsoft

Chapter 1396 –Microsoft is sued all over the world

Chapter 1397 – Times are different now
Chapter 1398 – The new system is almost ready
Chapter 1399 – AMD is challenging Intel
Chapter 1400 – Is this possible?

Chapter 1 – Rebirth to 1988

“Xiaoyu, Xiaoyu, get up. It’s 12 am soon. Get up and eat dumplings.”

Feng Yu felt the voice is a little unfamiliar, but feel very affectionate. He mumbled a reply and opened his eyes, but saw a young face only exists in memory.

“Sister?”

“You are awake now. Hurry up and wash your face. I told you not to drink, yet you insist on drinking. You missed the Spring Festival Night show.” Feng Danying said with a smile.

Spring Festival night? Is today Lunar New Year’s Eve?

Feng Yu, feeling confused, looked around. An old room, less than six square meters, a single bed, patched bedding, an old wooden table, overhead is a 20-watt incandescent lamp, distributed With dim light, old newspapers on the walls, all of which are national events that he can’t remember.

Isn’t this the old farmhouse from his childhood days? But this house had long been demolished with the development of the towns, and how did my sister become so young?

Feng Yu raised his hand, only to find that this is definitely not joking because his hands became smaller, and his arms became thinner.

He hurriedly jumped out of bed and stand by the door frame. The doorframe had knife markings recording his height every year on Lunar New Year’s eve. The highest marking indicates 1988, 166 cm.

Now is 1988? He has yet to graduate from junior high school?

He pinched himself and almost called out due to the pain. This is not a dream?

Feng Yu opened the door, his mother is cooking dumplings with the kitchen pan. He lived in a small house. The kitchen is just outside of his room, and on the other side of the kitchen is the living room. The living room is also called central room on the farm.

“You are up? Do you still want to drink in future?” Zhang Muhua looks affectionately at his son.

Feng Yu looked at his, still dark-haired, mother with teary eyes.

“Mom, you had worked hard.”

“What are you talking about. Hurry, go wash your face and go watch TV. The dumplings will be ready soon.” Zhang Muhua, after hearing what Feng Yu said, is very pleased. This shows that her son had grown up.

When Feng Yu saw his father sitting on the bench in the living room, his lips trembled. In the future, when he could make money, his father was detected with end-stage brain cancer and passed away within three months.

Due to his father’s passing, Feng Yu was upset for several years.

“Dad.”

Feng Xingtai turned and looked at his son: “Oh, you are up. Still feeling giddy? Come… watch TV. It’s a traditional folk dance.”

“Not giddy anymore. The kick from the alcohol had passed. Dad, I would like to drink with you later.” Seeing his father’s angry expression, Feng Yu quickly explained, “Beer will do.”

In his lifetime, Feng Yu had only drunk with his father a few times. Now Feng Yu has a strong desire which is to drink with his father again.

“Still have not learned your lesson? Fine. Then drink more. See if you can wake up tomorrow for New Year’s Day visiting! Danying, go get two bottles of beer.”

Feng Danying helplessly shook her head and went to get the beer and glasses.

There is also a single bed in the living room with bedding. Feng Danying went to a boarding school and only come back during the holidays. When she is back, she will sleep with her mother. This bed is for Feng Xingtai. But three years ago, it belongs to Feng Yu.

In the Living room, the west wall is a three-door vertical wardrobe, and above the closet is two luggage. On a solid wooden table, stood a 14-inch black-and-white TV set, which was showing on the Spring Festival Night program.

In the middle of the living room stood a folding round table filled with dishes and tableware. A total of eight dishes, but all are the leftovers from dinner. There’s chicken, fish, pork trotters, etc. A total of eight meat dishes.

Feng Yu did not watch TV but went to the front of the wardrobe to look at himself in the mirror. Although the lighting is not very good, Feng Yu can see himself clearly. He is only a teenager with a little stubbed beneath his nose.

He looked at the wall calendar at the door, February 16, 1988, New Year’s Eve.

He can now be sure that he is born again!

Mother quickly cooked dumplings, Feng Yu, and Feng Danying went to the kitchen to help bring out the dumplings. After all four people were seated, Feng Xingtai picked up chopsticks.

“Xiaoyu, you are going to drink again?!” Zhang Muhua stared Feng Yu.

“Mom, it’s New Year, let me drink more.”

Feng Xingtai also put in a few words for him. Zhang Muhua shook her head. Feng Yu also diligently poured beer for his mother and sister. One family must have a drink together.

“Dad, Mom, sister, Happy New year, cheers!”

Feng Yu casually ate the leftovers on the table, which he felt very delicious. During this time, there are no growth hormones, unlike in the future. All fishes, rabbits, are wild-caught. Chicken and pigs are their own. The father and son ate these dishes and the dumplings. Feng Xingtai only allows each one to have only one beer.

After dinner, Feng Yu washed up and to his room to lie down. When lying in bed, he was tossing and turning. He thinks back on his previous life before traveling back in time.

Feng Yu Ben was a middle-aged man in his forties. After resigning from the securities company, he made some investments. He invested in Stock, futures, gold, crude oil. Although he is not too successful, his income is still not bad.

He had a wife and no children. Because his father died early, his mother lived with him.

He remembered that it was the spring of 2015. To bring his wife to go abroad to treat infertility, he wanted to make some money.

He used all his savings, mortgaged his house and car, and borrowed a considerable sum of money, and invested into the stock market. According to his prediction, it is a bull market, and even fools can make money.

In the beginning, the situation is excellent. His investment doubled in a short time. But he wanted to profit more. So, he boldly uses high leverage with an investment company. If his investments doubled again, he can do nothing the rest of his life and still be able to live comfortably.

When the stock market rose to 5000, he was greedy like many other people. He thought the stock market would continue to rise. The stock market did grow a bit. However, the stock market soon dived, and because he used high leverage and had no additional funds, he had a significant loss. After paying the borrowed money, he is as poor as a church mouse. His wife does not know that the house and the car had been mortgaged, and he did not know how to face his family when he goes home.

He is bankrupted. On that very day, he drank a lot and “accidentally” fell on to the road in front of many people and was hit by a big truck.

This way, it should not be considered as suicide. The accident insurance policy he bought would pay out millions. It should be enough to redeem the house and car and also leave a sum of money for his mother and wife.

He remembered when he looked at the big truck speeding towards him, he thought that if God could give him a chance to return, he would not want to die so cowardly again. He wants his family to live a comfortable life!

But he did not think that God would actually give him a chance to come back again!

Since God let him come back, he will not relive his past life regrets this time. He wants to become rich, he wants to become a legend in the investment world!

Thinking about this, Feng Yu could not help but shouted: “I, Feng Yu, had come back !!!”

“Xiaoyu, stop shouting and quickly go to bed.” Zhang Muhua shouted from the other side of the wall. At the same time complain about her husband. How can he let his son drink at night again?

Hearing his mother complains, Feng Yu smiled and turned over to sleep.

Chapter 2 – Tragedy must not happen again

Feng Yu woke up in the morning and found a 10 RMB New Year’s money under his pillow. In this era, a popsicle only cost two cents, and ice cream only cost three cents. This was a huge sum of money!

Feng Yu wished his parents a happy new year and ate a few dumplings. He then made a call to Wen Dongjun and went to his home for the New Year visit.

Wen Dongjun, with a joss stick, merrily walked in front. From time to time, he would light a firecracker and toss around. Feng Yu was not a bit interested. He felt this was too childish.

“Dongjun, we had walked around half the village, and the rest is more or less the same. Let’s go back and play poker with Brother Liang.”

Although the village was small and has less than a hundred households, Feng Yu could not stand walking around in this cold winter. Especially when he was wearing a heavy cotton-padded jacket and trousers. He missed the thermal underwear and down jacket in his previous life.

“OK, let’s go to brother Liang.”

“Dongjun, Xiaoyu, where did the two of you go?” A 17-year-old boy came to greet them. Feng Yu’s eyes narrowed. He had deliberately avoided this household, but the village was too small.

” Brother Chuan, we are looking for brother Liang to play poker, you want to join?”

“Poker can be played anytime. This afternoon, I am going to hunt. Want to join?” Liu Jichuan invited.

Hearing the word hunt, Wen Dongjun’s eyes lit up. Usually, his father did not let him touch the shotgun. But now it was Lunar New Year, and his father was going out. He can secretly “borrow” it?

“Yes, I want to go!”

“No!”

Both Wen Dongjun and Feng Yu shouted at the same time. Feng Yu absolutely cannot let Wen Dongjun go. He will break one leg and regret forever! In his previous life, the reason Dongjun loses contact with him was because of this hunting incident.

“Xiaoyu, you don’t want to go? Then Dongjun, get your shotgun and come over to my house in the afternoon. We will go to the duck ditch at the north side. Even we can’t hunt foxes, we can at least find pheasant and ducks. I will go back and clean up the shotgun first. Come early in the afternoon. ”

When Liu Jichuan turned around, Feng Yu saw a trace of resentment in Jichuan’s eyes. He suddenly realized that incident was not an accident but premeditated.

After Liu Jichuan left, Wen Dongjun looked eagerly at Feng Yu: “Let’s go hunt together, don’t you always want to touch the shotgun?”

“DongJun, you listen to me. Let’s go play poker and not go hunting. Hunting during the New Year is unlucky.”

“There are lesser people during this time. If it were before the New Year, there would be a lot more people, and nothing will be left for us to hunt. Come, let’s go together. It will be fun.” Wen Dongjun now had a vision of bringing back many trophies from the hunt and showing them to his father.

“I really do not want to go, and you don’t go too. Usually, you also don’t mix with him, and we are also close to him.”

“What are you talking about? We lived in the same village, and although we are not familiar, we are not strangers. Furthermore, my dad is the leader of the village, and his family still needs to seek my dad’s approval if want to borrow the village’s tractor to develop wasteland.”

Now Feng Yu understands why Liu Jichuan had resentment against Dongjun. It was because Dongjun’s father, the village leader Wen Deguang, did not agree to lend the village’s tractor to Liu Jichuan’s family.

“DongJun, let’s not play poker now. I’m thirsty. Let’s go to your house and drink your father’s good tea.”

“No problem, we have lunch at my house too. I will also show you my dad’s shotgun.

Along the way, Dong Wenjun was talking non-stop, but Feng Yu was not paying attention. In his head, he was thinking of how to tell DongJun’s father, Uncle Wen.

Opening Wen Dongjun’s door, a gust of warm air welcomed him. They threw their dog’s fur hat and rabbit fur gloves on the table. Wen Dongjun then ran off to find his dad’s tea leaves.

“Xiaoyu, have some sweets. There are pine nuts and melon seeds too.” DongJun’s mother, Tang Jing, is at home. Seeing Feng Yu came to visit, she happily offered these New Year goodies to him.

“Happy New Year, Auntie. Where’s Uncle Wen?”

“Ah, he went to visit Secretary Zhao and will be back in a while.”

Feng Yu sat on the chair and casually asked: “Auntie, we met Liu Jichuan just now. His family would like to borrow a company tractor to go to wasteland outside the dam. Did Uncle Wen agree to it?”

Tang Jing smiled and shook his head: “Of course not. Although the village does not regulate the development of private lands, the village’s tractor was not for personal use. This morning, old Liu came and had an argument with your Uncle Wen.”

Feng Yu’s heart sank. This was the reason why Liu Jichuan deliberately wanted to bring DongJun along to hunt. He would then intentionally make Dongjun step into a bear trap, causing him to become crippled. To others, it may seem to be an accident. Even Wen Dongjun himself, also thought it was an accident. But was it really an accident?

“Come, try this black tea. Look at the beautiful red color.” Wen Dongjun proudly poured Feng Yu a cup of black tea. Tang Jing only smiled and did not say anything.

“Mom, you go to Auntie Wang’s place and chat with her. Leave the house to me. Someone will be coming over to play poker.” Wen Dongjun shouted.

“Fine, I will go to visit Auntie Wang’s place. There are dumplings in the pot, help yourself.”

After sending his mother out, Wen Dongjun quickly looked under the bed and dragged a wooden box out. A shotgun and a dozen rounds of bullets.

“Dongjun, don’t go. Didn’t you hear what auntie just said? Liu Jichuan’s dad had just quarreled with Uncle Wen. I’m afraid that Jichuan is up to no good!” Feng Yu grabbed Wen Dongjun’s hand, trying to stop him. He did not want the past tragedy to repeat.

“Many people had quarreled with my father before. The last time, Grandpa Lee used his crutches to hit my dad because of some arguments over seeds. But what happened later? During harvesting, my dad sent people to harvest Grandpa Lee’s land first, and he cooled down.” Wen Dongjun replied nonchalantly and push Feng Yu’s hand away. He then took the shotgun out and put six bullets into his pocket.

“DongJun, listen to me, don’t go. All Liu Jichuan did when he go to school was to fight. I’m afraid he will have bad intentions towards you this time.”

“I’m not afraid of him. Look at what is in my hand? See if he dares to play punk with me. My gun is not for show!”

Feng Yu was at a loss. DongJun still insisted on going. He was not afraid of Liu Jichuan because, even though, that guy got into fights frequently, he does not use weapons. If it comes to blows, Dongjun was not afraid of him.

Looking at the clock on the wall, Wen Dongjun stood up: “OK, it’s about time. You head home first. I am going to look for Liu Jichuan.”

Feng Yu remembered in the past life, Liu Ji-Chuan did not use any gun till he became a soldier and left the village. If Feng Yu followed along, he should be able to help DongJun to escape the bear trap.

“Wait a second, DongJun. I’ll go with you!”

“Really? I knew you wanted to go. Hurry back and go steal your house’s shotgun. Remember to use a sack to wrap it up and tell your mom that you are going to catch peasant.” Wen Dong looked at Feng Yu eagerly, giving him an “I knew you wanted to go” look.

Feng Yu sighed and hurriedly ran back home. I hope that it was really just an accident. And this time, there must be absolutely no accident.

Chapter 3 – Bear

Once home, Feng Yu quickly grabbed the shotgun, met up with Wen Dongjun, and proceed to meet Liu Jichuan.

Liu Jichuan froze for a minute when he saw Feng Yu holding a shotgun, but he did not say anything. He grabbed his own hunting rifle and walk together with Feng Yu and DongJun, towards the Duck Ditch.

“Feng Yu, you said you didn’t want to come along, but why did you change your mind?” Liu Jichuan asked suddenly while they were walking.

“I had nothing to do at home anyway. So, I decided to join you guys.” Feng Yu answered, looking Liu Jichuan carefully. Feng Yu did not notice any changes in Liu Jichuan’s expression. Could he have misunderstood him?

“I knew you wanted to go. Follow me today, and I will make sure you won’t go home empty-handed.”

They walked for about one hour before they reach the Duck Ditch. Liu Jichuan took out a pack of “Black Antelope” cigarettes from his pocket. He took one cigarette and offered the box to Feng Yu and Dongjun.

“I don’t smoke.” Feng Yu waved his hand. Even if he wanted to smoke, he would not smoke this kind of filter-less dried tobacco cigarettes. Only those hardcore smokers can withstand this type of cigarettes.

Wen Dongjun also waved his hand: “Brother Chuan, I don’t smoke too. However, when we are on our way back, and I am too tired to walk, I will take one from you.”

“OK, I will let both of you experience my shooting skills. Remember, do not run around in this area. Many hunting traps are lying around here. Most importantly, when not using the gun, always point the muzzle down. This is to prevent accidents. Don’t open fire too hastily. It is better to miss than to accidentally hurt someone.” Liu Jichuan said.

“I know. Hurry up. A pheasant just flew passed!” Wen Dongjun urged.

Feng Yu looked at Liu Jichuan curiously. From the way he speaks, he seems to have no intention of hurting Dongjun. Was it because I had joined them on this hunt, or am I overthinking, and it was really an accident.

“Follow me and try to step where I stepped. OK, stop. Feng Yu, you take cover behind this tree. You can load the rounds but point the gun down. ”

“Brother Chuan, let Dongjun stay here. I will hide at the tree in front.” Feng Yu was still wary of letting Wen Dongjun alone with Liu Jichuan.

“Well then, Dongjun, stay here. We will be thirty meters apart. Even if the gun misfire, no one will be hurt. Remember to stay near this tree. There are traps for big games around this vicinity. Stepping into a big trap can be very dangerous. “Liu Jichuan ordered.

Wen Dongjun waved his hand, indicating them to go faster. He then leans on the tree loading rounds into his gun while looking in front.

“You squat here. Do not shout unless you notice a big game. I will go there, and we will go back in an hour’s time,” Liu Jichuan instructed and walked towards the front in the deep snow.

“OK.” Feng Yu nodded and start loading his shotgun.

No matter how you look at Liu Jichuan, he does not look like he was going to harm Dongjun. But how to explain the traced of resentment in his eyes earlier in the afternoon? Feng Yu was confident that he cannot be wrong about Jichuan with his forty-something years of life experience.

After waiting for nearly half an hour, Wen Dongjun grew impatient. There are no pheasants, let alone larger games like roe deer, Lynx (wild cats), foxes, etc. He wondered if they were going home empty-handed today.

They had walked more than an hour to reach here and will take more than an hour to walk back. Furthermore, they had been waiting for an hour in this cold place.

Wen Dongjun blew his nose. He should have followed Feng Yu’s suggestion and stayed at home playing poker. It will be much more comfortable compared to this.

Bang!

A gunshot was heard in the distance. Wen Dongjun straightened up and looked over. Liu Jichuan had shot a Lynx.

Wen Dongjun excitedly stood up and ran towards Liu Jichuan, forgetting that he was not supposed to run about.

Liu Jichuan suddenly ran out of the woods, crossing his hands to signal Dongjun. Wen Dongjun thought that Liu Jichuan was showing off to him and ran even faster. However, Feng Yu could tell that Liu Jichuan was trying to let Dongjun not to go over.

Feng Yu grabbed Wen Dongjun: “Dongjun, don’t go there, there are traps in this wood!”

“What’s there to be afraid of? See these footprints? As long as I follow these footprints, I won’t step into any traps?” Wen Dongjun said indifferently. “That lynx might be still alive. I have yet to see a live Lynx.”

Feng Yu wanted to say something, but suddenly noticed Liu Jichuan running towards them and shouting: “Hurry, run! Follow the footprints!”

Not far away, a huge shadow emerged from the woods. A bear!

“Brother Chuan, dodge!” Wen Dongjun aimed his gun. He had not shot any bears in his life yet!

Feng Yu did not know what to say. Is this Dongjun stupid or brave. Unless that big bear was shot in its vital areas such as the eyes, it can’t be killed easily. With its thick hide, ten rounds might not even kill it!

Liu Jichuan hurriedly lies flat on the snow the same time Wen Dongjun fired. Missed! Instead of injuring the bear, the shot made the bear even angrier!

“Stop aiming and quickly run!” Feng Yu pulled Dongjun. With your shooting skills, by the time you hit the bear, the bear’s will be right in front of your face.

All three ran like crazy. But because of the snow, they were not able to run fast. Mainly, they were still holding on to their heavy guns.

“Do not run towards there. There are traps!” Liu Jichuan shouted loudly.

Feng Yu grabbed Wen Dongjun and changed direction. However, there was no way for these three to outrun a bear in this thick snow. The distance between them and the bear was getting closer. Liu Jichuan was only thirty meters away from the bear.

“Brother Chuan, lead the bear here!” Feng Yu gritted his teeth and pulled Wen Dongjun towards the traps area. If the bear was not caught by the traps, then at least one out of the three of them will have to die here. Of course, this person was most likely to be Liu Jichuan.

At that juncture, Liu Jichuan had no other choice. He did not even have time to load his gun. He hurriedly ran towards Feng Yu. If he had unluckily stepped on any traps, he would definitely be dead.

Shouldn’t bears be hibernating at this time of the year? Why was this bear running about now? If the bear was just passing by, it shouldn’t come towards us if we were hiding. This bear must be starving and came out of hibernation to look for food. Moreover, the bear was agitated by the gun shoot. When facing an enraged bear, even the most experienced hunter with a pack of hunting dogs will have to run.

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun quickly loaded their guns and watched Liu Jichuan ran towards them with the bear following behind closely.

Liu Jichuan prayed hard to not step on any traps while he ran. With the heavy snow, he could not really see if there are any traps on the ground.

Snapped!

A trap triggered. Liu Jichuan fell to the ground. Fortunately for him, it was a small animal trap. He sat on the ground and tried to free his leg from the trap with both his hands. The bear was getting closer and closer. There were only less than ten meters between him and the bear.

Bang!

A gunshot. The bear took a step back, and there are bloodstains on its ear.

Roar ~ ~ ~

The bear became even more aggressive!

With his hands trembling, Feng Yu held onto his gun. Adding both his past and present lives, he had only shoot small birds.

Bang!

One more shot was fired. Some bloodstain appeared on the bear’s mouth. Wen Dongjun had also hit the bear.

But the bear was not down yet. Instead, the bear increased its speed and rushed towards Liu Jichuan, who was still on the ground.

Chapter 4 – Returning home

Thank God. The bear stepped into a bigger trap, which was meant for bears and fell to the ground, growling in pain.

Liu Jichuan broke free from the trap around his leg and quickly loaded his gun.

Crashed ~ ~

Even with the trap, the bear still tried to attack Liu Jichuan. But the trap was attached to a thick metal chain, and the other end was tied to a tree. The length of the chain did not allow the bear to reach Liu Jichuan.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three consecutive gunshots were heard. Feng Yu, Dongjun, and Liu Jichuan each fired a shot. The bear was unable to dodge because of the close distance, and all three shots hit the bear on its head.

The bear fell to the ground and twitched a few times. Blood slowly flowed out and stained the snowy grounds.

Liu Jichuan quickly got up, reloaded his shotgun, and slowly approached the bear.

Bang!

The bear twitched two more times and stop moving.

Liu Jichuan leaned on a tree and reloaded his shotgun. With shaking hands, he took out his pack of Black Antelopes Cigarettes and lit one cigarette.

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun walked over, grabbed the cigarette pack, and lit one cigarette each.

“Thanks.” After smoking the cigarette, Liu Jichuan said.

“Ha ha ha, stop thanking us. Brother Chuan, we had hunted a bear, and we can definitely sell it for a lot of money!” Wen Dongjun’s eyes shined when he thought of the envious look from other villagers when they returned back to the village.

Feng Yu was speechless towards Wen Dongjun’s attitude. Feng Yu kept looking at Liu Jichuan. Liu Jichuan still had not released his griped on his loaded shotgun.

“Brother Chuan, Dongjun, let’s have a deal. I will buy this bear from the both of you, and in return, I will lend you my family’s fifty-five horsepower tractor for plowing and sowing. ” Feng Yu said. He had suddenly thought of this idea. This way, he was able to erase Liu Jichuan’s resentment towards Dongjun and also make some profits as start-up capital for his future investments.

He was not able to make much money using the tractor in the village, but there would be lots of buyers in the city for this bear.

Although it was not a good time for investments now, there was a fantastic opportunity coming up. Initially, he thought he would have missed this opportunity, but now, not only he was able to grasp this opportunity, his investment plan can be several years ahead of his initial schedule.

Liu Jichuan threw his shotgun on the floor and grab Feng Yu’s hand excitedly. “Really? Will your dad agree to this? ”

“If I promise my dad that I will be admitted to a prestigious high school in the city, he will definitely agree. Dongjun, how about you? You agree to this deal?”

Wen Dongjun said after thinking for a moment: “I will take that lynx, and both of you have to tell others that I am the one who hunted it. Also, I am the one who hit the bear first.”

“OK, deal. Let’s hurry and make a sled and go back to the village. This bear weight at least 100 to 150kg. It won’t be easy to bring it back to the village.” Feng Yu said. He was not interested in bragging.

Liu Jichuan rechecked the bear. The bear’s body had become cold.  It was surely dead. Liu Jichuan also picked up the lynx. Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun used tree branches and gunny sacks to make a simple sled. They will be the center of attraction when they return to the village.

……

“Old Wen, why is Dongjun not back yet? Could something terrible happen to him? Tangjing asked anxiously.

“What can happen to him? He stole my shotgun. He must be hunting at the Duck Ditch. He should be back in half an hour.”

As both speak, a neighbor ran into their house.

“Village leader, your hero is back!”

“Eh? Old Zhao, what hero?” Tangjing asked.

“The great hero from your house. Sister-in-law, your son hunted a big game this time. You know what he had caught? A bear. A big bear. He used a sled to bring it back. Everyone is crowding around looking at the bear!” The neighbor said excitedly.

Wen Deguang and Tang Jing rushed out and did not even lock their doors.

“Brother Jun, did you really shot this bear and lynx??” An eight-year-old child asked curiously.

“Of course, if it isn’t for me, these two beasts would have escaped. I chased this bear for a few miles and kill it with one shot. Yeah, Jichuan and Feng Yu also helped too.”

Wen Dongjun boasted of the sixth time with the kids. The first version was all three of them hunted the bear together. However, his story slowly changed to him discovering the bear and killing it with a few shots version. Every time he relates the hunt, his story will change to exaggerate his role in the hunt.

Sure enough, this child looks at him impressively!

Both Feng Yu and Liu Jichuan did not expose Wen Dongjun’s lies. He was indeed brave, but to say that he chases a bear for a few miles, no one will believe him. As long as someone who had hunted before will know that he was lying.

When Wen Dongjun began bragging his courageous exploits for the ninth time, someone pulled his ears.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch……. Who the hell …… Mom, Dad?” Wen Dongjun’s voice trembled. He had stolen his father’s shotgun for this hunt. Most likely, he will be beaten to death by his father later when he gets home.

However, this beating was worth it. Who else in the village was able to hunt a big bear? Only the best hunter Wen Dongjun!

“Get your ass back home now! The rest of you stop crowding around. It is getting dark. Hurry back home. ” Wen Deguang, as the village’s leader, had some authority and respect.

The crowd soon dispersed except for Feng Yu, Wen Dongjun, and Liu Jichuan’s families. The three families helped to carry the bear corpse to Feng Yu’s house, which was the nearest.

“Uncle Feng, Feng Yu promised that during spring, after you are done with your plowing, we can use the tractor. In exchange, the bear will belong to him, and the lynx will go to Wen Dongjun. The village leader had the least land so he can use the tractor to plow the land before me. My family can plow last. But we will need to use the tractor longer.” Liu Jichuan said.

All adults look at Feng Yu. Seeing his father about to get angry, he quickly walked up to his father and whispered something to his ear.

Feng Xingtai looked at Feng Yu and nodded his head towards Liu Jichuan’s father. “Brother Liu, no problem. Leader, what do you think?”

“Ok. It’s settled then. I will bring this lynx back first. Come to my place for a drink later. It’s getting dark. We shall go back first.” Wen Deguang carried the lynx and left with his wife and son.

Liu Laosi and Feng Xingtai continued discussing the tractor for a while, and he left satisfied with his son. He did not expect his son would solve the family’s greatest worry with a hunting trip. The wasteland he wanted to cultivate was more than a hundred acres. This year, his family would be out of poverty, and next year, he should be able to afford to buy a small horse-power tractor.

After everyone left, Zhang Muhua started complaining to Feng Xingtai: ” Why did you listen to your son’s nonsense? Think about how much we can earn with the tractor if we plow the land for others. What can we do with this bear now? Eat it?”

“Mom, what if I can sell this bear in Bing city for 10,000 RMB?” Feng Yu said.

“How much?” Zhang Muhua asked again.

“10,000! Teacher Sun told me!” Feng Yu said confidently.

Although it was not long before China’s reform and opening up, there were still not many households that had 10,000 RMB. For instance, Feng Yu’s family was one of the “10,000 RMB” households. In the City, there were more wealthy people and foreigners.

Feng Yu had told his father that this bear was worth 10,000 RMB cash. Although lending the tractor to others for land cultivation can also earn the same amount, but it was too tiring, and they can only collect the money in fall after the crops are sold. This sum of money can also earn some interest if kept in the bank.

“Son, you are so smart. Let your father sell the bear in the city tomorrow. He can also grab a set of new clothes for you and your sister on the way. ” Zhang Muhua smiled happily when she heard that the bear was worth 10,000 RMB. Compared to lending the tractor to others, it was worth it, even if the bear was worth only 5,000 RMB.

Feng Xingtai glanced at his wife. Son got all the credit while I only get the blame. Who is the head of the family now?

Chapter 5 – Selling the bear

On the morning of the New year’s second day, Feng Xingtai, along with Feng Yu, loaded the bear onto a tractor cart, which will be pulled by the fifty-five horse-power tractor. Feng Danying also tagged along as she says she wanted to meet up with a classmate in the city.

Feng Xingtai is not aware of anything, but Feng Yu knew. He remembered his brother-in-law had already started dating his sister. However, he did not expect his sister to be so brave as to visit her boyfriend in the city.

The driving compartment of the tractor is not significant. So, Feng Yu and his sister can only sit on the metal mudguard above the tires.

They reach the city for 3 hours. It was the second day of the new year. There are many people on the streets, but no shops were open. They are not able to get any new clothes.

However, they are going to an international hotel which is open during this time.

“Hello, I am looking for Manager Yu.” Feng Yu said.

“Young man, why are you looking for him?”

“I have a bear to sell to your manager Mr. Yu Chun Yuan. I had called up last night.”

“Ah, are you Mr. Feng’s son? Wait a minute, I will call our manager. “

After about two minutes, a middle-aged man in a suit and tie came out. Manager Yu is followed by two chefs dressed in white chef clothing. All three look at Feng Xingtai, making him nervous.

“Hello, Mr. Feng. Bring your bear over. I brought two chefs along to take a look at your bear. Don’t worry. We will give you a reasonable price.” Manager Yu said while shaking Feng Xingtai’s hands passionately.

“The bear is in the tractor cart outside.”

While they were speaking, the sounds of people talking loudly were heard outside. Feng Yu rushes out hurriedly. He is afraid that someone would damage the bear’s fur or steal his bear away.

At the door, he saw two “Lao Mao Zi” (Soviets), looking at the bear. Fortunately, Feng Yu studied Russian in his previous life. Not only he can speak Russian, but he also has no problem reading and writing. He understands that they are amazed by the ferocious black bear. If they can repurchase the bear’s fur, they will undoubtedly be basking in the limelight in front of their friends.

“Sir, I had hunted this bear with my friends. I intend to sell the bear’s meat to the hotel, but we do not intend to sell the bear’s fur and bear’s bile.”

Kirilenko turned and looked at Feng Yu, surprised. This boy is only about fifteen or sixteen years old. How could he understand Russian? And he said that he hunted this black bear? Don’t tell me he is from a legendary Chinese hunting family?

The marksmanship is too good. All the wounds are on the head, and there is no other damage to other parts of the body. This boy is really a sharpshooter. I must repurchase this bear’s fur and tell everyone that I have hunted this bear in China.

“Friend, I am very interested in this bear fur. I just want the fur, and I can give you a very high price for it.” Kirilenko said seriously.

“How much? I’ve contacted a buyer, and he is giving me a good price for it.”

“How much is he offering? I will double what he offered!” Kirilenko said.

“He offered ten thousand dollars!”

Kirilenko considered for a moment, and said: “Ten thousand? Then I will have to offer twenty thousand? A bit expensive, though, but no problem. I want this fur.”

“I am talking about Ruble!” Feng Yu added. At the current exchange rate, 1 Rubleis equivalent to 3,4 RMB.

Kirilenko frowned. This Chinese buy is greedy. The ruble is worth much more than RMB.

“Impossible. If it is 20,000 RMB, I can pay you immediately. I don’t have anything more than that.”

Kirilenko did not know that his reply to Feng Yu indicates that Kirilenko really wants the fur and is willing to accept the price of 20,000 rubles.

“It’s a shame then. I am going to sell the fur to another foreigner from the Soviet Union too. He is willing to pay 10,000 rubles.” Feng Yu said and turn around with no hesitation.

“I can also offer 10,000 rubles.” Kirilenko said urgently.

“No, we agreed that you will pay double. 20,000 Rubles. I can hire people to help you skin and treat the fur.” Feng Yu replied.

At this time, Feng Xingtai and Yu Chun Yuan are looking at Feng Yu, shocked. Feng Yu could actually converse to Soviets in Russian? But what are they talking about? They can’t be discussing a deal to buy the bear, right?

Kirilenko discussed with his companion and nodded at Feng Yu: “Fine. But you have to act fast. I will be returning to Moscow in a few days.”

“No problem, we can sign a contract.”

Kirilenko is convinced that Feng Yu is from a family of hunters and also often deal with foreigners. If not, how come he have thought of signing a contract. He also felt that Feng Yu is not only a splendid hunter but also very smart. Kirilenko does not know about the market price of the black bear fur, but he felt that he is paying more.

Feng Yu turned to Yu Chun Yuan said: “Manager Yu, I have sold the fur. My father will skin it and bring it away. We can discuss the price for the rest of the bear?”

Yu Chun Yuan seeing no objections from Feng Xingtai said to Feng Yu: “Initially, I wanted to buy the whole bear. But now, without the fur, I can’t offer you a high price. The bear should not weigh 300 jin. I will still count it as 300 jin and offer you 1,500 RMB?”

“The price is too low even if the bear’s paw and gall in not included. The bear, without the paw and gall, 3000 RMB, bear’s paw 1,000 RMB each and the bear gall is 2,000 RMB. Total 9,000 RMB. Feng Yu calmly negotiate with Manager Yu.

“Mr. Feng, your son is not making any sense. He thought that we will just accept whatever price he offered? 1,000 RMB for a bear’s paw? Impossible! I will provide a total of 2,000 RMB for the whole bear, including bear’s paw and gall. This price is already very high! ” Manager Yu Looked at Feng Xingtai said.

Feng Xingtai is not stupid, but he is not as eloquent as his son. He shook his head and pointed at Feng Yu said: “He hunted the bear and studied more than me. He will negotiate with you. If both of you can’t agree to a price, we will find someone else. “

“Someone else? In Bing City, other than our international hotel, who can offer such a high price? Mr. Feng, this bear will not be fresh if it is frozen for a long time. ” Yu Chun Yuan proudly said.

“Manager Yu, do you think the two guests who just went in is willing to offer a high price for the bear’s paws and gall? Also, with such a big bear, your restaurant can offer exotic dishes. I think the party leaders will be willing to dine here if they know about these dishes.” Feng Yu said. He is not willing to lower the price as he felt that the bear is worth this price.

If it is a few years later, black bears can still be traded legally. But at that time, the bears are so rare that a bear can sell for hundreds of thousands. Many wealthy people are willing to pay to eat a bear dish. A cooked bear’s paw dish can sell for 100,000!

“You… young man, but the price you want is too high. 1,000 RMB for a bear’s paw? Do you know how much rice you can buy for 1,000 RMB? Your whole family can’t even finish those rice in a year!”

“Well, they are coming out. If you are not interested, I will sell to them. They were asking about the price earlier, but I told them that I promised to sell to you first, and they gave up.” Feng Yu said as he points to Kirilenko and his companion.

Yu Chunyuan gritted his teeth and said: “7,000 RMB for the bear without the fur. Also, I will help you skin the fur for free.”

Feng Yu smiled: “You must also treat the fur within a week. We can sign the contract now!”

PS1: Wildlife Protection Act only starts at the end of 1988.

PS2: Contracts have existed since ancient times.

Chapter 6 – Future brother-in-law

Feng Yu skillfully drafted two contracts. Both in Chinese and Russian. There is no computer to print the agreement. This made him not used to it. Both parties to sign the contract happily. Feng Yu only provided a black bear worth about 10,000 RMB and through negotiations, exchange it for 20,000 rubles and 7,000 RMB. Even the skinning and treating of the fur is done by the international hotel.

Yu Chunyuan wanted to exchange the rubles with Feng Yu directly, but was Feng Yu refused. In the late 1980s, China’s foreign currency exchange rates might not be the official rate. He clearly remembers that his future brother-in-law has ways to change foreign currencies to RMB.

After Feng Yu left, Kirilenko’s translator arrived. The translator learned that Kirilenko had bought a black bear’s fur with 20,000 rubles and told him that he was cheated. The translator said that if Kirilenko wants, he can acquire a black bear fur with 5,000 RMB!

Kirilenko was furious. He is cheated by that Chinese kid. But he got over it quickly because the fur is obviously new will be convenient for him to boast. If he were to buy a bear fur, which is a few years old, he could always get it back in Russia. Nonetheless, if he meets the boy again, he will teach him a lesson!

“Are you going to meet your classmates? Is your classmate male or female?” Feng Xingtai looked at his daughter and asked suspiciously.

“Dad, which girl will come and meet sister at this time of the year? I’m guessing that it’s my sister’s boyfriend. Just nice you are around. You can judge the boy’s character and see through his lies with your years of experience.” Feng Yu said, making his father very proud.

“Well, you’re right. It is normal for your sister to find a boyfriend at her age. But his character must be good! Xiaoyu can’t tell that you actually studied hard in school.you can converse well with Russians and even drafts a contract in Russian. That look on Manager Yu’s speechless face is priceless!”

“Of course! I am your son!” Feng Yu replied, making Feng Xingtai happier.

Earlier, his son had negotiated with the two Russians and the manager of the International hotel on the price of the bear, resulting in the bear being sold at a higher than expected rate. More importantly, it was the way those people at International Hotel looked at them. The Feng family finally have someone outstanding!

Feng Xingtai tugged on the rope to start the tractor, and the engine roared. Feng Yu silently shook his head. The tractor is still using the old rope pull to start the engine. One could dislocate the shoulders while pulling the rope.

Now with this money, he can guarantee that even if the family does not do farming, they will still become the wealthiest family in the village next year!

Feng Xingtai drove his tractor with Feng Danying’s directions for half an hour, and he saw a lad standing by the roadside, wearing a thick cotton-padded jacket. In his hand, he is also carrying a military coat.

“Dad, stop the car, Li Shiqiang is there.” Feng Danying tapped on her father’s arm. Yesterday after Feng Yu made his phone call to the hotel, Danying also gave Li Shiqiang a phone call. Missing Li Shiqiang, Danying followed along to Bing city to see him.

“Danying, it’s cold, put this coat on.” Seeing Feng Danying come out from the tractor, Li Shiqiang hurriedly ran over and used the army coat to cover Feng Danying.

“Cough!” Feng Xingtai cleared his throat loudly. He is happy that this boy knows brought his daughter a coat. But he was very unhappy to see him putting the coat on his daughter in front of him.

“Hi, Uncle, my name is Li Shiqiang. I am from Bing city. I returned here to work after demobilizing from the military last year. I work at the Post office nearby. You must be Xiao Yu. Your sister often tells me about you.”

“Hi, Brother Lee.”

Feng Yu smiled, at the same time, secretly shook his head. His father must be furious when he hears Li Shiqiang’s sentence. By saying he heard a lot about Feng Yu from his sister, it implies that they have been together for a long time. If Feng Xingtai did not come to Bing city to sell the bear, he could still be unaware of this relationship.

Sure enough, Feng Xingtai’s face became a lot more serious. He scans Li Shiqiang from top to toe. Li Shiqiang is not tall. Only around 1.75 meters, but he looks very spirited. Working in a post office, a government servant. Not bad. But seeing his daughter behind his back left him very dissatisfied.

“Uncle, it’s nearing noon. Come over to my place for lunch.”

Feng Xingtai hesitated, to eat at his house. This means both parents meeting.

Feng Yu Seeing his father’s hesitation and egged: “Dad, let’s go. I happened to have some things I need to ask Brother Lee.”

Feng Yu thought of the big event happening this year, which could double his money several times.

But for this to happen, he needs a very trustworthy person, and there is someone that fits the bill here.

“Ok. But there is no need for lunch. We will just drink something and be on our way.”

Seeing Li Shiqiang’s parents waiting downstairs, Feng Xingtai felt flattered. He thought that this Lee family is not bad.

“Mr. Feng, let’s go upstairs. This must be Danying and Xiaoyu. You both have inherited Mr. Feng’s good looks.” Lee’s father said, praising the three of them in one sentence.

Feng Xingtai did not feel anything when Manager Yu of the International Hotel address him as Mr Feng. But now, Lee’s father addresses him as Mr Feng, he felt very respected, and a smile appeared on his face.

On the stairs, Feng Xingtai still felt a bit uncomfortable. There are not a lot of buildings on their farm and village. Fortunately, there is a small shop downstairs, and Feng Xingtai brought some canned food and malt drinks as gifts. It is not pleasant to visit someone’s home, empty-handed.

Once in the house, Feng Yu looked around. The house is not significant. The usable area is more than 50 ping. It is even smaller than their farmhouse. At least their home at the farm still has a front yard and small garden.

Feng Xingtai chatted with Lee Fu happily. Mrs. Lee brews some tea and serves them some melon seeds and sweets before going back into the kitchen to start cooking. Her son had brought his girlfriend and also his girlfriend’s parents home for the first time.

No matter what, she has to prepare lunch for the guests. Furthermore, it is the new year now.

The two fathers were happily chatting. Feng Yu pulled Li Shiqiang to one side.

“Brother Lee, you work at the post office?”

“Yes, did your sister tell you. You want to buy monkey stamps? I tell you, now the monkey stamps are worth almost 50 RMB per piece. It’s not worth it. If you want other types of stamp, I can help you.”

Lots of people had approached Li Shiqiang to help buy Monkey Stamps. But there is nothing he can do as the stamps are no longer in circulation.

“No, I want to ask about Treasury bills. Are you able to help me buy Treasury bills?”

Feng Yu just remembered Monkey stamps. Unfortunately, it is already too late. The golden age for stamp investment had passed. Even he invests now, the returns are not significant.

In his last life, there is someone who made his first bucket of gold from Treasury bills. He became a millionaire In one year, using only 20,000 RMB as his initial investment.

“Treasury bills？ What do you want that for? The repayment time is long and cannot be exchanged for money. I worked in the Post office and was forced to buy dozens of dollar worth of treasury bills. If you like, I can give you a 10-dollar Treasury bill as New Year money!”

For someone earning only 80 RMB a month, 10 dollars is a lot. But for his girlfriend, Li Shiqiang must be “willing” to give Feng Yu 10 RMB.

Feng Yu looked at Li Shiqiang’s uneasy smile.

“Brother Lee, I don’t want your treasury bills. I just want to buy some treasury bills, can you help? I want to buy over the Treasury bills from your colleagues and friends. I can buy whatever you can find.”

Li Shiqiang felt surprised. Is Danying’s brother stupid? I already told him that Treasury bills are worthless, yet he still wants to buy!

Chapter 7 – Foreign currency exchange

Feng Yu didn’t have the chance to clarify further as lunch is served. Feng Xingtai drank only a bottle of beer as he still has to drive. The drive back home will take about 3 to 4 hours.

Both families got along very well. If not for Feng Yu, reminding his father, Feng Xingtai would have already discussed the details of the marriage with the in-laws.

Come on, Sister is only 19 years old and is still in school. Even if they were to get married, it should be after his sister’s graduation from nursing school.

Feng Yu continue to pester Li Shiqiang during lunch. However, it is not about Treasury bonds. Feng Yu must first let Li Shiqiang believe that he can make money.

“What did you say? Uncle Feng got 20,000 rubles in his bag? Are you kidding me?”

Li Shiqiang jumped when he heard Feng Xingtai have 20,000 rubles in his bag. 20,000 rubles is a lot of money. It is enough to buy a few apartments like his house in Bing city.

Didn’t Danying say that her family is just a “ten thousand dollars” household? How come they bring so much money along to Bing city?

“This is not a joke. Brother Li, you are working at the Post office. There must be a lot of people wanting to change RMB for rubles. But changing foreign currencies at the bank needs application. Not only it is troublesome, but there is also a limit to how much money they can exchange.

I heard that doing currency exchange privately can get a better rate compared to the bank.”

Li Shiqiang looked at Feng Yu: “You want me to look for people who are willing to offer higher rates for foreign currencies?”

“Of course. You mean you can’t do that? This is my father’s idea, but he felt embarrassed to ask you.” Feng Xingtai still did not know that he had been sold by his son.

Since it is Danying’s father’s idea, then Li Shiqiang must do. Anyway, he works in the Post office, and many people are approaching him to find out if he can get foreign currency. Although 20,000 rubles is a large sum of money, he is confident that he can change it to RMB at a higher rate within 3 to 5 days.

“Well, leave it to me. I guarantee I can help you change your 20,000 rubles to RMB at a higher rate.”

“Ok. My father will give you the money later. Also, this is a test for you,” Feng Yu said.”

With so much trust in him, how can he disappoint his future father-in-law? He immediately promises Feng Yu that he will finish the job in three days!

Half an hour later, Feng Xingtai went out to warm up the tractor. In this era, there is no antifreeze. If the car is not warm up, it cannot start.

Li Shiqiang offered to help. Feng Yu also followed downstairs.

“Dad, I need to discuss something with you. Can I use the money first?” Feng Yu asked cautiously.

Feng Xingtai grabbed his bag with both hands and look at Feng Yu vigilantly: “What are you saying?  You are still a little brat. You know how to use such a big sum of money? Besides, what do you need this money for?”

“Dad, my teacher told me that when people in the city want to travel, they need foreign currency. However, they are not able to exchange for a larger amount. Do they will find people to exchange the currencies privately at higher rates.” Brother Li works in the Post office and has his ways. If we let him exchange these 20,000 rubles, the rate will definitely be better than the bank.” Feng Yu said. He is using him “making more money” technique again.

The negotiations that took place in the morning had shocked Feng Xingtai. He discovered that his son had become more capable after attending school. If it is possible to earn more money, he certainly wants to make more.

“Post office also do foreign exchange? How much more would that be?”

“At least a few thousand. It is a few thousand RMB!” Feng Yu felt that his current tone, the look is just like the way he persuades customers to invest when he started working as an investment broker in his previous life.

“A few thousand? Really so much? This ruble is good, so much more valuable than the RMB. Can Xiao Li change it for us? If his family knows about this, will they think that we are greedy and have a bad impression of your sister?” Feng Xingtai hesitates. Even though money is essential, his daughter’s happiness is much more critical.

“Dad, it was Brother Li’s initiative. I mentioned that we will be going to the bank to exchange the rubles and he offered to exchange it for us. He also says that the bank exchange rates are not good. Besides, Brother Li and Sister are together now. Uncle Li is even coming over to our house for a visit in a few days. Brother Li can bring money with him when he visits.”

Feng Xingtai hesitated for a long time, took out two thick, paper wrapped, stacks of rubles, and ask Feng Yu to pass to Li Shiqiang.

Feng Yu took the rubles to Li Shiqiang: “Brother Li, if you can finish this task, your relationship with my Sister will be approved.”

Li Shiqiang face turned red due to excitement. He kept the rubles and nodded. He is afraid that Feng Xingtai would change his mind.

The tractor is almost warmed up. Once again, Feng Xingtai took out the rope and started the engine. Li Shiqiang went upstairs to call Danying.

The Li family went downstairs to see them off. They even gave Feng Xingtai a lamb’s leg and 10 RMB to Feng Yu.

Li Fucai notices the two paper-wrapped blocks in his son’s hands after the Feng family left.

“What are you holding?”

“This is the money Uncle Feng got from selling the bear. It is all in foreign currency, rubles. He is asking me to help him exchange privately to RMB. This way, it is better than exchanging at the bank.”

“Your uncle Feng really trusted you. Try to change it within these few days. We will bring it along when we go visit them. Also, how much rubles are there?”  Father Li is pleased to learn that his future in-laws have so much trust in his son. This is a good thing.”

“20,000!”

How much?” Father Li asked again.

“20,000.”

“20,000 rubles? How big is that bear? 20,000 rubles is more than enough to buy our house. Being a farmer is more profitable than working in the city.” Father Li exclaimed.

“So what, our son is Bing city resident, and he still works at the Post office.” Although Li’s mother does not despise the Feng family, she still feels superior as they are living in the city.

“It’s 20,000 rubles. According to the current exchange rate, it is about 80,000 RMB.” Li Shiqiang added.

This time, Li’s mother is unable to keep her calm and asked: “About 80,000 RMB? How many bears did they hunt?”

“Mom and Dad take this money home first. I will go out for a while. A few people are asking around for private currency exchange before the new year. I will go and ask them how much they want to exchange.” Li Shiqiang said while handing over the paper warped, stacks of rubles to his mother.

Mother Li held on to the rubles tightly and pulled her husband along upstairs. She is very nervous as she had not seen such a significant sum of money in her life before!

Li Shiqiang’s job at the Post office gave him great convenience. In this era, the Post office takes on many roles. As such, it gave people the impression that Li Shiqiang is very capable and can do tasks that others are not able to do.

For instance, there is a company’s vice-president who is traveling to the Soviet Union for a business trip. He wanted to buy some souvenirs for his wife and children, but the foreign currency assigned to him is too little. His wife’s nephew, who is Li Shiqiang classmate, came to look for Li Shiqiang, asking for help to exchange some foreign currency.

After an afternoon of negotiating, Li Shiqiang manages to exchange 8,000 rubles at 1 ruble to 4.5 yuan RMB. He even delivers the rubles personally to the company’s vice-president house.

Three days later, Li Shiqiang finished exchanging all 20,000 rubles. A total of RMB 91,200. There are two times where the rubles are exchanged much higher than average exchange rates.

Li Shiqiang is very excited. He had completed the task given to him, helped his girlfriend’s family earn some money, and let many people think that he is very capable. But the one thing that bothers him. Many people start to look for him to exchange RMB for Rubles, but he does not have any more rubles.

Chapter 8

On the 6th day of the New Year, the Li family arrived at Feng’s house in their 212 Jeep (A model of the jeep from Beijing Jeep Corporation).  Everyone from Feng’s family came out to the courtyard to welcome them.

Li’s family brought along two cartons of cigarettes, two bottles of wine, two boxes of tea leaves, and two bags of red sausages. But Li Shiqiang’s hands are holding on to a canvas tightly.

Zhang Muhua went into the kitchen with Feng Danying to cook, while Feng Xingtai accompanies the Mr. and Mrs Liin the living room. Li Shiqiang, holding on to the canvas bag, entered a room with Feng Yu.

“Brother Li, you finished exchanging all the rubles?”

“Yes, 91,200 RMB. All here.”

Feng Yu raised his brows a little. It is much more than he expected. It seems that many people in Bing city need foreign currency. This can make a lot of money if I can seize this opportunity.

“Thanks for your hard work, Brother Li. I think my father will be delighted. If I still have rubles, are you able to change it?”

“Sure. In fact, people are still asking me to change rubles for them, but I have none. You still got ways to get rubles?” Li Shiqiang is very curious. It is not easy to get foreign currencies. He, himself is working at the Post office, and his father, who is also working for the government, is not able to get foreign currencies. How can a farmer’s boy, who is still going to school, have ways to get foreign currencies?

Feng Yu smiled and said: “International Hote!”

“International Hotel? International Hotel does have a lot of foreign guests, but how do you get in? Don’t tell me you know the higher management in the hotel?”

“Go directly to the foreign guests to change. We will give them slightly higher rates prices, and these, foreign guests will be willing to take advantage of the higher rates.”

Li Shiqiang gave himself a facepalm. Why didn’t he think of this? But to communicate directly with foreign guests, you need to understand foreign language.

“Then I have to find an interpreter. It is not easy to find one.”

Feng Yu waved his hands in Li Shiqiang’s face and pointed to himself: “I can communicate in both Russian and English.” He then speaks a few sentences in Russian and English.

Li Shiqiang’s mouth open wide in shock: “You know two foreign languages?” Is he a genius? How old is Feng Yu, and how did he learn these two foreign languages?

In this era, if one can understand a foreign language, he would have been worshipped by others. Let alone understand two. But in 2015, it is reasonable to see people well versed in two or more foreign languages. Feng Yu had ever met someone proficient in eight foreign languages!

“Ok, I will go to Bing city with you tonight. I am going to visit my teacher. Tomorrow I will pass you the rubles after I have to exchange it.” Feng Yu said.

Li Shiqiang felt that Feng Yu, a 15-year-old boy, had the presence of a great leader. This future brother-in-law will undoubtedly go far in the future because he is a genius who understands two foreign languages.

When they came back to the hall, everyone looked at them. A smile appears on Feng Yu’s face, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Feng Xingtai is afraid that something might go wrong with the money. He did not tell his wife about this matter. He just said to her that the bear was sold for 7,000 RMB. Although 7,000 RMB is lower than his wife’s expectation, she is still happy. Especially when she heard that her daughter’s boyfriend is from the city and work in the Post office.

Li Shiqiang’s parents are afraid that Feng’s family is not satisfied with the amount and think that they had kept some of the money. Even though they are not as rich as the Fengs, they would absolutely not do such things. Li Shiqiang’s parents really like the well-behaved and sensible Feng Danying as their daughter-in-law. They cannot let their future in-laws look down on them.

According to the tradition of Feng’s family, lunch is eight meat dishes. Among these dishes are pheasant, wild rabbits, and wild-caught fish.

Although they are city people, the food in the city is not as good, compared to the countryside. Furthermore, their future in-laws are charming people, so the Li family has an excellent appetite.

Feng Yu approached his father when the latter was going to the toilet.

“Dad, the rubles is changed to RMB. A total of 91,200 RMB. At least 7,000 to 8,000 RMB more if we were to exchange it at the bank. Later today, I want to follow Brother Li back to Bing city. Firstly, I want to visit Teacher Sun. He is from Bing city. I should pay him a New year visit. Secondly, I want to use this money to change to rubles at the International Hotel. This way, we can earn a few thousand more when we change back to RMB.”

Feng Yu thought that it would be tough to persuade his father, and he never expects his father to agree so happily. Feng Xingtai said:” Ok. I will give you our family’s saving passbook too. You can only do this one more time.”

“Dad, rest assured. We can earn money this way for a while.” Feng Yu said.

“You should be entering high school later this year. Our farm does not have a high school. The high schools in the county and district are just ordinary high schools. You should go to a good high school in the city so it will be easier for you to get into a good university.”

The expenses in Bing city are much higher compared to the village. As such, Feng Yu needs to earn more money.

“Dad, you can rest assured that I will be admitted to the high school in Bing city and a good university in the future.”

Feng Yu is not confident with Physic and Chemistry college exams, but for high school entry exams, it is a piece of cake. His math, Russian, and Chinese will definitely give him high scores. He still has a school term to get use to it. He is not sure if he can enter the top high school in Bing city, but he is confident that he can get a place in those typical high school in Bing city.

“Good. Don’t follow my footsteps and be a farmer. Your sister should be graduating this year from nursing school. I will buy an apartment for her in Bing city, and you can stay with her. She can take care of you.”

He had checked the pricing of houses in Bing city. A unit like Li Shiqiang’s house costs around 20,000 RMB. The Feng family now has more than 100,000 RMB! He can afford to buy at least 3 to 5 units.

Of course, Feng Yu’s mother must not be aware of all these.

Around 2pm, the Li family prepare to leave. Feng Yu and his mother help to load some farm produce on the top of the car.

“Mom, I will go to Bing city with Brother Li today to visit Teacher Sun.”

Zhang Zhanhua nodded: “Yes, you should. Mr. Sun is so good to you. But you did not prepare any gifts. Wait a moment. Mom will give you some money, and you can buy some canned food, malt drinks, or something for Teacher Sun.”

Not only Feng’s family, everyone on the farm respect Teacher Sun. He funded a lot of poor students and also gave up an opportunity to work in the city for these students. He is very well-known in the farm.

Feng Yu also respect him very much and really want to visit him.

“Mom, no need. Dad had given me money.”

Knowing Feng Yu is going to Bing City with them, the Li family is thrilled. Anyway, the 212 Jeep can seat 4 people. But the only thing that is puzzling the Li Shiqiang’s parents is why Feng Yu is bringing the canvas bag along. What is happening?

In the jeep, Feng Yu explained that he will be changing some rubles and making some money out of the difference in exchange rates. If they have spare cash, they can also join in. Using 10,000 RMB to earn 1,000 RMB shouldn’t be an issue.

Li’s parents also want to earn some extra cash. Anyway, the money will be in their son’s hands, and when their son gets married, they need to spend a lot too.

Once back home, Li’s parents also gave their savings passbook to his son and ask him to go and withdraw their savings from the bank tomorrow.

That night, Feng Yu shared a bed with Li Shiqiang. He slept soundly, but the Li family did not sleep well.

Chapter 9

Early the next morning, they went to the bank and withdraw all their families’ savings with the bank book and kept in a bag. A total of 143,600 RMB. Feng’s family had a total of 112,800 RMB savings.

The two then drove to the International hotel. This timing is the time where the guests’ traffic is at the peak.

When they reach, they saw three foreigners standing by the roadside waving for taxi. Bing city is the first city in China to have taxi. The development of the taxi industry here is the fastest and the best in China.

“Excuse me, are you waiting for a taxi?” Feng Yu approached them and asked in English.

A blond foreigner looks at Feng Yu curiously and looks at the jeep parked at a distant. He nodded and asked Feng Yu: “How much do you charge from here to the riverside?”

They had been conned by these types of private hire taxi before. Regular cab will charge them 5 RMB, but these private hire taxi will cost them 50 RMB for the same distance!

“10 dollars, but we only take RMB.” Feng Yu replied.

“Why? I pay you in US dollars. 5 US dollars. You can exchange it for more than 10 RMB.” The foreigner replied, feeling puzzled. He had used USD here before, and most shops are more than happy to accept USD. The only exceptions are those small roadside shops. Why did this young man refuse to accept USD?

“No, we just want RMB. You don’t you have RMB?  I can help you exchange your USD for RMB at a higher rate compared to the market.” Feng Yu smiled slyly.

During this time, it is not easy or foreigners to exchange foreign currencies for RMB. Furthermore, Americans always think that USD is a global currency and can be accepted everywhere.

The blond foreigner sneered. This young man’s real intention is to exchange foreign currencies and have no intention of renting the car out.

“How much RMB can you offer for 1 USD?” The blond foreigner asked.

Feng Yu replied: “3.8 RMB. It is higher than the market rate. The exchange rate is now about 3.7 RMB.”

Blond foreigner: “No, 4 RMB!”

“Then this deal is off. There are many other guests at this hotel that needs to exchange currencies. I will not hold you back then. Goodbye.” Feng Yu said.

“Wait a minute, how much can you change for us?” The blonde noticed that this kid is not easy to deal with, and is most probably a veteran.

“How many USD do you have?” Feng Yu asked.

The three foreigners discussed for a minute and replied: “USD 5,000!”

“No problem, please follow me to the jeep.”

The deal went well, and both sides were happy. The Americans felt that they had gotten a good deal. Using RMB in China is more worthwhile and can avoid being cheated. Also, the exchange rate Feng Yu offered is higher than the market. Feng Yu is also happy. Many people want to exchange RMB for USD.

Feng Yu asked Li Shiqiang: “You able to find people to exchange RMB for USD?”

“Of course! And I guarantee the rate will be more than 4 RMB!” Li Shiqiang replied. When he was exchanging the rubles, someone had approached him, asking for USD.

Feng Yu continued loiter around the entrance of the International Hotel.

Feng Yu will approach anyone who wears a suit or looks like a rich man. He will ask them if they need any RMB or foreign currencies.

This continued till noon. Both of them had exchange around 50,000 RMB in return for USD and ruble. Other than USD and Rubles, there is lesser demand for other foreign currencies.

They had lunch at a small noodle shop nearby and return to the International hotel.

Kirilenko had almost finished his work in Bing city and will be going back in two days.  He intends to purchase some China’s products as souvenirs for friends and family.

In China, foreigners are often cheated. For example, the price tag would just display a number ”1”. The foreigners will think that it is 1 RMB, but it actually meant 10 cents. Also, when the foreigners pay in foreign currencies such as Rubles, the other party will just feign ignorance and treat these currencies as RMB.

Kirilenko had decided to look for the hotel manager to help him exchange some Rubles for RMB. The bank is too far, and no one understands Russian there.

Isn’t that the young man who sold him the black bear fur at a high price? Just nice. I wanted to teach him a lesson for lying to me!

Kirilenko walked over to Feng Yu angrily.

“Mr. Kirilenko, we met again.” Feng Yu smiled.

“Are you here to sell your prey? The last time, you sold me the bear fur for 20,000 rubles, but I had asked around. The market price for bear fur is only 5,000 RMB. You are a liar!” Kirilenko said while holding on to Feng Yu’s arm.

Feng Yu immediately explained: “There are many types of bear fur. The fur I sold you is an excellent quality fur. Those 5,000 RMB fur are substandard old fur with bullet and worm holes. You can go and ask around.”

“Is that so? Then I might have misunderstood you. Have hunted Siberian tiger? I want high-quality tiger fur.” Kirilenko said and loosened his grip. He had always wanted to buy tiger fur.

A rich man with low IQ! This is Feng Yu’s impression of Kirilenko.

The only time he saw a Siberian tiger is at the zoo during his previous life.

“Sorry, tiger fur is not easy to get. But if you want other animals, such as mink or fox’s fur, I can help you get.”

Kirilenko disappointedly shook his head. If he can get tiger fur, then he can return to his country and boast to his friends. Who else can hunt a tiger and bear in a single trip!

It seems like his dream will not come true. But to successfully hunt a black bear, is enough for him to boast for the rest of his life.

Seeing Kirilenko is about to leave, Feng Yu hurriedly stopped him: “Mr. Kirilenko, if I am not wrong, you still have a lot of rubles with you? I remembered that you are going back soon.  Will you be buying some Chinese souvenirs? It will be more convenient and cheaper if you are using RMB. I can exchange your rubles for RMB for a small transaction fee.”

When dealing with other guests, Feng Yu will offer higher exchange rates, but not for someone as wealthy as Kirilenko. Feng Yu have different ways to earn money from him.

Kirilenko raised his brows and replied calmly: “Transaction fees? There are no transaction fees if I go to the bank.”

“Banks do have transaction fees, and you still need to queue. Also, you can’t exchange large amounts at the bank, and no one is able to speak in Russian there. Mr. Kirilenko, don’t you agree that it is more convenient to use RMB in China?” Feng Yu said.

From Kirilenko’s reply, Feng Yu knew that Kirilenko wanted to exchange Rubles for RMB.

“How much can you exchange, and how much are the transaction fees?” Kirilenko asked.

“The rate is 1 Ruble to 4 RMB. The extra is my transaction fees. I can exchange 20,000 rubles for you now. Anything more than 20,000 Rubles will have to wait one or two days.” Feng Yu replied. For someone who can buy a bear fur for 20,000 Rubles must be wealthy. Feng Yu wondered what business does Kirilenko do.

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu, who is not carrying any bags, and asks: “You can exchange 20,000 Rubles now?”

Feng Yu pointed to the Jeep not far away: “In the car.” Seeing Feng Yu pointing over, Li Shiqiang hurriedly waves back.

“OK, I’ll change 20,000 rubles. Wait a moment. I will go back to my room to get the money.” Kirilenko said.

Feng Yu clenched his fist tightly. It seems that he can exchange all his money within the next hour.

The transaction went smoothly in the jeep, and before getting off the jeep, Kirilenko asked Feng Yu where can he buy Chinese specialties. Feng Yu is ecstatic. Kirilenko is letting him earn more money!

Feng Yu asked Li Shijiang in Chinese: “Brother Li, you know where to buy ham sausage, Jianlibao (a brand of healthy soft drink) and canned fruit?”

In this era, these Chinese domestic products are very popular in the Soviet Union.

“I have a former comrade working in the supply and marketing cooperative. I heard that he has some goods which are not selling well. How much does this Russian want?” Li Shijiang replied.

Feng Yu whispered to Li Shiqiang: “Control your facial expressions and don’t show any sign of happiness. Try to have an expression like you are in a difficult position. He wants to use up all 80,000 RMB.”

If not for Feng Yu, Li Shiqiang will undoubtedly jump up excitedly. But now he has a confused look on his face.

“Is it difficult to get these Chinese specialties?” Kirilenko asked embarrassedly. Looking at the confused look on that driver’s face, it must be hard to get these souvenirs.

Feng Yu replied: “No. We have the connections, but we need his father’s help. So, there will be some extra cost.” he said.”

“I understand. But I’m flying back to Moscow the day after tomorrow. So make it fast. These 1000 rubles is for you. Enough?” It is very common for people to give gifts in exchange for help.

“No problem!” Feng Yu said happily.

Chapter 10

Li Shiqiang drove them directly to the cooperative to find his former comrade. Anyway, they had already exchanged a large sum of RMB for foreign currencies. Furthermore, Feng Yu said that this trip will let them earn a lot of money.

After meeting up with Li Shiqiang’s former comrade, Feng Yu found out that the supply and marketing cooperative had a lot of stocks, especially canned food and ham.

Learning that Li Shiqiang had brought a big Soviet Union client to the cooperative, the manager came down personally. The manager is arrogant and impatient, especially after he learned that it is a teenager who will be negotiating with him.

The Manager said: “All these things are sold packaged together. Take it or leave it.”

“Manager Su, it seems the deal is off. I believe I can get these goods elsewhere besides the cooperative.”

The manager became anxious when he saw Feng Yu leaving with the foreigner. Feng Yu is right. Other than the cooperative, these goods are also available at the grocery shops. The Manager just wanted to sell off those unpopular products, but he just found out that it is not easy to cheat this kid. This kid is not afraid of him.

“Wait, I will remove some products?” Manager Su said.

“No, we will choose the goods ourselves. Also, we traveled a long way here, and you have to give us some free gifts. We are very busy. If you don’t agree, we will go elsewhere.”

Shops don’t offer discounts in this era, but they will give free gifts.

“OK. But have to buy more canned food.” He has a lot of canned fruits left. People used to give canned fruits as gifts last year, but now, they provide malt drinks instead.

“No problem.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu then explained to Kirilenko that because he is buying in large quantities, the manager needs to bring in the goods from other places. As such, these goods might be more expensive. However, the manager is willing to give him some gifts as compensation.

Kirilenko is happy. He knows that if he were to buy these goods himself, it would cost several times more. But now, these goods only cost a bit higher and even comes with free gifts.

Kirilenko had only wanted to buy canned fruits, ham, and Jian Li Bao initially. But now, he picked a few cartons of cigarettes, malt drinks, and sugar. He also emphasized that he wanted peony flower embroidered pillowcases as free gifts.

After some negotiations between Feng Yu and Manager Su, Manager Su agrees to give more pillowcases as free gifts. This is mainly because Kirilenko is purchasing 60,000 RMB worth of merchandise. Furthermore, he will be making a loss if these food products expire.

“Wait a minute, Manager Su. We are unable to bring these goods with us as we are only driving a small jeep. You need to deliver these goods to the Airport warehouse for us.” Feng Yu said.

Manager Su is feeling troubled. Why is this kid so troublesome? I have already given him so many free gifts, and yet he wants me to deliver these goods to the airport? The airport is quite a distance from Bing city.

While Feng Yu is negotiating with the manager in the office, Li Shiqiang is persuading Kirilenko to taste their local liquor. Of course, Li Shiqiang himself is not drinking as he still needs to drive.

So, Kirilenko finished a bottle of Bai Jiu (Chinese spirits) alone and got a bit tipsy.

Feng Yu appeared in front of Kirilenko and asked him in Russian: “Mr. Kirilenko, I have tallied all the goods. Do you want to check yourself?”

Kirilenko waved his hand. He sees double now, how can he check.

Feng Yu then asked: “Mr. Kirilenko, how are you going to send all these goods to the airport? I can help you get a truck to transport these goods to the airport cheaply.”

Kirilenko nodded. Thinking to himself, this young man is very considerate and takes notes of such minor details. As someone for the Soviet Union, I must not take advantage of such a nice person. In addition to the transportation cost, I will also give him a generous tip.

Manager Su took down Kirilenko’s passport details and start loading the goods onto a truck to be sent to the airport’s warehouse. Because Kirilenko is a foreigner, he can easily retrieve these goods and ship them back to Russia.

Feng Yu instructed Manager Su to just leave the amount blank and only write the type and quantity of goods on the receipt. He explained that this is because this Russian will be claiming this amount as reimbursement from others back in Russia. Manager Su smiled knowingly.

After making payments, Feng Yu specially mentioned to Manager Su that it was Li Shiqiang’s former comrade asked them to come here. It is up to Manager Su whether to reward him.

After passing the receipt to Kirilenko, Li Shiqiang sends Kirilenko back to international Hotel. Kirilenko wanted Feng Yu’s contact details, and Li Shiqiang left him a telegram address. If this Russian comes back again, then they can make some money.

On his way back to his room, Kirilenko stuffed his remaining Rubles to Feng Yu thanking him for his help. Feng Yu accepted it happily. If he had not to help Kirilenko, Kirilenko might be spending 80,000 RMB and getting only 40,000 RMB worth of goods. With Feng Yu’s help, at least helped Kirilenko got 60,000 RMB worth of goods and even helped him with the transportation.

“Xiaoyu, you really earned a lot on this trip.” Li Shiqiang said after Kirilenko entered his hotel room.

“It’s not me, it’s us. We earned a total of 30,000 RMB. Each person 15,000 RMB.” Feng Yu replied.

“No, no, no. all I did was to drive back and forth, and it was you who thought of this idea. I cannot take money.” Li Shiqiang hurriedly waved his hand.

Feng Yu smiled: “Brother Li. You will be my brother-in-law in two years. Don’t be so calculative. Also, you are the one who told me that the supply and marketing cooperative has unused goods. Furthermore, you need a sum of money to buy a house when you marry my elder sister.”

Yes! I want to buy a big house. Li Shiqiang thought and said to Feng Yu: “Then I will only take 5,000 RMB.”

“Whatever. Wait here, I need to continue looking foreigners who wanted to exchange currencies.” Feng Yu said.

Initially, they had less than 10,000 RMB left. But because of Kirilenko, they earned another 20,000 RMB.

One hour later, the two men drove away. All their RMB had been replaced with Rubles and USD. In a few days, after all these currencies are exchanged, they will be looking at more than 10,000 RMB profit.

Li Shiqiang is smiling non-stop on the way home. Feng Yu is also very excited. The amount of money in his hands will soon exceed more than 13,000 RMB. In one year, he will turn this 13,000 RMB into 1.3 million!

Chapter 11 – Treasury Bonds

It’s only four o’clock in the afternoon, but it’s getting dark. Fortunately, they are driving, and Feng Yu can reach Teacher Sun’s house before dinner time. Teacher Sun is pleased that Feng Yu could come and visit him.

To teacher Sun, Feng Yu is usually a little quiet, but he studied very hard. Only his grades for Russian and math are weak, and most likely will not be admitted into high schools in the city. But he should still be able to enter other high schools in the district.

After politely declining teacher Sun’s dinner offer, Feng Yu returned to Li Shiqiang’s house. After dinner, Li Shiqiang went out to look for those people who wanted foreign currencies. Feng Yu will only return to the farm in the afternoon. Who knows, they might be able to get more RMB to exchange for foreign currencies at International Hotel tomorrow morning.

It was about ten o’clock at night when Li Shiqiang came back. He had brought out some foreign currencies and return with more than 50,000 RMB.

“Brother Li, do you think it is easy to make money?” Feng Yu asked.

Li Shiqiang nodded: “You are smart, unlike me. I did not study much and is not highly educated. If we continue doing this for a month, the amount we earn in a month will be more than my annual salary.”

“There is a more profitable business. You interested?” Feng Yu asked.

“More profitable?” Li Shiqiang’s breathing becomes more rapid.

“Treasury bonds!”

“Xiaoyu, you kept telling me about Treasury bonds. But I understand more about Treasury bonds than you. You can’t make money out of Treasury bonds, and these bills cannot be used as cash. You also have to wait until the maturity to get back your money.” Li Shiqiang replied disappointedly.”

Everyone working for the government was forced to buy Treasury bonds. They were promised that there will be interest in these bills in the future. But who knows what will happen in the future?

“Brother Li, don’t you read the newspaper? Treasury bonds will be tradeable soon, and it will be like commodities. Ten dollars’ worth of Treasury bonds could turn into 11 dollars.”

Li Shiqiang shook his head: “I still think changing foreign currency is more profitable.”

Feng Yu said angrily: “You really think that it is so easy to earn from trading foreign currencies? This is illegal. Although there is no one catching us now, how long more can we earn doing this? Also, you don’t know a foreign language. What are you going to do when I go back to the farm? Besides, the employees at the International hotel have noticed us. They will be chasing us away tomorrow if we are there again.”

Li Shiqiang froze. This is so profitable, and we can’t do it anymore?

Seeing Li Shiqiang stop talking, Feng Yu continued: “Is the Treasury bill interest rates higher than the bank?”

“Yes, it’s higher than fix deposits, but you can’t withdraw it.” Li Shiqiang replied.

“I told you that it will be tradeable soon. Think about this, if I offer you 9 RMB for your 10 RMB Treasury bonds now, will you sell it?” Feng Yu asked.

“Of course, I will sell the Treasury bill. I don’t want to wait so long.” Li Shiqiang replied.

“That’s right. There are a lot of people that think the same way as you. That is when the price of the Treasury bill drops, and 10 dollars will turn into nine dollars. But there will be people who have spare cash and wants to own Treasure bills but are no Treasure bills in the market. So, they will offer higher price for it, and the price of a 10 RMB Treasury bill will become 11 RMB.” Feng Yu explained.

“Impossible. Who will be so stupid to spend 11 RMB for 10 RMB? The Treasury bill interest rates might not be so high.” Li Shiqiang can never believe that anyone will offer such high prices for Treasury bonds?”

“That was just an example. But if it is 10.1 RMB? Do you think there will be people buying it?” Feng Yu asked.

“That’s more like it, but there will really be people who want to buy it? And the government really will allow the trading of Treasury bonds?” Li Shiqiang asked.

“Teacher Sun told me. His student from capitol gave him this private information. When that happens, we will earn from the price difference. 10 RMB will become 11 RMB, and 100,000 RMB will turn into 110,000!” His Teacher once again is used as a shield by Feng Yu.

Li Shiqiang eyes shine. 100,000 RMB become 110,000 RMB, this is really profitable. His salary is less than 100 RMB a month.

“Xiaoyu, then what am I supposed to do?” Li Shiqiang asked excitedly.

“Buy Treasury bonds! Buy from co-workers and friends. Offer them 9.5 RMB for 10 RMB Treasury bonds. Most of them are forced to buy these bills, and they will be willing to exchange these bills for cash. Remember, Treasury bonds will be tradeable in two months. In the meantime, buy as many Treasury bonds as you can! No one will be willing to sell these bills two months later.” Feng Yu said.

Ten dollars to nine-five, many of them are forced to buy, can be replaced with cash, they will certainly. Remember, how much can be collected, two months to allow the transaction, you want to collect, they do not sell!”

“You mean we are using all our money to buy Treasury bonds? We have over 100,000 RMB on hand now. What if the news is fake? Why not we just use 10,000 RMB first?” Li Shiqiang asked.

He dares not take the risk. If the news is fake, all their money will be held in these bills and unable to liquidate till several years later.

“Even you don’t believe me, you should trust my teacher. What he said is definitely true. This foreign currency exchange method of making money is taught by him. So just tell me how much money did we make? If you can borrow money, you should borrow to buy more Treasury bonds!”

Feng Yu again Teacher Sun’s name to convince Li Shiqiang.

Early the next morning, Li Shiqiang dropped Feng Yu at the International Hotel and left. He wants to exchange these foreign currencies as soon as possible.

Through word of mouth, many people now know that Li Shiqiang can get foreign currencies and they even take the initiative to find him.

Feng Yu continued to exchange foreign currency in front of the International Hotel. With his persuasive skills, he exchanged more than 40,000 RMB for Rubles and USD.

Feng Yu is afraid that something terrible might happen to him as he was alone and carrying so much cash, he stayed in front of the International Hotel’s main entrance. The doorman noticed him and reported him to the manager, Yu Chunyuan.

Just when Yu Chunyuan came out, he saw Feng Yu exchanging foreign currency for some overseas guests. He is furious. The guests at International Hotel often approach him to trade foreign currencies for RMB and then he will change these currencies with some government officials privately.

Yu Chunyuan grabbed Feng Yu’s sleeve: “Who allows you to exchange foreign currency with foreign guests here? I am going to get you arrested!”

Feng Yu smiled awkwardly: “Manager Yu, I am helping cousin change. His leader will be going aboard next month and wanted to get some foreign currency to buy some souvenirs back. I got enough and will leave now. I promise you I will not be back.”

Yu Chunyuan looked at Feng Yu’s bag. It seems full of cash. But Yu Chunyuan can only warn Feng Yu as he did not want to have a bad reputation for bullying children.

Yu Chunyuan warned Feng Yu: “I will let you off this time. If I ever see you harassing my guests again, I will call the police! You should go to the bank and make an application to exchange currency.”

Feng Yu nodded and left. One hour later, Li Shiqiang came and pick him up. Knowing that they are not allowed to harass the foreign guests at the International Hotel, he felt very disappointed. This is an easy and fast way to make money.

“Brother Li, don’t be demoralized. We can trade Treasury bonds for a year or two. After you have changed these foreign currencies to RMB, you can start to buy Treasury bonds. Once it is officially legalized to trade Treasury bonds, we will be rich! You won’t disappoint my sister and my dad, are you?”

Li Shiqiang replied firmly: “I will not let them down! Starting tomorrow, I will start to collect Treasury bonds!”

Chapter 12 – All the money is gone

Feng Xingtai eagerly looked at Feng Yu when came back and asked him when he can collect back all the money and how much did they make this time?

Feng Yu said: “Dad, all the money is used to buying Treasury bonds.”

“What did you say? You use more than 100,000 RMB to buy Treasury bill? You this good-for-nothing son. Is Li Shiqiang the one who coax you into buying Treasury bonds?” Feng Xingtai asked angrily.

Feng Xingtai’s blood rushed to his brain. What is he going to grow on the farm now? He raised his hand to slap Feng Yu but stopped.

Eh? There is no beating this time?

“Dad, this is all my idea and got nothing to do with Li Shiqiang. I heard from Teacher Sun that Treasury bonds will be allowed to trade on the open market soon. Imagine this. Brother Li uses 9.5 RMB to buy a 10 RMB Treasury bill, and a 100 RMB Treasury bill can be brought with 95 RMB now. Once the Treasury bonds are allowed to trade openly, we can make tens of thousands of profit” Feng Yu explained.

Feng Xingtai sighed: “Son, Dad had neglected you. I didn’t even know that you are so good with Russian and can even converse with Russians fluently. You and Li Shiqiang really did make money by trading foreign currencies. Now you are saying to buy Treasury bonds. Dad doesn’t understand about all these, but I will trust you.”

“Dad, do you really believe me?” Feng Yu asked.

Feng Xingtai replied: “What else can I do? Even if I beat you up, can you get the money back? Xiao Li is a good man with a good family. Your elder sister also likes him a lot. If I were to go and get the money back from them, how would Xiao Li’s family look at us? What is done is done. We also survived in the past when we had no money.”

“Dad, are we in need of money now?” Feng Yu asked cautiously.

“Your sister will be going to the hospital for an internship soon. You are going to start school as well. Spring is here soon, and we need to prepare seeds, fertilizers, etc. Which of these don’t need money? You this good-for-nothing. You will be the death of me.” Feng Xingtai replied.

Feng Xingtai is getting more and angrier as he speaks.

“Dad, there’s enough time. Treasury bonds will be allowed to start trading in April. It will not delay our purchase of seeds and fertilizers. As for my school fees, accommodation fees, etc., we can owe the school for two months. Nothing will happen. Sister shouldn’t have anything to worry. Brother Li will certainly put aside some money, and it should be enough for sister to last two months.”

“Things better turn out this way! We will keep this from your mother. If she knows about this, she will beat you to death. I will think of a way to get some money for both your sister and your school fees.” Feng Xingtai said.

“Old Feng, Xiaoyu, what are you two whispering about in the room? Dinner is ready!” Feng’s mother shouted.

“Ok. We are coming, mom.” Feng Yu shouted back.

……

“Danying will be starting her internship in two days. Whether if she can get a job at the big hospital will depend on her performance. Old Feng, should we give Danying get some money and let her buy some gifts for her superiors?” Zhang Muhua said while eating.

“Mom, giving gifts to superiors is unethical. That hospital has a shortage of nurses. Definitely I can work there after my internship.” Danying shouted.

“I agree. Mom, it’s not necessary to give gifts. It will be better if the hospital does not employ sister. I will build a hospital and let sister run it. It is better than being a nurse!” Feng Yu said while stuffing rice into his mouth.

Zhang Muhua knocked Feng Yu’s head with chopsticks: “You are just like your father, only know how to brag. Build a hospital? Just look at our village’s clinic. Do you know how much it costs? Do you know how many years Aunt Zhao worked in the clinic before she gets the chance to run it?”

Feng Yu curl his lip. It’s only a hospital. In three years, he will be able to build a big hospital and let his sister run it. Then he will poach some experienced doctors and nurses from other hospitals and make them work for sister!

“Old Feng, I’m talking to you.” Zhang Muhua said.

“What? I also feel that there is no hurry. We can just send some gifts before her internship ends.” Feng Xingtai said. He would also like to let her daughter send gifts, but he does not have the money to do so now.

“What do you know? She can be posted to some better departments if we give the gifts now. According to Zhaojie from the clinic, some nurses often need to work night shifts and in the emergency room which can be very tiring. It’s best to get posted to a less busy department like the dentistry.” Zhang Muhua said.

Feng Danying also looked to father. She did not want to work in the emergency room and do not want to work on the night shifts.

Feng Xingtai looks at Feng Yu. All the money is gone. Your mother will be taking out the passbook in a while, and this matter will be exposed!

“Cough, Mom, sis, both of you don’t have to worry. Brother Li told me that he has connections at the hospital. Sister will be posted to the orthopedics, and her job only requires her to pass some splint, bandages, or something to the doctors. It is a very relax department as there are even lesser people at the orthopedics compared to dentistry.” Feng Yu lied.

Sigh. One lie after another. This evening must remember to give Brother Li a phone call and let him focus the acquisition of Treasury bonds at sister’s internship Hospital. Hopefully, this will let them know someone who can let sister go through backdoors.

Zhang Muhua said: “Really? Can’t tell this Xiao Li is so considerate.”

Feng Yu immediately said: “Mom, Sister has good taste in man, just like you!”

With one sentence, everyone in the family smiled.

“Old Feng, my eldest sister’s family wants to borrow some money from us to buy a 55-horsepower tractor. They will return us the money in fall after their harvest.” Zhang Muhua suddenly said.

Feng Xingtai asked: “How much does she need?”

“5,000 RMB.” Zhang Muhua replied.

Feng Xingtai has a big headache now. If he has the money in his hands now, even if eldest sister needs 10,000 RMB, is not a problem. But now, his son and prospective son-in-law had invested all the money into Treasury bonds. How is he going to answer to his wife?

Feng Yu can tell his dad is about to sell him out. It will be better for Feng Yu to confess. If Aunt needs to borrow money, let them wait two months then.

“Mom, I need to tell you something?”

Zhang Muhua looked at her husband and son. Earlier these two had been making eye contact with each other. They were hiding something from her!

“what happened?” Zhang Muhua asked.

“Can we let big aunt wait for one or two months? Anyway, even if they buy the tractor now, they can’t use it now. Buying the tractor two months later will not delay the planting of farmland also.” Feng Yu said.

Bang!

Zhang Muhua banged on the table: “What are the both of you hiding? Earlier, both of you stopped me from giving your sister some money to buy gifts. Now, you are trying to stop me from lending money to my eldest sister. Could it be…?”

Zhang Muhua hurriedly put down the chopsticks and ran to the room. After searching for a while, she discovered that the Passbook is missing. There are more than 20,000 RMB in it!

“Where’s the money? Where did you two hide the passbook?” Zhang Muhua asked angrily. This father and son had spent their entire savings of 20,000 RMB!

Feng Yu tried to calm his mother down: “Mom, don’t worry. The money is not missing. I just used it.”

The Zhang Muhua froze for a moment, then jumps up and picked up the feather duster hanging from the wall: “You this good-for-nothing son. How dare you steal money from home. I will beat you to death!”

Chapter 13 – Increase manpower

After a while, the Feng family sits down amicably again. Of course, this is at the expense of Feng Yu’s suffering. His body is covered with red bruises from the feather duster.

“I thought Xiao Li is not bad, but it seems that I am wrong! He is a grown-up and yet he followed along with Xiao Yu’s idea. What does Xiao Yu know about Treasury bonds? Making money from Treasury bonds? Tell me who else has ever made money with Treasury bonds? Even if one can make money from these bonds, it is also speculation!” Zhang Muhua scolded. She still did not get over it and continued to berate her son and Li Shiqiang.

“Mom, Shiqiang is also influenced by Xiao Yu. Xiao Yu told him that this was dad’s idea. Shiqiang also had no choice but to go along with this.” Feng Danying tried to explain.

“Go and call them now and get the money back!” Zhang Muhua said.

“Mom, just trust me. We can really make a huge profit out of this. Even Teacher Sun said so. Besides, this is not speculation. According to the newspaper, we have to develop a planned commodity economy, and this is a commodity economy.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu said some investment jargon that his mother could not understand. His mother’s anger died down after Feng Yu promised to call Li Shiqiang to keep at least 10,000 RMB immediately.

On the way to the village office phone, Feng Danying is still scolding Feng Yu: “How can you push everything to Shiqiang?”

“You are my sister, and you are not even his wife yet. Why are you helping outsiders! As you can see, Mon and dad didn’t get too angry because Brother Li is involved in this. Also, we can absolutely make money from this. Dad also needs a sum of money to buy you a house in Bing city.” Feng Yu retorted.

“To sum it up, you are the scheming one, and Shiqiang is an honest person who was con by you.”

“Fine, fine. I am the worst. Don’t forget it was because of me, you and Brother Li can meet the parents.” Feng Yu muttered.

At the village office, before the two pick up the phone, the phone rang. Just happened Li Shiqiang called up.

“Hello. Brother Li? You had just met my sister a few days ago, and now you are missing her?” Feng Yu joked.

“Xiaoyu, actually, I’m looking for you. I had just found out that the Treasury bond is more profitable than we expected!” Li Shiqiang said excitedly.

Eh? What does he mean? We can make money from Treasury bonds now?

Feng Yu had only considered the issue of trading Treasury bonds and forgot about the maturity value. There are many people holding on to 5 RMB and 10 RMB bonds. Some had already matured. Most of the bonds at that time are 5 years maturity bonds, and there is a 4% annual interest. This means that when a 10 RMB Treasury bond matures, they would have 12 RMB.

Just like Li Shiqiang said before. When the Treasury bonds were issued, they met with a lot of resistance. The government then forced the workers in government agencies and businesses buy these bonds.

Many people had even forgotten that they own Treasury bonds. When they heard that Li Shiqiang is acquiring Treasury bonds, they went back and look for their bonds. It is only then, some of them realized that their Treasury bonds had matured.

For these people, going to the bank for a 2 RMB return is troublesome. Over the years, wages had been rising. 2 RMB is not worth the trip to the bank.

Li Shiqiang was not very successful when he went door to door to buy Treasury bonds. He offered 9.5 RMB for 10 RMB Treasury bonds, and most people refuse to sell their bonds to Li Shiqiang.

Occasionally Li Shiqiang will meet someone whose bonds had matured and can be redeemed for cash at the bank. Li Shiqiang would offer the original value for these bonds. He would offer 10 RMB for a 10 RMB Treasury bond. He can make a 2 RMB when he redeems at the bank.

But this way, these people can feel the pinch even more. The offer for a 10 RMB bond should at least be 11 RMB. Li Shiqiang thinks to himself, “Even if I use 11 RMB to buy a 10 RMB bond, I can still redeem it for 12 RMB when I go to the bank. If I use 110,000 RMB to acquire these bonds and bring it to the bank, I can get 120,000 RMB back!”

As such, he called Feng Yu to ask if it was fine this way. He feels that they don’t need to wait for the Treasury bonds to be traded publicly. Feng Yu is shocked. He did not expect Li Shiqiang to be so smart and flexible. Of course, they can do this business!

In his past life, he had also heard that some people also do this. They went door-to-door to buy maturing Treasury bonds. For 10 RMB bonds, they would offer 11 RMB. They would just profit from extra interest. But this requires a lot of costs.

Feng Yu had not expected that there are people who did not go to the bank to redeem the matured Treasury bonds. Was due, and no one knew to change it. Some knew that their bonds had matured but can’t be bothered to go queue up at the bank. Their time is worth more than the measly 2 RMB returns.

“Brother Li, you are a genius! We can offer higher price for those bonds that are maturing in three months. But not for those that mature more than three months! We will wait for the Treasury bonds to be traded openly, and I guarantee that we can make thousands of dollars every day!”

“What? Make thousands every day? Isn’t that at least 30,000 RMB a month and more than 300,000 RMB a year?” Li Shiqiang’s hands began to tremble. To have 300,000 RM, he would have to save all his salary and not spend a single cent for the rest of his life.

In fact, 300,000 RMB is just Li Shiqiang’s share. Feng Yu can earn at least a few million! But he will have to wait for cities to open up the trading of bonds. If it is only one city, there will not be a difference in the price of the market.

“Brother Li, how much bonds have you acquire today?” Feng Yu asked.

“Er ~ ~ Only around 1000RMB.”

Feng Yu is speechless. One day can only acquire around 1000 RMB Treasury bonds? How long will it take to acquire 100,000?

“How come it is so little?” Feng Yu asked.

“No choice. It is all 50 RMB bonds. There are very few big denomination bonds. The weather is cold, and I, alone have only a bicycle for transportation.” Li Shiqiang replied.

Li Shiqiang had returned the Jeep.

“Brother Li, this is not like exchanging foreign currencies. You cannot do it alone. How much can you acquire if you are doing it alone? Do you have any trustworthy friends who have time and energy? Ask them to help you acquire Treasury bonds. We pay them 100 RMB a month!” Feng Yu said.

Li Shiqiang felt the salary was too high: “100 RMB?” I am only earning slightly more than 80 RMB a month!”

“Brother Li, you also mentioned that you still have to work. Where can you find time to do this? You can’t be skipping work every day. Hire them to help you go door-to-door to acquire Treasury bonds. The rules are what we had discussed earlier. Higher price for those bonds that are maturing in three months, same price for those bonds that are maturing in less than a year and for bonds that are maturing more than a year later, we offer 95% of the bond value.” Feng Yu said.

“Ok. There is a motor factory dormitory behind my house. There are many seventeen to eighteen years old teenagers there. These kids are jobless, and all they did was to loiter around. I will let them collect these bonds. If the salary is 100 RMB, they will certainly take up the job.” Li Shiqiang replied excitedly.

Li Shiqiang had started working for less than a year, and his position is right at the bottom. He didn’t expect that he can lead a team of people just by doing some small business.

“Ok, Brother Li. Ah, ah, ah ~ Sister, don’t snatch the phone. I have not finished.”

Chapter 14 – School

Feng Danying and Li Shiqiang whispered sweet nothings for five minutes, and then Feng Danying passed the phone to Feng Yu, telling Feng Yu to get 10,000 RMB back.

Both of them had chatted for so long but didn’t mention the 10,000 RMB? Feng Yu then asked Li Shiqiang to remit 10,000 RMB back. Although without this, 10,000 RMB will let them earn lesser, the impact is not significant.

Hearing this, Li Shiqiang felt there are risks. So, he also withdrew 5,000 RMB. In case something unexpected happens, he will not lose all his money.

Back home, Feng Yu told his parents that their savings had increased by a few thousand, and Li Shiqiang will remit 10,000 RMB back. They can receive the money within three days, and there should not be any delays for big Aunt to buy tractor.

What about the rest of the money? The rest of the money, of course, is still with Li Shiqiang. This business makes more money than farming.

Feng Yu even tried to persuade his parents to stop farming. Just by trading Treasury bonds, they can make at least a few hundred thousand a year. Agriculture is too tiring and doesn’t earn much.

But his parents refused. Firstly, Feng Yu is still attending school in the village. Secondly, if this business fails, at least they still have land and the family will not go into poverty. Thirdly, they are used to life here and does not want to move.

The beautiful picture painted by Feng Yu had slightly moved his parents. He told them that they are able afford to a few houses at any location in Bing city, own a brand-new car soon. Even if this business fails, they will still hold those Treasury bonds, which will mature in a few years.

Luckily, Feng Yu had been persuading clients to invest in his past life. Many people, especially farmers with little education, are willing to invest more if they believe that they can make a large sum of money. Feng Yu also saw his colleague con some retirees to invest in highly risky investments. When these retirees lost money, his colleagues would just push the responsibility to these retirees. Feng Yu really despise such people.

Once they receive the 10,000 RMB, his mother immediately remit 5,000 RMB to Big Aunt and save the rest.

One week later, Feng Danying returns to Bing city. Li Shiqiang had already contacted her internship hospital. The Deputy Dean of the hospital is his father’s old comrade-in-arms and promised his father that his future daughter-in-law will definitely able to carry on working at the hospital after the internship.

Feng Danying had only brought 30 RMB with her to Bing city. If she needs money, she can just get from Li Shiqiang. Anyway, Li Shiqiang is holding on to almost all of Feng’s family savings.

During this time, Feng Yu is grounded at home to study. Feng Xingtai had threatened Feng Yu that if he is unable to enter a high school in Bing city, he will break his legs!

As such, Feng Yu stayed at home and did revision obediently. He had almost forgotten his physics, chemistry, and biology. Luckily for him, he can learn faster than a typical student.

Wen Dongjun had only come to look for him twice. This is because each time he visits, Feng Yu will start pestering him with physics questions.

Feng Yu’s parents are very pleased with Feng Yu’s attitude. This child is working hard, and his foreign language is also excellent. He can definitely get a place in Bing City high school and university in the future.

After the Lunar New Year holidays, school begins.

Feng Yu lives on the farm. Although it is not too far from the town, it still takes him more than half an hour to reach on a bicycle. As his family can afford, he chose to live on campus.

On the first day of school, Feng Xingtai fire up his tractor. Today, 19 students from the village will go to school in town, and they will be riding his tractor.

Everyone is carrying their beddings in sacks, and each of them has a wooden suitcase containing their clothes.

The schools, like government organizations, have a rest day once per week. The students can choose to stay in school or go home.

The tractor cart is full of people. Many others are going to town to run errands.

Every year, the villagers take turns to send people to and fro the town. This year is Feng Xingtai’s turn. Feng Yu is thrilled because he can sit in the driving area and not suffering in the cold like everyone else.

Of course, Wen Dongjun, as the leader’s son and Feng Yu’s good friend, also gets to sit in the driving compartment. It is more than -10 degrees Celsius now.

Less than 20 minutes, they reached, and some passengers alighted.

Feng Xingtai then goes to primary school first. Feng Yu and the rest of junior high school students, help those students whose parents did not come, carry their luggage to the dormitory.

Seeing his son so eager to help a small boy carry his luggage and spread the beddings, Feng Xingtai feels satisfied. ”See, my son is help and fast, just like me.” He thought to himself. But in reality, he does not do any housework at home. Everything is done by his wife.

Half an hour later, Feng Xingtai brought the junior high school students to their school.

These Junior High School parents did not accompany them. They are old enough to take care of themselves. They help each other unload their luggage and carry it to the dormitory.

The dormitory is a three-story building. The third floor is reserved for females, and the males stayed on the second floor. The teacher’s dormitory is on the first floor.

Feng Xingtai carried the sacks of beddings, and Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun only carry their own wooden luggage.

Looking at the other students struggling to move their luggage, Feng Yu felt relieved. Fortunately, this time, it is his father’s turn to send these students. His father is a great help.

There are eight students in a dormitory room. The students are separated according to their grades and class. So, Feng Yu is assigned to the same dormitory with Wen Dongjun, and Wen Dongjun sleeps on the lower bunk under Feng Yu.

Everyone in this dormitory is from the same class but are from 3 different villages.

Their village is the first to arrive, but these two did not unpack their luggage. Once everyone comes, they will have to clean up the dormitory.

After locking up the dormitory, they went to other dorms to find other children.

There is nothing delicious at the school canteen. Feng Xingtai brought all the junior high school students from the same village out for lunch. Anyway, there are only seven of them.

They drove to a small restaurant and ordered a table full of dishes. The lunch cost less than 20 RMB.

Feng Xingtai left after paying the bill. Wen Dongjun, the little leader, wiped his mouth and said: “Let’s go to the video lounge later in the afternoon. Who is going?”

Chapter 15 – Video Lounge

During this era, it is very boring at the dormitory. There were no mobile phones, internet cafes, and even television. Other than going to classes, the students will be hiding in their dorms playing poker.

Ever since a classmate told them that there is a video lounge near the school, watching videos at the video lounge became their favorite past time.

In Feng Yu’s village, there is a movie theater. But it opens only on special festive holidays and the films there were shown are all domestic films which are not popular. Instead, the theater is used for events like town hall meetings and other functions.

Feng Yu had also gone to the theater to watch several films before. But it was organized by the school. He clearly remembers a classic line from one of the movies: Learn science, and you can travel around the world without fear!

If one really wants to watch a real movie, the video lounge is the place to go. There are a 17-inch color TV and three to four rows of seats. The tickets cost around 10 cents RMB for three hours, which is almost about two movies.

Feng Yu and his classmates had been to the video lounge several times before. It was during the weekends when the farms were busy with harvesting, and they did not go home. Everyone supported Wen Dongjun’s suggestion as they have just started school, and everyone still has their pocket money.

Seeing the enthusiastic look on everyone’s face, Feng Yu also decides to go along. This is the era of Hong Kong martial arts and crime films. Of course, the God of gamblers series had even just begun to become famous.

Many of Hong Kong’s classic old films are hard to find on the internet now. But in this era, you can find almost any title at the video lounge.

At the video lounge, almost 80% or more are Hong Kong films. The remaining are European and American, Southeast Asia, and other regions’ films. There are also domestic films which no one watches.

The video lounge plays three movies in the day and two at night. Those movies shown at night are not suitable for children.

This is not the most profitable source of revenue for the video lounge. The most profitable is the rental of videotapes. With improved living conditions, some households own video cassette player. Very few people choose to buy videotapes. After watching the videotape once, the videotape is basically useless. As such, people decide to rent it.

When Feng Yu and his friends entered the video lounge, the third movie is just beginning. It is a classic Hong Kong film, “A Better Tomorrow.”

Everyone rushes to the front row after paying for the ticket. It is closer to the TV, and they can see more clearly. The lounge owner sat at the door, reading a “Dragon Tiger Gate” comic. The owner had watched these movies at least dozens of times, and he has absolutely no interest at all.

Feng Yu bought five cents worth of melon seeds and share with everyone else. Although he had watched this film several times, he is still enjoying it.

The door opened, and a gust of cold wind entered the room. Feng Yu glanced over, and three seventeen to eighteen teenagers entered.

“Fuck. The first day of school and we are made to do the cleaning. I am not doing it. Let the others go and do the cleaning.”

“Hahaha, let’s get two bottles of wine to drink at night.”

“Night? We will go out in a while to grab a bite. We can continue to watch movies at night. Those movies screened at night are more interesting than this.”

Those three chatted while paying. The video lounge owner tore a 1 cent sized homemade ticket with timings from a clip and let them in.

“You guys, go to the back row!” One of the 3 teenagers shouted.

Wen Dongjun raised his head, look at them, and ignore them. They had come first why should they go to the back row.

“Fuck, I am talking to you, little bastards! Are you all deaf?”

Wen Dongjun stood up: “We came first, why should we give up our seats? You all can choose to go sit at the back or go somewhere else!”

“Eh? How dare you talk to me like that? You are itching for a beating, right?”

The video lounge boss looked up: “Don’t make a fuss here. Keep quiet and watch the video, or you’ll be kicked out.”

Those who opened up video lounges in this era are mostly gangsters. Otherwise, if some troublemakers came, they are not able to chase them away.

“Brother Wang, don’t stop me. I will teach this little bastard a lesson!”

“If you all want to fight, go outside. You all can’t afford to pay if you damage the things in my shop.” The video hall boss, Brother Wang, obviously knew these three boys and can’t be bothered with them.

Feng Yu looked over. Shit. If a fight is to break out, they will be at a disadvantage.

Even if there are seven of them, these three teenagers are older, bigger, and fitter than them. It will not end well. But if they bow their head to these three boys, who knows how these teenagers are going to bully them.

Feng Yu looked at the age of these three boys and thought of what they said just now.

He can confirm that these three teenagers are not working and most likely are from the farm vocational school!

Feng Yu thought of a way to deal with these three.

“My uncle is director Xu of the Vocational School academic office. The three of you are from vocational school?” Feng Yu stood up and said with an attitude similar to the guy in the “My father is Li Gang” saga back in his previous life.

“Director Xu? Which director Xu?” One teenager asked. He is apparently a bit frighten, but he is not sure if this boy is scaring him.

“Xu Lianflu, Director Xu. How many Director Xu do you have at Vocational School?” Feng Yu asked.

“Sorry, we do not know that you are Director Xu’s nephew. These are all your classmates? It was a misunderstanding. We are just joking. Brother Wang, give us 10 bottles of soda.”

The soda came, and the three teenagers gave Feng Yu and his classmates a bottle each. The three teenagers then sit at the back quietly.

This director Xu will be transferred to the farm’s High School as the headmaster two years later, so Feng Yu knew him. In this era, the tuition fee for Vocational School is not cheap, and Directors of the Academic office have the power to expel the students.

If the three of them had fought with the nephew of a Director of the academic office, even if they are not expelled, they would be given demerit points. They would lose the chance to work at any farms after graduation if they have any demerit points.

Feng Yu’s other friends do not know Feng Yu so well, but Wen Dongjun knew. Absolutely bullshit! But it was nice to scare these teenagers, and they even treated them to a bottle of soda each.

After watching two films, Feng Yu they all stood up and prepared to go back to school. Everyone should have arrived at the dormitory. They can go back to the dormitory and play poker or chat about the exciting things that happened during the winter vacation.

“Brother, you are leaving? Let’s go for a drink at the bar at night, and we can return here to watch videos. My treat. The videos shown at night are more interesting.” One of the teenagers said.

“No, we have to go back to school. There will be teachers checking the dormitory in the evenings.” Feng Yu replied.

Although Feng Yu is interested in watching the videos shown at night, he will not watch at his current age. Moreover, watching with these teenagers. But Wen Dongjun is enticed by the offer. Boys at their age are interested in these videos, but they don’t have the opportunity to watch.

“Xiao Yu, let’s stay and watch,” Wen Dongjun plead.

Feng Yu hurriedly shook his head and whispered: “Let’s go now. There will be many students from Vocational School at night, and it will be easy for them to find out we are lying. They will surely kill us.”

Wen Dongjun left reluctantly with Feng Yu. But on the way back to school, Wen Dongjun kept pleading with Feng Yu. They can go to another video lounge, and they won’t meet those teenagers again.

Feng Yu sighed. This impulsive youth.

“You guys! Stop right there!”

Chapter 16 – The real Director Xu

Feng Yu turned back. It was those teenagers from the video lounge. Fuck! They saw through my lies.

“Run!” Feng Yu shouted.

All seven of them ran towards the school. Those three teenagers would not dare to touch them once they enter the school.

“Fuck, catch them! They deceived us!”

The three vocational school teenagers are chasing Feng Yu as they run desperately in front.

After Feng Yu left the video lounge, the three teenagers met with a few schoolmates, and among them, there is really a relative of Director Xu. The three teenagers found out from this schoolmate that Director Xu only has two other brothers and does not have any sisters. If he has no sisters, how can he have a nephew?

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun can run fast enough to escape, but the other five are not as fast. They were caught after running for about 100 meters.

This trouble is started by Wen Dongjun, and Feng Yu is the one who had tricked them. If both of them escape by themselves, they won’t be able to return to the farm and face their fellow villagers.

“Let go of them. I am the one you are looking for!” Wen Dongjun said. He is a quite loyal friend.

“Ok. I had not wanted to do anything to them, but they had drunk my soda.”

“I will pay for that soda!” Feng Yu said.

“Ok fine. But we can still afford to pay for those sodas. Since you are willing to compensate us, then give us 1 RMB for 1 bottle of soda. A total of 10 RMB. If not, don’t blame us for letting our fist do the talking!” One of the teenagers said.

Shit. A big bottle of soda only cost five cents. They want 1 RMB for it? This is clearly extortion!

The other children certainly can’t afford to give them 10 RMB, but Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun have the money in their pockets.

“Let them go first, I will give you the money!” Said Feng Yu, biting his teeth.

“Yo, you are wealthy. OK, they can go now. But we still want to go drinking later, and we do not have enough money……” The teenager said.

From one look, these three teenagers knew that these two kids are from wealthy families. So, why not get more money from them since they can cough up 10 RMB without blinking.

“You’re robbing us. You can go to jail for robbing!” Wen Dongjun shouted.

“Robbery Who saw that? Do you have proof? You all volunteered to compensate us.” The teenager replied.

“Hahaha, I say they owe us this money. It is perfectly natural to pay their debts. You guys, empty your pockets now.” The other teenagers laughed.

These three teenagers intend to take every single cent from them!

Not far from them, a few junior high school students walked towards Feng Yu’s direction. But once they saw Feng Yu and his friends were stopped by these Vocational School teenagers, those students turned and ran away.

These vocational School students are always smoking, drinking, and fighting. If they get too close to them, they might get involved and get beaten!

When Feng Yu wanted to refuse, the three teenagers out folding knives from their pockets and waved them in front of his face.

“Hurry up, we still need to go for a drink. Do you want to bleed instead?” The teenagers asked.

Other than Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun, the other students took out their money from their pockets and pass it over. Some had handed over 1 RMB and some a few cents.

The teenagers waved their hands, the five of them hesitated for a while and ran off as fast as they can. Feng Yu also can’t blame them. It is usual for children to be timid.

Feng Yu is thinking of how to keep his money and get away from these teenagers.

Feng Yu is not sure if those five friends are going to ask for help from their teachers. The school is only a few hundred meters away. The teachers might still be able to save them if they rush over on bicycles.

“You two, what are you waiting for? You want me to help you?” One teenager said.”

“I am not giving you!” Wen Dongjun said.

Slap！

Before Wen Dongjun can finish his sentence, he received a slap on his face.

Feng Yu’s eye twitched. The feeling of resentment grew more rooted in his heart. Now, Feng Yu does not want to escape, but instead, he is thinking of ways to teach these teenagers a lesson!

“You dare to hit me? My father is the leader of the sixth state farm!”

Slap！

Wen Dongjun received another slap on his face.

“Are you lying to me? Leader? Why don’t you say your father is the officer? You two little brats, still trying to trick us? Gangzi, Dazhuang, check their pockets.” The teenager shouted.

Feng Yu look apologetically at Wen Dongjun. He forgot that in this era, a villager leader is not a low position and has some authority.

If Wen Dongjun had mentioned his father in the video lounge, they might have gotten away. But instead, Feng Yu lied to them and was exposed. Now, these teenagers do not believe Wen Dongjun.

“Stop. I will take out my money myself.” Feng Yu suddenly changed his attitude and start panickily digging his pockets. As a result, he dropped all his money on the floor. A total of 17 to 18 RMB.

“You should have done so earlier. What about you? Hurry up.” One teenager said and turned to Wen Dongjun.

Wen Dongjun looked at them with anger and took out his money unwillingly. Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun and thought to himself: “This expression is fantastic!”

Feng Yu suddenly sat on the ground and hold on to one of the teenager’s leg, after the teenagers picked up the money. Feng Yu then started crying loudly: “How can Vocational School students bully us? How many times do I have to be rob by you?”

“What are you talking about? Taking money from you is giving you face. Let go of me!” The teenager said while trying to get Feng Yu off his leg.

Feng Yu used the teenager’s leg movements and roll around on the ground, looking very pathetic.

“Giving them face by taking their money? Who taught you this!” A voice boomed from the back of the teenagers.

“Fuck. Who are you to meddle? Xu … Director Xu?” One teenager shouted.

The three teenagers were dumbfounded. When did Director Xu director appear? How come they did not notice him?

At this moment, they saw Feng Yu’s eyes shining brightly. Feng Yu is still rolling about on the ground, crying loudly. But there was not a single tear.

Son of a bitch. This boy trick us again!

No wonder he had no hesitation when he took out his money. Also, the things he said are directed to Director Xu. Shit. Now we have been caught red-handed. Must find a way to bluff our way through. The teenagers thought.

“Are you three from the motor car class? How many times have you all been doing this? Don’t try to run?” Director Xu asked.

The teenagers gave up thinking of escaping. They have been identified, and there is no way they can escape. If they anger Director Xu furthermore, they might be expelled and then will be killed when they return home!

“It’s the first time. Really. This is the first time.” The teenagers said.

“Nonsense! This is the fifth time I have been robbed. You can ask him how many times he has been robbed?” Feng Yu shouted.

Wen Dongjun also understands the current situation. Now they have a backer. He pointed to his face and said: “See, they beat us so badly. Last year, they robbed me six times. This year, school just started, and they are here to look for me again. Even I gave them my money, they still beat us.”

Director Xu looked at Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun’s pathetic look with twitching eyes. He must really discipline these Vocational School students and make sure they will not do it again.

“Come over here. I am Xu Lianglu, Director Xu of the Academic Affairs Office. Don’t be afraid and tell me everything. I will help you punish them!”

Chapter 17 – Top student?

One hour later, Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun left the Vocational school’s office with tens of RMB. This is also because of Feng Yu’s magnanimous attitude. He is “willing to forgo” some of the money they robbed from him. Otherwise, according to the amount Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun said, they would be carrying at least a hundred RMB more each.

“Hahaha. Xiao Yu, you are so smart. How did you know that person is Director Xu, you have met him before?”

“I’ve seen him before from a distance. Consider those three teenagers unlucky. Director Xu will be giving them demerit points, and they have to reflect and apologized in front of the whole school. Next time, these teenagers will be running from us when they see us.”

“Yes. If they dare to bully us again, I will go to director Xu, and they will certainly be expelled! Although they have demerit points, they still have the opportunity to enter the army. If they were expelled, they would have to spend their whole life farming! Those few slaps I return them, are really enjoyable. My hand now still hurt!” Wen Dongjun said excitedly.

Feng Yu insisted that they had been robbed. It was only after Director Xu pleaded for those teenagers and agree to Feng Yu’s conditions, Feng Yu changed his statement.

Feng Yu’s condition is to return the beating they received to the teenagers. Feng Yu, mercilessly gave them three kicks and Wen Dongjun slapped them till their face turn red.

They happily return to their school and return the money back to the other five students. Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun only explain that Director Xu just happened to pass by and helped them.

At the dormitory, they played poker till light’s out and carry on chatting about the interesting things that happened over the New Year holidays.

Before falling asleep, Feng Yu wonders if his brother-in-law’s business is going smoothly. They will have to wait for one more month before they can reap the profits.

Early next morning, Feng Yu was waked up by Wen Dongjun. They have to go to the school canteen for breakfast. If they are late, there won’t be any breakfast left for them.

Feng Yu wondered: “Why school starts at 7 in the morning? Why can’t school change to 9 to 5?”

Sitting in the classroom, Feng Yu watches the group of fifteen, sixteen classmates sitting straight with their hand placed properly on the desk. He wanted to laugh, but someone grabbed his hands and put it on his desk.

Li Na, who is sitting beside Feng Yu, is a study committee member. Not only she has to watch over Feng Yu’s studies, but she also has to make sure Feng Yu comply with school rules.

The first class is Russian. Feng Yu yawned. He can’t help but want to sleep. The teacher’s Russian is not considered good but is still not bad. However, it was very dull for Feng Yu. Besides, his Russian is better than the teacher.

“Feng Yu, Feng Yu. The teacher is calling you.” Li Na poked Feng Yu, waking him up.

“Feng Yu, what’s the matter with you? This is the first day of the new semester, and you are not paying attention. Do you still want to go to high school?” The teacher asked.

Feng Yu replied: “Teacher, I already know what you just taught.”

The rest of the students laughed. Although Feng Yu’s studies are not bad, he is not considered a top student. How can he say he knows everything the teacher is teaching? Russian is not an easy language to pick up. Who dares to say that he has already mastered the language?

“Really? Then you translate this sentence for me.” The teacher said.

“The great proletarian revolutionist Lenin said: morality can help mankind to reach a higher level, so men would be free from the exploitation of labor.” Feng Yu translated the sentence. Why are they writing these in textbooks?

The teacher looked at Feng Yu, surprised. Did this kid prepare beforehand? He had yet to explain this sentence.

“You translate the next sentence,” The Teacher said.

Feng Yu correctly translated the next five sentences. The teacher and the rest of his classmates were shocked. To the teacher’s surprise, Feng Yu even crack a joke in Russian, but, other than the teacher, no one else understands.

The students are all whispering among themselves. It seems that Feng Yu’s Russian is more fluent than the teacher. What did he do during the holidays? How did he improve so much?

“Sit down. Even if you are good in Russian, you cannot be proud and cannot sleep in class.” The teacher said.

After class, Wen Dongjun came up to Feng Yu: “Xiao Yu. I didn’t realize that you are so good in Russian!”

“Actually, my Russian have also been so fluent, but I just didn’t want to show off before.” Feng Yu said.

“Feng Yu, how do you read this word, and what does it mean?” Li Na, not wanting to lose to Feng Yu, pointed to a Russian word to test him.

“трактор. It means a tractor. If there is anything you don’t understand, you can ask me.” Feng Yu replied.

Li Na was initially the best in Russian in the class. Not only is she in the school committee, she is also the Russian class representative. Now, Feng Yu had overtaken her in Russian.

Looking at Li Na’s angry look, Feng Yu smiled. Did I shatter this little girl’s confidence? From her eyes, she is not accepting defeat.

The other students now think that Feng Yu must be studying during this winter vacation. If not, how can he improve so much? Only Wen Dongjun knows that Feng Yu did study. But Feng Yu only studied physics and chemistry. He had never seen Feng Yu picking up a Russian book.

The students now see Feng Yu as someone good at studies. Many of them have hints of envy and worship in their eyes. But not for the proud Li Na, she vowed to let Feng Yu know who is better in studying in the upcoming exams.

That morning, Feng Yu easily to cope with the Russian, Chinese, biology, and politics lessons. Russian is needless to say. Chinese, he is also far ahead compared to other students. The understanding of 40 years old is much better than those in the teens.

It is only the classical Chinese who gave Feng Yu headache. If he were to encounter such questions in exams, he would give up.

As for politics, as long as you write good things about the government, nothing can go wrong.

Li Na’s unwilling to lose confidence slowly turned into despair. Feng Yu’s progress is too high. She can’t catch up with him! She had been studying hard during the winter holiday. Why the gap is so big?

“Feng Yu, did you go for tuition during the winter vacation?” Li Na asked.

“Yes, Dongjun helped me.” The Feng Yu nodded.

“Dongjun?” Li Na angrily turned her head away. Wen Dongjun’s results are similar to Feng Yu. Only slight above average. How can he turn Feng Yu into a top student? Liar!

As the morning passed, all teachers know that Feng Yu had suddenly become a genius.

“Mr. Sun, can’t tell that Feng Yu of your class is brilliant.” One teacher said to Teacher Sun.

“Right. Why are there so many good students from your class? There are only mischievous students in my class, and I wonder how many of them can enter high school.” Another teacher said.

“I can tell that Feng Yu will take first place in his grade. Teacher Sun had uncovered another promising student.” The teacher continued.

The teachers were all chatting and praising Feng Yu. Teacher Sun is confused. If not for Feng Yu visiting him in Bing city during the New Year, he doesn’t really have any impression of Feng Yu.

But as the form teacher, he knows which student is better in the studies. Feng Yu can only be considered above average. He still needs to work hard if he wants to go to high school. How did he become a top student over the holidays?

Since everyone is praising his student, he gladly accepts.

In the afternoon, it is Teacher Sun’s math lesson. To test what other teachers say is correct, Teacher Sun deliberately called Feng Yu to answer the question.

Feng Yu is dumbfounded after seeing the question on the blackboard. He had learned higher math before and also practiced on algebra problems during the winter vacation for a few days. There shouldn’t be many questions that can baffle him. But he had forgotten that junior high school mathematics is divided into algebra and geometry. The question on the blackboard is now a geometric problem.

“I’m sorry, Teacher Sun. I don’t know how to answer it.” Feng Yu bowed his head. He can feel the surprised look of all his classmates.

Mr. Sun frowned. This is a simple question. Then he called Li Na to answer. Li Na quickly answered the problem and gave Feng Yu a proud look before sitting down.

Li Na thought to herself: “Didn’t you study? Didn’t all the teachers praise that you are smart? So, you also have questions that you do not know how to answer?”

In the next three consecutive questions, Feng Yu is called up to answer. But he is unable to answer even a single question, and Li Na got all the three questions correct easily.

Every time before sitting down, Li Na would give Feng Yu a proud look and raise her chin higher.

The other students also began to whisper. Feng Yu also not so smart after all. I can even answer this problem!

The following class is physics. Feng Yu is called up again, and he still can’t answer any questions. Li Na did not wait for the teacher to call her, stand up and answered the questions. So, Feng Yu is weak in physics too.

The same happened for chemistry class. Feng Yu is called up to answer questions, and he got it all wrong.

The other students start to laugh at Feng Yu. Feng Yu had turned from being a top student in the morning to a last student in the afternoon.

Chapter 18 – Rich man

“Look, that is Feng Yu from class two. He acted like he knows everything in the morning, but in the afternoon, the cat is let out of the bag. I think it is difficult for him to go to high school. Most likely he will be admitted to Vocational School.” One student said.

“Really? This afternoon our class teacher still asks us to learn from Feng Yu. So, this Feng Yu is selective in his subject. If he failed his math and physics, which high school will not want him!” Someone replied.

After school, Feng Yu walked calmly from the classroom to the canteen, and then back to the dormitory. Along the way, many students are pointing at him.

Feng Yu can’t be bothered with them. He carried a small bag and slowly walked to the dormitory management teacher’s door.

Knock, knock, knock!

“Mr. Xiong, I would like to use the phone.”

“Use the phone? Is there any emergency? Remember to hang up after two rings and wait for the other party to call back. This way, it is cheaper.”

Feng Yu smiled and did say nothing. He watched Mr. Xiong unlocked the wooden box, containing the telephone, and started dialing.

“Hello, Post Office. Who would you like to speak to?” Someone answered.

“I am looking for Li Shiqiang. My name is Feng Yu.” Feng Yu replied.

Seeing Feng Yu’s call got through, Mr. Xiong stared hard at him. The cost of answering phone calls is 20 cents per minute, and the calling party costs 50 cents per minute. This kid’s family is wealthy and allows him to spend money like this.

“Hello? Xiao Yu? Is this about the Treasury bonds? I tell you, this week alone, we had made a few thousand.” Li Shiqiang said excitedly, trying to keep his voice down.

“Calm, Brother Li. It is only a few thousand. Wait for another two months, and you will be earning tens of thousands. When that time comes, you won’t be able to stop smiling.”

Feng Yu said these casually, but Mr Xiong, who was sitting on a chair, pricked up his ears. “What? One month can earn up to 10,000 RMB? What are they doing that can let them earn so much? One-month earnings are equivalent to more than his 10 years’ salary!”

What does the child’s family do?

Feng Yu then continued: “That’s good. Are those you hired trustworthily? Set a target on how much to acquire for each of them. If they can push the price down further, don’t care. Let them keep the difference. It’s March soon. Calculate their salaries and give them before the month ends.”

“They only worked a few days in February, and we have to pay them now? We can just pay them everything at the end of March.” Li Shiqiang felt that this is unnecessary. How can he pay them when they had not even worked for one month? Li Shiqiang replied.

Feng Yu shook his head. This Li Shiqiang can’t think out of the box and just stick to the rules. This is a way to motivate workers. How can Li Shiqiang be a leader in future?

“Brother Li, didn’t I told you to promise them that their salaries will be paid out at the end of the month? If some of them had acquired a lot of bonds, give them 5 or 10 RMB as incentives. Although they had not worked for one month, it is still month-end. We will give them their salaries now, and they will be working harder next money. March is a critical month for us. We must change all our cash to Treasury bonds!” Feng Yu said.

“Ok. Then I will give them their salaries based on how many days they had worked at the end of the month.” Li Shiqiang replied.

“Brother Li, don’t forget to count the weekends. They also worked during the weekends. Also, give everyone an incentive of 5 RMB.” Feng Yu reminded Li Shiqiang.

“It’s fine to count the weekends, but why are we giving them incentives?” Li Shiqiang asked.

“Brother Li, this is to keep them motivated. This way, they will be working harder, and furthermore, their job is tiring.” Feng Yu answered.

“That’s true. Going door-to-door in the cold is indeed hard work. All right, I will listen to you. Oh, yes, I bought a new coat for you, and I had sent it to your school. You should be receiving it in two days.” Li Shiqiang said.

“Thank you, Brother Li. Take care of my sister, and don’t let her work too hard. Let her know that good days are coming soon.” Feng Yu replied.

The two chatted for a while. Basically, it was Feng Yu giving some instructions regarding some minor details, and Li Shiqiang listened. After hanging up, Feng Yu smiled. This brother-in-law treats everyone so well. Must let him and his family have a good life!

“Teacher Xiong, how much is it?”

Teacher Xiong looked at the wall clock. Oh my god! This phone call actually lasted 16 minutes!

Fifty cents a minute that will be 8 RMB. Does this kid have 8 RMB?

But if Teacher Xiong doesn’t collect from Feng Yu, he will have to pay for Feng Yu at the end of the month. His little salary cannot afford to pay for Feng Yu. But it was all his own fault. If he had not been so engrossed in Feng Yu’s conversations, he would have reminded Feng Yu.

“Child, didn’t I told you to hang up after the phone rang and keep your conversation short? Why did you talk so long on the phone? It cost 8 RMB in total. You go back and inform your family?” Teacher Xiong said, with a sullen face.

8 RMB is not a small sum of money. If this child’s family knows that he had spent so much for a phone call, will they give him the money?

Teacher Xiong never expects Feng Yu to just say “ok” and took out 10 RMB and pass to him.

“Teacher Xiong? Teacher Xiong? My change?” Feng Yu asked.

“Is this money for you to buy meal tickets? If you give me this money, what are you going to eat?” Teacher Xiong asked Feng Yu.

Feng Yu took out a stack of meal tickets from his pocket and showed to Teacher Xiong: “My meal tickets are all here. Should be enough for more than a month.”

Teacher Xiong opened his mouth full of astonishment. How wealthy is this child’s family to give him so much spending money? This child is just wearing regular clothes, and there is nothing special. How come he is spending money this way?

Teacher Xiong’s expression suddenly became serious: “It is not right to steal from home!”

Feng Yu is getting frustrated. It is not a good thing for a teacher to be too responsible. Everything seems suspicious to him.

“Teacher, my parents gave me these monies to spend. We have a 55 horse-powered tractor and a 512 harvester (a machine to harvest soybeans, wheat, etc.). We had earned quite a lot.” Feng Yu said with a “my family is fucking rich” expression.

Teacher Xiong sighed. So, his family is really from home. In this era, to own a 55 horse-powered tractor can already let one earn a lot of money, and with a 512 harvester, it can bring in at least tens of thousands RMB.

“Ok. But you shouldn’t be spending your money this way. Don’t make such long phone calls. This is your change of 2 RMB and hurry back to your dorm.” Teacher Xiong said.

Where the money comes from? Of course, it was from the three Vocational School students. Feng Yu had already spent his money from home, on meal tickets.

Feng Yu took out some sweeten haw sheets (a type of preserved fruit snacks) and “Big White Rabbit” sweets from his pocket for Teacher Xiong and thanked him for his concern.

Teacher Xiong kept the snacks and sweets. He intends to take this home for his children.

Feng Yu did not return to the dormitory but went back to the classroom for self-revision. In this era, self-revision in the evenings is voluntary. Most students who come for self-revision are those that are hardworking and wanted to be admitted into high schools. As for those who want to go to Vocational School will be playing poker in the dormitory or making snowman outside.

“Li Na, how do you do the question? Can you teach me?” Feng Yu asked.

Li Na glanced at Feng Yu: “Didn’t you tell me that you are a genius in the morning? Didn’t you know everything? Why are you still asking me?”

The little girl is having resentment over what happened in the morning. But Feng Yu still have a killer move. He took out his snacks and put it on the table.

“I am good with Russian but not the rest of the subjects. I will give you one big white rabbit sweet or one sweeten haw sheet for one question.” he said with the attitude like those tyrants in films: “one piece of clothing for one stack of cash! I have nothing else except for money!”

Li Na looked at the big White Rabbit sweets and said unyieldingly: “You don’t try to bribe me!”

Feng Yu laughed to himself: “I can clearly see you swallowing your saliva.”

“How can this be bribery? This is friendship between classmates. You help me with questions that I don’t know, and I share my snacks with you. This is friendship.” Feng Yu argued.

“Well, if that’s the case, which question you do not understand? Bring it over, let me take a look.”

Before looking at the question, Li Na took the wrappers off a big white rabbit sweet and pop it into her mouth, smiling happily.

Chapter 19 – The news is out

Because of the snacks, Feng Yu can get Li Na teach him every day at noon and evenings. With his concentration, Feng Yu’s improved by leaps and bounds.

As time passes, Li Na also volunteered to help him even when Feng Yu does not have snacks. When Li Na has snacks, she also shares with Feng Yu.

Teacher Sun is very surprised. The former Feng Yu is not someone who likes to study. How has Feng Yu changed so much recently and studying so desperately? Is he stimulated by something? Also, Feng Yu and Li Na are together every noon and evening. Are these two children dating?

As such, he had a talk with Feng Yu. One should study hard, but studying too hard can have detrimental effects. But Feng Yu assured Teacher Sun that it is because he wanted to enter the high school in Bing city, and he is working hard because of this goal. He also explains that he exercises to relax every day.

When Teacher Sun heard Feng Yu’s explanation, he just reminded him to take care of himself. Since this child has his own ideas and goals, Teacher Sun is willing to let him try. Furthermore, he also felt that Feng Yu and Li Na are just studying together and nothing else.

The results for their monthly test is out. Feng Yu for full marks for Russian, language, and mathematics. His political studies’ scores are not low too. He had also passed his biology, physics, and chemistry.

“Feng Yu, with your results, you enter the district and county high schools. But if you can improve your sciences, you have the chance to be admitted to the high schools in the city!” Li Na looked at Feng Yu’s results, and she seems to be happier than Feng Yu.

“It’s thanks to you for tutoring me every day. But I still can’t compete with your grades.”

Li Na raised her head upwards and said proudly: “Do you think you can surpass me with just working hard for a few days? But starting today, you have to help me with Russian. We are friends.”

Feng Yu snapped his finger: “No problem!”

When the first month test results are sent to the parents, Feng Xingtai is over the moon. The teacher said that his son has the chance to enter high school in the city.

But Feng Yu have a terrible habit. He is spending too much money. Every week when he comes back, he would ask for money. The amount he spends in a week is more than what he used to spend in a month.

But Feng Yu told his father that Li Shiqiang had made tens of thousands RMB with Treasury Bonds this month alone. Compared to these, the money his son spends is peanuts!

For many nights, Feng Xingtai sighed emotionally. It was the right choice to send his son to school. Not only is he so good with his foreign languages, he still knows how to make money. His son is a genius! The Feng family has a genius!

……

“Brother Li, is there any news yet?” Feng Yu asked.

Since the beginning of April, Feng Yu had been calling Li Shiqiang every day. Did he remember wrongly? It is not this April?

What Feng Yu fear most is that his rebirth might have caused a butterfly effect and a lot of things might change. If the Treasury bonds are not allowed to trade, then he really doesn’t know how to make money so fast and safe.

Feng Yu also does not know how to make those future inventions. In his past life, he only likes to play with mobile phones. But one does not need to know how to manufacture mobile phones to play with mobile phones.

If the butterfly effect really happens, then he can only follow Li Shiqiang’s method to go door-to-door to collect some Treasury bonds and earn those errand money. How long will it take to make millions when can he start his big get rich plans?

“I haven’t read today’s newspaper yet as I had been busy all day. You wait a while, and I will call you back in 10 minutes.” Li Shiqiang replied.

Teacher Xiong had already gotten used to Feng Yu making calls every week. Someone from this kid’s family is doing business in the city and earning big money. But for the past three days, it is a bit unusual. Feng Yu is making calls every day.

“Feng Yu. Come and drink a glass of water. These few days, you have been making calls every day. Did something happen at home?” Teacher Xiong asked.

“Thank you, Teacher Xiong. Nothing happened. It’s only my brother-in-law’s business.” Feng Yu didn’t want to explain much. It will be troublesome to explain, and also, what they are doing is not illegal.

“Oh, it is normal for couples to quarrel. Even your parents can do nothing. Why are you worrying?” Teacher Xiong said.

Feng Yu: “……”

This Teacher Xiong’s imagination is too vivid. It is hard to explain it to him.

Ring, Ring, Ring ~ ~

Feng Yu grabbed the phone before Teacher Xiong.

“Is this Feng Yu?” Li Shiqiang asked.

“It’s me, Brother Li.” Feng Yu replied.

“There is news. Shen city will start trading next Monday, followed. Bing city and other six cities will also start within the next 10 days. Treasury bonds can really be traded officially!” Li Shiqiang tried to speak softly, but his excitement was too much to conceal.

“Brother Li, lower down your volume. I can hear you. Monday, you take a day off and go to Shen city to look at the price of the Treasury bonds. If the price is high, you can sell everything. But if it is at face value, use all your money to buy everything.”

“Xiao Yu, if the price at Shen city remains at face value, then would Bing city price rise?” Li Shiqiang is still worried. Now he employs seven or eight young men to help him collect treasury bonds, and he can earn a few thousand a month.” Li Shiqiang asked

“Not necessarily. But there will surely be cities in the country where prices will rise. When that happens, we can just go to the city with the highest price to sell. What we need to do is just to ask around for the prices in every city.” Feng Yu said.

“Rest assured. I have friends working in the bank. I will go and apply leave from my supervisor and will change my weekend shifts with my colleagues.” Li Shiqiang told Feng Yu excitedly.

“Well, buy the tickets in advance and go on Sunday night. You can reach there on Monday morning. Once you reach, take a taxi. Taxi is not too expensive, fast, and safe.” Feng Yu reminded him.

“Xiao Yu, are you coming with me? I do not trust others, and I am carrying a big bag of money. I’m afraid I will fall asleep, and there are many pickpockets on the train!” Li Shiqiang said.

Li Shiqiang is scared. He will be carrying more than a hundred thousand RMB worth of cash and Treasury bonds. If it were stolen, he would surely commit suicide.

Feng Yu also knew that in this era, there are many pickpockets on the train. If the money and the Treasury bonds are lost, then Feng Yu’s dream of having an economic empire would be postponed for many years.

“OK, then you buy two train tickets. I will go with you!” Feng Yu said.

After hanging up the phone, Feng Yu paid and ran out to the field. In the field, he is shouting and screaming out in joy!

The opportunity has finally come! Feng Yu can make a few thousand a day by trading Treasury Bonds. He can easily make a few hundred thousand and even millions!

That weekend, Feng Yu did not go home. He let Wen Dongjun pass a message to his parents that he will be staying back at school to study, and he will only come home next week. He also told Teacher Sun that he has to visit a critically ill relative in Bing city, and he will be back before Tuesday.

It was a bumpy two hours ride on the bus early in the morning before Feng Yu reached Bing city. Once alight, he saw Feng Danying waving at him.

“Sis, what are you doing here?” Feng Yu asked.

“If I don’t come, how can you find your way? Brother Li has to work today, and he asked me to pick you up. You can really trouble people. Now your Brother Li is earning a few thousand a month with the Treasury bond business, yet you are still troubling him.” Feng Danying complained while helping Feng Yu carry his bag.

“Sister, you don’t understand. You wait and see. We will make more than that in the future!” Feng Yu retorted.

“More than that? Just keep bragging. I heard from mom and Dad that you got good results recently at school. So, this time I will not tell our parents. Go and play in Shen city for a day and go back to school after that. If you can’t make the grade for high school, I will not help you when mom and dad beat you to death!”

“Sister, let’s have a bet. Next month, we can earn more than 50,000 RMB. You believe?” Feng Yu asked.

Chapter 20 – The price rises

Feng Yu and his sister had lunch together. In the afternoon, they went to the bank to check the price of Treasury bonds in Bing city. The price of Treasury bonds is still selling at face value. 100 RMB for a 100 RMB bond!

After dinner, Feng Yu and Li Shiqiang boarded the train. Their bags are full of treasury bonds.

Feng Yu lets Li Shiqiang sleep first while he stands guard. When Feng Yu can’t endure his sleepiness, he woke Li Shiqiang up and went to sleep.

As a result, Feng Yu slept until daybreak. Li Shiqiang, on the other hand, smoked for seven hours and didn’t even drink a drop of water did not even go to the toilet.

“Brother Li, why don’t you wake me up?” Feng Yu asked.

“Never mind. You can sleep a while more. Anyway, I can’t sleep too.” Li Shiqiang said with his two red eyes. There is 200,000 RMB worth of Treasury bonds in his bags. How can he fall asleep?

At eight o’clock in the morning, these two appear at ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) main entrance. Seeing both are carrying a backpack each, the security guard kept looking at them.

“Comrade, do you buy treasury bonds here?” Feng Yu asked.

The bank staff look at Feng Yu, surprised. Shen city is the country’s first city to allow secondary trading of Treasury bonds. The banks have been informed way in advance and are prepared for Treasury Bonds trading. However, they did not expect that their first customer is someone in his teens.

“Of course, we have received instruction to allow the trading of Treasury bonds.” The bank staff replied.

“How much is the 100 RMB bond?” Feng Yu hastily asked.

The staff replied with a puzzled face: “100 RMB treasury bonds is 100 RMB, of course.”

Crash ~ ~ ~

Feng Yu seems to hear the sound of his own heartbreaking.

How is this possible? The price of Treasury bonds has not risen? Is it because this is the first city to allow trading of bonds, so the price had not gone up yet?

“What about the 500, 1000, and 5,000?” The Feng Yu asked again.

“500 RMB for 500 RMB bonds, 1000 RMB for 1000 RMB bonds, and we do not have 5,000 RMB bonds as of now.” The bank staff replied.

Feng Yu felt that the bank staff is looking at his as if he is an idiot. Feng Yu sat down on the chair dejectedly. Did he remember wrongly? Or, is it because of his appearance and history has deviated from its original path?

“Xiao Yu, it’s fine. Even if we can’t make from selling to the bank, we can still earn from the interest. I had checked it. Most of the bonds are maturing in two to three years.” Li Shiqiang patted Feng Yu on his back, trying to comfort him.

“Brother Li, write down the telephone of this bank. Let’s go to CCB (China Construction Bank)!” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu is not willing to accept this. There must difference in the prices between banks. He does not believe that the prices are also so low at other banks.

But after going to China Construction Bank, the answer they got is precisely the same.

After taking down the bank’s telephone number, they went to the next bank.

This year, China had begun to focus on the development of commercial banks. In addition to the “big four” banks (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China), other banks, such as Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank, Everbright Bank, etc. had open branches in many cities.

Feng Yu went personally to every bank to find out how much is the price of the Treasury bonds.

But the price of bonds at the banks are the same. The bonds are trading at face value!

After coming out of the last bank, Feng Yu and Li Shiqiang sat on the steps. They felt tired and powerless.

“Brother Li, give me a cigarette.” Feng Yu said.

“Forget it. Xiao Yu, let’s go back. We had spent quite a lot on taxi today. Maybe the price will rise in future.” Li Shiqiang comfort Feng Yu.

But Feng Yu seems zoned out. He kept thinking if he had remembered wrongly or history had changed. He can’t remember when that guy in his past life began making money from trading bonds. He only remembers it was after all seven cities began trading.

Did he act too early? Is the demand for Treasury Bonds is still too low and result in the price not rising?

Just then, several people drove over to the bank.

“I’m telling you, it’s better to buy Treasury bonds than savings in the bank. It is the same as a fixed deposit but with higher interest. Also, it is to support nation building.” One man said.

“But didn’t the Treasury bonds were sold out few days ago? Did the government release more bonds?” Another man asked.

“No. Have you forgotten where my son works? According to the papers, Treasury bonds are allowed to trade. That is, if you need money, you can take the Treasury bonds to the bank and sell to them. Very convenient. You think about this. Those that need money will come and sell their bonds, and we can buy those bonds. Most importantly, you don’t have to wait long, and you can get five years of interest in a year or two!” The first man replied.

Feng Yu’s eyes were following these people. These are the people who got the news and wants to buy treasury bills.

Since there are buyers, then the price of the bonds will fluctuate. If there is an oversupply, the price will not change. But what if there is more demand?

“Brother Li, let’s have lunch first and then come back!” Feng Yu said.

Li Shiqiang wanted to say something but sighed. “Why is he so stubborn? It is also normal for the schoolteacher to be wrong. With the lads he hired to collect the Treasury bills, they can still earn a lot in a month.” Li Shiqiang thought to himself.

Li Shiqiang had no appetite, but Feng Yu finished three big bowls of rice.

Li Shiqiang thought Feng Yu was joking just now. After lunch, Feng Yu really went back to the bank to inquire about the price. But the bonds are still trading at face value.

This time there was not a hint of disappointment in Feng Yu’s eyes. It seems that his self-confidence is back.

They found a small shop with phone, and Feng Yu made calls to several banks asking about the price of Treasury bonds.

“Xiao Yu, forget it. Let’s go back.” Li Shiqiang tried to persuade Feng Yu.

“Just a while more.” Feng Yu replied.

Until the last one, Feng Yu still had not given up.

“Xiao Yu, we have gone to Bank of China twice today, and the price of the bonds will certainly still be at face value.” Li Shiqiang said.

Feng Yu shook his head and dialed the last number on the paper. The bank will be closing in one hour. Please rise. Please go up!

“Is the Treasury bonds’ price up now?” How much is 100 RMB bonds worth?” Feng Yu asked.

Li Shiqiang sighed, went aside, and lit a cigarette. After Feng Yu hang up, he will buy the tickets back to Bing city.

“How much? 100.2 RMB?” Feng Yu asked.

After hanging up the phone, Feng Yu pumped his fist in the air.

The price had gone up! It really went up!

It turned out he was right. The Treasury bonds had risen by several percentage points. It should be because it is the beginning now, so the price did not rise. After some time, the price will be much higher.

“Brother Li, go back to the Bank of China!” Feng Yu said excitedly.

Bank of China is the first bank to adjust the price of Treasury bonds because many people are buying and fewer people selling. The bank staff informed their higher management, and they were told by their management to comply with the market. As such, they allow prices to rise.

When Feng Yu took out his 200,000 RMB worth of the Treasury bonds, the bank staffs were stunned. The little boy had so much treasury bills!

Chapter 21 – The excited Li Shiqiang

On the surface, this transaction had earned less than 400 RMB. However, many bonds are bought below the market value. They had actually made close to 10,000RMB.

Unfortunately, with so much money on hand, this 10,000 RMB did not really surprise Li Shiqiang. This is the result of two months’ worth of hard work and had used 200,000 RMB as capital. Worrying for so many hours on the train and earn less than 10,000 RMB is not really worth it. He would collect and redeem those maturing bonds. There is more money, less tiring and also closer to home.

Not to mention, this trip had cost quite a sum for both of them. Li Shiqiang felt that there is no need for them to come again. If Feng Yu can get more foreign currencies, it would be better. Exchanging foreign currencies is more profitable.

There are fewer people on the train when they return. Feng Yu and Li Shiqiang are sitting in the lower bunk. In front of them is roast chicken, peanuts, etc. but both of them are not drinking.

“Brother Li, let me ask you. When you acquire Treasury bonds from people, are most of the bonds, 5 RMB, and 10 RMB bonds? But the Treasury bonds still have 50 RMB, 100 RMB, 500 RMB, 1000 RMB, and 5,000 RMB. Why did you only receive five RMB and 10 RMB?” Feng Yu asked while tearing into a chicken leg.

“I am not sure too. It seems that lesser people are willing to sell bigger face value bonds.” Li Shiqiang said while throwing a peanut into his mouth.

“You guys are earning by running errands. The five-year interest for a 10 RMB bond is 2 RMB. You give them 1 RMB extra, and they will sell it to you because they are lazy to go queue at the bank. But for 100 RMB bonds, the interest is 20 RMB. Do you think they are still willing to sell the bond to you and forgo 10 RMB interest?” Feng Yu asked.

“Then I can also make 1 RMB out of it. For 100 RMB bonds, I can offer them 119 RMB.” Li Shiqiang argued.

Feng Yu shook his head: “This is tying up capital, you know? Cost, you understand? We should try to make full use of the money in our hands and let it circulate smoothly. For example, we can earn 1 RMB with 11 RMB, and now you are trying to earn 1 RMB with 119 RMB. It may seem that you have acquired a large number of bonds, but do you think our profits have gone up?”

Li Shiqiang scratched his head. It really seems to be the case. But according to what Feng Yu said, buying and selling bonds between these two places is also not reliable. For less than 400 RMB, he got to work so hard and still got to take leave from work.  It is not cost-effective.

Feng Yu can tell that Li Shiqiang is having some doubts. He waved the paper with the bank’s telephone numbers and said: “Bing city will start bond trading soon. When Bing city starts trading, you call these numbers, and you will understand.”

Once again, Feng Yu stand guard before midnight, and Li Shiqiang takes the second half of the night. When Feng Yu wakes up, it was already time to get off.

Feng Yu did not take the bus back to his school. Li Shiqiang let him hitch a free ride with the Post office’s car, and Feng Yu safely reached the school before noon.

Back at school, Teacher Sun asked Feng Yu about his relative. Feng Yu just reply that his relative had recovered and so, he came back.

In the next few days, Feng Yu just attends classes. After class, he would stay back in school and ask Li Na to help him with his studies. He, in return, help Li Na with Russian.

After one week, Bing city started to allow the trading of Treasury Bonds. Li Shiqiang remembered what Feng Yu said and dialed the Shen city’s Bank of China number.

“Hello, how much is the price of the Treasury bonds now? How much did you say?” Li Shiqiang eyes opened wide, and his breathing became fast.

He could not believe his ears and start calling all the numbers on the paper.

The price had risen up a lot!

Now in Shen city, the price for a 100 RMB Treasury bond had become 100.5 RMB. It is only a few days, and the price had risen so much.

If he brings 200,000 RMB worth of Treasury bills there, he can make 1000 RMB per trip. This business is a lot easier and faster compared to him acquiring those small-denomination treasury bonds!

Li Shiqiang immediately took leave from work and brought all the money to the nearby ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China). At the counter, Li Shiqiang shouted: “I am here to buy Treasury bonds. I will buy whatever you have!”

“Young man, do you know how much Treasury bonds we have? 100,000 RMB bonds! How much do you want and how much can you buy?” The branch manager said. He really looks down on those who are arrogant because they have some money.

Li Shiqiang can’t be bothered with the manager and shouted: “Then I will buy all 100,000 RMB treasury bonds!”

“What did you say?” The manager jumped up due to the shock. He was holding a teacup, and hot tea spilled onto his hand, but he could not feel anything at all.

“I said I wanted it all.” Li Shiqiang bangs on the counter and places his backpack on the counter.

Everybody turned and look at Li Shiqiang. This guy is carrying 100,000 RMB cash with him?

When Li Shiqiang took out ten bundles of hundred RMB notes, everyone in the bank is staring at him with mixed thoughts. Some envied, some are jealous, and some are suspicious.

“Closed those counters and help to count these cash.” The manager said.

This era, there are money counting machines in the banks, but it is not very accurate. As such, most banks are still counting manually.

Long queues formed in front of other counters. At Li Shiqiang’s counter, there are many bank staff busily counting the cash. Even the branch manager stayed there. He offered Li Shi Qiang a cigarette and lit for him.

“Young man, What are you working as?” The branch manager smiled and asked.

Li Shiqiang looks at him warily: “I am in leather goods business. I had made some money and wanted to support the country. That’s why I am buying these Treasury bonds.”

To make money from leather goods, one has to go to Southern China. This young man must have just come back from the south. The branch manager looked at Li Shiqiang carefully and thought to himself: “This young man really has good luck.”

10 minutes later, the counting of the cash was completed. Li Shiqiang also checked the Treasury bonds and kept them into his backpack.

He had brought 200,000 RMB with him. He had only bought 100,000 RMB of bonds here. He needs to find another bank to buy some more bonds.

He went to another bank, and once again Li Shiqiang is the center of attraction and the object of envy and jealousy!

Li Shiqiang took the night train to Shen city alone. He remembered Feng Yu’s instruction to get an upper bunk ticket, as it is harder for things to be stolen from the top bunk.

Although there are very few people on the carriage, Li Shiqiang tried to endure the sleepiness, but in the middle of the night, he fell asleep.

He was startled when the conductor woke him up. Seeing his bag is still in his arms, he quickly checked the bag, He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his Treasury bonds.

Once Li Shiqiang sold all 200,000 RMB Treasury bonds, he bought a few buns and rushed back to the train station. He immediately boards the return train back. Not stopping for even a minute.

It was already evening when he reached Bing city. At the railway station, Li Shiqiang called Feng Yu at his school. After 10 minutes, Feng Yu called back. Li Shiqiang shouted excitedly: “Xiao Yu, 100 RMB had become 100.50 RMB. This trip, I had earned almost 900 RMB. We are going to be rich!”

Feng Yu replied in a relaxed voice: “Calm down, Brother Li. These are just small amounts. In the future, there will be more to come!”

Chapter 22 – Li Shiqiang is quitting

When Feng Yu and Li Na were studying hard at school, a storm is brewing in Li Shiqiang’s home.

“What did you say? You want to quit? You brat! Do you know how hard I beg the Post office manager for you to enter? I had to give gifts and treat them to dinners, and now you want to resign?” Li Shiqiang’s father scolded. He really wanted to give Li Shiqiang one tight slap.

“Dad, do you know how much money I’ve made in the past few months? Tens of thousands! How much am I getting a month at the Post office? Not even a hundred RMB. I am earning a few years’ salaries in a month. Why should I carry on going to work? All I did was to take a few days off work, and the leader scolded me in front of everyone!” Li Shiqiang said.

“You only took a few days off work? Don’t think I don’t know that you only attended four days of work last month. Which leader can tolerate for so long? If it is not for me, you would be fired long ago!” Li Shiqiang’s father said.

“Then fire me. I don’t want to work there anyway. There is no future doing those mundane tasks every day!” Li Shiqiang shouted.

“Shiqiang, how can you say this? What’s wrong with the job? The work is not tiring and also stable. In the future, the government will assign houses too.” Li Shiqiang’s mother also tried to persuade him.

“Mom, because of those houses? We can afford it now. We can afford any houses anywhere in the country, including the capital!” Li Shiqiang said.

“Are you trying to rebel? You don’t even want to listen to me?” Li Shiqiang’s father asked.

“Dad, Xiao Yu said people need to be forward-looking. We got to see the potential developments of what we are doing. Many people might be envy of my job at the Post office now. But if we can buy a big house and a car, more people will envy us. It will be more meaningful that way!” Li Shiqiang replied.

“Rubbish! I know what you have been doing. You are going to Shen city to sell Treasury Bonds every day. You are just speculating!”

“What I’m doing is just normal trade. Xiao Yu said this is following the state’s regulations. We are allowed to buy and sell Treasury bonds freely, and we don’t even need to be taxed from this. You remembered Uncle Zhao’s son Chuanxi? He bought a big colored television last year, and you were telling me how capable he is. Now, we can also afford one. We can afford a bigger and better imported color TV!” Li Shiqiang said.

Li Shiqiang kept saying Feng Yu said this, and Feng Yu said that. The veins on Li Shiqiang’s father is about to burst. Someone in his twenties listening to a kid?

This trouble soon spread to the Feng family. Just happened, Feng Xingtai had just finished the sowing of their land. He went to Feng Yu’s school and brought him to Bing city. He had heard from his future in-laws that Feng Yu had instigated Li Shiqiang to resign from his iron rice bowl job.

“Dad, I didn’t have anything to do with this matter. I really didn’t encourage him to resign.” Feng Yu said weakly.

Of course, Li Shiqiang was scolded by his leaders because he had kept taking leave from work. But it was also Feng Yu’s fault as he was the one who asked Li Shiqiang to keep traveling to and fro from Shen city. Feng Yu, however, is not willing to be the scapegoat, and he will never admit it was his fault.

“Shut up and apologize to your Uncle Li when we reach there. Your uncle Li is a leader. Didn’t you see that he can drive a car and during holidays, many people have to give him gifts? If your Brother Li followed his footsteps, he can also be a leader in the future.” Feng Xingtai said.

Feng Yu replied: “What’s so good about being a leader? Uncle Li is only a deputy chief. Car? We can also afford to buy one now. During holidays, Uncle Li also had to give gifts to his superiors. You look at Brother Li now. He is earning more than his last year’s salary in a month now. This is what I call a winner!”

Feng Yu stopped trying to persuade his father after seeing his father’s angry stare at him. Anyway, he had accumulated enough funds. So, he can let Brother Li stay low for a while. With the funds, Feng Yu is also able to earn more himself.

Everyone is present at Li Shiqiang’s home. Not only the Li family, Feng Danying is also there. Everyone sat there silently. But see Feng Xingtai came in, Li Shiqiang’s parents still stand up to welcome him.

But after Feng Xingtai sat down, the room became silent again. Feng Xingtai stared at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu is feeling helpless. His thinking is more than 20 years ahead of everyone else. However, no one can understand his genius thoughts.

Slapped!

Feng Xingtai had mercilessly slapped the back of Feng Yu’s head. Everyone is waiting for this kid to apologize, and yet he is still sitting there daydreaming!

“Boy, don’t you know your sister’s happiness is going to be ruined in your hand? If Li Shiqiang is going to resign because of your instigation, how can his family agree to your sister’s relationship with Li Shiqiang?” Feng Xingtai thought.

Feng Yu’s sad look at the father stood up and said: “Uncle Li, Auntie Li, it is all my fault. I shouldn’t have asked Brother Li to join me doing this business. Brother Li, you should go back to work. You should be able to afford a car and a house if you spend your life working hard.”

At first, Feng Xingtai thought that his son is apologizing properly. But why is it he felt that something is not right.

“Besides, Brother Li, you had also made about 10,000 RMB from the money you took from home. These should be enough. It is more than what you will get after working at the Post office for ten years. My teacher said one should be contented with what they have. It is not our business if other people can earn a lot of money. When they live in big houses and watched big color TV, we can still live in small houses and watch black and white television.” Feng Yu continued.

“When you and my sister have children, let him study hard.  In the future, he can also work at the Post office. Even though the salary is little, but the work is relaxing. When other parents drive their kids to school, we can use bicycles to send them to school. Men should not be courageous and strive to be successful. We should be just working hard quietly towards “the four modernizations” (modernization of agriculture, industry, national defense and science, and technology). Let the others do those glory stuff.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu is used to doing brainwashing and persuading work, otherwise, how is he able to get so many investment customers. He is confident to change the minds of anyone in this room within five minutes of talking.

Li Shiqiang’s parents frowned and thought to themselves: “Yes, what future will Shiqiang have if he carries on working at the Post office? If he really has children in the future, it will just be like what Xiao Yu said. Other people are sending their children to school by car, his son is still riding bicycles to send his kids to school.”

This is the first time his son had his own ideas. Is it really fine to kill his ideas? If he is to go back and work at the Post office, can he work at ease?

Li Shiqiang’s father suddenly asked: “Shiqiang, what do you think?”

Li Shiqiang heard his father asking, and he raised his head: “Dad, I had thought about this carefully. I want to earn money. Earn a lot of money and let you and mom have a good life. I will work hard and not let Feng Danying suffered. Didn’t the great one said: “We must develop a socialist economy and allow some to get rich first.” Why can’t I be one of those who get rich first?”

Li Shiqiang’s father looked at his son, and the in-laws, and finally sighed: “Ok, I will talk to your leader to approve a one-year no-pay leave for you. If you can’t make it, then you go back to work at the Post office and don’t think so much. If you really can make it, then you can quit your job at the Post office.”

Chapter 23 – News from Brother Ki

With Li Shiqiang’s father giving in, the Li family’s storm is finally over. Feng Yu knew very well that Li Shiqiang will never go back and work at the Post office.

Feng Xingtai grabbed Feng Yu by his ears and brought him back to school. He promised Feng Yu a beating if he is unable to get into the city’s High schools.

Feng Xingtai didn’t ask Feng Yu much about the money. Feng Yu had thought Feng Xingtai had forgotten about it. But Feng yu did not know that Li Shiqiang had already told Feng Xingtai that Feng’s family money is now about 200,000 RMB!

Anyway, these are treasury bonds. Even if they did not sell, they are also able to earn from interest, and the interest is more than keeping the money in the bank. Feng Xingtai knew that their family can have such a drastic change, is because Feng Yu had attended school and understands a lot of things. As such, Feng Yu must continue going to school and eventually attend university.

When Feng Xingtai returns home, he also brought an imported 19-inch color TV set back. He saw the colored TV at Li Shiqiang’s house and really wanted to get one too.

Feng Xingtai returned home with the colored TV, and Zhang Muhua complained about him being a spendthrift. But once, she knew that their savings had become 200,000 RMB, she wanted to buy a refrigerator.

Feng Yu’s performance in school had gotten better with each passing month. His progress is undeniable from the results of April and May’s tests. Teacher Sun concludes that with Feng Yu’s result, he should be able to enter the best high school in Bing City if Feng Yu maintained these types of results.

As for Feng Yu and Li Na spending so much time together in classroom, he pretended he didn’t see. These two are improving together, and they should be praised.

Just when Feng Yu is buried in a mountain of books, he received a call from Li Shiqiang.

“What? Brother Ki is coming to Bing city again?” Feng Yu said.

Li Shiqiang had received Kirilenko’s Russian Telegram, and he paid a teacher to translate for him. He still remembered that they had earned a large sum of money from Kirilenko, and they must not miss this chance.

However, this will disrupt Feng Yu’s studies, and Feng Xingtai will not be happy. But if Feng Yu is not around, they will need to hire a translator, and the translator does not know how to do business.

“When will he arrive?” Feng Yu asked.

The day after tomorrow. He will be staying at the International Hotel.” Li Shiqiang replied.

“Ok. You need to get a jeep on that day to show that we are rich people. I will reach Bing city in the evenings on the day after tomorrow. We will talk more when I reach.” Feng Yu replied.

“I’ll drive straight to pick you up the day after tomorrow. I had already borrowed the jeep.” Li Shiqiang said.

Feng Yu smiled. Li Shiqiang is smarter than he imagined. After trading Treasury bonds for a few months, his horizon had broadened and is more holistic when it comes to working.

……

“What? You going to take leave again? It will be the midterm exams soon. This will be the final preparation for the final exams. What’s the reason for taking leave this time?” Teacher Sun asked.

“Teacher Sun, my brother-in-law has some connections in Bing city. I am going to meet with his friend, who can guarantee my place in Bing city’s best high school.” Feng Yu replied.

Sure enough, this lie is very useful. Teacher Sun finds it hard to reject Feng Yu’s leave application when he heard that Feng Yu is going to Bing city to meet with his connections. Although Teacher Sun does not like these types of actions, every one is making use of their connections for their future.

When Teacher Sun saw Li Shiqiang parked the Jeep at the main gate of the school, Teacher Sun completely believed Feng Yu. Feng Yu’s brother-in-law is really someone capable. So young and he can drive a Jeep.

The Jeep at the school gate attracted the gaze of many students. Some that knew Feng Yu, even went up to touch the Jeep.

Although it is common to see this kind of Jeep in the city, in the countryside, only the leader can sit in these types of vehicles. Even their principle still commutes by bicycle to and fro from school.

“Feng Yu, the mid-term exam is coming. Where are you going?” Li Na asked while pulling Feng Yu aside.

“I am going to look for connections to enter high school. I might even be able to enter high school without taking any exams. By the way, you want me to help you as well?” Feng Yu asked, deliberately trying to annoy her.

Li Na almost cried. She had thought that Feng Yu had changed for the better. But he is still an opportunist who wants to reap benefits without putting in any effort.

“I will take the exams myself and don’t need your help!” Li Na said, and she turned to run back to school, crying.

Feng Yu opened his mouth and wanted to call her. But forget it. He can explain to her later when he returns. Now Kirilenko is the most important thing.

“Hello, we are looking for Mr. Kirilenko from Moscow.” Feng Yu stood at the International Hotel reception.

“Young man, you know Kirilenko? Why are you looking for him?” the Hotel receptionist asked.

“Sister, you can make a phone call to him. He asked my brother-in-law to come. My brother-in-law is outside in that car.” Feng Yu said.

The receptionist made a call. Once the call is connected, she exchanged a few words in Russian telling the other party that someone is looking for him.

Kirilenko came downstairs and saw Feng Yu. Kirilenko is pleased to see him and gave him a bear hug, carrying Feng Yu’s feet off the ground.

Feng Yu is almost out of breath due to Kirilenko’s hug. Feng Yu struggled to get out of the embrace. Once freed from Kirilenko’s hug, Feng Yu quickly told him that the jeep is outside, and he knows a place with good Erguotou (Chinese white liquor). They can chat while having drinking.

Kirilenko had a strong impression of Erguotou. The taste is good, and he likes it very much. Hearing Feng Yu’s words, Kirilenko dragged Feng Yu excitedly out to the car.

Feng Yu is still in his teens, and he cannot drink. Li Shiqiang, on the other hand is driving so he can’t drink as well. End up, Kirilenko is the only one drinking.

After half a bottle of wine, Kirilenko’s face began to turn red. Feng Yu chatted with Kirilenko for a while, and Kirilenko told Feng Yu about his family background.

After listening to Kirilenko’s background, Feng Yu had a shock. He didn’t expect Brother Ki had such backgrounds.

Kirilenko’s father is an Air Force colonel of the Soviet Army. Feng Yu had also heard of his name, and he seems to be promoted to a general in future.

Kirilenko also has a brother. His brother is in the army and is also doing well. Kirilenko is also in the military but he is not interested. He only wants to enjoy life.

Because of his father, Kirilenko got a position in the logistic department. He often used procurement as an excuse to travel and pocket a sum of money along the way.

The last time he came to Bing city is for a site visit. During that visit, he brought back a lot of things, and they were well received in Soviet Union. The relationship between Soviet Union and China has just eased, and there were not many trades between both countries.

Some of Kirilenko’s friends had wanted some ham and canned goods, but they have no connections to purchase them. As such, Kirilenko became a representative to come to China to buy these items.

The last Kirilenko met Feng Yu, he saw Feng Yu’s ability. Not only Feng Yu helped him to purchase a lot of merchandise, but he also arranged for the goods to be sent to the airport warehouse. Furthermore, Kirilenko knows that for someone in China to drive a Jeep, it means that someone in the family is most likely to be a government official.

Having authority means that person is capable, and a capable person can help him to purchase a large number of goods. Kirilenko had brought a lot of money this time, and he is prepared to buy in bulk.

In the eyes of Feng Yu, Kirilenko is a golden pig waiting to be slaughtered.

In this era, it is guaranteed to profit from bilateral trade. If Feng Yu had remembered correctly, the two countries would soon sign a series of tax-free trade agreements, but he can’t remember if these agreements had started or not.

“Brother Kirilenko, I have forgotten to tell you something the last time you were here. Just nice you came here now, and I will be straight with you.”

Chapter 24 – Can’t refuse

Kirilenko, who had unknowingly finished a bottle of Erguotou, raised his eyebrows and asked: “What?”

“Brother Kirilenko, I am guilty of cheating you.” Feng Yu said.

“Have you deceived me? What do you mean?” Kirilenko shook his head, feeling puzzled.

“Remember the last time you bought those goods back? In fact, the value of those goods is less than 70,000 RMB, but I told you it is 80,000 RMB. I had thought that you are not coming again. So, I tried to earn a bit. Now, I felt very guilty. I will return you the money tomorrow, and this time, I promise to not earn from your purchases.” Feng Yu said.

Li Shiqiang is still leisurely eating peanuts when he suddenly felt a chill in his spine. It’s June, but why he suddenly felt cold?

He looked up and realized that the talk is not going well. This Soviet Union bear seemed angry, and he is glaring at Xiao Yu.

“I had trusted you, and yet you cheated me? Shouldn’t our friendship be sweet and beautiful, like our countries?” Kirilenko asked angrily.

“We were not friends then. But now, we are friends, and this is the reason why I am telling you the truth. If you don’t want me as a friend anymore, it’s fine.” Feng Yu said, pretending to be sad.

Kirilenko thinks back to his last trip. The goods he brought back previous time only recorded the quantity and no price on the receipt. As such, he claimed that he used 80,000 Rubles and not RMB to buy those goods.

Although he gave some of those goods out as gifts, he still made a lot of money from selling the rest of it. The time, Kirilenko came alone is to prevent others from knowing the exact price of these goods. He wants to earn more so that he can afford to buy a cart of Vodka and drink every day.

If Feng Yu is not here to help him, then the things he bought in China will not be cheap, and he is not able to make such high profits when he returns. He also wats to make this a long-term business. He had even arranged for a train carriage.

No, this Feng Yu must be part of this deal. It is just 10,000 RMB. Compared to what he earned, it is not even 10%. Just treat it as tips for Feng Yu’s hard work. But next time, he will have to reconsider working with Feng Yu.

Kirilenko suddenly grinned, revealing an ugly smile: “What are you talking about? Of course, I still treat you as a friend. You deserve that 10,000 RMB bucks. We are friends, and let’s not talk about that. Let’s discuss the things I wanted to buy this time.”

Seeing this Soviet Union bear smiled, Li Shiqiang felt relieved. Just now, he was worried that if this hairy bear were to hit people, should he fight him? It is not about winning the fight, but Kirilenko is a foreigner, and regardless of the outcome, Li Shiqiang is sure to lose.

Feng Yu also smiled: “Well, since you treat me as a friend, then this time no matter what and how much you want to buy, I will help you get the lowest price. You can also engage a translator to accompanied us the whole trip.”

Kirilenko waved his hand: “No need, I trust you!”

After dinner, Feng Yu was invited by Kirilenko to stay at the International hotel, as Kirilenko wanted to discuss in the evenings. Feng Yu then told Li Shiqiang to pick them up at eight in the morning and also to check with his friend at the sales and marketing cooperative if they have any unsold goods.

“My dear Feng, would you like to try some cigar?” Kirilenko asked.

Feng Yu smiled and waved his hand: “I’m not used to it.”

“You have a lot of guts, I like you. I had brought 300,000 Rubles this time, and I want to spend it all. The ham, canned fruits, candy, etc. are very good, and the handkerchief with flowers are very popular.” Kirilenko said.

A handkerchief with flowers? Those are pillowcases! Forget it, since you all think that those are handkerchiefs, then let those be handkerchiefs. Anyway, you paid, and you can call it whatever you want.

“No problem, you just come with me tomorrow and see what you need. I will help you bargain, and I guaranteed that the price will be favorable to you. But this time you are getting so many goods, how are you bring it back?” Feng Yu asked.

Feng Yu is curious. Shipping by air I too expensive.

“By train. I have a friend who had helped me get a train carriage. So, there is no problem with transport. I am taking the train back this time too.” Kirilenko replied.

Feng Yu can’t help but envy. Having connections means having ways to do things. Kirilenko can get a train carriage just like getting a cabbage from the market.

The two chatted for a while, and came the sound of Kirilenko’s snoring. Feng Yu regrets staying at the International hotel. At least, he shouldn’t agree to be with Kirilenko in a room. This snoring is just like an electric saw.

The next morning, Li Shiqiang picked them up and drove to the sales and marketing cooperative. Manager Su, who had gotten the news of them coming, waited at the door.

“Manager Su, we are here again. Do you have anything good to recommend this time?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes. Honey, canned food, biscuits, powdered milk. If you are getting these in bulk, I can give you a good price.” Manager Su immediately mentioned those unpopular products.

Yes, that’s what Li Shiqiang told them to do. Now Feng Yu wants to build a good relationship with Kirilenko so, he directly translated everything and told the truth to Kirilenko.

Kirilenko is very surprised and looks at Feng Yu. He thought to himself: “Feng Yu is telling me that these things are not selling well and are selling cheap. He doesn’t want to make money? Friend! This type of person is definitely a friend!”

“Yes, I want all this. And this, this, that too. Also, I want those goods I bought the last time. You decide the quantity to match my budget.” Kirilenko said.

“Manager Su, I can help you sell all these biscuits, powdered milk, etc. This time how much free gifts are you giving us?” Feng Yu asked.

“How much do you want?” The manager is a bit annoyed. This kid is too good at bargaining.

Feng Yu looked at the price of all goods and changed everything to 80 percent.

“Impossible. We cannot change the price.” Manager Su said.

“Su Manager, don’t be so inflexible. You are now considered self-employed. You think we don’t know the cost of your goods? Furthermore, we are buying a lot of things this time.” Feng Yu said.

“No matter how much you buy, I cannot agree with this price. The most I can give is 3% of the total price!” Manager Su replied.

“What if we are buying 1 million RMB worth of goods?” Feng Yu, sat on the chair, crossing legs.

“How much? 1 million?” Manager Su asked.

“That’s right. This is a big boss from Soviet Union behind me. This time, he wants to transport a train carriage full of goods back. He will spend at least 1 million RMB. If you are unable to supply us with 1 million worth of goods, no problem. We can go elsewhere. Even if there is not a variety of goods, we can go to a few more places. Also, we can save some money that way.” Feng Yu said.

“No. Don’t go elsewhere. Other places do not have varieties like us. You wait a while. I will make some calls. I promise I will give you enough goods for 1 million RMB.” Manager Su said.

“Manager Su, I will not ask how much you earn from this deal. But shouldn’t you lower the price a bit more?” Feng Yu asked.

“No problem. I will talk to my suppliers. I promise you the lowest price. We will never cheat our brother from the Soviet Union.” Manager Su replied.

Feng Yu turned to Kirilenko and told him that Manager Su is contacting his suppliers. Guaranteed to offer them the lowest price. Feng Yu also emphasizes that he will not be earning a single cent from this deal.

“No, no, no. My dear Feng. I must pay you how about 5%? You have to make sure I buy these things are of good quality, low price, and the quantity.” Kirilenko said.

Kirilenko suddenly got wary of Feng Yu. He doesn’t want money? What if Feng Yu cheated him? No, must give him money, and then sign a contract with him. If Feng Yu cheats him, then he can go to the police!

Chapter 25 – A lovely Kirilenko

Kirilenko insisted on signing a contract and giving Feng Yu a fee. Feng Yu can only “reluctantly” agree and signed the contract. But down in his heart, he is jumping with joy. However, the more Feng Yu said, the more suspicious Kirilenko becomes. They had only met a few times and are not familiar with each other. Why is Feng Yu willing to help him for free?

Sure enough, Kirilenko bite the bait and insisted Feng Yu to accept payments for his service.

After signing the contract, Feng Yu also calmed down a lot. This trip, lasted two to three days and they can earn 60,000 RMB! More importantly, Kirilenko had the intention of doing this business for long term. How can Feng Yu have no other ideas?

In the future, there is a very popular industry which is intermediation services.

An intermediary earns commissions by introducing two parties for business deals. Because there is no goods, there is no cost in this business. It is very suitable for those who had no capital but have a lot of networks. At first, this industry is started by those rich second generations who had a lot of connections. But it soon develops into a striving industry.

To be a good intermediary, one must have a rich source of customers and a variety of goods. Most importantly, he has to know a lot of people.

Does Feng Yu know anyone who does business? No. But from today onwards, he will have a lot of sources for goods and these goods are in demand in the Soviet Union.

In this era, speculation is considered a crime and had not been abolished yet. The planned economy is transiting to a market economy. There are many who are smart but they are mainly from the costal areas. For example, the village secretary of the nation’s number one village, Huaxi Village, had set up a factory producing small hardware even before the government allows.

Later, after the policy had changed, that factor even became a positive model for others to follow.

In Longjiang, where it is near to the borders, there are few who dare to do this line. Feng Yu also did not intend to do such business. What he wanted is barter trade. He will send some domestic goods over to Kirilenko and Kirilenko will send some goods back. With goods in hand, Feng Yu is not considered speculating.

Real speculation refers to the use of opportunity, hoarding of goods, making imitations, manipulating prices and disrupting the market, profiteering behavior. Feng Yu is not doing any of these.

“This. I want more of this more.” Kirilenko said.

Feng Yu looked at what Kirilenko pointed, shocked a moment. “Big White Rabbit” sweets. Kirilenko is a grown up and yet he put one sweet into his mouth. Isn’t that what kids eat?

“This towel, and this scarf. More.”

“I want more of these hairpins.”

“These socks, red color ones, more.”

Feng Yu noticed something. Why are the things Kirilenko wanted are for girls?

“Brother, are you going to open a shop dedicated to women customers?” Feng Yu asked.

“No, no, no. I am selling to the art troupe. The art troupe is one of those that asked me to procure for them and they like these stuffs.” Kirilenko answered.

This Kirilenko is indeed capable. He can even do purchases for their art troupe. Feng Yu is convinced that this trade can be done for a long time and is able to bring in huge profits.

Girls like these things? Feng Yu also bought a red hairpin for Li Na. It seems that Li Na likes red color.

Less than half an hour, Manager Su had contacted all his suppliers and their representatives arrived at the cooperative’s office. Every one is trying to sell their products to Feng Yu at the same time giving Feng Yu a headache.

“Shut Up! I am Mr. Kirilenko’s representative. You all fill up a form first.” Feng yu shouted.

Earlier, when they were photocopying the contract, Feng Yu used a white paper to draw up a form and photocopied more than 10 copies. Now Feng yu is giving each of them a copy.

The form clearly indicates the name of the manufacturer, the nature of the manufacturer, the type of goods, price, quantity, contact number, etc. This is the important step for Feng Yu to bypass Manager Su in future.

“OK. Now I will tell you all the types and quantity of goods. For the price, you all can discuss with Manager Su.” Feng Yu said.

When Feng Yu told them the types and quantity of the goods, Manager Su quickly recorded it down. This deal alone, will achieve his quarterly sales target.

Unfortunately, he did not see Feng Yu keeping all those forms. This might be the last time Manager Su earn from Feng Yu.

After Manager Su discussed with the suppliers’ representatives, he sat down with Feng Yu and talked about the discounts.

They finally agreed at 7% discount which also includes the transportation of goods to the railway station and loading the train. The total price for this transaction is only RMB 1.02 million.

Feng Yu had discussed the quantity with Kirilenko to decide. But after discount, the price is lower than expected and Kirilenko still have a lot of money left.

Feng Yu consulted Kirilenko if he needed anything else. Kirilenko looked around and suddenly stared at the gloves on the counter.

Feng Yu immediately got the message and discussed with Manager Su to clear all his stocks of gloves for 100,000 RMB. Kirilenko bought ham sausages using the rest of his money.

They signed the contract with Manager Su and wrote a receipt the same way like last time. Only the type and quantity of goods are written. The column for price is empty.

Li Shiqiang drove Kirilenko back to the International hotel for his suitcase.

Once back at the cooperative, Kirilenko opened his suitcase and took out stacks of Rubles. Altogether 300,000 Rubles, on the table. When the Manager Su reached out for the Rubles, he was stopped by Feng Yu.

“Manager Su, according to the exchange rate, you still have to return us more than 30,000 RMB. What goods are you going to exchange for with the money?” Feng Yu asked.

Manager Su smiled: “He doesn’t care, what do you care so much?”

“Because I had also signed a contract. I have to obey the law. We will use these 30,000 RMB to get instant noodles. If you are able to give us more, then perhaps next month we will still come back to you to purchase more goods.” Feng Yu said.

Instant noodles are fast selling good. Feng yu saw it in the warehouse but Manager Su did not recommend to Kirilenko. However, there is only one type of instant noodles, “Hua Feng Brand’s” seafood noodles. This is an old brand. This company is still in production till Feng Yu’s rebirth.

“With regards to the exchange rate issue, I had asked them to give us some instant noodles. You just cook these noodles in boiling water for five minutes and you can eat it. If you add a piece of ham sausage, it will taste better.” Feng Yu told Kirilenko.

Kirilenko did not know what instant noodles were, but he was delighted to know that he is getting more goods. He thought that he had used up all his 300,000 Rubles to buy those goods and didn’t expected to have more goods.

It seems that signing a contract with Feng Yu is good. This way, Feng Yu will be more responsible. Because of his future business, Kirilenko decided to give Feng Yu some benefits.

“These are for you.” Kirilenko said.

“No, no, it’s too much.” Feng Yu said while looking at the 20,000 rubles in front of him.

“You deserve it. We are friends and you should not refuse me. I will be coming to Bing city again in future. Please continue to help me.” Kirilenko said.

Feng Yu accepted the 20,000 rubles “unwillingly”. This Kirilenko is really lovely!

Chapter 26 – Registering a Company

Bang！

Feng Xingtai banged on the table.

This son really needs to be disciplined. Skipping classes and now, he still wants to set up a company? He thinks it is so easy to set up a company?

“Dad, don’t worry. We are doing business with Russians. The State is also encouraging us to do business with them. We have the geographical advantage and we have to make good use of it. If not, within two years, those businessmen from the south will come and grab this opportunity and we will earn a lot lesser.” Feng Yu said.

“Money, money, money. All you know is money. Do you intent to stop schooling? Are you still going to high school? University? I let you go to school is for you to have a good future and not earn money!” Feng Xingtai scolded.

“I did not say that I am setting up the company. It is you that will be registering the company and the company is yours!” Feng Yu said.

He would like to register the company himself but registering needs to have an ID card. Feng Yu is less than 16 years old and he does not have an ID card yet. How can he register the company?

“I register the company?” Feng Xingtai asked.

“Yes, trading company. There are such companies in the south now. It is reported in the newspapers every day. The Great one had also encouraged entrepreneurship. It is contributing to the national’s economic development!” Towards people of his parents’ age, it is important to use grand-sounding words.

“Is it?” Feng Xingtai look at his wife, but Zhang Muhua can only shake her head. She didn’t know either.

“Dad, I said before. Stop playing mahjong at night and watch more news. Another thing, this time I go to Bing city is not to play. It is for business. This trip, I earned 80,000 RMB!” Feng yu said.

“How much?” Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua asked.

“80,000 RMB. Only two days. I had also made arrangements with the other party. He will be purchasing another batch of goods some time later. If we want to make money, we must grab this opportunity! Don’t you want to live in a big house? Don’t we want to fetch Grandpa and Grandma to stay with us? Once you agree to set up a company, we can buy a big house, with more than 100 square meters, in Bing City!” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu did not dare to tell them that many rich people live in houses which are more than a few hundreds and even thousands square meters of the house. He knew that his parents will not believe. It’s a long way to go to brainwash them.

“Dad, if you don’t agree, I won’t be able to study in piece. Midterm exams is coming. This will affect my results.” Feng Yu said.

“Then what about our fields?” Feng Xingtai asked.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes: “Hire people. We will stop farming in future. We will rent the fields to others. Whoever wants to farm, let them go and farm. We will move to the city and enjoy life.”

Feng Xingtai turned and look at his wife: “What do you think?”

“I don’t know, you decide yourself.” Zhang Muhua had been shocked by the conversations between this father and son. These two had talked about earning a few thousands at the beginnings to earning tens of thousands. Now they are even talking about setting up a company. She totally cannot catch up with their thoughts.

But she believed that her son, who had go to school, cannot be wrong. Besides, how can her son cheat her.

Hearing his wife’s words and from the look of her eyes, Feng Xingtai knew that his wife really want to live in the city. Feng Xingtai said: “Fine. I will go and register a company tomorrow. If you can’t enter the city’s high school, I will shut down the company.”

Having persuaded his parents, Feng Yu return to school with a peace of mind. It is almost midterm exams and he need to start revision.  Although he has more than 20 years of foresight, but he had only focus on investments and never did other business.

He wants to enter the university and study management. At the same time, know some classmates and recruit some talented ones among them, to help accomplish his dream of having an economic empire.

When Feng Yu is studying hard study, Feng Xingtai came to Bing city with his identity card. Li Shiqiang had heard from Feng Yu and had been waiting at the train station. Using the borrowed car, Li Shiqiang sent his future father-in-law to the trade and Industry Bureau.

In this era, it is simple and fast to register a company. unlike the future, where is it very strict.

Li Shiqiang had already found out the procedures and brought Feng Xingtai to do the necessary procedures. The whole process will take about one day and the company will be officially registered the next day.

“Uncle, come and take a look. This is the office of our Taihua company.” Li Shiqiang said.

Although it is called an office, it is actually a rented warehouse near to the train station. This warehouse had been modified to two stories. The upper story is divided into many rooms which are the office and dormitories.

The company’s first employees were the young men Li Shiqiang hired to collect the bonds. They had stopped collecting Treasury bonds from door-to-door. With the opening up of the Bonds trading, the prices of Treasury bonds had risen. Now, Shen city Treasury bond prices had risen to 101.30 RMB for a 100 RMB Treasure bond.

Just by travelling between Bing city and Shen city, Li Shiqiang is earning more than a thousand a trip.

Feng Yu said that these people are useful. One of them will follow Li Shiqiang to Shen city while the rest will clean up the warehouse.

According to Feng Yu, the warehouse is going to be filled with goods and their salaries will soon to be doubled.

Feng Yu had wanted to have a 1:1 contribution ratio and spilt the company equally with Li Shiqiang. But Li Shiqiang is clear. This company can make money is due to Feng Yu and he is just a runner. So, he rejected Feng Yu’s offer. Furthermore, this time, Feng Yu’s investment is quite big. It involves almost all of Feng Yu’s money. Li Shiqiang is also a bit reluctant to give up on the treasury bond business.

In the end, the company is registered with a startup capital of 200,000. Feng Xingtai accounted for 90%, which is 180,000 RMB and Li Shiqiang accounted for 10%, 20,000 RMB. The General Manager is Feng Xingtai. Feng Yu and Li Shiqiang are deputy managers and others are salesman.

If the Kirilenko had not gave Feng Yu an additional 20,000 rubles, it would be hard for them to continue the Treasury Bond business after taking out 200,000 RMB.

Other than this 200,000 RMB, rent, renovations and other miscellaneous expenses, they still have about 100,000 RMB left to trade Treasury bonds and they would still be able to earn about one thousand per trip.

Feng Yu had discussed with Li Shiqiang. There is no need to be so clear with their initial capital. Li Shiqiang had been busy with the Treasury bonds business and Feng Yu insisted their earnings to be spilt equally.

Li Shiqiang, however, did not want so much. His family had not invested much initially and Feng Yu is the one who had thought of this idea. Feng Yu had also given him some of the profits from the deals with Kirilenko.

If not for Li Shiqiang’s firm refusal, Feng Yu wanted to give him more. But after some time, Feng Yu thought it doesn’t matter. When Feng Yu becomes successful in future, he will not forget his brother-in-law and his family.

When Feng Xingtai heard from Li Shiqiang that Feng Yu had invested 180,000 RMB into the company, he almost fainted.

His son’s business is getting bigger and bigger!

Chapter 27 – Sentiments

In the blink of an eye, it is late June and also the high school entrance exams of Longjiang province.

The exams in this era is not as crazy as the exams in future, where there are parents waiting outside the classroom to pass their kids towels and water. This is especially so for this small farm. There is not much attention to the exams at all.

However, the leaders at the farm and the school knew the importance of this exam. The more students that can be admitted into high schools and vocational schools, the greater the credit is for the leaders and teachers.

Firstly, is the food in the school canteen. There are more varieties and the prices are cheap. Those first years and second years are on holidays. So, there are lesser people at the school and the taste becomes better.

The food gave Feng Yu the biggest impression for this exam.

As for the examination, there is no comparison with the future. In his previous life, Feng Yu had studied till university and after graduation, he got to take the examination for the broker license. There were fierce competitions for every examination. As such, he is unfazed by the atmosphere of the current exam.

The exams went on for three days. Feng Yu felt that he had did well for his exams. The schoolteachers asked them to list the three schools they wanted to enter and Feng Yu listed the three high schools in the city. His first choice is the best high school in the city.

Because of Feng Yu’s influence, their class worked hard during this semester. Feng Yu knew that compared to his previous life, many of his classmates who had entered Vocational school had registered for high schools. Even if they can’t enter the city’s high school, they can also enter the high schools in the rural districts.

“Feng Yu, how was your exams?” Li Na came over and asked. She is wearing the red hair clip Feng Yu bought for her.

“I should do well. Should not have any problem to enter the city’s High School. What about you?” Feng Yu said as he snatched the apple from Li Na’s hands. Feng Yu doesn’t mind Li Na had already bitten the apple and he took a big bite off the apple. Li Na didn’t say anything, she was used to it.

“I should do well for my exams too. How did you fill out your high school list? Let me see.” Li Na whispered. She wants to go to the same high school with Feng Yu, the same university and then ……

Li Na, also filled in the same three high schools as Feng Yu list. Seeing Feng Yu stretching over to see Li Na’s form, she quickly turns over the form.

Wen Dongjun suddenly come over: “Li Na, you and Feng Yu choose the same high schools?”

“How did you know?” Li Na panicked. She was found out?

“I guessed. But now, I am sure.” Wen Dongjun had a “my evil plans had succeeded” look while Li Na blushes.

Feng Yu gave Wen Dongjun a push and said to Li Na: “Ignore him. I am going to the city with Dongjun in two days. You want to join us?”

“Go and play in the city?” Li Na’s eyes brighten up, but she knew her parents will never agree. “I am not going. You two go ahead. I still have things to do.” Li Na said.

There is some disappointment in Feng Yu’s eyes. Both of them had been studying and playing together for the whole semester. Feng Yu also felt Li Na’s attitude towards him had changed drastically from the first time they met. How can Feng Yu not have feelings for her?

Besides, Li Na is very beautiful and is the belle of the school. If she dress up a little, she will definitely be more beautiful.

Rumors of Feng Yu and Li Na dating had spread in the class. But both of them had never admit or denied. Even Teacher Sun knew about this rumor, but he did not object. It is normal for students of their age to start dating as it is part of puberty. Anyway, once they entered high school, they will be separated.

After Li Na left, Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun submitted their list and went back to their dormitory to pack their belongings.

“Eh, what if you and Li Na didn’t enter the same high school? Aren’t you afraid if Uncle Feng found out that you and Li Na are dating?” Wen Dongjun asked while packing.

Feng Yu: “Oh.”

Wen Dongjun said angrily: “What do you mean by oh?”

“Both Li Na and me will surely be in the best high school. Including you.” Feng Yu said.”

“Me? Entering the best high school in the city? Stop joking. The most I can enter is the high schools in the district.” Wen Dongjun knows his own standards. Although he had worked very hard but compared to Feng Yu, the difference is too big.

“Don’t worry, I have my ways. You carry on packing. I will go for run.” Feng Yu said.

Li Na is already waiting at the school’s stadium. Feng Yu comes to the stadium for runs every day and had dragged Li Na along.

But today, Feng Yu did not come here for his daily jogs. He holds Li Na and sits on the field. He then took a small mirror out from his pocket and handed it to Li Na: “My gift for you.”

The mirror is very common, but Li Na likes it very much. She kept looking at her red hair clip on her head from the mirror.

“What do you want from Bing city? I will ask Dongjun to bring it back for you.” Feng Yu asked.

“Let him bring it back? You are not coming back?” Li Na asked.

“I will only be back next month. I have somethings to do in Bing city. Don’t worry about high school. We will surely still be together.” Feng Yu said.

“What if I don’t do well for the exams?” Li Na asked.

“There is no “what ifs”. I had arranged everything” Feng Yu said.

“You arranged everything? How did you arrange?” Li Na asked, not believing Feng yu words.

“Send gifts. The school’s deputy principal is my brother-in-law father’s comrades and my brother-in-law had helped him exchanged some foreign exchange and exchanged some Treasury bonds. My brother-in-law also sent him a few cartons of cigarette and bottles of alcohol. Anyway, you and I will surely be in the best high school in the city.” Feng Yu said casually.

“You gave gifts to the principal? How could you do that?” Li Na said angrily. Entering high schools should be based on individual’s results. If it is because of gifts, then it is not fair!

Feng Yu looked at Li Na. Today, she is wearing a simple pale-yellow skirt with a white lotus embroidered at the edge of the skirt. When there is breeze, the flowers will sway.

Feng Yu at Li Na carefully and Li Na look down shyly. Inside her, she is having some complicated feelings. she is feeling nervous, shy and happy, all mixed together.

When Li Na wanted to ask Feng Yu to not look at her, Feng Yu said: “I was just joking with you. My sister is not married yet, where can I find a brother-in-law? Besides, just by our results, we deserved to be in the best high school in the city.”

Li Na stared at Feng Yu fiercely and then playfully gave him a punch. Li Na smiled and said: “Lotus in the pond next to the hospital should have bloomed. Every summer, I used to go there. It’s really beautiful. You must go there and see it yourself. And yesterday, a big butterfly stopped at the windowsill of my house.”

Li Na talked about those small little things which made her happy. When Feng Yu wanted to reach out and hold her hands, the irritating Wen Dongjun ran over: “Xiao Yu, Unvle Feng is here to pick us up. He is outside the dormitory waiting for us.”

Li Na hurriedly stood up: “Feng Yu, I am going home. See you next time.”

Feng Yu outstretched hand stopped in mid-air and he gave Wen Dongjun vicious stare. Why can’t you appear a minute later?

Li Na returned to the classroom, took her bag and ran to the school. From far, she can see Feng Yu loading his belonging into the tractor cart. She waved to Feng Yu and ran towards her home direction.

Chapter 28 – The lost Wen Dongjun

Wen Deguang came to Feng Yu home in the evenings. He is here to confirm what he had heard from his son. His son, Wen Dongjun, had told him that Feng Yu’s brother-in-law can help him enter the best high school in the city. Feng Xingtai was shocked. That Xiao Li is so capable?

But Feng Xingtai saw his son making eyes at him, and he just went along with it and promised to help Wen Dongjun. After Wen Deguang left, Feng Xingtai’s face changed and took out the feather design Feng Yu.

“I need to find some company. Maybe next year, my sister will be getting married and moved out. I can’t be living alone in Bing City, right? Aren’t you worried?” Feng Yu asked.

Looking at his son’s irritating face, Feng Xingtai really wants to beat him up. But what his son said made sense. He will worry about his son living alone in Bing City if his daughter gets married.

“Can Xiao Li arrange Wen Dongjun’s entrance to the best high school?” Feng Xingtai asked. He didn’t really think that Li Shiqiang is capable of accomplishing it.

“It’s already done. The vice-principal had already instructed the admission officers. Don’t look at me this way. When did your son lie to you?” Feng Yu asked.

“You wet your bed when you were four years old, and you lied that you spilled your drink on the bed. When you were six years old, you broke Mr. Li’s cherry tree, and you lied that it was the wind. When you were eight years old, you …” Feng Xingtai said.

“Come on, Dad. Did you picked me up from the streets?” Feng Yu is speechless. His father is bringing up his dark history and must be stopped.

He is a genius, and he will become a legend. Everyone will be scrambling to learn from him, and there might be people who will be writing a biography for him. His father must forget these embarrassing past. If these are recorded in his memoir, he won’t be able to face everyone!

The next morning, Feng Yu carried a backpack and met up with Wen Dongjun. The pair took a bus to Bing city.

“Xiao Yu, over here!” Li Shiqiang stood behind a group of people, waving his arms.

“Brother Li, this is my childhood friend Wen Dongjun. This is Brother Li, my sister’s boyfriend.” Feng Yu said.

“Good afternoon, Brother Li.” Wen, Dongjun greeted.

“Same to you. Let’s go. The car is in front.” Li Shiqiang said.

When on the Jeep, Wen Dongjun immediately asks: “Brother Li, you can afford a Jeep? Does everyone in the city can afford to buy Jeeps?”

Li Shijiang replied embarrassingly: “No. Only a handful of people can afford to drive in the city. I had borrowed this Jeep from a friend. He is working in the City’s transport department. This Jeep is about to be scrapped. Other than going to the countryside, they seldom use this Jeep. I gave him two packets of cigarettes to borrow it. I heard that they are going to eliminate a batch of vehicles and planning to sell these vehicles off cheaply. I have the intention to buy one.”

Feng Yu’s eyes widen: “Brother Li, the city is going to eliminate a batch of vehicles? Are there any Volga?”

The old Jeep creates lots of black fumes when moving. During winter, it is freezing to stay in this Jeep. But the Volga is different. It is a sedan car.

“There is no Volga. But there are Lada (Produced by the Soviet Union and is from the same factory with Volga. During the ’80s, there are many Lada vehicles. Lada vehicles are also used as Taxi in the capital), and the Santana. The prices are not too high too.” Li Shiqiang said.

“If it is not more than 20,000 RMB, then buy a Lada with the company’s money. You can use it first. But if there are business deals and need to use the car to fetch or send guests, you need to drive them around. Forget about Santana. I do not like that car.” Feng Yu said.

“Didn’t you had other uses for the company’s money? You want to use it to buy a car?” Li Shiqiang asked.

“Don’t worry. Someone will be sending us money soon.” Feng Yu said.

Wen Dongjun heard Feng Yu and Li Shiqiang talking about buying a car. He thought, “What the hell? Buy one if it is not more than 20,000 RMB? That is 20,000 RMB! I had never even seen so much money in my life. Also what company are they talking about?”

“We had reached. The ancestor of this restaurant owner is a royal chef in the Qing dynasty. His mutton dishes are very nice. Both of you go in and order the food first. I will go and fetch your sister.” Li Shiqiang said.

The last time Wen Dongjun came to the city was a few years ago. There are lots of changes in the city. The people here wore very nice clothes, and this restaurant is huge. It is big enough for more than 10 big tables.

“Waiter, I want to order. One Lamb racks, one Double Cooked Pork Slices, one of your special beef, one Eight Treasure Chicken, one Squirrelfish. Well, those are all meat dishes. Give us some radish and four cans of Jian Li Bao. OK, that’s it.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu ordered a lot of dishes in one breath. Both the waiter and Wen Dongjun were stunned. Don’t talk about if they can finish all the food, these dishes are not cheap. The total will cost at least 20 RMB.

Feng Yu saw the waiter staring at him, said: “My brother-in-law drove out to fetch my sister. Hurry and send the order to the kitchen. They should be here when the food is served.”

The waiter looked at the Feng Yu and nodded.

“Xiao Yu, you ordered so many expensive dishes, will your brother-in-law get angry?” Wen Dongjun whispered.

“Doesn’t matter. My brother-in-law has money. You don’t worry. He would get angry if I ordered those cheap dishes.” Feng Yu replied.

Li Shiqiang and Feng Danying arrived at the same time as the dishes were served. Both of them did not mention anything about ordering too much food.

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun did not hesitate and start eating. As they are in their puberty stage, they can eat a lot. But they are still unable to finish all the food on the table.

Feng Yu  chatted with Li Shiqiang while drinking his soda: “Brother Li, Are you still traveling to Shen city these few days?”

“Of course. You let those lads rest, but we still need to give them their salaries. They have been playing poker every day.” Li Shiqiang replied.

There are almost no more Treasury bonds for them to collect door-to-door. What’s left is to trade Treasury bonds between the two cities. Feng Yu had let those lads work at Tai Hua company. But other than cleaning up the warehouse, doing some simple renovations, they had nothing to do.

The amount Li Shiqiang earned from trading Treasury bonds between the two cities is barely enough to cover for the living expenses, food, and salary of those lads.

“Brother Li, they are our future followers. Since I am few a few days, I will train them for a bit. I guaranteed that they will help us earn a lot more in future.” Feng Yu said.

Now Feng Yu require talented intermediary agents. Those that know what goods are in demand, able to sell off products at high prices, know what type of products sells the best each location and where to get cheapest products.

One month’s training should be enough for only Bing City market. If Feng Yu really wants to train them well, he will still need to see if these lads are suitable for this job.

Wen Dongjun went into a daze after hearing what they said. Brother Li often go to Shen City? Brother Li is also paying salary for his workers to play poker? And Feng Yu is going to give training?

“Ok. I trust you. After eating, we will go to the mall. Both of you are starting high school and will need a few sets of new clothes.: Li Shiqiang said. He knows that Kirilenko is coming again in the next few days, and they will be able to earn some money.

At the mall, Wen Dongjun’s eyes became wide again. This mall is huge. The clothes here are beautiful. There are even toy guns that look like real guns here.

Li Shiqiang brought them around Bing City for two days and didn’t go to Shen City. Wen Dongjun is impressed with city life and made up his mind. He must study in the city’s high school!

Chapter 29 – Business negotiations (Lowering prices)

Wen Dongjun went back to the farm but Feng Yu stayed in Bing City. The company had just started and there are a lot of work for Feng Yu. He needs to make the final decisions over many matters, such as the company’s rules and regulations.

Before Feng Yu had come up with the rules, Li Shiqiang ran over to him with a piece of telegram. The telegram is in Russian. It must be from Kirilenko.

Feng Yu was still thinking when they will have their first deal since they set up the company and Kirilenko’s telegram came in.

In the current era, there are not a lot of places where you can make international call. Feng Yu can only go to the Post office to make his call to Kirilenko. The staff at the Post office thought that Feng Yu is joking when Feng Yu said that he wants to make an international call. Feng Yu is still a teenager and yet he wants to make an international call? When the staff wanted to chase Feng Yu out, Feng Yu threw two pieces of ten RMB notes on the counter, picked up the phone and dialed Kirilenko.

The staff checked the notes to see if they were real. The notes were indeed real. Before the staff could tell Feng Yu about the rates, Feng Yu had already started to speak in Russian.

The staff was shocked. This kid actually called Russia and can speak Russian so fluently!

While on the phone, Feng Yu wrote down a list of items on a piece of paper. The phone call lasted for five minutes. He had wanted to leave the Post office and let the staff keep the change, but the staff stopped him.

“Five RMB a minute. Your call is five minutes and 30 seconds. Total is 30 RMB!”

Feng Yu shuddered by the cost of long distance charges. It is too expensive. He took out another 20 RMB. He wanted to make a few more phone calls.

Once he finished his phone calls, he rode a bicycle back to the company. At the company, Feng Yu sat in the newly renovated office and let the others stand outside the company, pretending to be very busy.

In less than 10 minutes, there is someone standing outside the entrance asking loudly: “Is this Tai Hua International Trading Company?”

“Yes. Who are you looking for?” One of Feng Yu’s staff asked.

“I am looking for your Manager Feng. I am sales representative Wang Hua, from Three Brothers canning factory.” Wang Hua replied.

“Oh, canning factory again. Today, you are the third canning factory representative. Ok. Go up the stairs and turn left. You can see the manager’s room. It is written on the door.” Feng Yu’s staff said.

Wang Hua thought to himself: “Two other sale representatives from canning factories had come here? This mean that they don’t really need canned food or had already bought canned food. How can I negotiate this deal?”

Wang Hua went upstairs and knocked the office door. He heard someone asking him to come in and he opened the door.

Seeing the person behind the desk, he understood why the voice is so familiar. This is the kid that helped the Russian guy buy things at the cooperative the other day. This kid is the manager? Isn’t him a bit too young to be a manager?

But Wang Hua had been a sales representative for a number of years and had travelled to many places. At some places, he had seen bosses that are younger than Feng Yu. Most likely, these people are rich second generations with strong family backgrounds. He wonders who is Feng Yu’s father. Could it be some government official’s son?

“Hello, Manager Feng. I am Wang Hua from Three Brothers Canning factory. We can produce the country’s best-selling canned fruit. We also took the Gold award last year at XX Province.” Wang Hua said.

Feng Yu smirked. Provincial awards is just local protectionism. It does not have any value. Not to mentioned, the award Wang Hua said was later exposed to be organized and fixed by a few businessmen to award themselves.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, this method had been used countless of times. But for now, having such awards still seems prestigious.

“Oh. Three Brother Canning factory? How did you know that we need a batch of canned fruit?” Feng Yu asked.

Wang Hua stopped for a moment and thought: “Didn’t you let someone call me? If you didn’t call me, who the hell made that call?”

Half an hour earlier, Wang Hua was in the hotel when he received a message from the hotel boss, saying Tai Hua trading company is buying canned fruits. The one who had left this message even left the company’s address.

For Wang Hua, it doesn’t matter who is the one who left the message as long as he is able to sell his canned fruits.

“A friend told me.” Wang Hua replied.

“Really? You must have a lot of friends but we had just spoke to two other canning factories. The prices they offered is quite attractive.  We are already preparing the contracts. You are late. We hope to work with you in future.” Feng Yu said while holding his empty tea cup, indicating to Wang Hua that he does not want to negotiate any business with him.

Wang Hua anxiously said: “Mr. Feng, our canned fruits taste particularly good and we have ready stocks in Bing City. Our warehouse is not far from yours. You can go over and take a look yourself. Furthermore, our prices are also cheap and selling well in the market.”

Wang Hua is anxious. He even used honorifics on Feng Yu.

“Is it? But the other two factories also have ready stocks and besides I had already promised them and their prices are really cheap.” Feng Yu replied and mentioned the word “cheap” again.

“Ours is cheaper. Only 3 RMB for a can.” Wang Hua replied.

“3 RMB? It is too expensive. The other two factories are offering around 2 RMB.” Feng Yu said. Although he does not know the exact cost price of canned fruits, he knows that it will not exceed 2 RMB. If not, canned fruits will be selling for 4 to 5 RMB in stores.

“Our cans have more weight. Ours is about 1 KG per can while theirs are only around 600 grams.” Wang Hua said.

“Come on, it’s all the syrup and water. The fruits in there are about the same. OK. We will get in touch with you next time.” Feng Yu interrupted Wang Hua.

“Mr. Feng, we can be a little cheaper. 2.6 RMB for a can. This is the cheapest we can go. Any cheaper, it will be at cost price.” Wang Hua had seen the amount of goods Feng Yu bought when Feng Yu helped Kirilenko buy things. If Wang Hua is able to clinch this deal, he will achieve his quarterly target.

“I will buy some if it is 2.2 RMB.” Feng Yu said.

“2.2 RMB is really not possible. 2.4 RMB. We didn’t even offer such low prices to the cooperatives. I also promise you that these goods will be fresh and are canned within the month.” Wang Hua said.

This era, there are not much additives and preservatives in canned foods. As such, canned food had a shorter shelf life. Many dishonest businessmen changed the expiry dates on the packaging and export to other countries. To them, this is only a one-time business and they don’t care.

Feng Yu frowned and said: “2.4 RMB. How much stocks do you have in your warehouse?”

“500!” Wang Hua replied loudly.

Feng Yu shook his head: “That’s not enough.”

Wang Hua happily said: “I can ship more from the factory. Only takes three days to arrive. How much more do you want? Even 1,000 cans also no problem.”

“Then send another 500 cans over. I want peach, hawthorn and assorted fruits. I will make the payments two days after the goods are loaded. Any problems?” Feng Yu asked.

“No problem, absolutely no problem! I will contact our director. Mr. Feng, shall we sign the contract first?” Wang Hua asked.

Wang Hua took out a contract with the company’s stamp from his bag. The quantity, unit price, type and amount are blank and Wang Hua filled up these information in front of Feng Yu.

Feng Yu looked at the contract carefully. There are very few provisions on the contract but they were very clear and precise. It states the responsibility of both parties and the penalties for breaking the contract. Any party which default, will have to compensate the other party double the amount. Feng Yu smiled and took out the company’s stamp from the drawer. He stamped on the contract and sign “Feng Xingtai” on the contract. If the other party try to be funny, Feng Yu can just disregard this contract!

“OK. Go and prepare. The latest is five days and I will need to load the shipment. If the sales is good, I will look for you again next month.” Feng Yu said.

“Thank you, Manager Feng. I am staying at Jia Xing Hotel, room 201. This is the number to the hotel. You can contact me anytime.” Wang Hua said.

After Wang Hua left, Feng Yu smiled. He remembered that this canned fruits cost 2.9 RMB at the cooperative. Now it becomes 2.4 RMB. That Manager Su really earned a lot last time. But now Manager Su can no longer make any money from him.

Chapter 30 – Buying cars

Many sales representatives from factories came to look for Feng Yu. They were there to negotiate deals with Feng Yu. Some of them are contacted by Feng Yu, and some are the contacts, Li Shiqiang got from his friend at the cooperative.

These people came like a swarm of flies once they heard that there is a company doing wholesale for their products.

Feng Yu had a silver tongue, and with some small tricks, he managed to fool these salesmen. He got the products at a very lower price, and all of them agree to collect payments two days after Feng Yu loaded the shipment.

Only three factories require some partial down payments. These three factories are state-owned enterprises, and they must collect down payments.

Down payments? Feng Yu sneered. He changed the down payment to deposit!

Deposit and down payments are entirely different in China. Deposit means the goods are reserved. According to the contract, one party must pay the other party double the deposit amount. For a down payment, it means that the deal is finalized. If one party breaks the contract, he would have to compensate the other party double of the full amount. Feng Yu is not that stupid to be fooled!

Feng Yu only knows what Kirilenko probably wants. However, the quantity is not confirmed yet. If there are slight differences in the volume, Feng Yu is confident that these factories will not pursue any compensation from him as he is considered a big customer, and there will be future orders from him. Even if there are compensations, Feng Yu can also afford.

If it is a down payment, then Feng Yu still have to pay the full amount of the goods which Kirilenko does not want.

These salesmen were very surprised by Feng Yu’s ability to take note of these wordings. They did not expect someone so young to be so alert. Feng Yu is not easily fooled. But they still agreed to sign the revised contract. The provisions on the new contract are evident and precise on the responsibilities of both parties. The date of payments is also clearly stated.

Do you think the state-owned factory salesmen are very honest? They will also seek compensation and block people’s doors for payments. Of course, in this era, it is uncommon to go to court for compensations. So, both parties must be careful, and if they did not receive any payments, they would not do the loading.

The reason for Feng Yu’s request making payments the day after loading of the goods is to create a reliable impression. After a few deals, he will be able to get a longer credit term with these factories.

When that happens, there will be no need for Kirilenko to come over personally. With just a phone call, Kirilenko can order the types and quantity of goods, and Feng Yu will only send it over. Kirilenko can make payments after he received the products.

At that time, Feng Yu’s International trade can be considered officially started. He can use a small amount of money to do trading of large quantities of goods.

On the third day, those goods had reached Bing City. Some of the factories’ warehouse is not big enough to store them and are sent directly to Tai Hua Company’s warehouse. Feng Yu’s warehouse quickly filled up, stacking to the brim.

During this time, Li Shiqiang is still trading Treasury Bonds. Although Treasury bond prices had risen a little in Bing City, the price in Shen City is still higher. Li Shiqiang can still earn a bit from the differences in prices.

Feng Yu let Li Shiqiang carried on doing this business. He knows that once more cities opened up the trading of Treasury bonds later in the year, this trade will hit the peak.

But to travel between cities every day is too tiring. Feng Yu would have quit long time ago. The last trip almost tired him to death, and the smell on the train is unbearable.

Feng Danying also complained about Li Shiqiang several times. Because of his traveling, they had little time to meet up. However, Li Shiqiang just smiled. Feng Yu had told him that this trade can only last till around June next year. Once most cities opened up Treasury Bonds trading, the prices between cities will stabilize.

While there are still differences between cities now, they must grab this opportunity to make money. After next year, there will be no more money for them to make.

Li Shiqiang also has good news for Feng Yu. His comrade had told him that the Government is replacing a batch of old cars. The Government had already purchased new vehicles. However, the city is disposing of the old cars in quantities of at least three cars and is not selling to individuals.

Feng Yu raised his brows and said: “This is not a problem. Isn’t it only just three cars? We will just buy three cars. One Jeep and two Lada. We can always sell one of the Lada away. I do not believe there are no buyers for such good cars!”

There are no problems with the conditions of these disposed government cars. These cars were all properly maintained, and there is absolutely no problem with the cleanliness. Once they got the cars, they can just send them for an overhaul, and it will be as good as new. There will be no problems selling it.

“Xiao Yu, three cars can be too expensive. The Jeep is still fine. Only around 10,000 RMB. Lada cost at least 40,000 to 50,000 RMB. Do we still have enough funds in the company?” Li Shiqiang said.

Feng Yu had thought that since most commodities are cheap in this era, everything else is also cheap. He had forgotten that cars are much more expensive compared to his time in his previous life. This is especially so for imported cars. The prices are outrageous.

There are enough company funds. Their business deals are worth millions, but Feng Yu had only used 60,000 RMB as deposits. He only needs to make the full payments after loading the goods. There are still about a hundred thousand RMB in the company’s account.

“So, what if it is expensive. We are not short of money! Later, you will drive the Jeep during Summer and Lada during winter. This is the company’s benefits for the top management. Brother Li, help me get a license too.” Feng Yu said.

“You can drive?” Li Shiqiang looked at Feng Yu in astonishment.

“Psssssssssssst ~ ~ ~ It’s only driving a car. At our farm, any family who owns a tractor will know how to drive. Don’t worry. Later we will find an empty lot, and I will show you my driving skills.” Feng Yu said.

“If we get two cars, will Uncle Feng be angry?” Li Shiqiang hesitated.

“If you don’t say and I don’t say, how would he know? Money earned is to be spent. Don’t you want to drive a Lada?” Feng Yu replied.

Feng Yu is a person who likes to live a good life. If he can drive a good car, of course he will drive one. If he is not short of money now, he will buy imported cars such as Mercedes and BMW!

“Well, I’ll go talk to my comrade and see how much it costs for the three cars. He is working there, and I will ask him to pick three of the better ones.” Li Shiqiang said.

Brother Li, treat him to dinner and give him a red packet. Don’t be stingy. Give him 100 RMB.” Feng Yu said.

100 RMB? That is more than one month’s salary. But Li Shiqiang nodded. He knows that this money cannot be saved.

Li Shiqiang acted quickly. As Tai Hua Company is the first company that wants to buy the cars, the City government gave them a reasonable price and even allow Li Shiqiang to choose from the fleet.

Most of these cars had not been used much. It was a waste of these cars as the City is not using them and not assigning them to the villages. Even when the City is getting new cars, and there is a shortage of cars in the villages and small towns, the City still chose to sell these cars.

Li Shiqiang’s comrade had informed him in advanced There are two 70% new Lada and an 80% new Jeep. But they are too dirty, and people seldom use them.

Li Shiqiang pretended to check every car by opening the hoods. But in fact, he is looking for the markings his comrade left for him.

“I want this, this, and this one. Where do I make the payment?” Li Shiqiang said.

Feng Yu was taking a nap when he was awakened by the sound of car horns. He looked downstairs and saw the three cars.

Finally, he can sit in a sedan. He had enough of that broken Jeep!

This era, driving a Lada, is comparable to driving an imported sports car in his previous life.

Now It’s time to go for a ride!

Chapter 31 – Who’s earning more?

Kirilenko had just stepped out of the airport and he saw a Russian car, Lada. Kirilenko felt very proud to see his country’s car in China.

But Kirilenko never expect Feng Yu to step out of that Lada.

Eh? Feng Yu changed car? He had changed to a Russian car for me? This is a really good friend.

Feng Yu, on the other hand, had never expect that changing car will increase Kirilenko’s impression of him. He only wanted a more comfortable ride.

“Ji Xiong (chinese). Welcome to China again. I had arranged a dinner and top grade Erguotou to welcome you.” Feng Yu said.

Kirilenko is feeling puzzled by the way Feng Yu address him. But when he heard Erguotou, Kirilenko’s eyes lit up.

After a heavy meal and drinks, Kirilenko is high again. Feng Yu explained to Kirilenko that “Ji Xiong” is a short form in Chinese for Brother Ki. Hearing this, Kirilenko is delighted. He held Feng Yu’s hands and insisted Feng Yu to stay with him at the International Hotel. But Feng Yu refused.

Sleeping in the same room with Kirilenko? Kirilenko might be able to fall asleep but Feng Yu will be tortured the whole night. The last time Feng Yu shared a room with Kirilenko, he didn’t even sleep a wink. Feng Yu thought to himself: “Wait till I learn how to fart while sleeping, grind my teeth, snore and talk in my dreams, I will share a room with you again. We shall see who can fall asleep first.”

The next day, Kirilenko saw Li Shiqiang waiting for him at the entrance of his hotel. Li Shiqiang then drove him to a strange place.

This looks like a warehouse.

The doors of the warehouse opened, and Kirilenko saw a warehouse full of Soviet Union’s fast selling products. What is the meaning of this? Did Feng Yu prepare for him?

Kirilenko heard a familiar voice from upstairs. It seems that Feng Yu is arguing with someone.  Just when Kirilenko reached the second floor, he saw someone leaving the office and slammed the office door loudly. Feng Yu is also shouting in the office.

Seeing Kirilenko, Feng Yu smiled and said: “Brother Ki, you are so early today. Did you sleep well last night?”

“Feng, I heard you arguing with someone from downstairs. Did something happen?” Kirilenko asked.

Feng Yu faked a troubled expression and said: “Nothing. It is just the cooperative. They refuse to sell us anymore goods as they had changed the manager. I had contacted other suppliers but the prices are high as this is the first time working together.”

“Feng, you had worked hard for me. I can understand. It doesn’t matter if it is slightly more expensive.” Kirilenko said.

“No. I will not let you suffer losses. I will get you the same prices like last time. Those goods downstairs are the same price as last time. I will reject those goods that are more expensive. I can’t let you lose money!” Feng Yu said.

This time, it is Kirilenko’s turn to feel embarrassed. He rubbed his hands and said: “Feng, my brother. I will tell you the truth. Actually, these goods are very profitable in my country. It doesn’t matter even if these goods are slightly more expensive.”

Feng Yu said: “How much profits can you get if my goods are so expensive? You still need to factor in the transportation costs. It will be good if you are able to get 10% profits.”

“No, no, no. You don’t understand the situation in my country. There is a strong demand for such goods. I am able to make around 40% profits.” Kirilenko said.

Fuck. Feng Yu couldn’t help but curse in his heart. He had estimated Kirilenko’s profit to be quite high, but he never expects it to be so high. The last time, Kirilenko brought 300,000 Rubles worth of goods. That means his profits is about 120,000 Rubles?

Feng Yu suspect that what Kirilenko said is pure profits. That is after deducting the transportation costs and his commissions.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that the Soviet Union is currently preparing their defence against the US due the President Reagan’s Star Wars program (Strategic Defence Initiative: an ambitious project that would construct a space-based anti-missile system). The Soviet Union had utilized all of their resources and industries for military purposes and space programs. Very little resources are used for the civilians.

The Soviet’s economy is about to collapse. It seems that the time for the first country to leave the Soviet Union is not far away. Now it is the time to trade with the Soviet Union! Other than military industries, the Soviet Union have shortage of everything else!

The Soviet Union’s industrial products are still more advanced compared to China. This is the time to acquire machinery and parts from them. China is still lacking in many industries and if it is possible to import these industries’ machinery from Soviet Union, then earning a large amount of money is not a dream for Feng Yu.

But it is not easy to obtain the import and export permit. Feng Yu’s company still does not have any import permits. His company only have export permits currently and there are still many unfavourable conditions along with it. For instance, if there are foreign currencies in the account, then Feng Yu can only withdraw in RMB. The government will keep those foreign currencies.

During this era, creating revenue from trades is important for the government. The banks monitors transactions very closely. The government allows exportation but it will be very troublesome to do importation as foreign currencies are needed. For coastal provinces, they are still able to import from Hong Kong. But it is very difficult to do importation for the in-land provinces.

Feng Yu passed Kirilenko a list in Russian and said: “Brother Ki, come, take a look. This is a list of items. Let me know what items you want. I will give you the lowest price. I will not let my brothers suffer!”

There are tears welling up in Kirilenko’s eyes. This is real friendship. He had only mentioned these items in the phone call and Feng Yu remembered everything. He even arranged everything for me, saving me the trouble.

In the list, there are other items which Kirilenko didn’t mentioned in the previous phone call. Those items are dirt cheap in China. Kirilenko goes through the list carefully and filled in the quantities. He is getting everything on the list!

Feng Yu took out a calculator and started punching in the numbers while Kirilenko enjoyed a cup of red tea. Feng Yu calculated the total amount within five minutes.

“Brother Ki, I had calculated the total including the cost of loading on to the train. It should be around 520,000 Rubles. I am confident to lower it further to 500,000 Rubles. But I need about three more days.” Feng Yu said.

“Three days? The train carriage I arranged is for the day after tomorrow. How about this? I will accept whatever prices you give me but I had only brought 500,000 Rubles with me. If it is not enough, you can reduce some of the quantities.” Kirilenko said.

Feng Yu narrowed his eyes. Something is not right. This Kirilenko is not as simple as he looks. Feng Yu had only mentioned the prices of these goods casually earlier and Kirilenko had remembered everything. It should not be coincidental for the total amount to be slightly more than 500,000 Rubles. Kirilenko had calculated a rough estimation.

But even if Kirilenko is smart, he can’t be as familiar with the prices as Feng Yu. There is also no way for Kirilenko to check the prices himself as everyone will be quoting him a much higher price.

Based on the Feng Yu’s pricing arrangement with the suppliers, the total is actually around 430,000 Rubles and Feng Yu can have about 14% profits.

“Don’t worry Brother Ki. Leave everything to me. I guarantee you I will lower the price to 500,000 Rubles.” Feng Yu said and discreetly passed Li Shiqiang a signal.

Li Shiqiang said something loudly to Feng Yu and Feng Yu shook his head, refusing him. Kirilenko looked at them, not understanding what is going on until Li Shiqiang rubs his thumb against his other fingers. Kirilenko finally understood what the both of them are talking about. Li Shiqiang wanted money.

“Feng, this is 20,000 Rubles. Consider this as appreciation for your work. Do you think it is enough?” Kirilenko said.

“Brother Ki, there is no need for so much.…… Ok, I will just accept it. Rest assured. I will arrange for the goods to be loaded onto your train carriage tomorrow!” Feng Yu said while “reluctantly” accepts Kirilenko’s 20,000 Rubles.

It is always a pleasure doing business with Kirilenko.

Chapter 32 – The approval

The very next morning, Feng Yu arranged his staffs to load the goods from the warehouse onto the train carriage. He also argued with some suppliers in front of Kirilenko, making it look like he is trying hard to lower the prices. In fact, Feng Yu is discussing with them if he can make payments after the goods reach Moscow.

A few of them agreed reluctantly but most argued with Feng Yu. This is the first time they are working together, and the contract had been signed. Everything must be in accordance with the contract.

Kirilenko saw everything Feng Yu had done for him. Feng Yu is a really terrific friend. He is even willing to offend his compatriots for Kirilenko. Kirilenko is still thinking of what gifts to give to Feng Yu on his next trip. But little did he know that he had been fooled by Feng Yu.

Killing two birds with one stone. Feng Yu is noting those suppliers that agrees for later payments and those who had rejected him. He will carry on working with those suppliers who agreed and will kick those that rejected, once he found a replacement!

On the third day, after all the goods are loaded, Kirilenko carried a large package of cash to Feng Yu.

Kirilenko told Feng Yu that it is not convenient for him to carry so much cash. It is also troublesome to apply for an international bank account and withdraw in China. Feng Yu immediately say he will think of a way to solve this. In future, Kirilenko can just wire the money to him and he will do the procurement and loading of the train carriage for him.

Kirilenko hesitated and said that he will have to consider. They will discuss further on his next trip. As the amount involved is too big, Kirilenko also have to be careful. The next time he come over, he will also bring a few people who knows about trading with him. If possible, he wants to sign a contract with Feng Yu too.

As soon as Kirilenko left, Feng Yu’s office was packed with people. The goods have been loaded and according to the contract, it is time to collect payment.

Feng Yu waved his hand: “Let’s go to the bank now! This is our first cooperation. I will not drag or owe any payments. Our future deals will depend on how much sincerities you all have.”

Bringing 450,000 Rubles to the bank, the bank manager was shocked. This is a big client with so much foreign currency.

There is nothing much to say. The bank does not have enough RMB? No problem. Some suppliers are willing to accept bank transfers. Some also indicates that they are willing to accept foreign currencies.

Accepting foreign currencies? The bank Manager will never agree. Doing foreign exchange is very profitable those days. The Branch manager immediately requested the main branch to send some cash over.

After the suppliers left, the branch manager grabbed Feng Yu and asked where he get so much foreign currencies.

After learning that Feng Yu had just completed a business deal with a Russian, the bank manager felt disappointed. He thought that this is only a onetime business deal. The bank manager had been looking for a stable supply of foreign currencies and he thought that Feng Yu will be a stable channel.

Feng Yu lean back on the sofa and cross his legs: “Manager Zhu. Actually, it is not impossible to have a constant supply of foreign currency but I have some problems with my permits.”

The Manager immediately asked someone to bring Feng Yu a cup of good tea and said: “Mr. Feng, what problems are you facing? Maybe I can help.”

“I got a company and I want to do import and export trade. I have all the sales channels and suppliers ready. But I have a problem with the permits. Currently, I only have the exportation permits and no importation permits.”

“I know Mr. Lee, Chief of Foreign Trade department. I can make arrangements for you but your company’s bank account must be with our bank and your exports must not be less than 400,000 Rubles a month.” Manager Zhu said.

Manager Zhu knew that Feng Yu have his ways on doing business but does not have any strong backings.

If Manager Zhu is able to get a few million foreign currencies a year, he might be promoted to the provincial bank.

“Then I will have to trouble you, Manager Zhu. There might be some difficulties to get 400,000 Rubles a month. But I can promise you that you can take all the foreign currencies in my account and exchanged RMB for me.” Feng Yu said. Kirilenko had not agree to Feng Yu’s proposal and Feng Yu dare not commit to Manager Zhu.

“That’s a deal. I will ask Chief Lee out tomorrow for dinner. The place would be….” Manager Zhu said.

“How about the Hua Mei Western restaurant? I will make a reservation.” Feng Yu said.

Manager Zhu’s eyes brighten up. Hua Mei Western restaurant is very expensive.

“That’s settled. Tomorrow afternoon, Five o’clock.” Manager Zhu said.

When Feng Yu drove a Lada to the bank to pick up Manager Zhu the next day, Manager Zhu was very impressed. For someone who is able to drive imported cars in this era, must be someone very capable.

Chief Lee’s car arrived at Hua Mei Western restaurant exactly at five o’clock. Manager Zhu immediately step forward to shake his hands with both hands.

Feng Yu only lifted one hand and briefly shake Chief Lee’s hands. Chief Lee immediately thought that this young man is a bit arrogant.

Fortunately, Chief Lee is still satisfied with the restaurant. The dishes Feng Yu orders are the restaurant’s specialties. He had ordered salmon, lamb chops, grilled shrimp and many more.

After eating for a while, Manager Zhu said: “Chief Lee, Brother Feng’s permit needs your help to get approval.”

Chief Lee puts down his wine glass and said: “It is not easy to get approval for importation. The Government is encouraging exportation now. If it is exportation, it will be easy to get approvals.”

“Chief Lee. Now China is opening up and encouraging us to do trading. Although what I wanted is importation, but it is also enriching our country’s products and raising the living standards of our people.” Feng Yu said.

“You mean you are doing all these for the good of everyone?” Chief Lee said.

Chief Lee is being very sarcastic, but Feng Yu doesn’t mind. He knows that Manager Zhu is more anxious. Feng Yu had heard that the quota for foreign currencies for Manager Zhu is quite high this year and Feng Yu is confident that he is able to deal with Chief Lee.

Chief Lee, look at this article in “People’s daily”. Our country is mending the friendship with the Soviet Union. Every time my client come, he sends our domestic goods by train carriages to Moscow. This is a good chance to our country’s development. Besides, the things I wanted to import is not something that can be produce in China now. What if, I buy such things back from Soviet Union and we study it ourselves? Is this does not consider contribution to our country’s modernization?” Feng Yu said.

Chief Lee looked at the “People’s Daily”. The message is very clear. China is encouraging foreign trades, especially with the Soviet Union and US. China have also signed a number of trade agreements with other countries.

Coastal provinces are the forerunners in China’s economic developments. There is a huge gap between coastal provinces and the inland provinces. But for the province Feng Yu is located, it is next to the border with Russia.

During the meeting yesterday, the provincial leaders had asked the Office of Foreign Trade to encourage and focus on the import and export trade at the borders and raise the people’s living standards. The leaders also wanted the Office of Foreign Trade to ensure that there will be several import and export trading companies this year, and the companies’ turnover must hit a certain amount.

Actually, Chief Lee is very worried now. There are very few people doing imports and exports businesses. To many Chinese, the Soviet Union is a strong country and why would such a strong country need their products? Furthermore, the industrial products from Soviet Union are very expensive. How can one make money doing imports?

Manager Zhu leaned over and whispered to Chief Lee: “Chief Lee, please help me. I still got a high quota to meet for foreign currencies.”

In fact, Chief Lee was only playing hard to get. Deep inside, he was jumping with joy to hear that someone wants to do import and export business. He can answer to his leaders now.

“If you say so, I will consider about it. Xiao Yu, come to my office tomorrow. I will go back for a meeting regarding your request now.” Chief Lee said.

Chapter 33 – Isn’t this?

One meal and his problem are settled. It is only after the meal, Feng Yu remembered that this is the year when trades between China and the Soviet Union reach its peak. The nation’s leaders had already spoken and even if Feng Yu didn’t ask for help, he should also be able to get approval.

As a matter of fact, the trade between Longjiang and the Soviet Union has never ceased. Even during the times when Sino-Soviet diplomatic relations are strained, there are still a lot of smuggling activities.

During winter, when the rivers are frozen, one can just drive a truck over to the Soviet Union. When the relationship between both countries are better, there are some border checks. But these checks are just formalities.

Just look at Lada and Volga cars. In Heilongjiang, the number of Lada and Volga cars is the highest in the country. There are more Lada and Volga in Heilongjiang than the total number of China’s imported cars.

The next morning, Feng Yu drove to the Office of Foreign Trade. The Office of Foreign Trade is located in a building with many other departments. There are many people queuing at other departments but only the Foreign Trade department is empty. It seems that Chief Lee is not doing well.

A man came out, after Feng Yu knocked on the door. Feng Yu explained his intentions and was invited in.

Chief Lee is reading the papers and ignores Feng Yu. This is a common method for people of high positions to show their superiority. However, this might work for others but not Feng Yu.

Chief Lee quietly raise his head and look at Feng Yu. Feng Yu is sitting comfortably at the sofa with his legs crossed. Chief Lee thought to himself: “This kid is not anxious at all.”

“Cough ~ ~ Xiao Feng, when did you come in?” Chief Lee asked.

“I just arrived. Sorry to disturb you.” Feng Yu said politely. Feng Yu thought to himself: “I don’t believe your secretary did not report to you when I come in.”

“By the way, yesterday you said that you have a company that wants to apply import permits?” Chief Lee asked.

“Yes.” Feng Yu replied.

“We had discussed about this during a meeting yesterday. We can approve your application but there will be some restrictions.” Chief Lee said.

“If the government does not allow me to import certain items, I will never import those items.” Feng Yu replied. In his heart: “What rubbish. I can make so much profits with normal commodities, why should I go and touch those contraband?”

Feng Yu is very clear. He will only Import the things that he is permitted to import.

“How much do you import and export in a year? I meant the value of the goods.” Chief Lee asked.

Feng Yu paused to think for a while and said: “There should be 5 million this year.”

Six months 5 million, then for one year should be over 10 million? Even if I discounted the amount, there should still be 7 to 8 million. This young man’s business is really big.

Feng Yu added: “In Rubles.”

Chief Lee took a deep breath. Ruble? Convert to RMB, it should be 30 to 40 million? This is not some small trades. Even some State-owned factories did not have so much in a year.

Their Foreign Trade Office’s import task is only to get 100 million Rubles and this boy can achieve one-tenth of the target?

Although surprised, but Chief Lee acted calm and replied nonchalantly: “ok.”

Feng Yu had checked. 10 million Rubles for a year of import and export is not the highest in Longjiang. But for private enterprise, it is definitely the highest. Now Chief Lee knows about Feng Yu’s ability, it is Feng Yu’s turn to get some perks from him.

“Chief Lee, what does out province lack? As long as the Soviet Union allows to export, I can get whatever you need. Maybe our province will be the province with the most trade with the Soviet Union within two years. If there are more trading companies, then there will be more taxes. Of course, this is all under the leadership of Chief Lee.” Feng Yu said.

“Ah ~ ~”  It is Secretary Zhao and Governor Wang’s credit.” Chief Lee is overjoyed but pretended to be humble.

If the Foreign Trade Office is able to let these companies can earn foreign exchanges and increase taxes, it would be a big political achievement for him. Maybe he can even be promoted before his retirement. But firstly, this company must be as good as what Feng Yu said.

Chief Lee had asked his men to check Feng Yu’s company. The registered capital is only 200,000 RMB, and yet Feng yu claims to be able to achieve 10 million Rubles worth of trades? This kid must be using some loopholes!

This era, the laws are not perfect. There are many loopholes to be exploited. For instance, Li Shiqiang’s Treasury bonds business is also considered a loophole. If it is like Feng Yu’s previous life, there will be internet and the prices will be the same everywhere.

But now, this loophole can be exploited, extremely lucrative and also legitimate. Only a handful of people knows about this.

Chief Lee don’t care what loopholes Feng Yu is trying to exploit. He only wants to hit his own quota of 100 million. It is better if Feng Yu is caught doing something illegal and his assets will be confiscated. This way, Tai Hua Trading Company will become one of Foreign Trade Office units.

The important thing is that with this is the first private company. He can answer to his leaders and also let the leaders will notice his department more.

“Here, brings this note to Deputy Chief Zhang. He will tell you the relevant formalities and what to do.” Chief Lee said.

Feng Yu looked at the note. There is nothing much written on the note. But Feng Yu had heard that Government officials have secret codes in their writings. For instance, the signature and punctuation marks. However, Feng Yu did not notice anything special with this note.

“Thanks, Chief Lee. Once the approval papers are out, let’s have a meal together again. I would like to receive some guidance from you.” Feng Yu said.

Chief Lee is very satisfied with Feng Yu’s attitude. But treating him to a meal? Forget it. Now the top is clamping down hard on corruptions. If Feng Yu got caught abusing some loopholes, he might get into trouble too.

Holding the Chief Lee’s note, Feng Yu went to Deputy Zhang’s office.

Feng Yu felt this Deputy Zhang is a bit familiar when he enters the office. Feng Yu saw some documents laying around and these documents were signed off by the name Zhang Ruiqiang. Feng Yu remembered.

Isn’t this Deputy Zhang is the future Bing City’s Mayor! It happened during 1997 privatization of State-owned enterprises. At that time, Zhang Ruiqiang was scolded by Bing City citizens but later, a lot of people said that he did the right thing. If not for Zhang Ruiqiang’s determination for privatization, many people are still not laid off and still earning miserable salaries. These people’s lives became better after privatizations.

This guy is a blue chip! In future, he will be one of the leaders in the ministries and commissions. If Feng Yu is able to get hold of him, Feng Yu will be getting a lot of benefits later. Feng Yu never expect to see Zhang Ruiqiang in the Foreign Trade Office department now. In Feng Yu’s mind: “How do I build a good relationship with him? Seems like it will be a painstaking task.”

Feng Yu does not expect Zhang Ruiqiang to help him much in future. Feng Yu only needs Zhang Ruiqiang to be fair and not let others find trouble with him. Within the next few years, Feng Yu’s business will be expanding and there will be many people creating problems and trouble for Feng Yu.

“Chief Zhang. I had come to do the paperwork for my company’s import permit.” Feng Yu had omitted the word “Deputy”, making Zhang Ruiqiang’s title nicer.

Deputy Zhang looked up and said: “Have you brought all your documents? Let me see.”

Chapter 34 – Fan

Zhang Ruiqiang looks at the Feng Yu’s prepared documents. All necessary documents are in prepared. The documents are ready but the company’s general manager, does not seems to be the person in front of him.

“Who is Feng Xingtai?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“That’s my dad. He went out to do sales. Chief Zhang, what other documents do you need from me?” Feng Yu asked.

“Everything’s here. You fill up this and come back in one-week time.” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

Feng Yu is a bit disappointed. Why didn’t Zhang Ruiqiang make things difficult for him so he can have the chance to build a good relationship with him. But at the same time, Feng Yu knew that Zhang Ruiqiang had a good reputation. If not, how can Zhang Ruiqiang promote so fast in the future.

Feng Yu is in a very good mood when he left the Foreign Trade Office. Once the import papers are out, his company can earn a lot of money!

Once back at the company, Feng Yu sent all the lads out to do market research. Don’t know what is market research? No problem. You just go to every major marketplace, shops and ask what are the things that sells well in the Soviet Union and what are the things they want from Soviet Union.

Although these young men have no experience, they are willing to endure hardship and they are also very smart. But after sending them all out, Feng Yu regretted.

Feng Yu is alone in the large warehouse. There is no one to speak to, no computers and no television. The warehouse is also stuffy and is no wind at all. With nothing to do, Feng Yu can only start writing the company’s rules and regulations.

Then Feng Yu suddenly had inspiration and started writing the rules. He had only wanted to write 108 rules but found that it is not enough. Will 1008 rules too much for his staff?

When Feng Yu is writing rule number 368, the lads came back. Everyone is sweating buckets. It is only the start of summer and the weather is so hot.

“Buy some electric fans tomorrow. The heat is killing me.” Feng Yu said.

“Manager Feng, electric fans are very expensive and still need to use electricity. We can just use normal fans.” One of the lads said.

These lads are feeling embarrassed. Last month, they did not do anything and Feng Yu still give them 100 RMB salary each. Where else can they find such good boss? As such, they want to save for Feng Yu.

Feng Yu asked: “How much is the electric fan?”

“The cheapest electric fan in the mall is more than 100 RMB. The better ones is about 400 to 500 RMB.” The lad replied.

What the hell? The electric fan so expensive now? There should be no technologies involved for electric fans. There should be at least 8,000 to 10,000 factories producing fans in China now. Why did the price still so high?

“Yes. I bought one electric fan for my family a few days ago. About this big and can still rotate. It is made of metal and the wind is strong.” Another lad said.

Wait a minute. All metal? So, one electric fan, made from steel should be at least more than 5 KG? Now steel is not cheap. No wonder the electric fans are so expensive. It is all material costs.

But are these manufacturers stupid? Why use steel? There is plastic now. Light and durable. This way, the cost will be lowered.

“’Big Li, do we have any factories producing electric fans in Bing City?” Feng Yu asked one of the lads.

Everyone turned and look at Feng Yu, Making Feng Yu confused.

“We are from the factory that produce electric fans. Our fans are very durable. The one at my house is six years old and there is no problem.” The lad said.

Feng Yu forgot that these lads are the children of the motor factory workers. An electric fan can last for six years? No wonder the factory can’t make money!

“Who knows the factory leader?” Feng Yu asked.

All the lads looked at the Wu Zhigang. This Wu Zhigang is the son of the factory leader?

“My uncle is the head of the second workshop. Can be considered a leader. But now the second workshop is operating one day and rest two days. Even if they produce more products, they have no way to sell them.” Wu Zhigang said.

“Go visit your uncle. Tell him I am giving them a big order!” Feng Yu said.

……

“Xiao Gang, is this your friend?” Wu Zhigang’s Aunt sighed. This kid chose dinner time to visit. It’s fine if he come alone for dinner, but he brought a friend along? Now the factory is not making money. Wu Zhigang’s uncle is only getting 50% of his monthly salary for the past few months.

“Good afternoon Aunty. We are looking for Director Zhao.” Feng Yu said with his most handsome smile.

“Xiao Gang just came. Must have not eaten. The food will be ready soon. Let’s eat together.” Director Zhao said. He was sitting on the sofa watching TV when he saw his nephew brought a friend over. He thought Wu Zhigang must have fought with other people and came over to hide.

But something is not right. How come he is carrying cigarettes and alcohol? Did this kid steal from the factory?

“Hi Director Zhao. I am Feng Yu, deputy manager of Tai Hua Trading Company. I have some business to discuss with you.” Feng Yu said.

Director Zhao looked at Feng Yu. What did this kid say? He is the deputy manager of a trading company? How old is he!

“Sit down, what do you want to buy? But let me be straight. We will not sell the factory’s products cheaply to you!” Director Zhao said.

Feng Yu smiled and said: “I want to buy a batch of electric fans.”

“Fan? How much do you want?” Although there are no stock in the factory, but their workshop can easily produce hundreds of units a day. If the order is big, he can let other workshops to produce together. If not, he can let the workers work overtime.

“The first batch, I want 10,000 units.” Feng Yu said.

“How many? 10,000 units? No problem, I can deliver within 10 days!” Director Zhao is overjoyed. If he can sell 10,000 fans, it will be enough for this month factory’s salary.

“Director Zhao, slow down. What I wanted is not the current fans that your factory is producing. I want something smaller and lighter.” Feng Yu said.

Now, the electric fans produced are those standing fans. Every fan is more than one meter tall and weighs a ton. Feng Yu wanted those small table fans. In addition, Feng Yu wanted to use plastic as the main material. Unless necessary, all metal parts have to be replace by plastic, especially the blades.

“Smaller and lighter? What do you mean?” Director Zhao asked.

“Except for the parts where steel is needed, the rest will be plastic. For example, the fan blades. The height should be about thirty to forty centimeters and the motor can also be smaller.” Feng Yu said while gesturing with his hands.

“If it is produce this way, who would buy it? Firstly, the wind does not reach your face. Secondly, it will not be durable.” Director Zhao said.

Feng Yu smiled and said: “Director Zhao. Don’t worry about this. I will order 10,000 units first. Just tell me if it can be done and how much is the cost.”

Director Zhao hesitated for a while. The factory can produce the fans Feng Yu wanted but can it really sell? Aren’t these inferior products? Will their factory’s reputation be tarnish?

“I need to speak to my leader first.” Director Zhao said.

“Director Zhao, very soon your workshop will not be able to pay your workers’ wages. I heard the consumer products your factory produce is not doing well in the market and sales have been dropping. Loot at your dinner. There is not even a meat dish. You don’t have to worry if I am not able to pay you. You can ask Xiao Gang how much he is getting a month. He had started working for my brother-in-law three months ago.” Feng Yu said.

Wu Zhigang said: “Uncle. I am earning 100 RMB a month and there are bonuses at the end of the month. The company also provide lodgings and meals.”

Director Zhao said surprisingly: “You earn 100 RMB a month?” The average wages of their factory workers are not even 100 RMB!

What trading company is this. Feng Yu seems quite rich. This matter must be reported to the leaders immediately. The workers are still waiting for their wages.

“I will go to Factory Director Li’s home now. You all eat first. Don’t wait for me!” Director Zhao said.

Chapter 35 – No one wants to use their trademark

“Old Li, come have dinner.” Director Li’s wife said.

“You eat first. I got no appetite.” Factory Director Li replied.

“But you still got to eat. I know the factory is not doing well but your health is more important.” Director Li’s wife said.

“Not doing well? It is doing very bad. I am the deputy factory director in charge of production and sales. Now most of the workshops in the factory are operating one day and resting for two days. The workers are being paid for half of their salaries for the past few months. If this carry on, Many families will be starved to death.” Director Li said.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Oh, is Old Zhao. Have you eaten? Come in and accompany old Li for a drink. He had not been sleeping well.” Director Li’s wife said when she opened the door.

“Sister-in-law, drinking can wait. I got something urgent for Director Li.” Director Zhao said.

“Old Zhao, what is is urgent? Did something happen at the factory?” Director Li stood up from the sofa. The factory is closed at night now. Could it be someone came and steal from the factory? There are still military products in the factory.

“Is good news. Director Li, today my nephew brought a big boss …” Director Zhao said.

After listening to Director Zhao, Director Li is deep in thoughts. It is a good thing to have such a big order and the requirements is not high. Their factory is capable of producing the fans based on the requirements.

But Director Zhao’s worries is not unreasonable. Made of mostly plastic? Isn’t that an inferior product? Once dropped and the fan might be broken. It is not durable at all. It will destroy the reputation of their factory!

But now, the factory is facing many problems. There is no work for the workers and the factory is not making any money. The factory is not able to pay the workers salaries and even the medical expenses cannot be reimbursed.

Every day, there are workers asking for their salaries. This week, there have been three times workers coming up to his house to ask for their salaries. Director Li even have to lend his own savings to his workers every month.

Now there is an order coming in but he is not sure if he should accept it.

“Director Li, I think we can take on this job and we must take on this job. If we don’t have any orders this month, we can’t even pay our workers half of their salaries.” Director Zhao said.

“What about the reputation of our factory? We are a reputable old factory with many honors in the past. We cannot let people say that we are producing inferior products now.” Director Li said.

“We can talk to the boss to use their trademarks and we only produce the fans. There are many factories doing this in the south. Why can’t we do this too?” Direct Zhao said.

“You mean as an outsourced manufacturer?” Director Li sighed. Theirs is a state-owned factory. Now they have to lower themselves to being an outsource manufacturer for a private company.

“Director Li, there is no other way. We can’t be waiting for orders from the government forever. Last year, there is an order from the top to produce fans. But what happened in the end? We got to sell those fans off at a loss. This boss I spoke to seems to be quite agreeable. He didn’t ask anything about the prices and say he wanted 10,000 units. Even if it is 5 RMB an unit, that is also 50,000 RMB!” Director Zhao said.

“OK. Is the boss still at your house? I will go with you to meet him and get this order. There is still maintenance costs for the machines even when we are not using them. Might as well do something with it.” Directory Li said.

“Old Li, where are you going? You have not eaten your dinner yet.” Director Li’s wife shouted.

“I am not eating. I am going over to Old Zhao’s house to discuss some work.” Director Li replied.

……

Feng Yu looked at the food on the table.  He couldn’t believe this is the home of a workshop director. On the table, there are only three dishes. Two vegetable dishes and one scrambled eggs.

If the leaders of the factory are living like this, what about those normal workers?

“Aunt, you and Uncle are living like this now? There is no meat at all.” Wu Zhigang asked. He doesn’t have the appetite looking at these dishes. At Tai Hua Company, every meal has meat and he is used to it.

“It’s good to have something to eat. You uncle, as one of the leaders in the factory, had lent all his money to the workers. Don’t say meat. We are lucky if we can afford to eat eggs once or twice a month.” Wu Zhigang’s aunt said.

Wu Zhigang did not know that the factory is so miserable now. Anyway, he sends 60 to 70 RMB home every month. His family should not be suffering like this.

Feng Yu and Wu Zhigang, both only ate a bowl of rice and put down their chopsticks. They did not touch the eggs. Anyway, they can always grab something to eat later on their way back.

There is the sound of door unlocking and Director Zhao walked in with a stranger.

“Director Li is here, have you eaten yet?” Director Zhao’s wife hurriedly stand up to greet Director Li.

“Feng, this is our Factory Director Li. He decides all the major decisions at the factory. He is here to discuss with you. How much are you willing to pay for a unit?” Director Zhao said.

The factory director is retiring soon and does not care about the factory. Every day, he will be faking illness to stay in the hospital. Director Li, the first deputy director, is in fact, the person in-charge of the whole factory.

Feng Yu shook hands with Director Li and said: “Hi Director Li. Let’s sit down and discuss.”

Director Zhao’s wife made a few cups of tea and Wu Zhigang stood behind Feng Yu like a bodyguard.

When Director Li saw Feng Yu, he got a shock. Director Zhao had told him that this Feng Yu is young but he never expect Feng Yu to be so young. If Director Li knows that Feng Yu have not even passed his 16th birthday, he would have fainted.

“Director Li. I believe Director Zhao had told you my requirements. Other than the motor, all other parts, if possible, should be plastic. The motor does not need to be big. The fan blades are al plastic so it is fine to for the power to be smaller. There is also no need for the protective covers for the fan blades.” Feng Yu said.

“What? You even want to drop the protective cover? People will get hurt if the blades fly off!” Director Li said angrily. This guy is really an unscrupulous merchant.

“How can it hurt anyone? Have Director Li ever seen a ceiling fan? Why does the ceiling fan have no protective cover over the fan blades? Besides, ours is plastic fan blade and the speed is lower. Even when the fan is running and you put your finger in, you will only feel a slight knock. This is my requirement!” Feng Yu replied.

“Stick your finger in? Then the speed will be too slow. How can there be wind?” Director Li asked.

“As long as the wind is stronger than those hand fans. Smaller power can also save electricity. Isn’t it better? This fan only need one speed and don’t need to oscillate.” Feng Yu said.

“Also, the base can be smaller with a large clip. The fan should be able to stand on the floor or clip on to a table or the top of a wardrobe to become a top down celling fan.” Feng Yu continued. This type of small fan is very popular in Feng Yu’s previous life.

Director Li and Director Zhao were stunned by Feng Yu’s new design. They didn’t know that electric fan can also be design this way. But from the looks of it, it should be quite promising.

“If we are able to manufacture the fans you wanted, how much are you paying us for one fan?” Director Li asked.

“I had calculated. The cost should be around 10 RMB for one fan. I will give you 20 RMB. Those that can oscillate and with protective covers, the cost will be slightly higher. I will pay you 30 RMB for these types. If your factory can manufacture, I will order 10,000 units of each type now.” Feng Yu said.

Director Li and Director Zhao looked at each other and discussed. It can be done. Both types of fans if using plastic, the profit is around 8 RMB per unit. The profits for 20,000 units will be 160,000 RMB!

“Ok. But we have a request. This fan cannot be using our factory’s trademark. You need to register your own trademark!” Director Li said.

Feng Yu is shocked. He didn’t want to collect any design fees from them. He just wanted to help the local state-owned factory. But now, they don’t want to use their trademark? They have doubts on these fans? Feng Yu couldn’t be happier to use his own trademark.

“Fine. Then I will register a trademark and it will be named …  Wind and Rain!” Feng Yu said.

P.S. Feng Yu’s trademark is actually “Wind and Rain” (风雨) in Chinese. It sounds similar as his name Feng Yu.

Chapter 36 – Wind and Rain fan

In order to speed things up, Feng Yu asked Director Zhao to get his workers to produce several prototypes.

No time to design? No ready materials?

It doesn’t matter. It is only to test the wind power. The outer layers that should be plastics can use cardboards now and the blades can just cut out from some plastic board.

“No, the wind is too strong, need to reduce!”

“The blades are too big. Need to be smaller.”

“This blade is too thick. Reduce the thickness by half.”

“This power cord is too long. Two meters will do.”

……

Feng Yu kept giving his inputs. After three hours, the two old workers finally have two prototypes that Feng Yu is satisfied.

“Manager Feng, how are you going to transport this fan? There is no protective covers for the blades and the blades might be easily broken.” Director Zhao asked.

“The blades don’t need to be fixed on first. Let the customers buy them back and assemble themselves. This base too. We will give the screws to them and also an instruction manual. Even children will know how to assemble the fan.” Feng Yu said.

Assemble it yourself?

Director Zhao and Director Li looked at each other. Assemble electrical appliances yourselves? But it is quite simple. Even without the instruction manual, one can also figure it out.

“Here, this is my Wind and Rain logo. This must be in a conspicuous place.” Feng Yu wrote Wind and Rain in Oracle bone scripts and there is an inverted mountain with three raindrops below. He had prepared this logo in his previous life!

“No problem. I will contact the Old Wang of the plastic factory and let them produce spare parts for us. But Feng, we need to collect a deposit first.” Director Li said.

“Ok. I will come with a contract and deposit tomorrow morning. Is 100,000 RMB deposit enough? After the products are loaded, I will pay 80%. The rest will be paid at the end of the month. Oh yes, don’t keep using white color. I want more color varieties for my fans. Blue, red, pink, green and all bright colors. The fan blades can also be in different colors.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu knew the factory is now in a difficult position. This 100,000 RMB deposit is to assure them. Once the fans are produced and accepted by the market, Feng Yu is confident that he can sell all these fans within this province.

Director Li also promised Feng Yu that the 20,000 fans will be ready in five days. All the workshops in the factory will be focusing on Feng Yu’s fan. The workers will be working in three shifts, twenty-four hours a day. If it is not for the plastic factory, Director Li have confidence that this order will be ready in three days!

The next day, Feng Yu signed the contract and paid the deposit. He then went to the Trade and Industry Bureau to register his trademarks.

Now the most important thing is to enter the market. No one knows about Wind and Rain fans. If Feng Yu just put the fans on the market, there will not be many who will notice it. No one will even know that there are fans selling for only dozens of RMB now. What’s need to be done now is advertising!

Longjiang Daily Newspaper. Today there is a big boss at the newspaper President’s office. It is said that this big boss is going to place a large ad in the newspaper.

This era, is unlike the later generations’ newspapers where more than half of it are advertisements. The newspaper now has lesser pages and more contents. There are only a few advertisements.

Feng Yu does not want to place small classified ads. He wants to place at least a half page ad for continuously one week.

“Mr. Feng. This page should be all news. There are no ads published on this page yet. We do not have this precedent.” The president is a little troubled. This Feng wanted to buy the full page for one week.

“President Zhang, Longjiang does not have only one newspaper. Other than the daily newspaper, and the evening newspaper, there is also lifestyle newspapers. You look at this Lifestyle newspaper. The layout of the front page is spilt. Half of it is small articles and the other half is Japanese electrical appliances advertisement!” Feng Yu said.

President Zhang looked, is really so. Advertising is now allowed on TV and so is the newspaper. But he still hesitant as Feng Yu wants the full page.

“Seven days, 7,000 RMB!” Feng Yu said.

1000 RMB a day? This is not a small amount. Adding all the classified ads, it is also less than 200 RMB a day.

Seeing President Zhang still hesitating, Feng Yu said again: “My company can add 1000 RMB more. It is only for one week. Why can’t President Zhang try it out for one week? If everything works out, the newspaper’s income will increase a lot and all the newspaper staff will be grateful to you.” Feng Yu said.

“14,000 and I will agree!” President Zhang said.

“2000 a day? It is too expensive. The Lifestyle papers only cost 500 RMB for half a page. I have already state my highest offer.” Feng Yu replied.

“We got more readers than Lifestyle.” President Zhang argued.

“But we are selling products and Lifestyle is more suitable for our target segment. How about this? 9,000RMB for one week.” Feng Yu said.

“10,000 RMB. At least 10,000! This is a full page ad. It is different from a half page ad.” President Zhang said.

“Deal!” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu began to write his advertising message, design of the ad. He wanted the ads to begin the next day.

Seeing Feng Yu’s advertisement, President Zhang felt that Feng Yu have brain damage. Spent so much for such an ad?

Even if the ad does not introduce your company, it should also introduce the manufacturer or introduce the technology involved, price, quality or whatever. But you just wrote these few sentences?

With such a large page and you only use write a few dozens of words a day. This is a waste. One small ad is enough!

July 1, is an important date in China. On this day, many people are reading newspaper at work just like any other day. (Translator’s note: July 1st is the founding day of the Communist Party of China)

Hey! What is wrong with this page?

The whole page has three eye-catching slogans.

“Follow the Party wholeheartedly, Four Modernizations and new days.

Celebrate the Party’s birthday, a China’s new chapter.

Everyone’s heart goes towards the Party and the Wind and Rain will see the Rainbow.”

(Translator note: This is a poem in Chinese. It is some propaganda praising China’s modernization and reforms)

Today is the Party’s founding day. It is very normal for the newspaper to use a page to write some congratulatory statements. But this page is too weird. This typesetting is too messy. The three slogans, are neither read horizontally, nor vertical. But, instead it is read from three different directions.

Why does it look like an electric fan? Not to mention, if the outlines are connected, it is really an electric fan!

At the very bottom of the page, there are a few words: “Wind and Rain fans, Your summer’s good partner!”

Advertising is done but there is no much effect. No one paid much attention to this Wind and Rain fans and no one wanted to buy.

A cheap fan will also cost more than 100 RMB. The more expensive ones will cost a few hundred RMB. Those who are willing to fork out so much money would have bought the fan long time ago. Those who are not willing will still be not willing to buy the fans.

But Feng Yu Don’t care. This is a series of ads. The effectiveness of the ad can only be seen at the end. Seven days is enough for people to remember this Wind and Rain fan!

Now there is a more important task on hand. Tai Hua Trading have less than 300,000 RMB. Once the production of the fan is completed, Feng Yu must come up with 400,000 RMB.

But Feng Yu had already thought of a good solution.

Chapter 37 – Consignment

“Manager Su. Long time no see.” Feng Yu said.

“Oh, it’s Mr. Feng. What brings you here?” Su Manager said happily when he saw Feng Yu. Every time this kid brings the big boss from Russia to his shop, he can clear half of his stock!

“I am here to send you money.” Feng Yu said.

Hearing what Feng Yu said, a wide grin spread across Manager Su’s face.

“What do you want to buy this time? What is the quantity? Rest assured I will give you the best price.” Manager Su said.

“This time I am not buying things. But I would want Manager Su to help me sell things.” Feng Yu said.

The smile on Su manager’s face vanished instantly. Sell things? He still has a lot of merchandise in store that can’t be sold. Since individuals are allowed to set up their own shop, many small shops have sprung up and seriously affected the business of the cooperatives.

Moreover, what good things can this Feng Yu have that the cooperative doesn’t have? All the suppliers have been working with him for a long time. During festivals and holidays, these suppliers even gave him gifts. How can he stop working with these suppliers?

“Sell things? What do you sell? Xiao Feng, we have everything in the cooperative and there are no more counter to display other things.” Manager Su said. He had addressed Feng Yu as Xiao Feng instead of Mr. Feng. This shows his attitude towards Feng Yu had changed.

“Electric Fan!” Feng Yu replied.

“Electric fan? You better go somewhere else. Now the mall is also selling electric fans. There are also very few people coming to the cooperative to buy fans.” Manager Su flatly rejected Feng Yu.

“Manager Su, wait a while. Let me finish first. My sales model is different from others. I will leave my fans with you and the price is fixed. Every fan sold, I will give you 3 to 5 RMB. I will take back everything that is unsold.” Feng Yu said.

Manager Su thought to himself: “Eh? No need to come out with money to bring in goods? Leave these fans with me to sell? Getting 3 to 5 RMB for every fan sold? He will take back all the unsold goods? This idea is not bad and doesn’t use up any of my funds. Anyway, it is Summer now. Maybe I will let him leave a few units with me.”

“No. 3 to 5 RMB? You think it is so easy to place your goods at the cooperative? Our cooperative sells only the best products. I want at least 10 RMB for one unit.” Manager Su said.

Manager Su had thought carefully. The cheapest electric fan is also about 100 RMB. The profits should be around 30 to 40 RMB. He only asked for 10 RMB is because he does not need to fork out any money to bring in the goods.

“Manager Su, our electric fans are not so expensive and there is not much profits. Our fans are selling around 50 to 60 RMB a unit and my profit is less than 10 RMB. If the sales are good, I can give you 5 RMB per unit. But if the sales are not good, I can’t even give you 3 RMB.” Feng Yu replied.

Manager Su couldn’t believe his ears. An electric fan selling only for 50 to 60 RMB? How is it possible? It is not even close to the production cost. The motor, steel, the switches, etc. will at least add up to 80 to 90 RMB. If the materials are of better quality, the cost will be more than 200 RMB. How can Feng Yu’s cost be so low? How can there still have profits?

“What brand is this fan? Are these defective goods?” Manager Su asked. The cooperative must not have any defective or fake goods.

“Wind and Rain brand. This is definitely not fake or inferior goods. The fans are manufactured and designed by our motor factory. See, I have even place an advertisement on Longjiang Daily.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu took out today’s newspaper and pointed it out to Manager Su. Manager Su just remembered the page he saw in the papers this morning. He was still wondering what is this Wind and Rain fan and why he had not heard of this brand before. So, it is because the product is not launched yet.

“Is this from the motor factory?” Manager Su asked.

“Absolutely. You can ask around. If I cheat you, I will give you all the electric fans I left with you.” Feng Yu replied.

What Feng Yu said is only half-truth. Of course, the motor factory produced these fans but they are only the outsourced manufacturer. Manager Su thought that Wind and Rain is one of the Motor factory brand.

“If so, then give me at least 5 RMB. The electric fan will occupy some space in the shop and also occupy space in the store. If it is too little, we will not bring in your fans!” Manager Su said. He still wants more profits.

“Our fans are not big. How about this? We have two models of electric fans. The big ones are selling for 59 RMB and I will give you 4 RMB for every fan sold. The smaller ones will be selling for 49 RMB. Every unit sold, I will give you 3 RMB. I will also give you an additional 50 RMB for every 100 units sold. This is the highest price I can give you. It can’t be you earning more than me! You do not even have any cost!” Feng Yu said.

Manager Su thought, on average, one unit can still have 4 RMB of profit. This electric fan is selling for so cheap. One should be able to sell 100 units in the whole Summer. That equates to 400 RMB and there is no cost involved. Most importantly, this money will go into his own pocket!

“OK, but next time that old Russian comes to buy things, you must bring him to my shop and let him buy more.” Manager Su said.

“No problem, maybe he will come this month. I am also looking forward to him coming again.” Feng Yu replied.

Feng Yu took out a prepared contract from his bag and handed to Manager Su.

“Eh? This is not right. Mr. Feng, why do we need a deposit?” Manager Su asked.

“Manager Su. This deposit is only for one month. One month later, we will tally your sales and I will return the deposit to you. I can’t be leaving my goods with you and you don’t leave a deposit with me. What if my fans get damaged or lost in your shop?” Feng Yu said.

“But still, it is too much. According to the original price and at least 100 units? It is too expensive. What difference is there if I purchase the goods myself?” Manager Su replied.

“Of course, there is a difference and it is a big difference! If you purchase the goods yourself, how much are you going to sell the fans for? If the fans are not sold, can you get any refunds? I am undertaking on all the risks. No matter how many fans you sell, you still stand to gain.” Feng Yu said.

Manager Su thought for a while and he remembered the 400 RMB profits. Finally he said: “Ok. I want 100 units! But the deposit must be lesser.”

“Those two models, each 100 units and the deposit will be 50 RMB per unit. Total 10,000 RMB. OK?” Feng Yu said.

“Wait, how is this not the motor factory company stamp. Tai Hua Trading company? I have never heard of this company.” Manager Su said.

“This is the sales agent for Wind and Rain fan. The boss and the Director of the Motor Factory is …… If not, how can the fans be so cheap?” Feng Yu said.

He purposely stopped his sentence halfway. It is up to Manager Su to interpret what he means. This way, Feng Yu is not responsible!

Manager Su have a “suddenly see the light” expression. But who cares. He is in no position to question what the Motor Factory is doing.

After signing the contract, Feng Yu went to the number one Department Store and persuaded the manager of the mall. When the mall manager saw the cooperative had already signed the contract, he also agree to the same conditions and 200 units of each model.

Then Feng Yu went to the smaller department stores in each district. These smaller department stores saw that the number one department store had signed the contract, they also ordered at least 200 units each.

That very day, Feng Yu got the order of 1,400 units. He will be receiving 70,000 RMB deposit from the next day onwards. He got enough money to pay the Motor Factory now!

Chapter 38 – Sales of Wind and Rain fans

In Bing City, many people have noticed the strange advertisement in Longjiang Daily. Every day, there are only a few sentences in a full-page ad.

Today the ad wrote: “Hot summer, cool breeze.” Yesterday was: “Hot sun in the sky, time to give some quality gifts.” The day before yesterday ……

But at the bottom of each ad, there is a slogan: “Wind and Rain fans, your summer’s good partner!”

For five consecutive days, everyone who read the newspaper will see this unique advertisement. This advertisement quickly become the talk of the town. People talked more about this ad than the news about the homicide case.

Hearing people talking about the Wind and Rain fan on the street, Feng Yu knew his advertisement was successful. Now, when someone mentioned electric fan, people instinctively will think of Wind and Rain fans!

On the fifth day, the production of the 20,000 electric fans are completed and Feng Yu made the 80% payment. But Feng Yu did not take out all the fans. He only took out 2,000 fans from the factory.

Everyone at the Motor Factory is curious. Even if it is 80% payment, the motor factory has also made some profits. Why this Feng Yu paid for the fans but did not collect all the fans? Could it be Feng Yu wants to return the goods?

Director Li discussed with Director Zhao. They conclude that even if Feng Yu wants to return the goods, they will not accept it. They even reminded Feng Yu about the remaining payments due at the end of the month. If they did not receive the remaining payments, they will keep all the remaining fans at the factory.

Even if they can’t sell these “defective” fans, they can always give these fans to their workers as their salaries. Anyway, the factory had already covered their cost.

Feng Yu did not pay attention to the Motor Factory. The reason he only collected 2,000 units is because he does not have enough space in his warehouse. After sending the 1,400 units to the various stores, Feng Yu still have 600 units remaining in his warehouse. If Feng Yu had collected 20,000 units, he will 10 more warehouses to store these fans. Since the fans are still sitting in the Motor Factor, Feng Yu can save on inventory cost.

On the sixth day, a real advertisement finally appeared in the newspaper. A picture of a table fan with a slogan written in red: “Wind and Rain fans. Breaking price: 59 RMB!”

In the evening, Feng Yu held a meeting with everyone in the company at the warehouse.

“Have you all sorted the information? Which store is selling better? which store is not selling well? Are there any stores that did not display our fans or adjust the prices?” Feng Yu asked.

The problem with using consignment mode of distribution is that the consignee creating problems for the consignor. For example, the consignee will claim that the product is not selling well and asked for higher profits. Or, if the product is selling well, they secretly adjust the price higher. There might be some consignees which will use the product to promote a more profitable product by comparing both.

Feng Yu had stated in the contract clearly. Once any of the terms are breach, Feng Yu will not pay any consignment fees, will not refund the deposits and the consignee will have to pay Feng Yu at least 10,000 RMB as compensation.

Feng Yu thought his staff would tell him that some stores or all the stores had breached the terms of the contract. In this era, these managers are from government units and they have a sense of superiority over the private companies. Also, they think that no private companies will dare to sue them even if they breach the contract.

But in reality, it is not as what Feng Yu had expected. No one had breach any terms of the contract.  Feng Yu’s fans simply do not sell!

“Manager Feng, the cooperative sold three today. I saw the staff at the cooperative tried very hard to promote the fans but no one is interested.”

“It is also the same for First department store. The fans are displayed in a very conspicuous position at the electrical counter but only five people bought the fans.”

“That is at least better than Dongli Department store. They only sold one unit today.”

“At least those department stores had sold something. Taiping Department store have not sold anything yet!”

“Manager Feng, will we be stuck with these electric fans?”

……

Everyone kept talking about what they observed today. Feng Yu listened carefully and nodded. These lads had not skived and had been working hard.

“Manager Feng, these electric fans are not selling at all. What do we do?” One of Feng Yu’s staff asked.

Feng Yu smiled: “Wait. Three days later, you will see the result! Tomorrow, all of you will go ……”

On the seventh day, the last day of the Daily newspaper advertisement. This time, the advertisement is showing the 49 RMB electric fan. There are two photos. The first photo is a fan clip on the table and the second photo is a picture of a truck coming out from the motor factory.

In the afternoon, Manager Su from the cooperative is frowning. This fan is not selling well. The price might be much cheaper compared to other fans, but no one knows about these fans. Didn’t Feng Yu said that he will be advertising these fans? By putting two photographs and a few sentences? How can this be considered an advertisement?

“Hello, what would you like to buy?” A Salesman asked a customer who had just walked into the cooperative.

“Are you selling Wind and Rain fan?” The customer asked.

“Yes. There are two different models. Each model have a variety of colors. Which model do you want?” The salesman replied listlessly.

“The one in this newspaper. Is it really 49 RMB?” The customer asked.

The salesman looked at the newspaper and took out a fan with exactly the same color and model from the shelf and said: “Yes. 49 RMB.”

“OK, I want one. No, give me two. I will buy one for my father-in-law too.” The customer said.

“OK, what color would you like?” The salesman asked happily. Manager Su had said that he will get 1 RMB commission for every fan sold.

“Whatever. Hurry up and give me my change!” The customer said and he threw ten pieces of 10RMB notes on the counter. The salesman quickly returns the change and pass the two fan boxes to the customer.

“This is not right. Why is the box so small? You can’t even fit the fan blades in!” The guest said loudly and looked suspiciously at the salesman. It is as if the salesman is a cheat.

“You see, this fan blade is separated When you go home, open up the fan blades and screw it in. It is very easy and even kids can do it.” The salesman said.

“Hey, it’s interesting. Just nice. I can give it to my son as a toy.” The customer said.

Manager Su smiled when he saw a customer bought two fans. But he was curious, why did this customer buy two fans?

He flipped to the advertisement in today’s Longjiang Daily. There is a photograph of a truck leaving the Motor Factory. It seems that people knew that these fans are the products of the Motor Factory and are assured of the quality.

The manager did not know that there are more reasons behind this.

Feng Yu asked his staff to go to crowded places and spread the new, telling people that Wind and Rain fans are manufactured by the Motor Factory.

So what it is plastic. Plastics are also sturdy. There is no difference with the wind from steel blades and plastic blades. Furthermore, these plastic fans are selling for so cheap. The money people used to buy one steel fan, can buy several Wing and Rain fans!

There are also other advantages for using plastic. It does not rust, and the colors are bright too. Cleaning can be done with just a wet piece of cloth. These electric fans are small and convenient for storage during wintertime unlike those big, bulky and heavy steel fans.

There is also an important feature of these fans. It is safety. Even when you stick your fingers in, you will only feel a slight pain. There will not even have a Scratch on you.

Wind and Rain fans had been advertising in the papers for one week. Besides, can the Motor factory produce inferior goods? Old Wu had one Wind and Rain fan which was gift from his grandson. He was so proud of it and even showed it off to everyone for hours!

After such encouragements, some people went to go to the mall or the cooperative to enquire about Wind and Rain fans. After looking at the displays, some people bought it on the spot while some went home to consider. But most of those who considered, will decide to buy it the next day.

That afternoon, the city’s department stores and the cooperatives had sold a total of over 100 electric fans. Out of these 100 plus fans, only three are other brands and the rest are all the Wind and Rain fans!

After a week of advertisements, Wind and Rain fans had occupy a strong position in people’s mind.

Wind and Rain fans are now selling first!

Chapter 39 – Arrogant Workers

For the past three days, the fans were selling very well. Every day, there were at least 100 units sold and the number is still increasing. On the streets, many people are talking about the fans. The conversations were mostly about someone’s son or daughter bought an electric fan for the family, etc. It is just like the big color TV in the past.

Manager Su had already called and ordered for 200 more fans. The department store closes early, and many people don’t have time to go there due to their work. However, the cooperatives are different. They close at eight in the evenings. Those who had to work will go to the cooperatives after they finish work. As such, the sales of the fans were the highest at the cooperatives.

A few days ago, Manager Su was still regretting bringing in the fans and using 10,000 RMB for the deposit. Although this way of bringing in goods seems to be more secure than buying the goods and there were no risks, but there was still the 10,000 RMB locked up as deposit.

Now, Manager Su does not think so. Only a few days had past and it is still not the hottest time of the year yet. So far, the electric fan sales had been good and it will be better in a few days’ time. Since there were no risk and the fans are selling well, why not bring in more goods?

In addition to the cooperatives, the departmental stores were also beginning to order more fans. It is still not the weekends yet. They might be out of stock by weekends. Now, the only fans sold at the stores are Wind and Rain fans. The other brands of fans were not sold at all. Almost everyone talks about the Wind and Rain fans.

Produced by the Motor factory, cheap, fashionable, light, convenient and safe. The First department store even put a huge banner outside their store to promote these fans.

Once again, Feng Yu gathered all his staff at the warehouse. Firstly, it is to celebrate the success of the Wind and Rain fans. Everyone had worked hard these few days. Feng Yu gave out a special bonus of 20 RMB for each of his staff to reward them. Secondly, Feng Yu wanted to train them on how to handle customers.

“Xiao Yu, if we were to treat the customers with this type of attitude, will they still buy our fans?” Li Shiqiang frowned. This Feng Yu is not making any sense!

Everyone was happy to receive bonuses, but they can’t accept Feng Yu’s way to treat the customers. It is unacceptable to everyone. Feng Yu had told them that when a customer come, they don’t need to laugh at his jokes, no need to serve them tea or offer cigarettes. They have to act impatient and don’t care if the customer is buying or not!

The Wind and Rain fans were only popular in Bing City. Feng Yu does not have the time nor energy to develop the distribution channels outside of Bing City. However, Feng Yu knew that there will be some smart businessmen coming to him. The branding of Wind and Rain fans is too strong in Bing City!

Now, there is a strong demand and shortage of supply for Wind and Rain fans in the market. There are definitely many businessmen who wanted to buy the fans at wholesale price. Feng Yu is not worried that his fans do not sell well.

Feng Yu is also taking precaution against the Motor factory. He asked Wu Zhigang to tell Director Zhao that there were rumors that some people wanted compensations from the factory for producing inferior products.

Director Zhao immediately report this matter to Director Li. Director Li, then issued a public statement that the factory had nothing to do with Wind and Rain fans. The factory had only rented their warehouse to Tai Hua Trading company.

Some businessmen went to the Motor Factory, as they wanted to get the goods directly from the source but they were all rejected by the motor factory as the Motor Factory absolutely “did not produce any Wind and Rain fans!” Those few who insisted that it was the Motor Factory manufactured the fans were thrown out by the factory’s securities.

These businessmen had no choice but to go to Tai Hua Trading Company.

As soon as the businessmen entered Tai Hua Trading Company’s warehouse, they frowned. It was not because of the location of the warehouse. These businessmen were from the south and had even been to companies located in small villages. They frowned because of how little the amount of stocks in the warehouse. There were only a few hundred fans in the warehouse. Does that mean that Tai Hua trading also had limited stocks?

“Excuse me. Is this Tai Hua trading company? Are the Wind and Rain fans from your company?” Zhang Ruikun, a businessman from Shen City asked politely.

“Who are you? The Wind and Rain electric fans are from our company. What have this got to do with you?” Wu Zhigang said.

Zhang Ruikun was shocked. What is wrong with this guy? However, Zhang Ruikun tolerated Wu Zhigang’s attitude as he still wants to make money.

“This is my business card. I am the general manager of Jinyuan Trading Company and would like to speak to your manager.” Zhang Ruikun said.

“Not free! Our boss is busy. Can’t you see I am busy too? Go away.” Wu Zhigang said rudely.

Zhang Ruikun is speechless and thought to himself: “Didn’t you hear me? I am here to discuss business with your boss. Aren’t you afraid that your boss will know about your attitude towards your customers? If you are from my company, I would have fired you long time ago! Wait till I see your boss!”

Zhang Ruikun put on a smiling face and at the same time, took out a packet of Double Happiness cigarettes and pass one stick to Wu Zhigang: “Brother, have a cigarette.”

“Get lost! How can you smoke at a warehouse?” Wu Zhigang scolded.

Zhang Ruikun frozed and pass the whole packet of cigarette to Wu Zhigang: “Brother, don’t be angry. It is all my fault. You keep this packet of cigarette and smoke later. I am here to speak to your boss about Wind and Rain fans. I want to buy some back.”

Wu Zhigang kept the cigarettes in his pocket and then looked at Zhang Ruikun: “You want to buy goods? Why don’t you say earlier?”

Zhang Ruikun wanted to cry. He thought: “I wanted to say but have you given me any opportunity to say?” Zhang Ruikun can only smile and nodded his head: “Yes, yes, yes. It is all my fault. I had forgotten to tell you.”

Wu Zhigang had a “of course it is your fault” expression and asked slowly: “Then how many units do you intend to consign?”

“Consign?” Zhang Ruikun is in doubt. “What consign? I want to purchase a batch of fans and sell it at Shen City.”

“Purchase? We do not sell these fans. We only do consignments! We do not have much goods left to sell ourselves.” Wu Zhigang said and waved his hand. He then turns away to carry on his own business.

Zhang Ruikun pulled Wu Zhigang: “Brother, brother. I know that you are holding a senior position in the company. Please sell some to me. One thousand units will do. I will give you 1 RMB per unit.”

Wu Zhigang brushed off Zhang Ruikun’s hand and pointed to the warehouse door: “You want to bribe me? Get out!”

“Brother, if you think 1 RMB is too little, we can discuss about it.” Zhang Ruikun pleaded.

“Out!” Wu Zhigang shouted.

“Sorry, sorry. It is all my fault. In fact, I myself also despised bribery but everyone in the south do this. Brother, can you speak to your boss to sell me some fans? We can discuss about the price. I am willing to pay 35 RMB for a unit.” Zhang Ruikun said.

Zhang Ruikun had calculated. The cost for one electric fan is about 30 RMB. The cost will even be lower if it is produced in large scale (Economies of scale). The price he offers will allow Tai Hua Trading company to earn a profit of 5 RMB per unit. That means a total of 5,000 RMB profits for 1,000 units!

Of course, once after he shipped the fans back to Shen City, he will sell one unit for 50 or 60 RMB. He still can get a profit of 10 RMB.

“35 RMB? It is not even enough to cover the cost! The cost for the smaller model is about 40 RMB and the bigger one is about 50 RMB. Since you are very sincere, I will give you some news. If you really want to buy, come again at 10 o’clock in the morning tomorrow. Ok. That is enough chatting for today. I still got many things to do. Bye!” Wu Zhigang said.

Zhang Ruiqiang left. He got to raise some money from friends. He must get the fans tomorrow when he meets the boss. He can tell that these fans will be selling fast in Shen City, just like Bing City.

The same thing happened to more than 10 people. Everyone of them got the same attitude and message. All of them will be coming in at 10 o’clock the next morning, to talk to the boss in person.

Feng Yu, on the other hand is currently in Motor Factory Director Li’s office.

Author’s notes: That era, the southern provinces, especially the coastal areas, have a lot of businessmen. These businessmen are very smart and kept looking out for goods to trade. Many made their fortune from trading.

Chapter 40 – An even more arrogant boss

“Manager Feng, now everyone is saying that the Wind and Rain fans belongs to the Motor Factory. You should come out and clarify this. Director Li said. These types of plastic fans is considered inferior products and will affect the factory’s reputation.

“Sorry. There were some problems in the communication with the newspaper regarding the advertisement. They had used a photograph which we did not approved. I will clarify with them.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu is laughing inside but he still apologized to Director Li. The salary levels are still not high for majority of the people. Although the price of his electric fans was cheaper by 20 to 30% compared to other brands, it is still considered a big-ticket item.

Even if the electric fans are made of steel, will someone bear to throw or drop such expensive item on the floor? It is just like the introduction of Apple phones in the future. Nokia was ridiculing Apple: “How can Apple introduce a phone without doing any drop test. Who is going to buy?”

But what happened in the end? Who is willing to throw a five thousand to six thousand RMB mobile phone? of the mobile phone? Apple’s sales kept increasing and Nokia, from being the market leader became a loss-making company. Eventually, Nokia’s mobile phone division was sold by the parent company.

The reason is the same. Director Li is currently having the same mindset as the management of Nokia. Not all things that are strong and durable is good!

In fact, for Feng Yu there is also another benefit for producing plastic fans. Plastic fans are more fragile and easily broken. Isn’t that better? If the fans are still in working condition, who is willing to buy more fans? In two years’ time, China’s economy will get better and the people will become wealthier. There will be many who are willing to spend on electric fans.

“Director Li. I had come here today to tell you two things. First, I will collect all the remaining fans within the next two days. Second, I want another batch of electric fans. Are you still interested to continue manufacture these fans?” Feng Yu said.

Director Li’s eyes shine. Still want another batch? If Feng Yu ordered another 20,000 units, the factory can earn money again. This way, the factory will be able to pay back part of the salaries owed to the workers!

“Of course. It will be the same condition. We will not use the Motor Factory’s brand for these fans. We guarantee that we will produce 20,000 units in five days, no, three days!”

All workshops will have to focus on the production of these electric fans. It includes the workshops that is doing the production of military products. Anyway, the order for Military products can be completed within a few days if the workshops are doing overtime.

“Three days, 20,000 units? Then I want 100,000 units. Can you finish it in half a month?” Feng Yu asked.

“Of cour… What did you say? How many units do you want?” Director Li had wanted to say “of course”, but he noticed that the quantity he heard seems to be a bit wrong.

“100,000 units. The same conditions. 10% deposit will be transferred to the Factory’s bank account.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu had said 100,000 units casually, as if it is like 100 or 1000 units.

“15 days. No, it will be completed in 14 days! There will absolutely be no problem with the quality and quantity!” Director Li replied excitedly. Director Li really wanted to ask Feng Yu, “You sell this kind of inferior electric fans, you are not afraid of people coming after you?”

But for the factory’s sake, he kept quiet. The more units they produce, the lower their cost will be. The profits for 100,000 units, is about 850,000 RMB. This amount can cover the arrears salaries of the workers and also the medical reimbursement owed to the workers.

Feng Yu took out the prepared contract. Director Li read through the contract and signed it. After signing the contract, he immediately called all the workshop directors to a meeting. This batch of fans must be ready in two weeks’ time!

The workshop directors almost jumped with joy when they heard that the owner of the electric fans placed another order, and this time the order is 100,000 units.

The workshop directors that were not involved with the production of the electric fans previously, began to jostle for the job. The Military’s orders can wait. They want to get a slice of this pie first. The more fans the workshop produce, the more money the workshop gets.

Of course, the workshop assigned with the most number of the fans, is still Director Zhao’s Second workshop. The rest of the workshop directors did not protest against this decision as it was Director Zhao who introduced this big client to the factory. But, if anything goes wrong with these fans, they will brush off any relationship with Director Zhao and Director Zhao will have to bear the biggest responsibility!

Feng Yu was awakened by the sound of knocking at eight in the morning. This is the bad thing about the warehouse. The big iron gate amplifies the sound of knocking throughout the warehouse.

“Manager Feng. There are more than 10 people standing outside the door. They seem to be yesterday’s customers.” Wu Zhigang reported to Feng Yu while Feng Yu is eating breakfast.

“Who is the one who knocked on the gate?” Feng Yu frowned. The one who knocked on the gate must be chased away for disturbing his sleep.

“No one knocked on the gate. There were some people who had heard the news and came on their own accord. Those people that we asked them to come were unhappy and there were some arguments and pushing between the two parties. During the pushing, someone accidentally knocked on the gate.” Wu Zhigang explained.

Wu Zhigang is also speechless. Early in the morning, there were people fighting at their doorsteps. But he dares not to be angry with them as these people are here to buy their fans.

“Go to the door and ask them to wait quietly. Those who are not willing to wait can get lost! Last night, I had told you all that there will be a lot of people coming today and you all have to be alert. Chase those who tried to come in early, away!” Feng Yu said.

Wu Zhigang went down and stood at the gate. When he opened the gate, someone rushed in. Wu higang and his other colleagues pinned him down.

“I remembered you. Xing Sheng Company, right? Who let you in? Our company will not do business with you. Get lost!” Wu Zhigang shouted.

“What do you mean?” The representative from Xing Sheng Company asked.

“It is our boss’s rules! Our boss said, we will not do business with people who do not follow rules. You are now listed on our company’s blacklist. Blacklisted, you understand? Now get lost. It is no use staying here!” Wu Zhigang said.

When the representative from Xing Sheng Company left, Wu Zhigang said loudly to others: “All of you listen well. Those we had asked to come at 10 o’clock will come in first. Those who had came here on your own accord will come in after 10.30. If anyone of you tried to come in early, talk loudly or unhappy with our arrangements can leave now.”

With the example of the representative from Xing Sheng Company, everyone obediently obeyed the rules. However, this is not the most irritating part. The door of the warehouse was opened wide and these people can see Wu Zhigang and several people inside, playing poker.

As the temperature rose, these people can only wait patiently in the sun. They dare not walk to the shade. Who knows when the company’s boss will suddenly allow they to enter.

At 10 o’clock, the first group of people went in. Wu Zhigang and the rest of the staff checked the identity of these people to make sure these people were the ones who had come yesterday. In the warehouse, the first group of people looked left and right and did not see any boss. They only saw a teenager sitting there.

“Hey boy, where is your boss?” Someone asked.

Feng Yu got angry. Which company is this? Can’t you see everyone is standing and I am the only sitting?

“You. Get out. Our company will not do business with you!” Feng Yu said angrily.

After Feng Yu spoke, Wu Zhigang introduced Feng Yu to the rest: “This is our company’s Manager Feng. He is the one you all are looking for.”

That man is dumbfounded. This boy is the boss? Is he even 20 years old? But before he can say anything, Wu Zhigang and the other staffs chased him out.

The other people were shocked. They knew that the staffs of this company were very arrogant. Now they understood why the staff behaved this way. The staff had learned from their boss! This boss is even more arrogant!

Someone got thrown out because of saying something that offended the boss. But in order to earn money, they have to endure!

Author’s notes: That era, the more arrogant one is, the more likely they will be viewed as capable.

Chapter 41 – Setting the rules

Feng Yu looked at Wu Zhigang, who was holding a stack of forms. Wu Zhigang immediately gave out the forms to everyone and let them fill out the forms.

They looked at the form. Company’s name, nature of business, contact person, contact details, etc. They all understood the reasons for asking these information. But the last one, “acceptable wholesale price of the electric fans”. What the hell is this?

They looked around and don’t know what to write. What if they fill in a high price, and this crazy boss used the highest price as the wholesale price. The person who filled in the highest price will the enemy of everyone.

If they fill in a low price is also not good. They can imagine what this Manager Feng will say: “You filled in the lowest price. There is no sincerity at all! Get out!”

One of the businessmen suddenly noticed that Manager Feng was not paying attention to them. They started whispering among themselves to decide the wholesale price. This way, everyone will fill in the same price.

Everyone whispered and discussed for a long time. Finally, they decided the wholesale price for the two models of fans, which were 40 RMB and 48 RMB respectively. They also supervised each other and does not allow anyone to submit the forms first. They will submit the forms together at the same time.

Feng Yu only looked at one form and nodded. “Good. You all are sincere about this business. Every unit at 40 RMB and 48 RMB. Although we will almost have no profits for this pricing, but we are willing to accept. We will treat this pricing as the promotional pricing. The wholesale price will be fixed at this price. Anyone disagree?”

Everyone kept quiet and Feng Yu was satisfied. Look, chasing away someone will act as a warning to others.

“How many units are you all going to buy?” Feng Yu asked.

“1000!” One of them shouted loudly.

Others saw that Feng Yu had not sent the man away, and they all also shouted. There were 800, some 1500, up to 5,000 units.

The one who shouted 5,000 units is a fat man and looked like an unscrupulous businessman. He was crossing his arms, with his head held high, looking down on the rest. He was from the southern province. The southern provinces are hotter and is definitely a bigger market compared to the north.

Wu Zhigang, who had been consolidating the forms, handed summarized report to Feng Yu.

There were four provinces overlapped and more than 10 provinces are blank.

“Ok. Now I will tell you all the rules of our company.” Feng Yu said.

Hearing what Feng Yu said, these businessmen thought in their heart: “I knew you still have ‘rules’.”

“Everyone can see how our company’s Wind and Rain fans fared from the sales in Bing City, the most northern province of China. You all are here because you all know that these fans can sell and will sell well. The summer in other provinces are hotter than Longjiang province, so you all knows what to expect from the sales of our fans. In fact, we had wanted to build our own sales channels in other provinces. Since you all came, I will give you all a chance. According to our company’s plan, there will be only one dealer for every province. Now, those I read out the names will go to the left side of the room, and those that I didn’t called, will go to the right side of the room.” Feng Yu said.

Wu Zhigang called out names of those businessmen whose provinces overlapped. They looked at each other and walked unwillingly to the left side of the room. The rest had a sigh of relief. It seems that they have no competitors in their provinces.

“That was just the first rule. Now, the second rule. Every province will have only one distributor and the minimum order for the fans cannot be less than 5,000 units. This standard is set by that fatty over there. If anyone is unable to order so many units, you can leave now!” Feng Yu said.

This time, that fatty is not complacent. Everyone was glaring at him. That fatty is cursing Feng Yu in his heart: “You obviously wanted these people to order more units. Why let me take the blame!”

Who is willing to quit? Wind and Rain fans were inexpensive and of good quality. Furthermore, it is summer now and it is the best time to sell electric fans. There should not be any problem to sell 5,000 units in a province.

If they do not have enough money, they can borrow. Even if they can’t borrow, they can find other people to cooperate. In short, they cannot give up this rare opportunity! If they quit this time, then based on this Manager Feng’s temper, they will be blacklisted!

“You all agree to it? Very good. Then I tell you all the third rule: Pay first, then deliver the goods.” Feng Yu said.

This rule is a bit unacceptable. Most of the business deals is pay a down payment or deposit first and the rest after the goods went on sale. But these businessmen knew that those who does not agree, will be chased out of the room.

“The fourth rule: The retail price in your province cannot be higher than 15% of Bing City’s retail price. Also, you cannot sell the goods to other provinces. If I found out, then it will be considered a breach of contract and the damages is 500,000 RMB!” Feng Yu continued.

Not able to enter someone else’s market made some of these businessmen a little uncomfortable. They thought: “Forget it. I can just stick to my province and even if I sell to other provinces, as long as I don’t get caught by Tai Hua Trading Company will do.”

“Fifth rule: Cannot damage the image of Wind and Rain brand and Tai Hua Trading Company. If there are imitations or fakes in your market, you must first to stop them or inform our company.” Feng Yu said.

Once the Wind and Rain fans are introduced to the southern market, those unscrupulous southern businessmen will soon launch imitations. To put it plainly, there are no technical content in electric fans. Based on the number of electric fans factories in China, any one factory can produce imitations anytime.

But when the imitation appears, the Wind and Rain electric fans will no longer guarantee Feng Yu the high profits. Feng Yu is making an average of 19 RMB per unit. The profits for 100,000 units is 1.9 million RMB! Feng Yu’s initial capital is only slightly more than 300,000 RMB.

Unfortunately, Feng Yu preparation is too late. If he had so much money two months ago, he will have ordered the production of more than 500,000 units and set up his own sales channels. This way, the imitations will have no way to enter the market. Another thing that made Feng Yu frustrated is that he is unable to apply for patents for his fans. Even he is able to apply for the patents, it will also take at least six months. Six months later, it would be winter. Who will still buy his fans.

These electric fans are also considered a one-time business. Feng Yu is able to do it this year but this business cannot be done again next year. Feng Yu knew that next year, these businessmen will be getting their goods from other places or start their own productions. But, this summer is enough for Feng Yu to become a millionaire!

Actually, Feng Yu had wanted to set 108 rules but he was afraid that these businessmen will run away.

Anyway, these five rules are enough. If these businessmen followed his rules, then he can still do these electric fans business next year.

The four businessmen from the repeated provinces had also discussed among themselves. All of them are unwilling to quit. So, they decided to share the market.

Of course, Feng Yu will not refuse them. Most of these businessmen do not have enough funds for the minimum order of 5,000 units. They still need to borrow money or find someone to cooperate.

But Feng Yu had a pleasant surprised. These four provinces wanted more than 5,000 units. They had divided the province themselves and they can estimate how many fans can be sold in their own areas.

When the rich fatty heard that they can ordered more than 5,000 units, he thought: “Since we can order more units, then can we be the dealers for two or more provinces?”

Chapter 42 – Continuing Orders

181,000 units. This is the total number of units these businessmen wanted. The fatty had ordered 12,000 units and he occupied two Southeast provinces market.

The contract was signed upstairs. All of them agreed to the goods delivered in three batches at an interval of one week. The first batch will be this week and it will be cash on the spot in exchange for the goods. The reason Feng Yu gave was to ease their liquidity. Even if Tai Hua Trading was to deliver all the goods, most of them do not have enough to pay. But the real reason was Feng Yu do not have enough goods on hand.

There were some who said they could not wait and wanted to take all the goods now. But once they saw Feng Yu staring at them, they instantly shut up. This arrangement is also good for these businessmen. Although the quantity is lesser, at least they will not have any liquidity issues and will not need to cooperate with others.

After the first batch of people left, the people waiting outside were worried. They saw the first batch of people carrying a contract each. They were afraid that all the goods were bought by the first batch of people. When Wu Zhigang asked them to go in, they all rushed to Feng Yu.

“Don’t you know the rules? Be quiet! Whoever talks again can get out!” Wu Zhigang shouted.

It was the same as the first batch. Wu Zhigang gave them the forms. Those provinces that overlaps will stand on the left and the rest on the right.

The conditions were the same. At least 5,000 units for one province. Tai Hua Trading Company will not care if how many of them from the same province spilt the order, but there can only be one company who is the authorized distributor for that province.

Now there were only seven provinces in the West that have no distributors. These provinces are highlands and there were more nomadic people there. They even have problems accessing to electricity there. As such, the electric fan sales will not be too good.

In view of this, Feng Yu lowered the conditions for these provinces. Those remaining people who were willing take up these provinces could stay, those unwilling can go.

Looking at Feng Yu’s attitude, some people left. At the same time, they made up their mind to look for factories to produce themselves.

The seven provinces were eventually taken up by seven people. For these people, Feng Yu not asked them to order more than 5,000 units. 1000 units is enough.

Feng Yu wanted everyone in China to know about the Wind and Rain fans, creating a brand effect.

In the future, this brand effect will inevitably bring more profits to Feng Yu!

“Manager Feng, the total order is 238,000 units. Our existing stocks and those that are being manufactured at the factory is not enough. We need to order another 130,000 units from the Motor Factory.” Wu Zhigang said when he passes a report to Feng Yu.

“Not bad. Starting tomorrow, we can see the money coming in. Arrange order of delivery from north to south. Our fans will be the best-selling fans in the country!” Feng Yu said.

……

Director Li had been all smiles this morning. During the morning meeting, all the workshop directors had told him that morale is high on the ground. The workers knew that they have work to do and the factory will be paying them all their salaries.

However, Director Li still have some things to worry about. What is the factory going to do in the second half of the year after the production of this batch of electric fans are completed?

Knock, knock, knock.

“Director Li, Xiao Feng from Tai Hua Trading is here.” Director Li’s secretary said.

“Ask him to come in!” Director Li replied.

Sure enough, the first thing Feng Yu said after entering his office made him jump with joy.

“Director Li, we would like to add more orders to the electric fans. We want to add another 150,000 units.” Feng Yu said.

Wu Zhigang had told him that they were short of 130,000 units. But Feng Yu felt that there will be some distributors who will order more. So, he decided to prepare more units, just in case.

Moreover, the additional 20,000 units is only 500,000 RMB.

Feng Yu is not worried that the domestic market is not able to take in another 20,000 units. Even if the domestic market is not able to take in these 20,000 units, he can always depend on Kirilenko. The Soviet Union might be more advanced than China, but the things they produced were big and bulky. Even though the summer is short in the Soviet Union, this type of beautiful, convenient, cheap electric fans will still be able to sell well there.

Besides, Feng Yu also gave those businessmen ideas on how to sell, advertise and promote these fans. He even promised to reimburse half of the advertising cost in the provincial newspaper.

Director Li never expected Feng Yu to add 150,000 units.

With this additional order, the factory will have more than 1 million RMB of profit. It will be enough for the all the worker’s salary for the second half of the year.

“No problem. The same conditions. We sign the contract now?” Director Li replied anxiously. He can only calm down after the contract is signed.

“Wait a minute.” Feng Yu suddenly waved his hand. Director Li’s heart skipped a beat. Feng Yu wants to lower the price?

“Manager Feng, this price is very reasonable and cannot be lowered.” Director Li said.

Feng Yu laughed. He did not intend to bargain on the price. What Feng Yu wanted is a faster delivery date!

“Director Li, you misunderstood. I did not intend to bargain! I am talking about time. I need these 150,000 units to be delivered together with the 100,000 units on the same day. If you are able to do it, then I will let you take this order. If you are unable to do it, never mind. I had contacted the First Motor Factory in Lin province. They said that they will be able to deliver.” Feng Yu said.

Director Li grabbed Feng Yu’s hand: “Manager Feng, how can you say this. We had a good working relationship, why would you want to pass the order to Lin province’s First Motor Factory? Their factory is much smaller than us and their workers are not as skilled as us. But the time is too short. We will not be able to finish the order. Our factory is now operating twenty-four hours and we even stop working on the military orders.”

“That is your problem. This is the only request I have for this order. If you are able to complete the order based on my request, we will sign the contract immediately. If not, then I’m sorry.” Feng Yu replied.

At this time, Wu Zhigang’s uncle Director Zhao entered the room and said loudly: “We can complete the order!”

Director Li looked at Wu Zhigang. Director Li had started as a worker in this factory and climbed up to where he is now. He knows how many units the factory can produce. It is impossible to produce 250,000 units in two weeks.

But Director Zhao gave Director Li reassuring look and told Feng Yu: Manager Feng, can you give us a minute?”

Feng Yu made a hand gesture and slowly drink from his teacup.

“Old Zhao, I know you want to take on this order. But that Xiao Feng is very smart. He will unquestionably state the date of delivery in the contract and will not let us extend.” Director Li said. He knows that the factory absolutely cannot complete this order.

“Director Li, if they can find the First Motor Factory in Lin province to produce these fans, why can’t we do the same?” Director Zhao said.

Director Li’s eyes widen: “You mean we subcontract the order to Lin province’s First Motor Factory?”

Chapter 43 – Mom and Dad are here

Director Zhao was able to come up with this idea was because of his nephew. His nephew had “inadvertently” revealed to him. Wu Zhigang had told him that Tai Hua Trading is contacting the First Motor Factory in Lin Province. Why not let Bing City Motor Factory take the order and then subcontract to other factories? Even though, there will be lesser profits, but at least the factory can also get half.

Director Zhao immediately rush to find Director Li. He was at the door when he heard their conversation. Feng Yu really wanted to give the additional orders to another factory. He immediately barged in.

After the contract was signed, Director Li was full of praise for Director Zhao. If it weren’t for Old Zhao’s quick thinking, the factory would lose this business.

150,000 units can be passed to three other factories to produce. Each factory 50,000 units and Director Li will split the profits equally with these factories. Bing City Motor Factory will have a profit of at least 600,000 RMB for this order.

Although the profits were less than the expected, but it was better than nothing and will not delay the production of military orders. Old Zhao had worked in the factory for so many years. It is time for him to be promoted.

……

Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua had just finished the sowing of their fields and they noticed that Feng Yu is still not back yet. They decided to go to the city to look for him. Every time Feng Yu called them, he will tell them the company is making lots of money. Since they are making money, Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua decide to buy a house in the city for their daughter. This way, it will be convenient for their son to go to school as well.

“What? Brother Li, you say my dad and my mom are coming? Almost reaching?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes, they called last night. I will fetch them at the bus station. I had booked the hotel room too.” Li Shiqiang replied.

Li Shiqiang no longer trade Treasury Bonds. He was very busy at Tai Hua Trading. Feng Yu had told him about Tai Hua Trading’s profits. The profits from Treasury Bonds were peanuts compared to Tai Hua Trading. As such, Li Shiqiang stopped doing the Treasury Bonds trading. Also, that Russian will be coming again soon.

While Li Shiqiang is at the bus station, Feng Yu instructed Wu Zhigang to clean up the office and warehouse.

When the staff heard that the big boss of the company is coming, they hurriedly clean up the whole warehouse. They were worried that the big boss’s temper will be the same as Feng Yu. Will they be asked to go if the big boss feels that their performance is not good?

Manager Feng had said that they will be getting a bonus of 100 RMB this month. If they perform well, they will be getting a yearend bonus of 300 RMB, on top of new year gifts. This is much more compared to what they were getting at the Motor Factory.

Li Shiqiang was worried. Uncle Feng had been putting on a serious face and keeping quiet on the journey to the warehouse.

Upon reaching the company, Li Shiqiang hurriedly got off and opened the door for Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua. Li Shiqiang then lead the way. Feng Xingtai had been to the company, but it was the first time for Zhang Muhua.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome!”

At the gate, they saw ten young lads rushed out of the warehouse and stood in two rows clapping and shouting “Welcome” in unison.

“Dad, Mom, you have finally come.” Feng Yu came out and said enthusiastically.

“What’s all this? Get them inside. All these formalities are scaring me!” Feng Xingtai said with a straight face.

“All right, all right. Everyone back to work.” Feng Yu waved and walked over to hold his mother’s hand to lead her inside.

“Mom, you have not been to the company yet. Look, this big warehouse is all ours. What do you think about the décor and renovations? There are offices, meeting rooms, canteen, worker quarters …” Feng Yu said.

Feng Xintai pulled Feng Yu and whispered: “Where is the toilet?”

“Ah? There, at that corner. In this area, we are the only warehouse with flushing toilets.” Feng Yu said.

Before Feng Yu can finish, his Mom and dad rushed to the toilet. One minute later, both came out refreshed. Both were so stern throughout the whole journey is because they needed the toilet!

“Mom and Dad, how was that welcome? Do you feel like superstars?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

“What superstars are you talking about? Do you know why we are here? You had been telling us that you are busy making money. How much have you made? Tell us now!” Zhang Muhua asked. Li Shiqiang had told them that the company had spent over a 100,000 RMB for three cars. This good-for-nothing child! 100,000 RMB can buy three houses in Bing city!

Feng Yu sat on a chair, crossed his legs and began to shake his legs proudly.

Feng Xingtai slapped Feng Yu on his head and said: “Stop shaking and tell us now!”

Feng Yu looked at his mother with innocent and complained: “Mom, dad hit me.”

“You should be slapped. We asked you a question and you are still not answering us! You look at Xiao Li, he is so fast at doing things.” Feng Yu’s mom said.

Li Shiqiang smiled and said: “Uncle, Auntie, Xiao Yu is very capable. This company had made lots of money!”

Feng Yu had just showed a proud expression when he saw his dad raising his hands and is about to slap him again. He hurriedly said: “The company had made more than one million RMB!”

Slapped!

The back of Feng Yu’s head was slapped again!

“Dad, why did you hit me again?” Feng Yu asked.

“How many times have I told you to not tell lies. Now you even dare to lie to me? This company had just started not long ago, and you are telling me, we had made over a million RMB? You know how much is one million RMB?” Feng Xingtai said angrily.

Feng Yu stood up and replied angrily: “Who is lying? You can ask Brother Li if the company is making so much money?”

Feng Yu’s father and mother turned and looked at Li Shiqiang at the same time. Li Shiqiang nodded and said: “Uncle, auntie, the company really had earned over a million RMB!”

“What? Earned one million?!” Feng Xingtai’s voice went from loud to soft. There were many people in the warehouse, and he does not want outsiders to know about this.

“Yes, we really make over a million. The orders were signed, and we will receive the first payments in a few days. All the money will be in our account half a month later! Dad, Mom, what do you want to buy? Let me know and we will go and buy later!” Feng Yu said proudly.

“Son, are you doing anything illegal? Listen to me. Don’t do anything illegal.” Zhang Muhua said worriedly.

“Mom, what are you thinking? Your son is a genius. I can’t even finish earning from legal means why would I earn from illegal stuffs? If you don’t believe, you can ask Brother Li. The money we earned are absolutely clean!” Feng Yu said. But in his heart, the first deal with Kirilenko is not counted.

Li Shiqiang once again act as a witness for Feng Yu and assured Feng’s father and mother.

In Feng Yu’s mind: “This is wrong. I am your son and Brother Li is only your future son-in-law. Why the both of you don’t believe my words but believe Brother Li’s words? Am I picked up from the dumpster?”

“Now you mentioned, your father and I really wanted to buy something back. We wanted to buy an electric fan. I think it is called Wind and Rain fans. I heard that it is cheap and easy to use. Old Zhao from our village had one which was given to him by his son.” Zhang Muhua said.

“Mom, this Wind and Rain fan is our company. We gave every employee two fans and the profits we made were from selling these fans!” Feng Yu explained.

Slapped!

Feng Yu is slapped on the back of his head again by his father!

“The fans are from our company and yet you don’t give your own family one fan?” Feng Xingtai said.

Feng Yu: “……”

Dad, can we talk normally and not through slapping me?

Chapter 44 – choosing a House

In the evening, the whole family gathered for a meal in a restaurant. Li Shiqiang’s parents came as well.

As they were no longer trading Treasury bonds, Li Shiqiang split the remaining money, slightly more than 110,000 RMB, equally between the two families. Li’s father had wanted Li Shiqiang to go back and work at the Post office. These few months, they had also made more than 50,000 RMB. It is enough to buy a big house. However, Li’s father does not want his son to lose his iron rice bowl.

“Uncle Li, Brother Li still have to work in the company. The company cannot do without him. Besides, he is also a shareholder and considered one of the bosses.” Feng Yu said.

“What boss? Didn’t the company belong to your family?” Li Shiqiang’s father asked curiously.

Feng Yu just realized that Li Shiqiang did not tell his family that he owns 10% of the company’s shares. In the worst-case scenario, there will still be a profit of 3 million RMB from Wind and Rain fans and Li Shiqiang’s share will be at least 300,000 RMB. Why should he go back and work at the Post office?

When Li Shiqiang’s parents heard that he will be earning at least 300,000 RMB this year, their hands trembled. It was only after a few cups of tea before they calmed down. It was a wise decision to let his son stop working at the Post office, and an even wiser decision to let his son date Feng Danying!

Feng Yu secretly observed. He noticed that the Li family were happy and were not jealous of his family. Feng Yu is relieved. The Li family seems to treat the Feng family as one of them.

Li’s parents heard that Feng Xingtai and his wife will be going to buy house tomorrow, they also wanted to go together. They wanted to buy a big and spacious new house.

Everyone understood what this means. Li Shiqiang sat there grinning like a Cheshire cat. On the other hand, Feng Danying’s face turned red and bowed her head down shyly.

……

“Move aside! You know how to drive?” Feng Yu was just about to sit on the driver’s seat when he was dragged aside by his dad.

“Dad, I have been driving for more than half a month. You can ask Brother Li about my driving skills.” Feng Yu said.

“When did you learn how to drive?” Feng Xingtai is shocked. He did not know that his son can drive.

“Your son is a genius. Name me something I don’t know.” Feng Yu replied.

“Really? The soybean in our field needs to be fertilized. I will see how you do the farm work in two days’ time.” Feng Xingtai said.

“Dad, you are joking with me, right?” Feng Yu said and shut his mouth. He obediently moved to the backseat with his sister.

Li Shiqiang drove his family in front, leading the way while Feng Xingtai followed.

“Hey, this car is very comfortable. It is not loud nor shaky.” Feng Xingtai had wanted to drive this car yesterday but Li Shiqiang had booked the hotel next to the company. They can just walk over to the hotel from the company.

“Dad, if you like it, drive it away! Or we can just buy new cars. Your son is not short of money!” Feng Yu said proudly.

“Nonsense. Didn’t you say yesterday, this is the only time you can get such high profits. In future, the profits will not be so high.” Zhang Muhua said.

“Don’t worry, your son still has lots of ideas for making money!” Feng Yu replied. His real specialty is investment, and a great bull market is coming.

Along the way, everyone chatted happily. Half an hour later, the car pulled to stop.

“Uncle, Auntie, Mom, Dad, this building was built last year and had just finished renovation this year. Look at this floor plan, it is quite spacious.” Li Shiqiang said.

Li Shiqiang had chosen this place as it is close to Feng Yu’s future High School, and Feng Danying’s workplace. It only takes 10 minutes to walk to the school or the hospital. From here to the shopping street is also about 10 minutes’ walk. It is located in the city center and the property prices will soar in future.

“This way is to Xiao Yu‘s school. That way is to Danying’s workplace. That direction is to the shopping street. The First Department store is over there. And this place is not far from the train station. It takes less than 20 minutes to reach there by foot. There are also two bus stops nearby. Even though this house is slightly expensive, but I think it is worth it.” Li Shiqiang said.

“How expensive? 30,000 RMB a unit? 50,000 a unit?” Feng Xingtai asked.

“An unrenovated unit is about 1,000 RMB per square meter. One unit will cost over 100,000 RMB!” Li Shiqiang replied.

“What? A square metre is more than 1,000 RMB? And it is for an unrenovated unit? These evil property developers. Who will buy such expensive houses?” Feng Xingtai shouted.

“I will buy!” Feng Yu interrupted. “This is too cheap. I will buy two units!”

Slapped！

Feng Yu was slapped on the back of his head by Feng Xingtai again: “What are you shouting? You think you can make the decision?”

Looking at Feng Yu’s arrogant expression, Feng Xingtai is about to blow his top. It is over 100,000 RMB for a unit and you want to buy two? Why do you need two units?

Feng Yu looked at his dad and said: “Dad, didn’t you said you are going to buy a house for me to live? Why can’t I give my opinions? You look at Sister. She also wants to live here.”

The Li family was more straightforward. They wanted to buy a new house for their son and don’t mind the price. It was also because their in-laws were presence. They don’t want to lose face.

“Son, let’s go and view the units?” Li Shiqiang’s father said.

What the saleswoman said was similar to what Li Shiqiang just said. But the saleswoman was able to articulate better. He talked about the lightings, Feng Shui, elevator, convenience and so on.

What interest most to Feng Yu was that this building is a high-rised building and there is an elevator!  Feng Yu is not willing to climb stairs. Even if it was the second floor, he felt tired! In essence, he is a lazy person who will absolutely not stand if he can sit. His goal is to retire leisurely before 30 years old!

At the lobby, Feng Yu pressed the elevator’s button casually and stepped inside the elevator. The saleswoman looked at Feng Yu curiously. From the dressing of this family, they don’t look like they are rich. How come the way they speak were so arrogant? Want to buy two units? I will thank the gods if you all are able to afford one.

And also, this young man seems to be even more familiar with elevators than her. Does he take the elevator often?

“I am afraid of this elevator? Will it fall?” Zhang Muhua whispered.

Feng Yu gave his mom a relaxed expression. The elevator quality was still considered good in that era. It is not like the quality of the elevators in future where the elevators were installed even when it had not passed the safety tests.

The unit was a bare room. There was no renovation yet. Feng Yu walked around and planned how to renovate and decorate the house in his mind. The unit only have a few rooms but it doesn’t matter. Feng Yu can always buy two units and breakdown the wall in between. This way, two units will become one and there will be more rooms. He got to plan and asked people to renovate. Finally, he can live in a high-rise building!

“How do you feel about this unit?” The saleswoman looked at Li Shiqiang’s father. It was very obvious that the couple were getting married and their families were buying this unit for them. She wondered: “What does this man do? He can afford to drive a car and wanted to buy this unit.”

“We want all four units on this floor!” Feng Yu said while waving his arms.

“Two units. We will get these two units.” Feng Xingtai said while pulling Feng Yu to one side. The good-for-nothing son. What’s the use for getting so many units? Feng Xingtai had discussed with Li Shiqiang’s father. They will buy a unit each on the same floor. It will be easier to look out for each other.

Feng Yu looked up the sky and wondered: “I am the one who earned this money, why I can’t express my opinions? Three rooms and one hall are not enough. When mom and dad come over, isn’t he going to be thrown into the study?”

“You want two units? Please wait a moment, I will prepare the contract for you!” The saleswoman said excitedly. She did not expect this family to agree so fast. A unit costed more than a hundred thousand RMB and they bought two without batting an eyelid.

It is always a pleasure serving rich people!

Author’s notes: Some people said that 1988, the state-owned enterprises were not so poor. In fact, in 1988, there was an over production of goods and a large number of state-owned enterprises can only give out partial wages. It was also this time, China started selling their resources to other countries. Of which, Japan benefited the most.

Chapter 45–shopping at the mall

“Two sets of this leather sofa. This glass coffee table, also two sets. This double bed, we want four sets. We want the imported Simmons mattress. Also give us two sets of your best electric water heater. Two ash wood bookshelves. Two Panda brand 18-inch color TVs and two Little Swan washing machines. Two Aucma refrigerators……” Feng Yu said.

At the first department store, Feng Yu was buying everything he sees and he can still give the reason to buy. For example, the sofa and mattress is to have a good rest, bookshelves is to read and study, color TV is to watch news to understand state affairs, etc.

Anyway, Feng Yu is rich. These things, although expensive, but it will not be more expensive than a house. As such, Feng Xingtai just let Feng Yu buy whatever he wants.

The salesman, who was following them, was stunned. These were all big-ticket items. A normal person will have to save for months to buy one item. It was fine if this young man is buying so many items, but everything this young man wants, were two sets!

“Young man, these are all very expensive. I think you should discuss with your family first.” The salesman reminded Feng Yu. This family looked like they were from the village. Maybe they thought these items were cheap?

Feng Yu looked at the salesman: “Call your manager out. Tell him Manager Feng from Tai Hua Trading Company is here.”

Tai Hua Trading Company? The salesman was confused. It was until a supervisor of the household appliances department saw Feng Yu and hurriedly asked the salesman to inform the manager. You don’t know about Tai Hua Trading Company? Our bestselling Wind and Rain electric fans is from Tai Hua Trading Company!

Within half a month, the Wind and Rain electric fans had brought over a thousand RMB of profits to the departmental store. Also, there was an increase in the traffic, especially at the home appliances department. This young man is a prestigious guest of the store!

Feng Xingtai saw Feng Yu talking loudly with the salesman and wanted to know what happened. Just when he was about to walk over, a well-dressed man walked over and invited all of them to the manager’s office.

“Xiao Li, what is happening?” Feng Xingtai whispered. They had been walking around the department store and suddenly, they were brought to an office and served tea.

“Xiao Yu knows the manager of this departmental store.” Li Shiqiang said. He felt that this is normal. He represented Tai Hua Trading Company and when he goes to any departmental store, the managers will be outside greeting him personally.

“Please sit down and have some tea. Try my special cigarettes too.” The manager said politely. He had regretted to sell Wind and Rain fans on consignments. If they had directly purchase the goods, they would have higher profits. If only they had not worried about the fans will not sell or not. If only they knew that the Wind and Rain electric fans will be so popular.

“Manager Feng, I heard that other than Bing city in Longjiang, all other places have distributors selling your fans and their wholesale prices are quite low too.” The departmental store manager said.

Hearing the departmental store manager addressed Feng Yu as Manager Feng, everyone, except for Li Shiqiang, were shocked. This kid had just graduated from Junior High School and the departmental store manager addressed him as “Manager”?

“Yes, not just Longjiang, all other provinces have distributors except for Bing city. Manager Liu, is there anything wrong?” Feng Yu deliberately asked.

“Hahaha. Manager Feng, do you think we can get the goods at the wholesale price too?” Manager Liu asked.

“Well, it is also not impossible. We will talk about this next month. We got to wait till the contract ends this month.” Feng Yu said.

Manager Liu is not willing to wait till next month. He felt the more fans he sold, the more he loses with the current consignment model.

“Manager Feng, let discuss a bit more. We promise to get more fans from you. How about 1,000 units? Manager Liu asked. The First Departmental store is the biggest shopping mall in Bing City. Although they had many competitors, Manager Liu is confident that he can sell all 1,000 units of fans in this summer.

“Manager Liu, I am here today because I had just bought a house. I intend to buy some furniture, household appliances and renovation materials.” Feng Yu said.

“What do you want to buy? I will ask my men to deliver to your door steps and install for you. The renovation materials manager is my good friend. I will call him personally and ask him to give you the best materials at the lowest price. Do you have anyone doing your renovations? If no, I can help you get a contractor. I guaranteed that the contractor will finish your renovations fast.” Manager Liu said.

“Since Liu Manager is so sincere, then this contract issue can be discussed further. Tomorrow, you come over to my company. The wholesale prices will be the same as the other distributors.” Feng Yu said. He knew that once he started wholesale, these consignees will want to switch from consignment to purchasing the fans directly. He had already prepared and today, he is only taking advantage of Manager Liu.

While Feng Yu and Manager Liu were discussing about the contract’s conditions, the rest were watching. Li Shiqiang’s parents were in awed of Feng Yu. “Look at this Feng Yu, so capable and even the manager of First Department store had to speak to him so politely.” Feng Yu’s parents were very proud.

During the next one hour, everyone kept quiet and did not give any opinions when Feng Yu start his shopping spree again. Using Feng Yu’s words, money is meant to spend. If we were to buy something, we must buy the best! Anyway, Feng Yu is paying for all the purchases.

Feng Yu also tried to persuade his parents to stay in Bing city and don’t return to the farm. They had only a small plot of land and it is meaningless to farm. Their son is rich now. They should be enjoying their life at home. Maybe, Feng Yu missed his mother’s cooking too much.

Unfortunately, Feng Yu’s parents refused. They were not accustomed to the city life and have no friends here. As such, Feng Yu decided to buy a new house for them in the village.

When Feng Yu’s parents left, they drove the Jeep away. At the farm, the road conditions were not that good. So, the Jeep is more suitable for them to drive at the farm. Anyway, the Jeep was parked at the warehouse and seldom used.

Behind the Jeep, was a delivery truck. Feng Yu had bought some home appliances for their farmhouse. His parents had chided him for spending so much but the smile on their faces said otherwise.

……

There were no big renovation companies in that era. Feng Yu also don’t trust those small companies. So, Feng Yu employed a few experienced renovation workers, and he himself oversees the renovation. The walls were painted, floor tiles changed, installation of the toilet bowls and bathtubs, etc. Just the renovation cost, not including the worker’s salaries, was about 100,000 RMB per unit. Feng Yu did not tell his family and they thought the renovations costed only 10,000 to 20,000 RMB.

In his previous life, Feng Yu had seen the renovation cost higher than the value of the house. In another two years, Feng Yu want to re-renovate the house again!

The workers were very efficient. The renovations were completed in a few days. After the renovations were completed, Feng Yu called the First Departmental store to deliver all the furniture and home appliances.

Once everything was completed, Feng Yu sat on the leather sofa and look at his newly renovated modern home. This was the design of his home from his memories. Finally, a home he is used to!

Chapter 46 – Brother Ki’s team

Ring, ring, ring.

“Hello?” Feng Yu picked the phone on the coffee table, cross his legs and leaned back on the couch. It was much more convenient to have a phone at home. Fortunately, Li Shiqiang used to work in the Post office and was able to arrange fast installation of telephone lines in their homes. The others still got to wait in-line for their installation.

“Xiao Yu, there is a telegram from Kirilenko. Do we need to get ready?” Li Shiqiang asked. He is very excited. Every time Kirilenko comes, they are able to make a fortune.

Feng Yu suddenly sit up and said: “Wait for me at the company, I am coming over!”

After reading the telegram, Feng Yu asked a lawyer to come over at once. The telegram states that Kirilenko will be coming with a team to inspect the China’s market and to look for a trading partner.

Li Shiqiang heard the contents of the telegram and asked Feng Yu: “Xiao Yu, the telegram did not mention us. Are they looking for other business partners?”

Feng Yu said: “This business partner is definitely us! First of all, we had cooperated a few times and we understand each other. Second, I can speak and write Russian. There will be lesser issues in communicating. Also, this telegram is sent to us. This meant that they have the intention to work with us. Lastly, we have the funds now and we are on equal standings. If they are able to take out 1 million Rubles, we can also take out 4 million RMB.”

Seeing Feng Yu’s confidence, Li Shiqiang had no more worries.  Although Feng Yu is still a teenager, he is more capable in business than him. Also, when it comes to business, Feng Yu had not failed.

For instance, Feng Yu said that Treasury bonds would be allowed for trading over the counter and it really happened. Feng Yu also said that the electric fans will sell, and the fans really sell like hotcakes. Now, Feng Yu said that Kirilenko will work with them and Li Shiqiang strongly believe Feng Yu’s words!

When the lawyer came, Feng Yu spoke to the lawyer in the office for a long time.

Feng Yu wanted to understand some of the government policies, and will his business plan violate any laws or regulations. After understanding the laws, Feng Yu is even more looking forward to the arrival of Kirilenko.

This time, Kirilenko really brought a team. There was a total of 12 people excluding him. Feng Yu and Li Shiqiang’s car can only fetch less than half of them. The rest of the people got to take taxi to the hotel themselves.

“Brother Ki, this time you brought a big team. Are you preparing for a big business deal?” Feng Yu asked.

“Feng, I went back and considered the things you said last time. I think it can be done. But, I am not alone. I cannot make the decision myself.” Kirilenko said and pointed to the one sitting next to him. It seems that this team consist of not only his subordinates but also his business partners. Kirilenko also discreetly wink at Feng Yu.

“Your name is Feng Yu? You are that Kirilenko’s friend? You two have a good relationship but I don’t care. To do business with us, you must first show your sincerity.” The young man next to Kirilenko said.

Feng Yu put down his teacup and asked: “Sincerity? What you mean by sincerity?”

“These are the things we want. How much are you charging us?” The youg man said.

Feng Yu picked up the paper and discreetly looked at Kirilenko. Aren’t these items the items Kirilenko bought last time? But, the quantity seems to one-tenth of last purchase. Seems like Kirilenko is not trusted by his business partners.

“About 50,000 Rubles. The quantity is too little. It is hard for me to negotiate for lower prices.” Feng Yu replied. The last time Kirilenko spent 300,000 Rubles and the items and quantity in this list is worth about 30,000 Rubles. Feng Yu deliberately said a higher price. He knew that Kirilenko must had marked up the prices further when he returned to the Soviet Union.

Kirilenko was relieved to hear Feng Yu’s price. The last time, he spent 300,000 Rubles for the goods and reported the cost to be 470,000 Rubles. He even said that it was because he found a very good Chinese friend who helped him get this special price.

Now with what Feng Yu said, Kirilenko is not afraid of those partners suspecting him.

Kirilenko thought: “Every time I am the one to go to China. The rest just wait at home and split the profits. Why can’t I earn a bit more? If not for me and Feng Yu are good friends, how can we get so much cheap goods in China?”

Several other people nodded. The prices of those Chinese goods were indeed what Kirilenko said. Even if this Feng Yu is trustworthy, he still needs to be qualified to do business with them.

Kirilenko had said Feng Yu is very capable and know a lot of people in Bing City. This needs to be proven too.

Feng Yu looked at these young men. He knows that they were the same as Kirilenko. They must be the sons of the Soviet Union Army’s high-ranking officers. Every one of them were very arrogant. If Kirilenko is here to send money, then these people are here to be slaughter by Feng Yu!

Feng Yu only said one sentence and these people believed that Feng Yu is indeed a very capable person.

“We, Tai Hua Trading Company is the first company in Bing City to have import and export trade approval!” Feng Yu said loudly.

As for whether Tai Hua Trading was the first company to get the permits, there was no way for these Russians to find out. Anyway, Feng Yu just said that to fool them. The way Feng Yu said this sentence, was confident and impactful.

Sure enough, these people all had the look of amazement. This young man which Kirilenko found is really very capable!

“I still have a question. You want to trade with us, but do you have money? If you want us to help you buy goods, you need to have money first. Our business deals must be at least 500,000 Rubles!” The young man said.

Feng Yu made a startling expression and said: “500,000 rubles? So many of you and yet so little money? Didn’t I told Brother Ki that it should be at least 1 million Rubles? If you all only have so little money, I think I will find another partner.”

Feng Yu thought that so many people came on this trip, it must be some big business deals. But he did not expect these people were so far off from what he had imagined. It seems that Feng Yu had expected too much from these second generations.

Some of Kirilenko’s friends were embarrassed. It was not easy for them to gather 500,000 Rubles. The Soviet Union’s economy was worse than China at that time. They were only the second generation of Army officers and not businessmen.

Kirilenko stood up and tried to ease the embarrassment. He said: “Feng, my friend. We had cooperated several times before. Why not carry on working together? Also, we have the advantages of transportation. We can arrange train carriage from here to Moscow. We are very sincere to do business with you. If the goods you want from the Soviet Union are not contrabands or against the law, we can get it for you!”

Several other people also nodded in agreement. If Feng Yu is willing to work with them and supply them with cheap goods from China, they have no problems.

Feng Yu reluctantly agree, and everyone started drinking happily.

After those people were drunk, Feng Yu pull Kirilenko to one side.

Kirilenko had his arms over Feng Yu’s shoulder. He thanked Feng Yu for helping him in front of his friends. The fathers of these people had higher ranks than Kirilenko’s father and these people looked down on Kirilenko. They followed Kirilenko to China was because they suspected Kirilenko was doing something behind their backs.

Kirilenko told Feng Yu that he wanted to carry on working with Feng Yu. If Feng Yu can come out with 50,000 Rubles, Kirilenko will help him settle the rest.

Feng Yu looked seriously at Kirilenko: “Brother, I was not joking. I really have 1 million Rubles. If you can really get the goods I wanted from the Soviet Union, then we will sign the contract tomorrow!”

Kirilenko was shocked. Feng have 1 million Rubles???

Chapter 47 – Importing secondhand luxury cars

The next day, Kirilenko and his team went to Tai Hua Trading Company. Kirilenko and Feng Yu signed a trade agreement. The agreement states the terms and responsibilities of both sides, such as the Soviet Union side oversees the transportation of goods from Moscow to Bing City, payment terms, delivery time, etc. However, there was no mention of the type of goods in the agreement.

“Brother Ki, what do you all want this time?”

“Do you have any good recommendation?” Kirilenko asked casually.

Feng Yu snapped his fingers and Wu Zhigang entered the room, holding two Wind and Rain electric fans and placed on the table.

“Have a look. This is currently the most popular electric fan in China. Wind and Rain Electric fans. Safe, light, beautiful, and economical. I purposely kept some for you.” Feng Yu said.

The group of Soviets’ eyes grew big when they saw the electric fan can be clipped on tables, chairs, cabinets, etc. They even gasped in surprise when Feng Yu put his fingers into the fan blades and didn’t injured himself.

The Soviet Union as just as Feng Yu guessed. They do produce electric fans, but they were the same as China. They produce those metal, expensive, bulky, noisy and poorly designed electric fans.

14 to 15 Rubles a unit? It’s too cheap! Kirilenko immediately ordered 20,000 units! If it wasn’t because they don’t have enough money, they would want more.

The rest of the goods were mainly food products, such as ham sausage, canned goods, sweets, Jianlibao drinks, and the rest were textiles products.

The Soviet Union is one of the world’s leader in heavy industry, but their light industry was now being overtaken by China.

Feng Yu calculated the total price. He added 5% more to the wholesale price of the electric fans and with the fans, the total added up to nearly 600,000 Rubles. Kirilenko and his partners do not have enough money.

But Feng Yu waved his hand: “It is just 100,000 Rubles. I believe you. If you still have train carriages, I can even send you more goods! This trade does not need to use so much money. You can just deliver the things I want to at the same time to offset the differences. We can barter!”

Barter trade?

The Soviets looked at each other.

Based on their past experiences, they should be paying Feng Yu the full payment first before Feng Yu load and deliver the goods. After they received the goods, they will then load the goods Feng Yu wanted and deliver to Bing City. At the same time, Feng Yu would need transfer the full payments to them before they deliver the goods.

But what Feng Yu just said was to ask them to ship over the goods he wanted from the Soviet Union, as payment for the differences. But they are in charge of the transportation and Feng Yu still got to pay for part of the transportation charges. Feng Yu is not afraid that they will con him?

Feng Yu might not trust others, but he still trusted Kirilenko. As long as Kirilenko still want to make money, Feng Yu is an important business partner.

Sure enough, Kirilenko agreed on behalf of the rest. In the Soviet Union, they were about to use 20% to 30% down payment to get the goods first. The balance can be paid off two months later. The Soviets immediately start to discuss what other goods they want.

When they had ordered 1 million Rubles worth of goods, Kirilenko asked Feng Yu, what are the goods he wanted from Soviet Union.

“Used cars. European made, secondhand cars. If there are no problems with the vehicle’s performance and reasonably priced, I will buy everything you can find!” Feng Yu replied.

In that era, the tariffs for imported cars were very high. But for used cars, the tariffs were just like ordinary goods. It was very cheap compared to new cars. In China, there are many people who likes imported cars but are unable to afford. They can only afford to buy domestic cars.

Feng Yu remembered in his previous life, there was a rich woman from Shanghai who made her fortune from importing secondhand luxury cars. She made a few billions within ten years. She had shipped the cars in via the sea and it took a long time for one shipment.

Feng Yu, on the other hand will be importing these cars in via railway. The advantage of using rail was the fast and Bing City is very near to the borders. Feng Yu is very confident that he can quickly capture the Northeast market and gradually expand to the whole Northern region.

Kirilenko and his partners had a troubled look. They thought that Feng Yu will want a lot of things. With their family backgrounds, they can even help Feng Yu get contraband items. But, they did not expect Feng Yu only want used European cars.

They do not have the supplies in their hands. If the quantity is big, it will be very troublesome. But they had already promised Feng Yu that they are able to get whatever he wanted.

“Feng, we are able to get secondhand cars for you but not in big quantities.” Kirilenko said embarrassedly.

Feng Yu raised his eyebrows and said: “Never mind. You just pick those luxury cars will do.  Mercedes, BMW, Volga, or sports cars like Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc. I only want the expensive ones!”

If Kirilenko were to get some Lada or something, there won’t be much profits for Feng Yu.

European countries had lower tariffs between each other. The price difference for a BMW in the Soviet Union and China can be more than doubled. Feng Yu will bring in the second-hand luxury cars from the Soviet Union, and he will refurbish and repair these cars in China. He will then sell it off at double his cost price. He is not worried that there will be no market for these cars.

“Feng, besides second-hand cars, do you want anything else? The machines produced in our country are very good and advance. You interested?” Kirilenko asked.

Feng Yu thought for a while and said: “Then I want some spare parts. For example, the spare parts for machines used in farming and spare parts for tractors. My side is still doing market research. I will let you know when I need other things.”

“No problem, we can easily get these things.” Kirilenko replied. They were all relieved. With their background and connections, they can easily get the spare parts for Feng Yu.

This time they only had 500,000 Rubles and bought 1 million Rubles worth of goods. Feng Yu had 1 million Rubles and asked for 1.5 million Rubles worth of goods.

This way of doing business, allowed both parties to buy more goods at a time. Transactions will still be recorded in the books but only a portion of the money will be deposited into their accounts.

After finalizing the details of their trade, Feng Yu asked curiously: “Every time you transport so many goods back, how you pay the tax?”

The things Kirilenko bought every time were very miscellaneous and were piled together in the train carriage. Feng Yu was very curious about how Kirilenko pass customs and how he paid the taxes.

Kirilenko winked at Feng Yu and said: “Those goods are military supplies. We do not need to pay taxes!”

Fuck. These people were more shameless than he imagined. Transporting these goods back as military supplies and profit themselves.

Can Feng Yu also avoid taxes? Of course not! His company is a private enterprise and it is a must to pay taxes. Although the tariffs were much cheaper for second-hand cars than the new ones, they were still very expensive. Feng Yu had also inquired about tax rates for the metal spare parts and the taxes were not low too. How can he avoid taxes legally?

Feng Yu had thought of this problem when he wanted to do the second-hand luxury car business. He had discussed with the lawyer and concluded that he can import these cars as another item. Although he still has to pay taxes, but the taxes will be 90% cheaper and legitimate.

Importing cars have to pay taxes but what about importing car parts or importing scrapped metal? If all the tires and seats were removed from the car, the car would be considered as scrapped metal. The tires and seats can then be imported as parts.

Once the “scrapped metal” and “parts” arrived, they can be reassembled into a car.

The 50% or 60% tax will be lowered to below 20%. This is the loophole.

As long as he is able to do it 3 to 5 times, Feng Yu’s 1 million Rubles will become a few million or even more than 10 million! When that happens, he will have the funds to enter China’s financial market as one of the big boys.

Chapter 48 – Cars Assembly

Kirilenko and his team went back to the Soviet Union soon after signing the contract. They had left their contact details for Tai Hua Trading. This way, Tai Hua Trading can contact them once the procurement of the goods is completed, and Kirilenko can arrange for the transportation.

Kirilenko will also help Feng Yu to source for the things he wanted in the Soviet Union and will contact him to see if he is willing to accept the price they offer.

Feng Yu passed the procurement of goods to Li Shiqiang and the rest of his staffs. They went back to the suppliers which had worked with them previously. The prices were the same as last time. If the suppliers do not agree, they will look for new suppliers.

While Li Shiqiang and the rest of the staffs were busy with the procurement, Feng Yu went to the Motor Factory with Wu Zhigang.

“Manager Feng, is it about the progress of the order? Rest assured. There will certainly be no delays to your orders. In fact, the second batch is also completed.” Director Li said.

“Congratulations. I heard that the old factory director is going to retire and you will be promoted to take over his position.” Feng Yu said. (Director Li is currently the Deputy Director of Motor Factor. Number two man in the factory)

“Hahaha. It is not decided yet.” Although Director Li said so, he was smiling non-stop. The old factory Director had requested for an early retirement due to his illness. As such, Director Li was next in-line for this position. He had proven his capability by turning around the factory from losses to profits. Who else can compete with him for the position?

“I came here today for a few reasons. Firstly, is to congratulate you. Secondly, is to check the progress of production and lastly, is to ask if the Motor Factory is interested in doing car assembly business?” Feng Yu said.

“Car assembly? I’m afraid not.” Director Li shook his head regrettably. He wanted to do it but he can’t. His factory had lots of skilled workers but their expertise was not in automobiles. The factory also can’t afford the car assembly production lines too.

“It is not complicated and does not need any large machinery. It is just installing some tires and seats, and spray painting. I think your workers should be able to do that right?” Feng Yu smiled and said.

Even Feng Yu himself is able to install the tires and seats. How can these level 8 skilled workers from the Motor Factory don’t know?

“Just tires and seats? I don’t get what you mean.” Director Li replied.

Feng Yu explained to Director Li. He told him that he will import a few batches of “scrap metal”, and then assembled into a car, refurbished the exteriors and then sell. The quantity is not a lot but he needs some workers and a place to do the assembly.

“This … Is it legal?” Director Li asked worringly.

“The law did not say that this is illegal. I will get the permits for selling the cars. You just tell me how much you are charging me for each car.” Feng Yu replied.

“This … I need to have a meeting with the rest of the directors first. Can I get back to you tomorrow?” Director Li asked.

Feng Yu got up and said: “No problem. If you do not want to do it, I can go to the Bing Fei Factory. They are producing cars themselves too.”

After Feng Yu left, Director Li immediately called all workshop directors for a meeting to discuss if they should take up this job, and if so, how much should they charge.

When the workshop directors heard that there is a new job, all of them start to compete for this job. They do not care whether if it is legal or illegal.

Even if it is illegal, the contract would have been signed and Tai Hua Trading will still have to pay them. If Tai Hua Trading is unable to pay them, they can always confiscate the cars as their payments. Also, the Motor Factory is a state-owned enterprise and they can easily push all the responsibility to Tai Hua Trading. What can the City government do to them?

If the City government does not allow the factory to do it, or punish them, then fine. The City government can pay for the workers’ salaries themselves.

This discussion did not even last a minute and it became a competition among the workshops to get the job. Installing tires and seats is much easier than assembling a large generator. How can they not know how to do it?

Feng Yu had said that he will go to Bing Fei factory if they do not want to take on this job. Why should they pass this opportunity to them? All this while, Bing Fei factory had been better off than them!

To say that the motor factory had no money, is not really true. The account had a lot of money which was the grants given by the State for research purpose. They cannot touch those grants. There were also many bad debts. The leaders of the Motor Factory had been under a lot of stress.

Since there is a job now and money coming in, how can they reject?

Just look at Wind and Rain electric fans. The fans had been selling well in the market and soon, the fans will be sold throughout the whole country. No one had complaint that these fans were inferior goods and the factory’s reputation had not been tarnished. This Feng Yu is still quite reliable when doing business.

In the afternoon, Feng Yu received a call from Director Li personally. The Motor Factory is willing to take on the job but the quantity cannot be too small. There must be at least 30 cars each time and their profit cannot be less than 1,000 RMB per car.

Feng Yu agreed. Although the Motor Factory charges was a bit high, but it was still acceptable. Once these cars were shipped back, assembled and refurbished, his profits can be a few millions RMB!

Feng Yu also told Director Li that the refurbished cars will be temporally stored at the Motor Factory and he will pay them for the inventory costs. The maximum is one month and he will collect the cars.

After two days, Kirilenko finally called but it was not good news.

Feng Yu did not know that during this era, the Soviet Union was the same as China previously, where they had closed door policies and they were self-sufficient.

The most popular cars in the Soviet Union were Poronaz, Lada and Volga, as well as a small number of British imported cars and Japanese cars.

Feng Yu had told Kirilenko that he does not want Soviet car. That means there was only British imported cars and Japanese cars left. Japanese cars in the Soviet Union were mostly smuggled in and were mostly right-hand drive. As such, Japanese cars still needs to do a lot of modifications. On British cars can meet Feng Yu requirements.

Feng Yu was a bit disappointed. He can only import one country’s cars. Why can’t the Soviet Union import German cars, French cars or other European cars?

It was only then it occurred to him that the Soviet Union’s relations with Germany and France is not very good. Even if there were cars from these countries, the numbers were very low.

Forget it, British cars will do. But what were the brands? Feng Yu wanted to know if there were any brands he knew from his previous life.

After Kirilenko told Feng Yu about the British Automobile brands, Feng Yu was excited again.

Rolls-Royce, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Rover, Land Rover, Bentley and Lotus. Every single brand was considered luxury cars brands in his previous life. Although some of the brands had been acquired by other companies, the brand value still remains.

“I want the cars from all these brands! As long as the car chassis, engine and other core components have no problem, the other does not matter. I will take in whatever you can get!” Feng Yu said excitedly.

Feng Yu also wanted to change cars. This old Lada should be scrapped and replaced with Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin or Land Rover!

Kirilenko told Feng Yu about the prices of the cars. Kirilenko had contacted a businessman who specializes in British brand used cars. The last time Feng Yu signed the contract with them, had said somethings that let them felt humiliated.

So, Kirilenko and his business partners tried their best to not let Feng Yu humiliate them again. The businessman had not wanted to sell his cars to them as the price they offered was too low. But these Soviet Union’s Army officers’ second generations told him that these cars were for military use and if he must sell the cars to them cheaply. Otherwise ……

Anyway, the price of the cars was at the lowest. The usual prices for these cars were about 100,000 to 200,000 Rubles. Now, these cars are only less than 60,000 Rubles. Kirilenko had slightly more than 30 cars on hand now and the total price is more than 1.5 million Rubles.

Feng Yu immediately agree. He can forgo those farming tools spare parts for all these cars. Feng Yu then request Kirilenko to ship these cars as soon as possible. He will transfer the price differences over.

As soon as these cars were refurbished, Feng Yu’s assets will double!

Chapter 49 – The wait

The production for the electric fans were very fast. Within less than a month, all the orders were completed.

Those distributors who had signed the contract collected their last batch of goods. Tai Hua Trading company now have a few million RMB in the bank account.

There were some other brands of cheap electric fans appearing in the southern provinces, but the quality was not too good. As Wind and Rain electric fans had already occupied the major cities’ market, there was no market for these cheap fans. However, these cheap brands focus on the small towns and villages, and they still did quite well.

Feng Yu was very satisfied. These distributors had learnt from Bing City. They signed the contract with the big departmental stores first and got the first mover advantage.

At least for this year, there was no other electric fan factory that can compete with Wind and Rain fans. Wind and Rain electric fans were way ahead in terms of sales and profits.

Feng Yu is not the only one who had earned a fortune. The distributors also earned a lot. In the south, the development of the cities, population size and temperature, were higher than Bing city. The distributors raised the price by 15% and the fans were still selling fast. Some distributors still ordered more fans.

The goods for Kirilenko had been loaded onto the train carriages and was listed as “Food and textile” products on the exportation documents. With the help of the Office of Foreign Trade, everything went smoothly.

500,000 Rubles was transferred to the company’s bank account. Manager Zhu was very excited to know this news. This young boss is really capable. In such short time, he brought in 500,000 Rubles! The leaders at the Office of Foreign Trade were also happy too. They were able to show their results to the provincial leaders.

Feng Yu wanted at least 30 cars per shipment. So, for the first batch, Kirilenko made some adjustments. He added some Japan’s Toyota Crown to the shipment for the total value to reach about 1 million Rubles. Feng Yu also wired the payments to Kirilenko’s company bank account.

“Director Zhao. Oh no. I should be calling you Chief Engineer Zhao now! Factory Director Zhao, the spare parts are almost reaching Bing City. Are your trucks ready to pick them up?” Feng Yu asked over the phone.

“Hahaha. It’s deputy. Deputy Chief Engineer. The parts are here? My side is ready and I will send my trucks over now.” Director Zhao was happy. It was announced yesterday that he was promoted to the Deputy Chief Engineer. His promotion can be considered due to Feng Yu’s credit.

The used cars were all sent to the Motor Factory for assembly, painting, cleaning and refurbishment. The factory even selects a group of workers who had some knowledge about cars together. This was to ensure everything goes smoothly. They still wanted to carry on their cooperation with Feng Yu.

These cars will take one week to complete, and Feng Yu finally got the time to return to the farm. The high school admission notice was announced.

It took three hours for Feng Yu to get to the farm. It had just rained the day before and the road was a little muddy. His old Lada had almost got stuck in the mud several times. Feng Yu already decided that he will keep a Land Rover from the batch of used cars for himself!

Li Na was slowly walking home from school. She got her high school admission notice. She was admitted to the best high school in Bing City. But the thing that made her happier was Feng Yu was also admitted to the same high school as her.

A total of four people was admitted to that high school. One of them had always been the top student in their school. It was normal for that student to enter the best high school. Li Na knew she had performed well for the admission exams, so it was not a surprise for her to be admitted. As for Feng Yu’s admittance to that school, she does not want to know the reason. However, how did Wen Dongjun get admitted too?

The reasons her schoolteacher gave was there were very few people applying for that high school this year and Wen Dongjun got lucky!

Those students who had scored better than the Wen Dongjun, but did not dare to apply, must be regretting now! The teachers also felt sorry for those students. The graduation rate of that high school was very high and there was no University entrance exam!

Li Na was smiling while she walks. She will be in the same school with Feng Yu. She wonders if she would be in the same class with him. It would be best if she is sitting beside him.

When she remembers that Feng Yu had not contacted her for such long time, she got a little angry. Feng Yu had been away at Bing City for one month and is still not back yet!

Didn’t Wen Dongjun came back few weeks ago? Why is Feng Yu taking such long time?

Forget it. If Feng Yu returns today, she will not be angry with him. But is he coming back today?

Horn, horn.

A car horn sounded behind her and Li Na move to the side of the road. There were not many cars on the road. What’s with the horning? Show off!

A wolf whistle sounded from the back. Li Na was finally angry! How can someone actually behave like a hoodlum and take liberties with her in the street!

When she turned around and wanted to start scolding, she smiled. Feng Yu, it’s Feng Yu! He is back!

“Li Na, where are you going? The admittance noticed was issued?” Feng Yu asked with his head out of the car’s window.

“Yes. You just got back?” Li Na replied.

“Ya. I drove for three hours. By the way, I don’t know where to collect the notice. Can you take me there?” Feng Yu asked.

The school was only so big. How could he not know where to collect the notice? However, Li Na did not expose Feng Yu’s lies and walked towards the car.

Feng Yu got off the car and opened the door for Li Na: “Please get in.”

“Where did you get the car? You know how to drive?” Li Na asks curiously. In the whole farm, only the government officials were eligible to drive this kind of car. Although the rich families also drive, but the cars they bought were mostly domestic jeeps which were cheap.

“I bought it. The car is comfortable. Sit tight. let’s go! How is my driving skills? I tell you the truth. I had been driving for more than 10 years!” Feng Yu said proudly.

“Bullshit. How old are you now? Have you seen a car when you were young?” Li Na asked while rolling her eyes.

Feng Yu smiled and kept quiet. He really had more than 10 years of driving experience, but it was his previous life.

“Here, this is for you. I saw this and thought that it will look good on you, so I bought it.” Feng Yu said while passing a pink hair clip with a bow to Li Na.

“Who wants your gifts?” Li Na said and she snatched the hair clip from Feng Yu. She can’t wait to wear the clip on her head. Feng Yu adjust the rear-view mirror for Li Na to admire the hairclip on her head.

He wanted to give Li Na other things, such as clothes, jewelry, and so on. But Li Na was still living on the farm and if she took Feng Yu gifts, how can she explain to her parents? This hairclip was a more suitable gift. It was cheap and Li Na will be able to explain to her parents. Most importantly, Li Na like hairclips.

Feng Yu looked at Li Na. Her smile can let one forgets about his worries.

“What do you always look at me?” Li Na bowed her head and blushed.

Feng Yu teased her and said: “I am looking at the rear-view mirror. I need to see if there are any cars behind.”

Li Na paused for a moment and stared angrily at Feng Yu.

“Hahaha. I am just teasing you. I kept looking at you was because you are beautiful.” Feng Yu said.

Li Na’s face became even more red, her head bowed lower and said: “Nonsense.”

Feng Yu smiled and did not replied her. He drove slowly to the school.

Author’s notes: Some people commented that British cars are all right-hand drive. This is correct. But for the cars that were exported to the Soviet Union were confirmed to be left-hand drive. I had confirmed it with pictures. It is just like Japanese cars. Japanese cars are also right-hand drive but when they export left-hand drive cars to China.

Chapter 50 – Playing by the riverbank

At the school, Feng Yu collected Wen Dongjun and his admittance notice. He wanted to stay a while with Li Na but she got to be home at noon.

After Feng Yu left, teachers were gossiping behind his back. The kid’s family struck lottery? I heard that his sister found a rich boyfriend! Look at the car Feng Yu drove. It was the same as the government officials. Those female teachers, in particular, lamented about their fate. Why can’t they find a rich boyfriend?

In this era, as long as one is daring, willing to endure hardship, doing business will definitely earn more than working for others! Feng Yu doesn’t care about these remarks.

“Let’s go and play at the riverbank tomorrow. I will pick you up.” Feng Yu said to Li Na.

“I can’t. My parents will not allow me.” She replied.

“It will not be just us. Tell your parent that it is classmates gathering. There are only four of us who are admitted to Third High School. We have to look after each other. You just tell your parents these and they will definitely allow you to go. I will ask Liu Kun to go too.” Feng Yu said.

Li Na also wanted to go out and play. She nodded and asked: “Then, what time tomorrow?”

“Eight in the morning. We can have a picnic at noon and I will send you back before nightfall.” Feng Yu replied.

Back home, Li Na told her mom and dad, and they really agree. She will be attending High School in the City. They have to look out for each other and not be bullied by other students from the city.

Feng Yu invited Liu Kun and he also agreed. Liu Kun was a bit excited when he heard that Feng Yu will be driving the Jeep to fetch them. He had not sat in a Jeep before.

“Mom, Dad, I’m back!” Feng Yu shouted when he reaches home.

“Oh, my son is back. Have you taken your lunch? Tell me what you want to eat and I will go and cook.” Zhang Muhua said. She was very happy to see Feng Yu. Feng Yu had stayed one month in Bing City and she was a bit not used to not having her son by her side.

“A bowl of noodles for lunch will do. Can we eat dumplings at night?” Feng Yu asked.

“OK, you sit and watch TV first.” Zhang Muhua replied.

“Where is dad?” Feng Yu asked.

“He went fishing with your Uncle Sun. Now he got a Jeep, he kept showing off. The fishes he caught is not even enough for the petrol!” Zhang Muhua replied.

Feng Yu smiled. How much can the petrol cost? Anyway, the amount Feng Yu earns in a month is enough for his parents to spend for a year!

In the afternoon, Feng Yu passed the admittance notice to Wen Dongjun and both of them played Super Mario Bros. for the whole afternoon. Since his son was admitted to the city’s best high school, the Third High School, Wen Deguang just let them play.

The next morning, Feng Yu topped up the petrol the Jeep, fetched Wen Dongjun, Li Na and Liu Kun and drove to the riverside.

Once at the river, Wen Dongjun took off his clothes, wearing only a shorts and holding a tube, rushed to the water. Liu Kun was the same too.

Feng Yu and Li Na just carry the fishing rod and net, and slow walked to a water bay place to fish.

Riverbank, breeze, grass, water, weeping willows, sunny.

This scenery is as beautiful as a painting.

Li Na sat quietly beside Feng Yu. She was wearing a bright yellow dress and the pink hairclip given by Feng Yu yesterday.

Feng Yu was still admiring Li Na’s beauty when ……

Splash!

Water was splashed on to Feng Yu’s face. This wonderful moment was broken!

“Stop fishing. Come and play in the waters! The water is not cold!” Wen Dongjun said.

Wen Dongjun’s face suddenly became very annoying.

Splash!

Liu Kun also splashed water at Feng Yu. Feng Yu really regretted his decision to ask these two along.

After a few splashing, Feng Yu got irritated and took off clothes. Wearing only a pair of shorts, he entered the water and started splashing water at those two.

Soon, Li Na also entered the water to play.

Li Na’s dress quickly wet and Feng Yu hurriedly shouted stop. He stood in front of Li Na and asked her to go change to a set of clothing in the Jeep. This dress can be left on the roof for drying. This dress was wet and sticks to Li Na’s body. Feng Yu can see but he does not allow other to see.

“Come, I will teach you how to swim.” Feng Yu pulled Li Na away from those two idiots.

Li Na entered the water again and Feng Yu slowly lead her to the deeper part of the river. They stopped when the water level reaches slightly above their necks. Li Na clung onto Feng Yu’s arm and dared not let go.

“Trust me. Relax and slowly lift up your feet. I will hold you.” Feng Yu said.

Li Na shakes her head. If she raises her feet, won’t she be drinking the river water?

Feng Yu suddenly floated and look at Li Na. Li Na loses her grip on Feng Yu’s hand and fell backwards.

But Feng Yu caught hold of Li Na’s waist with both his hands and slowly help Li Na float on the water.

“Don’t be afraid. I am beside you. See, it is very easy. As long as you are not afraid, you can float. Our teacher said before. The density of the human body is lesser than the density of water, therefore we can float.” Feng Yu said.

Li Na stopped flailing her hands and feet. She slowly relaxed herself and she found herself really floating on the water!

“But how can I turn over?” She asked.

“Slowly turn your waist. I will hold you, don’t worry.” Feng Yu said.

When Feng Yu was holding her, his hands accidentally brushed against Li Na’s butt. Li Na panicked and start flailing her arms again.

“Sorry, it was an accident.” Feng Yu apologized.

“It’s ok. I don’t mind.” Li Na closed her eyes and whispered.

Don’t mind? Is this an encouragement?

Splashed!

A handful of water splashed on to Feng Yu’s head!

“What are you two doing here? Come and play together!” Fuck. It is the idiotic Wen Dongjun again!

“I am teaching her how to swim. You go and play first. We will join you in a while!” Feng Yu shouted while wiping the water off his face.

“You teach swimming? I am the master! I knew how to swim when I was three and when I was five, I bath in the river. My nickname is ”!” Wen Dongjun said proudly.

Swimming with a tire inner tube and still have the nerve to say he is the “The white fish of the river”?

Feng Yu pointed to Wen Dongjun’s back and shouted: “Run, there is a snake!”

Wen Dongjun got frightened and desperately waved his arms around for a minute. The splashes were high but he only swam a meter.

Feng Yu sneered at Wen Dongjun: “Even turtles are faster than you. White fish?”

Liu Kun came over to Wen Dongju and said: “He is just teasing you. There are no snakes. Let’s go over there. There is a shrimp trap (a long cage, fishing for shrimp).”

Feng Yu turned towards Li Na and rubbed his hands together: “Come, let’s continue with our swimming lessons.”

“I’m tired. You help me up. I will wash the cherries and plums. Let’s have something to eat.” Li Na said.

Fuck! It was all Wen Dongjun fault. Disrupt my plans!

Feng Yu helped Li Na slowly stand up and walk back to shore.

Li Na went to the back of the Jeep, wrung her clothes and shorts dry, and took the fruits to the water edge. While she was washing the fruits, Feng Yu went back to the fishing place and pulled up the fishing rod. The bait had been eaten up.

Fortunately, Wen Dongjun and Liu Kun stole the fishes in the fish trap. Although the fishes were small, but it was enough for them. They made a small fire and start grilling the fishes using small tree branches. The four sat together and start eating the fishes.

In addition to grilled fish, there was grilled ham, roast lamb, grilled clams and grilled shrimps.

After they were full, they laid down on the grass and started talking about their dreams and ambitions.

“I want to be a scientist and invent many new things. And I will build rockets.” Liu Kun said loudly.

“Scientists are boring. I want to be a government official and when I become a high ranking official, I will be in charge of you!” Wen Dongjun said.

Li Na smiled and said: “I want to be a teacher like Mr. Sun. I want to help those who can’t afford to study.”

Feng Yu spread open his arms and said: “My dream is to make money. Make a lot of money and along the way, help you all realize your dreams!”

Chapter 51 – The idiot Wen Dongjun

“Hey, hey, come quickly. There are a group of ducks here.” Wen Dongjun lying in the bushes and waving at Feng Yu.

Persuaded by Wen Dongjun, Feng Yu stole the shotgun from home again to go hunting with Wen Dongjun hunting. Only this time, Liu Jichuan is not around. He had joined the army.

Feng Yu always wanted to ask Liu Jichuan, if on that day, Feng Yu did not go along, did not encounter the bear, will he harm Wen Dongjun?

But in any case, the tragedy in his previous life did not happen and also allowed Feng Yu to earn a large sum of money ahead of time.

Feng Yu decided to let this matter pass. Perhaps, even Liu Jichuan himself also do not know the answer. When people are impulsive, they do a lot of things which they regret after.

“Aim properly and at the count of three, we fire together. Are you ready? One, Two …” Feng Yu said.

Bang! Bang!

Two shots were fired, one after another. Wen Dongjun stood up and cheered. Feng Yu was very pissed off!

“I said at the count of three! I had only counted to two and you fired!” Feng Yu said angrily. When Feng Yu fired, the other wild ducks had already flown off.

“What did you say? I didn’t hear you. See, I shot a duck. I am a sharpshooter!” Wen Dongjun said proudly.

Feng Yu: “……”

This idiot!

Wen Dongjun strode over and picked up a wild duck with half a body left. Shit! Both rounds hit the duck. The duck which weight about 1 KG, was left with half a KG of meat.

“Hahaha. With this duck looking like this, how are you going to eat it? Even if you are able to clean it, can you even make a dish?” Feng Yu mercilessly ridiculed Wen Dongjun.

“At least I am better than you! But this duck …… Forget it. Leave it here.” Wen Dongjun hesitated and decided to throw this duck away.

“This gun should be used on a big animal and not on birds.” Feng Yu said.

“Hunting birds is not fun. Well, there will not be any prey coming over for the next half hour. I saw there were many dandelion and mushrooms near the woods. We cannot go back empty handed.” Wen Dongjun said.

Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun and thought: “What sort of odd thinking is this! Have you ever seen a hunter go hunting and comes back with wild mushrooms? I am someone who is earning millions by the minute and I am here accompanying you to hunt. Now you are asking me to go pick wild mushrooms?”

“Let’s go. What are you waiting for?” Wen Dongjun said.

Wen Dongjun dragged Feng Yu back to the woods. Wen Dongjun was picking wild mushrooms happily while Feng Yu was looking around lazily.

Eh, who’s land is this? There are watermelons!

“Eh, eh, eh. There are watermelons over there. The weather is so hot now. Let’s steal a melon to quench thirst.” Feng Yu said.

Wen Dongjun eyes were shining brightly. There is a watermelon farm? Let’s go! Watermelons freshly picked from the farms is sweeter than those bought from the stores.

“Wait a minute. I think this land belongs to Uncle Tian. Uncle Tian is very fierce. If we are caught, it will be hell for us.” Feng Yu said.

“I saw Uncle Tian in the morning. He went to the village to sell his melons. There should be no one in the farm. I tell you, I am an expert in picking watermelons. I will pick the best melon fo you.” Wen Dongjun said proudly with a “trust me” look.

Snapped！

Using the shotgun butt, he started breaking open watermelons. Not ripe, change the next.

Snapped！

Another watermelon was smashed. Not ripe, don’t want!

When Wen Dongjun start smashing the eighth watermelon, Feng Yu hurriedly stopped him. Is he really the expert he claims to be? Even if he had smashed up all the melons in the farm, he also can’t find a good melon!

“Stop, that one is ripe. Let’s eat quickly and then go back to see if those ducks came back.” Feng Yu said.

“Ok. We will just eat this. Few days ago, I came here with Liang brother. The third melon I picked was the best one!” Wen Dongjun said with a proud face.

Feng Yu wanted to ask him: “What is there to be proud of?”

When these two were each holding half a watermelon and eating, a small figure appeared behind the farm shack.

Tianjie was sent by his Mom and dad to watch over the melon farm. He was about to take a nap when he heard some voices outside.

Thieves stealing melons!

Everyone was from the same village. If one was thirsty and picked a melon to eat, it was fine. Tianjie will not stop and will even help them cut the melon.

Tianjie had decided to ignore Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun at first, but Wen Dongjun started to smash melons after melons. This guy was not here to eat melons. He was here to create trouble!

Tianjie mustered up his courage and went over. Those two were still eating the melons and did not notice him.

“You are stealing melons!” Tianjie suddenly jumped out and shouted.

Wen Dongjun quickly dropped the watermelon, turned and pointed his shotgun at Tianjie.

Tianjie was shocked. Do you need to bring a shotgun to steal melons? The dark muzzle was pointed at him and his legs grew soft.

Feng Yu quickly push the shotgun upwards: “You crazy? How can you point the shotgun at people!”

Wen Dongjun laughed and said: “It was not loaded.” He then pulls the trigger to proof it.

“That is not right also. You look at Tianjie! He is so scare and is about to cry!” Feng Yu put the shotgun down and walked to Tianjie.

Wa!!!!!!!!!!

Tianjie began to cry. He was too scared and forgot to cry just now!

Less than half a minute, Tianjie’s small face was covered in tears.

Wen Dongjun was stunned. He only wanted to frighten this little kid. Who knew that this kid will get so scared? When Wen Dongjun was young, he even dares to light fire crackers in his hands.

“Don’t cry. I was only joking with you.” Wen Dongjun tried to comfort Tianjie.

Wa ~ ~ ~ ~ Wa ~ ~ ~

Tianjie was still crying. Wen Dongjun began to panic. If Tianjie complaint to his dad, he will get a beating!

“Stop crying. Tell me what you want?” Wen Dongjun said impatiently.

“Daddy asked me to watch over the melons and you smashed all the melons.” Tianjie said while crying.

“Don’t cry. I will pay for all these melons? I will give you three cents per half KG. All these melons, we will round off to 50 KG. I will give you 5 RMB for these melons?”

Wen Dongjun took 5 RMB from Feng Yu and put it into Tianjie’s hands.

Feng Yu turned to look at Wen Dongjun and thought: “Why do I need to pay? Forget it, it was also my idea to steal the melons.”

Tianjie stopped crying, and hold on to the money with his small hands: “No, you two are going to hunt. Take me along.”

“Can you even lift this shotgun? Even if you are able to carry the shotgun, can you handle the recoil? Hurry and go back. We will be going off.” Wen Dongjun replied.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a vehicle coming. Not good! Uncle Tian was back from selling melons!

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun looked at each other and started running. This was not the time to think about hunting or picking mushrooms. They ran back to their car.

In the afternoon, Tianjie and his father went to Feng Yu home. After listening to the whole story, Feng Xingtai kept apologizing to them and beat up Feng Yu with the feather duster. After Tianjie and his father left, Feng Yu laid down on the sofa and let his father apply medicine.

Feng Yu felt he was innocent. He did not bully Tianjie and the five RMB was from his pocket! Why must he compensate them again? That little brat must have pocketed five RMB!

But the next day, Feng Yu felt much better after he saw Wen Dongjun.

Wen Dongjun was hang up and beaten by his father with willow branches. He was also slapped repeatedly till his nose bled. See if he still dares to point a gun at others.

Most importantly, Wen Dongjun’s mother did not stop his father this time and also help to beat their son together. The couple had a good time to playing mixed doubles. They even broke a few willow branches. “You think you got into the Third High School in the city and you can do whatever you want? If your character is not good, no matter how much you studied is also no use!”

Both of the shotguns from both families were smashed and it seemed that they would never go hunting again.

The next day Li Shiqiang called and said that the cars were ready. There were even people asking about the prices. He needs Feng Yu back at Bing city.

Feng Yu finally found an excuse to escape from the farm. He got to stay away from this idiot Wen Dongjun. Wen Dongjun always get him into trouble!

Translator notes: Pointing a gun (loaded or not) at anyone is not right. In fact, guns should only be used under the supervision of a responsible adult. Although Wen Dongjun is an idiot who does things without using his brains, he is still Feng Yu’s best friend.

Chapter 52 – Increasing the brand recognition

“Xiao Yu, you are finally back. What is the selling price of these cars? There are several people asking about the price of the cars.” Li Shiqiang said.

“Have they left their contact details?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes, but why you don’t allow us to sell? Won’t the value of the cars depreciate if we hold on to them?” Li Shiqiang asked.

Feng Yu glanced at Li Shiqiang and said: “Who said that? Didn’t those people offer a price for those cars? Are the prices they offered very high? I guarantee that the prices will be even higher within three days!”

According to Feng Yu’s request, every model of the cars must have one that was refurbished. Feng Yu wants to push the selling price of these cars up!

What were the luxury cars in China now? Two brands, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, had just gained some popularity in the China. Toyota’s popularity was also increasing from the south to the north. The most popular model is the Toyota Crown.

The brand recognition of other automobile brands in China were still relatively low. Although there were some luxury cars in China, but there were not many people who knew about them. For example, other than Rolls-Royce which was still a bit well-known, the other British luxury cars which Feng Yu imported, were still relatively not known to many.

Majority of the rich people in China now were newly rich tycoons who had not much education and like to compare and show off extravagantly.

But there were only a small number of imported cars in China. Many times, they can’t even get their hands on one imported cars even if they had the money. Furthermore, there were a large number of those “half” tycoons who were just rich but not particularly rich.

These people desperately need a good car to show off their status and they can’t afford imported new cars. This is the market segment which Feng Yu wants to target.

“Those who knows how to drive come over. Your job for the next few days will be stationing outside of those big hotels and companies. Station there and brag!” Feng Yu said.

Everyone was stunned. What type of work is this?

……

Today, two very special cars appeared at the entrance of the Bing City Hotel. The cars were very eye-catching and very low. One blue and one red. Everyone that walked passed, couldn’t helped but take a second look at them.

The two drivers got down from the car and got into an argument?

“How you drive? Do you know how to drive? My car is worth more than one million RMB. Jaguar! Have you even heard of Jaguar? Can you afford it?” A young man wearing big sunglasses came down from the blue car and pushed the young man from the red car. The young man had deliberately mentioned “Jaguar” twice loudly.

“You think you are the only one who drives a good car? My car is also more than a million RMB. Lotus! Lotus sports car! Do you know about Lotus?” The red car’s driver retorted loudly.

“Mine is a sports car. If I step on the accelerator, you can only see my taillight!” The Jaguar driver said.

“Lies, you carry on lying. I still have not seen any cars that can outrun my car on the streets of Bing City. Not happy? How about a race?” The Lotus driver said.

“Sure. You think I am scared of you?” The Jaguar driver replied.

These two drivers turned, got into their cars and started their engines at the same time. Swish and suddenly they were gone!

Wow ~ ~ ~ ~

The onlookers gasped in shocked. These cars were really fast. No wonder it cost more than a million. But, none of them noticed that neither of the cars had license plate.

Buy a car for more than 1 million RMB? If one had so much money, he can deposit in the bank and interest alone can allow him to last his whole lifetime.

Just then, a big boss came out of the hotel, pointed to the direction of those two cars and asked his followers: “What cars are those? Quite fast. Even faster than my Volga!”

“Boss, I don’t know too. I will go and ask.” His follower replied.

The follower came back after a while and told his boss the name of those two cars. Jaguar and Lotus. Both are sports cars!

“Sports cars? Sounds like the cars are fast! Go and find out where can I buy one and how much are they selling.” The boss said.

The same thing happened at many high-end places. The cars were cars which were not heard or seen before. But these cars were very beautiful. Some looked elegant, some looked prestigious, some luxurious and some were domineering.

And these cars were not seen before in Bing City. But from the arguments between the drivers, they learned that these cars were all imported luxury cars and very expensive.

There were some who like to show off, sent people to ask around. They wanted to know who owns these cars and where to buy them. If they were the ones who drove these cars around, others will know that they were rich!

For three consecutive days, Feng Yu sent his staff out in the afternoons and evenings to promote his cars. On the third night, someone finally “accidentally” mentioned that Tai Hua Trading company was selling these cars!

Tai Hua Trading Company?

All the people who wanted to buy these cars were looking for Tai Hua Trading. News in their circles spread. Mercedes-Benz and BMW are nothing. These are British cars. You know the Queen? The Queen who had sat face to face and argued with the great one? She also sits in this car!

……

“Is this Tai Hua Trading?

“Who are you looking for?”

“I am the general manager of Din Tai Garment Factory, Zhao Dintai. This is my business card.”

“Clothing factory? We don’t buy clothes.” Feng Yu’s staff said and start to show Zhao Dintai out.

“Eh eh, I’m not here to sell clothes. I heard that your company have British cars. Can you show me?”

“How did you know? But the quantity is not many, and many people are looking at them now. You got to wait for them to finish first.”

“Please brother. I am in a hurry to buy one. I can give cash.” Zhao Dintai said.

The day before yesterday, he had some business negotiations with a neighboring province boss and the boss took a look at his car, an FSO (Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych), and left. The boss said that Zhao Dintai cannot even afford a decent car, which also means that he was not financially stable!

That boss was only driving a domestic produced Audi 100.

Zhao Dintai had heard that Tai Hua Trading have a batch of imported, almost new second-hand luxury cars. These cars, after refurbishments, looks exactly just like new. If he bought an imported luxury second-hand car, and who will know if he did not say that the car was second-hand.

This way, when others look at the car he drove, they will know that his company is doing very well. People don’t know the brand of this car? It doesn’t matter, as long as he “accidentally” mentioned that the car is more than a million RMB.

Wu Zhigang brought Zhao Dintai to the Motor Factory. Feng Yu had instructed them to bring these people there at two o’clock in the afternoon sharp. Let these people know that there are many others who were interested in their cars. This was to prevent these people from bargaining.

At first, many of them, like Zhao Dintai, wanted to negotiate about the price. A used car for more than 500,000 RMB?

But Tai Hua Trading company’s staff were firm. If you are not willing to buy, there will be others who are willing to pay this price. These people also test drive the cars and they themselves knows the condition of the cars.

They look at the attitude of Tai Hua Trading. Tai Hua Trading was being very firm with their prices and confident of the quality of these cars. Forget it. No point trying to bargaining!

These cars were still much cheaper than an imported Mercedes, and the handling was really good. Also. The exterior looks new. Who will know that these cars were second-hand?

Just like this, the eight-people gathered on the first day bought the cars. Tai Hua Trading company’s account got 4 million RMB cash!

The next day, they sold seven cars and the third day five cars. The rest, including the several Toyota Crown were sold on the fourth day. However, Feng Yu kept one Land Rover for himself.

Seeing his business was so good, Feng Yu immediately called Kirilenko to ask him when can the second batch of cars arrive?

Chapter 53 – Song Xiaofeng

When Kirilenko learned that Feng Yu had sold all 30 cars in less than a month, he was shocked. He was still in the process of acquiring the second batch of cars. There were not a lot of British luxury cars around Moscow.

According to Kirilenko, the most he can acquire was another 100 cars and this was still under the name of the Soviet Union army. Otherwise, he might not even acquire so many cars.

Feng Yu was not satisfied. He wanted to earn a billion RMB with this used car business. Now, it seems that after deducting the cost, taxes, etc., the most he can earn was 10 million RMB.

If others knew what Feng Yu was thinking, they would have vomit blood. 10 million RMB was still considered little? Now, there was not even a lot of millionaires in China!

There was also good news. Kirilenko and his partners must had made a lot of money. This month, they wanted 1 million Rubles worth of goods. Feng Yu had already asked Li Shiqiang to contact the suppliers. With Li Shiqiang around, Feng Yu can just throw all these tasks to him.

However, this good mood did not last and trouble came knocking on Feng Yu’s doors.

At first, Feng Yu thought it was from the Government officials. Could it be the government does not allow him to do second-hand car business? But after listening to his staffs, he got the whole story. There were some people who wanted to buy their cars but all their cars were sold.

Why bother him with these small matters? Just tell these people that the cars were sold out and they have to wait for a month.

Although Feng Yu was grumbling in his heart, he still drove to the company. He wanted to see who this arrogant customer was. He wanted to show his staff how he handles this type of customer.

At the company, he noticed somethings were off. How come there were so many people and his staffs were so scare?

His staffs were children of the workers in the Motor Factory. Since young, they had been causing troubles and fighting. What were they frighten off?

“Wu Zhigang, what’s going on?” Feng Yu asked

“So, you are their boss? Feng Yu?” An arrogant voice came out.

Feng Yu turned and saw the one who spoke was sitting looked on a chair.

This is too arrogant! My people were all standing, and you are seated on a chair? You think you own this place?

“You are?” Feng Yu asked.

“You don’t even know Master Song and you dare to do business here in Bing City?” A man standing behind the chair shouted. His tone sounded like there was no one in Bing City who didn’t heard about Master Song.

Feng Yu really do not know who this Master Song is. He had asked about all the leaders in Bing City and the province. He never heard of anyone with the surname Song.

Wu Zhigang moved to Feng Yu side and whispered: “Manager Feng, this is Song Xiaofeng. He is the nephew of Song Laosi. People called this Master Song as Longjiang number one young master. You should have heard of Song Laosi.”

Song Laosi?

Feng Yu was surprised!

Song Laosi was a resounding figure in Bing City. He was one of the top ten triad boss in recent history. Many years after he was shot, there were still stories about him.

Song Laosi was a common bricklayer and later, he did only demolition works. Using his violent methods to evict and demolished buildings, he quickly gathered a group of followers. He now monopolized all demolition works and even constructions projects also needed his approval. If he does not approve, no buildings can be built!

The most famous rumor about Song Laosi was that when he began to do demolition, the residents are unwilling to relocate. Song Laosi gathered those residents together and in front of them, chopped off his own little finger! He then told the residents, if any of them was able to do what he just did, they do not need to relocate. The residents were shocked. No one muttered a single word and the relocation and demolition works were quickly completed.

Song Laosi’s reputation quickly spread. Relying on his men and ruthless ways of doing things, he chased many demolition companies away. During every fight, Song Laosi was always at the front and he was detained multiple times. But every time he was released, he became more popular and arrogant. Later on, he hooked up some connections with the City’s government officials and from then, no one dares to provoke him.

After Song Laosi got rich, he had a second legend.

“Tearing down old houses every day and being a groom every night!”

Rumors said that Song Laosi was a lecher. When he saw a woman, he fancied on the streets, he would directly pull that woman into his car and rape her on the spot. After the deed was done, he would throw the woman and a stack of money off his car.

A lot of women dare not to speak up. But there were some women who report to the police and the outcome was always insufficient evidence or someone taking the rap for Song Laosi. Those that reported him ended up with broken bones and their families were not spared too.

There were many other rumors about Song Laosi. For example, some said that his followers dare to shoot people and Song Laosi owned more than 100 hunting rifles.

Although these rumors were a bit exaggerated, but Song Laosi was no doubt the biggest boss of the Northeast provinces.

This Song Xiaofeng was Song Laosi’s only nephew. Song Laosi also does not have any sons and he will be passing his territory to him in future. No wonder this Song Xiaofeng was so arrogant!

Feng Yu suddenly smiled and warmly walked over to Song Xiaofeng. He held Song Xiaofeng’s hand and said: “I humbly welcome Master Song. If you need anything, you can just pass a message. You don’t need to come down in person.”

It was not Feng Yu eating the humbly pie. If he remembered correctly, in another two months’ time, there will be a gang clash between Song Laosi and another Bing City gang. Song Laosi did not die from this clash but his nephew passed away in the clash. With someone about to die, Feng Yu don’t mind being humble.

Song Xiaofeng nodded his head. Everyone in Bing City had to give him face. He had came down to this small trading company and waited for half an hour. But since this kid was so humble, he decided to let it go.

“I heard your company are selling sports cars? The logo is a leopard.” Song Xiaofeng asked.

“That brand is called Jaguar. British manufactured and was the favorite with the British royalties. You like that car? But all my cars were second-hand!” Feng Yu replied and deliberately stressed that he was selling used cars. With Song Laosi’s status, Song Xiaofeng still need to buy second-hand cars?

“What second-hand or first hand? You think I care about this? New cars need to book and will take a few months before the car is delivered. You give me a second-hand Jaguar now. Don’t worry, I will pay you!” Song Xiaofeng said.

“Master Song can’t wait? But all my cars were sold out. The earliest I can get you the car is about two weeks later.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu doesn’t care who the cars were sold to. If he had any cars in hand, he will definitely sell to this short-lived Master Song. Feng Yu was not ready to confront Song Laosi. There will be someone else to deal with him. Two years later, Song Laosi will be caught and sentenced to death by the firing squad. Feng Yu just want to keep a low profile and build his own empire.

But the biggest problem Feng Yu faced was that he had no car now. If this Master Song had said so earlier, he would have kept a good car for him.

“I come to you for the car and you must give me the car I want!” Song Xiaofeng shouted.

Chapter 54 – Nightclub

Feng Yu eyes narrowed, and his expression turned back to normal. He continued to smile and said: “People always praise Master Si (Feng Yu is referring to Song Laosi) for having loyalty and will never suppress normal commoners. Seems like these rumors were false.”

“You dare to speak ill of my uncle?” Song suddenly stood up and grabbed Feng Yu by the collar.

“If you want a car, you have to wait. There is nothing I can do if all my cars were sold. However, I still have a Land Rover. If Master Song doesn’t mind, I can give it to you in exchange for a promise! Feng Yu said calmly.

“Hahaha. You are an interesting young man! You got guts! But you are said was right. We, from Jiang Hua Company are reasonable people. Where is the Rover car? I would like to see if it is worth a promise from me.” Song Xiaofeng said.

Song Xiaofeng was influenced by Song Laosi and spoke like a gangster. Song Laosi had always taught him to be reasonable to others. But if the other party don’t listen to their “reasons”, then use fists, knifes and guns to “speak” to them.

Since this Feng Yu was being so “reasonable” and even want to give him a car, he will not beat Feng Yu up.

“Here it is.” Feng Yu pointed to the Land Rover parked at outside the door.

“This Land Rover looks nicer than the Jeep, but it is still a big jeep. Why should I drive this car? Since you don’t have any sports cars, then get me a luxury car. I heard you are able to get Rolls-Royce. Don’t tell me you are keeping the Rolls-Royce for yourself.” Song Xiaofeng asked.

“Big Jeep? Land Rover really can be considered as big Jeeps. But this Jeep is not for the average people. In the United Kingdom, only the Royal Guards can drive this Land Rover. This Land Rover is very sturdy. Master Song is driving a BMW, right? I bet you if these two cars collided, the BMW will fall apart and the Land Rover will just get scratches.” Feng Yu said.

“Are you serious?” Song Xiaofeng asked.

If the Land Rover was really so sturdy, he would want to get one. The last time he went to catch a rival boss, his car was crashed by his rival and the rival boss escaped. If he were to encounter such incident again, he will just drive the Land Rover head on.

“You! Go and try if this car is really so sturdy.” Song Xiaofeng handed the key to one of his followers standing behind.

Crash！

Feng Yu’s heart skipped a beat. This fucking madman! Song Xiaofeng asked his follower to drive the Land Rover into Tai Hua Trading’s rented warehouse big Iron Gate!

Luckily Feng Yu intent to dive this Land Rover and he had reinforced the front bumper deliberately. The Land Rover was really unscathed from the crash!

“Hahaha. Good car! This is a really good car! I will accept it. What promise do you want from me?” Song Xiaofeng said happily. He decided to accept the Land Rover without hesitation.

Feng Yu pointed around him and said: “These are my staffs. I hope that if they inadvertently offended Master Si or Master Song’s followers, you will go lightly on them.”

Song Xiaofeng raised his eyebrows and asked: “Only this?”

He thought Feng Yu would have what difficult conditions. He never expects that Feng Yu only wanted some protection from him. If Feng Yu don’t provoke them, they are also lazy to create trouble for Feng Yu.

“That’s it. Master Song, you agree?” Feng Yu replied.

“No problem. There is a newly opened nightclub not far from here. I will treat you tonight.” Song Xiaofeng said.

Song Laosi like to go to nightclubs, bar and other places. Song Xiaofeng used to go with him to such places and he had got used to these places.

“Master Song, I don’t know how to dance.” Feng Yu said.

“You are rejecting me?” Song Xiaofeng sneered. No one in Bing City can reject his invitation!

“No. I really don’t know how to dance. Ok. I will be there.” Feng Yu replied.

“Hahaha, that’s right. You guys will go too. Seven o’clock today. I will buy you all drinks!” Song Xiaofeng said happily.

After Song Xiaofeng and his men left, Wu Zhigang and the rest crowded around Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, we should be mixing around with this kind of person. Song Laosi did all sorts of bad things and will definitely be shot if he was caught! This Song Xiaofeng is also not a good person. This will affect the company.” Wu Zhigang said.

Feng Yu waved his hand to stop Wu Zhigang. Feng Yu also know about this, but can he really not go? These people are lawless and they even dare to beat up government officials. Feng Yu is just a small businessman!

Feng Yu is starting to miss his previous life. At least, his previous life was a much safer place and there were not many triads around. But since Song Laosi and his nephew were not far from death, Feng Yu will just stay low and let them do whatever they want.

“We will just go and play tonight. Just treat it as some form of relaxation. But don’t mix with them too much. Treat them as strangers. This Land Rover in exchange for a piece of mind. At least, if you guys inadvertently offended their gang members, we can look for Song Xiaofeng for help.” Feng Yu said.

After dinner, Feng Yu and his staff went to the night club.

Song Xiaofeng’s men had been waiting at the door. They had bought the 10 RMB tickets for them and when Feng Yu arrived, they were lead in directly.

This nightclub was much better than what Feng Yu imagined. He could see hints of the future nightclubs in his previous life. There were long rotating lights, mirror-reflective ball, scanning lights, lantern chain, mushroom lights, UFO lights and strobe lights.

There were many sofas surrounding the dance floor and stage. There was also a live band and dance performances on the stage. Many young men and women were dancing on the dance floor. At one corner, there was a bar counter selling drinks and finger food.

Song Xiaofeng was sitting in a corner. There were many empty sofas beside him. No one dares to sit near to him.

“Come, sit down. Just order what you want. Today, I am buying!” Song Xiaofeng said.

Feng Yu was very uncomfortable. The Land Rover was worth at least a few hundred thousand RMB. Treating them to drinks and food here only cost a few hundred RMB. Song Xiaofeng was still acting generous now?

“Go and dance. I will sit here for awhile.” Feng Yu told his staffs.

Feng Yu was not very fond of such noisy places, especially the dance floor. So, he was not interested in joining them. He asked for a glass of orange juice and drank slowly.

A heavy make-up girl suddenly sat beside Feng Yu and held onto Feng Yu’s arms: “Why are you sitting here? Come and dance with me.”

Feng Yu pulled his hand from her and said: “You go and dance. I don’t know how to dance.”

“It’s easy. You just twist about. I will teach you.” The girl pulled Feng Yu’s hand again.

“Brother Feng, you must be open at this sort of places. You don’t like this girl? Never mind. Just tell me which girl you like and I will bring her over!” Song Xiaofeng said while hugging a girl.

The girl beside Feng Yu looked at him imploringly. Master Song had asked her to accompany Feng Yu and if she does not do a good job, the consequents will be dire.

Feng Yu sighed and put his hands around the girl’s shoulders: “Master Song, this girl is fine for me. I will drink something first, and then dance later.”

The girl beside Feng Yu was just a teenager. At her age, she should be still schooling and not be here. It seems that there was no difference at these types of places between now and the future years.

“Brother, it will be “dancing in the dark soon” soon. Come and dance with me.” The girl said to Feng Yu.

Author’s notes: Airbags were only installed in cars after 1988. Europe’s earlier models of Mercedes Benz were the first few models to be installed with airbags.

Chapter 55 – Yuan Yuan

Dancing in the dark?

Feng Yu was not interested in dancing but when he heard “dancing in the dark”, it sounds interesting to him.

The girl pulled Feng Yu to the dance floor.

Seeing Feng Yu followed the girl to the dance floor, Song Xiaofeng smiled. He had not seen any guys who didn’t like “dancing in the dark”. Song Xiaofeng also pull the girl beside him and headed towards the dance floor.

The girl placed Feng Yu’s hands on her waist and her hands on the Feng Yu’s shoulder. The girl was not tall, and she needs to tilt her head upwards to look at Feng Yu.

Both of them danced slowly in the dance floor. Feng Yu was looking around and everyone was in the same position as them. So, this is dancing in the dark?

“What’s your name?” Feng Yu asked.

“You can call me Yuan Yuan and I will call you brother, OK?” She looked at Feng Yu and smiled. Her eyes narrowed into crescent.

The music suddenly changed and the lights on the dance floor slowly become dim. There was only strobe lights, one dim and one bright.

“Brother, let’s dance.” Yuan Yuan said.

Yuan Yuan stepped back, held Feng Yu hands and starts to twist her body.

To say this was dancing, in fact, It was just randomly twisting and turning their bodies.

Feng Yu was also affected by the surrounding atmosphere and began to twist his body.

Feng Yu had been exercising and compared to him in his previous life, he was healthier and stronger. Feng Yu remembered some dance moves he saw in his previous life. Although those were not complicated dance moves, but Feng Yu seems natural and confident.

“Brother, you dance very well!” Yuan Yuan said.

“You are also a good dancer. I don’t know how to dance. I am just a beginner.” Feng Yu said modestly. But in his heart, he wanted Yuan Yuan to carry on praising him.

After five minutes, Feng Yu started to become a bit breathless and sweaty. Yuan Yuan had already stopped dancing long time ago but Feng Yu was still dancing and she dared not to go off.

“Yuan Yuan, we had danced for a while. I’m tired. Let’s go and drink some juice.” Feng Yu said.

The music changed again. This time, it was classical jazz. The strobe lights suddenly stop flashing and there were only some dim lights on top. The visibility was only about one meter.

Yuan Yuan suddenly pulled Feng Yu’s hands and came closer to Feng Yu. Feng Yu still don’t know what’s going on and soon, the lights became dimmer till they were all out.

Feng Yu felt a soft body leaning against his chest and a pair of arms hugging him around his waist.

“Brother, this is the “Dancing in the dark”.” Yuan Yuan said softly.

The voice of Yuan Yuan sounded in his ear and exhaled her hot breath. What surprised Feng Yu the most was Yuan Yuan placed Feng Yu’s hands from her waist to her butt.

Feng Yu hands became stiff and he moved his hands back to her waist. In both his lifetimes, he still had not experienced something like this.

“Brother, am I not pretty?” She felt Feng Yu’s hand move away and couldn’t help asking Feng Yu.

“No. I am just not used to this.” Feng Yu replied.

“Brother, you listen carefully to your surroundings. Listen carefully.” Yuan Yuan whispered into Feng Yu’s ears.

Feng Yu heard the sound of rubbing and moaning all around him. Those who came here for “dancing in the dark” were mostly couples, those looking for excitements and there were also some hostesses.

When the lights were off and everyone was out of sight, all the men were no longer restrained. These men really wished that they were born with four hands. The women, who were willing to “dance in the dark” with these men, were used to these touching and rubbings.

Maybe there was not any “real actions” happening there, but there will definitely some touching here and there.

It was summertime and everyone don’t wear much clothing. Most of the women were wearing skirts and dresses, giving these men easy access.

In less than a minute, Feng Yu heard some heavy panting. Perhaps, some couples were doing more than kissing.

These sounds stimulated Feng Yu. Just by listening to these sounds was unbearable to him, not to mention he was still hugging a young girl.

Yuan Yuan suddenly placed her small hands under Feng Yu’s shirt and start to caress his back.

“Brother, I am wearing a short skirt and my top is loose. You can place your hands under my top.” Yuan Yuan said.

This was no longer hinting. This was an invitation!

Feng Yu can no longer control himself. His hands slowly moved under her top.

Yuan Yuan was leaning her head on Feng Yu’s shoulder and a soft moan came out from her mouth. Feng Yu can feel the heat from her breath through his clothes.

Feng Yu’s hand slowly probed upwards. Although Yuan Yuan was still a teenager and her body was not fully developed, she still has a shapely body.

She was not wearing bra?

Feng Yu’s hand moved upwards and there was no obstruction. Seems like Yuan Yuan was prepared when she came here. Song Xiaofeng had asked her to accompany Feng Yu and to give him a good time. She dares not go against his order.

Her skirt was soon raised up by Feng Yu. His hand was caressing and squeezing her butt. Yuan Yuan’s butt was very smooth, and Feng Yu can’t take his hands off her.

Everyone around were doing the same thing. Some even moaned loudly. The sounds from around him and the temptations from Yuan Yuan was stimulating Feng Yu even more.

“Brother, I think you are uncomfortable. I will help you unzip.” Yuan Yuan whispered into Feng Yu’s ears.

Before Feng Yu can refuse, Yuan Yuan unzipped Feng Yu and her small hand snaked her way into his pants and inside his underwear.

Feng Yu could not help but stepped back and accidentally brushed against others.

No, it was not brushed against someone. Feng Yu had accidentally brushed against someone’s head with his butt!

The people behind were ……

Yuan Yuan’s hands were very gentle and skillfully slided into Feng Yu’s underwear from the waistbands.

“Yuan Yuan let’s stop now. If they turn on the lights, others can see what we are doing.” Feng Yu tried to stopped Yuan Yuan.

“Brother, “dancing in the dark” normally will last for about half an hour and before they switch on the lights, the music will stop first. No one can see.” Yuan Yuan replied.

Yuan Yuan was so familiar with this? It seems that this was not the first time she came here to “dance in the dark”.

“Why are you here? Why are you not at school?” Feng Yu asked suddenly.

“Why are you talking about this now? Besides, I need to be able to pass my exams if I were to be admitted into a school. Furthermore, my family cannot afford to send me to school.” Yuan Yuan replied.

Feng Yu was tongue-tied. He didn’t know what to see at that moment.

Yuan Yuan suddenly turned around with her back leaning against Feng Yu. She tiptoed and used her thighs to clamp Feng Yu’s manhood. She then slowly moved her perky butt to the music.

“Brother, you are still not cumming? Or, should I use my mouth to help you.” Yuan Yuan asked.

There was such service in this era?

A groan escaped from Feng Yu. He suddenly felt that it was not a bad idea to come to the nightclub today. With a more than 40-year-old mind and a teenager’s body, it was impossible for Feng Yu to reject Yuan Yuan.

Li Na was still young and Feng Yu does not intent to touch her now. But today, things had escalated to this point, Feng Yu was reluctant to push Yuan Yuan away.

When Feng Yu finally press Yuan Yuan’s head against him, he shivered and jerked a few times. Yuan Yuan slowly stood up and helped Feng Yu tidy up his clothes. Just then, the music stopped.

Feng Yu took out a 10 RMB note from his pocket and gave to Yuan Yuan: “You go and play yourself. I will chat with my friends for a while.”

Chapter 56 – Too much!

Feng Yu was in a good mood. He thought that this Song Xiaofeng was actually not bad. If not for Song Xiaofeng dying soon, they might even become friends. After all, Song Xiaofeng was the first person to invite him to such places.

When Feng Yu went back to the sofa, he saw Yuan Yuan waving the ten RMB note proudly at Song Xiaofeng. Feng Yu’s good mood was instantly gone.

“Hahaha, Brother Feng, they made a bet with me just now. I said that you were someone with strong determination and will not submit to their temptations. But it seems like they were right. Men are all the same.” Song Xiaofeng said.

Feng Yu smiled and said: “Yes. Men are all the same.”

“How can you compare yourself to Master Song? He came here is only to drink and dance. If he wants to play, we will got to a hotel later.” The girl sitting beside Song Xiaofeng said arrogantly.

“Brother, was it comfortable? Do you want me to accompany at night?” Yuan Yuan asked happily and stretched out her hands to touch Feng Yu’s face.

Feng Yu’s face turned red. He had never expected that with his 40-year-old mind and yet he was fooled by a teenage girl. Feng Yu find this humiliation harder to swallow than someone spitting on his face.

Fortunately, the rest of the company did not come over or perhaps still do not know what happen. If they were to know what happened, the trust and respect towards Feng Yu will be gone.

Feng Yu had thought that Yuan Yuan was some pitiful girl who must do such things at this age to survive, but it seems Feng Yu was wrong. Yuan Yuan was actually proud of what she did to Feng Yu and even made fun of Feng Yu. Feng Yu had a bit of good feelings towards Yuan Yuan but it was gone in an instant.

“Master Song, I am tired from dancing. I want to go back first.” Feng Yu pushed away Yuan Yuan and wanted to leave that place.

“So early? It seems that you are not as fit as what you appear to be.” Yuan Yuan said. She was still making fun of Feng Yu.

Song Xiaofeng and his girl also laughed loudly. Song Xiaofeng asked: “Brother Feng, do you want to eat some “good stuff” to increase your stamina?”

Feng Yu replied: “I got something on in the morning. I need to go off first.”

Feng Yu got up to leave. He wants to go back and think of the ways to get evidence against this Song Xiaofeng and let him go to jail for the rest of his life! But Song Laosi was good friends with the Police Chief from the city. So, it will not be easy to touch him.

“Wait, did I said that you can go? I am still here and yet you are leaving? Are you disrespecting me?” Song Xiaofeng said arrogantly.

“Master Song, what do you want?” Feng Yu asked.

“Nothing much. Today, I had treated you to food, drinks and even get you a girl. Don’t you think you should give something in return?” Song Xiaofeng said.

Feng Yu thought: “Fuck. Today you took my Land Rover which was worth more than 500,000 RMB. 500,000 RMB! There are lots of people who can never make 500,000 RMB in their whole life. The drinks and dance were only worth a few hundred RMB. Got me a girl or got me a girl to humiliate me?”

“Ok. Today is my treat. Here is 1000 RMB” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu had afraid that things will go wrong so he brought more money. He needs to get out of this place and find a way to get back at Song Xiaofeng.

“Brother Feng, what do you mean by this? How can I ask you to pay?” Song Xiaofeng asked.

Feng Yu’s heart sank. 1000 RMB was too little. This was too much!

“Master Song, what do you mean?” Feng Yu replied.

“Nothing much. Recently, my company is not very busy. My staffs had nothing much to do. I heard that Tai Hua Trading’s businesses was not bad. I intent to ask my staffs to go over to help you. You don’t need to thank me. Your company have ten staffs? I will also send 10 staffs over to help you. Then the profits we will share 50-50. Isn’t this fair?” Song Xiaofeng replied.

Sure enough, this was Song Xiaofeng’s agenda for this invitation. He wanted Feng Yu to give him half of his profits.

Without coming out with a single cent and wands to spilt half of his profits? Impossible!

But Song Laosi’s men were all used to using violence to settle things. Even weapons were used and people had been disabled and some even disappeared. If Feng Yu does not agree, this Song Xiaofeng will be going to use force on Feng Yu.

Initially, Feng Yu intended to wait for two months. This Song Xiaofeng will be killed by Song Laosi’s enemies anyway.

But now, Feng Yu changed his mind. This Song Xiaofeng was digging his own grave. Took his car, humiliated him and now want to take away his goose which lays golden eggs! Feng Yu can no longer tolerate him!

“Master Song, send your men to my company tomorrow. We can discuss further.” Feng Yu said.

“Hahaha. Good! Here, let me offer you a toast.” Song Xiaofeng said happily.

Feng Yu finished a mug of beer.

“Very good. Brother Feng, one more mug. Toast to our business!” Song Xiaofeng said.

Song Xiaofeng is too much! Song Xiaofeng’s actions lead to Feng Yu’s face became gloomier. Feng Yu decided to fall out with Song Xiaofeng tomorrow and he is not going to entertain Song Xiaofeng anymore.

“Master Song Less, I am a bit drunk. Tomorrow I will be at my company waiting for you!” Feng Yu said and stood up.

Feng Yu got up and went out. Wu Zhigang and the rest of his staffs followed. The smile on Song Xiaofeng’s disappeared and he threw the mug he was holding onto the ground.

The girl beside him was startled. She tried to wipe the beer on Song Xiaofeng clothes with her hands.

“Get lost!” Song Xiaofeng shouted.

Song Xiaofeng kicked the girl. The girl sat on the ground but she did not dare to go off. Instead, she crawled back and continue to help Song wipe his trousers.

“Master Song, do we need to teach this Feng Yu a lesson? His company only had so few people. Tomorrow I will bring a group of people over and smash up his company. If he still doesn’t relent, we can burn down his company!” One of Song Xiaofeng’s followers came over and said.

“Nonsense! We own this company too. Tomorrow send someone over to negotiate. We are able to get quite a big sum of money every month from them. This type of smart people who can make money must be pulled over to our side. If he is disabled or died, who is going to make money for us?” Song Xiaofeng said.

“Master Song is right. So I will go over tomorrow?” the follower asked.

“Ok. You will go. I trust your ability.” Song Xiaofeng nodded and turned to the girls: “Go to the hotel. I will teach you all a lesson today!”

“We were all waiting for Master Song to punish us.” The girls laughed.

……

After leaving the ballroom, Li Shiqiang walked over and asked: “Xiaoyu, I saw you and Song Xiaofeng quarreled. This Song family are crazy. You have to be careful.”

Crazy? One might be afraid of a living madman but a dead madman? It is not so scary.

“Brother Li, I remembered our company’s warehouse is located in Crippled Wang’s territory?” Feng Yu remembered that in Bing City, there were another two gangs around. Although these two gangs were not as powerful as Song Laosi, they were not afraid of them.

According to what was about to happen from Feng Yu’s previous life, Song Laosi’s nephew was killed by Crippled Wang in two years’ time. Now, Feng Yu wants to bring forward this event.

Chapter 57

In Bing City, other than Song Laosi, there were two other forces. The two forces were Crippled Wang and Brother Ke. Song Laosi mainly do demolition business. Cripple Wang focuses on night clubs, bars and massage parlors. Brother Ke’s business were mainly gambling.

These three gangs had lots of men. There were rumors that they even had hitmen and they owns more than 90% of the hunting rifles and pistols in Bing City. Ironically, it was also because of them, the law and order were much better than before.

Normally, these three gangs were at peace with each other. But since the beginning of last year, Song Laosi started to frequent nightclubs and bars. To Cripple Wang, the was a sign of Song Laosi stepping into his territory.

Although Cripple Wang was a crippled, but he had a large number of ruthless people under him and he was also not afraid of Song Laosi.

If Song Laosi wants to be the biggest boss in Bing City, he will have to eliminate Cripple Wang and Brother Ke. Now, Brother Ke was being neutral. He does not mentioned anything about surrendering to Song Laosi and he was not willing to have any confrontation.

But Cripple Wang was not happy with Song Laosi. He wants to challenge Song Laosi. The grudges between these two was said to have started because of a cinema ticket seller.

Both men had liked that cinema ticket seller and when Cripple Wang was about to make his move, Song Laosi sent his men to abduct that girl. After Song Laosi raped her, he gave her 10,000 RMB and left.

Cripple Wang felt insulted. The girl had told Song Laosi that she was Cripple Wang’s girl and yet, Song Laosi still raped her. This was a slap to Cripple Wang’s face.

Cripple Wang was also ruthless. He sent his men to kill Song Laosi’s brother. This brother of Song Laosi was the only surviving brother of his. The rest of his family were killed by his other enemies’ long time ago. Of course, Song Laosi had his revenged on his enemies.

Song Laosi had no concrete evidence that Cripple Wang was the one who had instigated the killing of his brother. He also does not want to have a confrontation with Cripple Wang, especially he had his only surviving family member, Song Xiaofeng by his side. Song Laosi intends to slowly erode Cripple Wang’s turf. But first, Song Laosi needs to support of Brother Ke. However, Brother Ke still remains as a neutral party.

Feng Yu also did not know that it was Cripple Song who had killed Song Laosi’s last family member, Song Xiaofeng, in the future. There was another rumor that it was Brother Ke, who had killed Song Xiaofeng and then frame Cripple Wang.

In any case, Cripple Wang and Song Laosi were enemies. Feng Yu does not need to join Cripple Wang’s gang. All he needs to do was to create some “coincidental events” between both parties and there will be an all-out war between the two fractions.

These three bosses had an unspoken rule between them. They can have guns, but the other smaller gangs can’t. They can fight and slash each other, but the other smaller gangs can’t. They also seldom target the innocents. Instead of targeting these people, they even offered protection for them. In their words, these innocent people were for them to make money from. As such, these three bosses will help out if they encounter any problems.

For example, Song Laosi had a business. 100,000 RMB for a leg! As long as one have the money and the other party does not have any backings, Song Laosi will make sure that person will become a crippled.

This business also angered Cripple Wang. Although Cripple Wang’s condition was due to congenital paralysis, he hates people calling him a crippled. Crippled Wang prefers everyone to call him “Master Crutches”. However, every time he met Song Laosi, Song Laosi will purposely address him as Cripple Wang loudly.

When Li Shiqiang and the rest learned of Feng Yu’s plan to borrow the power of Cripple Wang, they tried to persuade Feng Yu to give up. Anyway, the Land Rover was given to Song Xiaofeng and he had promised to create trouble for them at Tai Hua Trading.

Feng Yu smiled and shook his head. This Song Xiaofeng will not be coming to create trouble for them. But instead, he wanted half of the company and money.

If they were to give Song Xiaofeng half of the company’s money, the company will close down. When Li Shiqiang and the rest heard this, they also can’t accept this. Their days just gotten better and two days ago, Feng Yu had bought everyone lots of rice, flour and cooking oil for everyone as company’s reward. Now someone is taking away everything from them?

Only Li Shiqiang does not think like that. He advised Feng Yu: “Xiaoyu, you can make use of Cripple Wang to drive Song Laosi away. But what if Cripple Wang turns around and bite you?”

Feng Yu winked and said: “What if we did not ask Cripple Wang for help and he came over on his own accord?”

Cripple Wang come over on his own accord? Li Shiqiang didn’t get it.

Feng Yu asked everyone to come over. Today they got to sleep later. They must plan well and let Cripple Wang to come over to their company tomorrow. If Song Xiaofeng’s men did not come over tomorrow, then it’s fine. But if they really appear, then the fun will begin!

……

Song Xiaofeng woke up at nine o’clock in the morning. Last night, he had three rounds with this girl. They only fall asleep in the early hours.

Song Xiaofeng slapped the girl’s butt and said: “Go out. I got things to do today. I will look for you another day.”

The girl got up and hurriedly got dressed. She doesn’t even dare to wash up at the hotel and left. She knows that Song Xiaofeng was ruthless and she will be in big trouble Song Xiaofeng gets unhappy.

Although the girl was not paid for her services every time she accompanies Song Xiaofeng, she dare not reject him. Her only hope was for Song Xiaofeng to get a new target and forgets her.

Song Xiaofeng washed up and ate his breakfast downstairs. His followers had been waiting at the door for him.

“Good morning Master Song.”

“Hmm. Good morning. Have Toad come back yet?” Toad was his follower which he had sent to Feng Yu’s company.

“Master Song, let’s talk about it in the car.” His follower said.

Song Xiaofeng looked at this follower suspiciously. Did something happen to Toad? From Feng Yu’s attitude yesterday, he doesn’t seem to be the type that dares to go against him.

In the car, the follower quickly said: “Master Song, both of Toad’s legs were broken. He is noy lying in the hospital.”

“Who dares to touch my men? Call everyone here. We will now go and smash up that company!” Song Xiaofeng shouted. He didn’t expect Feng Yu to have this courage.

“Master Song, I have not finished. Toad’s legs were not broken by Feng Yu. It was Cripple Wang who did it.” The follower said.

“What? Cripple Wang? How did Toad offend Cripple Wang? Could it be that Toad did not pay for last night at the nightclub?” Song Xiaofeng asked. He was not afraid of his uncle, Song Laosi, and the police. But he was afraid of Cripple Wang.

This Cripple Wang was someone who dares to go against his uncle and he had lots of grudges with his uncle. Could it be that Cripple Wang intends to have an all-out war against Song Laosi?

“Of course, we paid yesterday.  Old master Song had instructed us to pay when we go to such places. We must not be looked down by others. Not only we got to pay, we got to give them more.” The follower replied.

“All right. Then why did Toad offend that Cripple Wang?” Song Xiaofeng asked.

“I heard that Toad went to Tai Hua Trading this morning and was ready to collect the first sum of money from them. But he got into an argument with Feng Yu. Toad claims that he wants to break Feng Yu and make him a crippled for the rest of his life. Just happen, Cripple Wang walked passed and heard what Toad said. Crippled Wang got angry and got four of his men to pin Toad down. Crippled Wang then personally used his iron clutches to break both of Toad’s legs. Crippled Wang even announced that, in future, that warehouse area will be his territory and Song Laosi men are not allowed to enter there. Toad was the first example for the rest!” The follower said.

“Cripple Wang, we’ll see about this!”

Chapter 58

Cripple Wang was awoken early by his men early in the morning. His men had told him that Song Laosi’s men had come into his territory to collect money.

Cripple Wang did not really care. Both parties just had a talk and Cripple Wang agreed to not go into construction and demolition businesses while Song Laosi will not touch night clubs, bars and bath centers.

But Cripple Wang did not expect Song Laosi men to come and collect money from a trading company. This made Cripple Wang unhappy. If everyone behave like Song Laosi, the economy will collapse. It was not that Cripple Wang is worried about the economy. But, if the economy collapsed, who will patronize his entertainment businesses?

Cripple Wang’s men explained the whole situation to him and he found out that it was not Song Laosi but Song Xiaofeng. If it was Song Laosi, Cripple Wang might let this matter go. But Song Xiaofeng was just a young punk and him coming into Cripple Wang’s territory to create trouble was a slap to his face.

Cripple Wang also added that he was not sure if it was Song Laosi’s idea. After all, Brother Ke had promised to stay out of all these and recognized Song Laosi’s position as the leader in Bing City’s underworld. Could this matter a form of testing by Song Laosi, to see Cripple Wang’s reaction?

Cripple Wang was still hesitating. What if Song Laosi and Brother Ke joined forces, he will be in big danger. But at this juncture, another Cripple Wang’s man told him that Song Xiaofeng was at one of their nightclubs last night. Song Xiaofeng proclaimed loudly at the nightclub that if anyone dares to go against him, he will break anyone’s legs and let the be a cripple for life.

This sentence completely irritated Cripple Wang. There were only a few people who dares to call him cripple in Bing City and even the Longjiang province.

He was afraid that his man had heard wrongly, and he will end up with a reputation of bullying the young. Since his men had said that Song Xiaofeng will be going to Tai Hua Trading Company today, Cripple Wang will also make a trip there. If Song Xiaofeng were to apologize to him, he will let the matter rest.

But Cripple Wang did not expect that he had just arrived at the door of the Tai Hua Trading company, he heard someone shouting loudly about breaking one’s legs and making him a cripple for life. He also heard rude remarks about him and said that sooner or later, he will be killed by Song Laosi.

Cripple Wang’s anger went out of controlled. He ignored the other guy’s explanations and ordered his men to pin that guy down. Cripple Wang personally broke both of that guy’s legs.

Said that I am a cripple on crutches? I will let you to be worse off than a crippled. I will make sure you will spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair.

……

Toad woke up early in the morning. He will be representing Song Xiaofeng to go to Tai Hua Trading company to take over 50% of the company’s shares and make sure the future profits will go to Song Xiaofeng.

However, at Tai Hua Trading Company, Toad heard from Feng Yu and the rest that they will be closing down the company. That means that Tai Hua Trading will not be providing Song Xiaofeng 50% of their profits.

Toad was furious. He had promised Song Xiaofeng that he will get this matter done and will bring back the money. He thought to himself: “Fine, since you want to close down your company, then give us your last month profits. We got people working in the banks. We are able to check how much were their profits last months!

Little did he know that Feng Yu would be so stubborn today. Not only he refuses to pay Toad the last month profits, Feng Yu also said that he will not be giving Song Xiaofeng a single cent in future!

Toad was furious. He pointed to Feng Yu and the rest of the staffs, swearing and cursing like what he used to. In the heat of the moment, Toad accidentally mentioned something about breaking their legs and making them cripples.

Toad seldom said threats about breaking legs. But he was not scared. Even the police cannot do anything to him. But he was unlucky today. Cripple Wang just happened to be there. Just when he finished saying that sentence, Cripple Wang came rushing in and without any words, broke both of his legs.

This time, Toad was finished. Not only he couldn’t complete Song Xiaofeng’s task, he also offended Cripple Wang. He was also unsure if Song Xiaofeng will help him get back at Cripple Wang. Even if Song Xiaofeng was willing to help him get his revenge, Song Xiaofeng was also no match for Cripple Wang.

……

Since last night, Feng Yu had asked his men to spread rumors at many nightclubs. The rumors were “Recently, Song Xiaofeng likes to break people’s legs and let them be crippled.” Eight out of ten nightclubs in Bing City were owned by Cripple Wang. These rumors can easily make their way to Cripple Wang’s ears as his men were stationed at all these nightclubs.

Wu Zhigang and the staffs also exaggerated that Song Laosi will be taking over the whole of Bing City’s underworld. Song Laosi will also be collecting protection fees from businesses in Bing City and they were expanding their territory inot Cripple Wang’s area.

Wu Zhigang made sure Cripple Wang’s men heard these rumors, so that Cripple Wang gets to know about it.

Early in the morning, Song Xiaofeng’s man, Toad came over. He had thought that everything will proceed smoothly and fast. But Feng Yu delayed his time by offering him cigarettes and tea.

When Feng Yu heard that Cripple Wang had left his house, his attitude changed and reject Song Xiaofeng’s proposal. Feng Yu rejected to give them money straight in Toad’s face.

Sure enough, Toad was furious at that time, but if it wasn’t for Feng Yu got more people at the company, Toad would have thrown the stool at Feng Yu.

When Cripple Wang’s car reaches the warehouse door, Feng Yu began to lead Toad to saying the words he wanted him to say.

“I have two legs. Even if I offend Master Song, I am still able to run and hide. I am going to close my business now. What else can you all do to me?” Feng Yu said to Toad.

“So, what if you have two legs? I am telling you. Today you will have to agree to our terms even if you are unwilling! Do you believe that I will break your legs and make you a cripple for the rest of your life once you step out of this door?” Toad Shouted.

“Even you break my legs, I can also be successful like Master Crutches!” Feng Yu replied.

“Crutches your ass! You think this is Cripple Wang’s territory and we don’t dare to touch you? Let me tell you, Cripple Wang is also afraid of our Old Master Song. Maybe next time, there will not be any more Cripple Wang. You better …… Ah……! Who are you guys? What are you all doing? Crippled…… Master Crutches?” Toad shouted.

Cripple Wang did not give Toad the opportunity to explain and he directly asked his men to pin him down. He swung his iron crutches and break both of Toad’s legs. He then instruct his men to throw Toad at Song Laosi territory.

Now even a small fry from Song Laosi’s gang dares to insult him, the rumors might be true. Seems like Song Laosi wants to swallow up his territory.

“You are from Tai Hua Trading Company? Who is the boss here?” Cripple Wang asked while sitting on a chair.

“Good morning Master Crutches. I am the person in charge o this company. You can call me Xiao Yu. Turn ye good, I am the head of this company, call me Xiao Feng on the line.” Feng Yu said while passing a cigarette to Cripple Wang.

“Yo, so young and you are running a business? Not bad. What’s your relationship with that guy just now?” Cripple Wang asked. Feng Yu had reminded him of his past when he started his first business.

“That person was Song xiaofeng’s follower. Yesterday, Song Xiaofeng took a car from me and now, he wanted to take away my business. That was the reason we got into an argument just now. We had just started arguing and you arrived.” Feng Yu replied.

“Well, rest assured. This area is my territory. I will take care of you. Song Laosi will not come again. You just mind your own business and earn as much as you can. If there are people who don’t follow rules and force you to do businesses against your wishes, you can come and look for me. In your free time, visit my nightclubs more often. Young people should frequent such places more.” Cripple Wang said.

Cripple Wang left and, Feng Yu and his staff were relieved.

This Cripple Wang was the same as the rumors. Although he was a gangster, but he will not supress ordinary folks and other businessmen. He only focuses on his entertainment outlets.

From the incidents that happened today, the war between Song Laosi and Cripple Wang looks set to begin!

Chapter 59 – Opportunities to create trouble

Feng Yu instructed everyone to not go out for the coming weeks. If they have nothing to do, stay in the company or at home. His staffs were the family members of the Motor Factory and they stayed at the factory’s dormitory. Song Laosi doesn’t dare to go to their dormitory to create trouble. The dormitory had security guards and there were those jobless young lads, which numbered close to hundred staying there. These young lads were fierce when it comes to fighting. Also, the Motor Factory produces products for the Military and had close ties with the military. Song Laosi dare not to offend the Military.

Feng Yu also went back to his apartment in the city to avoid Song Xiaofeng’s revenge. Feng Yu belieed that the Crippled King will start the war soon.

When that happens, Feng Yu will find ways to report this matter in the newspaper for the higher authorities to take note of this matter.

After Cripple Wang crippled Toad, he was still not satisfied. He waited for Song Laosi to give him an answer for his men actions but to no avail.

However, Song Laosi was still in the dark of what had happened. Song Xiaofeng had kept this matter from him. Toad had been by Song Xiaofeng’s side all this while and if Song Xiaofeng didn’t report this matter, Song Laosi also won’t know.

Song Laosi was not a low-key person. He had built a large villa in Jiangbei last year. The villa was more than 1,000 Sq/m and the construction cost alone were more than 5 million RMB. There was ballroom, bar, chess rooms saunas, gym, etc in his villa. With the renovation costs included in, the total cost for the villa was astronomic.

Song Laosi was playing mahjong with three other triad bosses from other provinces at his villa when someone entered the room.

Song Laosi looked up and saw his nephew Song Xiaofeng entering the room.

“Xiao Feng, come over and meet your uncles.” Song Laosi waved.

Song Xiaofeng greeted Song Laosi’s friends obediently and stood behind Song Laosi. Song Laosi saw Song Xiaofeng’s actions, and he knew that Song Xiaofeng had something to tell him.

“Guangzheng, come and play for me. I am going to the toilet.” Song Laosi said to his right-hand man.

Song Laosi’s right hand man sat down at the mahjong table while Song Laosi left the room with Song Xiaofeng.

“Xiao Feng, today so many uncles came to see me. You should be happy for me.” Song Laosi said.

Song Laosi was very happy. These triad bosses came to see him today means that they had acknowledge him as the underworld leader in Longjiang province. He will be the one and only triad boss of the whole province soon.

“Uncle, Toad’s legs were broken today.” Song Xiaofeng said.

“Toad? The one who had been following you? Who did this to him?” Song Laosi’s face changed. It doesn’t matter if Toad was in the right or wrong. Toad was a member of his gang and his follower. For someone to break his legs, it means that someone was not respecting him.

Those that does not respect him must be taught a lesson!

“It was Cripple Wang.” Song Xiaofeng said.

“Cripple Wang?” Song Laosi lit a cigarette. Cripple Wang was a ruthless person. During their last meeting, they had both agreed to not meddle with each other business and Cripple Wang will not vie the number one position of the underground world with him. Why did Cripple Wang break Toad’s legs?

Song Xiaofeng explained the whole matter to Song Laosi. Of course, Song Xiaofeng had exaggerated the story and missed out some portions of it. He said that Toad had went to Cripple Wang’s territory to help him buy a car and Cripple Wang broke both of his legs without listening to his explanations. Additionally, Toad had said that it was an misunderstanding and he was Song Laosi’s men and Cripple Wang still carry on breaking his legs.

Song Laosi’s eyes narrowed and pressed out his cigarette in the ashtray: “So, that Cripple Wang wants to start a war with me? It must be Cripple Wang had heard news of these bosses visiting me today and he was not happy.”

The timing was too coincidental which resulted in Song Laosi to misunderstood Cripple Wang.

Actually, Cripple Wang knows that these people will be visiting Song Laosi today. But he doesn’t care. Cripple Wang’s business were mainly in Bing City and he doesn’t care about the other cities in the province. He also doesn’t have the intentions of expanding his territory to other cities.

He was not like Song Laosi, who was in construction and demolition business. Song Laosi wanted to expand his business throughout the province and slowly enter other provinces. As such, Song Laosi needs to have a title, such as “Boss of Longjiang”, in order to expand his territory to other provinces.

Song Laosi knew that Cripple Wang had been unhappy with him Although Song Laosi’s power was bigger than Cripple Wang, but he could not eliminate him in one go. Also, he can’t use his close ties with the government against Cripple Wang. If he asked the government to act against Cripple Wang, he would lose the respect of others.

Song Laosi had just came to an agreement with Brother Ke with regards to his position as the number one boss of Longjiang and now, Cripple Wang is creating trouble for him when bosses of other triads came to visit him.

If the bosses from other cities knew that he can’t even take care of his own backyard, they would not acknowledge his status as the number one.

Song Laosi proclaimed that everyone is afraid and respected him in Bing City. He even has the intention to get a position in the provincial government in future.

But now, Cripple Wang came and gave him a slap on his face. This matter will not be forgotten so easily. Cripple Wang needs to give him an explanation!

“Ok. I know. You go back first. I will not let this matter rest so easily. I will personally get revenge for you.” Song Laosi said.

Song Xiaofeng said: “Thank you Uncle.”

“OK. No need to thank me. Later accompany those uncles for a few drinks. In future, you might need their help.” Song Laosi said.

That night, Song Xiaofeng drank till he was drunk, and he instructed his men to smash up Tai Hua Trading Company. He was in no position to meddle with the issues between Song Laosi and Cripple Wang, but he can just vent his anger on a small trading company.

……

“What? The company was smashed? Don’t be anxious. We will split into three groups. Brother Li, you go and report to the police. We had sent gifts to the Police station and they are obliged to act if we encounter any trouble. We might not expect them to arrest anyone but they have to protect us from this happening again. We can promise them to sponsor more money in future.

Ask Wu Zhigang to look for Motor Factory’s Director Li. Just tell him that the corporation between Tai Hua Trading and the Motor Factory will stop because our company was smashed, and we will close our business. The Motor Factory still have some authority in Bing City. If the Motor Factory is able to get the Government to act, then Song Laosi might not dare to create any more trouble.

Ask Sunliang to come to my house. He will accompany me to look for Cripple Wang and ask Cripple Wang to deal with Song Laosi. I want to see what can Song Laosi do to us! Oh yes, we need to rearrange the warehouse. Smashed those empty bottles all over the warehouse and make our warehouse look worse than before.” Feng Yu instructed.

Feng Yu and Sunliang went to seven to eight entertainment outlets before he found Cripple Wang n a bath center.

“Master Crutches, I came to you to ask for your help.” Feng yu said with a sad expression.

Cripple Wang thought for a while and said: “You are Xiao Feng from the trading company in the warehouse area? What happened? Did someone create trouble at your company?”

Cripple Wang was surprised. Yesterday he had instructed his men to keep low and don’t create unnecessary trouble. But the next day, something happened. Who was the one who had defy his instructions?

“Master Crutches, I had prepared a 100,000 RMB red packet. Please help me to talk to Master Song. We did not do anything to Toad and there was no reason for they to smash up our warehouse and company.” Feng Yu said.

‘What did you say? That bastard Song Xiaofeng send his men to smash your company?” Cripple Wang’s trembled in anger. This Song Xiaofeng. Instead of coming over to apologise to him, he still dares to create trouble in his territory? This means declaring war with him!

“Yes. We suffered great losses. All my goods in the warehouse were destroyed. Master Crutches, I am unable to continue my business. Feng Yu said. He took out a stack of 100,000 RMB notes and place it on the table, pushing it towards Cripple Wang.

However, Cripple Wang pushed the stake of RMB back to Feng Yu. If he accepted this 100,000 RMB, it would be against the rules he set. How will he command respect from his followers in future?

“You take this money back. I promise you I will settle this matter for you!” Cripple Wang said.

Chapter 60– Amulet

Song Laosi had just send the bosses from other cities out of his villa and was about to go look for Cripple Wang. His righthand man, Li Gwangzheng came up to him and told him that Cripple Wang sent his men to notify them that he will be waiting for them tonight at Jinli nightclub.

Song Laosi’s expression became gloomy. He had yet to look for Cripple Wang and Cripple Wang came to look for trouble with him? Seems like keeping low for the past few months had led to Cripple Wang thinking he was weak.

Although Jinli Nightclub was Cripple Wang’s territory, Song Laosi was not afraid. He had more men and his men were fiercer than Cripple Wang’s men.

Furthermore, Jinli nightclub is also in Bing city. In Bing City, Song Laosi is afraid of no one! If Cripple Wang dares to fight it out with him, then he shall see who dies first!

……

Feng Yu was accompanying the police officers at the scene, calculating his losses.

The warehouse was almost empty in the first place. There were not many stocks other than a few samples. Also, Song Xiaofeng’s men did not enter the warehouse. They did not even break the lock outside. All they did was to splash paint on their doors and used stones and iron bars to damage the doors.

But Feng Yu let his men to create a fake crime scene. His men broke the lock with a sledgehammer from outside and smashed all the samples on the floor. Making the warehouse messy.

“Officer Xie, look at these. Look at all the damages done to our warehouse. I believed that these two months, we had done out part. We had sponsored food and clothes to your station. Now our company becomes like this, someone have to account for this.” Li Shiqiang said loudly.

Feng Yu secretly nodded his head. The previous two deals with Kirilenko had led to a good partnerships with his suppliers. Every time the suppliers send their goods, they will also send some free gifts or samples to them.

Feng Yu will then let his staffs split these samples and gifts among themselves. Those remaining, he will send to the Police Stations. Although these gifts were not expensive, but they were practical. Those gifts were mainly food products such as rice, oil, cigarettes, etc.

In this era, most people were poor. When the police chief gave out these free gifts and samples to his men, he also felt proud.

“Xiao Li, Xiao Feng, don’t worry. Did you all offend anyone recently? We also need a direction if we were to investigate this case.” The Police Chief, Officer Xie said. He had received gifts from Tai Hua Trading Company, and he felt embarrassed that such things happened to the company.

“How would I know? We are doing business and we don’t offend people easily. Officer Xie, can you get more people to patrol this area? My request is not too much, am I?” Feng Yu said. He said these was to prevent Li Shiqiang from saying anything about Song Xiaofeng.

Even if Feng Yu or Li Shiqiang mentioned anything about song Xiaofeng, Officer Xie also don’t dare to do anything about it. The most, he would get someone to take the rap. There will be repercussions if this were to happen. Song Xiaofeng will take revenge on them again. If Feng Yu were to act against Song Laosi, he will not want to give Song Laosi to have any opportunities to return to power.

“This … Okay, I’ll go back and speak to the rest.” Officer Xie said.

Officer Xie wanted to leave but Feng Yu stopped him: “Officer Xie, I have a small request from you. Can we have a signage from the Police?”

“A signage? What signage do you want? Our Police Station does not give out signage.” Officer Xie replied. He was feeling puzzled.

Feng Yu sighed. In the future years, placing a Police signage with the police logo and contact number on the door, there will be lesser people creating trouble for that household or business. Many people will think that this business is affiliated to the Police.

Now to ask for a picture was not realistic. But to get a sign from the Police and on the signage wrote the following words: “Partners of the Police, together we will build a safer country” would let others think that this company is under the protection of a certain Police Chief. People who wants to create trouble would think twice.

“Officer Xie. It is just an ordinary signage. Just like an Amulet to ward off people who wants to create trouble for us. Oh yes, I had prepared 50 Wind and Rain fans for your station to improve your working environment.” Feng Yu explained.

“Eh, you don’t really need to do this.” Officer Xie replied, smiling happily. His office still have no fans and their budget had been tight.

“No…… We are partners to the Police, and we are building a safer nation together. This is the least I can do to show my support.” Feng Yu said.

After Officer Xie left, Feng Yu called Li Shiqiang over. Although he had pulled the Police Chief over to their side, they also have to take care of the people under Officer Xie. Especially the patrol officers. These officers should be entitled to “Night patrol allowances”. These allowances will help these officers to get something to eat during their patrols. It would be best if Song Laosi misunderstood that they have strong connections with the Police! Also, they have to build their relationships with the officials above of Officer Xie.

After settling Officer Xie, Wu Zhigang and another staff returned. They had ridden bicycles and they were sweating.

“Zhigang, what did Director Li said?” Li Zhigang asked before Feng Yu can open his mouth.

“Director Li is not willing to get involved in this. But they were willing to give us a signage based on Manager Feng’s instructions. I will put up the signage now. Look, this is the signage. “Partner of Bing City Motor Factory”. But Manager Feng, how can this signage be useful?” Wu Zhigang pointed and asked.

Feng Yu smiled and said: “Of course one signage might not be useful. But when we have a lot of signages, then it will be very useful.”

These signages were equivalent to an identity. In the future years, many companies wanted to get some form of recognitions from the government bodies, such as ‘People’s representative’, ‘Member of some Government committee’, etc. These recognitions act as some sort of Amulet and proved that the company was doing well.

As long as there were a lot of signages and awards from Government bodies at their door, there will be lesser people creating trouble for them. There was another advantage. These awards and signages will show that the company have lots of connections and will give them more bargaining power when it comes to business negotiations.

But Feng Yu was a bit disappointed when he heard that the Motor Factory had refused to come forward to help him. A large hydropower station had just been completed and the Motor Factory will be collecting the payments from them. For time being, the Motor Factory was not short of funds. If the Motor Factory was willing to help Feng Yu, all they have to do was to let their superiors in the Government know about this matter and someone will warn Song Laosi to stop. But Feng Yu had other ways. He can get another Amulet from the City Government.

“Deputy Chief Zhang? Am I disturbing you?” Feng Yu asked.

“Oh, it’s Manager Feng. Come in. What brought you here today? Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“Chief Zhang, I am here to let you know that I will be closing down my trading company. What procedures do I have to do?” Feng Yu said.

Zhang Ruiqiang was surprised. Tai Hua Trading was one of the companies which his department helped to get the permits. Two days ago, the Chief still praised Tai Hua Trading. This month alone, there were already more than 3 million Rubles worth of trades. The department still have the intention to make Tai Hua Trading as an example for other trading firms to learn from.

“Manager Feng, what happened? Did that Russian cheated you?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked worriedly.

“No. That Russian will not do this to me. My company was very profitable. But I am not sure who did I offended and yesterday, my company and my goods in the warehouse were smashed and destroyed by someone. The Police still had not found the culprit yet. Rather than worry day and night, I would rather close down my business. I am preparing to move my business to Shen City. Although it will be a bit troublesome, but it will still be better than now.” Feng Yu said.

“Manager Feng, Shen City is quite a distance from the Soviet Union. Furthermore, you will have to start all over again there and it won’t be as convenient as Bing City. You rest assured. I will call Chief Zhao of the Provincial Government and tell him about your problem. He will take note of it and will not let some gangsters harass you.” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

“This … All right. By the way, the police station gave me an idea. If I am able to put some Government awards on my door, it will be very effective against these troublemakers. Can your Foreign Trade Department give me any awards?” Feng Yu asked.

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu. This should be his real purpose for coming here? But never mind. They had been giving out these types of awards and signages all this while. Also, he had heard about the triads and gangs in Bing City. His superior had the intention of putting him in-charge of getting investments in the city and promote international trade. Zhang Ruiqiang had long wanted to drive these gangs and triads out of Bing City.

“OK, I will get my men to send it over once it is ready. In future, if Manager Feng needs to procure anything, remember to support our State-owned enterprises.” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

“Of course. I will take note of it. Thank you, Chief Zhang.” Feng Yu replied.

The two exchanged some greetings and Chief Zhang also put across some request to Feng Yu which he agreed willingly.

After leaving the Foreign Trade Hall, Feng Yu felt refreshed. With so many amulets, Song Xiaofeng will not dare to touch Tai hua Trading Company again! And a few more days, Song Xiaofeng will be in an urn!

Chapter 61 – Small tricks

After waiting for a day, there was still no news of Song Xiaofeng’s death. Feng Yu can’t stand it anymore.

He was the target of Song Xiaofeng and being a target does not feel right. Especially when Song Xiaofeng was someone who would try all means to get even and doesn’t follow any rules. Feng Yu was not sure when will Song Xiaofeng attack him.

In a few days, the second batch of used cars will arrive at Bing City. What if Song Xiaofeng sends his men profits? Kirilenko had told him that there were not many luxury cars left. After this incoming batch of cars and another batch sometime later, Feng Yu might have to wait up to two years.

The timing for the next two batches of cars was just lovely for Feng Yu. These two batches should take the whole year for Feng Yu to sell. Next year, there will be an excellent opportunity for Feng Yu to flip his assets a few folds!

But for that to happen, Feng Yu needs to make money from the next two batches of used cars. If Song Xiaofeng were to take away half of his profits, Feng Yu would be losing money. He might as well give up on this business and concentrate on doing exportation business.

Feng Yu was scolding Cripple Wang in his heart for being so slow to act. At the same time, he was also thinking of ways to add oil to the fire.

It turned out that Cripple Wang was furious when he learned that Feng Yu’s company had been smashed by Song Xiaofeng’s men. He was not mad because Feng Yu’s company was crushed. He was mad because instead of Song Xiaofeng going to apologize to him, Song Xiaofeng still dares to create trouble in his territory. This had made him lose face!

Cripple Wang had already sent his men to inform Song Laosi to bring Song Xiaofeng to apologize to him.

But Song Laosi already had the support of other triad bosses from other cities, and he had self-proclaim to be the number one boss of Bing City. How can the number one boss bring his own nephew to apologize to his enemy?

Song Laosi only sent 100,000 RMB to Cripple Wang and said that Song Xiaofeng was drunk when he gave the order. The 100,000 RMB was sort of payment to settle this matter. Song Laosi doesn’t care if Cripple Wang keeps the 100,000 RMB or the money goes to Tai Hua Trading. He sent the money was just to shut Cripple Wang up.

Under the persuasion of his men, Cripple Wang kept the money. This was considered an act of goodwill from Song Laosi. If Cripple Wang did not accept and kept harping on Song Laosi, they would eventually have to fight each other head-on. Now, Brother Ke was keeping quiet and waiting for the chance to eliminate both of them. Having a war with each other would just benefit Brother Ke, and he will eventually take over Bing City!

As for Tai Hua Trading Company, Cripple Wang just sent one of his men to bring 10,000 RMB over and said that the 10,000 RMB was Song Xiaofeng’s compensation for the damages.

Feng Yu looked at the 10,000 RMB on the table with his eyes twitching.

Let the matter rest? How can he let this matter rest? Why did Cripple Wang kill Song Xiaofeng in his previous life? Why did Cripple Wang not kill him this time?

Song Laosi can still live for a few more years, but Song Xiaofeng must die now!

Feng Yu thought for a while and asked Wu Zhigang to follow him to look for Cripple Wang. He also brought 100,000 RMB with him.

“Why are you here again? Didn’t I send the compensation to you? Why? You think the compensation was too little?” Cripple Wang frowned.

“No, no. I am here to thank Master Crutches for helping my company. I had received the compensation from Song Xiaofeng. This is our thank you gift for Master Crutches and your men.” Feng Yu said while pushing the bag containing the 100,000 RMB towards Cripple Wang.

The bag does not have any zipper. The 100,000 RMB can be seen by Cripple Wang and his men without opening the bag.

Cripple Wang looked at Feng Yu. What is this kid thinking? I sent him 10,000 RMB, and he came back to give me 100,000 RMB as thank you gift?

“What do you mean by this?” Cripple Wang asked.

“Master Crutches. I shall be honest. All I wanted was a piece of mind. I know you had already sent words to Song Laosi. I believe Song Laosi will not find trouble with my company because of you. But this time, my company had offended Song Xiaofeng. He is arrogant and does not abide by the rules. I am afraid that he will seek revenge again.” Feng Yu said.

Cripple Wang stared at Feng Yu. In his heart, he thought: “What do you mean? You think that my words have no weight?”

But he thought about what Feng Yu said and found that Feng Yu actually made sense. Song Laosi was someone that will still abide by the rules of the underworld. But Song Xiaofeng’s reputation was horrible. Furthermore, he was also unhappy that Song Xiaofeng did not even come personally to apologize to him.

If Song Xiaofeng really came back and create trouble for Tai Hua Trading company, it will really cause Cripple Wang to lose face. Does Song Xiaofeng dare to go and find trouble with Feng Yu? No one can be sure.

“Rest assured, Song Xiaofeng will never come to you again.” Cripple Wang said.

“Thank you, Master Crutches, I am relieved to hear that. If you need me for anything in future just let me know.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu left without even taking a second look at the 100,000 RMB on the table.

“Master Crutches, this kid is not bad. But he is worried about nothing. Song Laosi had already given us the compensation, what’s there for him to worry about?” Cripple Wang’s follower casually said.

Hearing what his follower said, Cripple Wang was not happy. Song Laosi had only sent his men over and not come to him personally. At least Song Xiaofeng should make the trip.

This Song Laosi was getting more and more arrogant. If he still doesn’t do anything, Bing City will fall into Song Laosi hands within one year!

……

On the way back to the company, Feng Yu kept looking at Wu Zhigang.

Wu Zhigang felt uncomfortable from Feng Yu’s actions. He asked: “Manager Feng if you have anything on your mind, you can say it to me straight. You are making me uncomfortable.”

Feng Yu said: “Zhigang, I have a task for you, but I am afraid that you are not willing to do.”

Wu Zhigang tapped on his chest and said: “Manager Feng, just let me know what you want me to do, and I will do it. It doesn’t matter if your task is related to the company or your own personal things. One word from you and I will complete it!”

“I want you to get beaten up!” Feng Yu said.

Wu Zhigang asked with an awkward expression: “Manager Feng, don’t tell me you want me to be a sandbag for you to vent your anger?”

Feng Yu shook his head: “The one hitting you is not me. You need to be beaten up by Song Xiaofeng.”

“Why would his men hit me? Didn’t Cripple Wang said that Song Xiaofeng will not come and disturb us again?” Wu Zhigang asked.

“If he doesn’t come and look for us, we can take the initiative and look for him. Sorry, Zhigang. But you will have to suffer a bit. When this thing is over, I will give you 10,000 RMB!”

“Manager Feng, I will not accept your money. It is just a beating. I can still take t. But why do I have to be beaten up by them?” Wu Zhigang still doesn’t understand.

“It doesn’t matter. As long as you promise me to complete this task. You have to keep the money. This is to compensate you. Tonight, we will go and have fun at the nightclub ballroom to play. Don’t tell anyone about this. Including Brother Li.” Feng Yu instructed.

There was an old saying in Northeast China. “It is either peaceful and quiet or blows up and make the matter worse!”

……

Night. Feng Yu and Wu Zhigang drove out. Li Shiqiang thought Feng yu was going to the Motor Factory and didn’t ask anything.

“Remember, later when you are getting beaten up, scream loudly. Scream as if you are in great pain.” Feng Yu reminded Wu Zhigang.

“Rest assure, I know what to do.” Wu Zhigang replied.

“You must not fight back and protect your head with your arms. Curl your body up.” Feng Yu said.

“Manager Feng, you had repeated six times.” Wu Zhigang said.

“Do you remember?” Feng Yu snapped.

“Yes. I remember.” Wu Zhigang replied.

After driving to a few nightclubs, Feng Yu found his Land Rover. Autumn Nightclub.

Feng Yu walked in front, and Wu Zhigang followed. He gritted his teeth. Getting 10,000 RMB for a beating was not the main reason he agreed to this. It was doing Feng Yu great favor that was the main reason. He helped Feng Yu, and he knows that Feng Yu will take care of him in future.

The nightclub was very crowded. Feng Yu scans the area and saw Song Xiaofeng at a corner with his men.

Feng Yu chatted with Wu Zhigang and walked towards Song Xiaofeng’s direction. It was as if they did not see Song Xiaofeng.

Chapter 62 – Everyone can act

Song Xiaofeng was grounded at home for the past few days by his uncle Song Laosi. Although Song Laosi’s villa has everything, he still felt bored.

Today, he was finally allowed to leave his uncle’s villa, and he immediately brought his men to the nightclub. He just likes the feeling of playing with different girls. In his words, “Every girl has her own flavor.”

Just when he saw a target and was about to send his men to pull the girl over, he saw someone that was in his mind for the past few days.

Since this kid appeared in front of him, it would be a waste to not get some money out of him.

Song Xiaofeng still has to pay for Toad’s medical expenses. Since he happens to meet Feng Yu here, he decided to ask Feng Yu to pay for Toad’s expenses. Anyway, Feng Yu had indirectly caused Toad’s legs to be broken by Cripple Wang.

Feng Yu was looking for a place to sit with Wu Zhigang when he saw two men appeared in front of them.

“You two. Master Song asked you to get over there!” One of the two men said.

Feng Yu and Wu Zhigang’s eyes met and without uttering a word, followed Song Xiaofeng’s men. Song Xiaofeng was leaning back into a sofa with crossed legs. He was holding a glass of Whiskey.

“Isn’t this Brother Feng? How come you are here today?” Song Xiaofeng asked.

“I just happen to pass by and decided to come in for a drink. Master Song, you are here too. Bring the tab for Master Song’s table to me.” Feng Yu said enthusiastically.

“No need. I, Song Xiaofeng don’t have the habit of letting others buying me drinks. But my brother, Toad was injured at your office a few days ago. How are you going to settle this matter?” Song Xiaofeng said while shaking his rock glass. He doesn’t even look at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu look over to Wu Zhigang, and he knew what to do. Wu Zhigang stepped forward and shouted: “He is not injured by us and our company was trashed by your men!”

Song Xiaofeng coldly glanced at Wu Zhigang. He doesn’t need to say anything, and his men rushed up. All it takes was one glass bottle, and Wu Zhigang was on the floor.

The four men surrounded him and start raining blows on him.

Wu Zhigang already knew he will be beaten up. With the protection padding protecting his stomach area, he wrapped his arms around his head and curled up to defend himself. Even if he is injured, the injuries will also not be too severe.

Wu Zhigang screamed loudly when on the floor. He shouted for mercy.

Feng Yu also shouted at Song Xiaofeng: “Master Song, ask them to stop. How much compensation do you want? Just let me know. If I can afford it, I will give it to you. He is going to die soon!”

Song Xiaofeng closed his eyes. One hand holding the rock glass and the other swaying around in the air. His expression was like he is enjoying some music and his hand swaying to the rhythm.

He likes to listen to the screams of those who don’t obey him. The more miserable, the more excited he is.  The satisfaction he got from these screams is far better than sex!

The beating carried on for about 5 minutes. Wu Zhigang’s cry was getting weaker. Suddenly, Song Xiaofeng raised his left fist, like the ending movement of a music conductor.

His men stopped and stood back behind Song Xiaofeng. Feng Yu hurriedly went over to check on Wu Zhigang. He started to regret. This was not what he expected.

He thought Song Xiaofeng’s men would just beat up Wu Zhigang for a while and stopped. He did not expect the beating to carry on for so long. Wu Zhigang was beaten up very severely. His face is full of blood, and his body was trembling non-stop.

When Feng Yu looked at Wu Zhigang’s eyes, the latter was still able to blink, and his eyes were still apparent. Feng Yu felt relieved. At least, Wu Zhigang had not injured his brain.

“Earlier you said you wanted to compensate for Toad’s injuries. How much do you think a man’s leg is worth?” Song Xiaofeng asked slowly while slipping on his whiskey.

“100,000 RMB” Feng Yu quoted a price. Now the average annual income in Bing City is not more than 1,000 RMB. 100,000 RMB is the lifetime wages of many people!

“100,000 RMB? Humph, you think we are beggars? At least 400,000 RMB! I will not bargain with you. Two legs and the other injuries, total 1 Million RMB and I will let this matter rest!” Song Xiaofeng sneers. He knew Tai Hua trading had made a few million last month. 1 Million RMB shouldn’t be a problem for Feng Yu.

1 million? Feng Yu sucked in a deep breath and said: “Master Song, isn’t 1 million too much?”

“Too Much? Then how much do you think your two legs are wort? Why not I break both of your legs, and we let the matter rest?” Song Xiaofeng said with disgust. Some people just can’t grasp the situation. Feng Yu still wanted to bargain with him? If Feng Yu kept behaving this way, he will break his legs now and still ask for compensation!

“Fine! I will pay 1 million. Give me three days to raise the money, and I will send it to you!” Feng Yu said unwillingly.

Looking at Feng Yu, Song Xiaofeng was elated. He was able to vent his anger and still got a sum of money coming in. After paying Toad’s medical expenses, he will even have at least a few hundred thousand left.

Like swiping a fly, Song Xiaofeng waved his hands to ask Feng Yu to get lost. He then pointed to a pretty girl who was leaving the dance floor. Tonight, she is the one!

The nightclub business was not affected even when Wu Zhigang was beaten up by Song Xiaofeng’s 4 followers. Everyone pretended not to see. Only a few more daring customers, looked over to find out who was the one who had provoked Song Xiaofeng.

Feng Yu really despised these twisted people. They thought that people like Song Xiaofeng were very awe-inspiring? When he is in prison or dying on the streets, they will understand that these are all stupid and not prestige.

Feng Yu helped Wu Zhigang out of the nightclub. When their car had left the area, Wu Zhigang began to groan.

“How are you? Do you have any fractures? Don’t worry, we are reaching the hospital soon.” Feng Yu said.

“It’s okay, I got the padding on.” Wu Zhigang said and pulled out two plastic boards from underneath his clothes. Luckily Song Xiaofeng’s men had used their legs to stomp on him. If they had used their fist, they would have felt the plastic paddings. With the paddings protecting him, Wu Zhigang did not sustain serious injuries.

After the hospital examination, Feng Yu was relieved. Wu Zhigang only sustained minor injuries. After 2 injections, he is allowed to go home. All he needs was to recuperate at home for 2 months.

“Zhigang, don’t tell anyone about what happened. Rest assured, Song Xiaofeng is finished.” Feng Yu said.

That night, Feng Yu went to a few places to look for Cripple Wang. He finally found him relaxing in a pool of a bath center.

Cripple Wang frowned when he saw Feng Yu. “This kid again! Did he think that after giving me 100,000 RMB, I am to solve all his problems?”

When Feng Yu saw Cripple Wang, he put on a pitiful look on his face and said: “Master Crutch, you got to help me.”

“What’s the matter?” Crippled Wang asked.

“Master Crutch, today I went to the nightclub with a friend to relax, but we met Song Xiaofeng there. He asked his men to beat up my friend and me for no reasons. My friend is seriously injured and is currently still lying in the hospital. I was also beaten. You look at my injuries.” Feng Yu said.

“He beat you for no reasons?” Cripple Wang asked. He did not believe what Feng Yu had said.

“We were at Autumn Nightclub. You can ask your men. We had just entered the nightclub, and we were immediately beaten up by Song Xiaofeng’s men. Song Xiaofeng also said that even if Toad’s legs were broken by Master Crutches, but it happened at my company. So I have to pay him 1 million RMB as compensation. My company is still new. Where can I raise such a big sum of money?” Feng Yu replied.

Cripple Wang’s faced changed. On the surface, Song Xiaofeng had beat up Feng yu and his friend. But actually, it was a slap in his face. “Humph, Song Laosi, this time it is your nephew that didn’t play by the rules. I will not hold back on him!”

Chapter 63 – War (Part 1)

Cripple Wang asked Feng Yu to go back first. He will investigate this matter first before giving Feng Yu an answer. He cannot believe Feng Yu’s one-sided claims.

He asked his men to get those who were watching over Nightclub over. The circumstances were indeed what Feng Yu had said. Feng Yu and his friend had just entered the nightclub, and they were beaten up by Song Xiaofeng’s men. Song Xiaofeng even asked Feng Yu to compensate him 1 million RMB, using Toad’s injuries at Feng Yu’s office as an excuse.

As to how seriously injured was Feng Yu’s friend, it was needless to investigate further. To be beaten up by 4 men for 5 minutes, he must be seriously injured. Furthermore, Song Xiaofeng did not pay for the damages that day. The follower, who was relating the circumstances to Cripple Wang, had eyed the girl which Song Xiaofeng brought back that day first. As such, he exaggerated a lot.

For instance, Feng Yu had mentioned the name of Master Crutches, but Song Xiaofeng still ignored and even asked his men to hit them harder.

Cripple Wang can no longer keep quiet this time. Even this Song Xiaofeng dare to be so arrogant in his territory. This shows that Song Laosi’s power had increased a lot. If he were to keep quiet and let this matter rest, within 1 year, there would be no Master Crutches in Bing City!

“Useless! What did I say before? At our nightclubs, there must be no fights. If there are fights every day, who will come to our nightclubs? Where can we earn money? No money, what are you going to eat?” Cripple Wang scolded the follower responsible for that nightclub.

That follower was smart and asked: “Mater Crutches, do we look for Song Xiaofeng with regards to this incident?”

“Of course! By creating trouble in my territory means not giving me face. Go and bring him over. Let Song Laosi come over personally to bring him back!”

……

Feng Yu spent the whole night at the hospital taking care of Wu Zhigang. Wu Zhigang does not want to notify his family for the time being.

The next morning, Feng Yu saw a familiar person appearing in front of him. That person is one of Cripple Wang’s men.

“Manager Feng, I represent Master Crutches to visit your injured friend and also bring you a message from Master Crutches. Song Xiaofeng was captured by Master Crutches. We are waiting for Song Laosi to come over.”

Cripple Wang’s man looked over at Wu Zhigang, whose whole body was covered in bandages. Song Xiaofeng’s men were merciless. But what he did not know was that the bandages were requested by Feng Yu. There was no need for these bandages.

But Feng Yu gave them red packets money and said that the more bandages, the faster the wounds will heal. The doctors after receiving the red packets used a lot of dressings on Wu Zhigang. They hope that they could meet these types of ignorant patients more frequently.

“Help me thank Master Crutches. This money is to treat you and your brothers to drink.” Feng Yu said.

After sending Cripple Wang’s man out, Feng Yu woke Wu Zhigang, who was pretending to be in a coma, up. Feng Yu took out the 2 electric fans from under the bed and start blowing at Wu Zhigang. Under this summer heat and thick bandages, it will be easy to get heat rashes.

“Manager Feng, you go back first, I am fine.” Wu Zhigang said.

Feng Yu had not only personally taken care of him for one night and even arranged a single room with toilet for him. This was the treatment for government officials. Feng Yu had spent a lot of this type of treatment.

“I will stay and take care of you. You can’t even go to the toilet yourself.” Feng Yu said while looking at the “mummy” on the bed.

“Time for injection. Turnover and show your buttocks. After this injection and two bottles of drips, you can be discharged. You are his brother? Don’t interfere with the doctors next time if you don’t know anything. There is obviously nothing wrong with him, and yet you asked the doctors to bandage his whole body. You even brought two fans for him. Do you really have too much money to burn?”

A young nurse came in and started criticizing Feng Yu while preparing the injection and drips. Feng Yu suddenly saw Wu Zhigang’s eyes brighten up and started wriggling his body to expose his buttocks.

Feng Yu shook his head. He finally understood why Wu Zhigang wanted him to go back first.

After injection and hanging the drips, Feng Yu went over beside the nurse and said: “Sister, I would need to trouble you to take care of my friend for the next two days.”

“Our hospital treats all patients the same. There are no special treatments.” The nurse said.

Feng Yu whispered: “I will tell you the truth. My friend is here for you. I know his injuries are not that serious. Under this summer’s heat and wrapped in thick bandages? All these are just for him to stay in the hospital for a few more days so he can get closer to you.”

The young nurse face turned red and secretly looked at Wu Zhigang. She thought this guy was an idiot. So, it was because he likes her. For someone who can afford to stay in this type of ward, have two electric fans blowing at him and came to the hospital in a car, his family must be quite well off. She heard from other nurses that Wu Zhigang is not bad looking and his height is about 1.8 meters.

Feng Yu took out a few hundred RMB notes and handed over to the nurse.

“What do you mean by this?” The young nurse asked unhappily.

“Nothing much. If my friend wants to eat anything, please help him.” Feng Yu replied.

Feng Yu returned to the ward and smiled at Wu Zhigang: “Ok. I had found out that the young nurse is single and she will be on the day shift this week. I had asked her to take good care of you. Whether if you can get her, is all up to you now. I am going back now and visit you later in the evenings.”

……

Song Xiaofeng was captured by Cripple Wang, and Cripple Wang even sent word to Song Laosi. If he wants to rescue Song Xiaofeng, he will have to go and see him personally. This incident was shocking to Song Laosi. He tried to find out what had happened but he soon found out that Song Xiaofeng and his followers were all captured by Cripple Wang.

He had already given Cripple Wang 100,000 RMB last time. Cripple Wang had also accepted the money. What did he want now? Song Laosi was furious. His nephew is his only family member left and his Achilles heel. He will not forgive anyone that dares to touch his nephew!

He called a few dozens of his men and left to look for Cripple Wang in his Mercedes-Benz.

Cripple Wang knew Song Laosi was on his way over and he was prepared too. In Autumn Nightclub, there were over thirty men, metal pipes, machete, shotgun, and pistons. If Song Laosi wanted to get Song Xiaofeng back by force, then it will depend on whose life is harder!

A few vans parked at the entrance and a few dozen men alighted from the vans. Despite the summer heat, they were dressed in long sleeves clothes and their clothes were all bulging.

A Mercedes-Benz then came, and the front passenger door opened. Song Laosi’s right-hand man, Li Guangzheng alighted and opened the rear passenger door. At the same time, he opened an umbrella. Song Laosi slowly alighted from the car and looked at his men. He was quite pleased with what he saw.

“So what if this is Cripple Wang’s territory? I had brought so many men with me. If he does not release Song Xiaofeng today, then there will be bloodshed at this Autumn Nightclub!” Song Laosi thought to himself.

A few of his men were instructed by Li Guangzheng to enter the nightclub first. Song Laosi and Li Guangzheng slowly walked into the nightclub.

Cripple Wang was seated at a table in the middle of the nightclub, drinking beer. When he saw Song Laosi entered, he looked up and sneered: “Song Laosi, you have been too busy. I had invited you over a few times, and you finally show up!”

Song Laosi sat down opposite Cripple Wang, took a gulp of the ice-cold beer on the table and said: “Cripple Wang, just because I turned down your invitations, you captured my nephew. You better give me a good reason for this!”

Hearing the way Song Laosi addressed him, Cripple Wang banged the table with the beer bottle and said: “You want me to give you an account? Your nephew had created trouble multiple times at my nightclub. How are you going to give me an account for that?”

Chapter 64 – War (Part 2)

The two underworld bosses from Bing City sitting at the opposite end of the table. They looked like they were just casually chatting in the neighborhood. But each word that was spoken had murderous intent.

“Cripple Wang, my nephew, was drunk, and it’s normal for drunk people to behave this way. You can just send someone to pass a message. You think I will not compensate you for the damages? Now you ordered your men to capture him, it is a slap in my face!” Song Laosi said with a gloomy face. Cripple Wang had captured his nephew because of such small matters? He is too arrogant!

“Drunk? Humph! Got drunk after one glass of liquor? Song Laosi, can you use your brains when you speak? You care about your ‘face,’ then what about mine?” Cripple Wang replied.

“Fine, I am not here to argue with you today. We can talk about who’s right and whose wrong another day. You release Song Xiaofeng first. Not harming family members is the rule of the underworld!” Song Laosi said. He was a bit wary of Cripple Wang as Song Xiaofeng was still in Cripple Wang’s hand.

Cripple Wang waved his hand, and his men brought out Song Xiaofeng and his followers. Other than Song Xiofeng, the rest had both their legs broken. Although Song Xiaofeng’s legs were not broken, he was beaten up.

When he saw Song Laosi, he struggled and shouted: “Uncle Si, Cripple Wang sent his men to capture me and beat me up. You have to revenge for me!”

Hearing what Song Xiaofeng had said, Song Laosi’s face changed. This nephew of his was not very smart. Not to mention that he had only attended a few days of school, he still doesn’t know how to analyze the situation. You are still under Cripple Wang’s control, and you are still shouting?

Sure enough, Cripple Wang was furious when he heard what Song Xiaofeng said. He was already angry when Song Laosi called him Cripple Wang, and now, this Song Xiaofeng dares to call him Cripple Wang in front of so many people and still wanted revenge?

“No respect for your elders. Seems like I need to teach you a lesson on behalf of Song Laosi!” Crippled Wang said.

Just after Cripple Wang finished his sentence, his men gave Song Xiaofeng two tight slaps. Song Laosi felt like these two slaps were on his face.

Song Laosi stared hard at the one who had slapped Song Xiaofeng. He was Cripple Wang’s close follower and his bodyguard. His status was similar to Li Guangzheng

Song Xiaofeng opened his mouth and still wanted to say something, but Song Laosi shouted: “Shut up!”

If not for Song Xiaofeng still being held in Cripple Wang’s hands, Song Laosi would have ordered Li Guangzheng to kill Cripple Wang immediately.

“Cripple Wang, you had taught him a lesson. I will bring him back and educate him properly. Let’s forget about everything and let this matter rest.” Song Laosi said.

“I taught him a lesson is because of what he said. But my nightclub had suffered losses, and you still need to compensate me. Not much. 100,000 RMB should be enough.” Cripple Wang replied.

With so many followers here, he should give some money to everyone, and Song Laosi should be the one to come up with this money. Each man will get about 2 to 3,000 RMB. Rewarding them with this money can also gain their loyalty.

Song Laosi suppressed his anger and nodded: “Fine. I will send you the money later. Release him first.”

“I will not release him if I don’t see the money.” Cripple Wang had long wanted to talk down at Song Laosi. You think people are looking up at you and you are the big boss? Furthermore, if Song Laosi doesn’t pay him later, what can he do? Since it was only a matter of time they go to war, why not get some money first.

“Cripple Wang, earlier the Police had seen me coming over to your place. If we were to have a showdown today using firearms, it would not be nice.” Song Laosi still wanted to create a clean image for himself. He doesn’t want any bloodshed here as this will destroy the clean image he created for the past two years.

“Threatening me? Ask your men to go get the money. I shall wait here. Even if the Police is here, so what? I own this place. What wrong with having a little chat with my friends at my own place? These knives are for cutting watermelons.” Cripple Wang replied happily. Song Laosi also have today?

Song Laosi looked at Li Guangzheng, and Li Guangzheng walked out to Song Laosi’s Mercedes Benz. He took out 100,000 RMB from the boot. The money in the boot was Song Laosi emergency cash.

Earlier, Song Laosi did think of not paying Cripple Wang after he rescued Song Xiaofeng. He must teach Cripple Wang a lesson. If he doesn’t teach him a lesson, his position as the leader of Bing City’s underworld might be in jeopardy.

The money was handed over to Cripple Wang and Cripple Wang was smiling happily. He waved to his men, and they released Song Xiaofeng.

Song Laosi turned and left the nightclub with Song Xiaofeng. Li Guangzheng followed closely behind, walking backward, without taking his eyes off Cripple Wang. Song Laosi entered his Mercedes Benz with his nephew, and he made a cut-throat gesture to Li Guangzheng. His nephew’s injuries were more severe than it looks. When he thought of Cripple Wang’s arrogant and proud look, he could not endure anymore!

When Song Laosi’s car left the premises, Li Guangzheng rushed back to Autumn Nightclub with his men. But Cripple Wang had already gone through the back door. The only ones waiting for them were his men.

Li Guangzheng was Song Laosi’s right-hand man and the best fighter. It was reasonable to say that he had single-handedly helped Song Laosi occupied half of his current territories. If Li Guangzheng dies, then Song Laosi’s power will drop by half.

Both sides did not use their firearms but wield knives and metal pipes instead. It was a mess with both sides clashing together.

The fight did not last long. The doors to Autumn Nightclub opened after about 15 minutes. Li Guangzheng walked out, covered in blood, and drove away.

Inside the nightclub, about 60 to 70 men were lying on the ground injured. Some of them had broken arms or legs, some had deep cuts, and there were some with stabbed wounds.

Cripple Wang threw the beer bottle on the floor when he heard Li Guangzheng had escaped. Useless! Everyone was incompetent!

He had over 40 men, and they were outmatched by less than 30 men. They even allowed Li Guangzheng to escape. Li Guangzheng’s escape made Cripple Wang worried. This Li Guangzheng seems to be better than the rumors.

“Master Crutches, if I had stayed behind, I would have killed that Li Guangzheng!” Cripple Wang’s right-hand man, Lang Qing said.

Cripple Wang shook his head and said: “you cannot go. Even if you kill Li Guangzheng, you can also not stay by my side. Even if we eradicate Song Laosi, we still have to be wary of Brother Ke.”

Just when Cripple Wang was discussing with his men, someone knocked on the door and told him that Feng Yu is here again.

“Master Crutches, I pass by Autumn Nightclub just now, and I saw Li Guangzheng running out. Don’t tell me that Master Crutches had clashed with Song Laosi because of me?“ Feng Yu asked with a “deeply touched” expression.

Cripple Wang did not reply Feng Yu but only smiled.

“Master Crutches, because of me, your men were injured. I must do something for them. This is 100,000 RMB. Master Crutches, if you think this is not enough, let me know how much is needed. I will find ways to raise the money and send it over.” Feng Yu said while patting his chest.

Feng Yu wanted not only Cripple Wang to see him as someone loyal, but he also wanted Cripple Wang’s men to know. In future, when Cripple Wang got into trouble, he does not wish Cripple Wang’s men to think that it was him that backstabbed Cripple Wang.

“Brother Feng, Master Crutches will not take your money. But we were unable to kill Song Xiaofeng today and even let Li Guangzheng rescued him. Because of you, Master Crutches had put in a lot of efforts. Now there is a chance for you to repay Master Crutches. Will you do it?” Lang Qing interrupted.

Feng Yu is dumbfounded and thought to himself: “Fuck! Don’t tell me he wanted me to go and kill Song Laosi? Fuck your sis! I don’t even dare to kill a chicken!”

Chapter 65 – Serious Issue

Lang Qing scoffed and despised Feng Yu when he saw his terrified expression.

“You think I am asking you to kill Song Laosi? With your terrified expression, even if I give you a gun, you also don’t dare to fire. I am talking about finding professional killers to kill Song Laosi. But the fees for professional killers is not cheap.” Lang Qing said.

Feng Yu was relieved. Anything will do, as long as he does not need to kill Song Laosi himself. But these people were really lawless.

Initially, he just wanted these two gangs to blow up this matter. The bigger, the better. Feng Yu will even think of ways to make matter worse. This would let the Provincial government take note of this matter. If the higher-ups act on this, these two gangs would have no chance to escape.

And these two groups of people would rat Brother Ke out to save themselves. When that happens, Bing City will go back to its peaceful days.

But now, he found out that things had gone beyond his control. These people were going all out to kill each other. They even told him about it, and Feng Yu cannot feign ignorance.

“Master Crutches, I did not hear anything. But I think this small incense burner looks good, must be an antique. Why not sell it to me? I offer 300,000 RMB!” Feng Yu said. He was now thinking of ways to get out of this. He only wanted to watch the show from the sidelines.

Cripple Wang looked at the small incense burner in front of Guan Yu statue on the altar. The incense burner was given to him by one of his men. He estimated the cost to be about 10 or 20 RMB.

“Since you like it, then I will sell it to you. Lang Qing, get someone to clean it up.”

“Mater Crutches, I will send the money over tomorrow. I do not know about anything else.” Feng Yu said. He made it very clear that he does not want to get involved in this matter.

Cripple Wang nodded and said: “We are only making a normal trade.”

At the bank, Feng Yu looked for Manager Zhu to withdraw 300,000 RMB. Because of Manager Zhu, the withdrawal was expedited. Back at his office, Feng Yu put the incense burner at one corner and sat in his chair. He began to think of ways to get rid of all these people at one go!

The key was to get evidence. Without evidence, these people would still be at large. But in this era, the camcorder was too big, and cameras were not small either. Carrying these would be too conspicuous, and no one would dare to do such things.

Even if he hides in one corner and take pictures, he might not get any useful pieces of evidence.

Feng Yu can only pray that these two groups of people would fight each other to death. It would be better if they use their firearms and the higher-ups would act earlier to confiscate all hunting rifles.

Rebirth into this era, making money would be much more comfortable than the future. However, it was much more dangerous. Especially guns! Even his house has shotguns. One can imagine how lax the gun control laws in this era.

An old broken incense burner sold for 300,000 RMB. Master Crutches was still very satisfied with Feng Yu’s attitude. This 300,000 RMB, would be enough to compensate his followers. As for the money to hire the professional killer, he had prepared long time ago.

There were 7 Southerners in Bing City. Their leader is called Western bun. It was said that he likes to eat western bread with stuffing and his surname happens to be Yang (same pronunciation as western). Thus, it became his nickname.

Western bun most famous battle in Bing City was he alone, armed with only a handgun, killed a rich and powerful boss in front of more than 10 followers.

He does not do business, collect protection fees. He, along with his 6 other brothers, did some kidnappings, extortions and revenge killings. In less than two years, he became notorious and was named the fourth boss of the underworld.

As these seven men don’t occupy territories or fight with others over territories, they were only considered as ruthless outlaws and not a fraction. Song Laosi, Cripple Wang and Brother Ke had wanted to recruit them, but Western Bun was not interested in working for others.

Even though they only had seven men, no one dares to eliminate them as these seven men had guns and were ruthless. If anyone of them escaped, he would be a threat to the one who tried to remove them.

This time, Cripple Wang want to hire Western bun and his men. If these seven men attacked Song Laosi, Song Laosi would either be dead or severely impacted by the attack. When that happens, Cripple Wang will take the opportunity to swallow Song Laosi’s territory and become the leader of the whole Longjiang province underworld!

Cripple Wang had thought of this plan a long time ago. Even if he were to be caught by Police, he could feign innocent. The most, he would be locked up for a few days to assist in the investigation. But what he did not expect was that Western Bun was not interested in this business.

Western Bun might be ruthless, but he is not brainless. Song Lasoi had so many men and not easy to kill. Even if he is able to kill Song Laosi, some or even all his brothers might die in the process.

Cripple Wang had offered a considerable sum of money for this task, but Western Bun was not short of cash. Furthermore, he was the only one that had killed someone. The rumors that all of them had killed people were spread by them to make others fear them. However, they often beat up people.

Western Bun not taking up this job made Cripple Wang very helpless. His men, under the leadership of Lang Qing, had no problems clashing with Song Laosi. But to assassinate him, other than Lang Qing, no one else dares.

If Lang Qing left him, he would have no usable men by his side. Een if he were to kill Song Laosi, how would he compete with Brother Ke? Brother Ke runs gambling dens and does loan shark businesses. He even pushed people off buildings when they fail to repay their debts. He is a genuinely ruthless man!

Lang Qing reminded Cripple Wang that Western Bun dare not kill Song Laosi was because he felt that he had no chance to escape after he killed him. But what if we asked Western Bun kill Song Xiaofeng?

Song Xiaofeng is Song Laosi’s Achilles feet. Once Song Xiaofeng is killed, Song Laosi would be affected and can no longer think straight. When that happens, he is bound to make mistakes and furthermore, his right-hand man, Li Guangzheng was severely injured now. That will be the best chance to kill Song Laosi.

Sure enough, when Western Bun heard 300,000 RMB for Song Xiaofeng’s life, he hesitated. Song Laosi is a challenging target, but Song Xiaofeng is easy. Song Xiaofeng frequents bars, nightclubs, and nightspots. Any of these places would be suitable for them to act.

Also, after killing Song Xiaofeng, they can just reveal Cripple Wang is the mastermind and they can escape to other provinces for a period of time. They can come back after Cripple Wang kills Song Laosi.

Western Bun asked for 500,000 RMB to kill Song Xiaofeng. 500,000 RMB and he guaranteed to kill Song Xiaofeng. Cripple Wang thought for a while and agree. This is an excellent opportunity and cannot be missed.

After he killed Song Laosi, he can take over his business, and 500,000 RMB can be recovered in no time.

……

Feng Yu waited for two days and still did not received any news about Song Laosi’s death. This made him quite worried. Why was the fight not started yet? They have to fight and make it on the headlines. This way, all the triads, and gangs will disappear from Bing City.

Especially Song Xiaofeng. Feng Yu wished Song Xiaofeng would drop dead now. These few days, Feng Yu got to know a Police Bureau Deputy Chief of Chief Xie. Feng Yu spent another sum of money to increase the Police presence in his company premises.

He believed that he would be able to talk his way out if he was caught by Song Laosi. But the rest of his staff can’t. He cannot take the chance, and if anyone got hurt, he would regret for the rest of his life.

After another day past and Feng Yu finally got good news.

Chapter 66 – History had changed?

Song Xiaofeng was grounded for a few days in his uncle’s mansion again, and he couldn’t stand it anymore. But his uncle wanted him to recuperate from his injuries, and furthermore, Li Guangzheng was also injured from the fight with Cripple Wang’s men. Recently, it was very dangerous outside.

At first, Song Xiaofeng thought his uncle was right. But after two days, he noticed that nothing had happened. Cripple Wang did not create any trouble when Li Guangzheng was injured and his uncle, Song Laosi did not seek revenge on Cripple Wang.

He thought things were the same as before and both sides had come to an agreement to let the matter rest.

The clash two days ago had attracted the attention of the Provincial Government, but his uncle had connections with the officials inside. He just said that was just a small fight and did not affect other citizens. There was also no complains so this matter was dismissed.

Based on the past experiences, after attracting the attention of the Police, they would lie low for a while. Song Xiaofeng had endured for several days and just happened that Song Laosi had gone out that day. He decided to sneak out to get some girls.

The followers, who were supposed to “look after” him, were threaten by him and had no choice but to accompany him out.

One of his followers drove his Land Rover and send him to the city. Song Laosi’s mansion was in Jiangbei (North of the river) and the city is in Jiangnan (South of the river). On the way, Song Xiaofeng began to ponder. Today, he wants to get a coquettish girl to satisfy his pent up energy!

But he and the driver did not notice that after they left the mansion, there was a Jeep following them from Jiangbei to Jiangnan.

They reached a nightclub which was not opened by Cripple Wang and Song Xiaofeng, as usual, sat on a sofa at a corner. There were 2 to 3 men guarding the doors at the nightclub. Although they were Cripple Wang’s men, Song Xiaofeng doesn’t believe that these 2 to 3 men would dare to touch him.

Soon he found his target. A 20+ hot chick dressed in a body-hugging cheongsam. With only one glance, Song Xiaofeng could felt he was getting hard.

One of his men went over to the girl and told her that Song Xiaofeng wants her. She was brought over to Song Xiaofeng, and Song Xiaofeng did not stay long in the nightclub. He went back to the Land Rover with the girls and instructed his follower to drive them to a hotel.

They were still in the vehicle, and Song Xiaofeng started to touch the girl everywhere. Upon approaching the hotel, passing a cross junction, a tipper truck suddenly appeared.

Boom!!!

The Land Rover was hit on the side and hit the railings by the road. The tipper truck did not stop and collide onto the Land Rover for the second time. When Song Xiaofeng was still in a daze inside the vehicle, the tipper truck reversed into the Land Rover and dumped a whole load of gravel onto the car, burying it.

The driver of the tipper truck then alighted and fled into a dark alley. On the other side of the alleyway, his brothers were waiting for him.

Song Xiaofeng was feeling hurt all over his body, and just when he wanted to scold the driver, he noticed the darkness outside.

What happened? How did outside become dark?

When the gravels and sands slipped into the vehicle through the half-opened windows, he realized that his vehicle was buried in sand and gravels.

Someone wants to bury him alive!

Song Xiaofeng nearly pissed in his pants. This is Bing City. Who dares to mess with him? Could it be Cripple Wang? He really wants to go all out against his uncle? He started to dig the sand and gravels with his hands. He wants to get out! He wants to live!

……

Song Laosi was returning home after drinking with his friends. When he passed by a cross junction, he noticed there seems to have an accident in front.

He wanted to tell the driver to make a detour, but the driver suddenly shouted: “Master Si, that car seems like Master Song’s!”

Song Laosi was shocked. That was Xiaofeng’s car?

Song Xiaofeng now only uses this red Land Rover, which was said to be the only one in Bing City. Half of the bonnet was not buried, and the driver recognized it at first glance.

“Stop the car! Go down and check!”

The driver got off and ran over. He began to dig through with his hands. Song Laosi and another of his man also got off and help to dig with their hands.

Even though it was a fully loaded tipper truck, there was not enough gravel to bury the Land Rover entirely. The gravel was not too thick and less than a minute, the driver felt a moving palm.

There was a sapphire ring on one of the fingers. The driver recognized this was the ring which Song Xiaofeng wore daily.

With the effort of these 3 men, they dug out Song Xiaofeng ‘s head. But Song Xiaofeng was barely conscious.

When they opened the door and carried Song Xiaofeng out, he was already unconscious. The follower and the girl were not so lucky. They were suffocated to death in the vehicle.

……

Western Bun left with his number 3 in a car. His number 3 had crashed the tipper truck onto Song Xiaofeng’s Land Rover and dumped a full load of sand and gravel, burying him. All it takes was just 10 minutes to kill Song Xiaofeng.

Also, it was a stolen vehicle. No matter how one investigates, no one will not suspect Western Bun and his brothers. Song Laosi might even think that this was indeed an accident. 500,000 RMB in his pocket so quickly and they don’t even need to leave Bing City.

It was all thanks to his fifth brother for coming up with this idea. Can kill Song Xiaofeng and not being suspected. This was simply killing 2 birds with 1 stone!

He made a phone call to Cripple Wang and informed him that he had completed the job. He asked Cripple Wang to send his men to verify. He did this was also intimidate Cripple Wang. If Cripple Wang wants to turn him in to Song Laosi, he would have to think carefully. If Western Bun is able to kill Song Xiaofeng silently, he can also do the same to Cripple Wang!

……

Feng Yu got the news about Song Xiaofeng’s accident. Song Xiaofeng is currently in a deep coma, lying in the hospital.

Feng Yu prayed non-stop for Song Xiaofeng to never wake up from his coma. It would be best if he just dies. It was a pity that the driver and the girl were killed in the accident and Song Xiaofeng was still alive.

Later, after finding out the details, Feng Yu learned several reasons why.

Firstly, the Land Rover was supposed to be driven by Feng Yu, and he had modified and reinforced the vehicle. If it were Song Xiaofeng’s previous Mercedes-Benz, he would already be crush to death from the first collision.

Secondly, during the impact, Song Xiaofeng’s head was buried in the girl’s breasts. Nevertheless, the girl’s figure was stunning. Especially the pair of big bunnies in front cushioned the impact on Song Xiaofeng’s head.

Thirdly, after the vehicle was buried, Song Xiaofeng was still conscious and started to dig himself out. Just happened Song Laosi passed by and rescued him before he was suffocated. But it was also because he blocked the only hole, the driver and the girl suffocated to death.

Feng Yu wanted to cry when he heard that Song Xiaofeng survived because of his Land Rover. If he had known earlier, he would not have modified and reinforce the exterior.

He remembered in his past life, all of Song Laosi’s family members had died, but now, Song Xiaofeng was not dead and in a coma.

It seems that history was changed!

Chapter 67 – Eunuch Song

Feng Yu was deep in thoughts. History was changed. Was this a good or bad thing?

On the one hand, perhaps the triads and gangs would disappear earlier. But on the other hand, Feng Yu was worried about the world economic trends. Would there be a butterfly effect because of him?

But after a while, Feng Yu is relived. Although he was not a famous investor in his previous life, he still has about 20 years of investing experiences. He might not be the best in this era, but he was confident that he was better than most of the people.

Moreover, if the economic trends were altered because of him and he could not make use of his knowledge from his previous life, he still has a few million RMB now. Even if he conservatively invests in a building, he would have no worries for the rest of his life. Furthermore, he monitored the stock market recently, and it was the same as his past life. This year, China had just started the stock market, and there was no stock exchange yet. The stocks were still pieces of paper like Treasury Bonds!

Although Song Xiaofeng is not dead, this should be a severe lesson for him. Not to mentioned, now the City’s leader had spoken, Song Laosi would have to lie low, let alone Song Xiaofeng.

Soon, Feng Yu received another good news. Kirilenko had informed him that the second batch of used cars was ready. Once Feng Yu wired the money over, he would send the cars over.

As usual, a 10% deposit and the balance to be paid after receiving the goods. Later, Feng Yu thought for a moment and knew that the prices quoted by Kirilenko must be high.

But since they were doing business, both sides would need to make money to last a long time. Furthermore, these prices were still acceptable by Feng Yu. The last batch of cars were all sold out in just Bing City, and he hasn’t even ventured out of Bing City.

Feng Yu was thankful to the bank. If loans were readily available for these small business owners, most of them would have taken a loan from the bank and buy brand new cars instead.

Kirilenko also ordered a batch of domestic goods, mainly textiles and food products. He also let Feng Yu decide the goods for the remaining 20,000 Rubles.

Kirilenko really trusted Feng yu now. It seems that whatever goods picked by Feng Yu would sell for a high price back in the Soviet Union.

After meeting Feng Yu, Kirilenko felt his luck had changed overnight. He was making money way faster than before. His reputation rose within the circle of the Soviet Army second generations, and even his father had benefited from him.

……

Song Xiaofeng slowly opened his eyes and felt his whole body in pain. He looked down and saw his body covered in bandages. Even though it was not to the extent of a mummy, there was still too many bandages.

“Master Song, you have wake up? Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?”

“My whole body is uncomfortable. Where’s my uncle? Is the driver of the tipper truck caught?” Song Xiaofeng’s first thought was to kill the driver of the tipper truck!

“Not yet. That truck was a stolen vehicle, and someone was helping the driver to escape the scene.”

Song Xiaofeng was shocked: “You mean they planned to kill me?”

That follower nodded. If that was not planned, why would the driver steal the tipper truck and fled the scene? He even dumped all the gravel on the Land Rover before he fled. It’s clear that he wanted to bury him alive!

That follower went out to call Song Laosi. Song Xiaofeng was currently at the mansion. Song Laosi had converted a room into a hospital ward. There were doctors and nurses too.

Song Xiaofeng struggled to sit upright when he saw Song Laosi entering the room. He immediately asked: “Uncle, was it, Cripple Wang?”

Song Laosi shook his head and said: “I am not sure. There is no evidence. There were rumors that it was done by Western Bun and his brothers. But Western Bun had no reason to kill you. Don’t talk so much now. Let the doctors check on you first.”

Although Song Xiaofeng’s injures may look serious, but in fact, it was not too severe. His injuries were mainly abrasions, a bit of concussion and he had no fractures. Looking at him able to think clearly, he should be fine.

“Master Si, there should be nothing wrong with Master Song. The nurse will change his dressing, and there is no need for injections. Just some oral medication will do.” The doctor was relieved. Song Laosi had said that if there were anything wrong with Song Xiaofeng, he would be buried alive!

Song Laosi and the rest left the room. Only a young nurse remained in the room to change Song Xiaofeng’s dressing. After the bandages were removed, Song Xiaofeng was naked.

He stared at the nurse and felt that this nurse is not bad looking. He started touching the nurse’s hips with a lecherous smile.

The nurse dared not to make any noise or resist. She knew this would happen the day she was forced to come over to the mansion.

Song Xiaofeng was still smiling happily, and his expression suddenly changed.

What is happening? Previously, he would get hard when he saw a girl like this but why was it that after touching her for so long, he still does not have any reaction?

Refusing to believe this was happening, he put his hand under the nurse’s skirt and underwear, but he still did not have any reaction.

“Go and get the doctor!” Song Xiaofeng shouted.

The nurse ran out to call the doctor.

“Master Song, what’s the matter? Is there anything wrong with your body?” The doctor rushed into the room and saw Song Xiaofeng naked on the bed. He was not surprised as he had seen the look on the nurse. This Song Xiaofeng must have done something to her.

“Why I have no reaction?”

“What?” The doctor did not understand Song Xiaofeng’s question.

Song Xiaofeng beckoned the young nurse over, and she lowered her head and slowly walked over. Song Xiaofeng lifted her skirt and pulled down her underwear.

The doctor eyes widen and felt himself getting hard. But when he saw Song Xiaofeng staring at him coldly, he immediately looks away. It was now he understood what Song Xiaofeng meant by no reactions.

“Master Song, you really have no reaction?” The doctor asked.

“You see for yourself!” Song Xiaofeng shouted while mercilessly fingered the little nurse. The little nurse dared not make any noise but to bear the pain.

“This… That part of yours was not injured in the accident. Oh yes, at the time of the accident, what were you doing in the vehicle?” The doctor suddenly thought of something.

Song Xiaofeng remembered he had buried his head in between the breast of that girl at the time of the accident. He had an erection, but because of the shock of the crash, he became soft immediately.

Could that be the reason why he can no longer erect?

After hearing what Song Xiaofeng had said, the doctor concluded that this was a psychological problem. He asked Song Xiaofeng to try other types of stimulations. If the problem still persists, then he can try some traditional medicine.

“Get the hell out of Here!”

Song Laosi pushed open the door when he heard his nephew shouting. He stared coldly at the doctor and asked: “What’s wrong?” Ignoring the little nurse with her underwear hanging around her knees.

“Master Si, Master Song had some psychological issues. I suggest sending him to Beijing or Shanghai for treatment. If you have the connections, it would be best to send him to Hong Kong. I am able to help with all other problems except for this.” The doctor said.

Song Laosi looked at the soft limply piece of meat between Song Xiaofeng’s legs and understood what the doctor was saying. Is the only remaining male offspring of the Song family going to be a eunuch?

Chapter 68 – Year 1 Freshman

“Upright in character and diligent in the pursuit of knowledge.”

Standing at the school gate of the 3rd High School, one can clearly see the school motto.

Feng Yu reluctantly carried a brand-new school bag. He felt that the school bag does not match him. The color of the bag should at least be in gold color to show off his status.

School starts two weeks earlier in the first year. In Longjiang province, High School students are required to undergo military training. It was said to create bonding between students and instills discipline. How effective was it? No one knows.

Although Feng Yu tried to keep a low profile by wearing simple and casual clothes, he still attracted the stares of other students and teachers. It was all because of Li Shiqiang who drove him to school.

Is this the child of some officials or big boss? Coming to school by car.

Wen Dongjun, Li Na, and Liu Kun came to school by car. Li Na and Liu Kun had brought along their luggage. They were going to stay in the school’s dormitory.

When they arrived, Feng Yu brought them to pay the school fees first and then to the dormitory to drop their luggage. Li Shiqiang had made use of his connections and arranged the 4 of them to be in the same class.

“Feng Yu, Dongjun, you are not going to stay in the school’s dormitory?” Liu Kun asked curiously while arranging his bedsheets.

“My sister had bought an apartment in Bing City. The both of us will be staying there. Hurry unpack your stuff. My brother-in-law is going to bring us out for some good food.” Feng Yu replied.

Their parents did not accompany them. Children from the farm were more independent.

Standing outside the female dormitory, they saw Li Na walking out in a blue skirt. The three of them were mesmerized by her, and their eyes were transfixed on her.

“Ahem!” Feng Yu was unhappy. These two better watch out!

Feng Yu and Li Na were not officially in a relationship, but the teachers at their previous school knew that they were together every day. Li Na would be full of smiles when she was with Feng Yu, and she would become quiet when she was with others.

During the meal, Wen Dongjun was the most hardworking. This guy seems to be bigger and stronger since the last time Feng Yu saw him a few days ago. Before Feng Yu start eating, he picked a piece of lamb for Li Na: “This lamb is marinated, and you should try it.”

Li Na blushed and returned the piece of lamb back into Feng Yu’s bowl. She said softly: “I can get it myself.”

Feng Yu grinning happily, stuff the piece of lamb into his mouth and then shift the plate of lamb ribs in front of Li Na. With Wen Dongjun’s eating speed, he can finish the whole slab of lamb ribs in a minute!

“Eat well. Tomorrow after the opening ceremony, the military training will start. You will not be able to eat any meat during the training.” Li Shiqiang said.

When they heard of military training, Wen Dongjun slowed down. Even if he was very fit and able to endure hardship, he could not stand the boring military training. Every day he would have to march, turn left and right. If only he can play basketball or soccer during the training.

Liu Kun noticed Feng Yu was not worried about the training and he asked him curiously: “Feng Yu, you are not worried about the training?”

Feng Yu replied with a sad expression: “I wanted to join but I can’t. I am sick, and I am exempted from the training.”

“You are sick? What illness are you suffering from?” Li Na asked anxiously.

Feng Yu took out a medical record from his bag and placed it on the table: “Arthritis. It means that my knees will ache whenever I stand or walk.”

Wen Dongjun snatched the medical record over and read it. He then said with a cold smile: “Bullshit arthritis. I know you well. You can run faster than a rabbit. Could it be that if you don’t participate in the training, your knees will not hurt?”

Feng Yu smiled: “You don’t need to say it out loud.”

“As a Chinese, there are still wars on two fronts. Yet you are not going to attend military training?” Wen Dongjun despised Feng Yu.

Just when Feng Yu wanted to change the subject, Wen Dongjun stretched out his hand and asked: “Where are my medical records?”

“Fuck. This was still the same old Wen Dongjun. He still has the check to reprimand me!” Feng Yu thought to himself.

“I had prepared it a long time ago. From a reputable hospital. Li Na, your medical issue is flat foot. You cannot stand for long, cannot stomp, cannot run. You can also be excused from physical education classes.” Feng Yu said. He took out another medical record and passed it to Li Na.

“Let me see, this record is for Liu Kun. Paronychia, caused by ingrown nails. Even walking for short distances is hard for you.”

“This is for Dongjun. I will not read out your medical issue. You read it yourself.”

Wen Dongjun looked at the medical record and stared at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu just shrugged his shoulders. Circumcision. He was also not sure of this medical issue. But it was still surgery and can definitely excuse him from the training. Why was Wen Dongjun staring at him? If he doesn’t want the record, he can return it to Feng Yu.

“Dongjun, what is your medical issue? Let me know. In future, during Physical education classes, I can also use it to skip the lesson.” Liu Kun asked and tried to take Wen Dongjun’s medical record from him.

Wen Dongjun hurriedly grabbed his record and kept it in his bag. He shouted: “Cannot see. All of you are not allowed to look at my medical records.”

Li Na returned the medical record back to Feng Yu and said: “I don’t need it. I think the training is not bad. I will be able to know more friends. Furthermore, malingering is not right. You all are cheating the teachers and the school.”

After Li Na finished saying, she stared at Li Shiqiang. Li Shiqiang felt wronged. These medical records were not from him. Even he allowed these, Feng Dan would also not have agreed to it.

During the past few days, Wu Zhigang had successfully captured the heart of that nurse. It turns out that the nurse came from a good family. Her mother is a teacher, and her father is the head of a department in the hospital.

Wu Zhigang had wanted to back out. His father was the only one working in the factory. But Feng Yu encouraged him: “Even if her family background is better than yours, you don’t need to feel inferior. Think about how much are you earning in a month. Your salary is not lesser than her father. Also, within the next year, I guarantee your salary will double.”

Under the encouragement and guidance of Feng Yu, and using money, coupled with shamelessly, Wu Zhigang waited for the nurse every day at the hospital. He showered her with small gifts and flowers every time they met. He took only one week to win her heart.

When Feng Yu told Wu Zhigang about getting medical records to be excused from military training, he immediately agrees to help him get it.

But Feng Yu did not expect Wen Dongjun’s medical issue to be circumcision. When he thought about it, he still wanted to laugh out loud.

“I will still be attending the first day and the last day of military training. If not, this set of camouflage fatigues will be wasted. As for the training, you all will know after a few days. You will not even have the time to talk to your classmates. Furthermore, you can still participate with these medical records. When the rest are marching, you can sit by the side and watch them.” Feng Yu said.

Li Shiqiang smiled and shook his head. This future brother-in-law is too sly.

After dinner, everyone went to the amusement park and played for the whole day. Wen Dongjun and Liu Kun only chose those exciting rides. Feng Yu accompanied Li Na to the game stalls. He spent dozens of RMB and won two small plush toys, which was worth only a few dollars, for Li Na. But when he saw the smile on Li Na’s face, he felt the money was well spent.

Feng Yu sent Li Na, and Liu Kun backed to school before dark. At the school gate, Feng Yu wonders: “Why is it only year 1? When can I enter university? It is only at that age, then I can push Li Na down on the bed.”

Author’s notes:

PS1: The two war fronts were referring to the Vietnam war. It was until 1993 then the fighting stopped.

PS2: I attended 10 days of military training when I was in junior high school, 2 weeks when I was in high school and 1 month when I entered university.

Chapter 69 – A Nouveau Riche’s face

On the first day of military training, after the opening ceremony, Feng Yu submitted his medical excuse. He would rather play basketball than to learn how to turn left and right.

But the instructor was not easily fooled. You can’t do training? No problem. You can remain here and look after the water bottles of the rest of the students. You want to go home? No way.

Wen Dongjun was lucky. He is playing with his video games at home now. His condition allowed him to remain at home. Feng Yu was the one who submitted his medical leave for him. He didn’t even turn up at school today.

Liu Kun and Feng Yu sat together and chatted. He was not allowed to go home too. But Feng Yu and Liu Kun, who was a top student, did not have any common topics. After a while, they had nothing to chat.

The other training participants kept looking at them, making them uncomfortable. The instructor was not very strict, and this made Feng Yu upset. The instructor kept giving the participants breaks, and they could play basketball. But Feng Yu and Liu Kun could not join them.

“Humph! The court had cracks all over. Even the basketball frames were all crooked. What’s so nice about playing here?” Feng Yu said sourly.

“I guessed we are just unlucky. After we graduate from primary school, the school was renovated. After graduating from junior high, the school built new buildings and renovated the sports hall. If we want to play on a new court, we might have to wait till we graduate from here!” Liu Kun said sadly.

If it was his previous life, it was as what Liu Kun had said. It seems like the funding for Bing City’s schools had something against his batch of students. But now, it was different. Feng Yu is rich. Why not build a new basketball court?

That afternoon, there was a guest at the Vice Principal’s office.

“Xiao Li. No, I should be calling you Mr. Li. Is what you said over the phone real?” The vice principal asked.

“Principle Sun, I would not lie about such things. I really want to donate a new basketball court for the school. The old basketball court can be demolished and build a new one at that site. The basketball frames will be replaced with new ones. I had already contacted the workers.” Li Shiqiang sat down and said.

Earlier in the afternoon, he received a call from Feng Yu who wanted to rebuild the basketball court. Feng Yu even said that money is not a problem. Li Shiqiang understands that money was never an issue. But the reason for donating to the school can be replying to the alma mater, can be supporting the current education system. But it can’t be because you like to play basketball!

Li Shiqiang asked around. To rebuild the basketball court at 3Rd High School would cost about 100,000 RMB. It includes demolishing the old court, basketball frames, construction material and the workers’ salaries. Just one word from this future brother-in-law, 100,000 RMB was spent. But after all, it was Feng Yu’s money, and he earned it himself.

Principle Sun kept thanking Li Shiqiang and even promised him that he will ask the form teacher to take good care of the three students recommended by him. These three students would have no problems going to university in future.

There was something which disappointed the vice principal. Li Shiqiang had already contacted the workers. If only the workers were not contacted yet……

That night, Li Shiqiang told Feng Yu that he had already spoken to the vice principal and the work will commence next week. The total cost should be about 100,000 RMB.

So Cheap?

“Brother Li, how did you calculate? 100,000 RMB is enough?” Feng Yu asked.

“100,000 RMB is still considered cheap? I think it is too expensive! It’s just scrapping a layer of cement, and adding new cement over it, changing the basketball frames, selling the old ones……” Li Shiqiang replied.

“Wait, Brother Li, why are we selling away the old basketball frames? Just give it to the school will do. We are not short of these small amounts of money. Also, we should use the best outdoor basketball frames and donate some basketballs, soccer balls, etc. Everything must be the best. At the same time, renovate the volleyball court too.” Feng Yu said.

Li Shiqiang looked at Feng Yu’s nouveau riches expression and said: “How about we changed the running tracks. It’s not very expensive too. Only cost about 100,000 RMB. We can change the grass on the soccer field too. We can make it like those stadiums. I think even 1 million RMB would not be enough for the things you wanted.”

Feng Yu was startled, and he asked: “What? Just these few things would cost 1 million?”

“Then what do you think? Asphalt cement is expensive, and the differences between the cheapest and the most expensive basketball frames are several times. You will only be at this school for 3 years. Just make do with it. With this money, we might as well donate to the schools in the countryside. There are still many children who can’t afford to attend schools.” Li Shiqiang said.

Feng Yu nodded. Before his death in his previous life, there were still a lot of poor children in the countryside who didn’t get the chance receive any education.

“You have a point. We shall stick to your plan. We can donate the new running tracks or something, 2 years later. As for the donations to the schools in the countryside, we can start this year. 500,000 RMB should be enough for a village school. This year, we shall donate to 2 schools. Next year, 3 to 4 schools. In future, we will donate to at least 10 schools each year, and we can surpass the Shaw Foundation and become the number one donor for education in China.”

Feng Yu was getting excited as he speaks. It was as if he saw a new direction for him to work towards to. Even if he could not retire at 30, but without a doubt, his life will be more interesting!

Li Shiqiang stretched out his hand and touch Feng Yu’s forehead: “You are not sick. Stop talking nonsenses. There is no problem donating to one or two schools. You want to donate to 10 schools every year? Based on your estimations, every year would be 5 million. With our company alone, you think we can last more than 5 years?”

Feng Yu was still a student attending High School. Maybe he had ways to earn money, but he does not save. In a few days, he can spend what others make in a few lifetimes!

Feng Yu looked at Li Shiqiang with disgust and said: “During Chinese New Year, I said that Treasury Bonds can bring us huge profits and you think I am talking nonsense. A few months later, I said that setting up a company can earn money and you don’t believe me. Two months ago, I said that manufacturing plastic fans can make us rich and you thought that the fans will rot in our warehouse. Last month, I said used cars can earn money, and you thought that people will not buy as we had priced the cars too expensive……”

“Fine. Stop, stop. You are right.” Li Shiqiang interrupted Feng Yu, and at the same time, his eye lit up. “Didn’t you said that there will be no more supply of used cars soon? You also think that the profit margin for normal used cars is too low. What other ideas do you have for our next business?”

“I still have not thought of any. But don’t worry. This time next year will be the time where we earn big money!” Feng Yu replied.

Feng Yu had estimated that this next batch of used cars can only be sold out at the end of the year. But at least this batch of cars can still bring in about 10 million profits. With the 5 million profits from the previous batch of used cars, the earnings from Wind and Rain fans and trades with Kirilenko, he would have about 20 million RMB this time next year.

With this 20 million, he can turn it into 200 million in one year! When that happens, he will not only donate to the schools, he will also fulfill his promise to his sister and set up a hospital.

Feng Yu did not tell Li Shiqiang about the stock market. Now in China, there was no stock exchange yet. Stocks and Treasury Bonds were still issued and traded at the banks or the banks’ subsidiaries.  Stock trading would even need to go through the issuer to look for new buyers. It was much more troublesome compared to Treasury Bonds.

He decided to wait a while longer. As long as he starts buying in shares before the new policy was announced. This period of time, he should be thinking about how to kill Song Xiaofeng!

Author’s note: The next part of the plot would be about the trade with the Soviet Union.

Chapter 70 – An Arrogant Freshman

Before Feng Yu can come up with any ideas, Song Xiaofeng had left. There were rumors that he had not recovered from his injuries and he went to the south for treatment. But, there were some who said that Song Xiaofeng was the vanguard for Song Laosi and Song Laosi was preparing to leave Bing City.

As for the second rumor, Feng Yu doesn’t believe it. Song Laosi had been operating in Bing City and Longjiang province for so many years, and even became the most powerful boss. He also had the connections with the officials in the Provincial government. He even boasted that he was the distinguished guest of the Government’s number 2. How could he leave this place?

Furthermore, Feng Yu remembered from his previous life, that Song Laosi was caught in Bing City. But that was 2 years later. Also, based on Song Laosi’s arrogant and revengeful character, how could he possibly leave without getting revenge on the ones that harmed his nephew?

But to say Song Xiaofeng left to seek medical treatment was also not right. Song Xiaofeng should have recovered from his injuries as the doctor and nurse were released. If he had not recovered, the doctor and nurse would either be dead or missing a hand or leg.

Song Xiaofeng had really left Bing City. This was confirmed by Cripple Wang. His men had seen with their own eyes that Song Xiaofeng had boarded a plane with an air ticket to Shenzhen.

Song Xiaofeng had left, and Feng Yu was relieved. Song Laosi did not come and look for him. This meant that he was not aware of Feng Yu involvement and role in this incident.

Anyway, now the triads were staying low and concentrated on making money. No matter which era, when wealth was accumulated till a certain amount, it will translate into power and authority.

The company had also resumed its normal operations. Wu Xhigang and the rest continued to make door-to-door sales of second-hand luxury cars. Feng Yu gave them a straightforward explanation. Go and look for those bosses who owned their own business. These people want to look good and show off their status. If others are driving luxury cars, how can they not buy one?

Although the cars were all used cars if one does not say it out, who will find out? Also, the prices were less than half the price of an imported Mercedes Benz. It was still an excellent deal.

The next six months, selling cars became the only job for his staffs. Two batches, at least 100 cars and must be sold before year end.

Feng Yu was still watching others doing the military training every day. It is a must to be consistent with his lies. He can’t be joining the training now.

Finally, the military training ended, and school officially starts. The classrooms were not small, but there were a lot of students. The desks were old and can apparently make out the graffiti done by the previous batch of students.

The thing that made Feng Yu pissed off the most was that the teacher arranged two people of the same sex to seat together. The only male-female arrangement was a pair of cousins.

This era, schools tried very hard to prevent students getting into relationships. It was simply outrageous.

Everywhere on the school campus, there will be teachers with red armbands appearing out of nowhere. If they see male and female students holding hands, they would take down the names, asked the students to write a letter to reflect on themselves and call the student’s parents. It was more severe if they were caught kissing. There will be demerit points, and the students might even be forced to change schools or also expelled!

It doesn’t matter if it was during school hours or after school hours, whether if it was early in the morning at the school field or late at night in the stadium. There would be people from the teaching department lurking around waiting to catch the students when they least expected!

Feng Yu really wanted to question them: Getting into a relationship in high school is still considered early?

This type of suppression might have stopped some relationships, but it made the students more rebellious. Adolescent students are at the stage where they are rebellious. The more you don’t let us do it, we’ll do it!

This was one of the reasons why universities students were so wild and crazy. They were being oppressed too harshly, and once the rules were relaxed, it became easy for them to lose themselves.

What about those obedient and honest students? They were unable to find a girlfriend now, and it would be the same for the university. After they start working, they would have to rely on blind dates or getting those “unwanted” girls. Their life would miss out so much fun.

While Feng Yu was not rebellious, but he would also not listen to the teachers. They can say that the students who were in relationships at this age were unable to undertake the responsibility. However, Feng Yu was different. He was a multi-millionaire, and he will be responsible to Li Na.

In the afternoon, at the school’s cafeteria, Feng Yu and Li Na were sitting at the same table eating. Feng Yu, as if there was no one else around, attracted the attention of many students when he picked food for Li Na with his chopsticks.

“Eh, those two must be freshmen. They seem to be in a relationship.”

“From the uniform, you can tell they are freshmen. They are quite daring, and they are not afraid of the “big rat” sneaking up and catch them?”

“Big Rat” was the nickname they gave to the discipline master. It was because he likes to wear grey suits and likes appearing out of nowhere.

“I bought you a red skirt. Didn’t you mention that your desk mate’s red skirt was pretty yesterday?”

“I don’t want. I had only casually said it.” Li Na blushed. She likes whatever gifts Feng Yu gave her, but she was also afraid of other students gossiping. This was not the farm. This was the city. What if they were to be called to the discipline office and informed their parents?

“I had already bought it. You try it on.” Feng Yu said.

“We have to wear uniforms in school.” Li Na said softly.

“You can wear it on the weekends or after school. Take it. It’s pretty.” Feng Yu replied.

“What are you doing? Which class are you from?” Someone with a red armband stood in front of them and asked them loudly.

Li Na panicked and stood up. She wanted to say something, but Feng Yu pulled her hand and sat her down.

“Just carry on eating. It will be fine.” Feng Yu said.

“I am talking to the both of you. Stand up!”

Feng Yu carried on eating ignoring this person.

Disciplinary Officer Li was having lunch at the cafeteria, and he noticed a lot of students looking at a direction. He stood up and looked over. He immediately became furious! The school rules clearly state that students were not allowed to be in relationships, yet they dare to openly disobey the school rules. They must be severely punished!

He hurriedly walked over, like what he used to do. He was ready to reprimand these two students in front of others. He must let them know their mistake and make them write self-reflection letters. If necessary, he will make them read out their self-reflection letter in front of the school.

Usually, when he appears, students would obediently accept his scolding and even begged him to escape punishment. But today, he did not expect this boy to ignore him. It was as if the boy did not see him.

He was agitated and reached out to grab the male student’s arm.

Feng Yu’s arm was caught, but he swiped the hand away: ”Who the hell are you? Can’t you see that I am eating?”

“I am from the disciplinary office. What are you doing?”

I am eating. You…… are blind?” Feng Yu replied and waved his hand in front of Officer Li’s face as if he was checking if he was blind.

“Which class are you from? Don’t you know that the school forbids students to be in relationships? Call your parents. Must call your parents down!” Officer Li was furious. This student was too arrogant. He must be punished. Severely punished!

“You don’t accuse us. We are just classmates. Didn’t the school rules state that students should love each other? We are just eating together. What’s wrong?” Feng Yu retorted.

Prohibiting students getting into relationships was not wrong. But it should not be prohibiting for the sake of prohibiting. Feng Yu was determined to argue with him and see who was more eloquent.

The rest of the students were dumbfounded. This freshman was too arrogant and dared to go head-to-head with Officer Li!

Translator notes: I think in the 80’s and 90’s, very few students dared to talk back to teachers or people of authority. ‘Obedience to Authority’ is an interesting study on obedience in Psychology. If you are interested, you can read up The Milgram Experiment.

Chapter 71 – Changing the School Culture

“You need to be so close to each other when eating?” Officer Li shouted.

“Sitting close together meant that we are dating? Who said this? You or the Principal? You have never stood close to female strangers? Does that mean that you are dating every time?” Feng Yu replied.

Roar ~ ~ ~ ~

All the students burst out laughing, especially when they saw Officer Li’s face turned red with anger.

“You dare to talk to me this way? Who is your form teacher? I will make sure you get demerit points!”

“Whatever. Li Na, have you finish eating? Let’s go to the library.”

Feng Yu’s indifference attitude angered Officer Li further. He wanted to reach out and grab Feng Yu, but he remembered Feng Yu had brushed off his hand earlier, embarrassing him. So he grabbed Li Na’s arm instead.

“Ah!” Li Na screamed out.

Slap!

Feng Yu slapped Officer Li’s hand.

“Anyhow grabbing a female student’s arm. According to what you just said, can I interpret as you are molesting her?” Feng Yu asked.

More and more students crowded around. Initially, it was those who had finished eating. But now, those who were eating stopped and joined the crowd to watch the “battle” between the righteous freshman and the evil Officer Li. Too exciting!

There were even some at the back, cheering Feng Yu loudly. Anyway, they cannot be seen by Officer Li as there were a lot of onlookers in front of them. These students were unhappy with the Disciplinary Office but dare not speak up. Finally, someone dares to stand up against Officer Li and the Disciplinary Office. How can they not cheer for Feng Yu?

Feng Yu held Li Na’s hand and make their way out of the crowd. On the way out, he winked at Wen Dongjun, and he got the message. Wen Dongjun then incite the other students to block Officer Li’s path.

No matter what, this matter had blown up!

“Are you two dating?” The form teacher asked sternly. These two students were the ones that the Vice Principal told him to take special care off. Why did they clash with the Disciplinary Office?

“Yes!”

“No!”

Feng Yu and Li Na gave two different answers at the same time.

Li Na looked at Feng Yu in shock. Her relationship with Feng Yu was more than ordinary friends, but they both did not cross the line or at least they had not verbally admitted to being in a relationship.

But Feng Yu said it out now, and it was still in front of their form teacher.

“No, teacher. We are really not dating.” Li Na denied with her beet red face.

Feng Yu sighed. This girl must be taught.

“Fine. Teacher, we are not dating.”

The form teacher looked at Feng Yu speechless. From Feng Yu’s expression and tone, how can one believe that they were not dating?

These two students just can’t let others stop worrying about them. Entering Bing City’s top high school and it was still a countrywide triple-A rated high school. Yet they were not concentrating on their studies to get into a good university. What’s the difference between them and those at those vocational schools?

After university, they would be elites, and they would get good jobs. Can’t they settle down at that time? Why must they date during high school?

“The both of you, write a self-reflection letter. I will speak to Officer Li. You two will apologize to him, and we will let this matter rest.” The form teacher said.

“We can write the letter, but we will not apologize!” Feng Yu said. He thought of how Officer Li grabbed Li Na’s arm, and he was still angry. He will not apologize!

The form teacher tried to persuade Feng Yu for a long time, but Feng Yu was adamant to not apologize. Finally, he was suspended. He can only return to school when he relents.

Feng Yu was ecstatic. Does that mean if he does not relent for one month and he can stop going to school for one month?

Anyway, his goal was to study liberal arts now and business management in university. These subjects only require him to memorize and skipping one month of the class makes no difference.

But after the form teacher left the office, Li Na burst into tears. Since kindergarten till now, she had never been suspended. Her classmates would laugh at her, and if her parents knew about this, they would be disappointed with her.

“Eh, what are you crying for? How nice it would be to be suspended for a few days. Anyway, the syllabus now is not that hard. We can read up ourselves. Ok, ok. I will think of something. Tomorrow, everything will be fine.” Feng Yu said.

Li Na looked at Feng Yu with tears rolling in her eyes: “What can you do? You certainly will not apologize to Officer Li.”

Li Na was in a dilemma now. On one side, she wants to go back to class and not get punished, but on the other hand, she does not wish for Feng Yu to bow down and apologize. She knew Feng Yu was a very proud person.

“My brother-in-law and Vice Principal Sun are good friends. I will ask him to speak to Vice Principal Sun.”

“Really?”

“Since when did I lied to you? Stop crying. You are turning into a kitten.” Feng Yu took out a handkerchief and wiped Li Na’s Tears.

Giggle……

Li Na laughed: “You are the kitten.”

……

Once again, Li Shiqiang came to Vice Principal Sun’s office, and Vice Principal Sun welcomed him warmly.

“Mr. Li, thank you for your contributions to the school and the students. Why are you here for today?” Vice Principal Sun was curious. Didn’t the new basketball court construction complete? Could it be Li Shiqiang is going to donate something else? That would be great. He still does not know that Feng Yu was suspended from school.

“Vice Principal Sun, my brother was suspended. I want to know what happened.” Li Shiqiang said.

“Your brother was suspended? How come I am unaware of this? Don’t worry. I will call and ask.”

Feng Yu’s form teacher appeared in Vice Principal Sun’s office and reported the whole circumstances to him. He felt that the punishment meted out to him was not wrong. Openly talking back to the teacher and the punishment was only to write a self-reflection letter and apologize to the teacher. How can this punishment be wrong?

Li Shiqiang crossed his legs and said: “Vice Principal Sun, I think there is no need to apologize, and only the self-reflection letter will do. My brother is not dating. He is not dating! Right. I want to donate 100 Wind and Rain fans to the school. I think this hot weather will last for another month.”

Vice Principal Sun laughed and said: “Mr. Li, I also think that the self-reflection letter is sufficient. That Officer Li is also in the wrong. He can’t assume male and female students having lunch together as dating.  It could be pure friendship.”

The next day, Feng Yu and Li Na returned to class as if nothing had happened. The two self-reflection letters had only less than 100 words, and they just reflected about the food they wasted at the cafeteria that day.

When Officer Li read the letters, he tore them into pieces. But the Disciplinary Master told him something, and he cooled down.

Vice Principal Sun said that it was okay to scold the students, but he must also allow male and female students to be friends. He cannot be too strict and stringent. Officer Li was not satisfied, but he can’t do anything as his superior had already spoken. He can only let the matter rest. Soon, he noticed the school’s culture had changed.

In the past, after class ended, male and female students rarely mix together. But now, male and female students were participating in activities together.

During meal time, male and female students sat together and chatted happily. In the mornings and evenings, there were male and female students taking strolls together in the school fields.

Every time he questions these students, they would reply him that they were only friends!

In the end, Officer Li gave up catching these students. Worked so hard but got nothing in return. Later, he noticed that since he gave up catching these dating students, there were a few students that got into relationships. And those couples that were dating encouraged and helped each other in their studies to get into Universities. Their grades improved instead.

Of course, these were all afterword.

The day Feng Yu stood up against Officer Li was named as “Liberation Day” by some students. A few decades later, it remained as a legend in the school. But the version was the N edition.

Chapter 72 – Drunken Rage

Although they tried to keep Feng Yu and Li Na relationship from his sister, Feng Danying, she still found out.

Feng Danying confiscated Feng Yu’s car keys and ordered Li Shiqiang not to drive Feng Yu to school. Anyway, the school was only a 10 minutes’ walk from home. This was her punishment for Feng Yu. Who asked him to not study hard in school and start dating at such young age.

Feng Yu was accustomed to the car and to ask him to walk for 10 minutes would be killing him. Wen Dongjun thought of a way for him. The both of them bought two Forever brand bicycles.

Someone had said before: after you learn how to ride a bicycle, it would be just like walking. Even if you had not ridden a bike for decades, you would still be able to ride once you got on a bike.

Now, the mainstream mode of transportation was still bicycles, and Forever brand was the most popular. All the staffs at Tai Hua Trading ride Forever brand bicycles, and they were proud of it.

Feng Yu carried his backpack, wore his Warrior brand shoes, jeans, t-shirt, a baseball cap, which was only sold at major departmental stores, and a Shanghai brand watch on his left hand. He happily hummed a song and rode his bike to school.

Most of the people going to school or work were riding bicycles. They would ring the bicycle bells as a form of greeting. Feng Yu also felt that, in this weather,  it was not a bad idea to ride a bike to school.

This beautiful picture was destroyed by the appearance of somebody. It was just like dripping a big blob of thick, black and smelly ink on a beautiful painting.

“Why are you riding so slowly? We will be late. Are you eating this bun? If no, I will eat it.” With a bun in his mouth, Wen Dongjun caught up with Feng Yu and gave him a slap on his back.

“You are wiping your hands on my shirt after eating again!”

Wen Dongjun pedaled hard and soon overtake Feng Yu, and Feng Yu started to give chase. Leaving sound of laughter in their trail.

At the bicycle parking bay, a lot of students were pointing at them. Wen Dongjun felt very proud and waved at them like those superstars.

Feng Yu shook his head and dragged Wen Dongjun to class. Not staying at the school dormitory have its pros too. At least they don’t need to attend the morning self-revision classes, and they got to wake up 1 hour later.

In the classroom, there were a lot of students who were half awake, and some were still yawning sleepily. But when the teacher enters the class, all of them sat up straight and look like they were paying attention.

After class, Feng Yu walked over to Li Na and sat in the seat beside her. “Tomorrow is the weekends. After school, let’s not go to the cafeteria. Let’s go out to eat barbecue and catch a movie at the Cultural Palace.”

“I still have to attend the night self-revision class.”

“There is also no one taking attendance at self-revision classes and what’s wrong with skipping once? That’s it.” Feng Yu decided for Li Na.

When Feng Yu returned to his seat, Li Na’s desk mate, a fat chick, said to her: “He asked you out for movies tonight? I really envy you. Why doesn’t anyone ask me out?”

“You want to join us?”

“Really? It’s settled then. We shall go together tonight.” The fat chick happily accepted the invitation.

Li Na was stunned. She was just polite, and she never expects the fat chick to accept her invitation.

During lunch at the cafeteria, Li Na told Feng Yu that her desk mate wanted to tag along that night. Feng Yu turned and looked at Wen Dongjun with an evil smile.

“What? You want me to ride the bicycle with that fat chick? My tires will burst!”

Feng Yu wrapped his arms around Wen Dongjun’s neck and said: “Are we, brothers? My bicycle can’t sit 2 more people. You have nothing to do at night anyway after you were turned down by that girl from next class.”

“But I also cannot ferry her in my bike. If other students saw me, how can I go after the pretty girl from next class?”

Fat chick’s character was not bad. She was good in her studies too and not short with fair complexion. Her facial features…… can’t really see clearly as all her facial features were squeezed together.

“Later I will teach you some tricks. You can definitely ask her out the next time!”

“You sure?”

Feng Yu felt insulted and replied loudly: “When did I lie to you?”

……

“One, two, go! Sit tight.”

Fat chick sat on the back seat of Wen Dongjun’s bicycle. He felt that he can’t even pedal. He still needs Feng Yu to push him from the back for him to start riding wobbly.

Li Na sat on the back seat of Feng Yu’s bicycle and Feng Yu, with one leg on the ground and the other on the pedal, stepped down hard on the pedal and moved off with ease. He rode steadily following behind Wen Dongjun.

Li Na was wearing a long dress and sat sideways on the back with her arms wrapped around Feng Yu’s waist. She lowered her head and smiled sweetly.

The four reached the entrance of the Cultural Palace. There was a movie poster for a Hong Kong movie <Dragons Forever>, starring Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao.

The Cultural Palace was still better than the cinemas in the towns, where they only screen those boring domestic films.

Looking at the time, there was still ten minutes till the next screening. Feng Yu and the rest decided to watch the movie first before getting barbeque.

This move was a comedy-action movie. These four really enjoyed it. After the movie, they went to the roadside stalls beside the cinema.

One RMB for ten sticks of barbeque meat. Feng Yu ordered 50 sticks without hesitation. He also ordered a lot of other barbeque stuff. Based on Wen Dongjun and Fat chick’s power, Feng Yu might not get to eat anything if he ordered too little food.

There were too few varieties for these barbeque sticks, unlike the future. There were no seafood related food and vegetables. There was only sliced potatoes, boiled peanuts, and soybeans for cold dishes. But it was still enough for Feng Yu and the rest to eat.

At the table beside them, a few youngsters were looking at Li Na. Li Na had worn a long dress, and with her pretty face, these few youngsters started to have some evil thoughts.

One of them walked over to Li Na with a mug of beer: “Hey girl, drink with me. Later I will bring you to a fun place. You heard of billiards before? I have a billiard hall behind me, and there are two tables there.”

Wen Dongjun and Feng Yu stood up immediately and stopped that youngster.

“Go back and eat your food. If you are not eating, get lost. Stop your drunken rage!”

“Oh, what is this? These two kids want to fight with me? Stepped aside and don’t bother me drinking with this pretty girl. If not, I will kill you!”

The three other young punks stood up and walk up to Feng Yu when he finished his sentence. They started to shove Feng Yu.

“Please don’t fight. Don’t fight.” Li Na was almost in tears. These four men were not to be a mess with.

Feng Yu reached over and pulled Li Na behind him. He looked at these 4 punks and said: “There are some people, whom young punks like you all, can’t provoke. Get lost, and I will pretend nothing had happened. My brother-in-law works with Master Crutches!”

To pretend, the attitude was critical. When Feng Yu said those words, his tone, and demeanor of the speech startled those youngsters!

Author’s notes: At that time the bicycle was the primary mean of transport and China became the bicycle kingdom. Warrior brand shoes and Shanghai brand watches were the most fashionable brands at that time! Cultural Palace was the place to go for movies, and some schools without school halls would also hold their events at Cultural Palace.

Translator notes: I was merely translating what was written. I absolutely do not discriminate against fat people and does not condone calling people “fat chick.”

Chapter 73 – Infamous

Feng Yu lifted his left hand and deliberately let those four young gangsters see his watch. In that era, someone who can wear a Shanghai brand watch was not ordinary folks.

Feng Yu looked like a middle-high school student, and yet his dressing tells others that he was rich. Coupled with Feng Yu’s calm and relaxed attitude, the young punks looked at each other and hurriedly paid their bills and left.

All they wanted was to use being drunk as an excuse to harass some girls. If Feng Yu and the rest feared them, they might do something worse. But if they met someone who was firm and fearless, they would run away.

If Feng Yu was telling the truth, his brother-in-law works for Master Crutches, their legs would be broken!

The barbeque stall owner overheard Feng Yu and gave them a bunch of barbeque meat sticks, a few bottles of beer. The stall owner thought to himself: “So young and walked the wrong path. I still thought that they were good students. In future, they will also be gangsters.”

After eating, Feng Yu sent Li Na back while Wen Dongjun sent Fat chick back.

“your brother-in-law is really a gangster?” Li Na asked.

“I was just scaring them, you also believe? If I never lied to them, will them leave?” Feng Yu laughed. Although he was not some good person, he would never join the triads. He could not even finish spending the money he earned from legal means, why would he make from illegal businesses?

Lying on the bed, Li Na tossed and turned, and can’t sleep. She knew Feng Yu’s family well. His family was farmers. Although they were not poor, they were not very rich either.

But why was Feng Yu so rich this year? Drove his own car, eat and wear branded goods, and even had an apartment in the city. Could it be his brother-in-law really from the triads? Then he must not be some good person.

Li Na was anxious. Feng Yu’s money did not come from legal means. Especially Feng Yu kept giving her gifts, and the gifts were quite expensive too. She decided to not accept his gifts anymore.

……

Sunday afternoon. Feng Yu woke up at 10. He woke up because he was hungry. After eating something in the kitchen, he washed up and left for his company.

It was the day to remit money to Kirilenko, and Feng Yu would never delay. He still wants to work with Kirilenko for the long term.

Tai Hua Trading does not have an accountant. All the finances were handled by Feng Yu personally. Luckily for him, in this era, there was no need for an accounting certificate to take on this post. If not, Feng Yu would have a big headache.

Tai Hua Trading had how much money? How much profits? Only Feng Yu knows the best. Even Li Shiqiang can only estimate, and the rest can only guess.

Next year, Feng Yu would be taking out every single cent from the company and invest in the stock market. This would be more convenient for Feng Yu.

Another reason was Feng Yu does not trust employing an accountant from outside. There were many instances where the account of the company embezzled with the money and ran off. Furthermore, Tai Hua Trading had so much money in its accounts. Don’t say this era, even in his previous life, there will still be people who would take the risk and embezzle money.

The technology was not advance in this era, and there was no need to register names for train tickets, no CCTV on the roads. Once someone escaped and hide in a small mountain village for a year, and in the second year, he can just spend some money to get a real new identity. This way he will be scot free and live in another city.

Don’t be mistaken. There were a lot of good policemen around, but there will also be some black sheep. Especially in the villages. If the village leader act as a guarantor, the police station doesn’t investigate and claim to be someone’s relative, one can just register a new identity and get a new identity card.

Feng Yu only trusted Li Shiqiang entirely, but he does not know about accounts and doesn’t want to learn. He only told Feng Yu that he entrusted him with the accounts and just want to wait until year-end to get his share.

This era, it was very troublesome to remit money. Although this was not the first time Feng Yu remit money, it still took him, with the assistance of the bank staffs, almost an hour to complete the transaction. Why was it that he needed the approval from the bank’s manager when he was remitting money to another party?

After the bank, he went straight to the used cars refurbishment site. All the refurbished luxury cars look like stacks of money to Feng Yu, and all the discontents from the bank were dissipated.

This period, Wu Zhigang and the rest worked very hard. They brought many people over to view the cars. Some of these people bought the cars on the spot, while some thought that it was priced too expensive for a used car. The used car cost hundreds of thousands? They need some time to consider.

Feng Yu was too optimistic about the market. Although the population in Bing City was a lot, there were not many rich people around. Those that became rich earlier only look at Mercedes Benz and BMW. However, the sales for Rolls Royce and Toyota Crown was not bad.

Feng Yu’s way of marketing through word of mouth was not very useful. There were not enough stupid people around. As such, he went to the newspaper office and paid for a period of advertisements space. He then employed some flight attendant trainees from the vocational school, wearing flight attendant’s uniform and stood beside the cars.

One day one car model, one day one pretty model. This continued for 10 days. 10 different type of cars and 10 beautiful models. These advertisements made those bosses restless.

From the stimulation of the advertisements, Feng Yu estimates that they could sell another 20 to 30 vehicles. But Bing City’s market was only so big, and his sports cars remained unsold.

The road conditions in the era were not as good as the future years, and there was not much expressway around for them to race. The sports cars from the second batch remained unsold.

In another two months, there will be the last batch of used cars arriving. If Feng Yu can’t sell off all these cars within the next two months, he might have some cash flow issues.

“Zhigang, you get one man to follow you to the neighboring province’s Jilin City tomorrow. Do the same advertisement in the papers there.”

“No problem. You can count on me.” When Manager Feng asked them to travel, he would give them a lot of travel allowance.

That night, he played video games with Wen Dongjun before going to sleep.

When he reached his class on Monday, he noticed it was a bit weird. It seems that the other students were afraid of him.

It can’t be. He had not got into fights in school or even got angry. Why did everyone become scared of him?

A few students were whispering to each other. When Feng Yu returned from the toilet, he finally understood what happened.

“There were rumors that his brother-in-law was a gangster and working for the Master Crutches.”

“What? You don’t believe? You think about why Feng Yu dared to stand up against Officer Li? Why after that incident, he did not receive any punishment?”

“You all remember when school starts, and we were all discussing our entry grades? Feng Yu was short of 3 points, and Wen Dongjun was short of 30 over points. They are also not Bing City’s residents. They are from the farms nearby. How could they enter this school?”

“My dad had met Feng Yu’s brother-in-law. He was tall, fit and fierce looking. His fist was as big as a clay pot. There were rumors that he was Master Crutches’, right-hand man.”

“Also, even the Vice Principal was scared of Feng Yu’s brother-in-law. I think Feng Yu will become the big boss of this school in future. We better stay away from him and don’t provoke him. A few days ago, there were over ten gangsters outside the school calling Feng Yu big brother!”

These few students can really make up stories. They just haven’t made up a story of Feng Yu beat up Cripple Wang with one punch and killed Song Laosi with a kick.

Feng Yu opened the toilet door and bared his teeth at these students. Those students hurriedly ran for their lives.

Feng Yu knew who spread these rumors. It must be Fat chick. Forget it. No matter what motives she got, at least there will not be anyone dares to provoke him in school, and no one dares to make a move on Li Na.

Although his reputation was infamous, Feng Yu doesn’t care. That idiot Wen Dongjun still felt very proud, and he even wanted to use Feng Yu’s reputation to stop some other students from getting close to the prettiest girl in the next class.

Chapter 74 – Fu Guangzheng

Rumors were like this. The more you want to suppress, the faster it will spread. Although the form teacher does not allow the students to spread rumors, the rumor quickly spread to the whole grade and even the entire school. Even the teachers believed the rumors.

The form teacher even spoke to Feng Yu about this. He wanted to clarify with Feng Yu. But Feng Yu just shook his head. Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots. Feng Yu was lazy to explain.

Anyway, these rumors did not bring him much trouble anyway. He can have more time to think about how to earn more money.

The advertisements were published in the neighboring province. But that province was considered poor, and the economy was not as good as Longjiang province. The city development was also ranked one of the lowest in China.

There were some who had come to look at the cars, but there were few that bought. Just when Feng Yu wanted to go and place an advertisement in Shen City, a Cantonese speaking boss came to his company.

“Lei Hou, Mr. Feng is really young and capable.” (He spoke in Chinese, mixed with Cantonese. Lei Hou means how are you in Cantonese.)

“Lei Hou, lei hou. Mr. Fu is a Hong Konger?” Feng Yu replied.

“Si ah, Si ah.” (Si ah, means yes in cantonese.)

“Mr. Fu, you can speak English?” Feng Yu asked again.

“Of course.”

Feng Yu nodded and used fluent English: “I heard that Mr. Fu is interested in my used car business and wants to buy some cars to resell in the South?”

Feng Yu really can’t stand this type of Cantonese influenced Chinese.

Fu Guangzheng was startled. This Feng Yu’s English was so fluent? He heard that Feng Yu does business with the Soviets and doesn’t need any interpreters. How old is he? He mastered two foreign languages?

“Mr. Fu, Mr. Fu?” Feng Yu raised his voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I want to buy British used luxury cars and sell to the South. How many do you have?”

“About 60 to 70 cars. All of them are about 70 to 80% new. How many units do Mr. fu want?”

“If the cars are all 70 to 80% new and the price is right, I will buy all!” Fu Guangzheng smiled. 60 to 70 cars. If he only gets 30,000 to 50,000 profits from one vehicle, the total would also be 2 to 3 million profits. Bases on his estimation, the profits should be more than that.

Feng Yu raised his eyebrows. A rich man. But Feng Yu was still a bit suspicious. There were a lot of conmen impersonating wealthy Hong Kong Businessmen in this era.

They will paint a beautiful picture, and when they take the goods or money from you, they will disappear without a trace.

But this Mr. Fu’s English was not bad. Seems like he had received high education in Hong Kong. His manners also showed that he had a proper upbringing. He seems to be at least 80% trustworthy.

“Mr. Fu is really willing to spend. But my cars are not cheap. Even if you are buying in bulk, the average price will also be the amount.” Feng Yu replied and put out four fingers.

Fu Guangzheng did not agree nor disagree but asked: “Then when can you deliver the cars to me? All the cars must be refurbished.”

“Of course. But I am not responsible for the delivery, and you will have to settle the paperwork yourself.” If the cars were sold in Bing City, it was effortless to get the registration plates if one has money.

Feng Yu had made it very clear. Fu Guangzheng hesitated for a moment and nodded: “I understand. Then when can you deliver the cars?”

“The fastest will also be two months. Now I only have slightly over 10 cars left, and most of them are sports cars. If you want these, I can deliver it to you now.”

Feng Yu brought Fu Guangzheng to the factory to view the cars. Fu Guangzheng scrutinized each car. Although he does not know anything about cars, he was observing the facial expressions of the people around. Everyone looks calm. Seems like there were no issues with these cars and these were not unsold problematic vehicles.

But to be safe, Fu Guangzheng decided to get a few professional mechanics to inspect these cars. What if the exterior condition is in excellent condition but the engine is problematic, and after using for one year, the car will have to be scrapped? He could offend a lot of people.

“Mr. Feng. Can I come back in two days with my men to check on the cars and I will make a decision after that?”

“Of course. Even if you did not mention this, I would also remind you. At least in future, you will not blame me for defective goods.”

This batch of cars which Kirilenko sold to Feng Yu had not been used for several years. They were at least 50% new. Feng Yu had only change the seats, tires and respray the exterior. He also employed two highly skilled mechanics with high salaries to check on the engines. Guaranteed those who bought the cars will not look for him later and affect his company’s reputation.

Although this way, the cost would be higher, but his profits will also be high. One car, he can make at least 100,000 RMB and highest, 300,000 RMB.

They both agreed, next Sunday, Fu Guangzheng will bring his men to inspect all the vehicles, and if there are no problems, he will make payments and shipped all these cars away.

Back at the hotel, Fu Guangzheng instructed his men to look for professional mechanics, and at the same time, he asked around for old houses with antiques.

Initially, Fu Guangzheng had made this trip to look for antiques. The Northeast region was the Manchus base. There must be a lot of good stuff left behind. If he can get his hands on a few pieces and bring back to Hong Kong, he can get 10 times, or even more, turnover if he resells them.

He heard that Northeast region, primarily Bing City, was very enclosed and people were poor. Poor till they can’t afford clothes and cannot afford to eat. But when he arrived here, he noticed that these were not true.

There were many factories here and have a strong industrial feel. Although the standard of living for the people here was not high, they were not poor till they can’t afford to eat. At least, he saw a lot of cars on the streets. But the number of vehicles can’t be compared to the coastal cities. The development here should be considered faster than a lot of inland cities.

The thing that surprised him the most was the red Lotus sportscar he saw on the streets!

This type of sports cars was costly. Even in Hong Kong, only the super-rich second generations will buy. He, himself, just drives a Toyota Crown.

Fu Guangzheng’s family was considered one of the influential family in Hong Kong. His father had a net worth of several billion. His first uncle was also a multi-billionaire. But it was a pity that Fu Guangzheng was not the eldest son. He can only get an inheritance of tens of millions in future.

His elder brother’s company now is worth billions, and it was not from their father’s investment. His own company is only worth a few million, and it was still because of his mother helping him.

Everyone said that those who had become wealthy in China were very capable and had good connections. A few more years, Hong Kong will be returned to China, and his family feared the changes in policies would affect them. As such, his father had been finding ways to know and build a good relationship with the senior officials. He wants to protect his family’s businesses and not be affected by the reunification.

Since young, Fu Guangzheng was taught by his mother to make friends with those that would be able to help him in future. Isn’t this Lotus sportscar driver someone like this? If he can be friends with the driver, then his position in his family will rise.

But after asking, that sportscar driver was a 40 plus man and this man was not as powerful as he thought he was. He was only a businessman selling animal feed. His car was also a used car and cost less than 500,000 RMB.

Fu Guangzheng suddenly thought of a way to earn money. There was someone in Bing City who had the means to get used luxury cars. He had stayed in Guang Zhou and Shen Zhen for quite some time. 500,000 RMB for a Lotus, even if there were 100 cars like this, after shipping over, he can sell them off within a month.

If he can get a steady supply of these cars, he can make money fast. He also wanted to prove to his father that his capabilities were not worse than his elder brother.

Translator note: I am not sure if Fu Guangzheng is a real person so, I googled and there is a Hong Kong Billionaire by the name of Peter Woo Kwong-ching. The surname is different, but the Chinese characters for Guangzheng 光正 are the same.

Peter Woo Kwong-ching was the former chairman of Wheelock and Company Limited and The Wharf Holdings Limited, and his net worth is estimated to be $12.6 billion in 2018 (According to Forbes).

Chapter 75 – This Incense Burner is an Antique

The sales for the luxury used cars were settled, and Feng Yu was relived. Wu Zhigang had been doing market research and noticed that the agricultural machinery and parts produced by the Soviet Union were very popular in China. They were more durable than the Japanese but more expensive. This was especially so for the harvesters and tractors. They were outstanding but not sold anywhere.

Feng Yu intend to do this business for the next six months. Longjiang province is a vast agricultural province. Cultivating all the land by animals was impossible. He was not sure how much it will cost for him to bring in these machines.

Fu Guangzheng and two mechanics arrived at Tai Hua Trading on Sunday.

Li Shiqiang and one of the mechanics met and was shocked. This mechanic was the one who does the testing of the vehicles for them.

Feng Yu did not hide this from Fu Guangzheng and told him straight. He still wants to sell the next batch of cars to Fu Guangzheng, and he cannot let the latter to feel that he was deceiving him.

Fu Guangzheng smiled and said that it was okay. He knew that this mechanic was doing the testing for Tai Hua Trading and he deliberately brought him along to see if Tai Hua Trading will be in cahoots with the mechanic to cheat him. But since Feng Yu had made it clear to him, that means that Feng Yu had no plans to deceive him. This increases the position of Tai Hua Trading in his heart.

The testing went smoothly. All vehicles were tested in the afternoon. The testing mainly focuses on the engine, chassis, brakes, and accelerator. The rest doesn’t matter much.

Fu Guangzheng was satisfied with the test results. He wanted all 18 vehicles. After deducting the transportation cost, he can still get a profit of more than 50,000 RMB per vehicle. If he manages well, he might get even more.

All of them returned to Tai Hua Trading’s warehouse to sign a contract prepared by Feng Yu. Fu Guangzheng read the contract carefully and signed it.

Tomorrow, after the money was credited to Tai Hua Trading, Fu Guangzheng will collect the cars. He had already made the arrangements for the transportation, and all the paperwork were completed in one hour.

Keeping his copy of the contract, Feng Yu said politely: “Mr. Fu, let’s have some tea before leaving.”

Feng Yu never expect Fu Guangzheng to accept his invitation readily and even said that he was thirsty from earlier on. Feng Yu instructed his staff to prepare the tea and at the same time apologize for the poor hospitality.

Having a company with all men was not good. No one was meticulous enough to prepare tea for customers and guests.

But this was all Feng Yu’s fault. He had taught his staff to behave this way. A successful company must be arrogant. But Feng Yu will never admit that this was taught by him.

Fu Guangzheng lifts the teacup, took a sip of the green tea and frowned. This tea was ordinary and not some good tea. He does not want to drink, but he was embarrassed to put down the teacup after taking a slip. So, he just held on to the cup in his hands.

He looked around and noticed the three-legged incense burner in the corner. He casually said to Feng Yu: “Why did you place that thing in your office? It doesn’t match your simple office décor.”

Feng Yu looked over at the incense burner which he bought for 300,000 RMB from Cripple Wang. He had wanted to use it as a flower pot but his office was in a warehouse, and there was no sunlight. In the end, he forgot about it.

“Oh, that incense burner? After buying it from a friend, I got nowhere to place it, so I just leave it in that corner.”

Bought from a friend? Maybe he knows that it is an antique? Then it won’t be nice if I ask him for it. But why was it placed at that corner? Could it be a fake?

Fu Guangzheng had this problem or should it be those who traded in antiques all had this problem. If an antique was placed in front of them, they can’t sleep if they can’t hold the antique in their hands and scrutinize it!

“Incense Burner? I like incense burner and even have a collection. Can I take a closer look at that incense burner?”

Some people collect incense burner as a hobby? Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng strangely. This hobby was quite weird and doesn’t sound like some sort of religion.

“Sure. Since you like it, just take a closer look.”

Feng Yu nonchalantly picked up the incense burner and roughly placed it on the table.

Although the ashes were cleared, the incense burner was not cleaned. An ash cloud floated up from the impact.

Feng Yu stepped two steps back and waved his hands in front of him. Fu Guangzheng and moved his chair back and place the teacup on the table. A layer of ash dropped onto the tea, and it can’t drink anymore. But Fu Guangzheng’s eyes did not leave the incense burner.

Huh? Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng curiously. Why did he take out a pair of white gloves and put it on? Why was it so familiar?

Feng Yu suddenly remembered a television program he watched in his previous life. The program was “Appraising Treasures,” and the experts in the program wore white gloves when appraising antiques.

Looking at Fu Guangzheng carefully wiping the dust off the surface of the incense burner, the things he said earlier and his expression, Feng Yu had a bold guess.

This Fu Guangzheng had a bit of OCD. If it were a clean incense burner, he would not wear his gloves. But this incense burner was too dirty. He did not want to dirty his hands, so he put on his gloves.

He thought his acting was not bad. Collecting incense burners, this reason was impressive. People were collecting all sorts of weird stuff in the world, and this Feng Yu should not suspect anything.

Feng Yu apparently does not think much of this incense burner as he had left it in a corner. It could be he treated it as a regular incense burner, or he thought it was a fake.

Fu Guangzheng saw the shape of the incense burner, and it looked like an Xuande burner. There was only about 3,000 Xuande burner produced during the Ming Dynasty. Later, many were damaged or went missing. The prices for these burners became more and more expensive. If this burner were real, it would worth a lot of money.

Fu Guangzheng only wanted to wipe the burner clean to look at the material and color so he can have a rough estimation. Then he would offer a low price to buy it. If the negotiation went smoothly, Feng Yu should be willing to sell it to him.

But he did not expect that by putting on a pair of white gloves, Feng Yu suspect that burner is an antique.

Fu Guangzheng shook his head and casually place the burner back on the table. But there was only a faint sound because he was cautious with it. He had examined the burner. Although it was not a thorough examination, there was a 50% chance of it being a real Xuande burner and 50% to be an imitation.

But it doesn’t matter if it was real or fake. Even if it was an imitation, it was worth a lot of money too. If he met someone who doesn’t know much about antiques, he could still sell it to him at the price of an authentic burner.

“I had never seen this type of incense burner. Is Mr. Feng willing to sell it to me?” Fu Guangzheng said and placed a 100 HK dollar note on the table.

Feng Yu can now be sure that this burner was indeed an antique. If not, why would Fu Guangzheng want such a dirty incense burner?

Feng Yu smiled and said: “Mr. Fu is joking with me? I had spent a few hundred thousand RMB to buy this burner from a friend, and you are offering me 100 HK dollars?”

The smile on Fu Guangzheng’s face froze. A few hundred thousand RMB? This Feng Yu knows that this burner is an Xuande burner?

Impossible. Who would place something that is worth a few hundred thousand RMB in a corner? He must be bluffing!

“Did I hear wrongly? A few hundred thousand? This should only worth a few dozen RMB the most.”

“Really? A few dozen RMB a piece? Why not Mr. Fu sells it to me. I will buy whatever you have. Let’s be truthful. This burner is an antique, and you should have already known about it.”

The author notes: There were some who said that there was 3,000 Xuande incense burner produced and some said 5,000. Also, some of those were imitation from the Qing dynasty. Even the experts were not sure. There were also some who said there were less than 100 real, authentic Xuande burners left. However, let’s not dwell on it.

Chapter 76 – Antique Seller

Feng Yu himself was not sure what antique was this incense burner. But he was sure that this is indeed an antique. He wanted to know which dynasty was it from and how much was it worth.

Fu Guangzheng heard Feng Yu and laughed embarrassedly: “Ha, ha, Mr. Feng, stop joking. Since you know about it, why did you still place it in that corner?”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes and said: “I didn’t have time to keep it. You see, I didn’t even have the time to clean it up properly. A history professor once told me it was worth 1 million, but another expert told me that this was worth 2 million. I am not so sure how much is this worth. How much is this type of incense burner selling for in Hong Kong?”

What Fu Guangzheng said earlier had indirectly admitted this burner was worth at least a few hundred thousand. Feng Yu wanted to know how much Fu Guangzheng was willing to offer. If the price is right, he might just sell it to him now.

Feng Yu does not have the hobby of collecting antiques. The antiques in his previous life were so expensive was because the market was manipulated by some people.

Some collectors and auctioneers used the history, culture, economy to raise the prices of the antiques and were still well received by many.

There were some who were not interested in collecting antiques but collected antiques for economic gains. Using their company’s name, they auction back the antiques and declare as “office supplies” to avoid tax. The value of office supplies after 5 years of “depreciation” would become 0.

After the value of the “office supplies” became zero on the company’s books, these antiques can go into their own pockets. Also, these 5 years, the value of these antiques would have appreciated. This way, a significant amount of taxes was avoided and was still a stable investment. When in need of money, one can use these antiques as collaterals and obtain loans from the banks.

In the future years, many used this method and finally, the government came out with a policy to regulate the antique market, but there were still many loopholes.

Feng Yu had no intention of entering the antique market. He knew nothing about antiques. In his previous life, he heard lots of stories of people getting cheated when buying antiques. Furthermore, if he just invests in the financial market, he is guaranteed to earn more than investing in antiques.

Fu Guangzheng put on his gloves again and took out a small brush and magnifying glass from his bag. He brought these along with him where ever he goes. He just did not take them out earlier.

After Fu Guangzheng cleaned the burner, this 3-legged incense burner restored its former radiance. Fu Guangzheng was staring and caressing the burner as if the burner was his lover’s body.

“1 million. 1 million HK dollars. Mr. Feng, are you willing to sell it to me?”

This thing was worth 1 million? And it’s in Hong Kong dollars? The Hong Kong dollars was valued higher than RMB!

This price was much higher than Feng Yu’s expectations. Initially, he thought that as long as he could get back the few hundred thousand he paid to Cripple Wang, it was enough. But now, it seems like he could get a significant profit too.

Cripple Wang must be unaware that this incense burner was a valuable antique. If he had known about this, he would have sent his men to get back the burner long time ago. Feng Yu did not expect that small gesture, would give him a significant profit.

“Mr. Fu, do you think I would sell it?” Feng Yu smiled and looked at Fu Guangzheng.

Feng Yu would not sell this burner unless Fu Guangzheng offered 2 million. At this time next year, Feng Yu can still use this burner as collateral to get a loan from the bank. He could get at least a 5 million loan, and in 1 years’ time, he can turn the 5 million into more than 20 million. If he gets 1 million now, he can’t turn it into 5 million in 5 years.

Fu Guangzheng had a disappointed look on his face. It seems like Feng Yu wants to keep it for his own collection. If he were to offer a higher price, he might not get any profits.

“Mr. Feng also likes to collect antiques? What treasures are in your collection? Let me take a look.” Fu Guangzheng said while taking off his gloves and wiping his hands with a handkerchief.

Feng Yu waved his hands: “I just started and do not many collections. You seem to be an expert in antiques. You must have collected a lot of good stuff.”

What just started collecting, he didn’t even start.  But he was curious about the antique trade. At least he felt that antiques were better than art pieces.

In his previous life, art pieces were deliberately traded at high prices to gain profits and some were used for money laundering. You can bring a worthless painting to an auction house for auction. Then you give your money to another party and this party will use your money to buy your worthless painting at a high price. This way, your money would come from a legitimate source. There are also a few idiots who blindly follow trends and bought art pieces at high prices. In the end, they were not able to sell off these art pieces and they have to swallow the bitter pill.

When Feng Yu said that he wants to look at Fu Guangzheng’s collection, Fu Guangzheng had a proud look on his face. Although he was not considered a collector and he only does this for profits, but he had still made a hefty amount this year.

This trip to Bing City, he had visited a few old houses nearby and bought a few pieces of antiques.

At his hotel room, Fu Guangzheng showed Feng Yu his collection from this trip. Snuff bottles, porcelains, seals, jade pendants, hairpins, ancient books.

Feng Yu looked at these items for a while and felt that although these things were pretty, he will definitely not pay high prices for them.

Looking at Feng Yu’s uninterested look, Fu Guangzheng said sourly: “These items can’t be compared to your Xuande burner. That burner of yours is an authentic Xuande burner. The value will definitely appreciate by several folds in 2 years’ time. But I can still get at least doubled profits from these items when I get back to Hong Kong.”

“There are so many people collecting antiques in Hong Kong?”

“In Hong Kong, not many. But there are many in Southeast Asia.”

Feng Yu finally understood. Hong Kong in this era was still a British colony and the financial hub of Asia. There were more than 100 Chinese Billionaires from Southeast Asia alone. These people are the ones who can push the prices up several times.

“Mr. Feng, are you interested in joining me in this business?” This was Fu Guangzheng’s really objective. He was short of capital and can’t increase his operations. Feng Yu had the funds and also had connections with the Soviets. If he is able to get some oil paintings or something from Europe, it will definitely be profitable.

“Sorry. I am not interested in this trade. I bought that incense burner was to help a friend with his financial woes. Mr. Fu, are you from Hong Kong’s Fu family?” Feng Yu suddenly asked.

“You know about the Fu family? Mr Feng went to Hong Kong before?” Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu curiously. Someone from the most northern province in China actually knew about Hong Kong’s Fu family? How did he know about this?

“I heard from a friend. The Fu family is a big family in Hong Kong. Every member of the family are elites in Hong Kong’s upper society. Which “Rong” generation is your father?”

Fu Guangzheng was shocked. Feng Yu even know about his family’s seniority. This meant that Feng Yu had already found out his background.

“My father is Fu Rongjin.”

Feng Yu thought for a while. He had no impression of Fu Rongjin. The most famous from Fu family’s “Rong” generation was comparable to Superman Li. But that person is definitely not Fu Rongjin.

Feng Yu showed a shocked expression, and this made Fu Guangzheng felt proud. Although he was not his father’s favorite, his father had never stopped him from using his name when doing business.

He wanted to make use of this used car business to prove himself to his father.

Translator Notes: Traditional Chinese families have this practice of using one same character for the names of the same generation. E.g., Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his brother Lee Hsien Yang. Famous Hong Kong actors, Michael Hui, Ricky Hui and Sam Hui had the same character in their names.

Superman Li is the nickname for one of Asia most influential entrepreneurs, Li Ka-Shing. He is the 23rd wealthiest man in the world as of Jan 2018 (taken from Wikipedia).

Chapter 77 – The popular farming machines (Part 1)

Tai Hua Trading’s account had almost 10 million RMB and does not include Kirilenko’s payment of 1 million Rubles. The next batch of used cars will arrive in November. Feng Yu decided to bring in a bunch of agricultural machinery from the Soviet Union first.

The Autumn harvest had started, and this was the time when farming machines got damaged. If he imported a batch of these machines or even spare parts now, he would not worry about the sales.

The sales for the agricultural machinery and spare parts were the highest just before and after the Spring farming and Autumn harvest.

Feng Yu organized a list of the types and quantity of popular farming machines and tools and telegrammed the list to Kirilenko. He wanted Kirilenko to give him a quote.

The next day, Li Shiqiang received a telegram from the Post Office. Kirilenko had sent over a list of prices for different types of farming machines and parts.

Feng Yu made some calculations. After deducting Kirilenko’s transportation fees, taxes and the cost, the profits were not high. There were even no profits for some products.

Those that were in this trade will still bring in these products, even if they were making a loss. This was because they wanted to have a wide range of products. But Feng Yu was different. He does not intend to do this business for long. He only wanted to make some money in this year.

“Brother Li, send these to Brother Ki and ask him to send out these products as soon as possible. Also, ask Zhigang and the rest to make sales call and get the market prices for tractors and harvesters. We will be selling a batch of those early next year.”

“Ok. Leave these to me. It’s late. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Feng Yu looked at Li Shiqiang and his sister. Their wedding date was confirmed to be on next Lunar New Year. Now, there were already living together.

When they bought this apartment, Feng Yu wanted to buy a few more units, but his parents didn’t approve. Now, there were not enough rooms, and his sister had to live with Li Shiqiang.

How can a young couple living together not do some naughty things? Feng Yu was not very sure previously, but today, Li Shiqiang was asking Feng Yu to go and sleep. Does this still need any explanations?

Feng Yu looked at Li Shiqiang and seriously said: “Brother Li if my sister got pregnant before you two were married, my father might not beat my sister but will definitely bring the shotgun along for a talk with you.”

“Cough…… What are you saying? Hurry and go to bed!”

……

Kirilenko was quick to send out the shipment. In the Soviet Union, there were stockpiles of these farming machinery and parts. Kirilenko was able to procure the items on the list quickly and ship to Feng Yu.

Kirilenko was really enjoying his life during this period. Good wine and women, and, his wealth was increasing every day. His reputation, among the second generations and the business circle, rose too. This was because of the popular Chinese products in his hands.

However, this business was a partnership, and he was only one of the shareholders. If only he owns this business himself. But his partners had strong backgrounds, and he can’t just ditch them and venture on his own.

……

“I am here first. I should load first.”

“Bullshit! I was waiting here since last night. I should be first.”

“Get lost! I am the first to sign the contract so I should be first.”

……

A few farming machinery dealers were crowding around the freight station. They wanted to be the first to load the goods onto their vehicles. The earlier they load, the earlier they could occupy the market. They did not segregate the market, and they planned to sell these products in another person’s territory. There were even some from the same city. The one that was faster would earn more money.

“Stop shouting. What did we tell you when you signed the contract? Those who pay first will get to load first. Those who pay later will load later. Mr. Xu, why are you rushing? Your truck is not here yet!”

Looking at these people arguing, Li Shiqiang had no choice but to step up and maintain order. Luckily, Tai Hua Trading was notorious and different from other companies. From the boss to the staffs, everyone was arrogant.

These people can afford to be arrogant because of the popular products they were selling, and everyone was rushing to buy from them. Good quality farming machinery from the Soviet Union! Even the parts were more durable and better than domestically produced.

After Li Shiqiang shouted at them, these people loaded their trucks according to their time of payments. The most frustrated of them all was Mr. Xu. He was the second to make payments, but he could not find any trucks.

When there was no need for trucks, you can see these trucks everywhere. But when there was a need for trucks, these trucks were nowhere to be seen.

When the third person started loading, his truck had not arrived yet. No choice. The truck he hired had just returned from other places and had not finished unloading at other sites.

After school, Feng Yu went to the freight station and saw the loading was almost completed.

“Brother Li, what’s the matter?”

Li Shiqiang said excitedly: “Xiao Yu, we had sold everything. These goods were so popular. The money was deposited into the company’s account. More than 4 million RMB!”

Li Shiqiang covered his mouth and whispered the last sentence to Feng Yu.

The prices for this batch of goods were set by Feng Yu. But Li Shiqiang was the one who signed the contracts and collected the payments. Feng Yu only knew that Li Shiqiang was very busy yesterday and returned home quite late. He didn’t have the time to ask him yesterday. He was surprised that everything was sold when he came to the freight station.

These lads were really something. They did not skive even when they were out making sales calls. Must give them more rewards this month and let them know that their hard work was not for nothing. This way, they will work even harder for the company.

Later, Feng Yu found out that his staffs had got hold of a list of machinery dealers from the Motor Factory. They even bought dealer lists from other factories within and outside of Bing City. They visited these dealers based on the list and this way, saved them a lot of time.

There were still a lot of dealers they had not visited. If they had visited everyone on the lists, there would not be enough goods for everyone!

In this era, customers had the impression that imported goods were better and if the products were imported from the Soviet Union, it will even be better. The Soviet Union was a big industrial country, and China produced tractors, farming machines were imitated from the Soviet Union.  These Soviet Union products were better than domestic ones, and the prices were still low. How can these dealers miss out such good deals?

Feng Yu had not expected these goods to be so popular. It seems that he was too conservative when he ordered only 3 million RMB worth of products. He immediately called Kirilenko and asked him to ship another batch of products over quickly. There were 30% profits to make!

Kirilenko answered Feng Yu’s call and smiled: “I knew that those goods were not enough. Didn’t you notice the prices I quoted you? You can’t even get these prices in the Soviet Union! I had already prepared 1 million Rubles worth of goods for you. Rest assured. This batch will definitely arrive at Bing City within one week.”

These goods were stocked piled in some factories and unable to sell. Those factories leaders were still worried and wondering what to do with those goods. Kirilenko was also shamelessly. He approached these factories leaders and told them that the Soviet Army wants to support their allies, China. He even got a military document with a red seal. In the end, he offered some Chinese products in exchange and got these goods at a meager price. In total, he only spent less than 300,000 Rubles for everything.

These monies were all Kirilenko’s. He had left his partners out of this deal. He was the one who had built this sales channel. He was the one who had worked the most and should be getting more money!

Chapter 78 – The popular farming machines (Part 2)

“Director, oh no, oh no……”

“What are you yelling for? Can’t you keep it down?” Bing City’s machinery factory director Li Mingde put down his newspaper and angrily looked at his Sales Department head, Wang Aiguo.

“Director, there is bad news!”

“What bad news? The Japanese are attacking us again?” Li Mingde replied jokingly. But Wang Aiguo did not laugh at his joke. Li Mingde picked up the teacup and slowly savor the tea. This tea leaf was given to him the Deputy Chief of the Industrial Department.

Last month, because of the Autumn harvest, the Machinery factory’s sales were the highest in history. Because of this, Li Mingde was commented by the Deputy Mayor. If he is lucky, he might be transferred to the Industrial Department to be a leader.

“No. Director Li, didn’t you instructed us to manufacture more agricultural tools and machines for the National day?”

“Yes. What’s wrong? During the meeting yesterday, it was mentioned that our production had increased further. Are you afraid that we do not have enough goods?”

“It’s not about having not enough goods. It’s about unable to sell off the goods!” Wang Aiguo replied.

“What? Unable to sell off the goods? How can this be? Every year, this period is our peak period. How can our goods be unsold?” Li Mingde was surprised. He had asked the workers to work overtime to increase production. If these machines were unsold, he might be unable to pay the production workers salaries as all the factory’s cash were used to produce these machines. He had promised the Deputy Mayor that the sales would surpass 10 million RMB as a National Day gift.

“I had contacted those dealers, and most of them do not need any more agricultural machines. Only a few of them express interest in ordering from us, but they wanted us to lower our prices.”

“They do not have a shortage of goods? Impossible! There was an increase in the number of farms this year, and every city’s government were following the provincial government’s instruction to promote the use of machinery in farming. How can they have no shortages in these machines?”

“I had asked around, and I heard that there was a batch of Soviet Union produced farming machines in the market. Those dealers had imported those machines, and those who can’t get their hands on those machines were still waiting. All these dealers refused to order from us!”

“Soviet-made machines? The prices should be much higher than us. Could it be expensive machines sells better?” Li Mingde was confused. Things should work this way.

“Director, these Soviet machines were not more expensive than our machines. They were a lot cheaper than us. Their retail prices were almost on par with our cost prices!”

“Retail prices almost on par with our cost prices? Impossible!”

“It’s real. If not, why would those dealers want us to lower our prices? Also, Soviet farming machines were imported and more durable. Now no one is buying our machines!”

“Did you find out where did these dealers got those machines from?”

“yes. It is a private company by the name of Tai Hua Trading Company. It was also this company which introduced the Wind and Rain electric fans last summer.”

“Ok. I know. You go back to work first. You must think of a way to sell off this batch of farming machines before National Day!” Li Mingde waited till Wang Aiguo left the room and called the deputy director who was in charge of the production to his office. He asked the deputy director to inform the production line to temporarily stop working, citing the workers needed a few days of rest after working so hard for one month.

After Li Mingde finished giving out his instructions, he asked his secretary to notify his driver. He needs to go to the Industrial Department and complain to the leaders there about Tai Hua Trading for disturbing the market.

……

Those dealers rushed to Tai Hua Trading after they received news of them importing a new batch of farming machines from the Soviet Union. This time, they were smart. They prepared cash as they wanted to be the first one to load their trucks.

They had set the retail prices for the last batched of machines and tools from the Soviet Union was 10% above the cost price. The quality was better, more durable and these were imported goods. The prices were also lower than Bing City’s Machinery Factory. These goods were sold out within a week!

Farmers usually stayed near to each other and had a competitive mindset. If one of them bought a cheap farming machine or tool, the news would spread fast, and the rest will follow suit as they don’t want to lose out to others.

For instance, Feng Yu’s father borrowed money to purchase a 55 Tractor after he saw someone using it!

A lot of people came after hearing the news of cheap and durable imported farming machines. But they were disappointed when they heard that the machines were sold out. The dealers were anxious too. Who doesn’t want more of these popular goods? The more they sell, the more they will profit. As such, they called up Tai Hua Trading every day asking if there were any more goods and when will the next batch arrive.

When these dealers arrived, they soon discovered that there were more people compared to the last time. They knew each other, and when they saw an unfamiliar face, they knew that Tai Hua trading had reached out to more regions.

Will there be enough goods for them?

This batch of machines and tools was not enough for these people. Everyone wanted to purchase more and were not afraid of keeping extra. They knew that these goods will be sold during next spring. Most importantly, these machines were extremely popular. These Soviet Union produced machines were selling better than the ones sold by any of the state-owned factories in Longjiang Province or any other provinces!

Feng Yu had not thought of this. He felt that the autumn harvest was coming to an end and it will be until next spring before anyone wants to buy farming machines. He did not know that these dealers were willing to stock up on these machines and were afraid that there will not be any cheap Soviet Union produced farming machines.

These people also ordered seeders, rotary tiller, sprinkler and many other machines which were not used during autumn harvest. Feng Yu had imported thresher, harvester and the spare parts for these big machinery. His thinking was too constricted. As long as the price was low, no matter what type of machine, these dealers will also want it!

What’s there to wait? Call and order more!

Kirilenko was also very surprised. He knew that the prices he gave Feng Yu were low and these machines should be popular. But he did not expect these machines were so popular.

He had underestimated the agricultural machinery demand in China.

Once again, Kirilenko forged some documents and purchased large quantities of machinery from those factories. This time, the number and varieties were more significant and worth almost 4 million Rubles.

If it wasn’t for the difficulties in transportation, Feng Yu still wanted to bring in a batch of tractors. Many dealers wished to order tractors.

These few days, Wu Zhigang and the rest were very busy. They were traveling all over the province, visiting dealers and promoting their Soviet agricultural machines.

After they had liaised with all the dealers in the province, they started to contact Lin Province. Anyway, Lin Province was located not far away, and there was not much difference for the transportation.

Feng Yu had told them that they will be surprised by their bonus this month!

If you want a horse to run, the horse must be fed well first!

Under the motivation of the upcoming bonus, these lads were working harder! The reputation of Tai Hua Trading grew with the dealers in the agricultural machinery market, and more orders were coming in.

But there was a threat waiting for them behind all these.

Chapter 79 – The Company was suspended

“Feng Yu, can you go out for a while? Your family is looking for you.”

Feng Yu was in the middle of class when someone knocked on the door. The teacher opened the door, had a few words with the one standing outside and called Feng Yu.

“Brother Li, what happened?” Feng Yu had an uneasy feeling. If it were nothing extraordinary, Li Shiqiang would not look for him in school. What he worried most was something terrible happened to his family!

“Xiao Yu, our company was suspended!”

“What? The company was suspended! Who ordered this suspension and for what reason?” Feng Yu was shocked. The company can close, but if the company was suspended, the company’s account would be frozen. If he had no money, he would miss the great opportunity next year. That opportunity will be more profitable than running the company!

“The City’s anti-smuggling team of the Police. They claimed that we are smuggling!”

“Help me apply the day off from school and we will go to the anti-smuggling team!”

……

“You two are from Tai Hua Trading? Where is the registered owner and why did you bring a student here?”

Because of the rushed, Feng Yu was still in his Third High School’s uniform.

“The owner is my father, and he had authorized me to handle all matters regarding the Company.”

The officer looked curiously at Feng Yu. There must be something wrong with the owner of the company. Why did he send a student over? Did he think that he was able to escape punishment by sending a student over? Now was only gathering facts and later, the owner would still have to go to jail. Did the owner think that this kid would go to jail in his place?

“You can handle this? What do you know? Eh, I am talking to you. Ask the owner to come over now. If not, it will be more serious!” The officer pointed at Li Shiqiang and shouted arrogantly.

“You said that we were smuggling. Where’s the proof? We have legal documents for all our products. How can we be smuggling?” Feng Yu asked loudly.

“What are you shouting for? Where do you think this is? This is the Anti-smuggling office! I will arrest you if you raise your voice again and even make your school expel you!”

Feng Yu’s shouting attracted the Captain.

“What is happening? Xiao Su, who are these two people?”

“Captain Zheng, these two are from Tai Hua Trading. They want to create trouble!” The officer accused Feng Yu and Li Shiqiang in front of them.

“We are not creating trouble but here to understand what’s happening? Our company was accused of smuggling goods and can’t we come over and find out what actually happened?” Feng Yu turned and spoke to Captain Zheng.

“Where did you get those Soviet Union produced agricultural machines imported by your company?”

“We bought them.”

“You bought them? If those were bought through legal means, why are they so cheap? Where’s the contract? Where’s the import documents?” Captain Zheng sneered.

These imported machines were of good quality and priced lowered than domestic produced machines. These can’t be imported legally! Furthermore, he was instructed by Deputy Mayor Xu’s secretary to “take care” of this Tai Hua company. Of course, he had to act fast and settle this properly.

“We have the contract and importation documents. You can send someone to accompany us back to the company to retrieve it.” There was a seal on the main door of the company, and it was against the law to remove the seal themselves.

“You dare to order me? No contract and no documents mean that you are smuggling!”

No matter what Feng Yu said, this Captain Zheng did not listen. In the end, he got his men to throw the two of them out of his office.

“What should we do now, Xiao Yu? Should I think of a way to ask that Captain Zheng out and give him some gifts?” Li Shiqiang said worryingly. Smuggling was considered a serious crime.

Feng Yu waved his hands and said: “No. From his attitude just now, he does not want money. If he wanted money from us, he can just bring his men to our office for a talk. He does not need to suspend and seal our company. There must be someone behind all these. Let’s go to the Office of Foreign Trade.”

This period, Feng Yu did not forget to keep in touch with Bing City’s future Mayor. He often drops by his office to “report his progress” or thank the support of the Office of Foreign Trade.

This time, he might need the help of Li Ruiqiang. If Feng Yu could retrieve the documents, he will be able to prove his company’s innocent.

Li Ruiqiang sat on the sofa and listened to Feng Yu. When Feng Yu finished, he asked: “Can you explain to me why the machines imported by your company so cheap?”

“The Soviet Union’s economy is not doing well now, and there is a lack of development in their agricultural sector. This affected the sales of these agricultural machines. Our Soviet partner sold these machines to us at a low price and we, in turn, sell these machines to the dealers at a low price too. We are using the cost leadership strategy.”

“What are you saying? The Soviet Union’s economy is not doing well? Where did you hear it from? Even if they lacked in the agricultural development, why can’t they export those machines to other countries? Why should they sell those machines to you at such low prices?” Zhang Ruiqiang doesn’t believe what Feng Yu had just said.

“The Soviet Union’s economy is currently going downhill. It is because they had used all their budget on their military. My partner’s father is a high-ranking officer in the Soviet Army. We had worked together for a long time, and the products our company exported was to his company. He wanted to sell these farming machines, of course, he would look for me first. The prices are low was because he had got them cheap.”

Zhang Ruiqiang did not pay attention to the last few sentences. He was thinking about what Feng Yu said about the decline of Soviet Union’s economy. What Feng Yu said made sense to him. He was only curious about why the farming machines were so cheap. Even if Feng Yu did not ask him for help, he would also help him. His office had just given Tai Hua Trading Company an award and now this company was being suspended for smuggling? This was like a slap to the Office of Foreign Trade’s face!

Zhang Ruiqiang also liked Feng Yu. Although Feng Yu was still young and attending high school, he was competent and knows how to build good relationships. Just the Autumn festival two days ago. Tai Hua Trading had given his department a lot of festive gifts, and his men can enjoy an enjoyable holiday.

Sometimes, he felt that Feng Yu was too matured for his age. He felt like a teenager with an old man’s soul.

Zhang Ruiqiang picked up the phone in front of Feng Yu and made a call to his friend in the City Government to ask him to find out what happened to Tai Hua Trading.

After a while, the other party called back and told him that he had found out from the Anti-Smuggling Team that it was the instructions from the Deputy Mayor Xu. He can’t help much.

He knew Deputy Mayor Xu they were not close and not considered friends. He made a call to the Deputy Mayor and found out that he had ordered his men to investigate Tai Hua Trading because they were selling those machines cheaply. The machines could be obtained through illegal means.

Deputy Mayor Xu oversaw Industrial development, and Zhang Ruiqiang knew that this was about local protectionism. The local factory must have complained to the Deputy Mayor.

Although the Deputy Mayor did not lift the suspension, he still agreed to allow Tai Hua Trading’s staff to retrieve the documents from their office because of Zhang Ruiqiang. With the papers, Feng Yu would be able to prove that he did not smuggle in the machines.

But later, Deputy Mayor Xu also mentioned that even if Tai Hua Trading was proved to import those machines in legally, they were not allowed to sell those machines so cheaply!

Translator notes: Michael Porter stated in his book, about the 3 approaches to business strategies. He called these strategies “Generic strategies”, which consists of   Cost leadership, Differentiation and Focus strategies. Management students should be familiar with these.

Chapter 80 – From Farming Machinery to Production Facilities

Fortunately for Feng Yu, he had all the paperwork for those imported farming machines. He submitted those documents to the Anti-smuggling team, and the suspension was lifted. Tai Hua Trading Company’s bank account was also unfrozen.

But Feng Yu was unhappy. He was warned by the officials from the City Government. If he carries on importing cheap machinery from the Soviet Union and follow their instructions to increase the selling price, other departments will step in and suspend his company again.

But this importation business had almost 30% profits, and he also had an established sales distribution network. Feng Yu was reluctant to give these up.

Feng Yu sighed. This was all because he does not have enough authority. If he had a few billion RMB now, the City Deputy Mayor and even the Provincial Deputy Mayor would dare to create trouble for him.

Previously, Song Xiaofeng dared to create trouble for Feng Yu was because Tai Hua Trading was still a small company. If Tai Hua Trading was the biggest company in Bing City and Feng Yu’s assets was a few times more than Song Laosi, Song Xiaofeng would not dare to touch Feng Yu.

When one’s assets reached a certain level, it can be converted into authority and power.

Zhang Ruiqiang had made it very clear to Feng Yu. If he were to carry on importing those farming machines, he must talk to Bing City’s Machinery Factory.

The next day, Feng Yu applied another day off from school and went to Bing City’s Machinery Factory with Li Shiqiang to look for Li Mingde.

“You two are from Tai Hua Trading? Don’t think that the Foreign Trade Office’s Deputy Chief Zhang Ruiqiang had helped you and you will be saved. All matters relating to Bing City would still be referred to the City Government!” Li Mingde slowly drank his tea. He had sent his men to the dealers in the province and warned them. There will not be any more machines from the Soviet Union, and if they dare to order machines from Tai Hua Trading, he will force Tai Hua Trading to shut down!

Those dealers also received news that Tai Hua Trading was suspended. Although the suspension was lifted within a short time, Tai Hua Trading told them that the sales of the Soviet farming machines will be discontinued.

“Director Li, you think we are here to apologize?” Feng Yu crossed his legs and said.

When you meet a bully, you must never give in. If you give in, the bully will think that you fear him and he will be more arrogant!

Li Mingde face changed. What’s the meaning of this? Not here to apologize? Then he is here to gloat? Humph! Machinery Factory had the backing of the City Government. A measly Foreign Trade Office cannot be compared.

“If that is so, then you two are here to create trouble? I want to see what can a small company like Tai Hua Trading can do!”

Li Shiqiang anxiously looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu did not tell him that they were here to find trouble. They had just met and started arguing. Does that mean that they will not import any more farming machines from the Soviet Union?

Even if they were not doing this business in future, it was not wise to offend Li Mingde. Li Mingde was still considered a Government official and had a good relationship with the City Government. He had a lot of ways to shut down their company.

Suddenly, Feng Yu laughed and said: “Director Li had misunderstood me. I am not here to apologize nor create trouble. I am here to ask Director Li if your factory wants Soviet Union’s advanced machinery facilities?”

Li Shiqiang was shocked. How did the conversation turn into this? Li Mingde sat up straight. The Soviet Union does not sell their advance machinery facilities to China. This Feng Yu was able to get his hands on these facilities?

“What do you mean?”

“If I can import advanced machinery from the Soviet Union, including the technology to produce agricultural machines and equipment, how much is your factory willing to offer?”

The recession had begun in the Soviet Union. Previously, the Soviet Union relied on the exportation of gold, oil and military products to maintain their economic growth. But now, there were a lot of smuggling activities for these products. The government, high ranking military officers, and their families were involved in these smuggling activities. They did this to pass their wealth to their later generations.

Kirilenko and his business partners were the typical second generation of high ranking military officers. Their freight trains belong to the Soviet Union military, and they were using it for their own purposes. Also, they do not need to pay any tax as they did business in the name of the Military.

From 1985 onwards, the agricultural industry, especially the food production, was on a declined. This lead to the Soviet Union’s agricultural machinery sales falling year after year.

They used to export to Europe, but now, that market was taken away by the Germany and France. Germany had occupied more than half of Europe’s market share.

If the Soviet Union wants to export farming machinery to Europe, they would have to reduce their prices. But lowering prices meant making a loss and acknowledging they were losing out to the Germans and French. What can the Soviets do? They can only grit their teeth and hang on!

On the next year onwards, there will be more factories stopping their productions. In 1990, the Soviet Union’s economy got worse and collapsed. It was then when the disintegration of the Soviet Union officially began.

When Feng Yu ordered the agricultural machines from Kirilenko a few days ago, he had asked Kirilenko about these production facilities. If Feng Yu only imported these machines, he was the only that gained from it. But if he brings in the production technologies and advanced production lines, the whole China will benefit!

Feng Yu was not a noble person. But if there was an opportunity for him to earn money and at the same time, do something for his country’s economy, why not? Furthermore, Feng Yu also got the chance to get close to the City Government and paved the way for his company’s development.

Li Shqiang only remembered Feng Yu had a long talk with Li Mingde. At first, there was a lot of tension between the both. But later, the tensions were gone, and Li Mingde even showed Feng Yu to the door personally and shook his hands enthusiastically.

Back at the office, all the staffs were playing poker leisurely. They were bored. When they saw Feng Yu entering, they quickly kept the cards.

“Everything is fine now. Go back and rest for a few days and come back after the National Day holidays. Brother Li, give each of them 500 RMB as their bonus. Also give out another 2,000 RMB as commission, according to their contacted dealers’ sales.”

Feng Yu was in a good mood, and he decided to be generous for once. He doubled the bonus and rewards. He wanted these lads to be loyal to him. These people were trained by him personally, and he doesn’t want them to leave.

Everyone cheered. They were called back to the company yesterday when the company was suspended in the morning. They thought the company would shut down. But later in the evenings, the suspension was lifted, and nothing had happened to Feng Yu. Today, Feng Yu announced their bonus and commissions. The one with the highest commissions and bonus amounted to almost 900 RMB. This was equivalent to the annual salary of a worker at the motor factory!

Li Shiqiang went to give out the bonuses and commission, and Feng Yu started translating a few things which were written on a few pieces of paper into Russian. He then copied everything on a clean sheet of paper.

He brought the piece of paper to the Post Office to make an international call and fax to Kirilenko.

“Feng, you really want production machinery facilities and technologies? These things were not easily available. Even if people were selling, the prices would not be low.” Kirilenko had asked around. Although there were a few agricultural machinery production factories in a semi-shutdown state, these factories had no intention of selling their production lines.

“My good friend, Brother Ki, surely you have a way. We can talk about money later. Don’t worry, I will not let my friends make losses!”

“Then … Fine. I will try and will get back to you within a week.”

Chapter 81 – The Harvest

There was a school activity on the day before National Day. This activity was the school’s tradition. All the students got to go to the farms to do the harvesting. This was to let the students experience the hardships of a farmer and remind them not to waste food.

In every classroom, there were two poems about the hardship of farming written on the wall.

“Under the mid-day sun, the farmers were working in the fields. Their sweat drips into the soil. Who knows how much hardship was there in each grain of rice?”

“Planting a seed in Spring and collecting 10,000 grains in Autumn. There were no fields that were not planted, but there were farmers that starved to death.”

This was a poem by a Tang Dynasty famous poet, Li Shen. But for Feng Yu who like history, knew that Li Shen wrote this poem was just to gain the attention of the Emperor and get promotions. And after Li Shen was promoted, he just enjoyed his life and was never concerned about the hardship of the farmers.

Although Feng Yu does not like Li Shen, these two poems were really well written.

The students sat in the bus for 2 hours and finally reached a farm, north of Bing City. This farm was only about 1 hour away from Feng Yu family farm.

There was a cornfield here, and the students were to cut the stalk, peel off the husk. Corn and stack them together to wait for the tractor to transport them away.

Now in Longjiang province, the main crops were wheat, followed by soybeans. There were very few corn fields around. That’s why they had to travel so far. This was the closest corn farm which the school contacted.

There were about 500 students from the school, and they were divided into their classes. The school also allocated areas to each class.

There were about 40 students in a class, and they oversaw such a small area. If it were at a real farm, it would take 5 men to finish harvesting this area within a day. The students were all hyped up to experience the life of a farmer.

However, there were also students who grumbled. There were from a farming family, and they had to harvest corns instead of helping with their families at their own farms.

Feng Yu, Wen Dongjun and a few others who had come from farming families, were more familiar with the farming work compared to the students from the cities. They were assigned to cut the stalks with a sickle, and the rest will follow behind to remove the husk and stack the corns into a pile.

Wen Dongjun, like a raging bull, slices through the corn stalks at an alarming speed and soon he was way ahead of the pack.

“Look at me, I am so fast unlike the rest of you. You all are moving at snail speed.” Wen Dongjun said proudly with his sickle resting on his shoulder.

Feng Yu shook his head and thought: “This idiot.”

“Dongjun, didn’t you notice you are the fastest among those who oversaw the cutting of corn stalks? You are even faster than those year 3 students. Don’t you find it weird?”

Wen Dongjun scratched his head and asked: “Why?”

“It was because the cornfield is only this big. If you had cut all the corn stalks now, what will you do in the afternoon? Watch the rest of the students remove the husk? This means that the faster you are, the more you got to work! You think the teachers will praise you, or the other students will be in awe of you?”

Wen Dongjun was speechless. He realized that it was not the rest of the students were slow, but they were taking their own sweet time. He looked around and saw that all the students were chatting while they work. In the end, he was the only silly one working so hard!

“Eh, learn from us. Work for a while and rest for a while. Or you can sit on those stalks to rest. If you carry on working so fast, you will make the rest of us look bad. You really want that?” Feng Yu patiently taught Wen Dongjun the art of skiving. This Wen Dongjun should be good at skiving but where did all his smartness go?

Without a word, Wen Dongjun sat on the corn stalks and rested. But after a while, he got bored. He had nothing to do, and there was no one to talk to him.

He saw the corn stalk and got an idea.

Feng Yu saw two corn stalks which were still green, and he used his sickle to cut it. He then sliced the outer layer of the stem to reveal the tender and juicy part. One bite and you can taste the sweet juice flowing out.

There were sugar canes in the South and in the North, there was something that looks like corn and sorghum. It was called Sweet Sorghum. It was about the thickness of a finger and tastes like sugar cane. If there were a lot of rain and not much sun, the lower portion of the corn stalk would also have some parts which were very sweet.

Feng Yu used his sickle and cut away the part he bit and then removed the outer layers of the rest of the corn stalk. He walked towards Li Na with the corn stalk.

“You must be thirsty. Have some sweet corn stalk.”

Feng Yu passed the one which he had tasted, to Li Na and Fat chick snatched away the other. They were the only ones besides this small pile of corns. Now, the rest of the students dared not play with Li Na. This was all Fat chick’s fault. She had spread rumors about Feng Yu’s family associating with the triads, and Li Na was dragged along as well.

Li Na had hesitated before but how can she be a matched for the “wisdom” of Feng Yu’s forty years old experience? It only takes Feng Yu a few words, and they were back like before.

Li Na took a small bite and slowly chew. She had a beautiful smile, and her eyes narrowed into a crescent.

“It’s sweet.”

“Bah, bah, bah. What sweet corn stalk? It smelled like the sewers and had an astringent taste!” Fat chick spat out the dregs and complained.

Feng Yu calmly explained: “Maybe you are unlucky. After all, these are corn stalks and not Sweet Sorghum. It is normal if there are some which are not sweet.”

Li Na broke her corn stalk into 2 and passed half of it to Fat Chick. Fat Chick cautiously took a bite, and it was indeed sweet!

“You break this half into 2, and we share it.” Li Na passed the remaining half to Feng Yu. She saw Feng Yu’s lips were dry.

“I can’t break it. You eat it. I will be in front cutting those stalks. I can find more of it.”

Li Na insisted Feng Yu to have at least a bite. Feng Yu leaned forward and was prepared to bite the part where Li Na had eaten before.

“Who? Who hit me?” Feng Yu turn around angrily, looking around. Just when he was about to bite into the corn stalk, he felt something hit him on the back of his head.

“Hahaha, how was it? This corn stalk bow I made was not bad. I can hit your head from this distance!” A few meters away, Wen Dongjun was holding on to a bow made from corn stalk, looking proudly at Feng Yu. The thing that hit Feng Yu was a small piece of the corn stalk.

Fuck. This idiot kept interrupting me!

“Cornstalk bow? I would like to see if your bow is more accurate than the corn stalk I throw!”

Feng Yu picked up the piece of corn stalk which Fat Chick had thrown earlier, broke it into two and threw at that idiot. He must teach this idiot a lesson today!

Li Na blushed when she saw Feng Yu breaking that piece of corn stalk into two. She remembered that Feng Yu had earlier claimed that he was unable to break her corn stalk, and was about to bite the part where she had eaten.

Author’s notes: Li Shen was not some kind person, and his reputation as a court official was not good either. There were sayings that he likes to eat chicken tongue. A plate of chicken tongues means a few dozen chickens!

Chapter 82 – The Woes of borrowing money

There were two rest days because of the National Day and the weekends. In that era, there was no golden week, and there was not even five-day work week.

The students finished their tasks in the afternoon, and the farmer collected the corns in a tractor. This activity was finally over after the corns were loaded.

Those staying near the farm and the countryside went home for the holidays. They only need to be back in school on Sunday night. Feng Yu had also informed his father and Feng Xingtai’s jeep was parked outside the cornfield.

Feng Yu, Wen Dongjun, Li Kun and Li Na got a ride in the jeep back to their farms. The three boys sat in the rear seats, and Li Na sat in the front passenger seat. Her face was red and kept her head lowered. She dared not look at Feng Xingtai, but Feng Xingtai kept talking to her.

Wen Dongjun and Li Kun kept laughing secretly. Feng Yu, on the other hand, tried to change the topic. If Feng Xingtai knew that Feng Yu and Li Na were dating, Feng Yu would be beaten up by his father with the feather duster. He had got into the best high school in the city, yet he was not studying hard and start dating at this age!

Feng Xingtai sent Li Na and Liu Kun to the village town and then proceed back to their farmland using a shortcut.

At their door, Feng Yu saw a few bicycles parked outside. He felt that it was strange. There were visitors at his house?

Feng Xingtai’s face changed when he saw those bicycles and did not stop. Instead, he sent Feng Yu back to Wen Dongjun’s house.

“You play at Dongjun’s house first and come home half an hour later.”

Feng Yu was curious and asked: “Dad, what’s wrong?”

“It’s none of your business. Just come home after half an hour!”

When Feng Yu entered, Wen Dongjun was surprised. Didn’t Feng Yu return home? After a day of working in the fields, he was not tired?

“Feng Yu, your parents went to the fields? Have some peanuts and help yourself to the drinks.”

“Our family’s land finished harvesting last week. I am also not sure what had happened, but I am supposed to stay here for half an hour before can return home.”

Wen Dongjun’s mother suddenly said: “There must be someone here to borrow money again. Almost every day, there will be someone going to your father to borrow money. Your father is busier than Dongjun’s father who is the village head.”

“Borrow money? Borrow what money?” Wen Dongjun asked. Feng Yu’s family does not have any relatives staying in the village. Who will borrow money from them?

Feng Yu understood. This was the sad thing about staying in the farmlands. It was too small, and news spread very fast. If something happened in one’s family, everyone would know about it the next day.

Everyone in the village said that the Feng family had become wealthy. The daughter had found a wealthy husband in the city. Feng Xingtai can even afford to drive a jeep. The village head can only ride a small Jialing motorcycle.

There were some who were close to Feng Xingtai and wanted to borrow 3,000 RMB. Feng Xingtai just lent him the money without batting an eyelid. This made the rest believed that the Fengs really were rich.

A few people also came to Feng Xingtai’s house to borrow money. The excuses were either they need a few more thousand RMB to buy a tractor, did not have a good harvest, not enough money to feed their wife and kids, there were some who wanted to borrow over ten thousand RMB for a harvester and will pay back after a few years!

At first, Feng Xingtai lend them a few thousand because he had more than 50,000 RMB at home. But later, more and more people came to his house to borrow money. These shameless people did not even want to give interest and said that they will not be able to repay in the next 3 to 5 years. This money, they will return the money slowly over the years. There were even some who claims that they had helped Feng Xingtai with his farm before and now he is rich so he should at least give them a few thousand RMB. They were shameless enough to directly asked for money from him!

Feng Xingtai was pissed. His son had earned these monies, and these monies did not drop from the sky. Why must he lend them money just because they needed it? Those few who borrowed earlier promised to return the following year and agreed to include interest at the same rate as the bank. But those that came later were shameless beyond words. The Feng family was not a bank that printed money!

However, they were all living in the same village, and Feng Xingtai did not chase them away but politely rejected them by saying he had lent out all his money. But these people did not believe him and even questioned him: “You had lent XXX money, why are you not lending me money?”

Feng Xingtai was speechless and thought: “These were my money and I can choose to lend my money to whoever I like. Your tone and attitude doesn’t sound like you are borrowing money from me but sounds like you are asking me to repay you a debt!”

Feng Xingtai was very angry, and he rejected everyone who had came to him to borrow money!

Half an hour later, Feng Yu returned home. Those bicycles were not there anymore, and Feng Yu thought that those people had left. But when he entered the house, he saw 2 people inside. They seem to be waiting for dinner.

“Oh, Xiaoyu is back. Did you get used to your new school in the city? Oh yeah, your sister got a rich boyfriend, and he should not treat you too bad.”

“Yes, Brother Feng is so lucky. His daughter got a rich boyfriend, and his son can study so well. He definitely can get into university in future and return to the farm as a leader.”

Feng Yu suddenly asked curiously: “Uncle Song, Uncle Zheng, why are you at my house? Shouldn’t you be at home for dinner now?”

The smiles on their faces froze. This kid was chasing them out.

Luckily for them, Feng Xingtai said: “Xiaoyu, what are you saying!”

Smiles reappeared on these two faces. It seems like Feng Xingtai still wanted “face” and would ask them to stay for dinner. A few dishes and alcohol later, they will ask for a loan in front of Feng Yu. Feng Xingtai would not reject them.

Feng Xingtai said: “You think your Uncle Song and Uncle Zheng doesn’t know when to leave home for dinner? They do not need you to remind them.”

The smiles on their faces froze again. They couldn’t just say that they wanted to stay for dinner if they were not welcomed by Feng Xingtai.

“Yes, we are leaving. Brother Feng, we will come back tomorrow to discuss further.”

“I am leaving too. Brother Feng, you don’t need to see me out.”

After those two left, Feng Xingtai sighed. Zhang Muhua also came back from outside. When she saw Feng Yu, the worries on her face were all gone: “Son, you must be hungry. What do you want to eat for dinner?”

“Stir-fried shredded potatoes and salted duck eggs.”

While waiting for his mother to cook, Feng Yu asked his father: “Dad, how much did we lend out and how many people borrowed from us?”

“I had lent out about 40,000 RMB to more than 1 people. They also signed an IOU. There were some that will return in 1 year and some 2 years. Sighed… Having more money is also not a good thing!” Feng Xingtai lit a cigarette and smoked.

“Dad, let’s move to the town. There is a new building which was completed this year. We can buy an apartment and stay away from these shameless people.”

“No. After we bought the apartment, they would think that we had become very rich and will have more excuses to borrow money from us. At least, we can’t move this year.”

“Dad, just forget about it since you had already lent the money out. We are really very rich now. It is only 40,000 RMB. Anytime, we can take out 4 million RMB. But we can’t carry on lending out money. Especially people like Uncle Song and Uncle Zheng. They don’t do any work but play mahjong every day. Even if you lend them money, they are also unable to repay us. Why not I think of a way to help everyone in our village earn some money!”

Feng Yu thought of an idea and should be able to get rid of these irritating people.

Chapter 83 – Raise Funds

“An idea to get rich? What can we, locals do? Other than our crops, we have nothing else. We are only good at farming and don’t have other skills.” Feng Xingtai shakes his head. This Feng Yu was not practical.

“Dad, you don’t believe what I said? You mentioned that we only have crops here, then we shall do food processing. Those Soybean oil, flour, corn flour, beets (a type of vegetables that look like carrots. In the North, they used that to produce sugar) are easy to process. I can get the machinery for these. If one is not stupid, they will be able to operate these machines after training for 2 to 3 days.”

The Soviet Union’s farming industry was on a declined these few years and the food processing plants were not in a semi-shutdown state. If Kirilenko was able to get his hands on the agricultural machinery production facilities, then he should have no problems getting these food processing machines.

There should be no problems with having a processing plant on the farm. Although they were unable to earn much at the start, in future, they should be doing well. As for the sales of the products, Feng Yu can quickly think of ways to popularize those products.

The most important thing for Feng Yu was that he could solve the problem of people coming to borrow money every day and help everyone on the farm to get rich.

“You are serious? Those production facilities are not cheap. Besides, the grain depot and the Agriculture Department also produces these things. You are sure that we are able to sell these products?”

“You don’t worry about the sales channels. I can guarantee that once the processed foods are produced, it will be sold off at high prices! The money for the processing machines is not an issue too. We will not be the only one coming out with the funds. We will be raising funds!”

“Raise funds?”

“Yes. Raise funds! Tomorrow, we will use the PA system to inform everyone that we are setting up a food processing factory. Those that are interested must pay for a stake in the factory, and the proportion of the shares will base on the amount they paid. At the end of the year, dividends will be paid out based on the number of shares they hold. 100 RMB for a share and 1,000 RMB for a stake in the factory. Everyone from the farm can participate!”

“At least 1,000 RMB? It’s a bit too much. Although many can afford, there will not be many that are willing to come out with that sum.” Feng Xingtai thinks that this idea will not work. Some families on the farm earned less than 1,000 RMB ad after deducting their daily expenses, they were left with only about 100 RMB.

There were some that had some money but who would want to invest in a food processing factory? This son is good at a lot of things, but he still has a lot to learn when it comes to farming,

“Dad, you still believe me? I can bring in the most advanced food processing machines from the Soviet Union. The quantity of the soybean oil we produced will be much higher than the grain depot. The quality of the flour will be better, and we can produce more sugar from the beets. You still think that we will make a loss?”

Feng Yu looked at his father’s expression and knew that he does not believe what he said. So, he mentioned about the machines from the Soviet Union to persuade him.

“Machines from the Soviet Union?” Feng Xingtai believed what Feng Yu said when he heard this. His impression of the machines produced by the Soviet Union was more advanced and much better than the domestic machines.

“That’s right. Dad, you just wait to be the boss of the factory. After dinner, we will go to Wen Dongjun’s house. This factory still need the village head’s support!”

It was evening 8pm, and Feng Yu spent another half an hour to convince Wen Deguang. Finally, he was confident that this factory will work and will help the village to prosper.

Early next morning, everyone was woken up by an announcement from the village PA system. Many families had just finished harvesting their fields and were drying their crops under the sun. Only when they finally had a few days of rest, they were woken by the PA system so early in the morning.

“Attention everyone. Good news, good news. Feng Xingtai from our farm has decided to set up a food processing factory and is raising funds from everyone. Those who are interested, please come to the village office.”

This announcement kept repeating the whole morning. Everyone on the farm had heard it. There were so who did not understand the announcement also went to the village office out of curiosity.

“OH, Brother Feng, you are wealthy now, and you are going to set up a factory. You still said that you don’t have any money to lend us? Just help us since we are from the same village. I just want to borrow 3,000 RMB. I will return you after a few years.”

“Yes, Brother Feng, I want to borrow 3,000 RMB too. We had known each other for so many years, and you should know me well.”

Feng Xingtai just kept quiet. He knows these people well, and that was the reason he did not lend them money. These people were shameless and sarcastic. If they were not from the same village, Feng Xingtai would have chased them away.

“Uncle Song, Uncle Zheng, why are you borrowing money?” Feng Yu suddenly asked.

“This… Why are you asking so much? You are just a kid and should not interrupt when grownups are talking!”

“They must be planning to gamble with the money! You two still have not learned your lesson after getting arrested last time? Get lost, or you will not be getting your welfare benefits this year! Wen Deguang angrily shouted. These two grownups had yelled at a kid in public. They were tarnishing the village’s image!

Wen Deguang was the village head and had some authority. After he scolded those two, they kept quiet. But these two did not leave the office and wanted to stay on to watch the “show.” Feng Xingtai is going to set up a factory? We will disrupt your plans!

“Almost everyone is here. Xingtai, you can tell everyone your plans.”

Feng Xingtai stood up and repeated what Feng Yu said last night. But he did not mention anything about the Soviet Union machines. He only said that he wanted to set up a food processing factory and those who were interested can fork out some money to buy a stake in the factory. This was called shareholdings system. There were a lot of private factories in China now, which operate this way.

“Everyone, don’t listen to him. He wants to cheat our money. The money you pay for the shares will be going into his pocket, and he will be depositing the money in the bank to earn the interest! Song Deliang shouted.

“That’s right. Feng Xingtai is so rich and if he wants to set up a factory, why should he raise funds from us? Didn’t you read the papers? There were many people got conned by this type of schemes. Feng Xingtai is a conman!” Zheng Guangming also shouted.

“The two of you shut up. It is an offense to spreading rumors is against the law! You two were just lazing around and doesn’t want to work, yet you still have the nerve to say others? You two are a disgrace to your families.  Accountant Liu, drag those two out!” Wen Deguang shouted angrily. He had called everyone here ad these two called Feng Xingtai a liar and a conman? Doesn’t that include him?

Feng Yu was quite pleased with those two. From now onwards, who would dare to go to his house and borrow money? If one really goes and borrow money, Feng Xingtai can, in turn, asked them to invest in the factory. Just like promoting Amway to insurance agents.

Feng Yu felt that this was an opportunity for the fellow villagers and this was voluntary. He can guarantee those who invest that this factory will be more profitable than farming. Those that did not invest can regret!

Although those two troublemakers were chased out, many others also left. They had thought the village was giving out some goodies but instead, they wanted to collect money from them. Food processing factory? It will be a miracle if it is profitable!

In the end, only seven villagers remained. They wanted to find out more. This included Li Jichuan’s father. Feng Yu swore in his heart that if these people invest 1,000 RMB in this factory, he will let them get back 10,000 RMB within 3 years!

Chapter 84 – Choosing the factory location

There were seven people left but were not particularly resolute. 1,000 RMB was not a small sum, and Feng Xingtai also told them that there was no maximum amount to invest. The more, the better.

These seven people that remained had privately cleared land at low-lying areas beside the river. They did not need to contribute part of their harvest to the government nor pay taxes. They kept whatever they harvested. That’s why they had some spare cash. For example, if Liu Jichuan’s family had not borrowed Feng Xingtai’s tractor to clear a plot of land earlier this year, he might even have problems coming out with 100 RMB. In the village, the income gap was widening.

“Xingtai, you need to tell us where will the factory be located and what will the factory be doing? Will we be managing the factory ourselves or hire someone to do it? Where will the finished products be sold to? If we were to invest 1,000 RMB, how much dividends will we get next year?”

Feng Xingtai turned around and looked at his son for help. Feng Yu did not mention these details yesterday.

“Uncle Liang, we have two locations in mind for the factory. First, it is the location of the old chicken farm. The chicken farm had closed, and no one is using that plot of land. We can rent or buy the land. Second, is the plot of land behind the brick factory. But because it will be near to the brick factory, it will affect our factory’s reputation, even though our factory will be located at the upwind.”

“Right. We should not build the factory next to the brick factory. Who will buy our flour if it is mixed with dust from the brick factory.”

“The factory will be processing food like soybean oil, wheat and corn flour, and sugar from beets. Soybean oil and sugar suit us best. If the quality of wheat and corn flour were not very good, it would not affect us much. But the soybean oil is different. The more oil we produce and the better the quality, our oil will taste better and can fetch a better price. We can sell to the city, and this will be the same for sugar. The more sugar we produce and the finer our sugar, the more we can earn.”

“This private factory really can compete with the state-owned grain depot?”

“Absolutely no problem. Because we intend to import advanced machines from the Soviet Union and these machines were more advanced than the grain depot by more than 10 years!” Feng Yu once again brought up the Soviet Union. Everyone looked up and admired the Soviet Union in that era.

“How much will those Soviet Union machines cost?”

“These machines belong to my brother-in-law, and he will use these machines to exchange for the shares of the factory. I guarantee you all that if you invest 1,000 RMB today, you will get 10,000 RMB in 3 years’ time! The more you invest, the more you can get back. You all decide for yourself how much to invest. We will not force you!”

“Xingtai, your son can really talk. 1,000 RMB can turn into 10,000 RMB in 3 years? Then if I invest 5,000 RMB now and 3 years later I can get back 50,000 RMB?”

Feng Yu was frustrated. It was not good being so young. Even he was currently attending high school, to these adults, he will always be a kid. No one will treat whatever he said seriously.

Feng Xingtai saw the determination in Feng Yu’s eyes, and he nodded: “Yes!”

“Good. Xingtai, you are the one who said this. You dare to put it in a contract?”

Feng Xingtai’s pridefully said: “Of course I dare! When all of you invest, I also need to prepare the contracts. If I am not able to honor my promise in 3 years, you all can take away the machines!”

“Ok. Then I will invest…… 10,000 RMB!”

Feng Yu looked over. These people were the first few from the village which had become wealthy. But it was normal for them to be rich as they had tractors and harvesters. Also, they were the earlier ones who had cleared the land.

After one of them took the leap, the others followed. 3,000 RMB, 2,000 RMB… They invested whatever spare cash they had on hand as the returns were better than leaving the money in the bank!

“Uncle Wen, Dad, let’s go to the Farm department to look for the officer.”

Those seven had agreed to invest, but Feng Xingtai did not collect the money yet. He got to wait till he got the approval from the Farm department then he will collect the money.

Wen Deguang followed along and entered the car excitedly. Feng Xingtai was puzzled and said: “Village head, I can look for the Farm Department officer myself. Don’t need to trouble you.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. His father really thought that Wen Deguang was following along to help him? He was going there to claim credit. China was focusing on its economy, and this applies to the their district as well. This investment amounts up to over a million RMB, and Wen Deguang was the one who headed it. This count as a political achievement for him.

“Dad, later you will say this……” Feng Yu started to teach his father what to say again.

The officer looked at the 3 people in front of him. Other than Wen Deguang, he had never met the other two before. But Wen Deguang said that they were from his village and because of his persuasion, they decided to invest 1 million RMB in building a food processing factory at the district!

The officer’s eyes widen. An investment of 1 million RMB! When did the district have a millionaire and he didn’t know about it?

“Mr. Feng, why did you choose to invest in a food processing factory with 1 million RMB? You can do other businesses. For example, you can set up an animal farm. Whether if it was poultry or livestock, we have experts from our office and even the city to assist you.” The officer had always wanted to develop animal farming, but the scale was too small. In the North, there was this big boss who owns a pig farm, and then everyone from that farm benefited from it!

“Officer, although I am not doing farming, I can produce animal feed. I wanted to set up the factory somewhere near to Bing City and if not for Wen Deguang kept persuading me, I would never consider our farm.”

When the officer heard what Feng Xingtai had said, he knew that he must be careful with what he said. If not, Feng Xingtai might go elsewhere to set up the factory. Anyway, this factory was producing processed food products and was still considered in the same direction as what the higher ups wanted. Furthermore, he can also claim credit for this 1 million RMB investment.

“Then you will need a lot of workers? I can introduce some skilled workers to you.”

Feng Xingtai looked at Feng Yu. Why was this officer saying the same thing as what Feng Yu told him earlier?

“I had discussed with Village Head Wen. We will hire people from our village first. Of course, if you have suitable workers to introduce to me, we can also hire 4 or 5 of them. The monthly salary will not be less than 80 RMB!”

The officer laughed and looked at Wen Deguang. This old Wen was thoughtful. Not only he had secured the vacancies for workers and even kept some for the officer.

Deputy Gu is retiring soon and needed someone to succeed him. Wen Deguang seems to be a good choice. With this 1 million RMB investment and the support of the ex-leader, it shouldn’t be a problem! Also, Wen Deguang can oversee the factory as he is familiar with the people there.

“Your factory is also considered set up by the locals and the Farm Department can provide some benefits. I can allow the first year to be tax-free and 50% taxes for the following 2 years. I can allow you all to use that piece of land you requested, but if you want to purchase the land, it will cost at least 100,000 to 200,000 RMB.”

Feng Xingtai smiled: “I had prepared 300,000 RMB. If you can give us a bigger plot of land, I don’t mind using all 300,000 RMB!”

“No problem. I can agree to this too! Then when do you intend to start constriction?”

“Tomorrow!”

Chapter 85 – Money is not a Problem

Feng Yu called the school and requested for 1 week leave to help his father set up the factory. The reason he gave to the school was that his second uncle had a fall and he needs to take care of him for the next few days. Of course, Feng Yu doesn’t have any second uncle.

“Xiao Yu, why are we using machines to dig the ground? How much will these costs? We can get people to dig manually, and it will be cheap. Furthermore, it’s only the foundation, why are we digging so deep? 1 meter will do.” Feng Xingtai’s heart was bleeding. This loser son of his spends money like water.

“Dad, it’s only a small sum. Also, foundations are the most important for all buildings, and we should not save on this.”

“Then we also don’t need to build a wall to fence up our factory. Now the brick factory on our farm is only supplying their bricks to us.”

Feng Xingtai felt that Feng Yu was wasting money to build a wall around the perimeter of the land. Even if they wanted to have a yard, they could just use some branches as fences. Was there a need to use bricks to build a 2 meters high wall around the perimeter?

“Dad, our machines are costly. You are not afraid that someone would come in create trouble? What about those children from the village? They will sneak in to play in the factory. What if they are injured by the machines? You bear to see that happen? Above the walls, we still need to install barbed wires and rear at least 10 guard dogs. We can’t use mongrels. Mongrels are not fierce enough to scare people away.”

Feng Yu started to talk about his plans for the factory, but when he turned around, Feng Xingtai had left. It’s depressing. There were generation gaps in this era?

To maintain the quality of the construction, Feng Yu had spent a lot to hire a head engineer from the Provincial Construction company to lead the construction team. At first, the head engineer was not interested. This was only a one-story factory in the farm, and there was no need for an engineer like him to oversee the construction. This was an insult to him.

But when Feng Yu offered him 50 RMB a day, he immediately changed his mind. He was an engineer, and his monthly salary was only slightly more than 100 RMB. 10 days, and his salary will be 500 RMB. This was too attractive!

All available construction workers were hired from the farm, town and Farm department. There were more than 100 workers, and there was also construction machinery. What Feng Yu wanted was speed.

In another 2 weeks, the land will freeze, and the construction will come to a halt. In that era, there was still no thawing agents or deicing agents available. That’s why he needed to expedite the construction of the factory.

Feng Yu wanted the walls of the factory to be 50 cm thick despite the engineer telling him that 37 cm would be enough. Feng Yu felt that 37 cm thickness was not sturdy enough. There were enough bricks, cement, and workers around. Just build a sturdy factory!

If the bricks were those hollow bricks, Feng Yu even wanted to add steel reinforcement beams.

The factory was divided into 4 sections. Oil extraction, sugar production, raw materials and storage, and animal feed sections. Each section occupies more than 10,000 Square meters. If it was in his past life, this factory was considered an enormous factory.

Feng Yu decided to carry on expanding the factory in future. There might still be a lot of empty spaces left after the first batch of machines was installed. But in future, Feng Yu will slowly fill up the empty spaces. He wants to build a food processing base!

“Xiao Feng boss, the construction cost for this factory must be high.”

“It is not considered high. It should be around 1 million RMB.” Feng Yu felt that it was very cheap. In less than 10 years, there will be a highway passing through their district and about it will be about 100 meters away from the factory. This factory itself can fetch at least tens of millions then!

Although it had exceeded the initial investment amount, Feng Yu still felt that it was a good deal. He doesn’t even mind if the factory doesn’t make any profits. Nevertheless, Feng Yu was still confident that this factory can make money and it will be a considerable profit.

The engineer was shocked. This kid can really talk big. Kids from wealthy families were different. He was talking about 1 million RMB just like it was 100 RMB. In the farm, 1 million RMB can build 2 high rise buildings!

These types of production line were available in almost every Soviet Union cities. But the newest and most advanced machines were not cheap. After some discussion, they decided to get 3 types of production lines. Oil extraction and sugar production lines will be using the 1985 machine models, and the animal feed production line will be using the 1983 machine models.

These machines were considered the most advanced in the whole of China. As for the price, Kirilenko gave Feng Yu a 70% discount. This was a private deal between him and Feng Yu. It will not be recorded in their company’s books.

The technology of these machines was more advanced than the most sophisticated machines in China by at least 10 years, and Feng Yu had bought them for about half the price of domestic produced machines. These machines were really dirt cheap. Of course, Kirilenko had forcibly purchased the machines as “scrap metals” from those factories. In that era, there were corruptions everywhere in the Soviet Union. This includes the state-owned factories. A few factories’ directors made money for themselves by secretly selling off those unused production lines machines.

It was easy to get these types of machines, but it was hard to get the production line machines for agricultural machinery. Feng Yu not only wanted to the production lines, he even wanted the technology.

The technology was not only just the documents. It still needs the expert’s guidance. After World War 2, the Soviet Union had progressed so rapidly was because they had gotten many skilled talents from Germany. As such, they knew that they should not allow their experts to move out of the Soviet Union.

However, the Soviet Union did corporate with some Eastern Europe countries. But after the fallout with China, the Soviet Union’s engineers were reluctant to work in China. Mainly, it was because China’s reputation was smeared by the rest of the countries.

Kirilenko had got his hands on the machines wanted by Bing City’s Machinery Factory, but there were no engineers who were willing to come to China. If there were no experts to calibrate and set up the machines for the production lines, it would be hard for the workers at Machinery Factory to figure it out themselves.

But Kirilenko promised Feng Yu that he will solve this problem soon, and he will find those engineers that were willing to go over to China. Feng Yu thought for a while and said that he wants to offer high salaries for a few mechanical engineering experts.

The Soviet Union’s economy was going downhill, and their people’s income remained stagnant since 1980. This year, they even had a dropped in their income.

A skilled mechanical engineer’s salary was about 500 to 800 Rubles a month, and Feng Yu was offering 1,000 Rubles a month for them if they come over to China to work.

Engineers also need to feed their families. Many families in the Soviet Union were the same. The men would go out and work while the women stayed at home. Feng Yu knew that if he offered a high salary, there would be engineers who were willing to work for him.

Since Feng Yu was willing to pay, then it will be easier for Kirilenko to look for engineers. However, Kirilenko told Feng Yu that it was impossible for him to recruit too many engineers but there shouldn’t be any problem to get 3 to 5 engineers!

……

Within a week, the construction was completed. There was a lot of firecrackers, and everyone was all smiles. However, only Feng Xingtai had a forced smile.

The day before, Feng Yu had calculated the total amount spent for the construction of the factory, and Feng Xingtai’s heart almost stopped. Didn’t Feng Yu say that it will not be expensive to build the factory? This amount doesn’t even include the machinery cost. If adding in the cost of the machines, the total amount should reach 2 million?

When can they get back their investments just by selling some soybean oil and sugar? This good-for-nothing son must be taught a lesson with a beating!

Chapter 86 – Premium Oil

After the food processing factory was built, Feng Xingtai went to collect money. Many people in the village realized that he was not a cheat and wanted to invest.

However, Feng Xingtai followed what Feng Yu had said. Other than those seven people and Wen Dongjun’s family, the rest can only invest 1,000 RMB and nothing more. Also, they will have to undertake the risk themselves. If they are unhappy, they can choose not to invest. This was a private company, and the major shareholder call the shots!

The 3 production lines were on its way to Bing City. There were also 3 engineers who had agreed to accept Feng Yu’s offer coming along. They will be working for Feng Yu for 1 year. These engineers had worked in China 30 years ago, and that time, they were not experts yet.

Brother Ki had told Feng Yu that there were more than ten people who were interested but were worried. These three engineers that came was because they were poor. If these three engineers were willing to stay on after one year, then next year there might be more people who are eager to come over and work.

These three engineers were experts in mechanical engineering. They were skilled in setting up machines for production lines, calibrate machines and even able to modified old machines from old factories.

The machines ordered by the Machinery Factory was very cheap and more advanced than the present machines by 10 years. Li Mingde was anxious when he heard that the machines had been ordered by will only arrive in Bing City next month.

The earlier the machines arrived, the earlier the Machinery Factory can replace the existing machines. The old machines can then be sold to smaller factories, and he will be able to reap some benefits from these sales. He had reported to his higher-ups in the city government and was the budget was approved. Why were these Soviets so slow?

Of course, it was because of Feng Yu. He had asked Kirilenko to send the machines and the three engineers to his factory first. Also, the three engineers had to set up and calibrate the machines for his factory.

The food processing factory had started to raise fund and stock up soybeans and beets. They had also bought the formula for making animal feeds with the residues from the soybeans and beets, from the Provincial Government Agricultural Department and the formula was compatible with their Soviet machines.

Many trucks entered the factory and the three experts supervised the unloading of the machines. Each expert was accompanied by a professional translator who was paid 10 RMB a day.

Feng Yu also came back to the factory from Bing City. He was afraid that the villagers would mistreat those engineers. These engineers were precious to Feng Yu as he needed them. Also, he needed these engineers to bring in more experts from the Soviet Union. They cannot be offended.

“Ready, 3, 2, 1, start!”

Growl ~ ~ ~

The machines started to move. Clean soybeans were dropped into a round cylinder, and after a while, yellow soybean oil began to flow out from the oil outlet.

“Success!”

Everyone cheered. The installation of the machines took a long time, and the first test was successful.

But the Soviet engineers looked at the soybean oil and frowned. There was something wrong with the filters as there were some impurities in the oil. Other than this problem, the machine was operating well.

The director of the district’s Good Oil Factory was present as well. He said he was there to watch and learn from them. He was there to find out what these Soviet Union machines were capable of. He stood there and waited for a while. Then he discussed something with the man beside him and sneeringly laughed before leaving Tai Hua Food Processing Factory.

If their Good Oil Factory were still using the same oil extraction method as last year, their production would not be as effective as these Soviet machines. But now, they were using the leaching process, and the amount of oil production was not lesser than these machines. In fact, they might even produce more oil compared to these machines in future. Also, the Good Oil Factory had the support of the Grain Depot, and they had access to the raw ingredients. This Tai Hua Factory was not a threat to them. The director wondered what the Farm Department Officer was thinking. The Officer was helping Tai Hua Factory with all the application paperwork and even gave priority for them to use electricity.

Electricity was suggested by Feng Yu. The total investment for the factory amounted to 2 million RMB and hired a lot more workers. When Feng Yu indicated about the electricity supply, the Officer agreed immediately. Even if there were a blackout at his office, the electricity supply to Tai Hua Factory would not stop!

There was a widespread shortage of electricity in China at that time. It was the same for their district. A few factories in the cities had only limited electricity supply. Power was supplied to them for a few hours every day and night.

This would be fine at the farmlands if they were only doing farming works. But this was critical for a factory. If there were no stable electricity supply, the production would be intermittent and how can they make money?

The oil press and the sugar production machines were tested, and the calibration was completed. The efficiency of these machines was much higher than domestic machines and was using lesser electricity.

Feng Yu intent to return to Bing City after the testing of the animal feed machines the next day. At night, Feng Xingtai suddenly told Feng Yu that this factory might not make any profits.

“Dad, how can this be? The soybeans and beet residues from the oil extraction and sugar production machines can be mixed with corn and wheat to produce animal feeds. This will greatly reduce our cost. The oil extraction and sugar production rate is very high. Especially we are producing fine sugar. The taste is sweeter. I will be taking care of the sales. What else are you worried about?”

“I heard that Good Oil Factory is using a new method of extracting oil. They are using something called the leaching process, and the quantity they produce is not lesser than our machines. How can we make money?”

Feng Yu laughed and shook his head: “Dad, you just wait. Brother Li will bring two people here in the next two days. You just follow what they tell you. I guarantee that we will be making a lot of money.”

“Really?”

“Of course!”

Two days later, Li Shiqiang came to Tai Hua Factory with a big truck. Clear plastic bottles were unloaded from the truck.

“Xiao Li, these are containers for the oil? We not using big bottles?” Now, everyone who bought oil from the shops or factories would bring their own bottles and the oil would be poured into those bottles from a big container. They have never seen oil sold in small plastic bottles.

Those people in the cities were much worse than them. If they want to purchase cooking oil, they need to produce a commodity ticket to enjoy a discount. If not, they would need to pay a higher price.

“Uncle Feng, these are the bottles for our soybean oil. This bottle can hold about 1.6 liters.”

“Isn’t this quantity too little? How long can 1 bottle last? These plastic bottles are also not cheap?” One look and Feng Xingtai knew that this was his good-for-nothing son’s idea. Sell oil and even give out a plastic bottle for free?

“Xiao Yu said that he wanted the bottles to be small. But there will be 5 liters bottles. I will send them over when those bottles are produced in the next two days. The sales of this soybean oil will be handled by our Tai Hua Trading Company. We will be selling these oil at a high price of 0.15 RMB for 0.5 liters.”

“What? 0.15 RMB for 0.5 liters of oil? That’s too expensive. Who will buy this oil?” Feng Xingtai shouted. The Good Oil Factory was selling 0.5 liters at 0.11 RMB.

“Uncle Feng, you did not hear wrongly. 0.15 RMB is what we will be paying to Tai Hua Food Processing Factory. Tai Hua Trading will be selling these oil for at least 0.20 RMB per 0.5 liters!”

“0.20 RMB per 0.5 liters? How can it be so expensive? You know how much does 0.5 kg of pork cost?”

“Uncle Feng, you just trust Feng Yu. He calls this the premium, high-end strategy. He is targeting those staying in the city. Temporally, we will supply to Bing City and then the province. By next year, our oil will be sold in Lin Province.”

“What? Premium oil? Ours are only normal soybean oil.” Feng Xingtai was confused.

“Uncle Feng, our soybeans were carefully selected, right? Our machines were also more advanced, and the extracted oil had to undergo a few rounds of filtering. The quality is much better than the oil sold by the Good Oil Factory. This is called premium! You also noticed that there were more and more rich people in the cities. They will be buying our oil even if our oil is more expensive. Don’t worry. We are not cheating people. Xiao Yu had said that we can surely make a fortune!

Chapter 87 – Soft-sell advertising

Feng Yu obediently stayed in school for a few days. It was the midterm exams, and the students were not allowed to apply for leave. This period, Feng Yu had missed a few days of lessons. Luckily for him, Li Na could give him tuition, and he soon caught up with the others.

Year 1 was not too difficult. It was year 2 that was hard. All it takes was to memorized stuff, and Feng Yu had a good memory in his present life. He was still about to get the tenth place in this midterm exams. Those that scored lowered than Feng Yu wanted to kill themselves. Except for Wen Dongjun.

To Wen Dongjun, as long he was not the last, it’s okay. There were still a few who had scored lower than him. When he entered high school, he was in the last position, and now there were a few behind him. This was a vast improvement!

Improving a few positions in an exam, then when it was the graduation examinations, he would be in the top 3 places!

When Feng Yu heard Wen Dongjun’s “theory,” he was shocked. Where did he get the confidence to say that he will improve a few positions every exam? These that were behind him were those that had direct entry into the school, and their results were never good. If not considering those few, Wen Dongjun was still in the last position!

Forget it. Just let him be. Anyway, Feng Yu had ways to get him into university.

……

“Editor Zhang, we are also considered old friends. Your advertising fees are too high.”

During Summer, a full-page advertisement only cost 10,000 RMB. Last week, it was 14,000 RMB. Now Editor Zhang wanted 20,000 RMB for a 1-week ad!

“No choice. I was scolded by my higher-ups because of your last advertisements. Now, it’s 20,000 RMB if not, you can forget about advertising!”

Editor Zhang was jealous of Feng Yu’s success with the Wind and Rain electric fans last summer. Just by selling some electric fans and Feng Yu could earn so much. The last time, he raised the advertising fees, and Feng Yu agreed without any bargaining. So, this time Feng Yu will also accept the new prices.

Fuck. Which officer will scold you? I had agreed to 15,000 RMB for 7 days of advertisements, and it was only a full-page advertisement. Now you are asking for 20,000 RMB? If not for this provincial newspaper were circulating throughout the whole province and even sold to Lin Province, Feng Yu would have turned and left. There were still other newspaper agencies!

The Daily Newspaper had increased 4 more pages in their newspapers, and their advertising revenue had grown a lot. They even raised their advertising fees with reference to the Wind and Rain advertisements.

But till now, no one could repeat Wind and Rain fans’ advertising miracle. Editor Zhang can’t wait for Feng Yu to perform another miracle so he can prove to the other advertisers.

Look, it’s not about our newspaper. It was because of your products. You look at others, every time he advertises his products, he was able to profit from it!

“Now everywhere is charging this price. If you don’t believe, you can go and ask around. Furthermore, Mr. Feng’s family business is so successful and can’t be short of these tens of thousands.”

Such arrogance. At Editor Zhang’s level, his salary was at most 1,000 RMB a year, and he was talking about 10 to 20 thousand of RMB like it was 10 cents or 20 cents.

“Editor Zhang, it’s fine if you want to earn more money, but you should at least increase the days. How about this? From tomorrow onwards, till new year eve, I will give you 50,000 RMB. One day would be more than 1,000 RMB.”

“No way. 1 full-page advertisement, 40 over days for only 50,000 RMB? 100,000 RMB. I can let you advertise for 2 months.” Although the advertisement fees had increased, there were not many that were willing to advertise. Also, no one advertised more than a week. The pressure on Editor Zhang was immense.

“2 months for 100,000 RMB? How about this, 4 months for 200,000 RMB but on New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, Lunar New Year’s Eve and Lunar New year, you must give me 2 full-page advertisements space. If you still don’t agree to this, then I will look for another newspaper to advertise.”

“Deal! Mr. Feng is so straightforward, and I shall not bargain further. It’s only another full-page advertisement on holidays. Absolutely no problems! Mr. Feng, shall we sign the contract now?” Editor Zhang was overjoyed. He did not expect Feng Yu to be so generous. 200,000 RMB. This year, the newspaper agency will be able to have a good bonus!

“No problem. It will be the same as our previous deals. If the advertising message is not against the law, I can do whatever I want, and you all cannot make any changes. We are also allowed to change the products to any products sold by my company as and when we like. If you break the contract, you will have to compensate me 2 times my advertising fees, which is 400,000 RMB!”

To prevent Editor Zhang making things difficult for him later due to jealousy, it would be better to make things clear now. Feng Yu does not trust these government officials. These people do not abide by the contracts and just do whatever they want.

“No problem. We had worked together so many times before. Did I object when you change the advertisements and pictures every day? Come, Mr. Feng, taste this Pu’er tea. This tea was given to me by my leaders.”

……

It was mid-October. People of Longjiang province were going to work as usual. These people would buy a copy of the newspaper out of habit, to find out what was happening in Longjiang province.

Eh, this article is quite interesting. It’s about lifestyle tips. It listed some food that can’t be mixed as it might be poisonous. The second part of the article was even more interesting. It explains how soybean cooking oil was made. The traditional way and the latest leaching process of extracting oil from soybean.

Oh no, this is too much. The soybean oil produced using the leaching process is considered chemical products. It uses gasoline to extract the oil from the soybeans. Isn’t gasoline made from crude oil? Is that still edible?

No wonder the prices of meat had been increasing, but the prices of soybean oil remained the same. This leaching process oil extraction method is just producing poisonous oil!

This Soft-sell advertising used by Feng Yu was quite famous in the later years. It was used on the internet, newspapers, everywhere and it was quite effective too.

Feng Yu did not write that this type of soybean oil was inedible, or it was harmful to people. That would be spreading rumors. Anyway, he had also eaten these types of oil for several years in his previous life, and nothing had happened to him. His immune system even got better. He was not even afraid of gutter oil!

The next day, Editor Zhang was called up by his leaders for a scolding. How can he publish this type of articles? This leaching process was the most advanced method of extracting oil internationally. Everyone at the Good Oil Factory also eats this oil. If there are problems with this method, will they still eat it? This got to be clarified as soon as possible!

Before Editor Zhang called for Feng Yu, Feng Yu came looking for him with the article for the next day.

This article states that the leaching process method was using the latest technology to extract the oil and there should not be any harmful substances left. If not, the government would not approve this method.

This was considered clarifying the rumors about the leaching process. However, at the back of the people’s mind, they were still suspicious. The article states that there should not be any harmful substances remain, that means there could also be the possibility that there are still toxic substances remaining?

Chapter 88 – Specially Catered For

The third day, the article in the newspaper was about the benefits of pressing extraction method. Authentic flavors, more aromatic, full of vitamin E, more extended expiry date, no additives and absolutely no solvent residues.

As for the leaching method, you can check with Good Oil Factory.

This era, there were only a few grades of cooking oil. 1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, etc. This was also just introduced in that year. Feng Yu remembered that in his past life, the labels of the cooking oil were regulated and must state the method of production, whether the oil was made from genetically modified soybeans, for the consumers to choose on their own.

For the next few days, there were lots of articles for soybean oil made from these two methods. Feng Yu even cited from books written by experts and professors in his articles to increase the credibility of the article.

From Bing City to the whole province, everyone was suspicious of soybean oil made from the leaching method. Was it safe to eat that oil?

Just when everyone was discussing, Feng Yu asked his men to drive a truck loaded with those 5 liters bottles of soybean oil to the Office of Foreign Trade. Today, he will be giving gifts openly!

“Chief Zhang, are you busy?”

“Not so, what are you here for?”

“Nothing much. It’s just that my company had some excellent quality soybean oil. I just wanted to give the Office of Foreign Trade some samples. This is not bribery. This is just to let the leaders help us sample the taste and give us some suggestions.”

“Oh, the excuse this time is quite innovative. Free sampling and want feedback from us? Okay. Then send those samples to our canteen.” Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head and laughed. He will not reject these types of gifts if it benefits everyone in the department. Anyway, these were only soybean oil and how much can it cost.

A while later, Chef Lee from the staff canteen came and said that there was too much oil. The canteen only prepares lunch, and he estimates these oils will last them until New Year!

This was not a small amount. After Feng Yu finished supervising the unloading, he came back to Zhang Ruiqiang’s office. Zhang Ruiqiang asked Feng Yu, what was the meaning of this? Why did he give so much oil?

“It’s really for everyone to sample and give feedback. Our oil was pressed from the Soviet Union imported machines. There are no additives and is healthy. If Chief Zhang ask me if I have any request, then I shall speak my mind. I wish to add the words “Specially catered for” on the packaging.”

“Specially catered for the Office of Foreign Trade? No!” Zhang Ruiqiang’s face changed. If this matter spread to his leaders, what would they think of the whole department?

“No, no, no. Chief Zhang misunderstood me. It’s not specially catered for the Office of Foreign Trade. It’s just the words “specially catered for.” We had not only gave samples to your department. We had also given samples to Internal Hotel, the City Government’s guest house, the Police stations. Motor Factory, etc.”

Feng Yu had a sly smile. Zhang Ruiqiang pointed at Feng Yu but could not say a word. He did not expect Feng Yu to have connections with so many departments. These departments were trusted by the people, and this is not advertising?

“They allow you to state that your oil is specially catered for them?”

“No. But they are all using our Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil now. Chief Zhang, don’t worry. I will not make use of your department’s name.”

“You better make things clear!” Zhang Ruiqiang felt that something was off, but he was still not sure what was Feng Yu going to do.

Feng Yu took out a photograph and place it in front of Zhang Ruiqiang. It was a photograph of a truckload full of Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil unloading its goods in front of the Motor Factory.

“You also took pictures just now?” Zhang Ruiqiang was not happy.

“Chief Zhang, the words that will be written besides this photograph will be: The Motor Factory is sampling Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil. What I did was just reporting facts and not making up things.”

“What you wrote was the truth, but others may not understand that. Forget it. I will not dispute with you on this matter. You got all the approval for this oil? Is it really using the Soviet Union’s technologies and machines?”

“Absolutely. Our machines were state of the art and the most advanced in China. I got all the approvals and paperwork done. If not, I would not dare to send my oil to your canteen.”

Zhang Ruiqiang hesitated for a while and asked: “Was gasoline really used in the leaching method of extracting oil? Why can’t we taste it?”

“It’s true. You can ask the Agricultural Department or the Good Oil Factory. They are all using this process. This process was effective. Our country started to promote this process two years ago, and this year, this method was introduced to the whole country. This year, my district’s factory also started to use this process to extract oil. No, it should be called refining the oil. These are all chemically produced oil. It’s normal for people to not taste the difference.”

Refining oil! This term scared Zhang Ruiqiang. He suddenly felt a little queasy. Is that oil edible? But if it is not, why would the country promote them?

But no matter what, he was still feeling uncomfortable. In future, his family should also eat soybean oil made by the pressing method. He dared not to eat those oil produced from the leaching process.

After leaving the Office of Foreign Trade, Feng Yu went to the departments he mentioned to Zhang Ruiqiang. Actually, other than the Motor Factory, he had not sent the oil to other departments.

Feng Yu used the photograph taken at the Motor Factory to bluff Zhang Ruiqiang. Later, he will use two pictures on other departments. If he could get one or two “Specially catered for” signages or banners and hang it outside his company, it would be better than any advertisement!

The following few days, there was a few photographs with the advertising articles in the newspapers. These photographs were pictures of Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil trucks unloading at XX department or XX canteens.

On the truck, there was a slogan sprayed: “Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil, pressing out conscience oil. Specially catered for.”

This way, everyone was sure. Look, all these big factories and government departments were using this brand of cooking oil. There must be something wrong with the oil produced by the leaching process!

But they also noticed that after the words “Specially catered for,” it was blocked. They can’t tell which department the oil was “specially catered for.” Everyone was guessing, but in the end, they reached a conclusion. Everyone said that the oil was specially catered for the leaders.

Nothing was written after “Specially catered for.” The was to let the people guess what was written after that. They can imagine whatever they want.

Sigh… only the leaders get to enjoy this type of oil. We, ordinary folks, can just stick to leaching processed oil.

But later, there was a piece of “Good news” on the papers: Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil, now available in Bing City’s cooperatives.

This was because the leaders were under pressure and that’s why they allowed the sales of the oil they were eating to the public. Some couldn’t wait and went straight to the cooperatives after work. When they reached, they still must queue up. Look, everyone is buying this oil, we must also get this oil. It’s not good for elderly and children to eat chemically process food.

What? This oil is so expensive? 1 RMB for a 1.5 liters bottle! Humph, the oil used by the leaders were so expensive. But we can still afford it! There is also a 5 liters bottle? 3 RMB? Then give me that 5 liters bottle. Oh, the plastic container is free, and we don’t need to return? Not bad, buy oil and comes along with a free bottle!

At that juncture, Wu Zhigang and the rest were giving out money to the teenagers from the Motor Factory hostel. These teenagers were not attending schools or working.

“Eh, keep this money, everyone. These oils are also for you all. Bring them back. These oils taste better than those at your home.”

These teenagers were instructed to queue up at various cooperatives since the early afternoon in batches. Every one of them bought a big bottle of Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil with the money given by Wu Zhigang. Not only that, every one of them got 5 RMB! There were more than 30 of them.

With these lads queuing up, those that were still sitting on the fences made up their minds. Now, everyone is buying this brand of oil, so it must be good and must be specially catered for the leaders!

Chapter 89 – Television Advertisement

With Feng Yu’s careful planning and execution, Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil became very popular in Bing City. But the response in other places in Longjiang Province was lackluster.

After all, Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil was priced more than double of regular soybean oil. Not many are willing to spend so much on soybean oil. Although there were some effects from the soft-sell advertisements, the TV stations started a series of programs to explain the leaching process. Even the workers at the soybean oil factories are eating those oils. If there are indeed problems with the oil, why would the workers still eat them?

If it’s only the Bing City market, Tai Hua Factory can surely make money. But Tai Hua Trading was not making much money. They had given out too many free samples, and the price they were getting from Tai Hua Factory was higher than the market rate.

As such, Feng Yu decided to increase the advertising efforts to let more people remember Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil. When people buy cooking oil, they will remember his brand.

His goods were distributed to the whole province, but the quantity was low. One-third of the oil that was produced these few days remained in Bing City, one third was sent to the cooperatives in other places within the province, and one third was given out as “samples.”

Other than the cooperatives in Bing City bought the oil directly, the other cooperatives were getting the oil on consignment model. It was due to the prices set by Feng Yu. Those cooperatives did not think that these oils will sell well. These oils really did not sell well. Despite the advertisements on the papers every day, there were very few people who bought these oils.

……

“Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil, made from high-grade natural soybeans. Pressed using the most advanced Soviet Union machines. No chemical additives. The chosen oil used in the European Nobles’ kitchen!”

A 20-year-old girl, wearing an apron with Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil’s logo printed on it, was stir frying prawns and there was masculine voice reading the advertising message. The last scene was the young girl holding a 1.5 liters bottle of Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil.

Somehow, Feng Yu felt some regrets. There was not high definition video camera yet. If he can produce “A Bite of China” (China’s first documentary about Chinese Cuisine filmed using high definition video cameras in 2012), the effect would be better. But neverminded. Feng Yu was still quite pleased with this.

This advertisement had highlighted the concept of natural food products. Now, no one understands this concept yet but it stills gives people the impression of high-grade food products. Together with the advertisements on natural food products in the papers, natural food products were popularized.

The ten seconds advertisement was aired 3 times a day, on the provincial TV station. Once at noon, once in the late afternoon and once during the prime time at night. This era, the television advertising fees were quite expensive. But it was the CCTV that was high, and the provincial TV station advertising airtime was still not that high.

Just like now, 3 advertisements for 1 year, only cost Feng Yu a few hundred thousand. But Feng Yu had added a clause in the contract which was the advertisement can be changed anytime. A few days later, when the packaging for the sugar was ready, he would do a round of promotions for his sugar.

If it were in Feng Yu’s previous life, this advertisement would not be allowed to be aired. “The chosen oil used in the European Nobles’ kitchen.” was a lie. Europe doesn’t use soybean oil in this era. But how many people in China knew about this? Most people in this era believed everything that was aired on TV!

Feng Yu’s advertising message highlighted how precious the premium oil was, coupled with the scene of a young lady cooking with the oil, had created a deep impression on the audience.

The young lady cooking was his sister, Feng Danying. Feng Yu wanted to let his sister have a feel of being a commercial star. He hired a makeup artist from the TV station to put on light makeup for his sister. This was very different from the makeup trend in this era, where everyone put on thick makeup and bright red lipsticks. Many people thought that his sister did not put on any makeup.

Feng Danying was young and pretty in the first place and after putting on light makeup, she was not any inferior to any movie stars. Li Shiqiang was also at the scene of filming, and he was smitten by the beauty of Feng Danying.

The day after the advertisement was aired, Feng Yu’s mother called him and asked him if the person cooking was his sister. After getting the answer from Feng Yu, her tone changed and said: “She can get to star in the commercial just because she can cook? Is her cooking better than me?”

Feng Yu quickly explained to her that it was because of the lack of time. Next time, he will get his mother to star in the commercial.

The advertisement can be changed after one month. A middle-aged woman cooking might have better effects. But now, he only wanted to attract the attention of the viewers and his sister’s image was more suitable.

……

In the Northern region, Jia City, two women in their 30’s were walking towards the cooperative after work.

“What are you buying?”

“Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil. What about you?”

“Me too. This oil was made using the most advanced technology from the Soviet Union, and it should taste good.”

“Not only it will taste good, but it is also made naturally with no chemical additives. My son had just attended school and should not be eating those cooking oil made from chemicals.”

“That’s right. Even though it is more expensive, but it only cost slightly more. Even the nobles in Europe are using this type of oil, and now we can also experience being a noble too!”

This type of scenes were common in many cities of Longjiang province, and these cities were different from Bing City. These cities had a lower level of acceptance. The sales of the big bottles were low in those cities, but the sales of the small bottles were not bad. Many were just buying the small bottles to try it first.

But Feng Yu knew that when the TV commercial carries on airing every day, people will get used to Tai Hua Premium Oil, and they will continue to buy Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil. The taste of their oil was indeed better.

Now, Tai Hua Factory had hired a lot of workers under Feng Yu’s instruction. The factories in the cities were operating in 3 shifts, but at Tai Hua Factory, the workers were working in 4 shifts.

Firstly, these people were farmers. Even if operating the machines were easy to pick up, they had a lack of concern for safety compared to those working in factories for some years. Also, working with machines had some danger. For instance, adding the raw materials into the machines and fire safety.

These people did not have a serious view on workplace safety. They might get seriously injured or even die if there were any accidents. If that happens, no amount of compensation would be enough.

This was especially important as their district only had a population of 20,000. If there were any accidents in the factory, the news would spread quickly, and the reputation of the factory would be tarnished.

Feng Yu also decided to headhunt two management staffs from the city. But the ones he targeted had rejected him despite offering them more than double their existing salaries. They wanted to remain in the state-owned factories as it was considered an “iron rice bowl” to them. Why should they go and work in a small factory in the countryside? They would not leave even if they were offered 3 times their current salaries!

Feng Yu was disappointed. He can only train his staff himself. He hired those retired factory supervisors to conduct classes on workplace safety for the workers at Tai Hua Factory to raise their safety awareness.

This period, they had purchased almost 100 tons of soybean and had produced 15 tons of soybean oil. Just with soybean oil, Tai Hua Factory had made more than 15,000 RMB.

It was only a short period of time, and they could earn so much. Feng Xingtai was overjoyed. Based on this result, just by soybean oil, the factory could make about 40,000 RMB a month and close to 500,000 RMB a year!

Now, he was convinced of what his son had said. 3 years to turn 1,000 RMB into 10,000 RMB. But at the same time, he was also worried. They had produced so much sugar, but it was still not sold to the public. Could it be this sugar was unpopular? Why not sell off these sugar production machines and get more machines to produce soybean oil. These soybean oils were popular and can earn more money!

Chapter 90 – Technology is most profitable

Although Feng Yu was not a professional in sales, he had the advantage of the knowledge of future years. Thus, even if he was not able to create some sales miracles but he will never make a loss.

Feng Yu had asked Wu Zhigang to contact the sugar and animal feed dealers from other provinces. The focus on soybean oil was only temporarily. He was confident that this business would be profitable for at least 3 to 5 years.

Before Feng Yu started to promote his sugar, the machines he ordered for the Machinery Factory arrived at Bing City.

Li Shiqiang went to the village and brought the three experts back to Bing City. They were no longer needed at the factory, but Feng Yu still needed them.

“Director Li, the production line had arrived. Please send someone to collect it.”

Li Mingde sprang up from his chair. He was waiting for this news for the many days.

“That’s great. I will ask my men to go over immediately.”

“Director Li, this is the procurement list from our company. Please take a look and make payments.”

Li Mingde was shocked. Why would Feng Yu show him the procurement list? This way, he would know the actual cost of the machines.

Although even if Feng Yu does not tell him about the actual costs, he got his ways to find out. But this was two different things.

Li Mingde took the list from Feng Yu and was surprised that the machines were so cheap!

He could not understand that since the machines were so cheap, even if Feng Yu increased the prices by 20%, he would also agree to it. The budget he got from the City Government was not a small sum.

“Mr. Feng, how much should I pay your company?” Li Mingde asked. If Feng Yu wanted 10%, he would agree to it on the spot. But if Feng Yu wanted more, he would ask the City Government to pressurize him. If he was able to save for the Machinery Factory, that means he was saving money for the City Government.

“It was written on the list. All the equipment cost 2 million Rubles, the transportation and taxes cost 400,000 Rubles. Total will be 2.4 million Rubles. Don’t tell me Director Li does not want to pay? If you don’t want these machines, I can sell these for 3 million Rubles to the factory in Lin Province.”

“I want. Who said that I don’t want these machines? I will send you the money later. No, I will ask my men to transfer the money to you now!”

Li Mingde knew that Feng Yu was not bluffing. Even if these machines were priced at 4 million Rubles, there were a lot of factories queuing up to buy from him. But why didn’t Feng Yu inform him before the machines arrive? He could ask his leaders to make the appropriate arrangements to avoid taxes.

Feng Yu smiled and waved his hand: “No hurry. I have a question. Did any of the staffs in your factory studied in the Soviet Union before? No? Then did anyone of them worked in the Soviet Union before? No? Then can you all handle the setup and calibration of these machines?”

Li Mingde was embarrassed. What Feng Yu said was true. These machines were more advanced than those in his factory. He was not confident of doing the setup and calibration of these machines themselves. Seems like he can only ask his leaders for help to send some engineers from the bigger factories over.

“We will be able to sort this out.”

Feng Yu nodded. This was as what he expected.

“Oh yes, Director Li. I had also purchased a batch of agricultural machines production technology. It includes the design and blueprints of tractors, seeder, rotary tiller, harvester and other types of machines. Are you interested?” Feng Yu asked.

Li Mingde’s breathing grew heavy: “Mr. Feng, are you serious? You have the technologies for these machines?”

“Yes, and not only that. I had also hired 3 experts in machinery design and fabrication. Not only they can help you with the setting up of the production lines and calibration, but they can also help you upgrade your existing machines. Of course, they can also teach these new technologies to your engineers!”

“Then I can only thank you. On behalf of the 800 staffs of the Machinery Factory, I thank Mr. Feng ……”

“Wait a second. Don’t thank me first. Like I said earlier, I had spent a lot for these technologies and had paid high salaries for these 3 experts. Director Li really want to take these away for free?” Feng Yu was frustrated. Didn’t he make it very clear just now? All these costs a lot. Why was Director Li thanking him for?

Li Mingde laughed embarrassedly: “How much more do we have to pay for these technologies and the 3 experts?”

Feng Yu had a satisfied look on his face. That’s right. I did not earn from these machines, and you thought I am running a charity?

“Not expensive. The total is only 3 million Rubles. These 3 experts can work for you for six months, and they will leave after that.”

“How much? 3 million Rubles? Mr. Feng, you can’t ask for such high prices!” Li Mingde was astounded. He did not expect these technologies and the experts to cost more than the machines!

“How was this price too high? If Director Li is not interested, you can tell me straight. I had spent a lot for these technologies and experts, and I did not even earn from you. It is only 3 million Rubles, and our Bing City’s Machinery Factory would be ahead of the whole China and even the whole world with regards to the production of agricultural machinery. Furthermore, there are three experts included to guide you. This is a good thing, and you still feel that this is expensive?” Feng Yu said with a shocked expression on his face.

Actually, these technologies and the machines cost a total of 2 million Rubles. Although these machines were advanced, they were not the latest technology. Kirilenko had quoted Feng Yu 800,000 Rubles for these machines, and 120,000 Rubles was for the technologies’ documents and blueprints.

Of course, Kirilenko had gotten these for much lesser. If these technologies were sold on the open market, it would be sold for much more than 3 million Rubles.

Feng Yu had asked Kirilenko to include the technology prices together with the machines. Although the taxes for doing this would be higher, this would hide the cost of the technologies. It was also not easy for Kirilenko to get his hands on these and there were risks involved too. In future, they might not have the chance too. How could Feng Yu miss this opportunity to make some profits?

“Mr. Feng, we are all Bing City’s citizens, and this was for the good of the city. Can’t the price of the technologies be lower?”

Now Director Li wants to talk about relationships? Who was the one who backstabbed Feng Yu earlier?

“Aiya, I suddenly remembered that I have to make a trip to Lin Province tomorrow. I need to rest early today. So, if there is nothing else, I will make a move.” Feng Yu said and stood up.

Li Mingde stretched out his hands and pressed Feng Yu’s shoulders, pushing him back into the chair: “Mr. Feng, we had not finished discussing yet. Please stay for a little longer.”

Feng Yu said with an angry expression: “What’s there to discuss? You are the one who thinks that this is expensive. No problem. I also felt that the price is a bit high. Maybe those Soviets had cheated me. I will go to Lin Province to ask the factories. If they are also not willing to buy, I will think of ways to refund these. Humph, what “more advanced than China by ten years”, I will not do these types of business with them again!”

“No, no, no. Mr. Feng, please wait for a while. I need to make some calls first. Please stay for lunch at our canteen. I will give you an answer later in the afternoon!”

Feng Yu “reluctantly” agreed to wait for Li Mingde’s good news.

Chapter 91 – An unexpected invitation

Feng Yu didn’t get the chance to wait for the good news from Li Mingde. He received a piece of bad news: An invitation by the City’s Deputy Mayor!

Feng Yu’s first reaction was that Li Mingde was up to something again. He must be using his connection with the Deputy Mayor to force Feng Yu to sell tor even give the technology and the experts to the Machinery Factory!

Fuck. Feng Yu really hate this L Mingde. Feng Yu had thought that Li Mingde had accused Feng Yu of smuggling was just to protect the interest of the factory and its staffs, and because of this, he did not blame him. But now, this guy was creating trouble for him again!

However, Feng Yu was also waiting for the chance to meet the Deputy Mayor. One of the reasons he was selling the machines and the technologies separately, was to get the chance to meet the Deputy Mayor. He wanted to make use of the Deputy Mayor to beef up the security of Bing City.

But when he met the Deputy Mayor, he was surprised. Why was the Deputy Mayor him?

The Deputy Mayor who was sitting at his desk smiling to Feng Yu was no other than Zhang Ruiqiang!

“Chief Zhang…… No, it should be Deputy Mayor Zhang, how come it’s you?”

“Ha, ha, ha. Are you surprised? I was transferred here yesterday. In future, I will be working here in the City Government.” Zhang Ruiqiang was laughing happily. He seldom gets the chance to see Feng Yu’s surprised look. This Feng Yu always had a calm and composed look and looks like he got everything under his control. Hah, are you surprised?

Feng Yu was surprised but not shocked. He knew that Zhang Ruiqiang would be transferred to the City Government to be the Deputy Mayor and then promoted to the position of Mayor. After that, he was promoted to the Ministries of the States. But Feng Yu could not remember the exact dates when all these happened.

He was not sure when Zhang Ruiqiang was transferred here in his past life, but he knew that Zhang Ruiqiang’s transfer should be around this period.

“I was a little surprised but not very surprised. For someone as talented as yourself, you should be in the City Government. Congratulations on your promotion.”

“You know why I asked you here today?” Zhang Ruiqiang stood up and walked to the sofa with Feng Yu.

“You wanted me to know where your office is so that I know where to look for you?” Feng Yu pretended to not know the reason.

“Stop all these pretending with me. You had imported those advanced machines from the Soviet Union to sell to our Machinery Factory. This is very good. You are making contributions to our homeland. But why do the technologies need such high prices?” Zhang Ruiqiang pointed at Feng Yu and asked.

“I’m innocent. Mayor Zhang did Li Mingde tell you that I had imported those machines from the Soviet Union for 2 million Rubles and together with the taxes and transportation charges, the total is 2.4 million Rubles. Lin Province had offered me a high price, but I did not sell to them. Li Mingde only wanted to pay me 2.4 million Ruble. I am making a loss here. I also need to spend money to entertain those Soviets. My actual cost for these machines was over 3 million Rubles!”

“Really?” Zhang Ruiqiang did not believe Feng Yu. If it was over 3 million Rubles, why would Feng Yu let Li Mingde see the procurement list from his company?

“Of course, it’s true! If it was not me using my connections, you could not get these technologies for even 5 million Rubles. You can go and ask Li Mingde if he can purchase those type of machines? The technologies were more precious than the machines. The “Great One” had just said that science and technology are the most important things for productions.”

In September, the “Great One” had just introduced the concept of science and technology as the most important things for productions. Zhang Ruiqiang knew about this, but he did not expect Feng Yu also knew about it too.

“I shall be truthful to you. The City Government gave the Machinery Factory a budget of 15 million RMB. 2.4 million Rubles for the machines and the rest for the technology.”

This was not even 4 million Rubles. This was a considerable discrepancy with what Feng Yu expected. Feng Yu thought that the technology was worth at least 20 million RMB. Although he had spent 2 million Rubles to obtain the technology, he still owes Kirilenko a favor.

Furthermore, the machines and the technologies were worth more than 5 million Rubles. Feng Yu even felt that 20 million RMB was too little. Now he was offered only 15 million RMB, the difference was too big.

“Mayor Zhang also thinks that these technologies should be cheaper than the machines? No problem. I can go to Lin Province’s machinery factory. I think they are willing to give me a good price for it. Do you believe that if I spread words of me having  the Soviet Union’s technologies for agricultural machines, I am able to sell these technologies for more than 15 million RMB?”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu and smiled: “Then why didn’t you do that? Fine, just tell me what you want, other than money. If it is not illegal, I might agree to it.”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s years in the government service was not for show. He could climb to this position before 40 years old, meant that he was competent. Since Feng Yu had said all these, then he must want something that was not in monetary terms.

Feng Yu touched his nose out of embarrassment when he saw that Zhang Ruiqiang got what he was implying: “Actually, I also wanted to do something for my homeland, and I am willing to accept a lower price. Since you mention it, then I shall have a small request. Don’t you think Bing City is a bit chaotic?”

“Chaotic? What do you mean? The city’s planning or the security or something else?”

“Security. Law and order are critical for a city to attract investors. Earlier, my company was thrashed, and you also knew about this. Song Laosi’s nephew was so arrogant and not to mention Song Laosi. Now Song Laosi is still enjoying his life. There is still Cripple Wang, Brother Ke, and the Western Buns. They are all secret societies. To tell you truthfully, if it wasn’t for the feelings I had for Bing City, I would have moved my company to elsewhere.  Although, I might need to start from scratched again. But that is better than living in fear every day.”

Feng Yu’s original plan was to tell the Deputy Mayor about this and let him inform the higher-ups. If the City Government decided to act against these gangs, then these bosses would be eliminated. This was bothering Feng Yu for a long time.

Zhang Ruiqiang took out a cigarette from the cigarette box and inhale deeply. He kept quiet for a long time.

Feng Yu was frustrated. It can’t be the city government had no intentions to clean up these gangs, and they are waiting for the Central Government to pass the instructions down? Or could it be that the chips Feng Yu used to negotiate with Zhang Ruiqiang were not attractive enough?

“I was just transferred here, and I am still not familiar with the people and things here. The leaders might not listen to me.”

Zhang Ruiqiang knew that the leaders were making use of these gangs to do some dirty deeds for them when needed. At the same time, they were also collecting evidence against them. Once they had enough evidence, they will arrest these gangs. If they were to stop these gangs now, it would be useless. That’s the reason why Zhang Ruiqiang did not promise Feng Yu.

“So, you are going to sit here and do nothing about them? They may contribute to Bing City’s economy, but they are also bringing more harm to the city! I don’t believe that you are unaware of their evil deeds. Those are not rumors.”

Feng Yu was furious. If a good person did one wrong thing, they would be scolded and punished by everyone. But if a wicked person did a good deed, everyone will forgive the bad things that person had done in the past? This was why good people are hard to become saints, but for an evil person who was willing to change for the better, he would become a saint immediately!

“I will not let them be. Within a year, they will be eliminated. I swear by the party!”

Chapter 92 – Using Technology to Exchange for Shares

Although Zhang Ruiqiang had promised Feng Yu, he was still not satisfied. In the original timeline, these people, like Song Laosi and Cripple Wang can still enjoy their lives for another 2 years. The time was shortened, but it was not enough.

Many wealthy people like to donate to the Police and the government to improve the security. That was because even if you are wealthy and able to hire a lot of bodyguards but you might still not be a match for those vicious villains.

Just like Hong Kong’s richest man, Superman Li. He was influential, but his son was still easily kidnapped by some kidnappers. The kidnappers even went to his house to demand a one hundred million ransom.

After that, Superman Li donated a large sum of money to the Police and government to improve the monitoring systems and the police equipment. But what’s the use? One hundred million was gone, and the whole world knows about it. It even caused Superman Li’s company share prices to drop.

Feng Yu does not want that. He still prefers the security of the big cities in his previous life. There were no guns and not many who were willing to risk their lives.

“Mayor Zhang, I had made it very clear just now. If you want me to accept such low prices, then you must improve the security. If there are no law and order, who is willing to come and invest here? This is business. Since you are not able to meet my demands, then you must give me a price that satisfies me. I can never accept a few million RMB!”

“You can have other conditions, like lesser income tax or company tax.”

“That is unnecessary. I will pay whatever taxes I am required to pay without a single cent less.”

“That’s not right. From what I know, your company is selling used cars, and those cars are all luxury cars. But there are no records of your company importing used cars, nor paying taxes for those cars.” Zhang Ruiqiang revealed one of his cards.

Zhang Ruiqiang had found out about this? Feng Yu still thought that he did an excellent job at keeping these a secret and this secret would last till the last batch of cars were sold.

“I imported scrapped metals and vehicles parts, and I paid my taxes for those. Are there any problems? Those cars sold by my company were assembled by ourselves. The vehicle department had inspected the cars and allowed us to sell it.” Feng Yu retorted.

He had used a loophole. If the City Government were to pursue this matter, it would still be very troublesome for him. But if he had not done this in the first place, he would get so many profits.

“The City did not go after you for using this loophole.”

“My business is legal! If there is any law that states that what I’m doing is illegal, go ahead and list it out.” Feng Yu argued.

“No point arguing. It’s still the same thing. If you have other conditions, go ahead and say it out.”

“I really can state any conditions?” Feng Yu asked.

Zhang Ruiqiang replied cautiously: “It cannot be illegal and you are not allowed to use any loopholes.”

“Fine. Those technologies and the experts can be given to the Machinery Factory for not a single cent, but…… I want to exchange them for shares!”

Those technologies were worth at least a hundred million RMB and to ask Feng Yu to sell them for a few million? How could he possibly agree to it? Since you want these technologies, then let me be a shareholder. We can spill the earnings together.

“What did you say? Exchange for shares?”

“Yes. There are a lot of shareholdings companies and factories. Why can’t our Bing City’s Machinery Factory use the shareholding system? I am using my technologies in exchange for the factory’s shares. This way, the factory is able to save money and make use of the advanced technologies on the production of agricultural machines. It’s a win-win situation.”

“This…… I’m afraid it cannot be done.”

Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head. How can a state-owned factory letting an individual become a shareholder? Although according to the law, there was nothing wrong and there were also some precedents. However, those were from foreign direct investors and those state-owned enterprises were making a loss. Even then, there were lots of controversies. The Machinery Factory was still making profits, and the City Government were still able to get a share of the profits every year.

With the shareholding system and private capital injection, does that means that Feng Yu will be a backseat driver? Even though he knew that Feng Yu was very capable, but from the eyes of the leaders in the City Government, Feng Yu was just a kid, and it was ridiculous for a kid to be one of the bosses of the Machinery Factory!

Zhang Ruiqiang voiced out his concerns, but Feng Yu felt that these were not an issue. He only asked Zhang Ruiqiang three questions:

1. If the factory does not have the technologies and just have advanced machinery, how long will it take for the factory to be the best in China?

2. He owns these technologies and if he decided to sell to other corporations, can the City Government stop him?

3. Will the Machinery Factory, be the best in China with these technologies and the 3 experts?

Feng Yu kept emphasizing on China and Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes brighten up. Feng Yu knew that Zhang Ruiqiang was transferred to the City Government to be the Deputy Mayor was to oversee attracting investors and foreign trade. He was also responsible for the enterprise’s reforms.

Also, earlier this year, there were about 600 to 700 state-owned enterprises converted into the shareholding system. There were some enterprises whose scale was a few times bigger than the Machinery Factory, and not all were loss-making enterprises.

Zhang Ruiqiang had also planned to convert some state-owned enterprises in Bing City into the shareholding system as pilot testing. But he had never considered the profitable Machinery Factory. But after Feng Yu asked him those questions, he was confident that if the Machinery Factory were reformed, the factory would be the best in China. To him, it would be a great achievement!

“If the City Government agrees to it, how much are you investing and how much shares you want?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“I will not come out with a single cent. I will use these technologies and the three experts to exchange for the shares. I want 3 million Rubles worth of shares. I understand the financial statements well, and my shares will be according to the proportion of total value of the factory. I will not take a single share more or less! If you all try to be funny and tweet the figures, then this deal will be off. I will sell all these technical information to the Machinery Factory in Lin Province. I had already given you concessions on the machines pricing. If the City still does not agree to this, then that’s it.”

That’s it? Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu deeply. Feng Yu was implying that he could still get his hands on other advanced machinery and technology?

If that is the case, then this Feng Yu is a treasure. The Machinery Factory was also worth for the City Government to invest in. In future, the factory will have the potential to bring in lots of profits for the City.

It’s only 3 million Rubles investment. The City Government can inject funds to increase the value of the Machinery Factory’s assets to over 3 million Rubles and then take back the funds later.

“Okay. I will talk to the City Government and get back to you within a week.”

“3 days. I will only wait for 3 days. If you did not get back to me in 3 days, I would go to Ji Province. Ji Province is also pushing me for an answer.”

Feng Yu was also pressuring Zhang Ruiqiang. If after 7 days, you get back to me and tell me that you all still need to discuss and drag for another 7 days, and then, another 7 days, the value of these technologies will drop. He must force the City to come to a decision as soon as possible.

Zhang Ruiqiang clenched his teeth and said: “Fine, 3 days!”

Chapter 93 – Feng Xingtai is setting up a company again

Three days later, Feng Xingtai was dragged into a car by Li Shiqiang from the food processing factory and was sent to Bing City.

“Did you do something bad in school? Why did you ask me to come over?”

Feng Xingtai first words when he saw his son was to question him. This made Feng Yu felt hurt.

“Dad, what are you talking about? I am a good boy. I would never do something bad. Today is good news.”

“I am very busy.  Just speak your mind. We had just got more than 10 tons of soybean yesterday, and we are very busy. Where did those three experts go to? After you finish using them, send them back to the factory. Without them around, the production speed dropped by more than 10%.”

Feng Yu looked at his father. Did he really think that those experts were hired for this small factory?

“Dad, those are not important. The important thing now is that you are setting up another company!”

Feng Yu was waiting for his father’s praises but what he got was a slap to the back of his head.

“I am barely coping with one factory, and you are setting up another company? You want to work me to death?”

Feng Yu rubbed the back of his head and said: “Dad, did you ever do anything for Tai Hua Trading Company in Bing City? How can you say I am working you to death? I told you to let the others managed the processing factory, but you insisted on managing it yourself.”

“You are right. Then tell me, why are you setting up another company? What is this company for?” Feng Xingtai laughed and rubbed the back of his son’s head.

“You know about Bing City’s Machinery Factory? The plowing machine and the seeder in our farm were produced by this factory.”

“You want to set up a machinery factory?”

“No, I am buying a share of the Machinery Factory. Tomorrow you will be signing a contract, and then you will be one of the shareholders of Bing City’s Machinery Factory. In future, you will get 10 cents from every dollar earned by the factory.”

“What? Buying a stake in the Machinery Factory? How much will that cost? If you have the money, why don’t you buy more machines to produce soybean oil? We can make a lot from soybean oil.”

“Dad, I had already paid the money.”

Slapped!

“You this good-for-nothing son! Who let you make such decisions?”

Feng Yu stepped back to a distance he felt safe and patiently explained: “Dad, this investment will surely make money and I am using technologies to exchange for the shares. I am using the technical information from the Soviet Union. Think about this, we have no use for these technologies. Are you going to set up a machinery factory? I wanted to sell this information to them, but they can’t afford it, so, they used their shares to exchange for these technologies. If you are not going to sign the contract, then the money spent will be down the drain.”

When Feng Xingtai heard that the money would be wasted if he does not sign the contract, he stared hard at Feng Yu: “This is the last time. If you do this again in future, I will beat you to death! Xiao Li, you must watch over him carefully and make sure he goes to school. The money we are earning is not enough? Every day only thinks about making more money. He is becoming a slave to money!”

Li Shiqiang covered his mouth to stop himself from laughing out loud. He said: “Uncle Feng, Xiao Yu’s results in his mid-term exams was not bad. I have been monitoring his studies closely.”

“What’s wrong with trying to earn more money?” Feng Yu said softly to himself.

“What did you say? Say it louder!”

“Nothing. Dad, don’t worry. I will not ask you to set up companies again!” Feng Yu said and thought to himself. I will apply for my identification card next year, and I will set up companies on my own!

“That’s right. You need to study hard and get into a good university. What’s the use of having so much money? People will still look down on you.” Feng Xingtai was satisfied with Feng Yu’s change of attitude.

After that, Feng Xingtai started talking about the food processing factory. The Farm Department Officer had promised to give him an award at the end of the year, and he will be on the district’s tv station to receive it.

Feng Yu just listen patiently and said something like “Ah!” , “Really?” , “That’s great!” to show that he was listening. This made Feng Xingtai beaming with joy.

“Eh, where is Dongjun?”

Feng Yu’s heart jumped. That’s it. He was about to get exposed.

And almost immediately, Li Shiqiang replied: “In school.”

Feng Yu suddenly felt a killing intent, and he quickly steps back to dodge his father’s hand.

“This useless son! You are skipping lessons again! Don’t you dare to run? I will beat you to death! Xiao Li, stop him from running!”

……

Feng Yu laid face down on the couch after getting punished by his father: “Dad, I still have classes tomorrow afternoon. How am I going to sit on the chair?”

“What afternoon? You better get back to school in the morning!”

“But we are signing the contract with the Machinery Factory in the morning.”

“I can sign the contract with Xiao Li. You don’t need to be present!”

“Dad, do you know that there are a lot of traps in a contract? Furthermore, I am holding on to the technologies documents, and the other party will not sign the contract if they did not see me. Rest assured, this is the last time. I will not be skipping classes again.” In his heart: I will not be caught by you if I skip class again.

The next day, at ten in the morning, they drove to the City Government. Zhang Ruiqiang had convinced his leaders to agree to the Machinery Factory’s restructurings within 3 days. In future, Bing City’s Machinery Factory will be renamed as Bing City Machinery Corporation. Of course, the factory will still be producing agricultural machines.

Sitting in the center of the conference hall, Feng Xingtai was feeling very uncomfortable. Everyone around him was leaders, directors or officials. The highest ranking among them was the Deputy Mayor!

That was the City’s Deputy Mayor and was of a much higher rank than the Farm Department officer. Earlier, the Deputy Mayor even shook his hands. Till now, his palms were still sweating.

Feng Yu read through the contract carefully and used a pen to change some of the terms of the contract. He said to Zhang Ruiqiang when he passed the contract to him: “These terms need to be changed. We cannot accept such unreasonable clauses.”

“What’s wrong? Whoever owns more shares will have the final say.”

“That is true, but you can’t deprive us of our right to voice our opinions. Also, we must have the right to check the finances and any amount involving more than 10,000 RMB, needs to be approved by our authorized personnel. If not, the money cannot be moved. These clauses I requested are not unreasonable. There is one more clause. The percentage of our shares must remain the same if there are any capital injections in the future. We can accept having only one person on the board, but if there is any proposal involving more than a million RMB, we have a vote of veto!”

“It is too troublesome to ask your side for approval for financial matters. Also, why the equity cannot be changed when there is a capital injection? You had put in lesser capital, and so the percentage of your shares will be lesser. Lastly, the vote of veto is ridiculous. I have never heard of it before!” Li Mingde retorted loudly.

“The finances of a corporation must be monitored by all shareholders. But that is just a formality. Every corporation works this way. If you are injecting more capital, we will also do the same. Don’t worry. As for the last clause, it is the most important. If everyone agreed to donate 10 million RMB to the City Government, I must also follow along?” Feng Yu scoffed.

There were other issues in the contract which Feng Yu did not point out. This was considered giving the City Government face. If the City Government don’t agree to the 3 clauses, then he will not allow his father to sign the contract!

Chapter 94 – Successfully becoming a shareholder

It was impossible for Feng Yu to accept these unreasonable clauses set by the City Government. If it was a foreign investor, the City Government might not be doing this, but Feng Yu was a local from Longjiang Province.

The original value of the Machinery Factory was only worth slightly more than 10 million Rubles, but it was suddenly inflated to 27 million Rubles. Part of it was because of the City Government injecting capital into it. But the fixed assets were overvalued.

By keeping quiet, Feng Yu was already giving in to the City government. If it weren’t for maintaining a good impression and future collaborations with the government, Feng Yu would have pointed it out. The City Government was treating him as a sucker!

The Machinery Factory wanted to dilute Feng Yu’s shares, but Feng Yu was also thinking about the same thing. He will slowly let this factory become part of his conglomerate!

“Director Feng, please give us your opinions.” Li Mingde turned to Feng Xingtai. Since he can’t handle the young one, then he will try to persuade the older Feng.

Although Feng Xingtai does not really understand what was going on, he still trusts his son entirely. He shook his head and said that he had no other opinions as long as the City Government agree to Feng Yu’s terms.

The officials from the agriculture department and some leaders from the Machinery Factory tried to persuade Feng Yu. In the end, they started pressurizing him by using the National interest.

Feng Yu just ignored them. This was also not some military products. There were only agricultural machines. They also stand to gain from it. Furthermore, Feng Yu had already made some concessions. If not, he would bundle the machines and technologies together to negotiate with them. He would ask for at least 20% shares!

Zhang Ruiqiang saw the negotiations were not going well and both parties were about to start arguing. He immediately stepped in.

“Mr. Feng, we had come to an agreement yesterday, but why today become like this?”

“You ask me? You should be asking them. We don’t talk about something else. Just these production machines. I had just sold these machines to the factory for 2.4 million Rubles, and now they valued these machines at 4 million Rubles and claimed that these machines were worth this amount. One look and you should know who is in the wrong. If I can import a set of machines, then I can import another set. I can easily find 10 interested parties that want to work with me. That’s because I am able to import the most advanced machines and I have the most advanced technologies!”

“Li Mingde, you all are in the wrong. You all should seriously consider about Mr. Feng’s clauses.” Zhang Ruiqiang hinted.

He already knew that there was something fishy with the documents. He was also doing this to these things to get the most benefits for the city. But he did not expect the Machinery Factory to be so lousy. Inflating the value of the fixed assets and letting the other party find out at first glance, a bunch of useless people!

During the meetings at the City Government, they were instructed to build good relationships with Feng Yu. If he could get his hands on Soviet Union’s advanced machines and technologies, that means he is competent. If Bing City could get more of these machines and technologies, then it was only a matter of time for Bing City to restore its former glory of being the Nation’s industrial base.

“Son, what’s happening? You are saying that these people are trying to cheat us?” Feng Xingtai pulled Feng Yu to a side and asked softly. These leaders should not be cheating money from the people.

“Don’t worry. I had intentionally let them cheat me. Without the support of the Motor Factory, City Government or even the Provincial Government, it will also be hard for us to survive. Rest assured. We will not make any losses.”

Now Kirilenko was having difficulties getting these machines and technologies. The risk was also huge. But that was because of the low prices Kirilenko offered, and some factories were not easy to negotiate.

It’s only one year, and the Soviet Union’s economy will be at its lowest. More factories will shut down, and those who are daring will start to sell off the machines. When that happens, Feng Yu would be able to import more advanced machines and technologies. By then, Feng Yu will not give in to these people. He will use those machines and technologies to be the major shareholder and take control of the factory.

The current leaders of the Machinery Factory were too conservative. With them leading, the Machinery Factory’s development would not be good. Although Feng Yu was not an expert in this, he was confident to lead the factory.

Li Mingde and the rest got together to discuss. This younger Director Feng was not someone easy to deal with, and the older Director Feng just kept quiet and let the younger Director Feng make all the decisions. Why not just agree to their terms?

But the 3 conditions set by Feng Yu were making them uneasy. They had wanted to give Feng Xingtai the title of an assistant manager or some union chief. Anyway, it was just a title, and no authority comes along with it. The one with the final say would still be Li Mingde.

Unfortunately for them, Feng Yu did not fall for their tricks and even pointed out the issue of inflated fixed assets’ value. If they still do not accept Feng Yu’s conditions, Feng Yu might request to reexamine the value of the factory’s assets.

“Fine, we will amend the contract as you requested. Then can you sign now?”

“You amend the contract and let me look first.”

Feng Yu slowly scrutinized the amended contract. This time, Li Mingde did not try any tricks. He only changed the terms Feng Yu pointed out and did not add in other clauses.

“Dad, you can sign it now.”

Feng Xingtai sat at the center table and signed the contract together with Zhang Ruiqiang. There was a SASAC (State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council) seal on the contract. This type of contract, Li Mingde was still not qualified to sign!

Feng Xingtai’s facial expression was very stiff. There were people from the TV station recording the contract signing ceremony. He was about to go on TV?

Feng Yu hide in a corner. His father can be on TV and become a high-profile entrepreneur. But if he was named as a successful young entrepreneur, then he won’t be able to attend school.

“For the celebration, let’s have lunch at the Motor Factory canteen.” Li Mingde waved his hands and said loudly.

Feng Yu shook his head when he saw the food and alcohol on the table. There were only 12 people, including Zhang Ruiqiang, Feng Yu, and Feng Xingtai, at this lunch and there were more than 20 dishes on the table.

There was also Maotai (Chinese wine). These were at least more than 10 RMB per bottle, and there were 6 bottles. This sumptuous meal was comparable to the meals eaten by the rich in Feng Yu’s previous life.

Feng Yu casually asked: “Director Li, how much does this meal cost?”

“Not much. We will reimburse from the factory. What are you worrying?” Li Mingde said, smiling happily.

“That’s what I am worried about. There are serious problems about reimbursement from the factory. The reimbursements of some factory’s leaders were higher than those leaders in the City Government. They still reimburse for their holidays and receptions. These are all factory funds, and I am paying for part of it. These funds cannot be spent this way. This is the reason why I want to watch over the finances.” Feng Yu said seriously.

Everyone’s face changed. Feng Xingtai was still holding on to his cup, but he soon noticed everyone putting down their cups and staring at his son. What? They try to bully my son? They will have to pass through me first. Feng Xingtai opened his eyes wide and choose one of them and stared back!

“Director Feng, your worries are a bit unnecessarily. We are having such a good lunch was only to celebrate you becoming a shareholder. Let’s not talk about these. Here, have some vegetables and wine.” Li Mingde said loudly, changing the subject.

Feng Yu did not carry on talking about this. Concepts cannot be changed in a day or two. Feng Yu wants to be the major shareholder of the factory within two years so he can fire anyone who misused the company’s funds this way!

Author’s notes:

PS: Machinery Factory is very important, but the City’s support is even more critical. That’s why Feng Yu seems to be taken advantaged off, but this is only temporarily. He will earn everything back soon. I had a bottle of Maotai from the 80’s, but in the year 2000, I dropped the bottle! I was sad for a very long time!

Chapter 95 – Partnering Fu Guangzheng

The restructuring at the Machinery Factory was not completed. The contract was signed, but they need to wait for a few days before the shares certificate. Feng Xingtai returned to the village as he was worried about the food processing factory.

Feng Yu had handed the technologies information and the 3 experts over to the Machinery Factory and returned to school. The other students were used to Feng Yu skipping classes every now and then. The teachers were unable to do anything as the Vice Principal was protecting him.

But only after 2 days, Feng Yu applied for leave again.

This time, Feng Yu was forced to take leave from school. Last week, the final batch of used cars had arrived, and the Motor Factory had worked overtime to complete the refurbishment of those cars. Today, all the refurbishment was completed, and Fu Guangzheng had come in Bing City in the morning.

This batch of used cars kept Kirilenko busy for a while. Although there were a lot of British cars in the Soviet Union, there was not much selling used British vehicles. Kirilenko had spent a long time in Moscow and the surrounding cities to find enough send-hand luxury cars. He only managed to get 53 cars. Based on his estimation, there will not be more than 10 used British luxury cars in Moscow and the nearby cities.

Luckily Feng Yu had started the importation of machinery and technologies business. This allowed Kirilenko to drop his business partners and venture out on his own. Just by doing this business, he was earning a lot more than before.

Of course, the quantity of China’s product Feng Yu sold to Kirilenko had also increased by a lot. In Moscow and its nearby cities, he was the most popular supplier of China’s products. Every day, he would just lie on the couch and drink Vodka. But his money kept increasing.

……

Fu Guangzheng came out of his hotel and went straight to Tai Hua Trading with his men. The last batch of used luxury cars, especially those sports cars, was sold for sky high prices.

He got those cars for an average of 400,000 RMB, and he sold them for an average of 630,000 RMB. After deducting the transportation and other miscellaneous costs, he still got a profit of more than 30%.

Although the profits were much lesser compared to him selling antiques, it was not often to get an excellent piece of antique. Also, the risk of getting an imitation antique was great. This used car business was safer and more stable. It would be great if there were a constant supply of these cars. Especially sportscars. Sportscars were extremely popular in the coastal region cities.

A few mechanics were inspecting and testing the cars while Fu Guangzheng and Feng Yu were sitting by the side chatting.

“Mr. Feng’s business is booming. In future, if you have good projects, please ask me along.” Fu Guangzheng said, using his Cantonese accent Mandarin. This made Feng Yu cringed.

But Fu Guangzheng’s Mandarin had improved a lot compared to the previous time they met. Feng Yu can tell that he had put in a lot of effort to improve his Mandarin. To be successful, one must put in a lot of hard work.

“Since Mr. Fu mentioned it, I do have a good investment opportunity, but I am not sure if you will be interested.”

Fu Guangzheng moved closer to Feng Yu: “What opportunity? Please tell me about it.”

Recently, the antique business had been a bit slow, and there were more and more people going into the antique business. It was getting more difficult for him to get good antiques. Last month, there was an expert who had misjudged an antique, and it caused him to suffer a loss of few million. Fu Guangzheng knew that he was not as skillful as the expert and was worried that the same thing might happen to him. Investments would be a better option for him as the risk and losses were not as significant.

For example, Fu Guangzheng’s used cars business. He was even praised by his father. His father was glad that he had started doing business in China. It would be better if Fu Guangzheng is able to invest in some industrial factories.

When he heard that Feng Yu had a good investment project, he was interested. He had no problems investing a few million RMB. If he wants, he could easily raise 10 million RMB.

“Is Mr. Fu interested in machinery manufacturing?”

“Machinery manufacturing? What type of machines?” Fu Guangzheng frowned. The manufacturing technology in China was still far behind the US and Europe. Although it has potential, I still require the relevant technologies.

“Currently, it is still agricultural machines. We are using advanced machines from the Soviet Union, and there is guidance by experts from the Soviet Union. Also, we have the Soviet Union’s most advanced technologies.”

Fu Guangzheng’s eyes widen: “Mr. Feng is able to get your hands on these? In addition to agricultural machines, do you still have other technologies? Mr. Feng, why are we doing these manufacturing ourselves? We can just sell these technology data, and we will be rich. How about this? We will partner, and I will come out with the capital, but you will get the bigger share of the profits.”

Feng Yu shook his head and said: “Mr. Fu, things are not as easy as you think. You might not understand the situation in China now. If you do not have the backing of the Chinese Government, you will be arrested before you are able to sell those technologies. I am now working with Bing City’s Machinery Factory. But the factory had been renamed as Bing City’s Machinery Corporation Ltd. My father has a 10% stake in the company. If you are investing, I guarantee you will get more than 50% returns within 3 years!”

Fu Guangzheng lowered his head and was deep in thoughts. There were lots of problems when working with state-owned enterprises. He had met many state-owned enterprises leaders in the South and the thinking of these leaders were conservative and lacking management skills. Will the prospects be good if he were to work with them?

But now, the factory had advanced technologies and machinery from the Soviet Union, and it will be easy to capture the market. Furthermore, Feng Yu is a very capable person, and even his father has a 10% stake in the factory. This investment should be fine. Also, what Feng Yu said was true. Without the Chinese Government backing, it will be very inconvenient to do a lot of things.

“Mr. Feng, can you tell me why you wanted me to invest in this?” Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu. He felt that Feng Yu was not telling him everything.

“Actually, I can contact a lot of people. But the reason I asked you to join me is that you are a Hong Kong businessman. There are a lot of things which I dislike about the factory. The finances are in a mess, the management style is backward, the factory leaders are conservative, and the City Government kept interfering with the factory’s operations. With your investments, I believe that all these will change within one year.”

“The biggest shareholder will call the shots in a shareholding company. What makes you think that they will listen to you?”

“What if I am able to be the biggest shareholder?” Feng Yu replied Fu Guangzheng with a question.

“You are going to inject more capital to dilute the shares of other shareholders?” Fu Guangzheng’s face changed. Dilution of shares would mean that his shares would also be diluted. Then what’s the point of investing? Just to help Feng Yu?

“You can also carry on investing. If you have not enough funds, you can borrow from your father. With these shares as collateral, he will lend you the funds you needed. You should be able to foresee the potential of this factory.

You should know that China is an agriculture country and the market for agricultural machinery is very big. Also, I will not be using money to inject capital. I will be using advanced machinery and other types of technologies to invest. They will not reject me. Also, these machines and technologies are at least 10 years ahead of China. How much can the factory make in 10 years, you should know the math.”

Fu Guangzheng was feeling giddy from Feng Yu’s beautiful picture. He hesitated for a while and said: “Mr. Feng, can you let me consider first and get back to you in a few days?”

Feng Yu understood. Fu Guangzheng needs to discuss with his family first.

“Of course. You can get back to me before New Year.”

Chapter 96 – Hong Kong Businessman (Part 1)

After Fu Guangzheng left Tai Hua Trading, he went straight to a Post Office to make a phone call back home. He felt that he needs to discuss with his father. Although his father does not really like him, if it was regarding business, his father will still give him some pointers.

After hearing the circumstances from Fu Guangzheng, Fu Rongjing felt heartened. He might treat his elder son better, but Fu Guangzheng was also his son. How can he not care for him?

Fu Guangzheng had not walked the path Fu Rongjing planned for him. He had taught him about investing, but he was not interested. Instead, he just likes to meddle with antiques and had wasted lots of money.

Luckily Fu Guangzheng had learned his lessons and at least was able to not make any losses now. However, Fu Rongjing still felt that antique business was too risky. But two months ago, Fu Guangzheng started a British used luxury car business, and the profits were not low also.

This business attracted the attention of Fu Rongjing. If his son could know some capable people in China, it will be useful for the whole Fu family.

Fu Rongjing had never heard of Bing City’s Machinery Corporation Ltd before. But if it was as what his son had said, the factory was using Soviet Union’s advanced machinery and technologies, and there were also experts from the Soviet Union there, then it will be worth investing.

But the thing that made Fu Rongjing happy was that Fu Guangzheng got to know Feng Yu. A teenager, who was still attending high school, was able to do Sino-Soviet trades and able to get his hands on the most advanced technologies and machinery, which even the Chinese Government were unable to gain access to. There must be someone powerful behind him.

Fu Rongjing felt that building a good relationship with Feng Yu was worth more than letting his son making some profits now. He was glad that his son could have such capable friend. He decided to give his son the money for the investment. It’s only 3 million Rubles!

When he heard that his father was giving him the money for the investment and he does not need to raise funds from his friends, Fu Guangzheng was overjoyed. This way, not only he was able to have a good relationship with Feng Yu and stable investment, the most important thing was that he still has his own money left. He can even do his antique business!

……

Li Mingde was having headaches for the past few days. The machines Feng Yu sold to the factory were excellent and much more advanced than their existing machines. They also researched the technologies information, and these technologies were indeed at least 10 years ahead of China. The experts from the Soviet Union had helped them set up and calibrated the machines, and also helped them to modify their old machines.

But it was also this restructuring process let him become a scapegoat!

Initially, he had told the City Government leaders to increase the value of the fixed assets and then inject a large sum of capital to reduce Feng Xingtai’s shares proportion. After the restructuring, the money will be returned to the City Government. After all, even when the factory was converted into a private company, he was still the General Manager. It would be easy for him to transfer these funds out.

But he never expects Feng Yu to bring in a finance officer, and even added a clause in the contract, stating that any financial matters involving large amount would need Feng Xingtai or Feng Xingtai authorized representative approval. If he can only transfer a few thousand RMB at one time, how long will it take for him to withdraw the capital injected by the government? Furthermore, anyone looking at the accounts could easily spot this discrepancy. He will be in big trouble then.

Now, the City Government was chasing him to return the funds, and Li Mingde went to Zhang Ruiqiang for help. But Zhang Ruiqiang asked him to think of a solution himself. In the first place, Zhang Ruiqiang was the one who had hinted this idea to him!

Zhang Ruiqiang, himself also did not expect Feng Yu to be so sharp and had already preempted the tricks they might be using. Now, he was also in trouble. He had promised the Mayor that the funds injected into the factory will be returned to the City. He thought that the funds could be withdrawn after a month, during the year-end dividends. But now, the City Government needed this money urgently and can’t afford to wait for 2 weeks, let alone 1 month!

“Zhang Ruiqiang was still thinking when he saw Li Mingde entering his office again.

“Old Li, is there anything else?” Zhang Ruiqiang was unhappy. He was helping him to think of a solution, and there was no used for Li Mingde to keep visiting his office. There were many other things to handle besides the Machinery Factory.

“Mayor Zhang, I had just received news that there is a Hong Kong businessman wanted to invest in our factory. Do you think we should sell some of our shares to him?  This way, we will be able to return the 20 million RMB to the City Government.”

“Hong Kong businessman? Does he have the financial strength? How much can he invest?” Zhang Ruiqiang was ecstatic. Now, China wanted to attract investment from Hong Kong first and then followed by other foreign funds. Bing City still does not have any investments from Hong Kong yet, and this will be the precedent for them.

Li Mingde replied embarrassedly: “Ermm… I have yet to find out. That businessman will only be visiting the Machinery Factory in the afternoon. I will find out after his tour of the factory.”

“Fine. Then what are you waiting for? Go back to the factory to make arrangements now! You must get him to invest!”

Li Mingde left Zhang Ruiqiang’s office, and Zhang Ruiqiang immediately went to the mayor’s office to report this matter. This was good news and but if he were to make all the decisions himself and claimed all the credit, then it will be a wrong move!

……

“Mr. Feng, you are not coming with me? Didn’t you have a stake in this company too?” Fu Guangzheng was feeling puzzled.

Feng Yu smiled mysteriously and said: “I will not be going with you and it’s better that you don’t mention me at all. Most importantly, don’t tell them that I was the one who asked you to invest in this factory. If not, you will not be able to invest.”

“Why?”

Feng Yu pointed to his own head and said: “Because of the different thinking and views. They were cautious and wary of me. If this is Hong Kong, I will still be working with them? I will be thinking of ways to take over them as I am the one who provided them the machines and technologies. However, this is China, and I must work with them for the time being. If not, there will be lots of trouble later.”

Fu Guangzheng frowned and said: “Even if we add both of our shares together, it will still be less than 50%.  They will still have the final say ……”

“Don’t worry. This is only temporary, and it will not affect our profits. China’s policies will be liberalized further in a few years’ time, and that’s when we can flex our muscles. If you are regretting, you can still give up this opportunity.” Feng Yu said smilingly.

Fu Guangzheng remembered what his father told him and he looked at Feng Yu: “No, since you said that this factory is worth investing, I will trust you. Actually, this afternoon visit to the factory is just a formality. I will surely invest my money in this factory!”

No matter what happens, Fu Guangzheng will not suffer any losses. The funds were provided by his father but under his name. Even if it were a failed investment, he would still have close to 20 million RMB worth of assets more. Worse come to worst, he can just sell off his shares. With this money, he will be one of the top antique dealers!

Feng Yu nodded. Since Fu Guangzheng trusted him so much, he might include him to earn money together in future.

“I can promise you that you will not regret making this investment!”

Chapter 97 – Hong Kong Businessman (Part 2)

“Hang the banner higher. Why is that colored flag crooked? There is a leaf at that corner. Hurry and go sweep it! The big boss from Hong Kong is arriving soon. He is a foreign guest, and every one must welcome him properly. This does not only concern our company’s image and also the City government and even our Provincial Government. You all must take note of this! Factory…… no, it should be General Manager, what do you think of this arrangement?”

Li Mingde looked around and nodded: “It’s fine. What about the arrangements at the canteen?”

“It’s settled. We have prepared a lot of wild games, and it will be something that this big boss from Hong Kong have never eaten!”

“Good. If we succeed, you will get some credit!”

Honk, honk ~~~

A black sedan car appeared at the entrance of the factory. The appearance of this car was majestic. There was a small flying goddess standing upright at the front of the vehicle. Many felt that this car was luxurious but had not seen the logo before. It was not Mercedes Benz or BMW.

The sedan car stopped, and the driver alighted to open the rear passenger door.

A man wearing a black coat, bowler hat, a white scarf and polished leather shoes alighted from the car.

“Which one is Li Mingde, Manager Li?”

Li Mingde hurriedly steps forward and used both his hands to shook Fu Guangzheng’s hand: “I am Li Mingde from Bing City Machinery Corporation Ltd. We are here to welcome Mr. Fu to invest in our factory.”

“It’s visiting. I have not decided to invest yet.” Fu Guangzheng said. His Cantonese Mandarin was making Li Mingde uncomfortable, but Li Mingde had no choice.

That car was a second-hand Rolls Royce which Feng Yu had kept for himself. Feng Yu had lent Fu Guangzheng his Rolls Royce, but the driver was Fu Guangzheng’s man. The driver was from the South but knew Mandarin. He also doubles as Fu Guangzheng’s translator.

Feng Yu had told Fu Guangzheng that for this investment, he needs to position himself highly. He must not show any eagerness. The more he showed that he was not anxious about investing in the company, the better the conditions he would get.

As for his dressing, it was still okay if he was in the South. But this was the Northeast, and it was November. The temperature was lower than -10 degrees Celsius. The moment he stepped out of the car, he shuddered. He should have worn a few more pieces of clothing inside. He secretly swore that he will not come to Bing City in the winter. It’s too cold!

“It’s the same. After your visit, you will still be investing in our company. Mr. Fu, this way. I will bring you around our factory. We have the most advanced machinery from the Soviet Union, the most advanced technologies, and experts to guide us. We are the best in the country.” Li Mingde enthusiastically said.

Fu Guangzheng strolled with his head held high. He looks like he was just casually looking around but in fact, he was observing the factory carefully.

This was different from what he imagined. The factory was huge and lean. But when he saw the banners and colored flags, he knew that the place was cleaned up to welcome him.

Fu Guangzheng was not interested in these welcoming ceremonies. He will invest in this factory if what Feng Yu said about the machines and technologies from the Soviet Union were real.

“Mr. Fu, look. This production line was just set up and calibrated. Everything in this workshop is new. This is the digital CNC machine. It can produce engine parts and sophisticated bearings. Those workers are working on it. There is little noise, efficient and definitely the best in China!”

Fu Guangzheng nodded. It was not as noisy as he expected and the workshops were spacious. The factory covers a large area. There were no factories this scale in Hong Kong. But Hong Kong was not an industrial city in the first place.

Fu Guangzheng saw a foreigner instructing some workers. This is the expert in mechanical engineering Feng Yu told him about?

“Mr. Fu, this bearing was just produced. It has 0 defects, and 100% will pass the QC……”

Fu Guangzheng was not interested in these. He was only concern if there were advanced machines and technologies from the Soviet Union. The purpose of his visit here was completed, but he still got to pretend. He must at least tour the factory for an hour to show that he was seriously considering investing in this company. However, he also can’t stay there for long as it will show that he was very interested.

Also, the air at the factory was terrible. Fu Guangzheng used a handkerchief to cover his mouth and nose while he was walking around. He did not even touch the finished products shown to him by Li Mingde. Those products were oily, and he does not want to touch those with his bare hands.

Fu Guangzheng had some OCD, and he had to bathe at least twice a day and washes his hands seven to eight times. If his hands were stained with oil, it would hard to wash off. Even if the stains were washed off, the smell would still be there, and he would not be able to eat or sleep.

But now, Fu Guangzheng still cannot leave yet.

Li Mingde was getting more excited as he speaks. He saw this big boss from Hong Kong nodding his head and thought that he was satisfied with the factory.

It was the office director who noticed Fu Guangzheng’s discomfort, and he whispered to Li Mingde: “General Manager, the Hong Kong boss kept covering his nose with his handkerchief. Could it be he dislike the smell in the factory? Why not invite him to the office to look at our past achievements and honor?”

Li Mingde looked at Fu Guangzheng and saw that it was as what the office director said. Visiting the achievement and honor office? This idea is not bad. This company was Bing City’s Machinery Factory previously and had gotten numerous awards. These awards should attract this Hong Kong businessman to invest.

“Mr. Fu, so you still want to tour the workshops? Why not go to the office to look at our historical achievements?”

Fu Guangzheng nodded: “Okay, I also want to look at those.”

Fu Guangzheng kept his handkerchief when they enter the office building.

Li Mingde started his introduction and explanations about the factory’s history and achievements. These awards were issued by the City Government and those awards were issued by the Provincial Government.

Li Mingde was feeling very proud when he showed those past achievements. Although most of these awards were issued during his predecessor time, he said it as if it was because of him, the factory got these awards.

After half an hour, Li Mingde still had not finished, and Fu Guangzheng was getting impatient. He interrupted Li Mingde: “GM Li, can I look at the financial report?”

Li Mingde’s heart skipped a beat. Although the company’s finances were not in a mess,  it was not transparent. During the restructuring, the value of the fixed assets was inflated, and even Feng Yu could point those out. This Hong Kong businessman might also notice it.

“Our company’s finances are in order, and we have surplus funds. The fixed assets are only the land, factory, machines and technologies. There is no need to look at these.”

“Really? The value of these fixed assets should be quite high. If I am investing, then will I have some rights to speak on the matters involving finances?” Fu Guangzheng asked casually.

“Of course. We are a shareholding company, and all shareholders have the right to monitor the finances. One of our shareholders even stations someone here to monitor these matters!” Li Mingde said.

Shit. Why is this fellow from Hong Kong keep talking about the finance? But no matter what, he must invest in the company. If the money is still not returned to the City Government, then he will be in the bad books of the City Government leaders.

Chapter 98 – Tai Hua Factory’s Future Development

Everything was going along as what Feng Yu expected. Li Mingde was eager to sell the shares but dared not let Fu Guangzheng look at their financial reports.

Fu Guangzheng had studied the situation and discussed with his father. They were willing to accept some losses for the time being. If this company continued to develop, he could get back his investments within 2 years and enjoy the profits for at least the next 10 years.

Also, he would be closer to Feng Yu. Fu Rongjing and Fu Guangzheng take a serious view on their relationship with Feng Yu. Fu Guangzheng deliberately acted like he was taking the bait, and invested 20 million RMB for a 16% stake in the company. He was now the second biggest shareholder of the company.

This was not something Feng Yu expected. He did not expect Fu Guangzheng to be investing so much and the City Government to give him so many shares.

But looking closer, the City did not suffer any losses. Whether it was Fu Guangzheng’s investment or Feng Yu buying into the company using technologies, their shareholding ratio was lowered. On the other hand, the City Government had got advanced technologies and 20 million RMB funds without coming out a single cent.

According to the experts in the City, even with 74% of shareholdings, the City Government’s profits would be more than doubled compared to previous years. Also, the Government was still the major shareholder, and the company still had to pay taxes. The expansion of the factory would also create more jobs. This was a big bargain for the City Government!

Fu Guangzheng had used all his money for this investment. His father had given him 10 million Hong Kong Dollars, and his mother also helped him raised some money. If it wasn’t for their help, he might not even have enough to pay for those used cars.

Now, the factory’s current assets had more than 30 million RMB. This made Feng Yu very happy. The coming 2 years, Feng Yu intend to do the Soviet Union’s advanced equipment and technology reselling business. He had disclosed some of this information to the Motor Factory and Fei Factory. He was now waiting for them to contact him.

Once the orders came in, then he would be able to work with Kirilenko to earn some profits again. Also, he would be able to raise China’s technology standards and also leave a good impression on the leaders.

As for the time being, Feng Yu would be helping his father manage the food processing factory. Now, Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil was very popular in Longjiang province. There were even some inquiries from Lin Province.

The sales had become stable. Temporary, the production was slightly more than the sales. There was still no need to import new production machines. After the New Year, the value of the Soviet Union’s machinery will drop further! These type of technology and machines will be readily available.

Sugar was produced because of the animal feeds. Feng Yu did not expect to earn much from producing sugar. Feng Yu felt that the most profitable would be animal feeds, more specifically, pig feed.

China’s population and income were increasing rapidly. However, the supply of daily necessities, especially agricultural by-products still cannot meet the demands. This was because the country’s focus for the past few years was in industrial development.

Although the situation was not as bad as the Soviet Union, due to the focus on industrial developments, the government had somehow neglected the development of the agriculture industry.

Now, the number of farms were increasing, but there was not much focus on agricultural products. For instance, the pork supply was not enough to meet the demands. The people had money, but they were unable to buy pork! The pork selling in the cities was not fresh pork too.

The district which Feng Yu lived in, had a chicken farm and pig farm. But these farms were struggling. Last year, the chicken farm had closed. Farming districts and farming villages were similar, but the only difference was that farming districts were more advanced and used more machinery. Everyone living in the countrydies would rear some animals themselves.

Almost every household rear poultry, pigs, cows or sheep. They would slaughter them during Lunar New Year. That’s was the reason why many said that living on the farms was better than living in the cities!

The chicken and pig farms had no way to sell to the people in the district as every household were rearing their own animals. They did consider selling to the cities, but it was not easy to set up the distribution channels.

Feng Yu remembered that in his previous life, there was a ranking chart of China’s wealthiest men. One of the first few to make it on the chart was in the pig feed business. In the 90’s, his pig feed was selling all over China, and he made his fortune from it.

Feng Yu did not expect his father’s small factory to be the best in China but at least it should be the best in Longjiang province or the best in the Northeast region.

Of course, the target right now was to sell the stockpile of sugar!

Feng Yu was sitting with the leader of Bing City’s Food Department to discuss selling Tai Hua Food Processing Factory’s products in their stores.

“Chief Zhou, you should know how popular our products are. Now we occupied 10% of the Bing City’s market share, and this figure is still increasing. It should reach 30% next year. I am confident that if it is managed well, it can reach above 50%.”

Feng Yu was bluffing. With Tai Hua Factory current production rate and to supply the goods to the various stores in the province, they barely occupy 10% of Bing City’s market. The sales in other areas were growing, and the supply cannot be stopped, or it would affect their profits. This was the time for them to increase their brand equity!

But Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil’s popularity was a threat to the Food Department. They did not expect a small soybean oil factory to capture part of the market share. Most importantly, the Food Department was facing difficulties recently. Many people, including some leaders, were asking them if the oil extracted using the leaching process was safe to consume.

Now it was the market economy, and the government allowed private factories to operate. The Food Department was unable to order Feng Yu to stop selling those oil or change the production method to a less productive method. They also can’t change their current leaching process back to the traditional method. So, they came up with a way, to stop the cooperatives from selling these premium oils and to sell them in their own stores. This idea was supported by the City Government.

However, the representative from Tai Hua Factory was a teenager, and he was here to negotiate about this. At this age, shouldn’t he be n school? Chief Zhou thought that it would be easy to handle a teenager, but he was wrong. This kid not only wanted the Food Department stores to sell his sugar and still wanted the Food Department to help him promote his sugar. How can the Food Department support the products from a small private factory and not its own products?

But Feng Yu had said that if they don’t agree to his conditions, he will not allow the Food Department stores or the cooperatives to sell his products. He would push his products to those small shops. Anyway, there were more and more small shops popping up in the city. The number of these small shops were more than the Food Department stores and cooperatives.

Chief Zhou was now in an awkward position. On the one hand, he wanted the rights to sell Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil, and on the other,  he does not want to agree to Feng Yu’s harsh conditions. This negotiation had come to a standstill.

Author’s notes:

PS: The requirement to be the major shareholder was to hold more than two-thirds of the total shares and not 51%.

Chapter 99 – Settling the Sales Channels

“Director Feng, we will not do any promotions for your sugar. There is no room to discuss for this, but we will place your sugar together with your soybean oil, and it will be at an eye-catching place of the store. This is the biggest concession I can give.”

Feng Yu saw Zhou Kehua’s firmed attitude and knew that there was no point bargaining further. Anyway, he still has advertisement slots in the papers and TV stations. The sales of his sugar will not be too bad.

Feng Yu only wanted to sign a three years contract with the Food Department and nothing more than that. In 1993, this department will cease to exist. Actually from this year onwards, after the opening up of the food and oil market, the status of the Food Department had been declining.

Now, Zhou Kehua had a lot of authority but in 2 years’ time, he would either be transferred to another department or forced to move to a more relaxed position.

“Wait, Director Feng, why is your sugar so expensive? The supplier rates you gave us is almost as expensive as our retail prices.” Zhou Kehua saw the contract and said.

“Ours is pure fine sugar, and it is sweeter. Also, the sugar will be in packets. We do not sell in bulk. Furthermore, this sugar is produced using the most advanced techniques from the Soviet Union. It will not be discolored easily or attract pests. These are somethings that the sugar produced by your department can do.”

In this era, people buy sugar loosely in small paper bags. The sugar in the Food Department’s stores was stored in a large paper bag. If they did not store the sugar correctly, it could attract ants easily. After people buy the sugar, they would transfer to small bottles to store them. The sugar also turns yellow easily. This was not as attractive as packing the sugar in small packages. Sugar is not like salt or cooking oil. No one uses sugar every day.

“We also produce fine sugar. The cost is not that high. Who would buy your sugar when you price it so high?” Zhou Kehua felt that Feng Yu was messing around. People buy the cheapest product typically. Who would buy the most expensive ones?

“Chief Zhou don’t need to worry about this. You just sell according to the prices I listed. If the sales are not good, you can look for me, or you can be a consignee. I will give you 2 cents for every packet sold.”

Feng Yu sighed in his heart. Old mindset thinking that no one will buy expensive things. Wait for another 2 years, people then, will not buy food products if they were selling at low prices!

“Consignment? No, we will not do consignment. Then let’s see if your sugar will sell at this price. If there is no one buying, then you don’t blame me if I don’t order more of this sugar!”

“Fine. If you have no problems with these terms, then please sign.”

Feng Yu left with the contract. Chief Zhou lit a cigarette and was deep in thoughts. Why was that kid so confident that people will buy his sugar? Isn’t those regular fine sugar? Why were they priced so much higher?

Feng Yu made a phone call to notify the newspaper agency to release the advertisements for the sugar. It was still soft-sell advertisements. These advertisements will continue for the next 2 weeks. Feng Yu believed that with the people’s current knowledge, they would be buying his sugar. Also, with the help of the TV advertisements, everyone would remember this Tai Hua Fine Sugar.

The contract was photocopied to a few dozen copies, and Feng Yu arranged Wu Zhigang and the rest to other areas in the province. The cooperatives were still smaller compared to the Food Department’s stores. People in the cities prefer to go to the Food Department’s stores to purchase oil or rice. Feng Yu wanted the Food Department of that area to look at the contract signed between him and Bing City. He will then use the same conditions to sign a similar contract with the Food Department of those areas. This would let most people know about Tai Hua’s brand.

……

“What are you here? Is it a holiday today?” Feng Xingtai saw Feng Yu at the factory, and he did not behave like other fathers, who were happy to see their sons. He asked angrily: “You skipped school again?”

“Dad, don’t hit me first. I have something important. Have you discussed with the Farm Department Officer? Is the pig farm buying our animal feed?” Feng Yu dodged Feng Xingtai’s slap by jumping back.

“The officer had agreed to try it out. But the quantity will not be large. There are not many pigs at the pig farm anyway. What are we going to do with these animal feed? You still asked me to increase the production! Also, the sugar is stockpiled in the warehouse. Why not we sell it to the candy factory to make candies.”

When Feng Xingtai thought of the sugar, he starts to get worried. Other people sell their sugar in a big sack, and when their customers want to buy sugar, they would weight and put the sugar into smaller plastic bags. Only his son would package the sugar into small packages. These packaging also cost money! Now all the sugar were still lying in the warehouse. They will even make a loss if they sell it to the candy factory!

Feng Yu waved the contract: “You see this? This is the sales channel for the sugar. I have settled it. Contact the trucks for delivery. The candy factory wants our sugar? They can dream on!”

“The sales channel is settled? That’s great. Eh? This is Bing City’s Food Department seal? Finally, I can rest assured. If not, the money earned from soybean oil would be used to cover the losses from the sugar. Right, what about the animal feed? There are not many people in our village that rear pigs. One week’s production can last us more than a month!”

“Dad, did you tell the Farm Department that we want to take over the Pig Farm as a contractor?”

“Contract your head! I am already so busy with the factory, you want to work me to my grave?” Feng Xingtai was furious and raised his hand to slap Feng Yu. But he noticed that after Feng Yu had finished his last sentence, he had stepped two steps back from him. He could not reach Feng Yu.

“Dad, I have told you many times. A good boss does not do everything himself. Must know how to use people. I asked you to rest, but you just don’t listen. We can hire two experts in pig farming from the Agricultural Technology Station. We have the animal feeds now. If our pigs can grow faster, then our animal feeds will be selling well!”

“You are talking nonsense. Don’t need to manage? Do you know how hard it is to rear a pig? When you are young, we also reared a pig. Do you know how tiring it was? If the pigs fall sick, you will be so busy till you fall sick too!”

“We will hire people to take care of the pigs. Your job next time will be drinking tea, watching TV and playing Mahjong every day. Occasionally, you can walk around the factory, and if you are bored, you can count your money in your passbook. If not, you can go on holidays with me. China is big and should be enough for the both of you to tour a few years. When you are bored with China, you can go overseas. Anyway, you don’t need to worry about money in your lifetime.” Feng Yu starts to persuade his father.

“Get lost. Your father is still not that old. What drinks tea, watch TV and play Mahjong every day? Talk about yourself. You should be studying hard to get into a good university. I don’t expect you to be someone great, but you should not be worse than others.”

“Don’t worry. I will definitely be entering university. I can even enter the best university in Beijing. Let’s not talk about this. We shall go and look for the Farm Department Officer first to be the contractor for the pig farm. We might even be in time for the New Year and Lunar New Year festivals.”

Feng Yu dragged his father to look for the Farm Department Officer. When the officer heard that Feng Xingtai was looking for him, he immediately put down his work and went out to welcome him. This was the first private factory in the district, and the factory was renowned throughout the whole province. This factory was built during his time at the district, and this was considered his achievement. Maybe next year he might be transferred to other departments and be the leader there.

“You want to contract the pig farm? Old Feng, I had agreed on behalf of the pig farm to buy your animal feeds. Why are you trying to rear pigs yourself?”

The officer was feeling weird. The sales for animal feeds was not doing well, so they decided to rear pigs to consume their own animal feeds? What logic is this?

“That’s right. Officer, we do not want to contract the pig farm. We want to buy the pig farm and the land behind it. Next year, we want to build a bigger pig farm. A modernized pig farm!” Feng Yu used the pencil to circle an empty plot of land on the farm map.

“Modernized pig farm?”

“Modernized pig farm! Machines to feed animal feeds, water and clean up the pigsty! It will only require a few people to rear more than a thousand pigs!” Feng Yu said firmly.

Chapter 100 – Asking for too much

The modernized pig farm that Feng Yu mentioned was something he read in the papers in his previous life. He knew that it was not too complicated, but the initial investment was a bit high. However, if the scale is significant, the cost will be lower than using the traditional method.

Also, building this pig farm had other benefits. He would be able to get the attention of the leaders and at least get to appear on the Provincial TV station. This was much better than advertising on the papers.

As for the distribution channels, Feng Yu was not worried. The coming few years or even the next few decades, the demand for pork will keep rising, and there will not be the situation where no one wants to buy his pork. If no one from the district wants to buy his pork, he can sell it to the cities. If no one in the cities wants his pork, he can sell it to Lin Province. Anyway, the distance was not that great.

If Feng Yu were to contract the pig farm, then it would be different. Once the modernized pig farm was set up and the profits start to come in, there will be people who would be jealous of his success. What if the current officer was transferred out and the next officer wants to take back the farm? Picking only the ripe fruits was the skill of some Government Officials. Contract? You think Government officials will talk to you about the contract?

“How much are you going to invest? The officer looked at Feng Yu. He knew that this kid, who was still attending high school, was the one who makes all the decisions in the family.

“At least a few million RMB in the initial phase. Just the construction of the pigsty will cost a lot. However, the farm should be able to produce at least 2,000 pigs in a year. In future, it will be producing more than 2,000!”

Feng Yu might not be investing so much after all. But the more he said, the more the Farm Department would be willing to sell. Feng Yu wanted to tell the officer that the farm would produce 10,000 pigs a year but that would be too impractical!

“2,000 pigs? This pig farm can be sold to you, but I need to discuss with others to determine the price. But don’t worry, we will sell the farm to you! The officer was beaming with joy. This was another political achievement!

The pig farm was struggling to make ends meet. The most pigs it can produce in a year was only about 500. Now, this number was multiplied a few times!

Feng Yu said: “Oh yes. Initially, we did not want to buy the pig farm. We had set up the sales channels for our animal feeds, but Deputy Farm Officer Wen kept persuading us. That’s why we had come to this decision.”

Feng Yu knew that this was a great political achievement and he cannot let this officer get all the credits. He must at least let Uncle Wen get part of it. Wen Dongjun wanted to be a civil servant in future, and it would help if his father were a high-rank officer. Furthermore, even if Wen Dongjun’s father got promoted to be only a deputy mayor, he would be able to help Feng Yu a lot.

The officer understood Feng Yu’s underlying meaning and smiled to Feng Yu: “Deputy Officer Wen must be part of this project. He is also one of the leaders in the Farm Department.”

The Farm Department discussed for about 2 hours. Their primary concern was that who would be in-charge of this and how much to sell the pig farm and the land for.

The pig farm was losing money every year, and since there was someone who was willing to buy it, then they should sell it fast! There were only a few workers at the farm. They can be transferred to other departments. Previously, the chicken farm was losing money every year and eventually it was closed.

In the end, just like the food processing factory, this pig farm would be under the charge of Wen Deguang. There were others who wanted to take on this role, but the Officer only said one thing: “They are only buying this pig farm because of Wen Deguang.”

Wen Deguang knew immediately that it was the Feng family that helped him. Even if others were jealous, there was nothing they can do, as Wen Deguang and Feng Xingtai were good friends.

As for the issue of how much to sell the pig farm and the land, there were arguments. There were some who said to sell it based on the market rate of about 300,000 RMB, there were some who wants to refer to the price of the food processing factory, 500,000 RMB and there was even someone who said the since the Feng family was so rich, then they should ask for more. At least 1 million!

300,000 RMB was suggested by Wen Deguang. The others all wanted more than that. There were even some who questioned Wen Deguang if he was giving the Feng family special treatment because his wife had shares in Feng Xingtai’s factory!

Wen Deguang just kept quiet after that. After all, he was the most junior and the youngest there. His wife did own some shares of the factory. But what’s wrong with that? That time, he was still a small village head.

Finally, the Deputy Farm officer that suggested the highest price was assigned to negotiate with Feng Xingtai, together with the Farm Officer. If they could get more money, they would be able to use it for other things. These were also considered political achievements.

……

“Have you finished talking?” Feng Yu said and looked at Deputy Officer Xu as if he was an idiot. This guy thinks that his whole family were stupid and would pay whatever they asked for?

It’s only the pig farm and the land. The location was also out of the way, and there was no one staying nearby. Yet they still wanted such a high price? With this price, they can buy a piece of land in the suburbs of Bing City!

“I will only offer 500,000 RMB for this piece of land, including the pig farm. Also, I have a condition. You must fix the road leading to the farm. It doesn’t need to be cement road, but at least a dirt road. The road cannot be flooded during heavy rains, and the width should be at least enough for 2 trucks to travel side by side.”

“Impossible! Why should we help you to fix the road? You want to set up a pig farm, you should fix it yourself! Also, 500,000 RMB is too low. At least 1.3 million RMB. Just the pig farm alone was worth 500,000RMB!”  Deputy Officer Xu shouted and continued asking for more.

“Really? Since the pig farm is so expensive, then we can’t afford it. Treating a loss-making pig farm as a treasure, you can keep it for yourself. Let’s forget about this project. Just treat it as if I had not mentioned it. We shall make a move first. Bye.” Feng Yu and Feng Xingtai stood up. Feng Xingtai did not partake in the negotiations. He had complete trust in his son.

After they reached home, Feng Xingtai asked curiously: “You are not buying the farm?”

“I am buying.”

“Then why did you say all those? They didn’t chase after us. How will you carry on with the negotiations?” Feng Xingtai said.

“Dad, just wait patiently. They will contact us, and if I am not wrong, the one who will be coming to us is Uncle Wen.” Feng Yu said calmly.

At the same time, the leaders in the Farm Department were having a meeting. Deputy Officer Xu still insisted on that price and said that the Feng family will accept it eventually. But the rest did not believe him. The Feng family was wealthy, but they were not stupid. You mentioned 1 million during the meeting, and when negotiating, you told them 1.3 million. If it was you, will you accept it?

It was evident that Deputy Officer Xu was not suitable to carry on with the negotiations. The Chief Officer also should not lower himself and go over to Feng Xingtai’s house. Finally, this task was assigned to Wen Deguang. Everyone discussed for a while and decided on 800,000 RMB. They felt that Feng Yu would be able to accept this price. This was also because of the insistent Deputy Officer Xu.

“800,000 RMB? Uncle Wen, do they know what 800,000 RMB can do? Do they know that the pig farm is not even worth 100,000 RMB? You can go back and tell them that I will be present at your department’s morning meeting to do the calculations for them. We will put everything on the table and discuss.”

Wen Deguang sighed. He also knew that Feng Yu would not agree to it. But for Feng Yu to go to his department meeting tomorrow and explain personally, was already saving him from embarrassment.

“Son, how much are we buying the pig farm for?” Zhang Muhua asked her son out of curiosity.

“Mum, not much. The most 500,000 RMB. You don’t stare at me like dad. I will show you the potential of the pig farm, and within 2 to 3 years, I can recoup my investments. After that, we will be enjoying the profits every year!”

In Feng Yu’s heart, even if the investment failed, after the Provincial Government build the highway a few years later, the value of the piece of land would increase over ten folds!

Author notes:

PS: Many readers reflected to me that they do not like the Song Laosi part. The later part of the story will have nothing to do with them anymore, but Song Xiaofeng will appear again. Thanks for supporting my story.

Chapter 101 – General in Heavens

“Old Feng, Xiao Feng, since the both of you are here today, then let’s have an open discussion. Are you all going to buy the pig farm?”

In the meeting of the Farm Department, the leaders were seated on one side, while Feng Yu and his father were sitting on the other side of the meeting table.

“Chief Officer, let’s be honest with each other. Everyone here should know about the situation of the pig farm. If the pig farm can earn money and I want to buy it, you will not sell to me. We will not do any business that will lose money. Now, we have the animal feeds, technology, money and we want to help our district. If the district is still having this attitude and making such unreasonable demands, then there is no need for us to negotiate further.”

After Feng Yu finished, he picked up the teacup and took a slip. Shit, this tea was excellent. A small leader in the Farm Department an enjoy such tea? This shows where they spent their money on.

Even if Feng Yu wanted to rebuild his homeland, he must also control the finances. He will not let the Farm Department handle the money. They know nuts about managing finances and still like to make decisions. If Feng Yu was evil, he could just ask Brother Ki and Fu Guangzheng to work with him and cheat the Farm Department!

“What unreasonable demands? The land is really worth that much.” Deputy Officer Xu insisted.

Feng Yu pointed to him and said: “I do not want to talk to you. If you interrupt again, we will leave!”

“You……” Deputy Officer Xu felt he was insulted. He was a leader and was told off by a teenager!

Wen Deguang hurriedly said: “Xiao Yu, then you tell us a price. How much are you going to spend?”

“The pig farm is worth the most 100,000 RMB. I will offer 200,000 RMB for the land surrounding it. As for the pigs in the farm, based on the market rate, it is not even worth 10,000 RMB. But I will count it as 10,000 RMB. The total is 310,000 RMB.”

“310,000 RMB? It’s too little. That is a big plot of land, and that pig farm couldn’t be worth only 100,000 RMB. Yesterday you said that you will offer 500,000 RMB.” The Chief Officer was disappointed. The amount was too little. Although, what Feng Yu said was reasonable, but what can he do with 300,000 RMB? He could not make any changes to the district, let alone creating an achievement.

“500,000 RMB, but you still have to fulfill my conditions. Chief Officer, you should know about the location of that plot of land. It is not near to the village or any shops. The road conditions were not good either. That dirt road is full of potholes, and it will be an inconvenience for us to transport our pigs.”

“We can repair the roads for you. Then the value of the land should be higher?” The Chief Officer said.

“How about this? I will increase it by 100,000 RMB. It’s 100,000 RMB! This should be enough? Also, I need to expand and upgrade the pigsty after New Year. The materials I needed will be purchased from your department. I will pay you 90,000 RMB as deposits. The total will be 500,000 RMB. This is my final offer. In future, if the pig farm needs anything, I will also purchase through the Farm Department. This is also money.”

Yesterday afternoon, these people wanted at least 1 million. In the evenings, they felt that they can also accept 800,000 RMB. But now, they felt that Feng Yu’s offer of 500,000 RMB was also reasonable.

The Chief Officer was a decisive person and accepted Feng Yu’s offer on the spot!

Deputy Officer Xu left with a black face. Feng family, you just wait!

……

“The ventilation is not good. It is important to take note of the temperature during Winter, but the ventilation is also important. The smell is too bad here. Where are all the pig’s feces kept? Thrown away? Don’t throw them away in future. Keep the feces in the northeast area……”

Feng Yu went to look at the pig farm, and the moment he stepped in, he almost vomited. The smell of the pig feces was terrible. He doesn’t understand how did the previous employees at the pig farm stand it.

The full-time workers at the pig farm were transferred to other departments. Only 3 temporary workers remained and were hired by Feng Yu. If not, Feng Yu would have no one to take care of his farm now.

The Farm Department also assigned a vet to Feng Yu’s pig farm. But after meeting the vet, Feng Yu decided to hire another vet himself. The vet was drunk in broad daylight, and Feng Yu does not really trust him with his pigs.

Feng Yu had also contacted some experts in pigs rearing. They used to own a pig farm, but the farm was confiscated by the government during the troubled times and was not returned to them.

They were a family which consists of a father and 2 sons. They were now rearing a few pigs and needed to work in the fields to feed their stomach. When Feng Yu offered them 1,500 RMB a year each, they agreed immediately.

Food and lodging were provided, and the family income will reach 4,500 RMB a year. If they rent out the plot of land assigned to them, the elder son can get married in 2 years.

The state of the pig farm was worse than what Feng Yu imagined. Parts of the fence were broken, and plastic sheets were used to cover up those parts. The door was broken too, and there was even a hole in the door, which was covered up using a bunch of grass.

There were slightly over 100 pigs in the pigsty. Among these pigs, there were 10 sows and 2 boars. The rest were piglets, and most of them were not ready to be sold.

Feng Yu sighed. Fuck. The pigs here do not worth 10,000 RMB. He had paid more.

“Those windows need to be changed. The door too. Get it done today. Those tools too, change them to new ones. These areas need to be disinfected. Clean up the exterior areas of the pigsty too. Those places need to be rebuilt. Take note of these and work will start in Spring.”

Fuck. This pigsty was also not worth 100,000 RMB. He had paid more again.

Luckily, Feng Yu still had the plot of land. He should have visited the farm or bring the Farm Department officers here to negotiate. Now Feng Yu felt that even if the farm and land are valued at 300,000 RMB, it was considered high!

The leaders of the Farm Department were celebrating now. This pig farm was making losses every year. Finally, they had finally offload this burden to someone else. Although the amount was less than what they wanted, they were still happy.

If it weren’t for Feng Yu buying the factory’s land at a high price and acted like a wealthy tycoon, the leaders would agree to sell the plot of land, along with the pig farm to him for 300,000 RMB.

Now the department had the funds from the sales of the lands, they can start building a new office building or hostel next year.

Feng Xingtai went back to the village and hired some people to help clean up the pig farm and change the windows and doors. The roofs were repaired too. He also arranged people to buy young pigs from the village to fill up the pigsty. These pigs should be ready to be sold before the end of the year.

After paying the people from the village, Feng Yu saw a new pig farm, and he was feeling better. Even though this was not considered a modernized pig farm, but it was finally livable.

On the main door to the pigsty, there was a painting of Zhu Bajie (Pigsy from Journey to the West).

Hmm, this door is too dull. It would be better if there is a couplet.

Feng Yu took out red paper and used a brush to write some words: “A general in heavens!”

He pasted the paper on the right side of the door and a piece of red paper, with nothing written on, on the left. Feng Yu laughed happily. He wonders if the leaders from the farm come and visit, can they guess the second verse!

Chapter 102 – Obsoleted Trucks

It was almost the end of the semester, and Feng Yu was concentrating on his studies. Luckily for him, year 1 was not too difficult, and with the help of Li Na, Feng Yu caught up with the rest of his classmates.

Feng Yu received a call from Brother Ki when he reaches home at night.

“Brother Ki, what good news you have for me? Are you ordering more goods this month?” Every time Kirilenko called, Feng Yu would be in a good mood. Anyone would be happy if the god of fortune calls them.

“My dear Feng. I will be ordering more goods this month, but I got something more important. Do you want obsoleted trucks? 80% new trucks. I can sell it to you at half price.”

Trucks? Soviet Gaz trucks?

Feng Yu did think of purchasing a batch of trucks. His father’s factory had spent a lot on transportations, and the demand for delivery trucks in Bing City was rising. It would be profitable if he were to set up a delivery company.

“What’s the quantity? You sure these are 80% new?”

“At least 50 trucks. The maximum is 80 trucks. All were produced last year. There were manufactured for the military and were seldom used. They haven’t even passed the run-in period. But for some reason, these trucks will be obsolete after the New Year!”

Hah, these people were shameless. Manufactured in 1987 and not really been utilized. So fast obsoleted?

“Brother Ki, I want to work with you for the long term. Will it be risky if you do this? If you need money, I can lend it to you first. I won’t charge you interest.”

Feng Yu does not want Kirilenko to get into trouble. The next two years were the best time to import from the Soviet Union. For these measly profits, they might be risking more significant profits in future.

It was not easy to build up this relationship with Kirilenko, and it would be hard to look for someone else.

“Ha, ha, ha. Feng, what you said made me very happy. But this time it’s not me. It’s Ivanovic. He needed a sum of money and asked me to contact you. I can guarantee you that the mileage for these trucks were less than 50 KM. This condition is still good.”

Ivanovic was one of those that came to China the last time with Kirilenko. His father’s rank in the Soviet army was higher than Kirilenko’s father. Feng Yu was much relieved when he knew that it was not Kirilenko that was taking the risk. These trucks had traveled less than 50 KM and haven’t even completed the run-in period.

“Okay. I will take all the trucks. How about this? A few days later, when the river was frozen, just drive the truck over and this way, the trucks can complete the run-in period. Let me think if I need anything else so you can deliver it at the same time. You have anything good to recommend? I prefer those industrial products.”

“How about refrigeration compressor? These things are very cheap now. There is no market. You can sell it to the South. The quality is not bad.”

In his past life, Feng Yu had read in the papers that the Soviet Union produced refrigeration compressor was still in good working condition after 50 years. It had never broken down before.

“Are these compressors expensive?”

“Of course not. I will send you the quotation later. You can assemble these machines into refrigerators or small cold storage. You will not make a loss!”

Kirilenko was getting better at doing business. He knew which type of products would be favorite in the China market and what products from China would be popular in the Soviet Union.

“Fine. You give me the quotation, and I will decide how many units I need. Help me to search for the manufacturing machinery. After the New Year, there will be opportunities for us to earn from those.” Feng Yu kept painting beautiful pictures for Kirilenko to condition his mind. If he decided not to import these technologies or manufacturing machines now, then it would be more challenging to do this type of trades after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

“Feng, I have a problem. If we were to drive the trucks across the river and into China, there might be problems with the paperwork. All this while, I am using the military’s carriage when I send goods to you. This time, it might be a bit troublesome for you.”

Feng Yu also felt that this was a bit troublesome. All this while, he had gotten used to Kirilenko arranging the transportation, and there was very few paperwork as they were using the military carriages to transport these goods. But this time it was a bit troublesome, especially the taxes. The taxes will not be a small sum.

“Let me think of a way. You send me the prices first.”

Back at the company, Feng Yu sat in his office in a daze. Wu Zhigang had just returned from another province. He had heard that one of the factories in Liao Province was looking for a high-temperature steel furnace.

High-temperature steel furnace? This thing was not cheap. This factory in Liao Province was really willing to spend. At least much better than the Machinery Factory in Bing City. The high-temperature steel furnace’s prices were based on the volume and temperature. It would cost from 5 million Rubles to 30 million Rubles. China cannot manufacture this type of furnace, and only the US or Europe had the technology.

“Zhigang, rest for a few days. You had worked hard. Tomorrow accompanies me to the City. We need to get the approval to import a fleet of vehicles.”

“A fleet? What fleet?” Wu Zhigang was curious. The company uses the railway typically to import stuff.

Feng Yu explained briefly to him, and he said: “Director Feng, I have an idea, but I am not sure if it will work.”

“Tell me about it.”

“We can ask Kirilenko to set up a logistics company to deliver our goods. This way, we only have to pay the taxes for the goods and not for the fleet. After the fleet reaches here, we ask Kirilenko to write us an IOU, stating that he owed us money and was unable to pay us. We can then keep his fleet of trucks as his payment for his debt. This way, we do not need to pay the taxes.”

Feng Yu’s mouth opened wide in astonishment. How come he did not think of this idea?

This method was commonly used in his previous life for the property market. All it takes was a few days of legal proceedings and still can avoid taxes!

“Zhigang, you are a great help! Once this thing is over, you will get a reward of 10,000 RMB!”

“No need so much.” Wu Zhigang was grinning from ear to ear.

“That settles it. You had saved so much for the company, and you deserve it! Okay. You can report off today.”

One cannot be stingy towards subordinates, especially subordinates who are able to think out of the box. This way, these subordinates will be willing to do their best for the company and help the company to achieve higher profits.

In the evenings, Li Shiqiang brought back the quotation for the refrigeration compressor faxed over by Kirilenko. Feng Yu looked at the quotation, and indeed, the prices quoted by Kirilenko was very low. If he was able to resell these compressors to the South or manufacture refrigerators, he should be able to make at least 30% profits.

Feng Yu immediately call up Kirilenko and told him to take note of how much load the frozen river can withstand. Feng Yu wanted the trucks to carry the maximum amount of compressors. He also wants all the trucks. After that, he told Kirilenko about his idea to avoid taxes and asked Kirilenko to register a logistics company. The money for the compressors will be transferred over first, and the payments for the trucks will be transferred to another account or use other types of goods to barter.

After they had finished discussing their plans, Feng Yu asked Li Shiqiang about the procedures to set up a logistics company.

Logistic company? Li Shiqiang felt that it was weird. It should not be profitable to run a logistics company. Just the vehicles, it would be a considerable investment.

Feng Yu told him that Kirilenko wanted to sell them a fleet of obsoleted trucks which were manufactured last year, and as expected, Li Shiqiang was shocked.

Feng Yu had not expected the second generation of the Soviet Union Army would dare to do this, let alone Li Zhiqiang. But who cares. The more daring they are, the better it was for Feng Yu. If they dare to sell planes or cannons, Feng Yu will dare to buy!

Author notes:

Remember there used to be a lot of Gaz trucks in the Longjiang Province which was used to transport goods and ferry people.

Chapter 103 – The Development of the Machinery Company

Before Feng Yu had the time to go to the city to prepare the paperwork, he received a call from the Machinery Company that there will be a meeting at 10 am with regards to the arrival of businessmen from other places.

Feng Yu does not interfere with Machinery Company’s sales as their sales channels were more established than what Feng Yu expected. Their sales personnel did not even need to do sales visits. All they need to do was to make some phone calls, and there will be foreign businessmen coming over to visit the company.

Li Mingde had instructed his staffs to tell other parties that the Machinery Company was now manufacturing China’s most advanced agricultural machinery. The design and quality were all above average, but the price was only slightly higher.

Businessmen knew that these products will bring them lots of profits and came rushing over. This was also considered a big deal for the Machinery Company and must inform Feng Yu as part of their procedures.

Fu Guangzheng, on the other hand, was not too bothered by these matters. He was not worried as he had hired someone to monitor and audit the finances. Furthermore, Feng Yu was there to take care of things.

Feng Yu wanted to go and look at the development of the Machinery Company. If there were any problems, he would voice out immediately. This concerned the future of the company!

This time, the Machinery Company had mainly produced plowing machines. It includes the spare parts. These products would be very popular in Spring.

In the meeting room, all the leaders in the Machinery Company were beaming with joy. Yesterday they had shown some samples, and they were surrounded by customers. Their sales prospects were looking good!

“Everyone, now we are going to discuss the pricing. First, it is the supplier prices and second would be the retail prices. Please speak your mind if you got any suggestions!” Li Mingde already had a price in mind, but he was saying these to be ‘democratic’.

In the past, these subordinates would either refuse or say some ambiguous answers. In the end, everyone would use the prices on a piece of paper, which Li Mingde passed around. But today, it was different. After he finished asking, someone spoke.

“I think we can set the wholesale prices, but there is no need to set the retail prices. The market is developing fast now, and if we were to set the retail prices, especially if we set the retail prices too high, it would be hard for us to capture the market share fast!” Feng Yu looked at Li Mingde and said.

Li Mingde looked at Feng Yu unhappily and said: “Xiao Feng, you don’t understand the market well. The quality of our machines is better and more durable. Of course, we must price it higher.”

Feng Yu shook his head: “General Manager Li, I feel that these wholesale prices are also very high. What is the most important thing for us now? It’s market! If we are able to push our products to the whole China and let our Bing City Machinery Company’s brand position in the minds of the consumers, then it’s worth it even if we had to suffer some losses now. Furthermore, if we use the old prices, the profits will not be low either. There is no need to raise the prices.”

Li Mingde did not say anything but look over to the Chief of the sales department. The Chief of sales department immediately retorted: “Xiao Feng, you think we don’t need money for our manufacturing machinery? You think the technologies don’t need money? If it was the same prices, there might be some profits. But when can we recoup our costs?”

Feng Yu kept quiet. Seems like everyone was against him. No matter what he said, there will be no difference. Just let them be. They have no concept of branding. If the brand was established and had a firm position in the minds of the consumers, giving the consumers the impression of good quality and durability, and they increase the prices to be a top-tier brand, they would be making much more profits!

Forget it. He was lazy to reason with them. When Feng Yu becomes the major shareholder in 1 to 2 years’ time, he would like to see if they can still be so arrogant!

“Anyone else objects? Then that settles it. The Chief of sales department will sign the contract with those dealers later. When these products are sold, every one of you will get a big bonus. The bonus will not be less than 100 RMB!”

Everyone clapped except for Feng Yu. 100 RMB was considered a big bonus? Wait till after the New Year and inflation increases, then they will know that their money is worthless!

In the afternoon, Feng Yu saw the contract signing ceremony. The machines were more popular than he expected!

Those businessmen were as if there were free money up for grabs. In less than an hour, the twenty plus businessmen had all signed the contracts. Half of them were from other provinces.

Feng Yu casually asked the Chief of sales about the total value of the contracts, and he replied arrogantly that it was about 8 million RMB.

Humph! This kid thinks that he had connections with the Soviet Union and he can teach us what to do? I am way better than him when it comes to machinery sales!

8 million RMB? This figure was something to be proud. This Chief of sales was not bad after all. Based on the costs and supplier prices, after deducting the taxes, the profits should be around 20% which amounted to about 1 million profits.

But this was only the initial phase. If they increased the sales channels and the factory increased its productions, there should be no problem for the profits to be over 10 million RMB. This was only counting plowing machines and its parts. Later, when engines and tractors were produced, the profits would be much higher.

This was good for Feng Yu too. The faster the Machinery Company develops, the better it was for Feng Yu.

Li Mingde was a proud person and wanted to keep climbing up. The better the company perform, then he would be promoted in the coming year, and the City Government would assign a new General Manager for the company. When Li Mingde is not around, the rest would not be so united, and it would be an excellent opportunity for Feng Yu to take over the company!

This Machinery Company in the hands of these government officials might be able to give the City Government a significant amount of taxes, but if it were in the hands of Feng Yu, the taxes would be more than ten folds!

Feng Yu do not have the habit to help others for free. Using technologies to buy a stake in the company, was part of his plan. He wanted the company to have a taste of success, and then he would use more technologies to increase his stakes slowly and dilute the shares.

For example, Feng Yu could work with the company using this batch of refrigeration compressors. He wanted the company to set up a new workshop to manufacture refrigerators, ice storages. The profits would be better than selling these compressors by itself.

But when Feng Yu mentioned this corporation with Li Mingde, he rejected him. Refrigerators and ice storages? How can these things be sold? It was winter now. Even if it were summer, the sales in the Northeast region would not be good either. You mentioned that you want to sell to the South? But there were already refrigerator factories there.

Li Mingde was not corporative, and Feng Yu was a bit disappointed. However, he still had his ways. The Motor Factory missed working with Feng Yu. Although the Motor Factory’s financial situation was better now, who doesn’t want to earn more?

Feng Yu had just mentioned this project, and the Motor Factory agrees immediately. It was the same as last time. The Motor Factory would only manufacture and assemble for Tai Hua Trading, and the brand would not be the Motor Factory. The profits for the factory was at least 100 RMB per refrigerator!

Feng Yu agreed without any hesitations. He wants to let the Machinery company knows that even the products they look down upon, would be a success if he was the one managing it! In future, if Feng Yu were to propose any corporations with the Machinery Company, they would not reject him!

Chapter 104 – Wen Dongjun and Fat Chick

“How was your revision? Tomorrow is the final exams.’ Wen Dongjun looked at Feng Yu listlessly.

“Not bad. It should be fine. Look at you, you don’t seem to be confident. How many positions do you intend to improve this time?” Feng Yu raised his eyebrows and asked Wen Dongjun. Didn’t you say that you will improve by a few positions every exam and graduate as one of the top students?

“I will definitely improve and get out of the last 10 positions zone. But I will still be about 10 positions behind the school’s midrange section. What should I do?” Wen Dongjun said with a worried look.

Feng Yu curiously asked: “Uncle Wen wanted you to reach the middle section in this semester?”

“No. Even if I am within the last 10 positions in class, I would still be able to get into a university. It was not my parents but someone else.” Wen Dongjun said and stole a glanced in a direction.

Fuck. This idiot is eyeing my girl? Feng Yu was furious. Wen Dongjun was looking at Li Na just now. But he calmed down and thought. Wen Dongjun was not this type of person. Furthermore, he knew Li Na well, and he knows that Li Na was not the type that would quickly change her heart.

Don’t…… Oh fuck. Could it be Wen Dongjun like Fat Chick?

Feng Yu’s eyes opened up wide and stared at Wen Dongjun. Hmmm…… This was indeed Wen Dongjun and not some aliens in disguise. His head must have been bang by the door!

Wen Dongjun got angry: “Why are you staring at me for?”

“You…… like Fat Chick?”

Feng Yu felt apologetic for Wen Dongjun. Every time he goes out with Li Na, Fat Chick will tag along, and Feng Yu will drag Wen Dongjun along to accompany her. But he never expects Wen Dongjun to like Fat Chick. This…… is too funny!

“Why not? What Fat Chick? It’s so disrespectful. Her name is Zhang Han!”

“Fine, fine, fine. So, you like Zhang Han? No wonder you stopped wooing the prettiest girl from next class. You are even studying hard for Zhang Han? But don’t you think that Zhang Han is a bit fat?” Feng Yu said and used his hand to make a ‘tiny’ gesture. Feng Yu was trying his best not to burst out laughing.

“What fat? I was also fat when I was young. Didn’t I slim down now? Zhang Han said that she will lose at least 10 KG during the winter break.”

“Fine. I wish you good luck. No wonder you are confident of improving your results. With Zhang Han is helping you with your studies, no wonder you are confident that your results will improve. Both of you are quite compatible after all. You are from the sports committee, and she is from the literary committee.” Lose 10 kg? Even if it really happened, Zhang Han would still be fat. She was at least 80 KG now!

“Sighed. You think she is able to lose 10 KG this winter break?” Wen Dongjun asked.

“It should be impossible in 1 month, but it should not be a problem if its 1 year. Believe in yourself that she will lose weight for you.” Feng Yu tapped on Wen Dongjun back with an “I know you can do it” look.

It seems that if Zhang Han doesn’t lose weight, Wen Dongjun would feel uncomfortable and eventually their relationship would die off. But Feng Yu does not believe that Zhang Han would successfully lose weight.

Feng Yu studies were still considered not bad. He got full marks for his Russian, his scores for languages was considered good too. His math was not regarded as bad, but the rest of the subjects like chemistry, physics, etc. were only so-so. His memory was quite good, so his history and those subjects that required memorization should not be a problem for him. There should not be any problem for him to get into the top 10 positions. As for this exam, it was not a problem for Feng Yu.

During the final exams, all the year 1, 2 and 3 students were sitting together to prevent anyone from cheating.

Feng Yu did well for the first few subjects, including his 2 weakest subjects, biology and chemistry. Feng Yu stretched himself after the last paper, politics, was concluded. This time, he should get good results and should be able to answer to his parents. As for himself, Feng Yu had always been strict with others and generous to ownself!

When they came out of the examinations hall, Feng Yu saw a beaming Wen Dongjun. This idiot did well for his exams? Impossible. His chemistry and physics were not bad but did badly for the rest of his subjects. Why was he so confident this time?

“I tell you, I am confident to be in the top 10 positions this time!” Wen Dongjun said proudly.

Feng Yu touched his forehead and said: “You do not have a fever. Stop talking nonsenses.”

Wen Dongjun brushed Feng Yu’s hands aside and said: “Who is talking nonsenses? I am really confident! My Russian improved a lot because I was sitting beside you. My math, physics, and chemistry scores were all better than you. As for history and those subjects that need to be memorized, I met a good person!”

“What you mean?”

“Stupid. I am sitting beside a year 3 student, and he is a liberal arts student. He was able to answer those questions which I couldn’t answer. After he finished his papers, he took my papers and practiced. He said that he used to get full marks for history, geography, politics, etc.!”

Fuck! Feng Yu was speechless. Why was this idiot’s luck so good? He got to sit together with a year 3 top student who was willing to help him answer his papers.

If Wen Dongjun got full marks for those subjects, then he might really be in the top 10 positions. Fine. He can brag all he wants now. Let’s see how well he does in the next semester!

“Let’s go. Tonight, we can catch a movie at the Cultural Palace. Drive there. I will pay for the tickets!”

This time, Liu Kun had joined them for the movies. Tomorrow was the start of the Winter break, and Feng Yu will be driving back. He will give a lift to them, and they don’t need to wake up early to get the bus tickets back to their districts. Today, they can stay ou a little later.

Liu Kun was indeed a smart student. Even at the Third High School, he was the top student in his class and in the top 3 of the whole grade. He was the good student where all teachers and parents would praise. Of course, the teachers and parents also talked about Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun. But it was for the wrong reasons.

Feng Yu kept skipping classes, and there were rumors that his family was with the triads. Wen Dongjun was always on the basketball court playing basketball. This type of students can get into universities? The parents would warn their children not to mix with them. If not, they would break their children’s legs!

At the Cultural Palace, Feng Yu and Li Na sat together, and Feng Yu held Li Na’s hands. Li Na did not avoid Feng Yu but blushed in the dark cinema. She could not concentrate on the movies and kept worrying. She was afraid if Feng Yu turned around and kissed her, what should she do. Resist?

But unfortunately for her, until the end of the movie, Feng Yu did not do anything else.  Li Na was feeling a little disappointed. There was someone in her hostel who had kissed her boyfriend.

Wen Dongjun and Zhang Han were sitting together, but he did not hold Zhang Han’s hands. Hang Han had rested her head on Wen Dongjun’s shoulders. This made Wen Dongjun’s heart beats faster. He felt that Zhang Han was getting prettier the more he looked at her.

Liu Kun, sitting lonely at a corner, was the only one who managed to enjoy the movie. After the movie, he tried to discuss with the others about the movie but the rest were not paying attention to the movie, and there was nothing to talk about. Feng Yu felt that for someone like Liu Kun, most likely would need matchmaking. He would never get a girlfriend by himself!

Outside Zhang Han’s house, Wen Dingjun reluctantly bided his goodbyes to her. Feng Yu was dumb fold. It was only the winter break.

Feng Yu had totally forgotten how he felt when he did not see Li Na for a few days. But his only concern now was what would be Wen Dongjun’s expression when he sees a fatter Zhang Han after the break!

Really looking forward to it……

Chapter 105 – Tian Peng pig

Back in their district, Feng Yu was not reluctant to say goodbye to Li Na. Anyway, his family moved to an apartment in the town. The house in their village was vacant for quite some time.

Furthermore, his best friend Wen Dongjun had moved to the town as his father was transferred to the District’s Farm Department in town. Feng Yu did not feel anything about leaving the village. Anyway, in his previous life, he also had not contacted his old neighbors for decades. He does not have much feeling for the village.

Back in the district, Feng Yu had no time to relax. He went to the food processing factory to look. The production was going well, and after walking about the factory, he did not notice any workers violating the safety procedures. This made Feng Yu satisfied.

There were a lot of flammable materials in the factory. If something were to happen, the fire departments might not be in time to save the factory. If a fire really breaks out, the factory and Tai Hua brand would be gone.

In his previous life, there was a famous brand, Autumn Ham. At its peak, it was earning hundreds of million profits in a year. That was in the early 1990’s and a few hundred million at that time was considered an enormous sum. There was a fire at their factory, and because they wanted to minimize their losses of over 400 million RMB, they used those pork, that was damaged by the fire, for their ham. As such, there was a smoky smell in their ham, and their competitors started a rumor that Autumn Ham had worked with the crematorium to use the human flesh in their ham. It ended with Autumn Ham’s brand image being tarnished overnight!

Now the majority of the ham in China were from Autumn Ham. But this was only temporary. How successful can a company who uses a fortune teller as its advisor be?

It was a pity that the Soviet Union does not have such technology and machines. The sausages they produced tasted very different from China’s ham.

The reason why Feng Yu felt that the pig farm would be doing well was that there was still much demand for ham. If he could get his hands on the production machinery, Feng Yu was confident that he could capture the Northeast market. The profits for ham was at least 10%, and if he sold 100 million hams in a year, that would equate to 10 million RMB!

The main task now was to expand the pig farm. At least now, Feng Yu thinks that there was a need to create a brand for his pigs. For example, there was a brand called Shuang Hui Frozen Fresh Pork in his previous life. They had many stores throughout China. This company was making more than ten billion RMB a year just by selling pork. Feng Yu might not be as good as others regarding managing, but he had the knowledge of the future. He should not have any problems occupying the market for the Northeast region.

The Feng family was in dispute because of the naming of the pig farm.

“What are you talking about? Pigs also need branding?” If this were not his son, Feng Xingtai would have chased him out of his house. It was just pigs. What’s the use of branding for pigs? With a brand, the pigs will not be pigs anymore?

“Dad, after we got the branding done for our soybean oil, coupled with the advertisements on the papers an TV, the sales became much better than the Good Oil Factory. It was the same for our sugar. We had use our brand, change the packaging for our sugar and the profits are higher than what you expected. The pigs will be the same. With branding, whenever someone wants to buy pork, our brand will be the first brand they thought of!”

Feng Xingtai scratched his head. It was like what Feng Yu had said. But what’s the use to have a brand for pigs? If Feng Yu suggest using Tai Hua as a brand name, he will slap him hard!

“Then you say what name is good for our pork? I am warning you now. You better don’t say what General in heavens. The last time you wrote the couplet, Deputy Farm Officer said the second verse, and he was hospitalized due to high blood pressure!”

When Feng Xingtai was saying this, he almost laughed out. He did not think much about the couplet, but when Deputy Officer Xu saw the Pigsy picture and the couplet, he immediately blurted out the second verse “Pig on earth” (same meaning as “I am a Pig”).

Everyone around him laughed loudly, and Deputy Officer Xu’s blood pressure shot up and almost fainted. From then onwards, he never stepped foot into the farm again. But that also saved Feng Xingtai a lot of trouble from entertaining him.

“We can call our pork “Young and cheerful”?” Feng Yu suggested cautiously. Young and cheerful Pigsy. Sounds jovial and easy to remember.

“Young and Cheerful? What stupid name is that? No!” Feng Xingtai did not know that this name came from a famous TV drama in the future and rejected it straight away.

Feng Yu was a bit disappointed, but he could quickly come up with more than a dozen names for his brand. If he can’t think of any names, he could also use the names of the brands from his previous life.

“How about Double Benefits? It stands for preferential and affordable.”

“We are selling pork, what affordable are you talking about? The things you sell are always more expensive than others. No!”

“Then can we name it using our location? For example, our district?”

“No. Our district’s name is not too auspicious. Furthermore, the district was named after a martyr. How can use the name of a martyr on pigs?” Feng Xingtai stared at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu smiled. He also felt that it was not suitable.

“Then how about Bing City Pig Farm? Anyway, our targeted market was also Bing City!”

“Our pig farm s also not located in Bing City. How can we name it as Bing City Pig Farm?” Feng Xingtai continued to reject the suggestions made by Feng Yu.

“Then we name it Tian Peng (General Tian Peng was the name of Pigsy when he was still a general in heavens). This name is short and simple. Anyone who heard it will know that we are selling pork!” Feng Yu casually said.

He was waiting for his father to reject his suggestions a few more times and then he would suggest “Golden Gong”. Gongs will make a loud noise, and golden gongs would symbolize the arrival of riches and wealth. His father would surely like this name. But Feng Yu did not expect that his father like the name Tian Peng.

Feng Xingtai blinked and turned to his wife: “What do you think of this name?”

“Tian Peng, Pigsy? Can this name really be suitable?” She wanted to cry. This father and son pair had discussed for so long and came up with such a name?

“Since there are no objections, then that will be the name. Tomorrow I will ask someone to register this brand name in Bing City. I guarantee that our Tian Peng pigs will be the most popular in Bing City!:” Feng Yu said. He was feeling regretful, and he didn’t get to use Golden Gong as the name. But the name Tian Peng was not bad either. Feng Yu consoled himself.

……

The Chief Officer of the Farm Department looked at Feng Xingtai speechless. What is this old Feng doing? Why would he name his pig farm as Tian Peng Pig Farm? The last time, the couplet on the door had already left people speechless and this time. Was he doing this on purpose to piss off Deputy Officer Xu?

“Chief Officer, is this against the rules? We did not come up with this name for fun. We had thought about this seriously.”

The Chief Officer was trying to hold back the urge to laugh. Serious thoughts? Then what names would Feng Xingtai come up if he was to name the farm casually? PigPigPig or Mr. Strong Pig?

Actually, Feng Yu had thought of a better name. General Pig. But this name sounds like the name of one of China’s leaders, and he was afraid that people would think that he was insulting that leader.

“Old Feng, why can’t the name of the pig farm remain as pig farm? What must you name it as Tian Peng?” Chief Officer asked.

“Chief Officer, pigs also require branding! You look at our soybean oil and sugar. Our sales are good because of branding. These pigs are the same too. There is a big difference between products with brands and without brands. Brands will give consumers a sense of credibility.” Feng Xingtai had learned all these from Feng Yu yesterday.

“Branding? Then why not use our district’s name as your brand?” The Chief Officer hopes to get some benefits from Feng Xingtai. If only Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil had used the district’s name, it could promote their community as well.

“The name of a martyr to be used on a pig farm? Tian Peng is a better name. When you hear this name, you will know that these were godly pigs. Oh yes. During the New Year, our pig farm will donate 10 pigs to the Farm Department for you all to help the poor families.” Feng Xingtai once again used the words Feng Yu taught him. As expected, the Chief Officer heard this, he did not give any more rejections.

From that day onwards, the most famous Tian Peng pork in China was born!

Chapter 106 – Selling Pork

The first batch of pigs was ready to leave the farm. But there was no slaughterhouse in the district. In the village, they would just get the help of 1 or 2 men to slaughter pigs. 2 people to hold on to the pig and 1 person to stab it to release the blood. It was brutal but straightforward.

This method was still fine if it was a few pigs. But if there were a lot of pigs, then it would be a problem. When they expand the pig farm in spring, they must build a slaughterhouse too.

Just nice Feng Yu decided to sell these Tian Peng pigs in the city. He hired 2 trucks to send all the pigs to the slaughterhouse in the city.

Squeak ~~~~~

Feng Yu only took a glance at the pig and turned away. These people do not have any skills when they slaughter pigs. Don’t they know how to stab the spine first?

“Brother Feng, where do you intend to sell these pigs? Do you want me to recommend you some buyers?” The person-in-charge of the slaughterhouse, Gu Dachang helpfully said to Feng Yu.

“I had already contacted the buyers. Thanks for asking. Furthermore, in this type of weather, even if I am unable to sell off these pigs, it will also be fine. I can just freeze it and don’t need to worry about the pork turning bad. Feng Yu looked at Gu Dachang. In this era, he does not need to worry about getting no buyers for his pork. It was the lunar month, and many people want to buy pork.

Gu Dachang smiled and asked: “Brother Feng, where did you get so many pigs?”

“My district. XX district. There is a Tian Peng Pig farm there. They have another batch of pigs that are going to be sold before the New Year.” Feng Yu said. He knew that there must be many who had come to Gu Dachang to ask him about where to buy pigs. Just nice, Feng Yu could use Gu Dachang to spread words about his pig farm.

“Tian Peng? How come the farm has such a name? Thank you, Brother Feng. I will go there to look in a few days’ time.” Gu Dachang happily walked away. All the pork sellers came to him to ask for pork, but there was nothing he could do. He was only the in-charge of the slaughterhouse and not running a pig farm!

……

“Director Li, you busy?”

“Oh, it’s Mr. Feng. Have the refrigeration compressors arrive?” The Motor Factory’s Director Li Shiyou saw Feng Yu and was full of smiles. Now, although the Motor Factory was no longer in financial difficulties, the factory was not running at full operation. There were still many workshops idling and waiting for work. Working with Feng Yu would let the factory earn more money, and the workers would also get more bonus. It will also demonstrate the abilities of the Director.

Feng Yu paused for a moment. So anxious? Based on Feng Yu’s estimation, this batch of compressors would arrive before the New Year, and the assembly would only start after New Year. 2 months should be enough for the factory to assemble 800 to 1,000 units of refrigerators. This way, it would not delay the launch nor affect Feng Yu’s cash flows. But now, it seems that the Motor Factory can wait.

“Director Li, the compressors will only arrive in a few more days. I am here to ask if your factory wants to order pork. These pigs were just slaughtered in the slaughterhouse this morning. Guaranteed to be fresh and there are no diseased pigs!”

There were more than a thousand workers in the factory, and if included the families of the workers, there were a few thousand. The amount of pork consume was small, so Feng Yu decided to come over and promote his pigs.

Li Shiyou opened his mouth and said: “Mr. Feng is joking with me? Buy pork? Our factory is also rearing pigs ourselves.”

Huh? The smile on Feng Yu’s face froze. His first door-to-door sales had failed! How could he forget that every state-owned factory, especially those that were converted from military to civilian, used to be a small community?

“Ha, ha, ha. I was just joking with Director Li. I was just passing by and decided to drop in to have a cup of tea with you.” Feng Yu quickly changed the subject to avoid embarrassment.

“Xiao Liu, what are you waiting for? Mr. Feng has been sitting here for so long, and the tea is not ready yet?” Li Shiyou shouted towards the door.

Being a leader was good. There was still a secretary helping him out. Feng Yu also decided to hire a secretary when the company grows bigger in two years’ time. Must get a female secretary with a good figure and a sweet voice. It doesn’t matter if she does not know how to work. She only needs to know how to serve tea and be a pretty vase. How’s the use of having a male secretary?

“Mr. Feng, Mr. Feng?”

“Ah…… Sorry, I was thinking about something.” Feng Yu came back to reality and smiled.

“Mr. Feng must be thinking of some business ideas. Can our factory take part in your idea?” Feng Yu had helped the Machinery Factory got the advanced machines and technologies from the Soviet Union, and this made Li Shiyou jealous.

Technically, they were not much worse than the Soviet Union. China had invested a lot in these technologies. But they were unable to use it as they do not have the machinery.

Also, Feng Yu had told him that although he will still be producing Wind and Rain fans in the summer, the quantity will only be about 10,000 to 20,000 units. There was also no more used car refurbishment jobs as Feng Yu will not be importing any more used cars.

If it was the past, without these 2 projects, the Motor factory had survived. But after taking on these 2 projects and knew that it was only a one-time deal, Li Shiyou felt disappointed. How good would it be if every year there were a few projects? It was a pity that Feng Yu had imported agricultural machinery and was not suitable for their factory. Also, their factory does not allow individuals to buy a stake in it as the factory was still manufacturing some orders for the military.

The tea arrived, and Feng Yu drank the whole cup in one go. There was one thing that was not good about the winter in the Northeast region. It was too dry. When the air was too dry, it was easy to get nose and throat infections.

“I do not have any projects temporary. But I am looking out for the hydraulic press for you. If I am able to find it, I will sell it to the Motor Factory first. We are old friends now.”

Li Shiyou’s face turned into a blooming chrysanthemum. With the hydraulic press, they could achieve a lot of things. The Motor Factory’s techniques will improve and reach the world class standards!

After 2 cups of tea, Feng Yu left the Motor Factory for the Machinery Company. The scale of the Machinery Company was nothing when compared to the old and established Motor Factory. Feng Yu was sure that the Machinery Factory does not have any pig farms.

“Xiao Feng, why are you at the company?” Li Mingde disdainfully asked.

When he begged Feng Yu to sell the machinery and technologies to him, he addressed Feng Yu as Mr. Feng or Director Feng. But after the company was restructured, he was the General Manager, and Feng Yu was nothing but only a shareholder’s representative. So what if he called Feng Yu as Xiao Feng? Even if Feng Xingtai were there, Li Mingde would also address him as Old Feng. Li Mingde was the biggest in the company!

“I have a batch of pork, weighing about 5,000 KG. Does the factory want to buy? If not, I will sell it to other units.”

“5,000 KG? Buy! We will buy them all!” Li Mingde was overjoyed. Just nice he wanted to give some gifts to the workers as company welfare.

“Okay. I will ask my men to deliver the pork to the factory. How about the payment?”

“You can get it form the finance department in cash. It’s only the payment for 5,000 KG of pork.” Li Mingde said as if he was a wealthy man.

Feng Yu did not argue with him. He was only here to assure his father that there were buyers for their pork. After the New Year, Feng Yu will build up the brand, Tian Peng pigs and show everyone how to sell pork!

Chapter 107 – Humidifier

“Manager Liu, does our First Departmental store have a humidifier?” Feng Yu sat in the First Department store manager’s office.

These few days he felt the air was too dry and wanted to buy a humidifier. But he did not expect First Departmental Store to not carry such products.

“Humidifier? What’s that? I had never heard of it before.” Manager Liu replied with a surprised face.

Never heard before? Feng Yu’s eyes started rolling. The humidifier was not invented yet? No. He remembered that the humidifier had existed for a long time and was used for industrial purposes. But it was not used for household appliances.

This was great! This humidifier will bring in lots of money for him.

“Manager Liu, don’t you think the air in your office is too dry? Wouldn’t it be more comfortable if the air is not so dry?”

“What can I do? I can’t be sprinkling water on the floor. It will be too dirty.”

Feng Yu laughed and did not say a word. He spoke to Manager Liu about his pork, and Manager Liu will order 1000 KG of pork from Feng Yu if he had the pork before New Year.

After leaving First Departmental Store, Feng Yu returned to the Motor Factory.

“What happened? No one is buying your pork? How much pork do you have left? If it is a few thousand KG, we will buy it and give it to the front-line workers.” Li Shiyou thought Feng Yu was there to promote his pork and decided to buy some out of goodwill.

When Feng Yu was bullied by Song Xiaofeng, the Motor Factory did not help Feng Yu. If not, that Soviet Union machinery and technologies would be sold to the Motor Factory first.

“Director Li, I am not here to sell pork. All my pork was sold. The Machinery Company had bought it all. I had an idea and wanted to ask if the Motor Factory is willing to help me achieve it.’”

Li Shiyou became interested when he heard Feng Yu said this. The Motor Factory had never suffered any losses when they corporate with Feng Yu.

“What idea do you have? Our factory is one of the best in China when it comes to electrical motors and products.”

Feng Yu waved his hands and said: “Director Li, the thing I wanted to make is not too complicated. I just want to make a humidifier. Put it simply, it’s just using a heating rod to change water into steam to change the humidity of the air indoors.”

“Change the indoor humidity?”

“Yes. Don’t you think your office is too dry? The winter in the Northeast region is like this. If you are not careful, you can get a respiratory infection and will make your throat hurts.” Feng Yu carried on saying.

“I can just put an electric kettle in my office, and it will solve all those problems.”

Shit, it was still possible to work!

“You think it would be suitable to place an electric kettle in your office? I intend to use plastic or glass to make this humidifier. Transparent, beautiful and we can put some designs on the exterior. Also, this humidifier can prevent colds effectively.”

“You sure?”

“Of course. You try it, and you will know. This humidifier must be at least this big and 1 heating rod is enough……” Feng Yu start to describe how the humidifier would look like.

“Please wait a while. Let me call a few people here.” Li Shiyou’s secretary called a few engineers over to listen to Feng Yu’s idea so they would have a rough estimate of how much a unit would cost.

“Mr. Feng, you want to use glass for this humidifier then you have to use heat-resistant glass. But the cost would not be low and glass breaks easily and it would not be easy for transportation. If you are using plastics, you must also use plastics that can withstand high heat. The cost would not be cheap too. The cost for the heating rods is cheap, and it’s not hard for us to produce it. How much is Mr. Feng willing to pay us per unit?” One workshop director asked.

“How much do you all want?”

The few men looked at each other and softly discussed. It was the same workshop director replied: “30 RMB. We need to modify our current facilities a bit, and the assembly of the parts was a bit troublesome. So, your minimum order must not be less than 5,000 units.”

The contractor required 30 RMB, and the cost of the raw materials would need more than 10 RMB. This price was higher than what Feng Yu expected. But Feng Yu was confident to be able to sell off all 5,000 units. Worse come to worse, he can export to the Soviet Union. Brother Ki who likes garbage…… no, it’s novelty products, would not reject.

“I want the plastic types. 2 models and the first production is 5,000 units. I can pay 30,000 RMB deposit? How long would the production be completed?”

“We need to construct the mold first. Our side should be fast, and it will depend on the plastic factory. It should be about 10 days.”

Fine. 10 days. Directory Li, can we sign the contract now?”

The next morning, Feng Yu returned to the Motor factory. The prototype was ready. Feng Yu looked at the prototype. The plastic had no designs at all. The colors were very plain to the point you can consider it ugly. Who would be willing to place such things on the table?

“Director Li, these 2 pieces are detachable. This piece, make it into white color and the other blue. This part needs to be transparent. This part needs to have a bit of pattern. Our logo will be printed on this part. Words need to be printed here. Most importantly, there must be no leakage, and it must be convenient to change water…”

Feng Yu pointed out many changes to the prototype, and the engineers jolted all these. Anyway, the changes were all on the plastic exterior. They were not responsible for the costs. Feng Yu can change all he wants.

“That should be all. I will be collecting the goods in 10 days’ time. If everything is ready, then maybe we can do this for the long term.”

Imitating an electric humidifier was easy. But what about an ultrasonic humidifier? Those big state-owned factories had the ultrasonic technologies, but those smaller factories do not have the means. If Feng Yu remembered correctly, the state-owned factory, which the state invested heavily into, should be producing humidifier for industrial purposes. The humidifier for the households will only appear in 1990.

If Feng Yu was still not able to capture the market when he was 1 year ahead of time, that means he was hopeless.

Feng Yu went straight to the Newspaper agency and change the advertisement for the next day. The soybean oil and sugar advertisements were ongoing for a long time. Everyone had remembered Tai Hua brand. Now, it’s time to remind everyone about Wind and Rain brand.

The advertisement on the first day, there was only a flower pot size picture. Many people can’t tell what the product was. It looks like plastic and the designs were quite pretty.

The second day, there was a short article about the harmful effects of being in an environment of low humidity. For instance, more prone to catch colds and respiratory infections

The third day, the article talks about the benefits of having high humidity.

The fourth day, there were a few words in big fonts: Wind and Rain Electrical Appliances is back!

The impact of the advertisement on the fourth day was more significant than the first 3 days. Everyone was curious. Wind and Rain Electrical Appliances was the company that introduced the Wind and Rain fans. The boss of this company is stupid? Selling fans in the middle of winter?

Wind and Rain Electrical Appliances became the laughing stock for a lot of people. The next day, many people were still discussing the advertisements. However, there were some who guessed that Wind and Rain would be introducing a new product that was related to the articles on humidity.

“Wind and Rain humidifier, your best indoor companion.”

This advertising message had occupied the full-page advertisement for consecutive 5 days. This made everyone to take note of it. Everyone was curious about the humidifier. This was a product that will increase the humidity? Will this product be useful? Where can we buy it?

Author notes:

The first humidifier in China was introduced by a company called Yadu, and it occupied 70% of the market share. But they started off with industrial humidifier and a subsidiary of a state-owned enterprise in Beijing. The humidifier for households was only introduced in 1990. Later, the company was privatized and converted to a shareholding company.

Chapter 108 – The Influence of Leaders

Which location was the best place to place a humidifier? Feng Yu’s first choice was the office, followed by home. This was different from his previous life, where the company promoted the humidifier to be placed in homes. Many might have thought that the bosses of private companies at that time, were the ones that were most willing to spend money. No. Those bosses will only spend money on themselves. The ones that spend the most was the government units!

The offices of the government officers, leaders of state-owned enterprises, was more

Luxurious than those from the private sectors. Feng Yu’s humidifier was selling slightly over 100 RMB, but he believed that the leaders in Bing City would account for 1,000 units!

Zhang Ruiqiang was at work when his secretary informed him that Feng Yu had come and he was carrying 2 big boxes which look like gifts.

Feng Yu was the only one that dares to give gifts so openly. Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head and smiled. He asked his secretary to invite Feng Yu in. He wants to see what was Feng Yu up to again.

“Xiao Feng, this is a government unit. Are you trying to show everyone that you are bringing in 2 big boxes?” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

“That’s right.” Feng Yu replied naturally, pissing Zhang Ruiqiang.

Before Zhang Ruiqiang said anything, Feng Yu opened the box and took out a strange looking gadget. He then took out a water bottle and poured about 2 thirds of the water into the gadget.

Feng Yu then looked around for the electrical socket and plug it in. He then sat on the sofa wiping his sweat.

“This is an electric kettle?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked curiously. This gadget looks pretty but who would place a kettle in an office? This was the first time someone gives him an electric kettle as gifts!

“It’s a humidifier. It will increase the room’s humidity. The air in the Northeast region is too dry and can easily fall sick. This will solve all these problems.”

Zhang Ruiqiang twitched his nose: “There is still a scent. This is jasmine flowers?”

Zhang Ruiqiang was happy. His favorite scent was jasmine flowers.

“The water was soaked with jasmine flowers before. How’s the scent? It is not too strong, and it will make people comfortable.”

“What you said is true. Breathing becomes more comfortable. How much does this cost? I will buy it if it is not expensive.”

Feng Yu stopped Zhang Ruiqiang from taking out his wallet: “Leader, this is not for sale. These are samples. We have not introduced to the market yet. We only have some samples for testing and gathering feedback. It’s free, but it belongs to my company. I can let you test it for free. Later, you need to help me fill up a feedback form.”

“Samples again? You also said the same thing with your soybean oil last time. This is the same trick.” Zhang Ruiqiang said laughingly. At the same time, he also stops taking out his wallet.

Feng Yu smiled sneakily: “I had prepared a few more units. I will leave those with you, and you can help me give it to others for testing.”

Zhang Ruiqiang laughed. This kid really knows how to gain favors. Zhang Ruiqiang was just transferred to the City Government, and his connections were not stable. This was a chance for him to get closer to his higher-ups.

The last time, Zhang Ruiqiang was the one who had took charged of the restructuring of the Machinery Factory and was praised by the Leaders. He had helped the factory obtain advanced machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union, and the City Government did not come out with a single cent. The profits now were a lot higher than before. This restructuring was a success and could be used as an example for the conversion of other state-owned enterprises.

To achieve his political ambitions, Zhang Ruiqiang must have authority. But where does this authority come from? Of course, it was given to him by his higher-ups. Performing your duties well was not enough to get the recognition from the leaders. Sometimes, trivial things in life were more important than working hard.

“There are only 2 functions for this humidifier? To increase the humidity and to make the room smell better?”

Feng Yu smile proudly: “Of course not. Our Chinese traditional medicine has this fumigation therapy. The steam from boiling herbs and water can be used for treatments, sickness prevention, and healthcare.

For example, if you add dyer’s woad liquid in it, you can prevent and treat colds. If you add Shuanghuanglian liquid in it, you can alleviate a sore throat, nasal dryness, etc.

If you are feeling tired from work, you can some medicated oil in it. It will keep you awake……”

Feng Yu continued talking about the benefits. These were experiences from his previous life. There were some effects. This was especially true for nasal dryness. The humidifier had helped him sleep better.

“There are so many effects? Then I must try it all. Oh, there is still some wordings on your humidifier. This is “Aspirations to soar about the clouds”?”

“That’s right. It suits the mindsets of the leaders.”

The proverbs printed on the humidifier was requested by Feng Yu. There were different proverbs like “A hero in his late years does not give up his aspirations”, “Aspirations to soar about the clouds”, “Giving your best” and “Pains for the moment, gains for the millennia”, etc. These proverbs were those that were commonly written on the banners and plaques for the leaders.

Of course, there were some congratulatory messages. These were targeted at those wealthy businessmen.

“Fine, leave those behind. When will you introduce this humidifier to the market?”

“Tomorrow.”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu had just said that he wanted him to test out the humidifier and to give him feedback to improve on it. But tomorrow this humidifier will be introduced to the market? Then what’s the use of feedbacks? All this while, Feng Yu does not intend to improve his product!

Forget it. Anyway, this was not some particular gadget. Just treat it as samples. Most likely after the leaders tested it, the City Government will order a batch of this humidifier. What was this kid’s brain made of? Why he can think of some many ideas to make money?

After Feng Yu left, Zhang Ruiqiang carried a box and went to the Mayor’s office. Half an hour later, he left the Mayor’s office full of smiles. One of his proposals was approved by the Mayor. If the number 2 also support this proposal, then it will be implemented.

The humidifiers which Feng Yu left behind were all given out by Zhang Ruiqiang. All the leaders like the humidifier very much. When the air was too dry, people get irritated easily. With this humidifier around, they became more efficient and productive.

Many did not receive the humidifiers. They saw the humidifiers in the leaders’ offices and asked about it. Once they went back to their units, they told their department to purchase a batch of humidifiers. They will feel more comfortable with the humidifiers around. Also, the words printed on the humidifiers would make they seem more cultured.

This era, the influence of the leaders was more significant than those movie stars or celebrities. People followed what the Leaders wear. If the leader placed a thermos flask on the desk, people would also try to search for the same flask. They even try t follow the hairstyle.

Feng Yu had just sold his humidifiers to the Departmental stores and cooperatives, and the next day, he received calls from them that all the humidifiers were sold out. They wanted to order more!

Feng Yu was glad. Seems like his tactic of giving out free samples was very useful. He had given samples to all the units that were closed to him. He even personally demonstrates how to use the humidifiers.

It’s time to increase the orders of humidifiers from the Motor Factory.

Chapter 109 – Noble and Prestige

Ha ~ ~ ~

Feng Yu drank some hot tea and felt warmer.

It’s time to have a decent office. There was no heating in the warehouse, and they had to rely on an electric heater for heating. When Feng Yu return from outside, he could not feel any differences at all.

The electric heater’s electrical consumption was very high. If they switch on a few electric heaters at the same time, the fuse will blow. Usually, there will only be 2 electric heaters switched on. One in Feng Yu’s office and another in the conference room.

This resulted in the staffs going back home to sleep every day and taking the public bus back to work early next morning. No one in their right mind would ride bicycles in Bing City during winter. The strong northern winds freeze you, and even if you walk on the frozen roads, you will slip and break your bones.

But today, Feng Yu called all the staffs back for a meeting. The humidifiers must be introduced to the market before the end of the year.

“Our target will be the dry areas in the Northern regions. You all have the Wind and Rain fans dealers. Contact every one of them and those that are interested, ask them to be here in 3 days’ time to sign the contract. After all the contracts are signed, I will give out the year-end bonus!”

Everyone left. Feng Yu also made a call to Brother Ki. He was not sure if the Soviet Union have consumer humidifier. If there was none, then he can increase the orders with the Motor Factory.

The Soviet Union only have industrial humidifiers. They had not started producing humidifiers for the mass market. The Soviet Union was still in the arms race with the US, and all their resources were invested in the military. They had no time to develop household appliances.

Feng Yu told Kirilenko about his humidifiers, and Kirilenko asked Feng Yu to send a few samples to him. If it were as good as what Feng Yu said, then he would order in bulks!

Feng Yu hesitated for a while. This humidifier was the same as his fans. There were no patents, and any factories can imitate it. But Feng Yu had a solution, which was to develop the ultrasonic humidifier. The Motor Factory had the ultrasonic technologies. This was something the smaller factories can imitate.

Feng Yu can forecast the sales for his fans to be lower this summer. But there should still be some profits. The Bing City’s Aviation Factory seems to have some air compressing technologies. It looks like the new electric fans will need to work with the Aviation Factory.

……

3 days later, a batch of dealers gathered at the Motor Factory’s conference room. The warehouse was not an ideal place to sign the contracts. It was too cold, and this will give the dealers an impression that Tai Hua Trading was not doing well.

Luckily Director Li was an easy-going person. Feng Yu told him that he wanted to rent the conference room, but Director Li just let Feng Yu use the room for 1 day and does not want to collect any money from him. The money will hurt their relationship.

It was a pity that Director Li did not let Feng Yu use the conference for the long term. But Feng Yu was still willing to maintain this good relationship with him.

“Everyone is here today, proved that you all had trust in Tai Hua Trading and believed in our Wind and Rain Electric appliances. Then I will announce that you all will be our long-term partners. I guarantee that you all will earn a lot of money!”

After Feng Yu finished, he waited for a few seconds. Fuck, there was no applause. His words did not excite these dealers?

“Director Feng, let’s talk about the contract. We had seen the demonstration. I am not sure about others, but I am sure to order from you. This time, there is no need for us to fill out the prices. Just tell us the wholesale prices. If the prices are right, then I will order 5,000 units!” A fatty shouted. He was the one who handled the markets of 2 provinces in the Southeast region previously, and he had earned a lot.

Feng Yu showed them the sales for Bing City. The fatty’s 2 provinces in the southeast region might not have any market for these humidifiers. The humidity in that area was higher than the north. But who said that he can’t sell to other provinces? As long as that other province does not have any authorized dealer, he can sell it in that province.

Feng Yu looked at that fatty. This fatty was smart. He thought that if he asked Feng Yu to set the prices, Feng Yu would not fix the prices too high?

“These humidifiers have 2 models based on the capacity. One model is the 2 liters model, and the other is the 4 liters model. The space area will determine which model to use. From the exterior, there are also 2 models. One type is the “Noble” model. This model is suitable for enterprises leaders, government servants. The other is called the “Prestige” model. This model is suitable for businessmen. The 2 liters Noble model’s supplier prices will be at 120 RMB per unit. The 4 liters Noble model will be at 170 RMB. The 2 liters Prestige model is at 130 RMB and the 4 liters at 180 RMB.”

These dealers had a shocked. The prices were too high. This humidifier was made of plastics. Why was it so expensive? They thought the most, it would be a few dozen RMB.

The average cost of 1 unit was about 50 plus RMB. The materials cost about 20 RMB, and Motor Factory’s assembly cost was 30 RMB. If the profit was not 2 to 3 times of the cost, then it was not worthy of Feng Yu’s “Invention”!

“Director Feng, the price is too high. 1,000 units will cost us over 100,000 RMB. All our funds will be invested in these humidifiers. We still must mark up the prices for profits. Who would buy if it is so expensive?” Someone asked.

Feng Yu glanced over at that person and that person immediately lower his head, pretending that he was not the one who said it. Director Feng of Tai Hua Trading had a bad temper. If he were not happy, he would just chase that person out!

“Our humidifier must be sold at high prices! Are televisions expensive? Are refrigerators expensive? Are there still many people who buy them? You all will be taking charge of the same province’s market as the previous time. Same rules. You all are not allowed to sell in another dealer’s market. This time, the minimum order is 1,000 units. If anyone of you wants to quit, the door is over there.””

Just because I did not get angry, you all try to climb all over me?

A few dealers from the southern regions left. The market in their region was not big. The humidity there was too high. A piece of clothing will take 3 to 5 days to dry!

The ones remaining were all from the northern regions, except for that fatty. The fatty was persuading others to quit, but he stayed.

If these people leave, then he will be able to control the whole market himself and use it against Tai Hua Trading. But not everyone wanted to quit. Especially the dealers from Beijing and Hebei. They even ordered 4,000 units each.

In the end, there were no dealers for the northwest region. The dealers for the central and northern areas all agreed to order. The Fatty still ordered 2,000 units, but he could take over the remaining provinces. This was considered a concession given to him by Feng Yu.

With a total order of 30,000 units, there was not enough stock. A few days ago, Feng Yu had already asked the Motor Factory to speed up the production. So, it was the same as last time. The dealers will receive half of their goods and the remaining one week later. In a week’s time, there will be a profit of 2 to 3 million RMB in Feng Yu’s pocket.

Goods first and pay later? Impossible!

Feng Yu knew that it was not easy to recover debts in this era. Even if they go to the courts, it was also no use. It was only possible to give our goods and collect payments later after the trust was built. Just like Feng Yu and Kirilenko. They would deliver goods to each other first and make payments later.

This humidifier was just to occupy the market first and to create the brand awareness. When Feng Yu get his hands on the technology of the ultrasonic humidifier, then he will be the market leader in the humidifier industry. That will be the time where he will get the real profits!

Chapter 110 – 3 Parties Cooperation (Part 1)

“Director Li, have you considered what I told you the last time?” Feng Yu sat on the sofa and crossed his legs. Beside him was a frowning Li Shiyou.

Feng Yu had mentioned to him about using the ultrasonic vibrations technology for the humidifier. It will be safer, and the effects will be better.

But the Motor Factory does not have this technology. The Motor Factory was a military factory in the past, but their primary focus was still electric motors and electrical related products like batteries, generators and electrical wirings. They had the best technologies for these products in China. This ultrasonic technology had nothing to do with electric motors.

But Li Shiyou knew which factory had this technology. He wanted to get this technology but to no avail. Now, Li Shiyou was also interested in branding. If the electric fans had used the Motor Factory’s brand, then they would have enjoyed higher profits.

He also did not expect this small humidifier could also bring in such big profits. This time, he had learned his lessons and proposed a joint corporation with Feng Yu. He does not want to be a contractor anymore. He wants a cut of the profits. Feng Yu also suggested that he wanted the factory to develop the ultrasonic humidifier. He will pay for the development costs and the share the results. The profits sharing can be discussed later.

Li Shiyou discussed with the other leaders of the factory, and everyone agrees to this proposal. Although the government was encouraging the development of electric generating facilities, the technology for hydropower was still weak. The primary source of electricity was still from thermal generators. The Motor Factory main strength was always in hydropower, Thermal power and wind power was still lacking. They also just started researching on solar energy. As for others, they were still in the theoretical stage.

Li Shiyou had thought about this carefully. If they depend on electric generators, the factory might not suffer any losses, but there were not many profits either. Look at Tai Hua Trading. Just an electric fan and they had made millions of profits. They were also working with the Machinery Factory, and the Machinery Factory was doing very well. Even Li Mingde, who used to be looked down by him, started to talk arrogantly to him!

Li Shiyou decided to gamble. Anyway, Feng Yu will be paying for the research and developmental costs. If it succeeds, the Motor Factory have another revenue stream. If it fails, then consider it as accumulating experience. But they had tried. They understand the theory behind the ultrasonic technology and how to turn water into mist, but they just can’t produce the humidifier. Based on his factory engineer’s estimation, the size of the humidifier would be about the size of a car. How to sell?

Li Shiyou wanted to trick the Aviation Factory into giving him the ultrasonic technology. After all, both factories were state-owned enterprises and had worked together on many military projects before. But the Aviation Factory just refuse to give them the technology.

What does the Motor Factory want? We, Bing City’s Aviation Factory, can just manufacture it and sell it to you!

Li Shiyou was now searching for a solution in the dark. He was afraid that if Feng Yu knew about this, he would ditch them and work with the Aviation Factory. Then, the Motor Factory will have nothing to do with this in future.

In the end, both parties were just business partners and do not have a close relationship. If the Motor Factory had helped Tai Hua Trading to warn Song Xiao in the past, Song Xiaofeng would have stopped threatening them. After all, the Motor Factory used to be a military factory and was more ferocious than the Police!

Because they had not helped Tai Hua Trading, both sides had some feelings of animosity. Li Shiyou felt that if Feng Yu had found a better partner, he would ditch the Motor Factory immediately.

Feng Yu waited for a while, and Li Shiyou just kept quiet and frowned. Feng Yu knew that something was wrong.

“Director Li, what happens? You don’t intend to work with me anymore? It’s fine. Actually, the Machinery Factory can also manufacture this humidifier.” Feng Yu stood up and wanted to leave.

The Machinery Company indeed can produce the humidifiers. But the Machinery Company will never produce it! Although all the critical decisions in Machinery Company, were not decided by Li Mingde alone, it was Li Mingde was controlling everything from behind.

Even if Feng Yu could persuade Li Mingde to produce the humidifiers, he still has to split the profits with them. Once the Machinery Company found that the earnings for the humidifiers were high, then they will want to get the more significant share, and Feng Yu will be getting the lesser share. It would not be like with the Motor Factory where they just accept the contractor fees.

Li Mingde was also more despicable than Li Shiyou. Before Feng Yu becomes the major shareholder of the Machinery Company, he would not put all his eggs in the Machinery Company basket, for them to reap the benefits.

Since the Motor Factory was not willing to corporate with him, Feng Yu had another option, which was the university. No matter if it was a technological university or a shipbuilding university, they were strong in research and development. This ultrasonic technology was not considered complicated, and the university lab should be able to complete it. The only problem for Feng Yu was the patent for the technology. The university will not hand over the patent to Feng Yu.

“Wait, Director Feng. It’s not that we do not want to work with you. But our ultrasonic vibrations technology was still in the theoretical stage, and it will take at least 1 year to put it into practical use.”

Feng Yu finally found out that Li Shiyou was bluffing when he said that they had the ultrasonic technology. The Motor Factory had only started researching on it after Feng Yu’s suggestions!

“Director Li, let’s be honest with each other. The Motor Factory does not have any engineers that know the ultrasonic technology? You all tried to research about it now and discover that it was impossible for you all to succeed? Since you all dare to agree to work with me last time, then you must know where to get this technology. Which factory is it? Or which university’s professors?”

Li Shiyou looked at Feng Yu in astonishment. He could guess so much with so little information? How can a teenager be so shrewd? He must be at least a few decades old.

“I know that the Bing City’s Aviation Factory have this technology and even have the experts in this. But they do not want to sell the technology to me. I had tried to meet Director Hou a few times but never got to see him.”

“Experts from Aviation Factory? Why not you try to ask Director Hou of the Aviation Factory out. We can discuss for a 3-way corporation. They can come out with the technologies, I can come out with the capital, and you can do the production. The profits will be split between the 3 of us.”

Another partner? Feng Yu was happy to have another partner. Furthermore, Feng Yu wanted to know Bing City’s Aviation Factory’s, Director Hou. His next business idea will need to partner with the Aviation Factory, and it will be even more profitable.

“3-way corporation? Okay. I will contact him.” Li Shiyou was glad the Feng Yu made this suggestion. He was afraid that Feng Yu will ditch them.

Hou Haitao received Li Shiyou’s call, and it was about the ultrasonic technology again. Hou Haitao just gave the same reply, which was the Aviation Factory would manufacture whatever he wanted and sell it to him. Hou Haitao was more senior than Li Shiyou. When he was the Director of Aviation Factory, Li Shiyou was still a junior deputy director. Even when Li Shiyou was the director now, Hou Haitao always treats him as his junior.

This time Li Shiyou did not hang up the phone. Instead, he said that he will be bringing a friend to meet him at the Aviation Factory to talk about a joint project and guaranteed that the Aviation Factory has nothing to lose.

After hanging up the phone, Hou Haitao was wondering. How could he not know any of Li Shiyou’s friend?

Feng Yu had already decided that no matter how they cooperated, and how much money he had to fork out, the patented technology and brand must be under his control. These were the most important things!

Chapter 111 – 3 Parties Cooperation (Part 2)

Hou Haitao’s disdain for Li Shiyou grew, even more, when he saw Feng Yu. This teenager should be still schooling, and he was Li Shiyou’s friend? This Li Shiyou was getting worse.

“Director Hou, this is my friend which I told you about. Director Feng, Feng Yu from Tai Hua Trading.”

“Hmmm.” Hou Haitao just made a sound from his nose as greeting. He did not even consider standing up to shake Feng Yu’s hands. He also felt that Feng Yu was unworthy to enter his office.

Feng Yu saw Hou Haitao’s contempt, but he was helpless. If he was in Hou Haitao’s position and got to meet a teenager, he might also behave this way. But Feng Yu was confident that he could change Hou Haitao’s perspective within 1 min.

Li Shiyou wanted to say something, but Feng Yu stopped him and gestured to Li Shiyou to let him do the talking.

“Director Hou, you might not have heard of Tai Hua Trading, but you should have heard of Wind and Rain fans. Those are mine. You heard of Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil? Those are also mine.”

After hearing Feng Yu’s words, Hou Haitao straightens up and start to take Feng Yu seriously. Wind and Rain fans was a miracle last summer. It appeared suddenly and was famous not only in Bing City but also the whole China. Their Aviation Factory had also ordered a few dozen fans, and he also bought 2 for his house.

The cooking oil he was using now was also Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil. His wife only trusted this brand, and even though it was expensive, she would still buy it.

“Oh, you are Director Feng from Tai Hua Trading. Xiao Wang, serve tea!” Hou Haitao stood up and shake Feng Yu’s hands and ordered his secretary to serve tea.

“Director Hou should have guessed the purpose of us meeting you. We are here to discuss with Director Hou about cooperation, using the ultrasonic technology to develop a new type of humidifier. Right. The humidifier on your desk is also our product.”

Hou Haitao looked at the humidifier on his desk. This was bought by his office chief. After using the humidifier, it was indeed more comfortable.

“Cooperation? There’s no need for that. Just let me know what you want to manufacture and the requirements. We will just produce it for you.” The Aviation Factory’s workshops were not operating at full capacity. If there were orders, it would be best if they do it themselves.

Before Feng Yu can say anything, Li Shiyou said anxiously: “Director Hou, so you have the production line for the humidifiers? My factory had already modified a few production lines. The production cost is meager. Can your Aviation Factory do that? Your factory’s focus now was all on aircraft engines and vans. You still have time to produce humidifier?”

Hou Haitao leaned back into the sofa and said: “The issue here is that we have the technology.”

Feng Yu interrupted both of them: “Director Hou, Director Li, I am here to discuss our cooperation and not to see the both of you fight. We have a common goal which is to make money. Now, the Aviation Factory have the technology, the Motor Factory have the production line, and I have the funds and the sales distribution channels. I think we can have 3-way cooperation to develop and manage the new humidifier. The money earned will be split between the 3 of us.”

“Cooperation. Fine. But to develop a new product, technology is the most important. So, the Aviation Factory should be getting half of the profits, and the both of you should share the rest.”

“Impossible. You are putting in the least efforts. How can you take half the profits? My factory is doing all the production work, so I should be getting half of the profits!” Li Shiyou retorted.

Feng Yu had a headache. It seems that he had belittled the appetite of these state-owned enterprises leaders. Both wanted half of the profits. Feng Yu was the one coming out with the funds and sales channels. Does that mean he will be doing this for free?

Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao continued arguing, but Feng Yu noticed something was wrong. They both were making eyes at each other.

Fuck, these two old men were acting. They were going to work together to kick out Feng Yu!

Director Hou, Director Li, are you done? From what I see, the both of you wants to do this alone. Why not both of you do this on your own? My family has a stake in the Machinery Company. They can also manufacture humidifiers. As for technology, I think that other than Aviation Factory, the Technology University should have it too. There are a lot of experts there also!”

“Hai~~~ What are you saying, Director Feng? Aren’t we are now discussing our 3-way cooperation?” Li Shiyou starts to calm things down.

“Humph, really? This is the way to discuss? You wanted half of the profits, and he also wanted half. Then I am coming out with the funds and sales channels for free? Why not I give my company to the both of you?” Feng Yu looked at these two sly foxes.

“Then what does Director Feng suggest?” Hou Haitao asked.

“All the while, the one who is coming out with the capital should be taking the biggest share. Furthermore, I am the one who designs the outlook of the humidifier. The market positioning, sales channels, brand and even this idea are mine. So, I want 80% of the profits and the both of you will share the remaining!”

“Impossible!” Hou Haitao and Li Shiyou said at the same time.

One party taking 80% share and the two state-owned factories sharing the remaining 20%? It’s ridiculous.

“Fine, I will take a step back. I want at least 30%.: Li Shiyou said.

“It’s the same for me. I want 30% too. You will be getting the biggest share, 40%. Is it fine this way?”

Feng Yu sneered and looked at these two sly old men. The both will be getting 60% share. If they work together, they can override whatever decision Feng Yu make.

“I will also give in. Each of you will be getting 15% the most. I want 70%!” Since everyone was making unreasonable demands, Feng Yu wanted to see if they dare to kick him out of this project and do it themselves.

“Director Feng, don’t be too greedy. This is 3-way cooperation and the shares we wanted are already below one third.” Hou Haitao said coldly.

“Really? But your efforts are not worth one third at all.”

“25%. I want 25%.” Li Shiyou said. He added: “I am unable to answer to the others in the factory if we are getting less than this.”

Before Hou Haitao said anything, Feng Yu laughe” “Director Hou also want 25%? I shall be honest with the both of you. I must get more than 50% shares for this new type of humidifier, and I guaranteed the both of you that your profits each year will not be less than 1 million …… Rubles!”

“How much?” Hou Haitao’s eye grew wider.

“1 million Rubles! Each of you will own 20% shares each. Aviation Factory will be doing the research and development, the Motor Factory will be doing the production. I will be coming out with the funds and in charge of the sales. If I hand over this project to any of you, can you guarantee 1 million Rubles profits? Also, the results of the research and development done by the Aviation Factory will belong to me. I am the one who had thought of this idea, and I am the one who is funding this research and development. So, the results should belong to me. The both of you can enjoy the profits based on your shares. I can sign a 10-year contract with the both of you, stating that there will be profits of at least 1 million Rubles each year.”

Feng Yu had deliberately said Rubles and not US dollars. He knew that Rubles will depreciate severely 2 years later. At that time, the value of Ruble was even lower than Japanese Yen. Even if the sales of this humidifier was not as good as he expected, he can also quickly take out 2 million Rubles.

The 10-year contract seems like a long time, but it was also the time limit for patent protection. If the 3-way cooperation doesn’t work out, Feng Yu can leave anytime and do this on his own. All Feng Yu need to do was to give them 1 million Ruble each year. Anyway, the patent will be in his hands.

Li Shiyou looked at Hou Haitao and nodded: “Fine, we agree!”

Chapter 112 – Pager

Feng Yu was relieved when the humidifier cooperation was settled. This investment was not a significant sum, but the returns will be high.

The first investment was only 1 million RMB. The Aviation Factory will be minimizing the ultrasonic vibration machine to be no bigger than a fist.

The Motor Factory got to modify the production line. They only have a temporary production line for the humidifiers now, and it was not enough. There must be a specialized production line for this. Feng Yu had said that once the Aviation Factory’s research was ready, the Motor Factory must start the production immediately. The output must not be lower than 50,000 units a month.

The market was empty, and this was considered a monopoly. But they must capture the market first. Even in this era, Feng Yu’s forecast was at least a few hundred thousand units will be sold a year in China. There was still the bigger overseas market.

……

The Post Office had just open, and there were 2 customers. It was snowing heavily today, and these 2 men must have something urgent.

“Welcome, oh, it’s Shiqiang. You are here to fax documents again?”

“Brother Hui, I am not here to fax documents. I am here to buy something. Will chat with you later. I am going over to that side.”

Brother Hui looked at Li Shiqiang walking over to a corner, and his eyes opened wide. This Li Shiqiang really became wealthy. He was going over to look at pagers! This pager costs a few thousand RMB a piece.

But since Li Shiqiang could drive cars now, he can surely afford a pager.

“Brother Qiang, you are here. These pagers had just arrived. Which one do you want to see?”

There were only numeric pagers, and Feng Yu was disappointed. The Chinese characters pagers were only available the following year. But this pager should be enough for the time being. It was better than unable to contact him if there were any emergencies.

“How many do you have?” Feng Yu asked.

The staff looked at Feng Yu. Who was this arrogant kid? 1 pager was not enough for him?

“Sun Wenwen, how many pagers do you have?” Li Shiqiang asked again.

Sun Wenwen’s eyes grew big: “Brother Qiang, what do you mean? You are buying a few?”

Feng Yu smiled and said: “Not a few. We need about 20.”

Feng Yu’s tone was casual, and he had interrupted Sun Wenwen. She thought to herself: “What? 20 pagers? 1 pager cost 4,000 RMB. You want 20? Then it will be 80,000 RMB. This kid does not know how expensive these pagers are. It’s 80,000 RMB. Have you seen 80,000 RMB?”

“Young man, this pager cost 4,000 RMB.” Sun Wenwen said to Feng Yu.

“4,000 RMB? It’s not expensive. I want 20. Take it out. I want to see.” Feng Yu thought the pager would cost at least 5,000 RMB. Seems like the prices were lower compared to last year.

“Brother Qiang, who is this kid? Stop joking with me.” If it were not for Li Shiqiang, she would have scolded them crazy. This kid was arrogant. A pager cost 4,000 RMB, and he wanted 20? He thinks that these were 4 RMB toys?

“This is my brother-in-law. He is not joking with you. We are buying for the company. Do you have 20 pieces? Take them out.”

Feng Yu had discussed with Li Shiqiang. Wu Zhigang and the rest of the staffs had to travel frequently and were always uncontactable. What if there were any emergencies?

Feng Yu said that the losses caused by being uncontactable would be higher than these measly few thousand RMB. Furthermore, Tai Hua Trading had made lots of profits this year, and Feng Yu wants to reward Wu Zhigang and the staffs. That’s why Li Shiqiang did not oppose this idea.

Li Shiqiang was also more generous now. He was staying in a big apartment, drive a small car, and the status of the people he met now was higher. How could he forget the staffs who had work hard together with him?

Sun Wenwen heard Li Shiqiang and said embarrassedly: “Brother Qiang, we do not have 20 pagers. We only have 16 units.”

16 units? It’s enough too. Feng Yu waved his hands and said: “Take out everything for me.”

At that juncture, someone walked into the Post Office and came to Sun Wenwen’s sales counter.

“Hey girl, you sell pager here? Give me the most expensive one!”

He had said that in a loud voice. It was as if he was afraid other people could hear him. The most expensive pager? Couldn’t he read the sign on the wall? Every pager was selling for 4,000 RMB.

Feng Yu turned to look at that man. That man was wearing a coat and a bowler hat. There was nothing unusual about his dressing, but Feng Yu could not accept it when he opened his mouth to show off his two gold tooth.

“Oh, that’s a pager? Let me see.” The golden tooth man stretched his arm over to take the pager from Feng Yu.

Feng Yu stepped back. This person is rude. Can’t he see that I am holding on to the pager? Can’t he ask for it nicely?

The golden tooth man did not expect Feng Yu to dodge him. He growled: “Where did this kid come from? Get lost. This thing is costly. Can your family afford to pay for it if you break it?”

After he said that, he tried to snatch the pager from Feng Yu again.

“Whether if we can afford to pay for it, is our problem. It has nothing to do with you.” Feng Yu can’t be bothered this type of people. He turned to Sun Wenwen and said: “Okay. These pagers are fine.”

“Who you think you are speaking to? Hey, salesgirl. I want that pager. Bring it over!” The golden tooth man shouted at Sun Wenwen.

Salesgirl? Sun Wenwen rolled her eyes and said to the golden tooth man: “I’m sorry sir, this is sold.”

“Then get me another one. Hurry up, stupid!” The golden tooth man said impatiently. He had made 30,000 RMB from his business this year. If he had a pager clipped to his belt, then even if that pretty girl from the village does not want to marry him, her parents would also force her to marry him!

“Sorry. There are no more pagers.” Sun Wenwen replied.

“Little girl, you are treating me like a fool? There are so many pagers in your counter, and you are telling me there’s no more? Where’s the Manager? Ask him out! I want to ask him; how did he train you!” Golden tooth man shouted angrily.

Li Shiqiang could not stand it anymore and said: “Mister, these pagers were all sold. It is no use even if you look for the manager. If you have the time to shout here, why not go to other Post Office? Also, it’s better for you to not speak so loud in public. It just shows how uncultured you are.”

“Who are you calling uncultured? I am here to buy things and have you heard of the saying, customers are gods?” Golden Tooth man said and tried pushed Li Shiqiang.

Li Shiqiang sidestepped and grabbed the golden tooth man’s wrist with his right hand and twisted it hard. The golden tooth man immediately kneels on the ground. Li Shiqiang was in the military for 3 years, and it was a piece of cake for him to handle thugs like him.

“Ahhhhh…… You dare to hit me? Help! Someone is hitting me!”

The Post Office Manager came running in: “What happen? Xiao Li, let him go first.”

Li Shiqiang released his grip, but the Golden Tooth man remained on the ground.

“Humph, this guy thinks that he had a bit of money and tried to create trouble here. He even scolded Sun Wenwen just now.”

Sun Wenwen also added: “Manager, he was trying to create trouble here. I told him that the pagers were sold out, but he insisted me to sell one to him. I am not a magician, and I can’t make one pager appear in thin air.”

“Sold out? Didn’t the new stocks just arrive this week?” The Manager asked.

“That’s right. She did it on purpose. You are the manager, right? This person must be fired!” The golden tooth man stood up and started shouting. He felt that the manager was on his side.

Suddenly, Feng Yu said nonchalantly: “It was indeed sold out. Just 5 minutes ago, I had bought all the pagers.”

“Bluff. You can carry on bluffing. You have the money to buy all the pagers here?” The Golden tooth man shouted.

Feng Yu opened his bag, which was placed on the counter, and took out money from it. His salary was all in hundred RMB notes rolled into bundles.

1 bundle, 2 bundles…… 6 bundles, 7 bundles, 8 bundles.

Feng Yu tapped on the money: “There is 80,000 RMB here. 1 pager is selling for 4,000 RMB, 16 pagers will cost 64,000 RMB. The network fees are 800 RMB for a pager. Is this money enough?”

Author’s notes:

Chinese characters pager was introduced in 1990 by Inspur and Motorola together. China’s Ningbo Bird Company introduced the domestically produced pagers in 1993. By that time, there were mobile phones. But the talk time was only about 30 mins.

Chapter 113 – The kid who sued a foreigner

The Golden tooth man immediately back down. This teenager can take out 80,000 RMB from his bag in an instant, and it seems like the bag still contains more money. He had only earned 30,000 RMB in a year, and Feng Yu can easily take out 80,000 RMB. That means his business was nothing compared to Feng Yu!

The Golden tooth man left immediately. The people watching the commotion were shocked by the way Feng Yu took out his money.

Those who knew Li Shiqiang were whispering among themselves. They knew Li Shiqiang was wealthy, but they did not know that Li Shiqiang was so rich! If it were them, they would also choose to quit the job at the Post Office. They would never afford a pager or a small car if they were working at the Post Office.

All the pagers were activated, and Li Shiqiang chatted with his ex-colleagues for a while and left. He felt uncomfortable with the way his ex-colleagues treated him.

Back at the office, Feng Yu gave out the pagers to his staff and told them that this pager was their year-end bonus.

Wu Zhigang and the rest were shocked. They knew they will be getting a fat bonus this year. From Feng Yu’s generosity, the bonus should not be lower than 1,000 RMB. But they did not expect Feng Yu to give them a pager each. This pager cost 4,000 RMB each!

Feng Yu encouraged everyone and told them that they had 2 more businesses before the New Year. One was importation, and the other was exportation. After that, it will be holidays for everyone until the 15th day of the Lunar New Year. In that era, China still does not have the official holidays policies, but at Tai Hua Trading they get to enjoy such benefits!

Everyone cheered. It was a long holiday, and they were able to enjoy themselves.

……

3 days later, Feng Yu received a call from Kirilenko. The fleet of Gaz trucks was on their way. Estimated to arrive at Bing City in 2 days’ time.

Feng Yu was overjoyed. This fleet had finally arrived. With Kirilenko’s help, this fleet consisted of 80 Gaz trucks and was loaded with over a thousand refrigeration compressors. These compressors will be converted into refrigerators at the Motor Factory.

Because the compressors were very cheap, the cost of the refrigerators will also be meager. As such, the retail prices will also not be high. Feng Yu had estimated that the profits should be about a few hundred thousand RMB!

……

This day, there was a long convoy of Gaz trucks in Bing City’s streets. The convoy was very long and attracted a lot of attention.

These trucks seem like they were transporting goods from the Soviet Union. Which unit was this wasteful to use vehicles to transport goods and not by freight?

Later, everyone noticed that these trucks went to the Motor Factory. It was the Motor Factory that ordered goods from the Soviet Union? But no one heard anything from the Motor Factory. Director Li had instructed the factory to keep this as a secret.

It was a disgrace for a state-owned factory to be a contractor for a private company. They did not admit being the manufacturer of Wind and Rain fans, let alone this Tai Hua refrigerators.

Feng Yu had registered these refrigerators under the Tai Hua brand. He did not intend to expand this refrigerator business. Feng Yu knew nothing about refrigerators except for the different types of refrigerators. There will not be another batch of cheap compressors again. The factory that produces these compressors were in a semi-shutdown state when Kirilenko contacted them. However, Feng Yu was interested in that factory’s production line. Maybe he could import those production machines and sell it to those factories that were manufacturing refrigerators.

Because Feng Yu did not want to affect Wind and Rain brand image and value, he chose to use Tai Hua brand. Initially, Feng Yu wished to use Shiqiang brand, but Li Shiqiang rejected. Feng Yu’s design of the refrigerators was too weird. It was a 2-door fridge. Who would buy such a big refrigerator? One must buy how many things to fill that fridge up? It was a waste of electricity too.

These were not important. Feng Yu’s priority now was to wait for Kirilenko arrive at Bing City, and they would go to the courts with IOU. Feng Yu wants the courts to award him the fleet of Gaz trucks as payment for the “debt” owed to him by Kirilenko. This would save them a lot of taxes!

Kirilenko flew to Bing City and arrived at night. Feng Yu drove and picked him up personally. This time, Kirilenko had only brought 1 person with him. It was his trusted aide. Kirilenko had come to Bing City was to sell off this fleet of trucks and to be closer to Feng Yu. So, in future, he could ditch the rest of his partners and work with Feng Yu alone.

……

“What did you say? You want to sue a foreigner?” The person at the courts was shocked. This was unbelievable.

This is a foreigner from the Soviet Union, and yet you want to sue him? Will this affect China’s image? Will it jeopardize the relationship between both countries?

If the Soviet Union embassy knew about this, it would be in the headlines. Theirs was only a small court in the city, and they dared not to sue a foreigner.

“So what if he is a foreigner? It was written on the contract that he owes me this much money and he had used those trucks as collaterals. Now he can’t pay, and these trucks should belong to me. What’s the problem?” Feng Yu looked at the Courts’ staff. Please don’t escalate matters. This was just a simple business dispute.

“Kid, can’t the both of you work things out? Our court does not have the authority to sue a foreigner. Why not you go to the high courts?” The staff was troubled. What Feng Yu said was not wrong, but he dare not to be the one who set this precedent.

“We had discussed this, and he agreed. If you don’t believe me, you can ask the interpreter. I am not lying to you. He even brought his passport.” Of course, Kirilenko would agree. Both were in this together. This was to avoid paying high taxes.

The staff felt that he was the unlucky one. Why must he be the one on duty today? Why did the other person go to the toilet? If he had known, he would also go to the toilet. He would rather skip work than do this.

Feng Yu was worried that this would happen, so he brought an interpreter along. This interpreter was a teacher in the university and was hired for high wages. Other interpreters rejected this job when they heard that they need to be at the courts. Nowadays, everyone does not want to have anything to do with the courts.

“Just sentence. Everything is so clear. What’s there to worry about? Can I get the written verdict later?” Feng Yu kept rushing the staff. He still needs to settle the documents for those trucks.

The staff asked Feng Yu to wait a while as he needs to consult his leaders. The staff was curious. Why was this foreigner not angry at all? A normal person being sued by another person would be upset. Even if he was not mad about being sued, at least he should be moody but why was this foreigner still smiling? Could it be his brain was damaged?

Kirilenko did not know that the staff thought that he was an idiot and still gave him his “best” smile. To Kirilenko, it was his best smile, but to others, he was smiling like an idiot.

After a while, someone that looks like a leader came and spoke to Kirilenko. This leader knew how Russian and found out that there were no problems with Kirilenko’s answer. He also checked Kirilenko’s passport and then asked Feng Yu to wait.

The leader reported this matter to his higher-ups. In the end, this matter was escalated to the Provincial Government. It was only a very senior leader that gave the decision to carry on with the court proceedings. The leader does not care if it was a foreigner or a local. If someone did something wrong in China, he must be punished by the law! He even instructed the courts to just treat this case as a typical contractual dispute and sentenced as usual!

The instructions were passed down quickly through all the levels and back to the city court. The Court’s leader saw the instructions and ordered his men to carry on with the procedures. Since the foreigner also agreed, the court would not be a busybody. Just asked the foreigner to sign and thumbprint on the documents. The written verdict must have a Russian version too.

Many of the Court’s staffs were looking at Feng Yu. This kid was so young, and yet he dares to take a foreigner to the courts. Everyone wondered who was the one behind this kid.

Feng Yu gave a red packet, and the efficiency of the court staff improved immediately. Within an hour, the written verdict was issued, and the ownership of these 80 Gaz trucks was officially transferred to Wind and Rain Logistics Company.

Chapter 114 – Wind and Rain Logistics

Wind and Rain Logistics Limited Liability Company was a new company registered by Feng Yu. But it does not belong to him. The company belongs to Li Shiqiang.

The Li family knew that they could enjoy their current lifestyle was because of Feng Yu. However, how could Li Shiqiang work for his younger brother-in-law? Li Shiqiang had wanted to start something himself after getting his dividends.

Just happened that this opportunity came. Feng Yu wanted to set up a logistics company and even got a fleet of trucks. Li Shiqiang then told Feng Yu that he wants to run this logistic company and does not want Tai Hua Trading’s shares.

Feng Yu also agreed, but he told Li Shiqiang that he had already registered Wind and Rain Logistics. He had wanted to create a brand alliance to increase their competitiveness in future, and because of this, Feng Yu was willing to pay Li Shiqiang a sum of money to compensate him.

Li Shiqiang agreed without any hesitation. He does not care about the company name, and there was no need for any compensation. Feng Yu change the owner of the company to Li Shiqiang and then gave Li Shiqiang over 1 million RMB of dividends. Tai Hua Trading’s shares were also changed to Feng Yu’s name. Now Feng Yu can change his title on his name card to General Manager.

Feng Yu was finally 16 and had his identification card. It would be easier for him to do things now.

The City’s Transportation Department were old friends with them. They gave a red packet to the Chief, and the documentation was quickly completed. All the vehicle’s number plate will be ready in a week’s time.

A new logo was sprayed on the doors of the trucks. Even the bonnet was sprayed with the Wind and Rain logo. Li Shiqiang also hired a batch of ex-military drivers. How much can they earn if they were working at the units? If they worked at Wind and Rain Logistics, they would get 50% more than their current salary, and there will be a bonus too!

Very soon, over a hundred drivers applied for this job. Li Shiqiang also followed Feng Yu’s suggestions to conduct a test for these applicants. Not only their driving skills were to be tested, their safety awareness and especially their responsibility.

Feng Yu said that this Wind and Rain Logistics will be occupying at least 3 provinces in the Northeast region and might even occupy the markets as far as Beijing. These drivers will be outside most of the time with a truckload of goods. What happens if the driver disappears with the goods?

This was not scaring Li Shiqiang. There were incidents like this that happened before. Feng Yu had read the news of such cases on the internet in his past life. It was many years later when the culprits were caught.

But Li Shiqiang was better than what Feng Yu had thought. Not only he tested the drivers on the things Feng Yu told him, but he also tested their familiarity with the roads. After these screenings, the remaining 80 drivers and over 10 salesmen were hired.

Li Shiqiang knew the importance of salesmen when he was at Tai Hua Trading. If there were no salesmen getting sales and the company was just there waiting for customers to go to them, the company would close within 1 to 2 years.

Feng Yu also helped him with the advertising. Feng Yu had advertising contracts with the newspaper agency and their local TV station. He helped Wind and Rain Logistics do few advertisements to create awareness and let more people know that there was a logistics company in Bing City with 80 Gaz trucks.

Wind and Rain Logistics, Delivering regardless of rain or shine!

Everyone knew about this advertising slogan in less than 3 days.

Wind and Rain Logistics became well known in Bing City. Tai Hua Trading’s office was in the warehousing area, and Li Shiqiang was familiar with many companies there.

Li Shiqiang visited every company in the warehousing area. When they knew that Li Shiqiang had just set up a Logistics Company, had 80 trucks and was able to take on jobs for from Bing City to Ji City and Shen City, many companies signed contracts with him. They will let Wind and Rain Logistics handle their deliveries in future.

Feng Yu had also helped Li Shiqiang to get some deliveries orders from the Motor Factory and Machinery Company. Coupled with Tai Hua Trading’s deliveries, Wind and Rain Logistics will not lose money in future.

However, if a truck was traveling with a full load to a destination and returning with an empty load, they might not lose money, but they are not maximizing their profits either. Feng Yu reminded Li Shiqiang to set up branches in Ji City and Shen City. This way, the trucks can travel to and fro more efficiently. They must also build a good reputation and get more customers now.

Setup branches?  Li Shiqiang was troubled. One company was enough to keep him busy, and now he still got to set up branches? Feng Yu’s idea was to set up offices in Ji City and Shen City first and later set up offices in all the cities in the province. Then slowly expand to the 3 provinces in the Northeast region and even Beijing. This was to create a complete logistics network.

Although this will not create a monopoly, with the complete logistics network, the business would be better. Now there were more and more private companies in the 3 provinces of the Northeast region. There will be a lot of delivery orders for just the mountain areas and the farms alone.

Li Shiqiang became nervous when he heard all these. How many branches must be set up in future? Then he must hire at least more than a hundred salesmen? One truck must generate enough to pay for at least 2 to 3 people? How can he make profits if this was the case?

Feng Yu patiently explained the pros and cons to Li Shiqiang. The situation now was considered the initial stage, and it was fine if he were to lose some money. The demand for logistics was growing, but he won’t feel it even if there were a lot of orders. But 2 years later, others will also set up logistics companies, and at that time, it would be difficult for him to expand his market share. Also, with the logistics network set up, anyone who needs delivery, would think of Wind and Rain Logistics first. That would be the time when he can reap the profits. His trucks will always be moving around with a full load.

Li Shiqiang was still hesitating. Although he felt that what Feng Yu said made sense but he still thinks that it was not wise for him to invest so much now. Why not wait for another 2 years and see how it goes. Feng Yu might be familiar with electronic products and trade, but logistics were very different from those. Setting up branches in the country cities? What logistics business does the country cities have? They deliver their goods by trishaws.

Feng Yu sighed and turned to Li Shiqiang: “You can get a franchise if you don’t want to set up branches. Franchise shops will be allowed to use Wind and Rain Logistic brand to receive orders, and Wind and Rain Logistics will be doing the deliveries. All Li Shiqiang needs to do was to give these shops some commissions.

The would solve the problem of trucks returning empty to the city. Li Shiqiang does not need to invest more money, and 2 years later, he could even collect franchise fees. As for now, if he were to receive franchise fees, not many will join him.

With this suggestion, Li Shiqiang understood. This was a good idea. He could save money and does not need to hire so many salesmen!

Li Shiqiang excitedly arranged his salesmen to do sales calls, and he brought the rest of his staff to give out flyers and paste advertisements on the lamp post and telegraph poles. This was also taught by Feng Yu. In that era, no one will bother with these small advertisements like this if these advertisements were not pasted on people’s walls.

Feng Yu looked at the energetic Li Shiqiang and felt that this was the brother-in-law he knew from his memories.

Li Shiqiang was happy, but Feng Yu became depressed. Li Shiqiang went on to set up his own business, and Feng Yu must get a new person to take charge of Tai Hua Trading. He still needs to go to school……

Chapter 115 – The Man who can eat in a pigsty

The person-in-charge of the company can be decided after New Year. The Lunar New Year was just in a few days, and Feng Yu returned to his district. He needs to help to manage the food processing factory and the pig farm. In future, he needs to hire 2 suitable people to handle the factory and the farm for him. Feng Yu does not trust his father’s management skills.

The thing that excites Feng Yu the most was the pig farming expert, Professor Su, finally arrived. The modernization of the pig farm still needs his opinions and help.

The expert had arrived, and Feng Yu must welcome him personally. All experts were held in high regards, and most of them were arrogant. If they felt that they were not respected, they might leave, and it would be hard to invite them again. These experts knew each other, and other experts will also be hard to invite.

Feng Yu arrived at the pig farm and noticed his staffs were not looking well. What happened? Did the expert make things difficult for them? If that were the case, then Feng Yu would send him off. Even experts cannot bully his staffs!

“Uncle Li, where’s my dad?”

“Chief Feng is inside with the expert. Xiao Yu, you better don’t go in first. I am afraid that you will have no appetite for dinner later.” Uncle Li’s expressions were weird. It was as if he had seen something scary or disgusting.

“What? They are slaughtering pigs inside? Didn’t I said all the pigs must be slaughtered at the City’s slaughterhouse?” Feng Yu was feeling a bit helpless as he thought that his father wanted to save money by doing the slaughtering himself.

“It’s not slaughtering pigs. It’s the expert.”

“What’s wrong with the expert?” Feng Yu was alarmed. Did the expert do something?

“He’s eating.”

Feng Yu smiled and jokingly said: “It’s normal for someone to eat now. Could it be he is eating something that will cause me to lose my appetite?”

I even dare to eat pig’s innards, what’s there to be afraid of?

“Have you ever seen people eating in a pigsty? He is holding a bowl of rice with vegetables and eating heartily, in front of the pigs. There are pig excrements all around him, and the smell of urine and feces is overpowering. I don’t want to talk about this. Anyway, I will be skipping dinner today.” Uncle Li said.

Feng Yu was surprised. Who in the right mind would eat in a pigsty? Just imagining it made him feel like vomiting. He spits on the floor, but he still has to discuss somethings with the expert. So, he can only bite the bullet and enter the farm.

In the pigsty, he saw a crowd of people there. Only one of them was holding a bowl, and the rest were desperately smoking cigarettes. They were trying to suppress the nausea feeling.

Feng Yu endured the nausea feelings and walked over. The ventilation at the pig farm was not inadequate, but there was still an overpowering stench of pig feces. There was really someone who could eat in this type of places!

“Professor Su, you are here.”

“Xiao Feng, this is your family’s farm? You had done a good job. The cleanliness is good, and the partitions are built well. You are also feeding these pigs with pellet animal feeds. This is quite rare.” After Professor Su finished his sentence, he ate another mouthful of rice.

Feng Yu immediately had an urge to vomit, but he pinched his thigh hard. He used the pain to suppress the nausea feeling. He turned his head to the side and spat on the floor.

“Professor Su, why are you eating here? You can come to my house or the canteen in the pig farm.”

“No time. I got to leave for a while. I still need to visit a few other pig farms later. I need to sort out many things before the New Year, and that will make my job easier later in the year.” Professor Su said and hurriedly finish the rice in his bowl without a hint of nausea.

Everyone breathe a sigh of relieved when they saw Professor Su finally finish eating. They were very impressed with Professor Su’s professionalism, but they could not accept him eating in the pigsty. If you are busy, you can eat in the car. You might be used to the smell here, but not us!

From this day onwards, Feng Yu never use a big bowl for his meals as it will remind him of the events at the pigsty.

“Professor Su, what other improvements does our pig farm need? Have you seen the floorplan of our pig farm? What do you think of it?” Feng Yu asked anxiously.

“Your farm is not bad, and you can still rear a few hundreds more pigs. I had seen the floor plan. You cannot expand your farm base on that as the air circulation will be very bad, and there will not be sufficient lighting. This is not good for the pig’s growth. I will help you edit it, and you can build it based on the new floor plan. The automatic feeding and watering system is also not bad. Other countries, especially the US, had already started this type of farming methods. Your concept is considered the first in China.”

Why did Professor Su here? It was because he was researching on this subject, and he needs to set up a modernized pig farm. But the university does not have the funds for him to set up one and there were no bosses that will invest in his research.

Just happened Feng Yu wanted to look for an expert in pig farming and met Professor Su. They both chatted for a while, and Feng Yu left a deep impression with Professor Su. But he felt that Feng Yu was bragging a lot. How can someone who owns a small pig farm have the funds to modify and create a modernized pig farm?

Feng Yu still mentioned that he wants to import the Soviet Union machinery to produce ham and create a range of meat products under the same brand. He even wanted to let everyone in the city to be able to buy fresh pork every day. How was this possible? It was tough for people in the cities to purchase fresh pork.

But after he arrived here, he noticed that this farm was much better than the farm assigned to him by the university. It was cleaner, and the workers were all very experienced and even knew of some traditional pig rearing methods which he was unaware of.

There was also a Deputy Officer from the Farm Department who told him that the pig farm had signed a contract with the Farm Department, stating that they will be investing a few million RMB in the next 2 years to buy a modernized pig farm and will be able to produce at least 30,000 pigs each year.

Since then, Professor Su starts to treat this pig farm seriously.  He asked around about this farm and postponed his trips for him to visit this farm. That’s why he was eating his lunch in the pigsty. But he was a bit unhappy when the deputy officer from the Farm Department left as he started eating.

He was a Professor in the Agriculture University, and his salary and benefits were on par with the City’s deputy mayor. How can a Deputy Officer from the Farm Department be so disrespectful to him?

Wen Deguang wanted to accompany Professor Su to tour the farm, but he could not stand looking at someone eating in a pigsty. It was a miracle that he did not vomit on the spot.

But now, Professor Su was happier. Feng Yu really had the intention to construct a modernize pig farm and if the farm was to be built under his guidance, he could publish his thesis on the papers and might be China’s number 1 expert in pig farming. He could also be promoted to the Vice Dean of the university!

Feng Yu said the things that Professor Su wanted to hear most: “Professor Su, after the New Year, please revisit us to guide us on the construction of the pigsty, the installation of the automated feeding and cleaning systems.”

“Ha, ha, ha. Sure. I still need to visit other places now. I will contact you when I sorted out this information.”

His research had finally taken the first and most important step which was from theory to reality. This was significant to him!

Everyone walked Professor Su to the car, and Feng Yu saw his mother walking to the farm.

“You are back and why don’t you come home? What are you doing here?” Zhang Muhua looked at Feng Yu, complaining. What’s good for hanging around in a pig farm? One must be a university student to have a good future.

“A professor came to understand more about our farm. It seems like our farm will be doing well in future.” Feng Yu was in a good mood. Professor Su had agreed to be their consultant and give them technical advice. This was way better than asking the experts from the Farming Department. All Professor Su wanted was to have his name mentioned. Even Professor Su did not have this request, Feng Yu will also publicize that it was Professor Su who had help created this modern pig farm. This will be useful publicity for the farm.

“He had just left in that car? Have the both of you eat? I had cooked your favorite braised pork intestine.” Zhang Muhua was at the farm to call Feng Xingtai home for lunch.

When the father and son heard braised pork intestine, their face turned green.

Feng Xingtai hurriedly said: “Your mum had prepared lunch. You go home and eat now. I still have something to do and will not be eating lunch. Just prepare some congee and salted vegetables for me in the evenings.”

Feng Yu looked at his father sadly. His father was using him as a shield!

Chapter 116 – Ice hole

The final batch of pigs before the New Year was sent to Bing City’s slaughterhouse. After sending the pork to the machinery company, the rest were sold in the district.

Feng Yu also got his results back. This time he had did better. He was in the 7th place of his class.  Liu Kun was in the 1st position as usual. His grades were forever the best. Surprisingly, Fat Chick was in the second place and Li Na in the third place.

The most frustrating part was that Wen Dongjun was in the 6th position! Damn, this idiot’s luck was good. He got the help of a 3rd year top student during the exams, and his weakest subjects became his best subjects. Even their form teacher did not believe their eyes.

After they gotten the results slips, Wen Dongjun kept bragging and even told his parents that he had studied very hard in school to get these results.

Wen Deguang was beaming with joy and even opened a bottle of Baijiu (Chinese White wine). His son had become promising.

The next morning, Feng Yu was still sleeping soundly in his bed when loud knocking woke him up.

“Stop sleeping. Didn’t we agree to go and dig ice holes today? Get up now. Let’s g, let’s go!” Wen Dongjun waved an iron rod with his right hand, and his left hand was behind his back. He was covered tightly in thick clothing, and his eyes were full of excitement.

“Brother Jun, it is only eight o’clock. It is still dark. Can’t we go in the afternoon?” Feng Yu said helplessly.

Wen Dongjun laughed: “Seems like I must use my special move!”

He sticks his left hand under Feng Yu’s blanket, and Feng Yu let out a cry loudly and flipped over the blanket. There was a snowball, the size of a fist on his bed.

Feng Yu grabbed the snowball and threw it on Wen Dongjun’s face. But Wen Dongjun doesn’t care and said: “Are you awake now? Get up now. I am ready!”

Feng Yu can only drag himself up and had breakfast. After packing his equipment, they loaded the fishing nets, iron rods and 2 buckets onto his second Land Rover before setting off.

Yesterday Feng Yu had suggested to ice fishing. He had wanted to ask Li Na along, but Li Na was not interested, and Liu Kun was not free. So, he was left with Wen Dongjun.

They both did not choose to go to the river. It was not easy to walk on the frozen river and, it was very dangerous. They decided to go to a pond, where they had previously gone before.

First, they need to use the shovel to clear the snow on the ice.

Wen Dongjun stretched his arms and started to break the ice with the iron rod. After hitting the ice a few times, he would clear the crushed ice, and Feng Yu would use the pickaxe to hit the same spot.

They both took turns hitting the same spot. After about 10 minutes, they took a break. The ice surface was very clear and a few more hits, they would break a hole. Wen Dongjun took the pickaxe from Feng Yu and hit the ice several more times. He eventually breaks a hole in the thick ice.

He switched to the iron rod and stabbed the hole a few more times, and the diameter of the hole became about 1 meter. He scoops out the small ice with the net, and they could see shadows of fishes.

In winter, ponds were frozen, and there was a lack of oxygen in the water. Once there was an ice hole, these fishes will swim towards it. It would be better if they were there at night. Fishes will jump out of the hole if they shine a touch light at the hole!

“1, 2, 3, lift!”

Wen Dongjun and Feng Yu held on to the wooden pole of the net and lifted it up together. Small fishes were jumping about in the net.

Feng Yu brought over a bucket for these fishes. Feng Yu was surprised when he saw that other than the normal Chinese sleeper and goldfish, there was 2 carp which were about 0.5 KG big. Their luck was not bad.

The drop the net into the hole again and shake it left and right. They then counted 1, 2, 3, and lifted the net together again.

The catch this time was not bad either. There were lesser small fishes, but there was a 1 KG big catfish.

There were only a few small fishes on the third time they lifted the net. This means that there were no big fishes around the ice hole. They need to dig another hole elsewhere.

“Here, you stay here and catch these small fishes. I will go over to the other side to dig a new ice hole. We will switch when I am tired.”

In the Northeast, especially Longjiang, once you dig an ice hole, you need to keep stirring the water. If not, the water will be frozen again in less than 10 minutes. Although the ice will not be thick, it was a hassle to break it again.

Feng Yu slowly scoop the small fishes with the net. There were lesser fishes. Every time he lifted the net, there were only a few tiny fishes. These small fishes were used to feed chickens and ducks. No one would eat these fishes.

Although this was past the time when fishes were abundant, it was not as bad as the future years. People only eat fishes that were at least 0.5 KG.

After a while, Wen Dongjun came over panting to switch with Feng Yu. Feng Yu went over to the new spot to continue digging a hole in the thick ice with the ice pick. He would change to the iron rod when he is tired. Before Feng Yu could break the ice, Wen Dongjun ran over.

“Let me do it. You are too slow. There are no more fishes over there. You had picked that spot. There were only 3 fishes that were over 0.5 KG. I will show you this spot I pick. Later when we lift the net, it will be filled with big fishes!” Wen Dongjun stabbed the ice with the iron rod while bragging.

Feng Yu was immune to Wen Dongjun’s bragging now. He transferred the 3 big fishes to another bucket and carried the bucket of small fishes back to the Land Rover.

He poured the small fishes into a sack and walk back with the bucket.

Wen Dongjun had broken the ice surface and was scooping out the crushed ice from the water surface. When he saw Feng Yu walking slowly, he asked him to hurry. All the fishes will be gone by the time Feng Yu reach.

“1, 2, 3, lift! Hahaha, ~~~ what did I just say? I knew I will pick the best spot. Look. We only lifted the net once, and there are 4 big fishes in it. Each one of them is also bigger than your catfish. You must depend on me when it comes to picking the right spot for ice hole fishing. I have the experience and the luck!”

Feng Yu did not expect this ice hole to be so good. The second they lifted the net, there were 2 more big fishes. There must be a fish nest below the ice.

They lift the net 7 times. The first 5 times had big fishes but the final 2 times were all small fishes. Just the first 5 times of raising the net, they caught 11 big fishes. 2 fishes were at least 1.5 KG big. Wen Dongjun was bragging nonstop beside Feng Yu.

Feng Yu could endure when Wen Dongjun brags the first time, the second time, third time, …… tenth time, and Feng Yu could not take it anymore. He also wants to look for a right spot. If he could net a fish that was bigger than 2 KG, Wen Dongjun should keep quiet!

This time, it was Feng Yu’s turn to look for the next ice hole spot. Wen Dongjun carried the fishes back to the car.

Author’s notes: This was one of the happiest things when I was young. In the middle of the pond, you can scoop fishes, and near the edges, you will be able to scoop frogs. Throw everything together into a pot over a fire, and some Baijiu…

Chapter 117 – Bad luck

“Haaaa~~~” Feng Yu wiped his sweat on his forehead. He was sweating in this cold weather. This shows how hard he worked.

Feng Yu could not stand Wen Dongjun’s showing off his superiority over him for consecutive 2 days. Yesterday was his results and today was the fishing result!

Wen Dongjun was not ashamed of cheating in the exams and was even proud of the result. Today’s ice fishing, both of them were on the same starting line, and Feng Yu do not believe that he will still lose to Wen Dongjun!

If Feng Yu really lose Wen Dongjun, he could imagine the consequences. From then until school reopens, and even this time next year, Wen Dongjun would be talking about what happened today. Feng Yu would become a side character in all his stories.

I am someone who was reborn and will be someone that will leave a name in history. How can I lose to you?

When Wen Dongjun returned with the empty bucket, Feng Yu was almost done with the ice hole. Even Wen Dongjun was shocked by Feng Yu’s efficiency.

“Let me take over. You take a break now.”

“No need. I will be done in 5 minutes. I don’t believe that there will be no big fishes at this spot!”

Wen Dongjun shrugged his shoulders and helped to clear the crushed ice. 5 minutes later, a new ice hole was completed, and Feng Yu was sweating buckets.

“1, 2, 3, lift!” Feng Yu shouted.

The net was filled with small fishes. The biggest was only about 50g.

“Hahaha. You are going to feed your pigs with these?” Wen Dongjun laughed at Feng Yu.

After lifting the net a few more times, Feng Yu gave up. The water must be shallow here, that’s why there were no big fishes. Must look for a new spot for the ice hole!

Wen Dongjun and Feng Yu decide to dig ice holes separately. He carried the pickaxe to 10 meters away and start digging. Usually, he was better at these kinds of physical activities, but today, Feng Yu was faster than him.

“Come, look at this. I don’t believe that there are no big fishes here!”

But the result was still disappointing. Although not all fishes were small, there was only 1 carp that was 0.5 KG. After Wen Dongjun’s ice hole was completed, they caught a few carp that were over 1KG. This made Wen Dongjun even more proud!

“Okay, the sack and buckets are all full of the big fishes I caught. Let’s go back.” Wen Dongjun said.

“No, one more try. I don’t believe that I can’t catch any big fishes today!” Feng Yu was furious. They had lifted the net together and how can he say that those fishes were caught by him?

“There were big fishes, but all of them were caught by me. You start digging. I will load the fishes onto the car. This will be the last hole, and we will leave after this.”

Feng Yu started swinging the pickaxe hard. Snap! The wooden handle of the pickaxe broke!

Damn, why am I so unlucky? Luckily, I still have the iron rod.

Feng Yu covered his eyes and squat down. Fuck, the broken ice pieces got into his eyes, and his tears were flowing.

He got angry and threw the iron rod onto the floor and accidentally hit his leg!

Feng Yu held his leg and jumped up, but he stepped on the crushed ice and slipped. He tried to regain his balance by jumping to his side.

However, when one dogged by bad luck, anything can happen. The spot Feng Yu landed was the spot where he was digging just now. The ice was already very thin and could not support his weight.

Before Feng Yu could react, his whole body was in the ice hole. The piercing cold immediately numbed Feng Yu’s body. Even a swimming champ could not do anything in the cold waters. Feng Yu desperately flailed his arms about and managed to grab the shovel beside the hole, and he hangs onto the handle of the shovel to prevent himself from falling deeper into the hold.

“Dongjun, Dongjun, help~~~” Feng Yu shouted with all his might.

Wen Dongjun was still walking slowly with the bucket of fish when he heard Feng Yu cries. The looked around and noticed that Feng Yu was missing.

The scariest thing about ice hole fishing was falling into the ice hole. One might not drown if he fell into an ice hole but would freeze to death.

Even if the person were pulled out of the water, the cold water would freeze and cause frostbite.

Wen Dongjun dropped the bucket and came running back towards Feng Yu. He was careful to not fall into the 2 holes they dug earlier. If he also falls into a hole, then they both would be dead meat.

“Feng Yu, hang on! You must hang on! I am coming~~~.”

When Wen Dongjun reaches Feng Yu, he was still holding on to the shovel’s handle. Feng Yu’s lips were already blue, and his gloves were already frozen. His whole body was shivering nonstop.

“Grab on. I will pull you up. Don’t let go!” Wen Dongjun carefully approaches the ice hole and grab the shovel. He slowly pulled Feng Yu out of the water. During the process, he was almost dragged into the hole by Feng Yu.

“Hurry, get back to the car. You are all wet. You must remove all your wet clothing. I will give you my outer clothes.”

Wen Dongjun helped Feng Yu towards the car. He cannot carry Feng Yu and must let him walk himself for his blood circulation.

However, the car was not warm at all. Earlier when Wen Dongjun rushed to save Feng Yu, he did not close the boot, and now the temperature inside the car was the same as outside.

Feng Yu tried to start the engine, but the Land Rover just won’t start. Fuck, why didn’t he buy anti-freeze!

“Don’t care about this. You remove your wet clothes first. I will look for some branches or twigs to start a small fire to warm up your car.” Wen Dongjun removed his outer clothing and threw at Feng Yu. He went out into the cold to start a small fire.

The car was finally started and Feng Yu immediately on the heater. He was still shivering. Wen Dongjun went back to the pond to take back their stuff.

“The last ice hole really have lots of big fishes. Look, I managed to scoop up a few big carps.” Wen Dongjun lifted the carps to show Feng Yu.

Feng Yu stared at him. After what had happened, he still got the mood to catch fish? Fine. At least this made Feng Yu slightly happier.

“You drive. You know how to drive the tractor right? It’s about the same. My hands are still numb.” Feng Yu tried to clench his fist, but he got no strength.

“Of course, I am the one driving. You sit tight. Here we go!”

The Land Rover jerked and moved forward, causing Feng Yu’s head knocking against the backrest, making him dizzy. He hated new drivers the most. They do not know how to move or stop smoothly!

Wen Dongjun also dare not to drive too fast. He drove slowly and took almost an hour to reach their district. Feng Yu asked him to drive straight to the hospital. He needs medical attention urgently!

Lying on the hospital bed, Feng Yu felt that today was not his day. He only wanted to go ice fishing, but he couldn’t catch any big fishes and even fell into the ice hole. When he wants to warm himself, his Land Rover could not start. When he was finally back in the district, Wen Dongjun crash the Land Rover into the hospital gate, making Feng Yu pay compensation.

Unfortunate events happened one after another. This made Feng Yu think that maybe heavens saw everything was going smoothly for him and was jealous.

His parents heard the news and came rushing to the hospital. When they saw Feng Yu lying on the hospital bed, they rushed over and gave him a beating!

Who asked you to go ice fishing? Serve you right!

After the beating, his mum tearfully went home to cook some hot soup for Feng Yu. Feng Xingtai remained in the hospital to take care of Feng Yu. As for Wen Dongjun, he was also beaten up by his father at home. Luckily for him, they were living in an apartment now. If they were still living in the village, his father will hang him up and whip him!

Author’s notes: Once, I went ice fishing with a classmate, and he fell into the ice hole. On the way back, his pants were frozen solid. Now, his right leg hurts every time it rains. Be careful when ice fishing.

Chapter 118 – A New Start for the New Year

Crackling ~ ~ ~

The first sound of firecrackers sounded and soon spread to other households. There were 100 crackers pack, 200 crackers pack, and Feng family had the 500 crackers pack.

Feng Yu felt a bit pity that he could not get the 10,000-crackers pack. That will be so much fun, and most importantly, it can chase away his bad luck.

After the ice hole incident, he was hospitalized for 2 days, and Feng Xingtai doesn’t allow him to drive after that. This disrupts his plans to bring Li Na out.

This New Year, the conditions of the Feng family was much better than the previous year. The 8 dishes on the dining table were increased to 16 dishes. Most of the dishes were meat, and there were only 2 vegetable dishes.

The most prominent difference was that this year, they have 1 new member of the family.

Li Shiqiang had come over to the Feng’s family to celebrate the New Year. He and Feng Danying will be getting married on the 7th day of the Lunar New Year. This was the last year Feng Danying would be spending New Year Eve at home. In future, she will have to spend the New Year Eve with the Li family home.

The Feng family had bought a new apartment in the district. This building was built last year and was the district’s second apartment building. 3 stories, 3 bedrooms, and a living room. The floor area was huge, and even the Chief Officer of the Farm Department did not get to live in such big apartment. This made Feng Xingtai very proud.

The furniture and electric appliances in the house was the best. The old ones? All the old furniture and appliances were sent to the pig farm. Feng Yu had said that they were not short of money and there was no point selling this old stuff for that little money. They might as well let their workers at the farm use them.

As such, the father and sons living quarters at the pig farm received colored TV, refrigerator, and even a washing machine. The father and sons only had a black and white TV at home.

They were very grateful to Feng Xingtai and promised that they will work hard and make sure all the pigs are healthy. They will not let Feng Xingtai down.

The results had shown that they really put in the effort in taking care of the pigs. Tian Peng Pig Farm’s pigs grew faster compared to other farms.

Now the farm starts to rear sows. The male piglets were all castrated to prevent inbreeding. They will be buying a batch of male pigs from other places to breed.

The Food Processing Factory’s development was going well too. The sales of the Soybean oil and sugar were good, but the animal feed was not selling and stored in their warehouse. However, after the expansion of the pig farm, they will be consuming about one-third of the animal feed production. Feng Yu had already contacted some dealers. The coming year should not have the same situation again. Feng Yu forecasted that the output of the animal feed will not meet the demands in the following year.

After the Wind and Rain Logistics was transferred to Li Shiqiang, Tai Hua Trading’s assets still have more than 10 million RMB. Even if they only do trading with the Soviet Union, the assets will also increase to at least 20 million by Summer, and within a year, Feng Yu can increase this 20 million RMB by a few times!

Furthermore, Feng Yu had spoken with Kirilenko, and he might be able to get his hands on some cheap Soviet Union’s advanced machinery later this year. Once these machines were sold, Feng Yu will earn another sum of profits.

The development of the Machinery Factory was not bad either. After the launch of the new products, they showcased it at a trade fair in the South, and it shocked the whole nation. No one had expected this Bing City Machinery Factory to produce such high-quality farming machines. The number of new orders that came in made Li Mingde very happy.

Because of this, Li Mingde became famous in Bing City, and he also had a change of mind. Now, he does not want to return to the Agriculture Department. He wanted to stay in the Machinery Company. Here, he was the one with the highest authority, and everyone had to listen to him. The benefits here was also better than Agriculture Department.

Take now for example. The tractor’s engine produced by the Machinery Company was the best in the country. Li Mingde decided to focus their production on tractors. The demand for tractors was huge, and the profits were the highest.

Of course, when the Machinery Factory earns more profits, that would mean that the Feng Family would also get a share of it. Before the New Year, they just received 1 million dividends.

As usual, Feng Yu transferred this money to Tai Hua Trading. Feng Xingtai had no idea how to spend such a big sum of money, so he let Feng Yu do what he wants. Even if he loses the money, they still have the Food Processing Factory and the pig farm. They can still live comfortably and remain as the wealthiest family in the district!

This year was different from the last. Last year, only Feng Danying and Feng Yu got one new set of clothes and shoes. This year, everyone in the Feng Yu got a few sets of new clothes. They are rich now, and of course, they should wear new clothes.

But Feng Yu does not agree with his father’s taste. His father does not like suits and prefers Mao suit. Fine. But why did he have to get 3 sets of the same color?

Feng Yu chose his clothes himself. His coat was tailored, and he was the one who decided the style.

……

“Come, try this fish. I caught it from the pond.” Feng Yu pointed to a braised fish dish on the table.

“Humph! You caught it? You are so capable. You used yourself as bait, and the whole district knows about it. You really make me proud!” Feng Xingtai said sarcastically.

Feng Yu smile: “It was an accident. Dad, try it. This fish is very delicious. If you all are not eating it, I will finish it myself.”

“Have some ribs. These are our pigs. The taste is good.” Zhang Muhua passed a piece of pork ribs to Feng Yu and stared at Feng Xingtai. It’s New Year and can’t he say something happy?

“Thanks, Mum. Mum, have some fish.” Feng Yu also did not expect that news of his accident will become known throughout the whole district.

It was because of that idiotic Wen Dongjun. He went around telling everyone he met about how he saved Feng Yu’s life. His story was Feng Yu almost disappeared into the hole, and he managed to pull him out. He even took off all his clothes and pass to Feng Yu. He also warmed up the car bare bodied and drove over 200 Km/h to send Feng Yu to the hospital. He made it in time by crashing through the hospital gate and finally save Feng Yu’s life.

Anyway, it was all positive things about Wen Dongjun. New spread fast, and soon the whole district knew about this. Thus, Feng Yu became the bad example used by parents to educate their kids.

Feng Yu was crying inside. He was supposed to be a good example to all the kids in the district and have a good image. Why did it end up like this?

“Xiao Li, how is your…… logistics company going?” Feng Xingtai asked.

“It’s fine. I followed Xiao Yu’s suggestions, and now we have more than 10 companies joining our franchise. Business was good before the New Year. Mostly were deliveries for New Year goods.” When they talk about this, Li Shiqiang’s was beaming with joy. He did not expect his business to be so good. He should be making a few million RMB this year, and soon he will be able to cover the cost of the fleet of trucks.

“That’s good to hear. Don’t tire yourself out. You must also take care of your family.” Feng Xingtai said.

“I know. I will promote a few capable people from my staffs in 2 months’ time and let them oversee the daily operations. I will just take care of the company’s finances.” Li Shiqiang said smiling.

He had learned this from Feng Yu. As long as he controls the finances and everything must be signed by him, there will not be any big problems in the company. He can also relax.

“How’s the preparation for your new house?”

“Everything is ready. I had sent out the wedding invites. Please rest assured. I, Li Shiqiang will never let Danying down. I will treat her well forever.” Li Shiqiang gave his assurance. He looked at Feng Danying lovingly.

Feng Xingtai looked at Li Shiqiang for a long time and nodded. He then raised his glass: “Come, let’s toasts and hope that our lives will get better every year!”

“Cheers~~~.”

Chapter 119 – The Grand Wedding

It was the 7th day of the Lunar New Year. The International Hotel was beautifully decorated, and there were many cars parked at the entranced. From the number plates, these were all the leaders’ cars.

Many people were curious. Which senior leader had come to Bing City and so many people were here to welcome him? Being a senior leader is so good. Wherever he goes, there will be so many people welcoming him.

Firecrackers sounded. The onlookers became more resentful. What type of leader is this? There are still firecrackers to welcome him?

A luxury car appeared in a distance driving slowly towards the hotel. The car had a flying goddess on the bonnet and looks better than the FAW cars (China’s domestic car brand, aka “Red Flag Car” used by the country’s leaders)!

This car was decorated with flowers. Where did they find flowers in this cold winter?

“Eh, look, there a “Happiness” word on the car. Could it be someone is getting married?” Someone shouted.

The others did not believe. Weddings can just be host at any hotel. Who would host their wedding here? This is the International Hotel! The best hotel in Bing City. This hotel is used to entertain the top leaders and foreign guests. Can someone even book this venue for the wedding?

Li Shiqiang had put in a lot of efforts to book this International Hotel. Even if you had money, you also can’t book it. There were a lot of foreign guests staying there. In the end, Feng Yu asked Zhang Ruiqiang for help. With the help of the vice mayor, they managed to book the International Hotel, but the price was very high!

“It’s real. It looks like a wedding. What car is that? Have you all seen it before? It is beautiful. It nicer than the Mayor’s car.”

“I know. That is a Rolls Royce. The Queen of England uses this type of car.”

Ho~~~ All the onlookers, gasped in shock. Queen of England used this type of cars? Whose wedding was this? They even use this type of car as a wedding car? This car cost at least 1 million RMB. They couldn’t even finish spending this much money in their lifetime!

“Oh, look! It’s more than one car. There’s a convoy behind. All are Golden Deer cars!”

In that era, it was not common to see wedding car. It was even rarer to see more than one car used for a wedding. Friends and relatives had to make their way to the venue by themselves, or maybe they will rent a bus to ferry them. It was very rare to see a convoy of cars like Li Shiqiang!

Golden Deer (The Soviet Union call it the Volga) convoy was the best cars Feng Yu could find. The logo of the vehicle was a jumping stag, and it was similar to the flying goddess.

These cars were borrowed from the Machinery Company, Aviation Factory, and the Motor Factory. Feng Yu personally borrowed these cars from the leaders for his sister’s wedding. The leaders agreed. But the 3 factories only had 10 Volga. Feng Yu does not want the remaining Lada or jeeps. Feng Yu also drove his brother-in-law’s Bentley at the end of the convoy, making it a total of 12 vehicles. It symbolized the 12 months of the year.

Feng Yu had kept this Roll Royce from the batched of used cars. It was not for himself, but he kept it for his sister’s wedding. This Rolls Royce was very grand and luxurious, and the flying goddess at the front also make it look auspicious.

Li Shiqiang and Feng Danying alighted from the car. Li Shiqiang was wearing a purple Tang dynasty style clothing, and Feng Danying was wearing a traditional red wedding dress. Feng Yu could not accept this type of dressing. What’s the wedding planner thinking? If they do not want western style suits and gowns, fine. But a Mao suit would be better than the purple Tang clothing. Purple and red colors do not look nice together.

Li Shiqiang waved to the crowd and walked Feng Danying to the entrance. They stood there to welcome the guests. Today, not only his parents’ colleagues and leaders were there, but there were also many senior officials present too.

Feng Yu had borrowed cars from the 3 state-owned factories and invited the leaders. Feng Xingtai was one of the shareholders of the Machinery Company and the deputy general manager there. How can Li Mingde not be present for his daughter’s wedding? Not only Li Mingde came, but the rest of the department heads also came as well.

The Motor Factory’s director was one of Feng Yu’s working partners, and of course, he must be present. Wu Zhigang’s uncle and the rest of the workshop directors came with him as well. They want to build a good relationship with Feng Yu to get more projects in future.

The Aviation Factory’s Director Hou Haitao also came personally. Li Shiyou had come to the wedding, and if he did not come personally, Feng Yu might make thing difficult for him in their 3-way cooperation project.

The Aviation Factory’s director had gone to this wedding personally. The rest of the department heads heard this news and rush here. They did not know whose wedding this was, but since their director had come to this wedding then it must be someone important!

Li Shiqiang also invited the Police Chief in charge of the warehousing area and other deputy police chiefs.

At the start, the people alighted from the cars were the leaders from Li Shiqiang’s parents’ units. The highest rank was Deputy Chief Xue, who was representing the leaders of their unit.

But after a while, he saw all the head of departments of the Motor Company arriving. And when Li Mingde came, he was shocked. Why was the General Manager of Machinery Company here?

Later, he noticed that not only Li Mingde had come for this wedding. Even all the leaders of the Machinery Company were there too. This Li family can invite these high-ranking officers? If they really have such connections, then why was Old Li still a supervisor? With his relationship with Li Mingde, he should be at least a deputy chief.

The surprises did not stop for him. After a while, the Motor Factory’s Director Li Shiyou came with all the factory’s leaders. Why did some many senior officers of the Motor Factory come to this wedding? What background does this old Li have?

Later, he saw the Factory Director of Aviation Factory walking in with a group of people. Every one of them congrats Li Shiqiang warmly and gave him red packets.

Deputy Chief Xue started sweating. This Li family was not simple. Was the amount in the red packet he gave too little? He begins to think back if he had any dispute with Old Li in the past.

The Li family even have friends from the Police force? He was not no longer surprised to see Police station chiefs or area Police chiefs here. But that’s the City’s, Deputy Police Chief!

Deputy chief Xue immediately runs in and borrowed the phone from the front desk to make phone calls. He must inform his higher-ups that there were many high-ranking leaders present at this wedding. Li father’s unit’s leader heard the news and knew that he must also be present at this wedding. Although these people were from other departments, they were all higher rank than him.

Many leaders from the Industrial Department, taxes department and Foreign trade office also arrived. Deputy Chief Xue suspects that the bride was the daughter of some high-ranking officer.

Li Shiqiang’s ex-colleagues from the Post Office had come, and he walked over to welcome them. Why was the City’s Chief of the Post Office here too?

Feng Yu smiled when he saw the surprised look on everyone’s face. He did this on purpose. He wants to let the Li family knows that the Feng family have a lot of connections and know lots of high-ranking leaders. They will think twice if they’re going to bully his sister.

Feng Yu still trust his brother-in-law, but things might not be the same as his previous life. The brother-in-law in his past life was just a typical worker, but in this life, he was the boss of a big logistics company. What happens if he changed?

“Xiao Li, Xiao Feng, I wish the both of you to have a long and happy marriage.” A middle-aged man shook Li Shiqiang’s hand and passed a red packet to Feng Danying.

Everyone looked at that man. Even Li Mingde and the rest also walked out towards him. Deputy Chief Xue was getting breathless.

Isn’t that the newly appointed Bing City’s Deputy Mayor Zhang? He heard that the Mayor like him very much. He even came to this wedding personally!

Chapter 120 – Wedding Banquet

The onlookers were surprised. This wedding was too grand. It was held in the International Hotel, and they heard that the banquet was the best. The food was one of the best in China, and the drinks were all Maotai. They can’t even imagine how much it will cost. This family was rich.

The guests who attended were also not the ordinary folks. Most of the guests inside were all high-ranking officers. There were more than 10 City level officials. These two families must have some background. Maybe they were the relatives of some Officials in the City Government or even the Provincial Government.

The best man and the bridesmaids were Wu Zhigang and his nurse girlfriend. Feng Yu was still schooling and does not qualify as one. The MC was a TV station’s host. The MC was paid handsomely to host this wedding. The officiator of the ceremony was changed from Deputy Chief Xue to the City’s Chief of Post Office. Li Shiqiang’s resignation was not yet approved by the Post Office! In that era, the officiator of the wedding was usually the leader of the groom’s unit. But it was rare for the highest-ranking officer of the department to be the officiator.

Feng Yu had wanted to ask Zhang Ruiqiang to be the officiator, but Zhang Ruiqiang refused. He said that it was not right for him to be the officiator and it might cause unnecessary rumors. He had already given Feng Yu face by attending this wedding banquet. As such, Feng Yu did not insist. The City’s Chief of Post Office as the officiator was good enough.

That day, Li Shiqiang’s father was drunk. He did not expect so many top officers from the City Government attending this wedding banquet. Even the Chief of his unit attended and patted his shoulders and told him that it was time for him to take on more responsibilities.

Everyone knew the meaning of that sentence. He was about to be promoted. Li Shiqiang’s father was overjoyed and bottoms up a glass of Maotai.

Li Shiqiang’s father still needs to drink with Li Mingde, Li Shiyou, Hou Haitao, etc. These were all leaders which he never got the chance to speak to before. Especially Zhang Ruiqiang. Li Shiqiang’s father hands were shaking when he was drinking with him. This was the Deputy Mayor of Bing City. He had never sat at the same table with a Deputy Mayor before in his life.

The Post Office Manager told Li Shiqiang to remain in the Post Office but on indefinite unpaid leave. He can come back to the Post Office anytime he wants.

Even the Chief of Post Office attended his wedding banquet, how could he let Li Shiqiang resign? Furthermore, he and Li Shiqiang’s father were former comrades in the military. This was the time to be closer to them, and he might even be promoted because of their relationship.

If Li Shiqiang were not from his Post Office, the Post Office Manager would never get to sit at the first table. Everyone sitting at that table was all City Level heads!

Feng Xingtai was calmer. Today was his daughter getting married, and it was the groom side that was hosting the banquet. It should be Li Shiqiang’s father to entertain the guests. According to their customs, 3 days later, Feng Xingtai will host another banquet in their district. That will be the time when Feng Xingtai got to entertain the guests.

Feng Xingtai only drank with the people at the first table, and he listened to his wife to eat more. The food there was delicious.

Not only there were poultries, but there was also seafood. There were even some dishes that Feng Xingtai had never seen before. All the leaders were also enjoying the food.

Feng Yu was seated at the table for Tai Hua Trading staffs. He does not want to be seated at the first table. If he were sitting there at his age, he would attract the attention of everyone. Toast with the leaders? Of course not. He was still a student and should not be drinking.

Li Mingde and the rest chatted and drink happily at their table. Zhang Ruiqiang was apparently the one leading there.

Although Zhang Ruiqiang was the Deputy Mayor, regarding of rank, he was still slightly lower than Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao. But after the Motor Factory and Aviation Factory were converted from a military installation to a civilian factory, the area government had more authority. Furthermore, Zhang Ruiqiang was heading the reformation of state-owned enterprises. From a particular aspect, Zhang Ruiqiang had the authority over them.

Also, all of them knew that Zhang Ruiqiang was specially appointed by the Mayor to be the Deputy Mayor.

Zhang Ruiqiang also had no airs and chatted with Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao about their factories. When he heard that they were in 3-way cooperation with Feng Yu, he became very interested.

Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao looked at each other and briefly told Zhang Ruiqiang about this project. They did not go into the details as the research was still going on. But this made Li Mingde uncomfortable. Feng Yu was working with the Motor Factory and the Aviation Factory to develop a new humidifier? Why Feng Yu did not look for the Machinery Company?

Li Mingde also has a humidifier in his office and was useful. He had asked his engineers and was told that the technology behind this humidifier was straightforward. It was just a heating rod and heat resistant plastic. Their Machinery Factory can also produce these. But such a simple product can bring in so high profits! Feng Yu’s father had a stake in the Motor Factory and shouldn’t he work with the Machinery Factory for this business? Why work with those 2 factories?

Li Mingde had not taken into consideration that the orders for the agricultural machines were lined up to May. The Machinery Company does not have the capacity to manufacture this humidifier. Nevertheless, he still felt that this money should be earned by the Machinery Company.

Zhang Ruiqiang changes the topic to Feng Yu. He asked the 2 factory directors if they had ordered Soviet Union’s advanced machinery or technologies from Feng Yu. Both nodded. But Feng Yu told them to wait a while more. It was still quite tricky to get it now, but he guaranteed that he will get it for them within a year.

Feng Xingtai heard this. What? His son was still getting machines for them? Where is his second production line for his Soybean oil? Helping others instead of his own father. He needs to give Feng Yu a good beating when he gets home!

Zhang Ruiqiang nodded. This Xiao Feng was really capable but likes to use loopholes. He had scolded him about the used cars business, and he stopped doing that. But now, he got this fleet of Gaz trucks and without paying a single cent of tax.

Everyone knew what was going on when Feng Yu sued that Russian. It was evident that Feng Yu want to escape tax but what he did was perfectly legal. No one could do anything about it unless they were able to prove that IOU was fake.

But never mind. Zhang Ruiqiang also does not want to make things difficult for Feng Yu. He even knew that if he confronts Feng Yu, he would just deny everything and claims that it was the other party that owe him money and using these trucks as repayment to him.

Zhang Ruiqiang only hopes that Feng Yu would do something for Bing City and not just make money for himself. What’s the use of earning so much money? Can he finish spending?

“Mr. Feng, I heard that you had set up a factory in your district. The Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil was a product from your factory. You have become an entrepreneur from a farmer.” Zhang Ruiqiang smiling said.

When he heard the Deputy Mayor praising him, Feng Xingtai was full of smiles: “Hahaha, it’s not worth mentioning.” Although he said that, his expression said otherwise. He was still waiting for more praises.

Li Shiqiang’s father returned to the first table drunk. Before he could even eat anything, his wife helped him to a corner to rest. The banquet was over, and most of the guest left. The guests that like to packet the leftovers from wedding banquet noticed that there were no leftovers. All the food was finished. Many guests were so full that they couldn’t walk properly. They said that this might be the only time they get to eat at the International Hotel and they must eat more!

Many years later, people still talk about this wedding banquet.

Chapter 121 – Development Plan

After the banquet at their district, Feng Yu returned to Bing City. There were lots of things for him to settle at the company. For example, he needs to look for a new office location, the company needs a new person in charge, and he needs to check if these fridges require any changes.

First, he must rent a new office. He cannot keep borrowing the Motor Factory’s conference room. There was a 3-story building near their warehouse, and it belongs to the Railway Department. Tai Hua Trading uses freight to transport their goods most of the time. Although they always use Kirilenko’s military carriages, they also worked with the Railway Department frequently.

Feng Yu wanted to buy that building, but this was rejected. How could the department sell its fixed assets? So. Feng Yu request to rent the building but the rent was not cheap, and the tenure was 30 years. The total amounted to over 1 million RMB. This amount was about the same if he bought a similar building at that location.

After bargaining, they settled at 20 years tenure, and the total rental amount would be 1 million RMB. If the building was to be demolished during the tenure, the Railway Department needs to compensate Tai Hua Trading based on the market rate at that time.

Feng Yu was pleased with the contract. Within 5 years, the rental for this area will increase by at least 3 times. Also, 10 years later, his company would have shifted to a high-rise building, and he can sublet this building out and earn back a few times more.

Tai Hua Trading had too few people to occupy the whole 3 story office building. So, Feng Yu rented out the 2nd floor to Wind and Rain Logistics at a low price. This was to prevent them from operating in that cold warehouse.

The building was cleaned up, and all the furniture were changed. This was completed in 2 days by Wu Zhigang and the rest of the staffs. The sound of firecrackers announced the opening of the new office. At the entrance, the signage of Tai Hua Trading was hung on the left side, and the banners, awards, and plaques which were given to them by the various government bodies were hung on the 1st-floor wall. These will be the first thing visitors see when they enter the building.

“Today the meeting agenda is to talk about the development plans of our company for this year. First, the Sino-Soviet trade will continue. All of you still need to look for cheaper and better suppliers. It will be the same as before. If any of you can find cheaper suppliers, you will be rewarded.

Secondly, Tai Hua Food Processing Factory’s products like soybean oil and sugar must continue to expand into the South. Most importantly, animal feeds. You all should target those big pig farms. Animal feed’s profits are the highest and much higher than soybean oil.

Thirdly, you all must also still in touch with the electrical appliances dealers to understand the market changes. Our company will introduce over 1,000 2 door fridges soon. These refrigerators are bigger, more expensive and consume more electricity. Bing City’s market is too small, and you all should sell these fridges to the other provinces in the Northeast region.

Fourth, the orders for humidifiers are getting lesser. Imitations are appearing on the market. But don’t worry. We will introduce the 2nd generation humidifier, which no one can imitate, to the market soon. You all can reveal this news to those dealers. Ask them if they still want to order Wind and Rain fans. Tell they the prices for plastics had dropped and our supplier prices for them will be lowered by 5 RMB.

Fifth, continue to contact those big factories and find out what type of facilities they need and what is their budget. This will be our focus for this year.

Lastly, my brother-in-law had set up his own logistics company, and most of the time, I am busy with other matters. So, we need a deputy manager. Anyone of you wants to volunteer for this position?”

Wu Zhigang and the rest gasped in surprised. Volunteer for this position? Shouldn’t Feng Yu be asking who does not want to be in this position? Tai Hua Trading was very famous and even other provinces had heard of this company because of Wind and Rain fans and humidifiers. This Deputy General Manager position was very prestigious!

Swish, Swish, Swish ~~~

Everyone raised their hands and looked excitedly at Feng Yu, hoping Feng Yu will choose them.

“Everyone wants to be the Deputy Manager? This is tough. How about this? All of you tell me how you will sell this batch of refrigerators and still guarantee the highest profits.”

Feng Yu still had not thought of how to market these fridges yet. He felt that he was the first one to introduce 2-door refrigerators but these 2-door fridges were already launched 2 years ago. However, because of the market’s weak response to these fridges, they were discontinued. He should have manufactured freezers instead. With his compressors, he could make big freezers and could sell those to the hotels.

Everyone looked at each other. They were used to follow Feng Yu’s instructions and did not expect Feng Yu to text them on this.

Wu Zhigang thought for a while and raised his hands: “Director Feng, I have an idea.”

At least the floor was totally quiet. Feng Yu nodded: “Tell me about it.”

“Our humidifiers have 2 types of models, Noble and Prestige. Why can’t we position our refrigerators as luxury fridges? The exterior of our fridges is beautiful, and although it is not the Wind and Rain brand, it is still from Tai Hua Trading. We can announce that this Tai Hua brand refrigerator is from the same family as Wind and Rain brand. The fridges now are too small and only suitable for a family of 3. Those fridges are too small for bigger families and not suitable for storing food. We can say that our fridges are designed for bigger families……”

Wu Zhigang continued for almost 10 mins and got more and more excited. Feng Yu could tell that he did think about this seriously. Feng Yu was not sure if Wu Zhigang’s plan would work as he does not have much experience in sales. The things he sold earlier were different, and he had used unorthodox methods to market them. Feng Yu was not so confident about these fridges.

But the costs of these fridges were very cheap and even much cheaper than any refrigerators manufacturers in the country. The differences in prices of the most crucial component of the refrigerator, the compressor, had significantly lowered Feng Yu’s cost and create this differences in the manufacturing costs. Worse come to worse, Feng Yu can sell off these fridges at low prices, and he will still not suffer any losses.

“Anyone else has other ideas?”

The rest shook their heads. Wu Zhigang had said everything they could think of. What else can they say?

“Since there are no other ideas, then I will appoint Wu Zhigang as the Deputy General Manager of Tai Hua Trading. His salary will be doubled, and the rest of you will get a salary increment of 20%.”

Feng Yu had also wanted to promote Wu Zhigang in the first place. Wu Zhigang was very smart and more flexible than the rest. Also, he could get in touch with some factories’ leaders because of his uncle. Furthermore, Wu Zhigang had gotten beaten up for Feng Yu in the past, and he did not reveal this matter to anyone, including his family.

Wu Zhigang was also the one who found out that a machinery factory in Shen City wanted to buy a high-temperature steel furnace. Of course, he heard it from his uncle, and this news was confirmed.

The rest had also gotten news of factories wanting to buy new machinery, but those were just smaller machines which had not many technical contents. They will not be able to earn much from those. The higher the machines’ technical content, the higher the profits.

The prices Brother Ki gave Feng Yu were mostly half price, and for something that can be sold for 1 million, Feng Yu can make 200,000 to 300,000 profits. If the item were sold for 10 million, his earnings would be 2 to 3 million. Can this be the same? The high-temperature steel furnace can be sold for at least 10 million Rubles, and Feng Yu’s profit was at least 2 to 3 million Rubles.

After the meeting, Feng Yu went to Wind and Rain Logistics. He was helping his brother-in-law who had gone on his honeymoon with his sister. The hospital had given his sister 2 weeks marriage leave.

Feng Yu sighed. There was too much work. Seems like his plans to hire more managers must be put forth.

Chapter 122 – Every fatty has potential

It was time for school to reopen. Li Na and the rest returned to school. The first thing Wen Dongjun said when he returned to school was to watch a movie that night!

This idiot’s intention was not to watch movies but to meet Zhang Han. Feng Yu also wanted to see Wen Dongjun’s reaction when he discovers that Zhang Han was still the same.

Liu Kun did not jin them. He wanted to revise as school was starting the next day. Feng Yu was speechless. The world of top students was something he could never attain. Liu Kun was already the top student of the whole grade, and he was still working so hard.

Feng Yu had wanted to ask Liu Kun along to comfort the disappointed Wen Dongjun later. He had placed so much hope and then when they meet, he will be suffering a huge blow. Even someone as optimistic as Wen Dongjun might not be able to take it.

Since Liu Kun does not want to join them, then later Feng Yu will bring Wen Dongjun to eat, hoping he will drown his sorrows in food. Anyway, that idiot was born a glutton.

When he met Li Na again, she was still as pretty, even she was wrapped in thick woolen winter clothing.

Feng Yu held Li Na’s hands and walked towards the entrance of the school.

“What are you doing? There are so many people around. Let go of my hand.” Li Na said softly.

“I am afraid your hands will be cold, and I am warming your hands.” Feng Yu opened his mouth, and this lie came out naturally. After she tried to pull out her hand twice, she gave up.

The two walked towards the school gate, and along the way, they met other teachers. These teachers saw Feng Yu and pretended not to see him holding Li Na’s hands. Feng Yu had the protection of the vice principal, and he was also not their student. So, why bother.

“Dongjun, why are you looking so nervous? We are going to fetch Zhang Han and not going to fetch a tigress.” Feng Yu said these purposely.

“Drive carefully and stop taking your eyes off the road.” Wen Dongjun said unhappily.

He was as what Feng Yu said. He was tensed, disturbed and nervous. He had only spoken to Zhang Han once over the phone, but he did not ask if she had slimmed down and she too, did not mention anything about this.

He was afraid that Zhang Han will still be the same when they meet. What if she got fatter? Other people’s girlfriends were all tall and slim, and his girlfriend is tall and fat? He will feel ashamed to bring her out.

But he also remembered that other than fat, Zhang Han did not have any other shortcomings. She is tall, fair, good in her studies, kind hearted and likes to laugh. But the only flaw was bothering him the most.

Wen Dongjun directed Feng Yu, who was whistling, to Zhang Han’s house. In Feng Yu’s mind, he had thought of the lyrics to the tune he was whistling: I had asked you many times, when will you be bringing me away, but you kept calling me fat. Oh~~~ oh~~~ oh~~~ when will you be bringing me away~~~

Beep, beep~~~

“Hi pretty girl, you know where Zhang Han’s house …… Zhang Han?” Feng Yu raised his voice in surprise.

Feng Yu was at a cross junction asking the directions to Zhang Han’s house. Wen Dongjun had sent her back a few times, but he had only sent her to this junction. He does not know which building she was staying in.

Feng Yu saw a girl with a voluptuous figure standing by the roadside with her back facing him. He rolled down the windows and asked her loudly. But before he could finish his sentence, he was dumb folded.

This pretty girl in front of him was about 1.65m tall, with a ponytail hairstyle and wore a stylish long body down jacket, which made her look taller and slimmer.

Her complexion was fair, and her eyes sparkled when she smiled at Feng Yu, flashing her pearl white teeth.

This type of smile was the type of smile between close friends and gave Feng Yu a very familiar feeling. He realized halfway through his sentence that this person looks like Zhang Han.

Cannot be. How did Zhang Han become like this? This was an entirely different person! That was why Feng Yu raised his voice in surprise.

“It’s me. Na Na, Dongjun, Feng Yu, you all are finally here.” The girl waved to them smiling. “Feng Yu, what’s with your expression? You don’t recognize me?”

Feng Yu nodded and then shook his head. This was really Zhang Han? Zhang Han’s nickname was supposed to be Fat Chick!

Zhang Han was 1.65m tall and weighs 80kg, even heavier than Feng Yu. There were still classmates that joking said that even she rolls down the stairs, she would not hurt her bones.

Although the person in front of him was not considered a goddess, she was not as fat as before. It seems that she weighs about 55kg now. The changes on her face were the greatest. Her round face had become heart-shaped. Her eyes became bigger. How could this person be Zhang Han?

The Zhang Han now was still considered plumb, but she could not be called Fat Chick again. What did she do during the winter break to lose more than 15 kg? There were diet pills in this era or did she eat laxatives every day?

Wen Dongjun alighted from the car and was shocked to see Zhang Han’s changes. The changes were too big and more than what he expected. Plump girls had an advantage which is they are bustier, and Zhang Han’s waist was slimmer, but her bust did not become smaller. Instead, they became more prominent.

Zhang Han smiled and said: “It’s cold.”

Wen Dongjun came back to his senses and immediately step aside for Zhang Han to board the car. He waved his fist in the air. That’s great! Zhang Han had really slimmed down, and she was so slim now. He was ecstatic!

Feng Yu turned and exclaimed: “Zhang Han, how much weight did you lose and how did you do it?”

“I just feel like losing weight, so I just slim down. I did not really lose too much weight. Only about 15 kg.” Zhang Han words were humble, but everyone could feel that she was feeling very proud. She must have suffered during the winter break to lose this 15 kg.

The shocked look on her friends’ faces just now made her very proud. Especially Wen Dongjun’s silly look. She secretly swore to herself to continue her diet and make all her fats disappear!

“15 kg? You are amazing!” Li Na exclaimed. Her impression of Fat Chick was that she must eat something always if not she would be hungry. The Lunar New Year had just passed, and there were many goodies everywhere. How could she possibly lose weight?

Feng Yu looked at the rear-view mirror and said jokingly: “You must know what the reason to lose weight is. If someone has a firm target and determination, those things that seemed impossible might become a reality. Am I right?”

Zhang Han secretly looked at Wen Dongjun and said: “No. I just feel like losing some weight. Being too fat will affect my physical lessons grades. This semester, I will carry on with my diet until I reach 55 kg!”

Feng Yu nodded: “That’s right. If your physical lessons grades are too low, it will make our class’s sports representative look bad.” Wen Dongjun was their class sports representative. He was tall and fit, and well versed in all types of sports. He was one of the few which the Vice principal gave special instructions to look after. Of course, the form teacher must give him some title.

Wen Dongjun scratched the back of his head and smiled: “Zhang Han, you look good now.”

Although Zhang Han was still plump Wen Dongjun was able to accept her now. He did not expect Zhang Han to lose so much weight in one winter break!

“No, I want to be as slim as Li Na, and I will be prettier than the prettiest girl from next class!” Zhang Han said stubbornly.

When she mentioned the prettiest girl from next class, Wen Dongjun kept quiet, but Feng Yu laughed loudly. This idiot had liked that girl in the past.

Someone had said previously that every fatty has potential, but Feng Yu does not believe. But from today onwards, he can be sure this statement is true!

Translator Notes: Losing so much weight in a short time is not healthy and also what’s wrong with being fat?

Chapter 123 – Constant Good News

The reopening of school also gave Feng Yu time to take care of his businesses.

The research and development of the 2nd generation humidifier had entered the final phase. The engineers from the Aviation Factory had said that the research would be over after a few more tests and there should be no problems. Within a week, he could send the research results to the Motor Factory for them to start production.

Feng Yu was pleased by this news. The earlier the development was completed, the earlier he could capture the market. Seems like in a few days’ time, he got to invite Fu Guangzheng over to discuss the exportation contract.

The Machinery Company also had good news. Their first batch of new tractors was sold out, and they also attracted a lot of new orders. Their tractors’ performance was better and cheaper than the Dong Fang Hong tractors. Even fools knew which tractor to buy.

The orders for plowing machines and seeder were also increased, and their market share was growing. This made the Machinery Factory from Lin Province to be semi-shutdown, as no ones were buying their products.

Based on this development speed, the sales for the Machinery Company would be over 300 million, and they will have profits of at least 60 million. This amount of profits was something that they don’t even dare to dream of in the past. Even the Machinery Factory no longer belongs to the City Government, but the City was still the major shareholder of the company, and the dividends would be much higher than previous years’ profits. There was even a significant amount of taxes too.

Zhang Ruiqiang had used the Machinery Company as a pilot project to import high tech machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union and get the investments of a Hong Kong businessman. This was considered a significant achievement and his status in the City Government improved. Now, he can implement the reformation of some State-owned enterprises, and there will be lesser objections to his plans.

Feng Yu was not satisfied with the 300 million RMB sales and profits of 60 million RMB. The Machinery Company was being myopic now and did not care about the research and development of the new technologies, to be the leader in this industry. If this carries on, the Motor Company would be back to square one after 5 years.

Of course, Feng Yu would not let that happen. Within 5 years, he wants to be the major shareholder of this Machinery Company, and when that happens, he will call the shots and do what he like with the company.

And this was not too far away. This year, Feng Yu will have the opportunity to increase his family’s stake by more than 1 time!

Feng Yu was so confident because of Kirilenko who was in Moscow.

Kirilenko had called Feng Yu yesterday and told him that he had news about the high-temperature steel furnace.

This piece of news really excites Feng Yu. High-temperature steel furnace was just a furnace used to produce refined steel which was used to make molds.

In China, there was similar furnace too but this furnace could not withstand such high temperatures and could not produce many kinds of specialized steels.

In China, at least 3 big factories wanted this High-temperature furnace, and the Motor Factory was one of them. Feng Yu could only import 1 furnace, and Kirilenko had quoted him 3 million Rubles.

This type of large high-temperature steel furnace was using the technologies that were few years old, but a brand new furnace was priced at more than 10 million Rubles. The price for a second-hand furnace would also be more than 30%.

Feng Yu immediately contacted the Motor Factory and asked them if they wanted this furnace for 5 million Rubles.

Li Shiyou agreed without any hesitations. So what if this was a used furnace. So long it was still in a working condition, they would able to produce products which they could only imagine before. The material costs would also be lower, and they would be able to recoup this amount within 2 years.

Feng Yu had wanted the Motor Factory to absorb part of the taxes which amounted to about 300,000 Rubles. But what surprised Feng Yu the most was that Li Shiyou said that he will take care of the taxes. The taxes could be waived off as he will import it under the name of the military.

Feng Yu was shocked by the authority of these state-owned enterprises. Having a military background was too useful. Even the Motor Factory was no longer a military installation, they still can waive off the taxes!

What Feng Yu wanted was the ultra-high power electric furnace. This type of furnace had high technical content and was priced above 40 million Rubles. But because it was so expensive, Kirilenko dared not to sell it to Feng Yu.

For items that cost a few million, Kirilenko could easily collaborate with the factory’s manager to sell it. But it was too tricky for high-tech machinery that was more than 10 million Rubles. Especially this type of furnace was used to manufacture military products, and the risk was too big for Kirilenko to illegally sell it to Feng Yu. He said he got to wait a while more.

In fact, Feng Yu wanted to tell him that he was willing to pay more for that furnace and the technology behind it.

China does not have the technology to build this type of ultra-power electric furnace. It can be said that any factory that owned this furnace, the factory would be the most high-tech in China.

After spending tens of millions of Rubles, even if the technique were not known, the factory would also be willing to waste materials to figure out the technique and technologies!

Feng Yu told Kirilenko that he was willing to buy the technologies even if there were no machines. He does not want those military technologies. Those technologies used for non-military purposes will do. But the technologies must be considered advanced internationally, and he will give Kirilenko a right price for it.

In that era, the industrial technologies in China were too backward. Don’t say being compared to Europe or the US, they can’t even be compared to their neighboring countries. Many types of machinery in China at that time were imported from Korea and Taiwan.

If Feng Yu could purchase those technologies, he would keep those that were useful to him and sell off those that were useless to him. Not only he could benefit himself, but he could also increase China’s industrial technology standards. Killing two birds with one stone.

Most importantly, Feng Yu could increase his status in the leaders’ eye. It would be better if he could get to meet up with the senior leaders because of this. There was no harm knowing more people.

The Motor Factory paid 10% deposits and signed the contract. Feng Yu then informed Kirilenko to deliver the furnace and send at least 3 experts over. The salary will still be the same as the ones before. Of course, if more experts were willing to come over to work for Feng Yu, Feng Yu will also welcome them. The more, the merrier!

Talents are hard to find. If there were a few dozens of senior engineers from the Soviet Union working for Feng Yu now, his status would be different. With these experts, he would be considered a prestigious guest of the Provincial Government.

Kirilenko told Feng Yu that this time, he would at least send a dozen industrial experts into him! The previous 3 experts were living comfortably in China, and their meals and lodgings were even provided for by the Motor Factory. Every month, they were still able to receive salaries, much higher than what they were getting in the Soviet Union.

The last time, Kirilenko had contacted more than 10 experts, but most of them had a wait and see attitude. With the 3 experts doing so well now, the rest were willing to come over to work.

They could make a lot of money and still be doing what they do best. They would be able to send money back to their families. Their lives would be much better than working in the Soviet Union.

But these people had one condition, which was if the Soviet Union needs them, they will return immediately. The salary would be pro-rated to the day they left.

This made Feng Yu unhappy. Leaving work unfinished and returning to the Soviet Union? Then why should we still give them such good benefits?

Feng Yu countered offer to them that they would at least need to give a one month notice before they return to the Soviet Union. If not, they would have to pay a compensation of their 3 months salaries. Everything will be written in the contract.

Kirilenko passed Feng Yu’s message to the experts, and the number of experts that were willing to come over to China was reduced to 5. The rest wanted to monitor the situation longer.

Feng Yu told Kirilenko to contact those experts that were in poverty. Feng Yu don’t believe that these experts could resist the temptations of high wages!

One week later, the first prototype for the ultrasonic humidifier was developed!

Chapter 124 – Registering the Patent

Although the humidifier was still not up to Feng Yu’s expectations, but it was the right size. He can change the exterior design, and if that doesn’t work, he could always hire a product designer to do it for him. Product designers were not expensive in that era.

The humidifier was switched on, and mists came out of it immediately. This was much faster, more efficient and uses lesser electricity compared to the older version of the humidifier. Those that did not experience that era could not imagine what it was like to have a shortage of power. Even in the cities, the residents had limited electrical supply and priority were given to the state-owned factories and government agencies.

Feng Yu had thought of manufacturing air-conditioning. Air-conditioning would have higher profits than electrical fans. But because of the electricity shortage issues, he shelved this plan. Now, there were only 2 kinds of air-conditioning which were central air-conditioning and vertical air-conditioning. Those hanging small air-conditioning had not yet appeared.

Those from the future era would know how high the electricity consumption was for vertical air-conditioning. There were air-conditioning factories in China, but their sales were pathetic. That was because the government had a regulation that if a household wants to install an air-conditioning, they must meet the energy-savings standards. Many factories do not meet this requirement.

So, most of the air-conditioning in the market were imported, and their primary markets were those senior leaders and the wealthy businessmen.

To install an air-conditional, one would have to pay a sum of about 3,000 to 5,000 RMB electrical bills first. This was somewhat like a tax. There were not many people who use air-conditioning in the whole of China and how could Feng Yu, who only have a brief knowledge of how air-conditioning works and how one looks like, manufacture one?

Even if he gets experts to research on it, the investment will be huge. It was not worth the efforts. So, Feng Yu chose to manufacture electric fans at the start and the profits from the fans made him smile for a long time.

This new humidifier let Feng Yu sees the next pot of gold. There were not many humidifier factories in China, but some state-owned factories started to research and develop humidifiers and were successful. But those humidifiers were used for industrial purposes and not used by the civilians. Furthermore, the size of those humidifiers was not small.

Overseas, there were household humidifiers, but those were also electrothermal humidifiers. These humidifiers were not imported to China yet. That’s why if the humidifiers were produced domestically, it would be able to capture China’s market fast and create a monopoly.

Feng Yu was also confident that if he exports this ultrasonic humidifier, it would also be popular in markets like Europe and the US, and countries in the northern hemisphere where the environment was drier.

The only issue Feng Yu was facing now was the threat of imitation. The humidifier imitations that appeared affected Wind and Rain humidifiers sales significantly. Even though Wind and Rain humidifier was still the market leader, but it was only a matter of time when the imitations take over the position.

Finally, they had a new product which was more high-tech, safer, consume lesser electricity and look classier.

But this technology was also not too complicated. The Aviation Factory was able to develop this humidifier in a short period of time, that means that other factories might also be able to do the same too. The factories that produce imitation fans and humidifiers were mostly state-owned enterprises. They had no concept of branding, and if you can produce this product, they will also produce the same thing. Even the designs will be the same. Some were shameless enough to even print Wind and Rain logo on their products!

No one could do anything to these factories as they had the protection of the local government. These factories were not afraid of getting caught, and if they were really caught, the most they would do was to remove the logo. The design would remain the same.

When Feng Yu first knew about this, he was frustrated but could not do anything. The issue of counterfeits exists even in his previous life. Even though the copyrights laws in his past life were adequate, but it still does not deter people from manufacturing counterfeits as the profits were huge.

Factories could quickly grasp the technology behind by buying a few finished products, dismantle and reverse engineer it. This would save the R & D cost, and the total cost will be lowered. Once the cost was reduced, it could be sold at a lower price for a similar product.

But all these were in the past. This time, Feng Yu will not let these factories imitate his humidifier. He was going to apply for the patent!

Feng Yu was to have the ownership of this patent, and this was discussed with the Motor Factor and the Aviation Factory. Within 10 years, all 3 parties will split the earning based on the agreed proportions. They had thought that there will be new products launched to replace this humidifier after 10 years and this patent was not important. But what they did not expect was Feng Yu could authorize other factories to use his patent to manufacture similar products and the profits from this would belong to him alone.

To apply for patents in China was very troublesome in that era. It will take at least 6 months, and if it was applied by individuals, it could take 3 to 5 years for the approval.

Luckily the Aviation Factory and the Motor Factory used to be military factories, and although they were converted, they still had the connections. Feng Yu made use of their relationships, coupled with the help of Zhang Ruiqiang, and calling his own contacts to request the Patent Office to expedite his application. The approval was estimated to be ready within 1 month.

The patent issue for China was considered settled. Feng Yu now got to apply for the overseas patent. This, Feng Yu could only ask Fu Guangzheng for help. Applying for Europe and US patent from Hong Kong was more convenient and faster than China.

Also, Feng Yu needs to set up a sales office for the overseas market, and it was much more convenient to set up the office in Hong Kong. Of course, Feng Yu would not let Fu Guangzheng help him for free, and he got to share some of the profits with him.

After receiving the phone call from Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng flew to Bing City. It was almost the end of winter and this time, Fu Guangzheng was not as cold as the last time.

“The both of us will set up a company in Hong Kong, and the sales for the overseas market will be handled by this company. Then how do we split the profits?” Fu Guangzheng asked Feng Yu.

Fu Guangzheng knows about humidifiers and humidifiers were sold in the South too. However, the sales of humidifiers were not fantastic in the south. But Fu Guangzheng was the same as Feng Yu. He knew that there would be a market for these humidifiers in the northern hemisphere as the environment was drier there and there were more inland cities. This business would not fail!

Feng Yu smilingly asked: “How much does Brother Fu want?”

“Although there are no proper sales distribution channels set up, my family has. My family’s sales channels cover the whole southeast Asia, and we have partners in Europe and the US. We can guarantee that we can cover the whole Europe and the US within the shortest period. You should know the importance of distribution channels so I will not talk much about this. I want 40%.” Fu Guangzheng stretched out his hand and put up 4 fingers.

Damn, so high? Feng Yu had wanted to give him only 20%, but he knew what Fu Guangzheng said was true. The Fu family was a big family. Even though Fu Guangzheng was not very capable and Fu Rongjing’s company was not very big, but the head of the Fu family’s company was big.

IF Feng Yu were to sell the humidifier by himself, he could make 10 million USD in a year. But if he let the Fu family sell these humidifiers, he would get at least 30 million USD in a year! They were more professional and was able to control the market better than Feng Yu.

Feng Yu hesitated for a while and said: “Brother Fu, 40% is a bit high. I admit that the Fu family have the ability, but other families in Hong Kong also had the same abilities. Furthermore, I own the patent, and this is a constant flow of profits. 30% profits. The earlier you agree, the earlier we can earn money. This would also help with your status in the Fu family, right?”

Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu. He felt that Feng Yu knows a lot about his family. Could it be there was someone powerful behind Feng Yu, like what his father told him?

He was quite satisfied with 30% profits. Feng Yu was right. With this company, his status in the Fu family would rise to be on par with his elder brother or even surpass him.

He agreed to this term!

Chapter 125 – Product placement (Part 1)

Today was an important day for Li Shiyou. He was rated as a Provincial Advanced Worker. There will be an interview with the TV station, and this interview will be aired together with other Advanced Workers on the news. The whole interview would also be broadcast on a talk show in the evenings. He got at least 10 minutes of airtime.

When Feng Yu heard this news, he immediately rushed to the Motor Factory. He was not there to congratulate Li Shiyou, but he felt that this was an opportunity not to be missed.

When the camera was in position, Feng Yu knocked on the office door and entered. Li Shiyou was surprised. What’s the urgency which made Feng Yu to barged in during his interview with the TV station’s reporters?

Feng Yu whispered somethings into Li Shiyou’s ear, and Li Shiyou’s eyes widen. Can he really do this? He had rehearsed the questions and answers with the reporters. Would it be too much if he changes it last minute?

Feng Yu told Li Shiyou what to do, and this concerns the profits of the whole Motor Factory. Additional, it will not affect the interview too. What’s there to be afraid of?

Li Shiyou nodded. He asked the reporters to wait a while and left his office to speak to his secretary.

5 minutes later, his secretary opened the door and over a dozen factory worker came in, each carrying a big box. They placed the boxes behind his desk, covering the whole bookshelf.

The boxes were stacked higher and higher. Feng Yu ran over to the camera and looked from the camera angle. Very nice. The boxes had covered the whole background, and the pictures on the boxes were visible.

Feng Yu also opened the box and took out the humidifier and placed it in front of Li Shiyou’s desk, covering about one-fifth of the screen.

He adjusted the position of the humidifier making sure the Wind and Rain logo was facing the camera. He added water into the humidifier and pluck it into the socket. However, he did not switch it on.

The reporter and cameraman did not know what was happening. Where were these people doing? This was an office and not a warehouse. What were they trying to do by covering a wall with these products?

The reporter could no longer stand it and asked: “Director Li, what’s going on? It will not look good on television if these boxes are stacked in the background. We will film your factory later. You don’t need to do this.”

Before Li Shiyou could say anything, Feng Yu said: “Mr. Reporter, I think you are mistaken. We did not purposely do this. It is because our warehouses are full and Director Li, leading by example, shows us how to make full use of the available spaces by letting us store these goods in his office. We had no other choices.”

“What’s this? Wind and Rain humidifier? This was really produced by the Motor Factory, but this small thing should not be taking up too much space. The Motor Factory’s warehouse should be able to store a few hundred thousand of these. How many did you all produce?” The reporter looked at the boxes carefully and noticed that these were all Wind and Rain humidifier.

In the past, there were rumors that it was the Motor Factory that manufactured the Wind and Rain electric fans and humidifiers. The rumors were true.

Feng Yu continued saying: “Too many. There were other products in the warehouse too. Furthermore, this is really what our Director Li’s office looks like. We are not lying.”

When Feng Yu was saying this, he secretly pushes a red packet into the reporter’s hands and told him softly: “Please do not interrupt Director Li if he did not answer your question smoothly.”

The reporter received the red packet and nodded. He does not care about the background anymore since Director Li, himself, does not mind. It will be Director Li who was appearing on TV anyway. What’s there to be afraid of?

Feng Yu did not forget about the cameraman. He also passed a red packet to the cameraman and said: “Please film using this angle. Our Director looks better from this angle.”

……

“3, 2, 1, Action! Today we are here at Bing City’s Motor Factory. This is a state-owned factory with a long history and had contributed greatly to the country’s four modernization. For instance, the electricity in Bing City is powered by the Motor Factory’s generators. We shall now interview the Director of the Motor Factory, Director Li Shiyou. Director Li, from what we understand, the Motor Factory had experience cashflows issues last year. You even had difficulties paying out the salaries of your workers. May I ask you how did you turn things around and even give your workers a raise this year?”

Li Shiyou looked at the camera and earnestly replied: “Last year, we did encounter some cash flow issues due to bad debts. However, our workers carried forward, without fear of hardship and responded to the nation’s call to innovate and seek development……”

The first question was as what they planned, but Li Shiyou did not follow his script. He started speaking professionally like those politicians. In fact, he could talk non-stop for half an hour if he was uninterrupted. This was something that most senior leaders could do.

“We still have another question……” The reporter continued with the next question.

Li Shiyou started to answer the reporter’s question, but after 2 sentences, he coughed and said: “Sorry, the air is a bit dry. Please wait for a while.”

Then Li Shiyou reached over to the eye-catching humidifier on his desk and switched it on. Immediately, the mist started to come out. Li Shiyou inhaled deeply and showed a comfortable expression.

“Sorry, back to the question you were asking……”

The reporter was dumbfounded. What’s happening? Switching on the humidifier amid the interview with the camera rolling? The comfortable facial expression was also too exaggerated. The humidifier was just switched on and how can the humidity in the room change so fast? Furthermore, the air was not so dry in the room. Half an hour before, there was another humidifier switched on in the room. Could it be someone switched that off?

Feng Yu secretly gave Li Shiyou a thumb up. Director Li’s acting deserves full marks!

All this while, Feng Yu was standing behind the cameraman, and the humidifier in the screen was very clear. Although there was no close-up, the beautiful exterior of the humidifier could attract the attention of the viewers. Also, the mist rising immediately after the humidifier was switched on, showed that this new model of humidifier was much faster and highlighted this feature clearly.

Also, there was a wall of humidifiers in the background. Even it was not very clear, but it was enough to make the viewers curious about it and attracted their attention.

The office interview continued, and after Li Shiyou finish answering the last question, the report suggests touring the factory. Li Shiyou stood up, switched off the humidifier, used both hands to carry the humidifier and placed it on the floor.

The reporter was surprised when she saw Li Shiyou carrying the humidifier. This thing is not hot? She casually asked Li Shiyou, and he answered her that this humidifier was the new model. The mist produced was not hot, and it was safer for homes. Children would not get scalded by it.

Perfect. Although this part was not recorded by the camera, later maybe……

Chapter 126 – Product placement (Part 2)

The report and cameraman followed Li Shiyou to the Motor Factory’s production workshop. But the workshop was producing something they did not expect.

Shouldn’t it be electric generators? Even if the manufacturing process needs to be kept secret, it should also be showing them the manufacturing of the generators’ parts. This workshop was manufacturing something familiar. Damn, it was the new model of humidifier they saw in the office!

“Director Li, did you bring us to the wrong workshop? The report asked.

“Nope. This workshop is producing our factory’s most profitable product. Oh, there are a few other workshops also producing this product. You want to look at those workshops?” Li Shiyou was asking the obvious. Feng Yu said to show the reporter this workshop, and this part must be aired, even if leaking the technology. They were not afraid of leaking this technology, and could also make use of this to promote their humidifier. Most importantly, Feng Yu told Li Shiyou that this would be considered an advertisement for their humidifier and he would pay the Motor Factory a handsome sum of advertising fees.

The reporter was speechless. Forget it. This was the Factory Director. He can show whatever he wants.

Standing in the workshop, Li Shiyou continued to answer the reporter’s questions. But his answers start to stray from the script. “Wind and Rain Humidifier” was mentioned a lot of times in his answers.

“This 2nd generation humidifier was the result of a cooperation with the Aviation Factory. It uses state-of-the-art technology, and we had applied the domestic and international patents for this technology. This humidifier would produce mists almost immediately once switched on. It is more efficient and saves the time of heating up the water. It also uses lesser electricity and water. You do not need to refill the water so many times. The mist produced is cold mist. It will not scald you and is much safer……”

The reporter quickly signals to the cameraman to stop the camera. This was no longer an interview but an advertisement.

“Director Li, can we stick to script? Why do you keep promoting your factory’s products?” The reporter had a helpless look. They had limited videotapes with them.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I kept thinking about these humidifiers in my head and subconsciously will talk about this. Fine. We will stick strictly to the script from now on. Let’s go to the warehouse.” Li Shiyou glanced at Feng Yu and saw Feng Yu giving him a thumb up secretly.

When they stepped into the warehouse, not only the reporter and cameraman were shocked. Even Li Shiyou was also stunned by what they saw.

This was the Motor Factory’s warehouse? Earlier, the warehouse was not like this. Now, this was…… a picture made by stacking the humidifier boxes?

Feng Yu indicate to Li Shiyou to stand in front of the boxes for the interview. He also asked the cameraman to film from a distance, making sure the full warehouse was captured in the film.

The cameraman was cursing in his heart. This warehouse was not full at all. There were a lot of empty spaces and who the hell would stack their products this way? Even a layman like him knew that this was a waste of space.

This time, Li Shiyou answered the reporter’s question according to what was planned. But the reporter and cameraman had a troubled expression. How were they going to explain to their bosses and which part of the interview should they use for the evening news tomorrow?

The first part, it showed Li Shiyou switching on the humidifier, and there was a wall of humidifiers in the background. The second part was illustrating the production process of these humidifiers, and Li Shiyou kept talking about the humidifiers. Lastly, there were no issues with the answers given by Li Shiyou for the last part. But, what’s in the background? The workers at the Motor Factory likes to play with Lego?

Forget it. Let the leaders solve this problem. It seems like Director Li would not agree to re-do the whole interview and they also do not have enough videotapes. If they reshoot the interview tomorrow, it might not be in time for the evening news. They just hoped that their leaders would not notice about this interview so they will not be reprimanded.

Before they left, Feng Yu also placed some souvenirs in their car. These souvenirs were the 2nd generation humidifier. These humidifiers were not even introduced into the market, and even the City Government leaders do not have them yet!

The Motor Factory was more generous than the other leaders they interviewed. They received red packets and souvenirs when they were here. So, they were fine even if they were reprimanded by their leaders.

When they opened the red packets, they were surprised to see they gotten 500 RMB each. They thought there were only a few ten RMB notes in the red packets as it felt quite thin, but to their surprised, it was a few pieces of 100 RMB notes!

500 RMB was their few months salaries. This appeased their dissatisfaction with Director Li. Now, they do not mind being reprimanded, and even if their wages were docked, they were also willing to accept. This was 500 RMB!

After the people from the TV station left, Feng Yu made a few phone calls and asked the advertisement producer over. He wants to film the first advertisement. It would be similar to the interview, with the same settings and backgrounds.

Li Shiyou continued to work hard, and he was the star of the advertisement. But at the workshop, he was replaced by the chief engineer. Having the chief engineer to introduce the manufacturing process was more convincing.

Feng Yu was most satisfied with the picture created from the stacked boxes in the background. It was the same as those product displays seen in supermarkets in his past life.

Li Shiyou’s interview was aired during the evening news the following day. Many footages were cut but what surprised Feng Yu was the footage of Li Shiyou switching on the humidifier was not removed. This made it look more realistic, and the footage at the warehouse was also aired. This was to show the audiences, the warehouse and the hardworking workers there.

Feng Yu burst out into laughter after he watches the news. It’s was worth giving those 2 red packets!

The whole interview was also aired on a TV program after the news. This time, the effects were better. No footages were edited. After watching the program, even Feng Yu had the urge to buy that humidifier, let alone the other viewers. It can be said that Li Shiyou was outshined by these humidifiers. Feng Yu could only apologize to Li Shiyou.

The next day, the interview-like advertisements were aired by the provincial TV station. 3 one-minute advertisements a day showing the 3 interviews at the 3 different locations. This time, Feng Yu used high prices to secure a 1-year advertising contract with the Provincial TV station. He used Tai Hua Trading to sign the contract, and one of the contract terms was the flexibility to change the products and advertisements anytime he wants. For instance, these humidifier advertisements will be added to the humidifier costs.

Once again, the Bing City’s residents had something interesting to discuss. The stacking of the humidifier boxes in the Motor Factory’s warehouse. It was aired on TV, and they felt that the warehouse workers were genius. Those workers could use the different colors on the boxes to create the words “Wind” and “Rain” by stacking them up!

Feng Yu heard the discussions along the streets and laugh to himself. This was nothing compared to the supermarket display staffs from his previous life. Those staffs were able to create Optimus Prime using supermarket products.

Nevertheless, the 2nd general humidifiers were the talk of the town even before they were launched. Everyone was talking about the advertisements, and Feng Yu believed that this humidifier would be a success when they launched after the application for the patent was approved!

Chapter 127 – Foreign businessman came knocking on the door

It was 1st May, Labor Day but Tai Hua Trading staffs were working overtime.

“Hello? You want to order 100 units of Prestige model? No problem, but our company’s policy was that you must order at least half of that quantity, of Noble model too. What? You don’t agree? Then sorry, we do not have the Prestige model!”

After a month of preparations, Bing City was the first to launch the Ultrasonic Humidifier. Even though winter had passed, and the rivers were no longer frozen, but there was no rain, and the air remained dry.

Coupled with effects from the TV advertisements, everyone was looking forward to getting this humidifier. On the first day of launch, there was a buying frenzy. This was also because Feng Yu had used hunger marketing strategy. He told the departmental stores and cooperatives that there were limited stocks. This was even announced in the advertisements.

After Bing City’s residents got wind of this news, all the humidifiers at the departmental stores and cooperatives were sold out before noon. The residents had the mindset of getting one before it was sold out.

Actually, there were still tens of thousands of humidifiers sitting in the Motor Factory’s warehouse, but Feng Yu just did not want to release them. The advertisements had highlighted the new features and made comparisons between the new humidifier against the older version. Those leaders and bosses also took note of this new product. Since there was a newer version, why not get it since they were had spare cash.

Feng Yu also sent some 2nd generation humidifiers samples to the government agencies that were close to him. The leaders then distribute the older humidifiers samples to their subordinates.

The price of this new humidifier was twice of the older ones. It was the same for both wholesale and retail prices. Feng Yu said that those that were willing to spend 200 RMB for a humidifier would also not mind paying 300 RMB for one. Those that were not willing to spend 200 RMB for a humidifier would also not waste 150 RMB for one.

So, Feng Yu set high selling prices for the new humidifiers. True enough, the high prices did not affect the sales and increased their profits.

The cost of the ultrasonic humidifiers was higher than the older version but not to the extent of 2 times.

Furthermore, the words “Patented product, counterfeits will be prosecuted” was printed on the boxes. In the instruction manual, there was also a section on the punishments of violating the patent law and warned those big factories with R&D departments to not use their technology.

This time, it was stated clearly that the humidifier was manufactured by the Motor Factory. This would make those factories think twice before producing counterfeits. If they get involved with a large state-owned enterprise, their local government might not be able to offer them protection.

After the new version was launched, Wu Zhigang contacted the dealers to inform them and asked them to come over to discuss the contract.

These dealers had made some profits from the last batch of humidifiers, but it was not as much as the electric fans previously. Also, the humidifiers were easily imitated. A few dealers expressed that they were not coming over.

Wu Zhigang followed what Feng Yu did previously and blacklisted those dealers. Tai Hua Trading would never work with those people or their companies again. Feng Yu had said before: There can only be people begging him to sell his products and not the other way around!

Tai Hua Trading can afford to be so arrogant as they had the patent and had monopolized the market.

Feng Yu promised those dealers that stick with him will earn lots of money. But if there were those that want to sell counterfeits and grab the market share, then that will depend if they had the ability!

Feng Yu planned to buy advertising slots at CCTV a few days later. CCTV at that time was not as powerful as the later years. Last year, CCTV was given the approval to air commercials, and the advertising fees had risen since then. But other than the prime time in the evenings and the timings, before and after, the news, all other advertising fees were still not high. There were still many empty advertising slots.

Feng Yu believed that CCTV would give him the good slots, higher frequencies, and extended advertisement length if he buys the advertising space for 1 year.

Feng Yu does not care whether if others believe in the advertising effect of CCTV. He had absolute trust in this TV station!

Fu Guangzheng also brought good news to Feng Yu regarding the patent applications. The patent for Asia was approved, and the application for Europe and the US was still ongoing. As for Africa, forget it. Even you had the license from the United Nations, there was still nothing you could do in that area. Furthermore, Feng Yu also did not expect his humidifiers to be selling well in Africa.

This news also meant that the Hong Kong office would start operations soon. The first target was Taiwan. The humidity in Hong Kong was quite high, and unless the air purifying feature for the humidifier were introduced, there would not be many sales in Hong Kong.

The sales for Hong Kong was handled by Fu Guangzheng. With the Fu family around, Feng Yu had nothing to worry about the sales. Regarding sales and marketing, Feng Yu still could not be compared to the Fu family.

Even the retail prices were higher than what Feng Yu set. He found out that the Fu family had set the prices based on the region’s development. For instance, the retail price for the humidifier in China was 300 RMB. For Taiwan, it was 500 RMB, and for some countries in Europe, it was more than 150 USD. The retail price for the US and Canada even reached 200 USD.

Fu Guangzheng explained to Feng Yu the reason for these prices. The US population was distributed over a large area, and their target market segment was the middle class and above. This segment could easily afford this price.

Also, the packaging of the humidifiers for the US market did not print “Made in China,” but instead it printed their Hong Kong Company. This way, the consumers would not look down on the product.

When Feng Yu heard this, he was slightly unhappy. What does it mean by consumers will look down on China products? In future, China will be the World’s factory. Almost everything that was used in the US or Europe will be made in China! See if these countries dare to not use products made by China?

Feng Yu got pissed and requested the US retail prices to increase further by 5 to 10%. He even jokingly told Fu Guangzheng that he did not understand the Americans. Americans do not buy the best products, but they buy the most expensive products!

Fu Guangzheng was dazed when he heard what Feng Yu said. He went back and discussed with his family and even his family agreed with what Feng Yu said. The transportation cost to the US was not low and what Feng Yu said also made sense. The retail price should increase slightly for the US market.

Feng Yu did not expect that the Fu family took his joke seriously and accepted what he said. But this was not bad either. His profits will also increase. Finally, he could make money from the US, and he was very excited over this.

Just when everything was going smoothly, Feng Yu received a call from Wu Zhigang asking him to return to office as there was a foreign businessman at their office, wanting to order the ultrasonic humidifiers!

Chapter 128 – Kameda? On your knees?

Feng Yu skipped classes again and returned to the company. Although he was working with Fu Guangzheng on the exportation of the humidifiers, he doesn’t mind authorizing his patent to foreign companies that wish to use his technology in their factories.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Feng.” When Feng Yu arrived, the foreigner businessman gave him a 90-degree bow, shocking him.

What’s happening? Why is this guy bowing to him? Wait, foreign businessman? Is this guy a Korean or Japanese? He did not have a big face and based on his height, he should be a Japanese.

“You are?”

“I am Kameda Masao, from Black Dragon Co., Ltd. Mr. Feng can call me Kameda.” Kameda Masao was also feeling a bit puzzled. The boss of Tai Hua Trading was a bit young. Could he be the heir to this company?

Even the other party’s mandarin was not bad, but Feng Yu could tell from his name that he was a Japanese. But his name was quite humble. It sounds like kneel and lick. (The Chinese characters for Kameda were 龟田, and it sounds like kneel and lick in mandarin.)

But with his appearance, even if he really wants to kneel and lick Feng Yu, he would also reject him!

Black Dragon Co., Ltd was not the Yakuza. It stands for a shareholding company.

“Mr. Kameda, please take a sit. I heard from Manager Wu that you want to work with us on the ultrasonic humidifiers? Feng Yu said smiling.

“Yes, I am the representative of Black Dragon Co., Ltd in China. I saw the Wind and Rain Ultrasonic humidifiers in the market, and I think this product has huge potentials and is worth to develop further.”

Feng Yu nodded. He was smiling happily now. He would never reject praises.

“What does your company do in the past? Home appliances or electronic products?” Feng Yu must find out more about this company. If this company was selling bread, unless they offer Feng Yu a sky-high price to use his patent, Feng Yu would not authorize them.

But what Feng Yu did not expect was this Black Dragon Co., Ltd was not selling bread. This company was selling inflatable sex dolls!

WTF? Why does a company selling sex dolls wants to work with him for humidifiers? If people found out that the company producing humidifiers was also producing sex dolls, it would be a disgrace for Tai Hua Trading Company.

Especially if his father and mother know about this, he would be beaten up by the both of them!

Feng Yu swallowed his saliva and stared fiercely at Wu Zhigang. Why did he not find out more about this businessman? Can any company just work with Tai Hua Trading just because they want to? Feng Yu had asked him to take note of companies that wanted to use their patented technology, but he still needs to filter these companies!

We Zhigang felt he was wronged. He did not ask Kameda’s name when they met, but Kameda’s mandarin was very good and still had a Beijing accent. He thought Kameda was a Chinese. But who knows he was a Japanese.

Feng Yu stood up and said: “Mr. Kameda, I still have something on. Let’s discuss our cooperation some other days.”

Kameda Masao immediately stood up and bowed 90-degrees again: “Mr. Feng, please wait. I understand that you do not like our company’s products. But there is nothing to be ashamed of these products. These products can satisfy human needs. Wait a moment. Our company also produces perfume and aromatic diffuser. I think we can add my company’s aromatic diffuser feature to your humidifier. We should be able to work well together.”

Diffuser? Feng Yu looked at Kameda. Was he treating Feng Yu as a fool? What’s so complicated with an aromatic diffuser? One could always add a few drops of perfume into the water used for the humidifier, and it would produce the same results. Why should Feng Yu work with him?

In the future years, air freshener aromatic diffusers were very popular and were used in most offices, households, and vehicles. But later, it was found out that the perfume used was harmful to people.

This type of harmful product should be kept within Japan and should not be sold in China! Wait, that’s right. Since this idea was suggested by a Japanese, then Feng Yu could authorize this Japanese company to use his patent to produce the humidifier with air diffuser feature but they can only sell those products in Japan and cannot export to other countries!

Feng Yu acted like he was persuaded by Kameda and sat down: “Hmmm, now you mention this, it seems that we can still work together. What are your plans for us to work together?”

Wu Zhigang was puzzled. Aroma? They had included that in the instruction manuals for the humidifiers. Why should they work with this Japanese?

“Cooperation. We will use our aromatic diffusion technology, and you will use your ultrasonic technology. Together, we will invest and produce the humidifiers and split the profits equally!” Kameda Masao said.

Damn this guy. Using that lousy aromatic diffusion technology to compare with the ultrasonic technology and even want to split the profits equally? Why doesn’t he go and rob the bank?

Feng Yu glanced at Kameda and said: “I will authorize your company to use the ultrasonic technology and every aromatic diffusion humidifier produced, your company has to pay me 30 USD. I am more comfortable with this type of cooperation.”

Kameda Masao said with a surprised look: “Mr. Feng, I think you are mistaken. We want to work with you and not buy your patented technology.”

Feng Yu replied calmly: “Mr. Kameda, you are also mistaken. I am not selling you the technology. I am only authorizing you to use it. This is the only choice I am giving you. You can discuss with your boss.”

Before Kameda could say anything, Feng Yu stood up and shouted: “Manager Wu, show the guest out!”

Kameda Masao still wanted to say something, but Wu Zhigang and his men had already chased Kameda Masao out. Wu Zhigang was already unhappy with this Japanese.

After Kameda left, Wu Zhigang went to apologize to Feng Yu: “Director Feng, I’m sorry. I did not know that he is a Japanese.”

Feng Yu waved his hands: “Never mind, but remember the next time he comes, the condition will still be the same. We can authorize them to use the patent, but we will not work with them! They thought we are fools? Splitting the profits equally? Their lousy aromatic diffusion technology is not even doing well in their domestic market, and he still wants to enter the Chinese market?”

Feng Yu went to the Post Office to make an overseas call to Fu Guangzheng. He wanted Fu Guangzheng to do a background check on this Japanese Black Dragon Co., Ltd. Japan was never their targeted market. The Fu family were targeting the Europe and US markets.

Kameda Masao was also making a phone call to his Chairman and told him everything Feng Yu said. Feng Yu attitude was unyielding and could tell that he was not interested in their aromatic diffusion technology. There was no room for negotiations.

The Chairman hesitated for a while and told Kameda that he can agree to Feng Yu’s condition but try to lower the authorization fees. Every dollar Kameda saved, he would be rewarded with 1,000 USD.

Kameda was overjoyed. He decided to think of a good plan that night. Tomorrow he must get this contract. When that happens, he can use Black Dragon brand of humidifiers to grab a slice of this vast Chinese market.

But he did not know that Feng Yu does not plan to let them export their humidifiers to China. They cannot even export to other countries. They can only sell their humidifiers in Japan. This Kameda was still dreaming of getting a promotion and a pay raise!

Chapter 129 – CCTV Advertising Division

The next day, Kameda Masao was dumb folded when he heard from Feng Yu that they were not allowed to export their humidifier out of Japan.

Kameda Masao had targeted the China, Europe and the US market. Humidifiers were used mainly in inland cities where the air was drier. Southeast Asia was the same as Japan. There will not be many people who were willing to buy humidifiers in these areas. The market was too niched.

Kameda immediately informed his Chairman and was scolded by him. Kameda had promised his Chairman that he would help the company get the most out of this deal. Not only he did not achieve that, but they were also assigned to a small Japan market.

But even though Feng Yu’s condition were harsh, they still agreed to it. They had calculated that the humidifier’s retail price can be set above 100 USD and they would even have a 30% profit after the materials costs and authorization fees.

Japan had a population of about 120 million, and even if 0.1% of the population were wealthy families and bought their humidifiers, their profits would still amount to 3 million USD.

3 million USD was their company’s last year total profits! If they factor in the market growth for the coming year, their earnings would be higher.

But Kameda was not satisfied. For every dollar he lowered from the authorization fees, he would get a reward of 1,000 USD, and Feng Yu does not relent on the authorization fees. Thus, their negotiations went into a deadlock.

Take it or leave it. When Feng Yu’s Hong Kong Company shift their focus to the Japan market, then Feng Yu would not even authorize them! Let’s see who can afford to drag.

Just after the Labor Day’s holidays, Feng Yu applied for leave from School again. He brought Wu Zhigang to Beijing.

Feng Yu was at Beijing to purchase the advertising slots from CCTV. Last year, after CCTV got the approval to sell their advertising slots, there were more advertisements on the television. There were rumors that a 15 seconds advertisement slot during the primetime cost almost 1 million RMB!

But in Feng Yu’s heart, he thought that this was cheap. In another 5 years, from 1995 onwards, the advertisement slots for the news will be based on auctions. The first time, the rates reached more than 30 million RMB. The advertisement fees increased by over 20 times. 10 years later, this advertisement slot cost more than 200 million RMB!

No choice. CCTV had the most extensive coverage, and as long as there was an antenna anywhere in China, it can receive CCTV channels.

The more people watch the channels, the better the advertising effects. Also, CCTV had news broadcasts and weather reports. These were somethings that most people watch. Can the advertising effects be the same for other TV stations?

Feng Yu’s budget was 5 million RMB for multiple time slots. Every day there must be at least 5 slots for him to use the advertising bombardment strategy. Although it will not reach the frequency of repetitive advertising of the future years, it was because there were not much TV programs now. These 5 slots will be sufficient. Additionally, CCTV might not agree to sell him too many slots.

To contact the advertising division was not an easy task. CCTV’s advertising division was still a small department now and considered a not so important department. Despite this, it was not easy for Feng Yu to meet up with the chief.

Luckily, Zhang Ruiqiang had a friend that was working in CCTV. To show his support for Bing City’s industries, he helped Feng Yu to contact his friend. He asked Feng Yu to look for his friend at CCTV when Feng Yu arrived at Beijing. His friend could arrange a meeting for Feng Yu with someone from the advertising division.

Having lots of connections was great. Feng Yu and Wu Zhigang quickly met up with the CCTV Advertising Division section Chief Cheng Baojun.

“Hi, Section Chief.”

“Hi, Manager Feng.”

Cheng Baojun shook Feng Yu’s hand, and the surprised look was all over his face. This kid was the boss of Tai Hua Trading? Is this kid over 18 years old? He looks too young!

“I heard that your company wishes to advertise on CCTV for 1 year? Which time slots do you want?” Cheng Baojun was very direct and went straight to the point.

His position as the section chief was not easy. Many local TV stations advertising revenue was much higher than CCTV. His leaders wanted him to increase the advertising revenue, but there were not many people willing to advertise on CCTV. The only ones were all local businesses in Beijing, and the advertising fee was pathetic.

Damn. Isn’t this the same as royalty treatment? I still get to choose the time slots?

Feng Yu thought back to the previous few days when he monitored CCTV channels. He noticed that there were not many advertisements and the frequencies were even worse than Longjiang Provincial TV station. Many corporations still did not know CCTV’s potential yet. This meant that the CCTV now was still very poor!

“That’s right. We want to advertise for 1 year. If the price is right, we can purchase the advertising slots for some years.” Feng Yu had thought of an idea. He wants to take advantage of the low rates now and get the advertising slots for the next few years. With the advertisements on CCTV channels, He might get to earn more from his Wind and Rain fans.

“Few years?” Cheng Baojun was surprised. If it weren’t for Division Chief Shu’s recommendation, he would have thought that Feng Yu was joking with him. Who in the right mind would spend so much on advertising?

“That’s right. What’re the rates now and what are the available time slots?” Feng Yu replied smilingly.

“We still have slots any time of the day. Which time slots do you want? But we can sell you the slots for the next few years. We can only sell you the slots annually.” Cheng Baojun shook his head. He also wanted to sell more slots, but his leaders would not approve.

Feng Yu felt some regrets and said: “How about this, we can sign a letter of intent. If next year, there are no other competitors for the same time slots, CCTV will still sell me those slots. If there are competitors, then we will bid for that slots. This way, will it still violate your regulations?”

“This…… seems like it is not against the rules.” Cheng Baojun had some hesitations. This was not against the rules, but no one had ever done this before.

“Since it is not against the rules, we have reached a consensus on this part. Let’s talk about the timings. Do you still have the advertisement slots before and after these programs: <Evening News>, <Weather Report> and <Serving You>?” Feng Yu hurriedly change the topic.

“The slots before and after <Serving You> were sold. The one slot after the <Evening News> and <Weather Report> each was also sold.” Cheng Baojun said.

<Serving You> was a program host by China’s top broadcaster and host, Shen Li. It was the first fix program and current this program had the highest ratings. But Feng Yu remembered that the coming year, this program remained the same and did not change with the times, resulting in their rating drop. This program was later replaced by <Lifestyle>.

Other advertisers prefer the time slots for <Serving You>? That’s fine. Feng Yu prefers <Evening News> and <Weather Report>!

“I want the last slot before the <Evening News> and a 15 seconds advertising slot after that. It will be the same for the <Weather Report>. I also want a slot before and after 12 noon, a slot in the evening at about 8.30 pm. All the slots are for 1 year. Chief Cheng, please calculate the total amount.”

Cheng Baojun was shocked by Feng Yu. Was this company so rich? 5 advertising slots a day? Was there a need to advertise so many times in a day? It would cost at least over a million RMB for a year!

But anyway, he would be able to achieve his targeted advertising revenue this year!

Chapter 130 – Program Sponsor

Cheng Baojun immediately arranged his staffs to calculate the total. In the end, the total cost was a sky-high price. 5 advertising slots every day, for 1 year, would cost Feng Yu 2.73 million RMB. It was too expensive. Cheng Baojun was not sure if Feng Yu would accept this amount.

Cheng Baojun was a bit nervous when he told Feng Yu about the total price. He was waiting for Feng Yu to bargain with him or removing 2 slots. His staffs were just not smart enough. It was 5 advertisement slots. Why can’t they give some discount? Do they want to scare this customer away? Can he still achieve his target this year?

Sure enough, Feng Yu looked at the total amount with his eyes opened wide in shock.

Cheng Baojun immediately said: “Manager Feng, don’t worry. We can still discuss the price. I can give you some discounts.”

Feng Yu was shocked not because it was expensive, but it was because this was too cheap. The 5 slots he chose were all primetime slots. He thought it would cost at least 1 million RMB each and the total would be at least 5 million RMB. But the total came up to only 2.73 million RMB, and there’s still discount? Comparing to Longjiang Provincial TV station, this was much cheaper!

This price was much lower than what Feng Yu expected, and he suddenly had another idea. But he was not sure if his plan would be accepted.

“Section Chief Cheng, I want to ask something. Among your programs, are there any advertisers doing program sponsoring?”

Cheng Baojun batted his eyelids. Program sponsor? What does this mean? He shook his head. He had never heard of this before.

Feng Yu was overjoyed. This meant that he would have to persuade this Section Chief Cheng to agree to him sponsoring the program like <Serving you>. This was a good program, and everyone in his family likes to watch it, except for himself.

“Program sponsoring is adding the company’s name in front or behind the program title. For example, the program <Serving you>. After our sponsorship, the title would be changed to <Wind and Rain – Serving you>. The stage of the program will have a clear logo of my company. Every episode, there must be at least 5 seconds of closeup of my logo, and the host must mention my company’s name in his speech. For instance, thank you for tuning in to <Wind and Rain –  Serving you>, <Wind and Rain –  Serving you> was brought to you by Wind and Rain Humidifiers. Wind and Rain Humidifiers, your best partner in your life! During the ending……”

“Wait a minute.” Cheng Baojun interrupted Feng Yu. “Manager Feng, what are you talking about? TV programs are for the viewers. How can we incorporate advertisements in it?”

If the TV stations’ leaders in the future years had the same mindset as Cheng Baojun, then there won’t be more than 5 commercial breaks in a 40-minute drama episode. Netizens at that time even joked that it was a commercial with drama breaks.

Feng Yu does not watch the TV dramas now, except for <Journey to the West>. But it was also because there was a lack of TV programs and the ratings for all the dramas were not bad. If <Journey to the West> can have commercial breaks, Feng Yu would not hesitate to advertise 8 to 10 times in one episode. He knows that the viewers would still wait for the commercials breaks to be over to continue with their drama.

Cheng Baojun’s responsibility towards the viewers was not in line with Feng Yu’s interest. He must brainwash Cheng Baojun. Program sponsoring would not affect the quality of <Serving you>. Anyway, it was also not a live program, and this program was recorded in segments.

“Section Chief Cheng, look, our Wind and Rain ultrasonic humidifiers is the most advanced humidifier in China and even international. We export these humidifiers to Europe and the US. Furthermore, our humidifiers are considered a new type of home appliances, and it was developed to serve people. This is in line with the theme of the program. Also, our brand Wind and Rain stands for regardless of wind and rain. Isn’t this will highlight the purpose of the program <Serving you>? Lastly, don’t you want to hear how much I am willing to spend for this type of advertisement?”

Cheng Baojun shook his head and said: “No. We will not do this. How can we advertise in our programs? The leaders will also not agree to this.”

“1 million RMB for 1 year!” Feng Yu continued to entice Cheng Baojun.

Cheng Baojun inhaled deeply from the shock. 1 million RMB? This much?

Before he could recover from the shock, Feng Yu added: “I will sponsor for 3 years. Total 3 million RMB and I will pay it in full after we sign the contract!”

3 million RMB! Cheng Baojun was shocked beyond words. Just sponsoring a TV program was worth this much? Could this be a joke? This kid was willing to pay 3 million RMB?

Seeing Cheng Baojun keeping quiet, Feng Yu continued to convince him: “Section Chief Cheng, this <Serving you> program is a good program, but the stage and lightings are not good. Is there a lack of funds for this program? With us sponsoring this program, <Serving you> would be better. Also, this program would also not use so much money. The remaining would still go to CCTV, and you all can use these surplus funds to start a new program. The new program can also use this method to earn another sum of advertising fees, and this will be a virtuous cycle!”

Cheng Baojun doesn’t really understand what Feng Yu was talking about, but he understood the part about starting a new program and earn more advertising fees. T=Yes, this was indeed a virtuous cycle. But can this really work?

“Manager Feng, do you still want the advertising slots you mentioned earlier?”

“Yes, I want those 5 slots. The total is 2 million……”

“2.73 million RMB. I will round it off to 2.7 million RMB.” Now, Cheng Baojun could tell that Feng Yu was not short of money. If it weren’t he mentioned about giving a discount earlier, he would not round off to 2.7 million RMB.

“No problem. I will also not bargain with you. Please consider regarding the program sponsorship. This could bring in a lot of revenue for your TV station! Also, you are the one who thought of this new strategy.” Feng Yu hinted.

Cheng Baojun’s eyes sparkled. A new strategy. If this was implemented and the TV station’s revenue improved, the senior leaders would take note of the one who thought of this strategy. This meant that he would be promoted.

“This…… I need to discuss with my leaders. Can I get back to you in 2 days’ time? As for the 5 advertisement slots, we can sign the contract now.”

Feng Yu shook his head: “Let’s wait till you finish discussing with your leaders, and we can sign everything together. Also, I can’t stay in Beijing for long. I hope you can get back to me as soon as possible. I need time to prepare the money too.”

Sign the contract first? Impossible. Feng Yu still need these advertising slots as the bargaining chip for the program sponsorship. He wants Cheng Baojun to think that these advertising slots were binding conditions for the program sponsorship. This way, Cheng Baojun would try his best to convince his leaders, and Feng Yu can get what he wants.

<Serving you> was one of China’s favorite TV program. If he could sponsor this program, his Wind and Rain Humidifiers would be known throughout China faster.

Cheng Baojun was a bit disappointed. This Manager Feng was the type that would not give up till he gets what he wants. He must now think of ways to convince his leaders to approve this program sponsorship. This was also a great political achievement. Not only this idea would help the TV station earn a few million RMB, but it also opened up a new source of revenue.

Cheng Baojun clenched his teeth and said: “Fine. Wait for my news. I will get back to you tomorrow!”

Chapter 131 – China’s style business negotiations

CCTV was having a meeting. The leaders of CCTV were frowning and in front of them was a proposal written by Cheng Baojun. No one was saying anything.

The TV station’s Chief waited for a long time, and he cleared his throat, breaking the silence: “What does everyone think of Xiao Cheng’s proposal? Tell me your opinions. Deputy Station Chief Jia, you are in charge of the advertisement division. You start first.”

Deputy Station Chief Jia was named as the first to start. He bit the bullet and said: “Chief and colleagues, every one of us knows that our TV station’s funds are running low. When Section Chief Cheng showed me his proposal, I am also in a dilemma. Can we do this? But from another perspective, is this a violation of the regulations? Everybody can see the benefits if we go ahead with this proposal. Our advertising fee will increase greatly, and with sufficient funds, we can provide our viewers with quality programs. So, I support this proposal!”

After someone starts the ball rolling, the others also voiced out their opinions. Some felt that this was walking a fine line. Last year, CCTV had just got the approval to air commercials, and if they introduce this program sponsorship idea, other Provincial TV stations would also follow suit. Then they would be the first to be punished if anything goes wrong.

There were some who supported this idea. Why were TV stations allowing advertisers to advertise? It’s all about revenue. Before last year, the TV station was in financial difficulties, and after they could air commercials, their finances became better. Furthermore, the provincial TV stations were leading CCTV a lot of advertisement revenues. This was a disgrace to CCTV.

Everyone voiced their opinions and argued over this proposal. Both sides could not convince each other. Everybody seems to have their own reasonings, but they also could not refute others. In the end, everyone looked at the TV Station Chief for him to make the final decision.

The Chief looked at those deputies and sneered. If this proposal goes through, and the Broadcasting Ministry does not say anything, then the credit belongs to everybody here in this room. But if the Broadcasting Ministry penalized them, then he would be the one taking take blame!

But now, the situation at CCTV was dire. The Annual Spring Festival program was a headache for them. Even though the government gave them the budget for this show, it was not enough. This proposal was not about some small advertisements. This involves a few million RMB of advertising fees. How could he let go of this opportunity?

“Let’s vote to decide. Those that oppose raise your hands. Those that did not raise your hands means you all agree to go ahead with this proposal. Let’s start.” The Station Chief directly stop those that want to remain neutral. It was either you agree or disagree. There were no other choices.

“Ok. The voting ended. 5 votes for agreeing and 4 votes for disagreeing. We will implement this proposal! But I wish to state 2 things. Personally, I do not like this idea. A proper program, when added the company’s name, would make it sound like this was their program. Also, other advertising methods must be considered as well. Xiao Cheng, take note of this and negotiate with the other party. Take care not to violate any regulations!”

Cheng Baojun stood up and promised that he will get this task done!

The Chief then wrote down his opinions on the proposal. Basically, he agreed to this proposal, but the details need to be discussed further. Cheng Baojun was handed the task of submitting this proposal to the higher-ups for approval.

In that era, advertisements were not decided by the TV stations alone. The advertisements needed the approval of various government agencies and most importantly, the Broadcasting Ministry.

The Broadcasting Ministry was not the same as the leaders at CCTV. They could accept advertisements but would never agree to add the company’s name to the program title. The leader there even scolded Cheng Baojun saying he was greedy.

Basically, the words of the leader there could be translated to: Who are we? Who do we represent? What’s the purpose of us doing TV programs? We must get the fees, but we do not agree to the advertiser’s terms!

Cheng Baojun was frustrated. Get the advertising fees but don’t allow them to add the company’s name to the title? He does not know how to do this. He can only contact Feng Yu to discuss further.

“Section Chief, have you eaten? I had made a reservation at Dong Lai Shun restaurant. Yes. It’s just my colleague and me. Bring some people with you too.”

Century-old Dong Lai Shun, number one halal food in the capital!

Dong Lai Shun restaurant was an old restaurant. It was famous in Beijing since the 1930s. The mutton hotpot was famous throughout China, and even the State’s leaders entertained foreign delegations at this restaurant.

When Cheng Baojun heard that Feng Yu was inviting him to Dong Lai Shun restaurant, his thoughts were all about the delicious mutton hotpot. Even though he politely tried to reject Feng Yu’s invitation, he still brought 2 of his staff with him and rushed over to the restaurant.

Feng Yu had wanted to invite Zhang Ruiqiang’s friend but was rejected. So, Feng Yu wished to ask Cheng Baojun and just happened the latter called him.

Plates of mutton were served and consumed. Feng Yu did not care about table manners, and this made Cheng Baojun felt at ease.

They finished eating and started drinking.

Cheng Baojun put down his glass and start talking about the advertisements. It was the Chinese tradition to talk about business while drinking. How can business negotiations be without alcohol?

If the negotiation is successful, then they can have toast. If not, open another bottle and carry on!

Cheng Baojun said: “Manager Feng, Manager Wu. I had submitted your advertising proposal to the higher-ups, but it was not approved! It’s not totally rejected but it’s only the title of the program cannot be changed! Maybe we can think of other ways?”

Cannot do change the title of the program? Feng Yu was disappointed. If this were approved, then the advertising slot taken by other advertisers would no longer matter to him. The advertiser that bought the time slot he wanted was Yanwu, a company that sells cassette recorders.

Feng Yu’s house also had a Yanwu cassette recorder. Yanwu was monopolizing China’s market at that time. But within a few years, the appearance of VCD would cause the demise of Yanwu!

Now, Feng Yu can’t add his company’s name to the title, but he still had other ways. If that still does not work, then he can only give up.

“Since I can’t add my company’s name to the title, then at the start and end of the program, can you add in the words that “this program was exclusively sponsored by Wind and Rain humidifiers”? If the stage cannot display our logo, then you must place our humidifiers at an eye-catching place on the stage? It must be captured by the cameras. We can also use your program’s name for our advertisements in the papers. For instance, Wind and Rain Humidifiers is the exclusive sponsors of the program <Serving you>. These shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

The exclusive sponsor was another way of changing the title of the program. Since there were no other companies who did program title advertising, then exclusive sponsorship was almost about the same thing and will not disgrace CCTV. Most importantly, Feng Yu wants to make use of product placements in the program to show the viewers his humidifiers producing mist beside the host. Can the viewers not be curious? Coupled with his advertisements bombardment, his Wind and Rain humidifiers would be famous in no time! If this still doesn’t work, Feng Yu had no other ways!

“This…… seems to be not a problem. It should get approved.” Cheng Baojun nodded. His eyes were already red from the drinking.

“There is still a condition. If your program cannot mention my company or the product, it’s fine. But the host of <Serving you> must shoot a commercial for us, and the commercial must use <Serving you> stage and backdrops. The cutting, dubbing, etc. of the commercial must also be from the same backend team of <Serving you>. This shall be included in the advertising fees.”

In that era, there were not many TV stars that shoot commercials. But the host, Shen Li was more popular than most of the TV stars. If Shen Li can help Wind and Rain Humidifier shoot the commercial and with the help of CCTV, the effects would be more significant!

If Cheng Baojun doesn’t agree, then Wu Zhigang will continue to bottoms up with him!

Chapter 132 – Giving lessons to the people at CCTV

The station Chief looked at Cheng Baojun. He was angry till he threw the documents in front of him at Cheng Baojun. He had asked Cheng Baojun to get this advertising deal and removed the program title changing part. Cheng Baojun promised that he will get it done but what did he do?

He even dared to ask our TV host to shoot a commercial for them? Our TV host was getting a salary from them and does not represent herself. She represents the TV station and will affect the image of the Broadcasting Ministry. How can she shoot a commercial for a private company? If the leaders at the Broadcasting Ministry knows about this, he would be reprimanded for his greed for money!

“You tell me the truth. How are you related to this Tai Hua Trading General Manager Feng?” The station Chief banged the table and asked.

Cheng Baojun was shocked: “Chief, I am not related to him. He was introduced to me by the Broadcasting Ministry’s 2nd Communications division, Deputy Chief Lu.”

“Deputy Chief Lu? Lu Wenbo? Hmm~~~ Fine, you go and talk to that Manager Feng. Tell him that Shen Li will not star in his commercial!”

“Station Chief, that Manager Feng is now in my office. He says that if possible, he would like to speak to you. He has some ideas which are not against the regulations and still a win-win situation for the both of us!”

“Ask him here.” The Station Chief also wanted to meet the person who came up with this program sponsorship advertising method. Also, Feng Yu was introduced by Lu Wenbo, so it was not nice to reject him straight away. That’s why he agreed to meet Feng Yu.

When he saw Feng Yu, the Station Chief couldn’t believe his eyes. Cheng Baojun had told him that Feng Yu was very young, but he did not mention that Feng Yu was still a student!

“You are Manager Feng from Tai Hua Trading?”

“Yes!” Feng Yu warmly shook the Station Chief’s hands. He had been accustomed to being despised by his age. However, Feng Yu felt that this was also his advantage.

“Manager Feng, we welcome you to advertise with us. When you told us that you want to buy the advertising slots for a year, Xiao Cheng even gave you the best timings and adjusted other advertiser’s slots. But to want the naming rights and getting our TV host to star in a private company’s commercial is not according to our rules. You can forget about it.”

Private company? You look down on private companies? 10 years later, private companies will be everywhere. All of CCTV advertisements slots will be taken up by private companies. Since you don’t like private companies, fine. I will talk to you about state-owned enterprise!

“Private company? That’s right. We are a private company. But our product is not manufactured by us. It’s Bing City’s Motor Factory. The development of this product is by Bing City’s Aviation Factory. These are all established state-owned enterprises. My company is only in-charge of the sales and marketing. This commercial’s product does not belong to Tai Hua Trading. Furthermore, this product has the patent rights for China, Asia, Europe, and the US. It had helped our country earn from other countries. Wind and Rain brand is China’s first high-tech home appliances brand and can be said to be the pride of the country. Why can’t we use a TV host with a good image to star in our commercial?”

Feng Yu started to increase the profile of his company to suppress the other party. That “China’s first High-tech home appliances brand’ shocked the Station Chief. Although Feng Yu speaks very fast and he could not really catch everything he said, but it seems like this Wind and Rain brand must be outstanding to be the nation’s pride.

“You all are really working with Bing City’s Motor Factory and Aviation Factory?” The Station Manager asked.

“Of course. You can call them right now to verify. We are in 3-way cooperation. I came up with the design and is in-charge of the sales and marketing. The profits will be split between the 3 parties.” Feng Yu did not tell the Station Chief that he was getting the biggest share out of this cooperation.

The Station Manager was deceived by Feng Yu’s confident look, and he did not call the two other factories to verify. Anyway, this will be written in the contract. If Feng Yu deceived them, they could not air the commercial and keep the advertising fees! There was still no one that dares to deceive CCTV!

“But we had never let our TV host star in commercials before.”

“No, no, no. Station Chief, you misunderstood. Maybe I did not make it clear. The TV host will only appear in the commercial. We will extract footage of the TV host from <Serving you>, and use a voice-over. This will not be considered your TV host staring in our commercial. This advertising fees will also help your TV station a lot, right? Also, I mentioned that I can purchase the advertising slots for 3 years. If I cannot add our brand in the program title, we can change to exclusive sponsorship. Sponsorship is not against the regulations. The stage can remain the same, but our product must be in a prominent place……”

Feng Yu start to persuade the Station Chief. This was not too difficult.

The Station Chief hesitate for a while: “Then can you show me a demo of your commercial idea?”

“No problem. Can you lend me the studio of <Servicing you>?”

The Station Chief nodded and personally brought Feng Yu over to the studio. CCTV at that time does not have many programs, but they had very few studios. Just happen, that studio was filming another program.

Feng Yu looked at the old and shabby studio and shook his head. Before his rebirth, even a city TV station’s studio was better than this. What’re all these? Even though Feng Yu was not a professional, he could produce a better set than this in the studio!

“Station Chief, at the back, you can put up painting as the backdrop. Don’t use those plain curtains anymore. We can place a humidifier in front of the host. We can print the words “Servicing you” on it. This is the program’s title and theme. When the air is dry, you can switch on the humidifier. This will not affect the show, and even if you don’t switch it on, you can use our humidifier as decorations. In the commercial, the humidifier must be switched on. Also, the program must talk more about matters relating to most citizens. The outdoor shoots must be filmed properly as well. Don’t keep filming and report events that happened in Beijing. Must do the filming in other provinces too. Beijing does represent the whole China……”

Feng Yu told the Station Chief about the areas to improve. These ideas were taken from some of the more popular TV shows in his previous life. If this program can really do what he said, then it’s ratings will remain high.

At first, the people were asking around who Feng Yu was when he was pointing here and there. The Station Chief had personally brought him to the studio. But when they heard Feng Yu’s comments some of the TV station’s workers were unhappy.

These were all professional matters. Even the Station Chief does not direct them what to do, yet this kid was commenting on all these.

But after a while, more people start to crowd around. What this kid said made senses. The viewers will definitely like it if they followed what this kid said. It’s not that they had not thought of all these, but it could not be implemented. The main reason was that they had no budget!

Changing the set needs money. Sending the host to film outdoor scenes also cost money. Also, it was hard for them to even shoot in Beijing, let alone other provinces. The furthest they went to is the outskirts of Beijing. This kid still suggests going to places like Northeast and Southern regions. Just the train tickets would cost them a lot.

The crowd grew, and Feng Yu got more excited. He felt like he was the leader teaching them what to do. But he did not get the applause he wanted. Many people were looking at him like looking at a monkey in the zoo. This made Feng Yu very unhappy.

After the program had finish recording, Feng Yu raised his voice and said: “Station Chief, if you followed what I suggested, there will be more viewers for this program. As for the production budget, with our Wind and Rain humidifier sponsorship of 1 million RMB, it will not be a problem!”

Those that were laughing at Feng Yu earlier froze. Did this kid say that there will be a sponsorship of 1 million RMB?

Chapter 133 – The rich can speak loudly

The Station Chief was surprised. Based on Cheng Baojun’s report, the advertising fees would be cut by half if Feng Yu does not get the naming rights of the program. How come Feng Yu was still willing to come out with 1 million RMB?

Feng Yu followed the Station Chief back to his office to discuss the details. The Advertising section chief Cheng Baojun, thus, takes on the role of preparing and serving tea to them. The Station Chief was personally there to negotiate this deal, he was in no place to say anything.

But just when the discussion started, there was a knock on the office door and a Deputy Chief, who was also the chief for CCTV 3 channel entered the room.

“Station Chief, are you busy?”

The Station Chief rolled his eyes. This was asking the obvious.

“Old Hu, what’s the matter?”

“Station Chief, I heard that there’s a company who is here at our TV station to discuss advertising with us. I am wondering if he can sponsor some money for our CCTV 3 channel.”

Now CCTV only has 3 channels. The 4th channel will only appear in 1992. This CCTV 3 Channel had started in 1986, and only Beijing can receive this channel. Before 1987, the CCTV 2 channel was also available only to Beijing residents. But in 1987,  CCTV 2 channel switched to satellite signals and the coverage extended to the whole of China.

For a TV channel that serves only Beijing, it was hard for this channel to get advertisers. Deputy Chief Hu was here to try his luck because his channel was running short of funds.

Before the Station Chief could say anything, Feng Yu asked: “You must be Chief Hu. Does CCTV 3 have any programs that are outstanding? I mean the program is extremely popular with residents.”

Deputy Chief Hu immediately said: “It’s Deputy. My channel does have a few popular programs.”

In the end, Deputy Chief Hu mentioned 3 to 4 programs but Feng Yu had not even heard of one. He had not even heard of these programs in his previous life. Also, this CCTV 3 channel focuses mainly on drama and music programs. The rest of its programs were the programs that were not wanted by CCTV 1 and CCTV 2. What good programs could they offer? It was only after they switched to satellite signals then they produced one excellent music program.

Feng Yu interrupted Deputy Chief Hu: “Chief Hu, you should know that I want to advertise in CCTV was because of the satellite signal channels. The whole China can receive the channel CCTV 1. As for CCTV 3, I will be honest with you. I had never watch that channel before in my life. But since Chief Hu asked me for help, then I will use 100,000 RMB to buy a year advertising slot. You just give me at least 3 slots a day, and each slot must be at least 15 seconds. Any timings will do!”

Damn, this Chief Hu is the future boss of SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television). His authority in future was not to joke about. Feng Yu just treats this 100,000 RMB as an investment to their relationship

Deputy Chief Hu was ecstatic. It’s not even a minute of advertisement a day, and any timing will do?  All these for 100,000 RMB? With this 100,000 RMB, he can start a new program!

After Deputy Chief Hu left, Feng Yu carried on the discussion with the Station Chief. But less than 5 minutes into the talks, there was knocking on the door again.

“Old Jia, don’t tell me you are here to promote your CCTV 2 advertising slots?”

Deputy Chief Jia smiled and walked over to Feng Yu to shake his hands: “This young man must be Manager Feng. Indeed, you are a fine young man.”

Deputy Chief Jia had heard from Old Hu that a fool came to the TV station today. The fool was Tai Hua Trading’s Manager Feng, mentioned in Xiao Cheng’s proposal. CCTV 3 can even sell their off-peak advertising slots for 100,000 RMB easily, why can’t CCTV 2 get some advertising deals?

Oh, this will be the boss of CCTV in the future. The idea of auctioning advertising slots was implemented by him. This person was worth investing in too.

“You must be Chief Jia. Thank you for your compliments. How can I help you?”

Deputy Chief Jia did not beat around the bush and said: “Our CCTV 2 is a satellite channel, and the whole nation can receive this channel. Why not advertise in CCTV 2 too? I will give you a good price!”

Out of all CCTV 2 programs, Feng Yu only remembers <Economic >, which was the predecessor of <Economic Time>. The changes will take place later the year.

<Economic Time> was a long-running program and until Feng Yu’s rebirth, this program still had high ratings. Most importantly, the National leaders also like this program. This program can be said to be the “mouthpiece” of China’s Ministry of Commerce!

This channel was worth doing some advertisements.

“No problem. We still have some advertising budget left. I will just take 2 advertising slots before and after <Economic News>. How much is the advertising fees?”

Deputy Chief asked: “One year 500,000 RMB?” He thought that a year of sponsoring <Serving you> was already 1 million RMB, so <Economic News> asking for 500,000 RMB was not too much.

“Ok. But I am not allowed to add my company’s name to the program title and don’t allow me to do product placements. So, I want you to do a special segment for us. At least 10 minutes! Our Wind and Rain humidifiers use the most advanced technology in the world and were developed by 2 state-owned enterprises. Every year, we pay a lot of taxes to the government and export in large quantities to other countries. So, doing a special segment for us is not too much, right?”

Deputy Chief Jia looked at the Station Chief. This was not something that he can decide. This was not against the regulations, but he can’t make the decision with the Station Chief around. However, he will definitely request the Station Chief to approve Feng Yu’s condition.

“Old Jia, you go back first. We will talk about this later. I still have things to discuss with Manager Feng.” The Station Chief said unhappily.

The Station Chief could tell that this Tai Hua Trading had a big advertising budget and seems like he can’t finish spending the budget. This was really the case. Feng Yu’s budget was 5 million RMB and was approved by both the Aviation Factory and Motor Factory.

The advertising slots on CCTV 1 was only 2.7 million RMB for a year, adding the sponsorship for <Serving you >, the total was just 3.7 million. Feng Yu still have 1.3 million RMB to spend.

Anyway, if he can’t finish spending his advertising budget, he will also purchase the advertising slots from the Northeast Provincial TV stations.

But Feng Yu must get the slots for CCTV 1. Later this year, people will notice the reason behind the success of Yanwu and CCTV advertising rates will increase significantly. The rates would be much higher than the local TV stations, and 2 years later, the slots will be sold using auctions.

Feng Yu suggested to the Station Chief that he wanted to purchase the slots for the next few years but was refused. The station also felt that CCTV was an excellent platform for advertisers and there’s no reason for their rates to be lower than the local TV stations.

This was also because CCTV was not allowed to air commercials previously. Now it was approved, and within 3 years, their rates would be the highest in the industry.

Actually, Feng Yu wanted to tell the Station Chief that their TV station was the reason for their low advertising rates. Feng Yu wanted to advertise with them, and he still needs to look for connections to get a chance to meet their Section Chief Cheng. At Longjiang TV station, it was not so troublesome. Feng Yu could just walk in and look for the person-in-charge. The difference in their attitudes was too big!

The discussion between both parties ended on a good note. Feng Yu was generous and doesn’t care about money. He agreed to a few other smaller sponsors that cost tens of thousands RMB and still gets to leave a good impression with the Station Chief. This investment was too worthwhile!

The next day, Feng Yu returned to CCTV. CCTV 2 had agreed to Feng Yu’s conditions, and Feng Yu signed the advertising and sponsorship contracts. Advertising on 3 channels and the total came up to 4.5 million RMB. This was CCTV’s highest record of advertising fees collected!

Chapter 134 – Business blooming everywhere

After Feng Yu came back, he spent another 500,000 RMB to purchase the advertising slots at Liao Province and Ji Province TV stations. The commercial was the same as CCTV, where it was the footage of Shen Li hosting the program.

One week later, the viewers in front of the TV noticed something different. Why was the set of <Serving you> different and look better than before? There was even a cylinder thing there. That thing seems familiar.

Ehhh~~~ the logo looks a bit familiar. It looks like the logo of that electric fan they bought last summer.

The rest of the day, some of the viewers noticed a series of advertisement. There’s the Shen Li’s version, Feng Danying’s version, Li Shiyou’s version and children’s version. There was also an old man version, where Feng Yu hired an eighty-year-old actor to star in the commercial.

There was not much effect on the first day. However, because of the frequency of the advertisements, and advertisements on CCTV channel during the primetime, even the kids remembered the advertising slogans: Wind and Rain humidifiers, your best companion indoors!

Regardless of the version, the commercial highlighted the features of Wind and Wind’s newest humidifiers. The features include safety, healthy, low electricity consumption, high tech, etc. Coupled with the product placement on the TV program <Serving you>, people were asking where they can buy the humidifiers.

Even though Beijing was not China’s financial hub, but the population was high, and it was the political center. The humidifiers sales suddenly shoot up.

Following Beijing, the sales for the northern cities, like Jingmen, Zhen City, Changan, Shi City, Shen City, Ji City, etc. also increased. Even some of the southern cities also had an increase in sales.

At first, even though Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao agreed to the 5 million RMB advertising budget, they were still a bit unhappy with Feng Yu for spending so much. They were not persuaded by Feng Yu but instead, they agreed because Feng Yu guaranteed them that they will earn back the advertising budget.

5 million advertising budgets will bring in over tens of million RMB profits! This will also allow Wind and Rain brand to capture the market share quickly, eliminating the threat of competitors.

Feng Yu knew that Yadu’s household humidifier will be launched the following year and if he were to wait till next year, then he would have to compete with Yadu head-on.

Yadu should just concentrate on its air purifier. If they were not doing well, Feng Yu does not mind buying over this world-class air purifier manufacturer before it gets into the hands of foreign investors.

As for the domestic humidifiers sales, the sales of the Prestige model overtook the Noble model for the first time. This was due to the advertising bombardment, especially Shen Li’s version.

Initially, the sales of the humidifiers were not bad, and the profits for 1 unit was about 100 RMB. But based on that speed, the most they could sell was 20,000 units in a month, and Feng Yu was not satisfied with this figure.

Now, it’s different. After the aggressive advertising campaign, there were more than 30,000 units sold in the first week. All the dealers came back to them waving their checks, wanting to order more. Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao were all smiles!

Now Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao only had one thought: The advertising budget was worth spending!

Some dealers previously worked with Tai Hua Trading but stopped working with them for these humidifiers, came back. However, they were chased away by Wu Zhigang on Feng Yu’s instructions. Tai Hua Trading must stick to their core values, which was arrogant!

The was to let these dealers know that if they follow Tai Hua Trading, they would have meat to eat. Those that betray Tai Hua Trading would not even get a drop of soup!

The unluckiest were those factories manufacturing imitations Wind and Rain humidifiers. They kept lowering the selling prices until it was lower than their cost prices, but no one was buying their humidifiers. Their humidifiers were left to a corner of the department stores, and not a single customer look at them.

If Feng Yu saw this, he would surely criticize those factories’ leaders. They don’t even know how to sell imitations. How would they attract customers if the price of their humidifier was so much lower than Wind and Rain humidifier? The humidifier was a novelty product and not home appliances like radio or televisions, where almost every family would purchase them. Only the wealthy people would buy humidifiers.

If it were Feng Yu, he would increase the prices of those imitations and even if the sales did not pick up, at least the profit will be slightly higher, and he would be able to cover some of its costs. He would also sell those imitations at rural places where there was little communications access. Serves them right for trying to fight Wind and Rain head-on. Do they have advertisement bombardment? Do they have more beautiful designers? Do they have the most advanced technologies? These factories do not have anything, and it’s normal for these factories to lose money!

However, Hao Haitao had some regrets. This humidifier was developed by the Aviation Factory and why Li Shiyou gets to be on TV and not him?

Feng Yu can only console him: next time, next time!

Now Wind and Rain humidifiers were in a monopolistic position for, not only the domestic market but also the overseas markets. Europe and the US also had humidifiers, but it was mainly for industrial. The household humidifiers were still those electric heating types.

Even if they had the ultrasonic technology, they could not produce ultrasonic humidifiers as Feng Yu had applied for the patents and no one would be allowed to produce similar humidifiers. If they want to produce a more advanced humidifier, it was also impossible. The next technology would only be invented in the year 2000, and it was very expensive. How could it be used for household humidifiers?

It can be said that for the next 10 years; Wind and Rain would be the industry leader and no other corporations could pose a threat to them.

Fu Guangzheng also brought good news to Feng Yu. The humidifiers were selling well in Southeast Asia. The Fu family positioned this product as a luxury item and sold only in high-end departmental stores. Although the quantity sold could not be compared to China, but the retail prices were much higher.

The most surprising news to Feng Yu was that the sales for the Europe and US market were almost on par with China. Especially the US market, where the petty Feng Yu had asked Fu Guangzheng to increase the selling prices.

Fu Guangzheng said that Feng Yu was really good at reading the consumer’s mind. Those Americans were as what Feng Yu said. They only buy the most expensive product but not the right product.

Some companies approached the Fu family indicating their interest in acquiring the patent, joint venture or even wants to get the authorization to use the patent.

However, Feng Yu rejected all these requests.

This was the time where Feng Yu could reap the benefits, and he was not willing to authorize others to use his patent, even if they offer high prices. This was not the time to spoil the relationship with the Aviation Factory. Furthermore, if he sells the rights to other companies, he would also offend the Fu family, who were in-charge of the overseas sales. These foreign markets were considered their main revenue sources, unlike the Japanese Market.

A few years later, after the most profitable period, then Feng Yu would sell the authorization and will also give the Aviation Factory and the Motor Factory some compensations. Anyway, it was not stated in the contract that Feng Yu was not allowed to authorize overseas companies to use the patent. It only says that authorizing the patent to domestic companies were not permitted.

When Feng Yu showed Li Shiyou and Hao Haitao the overseas sales figures, they were shocked. The figures for the foreign markets was more than twice of China’s market.

Didn’t Feng Yu say that the selling price for the humidifiers was much higher compared to China? Were all the Europeans and the Americans so wealthy? Previously, Feng Yu had mentioned to them that they need to increase the production, but Li Shiyou said that there was no need for that. But after looking at the figures, he immediately went back to his factory to make the necessary arrangements to increase the productions. There must not be any delays for exportation. They were earning a lot more from exportation than the domestic markets.

After Wind and Rain humidifier’s success, Kameda came to Tai Hua Trading again.

Chapter 135 – One-time business

The moment Kameda Masao met Feng Yu, he gave him a 90-degrees bow, which Feng Yu readily accepted and returned with an arched hand greeting.

“Mr. Feng, my company, was really sincere, and we will give you 10 USD in licensing fees for every unit of the humidifier. This is already very high. The Japan market is not very big.”

“No, no, no. That not the main point. The important point was that you have to purchase the patent authorization for the same period of the patent and you have to pay all the authorization fees in one go!”

Next year, there will be a financial crisis in Japan, and lots of Japanese Firms went bankrupt. Who knows if this Black Dragon Co. will be one of the unlucky ones?

The patent fees must be collected now even if it was lower than expected. If the fees were to be collected on an annual basis, who knows if Feng Yu gets to receive it in the second year. But there was also the possibility that Feng Yu gets to collect it every year for the next 10 years.

However, the risk was too big for Feng Yu, and he dares not to gamble. If he could make 50 dollars now, why wait for the 100 dollars 10 years later? If Feng Yu invest the 50 dollars now, he will get more than double within a year!

“Mr. Feng, the pressure will be too big for my company if we were to pay all the patent fees at once. Also, it is quite impossible for my company to sell 1 million units!”

Feng Yu showed a shocked facial expression: “It can’t be. Kamada, the last time you told me that Japan had a population of over 100 million and there were over 20 million wealthy families. Adding these families and offices, you all will sell at least 1 million units in the next 10 years. These were the exact words you told me.”

Kameda Masao had a bitter expression. He had exaggerated Japan’s market and said all those to make Feng Yu lower the patent fees. But he did not expect Feng Yu to use these statics against him to make his company pay the patent fees all at once.

“Mr. Feng, those were just an estimation and was the best scenario. However, the market is full of surprises, and we can’t be sure how many units we can sell. What if we can only sell 200,000 units or even 100,000 units?” Kameda hid finally thought of a good excuse and was secretly relieved.

“Eh? Cannot be. Since your company is so weak, why should I authorize my patent to your company? I can choose to export to your company or look for a better company, like Sharp or Panasonic, to work with. They had contacted my overseas office not once.” Feng Yu calmly replied.

Did these 2 companies really contact Fu Guangzheng’s company in Hong Kong? Of course. But negotiations broke down the first time they met. It was because these 2 companies heard that they were only allowed to sell in the Japanese market and the patent fees were too high.

But Black Dragon Co. did not know about this. This made Kameda worried. If he could not get this deal, his position as China’s market Rep might be taken away from him, and he might even lose his job!

“Mr. Feng, please consider my company first. We are really sincere.” Kameda Masao stood up and gave Feng Yu another 90-degrees bow.

He was stationed in China for almost 8 years and of all the Chinese he met, they were either treating him as an enemy or eager to please him because of money. This was the first time he met someone that totally disregarded him.

Feng Yu had given him the feeling of a sly and wily 40 plus man instead of a young man. But, the person in front of him was a high school student!

Feng Yu had the rights to the patent, and this was something the other party wanted. Also, Feng Yu had shown the popularity of his humidifiers in China and overseas markets. This made the patent more valuable.

Feng Yu also made it very clear that he does not need to authorize the Black Dragon Co. He could also import the humidifiers into Japan by himself and make money.

Looking at Kameda’s expression, Feng Yu knew that he had almost touched his bottom-line. He had asked for 10 million USD Not to mention a small company like Black Dragon Co., even big companies like Sharp, would also reject him!

10 million USD out of a market worth only tens of million USD, was a significant amount. They would rather invest this 10 million USD into their R&D department to develop new products!

Feng Yu only wanted more money for his investment plan in the stock market later the year. It seems that he must give Kameda some concessions now.

“How about this? You all had estimated that the average sales in a year would be around 100,000 units and this would be 1 million USD. You must give me at least 5 years’ worth of patent fees which amount to 5 million USD. I am already giving you lots of concession. Is this alright?”

“There is no problem for 1-year advanced payment, but for 5 years, it is too high.” Kameda’s eyes sparkled. Feng Yu had relented, which means that he was willing to negotiate further.

Feng Yu acted like this was a troubling issue and said: “1-year advanced payment is definitely not possible. I will not be able to answer to my family. How about 3 years? After 3 years, it will be on an annual basis. Every year, your company must give us your production report for us to charge you the patent fees.”

“No, no, no. It’s not the production report. It’s the sales report.” Kameda Masao retorted. There’s a big difference between those 2 reports.

“Fine. Sales report. I agree to this. 3 years, 3 million USD to be transferred to me within 1 week. Any problems?” Feng Yu had an impatient look, but he already committed Kameda to the 3 years advanced payment of the patent fees.

Kameda Masao kept quiet and did not say anything for a long time.

“Mr. Feng Yu, I need to discuss with my Chairman. I will get back to you the day after tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow. If you can’t give me an answer tomorrow, then there’s no need to discuss anymore!” Feng Yu firmly replied.

After Kameda left, Feng Yu jumped up with joy. Although the patent fees were lowered from 30 USD to 10 USD, the payment method was changed to 3 years’ advanced payments based on estimated sales.

With this 3 million USD and Tai Hua Trading funds, Feng Yu can really make a killing in the stock market in the next one year. The profits will be much higher than the electric fans and humidifiers!

The next day Kameda returned to Tai Hua Trading. However, they did not agree to the advance payment of 3 years. They wanted the exclusive authorization rights to the patent for the Japan market for 5 million USD. This meant that Tai Hua trading will not be allowed to authorize another Japanese company and export the humidifiers to Japan. They wanted to reserve the Japan market for themselves!

Their Chairman had taken a loan from the bank for this patented technology. He felt that this would be more worthwhile than advanced payments for 3 years and still pay for the patent fees for remaining years.

5 million USD? Feng Yu hesitated for a while and agreed. It may seem that Feng Yu was making a loss, but Feng Yu knew that the Wind and Rain humidifiers would definitely develop new technology within 5 years. When that happens, the technology in Black Dragon Co. would be outdated, and Feng Yu can sell the latest technology to them again.

Furthermore, the Japan market for humidifiers was very small, and Feng Yu didn’t feel any pity for losing the market. It was more practical for him to take the 5 million USD. He could turn this 5 million USD into 10 million USD within a year!

Chapter 136 – Clouds thinking of beautiful clothes; flowers thinking of countenance

With money in the accounts, the postponed construction plans for Tian Peng Pig farm could officially begin. Feng Yu’s half-baked floor plans had been revised by Professor Su. Profess Su even helped to write up a development plan for Tian Peng Pig farm free of charge. This development plan was more professional than Feng Yu.

It’s true that there was a huge difference between amateurs and professionals. It was worth looking for Professor Su to help. Only some consultant fees and providing an experimental teaching area, Feng Yu could get so much in return!

In fact, Professor Su also thought likewise. He had the idea and plans, but he did not have the funds, and the university would not invest so much in him to set up a pig farm for him. There were also no businessmen he knew that operates pig farms and was generous, expect for Tian Peng Pig Farm.

At Tian Peng Pig farm, Professor Su was able to get the things he needed, such as locations and funding. Most importantly, he got the full support from Feng Yu, and even the formula for the animal feeds was the result of his research.

Professor Su believed that in 1 to 2 years, he would be able to prove that his theory of this type of modern pig farming would work to the other professors that laughed at him. He might even be promoted to the vice dean of the university!

Feng Yu and Professor Su wanted different things. Feng Yu wanted profits, and Professor Su wanted recognition. But of the things they wanted did not conflict, as such, they were able to work together.

The watering system in the farm was made by the Machinery Company. This was considered an easy job for the Motor Factory, but because it was not for mass production, it was not economically productive. Usually, Li Mingde would not accept such jobs, but Feng Yu pointed out some unauthorized claims and Li Mingde had no choice but to take on this unprofitable job.

The grin on Professor Su’s face grew wider when he looked at the watering systems, feeding systems, etc. that was being sent to the farm. This Xiao Feng was indeed a generous kid. He provided whatever I want and did not even bargain.

He was so different from Feng Xingtai who kept saying “This can be replaced by plastics and that can be replaced using wood.” If they were to use inferior materials, how could they catch up with the overseas farms?

Professor Su had high hopes for this farm. He wanted this farm to be the best in China and even internationally. He wanted the recognition of building such a farm. He wants to be famous.

When that happens, the Pig Farm design patent he applied would also be approved. There would be many Chinese farmers or even US farmers queuing up to buy the authorization!

……

“Wrong, wrong. This is installed wrong. This way, the water will be flowing upwards. Those workers there, stop. I told you all that this part is for feeding. It must be able to rotate. Who asked you to fix its position with wires? This way how would the animal feed enter the food trough? You, the distance is wrong. 2 meters. This is only 1.8 meters. You can’t cut corners on this……”

Professor Su was very responsible and stayed at the farm almost every day, supervising the installation of the different systems. These were all his hard work. There must not be any flaws.

Yesterday, a worker did not follow the floorplan, and one of the pigsty measurements was off, and it was smaller. Professor Su went into a rage. Feng Xingtai came over and told him to modify systems for that pigsty. Just when Professor Su was about to compromise, Feng Yu arrived. Without saying a word, he ordered the demolition of the pigsty’s walls and rebuilt.

Although the cost of rebuilding those 2 walls was nothing compared to the construction of the whole pig farm, Feng Yu’s attitude reinforced Professor Su determination to build the perfect modernized pig farm in China.

Of course, Feng Yu also got the receiving end of his father’s slap to the back of his head. This good-for-nothing son just spends money like drinking water. Must that pigsty be rebuilt? If it wasn’t rebuilt, can it be used?

Feng Yu could only smile. Actually, it was because he felt that the pigsty was not symmetrical and he felt uncomfortable looking at it. 2 rows of pigsties, up to 100 partitions and only those 2 partitions were different from the rest. Who wouldn’t be uncomfortable by this?

Furthermore, Feng Yu, like Professor Su, felt that what’s the cost of rebuilding 2 walls compared to the cost of the whole project. Also, the touched look on Professor Su’s face made it all worthwhile for Feng Yu!

Professor Su was indeed a professional when it comes to pig rearing. In future, Feng Yu still needs his help with the animal feed formula for Tai Hua Food Processing Factory. He did not want these 2 walls to spoil their relationship.

After Feng Yu returned home, he told his father about the pros and cons. All things had a price tag except for knowledge. The most important thing for this pig farm now was not money but the most advanced techniques. These techniques came from Professor Su, and so they must go along with him.

After all, this farm belongs to the Feng family, and Professor Su would also get a single cent from the profits in the future. Professor Su can be considered working for them for free now. What’s there to be unhappy about?

After hearing from Feng Yu, Feng Xingtai felt better. So, this Professor Su was working for us. But why was this worker more persistent and aggressive than the boss?

Hmmm… maybe it was because he was a Professor and he got the pride of an educated man.

Feng Xingtai suddenly remembered that Professor Su was a professor and he was only a peasant. But the sense of vanity was still bursting in his heart. He could order a professor around now!

Feng Xingtai still doesn’t know that the 3 Soviets that used to work for him in his food processing factory were experts. He thought they were ordinary workers from the Soviet Unions.

The construction for the Pig Farm went smoothly and very fast. This was also because Feng Yu had spent a lot on this construction. Although this increased the cost, but it saved a lot of time for Feng Yu.

The others do not understand. But to Feng Yu, time was more valuable than money. The faster you are, the earlier you would be able to capture the market.  Capturing the market was the most critical aspect of this pig farm.

The Farm Department Chief Officer and Wen Deguang visited the farm frequently during the construction. They had smiles when they saw the transformation of the farm.

When this pig farm was completed, they would report to their higher-ups and then just this farm as an example for the rest of the country. This would be considered their political achievements.

Feng Yu had no reasons to stop them from doing this. The more supportive they were, the better it was for the pig farm development. As for Deputy Officer Xu, he was green with envy. This Tian Peng Pig Farm achievement had nothing to do with him!

The other star of the district was the food processing factory. Wen Deguang was the person overseeing this factory. Based on the pig farm and factory, the Farm Chief Officer and Wen Deguang would surely be promoted, whereas, Deputy Officer Xu would most likely remain as a deputy until his retirement.

……

Crackling ~ ~ ~

“”Leaders and distinguished guests, today is the opening Tian Peng Pig Farm. I would like to thank everyone for taking time off your busy schedule to be here…… Now, let’s invite the Chief Officer to say a few words.” Wen Deguang, who was also the emcee, stood at the door and host the opening ceremony.

After the Chief Officer’s speech, the rest of the leaders took turns to give their address. Almost all the leaders from the Farm Department were there, except for Deputy Officer Xu.

“Now, let’s invite the Chief Officer and the rest of the leaders to plant trees. Wishing Tian Peng Pig Farm to thrive and grow up strong like a tree!”

In the yard, someone had already dug the pit and placed the trees seedlings in there. The leaders just crowd around, shoveled the soil symbolically and wiping the nonexistent sweat from their foreheads. There were reporters and cameras there. They must put up a good show and acted they were working hard.

Feng Yu looked at his father who was smiling happily for the cameras and then he looked at the background behind his father. Feng Yu laughed to himself.

At the door, Feng Yu had pasted a pair of new couplets which he wrote personally: Clouds thinking of beautiful clothes; flowers thinking of countenance; Pigs thinking of getting fat; People thinking of getting famous!

Translator Notes: The couplets original text is 云想衣裳花想容，猪想发福人想红! The thing I hated most about the government officials written in this novel was that they like to claim credit for someone else’s success. Maybe it’s in their culture. Is China really like this?

Chapter 137 – I want to be a secretary

After the construction of the pig farm was completed, Feng Yu was chased back to school by Feng Xingtai with his feather duster. A student’s responsibility was to study hard. Stop thinking about money every day.

Soon, it was June, and the weather becomes hot. Wind and Rain electric fans started its production and sales again. But the sales for this year was terrible. The order for the whole of China was estimated to be not more than 50,000 units. There was a massive drop in the profits.

This was still because of TV commercials. If not, the sales would not be more than 20,000 units. No choice. There were too many plastic fans in the market now. A small country factory or even a tiny private factory can manufacture these fans. Even though the market was big, but there were too many choices, and Wind and Rain Electric fans had nothing special. That’s why it loses its market share.

Feng Yu sighed. It seems like he got to bring forward his plan to launch the newer version of electric fans.

Feng Yu was not so busy with his business and school. It was still 1 month away from his exams, and he had sufficient time to prepare for it.

But soon, the students received a notification from their teachers that it was time for them to choose between the Arts and Science for their 2nd year. They were advised to discuss with their parents and then submit their choices.

Compared to his previous life, China now had more focus on Science than Arts. Almost 80% of the students chose Science, and only some female students chose Arts.

When Feng Yu’s form teacher received the class’ choices, he frowned.

What’s going on? Feng Yu chose Arts? Also, Lina, who was good with her Science subjects, chose Arts too? “Learn math and science, and you can travel all over the world without fear” They should have heard of this statement.

The form teacher called Li Na and Feng Yu to his office for a discussion. These 2 were considered the better students in his class. He could not bear to see them “degenerate” in the Arts class!

“Li Na, Feng Yu, did you fill up your forms wrongly? Why did you choose arts?” The form teacher took out their forms and hinted to them that he could still change their choices.

Li Na shockingly looked at Feng Yu. Why did he choose Arts too?

Li Na’s ambition was to be a teacher, so learning Arts was a natural choice. But Feng Yu’s dream was to be a successful businessman and shouldn’t he be taking Science?

Li Na suddenly remembered on the day they were filling up their forms, Feng Yu had asked her if she was choosing Arts or Science. Could it be Feng Yu chose Arts t to be with her?

Feng Yu pushed the forms back to his teacher and said: “Teacher, there’s no mistake with our choices. What’s the difference between Arts and Science? In future, both can also contribute to the country.”

“But the future of Science students obviously has a better future. The both of you will be doing yourself an injustice!”

Feng Yu laughed: “Teacher, you also picked Arts in the past?”

The form teacher was dumb folded. He did choose Arts in the past, but that was because he was not good with Science subjects. He was only good at memorizing things and was too embarrassed to say it to Feng Yu.

“How can it be the same? My ambition was to be a teacher! Taking Arts will let me be a better teacher, can help me pass my literature knowledge to you all!” The form teacher found himself the perfect excuse.

Li Na timidly said: “Teacher, my ambition is also to be a teacher.”

Feng Yu immediately interrupted: “That’s right. It’s an honor to be a great teacher, just like our form teacher.”

The form teacher does not know whether to cry or he should laugh. These two students were praising him now, but he wanted to ask them to choose Science for a better future and better job opportunities

“What about you, Feng Yu. You want to be a teacher too?” The form teacher would never believe that a student like Feng Yu would want to be a teacher.

“No. I want to be a secretary and Arts is more suitable for this job.” Feng Yu told his teacher a lie he prepared beforehand.

Be someone’s secretary? Nonsense. Feng Yu had still planned to hire 8 or 10 secretaries for himself. One would be just serving tea, one would be doing paperwork, one would be massaging his shoulders and legs, one would just be a pretty vase, one would be taking care of him in the day, some would be ……, he should stop thinking about this.

Feng Yu wanted to a big boss and learn business management. Studying Arts would be easier for him to switch to Business later. Furthermore, Feng Yu’s memory was better, and those subjects like biology, chemistry, etc. should be left for those students who had talents. He just wants to memorize some history, geography, etc.

With his strength in languages like Russian, his memory, and his other means, he would definitely be admitted into Beijing University Management course. Isn’t this enough? If he chose Science, where can he go?

Feng Yu’s ambition surprised his teacher. There was really someone whose dream was to be a secretary? But he thought Feng Yu’s ambition should be a leader with the government. Many great leaders started by being a secretary. It was the same as being an apprentice in a factory. Being a secretary would get close to the leaders and would have a strong backing!

The form teacher felt a bit helpless. He could not tell Feng Yu that his ambition was wrong. Nowadays, who doesn’t want to be a leader in the government service? In the universities, most undergrads were drafted into the government service directly. But isn’t it better for Feng Yu to use the usual method to enter the government service?

“The both of you really don’t want to reconsider your choices?” The form teacher tried one last time.

Feng Yu and Li Na shook their heads, and the teacher waved his hand, indicating them to leave. Forget it. Its only 2 students lesser.

Stepping out of the teacher’s office, Li Na kept looking at Feng Yu with misty-eyes.

“Feng Yu, you don’t need to do this. You want to be a businessman, should you be taking Science? There’s no need for you to be in the same class with me.” Li Na said.

Feng Yu paused for a moment. Li Na had thought that he chose Arts because of her? Only a fool would explain to her. Just let her misunderstood.

“I had asked someone to buy the poem book you wanted. It should arrive by mail in 2 days.” Feng Yu changed the topic.

“Ok. Let’s go back for revision. You had skipped 2 weeks of classes last month.”

Feng Yu smiled embarrassedly: “I will not skip classes again. There’s nothing much to do with the company this month. Oh yes, I need your help with my math. I did not understand the math question yesterday. Later this evening, we go out for dinner? There’s a new halal restaurant at Gan Sui street. I heard the food there is good.”

Feng Yu had been busy most of the time and always felt that he does not have enough time. But when he was with Li Na, he felt calm and relaxed. Even when they were not doing anything but just reading side by side, Feng Yu would be in a good mood.

“Fine. Let ask Wen Dongjun and Zhang Han along.”

When Li Na mentioned Wen Dongjun and Zhang Han, Feng Yu became unhappy. He wondered what medicine did Zhang Han ate for her to lose so much weight in such a short time. In this short span of time, she loses a lot of weight. She was about 55 kg now, and Wen Dongjun kept boasting to Feng Yu about how good his taste was, how good Zhang Han treated him, how pretty Zhang Han was, etc. Feng Yu was going crazy from his boasting.

This made Feng Yu to not want Wen Dongjun along when he goes for good food!

That idiot always stuffs himself with food and kept putting food into Zhang Han’s plate, without thinking if she can finish it. He also ignored the fact if Feng Yu gets to eat or not.

But if Zhang Han and Wen Dongjun do not go with them, then Li Na would not go. As such, Feng Yu could only reluctantly agree. However, Feng Yu was thinking of a way to send Wen Dongjun away and not follow him to the Cultural Palace for movies!

Author’s notes: Before 1995, all university graduates were assigned to jobs.

Chapter 138 – Peaceful and Stable life

“Tonight, we are going out for dinner and movies? That’s great. Your sister is on the night shift this week, and Brother Li’s cooking is terrible.” Wen Dongjun got very excited when he heard about food.

Feng Yu sneered: “Humph, I will tell my brother-in-law.”

Terrible? Then how did this idiot still be able to eat so much every meal? Feng Yu really suspect that in Wen Dongjun’s world, there were only 2 types of food. Excellent food and delicious food!

Sure enough, Wen Dongjun transformed into a hungry ghost that evening during dinner and kept stuffing his face with food. Feng Yu really don’t understand. How can one eat like this? And because of his influence, Feng Yu also start eating heartily. However, Li Na and Zhang Han do not eat much. All this while, Li Na had a small appetite, and Zhang Han was watching her diet.

Previously, Zhang Han could eat better than Wen Dongjun and specialized in snacks. But after the winter break, Feng Yu did not see Zhang Han eating snacks again. Her self-control was scary.

During the movies, they were seated in a different place, but there were a lot of people at the cinema that day. Feng Yu wanted to cuddle with Li Na, but he knew that Li Na would not agree.

Leaving the cinema, Feng Yu looked at his watch. It was only 8 plus. He suddenly had an idea and drove towards the riverbank.

“Where are we going?” Li Na asked curiously.

“Today’s weather is good, let’s go to the riverbank to bask in the moonlight. I will send you back to the dormitory later.”

“Enjoy the moon? How can we admire the moon without food?” Wen Dongjun shouted.

Damn, this glutton. We had just finished dinner, and he was thinking of food again!

“No. There’s no food!” Feng Yu barked.

“You do not have food, but I have. I still have melon seeds. Do you want?” Like a magician, Wen Dongjun took out a packet of melon seeds from one of his pocket. Feng Yu really want to throw these melon seeds on his face!

“No!”

……

The car was parked on a deserted road next to the riverbank, and the 4 of them alighted from the vehicle. The riverbank now was not as lively as the future years. The riverbank in the future years was crowded even when it was 10 at night.

The Riverside did not have the row of street lights yet, and there were no middle-aged women doing square dancing. A few teenage couples were sitting by the riverside whispering sweet nothings to each other. At an empty space, there was a large boombox and a group of teenagers wearing bellbottoms, doing break dancing.

Feng Yu held Li Na’s hands and walked to a side/ He placed newspapers on the floor and sat on it with Li Na. His right hand naturally held Li Na’s shoulders: “I’m afraid that you are cold.”

Li Na turned and look at Feng Yu but kept quiet. She knew this was a lie, but she did not want to expose him. She leans her head on his shoulders and quietly watch the flowing water.

The water was not very clear, but they could still make out the reflection of the moon. There were no clouds in the sky and was full of stars. The dim lights from the returning fishing boats illuminate Li Na’s pretty face.

“Yesterday, Xiao Yun from my dormitory wrote an excellent poem…….”

“The day before yesterday, Yingying from the next dormitory received a love letter from her class monitor. Her class monitor’s handwriting was horrible……”

“You make a guess what did I saw that afternoon. Butterfly. There are butterflies not. It was this big and very colorful. But it flew away before I could get a closer look……”

Feng Yu sat there quietly, listening to Li Na talks about the anecdotes of her life. These were all trivial things, but Feng Yu doesn’t mind.

Listening to these trivial matters helped Feng Yu to forget about his worries and even made him forget about his goal of making a lot of money. He stretched himself and slowly closed his eyes.

Li Na picked up a short grass and lightly brushes Feng Yu’s face with it. Feng Yu opened his eyes and saw the smile on Li Na’s face. There were hanging willow branches in the background and dim lightings from the fishing boats by the riverside. Once again, Feng Yu felt that he walked into a beautiful painting.

“Look, that’s the weaver star and the cowherd star. You still remember the poem?” Li Na pointed to the stars and looked at Feng Yu eagerly.

“Of course, I remember. Far, far away, the Cowherd, Fair, fair, the Weaving Maid; Nimbly move her slender white fingers, Click-clack goes her weaving-loom.

All day she weaves, yet her web is still not done. And her tears fall like rain. Clear and shallow the Milky Way, they are not far apart! But the stream always brims between.

And, gazing at each other, they cannot speak.”

Feng Yu recited the poem, and with the ambiance, it made the poem more beautiful.

“You are so smart. You can even memorize this poem. Is there really a cowherd and weaver in the sky? The Heavenly Mother is so hard-hearted, allowing them to meet only once a year.” Li Na seems a bit sad.

“If there is really a cowherd and weaver in heavens, then the Heavenly Mother treats her daughter not bad.”

“Why? She only allows them to meet once a year!” Li Na replied angrily. She was annoyed by Feng Yu’s reply.

“Look, if the legends are true, then 1 day in heavens will be equivalent to 1 year on earth. The Cowherd gets to meet the Weaver once a year, but the Weaver gets to meet the Cowherd every day! So, the Heavenly Mother who doesn’t like her son-in-law, still treated her daughter well.”

Li Na was dumbfounded. She had not thought of looking at this legend from this perspective.

She mercilessly pinched Feng Yu hard. This guy was too annoying. Such a moving legend but hearing it from Feng Yu, became so different.

Feng Yu was very helpless, look, it was easy to offend people when telling the truth……

“No, you must tell me another poem, and you are not allowed to interpret it in your nonsensical logic!” After waiting for a while and she noticed Feng Yu was keeping quiet. Li Na asked: “What are you thinking? Don’t tell me you can’t remember any poems?”

“Can’t remember any poems? How can this be possible! I am thinking about those poets in ancient times. What sort of poems would they come up with in this type of ambiance? A genius like me would not lose to them.” Feng Yu bragged.

Li Na laughed: “You a genius? How genius are you? You only know how to memorize poems. Just recite some poems that you memorized for me. But you cannot recite <Maple Bridge Night Mooring>.”

“Actually <Maple Bridge Night Mooring> can even sing like a song but that song is not suitable to sing now. Let me think, it should not be a problem for me to write a poem for you now.”

When Li Na mentioned <Maple Bridge Night Mooring>, the first thought that came to Feng Yu’s mind was a song <The sound of the waves still remains>. But that song was not suitable to sing as it was about breaking up and getting back together.

There was a lot of internet poems in the future years which Li Na had never heard before. Some of these poems will stick in the readers’ mind. Feng Yu just need to mix and match these poems together to “compose” a new poem that fits the atmosphere now.

“Sunrise sunset, flowers bloom flowers wilted; Spring breeze moving willows, shallow years; Changing of tides, same as before; Zither and harp in hand, peaceful and stable life forever.”

Li Na looked lovingly at Feng Yu. This poem had touched her deeply.

Feng Yu looked at Li Na and casually said another verse from an internet poem: “Beautiful eyes and brows, refine looks, talented and unforgettable.”

Li Na fell into a dazed and thought Feng Yu was so talented. Feng Yu looked at Li Na’s alluring lips and leaned forward slowly……

Suddenly a loud and irritating voice sounded beside them: “What are you two doing?”

Inside Feng Yu’s heart, he was roaring angrily. Wen Dongjun, you this idiot. You think it was easy to create this perfect mood? I had almost succeeded. I am going to kill you!

Translator notes: This chapter is too hard. The poems are so hard to understand. I tried my best to translate it. Do let me know if I mistranslate the poems.

Chapter 139 – Bladeless fans

Feng Yu shook his head when he looked at the sales figure for the Wind and Rain electric fans. As expected, the orders for his fans were getting lesser. Even if he lowered the price, he would not get back his market share.

Feng Yu had thought of continuing to advertise. The advertisements that were aired on CCTV would still help, but the market was still full of imitations. Even if the commercials were effective and the consumers bought the wind and Rain fans, it might be imitations.

Things that were easily manufactured were not good. The market changes were too fast. Furthermore, some established brands of fans manufacturers also start producing plastic fans. These brands were very popular in their provinces and Wind and Rain fans would not sell well in those provinces.

Although Wind and Rain fans were still making profits, the speed was too slow for Feng Yu. Last year, Feng Yu earned a few million in 2 to 3 months and this year, he made only a few hundred thousand in 2 to 3 months. The difference was too big.

Luckily Feng Yu had thought of a solution, which was to introduce a new type of electric fans. Bladeless fans.

He could apply for a patent for these fans and the technology required was considered high. Not to mention the small factories, even the bigger factories could not imitate this technology. Just happen the Aviation Factory had this air compressing technology, and Feng Yu wants them to minimize it, to create a miniature version of the air compressing equipment!

……

“Manager Feng, why did you call the both of us here? Is there any problems with the humidifiers?” Hou Haitao asked worryingly.

Now, the humidifier was like a cash cow to them. Basically, Tai Hua Trading could sell every humidifier produced by the Motor Factory.

The domestic sales figures were increasing, and the overseas demand had already outweighed the supply. The Aviation Factory and Motor Factory were even praised by their higher-ups for their performance. Hou Haitao paid particular attention to this humidifier project. If this continued for the next 10 years, no, even if it continued for the next 5 years, the Aviation Factory can earn a lot!

“Director Hou, Director Li, there’s no problem with the humidifier sales. There’s still lots of demand for it. However, the Motor Factory does not need to set up another production line to increase the production. There would be an oversupply, and it would be a waste of resources. Remaining status quo would be enough. Anyway, we have the patent, and we will still control the market. I asked the both of you here is to talk about another thing. I thought of a new idea yesterday.”

When Hou Haitao and Li Shiyou heard what Feng Yu said, they looked at each other excitedly. Feng Yu’s idea last time was the ultrasonic humidifier and brought lots of profits to their factories. Even if the concept this time was half as good as the humidifier, or even 30%, they would be delighted.

“Manager Feng wants to work with us again? We are to oversee the R&D and the Motor Factory to oversee the production?” Hou Haitao asked.

Li Shiyou was a bit unhappy: “Why can’t we be doing the R&D and your factory do the production?”

The Motor Factory also had lots of experts. R&D was much better than production. Production was too tiring as they need to modify the production lines. Why does doing R&D still gets to enjoy the profits for so many years?

“It was like this the previous time, isn’t it?” Hou Haitao wanted to do the R&D. The last time, his factory had only used a short period of time to develop the humidifier, and the Motor Factory needs to do the production for the next 10 years.

Feng Yu immediately waved his hands to stop both directors from fighting.

“Directors, please let me finish what I have to say. I heard that the Aviation Factory have an air compressing technology? Which is the turbocharging technology?”

Hou Haitao immediately had a proud look on his face, and he looked at Li Shiyou. Heard that? Our factory had this technology, what about your factory? Do you have it?

“Of course. We had this technology the year before. It is used to modify the aircraft engines, increase the efficiency and lower the fuel consumption. Why this time you need to use this technology?” Hou Haitao was puzzled. What could they do with this technology?

“Do you have jet technology?”

“Jet technology? Humph, we are an Aviation Factory, and we build aircraft. What do you think?” Hou Haitao replied proudly and at the same time he gave Li Shiyou a smug look.

Li Shiyou was fuming, but the Motor Factory did not have these 2 technologies, and he could not compete with the Aviation Factory. He consoled himself by telling himself that each factory has its own specialization. The Motor Factory was superior in motor and electric generators!

But both the directors still did not understand what they were going to do with these 2 technologies. To develop a new type of jet engine? This was something the Aviation Factory had been doing.

Li Shiyou asked: “Manager Feng, what are you making with these 2 technologies?”

Feng Yu looked at the both of them and said smilingly: “We are making a new type of electric fan!”

What? Electric fans?

Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao leaned back into the sofa like a deflated balloon. Electric fans using air compressing technology? Electric fans utilizing the jet technology? Who can withstand a jet engine blowing air at them?

Furthermore, electric fans were not something new. How can it be compared to the humidifier?

Feng Yu saw the lack of interest in the both of them and said: “If this fan is developed, it will revolutionize the electric fan industry and there will be many related products that can be produced with this technology. I guarantee that the profits will not be lesser than the humidifiers!”

Hou Haitao laughed: “Stop joking. Xiao Feng, I know that last year you and the Motor Factory produced a plastic electric fan and my factory also bought a lot of those fans. You want to revive your electric fans business, but what has it got to do with the technologies?”

Feng Yu smiled confidently: “I will talk about the new product we are going to develop next. Bladeless fans. It is the same as the name. This fan will have no blades. Because it has no blades, there will not be dust on the covers, and it will be easy to clean, and you won’t injure your fingers. Even if children touch the fans, they will not suffer any injuries. This fan will be safer than any fans in the market.

We will use the motor to suck in air into the fan’s base and compress it using the turbocharging technology and then release it using the jet technology. The exterior will be using a 16 degrees annular fan head to blow out the cool air in a circular motion, and there would be no pauses in between the airflow. The airflow would also be smoother, and if we are able to develop it well, it will consume lesser electricity than regular fans……”

Feng Yu was explaining his idea and using a plastic basin to demonstrate, letting both the directors understand what was he talking about.

Li shiyou did not really understand, but Hou Haitao was frowning and deep in thoughts. He imagined what Feng Yu said in his head. It seems workable and could indeed produce constant wind using the 2 technologies. But the cost of this fans will not be low. The value would amount to at least 100 RMB or even higher. How much will they be selling?

Never mind. Anyway, Feng Yu will be paying for the R&D and the sales of the finished products. The Aviation Factory will only be in charge of the R&D, and the rest is not of their concern. After developing the product, they will just wait to split the profits and even if there were no profits, they will also not suffer many losses.

Regardless of what the Motor Factory thinks, the Aviation Factory will be part of this project!

Chapter 140 – An Invitation Letter

Hou Haitao agreed, but Li Shiyou still had some reservations. He would be doing the manufacturing, and if the product weren’t sold, his factory would be suffering losses. Although the investor Feng Yu would also suffer losses, Feng Yu had the money to lose. Feng Yu had already earned so much from the humidifiers.

Li Shiyou hesitated, and this made Feng Yu happy. Feng Yu acted like he had made a big decision: “Director Li, I know what you are worrying. How about this, I will pay for the modification of your production line and this time, we will contract your factory to manufacture the fans for us. I will pay you 30 RMB for every unit produced. This way, you will not have any more worries.”

Li Shiyou heard Feng Yu, and this troubled him even more. Every time Feng Yu contracted his factory to manufacture something, Feng Yu would earn a lot from it. However, those products previously were either low cost or something that was new to the market. He could not see any potential in this bladeless fan.

It was just like that Tai Hua brand refrigerators where the last batch of fridges was only sold last week. But Li Shiyou does not know the profit margin and how much Feng Yu earned. He thought hard about this and noticed that Feng Yu does not succeed all the time. It should be safer for him to be conservative and choose to be a contractor.

Li Shiyou chose to be a contractor, and Feng Yu smilingly turned to Hou Haitao: “Director Hou, this bladeless fan project has a big risk, and as an investor, I might not get back my investments. Since Director Li chose to be a contractor to earn stable contractor fees, then I will be taking on all the risks. So, this time, the Aviation should not enjoy proportional dividends, but instead, fixed dividends. This means that every unit of bladeless fan sold, I will pay your factory 10 RMB. I will still be funding the R&D costs, and the patent will belong to me. Do you agree?”

In Feng Yu’s heart, he was shouting, please say yes, agree!

When the bladeless fans were launched in his previous life, it was priced at 500 USD, and the production cost was only about 20 USD. The profits were huge!

Although, someone leaked the production cost and the selling price fell from 500 USD to around 100 USD and finally, the selling price dropped to 30 USD.  But during the initial stage, the company had made tens of millions of USD profits. The company made a total of a few hundred million USD when the demand rose.

As for R&D costs, the total was only a few million USD. It was mainly used to test the tilt angle of the fan head and the helix angle inside.

Feng Yu does not know about the helix angle, but he remembered the tilt angle to be 16 degrees apparently. He had a bet with one of his drinking buddies on the angle, and they had checked Baidu to get this answer.

Additionally, the Aviation Factory already had the technologies required to develop the bladeless fan, but it was current too big and needed to be minimized and reduced the efficiency. This was supposed to be a fan and not some jet engines for military purpose. There’s no need for it to be so powerful.

Hearing what Feng Yu said, Hou Haitao was unhappy: “Manager Feng, how can you say this? We had cooperated well the last time, and you had experienced our factory’s R&D capabilities. We developed the previous product in such a short period of time and why this time we have to change to fixed dividends?”

Feng Yu retorted: “Then why not I hire the Aviation Factory to develop this technology? I will pay you 1 million? Not enough? 2 million? You name me a price. You do not want to take on the risk, yet you want to get a share of the profits? Based on what? Although your factory has these technologies, but do not forget that in Bing City, there is still the Technical University and the Maritime University. They do have this technology as well!”

They had earned money the first time, and Feng Yu does not mind if both the factories want to cooperate with him again. But now, the problem was the prospect of this bladeless fan was still unsure and they do not want to take on the risk and even want to get money out of it. Why should Feng Yu agree to it?

“Then 10 RMB for a unit is too low. The Motor Factory is still getting 30 RMB!”

“Why not you provide the production facilities and the workers to do the production. I can also give you 30 RMB.” You do not want to do anything yet you want a more significant share? Beggars should not be choosy.

If it weren’t for the technologies the Aviation Factory owns, Feng Yu would have ditched them a long time ago.

Li Shiyou also said unhappily: “Director Hou, 10 RMB is not a small amount. My workers got to work hard, and we still need to provide the production line, machines wear and tear, and still does not include the workers’ salaries. All these for only 30 RMB.”

“15 RMB. I will make sure that the product will be developed in the shortest time possible. 15 RMB is not high. If you sell 10,000 units, I will only get 150,000 RMB. My factory still needs to assign many engineers and experts to develop this product. This would also affect our military orders. We were also paying a heavy price for it.”

Feng Yu despised Hou Haitao. Expert engineers? He speaks as if Feng Yu was not paying for R&D. The previous time, Feng Yu had already noticed the salaries of the engineers reported in the R&D cost, were 6 times more than the rest of the engineers in the factory! However, Feng Yu did not ask him where did this money go to.

“15 RMB? How about 12? The cost of the plastic materials from the plastic factory is also very high. You all think that the fan I wanted is so easily manufactured? My cost is also very high. I cannot forecast the sales and what if this project fails? How much will be my losses?”

In the end, they settled for 13 RMB. Feng Yu was jumping with joy in his heart. Although these bladeless fans will not have a significant market in China, it will be very popular in Europe and the US. There was a few hundred million populations in Europe and the US. Feng Yu estimated that there at least 1 million units will be sold. Based on 100 USD retail price per unit, and 50% profits, he would also get about 50 million USD profits.

Using 1 million USD to gamble for 50 million USD profits. Who would refuse it?

Furthermore, this technology for the bladeless fan would be used for a more popular and practical product that had taken the world by storm – the hand-dryer! The profit for this would be at least over 100 million USD!

After signing the contract with the Aviation Factory and the Motor Factory, Feng Yu transferred 500,000 RMB R&D funds to the Aviation Factory. He told Hou Haitao that if the Aviation Factory could develop the fan before the end of the year, he would still give him a bonus of not lesser than 200,000 RMB!

After finishing his business, Feng Yu returned to school. His exams were approaching, and he does not want to do poorly for the exams.

At the same time, Bing City’s Third High School received an invitation letter from the Soviet Union. The letter was signed off by one of the world’s top university Lomonosov Moscow State University. This comprehensive university was ranked tenth in the world. Even if it was for student exchange, it should be sending the invitation to the Universities, like Bing City’s Industrial University or some other top universities in China. Why did it send the invitation to a high school in Bing City?

Author’s notes: The hand dryer was developed by the Japanese in 1993, and the first model was as big as a water dispenser. Inside, there’s a ring, similar to the bladeless fan and the idea for the bladeless fans came from the hand dryer.

Air condition was invented long time ago, but it was not popular in Europe and the US. It was troublesome to install, bulky, expensive, noisy and uses too much electricity. That’s why electric fans were still the most popular product for cooling the room temperature.

Chapter 141 – International Summer Camp

The Soviet Union had four internationally renowned universities, namely, Moscow University, Leningrad University, Kiev University (Ukraine) and Belarusian University (Belarus).

This top university sending an invitation to Bing City’s Third High School? Could it be they wanted to recruit the 2 top students who had achieved good results in the International Olympic Mathematics competition last year? But those 2 students were already year 3 students and had been recruited by Huaqing University.

The Principal opened the envelope, and there was the letter written in both Russian and Chinese. The Principal was surprised that out of the students invited, he had only heard of one and there were even a few empty spots.

The Principal massaged his temples and looked at the Vice Principal: “Old Sun, is this Feng Yu from year 1, the brother-in-law of that Mr. Li who donated the sports complex for the school?”

Vice Principal Sun nodded: “That’s right. There are 2 students by the name of Feng Yu in the school. One is a girl in year 3, and the other is in year 1.”

“Look at this invitation letter. What is the meaning of this?”

Vice Principal Sun took the letter from the principal and look at it carefully. <Invitation of Bing City’s Third High school to participate in the International High School Camp organized by the Moscow University>. The title of the letter was very long but was very clear. Usually, summer camps organized by universities would only invite year 2 students and the students invited were typically outstanding students who had won international awards. Universities attract these students to the summer camps in a bid to recruit them.

If this Moscow University wants to recruit students, they should invite the Year 2 students. Feng Yu was still in Year 1 and why was this invitation limited to Year 1 students only? This was too weird!

Could it be that these Soviets wanted to flaunt their education system and that’s why they invite Third High School? Then they made a mistake. China’s high school had high standards and could even be ranked high internationally. Bing City’s Third High School was one of the best in China and had a triple-A rating. Even a Year 1 student would not lose to anyone.

But the students invited by the university were Feng Yu and his friends. These 4 students were the students Mr. Li told them to take special care of. Could there be some sort of connection?

Vice Principal Sun looked at the name list, and the first name on the list was Feng Yu, followed by Li Na, Wen Dongjun and Liu Kun. The remaining 6 spots were blanks, and there were 5 spots for teachers to accompany along.

Vice Principal Sun could immediately tell that this must be the work of Li Shiqiang. He decided to call Feng Yu over to ask him about this. If there were no problems, he wanted to lead this team to the camp. This was a great honor. If he could be the leader of this team and the team gotten good results from this camper, he could be the next-in-line after the Principal retires in 2 years’ time.

“Principal, let me handle this. This is a good thing. If possible, I want to be the person-in-charge of this team for the Summer Camp.”

The Principal looked at Vice Principal Sun: “Teacher Xiaofang is not bad. She should be one of the participants.”

Vice Principal Sun nodded: “I feel that she is suitable as well. How would we decide on the remaining places?” Teacher Xiaofang was the Principal’s niece, and he knew about this.

“Hmm, let the education ministry decide on the remaining places. I will contact them. You go and contact the students and pick the good students from the year 1.” The Principal wanted this credit. This invitation happened when he was the Principal, and he might even get promoted to the Education Ministry before he retires. If this happens, his retirement welfare would be significantly increased.

The form teacher was teaching Feng Yu and the rest of the students on the crucial points to take note of the exams in class.

Suddenly, there was knocking on the door. He hates being interrupted in the midst of his teachings, especially from the students’ parents. He opened the door and wanted to lecture the person who had interrupted his lessons. But his angry look changed when he saw the person.

“Vice Principal Sun, why are you here? Are you going to sit-in for my lesson?”

Vice Principal Sun waved his hands: “I am looking for your student Feng Yu. Call him out.”

Feng Yu again. He was really related to the Vice Principal.

Feng Yu was called out of the classroom, and he knew what happened when he saw the Vice Principal. It must be about the invitation letter. Brother Ki was so reliable.

Feng Yu kept telling his family that he would be admitted to one of the best two Beijing Universities. Beijing University, many of the nation’s top scholars studied in this university. The other was Huaqing University, where many future China Leaders studied at. Of course, there were also many China’s future billionaires who studied in these 2 universities.

Feng Yu wanted to enter these 2 universities because he wanted to fulfill his parents’ dream and to fulfill his own dreams. His parents only wanted him to be a university grad from a reputable university, whereas, Feng Yu wanted to enter these 2 universities to recruit the ones who looked familiar! Even if these people do not want to work for him, he could also invest in these people’s dreams. The end results would also be him earning lots of money.

But how would he enter these universities? Feng Yu thought of an idea which was to let these 2 universities look for him and “recruit” or reserve a place for him.

“Recruitment” of students had been criticized, but Universities would still specially recruit high school students they like. These students were guaranteed a place in the university if they fulfill the conditions imposed on them.

Guaranteed places in universities were generally reserved for top students who had gotten awards in national competitions or excellent results in school. Recruitment was usually used for students who had exceptional performance in specific areas like getting an award in an international competition.

What sort of good performance could Feng Yu get in school? Other than his brother-in-law donating money to rebuild the basketball court, there was nothing else. His reputation among the students was also terrible!

So, Feng Yu thought of a way to create credentials for himself, which was to participate in an international summer camp and was still specially invited by the organizing university. Coupled with his brother-in-law’s help in networking during his year 3, the 4 of them should be getting guaranteed spots in the university they wanted. Maybe this was only for the 3 of them. The top student, Liu Kun should be able to get into any university he wants with his results.

If this still doesn’t work, Feng Yu could also look for University Professors and sponsor their research, for them to “recruit” them to the universities. Feng Yu believed that there will be professors that were willing to do this.

Vice Principal Sun chatted with Feng Yu for a while and knew that this was arranged by his brother-in-law. This was great! Next year, their school would be more famous and the name of the person-in-charge of the team to participate in this camp would also be published in articles nationwide. This was an invitation by the Moscow University!

Feng Yu asked Vice Principal Sun to add Zhang Han’s name. When Feng Yu requested Kirilenko to make this arrangement, Wen Dongjun and Zhang Han were not together yet. Vice Principal Sun looked at Feng Yu, and even if Feng Yu did not make this request, he would also add Zhang Han’s name. Even the Principal would also do that.

Vice Principal Sun needs to think carefully about the remaining 5 places. He needs to reserve one spot for the Principal, 2 for himself, and the remaining 2 spots for the secretary and the deputy secretary. This was to please the secretary and gain their support when he was to be promoted to Principal.

Vice Principal Sun was still smiling when he returned to his office. He had made the right choice when he met Li Shiqiang and recruit Feng Yu to the school!

Author’s notes: The Moscow University was ranked between 8th and 12th, and Leningrad University was ranked 28th. Kiev University used to be highly rated, but its ranking dropped. Rumors said that most of the Professors were poached by Moscow University. The highest ranking for Belarusian University was the 9th place.

Chapter 142 – Fighting for the places

“Today’s meeting is to announce good news. Our school had just received an invitation from the Moscow University, inviting our school’s students to attend a one-month Summer camp.” The Principal announced loudly.

“What? Principal, did I hear it correctly? Moscow University?” The school’s secretary asked, emphasizing the word University.

“That’s right. Moscow University!”

“How many places are there? They are inviting those two years 3 students?” The secretary’s thinking was the same as the Principal. The Moscow University must be targeting that two math genius.

“No, they are inviting year 1 students. There’s a total of 10 places for students and 5 for accompanying teachers. The University will be providing food and lodging. There’s another good news, Mr. Li, the one who donated the new basketball court, will be sponsoring the air tickets.”

This was what Feng Yu told the Vice Principal. He was the one who was sponsoring the air tickets, but he uses his brother-in-law’s name.

“First-year students? What’s the meaning of this? But never mind since this is a good thing for our school’s reputation!” The Deputy Secretary shouted.

Everyone said some unnecessary pleasantries, and it was the secretary who asked: “Principal, how are we going to allocate the places? Are we going to discuss it?”

The Principal did not say anything but exchange glances with the Vice Principal Sun. Vice Principal Sun immediately knew what to do and cleared his throat: “The other party wanted to let the students experience what it is like to be in a world-renowned university. I had studied in the Soviet Union before and is good in Russian. So, I will be leading the team. Teacher Su Xiuhua from the second year had performed well, and she should be attending as well. The Education Ministry will arrange for the remaining teachers.”

The Secretary and Deputy Secretary were still waiting for the Vice Principal to tell them that the school will be giving them the remaining teachers places, but instead, it was the Education Ministry who will decide. This made them very angry.

But there’s nothing they could do. Although they had connections, but they can’t go against the Ministry. This must be the work of the Principal. They believed that the Principal will still give them some compensations with regards to the student places. The Principal should be giving them at least 3 student places each.

Seeing the Secretary and the rest did not say anything, Vice Principal Sun continued: “We had confirmed 8 students who will be attending this camp. The 8 students are Feng Yu, Wen Dongjun…… Zhang Han……”

“Wait, Vice Principal Sun, who confirmed these 8 students? Why are they chosen? Based on their results or teachers’ recommendations? Or you are the one who makes the decision?” The Secretary interrupted the Vice Principal. He was pissed. He had only heard of Zhang Han out of the 7 names read out. Who had nominated the rest of the students?

The Deputy Secretary and said: “Vice Principal Sun, shouldn’t the student places be discussed with the teaching division first before confirming? I did not come across anyone who came to my division to ask about the students’ performance.” The Deputy Secretary oversees the teaching division which had a lot of authority in the school.

The Vice Principal looked at the Principal who was looking down at his teacup as if it was the eighth wonder of the world.

Vice Principal Sun knew that the Principal wanted him to take the heat. Who asked him to nominate 2 of the students.

“Secretary Zhao, Deputy Secretary Liu, we did not confirm these students. The Moscow University had specifically asked for 4 students who are Feng Yu, Li Na, Wen Dongjun and Liu Kun. Everyone here should know who Zhang Han’s father is, so I don’t need to say much.”

“The other party asked for 4 people? Where’s the invitation letter? Let me see.” The Secretary looked at Vice Principal Sun angrily. He wants to know what’s so special about these 4 students.

Vice Principal Sun passed the invitation letter to him. The whole summer camp was arranged by Li Shiqiang. If the secretary dares to change any of the 4 students stated in the invitation letter, most likely this camp will be canceled.

The Vice Principal can’t wait for the Secretary and Deputy Secretary to oppose these 4 students from attending and offend Li Shiqiang. This way, he could get the remaining 2 student places. He was the one who was closest to Li Shiqiang, and that’s the reason he dares to nominate 2 students, 1 more than the Principal.

Deputy Secretary went out for a while and returned with a result slip. Liu Kun, the top student in the mid-semester and year-end exams, had the qualifications to attend this camp.

Li Na’s results were also not bad. She was improving consistently and was in the first-year top 20. She can be considered one of the better female students. However, Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun were only average students. They were just slightly above average. Why were they invited?

“Old Sun, I will not say much about the rest, but this Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun must be changed. These 2 students’ results were only average and did not contribute anything to the school. This Feng Yu still talked back to the Discipline officer Li publicly. I still remember that it was Vice Principal Sun who had spoken up for him, right?” The Deputy Secretary looked at Vice Principal Sun with slanted eyes.

Vice Principal Sun calmly said: “This is the invitation and it specifically states that they are inviting these students. How can we change them? What’s the reason for changing them?”

“Because they are not good students! If we let them go, it will be a disgrace to our school! I had heard rumors that Feng Yu’s family background was also not reputable. I think that these 2 students are not qualified to attend this summer camp! They must be changed!” Deputy Secretary shouted firmly.

The accompanying teachers’ spots were already arranged by you all, and you still want to take all the students places? Then what about Secretary Zhao and me? We are also the leaders in this school!

“Deputy Secretary Liu, please watch your words. We are all teachers and should let our judgment be affected by rumors. Times have changed!” Vice Principal Sun said. In his heart, he wished that the deputy secretary would bang the table and insist on his way. It would be better if he were able to drag Secretary Zhao along to change Feng Yu. This way, the Principal and Vice Principal will get the remaining 2 student places.

Bang~~~

“Old Sun, what are you saying? These 2 students must be changed!” Before the Deputy Secretary replied, the Secretary banged hard on the table. He was also from the previous generations.

The Principal was still looking at his teacup. Since Vice Principal wanted to be the leader of the team and even wanted the student places, then he should be the one to face the music.

Vice Principal Sun retorted: “Secretary Zhao, are you going to be responsible if anything goes wrong by changing the students specifically invited by Moscow University?”

The Secretary was now in an awkward position, but he must retort. This was a considerable achievement. The Principal might be transferred out at the end of the year, and he will be fighting with Vice Principal for the Principal position. How can he let Vice Principal overtake him?

“I will be responsible if anything goes wrong. What’s the problem? This is the results of those 2 students. I think that they are not qualified!”

At this time, the Principal coughed and said: “This is a meeting. Stop fighting. If the teachers heard us, what would they think? Remember, you all are teachers first and then leaders. You all must set a good example for others! It’s just the places for a summer camp, and you all are fighting over it. Everyone go back and think about it. We will carry on with the meeting tomorrow!”

The Secretary and Deputy Secretary left the room to discuss which student they were going to nominate. They want at least 2 student places each. If the Principal did not say anything, they would want 3 spots each!

Chapter 143 – Voluntarily withdraw?

The Secretary and his Deputy sat down to discuss. They really do not have the authority to change the students named in the invitation letter, but that does not mean that they will give up. What if, the students withdraw voluntarily?

So, Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun were summoned to the Secretary’s office. The Secretary had decided to persuade them “nicely” to withdraw voluntarily. He would give them some compensations by stating they were good students on their testimonies.

“What? Secretary, you said that we are invited to the summer camp organized by Moscow University? Is Summer Camp fun?” Wen Dongjun asked excitedly. He did not expect to be so lucky. But why was Feng Yu unhappy? They were going to the Soviet Union for a holiday!

“That’s right, but this time you will be representing our school, Bing City, Longjiang and even China’s High School. So, the school intends to get the best students to attend. Both of your results are……”

Wen Dongjun’s face changed: “Secretary, what do you mean? Didn’t that university invite us? Are there any problems?”

“After considerations, the school had decided to get some students who can represent us to go for this camp. So, I wish the both of you to give up your places.” The Secretary noticed that hinting does not work on them, so he told them directly. Even with the backing of the Vice Principal, these 2 students would not dare to go against his wishes.  He is the Secretary of the school. The no.2 of the school!

“Give up our places? Why should we?” Wen Dongjun was unhappy. This was a chance for him to travel overseas, why should they give up.

“I had told you the reason. I will not explain anymore. Of course, the school will give the both of you some compensations. Both of you will be getting this year’s best students awards.”

Feng Yu looked at the Secretary with a sneer. Vying for the students’ quota and targeting his spot? Without him, the school will not even have a single place!

The Vice Principal Sun knew about this matter clearly, but he did not tell this Secretary. He must be up to no good too.

“Feng Yu, why are you keeping quiet? Tell me your decision. The School can even nominate the both of you for the Provincial Best students awards. Both of you will also get 10 extra marks for Bing City’s university entrance exams.” The Secretary increased the compensation. Of course, nominating and getting the award were two very different things.

“Fine, Secretary. I will tell you my decision.”

When he heard Feng Yu, the Secretary had a bright smile on his face. There were still obedient students in the school. Wen Dongjun looked at Feng Yu in shocked. His impression of Feng Yu had a rebellious trait and would not give up his place easily.

“I decide to refuse!”

Refuse!

The Secretary still thought that Feng Yu was an obedient student, and he even wanted to praise him, but he heard the word refuse from Feng Yu.

Why? How can he refuse! Why he dares to refuse?

Did he really think that he could do anything he wants with the Vice Principal’s backing? The school’s other leaders, including the Vice Principal, were still lower ranked than him!

Bang!

The Secretary banged hard on the desk: “What’s wrong with you two? I am persuading you two nicely here. Let me tell you one thing. I don’t care if the both of you agree or not, this is decided!”

Feng Yu was still sneering and said: “If the both of us are not attending, then no one can attend!”

“What did you say? You dare to threaten me? You are still a student. Demerit points. You must be punished!” The Secretary was furious. A student from his school dared to talk back to him? This was Third High School and not some vocational school. He must teach this brat a lesson!

“Before you punish me, think about how you should avoid punishments. You should be the one who decided made this decision to make us give up our places. Have you ever think about the reasons why Vice Principal did not agree to this?” Feng Yu was smiling and looking at the Secretary straight in his eyes.

The Secretary paused for a moment. Right, even if the Vice Principal takes special care of Feng Yu, because of his brother-in-law, he should also not look after Wen Dongjun. Wen Dongjun’s father was only a Deputy Farm Officer of a small district. His rank was too low to be even considered a government staff in Bing City.

“Do you know that my brother-in-law is sponsoring the transportation for this camp? You think this is the only reason? Didn’t you wonder why our names are on the invitation letter?”

The Secretary’s face changed. Could this Feng Yu have connections to some high ranked leaders? The names on the invitation were not randomly picked? Impossible. The names must be randomly selected. This was the Moscow University. How was it possible for Feng Yu to have connections with them?

“You know why Moscow University wanted students from our school to attend their Summer Camp? You know why they only wanted first-year students? Why are our names on the invitation list? Why am I the first name on the list?” Feng Yu continued.

The Secretary looked at Feng Yu in shocked. Feng Yu really have someone great backing him?

Wen Dongjun looked at Feng Yu like a moron and asked: “Why?” He does not understand why Feng Yu knows about the invitation letter, inviting their school’s first years only and Feng Yu’s name was the first name. Why can’t the first name be his? It must be in alphabetical order. It should be in that order!

Feng Yu pointed to himself and said slowly: “It is because this Summer Camp was organized for me!”

The Secretary jumped up from his chair and shouted disbelieving: “Impossible! This is the Moscow university and not some domestic universities. Even if your family have connections, you could not extend your influences to the Soviet Union!”

Feng Yu shook his head and looked at the Secretary like an idiot: “You do not know that my family is doing business? You do not know that my family’s company traded few million Rubles with the Soviet Union every month?”

The Secretary’s eyes widen: “Your family has business deals worth a few million Rubles with the Soviet Union every month?”

“Then do you know that our trade with the Soviet Union uses the Soviet Army’s trains to transport our goods? Do you know that I am a regular visitor to the City Government and the Foreign Trade office? Do you know how much the car I drive on weekends cost? Not expensive, it’s only somewhere between 500,000 to 600,000 RMB.”

Soviet Army? This Feng Yu’s family had business dealings with the Army? Was it the Provincial Army or the Soviet Union Army?

A regular visitor at the City Government and Foreign Trade Office? Those were units bigger than the Education Ministry!

What? 500,000 to 600,000 RMB car? The secretary had not even seen a 50,000 to 60,000 RMB car!

Feng Yu had shocked the Secretary again and again!

“Since when did you come across a university organizing a summer camp for high school first-year students? Without me, there will not be such camp! Every year, the Moscow University does have a summer camp for high school students, but it was for the students participating in the Math competition. The competition had already started on the date of this summer camp. This Summer Camp was organized specially for me!”

Feng Yu’s every word made the Secretary’s jaw dropped lower and lower. He did not expect that things would turn out this way. Others might not know about this, but the Vice Principal should be aware. Fuck, he had been tricked!

Also, the Deputy Secretary had found some stupid excuse to avoid this meeting with Feng Yu. He wanted to take advantage of this Summer Camp but still wants to hide from the responsibility? The Secretary finally found out that he was the only fool who had to face this alone!

“After saying so much, do you still think we should give up my spot for others?”

The Secretary fell back into his chair and mumbled: “That’s fine. Both of you can go back to class. I do not care about the student quota anymore.”

Chapter 144 – The Teachers who jumped the queue

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun walked with a swag out of the Secretary’s office. Wen Dongjun pulled Feng Yu’s sleeves: “Eh, help Zhang Han get a place too.”

“Yes. There will be 5 of us from our class. You, me, Li Na, Liu Kun and Zhang Han. The school will allocate the remaining places. With this experience and if we maintain our current grades, we can enter even the best universities in Beijing!” Feng Yu said with his head held high. He was waiting for Wen Dongjun to say something grateful to him.

However, he turned around and noticed that the idiot was not there anymore. Wen Dongjun had run off to tell Zhang Han the excellent news.

Damn. Some people are willing to shed blood for his friends, but this Wen Dongjun is one who shed his friends’ blood!

The fight for the Summer Camp student quota came to an end. But in the City, leaders of the Education Committee and the Education Ministry were banging tables over the teacher’s quota and the position of the team leader!

The Principal had reported this invitation to the Education Ministry, and everyone there got excited over this news. They were discussing which teachers to send for this camp. This was an excellent opportunity for the teachers to gain credentials and to be promoted.

But this news was leaked to the Education Committee, and the head of the committee went straight to the Education Ministry to bang tables, demanding the quota. He wanted at least 2 places, if not he would stop them from going to this camp!

Both sides wanted these precious spots, and they went to their respective higher-ups, which were the City Government and the City Committee. When the City’s No. 1 and No. 2 heard this news, both of them wondered why did the Moscow University invite Bing City’s Third High School? Should it be more logical for the Moscow University to invite the Technical University?

The Principal went to the City Government office to explain to the leaders there. He did not mention that this invitation was because of Feng Yu but instead, he claimed that this was due to his and Vice Principal Sun’s credit. He said that it was because Vice Principal Sun had studied in the Soviet Union before and he made used his connections to get this invitation.

Although the leaders do not believe him, they could not think of other reasons. The only person that was deep in thoughts was Zhang Ruiqiang, who was in-charge of the Education, Science, Culture and Health divisions in the City. He felt that this must have something to do with Feng Yu.

If Feng Yu could import cheap and advanced machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union, uses the Soviet Military trains to transport his goods, then it shouldn’t be a problem for him to create a Summer Camp.

Furthermore, why the Third High School was chosen? Why was it only for the first-year students? He casually asked the Principal on the students participating in this camp, and Feng Yu’s name popped up. Now Zhang Ruiqiang can firmly confirm that this was the work of Feng Yu!

Looking at the leaders of the Education Ministry and the Education Committee arguing, Zhang Ruiqiang suddenly had an idea. The Moscow University was very advance in technology. If they could visit their laboratory, then they could copy what Professor Qian and the other professors did when they visited the Military Factory. They could secretly learn those technologies from the Moscow University.

Zhang Ruiqiang told the City’s No. 1 and No. 2, what he was thinking. Both leaders’ eyes brighten up. There’s someone in the City that was so resourceful and had so many connections with the Soviet Union? If this idea could work, then it would be a great accomplishment.

Hmmm… no one should be getting the teachers quota. The City wants to leave the teachers’ quota for the Professors from the Universities. They will transfer the names of the Professors to Third High School, and they would be eligible to be the accompanying teachers for this trip.

The Universities Professors should agree to this if they were able to visit the Moscow University laboratory. However, the universities must not keep that information to themselves. It must be handed over to the City Government!

This matter can be discussed later!

Bang!

The Mayor suddenly banged the table: “Stop arguing. What has this teachers’ quota got to do with the Education Ministry or the Education Committee? Are you all teachers from Third High School? No one from the Education Ministry or the Education Committee is allowed to go!”

The leaders from the Education Ministry and the Education Committee were shocked by what the Mayor said. They only wanted 1 more spot, but now, they can’t even have 1 place. If they had known better, they would have discussed among themselves privately.

At the same time, both of them stared at the Principal. If the Principal had given them 4 teachers quota, they would not be arguing over this.

The Principal was also in an awkward position. How would he know that they would blow up this matter and even bring out the City’s No. 1 and No. 2? If he had known this outcome, he would give them 1 more slot. Forget it. Since both departments cannot send their people, then he can go back and discuss which teacher from his school should go.

The City’s Party Committee Secretary also said: “The person leading the team will still have to be discussed further. There might be a Professor from the Technology University who will be joining Third High School to lead the team. This way, we can showcase our Bing City’s Educational prowess.”

The leaders from the Education Ministry and the Education Committee finally understood what was going on. The City Government wanted all the teachers’ quota! What have the Technology University got to do with Third High School?

……

“Leader, why did you call me here?” Feng Yu sat on the sofa in Zhang Ruiqiang’s office, smiling happily, looking at him. His investment in their relationship was showing some results. He was getting closer to Zhang Ruiqiang.

“I heard the Moscow University had sent an invitation for a Summer Camp to Third High School?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked while raising his brows.

“That’s right. I am the one who is behind this. I want to get some credentials for a place in the University.” Feng Yu did not try to hide this matter from Zhang Ruiqiang.

Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head: “You are really generous to yourself. Because of a reserve place in the University, you even make use of your connections in the Soviet Union! Let me ask you, the Moscow University is one of the top University and is good in technology. Will you all be visiting their laboratory or research facilities during this visit?”

Feng Yu blinked and said: “What’s the use of visiting those places? We are just first years and do not understand those stuff.”

“it’s not for you to understand. It is for the accompanying teachers to understand! You just tell me if this is possible or not. If this is possible, then I will agree to one request from you. As soon as your request is reasonable, I will agree to it now!”

“Teachers? Even if they are teachers, they should not be able to understand.” Feng Yu said. The teachers from Third High School would not be able to understand what was going on in a university’s laboratory and research facilities. Maybe a University lecturer might understand, but they still have to be specialized in the specific field.

“If the teachers are also Professors from Technology University?” Zhang Ruiqiang smiled.

Feng Yu was shocked, and he asked: “Are you trying to get the Technology University’s Professors to impersonate Third High School’s teachers and go to Moscow University to steal information?”

Zhang Ruiqiang said with a straight face: “What are you saying? Is to visit and learn from them! Furthermore, the Professors from Technology University can also hold a position in Third High School. They can be the head of the teaching department or some party members. They are definitely your Third High School’s teachers!”

Many science techniques only required some inspirations, and if the Technology University Professors were able to visit Moscow University’s research facilities, they might get the inspirations needed.

This can also be considered contributing to the nation and Feng Yu could even make a request to Zhang Ruiqiang. As such, Feng Yu would try his best to make it happen.

Hmmm…… what request should he make to the City Government?

Chapter 145 – First time aboard

Feng Yu requested Kirilenko to arrange a tour at the most prominent places, like the Nuclear research center, Mechanics research institute, Astronomy research, etc. in Moscow University. Feng Yu said that he wanted to brag to his friends when he returns.

Even though Kirilenko felt troubled, but he still agrees to Feng Yu’s request. There should not be any problems with some high school students and teachers visiting these places.

Feng Yu passed the message to Zhang Ruiqiang, and Zhang Ruiqiang was excited. He immediately reports to the Mayor and the other leaders. They quickly picked those younger professors that specialized in these fields to take on some teaching roles at Third High School for a year and also to be the accompanying teachers for the summer camp.

The examinations ended, and Feng Yu knew he did well in his exams. He should be getting the same results as his previous exams. Wen Dongjun had worked hard this semester, but this time, there was no third year top student to help him cheat. His results this time will not be as good as the last.

But Feng Yu noticed that there was not a hint of sadness in Wen Dongjun. He was not scared of getting a beating by his father for his poor grades?

Wen Dongjun complacently answered Feng Yu that he was concentrating on his Russian for the Summer Camp and it’s normal for the grades of other subjects to drop. Wasn’t this a good excuse?

Damn, this idiot’s skin was too thick. Feng Yu was full of respect for this trait of Wen Dongjun. Seems like this idiot was really suitable to be in the government service!

Once, Feng Yu asked Wen Dongjun about his dreams. Feng Yu asked him if he wants to pursue the same goal as him which was to retire at age 30 and travel around the world. They could visit Antarctica to look at the Antarctic penguins, the legendary Aurora, or climb the Himalaya Mountains.

But Wen Dongjun looked at Feng Yu seriously and asked: “Antarctica? Penguins? Do they taste good? Will the meat be too fat?”

Later, Feng Yu concludes that in Wen Dongjun’s life, he does not pursue knowledge as that will not make him happy; he does not seek the perfect love story as he already met the one he loved; he does not seek a perfect body as he thinks his body was perfect all this while; the only thing he pursue was food!

From then on, he did not try to help Wen Dongjun plan his future or even give advice on other’s future. If they succeed in life, they would not be thankful to him, and he would be blamed if they failed.

Helping Wen Dongjun to get into a Beijing’s university was the best Feng Yu can do for him. Wen Dongjun got to walk the remaining road himself. If he was in trouble, all he needs to do was to call Feng Yu, and Feng Yu would try his best to help him.

With Feng Yu’s business empire in future, it would be easy for him to help Wen Dongjun get some political achievements for to get promoted.

These few days, Feng Yu was staying at home, planning the factories he was going to visit in the Soviet Union. The factories he was going to visits were all factories on the verge of shutting down. Feng Yu thought which factory’s equipment was suitable for China’s use. It would be better if advanced technology comes along with the machinery.

“you are looking at all those documents every day, aren’t you bored? Don’t you need to prepare for the Soviet Union trip?” Wen Dongjong, who was slouching on the couch, asked.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. This moron says the same thing every day. He had asked his parents for money to buy a few sets of new clothes and even a new basketball. Buying these to prepare for the Soviet Union trip?

“Carry on watching your TV. I don’t want to talk to a lazy bum.”

Who likes to read these boring documents? But these were all money! Every set of “obsoleted” machinery imported from the Soviet Union, will bring high profits and Feng Yu would be a step closer to his dream of retiring at age 30!

Wen Dongjun carried on watching his TV program and suddenly shouted: “Feng Yu, Feng Yu, come over here, quick, come and see this!”

Feng Yu put down the documents and said unhappily: “What’s the matter? You saw a UFO?”

“Come and see this, there’s a bodhisattva in the church!” Wen Dongjun was pointing to the TV, shouting.

What? Bodhisattva in a church? Feng Yu was surprised. How was that possible? Although he was a free thinker, he knew that bodhisattva and church were from different religions. How could someone from the Chinese legends appearing in a western church? Could it be some changes happened due to him changing the history?

Feng Yu looked over to the TV and became speechless: “Fuck, that’s Virgin Mary. Stop talking nonsense!”

Wen Dongjun asked puzzledly: “That’s not Bodhisattva? They do look similar……”

“If you want to look for Zhang Han go ahead. If not, go and play basketball. I am busy making money. My every minute is worth tens of thousands RMB!” Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun helplessly. Why can’t this moron let him work in peace? He was very busy!

Wen Dongjun stood up and said: “Humph, it’s just organizing some documents. Leave it to me. I can finish all these in less than 10 minutes. When I’m done, you will have to play basketball with me!”

5 minutes later, Wen Dongjun threw all the documents on the desk. Everything was in Russian, and it was still full of technical jargons. He totally could not understand!

If he had known earlier, he would have joined the preparation training for the Summer Camp, and not stayed at home with Feng Yu!

Third High School placed great emphasis on this Summer Camp. As these students will be representing the school, Bing City, Longjian province and even the whole China, all students had to attend a preparation training. They still have 1 week to prepare the students for the camp.

As to why the Summer Camp starts so late was to avoid clashing with the Moscow University’s Mathematics Summer Camp. After that camp was over, then they can begin the new Summer camp for Feng Yu.

The reason why Feng Yu does not need to attend the training was that he was good in Russian. He can even be qualified to be a Russian teacher.

Because Wen Dongjun sat beside Feng Yu in class, he too also had an interest in reading Feng Yu’s Russian novels and songs. His Russian was also quite good. So, he also asked to be excused from this training. He only wanted to stay at home and laze around.

He thought by staying at home, he would be able to play with Feng Yu, but Feng Yu was only organizing documents for the past few days. Feng Yu told him that these documents were very important, but he had read some of it, and there was nothing special.

But Wen Dongjun knew that Feng Yu was smarter than him and knew how to do business and make money. That’s the reason why the Feng family could suddenly become so wealthy. But Wen Dongjun does not understand that since Feng Yu was already so wealthy and even bought the farm in the district, why was he still working so hard, trying to earn more money? His assets now should last the Feng family a few lifetimes.

Feng Yu only tell him that he does not know how rich were the rich people overseas. Before he retires, he wants to be the world’s richest man!

……

Time passes quickly. Feng Yu and the rest boarded the plane to Moscow. There were no first-class seats. Feng Yu was very unhappy about this. But Wen Dongjun and the rest of the students could not sit still. They were too excited. Wen Dongjun was staring out of the windows looking at the clouds.

Feng Yu asked for blankets for Li Na and himself. He tried to find a comfortable position to catch a wink. There’s still a few hours before reaching Moscow.

Stepping out of the plane, Feng Yu stretches himself. This is Moscow?

Chapter 146 – Just landed and disappeared

Although Feng Yu had lived 2 lives, this was the first time he went to Moscow. Moscow was not a popular tourist destination, and in his previous life, he had never thought of visiting Moscow.

This time, Feng Yu was not here for leisure too. He had 2 purposes for visiting Moscow. Firstly, he was there to get the credentials for a reserved place in Beijing top university. Secondly, he was there to visit those semi-shutdown factories with Kirilenko. He wanted to repurchase some useful machinery and technologies to China.

“Principal Sun, I am applying for leave. One of my friends is fetching me.”

Principal Sun frowned: “Feng Yu, today is the reporting day for the Summer Camp. You have not even reached the campsite, and you are applying leave? This is not right.”

Feng Yu smiled: “No problem. The organizing committee will not care. Look, my friend is here to pick me.”

2 Land Rovers with Soviet Union military number plates drove into the apron and stopped beside the airplane. Kirilenko alighted from the vehicle, spread his arms and walked towards Feng Yu.

“My dear Feng, long time no see.”

“Brother Ki, it’s been a while.” Feng Yu hurriedly escaped from Kirilenko’s hug. He was too strong and almost suffocated Feng Yu to death with his embrace.

“Hi, you must be the Third High School’s team leader. I am the organizer of this Summer Camp. Now, Feng Yu must follow me to handle some procedures. This is my identification card.’

Principal Sun saw Feng Yu knows this burly Russian and this Russian identified himself as the organizer of the camp. So, he agreed with Feng Yu leaving the team but requested Feng Yu to give him a call if he was not returning at night.

Li Na and the rest knew that Feng Yu would be leaving the team before the trip, but they did not know that he would go the moment they arrived. Although they can’t bear to see Feng Yu leave, they were soon overwhelmed by the excitement of staying in the Moscow University.

In the car, Feng Yu curiously asked: “Brother Ki, how come you are the organizer of this Summer Camp?”

Kirilenko replied, trying his best to hold back his laughter: “You also believe me? I made that up just now. The identification card I showed was just an ordinary pass.”

Feng Yu shook his head and laughed.

Their vehicle arrived at a restaurant. It was a traditional Soviet restaurant. The restaurant served local Soviet delicacies. But Feng Yu was feeling weird. This time, Feng Yu was representing Tai Hua Trading to visit Moscow and Kirilenko’s business partners were not there to receive him? Those Military 2nd generations still look down on him?

Actually, Feng Yu was overthinking things. Those Military 2nd generations did not look down on Feng Yu. In fact, they were impressed by Feng Yu’s financial power the last time they visited Bing City. But Kirilenko was thinking of ways to ditch his business partners and worked with Feng Yu alone. He was earning a lot more and was richer than them. He intends to venture out on his own.

So, Kirilenko deliberately informed his business partners about Feng Yu’s arrival late. All his business partners were Soviets, but they were not from Moscow. The most powerful partner was from Kiev. He can only arrive in Moscow tomorrow. As for the rest of his partners, Kirilenko does not care. He wanted to kick them out one by one.

China’s procurement and sales distribution channels were controlled by Feng Yu, and Feng Yu only contact Kirilenko. This was the reason why Kirilenko wants to venture alone. Furthermore, he was rich now, and with the money he earned, he used it to “take care” of his father’s and brother’s higher-ups and subordinates. Their family had even gained some fame in the Soviet Army. There were still some higher-ups that want to recruit his father. But his father still has not decided which faction to join yet.

Feng Yu tried the traditional Soviet food. He really enjoyed it, especially the roast meat. Feng Yu thought if he should bring Li Na to dine here before they leave.

As for Wen Dongjun? Forget it. That idiot will be shouting that he wants to packet a portion back after his meal!

Feng Yu was satisfied with the meal. But Feng Yu did not expect that he would be drunk from that meal!

Kirilenko had told him that he must drink Vodka in Moscow. Kirilenko does not care if Feng Yu say to him that he does not drink. Do what the Romans do!

The restaurant serves its drinks using a small delicate glass. It looked like the small, slender glasses used in bars in Feng Yu’s previous life. Feng Yu thought he would only need to drink 1 or 2 glasses. But Kirilenko kept bottoms up with him and does not even give Feng Yu a chance to reject him.

Within half an hour, Feng Yu saw double!

Kirilenko asked his men to drive Feng Yu to the hotel he arranged. It was still a double room and this night, Kirilenko was the one that can’t sleep.

Feng Yu did not snore, grind his teeth or speak in his dreams. However, he kept asking for water, wanting to go to the toilet. The worst part was Feng Yu said all those in Chinese, which Kirilenko did not understand.

The most frustrating part was Feng Yu woke up refreshed, and Kirilenko had dark circles around his eyes. Kirilenko kept yawning. He did not get much sleep the night before!

After breakfast, Feng Yu and Kirilenko went to visit the factories they targeted. These few factories were specially selected by Feng Yu. They had the latest machinery and advanced technologies. Most importantly, there were lots of experts who were poor!

What’s the use of experts when the equipment and technologies were sold to China? Feng Yu had a principle of not wasting any resources. By giving these half unemployed experts a well-paying job in China, he was also seen as a great Samaritan!

……

Everything was going smoothly on Feng Yu’s side, but this was not the case for Vice Principal Sun. Principal Sun was in big trouble!

Yesterday when they arrived at Moscow University, the organizer checked their documents and noticed that one student was missing. Vice Principal Sun told him that an organizer took the student away to settle some procedures.

The organizers were confused. Someone from their side brought the student away? Where did that “organizer” come from?

That night, Feng Yu did not return to Moscow University and did not call them. Vice Principal Sun was not worried as Feng Yu and that Russian seems to be good friends. However, the organizing committee did not think so. They kept asking Vice Principal to contact the missing student and tried to find out from him, where did the student go to.

Vice Principal Sun explained numerous time, and finally, the people from the organizing committee left. But when the Summer Camp started the next day and the students were meeting students from other countries and getting to know each other, Feng Yu still had not returned.

The people from the organizing committee came to look for Vice Principal Sun again. They wanted him to contact Feng Yu. It’s not that the student cannot take leave from the camp but the student must apply for the leave in person and cannot get someone to apply for leave on behalf.

If it wasn’t for the records at the airport proving that Feng Yu had indeed arrived at Moscow, the organizers still thought that Third High School did not send this student. This missing student was still the specifically invited student listed in the invitation letter. This must be an important student and how can he be uncontactable?

Vice Principal Sun was sweating buckets. He was cursing and swearing at Feng Yu in his heart. He had instructed Feng Yu to call him at night yesterday if he was not returning. Feng Yu should also leave some contact number before he left. Now the organizing committee kept going to him to look for Feng Yu. What should he do? If the leaders of other overseas student teams know about this, it would be a national disgrace.

The thing that almost made Vice Principal Sun fainted finally appeared. The people from the organizing committee reported this matter to their higher-ups, and they wanted to report to the police with regards to this missing student. They decided to report to police because this student was missing the moment he touched down at the airport. They were worried for his safety.

Vice Principal Sun was worried. If the university reported to the police, then he, being the leader, would not get promoted but instead, he would be questioned and reprimanded!

At the same time, Feng Yu was still happily visiting a factory, admiring the advanced machinery and technologies in there. It’s true that the Soviet Union in that era was one of the most advanced countries in the world. The most importantly, this factory was in a semi-shutdown state, and the factory director was already bought over by Kirilenko!

When Feng Yu was talking to the Factory Director, he felt that he had forgotten something, but he could not recall what it was. Since he can’t remember what it was, never mind. It’s more important to negotiate with the Factory Director with regards to the sales of the factory’s equipment and technologies.

Chapter 147 – Famous

When Feng Yu finished talking with the Factory Director, it was already afternoon. Feng Yu suddenly remembered that today was the start of the Summer Camp and he had yet to report and did not call Principal Sun.

Feng Yu immediately looked for a phone to call the Moscow University hostel. However, someone from the hostel answered and told Feng Yu that everyone was outside and not at the hostel. There was no way to contact them.

Feng Yu was thunderstruck. He only knows the hostel’s telephone number and does not know about the Camp’s itinerary or any other contact numbers.

Damn, why there were no mobile phones yet.

“Feng, what’s wrong? You looked like you are unhappy. The Mozgov Factory Director had already agreed to sell us that set of production line machinery to manufacture refrigerators. You think that it is too expensive?” Kirilenko was feeling puzzled. The price was already a bargain, and Feng Yu was a good negotiator, even better than him. If it were him doing the negotiation, the cost would not be so low.

“No, no, no. I am delighted with this deal. I will not forget the 30% commission I promised you. But I came to Moscow was to attend the Summer Camp and yesterday I was drunk and did not return to the university’s hostel. I also did not call my vice principal to inform him. I might be in trouble.”

This trip, Feng Yu wanted to do the negotiations himself, but he would still pay Kirilenko 30% commission. Feng Yu had calculated. The equipment Kirilenko sold to him should be marked up between 40 to 50%. Giving 30% commission to Kirilenko would still be cheaper.

The things Feng Yu wanted to buy during this trip was a lot, and Feng Yu also told Kirilenko that he will be making more follow up purchases after this trip. As such, Kirilenko happily agreed to the 30% commission.

Kirilenko still wanted to bring Feng Yu to the next factory. He wanted to bring Feng Yu to all the factories near to Moscow within these few days. He too, forgot that Feng Yu was in Moscow to attend the Moscow University Summer Camp and it was an international camp.

“Feng, don’t worry. I will find out for you where is the campsite and send you over. Then we will meet at night in future?”

“Ok. It’s fine to negotiate with the factories at night too. But I will not be drinking!” Feng Yu said worryingly. Stop saying that drinking is the Soviet Union’s tradition. I am here buying your machines, and you must bottom ups a glass of vodka with me twice?

Kirilenko was very efficient. With a few phone calls, he got the reporting point of the Summer camp. The first day was an ice-breaking session among the students. So, they were going for a hike in the countryside.

When Feng Yu rushed to the campsite, there were already tents set up. There was also smoke from fires, and the students were cooking their lunches.

Vice Principal Sun saw a familiar vehicle driving toward them from afar. He immediately ran towards it and saw Feng Yu alighting from the car.

Oh my god, you are finally back. But the organizing committee had already reported to the police. Their school will be “famous” internationally!

“Feng Yu, who did you go? I asked you to call me, why didn’t you call?”

When they met, Feng Yu was faced with a barraged of questions from Vice Principal Sun. Feng Yu laughed embarrassedly: “Principal Sun, I got drunk yesterday, and I forgot.”

“You still went drinking? Did you forget the rules told to you before the trip? All students are not allowed to drink! The organizing committee had already reported to the Police about you missing. What are you going to do?”

What? Missing? Feng Yu also felt that this matter had been blown up. If this matter were to spread back China, he would be blacklisted by the Universities and even get recorded in his school’s testimony: No discipline, no teamwork, can’t follow instructions and brought disgrace to the nation!

Feng Yu immediately pulled Kirilenko over. This was all his fault for making him drink last night. He must settle this. Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu and thought that this was making a mountain out of a molehill. Feng Yu was only late for half a day and what’s the big problem? He can just settle it quickly.

Kirilenko looked for the people from the organizing committee and spoke to them for about 5 minutes and told Feng Yu that the problem was settled. He will be coming back at night to pick Feng Yu up.

The teams from other countries looked curiously towards the direction of Third High School. Why were there so many people crowding around? There were even people from the organizing committee, and it seems that there were arguing about something. Could it be Third High School got into some sort of trouble?

Actually, the other teams had already noticed that something was wrong with Third High School’s team. Every team that was participating in this camp were made up of 15 members, 10 students, and 5 teachers.

Every team’s teachers were responsible for different duties, such as logistics, liaising, leaders, translators, etc. But there was one thing in common, which was the teachers were quite young, and their average age was about 30 years old. Only this Third High School from China was different from them. Other than a female teacher that was young, the rest of the teachers were above 40 years old. Can’t they tell that this Summer Camp was an event for young people?

Furthermore, the Third High School was missing 1 student, and they even saw the organizing people arguing with their leader in the morning. They overheard something like reporting to the police.

Wow…. That’s a Policeman. He was walking over to the Third High School’s team. Someone in that team committed a crime? This was not good. They have to contact their embassy

China was indeed a backward country. They can’t even obey the laws of other nations!

That policeman was one of the officers that were investigating Feng Yu’s missing. He was attached to the Camp in case Feng Yu suddenly return.

“You are Feng Yu? Can you tell me where did you go and what did you do after you landed at the airport yesterday?” The Police Officer asked in a serious tone.

Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko. Come and settle this!

Kirilenko took out an Identity Card from his pocket and passed it to the Officer. The officer looked at the ID and returned it carefully to Kirilenko.

This was an officer from the army. Why was this person here?

“We have a batch of military supplies coming in from China, and Feng Yu is our contact person. That’s the reason we picked him up from the airport yesterday. I had already explained to the Moscow University. Feng Yu is not missing, and you can close this file.” Kirilenko said authoritatively.

The other teams were even more curious now. Why did the officer leave in a hurry? This China team did not commit any offense? If someone told them that China was strong enough to ignore the laws of the Soviet Union, they would not never believe it!

They were also curious about the kid who arrived at the Camp in a Soviet Military number plate vehicle. Huh? The kid was wearing a badge? That kid was a participant with China’s Third High School’s team!

Why did this Chinese student arrive in a Soviet Military vehicle? Even if they wrecked their brains, they could never figure it out. But it was apparent that they could not get the answer by asking the China team directly. They could only discuss among themselves. There were even guesses that this student was the son of some great leaders in China and was here for some secret mission.

Chinese had always emphasized on successors. This must be it! This Chinese team must have some political mission. Could those older teachers be bodyguards in disguise?

They soon noticed that the organizing committee treated the China Team different from before. The best camping spots were reserved for them, and they got the best food. This China team was not simple, and that student was even more special!

Vice Principal Sun now was feeling uncomfortable. There are already leaders from teams of 6 different countries approaching him, trying to make friends. But their eyes had never left Feng Yu. The China team was famous now, but Vice Principal Sun was not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Chapter 148 – The theme is Arts

The first day’s activities were mainly outings, camping in the wild. The students from different countries were required to interact with each other using Russian. Feng Yu had only arrived in the afternoon but with his fluent Russian, and the curiosity of the other students about him, he managed to be the first Third High School student to blend in with the other students.

Late afternoon, all the students sat on the grass patch and played some ice-breaking games. However, the teachers from Third High School were frowning. This camp was not what they had expected.

Vice Principal Sun thought that there must be a theme for this camp. It could be literature, math, physics, chemistry, etc. or all the students got to come up with some sort of inventions. One of the students he chose for this camp was specialized in making small inventions.

The 3 professors from Technology University were a bit anxious. When can they visit the research facilities, laboratories? That’s the purpose of them joining this camp and not playing some childish games with the kids.

They approached Vice Principal Sun and asked him to go and find out when will these camping and outings activities end. This was a waste of time!

Vice Principal Sun was also in an awkward position. Even though he was the leader but those 3 professors were higher ranked and more influential than him. He felt like a puppet, with only the leader in name but was more like a nanny.

The other side, students from a country were dancing, and everyone else was clapping to the rhythm. Vice Principal Sun walked towards the organizer.

He returned in a while, with a worried look. The 3 professors immediately asked him when they will visit the research facilities.

“Professors, we will definitely visit the facilities, but it would not be these few days. The duration of this camp is 2 weeks, and the first visit had been arranged 3 days later. These few days, the main activity was to have fun!”

“What? Have fun? This is an international camp and how could they have fun? What’s the theme of this camp? It’s not technology?” One professor asked while staring at Vice Principal Sun. Moscow University was famous for its science and technologies. How could it be possible for the theme of the camp to be something else?

Vice Principal Sun replied: “The theme of this camp is Arts!”

Duang~~~

The 3 professors were all dumbfounded!

When Vice Principal Sun heard this, he also had difficulties accepting it. Why was it not stated in the invitation letter? Moscow University was also not renowned for Arts.

Furthermore, if this was an Arts Summer Camp, it should be stated in the invitation letter, and they can pick students based on that criteria. The students that came to this camp does not have any talent in arts!

Finished. He’s finished. There will be no more achievements and credits for him. When they arrived here, Feng Yu went missing, and Police was involved. But luckily Feng Yu returned and settled this problem. However, this issue also attracted the attention of the other teams. He kept having the feeling that he had brought disgrace to his country.

Just when Feng Yu’s missing saga had finally quieted down, he found out that the theme for this camp was Arts. Looking at the students from other countries, they were either singing, dancing or painting.

He looked over to Third High School students. His students were just walking around with cameras hanging from their necks. He can’t be telling the rest of the teams that his students were all photographers? There will also not enough time to develop the films.

The organizer also told him that the teams were taking turns to perform now. It will be Third High School’s turn soon. Who shall he pick to perform?

Vice Principal Sun looked over at his students and saw Feng Yu. Third High School was invited to this camp because of him. He must have known this was an Arts camp. He did not participate in the pre-camp training. Could he be preparing secretly for this performance at home and wanted to surprise everyone?

That’s right. This must be it. Feng Yu even helped Wen Dongjun to be excused from the training. Feng Yu will be the one determining whether Third High School would be a disgrace in this camp!

Feng Yu was still enjoying the dance performance, and he felt someone tapping his shoulders. He turned around and saw Vice Principal Sun’s face in front of him.

“Principal Sun, you are looking for me?”

Vice Principal Sun put on his best smile and said: “Feng Yu, why didn’t the invitation letter indicate that this is an Arts Camp? But never mind. The rest of us are not aware of this, but you should have known about this long time ago, right? That’s why you and Wen Dongjun did not participate in the pre-camp training and were preparing for this performance at home?

Looking at Vice principal Sun’s eager look, Feng Yu timidly said: “Principal Sun, would you believe me if I tell you that I am not aware of this too?”

Vice Principal Sun stared at Feng Yu: “What did you say? You are not aware? Isn’t this Summer Camp arranged for you by your family? That’s also the reason our school got invited. Stop denying and get ready for the performance. I don’t care if you are going to dance, sing, draw or calligraphy, as long as you perform something and don’t disgrace the school. When everything is over, I will award you with the best student award from our school!”

Feng Yu was dumbfounded. He did not know about the theme of this camp. He really wanted to say that he was only there to get some credentials. Brother Ki was just not reliable. Even if the invitation letter was bought, it should also state the theme and details of the camp clearly. What was this Arts themed camp about? There was nothing in common between China and Eastern Europe Arts.

Suddenly, Feng Yu saw a student carrying a guitar. He looked around him, and the ambiance reminded him of a song. It was a song that was translated from a Soviet folksong. The song was about a story that happened in Ukraine, and it was popular on the internet in his previous life. Feng Yu had also learned how to play that song with a guitar then.

Soon, it was Third High School’s turn to perform. Everyone was looking at each other, waiting for somebody to volunteer to perform.

Feng Yu stood up and walked toward the student from Ukraine: “Hi, I came late today and forgot to bring my guitar. Can you lend me yours?”

The Ukrainian student happily passed the guitar to Feng Yu. Feng Yu tested the guitar and then sat cross-legged in the center. It’s been a while since he played the guitar and was a bit rusty. Feng Yu hoped that he would not make any mistake during the performance.

“I will be performing a song composed by me, <Birch Grove>. It was adapted from a Ukrainian folksong, and it is about a beautiful young lady waiting for the return of her lover, who had gone to war, at Birch Grove. However, her lover had passed away in the war.”

“White snow blows over the quiet village

Pigeons fly in the hazy sky

Two names carved into a birch tree

Lovers pledged for an eternity

One day the fires of war descended on our home

The young men rushed to the frontier, guns in hand

Telling their loved ones not to worry for them

Await my return in the birch forest

The sky remains hazy

The pigeons still fly

Who remembers the life and love of those who lie in unmarked graves?

Snow continues to fall on that ever-quiet village

The youth have disappeared in that birch forest

The news arrives on that afternoon

Of loved ones fallen on a faraway battlefield

She silently goes to the birch forest

Waiting there with longing eyes……”

When Feng Yu finished his song, there was roaring applause. This song was adapted from their folksong, and he had sung it in Russian. All the participants at the camp understood it and were captivated by the lyrics. There was even a student who asked Feng Yu to give him the score and lyrics of this song. Another teacher also said that Feng Yu should record this song and sell it.

Vice Principal Sun was clapping his hands, satisfied. This crisis was finally over. He gave Feng Yu an “I knew you had prepared for this” look.

Translator Notes: The song stated in the raw was <白桦林>. It is on Youtube too. If you are interested, you can search for it. The translated lyrics were taken from  lyricstranslate.com.

Chapter 149 – Soviet Union’s light industries

In the evenings, Feng Yu left the camp in a military vehicle. But this time, he had informed the organizing committee, in case he caused trouble to Third High School again.

Although Feng Yu decided not to drink that day, in the end, he was drunk and was carried off to the hotel again. It was because Kirilenko’s business partners had all arrived.

The powerful Ukrainian military 2nd generation partner had earned quite a handsome sum when Feng Yu bought all the obsoleted trucks last time. How could he not toast with Feng Yu? After a few rounds of toasting, Feng Yu got drunk again.

However, Feng Yu did not forget his purpose of coming to the Soviet Union. When they just started drinking, Feng Yu told the Ukrainian partner what he wanted to buy. Temporary, this Ukrainian’s family was still more powerful than Kirilenko. This was a fact that even Kirilenko, himself admitted.

At the dinner, Feng Yu got lots of information. For example, the Soviet Union was still powerful in the manufacturing industry. However, the Soviet Union had placed more emphasis on military production, the light industries were not doing well. There was an imbalance in this sector. Although there were lots of resources, there was not a lot of trades to push up the economy, creating a drastic drop in the standard of living of the civilians.

Many technologies were developed, but there were not sufficient funds to put these technologies to good use. This created skills inequality between the experts and the ordinary workers. The standard of the average workers was worse than China.

The Soviet Union’s industrial capabilities had dropped from being one of the world’s top industrial nation to be overtaken by some European countries, like West Germany. It was because of the same reason. There were advanced research facilities with advanced technologies, but there were insufficient funds.

Also, many of the scientists bought into the Soviet Union had returned to West Germany. This was due to rumors that West and East Germany will be unifying soon!

Feng Yu guessed the reason why so many West Germany scientists were allowed to return. Now, West Germany was considered colonized by the Soviet Union and their technological capabilities were divided by the Soviet Union. The country that benefited most was Russia.

Those scientists that were allowed to return were mostly old men that were not able to contribute to the Soviet Union anymore. The Soviet Union does not want to take care of these people, and those capable people were most likely still under the control of the Soviet Union.

Feng Yu looked at these proud Soviets and sighed in his heart. After both the East and West Germany unified, the Soviet Union would start to collapse. In the history of his previous life, the first country will leave the Soviet Union in March next year. That was the time when people panicked and tried to get the most for themselves.

That would be the best opportunity for Feng Yu. He could import the heavy industries and even the military industries machinery and technologies back to China. Even planes and cannons were all possible!

Luckily, Kirilenko did not share a room with Feng Yu that night. If not, he would hear Feng Yu shouting about buying up all of the Soviet Union factories.

In the day, the camp taught about Arts. Feng Yu, who had no interest in Arts, just lazed around and in the evenings, he applied for leave and left the camp.

Wen Dongjun and the rest of the students and teachers were all used to Feng Yu leaving the camp at night. They could not do anything about it, so they just let Feng Yu do whatever he likes.

Furthermore, the 3 professors were hinted by Zhang Ruiqiang that they got the chance to visit Moscow University’s research facilities was due to Feng Yu’s family influence.

So, the professors also turned a blind eye to Feng Yu’s behavior. They were slightly unhappy with Feng Yu as Feng Yu had a good family background but did not take full advantage of it in his studies. Initially, they wanted to recruit Feng Yu into Technology University, but now, they changed their minds. Recommending such a student to their university would be a disgrace!

That evening, Feng Yu went on a “tour” at a television factory. After walking around the workshop of the factory, Feng Yu felt disappointed.

This was the biggest television factory in the Soviet Union? These lousy televisions produced by the factory would not sell in China!

Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko unhappily: “Brother Ki, are you joking with me? This is the biggest television factory in the Soviet Union? The facilities here are worse than the factories in China!”

Feng Yu did not know that at that time, the world’s top television manufacturers nations were Japan, followed by the Us and then China. The Soviet Union was ranked 4th, behind China. He had thought that the Soviet Union television manufacturers were the best in the world.

Even after the year 2000, in Russia, there were still millions of black and white, and colored televisions, manufactured in the 70s and 80s, in use. Later, the market was captured by Japanese firms like Sony and Panasonic. As for Russia domestic television brands, they were purchasing parts from China and assembling at their state-owned factories near to Moscow.

Kirilenko was embarrassed: “This factory is really the largest production plant for television in the Soviet Union. Since you are not interested in the production machinery here, then you should be interested in their technologies. They have a clear image technology which can be used for larger screens.”

Feng Yu looked at the so-call clear image technology. It really can’t be compared to Japanese. There was not much difference with China’s technology. There were no profits to be made for this technology.

Feng Yu gave up on the first factory and Kirilenko was disappointed. He had lost his commission, and he found out that Feng Yu was not buying everything. Feng Yu only wanted technologies or machinery that were more advanced than China.

But the high power electric furnace Feng Yu wanted, could not be bought cheaply. Although the Soviet Union had changed from a planned economy to a market economy and the state-owned factories were allowed to manage their own finances, machinery that was used for military purposes were still not easily available.

Should he bring Feng Yu to visit the motorcycle factory? Maybe he should bring Feng Yu to the textile mills first.

The next day, Feng Yu visited a textile mill which had machinery which was not too old. The textile mills also had some technology, but it was not more advanced than China.

Feng Yu shook his head. China was catching up with the Soviet Union’s light industries. China should be able to overtake the Soviet Union in 8 to 10 years!

However, Feng Yu still ordered a 1987 production line from the textile mill. This “Obsolete” machinery was too cheap. Even though the technology was not more advanced than China, Feng Yu could still make money out of it as the cost was less than half the price compared to China. Bing City’s textile mills had wanted to buy a new production line, and Feng Yu could sell it to them. This was considered as a contribution to his motherland.

Of course, Feng Yu would still make some profits from this deal. 20% profit should be okay.

The next few days, Feng Yu went shopping at the light industry factory around Moscow. He bought cheap machinery and advanced technologies at low prices. This trip, Feng Yu had spent only about 1 million Rubles, and he could sell all these for at least 3 million Rubles back in China. The profits were more than doubled!

Chapter 150 – The strange teachers from China

These 2 days of the Summer Camps were visiting the Moscow University’s museums, botanical gardens, churches, theatres, stadiums, etc. These were all in-line with Arts.

Feng Yu was not interested in all these places. He will have lots of chance to visit these places in future. He needs to focus on “touring” the Soviet Union factories. However, he had already visited all the factories near to Moscow. The remaining factories were out of bounds for Feng Yu as Kirilenko did not have the authority to bring Feng Yu there, or it was too far away, and they did not have enough time.

Feng Yu regrettably expressed that he still has a few million Rubles left and don’t know what to spend on.

Kirilenko heard this, and his eyes sparkled. He discussed with the others and decided to fulfill Feng Yu’s wish of owning a motorcycle production line and the related technologies. He would sell Feng Yu at least one production line.

Seeing Kirilenko got his hint, Feng Yu returned to the camp to wait for news.

Today, the students from the Summer Camp were going to visit the Planetarium. There were lots of high tech equipment used to the observation of the stars. It was brighter than the equipment used in China.

Even the 3 professors asked about the detailed specifications and data after they used that equipment. With Feng Yu and the rest of the student’s help, they collected a set of brief data.

The 3 professors were not experts in astrology and did not know if these data were used. But they were on a mission, and they wrote everything in a notebook. When they return to their university, they can pass it to the other professors.

Part of the data they got from this visit was later found to be quite useful with the other Professors examined it. It had saved them years of research.

At the Institute of Nuclear Physics, the 3 professors became unusually attentive. They were registered as a physics teacher, chemistry teacher, and moral teacher respectively, but they were actually nuclear physics professor, chemistry professor and mechanics professor at the University of Technology.

When knowledge in a particular field reached a certain level, many of the basic foundations were interrelated. As such, many well-known scientists were experts in different areas.

The 3 professors were always crowding in front of the students, staring at the experimental equipment.

Hmmm…… This research can be used for in energy and even in the production of nuclear reactors. This is important and must be memorized.

Ah…… That’s the research for fluid mechanics, and this theory can be applied to aviation and sea navigation. This is also important and must be memorized.

That’s a new type of building’s structure? It had not appeared in China yet. This must be memorized too, and at night they would transfer it into a notebook for their research back at their University.

……

The 3 professors’ behavior was weird and kept asking a lot of questions. However, the proud Soviets thought that they were just shocked by the Soviet Union’s technological prowess and it’s normal. There should not be many people in this world that would not be shocked by their technologies.

The students of the teams from other countries were all standing in front of their teachers based on their heights. The shortest in front and the tallest behind. Only Bing City’s Third High School was different from the rest, where the teachers were standing in front, and the students were at the back. This created lots of weird stares from the teachers of other countries. These teachers from China were strange!

Wen Dongjun also tried to squeeze to the front for a better look. But Feng Yu pulled him back. Wen Dongjun looked around and saw the students from other schools were looking at him. He thought it was because he did not queue up, and had disgraced his school. So, he just stood behind. Anyway, even if he were standing in front and had a clear view of what was going on, he also would not be able to understand.

As for the rest of Third High School students, they also did not try to get in front of the teachers. They do not care if they cannot get a clear view, as they don’t understand it anyway. The research facilities and laboratories were too big, and this was the first time the Moscow University allowed outsiders inside!

At first, the organizers did not allow the students to visit such important places. Additionally, the theme of this summer camp was Arts. But their higher-ups had given them instructions to bring the students there for a visit, citing that this was the chance to attract these students to the Moscow University. This was for the university and for the Soviet Union to attract talents!

Since the School had given them instructions, why would they reject? But usually, the tour of the research facilities was on the exterior areas and does not go to the core areas. Why did the higher-ups allow these students into the core areas where there were lots of classified information?

The university’s leader said that even though there was classified information but these were all Arts students. They would not understand the theories behind. This was an excellent opportunity for these students to spread words of how great the Moscow University was.

It doesn’t matter if these students get close to the classified data. Even if they gave the students those data, they also would not understand. Even if they spent half an hour on memorizing the formulas, they would forget about it 5 minutes after leaving the place. What’s there to worry?

Feng Yu had tried his best, and it was up to the professors now. These 3 professors were selected from the Technology University, and they were experts in their fields. They had good memories, and it’s up to them on how much they could remember. Feng Yu could not help much in this aspect. He and Wen Dongjun tried to help by memorizing some formulas, but they forgot everything the moment they arrived at their hostel.

For four days consecutive, they toured many research facilities and laboratories. This Summer Camp also came to an end.

The next day, there was a farewell party, and all the teams will be returning to their respective countries the day after the party.

At about 12 midnight, Feng Yu and the rest of the students were still in their rooms writing down whatever they could remember from the tours. The 3 professors had instructed them to jot down whatever they could recall. The students would use a different color pen for information that was not sure.

Wen Dongjun had wanted to write nonsenses, but since there were instructions from the professors, he gave up this idea. He told the professors that he did not remember anything.

Feng Yu wrote down some data he remembered. His memory was good in this life, but he was not sure if the data he remembered was of any use to the professors. Anyway, this was up to the professors to decide.

The rest of the students also wrote down everything they remembered. Feng Yu took a glanced at the thing that was written by the other students and found that those were mainly useless stuff. There was even a student who a list of Soviet scientists’ names that had made some considerable contributions to the university. Feng Yu did not understand why this student memorizes those names. Feng Yu can be sure that these names were of no use to the professors!

The scientists on the list were most likely dead or still be working in some secret research centers. China would never have the chance to poach them. Furthermore, the 3 professors should be able to find out the names of those scientists easily, and this was not considered valuable information.

However, there was one student that shocked Feng Yu. Feng Yu felt that his memory was considered very good in this life but Liu Kun, the top student of Third High School, was better than him. Liu Kun had actually memorized a huge chunk of data and was praised by the 3 professors.

After the 3 professors kept the data carefully in their luggage, the students went to bed.

All the students were thinking about the farewell party except for Feng Yu. He believed that it should be time for Kirilenko to get back to him on his purchase of the motorcycle production line……

Chapter 151 – Soviet Union’s Motorcycles

Finally, after a long wait, Kirilenko brought good news. He had helped Feng Yu get the motorcycle production lines!

In that era, the Soviet Union had 5 motorcycles brand, namely, Minsk, Voskhod, Ural, Dnepr and IZH Jupiter. Among these brands, Voskhod and Ural were the most popular in China compared to the other brands.

But regardless of which brand, these motorcycles were more advanced than China by at least 5 years. The demand for transportation was rising in China, and because of the prices of these motorcycles, it was the best choice for the Chinese. The cars were too expensive for most people.

First, motorcycles were convenient, light, fast speed and could drive into tight alleyways. It was the most suitable mode of transport in that era. Furthermore, the fuel consumption was lower than cars. Learning to ride a motorcycle was faster if one knows how to ride a bicycle and it was easier than learning to drive.

There was another advantage. In that era, there were not many regulations on motorcycles. People could ride bikes without a license and the number plates. There was not a lot of traffic police and people just ride the motorcycles as long as they were not caught.

Feng Yu had been preparing to take over the Machinery Company all these while. He had been taken advantage off, but that was because he wanted to work with a state-owned enterprise. However, even if he were willing to pay more for the shares of the Machinery Company, the City Government would not sell to him. But Zhang Ruiqiang had promised him that he could uses technologies to exchange for shares.

Feng Yu had agreed to let the 3 professors join the Sumer Camp and made the arrangements to tour the research facilities of the Moscow University was because Zhang Ruiqiang would conform to one of his requests.

At that time, Feng Yu’s request was to be allowed to continue using technologies to exchange for shares in the Machinery Company and to set up a motorcycle business with the Machinery Factory.

If he had requested Zhang Ruiqiang to permit him to purchase the shares of the Machinery Factory, Zhang Ruiqiang would surely reject. Even if he approved it, the number of shares Feng Yu could buy would not be a lot. But if Feng Yu could use the motorcycle production line and technologies to exchange for the shares, that would be different.

One production line and some technologies would be another revenue source for the Machinery Company and were sure to make money. Everyone could see for themselves that motorcycles were selling well.

As for how much would this production line and the technologies were worth, Feng Yu would not be soft again. This time he must be the one taking advantage of the Machinery Company! Feng Yu planned to increase his father’s shares of the Machinery Company by 20%. He will not settle for anything less!

At first, Feng Yu still felt that this was a bit difficult if he had only one production line and some technologies. If Li Mingde does not agree to it, there was nothing Zhang Ruiqiang could do. Furthermore, Zhang Ruiqiang was also on the Machinery Company’s side.

But Kirilenko told Feng Yu that he got 2 motorcycles production lines and the latest motorcycle technologies from the 5 Soviet Union motorcycle brands. Although it was not cheap, it was definitely a bargain!

“How much was the total?” Feng Yu asked excitedly.

“5 million Rubles?” Kirilenko replied. He was afraid that Feng Yu would think that this price was too high and started to justify: “There would be no problems with motorcycle sales now, and the technologies were the most advanced. Those 2 production lines were built in 1985. Guaranteed to be in perfect working conditions. Also, I can give you 3 years warranty for the production lines.”

Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko. Oh, there’s still after sales service? 3 years warranty? It should be enough. 1985 production facilities? Even if it were 1980 production line, it would still be more advanced than the technologies in China. China’s motorcycle manufacturing industry was currently still in its infant stage.

Even though the appearances, accelerations, fuel consumptions, etc. of the Soviet motorcycles were inferior to Japanese bikes, but their suspensions, headlights and engines’ technologies were one of the best in the world.

Current the road conditions in China was not that good, and therefore, the suspensions and engines were important. It can be said that the Soviet motorcycles technologies suit China more.

As for the appearances, Feng Yu, himself, could overtake Japan easily. This was never an issue. In Feng Yu’s eyes, the Japanese motorcycles in that era were hideous!

Feng Yu showed four fingers and said: “There must be 4 experts to guide us for a year, help us with the setting up and calibration of the machines, and teach us everything about these technologies!”

Kirilenko smiled: “This is not a problem!”

His cost was less than 4 million Rubles, and he sold it to Feng Yu for 5 million Rubles. This was a good deal. Although this time, he got to split the profits with his partners, he will still be getting a good amount.

Furthermore, they had paid only a small price for big rewards in return. They would be paying the deposits to the factories first, and after the machinery, technical documents and the experts reached Feng Yu, Feng Yu would make payments to them. After that, they would pay the remaining sum to the factories.

The whole process, they only need to come up with less than 1 million Rubles at the start and got more than 1 million Rubles profits!

Also, they saw Feng Yu was satisfied with this deal, and Feng Yu would definitely go back to them in future.

“Brother Ki, I will not say much about other things. Help me look out for Volda’s production line and technology. I hope you would be about to help me get at least one production line and the related advanced technologies. We are brothers, and I will take care of you.”

The motorcycles will only be popular for the next few years, and after that, it would be the 4 wheelers! There was a billionaire that said: Car is just an engine on a chassis with 4 wheels. If you can manufacture a motorcycle, you can build a car!

There were talks that the billionaire had used Volda’s manufacturing technologies, which he bought at a low price when he started out. Later, his company went on to acquire some of the world’s most famous cars brands, and his market value kept rising!

Feng Yu believed that he had started earlier than that billionaire in creating a domestic car brand and with the advanced manufacturing technologies, he would be able to capture China’s market.  At least, he would be able to capture future Germany and Japanese joint venture market share. He wants to prevent these foreign companies earning from his fellow countrymen!

He got to take one step at a time. If he starts a car manufacturing plant now, he would have to make huge investments, and the profits might not be as good as motorcycles. The returns were not worth it.

Kirilenko nodded and agreed. All these were profits to him, and even those Factory Directors would feel grateful to him.

Without his help to sell off these idling production lines, the factories could not pay their workers. These idling production lines would also depreciate as time passes. Why not use them to help the workers.

Because of the economic changes in the Soviet Union, many factory directors had full control of their factories. As long as they agree, no one could change their decisions. They were more overbearing than the Chinese.

As such, Kirilenko only needs to talk/bribe to the Factory Directors. Some might not dare to sell the production lines, but they do not mind selling their technologies to someone from the Soviet Army.

Needless to say, Kirilenko buying these technologies under the Soviet Army was really useful.

After signing the contract, the Summer Camp also came to an end. Feng Yu and the rest of the students boarded the plane for Bing City…

Chapter 152 – Returning Home

Upon reaching Bing City, the students left for their respective homes and the 3 professors rushed back to Technology University. The other professors were there waiting for them to fill in the blanks of the missing data.

Feng Yu drove his friends back to the district. When Zhang Muhua saw her son, she gave him a hug and patted his head. Its been a while since she saw Feng Yu and it seems that Feng Yu had grown taller.

“Xiao Yu, I heard from your brother-in-law that you represented China to attend a Summer Camp?” Zhang Muhua’s eyes were sparkling. This was something to be proud of.

Feng Yu nodded: “Maybe it can be considered as such.”

“What do you mean by that? This must be it. You are representing the country. That’s great. You eat some cherries first. I will go over to the neighbors’ place first.” Zhang Muhua took a half-knitted sweater and left.

Feng Yu was speechless when he looked at his mother’s back view. He did not notice that his mother also like to flaunt before.

Feng Xingtai also returned home from the food processing factory after he received news that his son was back. The first words that came out from Feng Xingtai let Feng Yu felt a killing intent.

“I heard from your sister that you had chosen the useless Arts stream?”

“Dad, Chairman Mao also studied Arts. Arts subjects are for leaders and Science are for workers!” Feng Yu’s reply hit the bull’s eye.

“Really?” Feng Xingtai was suspicious, but he heard that the neighboring provincial country Mayor also studied Arts at Beijing University!

“Of course. Your son wants to be a great leader in future, that’s why I chose Arts. The worse, I will also be a great scholar!” Feng Yu continued to bluff his father.

“Stop bullshitting. What scholar? Never mind. You are grown up now, and you have your own way of thinking. You chose your own path carefully and don’t regret.” Feng Xingtai looked at Feng Yu lovingly and said. It’s rare for Feng Xingtai to say such things.

“Dad, do you know that I just went to the Soviet Union for a Summer Camp?” Feng Yu was waiting for his father to praise him but why was his father so calm?

“I know. Your sister told us. I hope you did not bring shame to the country.”

Feng Yu was dumbfounded. Every parent always hopes for the best for their children, but why his father always felt that he will be a disgrace?

No choice. Feng Xingtai had always felt that Feng Yu’s thinking was too weird and always do things that shock people. He was afraid that his son would do something and got into trouble in the Soviet Union. He still remembers the last time they drank, and Feng Yu was shouting that the Soviet Union would disintegrate in two years’ time. There will no longer be any Soviet Union!

That time, Feng Xingtai was shocked. Feng Yu’s words were too shocking. How could the Soviet Union disintegrate? The Soviet Union was the world’s second-largest economy. Their industrial and military standards were one of the best in the world and were on par with the US. How can such a powerful nation be disintegrated?

Feng Xingtai warned Feng Yu not to say these things outside. If others heard this, he might get into trouble! Feng Xingtai also thought that Feng Yu might be telling the truth as Feng Yu had been doing business with the Soviets and could have gotten some insider information from them.

But no matter what, these things should not be revealed to others. Whether if the Soviet Union disintegrate or not, it was the nation’s leaders’ problem, and it was not for commoners like them to discuss.

“Dad, I have made you proud all this while.”

“Ya, proud…… The whole district knew about the fool who went ice fishing and fell into the ice hole.” Feng Xingtai rolled his eyes.

Feng Yu: “……”

“Where’s your mum? She did not cook?”

“Mum went over to the neighbor’s place. I think she would not be back so soon. Why not we go to the factory to have lunch? Oh yes, dad. You mentioned that the factory needs more soybean oil machines. I had bought another soybean oil production line from the Soviet Union. It should arrive next month!”

Feng Xingtai was overjoyed. He had long wanted to increase the production of the soybean oil. Even though his oil was selling more expensive than others, the demand still exceeds supply. This was a lucrative business and how could he miss it? Every time he heard people talking about unable to buy Tai Hua Premium Cooking oil, he felt that his money had flowed into someone else pocket.

Feng Yu had bought this production line when he was shopping for the light industries facilities. He did not want his father to be working so hard. Later in the year, he wants to hire a few management staffs even if their salaries were higher. He wanted his parents to enjoy their retirement.

Their Tian Peng Pig farm had over 2,000 swine this year, and there was also some boars. The piglets produced every month was over 2,000 and this month, the first batch of pigs was ready to be sold. Feng Xingtai was going around looking for people to buy his pigs.

Feng Yu had told him before to not worry about the sales. There would be at least 1,000 pigs sold in Bing City alone. There were still about 10 million people staying in the outskirts. He was not worried about his pigs not selling.

Even if he could not sell it in his province, he could always sell it to Lin Province. Lin province was close to Bing City, and there were not much transportation costs. Tai Hua Food Processing Factory’s animal feed was already selling in Lin Province, and it was more than 30% of their production. The profits from the animal feeds were more than soybean oil.

Tai Hua Food Processing Factory was developing well, and those people that did not invest initially regretted. Many of them approached Feng Xingtai to purchase the shares but were all rejected.

Now Tai Hua Factory was not short of funds. The dividends paid out last year was the proof of it!

The ones that invested earlier were laughing. Just the dividends, it was equivalent to the profits from their farm. These people could retire comfortably.

Of course, there was some who had withdrawn their investment. Wen Dongjun’s father was one of them. He was promoted to the Deputy Farm Officer and was forced to withdraw. However, the Wen family had already gotten huge profits.

After lunch at Tai Hua Factory, Feng Yu went to Wen Dongjun’s house. When he entered Wen Dongjun’s house, he heard Wen Dongjun’s bragging.

“None of the students at the summer camp dared to stand up, and I was the one that took on the responsibility. I played a song on my harmonica and still sang a song. All the overseas students were in awe! You know, at that time……”

Cough~~~ Feng Yu cleared his throat. How come he did not know Wen Dongjun had done such things at the camp? Sang a song? Wen Dongjun even went out of tune when they were singing together with other students!

Even when he saw Feng Yu entering, he did not stop with his bragging. He pointed to Feng Yu: “You can ask Feng Yu if you do not believe me. He can prove what I said!” After saying this, he turned and squinted both his eyes at Feng Yu.

Damn, how shameless. I still have to help you with your bragging?

“That right. Luckily Wen Dongjun was there. If not, we would be a disgrace. Dongjun, didn’t you say that we are going to play Ping-Pong? Are we still going?”

Wen Dongjun was puzzled. When did he say he wanted to play ping pong? Can’t Feng Yu see that all the neighbors had gathered there to listen to his remarkable stories?

“I’m not going. You can go yourself. I still need to tell them about the farewell party!”

Feng Yu: “……”

Forget it. Feng Yu can look for his father to go fishing. His father also deserved a rest.

Chapter 153 – The Golden Period of the Stock Market

Feng Yu watched the news on the television. The deposit rates and the lending rates had fallen at the same time. He knew that the first golden period of China’s stock market was here!

“Dad, Mum, I need to go back to Bing City.”

“What? You just came back yesterday, and you are leaving? Isn’t it the summer break now?” Zhang Muhua was unhappy. Her daughter had gotten married, and her son was always not around.

“There is something I need to do at the company, and it concerns a big amount of money. Even more than Tai Hua Factory and Tian Peng Pig Farm. I must monitor it personally. Don’t worry. I will be back before the summer break ends.”

Feng Yu returned to Bing City with Wen Dongjun. Wen Dongjun was carrying a big bag and in it was almost his whole family savings.

Wen Dongjun wanted to enter the government service, and Feng Yu was worried that he would not be able to resist the temptation of money in future. Even though this moron was not interested in money now, but it was hard to say if he would change when he got more authority.

Furthermore, it was legal to invest in shares. Feng Yu told Wen Deguang that there’s an opportunity to earn lots of money now and guaranteed to be safe. Wen Deguang hesitated for a while and took out all the family’s savings and passed it to Wen Dongjun. He even instructed Wen Dongjun to follow whatever Feng Yu said.

In Wen Deguang’s eyes, Feng Yu was someone special. Within a short span of 2 years, he was able to change the Feng family from an ordinary farming family to the wealthiest family in the district. Not to mention the Food Processing Factory and the Pig farm, they were even the shareholders of the Machinery Company. This had shocked him greatly.

Furthermore, Wen Dongjun had told him that Feng Yu once said that his Tai Hua Trading was making trades with the Soviet Union and the monthly trades amounted up to a few million Rubles. Feng Yu’s family was freaking rich! The big “Jeep” Feng Yu was driving was worth a few hundred thousand RMB.

The Feng family was even more influential than the Farm Chief Officer, and because of these reasons, Wen Deguang was not worried that Feng Yu would cheat him of this measly small amount of money. He had made some money the last time he invested in Tai Hua Factory, and this time, he continued to believe in Feng Yu. He wanted to make some money for his son to buy a big apartment in the city when he graduates from university, just like the apartments the Feng family bought.

“Xiao Yu, it really can double my family’s money?” Wen Dongjun asked.

“Double? You are belittling me. Within 3 years, I guaranteed your money would be multiplied by at least 5 times!”

“Huh, 5 times? Then the 50,000 RMB would become 250,000 RMB?” Wen Dongjun was surprised. This was different from what Feng Yu said at his house.

“I said at least! Don’t worry. You don’t need to do anything except for buying a few shares and keep them properly. After the New Year, you will see that you had earned money!”

This period was the bull market and the current stock market index was slightly more than 100 points. 2 years later, the stock index would increase to over 1,400 points. This was an increase of 10 times. Other than a few unlucky people, the rest could even earn huge profits with their eyes closed!

Actually, when Wen Deguang took out 50,000 RMB, Feng Yu was also shocked. Wen Deguang was a proper officer and doesn’t seem to be corrupted. This money must be from his life savings.

But Feng Yu does not know that Wen Deguang had sold off his tractor and his property at the village to raise this money. Although Wen Deguang did not use the village resources, he also secretly cultivate wastelands and made some money in the previous few years.

If a farmer sold his tractor, it meant the farmer was giving his all. Of course, Feng Yu would not let the Wen family suffer any losses. He will be entering the market a few days later than the start of the bull market and will withdraw from the market before the market crash. This way, his funds will not be trapped!

Feng Yu had thought of asking Li Na and Liu Kun’s family but gave up. These 2 families were different from Wen family. The Wen family and his family were friends for over 20 years. Anyway, Liu Kun’s dream was to be a scientist, and if really succeeded, Feng Yu could invest in a research facility for him. As for Li Na’s family, it doesn’t matter. Feng Yu would be wealthy anyway!

Back at Bing City, Feng Yu drove straight to Tai Hua Trading. When he reached, all of Tai Hua Trading staffs were there, including the 2 newly hired financial staffs. Even Li Shiqiang was there as Feng Yu said that he had something important to announce.

“Everyone, how do you feel after working for the past one year plus in Tai Hua Trading?”

When Feng Yu finished this question, Wu Zhigang immediately shouted: “To be able to work at Tai Hua Trading was the best decision of our lives! Back at the Motor Factory, we were just waiting for the batch of workers to retire and to replace them. It was hard work, and the salary was only around 100 RMB a month. The salary was not even comparable to our bonus here!”

“That’s right. Manager Feng, rest assured. We will work hard for the company and follow your lead. We will never leave Tai Hua Trading for other companies!”

They thought Feng Yu was talking about the incident where someone tried to poach them with high salaries. A big boss from the Southern Provinces came to them looking for sales staffs that were familiar with Bing City and the surrounding places. The salary he offered was 200 RMB a month.  But they were not stupid. If they work for that big boss, they would only be getting a basic salary. The benefits at Tai Hua Trading were excellent. Feng Yu would give out bonuses and rewards every occasionally. Last year, Feng Yu had given them each a pager, and it was worth their few years salaries!

Feng Yu laughed and waved his hands. He was the idol of these people. If Feng Yu were to start a cult, it would be easy to brainwash them.

“Then I will be straight to the point. If you all follow me, I will not let you all suffer any losses. I will take care of you all in all my profit-making ideas. The work for the next half of the year was to buy shares!”

Shares? Wu Zhigang and the rest of the staffs looked at each other. What’s shares?

Only Li Shiqiang was not surprised. Feng Yu had mentioned to him about shares before and had said that this was the most profitable business, much more than treasury bonds trading.

That time, Li Shiqiang asked Feng Yu, since it was so profitable, why were they not doing the business? Feng Yu said that it was the right time. Even if they bought the shares then, they would not make any profits. Hearing what Feng Yu had said, this is the right time?

Feng Yu looked at his men and continued: “Shares are similar to Treasury bonds, but the difference was that shares were not issued by the Government. A listed company will be issuing shares and year-end dividends and profits will be paid based on the percentage of the shares and the earnings of the company for the previous year. With the shares, we can be considered the company’s shareholders! When the number of shares in our hands reaches a certain amount, we would be about to attend the shareholders meeting!”

Wu Zhigang and the rest were in a daze. They do not understand. Dividends and bonuses sound like saving accounts? But this was not issued by the government. These were issued by private companies. Are these shares reliable?

“You all remembered the time when the price of Treasury Bonds suddenly increased? I am telling you all that the price of the shares will also increase and the rise will be huge and even faster than the Treasury Bonds! A share that’s bought for 100 RMB would be worth 200 RMB in a year. You all can do your own calculations how much money can we make from this.”

Everyone in the room, including Li Shiqiang were breathing hard and their eyes were opened wide in surprise. This share was so profitable?

“I had said that I will take care of you all if you all follow me. If I know of any good opportunities to make money, I will share with you all. If you all are willing, you all can come out with your money, and I will teach you all what shares to buy. Whatever earnings from the shares will belong to you and if there are any losses, I will compensate you!”

Chapter 154 – I want everything!

Although Feng Yu have tens of millions RMB, but China was too big. He had a lot of money, but he could not afford to buy all the shares, not even 1%. It was not yet 1990s but there were already tens of thousands of joint-stock companies, and many of them had issued stocks. There were already tens of dozens of companies that issued shares countrywide.

Li Shiqiang frowned. We will keep the earnings, and you will pay for the losses? Who will do such things? Even if you were very confident, you should not be doing this.

Feng Yu took out a stack of contract after he continued: “Whatever you all said earlier will take effect after signing this contract!”

Wu Zhigang and the staffs read the contract. The length of the contract was 20 years. This length was considered almost half of their working life. Also, it states that if they jump ship or resigned, they would have to compensate 3 times the previous year annual income. This was too ruthless!

These people had only worked for Feng Yu for slightly more than a year and their average annual income for last year was about 10,000 RMB. 3 times compensation would amount to 30,000 RMB!

“I will bring all of you along to make money and will teach all of you how to make money, how to negotiate business. If this is a factory, all of you have to call me Shi Fu (teacher)! I will continue to bring all of you to make money and ensured that all of your income will rise every year and your salaries will be higher than those in the Machinery Company, or any companies in China. But after I trained all of you, I cannot allow you to leave and join others and used the things I taught you to compete with me. All of you have the option to sign this contract. If you sign it, I will take care of you. However, if you decided not to sign it, it’s fine. You can leave now.”

Feng Yu does not dare to claim that Wu Zhigang and the rest were the best talents, but their way of thinking and doing things was much better than an average person. Also, they had learned some of the sales techniques at Tai Hua Trading. As such, Feng Yu wanted to tie them down with a contract.

Before anyone could react, Wu Zhigang signed his name on the contract without any hesitation. The others immediately followed. Even the 2 newly joined financial staffs also signed the contract. A 20-year contract was the equivalent to the “iron rice bowl” jobs in state-owned enterprises. Manager Feng also promised that they would be getting retirement and pensions too. Just like those working in the state-owned enterprises.

Feng Yu dared to make these promises was because in 1992, China introduced social security and in 1996, it became compulsory for all companies to implement it. Social security was only a small sum of money, and Feng Yu does not mind at all.

Feng Yu nodded in satisfaction when he saw everyone signed the contracts: “Don’t think that the length of the contract is only 20 years. I promised every one of you that after 20 years, all of you will be millionaires and even shareholders of the company. That’s the same as being one of the bosses! Now, tell me how much you are willing to fork out? I will not say much. In 2 years’ time, the money you take out today will at least doubled twice!”

Wu Zhigang and the rest eyes widen. Doubled twice? That means 10,000 will become 40,000 in 2 years? This was much faster than going to work.

“I can take out 15,000 RMB!”

“I will use 20,000 RMB!”

“I can take our 18,000 RMB!”

……

Everyone was shouting out the amount they wanted to invest. Even the 2 new joiners also took out 5,000 RMB each. Even if they do not have 5,000 RMB now, they could get a loan from friends and relatives. The most they will give them interest.

The 2 newly staff were in-charged of Tai Hua Trading finances, and they knew how much money Tai Hua Trading had. The total amount collected from the staffs were not even considered small change when compared to the funds in Tai Hua Trading accounts. That’s why they do not think that Feng Yu will cheat them of their measly amount!

“Fine. From tomorrow onwards, all of you will be going in pairs to different banks to buy shares. Remember, buy everything you can! Your money can be used to purchase whatever shares from our company next week. All the shares certificates will be kept together in the safe. Dazhou, Xiaoliu, inform ICBC to prepare cash. I want the maximum amount of cash they can prepare!”

Wu Zhigang and the rest went back to their work. In the meeting room, only Li Shiqiang and Wen Dongjun were left.

“Brother-in-law, how much funds can your logistics company take out without affecting the operations? Use all your spare funds to buy shares!”

Li Shiqiang asked worryingly: “it doesn’t matter which shares to buy? What if there’s a loss? Shouldn’t we should use half the funds to buy first?”

When he had no money, Li Shiqiang was bold. But when he was rich, he starts to become cautious. He does not want to lose the money he painstakingly earned.

“Brother-in-law, trust me. Everything’s fine. The news had reported that the lending rates and deposit rates had fallen. This meant that the government is encouraging us to spend more. There’s not much to earn from Treasury Bonds, and now, it’s the era of stocks. The government is encouraging this!”

Li Shiqiang thought back on this brother-in-law’s miracles and gritted his teeth: “Fine. The logistics company can take out about 1.5 million RMB. The Motor Factory will be settling a payment at the end of the month and taking out this money will not affect the operations.”

Li Shiqiang made up his mind. He decided to use all his available funds. Now the logistics company does not have many expenses except for operational costs.

Feng Yu frowned. Only 1.5 million RMB? When can brother-in-law build a hospital for his sister? Hmmm, later he must drag his brother-in-law to the bank.

“Fine. You should ask your staff to inform the bank to prepare the money.”

There was still no securities companies in Bing City, and the shares were the same as Treasury Bonds. They were sold by the banks. If you want to buy stocks, you need to go and buy it over the counter. If you’re going to sell your shares, you need to sell through the bank. The trading of shares was not allowed to be conducted privately.

Of course, there was another way to sell the shares, which was through the bank’s subsidiaries, retail outlets, and securities companies.

The last place to sell the shares was the company that had issued the shares.

Transacting at the banks was easy. But if it was the securities companies or other places, the transactions will be using cash. It’s more cost effective to buy and sell in cash. In this era, the buying and selling of shares were not done electronically. It was still using paper certificates. The shares were in the form of 50-yuan, 100 yuan, and 200 yuan denominations. 1 yuan was equivalent to 100 shares.

The issuing of shares was still in the pilot phase, and there were not many regulations. It was messy, and there were not a lot of people buying them. Also, the Bank’s securities counter was not using the electronic screen used in the later years. It was using a blackboard. The prices of the shares and transactions were written in chalk. Most of the shares transacted were in single digits.

Why was there only people buying shares and no one was selling them? It was because people who bought the shares treated them as fix deposits. Most of these people were the ones who had traded Treasury Bonds. They held the shares in their hands, and there were very few that sold their shares. Some months there was not even one person selling shares.

……

Early next morning, when CCB just opened its doors, there were 2 young men at the securities counter.

“Good morning. How can I help you? You are purchasing Treasury Bonds?”

The Treasury Bonds were still very popular, and usually, people who went to the securities counter were buying Treasury Bonds.

Feng Yu asked: “How many types of shares are available and how much is the total?”

The bank staff was shocked. After a few seconds, he rolled his eyes. How much is the total? What? You are going to buy everything? The total is at least over a million. Can you afford it?

“There’s a total of 8 types of shares, and the total is about 2 million RMB. You want to buy shares? How many hundreds are you buying?”

Feng Yu laughed: “Only 2 million RMB? So little? I want everything!”

Everyone in the bank, including all the staff and customers, turned and looked at Feng Yu. What did that kid say? He wants everything?

Chapter 155 – Sweeping the Stock Markets

“Sir. What did you just say?” The staff asked again to confirm, with his eyes opened widen in shocked.

“I said I want everything! Can ICBC funds be transferred over?”

The CCB leader came over to the securities counter. Eh, isn’t that Manager Feng who had bought Treasury Bonds last year?

“Manager Feng, you had not visited us for quite some time. Are you buying Treasury Bonds again?”

“Nope. I am buying shares this time. I think shares will be doing better.”

Boom~~~

A stack of shares certificates was placed on the table, and the staff turned towards the safe again.

“Xiao Zhao, where are you going?”

“Manager, I am taking the shares certificates for the customers.”

The branch manager looked at the certificates on the desk. There was at least a few thousand pieces, and the denomination of each piece was 100 yuan. It’s worth at least a few hundred thousand. It’s not enough?

When he saw Feng Yu keeping all the certificates into 2 large suitcases, he was dumbfounded. After Feng Yu left, he asked his staff, how many shares did Feng Yu buy?

What? Everything? 2 million RMB worth of shares?

Hiss ~ ~ ~

The onlookers heard the conversation, and some smart people immediately discover that the shares might be the same as the Treasury Bonds. The value of it might increase. They quickly went back to understand more about stocks. If it was true, then they will come back to buy some.

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun loaded the shares onto the vehicle and returned to the company. At the same time, Li Shiqiang, Wu Zhigang and the rest were also in pairs at different banks’ branches, sweeping up all the available shares.

Tai Hua Trading was withdrawing a significant amount of cash, and it alerted Bank Manager Zhu. What happened? This Tai Hua Trading had withdrawn over tens of million RMB in the morning. Tai Hua Trading was one of the bigger clients of ICBC. They were on par with some of the state-owned enterprises. He must now let this client go.

Manager Zhu immediately tried to call Feng Yu, but no one was picking up his calls at Tai Hua Trading. Manager Zhu was anxious. Could there be some accidents?

Of course, there were no accidents. All the money was converted to shares and transported back to Tai Hua Trading.

After returning from ICBC, Feng Yu stayed at the company to count the shares personally. The 2 financial staffs helped him, and the 3 of them worked till night.

A small storeroom in the company was converted to a safe. There were no windows, and Feng Yu installed 2 big metal doors. Unless it was blown up, there was no way to get in!

The shares certificates were sorted according to the companies and denominations and wrapped in layers of plastics and oil paper. On top, of the packages, Feng Yu scattered chili powder to prevent rats from chewing on them. If rats start chewing on the certificates, then it would really be eating his money away!

Feng Yu was the only person to hold the key to this room. Feng Yu intends to hold for a short period of time. He will keep these shares for 2 years, after 1992, he will sell all these shares in the stock exchange.

From morning till night, Feng Yu only ate a few buns in the afternoon. He finally finishes sorting and tallying all the certificates they bought that day/ Feng Yu stretches himself and massaged his aching shoulders.

There was a total of 34 types of shares, and there was 1,483,050 RMB worth of 50 yuan certificates, 7,692,400 RMB worth of 100 yuan certificates, 3,669,800 RMB worth of 200 yuan certificates. The total amounted to 12,845,250 RMB.

In one day, they had swept all the shares in Bing City clean. This shocked the banks and the stocks issuing companies.

They had thought that there will not be many people who would buy their shares and they also felt that Bing City was too rural. Those shares should not be sold out until next year. What happened today? Why were all the shares sold out?

Feng Yu was still not satisfied despite spending over 10 million RMB. Tai Hua Trading still have lots of money. Since there were no more shares in Bing City, then he should go to the neighboring cities like Ji City and Shen City. If it was still not enough, he could always go to Beijing or even Shenzhen!

Business trip. Only a few staff were stationed in the company, and everyone else went outstation. Feng Yu was leading the team, and he had bought his cash checkbook along with him. They will buy all the shares they saw. The first stop was to buy up all the shares in Shen City.

The next morning, Feng Yu and his men drove 4 cars to Shen City. Feng Yu dismissed the idea of using the train. He felt it was not safe.

They arrived at Shen City in the afternoon, and they only managed to buy up all the shares from 4 banks. That night, they stayed at a hotel, and they will continue the next morning.

At one of the securities counter of a bank, 2 men were queuing up behind Feng Yu. They were discussing which shares to buy. They were thinking if they should get the 2,000 RMB share or the 1,800 RMB share when they heard the kid in front of them shouted: “I am buying all the available shares in your branch!”

Feng Yu could not remember which share would rise the most or which share would not perform well. But he knew that when the stock exchange was set up, all the shares rose in value at the start!

Feng Yu does not care what type of shares. He just buys everything since he could afford it!

Feng Yu loaded the two big briefcases onto the car and drove towards the next bank.

The two men who were queuing up behind Feng Yu were speechless. Earlier they were still discussing which shares to buy. Now, there was not a single share left for them to buy!

They had never seen anyone who bought shares in this manner. This kid was not afraid of losing money?

The two men discussed among themselves. Was that kid a fool? That kid had spent over a million RMB on shares! If they had the money, they would not be buying stocks. They would be leaving the money in the bank and collect interest.

Every year, the interest would be at least tens of thousands RMB. They could spend on whatever they wanted and still can’t finish spending everything!

But at the same time, both of them also envied that kid. Maybe that kid was so rich because he dares to take the risk. Since that kid dares to buy shares in this manner, then they should not hesitate too. The two men decided to go to another bank to buy stocks.

Some of the bank staffs still remembered Li Shiqiang and greeted him. They heard that this man made his fortune by trading in Treasury Bonds. This was someone who had traveled from Bing City to buy Treasury Bonds here. This showed how profitable Treasury Bonds were.

But this time, the staffs were wrong. Li Shiqiang was not there to buy Treasury Bonds. Although there was still money to be made from Treasury Bonds, when compared to shares, there was a vast difference in the returns.

Li Shiqiang placed his checkbook on the counter and asked the staff to bring out all the shares certificates.

There were more banks in Shen City than Bing City, and there were more shares too. Feng Yu had spent all the money they brought with them and almost buy up all the available shares in Shen City.

When everyone returned to Bing City, they started to tally the shares certificates and wrapped them up carefully. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. The was the first time they spent money like this.

Feng Yu was satisfied with the performance of Wu Zhigang and the staffs. Not one of them took the checks or shares and ran off. Perhaps they were in pairs and were mutually supervising each other, or maybe they had not thought of doing that at all. Or perhaps they did not want to create trouble for their families.

Feng Yu was right to trust them. This was only the first step!

But did they think this was the end? Feng Yu only bought less than 50 million RMB worth of shares and was still not satisfied. There was no more money in Tai Hua Trading account? Feng Yu have a solution!

Chapter 156 – Loans

ICBC’s bank Manager Zhu finally got to meet Feng Yu today. When they met, he immediately asked if Feng Yu was going to switch his company account to other banks.

Feng Yu explained that the company was making some investments, that’s why he had transferred some of his funds to other banks. His company account will still be with ICBC. There will not be any changes.

This assured Manager Zhu. He was at a critical stage. There were huge amounts of foreign currencies transactions with Tai Hua Trading account, and this was an achievement for him.

But relying on this achievement was not enough. Now the government had lowered the lending rate to increase spending. So, the banks need to switch their focuses from savings to lending.

Manager Zhu was leading regarding getting savings for the bank, and his branch was number one in the province. But regarding lending, Manager Zhu was not performing well. His branch was ranked below average in the region. This would affect his promotion to the post of Provincial Deputy Bank Manager.

Manager Zhu had wanted to talk to Feng Yu about loans, but Feng Yu brought up this subject after his explanations. He asked about the procedures for getting loans.

No choice. Feng Yu could not remember the procedures of getting a loan in this era, but he knew it was quite troublesome.

Manager Zhu’s eyes sparkles. Tai Hua Trading needs a loan? That’s great. I will approve whatever the amount as long as it was within his authority!

Manager Zhu even wishes for Feng Yu to get a loan for an astronomical amount. With the capabilities of Tai Hua Trading, he was not afraid that Feng Yu could not repay the loan.

Feng Yu saw the excitement in Manager Zhu’s eyes when they talked about getting a loan and understood why. The government was encouraging borrowing and spending. So, there should be a target for ICBC to hit.

Feng Yu wanted to get a loan for a large amount and invest in the stock market. This would save him a lot of trouble after two years.

“Manager Zhu, based on the financial situation of my company, there was no need to get a loan. But recently, my company have a big project. So, we might need to get a short-term loan. How is the interest calculated, the repayment period and the mode of repayment?”

Manager Zhu enthusiastically explained to Feng Yu. The interest would be the lowest, and he guaranteed it to be the lowest in the province. The repayment period would be 3 years, and the first and second year will be interest repayment only. The loan amount plus interest for the third year will be paid in the final year. This way, there will be no pressure on Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was jumping with joy in his heart. The was what he wanted. Although he still had the profits from the humidifiers and the annual returns from the Machinery Factory, he does not want to repay the loan early. 3 years was the right duration. His shares should be sold by then, and he should recover his investment.

“Manager Zhu, how much can your bank lend my company?”

“if you are using your shares in the Machinery Company as collateral, I can give you a loan of 1.2 million RMB. If it was Tai Hua Trading’s assets and income, I could lend you 10 million RMB. Wind and Rain logistics will be 2 million RMB, and the pig farm can get a loan of 500,000 RMB.” Manager Zhu was hoping for Feng Yu to use all these companies as collaterals for loans!

“Manager Zhu, this is not right. The market value of the Machinery Company shares is currently worth about 1.2 million RMB, and the loan amount you tell me is not making sense. Furthermore, why is Tai Hua Trading only worth 10 million RMB? Tai Hua Trading owns Wind and Rain brand, and there were over a few million Rubles of trade with the Soviet Union every month. Why is the loan amount so little?”

Manager Zhu stared at Feng Yu with eyes opened wide. Feng Yu wanted to borrow more? This was great! Since he thinks that the loan amount was too little, then how much does he want?

“Manager Feng, then how much do you think its reasonable?”

“With the Machinery Company’s shares and Tai Hua Trading assets and income as collateral, I wish to get a loan of 40 million RMB. As for Wind and Rain Logistics, I think it is worth 4 million RMB. We have a fleet of 80 Gaz trucks. Don’t tell me that a truck is not worth 50,000 RMB?”

Hmmm…… although Feng Yu had bought the trucks at less than 50,000 RMB each, the trucks were worth this price now!

Manager Zhu did not say anything yet, but Li Shiqiang stared at Feng Yu in shocked. What’s going on? You want me to get a loan of 4 million RMB? This…… Isn’t this a bit risky? The interest for a year was also not a small sum!

Li Shiqiang already felt that using all his available funds to invest in shares was a risky move and now Feng Yu still want to get a loan? He can get a loan for himself, why did he drag him along? Fine. Li Shiqiang had agreed to get some loans, but Feng Yu did not tell him that the loan amount was so much. If he can’t repay the loan, the logistics company will belong to the bank.

Feng Yu secretly patted his brother-in-law’s leg, assuring him. Feng Yu had wanted to build a hospital for his sister, but it was his brother-in-law who volunteered for the task. Feng Yu asked him to expand his business aggressively, but he was scared of failing. With the speed of the logistics company’s development, it would take more than 5 years to fulfill his sister’s dream.

Investing in shares was different. The returns would reach a few folds within 2 years, and Li Shiqiang’s worth would be increased to tens of millions RMB. At that time, he would have no problems even if he set up a few hospitals!

Manager Zhu asked in shaking voice: “You want to take a loan of how much? 40 million?”

“it’s 44 million.”

Manager Zhu was breathing rapidly. Ha, ha, ha. It’s done. It’s finally done. It was time for his promotion. He was short of 15 million for his target this year. With these 44 million loans, he would achieve his target with excess. His branch would be ranked first in the province. If he was not promoted, who else would be eligible?

“Let me think of a way. 44 million RMB, right? No problem!” Although this amount was not according to the regulations, Manager Zhu decided to speak to his higher-ups. A 44 million loan would take care of the whole province’s target. He believed that his leaders would approve this loan!

Feng Yu saw that Manager Zhu was accommodative and he continued: “I still have an antique. It is a Ming Dynasty Xuande burner. It is a real treasure, and there are only a few of them in the world. A Hong Kong businessman once offered 8 million to buy it from me. I will not ask for more. I will use it as collateral for a 6 million loan. the total loan amount will be 50 million RMB!”

Seeeee ~ ~ ~

Manager Zhu was frowning and exhaling loudly. There was no precedent in this province for using an antique as collateral for loans.

Supposedly, anything that was valuable could be used as collateral for loans. But the price for antiques was hard to evaluate. Feng Yu claims that someone offered him 8 million, but there was also the possibility that the antique could not be sold for even 80,000 RMB.

“Manager Feng, using antique is a bit hard. There is no benchmark to gauge its value. It’s very hard to get approval.” Manager Zhu said with a troubled look.

Feng Yu glanced at Manager Zhu: “It’s very difficult? Never mind then. We will go to CCB for loans. My father knows Manager Liu from CCB loans department too. I think with me using so many assets as collateral, it should not be difficult to get a 50 million loan.”

Manager Zhu watched Feng Yu stand up, and he immediately grabbed him by his hand.: “Manager Feng, please wait. We had cooperated for so long, and you still don’t trust me? Let me make a phone call first. Just a call.”

This was all for his merit, for his promotion!

Manager Zhu walked out of the room, and Li Shiqiang immediately asked: “Xiao Yu, why do you need to borrow so much money? What if you can’t repay?”

Feng Yu looked at Li Shiqiang confidently: “Brother-in-law, don’t worry. I can definitely repay this amount. Do you know how much profits from the overseas market did Tai Hua Trading get for the humidifiers? 10 million. 10 million USD! Next year, the profits will increase further. So, you don’t need to worry about the repayment. What we are doing now is seizing the opportunity to buy up all available shares in the market. You can see the returns at the end of this year. Maybe it might be even earlier than that. Maybe in October, you can see the profits!”

By sweeping 2 cities clean of the available shares, Feng Yu would affect the stock market and push up the prices!

Li Shiqiang wanted to say something, but Manager Zhu returned and told Feng Yu excitedly: “50 million RMB. Our city ICBC and the Provincial ICBC will jointly lend this amount to you!”

Chapter 157 – Getting Dad to sign

ICBC readily agreed to give Feng Yu a loan of 50 million RMB. But things were not so simple as Feng Yu need his father’s signature. He was now thinking of how to get his father to sign the documents.

Feng Xingtai was even more conservative than Li Shiqiang and was contented with what he had now. He felt that the money he earned now was more than enough for him and could not finish spending in his lifetime. How could he get a loan from the bank and it was still a big amount?

“You this good-for-nothing son! Loan? That’s borrowing money, and there’s still high interest. Why did you get a loan for so much money?”

Feng Yu just finished saying, Feng Xingtai had banged hard on the table and stood up. This good-for-nothing son needs a beating. His whole body will itch if he does not get a beating every 3 days!

“Dad, dad, wait a moment. You know how important your son is now?” Feng Yu asked in an exaggerated manner.

Feng Xingtai looked at Feng Yu from top to bottom and asked: “Which part is important? What are you up to this time?”

“Dad, you know the last time I attended the International summer camp at Moscow University with Wen Dongjun and other students?” Feng Yu asked, placing particular emphasis on the words international and Moscow.

“Now you mentioned that camp. It reminds me of something. Why are you out every night while at the camp?” Feng Xingtai sneered.

“Dad, that’s the main point. Your son was on a mission. An important mission! Look, where did all the machinery from Tai Hua factory come from? It’s bought from the Soviet Union. How did we become shareholders of the Machinery Company? It was because of the technologies I bought from the Soviet Union too. Even the City Mayor knows about this!”

“What? The Mayor is finding trouble with us? Just tell him that I am the one who did all these and it had nothing to do with you!” Feng Xingtai was shocked. His first reaction was to protect his son even if he had to go to jail.

“Dad~~~ Let me finish first.” Feng Yu wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. “The Mayor knows that I am capable of getting advanced machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union. That’s why I was tasked with buying machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union for Bing City. That was the reason why I had to leave the camp every night.”

“So, nothing bad had happened? This was instructed by the Mayor?”

“Of course, I had even signed the contract. It includes the soybean oil machinery. All the machinery will be arriving in 1 to 2 months’ time. All these machineries from the Soviet Union were large-scale production machinery. How much do you think it will cost?”

“What you mean? Your loan is to buy these machines? Didn’t you say that it was the Mayor that asked you to buy these machines? Shouldn’t the City Government be paying for these machines?” Feng Xingtai was unhappy. Even if it was the Mayor, he shouldn’t be taking advantage of them. There’s no the reason for them to take a loan to purchase machinery for the government.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes and asked his father seriously: “Dad, do you think that Machinery Factory’s Li Mingde needs to be taught a lesson? We were the one who got advanced machinery and technologies for the Machinery Factory. The profits from the sales of the agriculture machines were manufactured from the technologies we provided, and you are also the assistant manager there. But did Li Mingde ever respected you?”

When Feng Yu mentioned this, Feng Xingtai was pissed. He was also the owner of a food processing factory, and he had a few dozens of workers under him. He was also considered a leader. But every time he went to the Machinery Factory, the look on Li Mingde and his secretary was looking down on him. If it were not because of Feng Yu, he would have sold his Machinery Factory shares a long time ago.

“What do you mean? You want to beat him up?”

“Not to that extent. He is managing the factory well. But have you ever thought of becoming the boss of the Machinery Factory and Li Mingde got to report to you?” Feng Yu carried on inducing his father.

“How can that be possible? Li Mingde is considered a government servant.”

“Dad, it’s a joint stock company. The major shareholder has the final say in the company! I am confident that I can help you become the major shareholder in 3 years.  In future, you will be the General Manager, and Li Mingde can only resign or work for us!”

“What? Within 3 years become the major shareholder, and I will be the General Manager? Are you dreaming?”

“Don’t worry about the process. I can definitely achieve it. However, we need to earn more money now. With money in our hands, we can buy the Machinery Company shares. I have a way to buy the shares.”

“What’s that got to do with you getting a loan?”

Finally, it had come to this question. Feng Yu immediately replied: “I will be reselling this batch of Soviet machinery and technologies. No matter if I am selling it to the city or other company, we can make money. But first, we must have money to buy these machineries and technologies, right? The loan is to raise funds for the purchase.”

“No, no, no. The Company in Bing City had lots of money. Last month, I asked you, and you replied that there was still lots of money in that company’s account.”

“I spent it.”

“What? There should be at least 20 to 30 million. You spent it?” Feng Xingtai stood up to look for the feather duster. 20 to 30 million RMB and you spent it? This good-for-nothing son!

“I used it to buy shares. Shares are similar to Treasury Bonds. There will be interest at the end of the year, and it is better than the bank. Also, the interest is higher than the loan’s interest. We can make money. You sign on these 2 documents, and we will have money to purchase the advanced machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union. Guaranteed to make money!” Feng Yu continued to lie.

“We can make money even if we sell to the City?”

“Yes. The profits will not be lesser than 20%!” Feng Yu did not tell his father that the profits would be at least 30% and that was even taking discount into considerations.

“Then you also don’t need so much money. It’s 40 million. How much is the interest every month?”

“The interest will not be higher than our profits. Furthermore, we still have the machinery and shares. These are also money.”

“Then when do we will we be repaying the bank?”

“End of the year. See, it is written here. Repayment at the end of the year.” Feng Yu casually pointed to the contract. He didn’t intend to even let his father read it carefully.

“This really can make money?”

“We are sure to make. We have the City Government as our backing. I had already sold all these machines and technologies. If you don’t sign, then we will not have money to buy those machines from the Soviet Union. Then your son would be breaking the law.”

Feng Yu was also thinking of getting his father to transfer the Tai Hua Trading shares to him. Getting his signature, every time was troublesome, and he still got to come up with lies.

Genius also has his own difficulties~~~

Feng Xingtai picked up the pen to sign. He signed on the places where Feng Yu pointed on the document. When he finished signing, he wanted to read the contract, but Feng Yu immediately took it away and kept in his bag.

“Dad, I need to return to Bing city today. This contract needs to be delivered to the bank as soon as possible. The Soviets will only release the machines when they receive money. The City Government had chased me a few times.”

“Leave after lunch. Your mum is cooking rabbit stew at home.”

“No. I will be back in 2 days’ time.”

The contract was settled, and Feng Yu only need to wait for ICBC to release the funds. Feeling Yu was in a rush to get back to Bing City. Without funds, he could not buy more shares. He got the feeling of loss if he did not earn this money.

Feng Xingtai hanged up the phone. He was so angry until he stomped his feet. He had called his son-in-law and was told that Feng Yu wanted to get a loan from the bank was not to purchase machinery. Instead, Feng Yu planned to use the money to buy more shares.

This son even dares to lie to his father? He will break his legs when he returns!

Chapter 158 – Continue to Raise Money

The Loan process was very smooth, and Feng Yu heaved a sigh of relieve. Manager Zhu was still very reliable.

Can he be unreliable? Manager Zhu depended on this loan for his promotion. The part of loan amount was under the Provincial ICBC, and this made his leaders there happy. The leaders also promised him that after the Deputy Provincial Bank Manager retires at the end of the year, he would be taking over that position.

Feng Yu brought his men to Ji City to buy the shares, and Li Shiqiang also went back to Shen City with some men. They have to buy up all the available shares in the market within the shortest period of time.

Feng Yu guessed that no one bought shares as aggressive as him in his previous life, and the stock market bull run started at the end of the year. With Feng Yu aggressively acquiring shares in large quantities now, the market boom might be brought forward. Although his current funds might not be enough for him to be considered a big player, it will definitely have some impact on the market.

After 3 days of hard work, Feng Yu and his staffs returned to Bing City. They had spent all their money, and all the staffs, including Wen Dongjun, had chosen the stocks they wanted. Basically, they were hinted by Feng Yu to pick the famous stocks in his previous life. These stocks were the earliest to be on the market and unquestionably will be profitable stocks.

All of them were confident of Feng Yu. Was there a need to doubt the words of someone who had become wealthy and set up a profitable business in such a short time? Anyway, they had already purchased the shares and had no other choices. Furthermore, Feng Yu had promised them that he will cover the losses if any.

Everyone was satisfied, and when they thought that Feng Yu would be taking a break, Feng Yu went to look for Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao.

“Borrow money? Manager Feng, your Tai Hua Trading is getting the bigger share, and you are earning more than the both of us combined. You want to borrow money from us?” Hou Haitao asked puzzledly. Tai Hua Trading need money?

“Recently I have an investment, and I am short of money. I will return the money to you at the end of the year.”

Li Shiyou shook his head: “Manager Feng, our factories are different with Tai Hua Trading. We are state-owned enterprises and even though, with my signature, I can withdraw the money, I still need to answer to the government. This is the government’s money, not ours. That’s why I cannot agree to lend you the money.”

Hou Haitao immediately said that his factory also can’t lend Feng Yu money. He said that his factory was not doing well and even asked Feng Yu to give him more R&D funds. The funds were running low.

Feng Yu sighed. Borrowing money from state-owned enterprises were too difficult. Furthermore, Feng Yu was investing in the financial market and not some physical businesses. It would be hard to convince them also.

Looks like he can only try the last person.

……

“Manager Feng, I thought you had encountered some big problems when calling me here. How come your company is short of funds?” Fu Guangzheng does not understand. The profits of the humidifiers had been transferred every month, and Tai Hua Trading was making huge profits. How come Feng Yu is short of funds?

Feng Yu laughed: “It’s not Tai Hua Trading needs money. I am the one that needs money. Recently I noticed a profitable business and I need to borrow some money. Maybe you can introduce some Hong Kong banks to me. I need to get a loan.”

Fu Guangzeng’s eyes widen: “What profitable business? Can you let me in?”

Fu Guangzheng had discovered that after knowing Feng Yu, his luck had turned for the better. Recently, he had bought some antiques, and none of the antiques were fake. Also, the second-hand luxury cars business were doing well, and he had made lots of profits from there. He even got praised by his father.

When he invested in the Machinery Company with Feng Yu, he did not expect to make any profits from it. But the bonuses and dividends from last year, and according to the sales orders, he might get back his invested amount in another year. He estimated that there will still be 5 years of high dividends. This investment was giving him high returns!

Investing in the Machinery Company made the Fu family noticed Fu Guangzheng. However, it was the getting the overseas dealership of the humidifiers that made him stand out in the Fu family.

His status was climbing up, not only in the Fu family but also in Hong Kong’s 2nd generations circles. Fu Guangzheng was now very famous in that circle. He was no longer labeled as the useless Fu family generation.

“This profitable business is stocks!”

Stocks? Fu Guangzheng’s face changed color. He knows about the situation of the stock market now and investing in stocks now can earn money? This is also considered a good business?

“Manager Feng, are you joking with me?”

“Not joking.”

Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu puzzledly. Could it be Feng Yu had gotten some insider information and knows that a particular stock will rise? But it can’t be. Tai Hua Trading should have at least tens of million RMB of assets. Feng Yu still need to borrow money?

“Then Manager Feng intends to buy what stocks?”

“China stocks. I am buying every single China stocks!” Feng Yu smilingly said.

“China stocks? There is a stock exchange in China?” Fu Guangzheng asked in surprised.

It was normal for him to be surprised. Now, China still does not have any stock exchanges. Hong Kong’s stock exchanges existed for a long time and in 1986, four exchanges closed and set up a unified stock exchange. The unified stock exchange even allowed the trading of international bonds.

Fu Guangzheng thought that Feng Yu had wanted to buy the stocks listed on Hong Kong stock exchange, but it turned out that Feng Yu wanted to buy China stocks. But there were no stock exchanges in China, and there was no way for the shares to trade. Without trading, how can the value rise? Wait for the year-end financial report? How many profits can these Chinese companies make and how much dividends can they give?

“There’s still no stock exchange in China. The stocks were mainly bought over the counter in the banks, and they are still in the form of paper certificates. But the Chinese Government had started to stimulate the economy. Before the end of the year, there should be news of setting up a stock exchange. When that happens, the first few companies that were listed will be taken care by the government, and everybody will be buying the shares of those few companies. We are sure to make money.”

“Don’t tell me that you had invested all of Tai Hua Trading’s assets into these China stocks?” Fu Guangzheng was shocked. Feng Yu was crazy.

The Chinese stock market can be considered in the starting phase. There were also no signs of it picking up. Feng Yu dares to take such a big gamble? Tai Hua Trading’s assets were worth at least tens of millions, and he invested everything into the stock market?

Feng Yu nodded: “That’s right. I also wanted to borrow money to continue to invest. I can give you interest. 3 years. How about every year 10% interest? I meant compounding interest!”

Fu Guangzheng doesn’t understand why Feng Yu was so confident. Yearly 10 % compounding interest was much higher than the banks. Why was he confident that the China stocks will rise and he was still buying every stock?

Fu Guangzheng felt that Feng Yu was playing with fire. If he was not careful, he might burn himself.

“This, I need to discuss with my family first.” Fu Guangzheng paused for a while and said. In his heart, he was thinking of how to reject Feng Yu without hurting their relationships. There was no way for him to lend Feng Yu money. But if he were to help Feng Yu get a loan, he needs to discuss with his family first. Someone from the Fu family will have to be a guarantor and getting a loan because of this, his father would never agree.

Hearing his reply and from his expression, Feng Yu knew that Fu Guangzheng does not want to lend him money. He even does not want to be his guarantor. Seems like Feng Yu got to increase the chips.

“Does your Fu family dabble with Forex or do you all have any investment in Japan?”

“My first uncle deals in Forex and my second uncle had some properties in Japan. Why? Are you looking at investing in Japan too?

Feng Yu tapped the table with his fingers and said: “I will tell you 2 things which I heard from the leaders. Firstly, all properties in Japan got to be sold off as soon as possible. Even if the value is low now, it must also be sold. If not, there won’t be any chance for the properties to sell. Secondly, Japanese Yen will continue to appreciate for the next few years. So, never bet on the depreciation of Yen as it will be easy to lose money!”

“You sure?”

“Very sure!”

Chapter 159 – Getting more loans

Feng Yu knew that the lies about getting news from the senior leaders would be shocking to Fu Guangzheng. He hoped that with the news, Fu Guangzheng would be about to convince his family to loan him the money or help him get a loan from the Hong Kong Banks.

Fu Guangzheng, including his family, had assumed that Feng Yu had strong backings all this while. On the surface, his parents might be farmers, but maybe, he had strong connections which were not known to others!

If Feng Yu does not have strong backings, how could he have gotten this news? How could Feng Yu trade with the Soviet Unions and how could he use the Soviet trains to transport his goods? Especially if Feng Yu does not have access to insider news, why would he dare to invest everything he had into Treasury Bonds when he started out?

Maybe Feng Yu had a third grandpa or a 2nd grand uncle working at the Central or had connections with the senior officials there, and was able to get access to information about the policies what was about to implement. This might be the reason why Feng Yu was able to earn from all his investments. This news Feng Yu gave to Fu Guangzheng must be from his backers in the dark.

So, it seems that there will be listed companies in China soon?

Fu Guangzheng called his father and told him about the news Feng Yu told him and also said to him that Feng Yu wanted to get a 3 years loan from them with compounding interests of 10%.

Fu Rongjin questioned further and found out that Feng Yu wants to get a loan to invest in China’s stocks and it’s still not any particular stocks. Feng Yu wanted to purchase all sorts of available shares in the market. He felt that this was something unusual. Even if China’s stocks had potential, but not every stock will make money. There should not be a lot of companies that will be listed initially and will there be many people in China that will buy shares?

Fu Rongjin contacted the rest of the family and told them that Fu Guangzheng had got some news. The Yen will rise, and Japan property market will collapse. China’s stock exchange might be opening soon, and there will be listed Chinese companies soon.

The head of the Fu family, Fu Rongqi was an expert in the financial market, and his company had done research. The US had already intervened with Japan’s economy, and the rising of Yen will benefit the US.

He had a wait and see approach, but after hearing the news from Fu Rongjin, he also felt that there would be at least 80% possibility of the Yen rising. Although China’s economy had just started to pick up, the growth was at an amazing pace. China had the top personnel in their economic planning committee and undoubtedly will have access to more reliable information compared to him.

But the Fu family’s 2nd brother, Fu Rongqu, does not agree with the news. How could Japanese property market collapse? He felt that the world’s top economy should not be the US. It should be Japan. The Japanese stock market was flourishing, and Japan was the most advanced in technology and innovations. Furthermore, there were lots of Americans and Europeans investing in Japan’s property market. How could it collapse?

Fu family’s 3rd brother, Fu Rongbing, kept quiet. Earlier, his eldest brother and the fourth brother had set up a distribution company to distribute a new type of humidifier. Both had made lots of money from the US and Europe. His 2nd brother had invested in the Japanese property market, and the property prices had been rising. Only his company did not have any developments.

This time, his 4th brother said that he received news from the big boss in China about investments and he came over to hear about it. But when he heard that it was investing in China’s stock market, he was not interested. China was still a backward country and how could they set up a stock exchange and allows companies to be listed in a short period of time?

As for loaning money or being a guarantor, he would never agree. He did not get to earn a single cent previously and now got to be a guarantor? No way!

“Big brother, you think this news is reliable?”

“I believe it. Tomorrow I will be doing more Yen futures. The faster the Yen rises, the more I will earn!”

“Big brother, don’t forget that the Yen had already risen a lot recently. You still think that it will rise further?” Fu Rongqu sneered.

What news from China’s top leaders? How can China be compared to Hong Kong when it comes to getting reliable news?

“2nd brother and 3rd brother, do you all want to invest in the humidifier company? Each of you gives me 50 million HKD, and I will sell some shares to you.”

Fu Rongqu and Fu Rongbing’s eyes shined. Their eldest brother wants to sell his shares to them? This showed that their elder brother wants to take care of them and at the same time, he wanted to invest more into forex futures. He wants to bet that the Yen will rise further!

Fu Rongqu does not have 50 million HKD cash. However, when he thinks of the profits of the humidifiers which were higher than his investments in properties, he decided to sell his properties in Japan at a slight loss to raise funds.

“4th brother, how much does that Manager Feng wants to borrow?”

Fu Rongjin replied: “Big brother, don’t worry. I will be the guarantor for him.”

The eldest brother was the best in investments compared to his three other brothers. Now the eldest even wanted to lend Feng Yu the money. He might as well be the guarantor and let Fu Guangzheng be the one who gave Feng Yu a favor.

When Hong Kong is returned to China, he might get the first mover advantage to enter the vast China market. His assets might even overtake his eldest brother.

Fu Rongqi looked at his 4th brother and nodded: “Ok. Just go according to your plan. This Manager Feng is not simple.”

……

“You had helped me contacted Hong Kong’s Citibank and HSBC?”

Feng Yu was happy. This Fu Guangzheng had agreed to be his guarantor in the end. Feng Yu still had something valuable in his hands which were the stocks. The stocks he bought were valuable and could be used as collateral.

Feng Yu had used his companies’ assets as collateral to get loans and used the credits to purchase stocks. He would use the shares as collaterals to get more loans. This was like how the property developers in the future years get repeated loans.

Getting a loan to buy a land parcel and then mortgage the land to another bank to get a loan to complete the buildings. This way, the property developers would only need to come up with only 10% of the whole investment and the rest were from the banks.

However, this practice came to a halt and was considered a violation of lending regulations. Companies that indulged in such practices were blacklisted, and they will have difficulties in getting future loans.

The reason given by Feng Yu for getting a loan was to invest in trades. It was considered a misappropriation of funds when he spends the money in stocks. However, if no one reported him, the authorities would not care. But if Feng Yu carried on getting loans from China’s banks, he would be found out, and he might be jailed.

Getting a loan from Hong Kong was different. The banks in China had no way to find out. The Hong Kong banks only look at the value of the collaterals, and with Fu Rongjin as the guarantor, he could get a significant amount of loan safely.

The most important thing was this amount would be more than what the Fu family can lend him!

“How? Is Manager Feng satisfied?” Fu Guangzheng asked happily.

“I wonder how much can these 2 banks lend me?”

“How many shares do you have?”

Feng Yu showed one finger: “100 million RMB!”

“How much? 100 million RMB!” Fu Guangzheng was shocked. He knew that Feng Yu had invested a lot in China stocks, but he did not expect the amount to be so big. 100 million? Feng Yu’s companies don’t need cashflows?

If it weren’t for Tai Hua Trading working with the suppliers for a long period of time and were allowed to have a 1-month credit term, Feng Yu would not dare to do this. He cannot stop the trade with the Soviet Union as this was the connection with Kirilenko.

As for the machines and technologies bought from the Soviet Union, Feng Yu would collect the deposits first and send to Kirilenko. When the buyers paid up the remaining amount after they collected their machines, he would transfer to Kirilenko. This way, he does not need to use too much cash.

Feng Yu was putting his everything into this!

“100 million. Fine. With so many shares and my father as the guarantor, there should not be any problems getting at least 100 million RMB!”

Chapter 160 – Light Industrial equipment wholesales

It was mid-August. After the turmoil of buying shares, the light industries machinery and technologies had arrived in Bing City from the Soviet Union. The factories that had paid the deposits had already sent their men over with the remaining payments. They were waiting in Tai Hua Trading’s office every day since they arrived. They were afraid of things not going as planned.

Although the deposits were paid, and it was not the first time Tai Hua Trading sold Soviet machines to them, they could not rest assured until the machines were in their hands. What if someone comes with a better offer for the machines?

Everyone in the meeting was restless. Other than the Feng Yu told them that the machines were arriving today, it was also because Feng Yu had banned smoking there.

These people were all smokers. Even though they were no chain smokers, they still could not stand waiting for hours without smoking!

It was not only at Tai Hua Trading, but even Wind and Rain Logistics was also the same. Whoever dares to smoke in the offices or lighted any flames will be fined 100 RMB the first time. If the person were caught for the 2nd time, he would be sacked!

Feng Yu had no choice but to be strict. There were more than 100 million RMB worth of shares in the storeroom! He had used 100 million RMB shares as collaterals for a 120 million loan from Citibank and HSBC. He used this money to purchased stocks from the northern to the southern provinces. Their footprints even reached Shenzhen.

Feng Yu even convinced Li Shiqiang to mortgage his shares to get more stocks! All the shares were kept together in the “safe” in the office.

Feng Yu made his men remembered about moist proof, pest control, fire prevention and anti-theft and they must set an example. Wu Zhigang and the staffs’ shares were also kept together there, and they readily agreed. If a fire broke out in the office, all of them would be broke!

At first, some rep from the factories did not obey the rules. They felt that it was a joke. He knew that every staff there smoked.

But when he lighted up one cigarette, Wu Zhigang immediately asked him to stub it out and pay the fine or get out of the office with his check. As for the deposit, he will refund the factory at the end of the month.

Wu Zhigang’s firm attitude shocked all these people from the factories. They had heard that Tai Hua Trading’s staff had a terrible temper, but after getting in touch with them, they felt that they were still quite nice. Today, they finally experienced the bad-tempered staffs.

“Pujiang textile mills, is there anyone from Pujiang textile mills?”

“Here, here.” A man with glasses jumped from his chair.

“You follow me to the cargo terminal to inspect your goods and do the handover documentation.”

5 minutes later, another representative from the factories was called away. There were lesser and lesser people in the room. The remaining people start to get more restless.

Although they were told that the equipment had arrived but why were they still in the room? Some had already been called out and why were they still waiting in the room? Could there be some problems with the machines they ordered?

Their machines were “obsoleted” machines from the Soviet Union, but they were still in good conditions. Tai Hua Trading had also priced these machines very low. They were instructed by their factories management that nothing must go wrong with this deal, especially those that had ordered machineries and technologies together. Some of the representatives were the factories’ chief engineers or workshop directors. This showed that the factories had placed high importance in this transaction.

Feng Yu was sitting in the finance room. Every once in a while, there will be someone accompanied by a Tai Hua Trading’s staff entering the room to hand over a check and sign on some documents.

Feng Yu also warned those people that they will be accompanied by his staff to the bank to cash in the checks. This was to prevent if any of them played any tricks. If they dare to give him bounced checks to delay payments, he will not hesitate to tear up the contract and confiscate the deposit!

Although it would be troublesome for him to look for new buyers, he could find buyers easily within 1 to 2 weeks. His machines were cheap, in excellent condition and very advanced. Why would he be worried about getting no buyers?

“Textile mills machinery sold and the money was deposited.”

“The refrigerator production line has been sold and the money deposited.”

“The cigarette equipment has been sold and the money deposited.”

……

Someone was reporting to Feng Yu every half an hour and the contracts in from of Feng Yu were getting lesser.

“Manager Feng, the first set of technology was verified and can be traded.” A Russian came in and told Feng Yu.

“Feng Yu nodded, and someone took a contract and left the room. Kirilenko had sent someone with all the technologies documents. When Feng Yu returned from the Soviet Union, he did not want to bring all those documents with him.

If he were caught with those documents, it would be hard for him to explain. It would be better for Kirilenko to send his men with the documents over.

Furthermore, these documents need to be verified by an expert. Feng Yu does not understand the contents of the papers. There were lots of numbers in these documents and to Feng Yu, these are just numbers, and there was nothing special about it.

There were lots of machineries being unloaded from the trains and transferred to trucks. Some simply latched the whole carriage onto the back of another train.

The people at the railway station knew that these must be Tai Hua Trading’s goods. Tai Hua Trading was really something. They could import so many machines from the Soviet Union!

Just happened there were a few workers from the Motor Factory at the railway station loading some goods on a southbound train, and they saw the situation there. They immediately inform their Factory Director that Tai Hua Trading’s machineries had arrived from the Soviet Union. They were not sure if these machines were of use to them.

Li Shiyou rushed down to the Tai Hua Trading and saw many people waiting in the meeting room. Could it be some advanced machinery?

“Manager Feng, why didn’t you inform me that you have machinery arriving from the Soviet Union today? Have the machines I ordered arrived? I bought the checks.”

“Director Li, have a seat. The machines the Motor Factory ordered was not purchased yet. This batch of machines and technologies were for light industries. The machines and technologies you ordered were for heavy industries, and currently, there are a bit of problem getting them. But I promised you that I will get it next year!”

“Cannot be. There is so many equipments at the train station, and none of them are suitable for my factory?” Li Shiyou does not want to give up.

Feng Yu passed a list on his desk to Li Shiyou: “Look, these are machinery for textile, home appliances, cigarettes, oil, food processing, sugar, wine. Which one do you need? You let me know I will break the contract and sell it to you!”

These machines were not suitable for the Motor Factory, and Feng Yu does not believe that Li Shiyou really wants them.

Li Shiyou frowned: “This is a light industry equipment wholesales. You have almost everything here, but the Motor Factory does not have any uses for these. This production line is used to produce refrigerators? Never mind. I don’t need.”

The last batch of the refrigerators was not selling well, and the compressors were still bought at a discount. Li Shiyou knew that Tai Hua Trading did not make much from this business.

If he were to get the production line for the refrigerators and produce refrigerators themselves, they would not earn any money, The northern province market was too small, and if he were to ship those fridges to the south, the transport cost would be high. Refrigerators were not like the electric fans or humidifiers. They were bulky and costs more to transport.

Light industries equipment wholesaler? Feng Yu laughed. He likes the sound of it, but he loves the name of heavy industries wholesaler next year.

Chapter 161 – Seed germination

“Master Crutches, I heard that Song Laosi seems to be finding trouble with that kid Feng.”

Crippled Wang’s face was covered with a towel and was soaking in his bath. He enjoys taking a bath as it was relaxing and he could not feel his crippled legs.

The follower says Cripple Wang did not have any reaction and continued: “That kid’s trading company which sold the Wind and Rain fans last year and the humidifiers this year is doing very well. His even advertise on CCTV. I heard that his annual profits are more than a few dozen million!”

“Recently, there are lesser demolition projects, and Song Laosi wants to do some other business. I heard that he is targeting that Feng’s trading company. Our men say Song Laosi’s advisor went to the trading company. It seems that he wants to buy a stake in the company.”

Cripple Wang took down the towel on his face and looked at his follower. Although he did not say anything but that follower felt a chill creeping up his back.

“Did he succeed?”

“This…… I think no. I heard that Feng Yu rejected. I am not sure what’s wrong with that Feng Yu. His company has lots of banners, plaques and awards hung outside. Some of these were awarded by the Motor Factory, Aviation Factory, Machinery Company and some were from government departments and even the City Government.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Master Crutches, although our earnings for the past year was not bad, we have lots of men. You treat us very well and split the earnings with us. You look at Song Laosi, his mansion is bigger than those generals. Furthermore, Feng Yu’s company is located in our territory, and even if someone has to get a stake in the company, it should be us.”

Cripple Wang looked at that follower: “You are telling me to ignore the rules and swallow the company from the businessman operating on my turf?”

“It’s not swallowing. It’s becoming a shareholder or becoming a partner. We will also come out with capital and get part of the profits. When it’s the time for splitting the profits, then we shall see if that Feng Yu knows what to do.”

Cripple Wang hesitated. He was also the boss of a gang, but he was not as glamorous as Song Laosi. They were all bosses of gangs but why was Song Laosi doing so well? It’s all because that Song Laosi earned the most.

Now his follower made sense. Song laosi came to his turf and wanted to buy a stake in the companies located here. This was obviously stepping into his territory. If it was because of demolition projects, it’s okay but this was a trading company and dealt with electrical appliances. If Song Laosi really got what he wanted, then it would be a disgrace for Cripple Wang.

This period of time, both Song Laosi and he had received warnings from the City Government, and they had stayed low. But it was also during this time, Song Laosi established his position as the Longjiang province, big boss. Many cities had acknowledged this fact, and there was no one objecting in Bing City.

“What if he does not allow us to buy a stake in his company? You said that he had connections with lots of government officials and if this is true, you think he will let us get what we want?” Cripple Wang asked.

“Master Crutches, there is still one more thing that I heard recently. You remember that Feng Yu had bought an incense burner from us?”

“Incense burner?” Cripple Wang thought hard. They had sold an incense burner?

“The incense burner in our meeting hall. That kid had bought the burner for 300,000 RMB.”

“Isn’t that an excuse to compensate for the injuries of our men?” Cripple Wang remembered that incident.

“Hai!” That follower slapped his own leg in an exaggerated manner: “that’s what I thought too. But my cousin-in-law that worked in the bank heard that recently, someone used an antique as collateral for a loan. You guess how much did the bank loan him? 6 million RMB!”

Cripple Wang shouted in surprised: “6 million? What antique is that? You meant that antique is that incense burner?”

“That’s right. I heard that it is a Xuande burner and it is a treasure from the Ming Dynasty. That kid had used 300,000 RMB to cheat us. There are rumors that a Hong Kong businessman offered him 10 million for that burner!” The follower continued.

Crippled Wang hit the water surface hard with his fist. Water splashed up onto the follower’s face. When Cripple Wang is angry, no one dares to do anything that will attract his attention. If not, they will get a taste of his iron crutches!

Actually, Cripple Wang liked Feng Yu. Feng Yu was young and had already started his own business. This was not an easy feat. Also, Feng Yu knows how to handle different situations well. He knows how to compensate others for their help. However, Cripple Wang found out that he had been cheated by Feng Yu!

Because of this Xuande burner, the positive feelings towards Feng Yu was all gone. He was pissed off by Feng Yu now!

6 million, no it should be 10 million RMB! He had so many men, and there was no way his gang was able to earn 10 million in a month.

“Tomorrow you go and tell him that we want to buy a stake in that company.”

“Master Crutches, how much are we paying them?”

“How much? We had already paid them. That burner is worth 10 million.” Cripple Wang glanced at his follower.

The follower immediately understood what he meant: “I understand. Then should I ask for last year’s bonuses?”

“This type of minor things you still need to consult me?”

……

High school year 2 had started, and the students were separated to Science and Arts classes. Once again, Feng Yu and Li Na became classmates in the same class, and Feng Yu was seated behind Li Na. Even his previous form teacher who had taken care of him was forced to become his form teacher again! But Feng Yu was still in a bad mood!

His bad mood was not because of school. It was because of Tai Hua Trading.

Tai Hua Trading was very busy during the Summer break. However, Feng Yu was pleased with the results. Other than the machinery from the Soviet Union, there was still the acquirement of shares, and the sales of the humidifiers were also doing above his expectations.

The day before yesterday, he received a call from Wu Zhigang to ask him to return to the company. After his trip to the company, Feng Yu did not smile at all!

Feng Yu had thought that Song Laosi would not find trouble with him again. He also does not want to interfere with these gangs. He just wanted history to take its course. It’s only one more year. But yesterday, Song Laosi’s man came to the company and wanted to buy 50% stake in his company, and he offered a “high” price of 5 million RMB!

5 million? Even if it were 500 million, Feng Yu would not sell!

His company now have over 200 million worth of shares. Although he was in debt from the bank loans, in 2 years’ time, he would get profits of at least 5 times of that amount. If he was lucky, he might get even more than 10 times!

That Song Laosi’s man obviously saw Tai Hua Trading was doing well and wanted to get a share of the profits!

Feng Yu sent Lao Laosi’s man away with the excuse that he needs to consider for a few days. Before he could think of a solution, Cripple Wang’s man came. He said that they had invested 10 million RMB, which was the incense burner, last year. He instructed Feng Yu to give them their share of the profits from last year.

Making use of these 2 gangs to fight with each other would not work every time. Especially now with this incense burner incident, his relationship with Cripple Wang was broken. It was impossible for him to make Cripple Wang fight with Song Laosi.

The visit from Song Laosi and Cripple Wang’s men had caused the seed of getting rid of all the gangs in Feng Yu’s heart germinate.

Author’s note: Many people do not like the part of Song Laosi and the gangs. So, I will keep this part short and end it within a few chapters.

Chapter 162 – Money makes the mare go

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at the teenager sitting opposite him. He had a headache. Since when can a civilian tell the leaders what to do?

“Mayor Zhang, I believe that I had expressed myself clearly. There must be a crackdown on these gangs! Our country had crackdowns in the past, and after the crackdowns, things become better. Now there is news from the top that there will be another crackdown at the end of this year to the start of next year. You all also have to deal with these gangs at that time.”

“How did you know about the news from the top?”

Feng Yu leaned back on the sofa with a strange expression: “Mayor Zhang, CCTV had already filmed an episode of the program on my products, what do you think?”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu. Could it be this kid had made some connections with some senior leaders? Impossible. If Feng Yu had such links, why did he asked me for help to get in touch with CCTV?

But advertising was easy. It’s all about money. To let CCTV film an episode of your products was not an easy task to achieve. Could it be that this Feng Yu had known some leaders during his trip to Beijing?

Zhang Ruiqiang had never thought about the power of money in that era. If not, why was there so many corrupted officials? It was because of the luxurious life where officials cannot enjoy and only businessmen can!

“I am alone, and my words have no weight. I am only a Deputy Mayor, and my rank is also low among the rest of the deputy mayors. I don’t have any authority over the Police department. I can’t help much.”

Even if Zhang Ruiqiang wants to deal with these gangs, he was also powerless.

“Mayor Zhang, if the security in Bing City is good, I can guarantee you that I pull a large investment in to build a motorcycle factory. You should know how well motorcycles are selling in China. How much tax do you think it will bring to Bing City and how big is this achievement?”

“Are you the one that will be investing in the motorcycle factory?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“Does it matter? It will benefit Bing City. I believe as a Deputy Mayor of Bing City, you also want the security to be better here. I will be honest with you. I am threatened by the triads. If you don’t want to help me because you want to protect yourself, then I will use the money to make them fight among themselves. You should know what will happen to Bing City if that happens.”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu: “You dare!”

This Feng Yu was so daring to say this sort of things in his presence.

“When one is forced into a corner, anything goes. Mayor Zhang, why not you introduce me to the Mayor or the Party Secretary. I think I can convince them to decide. Now if you ask any civilians in the streets, which is more well known in Bing City, Song Laosi, Cripple Wang, Bother Ke and the rest of the gangs or Bing City Officials, our Provincial leaders or even the Nation’s leaders. If the government is not going to do anything about the triads in the City, the City will be gone!”

“Bing City’s security is really that bad?”

Feng Yu laughed: “You can ask your secretary or any of your men on the ground. Ask them if what I said was right.”

Zhang Ruiqiang called a few of his men to his office and questioned them, and it was really as what Feng Yu had said.

“You go back first. I will think it over.”

He was only in charge of the City’s education, health, and the state-owned enterprise restructuring. If he were to talk to the Mayor about the city’s security, that would be crossing the line. He will be hated by the others!

Feng Yu left Zhang Ruiqiang’s office. Even if Zhang Ruiqiang decided to do something, it was still not enough. Feng Yu got to attack from different directions and cannot let Song Laosi and the gangs a chance to escape. If one does not kill the snake, he would be bitten. Since Feng Yu decided to move, he cannot let a single one of them live.

Anyway, these people had done all sorts of bad things, and they will be shot. He was considered doing something good for the people!

……

Bing City Police Department. Feng Yu was sitting in the Deputy Chief’s office. This Deputy Chief was the highest ranked officer Feng Yu had contacts with.

“Manager Feng, what did you say? You want to donate 500,000 RMB to our department? Hahaha. This is not according to the regulations.” The Deputy Chief was happy even though he was trying to reject.

“Chief Chen, this is something from my company. Please do not reject us. Furthermore, we are donating to Bing City police officers and not you alone. Our officers’ lives were really too hard. Other than the money, there is still some Soybean oil, flour, rice, pork, eggs, etc. These will be sent over in a few days. Just treat it as National Day’s presents.”

“Manager Feng, you still have something you want to tell me?” Deputy Chief Chen asked. There must be a reason for Feng Yu to donate these things. There was no free lunch in this world.

“Should our Bing City’s security be increased? Why are there people coming to my company to extort money from me every few days?” Feng Yu asked frowning.

“Did something like this happened? Didn’t you hang our awards and plaque outside your office? Who’s the one? Tell me. These type of people should be thrown to jail!”

“Song Laosi and Cripple Wang!”

Hiss ~ ~ ~

Deputy Chief Chen inhaled a deep breath. How come it’s these two guys. This is not good. There were rumors that the Provincial leader shared the same table and drank with Song Laosi.

“Why? Chief Chen? You cannot do anything? There will be a crackdown from the top soon, and our Bing City is on the list. You know about this? If you can settle this problem, then you will be the next Police Chief.”

“Crackdown? How did you know?”

“I have my sources. You should consider what I had just said. This matter is good for both Bing City and you! I estimate that the orders for the crackdown will be given within this few days. You must remember to grab this opportunity.”

Feng Yu left after he finished talking to Deputy Chief Chen. To ask him to catch Song Laosi and Cripple Wang now, it was still impossible. But, what if the City Government gave the orders? Deputy Chief Chen was in this rank for the past 7 years, and he really wanted the post of the Police Chief. What Feng Yu did now was to give him a little push from his back.

……

“Director Li, Director Hou, Song Laosi and Cripple Wang had sent their men to my company. They want a share of the humidifiers. They want half of the profits! If I give them half, and there will be not much left. I will not be getting a single cent after I pass the both of you your shares.”

“You didn’t tell them this humidifier is a product of the Motor Factory?” Li Shiyou frowned. In Bing City, there were still people who dare to extort the Motor Factory? The Motor Factory had a few thousand staffs. If you add in the staff’s family, it would be over 10,000 people and the Motor Factory was still considered a military factory. Which gang dares to go against them?

“I told them. That’s why they did not go to you and Director Hou. They just come to me. So, I am asking the both of you to pass a message to the City Government or the Provincial Government. Please ask them to do something about the City’s security.”

Li Shiyou and Hou Haitou kept quiet and exchanged glances.

Feng Yu was cursing and swearing in his heart. When there are profits to be shared, the both of them came rushing. Now I am asking for your help, and you all are keeping quiet.

I thought the both of you are proud of being a military installation? You don’t even dare to pass a message? Seem like they need some stimulation. What they don’t agree is because there is no money to earn!

There’s saying money makes the mare go. From what Feng Yu sees, it’s mares go to the money!

Author’s notes: In that era, the reputation of Song Laosi was indeed higher than the leaders!

Chapter 163 – Unexpected help

“Oh yes, during National Day, I will give some gifts for the workers of your factories. Each worker will receive a bottle of oil, a packet of flour and …… 50 RMB, cash!”

Generous! Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao did a mental calculation. There were at least 10,000 workers in both factories, and Feng Yu would be spending a few hundred thousand for them to pass a message?

“Fine, we will help you!”

The two sly foxes felt that they would not suffer any losses for doing this favor for Feng Yu and they could also benefit from it. Furthermore, they still need to cooperate with Feng Yu on the bladeless fans. They do not want Tai Hua Trading to ditch them and work with the universities. That would be a significant loss!

After the meeting, Feng Yu went to the Machinery Company. He went through the accounts and pointed out some discrepancies, which he said that he will inform the Hong Kong businessman. Li Mingde helplessly asked Feng Yu about what request he wanted this time. Every time Feng Yu wants him to do something, he would go through the account books and point out the inconsistencies!

Feng Yu immediately told him about his request, and Li Mingde hesitated for a while but agreed. Li Mingde also made it clear to Feng Yu that he would only pass the message and would not be responsible if the City Government decided to not act on it.

With so many preparations and money spent, Feng Yu still felt that it was not enough. The attitude of the leaders, such as Zhang Ruiqiang, was lacking.

……

“What’s wrong with you? The canteen’s food is not bad. Why are you not eating?” Wen Dongjun asked while eating Feng Yu’s food from his plate.

Feng Yu lowered his head and asked softly: “Ai… what should we do to let the leaders act about the plight of Bing City’s security? The triads are rampaging throughout the city and why aren’t the leaders are not doing anything? Are they waiting for something big to happen before they act?”

Feng Yu had a last resort which was to blow up this matter. Make the issue of the triads too big for the City Government and Provincial Government to handle. When that happens, these triads would be in trouble!

But at the same time, Feng Yu would be in a dangerous position. By doing that, it’s akin to playing with fire and could be burned from it. His relationship with Zhang Ruiqiang might also turn sour. Zhang Ruiqiang is the future Bing City’s Mayor.

Feng Yu still had lots of money making ideas, but he needed Zhang Ruiqiang’s support.

Zhang Han asked curiously: “Security problems? You are talking about Song Laosi, Cripple Wang and the rest of the gangs?”

Wasn’t Feng Yu’s brother-in-law working for the triads? The rumors were false?

“That’s right. These people were too overbearing, and the leaders are not doing anything to stop them. Bing City is already in a mess now!” Feng Yu threw the chopsticks on the table. He had no more appetite.

Wen Dongjun added: “Yeah. These leaders are all pushovers. When I become a leader in future, I will show you all what is dedication!”

Zhang Han suddenly said: “What leaders are all pushovers? Do you know how much hard work they are doing every day?” After speaking, she stood up and stormed off.

Wen Dongjun was shocked. What’s wrong? Why did Zhang Han get angry all of a sudden? He hurriedly finished his food and ran after her.

……

“Dad.”

“Hey, my precious daughter. Are you tired from school? I told you to study Arts, but you insist on studying Science.” This was his precious daughter who was born when he was in his 30s.

“Dad, can I tell you something?” Zhang Han hugged his father’s arms.

“What’s the problem? Tell me.”

“I heard from my classmates that the security in Bing City is terrible. Those triads like Song Laosi, Cripple Wang, Brother Ke are ruling the city, and they commit all sorts of bad stuff, like killings, arsons, and robberies!”

“Nonsenses. You saw it with your own eyes?”

“What nonsenses? You can go to the streets and ask around. All residents in Bing City knows about this. Also, the last time I went to the Cultural Palace with my friends to watch a movie, we were stopped by gangsters from Cripple Wang’s gang.” To make his father believed her words, Zhang Han told him a lie.

“You are stopped by gangsters? Why didn’t you tell me about it? Are they just jobless youths? They cannot be considered as triads.”

“Dad, even if they are not gangsters, they will become gangsters soon if nothing is done! Also, do you know about the rumors on the streets? Everyone is saying that you are protecting Song Laosi!” Zhang Han said.

“Rubbish! What protecting him? Song Laosi owned a demolition company, and I just chatted with him once at a restaurant. How am I protecting him?”

At that moment, Zhang Han’s mother, who was in the kitchen, came out after hearing his husband shouting at her daughter: “Why are you shouting at our daughter? I feel that something must be done to improve the security of Bing City. Why not we move to the housing estate for the Provincial Officials. The security here is not that good. Yesterday, unit 302 windows were broken. I heard that it was because of loan sharks and the culprits were Brother Ke’s men. Also, you remember my father’s old neighbor, Auntie Xu? I heard that her legs were broken by someone because of the demolition works. The company responsible for the demolition works and evictions is owned by that Song Laosi!”

“why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I wanted to tell you, but you do not have time for me. You are so busy every day, and yet you can’t even take care of the security in Bing City. Why are you blaming me?”

“Dad, look. Even mum knows about this, and you still deny it? Last time, there were still gangsters coming to my school. If you are not going to do something, then I will also not go to school.” Zhang Han continued.

“Fine. I will ask my men tomorrow. If all these are true, then it’s time to do something. The last crackdown was only a few years ago and how did things become like this so fast?”

……

Bing City’s Mayor was frowning. Director Hou from the Aviation Factory had just left his office. Even military factories were harassed? This was outrageous!

Aviation Factory and the Machinery Company had a complaint to him about Bing City’s security and wanted the City Government to do something. This issue was also brought up by 2 deputy mayors and claims that these triads were hindering the city’s growth.

Seems like it’s time to talk to the Party’s Secretary. But the security in Bing City should not be as bad as what they said. Maybe these were exaggerated by their men on the ground. After reporting to the Party’s Secretary, he would send the officers from the City’s Police stations.

The Mayor reaches the Party’s Secretary office, and the Secretary had just returned from a meeting at the Provincial Government. When the secretary heard everything from the Mayor, he nodded.

After the meeting in the Provincial Government, the Provincial Police Chief had spoken to him about the issue of Bing City’s security. He wanted to work with the City’s Police department to eradicate the City’s triads. He said that he had received complains about the triads operating in Bing City!

The Secretary had wanted to talk to the Mayor about this, but the moment he returned to his office, the Mayor was already there to speak to him about this subject. Since both of them were on the same page, they were able to make decisions fast.

Instructions were passed to the City’s Police Department, and the Deputy Police Chief Chen was surprised. This time, it was not only the City Government that was going to act. Even the Provincial Government was going to be involved. He suddenly remembered what Feng Yu told him a few days ago and immediately volunteered to take on this task. He would work with the Provincial Police to catch all the triads in Bing City!

While Feng Yu was still considering what else he could do to make the government act, the crackdown in Bing City had already started!

Chapter 164 – Swiftness

Song Laosi was sitting in the nightclub, and his eyes were roving on the dance floor, looking for women that attracted his attention.

Eh, that woman is not bad.

Song Laosi pointed at her, and two of his followers walked through the crowd on the dance floor and dragged the woman over.

“Master Si!” The woman was terrified. “Can we don’t do it here?”

Song Laosi was satisfied with the woman’s attitude. He waved to his men to let them know that he wants to go back to the mansion.

When the car’s doors were closed, Song Laosi’s arms’ was twisted to his back and there was a loud click sound. He was handcuffed!

“Guangzhen!” Song Laosi shouted. This woman was a cop?

The driver turned, and he was not Song Laosi’s driver, Li Guangzhen. It was a stranger.

“Song Laosi, stop shouting. Li Guangzhen was arrested by us. Today, we are inviting Mr. Song back for a cup of tea and to answer some questions.”

“You dare? I am good friends with your superior, the City’s Police Chief!”

“I’m sorry, we are from the Provincial Police Department.”

“I am buddies with your Provincial Police Chief too!”

“This order was instructed by the Provincial Police Chief. Stop your pointless struggling. With the evidence we collected, you are not going anywhere!”

……

“Police Chief Zhang, are you joking with me? I am a legit businessman. How can I be a triad boss?” Song Laosi said calmly. He does not believe that the Provincial Police Department had evidence against him!

“April 21,1986, eviction of XX estate, an old lady was beaten to death. Can you explain it?”

“What’s there to explain? This has nothing to do with me!” Song Laosi’s heart skipped a beat. He had already asked someone to take the reap. Did that person turn against him?

“August 14, 1986, the construction of a new housing building in XX estate. A contractor by the name of Xu Hua was beaten up and both his legs were fractured. You also don’t know about this?”

……

Chief Zhang slowly listed out the cases one by one. He speaks slowly and calmly, but Song Laosi’s heart was beating very fast!

“You do not have proof. Stop maligning me!” Song Laosi shouted.

“You want evidence? I will show you the evidence now! This…… What else do you have to say? It’s better for you to admit everything now!”

Song Laosi slumped back on the chair. How could they get their hands on this evidence? Those bastards. I had paid them so much, and they stabbed me in the back!

Luckily, I still have a card up my sleeve!

……

Cripple Wang was relaxing in his bathhouse. He was lying face down with a young girl riding on his back, giving him a massage.

Bang!

The door was forced open, and Cripple Wang immediately sit up. The girl that was massaging him fell onto the floor. He ignored the girl’s cries and reached under the pillow.

Clicked!

A pair of handcuffs was cuffed onto his hands, and he was pinned down by 4 men. When the lifted the pillow, there was a pistol!

Cripple Wang wanted to shout but his mouth was taped, and his head was covered in a black sack. The four men took a towel to wrap him and dragged him onto a car.

In the corner of the room, there was an iron crutch. This iron crutch would not see its owner again.

……

“Brother Ke, I heard that Song Laosi and Cripple Wang were arrested by the Police. Is there a crackdown going on?”

Brother Ke was shocked. Why was there a crackdown now? The last suppression was only a few years ago. Not good. Those two bastards would rat him out to get a lighter sentence. He got to run!

Brother Ke immediately instructed his men to stop his casinos and bring all the cash to him. He needs to hide for a while. When everything was over, then he would come back. He would be the big boss of Bing City, no, it should be Longjiang Province, when he comes back. He might even be the king of the underworld in the Northeast region!

But before Brother Ke could finish his daydream, his place was raided. A few dozen armed police rushed in and knocked him down with the butt of the rifle. They did not give him a chance to say anything.

Brother Ke and his leading followers were the same as Song Laosi and Cripple Wang. They were dragged onto a few cars and sent to a location instructed by the Provincial Police.

Brother Ke had opened his safe to prepared for his escape when he was arrested. All the cash and jewelry in his safe and a hidden cellar were recorded and brought back.

Brother Ke regretted opening the safe and the entrance to the cellar. If he did not open the cellar, he would still have some money to bribe his way out. This time, he’s finished!

……

Feng Yu was still in the midst of a class when his pager started beeping. He immediately pressed it. His form teacher in front of the class helplessly looked at Feng Yu and acted like he was angry: “You, stand outside and close the door!”

Feng Yu walked out of the classroom and closed the door. He took out his pager and saw that it was his brother-in-law urgently asking him to call back.

Feng Yu does not care whether if he still had classes. He ran to the reception office near the school gate to call his brother-in-law.

“What? Brother-in-law, you confirmed this news?”

After hanging up, Feng Yu’s face was full of excitement!

Last night, Song Laosi, Cripple Wang, and Brother Ke were all arrested, and this morning, Western bun was also detained in another province. He would be sent back to Bing City for trial.

Bing City’s 4 gangs were all arrested!

Feng Yu was also puzzled. The stimulants he created were not sufficient for the government to act so swiftly. Could it be that there were some leaders at the top that gave the instructions?

Whatever, anyway, everything was okay now. Later he will ask his staff to send the gifts he promised to the City Government, Machinery Company, etc.

No words could express this happy feeling!

After the school at lunch, Feng Yu and the 3 others were sitting together as usual. No one else wants to eat with them. Feng Yu’s brother-in-law was with the triads!

“Eh, let me tell you all something. Song Laosi, Cripple Wang, Brother Ke and Western Bun were all arrested. Not one of them escaped!” Feng Yu could not help but t share this piece of good news with his close friends.

This was better than what happened in his previous life. In his previous life, those people had managed to escape for a while but were arrested later during the crackdown. This time, they were all arrested at the same time.

“Really? The City Police acted so fast?” Wen Dongjun was surprised.

Zhang Han said unhappily: “What City Police? How many officers does the City Police Department have? It must be the Provincial Police that initiated this operation. I heard that it was the Provincial Police Chief that leads the operation personally. That Song Laosi, Cripple Wang had broken the law, and they will never escape the hands of the Provincial Police!”

Feng Yu looked at Zhang Han curiously. How did she know that it was the Provincial Police Chief that leads the arrests? She seems to have lots of faith in the Provincial Police Chief. Could it be a relative of hers?

Impossible. If the Provincial Police Chief was Zhang Han’s relative, her family should also be government officials. Why would she still live in that small estate?  That’s the neighborhood for the old linen factory, and it will be torn down for new developments in a few years.

They chatted happily over lunch. Feng Yu’s appetite was exceptionally good that day. Even Wen Dongjun ate lesser than him!

Song Laosi and Cripple Wang. Both of you wanted a share of my Tai Hua Trading’s profits? Try sending your men over now. I will beat them up! If you are not happy, call the police!

Chapter 165 – Nothing to do with me

News of the arrests of Song Laosi and the rest spread throughout Bing City the next day. Many residents spontaneously set off firecrackers to celebrate. These people were the ones who had been bullied by these triads.

The Provincial and City’s leaders heard the firecrackers and did not felt good. Did they act too late? But at least they arrested these people now, and the residents can live peacefully from now.

Provincial Police Chief was feeling remorseful. It seems like his daughter was right. These people must be taken to justice. Since Bing City had started the crackdown, the other cities also followed suit!

Feng Yu was at school and noticed that the rest of the students were looking at him weirdly. In the past, many students feared him, but now, they despised him. Damn, what did I do to get all these hates?

The thing that angered Feng Yu the most was that one bold fellow gave Li Na a love letter!

Fuck you. My relationship with Li Na was known throughout the school. Even the teachers and principal know about it. You dare to hit on my girl?

Feng Yu was furious and went straight to the class of that student.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Feng Yu questioned that student.

“What? Only you can like Li Na, and I cannot like her?” That student’s attitude was firm. Li Na was good in her studies and pretty. In the past, other students were scared of Feng Yu because his brother-in-law was with the triads. But now, Feng Yu can’t use this to scare the other students.

“It’s fine if you like her but look at yourself. I am telling you now. She does not like you and please don’t do this again!”

“I will do it again. What can you do to me?”

Feng Yu stared at the student. He was challenging him.

“Why are you staring at me? I will beat you up! Your brother-in-law, who is working for Cripple Wang is finished. Did he get locked up too? Hahaha……”

Feng Yu finally understood. No wonder the other students were looking at him weirdly. They knew that Crippled Wang was finished and his brother-in-law should be arrested too. What’s there to be afraid of Feng Yu now?

“Humph!” Feng Yu smirked and gave a punch to that student’s face first, and his punches continued to rain down on that student’s face.

“Who dares to help him, I will beat him later!”

Damn. So what if you are taller? For a student who had never got into fights before, it was easy to win. A punch to the bridge of the nose and a blow to the eye can settle the fight in an instance.

Feng Yu took out 2 hundred RMB notes and threw it on the floor: “I had hit you, and I can afford to compensate you. If you are still not happy, I will get those hooligans from the Motor Factory to wait for you and beat you up every day. Even if I break your legs, I can also afford it!”

Feng Yu’s arrogant words scared the rest of the students. It was common for students to get into fights but no one had ever seen a fight this brutal. The way Feng Yu took out the RMB scared them. This Feng Yu really came from a wealthy family. All of them heard rumors that Feng Yu drove Li Na out during the weekends and the rumors should be accurate.

Suddenly, Wen Dongjun came rushing in with a stick: “Who the fuck messed with my brother?”

Wen Dongjun’s height was over 1.85m. He was tall and fit and was on the school’s basketball team. No one in school dared to mess with him.

Feng Yu pulled back Wen Dongjun: “It’s fine now. I had settled it. Let’s go. If he is not satisfied, I have ways to take care of him!”

Feng Yu’s action soon spread among the students. Li Na hesitated for almost half a day before she told Feng Yu softly that she had thrown the love letter away and asked Feng Yu to not get into fights again.

“Ok. If they don’t mess with me, I will also not get into fights. Don’t worry. After this incident, there should be no one in the school that dares to provoke me for the time being.”

Sure enough, the students feared Feng Yu again after this incident. This kid fought fearlessly, and he was rich too. They heard that Feng Yu were brothers with the hooligans from the Motor Factory. What if they provoked Feng Yu and those hooligans came after them after school?

The form teacher helplessly came to Feng Yu for a talk: “You fought with another student?”

“No. I accidentally knocked into another student and caused a nosebleed. I had compensated him with a large amount, 200 RMB!” Feng Yu said with a pained expression.

The form teacher was speechless. 200 RMB might be a significant amount for them but Feng Yu? Feng Yu had sent gifts worth thousands of RMB to his home during Lunar New Year, and the car he drove was worth a few hundred thousand. It’s a few hundred thousand RMB!

“Never mind. Just don’t do it again. Go back to your class.”

Feng Yu left and returned after 5 minutes.

“Teacher, I need to apply for leave.”

“Applying for leave again? What’s the reason?”

“That…… Deputy Mayor Zhang is looking for me.”

The form teacher waved his hands. He can’t be bothered to verify with Feng Yu’s excuse. Just let him be.

Feng Yu was smiling happily when he saw Zhang Ruiqiang: “Ah. Leader. Thanks for your help.”

Zhang Ruiqiang waved him away: “The crackdown was not because of me. Some leader from the Provincial Government initiated it. Didn’t you noticed that the Policemen involved in this crackdown were from the Provincial Police?”

“It’s the same as long as those bad guys were arrested. By the way, why did you call me here? Is it about the motorcycle factory? Rest assured. The factory will be finalized before the end of the year.” Feng Yu does not care which police department arrested those triads bosses.

2 days ago, Feng Yu was on the phone with Kirilenko. The negotiations for the technologies were almost completed, but the pricing for the production line was still in the talks. The talks should be completed by month end.

The production line would be imported, and the construction of the factory would be completed within this year. During Lunar New Year next year, the new model of motorcycles would be in production. Just in time for the festive seasons.

“Feng Yu, tell me the truth. You are not related with that Cripple Wang, Song Laosi and the rest? “

Feng Yu could tell that there was something wrong with Zhang Ruiqiang: “What relationship do you think I have with them?”

“I heard that you had given Cripple Wang 300,000 RMB compensation last year when he clashed with Song Laosi. Cripple Wang also said that you offered him a sum of money for the killing of Song Laosi’s nephew, Song Xiaofeng. How do you explain this?”

Zhang Ruiqiang was disappointed. Feng Yu was still young, but he was very capable. Why did he do such things?

“Where’s the evidence? These were all allegations from them. Obliviously they are accusing me!” Feng Yu will never admit to these. If he were to admit to it, then he would be finished.

“I asked you here, and not the Police Station was to give you a chance to repent. Your bank statements match Cripple Wang’s testimony.”

If it wasn’t for Feng Yu’s connection with the Soviet Union, and he was able to get advanced technologies and machines, Zhang Ruiqiang would not interfere in this matter.

“Oh… you are talking about that money? That’s right. I gave Cripple Wang that money.”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s expression changed. Feng Yu was indeed involved with the triads. Sighed. He had mistrusted Feng Yu.

Feng Yu continued: “The money had nothing to do with compensations. The money was payment for an antique. I paid Cripple Wang about 400,000 to 500,000 RMB in total for a Xuande Burner. That’s an investment. Right. That antique is current with the City’s ICBC bank as collateral for a 6 million loan. You can check with them.”

When he bought that incense burner, he did not expect it to be an antique. But this gave Feng Yu an excuse for the money paid to Cripple Wang. It was not against the law to buy antiques. You claimed that I supported Cripple Wang? Where’s the evidence? What’s the motive? Can Song Xiaofeng testify?

“You said that the money was to purchase an antique? Zhang Ruiqiang disbelieving asked.

“That’s right. Everyone in my company knows about it. As for the relationships with the triads you were asking? If I really had relationships with them, why was I being threatened by them? Those illegal activities you mentioned just now had nothing to do with me!”

Author’s notes: This is a closure for the part about the triads. There will not be such plots in future.

Chapter 166 – The Dust Settles

“Song Laosi, stop trying to resist. We will show leniency if you are honest and we will be strict if you try to deny. I don’t need to repeat myself. It’s useless to even keep quiet. We had been collecting evidence for a period of time. The evidence collected would be sufficient to pin you down!”

“Chief Zhang, actually I am working as an undercover for the police. I am collecting evidence against Cripple Wang, Brother Ke, and Western Bun!” Song Laosi suddenly said.

Chief Zhang raised an eyebrow: “What did you say?”

Song Laosi was an uncover for the police? What a joke. There had never been instances where an undercover becomes a triad boss.

“I am telling you the truth. If you don’t believe me, you can check with Jiangbei’s Police Chief Li Qunli. He can verify my identity. I had collected a lot of evidence against Cripple Wang and Brother Ke. Not only them, even Rotten knife King from Mei Gang and Ya Xi’s Bald Sun, Gu City’s Big Black…… I had collected all the evidence against them. Guaranteed to convict them!”

Song Laosi starts to drag the other triad bosses from other cities and provinces. When he had become the boss of Longjiang Province, he got close to the other bosses and got a chance to collect evidence.

At first, he was afraid that he could not control them and had collected evidence to be used against them. He did not expect that he would be able to use these evidence to try and save his own skin.

The undercover story was thought up by him a long time ago as a precaution. Li Qunli was one of the leaders he bribed long time ago. He was also the highest ranking Police Officer he was able to bribe. Initially, he felt that he had spent a lot to bribe him, but now, he felt that the money spent was worthwhile.

Li Qunli had records of Song Laosi being undercover for him. Song Laosi was to assist the Police to collect evidence of other triads.

If this file of his was used, he would not be convicted and was still about to get a clean record. Even the Police confiscated his assets, it’s fine too. He had transferred most of his assets to Song Xiaofeng long time ago, and Song Xiaofeng was currently in Hong Kong and was doing quite well there. If the Police release him, he would immediately fly to Hong Kong!

This plan was suggested by Song Xiaofeng way back. Song Laosi had considered it for a while and convinced. This secret identity was better than other escape plans and could be used as a last resort.

Song Laosi had wanted to retire at the end of the year after he collected the tributes from the local triads. He had planned to fly to Hong Kong and buy citizenship there. He did not intend to return to Bing city after that. However, the Police came knocking on his doors first!

Luckily Song Laosi had planned some escape plans in advance. He felt that at least one plan would be successful. As for him ratting out the other triad bosses, he was not concerned. Anyway, he would be leaving Bing City and would not be the boss of Longjiang Province.

Chief Zhang was shocked by what Song Laosi said. This Song Laosi had collected evidence against other triad bosses? Impossible. That Li Qunli was only a sector Deputy Chief. How could he asked Song Laosi gather evidence?

Chief Zhang thought back about Li Qunli. He had heard this name before. He was someone groomed by one of the Provincial Police Vice Executive. Could this Song Laosi be connected with that Vice Executive?

This Song Laosi was really an undercover for the police?

Chief Zhang asked his men to contact Li Qunli and at the same time try to extract more evidence from Song Laosi. It doesn’t matter if Song Laosi was really an undercover. The evidence was more critical.

With this evidence, the security of the whole Provincial would increase by a notch.  This was not only his wish but also a significant political achievement for him. Maybe he could get promoted because of this!

Chief Zhang was still considered young and still wanted to be promoted.

Song Laosi saw that Chief Zhang had to bite the hooked and he was jumping with joy in his heart. When Chief Zhang verbally promised him that he would be safe, he began to tell him about the evidence of other bosses, starting with Cripple Wang.

If it weren’t for Cripple Wang, he would have controlled the whole Longjiang Province and last year he would not be in trouble. He had lost a large number of profits. If he had not lost those profits, he would have flown to Hong Kong in Summer. Maybe he would be a Hong Kong citizen now!

……

Cripple Wang was still trying to resist. Even though the Police had much evidence against him, he believed that his men would not betray him and they would take the reap. The most he would be sentenced to a few years in jail. After his release, he can still regroup his gang!

Just when he was gloating at his interrogator, Chief Zhang entered the room and asked Cripple Wang 3 questions casually.

Cripple Wang’s face changed colors. Impossible. Not many people know about this. How did the Police find out? Those that knew about this were his close followers, and they would never betray him. Who’s the one that betrayed him?

Chief Zhang gave him the answer. The person who ratted on him was Song Laosi. The evidence collected by Song Laosi were more detailed than the Police. There was no need for Cripple Wang’s confession and could convict him straight!

Cripple Wang never expected that the self-proclaimed boss of Longjiang would rat on him and not observe the rules of the underworld. Since Song Laosi broke the rules first, then he would not hold back anymore. He also had lots of evidence against Song Laosi!

Just like this, both bosses started to provide evidence against each other to Chief Zhang. In a short period of time, lots of concrete evidence were collected. Coupled with the evidence gathered by the Police, the court would be able to pass the death sentence to at least 20 triad bosses.

Chief Zhang sighed. Although this was a great political achievement, it also showed that the past few years, the police had failed in their duties. So many crimes had been committed, and the culprits had gone scoff free until now.

But at least all these culprits were arrested now, and the Police can answer to the public.

……

Li Qunli arrived at the station, and Chief Zhang did not let him meet with Song Laosi. Before Chief Zhang could question LiQunli, he noticed something was off. Li Qunli had been drinking. He remembered that when his men called Li Qunli’s office, the secretary claimed that Li Qunli was on duty.

Something was wrong with this Li Qunli! After a night of sudden checks on him, it was discovered that this Li Qunli had over a million worth of assets under his name. His lifetime wages could never reach this amount even if he had not been spending a single cent. Where did all this money come from?

……

“Song Laosi, you don’t need to wait anymore. Li Qunli could not prove that you are undercover. Was he bribed by you? And not only me, even the judge and the people would never believe that you are an undercover for the police! You are finished!”

Song Laosi broke down. He was full of hopes that Li Qunli would prove his innocence and he could walk out of the Police Station free. Even though he could not be the boss of Longjiang anymore, but all his opponents would be dead, and he could move to Hong Kong to enjoy his retirement! Why did things turn out this way? All his escape plans were useless?

“Impossible. Chief Zhang, think about all the things I had done for Bing City. If it wasn’t for me, would the redevelopment of the old city be so successful? How much eviction compensations did I save for the government? Also, the crime rates in the Province in the past were low because I had confiscated the hunting rifles. Also……”

Song Laosi was still shouting, but Chief Zhang turned and left the room. To Chief Zhang, Song Laosi was already a dead man! Chief Zhang needs to lead his men to capture the rest of the triad bosses in the province in the shortest time!

Author Notes: As I could not write it as close as history, I simplified the ending. I had deleted at least 50,000 words from the original manuscript to end this fast. As such, I ask for your forgiveness if there would be parts that were lacking.

Chapter 167 – Motorcycle Factory

The next day, Feng Yu was called to the Police Station for questioning. Feng Yu repeated what he said to Zhang Ruiqiang and with his relationship with Chief Chen, he was able to leave in a while.

Chief Chen had embarrassedly told Feng Yu that this was only a routine questioning and asked him not to mind.

All these things were finally over. Tai Hua Trading’s business was also improving, and Feng Yu came over to the Machinery Factory to look for Li Mingde. He wanted to talk about the Motorcycle Factory.

“Motorcycle Factory? We specialized in manufacturing agriculture machines and this motorcycle does not suit us.” Li Mingde had some hesitation.

Feng Yu carried on painting a beautiful picture, and he felt that Feng Yu made sense. The next 5 to 10 years would be good for motorcycle sales, and the profits might be better than agriculture machinery.

But he worried if the City Government would approve this motorcycle project. Furthermore, Feng Yu had asked him to request a plot of land to build a new factory. This new factory would be separated from the existing agriculture production factory.

“Manager Li, you won’t know unless you try it out. I will be honest with you. Aviation Factory had approached me, and they are willing to work with me. I will even be getting the bigger share. After all, I am providing the technologies and production lines. Do I need to repeat how much profits would the motorcycles bring in?”

“Will the City government approve?”

“Of course, they will. I had spoken to Mayor Zhang. Also, it was because of Mayor Zhang that I decided to speak to you. If not, I would have worked with the Aviation Factory.” Feng Yu continued.

This was the first step for him to take over the Machinery Factory. How could he work with the Aviation Factory? The Aviation Factory was specialized in planes and cars. They were not interested in motorcycles.

Furthermore, the greedy Hou Haitao would never let Feng Yu benefit from this project!

“This cooperation must be regarding shareholding? We can’t buy these technologies and machines using money?” Li Mingde asked.

“What do you think? Manager Li, give me an answer. If you think that this project will work, then you report to the City Government. I guaranteed that the Government and the Machinery Factory would not lose out. If you think that this would not work, then we don’t need to discuss further. The construction of the new factory needs time too. There’s no point in wasting time dragging this matter.” Feng Yu crossed his arms. He believed that Li Mingde would never reject this project.

“Fine. You give me 3 days. I will discuss with the leaders and get back to you.”

……

“Old Zhang and Old Xu, the both of you are telling me about this motorcycle factory. Why can’t we set up a new factory? Must we really combine with the Machinery Factory?” The Mayor looked at his two deputies. Someone was willing to invest in a motorcycle factory, and this was a good thing. It will bring more taxes to the City Government and also solve the unemployment issues.

Zhang Ruiqiang glanced at Deputy Xu. Deputy Xu does not seem to want to answer the Mayor so Zhang Ruiqiang said: “Mayor, if we were to decide, we will definitely choose to set up a new factory. But now, the one who imported the Motorcycle production line and the technologies insist on investing in the Machinery Company. This person is not an outsider. He is one of the shareholders of the Machinery Company, Feng Xingtai.”

“Oh, it’s him? That farmer entrepreneur? You told me before that his son was the one who attended the Moscow University’s summer camp and he had connections with the Soviet Union?”

“Yes. The farming machines produced by the Machinery Company now, are manufactured using the technologies and advanced machines he imported from the Soviet Union. Also, the Wind and Rain humidifiers in the market is also his company’s product. The machines used in the City’s textile mill, clothing factories, etc. were imported by him too.” Zhang Ruiqiang added.

“It’s like this? Then what do you think of converting those technologies and machines to shares?” The Mayor asked.

Deputy Xu said: “I feel that this can be done. Li Mingde had reported to me that although this motorcycle production line and technologies was worth a lot of money, we will also be providing the land and factory. So, even if it were to convert into shares, it will not be a lot of shares. The Machinery Company would need to invest a lot in the piece of land and the factory. So, the overall profits might be lesser this year. Once the motorcycles were produced, the profits would be higher than the agriculture machines!”

Zhang Ruiqiang was in-charge of the restructuring of State-owned enterprises and was very familiar with the State-owned enterprises. He thought for a while and said: “Mayor, I remembered that in the western part of the city there was an old bicycle factory which had shut down. That piece of land is quite big, and the factory next to it had just moved out. If we combine both factories, the land would be big enough, and we do not need to construct the new factory.”

“That is a large area, and we are letting this motorcycle factory to use it?” Deputy Mayor Xu does not agree. He felt that it was a waste.

“We can ask him to provide us with 2 production lines and increased the annual production from 100,000 units to at least 200,000 units. Also, we will be using the old bicycle factory land, and we can solve the old bicycle factory workers employment issues. Motorcycles and bicycles are all two-wheelers, and there should be some similar technologies.” Zhang Ruiqiang had done his homework. He felt that the prospect of motorcycles would be excellent and 100,000 units annually were too little.

“Two production lines? You think he would be able to get it?” The Mayor asked.

“That’s his problem. If he can’t get it, then we would have an excuse to lower the number of shares he is trying to convert.” Deputy Mayor Xu felt that Zhang Ruiqiang was right.

……

“What? 2 production lines? This…… it’s a bit difficult. Then the shares I am getting should also be doubled!”

They were tricked! Feng Yu was ecstatic. Kirilenko had helped him get 2 production lines. Feng Yu had purposely exaggerated the prospects of the motorcycle industry and even said that he would be responsible if the sales were not good. In the end, the City Government saw the profits and force him to get at two production lines.

“Right. This will be the conditions. Do not worry about the shares. We will give you whatever you deserve.”

One production line was worth at least 4 million Rubles. If added in the accompanying technologies, two production lines would be more than 20% shares. This was a big step to becoming the biggest shareholder of the Machinery Company!

“Fine. I agree with your conditions!” Feng Yu acted as if he was in a difficulted position. In his heart, he was dancing with joy.

“Two production lines and advanced technologies, we will give you 18% shares.”

“Wait a minute. How many shares?”

“18%. Let me calculate for you. These 2 plots of land are worth how much? Also, the empty factories need to be renovated. Everything will be ready in less than a month. How much is this worth? 18% is a lot.” Li Mingde said.

“I will work with the Aviation Factory.” Feng Yu said with an unhappy expression.

Li Mingde laughed: “It’s too late. The Aviation Factory is investing in our Machinery Company for this Motorcycle Project!”

“What? You all allowed the Aviation Factory to invest? Does the Hong Kong businessman know about this?”

“We are the major shareholder. We don’t need to inform any parties if we were to buy or sell our shares! In future, the Machinery Factory would be owned by 4 parties.”

“Even if the Aviation Factory is investing, I want at least 20%. If not, I will not cooperate, and I will work with Ji City’s vehicle production plant!” Feng Yu had an anxious expression.

“Fine. Then it will be 20%. This is the final decision, and there will be no more changes. Tomorrow, get your father to come over to sign the contract and to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the Machinery Company’s Motorcycle Branch factory!”

Chapter 168 – Completion of the first step

The money earned from selling the light industries machinery and technologies, the profits from this period of humidifier sales and even the profits from Tai Hua Food Processing Factory were taken out by Feng Yu to pay for the motorcycle production lines and technologies.

These things had cost Feng Yu a few million Rubles. However, Feng Yu was not at a losing end. When converting to shares, he was able to get almost 10 million Rubles with of shares. In the end, Feng Yu still made some profits.

Feng Yu and Li Mingde signed a preliminary letter of intent. When the production lines arrive at Bing City, they will sign the formal contract. Fu Guangzheng heard the news and rush over to Bing City. If the Machinery Company starts the production of the motorcycles, there will be more profits. How could he allow his shares to be diluted?

It’s only Feng Yu contributing some machines and technologies and the Bing City Government providing a plot of land and factory. The Fu family have money, and he could use cash to prevent his shares from being diluted!

Sitting in Feng Yu’s new office, Fu Guangzheng relaxing and drinking tea.

“Brother Feng, you are too smart. If it wasn’t for your news last time, my 2nd uncle might be suffering a great loss. He managed to sell off his properties in Japan. If not, he might be stuck with those properties.”

The bursting of Japan’s property market bubble was brought forward. It should happen at the end of the year and its only October now.

The stock market was the same and had taken a plunged. Japanese Yen was as what Feng Yu predicted. It continued to rise.

Feng Yu’s forecast of Japan’s economic situation had shocked the Fu family. They really believed that Feng Yu had relationships with some senior leaders. Feng Yu’s small trading company does not have any analyst and how could he be so accurate with the market predictions?

At the same time, Fu Rongjin provided more funds for Fu Guangzheng to buy China shares. He chose to believe in Feng Yu. China will have its own stock exchange soon and the value of the first few listed stocks would sky-rocket!

“Brother Fu, this is a win-win situation for the both of us. If it wasn’t the help from your family, I could not get a big loan from the banks. This time, you also invested a lot right? Don’t worry. You will get back profits a few times of your capital within a year!”

Feng Yu was calm. He had analyzed China’s economic situation. Although his investments in the stocks were in a significant amount, it was nothing compared to the vast market. There should not be much effect on the trend. Even if it did, it was also a good thing.

“Hahaha, I believed you. Knowing you were the best thing in my life. My status in my family is raising and now even if my father were to pass on his business to me, I would not take it. I want to be in China. This is a gold mine.”

Since Fu Guangzheng bought the used luxury cars from Feng Yu and then invest in Bing City’s Machinery Company, followed by the humidifier sales, his status in his family had changed, and his earnings were increasing.

Last year his brother’s company was listed and was worth 100 million. At that time, his assets were only worth less than 10 million. Now, his shares in that Hong Kong’s sales company and Bing City’s Machinery Company were worth the same value as his brother!

He could easily overtake his brother in 1 to 2 years’ time. He had considered taking over his father’s company, but after some considerations, he felt that he was not suitable. His elder brother was a better candidate to take over his father. The jealousy he had in the past was gone when his own business got better.

Hong Kong is a small place. If it weren’t for its location and the help of the British, it would not have its success now. How big is China? Fu Guangzheng had just invested 10 million, and he could get back his capital in a short period of time, and he will continue to gain profits in future.

China under the Great One, was developing its economy and increasing its people and country’s income. There will be lots of opportunities to earn money. As such, he was not interested in his family’s business.

Furthermore, after he expressed that he would not fight with his brother to take over their father’s business, his relationship with his brother improved. His father also treated him better and even gave him a sum of money privately to buy China’s stocks.

His father even offered to give him more money when he knew that Fu Guangzheng was going to increase his investment in the Machinery Company.

This trip, Fu Guangzheng still had another task. The humidifiers were manufactured in Bing City and then transported via trains to Shenzhen and then transported to Hong Kong.

This route was too long and time-consuming. The transportation charges were not low also. The Fu family wanted to ask if Feng Yu had any intentions to set up a branch factory somewhere nearer to Hong Kong solely to manufacture humidifiers!

Feng Yu did consider this idea before. But it was not the time yet. He was waiting for the development of the bladeless fans. Once the bladeless fan was successful, he would set up a branch factory in the south since the manufacturing facilities were cheap. If the Motor Factory and the Aviation Factory disagree with this, Feng Yu could also use this as an excuse to break up their partnership!

Fu Guangzheng was asked by Feng Yu, and Feng Yu’s reply was to wait. Wait for 1 more year. He will set up a branch factory in Guangdong. He will also take back the distribution rights for Eastern Europe. The Motor Factory and the Aviation Factory would most likely agree to this as it was a matured market.

Fu Guangzheng nodded. The Fu family was worried that Feng Yu would take back the distribution rights. Although they had signed a 10-year contract, the contract states that Tai Hua Trading had the final say. The penalty for breaking the contract was not a considerable amount. Feng Yu could ditch the Fu family anything he wants, and there will be lots of other businessmen queuing up to partner with Feng Yu. These businessmen would not even mind helping Feng Yu pay the penalty.

Feng Yu only wants to take back the distribution rights to Eastern Europe. The Fu family would not object to this. Base on location, transporting the humidifiers from Bing City to Eastern Europe was more cost-effective.

The City had wanted to publicize this motorcycle project during the contract signing ceremony, but they suddenly found out that the person that would be signing the contract was not Feng Xingtai but Feng Yu. They could only let the reporters from the TV stations to take a few shots.

Feng Yu’s excuse was that these machines and technologies belong to his family and his father was willing to put these shares under his name. Furthermore, Feng Yu was authorized to act on behalf of his father and the Machinery Company’s higher management were all used to this.

However, Fu Guangzheng was deep in thoughts. Could this be as simple as what Feng Yu said?

After some adjustment, the Machinery Company’s shares are reclassified. The main shareholder was still the Bing City’s government. But their shares had become 40% now from 70%. Feng Yu owns 20%, Feng Xingtai owns 10%, Fu Guangzheng owns 16%, and the Aviation Factory owns 14%.

The Aviation Factory was under the management of Bing City’s government. However, it was complicated. The military, provincial government and some ministries had influences in it. Due to this, the Aviation Factory was not controlled by the City’s government.

The most important thing was that the Aviation Factory does not need the approval of the City’s Government when selling the shares!

Finally, the first step of Feng Yu’s plan was completed!

Chapter 169 – News that were brought forward

Feng Yu was holding a copy of <People’s Daily> in his office at Tai Hua Trading. The headline was <The inevitability of the establishment of the Stock exchange>!

It’s really been brought forward!

Feng Yu had a hunch that he had slightly influenced some of the histories. Although his investment was not a lot, it greatly affected the 3 provinces in the northeast region.

Stocks from a rural area were selling faster than the southern coastal regions. Luckily for Feng Yu, this did not attract the attention of those economists.

The development of Bing City in this life was not in-line with the actual history. It did not decline from an industrial city into a backward city as rapidly as his previous life and the GDP was not having declining growth for consecutive years. In fact, Bing City’s economic growth was rising and catching up with Shen City.

The economic experts had studied Bing City and found that a few old state-owned enterprises had undergone so changes. For example, the Motor Factory had worked with a private entity and started to produce plastic fans. This was a turning point for the factory. Later, it worked together with the Aviation Factory to develop a popular humidifier which penetrated Europe, United States, and Asia’s home appliances market, bringing in huge profits.

The success of the Motor Factory had also helped other Bing City’s factories such as the Plastic Factory and other related industries factories. Their profits also increased rapidly and were doing better than their previous peak.

The development of other textile mills, clothing factories, and other light industries was also rapid. According to their studies, it was because these factories had bought a batch of low-cost but advanced equipment from the Soviet Union, which had revolutionized their production techniques. This made them become one of the top factories in China.

Among these factories, the Machinery Company was the most impressive. This company was ranked one of the lowest in China and the furthest their product sold was to Liao Province. Although it was not making a loss then, but there were not many profits either. Their primary markets were the 3 agricultural provinces in the northeast region, but their earnings were miserable.

However, since the restructuring of the Machinery Company last year, the importation of advanced machinery from the Soviet Union and the investment from a Hong Kong businessman and the City Government, there was a total change. From one of the lowest ranking factory, it became one of the top company in China. The agriculture equipment it produced were sold throughout the nation and their profits improved by leaps and bounds!

Everyone had thought that this company was specializing in agriculture equipment and they did not expect this company to import motorcycle production lines and technologies from the Soviet Union. They heard that the production machines were still in the process of calibration and testing. Before year-end, their own brand of motorcycles will be in the market!

Not only in Bing City. Many cities in Longjiang province and even the neighboring areas started to use machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union. This increased the capabilities of these factories and the rapid growth of their economies.

The experts had noticed that they had underestimated the potential of this region. They had not expected this region to prosper again. When they investigate further, they also found out that 2 years’ ago, the Treasury Bonds trading in this region was on par with the southern coastal provinces.

Because of the Treasury bonds and the volume of shares sold in the region currently, the experts started to wonder if the people from the northeast region had a natural flair for trading in the financial market, or they were just rich and were willing to invest in the financial market?

If even the financial markets of the rural provinces from the northeast regions could be so popular, that means that the whole population understood the Treasury Bonds and maybe the people were ready for the opening up of the financial market to catch up with the economies of the developed nations!

Those economists all agreed that it was time to release news of the setting up of the stock exchange to stimulate the market and to encourage spending. They wanted to see if the stock market would progress in the direction they predicted.

Feng Yu read the papers and knew that the stocks were going to rise. Even though they had bought the shares not too long ago, everyone in the company was nervous. This was especially so for Li Shiqiang.

The staffs in Tai Hua Trading had used their life savings to invest, and even if they lost this gamble, Feng Yu had promised them that he would pay them back. A few hundred RMB was nothing to Feng Yu.

But Li Shiqiang was different. He had bought over 10 million RMB worth of shares, and most of them were using loans. He even loaned twice and owed 2 banks.

To Tai Hua Trading, this amount was nothing but to Wind and Rain Logistics, it’s an enormous amount!

Wind and Rain Logistics had started to make profits, but the profits were low. The following 2 months there might be more business as the harvesting of the crops had just been completed. But the profits from these businesses were nothing compared to the loans.

Just the monthly interest from the loans was killing Li Shiqiang. Why were the Hong Kong bank charging interests so much higher than ICBC?

Feng Yu had told him that the shares they bought would not lose money and would rise at the end of the year. But 2 months had passed, and there were still no signs of the shares rising. How could he not be nervous?

He had left Tai Hua Trading to set up his own logistics company. If he lost in this investment, then he might need to go back and work at Tai Hua Trading.

Almost every few days, Li Shiqiang would go to the securities counter in the bank to check the prices of the shares. But every time he was disappointed. There were no changes to the prices of the stocks he bought!

Today he went to the bank again and got the same answer. From the eyes of the girl at the counter, Li Shiqiang knew that she was pitying him.

Back at his company, Li Shiqiang sat in his office and lit a cigarette tiredly.

Someone knocked on his door, and he asked that person to come in. What’s wrong again. Every little thing also need to consult him? What’s the use of hiring these people?

“Brother-in-law, you are smoking again? My sister is pregnant and didn’t you say you are going to quit?” Feng Yu laughed and asked.

Li Shiqiang looked up at Feng Yu and then look down and carry on smoking.

“Brother-in-law, here. Look at the papers.”

What? Read papers? Why do I need to read the articles?

Li Shiqiang took the papers from Feng Yu and scanned the headers of the articles. XX leader visited XX factory, what’s so special about his news? He flipped the papers, and the reports were all similar.

When he was about to put down the newspaper, he suddenly saw the word stock. This word was like a magic curse to him and immediately capture his attention.

<The importance of setting up a Stock Exchange>?

He patiently read the article, and he became elated.

Feng Yu had told him before if China was going to set up a stock exchange to encourage the trading of financial products, then that will be the time the value of their stocks rises.

This was the <People’s Daily>. If it was stated that the government is going to set up a stock exchange, then it will indeed be set up!

If the stock exchange is set up, then all shares will rise?!

Li Shiqiang looked up and excitedly asked: “Xiao Yu, is this what you had told me before?”

Feng Yu laughed and nodded. He also did not expect this to happen so fast.

Li Shiqiang jumped up and swing his fist in triumph. I won! I had won this bet!

Chapter 170 – Brainwashing

One week later, all the staff from Tai Hua Trading and Li Shiqiang were sitting in the meeting room. They were not discussing the issues of their work, but Feng Yu had good news and to soothing their restless hearts.

“Last week, the <People’s Daily> had reported about the opening of the stock exchange. This was what I had told you about the rising value of the stocks. I also know that all of you had been secretly going to the banks to check the prices of the stocks. Until now, there had not been any changes with the pricing of the stocks. But from today onwards, all of you do not need to worry. I had received news from Shanghai that the shares are starting to rise!”

Clap, clap, clap ~~~

Everyone was clapping. They could see their shares doubling in value and their money increasing.

Feng Yu spread out his arms and continued: “I had told you all before that the value of the shares will increase by several folds in 2 years’ time. Maybe some of you might be skeptical. What I am telling all of you here is that we must be the first ones to eat crabs! Our country is now vigorously advocating economic development with all kinds of policies to make our lives better. In the shortest possible time, our families will be reaching a well-off level.”

“But all these are not realistic!”

Everyone in the room was puzzled by Feng Yu’s words. What’s the meaning of this? Manager Feng is doubting the National policies?

Li Shiqiang tried to signal Feng Yu with his eyes. This was not a joking matter. No amount of money could prevent the staffs from reporting Feng Yu to the authorities.

“The national policies are right, but it did not take the people into consideration! Everyone’s circumstances are different, education levels are different, experiences are different, and these would lead to the differences in their visions, the way of life and the pursuit of their future! That’s why the “Great One” had said that only a small group of people are allowed to be rich first, and after becoming rich, this group of people will lead the others to achieve co-prosperity. Do you all understand the meaning this?”

Only 2 to 3 people nodded. The rest of the staffs were in a daze. They had only studied till junior high school at the Motor Factory. They were supposed to take over their parents’ job at the factory. If they were good in their studies, they would have continued to high school or even universities.

Whatever Feng Yu said just now, their teachers had said before, but almost all of them had forgotten about it!

Feng Yu helplessly shook his head. He must send these people to night classes in future. These people would be Tai Hua Trading’s middle management in future. How can they be uneducated?

“It’s fine if you don’t understand. All of you just need to understand that this was said by the “Great One” and it is the state policy! What I wanted to say is that since the country allows some people to get rich first, why can’t we be the ones who get rich first?”

Wu Zhigang and the rest looked at each other, and all of them saw the desire burning in their eyes.

That’s right. Why can’t we be the ones be part of the group that gets rich first? We will be the ones to get rich first!

“The ones to get rich first. Who do you get rich? Working in the factories or units will never make you rich.” Everyone roared with laughter when Feng Yu finished saying this.

They were all earning much more than those working in the factories and units. When Li Shiqiang went to the factory hostel to do recruitment last time, there were over a hundred lads around the same age as Wu Zhigang, but only slightly more than a dozen took up the offer. The rest were sitting on the fence, and some even laughed at Qu Zhigang and the ones that took up the offer. To them, it was stupid to give up the factory job, which was considered an iron rice bowl, to trade in Treasury Bonds!

The ones that mocked them were now regretting. Later, many of them wanted to join Tai Hua Trading, but Tai Hu trading does not need so many people. Although at Tai Hua Trading, they had a lot of things to do and the trades between the Soviet Union were in large amounts, the job was still considered to be comfortable.

Initially, Feng Yu was the one doing everything by himself, and everyone else followed his orders. But now, after so long, the staffs had learned the ropes, and each one of them could act independently!

When those people were offered to work at Tai Hua Trading initially, they refused. Now, it’s too late to regret!

“The ones that become rich are those that have the guts and willing to take risks. Entrepreneurship, setting up factories, trading or investments, these are the businesses that Tai Hua Trading is currently dealing with! Among these businesses, which one do you think is the most profitable?”

Wu Zhigang boldly answered: “It must be the Wind and Rain electric fans and humidifiers. The past one year, we made over 10 million RMB.”

“Nope. It should be the trade between the Soviet Union. If we are able to get big advanced machines, the profits will be over 10 million!”

“It should be the investment in the Machinery Company. I heard the agriculture machines produced by the Machinery Company are selling well!”

“No one thinks that it is the investment in shares?” Feng Yu asked loudly.

Although every one of them wished the stocks to be the most profitable, and Feng Yu also mentioned that the profits would be several folds, but after 2 to 3 months, they did not see any growth.

“I am still sticking to what I said. Investing in the stock market is the focus next year, and it will be the most profitable business of the company!”

Because of investing in stocks, Tai Hua Trading had almost become an empty shell. The available funds were all used to buy shares and the motorcycle production lines and technologies. They had also used everything they earned from the sales of light industry machines.

“What is China’s main financial sector for past few years? Banks! But it is insufficient to have banks alone. That’s why the nation is encouraging the insurance industry. I believe that most of you have heard of people around you buying insurance. I can tell you all that those insurance agents are earning much more than those working class! Shares and insurance are the same. They are all financial instruments. The only difference is that the insurance industry developed earlier and the stock market is just starting. Do you all agree that if the government support any new industry, the first few in that industry will earn the first pot of gold?”

Everyone nodded even when none of them fully understood what Feng Yu was talking about. But to them, it seems to make sense.

“Now the government is obviously placing their focus in the stock market, and the first few listed companies will be the major powerful corporations. There’s no need to worry about losing money. Among these companies, there are the electronics industry, the textile industries, the steel industries, mechanical industries, etc. Just looking at Bing City, which company from these industries suffered losses?”

“That’s why you all do not need to worry and just need to wait patiently. I know that some of you had bought shares privately. There is no problem with that. But I want to remind you to hold on to the shares and not sell them. I will let you all know when it is time for you all to sell!”

When Feng Yu said this, many of them lowered their heads.

“Now many of you guys are still riding bicycles. But rest assured, the year-end reward I prepared for all of you are motorcycles. It will be the first batch of motorcycles manufactured in Bing City. Each motorcycle is worth over 10,000 RMB! In another 2 years, after selling all the shares, I guarantee each of you that you will be able to afford to buy your own car!”

……

For 2 hours, Feng Yu instilled a thought in each of them. I am more knowledgeable than all of you, and I have a better vision than all of you. If you follow me, I promise that you can earn lots of money!

Feng Yu observed each and everyone’s expression. When all the stocks were sold, they will be looking at him as if he is a god! This brainwashing session is a success!

Chapter 171 – Donation to build schools

After every once a month routine brainwashing session, Feng Yu would allocate the upcoming works and then leave for home with Li Shiqiang.

“Xiao Yu, I don’t understand what you are talking about just now. Are you asking us to carry on holding on to the shares?”

“Brother-in-law, of course, we need to wait. Don’t worry about these. We will make lots of money. You better worry about my sister. Pregnant women have a bad temper. You must be magnanimous a little more.”

“No. If your sister is angry, then it must be my fault.” When Li Shiqiang talks about his pregnant wife, he had a blissful smile on his face.

Slave to the wife. A typical slave to the wife! But Feng Yu was still glad. Li Shiqiang’s wife is also his sister.

Feng Yu did not try to brainwash Li Shiqiang. There was no need for that. In future, Li Shiqiang will be focusing on the logistics industry, and the potential of this industry was huge and had good prospects. There was no need for him to follow Feng Yu to invest in shares or futures.

Furthermore, Li Shiqiang did not master the art of delegating. Feng Yu does not want his sister to complain to him that her husband was neglecting her for work and not coming back home!

This year, Feng Yu also fulfill his promise. He donated a primary school building. But it was not in the city. It was in the district. His former primary school.

The school building had 7 stories, and within the building, there was a library and filing room. The first story to the sixth story was reserved for primary 1 to 6. The teacher’s offices were also located on the same floor. The remaining rooms were used for function rooms, administrative offices, etc.

The original school rows of 1 story buildings were demolished, and the school became more spacious. The classrooms were bigger, and all the desks and chairs were brand new. Feng Yu even took the number of students in future into consideration. Also if the school took in 50% more students, there was no problem.

The population of the district was still small. Even though it was located near to Bing City, but the area was too small. The community was only about 20,000. Every level of students was at most about 200 students and on each level, there were 8 big classrooms. Even if there were 40 students in the class, that level could fit 320 students. The classrooms were big enough to fit 60 students.

It can be said that this school building could last for the next 20 to 30 years. The principal and the leaders from the District Office were shocked by Tai Hua Trading’s donation!

At first, they thought that the donations were only about 300,000 to 500,000 RMB. However, Feng Yu donated 1 million RMB to build the school building. This resulted in this school building to be the best-constructed school building in the district and Bing City!

The leaders from the District Office felt that this was a waste of funds, and they wanted to use part of the money to improve their own offices, but Feng Yu did not even give them the chance to see the money!

This sum of the donation was managed by a professional and every week, Feng Yu would send his staff or even personally check the accounts. The bricks and wooden construction materials were bought from the district, and the steel and cement were purchased from Bing city.

The construction company was also from Bing City. They had worked with Feng Yu previously for the construction of Tai Hua Food Processing Factory and Tian Peng Pig Farm. The project manager knew Feng Yu well. As long as the project was going smoothly, Feng Yu would not disturb them and would even pay them more. But if they try to fool him, he would not pay a single cent. Everything was stated explicitly in the contract. Any disputes, they can fight it out in court!

What? You want to look for the leaders? No problem. Let’s see if you, a small project manager’s backing is stronger than the Feng family. If the project manager really wants to look for leaders, then it would be the time he retires.

Feng Yu placed a strong emphasis on the quality and safety of school construction projects. He did not let others touch the funds and even hired a few building engineers to check on the construction. There must not be a single problem in the construction!

In his previous life, it was reported in the papers that someone donated a school, and the budget was 500,000 RMB. However, the local authorities wanted 1.5 million RMB, but the actual cost of the construction only amounted to slightly more than 400,000 RMB!

Some donated 1 million, and the local authorities collected the money but used only 300,000 RMB for the construction. The school building collapsed before the students even stepped into the classes!

This was a school building in his hometown and how could Feng Yu let those things happen. The Farm Department even agreed to let Feng Yu changed the name of the school if he donated a new hostel and renovated the school field the following year!

There were no objections from Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua for giving back to his school. These two even volunteered to supervise the construction. Feng Xingtai even stops going to his food processing factory.

Was it that Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua were interested in charity works? Stop joking. It was because this school building was called Tai Hua building. Feng Yu had told them that next year, he would use another 1 million to renovate the school field and rebuild the school hostel, and from then onwards, the school would be renamed as Tai Hua Primary School. The name will be recorded in the government files!

Feng Yu understand his parents well. Which parent does not want to be proud of their children? Who does not want to flaunt their wealth when they are rich?

Furthermore, Feng Yu had told his parents that in future the teachers in this school will be telling their students: “All of you must follow Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua’s son, Feng Yu as an example. Earn more money and help your hometown!”

To learn from their son? What an honor this was! Feng Xingtai was happy till he finished a bottle of Baijiu and even Zhang Muhua finished 2 bottles of beer that day.

Tai Hua Primary School. When they thought of this name, they couldn’t even fall asleep that night! This made them happier than the time Feng Yu told them that they were wealthy enough to retire and their daughter said to them that she was pregnant!

Feng Xingtai gave another batch of pork, soybean oil and sugar to the school. Even the construction team’s food was provided by him. Every meal there would be meat. In return, they must build a sturdy and safe school building!

Another person that was elated over this was Wen Deguang. When Feng Yu donated the school building, he mentioned that it was Wen Deguang that persuaded him to give this amount. This was more than what he wanted to donate.

Feng Yu’s 1 million had brought him and his parents reputation, and help Wen Deguang and the Farm Chief Officer get some achievements.

There was already news that the Farm Chief Officer would be transferred to the neighboring country to be the Mayor there, after Lunar New Year. There he would not be looking after 20,000 people. He would be taking care of a population of a few hundred thousand people. Although his rank remained the same his authority had increased!

Wen Deguang’s reputation in the district was also different. There were rumors that he would be taking on an additional role of Party Committee Deputy Secretary and increased his portfolio. The Chief Officer had told him that able people should do more work.

When the portfolio gets bigger, so does the authority. After the Farm Chief Officer was transferred out, the old secretary, who was about to retire in a few more years, would be taking over that position. Wen Deguang would be the next-in-line for the position.

Feng Yu was feeling puzzled. Although he had helped Wen Dongjun’s father get political results, to be promoted so fast within a short period of time was too weird. Could it be that Uncle Wen had some connections with the top leaders?

Never mind. Anyway, it’s a good thing. As long as there were no problems with his finances, Feng Yu would keep helping him. Other than criticizing Wen Deguang got promoted because of his connections, there were no other faults.

Chapter 172 – Master Designer?

“Manager Li, why are you looking for me?” Feng Yu was at his school’s administrative office calling Li Mingde. He was still in class when his pager starts beeping non-stop. All his classmates and the teacher were staring at him.

This was the first time it happens in this semester. Even the form teachers can’t be bothered, the rest of the teachers were also used to it. Feng Yu was “send” out of the class, and he made his way to the office to make phone calls.

When the security saw Feng Yu walking into the office, he unlocks the phone. This kid must be coming here to make phone calls again.

“Xiao Feng, can you come down to the Motorcycle Factory? The exterior designs are ready. Aren’t you the one who wanted to look at the designs?” Li Mingde said while puffing out cigarette smoke. If it were not for Feng Yu insisting on looking at the design of the motorcycle, he would have approved it and start the production.

The exterior designs of the motorcycle were ready? This was very important to Feng Yu.

Those bunch of old conservatives thinking, would think that the most important things were quality, durability and good suspension. They did not care about the rest.

When will the consumers take note of the things they focus? It will take at least more than 6 months. Exterior designs can be seen immediately. If there were 2 motorcycles parked outside, the one with a better exterior design would attract more attention!

If it can’t attract people’s attention, who would want to buy your motorcycles? Especially when it is a new brand.

Because of this motorcycle brand, Feng Yu had argued with Li Mingde. Li Mingde wanted to name the brand as Bing City Motorcycle, but Feng Yu rejected it. He felt that this name does not sound nice. How can it attract the consumers?

Hou Haitao wanted to use the name Longjiang Motorcycle, but Feng Yu reject it too. The Aviation Factory had a car brand called Longjiang Cars. If they were to use that name, people would think that the motorcycles were manufactured by the Aviation Factory!

The Machinery Company was an established brand, but it was specializing in agriculture equipment. Feng Yu also do not want to use that name. Li Mingde was furious till he banged the table. So, what if you have a veto vote? I am the General Manager here!

Whatever names I suggested you reject. Yet you recommend Tai Hua Brand, Wind and Rain brand? That’s your company’s brand. I am the representative of the major shareholder here! The City Government is the major shareholder. You want to increase your company’s reputation?

Hou Haitao immediately stepped in to stop the argument. He suggested using the name of the river, Songjiang, that passes through Bing City as the brand name.

Songjiang Motor. The name of the brand was finally settled. But Feng Yu and Li Mingde got into another argument over the design of the motorcycle. Li Mingde wanted to use the design of the Soviet Union motorcycles. Anyway, they were also using the production lines and technologies from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union bikes were also selling well in China too,

Of course, Feng Yu did not agree to this. They were using a new brand name why would he still want to copy other’s design? Furthermore, the Soviet Union motorcycles designs do not suit the Chinese tastes.

Just look at the back of the motorcycle. How can there be no rack? The front was too high too. Can one feel comfortable when riding it? Also, there’s no reserve fuel tank. What if there’s no more petrol? This motorcycle is so heavy, who can push it back?

Feng Yu said a lot, and there was nothing Li Mingde could rebut. Li Mingde also got angry. You want to design? You know how to design? You just wanted a new exterior design, right? I will hire a designer to design the motorcycle. I will not let you have the chance to hire the designer!

Feng Yu also knew that he was not a professional. Maybe it would be better to hire a product designer. This time, Feng Yu did not argue with Li Mingde. But he requested that he must check through the design first, if not he would not pay a single cent for the design fees!

……

“Xiao Feng, this is the Michael Liu, Master Designer, who had come back from overseas. He is running his own designing firm in Shanghai.” Li Mingde pointed to a bespectacled middle-aged man.

Michael Liu? He had a western name? He looked like Chinese. Is he from other countries?

“Hi, Mr. Liu.”

Michael Liu had his chin up and shook Feng Yu’s hands. He had returned from his studies overseas and had started his own designing firm not too long ago. His firm was still considered in its starting phase. However, his arrogance made him look down on those rich second generations like Feng Yu.

A useless 2nd generation, who depended on his father’s and currently wasting time in the Machinery Company, dares to judge his design?

Hrmph, I will show him the design which I came up in 3 days’ time later. Guaranteed to shock him!

Feng Yu looked at Michael Liu and frowned slightly. This person is a bit arrogant. He better be capable. If he is useless and still acting so proud, he would be chased out of the room!

Arrogant because of studying overseas? He must be not making any progress overseas that’s why he returned to China. These type of people, Feng Yu, had met a lot in his previous life!

Feng Yu also did not give him face. He sat down on the Sofa, crossed his leg and pointed to Michael Liu: “You must be the designing staff hired by my company. Where’s the design? Show me.”

“I am a Master Designer and not a designing staff!” Michael Liu retorted unhappily.

“What’s the difference? Who’s the one who gave you the title of Master?” Feng Yu asked while shaking his legs.

Michael Liu could not find any words to answer Feng Yu, so he kept quiet and took out his design and placed it on the table. He held his chin up and pointed at the drawing.

Oh, what a character. I really hope that you are capable.

“Mr. Liu, can you introduce your design?” Li Mingde smilingly asked.

“Please address me as Michael.” Michael Liu corrected him and continued: “The design concept is based on the requirements given by your company. You wanted the exterior to be eye-catching and different from the Soviet Union motorcycles and the rest of the motorcycles produced in China. Everyone, please look at this. I had increased the height of the motorcycle and increased the length. When ridding, you will look cool, and you will look like a soaring eagle! I had also increased the capacity of the fuel tank for long distance travel. The bike can travel further than any motorcycles in China……”

Looking at Michael Liu introducing his design, Feng Yu shook his head. What the fuck is this design? It’s just the exterior of an American Chopper. I still thought that this would be some outstanding designs.

Why are the handlebars so high? Is it convenient to turn? You think the roads in China are those long and wide roads where you can ride for hours? Increased fuel tank? I had already felt that the fuel tank in the original design is too big!

The Soviet Union motorcycles are already heavy. If our bikes used this design, it would be heavier!

“Michael, right? This is your design?” Feng Yu stood up and asked.

Michael saw that this useless 2nd generation was so impressed by his design until he stood. He felt the satisfaction.

“How is it? Don’t you think that this design is fashionable and cool?” Michael Liu asked with his chin held high.

“Fashionable, cool? Who gave you your confidence? This is your design? Worthless rubbish!” Feng Yu said.

“What did you say?”

“You still want me to repeat myself? You are just copying the design of the American Choppers. You think I don’t know? Our motorcycles will be sold in China, and it must be suitable for the road conditions and the tastes of our people. What rubbish did you design? Master Designer? I think you are not even fit to be a designing staff here!”

What? This design is an imitation?

Li Mingde had wanted to speak up for Michael Liu, but now he kept quiet. He had wanted to use Michael to spite Feng Yu, but now, he was the one who felt disgusted!

Chapter 173 – This is the real Master Designer!

Michael Liu was dumbfounded. He had never expected that someone in this remote Bing City would know about American Chopper! He thought this was a simple job and he could make use of this project to increase the credibility of his company. But now, it seems that he and his company is finished.

For a new company, failing to clinch the first business deal and there’s still news of plagiarizing, the reputation would be all gone!

“Mr. Feng, I think I had misunderstood the design concept. Please give me another chance. I promised to come up with a different design which you will be satisfied.”

Michael Liu could tell that Feng Yu was the one who had the final say on the design.

“Fine. Then I will raise 2 points and see how you amend the design. Amend the design on the spot. Can you, do it?” Feng Yu stared at Michael Liu and smiled.

“No problem. I am confident of my skills. Please tell me what you want.” Michael Liu was speaking politely to Feng Yu who was much younger than him.

“First, how can you make the rider more comfortable; Second, how can you make this motorcycle suits the lifestyle of our people? The back of the motorcycle must be able to carry goods.”

Everyone understood the first point. But Li Mingde was confused about the second point. This is a motorcycle and not a truck. Why would it carry goods?

Before he said anything, Michael Liu lowered his head and started sketching with a pencil on a piece of paper. It seems like he was inspired by what Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs: “Manager Li, I am in your office for quite some time. Why isn’t there a cup of tea?”

Manager Li’s secretary went out to get a cup of tea angrily. When Feng Xingtai was there, he does not even need to serve tea. This troublesome kid wanted him to make tea? Does he think that importing technologies and machines from the Soviet Union makes him special? In this company, General Manager Li still have the final say!

Michael Liu finished his sketch within 10 minutes. He checked it and made sure that this design fulfilled Feng Yu’s requirements!

“Manager Feng, please look at this sketch. Does it fulfill your requirements?”

Feng Yu took the sketch from him and looked at it. The handlebars and seats were lowered, and this would allow the rider to ride comfortably. He had fulfilled the first requirement.

But at the back of the motorcycle there was a bracket and the front there was a small basket. It looks like the lady’s bicycle from his previous life. There was nothing wrong with this, but it was not practical. The basket at the front would block the headlights, and the brackets at the back were too big. The motorcycle could not really be a truck.

This Michael Liu could finish a sketch within 10 minutes proves that he does have some skills. Feng Yu does not know the speed of others, but the designers from the Aviation Factory, Motor Factory, and the Machinery Company does not have this speed. The idea of putting a basket in front of the motorcycle let Feng Yu thinks that this person had lots of creativity.

“Are you American or Canadian?”

“I am Chinese, and my nationality is China, but I am also holding US green card.” Michael Liu looked at Feng Yu anxiously. Can this design meet the requirements? Why was Feng Yu not saying anything about the design?

Feng Yu nodded. That’s good. He is also Chinese.

What’s your real name?”

“Liu Michael.”

“I am asking for your Chinese name!” Feng Yu was pissed, stop acting like a foreigner!

“My Chinese name is really Liu Michael. This name was named by my mother. If you don’t believe me, I can show you my I.D.” Liu Michael immediately took out his identification card. He was only acting and did not really wanted to show Feng Yu.

But Feng Yu snatched his I.D. from his hands and looked. Liu Michael, Michael Liu. Damned, this guy’s parents had excellent naming sense. They must be xenophilia.

“How many staffs are there in your company? I meant the designers like yourself.”

“There are 3, including myself. The other 2 are my classmates. We had studied design in the US previously.” Michael Liu still does not understand why Feng Yu was asking about his company. Could it be Feng Yu wanted the 3 of them to work on a design?

“Are their skills the same as you?”

“That’s right. Maybe they are slightly better than me.”

“Feng Yu what are the both you talking about? What you think of this design? It looks fine to me.” Li Mingde interrupted Feng Yu and Michael Liu. I am the boss here. Am I invisible here?

Only the Aviation Factory Director Hou Haitao kept to himself in a corner on the sofa. He was drinking tea and smoking. He knew that Feng Yu was interested in this designer from the way Feng Yu looks at him!

Feng Yu smiled: “Right. Let’s talk about the design first. This design is still considered satisfactory. However, I have a lot more requirements. You must come up with a design that meets my expectations within the shortest time. Are there any problems?”

“No problem!” Michael Liu was overjoyed. This troublesome kid like his talent?

“Good! Then I will tell you want I want and you tell me which part you are not able to fulfill. Here is still a bit high. You must consider if those shorter people will feel comfortable when riding the bike. You can use 1.7m height as reference. Secondly, the fuel tank is too big. There is no need for a 15 liters fuel tank. 10 liters will be fine. There is no one in the country that will use a motorcycle to travel long distance. 300 KM will be sufficient. Thirdly, the motorcycle must be the same as bicycle. There must be a back seat. But it is not for passenger. It is used for carrying goods. The width must not be wider than the seat. That will be too ugly. It must be all metal and sturdy. It must be able to carry at least 5 sacks of rice. Fourth, ……”

Michael Liu was taking down the things Feng Yu said, and he felt that every request made by Feng Yu was very reasonable. Why didn’t he take all these into consideration when he did the design? He thought that Feng Yu would have the most one or two more requirements, but in the end, Feng Yu made 8 requests.

“Feng Yu, I will not talk about the other requests you made. But why does this motorcycle need a crash bar? Who in the right mind would ride a motorcycle into a tree?” Li Mingde felt that this was a waste of money and would increase the cost of each unit by a lot.

“What is the top speed of our motorcycle? It is not slower than a small car, right? If traveling on the villages dirt road and one is not careful, a small branch hitting the leg would cause a fracture. It’s fine for the first model of the motorcycle to not have a crash bar. But it is a must for the 2nd generation of the motorcycles!” Feng Yu said firmly.

“Fine. There will not be any crash bar on the first model. Smaller fuel tanks and a bracket for goods are also fine. We can settle the issue with the reserve tank too. There would be no problems with the bike getting out of fuel during traveling. So, are you going to let the Master Designer, Michael Liu, to design our motorcycle?”

Michael Liu immediately raised his hands and said: “Manager Li, please do not address me as a master designer. I am only a novice. The real master is Manager Feng!”

Feng Yu glanced at Li Mingde with a smirk and did not say anything. His expression caused Li Mingde to have no appetite for that day!

Damn, this designer was hired by me and why in the end, he just followed Feng Yu’s instructions? What overseas graduate? Did he learn how to curry favor overseas?

Chapter 174 – Investing in a Design Company

After leaving Li Mingde’s office, Feng Yu brought Liu Michael to his allocated office in the Machinery Company. No matter what, Feng Yu was still a shareholder of the company, and this office made him hated the people at the Machinery Company more. He was representing the Deputy Manager Feng Xingtai and was also the person overlooking the Motorcycle Factory, and his office was smaller than a deputy supervisor!

The reason given to Feng Yu was because he was not always at the company and Feng Xingtai also did not go to the Machinery Company often too. It would be a waste of space. Damn, Feng Yu imagined when he becomes the major shareholder, he would want a big office like those CEO offices in his previous life. It must be more than 200 Square Meters. The first impression of the visitors will be — Rich!

“Manager Feng, is there anything you want me to do?” Liu Michael was more and more respectful of Feng Yu. The things Feng Yu told him had inspired him a lot. If he were to set up his company in China, then he must incorporate the Chinese elements into his designs and not copy those European and Americans style. He seems to discover the direction of his company.

“Other than the 3 designers in your company, how many other staffs do you have?” What’s the total capital?”

Liu Michael hesitated for a while and said: “There is a total of 7 people. We, 3 designers also have to look for clients, and there are a full-time accountant and a part-time accountant who is also helping with the documentation works. There is an admin staff who doubles up as the receptionist. There is also another staff who does almost everything. The setup capital was from the 3 of us. The 2 of them invested 30,000 RMB each and I invested 40,000 RMB. The total capital is 100,000 RMB.”

Feng Yu nodded. 100,000 RMB to set up a design firm was considered a considerable investment. If the 3 designers in the company were as good as Liu Michael, then this company would have a good prospect.

“You know about Wind and Rain Humidifiers?”

“I know, but it is not suitable for Shanghai. I heard that it is manufactured here in Bing City. The design is very nice.”

“That is my company’s product. The humidifier is also designed by me.”

“What? You are the designer?” Liu Michael had an exaggerated shocked expression. Although Feng Yu knew that he was acting, he still felt good.

Damn. Only one sentence? Carry on praising me! Feng Yu stared at Liu Michael. He hated those people who praised him and stopped halfway.

“That’s right. But now, I have an idea. Your company is too small, but I feel that your company have good prospects, or should I say that I think that your industry has a good prospect. Are you interested in letting me invest in your company?”

If what Liu Michael told him was right, his 2 classmates were as good as him, had designing experiences and worked overseas before and were able to sketch a design based on the client’s request on the spot, then this company would have lots of potentials.

What would be popular in future? The others might not know but Feng Yu knew1

But Feng Yu’s designing skills suck. It was fine for the humidifiers and the electric fans. But he felt the refrigerators he designed was too ugly!

Feng Yu was troubled as he could not convert his ideas into drawings. Now he met someone skillful, and he wanted to recruit him.

He does not worry that this designing firm would lose money. He had lots of ideas, and with the 3 skillful designers, he could be sure that this company would rack in big bucks in future.

“What did you say? You want to invest in my company?” Liu Michael was surprised and elated. There’s somebody who thinks that his company has potential and this somebody was a wealthy big boss. This meant that his company would have lots of growth potential!

“Of course. I feel that this industry has great potential and all of you will be successful. How is it? You want to discuss with your partners?” Feng Yu smilingly asked.

This was easier than what Feng Yu expected. This Liu Michael did not reject his intention of investing in the company. Feng Yu does not know that this company was in the red and this Machinery Company’s deal was the first significant deal they got since they set up their company. The amount was only 5,000 RMB.

Feng Yu’s thinking was still in his previous life where a good product design would cost at least a few hundred thousand or even a few million. Some designers even receive a percentage of the profits for every product sold. But now, 5,000 RMB for the design was considered the highest in the industry. If it wasn’t to piss Feng Yu, Li Mingde was only willing to spend 2,000 RMB at most, or he would just ask his engineers to design.

Liu Michael discovered that when he compared to Feng Yu, his designing concepts were too far off. When he was interning in the US, he heard from his seniors that designs must be practical and still be beautiful. A design is considered a failure if these 2 points were not met!

Liu Michael immediately used the phone in Feng Yu’s office to make a long-distance call to his 2 classmates. He told his classmates about Feng Yu’s offer in front of Feng Yu. When his classmates learned that he had met a big boss in Bing City who wanted to invest in their company, they were excited.

Both of them agreed immediately. It’s only an injection of funds, and they would still be holding on to their shares. This was better than they lose all their capital. As long as they have the funds, they could promote their company and get more deals to make more money. With more money, they could grow their company further.

“Manager Feng, they do not object to you investing in the company. But how much do you intend to invest?”

Feng Yu thought for a while and showed 4 fingers: “400,000 RMB!”

“What? 400,000 RMB?” Liu Michael was shocked. He never expected Feng Yu’s investment was such huge amount. He knew that Feng Yu wanted to control his company, but there were only 3 designers in the company. Was it really worth investing so much money? This Feng Yu was not afraid of losing money?

“That’s right. 400,000 RMB. This way, I will have an 80% stake in your company. Am I right? The 3 of you can split the earnings from this deal first, and I will invest after this deal is completed. As for the developmental plan for the future, I will discuss with you some other time.”

It’s only 400,000 RMB. Was it a lot? Feng Yu would let this company do the design for the bladeless fans and the hand dryers soon, and it will increase the market rates for product designs!

There are still advertising designs, and this will be an essential revenue source for the company. The advertisements in China now was too lousy. The following 2 years will be the golden age of advertisements in China. Feng Yu does not believe that his company would not make any profits during this period of time!

The property market boom was coming too. The exterior designs of the buildings and the interior designs, furniture, etc. designing each one of these can make lots of profits.

Furthermore, Feng Yu still have essential products for them to design. For example, Saloon Cars!

A good car does not only look at the specifications. The exterior and interior were also critical. For instance, Audi A8 which was selling well overseas was not doing well in China. It was because it looked like A6 and the exterior look of the car does not highlight the fact that it was a luxury car. This was not in-line with the flamboyance nature of the Chinese!

How many low-key wealthy people were there?

Liu Michael called his classmates again, and they were shocked by Feng Yu’s investment too. They hesitated for a while and agreed. With this additional funds, their company would progress faster, and they could realize their dreams!

Chapter 175 – New Motorcycle Model

Feng Yu gave Liu Michael some suggestions. His company should not focus on product designs only. They should also look into furniture, interior designs too. These will bring them more profits in future.

Feng Yu’s advice gave Liu Michael lots of inspirations. He discovered that he was walking into a dead end. If they do not have product designs deals, they could also use their talents in other areas.

With the funds, they could hire more manpower, and their company could grow fast. If they established their brand and became famous, they would get more businesses, and they would be able to increase their rates. This Manager Feng is a genius!

1 week later, the design was amended based on Feng Yu’s requirements and was finalized.

This model was named as Songjiang 1 and was a 125 CC motorcycle. Currently, the market was mainly 50 to 100 CC motorcycles, and the fuel tanks were mostly 12 to 15 Liters. However, Songjiang 1 had a reserve tank of about 1 liters. The bike should not run out of petrol halfway.

At first, Feng Yu want to produce a 150 CC bike, but the current policy was that any bikes over 125 CC were not allowed to be registered. It was still okay in the countryside as there were many unregistered motorcycles. The traffic police there were also from the same village, and they just turn a blind eye. But it was different in the cities. If one were caught, he would be fined and the bike confiscated.

Feng Yu’s this model of 125 CC motorcycle was to compete with the bestselling imported bike, Honda. Honda at that time as already the world’s number one motorcycle manufacturer. It was very popular, and even the Soviet Union motorcycles could not compete with them. Not to mention the not so advanced domestic bikes.

This Songjiang 1 does not only utilized the most advanced Soviet Union’s technologies, but the suspensions were also using the most advanced technologies in the era, and the exterior was beautiful. Far better than the Honda motorcycles!

The motorcycle was using a straight beam design and lowered the fuel tank. The seat was bigger and more comfortable. The bracket at the back was special. This was not found on the Soviet Union bikes. Even Japanese bikes seldom have brackets at the end.

The headlight was big and bright. The suspension was also impressive. Feng Yu tested the bike and rode over an uneven road. He did not feel uncomfortable, and the level of comfort would not lose to the bikes in his previous life.

The Soviet Union technologies were perfect in this aspect. Japanese motorcycles were designed to be used on their roads, and their road conditions were better than China that’s why their suspensions were not very good. They also had better street lightings, that’s the reason their headlights were not that bright. However, the Soviet Union was different. Their technologies in these areas suit China well. These would be the selling points of this motorcycle.

The most significant selling point was the exterior of the bike. Other than the fuel tank and the seats, the rest of the bike had beautiful decorations.

The current motorcycles had no windshield, and even the speedometer was exposed. Feng Yu had requested for a small windshield. The windshield was not high, but it could protect the speedometer from things hitting it from the front.

The plastic parts were cheap but not durable, Feng Yu heartlessly declared that other than the essential components, the rest should be all using plastic. This was to lessen the weight and at the same time, lower the cost.

This suggestion was rejected by everyone, including Li Mingde and Hou Haitao.

Does Feng Yu have a thing for plastics? The electric fans were made from plastics. The humidifiers were made from plastics. These were all household appliances, so it doesn’t matter much. But this was different. This was a motorcycle. How can they use plastic parts?

It was common for bikes to fall or knock onto something. What if a light knocks and something breaks? This was the first motorcycle produced by them, and Feng Yu wanted to make it into an inferior product? Even if Feng Yu was not afraid of being disgraced, their reputations were at stake too! This would be a disgrace to their factories and even Bing City!

In the end, only the windshield was using plastics, the rest were all using metal. Feng Yu pouted. What’s wrong with using plastics? It’s all the same.

Furthermore, which motorcyclist would not be careful while riding? Who would purposely knock onto something? If they were really careless and knocked into something while riding, what the difference between metal or plastics? The bike will still be damaged. The replacement of plastics parts will be much cheaper too!

Feng Yu and the rest, got into an argument again when it comes to the colors of motorcycles. This time, it was the rest that wanted to save money, and Feng Yu wanted to spend more.

Ordinary spray paint will do, why does it have to be a good quality paint? The paint must not fade easily, not easily scratched and in bright colors like metallic red and blue to attract people?

What’s wrong with army green color? This was the most common paint on the market, and it’s cheap too. Motorcycles were only for transport. What had colors got to do with it?

But Feng Yu was adamant about this. The colors must be bright and able to attract attention. It must be able to make people like it the moment they set their eyes on it. This was a crucial element for the motorcycles to sell.

Li Mingde and the rest knew that Feng Yu was better than them with regards to sales. Feng Yu could even be considered an expert in sales. From Feng Yu’s advertisements in CCTV and his creativity in the commercials had blown their minds.

Since this concerns the sales of the motorcycles, Li Mingde and the rest took one step back and agree to use better and more expensive paints. Feng Yu had promised that their bikes would sell throughout China and even exported overseas!

Li Mingde disagreed and felt that Feng Yu was too optimistic. He did not have high expectations as he felt that to compete with the established brands of motorcycles in the market was too early for them. If they were able to capture the market of the 3 provinces in the northeast region, he would be satisfied. If they were able to export to the South like their agricultural machines, it would be a miracle.

Feng Yu immediately made a bet with Li Mingde. Tai Hua Trading will take over the marketing of these motorcycles as the distribution channels of bikes and agricultural machines were different. Feng Yu will guarantee the sales figures and will take a percentage as commissions.

Li Mingde then discovered that Feng Yu was waiting for the chance to get the distribution rights of the motorcycles. But when he thinks of Feng Yu’s sales tactics, he felt that it was worth to try, but the sales target must be set high!

The 2 production lines if working to the maximum capacity, they would be able to produce at least 200,000 bikes in a year. Li Mingde had estimated that 100,000 units would be sold in the first year and this figure would increase by more than 10% in the second year. It would take at least 5 years before the factory could operate at full capacity.

Since Feng Yu wanted the distribution rights, then fine. The first year must have at least 120,000 units sold, and every year the target would increase by 30,000 units. It must reach 200,000 units by the third year. You dare to take up the challenge?

Feng Yu laughed. They did not know how popular motorcycles will be in China. Although it was not as popular as the years after 2000, the first peak will happen in the early 90s!

With Songjiang motorcycles performance and exterior designs, and still could not be sold, then Feng Yu would have wasted his rebirth!

“Manager Li, I agree to your condition. Let’s sign the contract.”

Chapter 176 – Reselling CCTV advertisement slots

After getting the distribution rights for the motorcycles, Feng Yu immediately prepare for the commercials. The advertisement contract between CCTV and Tai Hua Trading had stated that Tai Hua Trading have the authority to change the advertisements as long as the product is sold by Tai Hua Trading and the commercial is within the advertising guidelines.

Feng Yu had spent a lot for these advertisement slots, but it also increased the sales of the humidifiers. Feng Yu felt that it was not necessary for such high advertising frequency now. Humidifiers were not like health products, and the market was not that big. Many families having 1 humidifier would be sufficient. He intends to keep the product placement and 2 or 3 advertising slots for the humidifiers and reserve 1 advertising slot for the motorcycles.

Of course, before changing the advertisement, Feng Yu needs to talk to Li Mingde about the advertising fees.

……

“What? The advertising fee is so expensive? It needs 5 million? It’s only been a few days and why is it so expensive?” Li Mingde shouted in shock.

Feng Yu told him that he will change advertisement for the prime time advertising slot to the motorcycle. Guaranteed to let their Songjiang Motors to be shown to the whole of China within the shortest time and would significantly increase the sales.

At first, Li Mingde was still feeling great. He thought that Feng Yu was doing the right thing. He was even willing to change the humidifier commercials for their Motorcycles. But when Feng Yu mentioned the advertisement fees, Li Mingde got mad!

“5 months, 5 million RMB advertising fees. This price is reasonable.” Feng Yu spread his arms, showing an “I am very reasonable” expression.

“5 months, 5 million. Which part of this is reasonable?” Li Mingde roared.

Feng Yu calmly took out a chart and place it on the table: “Manager Li, look at these figures. This data was recorded since Wind, and Rain humidifiers started advertising on CCTV. The sales of the humidifiers soared. This is the market share for May, and this is for June. This is the effect of advertising with CCTV. Don’t tell me that for such an effective advertising platform, it is not worth this price?”

“Don’t try to fool me. Your humidifiers are patented, and there are no similar products. Even if the advertisements are effective, you are also exaggerating the effects. Also, this market share report was tabulated by your people, who knows if it is accurate? You show me the sales volume and figures. One look I will know if you are lying.”

Li Mingde had already wanted to know how many units of humidifiers were sold and how much were the profits. He had asked Feng Yu a few times, but Feng Yu refused to tell him. He tried asking Hou Haitao and Li Shiyou, but they were the same. They refuse to reveal the figures to him.

“Will you show your product sales figures to outsiders?” Feng Yu asked him back. “How about this, I will show you the sales figures for Wind and Rain electric fans. This product is fully owned by Tai Hua Trading, and I can reveal to you.”

Feng Yu took out the report he had prepared and shown to Li Mingde.

“Take note, Wind and Rain electric fans sales increased by 10 folds after it started advertising on CCTV. It’s 10 folds!” Feng Yu raised his voice.

“That’s because it’s summer. That is different and cannot be used as proof. Furthermore, how much do your advertisements for your electric fans cost? I am sure that it is not 1 million RMB per month!”

Obliviously. Feng Yu was advertising for his own company, and he will do his own calculations. It cost him about 200,000 RMB for that advertisement and in returned, he increased the sales and got a few hundred thousand RMB of profits. He also raised the brand recognition. This was to prepare for the launch of his bladeless fans next year.

He must let people know that Wind and Rain brand of electric fans are the best in China. Whenever people talked about electric fans, Wind and Rain fans will be the first brand that comes to their minds!

Wind and Rain electric fans were wholly owned by Feng Yu, and he could write whatever figure he wants in the report. For instance, this fake report.

“It’s not 1 million RMB? You look carefully, the advertising fees is 1.2 million! I had even given you a discount.” Feng Yu shouted while waving the report.

“What? 1.2 million RMB? Impossible!” Li Mingde would never believe that Feng Yu was willing to spend so much on advertisements. The TV advertisements at that time were not that expensive!

Furthermore, the humidifiers belonged to 3 parties, and although Tai Hua Trading was doing the sales, the advertising fees were split between all the parties. He does not think that Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao would accept 1 million RMB per month advertising fees!

Feng Yu carried on with his lies: “You must consider that our Songjiang Motors is a new brand and there was no reputation before. Do you know how much it cost to hire TV stars to shoot a commercial? We hired TV host, Shen Li for our humidifier advertising. If it was you, can you do that?”

“But ours is motorcycles. Shouldn’t the TV star should also be male? Who are you going to hire? How much will it cost?” Li Mingde asked sharply.

Damn, all these government officials were all sly foxes. Feng Yu’s tricks could not fool these people. But Feng Yu had other methods, which was the thing that Li Mingde concerned the most. The sales figures.

“You don’t need to care so much. If you agree to pay the 5 million RMB advertising fees, I guaranteed that there would be an additional 10,000 units sold by next year. That is at least 130,000 units sold. But first, our productions must be able to keep up!”

10,000 units for 5 million RMB advertising fees? The profits per motorcycle were more than 500 RMB. When Feng Yu said this, Li Mingde started to consider seriously.

This CCTV advertisements were so effective? Why was Feng Yu so confident? An unknown brand of the motorcycle can reach 130,000 units sold in the first year? Just using this advertisement? Or Feng Yu’s exterior design of the bikes?

“You can really guarantee?” Li Mingde asked suspiciously.

“Absolutely no problem! We can put that in the contract. If I am unable to deliver, Tai Hua Trading will pay this advertising fees!” Feng Yu said and patted his chest.

“Fine, but I need to speak to Director Hou and Mr. Fu first. If they agree, we will sign a contract!” Li Mingde had some reserves. He still wanted to know how much was spent on the advertisements for the humidifiers.

……

“Old Hou, tell me the truth. How much was spent on the advertisements for the humidifiers?” Li Mingde called Hou Haitao.

“This…… Old Li, you better ask Feng Y. Li Shiyou and I had promised not to reveal the exact figures. All I can say is that we had spent a huge amount.”

“How much?” Li Mingde did not give up.

Hou Haitao hesitated for a while and said: “It was a sky-high amount!”

Sky-high amount? Could it be really that much?

“Was it more than 5 million RMB?”

“Erm.” Hou Haitao remembered that the advertisement fees were 5 million, but he did not tell Li Mingde about the details. That amount was for a year, and it included the 4 advertising slots at CCTV and other stuff. Furthermore, Feng Yu had told them that if the advertisements were no longer effective, they could change it.

Li Mingde did not know about these details. He only heard that the humidifiers advertising fees were more than 5 million RMB. So, Feng Yu did not fool him since Li Shiyou, and Hou Haitao dared to agree to that exorbitant amount, then he can also agree to it!

After signing the amended contract with Li Mingde, Feng Yu left smiling with a check in his hands.

Who said that CCTV advertising slots could not be resold?

Chapter 177 – Celebrities endorsements Part 1

Among the male celebrities at that time, the celebrity that fits the requirement of Feng Yu and Li Mingde was Zhu Simao. He had handsome features and his movies, dramas, skits were well received by the whole of China. By the standards of the future, Zhu Simao was China’s top male celebrity. He was on par with Hong Kong’s Chow Yun-fat status.

Hong Kong’s celebrities’ charges at least 10 times more than China’s celebrities. But the effect was not as effective. The people that watched Hong Kong movies were much lesser than the ones who had watched Zhu Simao’s movies and skits.

Feng Yu believed that if he could get Zhu Simao to endorse his motorcycles, Songjiang Motor brand and sales would be significantly increased due to his great popularity and his fans. But Zhu Simao and his partner seldom do commercials and product endorsements. He did not even perform at nightclubs even when he was offered a high offer by the nightclub bosses.

His bald partner was interviewed in the mid-90s and mentioned something that shocked the whole nation.

The host had asked him if the rumors of his endorsement fees being the highest in China and there was someone who offered him over 10 million RMB for him to star in a commercial was true.

Baldy Chen replied that it depends on his mood whether if he accepts to act in any commercials. He does not lack money. If he were in a bad mood, he would not consider even if the deal was in the millions and when he was in a good mood, he would be the spokesperson for as low as 100,000 to 200,000 RMB.

Although the rates if Zhu Simao now was not so high, but it should be above 100,000 RMB. This rate was acceptable to Feng Yu. He could even accept rates of 1 million RMB. If Zhu Simao was able to rope in his partner, Baldy Chen, Feng Yu was willing to pay even more

This Zhu Simao was also interesting. He must try out the product of the commercial first, and if he felt that the product was as good as it claimed and did not deceive the audience, then he would accept to act in the commercial! This was nothing to Feng Yu. It’s only a motorcycle. He could just give it to him for free!

Feng Yu was now thinking of the story for the commercial. How can he portray the features of Songjiang motorcycle within 15 seconds and at the same time not make Zhu Simao felt contempt?

Songjiang motorcycles come along with 2 helmets to increase the safety f the rider and pillion, and let people think that they had gotten a good deal.

The motorcycle helmet was first created by the Soviets and was given free with any purchase of Ural and Sunrise motorcycles. Later, Japanese motorcycles also started to give out free helmets for their bikes. But no matter which country, only one helmet was given as a free gift. Only Songjiang motorcycles were giving out two helmets!

Feng Yu suddenly thought of the primary purpose of motorcycles at that time. You believe that it was for convenience?

No!

The primary function of a motorcycle at that time was to woo girls!

Riding a motorcycle out now was the same as riding a bicycle a few years ago and the same as driving a sports car in the future years. Chances of asking a girl out and the affection from the girl would increase.

The demographics of the consumers buying motorcycles at that time was between 18 to 30, and all are male. There were almost no girls riding motorcycles even for the 50 cc bikes.

Many young adults ride bikes were not for the convenience but to attract attention. It was just a tool used for flaunting. Feng Yu thought of an idea which was to give the audience a subtle hint, a celebrity’s influence.

Feng Yu must also get an actress too, and she must be well-known to achieve the best results.

The most active actress at that time was Liu Daqing!

She was named the most controversial actress by the viewers in future and was one of the highest paid actresses in China. She had gotten lots of acting awards but was also jailed before. Her acting skills were still considered one of the best.

In the future years, her acting career might not be doing that well, but now, everyone was praising her. In 1991, she went into business and set up many companies in different industries. She made a lot of money in the 90s.

If Zhu Simao and Liu Daqing team up, this commercial would be starring the most popular commercial stars at that time. Unless someone could invite senior celebrities like Zhao Zhongxiang and Li Gu to act in an ad, no one could beat this Zhu Simao and Liu Daqing team!

The image of Zhao Zhongxiang and the rest were not suitable for motorcycles.

After Feng Yu finished with the storyline, script and the actions of the commercial, he applied for leave from his school again and traveled to Beijing with Wu Zhigang.

These 2 celebrities did not have any agents as they were considered “state-owned workers”. Zhu Simao was an actor with August First Film Studio, and Liu Daqing was with Beijing Film Studio. They can be found at their respective units.

Feng Yu went to August First Film Studio first. Zhu Simao was rehearsing for a play, and the performance was on the day after tomorrow. Feng Yu was sitting in the stands watching Zhu Simao’s performance. What a good actor!

This was much better than those idols in the future years. Excellent acting skills, stage performance and the most important of all was the exaggerated expression shown, even this was a rehearsal. This was what Feng Yu was looking for.

After the rehearsal, the actors and actresses went to the backstage to changes and Zhu Simao was called over to Feng Yu.

“Xiao Zhu, this is Manager Feng Yu and Manager Wu Zhigang from Bing City. They wanted to discuss something with you.”

Zhu Simao curiously looked at Feng Yu and Wu Zhigang. He did not know these 2 people, and they are so young, yet they are managers?

“Why are you looking for me? Which company are you from?” Zhu Simao thought that they were here to invite him to perform at some company functions. He had rejected a lot of these offers even though the rates were good. He felt that his performance would be too monetarized and this was not in-line with his character.

His unit had provided him with an apartment, and his salary was enough to take care of his family. What’s the point of earning more? He doesn’t even have the time to polish his acting skills.

Feng Yu took out his name card and gave it to Zhu Simao: “Mr. Zhu, we are here to invite you to star in our commercial. It’s a motorcycle commercial. The actress will be Liu Daqing!”

“Who? Liu Daqing? Motorcycle Commercial? Tai Hua Trading? You are importing motorcycles?”

Feng Yu does not blame Zhu Simao for making this assumption. Almost 80% of the motorcycles at that time were imported. Although there were domestic motorcycles, the production was low, and the performance was not good. The marketing was also poorly done.

“No, our motorcycles are locally manufactured. The factory that manufactures the motorcycles is Bing City’s Machinery Company. This is the picture of our motorcycle. You can take a look.”

Domestic brand? Bing City? What sort of good products can be produced from that rural area? If it was 10 years ago, when Bing City was still one of the leading industrial cities in China, it might be possible. But now, it’s quite impossible.

Zhu Simao took the photograph from Feng Yu. Eh, this motorcycle is beautiful!

Was this really locally produced?

This Machinery Company from Bing City could really produce such quality motorcycles?

Chapter 178 – Celebrities endorsements Part 2

Motorcycles were not some fake products, and Zhu Simao felt that he could consider about taking up this job. However, he still got to look at the storyline of the advertisement. If it were some comedy, he would never agree!

Feng Yu took out the script he prepared and passed to Zhu Simao: “The first commercial would be you wearing a helmet driving fast along the expressway, and you met a woman with a scarf covering her face waving for a lift by the roadside. You will then do a sliding stop and took off your helmet beside her.”

“The second commercial will be showing the woman taking off her scarf and show her face. This lady will be Liu Daqing. You pass her the other helmet, and she got onto your bike and hug you from the back. You will then ride off with her.”

“The third commercial will be Liu Daqing riding the bike on a country road, and this time you will be the one by the roadside waving for a lift. She will stop for you and throw a helmet to you.”

“The fourth commercial will be the both of you riding the bikes along the road. At the same time, both of you will turn towards each other and smile.”

Zhu Simao frowned: “4 commercials and the commercials are linked? Are there any lines in the commercial?”

“Yes. The lines are only you ask her where is she going and her asking you where are you going. There’s no need for the both of you to mention about the motorcycle. There will be a font advertisement at the final 3 seconds of the commercials.”

Feng Yu’s creativity in the ad was from a xylitol ad in the future. The commercial will be filmed into a story and divided into 4 parts. This will create a deep impression on the audience. It will be better than those advertisements which repeat the brand over and over again.

“Mr. Zhu, what do you think of this commercial script? Do you want to change any parts of the script?”

“Yes. The first part about driving along the expressway is not very good. Who would be walking along the expressway? Change it to suburban roads which will be more realistic. The last part where we ride off can be on the expressway. The colors of our clothing must match the color of your motorcycle. Even the color of the helmets must be different……”

Zhu Simao was a professional, and his considerations were evident. He amended many small details in Feng Yu’s script. When Feng Yu listened to what Zhu Simao said, he also felt that it was reasonable.

“Mr. Zhu, I suppose that you agree to film this commercial? Then how much advertising fees do you want to charge? We want to have a long-term contract. How many years are you willing to sign with us?”

Feng Yu was thinking. Until the end of the century, before Baldy Chen sued CCTV, both were China top rated artists. But now, their rates were not that high. If he could sign a contract for more than 5 years, it would be great. Even if Zhu Simao wanted a 10-year contract, Feng Yu would also agree!

“How many years? Oh, you want to use me for a few years? Then how many years do you think is suitable?”

Feng Yu thought for a while. When Zhu Simao and Baldy Chen were blocked by CCTV, their advertisements could not be aired at CCTV and even other TV stations for 2 years. Then it seems that 8 to 9 years will be a more suitable term.

“How about 8 years?”

Zhu Simao was surprised. He had never heard before commercials and product endorsements contracts lasting 8 years!

“You sure it’s 8 years?”

“That’s right. Product endorsement for 8 years and every year, you must film at least a commercial and do some printed ads for us. You are also required to promote in person for us at least once. I am not sure about the market rates. Name me a price.”

“100,000 RMB a year?” Zhu Simao said a figure. He felt that 1100,000 RMB was a very high price. Although he was a celebrity, he heard that the stars from the South charge a lot for commercials and endorsements. But the current average wages in Beijing was only about 2,000 RMB annually. This was already 50 times more than the average.

Feng Yu remembered the stars in his previous life charges tens of millions for product endorsements and that was over 200 times of an average person annual wages. Zhu Simao’s price was very reasonable.

“No problem. For every promotional event you attended, there will also be red packets.” Feng Yu knew that the advertisement rates for celebrities will rise significantly in the next 2 years. At that time, Zhu Simao would felt that he was shortchanged and there might be problems working together. Feng Yu decided to use red packets to make up for him.

“When will the filming start? Recently I still need to prepare for the Spring Gala’s skit performance. I might not have too much time.”

“No problem. The filming of the commercial will be very fast. I had already contacted the filming crew. 2 days will be sufficient to complete the filming. Oh yes, can you introduce your skit partner to me? We would also like him to do a commercial and product endorsement for us.”

Feng Yu remembered that this year will be the year the both of them acted in the most famous skit <The protagonist and supporting cast>. If he could film a similar advertisement, it will be very popular!

“He is down with a flu today and is resting at home. How about I help you ask him?”

“Fine. I will bring the contract with me tomorrow, and the three of us can discuss the finer details together.”

……

After leaving August First Film Studio, Feng Yu rushed to Beijing Film Studios. Liu Daqing was waiting for him. Liu Daqing was more sensitive with money, and she was also brilliant. Feng Yu decided to use Zhu Simao’s rate to press down Liu Daqing’s rates.

“Miss Liu, you are prettier in person.”

“Thanks for the compliments. Manager Feng, let’s not beat around the bush. I heard that you want me to film a commercial for you?” Liu Daqing asked anxiously.

“That’s right. The actor will be Zhu Simao, and maybe Baldy Chen would be involved. This is the script. You can take a look first.”

When Liu Daqing heard Zhu Simao, she dares not to look down on Feng Yu. Even Baldy Chen might be filming this commercial? These 2 were the current first rated actors in China.

This product of this commercial was a motorcycle and men will be more suitable than female to star in the ad. She felt that she might not be getting a lot for this commercial.

“The script is not bad. I could tell that it was amended before. Can I ask how much will I be getting?” Liu Daqing was straight to the point. She was not the type to be choosy with scripts. She was more concerned money.

“Miss Liu, from the perspective of China’s audience, between you and Zhu Simao, who do you think is more popular?” Feng Yu did not talk about her rates but asked her a question.

Liu Daqing had recently received the best actress award, but she dare not say that she was more popular than Zhu Simao. Zu Simao’s movie <Cattlemen> had better reviews than her films. Furthermore, the past 2 years, Zhu Simao was performing for the Spring Gala. He was considered the crowd puller. This was the status of Zhu Simao currently.

“I lose to the both of them slightly.” Liu Daqing’s answer was fascinating.

What? You mean the if it was not the both of them, you are more popular than Zhu Simao? Zhu Simao had more advantage because of his image. Although Liu Daqing was beautiful, many female viewers were jealous of her looks and do not like her. But Zhu Simao was different. Both male and female audiences loved him.

“Zhu Simao agreed to an 8-year contract with us, and he will be getting 100,000 RMB a year. Total will be 800,000 RMB. The contract I prepared for Miss Liu will also be 800,000 RMB a year, but the contract duration will be 10 years. It includes TV commercials and printed ads. Every year, you have to attend a promotional event once. Of course, we will give you a red packet when you attend……”

Feng Yu listed out the terms and Liu Daqing listened carefully. Many of the conditions she had not heard before. But Feng Yu said that he could pay her 800,000 RMB at once. She had heard it clearly. 800,000 RMB! With this sum of money, she would not have any worries.

She agreed to this contract!

Chapter 179 – Filming Starts

Feng Yu rolled his eyes when Wu Zhigang asked him who will be filming the commercial. Can’t he see where they were for the past 2 days? Beijing Film Studio and August First Film Studio. Which crew from these 2 studios can’t film the commercial?

Although Baldy Chen did not agree to an 8-year contract, he signed a 3-year contract and will not be attending any promotional events. However, he will film 4 commercials, and his endorsement fess will be lesser than Zhu Simao. But Feng Yu still gave him 400,000 RMB. He heard that if it wasn’t for Baldy Chen wanting to raise funds for his movie, he might take up this job.

Feng Yu increased his fees by another 50,000 RMB, and Baldy Chen agreed to take charge of the filming. The filming equipment and crew will be settled by him.

The filming location will be at Bing City as the motorcycles were still at Bing City. The bikes were the main props.

3 days later, Feng Yu returned to Bing City first. That Friday night, Zhu Simao and the rest will be reaching there by train and will return on Sunday evenings. It will not affect their other jobs.

Feng Yu finally understood why Liu Daqing resigned and went into business. Their life under these units was too constrained. It was so troublesome to film an advertisement.

……

“What? You still want to collect the advertising fees from me? Didn’t I give you 5 million?”

“That’s for the advertisement slots at the TV stations. You think these movie stars work for free? Since it was partly my fault for not making it clear to you, just give me 500,000 RMB. I will make up the rest.” Feng Yu had a “suffering” expression.

“500,000 RMB? You think it is 50 RMB?! Who did you get to star in this commercial? Why is it so expensive?”

“Zhu Simao, Liu Daqing, and Baldy Chen. You tell me which one of them is not popular?” Feng Yu said while tapping the table with his finger and emphasizing his tone.

“But it should not cost so much. It’s only a commercial. How much is their monthly salary? How can they charge so high?” Li Mingde asked angrily.

“Because they appear on TV and they have the celebrities effect. You try getting someone else, or you be the star of the commercial. See if this commercial will be effective outside of Bing city?” Feng Yu purposely said that.

“How much did you spend in total?” Li Mingde asked.

“2.05 million. If you don’t believe me, you can ask them when they arrive.”

“What? Over 2 million?” Li Mingde was shocked. This kid was wasteful when it comes to money. He can accept getting TV stars for commercial, but it should not cost so much.

2.05 million RMB. How many motorcycles must be sold to make up for that amount?

“I am already paying for the bigger share and the Machinery Company is only paying for a small part. Manager Li, you should not bully me this much!” Feng Yu said with an anxious expression.

“Fine, fine. But this 500,000 RMB can only be given to you after Lunar New Year. There’s not so much budget this year.”

“Fine. I will also not charge you interest. Who asked me to be one of the shareholders here. This issue is settled. We will put it into writing later. Tomorrow they will be arriving for the filming of the commercial. We still need to give the 3 of them 1 motorcycle each. You should not be stingy about this, right?”

Feng Yu was in no hurry to collect this 500,000 RMB. Anyway, he had already profited from this advertising fees. He spent over 2 million RMB, but that was not for a year. In future, he can collect advertising fees from the Machinery Company every year!

Another 3 motorcycles? But Li Mingde had already delayed the payment of the 500,000 RMB till next year. If he were to reject this request, Feng Yu would surely jump on him.

“Fine. I agree! If you are unable to achieve the sales target next year, then we will follow according to what was stated in our contract!” Li Mingde reminded Feng Yu.

……

“Please take a rest. I had prepared the rooms for all of you. It will be at the Machinery Company guest house. Although the conditions here could not be compared to Beijing, I guaranteed the rooms will be clean and tidy.” Feng Yu went to pick them up personally. The 3 commercial stars, 1 cameraman, and 1 assistant. A total of 5 people.

“No need. We are not tired. Let’s start filming the first commercial. We are running short of time.” Baldy Chen said.

Feng Yu saw the only female, Liu Daqing did not object to this. Feng Yu, the one who paid for everything, would have no objections. It would be better for him to wrap up the filming as soon as possible. He could do some printed ads to warm up the market in the meantime.

Everybody went to the filming location, and when they saw the Land Rover Feng Yu was driving, Zhu Simao and the others were shocked. Liu Daqing envied Feng Yu. She swore to herself. She must drive imported cars in future!

The filming location was not far from the motorcycle factory. This was a road which was reconditioned the year before. It was still very new. Wu Zhigang ran to the factory to get 2 staff to ride the motorcycles to the location.

One motorcycle was red and the other blue. The helmets were in bright colors.

Zhu Simao changed to his leather jacket. Although it was freezing, he did not complaint. He put on the helmet and walked towards the motorcycle.

The filming equipment was set up, and Baldy Chen shouted “action” and they saw Zhu Simao riding the bike slowly forward.

“Cut! Old Zhu, you are riding too slow. Speed up a bit. This will not reflect the feeling of speed.” Baldy Chen shouted.

“I had just learned how to ride a bike. I don’t dare to ride too fast. I still have to do a sliding stop later.” Zhu Simao had only learned how to ride a motorcycle before they came. Before this, he just knows how to ride a bicycle.

Zhu Simao practiced with the bike, and soon the wind started.

The December temperature at Bing City was already very low. The actors were already wearing very little, and now there’s cold wind. Feng Yu immediately suggest resting until the wind stop.

“No. What if it snows after the rain stops? Furthermore, it is better with the wind blowing. The wind blowing on the scarf on Liu Daqing will look better on the camera.” Baldy Chen loudly rejected Feng Yu’s suggestion.

Liu Daqing also said: “It’s fine, Manager Feng. I am able to tolerate this temperature. I had filmed Summer shoots during End Autumn. That’s even colder than this.”

The filming continues. Zhu Simao finally picked up his speed. It was a straight road, and the road surface was in excellent condition, and there were no cars around. But when he reaches in front of Zhu Daqing, he could not execute the sliding stop.

To a beginner, this was a tricky move and quite frightening. Feng Yu saw that almost 1 hour had passed, but they did not even finish filming the first scene. He too was a bit anxious. With this speed, they might not even be able to finish shooting the 4 commercials. There’s still the printed ads.

“Mr. Zhu, let me show you how to execute the sliding stop.” Feng Yu walked over and took the helmet from Zhu Simao. He wore the helmet and ignored the objections of others and sped away.

“Eh, why you did not stop your Manager Feng?” Zhu Simao was still in a dazed, and Feng Yu had already sped away. He nervously looked at Wu Zhigang.

Feng Yu was still so young, and if anything happens to him, they would feel bad.

Wu Zhigang had seen Feng Yu’s riding techniques. When the first motorcycle was out of the factory, Feng Yu had tested it personally. He was even better than anyone in the factory.

Just when Zhu Simao finished speaking, Feng Yu was already riding the bike back. He did not even slow down when he was approaching them. When Feng Yu was about 10 meters away from them, he slowed down slightly and did a beautiful sliding stop in front of the camera.

Feng Yu removed his helmet and smiled at the shocked Liu Daqing: “Do you want to go for a ride?”

Chapter 180 – Celebrity Influences 1

There was nothing to complain about the professionalism of these actors in this era. They were far better than those in the future years. Even when facing cold winds and not trained in riding motorcycles, they finished the filming of the 4 parts commercials before dark.

Feng Yu looked at the finished commercial, and it was better than he imagined. Later, after the dubbing and adding the fonts at the end, it could be aired at the TV stations.

At night, Feng Yu treated all of them to taste the Northeast local charcoal hotpot. Every one of them enjoyed the dinner and were praising Feng Yu riding skills. If Feng Yu did not show them how to do the stunt personally, they might not finish filming.

Feng Yu smiled reservedly. The actors and actress in this era did not even request for body doubles. But the effects were better this way.

That night, it started snowing. They were feeling lucky. Although having a snowy backdrop was also good, but the camera they used was not suitable for filming in this environment. The effects will not be good.

The next afternoon, Liu Daqing and Zhu Simao started the photoshoot for the printed ads. There were outdoor shoots in the wilderness, indoor shoots and even at the factory. Of course, Baldy Chen also took part in the photoshoots.

Currently, Baldy Chen was not required to be in any commercials, but the contract stated that he was expected to do printed ads.

After shooting for a day and used up some films, they wrapped up. That night, all of them returned to Beijing. They wrapped up everything 1 day in advanced. 3 motorcycles were also transported together with them by train to Beijing.

This was given to them and was not included in the contract. This made them feel Feng Yu’s generosity. 125 motorcycles at that time cost at least 20,000 RMB! Even the 2 staffs Baldy Chen brought along got a 500 RMB red packet each from Feng Yu. This was to let them know that if they do well in their job, Feng Yu will reward them handsomely.

Baldy Chen will bring the edited commercials and photographs to show Feng Yu in 1 week time. Feng Yu was not worried about the quality. Baldy Chen was a professional director who had filmed movies before!

It was worth mentioning that when the workers heard that the stars had arrived at the factory, all there wanted to crowd around them. If it wasn’t for Li Mingde personally stopping them, the production might come to a halt that day.

Even Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua who had heard the news came to Bing City. Feng Yu had told them that they would be able to take a picture with the stars.

From Feng Yu’s mother, both of them were too excited to sleep the night before!

Luckily it was only a picture and not some other activities. This proves the popularity of these 3 celebrities. From young to old, everybody likes them!

Feng Yu instructed the factory’s in-charge to manufacture the motorcycles at full capacity. He was not worried that no one would buy his bikes. He wanted to achieve record high sales before the end of the year.

1 week later, Baldy Chen returned with the edited products. Feng Yu went through the commercials and the photographs. He was delighted even though the effects were not as good as the future, it was one of the best advertisements in the current era. Baldy Chen had filmed it as if it was a movie.

The photographs were sent to the printers for them to make it into posters. Feng Yu ordered 10,000 copies.

A colored poster cost 1 RMB, and this was over Feng Yu’s expectations. But this was only a small issue. These investments will be recovered from the sales of the motorcycles!

“Manager Li, I need some manpower now to post these posters along the streets. Please assign some people from your factory.” Feng Yu went to Li Mingde to request for manpower. Everyone at the motorcycle factory was busy, but the Machinery Company was able to spare some people.

There was a lack of recreational activities in this era. When the posters were placed in a conspicuous position, there was bound to have people looking at it. One, two…… more and more people will start to crowd.

There were still not many posters pasted along the streets or telegraph post, and there were no regulations against posting posters on them so there will be no one removing them.

Furthermore, Feng Yu was using colored posters, and it featured 3 famous stars. Some people will surely remove the posters and bring back home.

This was what Feng Yu wanted. His Songjiang Motorcycles were also in the pictures, and when these people looked at the stars, they will also notice the motorcycles.

Just the attractive design of the motorcycles, Feng Yu, was sure that his bikes would be selling like hotcakes!

The only problem was that Bing City was too cold now and this might affect the sales. But it’s fine. During the New Year period, the sales will still pick up.

Feng Yu wanted to warm up the market and make people curious about Songjiang Motorcycles. He wanted the people who wanted to buy other brands of motorcycles to wait for a few weeks. There’s a better motorcycle in the market, and it’s only 2 weeks more for the launch. Why not wait a while?

The next day, people started noticing that there were posters of famous stars at high human traffic places like bus stops, train stations, malls, markets, etc.

Zhu Simao, Baldy Chen and Liu Daqing. Are the 3 of them going to star in a movie? What’s the name of this movie? When will it be aired?

But something was not right. Shouldn’t these posters be placed out the cinemas or the Cultural Palace? Why were these posters all over the city?

People started crowding around the posters, and some even reached out to touch it. It was as if they were feeling the stars themselves.

“Eh, the stars are riding motorcycles or pushing the bikes. This motorcycle is stunning.” Someone in the crowded mentioned loudly.

Soon everybody noticed the motorcycles on every poster. The bikes were very attractive and more beautiful than any bikes they had ever seen!

“Yes, yes! Are they shooting a movie about motorcycles?”

“Who knows? Liu Daqing is pretty. How I wish I could meet her in person.” A young man said while staring at the posters.

“Zhu Simao is really handsome. I wish to get married to him.” A girl said while daydreaming.

“Hahaha, look at Baldy Chen. He is so funny. He is cleaning the bike? I love his comedy skits. Not sure if he would be performing at this year’s Spring Night Gala.”

……

While the crowds were discussing loudly, Tai Hua Trading staffs secretly walk off from the crowd. The good thing about the crowd was that once someone started a topic, everybody will discuss it and it would last at least half an hour.

The same scene happened at many places in Bing City and not sure when someone removed a poster of Liu Daqing and ran off.

The crowd was shocked. No one was stopping him? Since there was no one preventing them from removing the posters, let’s bring these posters home!

The event of removing posters started. The 2,000 posters that were put up that day were all gone in seconds. People wanted to bring back the posters to show their neighbors and friends. These were posters of China’s top celebrities. Even if you have money, you will also not get these posters!

When they were flaunting, they were also creating awareness for Songjiang Motorcycles. Feng Yu had purposely printed Songjiang Motors in smaller print. But it was also because of this, people would look closer to see what was written there.

But the thing that Wu Zhigang and the rest, least expected was that Feng Yu placed the most posters around state-owned enterprises. Aviation Factory, Motor Factory, Thermal Electric Factory, Beer Factory, Plastic Factory…… Every state-owned factories’ vicinities were full of posters.

It was because that the number of young men at these areas was the highest. The posters of Zhu Simao riding the motorcycles with Liu Daqing as the pillion would undoubtedly stimulate the desires of those young men to own one bike.

The next day, when people went on the streets, they discovered that there were more posters again……

Chapter 181- Celebrity Influences 2

“Manager Li, do you think the commercial Feng Yu created would be effective? Is he really confident that he will be able to sell at least 130,000 motorcycles in a year?”

“Hrmp! You think it is possible? Although these bikes look beautiful, the performance was only slightly better than Honda 125. Don’t forget about the pricing. We had discussed it. The retail price would be 19,800 RMB and the lowest supplier price at 15,000 RMB. Just look at our Longjiang Province. 30 million population and there are only so few motorcycles. There are more cars than motorcycles. There is about 1 billion population in China and how many motorcycles can he sell? Even if the sales are better in the South, the most he could hit is about 100,000 units in a year. Don’t forget about how much salaries we are getting!” Li Mingde said with a smirked.

If Feng Yu could not deliver, he would have to pay back the advertising fees to the Machinery Company. This would be free advertising for the Machinery Company. Li Mingde was feeling pleased.

Feng Yu, Feng Yu, you are still too young. Do you think that this is the same as those humidifiers? How much does one humidifier cost? An average worker could also afford one if they save for a few months. How much does a motorcycle cost? How many could afford it and how many are willing to spend on it?

“Manager Li is so smart. This is the end for Feng Yu. Both he and his father are the same. They thought that having some shares of the company could let them do whatever they want? Don’t they know that everybody got to listen to Manager Li here?” The Office Director said.

“Eh~~~ what do you everybody got to listen to me. We are democratic. All decisions could only be approved by the City Government after discussion. I am only a representative.” Even though Li Mingde said that, he was very satisfied with what the Office Director said. Well said. It was worth promoting him.

When they were still talking, a deputy manager came in and happily said to Li Mingde: “Manager Li, I had sent my men to ask around. Now many people are talking about Songjiang Motorcycles and where to buy one. I estimate that when launch, we can sell at least 100 bikes in Bing City!”

Li Mingde frowned: “Are you sure?”

The Deputy Manager was puzzled. What’s wrong with Manager Li? He seems to be unhappy when he heard that the motorcycles will be selling well.

“Of course, someone from my wife’s unit also asked if he could get one now. They can’t wait to ride our bikes.”

Although the average salaries of the people were still meager, there were lots of wealthy people too. Just the distributors of their agriculture equipment could earn tens of thousands in a year!

They could even afford a car, why can’t they afford another bike?

……

“Manager Feng, we had run out of posters. Do we need to reprint?” Wu Zhigang asked.

Feng Yu took a sip of his hot tea and slowly waving his hands: “There’s no hurry. Have you reserve the tickets?”

“Yes, it’s done. It’s a night ticket for a bed seat. I have also bought the return ticket for the day after tomorrow.”

“Hrmm. The posters can wait until we are back. Have you contacted the distributors? How many of them are interested?”

The reprinted posters were not for the streets and alleyways. They were for the distributors to paste outside their shops to attract customers.

“Right now, there are 7 distributors. They are all old customers, and they guaranteed that they could handle the sales for their provinces. The rest were still considering, but I think they would give us an answer in 2 days.”

At first, Wu Zhigang was thinking about where to look for distributors. Feng Yu told him to call those home appliances distributors and ask them if they are interested in being the distributors.

The distributors at this time were all very smart. They would never stick to one type of products. They will sell whatever products that were popular as long as there were profits!

Just look at Tai Hua Food Processing Factory’s animal feed. Some of those home appliances distributors also got the distribution rights for the animal feeds. Now the animal feeds were selling in the 3 Northeast provinces, and it was expanding towards the south.

Furthermore, Feng Yu’s distribution fees were quite high this time. They would make at least 500 RMB for every motorcycle sold. If 200 units were sold in a month, that would be 100000 RMB profit!

Feng Yu nodded: “Ask our men to chase them. Our reputation is also at stake here. We had never made any losses before, and those that work with us also profited.”

“I know. I will get them to follow up.”

That night, Feng Yu and Wu Zhigang traveled to Beijing CCTV station to look for Cheng Baojun to tell him about changing their commercial.

After Cheng Baojun watched the commercial and the photocopied documents of the motorcycle, he nodded and reported to his leaders. The paperwork was all in place, but he got to seek the approval from his leaders.

That evening, Feng Yu treat Cheng Baojun to dinner again, and the next day afternoon, Feng Yu received a call from Cheng Baojun in his hotel room. His leaders had approved!

From New Year until May, the 4 parts commercials will be aired during the primetime slots. It will be according to the order of the commercials given by Feng Yu.

Initially, Feng Yu had wanted to air 1 commercial per month, but it was too troublesome to change the commercial. That’s why Feng Yu chose to air all the commercials together. Anyway, this commercial can be used for 2 to 3 years. Maybe he would have better ideas for ads next year.

Feng Yu asked Cheng Baojun if he could extend the advertising contract. He wanted to get 1 more year. But Cheng Baojun replied Feng Yu got to wait till March after their meeting. But he promised that he would inform Feng Yu about the outcome first.

……

“Eh, have you watch CCTV yesterday? Hehe, Zhu Simao’s sliding stop was so cool!”

“That’s right. He was so handsome when he took off his helmet!”

“No~~~ Liu Daqing is prettier. I was mesmerized when she removes her scarf!”

“It was so interesting to see Liu Daqing asked Zhu Simao in return, ‘Do you want a ride, sir?’”

“I love the final scene when the both of them rode the bikes away.”

“No way. The scene when Zhu Simao riding with Liu Daqing as pillion was the best. Liu Daqing had her arms around Zhu Simao’s waist and leaning against his back. If I had a bike like this, there would be lots of girls willing to ride with me!”

“Talk after you get a bike. That bike is so beautiful. Is it available in Bing City? I am guessing that it is an imported bike from either US or Japan.”

“No, I guess the bike is from Europe or the Soviet Union!”

“Hahaha, this bunch of morons. Can you see what is this?” A young man was holding on to a poster, showing to everybody.

“That’s Liu Daqing’s poster. You had shown it to use a few times.”

“No, I am talking about this motorcycle. Don’t you think that it is familiar? Can you see the words written on small fronts here? Songjiang Motorcycles.”

“What does it mean?” Everyone was curious.

“My cousin from my third uncle had a classmate whose uncle is working at the Machinery Company. This Songjiang motorcycle is manufactured by Bing City’s Machinery Factory. Do you still think that it will not be available in Bing City? Today is the product launch, and the first sales location is at Dongli there. Want to go there to take a look?”

……

“Give me one unit. I have brought cash.”

“I am here first. Give me 1 bike!”

“I want a bike too. Red color and the red helmets too. Hurry up!”

When these few young men reach the sales location, they discovered that it was full of people. Many people were shouting that they want to buy a motorcycle. A row of motorcycles was on display. Every bike was so cool, and they also want to get one if they got the money!

……

“Manager Li, Manager Li, today’s sales figures are out!”

Li Mingde raised his head and asked anxiously: “How many units are sold?”

Translator Notes: Let’s guess how many.

Chapter 182 – Distributors Part 1

“106 units!”

“How many?” Li Mingde could not believe his ears.

“106 units!” The Office Director repeated.

“They were all sold from the sales location in Bing City? Just today alone?”

The Office Director nodded and said: “Just today at Dongli sales location. I am not sure why people from the neighboring cities and districts also came here to buy. Even though there was a promotional price today, but it was also selling at 18,000 RMB. How can there be so many people buying?”

The Office Director was confused. This motorcycle was so expensive yet so many people are buying.

The 100 bikes they had prepared were sold out, and even the 6 display bikes were also sold. In the end, all bikes were sold out. There were so many wealthy people in Bing City? These bikes were selling at almost 20,000 RMB, and people were buying!

Feng Yu now was in his office working overtime. The sales for the first day was better than he expected. It was still Winter, but it did not affect the sales at all.

As long as it was not snowing, they could ride bikes even if it was windy. With gloves and a thick scarf, there was nothing to be afraid of!

Seems like telling people that the prices of the motorcycle will rise soon was still effective. There were no domestic 125 cc bikes in the market, and Songjiang Motorcycle was the only model. The imported bikes do have 125 cc, but the average prices were above 25,000 RMB.

How much is the cost of a 125-cc motorcycle? It was less than 6,000.

This was because the workers were still not familiar and not very productive, and the cost of the materials was too expensive.

After a while, the workers will be more efficient, and the cost can be lowered. Feng Yu had wanted the cost of a bike to be around 3,000 RMB. During the millennium, a 125-cc bike retail price was about 5,000 RMB. The Soviet Union’s production lines were very advance but the efficiency was too low, and there was too much wastage.

But now it was considered okay. A motorcycle sold to Tai Hua Trading at distributor price and still getting a 5,000 RMB profit, was something Li Mingde don’t even dare to think about in the past. The gain was almost 100%.

When Li Mingde first saw the production costs, he felt it was unbelievable. How can the cost be so low? After deducting the costs and expenses, these motorcycles were more profitable than tractors!

Feng Yu had said that if people were willing to spend over 10,000 RMB for a motorcycle, they would also be willing to pay 20,000 RMB as long as the designs were beautiful and the bike was comfortable to ride. At first, Li Mingde thought that Feng Yu’s targeted segment was too small and he needs to increase the profits.

But who would had guessed that the prices of their bikes were almost the same as imported bikes, and they were selling better!

“Zhigang, did any of the Machinery Company go to the sales location and ordered our men around?”

“No, but I saw some of them loitering around. They left when we sold out all the bikes. They should be reporting back to Li Mingde. Rest assure, Manager Feng. No one can interfere with the sales of the motorcycles. We will only follow your instructions.”

Wu Zhigang was also confident. He never expects that these motorcycles were so popular. There were more wealthy people in Bing City than he expected. But he thought about the bikes. If they had not used all their money to buy shares, all of them would also buy these motorcycles.

They had only worked for a year, and they were willing to spend 20,000 RMB on a motorcycle. Then those who were doing businesses earlier than them would be the same too.

The exterior of these motorcycles was attractive and looks better than any domestic or imported bikes. Furthermore, there were celebrities’ endorsements, and the commercials were aired on CCTV. Now, there were only a handful of people that did not hear of Songjiang Motorcycles.

“Fine, prepare only 50 units for sales tomorrow. We will stop selling after these 50 units were sold.”

“50 units? Manager Feng, 50 units might not be enough. Are you doing that hunger marketing strategy like the humidifiers again?” Wu Zhigang suddenly remembered. When they started selling the humidifiers to the shopping malls, Feng Yu had used this method to let the consumers feel that if they were late, they would not be able to get the humidifiers even when they had the money. This was to stimulate the buying desires of those that were still considering, and the sales volume turned out to be even better.

Feng Yu nodded: “The distributors should be arriving tomorrow? Show them the crowd at our sales location.”

The next day, the distributors arrived at Bing City, and even though the contract signing was the following day, they came early. They knew the temper of the people at Tai Hua Trading. If they were late, they might be chased away!

At first, many of them were still hesitating, but after they watched the advertisements on CCTV, they felt that this was a great opportunity.

They had felt that the humidifiers would not sell well initially, but after it was advertised on CCTV, the sales picked up. Every one of them made huge profits.

This time, Tai Hua Trading not only advertised on CCTV, they even hired 3 top celebrities for product endorsements. They heard that the following year, there will be a new commercial staring Balding Chen and Zhu Simao. The promotion effects were well done, and if the quality of the motorcycles were not too bad, there was nothing to worry about the sales. They only need to place some deposits, and they could quickly earn back that amount within a month!

A few of the distributors who had arrived early, went to the sales location to take a look. There was a huge crowd, and most of the people there were just onlookers, but there were also some buyers too.

What? Sold out so early? How many motorcycles were sold? Now it’s only two in the afternoon.

50 units? From morning 9 am until now? 50 units were sold out in 5 hours?

What? Yesterday they sold over 100 units, and all were sold by 5 pm?

If the sales of the motorcycles can be so good in this rural Bing City, then the coastal regions and the more prosperous provinces should be selling much better!

……

“We had worked together for more than once. There are a few unfamiliar faces, but I believe that everyone here should know Tai Hua Trading rules. We will divide the market based on provinces. Every month the sales cannot be lower than 400 units. The supplier price of each motorcycle is 15,000 RMB. We will still pay an additional 5% of the supplier prices as commission. The top 3 distributors every month would also receive different rewards……”

“Manager Wu, I wanted to get the northwest region. The quota of 400 units every night be slightly high.”

“Meng, Qing, Tibet…… these areas are a bit different. We will talk to you separately later and give a reasonable quota. Are there any other questions for the other provinces?” Wu Zhigang roared.

“Manager Wu, if according to what you just said, then does that means the more we sell, the more commission we can get?”

“That’s right. Not only the top 3 distributors will be rewarded. The top 3 sales for the year will also be rewarded! Just remember that the more you sell, the more profits you will get. Also, this time all of you only needs to place a onetime deposit. This was to prevent any cash flow issues on your side.”

“Manager Wu, can the deposit be lesser? Don’t you think that 500,000 RMB is a lot?”

“You look at how much the goods we send to you are worth every month? 400 units are worth a total 6 million and are 500,000 RMB deposit a lot? If you are not able to pay the deposit, you can back out. Our company can easily set up a sales office in the province you are handling!” Wu Zhigang shouted.

These people were still discussing among themselves. Feng Yu shook his head. Seems like he got to do this himself.

Chapter 183 – Distributors Part 2

When Feng Yu stood up, everybody kept quiet. A few newcomers still wanted to say something, but they saw their friends signaling to them to shut up.

Feng Yu was pleased with their attitude. Those newcomers still do not know the person-in-charge here!

“There are some of you who had arrived early and saw what happened at Bing City’s sales location. All of you can tell that the motorcycles are selling like hotcakes. Songjiang Motorcycles are 125 CC, and it is the most powerful bike allowed in China currently. We have the abilities to manufacture bigger bikes. When the government relaxes the regulations, we will launch the bigger bikes immediately. We have all the related the technologies and machines to produce them now. From the technologies to the exterior designs and the marketing strategies to the pricing. These are all our capabilities. What else are you all worrying?”

“Manager Feng, when the motorcycles are newly launched, we would not have any problems hitting the quota of 400 units per province. But as time passes, the market would be full. It is just like the electric fans. The sales are good at the start but slowly decline as time passes. We tried our best, but the market is just so big. Furthermore, motorcycles are not like electric fans and not every family can afford.” Someone shouted.

“Fine, then I will offer all of you another contract. The quota will be 300 units per month, but the commissions will also be lowered according to the proportions. The percentage of the commissions will be lowered by 1% for every 100 units. Will you all accept it?” Feng Yu smilingly asked.

The person who had shouted kept quiet. 1% less commission would mean lesser profits. Now the commissions were already not high and if it wasn’t for the base earnings were slightly higher, they could not attract any agents.

“Manager Feng, we had worked together multiple times. From the electric fans to the not so popular fridges, we had been working with you. Can the deposits be lesser? 100,000 RMB should be enough to show our sincerity?” A longtime customer asked.

“You can buy the bikes straight from us, and if you are willing to buy from us, I will earn lesser and sell it to you at 14,000 RMB per unit, and it will be in multiples of 100 units.”

This person also kept quiet. Even if Feng Yu let them get more profits, 100 units will also cost 1.4 million. If they could fork out so much cash, then would they be bargaining about the 500,000 RMB deposits?

“All of you do not want to buy the bikes up front. Do you know how much cash flow pressure my company is facing? Have all of you calculated? There are over a dozen people here and if each of you is the distributors for a province, every month will be over ** units. How much must I pay the Machinery Company? All of you think carefully. I am only collecting 500,000 deposits from each of you. Is it really a lot?”

Feng Yu was talking crap again. He does not need to fork out a single cent when he gets the bikes from the Machinery Company and only needs to pay them at the end of the month. Deposits for the bikes? Every province’s deposit was 500,000 RMB and after paying the Machinery Company, what about the remaining?

Tai Hua Trading was the main distributors for Songjiang Motorcycles, and Feng Yu had signed a contract with Li Mingde. He could get the bikes at 11,000 RMB per unit, and anything extra would be Tai Hua Trading’s profits.

Of course, if Tai Hua Trading could not achieve the target set, Tai Hua Trading got to repay the Machinery Company 500 EMB for every unsold bike and the all the advertising fees which included the CCTV advertising slots and the payment for the commercials.

To Li Mingde, Feng Yu was digging his own grave, and he wanted to teach Feng Yu a lesson. This was to prevent Feng Yu from interfering with the management of the Machinery Company. You want the distribution rights of the motorcycles? Dream on!

At first, Li Mingde had wanted to wait for Feng Yu to fail and see if the Feng father and son would still dare to go against him in the company. But after he saw Bing City’s sales figures, he knew that Feng Yu might really succeed. Li Mingde was now thinking of ways to stop Feng Yu. It would be best if the number of units sold stayed at 129,000 units.

“Anyone else has questions?” Feng Yu looked at everyone in the room. All of them were looking down.

“No more questions? Then I will add some conditions. I don’t care if any of you are doing wholesales to agents or use the commission structure to develop your downline. Within this month, there must be at least a showroom set up in your province city, and by year-end, every city must have a showroom. You will be fined if you are unable to do it!”

Fine? Everybody’s expressions changed. They too wanted to sell more bikes but if getting a fine for not selling well was too much!

“Secondly, the retail price must not be higher than 19,800 RMB. This price is lower than the imported 125 CC bikes, the distributors would still have profits and would not affect our motorcycle sales. We had already aired advertisements on CCTV and later, we have a series of promotional activities. I guarantee our brand awareness will increase. If any of you dares to increase the retail price, don’t blame me for removing you as the provincial distributor and still fine you!”

The distributors’ brows were knitted even more. Fine again?

Manager Wu should be doing the talking. All the things he said were all excellent, reward systems, benefits, etc. How come everything this Manager Feng says was all involving fines?

Wu Zhigang saw the distributors’ face changes color and he was anxious. However, he dares not to voice out. In his heart, he was pleading Feng Yu to stop talking about fines. If he carries on, there would be no distributors left. Do Feng Yu really want them to set up sales locations in every province? Where would they get the energy to do that?

“Thirdly, every province will be rated according to the economic status and population and the province with the lowest sales for that year will also be fined!”

The distributors’ faces were all blacked. Other than fines, can’t you say something else?

“Why? All of you can’t accept getting fines?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

All the distributors nodded. Who can accept so many conditions and fines?

“Fine. Those that can’t accept those conditions can leave, and we will carry on the discussions with the ones remaining.”

Damn. This again. All the distributors were speechless. But this method was still very useful. At their respective provinces, many people were asking for Songjiang motorcycles, and the distributors had already contacted their agents and downlines. When they receive the bikes, they will distribute to their agents at different cities.

If they leave now, then the preparations efforts they did would be wasted. Furthermore, all of them knew that being the distributor for Songjiang Motorcycles would be profitable.

Even if they sold only 400 units per month and the commissions were 5%, they would also get at least 750 RMB per unit, and if they sell more, they will get more profits.

All of them had calculated and was clear that this was a profitable business. One province, 4,800 bikes was something achievable!

“No one wants to leave? Then Southern Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai…… provinces can go to Manager Wu to sing the contract. The other provinces come to me one by one to discuss the terms.”

Chapter 184 – The Second Step of the Plan

Feng Yu had signed the contracts with all the distributors. Every year, there would be at least 84,000 units sold. It was still short of the target set by Li Mingde.

But Feng Yu was not worried. This was the minimum number of bikes sold. Motorcycles at places like Beijing, Shanghai, and Sichuan were selling well. These regions should be selling many more bikes than the minimum number. There were still Southern Guangzhou, Southeast regions, Ludong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang areas. These places should be selling well too.

Coupled with the Northeast provinces, where Tai Hua Trading was handling directly, the total units sold should be 50% more than the minimum number. Even if there was still a shortfall at the end, Feng Yu still had his last resort. He would never let Li Mingde the chance to look down on him. As for the advertising fees, there was no way Feng Yu would pay back to the Machinery Company. Money that enters his pocket, he would never take them out!

Li Mingde knew that Tai Hua Trading had signed the distribution contracts with the distributors, but he was not sure of the details of the agreement. Feng Yu would never let Li Mingde know about it. If Li Mingde knows about how much profits Tai Hua trading will be getting, he would definitely try all means to get back the distribution rights even if he suffered some losses.

Feng Yu would never let Li Mingde get what he wants. He even deliberately lower Li Mingde’s guard by asking if they can cancel the 2 contracts. Feng Yu also said that it would be lucky if they were able to sell 100,000 units in that year.

Li Mingde did not accept Feng Yu request. This was the chance for him to win Feng Yu and involves a few millions of advertising fees.

If he won, he would not only get the chance to “educate” Feng Yu on how to do things, and it would also establish his authority at the Machinery Company further. He would be able to get the final say at the Motorcycle Factory and still get back a few millions of advertising fees. This was a chance for him to shine in front of the leaders from the City Government.

Feng Yu had told him that if they canceled their bet, he would not go against him in future. But Li Mingde ignored Feng Yu. He knew that if he won, how could Feng Yu go against him in future?

Li Mingde was feeling pleased, and during a meeting at the Machinery Company, he criticized the Motorcycle Factory and Feng Yu, the motorcycle factory in-charge, a few times. He reprimanded Feng Yu for not being at the factory, the motorcycle sales, and the manufacturing costs, etc.

When Li Mingde scolded Feng Yu, he sounded as if Feng Yu was not doing his work at the Motorcycle Factory. He was waiting for the time where he could get rid of Feng Yu.

If Hou Haitao had not expressed that he was willing to give up and the Hong Kong businessman supported Feng Yu, Feng Yu would never get the chance to be the motorcycle factory’s director.  Even when Feng Yu had support, Li Mingde did not let Feng Yu be the factory’s director. He only allowed Feng Yu to be an acting director. If Feng Yu could not produce results in a year, then he would be replaced!

Even if Feng Yu produced outstanding results and became the Factory Director, Li Mingde was not scare. The Motorcycle Factory was still a subsidiary of the Machinery Company and was still under his management. He was still the General Manager of the Machinery Company. If Feng Yu is an emperor, he would be the emperor’s father!

The thing that Feng Yu upsets him the most was the veto vote. The higher management staffs at the Motorcycle Factory were appointed by Li Mingde, and during decision making, Feng Yu’s veto vote was too irritating and had disrupted his plans a few times.

Li Mingde believed that Feng Yu would not be in this seat for long. When the sales were not still not picking up during the halfway mark, he would look for Hou Haitao to discuss replacing Feng Yu! He could even accept Hou Haitao taking over this position!

No matter what, the Aviation Factory was still bigger than the Machinery Company, and Hou Haitao’s rank was higher than him. He was also more experienced and still had connections with the military. There was no way Li Mingde could get angry with him for giving up the vote to elect the factory’s director.

If it weren’t for the City Government, the Aviation Factory would also not get 14% shares of the Machinery Company. The technologies owned by the Aviation Factory were no related to motorcycles. Fuel saving engine, anti-wear tires, and high-performance batteries technologies? These were all not needed!

Furthermore, the Aviation Factory’s technologies were only suitable for cars and how can these work on motorcycles? If it weren’t for the Aviation Factory using a significant amount of cash, the leaders in the City Government would never agree to let them buy a stake in the company.

Li Mingde had thought that Hou Haitao was interested in getting a share of the profits. He did not know that the Aviation Factory was persuaded by Feng Yu to buy a stake in the Machinery Company.

Feng Yu had promised Hou Haitao that if the Machinery Company’s profits were not to their expectations or when the Aviation Factory needed funds, he would buy over their Machinery Company’s shares.

There was another reason why Hou Haitao agreed to this. Feng Yu had told him some good news. The ultra-high power electrical furnace which the Aviation Factory wanted was found. The other party decided to sell it, and they were in the midst of price negotiations. The Aviation Factory should be receiving the furnace in March the earliest or latest in June.

When would the Aviation Factory need money? Of course, it is when they had to make payments for the ultra-high power electrical furnace. This electrical furnace was not some cheap furnace. The market rate for a used 1970s model was above 10 million Rubles. Furthermore, Feng Yu had helped them find a 1985 model. It was more advanced, and the market rate was above 40 million Rubles. Even the 2nd hand furnace cost more than 20 million Rubles.

Currently, Europe and the US had restricted their technology to China, and even you had the money, you might not get what you wanted. That was the reason why the Chinese Government could not get this furnace for the Aviation Factory.

When the furnace arrived at Bing City, Hou Haitao could use the Machinery Factory shares to pay for part of it and the remainder from his factory. It should be enough.

Feng Yu had tried to persuade Hou Haitao to use his shares in the humidifier as part of the payment, but Hou Haitao rejected this suggestion. The humidifiers were giving him more profits than the Machinery Company and Feng Yu’s valuation of the humidifiers’ shares were too low.

It’s only some cash. Our Aviation Factory can surely raise it! Even if we can’t raise the required funds, we could also apply from the higher-ups. This is the ultra-high power electrical furnace. The leaders at the top should know the importance of this furnace and would surely provide the funds.

However, even though Hou Haitao thinks this way, he was still worried that his higher-ups might take over the ultra-high power electrical furnace and send it to other factories. That’s why he tried to use his own means to pay for the furnace.

The value of his Machinery Company shares should rise when the Soviet Union side ships the furnace. This was better than leaving the money in his factory or the bank. He also does not need to worry about the leaders transferring the factory’s funds away.

Hou Haitao was now trying to protect all available funds he had. He must get his hands on that furnace. When Feng Yu suggested this method to him, he immediately agreed. He used all his connections in Bing City and successfully became a shareholder in the Machinery Company.

These were all part of Feng Yu’s secret plot. The City Government got a sum of money; Li Mingde was satisfied because the Motorcycle Factory belongs to the Machinery Company and Feng Yu did not go to the Aviation Factory; Hou Haitao could put aside his factory funds safely and declared lower earnings to the higher-ups. When the furnace arrives, he will use these shares as part of the payment.

The one who was the most satisfied was Feng Yu. When the furnace arrives in Bing City, he would be the major shareholder of the Machinery Company!

Chapter 185 – Annual Meeting

1990 was coming to an end, and Tai Hua Trading was having their last meeting.

The nature of this meeting was like the Annual Meeting in the future years. The agenda was to summarize the year’s overall performance, reward the best performers and to give out the year-end bonuses and rewards.

Wu Zhigang and the rest had decorated the meeting room with colored flags and balloons. There were even red paper cuttings on the windows. Every one of them was excited and were eagerly waiting for Feng Yu to announce the promised “Year-end reward.”

Only the 2 finance staffs were nervous. They had joined the company in the middle of the year and would Manager Feng give them the same rewards? If the bikes were similar to Jialing bikes, costing 5,000 to 6,000 RMB each, they might get one each. But Songjiang Motorcycles retail prices were almost 20,000 RMB!

But Wu Zhigang had told them that even if they were not getting the same rewards as them, the reward would not be small. With Tai Hua Trading’s earnings this year and Manager Feng’s generosity, these two finance staffs should be getting not less than 5,000 RMB!

What’s the value of 5,000 RMB? Although the average wages of Bing City rose last year, but it still did not reach 1,500 RMB. It’s not monthly, it’s the annual income!

5,000 RMB was more than 3 years salaries of their former workplace!

Both of them were assured after hearing from Wu Zhigang and were looking forward to the year-end meeting.

The meeting started, and Feng Yu entered the room empty-handed.

Everybody was stunned. Empty handed, how can he be empty-handed? Where’s the promised year-end reward? Where’s the motorcycle keys? Manager Feng changed his mind?

“Eh? How come everybody doesn’t seem to be excited? This is the year-end meeting, and from tomorrow onwards, everybody will be on vacation. All of you are not happy?” Feng Yu deliberately asked.

Other than teachers, which unit had more extended annual leave than Tai Hua Trading? From the Lunar New Year eve until the 15th day of the Lunar New Year. Also, Tau Hua Trading was different from other places. They had 5 days’ work week. While other workers have only 1 off day per week, Tai Hu Trading staffs have 2 days!

If they had to work overtime, they would be paid double. Which company can match these benefits? At the factories, when the leaders asked you to work overtime, that means that he thinks you are capable and you would not be paid for overtime and cannot have any complaints.

When Wu Zhigang and the rest told others at the Motor Factory hosing estate, everyone envied them and even looked for the Motor Factory Workers union to request for double overtime pay. The factories cannot exploit the workers. This created a big headache for Li Shiyou.

The Motor Factory had paid their worker’s overtime pay, and it is counted by hours. They were already the first factory in the whole city, province and even the country. Double pay for overtime? Li Shiyou had never heard of this before!

The furious Li Shiyou went to look for Feng Yu. He thought that it was Feng Yu that created all these problems for him. Feng Yu did not expect the benefits and welfare he gave to his staffs would let Li Shiyou faced these problems.

In the end, Feng Yu thought of an idea for Li Shiyou. The Motor Factory wages were already the highest in the city and province. The benefits were not bad too. But compared to the Motor Factory’s profits, it was nothing. Why not proposed to the City Government to give an additional 1-month salary to the workers as the yearend bonus?

After Li Shiyou’s pestering, the City Government finally agreed to Li Shiyou’s proposal. The workers at the Motor Factory were also pleased. The workers were grateful to Li Shiyou and his reputation rise. This was something he unexpected.

But after today, Li Shiyou would be getting another headache. Feng Yu decided that he would go into hiding after today’s meeting and not answer Li Shiyou’s call!

After Feng Yu finished asking, everybody was quiet. It was only Wu Zhigang broke the silence: “Manager Feng, we are happy with the upcoming vacation. We had worked to the bones these few days.”

There was nothing wrong complaining about their tiredness. They were busy with the motorcycle sales, humidifiers and the Soviet Union trades. Now Feng Yu took back the East Europe humidifiers distribution rights, they had more work.

They were still able to cope on regular days. But they will be going on a vacation for a period of time now, and they had to complete their work in advance. Before Lunar New Year, there were more things to do such as sending goods to the Soviet Union, contacting the suppliers, checking the products, collecting payments, etc……

Everybody at the company was very busy these few days, and they don’t even have time to take a break. However, there were no complaints from the staffs. It was because the salaries at Tai Hua Trading were high and Feng Yu’s promised year-end reward.

“These few days were indeed tiring for all of you, but I will never mistreat all of you. I had said before that our staffs will be getting an increment every year and your salaries will be higher than the national average. This year is the same. From next month onwards, all of you will be getting a 10% increment, and among you, there will be 3 people that will be getting a 15% raise. These 3-people had the highest sales for the Soviet Union’s machinery and technology……”

After Feng Yu finish speaking, everyone clapped. Having pay increments was worth cheering.

After the applause stopped, Feng Yu continues: “last year, our company did well. The profits from the Soviet Union exports reached 3.67 million Rubles and the profits from the imports were even higher. It reached 14 million Rubles. It was mainly the machines and technologies. Most of these profits were used to invest in the Machinery Company. The Wind and Rain electric fans had a drastic drop in sales, but it was still higher than our fridges. It was also because that the year before was the start of our company and the electric fans were launched. However, there is no need to worry. The new model of the electric fans is still in development, and there is some progress. It is estimated that it would be completed within the next 3 months. This fan will increase our profits further. The humidifiers profits for both domestic and overseas is closed to 10 million USD. This is another of our company’s main revenue stream. All of you must start to develop the market at those second and third rated cities……”

Feng Yu gave them a summary of the company’s performance and the crowd applause. They suddenly realized that last year, the company made so many profits! Of course, they knew that this was because of Feng Yu. If it were not for Feng Yu’s creativity and innovative mind, his connections with the Soviet Union and the Hong Kong businessman, the company would not achieve such results.

“This will conclude this year’s performance updates and the direction for the coming year. Is there anything else you all want to voice out?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

Wu Zhigang and the rest were in a daze. What? This is the end? Should it be the time to announce the yearend reward and bonus? Could it be the motorcycle’s retail price is too high, and Feng Yu regretted?

“Hahaha. Okay, I will not joke with all of you. All of you had worked very hard last year, and I promised every one of you that if the company performed well, this year’s reward would be a motorcycle for each of you. I believed that all of you are anxious, right? The motorcycles are all in our company’s warehouse. One for each of you.”

“Manager Feng, the both of us will also be getting one each?”

“Of course. Even though both of you had joined in the middle of the year, but both of you are still part of the company. Both of you will be getting the motorcycles too! The soybean oil, rice, flour and the rest of the usual benefits are also at the warehouse. All of you can make your way there now and get your rewards!” Feng Yu shouted while waving his arms.

“Long-lived Manager Feng!”

Everybody cheered and walked out of the meeting room orderly. But once out of the meeting room, they started running. They did not even care that it was minus 20 degrees outside. They can’t wait to go for a ride on their motorcycles!

Where did they choose to ride their bikes? There’s no need to ask. Of course, they were going to the Motor Factory housing estate to show off their bikes to the other young lads……

Translator note: While translating, I had read the raws carefully, but I did not notice Feng Yu had earned so much. Damn, I wish I could work for him too. Finally, it’s the end of 1990 and 2 years had passed since Feng Yu was reborn. Upcoming, I think it should be the dissolution of the Soviet Union part.

If you like this novel, please recommend to your friends and leave a rating and review on Novelupdates..com. Thank you.

Chapter 186 – Alarmist Part 1

Feng Yu went to Li Mingde personally to request for a special “friendship” price, 10,000 RMB, for the motorcycles. He bought 20 bikes and kept 12 bikes for Tai Hua Trading.

Wind and Rain Logistics took 3 bikes. Li Shiqiang rewarded his manager, his fleet captain, and the best performing franchisee a bike each. This also spurred the rest of his staffs, especially those franchises. They vowed to work harder to get more orders for Wind and Rain Logistics. They also wanted to be rewarded next year!

Feng Yu also rewarded a bike to the top distributor for the humidifiers. The distributor was the fatty from Southern Guangzhou. Even though the fatty had already bought a car and the motorcycle was not something he needed, but the other distributors were jealous of him! The retail price of the bike was about 20,000 RMB. Even if they were not going to ride it, they could always sell it.

3 motorcycles were sent to the district. The deputy factory director of Tai Hua Food Processing Factory was rewarded with one bike. Tian Peng Pig farm person in charge also got a bike, and Feng Xingtai kept the one bike for himself. He said that riding a motorcycle in Summer felt better than driving a car. It was also more convenient to ride a bike to go fishing. Save a lot of petrol too.

Feng Yu loaded the last bike together with other goods bound for the Soviet Union. He gave it to Kirilenko. Russians like giving and receiving gifts. Feng Yu knew that Kirilenko loves to ride bikes and this was the perfect gift for him.

If Feng Yu suggested to Kirilenko that he wants to export the motorcycles, Kirilenko might not be interested. Kirilenko’s arrogant and proud character still felt that the Soviet Union was better than China regarding manufacturing capabilities.

But if it were a gift, Kirilenko would try riding the bike. If the motorcycle becomes popular among that group of 2nd generations, Kirilenko would order a batch from Feng Yu, and Feng Yu would surely mark up the prices!

3 days later, Feng Yu received a call from Kirilenko. The design of the bike was different from what he imagined. He felt that this design was weird.

The wheels were too close, and when riding, the bike felt too long. When one person was riding the bike, there was still space for 2 pillions. The instruction manual even states that this bike could carry a light load of goods.

The engine was also not loud. It was quieter than the Soviet bikes, and the suspension was the same. With his size, he could still do sharp turns with the bike and still felt comfortable.

The most surprising part was this bike had a mudguard at the back wheel. This was something never seen on Soviet bikes.

This way, the ridder would not be dirty when the road was muddy. This was well thought out.

“Feng, I like your gift very much. Rest assured. The Ultra high powered electric furnace negotiations are going smoothly. It should be completed and shipped to Bing City within 2 months. Now it’s only the pricing. Don’t worry, I will not let you pay more.”

“I trust you. We are good friends. Brother Ki, help me keep a lookout for the other machines and related technologies. I am interested in all those. This is a win-win situation for the both of us.” Feng Yu’s lips arced upwards. Things were proceeding smoothly.

“Hahaha. Yes, a win-win situation. But Feng, why do you know that Mr. Varius will agree to sell the furnace? You said that it was because he is a Lithuanian. What do you mean by that?” Kirilenko still does not understand why Feng Yu asked him to approach Mr. Varius. From his view, Mr. Varius’s factory was the hardest to negotiate, but in the end, this deal went smoothly!

“Brother Ki, is our conversations tapped?” Feng Yu asked in a serious tone.

Kirilenko paused for a while and said: “Don’t worry Feng. There is no one around me, and I am using an encrypted military phone. No one can eavesdrop on our conversation. Do you have some secrets you want to share with me? Or is it some major business ventures?”

Feng Yu shook his head. He was thinking in his heart, Brother Ki, your father is also a general and you should not spend all your focus on making money. But if Kirilenko were not a person like this, the both of them would also not bee close friends.

“Brother Ki, the things I am telling later, you can tell your father but not anyone else even if he is your closest friend or your lover!”

Kirilenko felt that something was not right. From Feng Yu’s tone, he knew that this was a grave matter. What will Feng Yu tell him?”

“Feng, what do you want to tell me?”

“Brother Ki, I hope the things I am about to tell you will not affect our friendship.”

“Of course. Our friendship is like the Arctic glaciers. It will never change.” Kirilenko said in an exaggerated manner.

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart. What a stupid analogy. 10 years later, people will discover that the glaciers at the north and south poles melting. How can it remain the same forever?

“Fine. Brother Ki, I am telling you very important information, and you might not be able to accept what I said. But please let me finish and not interrupt me.” Feng Yu said seriously.

“No problem.”

“Brother Ki, the information I am telling you is that Lithuania might be leaving the Soviet Union……”

“What did you say? How could Lithuania leave the Soviet Union? Stop joking!”

Feng Yu: “……”

You said you would not interrupt me. I had just finished a sentence, and I am interrupted!

“Brother Ki, let me finish. You can you can investigate in the Soviet Union. Are those Lithuanian factory directors trying to sell off their factories’ equipment and assets? Are the Army Officers and politicians from Lithuania secretly sending logistics, money and even weapons and ammunition back to Lithuania? Also, ……”

“How do you know all these?” Kirilenko asked after keeping quiet for some time. He did not agree with Feng Yu. Lithuania is a small country, and if it dares to declare independence, the military will destroy Lithuania’s new government within hours. What he really wanted to know was how did Feng Yu come up with such a ridiculous statement!

“Brother Ki, it is not important as to how I know about this. What’s important is this information will be crucial to you, your father, your brother and your family!”

“What do you mean by crucial to my father?”

“Because this is the opportunity for your father to be promoted!”

Chapter 187 – Alarmist Part 2

“What did you say? My father? Promote?” Kirilenko’s voice had changed.

He was famous in the 2nd generation circle because he was rich and had connections in China. He was about to get China’s products. But compared to that 2nd generation from Kiev, there was still a wide gap. Kirilenko could only be considered second rate.

Why? Because his father was still a Major General. If his father were a Lieutenant General, Colonel General or even Army General or the Marshal, his status in the 2nd generation circle would be at the top.

But his father was not cored personnel in the army. He was only in-charge of logistics. He could only wish to be promoted, but he knew it would not happen.

But now Feng Yu told him that this was an opportunity for his father’s promotion. Does that mean that something big will be happening?

“That’s right. Brother Ki. Don’t get too excited. Lithuania will announce its independence from the Soviet Union within the next 2 months. I can guarantee you this. You can ask your father if what I said was true. There is another major event happening soon too. Germany will be unified!”

“What? Are you kidding me? That’s 2 different countries. How can they be unified?” Kirilenko felt that Feng Yu was getting more exaggerated.

First, it is Lithuania leaving the Soviet Union, and now he is claiming East and West Germany will be merged. This is impossible! The Soviet Union is the world’s leading power and will can they allow Lithuania to be independent and let East Germany return to West Germany?

“Brother Ki, you are getting too excited.” Feng Yu said calmly. “You think carefully. East Germany’s economy was too bad. The people were at the stage where they had nothing to eat or keep warm. West Germany had been assisting East Germany economically. Both East and West were originally a country. The people are the same. Do you think that the people from East Germany do not want to have the living standards of East Germany?”

In Feng Yu’s heart, he felt that the Soviet Union was too ruthless. They had been exploiting East Germany. The Soviet Union took all the industries and talents from East Germany and then did not give any assistance to the country. It was almost like East Germany was colonized.

If East Germany had somebody like the Kim family in North Korea, they could brainwash their people into worshipping him and get assistance from the neighboring countries. This way, there was no chance for both Germany merging again.

But East Germany did not have someone like the Kims. The Soviet Union also did not care about them. Should the Germans lead 2 different types of living standards? Especially when the living standards between both countries are widening? Most of the East Germans were starving as there were not enough resources for them!

Kirilenko was quiet. He was thinking about what Feng Yu had said. It seems that Feng Yu was right. They were all Germans from the same country in the past. If Germany could split in the past, it was also possible for both Germany to unify in the future.

“Brother Ki, you think about last year’s April and May. Lots of East Germans escaped to West Germany. Last September and October, there were many demonstrations in cities around East Germany. Their president even stepped down! Last year, the Berlin Wall was also opened up. I believed that within a few months, the Berlin Wall would be demolished and both Germany would be unified!” Feng Yu Continued.

Kirilenko was speechless. He knew what Feng Yu had said. Some scientists in the Soviet Union wanted to go back to East Germany. At first, he was also laughing at those scientists. The economic conditions in East Germany were much worse than the Soviet Union, and only idiots would want to return to East Germany. But what if these people went back to East Germany was because they wanted to go to West Germany or they wanted to join a unified Germany?

Although Kirilenko was not into politics, his family was deeply involved in politics. He also knew about what was happening, and the opening up of the Berlin Wall was a signal. A signal that both Germany will be unifying!

But what has his family got to do with Germany Unifying? His father was based in Moscow, and it was very far from East Germany. How can his father make use of this opportunity to get promoted?

“Feng, I had had the things you just told me. Even if you are right and both Germany will merge, but what has it got to do with my family and father?”

Kirilenko had a scary thought. Could it be the Soviet Union will use its military forces on East Germany to stop them? Feng Yu was asking his father to go to the frontlines and get promoted?

This was too crazy. The Soviet Union had not stopped East Germany from opening up the Berlin Wall, that means the Soviet Union had given up on East Germany. How could they possibly declare war on them? Furthermore, even if a war breaks out, his father was a logistics officer and what can he do? But if his father did not go to the frontlines, how can he get credits and promotions?

But it was too dangerous for his father to go to the front lines even though he felt that the Soviet Union would easily win the war. The military power of the Soviet Union was much higher than East Germany.

Anything could happen in a war. What if his father got hurt or killed, then his family would be finished. His brother’s rank was still not high enough to protect his family and if that happens, can he still be enjoying his current lifestyle?

“Brother Ki, I am not asking your father to stop East Germany from going back to the West. I am just proving to you that I am able to predict what will happen to Germany and what will be happening to the Soviet Union!”

“Something is going to happen in the Soviet Union? You are talking about Lithuania leaving the Soviet Union? It is not a big deal. The Soviet Union could get back that small piece of land anything they want!” Kirilenko said proudly.

Lithuania had only a few hundred thousand populations, and they had little soldiers. Any army from the Soviet Union could easily crash them. Furthermore, the Soviet Union was not an alliance where countries could freely join and leave as they like. Maybe, there was even no need for war. The other countries in the Soviet Union just need to pressure Lithuania and Lithuania would go back to the Soviet Union.

Feng Yu sighed. Kirilenko was too proud and arrogant. The Soviet Union could not use its military against their allied countries. Even if they could, which country would start the war? The Soviet Union economy was already in bad condition, and the President was still in a political struggle with the military. The military was also divided into many fractions. Who would be willing to start a war?

“Brother Ki, do you feel that the Soviet Union’s economy is on a decline?”

Kirilenko was quiet again. Even if he did not want to admit, but it was a fact. The income of the Soviet Union at that time was much lesser than Japan!

“What can this prove?” Kirilenko asked.

“This can prove what I am going to say next. The Soviet Union’s economy is declining. Your President is responsible for that. Now, he did not have the support of the people. Many local governments, allied countries and even the military no longer support him.”

“It’s no big deal. When that happens, we will just change a new President!”

“Brother Ki, you think your people can wait until that happens? The allied countries can wait until that happens? All those military bigwigs can wait?”

“What do you want to say?” Kirilenko suddenly had a bad premonition. He felt that Feng Yu will be telling him something shocking!

“Brother Ki, the Soviet Union is going to be dissolved!”

Chapter 188 – Alarmist Part 3

If Feng Yu was standing in front of Kirilenko, Kirilenko would have punch his best friend.

That’s right. Kirilenko would beat up anybody who dares to say the mighty Soviet Union will collapse in front of him!

The Soviet Union had the strongest military power in the world (This was a self-proclaimed title due to their nuclear weapons. But the rest of the world thinks that the US was the strongest nation.), the world’s leading economy, strongest industrial and manufacturing capabilities and had the most land area. They were also had lots of natural resources.

Kirilenko had felt that the current recession was only temporary and the Soviet Union would recover soon. The Soviet Union would be standing on top of the world looking down at the rest of the world. He was proud to be a Soviet! He was proud of the Soviet Union!

But Feng Yu told him that the Soviet Union would collapsed?

What a joke!

Even when the Commonwealth is disbanded, the US states declare independent, the Soviet Union would never be dissolved!

“Feng, you know what you are saying? Our friendship can come to an end because of what you just said!” Kirilenko roared.

Feng Yu can understand Kirilenko’s feeling now. If it was him, he might also be unable to accept.

But this was the truth. The Soviet Union now and the Soviet Union in his previous life were the same. Even though he was doing trades with Kirilenko, a few million Rubles a month had no effect on the economy.

From the number of machines and technologies Kirilenko sold to Feng Yu showed the dire situation of the Soviet Union.

When a factory got to survive by selling their machinery and technologies, what developments can this factory have? But if they had no choice. No one was buying their products and the government did not help them to do exportation. Even if they export their products, they could not find any buyers. The more they produce, the more losses they incurred.

But if they don’t manufacture, how are they going to pay their workers? The workers also have families to feed. When someone approaches them to buy their machinery, the factory directors sold them without second thoughts. These directors got to take care f themselves and the workers.

When the factories stop innovating new technologies and stop manufacturing, the country’s economic situation worsen even faster. When Feng Yu bought those used machines and technologies from the Soviet Union, he also contributed to the declining economy.

Of course, Feng Yu would never admit. He kept telling Kirilenko that he was helping the Soviet Union workers by buying their “outdated” machines!

However, Feng Yu still did not get the machines he wanted most from the Soviet Union. By helping Kirilenko and his father to get the promoted, was a form of investment.

“Brother Ki, calm down. Maybe you might think that I am an alarmist or even talking rubbish. But please let me finish. I will prove that what I said is true.”

“How are you going to prove? What evidence do you have!” Kirilenko was still shouting.

Although he was still angry and wanted to give Feng Yu a beating, he did not even think of hanging up the call. Kirilenko still had not realized that he was slowly accepting what Feng Yu had said. It started from Feng Yu’s theory of “Germany unification”.

“Brother Ki, I will say one more thing to prove my point. Your President Mikhail Gorbachev kept coming out with new reforms. Economic reforms, institutional reforms, military reforms and even his party’s reform. Some time ago, President Mikhail Gorbachev said that he will allow and encourage a more party system. This is the starting point!”

Kirilenko was shocked. This kind of rumors were only discussed among the high-ranking officials. If it wasn’t for his father mentioning about this at home, Kirilenko would also not know. How did Feng Yu know about this?

Also, Feng Yu said that his was the starting point. What starting point? The starting point of the collapse of the Soviet Union? This is ridiculous. Even if President Mikhail Gorbachev succeeds, so what? The US also had 2 parties. Many countries in the world had multi-parties and nothing had happened.

Furthermore, the military was still in the hands of the communist party and they still have the KGB. What could happen? Kirilenko could not accept what Feng Yu had said if this was the evidence!

“Feng, what sort of evidence is this?” Kirilenko said. Now he was more interested in what alarming theories Feng Yu could come up.

“Fine, Brother Ki. It’s great that you can calm down and listen to me. Do you know what’s the drawbacks of reforms? If the reforms were implemented slowly, I will not come to this conclusion. The economic reforms had failed and your President wanted a political. Do you think with his capabilities he would succeed? In the end, the opposition parties would be more powerful and gain more supports. In order to gain more military support, your President would be focusing on developing the military instead of the economy. He just wanted the army, which he controls to be more powerful!”

Kirilenko was shocked. The situation in the Soviet Union was really as what Feng Yu had said. The economic reforms were supposed to increase the living standards of its people but the government was giving more budget to the army. This further worsen the economic situation.

President Mikhail Gorbachev’s failed reforms will be the starting point?

Feng Yu did not wait for Kirilenko to interrupt him and continued: “Brother Ki, if you have the opportunity to get more authority and power now, will you give up? Nobody will give up the opportunity, right? Then everybody will be fighting with each other and what do you think will be the outcome?”

Civil war!

These two words appeared in Kirilenko’s mind!

His hand which was holding the phone was shaking. Impossible, how can there be a Civil War in Soviet Union? This is impossible!

“Brother Ki, if you still don’t believe me, then I will tell you name that you might be familiar with. This person is worth to be served by your father and your whole family. As long as your father follow him, your father will be promoted and your family status will also increase!”

“Who?” Kirilenko asked without thinking. He immediately regrets after asking. This proved that he believed what Feng Yu had said. The Soviet Union would collapse.

“Mr. Yeltsin, who is also the current chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. He was fired by President Mikhail Gorbachev in the past but he was able to get back into power through the elections. This was the failure of President Mikhail Gorbachev. Also, Mr. Yeltsin would be elected as the President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. This will happen soon!”

Yeltsin? Kirilenko knew who was he. He was fired by the President for criticizing the President and leaders for the failure of the economic reforms a few years ago.

But last year, he was elected by the people and went back into the parliament. But everybody felt that the President would find ways to take care of him and kick him out.

Feng Yu was in China and how can he know about all these? Feng Yu even claims that Yeltsin would be the President of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic? Would President Mikhail Gorbachev even approve it?

“Brother Ki, the things I had just told you can be proven soon. You can tell your father but not anybody else. This is the opportunity for your father and your family to rise in status!”

……

Feng Yu laughed after hanging up the phone. The historical event is happening and when it happens, Feng Yu will be sweeping up everything in the Soviet Union!

Chapter 189 – The Rich Old Feng

Feng Yu returned to the district on Lunar New Year’s Eve. He brought along a truck full of new year goods.

After unloading the truck, Feng Yu gave the driver a 50 RMB red packet, and the driver happily went home to celebrate. Feng Xingtai was not happy with Feng Yu. Why did this good-for-nothing son spend so much on new year goods?

But when he found out that some of these goods were from his Son-in-law, his mood changed for the better. Feng Xingtai knew that his daughter was pregnant and he decided to visit his in-laws on the third day of New Year and at the same time visit his daughter.

There were lesser people during this year new year, but the Feng family’s tradition did not change. Eight meat dishes and two vegetables dishes. All the dishes were completed within an hour. The only difference was the dumplings. This year’s dumplings were using chives and eggs fillings. They were sick of eating meat as they had been eating meat for the whole year!

When Feng Yu returned to the current life, his family’s financial situation was not very bad, but it was still difficult for them to eat meat. Many times, they could not buy meat even when they had the money. Although people at the farms did not care about food tickets and used cash to purchase meat, there were still very few people slaughtering their pigs in summer.

Now the situation got better. Tian Peng Pig Farm had a batch of pigs for sale every month, and it supplied not only to the district but also the surrounding towns. People in the cities also heard of Tian Peng Pig Farm. Tian Peng Pig Farm was currently the biggest pork supplier in Bing City.

Everybody was saying the pork from Tian Peng Pig Farm was the best. The meat was tender and fresh. Also, Tian Peng Pig Farm guaranteed that they were not using sick pigs or dead pigs. It was not sure when it started, but when people in Bing City went to the market, they would ask the pork seller one question: Is there Tian Peng pork today?

After a year of operation, Tian Peng Pig Farm’s brand had gained awareness in Bing City. Even some pork sellers from cities in the northern region also came Tian Peng Pig Farm to buy pork. They said that the pork was for the leaders in their cities.

Feng Xingtai was proud to hear that the leaders were eating his pork. He had forgotten that he had tried to stop Feng Yu from buying this pig farm and expanding and converting it into a modernized pig farm.

During the New Year, the Provincial TV station, led by Professor Su, interviewed Tian Peng Pig Farm. The program was a 90 minutes program, and Tian Peng Pig Farm was featured for about 60 minutes. The viewers did not really remember the sophisticated machines used in the farm. They only remembered the couplets hanged at the entrance. Pigs thinking of getting fat; People thinking of getting famous. These couplets became the talk of the town.

Professor Su, an agriculture professor, had lots of connections. Previously, he did not get any sponsors, and the other professors in the university felt that his concept of a modernized pig farm could only exist in theory and not practical.

The fact was that Professor Su did not get the support of other professors because if the limited funds. A modernized farm would use up a lot of the University’s funds, leaving little for research in other areas. Every year, the university got limited funding from the government, and as it was an agriculture university, it receives lesser funding compared to an industrial university.

The Professor Su’s modernized pig farm would cost at least 1 million RMB. The average funding each professor gets for their research was less than 10,000 RMB.

Professor Su’s modernized Pig farm would be using up the fund of 100 other studies. This was a large sum, and even if the university had this amount, they would also not give it to Professor Su.

Luckily, Feng Yu approached him about the animal feeds and found out that he had stopped his research on the modernized pig farm due to a lack of fund.

Both of them hit it off. Feng Yu had wanted to set up such a pig farm. Although the initial investment was a lot, once the brand was established, the pork from the farm could sell higher than average.

At first, Feng Xingtai was worried that the pork could not be sold and wanted to import a sausage production line. The unsold pork could be made into sausages.

But unexpectedly, there were a lot of consumers buying pork. Tian Peng Pig Farm was producing about 10,000 pigs a year, and all were sold to the surrounding areas of Bing City and Lin Province.

Feng Yu did not even do much marketing, and the market for the animal feeds opened up along with his pork. Currently, the profits of the animal feeds were more than soybean oil. Feng Xingtai was very satisfied with this result.

Initially, there was a lot of unsold animals feeds in the warehouse and Feng Xingtai was very worried. But a few months later, these animal feeds were Tai Hua Food Processing Factory’s bestselling product. There wasn’t even a TV commercial, and it was selling better than the advertised Soybean oil.

Feng Yu felt that this was normal. Granules animal feeds were better and cheaper than using corn or wheat. Pigs feeding on pellets feeds were still growing faster than other pigs.

Furthermore, Tai Hua Food Processing Factory started to give credit to their customers. Tai Hua Food Processing Factory would supply the animal feeds first, and an IOU would be signed, After the pigs were sold, then the customer would repay the amount. Those farmers that could not afford or did not want to buy those animal feeds saw this opportunity. They rushed to buy the animal feeds on credit. This was almost like a zero-interest loan.

Using this sales model, the animal feeds penetrated the market and quickly expanded its market share. From the market research conducted by Tai Hua Food Processing Factory, their brand of animal feeds had 80% market share of the granule animal feeds market in the Longjiang Province, 60% of Lin Province and 20% of Liao Province.

Liao Province also had a factory that produces granules of animal feeds, and it was still a state-owned enterprise. This factory was set up much earlier than Tai Hua Factory, but they do not allow credit terms. Wu Zhigang and the rest had promised that with this payment method, they would be able to increase Liao Province’s market share by one-fold within a year and continue to lead Longjiang and Lin Provinces’ market.

Feng Yu had used this credit terms payment scheme, and if he still can’t even occupy the 3 provinces in the northeast region, then he would be very disappointed with Wu Zhigang and the rest of the staffs. He does not expect them to be sales genius, but they should not be flops either.

The increasing sales of the animal feed meant that there were more and more people rearing pigs. While there was still a huge demand for pork, Tian Peng Pig Farm’s sales would still be affected.

Feng Yu had the confidence to continue to control Bing City market, but for the other areas, the pork sales would be affected by the local pig farms. After Tian Peng Pig Farm appeared on Longjiang news, Feng Yu could foresee that leaders from other provinces trying to push for Pig farms projects. In this era, many government leaders only knew how to copy others. They just imitate whatever that was profitable and did not consider the market demands.

But this was still fine. Tian Peng Pigs would be more established, and even if the pork sales were affected, there would still be the ham products coming out. The demand for the current ham market still outweighs the supply.

Feng Yu could even set up a chain of related brands. He would name it as Tian Peng Fresh Pork. If he could get the majority of the market share of the 3 provinces in the Northeast, there would be endless profits, and it would be even possible for the company to be listed.

This past year, Old Feng became rich!

Chapter 190 – Changes in the New Year

Feng Yu’s mother woke him up at 6 am on the morning of the Lunar New Year. She does not care if Feng Yu had slept in the early hours of the morning. This was the traditions of the region. The earlier you do visit, the more auspicious it would be. Feng Xingtai was now the wealthiest boss in the district, People from Tai Hua Food Processing Factory and Tian Peng Pig Farm would be visiting him very early. It would not be very nice for the visitors to see Feng Yu still in bed when they visit!

Feng Yu stuff some dumplings into his mouth and went to wash up. Just when he was dressed up, there was knocking on the door.

“Director Feng, happy new year. Sister-in-law, Xiao Feng, happy new year.” The person who visited was from Tai Hua Factory, and he said lots of auspicious greeting when he entered the house.

Feng Yu shook his hands and exchanged some greetings. Feng Yu had decided that to leave his house.

“Come, Xiao Feng, this red packet is from uncle.” This person took out a 10 RMB note and pushed it into Feng Yu’s hands.

Feng Yu: “……”

The amount he earned a day during the past year was more than the annual salary of an average person. He had even given out over a hundred thousand RMB as bonuses and rewards. Now, he was treated like a kid, and this person still used his status as an elder to make him accept this 10 RMB!

Feng Yu forced a smile and kept the red packet. He mumbled a thank you. He was frustrated. Since when he had to say thank you for 10 RMB?

Just when he was about to escape from his house, someone came.

When this person saw Feng Yu, he also took out a 10 RMB note and pushed it into his hands.

The visitors came one after another. Within an hour, Feng Yu received a few hundreds RMB of red packets. All the visitors gave 10 RMB notes as red packets!

Finally, there was peace. Feng Yu massaged his sored face and sat down exhausted on the sofa. It was not easy to entertain people. Feng Yu felt that it was more tiring in the past hour than attending an hour of physics lesson!

“Dad, how come I don’t know these people?”

“These are the people that had worked with our factory. I did not expect some of them to turn up too. Especially that Song Deliang and Zheng Guangming. You should also know their characters well. They had rushed here so early in the morning from the village to visit us. I think they were expecting us to give them something when we return to the village for new year visiting.” Feng Xingtai shook his head. Those two shit stirrers had shamelessly “borrowed” soybean oil from the factory a few times and did not return once!

Feng Yu was also feeling helpless. To these shameless people, there was nothing he could do. Even if you scold them, they will just ignore you. If you beat them up, then they will be returning every day, asking for compensations.

Zhang Muhua asked unhappily: “Why did you ask Xiao Yu to accept those red packets even when he said that he does not want? You don’t remember last year when you gave their kids 50 RMB red packet, they still complain that it was too little? This year you must at least give them 100 RMB each!”

Feng Yu had not thought of this earlier. But never mind. It’s only a few thousand RMB. This amount was nothing to his family. This year, Feng Yu asked his father to donate to the local police station was much more than this amount.

Knock, knock, knock~~~

The knocking starts again, and Feng Yu immediately jump up from the sofa and shouted: “Dad, mum, I am going out for New Year Visiting. Keep some lunch for me.”

Feng Yu opened the door and said Happy New Year and ran off. He did not let the visitor stop him.

This person entered the house and did not see Feng Yu. After asking, he realized that the kid that ran out earlier was Feng Yu. His face showed hints of regrets. Feng Xingtai’s son was not around and he could not give him the red packet. He was also not sure if Feng Xingtai would give his children red packets when they met.

After leaving the house, Feng Yu went to Wen Dongjun’s house and knocked on the door.

“Happy New Year. Xiao Yu you are here. Come in.” Wen Dongjun’s mother saw Feng Yu and invited him into the house. She was envy of Feng Xingtai for having such a capable son.

Feng Yu entered the house and noticed that some people were sitting on the sofa. They seem to be people from the Farm Department and subordinates of Wen Deguang. Wen Dongjun was sitting in a corner listlessly. When he saw Feng Yu, he immediately jumps up. He was finally freed!

The guests left when they saw Feng Yu entering. Wen Dongjun’s mother threw away the paper cups into the bin. There were already lots of paper cups in the bin.

Her husband had become a leader and was having more and more authority. They did not become richer, but her husband’s workload became heavier. Her husband did not receive gifts, and yet he still got to entertain guests. Just the paper cups cost a lot of money.

Feng Yu greeted Wen Deguang and dragged Wen Dongjun out of the house. Wen Dongjun was the same as Feng Yu. He was trapped in the house since early in the morning. But the only difference was that Feng Yu’s mother wanted him to leave the house, and Wen Dongjun’s mother did not want him to go. Those people who visited Wen Deguang came empty-handed, and they would at least give his son a red packet.

Wen Dongjun was already attending high school and felt embarrassed to receive red packets. But he still got to listen to his mother, if it wasn’t for Feng Yu, he still got to stay at home to collect red packets.

“This year’s New Year was meaningless. We are not allowed to go ice fishing and not allowed to go hunting. All the shotguns were confiscated earlier this year. How about we go visit our old classmates?” Wen Dongjun was bored, and he rather goes back to school.

These 2 brothers went to look for Liu Kun. Li Na had gone back to her hometown for a visit with her parents.

At Liu Kun’s house, the 3 of them still felt bored. Wen Dongjun suggests to visit another classmate, and there would be 4 people. This way, they could play poker.

At the classmate house, the person who opened the door was a girl. This girl was also their classmate from their junior high school. When she saw the 3 of them, she was shocked. The 3 of them were also shocked.

It was because this girl was carrying a baby and she was dressed as if it was her home.

“Dear, who is it?” Someone in the house was asking.

“It’s Liu Kun and the rest. Come in please.” The female classmate invited them into the house.

Dear?

Feng Yu and the other two looked at each other. These two were not even close in school, and now they were married and also had a child? Cannot be. Both of them were still too young.

In the house, the 3 of them sat for a while and left. Before leaving, Feng Yu gave the female classmate 30 RMB, saying that it was the red packet for the child from them.

After graduating from junior high, this couple had nothing to do and started playing together. Soon, they were dating, and the girl got pregnant! Abortion in that era was a big issue. If it was the 2nd child, the hospital was more than willing to perform the abortion. But most hospital would not do it if it was the first child.

Both families discussed and decided to let this couple get married. Since they were not old enough to be registered, they just held a simple ceremony and start living together. When they reach the legal age, then they would register their marriage. Currently, the couple survived by working in the fields.

Feng Yu and the other two visited a few classmates’ houses and noticed that their lives were very much different from their classmates who had stopped school after junior high school. They had nothing in common to chat.

In the end, they finally found a classmate that was also studying in High School and the 4 of them played poker for a while.

When they left in the afternoon, Wen Dongjun sighs: “I am disliking Lunar New Year!”

Chapter 191 – Bladeless fans

Feng Yu returned to Bing City on the 10th day of the New Year. It was not that he was bored at home, but it was Li Shiyou, and Hau Haitao called him back. Hou Haitao had informed him that the first bladeless fan prototype was ready!

Feng Yu jumped up in joy when he heard the news. This bladeless fan will be Tai Hua Trading’s golden goose. Even if it could not reach the sales of the humidifiers, the profit margin was higher and could earn more than the plastic fans. It can also be exported to earn foreigner’s money. After he registered the patent, he does not need to worry about imitations.

At this time, air conditioners were still not popular, and the prices were too high. Also, the noises from the compressors were too loud and dripping water. It was also too bulky.

An air conditioner costs a few thousand and the installation fees also needs another few thousand RMB. Only some government agencies could install. It was not that private companies could not afford, but it was the restriction of the electrical supply. Most places if switched on the air conditioner, the fuse would blow out!

It was different with electric fans, Fans were still the mainstream home appliances for cooling down an indoor area, and this will continue for a few more years. Feng Yu’s bladeless fan would be targeting the affluent market. It was almost the same as the humidifiers, but the bladeless fan would be positioned even higher than the humidifiers. The overseas market was the same. Many wealthy people in Europe and the US like innovative and hi-tech products. As long as they like it, they would not mind paying more!

Feng Yu told his parents and left for Bing City. He did not even go back to his Bing City’s home and immediately rush to the Aviation Factory.

Li Shiyou was already there and was sitting in Hou Haitao’s office drinking tea. Anyway, the Motor Factory would be the contractor to manufacture the bladeless fans. He would earn money no matter how many fans the factory produces.

Furthermore, there was good news this year. The Motor Factory had gotten 3/5 of the orders from the Three Gorges Dam project. Just these orders, the Motor Factory would be making profits for the coming few years.

Because of the size and scope of the Three Gorges Dam project, the Motor Factory’s reputation would increase a lot, and they might become China’s largest generator manufacturer. In a few years’ time, they might be the largest generator in Asia.

It was all Li Shiyou’s credit to turn around the Motor Factory from a loss-making factory two years ago to a thriving enterprise now. He might be promoted within these 2 years.

When Feng Yu enter, Li Shiyou smiled and wished Feng Yu a happy New Year. Feng Yu exchanged some greetings and hurriedly asked for the prototype.

“Ha, ha, ha. Don’t be so anxious. I had sent someone to get it. Sit down and enjoy your tea. I had tested it, and the wind was strong. It was more comfortable than normal fans. I wonder what is inside your mind. We have so many students in the factory, and none of them could think if something like this!” Hou Haitao said.

Feng Yu sat on the sofa and said: “It’s all luck. Luck.” But his facial expression was screaming the words “I am a genius”!

Li Shiyou laughed: “Director Hou, stop praising him. He would not give you a single cent even if you praise him. Sometimes, this brat can be very generous but somethings, he can be very stingy!”

The three of them chatted, and Hou Haitao’s secretary came into the office with 2 men carrying a huge machine. Boom! A loud sound was heard when they place the machine on the floor.

Feng Yu was looking with wide eyes. This big thing was the “Successful Prototype” of the bladeless fan? This stupid thing was a few times bigger than what he imagined and why was it all in metal? It should weigh at least 50 Kg. Whose household fan would weigh so much? I thought I had instructed them to use plastic?

Feng Yu was going crazy. Calling him over for this thing? Which idiot would buy this stupid thing? If he pushes this product into the market, Wind and Rain and Tai Hua Trading would be the laughing stock of the whole of China!

“Director Hou, this is the successful prototype which you told me?” Feng Yu turned to Hou Haitao. He purposely said the word successful loudly. He dares to claim that this stupid thing is a successful prototype? How much of the development funds were to produce this thing?

Damn, it seems like it’s time for him to have a talk with Hou Haitao. Feng Yu was willing to spend on R&D, but that does not mean that he was ready to be a sucker.

Hou Haitao paused for a while and then burst out laughing: “You are talking about this thing? If this is really the prototype, why would I ask you over? This is the first prototype we built with metal according to your requirements. There. Xiao Liu is holding the real prototype!”

Feng Yu turned and sighed in relief.

Secretary Liu was carrying something about 80 cm in height. The exterior was similar to the bladeless fans Feng Yu had seen in his previous life. The only difference was the base was too ugly. It had to be redesigned. The top was exactly the same as the bladeless fans he saw!

“That first prototype is for you to make comparisons. In case you accused us of using your R&D fees on other areas.”

Feng Yu laughed: “Director Hou, this is not the first time we worked together. Why would I not trust you? Can’t you tell that I was only joking with you earlier?”

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart. You dare to claim that you did not misrepresent the cost of research and development? But forget it. Even if the costs were misrepresented, it would still be cheaper than those research facilities overseas. Furthermore, Feng Yu still wanted to have a good relationship with Hou Haitao. He chose to close one eye.

“That’s enough explaining. Let’s look at the result.”

Hou Haitao waved his hands, and Secretary Liu switched on the fan, and a gentle breeze could be felt.

Feng Yu was standing in front of the fan, and he slowly moves backward. When he reaches 3 meters from the fan, he could still feel the wind. The wind from the fan was more stable and more comfortable. It felt like the natural wind.

“What about the safety?” Feng Yu looked at Secretary Liu.

Secretary Liu did not say anything. He put his hand into the round cylinder fan top and touched the surface of the cylinder’s interior.

Feng Yu nodded. There was no electrical leak and would not hurt anybody. This was safer than the traditional electric fans.

“The electricity consumption?”

“60 watts!” Secretary replied proudly.

The plastic fans in the market were mostly 30 to 40 watts, and these bladeless fans were only using 60 watts. Compared to those traditional metal fans, where the electrical consumptions were about 100 watts, this was considered a great achievement.

Feng Yu was not happy. He turned to Hou Haitao and asked: “Can you still lower the power of the motor? Will the airflow be affected?”

“Yes, we can, but it requires more testing and more research funds.” Hou Haitao smiled at Feng Yu, it was quite obvious what he wanted. Give me money, and we will carry on developing this fan.

Feng Yu remembered that the bladeless fans in his previous life were using only 40 watts and it saves a lot of electricity. Actually, 60 watts was okay, but if it can still be improved, he had to try. Electrical consumption was also a selling point for the fan. Feng Yu need to know how much Hou Haitao wanted for the research fund. If it was a considerable amount, then forget it. He would just make do with this model.

“We can discuss the R&D fund later. Have you tested the lifespan of this fan? I don’t want customers to bring back the fan, and the fan died on them the next day!”

“We are doing the test now. I wanted to show you our results first. Didn’t you say that you want to change the exterior of the fan?” Hou Haitao nodded. He also knew that if he produced a defective product and introduces into the market, the Aviation Factory who was in charge of developing the product would be responsible. The compensation would not be a small amount.

“Fine. I will get someone to design the exterior, and you carry on doing the tests. When the exterior designs are completed, we will apply for the patent. After your tests are completed, we can start manufacturing immediately. We should be able to make it in time for this year’s summer!”

Chapter 192 – Talks for the New Factory

Feng Yu was in a good mood when he saw the prototype. He had already asked Liu Michael to do up the design for this bladeless fan. The fan top was fixed in place, and the size could not be adjusted much. The main design would be focusing on the fan base and the colors.

Now Feng Yu only need to talk to the engineers on the location of the air inflow inlets and the exterior design can be finalized! As for the interior design, he would leave it to the engineers at the Aviation Factory. The parts inside the fans were too complicated for him to design.

Hearing what Feng Yu said, Hou Haitao and Li Shiyou were happy. The R&D was a success, and the Aviation Factory would be getting a portion of the profits. The Aviation Factory would be getting 13 RMB for one unit. Although it was not much, if 10,000 units were sold in a year, their earnings would be 130,000 RMB. The Motor Factory as a contractor would be getting 30 RMB for a unit. If the Motor Factory used a small workshop to manufacture these fans, there should be no problems producing more than 1,0000 units a month!

“Manager Feng, what about the additional R&D fund?” Hou Haitao looked at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu waved and said: “I will give you an additional 100,000 RMB. The watts must be lowered to 40 watts, and the wind power must be the same. Or, you can make it into two modes. How long do you need to complete this research?”

When Hou Haitao heard 100,000 RMB, he immediately replied: “1 week!”

Feng Yu stared at Hou Haitao. This can be completed in 1 week? Damn. I am tricked! The Aviation Factory must have completed the research and was able to lower the required electricity to 40 watts, but he purposely did not take it out. He only wanted more money!

Never mind. Because of 100,000 RMB, it was not worth getting angry with him. When the ultra-high power electric furnace arrives, the money can be earned back!

“Director Li, you look at these blueprints. How many units can your factory produce and when can the production start?” Feng Yu asked.

“The machines just need to re-calibrate, and these motors were not complicated. Two weeks to set up the production line and if the plastic factory can keep up with our production, I guaranteed that every month there will be 1,000 units!” Li Shiyou showed 1 finger and said confidently.

Feng Yu frowned. Only 1,000 units a month? This figure was too low and does not meet Feng Yu’s requirement. This number would not even be enough for China’s market, let alone exportation.

“Director Li, is your factory facing some difficulties? How come the figure is so low?”

Li Shiyou smiled: “My factory had just gotten a big order for the Three Gorges Dam and a few small hydropower stations. These were orders from the Central Committee and local governments. It cannot be delayed.”

Feng Yu also vomit blood when he heard this. Do you mean that my bladeless fans can be delayed? With your current speed, when the fans are launched in May, there will only be about 2,000 to 3,000 units. It was not even worth advertising at CCTV!

The market for the bladeless fans was bigger than the humidifiers. Feng Yu also wanted Fu Guangzheng to sell to the overseas market. With the Fu family’s presences in South-East Asia and the European, US market, there should be at least over a hundred thousand unit sold this year. The production speed of the Motor Factory was definitely not enough to meet the demand.

“Director Li, this is not right. We had signed a contract.” Feng Yu said unhappily.

“Manager Feng, I also had no choice. These power stations are the country’s important projects and cannot be delayed. I even have to close off one workshop for the humidifiers.” Li Shiyou had a helpless look.

Feng Yu looked at Hou Haitao: “Director Hou, can your Aviation Factory produce these bladeless fans? I can give you 35 RMB per unit!”

The Motor Factory only get 30 RMB per unit, and Feng Yu offered the Aviation Factory 35 RMB. Both Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao knew that Feng Yu was angry.

Hou Haitao thought for a while. His factory could spare a workshop to produce these fans, but the number of fans produced should be the same as the Motor Factory. Since Feng Yu was not happy with the Motor Factory’s speed, then he should also not be satisfied with his.

Hou Haitao would not agree to do this as not only the profits were little and he could even offend Li Shiyou.

“Manager Feng, our workshops were also short of manpower. We have to manufacture planes, cars, and vans. The most we can do is to spare a workshop for your fans, but there might not be enough workers. The production numbers might not even be more than the Motor Factory.” He was implying to Feng Yu to use the Motor Factory.

Feng Yu looked at Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao, and he suddenly laughed. His laughter shocked Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao. What’s wrong with Feng Yu? Now there was lesser production, and he was still so happy?

“I am not sure if the both of you had taken a close look at our 3-way cooperation contracts. There is a term stated in the contract that if both of your factories could not produce the number of units I wanted, then I have the right to terminate the contract and get double compensations from each of you!”

What? Terminate the contract? Compensations?

Hou Haitao jumped up and shouted: “Manager Feng, there must be something wrong with the contract. I am only in charge of doing the R&D and technical support. Li Shiyou is the one who is in-charge of the production. They are unable to fulfill the terms of the contract, and what has it got to do with the Aviation Factory?”

Hou Haitao did not care about Li Shiyou now. The profits from the humidifiers were very high, and every month the Aviation Factory got quite a significant amount for their share. How can the contract be terminated? Feng Yu still want to get compensations from him? The Aviation Factory was not responsible for the production and why should they be penalized too?

“Manager Feng, what are you saying? We had been cooperating well, and this was also because of the orders from the higher-ups. I also had no choice.” Li Shiyou said.

They heard rumors that Feng Yu had unpredictable mood swings. Today was the first time they experience firsthand. He was still smiling happily earlier, and now, he wants to get compensations form both factories.

But was there really this term in the contract? When they signed the contracts, both of them were blinded by greed and did not notice these fine details. Regarding reading contracts and finding loopholes, they still fell short of Feng Yu.

“Orders from your higher-ups? Are you saying that orders from your higher-ups are more important than our contract? So you are implying that your orders are above the law?” Feng Yu starts to find fault.

Chapter 193 – Aggressive

Build our own factory?

Hou Haitao looked at Li Shiyou. Both of them felt that something was off. It seems that they were both tricked by this kid. All this while, Feng Yu had wanted to set up a factory in Guangzhou!

“Manager Feng, then can you tell us how are we going to set up this new factory in southern Guangzhou? Are you familiar with the government there? If it is at Bing City, Old Li and I are still reputable, and the city government dare not to do anything to us. But if it is Southern Guangzhou, we have no connections and what happens if we are cheated?” Hou Haitao asked.

“It’s impossible if we are using both of your factories to build a branch factory there. Even though both of your factories are state-owned enterprises, and have connections with the committee and military, both of you would not be as powerful as my friend.” Feng Yu retorted.

“Your friend? Who?” Li Shiyou looked at Feng Yu. This kid still has friends with strong background? Could it be some leader’s kids?

“both of you should have heard of my friend. Fu Guangzheng. His family is taking care of our overseas sales.” Feng Yu used Fu Guangzheng’s name.

The humidifier’s overseas sales were handed over to the Fu family, but Fu Guangzheng was only the deputy general manager and a small shareholder. His father and uncles were the major shareholders.

“Him? How is he better than us?” Hou Haitao was slightly unhappy.

The Aviation Factory is a factory that manufactures aircraft. The factory had high standings in Bing City and Longjiang. However, compared to the rest of China, it was nothing. But Hou Haitao still felt that it should be better than someone so much younger than him.

The Fu family is nothing. They are only businessmen, and businessmen could not be compared to them, government officials.

Feng Yu smiled and said: “It’s because they are Hong Kong businessmen!”

Feng Yu said the words “Hong Kong businessmen” slowly, and Hou Haitao swallowed what he wanted to say and angrily lit a cigarette.

He had nothing to retort Feng Yu. In this era, it was like that. Foreigners were held in high esteem than locals, Although Hong Kong was not considered a foreign country, it was not returned to China yet. To prevent problems in the handing over of Hong Kong, Hong Kong businessmen had higher status than other foreigners. China was afraid that these businessmen would talk bad about China when they return to Hong Kong.

When businessmen from Hong Kong invest in China, they enjoyed tax benefits from the government, and they had special rates for exportations too. Even when they committed crimes in China, they had to be extricated back to Hong Kong for court.

“Manager Feng, are you trying to ditch us for Fu Guangzheng?” Li Shiyou’s face color changed. If Feng Yu ditched them, then his factory would be suffering a significant loss. He would rather get some factories to manufacture the fans for them. This way, he might be getting lesser profits, but it was better than none.

Li Shiyou was jealous of Feng Yu’s Tai Hua Trading Company. The company only had slightly over a dozen staffs, and all the staffs were family members of his workers at the Motor Factory. Even the 2 financial staffs were poached from the Motor Factory.

What did those lads do in the past? Every one of them was lazing around at home waiting for their parents to retire and take over their positions at the factory. Many of the worker’s family members were like that at the Motor Factory. When they just started work at the factory, their wages were very low, but after 1 to 2 years of probation, they would be getting a pay raise.

But now, the other lads at the factory from the same batch were nothing compared to Feng Yu’s staff. Even those university graduates from their batch were only working as technicians and lower management staffs. Everyone got to start from the lowest ranked.

Those that take over their parents’ positions at the factory were the worst. Anyone of their parents retires, they would only be getting a pension of 30 RMB monthly. The youths who had taken over would have to start from apprentice, and the monthly salary was less than 100 RMB. Coupled with the parent’s monthly pension, it was lesser than their monthly income before retirement!

Then what happened to those retired workers? They had been production workers their whole lives and had no other skills. Even setting up a small breakfast stall was considered a great achievement for them. Most of them ended up as cobbler or bicycle repairmen.

When Li Shiqiang went to recruit people at the factory’s hostels, those that did not apply regretted. Last year, Feng Yu gave his staffs a pager each, and this year, he gave each of them a motorcycle. Everyone at the factory was green with jealousy!

Li Shiyou’s workers wanting double pay for overtime and a 5 days work week was also caused by Feng Yu. But to maintain a good relationship with Feng Yu, Li Shiyou endured it all. Now Feng Yu seems to be wanting to ditch his Motor Factory?

Because of your Tai Hua Trading, I had suffered a lot, and you want to stop our cooperation? I will get the contract and find a way to sue you!

Before Li Shiyou could say anything, Hou Haitao anxiously said: “Manager Feng, if you are going to ditch us, then I would not give you the technology for the bladeless fans!”

“You want to sue me? You can go to the courts and ask around. I dared to sue a foreigner and still win the case. You think I am afraid of you, a state-owned factory director? I have the contract, and you are using my money to do R&D. So, the research results belong to me!” Feng Yu sneered.

You want to be aggressive? Fine.

“We also have contracts. It is impossible for you to ditch us! No matter who you cooperate with, you must still pay us for our shares! Right, Director Li?” Hou Haitao immediately dragged Li Shiyou along. Both of them must work together against Feng Yu.

“I must give you your shares? Have the both of you read the contract carefully? I have the patent of the humidifiers, and I can authorize any non-China companies to manufacture and sell humidifiers. This is protected by the law!” Feng Yu said calmly.

Talk about contracts? The both of you were way off. In a contract, every sentence or even any words have a different meaning if misused!

Hou Haitao and Li Shiyou were shocked. There were such terms in the contract? When they signed the contract, they only thought about the domestic market and did not think of exporting to overseas. This would mean that if Feng Yu authorized someone else to manufacture and sell the humidifiers, their profits would be significantly affected. The earnings from exportations were much higher than the gains from the domestic market!

“Manager Feng, do you still want the Machinery Company’s shares?” Hou Haitao threatening asked. He knew that Feng Yu wanted the Machinery Company’s shares and he could hold on to the shares and not sell to Feng Yu. Anyway, the shares were making money.

Feng Yu raised his head and look at the ceiling. He slowly said: “The ultra-high powered electric furnace’s negotiations are almost completed, It seems like I need to look for a new buyer.”

Hou Haitao took a few deep puffs and threw the cigarette butt on the floor. Then he lit another cigarette.

Seeing Li Shiyou still want to argue with him, Feng Yu crossed his legs and casually said: “I think I also need to look for new buyers for the turbine technologies and the steam generator technologies from the Soviet Union.”

Li Shiyou sat back onto the sofa dejectedly. He suddenly realized that both of them had fallen into a trap set up by this evil businessman. They had no other choices but to agree with Feng Yu!

“Manager Feng, then tell us if you are going to include us in this new factory?” Hou Haitao blew out the cigarette and asked with his head bowed.

Feng Yu’s lip corners raised: “I have decided. This branch factory at Southern Guangzhou……”

Chapter 194 –Reassignment or Profits

Feng Yu left Hou Haitao’s office with a smile, leaving the both of them sighing.

If they had known earlier, they should have suggested to set up a new factory themselves. At least they would still be able to keep their profits. Now, they had to let go a bit portion of their earnings.

Back at home, Feng Yu sat on the sofa and paged Fu Guangzheng. A minute later, the phone at home rang.

“Brother Fu, how was negotiation on your side?”

“It’s going well. I had bought a factory, and the factory had ready workers. But the only problem is that there are too many idling workers. I am now talking to the local government. We can take care of the retired workers, but we would not take in those lazy, malingering workers!”

Feng Yu had discussed with Fu Guangzheng last year. He asked Fu Guangzheng to take over a factory with excellent location at Southern Guangzhou.

This way, it will be closer to Hong Kong and more accessible for them to do exportation. It was also Feng Yu wanted to take precautions against the Motor Factory, in case the Motor Factory start to create problems for him. But unexpectedly, the Motor Factory really cannot meet the required production figures. They even wanted to reduce the production for the humidifiers.

Actually, this was along with what Feng Yu had in mind. But he acted that he was angry and used the opportunity to say that he wants to set up a new factory. As expected, Hou Haitao and Li Shiyou did not want to build a new factory, and even if they wanted, they did not have enough funds.

Hou Haitao wanted to buy the ultra-powered electric furnace, and he needed at least 20 million Rubles. Li Shiyou did not have many areas he needed to spend on. Although he ordered some generators related technologies from Feng Yu. Feng Yu also did not charge him a high price. But this year, the Motor Factory received a lot of orders from the top.

The profits from the generators were not as much as the humidifiers, but Li Shiyou had no choice. The Motor Factory had to cut the humidifiers production to work on the spare parts for the generators. These used up a lot of their funds and resulted in a lack of funds in the factory.

Both factories could not afford to build the new factory, and Feng Yu naturally would not give them so many profits. But both of them would not accept not getting profits from the new factory, especially Hou Haitao. His factory was using their technical capabilities in exchange for a percentage of the profits.

Feng Yu had discussed with Fu Guangzheng. Fu Guangzheng would buy a factory at Southern Guangzhou and Feng Yu would be raising funds. When the factory is set up, Fu Guangzheng will get a 20% stake.

Feng Yu wanted full control so he cannot give the Motor Factory and the Aviation Factory 20% shares each. They could not come up with money and why should they be getting the new factory’s shares?

Hou Haitao said that he could send his engineers to the new factory to guide the workers and help them to set up the production lines. Li Shiyou also said that he had a batch of experienced workers who were familiar with humidifiers. These workers could also help to set up the production lines and teach the workers at Guangzhou.

Feng Yu looked at these two. One of them said that he would send his engineer, the other said that he would send workers. Feng Yu rejected their offers citing that the salary of the engineer was too high and he could not afford.

As for the workers, there was no need for them. The factory they had acquired had lots of experience workers!

The workers Li Shiyou wanted to send were most likely a batch of retired workers. They had no work in the first place, and Li Shiyou makes it as if he was doing Feng Yu a big favor.

Both of them were very smart, but Feng Yu was not stupid either. Want to take advantage of Feng Yu? It was not so easy. All the while Feng Yu was the one who took advantage of others and since when he was taken advantage of?

Feng Yu insisted that both factories to come up with cash and he would let them have a stake in the new factory. No money? Sorry. You will not be getting any shares of the new factory.

Feng Yu told them about the new factory, and Fu Guangzheng was still negotiating. The acquisition of the factory would cost 10 million Rubles, and then the replacement of the machines would be another sum. They even had to take care of the retired workers……

Feng Yu said a lot. He wanted to tell the both of them that even if you use cash to invest, you would be making a loss too. Why not just buy a small number of shares?

Feng Yu was the one who suggested to take care of the retired workers. Fu Guangzheng had wanted to pass those retired workers to the local government. Buying the factory had cost a lot and why should they still have to take care of the retired workers? Those workers would not be contributing to the factory anyway.

Feng Yu just told him that this would be good for the factory and brand’s image. If the products of a company with a conscience and a company that exploits their workers, were about the same, which company’s product would sell better?

Fu Guangzheng told his family, and Fu Rongjin said to him that the Fu Family’s reputation in China was critical. He must make sure that no one can complain Hong Kong businessmen were evil and exploited China’s workers. He must listen to Feng Yu. Anyway, it was only taking care of the retired workers, and the pensions were not a considerable amount. He could also use this point to negotiate for a lower the price for the factory.

Based on Feng Yu’s calculations, Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao could only get about 5% profits from the humidifiers produced at the new factory and not a single cent of the bladeless fans.

Both of them did not agree, but Feng Yu smiled at them and said a few words: “Soviet Union’s machines and technologies.”

These simple words were like a heavy lock which constrained the both of them. If they really fall out with Feng Yu, they would be the ones losing.

Feng Yu can authorize foreign companies to manufacture, and this was legal. Tai Hua Trading was controlling the sales in the China market, and even if the Motor Factory could meet the required productions, Feng Yu could also stop overseas exportation. They would still be at the losing end.

Also, if Feng Yu sold the Soviet Union’s machines and technologies to their competitors, they would suffer even more losses. The Aviation Factory and the Motor Factory were not the top enterprises in their respective industries, but with these machines, they might reach the top. Feng Yu could easily wipe them out using their competitors.

By becoming the leaders of their respective industries in China, Hou Haitao and Li Shiyou would have a bright future. This could not be achieved by earning more profits for the factory. Instead, they might be stuck in this position forever to make money for the government.

In the end, they accepted Feng Yu’s suggestion. The both of them would come up with 1 million each to get a 5% stake in the new factory. The engineer sent by the Aviation Factory can be an engineering retiring at the end of this year, and the new factory would accept the batch of retired workers. They would also be receiving the same salaries before they retire.

Fu Guangzheng invested a sum of money and gotten a 20% stake. Feng Yu was the one that invested the most, and he owns the patent of both products. He held 70% shares of the new factory!

Chapter 195 – A major event

The new factory was officially names as Tai Hua Electrical Appliances Factory, and it was located in the famous Guangcheng. This location was not picked by Feng Yu. It was selected by Fu Guangzheng.

The market was redecided. From the provinces south of Changjiang, including the humidifiers due for exportation will get its products from this factory. The bladeless fan’s market was more significant. From the south of Yellow River and including the exportation markets.

When the dealers heard of this news, they were overjoyed. This way, they could save a lot on transportation and time. It was also easier for them to get the goods.

The Fu family was also glad. The transportation cost was lowered, and their profits increased. Although Feng Yu rejected the rest of the Fu family to invest in this new factory, Fu Guangzheng had a 20% stake.

Fu Guangzheng also expressed that he would be on Feng Yu’s side and would support Feng Yu in all matters at the Machinery Company.

Feng Yu and Hou Haitao’s secret plot to buy over the Machinery Company’s shares in future was a secret to Li Mingde. But the Fu family had noticed this plot a long time ago.

Anyway, Fu Guangzheng would never sell the Machinery Company’s shares. Those shares were like a money tree now, and the profits from these shares made up the majority of his income. The only possible way for him to let go of the shares was if Feng Yu exchange the New Factory’s share for the Machinery Company’s shares.

Feng Yu was not worried about the productivity of this new factory. He was the factory director in name, and Fu Guangzheng was the Deputy Factory Director. Almost everything at the factory was handled by Fu Guangzheng. At first, Feng Yu wanted to send someone from Tai Hua Trading over, but he considered the differences in languages and managerial abilities, Tai Hua Trading did not have anyone that was suitable to go over. In the end, he let Fu Guangzheng handle everything.

Fu Guangzheng also does not know how to manage a factory, but the Fu Family had lots of capable staffs. Anyway, the factory was in Guangdong, and it was easy for them to get the managerial staff from Hong Kong over.

With all these settled, Feng Yu could take a break for a few days. At the same time, he could accompany his sister at home. She was 7 months pregnant, and the Li family did not allow her to go to work. They do not lack money, and the safety of her unborn child was more important.

Li Shiqiang’s parents need to work, and Li Shiqiang was also busy with his logistics company. Feng Yu was the only person available to look after his sister in the daytime.

Feng Yu was sitting on the sofa watching TV. He was eating a big apple which was bought by his brother-in-law for his sister. There was a stack of orange peels and groundnuts shells on the coffee table.

“Sis, your mother-in-law is coming back. You go to the sofa and watch TV.” Feng Yu shouted to his sister who was busy in the kitchen.

His sister was not someone who could sit still, and she also does not like to watch TV. Feng Yu was the one who was sitting in front of the TV the whole day and helping her to finish up all the fruits. Feng Yu was so full from the fruits, and he ended up eating only half a bun for dinners these few days. Li Shiqiang’s mother still thought that he was sick.

The both of them exchange places, and when Feng Yu was finishing up the chores in the kitchen by cutting some spring onions, Li Shiqiang’s mother returned.

She saw Feng Yu in the kitchen busily preparing dinner, she hurriedly said: “Xiao Yu, go and rest. I will do the cooking.”

The kids from the Feng Yu were obedient. Her daughter-in-law was clean, virtuous, filial piety, hardworking and knows how to take care of people. Feng Yu was also sensible and was like a genius when it comes to making money. He also knows how to take care of his sister. Every time comes over, Feng Yu would be doing some household chores for his sister.

The brother and sister pair looked at each other and smiled. Feng Danying stood up and went to the kitchen to help her mother-in-law. Naturally, she was chased out of the kitchen. She also knew that her mother-in-law would not let her help, but Feng Yu told her to act it out. This way, the smart and hardworking daughter-in-law does not need to do anything, and yet the mother-in-law would still feel that she was hardworking. The attitude was the most important.

That evening, Feng Yu and his sister did not eat much. After dinner, Feng Yu returned back to his apartment next door to plan his investment directions based on his memories of the major events.

The telephone on the table rang, and Feng Yu answered. In this era, there were no handphones, and even the phone does not have caller ID. Feng Yu was not accustomed to these. Luckily for him, there were very few sales calls and phone scam.

“Xiao Yu, something major happened!”

Eh? Feng Yu sat up straight. It was his father that called him. Could it be something terrible had happened at home, or something happened at the food processing factory?

“Dad, calm down. What happened?”

“Watch the news. Hurry! There is a newsflash now!”

Newsflash? A national event?

Feng Yu switched on the TV, and the news was being reported on the TV.

“Lithuania had declared that it had left the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union’s President Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev does not recognize this, and both countries were having talks now……”

Lithuania had left the Soviet Union earlier?

Feng Yu was surprised. This had nothing to do with him. His trade with the Soviet Union should not affect these major events.

What worried Feng Yu the most was that the purchase of the ultra-high powered electric furnace was not finalized yet. If the Lithuanian Factory Director were removed from his position at the factory, then this deal would be called off.

If Feng Yu could not get his hands on the furnace, then Hou Haitao would be jumping in anger. His cooperation with the Motor Factory and the Aviation Factory would be in jeopardy, and the Aviation Factory would not sell him the Machinery Company’s shares.

Without this furnace to control the Aviation Factory, Feng Yu was not sure what Hao Haitao would do. The new factory would lower the earnings of the motor Factory and the Aviation Factory considerably. If Hao Haitao got mad and went after Feng Yu, Feng Yu would be in big trouble!

The Aviation Factory can even ignore the Provincial Government orders, and Feng Yu strongest backings were only the City Government. This time, he might be in deep shit.

“Xiao Yu, Xiao Yu, are you listening?” The anxious voice of his father was heard over the phone.

“Ah, I am watching the news.”

“Xiao Yu, is the Soviet Union really going to be dissolved? Why is that country declaring independence?”

“Dad, don’t worry about this. Let me call my partner in the Soviet Union. We will continue this discussion when I return home.”

Actually, Feng Xingtai was worried for nothing. The disintegration of the Soviet Union would affect China’s economy to a certain extent but the effects were not that severe, and Tai Hua Food Processing Factory and Tian Peng Pig Farm would not be affected.

After hanging up the call with his father, Feng Yu was thinking of how to talk to Kirilenko. While he was thinking, the phone rang again.

“Feng, is that you?” This call was from Kirilenko, and he was speaking in an anxious voice. He had also just found out that Lithuania was leaving the Soviet Union. It was as what Feng Yu had said.

The other party called him, and this was a great difference from Feng Yu calling him.

Feng Yu who was still worried just now, speaks calmly and slowly: “Brother Ki? Are you calling me to tell me that you had bought the furnace?”

“Feng, we can talk about the furnace later. Do you know that Lithuania had just announced that she is leaving the Soviet Union?”

Feng Yu casually says: “Really? I had told you about this before. Now you believe me?”

Chapter 196 – Brainwashing Brother Ki

Kirilenko had told what Feng Yu said to his brother and father when he returned home previously. His elder brother reacted the same way as him and wanted to punch Feng Yu. But his father was calm and was thinking deeply.

Kirilenko’s father, Senchenko, a Major General, knew more about the Soviet Union’s politics than Kirilenko and his brother, even when he was in-charge of logistics.

After the failure of the economic and political reforms, the Soviet Union’s political situation was not stable. This can be seen by the many transfers and replacements of the military and political leaders.

At first, Senchenko thought that everything would be over soon. The Soviet Union was very powerful, and these problems were only temporary.

But after he heard Feng Yu’s message from his son, he felt that what Feng Yu had said could really happen. Especially about Yeltsin. This was the most direct proof.

Yeltsin was forced to step down some time ago, but he was still very active in the political scene. He had contacted many leaders in Moscow and returned to the political scene through the first elections.

Senchenko, as a Major General, was also approached by Yeltsin. He did not want to join Yeltsin as Yeltsin was someone hated by President Mikhail Gorbachev. Why should he join Yeltsin? What if Yeltsin failed? His rank as a Major General would be gone.

Luckily for him, he did not reject Yeltsin straight and decided to sit on the fence. He could always join Yeltsin after he gained political standings.

But today’s news of Lithuania breaking off from the Soviet Union and announcing independence was something unexpected. There were rumors in the past, but those rumors were brushed off as everyone felt that it was Impossible.

When the rumors became a reality, he suddenly realized that Feng Yu’s predictions were accurate!

Senchenko immediately asked Kirilenko to contact Feng Yu. This Feng Yu had the foresight, and they must maintain a good relationship with him. After instructing Kirilenko, he approached Yeltsin. He wants to have a talk with him and grasp the opportunity to join him.

Once Yeltsin got in power or even reaches a higher level, then Senchenko would also be promoted.

……

“Feng, I believed you. I did not expect you to know so much about our Soviet Union’s politics. You really think that Yeltsin would hold the highest office and this would be my father’s greatest opportunity?”

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart, if your father killed Yeltsin and help those that supported the military coup, then it might be his biggest opportunity to promote.

But if that happens, the future of the Soviet Union and the rest of the world be changed. Feng Yu definitely would not want to see that happening. If there were too many changes, his knowledge of the future would be useless.

“Brother Ki, trust me. We are friends, best friends. The more successful you or your family that means our trades would be more stable, and I can earn more money.”

Kirilenko was breathing heavily. His father was going to be promoted? That means his status in the 2nd generation circles would rise too.

To repay Feng Yu, Kirilenko decided to let Feng Yu know about a piece of good news which he kept to himself for about 2 weeks.

“Feng, let me tell you something. I had bought the ultra-high powered electric furnace!”

Feng Yu was overjoyed. He had been waiting for a long time. He was still worried that this deal would not go through.

“Brother Ki, that’s great. Will there still be any unforeseen changes?” Feng Yu asked.

“No, absolutely no. I had arranged for my men to dismantle the furnace, and it can be loaded on the train bound for Bing City within a week!” Kirilenko roared.

“Hahaha, that’s great! Brother Ki, how much is this furnace? Do the related technologies come along together with it?”

“Of course. Although there are not many technologies but those are the most advanced technologies in the world. I can guarantee that! How much are you willing to pay?” Kirilenko asked.

This ultra-high powered electric furnace and related technologies cost him almost 10 million Rubles. But the market price for a second-hand furnace was more than 20 million Rubles.

If he asked for 20 million Rubles, Feng Yu would not accept, but if he sells it for too low, he would be suffering a loss. This was the biggest business deal with Feng Yu to date.

“Brother Ki, you should also know about China’s buying power. We can’t afford too expensive machines. Also, last year, China had already bought 2 ultra-high powered electric furnaces from Europe, so……”

Kirilenko hesitated for a while. He knew that it was not easy to get such machines and if it was like all the previous deals where he increased 30% from his cost, he felt that he was shortchanging himself. This time he decided to increase by 50%.

“How about 15 million Rubles? It includes the technologies and just like the past, I will recommend 5 experts to go over your side and work.”

15 million Rubles? That’s too cheap!

Feng Yu was very excited, and he almost jumped up in joy. He could sell the furnace to the Aviation Factory for at least 20 million Rubles, and if the Aviation Factory had enough funds, he would still ask for more. Anyway, this type of machines was in demand, and there were no worries about not getting buyers. If the Aviation Factory does not want it, Feng Yu could easily sell it to other factories!

Feng Yu paused for a while and slowly replied: “Brother Ki, this price is more than what I expected. There are not many profits left for me. If this will be the price in future, then I think I will not be dealing with these heavy machineries.”

“Feng, it is not easy for me to get my hands on these types of machines. You should also know that these machines can be used as military facilities. I am taking a very big risk. Even if you want more of these types of machines, I might not be about to get it.” Kirilenko exaggerated.

“Brother Ki, you are too timid. You still have not noticed? Not only your father has a good opportunity now, you too have a good opportunity.” Feng Yu sighed. The bolds will be stuffed, and the timid would be starved.

“Eh? What do you mean?” Kirilenko still does not understand. There was political unrest in the Soviet Union, and his father might be promoted. But what has this got to do with him? He does not want to go into politics.

“Brother Ki, think about this. If the Soviet Union were going to disintegrate, the factories in the Soviet Union would be divided among the countries. These factories would be divided based on their locations. Those within the borders would belong to the country, right? But those factories directors might not be from the country the factory was located at.”

Kirilenko paused and asked excitedly: “You are saying that there will be a lot of people selling off all their assets for money?”

“That’s right. I am guessing that people would not only be selling military-related machinery, they might also be selling weapons at low prices!”

“Selling weapons illegally? Is that even possible?” Kirilenko was shocked by what Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu was thinking. Why not? In future, the most common machine gun was the AK47. These guns were sold by weight and not pieces.

New guns were sold by weight and even comes along with bullets. This showed that how crazy these people were. Compared to these people, Kirilenko was too timid.

Feng Yu had still wanted to buy some planes or missiles through Kirilenko. But Kirilenko was too timid.

Seems like he needs to give Brother Ki some brainwashing……

Chapter 197 – Upright Character

Feng Yu was parched from persuading Kirilenko, but he finally got Kirilenko to use this opportunity to make more money. Even if Kirilenko’s father did not get promoted, he would have over a hundred million Rubles. He could still be a privileged class!

In this era, the Soviet Union was still a communist state, but there were still about 1.5% of the population in the privileged class, and this figure was still increasing.

Kirilenko was a classic example of privileged class. He had used the army’s name for his machinery trade with Feng Yu. The machines were bought at low cost and used the military train carriages to transport to Bing City for free.

All the expenses from the military plate vehicle which Kirilenko was driving could be reimbursed. Even the money used for purchasing goods were from the military funds. Almost all the officers and their families were doing this, and some were worse than Kirilenko. But there was no one catching them.

Kirilenko’s friend from Kiev had “scrapped” those almost 90% military trucks and sold to Feng Yu, and nothing had happened to him. This person was more daring than Kirilenko, but it was also because his father’s rank was higher than Kirilenko’s father.

Kirilenko thought for a while, his father was a logistics officer, and it was easier for him to do such things. Money in the hands was more important than anything. Even if the Soviet Union was disintegrated, as long as he had money, he can still be above the rest!

Since there were more opportunities to cooperate, then the price of this furnace can be lowered slightly more. In the end, Kirilenko offered 13 million Rubles to Feng Yu. It was the same 30% profits in the past.

Feng Yu accepted the deal readily and promised Kirilenko that he would be able to sell off all advanced machinery and technologies Kirilenko could find, and he would not hold back any payments.

After hanging up, Feng Yu was jumping with joy.

Everything was proceeding smoothly. Feng Yu never expect that Lithuania’s independence would be a good thing for him. He could get his hands on the furnace and the Machinery Company’s shares earlier.

The biggest problem Feng Yu was facing was that he did not have enough funds! The new factory at Guangcheng had used up most of his funds.

Feng Yu do not even have 13 million RMB, let alone 13 million Rubles.

Seems like he needs to talk to Hou Haitao. He needs Hou Haitao to pay some deposits first. If he could make the full payment now, it would be best.

……

“Eh? Manager Feng, why are you here?” Hou Haitao was not happy to see Feng Yu. Feng Yu had snatched a piece of meat from his mouth and promised him to exchange it with ribs. But now, there were still no signs of the ribs.

“Director Hou, you don’t seem to be happy when you see me. Actually, I have some good news for you, but it seems that I had caught you at a wrong time.” Feng Yu turned and walked off.

Good news?

Hou Haitao immediately hold onto Feng Yu’s arms: “Aiya, Manager Feng, what are you saying? I am just busy with work today and was tired. But I will still show mu hospitality to you. Xiao Liu, use the tea leaves from my metal tin to brew a pot of tea for Manager Feng!”

Xiao Liu went to brew tea unwillingly. The tea leaves in the metal tin were given to Hou Haitao from one of the leaders of Beijing’s party committee. Even when the City leaders visited the factory, he never used these tea leaves. Hou Haitao only used those tea leaves twice when the Provincial leader came. What’s wrong with Director Hou today? Why was he using those tea leaves to brew tea for Feng Yu?

Feng Yu was sitting on the sofa crossing his legs. If he lit a cigarette now, he would have an annoying look which everybody wants to slap. All this while since his rebirth, Feng Yu felt that his most significant achievement was that he quit smoking.

Actually, it was not that he does not want to smoke. It was because he was not used to the cigarettes now and if he starts to smoke, not only his parents, even his pregnant sister would be beating him up!

The tea arrived, and Feng Yu took a sip. He glanced at Hou Haitao. This old man actually kept these excellent stuff for himself. He must find a way to take some of these tea leaves back when he left.

Feng Yu did not say anything, and Hou Haitao grew impatient: “Manager Feng, didn’t you said that you have good news for me?”

Feng Yu had a surprised look on his face and said: “Oh, look at me. I had forgotten about it. I must be getting older.”

Hou Haitao twitched. You are not even 20 years’ old, and I am in my 50s. You are telling me you are getting old? What are you implying?

“Director Hou, can your factory spare an empty workshop? The ultra-high powered electric furnace, manufactured by the Soviet in 1985, working condition, no repairs before, was being dismantled and loaded onto a train now.”

Hou Haitao jumped up from his seat: “You serious?”

“Since when did I lied to you?” Feng Yu retorted.

Hou Haitao rolled his eyes. You had tricked me countless times. Such young age and yet as smart as a monkey. But Feng Yu should not and dare not fool him with such important matters.

“Then when can the furnace reach Bing City?” Hou Haitao asked.

“They will start shipping when they received the payments. It will reach Bing City within 7 days. Director Hou, you had been waiting for such a long time, what’s the big deal for you to wait a few more days? This furnace can be considered the most advanced furnace in China. It is much better than the 1970s furnace bought by those two southern factories.”

Feng Yu was hinting to Hou Haitao to prepare the payments, and this furnace would not be cheap.

“Manager Feng, how much are you selling this furnace to us?”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes and moved closer: “Director Hou, do you want to spend more or less?”

Hou Haitao jumped up as if he was a cat which had its tail stepped on. He shouted: “Manager Feng, I am not that type of person. I am a committed member of the Party!”

Feng Yu blinked: “What type of person?”

“Manager Feng, you have a lot of business and should not walk the wrong path. I will not be bribed.”

“What? Bribery? Director Hou, you think that I want to bribe you or be bribed?” Feng Yu asked. “I am trying to tell you that if you want to spend lesser, then make the full payment now and you settle the importation paperwork. You mentioned that if this machine is ordered under the military, you can be exempted from paying taxes. The taxes for this type of heavy machinery are very high.”

What? Tax exemption?

Hou Haitao laughed. So, this was what this kid was talking about He thought Feng Yu wanted to bribe him to report a higher amount to the higher-ups for extra funds.

Hou Haitao had not wanted such things in the first place. But when he heard Feng Yu’s explanation, he felt regretful. He regretted that he was unable to show his upright character as a member of the Party!

Feng Yu added: “Since when did I secretly give gifts to the government officials and agencies? I gave those gifts openly. You mentioned before that you like the Soviet Union military issued flagon. I had specially asked my contacts in the Soviet Union to look for this flagon. This flagon was issued to only Major General and above.”

Hou Haitao’s eyes sparkled. He was in a dilemma. Should he or should he not accept this gift.

In the end, the devil inside of him won. He can show his upright character as a member of the Party next time!

Chapter 198 – Sleight of hand tricks

After receiving Feng Yu’s gift, Hou Haitao’s mood was apparently much better.

“I will prepare the importation paperwork? Of course, it is fine. So, will the price be much lower?”

“Much lower? Director Hou, the most I can do is to erase the taxes from the price. Anything more is not possible. I am a businessman, and when doing business, the most important thing is to make money.”

“Manager Feng, we are a military factory. This furnace will improve the military standards of our country. Can’t you make some contributions to China as a Chinese?” Hou Haitao began to use the patriotism card to bargain. He had used this method on a few businessmen before in negotiations.

If you don’t lower your price, then you are unpatriotic!

Unfortunately, this method worked on others but not on Feng Yu! Patriotism? Reducing price means being patriotic?

“Director Hou, you don’t have to tell me that. I am a businessman, and it is impossible for me to not make any money. I will cover the cost of transportation of this furnace. You just transfer your Machinery Company shares to me and give me 15 million Rubles.”

“What? The Machinery Company shares are worth at least 8 million Rubles, and I still have to top up with 15 million Rubles? This second-hand furnace cost over 20 million Rubles, and it is still after tax?” Hou Haitao jumped and shouted.

Feng Yu ignored him and lifted his teacup: “Xiao Liu, please add more water.”

Hou Haitao was breathing hard. This is my office, and Xiao Liu is my secretary!

“Manager Feng, your equipment is second-hand, and everybody knows that second-hand goods are worthless. How can you price it higher than a brand-new machine?”

“You are talking about the new machines of the 1970s model? You want that? That is cheap. You transfer your Machinery Company shares to me, and I will get you that model. Since you don’t want this furnace, I will look for other buyers.”

Feng Yu glanced at Hou Haitao. There was a significant difference in the performance, efficiency, and effects between both models. How can both prices the same? A brand-new Alto cannot be compared to a second or even third hand Mercedes Benz!

“Don’t, don’t be anxious. Can you lower the price further? 15 million Rubles is too much for my factory. How can my factory fork out this amount?”

Feng Yu reluctantly said: “Fine. Since this is not the first time we work together, I will not earn too much from you. The exchange rate between RMB and Rubles now is 1 Ruble to 6.3 RMB. I will round it off to 6 RMN. You just give me 90 million RMB will do.”

The Rubles at that time was still appreciating, and RMB was depreciating. Last year, the exchange rate was 1 Ruble to 6 RMB. Now, the exchange rate was 1 Ruble to 6.3 RMB. At the end of the year, there will be another adjustment of the exchange rates, and at that time, Rubles will start to depreciate.

“90 million? It is too expensive. It is not worth so much! The price should be at 15 million USD.” Hou Haitao shook his head and said.

Damn, this old man was skillful in bargaining. Based on the current exchange rates, this old man was asking for a 40% off Feng Yu asking price.

Actually, even with this 40% discount, Feng Yu still had profits, but the profits were too little and were entirely out of proportion to his investment. Furthermore, 15 million USD was equivalent to only 9 million Rubles. Feng Yu still had to find 4 million Rubles more.

Tai Hua Trading had no more money, and Feng Yu could not owe Kirilenko as he still needs to work with him for future trades. Feng Yu’s ideal price was 13 million Rubles. Kirilenko had covered the transportation cost, and 13 million Rubles was the total cost for this deal. Feng Yu only wanted the Machinery Company’s shares as the profits!

But if he could earn more, why not? His efforts also cost money!

“Director Hou, if you still continue to talk like this then this deal is off. I am not worried about this equipment not selling!”

Hou Haitao: “……”

When he starts to bargain, Feng Yu would say that he would sell the furnace to other factories. Who the hell, negotiate business this way? But this method was still effective against Hou Haitao.

The Aviation Factory was a factory that designs and manufacture aircraft. With this furnace, they could produce the sophisticated parts with raw materials themselves. This will significantly reduce their costs and not afraid of Europe and the US imposing trade embargo on China.

Currently, the Aviation Factory was designing a new aircraft and the required materials used could only develop in the lab and couldn’t be mass produced in the factory as the cost was too high. With the ultra-high powered electric furnace, it can lower the cost of the materials.

Hou Haitao had promised the higher-ups that he could lower the cost of the new jet engine. If he could not get his hands on this furnace, his promise would be broken.

Losing face was a small issue. But if he can’t deliver what he promised, he would be in big trouble!

“Manager Feng, the Aviation Factory’s earnings for last year was not a lot, and we still have to give a part of our earnings to the higher-ups. The price you offered is really too high. I had kept my words and had cooperated with you on getting the Machinery Factory’s shares. Shouldn’t you give some discount?” Hou Haitao said.

Feng Yu sneered: “You are talking as if the Aviation Factory is not making any money. When you buy those shares, I had already given you a huge discount. If I had not help you think of this idea, the higher-ups would have taken away most of your profits. Where would you get the money for this furnace?”

“Then what about the humidifiers and the bladeless fans? You set up a Tai Hua Electrical Appliances Factory, and our factory had lost lots of profits. Did I say anything about this? I even helped you to persuade Li Shiyou. You really think that he would just keep quiet if not for me?”

Feng Yu made a “persuaded” expression and said: “Fine. Director Hou, I will lower the price by 500,000 Rubles. I will not earn a single cent from this deal!”

Hou Haitao’s happiness was short-lived when he heard that the buying price was only lowered by 500,000 Rubles. This price was too far from his expected price.

Hou Haitao started to list the times when he helped Feng Yu. He even mentioned the plaques he gave to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu slowly lower the price bit by bit. Finally, the buying price was bargained for 14 million Ruble, and Feng Yu refuses to budge. Anymore discount Feng Yu would be making losses. He had already lowered the price by 1 million Ruble. It was 6 million RMB!

No matter what Hou Haitao said, Feng Yu does no budge. He even threatens to sell the furnace to other factories.

“Director Hou, I had even included the related technologies, and you still want to bargain? Let’s be fair. If I sell this furnace openly, do you think it will fetch 20 million Rubles? Yes, we do have a good relationship, but business is business unless you agree to one more condition!”

“Don’t say 1 condition. I will even agree to 10 conditions if you agree to lower the price further!”

“Fine. You are the one who said this. Don’t regret! I want you to ……”

“This…… Can this work?”

“Why not? Both of us will benefit from this. I only have this additional condition, and I will lower the price by another 500,000 Rubles.”

Hou Haitao hesitated for a while and raised his head: “Lower another 1 million Rubles. The Machinery Company’s shares and 13 million Rubles for your furnace and the related technologies!”

Feng Yu clenched his teeth and said: “Fine. 13 million Rubles!”

In his heart, Feng Yu was jumping with joy. He did not use a single cent to acquire the Machinery Company’s shares. Kirilenko and Director Hou even had to thank him. This deal was worth it!

Chapter 199 – Tender for advertising slots at CCTV Part 1

When Feng Yu left Hou Haitao’s office, he was holding a small metal tin. I had already given you a Soviet Union flagon, shouldn’t you give me something in return? Many people had seen me bringing the flagon over. Are you not afraid of people talking behind your back?

These tea leaves were better than the tea Feng Yu drank at Zhang Ruiqiang’s office. Good things were meant to be shared!

Feng Yu needs to wire the payment over to Kirilenko first. He needs to show his sincerity to Kirilenko so Kirilenko would help him look for more heavy machinery. Maybe in future, Kirilenko would contact him to sell him a batch of weapons!

……

School had started not long ago, and Tai Hua Trading received a call from CCTV Zheng Baojun. This year CCTV decided to gather all the advertisers from last year to bid for this year’s advertising contracts!

When Feng Yu heard this, he was shocked. Even the advertising auction was brought forward. Could it be closed bids?

Feng Yu asked for more details and had a sigh of relief. All the advertising slots were reserved for the same advertisers last year. However, the advertising rates had increased. If any of the advertisers gave up their advertising slots, the rest of the advertisers could bid for it.

If it was really like this, then it was good news for Feng Yu. Feng Yu had 4 primetime advertising slots. He still had program sponsorship and advertising slots at CCTV other channels. He would surely buy all these slots again, and he wanted to buy more. In another month, the bladeless fan’s patent would be approved and needed advertising!

Feng Yu was hoping there will be people giving up their advertising slots. He could accept a higher rate. It was the best that in future, CCTV would use this sales model to sell the advertising slots. This way, Feng Yu would be able to hog the 4 primetime advertising slots.

After applying leave from the school. Feng Yu left for Beijing alone. There were still lots of things to do in Tai Hua Trading, so Wu Zhigang needed to watch over at the company.

It was 4 pm when Feng Yu reached Beijing. He boarded a cab for CCTV, but the driver saw that Feng Yu was young and wanted to travel to such a far place. He refused to send Feng Yu. In the end, Feng Yu threw a 100 RMB note at the driver, and the driver sent Feng Yu to his destination.

Nowadays, people outside the capital were so rich!

Wen Feng Yu was checking in to a hotel located beside CCTV, he saw a familiar face.

This person was not from Bing City. He was from Hangzhou. Feng Yu recognized this person was because, in 10 years’ time, this person would be one of China’s richest man and also the number one man in China’s beverage industry!

This person’s company had advertised at CCTV at the end of last year. But the time slot was not during the primetime, and Feng Yu had not noticed it.

“Mr. Zhong? Are you Mr. Zhong?” Feng Yu enthusiastically greeted him.

Zhong Qingxian turned towards Feng Yu. There were not a lot of people with Zhong as their surnames. But when he turned around, he saw a young man about 20 years old. He thought back, and he had no impression of this young man.

But this young man had reached out with both his hands for a handshake and Zhong Qingxian could only shake this young man’s hand. The guest at this hotel was mostly the advertisers for CCTV, and they were here for the contract signing at CCTV tomorrow. Maybe this young man was also a boss of a company. But this young man was too young.

“Hi, are you calling me? How do I address you?”

Feng Yu took out his name card and passed to Zhong Qingxian. Zhong Qingxian exchanged name cards with Feng Yu.

Feng Yu took a close look at Zhong Qingxian’s name card and almost laughed out loud. This man was indeed the successful businessman in the future. His company even compete against Coke and Pepsi!

Drink Le Ha Ha, dinner would be better!

Because of this advertising slogan, many parents bought Le Ha Ha health supplement drinks for their children. They were afraid that their children would skip meals and would affect their growth.

This Le Ha Ha company had just started their own brand, and the company should have a lack of funds. Feng Yu was not sure if he has the chance to invest in this company. The next 3 years was the boom of China’s health supplements industry!

The health supplement drinks were the most popular as many Chinese thought that these drinks looked more high class. These drinks had lots of profits and hands would cramp after counting money!

Zhong Qingxian looked at the name card in his hands. Tai Hua International Trading Company General Manager, Feng Yu. He had heard of this company before. The company’s address was in Bing City, and he should not know this young man.

Zhong Qingxian looked at the back of the name card and was surprised!

Mani products: Wind and Rain electric fans, Wind and Rain humidifiers, Songjiang Motorcycles, Soviet Union’s imported machinery!

This electric fan was very popular two years ago. He had these fans in his office and home. No wonder he had some impression of this company. As for the humidifiers, he had seen the advertisements before on CCTV. He heard that these humidifiers were very popular in the northeast region.

There’s still the Songjiang Motorcycles. Famous TV stars were starring in the commercials. He had also bought one motorcycle this year!

Soviet Union’s imported machinery? This needs strong connections. Even if you have money, without connections, you will also not be able to get those machines.

This Feng Yu was not a simple person!

But he was curious. Tai Hai Trading’s products had nothing to do with his health drinks. Why did this Feng Yu call him? Also, how did Feng Yu know him?

“So, you are Tai Hua Trading’s, Manager Feng. I had heard your name. Do you need anything from me?”

Heard of me? Feng Yu was thinking. I should be the one who had heard of you. All the beverages you sold were popular in China. Even Coke and Pepsi could not beat you in the beverage industry. In the past life, Feng Yu had only seen his pictures on TV, newspapers, and internet. This time he finally got to meet Zhong Qingxian in person, and it was the young Zhong Qingxian!

“Mr. Zhong, are you also attending CCTV’s conference? We are the same. There should be nothing for us today. How about having dinner and a couple of drinks later?”

Zhong Qingxian did not know anyone here. If not, he would not be going out alone for dinner. But his company was short of funds, and he did not have enough money with him. He had planned to go to a roadside stall for a bowl of noodles. This Feng Yu had invited him for dinner, and Feng Yu should be treating him today. Tomorrow he should be returning a treat to Feng Yu. This time he would be incurring extra expenses.

Feng Yu did not let Zhong Qingxian had the chance to reject him. Since he had no luggage and only had a wallet, he pulled Zhong Qingxian out of the hotel.

Zhong Qingxian was feeling helpless. In his heart, he was praying that Feng Yu would not go to some fancy restaurant. A simple restaurant will do. Even the restaurant at the hotel will do. As long as it was not too expensive.

But things did not go as he wishes. Feng Yu dragged him across the street to Little Sheep Hotpot restaurant.

Little Sheep Hotpot was a new chain of the restaurant opened within these two years. It might not taste as good as those 100 years’ old restaurant, but the food was still considered good, and it was costly!

These two were still considered early. A little while more, it would be the rush hour, and they might not get seats.

Feng Yu passed the menu to Zhong Qingxian for him to order. Zhong Qingxian looked at the prices on the menu. He was calculating in his heart. In the end, he only ordered a plate of lamb and 2 plates of vegetables.

Feng Yu took a look. How can this be? These dishes were not even enough for him alone. He took back the menu, and that page was all the meat dishes.

He showed the menu to the waitress and pointed: “This, this, and this.”

When the waitress wanted to write down Feng Yu’s orders, Feng Yu said: “These are the dishes which I do not want. Give me the rest of the dishes!”

The waitress was jolted, but she immediately says fine. The young girl couldn’t help but stole a few glances at Feng Yu. Where did this person come from? She had been working as a waitress for so long, and this was the first time she saw someone ordering like this. Rich!

Zhong Qingxian had thought that Feng Yu ordered only 3 more plates of meat. He could still accept it. But when Feng Yu said the following sentence, he was shocked.

So all people from Northeast order food this way?

Zhong Qingxian had a bitter taste in his mouth, and his heart was bleeding. This meal costed more than his one-month food expenses. Tomorrow he still got to treat Feng Yu back~~~

Chapter 200 – Tender for advertising slots at CCTV Part 2

Since it was like this, Zhong Qingxian just ate the dinner heartily. As they still must sign the contract the next day, they only ordered some beers. Zhong Qingxian heaved a sigh of relief. He thought everybody from the Northeast region just drank Baijiu. He was still afraid that he would be drunk before this young man.

Zhong Qingxian felt that Feng Yu was a bit weird. At the dinner, he kept asking about Le Ha Ha matters. If it weren’t that Tai Hua Trading was not in the beverage industry, he would suspect that Feng Yu was purposely gathering information about his company.

“Mr. Zhong, I can see the potential in Le Ha Ha company. But isn’t your current company’s scale too small? The effects of CCTV advertisement are good, and you should not be worried about your sales. But your production should not be able to keep up. In the Northeast, it was difficult to find Le Ha Ha health drinks in the market.” Feng Yu was directing the conversation to where he wanted.

“We are already thinking of ways to get loans and increase our operations. But we still must spend on the advertisement, expand our factory and get raw materials. We really do not have enough.” Zhong Qingxian also knew that he had to expand his operations. The effects of advertising at CCTV had increased the popularity of his products and the demand outweighs supply. But he had no money!

Feng Yu finally reveal his fox’s tail. He moved closer to Zhong Qingxian and pointed to himself: “I have money!”

Zhong Qingxian placed his chopsticks on the table. He finally understood why Feng Yu was asking so many questions about his company. Feng Yu was interested in his Le Ha Ha company.

“Manager Feng, what do you mean?”

“Mr. Zhong, are you willing to accept investments? I can’t say I have a lot of money, but I have no problems forking out 8 million or 10 million to invest in Le Ha Ha Company. This way, you can expedite your expansion and become the leader in the health supplement drinks industry. The efforts of your advertisements would also be not wasted and still can ease the company’s financial pressure. This way, from your employees to yourself, the boss, would not feel so pressurized.”

Zhong Qingxian pulled his sleeves to cover his old worn out sweater inside. To expand his company, he did not have any money. Needless to say his employees, who were working for him based on the beautiful picture he painted for them.

Painting a beautiful picture was only a temporary solution. It will not last long, and if the company encounter some sales problems this coming year, his company would have cashflow problems and became bankrupt!

This did not happen in history. Le Ha Ha’s sales broke through 100 million this year and became the leader in children’s health drinks industry. This also resulted in Zhong Qingxian became more confident, and the banks were willing to loan more money to the company.

But now, Zhong Qingxian had no choice but to consider Feng Yu’s proposal. This was for stability and risk avoidance. Furthermore, even if Feng Yu bought a stake in the company, he would still be the major shareholder. With the injected capital, Le Ha Ha would be able to expand its scale and capture more market share. His earnings would be more than before, and he would face lesser risks.

Zhong Qingxian took out his cigarettes. Feng Yu looked at the cigarette box. It was cheap cigarettes, 2 RMB a pack. Feng Yu did not expect that one of the wealthiest men in China in the future would be so down-and-out.

“Thanks, I don’t smoke.”

Zhong Qingxian kept the cigarette he offered to Feng Yu back into the pack and lit his cigarette. He took a deep puff.

Feng Yu kept quiet and took a sip of his beer. He was waiting for Zhong Qingxian to consider. In future, the beverage industry was a very profitable industry, especially the China market. There were many successful people in this industry.

Milk, yogurt, coffee, energy drinks, herbal tea, carbonated drinks, health drinks, etc. Which type of beverage does not make money?

But among all these companies, Le Ha Ha Company, under the leadership of Zhong Qingxian, became the leader of the industry in China for several years. Even the famous herbal tea which appears much later could not compete with Le Ha Ha!

If Feng Yu could become Le Ha Ha’s shareholder, then in future, Le Ha Ha would still be the leader in China’s market and had a chance to even become a world-renowned beverage industry.

Now, it all boils down to Zhong Qingxian’s decision. If he made the correct choice, then everybody would win. If he made the wrong choice, then they would be competitors. With Feng Yu’s knowledge of the future and financial strength, Le Ha Ha would not be as successful as his previous life!

“Manager Feng, can I consider about this? Le Ha Ha company does not belong to me alone. I still need to discuss with the others. I will give you a reply as soon as possible.”

After finishing the cigarette, Zhong Qingxian gave Feng Yu this answer. Feng Yu was slightly disappointed. But Zhong Qingxian did not reject Feng Yu on the spot, that means there were still possibilities.

“Of course. But I hope you can give me an answer as soon as possible. The pharmaceutical factory in Bing City is currently developing children’s health supplement drinks. The products of the pharmaceutical factory will be better received by the public. If you do not give me a reply, then I will invest in Bing City’s pharmaceutical factory.”

Feng Yu had made it very clear. If you want, we can cooperate and earn money together. If not, I will work with someone else against you. As for what sort of health supplement drinks Bing City’s pharmaceutical factory is developing, Zhong Qingxian had no idea.

Feng Yu also had no idea. It was all made up by him. In the history of his previous life, Bing City pharmaceutical factory did develop calcium gluconate, Zinc gluconate series of drinks. The market response to these drinks was also excellent, resulting in the factory making quite a significant sum. But that was many years later. Feng Yu said all these were to give Zhong Qingxian some pressure.

Both did not say much and finish the dinner quickly. Back at his hotel room, Feng Yu took out the temporary price list from his bag. This was the tabulation of CCTV’s advertisements prepared a day before. It did not include all the advertisement slots, but the slots which Feng Yu wanted was inside.

Feng Yu was planning. He would continue with the advertisement slots which he bought last year and if he had an excess budget, which other slots should he buy?

Zhong Qingxian called his company to ask about the company’s current financial situation and sales figures. He was considering if he should let Feng Yu invest in his company. If yes, how much shares should he give Feng Yu?

Although Le Ha Ha was set up by 3 people, Zhong Qingxian was the major shareholder, and his shares were more than 60% of the company. He had the final say in the company. When he told Feng Yu that he needs to talk to the other shareholders, he was trying to give himself time to think it over carefully.

The next morning, after washing up, Feng Yu looked at himself in the mirror. His facial hair was thicker, and his hair was longer. It was no longer the crew cut. He looked more matured, and Feng Yu was satisfied with his current appearance. He looked manlier than before.

When Feng Yu opened his room’s door, Zhong Qingxian, who was staying in the room diagonally across, also came out. Both of them had breakfast together and chatted on their way to CCTV conference room.

The conference room was already full of people. Everybody was sitting together chatting and trying to find out what slots did each of they bought last year, how much did they pay and how much was their budget this year. Feng Yu and Zhong Qingxian had no friends there, and they both sat together to wait for the conference to start.

“Everybody, please quiet down…… I declare that 1990 CCTV tender for advertising slots will officially start!”

Translator Notes: Successful men are successful because they had experience failures and hardships. The author had changed Wahaha Group to Le Ha Ha. You can read up Wahaha group on Wikipedia. It started with Children’s liquid nutrients and went into other beverages.

Does Feng Yu want to become the shareholder of all successful companies in China? How many businesses and products is he dealing with now? I had forgotten to count……

Chapter 201– Tender for advertising slots at CCTV Part 3

The host of this tender conference was the Advertising division’s Cheng Baojun, and the Deputy TV Station Manager was also present. Feng Yu felt that his Deputy Manager was here to talk. He made a long speech which had nothing to do with today’s event!

Cheng Baojun mentioned that there will be some changes with this year’s advertising contracts. First, the deal would last until the end of next January, regardless when your current contract ends this year.

Second, the advertising rates will increase. It will increase by an average of 30% and Feng Yu’s 4 advertising time slots will increase by 50%!

Third, those that purchase the advertising slots this year will have priority to continue with the same slots next year. This was an interesting condition. There was no mention that it would be the same as this year or a fixed increase in the advertising fees. Feng Yu was guessing that there would be changes to next year’s advertising contract. He wonders if the auctioning of advertising slots would be brought forward too.

After Cheng Baojun finished talking, everyone was whispering among themselves. Feng Yu looked at Zhong Qingxian and asked: “Mr. Zhong, your company’s advertising fees had increased by how much?”

Zhong Qingxian frowned and sighed: “30%. Why did they increase the rates by so much?”

The company’s finances were already very tight, and he still needs to expand the factory, buy new production facilities, more raw materials, etc. All these needed money. He had expected the advertising rates to increase, but 30% was over his budget.

“30% is not considered a lot.”

When Zhong Qingxian heard what Feng Yu said, he asked Feng Yu: “30% is still considered not a lot? How much did your company’s advertising fees increase?”

Zhong Qingxian only remembered how much his fees had increased and did not take note of other companies.

Feng Yu showed his palm: “not much. Only 50%!”

Hiss~~~

50% increase and you said not much? This was the highest increased for this year’s advertising fees. This Manager Feng does not want to continue with the advertising slots, or he was wealthy enough to ignore this increase?

“Manager Feng, I remembered you mentioning that your company has more than one advertising slot.”

Feng Yu counted with his fingers and said: “Yes. CCTV 1 has 4 advertising slots. All of these slots increased by 50%. CCTV 2 has 2 slots which increased by 30%, CCTV 3, have 1 slot which increased by 10%. This year’s advertising fees will be more than 5 million RMB again.”

Zhong Qingxian’s eyes widen in shock. 5 million RMB advertising fees? Again? Does that mean that his advertising fees were also more than 5 million RMB last year?

“Manager Feng, how much did you spend on advertising fees in a year?”

“Not much. CCTV, Provincial TV stations, newspaper and celebrities’ endorsements, etc. The total last year was about 10 million RMB.”

Zhong Qingxian’s jaws dropped. Only 10 million? He was talking as if 10 million was like 1,000 RMB.

Zhong Qingxian suddenly realized that Feng Yu was not talking big when he said that he could invest 10 million yesterday. He really had the ability!

Cooperating with such a powerful company would be a good move but also a bad move at the same time. A powerful company not only have the money but also, have strong connections. Le Ha Ha company could get the support to develop faster. However, bosses of strong companies tend to want to be in control of everything. There was a possibility that Le Ha Ha would be taken over in future.

He wanted to develop Le Ha Ha, but he does not want to give his company away. He wants to have the final say in the company.

“Mr. Zhong, wait a while. It’s my company’s first advertising slots turn.” Feng Yu raised his hands and shouted: “Tai Hua Trading will continue the contract.”

Everybody turned and looked for the owner of that young voice. This advertisement slot was the most expensive slot today. Many of the advertisers noticed that it was a young man in his 20s who had shouted. Who was the boss of this Tai Hua Trading? How come he did not come personally for such an important event? Is that the boss’s son?

After a while, it was another slot which had increased by 50%. Feng Yu raised his hand and shouted Tai Hua Trading will continue to recontract!

This Tai Hua Trading is so rich. The rates had increased by 50% and he recontract more than one slots?

The third and fourth slots which increased by 50% were called successively, and to everybody’s surprise, the slots belonged to Tai Hua Trading and all the slots were recontract!

This time, everybody remembered that this time slot was airing Songjiang Motorcycles commercials. Could it be that this Tai Hua Trading is a subsidiary of Songjiang Motorcycles?

There was a total of 6 slots that increased by 50% and Tai Hua Trading owned 4 of them. The other 2 slots were also recontracted.

The effects of CCTV advertisements were shown last year. All the advertisers at CCTV had high returns. However, some advertisers were unlucky. There were some problems with the quality of their products, and it resulted in them suffering losses. Now the advertising rates increased, these advertisers had no choice but to give up and advertise at the Provincial TV stations.

The first round of tender was over. In the afternoon, they will make payments and sign the contracts. Tomorrow will be for the interested companies to compete for the empty slots.

The signing of the contract was not according to the order of the advertising time. It was according to the advertising rates. Feng Yu was the first person to enter the Advertising Division office to sign the contract with Cheng Baojun. The contract would last until next January. In December, there would be another round of tender for next year’s advertisement slots. This was different from what happened in the original history.

“Chief Cheng, why do I feel that CCTV is against my company? Why are our company’s slots rates increased the most?” Feng Yu asked when he was signing the contract.

“Manager Feng, it is not as what you think. The increment of the rates is based on the ratings. Your company’s time slots are all the primetime slots, so the increase was the highest. Look at your CCTV 2 and CCTV 3 advertising fees. The increased was not that high.”

Damn. How can you compare CCTV 2 and 3 with CCTV 1 channel? CCTV 3 was not even broadcast via the satellite!

“Chief Cheng, this increase will put a strain on my company’s finances.”

Cheng Baojun could tell that Feng Yu had some requests. If Feng Yu does not sign the contract and he resold the slots to other companies, his higher-ups would also feel that he was not doing his job right!

“Manager Feng, please speak your mind. We can discuss about it.”

“Ah, these few slots were not recontract. I am not greedy. Just sell 3 of the slots to my company.” Feng Yu took out the forms he prepared in the morning and showed Cheng Baojun. Feng Yu had circled the slots he wanted.

Cheng Baojun looked at the form with wide eyes. Didn’t you say that the increase would put a strain on your company’s finances? You still want to buy 3 more slots?

Chapter 202 – Buying into Le Ha Ha Part 1

Feng Yu was CCTV’s biggest client, and Cheng Baojun was worried that this kid would turn his back on the deal. He could only agree with Feng Yu’s request. He promised Feng Yu that he would get 3 more advertising slots.

That evening, Zhong Qingxian wanted to return a treat to Feng Yu. He looked for a restaurant which was about the same grade as Little Sheep Hotpot. With a black wallet in hand, he walked into the restaurant with Feng Yu.

Once again he saw Feng Yu’s fanciful ordering style. Feng Yu flipped to a random page of the menu and pointed out a few dishes which he does not want and ordered the rest!

Zhong Qingxian really wanted to spit on Feng Yu’s face. There were only the two of us, how can we finish all the food?

Feng Yu was still asking him to eat and drink more. Zhong Qingxian was trying his best to finish all the food. He was not someone who was wasteful.

About half an hour later, Zhong Qingxian was full. He saw that there were still lots of leftovers on the table and felt the pain. He used the toilet as an excuse to leave the table for the front counter. He wants to pay the bills first.

“Sir, your table was already paid in excess. If you are leaving soon, we will give you your change.”

Zhong Qingxian was reaching for his wallet when he heard this. He looked at the waiter. At first, he was happy and thought that someone else had paid their bills by mistake, but he became embarrassed when he realized that Feng Yu had gone to the toilet earlier.

The dinner for these two days was paid for by others, and he was embarrassed. Feng Yu was so much younger than him, and he was the one who had invited Feng Yu out for dinner. He felt like he was taking advantage of a young kid.

“Manager Feng, why are you paying for this dinner? I had said that I will be treating you.” Zhong Qingxian reached for his wallet in his pocket to return Feng Yu the money. But after reaching for quite some time, his hand was still in his pocket.

Feng Yu was laughing in his heart, but he still stopped Zhong Qingxian: “Mr. Zhong, you don’t have to be so polite to me. You can treat me when I go to Hangzhou next time.”

Zhong Qingxian took out his hand from his pocket and said embarrassedly: “Thanks for paying. Next time must be my treat.”

“Mr. Zhong, we had finished our dinner. How about we have some tea back at the hotel?”

Zhong Qingxian paused for a while. He knew that Feng Yu wants to talk about him buying a stake in his company, but he could not refuse Feng Yu. Feng Yu had just treated him to another dinner, and if he rejects Feng Yu’s offer, it will look bad on him.

“Mr. Zhong, have you considered the things we spoke about yesterday? How much do you need? Tell me a figure.” Feng Yu wanted to settle this deal as soon as possible.

In his heart, he was smiling to himself when he thinks of buying a stake of Le Ha Ha.

“Manager Feng, even though my company has a lack of funds now, we can still get a loan from the bank. So even if I agree to let you buy a stake in the company, I cannot give you a lot of shares.”

Zhong Qingxian starts to play little tricks. His company was expanding the factory using the loans from the bank. He still owed his suppliers money for raw materials and his workers’ salaries. He and his two other partners did not get a single cent of wages for the past six months.

He said this was because he wanted Feng Yu to invest but at the same time, he does not want to sell a lot of shares. He was hoping for this Feng Yu to agree,

Feng Yu laughed. Since you said this, then don’t blame me if I take over Le Ha Ha in future.

“No problem. Mr. Zhong, how much do you need and how much shares can you give me?”

“How about 5 million RMB for 10% share?”

5 million RMB for 10% shares? That means that Le Ha Ha was worth 50 million RMB! After deducting the loans and debts, the company was at most worth less than 20 million. This Zhong Qingxian really had the nerve!

Feng Yu narrowed his eyes and suddenly laughed: Mr. Zhong. It is easy for me to find out about your company’s assets. I am wealthy, but that does not mean that I will squander my money. I am investing my money to make more money. 5 million RMB for 30% shares is more reasonable!”

“Impossible!” Zhong Qingxian rejected Feng Yu’s offer. Even if he and his two other partners sold the shares to Feng Yu based on proportions, his control over the company would be lowered, and his position as the boss would be threatened.

“6 million for 30%.” Feng Yu sat on the chair and crossed his arms confidently.

“Manager Feng, you……”

“7 million for 30%!” Feng Yu did not give Zhong Qingxian the chance to speak and continued to increase his offer.

Zhong Qingxian’s breathing became fast. He did not expect Feng Yu to negotiate in this manner. Who the hell would just increase the offer without giving the other party the chance to speak? But he got to admit that this negotiation style was effective. At least he did not have the opportunity to say the things he wanted to say.

“Manager Feng, the number of shares is too much.” Zhong Qingxian calmed himself and said.

Feng Yu laughed: “Mr. Zhong. It seems like it is not the price you are unhappy about. You are afraid that I will buy over the shares of your other partners and take over Le Ha Ha.”

Zhong Qingxian was not embarrassed when Feng Yu said what was on his mind. Yes, he was thinking about this. He had set up this company through his own hard work, and because he had a lack of funds, he had to get two of his friends as partners. He must have the full authority if this company!

“10 million for 40% shares. This will be my final offer! Don’t be so anxious to reject me. I can include a condition in the contract. If you did not make any major mistakes, you would still be Le Ha Ha Company’s legal representative, General Manager, and decision maker!”

Gold and money have value, but talents are priceless.

Zhong Qingxian had used very little capital to lead Le Ha Ha to be China’s leading beverage company within 10 years and remained as the leader for many years. Just this achievement alone was worth Feng Yu investing in him.

Furthermore, Feng Yu remembered that this year, Le Ha Ha sales would achieve more than 10 million RMB and there was even a shortage of Le Ha Ha products on the market. With his investment, there would be an increase in production and the sales figures would be even higher. Just the northeast region would contribute a vast amount of profits.

The profit margin for Le Ha Ha’s health supplement drinks was very high. Feng Yu could get back his investments within two years, and the rest would be pure profits.

Getting TV stars to sign the long-term contract was learned from Le Ha Ha. In his past life, one of Le Ha Ha’s subsidiaries had signed a long-term contract with a new not so famous singer. Later, this singer became very famous in China, and Le Ha Ha still uses this singer for its products marketing activities every year. Le Ha Ha gave this singer a red packet for the events he attended. When the contract ended, this singer extended the contract even he had a pay cut.

Zhong Qingxian was amazing when it comes to picking the right product, the understanding of China’s market, the company’s direction, brand management, sales, etc.

If Feng Yu could become partners with this person, he wouldn’t mind even if he does not have the controlling stake in the company. It would be better for him as someone capable is running the company and he does not need to worry.

Feng Yu slowly drank his tea. He believed that no one would be able to resist the conditions he offered!

10 million RMB for 40% shares and still let me run the company as the boss? I am also the final decision maker? With this injection of funds, the company can increase its production capabilities, occupy the market fast and become the leader in the children’s health supplement drinks industry.

Zhong Qingxian was in a dilemma again……

Chapter 203 – Buying into Le Ha Ha Part 2

Tai Hua Trading actually did not have too many funds. Although the company earned a lot last year, it had also spent a lot on the shares. Feng Yu does not intend to cash out the share this year.

The shares cannot be sold, and Feng Yu still owed the bank. After the Lunar New Year, it will be the start of a new financial year. Feng Yu still needs to pay a large sum of interests. This will shrink the company’s account further. The increased of the advertising fees added to Feng Yu expenses.

But Feng Yu was not worried. When he returns to Bing City, he will split the advertising fees based on the products. Whichever company or factories’ products were advertised, they would have to share the advertising cost proportionally!

This was especially so for the Machinery Company.

Also, the Soviet Union’s technologies wanted by the Motor Factory will soon be brought over to Bing City. These technologies would bring a few million profits for Feng Yu and Kirilenko and Li Shiyou would settle all the taxes incurred.

There will also be the revenue from motorcycles sales. Based on the contract with Li Mingde, Tai Hua Trading would settle the payment at the end of the month. Feng Yu could still raise 10 million RMB easily. For instance, using the funds from Tai hu Food Processing Factory.

Zhong Qingxian had still not given Feng Yu a definite answer, but he promised Feng Yu that he would give him a reply within 3 days after he returns to Hangzhou. Feng Yu could tell that Zhong Qingxian was already moved by his offer.

Feng Yu did not say much and return back to his room to rest.

Early afternoon next day, Feng Yu returned to CCTV. To everybody’s surprised, Feng Yu bought 3 more expensive advertising slots.

The way Feng Yu spend his money shocked everybody again. Tai Hua Trading had outshined all other companies, bought the most advertising slots and paid the most.

The rest of the advertisers found out that Tai Hua Trading was the company that sold Wind and Rain humidifiers and Songjiang motorcycles. These products were all cash cows! They were more astonished to find out that this young man was the General Manager of Tai Hua Trading and not the boss’s son.

This resulted in Feng Yu leaving CCTV with his bag full of name cards. Some were private companies, and some were state-owned enterprises. There were even foreign companies. Feng Yu had brought 100 name cards with him, and it was not enough!

Feng Yu still had one more thing to do in Beijing. He wanted to visit Baldy Chen to look at the commercial he filmed for Wind and Rain bladeless fans.

At first, Baldy Chen does not want to take on this sort of jobs. But his investor for his movie backed out last minute and he was short of funds.

Feng Yu had paid him 50,000 RMB for him to film this commercial, which also includes the script. He then paid Baldy Chen another 300,000 RMB to endorse the product for 3 years. Baldy Chen gladly accepted it. An electric fan’s advertisement fees could not be compared to motorcycles.

A few days ago, Baldy Chen had gone to Bing City to film the commercial. It was the same as the motorcycle commercial. He rushed back to Beijing immediately after he completed the shoot. He had used his spare time to film this commercial and finish the editing.

Feng Yu watch the commercial on the TV. Even though he knew that this would be a funny commercial and had attended the filming at the scene, he still laughed when he watched the edited version.

Baldy Chen had put his bald head through the bladeless fan top, and with his exaggerated expressions and funny lines, the effect of the commercial was perfect.

The second commercial’s creativity was also thought out. Baldy Chen would wear a wig, and the wig was blown away by the bladeless fan. But this commercial would be filmed the following year.

With this commercial, it will increase the bladeless fans sales. It was the right choice to get Baldy Chen. The Chinese are always curious about new things, and there will be many wealthy people buying the fans to satisfy their curiosity.

The advertising slogan, “High-tech products, aristocratic style of enjoyment”, would fulfill the vanity of these wealthy people. Even if only 10,000 units were sold in China this year, Feng Yu would also get more than 10 million in profits!

……

Back at Bing City, Feng Yu looked for Li Mingde. The CCTV advertising contract would expire in May. Since they will recontract and continue to air the commercials, Li Mingde got to pay for it.

After Lunar New Year, the sales of the motorcycles increased again. 7,000 units were sold in January, and 8,100 units were sold in February. In March, 10,050 units were sold!

Feng Yu said that this was the effect of advertising. If they continue to advertise at CCTV, the sales will increase further after May 1st. There should be no problems achieving the 130,000 units target this year, and they might even hit 140,000 units!

Feng Yu had recontract the advertising slots, and even though the advertising fees had increased by a lot and he bought an additional 3 more slots, the duration of the contract was only about 7 to 8 months. The total advertising fees were not more than 7 million RMB. This amount was reimbursed by Li Mingde!

Hmmm… reselling CCTV advertising slots felt so good!

That evening, Feng Yu received a call from Zhong Qingxian when he was playing video games with Wen Dongjun.

Zhong Qingxian had returned to Hangzhou and discussed with his partners. Their factory needs to expand, the productivity needs to be increased, and they still needed to get new facilities. All these required monies.

They had not repaid their existing bank loans, and they were unable to get new loans as they had no more assets as collateral. Now, someone came to them to use 10 million RMB in exchange for 40% shares. This was an excellent opportunity for the debt-ridden Le Ha Ha.

Zhong Qingxian told his partners about the pros and cons of selling these shares to Feng Yu. He said to them that they would still be in control of the company and Feng Yu would not interfere with their operational decisions. He would only send a financial representative over to look over the accounts.

When the other partners heard this, they were overjoyed! They had suffered for a long time. At first, the company was doing well but later, their production could not keep up, and they suffered.

The company was making money, but they could not get a single cent as all the money were used to expand their facilities. Although the company has a bright future, at the same time, the risk is significant. If their sales had some hiccups and did not reach their forecast, they would have trouble paying the bank!

Now there will be one more person to share this risk and also inject funds into the company. They would be able to increase the factory’s output and increase the market share. This was a win-win situation!

The 2 partners always wanted Zhong Qingxian to look for an investor. The company was struggling to stay afloat, and even the supplier wanted to stop supplying raw materials to them!

Since all the partners agreed to Feng Yu buying a stake of Le Ha Ha Company, Zhong Qingxian called Feng Yu in front of his partners.

Feng Yu asked Zhong Qingxian to come over to Bing City for the contract signing. The money was ready, but Feng Yu could not leave Bing City.

Zhong Qingxian could not help but asked Feng Yu if there were some problems with his company. Feng Yu just replied that there was no problem with Tai Hua Trading. It was just that he still needs to attend school. He could not get any more leave!

Zhong Qingxian: “……”

He suddenly realized that Feng Yu was still a high school student!

A high school student running such a big company? What a monster!

Chapter 204 – Astronomically Priced Electric Fans Part 1

Li Shiqiang saw a man leaving Feng Yu’s office when he was about to enter Feng Yu’s office. He entered the office: “Xiao Yu, who was that guy? I had never seen him before.”

“He is a boss from Hangzhou. His name is Zhong Qingxian. I had invested some money in his company. What are you at the company again? Shouldn’t you be at the hospital, accompanying my sister?”

Feng Danying was due soon. One month ago, Li Shiqiang had sent Feng Danying to a maternity hospital. He gave a few cartons of cigarettes, and red packets to the leaders at the hospital and the hospital accepted this patient who was due in another 28 days.

Li Shiqiang was now very busy. He had been traveling to and fro the hospital and the company. In the end, it was Feng Yu who had helped him solve this problem. Feng Yu gave another red packet to the leader at the hospital, and a professional maternity nurse was assigned to take care of this “Special Patient”!

The most frustrating part for Feng Yu was that he had to cook dinner every day. Feng Yu had no choice as he could not get used to Li Shiqiang’s cooking skills! As for Wen Dongjun, he only knows how to wash dishes.

Li Shiqiang sat on the sofa: “Someone is accompanying your sister. I am at the company to take a look. Two more franchisees are signing the contract today.”

When Li Shiqiang was talking about this, his face was beaming with joy. Wind and Rain Logistics had more and more franchisees now. The company doesn’t even need the salesmen. The franchisees were working hard to get more sales. Currently, there were almost no empty trucks returning back to Bing City. There were too many orders.

Almost 80% of cities in the northeast region have Wind and Rain Logistics franchises. In another 2 months, this figure would be 100%. Wind and Rain Logistics had become the number one logistics company in the 3 northeast provinces. After some time, his business would expand towards the south near to Beijing or get more franchisees from the rural towns in the region. Li Shiqiang was glad that he had chosen to start this business.

“Brother-in-law, if you have nothing to do tomorrow, come over and help me with the contract signing with the distributors. Wu Zhigang had brought some of the staff out of the city to get goods.”

“Contract signing? Tai Hua Trading have what new products?” Li Shiqiang was surprised. All the products had signed the contracts.

“Bladeless fans. I had told you about it before. The patent was approved, and we need to sign the contracts first. Next month, we will deliver the goods.” Feng Yu passed a brochure to Li Shiqiang.

Li Shiqiang looked at the brochure and was stunned.

He rubbed his eyes and looked at Feng Yu. This bladeless fan was just an electric fan. Why was the distributor price so high?

……

“Mr. Zhao, I heard that you had doubled your motorcycles sales in March.”

“Hahaha, Mr. Huang, your sales for March was also not bad. I did not expect these motorcycles would sell so well even when they are so expensive.”

“Mr. Zhao, Mr. Huang, stop praising each other. All of us knows that the both of you clinched the first and second position regarding sales. But this year’s total sales top position had still not been finalized!”

“Fine, Old Jin. You are upset because we did not congrats you for getting 3rd place in March.” Mr. Zhao joked.

These distributors were longtime partners of Tai Hua Trading. Tai Hua Trading had called them and told them that there will be a new home appliance launching soon. These people rushed over immediately.

They made profits every time they work with Tai Hua Trading!

These people were chatting and exchanging information happily among themselves. When Feng Yu entered the meeting room, all of them sat up straight, and you could hear a pin drop in the room.

Feng Yu was satisfied with the discipline of these distributors. Even the fiercest distributors had to behave himself at Tai Hua Trading. It was because Tai Hua Trading products could sell and whoever that did not want to obey the rules can get lost. There were many queuing up to be the distributor!

“Everybody, this will be the newest product launched by Tai Hua Trading. Wind and Rain Bladeless Fans!”

The distributors looked at the brochures and were puzzled. What’s this? A cylinder top shape. Bladeless fan? If a fan has no blades, how can there be wind?

A sample of the fan was placed in front of everybody, and Feng Yu switched it on. The fan top starts to turn left and right slowly.

“Can everyone feel a breeze? The wind from this fan is more constant than a normal electric fan and feels like natural wind. It will be suitable for blowing at the old and young. Also, this fan has 2 speeds, and the fan top can swivel 1800 degrees. This means that more people can enjoy the breeze! This fan uses 40 watts……”

Feng Yu introduced the features of this bladeless fan, such as safety, electricity saving, smooth constant wind, ease of cleaning, unique appearances, high tech, etc. All the distributors’ eyes start to sparkle.

Hey, this fan was indeed better than those ordinary fans!

They looked at the brochure in their hands and saw the distributor price on the last page. They thought there was a misprint and an extra zero was printed on it!

But how could Tai Hua Trading make such mistakes?

“Mr. Sun from Shanghai, what do you want to ask?” Feng Yu pointed to one of the distributors who had to raise his hand.

Look, all these distributors know the rules. They know that they had to raise their hand when they have a question!

“Manager Feng, I saw the distributor price on the last page of the brochure. Is that a misprint?”

After someone asked this question, the rest of them also flipped to the last page. When they saw the price listed, they also felt that the extra zero was a mistake!

Feng Yu raised his brows and said slowly: “There is nothing wrong with the price. I had personally made this brochure.”

This was the right price? How can this be right? An electric fan’s distributor price was 1,200 RMB? Then what about the retail price? 1,500 RMB? 2,000 RMB? Who would spend over a thousand RMB for an electric fan?

No matter how you describe this bladeless fan, it was still an electric fan. How can it be so expensive? One electric fan cost 20 times more than other fans?

“Everybody feels that it is too expensive and no one would buy? Never mind. I do not expect you all to sell a lot too. This distributor price is high so the retail price will be higher. Our targeted segment is the very rich. Those that have the money to buy air conditioners but unable to do so due to the lack of electricity……”

Feng Yu said a lot but the distributors were not convinced. They were willing to spend 10 to 20 thousand for a motorcycle, a few hundred thousand for a small car, but they were not willing to pay a few thousand for an electric fan.

All the distributors were not optimistic, and Feng Yu frowned. This test had failed. Was Feng Yu too confident about the market? Now Feng Yu had two choices. First, he got to lower down the price to the range where it was more than regular fans but not too expensive. The retail price should be around 500 RMB. The other choice was to maintain this price and see if any distributor would dare to take up this challenge!

Chapter 205 – Astronomically Priced Electric Fans Part 2

Feng Yu thought for a while, and he decided to use an old method. He gave all the distributors a piece of paper each to write down the distributor prices, retail prices and the yearly sales target that they were willing to accept.

10 minutes later, Feng Yu collected all the papers and looked through them carefully.

The highest sales target written was 1,500 units, and the distributor price and retail price were 280 RMB and 400 RMB respectively.

The lowest sales target was 300 units, and the distributor price and retail price were 390 RMB and 500 RMB respectively.

Both of these distributors were from big southern provinces, and the sales target had a difference of 5 times!

According to Feng Yu’s temper, he would use the highest sales target to pressure these people. Sales were like cleavages. With some pushing, there will be a deep cleavage.

After Feng Yu had tabulated all the figures, the highest sales target was 1,500 units, highest distributor price was 400 RMB, and the highest retail price was 580 RMB. The lowest sales target was 300 units, the lowest distributor price was 210 RMB, and the lowest retail prices was 330 RMB.

Feng Yu looked at these figures and was in deep thoughts.

It seems that if he continues to ask for high prices, there might be no one who was willing to be the bladeless fans distributors. But Feng Yu was not satisfied if the fans were priced too low.

Why do the bladeless fans be so popular even when it was priced at 500 USD in his previous life? Why in this life, the distributors felt that 100 USD was the max and still thought that it would not sell well?

Feng Yu thought back. The bladeless fans were sold for 500 USD in the US and Europe. Those were developed countries, and the people there had more buying power than China.

Now, the average Chinese’s annual income was not even 1,500 RMB. To use a year’s salary to buy an electric fan with not much features, was something not acceptable to many!

The circumstances were different and could not be compared. Feng Yu thought back, and the first bladeless fan he bought in his previous life was after there was a drop in the prices. He bought it for 200 RMB.

Later, some factories in China got the authorization to manufacture the fans, and the retail prices dropped to less than 100 RMB. But the imported bladeless fans were still selling for more than 500 USD. There were even models that were selling for 1,000 USD!

The purchasing power in China now still could not catch up with other countries.

“Everybody be quiet. After I tabulate the figures, the average retail price that all of you can accept is 588 RMB. the average distributor price is 400 RMB, and the average sales target is 1,500 units.”

Feng Yu just used the highest figures as the average. Anyway, these people would not know if this was the truth. Only a few distributors that had written these high figures were looking down and dare not looked at other distributors.

They were not too optimistic about the market but also not too pessimistic. This bladeless fan was a new product and had a high-tech feel. They could market it the same way as those imported products.

Currently, the Chinese were still very infatuated with imported products. They felt that imported products were better and should be priced more expensive!

But 400 RMB distributor price and retail price of 588 RMB meant that the profit margin was only 45%. After deducting the transportation, their agents’ share of profits, their actual profits were only about 20%.

20% profit was considered high, but the cost of this product was too high. They wondered which idiot wrote such high sales target. Does your province have so many wealthy people?

“Is there anybody that does not want to be the distributor for Wind and Rain Bladeless fans? You can leave now. Don’t worry, it will not affect the rest of our cooperation.”

The distributors were speechless. Rather than asking who does not want to be the distributor, why not try asking who wants to be the distributor. Will not affect other cooperation? That expression of yours, tells everything. Once we leave, you will find ways to stop our other contracts.

Other people might not do such things, but all of them knew that Manager Feng of Tai Hua Trading would do it!

“No one wants to leave? Fine. Since we had worked together for so long, I will not set a high sales target. The southern provinces will be slightly higher, and the northern provinces will be slightly lower. The sales target for the southern provinces will be 2,000 units, and the northern region will be 1,000 units. Reasonable, isn’t it?”

The distributors were all cursing and swearing in their hearts!

Fuck. This is not setting a high target? You had just mentioned that the highest sales target we can accept is 1,500 units and now you added 500 more units? This is not setting a top target? Reasonable?

Someone raised his hand, wanting to say something but Feng Yu waved and continued: “All of you might feel that this bladeless fan’s sales will be low because it is expensive. All of you have a look down on the purchasing power of Chinese. The wages of the working class are not high, but businessmen are earning a lot. All of you had worked for others before. What about now? Every one of you is earning more than a 6 figure annual salary. Do you know how much is this bladeless fan selling overseas? Just change the currency to Rubles!”

What? This bladeless fan is selling overseas for 580 Rubles a unit? That’s more than 3,000 RMB! It cost almost as much as an air conditioner. Who would buy it?

The air conditioner cost only a few thousand, but the installation charges were more expensive. The total added up to about 10,000 RMB. But overseas was different from China. There was no lack of electricity. Why would people choose the fans over air conditioners?

“We have bought the advertising slots at CCTV, and it is all primetime slots. This commercial was directed by Baldy Chen, and he is also the star of the commercial. In the past, all of you also felt that Songjiang Motorcycles will not be selling well. But what about now? With CCTV advertising, celebrities’ endorsements, your sales figures increase every month. This bladeless fan will be the same. The sales will not be bad! If you do not want to be a distributor, you can be an agent. The commission will be the same as Songjiang Motorcycles. About 5%.”

When Feng Yu said agent, the distributors became suspicious. They were the agents for Songjiang Motorcycles. It was not that they do not want to be the distributors. It was because they do not have enough cash.

Since Feng Yu dares to ask them to be an agent, that means Feng Yu was very confident in this product. All the products which Feng Yu was optimistic about, were all popular!

The distributors looked at each other. They wanted to know what others were thinking.

The Fatty Huang from the Guangdong province was the first to stand up and said: “Manager Feng, I am not sure what others are thinking but I, Huang Lun, will accept your condition!”

Damn. The rest of the distributors looked at Fatty Huang angrily. Every time Manager Feng sets some condition, he would be the first to accept. If it weren’t the both of them had different surnames, they would be suspected relatives!

Feng Yu nodded: “Mr. Huang, you are the first one to sign the contract? Good. I will give you a 5% discount on your distributor price!”

What?

The other distributors’ jaws dropped. Damn. This was a good deal. All of them were regretting. If they had known earlier, they would be the first person to accept Feng Yu’s terms. But since they can’t be the first, they could be the second. All the distributors start to accept Feng Yu’s conditions. Even though they did not get any discount this time, they could at least leave a good impression, and maybe next time there will be a discount for them!

Feng Yu smiled. You think I don’t know that all of you had contacted each other and wanted to work together to lower the distribution price? Just a simple trick like this can easily break up your alliance.

Chapter 206 – Child Endorsement

All the contracts were signed. There were even distributors that take up the unpopular northwest regions. Maybe it was because Feng Yu had given attractive benefits for those provinces. These provinces have no sales target!

Now, in China, the gap between the rich and poor regions was apparent. The coastal areas’ development was much faster, and there were more opportunities and rich people. The in-lands, especially the western provinces, were in poverty. The industrial, agriculture and businesses development were lacking, and many of the people there earned less than 300 RMB a year. There were even some that couldn’t even feed themselves.

In these areas, there were still wealthy people but very few. Luckily, these areas had a severe lack of electricity. The local government offices can’t even install air conditioners. Feng Yu and the distributors felt that this bladeless fans can be sold to the government offices in that area.

It was just like the computers in the future. When some local government offices saw other government agencies purchases some computers, they would also think of some excuses like wanting a paperless office to buy a batch of computers. These local government does not care if their staffs had computer literacy or a computer cost the same as a year’s supply of paper.

If one city starts to buy in bulk, the nearby cities will follow suit, and the districts under the city government would copy. Soon the whole province would be the same.

The computers bought by the government offices were often referred to as antiques by netizens. These computers were about to be obsolete and were overpriced. The government agencies were still willing to spend as the money does not come from their own pocket!

The distributor that took on the northwest province had this thinking. He was confident that he would convince the local government to purchase a batch of fans. It would not be like what Fatty Huang said, the sales of a province could not be compared to even a city in Guangdong.

The new factory in Guangdong had started productions, and everything was proceeding smoothly. There were many workshops, and there were enough facilities and workers. There would be no delays to the humidifiers and bladeless fans productions.

……

A few days later, Fu Guangzheng came to Bing City again. He wanted to talk to Feng Yu about the overseas sales. They need to get a celebrity to star in a commercial for their products. Tai Hua Trading had to agree to invest in this commercial and the celebrity’s endorsement.

“Brother Fu, you had worked hard for this period of time.”

“Hahaha, my family had assigned 2 people to me. I am just leaving everything to them. You are the one who had worked hard. You settled China’s distributions within such a short time.”

The both of them had some pleasantries, and Feng Yu asked: “Brother Fu, you are not here at Bing City just to chat with me, right? Just speak your mind.”

Fu Guangzheng laughed: “This, Manager Feng, our humidifiers and bladeless fans in China have celebrities’ endorsements and commercials. Do you think we should hire some stars to do an ad for the overseas market?”

Feng Yu raised his eyebrows. He knows what Fu Guangzheng was trying to say. The fees for overseas celebrities were much higher than in China. Fu Guangzheng was worried that Feng Yu would not agree. That’s why he came personally to discuss with Feng Yu. If they had chosen the right celebrity to endorse their products, the sales would increase a lot, and they can earn back the endorsement fees. Feng Yu would never reject this idea.

“Brother Fu, I thought it was some important matter. You can just talk to me over the phone. Yes, I totally agree with you.”

Fu Guangzheng brightens up: “That’s great. But the budget would be quite high. I decided to get Hollywood stars this endorsement. The fees might reach 2 million USD a year. But I had calculated. There would be at least 3 million USD of profits!”

Spend 2 million USD for 3 million USD profit? Feng Yu frowned. He felt that even though they still made a profit but the profit was too little. Compared to Zhu Simao and the rest, the profits were too low!

The humidifiers and bladeless fans were all monopoly products. There were no similar products on the market. For 2 million USD endorsement fees, there should be more than 4 million USD in profits.

“Who do you intend to look for? Which geographical area will be covered?” Feng Yu asked.

“We are looking at Lim Basinger or Michael Keaton. Their movie “Batman” last year was the top grossing movie in Europe and the US. They have countless fans in Europe, US, and Asia. I think they can even be the spokesperson for the whole world……”

Fu Guangzheng said a lot but Feng Yu was thinking. Who are these two stars? He had heard of their names before, but he had no impression. These two stars’ future developments should not be that great, or they did not have any blockbusters in future!

These two stars which Fu Guangzheng recommends might be very famous last year but this year, their popularity should be declining. In future, their popularity would continue to drop. It would be like signing a forward who was in his top form. But after signing, the player’s condition became worse every year, and you still have to pay his wages!

If they need to get a celebrity, then they must look for those with potential, at the same time, have a right image and suits the product. They can’t just sign any celebrity without careful selection.

For instance, Yao Ming had signed a deal with Pepsi. But sportsmen were not allowed to drink carbonated drinks. When Yao Ming suffered a fractured, there was an article on the papers, saying that Yao Ming’s fracture had something to do with Pepsi. The article states that Pepsi had an effect on bones and would affect the performance of sportsmen, etc. What the article was trying to say was that Yao Ming drank Pepsi and that’s why he suffered a fracture.

In the end, Yao Ming’s commercial value dropped drastically, and Pepsi’s sales were also affected.

Feng Yu was looking down thinking hard about which movie stars that were not famous yet but would become very popular soon. He saw the scissors on the desk and suddenly remembered someone.

Johnny Depp, Edward Scissorhands!

A robot with emotions. It represents high-tech innovations. This was in-line with the positioning of the humidifiers and bladeless fans.

Johnny Depp was already a small celebrity in the US, but he was not the very famous type. He was only a second-tier actor. The movie Edward Scissorhands was screened later this year and won several awards. Johnny Depp was also nominated, and his popularity soar.

His popularity lasted for the next few years and quiet down. But after the millennium, his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean lead him to become the world’s highest paid movie star!

Looking at the poster of Baldy Chen sticking his head through the bladeless fan, on the table, Feng Yu suddenly felt that a child would be more suitable.

A child would be more adorable and also send a message to parents that this fan is very safe. Even a kid can put his head through the fan top!

If it was a child that star in this commercial, it will highlight the safety features of the product which suits their product positioning in the US and Europe.

A child actor. Home Alone, Macaulay Culkin!

Feng Yu raised his head, looked at Fu Guanzheng and said excitedly: “Brother Fu, let’s get a kid to endorse our products!”

Chapter 207 – Major Shareholder of Machinery Company

With Feng Yu’s insistence, Fu Guangzheng agreed to contact Johnny Depp and Macaulay Culkin. Johnny Depp was currently still considered a TV star, even though he was not that famous. But who the hell was Macaulay Culkin? How does Feng Yu know that a 6-7 year’s old kid will be famous?

Feng Yu swore that it would be worthwhile if they sign these 2 actors! They can offer Johnny Depp a 1 to 2 years contract and a 3 to 4 years contract to Macaulay Culkin. It would not be worthwhile if the contract period were longer than this. The endorsement fees for these 2 actors would not cost more than 1 million USD a year since these two were still considered unknown now.

Fu Guangzheng could only agree to go along with Feng Yu’s suggestions, but he was curious about how Feng Yu came to this conclusion that these two actors would be famous in future.

Wait until year end, Fu Guangzheng and the Fu family would be in awe of how accurate Feng Yu’s prediction.

……

It was April, and Feng Yu changed the commercial for the primetime slot at CCTV. He changed the commercial to the Wind and Rain Bladeless fans. Even the slots on CCTV 2 were changes. The advertising campaign had started!

Before the effects of the campaign can be seen, Li Mingde came to Feng Yu!

The Machinery Company had paid a high price for the primetime advertising slots. How come it was changed to Bladeless fans?

Feng Yu showed a helpless expression. He offered to refund Li Mingde, but Li Mingde does not accept since Feng Yu had to pay back the Machinery Company if the sales did not hit 130,000 units. How can Feng Yu change the commercial?

Feng Yu positioned himself lower and said that he could return more advertising fees. If Li Mingde agrees to him changing the commercials during primetime, then he would refund 5 million RMB! Feng Yu would also think of ways to get 2 more slots for Songjiang Motorcycles.

Li Mingde was tempted. 5 million RMB. If he could get it, he could claim credit with the City’s leader. But he was still not satisfied. He told Feng Yu that he would not be responsible if the motorcycle sales declined. If Feng Yu does not hit the sale target, he still would have to pay back all the advertising fees!

Feng Yu agreed. Both signed a simple agreement, and on the agreement, it stated that Tai Hua Trading refunded 5 million RMB advertising fees to the Machinery Company!

Li Mingde left smiling, with the check in his hands. The sales target was already hard to achieve, and now Feng Yu changed the commercial? He was digging his own grave!

Meanwhile, Feng Yu was holding to the agreement, laughing. He had used the Machinery Company’s 5 million RMB for a few months and had just returned. He even got a documented prove. In future, even if Li Mingde knew that Feng Yu had tricked him, he could not do anything. I had returned the money to you, and you had accepted it. That means that you are not going to pursue this. This agreement is the prove!

Although returning this 5 million RMB, would use up most of the available funds in Tai Hua Trading’s account, but it was still okay. Tai Hua Trading does not need a lot of money to operate. There will be profits coming in every month from the humidifiers, Songjiang Motorcycles, Tai Hua Processed Food Factory, etc. These profits were enough for Tai Hua Trading to operate. The things Tai Hua trading needs to pay was only some deposits, down payments for goods. The Tai Hua Electric Appliances Factory also does not require a lot of money as the cost of production was not high. A few million RMB would be enough for Feng Yu to manage the cash flows of these businesses!

The last loophole was covered up before the transfer of the Machinery Company’s shares from the Aviation Factory to Feng Yu. Li Mingde still did not know that Feng Yu would be the major shareholder of the Machinery Company in a few days!

The high-powered electric furnace had finished installation and was in the calibration stage. Current, Hou Haitao was still happy with this deal. After the furnace was calibrated, he would transfer the shares to Feng Yu. This way, the Aviation Factory would get the Machinery Company’s dividends too!

This period of time, Hou Haitao seldom visit the Machinery Company, and Feng Yu does not check the Machinery Company’s accounts. This made Li Mingde very pleased.

He thought that Feng Yu was bowing his head to him and was afraid that he would remove Feng Yu’s position as the temporary Factory Directory of the Motorcycle factory. Feng Yu staying low resulted in Li Mingde and his loyal followers becoming more arrogant. They even started to interfere with the Motorcycle Factory operations and Feng Yu did not object.

Li Mingde was still not satisfied with Feng Yu giving in to him. He wants to control the production and sales of the Motorcycle Factory. He wants to stop the motorcycle sales, making the total sales to be less than 130,000 units. If there were lots of orders, he would push the December sales figures to next January. He would do whatever it takes to stop Feng Yu from achieving the sales target.

Li Mingde wants to be the motorcycle factory’s director. If the leaders from the City Government does not allow, he would also want to push one of his loyal followers to take on that position.

But Li Mingde never expected that before he could realize his dreams, a groundbreaking news shocked the whole Bing City!

The Aviation Factory sold the Machinery Company’s shares to Feng Yu!

Li Mingde was shocked when he heard the news! He immediately called the City Government to verify and found out that Feng Yu and Hou Haitao had just signed the paperwork at the Trade and Industry Bureau!

Is Hou Haitao stupid? The Machinery Company is making profits now, and he sold the shares?

He immediately calls Hou Haitao and questions him loudly. Why did he sell the Machinery Company’s shares? Did the city government agree?

Hou Haitao calmly replied that the Aviation Factory is under the jurisdiction of the military and ministries. The City Government have no right to interfere with any decisions made by the factory. The Aviation Factory needed an advanced high powered electric furnace to complete the orders given by the military. Even the military leaders praised him for getting the furnace!

Hou Haitao also had a “reasonable” explanation for selling the Machinery Company’s shares to Feng Yu. Firstly, the Aviation Factory does not have enough cash to buy the furnace. Secondly, the Aviation Factory did not sell the shares to any random buyers. Feng Yu was also a shareholder. Lastly, Feng Yu offered a high price for the shares!

All these had become a reality. Li Mingde or even the City Government could not do anything! Hou Haitao was called over by the City’s leaders for a talk, but it was only talking. The Aviation Factory’s directory was not appointed by the City Government, and there was no way the City Government could stop this sale.

Li Mingde just realized that this period of time, it was not Feng Yu giving in to him. Feng Yu and the Aviation Factory had planned this long time ago.

After this transfer of shares, the Feng family had a total of 44% shares of the Machinery Company. This was more than the City Government, making the Feng family the major shareholders!

Chapter 208 – Meeting at the City Government

Feng Yu was speechless. Li Mingde was at least 50 years’ old, and he still acted like a kid by complaining to the higher-ups.

With the Aviation Factory’s shares, the Feng family became the major shareholders of the Machinery Company. Li Mingde was nervous. He suddenly remembered that Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng were close and he heard the Wind and Rain humidifiers’ overseas sales were handed over to the Fu family.

If Fu Guangzheng supported Feng Yu or Feng Xingtai, then there would be a shift of power at the Machinery company. He must get the city to help him and protect his position!

For the first time, Li Mingde felt that restructuring the Machinery Company was a mistake. Why did he support the restructuring of the Machinery Company from a state-owned enterprise to a private company? Although in Bing City, there was still no state-owned enterprise leader being replaced after the reorganization, in the coastal provinces, there had been some instances where the government appointed leaders being replaced.

The person who would have the final say in a joint-stock company is the person who had the most support of the shareholders!

Li Mingde was a General Manager of a State-owned enterprise and was on the level of a Department Deputy Chief. If his position was removed by the Feng family, where can he go?

There were many state-owned enterprises in Bing City, but there were not a lot of good positions. Initially, many people were envious of his position, and he had the chance to be transferred to the Agricultural Department. But he rejected the offer. Even if he wanted to take up the transfer now, there must also be someone who would give him this position.

Li Mingde could see himself spending his remaining career in a no authority position with an almost bankrupt state-owned enterprise. He would no longer have any authority, secretary, benefits, cars, etc.!

He must not let this happen to him. The only person that can help him now is his former leader, Deputy Mayor Xu.

Although Deputy Mayor Xu was about to retire, he was still in position and still had authority. With his number of years with Bing City, even the Mayor had to give him face during meetings.

Li Mingde did not go to Zhang Ruiqiang, who was in-charge of Bing City’s state-owned enterprise restructuring, economy and commercial development. Everybody knows that Feng Yu visits Zhang Ruiqiang every now and then. Li Mingde even suspects that Zhang Ruiqiang was in cahoots with Feng Yu and this idea might also be from Zhang Ruiqiang!

At 1.30 pm, Feng Yu appeared in the City Government. Li Mingde had arrived earlier than 1 pm. Li Mingde stood at the windows and was relieved when he saw Feng Yu entering the building. He was afraid that Feng Yu would find some excuse to skip this meeting.

“Mayor Xu, look. This is Feng Yu. He can’t even be punctual and is very arrogant. He knows that you are waiting for him and yet he arrives so late. He is so young, and yet he is putting on airs!” Li Mingde tried to add fuel to the flames.

Deputy Mayor Xu frowned and said: “I am not old until I can’t tell the time. It is 1.30 pm now.”

Even though Li Mingde was told off by Deputy Mayor Xu, he was still happy. He could tell that Deputy Mayor Xu was unhappy with Feng Yu!

Both of them waited for another 5 minutes, but they did not see the secretary coming in to inform them that Feng Yu had arrived. Why did Feng Yu take such long time to walk from the first floor to the third floor?

Deputy Mayor Xu’s secretary sent someone to go and look for Feng Yu. The staff came back after a few minutes and reported that Feng Yu was in Deputy Mayor Zhang’s office.

Li Mingde saw Deputy Mayor Xu’s face changes color and immediately take the opportunity to stir shit: “Mayor Xu, this Feng Yu is too arrogant. He is obviously trying to show us that he has the backing of Mayor Zhang and he does not care about you!”

Zhang Ruiqiang was promoted to Executive Deputy Mayor in March and was in the City’s committee. There were rumors that the Mayor had supported him and Deputy Mayor Xu had competed with him for this position.

Deputy Mayor Xu was in his current rank for some years, and he wanted a promotion. But the higher-ups felt that he was too old and wanted him to retire after this year!

Zhang Ruiqiang was the lowest ranking deputy mayor in Bing City and had leaped to become the no.2 leader of Bing City Government. Deputy Mayor Xu was overtaken by a “young man” in his 40s. How can he be happy with this?

When Li Mingde’s provocation words just ended, Deputy Mayor Xu said sternly: “Enough! We will talk when Feng Yu is here !”

Li Mingde stepped back. He felt that his leader knew of his plans to stir up discord. But in his heart, he was still pleased. Deputy Mayor Xu would surely support him and would force Feng Yu to spit out the shares previously owned by the Aviation Factory!

Deputy Mayor Xu had also asked Hou Haitao over but the latter claims that he had to attend a meeting in Beijing and escaped!

Since the old fox is not around, they will deal with the young fox first!

……

“Mayor Zhang, the conditions of our City’s police need to be improved. Their transportation needs to be changed. They are still using those old sidecar motorcycles from decades ago. If the City Government is interested in Songjiang Motorcycles and wants to procure a batch of motorcycles, I can give you a special price. 10,000RMB for a bike.”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu. He also knew that Li Mingde had gone to Deputy Mayor Xu for help and had asked Feng Yu over to force him to return the Machinery Company’s shares. He thought that Feng Yu came to him today for help and was thinking of ways to reject. After all, Li Mingde was trying to get the best for the city, and Zhang Ruiqiang does not want to support Feng Yu.

But Zhang Ruiqiang did not expect Feng Yu to not mention about this matter but instead tried to promote his motorcycles! Is this kid fearless or stupid?

The next few years, Bing City’s economy would be getting better, and even if the City does not do anything, Bing City would be one of the thriving cities in China. Zhang Ruiqiang was in-charge of the city’s economic growth, and he could see himself getting credit for this.

The city does have the intentions to improve the police’s equipment. The Provincial Police had confiscated a lot of money for the city last year, and if the City does not spend on the Police department, the Police Chief would not be happy!

Zhang Ruiqiang felt that equipping the City Police with motorcycles was a good idea. Not only the officers would have better transport, but it would also be more convenient for the officers to control traffic and patrol. They can also answer to the Provincial Police Department and at the same time, improve the city’s image!

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu seriously: “I will consider this. Do you still have anything else you want to tell me?”

“Oh, you are trying to ask me to go? Fine. I have something on too. You can give me a call after you consider.” Feng Yu turned and left. He did not mention a single word about Deputy Mayor Xu.

Chapter 209 – Meeting at the City Government Continued

Knock, Knock, Knock. There was knocking on the office’s door. Deputy Mayor Xu’s secretary looked up and saw Feng Yu. He looked at his watch, and it was already 2pm!

Although the secretary had called Feng Yu to come during office hours in the afternoon, ordinary people would be on time or even be early for a meeting with deputy mayor.

This Feng Yu was the opposite. He came on time and did not come to Deputy Mayor Xu’s office when he arrived. Instead, he went to Deputy Mayor Zhang’s office. The secretary thought that Feng Yu had gone to Zhang Ruiqiang for help, but Zhang Ruiqiang did not come with Feng Yu. Even Zhang Ruiqiang’s secretary was not here nor was there any phone calls from them.

Xiao Sun knew that no matter if Feng Yu were successful in getting help, he would be in trouble. His boss would reprimand him for failing to ask Feng Yu to come on time.

“Why are you so late?” Xiao Sun shouted unhappily.

Feng Yu raised his brows: “Why? Deputy Mayor Xu had left? Then I will come back another day.”

Xiao Sun was shocked and hurriedly grabbed Feng Yu by his arms: “Deputy Mayor Xu is inside. Come with me.”

Damn, this Feng Yu does not do things normally. Even if the leader had left, you should remain here and wait for him. How can you just turn and want to go?

Feng Yu entered the office. Deputy Mayor Xu and Li Mingde had heard him coming in, but they still carried on reading their newspapers. They acted as if no one had entered.

“Mayor Xu, Feng Yu is here.”

Deputy Mayor Xu did not say anything, and Li Mingde pretended not to see Feng Yu. Feng Yu also did not care if Deputy Mayor Xu had asked him to enter the room. He just walks in and sat on the sofa beside Li Mingde.

Li Mingde could no longer pretend not to see Feng Yu. He put down the newspaper and stared at Feng Yu: “Do you know the rules? Did anyone allow you to enter?”

Feng Yu leaned back and crossed his legs. He turned to Xiao Sun and said: “Secretary Sun, how come there is no tea for me?”

Deputy Mayor Xu could no longer tolerate. This Feng Yu was too arrogant. This was his office. It’s the office of Bing City’s Deputy Mayor. Does Feng Yu think that he was his home? He still dares to order Xiao Sun to pour him tea?

“Cough…… Xiao Sun, go out first. Push back my meeting at 3pm.”

Deputy Mayor Xu thought that Feng Yu would stand up and greet him when he put down his newspapers. But Feng Yu did not say anything and seems like he was resting!

At first, Deputy Mayor Xu and Li Mingde wanted to give Feng Yu pressure by leaving him standing. Deputy Mayor Xu had used this method countless times, and he could make the other party panicked. This way, the negotiations would be easier for him and force Feng Yu to return the shares. But Feng Yu saw through all his tricks and ignored him totally!

“Xiao Feng, you should know why I asked you to come.” Deputy Mayor Xu wanted to regain control of the negotiations. He would not say much. He wanted the other party to guess.

Feng Yu opened his eyes and with a dazed looked: “Deputy Mayor Xu, are you talking to me? Sorry, I was not paying attention. I had just gone to the Showroom at Bing City earlier at noon. I was too busy.”

Deputy Mayor Xu was furious. First, it was the way Feng Yu addressed him. Other than the Mayor, other people would address him as Mayor Xu. But Feng Yu had purposely addressed him as Deputy Mayor Xu. Secondly, Feng Yu tried to act dumb with him. Busy? Can you be more busy than me?

This young brat thinks that he had some connections and money and can be arrogant?

“Xiao Feng, don’t try to act dumb. You clear know the reason why we asked you here! I don’t care what deals you have with the Aviation Factory. You must sell the Aviation Factory’s shares back to the City! The Machinery Company is a state-owned company and is a collective enterprise. This will never change!” Li Mingde shouted.

Feng Yu said with a surprised look: “Director Li, what are you talking about? The Machinery Company had been a collective enterprise all this while. Even after the restructuring, it is still a collective enterprise. Do you think that the Machinery Company now belongs to a single entity?” Feng Yu stared at Li Mingde after he finished saying this.

Li Mingde almost died from his anger. Feng Yu still dare to imply that he was in full control of the Machinery Company!

“Xiao Feng, you don’t try to avoid the topic. Tell me straight, are you going to return the 14% shares?” Li Mingde asked.

“Return? What do you mean? I had bought these shares with my own money. You sound as if I had stolen or robbed these shares. Director Li, you have to be responsible with the words that are coming out of your mouth.”

Deputy Mayor Xu stared at Li Mingde. How old are you and yet you are arguing with a young man? The worst part was that you still lost the argument!

How did you spend all these years?

Deputy Mayor Xu does not intend to let Li Mingde speaks. Li Mingde was not as eloquent as Feng Yu.

“Feng Yu, don’t be emotional. I had asked you over is to discuss with you. The Machinery Company is the City’s most successful restructured state-owned enterprise. It is the City’s model, and the city must have the controlling stake. We don’t need much, just sell 11% back to the city. How?”

Damn, I had wracked my brains and thought of this idea to increase my stake in the Machinery Company. You want me to sell to the City just like this?

Feng Yu had helped the Machinery Company got the production lines for the agriculture machinery and motorcycles. Do the City thinks that all these were for free?

Feng Yu had planned and plotted for a long time. The current workers in state-owned enterprises were still not bad. But after 1995, jobs were no longer assigned by the government, and many unskilled and irresponsible workers entered the factories, resulting in the decline of the State-owned enterprises.

Feng Yu now holds 44% of the Machinery Company’s shares. But he was still not satisfied. He wants to own more than 67%, to have the controlling stake of the company. He wanted to make the company his and follow all his plans.

He was still thinking of ways to get more shares. How can he return or sell his shares back to the city?

Dream on!

“Deputy Mayor Xu, the Machinery Company, has its success today was because of the advanced machines and technologies I brought back from the Soviet Union. Without me, do you think the Machinery Company can achieve such high profits every year? Not only this, just look at the factories in the City. These factories had an increased in productivity and became competitive in the domestic market. You should know why these factories became like this. Now you are telling me that because the City wants the controlling stake in the Machinery Company, I must sell it to you? Why should I?”

Deputy Mayor Xu almost choked after he heard what Feng Yu said. He believed that he had persuaded Feng Yu “nicely” and the one who was being aggressive was Li Mingde. He was supposed to be the good guy and Li Mingde the bad guy today. He thought that even if Feng Yu does not agree, he would also step back a little. But he never expects Feng Yu to be so firm!

Deputy Mayor Xu knew the reason for the significant changes in the City’s industrial development. This was because of the cheap advanced machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union. All the old equipment were replaced and sold. Although the City had paid some money, most of it was using banks loans with the City as guarantor.

Now, the city’s industries were revitalized and slowly returning back to its peak.

Feng Yu had played a part in all these and can be said that all these were attributed by Feng Yu!

Now Feng Yu asked him why should he sell and Deputy Mayor Xu does not know how to answer. But in his heart, he stubbornly felt that this was for the good of the City and the City’s residents. He must continue to force Feng Yu!

Chapter 210 – Killer Move Part 1

Deputy Mayor Xu thought for a while and answered Feng Yu: “Feng Yu, I know that you had made great contributions to the Machinery Company, but we are also not asking you to sell all of your shares. We only want 11%, and we will pay you the market price. The City has a comprehensive development plan for the Machinery Company, but you kept opposing Li Mingde’s decisions. This is not good for the company’s development.”

Damn, you are saying that I am hindering the company’s progress?

Feng Yu was pissed. Who was the one hindering the company’s progress? Since you want to talk about this, then let’s discuss this!

“Deputy Mayor Xu, then can I hear about your plans or Director Li’s plans for the company?” Feng Yu asked sarcastically. What city’s plan are you talking about? It was all Li Mingde’s ideas.

Hearing Feng Yu’s harsh words, Li Mingde was also not embarrassed. He looked at Deputy Mayor Xu and got an approving look. He then proudly said: “Xiao Feng, I know the machinery and technologies you got from the Soviet Union are advanced and you did well with the sales. But you have never managed such a big factory before. There are many things to handle and to be a qualified leader, you need to consider the company’s future. The Machinery Company would focus on the agriculture machinery production in future. There has been a lot of demand for this. Although, the profits from the motorcycles are high but is the market big enough? Even if we are able to achieve 200,000 units a year, the other motorcycle factories in other cities would also be set up and what developments can the motorcycles have?”

Eh? Li Mingde also felt that agriculture machines have a better prospect than motorcycles? This was the same as Feng Yu! In future, China would have a lot of policies to encourage agriculture. The market for agriculture machines will be huge. The prices for the machines will increase, and this would lead to some old agriculture machinery factories reviving. On the other hand, the prices of the motorcycles will drop, and there would be more and more competitors.

If Li Mingde really wants to develop agriculture machinery, Feng Yu would see him differently. But what had Li Mingde done? He had been resting on his laurels!

Increasing the production of agriculture equipment now was just to meet the demands. But without R&D of agriculture equipment, how long more can the Machinery Company stay ahead of its competitors by relying on the advanced machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union? The machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union were 10 years ahead of China, but if nothing was done, 3 to 5 years later, the Machinery Company might lose this advantage.

The first thing Feng Yu wanted to do after he had the full control of the company, was to invest in the R&D of agriculture equipment. They must continue to modify and improve their machines to be the best in China. This would be the prerequisite for being the leader in the industry!

But Feng Yu had never told anybody about this. Li Mingde said that he had considered about this. Since you had plans for the agriculture machinery, why you did not invest more in the R&D department? Feng Yu wanted to test if Li Mingde really felt that the agriculture machines had potential or this was just an excuse to deal with him.

“Deputy Mayor Xu, Director Li, the both of you thinks that the agriculture machines have more potential, but you can’t deny the fact that the motorcycles’ profits are the highest in the company! The motorcycle sales have been doing well and as the weather got warmer and the brand awareness increases, the sales will increase further. The profits from 2 motorcycles are equivalent to the profit of a tractor. But if you factor in the cost, a tractor is comparable to 4 bikes! You still have not looked at the time used for the production. What targets did the city set for the Machinery Company? The target set by the city is not earning more profits for the government?”

“But what if the motorcycles’ sales drop? I had just mentioned that the other motorcycle factories in the country are improving their techniques. The market is only this big, and soon, the market will be flooded. How can the motorcycles maintain its sales? The only way is to lower the retail price! But the agriculture equipment is different. Other factories cannot compete with us, and we will be the industry leaders!” Li Mingde retorted.

Feng Yu smile: “Even if we lower the prices, the profits from the motorcycles will still be higher than agriculture machines. Although there will be more competition, our motorcycles still have many advantages like exterior designs, brand awareness, comfort, etc. In future, we can be China’s largest motorcycle manufacturer and can have a constant flow of income for the Machinery Company and also lots of taxes for the City.”

“The motorcycles are too expensive, and there might not be many who are willing to buy, even if they can afford it. But agriculture equipment is different. We have the most number of farmers in China. There are a lot of farmlands, and there is a huge demand for agriculture equipment. Regarding demand, agriculture would have better potential than the motorcycles.”

Feng Yu was looking at Li Mingde differently. He can foresee this? It seems like this Li Mingde still has some foresight.

“Since Director Li have so much confidence, why not we have a bet? Even though other motorcycle factories would introduce new motorcycle model the year, the most prominent motorcycle would still be Songjiang Motorcycles.” Feng Yu was playing with words again. Most prominent does not mean the highest sales and also the most profits.

Li Mingde righteously said: “Xiao Yu, how can you bet on the company’s matters? Furthermore, I am a party member, and I don’t gamble!”

Feng Yu: “……”

Damn, the 2 contracts you signed with me had betting elements. Feng Yu saw Deputy Mayor Xu sitting at the side, and he understood. Li Mingde dare not to bet in front of the leader.

“Deputy Mayor Xu, Director Li, I will not sell the shares no matter what you say. Also, I had been the temporary Factory Director of the motorcycle factory for quite some time. Shouldn’t I be promoted to the Factory Director?”

Deputy Mayor Xu almost died from anger. Feng Yu not only refuse to sell the Machinery Company’s shares and still want authority?

If Feng Yu agrees to sell the Machinery Company’s shares, then they might give Feng Yu that position. Deputy Mayor Xu was confident that he could convince the City Government to get a bank loan to purchase the shares from Feng Yu. But Feng Yu was firm, and he refuses to sell. Deputy Mayor Xu was prepared to use an executive order to force Feng Yu to sell the shares back to the City!

He could not touch that old Hou Haitao, he can at least take care of this brat!

Meanwhile, the Machinery Company’s Office chief was rushing to the City Government. Something big had happened, and he must inform Director Li immediately. He had paged Li Mingde, but Li Mingde had yet to call him back.

“Feng Yu, you must agree to sell the shares today. This is an order!” Deputy Mayor Xu snapped.

Feng Yu stared at Deputy Mayor Xu. What? You want to fall out with me? Fine, I also do not intend to give you face anymore!

“Order? What order? Who are you to order me around? Am I your subordinate? I had never heard before that a Deputy Mayor can force a civilian to sell a company’s shares!” Feng Yu sneered.

Feng Yu’s series of questions angered Deputy Mayor Xu even more!

“If you do not agree to sell the shares today, you can forget about being the motorcycle factory’s director. You will not even be the temporary director. Feng Xingtai can also forget about his position as the Deputy General Manager!” Deputy Mayor Xu banged the table and shouted.

Hou Haitao’s Aviation Factory had military backings, and Deputy Mayor Xu could not do anything to him. But to a young brat from a farming family, he was confident he could deal with him anything. He will remove Feng Yu and his father from all their positions and then use some tricks to dilute their shares, This way, the Machinery Company will still be in the City’s control!

There were people walking pass Deputy Mayor Xu’s office, and they were the city government’s staffs. Some of them were there to watch the show, and some were sent over by other leaders. They wanted to know what was happening. Some of the staffs were hoping for the opportunity to shine in front of Deputy Mayor Xu.

Secretary Sun immediately close the door. Deputy Mayor Xu had already banged the table, and it would not be good if words spread to other leaders.

Feng Yu glanced at Li Mingde: “Does this means that Director Li had already appointed someone to succeed my position? Seems like you have planned for this long time ago.”

Li Mingde tried to persuade nicely: “Xiao Yu, just sell the Machinery Company’s shares to the City and I will let you be the Factory Director of the motorcycle factory. Don’t lose such an important position because of some shares. Take the money and do whatever you like with it. Don’t you still have a trading company?”

Feng Yu smiled sarcastically: “Director Li really takes good care of me. You even thought of ways for me to spend the money from the sales of shares. But are you sure you can remove me from my position? We are a collective enterprise, and the appointed leaders have to go through an election!”

Chapter 211 – Killer Move Part 2

“You say election? The motorcycle factory are all my people. They will follow my orders to elect the person I choose!” Li Mingde said confidently. Election? It was just a process and he can determine who gets elected!

“Director Li, your thinking is too simple. The Machinery Company’s election is not up to those people to decide. It will be decided by the shareholders!”

Deputy Mayor Xu was shocked. Shareholders to decide? What does this mean?

Feng Yu looked at the shocked Deputy Mayor Xu and sighed. These were all old concepts. They still thought that the Machinery Company was still before restructuring and the City can control it with their authority. The company is now a shareholding company and is control by the shareholders.

“Right, did the office inform Director Li? Mr. Fu will be coming to Bing city tomorrow. We will be holding this a shareholders meeting!”

What? Shareholders meeting? What does that mean?

Deputy Mayor Xu was puzzled and he look at Li Mingde. What was Feng Yu talking about?

Li Mingde was also stunned. Beads of sweat starts to appear on his forehead. It was not sure if the room was too warm or he was too nervous.

When the state-owned enterprise was restructured into shareholdings company, Li Mingde had also read up on the related laws and regulations. The shareholders meeting was the most important meeting for a shareholding company. Did Feng Yu really contacted Fu Guangzheng and will work together to remove him from his position at the shareholders meeting?

Knock, knock, knock~~~

There were loud knockings on the door.

Xiao Sun opened the door and saw the Machinery Company’s Office Chief.

“The leader is busy. What do you want?” Xiao Sun asked unhappily. All these people from the Machinery Company were so rude and does not follow rules!

“Secretary Sun, please ask Director Li to come out. I have something important for him.”

Li Mingde came out of the office and saw his subordinate panicking. In his heart, he was also getting nervous but he calmed himself and tried his best to ask in a calm tone: “What are you panicking for? What happened?”

“Director Li, Mr. Fu had just called and said that he will be arriving tomorrow for a shareholders meeting. He wants to discuss about the appointment of the Machinery Company’s top management.” The Office Chief quickly said.

What? Discuss about the appointment of the Machinery Company’s top management!

Li Mingde was shaken. They really dare to do this!

Li Mingde looked towards the office. This was the reason why Feng Yu was so calm today? All of these happened too fast and he couldn’t react in time.

He was now regretting. If he had known about this earlier, he would not ask the leader to force Feng Yu. Now, there was no way for him to back down. Even if he back down now, Feng Yu would not let him off!

Feng Yu saw Li Mingde’s expression and smiled: “Director Li, have you receive the notification?”

Li Mingde glared at Feng Yu and walked over to Deputy Mayor Xu. He whispered something into Deputy Mayor Xu’s ears and Deputy Mayor Xu’s face changed. He pointed at Feng Yu but could not find the words.

“If there are no other matters, I will make a move first. Oh yes, I will make a special exception and invite Deputy Mayor Xu to sit in for tomorrow’s shareholders meeting!”

Sit in? Deputy Mayor Xu almost vomit blood. He was the Deputy Mayor and he had to be invited to sit in for a company’s meeting? Li Mingde had told him earlier that the shareholders are the ones with the most authority in the company and not the City Government!

He wanted to curse and swear. This was a state-owned enterprise and how can the one with the most authority not the City Government? shareholders meeting? What the hell is that?

……

“Son, what do you mean? You want to remove Li Mingde? He is the City’s appointed General Manager and was the old factory’s director. How do you remove him?” Feng Xingtai looked at Feng Yu as if he was looking at an alien.

“Dad, the company is now a shareholding and the ones with the highest authorities are the shareholders. Li Mingde is only representing the City Government with 40% shares. But we have more shares than him. We have more than 50%.”

“More than hald? The both of us only add up to slightly over 40%. Are you talking about that Fu……”

“Fu Guangheng.” Feng Yu reminded his father.

“Right, Fu Guangzheng also supports you?”

Feng Yu nodded: “That’s right. Fu Guangzheng will surely support me. He is not doing this as a favor. We just have the same goals. Dad, are you willing to be the company’s general manager?”

Feng Yu wanted to test his father. To run a company, the worst thing that could happen was to let a novice lead the company! But if his father was sitting in that position, he would at least listen to his suggestions.

Feng Xingtai waved his hands: “Nah. I am already very busy with the food processing factory and I do not have the experience to manage so many people. I find that Li Mingde had performed quite well. You should let him carry on be the general manager. Also, you can avoid offending the leaders in the City Government.”

Feng Yu also did not want to offend the City. There were no benefits if he goes against the City Government. Fu Guangzheng was also not interested in staying in Bing City and Feng Yu still need to attend school. The Machinery Company was not like Tai Hua Trading. There were many things to handle.

If Li Mingde continued to be the General Manager, at least there would not be any problems with the company’s operation. But nevertheless, Feng Yu must let Li Mingde knows that who was the one that have the final say in the company!

……

“Everybody, this shareholders meeting was suggested by me and the main agenda is to talk about the Machinery Company and the motorcycle factory’s personnel reshuffling! We shall start from the top. First, the position General Manager of the Machiinery Company.”

Li Mingde who was holding to a tea cup trembled. His palms were sweating. Will he be kick out of the company? Feng Yu really dare to treat him this way? Is he not afraid of the City Government going after him?

Or could it be that Feng Yu had the backing of Deputy Mayor Zhang?

Meanwhile, Deputy Mayor Xu was sitting in Zhang Ruiqiang’s office. He wanted an explanation from Zhang Ruiqiang. Why did a state-owned factory change so much within such a short period of time after restructuring!

“Deputy Mayor Xu, I did not expect the Aviation Factory to sell the Machinery Company’s shares to Feng Yu. When the Machinery Factory was restructured to the Machinery Company, the City was still the major shareholder and we are still in control. You are the one who suggested to sell the City’s shares to the Aviation Factory.”

Deputy Mayor Xu was at a loss of words. He had listened to Li Mingde. Li Mingde had told him that Feng Yu was going to cooperate with the Aviation Factory on the motorcycles. To stop Feng Yu from working with the Aviation Factory, he decided to let the Aviation Factory buy a stake of the Machinery Company. but he never expects that the Aviation Factory would sell the shares to Feng Yu. There were not even warning signs!

“Deputy Mayor Xu, there is nothing wrong with restructuring. Even now, the City had collected back all the initial funds and in future, there will be dividends and the taxes will be increased. The workers’ salaries will also increase. The restructuring is a success……”

Zhang Ruiqiang also did not expect Feng Yu to call for a shareholders meeting to discuss about the management personnel. This was to get full control the company? He called Feng Yu and asked Feng Yu to not remove Li Mingde as the General Manager.

Feng Yu agreed. He had discussed with Fu Guangzheng beforehand. Li Mingde will not be replaced. In the end, Zhang Ruiqiang still owed Feng Yu a favor.

……

The shareholders meeting ended. The Office Chief, who was taking minutes of the meeting left with the dejected Li Mingde. This Machinery Company had changed!

Chapter 212 –  Subduing Li Mingde

Without surprise, Feng Yu became the Machinery Company’s Deputy General Manager and also the Motorcycle Factory’s Director.

The Feng family was now the company’s largest shareholder, and Fu Guangzheng was closer to Feng Yu than the City Government. Obliviously, he would support Feng Yu. If it weren’t for Feng Yu’s suggestion, Li Mingde would be replaced.

The Motorcycle factory’s authority was handed over to Feng Yu, but the General Manager of the Machinery Company was still Li Mingde. Many people felt that it was because the City Government had pressurized Feng Yu to keep Li Mingde in position.

It was not over when Feng Yu became the Motorcycle Factory’s director. Feng Yu changed the whole management personnel. He promoted two workshop directors to be his deputies, and the original batch of management staffs were replaced. The finance department staffs were all Feng Yu’s men, and the only person that was not changed was that workers’ union chief, who was waiting for his retirement.

Feng Yu felt that this person was a good person. He dares to fight for the rest of the workers, and he was not interested in getting more authority, not greedy for money, and he even dares to bang table in front of Li Mingde. Although this person was a bit stubborn, he was righteous. He was held in high regards by the rest of the workers. With this person around, Li Mingde cannot stick his hands into the motorcycle factory affairs.

The motorcycle factory still cannot do without the position of Secretary. So this worker’s union chief had to take on this position. But everybody can see that this Secretary position had no powers in the factory.

The replacement of almost the whole management level of the motorcycle factory showed everybody that now it was no longer the era of Li Mingde where he could control everything. If Li Mingde is the emperor, then Feng Yu will be the grand emperor!

Feng Yu also got a huge office at the Machinery Company. This time, no one dares to claim that it was a waste of space. Feng Yu gladly accepted this office. He was someone that enjoys a luxurious lifestyle.

This appointment of the management level had utterly ignored the City’s opinions. But there was nothing the city can do. The replaced leaders from the Machinery Company were not allowed to continue working in the company. To save himself, Li Mingde had no choice but to support Feng Yu’s decision. He went to the city government personally to arrange for these people to be transferred to other state-owned enterprises. The future of these people was considered gone.

The day after the shareholders meeting, Feng Yu went to look for Li Mingde for a talk. The development of the Machinery Company was critical, and Feng Yu must let the Machinery Company focus its attention on increasing the R&D of agriculture equipment. They had already employed engineers from the Soviet Union, and it would be a waste of money if these engineers had nothing to do!

Feng Yu still have another motive. He wants to subdue Li Mingde!

“Manager Feng, I understand what you are telling, but the city took away most of the profits every year. Where can we find the money to develop new technologies or products?” Li Mingde dares not to address Feng Yu by his name now. He clearly understands Feng Yu’s position in the company!

Li Mingde was not sitting in his position doing nothing for so many years. He knows that the importance of technologies in the company. The Machinery Company was able to do so well was also because of the advanced technologies they had.

The company also had an R&D department in the past, but they do not have any experts, and they only know how to dismantle other factories’ products and try to imitate. They can’t innovate at all!

The company also tried to hire engineers from the Soviet Union, but these experts were too troublesome. Their egos were huge, and it was difficult to ask them to do things. They would ask for money when they were a task to do some research. They don’t even prepare a budget before asking for money.

At first, Li Mingde gave them the money, but the products were not up to his expectations. Later, the City starts to siphon the company’s profits aggressively. The company was fortunate to have enough operation funds, let alone putting money into R&D.

Feng Yu frowned. So, it was not Li Mingde was myopic. It was some leader in the City Government that was short-sighted.

“Who is responsible for the state funds? You did not tell them that if this carries on, the market share of the company will drop and return to the original state?”

Li Mingde lowered his head and mumbled: “It was Deputy Mayor Xu. He is in-charge of the state funds.”

Damn, he is the one!

Li Mingde explained the situation to Feng Yu.

This Deputy Mayor Xu can be considered the person who pushed Li Mingde to power. Without him, Li Mingde would be nothing. Last year, Deputy Mayor Xu was vying with Zhang Ruiqiang for the position of Executive Deputy Mayor. To win, he must have some accomplishments. The accomplishments would be from the industries and the state funds he was in charge of. To increase the state funds, he took away almost all the available funds from the state-owned enterprises.

But the Mayor was clear that these were not the credit of Deputy Mayor Xu. The state-owned enterprises got banks loans from the banks to buy imported Soviet Union technologies and machines. All these were led by Zhang Ruiqiang. Furthermore, Zhang Ruiqiang was responsible for the restructuring of Bing City’s most successful company, the Machinery Company. That’s why Deputy Mayor Xu was not promoted even when there was a huge increase in the state funds.

“So this was the reason why all the profits were given out as dividends. Will he do this again this year?” Feng Yu asked.

“He seems to be thinking of doing this again. There were rumors that the Provincial state funds chief will be retiring early.”

Damn, taking credit for our accomplishment and ignoring the development of the company? Can this type of people even be promoted?

Feng Yu waved his hand: “At least 20% if this year Machinery Company’s profits will be reserved for R&D and another 20% kept as reserve funds. The remaining 60% can be given out as dividends!”

Li Mingde was shocked. Keeping 40% of the profits? Feng Yu was really daring. The City would never agree to this!

“Manager Feng, does the R&D department even need 20% of the profits? Also, there is no need for so much reserve funds. We don’t even need reserves. Nothing will happen to the Machinery Company.”

“If the city’s leaders are not happy with my decision, ask them to speak to me!”

Li Mingde was cursing in his heart. You are not afraid, but what about me? I am only an assigned General Manager at this company. What if the higher-ups replace me if I offend them?

You have the share and is still the major shareholder. I can never get such a high position if I leave this company! You can say this easily. Let the leaders look for you? You can say this because you are not in the government service. How can I tell this to the leaders?

Li Mingde was poking needles into a voodoo doll in his heart. Feng Yu’s name was written on the doll.

Feng Yu tapped Li Mingde’s shoulders and said as if he was giving advice to someone younger than him: “Old Li, are you afraid that you will be replaced? You still have not change your way of thinking. Ours is a shareholding and shareholders will make the call. The city no longer can make all the decision. If the city transfers you away, you can apply for unpaid leave or even quit your position in the government service. I will hire you back as the General Manager of the Machinery Company!”

Currently, Li Mingde was the most suitable person to be the General Manager. This was the reason why Feng Yu did not replace him during the shareholders meeting. If the City decides to replace him, Feng Yu would call for another shareholders meeting.

Li Mingde’s eyes widen in surprised: “Manager Feng, are you serious?”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes: “I am so busy every day, do you think I have the time to joke with you? Work hard, and I will reward you handsomely.”

Looking at Li Mingde’s grateful expression, Feng Yu knew that Li Mingde was leaning to his side.

Chapter 213 – Audio Cassette Tape Shop Part 1

Feng Yu had been busy for this period of time. He kept taking leave from his school and didn’t have time to accompany Li Na. That idiot Wen Dongjun was doing well with Zhang Han. Two days ago, he even boasted to Feng Yu that he had kissed Zhang Han!

Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun’s irritating face, and he wanted to strangle him. If it wasn’t for you kept appearing at the wrong time, I would have done more than kissing with Li Na!

Feng Yu was finally free this weekend. He had got the Machinery Company’s shares and had assigned his work to others.

If making money was the only thing in life, it would be very dull. Furthermore, Feng Yu believed that if he did nothing for the rest of his life now, he could live comfortably with his shares and the company’s products.

It would be best if some things in life happened earlier……

The Culture Palace was showing a Hong Kong movie <God of Gamblers>, starring Chow Yun Fatt and Andy Lau. This time, Feng Yu made a smart decision to not ask Wen Dongjun along. That idiot was always hindering him!

Wen Dongjun had gone to the Zoo with Zhang Han. Two bear cubs were shown to the public for the first time. Wen Dongjun had bragged to Zhang Han about his glorious deed of hunting a bear. He wanted to see if Zhang Han likes bear cubs. If she likes, he will catch two wild cubs for her as pets!

Feng Yu was surprised by Wen Dongjun’s stupidity. Catch two cubs? How are you going to catch even one? Using your bare hands?

Now, there were no more hunting rifles and the last time they hunted the bear was mainly due to luck!

Feng Yu would lose if he compared his skin thickness with Wen Dongjun. He told Li Na that Wen Dongjun was bragging and he was the one who killed the bear!

After the movie ended, the both of them strolled slowly side by side. As there were lots of people, Feng Yu too the opportunity to hold Li Na by her waist.

“Don’t wander after midnight during weekends. Come to the Apple Wonderland. We welcome wandering children. Stop being in a daze and shout loudly together. Say goodbye to the lonely night~~~”

Since the Lunar New Year, there were a few newly opened audio cassette tapes shops in from of their schools and near the Culture Palace. Taiwanese boys group “Little Tigers” songs were very popular. You can hear their songs on almost every street.

Listening to the song, Feng Yu started to sing along. In his past life, he liked this group a lot. The group came together again for a performance during the Spring night gala. Although the group members were old and their vocals were not as good as before, they still attracted the most viewership for their performance!

“You know how to sing this song?” Li Na eyes shined brightly.

“What’s so difficult? I know most of Little Tigers’ songs. Like <Green Apple Wonderland>, <Red Dragonfly>, <Fly Butterfly Fly>. But the song I liked most is <Love>. I can even use hand signs along with that song!” Feng Yu starts to gesture with his hands and sang a few lines of <Love>.

“I had heard of <Green Apple Wonderland> and <Red Dragonfly>. Are <Fly Butterfly Fly> and <Love> their new songs? Which album is that? Where can I buy it?”

Feng Yu still wanted to sing the chorus of <Love> to Li Na, but now he was at a loss for words. He had seen the Little Tigers poster outside a shop, and their album <Red Dragonfly> had just been released in February. <Fly Butterfly Fly> and <Love> should be their later albums and was not released yet.

Feng Yu had accidentally revealed his rebirth identity. Luckily Feng Yu was able to react quickly and said: “Ah…. I remembered wrongly. <Fly Butterfly Fly> and <Love> are not their songs.”

Ha,ha~~~

Li Na giggled.

“I had bought all their cassette tapes, and they had just released their album. How can they come out with another album so soon? I knew that you are telling lies.”

“Sorry. I must be influenced by Wen Dongjun!” Feng Yu threw the blame on Wen Dongjun.

“Let’s go to that audio cassette shop. See if there are any new alby=ums.”

Feng Yu beat his chest and said: “Let’s go. If the songs you like cannot be found, I will ask people to buy it back from overseas!”

In this era, there was importation restriction. Many videos, music, and books cannot be bought in China. They can only be brought in from overseas. When Fu Guangzheng came to Bing City a few days ago for the shareholders meeting, Feng Yu had asked him to bring along some western videotapes and music tapes.

The audio cassette shop was not very big, and there were two shelves by the walls. In the center, there was another shelf. There were many cassette tapes on the shelves. There were Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese songs but there were none form the Western countries. The foreign songs can only be bought from state-owned shops.

The innermost shelf of the shop were all videotapes, but the tapes were not for sale. They were for rent. Feng Yu was also not sure when did audio cassette tapes shops start renting videotapes.

Movies were not like music. People watch movies were for the plot, and if someone had watched the video once or twice, the person would lose interest. That’s why it was not worthwhile to buy the videotapes. Renting would be a better option. After watching the movie once or twice, you can still exchange the rented video tape with others. This way you can even save money.

Feng Yu and Li Na were looking for the cassette tapes on the shelves. Feng Yu was looking at Hong Kong and Taiwanese cassette tapes, and during this time, Luo Dayou, Li Zhongsheng (Jonathan Lee) and Zhang Guo Rong (Leslie Cheung) were already very famous and Feng Yu like many of their songs.

But after searching for a while, he could not find these singers albums. But there were Andy Lau’s songs. Feng Yu preferred Andy Lau’s future songs.

The store owner saw Feng Yu did not pick any cassettes tapes and went up to him to offer some assistance.

“Bro, whose songs do you like? Tell me, I will help you find.”

“Thanks. I am just looking around.” Feng Yu was at the shop to accompany Li Na. He does not mind if he can’t find anything he likes.

“Bro, my audio cassette tape shop has the most varieties in Bing City and Long Jiang province. It doesn’t matter if it is China or overseas. If you can name it, I can find it!” The store owner boasted.

“Overseas cassette tapes? How come I never see it? Where are the tapes?” Feng Yu became interested. He had finished listening to the cassette tapes Fu Guangzheng gave him, and he wants to listen to some newer songs.

The store owner asked Feng Yu to wait a while, and he walks out of the shop to check if the coast is clear. Then he took out a box from under a table. The box was full of cassette tapes. There were at least a few hundred cassette tapes and CDs.

Most of the cassette tapes and CDs were English, and there were some Russian, Japanese and some in languages unknown to Feng Yu. He guessed that it should be French or German.

All the tapes seemed to have been taken apart, and the plastic packaging was not there.

Feng Yu opened a random cassette plastic box and was disappointed.

These were all smuggled tapes and CDs. He still thought that these were originals. There was some punched disc. All these should be smuggled goods. No wonder the store owner needs to check out the shop first. This store owner seems to have lots of connections.

“Ah~~~”

Feng Yu still wanted to pick a few cassette tapes, and Li Na suddenly shouts.

Translator Notes: I am not sure what was punctured CD and cassette tapes and googled it. It seems that these were illegal or smuggled CDs and cassette tapes. Holes were drilled on the CD and smuggled into China as damaged CDs. This was all due to the restrictions on importation. The author used the words “打孔带” and “打孔碟”, which literally translated to punctured cassette tapes and punctured CDs.

Chapter 214 – Audio Cassette Tape Shop Part 2

Feng Yu had wanted to go through the tapes in the box to see if he could find some tapes he likes when he heard Li Na shouted.

“What are you doing? I saw it first.”

“What you saw it first? I am the one who is holding it now, and it belongs to me.” A youth was holding a CD. He was gloating at Li Na.

Feng Yu ran over, smacked the youth’s hand away and pulled Li Na to his side: “What happened?”

“I saw that CD first, and he snatched it from my hand.” Li Na said angrily. This person was unreasonable. She was already holding on to the CD. How can he snatch it from her hands?

Feng Yu stretched out his hand towards that youth: “Give it back.”

The youth looked at Feng Yu and arrogantly said: “Brat, you know how much does a CD cost? This is imported. Do you even understand English? Do you even have a CD player? You people should go and buy those cassette tapes over there.”

Now in China, people were still listening to cassette tapes. Although CDs were already imported into China, very few people can afford. Just an original CD cost a few dozen RMB, not to mention CD players. This was many times more expensive than cassette tapes and cassette players. Many people cannot afford.

But Feng Yu was apparently not one of those that can’t afford. In Feng Yu’s bag, there was even a Discman.

Feng Yu slowly took out the bulky Discman from his bag. The Discman in that era was still not those small and slim types, where you can hang it on the waist or put in the pocket. This era, if you don’t have a bag, you can’t even bring it out!

Feng Yu held the Discman in his hand and used the same tone as the youth: “Brat, you know what is this? Discman, imported product. This is the latest and also the most expensive model my friend bought for me from the US! You have a CD player? Take it out and show me. You understand English? Do you even understand the lyrics?”

Both the youth and the store owner were shocked. They never expect this student to take out a CD player from his bag!

The youth was still in a daze with the CD in his hands. Feng Yu took out a 100 RMB note from his bag and gave it to the store owner: “Boss, I want that CD!”

The store owner immediately grabbed the CD from that youth and gave it to Feng Yu. This kid’s family was really wealthy. He even brings 100 RMB out. His family was not afraid of him losing the money? Also, he didn’t even ask for the price when he buys things!

The youth’s face became red with embarrassment and anger!

Feng Yu purposely shouted: “Later I will drive you to the town for some good food. There is a new Sichuan Restaurant. I heard that dinner would cost over a hundred RMB. Oh, do you take spicy food?”

That youth had wanted to get some thugs to beat up Feng Yu, but he changes his mind when he heard Feng Yu drove here.

To drive a car in this era, you must either bee someone powerful with authority, or someone wealthy. Regardless of whether Feng Yu had authority or money, the youth knew that he could not mess with Feng Yu. His father was only a clothing businessman.

The youth left the shop with his head bowed down. Feng Yu turned to Li Na with a triumphed expression. The words “look at how great I am, hurry up and praise me” was written all over his face!

Li Na smiled and shook her head. Feng Yu had really learned all the bad things from Wen Dongjun. Since when did he start to flaunt his wealth?

If Feng Yu knows what Li Na was thinking, he would scream innocent. Although he had flaunted his wealth, that was to send a message to that youth to not mess with him. This was to prevent more trouble arising from this conflict. This flaunting was different from Wen Dongjun’’s boastings!

“Brother, you do not want to choose any more cassette tapes and CDs from the box?” The store owner saw that Feng Yu was wealthy and wanted to recommend more products. This kid’s family must be wealthy, and this kid is a spendthrift. The store owner wants to grasp this opportunity to earn more.

“Forget it. Those are all punctured CD. Your connections are quite strong. All these are smuggled in?” Feng Yu asked smilingly.

In this era, because of the restriction on importation and the price of original cassette tapes and CD were too high, there was a market for these types of punctured tapes and CDs.

A punctured CD cost only a few RMB, and you can listen to at least one song in the CD. It was worth buying and was popular with people that can’t afford original CD.

The popularity of this illegal stuff continued until 1995. It was not because of China easing on the importation regulations, but it was the rise of piracy. A pirated CD or a pirated cassette tape cost less than 30% of the original. Some were even one-tenth of the original. This was even cheaper than punctured CD, and you still can listen to all the songs. Who would still buy these smuggled CDs?

You are able to find all sorts of pirated CDs, regardless whether it was Chinese or overseas’ songs. The sound quality was excellent, and it was cheap. It was also because of piracy CDs and cassette tapes, it spurred the rise of portable music players.

Punctured CDs were all originals, and because they had overproduced and the company could not lower the prices due to regulations, they can only destroy them. The CDs and cassette tapes had a hole drilled through them, and then businessmen imported these into China as plastic scraps. They then resell these punctured CD and cassette tapes to the audio cassette shops.

This was considered smuggling. That’s why Feng Yu was asking the owner.

The store owner laughed but did not explain much.

“Bro, you don’t like these punctured CDs and cassette tapes? I also have videos for rental. You want to take a look? All are the latest movies. I have domestic, Hong Kong, Taiwanese and even the US movies. You should have a video cassette player at home. Rent a few of these movies back to watch. It’s better than TV shows.”

The store owner could not sell his punctured CDs and tapes, so he tried to promote his video rental. Looking at Feng Yu, the owner does not want to return any change to him. He wants to make Feng Yu spend it all!

Feng Yu also does not like to watch the TV programs now. Why not rent a few videos back? He walked over and took a look at the titles. There were not only movies but also Hong Kong dramas like <The Deer and the Cauldron>. The whole set of that drama consists of 42 videotapes.

Li Na was still choosing the CDs, and Feng Yu was looking at the videotapes. He was not interested in most of them, and when he was about to pick some Hong Kong triads movies, the owner pulled him to aside and asked secretly asked: “Young man, do you want to go further in and pick? There are more interesting ones inside!”

Feng Yu blinked and saw the owner’s naughty smile. He immediately knew what videos the owner was talking about.

But Feng Yu still rejected the owner’s offer. He had Li Na by his side, and he can’t touch her. If he still watches these type of movies, he would go crazy!

Furthermore, if his sister found out about that videotape, his dad would come over and teach him a lesson with a feather duster!

Feng Yu was thinking this way in his heart, but his hand still reached out on its own.

“Feng Yu, are you done?”

Feng Yu immediately withdraw his hand and casually grab 2 videotapes along the way: “Yes, I’m coming over.”

Once out of the audio cassette shop, Feng Yu looked back at the shop. Hmmm, must remember this address……

Chapter 215 – Calling the shots

Feng Yu had just signed a sales contract on behalf of the motorcycle factory with the City.

Zhang Ruiqiang had proposed to increase the budget for the Police’s equipment and working conditions during the City government meeting. This proposal was welcomed by everybody.

Especially the Deputy Mayor who was overseeing the City’s law and order. If the city’s police can do their job more effectively, it would also be his credit.

But how are they going to improve the working conditions and equipment? Everyone had their own views. Someone wanted to build new Police stations or at least renovate the old buildings. The current buildings were too old, and it would affect the Police’s image.

Some suggested increasing the Police Officer’s salaries. This way, the integrity of the police force can be maintained and prevent complains from the public that the officers were giving tickets for their fines.

Zang Ruiqiang did offer a different opinion. He felt that the patrolling of the officers need to be changed for them to carry out their duties more effectively and this was critical. The officers were still using decades-old vehicles, and this was a risk to the officers’ safety!

Old patrolling vehicles could delay the officers from attending to scenes in time, and they could not chase after those criminals’ cars. These were the reasons given to support his suggestions.

Procure a batch of vehicles? Everybody at the meeting felt that this was not a good idea. Even if they purchase jeeps, it would not be cheap. Zhang Ruiqiang’s suggestion was to let every station to have at least a new vehicle, and this meant that they needed at least a few dozen vehicles. This would cost at least a few million RMB.

What? Motorcycles? Motorcycles are not cheap too. Are you thinking of buying Jialing 50? If the officers were to ride this model of bikes, they might as well stick to their current sidecar motorcycles. The old sidecar motorcycles were still faster than this model!

Zhang Ruiqiang continues to say that he had spoken to the Machinery Company about this and the shareholder had agreed to give Bing City a special price. 10,000 RMB per bike. If we purchase 100 bikes, the Machinery Company will give us 10 bikes as a gift!

When everyone heard this, they agreed. One motorcycle for only 9,000 RMB was really a good deal. With 110 bikes, they would be able to assign the bikes to all the stations in Bing City and still have a batch of bikes for their Traffic Police. This would significantly upgrade the City’s police presence.

When Feng Yu told the others about this special deal at the Machinery Company, Fu Guangzheng agreed without hesitations. His family had always given government entities preferential treatments back in Hong Kong. This way, they could prevent problems arising in future. Li Mingde had no reason to oppose this deal. He was still a government official and how can he go against the government?

After the sales contract had been signed and the City made the payments, Feng Yu delivered the 110 bikes to the respective police stations and the traffic police department.

All the officers were excited about the new motorcycles, and among them, the traffic officers rejoiced the most. Now let’s see who dares to speed or drive without licenses? In the past, we can’t catch you, now, let’s see how are you going to get away!

……

Feng Yu was sitting at Police Chief Chen’s office. Chief Chen was now the City’s Deputy Police Chief. During the crackdown, he was praised for his work by the Provincial Police Chief, and he was promoted. It was also because of this, Chief Chen became closer to Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, are you here for something?”

“Chief Chen, I had a good idea for the Provincial Police Chief to notice you more. You had helped me with the Song Laosi problems previously, and now I am here to return the favor.” Feng Yu said with a wide grin.

“Good idea? What is it?”

“Chief Chen, you are in-charge of the traffic police department, right? Do you have any connections in the City or Provincial’s TV station? Can you ask them to do a publicity campaign for the City’s Traffic Police?”

“It might be a be difficult with the Provincial TV station. But there should be no problems with the City’s TV station. The Tv station Chief was my classmate. But what Traffic Police publicity campaign are you talking about? This is the first time I heard of it.”

Chief Chen was puzzled. TV stations usually would show the significant events that happened in the City, or what the City leaders did, or some resident related programs. He had never heard of a TV station doing a publicity campaign for the Traffic Police. Furthermore, what’s there to promote for the Traffic Police?

Feng Yu spread the newspaper on the coffee table and pointed to a news article: “Chief Chen, look. This article is published after Lunar New Year. It states that there was an increase in unlicensed motorcycle riders in Bing City and the Traffic Police can’t do anything to them and let them be. Many traffic accidents had happened, and the culprits were never caught!”

But Feng Yu did not mention an essential element. All those motorcycles were Songjiang Motorcycles.

Chief Chen frowned. Feng Yu was here to mock him?

“Chief Chen, now the Traffic Police have just bought a new batch of motorcycles, and you think the officer on duty can catch up with the culprits with new bikes?”

“Absolutely no problems. If the officer still can’t catch up with the culprits, I will punish the team leader severely.”

“Look, only you, the City leaders and the Traffic Police Officers knew about this, but the residents do not know. Why not make film a TV episode to explain the past difficulties and tell the residents that this will not happen again. This will let Bing City’s residents understand our Traffic Police more and also scare those unlicensed riders. You can also show the leaders that you are doing your job.”

Feng Yu was eloquent, and he believed that Chief Chen would be persuaded.

Chief Chen’s eyes grew wide. Why didn’t he think of this earlier? He does not care about what the residents think. He only wants to get more exposures to the leaders.

“Eh, we should really do a program for the residents to see our changes. The city TV station is too small. I will think of a way to air it on the Provincial TV station!”

What’s the point of showing to the City Government leaders? It was more important for the Provincial leaders to see his capabilities. This campaign must be air on the Provincial TV station!”

……

In less than a week, Feng Yu saw the exclusive interview with Bing City’s Traffic Police on the Provincial TV station’s news. Chief Chen showed the Traffic Police’s new motorcycles in a Traffic Police Officer uniform.

This type of promotion was better than advertising on the Provincial TV station. There will definitely a large order coming in within 3 days.

Still, Feng Yu had looked down on the imitating skills of the local governments. The very next day, many cities government called and wanted to order Songjiang Motorcycles!

The following week, all the local governments in Longjiang had ordered motorcycles from Tai Hai Trading. The minimum number of bikes ordered was 30 units, and the highest number of bikes was 80 units.

These orders do not enjoy the same discount as Bing City. The price was 13,000 RMB per bike. What? You think it is expensive? You can check with the distributors in other provinces. The distributor prices they got were 15,000 RMB, and the minimum order was 100 units. I had already given you discounts.

You still feel that it is expensive? Then don’t buy! Our Songjiang bikes are very popular in China, and if you hesitate any longer, there will not be enough stocks.

Not only in Longjiang Province, but even the cities from the neighboring provinces also ordered motorcycles. When Wu Zhigang saw that week’s sales report, he smiled…..

Chapter 216 – From the big to small

Feng Yu was confident that the motorcycles sales would be more than 130,000 units this year. First, it was the advertisements. Second, it was this move.

In China, local governments like to compare, compete and copy from others. They did not care about the economic situation of their area. They would only think that you and I are Mayors. If you are driving an Audi, I cannot drive a Santana.

In the original history, China’s Traffic Police’s change of equipment happened at the end of this year. All the sidecar motorcycles were scrapped and changed to imported bikes. Once again, Feng Yu changed history in Bing City.

With Bing City as an example and the promotional campaign, the motorcycle sales increases. The sales for Longjiang and Lin Provinces increased, and most of the sales were for the government. Longjiang Province’s sales even exceeded Guangdong province.

This also spurred the distributors from the big provinces. They wanted to clinch the top provincial sales awards for this year as the rewards promised by Feng Yu was huge.

Regarding economy, average wages and population, Longjiang was ranked one of the lowest. Only the western provinces were ranked lower than Longjiang. Now, Longjiang province’s motorcycle sales were better than Guangdong? How can the distributors take it?

The distributors asked around and found out the reason for the sudden increase in Longjiang sales. It was because of the local governments. So, you think you are the only ones who knew how to do that? We can do that too!

The distributors start to pull out all the stops to convince their local traffic police department to purchase Songjiang Motorcycles. The more they sell, the more commission they will get. Even if they lower the selling price by a bit, they would be still getting more profits.

Looking at the distributors’ orders for the following month, Feng Yu laughed.

These were all capable people. Based on the sales figures for this month, it will be doubled of last month!

Also, not all governments had ordered the motorcycles. The coming two months will be the peak of the motorcycles sales. It might be possible for the total sales to be over 130,000 units before the year ends!

After 2000, there will be over 100 million motorcycles in China, and this figure does not include electric bikes. Although there were over a hundred motorcycle factories, most of the market share was occupied by only a few brands. The top-selling brand sold more than a million motorcycles and more than half of the motorcycle brands sold more than 200,000 bikes.

This year, Feng Yu estimates that Songjiang motorcycles would be China’s top 3 motorcycle brands. The top would still be Jialing. Their small cc bikes were still very popular in villages, and Honda would be in the second place. Honda was the most popular imported motorcycle brand in China.

Even though this was Songjiang Motorcycles’ first year and it got third place, Feng Yu was still not satisfied. He was to be first and force all foreign car brands out of China’s market! Feng Yu had ordered another 2 motorcycles production lines from Kirilenko. He wants to enter the 100cc motorcycle market.

100cc motorcycles were more fuel efficient than 125cc bikes, and the speed was not too slow either. It would fulfill the requirements of those that wanted to buy motorcycles. But Feng Yu decided to set up the two production lines in Jing Ling. Bing City was too out of place. Many distributors had complained about the transportation cost and time.

The only advantage of Bing City was that it was close to the Soviet Union and it was convenient to do trading. But Kirilenko only ordered 100 motorcycles from Feng Yu. It was because the Songjiang motorcycles were designed for the Chinese. The Soviets find that these bikes do not look nice.

Feng Yu used the equipment as an investment for the setting up of another motorcycle factory in Jing Ling City. This time, the city was determined to use cash to increase their investment proportionally. The City does not want to let Feng Yu dilute their shares.

Feng Yu also gave the motorcycle engineers a task. They can temporarily stop the R&D for the bigger cc bikes after the 150cc was completed. They must continue to develop smaller cc bikes.

Other than 125 cc, the motorcycle factory also had the technologies to manufacture 150 and 100cc bikes. Feng Yu said that he would produce the 100cc bikes later the year. There were no plans for the 150cc bikes as China still does not allow such bikes on the roads. After they are approved, the productions will start.

But the engineers do not understand why Feng Yu wants them to research on 75cc and 50cc bike engines. Other people start building bikes from small too big, but Feng Yu was the opposite. Feng Yu wants to make smaller bikes? That’s going backward.

Jialing 50 was selling well, and over 200,000 units were sold in a year. But can their profit match Songjiang motors?

They did not know that Feng Yu decided to introduce the under bones motorcycles and scooters. These will be Songjiang Motors next big thing.

Scooters were already introduced in Japan, but the response was not very good. In Japan, the public transportation infrastructure was excellent, and their car industry was well developed. These limited the growth of their motorcycle market.

The targeted market segment of scooters were the ladies. Women would be able to ride a scooter even when they are wearing skirts, and they were light too.

But in Japan, women had lower status and most of them do not work, and there was no need for them to ride scooters. Also in China, it was considered fortunate for a family to even own a motorcycle. Men would not want to buy these type of slow speed scooters. The only market that has some sales for scooters was Taiwan.

In China, temporary no one likes to ride scooters. In the market, there was only the standard and underbone bikes. But from 1993 onwards, scooters became immensely popular. Feng Yu does not want to wait until then to start developing.

Also, the techniques used for underbones and scooters can be used for electric bicycles. With only slight modifications to the technologies, they can start to manufacture electric bicycles.

After 1993, China would become the top country in the world for motorcycle sales. And from 2000 onwards, China became number one in the world for electric bicycle sales. With such a beautiful pie in front of Feng Yu, how can he give it up?

Feng Yu was even working with the Motor Factory now. He had hired the Motor Factory to develop high-powered lead-acid batteries and lithium-ion batteries.

The lead-acid battery will be the most widely used battery in the future, and it was mainly used for electric vehicles. Lithium-ion battery was used for electronics products like smartphones batteries.

The Motor Factory itself was researching and developing batteries. Even Feng Yu invested, the Motor Factory would not sell the patent to him, but Li Shiyou said that they can share the technology. Feng Yu was satisfied with this.

But Feng Yu felt it was a pity that the Motor Factory did not have plans to develop alkaline batteries. They felt that there will be no market for these small alkaline batteries and they had not enough engineers to work on that.

In another two years, home appliances, like TV, will be entering the remote-control era and there will be many electronic toys. Never mind. Feng Yu also can’t be doing every profitable business. He should also leave some for the others.

The motorcycles’ sales had opened up and the development plan for the next 10 years done, Feng Yu can concentrate on other things. He was worried about the bladeless fan sales the most.

It was not Summer yet, and the sales of the fans were not looking good for both the domestic and overseas market. Even the Fu family were worrying.

Chapter 217 – Xiao Feng is Giving Gifts Again

The bladeless fans’ commercial had been airing on CCTV for a month, but as it was not the right season yet, the sales had not picked up. Even though the temperature in southern provinces had risen, the consumers were turned off by the high price tags.

Feng Yu told those distributors that they had to use the safety features, hi-tech, health aspects as the selling point. They can also learn from the motorcycle sales which was to approach the government entities.

There was still electricity shortage in China, and even though most of the government offices were installed with air conditioners, they were not allowed to switch on. Only some of the top leaders get to enjoy air conditioners. The rest had to make do with fans.

This can also highlight another of the bladeless fans features. Low noise.

Without the rotating blades, there will not be too many noises, and the design of the fan was beautiful, and it would look good in offices.

The western provinces’ distributors main customers were the governments. There was a saying, the government of the most impoverished areas will still be rich.

It was reported more than once in the future years that the leaders of poor provinces and areas were still driving cars worth millions of RMB and had spent tens of millions to renovate their offices!

These monies came from relief funds, taxes and even donations. The money was never from the official’s own pocket, and they just spend on the things they want!

These officials also followed the latest trends like those movie stars. They wore branded watches, stylish leather shoes, belts, ties, etc. Their deeds were exposed in the future.

The bladeless fans were still cheaper than air conditioners, and it was still a hi-tech product. Feng Yu believed that there will be someone out there that likes it.

Because of this belief, Feng Yu decided to do an experiment in Bing City.

Zhang Ruiqiang was reading a file sent to him from the provincial government when his secretary knocked on the door with a panicking expression.

“Mayor Zhang, Feng Yu is here to send gifts again!”

“Stop him and don’t allow him to bring in the gift!”

“Zhang Ruiqiang almost jumped up with fright when he heard his secretary. Feng Yu had openly given him gifts using trial products as an excuse.

At first, he still thought that these were small gifts between friends and it was fine. But he soon found out that Feng Yu was using him.

He had been tricked by Feng Yu with Tai Hua Premium oil, wind and rain humidifiers and even Songjiang motorcycles. Feng Yu had wanted other regions to copy Bing City and order his bikes when he suggested to the city government to improve their Police equipment!

Zhang Ruiqiang also found out that whatever he used, his subordinates would also buy it. What’s this? Free advertisements for Feng Yu?

There were even rumors in the City Government that Zhang Ruiqiang had accepted money from Feng Yu for advertising his products. The Machinery Company’s restructuring and other state-owned enterprises had purchased Tai Hua Trading’s imported machines and technologies because Feng Yu had given Zhang Ruiqiang gifts.

Zhang Ruiqiang was furious. Even though he wants to get political achievements, he still felt that he was clean and everybody can see his capabilities. If not, he would also not be promoted to be the executive deputy mayor at this age. Luckily for him, the Provincial leaders trusted him, and even the Provincial Mayor chided Bing City’s mayor for allowing his men to spread rumors.

Zhang Ruiqiang was also warned to not receive any trial products from Feng Yu. He should not even use products produced by Feng Yu related companies! This was to curb any more rumors!

That’s the reason why Zhang Ruiqiang asked his secretary to stop Feng Yu from giving gifts. If Feng Yu came empty handed, he was more than willing to speak to him. This young man was very young but had great insights about the economy and was about to give him ideas on improving Bing City’s economic growth.

Feng Yu was carrying a big box, and along the way, many people had seen him. They were talking behind his back, but Feng Yu does not care. To Feng Yu, these people were only gossipmongers and do not work hard. These people would never do well.

The strong do not need to care about what the weak say about them!

But when Feng Yu was about to enter Zhang Ruiqiang’s office, he was stopped.

“Brother Zhao, it’s me, Feng Yu.” Feng Yu was puzzled. Although this was not Zhang Ruiqiang’s usual secretary, they had met several times. He should not be stopping him from entering.

“I know who are you. Leave the box outside, and you can enter.” Secretary Zhao blocked the door of the office. This was the leader’s instructions, and he must abide by it!

What? Cannot bring the box in?

Feng Yu helplessly leave the box outside and entered the room. All the leaders had the same office layout. Feng Yu also liked this layout, and he wanted to set up his office this way in future. But the outer office must have at least 10 secretaries!

Zhang Ruiqiang was relieved when he saw Feng Yu entering without any gift.

“Didn’t I told you not to bring anything when you come?”

“Mayor Zhang, how can you say this? I had taken a box of tea leaves from you the last time I visit, and now I am only returning the gift. Or, are you asking me to return the tea leaves?” Feng Yu complained.

Eh? Zhang Ruiqiang really does not want me to bring anything here. These were all samples and does not cost anything. He does not want?

“I had said many times. You openly bring your products here and what if other people see it? What will they think?” Zhang Ruiqiang angrily asked.

“So, you mean I secretly give it to you or sent to your home?”

“……” Zhang Ruiqiang really wants to spit at Feng Yu and shout at him! I will not accept any gifts!

“Mayor Zhang, you are educated, experienced and knows more than me. I just want your opinion on our company’s latest product, Bladeless fans. I will take it back when I leave.”

“Stop your nonsense. Later you will tell me that you had forgotten to take it with you and when my subordinates saw your products in my office, they will copy me and order your products for their offices. You want me to advertise again?” Zhang Ruiqiang said out Feng Yu’s intentions.

“Mayor Zhang, you are wrong. Look at the humidifiers. Don’t you enjoy using the humidifier? Aren’t you concentrating better and more efficient when you use the humidifier? Furthermore, the City’s number 1 and 2 and even the leaders from the provincial government had bought my products. These prove that my products are well designed and suit the consumers. It had nothing to do with you.”

“Then what did you bring along this time?” Zhang Ruiqqiang knew that he can never win Feng Yu with words. He had decided that no matter what Feng Yu said, he will tell him that he has it and he does not need any sample or trial product!

“Didn’t I mention earlier? Bladeless fans. It’s fans without the wind blades. New, hi-tech and patented product……” Feng Yu starts to introduce his fan without stopping.

No matter what Feng Yu said, Zhang Ruiqiang refuse to accept the fan. He doesn’t even allow Feng Yu to leave the fan outside for display!

After an hour, Feng Yu left with the box. But Zhang Ruiqiang still did not know that for the past one hour, many people passed by his office and had noticed the box. Especially the words “Wind and Rain Bladeless Fan” on the box……

Chapter 218 – Brother Ki is here again

Kirilenko had called to inform that the technology which the Motor Factory wanted was ready and he will be bringing the information over personally.

Kirilenko coming over for this measly sum? Stop joking. It might be possible 2 years ago. The Kirilenko now was already a successful businessman. Would he care about this small amount?

Although the information was not cheap Kirilenko’s cost was high, and his profits were only a few hundred thousand Rubles. Feng Yu could guess the purpose of his visit. He should be coming over to discuss the Soviet Union political affairs.

Feng Yu had told him his predictions, and the predictions slowly became true. For example, President Mikhail Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Lithuania’s independence, and the relationship between both Germany. Talks had begun between both Germany and unification should happen before the end of the year.

Kirilenko’s father Senchenko had secretly pledged his loyalty to Yeltsin. He was a Logistics Officer in the Army and could provide Yeltsin lots of support. For instance, he could decide the number of supplies which troops receive. He could even stop the supplies to certain forces. This significantly affects the military power between both factions.

His father had made his decision, and the rest was up to Yeltsin. Kirilenko also wanted to speak to Feng Yu and seek his views.

Feng Yu was a businessman, and Kirilenko was his trading partner. If Kirilenko’s family rose in status and had more authority in the Soviet Union, Feng Yu’s trading business would become better. Because of this reason, Kirilenko and his father knew that they and Feng Yu shared the same interest.

Kirilenko now regrets that he had introduced the other Soviet Union 2nd generations to Feng Yu. If his family failed, Feng Yu could still work with the other 2nd generations. After all, Feng Yu could pay in full for every trade, and this was better than the 2nd generations other partners.

Feng Yu had the upper hand, and the consequences were small if he were to ditch Kirilenko.

Kirilenko coming over to find Feng Yu was not only to listen to Feng Yu’s analysis of the Soviet Union’s affairs and also to foster a closer friendship.

……

Feng Yu was standing outside the airport and saw Kirilenko waving to him. Kirilenko had brought along a follower, and he was carrying 4 large luggage behind him.

Almost all the luggage contains the technical information and their personal belongings only take up half luggage.

After a warm hug, Feng Yu hurriedly push Kirilenko away. This guy’s strength was no joke. He could strangle someone with his embrace.

“Brother Ki, let’s send the information to the customer, and we can have a chat later.”

“Of course. But tonight, you must drink with me. Ask Li along.” Kirilenko only knew two people in Bing City and the second person was Li Shiqiang.

“Brother Ki, my brother-in-law is not free. My sister will be giving birth anytime this week, so……”

“Ah…… Congratulations. It’s fine then. I had brought some gifts for him too. Tomorrow let’s visit your sister at the hospital.”

Soviets love to receive and give gifts. Kirilenko was here to foster friendships, and he did not come empty-handed. He knew that Li Shiqiang was Feng Yu’s brother-in-law and if he could form a close relationship with Li Shiqiang, Li Shiqiang could help him if needed.

……

The Motor Factory’s chief engineer and his staffs were going through the information. They were mainly checking if there were any missing information. They were not worried if the information was false. Feng Yu had promised them that he would compensate them double the amount if the data were fake.

Feng Yu believed that Kirilenko would not cheat him because of such measly sum. This would cause discord between them and would affect their future business deals. Li Shiyou also trusted Feng Yu would not cheat him. He was not someone to mess with.

The documents were checked, and some minor details could not be verified. It still requires some time.

“Manager Feng, the documents are all here. We will sign off and notify the bank to transfer you the payment. You said that there will be experts from the Soviet Union. Where are they? With only these information, it will be tough for us to digest it.”

“The experts will be arriving next week. They will be coming in as a group. Some of them are for your factory, Aviation Factory, Machinery Company, Beer factory, etc. I will send them over.”

Feng Yu was satisfied. He had successfully recruited more Soviet experts. The experts had over 20 years of experience, and they were worth a lot of money. If Feng Yu was evil, he could sign an employment contract with these experts and charged the factories consultation fees for their services.

But Feng Yu was not interested in earning this small amount of money. He rather let those factories owe him favors. In this era, favors were worth much more than money.

After refusing Li Shiyou’s invitation to dinner politely, Feng Yu sent Kirilenko to the International Hotel.

In the past, the International Hotel’s Manager Yu Chunyuan had chased Feng Yu away from the hotel because Feng Yu was exchanging foreign currencies there. But 2 years later, Feng Yu was a big boss, and Yu Chunyuan came out to the driveway and opened his car door personally.

He had witnessed the Feng’s family connections during Feng Yu’s sister wedding. Yu Chunyuan was only a small manager at a State-owned hotel and couldn’t even be compared to the guests invited by Feng Yu.

Feng Yu had asked his staff to call the hotel beforehand, and Yu Chunyuan had made arrangements for the room and restaurant’s reservations.

Although there were only 2 people for dinner, Yu Chunyuan prepared a private room. He knew that Feng Yu would not order lesser dishes than other private rooms.

After some wine, Kirilenko asked softly: “Feng, my father is now under Yeltsin. Are you sure this will be an opportunity?”

Feng Yu smiled: “Brother Ki, you have already decided to believe me and why are you still asking? But I still need to remind you that Yeltsin might be assassinated and if he dies, it will not be a good thing for your father.”

“Assassination?” Kirilenko was shocked. Feng Yu had never told him about this. Could it be that someone wants to start a military coup?

If someone were to start a military coup, the one being assassinated should be President Mikhail Gorbachev. Why was Yeltsin being targeted?

Thinking about this, Kirilenko broke out in cold sweat. If it was as what Feng Yu had said, his father had joined Yeltsin’s faction and temporarily no one knew about this. But sooner or later, people would find out. If Yeltsin were killed, then his father would be in deep trouble!

“Brother Ki, Calm down. Yeltsin should be aware of this. He should not be in any danger if he takes precautions. Your father is in charge of the logistics, and if he provides more supplies to Yeltsin’s faction, it will be the best support for him. Once Yeltsin came into power, your father will be rewarded.”

In history, the opposition parties do not agree to assassinate Yeltsin and only agree to put him under house arrest. This was also the reason why Yeltsin became successful in controlling Russia and also receive over 90% of the Soviet Union’s overseas assets. This resulted in Russia continues to be one of the strongest nations in the world!

Kirilenko thought for a while and asked: “Feng, you have lots of ideas. Which path should I take for my future development?”

Chapter 219 – Brother Ki’s future business

Feng Yu was feeling weird when Kirilenko asked him this question. He knew Kirilenko well. Kirilenko was not a decisive person, but he had his own future goals. Feng Yu did not expect that Kirilenko would seek his advice.

Feng Yu was glad to offer Kirilenko advice or even be his mentor. Just don’t blame him when something happens.

“Brother Ki, didn’t you mention that you do not want to be a politician and does not want to be in the military? You should continue to be a businessman.”

“I will definitely be doing business and earning money. Being a soldier was too tough, and politics are boring. I still like my current lifestyle. But didn’t you say that the Soviet Union will disintegrate? If what you said was true, then our business will be greatly affected.”

Feng Yu understand that Kirilenko was scared of the current political situation. Kirilenko’s biggest income now was from the sales of industrial machinery and technologies. Once the Soviet Union was disintegrated, then the countries would need to build up their industries, and it would not be easy for him to get those machines and technologies.

Although he can still trade with China, the income cannot be compared to the machines and technologies sales. His income would drop from a few million Rubles to slightly over a million every month. The difference was too big.

“Brother Ki, remember I had told you before? Now it is the time for you to accumulate your wealth. The disintegration of the Soviet Union will take place at least 1 year from now. Your best bet now is to buy minerals. For instance, iron ores, crude oil, rare metals, etc. Any developing country needs these natural resources, and as technology evolves, the demand for these resources would be greater. You might even be one of the richest men in the world.”

Many mining barons were appearing before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and these people all had close relationships with the military or politicians. They made use of their connections to buy those state-owned mines from the government at low prices.

The value of those minerals rose after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Every one of them became wealthy, but later, they were taken care of by Putin.

“Buy minerals? You sure this will make money in future? But even if it can make money, the price of mine is not low. Coal mines are still fine, but iron mines or crude oil are very expensive.”

Feng Yu said mysteriously: “What if the prices of crude oil prices plummet early next year?”

“What? Oil prices will fall? How can it be? Crude oil is the most important natural resources, and now Iraq owes a lot of debt. It is said that Iraq will be lowering the supply of crude oil with Kuwait to increase the oil prices.”

Feng Yu couldn’t help but think highly of Kirilenko. He never expects Kirilenko to know all these. Looking at Feng Yu’s surprised look, Kirilenko felt proud.

“Early next year. Oil prices will drop drastically, and it will be a good chance for us. If you trust me, then trade oil futures with me. I guaranteed that we will get several folds profits within a month!”

“Several folds profits in a month? How can it be possible?” Kirilenko could not believe what Feng Yu had said. Even if he uses leverage, the profits could not reach several folds. Unless the oil prices drop by more than 10%.

International oil prices were starting to increase slowly. Even the Soviet Union economist forecast the oil prices would reach 30 USD a barrel. Yet Feng Yu says that oil prices will fall?

“Fine, Brother Ki. If you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can do. I can teach you another trick. What determines how much ores are left in a mine? Technology? Wrong! It’s humans! You can buy those mines with depleting minerals but you are lucky, and the mine turns out to be full of minerals later!”

Kirilenko slapped his thighs. How come he did not think of this? If he were to buy a depleted mine, it would not cost much. He was also familiar with asking people to change data.

“Then do we still continue to trade industrial machinery?”

“Normal Soviet Union’s machinery was not selling well in China, and conventional industrial technologies were no longer popular. Remember the business I mentioned to you?”

Kirilenko’s eyes widen: “You want me to sell arms?”

He had thought of this before. If he were to sell firearms, he would be more advantageous than others. His father oversaw military supplies, and those military factories were like his own backyard. He could enter freely.

After Feng Yu had mentioned to him about this previously, he also asked around. A few 2nd generation fellows were doing this business. Those fellows dare to do this was because their families gave them permission. Since others are already doing it, why not him?

But his father was supporting Yeltsin now, and he got to arm Yeltsin’s armies. Even if he wants to sell firearms, he could not hinder his father’s opportunity to promote.

As long as his father gets promoted, his status would not be the same. But if his father fails, no matter how rich he was, he could only be a wealthy businessman. If he was unlucky, he might not even be a millionaire and have to hide in West Europe.

Feng Yu waved his hands to calm Kirilenko down.

“Brother Ki, military products do not necessary means firearms. It can also be something else. I am referring to military-related products. For example, I know your country has an aircraft manufacturing plant which produces many aircraft. It is a military installation, but there is an overproduction of aircraft. China’s aviation industry is also developing rapidly and needs some passenger planes. You understand now?”

“You want me to sell you those military passenger aircraft as civilian aircraft?”

Feng Yu nodded and said: “That’s right, many products from military factories can be used for civilian purposes. You can use this as a test and see if the higher-ups are strict about this. If it is strict, you are only trying to sell some passenger planes. What can they do to you? If it is not strict, then you can even sell me missiles like fireworks!”

Ah~~~~

Kirilenko drew in a deep breath.

Sell missiles as fireworks?

It was not Feng Yu talking nonsense. In his previous life, there were indeed crazy Soviets selling missiles as fireworks.

Bullets were sold as copper scraps and guns were scrap metal. These were sold by weight. Missiles and landmines were sold as industrial explosives, and Feng Yu read on the internet that someone claims that his leader had asked him to label missiles as fireworks and export overseas.

The Soviet Union’s tanks had the barrels removes and sold as tractor crawlers. China had also bought some to dismantle and study the interior components.

These people did crazy things for money. Feng Yu asked Kirilenko to start by selling aircraft, and it was the same as his previous life.

Canned foods exchanging for an aircraft was real.

An aircraft full of canned foods can be exchanged for 4 big passenger planes, but the aircraft with the canned foods was worth only one passenger plane.

If other people could do this, why not Feng Yu, especially with his relationship with Kirilenko.

Of course, Feng Yu was targeting not only 4 passenger planes. Since he was going to do this, he wants to do something big. A big passenger aircraft. This was something China needs.

In China, many airlines were being set up, and there was a demand for big passenger aircraft for international flights. Feng Yu was confident that he could sell at least more than 5 planes to Sichuan Airlines alone. Bing City, Yang City, and Shanghai also needed big passenger aircraft.

Feng Yu believed that if his planes were priced low, he would be able to compete with those European aircraft manufacturers. Feng Yu does not only want to buy aircraft. He wants to get the technologies and production lines……

Chapter 220 – Getting loans with Brother Ki’s help

Kirilenko looked down and was deep in thoughts. He drank 2 cups of Baijiu.

When he looks up, booth his eyes were red, and it was not sure if it was because of the alcohol, or he was excited.

“Feng, I will help you contact the aircraft manufacturer when I return to the Soviet Union. How many planes do you need?”

Feng Yu happily nodded: “As many as you can get!”

This type of military passenger planes only need some modifications to convert it into commercial passenger planes. Even if Feng Yu did not modify the aircraft, the aircraft could also be sold to China’s army as military cargo planes.

As for sales channels, the Aviation Factory was a military aircraft manufacturer. Now the factory was only manufacturing small aircraft and helicopters. The manufacturing of big aircraft was shifted to Shen City’s Aviation factory.

But no matter what, the Aviation Factory still have the connections. If Feng Yu could get the aircraft, he could give Aviation Factory a small cut and Hou Haitao would help him contact the military to buy it. It will also be much cheaper than manufacturing themselves.

Although China’s economic growth was fast, the air force and navy were still lacking. It was because of the lack of technology. The developed countries did not sell equipment to China as Chinese engineers were experts in reverse engineering. If they sell China two aircraft, China would be manufacturing their own after some time.

After some modifications and a fresh coat of paint, and it will be China’s own aircraft model.

If Kirilenko were able to get the manufacturing technologies, Hou Haitao would be worshipping Feng Yu as if he was a god. The Aviation Factory might even buy the technologies and aircraft to dismantle themselves.

But these aircraft will not be as cheap as Feng Yu’s previous life. Kirilenko knew Feng Yu well and understands China’s economic situation better than those military officers in Feng Yu’s former life. He also knew Feng Yu’s buying power.

“Feng, even if the aircraft were selling cheap, the prices will still not be low. You have enough funds?”

If Kirilenko were able to get many aircraft, Feng Yu would not have sufficient funds to pay him.

Although the share prices were rising and there were talks that the stock exchange will be opening, the share prices will not rise sharply. Feng Yu would never sell his shares now.

Feng Yu would at least wait until next year before he would start to consider selling the shares and investing the profits in other areas.

Feng Yu had already thought of a way to get the money for buying the aircraft. He can get loans. He could not get any more loans in China and Hong Kong, but he could still get loans from the Soviet Union.

He can use all his assets like the Machinery Company’s shares, Tai Hua Trading and Tai Hua Home appliances factory shares to get loans. With Kirilenko around, there should be no problems.

Feng Yu raises his glass and cheers with Kirilenko. Kirilenko finished the glass in one gulp, and Feng Yu only took a small sip.

“Brother Ki, I do not have sufficient funds, but I intend to get a loan from the Soviet Union. Can you introduce me to someone?”

“Loan? No problems. I know a few Bank managers in Moscow!” Kirilenko said proudly.

Feng Yu shook his head: “Brother Ki, I do not want to get loans from Moscow.”

“Why?” Kirilenko was puzzled.

Why? If you know that I will be cheating the bank using the loan, you will hate me forever if I get the loan in Moscow.

“Brother Ki, I cannot explain to you now. Can you help me get loans from Belarus, Ukraine or other Soviet Union countries banks? I have assets as collaterals, but I need your help to evaluate my assets higher.”

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, all the allied countries would become competitors. If Kirilenko found out that Feng Yu had cheated the banks from other countries, he would be clapping his hands with joy.

“This should not be a problem either. I know some people from the allied countries too.” Kirilenko said proudly. His China’s commodities were not only selling around Moscow. The big cities in allied countries were also his market. This was the reason why he had worked with so many 2nd generations.

“Oh, how much loans do you intend to get?” Kirilenko asked casually.

“Can I get 100 million Rubles?” Feng Yu asked.

“How much? 100 million? You have so many assets to act as collaterals?” Kirilenko stood up from the shocked. He thought Feng Yu only wanted to get a loan of 20 or 30 million Rubles. 100 million Rubles loan? Is he crazy?

Feng Yu smiled and replied: “I do not have so many assets that’s why I need your help. I think you should also get a loan before the end of the year. There will be a great opportunity early next year.”

Good opportunity? Oil futures? You are betting that the oil prices will fall?

Kirilenko was persuading himself to trust Feng Yu. After all, Feng Yu had created so many miracles, but it was impossible for crude oil prices to fall!

This was not about any single country. This will affect the world’s economy!

Kirilenko does not want to get a loan with Feng Yu to bet on futures. There’s still leverage too. If something happens, he might lose every single cent!

“How much is your assets worth based on China’s appraisal?” Kirilenko asked.

Feng Yu counted with his fingers: “Let me count, Tai Hua Trading, Home appliances factory. Machinery Company and other shares that I owned, should be about 30 million Rubles. If I take the growth into consideration, it should be about 40 million Rubles.”

Kirilenko was shocked. This was the kid who stood outside the hotel to change Rubles illegally, and now he has so many assets?

Kirilenko can’t help but ask: “Feng, did you make a lot from the industrial machinery and technologies I sold to you?”

Kirilenko felt that he was making a loss. Although he had made quite significant profits when he sold these machines to Feng Yu but compared to Feng Yu, his earnings were nothing.

“No, no, no. Brother Ki, you misunderstood me. I can guarantee that I did not make more than you for the machines and technologies. But I had kept a lot of those machines and technologies for myself.  For example, the agriculture machines production lines, the oil press, animal feed machines, motorcycle production lines. My company’s humidifiers are selling all over the world, and it had brought my company over 10 million Rubles in profits. There should be more this year!”

There were indeed almost 10 million Rubles in profits from the humidifiers, but the profits got to be split between the Fu family, Motor Factory and the Aviation Factory. Feng Yu’s profits were not so high. Feng Yu’s most significant profit from a single deal was the high powered electric furnace he sold to the Aviation Factory!

Feng Yu’s explanation calmed Kirilenko down, and he felt better. But he still thought that the loan amount was a bit too high. Using 40 million Rubles worth of assets to get a 100 million Rubles loan?

Feng Yu could tell that Kirilenko was not willing to help him and he thought for a while and said: “Brother Ki if you help me get the loan, I will give you 5 million Rubles worth of goods!”

Kirilenko’s eye sparkled, and he looked at Feng Yu. This was also considered helping a friend out. Anyway, it’s the banks that will be giving out the loan and not him. That’ss right. I am helping my Chinese friend.

“Deal!”

Chapter 221 – Uncle

The next day, Feng Yu brought Brother Ki to the hospital to visit his sister. Kirilenko had still prepared gifts, but when Feng Yu saw the gifts he prepared, he covered his face with his palm.

Kirilenko had prepared cigarettes and liquor from the Soviet Union. He had heard from others that it was China’s traditions to give these as gifts. But Li Shiqiang had quit smoking since his wife got pregnant and he seldom drinks now. The gifts prepared for Feng Danying was a red fox fur. He heard that Chinese women like fur products but he did not know that it was not auspicious to give these to pregnant women!

Luckily Li Shiqiang and Feng Danying accepted his gifts as they know that Kirilenko had given them these gifts because he was not sure of the Chinese taboos. Kirilenko was a bit disappointed that Li Shiqiang could not drink with him this time, but fortunately, their friendship remains.

Many people at the hospital saw Kirilenko giving gifts to Feng Danying. In China, foreigners attracted lots of attention, and those people were trying to find out about that pregnant woman’s family. How come even a foreigner visited her and still brought gifts. Her family must be some officials. So, foreigners also give gifts when doing business. This was the same as China!

……

A few days later, Feng Danying was in labor in the delivery room. Li Shiqiang paced up and down along the corridor outside the delivery room. His parents were also there with Feng Yu’s parents. Feng Xingtai didn’t even scold Feng Yu when he saw him skipping school to be at the hospital.

About an hour later, a nurse came out to notify them that the delivery was a success. Both the mother and child were safe, and it was a boy!

Li’s parents jumped up with joy. They wanted a boy. If it was a girl, they also could not show their disappointment in front of their in-laws. Anyway, their wish had come true.

Before the child was born, Li’s parents had prepared a few names. Feng Xingtai had wanted to name his grandchild, but Feng Yu stopped him.

Stop joking. His brother-in-law could not even name his own child, and you still want to name him? This child’s surname is Li.

Feng Xingtai got angry and scolded Feng Yu. Look at your classmates. Their children can even say grandpa now. What about you?

Feng Yu: “……”

Who was the one who said that he must attend university? If I am like them, you will get mad at me!

Li’s parents had checked the dictionary, consult fortune tellers and a Chinese literature professor before deciding on the name, Li Chixing. It meant the unity of knowledge and behavior.

Feng Yu wanted to tell them that it would be troublesome for the child if there were different pronunciations for the characters. But he had no say in this matter.

That day, Li Shiqiang’s father and Feng Xingtaii got drunk. The education level, jobs, and environment of these two were very different, but they were able to chat happily. It was because they only talk about their son, daughter, and grandson.

Li Shiqiang’s mother took the opportunity to suggest Feng Danying quit her job. Anyway, they do not lack money and wasn’t it better for Feng Danying to stay at home to take care of her son?

Feng Xingtai and his wife also supported this idea. All of them still have the old mindset where women had to stay at home and take care of children while men got to work. Many years back, the Feng family was also like this.

Feng Yu does not like this way of thinking. He had spoken to his sister and his sister like her job as a nurse. She said that she felt good when she saw patients recovering well.

His Sister had told his brother-in-law about this, but Li Shiqiang was still at the hospital accompanying Feng Danying. Feng Yu could only bite the bullet and expressed his sister’s thoughts.

“Dad, Mum, I think Sis can go back to work after her maternity leave. Her maternity leave can be longer, and she can go back to work when her son is older. Brother-in-law had said that he would set up a hospital for sis next year.”

Feng Xingtai gave Feng Yu a stare. He felt that it was too tiring for his daughter to work and it will be better for her to relax at home and look after her son.

Li’s parents were feeling a bit embarrassed. If Feng Yu were an average kid, they would insist on their daughter-in-law to quit her job. But the Li family’s wealth today was all because of Feng Yu.

They were also not sure when it started, but they felt that the Feng family were more capable than them.

They naturally would not look at Feng Yu like any other normal kid. They respect Feng Yu’s opinions, and they wonder if Feng Yu had discussed with his sister about this matter before.

“Xiao Yu, it will be tiring to run a hospital. Why not wait until her child enters kindergarten, and then we discuss this?” Li’s mother said. But this time, her tone was not as firm as before.

Feng Yu shook his head. Wait until the child enters kindergarten? Then at that time, you will say wait until the kid enters primary school. After primary school, you will say wait until university. This will be dragging forever, and until then, Sis will be too old to do anything!

“Auntie, didn’t you work when Brother Li was young? Look at Brother Li, tall and fit, and he is also very successful now. We can hire someone to look after the child and Sis can look after the child after she finishes work.”

Feng Yu was implying that Li Shiqiang’s parents were both working in the past and his grandmother had to look after him. Why can’t they do the same thing now? Their financial situation then cannot be compared to now. With Li family’s current situation, they can easily afford to hire a nanny to look after the child.

Li Shiqiang’s father said after keeping quiet for a sometimes: “Let’s wait until the child is slightly older and ask Shiqiang and Danying’s opinion.”

When they step out of Li family’s house, Feng Xingtai angrily asked Feng Yu: “Xiao Yu, why do you insist your sister to go back to work? Set up a hospital? What hospital are you talking about?”

“Dad, everyone has their dreams. Sister’s dream is to set up a hospital. We have the conditions now, why not help her fulfill her dreams? Furthermore, staying at home looking after her child is too boring! Auntie is also reaching her retirement age soon. Why not ask her to apply for early retirement and look after the child. You can ask mum, is looking after children a tiring task?”

Zhang Muhua nodded: “Xiao Yu is right. Even if our daughter is married into the Li Family, she should also not follow whatever they say. Last time, you were working in the fields, and I had to look after the both of them. Do you know how tiring it is?”

Feng Yu’s parents stayed at Li Shiqiang’s apartment while Feng Yu return to his apartment next door. When he opened the door, he saw Wen Dongjun sitting in front of the TV watching some videos with a tin of biscuits. On the floor, there were lots of biscuits crumbs!

“This is your dinner? I thought you said that you are eating in school?”

“The school canteen’s food is terrible. I should have gone to Brother Li’s house for dinner. What did you all eat just now?” Wen Dongjun asked while stuffing his face with biscuits.

Feng Yu replied: “Nothing much. We only had Dongpo Pork Trotters, Braised carp, Chicken, and mushroom Stew……”

Wen Dongjun angrily stuffs 2 pieces of biscuits into his mouth: “There is so many good foods, why didn’t you bring back some for me?”

He was shouting, and biscuit crumbs were flying out of his mouth!

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. Damn, you think I am eating at a restaurant?

“Eh, your sister’s child is a boy or girl? Cute?”

“It’s a boy. But he is nowhere near cute.”

Feng Yu did not have any children in his previous life, and when his nephew was born, he rushed in front to carry him. He thought that his nephew would be like the cute babies he saw on TV, but……

Newborn babies look worse than monkeys!

From today onwards, Feng Yu became an uncle.

Translator notes: Hahaha, monkeys… I agree with the author.

Chapter 222 – Concerns of Zhang Ruiqiang

The secretary told Zhang Ruiqiang that Feng Yu was here again and Zhang Ruiqiang was furious. He did not accept Feng Yu’s “trial products” previously but why were there government agencies buying the bladeless fans?

He instructed his men to find out the reasons, and he did not know whether to laugh or cry from the results. His subordinates said someone saw the bladeless fan boxes outside his office and thought that it was a hint for them to order the fans!

Since Zhang Ruiqiang was currently the Mayor’s favorite and Bing city’s number 2 man, and he had given such oblivious hint, they had to express their support.

Although the weather in Bing City was not hot yet, they can prepare for the future. At the same time, they can also show Zhang Ruiqiang their support. Anyway, they were not spending their own money. It’s the government money, and they would not feel the pinch!

There was all sort of reasons for the procurement of the bladeless fans. For instance, the Technology department used “studying the scientific principle” behind the bladeless fan. This was for the technology development of Bing City.

The Agriculture Department’s reason was more extreme. They claimed that they were researching on natural wind pollination and bladeless fan wind was the closest to natural wind. So, even if it was for experimental purposes, there was no need to get 10 units.

The Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau used “cooling animal cubs” as an excuse. Sooner or later, the cubs will be freeze to death!

……

Once again Zhang Ruiqiang found out that he was used by Feng Yu. Even he did not accept Feng Yu’s gifts, his men will still buy whatever products Feng Yu brought to his office!

If it were a 30 to 50 RMB electric fan, Zhang Ruiqiang would not mind approving these procurement applications.

But these bladeless fans were selling at 588 RMB a unit! This was only an electric fan, and it’s not made of gold!

He had asked Feng Yu to come to his office, and on the phone, he emphasized that Feng Yu must not and cannot bring anything with him. Not even a peanut!

Feng Yu was leisurely whistling on his way to Zhang Ruiqiang’s office. Since Bladeless fans can be sold in Bing City, a rural city near the borders, then it should not be a problem for other cities.

Chinese likes to imitate and compare. You have something new in your house, and our financial conditions are about the same, then I must get it too. You buy a new color TV? Then I must get one too. You have a new fridge? I must also get one. My fridge must be the same as or better than yours!

With Bing city as an example, other cities’ government agencies in the province will follow when they know about this. Many government officials will get the bladeless fans for their departments and their home.

The bladeless fans were expensive? But they just need to send in the request, and the government will pay for everything!

Zhang Ruiqiang was staring at Feng Yu furiously when he enters the office. Feng Yu said with an innocent expression: “Mayor Zhang, why are you staring at me?”

Zhang Ruiqiang points at Feng Yu and sighed: “Feng Yu, your company is not small, and in Bing City and even the Longjiang province, your company is the most successful private company. Just concentrate on your business and sell your products. Why are you advertising your products at my office?”

Feng Yu replied with a “distraught” tone: “Mayor Zhang, you are accusing me. Look, last year, the city had rejected many requests for air conditioners. This year, many agencies had reported that their work performance was affected during summer. There were even some older officials got heat stroke last year and requested for the city to grant them the budget to cool down their office.”

“You do the calculations. An air conditioner unit, including installations, will need at least 10,000 RMB. The electrical bills every month will not be a small amount too. Our Bing City have so many factories, and they are using lots of electricity. Even the provincial government is limiting the use of electricity, not to say other government departments. My bladeless fan is Tai Hua Trading’s flagship product. Safe, energy efficient, healthy, low noise, hi-tech, beautiful and cheap. I want to give you a sample to try it out, but you don’t now want. I had brought back the fans previously. How can you say that I am advertising my products at your office?”

Zhang Ruiqiang was speechless. A 600 RMB fan is considered cheap? This time, he could not blame Feng Yu. It was his men that misunderstood. But it was Feng Yu who caused this as he had brought every new product to his office previously.

“Fine, it is just an electrical fan. You are claiming that it is better than an air conditioner unit! I heard that you had set up a factory in Guangdong province to manufacture humidifiers and bladeless fans?”

“Yes. This way, it is easier for me to distribute my products overseas and the southern provinces.”

“What is the contract conditions? The taxes are going to Guangdong provincial government?” This was what Zhang Ruiqiang wanted to find out.

Tai Hua Trading’s ability to make money was proven, and it was Bing City’s most profitable private company.  Zhang Ruiqiang would be pissed if the taxes went to the Guangdong province.

“Mayor Zhang, don’t worry. That side is only doing the production, and the sales will still be going through Tai Hua Trading’s account. Most of the taxes will still be going to Bing City Government. Our production increases and the sales will increase too. This year’s taxes will be more than previous years.”

Zhang Ruiqiang nodded and asked: “I heard that the Machinery Company will be setting the second motorcycle factory in Jinlin?”

Zhang Ruiqiang was worried, If Feng Yu kept setting up factories in other provinces, will he shift all his assets in Bing City to other regions? Bing City’s geographical location was not ideal. If Bing City were located in the center of China like Jinlin province, the economic growth would be faster.

“In future, we will set up more factories. The factory in Jinlin is only the start. We planned to increase the motorcycle production to 1 million units within 5 years and 2 million within 10 years. Bing City is only this big. It will be impossible to set up all the factories here.”

Zhang Ruiqiang had a headache. He should be happy when the Machinery Company was doing well, but the city government shares will be diluted if they didn’t invest more money when a new factory was set up.

Bing City was no longer the major shareholder of the Machinery Company, and they still need to invest more money into the company. The other state-owned companies will not be happy. He was not worried that Feng Yu would slowly take over all the Machinery Company and turn it into a fully privatized company!

People would blame him for giving the Machinery Company to the Feng family!

“Feng Yu, tell me honestly. Are you trying to privatize the Machinery Company?”

“How can it be? Even if I want to buy over the company, the City will not sell.”

Feng Yu had thought of this before. In future, Bing City Beer was bought over by a foreign company, and this had caused resentment among the Chinese.

Feng Yu does not need to fully privatize the company. He only wants the controlling shares. He does not mind letting the City have some of the company’s shares.

Anyway, with the controlling shares, the City Government could not hinder the Machinery Company’s operations, and Feng Yu could still have a good relationship with the government and Zhang Ruiqiang.

Zhang Ruiqiang got the answer from Feng Yu, and the both of them discussed some Machinery Company’s matters, and Feng Yu left.

Zhang Ruiqiang was standing at the window looking at Feng Yu leaving. He was thinking of many things. Can this Feng Yu change the whole city?

Feng Yu was preparing for his exams when Wu Zhigang paged him. Kameda was here again!

Chapter 223 – Kameda looking for a job

Kameda Masao was here again. Feng Yu was curious why the Black Dragon Co., Ltd. was not bankrupt yet.

Since last year, the Japanese government issued many measures to try to save their economy, but none of them were effective. Share prices kept dropping, and Japanese Yen continued to appreciate. Property prices plummeted. Those that speculated on shares and properties lost their money, and Feng Yu heard that many Japanese choose to hara-kiri (killing oneself by cutting own’s belly)!

When Feng Yu saw Kameda Masao, he noticed the changes. It hadn’t been a long time since they last met and Kameda aged a lot. He had lots of white hair for his age.

“Kameda, Long time no see. What brings you here today?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

Feng Yu could guess the few possibilities why Kameda Masao came to look for him. Maybe the Black Dragon Co. Ltd. wants to do business with Tai Hua Trading because of the bladeless fans.

But this bladeless fan was different from the humidifiers. Japan also needed electric fans, and Fu Guangzheng had already started to sell the fans in Japan. Why would Feng Yu authorized Black Dragon Co. Ltd. to manufacture the fans?

“Mr. Feng, it’s been a while. I am here to ask Mr. Feng for help.” Kameda Masao gave Feng Yu a 90-degrees bow.

There were many types of bows for Japanese. The lower your bow was, the lower your status and showed the respect for the other party. Normally 90-degrees bows were used by subordinates towards their superiors or younger generations towards their elders.

Feng Yu and Kameda Masao had no relationships at all. There were not relatives or colleagues, and Kameda Masao was not older than Feng Yu a lot.

“Help? Kameda, what help do you need from me?” Feng Yu was curious. Kameda Masao does not seem like he was here to buy the patent.

But this guy was courageous. I am don’t know you well, yet you dare to ask me for help? Feng Yu knew that many Japanese had weird ideas and he wants to know what help does Kameda need from him.

“Mr. Feng, I am jobless now. I want to work for you!”

What? Feng Yu never expect Kameda came to him to ask for a job!

You are a Japanese, and if you lose your job, you should go back to Japan. Why are you looking for a job here in Bing City?

Feng Yu wanted to touch his forehead to see if he had a fever.

“Why did you thought of coming to me for help?” Feng Yu asked.

“I knew that Mr. Feng is someone with likes investments. You Tai Hua Trading manages a wide variety of products, but all the products are selling well. You even invest in Bing City’s Machinery Company and let your family became the company’s major shareholder……”

“Wait, you investigate me?” Feng Yu was unhappy. Anyone who was being investigated would not be happy!

Kameda Masao panicked and bowed again: “I am sorry. I only ask around about your company. I have no ill intentions.”

“Fine, cut the chase and go to the main point.” Feng Yu impatiently waved his hand.

Feng Yu wanted to know what makes Kameda so sure that he would hire him. What’s so special about him? Feng Yu suspects that this Kameda Masao was up to no good.

There’s a mysterious occupation in this world Corporate spy!

Research has shown that espionage happens the most in 3 regions. US, Western Europe, and Japan!

It was because these places’ technologies development and economic growth were better. A piece of information or a copy of document could bring millions of profits!

The US claims that Japan had stolen their technologies, Japan claims Western Europe countries had taken their patents, and the Europeans accuse the US had stolen their researches!

But no matter what they say, these 3 regions have the most corporate spies. When they were scolding other countries, they were also training and hiring more corporate spies!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Japan had stolen many Chinese inventions, and those inventions were worth lots of money.

Feng Yu could not understand why Kameda Masao wanted to work for him. The only reason he could think of was his patents, or other information, like his trade with the Soviet Union.

If Kameda Masao really wanted to work for Feng Yu and he was able to prove his capability, Feng Yu does not mind hiring him. It feels good to hire a Japanese to work for him. It would be better if it were a sexy Japanese secretary in high heels……

“Mr. Feng, do you still remember the company I worked for? Black Dragon Co. Ltd.?”

“Yes, continue.” Feng Yu nodded. Feng Yu had worked with state-owned enterprises most of the time and seldom with private companies. Not to mention Japanese companies. Just this name Kameda Masao left a deep impression with him.

“The company is bankrupted!” Kameda Masao dejectedly said.

Feng Yu raised his brows and coughed a few times, trying to hide the happiness on his face.

When Feng Yu did business with this company, he chose to do a one-time business with them, and it was the right decision.

“That’s a pity.” Feng Yu said, but he did not show any signs of regrets on his face.

“No, I do not think that it was a pity. My boss did not manage the company well in the first place. Our company’s main product was sex dolls, and we were doing well in Japan. But he wanted to diversify and chose the wrong directions. This resulted in the company having cashflow issues and our sex doll market share shrunk. He even used the company’s assets to speculate in shares, and all the company’s funds were stuck in the stock market. If it weren’t for these, the company would not be bankrupt!”

Feng Yu could tell that Kameda Masao was full of grievances against his former boss, but Feng Yu felt that it was funny. What has it got to do with you if that person did not manage his company well? If you are capable, start your own company. If you don’t have the capital, then work for other companies. Why are you complaining here?

Feng Yu smiled and asked: “And then?”

“Mr. Feng, you might not know that this was my father’s company. But my father was not managing the company well, and the company was bought over by other people. I had given my company’s president many suggestions, and if it weren’t for me, the company would not have that scale two years ago. But the president trusts others more than me. Now the company is bankrupt, and I want to buy the company!”

Feng Yu’s brows twitched. So, there’s a story behind all these? This Kameda Masao was not here to look for a job. He was here to ask me to invest!

Interesting. A Japanese coming to China to look for investors instead of his own country.

Owning a Japanese company seems interesting too.

Feng Yu thought for a while and asked earnestly: “How much is needed to buy over Black Dragon Co. Ltd. and how are you going to manage the company?”

“Not much. Only about 1 million USD. I will not be buying over all the company’s assets. I am only buying the factory. I am confident that using the company’s previous sales channels and networks, I am able to turn the company around. Of course, the main product will still be sex dolls.”

Fuck, you want me to invest in a company that manufactures sex dolls?

Chapter 224 – Aiwa Co.

Feng Yu kept quiet after Kameda Masao finished talking. Feng Yu was deep in thoughts.

Sex dolls would indeed be a profitable product in the future. Not only in Japan, in Taiwan, China and even the whole of Southeast Asia and Europe. This was a huge market and can also satisfy the needs of many otakus.

Most importantly, the cost of a sex doll was low, and the profits were high. Not much technology was required too.

But if Feng Yu went into this business, how would others see him? Although the mindset of people was changing and felt that if you are rich, you are capable, people will still give him weird looks if they knew he was into this type of business.

If Feng Yu went into other business, he would also earn money, and he doesn’t need to face those criticisms.

“Mr. Feng, I know that this product is not acceptable in China now. At first, in my country, it was the same. But now, the market is getting bigger, not only in Asia, even in Europe. The potential for this product is big.”

Feng Yu waved his hands to stop Kameda Masao from talking. He knew all these, but he was still in a dilemma.

Feng Yu was thinking about his previous life and the people’s acceptance of this product. Feng Yu remembered that China’s sales were higher than in Japan, and was even the highest in the world. There were also the Sex Festival in China’s major cities. This industry was rumored to have the support of the government. Some people claimed that these products had lowered sex crimes in the country.

“Tell me your plans. If I am investing 1 million USD, how much profits can you give me every year?”

Kameda Masao replied with joy: “I guaranteed that you will get back your capital within a year and from second year onwards, you will get at least 2 million USD in profits!”

This industry was so profitable? 1 million USD investment and you can get it back within a year? From the second year onwards there will be millions of profits? If it was so easy, why didn’t Kameda Masao get investors in Japan and came all the way to China to look for him?

“Why did you look for me?” Feng Yu looked straight into Kameda Masao’s eyes.

Kameda Masao gave Feng Yu another bow: “Mr. Feng, there’s something I did not tell you. I am in debt in China, and my passport was confiscated. I can’t leave the country. But the debt belongs to the company, and I had nothing to do with it. I don’t know many people in China, and you are the only person that did not discriminate against my company’s previous products. That’s the reason I came to you for help. Please invest in this company. If you give me 1 million USD, I will build a sex doll empire for you!”

Damn, you and your family are the ones who want a sex doll empire! Feng Yu really wanted to tell Kameda Masao that he is discriminating against this industry now!

“Fine. If I invest 1 million USD, how many shares will I get in this company?”

“I only want 10% of the company’s shares, and I don’t need a salary. Please trust me. This is a good opportunity. Because of the economic crisis now, many Japanese companies were facing bankruptcy. There were only a few companies left in this industry. But I personally felt that because of this economic crisis, Japanese men will have difficulties in setting up their families, and there will be many single men. Our market will be bigger!”

Hmmm, this analysis seems reasonable!

Kameda Masao’s meant that Japan’s economic crisis would be an opportunity for sex doll companies to grow!

Wait, Japan’s economic crisis causing many companies to go bust? Then what about their factories’ equipment? This might be an excellent opportunity to buy into some Japanese firms in distress and wait for profits in the future!

The Soviet Union strength was the heavy industry, and the rest were only so-so. Their light industries now were nowhere better than China. But Japan’s electronics industries were one of the best in the world. In the 21st century, it was the best in the world. Feng Yu wonders if there are any companies among those facing bankruptcy or cashflow issues that will be successful in future.

Kameda Masao was good at gathering information. Why not let him gather some information first? Feng Yu remembers that there was this company, Aiwa Co. that was bought over by Sony during this time.

If he could get the controlling stake in that company, he could turn it into a China brand and also enter Japan’s electronics industry.

Hmmm. This will also be an excellent chance to test the capabilities of Kameda Masao to see if he was worth investing.

“Other than your country, which country in Asia has the highest sales?”

“Other than my country, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong have great potential. If we can produce better products than our competitors, we can quickly expand our market share. There are lots of profits in this industry!”

“Okay, if you did not lie to me I will invest in you and help you return to Japan to rebuild your family’s reputation. But this company only have sex dolls? Are there other products of the same nature?”

“Other products?” Kameda Masao was confused.

Feng Yu asked softly: “I am referring to other sex toys.”

“Ah, of course. But the sales were not as good as sex dolls. That’s the reason why we only produce sex dolls later.”

Feng Yu shook his head with disappointment. Kameda Masao, you as a Japanese should be ashamed.

The profits for Sex dolls might be high, but the other sex toys’ profits were not low either. You can also bundle different products together and sell as a package. For example, costumes. It will increase the sales and profits further.

Feng Yu told Kameda Masao about his ideas, and it was like an awakening call for him.

That’s right. If I dress up the sex dolls, then it will be differentiated from the competitors’ products and stand out in the market. Many Japanese men not only use these dolls to satisfy their desires, but the dolls were also their companions. If they can change the clothes of the dolls, will it feel like having different girlfriends?

Kameda Masao got more excited thinking about this. Feng Yu’s ideas had given him inspirations and also created a future Japanese sex toy enterprise!

“Mr. Feng, you are amazing. You even know about these.”

Feng Yu rubbed his nose. Was this a compliment? Why there was not a hint of happiness in me?

“You know the shareholders of Aiwa Co.? If you are able to convince the shareholders of Aiwa to sell their shares to me, I will invest in your company! Remember, don’t let others know that I am investing in your company. Now even my staffs!”

If Wu Zhigang and the rest knew about this investment, Wind and Rain Logistics people would also know, and soon, the whole northeast region will know.

“I know them. Our factory is just beside their factory. Mr. Feng wants to buy Aiwa shares? I will help you fulfill your wish. Aiwa’s biggest shareholder is Sony, and they owned more than 50% shares. Sony had always wanted to sell Aiwa shares, but they could not find a suitable buyer.”

“Good. I will let you handle this for me. The day I bought Aiwa shares, will be the day I invest in your company.”

Chapter 225 – The opportunity to get the controlling stake

Feng Yu had thought Kameda Masao had owed a lot of money and that’s why his passport was confiscated. But he only owed 10,0000 RMB. What sort of company representative was him? He doesn’t even have 10,000 RMB?

Feng Yu gave him 30,000 RMB to redeem his passport back and go back to Japan. He needs to gather information for Feng Yu. Once he contacted the shareholders, he would call Feng Yu and Feng Yu would invest in his company.

Of course, Feng Yu did not trust Kameda Masao completely. He gave Fu Guangzheng a call and asked if the Fu family have any connections in Japan to help him find out more about Aiwa and Black Dragon Co.

Aiwa Co. had collaborated with Fu family’s eldest brother in Hong Kong last year. They set up a subsidiary in Hong Kong together to expand their market in China.

Fu Guangzheng made a few calls and found out Aiwa Co. current situation. Before their collaboration with Aiwa, they had researched on the company.

Aiwa was bought over by Sony in 1987 and became part of Sony’s conglomerate. However, Aiwa remained as an independent brand and operated independently from Sony.

Because of the economic crisis, Aiwa’s market share was on a decline, and they suffered losses for consecutive years. Even with the help of Sony, Aiwa was still in debts of a few billion yen, and the market value of the company was not more than 1.2 billion Yen.

This was two years after a restructuring of the management and the company’s turnaround. A few years back, Aiwa was worth only 800 million Yen, and they had over 10 billion in debts!

Sony wanted Aiwa technologies and brand. Together with Aiwa, they could compete with other brands like Panasonic. Sony was trying to vie for the position of industry leader in Japan, and they needed the support of smaller brands to do so. Even if the smaller brands were not doing well now, but at least they did well in the past, and they might have the chance to reach their peak again.

However, Sony was not doing well for the past two years, and Aiwa’s President was still expanding overseas aggressively. The expansion needed a lot of funds.

It was not sure how Aiwa’s President convince Sony and Sony agreed to the expansion. Fu Guangzheng told Feng Yu that Aiwa might have some technologies, brand awareness but it was still in the red. Feng Yu must be prepared to lose his investments if he were to invest in this company.

Others might not think highly of Aiwa but not Feng Yu. In 1993, Aiwa had a turnaround and in 1994, became the leader in the Walkman industry. Their sales for that year was over 160 billion Yen. This showed that Aiwa’s President strategy now was a success.

Of course, this was what Fu Guangzheng had found out. Feng Yu needs to look at what Kameda Masao had gathered before making the decision to negotiate with Sony about the sales of Aiwa’s shares!

As for Black Dragon Co., Fu Guangzheng had never heard of this company before. His uncle had properties in Japan previously and knew some people there. He asked them for help to find out more about this company. They found out that it was what Kameda Masao had said. Black Dragon Co. was not managed well and had rushed to diversify their products, resulting in cashflows issues. The company had applied for bankruptcy.

The factory was seized by the bank, and the company had closed down. The company’s Chairman had also gone missing. Fu Guangzheng could not find anything about Kameda Masao. It could be that he was too low ranked and no one had noticed him before.

Feng Yu asked Fu Guangzheng to contact Aiwa’s shareholders. He expressed interest in Aiwa’s shares and see if they were willing to sell the shares they owned.

But the result was disappointing for Feng Yu. The shareholders had no intentions of selling their shares. They were all Aiwa’s President, Heitaro Nakajima, followers and they believed that Sony would help Aiwa settle the debts.

Feng Yu wanted to ask them where did they get this belief from? Did they forget the massive layoff a few years back? Aiwa had cut their staff by over 60%, from 3000 staffs to 1000 staffs!

Aiwa was once Japan’s top Walkman manufacturer because they had used the BBE system. With this system, the quality of the music was better, and Aiwa became very popular in Japan. But later, because of their aggressive expansion, they suffered losses and starts to sell more of their shares. Now, Aiwa was a subsidiary of Sony and these people still insist on their way.

Feng Yu knew that their persistence would pay off eventually and after two years, Aiwa will return to its former glory. However, in 1995 Aiwa entered into the computer peripheral devices industry and went on a declined again.

Kameda Masao had told Feng Yu a piece of good news. Sony’s Vice President will be in China in another two days to look at China’s market. Kameda Masao also found out that this Vice President was the one that had supported Sony to invest in Aiwa.

But now, Sony did not get any returns from this investment. The pressure was on this Vice President, and the shareholders were unhappy with his decision. Aiwa had been losing money for consecutive years, and Japan’s economy was not doing well. Even Sony’s share prices were dropping.

Sony had tried to sell Aiwa’s shares openly but only their competitors, Panasonic was interested. Sony refused to sell the shares to them and would instead accept the losses.

At least now, Sony and Aiwa could unite and compete against Panasonic, Toshiba, Philips, and control the Walkman market.

Kameda Masao felt that Feng Yu should speak to this Sony’s Vice President. As long as Aiwa Co. maintain the alliance and healthy competition with Sony, Feng Yu could get the shares at market rates. The shares owned by Sony was about 61%, and two other banks held 6% of Aiwa’s shares.

Feng Yu’s eyes sparkled. If he bought the shares from Sony and the banks, he would own 67% of Aiwa, and he would be the major shareholder. He would have full control over Aiwa Co.!

Feng Yu made a calculation. Currently, Aiwa was worth about 1.2 Billion Yen, and if converted to USD, it would be approximately 8.4 million USD. 67% of the shares should cost less than 6 million USD.

It’s only 6 million USD and can get to own a company which would be a leader in the Walkman industry two years later. This company will be bringing in over a 100 million USD in profits. The returns from this investment were too good!

Dollar signs appeared in Feng Yu’s eyes. He must buy the shares from Sony. He must get the company!

……

Fu Guangzheng and his father were sitting together. They were thinking why Feng Yu was finding out about Aiwa. Although the company that collaborated with Aiwa belongs to Fu Guangzheng’s eldest uncle, the Fu family’s businesses were closely knitted together.

Fu Guangzheng and Fu Rongjing do not understand why Feng Yu wanted to take over this Aiwa. Could it be that Feng Yu had received some information from the top? Then they should not be worrying.

Now, Fu Rongjing was thinking if he should intervene and grab the opportunity to earn some profits.

Fu Guangzheng advice his father to discuss with his eldest uncle about buying over Hong Kong’s Aiwa Co. subsidiary. His uncle should not object to their request.

……

“Teacher, I need to apply for a few days leave. I know the exams are near, but I got some urgent matters to attend. I will be back before the exams.”

The next day, Feng Yu and Wu Zhigang boarded the plane for Shanghai.

Chapter 226 – Sony Vice President

Once they arrived at the Airport, someone was holding a sign outside waiting for them. This was the Songjiang Motorcycles distributor for Shanghai. He was also the distributor for Wind and Rain bladeless fans.

When he knew that Tai Hua Trading’s General Manager and Deputy General Manager will be coming to Shanghai, and had requested his help to get a Japanese interpreter, book a hotel room, he immediately agrees. He even went to the airport to fetch Feng Yu and Wu Zhigang personally.

Just the Songjiang Motorcycles alone had brought his lots of profits these few months. As the weather becomes warmer, the sales for bladeless fans also got better.

This distributor had heard that this leader from Tai Hua Trading had a weird temperament. If he did not treat Feng Yu well, Feng Yu might refuse to sign the contract with him next year. Tai Hua Trading’s products had commercials airing on CCTV and distributors could save on the marketing costs. The products were also well known and popular. No distributors would want to be kicked out by Feng Yu.

“Manager Zhao, thanks for coming to receive me.”

“What are you saying, Manager Wu? This is something I should do. Manager Feng, let me carry your luggage for you.” Manager Zhao said.

“No need. Have you hired the interpreter?”

“Yes. He is waiting at the hotel. This way, please. I will drive you to the hotel.”

Manager Zhao was driving a Santana. In this era, this car was better than the future Audi A6.

At the hotel, they met with the interpreter and Feng Yu rejected Manager Zhao’s dinner invitation. Feng Yu said that he had something to do that evening and after he had finished his work two days later, then they would have dinner. Manager Zhao left disappointed. He had already reserved a restaurant, and in order not to waste the reservations, he called his clients.

The interpreter was a middle-aged man in his 30s. He studied in Japan for four years and was currently a Japanese teacher. He also worked as an interpreter.

Feng Yu nodded and told the interpreter that they would be talking to one of Sony’s top management tomorrow about buying over another company’s shares. Feng Yu asked the interpreter to go back and familiarized with the business jargons. This would be helpful in tomorrow’s negotiations. There must not be any errors. He also reminded the interpreter to be at the Hotel’s restaurant at 7 am.

That night, after Feng Yu instructed Wu Zhigang on the things he must take note of for tomorrow’s negotiations, Feng Yu fell asleep on the bed.

10 minutes later, Feng Yu sat up.

Fuck, this Wu Zhigang snores so loud! Damn, I should have booked two rooms and not try to save money!

“Zhigang, Zhigang, why didn’t you bath before you sleep? We will be meeting clients tomorrow, and you will smell bad. Go and bath now. Make sure you wash clean.”

Half an hour later, Wu Zhigang came out of the bathroom and wanted to remind Feng Yu to bathe. But he found out that Feng Yu had already fallen asleep.

……

Morning 7 am, Sony’s Vice President Norio Ohga woke up and went downstairs for breakfast. Suddenly, a Chinese man sat down beside him, making him frowned.

There were lots of empty tables around and why did this man sit beside him? This behavior was unacceptable!

“President Norio, Ohayō.”

Eh? Norio Ohga heard someone wishing him good morning in Japanese, and he replied. He also asked this man where was he from and which department was he working at. He had thought this man was a Sony employee in China and was here to receive him.

Everybody in the company knew about his habits. He would wake up at 6.30 am and have breakfast at 7 am sharp. After breakfast, he would start work. He would be furious if his driver were late.

But the man’s replied was not something he had expected. This man was an interpreter, and he was representing the guest at another table. That guest wanted to discuss a business deal with him.

Although he was unhappy to be disturbed during his breakfast, since this was about business and Sony wanted to enter the Chinese market, he still politely asked about the other party’s company and what was the business.

The other party’s reply shocked him.

This young man wants to buy over Aiwa shares?

Feng Yu had asked Manager Zhao to book this hotel was because Kameda Masao found out that Norio Ohga will be staying here. He also found out about Norio Ohga’s habit of having breakfast at 7 am. This was an excellent time to speak to Norio Ohga.

Kameda Masao was really gifted in gathering information. Feng Yu even had thoughts of hiring him as a corporate spy.

Sure enough, after the interpreter explained to Norio Ohga about his intentions, he looked at Feng Yu and nodded. Feng Yu walked over to Norio Ohga, and the interpreter introduced him.

“Mr. Feng, why are you interested in Aiwa?”

“I like music, and Aiwa Walkman’s music quality is outstanding. Aiwa is also the brand of my first Walkman. I heard that Aiwa was not doing well recently because of Japan’s economy and was making losses these few years.”

Feng Yu continued: “from what I know, last year September, your company had used 600 million USD to buyout US Columbia Pictures, and this was Sony’s biggest overseas investment. This investment also tied up Sony’s funds. Early this year, your company’s finance was in red, and this year, it will be a loss for your company. Sony could no longer take care of Aiwa. I do not want a reputable brand like Aiwa to be bankrupt. That’s why I intend to buy over Aiwa shares from Sony.”

Last year, Japan’s economy was already in recession, but some big corporations were still going strong. For example, Mitsubishi bought New York’s landmark, Rockefeller Center last year and Sony bought Colombia Pictures.

That time, the Japanese were still proud and had thought that the economic recession was only time being and will be over soon. With these big companies around, Japan would still be the world’s second-largest economy. It’s just a matter of time before Japan overtake the US.

Japanese companies could take over US companies, and this could show the world how strong Japan was. The Americans could not do a single thing when Japanese firms buy over their companies.

But they do not know that this was a conspiracy set up by the US. This was to create an economic bubble and wait for it to burst!

Since Sony bought the so-called best movie company in the US, they found that the movie industry was not what they imagined. Colombia Pictures under Sony did not make any profits but instead, continued to make losses.

Now, Sony’s goal was to offload some bad assets to raise funds and hope to tide over this economic crisis. They believe that their future is bright and they will become the world’s best company and Japan will be the world’s largest economy!

Earlier this year, Sony had tried to sell Aiwa shares, but it was all their competitors that showed interest. In order not to let the competitors become stronger, Sony rather suffers losses than to lose the market share to their competitors.

But the recent two months, Sony’s losses grew bigger. If it weren’t for this, Sony would also not want to expand their market in China. They were just hoping that China’s market could save Sony.

Now someone wants to buy Aiwa shares, and this was an excellent chance to offload this baggage. But Norio Ohga needs to find out that if this Chinese man would sell Aiwa shares to his competitors!

“Mr. Feng, you really know a lot about my company. I think we can have a good discussion.”

Chapter 227 – Even if it is at Premium Price

Sony only had an office in Shanghai and did not set up a subsidiary in China. Sony only enters the Chinese market aggressively after 1996.

At Sony’s office, Feng Yu was slightly disappointed. The office does not look like an office for a world renown brand. The Machinery Company had a more spacious office than this.

This was because of the difference in mindset. The US and Europe would set up spacious and comfortable offices, and Japan and other Asian countries would try to make full use of their spaces. After all, Japan’s property prices were the highest in the world for the past two years. In the future, China’s property would be more expensive than Japan.

Another reason was that Sony was cutting cost and they even stop hiring. They could only prevent retrenchment this year.

Japanese firms had an interesting rule. It was similar to the future state-owned enterprises. The first employment contract would be more than 10 years and the second contract will be lifelong, until retirement. Even if you did not perform well, you would not be asked to go.

These types of companies also had a tradition of doubling the salary of male employees after they got married. The reason was that the male employees have to take care of his family and his wife could stay at home to take care of the children. But if you used your family as an excuse for not doing your job well, the company can ask you to go.

If the economy was not good, what would the company do? First, the company would retrench the “part-timers” and not those under lifelong employment. Among those retrenched, foreigners, mainly Chinese, made up most of the workers. Secondly, the company would have a talk with the employees to tell them about the company’s difficulties and request to employees to resign on their own accord. The company would also offer some compensations. In 1987, Aiwa Co. had used this method for their retrenchment excise, and they cut their employees from over 3,000 to about 1,000.

Feng Yu sat down in Norio Ohga’s office, and someone served them tea. Norio Ohga: “Mr. Feng, before we start the negotiations, I want to ask you how much do you know about Aiwa?”

Feng Yu briefly told Norio Ohga what he knew about Aiwa. Of course, Feng Yu did not mention anything about Aiwa success in two years’ time. He only talks about Aiwa’s history and how he wishes to lead Aiwa out of its current situation.

Norio Ohga frowned. Lead Aiwa? This Chinese man wants to be Aiwa’s president? But based on the agreement between Sony and Aiwa, even though Sony was the major shareholder of over 50% shares, Sony could not interfere with Aiwa’s operations and Aiwa’s president would be Heitaro Nakajima.

Feng Yu purposely frowned when he heard Norio Ohga: “Is this the case? Aren’t Sony Aiwa’s controlling shareholder?”

“No. We only have slightly more than 61% of Aiwa’s shares and do not have the controlling stake. But rest assure, Heitaro Nakajima is a capable person, and you do not need to worry about losing money after you bought the shares.:

“Really? But I heard that under his leadership, Aiwa had been losing money for consecutive years and is currently in debts of over a billion Yen.” Feng Yu retorted.

Norio Ohga was embarrassed. He did not expect Feng Yu to know about this. That’s right. Even though Aiwa was doing better now, it was still in debt. It would be hard for someone to believe that a company with liabilities several times more than its value to recover.

If it were not because of the market share, Sony would have withdrawn their investments from Aiwa. But Heitaro Nakajima had threatened Sony that if Sony does not inject funds into Aiwa, he will approach Panasonic and other companies. Aiwa would also not work with Sony to control the market!

“Mr. Feng, two banks own about 6% of Aiwa’s shares. With our shares, that would be 67%, and you will have the controlling stake. You can do whatever you want with the company then.”

Feng Yu continued with a satisfied expression: “So, Mr. Norio agrees to sell me Aiwa’s shares?”

Norio Ohga replied with a difficult expression: “Before we talk about this, I wish to discuss another matter with Mr. Feng. Which company do you think produces the world’s best Walkman? Does China have any good Walkman?”

Damn. How shameless. Are you asking me to praise you?

In Feng Yu’s past life, he heard that many companies firmly believed their brands were the best, even when they were selling their brands. If the other party did not praise their brands, the company would not sell. For example, the sales of Volvo to Geely.

Feng Yu did not expect the Japanese to act this way too. Currently, everybody knew that Aiwa’s music quality was better than Sony.

Feng Yu said: “Sony is number one and Aiwa can only be considered one of the top three. As for China, there are no quality Walkman manufacturers.”

Because of China’s defense against spies, the tape recorder produced can only be considered a music player and there was no record button. Now, this regulation was relaxed, but small portable music players still cannot have a recording function. Only China’s Internal Security Bureau could use recording pens.

“Mr. Feng, I have no intentions to look down on China. But currently, Sony and Aiwa are the world’s best Walkman brands. Sony and Aiwa have an agreement to work together as friendly competitors and to keep other companies like Panasonic and other brands out of the Walkman market. I hope you will continue with this agreement after we sell you Aiwa’s shares!”

Continue the alliance? That was what Feng Yu was hoping for. If Sony decided to inject more resources to capture the market share, they might suffer losses, but Aiwa would be finished.

Feng Yu’s current strength was not enough to compete with an MNC like Sony. By working with Sony, he could compete with Panasonic, Toshiba, and other brands.

The Walkman market currently was divided into 3 parts. Sony was the leader and control about 40% of the market. Aiwa was second and owns about 30% of the market share. The rest was divided among the rest of the companies.

“Fine. I agree with this brand alliance. Mr. Norio still have any other questions?  Can we start talking about the price of the shares?” Feng Yu pretended to consider this condition and agreed. He would be an idiot if he did not accept.

In two years’ time, Sony would regret. The Walkman market would no longer be divided into 3 parts, and Aiwa alone would occupy more than 50% of the market!

“20 million USD. I can persuade the shareholders to sell the Aiwa’s shares owned by Sony to you.”

20 million USD? Fuck. You think I don’t know about Aiwa’s market value? Feng Yu could accept premium prices, but he would not accept an amount that was more than 3 times the value!

“Mr. Norio, Aiwa’s debt is not a small amount. If you are able to clear Aiwa’s debt now, I can accept 20 million USD. Aiwa’s market value is not even 1.2 billion Yen and how did you come up with 20 million USD? If you include Aiwa’s debt in it, then 5 million USD is my highest offer!”

Based on the shares proportions, Sony would be responsible for over 15 million USD in debts, and the shares were worth about 6 million USD. Feng Yu’s offer was also too low.

Norio Ohga laughed embarrassedly: “Mr. Feng, we will not pay the debts. Our company’s finance is currently under a lot of stress. But 5 million USD for Aiwa’s shares. We cannot accept anything lower than the market value. How about 10 million USD? I can convince the shareholders and sign the sales contract with you as soon as possible.”

“Mr. Norio, you sure you are able to convince the shareholders?”

“There should be no problems.” Norio Ohga was thinking, Feng Yu does not know how badly those shareholders want to sell off Aiwa’s shares. When he suggested to buy over Aiwa complete and inject funds into the company for the second time, he was scolded by the shareholders.

“Then I will increase my offer slightly. 6 million USD.”

One party wished to buy badly, and the other party wanted to sell since ages ago. The negotiations went smoothly, and in less than an hour, the final price was settled. 7.2 million USD.

The price was about 20% more than the market value but compared to the Aiwa’s profits in two years’ time, it was a small amount!

Chapter 228 – Good News

Feng Yu and Norio Ohga did not sign the contract after their discussion as Norio Ohga still needs to report this matter to the board. After the Board of directors agreed, then he would sign the contract with Feng Yu. Norio Ohga promised Feng Yu that it would not be difficult to get the approval.

Feng Yu also felt that it should not be a problem. Aiwa had reduced its debt these two years, but the amount it owned was still a lot compared to its market value. Aiwa even wanted to build new factories and the debt will increase further. Heitaro Nakajima’s management had made lots of Sony’s shareholders unhappy.

You are already in debt, and yet you still want to expand?

Sony was also not doing well in the past two years, and they had no reason to refuse Feng Yu’s offer. Norio Ohga promised Feng Yu that he would get back to Feng Yu within one week and would come over to China to sign the contract.

Feng Yu happily returned to Bing City to prepare for his final exams. After he entered Arts stream, he needs to memorize more things, but this was what Feng Yu was good at. With his knowledge from his previous life, Feng Yu’s results were much better than his first year.

……

The form teacher was standing in front of the class encouraging the students. He was telling the students to not be nervous about the exams when Feng Yu’s pager beeped.

Before the teacher asked Feng Yu to stand outside the class, Feng Yu walked out of the classroom. The rest of the students knew that Feng Yu would not obediently stand outside the class. Once Feng Yu was out of the class, he would disappear.

“The newspaper, read the newspaper now! <The People’s Daily>!” Li Shiqiang was shouting excitedly over the phone.

<The People’s Daily>?

“Mr. Sun, do you have today’s newspaper?”

“Me? I only read last week’s papers. If you want to read today’s papers, you can go out of the school, and there’s a newspaper stand on the left after the first junction.” The school’s newspapers were only for the school’s leaders. After the leaders finish reading, it would be passed on to the teachers and then passed to Mr. Sun.

Feng Yu ran out of the school for the newspaper stand.

<The People’s Daily>, found it!

“The State had decided to establish a stock exchange at the end of August to early September. The 18 companies which will be the first batch of companies nominated to be listed are Vacuum electronic, …… “

Hahaha, the stock exchange was set up earlier than before!

18 companies were going to be listed on the stock exchange. Feng Yu remembered that only 13 companies were listed in his previous life. Among these 13 companies, 8 were from Shanghai and 5 from Peng City. These 13 companies were later known as Shanghai 8 and Peng 5 shares by the investors.

It was because these 13 shares were like being possessed and the prices kept soaring!

When Feng Yu was acquiring the shares, his main priority was these 13 companies’ shares. But he also bought other shares as those companies would be listed too. The coming year would be China’s first bull market!

Feng Yu felt that these 13 shares would rise at least 8 folds and Vacuum Electronics would increase over 20 times! Because of the other stocks, Feng Yu told Li Shiqiang and the rest that the profits will range from 3 to 5 folds. But now, if the number of listing companies increases, then he might be earning even more.

The State had chosen more companies to be listed might be due to their studies that the stock market could stimulate the country’s development. If it were only 13 companies, there would be too little shares. At least, Feng Yu could tell that the economists now were more willing to take the risk than his previous life.

But there might be another possible outcome. Now, more companies were being listed, and investors had more choices. There might be the possibilities that some stocks might not rise so fast.

But Feng Yu had researched on China’s current policies, and there was not much different from his previous life. The policies were encouraging people to invest in financial instruments, increase spending to promote economic growth. So, the stock market now would be as prosperous as his previous life. The share prices will rise!

Feng Yu now have over 2 hundred million worth of shares, and it was not enough for him to be a big player. On this day next year, Feng Yu’s shares would bring him profits of more than 3 times his investments.

It was not easy to be a big player now. Transactions were done in person, and if the transacted amount were too significant, it would be easy to attract unwanted attention. What if some government officials took notice of Feng Yu?

Feng Yu’s strategy was to wait. The stock exchange had just started, and there are only a few million RMB worths of transactions daily. In Feng Yu’s previous life, the stock market boom happened only after the “Great One” gave a speech during his visit to the South. It was in 1992, around May. The stock market soar by over 100% for consecutive few days. During that time, there were still not price limit policies to reduce the volatility and stabilize the market.

Since the stock exchange had been brought forward, then would the “Great One” visit to the south be brought forward too? Will the bull market start earlier?

Feng Yu felt that it was highly possible!

Moreover, Feng Yu could also use a small number of his shares to do trading. The profits from doing trading will not be low either, and it was not illegal. The only issue was that it was troublesome.

There was no online trading in this era, and Feng Yu could only trade over the counter!

Trades can still be conducted at the banks over the counters, but the share prices will not be the same flatulate fast like the stock exchange. There was still no internet now, and if you buy the shares in the morning, you might have to wait until late afternoon to find out that the shares prices rose. The efficiency was terrible!

……

Feng Yu was sitting in Tai Hua Trading’s meeting room, to share the good news with everyone.

After the stock exchange was set up, the stock prices will surely soar after the initial surge and next year, the value of their shares would be at least doubled!

Everybody was excited. When Feng Yu told them that in 1 to 2 years’ time, their shares will soar by two to three times previously, they were still a bit spectacle and worried. But now, the share prices were increasing.

Today, after <The People’s Daily> announcement, Li Shiqiang and some of the staffs went to the banks to ask. The share prices did increase slightly.

Although the sudden surge did not appear, they had already made some profits. Now all of them believed what Feng Yu said.

After the meeting, everybody was still excited, especially Li Shiqiang. Now he felt that Feng Yu was right to ask him to take up loans to buy shares!

The interest from the loans cannot be compared to the increase in stock prices. He was now eagerly waiting for the completion of the stock exchange. The sooner the exchange starts operating, the earlier he would see his money!

Feng Yu was holding his chin thinking about the stock market. Next year’s January, the stock market would slow down, and Feng Yu planned to sell sold off his shares to trade in futures. After that, he would reinvest all his money into the stock market. By that time, his assets would be enough for his to do a lot of things……

Author’s notes: When securities companies were introduced, shares were still in paper forms, and people still go to the banks to trade. Price limit policies started in 1996 to prevent anyone from manipulating the stock prices.

Chapter 229 – Shares of Aiwa

Norio Ohga returned to China, and he flew straight to Bing city. The Sony board of directors had agreed to sell all their Aiwa’s shares at 7.2 million USD to Feng Yu.

They were pleased with Norio Ohga’s negotiation with Feng Yu. They were able to maintain the alliance to prevent competitors from getting more market share and also offload a burden.

Moreover, the buyer was a Chinese he had shown great interest in this Japanese brand. This made them felt proud, and they think that the Chinese were not good at doing business.

Heitaro Nakajima, President of Aiwa Co., had also come to Bing City with Norio Ohga. Heitaro Nakajima was disappointed and angry when he heard that Sony would be selling their shares. He felt that the Sony’s shareholders had no foresight and could not see their efforts and innovations.

But no matter how he protests, he can’t change their decision. This trip to Bing City was to meet with Aiwa’s new major shareholder, and he was hoping that he could still be the president of Aiwa. He also does not want this new shareholder to affect the company’s strategy. This strategy was Aiwa’s opportunity to turnaround!

……

“Mr. Norio, welcome again to China. Have you brought the contract? Is the contract draft in three languages, English, Chinese, and Japanese, as per my request?”

“Of course. You can let the others check the contract first. Let me introduce you Mr. Heitaro Nakajima, President of Aiwa Co. He is here today to visit you.”

Heitaro Nakajima was a middle-aged man in his 40s. He looks full of drive, but the only shortcoming was his bald spot on the top of his head. The bald spot made him look like someone that would appear in Sola Aoi’s movies!

“Mr. Feng, how do you do? I am Heitaro Nakajima. I hope we can work together to bring Aiwa out of its present situation.”

Heitaro Nakajima had said Ai Hua instead of Aiwa. The was the Chinese pronunciation of Aiwa. At first, Feng Yu was still unhappy that Heitaro Nakajima did not bow to him when they met, but now, Feng Yu was smiling.

Aiwa will change its name in the future. Ai Hua sounds better. The company’s logo also had to be replaced. Aiwa will be changed to small caps, and Feng Yu wants to use the Chinese characters of “Ai Hua” on the logo.

Although this Heitaro Nakajima was a bit arrogant, he was capable. Feng Yu like capable people. His favorite Walkman brand from his previous life belongs to him now. This feels good!

“Mr. Heitaro, did Mr. Norio tell you that I will not interfere with Aiwa’s operation? You can continue with your plans, but I have a request. Before the company starts any mass production of any new product, you must send me a sample. Once I agree, then you can start the production.”

Only this request? Heitaro Nakajima was overjoyed. This meant that Feng Yu would let him remain as the President of Aiwa. The company would also stick to his development plans. If his plans succeed, he can prove to Sony’s directors that they had made a huge mistake of selling Aiwa’s shares!

As for Feng Yu wanting a sample, he felt that it was because this young man wants the latest product. He was confident about the new products developed by the company. Everybody who was into Walkman said their Walkman was the best.

“Mr. Feng, there will be no problems with your request. Later this year, Aiwa will be launching new products, and I had brought two samples with me as presents for you.”

Feng Yu looked at the Walkman. These were Aiwa’s iconic J series models. It comes along with the popular D8 earphones. This was the product that would change Aiwa’s fate?

A familiar melody started, and Feng Yu thought that it was Theresa Teng’s “Walking Down the Road of Life,” but it turned out to be a Japanese song. Feng Yu guessed this was one of the original songs which Theresa Teng sang the Chinese version. The music quality was indeed outstanding.

“Mr. Heitaro, Aiwa had set up a subsidiary company in Hong Kong. Are you going to enter the Chinese market with this company?”

“That’s right. But this Hong Kong company not only target China market. It also targets the whole of Southeast Asia. In the future, we also have the intentions of setting a branch factory in Malaysia. This should happen later this year or early next year. My men are already in Malaysia looking at the location of the factory.”

Feng Yu was touching his chin. He decided that he would get China’s distribution rights for himself after he had signed the contract. Whether if it was the Japanese or Hong Kong’s Fu family, no one could compare with Feng Yu on China’s market.

Since he had bought Aiwa’s shares, then Feng Yu must turn the company around fast and make Aiwa a Chinese brand!

The three of them chatted for a while and Feng Yu’s lawyer, who was checking the contract, walked over and whisper into Feng Yu’s ears.

Feng Yu noticed Norio Ohga understands English the last time they met. So, Feng Yu requested the contract to be in three languages. This way, it would be difficult for the Japanese to change some of the contents of the contract. Regardless of the language, the contract would be bounded by law.

Because of this contract, Feng Yu hired several lawyers to cross-check the contract. They would inform Feng Yu immediately if they find any parts of the contract suspicious. Feng Yu had promised them rewards ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 RMB for finding loopholes in the contract.

With such attractive rewards, the lawyers look through the contract seriously, hoping to get that reward.

There were no problems with the Chinese version contract, but the Japanese and English versions had some issues. The terms were restricting some of Feng Yu’s interests.

Feng Yu immediately pointed out these issues to Norio Ohga and Heitaro Nakajima. He would only sign the contract after these issues had been resolved.

Heitaro Nakajima and Norio Ohga exchanged looks and asked his men to amend the contract. Heitaro Nakajima was Aiwa’s shareholder and one of Aiwa’s founder, but when Sony bought over Aiwa, he was offered a position in Sony. This time, Sony had sold Aiwa’s shares, and they even removed Heitaro Nakajima’s position in Sony. As a compensation, Sony tried to strengthen his authority in Aiwa.

They thought that Feng Yu would be easy to fool. After all, the last time they met, they noticed that Feng Yu was not interested in managing Aiwa. But now, it seems that Feng Yu was very smart and careful. At least, regarding contracts.

The contracts were amended, the lawyers vetted it and felt that there were no more problems. Feng Yu signed the three versions of the contracts and even put his thumbprint on it. Norio Ohga signed on the contract on behalf of Sony. The company stamp was also stamped on the contract. After the money was transferred to Sony’s account, the contract will be in effect.

Feng Yu had used the Hong Kong bank account given to him by Fu Guangzheng to transfer 7.2 million USD to Sony’s account. The money was sales proceeds from the Fu family’s humidifier’s sales. If the Fu family had transferred the sales proceeds to Tai Hua Trading’s account in China, the USD would automatically be changed to RMB.

Now, Feng Yu was officially a shareholder of Aiwa Co., and this was the start of his venture into the Japanese electronics industry……

Chapter 230 – The Fu Family acted fast

It was not even two days, and Kameda Masao informed Feng Yu some bad news. The other shareholders of Aiwa refused to sell their shares and even the two banks which had agreed to sell the shares changed their minds.

It was said that there was a new buyer involved and this new buyer was related to Aiwa. When Feng Yu found out who the buyer was, he was pissed!

The buyer was Hong Kong’s Fu family.

The last time Feng Yu spoke to Fu Guangzheng, Fu Guangzheng still advise Feng Yu not to buy Aiwa’s shares as Aiwa was heavily in debt. But the Fu Family bought Aiwa’s shares after that. They were not afraid of the debts owed by Aiwa?

Feng Yu immediately called Fu Guangzheng. He wants to know what the Fu family was thinking.

“Brother Fu, when I asked you about Japan’s Aiwa Co. a few days ago, you told me that this company was making losses and even Sony was disappointed with this company. Am I right?”

Fu Guangzheng was thinking in his heart, Feng Yu had found out about this. How did he find out about his so fast? He has ways to get information in Japan?

Fu Guangzheng laughed: “Manager Feng, I did say that. But you should know that the Aiwa’s subsidiary company in Hong Kong is a partnership with my eldest uncle.”

“So, your eldest uncle acquire Aiwa’s shares?”

“It’s my father.” Fu Guangzheng embarrassedly replied.

Damn. I knew this matter got something to do with Fu Guangzheng. Fuck. If it was your uncle who had bought Aiwa’s shares, I might not suspect anything. It’s your father who bought Aiwa’s shares, and you want to tell me that there was nothing wrong with this?

“Brother Fu, we had worked together for quite some time. Our cooperation has been going smoothly. Don’t you think you should give me an explanation for this matter?” Feng Yu said unhappily.

Once Feng Yu bought the shares from those two banks, he would be the controlling shareholder and the authority of a controlling shareholder was different from an ordinary shareholder!

Fu Guangzheng apologized to Feng Yu and gave his explanations.

Aiwa Co. was working with Fu Guangzheng’s eldest uncle, Fu Rongqi and together they set up Hong Kong’s Aiwa subsidiary. The primary purpose was to make use of the Fu family’s distribution channels to market Aiwa’s Walkman in Southeast Asia and to open up China’s market.

But Fu Rongqi had placed most of his focus on the financial market and did not really care about Aiwa Co. He also receives news that Sony wanted to sell Aiwa’s shares and he felt the Walkman market would not do well.

But recently, Fu Guangzheng’s father, Fu Rongjing felt the Chinese market have potential or felt that Feng Yu had good foresight. When he heard that Feng Yu was buying Aiwa’s shares from Sony, he discussed with Fu Rongqi about buying over Hong Kong’s Aiwa subsidiary.

To let Fu Rongqi believe that Fu Rongjing was really interested in Aiwa’s subsidiary, they bought some of Aiwa’s shares. It was only 6% and cost only a few hundred thousand USD. Even if it was a loss, they could also afford it. The most important thing was to work with Feng Yu and build better relationships……

This explanation…… is bullshit! Who the hell would believe it?

Better relationship? Work with me? It was oblivious that you noticed I had never made any losses in my investments and wanted to place your bets on me. If you win, you will make some money, if you lose, you will only lose a few hundred thousand USD. For someone like Fu Rongjing, with net assets of over one billion HKD, it was nothing.

The thing that made Feng Yu speechless the most was they were implying: I, Fu Guangzheng and my father believed in you and this was to show my support.

Damn, who the hell wants your support. If you sell me the Aiwa’s shares, then it would be the best support.

“Brother Fu, I only treated Aiwa as a bet. I had never been to Japan before, and I had only heard of this company. I only felt that it would feel good to take over a Japanese company and if I lose my investments, so be it.”

Feng Yu was lying through his teeth, and he was hoping that the Fu family would sell off the shares they own. Even if it were at a premium, Feng Yu would also buy it. He wants the controlling stake of Aiwa.

Other than the Walkman technologies, Aiwa was good at other electronics technologies. Aiwa’s technologies were leading China by a lot. If Aiwa were not that good, they would not venture into computers in the future. However, that was a failure.

With Feng Yu’s future knowledge, how could Aiwa fail again in this life? Feng Yu knew about the general direction of the market better than anyone else!

“Brother Feng, it is only a few hundred thousand USD, and we can afford it. Look, the both of us had unknowingly invested in the same company. This is fate.”

Fate your head! Feng Yu was cursing in his heart. Did he not make it very clear?

“Brother Fu, you should know that I had bought the Aiwa’s shares from Sony and if I am able to buy the shares from your father, I will have full control of the company. You understand?” Feng Yu made it very clear to Fu Guangzheng. In business, everything can be negotiated. It’s only a matter of offering a price that would satisfy the other party.

You spent a few hundred thousand USD for those Aiwa’s shares, then I will offer you 1 million USD. You will make 40% within a few days. You are still not satisfied?

Fu Guangzheng hesitated for a while and replied: “Brother Feng, these shares were bought by my father and he intends to give it to my elder brother. If I ask for those shares, it will look like I am vying with my brother for the family inheritance. But you don’t need to worry. I promise you that my family will support all your decisions in Aiwa.”

Feng Yu was feeling helpless. It seems that the Fu family would not sell off the shares. The only solution now was to buy the shares from the other shareholders. Feng Yu must acquire the shares before year-end, even if he had to pay double the market rate!

Since Fu Guangzheng had made things so clear, Feng Yu could not do anything either. Feng Yu also does not want to fall out with him over this small number of shares. Furthermore, the Fu family’s distribution channels were essential. As such, Feng Yu decided to let the matter rest.

But Feng Yu never expected that after he spoke with Fu Guangzheng, Fu Rongjing decided to continue to acquire Aiwa’s shares!

It was easy to find out that Feng Yu had used 20% more than the market rate for Aiwa’s shares from Sony and they also found out that someone was contacting Aiwa’s shareholders to buy their shares.

They found out that this person was Kameda Masao and remembered that Feng Yu had asked them about this person. After some analysis, they concluded that this Kamada Masao might be working for Feng Yu, but Feng Yu did not trust him completely.

That was the reason why Fu Rongjing decided to continue to acquire Aiwa shares even at a premium price. Feng Yu could not buy the shares, but that does not mean the Fu family cannot get it. Even with lots of money, it does not mean that you will be able to acquire those shares.

The Fu family starts to get people to spread rumors about Aiwa in Japan. Sony had given up on Aiwa, and this tells a lot about Aiwa. Now the major shareholder is a Chinese, and he wants to relocate Aiwa to China. Those Aiwa Shareholders panicked as their impression of China was a backward and poor place. What future can this company have if it was relocated to such an area?

Fu Rongjin contacted those shareholders again, and those shareholders agreed to sell their Aiwa shares. With 12% more than the market price, Fu Rongjin acquires the remaining shares, except for the shares owned by Heitaro Nakajima. The amount of Aiwa shares in Fu Rongjing’s hands reaches 26%.

Feng Yu was still waiting for Kameda Masao’s news. Kameda Masao had told him that after he bought the Aiwa shares from Sony, the other shareholders were shaken. The Japanese media also reported on Aiwa. He was still trying to persuade those shareholders.

But there was no good news from Kameda Masao. Kameda Masao informed Feng Yu that a mysterious buyer had bought all the shares from the shareholders. Feng Yu was furious.

Feng Yu knew that the mysterious buyer was the Fu family.

Damn, the Fu family really act fast!

Chapter 231 – Going to the Soviet Union again

The day before the final exam, Bing City Third High School’s leaders gathered for a meeting. They had received an invitation from the Soviet Union to attend aw Summer Camp again.

Last year, around this time, Sun Wenhai was still the vice principal, but this year, he was promoted to the Principal. This was due to his capability and his connections. But the main reason was Feng Yu.

If Feng Yu did not enter Third High School, Li Shiqiang would not donate and sponsor so much money in the school. If Feng Yu were not in Third High School, Moscow University would not invite Third High School to attend their Summer Camp and there would not be 3 professors working part-time at the school. He would also not get the chance to lead the group to the International Summer Camp.

This Summer camp also brought lots of changes to Third High School. For example, the old Principal was transferred to the City’s Education Department to take on the position of Deputy Chief and the school’s party Secretary was not recommended by the former Principal to take over the Principal due to the incident with the Summer camp name list. Instead, Sun Wenhai was promoted to Principal.

Sun Wenhai was grateful to Feng Yu and took special care of him. Feng Yu had skipped almost a day every week for this semester and sometimes, he would even disappear for more than a week. If it were other students, they would be kicked out of the school, but Feng Yu was still in Year 2 top class.

Sun Wenhai’s special treatment towards Feng Yu got rewarded. He received an invitation for the school to attend a Summer Camp in the Soviet Union again. This was after he was promoted and he could get the full credit for this invitation. He might be promoted again before he retires.

When he saw the contents of the invitation letter, Sun Wenhai was speechless. This Feng Yu was making things too obvious!

Last year, the invitation was for only the first years. This year it should be the same, but this year, the invitation was for the second years. The invitation was based on which year Feng Yu was in!

Sun Wenhai had thought that this year would still be inviting the first year. This was something that Third High School had. But it seems that last year was the first year, this year was the year 2 students and will there still be invitations next year? He wants to talk to Feng Yu to try and make this summer camp invitation a yearly event. This cannot be stopped after Feng Yu graduate from this school!

What puzzled Sun Wenhai was the itinerary that came along with the invitation letter. Other than Moscow, the students still need to go to Kiev. It stated that this camp was jointly organized by Kiev University. He had never heard of Summer camps that was jointly held by two universities. This was something new.

Luckily, this time, the theme of the camp was stated, unlike the previous year. The theme for this year’s camp was literature. Fine. Bing City Third High School was also not weak in literature. This was at least better than last year’s Arts.

This year’s invitation was the same as last year. There were 10 slots, but this time, only Feng Yu’s name was in the invitation. Sun Wenhai was pleased with this arrangement. He does not want to let Wen Dongjun and the others go for this camp. The remaining 9 names can be given to his connections.

Attending this summer camp once was enough. Feng Yu had wanted for his resume to look better and get additional marks for his high school exams or receives a guaranteed place in the university.

Feng Yu participated in this camp was because he wants to go to Kiev along the way. Kirilenko had helped him contacted the Soviet Union banks.

The examinations continued, and Feng Yu was able to perform well. To Feng Yu, Arts subjects were easier than science subjects.

The second day after the exams, Feng Yu drove the 3 others back to the district. This Summer camp, the other 3 will not be attending.

……

“Son, eat slowly. You look like you have been starving for days.” Zhang Muhua said while serving a bowl of soup to Feng Yu.

These few days, I had been eating the school’s canteen food. It’s horrible. Mum’s cooking is still the best.”

There was no choice. His Sister had given birth, and according to Chinese traditions, she needs to be confined. During her confinement, she was not allowed to leave the house and got to rest on the bed.

After there was a baby in the house, the baby will pee every now and then, and the adults got to change diapers. There was a strong urine smell in the house, and even if Li Shiqiang’s mother had cooked dinner, Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun had no appetite and rather eat in School.

“Eat more if you think it is nice. This holiday, don’t return to Bing City and stay at home. Mum will cook your favorite dish every day.”

“I can’t. I need to go to the Soviet Union in another two days. There is another Summer Camp, and I was invited. I need to go.” Summer camp was a good reason to handle his parents.

“Summer camp again? You are invited? Then you must go. You have your dinner while I ask Mdm Wang to teach me how to knit a sweater.”

When Zhang Muhua heard that her son was invited to attend the Summer Camp in the Soviet Union, she was overjoyed. She grabbed a half-knitted sweater and left the house. Feng Yu had seen this half-knitted sweater 6 months ago. It still looks the same, and there was no progress at all.

What was considered successful in the eyes of the older generations?

It can be education. Being a teacher or professor and being respected by others; it can be attending university and being assigned to a government agency to be a leader there; it can be going overseas and been to places where others have not been to.

But no matter what, being rich was never considered successful!

In the past, Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua wanted to earn more money for the family. It was not to be envied by others. They only wanted to improve their living conditions and let their children have better lives.

Now, their family had become the district’s wealthiest family. This was something they had not dreamt of in the past.

They contended with the money they have now. There was enough to put food on the table, and they have a roof over their head. They were able to drive a small car around and still own a pig farm and a food processing factory. If they sell their farm and factory, they do not need to worry for the rest of their lives.

Their only regret was the both of them did not attend university before. Even their daughter did not attend university!

Now, this responsibility, the whole family’s hopes, lies on Feng Yu’s shoulders!

Feng Yu did not disappoint them too. He had entered the City’s best High School!

The residents of Bing City and Longjiang province knew that Bing City’s Third High School represents the entry ticket to Universities! Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua were also proud that Feng Yu had been invited to the Summer Camp organized by the Soviet Union’s universities!

This was the Summer Camp organized by the Soviet University and Feng Yu had attended once before and will be attending it for the second time. This means that their son is the best student in Third High School. In the future, he can surely enter a good university in Beijing and will be a leader!

Feng Yu was targeting a prestigious university in Beijing. But it was not because he wanted to be assigned to some government departments to be government officials. He wanted to befriend some capable students and recruit them for his company.

In the future, there will be a batch of successful businessmen from prestigious universities. It does not mean that there were no successful businessmen from other universities. For example, Ma Yun was one who struggled to enter a university.

But one got to admit that the chances of the students from prestigious universities becoming successful was higher. It was because they were already ahead on the starting line.

When Feng Yu enter university, he will undoubtedly meet those successful businessmen from his previous life. Come, let brother Feng lead you……

One week later, Feng Yu returned to Bing City and boarded the plane for Moscow……

Chapter 232 – Special treatment

Once again, Kirilenko drove his car into the airport and picked up Feng Yu. This time, he had informed the organizers of the Summer Camp. He told them that Feng Yu had some personal matters and will join the camp in Kiev after he finishes his business.

The Moscow University and Kiev University were fine with this. Bing City’s Third High School also don’t mind. Before they depart, the principal had instructed the leader of this camp to not restrict Feng Yu.

The City Government knew that this would be another opportunity to visit the research facilities in Moscow and had wanted to send some university professors over. Last year, the three professors who had brought back those data had helped them in their researches and saved a significant amount of research funds.

The results of the research were also shared with Bing City’s government. Using these results, the government set up companies.

This was not only improving the economic development of Bing City and also increased the city’s honor!

But this year was different. The Moscow University will not let the students visit their research laboratories and facilities. It was the same for Kiev University. The students could only visit places related to literature.

What’s the use of literature for the city? There was no choice. Last year, it was the first summer camp and it a bit rushed, and the students could still visit those places. This year, they can’t. It was also because Feng Yu and Kirilenko were focused on other matters and did not request it.

Third High School’s teachers also knew that Feng Yu was special. Since Feng Yu entered Third High School, he had received special treatments. There were rumors that Principal Sun was promoted because of Feng Yu. It doesn’t matter if this rumor was true or false. There was still the possibility of the talk was real. The teacher dares not to risk his career. Anyway, it would be easier for the teacher to lead the group without Feng Yu.

Feng Yu spent a night in Moscow. Kirilenko’s way of welcoming guest was to drink. If you are a man, drink!

The next day, on the way to the airport for the flight to Kiev, Feng Yu was still feeling dizzy. He had only drunk less than half of what Kirilenko had drunk. But he sobers up on the plane.

Brother Ki is rich! This is a private jet!

This was a 20-seater plane, and Feng Yu had only seen it on the internet in his previous life. Only the rich could afford a private jet. The seats were comfortable and spacious. There was even a bedroom on the plane. In the bedroom, there was a king size bed!

Damn, this is a private jet, and there’s even a bed in it. Extravagant! Too extravagant!

But…… I like!

“Feng, what you think of this plane? Only those higher than the rank of General can fly in this plane. You like it? If you want to buy one, I can think of a way to sell one to you cheaply.”

Kirilenko was smoking a cigar and was shaking his legs. He was showing off. This was a luxury that only people with strong backgrounds and connections can enjoy. Feng Yu undoubtedly had not experienced it before.

Feng Yu was thinking. He really likes this plane. Wait, Brother Ki said he can sell me one? I can own a private jet?

Feng Yu was tempted by this suggestion. But he knew that he could not buy it, or at least not now.

If you are too arrogant in China, you will get into trouble unless you are really damn rich.

In his past life, there was a celebrity named Uncle Benshan. He had over 10 million fans, and his companies made lots of money. But after he bought a private plane, his life gone downhill. Although he was not bankrupted, he was no longer in the limelight.

Feng Yu suppressed his desire and lied to Kirilenko: “I don’t like these types of planes. Really.” When he said this, he was looking around the plane.

The plane took off, and after a while, the stewardess came to them to inform them that they can unbuckle their seatbelts.

Kirilenko stood up and walked towards a corner of the cabin. Feng Yu suddenly realized that there was a beautiful stewardess onboard the plane.

Damn, there’s even a mini bar on the plane! Kirilenko really knows how to enjoy life!

“Feng, there’s still about an hour until touch down. You want a glass of Volka?” Kirilenko asked.

Feng Yu’s face changed color and hurriedly rejected his offer: “Brother Ki, I really can’t drink anymore. Is there fruit juice? I will have a glass of fruit juice.”

Stop joking. I know you well. If I say I can drink one glass, you will pour me the whole bottle! Feng Yu can’t accept this type of hospitality.

Feng Yu finished the glass of juice in one gulp. The juice also clears his mind slightly. Kirilenko noticed that Feng Yu kept looking at the bedroom and raised his eyebrows. He signals to the stewardess and whispers something to her.

The stewardess looked at Kirilenko and then look at Feng Yu. She bit her lips and nodded.

“Mr. Feng, do you want to rest in there?” The stewardess walked over to Feng Yu and softly said to him in his ears. Her hot breath was blowing into Feng Yu’s ears. Ticklish.

Feng Yu moved aside and excitedly asked: “Really?”

“Follow me.” The stewardess leads Feng Yu towards the room with the king size bed. Kirilenko who was standing not far away had a naughty smile on his face.

Click!

The bedroom’s door was locked by the stewardess.

Feng Yu was shocked. What’s this? I want to take a nap, and I can understand if you lock the door. But please leave the room first.

“Mr. Feng, let me help you take off your clothes.” The stewardess reached over and help Feng Yu to unbutton his clothes. She had seen Feng Yu’s eager look earlier.

Feng Yu immediately stepped away from her but fell on the bed. What does she want from me?

The stewardess had a charming smile when she saw Feng Yu was taking the “initiative” by climbing on to the bed. She starts to unbutton her uniform.

Feng Yu immediately grab her hands. Although he was still a virgin in this life, he had a wife in his previous life. If he still does not know what was going on, he would be an idiot!

The stewardess had stayed in the room after leading Feng Yu in, and Kirilenko should know about this. He did not knock on the door, that means that he had arranged this!

Damn. I only want to take a nap on the bed, and I do not want to bed this stewardess!

Feven if Feng Yu was tempted, they were onboard a plane and Kirilenko was just outside the room. He does not want to do something like this. Furthermore, this stewardess was young and pretty. Who knows how many men had slept with her!

“Wait. Please go out. I had drunk a lot yesterday. I am not interested!”

The stewardess froze. She was only 18 years old, and she knows she was very attractive. This Mr. Feng was not interested in her?

“Mr. Feng, Kirilenko was the one who arranged for me to accompany you. You do not need to worry.”

“Please go outside and tell him that I want to rest. Close the door when you leave!” Feng Yu replied firmly.

The stewardess walked out disappointed. She could not get the 1,000 Rubles Kirilenko promised her. But Kirilenko’s instructions were very clear. She must make Feng Yu happy. If Feng Yu gets angry, he will get angry too.

When she was leaving the room, she kept turning back to look at Feng Yu. Until she closed the bedroom door, Feng Yu did not call her back.

Kirilenko was surprised when he saw the stewardess coming out of the room. He used his eyes to ask her, and she shook her head. Kirilenko was also disappointed. Was Feng Yu good at self-control or he does not like this girl?

After the stewardess left, Feng Yu immediately lock the door and laid down on the bed. He sighed. He thought if he should accept Kirilenko’s hospitality if he arranged something like this again at Kiev.

Author’s notes: Many readers had told me that they felt that the Fu family was taking advantage of the main character. But this is the reality. In business, there will be no such things as friends. There are only profits. The Fu family is a make-up family based on a real Hong Kong family. This family really have distribution channels on every continent. Please don’t worry. The MC will teach them a lesson.

Chapter 233 – The generous Kiev Second Generation

Before Feng Yu had fallen asleep, the stewardess knocked on the door and inform him that they are arriving and Feng Yu needs to return to his seat and buckle up.

It was still the same stewardess, and she smiled sweetly at Feng Yu. Feng Yu felt embarrassed and returned to his seat.

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu. He could not tell Feng Yu’s mood from his expression and does not know if Feng Yu was interested in that stewardess.

The plane landed in a military airport. Coming out of the plane, they saw the Kiev second generation. His name was difficult to remember and even thought Feng Yu had heard his name a few times, he could not remember his full name. He only remembered his name has “Ke” in it. So, Feng Yu just call him Brother Ke.

Brother Ke was more arrogant than Kirilenko, and if Feng Yu had not met Kirilenko first, Feng Yu might be good friends with him. But now, Kirilenko was enough. When the Soviet Union was disintegrated, and even if Kirilenko’s father were not promoted, Kirilenko’s status would be higher than Brother Ke.

Also, Feng Yu had never heard of Brother’s Ke before. Maybe he would be someone important in Ukraine’s army in future. But after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, how can Ukraine be compared to Russia? Furthermore, Kirilenko had brought Feng Yu to Ukraine to get bank loans. After this loan, the both of them will not be friends anymore.

“Kirilenko, Feng, welcome to Kiev.” Brother Ke gave the both of them a hug each. Hmmm… his embrace was much weaker than Kirilenko.

Brother Ke was indeed someone with higher social standing than Kirilenko. Look at his car, Rolls Royce. From his car, one could tell how corrupted the Soviet Union’s military officers were!

It was not even noon when they arrived but Brother Ke them to a restaurant. Maybe this was the Soviet Union’s way of welcoming guests.

Feng Yu was complaining in his heart. Lunch now? That means I need to drink again. I still have a terrible hangover from yesterday. Why the Soviets likes to drink so much?

“Brother Ke, I am still underage, and in my country, I am not allowed to drink. Of course, this is the Soviet Union, and I will respect your customs here. I will drink a little.” Feng Yu starts to find excuses. He was drunk from his drinking session with Kirilenko yesterday.

“Hahaha, Kirilenko, did you make Feng drink with you yesterday? Don’t worry, I had prepared red wine from France. The alcohol content is very low. This is a French restaurant. Let enjoy French cuisine.”

Feng Yu heave a sigh of relief. Brother Ke and Kirilenko were two different types of people. One could tell from the way they spend their money. Kirilenko was a typical Russian, and Brother Ke was more inclined to European aristocracy. Maybe his family was some Ukrainian nobility.

The lifestyle if Ukrainian and Russian were very different even though both were from the Soviet Union. Maybe the rest of the allied countries were like this too, and this might be one of the reasons for the dissolution.

Feng Yu relaxed when he saw the red wine. He was prepared to enjoy his lunch.

“Feng, this red wine is just like grape juice. Come, let’s bottoms up!” Kirilenko roared, and Feng Yu was brought back to reality.

Damn, why can’t we drink slowly?

Feng Yu raised his glass and took a small sip and slowly swallow the wine. Kirilenko, on the other hand, drank everything in one gulp. After Kirilenko finished his glass of wine, he noticed that Feng Yu had only drunk a little.

“Hahaha, Kirilenko, Red Wine and Volka are different. You must drink it slowly to savor it. Look at Feng, he knows how to enjoy this wine.” Brother Ke laughed.

What does Feng Yu know? Although Feng Yu had drunk red wine on several occasions in his previous life, he knew nothing about red wine or how to appreciate red wine. He even did stupid things like maxing sprite with red wine before drinking it!

But compared to Kirilenko, Feng Yu was much better, and he could accept Brother Ke’s compliments.

Kirilenko unhappily replied: “Humph! This wine has no taste at all. Do you have Volka here? Give me a bottle.”

If it were in the past, Kirilenko would not behave this way in front of Brother Ke. Brother Ke’s social standings were much higher than Kirilenko. But after trading the industrial machinery and technologies with Feng Yu, and his father joining the ranks of Yeltsin, Kirilenko felt that he does not need to be so courteous to Brother Ke. He had also planned to ditched Brother Ke from their business and do the Sino Soviet trade himself.

This time Kirilenko had chosen Kiev’s bank was after some serious considerations. First, he wanted to show his friendship with Feng Yu to Brother Ke. He wants to show that he was the first person Feng Yu went to when he needed help. Secondly, he felt that the amount of loan Feng Yu wanted was too high. If Feng Yu default the payment, it will also be Ukraine’s bank that would suffer the loss and not the Russian banks. Lastly, he wanted to drag Brother Ke down with this bank. If anything goes wrong, Brother Ke will be the one who would be responsible.

Brother Ke looked at Kirilenko and frowned. He asked his men to bring him a bottle of Volka. He felt that Kirilenko had given him lesser profits for the past few months. He wanted to let Kirilenko drink more and got drunk. This way, he can ask Feng Yu about their trade and see if Kirilenko had taken his share of profits!

Kirilenko was drinking his Volka alone, but he was also listening to Feng Yu and Brother Ke’s conversation. But their conversations were only about some unimportant matters, like hobbies and interests.

Kirilenko finished the bottle of Volka in a short while. Feng Yu and Brother Ke had not even finished that bottle of red wine.

French steak and escargot taste lovely, but the portion was too little. Feng Yu felt that he was only about 60% full. He wonders why Kirilenko ate so little with his size. If it were Wen Dongjun, he would order two more steaks. Feng Yu was embarrassed to order more food. Anyway, they were not there for lunch. They had more important things to discuss.

Brother Ke glanced at Kirilenko and saw that Kirilenko was drunk. He was laughing in his heart. You think you are capable with some money? If I find out that you had given me lesser than what I am supposed to get, you will be in deep trouble!

“Feng, I heard from Kirilenko that your company had some problems and needed to get a loan?”

Feng Yu was eating the dessert, and he nodded: “that’s right. I need a sum of money.”

Feng Yu was thinking to himself. It was not that my company in trouble. I only don’t want to miss this opportunity. If he get loans in Rubles from the Soviet Union now and in a few years’ time, Rubles will depreciate considerably, and even if he did not invest that money, he would also get lots of profits!

“How many Rubles do you need?” Brother Ke asked.

Feng Yu was puzzled. Didn’t Kirilenko tell him?

“Brother Ke, Kirilenko had told me that your help is needed for this loan. My company only have about 30 million Rubles worth of assets. How much loan can you get for me?”

Brother Ke arrogantly said: “I am helping you get the loan. What’s there for you to worry about? Are 200 million Rubles enough?”

What? Feng Yu’s jaws dropped in surprise. Brother Ke was really generous!

Chapter 234 – Should I agree?

200 million Rubles, enough?

This question had stunned Feng Yu. He had never thought that his relationship with Brother Ke was so good until he was willing to help him get a loan of 200 million Rubles. He also knew that Feng Yu did not have enough assets to get this loan.

Why did Brother Ke still asked him this?

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that before Kirilenko was drunk, Brother Ke had only talked to him about those unimportant things. It was just after Kirilenko was drunk, then he mentioned the loans.

Could it be?

“Brother Ke, is there any conditions for you to help me get the loan of 200 million Rubles?” Feng Yu asked in a serious tone.

He would never believe that Brother Ke would help him without any other conditions unless there’s something wrong with his mind.

Brother Ke smiled. Feng Yu could understand the underlying meaning.

“Feng, although we met through Kirilenko, and we are just business partners. But I felt that we can not only be business partners. We can also be friends, good friends! Our friendship can just be like the friendship between our Soviet Union and China!”

Feng Yu nodded, but in his heart, he was cursing. The Soviet Union and China had never been friends.

Since the past, China had pursued the policy of befriending the far and attacking the near. But because of the United States, China had to unite with the Soviet Union. However, recently China had established diplomatic relations with the United States.

Since the founding of China, the Soviet Union had withdrawn their resources, technological assistance from China and even started a war. This had worsened the relationship between both nations. The Soviet Union had also occupied part of China’s territory for over 100 years. How can there be friendship between both countries?

Seeing Feng Yu nodding, Brother Ke was happy. He continued: “Feng, there is something I am curious about. Kirilenko had told me that our company had only a few million Rubles worth of assets and these few years I had only received a few million. How come you are able to accumulate over 30 million Rubles worth of assets? Is there something that I am not aware?”

The smile on Feng Yu’s face disappeared. Could it be Brother Ke suspect that he had earned more money? Even though this was the case, but most of Feng Yu’s income was from the Machinery Company, humidifiers, and electric fans. These were related with the Soviet Union trade but Feng Yu would never and cannot admit!

“Brother Ke, you have misunderstood. All my assets were not from our trade. I had set up many factories in China, and my products are very popular throughout China. Our hi-tech humidifiers and bladeless fans were sold throughout the world. These products are the primary source of revenue for my company. See, that humidifier in that corner is my company’s second-generation humidifier.”

Brother Ke turned and look at the Wind and Rain humidifier in the corner. He chooses to believe Feng Yu for the time being. Even if Feng Yu was lying to him, he had no way to prove he was lying. Without this trading partner, he would lose a lot of money every year. After all, not every Chinese can become their trading partner.

Kirilenko had also told him about Feng Yu when they met for the first time. Feng Yu was a competent person and had lots of connections. Brother Ke was afraid that he could not find another partner like Feng Yu and he was also scared of the people behind Feng Yu.

Although he knew that the people behind Feng Yu could not affect his standing in the Soviet Union, but if he could avoid all these necessary troubles, why not?

“Feng, then can you tell me how much have you earn since you started working with Kirilenko? We are friends. There should be no problems with you telling me about your earnings.”

Feng Yu realized that this Brother Ke was suspicious of Kirilenko and he felt that Kirilenko was cheating him. But did Brother Ke ever thought about how he had left everything to Kirilenko and had never shown any concerns about the Sino-Soviet trades? He had only helped to sell off some Chinese goods in the beginning and assisted in getting a few Soviet Union industrial machineries.

Feng Yu had discussed with Kirilenko before. Kirilenko will help Feng Yu get more advanced industrial machinery and even aircraft, tanks, etc. If Feng Yu had to choose, he would rather work with Kirilenko.

Feng Yu was calculating in his mind and decided to say a more conservative figure: “Brother Ke, I did not make much. The past 2 to 3 years, I had made about a few million Rubles. Surely you guys make more than me.”

Brother Ke looked at Feng Yu suspiciously. Really only a few million rubles? He felt that Feng Yu should not be earning so few. Feng Yu’s profit should be at least tens of millions of Rubles.

The industrial machinery from the Soviet Union was something that cannot be found in China, and it was worth a lot of money. He had heard that the Chinese were willing to pay more for these industrial machineries as China wanted to develop their industries.

Brother Ke was still thinking that the Soviet Union’s industries were much better than China, but he does not know that many sectors, like light industries and home appliances in China, had caught up with the Soviet Union.

“Feng, I heard that you wanted to buy some heavy industrial machines. Kirilenko is not able to help you, but I am different.” Brother Ke raised his glass while he said this.

Feng Yu paused for a moment. What does he mean by this? Brother Ke wants to ditch Kirilenko and deal with him directly?

But Brother Ke and Kirilenko should not have fallen out yet. Otherwise, Kirilenko would not bring Feng Yu to meet him.

These two people…… interesting.

Feng Yu pretended to not catch his hint: “Brother Ke, isn’t it all the same? We are still doing business together.”

“No, I don’t know how many industrial machinery and technologies Kirilenko had sold you. I have not seen the money earned.”

Feng Yu said with a confused face: “Brother Ke, this should not be possible. Why not we wake Kirilenko up and ask him. Maybe he is still awake.”

Feng Yu pointed at Kirilenko who was lying face down on the table. He tried to wake him up.

Brother Ke looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu was not lying?

“He had drunk a lot. Let him rest.” Brother Ke stopped Feng Yu from waking Kirilenko up. He continued: “Feng, I can also get you whatever machinery or technologies Kirilenko sells to you. I can even get you those that he can’t get, as long as you can give me a good price. Furthermore, Kirilenko can’t even help you with getting a loan but I can. If you promised me that you will work with me in future, I could help you get the loan. The amount will be more than what you wanted!”

Feng Yu hesitated. Brother Ke’s offer was really attractive. Should he agree?

Chapter 235 – There are no problems with High Interests

Feng Yu was really tempted as Brother Ke had offered excellent conditions. But he rationally thought about it for a while. He absolutely cannot agree to it!

Not to mention about his mutual trust with Kirilenko, Feng Yu had invested in Kirilenko more. He even told him about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yeltsin. Kirilenko must be his friend!

Feng Yu also knew about Kirilenko selling some machinery and technology to him without Brother Ke. Feng Yu was also part of the reason why Kirilenko kept Brother Ke out of these deals.

Feng Yu felt that if he rejects Brother Ke’s offer and let Kirilenko knows about this, he would help Feng Yu get more loans.

“Brother Ke, I had drunk too much, and I feel like taking a nap.” Feng Yu changed the topic. He did not agree nor reject Brother Ke.

Brother Ke was slightly disappointed, but he did not say much. He had already told Feng Yu what he wanted to say and it was all up to Feng Yu to decide, He believed that Feng Yu would agree to his attractive offers.

Brother Ke did not notice that the drunk Kirilenko had moved slightly.

Back at the hotel, Feng Yu washed his face with cold water and sat on a chair waiting for someone to knock on the door.

Indeed, within less than 5 minutes, the doorbell rang. Feng Yu opened the door, and Kirilenko was standing there.

“Feng, why are you not watching TV? Our soap operas are exciting to watch.”

Soap opera? Forget it. Feng Yu still prefer watching the Soviet Union’s songs and dance.

“Brother Ki, you are not drunk?” Feng Yu was asking the obvious.

Feng Yu had drunk with Kirilenko more than once. Kirilenko might be tipsy after a bottle of Volka, but he would never lie flat on the table.

He thought back and realized that Kirilenko was acting. He only wanted to listen to the conversation between Brother Ke and Feng Yu.

Feng Yu had all along thought that Kirilenko was an honest Russian businessman, but it seems that this was not the case. A businessman, especially someone who was selling their country’s industrial machinery will never be an honest person!

Luckily Feng Yu did not say anything bad about Kirilenko. Instead, Brother Ke had said something that would pressurize Kirilenko.

Kirilenko shook his head and rubbed his temples: “I have a slight headache. But I’m fine. I had fallen asleep just now, and I forgot to mention about your loans.”

“Brother Ke had told me about it.”

“Really? What did he tell you? Feng, actually I had considered, and I can help you get loans from many banks, like Ukraine Bank, Belarus Bank, Latvia Bank, etc. You wanted more loans and this way, you can loan more money.” Kirilenko said.

Feng Yu showed a surprised expression: “Really? That’s great. But how much can I loan in total and when can I get the money? My assets should not be enough to loan such a big amount.”

“Sigh…… Feng, we are good friends. I will solve these problems for you. You can use the same assets as collaterals for different banks. This is not a problem. Leave everything to me!” Kirilenko beat his chest and said.

“Really? Will it be too troublesome?” Feng Yu asked with an embarrassed expression.

“No, of course not. We are brothers.” This guy suddenly becomes brothers with Feng Yu.

“Really? Then how much loans can I get?” Feng Yu continued to ask.

Feng Yu could not accept a vague answer. He wants an exact figure. Since Kirilenko had heard his conversation with Brother Ke, he will surely do something to maintain his friendship with Feng Yu, he does not want Feng Yu to work with Brother Ke.

“Is 300 million Rubles enough? You can just use your 30 million Rubles worth of assets as collaterals. I believe that you will be able to repay all these loans.”

Feng Yu’s eyes grew wide. 300 million Rubles. Kirilenko had become more generous after he heard what Brother Ke said to Feng Yu. With 300 million Rubles, Feng Yu could realize his plans easier.

As for the repayment? Stop joking. As long as the repayment period was long enough, at the end of the 1990s, the Rubles will depreciate by a few thousand times! By that time, 300 million Rubles will only be worth less than 100,000 Rubles now. Why would Feng Yu worry about the repayment?

“It will be great if I can get loans of 300 million Rubles. Brother Ki, rest assured, I will send you 15 million Rubles worth of Chinese goods. But I can’t send it all at one go. I need to send it on a few trips. This shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“Feng, why is it 15 million Rubles worth of goods? We had agreed on 5 million Rubles. You need to be prepared that you might need to spend not less than 3 million Rubles to give to the few banks’ leaders.”

Using so little Rubles to bribe them? Feng Yu was thinking that if they dare to give him a loan of 300 million Rubles, he wouldn’t mind giving them 10 million! It was a pity that even though the Soviet Union officials were corrupted, but they were not stupid. They dare not to take too many risks. Furthermore, the 300 million Rubles loan was not a small amount, and maybe only the Central Bank in Moscow would dare to give out the loan. Also, Kirilenko’s influence was not enough to get the approval.

“Brother Ki, I understand. Don’t worry. I am not a stingy person. But can the repayment period and the interests’ repayments be more extended?” Feng Yu asked again.

“What do you mean? The repayment period can be extended, but the interest repayment cannot be extended. At least one payment of the interest is required every year.” Kirilenko was puzzled. The interests’ repayment can also be delayed?

“Brother Ki, you help me ask if this is possible. I will take the loan for 8 years, and in the 8th year, I will repay everything, including the interests. I don’t mind if the interest is higher.”

Kirilenko frowned. He had never heard of anyone taking loans this way. He was also unsure if this was possible. But he felt that since Feng Yu wanted to do it this way, he must have his reasons. He could not figure out why Feng Yu wanted the loan repayment to be this way.

“Higher interest? How high can you accept? 10% yearly interest? 20%? Or even higher?”

Feng Yu smiled and said: “How about yearly interest of 20%?”

Kirilenko gasped: “Yearly interest of 20%? You are willing to accept such high interest? 8 years later you need to repay almost 800 million Rubles even if using simple interest!”

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart, even if it was compounded interest, there’s no problem if the repayment currency was in Rubles!

By that time, 800 million Rubles would be equivalent to a few million RMB. Feng Yu only needs to covert the Rubles from the loan into currencies like USD or RMB, he would get returns of over a thousand times. Why would he worry about the interest?

“Brother Ki, help me think of a way. I don’t mind spending more, and I promise you that I will repay every single cent, including the interest in eight years’ time!”

Kirilenko gritted and said: “Fine. I will help you think of a way!”

Chapter 236 The Soviet Union Ball (Part 1)

That evening during dinner, the three of them did not mention anything about the loan.

Brother Ke saw Feng Yu and Kirilenko were chatting as if nothing had happened and he had another idea.

“Feng, you should not have anything to do this evening?  We have a ball here tonight. Join us.”

Ball? Was it like those ball in Shanghai before in the 1920s? A group of military officers in their uniforms, a group of politicians and businessmen and some socialites gathering and dancing? If any of the officers, businessmen or politicians like any of the socialites, they would bring them back at night?

“I don’t know how to dance.” Feng Yu tried to reject. Every country has their local dances, and Feng Yu was not sure what dance will they be dancing at a Soviet Union Ball. Traditional ballroom dance?

“It’s fine. Many people also do not know how to dance. Just go and enjoy yourself. Furthermore, I can get someone to teach you. You can surely pick up how to dance!” Brother Ke insisted.

Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko and Kirilenko also persuaded him: “Feng, just go. It is a ball for the younger officers. It is very interesting.”

Young officers ball? Feng Yu remembered a news article he read in his previous life. Russian young officers ball has lots of pretty women and lots of celebrities.

This ball was a form of socializing event. If the young officers had no strong backings, then this ball would be the chance of them to join the different factions.

But those Generals will only be there for a short while and would leave the ball after a dance. Those that wanted to join their factions would be there early and approach them. There was no point for the Generals to stay any longer as those that do not want to join them would not contact them even if they remained at the ball longer. It would be embarrassing for them to see the officers they like joining other’s factions.

Of course, these were not important to Feng Yu. The most important part was that there will be many pretty ladies there!

Soviet Union women had a fair complexion, long legs, blue eyes, etc.……

Feng Yu blinked and said: “but I do not have a dance partner.”

Kirilenko suddenly remembered what happened on the plane. He remembered the stewardess telling him that Feng Yu was not interested because he had drunk a lot!

Yesterday Feng Yu had drunk, but this afternoon, Feng Yu did not drink, and Feng Yu still took a nap in the afternoon. Tonight, Feng Yu should be feeling better.

Feng Yu really wants a dance partner, or he wants a woman to accompany him tonight? Whatever. Just get a girl that can dance and sleep with him!

As for these type of arrangements, Kirilenko was very familiar. When he was buying the industrial machinery and technologies in the Soviet Union, he had made these types of arrangements for the factory directors. Once those directors accept his arrangements, the deal will be finalized!

“Feng, it’s just a dancing partner. Leave this to me.” Kirilenko immediately says. Brother Ke also wanted to say something but Kirilenko was faster than him.

Although this was Brother Ke’s territory, Kirilenko also knew other second generations officers. He could also arrange two “dancing partners” for himself and Feng Yu. Worse come to worse, he just needs to spend some money.

Brother Ke was curious why Kirilenko did not drink during dinner. This was weird. If Kirilenko were drunk and missed the ball, then he would have the opportunities to speak to Feng Yu.

“Fine, we shall leave at 6.30pm. I will send a set of ballroom attire to Feng’s room later.”

……

At 6.30pm, Feng Yu had changed and left his room. The ballroom attire was only a set of military officer uniform without ranks.

At the entrance of the hotel, there were two military plate cars and two young girls, wearing long white dresses standing beside the vehicles. Kirilenko walked towards one of the girls, and Feng Yu was dragged into the car by the other girl. She looks like she was about 17 to 18 years’ old.

Although Feng Yu was supposed to invite the girl into the car, it was the reverse. Feng Yu felt good with this experience.

In the car, Feng Yu was feeling slightly uncomfortable. This young girl was too close to him, and this was not normal for an ordinary dance partner.

Feng Yu stole a glance at the girl and felt mesmerized by her beauty. He remembered that Ukraine was famous for their beautiful girls, which looked like real-life Barbie dolls.

Ukraine women had been voted as the world’s most beautiful women, but they look old faster. It might be due to the Soviet Union’s tradition of marrying young. Girls were allowed to get married at 14 years’ old and the earlier one got married, the sooner they matured. This also resulted in them aging faster.

“Mr. Feng, my name is Elena. What kind of dance do you know?”

Elena, in Russian meant sunshine and this girl, was absolutely worthy of this name.

“I am not good at dancing, and I am from China. I am not familiar with your dances.” Although Feng Yu said this, he actually wanted to dance with Elena.

“That’s fine. There will be a group dance for those young officers, but you are a distinguished guest, so you are free to participate in any dance after that. There are single and double dances. There are no rules for single dance, and the doubles dance is also very simple. I can teach you.” The young girl said and looked intensely at Feng Yu.

“All right then.”

After alighting, Feng Yu opened the car door for Elena like a gentleman. Elena smiled sweetly at him.

A young girl’s sweet smile was contagious, and Feng Yu also felt happy.

Elena walked with Feng Yu with their arms linked behind Kirilenko. They entered a building which resembles a church.

Wow……

Once inside, Feng Yu was astounded by the interior of the building. This place was huge. It should be more than a thousand square meters, and there were lots of lightings on the ceiling. Speakers were hung on every wall. This place seems to be built especially for balls.

Extravagance!

There was a small stage in the front and on the stage, there was a microphone. At the back of the stage, there was a traditional band. This place plays live music?

Looking at the band’s uniform, they look like soldiers. They should be from the Soviet Union’s military band.

“Feng, over here. This is my fiancée, Ida. I will introduce you to some of my friends later.” Brother Ke said to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu noticed a young woman standing beside Brother Ke. She was about 18 years’ old. Brother Ke actually brought his fiancée here. But the age difference between the both of them was quite big. Brother Ke was almost 30 years’ old.

“Nice to meet you. I am Feng Yu from China.” Feng Yu introduced himself to Ida. He shook her hands politely as he does not want Brother Ke to have any misunderstandings. This place is Kiev, and it is Brother Ke’s territory.

They went to a corner and sat down. Brother Ke and Kirilenko were chatting with their female companions, and Feng Yu could only talk to Elena. But Feng Yu felt that their conversions were boring. Elena just answered whatever he asked, and she did not ask Feng Yu about anything.

Feng Yu found out that Elena was instructed by her leaders to not ask about Feng Yu. She was only a member of a dance troupe, and she dares not to offend Kirilenko.

After a while, at about 7pm, the main door was closed, and the lights were dimmed. On the stage, there was only candlelight and someone who resembles a General went up the stage.

The ball was starting……

Chapter 237 The Soviet Union Ball (Part 2)

Feng Yu listened to the General’s speech. He was talking about how great the Soviet Union was, and he encouraged the younger officers to put in their best efforts and contribute to the Soviet Union. The younger officers enjoyed the speech, and the ballroom was filled with applause.

Feng Yu could only sit out for the first segment of the ball. It was a group dance. This group dance was very popular in the military. The dance moves were not very complicated, and all the officers were able to synchronize their movements. Feng Yu thought if these officers practiced this dance every day. How can the army be strong if these officers just practice dance moves every day?

The second segment was the doubles dance. Brother Ke and his partner walked onto the dancefloor and Elena stretched out her hand towards Feng Yu. It was obvious what her intention was.

Feng Yu held Elena’s hands and walked towards the dancefloor.

Eh, this movement was similar to ballroom dancing. Feng Yu was relieved. He knew ballroom dance.

“Mr. Feng, you said that you don’t know how to dance, but you are dancing quite well.” It was different from international ballroom dance, and they do not need to turn their heads left and right. The both of them could look at each other in the eyes while dancing.

“I only know this dance and don’t know about other movements. Look over there, they are dancing very well.”

There were an officer and his partner dancing and showed precise dance moves. The both of them were excellent dancers, and the officer was tall and handsome while his partner was petite and pretty. The officer even showed a dance move where he threw his partner into the air.

Elena smiled and whispered to Feng Yu: “Mr. Feng, match my movements.”

What? Feng Yu does not know what she meant, and Elena let go of Feng Yu’s shoulders, stepped back and spread her arms wide.

Feng Yu immediately followed her movements and Elena spin one round and returned to Feng Yu’s arms.

But that was not the end. She moved backward again and spin around Feng Yu with her arms stretched outwards.

Elena’s dance moves were stunning, and the surrounding people moved aside to give her more space. There were even some who stopped dancing and stood there watching her dance. The crowd was clapping and cheering her on.

While spinning, Elena was still able to place her hand on Feng Yu’s shoulders, and her other hand was holding on to Feng Yu’s side when she stopped.

This maneuver memorized the crowd, and the ballroom was filled with applause. Feng Yu felt that he had become a good dancer!

After the dance, the both of them walked back to their seats, hand in hand. The crowd was still clapping.

“Feng, how was it? Did I find the right dance partner for you?” Kirilenko asked.

“Thank you, Brother Ki. I really enjoy myself tonight.”

“I’m glad you enjoy yourself. Let me know when you want to leave.” Kirilenko was hinting at Feng Yu, and he left with his glass to look for his other friends.

Feng Yu paused for a moment. What does Kirilenko mean by that? It will be rude if he leaves after a dance. Am I that sort of person?

“Elena, you are an outstanding dancer. Are you a professional?” Feng Yu asked.

Elena smiled and nodded: “I am from the Ukraine dance troupe. I started dancing since I was 5, and have been dancing for over 8 years.”

She’s a professional dancer. No wonder she could dance so well. Wait, Elena was not even 14 years’ old?

Feng Yu know that Soviet Union girls mature early, but Elena was too developed. Her height was about 1.7 meters. A 13-year-old with a height of 1.7 meters? That means Brother Ke’s fiancée might also be younger than 18 years’ old?

Sighed. The Soviet Union was indeed a paradise for those pedophiles.

“No wonder you could dance so well. Where are your parents from?”

“My father is a soldier from Kiev, but he passed away. My mother was from Saint Petersburg, and she was a former dancer. She is currently teaching dancing in Saint Petersburg.”

Oh, she had inherited the dancing genes from her mother. Looking at Elena’s status, her father should not be any high-ranking officer, and maybe he was just an ordinary soldier. If not, Elena would not be sent by her troupe leader to be his dance partner.

“What do you want to do in future?” Feng Yu asked.

“I want to be the Soviet Union’s best dancer and dance in front of Soviet Union’s President Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev at the Grand Kremlin Palace.” When she said this, her eyes were beaming.

Hmmm, another blind supporter. Feng Yu knew that if he asked Elena to list out what was so great of Mikhail Gorbachev, she could not answer.

Feng Yu despised President Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev in his heart. He controlled the world’s biggest country and had one of the most advanced military power in the world. He also had the support of many people, but in the end, he ended up a ruined fate. This showed how much of a failure he was.

If it were not for some people who had opposed, Mikhail Gorbachev would be killed. It was Yeltsin that calmed the situation. Feng Yu felt Yeltsin was more suitable to be a leader.

Feng Yu looked at Elena. Her dreams might be the dreams of all dancers in the Soviet Union. In fact, Feng Yu felt the Elena was qualified to perform at the Grand Kremlin Palace now. She only needs an opportunity. If Elena was transferred to the Russia Dance Troupe, she might get the opportunity.

“Elena, other than dancing, what other dreams do you have?”

“Other dreams? Can world peace and a prosperous motherland consider?”

Feng Yu: “……”

This dream was too unrealistic. This girl only knew dancing, and maybe she had not thought about other things.

“Have you ever thought that after you stop dancing, what are you going to do?” Feng Yu continued asking.

“If I can’t dance anymore, I will be a dancing teacher like my mother.”

Feng Yu was speechless. This innocent girl wants to devote all her life to dancing.

Kirilenko returned and saw Feng Yu chatting happily with this girl from the dance troupe. He smiled. It seems that he had found the right person for Feng Yu. Feng Yu must have disliked that stewardess because she was too old. Look, Feng Yu could not take his eyes off that 13-year-old girl.

“Feng, come. Let me introduce you to some friends.” Brother Ke brought some people over and warmly introduced these military send generations to him.

Feng Yu smiled and entertained them out of courtesy, but he did not remember the names of those people. Feng Yu remembered what Kirilenko said to him earlier. If he wants to leave, let him know. If one does not have friends to chat with at a ball, it will be so dull.

“Brother Ke, I’m tired. I feel like going back to rest.”

Kirilenko immediately said: “All of you can continue. I will send him back.” Kirilenko thought that Feng Yu can’t wait to get back to his hotel with that girl/

The both of them, together with their dance partners left the ball.

Translator notes: Feng Yu is a pedobear?

Chapter 238 – Brother Ki’s misunderstanding

The car drove straight to the hotel, and Feng Yu alighted. Elena also alighted.

What’s going on? Shouldn’t Elena be going back? Could it be she wants to eat supper?

Feng Yu turned and saw Kirilenko hugging his partner. He gave Feng Yu a grinned.

Once in the hotel lobby, Feng Yu pulled Kirilenko to a side and asked: “Brother Ki, what’s going on? Why are they still here?”

Kirilenko puzzledly asked Feng Yu back: “Why must they go back? Feng, don’t you want to have an enjoyable night? Don’t worry, she is a good girl. I guaranteed that no men had touched her before. She is still a virgin!”

Damn, which “good girl” will do such things in the first meeting? Feng Yu had rejected Kirilenko’s arrangement on the plane and why did he arrange this sort of activity again? Could it be the Soviets “entertain” their friends in this manner?

“Brother Ki, I did not touch that stewardess on the plane was not because she was not a virgin. It was because I had a girlfriend back in China. You understand?” Feng Yu thought of Li Na, and he decided to hold back.

Kirilenko patted Feng Yu’s shoulders and said with an “I understand you” expression: “Feng, I also have a girlfriend. But that is in Moscow. We are in Kiev now!”

Feng Yu was speechless. Were there the words “I am a pervert” written on my forehead? Why Kirilenko felt that I will surely accept his arrangement?

“Brother Ki, I am not interested in that Elena.”

Kirilenko rolled his eyes at Feng Yu: “Then who are you interested in? How about my partner? If you like her, I can change with you.”

Kirilenko was thinking to himself: you had chatted with that girl for more than half an hour and you are smiling happily throughout. Yet you are telling me that you are not interested? Stop your pretenses!

Exchange? Feng Yu was speechless. This Kirilenko was too uninhibited. Feng Yu could not handle him.

“Brother Ki, even if I agree, but will that girl agree?”

Kirilenko smiled. You can no longer hide your desires, right?

“Don’t worry. I had spoken to her leader before this ball, and these girls knew what was happening. You don’t need to worry. After tonight, if you like her, I can arrange for her to be transferred to the Russian Dance Troupe. In Moscow, no one can bully her. If you dislike her, then you will never meet her again. I can get you a new girl!”

Fuck. You had everything planned out nicely. Should I thank you?

“But Kirilenko, she is only 13. Is this even legal?” Feng Yu asked.

“Even if she is only 13, so what? What legal are you talking about? If no one mention about this, who will know? In the Soviet Union, 14 years’ old can be married. Girls at this age are the prettiest.” Kirilenko winked at Feng Yu.

Prettiest? Prettiest your head! She is only 13! How can I do such a thing?

For someone who had the memories of two lives, Feng Yu definitely wants to do it. Furthermore, his body now was in the puberty stage.

He had a pretty girlfriend beside him, but she was too conservative, and he can’t do anything with her. Now, this was a great opportunity, and Feng Yu could do whatever he likes. However, this was just a little girl, and she was only 13 years old!

No matter what the Soviets thinks, Feng Yu could not accept. Feng Yu knew that Kirilenko will not let Elena go back tonight.

Feng Yu sighed. He will speak to Elena later. His room was a suite, and he could sleep on the couch outside later.

Seeing Feng Yu agree, Kirilenko patted Feng Yu’s shoulders happily. With his arms on his shoulders, the both of them walked towards the girls.

All of them entered the lift, and Feng Yu was looking at Elena in the elevator. Elena blushed and looked down.

Damn, she really knew what was going on.

At their level, Kirilenko walked to his room and turned to Feng Yu. He gave Feng Yu a thumb up and smiled.

Feng Yu sat on the couch once he entered his room.

Elena timidly said to Feng Yu: “Mr. Feng, should I take a shower first?”

Feng Yu immediately stopped Elena: “Elena, let me make things clear with you. I have a girlfriend back in China, and tonight you will sleep in the room while I sleep on the couch.”

Elena’s face changed, and she looks like she was about to cry: “Mr. Feng, did I do anything wrong? Don’t worry, I will not stick to you.”

Feng Yu sighed: Elena, you are only 13 years’ old.”

“I am 14.” Elena stubbornly said.

“Fine, even if you are 14 years’ old, back in China, you should still be in middle school. In my country, you are still considered a minor until you are 18 years’ old. This is illegal, do you understand?”

“But his is the Soviet Union, and this is Kiev. Here, girls can get married at 14 years’ old.”

Damn. What is wrong with you? Did your leader brainwashed you or promised you something in return for sleeping with me?

“Did your leader gave you instructions to listen to me? You shall do whatever I told you. Tonight, you will sleep in the room. Go in and sleep. Close the door!” Feng Yu said in a firm tone.

Elena looked at Feng Yu with tears in her eyes. Feng Yu turned around. This was the first time in this life that he wanted to smoke a cigarette.

Feng Yu heard the room’s door closed behind him and was relieved. Brother Ki, this arrangement does not make me feel good. Instead, this was a torture to me!

Feng Yu switched on the Tv and switched the channels. It was all Soviet Union programs, and after a while, Feng Yu switched off the TV.

He took a bath in the hall’s bathroom, and he decided to sleep while wearing his clothes that night. When he walked out of the bathroom, he noticed the bedroom’s door opened, and Elena was walked out wrapped in a towel.

Elena had just taken a shower, and her hair was still dripping. She was looking at Feng Yu with her big eyes, and she pulled her towel off!

Feng Yu took a deep breath and rushed towards her.

……

The next morning, Kirilenko woke up and went downstairs to have breakfast. He learned that Feng Yu was still in his room and he smiled. This Feng Yu was good at pretending. He must have worked himself until late at night.

It’s normal for young men to enjoy themselves once in a while. Feng Yu must have enjoyed himself last night.

After a while, Feng Yu appeared with dark rings around his eyes. Behind him was Elena. They both looked like they had not rest last night.

Kirilenko winked at Feng Yu and asked with a naughty smile: “Feng, how was last night?”

Feng Yu forced a smile: “It’s fine. Thank you, Brother Ki. Can you arrange for her to be transferred to the Russian Dance Troupe? She only has her mother left in her family and her mother is in Saint Petersburgh. So……”

Kirilenko knew that Feng Yu wanted to keep this girl. This was not a problem. All he needs to do was to make a phone call, and everything will be arranged. Maybe, Feng Yu would be visiting Moscow frequently in the future.

“No problems Feng. Leave everything to me. I promise you that she will be in Moscow before the end of this month.” It seems like Kirilenko had made the right arrangements this time.

Translator Notes: Spoilers, Feng Yu, did not touch her, and he is not a Pedobear. The truth will be out in the next chapter.

Chapter 239 – Shooting (Part 1)

Kirilenko arranged his men to send the girls back. Feng Yu sat down to have breakfast with Kirilenko.

Muffins, sausage, bread, jam, fruit and black tea. The Soviet breakfast was really rich. Feng Yu shifted his attention to the food.

“Feng, you had mentioned that you envied soldiers can shoot guns two days ago. Today, I had arranged for you to visit a shooting range. Do you still have the energy to shoot?” Kirilenko asked, and he raised his eyebrows. He had an irritating look, and Feng Yu felt like slapping him.

Feng Yu eyes widen. He was excited. Most men like to play with guns. Feng Yu had only fired hunting rifles, and he had not tried other types of firearms.

As for energy, he only did not sleep well last night, and he did not do any strenuous activities. Last night, Elena tried to seduce Feng Yu by dropping her towel. Feng Yu rushed over to pick up the towel and covered Elena.

Elena was tall, slim and had long legs. But it might be due to her dancing, or maybe she was still young, she was flat chested.

This reminded Feng Yu that Elena was still a young girl. Although he was not a saint, he would never do anything to a child!

If Elena was 18 years’ old, then things might be different.

Feng Yu tried to persuade Elena not to do such things again and also tried to find out what was promised to her.

Elena told Feng Yu that her leader had promised her an opportunity to be the lead dancer and will transfer her to Russian Dance Troupe. She cried when she mentioned her mother living alone in Saint Petersburgh.

Feng Yu could not stand her crying and promised to help her. He told her that he would ask his friend to help her. Elena smiled and said that her body was the only way she can repay Feng Yu.

Feng Yu immediately pushed her away. Forget it. If you can’t sleep, then we can have a good talk. But if you want to do something else, no way! Feng Yu tried to persuade to take care of herself and must love her body. Her body cannot be used to trade for things.

Elena told Feng Yu about the happy days when she was learning to dance. He also told him about the living conditions of the Soviets. Feng Yu listen carefully. This was a chance for him to understand the Soviet Union better.

The both of them talked until late at night and Elena went back into the bedroom to sleep. Feng Yu slept on the couch. He did not sleep well that night, and this explains the dark circles around his eyes.

“Brother Ki, what guns can I play?”

“Other than heavy machine guns, you can shoot handguns and rifles. I can also get you some light machine guns. Oh yes, are you interested in playing with grenades?”

Feng Yu waved his hands: “Forget about grenades. I prefer guns.”

He had heard that many new soldiers were killed by the grenades thrown by their own men.

Feng Yu had never thrown a grenade before and if he was nervous or the grenade slipped from his hand, he would be killed by himself.

Feng Yu was satisfied with Kirilenko’s arrangement today. He did not know that this was arranged by Brother Ke and Kirilenko had claimed credit for this arrangement.

After breakfast, a car arrived at the hotel to pick them up. Feng Yu was in awe of Kirilenko. His planning was great. If Brother Ke knows that his arrangement had let Feng Yu be in awe of Kirilenko, he would have banged his head against the wall.

Feng Yu took a nap on the car, and the driver woke him up after an hour. They had arrived at the shooting range. It was not that far from his hotel.

Feng Yu had thought that the shooting range would be in some remote army camp and should take at least 2 hours to get there.

After alighting from the car, Feng Yu saw Brother Ke. He was wearing his army uniform. Feng Yu greeted him and was dragged away by Kirilenko to change into military camouflage uniforms. They also get the guns and ammunition from the armory.

“Feng, this is Instructor Leo. He will guide you.” Kirilenko introduced an instructor to Feng Yu, and he walked aside to check his weapon. Feng Yu could tell that Kirilenko was very familiar with firearms from the way Kirilenko handles them.

The instructor told Feng Yu to never point the gun and anybody. Also, the signs as to stop shooting and point the gun downwards. After these simple instructions, Instructor Leo lead Feng Yu to pick up his weapon.

This is a Black Star Pistol? Type 54 pistols, used by the Chinese Police, were copied from Black Star Pistols. Oh, that’s a TT33. This handgun is also very beautiful. Hold on, this gun and that gun are also beautiful.

Feng Yu do not know which gun to choose! The Soviet Union armies had used many types of handguns, and Feng Yu wanted to try out every weapon.

“Can I try all these guns?”

Instructor Leo: “……”

Try all the guns? There was at least over 10 different types of weapons here, and if you finish a clip for each gun, you will not even lift your fork for dinner tonight.

“Mr. Feng, I suggest you try two types of handguns. Don’t you want to try other types of guns? There are rifles over there.”

After the reminder from Instructor Leo, Feng Yu choose a TT33 and a Makarov pistol. The Chinese had made an imitation of the Makarov Pistol and named it 59.

Feng Yu picked AK 47 first when he walked over to the rifles. This was the world’s most iconic assault rifle. Before Feng Yu’s rebirth, almost every terrorist that appears on the news held an AK47.

The second rife Feng Yu picked was the Mosin Rifle. I was recommended by Instructor Leo. There was a scope on the rifle, and it was a commonly used hunting rifle, and it was suitable for beginners.

Instructor Leo told Feng Yu to pick the machine guns later after he finished shooting the firearms he chose. If his arms still have strength, then he can fire the machine guns later.

“Feng, are you done? Let’s go to the indoor range and fire some handguns.” Kirilenko said like a big brother. He seems very confident with his shooting skills.

“Okay. How about a competition?” Feng Yu asked, and he immediately regrets. He had just blurted out this question without thinking.

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu: “You want to challenge shooting with me? No problems. I will let you have two extra bullets. Leo, get me the same guns as Feng Yu.”

Damn. This is insulting. These two handguns clip could only hold 8 bullets each, and you want to let me have two extra bullets? Feng Yu accepted the challenge!

“Humph! You are the one who said it. You will be disgracing the Soviet Army if you lose to me!” Feng Yu raised the stakes. Kirilenko had always bragged that he was a sharpshooter and Feng Yu wants to see who will be a disgrace!

Chapter 240 – Shooting (Part 2)

“Kirilenko, Feng, are the both of you ready? You are going to shoot pistols first?” Brother Ke walked over and asked.

“Brother Ke, Kirilenko is betting with me, and he said that he will win even if I have two extra bullets.” Feng Yu said quickly before Kirilenko changed his mind.

“the both of you are going to compete? Let me join in. Leo, join us too.”

Brother Ke was excited when he heard that Feng Yu and Kirilenko were going to have a competition. Since Kirilenko dares to claim that he would win with two bullets short of Feng Yu, then that means Feng Yu’s shooting skills must be lousy. He knew Kirilenko’s marksmanship was better and he also wanted to join in the fun.

When Brother Ke saw the guns Feng Yu, Leo and Kirilenko chose, he also picks the same guns. Even if he can’t win Leo, he would at least win the other two. He was a regular at this range, and he was confident that he would win with any guns!

“Let me start first.” Kirilenko wore the ear mufflers and loaded his gun. He aimed at the target and fired.

Bang, bang, bang……

After 6 shots, Kirilenko put down his gun and gesture to Brother Ke.

Brother Ke also loaded 6 rounds. Feng Yu was third, and he shot 8 rounds. Instructor Leo was the last, and he also fired 6 rounds.

After everybody had finished shooting, a voice sounded from a speaker on the wall: “Number 1, 6 on target, 50 points. Number 2, 6 on target, 51 points. Number 3, 6 on target, 26 points. Number 4, 6 on target, 59 points.”

Wait. Why was it 6 on target? Damn, two rounds went off the mark!

Feng Yu felt embarrassed. Firing a handgun seems easy, and 20 meters was not that far. Why he can’t hit the target? The rounds that hit the targets got an average of only 4 points. This result sucks.

Feng Yu felt that it was because he was not ready just now and he did not know pistol’s recoil was that strong. It was a relief that he did not hit the roof with that recoil.

Kirilenko provocative looked at Feng Yu: “Feng, you want to carry on with the competition? Don’t forget I am also a soldier!”

“Sure, why not? There’s another pistol. I am only not used to this type of guns!” Feng Yu stubbornly said.

Feng Yu almost vomit blood when he saw the rest loaded only 5 rounds into the other pistol!

Damn, you guys really look down on me. Although I had not fired a handgun before, I had experienced it just now. All of you are digging your own grave!

Well, this time Feng Yu’s shots did not go off target, but he still lost.

His 8 rounds only got 31 points. Kirilenko and Brother Ke got 46 points, and instructor Leo got 50 points!

“These handguns are not fun at all. Let’s go outside and switch to rifles. I want to try AK47!” Feng Yu was angry. He was the one who challenged others, but he lost. He does not want to fire a pistol anymore.

Instructor Leo walked over, collected all the remaining unfired rounds and passed it to Feng Yu: “This is the first time you fired handguns, and you don’t know the techniques. Shooting is not difficult if you maintain your posture and shoot slowly. Look at the way I hold the gun and my posture. Your left hand is to support and lean your body slightly forward. Keep your arm straight and don’t fire continuously. You try shooting now.”

Feng Yu followed Instructor Leo’s instructions and fired again. He finished a clip, and this time, he was more accurate. His average score per round was 5 points.

Feng Yu loaded another pistol and fired again. This time, he got the technique. He finished all the rounds and used a pair of binoculars to look at the target. He had accidentally hit the bullseye, which was 10 points!

Feng Yu removed the empty clip and said: “Come, we shall compete again on single shots. I had hit the bullseye and got 10 points. It’s your turn!”

Kirilenko: “……”

Brother Ke: “……”

Instructor Leo: “……”

No one replied to Feng Yu. Thus, Feng Yu carry on firing all the remaining rounds and shook his hands. The recoil had hurt his hands. He still wanted to play with AK47 later.

Ta, ta, ta, ta……

Feng Yu pulled the trigger and did not release it. All the bullets were fired in an instant.

Fun!

Once again Feng Yu was speechless when he heard the announcer announced his results.

Damn, what’s wrong? 30 rounds and only 3 rounds hit the target? Did you count properly?

Feng Yu used the pair of binoculars to look at the target himself. Only 3 rounds hit the mark, and his best score was only 2 points!

What a lousy gun. They must have given me a gun that is not accurate. This gun must have not been zeroed!

“Brother Ki, no, Instructor Leo, I will exchange gun with you. This gun is not accurate!” Feng Yu snatched the AK47 from Instructor Leo and gave him his.

Instructor Leo was dumbfounded. Feng Yu had pointed the rifle almost to the sky when he was shooting just now, and he is complaining the gun was not accurate? It was a miracle that he got two rounds on the target.

Ta, ta, ta, ta……

Feng Yu finished another clip, and most of the rounds were off target, and only 5 shots hit.

All of them look at Feng Yu and wonder what other excuses will he use now.

“The wind is too strong.”

All of them looked at a flag not far away. The flag was not flapping and lying against the flagpole. There was no wind at all!

“The wind was very strong just now. Didn’t you feel it? My hat was also blown away. It only stopped now.”

Instructor Leo could not take it anymore and said: “Feng, the recoil for AK47 is very strong and the accuracy is not very good. You can choose the 3 rounds mode and point the barrel slightly downwards. This way, you will be more accurate.”

“Really? Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Brother Ki, come to give me your gun. Instructor Leo’s gun is also not accurate!”

Kirilenko: “……”

Ta, ta, ta…… Ta, ta, ta…… Ta, ta, ta……

This time Feng Yu only had 3 rounds that were off target, and he was satisfied with his results.

Look at my improvements. From only 3 rounds on target to just 3 shots off the mark. I am a genius!

If Instructor Leo knew what Feng Yu was thinking, he would be speechless. At the range, if any of his soldiers got 3 rounds off target while using 3 rounds mode, he would punish that soldier to do at least 100 frog jumps with the rifle above his head! If this type of soldiers goes to war, he would only be wasting bullets!

Kirilenko and the rest also shoot after Feng Yu. When Feng Yu saw Kirilenko and Brother Ke’s results, he was still quite confident. But when he saw Instructor Leo’s result, he was demoralized.

You told me that AK47 is not accurate and your lowest score is 7 points, and you got a few rounds that hit the bullseye!

“This is not fun. Let’s switch to Mosin Rifle.” Feng Yu does not believe that he would shoot off target with a scope.

Bang, bang, bang……

Feng Yu finished shooting, and before the announcer announces his results, he used the binoculars to look at his target.

Damn. What’s going on? I had clearly seen my shots hitting the target just now and why is my target so clean now? There is not even a bullet hole. This is impossible!

Feng Yu complained that it must be someone had switched his target. If now, why was his target so clean and the distance was only 50 meters?

Instructor Leo took the pair of binoculars from Feng Yu and looked at the target. He then moved slightly and told Feng Yu a piece of bad news. Feng Yu had hit the wrong target!

Chapter 241 – Driving a Tank

Feng Yu was very unhappy with today’s trip to the firing range. Especially when he shot the wrong target at the end. Kirilenko and Brother Ke had laughed at him.

When they were playing skeet shooting, Feng Yu had missed every single disc. Instructor Leo did not miss even one disc!

Kirilenko was much better at skeet shooting than Brother Ke, and this gave him a chance to boast about him hunting a bear in China.

Kirilenko proudly asked Brother Ke and Instructor Leo if they had hunted a bear before? The bear’s hide was still in his house!

Although the Soviet Union does not forbid hunting of bears, no one had ever killed a bear by himself.

Only Feng Yu and Kirilenko know the truth behind the hunting of the bear. It was that incident which leads to their friendship now.

Brother Ke was also suspicious of Kirilenko’s claims. How did Kirilenko get his hands on a hunting rifle in China? He was a foreigner and who would lend him a rifle?

Kirilenko said that he had borrowed the hunting rifle from Feng Yu, but Brother Ke does not believe him. He was sure that Feng Yu was not from a hunter’s family from his shooting skills and where did he get the hunting rifle? Furthermore, did the both of them knew each other then? And they were close enough to lend Kirilenko a hunting rifle?

Every time Brother Ke asked Kirilenko about this, Kirilenko would insist that he had hunted the bear alone. Also, his account of the hunt differs slightly every time. No one except for Feng Yu knew the truth!

Feng Yu wanted to play with other guns, but Instructor Leo does not allow him to. He said Feng Yu would injure himself if he shoots too many rounds on his first time.

During lunch, Feng Yu also noticed that his hands were shaking and luckily he was not using chopsticks.

In the end, Instructor Leo got some medicine for Feng Yu to soak his hands. The medicine would remove the smell of gunpowder and also heal his aching arms.

On the way back to the hotel, Kirilenko proudly asked Feng Yu: “Feng, do you still doubt my shooting skills?”

“Humph. You are a soldier, and this is my first time. It’s normal for me to miss the target.”

“You will be meeting Ukraine Bank’s manager the day after tomorrow. What do you want to do tomorrow? How about some sports? What sports do you normally play? Talking about sports, China cannot be compared to the Soviet Union. Look at soccer and basketball.” Kirilenko said.

Damn, basketball? The Soviet Union’s basketball team had a “glorious” history. During the 1972 Olympics, the Soviet Union was against the US. When the time was up, the Soviet side had lost. The Soviet coach went to talk to the referee, and the referee awarded the Soviet team free throw. The Soviet’s player missed the free throw, and the referee gave the Soviet team another re-throw.

The Soviet Union won the game.

The Americans protested against the referee’s decision but to no avail. The Soviet Union won the gold medal, and the US took the second place.

In the 1988 Olympics’ basketball semifinals, the Soviet Union met the US again. The Soviets scored after the final whistle, and it was still counted. That year, the Soviet team won the gold medal again.

From these events, the US basketball team were “no matched” for the Soviets.

Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko and smiled. Kirilenko’s proud, the conceited smile disappeared. Feng Yu had told him and his father about the Soviet Union disintegration. Last month, Yeltsin had announced that Russia would leave the Soviet Union and this was the fourth country that had left the Soviet Union this year. What the Soviet Union was disintegrated, then there will be the Russian basketball team left. Can this team win the US?

The Soviet Union’s glorious time will be over soon. Kirilenko lost his interest when he thought of what was going to happen.

Feng Yu suddenly said: “You think your sports are excellent? Why not we play Ping-Pong tomorrow? I will let you 5 points!”

Actually, Feng Yu was only so-so at Ping Pong, but Feng Yu knew that Kirilenko would not take up the challenge. It was because most of the people in the world thought that the Chinese were the world’s number one at Ping Pong, and every Chinese knew how to play Ping Pong. Just like every Chinese knew Kungfu.

Kirilenko immediately thought of how great the Chinese were at Ping Pong, and he does not know how to play Ping Pong at all.

“Then let’s forget about sports tomorrow. If you are interested, we can go and drive a tank for fun.”

Drive a tank? Feng Yu must admit that he was very interested in driving a tank.

He might be able to shoot some firearms in China, but he can never get the chance to drive a tank.

“Okay. Then tomorrow we shall go and drive some tanks. Can I fire also?”

Kirilenko almost jumped up: “Don’t even think of it. Even I can’t do that. The most I can do is to let you enter the tank and drive it around. You cannot do anything else!”

Fire from a tank? With your shooting skills, you will kill everyone there!

Feng Yu felt it was a pity that he could not fire from the tank but it was still interesting to operate a tank. He wants to take a picture too.

The next day, Feng Yu woke up early in the morning and knocked on Kirilenko’s door.

“Brother Ki, what time are we going to drive the tank?”

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu helplessly. It’s only 7 am in the morning.

10 minutes later, Kirilenko contacted his driver. He regrets suggesting tanks to Feng Yu!

Feng Yu was disappointed when he saw the tanks. The tanks were not very advanced, and when he entered the tank, it was stuffy and cramped. It was not like what he had seen on TV.

The Soviet Union’s tanks were not advanced at all. But the Soviet Union had the most number of tanks. It was quantity over quality.

The German’s tanks were the most sophisticated and their technologies were the best in the world. But it was also this reason that their tanks stopped moving with the slightest damage.

On the other hand, the Soviet Union’s tanks were sturdy and could adapt to all kinds of harsh terrains. It seldom malfunctions but it still loses to the US on the protection of the soldiers in the tanks.

Feng Yu lost interest after driving the tank for a while. This tank was too old, and it felt like he was driving a tractor. There were only two levels to control the tanks. Where’s the steering wheel?

Feng Yu was also not allowed to take pictures inside the tank, but he was allowed to take pictures outside. This tank was used for training purposes, and most of the technologies were outdated.

Still, Kirilenko dared not to let a foreigner take pictures in the tank.

In the afternoon, they returned back to the hotel. Feng Yu requested to fly a plane or a helicopter but was rejected by Kirilenko!

Humph! I will buy my own plane and helicopter in future, and I will fly them myself!

After dinner, Kirilenko told Feng Yu that he and Brother Ke would bring Feng Yu to meet with the Soviet Bank’s Ukraine Branch Manager. He told Feng Yu to speak less and let him do the talking.

Chapter 242 – Dealing with the Bank Manager

Kirilenko wanted to help Feng Yu get a loan in Ukraine, but he could not do so without the help of Brother Ke. But Feng Yu could see Kirilenko’s sincerity. Brother Ke was not happy with Feng Yu’s rejection, but he did not fall out with Feng Yu. Maybe Kirilenko had spoken to him.

Feng Yu thought the meeting with Ukraine bank’s manager would be at the bank, but Brother Ke arranged for the manager to go to his residence.

“Feng, let me introduce to you. This is the Manager of the Soviet Bank’s Ukrainian branch, Mr. Kovski. Mr. Kovski, this is Mr. Feng, from China. He is my good friend.”

“Mr. Feng, nice to meet you.” Mr. Kovski was not surprised by Feng Yu’s age. He had met many second generations in the Soviet Union. He thought that Feng Yu was also one of them from China.

“Mr. Kovski, how do you do? I had heard them talking about you often, and I finally get to meet you.”

Feng Yu’s flattering had no effect on Mr. Kovski, and Mr. Kovski asked: “I heard that Mr. Feng wants to get a loan from our Ukraine branch. How much do you need and what will you be using as collateral? Or, do you have a guarantor?”

There were two types of loans. One type was using collaterals, and another type was getting a guarantor. Of course, the banks also had unsecured loans. For example, Hong Kong Citibank had given Superman Lee’s son an unsecured loan of 1 billion HKD. His collaterals were only assets worth less than 100 million, and he did not have any guarantors.

But Citibank still approved the loan. The bank was not worried that the other party would default payments. It was because of his father, Superman Lee. His father would never let his son be sued and also, because of his reputation.

Since Citibank could approve, there should be no problems in the corrupted Soviet Union.

“Mr. Kovski, I want to take a loan of 100 million Rubles.”

Mr. Kovski was shocked. He looked at Feng Yu and then Brother Ke. He had come here because of Brother Ke. He thought that Brother Ke’s friend would get at most a few million Rubles loan. He never expected that this Chinese man wanted to loan so much money!

100 million Rubles? What does he want to do? If it weren’t for Brother Ke, he would have walked out of the room. Does he even know how much was 100 million Rubles?

“What will you be using as collateral?” Mr. Kovski frowned.

Feng Yu took out some documents he prepared. Those were photocopies. The original copies had been used to get the loans from ICBC in Bing City.

Some of the documents were in Russian, and Mr. Kovski could understand it but not for those in Chinese. He could only look at the numbers. A total of 180 million.

Eh, this person had so many assets. Then it shouldn’t be a problem to get a loan of 100 million.

Wait, could this figure on the Chinese document in RMB?

If it were only 180 million RMB, then it would just be about 30 million Rubles. It’s far from 100 million Rubles!

Typically, banks only approve loans for an amount lesser than the collaterals. They need to take the depreciation of the assets into account.

For 30 million Rubles worth of assets, the highest loan he could give was only 30 million Rubles. This was the most he could approve, and this Feng Yu wanted 100 million Rubles?

“How much are your assets worth in Rubles?”

“Based on the current exchange rates, about 30 million Rubles.” Feng Yu replied.

Mr. Kovski stood up and said: “I think all of you have approached the wrong person. 30 million Rubles worth of assets and without guarantors, cannot get a 100 million Rubles loan!”

Although Brother Ke had some influences in Ukraine, his influences were not worth 70 million Rubles. Furthermore, Brother Ke did not mention that he would be a guarantor.

Without guarantors and so few assets, Mr. Kovski would never approve this loan to a Chinese!

‘Mr. Kovski, don’t be so quick to reject us. Look at this document. It states 180 million on it. If the person reviewing this document closed one eye, then this loan would be approved.”

“What do you mean?” Mr. Kovski was furious.

Kirilenko opened up his palms and said: “Mr. Kovski if you help us, I can decide for Feng. He will deposit 500,000 Rubles in your overseas account. It’s 500,000 Rubles! How much do you earn a year?”

Mr. Kovski was the Ukrainian Branch manager, and his annual salary was only about 10,000 Rubles. 500,000 Rubles was equivalent to his 5 years’ wages.

Looking at Mr. Kovski’s hesitation, Kirilenko continued: “I can arrange for someone to be his guarantor, and I promise you that he would repay the loan on time. Mr. Kovski, don’t you even trust Brother Ke and me?”

“500,000 Rubles is too little. All of you are getting 70 million over the limit, and you are only giving me so little? I want 7 million Rubles!”

Before Mr. Kovski came here, he knew that there must be a problem with this loan. If not, why would they invite him over? They could have gone straight to the bank. But he never expects the loan amount was so big. He felt that the risk was too big and he wanted more money.

Feng Yu did not say anything. Kirilenko continued: “Mr. Kovski, don’t you think that 7 million Rubles is too much? We are not only taking care of you alone. 1 million Rubles. It will be enough for you to enjoy for the rest of your life.”

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart that if Mr. Kovski changed the 1 million Rubles to USD, he would be able to retire comfortably. But if he kept the money as Rubles, then 1 million would not last more than 2 years!

“At least 5 million.”

“Only 1 million. You have risks, and we also have risks. I think 1 million Rubles is a fair amount. You shouldn’t be so greedy. But if you can agree to my condition, I can raise the amount higher.” Kirilenko showed him his index finger.

“What condition?”

“My friend Feng wants the loan period to be 8 years and the interests for the 8 years will be repaid together with the loan amount at the end if 8 years.”

“What do you mean? You want to hold the interest repayments until the 8th year? Impossible!” This was a considerable amount, and the interest got to hold off until the 8th year? His risks would be high.

“You can charge higher interest, and I will give you 2 million Rubles. Listen carefully, it’s 2 million Rubles. Once we got the money, we will deposit into your account!”

“I can’t do this. It is against the regulations.”

“3 million Rubles. This is my highest offer, you should know that the Ukrainian branch is not the only bank in the Soviet Union.” Kirilenko continued to persuade him.

Mr. Kovski’s hand, which was holding a cigar was shaking. He was hesitating. 3 million Rubles would give his wife and kids a better life. If he was still the branch manager of Ukraine and no one would find out about this loan. He could also get a scapegoat if anyone found out. He could control his risk.

Feng Yu waited patiently for his answer. He trusted Kirilenko. Kirilenko was more familiar of the Soviet Union’s bribery “market rates” than him!

Mr. Kovski stubbed his cigar and sat upright: “8 years is not possible. The most I can promise you is 6 years.”

Kirilenko turned to Feng Yu. Feng Yu nodded.

“Fine, 6 years. But the loan must be approved within 1 month!” Kirilenko said.

“If you can get a suitable guarantor, I promise you the loan will be approved within 1 week!”

Chapter 243 – Loans (Part 1)

Kovski was fast, and on the third day, Feng Yu signed the loan agreement for 100 million Rubles. He would repay the loan amount together with the incurred interest on the 6th year. The interest rate was 13% a year, and it was calculated in simple interest.

Feng Yu gave Kovski the 3 million Rubles as promised, and he also gave Brother Ke 1 million Rubles for his help. Although the loan period was shorter than he wanted, Feng Yu could still accept it. The interest was also lower than he expected.

The money was transferred to Feng Yu’s Hong Kong bank account, and he immediately transferred the money to the various parties.

“Brother Ki, I can accept higher interest. You don’t need to bargain on the interest rates.” Feng Yu wanted to give lesser rebates, and use higher interest rates to entice the bank managers to approve the loans.

Kirilenko agreed. It would be easier for him to negotiate with the bank managers with higher interest rates. Today, they will be meeting the Belarus Branch Manager.

Feng Yu wanted efficiency. He wants to settle the loans in the shortest time. In a few months’ time, there will be changes to Rubles’ exchange rates. The exchange rate for Rubles against the dollar will depreciate from 0.6:1 to 1.8:1. There will be even more depreciation later!

With the help of Kirilenko, Feng Yu loaned a total of 300 million Rubles from 3 Soviet Banks. The total rebates amounted to 11 million Rubles. The rebates might be high, but compared to Feng Yu’s profits, it was peanuts!

“Feng, you want to continue to get loans? Maybe we can get more loans from the banks of the allied countries. But the loan amount would not be so high.”

“We still can get more loans? Brother Ki, even if the loan amount is only 10 million Rubles, I will also loan!”

This was the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Feng Yu wants to make full use of it.

Kirilenko was puzzled. Why did Feng Yu want so many loans? The interest rates were getting higher and higher, and Feng Yu did not care. What was he going to invest in? Would the profits be about to cover the interests from the loans?

Kirilenko asked Feng Yu after the third bank’s loan was approved.

Feng Yu was also waiting for Kirilenko to ask him. He wanted to bring Kirilenko along. If everything goes smoothly, he wants to invest in natural resources with Kirilenko.

It was impossible to own mines or oil fields in the Soviet Union without strong backings.

In February next year, the Gulf war will start, and the prices of crude oil would fall. That would be the time for Feng Yu to buy some oil fields. Also, Rubles will depreciate drastically. Even if he signed an agreement to purchase the oil fields now, he could make the payments sometime later. In a few months’ time, Rubles will depreciate more than 3 times and the oil fields will be dirt cheap!

“Brother Ki, do you remember I told you that this is an opportunity to earn money? If the Soviet Union is disintegrated, what do you think will happen to Rubles?”

“Rubles? What can happen to Rubles? After the disintegration, some countries might issue their own currencies, but Rubles will still be the main currency.” Kirilenko had not thought about this at all.

“Brother Ki, look. Your country’s people buy commodities using food tickets. China used to be like this too. But after we open up the economy, we do not use food tickets. We use RMB to buy the things we wanted. This will cost the prices of commodities to rise, right?”

“Price hikes are normal. What’s wrong?” Kirilenko asked.

Feng Yu shook his head. Kirilenko does not understand economics at all. When demand outweighs supply, the prices will rise, and there will be inflation, which will cause the currency to depreciate.

Now, the Soviet Union was lax in regulating foreign banks. Many large banks from Europe had expanded into the Soviet Union. These banks used underhand methods to get loans from the Soviet Union financial institutions. This way, the Soviet Union will have to print more money and increase the inflations.

“Brother Ki, have you ever thought about why those foreign banks took loans from the Soviet Union banks?  Do you still remember when we are talking to the Belarusian Bank Branch Manager, Mr. Chev had told us that some foreign banks had borrowed a large sum from his bank for some projects? Do you think that those projects are real?”

“Of course not. They want to develop real estates in the Soviet Union. We, Soviets, all have our own properties and why do we need so many houses?” Kirilenko said proudly. When he heard this from the Belarusian Bank’s Branch Manager, he thought that these foreign banks were idiots. If you want to build houses, you must be able to get buyers first before you can earn money. There was no lack of homes in the Soviet Union.

Those people were idiots? The Soviet Banks’ Managers were the real idiots! Those projects were fake, and their main intentions were to get loans. Maybe those Bank Managers knew about these, but they just approve the loans to get the rebates.

Why did Feng Yu say that Kirilenko could acquire those mines and oil fields? It was because the Soviet Union was also restructuring their state-owned enterprises to shareholdings. The Government was issuing shares to the employees of the state-owned enterprises. On average, each employee could get about 10,000 to 20,000 Rubles worth of assets. Based on the current exchange rates, it was not a small amount.

The Soviets had become more affluent, but their living conditions had not improved. There was a lack of commodities. They could only save their money in the banks. But which banks will they use? Foreign banks’ interests were higher and had better services. There were also free coffee and tea at their branches.

So, most of the Soviets saved their money in Foreign banks and their local banks would not have enough money to loan the foreign banks. The Soviet Union’s solution was to print more money which resulted in inflation.

“Brother Ki, are you thinking that those foreign banks are idiots? Most Soviets had saved their money in foreign banks, and when it reaches a certain amount, it will affect the prices of the Soviet Union’s commodities. Now, the Soviet Union is a market economy, and it would be even easier for those banks to inflate the prices of commodities and depreciate Rubles.”

“What? Rubles will depreciate?” Kirilenko was not happy when he heard this. Why would Rubles depreciate?

“That’s right. A shirt which cost 10 Rubles will be sold for 20 Rubles, due to a market economy, where the highest bidder wins. But it is still the same shirt. If you think about it, the Rubles had depreciated by 50%! This will cause inflation! You know what inflation is?”

Kirilenko shook his head in a daze. What’s inflation?

Feng Yu sighed. It was hard to explain to someone who doesn’t even know the basics of economics.

“Anyway, all you need to know is that the Rubles will depreciate soon and it will depreciate by a lot. I will exchange the Rubles from the loans to USD, RMB or Yen. After Rubles had depreciated, I will change the currencies back to Rubles. This way, I will earn. You understand now?”

“That’s why you are taking loans now? I was still wondering why you want to repay the interest with the principal sum together at the end of the loan period! Tell me, how serious will Rubles depreciate?” Kirilenko finally understands what Feng Yu was doing.

“If you trust me, then use your connections to get loans too. I guarantee that within 3 months, Rubles will depreciate like crazy! You will earn profits of at least two folds!”

Translator notes: Is this considered cheating or taking advantage of his future knowledge? I will do the same if I get to travel to the past. Will you do the same thing as Feng Yu?

If you like this novel, please share with your friends.

Chapter 244 – Loans (Part 2)

Feng Yu needed someone to help him with his plans in the Soviet Union, or future Russia. This person must be a local, and he is someone with strong backings. Kirilenko was the right candidate.

He had the background, loves money and easily fooled. This type of person was not easy to find.

Feng Yu could earn a lot from the current Soviet Union situation, and he does not even need to be the bad guy. He can even be considered a good guy.

“Feng, why do I need to get loans? Are you still suggesting me to buy mines and other natural resources?” Kirilenko really does not know how to spend so much money. He knew what to do with 1 million, but if he were given 100 million, he would be lost.

“That’s right. Buy mines. Remember, no matter how much the mines or oil field cost, sign the contract first and make the payments at the end of the year or early next year. You understand?”

Kirilenko’s eyes sparkled. That’s right! If I sign the purchasing contract and pay at the end of the year, the Rubles would have depreciated. I could use USD to convert to Rubles, and the amount I pay will only be about a third or even lesser than what was stated in the contract. Even if the mines were expensive, it’s okay. Anyway, the money was from the banks’ loans too.

“Feng, you are really my best friend, my brother. Don’t worry. I will help you to get more loans, and you don’t need to give me any Chinese goods.” Kirilenko said.

“No, we have to keep our promises even if we are friends. I will give you what I promised you.” Feng Yu wanted to let Kirilenko owe him a favor. This way, it will be easier for him to invest in natural resources with Kirilenko. How can he use 5 million worth of Chinese goods to offset this favor?

Kirilenko was touched. This Feng was really a good friend.

“What natural resources do you suggest for me to acquire?”

“Crude oil, iron, coal, nickel, palladium and other rare metals. These will worth a lot in the future. I remembered that the mines in the Soviet Union were restructured into shareholdings. You can acquire the shares from the workers. Money is not a problem. We can collaborate. You can have the bigger share.”

“Feng, I am glad that I get to know you.” Kirilenko was moved to tears. Feng Yu was so considerate of him.

Feng Yu knew that it was impossible for him to get the bigger share at this stage. However, he knew that Kirilenko would not cheat him. Feng Yu was not sure about other markets, but in China’s future market, the prices of these minerals will rise exponentially.

Maybe Feng Yu could even get to know some powerful officials through these mineral mines. But for the time being, he cannot let other people know about the extent of his wealth. He got to wait until he was powerful enough to protect his assets.

Feng Yu smiled and said: “I am also lucky to have you as my friend. Brother Ki, the lesser people that know about this, the more your profit is.”

“Don’t worry. I will not tell anybody. Not even my father.”

“Okay. Also remember, don’t foreign banks and institutions have lots of tricks up their sleeves. They will spread rumors about the Soviet Union’s economy and persuade the Soviets to sell their factories and other enterprises shares. You can don’t get involved in other sectors, but you must buy in all the minerals shares. Don’t be afraid of losing money. You must not let those Americans and Europeans control your country’s natural resources!”

Kirilenko seriously said: “Anyone can own those shares but not the Americans! Ok, we will stop using Rubles for our trades from now onwards. We will use RMB. Feng, you just wait for my good news.”

……

The Summer Camp was over. Feng Yu did not return to China with the rest of the students due to the loans. Feng Yu and Kirilenko made some phone calls and the school, and the university pursued this matter.

Early August, Feng Yu’s last loan was approved, and he was prepared to go back to Bing City.

This trip, the loan amount was much more than he estimated. Kirilenko also got some loans for himself, and he also arranged for Feng Yu to get loans from the banks of the surrounding small countries. The highest loan amount was 30 million Rubles, and the lowest was 10 million Rubles. In total, Feng Yu had loaned 120 million Rubles from these small banks!

Kirilenko had gotten loans from some banks. He even got a loan from the Russian bank.

It was different when he was getting the loans for himself. His collaterals were even lesser than Feng Yu’s, but the loan amount was more.

Just Russia alone, Kirilenko had borrowed 300 million Rubles, and he could still get loans from the banks in Ukraine and other allied countries.

Feng Yu sighed. There was a saying that capitalism would drive men crazy. Looking at Kirilenko now, Feng Yu believed this saying.

Kirilenko was getting loans like crazy and many other second generations knew about it. They were also curious what was Kirilenko doing. Why did he need so much money? Also, the rebates Kirilenko gave to the bank managers were very high. Could it be that Kirilenko has a very profitable business idea?

The first person to ask Kirilenko was Brother Ke. Kirilenko’s reply to Brother Ke was these loans were for Feng Yu. Brother Ke thought that Kirilenko was crazy. Kirilenko had already helped Feng Yu a lot, and he was still getting loans on his behalf? What if Feng Yu could not repay the loans or run away with the money?

No wonder Feng Yu refused to ditch Kirilenko and work with him. Brother Ke knew that he would not go to the same extent as Kirilenko.

The other second generations who were Kirilenko’s partners felt that Kirilenko was taking significant risk and they wanted to withdraw their partnerships. Brother Ke also played a part with their withdrawal from their joint venture. In future, if Kirilenko wanted them to sell Chinese goods for him, they would have to sign contracts.

Kirilenko was “furious” with their betrayal. He bought over all their shares of the company, including Brother Ke’s shares.

Those people were happy. They had earned a few million from the Sino-Soviet trades for the past few years. Kirilenko was overjoyed. He had finally ditched these people. In future, he will own this trading company fully!

Before Kirilenko gotten those loans, he consulted some economist, and their analysis was like what Feng Yu claims. They also felt that there will be inflation in the Soviet Union soon, but it was not as bad as what Feng Yu claimed. The Soviet Union was strong enough to adjust it and will recover in no time.

However, Kirilenko trusted Feng Yu fully. It was because his father had heard the news that Russia will be announcing her departure from the Soviet Union and this meant that the Soviet Union will disintegrate. Maybe it would really be as what Feng Yu forecasted. By the end of next year, the Soviet Union will be history.

Without the Soviet Union, who would adjust the inflations?

Thus, Kirilenko starts to get loans aggressively. He also took this opportunity to ditch the other second generations entirely. He also earned a nickname for himself among the second generations’ circle: The fool who borrowed money for others.

Kirilenko did not explain when he heard about this. He was thinking of ways to convert his Rubles from the loan to USD. In a few months’ time, they will know who’s the real fool!

Chapter 245 – Setting the trap

Back at Bing City, Feng Yu did not return to his home at the district. He returned to Bing City to make arrangements for Tai Hua Trading to send Kirilenko 5 million Rubles worth of goods and he immediately flew to Hong Kong.

This time, he had borrowed a total of 420 million Rubles, and after all the rebates, he got 405 million Rubles. The rebates were lower than anticipated, and the number of loans was more than expected. Kirilenko had helped him a lot. From these loans, Feng Yu could tell how corrupted the banks were in the Soviet Union.

The money from the Soviet Union loans was not wired into his China’s account. It was deposited into Feng Yu’s Hong Kong Bank account. Feng Yu had rushed to Hong Kong immediately was to exchange his Rubles to other currencies like USD, English Pounds, Yen, etc. if he could not change all the Rubles, then he would bring the Rubles back to China and convert it to RMB.

Of course, if Feng Yu would prefer to “cheat” others than his fellow countrymen, especially ICBC. He was afraid that ICBC would get back to him after the Rubles depreciate!

Fu Guangzheng came to receive Feng Yu. Actually, he was embarrassed to meet Feng Yu. After all, his family had snatched the Aiwa shares from Feng Yu.

Although Feng Yu did not say anything, Fu Guangzheng did not receive any calls from Feng Yu after so long. He knew Feng Yu was not happy with them. If this happened to the Fu family, they would also react the same way. But because of profits and the persuasion from Fu Guangzheng’s brother, his father still made that decision. There was nothing Fu Guangzheng could do.

Actually, Fu Guangzheng wanted to sell the Aiwa shares to Feng Yu. He believed that Feng Yu would give them some profits and he could also do Feng Yu a favor. But his father did not listen to him. His father said: Feng Yu should not have any strong backing among China’s top officials. He only has some sources to get news.

If not, Feng Yu would not ask Fu Guangzheng to be the front of Tai Hua Home Appliances Factory in Guangdong. He would also not let Fu Guangzheng get a 20% stake in the factory. He could just ask his connections to settle everything.

Fu Rongjing had thought that Feng Yu had connections with China’s top officials and wanted to please the person behind Feng Yu. Since he found out that Feng Yu did not have any backing, his attitude towards Feng Yu changed.

The Fu Family started with retail business and had distribution channels all over the world. They knew what products could sell well. The Walkman market was on the rise, and Aiwa’s new products were well designed. Furthermore, they were confident of Feng Yu’s foresight and suspected Feng Yu had gotten some insider information from the top. The Walkman market in China will be booming, and if Aiwa’s Walkman could capture the Chinese market, then it would be a turning point for Aiwa. That was the reason why Fu Rongjing rushed to acquire Aiwa’s shares.

Although Fu Guangzheng’s status in the Fu family was different from before, he still could not influence his father’s decision. He wanted to explain to Feng Yu, but he never got the chance to do so. This time, Feng Yu had come to Hong Kong, and he wanted to make use of this opportunity to explain to him.

“Brother Feng, you must be tired from your flight. I had booked a room at the Peninsula Hotel for you. I had arranged for a welcome lunch for you later.”

Feng Yu glanced at Fu Guangzheng. The Fu family really look down on him. Only Fu Guangzheng came to receive him from the Airport. From the way Fu Guangzheng talk about the welcome lunch, Feng Yu knew that only Fu Guangzheng will be at the dinner.

This time, I must let the Fu family suffer some losses!

“Ha, ha, ha. Fine. I will listen to your arrangements in Hong Kong.”

The more Feng Yu did not mention about Aiwa shares, the more uncomfortable Fu Guangzheng was. From what he knows, Feng Yu was not the type where he would allow himself to be bullied by others. Could it be that Feng Yu wants to take back the distributorship of the humidifiers and bladeless fans?

But the Fu family had analyzed Feng Yu before. Feng Yu does not have any distribution channels outside of China, and if he decided to not work with the Fu family, he would give up the established distribution channels and suffer losses. He also needs to compensate for a substantial amount for breaking the contract. His reputation would also be affected, and other Hong Kong businessmen might not want to cooperate with him.

The Fu family is one of Hong Kong’s influential family, and other powerful families will also give them face. The smaller families would not dare to compete with the Fu family. Feng Yu had no other choices. This was also another reason why Fu Rongjing dares to acquire Aiwa shares. He felt that Feng Yu could only swallow all his grievances.

The Peninsula hotel was not as grand as the future years. It was because the hotel will undergo a significant renovation in 1994 and after that, it became one of the world’s most iconic and luxurious hotel.

Fu Guangzheng was the one from the Fu family at the welcome lunch. Even his brother was not at the dinner!

“Brother Feng, what’s your purpose for coming to Hong Kong?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“Oh, I had transferred a large amount of Rubles to my Hong Kong account. I decided to play some Forex in Hong Kong. You should know about China. In China, there was no way I can play with Forex now. The banks will keep away all the foreign currencies.”

Fu Guangzheng’s eyes brighten up. The last time, Feng Yu forecasted Yen would rise, and his eldest uncle made lots of profits. This time, Feng Yu came to Hong Kong personally to trade. That means he has some insider information and the returns should be huge!

“Brother Feng, did you get some insider information? Can you share with me?”

Feng Yu glanced at Fu Guangzheng and smiled. Fu Guangzheng was embarrassed to continue.

“If I tell you the news, what would I get in return?” Feng Yu suddenly asked.

Eh? Feng Yu did not reject the sharing of his information?

Fu Guangzheng knew how much information was worth in the financial market, especial the Forex market. Even in Hong Kong, some people sell information for a living. Of course, no one would reveal their information sources.

“I will give you 30% of what we earn?” Fu Guangzheng had offered a high price to Feng Yu. In Hong Kong, most information had a fixed rate, and even if it were a commission, it would not be more than 10%. 30% was already a very high offer.

But this high offer did not move Feng Yu.

“Brother Fu, if it is you alone, I might agree. But once you know this information, you will tell your brother and father. Your father will tell your uncles. Soon your whole family will know. Maybe your family might even inform your business associates to improve their relationships. I will agree if you promise me that your 30% is more than 100 million!”

Fu Guangzheng was still feeling embarrassed, but he was shocked by Feng Yu mentioning 100 million. That means this time the Fu family might get profits of more than 300 million?

This was a huge deal. Not only his father but the whole Fu family would also be tempted. Fu Guangzheng could not decide on the spot, and he must let his father know about this.

“This…… I cannot decide about this. I need to discuss with my father.”

Feng Yu waved his hand: “I know you can’t decide. Ask your father to come. Or if your father wants, he can ask your eldest uncle along. I will speak to them!”

“Okay……  Brother Feng, if you do not have anything this evening, come to my place for dinner. My father should be home.”

Feng Yu smiled: “Fine.”

Chapter 246 – The Greedy Fu Rongjing

In the evenings, Fu Guangzheng drove Feng Yu to Fu Rongjing’s mansion. It was not a big mansion, and it was only two stories building, about 300 square meters. There’s a small garden, a garage but no swimming pool.

It was about half the size of Song Laosi’s mansion. But in Hong Kong, only billionaires could afford this type of mansion.

Feng Yu bought a bottle of red wine as a gift. This was the customs of Hong Kongers.

When Fu Rongjing knew that Feng Yu wants to sell information to him, he felt that Feng Yu was not that capable. He despised Feng Yu, even more, when he saw Feng Yu’s bottle of red wine. This Feng Yu was just like other Hong Kong businessmen’s second generations.

Without my Fu family, the profits from the humidifiers will drop by at least 50%. Feng Yu dare not to create any trouble with the Fu family!

“Xiao Feng, I heard from Guangzheng that you want to trade in Forex and you have some insider information you want to sell to me.” Fu Rongjing’s tone was very arrogant.

“That’s right, Uncle Jing. This information will let the Fu family earn a lot within two months. The profits will be at least 50%. Two months for a 50% profit, don’t you think this information is worth a lot of money?” Feng Yu confidently said.

Fu Rongjing narrowed his eyes. Two months and the profits can reach 50%? Could it be that Feng Yu had gotten news that some currency will appreciate or depreciate a lot?

“You are talking about Yen rising?” Fu Rongjing felt that the most volatile currency at the moment was Yen. He knew that Yen would carry on rising and this piece of information was not worth anything.

Feng Yu shook his head: “I had told your son about Yen. Although you can get some profits from Yen, the profits will not reach 50%. The currency I am talking about will rise sharply within two months!”

Fu Guangzheng suddenly remembered Feng Yu mentioning that he had transferred a large sum of Rubles to his Hong Kong account. Could this currency be Rubles?

Feng Yu continued: “Rubles. The Rubles will rise! From last year, the Soviet Union had announced that they will switch from fixed exchange rate to a dual exchange rate system. Since then, Rubles had been volatile on the Forex market. Recently, Rubles had even dropped slightly. But I had just returned from the Soviet Union and got information that the Soviet Union government will strengthen Rubles to prevent inflations. Now on the Forex market, the exchange rate of Ruble against USD had fallen to 0.8:1. This was the lowest in two years. The Soviet Government intends to pull the Ruble to last year’s lowest point, 0.6:1. It might even reach 0.5:1. How many profits do you think you can get from this?”

Fu Rongjing smoked his pipe and was deep in thoughts.

He knew that Rubles had depreciated as the Fu family had business in Europe. But now, Feng Yu was saying that the Soviet Government will strengthen the Ruble. With the strength of a country, it shouldn’t be hard for them to pull up the value of Ruble. The government only needs to switch back to fixed exchange rates and the value of Ruble will appreciate.

He suddenly remembered that recently, his eldest brother, Fu Rongqi, kept making trips to Europe. He said that he was there to make some investments. Could it be that he was also investing in Rubles?

His eldest brother liked to trade in Forex and had earned a lot from there. But he seldom brings his brothers along. Fu Rongjing was unhappy with his eldest brother over this. But his eldest brother was the head of the family, and his assets were several times more than the other siblings. He could only get angry but could not do anything.

His eldest brother must have gone to Europe to check on the Ruble market and was preparing to trade in Rubles. This must be it. His eldest brother did not plan to let the rest to join in again!

Humph, I was dad’s favorite son, but you got most of the family’s assets because you were the eldest. If dad had let me inherit most of the assets, the Fu family would have been Hong Kong’s most powerful family!

You, Fu Rongqi, also scolds us and you said that I am not suitable to trade in Forex. This time, I will show you! I will not lose to you when it comes to trading!

“Xiao Feng, our family had already know about this information. You should know that my eldest brother likes to trade in Forex and he has a team of experts that analyze the market. But since you let me know about this information, I should give you something. How about I give you 1 million USD? Consider it as payment for your information.”

Fu Rongjing was laughing in his heart. Feng Yu was still young and inexperienced. Information lost its value once it was revealed.

Fu Guangzheng was shocked, and he looked at his father. When did his father know about Rubles appreciating? Feng Yu had wanted 100 million, and his father only give 1 million USD? The difference was so great. Would Feng Yu even accept it?

“Uncle Jing, rather than 1 million USD, why not sell me all your Aiwa shares? I can pay 5 million USD for your shares.” Feng Yu said what he had in mind.

Fu Guangzheng was thinking, Feng Yu really wanted Aiwa shares. The price he offered was considered very high. But what will father reply him?

Fu Rongjing frowned and said: “Oh, I had given the shares to Guangzheng’s brother. As a father, I cannot ask my son to return me the shares I had given to him. Guangzheng, accompany Feng Yu and bring him around Hong Kong these few days. Feng Yu had taken care of you when you are doing business in China, and you should take care of him now.”

Fu Rongjing was implying that the Fu family was taking care of Feng Yu’s overseas businesses.

Feng Yu was sneering in his heart. I had given you a chance, but you are the one who wanted to forgo this chance. Don’t blame me for tricking you this time!

“Never mind then. Uncle Jing, since the Fu family knew about this information, then I should not receive any payments for it. Eh, I smelled something nice. Is the dinner ready?”

“Hahaha, that’s right. Let’s have dinner first. We will talk later.” Fu Rongjing was pleased with Feng Yu’s attitude.

After dinner, Fu Rongjing asked his driver to send Feng Yu back to his hotel. This time, Fu Guangzheng was not allowed to send Feng Yu back. This Fu Guangzheng does not know how to do business at all. Is friendship more important than business? Once you had earned enough money, all your lost friends will return to your side.

Fu Rongjing entered his study room and called his broker. He asked about the current value of Rubles and also asked if Rubles would appreciate if the Soviet Union decides to strengthen the Rubles.

His broker thought for a while and replied yes. A dead camel will still be bigger than a horse. Even though the Soviet Union’s economy was not doing well, the government was still able to control its currency. Furthermore, the Soviet Union had increased its gold exports. With the rising prices of gold, the Soviet Union should have made a lot of money.

That broker had just said that if the Soviet Union government decides to strengthen Rubles, then Rubles might appreciate. He did not say that Rubles will surely appreciate.

Fu Rongjing was overcome by his greed, and he did not notice the risks involved. He was satisfied with his broker’s answer. What Feng Yu said was true. Rubles will appreciate soon. This time he will place a big bet. He will use all his liquid funds and leverage to invest in Rubles. He wants big profits!

This Chinaman Feng Yu, don’t even know about leverage. 50% profits? I will get at least 500% profits!

Chapter 247 – Exchanging Rubles for USD

The next morning, Feng Yu received a call from Fu Guangzheng. He politely rejected Fu Guangzheng’s offer to bring him around Hong Kong. Feng Yu told him that he wanted to walk around by himself.

After leaving the hotel, Feng Yu boarded a taxi. He looked back and saw a car following him. Feng Yu smiled.

He was still worried that Fu Rongjing would not fall for his tricks. By sending someone to follow him, meant that Fu Rongjing had fallen into his trap! This was a simple trap, and only the greedy people would fall for it.

Fu Rongjing’s men saw Feng Yu entering HSBC bank and immediately call him through a pay phone. This information further increases his confidence to invest in Rubles.

“Good morning Sir. How can I help you today?” A young man, who wore an attire that resembles property agents in the future years, approached Feng Yu when he entered the bank.

“Can you speak English?” Feng Yu asked in English. He could understand Cantonese, but he could not speak. He prefers to communicate in English. Hong Kong’s education includes the English language as one of the primary subjects.

“No problem Sir.” The young man replied in English.

“Good, I have some savings in your bank which are in Rubles. Can you convert the Rubles to USD?”

Feng Yu wanted to convert all his Rubles as soon as possible before it starts to depreciate.

“No problem. Sir, how much Rubles do you want to exchange? I will bring you to the currency exchange counter over there.” The young man was slightly disappointed. But he still wanted to try promoting some investment products to Feng Yu for some commissions.

Feng Yu did not walk over but turned to the young man: “Let me meet your Manager. There’s a transaction limit at that counter. I cannot exchange my Rubles there. I have over 400 million Rubles to change to USD!”

The young man was surprised. This was a big client! How can he make Feng Yu his client? Even if he could persuade Feng Yu to purchase 10 million worth of financial products, his commission would be a lot!

“What are you standing here for? Go.” Feng Yu said.

“Ah, Sir, please follow me. I will bring you to my manager’s office.”

“Su Jiarong, why are you not at the lobby?” Someone who looks like a leader shouted at the young man.

“Team leader, I am bringing this gentleman upstairs to the Manager’s office.”

“Nonsense. You think anyone can just look for the manager? How long have you been working here? You don’t even know the rules here?” The team leader looked at Feng Yu’s age and attire. He guessed that Feng Yu was not a big client. How can anybody just walk in HSBC bank and demand to meet the manager? The team leader was unhappy with Su Jiarong.

“Team leader, this gentleman is a big client.”

“oh…… big client? You must be daydreaming. Look at this person, how can he be a big client? What can he buy? Investment funds, insurance or what? Does he even have 1 million?” The team leader shouted.

Su Jiarong’s face turns red, but he dares not to tell the team leader that Feng Yu wants to exchange 400 million Rubles for USD. If not, the Team Leader would take over this client, and he would not get his commissions.

Feng Yu wanted to scold this team leader, but he notices someone familiar walking past.

“Manager Zhou.”

Manager Zhou heard someone calling him, and he looked around and saw Feng Yu waving at him.

This person was familiar. This young man…… Ah, that’s Feng Yu from China. He had taken a loan of 50 million RMB, and Manager Zhou was the one who had signed the contract with him.

“Mr. Feng, why didn’t you call me when you are visiting HSBC? Did you threw my name card away?” Manager Zhou joked with Feng Yu.

“Hahaha, if I threw your name card away, I would not dare to step into your bank.” Feng Yu laughed.

“Manager Zhou.” The team leader and Su Jiarong greeted him.

“What’s wrong with the both of you? Why are the both of you serving Mr. Feng together?” Manager Zhou frowned. There were many customers at the bank, and no one was serving them.

The team leader heard the conversation between Feng Yu and Manager Zhou, and he knew that Feng Yu was indeed a prominent client of the bank. If Feng Yu were a nobody, Manager Zhou would not even greet him. Damn, a big client dressed like an average person? Is he trying to fool us? But I must get this big client all to myself.

“Su Jiarong, didn’t you heard what Manager Zhou said? Go and serve the other customers. Stop following me around!” The team leader scolded Su Jiarong.

Su Jiarong was furious. He was there first, and this client should be his!

Feng Yu suddenly spoke: “Su Jiarong was serving me. Who are you?”

The smile on the team manager’s face froze. Who am I?

Seeing Manager Zhou staring at him, the team leader left. Losing some commissions was not a big deal, but if Manager Zhou decides to fire him, he will lose his job. It would even be hard for him to get hired by other banks.

“Mr. Feng, why are you here at my bank? If you need anything, you can just give me a call.” Manager Zhou warmly said. He was curious why Feng Yu traveled all the way to Hong Kong HSBC bank.

“I want to change all my Rubles in my account to USD.”

“This is simple. Xiao Su, help Mr. Feng with his request.”

“Manager Zhou, Mr. Feng’s Rubles is not a small amount.”

Manager Zhou understood what Su Jiarong was talking about. Feng Yu had taken a loan of 50 million RMB from his bank, and he must have some big businesses. The amount of Ruble he wanted to convert to USD should not be a small amount and should be at over 1 million USD.

“Mr. Feng, how much Rubles do you want to exchange?”

“Around 400 million Rubles.” Feng Yu casually said.

“4…… 400 million Rubles?” Manager Zhou was surprised. But he recovered fast. As a manager at HSBC, he had met a lot of big clients. He immediately brought Feng Yu to the rest area upstairs. This was a huge transaction and he, an Assistant Manager could not make the decision too. He must escalate to the Manager.

“Xiao Su, you go and serve other customers first. Don’t worry, I will still give you your commissions for Mr. Feng’s transactions.”

With Manager Zhou’s promised, Su Jiarong happily leave. He does not need to do anything and still can get commissions. This incident made him eager to serve every walk-in customer better.

……

“Mr. Feng, please understand that there will be some differences in the exchange rates for Rubles to USD from the market rate.”

Feng Yu nodded. No matter if it was present or the future, there will always be differences in the exchange rates.

“Also, Mr. Feng, as you are changing Rubles to USD and not HKD, we still have an additional transaction fee of 2%.”

Feng Yu frowned. Why was the transaction fees so high? He remembered in his past life, in China, the transaction fee was only 1% for currency exchanges. Hong Kong’s transaction fees were too high.

“The transaction fee is a bit high. I remembered someone told me that the transaction fee is about 1%. Furthermore, you had already charged me for the differences in the exchange rates. Why are you charging me such high transaction fee? Maybe I should consider going to other banks.”

The bank manager explained: “Mr. Feng, all the Hong Kong banks charge the same fee, 2%. But since your transaction is a large amount, I will give you a discount. How about 1.7% transaction fee?”

“Fine. Help me exchange all my Rubles in my account to USD. How long will it take before I can use the USD in my account?” Feng Yu had just saved over a million Rubles of the transaction fee.

“Less than an hour. Please wait while I get ready the documents.”

Half an hour later, Feng Yu walked out of HSBC. All the Rubles in his account were changes to USD. Feng Yu was relieved.

Translator Notes: The Chinese usually will opt out the “Assistant” or “Deputy” in front of someone’s title as a form of respect. E.g., Zhang Ruiqiang was a Deputy Mayor, but Feng Yu would address him as Mayor Zhang.

Chapter 248 – Sixth Sense

One day later, Kameda Masao arrived at Hong Kong’s International Airport. Feng Yu had called him over to sign the contract. Feng Yu gave Kameda the 1 million USD investment.

Kameda Masao had waited for Feng Yu for over a month. He thought that Feng Yu would not invest in his company because he could not help Feng Yu acquire the Aiwa shares from the shareholders. But Feng Yu finally called him.

“Kameda, how’s your preparation for the company?”

“I had already registered the company. When your funds are transferred to the company, we can start to buy over the factory and start production.” Kameda Masai bowed and said.

“Ok, let’s go to the Law firm to sign the contract.”

Feng Yu had made an appointment with Hong Kong’s Wilson Law office yesterday. The owner of this law firm was Wilson, a Royal Counsel.

A Royal Counsel was not necessarily a lawyer working for the English Royal family. Lawyers with more than 10 years’ experience and had outstanding achievements can apply for this title. It was upon the approval from the Royal Family, then the lawyer can use this title.

This title was more of a status. In the Commonwealth countries, Queen’s Counsel status was between a noble and a peasant.

Wilson had another title, which was Queen’s Counsel. Wilson was a legal advisor for the English Royal Family, and he could receive special privileges in Commonwealth countries.

These two titles did not really show Wilson’s full capabilities. Wilson was also the legal consultant for Superman Lee. This showed how high his status was in Hong Kong.

There were only 2 or 3 other lawyers in Hong Kong that can match Wilson’s status. For instance, Fu family’s legal consultant was also another Queen’s Counsel.

These titles not only represented their status but also their abilities. Most importantly, they could charge very high lawyer fees!

Feng Yu had no plans to go to Japan in the short term. He wanted to engage the services of Wilson to act as his legal advisor to handle the legal issues of Aiwa Co. and Kameda Masao’s company.

Wilson could prepare the legal documents, change the company’s representative and even hire accountants and auditors on Feng Yu’s behalf.

Hong Kong’s law firms provided a wide variety of services and saved Feng Yu lots of trouble. Feng Yu only told Wilson what he wanted, and his staff will prepare the contracts.

It was a pity that it was not Wilson that would be helping Feng Yu personally. Feng Yu’s deal was only 1 million USD, and Wilson just showed his face for a while and assigned his staff to do the rest.

But this was the reason why senior lawyers set up their own law firms. They would charge based on their status and reputations, but most of the work could be passed to the junior lawyers. The salaries of the junior lawyers were much lower, and this was how the law firm makes money.

One day, Feng Yu would let Wilson treat him the way he treated Superman Lee!

According to Feng Yu’s request, the contract was in three languages, English, Chinese and Japanese. Feng Yu saw Kameda Masao looking through the contract carefully and noticed that this Kameda Masao, not only knows Chinese but was also proficient in English.

Damn, I also know three languages and does that mean I am about the same as this sex doll seller?

Kameda Masao finished reading the contract, and he signs his name, followed by his thumbprint. He also took out his passport for the lawyer to photocopy. Feng Yu did the same too.

“Kameda, when can your factory start its production? I am talking about other products. Are you going to manufacture yourself or get a sub-contractor?”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Feng. All the products will start production immediately. Our new products will be on the market in October. I decide to purchase some machines and expand the factor. We will not need to get sub-contractors!”

This period of time, Kameda Masao was not lazing around. He had contacted the previous employees of Black Dragon Co., especially the sales personals and the production workers. If it weren’t for the former Chairman mismanaging the company’s funds, the company would never go bankrupt.

After all, the sex dolls produced by Black Dragon Co. were popular in Japan. Once the production started, and their products enter the market again, it would be easy for the company to return back to its glory days. Feng Yu had also given Kameda Masao some inspirations, and he was confident that this company would increase its value by over 3 times within 3 years!

“Kameda, you saw the contract terms about your reward? If you are able to achieve the goals set by me, I will give you the company’s shares. The more the company earns, the more you will get. Work hard and don’t disappoint your father and me!” Feng Yu patted Kameda Masao on his back.

Kameda Masao was in tears. Feng Yu was too considerate to him. He even allows him to buy over the Black Dragon Co.’s trademark. This trademark was set up by his father.

The new company’s name was also interesting. Sixth Sense. It meant feelings, a sensitive feeling. That also means the products produced by the company would not only feel good but also satisfy the customers’ loneliness.

Feng Yu did not think much about this name. He just casually says something that came to his mind. But Kameda Masao interprets the name as something meaningful. Feng Yu allowed Kameda Masao to buy over the trademark of Black Dragon Co. was because it was an established brand and have loyal customers. It would be easier for him to sell the products to the consumers and save on the marketing costs.

The reason Feng Yu let Kameda Masao runs this company was because he was too busy to manage such a small company. Anyway, he had the controlling stake in the company, and he could take back the company anytime.

As for rewarding Kameda Masao with the company’s shares, was only a way to motivate Kameda Masao. On the contract, it stated that once the company and the profits reach a certain scale, Feng Yu would give Kameda Masao at least 1% of the company’s shares. The maximum was 10%.

He had imitated the way many companies in the future manage their key personnel. Feng Yu was actually not interested in the sex toys industry. In his previous life, he also did not take note of this industry.

Most of the terms in the contract were protecting the interest of Feng Yu. After all, he was the investor.

This period of time, Kameda Masao had also secretly contacted some Japanese businessmen to see if any of them were willing to invest in his company. But most of them were not willing to invest. Japan’s economy was in recession, and most companies were cutting cost. Which company would be willing to diversify at this time?

The ones who were willing to invest do not agree to give Kameda Masao any shares. If he wanted a stake in the company, then buy it at the market value. Feng Yu was the most generous among all these investors. 10% shares were equivalent to 100,000 USD. It’s over 100 million Yen!

Kameda Masao was grateful to Feng Yu. He felt that he had met a good person.

……

“Kameda, when you are back, start the production immediately and remember what I said. Other than the sensations of the doll’s private parts, the face was also crucial. If you can include moaning sounds in the doll, the doll will surely be a hit!”

“Mr. Feng, I remembered everything you said. I will not let you down and will show you my results in the financial report next year!”

Feng Yu waved. Hurry, go and satisfy all the lonely hearts and bodies of your fellow Japanese men. I still have important things to do in Hong Kong.

Chapter 249 – London Gold Exchange

These few days, Fu Rongjing invested all his available funds into the Forex market. It was a total of over 400 million HKD. This was all his liquid assets, and the settlement date was two months later.

He dreamt about two months later, and his assets will be several folds. From 400 million HKD to 4 billion HKD. Fu Guangzheng tried to persuade him to seek his eldest uncle opinion first and not to invest so much, as it was easy to lose everything in the Forex futures market.

But Fu Rongjing did not listen. He wanted to see Fu Rongqi’s reaction when he learns about how much he had earned from Forex! Fu Rongjing doesn’t even care about his men telling him that Feng Yu had visited the banks and law firm multiple times these few days.

Feng Yu wanted to engage a lawyer to sue him? This is Hong Kong, and his surname is Fu! Lawsuits are for the rich and poor people cannot afford to play this game. Even though Feng Yu was wealthy, but compared to the Fu family, he still has a long way to go!

Fu Rongjing despised Feng Yu, and he was blinded by his greed. If it were Fu Rongqi, he would have seen through Feng Yu’s lies.

During this period, Feng Yu had visited Hong Kong’s London Gold market. He wanted to trade in London Gold futures. This was what he traded most in his previous life.

London gold trading, in broad terms, was the trading of gold stored in London. It was a trading product offered by the London International Financial Futures exchange. The gold was from the underground vault in London, and it was in the form of 400-ounce bricks (about 12.5 kg) and purity of 99.5%.

London Gold trading does not need to use physical gold, and there were no freight, safekeeping, inspection, etc. costs.  The investment cost was lesser than the actual transaction of physical gold and can set high leverage. The highest leverage one can set was 100 times, and on the black market, it can be as high as 500 times. This allows the investors to make full use of their limited funds to get the maximum returns.

There was still an advantage for trading London Gold. The trading hours was 24 hours, and there were no breaks in between. Investors can even buy and sell on the same day. London Gold can be considered the most active and most popular “money-generating tool” in the gold trading market.

The money from the Soviet loans was converted to USD, and after all the transaction cost, Feng Yu now has 490 million USD. He intends to invest everything in the London Gold market.

When Feng Yu stepped into Hong Kong’s London Gold exchange, he was swarmed by a group of brokers. They gave Feng Yu their name cards and hope that Feng Yu would engage their services. So, they could get commissions.

Feng Yu rejected all of them. He does not need their services as he, himself, was a professional too. Even if he wanted to engage a broker, he had a target. This broker was a legend in future Hong Kong’s financial world. Feng Yu remembered that this person started by trading gold around this time.

Feng Yu looked at the gold prices, and it was 371 USD/ounce. It was much lower than early last year, where it was 412 USD/ounce. The Soviet Union was currently trying to increase gold prices as the Soviet Union was one of the countries that export gold. They need gold to earn money.

The Soviet Union used to depend on their industries to earn money 10 years ago. But for the last 10 years, their industries declined, and they started to sell gold, oil and other minerals as the government main source of revenue. This showed the failure of the Soviet Union. No country would last by selling their natural resources. This explains the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Feng Yu remembered the gold prices for the next two years will be suppressed by the US. The gold prices will plunge. It should start around this year October. But Feng Yu could not remember the exact date.

But from now until September, the gold prices will continue to rise and should reach above 390 USD/Ounce.

This was a difference of 20 USD. With almost 500 million USD and with leverage, the returns will be huge.

Feng Yu immediately set up his trading account and start to place his orders. He bought the gold at the current price and set the selling prices from 380 USD to 390 USD. That means that once the gold prices reach this price, it will automatically sell off his gold and the proceeds will be transferred into Feng Yu’s account.

Feng Yu had set many trades to lower his risks. Gold prices were volatile, and the fluctuations could reach up to 10 USD a day. With high leverage, one could lose all his investments if he was not careful. Feng Yu had no time to watch the market and diversifying his trades was the safest way.

Feng Yu placed his orders through different counters, and the amount of his trades differs. From 1 million USD to 10 million USD.

For consecutive few days, Feng Yu kept placing orders for trade, and he did not do any settlements at all. Feng Yu’s actions attracted the attention of many people.

Who is this young man? For the past few days, he’s been placing trades every day. Even if he traded the minimum amount, it would not be a small sum.

Feng Yu look like an individual investor, and other investors approached him to try and exchange views on the market.

But Feng Yu spoke to them in English, and he acts like he did not understand Cantonese. Could this young man come from England? But from his accent, he does not sound like a British. Feng Yu spoke in English, but it was not the London English. Feng Yu used US English, and there was a slight difference.

Feng Yu chatted with the other investors. He wanted to see if there were any talented people around. Hong Kong was a financial hub of Asia, and there were many people in the financial industry. With so many people in the industry, the possibility of talented traders appearing will be high.

After chatting for a while, Feng Yu was disappointed. Maybe those talents did not want to share their thoughts with others. Those who approached Feng Yu were not up to his expectations. Some even claim that the gold prices will continue to fall in the short term. Feng Yu could not find anyone worth recruiting.

After Feng Yu invested all his USD into the Gold futures market, he called Fu Guangzheng to bid his goodbyes. He is returning to Bing City.

When Fu Rongjing knew that Feng Yu had boarded the plane back to Bing City, he asked his men who had been tailing Feng Yu for the past few days: “Where did this brat go to for the past few days?”

“He went to the London Gold Exchange.”

“What? London Gold exchange? Humph! He sure knows how to roam around. Futures exchange, stock exchange. Is he monitoring Hong Kong’s financial markets? Interesting.”

Fu Rongjing did not think much about this. Fu Guangzheng had told him that Feng Yu liked to invest in stocks and had bought a lot in China. Fu Guangzheng had also purchased some shares in China and had said to him that he had made some money from those stocks. Feng Yu must be thinking that there was only limited stocks in China and wants to check out Hong Kong’s stock market.

The current Hong Kong’s stock market was not doing well nor bad. But if someone inexperienced enters the market now, they will suffer heavy losses.

Fu Rongjing was slowly drinking his champagne and thinking about the information Feng Yu gave him. Feng Yu was indeed accurate, and these few days, there was a small increase in Rubles. He had set his settlement date two months away. Two months later, Ruble should reach at least 0.5:1 and with his high leverage, he would get profits of more than 10 times. 400 million Rubles will become 4 billion!

4 billion cash. Even Fu Rongqi does not have so much cash. In the future, I, Fu Rongjing will be the front of the Fu family!

Chapter 250 – Lehaha becomes Popular

“Manager Feng, you are back.” Wu Zhigang returned to the company and saw Feng Yu chatting with some staffs. He looks like he was in a good mood.

“Yes. How was your trip?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

Wu Zhigang was now the Assistant General Manager of Tai Hua Trading, and he was still working very hard. He still needs to travel and visit clients, but he never has any complaints. This lets Feng Yu very satisfy.

Hmmm, Zhigang might be getting married next year. Maybe I will give him a set of home appliances for his new house. Feng Yu was never stingy to his staffs.

“Manager Feng, your idea was brilliant. Placing Lehaha advertisements near kindergartens and primary schools. The sales of Lehaha kept increasing.” Wu Zhigang excitedly said.

Since Feng Yu invested in Lehaha, Tai Hua Trading got the distributorship for the Northeast 3 provinces. Lehaha had advertised on CCTV last year, but due to their production issues, Lehaha did not enter these areas.

How to increase the sales of Lehaha? Advertising on CCTV was not enough. After some consideration, Feng Yu asked his men to inform the local dealers to advertise near kindergartens and primary schools. When the parents send their kids to school, they will notice the advertisements.

Lehaha’s target audience were the parents, and their primary product was Children’s oral health supplement. The advertising slogan also states “Drink Lehaha, dinner would be better!”

These parents like to compare their children with others about their results, height, etc. Kids refusing to eat proper meals had always been an issue with the parents.

Was there an issue with kids not wanting to eat in the past? If the kids don’t want to eat, then let them starve! Now, most families have better living conditions, and parents would never allow their children to starve.

These health supplements were targeting kids that don’t like to eat proper meals, and once it entered the market, most parents rushed to get them. Especially when they heard that some one’s kids were consuming this health supplements.

Coupled with the advertisements on CCTV, Lehaha quickly became popular in the 3 northeast provinces.

Wu Zhigang had gone to Shen City to check on Lehaha’s sales.

Feng Yu had not thought of advertising near kindergartens and primary schools by himself. In fact, it was Zhong Qingxian that had thought of this idea. In his past life, whenever Lehaha introduces a new product, he will use this type of advertising tactics.

Nescafe had also used the same strategy and slowly became China’s most famous coffee brand. Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corporation also advertised their beverages the same way. This type of marketing strategy was low cost and relies on word of mouth.

Feng Yu not only let Tai Hua Trading uses this strategy, but he also called Zhong Qingxian to notify the rest of the provinces to use this strategy. Feng Yu was the shareholder of Lehaha, and if Lehaha earns money, that means he would also get more profits.

Zhong Qingxian was skeptical of this type of advertising, but after implementing it, he discovered that it was very effective. As he had increased the productions, he had lots of products stored in his warehouses, and he was worried that these stocks will be left to rot. But after implementing this strategy, the demand quickly exceeds the supply again. He was grateful to Feng Yu for sharing this with him!

Feng Yu accepted Zhong Qingxian praises happily. But he felt that the compliments were lackluster. He was thinking about starting a “Praise Manager Feng” training course for all the companies he was involved with……

The company had made profits and was no longer in a tight financial situation. Zhong Qingxian repaid all the workers’ wages and even gave them some rewards. As a result, all the workers were very motivated.

From this speed, Lehaha’s recent expansion will soon be insufficient to meet the market demands. Zhong Qingxian and the others decided to expand their production facilities once more. They want to capture the children’s health supplement market and become the market leader.

Feng Yu did not object to this. Although it was still early to expand, it was still necessary. Feng Yu even wished that Lehaha expand quickly and have a shortage of funds. This would let him have an excuse to get more shares.

Feng Yu tried to persuade Zhong Qingxian to set up a new factory near to Beijing. This would capture the northern market quickly. It would be best if a factory were set up for every 2 to 3 provinces. This way, Lehaha can monopolize the market!

But maybe Feng Yu had sounded too eager, and Zhong Qingxian decided to postpone the expansion plans until next year.

With Lehaha’s current financial situation, it was reasonable for expansion. However, more capital was needed to set up new factories.

Zhong Qingxian could not afford to inject more capital into the company, and he was to expand the company now, Feng Yu would increase his stake in the company. This was something that Zhong Qingxian does not want to see.

He was the founder of Lehaha, and now Feng Yu owns a 40% stake of the company. Even though Zhong Qingxian was still the general manager and decision maker of the company, but who knows what would happen if Feng Yu got more than 50% shares.

Zhong Qingxian had asked around about Feng Yu. He learned that Feng Yu was only a small shareholder at the Machinery company initially but now, he was the major shareholder of the company and he had conflicts with the local government because of this.

With the Machinery Company as an example, Zhong Qingxian was cautious of Feng Yu. Zhong Qingxian and his two other partners had agreed that they would not sell the company’s shares no matter what. He was afraid that his partners would sell their shares to Feng Yu.

Actually, Feng Yu had no intention to take away Zhong Qingxian’s authority. In his previous life, Zhong Qingxian was the one who had lead Lehaha to become China’s most popular beverage company. His ability was second to none.

Feng Yu also have no time to take care of so many businesses. His favorite was still the financial industry. This was his expertise. All he needs to do was to make use of some opportunities, and he would let his assets increase by several folds.

Even though Feng Yu could still let Zhong Qianxian manage Lehaha after he got the controlling stake of the company, but it would be different. Zhong Qingxian might lose his enthusiasm. Maybe he would even leave Lehaha and set up a new beverage brand.

Unless Zhong Qingxian request, Feng Yu had no intentions to continue to inject funds into Lehaha. His target now was to own stakes in those companies that will be successful in the future. For instances, if he held a 20% stake in each of the 10 companies that will be successful in the future, he would earn much more than others. The best part was that he does not need to worry about or manage the business.

Of course, if other people want to sell him more shares, Feng Yu would gladly accept it. For example, the current Lehaha, the future QQ, Baidu, etc.

Feng Yu also understand why Zhong Qingxian wanted to postpone his plans. Lehaha’s profits for this year was increasing, and the total sales might be over 20 million RMB. This was a year earlier than what was supposed to be.

Lehaha would be able to clear its debt by the end of the year and still have sufficient funds left. Although the remaining funds might not be adequate to set up new factories, the company could get loans from the banks. This way, Zhong Qingxian’s share will not be diluted, and he would still be in control of the company.

Feng Yu sighed. Zhong Qqingxian still does not understand him well. Even if Feng Yu were to manage Lehaha himself, he would not perform better than Zhoong Qingxian.

Feng Yu still remembered some of Lehaha’s failed products and he intends to stop Zhong Qingxian from producing those products. In his previous life, Lehaha would perform better if not for those failed products like Coffee coke and tea beverages!

This was not a bad thing for Feng Yu. Feng Yu could concentrate his focus on other things.

Chapter 251 – Shanghai’s stock exchange opens

Feng Yu had not seen Wen Dongjun for more than a month, and this moron had grown taller.

Damn, are you feeding on pig’s feed? You are already so tall, and you are still growing? Feng Yu was not happy with raising his head to speak to him!

Feng Yu was already 1.76 meters and had been exercising these few years. With a better diet, he wished to reach 1.8 meters. But compared to Wen Dongjun, he was way shorter. Wen Dongjun was already 1.85 meters!

Feng Yu decided to give Wen Dongjun some “counseling” to make him give up basketball.

“Dongjun, come over here. I got something to talk to you.” After lunch, Feng Yu called Wen Dongjun.

“What’s there to talk about? Come, let’s go and play basketball.”

“I have some important matters to speak to you.”

Looking at Feng Yu’s serious expression, Wen Dongjun stopped: “What? Did Li Na ditch you?”

“Damn! I want to talk to you about your future. What’s your dream?” Feng Yu asked Wen Dongjun in a teacher’s tone.

“Be an official. An Official that is higher ranked than my father.”

Fine. This moron only wants to be an official for the sake of being one.

“Think carefully, have you ever met any officials that are taller than you?” Feng Yu continued asking.

“Eh, now that you mention it, I had never seen any officials that are as tall as me. Do you think I will be the tallest official in future?” Wen Dongjun asked excitedly.

Damn. Wait until you are taller than Yao Ming before talking to me. Yao Ming is the tallest official!

“Dongjun, think carefully. If your leader is only 1.7 meters and you are 1.9 meters, your leader will have to look up at you. If you are the leader, will you be happy?”

“You are saying that I cannot be a high ranking official because of my height?” Wen Dongjun asked.

“Sighed…… you finally get what I am trying to say. So, you must control your height.” Feng Yu was happy that Wen Dongjun finally understood.

“But I can’t control my growth. Last year, I was only 2 cm taller than you.” Wen Dongjun said.

Feng Yu: “……”

“Come, I will teach you something. Do a handstand every day and use your head to support yourself. Play less basketball and soccer. Do more weight training. Put more weights on your shoulders and do squats. If you really want to play with balls, play shotput…….”

Looking at Wen Dongjun doing “headstand”, Feng Yu smiled and walked towards the basketball court. He still wants to get taller……

After a game of basketball at noon, it was time for afternoon lessons. Feng Yu was listless and was nodding off.

The History teacher was talking about modern history, and Feng Yu was bored. Soon, he fell asleep on his desk.

“Feng Yu, Feng Yu, Teacher Hu is asking you to answer a question.” The student beside Feng Yu pushed him and waked him up.

“Feng Yu, you are sleeping in my class. You think you know everything? Answer the question I asked just now.”

Damn. What was the question? Can’t you repeat the question? I don’t even know what’s the question, how can I answer you? Feng Yu stood up. He was not nervous like other students when they were caught sleeping in class. Anyway, he was used to be sent out of class by the teachers.

“You don’t know the answer? Some student thinks that their family is rich, and they don’t need to study. Then why enter Third High School? Your parents sent you to this school is for you to have a good future by entering a good university. They don’t send you to school for you to sleep in class. Sit down and pay attention.”

Teacher Hu dare not to punish Feng Yu. Almost all the teachers knew that the principal was giving Feng Yu special treatments. They also heard that during the Soviet Union Summer Camp, Feng Yu did not follow the group at all. It was fortunate that she was not Feng Yu’s form teacher.

After class, Li Na went beside Feng Yu: “Next time don’t play basketball at noon. You will not be able to focus on the afternoon lessons.”

“Why are you not wearing the dress I bought for you from Hong Kong? You don’t like it?” Feng Yu changed the topic.

“The dress is too low cut.” Li Na blushed.

Feng Yu smiled. He remembered that China now was different from Hong Kong. Most girls in the city still dressed conservatively. They don’t dare to wear low cut dresses.

“Fine. I will get someone to send some dresses over. What designs do you like? You can dress up like those celebrities on TV too.”

“I do not want any more dresses.” Li Na was happy that Feng Yu treated her well, but she was afraid that other students will gossip about her. Although all the students and teachers at the school knew that she was dating Feng Yu, her parents still do not know.

“This evening, do you want to go to the garden on the north side? I heard there is a pond full of goldfishes there.” Feng Yu asked.

Li Na rolled her eyes: “You think you can see the goldfishes at night?”

Sighed…. Electricity was still a problem. There was not a single lamp post in the garden. At night, it was so dark that you can’t even see your own fingers.

Feng Yu missed his previous life where the streets were bright at night. But it will take at least 2 to 3 years before that will happen in the cities.

It was a pity that there were no KTV now. Although there was Karaoke, the Karaoke was only music and no pictures. It was still using cassette tapes.

Li Na saw Feng Yu thinking of where to go at night, she said: “We will be taking the University entrance exams next year. We should start our preparations now and not thinking of where to play. What if we can’t enter university?”

This was a sign of her being a controlling wife in future. Feng Yu must correct her thinking. How can studying be more important than playing?

Feng Yu seriously said: “We can surely enter University and it will be Beijing’s best university. Don’t worry about it. This evening, we shall go to the riverbank. There are street lights there.”

Sun Wenhai had promised Feng Yu that they will be guaranteed a place in the University and early next year, all they need to do was to attend an interview at the university. Even if they got no guaranteed places at the university, the university would be able to lower the entry requirements by 50 to 100 marks for them. Feng Yu could easily enter the university he wanted.

The Soviet Union Summer Camp will help Feng Yu a lot for his admission into the university. With his results, he would never get the chance to go to Beijing University if not for this camp.

It was not difficult for Feng Yu to enter university. Even if he failed the interview, he could apply for a university in Hong Kong or also study overseas.

However, Feng Yu was a lazy person and does not want to be too far away from home. Hong Kong’s university was the furthest he could accept. He was not interested in studying in the US or other countries.

Since 1980, private schools were allowed to operate in China. If all else fails, Feng Yu could set up a university for himself!

Feng Yu’s pager suddenly vibrates, and “99” was displayed. This was the code between Feng Yu and Wu Zhigang. If there is news about the stock exchange, Wu Zhigang will notify him this way.

Feng Yu was overjoyed. Shanghai’s stock exchange was set up!

Chapter 252 – Fu Rongjing broke down

The Shanghai Stock exchange was set up earlier than Feng Yu’s previous life. Feng Yu was prepared and even though the international markets were not doing well at the moment, but China’s market was not linked to the global market. There were also no foreigners that bought Chinese stocks. It was this generation of investors that let the top leaders made the decision to set up the stock exchange.

Feng Yu felt that he was the most significant player in China now. There should be no one who owns more shares than him now.

After the news of the Shanghai Stock Exchange was announced, all the stock prices increase rapidly. The newspaper, TV programs also reported on the first batch of companies that will be listed on the exchange.

Without surprises, all those shortlisted companies were listed.

China’s stock market will go through a period of rapid growth from now until the end of the year. The growth will slow down early next year when some investor sold off their shares to get their profits. The stock prices will even drop slightly.

Feng Yu also decided to sell off some of those shares which he was not familiar with later this year. He wants to use the funds from the sales of these shares to buy more shares next March when the market will experience a slight drop.

In contrast to Feng Yu’s happiness, Hong Kong’s Fu Rongjing was gloomy.

He had invested a considerable amount in Rubles. It was all his available funds, and he thought that he would earn a lot in these two months. But the value of Rubles fell drastically instead.

At first, the Ruble had risen slightly but soon fell. Fu Rongjing thought that it was normal fluctuations. He believed that the Soviet Union would increase the value of Rubles.

The Soviet Union was a powerful nation, and there should be no problems if they wanted to increase the value of Ruble.

However, the Ruble did not increase but fell instead. This week, the Rubles fell much faster. If this trend carries on, Fu Rongjing’s futures contract would be closed out before Friday!

Fu Rongjing does not understand why this was happening.

Fu Rongjing was good at retail sales, and he was sensitive to the market changes. The Fu family’s distribution channels were so diverse was because of his suggestions. But when it comes to financial market, he was not good at all. He had no choice but to send Fu Guangzheng to ask his eldest brother, Fu Rongqi. When will Ruble recover?

But the answer Fu Guanzheng got shocked Fu Rongjing.

It was impossible for Rubles to recover. There was nothing the Soviet Union could do. The Soviet Union does not have enough funds to pull up the Rubles because there was a civil war going on and the Soviet Union was at the risk of disintegrating!

What? Fu Rongjing could not believe what he heard. Why would the Soviet Union disintegrate?

Even if the countries had differences, they could declare independence. The Soviet Union should not disintegrate. It can be like those Commonwealth countries, where they maintain a good relationship.

Fu Rongjing starts to send his men to gather news about the Soviet Union. He does not believe what Fu Rongqi and felt that he was lying!

Fu Rongjing slumped on his chair when he got the information from his men.

There were at least 4 countries that announced they will be leaving the Soviet Union and he was unaware of this news!

Lithuania was the first to announce, followed by Latvia and Moldova. But the Soviet Union Government does not approve. What Fu Rongjing can’t accept the most was Russia announcing they will be leaving the Soviet Union. That was the home of the Soviet Union, and it was the most powerful country in the Soviet Union.

If Russia also leaves the Soviet Union, then the Soviet Union will be gone!

The Soviet Union was almost collapsed and how could it pull up the value of Rubles?

Why? Why did it turn out this way?

The thing that made Fu Rongjing broke down was all these happened before Feng Yu went to Hong Kong and he did not even know about it! If he had known about this information, he would never believe Feng Yu and bet all his assets on Rubles!

It’s over. Everything was gone! That 400 million HKD were all gone.

The Rubles continued to depreciate, and now it had reached 1.1 Rubles: 1 USD. His futures contract was forced to close out as he did not have the funds to top up!

Fu Rongjing could sell off his fixed assets to raise funds to top up his futures contract, but he did not do so. He knew that no matter what he does, Rubles will continue to depreciate and all the money he put in will be gone too!

On the day when Fu Rongjing’s 400 million HKD was lost, he called Fu Guangzheng home for a scolding and even slapped him.

It was then, Fu Guangzheng found out how much was lost. He did not know that his father had invested 400 million HKD and his father’s total assets were only about 1 billion HKD. His father had given him some money for investments on a few occasions last year and this year.

To be fair to his elder son, Fu Rongjing also gave his elder son some of his assets.

Having lost this 400 million HKD, Fu Rongjing only had about 300 million HKD worth of assets now, and it was mainly company shares and fixed assets. His bank account only had a few hundred thousand HKD left. It was not even enough for his company’s cashflows!

“Dad, why did you invest all your money? I had asked you to discuss with the eldest uncle, but you refuse, and now you are blaming me?” Fu Guangzheng felt wronged. He had nothing to do with this loss. He was not the one who asked his father to invest in Forex futures.

“If it wasn’t for you bring that brat here, will I be tricked by him? 400 million. That is 400 million HKD!” Fu Rongjing’s voice was shaking.

“Guangzheng, how much money do you have now? Give it to me, if not father’s company will have cashflow issues next money.” Fu Guangzheng’s elder brother, Fu Guanghui said.

“I had just invested in China’s new factory and do not have any spare cash. Even if I sell off my shares in China, I can only raise about 10 million.”

“I have 20 million. But it is not enough. We need at least 100 million for father’s company to run smoothly.”

“Should we borrow from eldest uncle?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

Fu Rongjing looked down and kept quiet. Borrow money from Fu Rongqi? Fu Rongqi would ask him where did his money go to and he has to tell him that he lost all his money in Forex?

Fu Rongqi had told him that he was not suitable to trade in the financial market, but Fu Rongjing does not listen. Now he would be asking for it if he asked Fu Rongqi for a loan. His other brothers will also laugh at him.

“No. Use the company as collateral and borrow from the bank!” Fu Rongjing said.

“Dad, we should borrow from Eldest uncle instead from the bank. Furthermore, if our partners know that we owe the bank such a large sum, they would not continue their cooperation with us.” Fu Guanghui tried to persuade his father.

“If you want to go to your eldest uncle, go yourself. I will not ask him for help!!” Fu Rongjing stomped into his room after saying this.

Fu Guanghui pulled Fu Guangzheng aside and asked him how did Feng Yu trick their father? What actually happened?

Fu Guangzheng explained the whole situation and Fu Guanghui frowned. This seems to be a setup for their father. He also asked about Feng Yu relationship with Fu Guangzheng. They were partners and had been working well all along. Why would Feng Yu set up a trap for their father?

Fu Guanghui found out that it was because Fu Rongjing had acquired Aiwa shares which Feng Yu wanted. He shook his head. It was his father who did Feng Yu wrong in the first place, but it was also not right for Feng Yu to trick his father.

Hong Kong’s Fu family is not that easy to be bullied!

Chapter 253 – Fu Rongqi

Fu Rongqi was reading the newspaper in his office when he saw his nephew, Fu Guanghui rushing in. He frowned and was unhappy. How did his youngest brother raise his children? As a member of the Fu family, he doesn’t even have the basic courtesy to knock on the door?

Before Fu Rongqi could scold Fu Guanghui, Fu Guanghui shouted something that shocked him!

“Uncle, my dad has been cheated of 400 million!”

“What? Lao Si (4th sibling in the family  = a way to address the fourth brother) had been cheated of 400 million? Who cheated him?” Fu Rongqi stood up angrily and asked.

In Hong Kong, who dares to mess with the Fu family?

“It’s Feng Yu. Fu Guangzheng’s partner. The one who sells the humidifiers.”

“Him? How did he cheat your father?” Fu Rongqi finds it weird. The humidifiers were lucrative, and that Feng Yu had earned a lot from his legitimate businesses. Why would he cheat money? Furthermore, the Fu family had helped him get a loan from the Hong Kong banks. By right, their relationship should be okay.

Fu Guanghui exaggerated how his father was tricked by Feng Yu to invest in Rubles and how his father lost all his money. After he finishes explaining the whole circumstances, he added: “Uncle, that Feng Yu had no regards for the Fu family!”

“You said that Feng Yu had told your father that he had a piece of information he wanted to sell to him? And your father got information that the Rubles will rise and he did not give Feng Yu a single cent?”

Fu Guanghui was also feeling embarrassed. His father was indeed in the wrong, but he thought that Feng Yu was also wrong to trick his father. Furthermore, it was 400 million HKD!

“Uncle, I had told you that my father wanted to give him 1 million USD, but he refused.”

“Lao Si had never traded Forex futures and had no experience. Why didn’t he asked me?”

Fu Guanghui did not know how to answer his eldest uncle. He could not tell his uncle that his father wanted to earn this money by himself secretly.

“Guanghui, what actually happened? I will ask your father personally. Follow me to your house now.”

Fu Rongjing was sulking at home, and even though he told his sons not to ask his eldest brother, he knows that asking his eldest brother for help was the best way to solve his woes.

There was knocking on the study room’s door, and Fu Rongqi entered. Fu Rongjing did not want to meet his brother now.

“Lao Si, I heard from your helper that you skipped breakfast today?”

“Big brother, why are you here?”

“Humph, if I am not here, will you still keep me in the dark?” Fu Rongqi angrily said. “Guangzheng, I heard that you are the one who brought Feng Yu home?”

“Uncle, I was the one who brought Feng Yu back home. He said that he had some information which can earn a lot of money. I agreed to give him 30% of what we earn. This was already a very high offer, but he wanted 100 million. So, I brought him to meet my father.”

Bang!

Fu Rongqi banged on the sofa armrest: “He wanted 100 million, and you gave him 1 million? Since when our Fu family cheat others like this?”

Fu Rongqi had also bought information from other people before. But he would pay the full amount without a single cent less. His youngest brother knew that the other party wanted 100 million and he made him tell him the information. This meant that he agrees to pay him the amount he wanted. The other party told him the information, but he did make the payment. This was a disgrace to the family!

Fu Rongjing was shocked. After their father passed away, the person he feared most was his eldest brother. He had always wanted to succeed his eldest brother and this time he thought he would be able to earn a few billion to prove himself. But in the end, he lost everything!

“Big brother, he had given me false information and made me lost 400 million. Why are you scolding me?”

“If you had given him 100 million, would he give you false information? If you had come and asked me, will I let you bet on Rubles appreciating? Also, Feng Yu and Guangzheng are friends why would he trick you?” Fu Rongqi was furious. Until now, Fu Rongjing was still finding excuses!

“How would I know why he wanted to trick me? I wanted to give me part of my earnings after I got the profits.” Fu Rongjing retorted.

“You…… Sighed. Guangzheng, why did Feng Yu trick your father?”

Fu Guangzheng looked at his father and then at his eldest uncle. He said: “I think it might be dad had bought the shares Feng Yu wanted.”

“What happened?” Fu Rongqi does not understand why his youngest brother would want to acquire the shares Feng Yu wanted.

“Nonsense. When did I snatch the shares from him? I had bought those shares with my own money, and what has it got to do with him?” Fu Rongjing shouted.

“You shut up! Guangzheng you continue.”

“It is Japan’s Aiwa shares. Feng Yu had asked me to find out more about Aiwa, and he wanted to buy Aiwa shares. He had already bought more than 60% of the shares from Sony. Father then asked his men to contact the other shareholders and bought their shares. Feng Yu had told me several times that he wanted to buy the Aiwa shares from us, but father refused.”

Aiwa shares? Fu Rongqi had some impression of it. After all, he was the one who had worked with Aiwa to set up Hong Kong’s Aiwa subsidiary. He also did his research on this company.

“Lao Si, is Guangzheng telling the truth?”

“That’s right. Why should I sell him those shares just because he wanted it?”

“Then why did you buy Aiwa’s share in the first place?” Fu Rongqi stared at Fu Rongjing. Why would Fu Rongjing want a stake in a company that was heavily in debts?

“I think that company is good. Didn’t I tell you that I think the Walkman industry will do well? That was why I bought the shares of Hong Kong’s Aiwa company from you.”

Fu Rongqi sighed and pointed at Fu Guangzheng: “You tell me!”

“It was because every time Feng Yu invests, he makes money. I had bought a stake in a Machinery Company with him, and I recovered my capital in about a year. You should be aware of how profitable the Wind and Rain humidifiers are. The motorcycles he produced are also selling like hotcakes in China. We felt that this Aiwa company must have developed some new technologies which will turn the company around. That’s why father bought Aiwa’s shares. Anyway, the prices of the shares were low, and we can afford the losses.”

Fu Guangzheng’s voice was getting softer as he speaks. He felt embarrassed. No matter what, it was his father that was at fault.

“Lao Si, what do you want me to say? I had told you countless time that you should now look at the profits in front of you when doing business. You must set your sight on long-term, and you must never cheat your business partners. Our Fu family can remain as one of Hong Kong’s influential family for so many years is because of our reputation! Also, before every investment, you must do your own research and not decide hastily. Did you forget what I said? Don’t you find it weird why when father was alive, he doted you the most, but the assets you inherited from him was not much? It was because father knows that if he passes all the family assets to you, there will be 50% chance that the Fu family will supersede the Lee family and 50% chance that the Fu family will be bankrupt!”

“Did father really say this?” Fu Rongjing did not believe his eldest brother.

“Humph! I am your eldest brother. Since when did I lie to you? Guangzheng, tomorrow you make a trip to Bing City and sell the Aiwa shares to Feng Yu at the cost price. Don’t mention anything about your father’s loss to him.”

“Uncle? Even if my father was too much, but he also cheated my father. You are not even standing up for my father, and you want Guangzheng to sell Aiwa shares back to him?” Fu Guanghui was furious. Why was his eldest uncle helping an outsider? The Fu family got to bow our head to that brat?

Fu Rongqi narrowed his eyes and blew out a mouthful of cigar smoke: “Just go and tell him this…… He will understand and will give us an answer. If he did not give us a satisfied answer…… Don’t think by hiding in China, our Fu family cannot do anything to him!”

Chapter 254 – The Fu family Apologized?

Feng Yu was curious about why Fu Guangzheng came to Bing City to look for him.

The Rubles should depreciate further now, and even if Fu Rongjing did not fall for his trap, the Fu family should know that Feng Yu was trying to trick him. Feng Yu was still waiting for the Fu family to get back at him and he was prepared to fall out with them.

Could it be that Fu Guangzheng wanted to question him about what he had done? There was only this possibility!

……

“Brother Feng, why didn’t you contact me for so long?” Fu Guangzheng greeted Feng Yu warmly when they met.

“What’s there to contact?” Feng Yu asked.

Fu Guangzheng smiled. He remembered his eldest uncle’s instruction to not mention anything about his father losing a large sum of money.

“Oh right, Brother Feng, I have good news for you. You always wanted to buy Aiwa shares, right? My father had told my brother, and we decided to sell you the Aiwa shares. 26% and the market value is about 2.8 million USD. How about we sell these shares to you at 3 million USD?”

What?

Feng Yu’s jaws dropped. He had asked the Fu family for the shares and even offered 5 million USD, but they refuse to sell. Did they eat the wrong medicine? They were willing to sell the shares at 3 million USD?

Could it be that Aiwa Co. ran into some problems and the Fu family knew about it in advance and wanted to offload this baggage? Or, the history had changed because of him? Was it because of Sony?

“Brother Fu, why did your father suddenly decided to sell me the Aiwa shares?” Feng Yu asked suspiciously.

“Don’t you want the shares? My father had a change of mind because he knew that you wanted the shares badly. Are you telling me that you do not want the shares now?”

“Of course not. I want those shares.” Feng Yu hesitated for a while before he replied. He felt that he should buy those shares so he could have full control of Aiwa.

Even if he lost this investment, it was only about 7 million USD. He could afford the losses. The most important thing about Aiwa was the R&D engineers there. As long as these engineers remained at Aiwa, Feng Yu would not lose his investment. Those were the most brilliant engineers in the industry.

Fu Guangzheng passed a document with his father’s signature to Feng Yu: “This is the contract. Please go through to see if there are any problems.”

Feng Yu took the contract from Fu Guangzheng and read carefully. There were only a few terms in the contract, and there was no need for any amendments. Fu Rongjing had already signed on it.

Humph! Didn’t you tell me that you had transferred the shares to Fu Guangzheng’s brother? Why were the shares still under your name?

Of course, Feng Yu would not pursue this matter now. He signed the contract and left his thumbprint on it. He kept the original copy.

“Brother Fu, I will call HSBC bank now to transfer the funds to your father.”

Until Fu Guangzheng received a call to inform him about the fund transfer was successful, he did not mention a word about the Rubles. Feng Yu was puzzled. Fu Rongjing did not buy Rubles?

“Brother Fu, did you father monitor the Rubles recently?” Feng Yu asked.

Fu Guangzheng replied the way Fu Rongqi instructed him: “I am not sure about it. But recently, my father is in a bad mood.”

Bad mood? That means he had bought Rubles and had lost money because of the depreciation. But Feng Yu does not know how much he had lost. From Fu Guangzheng’s tone, the amount lost should not be a small amount.

But since Fu Rongjing had lost money, why did he still sell me Aiwa shares? Feng Yu could not understand what the Fu family wanted.

Fu Guangzheng not only sold Aiwa shares to him and still talked about the humidifiers and bladeless fans’ overseas sales. He even told Feng Yu that his father had set up the distribution channels in Southeast Asia for Aiwa Walkman and intends to let Feng Yu handle the sales for the China market.

Feng Yu was getting more confused. All these seem to be benefiting him. Could it be that the Fu family were apologizing to him? These seem too sincere, and it was not the what the Hong Kong influential families would do.

Feng Yu remembered an article about Hong Kong’s Fu family in his past life. It states that other than the eldest brother had a good reputation, the other brothers did not have good reputations. Fu Rongjing should not be treating Feng Yu this way after being tricked by him.

Wait. Could it be the eldest brother of the Fu family asked Fu Guangzheng to do this? The head of the Fu family should be the eldest brother.

“Brother Fu, did father asked you to come here or someone else?”

Fu Guangzheng thought, you finally asked this question: “It was my eldest uncle’s decision.”

It was really him!

In Feng Yu past life, the papers had reported various versions of Fu Rongqi. Some said that Fu Rongqi was very particular when it comes to business and all his business partners had never lost money. However, there were some that said that Fu Rongqi was ruthless and would take over his partners’ company. But later, people found out that it was because his partners had tried to cheat him, and he retaliated.

This means that Fu Rongqi knew what had happened and knew that the Fu family had done Feng Yu wrong. That’s why he sold the shares back to Feng Yu. Now, the ball is in Feng Yu’s court, and it will depend on Feng Yu’s attitude. Does he want to continue to be friends or enemies?

Interesting. Carrot and stick. He gave Feng Yu a carrot first and depending on Feng Yu’s attitude, he would decide whether to give Feng Yu the stick!

Since the Fu family was willing to apologize, then Feng Yu also do not want to fall out with this partner. After all, the Fu family were really good at retail business. If Feng Yu change to another partner, it will not be beneficial to Wind and Rain brand. Fine, then he should let the Fu family recover some of his losses.

Feng Yu did not want to fall out with the Fu family now was also because he did not have enough assets and connections. But Feng Yu believed that within two years, he would be on par with the Fu family and would exceed the Fu family within 5 years!

Feng Yu thought for a while and asked: “Brother Fu, does your father invest in gold? London Gold?”

“London Gold?” Fu Guangzheng was still guarded against Feng Yu. Feng Yu’s expression was the same when he tricked him about Rubles. He had done everything his eldest uncle instructed him, and this Feng Yu was still trying to trick him?

“That’s right. The last time I was in Hong Kong, I traded some gold futures, and I had used some leverage. But I made quite a sum.”

Feng Yu’s investments in London Gold contract were all settled, and all the profits were in his account. Although he was conservative with his investment and had used low leverage, he made over 100 million USD.

For the financial market, the more the investment, the more the profits and the risk will be lower.

Feng Yu had gone to the bank yesterday, and the gold prices had started to fall. It had dropped to 377 USD/Ounce. Based on his analysis, there should be some price movements at the end of the year, and the gold prices will rise to more than 385 USD/Ounce.

But this will also be the highest price of gold in recent years. After year end, some US capitalists will raise a large fund and start to short gold on the black market with 500 times leverage. Gold prices will start to fall drastically.

If now, one start to invest in London gold, he could make some profits, and after year end, shorting gold prices will result in more profits.

Feng Yu continued: “Brother Fu, I had analyzed the market. To maintain their economy and the value of Rubles, the Soviet Union will try to increase gold prices. After all, they are the world’s biggest exporter of gold. I cannot promise you that the gold prices will rise too high, but these few days, gold prices will start to rise and will reach 385 USD. The lowest will at least be 380USD. But from January next year, gold prices will fall to lower than 355USD!”

385, 355, the difference was 30USD. If what Feng Yu said was true, then the Fu family can make lots of profits.

“Brother Feng, you also intend to invest?” Fu Guangzheng asked cautiously.

“Of course. I will make a trip to Hong Kong during the October holidays. We can go together.” Feng Yu smiled.

Fu Guangzheng was relieved. He had completed the task given to him by his eldest uncle.

Chapter 255 – Going to Hong Kong again

October 1st, Feng Yu flew to Hong Kong again as it was school holidays. Fu Rongqi was an expert in financial investment, and Feng Yu wanted to speak to him.

If Feng Yu wanted to stir up a storm in the financial markets, he could not do it alone. Even George Soros and Warren Buffet did not act alone. To control the financial market, big players had to come together and pool all their fund.

Before Hong Kong’s return to China, Fu Rongqi was the one who could rival Superman Lee. But in 1997, Fu Rongqi suffered heavy losses and his gap between Superman Lee widen.

That means Fu Rongqi will continue to make money these few years and his assets will increase to tens of billion HKD. But now, his assets were not more than 10 billion HKD.

Fu Rongqi’s investment foresight was not to joke about. He will increase his total assets by several folds within a few years.

Feng Yu relied on his memories from his past life to get to where he was now. But regarding his personal ability, he was no match with Fu Rongqi.

This trip to Hong Kong, it was still Fu Guangzheng that came to receive him at the airport alone. But at the Peninsula Hotel, Feng Yu saw Fu Rongqi and Fu Rongjing standing at the entrance.

The both of them standing at the entrance welcoming Feng Yu was giving him face. After all, they were considered Feng Yu’s elders. Many other customers at the hotel were looking at the entrance. They were curious who was arriving, and even the Fu family had to wait for him at the door. Was it Superman Lee or the Governor?

But they were shocked when they saw a young man walking in. Who was this young man? Why would the two prominent members of the Fu family be waiting for him at the entrance of the hotel? Could that young man the son of some top China official?

This must be it. There were rumors that Fu Rongjing had sent his son to China and invested more than 100 million there. This time, even Fu Rongqi came. Could it be that Fu Rongqi also wanted to invest in China too?

China’s Leader Deng was still alive, and he was a leader who ruled with an iron fist. Even the Queen of England was no match for him. Sir Shaw had gathered a group of celebrities from the government and business world to petition for Hong Kong’s independence.

But there were rumors that Leader Deng met Sir Shaw and from then, Sir Shaw donated a large sum of money to build schools in China every year.

The Fu family was not worried that their investment in China would be confiscated by the Communist government?

……

“Xiao Yu, I heard that you forecasted the gold prices will rise?” During lunch, Fu Rongqi asked.

“That’s right. The gold prices will rise within this month. The Soviet Union is one of the world’s largest exporter of gold, and they need to sell their gold for commodities. When gold prices fall, it will affect the Soviet Union and other gold exporting countries greatly. Those countries with large gold reserves will also not allow gold prices to fall. Furthermore, gold prices had reached 850 USD/Ounce few years ago……”

Feng Yu explained his analysis and Fu Rongqi nodded: “You had analyzed all these by yourself?”

Feng Yu smiled and said: “There are some things that I can’t tell you and you should not know.”

Fu Rongqi looked at Feng Yu, and he noticed that Feng Yu’s eyes do not look like a 20 years’ old young man, but instead, he look like someone in his 40s.

This Feng Yu is not simple!

“You say gold prices will rise within this month and what will happen after this month? Will it stabilized, or will it fall again?”

“Fall.”

“Why?”

“Because the International situation will change, and the Soviet Union will disintegrate. Rubles will carry on depreciating, and there will be some big players in the market shorting gold. Gold prices will definitely fall.”

“Based on your analysis, how low will the gold prices reach and how long will it take?”

“Based on our…… cough…… based on my research, the gold prices will reach the lowest point in January, which will be about 355 USD or maybe even lower. From February onwards, there will be rebound, and gold prices will recover to above 400 USD. After that, it will slowly fall again.” Feng Yu pretended to accidentally say ‘our’ instead of ‘me’.

“One month the gold will fluctuate more than 50 USD? Who are you kidding?” Fu Rongjing said.

This Feng Yu must be lying again. How can gold prices fluctuate so much? No one or country could manipulate gold prices.

“Lao Si, don’t interrupt! Xiao Yu, since you said this, will you also invest?” Fu Rongqi stared at Feng Yu without blinking.

“Of course. I will invest a lot.”

“How much are you’re a lot?” Fu Rongjing interrupted again.

Feng Yu showed 5 fingers: “500 million.”

“500 million?” Fu Rongqi can’t help but look at Feng Yu again. This kid has so much money now?

“USD.” Feng Yu continued.

Hiss~~~

The Fu family took in a deep breath. Even Fu Rongqi was surprised. He also has 500 million USD, but he could not take out this amount as casually as Feng Yu.

“What? All of you don’t intend to invest in gold together with me?”

Play? Feng Yu’s casual tone had shocked Fu Rongjing. 500 million USD investment just like this? Could it be it was just as eldest brother guessed? Feng Yu was a representative of some officials who do not want to be known? The factory in Guangdong needed Fu Guangzheng to be the representative was because the official did not want to help?

If this was true, then he should not offend Feng Yu. He should make full use of this opportunity to earn some money back.

“Other than gold, what else would you recommend?” Fu Rongqi asked.

“China’s Shanghai stock exchange had just opened, and Peng City’s exchange will be opening soon. China’s stocks will surely rise, and it will be the bull market all the way until June.”

“I will consider China’s stock market. Is there anything else you can recommend?” China’s stock market was too risky, and the biggest risk was the government.

Damn. This old man wants to test me or was he too greedy? I had recommended gold and China stocks. It was not enough?

Fine. Then my next forecast will shock you!

“Next year’s January to February, I will short crude oil futures.”

“You think oil prices will fall?” Fu Rongqi looks at Feng Yu. Iraq had already invaded Kuwait, and Feng Yu does not know about this? The invasion was to raise oil prices.

“Of course. It is because next January there will be a war!”

“War? What war?” Fu Rongqi was shocked. Feng Yu had said something that sounded more serious than Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

“The US will be declaring war on Iraq! The Gulf War!”

Chapter 256 – Be friends with him

Fu Rongqi looked at Feng Yu and asked unbelievingly: “Us will declare war on Iraq? How is that possible?”

“Why not? The United Nations wanted Iraq to withdraw its troops from Kuwait and even the Soviet Union agreed. But Iraq refused. The Iraqis wanted the resources of Kuwait. Also, if Kuwait became one of Iraq’s province, it would affect Europe, US, Japan and many other countries’ economy. It will also allow Iraq to control the oil prices. One more important thing was the US wanted to show the Soviet Union their war ability and see their reactions.”

Iraq had also been an allied with the Soviet Union, and the Iraqi army was equipped with the Soviet Union weapons. If not, they would also not be able to invade Kuwait within a day.

In the Gulf region, the Iraqi army was the most powerful. But compared to the rest of the world, Iraq was nothing. Iraq had started a war against Iran in the past, and other nations did not do anything to them. But Kuwait was different.

Every war will affect the global economy and this time it was the same. Feng Yu continued to analyze about the war from different perspectives.

“That’s not right. If there is really going to be a war, then oil prices should rise instead. After all, the oil well will be destroyed in the war and oil supply will drop. This would be in line with Saddam Hussein’s motive of limiting the oil supply and increasing oil prices.” Fu Rongqi does not understand why prices will fall. When there was less supply, and demands remain the same, the prices should rise. This was basic economics.

“The world still has many other countries that export crude oil. There is still Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Soviet Union. They will try to use this opportunity to increase their production of crude oil. But Europe, US, Japan and other countries would surely come together to suppress oil prices. Most importantly, the depreciation of the Rubles means that USD had appreciated. When USD appreciate, crude oil prices which are inversely related to USD will fall!”

Feng Yu’s forecast was very bold, and although it was reasonable, Fu Rongqi was not convinced. But Fu Rongqi agreed with Feng Yu’s analysis of the gold market.

Fu Rongqi really wanted to know if Feng Yu had analyzed all these by himself or he has a team behind him. Or, this information was from China’s government, and Feng Yu only had access to this information.

“Xiao Yu, you are so familiar with the global economics. Is there many people like you in China?” Fu Rongqi asked.

“Not only in China.” Feng Yu smiled. I will let you guess. You can never guess the right answer. I am someone who had lived through this period before!

“Xiao Yu, what do you think of Hong Kong’s economy? What do you think is worth investing?”

Hong Kong? Feng Yu did not expect Fu Rongqi to ask him about Hong Kong. Hong Kong was the Fu family’s playground. Why are you asking me?

Feng Yu thought for a while and replied: “Telecommunications and real estate.”

The telecommunications industry in Hong Kong was controlled by two men who shared the same surname, Lee. If the Fu family wants to enter this industry, the risk will be too high. But the real estate market was huge. The Fu family can enter this industry without any problems.

Now, Hong Kongers were still afraid of Hong Kong’s return to China. They thought the Chinese Government would confiscate their assets and they would be the same as the Chinese. They would get the same low salaries.

Many Hong Kongers migrated to other countries like England, Malaysia, and Singapore. They could take away most of their assets but what about their properties? If everybody were leaving Hong Kong, then no one would be buying their houses!

Although the property market in Hong Kong had shown signs of recovery these two years, the property prices were still very low. Many people preferred to rent houses instead of buying, even when they could afford to do so. Their rental was more expensive than the housing loans.

Feng Yu had also thought about this before. If he got spare cash on hand, he wanted to buy a few plots of land or a few buildings in Hong Kong. Property value will increase by at least two folds in 1995.

This was a safe investment, and the returns are high. But the disadvantage of this investment was a lot of capital was required.

“Xiao Yu, do you intend to do some investment in Hong Kong? If you need any help, I am willing to help you.” Fu Rongqi said. Feng Yu had told him so many information. Even though it was considered as payback for Fu Rongjing’s losses, Fu Rongqi also cannot take Feng Yu’s information for free.

“Fine. If I need it, I will let you know.”

……

After the meal, the Fu family left. Feng Yu made a phone call. He had hired people to search for the Hong Kong’s future expert in gold trading. Feng Yu wanted to recruit him.

“You are Mr. Feng? I didn’t expect you to be so young.” He Zhaoji met with Feng Yu, and he was stunned for a few seconds. He was thought that a businessman wanted to set up an Investment company. This was the businessman from China? He was too young. Did he really have so many funds?

“Mr. He, I can’t explain myself well over the phone. I prefer to meet with you personally. I have funds of over 500 million USD, and I wanted to set up an Investment company in Hong Kong to make some investments. Recently, I felt that the Gold market will do well, and I heard that you are an expert in this area. That’s why I wanted you to come over to help me. What conditions do you want? You can tell me.”

“Mr. Feng, you trust me so much?”

“I need to test you first. I want to hear your views on the upcoming gold market before I can decide.”

Even if one uses 500 million USD to trade conservatively, the annual returns would still be at least 10%. That’s 50 million USD returns. If he manages this Investment company, his yearly salary should be 500,000 USD and above. This was much more than him trading in gold himself.

But there were disadvantages too. Some brokers lost their boss’s investment and were murdered. But He Zhaoji decided to gamble this time. He was confident if his analysis of the gold market. He knew he would be able to help his boss to earn a lot and get a hefty commission for himself.

He Zhaoji starts to tell Feng Yu about his on the gold market. Feng Yu listened carefully and did not interrupt him. He Zhaoji from Feng Yu’s past life became famous suddenly from 1990 to 1991. He Zhaoji’s analysis of the gold market was the same as Feng Yu, and he had been trading gold for over 5 years. He had the experienced. This man must be recruited!

……

Fu Rongqi listened to the views of his team of Financial analysts on the gold market. They agreed that the gold prices will continue to rise until the end of the year, but only some analysts agree that gold prices will plummet early next year before rising again.

As for crude oil prices crashing early next year, nobody agreed. All of them felt that if a war were to start, oil prices would rise instead!

Feng Yu had forecasted the Rubles to continue to depreciate, the Soviet Union’s situation worsening and the US waging war. No one from Fu Rongqi’s team was able to forecast these situations.

If all that situations really happened, then it proves that Feng Yu’s source of information was really powerful!

Fu Rongqi decided to wait and look at the situation. If all those situations Feng Yu predicted really happen, then the Fu family only have one choice. They must continue to be friends with Feng Yu!

Chapter 257 – Sichuan Airlines

Feng Yu’s mood was excellent as he had become the controlling shareholder of Aiwa. He had also set up Wind and Rain Consulting company. When Wilson heard that this company had 500 million USD funds, he personally became the legal counsel of the company. Feng Yu also let He Zhaoji recruit a group of dealers. He told He Zhaoji that the general direction should not change, but he could slightly adjust the buying and selling prices. However, he must report to Feng Yu every day over the phone.

Feng Yu wanted his investments to be stable. There were many opportunities for him to earn money in the future. If He Zhaoji uses 100 times leverage, and there were high fluctuations in the gold prices, he might suffer massive losses.

If Feng Yu only had 1 million USD, he would choose to take this risk. But after he had 500 million USD, he wanted to be safe. Next year, gold and crude oil will have high fluctuations, and that was enough for Feng Yu to earn a few hundred million more.

Feng Yu needed safe investments and not high-risk speculations now.

It was impossible for Feng Yu to trick the Fu family again as he had invested 500 million in the gold market. He can’t be using so many funds to deceive them. Furthermore, Fu Rongqi’s team also felt that gold would rise within this year and he had also invested a lot in it.

Fu Rongqi lent Fu Rongjing 100 million for his company to operate smoothly. Fu Rongjing also borrowed a sum of money from his connections and handed over to Fu Rongqi. He wants to get back his losses.

Fu Rongqi sighed. The most critical taboo in financial investment was to look at the returns and ignore the risk. One might become a billionaire overnight, but one could also become bankrupt overnight too.

But this time, Fu Rongqi still helped Fu Rongjing to invest. He also asked his two other brothers to invest together.

This was the benefit of a family. When one of the family members runs into financial difficulties, the rest could lend him money. Also, when one member of the family was suppressed by a rival, the rest of the family will fight back together!

Feng Yu’s relationship with the Fu family improved, and it was the Fu family that gave in first. Fu Rongqi was a cunning person, and Feng Yu could not tell what he was thinking. But one day, Feng Yu would let the whole Fu family be his followers and listen to his orders!

……

It was the end of October. Feng Yu and Hou Haitao came to Tianfu. Kirilenko had given Feng Yu good news. After Russia announced that they will be leaving the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union factories’ leaders became bolder.

Kirilenko had contacted two factories who had agreed to sell aircrafts to China. One model was passenger plane, Tupolev Tu-154 and the other model was a military aircraft, Ilyushin Il-76. The Soviet Union now had an excess of aircraft. There were no uses for all those aircraft, and there were no buyers for these planes. Yet, the factories were still manufacturing them. Now the factories managers knew that the Soviet Union might be disintegrating, and they wanted to convert these things into cash.

Tupolev Tu-154 was still fine as it was a commercial plane. Currently, in China, the market value of this plane was about 60 million RMB. As for Ilyushin Il-76, China had bought a few. China claims that it was for military purpose but in fact, these planes were purchased to be reverse engineered and imitate. China at this time could not afford to buy Boeing’s large passenger planes. They cost more than 200 million RMB.

Sichuan Airlines was set up in 1988 and currently still using small aircraft like Harbin Y-7 and Harbin Y-12. These aircrafts had less than 50 seats, and it could not match Sichuan Airlines demand. This was a problem faced by all of China’s airlines. Sichuan Airlines was currently applying for funds to purchase larger planes.

“Director Hou, don’t worry. If this deal went smoothly, I would surely give you what I promised you!”

To prevent any incidents like the Civil Aviation Administration not approving this deal, Feng Yu brought Hou Haitao along. He needs the protection of Bing City’s Aviation Factory. After all, Ilyushin Il-76 was a military aircraft, and even though it could be converted into a passenger plane, it might still be against the regulations.

“I trust you. You don’t need to worry too. I had met the Director Cheng of Sichuan Airlines several times. Even though we are not friends, but with me around, you will not suffer any losses. But Manager Feng, your business is getting bigger. You can even buy aircrafts now!” Hou Haitao can’t help sighing.

When Feng Yu had told Hou Haitao about this deal, he thought Feng Yu was joking with him. Sell airplanes? Do you know how much an aircraft cost?

But this was real. Especially Feng Yu promised him that he will help him get the technologies of Ilyshin and Antonov series engines. This was too attractive to Hou Haitao. He immediately agreed to help Feng Yu contact buyers.

It was also because of Hou Haitao, Feng Yu dares to do this business. If not, after he bought all the aircraft and the Chinese authorities forbid him to sell, his money would go to the drain.

……

“Oh, Director Hou, it’s been a while since we last met. Was our last meeting in Beijing? Right. Where is Manager Feng? You mentioned that he has some aircraft for sale. Why he didn’t come with you?” Director Cheng met with Hou Haitao and shook his hands.

Feng Yu: “……” Am I invisible? I am taller than Hou Haitao, and you can’t see me?

Hou Haitao pointed to Feng Yu and introduced him: Director Cheng, this is Tai Hua Trading’s, General Manager Feng. Manager Feng, this is the Director of Sichuan Airlines, Director Cheng.”

Director Cheng shook Feng Yu’s hand. He had an embarrassed and puzzled expression on his face. He had thought that Feng Yu was Hou Haitao’s secretary.

“Manager Feng, I’m sorry. I did not recognize you. Please take a seat. Xiao…… Feng Tao, go and get some tea for our guests.” Director Cheng had wanted to call Xiao Feng, but he felt that it would be disrespectful to Feng Yu. He also could not call his secretary Xiao Tao, as it would also offend Hou Haitao. He thought that he should change his secretary or asked his secretary to change his name.

“Come, have a smoke.”

Feng Yu waved his hand: “Thanks, but I don’t smoke.”

“Manager Feng, I heard from Director Hou that you are able to get aircraft at low prices?” Director Cheng asked.

Feng Yu smiled. The more eager the other party was, the higher the chance of this deal succeeding.

“Of course. Currently, I have only two models. One is Tupolev Tu-154, and the other is Ilyushin Il-76. I guarantee that all the planes are new. The former is a commercial passenger plane, and the latter can be used for both military and commercial purposes. I can also do some modifications based on your requirements.”

Director Cheng’s eye sparkles. These were all large passenger planes. These planes were at least 3 times bigger than his current fleet.

“What’s the price?”

“Director Cheng, what’s your ideal price and how many planes do you need?” Feng Yu smiled and asked Director Cheng. He wanted to know how much, Director Cheng would offer. No matter what price he offered, Feng Yu would still make profits. After all, he had gotten these planes at a meager price.

“I need 5 aircraft, 3 Tupolev Tu-154, and 2 Ilyushin Il-76. I am willing to offer a total of 250 million RMB.” Director Cheng hesitated for a while before telling Feng Yu a price which he felt it was very low.

If it were the market price, the planes would have cost nearly to 400 million.

Feng Yu did a mental calculation. 250 million RMB and his profits will be more than 80 million RMB. But he believed that this was not the highest price Sichuan Airlines can offer. They should be able to provide a higher rate.

“Director Cheng, are you joking with me? 2 Ilyushin Il-76 will cost more than 200 million. If based on the market value, these 5 planes should be close to 400 million. I saw you as Director Hou’s friend and considered this as supporting the country, I want 350 million. You can think about it.”

Sichuan Airlines was really ambitious to want to buy 5 planes at once. In Feng Yu’s previous life, someone had made almost 100 million RMB by selling 4 Tupolev Tu-154 planes. If Feng Yu could not even make profits of over 100 million, then it would be a waste of his rebirth!

Chapter 258 – Leader of headquarters

Hou Haitao was slowly sipping on his tea while Director Cheng and Feng Yu were negotiating with the price. He had no intentions to interfere with the pricing negotiations. Feng Yu had asked him along was to introduce the buyer.

Actually, 350 million RMB was already very cheap for Director Cheng. But Hou Haitao had told him that Feng Yu had always sold his items at very low prices. So, he decided to bargain further.

Furthermore, if he believed that the higher management would approve if the total price is less than 300 million RMB. But Feng Yu does not seem to be willing to sell at that price.

“Director Cheng, my cost is almost 300 million and these planes held up most a lot of my capital. How can you let me earn so little? 330 million RMB. This price is considered I am giving you these planes with no profits.”

Director Cheng looked at Feng Yu. Who are you trying to fool? The cost is 300 million RMB? Although he does not know the actual value of the planes, he knew that it would not be so high.

“Manager Feng, 300 million is the highest we can offer. Our Sichuan Airlines does not even have so much money. We still need to apply funds from Civil Aviation Headquarters. There is a leader from the headquarters here, and if you agree to 300 million, we can get the paperwork done fast.”

The headquarters have a leader there? Feng Yu looked at Hou Haitao. Hou Haitao shook his head. He also did not know about this.

“Director Cheng, why not you invite the leader here? Maybe after I have a talk with him, I might agree to your price.”

Kirilenko’s contacts had more than 5 planes. It all depends on how many planes Feng Yu could sell. Now, not only Sichuan Airlines needed bigger passenger planes. Other airlines in China were also in need of bigger aircraft.

If a leader from the Civil Aviation Administration could sign a purchasing contract with Feng Yu, then he could accept lower prices.

If he could earn 10 million per aircraft, then 10 planes will be 100 million. Furthermore, Feng Yu’s cost price was much lower and how could his profits per aircraft be 10 million?

Director Cheng paused. What do you mean? You want to speak to the leader from headquarters? Are you looking down on me?

Hou Haitao suddenly added: “Feng Yu could get more than 5 aircraft. He can get whatever quantity you wanted.”

Director Cheng’s eyes widen. Whatever quantity we wanted? How can this young man’s business be so big?

“Please wait here and enjoy your tea. I will be back soon.

10 minutes later, Director Cheng opened the door, and a man in his 50s to 60s walked in. When Hou Haitao saw this man, he immediately stood up.

“Oh, former leader, how come it’s you?”

“Xiao Hou? When Xiao Cheng told me that you are here, I thought he was joking. Why are you here today?”

Xiao Hou? (Same pronunciation as a little monkey) Feng Yu almost laughed. Hou Haitao was about 50 years old, and he was still be addressed as a little monkey? Why not call Sun Wukong?

“Manager Feng, let me introduce you to my former leader, Chief Chen. He was our Bing City’s Aviation Factory, former director. Later, he was transferred to Civil Aviation Administration headquarters to be the Deputy Chief.

So, Hou Haitao was his former subordinate.  No wonder he was so enthusiastic when he saw Chief Chen.

“Chief Chen, call me Xiao Feng will do.”

“I will address you as Manager Feng. I heard from Xiao Cheng that you are here for a business deal with him. You can get cheap Soviet Union planes?” Chief Chen smiled and asked.

“I know a few friends in the Soviet Union and my company is dealing in International trades. We import a lot of Soviet Union products. Director Hou is very familiar with my company. My Soviet friends told me that he had two models of aircraft for sales and wanted me to help him look for buyers. The prices will be reasonable and would be much cheaper than the market rate.”

“Really? What models are those?”

Feng Yu introduced both models, and Director Cheng told Chief Chen the market rate for each model of planes.

“Manager Feng, how many planes can you get?”

“Chief Chen, how many planes do you need?” Feng Yu’s eyes shined. The Civil Aviation Administration Headquarters had the intention to make a bulk purchase.

China at that this time was developing their aviation industry and there was a shortage of large passenger planes. But the aviation factories in China could only manufacture small aircraft, and they do not have the technologies for bigger passenger planes. Even in the future, China also does not have the technologies to manufacture large passenger planes. They still need to purchase from other countries.

Actually, China did research on big planes, but it was more towards military transport planes. They did not focus on commercial passenger planes.

Chief Chen was excited when he heard that Feng Yu could get big passenger planes from the Soviet Union. He had wanted to find out from Feng Yu about how many aircraft can he get. But instead, Feng Yu asked him how many does he need? What does he mean? You can get any number of planes I needed?

“Manager Feng can really talk big. I want 20 aircraft. Can you get so many?”

“No problem. When do you need?” Feng Yu was overjoyed. 20 planes! This was a big order.

If the deal goes through, Feng Yu and Kirilenko will earn a lot. Kirilenko had said that these two Aviation factories had a total of 26 aircraft and some more still in the midst of manufacturing. Although the factories were only willing to sell 6 planes to Kirilenko, Kirilenko told Feng Yu that if the price was right, he could get all 26 planes. If time permits, even 30 planes were not a problem!

Chief Chen stood up in shocked. Feng Yu could even get 20 aircraft? He had thought that Feng Yu could get at most 10 planes and he had only wanted to teach Feng Yu a lesson. Young men should not brag. But it seems that 20 aircraft were really not a problem for Feng Yu.

The “Great One” had mentioned in the past that China will develop the Aviation industry and the Civil Aviation Administration Headquarters set up 6 airline companies after that. Sichuan Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Air China, Shanghai Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines. These airline companies all had international routes, and all the airlines needed large passenger planes.

These airline companies were private airlines, but all of them were still under the management of China’s Civil Aviation Administration Headquarters. These airlines do not have enough funds to purchase new aircraft and needed to get the funds from the headquarters.

If this Manager Feng could get cheap passenger planes, then the airline companies can stop their negotiations with Europe and the US for the sales of aircraft. With these affordable and good planes, why waste money to get more expensive ones?

“What’s the lowest price for Tupolev Tu-154 and Ilyushin Il-76?” Chief Chen asked.

“If you are getting 10 and above, Tupolev Tu-154 will be 45 million RMB per unit and 80 million for one Ilyushin Il-76. The capacity for Tupolev Tu-154 is about 150 to 180 seats. Ilyushin Il-76 can reach up to 200 seats, or you can get a large cargo hold.”

Feng Yu was screaming in his heart. Hurry and agree. This price was already 30% lower. You should decide now.

Sichuan Airlines’ Director Cheng was overjoyed. The price Feng Yu asked for now, was much lower than earlier.

“The prices were still slightly high. How about this? Manager Feng, I will speak to the leaders and will give you an answer in a few days.” Chief Chen said. He did not agree to the deal on the spot like Director Cheng.

“No problems. But please be quick. The situation in the Soviet Union is very messy, and my friend used this opportunity to get these planes. Any longer, I am afraid that you can’t get this price.” Feng Yu starts to pressurize Chief Chen.

Although Feng Yu got not finalized a deal with Sichuan Airlines today, he was still excited. This was a big order by the Civil Aviation Administration Headquarters. Feng Yu will be richer!

Chapter 259 – Two good news

“Feng, I need to tell you about two news.” Kirilenko said excitedly over the phone.

“Brother Ki, don’t tell me that one is good news and one is bad news?”

“No, one is good news, and the other is better than good news. Hahahaha” Kirilenko sounds as if he was in an excellent mood.

Feng Yu was relieved as there was no bad news. But he wonders what sort of good news Kirilenko had, for him to call personally.

“The first news is the factory agreed to modified Ilyushin Il-76 according to your request, and they are doing it for free!”

Feng Yu smiled. This was indeed good news. If Ilyushin Il-76 was not modified before sending over, there might be some problems. Commercial planes and military planes had different procedures! Furthermore, the airline companies needed passenger planes and not military cargo planes. Feng Yu was also worried if the aircraft were sent over without modifications, and China’s aviation factories had to do the changes themselves. Even at Bing City Aviation Factory, the efficiency was too slow.

“That’s great. Don’t worry. This time it will be a big order, and we will be able to make lots of profits.”

“Hahaha. This time I do not want money. I want Chinese goods. Later I will give you a list of the items I want, and you can charge me accordingly. But this time the quantity will be considerable, and the military train might not be able to transport all of them. Will it be a problem?”

Now, Rubles had plummeted, and the necessities in the Soviet Union became more and more expensive. The demand for daily necessities was also higher. The Soviet aviation factories do not want money. They wanted goods. Kirilenko had known that the value of Rubles was falling, and goods will become more valuable.

“Absolutely no problems! I will settle the transportation.” Feng Yu was very confident that he could let the Civil Aviation Administration headquarters to help him settle the transportation. They will help to arrange for train carriages. It’s just a big order of daily necessities. Feng Yu had many partners, and he had the money. He was not worried about getting the goods.

Moreover, this time, the quantity was significant, and Feng Yu’s cost will be lower. He had already told Wu Zhigang to contact their suppliers and told them to stock up their goods. This deal will be the biggest in China’s history and will be recorded in the history books!

“The second news is better! I had contacted a few mining enterprises, and they were interested in selling their shares. The mine workers also wanted to sell their shares. This time we can surely acquire a few large mines!” One could hear from Kirilenko’s tone that he was very excited.

Hearing what Kirilenko said, Feng Yu also got excited. The mine owners in the future, especially in Russia region, were all tycoons. Furthermore, the Soviet Union’s mines were rich in minerals, and their mining technologies were among the best in the world. They could start mining once they acquired the mines. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union next year, the mines will rack in lots of profits!

China in the future had a high demand for minerals, and if Feng Yu could import these minerals from other countries, he would make profits and also do others favors. This way, his businesses in China will get some concessions.

“Brother Ki, you still remember what I told you? Sign the contract first and delay the payments.” Feng Yu reminded Kirilenko. The later the payments were made, the less they would spend.

“Rest assured. I had remembered everything. I will use my USD in the bank as a security deposit to negotiate with them. As what you said, we will offer higher prices, but I will not make any payments this year.” Kirilenko proudly said.

Signing contracts in the Soviet Union will be in Rubles. Now even if they offer the mine owners double the price, by next year, Rubles would have been depreciated by several folds. The real amount spent by Kirilenko would be much lower. If it were not for Kirilenko, many of these mines would be acquired by the Americans!

Kirilenko had several advantages when I come to acquiring these mines. First, he was a Soviet, and to those mine owners, he was one of them. Secondly, Kirilenko had offered higher prices. Those greedy Americans had purposely suppressed their offered prices as they saw the situation in the Soviet Union worsening. They wanted to take advantage of it. Kirilenko not only did not take advantage of the current situation and still offered more than what the mine owners expected.

Next, Kirilenko had USD in his bank and this assured those mine owners. Kirilenko was not conning them, and he could really afford to pay them. Lastly, Kirilenko’s father was now one of Yeltsin’s favorite. His father had given Yeltsin’s troops more military supplies than other armies. As such, Yeltsin became more powerful, and Kirilenko’s father had more authority. Kirilenko’s status also rises.

With so many advantages Kirilenko signed the letter of intent with several mine owners. He only needs to finalize the price and payment date. If it weren’t for Kirilenko wanting to delay the payments, he would have acquired all those mines now.

“Brother Ki, don’t worry about money. Contact more mine owners and buy every mine you can find. I promised you that we will not suffer any losses. You can trust me.”

Feng Yu was shouting in his heart: Brother Ki, why are you not telling me that you do not have enough money and let me be a shareholder? Hurry and tell me. If you tell me now, I will agree immediately. Even at a loss!

“I might not have enough money to do that. Didn’t you loan a lot of money? Can you lend me some?”

Feng Yu: “……”

I advised you to buy mines and told you that if you do not have enough money let me know. I want to cooperate with you. I want to be a shareholder. You want to borrow money from me?

“Brother Ki, I am also doing investment on my side. Why not you buy the mines and I invest in your company? I will only own a stake in your company and will not interfere with your mine business.”  Feng Yu was speechless. He did not know if Kirilenko was pretending not to get what he wanted, or he was indeed a fool. He decided to be straightforward with him.

Kirilenko turned and look at his father for his advice. Senchenko nodded for Kirilenko to agree.

Kirilenko had called Feng Yu today was also Senchenko’s idea. Senchenko actually does not like Kirilenko because Kirilenko disliked being in the military and was hanging out with the other useless second generations. Senchenko felt that Kirilenko was not like him at all.

But after Kirilenko started doing trades with China and earned his fortune, Senchenko began to like this son. Senchenko felt that his military status can pass on to his elder son.

Kirilenko had told Senchenko about Feng Yu’s analysis of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and Yeltsin will be the future leader of Russia. Feng Yu also advise Senchenko to join Yeltsin’s faction for better opportunities. It was because of this, Senchenko like his younger son more.

Senchenko also analyzed the current political situation and found that it was really as what Feng Yu had claimed. He finds it surprising when some of Feng Yu’s prediction came true!

Feng Yu’s latest prediction of the Rubles depreciating had let Senchenko trust Feng Yu more than Kirilenko. He wanted to raise his ranks further in the military, and he needed Feng Yu’s analysis. He was more eager to have a closer relationship with Feng Yu than Kirilenko.

Feng Yu wanted a stake in those mines? This was nothing. Now many state-owned enterprises in the Soviet Union were reorganized into shareholdings. Feng Yu only wanted a stake and why can’t they agree? Senchenko had even told Kirilenko to accept even if Feng Yu wanted the controlling stake!

As long as Feng Yu could give him similar advice as last time, their family will have no losses!

With authority, why would he worry about not having enough money……

Chapter 260 – The Civil Aviation Procurement Team

“Director Hou, what did you say? People from the Civil Aviation is here in Bing City? They are here to talk about the procurement of aircraft? Fine. I will go over now.”

Feng Yu had just finished dinner and was playing TV games with Wen Dongjun when he received a call from Hou Haitao asking him to go to his office. The Civil Aviation Procurement Team was here.

The last time when Feng Yu and Hou Haitao went to Sichuan Airlines, they only discussed their intention of purchasing aircraft. The quantity and prices were not finalizing after Chief Zhao joined in the discussion. Sichuan Airlines did not provide Feng Yu with any answers. So, Feng Yu and Hou Haitao could only return to Bing City and wait for news.

Sichuan Airlines had received orders to stop all negotiations with Feng Yu. The headquarters will make a bulk purchase, and the prices will be lower.

Feng Yu got a shock when he entered Hou Haitao’s office. The room was filled with smoke. Damn, was there a fire?

He strained his eyes and saw the office was full of people. There were at least a dozen men there. The headquarters had sent a big team to negotiate with him.

“Manager Feng, come over here. Chief Chen and the rest had just arrived. Actually, I wanted to call you over tomorrow morning, but everyone here felt that it would be better to finalize the deal as soon as possible.”

“Oh, you must be Tai Hua Trading’s, Manager Feng. Come, have a smoke. Panda brand. Even the “Great One” like this brand of cigarettes.”

“Smoke mine. This is the Zhonghua brand. China’s best cigarettes.”

“Mine is also Zhonghua brand. Come, Manager Feng, have a smoke.”

……

At least 7 to 8 hands stretched over towards Feng Yu. Every hand was holding on to a cigarette. Feng Yu was stocked.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t smoke.” Feng Yu politely refused their offer. He turned to Hou Haitao. He felt that something was off.

From a corner of his eyes, Feng Yu saw Director Cheng and Chief Chen exchanging looks. Damn. They did it on purpose. Director Cheng knew that he does not smoke, and he must have informed the others. This means that they had purposely filled the room with smoke.

Damn. These people were here to take advantage of me. Humph. These small tricks were nothing to me!

“Secretary Xu, why didn’t you serve tea? Also, switch on the fan. The whole room is filled with cigarette smoke. Do you want the leaders to suffer?” While saying, Feng Yu walked over to open the office’s windows.

It was almost the end of October, and it was starting to get cold. Especially in Bing City, at night, the outside temperature can reach less than 10-degree Celsius.

Howl~~~

A gust of cold wind entered the room. Feng Yu saw Secretary did not switch on the fan, he walked to a corner of the office and took out the bladeless fan. He switched on the maximum power of the fan and turned it towards everyone.

The group of leaders in their 50s was all shocked.

It was so freaking cold, and yet you opened the windows and doors, and still switched on the fan!

You are young, and you can endure this temperature. But we are all old. How can we take it?

“Eh? Why did all of you snubbed out your cigarettes?” Feng Yu was asking the obvious. Those people’s hands were all in their pockets, and they were shivering.

Director Cheng smiled embarrassedly: “Manager Feng, today is so cold. Why did you open the windows?”

“Cigarettes can affect health. You all can carry on smoking. Just ignore me. I only need some fresh air.” Feng Yu had a sincere expression on his face. He looks like he was respecting the leaders and does not mind their second-hand smoke.

“Cough…… Let’s stop smoking. Xiao Xu, switch off the fan and close the windows. There’ no more smoke. Also, give us hot tea too.”

Xiao Xu had just returned with Feng Yu’s tea when he saw the leaders shivering with their neck tucked in. He can’t help but laugh in his heart. Didn’t our Director Hou told all of you to stop playing these small tricks with Feng Yu. Feng Yu was the master of these tricks.

“Manager Feng, let me introduce to everyone. You had met Director Cheng and Chief Chen before. This is section Chief Liu. This is Chief Ma…… This is Director Zhang.”

Feng Yu stood up and shook their hands. Other than the ones from the headquarters, there were representatives from all 6 airline companies. No wonder there were so many people.

Seems like all 6 airlines wanted to purchase larger aircraft. If every airline bought 2 planes each, it would be 12 planes. If all the airlines needed 5 planes like Sichuan Airlines, then it would be 30 planes. This order will be huge!

Feng Yu controlled his excitement and did not show it on his face. He acted as if he was not concern about this deal.

The leaders of the aviation industry looked at each other. This Feng Yu did not seem too excited when he shook their hands. These leaders were people with a lot of authorities and were equivalent to a provincial official.

But this Feng Yu was so young, and he seems not affected by them. He looks like he was used to meeting leaders and officials.

Feng Yu kept quiet after he sat down. He just sat there, slowly sipping on his tea.

Those leaders were confused. Didn’t Feng Yu have a lot of aircraft from the Soviet Union for sales? He should be eager to sell the planes to them. Why was Feng Yu keeping quiet?

Now, whoever that speaks first will be at a disadvantage. These people had come here to purchase aircraft, but they wanted Feng Yu to talk first. This way, they would have the upper hand in the negotiations. But this Feng Yu was not in a hurry.

“Cough…… Manager Feng, I had asked the representative of all the airlines here to discuss the sales of your aircraft. why not you tell them about your planes and prices.” Chief Chen broke the silence. He could not stand the quiet room.

Feng Yu placed his teacup on the table and said: “I had told you about my conditions. Don’t tell me they do not know?”

Looking at Feng Yu’s smile, Chief Chen was a bit embarrassed. At the same time, he was getting angry. They were leaders and since when they have to speak nicely to ordinary businessmen this way?

“You can tell them again.” Chief Chen repeated.

“Repeat again? Fine. Tupolev Tu-154 is 600 million each, and Ilyushin Il-76 is 100 million each. How many do you all need?” Feng Yu crossed his leg and start shaking his legs.

Before Chief Chen could say anything, Director Cheng said: “Manager Feng, this was not what you told me the last time we met. Why are the prices increased by so much now?”

Feng Yu glanced at Director Cheng: “How much did I tell you the last time we met? I forgot.”

Forgot……

Director Cheng: “……”

This Manager Feng was not easy to deal with. Seems like the Civil Aviation Administration will not get any advantage.

Chapter 261 – Which side are you on?!

Chief Chen looked at Hou Haitao. Hou Haitao was unwilling to get involved, but he still said: “Manager Feng, these are all not outsiders and Chief Chen was my predecessor. These people are all my friends. Just tell them the real prices of the aircraft.”

Feng Yu glanced at Hou Haitao. These people were not outsiders? You are talking as if you are good friends with them. Why did you keep quiet when we were at Sichuan Airlines?

“Since it’s like this then I will give Director Hou face. Let me know how many planes do you all need? Currently, I only have these two models. Of course, if you have some models in mind, you can let me know too. If the Soviet Union permits to export those models, I can contact the factories there and let you know the price.”

The leaders looked at each other, and it was Sichuan Airlines Director Cheng that speaks first: “Manager Feng. Currently, we are interested in these two models. We have no plans to procure other models now. However, if you got better deals, you can let us know. We, the 6 airline companies intents to purchase 20 Tupolev Tu-154 and 12 Ilyushin Il-76. How much will it be?”

Feng Yu was jumping with joy in his heart. This order was more significant than he had expected. China’s aviation must be developing faster than his previous life.

These airlines had planned to purchased aircraft from the world-renowned aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, initially. They had planned to acquire some aircraft, and those aircraft cost over 200 million RMB each.

Now Feng Yu had a better offer for them, and these aircraft only cost a quarter of Boeing’s planes. Although Tupolev Tu-154 could not be compared to Boeing 7 series planes, the cost performance index of Tupolev Tu-154 was higher than Boeing.

The Civil Aviation Administration Headquarters immediately ordered all the airlines to stop the negotiations with Boeing. With a better deal around, they should grab it. Even some airlines which had wanted to order aircraft with Airbus, also approached Civil Aviation Administration Headquarters saying that they wanted to purchase Soviet aircraft from Feng Yu.

Although Airbus was much bigger, and the performance was better than Boeing, but they do not have ready stocks. If they make the order now, they would have to wait for at least a year.

The Soviet aircraft were cheaper and had ready stocks. The airline company could also show their support for the Civil Aviation Administration.

With these airlines coming together, the number of planes they intent to procure became bigger. Even Shenzhen Airlines, which had no intentions of purchasing aircraft initially, also ordered 3 planes.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin and thought for about the prices Kirilenko told him.

“Tupolev Tu-154, 42 million RMB per plane and Ilyushin Il-76, 78 million RMB per plane. This is about 70% of the market price, and it is the lowest price.” Feng Yu said.

These people knew about the price Feng Yu wanted. Even though the current rates were slightly lower, they felt that there was still room for negotiations. Moreover, they were placing a big order, and they should be getting more discount. All of them had forgotten that when they negotiate with Boeing and Airbus, they had no discount!

“Manager Feng, how will you settle the paperwork for your sales of planes to us?” Someone asked.

Feng Yu thought in his heart. Finally, it’s here. These people want to make use of the procedures to force him to give more discounts. Feng Yu had expected this way before. He glanced at Hou Haitao. It’s your turn to act!

Hou Haitao saw Feng Yu’s glance at him and said: “Cough…… Our Bing City Aviation Factory will settle the paperwork and procedures for Manager Feng’s planes.”

What?!

The changes were too fast. Half an hour earlier, Hou Haitao was still telling them that he will help them to lower Tai Hua Trading’s prices. But now, Hou Haitao had disrupted their plans. They had not expected this to happen.

Everyone stared angrily at Hou Haitao. Did you receive any favors from Feng Yu?

Feng Yu had really given Hou Haitao some benefits. Not only he had given him the technologies of two types of aircraft engines, but he also gave him two sample engines for Bing City Aviation Factory to research.

There were all free for Hou Haitao. Feng Yu had spent almost 10 million RMB worth of goods on trading those with Kirilenko. In name, this was a donation to the Aviation Factory and all the technologies and engines will arrive together with the planes at Bing City.

After spending 19 million, the Bing City’s Aviation Factory will help Feng Yu settle all the procedures and paperwork for the planes. After all, the Aviation Factory had military backgrounds. It would take ages if Feng Yu were to resolve these by himself.

Also, with the Aviation Factory helping Feng Yu, it was impossible for the Civil Aviation Administration to make things difficult for Feng Yu. The Aviation Factory was not under their jurisdiction.

After Hou Haitao finished speaking, he looked down and dare not look at anyone, especially his former director. He had no choice. He had no way to get his hands on the technologies and the engines. Furthermore, Feng Yu was giving them to his factory for free. He could not resist this offer.

Bing city’s Aviation Factory was converted from a military factory to an ordinary factory. The factory only manufactures and research on the engines of small planes and helicopters. Their most profitable product was a small plane used for spraying pesticides and firefighting.

With these technologies, they could improve the factory’s products, and Hou Haitao would be promoted for sure!

Hou Haitao did not felt that he had done anything wrong. This was the best for his factory and himself. The airlines also did not suffer any losses. All this while, they had wanted to purchase bigger aircraft at higher prices. Now they had gotten a better deal and should not be greedy. It was not easy for Xiao Feng to run his business.

“Cough…… You all don’t have to worry about the paperwork and procedures. I had made myself clear about the prices. Give me an answer. If you do not want, then I will make a trip to Europe two days later. I guess with the price I am selling, it will not be hard for me to sell all these planes.” Feng Yu said.

“Manager Feng, sell the planes to us. This is also a contribution to your country’s aviation industry. The country will remember your contributions.” Someone tried to make use of Feng Yu patriotism.

“Yes. I want to sell the planes to you. Didn’t I contact Sichuan Airlines Director Cheng? But it is all of you that do not accept my price. I can’t be keeping these planes for myself and selling them. Anyway, if I sell the planes to another country, I am creating income for the country. There will be taxes too.” It might be easy to use patriotism in the older generations, but it does not work on Feng Yu. Money was the only thing in Feng Yu’s mind!

“But it is too expensive, and we do not have that much money.”

“Really? How come I heard that Shanghai Airlines is about to order aircraft from Boeing? And the aircraft are Boeing 727 model. That model is no longer in production. Which means that those were leftover stocks sitting in their warehouse. Those planes cost more than 200 million each, right? My planes are cheap and good. The performance is also good. The price I wanted is already the cost price. Am I right, Director Hou?”

Damn. Why are you asking me again?

Hou Haitao stared at Feng Yu and replied: “That’s right. This price can be considered as the cost price. Manager Feng does not have many profits!”

The people from the airline companies were pissed. We had kept quiet when you. Hou Haitao helped Feng Yu to settle the procedures. Now, you are helping him with the pricing?

Fuck! Which side are you on?!

Chapter 262 – Good Friend of the Soviet Union

Hou Haitao helped Feng Yu again, and this time Chief Chen could not take it anymore.

“Xiao Hou, I had also worked at the Aviation Factory and manufactured aircraft before. You think I do not know about the cost price? The cost price of Tupolev Tu-154 will not be over 20 million RMB, and the cost price of Ilyushin Il-76 is not more than 50 million RMB. How did you calculate this cost price?”

Hou Haitao did not know how to answer Chief Chen, and Feng Yu stepped in: “Chief Chen, you cannot calculate the cost price this way. Don’t you need to factor in the R&D cost? Don’t you need to factor in the factory’s setup and maintenance? What about the sales and marketing cost? There are lots of costs which I did not factor in if not, the cost price will be higher. Since Chief Chen had worked at the Aviation Factory before, then you should also know about this.”

Chief Chen could not rebut Feng Yu.

“How about this? All of you know that Ilyushin Il-76 is a cargo plane and modifications are needed to convert it into a passenger plane. I will pay for the modifications and ask the Soviet Union factory to do the modifications according to your requirements. But, your requirements should not be too harsh. I am a businessman. If I can’t earn money from my businesses, then how would I feed my family?”

Director Cheng: “……”

You can sell 30 large passenger planes, and you are telling me you are unable to feed your family?

However, if Ilyushin Il-76 was modified in the factory before sending over, it will save them a lot of trouble and time.

The representatives from the airlines looked at each other and then turned to Chief Chen. Chief Chen was the one who could make the final decision. After all, he was the one who had set up this bulk purchase.

“40 million RMB for Tupolev Tu-154 and 75 million RMB for Ilyushin Il-76. Also, you will modify the Ilyushin Il-76. Manager Feng, I believed that you will still have profits at this price. We can sign the contract first, and we will pay after the planes are delivered to us.”

Chief Chen bargained further and even proposed a new condition which was making payments after the planes were delivered. He guessed that Feng Yu would not have so much money for so many planes. Feng Yu should be using some sleight of hand tricks.

If it weren’t for the airlines needed large passenger planes urgently, they would not be so nice to Feng Yu, even though his aircraft were considered the cheapest they could find.

Chief Chen stated this condition was to force Feng Yu to lower the price further. Feng Yu surely do not have the capital to buy these planes first.

“Chief Chen is really an expert in bargaining. Fine. I will treat this as a contribution to the nation. I will accept this price. I also have no problems with you making payments after the planes are delivered as long as it is stated clearly in the contract. But Ilyushin Il-76 modifications will take some time. I will deliver the Tupolev Tu-154 before the end of the year, and Ilyushin Il-76 will be delivered after the modifications are completed. I estimate it to be not later than next year’s May.”

What?!

Chief Chen was shocked. Feng Yu agreed to his condition? How was this possible? 32 aircraft and the total will cost at least a few hundred million RMB. This Feng Yu decided without batting an eyelid?

“Dear leaders, I will prepare the contract and tomorrow we will sign it here.”

Feng Yu will definitely not sign the contract with the Civil Aviation Administration. But instead, he would sign with the respective airlines. This was to prevent them from denying payments. Airline companies were enterprises, and the Civil Aviation Administration was a government agency after all.

That night, Feng Yu made a call to Kirilenko. It was 11 pm in China, but in Moscow, it was 6 pm.

“Feng, I remembered that it should be almost midnight in Bing City. Why are you calling me at this time? Is there anything urgent?” Kirilenko was worried that Feng Yu had some bad news for him.

“Hahaha. Brother Ki, don’t worry. It is not bad news. It is good news. I remember you telling about the two aviation factories. One factory has 18 Tupolev Tu-154, and the other factory has 8 Ilyushin Il-76 Ilyushin Il-76. What about the number of aircraft that were still in production?”

“Those in production? What do you mean? Feng, those existing planes are not enough?” Kirilenko’s eyes widen. How many aircraft did Feng Yu sell?

“I need 20 Tupolev Tu-154 and 12 Ilyushin Il-76. Also, I need you to install passenger seats in Ilyushin Il-76 planes. We will be using Ilyushin Il-76 as passenger planes. Will there be any problems?”

“No problem. Guess who I am having dinner with now? It’s factory director Ivanovic of XX Aviation Factory. We were just talking about this just now. This is indeed good news!”

Kirilenko was overjoyed. Ivanovic was still asking Kirilenko to help him sell 4 Ilyushin Il-76. A European company had canceled their order for these 4 planes, and Ivanovic was willing to sell them at a lower cost.

The Soviet Union was in turmoil now. Even small countries dared to take advantage of them now. If it was two years ago, which European country would dare to cancel their orders?

There was an oversupply at the factory, and they had no use for the planes. They could not sell their aircraft. Although the government had given factories subsidies, the factories could not last long if this carries on. When Kirilenko suggested using daily necessities to exchange for his aircraft, Ivanovic immediately agrees. Of course, it was also because of some other benefits Kirilenko promised to give him.

Ivanovic had already reported to his higher-ups that these 4 planes were sold. But he never expects the other party would cancel their orders.

Maybe it was because, in the past, no one dares to cancel their orders. As such, the penalty for breaking the contract was very low. This will make him look incompetent to his higher-ups. Since things had already turned out this way, why not sell these planes at a lower cost to Kirilenko. He could still get a sum of money from Kirilenko, and even if the factory closes down, he could also retire comfortably.

After hanging up, Kirilenko told Ivanovic: “Fine. Since you are in difficulties, I will help you think of a solution. But Ilyushin Il-76 does not meet my friend’s requirement. You need to modify the planes to passenger planes. Will there be any problems?”

“No problems. If you are able to sell all my planes, I will modify all the Ilyushin Il-76 for you for free. I will also guarantee that you will receive the planes first.”

“Fine. I will try to persuade my China friend to buy our planes.” Kirilenko said.

……

The next day, Feng Yu and the representatives of the airline companies signed the contract. The reps noticed that the company stamp used by Feng Yu was different. It was not Tai Hua Trading, but instead, it was a company that was registered in Hong Kong.

Feng Yu explained that it was because of the procedures. Using a Hong Kong company will be easier to import the aircraft. The aircraft will still land in Bing City and handed over to the respective airlines.

With this shell company set up by Feng Yu in Hong Kong, he was not afraid of the airline companies defaulting on the payments. Feng Yu could blow up this matter in Hong Kong and would affect the return of Hong Kong to China. The airline companies dare not to take on this blame.

Kirilenko also contacted the other aviation factory and told them that he wanted 20 Tupolev Tu-154 planes. The factory director, Alex, was overjoyed. He could not help but sighed: Kirilenko’s Chinese friend is really a good friend of the Soviet Union!

Chapter 263 – Zhang Ruiqiang’s Questioning

After signing the contract, Feng Yu starts to send Kirilenko all sorts of popular daily necessities by train. Kirilenko also promised Feng Yu that the first batch of Tupolev Tu-154 will arrive at Bing City airport on New Year Eve,

The procedures for receiving the aircraft were troublesome. First, the Aviation Factory have to send someone to the factory to check on the planes, and Kirilenko got to settle the paperwork on his side before the aircraft can take off.

When the planes are entering China’s airspace, the aircraft got to contact China’s Aviation department and still needed permission from Bing City’s airport before they could land. There were also lots of minor and complicated details. But Feng Yu does not need to worry about all these procedures as Hou Haitao will be doing everything for him.

When the first batch of 10 Tupolev Tu-154 arrived at Bing City’s airport, staffs from the airline companies were waiting there. All of them were eager to get their hands on the planes.

The people from the airline company based in Shen City arrived first. They took away two aircraft first and transferred the payments to Feng Yu’s Wind and Rain Consulting company account in Hong Kong.

The other airlines took away one or two aircraft each. Those companies that got lesser planes keep rushing Feng Yu for the remaining stocks.

Feng Yu was relieved that the airline companies made full payments and did not try to default. He patiently explained to them that the remaining planes can only arrive next week as Bing City’s airport was not big enough for all the aircraft to come at the same time.

Those airline companies’ leaders start to grumble. Why was Bing city’s airport so small? Why didn’t they build a bigger airport?

The people from Bing City Airport were speechless. The airport size was planned by the provincial government and was not up to them to decide.

Even if the local government approved it, the Party committee also have to give its approval. Now, Bing City only have a few flights a day and why was there a need for the bigger airport?

The representative from Shen City’s airlines was glad that there were there first and got two aircraft. He ignored the complaints of other representatives. Anyway, when the Ilyushin Il-76 arrives at Bing City’s airport, he would also be the first one to get the planes.

One week later, the second batch of Tupolev Tu-154 arrived, and all the airline companies’ representative was satisfied. There were no problems with the planes. Feng Yu also did not sell them second-hand planes as new ones.

Bing City government knew about this business deal, and even some of the provincial government knew about it too. Someone from Bing City was able to procure passenger planes for the country, and they were proud of it. But there were also some areas that the officials were unhappy about. The Provincial government instructed Bing City’s government to speak with Feng Yu.

This task naturally was handed over to Zhang Ruiqiang. Everyone in the City knew that Feng Yu was Zhang Ruiqiang’s man!

……

“Feng Yu, you are getting more capable, and your business is getting bigger. From the Soviet Union’s industrial machinery to aircraft.” Zhang Ruiqiang didn’t expect Feng Yu to be selling aircraft. It seems that Feng Yu’s connections in the Soviet Union were more powerful than he expected.

“Mayor Zhang, this is just some small businesses to make a living.” Feng Yu smiled.

Zhang Ruiqiang replied in a harsh tone: “A few hundred million RMB worths of deals are considered small business? If this is considered making a living, then shouldn’t I be begging or eating tree bark?”

Feng Yu said: “Mayor Zhang, you are our Bing City’s leader and if you have to eat tree bark, then what will Bing City become?”

“You……” Zhang Ruiqiang pointed out Feng Yu. “Do you know why I call you over?”

Feng Yu blinked and replied: “Didn’t you call me over to have a chat?”

Zhang Ruiqiang: “……” This brat was making him angry. It was almost year-end, and this was the busiest period for him. Who will be so free to have a chat with you?

“I want to ask you two questions. First, where did you get the money for the aircraft? Did you cheat anyone? Second, why did you register a company in Hong Kong and why didn’t you use Tai Hua Trading?”

“Mayor Zhang, don’t accuse me of doing anything illegal. The planes I sold to the airline companies were cheaper than the market rate and were all in good condition. If not, the airlines would have rejected them and not make payments. I had used our Chinese goods to exchange for the planes and then sell to the airlines. How can this be considered cheating? The airline companies are the ones who had gotten the most advantage in this deal!”

“Also, I registered a company in Hong Kong is for the convenience. You should also know that my company exports a lot of products. The traffic condition in Hong Kong was better, and it uses the English legal system. This way, I will not be cheated by foreigners. This aircraft deal is also the same. I am worried that I will be cheated by the Soviets and was prepared to sue them if they cheated me!”

Feng Yu told Zhang Ruiqiang partial truth. Feng Yu was actually worried that the airlines would cheat on him, and he must be prepared to sue them.

“I am guessing that you registered this Hong Kong company was for to reason. First, it is the foreign exchange issues. I had heard that recently, Tai Hua Trading does not have any transactions in Rubles. Secondly, you are afraid that the airline companies will default their payments. Right?”

Zhang Ruiqiang was spot on. But he did not know that this Hong Kong Company was set up for investing in the international financial market.

Feng Yu smiled: “Mayor Zhang, what’s wrong is there to be worried about these things?”

“Why do you not trust your country? You think the country will cheat you of your money?” Zhang Ruiqiang was feeling hurt.

Feng Yu replied earnestly: “If I am doing business with you, I will not be worried. But I am apprehensive when I deal with others. All these money are from the loans I took from overseas banks. If the airline companies default payment, they will be fine, but I will be finished.”

“Money from loans? Which country is willing to loan you so much money?” Zhang Ruiqiang smiled.

“Soviet Union banks. Mayor Zhang, if you don’t believe me, I can show you a copy of the loan agreements.”

Zhang Ruiqiang thought about Feng Yu’s connection with the Soviet Union. He could even get such a significant amount of loan from the Soviet Union.

“There’s no need for that. I trust you, but the higherups are not happy. You had used your Hong Kong company in this deal, how can the government tax you?”

Feng Yu’s eyes widen: “Taxes? It is stated in the contract that the airline companies will have to pay all the taxes. What has it got to do with me?”

But you are selling passenger aircraft, and you get income. You have to pay taxes.”

The Provincial Government Officials were unhappy as this was a few hundred million RMB deals, and the taxes will not be a small amount. But in the end, Feng Yu used a Hong Kong company, and all these taxes went to other countries. Hong Kong was still a British Colony.

Feng Yu walked over to Zhang Ruiqiang’s side and secretively said: “Mayor Zhang, these taxes also will not go to Bing City Government. Why not share with you some information that will make you shine in from of the higherups and we forget about this tax thingy?”

Chapter 264 – Believe him or not?

Important news that will shine in front of my leaders? What was Feng Yu talking about?

Feng Yu saw there’s no reaction from Zhang Ruiqiang and he continued: “Mayor Zhang, I will treat it as you had agreed. The information is…… The Soviet Union will disintegrate next year!”

“What?!” Zhang Ruiqiang was shocked when he heard that the Soviet Union will be disintegrating.

He knew about the situation in the Soviet Union, and many allied countries, including Russia, had announced that they want to leave the Soviet Union. But these countries did not succeed yet. For some countries, it was not the country’s leader that made this announcement, and other nations did not recognize their claims.

Furthermore, the Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev was still around, and it was impossible for the Soviet Union to disintegrate. Although Yeltsin was back in power, he was not the President of Russia yet, and Mikhail Gorbachev could fire him the second time!

Did Feng Yu get this information from the Soviet Union or did he made this up to escape punishment?

“Mayor Zhang? You don’t believe me?”

“You know what you are saying? How can the Soviet Union disintegrate? Once the Soviet Union disintegrated, many allied countries’ economies will collapse. They will never agree for the Soviet Union to be disintegrated!”

There were two voices in the country now. One group felt that since Russia had declared independence, then the Soviet Union will inevitably collapse. Although the Soviet Union had not disintegrated now, it was only a matter of time. Soon, it will be crumbled as the Soviet Union’s economy cannot support such a big alliance.

There was another group of people who felt that it was impossible for the disintegration to happen. They felt that Mikhail Gorbachev will stabilize the Soviet Union and he had the power to do so. After all, many military generals had supported him.

Once the Soviet Union was disintegrated, what would happen to so many allied countries’ economies? The Soviet Union had failed in all their reforms, and many allied countries’ economies were mostly isolated. If there was no more Soviet Union, what will those allied countries depend on?

The allied countries have to depend on what they produce to survive? Some of those countries don’t even have the basic necessities and what would happen if the country’s export runs into some problems? That country’s economy will collapse.

Those allied countries military will surely support Mikhail Gorbachev to prevent the Soviet Union from disintegrating. Yeltsin, who was an advocate of Russia’s independence will be punished for sure!

Zhang Ruiqiang had considered scenarios and the also could not forecast what would happen. Both situations might occur.

If Feng Yu had said that the Soviet Union might disintegrate, he might believe. But Feng Yu was adamant that the Soviet Union will dissolve next year. He felt that this was not possible. How can this happen so fast?

“Mayor Zhang, you should know that I have some friends in the Soviet Union. From me buying aircraft from the Soviet Union, you should have guessed that one of my friends is the son of a military officer. Now, cracks had already appeared in the Soviet Union Government. Some are supporting President Mikhail Gorbachev, and they wanted status quo. But the Soviet Union citizens might not want that. Some wanted a new leader, and Yeltsin’s voice was the loudest. There is still another group that felt there’s no way for the Soviet Union to recover and should be disintegrated.”

“Currently, Mikhail Gorbachev is losing his supporters. Everyone can see that all the reforms proposed by Mikhail Gorbachev had failed. Our country’s reforms had used the Soviet Union’s reforms as a reference. Many problems have surfaced with our reforms. The Soviet Union’s industrial developments were not well planned. They had emphasized a lot on the heavy industries, and most of the light industries were sidelined. Now, we had already caught up with their light industries. Soon, we will overtake them. Do you think that people in the past will believe that this would happen?”

“Also, the Soviet Union’s overall economy has nothing except for industrial/ their main income is from the sales of their natural resources! Yeltsin was the most proactive in wanting a new leader. He had also announced Russia’s independence, and this means that he does not want the Soviet Union to exist anymore. If the Soviet Union is left with only Russia, it will be easier for Russia to recover.:

“Wait. What do you mean by the Soviet Union only have Russia left? You mean Russia will acquire other smaller allied countries?” Zhang Ruiqiang interrupted Feng Yu. He does not believe this would happen.

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart that those allied countries joining Russia really did happen in the future. But that was after Putin became the President. Now, this would never happen, and Yeltsin would never agree.

“Mayor Zhang, the Soviet Union is divided into 3 countries. The strongest is Russia, followed by Ukraine and then Belarus. Among these countries, Russia has the most land area, resources and their industrial and military installation are the most developed. If Russia can acquire the Soviet Union’s overseas resources, do you think that it can recover in a short time?”

“What? Russia wants to acquire all of the Soviet Union’s overseas resources? How can this be possible? Will the rest of the allied countries agree?” Zhang Ruiqiang thought about this. If he were Yeltsin, he would also abandon the Soviet Union. Russia alone is enough. Russia still can be one of the world’s powerful country. With the need to help other allied nations, Russia’s economy will recover within a short time.

“Mayor Zhang, this is not whether if the other countries agree or not. It depends on which country have more military prowess. Mikhail Gorbachev had already lost his control over those military leaders. All he could do was to ask for help from another country. The country must be powerful, and it must be near to the Soviet Union, as our country. So, Mikhail Gorbachev will invite our country’s leader and promised us some benefits in return for our support. This will give those oppositions an excuse because by giving us benefits, can be considered as treason!”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s hand shook. Feng Yu’s analysis was too scary. Can this really happen?

“How can you prove what you say is true?”

“After some time, our leader will visit the Soviet Union, and this will be the evidence. And those Soviet Union allied countries will try to establish diplomatic relationships with us and try to get our support. This was also what we wanted. If our neighbors are too strong, it will not be a good thing for us too.” Feng Yu said.

“Who told you all these? Your Soviet friend?” Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu sat upright and took a sip of his tea: “These are what I heard and saw in the Soviet Union and Hong Kong.”

“Hong Kong? There are people interested in the Soviet Union politics there?”

“It’s economics. You can’t deny the fact that politics and economics are closely related. Those that study politics were to gain an advantage in the financial market. Mayor Zhang, my predictions will come true soon. If the Soviet Union is not going to disintegrate, you think I am able to get those aircraft at such low prices? Mayor Zhang, you can consider what I said. If it is me, I will be a supporter of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and when it really happens, the higherups will notice me and know that I am someone with good foresight.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was in a dilemma. He knows that if he believes in Feng Yu, this would be an opportunity for him. But he was also afraid that Feng Yu’s prediction was wrong. If Feng Yu was wrong, then his future will be gone, and his current rank will be his peak in his career.

To believe him or not?

Chapter 265 – Playing in the Snow

Time flies, and soon it was the end of December.

This year, the Winter’s first snow came later in Bing City, and it started snowing from last night. The snow only stopped in the morning, and it had reached above the ankles.

In between classes, many students had snowball fights outside. But no one from Feng Yu’s class went out and play. There were only a few boys in the class, and it was not fun to play in the snow.

Feng Yu suddenly noticed Li Na looking the other students playing outside. She looked like she envies those students playing with snow. She wants to play outside? Although Feng Yu felt that being hitting by snowballs was not fun, if Li Na wanted to play, he doesn’t mind.

He imagined it was just like those scenes in Korean dramas. Gently throwing a snowball at Li Na and Li Na’s laughter. Li Na threw a snowball at him, and he was hit on his face, making Li Na laugh.

Feng Yu walked over and sat beside Li Na: “Shall we go and play in the snow after lunch?”

“Just the both of us?”

“Yes. Only the two of us.” Feng Yu definitely does not want to have a snowball fight with that moron Wen Dongjun. If Wen Dongjun joined in the snowball fight, then the beautiful image in his mind will be gone.

“Ok. Let’s talk about it after lunch.” It was almost the end of the semester, and Li Na was getting bored from studying every day. She wanted to relax. Feng Yu had tried to ask her out for movies, but she rejected him several times. She felt that this was the time to study hard and they should not be playing around. However, she did not know that Feng Yu had made arrangements for their university.

……

“Eh, Feng Yu, after lunch, let’s go and play in the snow.”

Feng Yu was shocked. Wen Dongjun could read his mind?

“No, I’m not interested.” Feng Yu meant that interested in playing with Wen Dongjun!

“Let’s go. Zhang Han also wanted to play, and Li Na should join in too. If it were the both of us, it would not be fun.”

Before Feng Yu could reply, Li Na said: “Zhang Han is playing too? Ok. But the both of you cannot bully us.”

Feng Yu was regretting his heart. Why did he let Li Na agree? She did not know Wen Dongjun will turn into a beast in a snowball fight. He was so aggressive that he made many students cry in the past.

Now, Wen Dongjun was taller and stronger. If he becomes aggressive, Feng Yu will suffer.

“I will team up with Zhang Han, and you will team with Feng Yu. This way, you will not say that I am taking advantage of the both of you!” Wen Dongjun “fairly” form the teams.

Damn, the both of you had more advantage than us. This afternoon, we will be suffering!

After lunch, Feng Yu put on all his gear. Hat, gloves, and scarf were essential gear. He must also tighten his belt and tuck his pants into his socks. The shoelaces must also be tied tightly. The scarf was not for the neck, but it was used to cover his face. The scarf will act like a big face mask. The whole body must be covered up so the snow will not get underneath the clothes.

Wen Dongjun and the other two girls looked at him as if he was an alien. Wen Dongjun was laughing loudly at him.

“Why are you covering up your whole body? What are you doing?”

Feng Yu said in a muffled voice: “We are having a snowball fight. Of course, I have to protect myself.”

“Who is going to have a snowball fight with you? How old are we now? You think we will still have snowball fights like those kids?” Wen Dongjun said. “We are going to make snowmen. Zhang Han and Li Na wanted to build snowmen last winter, but you were not around.”

Feng Yu looked at Li Na embarrassedly. Li Na wanted to build a snowman, and he thought that she wanted to have a snowball fight. But isn’t making snowmen also for kids?

Humph! I am also an expert in making a snowman. I will show you all a futuristic snowman!

“Wait for me a while. I need to go back to the classroom to get something.”

Feng Yu ran back to the classroom and took a bucket and some ink from his desk. He also took a broom.

“Feng Yu, why are you taking the bucket and broom? Are you going to do some cleaning?” A female classmate asked.

“No, I’m making a snowman.” After saying, Feng Yu regretted.

“Make snowman? Where? Are you with Li Na? I want to join in too.” The female classmate shouted excitedly.

“Bring me along. I want to go too. Wait, I need to get my gloves.”

“I want to go too. Wait for me.”

……

Feng Yu walked out of the classroom with 7 – 8 female classmates behind him. Feng Yu had a helpless expression when he joined Li Na and the rest. He did not know that there were so many students in the class. Usually, they would return home during lunchtime. Even if the public transport was slower during winter, they could still walk back…… Why were they still here?

Li Na and the other female classmates were friends, and soon they were building a snowman together. Wen Dongjun and Zhang Han were from another class, and they stick together. Feng Yu was left alone.

Feng Yu was screaming in his heart. There were so many of you and why can’t all of you play on your own. Why must you interrupt us? Even if you interrupt us, you should not leave me out!

Humph! I will make a beautiful snow panda myself and show you all!

Feng Yu quickly made a big snowball. He wanted to wet the snowball and then add more snow to make it bigger. But all he had was a bucket and how can he get the water on the snowball?

If he put the snowball in the bucket of water, the snowball will melt. If he splashes water on the snowball, the snowball will shatter. Feng Yu could only slowly scoop out water from the bucket using his hand slowly.

“Eh? Feng Yu, why are you making an ice ball?” Wen Dongjun walked over and asked. You should be using snow for a snowman. You are not making an ice sculpture.

“What do you know? Get aside. Later you will be surprised by my masterpiece!”

When Feng Yu was about to start on the second snowball after finishing the first snowball, he noticed that the water had frozen!

What to do now? Without water, it will be slow to make a big snowball. Feng Yu looked around and saw that there was a big snowball beside Wen Dongjun. Feng Yu rolled that snowball away when Wen Dongjun was not noticing. The size was just right. Wen Dongjun must have prepared that snowball for him.

Feng Yu opened the bottle of ink. Luckily, the ink had not frozen. He used the broom handle to paint the ink on the snowball. He drew two black circles as the panda’s eyes.

Eh, the panda was still missing two arms. Feng Yu used his leg to crush the ice in the bucket. He ignored his shoes which were wet from the ice in the bucket and made the panda’s arms using snow and water.

Feng Yu stepped back and admire his masterpiece.

There were many snowballs there, and there were almost many snowmen. But most of the snowmen were using tree branches and carrots as arms. His snow panda was really the best in the whole school.

Li Na was making a snowman with the rest of the girls, but she kept looking over at Feng Yu’s direction. When she realized that Feng Yu had made a snow panda, she was excited.

Feng Yu knew that Li Na likes pandas and he purposely made a panda from snow for her. Because of this snow panda, his hand was hurting from the cold.

Li Na ran over and used her gloves to cover Feng Yu’s freezing hands: “Why are you so silly? Your hands are hurting from the cold. What’s your snowman’s name?”

Name? Name it as Panda?

Feng Yu blinked and said: “I had not thought of a name for my masterpiece. You can call it whatever you want.”

With Li Na warming his hands, everything else was not important. This was true bliss. Feng Yu felt that time passes too slowly. If they were in University now, they could do more “Blissful” things together.

“Bam!”

A snowball hit Feng Yu’s body.

“Wen Dongjun, die……!” Feng Yu made a big snowball and threw at Wen Dongjun.

A showdown between the both of them started and soon the other female classmates joined. Everyone had a good time playing in the snow.

Feng Yu was chasing Li Na, and Li Na slipped. Feng Yu tried to hold on to her, but he also fell down. As they were falling, Feng Yu twisted his body to cushion Li Na’s fall with his body.

Because of the fall, Li Na and Feng Yu’s lips touched. Feng Yu was smiling like a fool, and Li Na’s face turned red…….

Chapter 266 – Selling the stocks

The exams were over. Li Na and the rest returned to the district. However, Feng Yu had something to do. It was time for him to sell off some of his stocks.

Not only the Shanghai Stock Exchange opened earlier than it should be, but Shenzhen stock exchange was also set up earlier too. But Shenzhen Stock Exchange was not open yet. It should open next year.

After the treasury bonds exchange was set up, there were many investment companies in China. All of these companies were state-owned, and currently, China does not permit private investment companies.

After the setup of the two stock exchanges and the opening of investment companies, there was an increased number of investors. Especially, now the prices of Treasury bonds had not many changes, those that traded in Treasury bonds, choose to invest in the stock market. This caused the stock prices of all the shares to rise.

But after the new year, some investors would sell off their shares after collecting the dividends. Lunar New Year was a major festival in China and people needed to spend a lot.

Tai Hua Trading’s staffs had also asked Feng Yu when they can sell their stocks.

Today, Feng Yu came to Tai Hua Trading to have a meeting. He wanted to let his staff make the decision. He had helped his team to pick the better-performing stocks. The prices of these stocks will rise further in May.

If they sell their shares now, they will get back returns of about one-fold of their capital. But compared to more than ten folds a few months later, the returns now was pathetic.

“Everyone, I had asked all of you here is to talk about our shares. Everybody had owned the shares for a few months now, and the current price is more than double our buying price. I know that many of you want to cash out these shares. But I want to tell you that in May, it will be the golden period of the shares. It will be a bull market, and the prices of your shares will rise sharply. Now is not the ideal time to sell your shares. But all of you will decide for yourselves.”

After Feng Yu finished, Wu Zhigang and the rest looked at each other. To sell or not to sell?

Now many people were talking about the risk of investing in the stock market. The shares could rise or fall. If the share prices fall, they will lose money.

Wu Zhigang was the sharper one among the rest, and he asked loudly: “Manager Feng, will you sell?”

“Yes!”

What? Manager Feng wants to sell? Didn’t he say that the shares can rise at least 3 to 5 times of the initial buying price? Why was he willing to sell now?

Feng Yu saw them talking among themselves, and he continued: “Do you all want to sell too?”

Wu Zhigang replied: “I will listen to you. If you ask me to sell, I will sell. If you ask me to hold on to the shares, I will hold on to them!”

The rest of the staff also said the same thing. They will listen to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu laughed: “I will only sell some of the shares. I need some cash now. Have all of you noticed that the shares you had bought are all the companies that were announced in the papers and these companies were all listed now? After Shenzhen Stock exchange opens, these stocks will rise further. This will happen in a few months’ time. I will not sell the shares of these companies. But I will sell off the shares of other companies and use the money to buy more shares of those favorite companies.”

“Manager Feng, we trust you. We will not sell these shares until you tell us to.” Wu Zhigang said.

“Everything will be fine if all of you trust me. We will earn money together. Now, I will announce the task for the upcoming week. All of us will go out and sell the shares!”

If the stock exchange had not opened, it would not be easy to sell shares. They must hand over the shares to the investment counter in the bank for the bank to sell the shares on their behalf. But now, they can sell the shares straight to the banks and collect the payments on the spot.

……

Two men carrying a large haversack stood in front of ICBC bank’s Investment counter. Bang. The haversack was placed on the counter.

“How can I help the both of you today? Are the both of you looking for stocks or Treasury Bonds?”

“We are not buying. We are here to sell our stocks.”

The bank employee rolled his eyes. What’s the use of carrying such a big bag? How many shares can you own? These two men must be cashing out their stocks to buy a train ticket.

“Ok. How many stocks are you selling?”

“There are 300,000 shares here. Can you calculate the market value for me now?”

“How much are you selling? 300,000?”

The employee was asked loudly in shocked. The other customers had him and turned towards his direction. 300,000 shares? Who were these people?

The employee looked at the share certificates, and all the shares belong to one company. He checked the current price of the shares and noticed that the prices had doubled. This meant that these 300,000 shares are now worth over 600,000 RMB?

“Dear sirs, I’m sorry our bank does not have enough cash. Can you come back tomorrow?” the employee’s attitude changed.

“It’s fine. Deposit everything into this account.”

After both men left, many people went to the counter.

“Eh, what shares did he sell just now?”

“That’s right. How much money did he sell the shares for?”

“Who are those two men? What do they do?”

……

At the same time, many people were selling a large number of shares at the investment counters of the banks all over Bing City. The people who sold the shares went to the bank in pairs, and they all used a large haversack to carry the stocks. They were all carrying the same type of shares and the same denominations. But the banks did not notice that all the money from the selling of the shares were deposited into the same account.

The banks thought that this was a onetime incident. But the next day, people were going to the banks to sell a large number of shares. Although it was not the same person, they noticed the account number was familiar.

It was the same for the next 5 days. Feng Yu had sold about 20 million shares and got approximately 40 million RMB.

Tai Hua Trading’s selling of such a large number of shares had caused panics in Bing City. Everyone who owned shares rushed to the banks to sell them. They were afraid that the share prices would fall!

Even those who had wanted to hold on to their shares panicked. They also went to the bank to sell.

Of course, there were a few smarter ones. They knew that the Shenzhen Stock Exchange will open soon and the share prices will increase further. The shares they had wanted to buy in the past was now available, and it was slightly cheaper. This was their opportunity.

Feng Yu’s actions had stimulated Bing City’s stock market, and there were more than a million shares trading every day. The prices of the shares were changing every day too.

The second week, Feng Yu was still selling his stocks. Anyway, other than the companies on his list, Feng Yu had no intention to keep the shares of other companies.

These shares were not as profitable as Feng Y’s investment in gold and oil futures. He wanted to raise a large sum of fund fast. The war is going to start soon!

Chapter 267 – Shorting Crude Oil

Feng Yu went to Hong Kong again. This time, Feng Yu noticed that the four brothers of the Fu family were there to receive him.

Fu Rongjing had lost 400 million HKD and the second and third brothers knew about it. But their eldest brother did not even get back at Feng Yu. Instead, he bowed down to Feng Yu. This was something which they do not understand.

They knew their eldest brother well. As the head of the Fu family, he had caused a few companies which tried to cheat him bankrupt. Why didn’t their eldest brother do the same thing to Feng Yu this time?

After they asked their eldest brother, they found out that their eldest brother did not want to offend the second generation of China’s officials. Furthermore, Feng Yu had shown his sincerity and told the Fu family about the gold market. The Fu family had invested in the gold market and made more than 400 million HKD.

This time, Fu Rongqi told them that Feng Yu was revisiting Hong Kong. The both of them wants to tag along as they do not want to miss out on any opportunities to earn money.

“Xiao Yu, let me introduce you to my other brothers. This is my 2nd brother, Fu Rongqu, he dealt with real estate most of the time. This my 3rd brother, Fu Rongbing. He runs supermarkets.”

“Xiao Yu is so young and capable. You are so much better than my useless son. I must ask him to learn from you in the future.”  Fu Rongbing said.

“You flattered me. This time, both uncles are here is not just to meet me?”

“Hahaha. Of course. We had heard that Xiao Yu is an expert in investment. We intend to invest together with our eldest brother, and we hope we can get to learn something.”

Learn something? Apparently, the two of you are here just for the money. But this was also a good thing. If Feng Yu could be on the same side with the Fu family, then in future, it would be easier for Feng Yu to raise a bigger fund. In 1997, Feng Yu wanted to teach those American capitalists a lesson. Asia is not a place for them to take advantage of.

“Uncle Qi. You should have made a lot from the gold market this few months.”

“Hahaha, I did make some profits.” When Feng Yu mentioned this, Fu Rongqi brighten up. Although he was investing carefully, he also made almost 100 million USD.

Fu Rongqi still has a futures contract which will be settled tomorrow. It was a short futures contract, and he should be getting high returns. Fu Rongjing had also raised a sum of money and using leverage, he almost got back whatever the 400 million he had lost.

Fu Rongjing was instructed by Fu Rongqi to let the matter rest and not to mention about this incident again. The eldest brother was right. There were no enemies or friends when doing businesses. There were only profits.

Now, Feng Yu’s information had helped them made money and so, Feng Yu is a friend to them.

“These few days, I will also buy some London Gold contracts. If all of you are interested, you can tag along.”

Feng Yu could never earn all the money himself. Why not do the Fu family brothers a favor? In the future, it will be easier to ask the Fu family to join him.

Fu RongBing and Fu Rongqu were waiting for Feng Yu to say this. They were overjoyed and raised their glasses for a toast with Feng Yu.

The next day, Feng Yu went to the London Gold Exchange. He starts shorting the market in large amounts. The surrounding people were all shocked. Gold prices had fallen to 368 USD/ounce, and this person was still shorting gold?

Eh? Those two people behind that young man look familiar. They look like the two brothers of the Fu family. Was that young man investing for the Fu family?

But this was impossible. The Eldest brother of the Fu family has an investment company, and these two should be investing with their brother. Why would they hire that young man?

The crowd soon saw the two Fu family brothers start to short gold too.

That young man was not a broker hired by the Fu brothers. Instead, the Fu brothers were following that young man to short the gold.

Some of the people recognized He Zhaoji who was standing beside Feng Yu. This period of time, He Zhaoji was actively trading in the London gold market. They had heard that he was recruited by someone and he even poached some famous broker to work for that person.

The crowd started to guess that the young man was the person that had recruited He Zhaoji.

Some of the crowd started to copy Feng Yu to short the gold.

Feng Yu had invested almost 100 million USD, and he was conservative as he had used low leverage. Based on his calculation, he would settle the contract one week later, and he should make about 20 million USD.

Feng Yu still had a lot of money with him. He wanted to place a big bet. He wants to show the Fu Family that he is a genius!

On 16 January, the US and other countries will declare war on Iraq. At the same time, the Soviet Union will keep quiet about the actions of the US and other countries. They had no intentions to help Iraq.

Saddam Hussein will also announce that Iraq was not afraid of wars!

Wars were expensive, and Iraq had experienced it before. Because they were involved in two wars previously, Iraq was heavy in debt.

Iraqi soldiers were all veteran and had fought in wars before. After all, Iraq and Iran stopped fighting in 1988 and Iraq invaded Kuwait within a day. Saddam Hussein knew that his soldiers had the advantage.

Saddam Hussein believed that the US and other countries were only threatening him and if a war really broke out, the Soviet Union would not sit by the sidelines. If the US controlled the oil prices, it would not be good for the Soviet Union!

On 17th January, the Gulf war started!

Feng Yu saw the news on TV and he called Fu Rongqi to tell him that he will be investing in oil and the Fu family can decide if they want to follow him.

Of course, Fu Rongqi went with Feng Yu. Fu Rongqi did not believe that Feng Yu would short oil futures.

“Buy in at the current price and sell at 18 US/barrel. Use all the money in this account.”

Fu Rongqi, who was standing behind Feng Yu, was shocked. Feng Yu really dare to invest all his money in shorting oil futures, and he had used 20 times leverage. Yesterday, when the news that the US and other countries will be attacking Iraq, oil prices rose by a few dollars. Today, it rose by 1 USD again. Feng Yu still dare to short?

Also, Feng Yu had used all his money. He did not even have an exit strategy. Crazy!

Not only Fu Rongqi thinks that Feng Yu had gone crazy. Even his team of brokers and Feng Yu’s team of brokers believed that Feng Yu was insane. Who would place such a big bet with such high risk?

The other 3 brothers of the Fu family also heard about this news, but they did not dare to follow Feng Yu. Their brother, who was an expert in investment, even did not believe this information, how can they believe it.

Feng Yu confidently told the Fu family: “I am betting that during this war, oil prices will be dropping every day. You will know whether if I am right or wrong this afternoon.”

That evening, Feng Yu left Hong Kong, and the light in the Fu family’s study room was lit the whole night……

Chapter 268 – Interview with the University

Feng Yu did not return to Bing City. He flew to Shanghai instead. He was there to look at Liu Michael’s design firm. Liu Michael had invited Feng Yu several times, but Feng Yu was too busy. Although Feng Yu’s investment in this company was not a lot and the profits were not fantastic, the company was still profitable. Feng Yu’s suggestions had turned a loss-making company into a profitable company. The company also became well known in Shanghai.

Feng Yu was there to meet the other people in the company. As the boss of the company, he should show his face at least once a year. Furthermore, Feng Yu wanted to see what other ways the company can improve. In the future, the design industry will be a very profitable industry.

Now, the design industry was not developed yet in China, but luckily, there were more advertisements. This designing firm had quite some advertising design jobs every month, and this was the main source of revenue for the company.

Feng Yu met the other two designers, which were Liu Michael’s partners. They were of the same age, and all of them were older than Feng Yu. But they were nervous in front of him.

Feng Yu told them that they could also focus on product packaging. This was the same as advertisement designs, and in future, this will be the primary income source for design firms. Soon, the Chinese will notice the importance of packaging their products and attractive packaging can attract the attention of consumers and increase the sales.

Feng Yu also set goals for the design firm. First, the company needs to expand and hire more staffs. Currently, the company is too small, and it will be hard for the company to grow fast. The company should be Shanghai’s most prominent designing firm and this way, more people would be aware of the company. They can also increase their charges this way.

To sell themselves, they need to market themselves better.

This year, the “Great One” had said that Shanghai will develop its eastern region. Feng Yu decided to invest in the eastern part of Shanghai. Buying a commercial building now is a good investment, and two years later, more businesses will be set up in Shanghai, and Feng Yu could collect rents.

Feng Yu stayed in Shanghai for a day, and he rushed to Beijing that evening. Wen Dongjun, Li Na, and Zhang Han also flew to Beijing from Bing City.

On Monday, they had to go for interviews at the universities they wanted to apply. From the interviews, there were different types of interview results. One type was after the interview, the student does not need to take the entrance exams and will be admitted into the university. The second type was to lower the entry requirement by 100 points. The third type was to lower the entry requirements by 50 points. Lastly, failed the interview. There will be no lowering of the entrance requirements.

Those students that were guaranteed a spot in the university had different credentials like, first place in a Countrywide competition or had some international recognition. Of course, there were lots of students like Feng Yu and the rest who were from the Provincial best high schools or the top students in the province.

If everything were normal, Feng Yu and the rest would get to lower the entry requirements by 50 points, but because of the Moscow University Summer Camp, they would at least get to reduce their entry requirements by 100 points.

Feng Yu was guaranteed an interview at Beijing University, while Li Na had an interview with Beijing Teaching University. This was her dream university. Wen Dongjun and Zhang Han applied for Beijing Technological University. Actually, their high school had gotten a place for Liu Kun at Hua Qing University, but Liu Kun rejected the offer. It was because there were limited courses available for students who were guaranteed a spot.

Feng Yu was in tears when he heard about this from Liu Kun. A top student and ordinary people were different. He didn’t even want a guaranteed spot in the university. He rather sits for the entrance exams to get into a course that he likes.

Feng Yu’s results were barely enough to qualify for even an interview with Beijing University. Actually, their high school had wanted to send Feng Yu to another university with lower standards, and Feng Yu would be guaranteed a spot in that university. With Feng Yu’s strength in foreign languages, he would surely get admitted into the university without even to sit for the entrance exams.

But Feng Yu told Sun Wenhai to get an interview for him at Beijing University. As long as Feng Yu was granted the interview, he was confident that he would be admitted. Sun Wenhai does not need to care about the rest.

Feng Yu had a trick up his sleeves. Although Feng Yu’s results were ordinary and had no other special skills, he was rich.

Sir Shaw had just donated money for two school buildings for the Beijing University, but the construction had not started yet. The University still needs the approval of the local government and a 10 million RMB fund from them to build the new buildings.

If Feng Yu donated a new hostel building for the University, which would cost about 2 million RMB, he could still get to name the building. This would be good publicity for Wind and Rain brand, and at the same time, he could get admitted into the university without any problems.

Feng Yu had plans to donate Wind and Rain, and Tai Hua buildings to schools all over China and currently he had only donated to Bing City and the surrounding region. He had made lots of money, and he could easily donate one or two buildings.

Monday, 8 am. Feng Yu arrived at Beijing University for his interview. It was an ordinary classroom, but it was a bit old. This classroom cannot be compared to the university classrooms of the future. From the condition of this “best” university in China, one could tell the conditions of the other normal universities. This made Feng Yu more confident about using the money to get admitted.

This interview was the same as the interview for Government Officials. The question asked were out of this world and no one could expect what question will be asked. Feng Yu could tell the results from the expressions of the students who had finished their interviews.

All the students that were here for the interview were the top students in their high school. It was only a 5-minute interview, and they were defeated.

But Feng Yu was not worried at all.

“Bing City Third High School, Feng Yu. Please enter the room.”

Feng Yu entered the classroom. It was an empty room with a chair in the center. This chair was for Feng Yu to sit and there was a row of tables in front. Behind the tables, 5 teachers will be interviewing him. From their facial expression, Feng Yu knew that they were not pleased with the students’ answers before him.

Feng Yu gave a short introduction of himself and the teacher sitting in the center asked: “You had attended Moscow University’s Summer Camp in the Soviet Union. How good it your Russian? I am not talking about your results. I am talking about your conversational skills.”

This question was asked in Russian. This teacher wanted to test Feng Yu.

Feng Yu replied without hesitation in Russian: “I have not problems with reading writing and speaking. I had even translated Russian legal documents before.”

“You had written on your resume that you know English too. You know two foreign languages?” Another teacher asked in English.

This time Feng Yu replied in English: “I have plans to study aboard in the future. That’s why I had learned English. I have no problems with reading, writing and speaking in English.”

The teachers were surprised. This student was special. He was well-versed in two foreign languages and from his resume, his parents were farmers. This kid was extraordinary! But his results were not that good. He was only considered above average.

The few teachers discussed among themselves and decided to ask Feng Yu the last question before grading him.

“Feng Yu, this is the last question. What do you think of the Soviet Union’s economy these few years?”

This was the hardest question for today. None of the students before Feng Yu could answer this question. They were either loss of words, or they did not answer the question. The teachers wanted to see if this Feng Yu who was well versed with Russian could answer them. If he could answer this question correctly, then he would be accepted by the university without the need for entry exams!

Feng Yu smiled when he heard the question. He was the expert in this area!

Chapter 269 – Zhang Han’s background

Feng Yu walked out of the interview room with a smile. The other students who were waiting outside came up to him to try and find out about the interview.

“The teachers had just asked me about what I was good at. For instance, I had stated that I am good at foreign languages and they asked me a few questions in foreign languages. They also asked me about my analysis of the Soviet Union’s economy. This question was slightly more difficult.”

The other students were nervous. They were only in high schools, and they do not know anything about the Soviet Union. Looking at Feng Yu’s facial expression, they knew that Feng Yu could answer the teachers’ questions. When they found out that Feng Yu was from Bing City’s Third High School, they guessed that Feng Yu knew about the Soviet Union’s economy because he was located near the borders.

The other students were almost in tears. They don’t even pay attention to China’s news, yet they will be asked about the Soviet Union.

Feng Yu returned to Jingbin Hotel. All the students from his schools were staying at this hotel as this was the designated hotel for them. They had used a recommendation letter from their school, and they will not be charged for their stay at the hotel for these 2 days. This was given by their city as a form of encouragement.

Feng Yu noticed that he was the last person to return to the hotel. Everyone had passed the interviews, and 3 of them were exempted from taking the entrance exams. The rest were able to get lower entry requirements.

All the students were surprised when they heard that Feng Yu was exempted from taking the entrance exams. He had applied for Beijing University, and his results were not as good as them. Why was he exempted? Was it really so easy to pass the Beijing University’s interview?

What surprises Feng Yu the most was the other two persons that were exempted were Zhang Han and Wen Dongjun. How did that idiot Wen Dongjun even pass the interview?

Wen Dongjun triumphantly said that he demonstrated his Russian and then sang a Russian song.

Huh? So simple? Damn, singing can also get into Beijing technological University?

He asked Zhang Han about her interview, but she did not tell Feng Yu the details. She only said that the questions were simple, and she just happens to pass.

Li Na got a lower entry requirement by 100 points. She was overjoyed. Even if she got a 50 points reduction, she was confident that she would be able to enter Beijing Teaching University. Now, she got a 100 points reduction. This was too easy for her.

7 students had come to Beijing, and all 7 had passed their interviews. Feng Yu waved his hand: “Let’s go to the restaurant this evening for celebrations. I will be treating everyone. Just order whatever you want!”

The restaurant was a Northeastern restaurant, and its name was Bing City Restaurant. The restaurant serves northeast cuisine and acts as a canteen to the staffs and some guests of the hotel.

Manager Zhao of the restaurant saw Feng Yu and the others entering the restaurant, and he quickly went to stop them: “Students, it is not dinner time yet. When it’s time, we will notify you.”

The City had given the students who were here for their interview free stays and food at the hotel. That’s why Manager Zhao had served them the same food as his employees. The food was not too bad, but it cannot be considered good also.

Feng Yu took out a few 100 RMB notes and place it on the table: “I will be paying today. Get me all your expensive dishes. Is this money enough? Get me a big table and serve your food!”

Manager Zhao saw that all the students were overjoyed. It must be they had all passed their interviews and wanted to celebrate. But this student’s family must be wealthy. He could just take out 600 RMB without batting an eyelid. Did he steal this money from his family? Manager Zhao’s salary was only slightly more than 100 RMB a month!

Wen Dongjun said: “Uncle Zhao, you don’t need to save for him. Oh, pick some bigger pig trotters and cook it softer. Also, get us a bottle of wine and a bottle of orange juice.”

All the students knew that Feng Yu’s family and since Feng Yu had offered to treat them to dinner, they accepted it. The students’ family had given them some money, but they can’t bear to spend it.

“Students, Baijiu’s alcohol content is too high and is not suitable for you all. Why not drink some beer? Beijing Beer is different from the beer in Bing City.” Manager Zhao smiled and said.

His children were about their age, and that’s why he does not feel like selling Baijiu to them.

“Okay, Uncle Zhao, you don’t listen to his nonsense. He would be drunk with only a bottle of beer. Uncle Zhao, if you got nothing to do, join us for dinner too.” Feng Yu invited Manager Zhao.

“Thank you, but it will be dinner time soon, and it will be busy. Enjoy your dinner and if you need anything, just let the waitress know. Oh yes, please lower your volume. There are some leaders from the city in the private room.” Manager Zhao pointed to a private room.

The 4 boys under the lead of Wen Dongjun started to devour the food. Even the 3 girls also ate a lot. After a while, they began to get louder.

The door of the private room suddenly opened, and a young man walked out and saw Wen Dongjun and the rest making lots of noise. He wanted to scold them, but before he started berating, he saw someone familiar.

“Feng Yu?”

“Brother Zhao? You are here, that means ……. Mr. Zhang is inside?” Feng Yu was surprised. The person who had walked out of the private room was Zhang Ruiqiang’s secretary.

“Yes. He is inside talking to his friends. If you all are done, go back to your rooms.”

“Eh, who is that Brother Zhao?” Wen Dongjun asked Feng Yu.

“The secretary of a big leader. Okay. Let’s be softer. After eating, let’s play poker in our rooms. Tomorrow, we will go out and play, and go back the day after tomorrow.”

Before Feng Yu and the rest finished their dinner, they saw Zhang Ruiqiang walking a guest out.

About a minute later, Zhang Ruiqiang returned and walked towards Feng Yu’s table. Feng Yu wanted to stand up and greet him, but he noticed Zhang Han had already stood up.

“Uncle Zhang.”

“Oh, Hanhan is here too. How was your interview?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked in a loving tone.

“I have passed the interview and can enter the university without the entry exams. There are all my classmates. They had all passed the interviews. Some of them got lower entry requirements, and some were exempted from the entry exams.”

Feng Yu sat there, looking at Zhang Han in shocked. Zhang Han’s family must have some background, and from the way the both of them speaks, someone from Zhang Han’s family must be the same or even higher ranking than Zhang Ruiqiang.

Damn, Zhang Ruiqiang was already a deputy mayor and who was this person from Zhang Han’s family? Was this person, a mayor, ranked or even higher?

“Xiao Yu, you shouldn’t have anything on later. Come to my room. I need to talk to you about something.” Zhang Ruiqiang said to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu: “……” He had wanted to use the chance to be with Li Na alone in the room when the other students were playing poker.

Zhang Ruiqiang left, and they continued with their dinner. But they had lost interest in the meal. Feng Yu noticed Wen Dongjun frowning, and he asked him: “What’s wrong? Too full?”

“Is that a leader from our City? Zhang Han had addressed him as an uncle. Does that mean someone from her family is also an official?”

“It’s only a leader. Your father is also the Deputy Chief of the farm department. Are you feeling inferior?” Feng Yu consoled him. This kid’s self-confidence took a hit?

Wen Dongjun shook his head and said with a sad face: “That’s not it. I had boasted that my father is a big leader. What should I do now?”

Feng Yu: “……” A deputy chief at the district farm department and you can boast until as if your father was the same rank as a deputy mayor? Zhang Han did not expose your lies for so long. This must be true love.

I must find out from Zhang Ruiqiang, what’s Zhang Han’s background?

Chapter 270 – Advice for Zhang Ruiqiang

Feng Yu and the rest finished their dinner, and Secretary Zhao brought Feng Yu to Zhang Ruiqiang. The restaurant Manager Zhao also found out that Feng Yu was not only wealthy, but he was even close to Mayor Zhang too. Could Feng Yu, the son of some provincial official?

He was considering if he should return Feng Yu his change and also bring some fruits and drinks to him. He does not want Feng Yu to talk bad about him as Mayor Zhang could remove him from his position anytime.

“Mayor Zhang, why did you call me over? Oh, you know Zhang Han? What is her family doing? I remember that there is no leader with the surname Zhang in the City.” Feng Yu thought who the person from Zhang Han’s family was.

“City? You should think higher up.” Zhang Ruiqiang hinted.

Higher up? That means Provincial Government? There were no officials that fit the age with the surname Zhang. Those with the same surname were either in their 50s or 30s. They cannot be her father or grandfather.

Zhang Ruiqiang saw Feng Yu loss in thoughts and laughed: “What’s wrong? You like her? Her family specialized in catching gangsters and hooligans.”

“Provincial Police Chief?  But that Chief Zhang is in his 50s.”

Since Zhang Ruiqiang knew Zhang Han, that means her father or grandfather must be a high ranking official. If it was her uncle or other relatives, they should not be so close. But someone in the 50s will be too old to be her father and too young to be her grandfather.

“Chief Zhang got his daughter late, and he had only a daughter. You really don’t want to consider? I can help you talk to her father. If she marries you, you will have a strong backing.”

“Mayor Zhang, if you carry on talking about this, I will leave. My friends are still waiting for me to play poker.”

Zhang Ruiqiang: “……” From Feng Yu’s tone, it seems that playing poker was more important.

“You are a businessman, and you are smart. Help me think of a solution to help Bing City’s tobacco factory.”

Tobacco factory? What’s wrong with the tobacco factory?

“Mayor Zhang, I don’t understand what you mean. I had just imported the machinery for the factory two years ago, and it is for the factory’s expansion. From your question, is there any problems with the tobacco sales?”

Feng Yu remembered in his past life that Bing City cigarettes were selling well during this period. At least it was selling well in the Northeast 3 provinces.

But soon, it was the cigarettes sales slowly declined. Feng Yu guessed that it was because of the drop in production and also there was a lack of branding which resulted in the factory making a loss.

“Our Bing City Tobacco factory had been around for quite some time, but the cigarettes it produces are of lower standards. We can’t even export it to other provinces. Some tobacco factories in the south make lots of profits and why is our Bing City’s tobacco factory performing so badly? Could it be there is something wrong with the production techniques? But they have bought the Soviet Union’s machinery from you. The City Government had also provided enough funds for the factory.”

Zhang Ruiqiang had come to Beijing to look for a way to help the tobacco factory. The tobacco factory cannot be struggling and making losses every year. The City Government cannot be supporting the factory forever.

The City’s restructuring of its state-owned enterprises had been mostly successful, but some enterprises had problems. The tobacco factory was one of the worst.

Feng Yu replied: “Mayor Zhang, I do not have a solution for you. The Soviet Union’s tobacco machinery is much better and more efficient than the old machines in the factory. The old machines were not wasted and were sold to Lin Province. I did not make a lot from this deal. I did not include the technologies together with the machine was because the Soviet Union cigarettes had a different favor from our cigarettes. Their cigarettes taste more like Marlboro. How many people in China like to smoke Marlboro cigarettes?”

“I am not saying the machinery you sold to the factory have problems. I need you to help me think of a solution. If the tobacco factory carries on making losses, it will shut down in two years.”

Feng Yu racked his brains to think of a solution. Coming out with a premium cigarette? No, the higher-ups will put a stop to it, and the factory might even be punished.

Coming out with a new cigarette favor? If the tobacco factory could do that, they would have done it ages ago.

Wait, there might be a solution which would work, but the City government must agree to it.

“Mayor Zhang, you remember how I marketed Tai Hua Premium Oil?”

“Humph! You still dare to mention that? You made everyone believed that you are the exclusive supplier for our Foreign Trade Bureau. I still have to explain to the leaders. Since when did we appoint you as the exclusive supplier? And why are you talking about this now?” Zhang Ruiqiang was fuming when he thought about this incident.

Feng Yu smiled: “We can make exclusive cigarettes.”

“What? Exclusive cigarettes? What are you talking about?”

Feng Yu suddenly remembered he had heard in his past life that Bing City’s tobacco factory had come out with exclusive cigarettes and the cigarettes were exclusively for the Provincial leaders. The cigarettes not expensive and it still tastes good. But the production was low, and it was hard to get it on the market.

Feng Yu could not remember which year he heard about this, but from Zhang Ruiqiang’s reaction, it should not exist now.

“Mayor Zhang, relax. Was the way I marketed Tai Hua Premium oil illegal?”

“It’s just soybean oil. Of course, it is legal. Why are you asking?”

“Then why can’t we promote our cigarettes as exclusive cigarettes? Will it be against the regulations? I think we can even print the words ‘Bing City Exclusive’ on the cigarette box and do away with other pictures. Let the consumers go and guess what the exclusive mean.”

“The sales will increase just by printing these words?” Zhang Ruiqiang was not convinced.

“It will surely increase! I guess the tobacco must have new techniques to produce cigarettes. Let them lower the production for those lower quality and filterless cigarettes and increase the production of the premium cigarettes. This ‘Bing City Exclusive Cigarettes’ should be priced like Zhonghua cigarettes and we can even price it 1 RMB more than Zhonghua.”

“1 RMB more than Zhonghua? Will people be buying it?” Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes widen. Zhonghua Cigarettes was currently China’s most expensive brand of cigarettes.

“There will surely be people buying it, and I guess that the cigarettes will appear on your desk immediately.” Feng Yu hinted.

Zhang Ruiqiang thought about what Feng Yu said, and he understood what Feng Yu meant. Gifts!

Feng Yu wanted to position this cigarette as a premium cigarette brand. Even if no one were willing to smoke this cigarette, they would buy it as gifts.

This might work, but Zhang Ruiqiang felt that this was an unconventional method.

But if he does not do this, then the tobacco factory will continue to ask for funds from the government.

Feng Yu continued to persuade Zhang Ruiqiang: “Look at Hongtashan brand. How did this brand become popular? This brand of cigarettes was used exclusively as gifts. Also, Zhonghua cigarettes were marketed as the cigarette smoked by leaders. What’s wrong with our way of marketing? We can even let our factory’s salesmen ……”

Zhang Ruiqiang was persuaded by Feng Yu. He decided to go back and tell the Mayor. He felt embarrassed to use this method, but it was all for the tobacco factory’s workers.

Chapter 271 – Tycoon Feng Xingtai

“Director Fang, is the fireworks and firecrackers, I ordered ready? I had told you that I will be collecting it today. Don’t tell me that it is not ready yet.” Feng Xingtai asked. He was wearing a coat with shiny leather shoes. He also carried a poach under his arms.

“Mr. Feng, rest assured that everything will be ready today. You had increased your orders twice this week. Is there any happy occasion in your family?” The factory director of Bing City’s Firework Factory asked.

Feng Xingtai had made a lot of orders, and he was overjoyed. But the goods Feng Xingtai wanted all needed to be specially customized. For instance, other people usually would order strings of 100 or 200 firecrackers. Seldom people would buy strings of 500 firecrackers. Feng Xingtai ordered a string of 5,000 firecrackers.

Other people would buy Double Banger firecrackers, but Feng Xingtai wanted Quadruple Bangers firecrackers!

Other people would buy Single shot fireworks, but Feng Xingtai wanted multi-fireworks. Also, there must be different patterns when exploded in the air. These types of firework can be manufactured, but they were typically used for major events such as new year eve. Even the City Government only ordered 10,000 RMB worth of fireworks which lasted about 10 minutes.

Feng Xingtai had ordered 20,000 RMB worth of fireworks and 10,000 RMB worth of firecrackers initially. But after two days, he called up the factory and ordered additional fireworks.

Just when the Fireworks factory director arranged for his workers to work overtime for this order, Feng Xingtai called again and wanted a string of 10,000 firecrackers. The firecrackers must still be the bigger and loudest ones. He increased the order for fireworks too.

Although it was over the phone and there were no deposits, the factory director still arranged for his workers to prepare the order. He knew that Feng Xingtai was the boss of Tian Peng Pig Farm and now almost everyone in the city eats his pork. His farm was a high-tech pig farm and was even featured on TV. He heard that even the provincial leaders visited Feng Xingtai’s farm. There were rumors that his farm’s profits were more than a few hundred thousand RMB a year. He definitely would not default his payment to the fireworks factory.

On New Year day, Feng Yu had called his father and told him that they had made quite a substantial profit the past year. Feng Yu asked his father to order some fireworks and firecrackers for celebration.

Feng Xingtai felt that Feng Yu was wasteful as he wanted to order 50,000 RMB worth of firecrackers and fireworks. How many bottles of soybean oil must he sell to get 50,000 RMB!

However, Feng Xingtai made the order with the factory, but he only ordered 30,000 RMB.

Soon, Feng Yu called him again to inform him that they had collected the payments for the animal feeds. It was more than 1 million RMB. Even without this 1 million RMB, the Food Processing Factory was still making profits. Now, he has an additional 1 million RMB. This was like money dropping from the skies.

So, Feng Xingtai was in a good mood, and he ordered an additional 20,000 RMB worth of fireworks and firecrackers. Feng Xingtai told himself that this was not a waste of money. It was his son that wanted this, and he was just giving his son what he wanted.

Then, Feng Yu called home again and told him that he was admitted into Beijing University.

Feng Xingtai was surprised. Shouldn’t the entry exams for the university be in Summer? How come Feng Yu could get admitted now? He questioned Feng Yu further and found out that Feng Yu was exempted from the entry exams.

His son was admitted into China’s top university, and he was overjoyed.

Celebrations. This was an occasion that calls for a big celebration. This news made him happier than him earning a few million RMB the past year. This was a significant event for the Feng family. Feng Yu had brought glory to the Feng family!

Feng Xingtai immediately called the people from the cinema to come to the Cinema in the district to screen free movies for everybody.

He then called the Fireworks factory to order firecrackers. 5,000 firecrackers were not enough. He wanted a string of 10,000 firecrackers. You cannot make it? I will pay you 500 RMB more. Is that enough?

Double the amount of the fireworks. Money is not a problem!

Today, Feng Xingtai was at the City’s Fireworks factory to collect his orders. It was a truckload full of firecrackers and fireworks. He had spent over 100,000 RMB. Initially, Feng Xingtai felt that spending 50,000 RMB on fireworks was a waste, but now, he thought that even 100,000 RMB worth of fireworks and firecrackers were not enough!

These few days, he was smiling nonstop. Whenever he met kids with their parents, he would chat with the parents and talk about their children’s studies.

After knowing about this news, Zhang Muhua went to her neighbors’ house every day and kept talking about her son.

“Oh, your knitting skills are so good. The weather is turning cold, and I am thinking of knitting a sweater for my son. You know what? My son was admitted into Beijing University without the need to take the entrance exams!”

“Eh, you had bought fish today? My son loves to eat fish. Eating fish is good for the brains. You know what? My son was admitted into Beijing University without the need to take the entrance exams!”

“Your children like to study? My son also likes to study too, and he got into Third Highschool in the City. You know what? My son was admitted into Beijing University without the need to take the entrance exams!”

……

The shocked and surprised expression on everybody’s faces made Zhang Muhua smile the whole day.

At first, Zhang Muhua had opposed the idea of buying fireworks and firecrackers. But now, she felt that Feng Xingtai had bought too few! He should buy more, and the fireworks should last for hours. Everybody in the district, no, everybody in the City must see it!

“Old Feng, have you just return from the city? What did you buy? Lunar New Year goods?”

“No, it’s all fireworks and firecrackers.”

“Do you still need to sell those things? Your factory is making so many profits, and you make more than what we earn in our lifetime.”

“Who is going to sell these things? I am lighting all these by myself. Remember to come to the open area outside the Cultural Palace on Lunar New Year eve to watch fireworks. Oh, these few days, there will be free movie screenings there too. Remember to go and watch.”

Set off those fireworks himself? All the passersby did not believe him. A truckload full of fireworks to set off himself? Even during weddings, no one would set off so many fireworks and firecrackers.

Feng Xingtai went to look for Wen Deguang. It was not safe to keep so many fireworks and firecrackers at the factory.

“Old Wen, I had bought some fireworks and firecrackers to set off during Lunar New Year. Can you lend me the warehouse on the farm behind the Cultural Palace?”

“Huh? You need a warehouse? How many fireworks did you buy? That warehouse is used to store the fireworks bought by the district. The district had bought 5,000 RMB worth of fireworks. We will set those fireworks off on Lunar New Year eve.”

“5,000 RMB? You call those fireworks? Who is going to watch those pathetic fireworks? I had bought over 100,000 RMB worth of fireworks. The whole district will be able to see it. Will there be any problems for me to store my fireworks in that warehouse?”

“How much? Over 100,000 RMB? Old Feng, why did you buy so many fireworks?” Wen Deguang thought that this money could be spent on more meaningful things. With this amount, Feng Xingtai could have bought a big apartment in the City, and even if he donated to the school, the school could build a football field!

Feng Xingtai raised his chins and said: “I have the money and I just feel like buying!”

Chapter 272 – Oil Prices plunged

Just when Feng Xingtai was preparing for the Lunar New Year’s celebration, Feng Yu returned to Bing City and he was on the phone with He Zhaoji. He was reporting the international oil and London gold prices.

On January 17, the price of oil rose by 1 USD before it starts to fall. From that day onwards, oil prices fell almost every day. It had been 10 days, and oil prices had dropped from 207 USD to 19 USD. The day where oil prices plunged the most was 17th January. It fell from 27 USD to 23 USD. The next day, it fell to less than 20 USD.

After that, oil prices started to have small fluctuations, but it did not rise. The prices still kept falling bit by bit every day.

He Zhaoji was in awe of Feng Yu’s analysis of the market. Even when there was a war going on, Feng Yu still dare to short oil prices, and his predictions again came true. But He Zhaoji was worried that Feng Yu had set the selling price too low at 18 USD. If he had set 20 USD, he would have settled the future contract and made lots of profits.

Feng Yu only told He Zhaoji to wait patiently. Although there were fluctuations, the oil prices will not rise. A few days later, it will fall to 18 USD, and the future contract will automatically be settled.

At the same time, all members of the Fu family gathered at Fu Rongqi’s house to discuss if they should believe Feng Yu’s claim of oil prices will fall to below 18 USD.

If they had entered the market when the oil prices were above 20 USD, they would have made more than double their investments with high leverage, even when the price difference was 2 USD.

But they did not believe Feng Yu initially. If they had followed Feng Yu and short the oil at 27 USD, they would have made 6 times their investment when oil prices fell to 18 USD!

Feng Yu had invested a few hundred million USD and had still use high leverage. This meant that Feng Yu would have made at least 2 billion USD?

The 3 younger brothers were blaming their eldest brother, Fu Rongqi. If Fu Rongqi had followed Feng Yu, they would do the same thing too. Even if they invested 100 million HKD, they would have returns of 500 to 600 million HKD. If they invested more, their yields would be even higher.

Fu Rongqi was furious. Look at the whole of Hong Kong. Who had shorted oil? How many people in the whole world had shorted oil? Even if I followed Feng Yu and short oil, would I dare to use high leverage? Would I dare to set such a low price? All of you also thought that oil prices would rise when there was a war. Who would expect it to fall?

All of you knew how much Feng Yu had invested and why didn’t you invest?

Fu Rongqi scolded his younger brothers, and they kept quiet. They only dared to grumble. If the Fu family were not headed by their eldest brother, they would also not be successful.

In fact, even if Fu Rongqi had asked them to short oil that day, they would also not do it. They knew it was an opportunity, but they don’t have the guts to do so.

Fu Rongqi was also feeling uncomfortable in his heart. On 16th January, oil prices were still rising, and he thought that Feng Yu’s analysis was wrong. However, the next day, oil prices plunged. Who would have thought of that?

After that, oil prices plummeted and never recover. Before he could react and short the oil prices, it was too late.

Feng Yu had said that oil prices will reach about 18 USD and there was only about 2 USD price difference. The returns were too low. Unless he dares to use high leverage like Feng Yu, but the risk was too high.

These few years, Fu Rongqi had seen many successful tycoons slowly disappearing from the limelight. Most of them were because they had lost their fortune when they speculate on the financial market.

Investing was not scary. Even there was a risk of losing, but the risks could be controlled through careful analysis of the market. But speculation was the same as gambling. The returns were high, but the risks were also high. If one was not careful, he could lose every single cent.

Look at Fu Rongjing. He had lost 400 million in Forex market within a short period of time. He managed to recover most of his losses because of Feng Yu’s tips on buying London gold futures.

Fu Rongjing had learned his lesson. After he got back most of his losses, he immediately clears his debts and did not bet on oil prices falling.

Fu Rongqi does not intend to invest in oil. The returns were not attractive enough, and there was still a high risk. He rather invests in the gold market. The fluctuations in the gold market were volatile, and gold prices fell as what Feng Yu claimed. It was not 360 USD/ounce. It was not far from Feng Yu’s prediction of 355 USD/ounce.

The Fu brothers had made quite a lot from following Feng Yu to short gold prices. This time, Fu Rongqi called everyone together was to ask them to invest in the gold market. He decided to buy gold at 355 USD/ounce, and he felt that it was quite safe. However, it was still up to them to determine if they wanted to invest.

The 3 younger brothers looked at each other, and all of them decided to invest a sum of money. Although they do not believe Feng Yu, who claims that gold prices will rise sharply, their eldest brother’s team of experts were sure of it. They could not predict how high the prices would reach, but they trust the experts.

Anyway, they will be buying in the gold, and they could sell it anytime. They will not be using high leverage, and they would still make profits.

Fu Rongqi had some hesitations. Should he hedge against the gold and lower his risks? In the past, every time he invests in futures, he would do hedging.

Hedging was commonly used by companies and big players. Although the returns will be lower, there will be lesser risks.

Hedging would mean he had to give up the chance to use 100 million to earn 1 billion, but at the same time, it would prevent 1 billion to turn into 100 million or even less. Fu Rongqi could use this method and invest 1 billion to get returns of 100 million.

Fu Rongqi was thinking about Feng Yu’s expression when he shorts oil. He was so confident and decisive. He was so sure that he would win.

Young men had the drive. But when they reached Fu Rongqi’s age, they would tend to avoid taking high risks, even if the returns were high.

Fu Rongqi wanted to do some hedging to lower the risk. He believed that once gold prices fell to 355 USD, it will rebound. However, he was not confident that gold would reach more than 400 USD as Feng Yu claims. No one from his team dares to make such claims.

A few days later, oil prices fell below 18 USD, and Fu Rongqi was convinced of Feng Yu’s abilities.

Since Feng Yu was so accurate with the oil prices, then his prediction on the gold prices should also be correct. This time Fu Rongqi decided to invest without hedging. He was going to gamble it!

Chapter 273 – Getting a stake in Mining Enterprise

Early in February, He Zhaoji called Feng Yu. Feng Yu’s investments in London Gold and oil futures were all settled. Currently, Gold prices had fallen to 354 USD. Is it time to buy gold?

He Zhaoji and the other brokers at Wind and Rain Consulting company had analyzed the market and came to a conclusion which was gold prices will rise. The current price should be the lowest and would not fall below 350 USD.

Prices were always changing in the futures market, and Feng Yu decided to be more conservative. He told He Zhaoji to invest in small amounts and use low leverage. He can invest small sums to test the market, but the limit was 100 million USD.

He Zhaoji was sighing in his heart. Manager Feng still does not trust him completely. Manager Feng had made over 2 billion USD from his investments in London gold and oil futures. Now, Feng Yu had over 3 billion USD of funds, and he only allowed him to invest with 100 million.

But He Zhaoji believes that if he continues to perform well, Manager Feng will let him manage more funds. He was also confident that he could make profits in the gold market for Feng Yu and at the same time he could earn more commission.

3 days later, Hee Zhaoji settled his futures contract and had mad 10 million USD for Feng Yu. Feng Yu was happy and allow He Zhaoji to use 200 million to invest.

A few days later, He Zhaoji makes profits again. The gold prices were not 368 USD, and Feng Yu increase He Zhaoji’s limit to 500 million USD.

On the fourth time, He Zhaoji made money for Feng Yu, Feng Yu allowed him to manage 1 billion of funds. He Zhaoji was still making money, and the returns were still about slightly more than 10%. Feng Yu was satisfied.

Feng Yu was afraid that He Zhaoji was overconfident and used high leverage for his investment in gold. Even though there was a possibility of him getting high returns, he might also lose all his funds. Feng Yu does not have the time to monitor the market every day, and he only validly remembers the significant events that happened in the financial market. He could not remember the exact dates. If one day, gold prices fluctuate too volatile, he might lose everything he earned in the past.

He Zhaoji had used hedging to lower his risk. He knows that his boss was not short of money and wanted to be safe. Actually, he also wanted to invest safely. Even if he invest in gold conservatively, with 1 billion USD, he will get a least tens of million a week. His commission will still be a considerable amount.

If he had used high leverage and lose money, he might even lose his life. Many triads in Hong Kong was willing to kill people for money.

This period of time, the Fu Family was also investing in the gold market. But they were making short-term investments. Fu Rongqi and his brothers had only used high leverage once and doubled their investment. After that, he started to invest safely by using hedging.

The Fu family had made over 2 billion HKD on their first investment. This was enough, and Fu Rongqqi does not allow the rest of the Fu family to be greedy. He chooses to invest safely. Even if the returns were only 100 to 200 million HKD a month, it was okay since the Fu family’s other businesses were still making profits. The returns in the financial market had risks. Fu Rongqi had also decided to enter Hong Kong’s real estate industry. The property will be a safe investment.

Many investors shared a common trait. They would not invest large sums every time, and they would invest in some instruments that were safe and easily liquidated. Once the investors saw an opportunity, they would invest a large sum and made huge profits.

George Soros and his team operated this way. With over 10 billion USD of funds, their average annual returns were less than a billion USD. But on certain years or a specified period of time, he could make over 10 billion USD in profits. Even he had made failed investments, his losses will not be significant.

After hearing the good news from Hong Kong, Kirilenko also gave Feng Yu good news from his side.

Kirilenko had heard that during the last Soviet Union meeting, some allied countries’ leaders had opposed to Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies. Mikhail Gorbachev was losing his supporters. Based on the current situation, it was impossible for Mikhail Gorbachev to carry on another term.

Many people felt that Yeltsin would be the next Soviet Union President and Mikhail Gorbachev would be stepping down earlier. Of course, there were some who thinks that Yeltsin will not be the Soviet Union President as Yeltsin had announced that Russian would leave the Soviet Union. He wanted the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Kirilenko’s father, Senchenko, had received orders to store up military supplies in Russia. This represents something big would be happening.

Now, most of the factories in the Soviet Union had stopped working. Not only the factories’ directors, even the government officials, were in a rush to sell the factories and enterprises to raise money. This way, it could ease the government’s financial issues and also helped the workers. Although this was a temporary measure, they do not have other choices.

The situation in the Soviet Union was messy. Many Soviets do not even put food on their tables.

There were many people in the Soviet Union finding ways to get money and with Kirilenko’s background and his money, 7 mining enterprises had signed contracts with him to sell their shares to another company. This company was a shareholding, but all the shareholders were Kirilenko’s men. Kirilenko was the real owner of all the shares.

Kirilenko had run into some problems. He did not have enough money. The few mining enterprises’ directors were chasing him for payments. The contract would be voided once it passes the time limit.

Kirilenko had made some money this period of time, but it was not enough. The last time Feng Yu had told Kirilenko that he wanted a stake in this company and Kirilenko went to prepare the paperwork. Now all the procedures were ready, and he called Feng Yu to ask him to sign the contract.

Feng Yu was overjoyed. He could finally own a stake in the Soviet Union mining enterprise. This was good news. Feng Yu had not allowed He Zhaoji to use all his funds was because he waiting to buy a stake in the Soviet Union Mining enterprise.

The last time Kirilenko had made it clear that Feng Yu would need to pay more than him, but he would be getting lesser shares. Feng Yu does not mind at all. Even if he owns lesser shares, it would still much cheaper than buying minerals from other countries. Furthermore, the Soviet Union was rich in minerals.

Also, it was because of this reason, Kirilenko had promised Feng Yu a condition, which was Feng Yu could decide on the quantity of the minerals mined and the pricing of the minerals.

After hanging up the phone call with Kirilenko, Feng Yu called his lawyer Wilson and HSBC bank. He wanted them to prepare. Kirilenko would fly to Hong Kong to sign the contract with Feng Yu. At the same time, Feng Yu would transfer the payments to Kirilenko’s overseas account. His lawyer and accountants would settle the rest of the minor details.

Feng Yu packed his luggage excitedly and bought a ticket to Hong Kong.

Chapter 274 – Feng Yu’s Investment

Flying to Hong Kong from Bing City was troublesome. Feng Yu need to fly to Beijing airport for transit to Chengdu Tianfu or Shanghai, and from there, transit again to Hong Kong. If he was lucky, he only needs to transit once. If he was unlucky, he might need to transit more than 3 times. The air traffic in China at this time was terrible. It was not like the future years where there were direct flights to Hong Kong from Bing City airport.

After waiting for a day in Hong Kong, Kirilenko had arrived. He had brought 8 men with him. They were his lawyers, translators, luggage carriers or followers.

At Wilson Law firm, the both of them signed the contract. Feng Yu injected 2 billion USD into Moscow Mining Private Limited in exchange for 49% shares. This company was worth 1.5 billion USD initially.

Feng Yu was surprised. He thought Kirilenko only had a few hundred million USD. He never expects Kirilenko to have 1.5 billion USD. This meant that he had gotten loans of more than a few hundred million rubles. He must have gotten a much bigger loan later.

Of course, Feng Yu did not suffer many losses. He had spent 500 million USD more and still got 1% lesser shares. Kirilenko would make up to Feng Yu on other areas. For instance, Feng Yu had always wanted the Volga automobile production lines, more motorcycle production lines, generators technologies, or some other aircraft technologies.

The value of these was not readily determined. Many of these were not available in the market even if you offer a lot of money. Feng Yu wanted these technologies to gain favors or build relationships with the Motor Factory and Aviation Factory.

Both parties were happy. Kirilenko had saved a lot of money and still owns more than 50% of the mining company. Feng Yu had spent a lot more, but Kirilenko promised him to get advanced technologies for him. He still has the power to make decisions on some issues of the mining company.

Although Kirilenko was the major shareholder, Feng Yu believes that if he wanted to sell the minerals to China, he would not object.

The Fu family heard that Feng Yu had come to Hong Kong again and sent Fu Guangzheng to represent them, to take care of Feng Yu and his friend. Feng Yu knew that the Fu family had offered to show them around was because they wanted to befriend Kirilenko.

But Feng Yu does not mind. Kirilenko was already tightly bonded with him, and the Fu family could not break their friendship. Feng Yu could also make use of Kirilenko’s family background to increase his status in the hearts of the Fu family.

But after Fu Guangzheng arrived, Feng Yu regretted. The three of them were talking, and Kirilenko’s translators did not follow them. End up, Feng Yu became the translator between the both of them.

Damn. I am wealthier than the both of you, and I still have to be your translator?

After dinner and sending off Fu Guangzheng, Feng Yu and Kirilenko returned to the hotel. The both of them starts to discuss their business. At the same time, the Fu brothers gathered again.

“Guangzheng, you say that Soviet have military backgrounds?” Fu Rongqi frowned.

“That’s right. His father is a high ranking officer in the Soviet Army. You remember Feng Yu’s aircraft deal a few months back? It was because of this guy. He could get the aircraft at low prices from the military factories.”

The four brothers looked at each other. They were shocked. They realized that they need to revaluate Feng Yu’s background.

They knew that Feng Yu had some connections in the Soviet Union. If not, Feng Yu would not be able to do trading with the Soviet Union. They thought Feng Yu had some relationships with the Soviet Union’s government. But they did not expect Feng Yu to have connections with the Soviet Union military. They were not experts in politics, but they knew that if a country’s economy was bad, the government had no say. It was the military that has more power. Furthermore, the Soviet Union army was only of the most powerful army in the world.

“You say Feng Yu had invested in that Soviet’s company? You know how much did Feng Yu invest?”

“I am not sure, but Feng Yu had mentioned that he had invested half of his assets into that company. From Feng Yu’s investments in the oil previously, he would have made at least 2 billion USD. Also, his investment in London gold futures also made lots of profits. He was making lots of profits from all his investments and had never suffered any losses. I estimate Feng Yu’s assets to be somewhere near to 3 billion USD.”

Hiss~~~

Other then Fu Rongqi, the other 3 brothers were surprised.

Feng Yu had so many assets? Doesn’t this mean Feng Yu was richer than the 3 of them? The 3 of them had depended on their inheritance and their eldest brother to get to where they were.

But this Feng Yu, was not even 20 years’ old and he had more assets than them?

Fu Rongqu sighed: “Lao Si if you are not from the Fu family, he might make your company bankrupt by snatching those shares from him. You can’t even fight back.”

“Humph!” Fu Rongjing regretted treating Feng Yu like that in the past. If he had known Feng Yu’s foresight and could make so much money in such a short time, he would give in to him and asked his son, Fu Guangzheng to stay close to him.

Although Fu Rongqi had stopped Fu Rongjing from taking revenge, Fu Rongjing was still feeling sore from that incident. He had wanted to create some problems in the sales company for Feng Yu. He does not believe that Feng Yu could do anything to him if he does not invest in the financial market.

But now, he dare not to think this way. Feng Yu’s ability to earn money had impressed all of them. Furthermore, Fu Rongjing had recovered the money he lost and even made 100 million HKD.

Even he wanted to take revenge on Feng Yu, he cannot do so. If his eldest brother does not help him, his assets would not be enough to go against Feng Yu. Use some underhand methods? Fu Rongqi said that Feng Yu could get this information was because of the people behind him. The one behind him might be one of the core leaders of China. He might ignore these small incidents, but if something bad happens to Feng Yu, he will revenge on the Fu family.

The Fu family might be fine now, but after 1997, the handing over of Hong Kong, will there still be the Fu family?

Rather than making enemies with such a powerful opponent, why not be friends. The Fu family had shown their sincerities by selling Feng Yu the Aiwa shares. Feng Yu also shared some vital information with them as payback.

Fu Rongjing would not go against money. He still wanted to develop his business in China. If he could get to the China market, he would be a multi-billionaire!

Fu Rongqi was thinking about what company did Feng Yu invested in with so much money. This was an investment of over 1.5 billion USD. What was worth investing in the Soviet Union?

Feng Yu had mentioned that the Soviet Union would disintegrate but why would he still invest there? He was not afraid that the new government would not recognize his investments and confiscated everything?

Nevertheless, in his heart, Feng Yu had reached a very high status. Any higher, it would be those tycoons like Superman Lee!

Feng Yu must be their friend!

Chapter 275 – High-profile Feng Xingtai

By the time Feng Yu returns to Bing City, it was almost Lunar New Year. Tai Hau Trading’s staffs will be sending the last batch of goods to the Soviet Union, and they will be going for their annual break.

Wu Zhigang and the rest were excited. They did not know what their year-end bonus was. Two years ago, it was a pager. Last year, it was a motorcycle. Every year, they were getting the best bonus. No other companies in China could compete with them. What would it be this year?

This year, Feng Yu did not prepare any products. He did not even prepare those daily commodities like rice, flour, etc. This year, Feng Yu will be giving out…… Cash!

The bonus was based on individual performance. Every one of them will be getting their bonus. The lowest amount was 8,000 RMB, and Wu Zhigang got the most. 12,000 RMB!

It might seem that they were getting lesser than the previous year, but Feng Yu had helped them invest their money. Although they were still holding on to their shares, Feng Yu had told them that they could sell the shares sometime in June. He promised everyone that they would at least get back a few folds of their capital!

That means this year, every one of them would get at least tens of thousand RMB! This was much more than last year!

News of Tai Hua Trading’s year-end bonus soon spread in the Motor Factory. Everybody was jealous of Tai Hua Trading’s staffs. They were jealous of Wu Zhigang. Their monthly salaries were much higher than the national average, and their monthly benefits were much better than them. The year-end bonuses were envied by all the workers. Pagers and motorcycles. Other than the leaders in the Motor factory, who else could afford?

This year, Tai Hua Trading gave out cash! Tai Hua Trading staffs’ year-end bonus was equivalent to their 5 to 6 years salaries!

Of course, some people said Tai Hua Trading was not doing well. Last year, the motorcycles were worth almost 20,000 RMB each, and this year the staffs only got about 10,000 RMB!

These were all sour grapes. They were jealous of Tai Hua Trading.

Feng Yu felt that he was high-profile, but when he returned to the district, he realized the true meaning of high-profile.

Eh, why are there banners on all the lamp post? There are no banners during last Lunar New Year. Usually, banners will only be hang when high ranking officials are visiting.

“Congratulations to Feng Yu for getting into Beijing University!”

“Learn from Feng Yu, contribute to the nation!”

“Humble student gets into Beijing University!”

……

Wait a minute. These banners were writing about me?

Feng Yu’s hands, which was on the steering wheel, shook and almost drove the car into a ditch. There were dozens of banners along the road congratulating Feng Yu for getting into Beijing University. This made Feng Yu felt…… good!

Did the people from the district education department hang these banners? Feng Yu was also not the top scholar in the nation, was there a need to publicize his admittance into Beijing University?

What does it mean by the humble student? If the Feng family is considered humble, then the whole of China will have no wealthy families.

Hmmm, “Learn from Feng Yu and contribute to the nation” this sentence is reasonable. There should be more of this banner. It must be written by some teachers. I must donate some money to the district’s schools.

Feng Yu drove to his house, and he noticed there was a crowd outside. They were crowding around his father, and they seem to be talking about something.

Feng Yu was shocked. Who were these people? It was almost Lunar New Year, and they were creating trouble here? Wait, father was smiling and furthermore, who would dare to create trouble for his father in the district? Even the Chief of the farm department dare not to offend father!

When Feng Yu alighted from his car, everybody starts to crowd around him.

“Xiao Yu, congratulations. I heard that you will be entering Huaqing University?”

“What Huaqing University? It’s Beijing University!”

“Feng Yu had gotten a place in Beijing University! do you even know what that means?”

“Of course. He is exempted from taking the entrance exams. My brother was also the same in the past when he got a place in the Agricultural and Military University.”

……

“Hi Uncles, why are all of you here?” Feng Yu smiled and asked politely. These people were all his elders.

“Xiao Yu, we heard that you will be coming back today and we are here to welcome you.”

“Xiao Lei, come over here and greet your brother Feng Yu. He is a student at Beijing University. He will be a great leader in the future!” Someone dragged a kid over.

Feng Yu: “……” I am not a god. I am not able to bless your kid to get a place in the university by touching him. Furthermore, your kid is too young.

“Come over and have some candies. My son is tired. Please leave after meeting him.” Zhang Muhua walked out with a big tray of candies.

Feng Yu was relieved. He was finally home and was stopped by the crowd outside his doorsteps.

“Dad, Mum, what is happening? Why are there so many people waiting for me? Also, why are there so many banners around the district?” Feng Yu asked after drinking a big glass of honey water.

“Everybody envied me for having a son attending Beijing University.” Feng Xingtai proudly said.

“But there is no need you to hang so many banners. Did you get people to hang those banners?”

“No. It’s the district that hangs those banners. You are the first person from our district that got into Beijing University!” Feng Xingtai said with a proud expression.

“Fine. Stop listening to your father’s nonsenses. He had donated all the fireworks he bought to the district, and the district will set them off on Lunar New Year eve. The district promised to hang a banner as thanks, but your father ordered more than 30 banners and got people to hang them up.” Zhang Muhua added.

“What’s wrong? Do you know how many fireworks I had donated? Can’t I even hang some banners? Old Wen is getting more stingy. He wanted to save on the banners!” Feng Xingtai said angrily.

“Dad, don’t you think you are showing off? Ain’t you the one who taught me to be humble?” Feng Yu felt it was okay if it was only one or two banners. If he had gotten into Beijing University on his own capabilities, it was fine. But his spot in the University was because of some other reasons.

“Why can’t I show off? Other people also want to show off, but their son must get into Beijing University first!” Feng Xingtai retorted.

“Fine, fine, fine. You can show off. I asked you to buy some fireworks and firecrackers for the New Year. How much did you buy?” Feng Yu had called his father to buy more firecrackers and fireworks this year.

“You still dare to mention this? You asked your father to buy 50,000 RMB worth of fireworks and firecrackers, and your father bought over 100,000 RMB!” Zhang Muhua was unhappy when she thought about the money spent on these things.

“Huh? When did I ask dad to buy 50,000 RMB of fireworks?”

“Didn’t you paged me and ask me to buy 50,000 RMB worth of fireworks and firecrackers?”

“I asked you to buy Wu Wan’s fireworks (吴万, a person’s name and it sounds similar to 五万, 50,000). His factory’s fireworks are the nicest.” Feng Yu said. The pagers now were still numeric pagers, and if you want to leave messages, you need to call up a paging station and leave your message with the operator.

“See, I had told you that our son will not spend money so wastefully. I asked you to check with him again, and you don’t listen.” Zhang Muhua scolded.

“Nevermind since the fireworks were already bought. My son had got into Beijing University, and I am willing to get more fireworks. I want to let the whole district know about this. If it wasn’t for the City regulations, I still wanted to set off those fireworks in the city! Don’t prepare dinner tonight. We will have dinner at the Food Processing Factory’s canteen. I had invited some friends over, and I want them to meet our son.”

Feng Yu: “……”

Chapter 276 – Celebrating Lunar New Year in Hometown

It was 9 pm on Lunar New Year Eve. Everybody in the district had gathered at the square in front of the Cultural Palace. Spring Festival Gala program was on every year, and usually, it was not interesting at the start of the program. They could also watch the reruns tomorrow. Everybody was there for the fireworks display. They heard that this year, the district will be setting off more than 100,000 RMB worth of fireworks. They do not want to miss it.

Feng Yu knew that this type of fireworks display will be common in a few more years. Some places even spent millions on fireworks.

The Chief of the Farm Department said a speech and he mentioned Feng Xingtai and Feng Yu several times. Feng Xingtai was also invited to light the first string of firecrackers with the chief.

After the sound of firecrackers stopped, the fireworks started.

Everybody, regardless of young and old, cheered. This was a good year, and all of them made money from their farms.

Feng Yu saw Li Na in the crowd, and he creeps up behind her. He tapped Li Na’s left shoulder and quickly step to her right.

“Stop it. We will be going to Liu Kun’s house tomorrow. This year, he is not going back to his hometown.” Li Na playfully hit Feng Yu.

Feng Yu replied: “I can’t join you all. Tomorrow I will be returning back to my hometown to celebrate the New Year. We had not return for the previous two years, and my grandfather had called. We got to go back this year.”

Feng Yu still have an elder uncle, and he was staying in Longjiang province too. But he is staying in a town further up north. His grandfather was staying with his elder uncle. In his past life, his grandfather was very healthy. But after the millennium, he passed away from an accident. Feng Yu had met his grandfather only a few times, and he does not remember him clearly.

After their financial situation improved, Feng Xingti had wanted his father to stay with him, but his father wanted to live near his old friends. So, Feng Xingtai could only send him money every year, and during summer, he would visit him.

Last New Year, the Feng family were unhappy. Many people were visiting them, and even those who were not close to them had visited them. They were there just to get red packets.

This year, Feng Xingtai decided to drive over to his father’s place on the first day of the new year. Just nice, there was a new highway built the previous year and it was more convenient.

“When will you be coming back?” Li Na asked with a disappointed face. She rather not have holidays and she could meet with Feng Yu in school every day.

“Maybe after the fifth day of New Year. Why? Are you missing me already?” Feng Yu joked.

“Who would miss you? Today’s fireworks are beautiful.” Li Na blushed.

“You like fireworks? Then in future, we will set off so many fireworks every year.” Since the Feng family had show off once, why not show off every year? His father and mother will be happy too.

“What are you two talking about?” Wen Dongjun suddenly appears and behind him was the top student Liu Kun.

“We are discussing if we should tell Uncle Wen that you are dating in school. It’s been a while since I saw Uncle Wen whacking you with a cane!” Feng Yu said.

“Ah? You promised me not to tell my father. I also did not tell Uncle Feng about the both of you.” Wen Dongjun was scared. His father had warned him not to date while schooling.

“Hahaha. He is just joking with you. Let’s go over there. The fireworks over there are low, but it’s nice too.” Liu Kun dragged Wen Dongjun away. This Wen Dongjun was too nosy and likes to interrupt others.

The both of them just stood there and chat. Li Na does not allow Feng Yu to even hold her hands. She was afraid that her parents would find out. After the fireworks display was over, LI Na returns home.

Feng Yu sighed. He must make their relationship known to everyone after the both of them attended University in Summer. Their classmates even had children and why can’t they date?

…….

The first day of Lunar New Year, Song Deliang knocked on the door of Feng Xingtai’s house. But after knocking for a while, no one opened. The neighbor came out and told him that the Feng family had left early in the morning. They had gone back to their hometown for New Year.

Left early in the morning? It is only 7 am now. Song Deliang sighed. He was very disappointed. He had woke up at 6 am and rode a bicycle over. This year he could not get any benefits from Feng Xingtai. He was grumbling when he was leaving.

There were lots of people coming over in the morning, but all of them left disappointed. Those people that were close to the Feng family, like the people from Tai Hua Premium Food Factory, knew the Feng family would not be around and they did not visit today.

Meanwhile, Feng Yu was driving along the new highway towards his eldest Uncle house. The father and son took turns to drive. The road condition was excellent, and it had not snowed the past few days. They could drive at a higher speed, and they reached before noon.

“We can finally have a quiet New Year. We should have come back here last year.” Zhang Muhua laughed. Those people were irritating.

“Last year, the highway was not ready yet. If we drive, it will take us a day. If we are going by train, we still have to travel to Bing City’s train station. We would not be able to get the train tickets too. Now it is more convenient to drive back. This year, we would not be meeting those irritating people. We should be happy.” Feng Xingtai also dislikes those people. It was okay if those people wanted to borrow money from their farms. The most irritating people among them were people like Song Deliang. He was there just to take advantage of them!

“Xiao Yu, stop by the side. Let your father drive. You don’t know the way.” Zhang Muhua tapped on Feng Yu’s shoulders.

Honk, Honk~~~

Feng Xingtai pressed the horns, and there were barking in the yard. Soon, the doors opened, and someone who resembles Feng Xingtai walked out.

“Xingtai, Muhua. Xiao Yu is so tall now. You arrive so fast. How was the road conditions?” Eldest Uncle Feng Xingguo asked.

“Happy New Year, Uncle. Is Brother Danhua back?”

“He is back. He is helping your aunt preparing lunch. Come in. Eh, why are you bringing so many things? We do not need anything at home.”

Feng Yu carried two big bags into the yard. It was gifts which he had bought from the Soviet Union and Hong Kong.

Aunt walked out with an apron. Feng Yu’s cousin Feng Danhua also came out and helped Feng Yu to carry the bags.

“Xiao Yu, you are so tall now. Was it 3 or 4 years since you came over?”

“Auntie. I am not as tall as Brother Danhua. These few years, I am in high school and is quite busy with my studies. That’s why I did not visit you.” Feng Yu made up an excuse and at the same time praised his cousin, making his Aunt happy.

“Come in. Your grandfather is waiting inside.”

Everyone entered the house, and Grandpa Feng was smiling nonstop.

“Xiao Yu, you got into any University?” Grandpa Feng asked.

When the word “University” was mentioned, Zhang Muhua became full of energy. All the tiredness from the traveling was gone. She said: “Xiao Yu was exempted from taking the entrance exams for the university. Only the best students can be exempted. He had gotten a place in Beijing University……”

Chapter 277 – Feng Xingtai’s family is not Simple

Although Eldest Uncle’s house was a cottage, the area was big. It was a few hundred square meters. Feng Yu’s uncle only has a son, Feng Danhua and Feng Yu’s grandmother had passed away many years ago. Feng Yu did not even have any impression of her.

Feng Yu and the rest entered the house and his aunt had prepared lunch. All of them sat down for a late reunion lunch.

Just when they raise their glasses for a toast, they hear the dog in the yard barking. Eldest Uncle was puzzled. There should not be anyone visiting during meal times.

“is this Feng Xingguo’s house?”

“Yes. Do I know you?” Feng Xingguo looked at the visitor. He does not know him at all.

“Hi. I am a partner of Tai Hua Trading. I am the boss of Xingfa Motorcycle in the city. I am here to wish Manager Feng a happy new year. I had brought some gifts with me. Where can I place them?”

“Xingtai, Xingtai, he seems to be looking for you.” Feng Xingguo shouted.

Feng Xingtai and Feng Yu walked out. Feng Danhua also followed them outside.

“Oh, Manager Feng, you are really here. Happy New Year.”

Feng Xingtai looked at the person in a daze. He does not know this person. But this person had wished him a Happy New Year, and he could only smile and was prepared to shake hands with him.

Just when he stuck out his hand, he saw Feng Yu reach out and shook that person’s hands. Feng Xingtai put down his hand. This person was here to look for Feng Yu!

“Mr. Liu, Happy New Year to you too. Why did you bring so many gifts?”

“These are for Senior Mr. Feng. Especially this wine. This is medicated wine, and it is made using Chinese herbs according to an old Chinese doctor’s recipe. It is good for the health.”

“Fine. I will accept your gifts.”

Mr. Liu could tell that Feng Yu does not have any intentions of asking him to stay and he left. After Mr. Liu left, Feng Xingtai asked Feng Yu: “What’s happening?”

“He is a dealer for Songjian Motorcycles. I guess that he heard that we are here for the New Year and came visiting. Oh, these are all fresh fruits. Let’s bring them in before it froze.”

This Mr. Liu had called Wu Zhigang for New Year greetings, and he found out that Feng Yu had come here to celebrate the New Year. He used all his means to find out the address and rushed over to send gifts.

He was driving a Jeep, and that Jeep had no air conditioner. He was freezing, but at least Feng Yu accepted his gifts. Maybe this year, he could get some better deals.

After Feng Yu and the rest brought the gifts in, the dog barks again.

“Is this Feng Xingguo’s house?”

Feng Yu stood up and followed his Uncle outside.

“Manager Feng, Happy New Year. My brother is selling vegetables, and I had brought you some. There are leeks, green peppers, celery, spinach, and cauliflower. These are all very fresh.”

“Mr. Xu, Happy New Year. Thank you.”

The both of them exchanged some pleasantries, and Mr. Xu left. This Mr. Xu is a dealer for Wind and Rain humidifiers and bladeless fans.

Before Feng Yu could enter the house, he heard the sounds of a car engine.

“Is this Feng Xingguo’s house?”

Feng Xingguo looked at his nephew. Is this person also looking for him?

“Mr. Sun. Happy New Year.:

“Manager Feng, Happy New Year. I have some wild chickens, rabbits and deer meat for you. There are also two big geese. It is from my farm. Please accept it.”

“Okay. Thank you, Mr. Sun.”

“Manager Feng, I am selling Tai Hua Brand of animal feed, and I also rear pigs. This past year, I had made some money. These are just to show my thanks to you.”

……

There were a total of 5 visitors, and the house was full of New Year gifts. Everyone in the Feng family was looking at Feng Yu, waiting for his explanations.

“They are just some dealers. I am also not sure how come they know I am here. Some of them are selling motorcycles, some are selling home appliances, animal feeds and the local gloves and textiles factory. I did not expect them to find out Uncle’s address. But the New Year Gift they gave is good stuff. Later, I will arrange for someone to send some gifts to them.”

Grandpa Feng said: “Danhua, bring Xiao Yu along to store these gifts.”

He was overjoyed to see people sending his grandson gifts. Only capable people will have others queuing up to send gifts to him!

Grandfather Feng had spoken, Feng Danhua and Feng Yu immediate carry the gifts to the store. The fresh vegetables and fruits were kept outside.

“Brother, I think you should stop working at that factory. Your salary is not high, and they keep delaying your salary.” Feng Xingtai said.

Feng Yu added: “That’s right. Uncle. This place is facing a junior high school. Why not build a row of houses and set up some shops, like stationery stores, snacks, etc. You can surely make some money. If you do not want to manage the shops, you can rent it to others.”

Feng Xingguo’s house was directly opposite the junior high school in that district. This was an excellent location and with such a big piece of land, why not make full use of it?

Zhang Muhua said: “Brother, you are the one who had given us the money for the tractor. Now, Xingtai and Xiao Yu’s business is good and had made some money. Listen to me. In Spring, we will build a 3 stories building here, and we will install an elevator and escalators in the building. This way, father will not be tired from climbing stairs.”

Feng Xingguo looked at his wife, and his wife also does not know how to react. His younger brother had been sending them money every month, and the amount was increasing every month. They could not even finish spending the money. The last time Feng Xingtai visited them, he was driving a small Soviet Union car, and this time, he drove a bigger car.

Also, many people came to send gifts today. It seems that Feng Xingtai’s business was indeed very successful. Feng Xingtia had asked his brother to move over to his district, but he does not want. He was used to this area.

“Fine. Just listen to Muhua. The two of you are brothers, and there’s no need to be embarrassed about this. Come, drink with me.” Grandfather Feng knocked on the table and said.

Feng Yu turned to his cousin, Feng Danhua: “Brother Danhua, you should be graduating from University next year. Have you heard where you will be assigned to?”

This was something Feng Xingtai instructed. Feng Xingtai had spoken to his nephew, but Feng Danhua does not want to do business. He just wanted to have a stable income by working in a government agency. But even if working for others, it must be a good unit. Feng Xingtai does not know a lot of people. Feng Yu was different. Feng Yu had lots of connections, and he had always boasted that there was nothing he could not achieve. This was why Feng Xingtai asked Feng Yu to arrange for his cousin to work in a good unit.

“I am not sure. I should be assigned to this area, the countryside. If only I can be assigned to the City.” The City’s living conditions were much better than in the countryside.

“Do you want to go to Bing city? I have some connections there, and you can work in Bing City’s government agencies.”

“Assigned to Bing City? Is this possible?” Feng Danhua was tempted.

“This means that you agree. Later, pass me your details. I promise you that you will be assigned to work in a government agency in Bing City. Oh, do you have any departments that you wanted to enter?”

Feng Danhua’s eyes widen. Not only he can be assigned to Bing City, but he can also choose the department?

“Can I work in the City Government?” Feng Danhua asked.

“I cannot promise you a job in the City committee, but it will not be a problem with the City government.”

With Feng Yu’s relationship with Zhang Ruiqiang, this was not a problem. Zhang Ruiqiang would not reject Feng Yu. If this does not work out, Feng Yu could use his special move “donations” to arrange a job for his cousin.

Grandfather Feng was in a good mood when he saw Feng Danhua and Feng Yu chatting happily together. Harmony in the family made him smile. This younger son’s family is not simple……

Chapter 278 – Technologies exchange (Part 1)

A few days later, Feng Yu and his family drove back to the distriict, and on the 9th day of the New Year, Feng Yu returned to Bing City to settle some of his company’s matters. Highschool Year 3 students start school earlier and on the 11th day of the Lunar New Year, February 25th, his classes started.

Feng Yu skipped school on the first day. This time, the teachers do not care, and even his form teacher approved his leave readily. Feng Yu was already admitted into Beijing University, and he does not even need to take the Highschool exams. It was okay for him to skip lessons.

Feng Yu’s form teacher was also pleased that Feng Yu got a place at Beijing University. This meant that his performance was outstanding and could even be promoted. If Feng Yu was in class, he might affect the other students.

Feng Yu had skipped school because Kirilenko had sent something which Hou Haitao wanted. Large aircraft engine’s technologies.

This time, there were no engineers that came. Those military engineers were wealthy and do not need to work overseas. Furthermore, the KGB was watching them. Kirilenko dare not to send them to China. He was already taking a significant risk for sending these technologies over.

……

“Secretary Xu, I had told you so many times that you must prepare tea for guests.” Feng Yu sat on the sofa in Hou Haitao’s office. His legs were crossed, and he was ordering Hou Haitao’s secretary.

Hou Haitao’s office desk had a stack of blueprints. He and the engineers of Aviation Factory were going through the blueprints carefully.

Secretary Xu helplessly replied: “Manager Feng, it is not that I do not want to serve you tea. Director Hou and the rest are looking at the documents, and I do not want those documents to get wet.”

“What should I say about all of you. Get someone to photocopy those documents for each of them. Look at your Chief Engineer Wang. He is drooling, and if the blueprints get smudged, I will not get a replacement for you.”

Chief Engineer Wang wiped his mouth, but there were no drools. This Feng Yu was talking nonsense. But he was someone with a mild temper. He only rolled his eyes at Feng Yu and shouted to Secretary Xu: “Xiao Xu, get someone to make a few copies of the blueprints and make sure no one peeps at the documents. These documents are confidential. If someone peeps, get the security to arrest them.”

Feng Yu was looking around the room, and he noticed Chief Engineer Wang staring at him. Damn, I had helped your factory get these blueprints and are you going to arrest me?

“Manager Feng, other than the few of us, have you shown other people these blueprints?” Deputy Chief Engineer Li asked.

Feng Yu bowed his head in thoughts, suddenly he raised his head and said: “Ah!!! I remember. Other than the few of you, Secretary Xu had seen the documents!:

Secretary Xu, who was stacking the blueprints, jumped up. He gave Feng Yu an angry look and continue stacking the plans. He piled the blueprints in order and kept it in his briefcase. He will photocopy the plans personally. No other people can touch these blueprints. There were only less than 10 people in the Aviation Factory who can touch these blueprints!

“How is it? Director Hou, these are the blueprints for Ilyshin series aircraft engines. Later, the blueprints for Antonov series aircraft engines and the sample engines will be sent over together with the next batch of aircraft. You must be glad that you had worked with me, right?” Feng Yu asked proudly.

Hou Haitao and the rest of the engineers’ hands were trembling. They were too excited. The Aviation Factory only have the technologies for small aircraft, and they were also researching on automobile engines. With these blueprints, The Aviation Factory will be China’s top aircraft manufacturer!

They had already informed their higher-ups about this. They wanted to get credits for these. After they had studied the technologies and can build these engines, Hou Haitao and the whole Aviation Factory will be in the limelight!

“They can’t send over the aircraft engineer over first?” Chief Engineer Wang asked disappointedly.

“Chief Engineer Wan, I am giving these to you free. Stop being picky. I had also discussed with Director Hou. If I am able to get the technologies of other aircraft models, I will sell them to Aviation Factory at a low rate or use it to exchange for some other technologies.”

“Exchange technologies? What technologies do you want to exchange?” Chief Engineer Wang was on alert. The core technologies in Bing City Aviation Factory, needed the approval of Director Hou and him before anyone can access them.

“Chief Engineer Wang, you are saying as if I am taking advantage of the Aviation Factory. All this while, it is the Aviation Factory taking advantage of me. But I could tell that all of you wants to contribute to the nation so I will not be so calculative.” Feng Yu said. “Recently, I am thinking of researching automobiles. All of you should know that now there are competitors for my motorcycles. I am thinking of extending the product range of the Machinery Company.”

“You want to manufacture automobiles? Automobiles are not as simple as motorcycles. Don’t think that your Machinery Company can manufacture tractors, you can manufacture automobiles.” Hou Haitao looked at Feng Yu.

“That’s why I want to exchange your automobile technologies. Didn’t your factory start researching on this two years ago? But the minivans your factory produces is not good. You all only focus on being fuel efficient, but it was not comfortable to drive.” Feng Yu was targeting their technologies, but he was also picking faults with them.

“You want to manufacture automobiles? Will the city allow?”

“The City will surely allow. I am building a new factory, and I will provide employment and taxes in the future. You think the City is going to reject me? With the profits of the Machinery Company, the City knows that I am able to pay the workers salaries and they will not create trouble for the government.”

Feng Yu knew that there was a state-owned enterprise, First Automobile Works, in Lin Province. First Automobile Works had given the province lots of income from their trucks and cars. Recently, First Automobile Works wanted to set up a branch factory in Bing city to manufacture some parts. The Lin Province’s Machinery company was also bought over by First Automobile Works.

Feng Yu felt that First Automobile Works development was poor. They had lacked foresight. Feng Yu was confident that the cars produced by his Machinery Company would be more suitable for the consumers.

Furthermore, Audi also started with joint collaboration of a bicycle factory, a motorcycle factory, and a small automobile manufacturer. Audi was so successful in the future. Why Audi could succeed but not the Machinery Company? Even if it was throwing money, Feng Yu also wanted to build a top automobile brand in China.

The future automobile market in China is enormous, and almost every major automobile brands wanted a piece of the market. Toyota and Volkswagon had occupied most of China’s market share, and because of this, they overtook General Motors as the world’s top and second automobile companies.

“Director Hou, Chief Engineer Wang, and other leaders. Please take time to consider. Aircraft technologies and automobile technologies, which is more important? If you do not agree, it’s fine. At most, I do not manufacture automobiles.”

“Manager Feng, don’t be anxious. Let us consider,. We can always discuss this slowly.” Deputy Chief Engineer Li said.

“That’s it for today. I still have something on. I hope you can give me a definite answer the next time I come.” Feng Yu stood up and left. He knew that the Aviation Factory will be tempted by his offer!

Chapter 279 – Technologies exchange (Part 2)

As the political situation in the Soviet Union worsens, Kirilenko had more chances. Now, it was only half the price of the previous year for a motorcycle production line. It was easier to get technologies too.

If it was last year, it was impossible to get the technologies for aircraft. Now, it was not a problem for Kirilenko.

There were many technologies which Feng Yu had no use, and it was not worth selling as the selling prices were not high.

So, Feng Yu intent to use these technologies to exchange for the technologies he needed and the rest will be given away in exchange for favors. Many times, favors were worth much more than money.

March. The first batch of Modified Ilyshin 76 planes arrived at Bing City Airport, and all the 5 airline companies got 1 plane each.

Together with the aircraft, there were two aircraft engines of two different models. They were taken away by Bing City Aviation Factory. There were placed separately in two different workshops. Other than a few designated engineers, no one could get near the engines.

Once again, Feng Yu came to Hou Haitao’s office. This time, he arrived empty-handed.

“Manager Feng, where is the information for the Antonov aircraft technologies?” Hou Haitao asked anxiously.

“Director Hou, why are you so anxious? Has your factory finished researching on the Ilyshin engine? You cannot be too greedy. You must do things step by step. I had already promised you. When did I go back on my words?” Feng Yu said slowly.

“Then why are you here?”

Feng Yu was pissed. Are you saying that I cannot come here if I don’t have anything for you?

“Director Hou, although I did not bring the technologies for the aircraft engine with me, I am able to get the blueprints for Mil Helicopters and some related technologies. The technologies include the Double rotors and Coaxial rotors. Although these technologies are not the most advanced, I think it will be useful for your factory. However, it seems that I am not welcome here and I will let my Soviet friend know that I do not want these technologies.” Feng Yu stood up and was prepared to leave.

“Eh, Manager Feng, don’t be like this. Xiao Xu, what are you doing? Where is the tea for Manager Feng? Go and get the tea leaves from that metal container. Brew a cup of tea with those tea leaves.”

Hou Haitao held Feng Yu back. He did not expect Feng Yu to be able to get the Mil Helicopters technologies and blueprint. These were technologies for one of the best helicopters in the world. Currently, the world’s largest helicopter is the Mil-26, and the technologies used in this helicopter is very advanced.

Hou Haitao was still feeling vexed these few days. His higher-ups had ordered him to give a copy of the aircraft technologies to Shen City’s Aviation Factory, saying that factory was also researching aircraft engines and could use the Soviet Union technologies as a reference.

Hou Haitao was furious. He had worked so hard for these technologies, but Shen City Aviation Factory could also get a copy of it.

His higher-ups knew that he could get the technologies for other models of aircraft and he even got the latest aircraft engine sample. Now, he was regretting to try to claim credit so early. All his efforts benefited others.

Today, Feng Yu came over and told him that he could get the Mil Helicopters technologies, and this made him very happy.

This time, he will not report to his superiors. He will only report after his factory had finished learning the technologies and produce the helicopters. It will also be a great achievement.

Although aircraft engines’ technologies might be more valuable, in Bing City Aviation Factory, helicopters’ technologies were the most important.

“Hmmm…… This tea taste so good. How come I had never drink before?” Feng Yu turned to Hou Haitao.

Hou Haitao gritted his teeth and said: “If Manager Feng does not mind that the box had only half remaining, you can bring it back.” These tea leaves were given to him by a high ranking military leader. He does not even bear to drink it himself.

“Hahaha, how can I do this……. Secretary Xu, bring those tea leaves here. Later I will bring the tea leaves along with me when I leave. Don’t even think of changing the leaves in the box. I remembered the smell of those leaves.”

“Cough…… Manager Feng, how are you going to sell those helicopters technologies?’ Hou Haitao anxiously asked. He was not concerned with those tea leaves.

“Sell? I am not selling! I only want to exchange. Exchange for all of your factory’s automobile technologies. Especially the turbocharged engine technologies. I know your factory have completed the research for this.”

“All the technologies? This……”

“Why? You think Mil helicopter technologies is not worth all your automobile technologies? Director Hou, if you hesitate any longer, I will not exchange with you. Anyway, I will be buying the Volga automobile production line, and it comes along with their technologies. I have also hired a number of their engineers. Worst come to worst, I will spend more money and get them to research for me.” Feng Yu said slowly.

“When will they be able to finish researching the engine? It is not an easy task.” Hou Haitao sneered.

“I can wait.” Feng Yu crossed his arms. Let’s see who was more anxious.

“Manager Feng, I remember you mentioned that you can get the technologies of other models of aircraft. Those are useless to you. Why not exchange those with me too?” Hou Haitao said.

“you are wrong. It is not I can get those technologies. The technologies are already with me. Do you want the Antonov aircraft building techniques?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes. Why not?” Hou Haitao was overjoyed. This was one more technology.

“fine. Then use your humidifiers and bladeless fans shares to exchange for it.” Feng Yu said and smiled.

“Manager Feng, are you joking with me?” Hou Haitao was shocked. Those dividends from those shares was a lot every year.

“What do you think? This is contributing to the nation. You can’t even bear to let go of those shares?” Feng Yu purposely said.

Hou Haitao was cursing in his heart. You do not need that money, but the Aviation Factory needed it.

Hou Haitao thought for a while and said: “Manager Feng, can you get the Mikoyan MiG fighter jets technologies?”

Feng Yu replied with a dark face: “No!”

Damn. Mikoyan MiG fighter jets were the Soviet Union’s top fighter jets, and it was one of the best fighter jets in the world. Kirilenko was not powerful enough to get those.

“Manager Feng, I do need the most advanced technologies. I will be happy with the technologies of the old models, which the Soviet Union sold to other countries. For instances, the engine technology. You must help me. With this technology, our country’s aviation technology will be more advanced.”

China had bought the old models of Mikoyan MiG jets and had disassembled it before. Later, China’s own fighter jets were imitated from the Mikoyan MiG jets. But China’s fighter jet could barely break the sound barrier. With these technologies, China’s R&D will save a lot of time.

“I can’t promise you anything but…… I can try!”

Chapter 280 – I want to manufacture automobiles

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu in shocked: “You want to manufacture automobiles? Xiao Yu, cars are not as simple as motorcycles.”

“I don’t think it is too complex either. Isn’t it just an engine with 4 wheels?” Feng Yu casually said.

Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head. If it were so simple, there would be cars all over China.

“Xiao Yu, we are just next to Shen Province, and First Automobile Works is just located there. First Automobile Works is China’s biggest automobile manufacturer. You want to build an automobile factory in Bing City. Are you trying to compete with First Automobile Works?” Zhang Ruiqiang reminded Feng Yu. Feng Yu should know about this.

“What’s wrong with competing with them? My technologies are better, the exterior will be more beautiful, the interior will be more comfortable, and my cars will be cheaper. Why can’t I compete with them?” Feng Yu was confident that he would be able to build a national automobile brand which will not be an imitation.

“Your technologies are better? Your cars will be more beautiful and comfortable? Your cars will be cheaper? Where did you get your confidence?” Zhang Ruiqiang was at a loss for words. Talk is cheap. You must be able to manufacture the cars first.

“I had bought Volga’s production lines and technologies. I had also get someone to design the exterior and interior of the cars. I guaranteed that my cars will be top rated. As for the prices, it will be affordable, and the performance will also be good.”

“You really want to manufacture automobiles?”

“Yes. That’s why I need the support of the City Government. Give me a plot of land. I want to build a factory.”

“You must consider carefully. The investment for an automobile factory is a big sum of money.” Zhang Ruiqiang tried to persuade Feng Yu again. There were not many people who could afford cars in China. This was different from motorcycles. The investment was high, and there might not even have 10,000 vehicles sold in a year. There was a high possibility for Feng Yu to make losses.

Of course, Zhang Ruiqiang tried to stop Feng Yu also because this factory will be built under the Machinery Company.

If the City approved, then the City Government got to inject more funds into the Machinery Company to prevent their shares from diluting further. The amount to be injected into the Machinery Company will not be a small amount.

Now the Machinery Company cannot stop Feng Yu. After all, it will be the shareholders that will decide. But the City government can still stop this project by not giving the approval.

Zhang Ruiqiang was also suspecting if Feng Yu really wanted to manufacture automobiles or he just wanted to use this as an excuse to dilute the City’s Machinery Company shares. After all, the Machinery Company was making lots of profits from their agriculture machinery and motorcycles. Last year, there were 140,000 motorcycles sold.

At first, everybody thought that the motorcycle market was small and there were too many competitors. Feng Yu’s motorcycles were expensive also. Even if 100,000 units were sold, it would be considered an achievement. However, 140,000 units were sold, and Songjiang Motorcycle brand was number 3 last year in China. This figure will increase further this year.

It seems that Feng Yu had walked on the right path, but automobiles were different. Wealthy people prefer imported cars as the quality were better. Those that were not so rich would not buy cars. Motorcycles suit them better. Even the second-hand automobile market, imported cars were selling much better than domestic brands.

Bing city’s location was not ideal too. It was just beside china largest automobile manufacturer, First Automobile Works.

“Mayor Zhang, why not you tell the city that I guaranteed that within 3 years, the annual sales will exceed 50,000 units. How much taxes do you think the City will get from me? Furthermore, I heard that the City had planned to invest a lot in education this year, but there was the insufficient budget. I can donate 3 new school buildings.”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes shined. This was good news. A school building will cost at least over 100,000 RMB. If it was a better building, it could cost over 1 million. The City can do more upgrading of the old schools with their existing budget.

“Fine. I will discuss with the leaders. I will give you an answer in 2 days time.”

……

Two days later, Feng Yu came to Zhang Ruiqiang’s office, but when he saw the smile on Zhang Ruiqiang’s face, he knows that he will be dealing with a cunning fox.

Feng Yu immediately knows that the City had agreed, but they must be thinking of getting more money from him!

Damn. Taking advantage of me? If I am going to other areas to build this factory, the officials there will be treating me like a god!

“Mayor Zhang, from your expression, the City has agreed?”

“Yes. You can consider it that way, but there are some conditions.”

“Sigh…… What are the conditions? I will see if I am able to accept it.” Feng Yu sighed.

“First, you must build 10 school buildings within 3 years for the city, and the school buildings must be like the school buildings built by your father in your districts.”

Damn. 10 buildings? That will cost over 10 million RMB. Feng Yu was able to accept it. He was also using education to boost his reputations.

In the future years, many undergrads felt proud for having attended class in school buildings donated by Sir Shaw. If Sir Shaw set up a company in China, there will be many talents queuing up to join that company, even if the wages were lower than average.

“Including the Universities?”

“Universities? No. Mainly the high schools.” China provides the fundings for their universities, and the City does not need to care about it.

Feng Yu felt regretful. If it were the universities, it would be the best. But high schools are not bad either. But Feng Yu wants to include a condition as well.

“Fine, but the school building must be named by me.”

“you want to name it as Wind and Rain building? It does not sound auspicious.”

Feng Yu was speechless. Your name is not auspicious. Your whole damn family is not auspicious!

“Calling it Tai Hua building should be not a problem?”

Zhang Ruiqiang rolled his eyes. You think I don’t know Tai Hua are from your parents’ names?

“Fine. I can agree with this. So, you agree to the first condition. Let’s talk about the next condition. The Machinery Company cannot move away from Bing City, and no matter how diluted the shares are, the City must get at least 10% of the shares!”

“I can agree to not move the Machinery Company away from bing City. But at least leave 10% share for the City, will depends on whether the City would be able to inject your proportions of funds. If the city is able to inject the funds, the shares will not be diluted.” Stay in Bing City? This was not a problem. Feng Yu could always set up a shareholding company and transfer the Machinery Company’s shares to that company, and he will still be able to manage the Machinery Company from there. The city was only worried about the taxes. He could always pay the taxes from other places.

“Fine. Then I will say the third condition.” Zhang Ruiqiang also knows that Feng Yu would never agree to let the City hold on to 10% shares without them injecting funds into the company.

“Wait, Mayor Zhang, how many conditions do you have? A hundred?” Feng Yu was not happy. There were too many conditions.

Zhang Ruiqiang smiled: “This is the last condition. You must hire Bing City’s residents first for your workers!”

“This is also not a problem. This is the last condition? Then it’s settled then!” Feng Yu quickly stop Zhang Ruiqiang before he keeps adding on more conditions.

“Those were the only conditions set by the City. Here is the City’s map. Pick the location you wanted for your factory, and we can discuss the land usage fees.”

Damn. I knew it was not so simple. The City wants to use the land as a replacement for their proportion of funds!

Feng Yu could agree to all those conditions was because he wanted his automobile project to start as soon as possible.

Chapter 281 – Going through the Back Door

Feng Yu picked a land parcel. In the future, the city will build an industrial area there, and the current traffic conditions was not a problem too.

When Zhang Ruiqiang told Feng Yu about the fees for the land, Feng Yu wanted to spit at him. This was a useless piece of land, and you want to charge me as if it was a prime location?

Actually, the city wanted only half of what Zhang Ruiqiang told Feng Yu. But the City leaders do not understand Feng Yu as well as Zhang Ruiqiang. Zhang Ruiqiang could tell that Feng Yu was in a hurry to start this automobile factory and he wanted to get more benefits for the City.

Feng Yu had just sold some aircraft and made quite a hefty profit. This amount should not be a problem for him.

In the end, Feng Yu gave in. The city will use this plot of land as funds to inject into the Machinery Company. Feng Yu would use the technologies, production lines and a sum of money. Fu Guangzheng also injected his share of funds into the company. But the City’s shares had dropped to 28%. Feng Yu and Feng Xingtai’s shares increased to 56%.

Zhang Ruiqiang drank a large cup of tea. He finally completed the task given to him by the City and the city still had 3% shares more than they expected. They had expected their shares to drop to 25%.

After drinking his tea, Zhang Ruiqiang noticed Feng Yu was staring at him: “ Why are you still here? You still want me to treat you lunch?”

If it were other investors, Zhang Ruiqiang would offer to have a meal together after their business deals. But not for Feng Yu!

“Mayor Zhang, we have finished our official matters. I suddenly remembered some personal matters.”

“Personal matters? Zhang Ruiqiang warily looked at Feng Yu: “What personal matters do you have to discuss with me?”

This brat must be thinking of using me again? What does he want to sell this time? No way. Absolutely no way!

“Mayor Zhang, other than business, we are considered friends. I also had helped you with the City’s tobacco factory. I heard that the Exclusive Cigarettes were sold out once it went on the shelves. All these are because of me.”

“You still dare to talk about this? Everyone in the city is talking about this. They are saying that those exclusive cigarettes are produced for us and the number of cigarettes we smoke in a year, was worth a building! You and your stupid idea!” Zhang Ruiqiang was furious.

This Bing City Exclusive Cigarettes were selling better than expected. However, it had a negative influence. The reputation of the City Government was gone.

“Sigh…… Mayor Zang, the more you try to stop people from talking about it, the more these rumors will spread. Why not all of you just start to smoke this type of cigarettes and stop buying Hongshan brand of cigarettes. This will also be supporting the local products.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was too inexperienced. He wants to stop people from talking about this, but the more he tried to prevent people from spreading these rumors, the faster the rumors will spread. Even if he really smoke these cigarettes, what can those people do?

Furthermore, it was for the local factory and what’s most important was the leaders knew why you are doing this.

Zhang Ruiqiang opened his drawers and took out a packet of Exclusive Cigarettes: “You think we did not do what you had just said? But those people were spreading rumors that the cigarettes we smoked are better and different from the ones sold by the factory. The cigarettes we smoked were better and more expensive!”

Feng Yu wanted to laugh. It was funny to see Zhang Ruiqiang gets the blame. This was nothing like the future leader of Bing City he had seen in the future.

Feng Yu held back his urge to laugh and said: “Actually, our Bing City’s Baijiu factory, Beer factory, and other factories can also use this method. Make some exclusive goods. Let those people go and guess who those goods were exclusively produced for. The factories make money, that means the City makes money. These are all for the people, and I think the leaders should be prepared to make some sacrifices!”

“Stop giving me stupid ideas, don’t you have any normal methods?”

“I have. Advertisements. Is the city willing to pay for the advertising fees? I can make an advertising pan for you free of charge.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was speechless. The city cannot afford to advertise on CCTV like Feng Yu. It was too expensive. If all the factories advertised on CCTV, they would not even earn back the advertising fees even when their sales improved.

Feng Yu leaned forward and smile: “Mayor Zhang, actually I still have an idea to change people’s perception of the City government.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was looking forward to Feng Yu’s idea: “What’s your solution?”

“Hmmm…… Mayor Zhang, my cousin, will be graduating from the university this year and there are some problems with the job he will be assigned to.”

“He will be assigned to where he was registered, The local government will make the proper arrangements. He is a university graduate, what’s there to worry about?” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

“He is thinking of working in Bing City Government.: Feng Yu said.

“You want him to enter the government through the back door?”

“If you want to think this way, so be it.” Feng Yu shamelessly admitted.

“My nephew is working in a production line of the Beer factory, and my other nephew is working at a textile factory……”

“That’s different. Those are your relatives. If you give them good positions, people will start talking behind your back. My cousin is different. He is a graduate of a reputable university, and he just wants a normal job with Bing City’s Government. He does not need to be a high ranking official.”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu: “He had just graduated and still want to be an official? You think it is easy to be an official? You tell me how to change people’s perception of the City first.”

He agrees? Feng Yu was overjoyed, and he quickly said: “Actually, you can report it in the news that this Bing City Exclusive cigarette is a brand of cigarettes targetting Bing City. These cigarettes are exclusively for Bing City. Doesn’t it solves all your problems?”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu was telling him to lower his status and deceive the residents. This might be a good idea but he was the Deputy Mayor, and he would lose face if he does that.

What nonsense!

“This is your solution?”

“It will definitely solve your problems!”

“Impossible!” Zhang Ruiqiang rejected this idea. Even if he agrees, the other leaders will not accept.

“There is another solution. You can advertise in the newspapers about the Beer Factory introducing a new type of Bing City’s Exclusive Beer. At the same time, you can increase the government image.”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes grew wider. This method can stop the rumors and also increases Bing City Government’s image. The Beer Factory sales will also increase.

This method can consider. During the meeting, the leaders can discuss this. This method should be approved.

“Later you pass me your relative’s particulars. But he will only be an ordinary clerk. Nothing more than that.” The City government will also be recruiting more staffs this year. University graduates were the ones they wanted.

“There’s no need for later. I have all his particulars with me now. I will leave these with you. Thanks for your help.”

Zhang Ruiqiang: “……”

Didn’t you suddenly think of this personal matter? Why do you have his particulars with you? You had planned this from the start. I am fooled by you again!

Chapter 282 – Building cars behind closed doors

“Manager Zhao, Manager Mei is back.”

“Oh? How was the negotiation? Bing city Government should agree to our conditions, right?” Manager Zhao asked while enjoying his tea.

“Errrr…. Manager Zhao, Manager Mei does not look right. I think he might have encountered some problems with the negotiation.”

“What? What problems? Where is Mei Fangwu? Ask him to come in now!”

First Automobile Works, China’s largest Automobile manufacturer. They did not even succeed to takeover 2 small factories in Bing City?

Impossible. The conditions they offered to Bing City were quite attractive, and those 2 factories were close to shutting down. Bing City wanted more money? Bing City Government should not be taking such risks.

“Manager Zhao. I had let you down. I had let First Automobile Works down. The negotiations failed.” Mei Fangwu sighed and said.

“Failed? Why? The price is not right? Didn’t I tell you to be more flexible?” Manager Zhao was furious. Even if the negotiations failed, you should not be returning so soon. You should stay there and try again.

“Manager Zhao, we have no more chances. Bing City will start their own automobile project!”

“What? Bing City is going to manufacture their own automobiles? Are they crazy?!” Manager Zhao was shocked. Bing City was located so near to Ji City and are they trying to compete with First Automobile Works?

Where did they get the confidence to compete with First Automobile Works? This will be competing with China’s largest automobile manufacturer.

“Manager Zhao, you know about Bing City’s Machinery Company? The one that sells motorcycles? That is the company that will be starting an automobile project. I heard that they had bought production lines and technologies from the Soviet Union. They are clearing a piece of land to build the factory.”

“A motorcycle company trying to build cars? Humph! Even with the Soviet Union technologies, what cars can they produce? Cars are more complex than motorcycles. Furthermore, did they analyze the automobile market? They are setting up an automobile factory on impulse. Then we shall stop all negotiations with Bing City and wait until their automobile factory shut down. They will come begging us to take over that factory!” Manager Zhao banged the desk, spilling some tea. A proposal <Building an Automotive empire> was wet by the tea.

……

“Everybody, be quiet. Let me say something. Some people laughed at us when they knew we will be manufacturing cars. There are also people who said that we had bought outdated automobile technologies and we can only build cars behind closed doors. Even if we can produce cars, no one will want to buy. But I am telling all of you to ignore all these voices. All of you do not need to worry. We have hired the best designers and engineers. We also have sufficient funds. Our Songjiang Cars will be the most popular car in China!”

Li Mingde was on the stage talking to the workers of the Machinery Company. He was trying to persuade the workers to voluntarily transfer to the new automobile factory.

This new factory was located in the western part of Bing City, and it was very rural/ Although they will be getting the same salary, the workers were not willing to go there. They had heard that the Machinery Company and the motorcycle factory employees will be getting a raise soon. Even if they will be getting the same salaries now, what about the future?

They were worried that if the automobile factory fails, they would not be getting their current position when they were transferred back. Every workshop had different pay scales and bonuses. The motorcycles and farming machinery sales were the highest in China. Also, how can their cars compete with First Automobile Works?

Li Mingde was embarrassed when one no said anything. He turned and looked at some workers he had spoken to before. Immediately that person stepped forward and shouted: “Manager Li, I am willing to go to the automobile factory.”

“Manager Li, I am also willing to go to the new factory. I believe that with your leadership, we can definitely win First Automobile Works!”

“I am willing to go too. This is for the country. We must get back the automobile market share from those Japanese. We will work hard and manufacture our own cars!”

……

Feng Yu was watching from the side. These people were getting out of hand. They started talking about patriotism and other nonsenses. But it seems that this was more effective than the speech from Li Mingde. Some workers were willing to go to the new factory.

However, the number of workers were not enough. Now, China’s economy was still not doing well. Many state-owned enterprises were undergoing restructuring, and there were many cities with many unemployed workers. Bing City was different. In Bing City, there were lots of jobs available but not enough workers!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Bing city workers at the Aviation Factory, motor Factory, Machinery Company and other state-owned enterprises were working for 1 day and resting for 2 days.

Now, it was different. All the factories were operating at full capacity. Many of the products from the light industries were exported to the Soviet Union by Feng Yu. In the past, workers from the bigger factories will have to retire before their children could take over that opening. Now, their children do not need to wait. They were employed straight away. Even those retired workers were re-employed by the factories to cope with the increasing demand.

Zhang Ruiqiang had wanted Feng Yu to hire Bing City residents first. But now, the problem was there was no one from Bing City willing to take up the offer. The ones who were willing to take up the jobs were either the genuine retirees, and they would not be able to cope with the tough workload or those without any experiences.

Now, most of the factories were mostly half automated, and those without experiences were different from the ones who grew up in the factories hostels. The factories were their playground, and even if they met some work-related issues, they could go home and ask their parents.

These outsiders were different. Their mentors might not be willing to teach them everything and their parents would not be able to teach them. It was more difficult to train these people.

Seems like Feng Yu could only try to poach experienced workers from other state-owned factories. There were too few workers that want to be transferred to the new factory. Hmmm…… First Automobile Works seems to have a lot of early retired workers.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that First Automobile Works also had the same system. Once the workers were at a certain age, they will let their children take over their position. It was the same system as Bing City.

Some of those retired experienced workers were transferred to other factories, and some had come to Bing City to look for work. They might not be qualified for other jobs, and their salaries will not be high. But for the new automobile factory, they will be more than qualified.

Li Mingde was about to tell Feng Yu that there were not enough workers willing to be transferred on their own accord. He wants to discuss with Feng Yu if they should shift some of the workers by force. They cannot delay the operations of the new factory.

Feng Yu smiled and patted Li Mingde’s shoulders: “Manager Li, what do you think if we go somewhere near to the First Automobile Works’ factory to recruit workers?”

“Recruitment near First Automobile Works? Who are we recruiting?”

“Those workers who had retired early. As long as they were not forced to retire, we can employ them.”

Li Mingde’s eyes widen. This will be a slap to First Automobile Works. You will be competing with them for the automobile market, and now you want to hold recruitment talks at their doorsteps? Are you not afraid of them beating you up?

“Manager Feng, do we really need to do this?” Li Mingde swallowed his saliva and asked.

“Of course. Didn’t they say that we are building cars behind closed doors? Fine. Then we will use their workers to build cars. If they want, they can re-employed all those retired workers back. We will do this!”

Chapter 283 – The furious First Automobile Works (FAW)

“Manager Zhao, Manager Zhao, something bad is happening……”

“Something happened in the workshops?” Manager Zhao stood up. It would be bad if something happened at the workshop just after the Lunar New Year.

“No, the workshops are fine. All the productions are going on smoothly.”

Manager Zhao sat down again and took a sip from his teacup: “Why are you shouting when all the workshops are operating smoothly? What happened? Tell me.”

“Manager Zhao, please take a look at our factory’s entrance.”

“There’s someone who had come to our factory to create trouble?” Manager Zhao frowned. Who dares to create trouble outside FAW’s factory? He had settled all his workers’ salaries, and he had announced a pay increment starting in March. Who would still create trouble for him?

“No one is creating trouble. Someone is recruiting workers at our factory’s main gate!”

“What did you say? Recruiting?” Manager Zhao had an “unbelievable” expression on his face. Who would recruit workers from FAW? With the benefits, the factory gave the workers, who would want to leave? All this while, it was FAW hiring workers and never had it been others coming to FAW to hire workers!

When Manager Zhao walked to the main gate, he saw the security guards arguing with some strangers.

“What’s happening?”

“Manager Zhao, these people are too much. Look at their banner!” The security team leader Ye said.

Manager Zhao raised his head and look at the banners.

“Bing City’s Machinery Company is hiring experienced workers.”

“Workers who had retired early and below the age of 55 are welcome to apply.”

“Hired workers will be getting salaries higher than the workers in FAW.”

“Lodging will be provided for workers.”

“Benefits will be scaled to your experience and ranks.”

……

Manager Zhao’s hands were shaking from his anger. This Bing City Machinery Company again! What are they trying to do? Doing recruitment at my doorsteps? This is too much!

“Confiscate all their banners!” Manager Zhao roared.

“What are you all doing? This place is outside of FAW property, and you have no right to stop us. I will call the Police.” The Machinery Company’s new Deputy Factory Manager of the automobile factory, Ma Aiguo shouted at the security guards.

Call the Police? We are the ones who wanted to call the Police!

Security Team Leader Ye also knew that his security guards can only exercise their power within the property. Once outside the factories, only the local Police can stop them. However, no one dared to stop them in the past when they enforced their powers outside of their main gates. But today, someone had pointed this out, and he starts to hesitate. These people were not nobodies. They were from the higher management of a big company!

“Ye Linhua, what are you waiting for? I asked you to tear down their banners!” Manager Zhao shouted.

“Manager Zhao, don’t you think your FAW is too domineering? We cannot even recruit workers for Bing City’s Machinery Company?” Ma Aiguo stood in front of the banners.

“Recruiting workers? You still dare to call this recruiting? Your Bing City does not have enough workers? Why must you recruit workers in front of FAW? Are you trying to poach our workers? What are you thinking?!”

“It’s my freedom to recruit workers from anywhere I want. Why do you care? Furthermore, how can you say I am trying to poach your workers? Look at these banners. We did not mention about FAW.” Ma Aiguo retorted.

Before Ma Aiguo came, he was instructed by Feng Yu and Li Mingde. FAW must not be mentioned in the banners, but the FAW workers must understand the underlying meaning at first glance.””

He was instructed to blow things out of proportion, as the news will travel faster this way. But under no circumstances, they cannot use their fists. If the other party tries to use force, run away. Feng Yu will help them to take revenge!

He can recruit those early retired workers and the second generations of the workers. But he cannot hire the current FAW workers.

Ma Aiguo promised to complete this task. He will recruit at least 30 experienced workers, and the workers will be at least grade 4. He brought along over ten men with him and went to Ji City’s FAW main gate in two minivans.

Ma Aiguo purposely chose the time when the workers were changing shifts. Many of the workers were not staying at the factory’s dormitory. Once they left the factory, they saw the banners.

Ma Aiguo had used loud hailers to shout out Bing City’s Machinery Company’s requirements and benefits. Although he had attracted a few relatives and some workers who were not working that day, he also drew the attention of the security.

Ye Linhua thought that there was an accident outside the factory due to the crowd. If the accident involves FAW workers, then he must step in. He cannot allow FAW workers to be bullied by others.

When he got closer, he realized that it was Bing City’ Machinery Company doing recruitment. He was furious!

But he lost in an argument with Ma Aiguo and could not chase him away. Ma Aiguo was from the Machinery Company’s promotion department, and his specialty was in doing promotions. He was eloquent, and Ye Linhua only knew how to scold and beat people up. How could he win Ma Aiguo in an argument?

Ye Linhua saw Manager Zhao, and he was instructed to tear down the banners, but he dare not to do it as it would be an abuse of his authority. If the other party were an ordinary civilian, he would surely do that. However, the other party was a Deputy Manager. He might get into trouble.

Manager Zhao pointed at Ma Aiguo: “You are recruiting retired workers, and you are standing outside FAW main entrance. What else do you have to say?”

Ma Aiguo slowly said: “Manager Zhao is not familiar with the law? I did not write that on the banner. These are what you assumed. Of course, if your retired workers want to join my factory, I can’t help it too. You cannot blame me for that. Maybe Manager Zhao can go back to FAW and announce to all your workers that they cannot join Bing City’s Machinery Company. Even if they have to starve or die from poverty, they also cannot join.”

Ma Aiguo argued with Manager Zhao for a while, and Manager Zhao could no longer tolerate him. Manager Zhao turned to Ye Linhua and asked him to use his handgun. He will take responsibility if anything happens. Ma Aiguo immediately asks his men to keep all the banners and drove away.

Manager Zhao was unaware that during his argument with Ma Aiguo, someone had secretly distributed leaflets to some of his workers. Now, a lot of his workers knew about the Machinery Company’s recruitment.

The next day, on the desk of FAW workers’ Union Chief, were a large stack of early retirement applications. What was happening? Why so many people were applying for early retirement out of a sudden. This worker is 54 years’ old and the retirement age is 55. You can’t even wait for a year? There is a big difference in the pension of early retirement and normal retirement. This worker is only 34 years’ old. Do your family even have someone to take over your position?

The Union chief asked his secretary and found out what happened. These people wanted to get the pension for early retirement and then work at Bing City’s Machinery Company. The distance between both places is not far, and they can return home on their off days. Furthermore, the Machinery Company is offering a higher salary than FAW!

Manager Zhao was furious when the Union Chief and all the workshop directors went to look for him! This Bing City Machinery Company was too shameless!

“All applications for early retirement will not be approved! If any of the workers are unhappy about this, stop their salaries! Also, no one is allowed to talk about that stupid Bing City company in the factory compound. If anyone dares to spread any news about that company, stop his pay!”

Chapter 284 – Heavy Industrial Facilities’ Sales (Part 1)

Half a month later, Feng Yu saw the report from Ma Aiguo, and he was delighted with his performance. He managed to recruit over 50 experienced workers, and their skills level was high too. Among the new workers, there were 3 grade 6 workers. This was unexpected.

With the workers transferred from the Machinery Company and other early retire workers from other factories in Bing City, the new factory can start its operations.

If it wasn’t for Lin Province Ji City’s leader calling up Bing City mayor, there might be more workers from FAW and other factories there. When Zhang Ruiqiang knew about this incident, he was sure that this must be Feng Yu’s idea. No one else would recruit workers this way.

Zhang Ruiqiang called Li Mingde, and Li Mingde promised to stop poaching workers from the neighboring provinces’ factories. After all, he had hired enough workers.

The automobile factory had also started its construction, and it should be ready in August. This was not too fast, but Feng Yu could still accept it. He wants to put his new cars on the market before the end of the year.

The last batch of aircraft had arrived at Bing City’s airport in April, and all the airlines collected their planes and made payments.

The total value of this aircraft deal was over 1.5 billion RMB. Feng Yu’s profit was almost 500 million RMB. All parties were happy with this deal.

The airlines had saved a lot of money and got a batch of large passenger planes at low prices. The Aviation Factory was also satisfied with the engines and technologies. They had saved a lot on their R&D.

The two Soviet Union Aviation Factories were also happy. They had sold all their planes for a lot of daily necessities. These necessities had helped their workers and also the factory’s directors’ pockets.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko were the most satisfied parties. The both of them had earned the most, and they still take on the role of good guys.

But Kirilenko was feeling troubled as Feng Yu wanted to buy the Mikoyan MiG fighter jets technologies. The Soviet Union had sold the Mikoyan MiG jets in the past, but the core technologies were protected. Even if the plane was dismantled, there was no way to get the technologies. There were no ways to research the technologies.

Mikoyan MiG jets were the Soviet Union prized fighter jets. The technologies were well protected. Kirilenko did not want to promise Feng Yu. He dared not to touch these technologies. This was not the same as commercial planes. He was not at the level where he could get access to the Mikoyan MiG technologies.

But Feng Yu had told him that if he could get these technologies, the other technologies were not so important. Furthermore, Feng Yu had wanted those outdated technologies and not the most advanced ones. Even if it were the technologies of the Mikoyan MiG first generation jets, Feng Yu does not mind.

So, Kirilenko agrees. It was still possible for him to get those outdated technologies. He had already got some of the blueprints of the Mil Mi series helicopters.

Since the day Feng Yu had told him that the Soviet Union would be disintegrating and to be bolder to get more benefits for himself, Kirilenko really became bolder. He had asked Feng Yu on several occasions if he wants to buy firearms or cannons. They can deal secretly near the borders and smuggle the goods into China.

But Feng Yu rejected his offer. He had no use for those goods unless he wants to be an arms dealer. In China, if you dare to deal in firearms, you must be prepared to be “invited” for tea by the relevant authorities. But Feng Yu was still interested in the technologies. If Kirilenko could get the blueprints of those weapons, Feng Yu would still get them.

Technologies can be donated to the country through Bing city Aviation Factory, but it would not be a good idea to deal with firearms directly. If it was not for Kirilenko had taken advantage of the mining company’s shares, Feng Yu would not even want those firearms technologies.

Another reason why Kirilenko agreed was that his father was promoted to Lieutenant General recently. After his promotion, Senchenko was even more grateful to Feng Yu. Feng Yu also decided to accept only 49% shares of the mining company and was willing to pay a higher price.

Feng Yu did not go back on his words and really took out 2 billion USD. Senchenko remembered that Feng Yu did not have so much money when he was getting Kirilenko’s help to get loans in the Soviet Union. How come Feng Yu suddenly have so much money? This lets Senchenko believed that Feng Yu must be related to China’s top leaders.

To get more useful information in the future, Senchenko agreed to help Kirilenko to get some technologies for Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was not interested in those technologies at all. He had no use for those technologies, and all he can do was to donate those technologies to the government. He was more interested in the Soviet Union’s heavy industrial machinery and facilities, which Kirilenko promised him.

Not only the heavy industrial machinery and facilities can be sold, but Feng Yu can also keep some of those for his own use. To manufacture automobiles, the requirements for the materials were very high.

Also, after Feng Yu sold the ultra-high powered electric furnace to the Aviation Factory, a few large factories had approached him to order the same furnace and heavy industrial equipment.

Feng Yu had asked Wu Zhigang to accept their orders verbally. If he can get those facilities, he would surely sell it to them. After all, the profits of these goods were very high, and Feng Yu was not worried that he could not find any buyers.

There was a vast difference between China and the Soviet Union regarding heavy industries, and there were lots of profits for the machinery used in this industry. But don’t think that with the machinery Feng Yu imported from the Soviet Union, China could catch up with the Soviet Union. If the current culture were not changed, this equipment would be outdated in a few years.

For instances, the Machinery Company in the earlier days had got the advanced technologies from the Soviet Union, and they had never considered developing the technologies further. The leaders in the City only wanted to withdraw the profits, and if it weren’t for Feng Yu becoming the major shareholder, the Machinery Company would be outdated within 10 years. No one would buy their products.

Feng Yu could not control other factories, but he will not let this happen to the Machinery Company. The Machinery Company must be ahead of the rest, and his goal was to make the Machinery Company the best company in the world.

Although this would require massive investments, this was needed for the growth of the company. This way, their products will have the competitive edge in the market.

Recently, there were many visitors to Bing city. These people were from the purchasing departments of large factories. They had heard that there was some second hand Soviet Union machinery arriving in Bing city. They were there to see if any of those machines were needed for their factories.

……

“Our country’s leader, Jiang Daming, had accepted the invitation to visit the Soviet Union. He will be visiting the Soviet Union on the 6th of this month……”

Zhang Ruiqiang was watching the news, and his heart was racing. Feng Yu had predicted that China’s leader will be invited to visit the Soviet Union and it had come true. Even the timing was correct. That means the Soviet Union will disintegrate this year?

After the news, Zhang Ruiqiang went into his study room and took out a report he had prepared and started to make some minor amendments. Tomorrow, he will submit this report to the Provincial Government number 1, and then he will publish it in the People’s Daily newspaper!

Chapter 285 – Heavy Industrial Facilities’ Sales (Part 2)

“Zhang Ruiqiang, this is the important report you are talking about? Utter rubbish! You say that the Soviet Union will disintegrate, I can understand. The Soviet Union’s economy had collapsed now, and many people believed that the Soviet Union will disintegrate. But you even state the exact time of the disintegration? You are talking rubbish!”

The Provincial Government no. 1 was unhappy with Zhang Ruiqiang. He like’s Zhang Ruigiang’s devotion to his work and his capabilities. But he never expects Zhang Ruiqiang to be so eager to get credit.

The Provincial Government No.1 can understand Zhang Ruiqiang’s forecast of the disintegration of the Soviet Union but to even predict the timing of the disintegration? Was it even possible? Even the leaders in the Central Government could not analyze the approximate date with the intel they got. How could Zhang Ruiqiang forecast it?

“Leader, I am not trying to fool the public. I have my own source of information. Please go through my report. My analysis of the situation is written in the report.”

“Where is your information source from?” The Provincial Government No.1 was curious. Zhang Ruiqiang does not seem to be finding excuses for himself.

“Leader, I guessed you had heard of Tai Hua Trading. The private company that had bought a stake In the Machinery Company and had joint cooperation with the Motor Factory and the Aviation Factory to manufacture humidifiers and electric fans. That company had started doing trades with the Soviet Union. I had known the company’s General Manager Feng Yu for more than 2 years. His Soviet Union partner is the son of a high ranking military officer under Yeltsin!”

“Who? Yeltsin?”

“That’s right. Currently, in the Soviet Union, Yeltsin was the favorite candidate to replace Mikhail Gorbachev. Feng Yu had told me that the current Soviet Union’s economy had collapsed, and they will need our country’s support. That why our President Jiang was invited to visit the Soviet Union. But our country’s support would be the reason for the downfall of Mikhail Gorbachev. Leader, think about it. What would the Soviets think if their leader sought support from another country’s leader? They will think that their leader is a traitor!”

The Provincial Government No.1’s eyes’ widen, and he realized that Zhang Ruiqiang made senses. Mikhail Gorbachev wanted China’s support, and this meant that his support had dropped to the lowest point.

Even though the Soviet Union was a strong nation, but there was a high possibility of disintegration. If Zhang Ruiqiang had gotten insider information, then he might be able to predict the exact period of the disintegration!

“Leave your report with me. I will read it.”

……

Bing City’s railway station manager had been busy for the past few days. Every day, he had received calls asking for his favor, and he did not know how to reject them. All the calls were asking for the same thing. They wanted train carriages to transport large machinery.

He asked his men and found out that Tai Hua Trading had imported a batch of industrial facilities and this time, it was for the heavy industries. These machines were the machines not available in China. They were blocked by the Western nations.

Tai Hua Trading had been importing light industrial machinery, but this time, they managed to import machines used in heavy industries. This was unexpected. Heavy industries were crucial for the development of a strong country. These machines were seldom exported, and Tai Hua Trading managed to get these machines.

The train station manager also heard that these machines were models after 1985 and were considered advanced machinery in the world. The Soviet Union had never exported these machines to China before. How did Tai Hua Trading get these machines and the quantity was still a lot! The most unbelievable part was the prices of those machines were only about two-thirds of the market rates!

Now, in Bing city, there were rumors that Tai Hua Trading was a government department and it represents China. That’s why their machinery was so cheap. This was all for the nation’s growth.

But some people said that Tai Hua Trading was a private company. However, the boss of the company was capable and could get the rare goods from the Soviet Union. There were very few people who supported this rumor. China could not even get these machines and how can a private company get it?

There were some other rumors which were spread. Feng Yu did not know whether if he should cry or laugh when he heard the stories.

Feng Yu’s surname was Feng, and none of the top leaders in China had this surname. End up, Feng Yu was rumored to be the illegitimate child of one of the leaders!

These were all rumors, and Feng Yu can’t be bothered with them. It might be a good thing too. No one would dare to create trouble for his company.

Although Feng Yu had some connections now, it was still not enough. In this era, a word from the leaders, could shut down or make his company prosperous overnight.

Every day, Feng Yu would just visit his company and sign some contracts. He seldom goes to school nowadays.

Kirilenko was too efficient. The number of machinery he sends to Bing City was increasing, and Wu Zhigang even had to station himself at the Railway station. Feng Yu had no choice but to stay in his office and look after the company.

Two ultra-high power electric furnaces, which the Aviation Factory bought previously, were sold to two large state-owned enterprises.

Luckily there were other furnaces and related technologies. The other large companies were fighting over this machinery.

Two other state-owned enterprises wanted to pressurize Tai Hua Trading in lowering the prices further through the City Government. But the city Government refused to do that. The city even told Tai Hua Trading about this incident.

Feng Yu immediately blacklist those two companies. Tai Hua Trading will never work with those two companies again. Even if they had offered high prices, Tai Hua Trading will also not sell them anything. After that, Feng Yu donated some things to the City Government for Zhang Ruiqiang to claim credit.

Look, these are the benefits for having people in the government.

If Feng Yu had sold his machines at higher prices, that means more taxes for the City Government. This was the City leaders’ political achievements. If Tai Hua Trading were forced to sell their products at low prices, the Bing City Leaders would not agree.

Zhang Ruiqiang was someone who does not like officials making use of their authorities to gain benefits form themselves. He made a public announcement that the City Government will not interfere with a private company as long as the company does not do anything that would harm the City or Country!

Furthermore, Feng Yu had always placed the enterprises of Bing City first when it comes to selling those machines. This was followed by the companies from Longjiang Province and then it will be the companies from other regions. Even the leaders from the Provincial Government felt that Feng Yu had done the right thing. All the leaders supported Tai Hua Trading as this company had paid the highest taxes in the province.

Feng Yu actions had let Bing city’s heavy industries to grow at an astonishing speed. Even the whole Longjiang province’s heavy industries were affected. Bing City’s leaders had still ordered some more machines and facilities from Feng Yu. With these machines, Bing City’s industries will be the top in the whole of China!

Feng Yu leaned back on the sofa and hanged up the phone. He had an excited expression on his face. He got the Mikoyan MiG planes’ technologies!

Chapter 286 – Special Enlistment?

Kirilenko had gotten the MIG technologies for Feng Yu. These technologies were obsolete technologies in the Soviet Union, but to China, it will save years of research.

Feng Yu immediately send the technologies to Hou Haitao once he received the documents from Kirilenko. At the same time, reminded Hou Haitao to give him all the automobile related technologies owned by the Aviation Factory.

This time Hou Haitao did not say much and immediately let his men to prepare all the documents for Feng Yu. Hou Haitao had been waiting for these MIG technologies for a long time.

“Manager Feng, you are able to get your hands on these technologies. Can you also get the shipbuilding technologies from the Soviet Union too?” Hou Haitao looked at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu: “……”

These were aircraft related technologies, and it was in line with your Aviation Factory expertise. What has shipbuilding technologies had to do with your factory?

“No. I can’t get those!”

Feng Yu rejected Hou Haitao’s suggestions. Kirilenko made it very clear to him that his father’s influence was only in the Soviet Union’s army. To get the aircraft related technologies from the air force, his father had paid a hefty price for it. It was too hard for his father to get the technologies from their Navy.

Feng Yu could understand Kirilenko’s difficulties, but maybe Kirilenko still has his ways. The only problem was the price he had to pay in return for the technologies from the Soviet Union’s navy. These technologies were given to the Aviation Factory at no charges, and he can’t be paying for the technologies all the time.

Of course, if Feng Yu had the chance to get those technologies in the future, he would still get it. But he would not purposely ask Kirilenko to get it for him.

……

A few days later, Hou Haitao invited Feng Yu to the Aviation Factory again. Feng Yu was wondering why Hou Haitao was looking for him. He still wants the technologies from the Soviet Union’s navy?

Feng Yu saw a man wearing the military uniform when he enters Hou Haitao’s office. He looked at his rank and got a shock. That man was a General!!

Although Hou Haitao was also getting the benefits equivalent to a high-ranking officer, but compared to a real General, he was nothing. Who is this person? Could this person be the one who had asked him over?

“Manager Feng, come. I will introduce you. This is from General Shen, from Shenyang. General Shen, this is Manager Feng, Feng Yu.” Hou Haitao warmly introduced both parties.

Feng Yu and General Shen looked at each other but did not say a word. Feng Yu was wondering why this General was looking for him. Could this be an order from the top? Damn. I had contributed so much to this country, they should not be too much. If I get pissed, I will look for other solutions!

General Shen was looking at Feng Yu carefully. He had investigated Feng Yu. Feng Yu had no backgrounds. None of his relatives up to 3 generations before him were officials. This meant that this kid had built his career with his own capabilities!

General Shen thought about his son. His son cannot be compared to this kid!

“Manager Feng, how do you do?” General Shen stretched out his hand for a handshake.

Feng Yu was surprised. This General had no airs. He was not as arrogant as he had imagined.

“Nice to meet you, General Shen. Are you looking for me? If you are looking for the Soviet Union’s navy technologies, I’m sorry. I can’t help you. I am willing to contribute to the country, but I am still not ready to sacrifice my life for the nation.” Feng Yu said. He wanted to make things clear before General Shen asks him to get the technologies.

“Hahaha. Manager Feng is indeed interesting like what Director Hou told me. Don’t worry. As long as you abide by the law, our country will not force you. I am here today to meet you. I wanted to meet the person who had imported so many advanced technologies into China. I want to see what sort of person you are!”

General Shen’s reply surprised Feng Yu. Not forcing me? This can save a lot of problems. But today’s meeting should not be so simple.

“Is General Shen disappointed after meeting me?” Feng Yu joked.

“I am not disappointed, but I am amazed. You are so young, yet you had made so many contributions to the nation. I cannot be compared to you. I think no one else in China can be compared to you.”

This praise was a bit too much for Feng Yu to handle. However, Feng Yu was overjoyed. If only his parents were there to hear this General praising him.

“General Shen, you flattered me. How about this, today I will treat you. Let’s go to the newly opened Moscow restaurant in the eastern part of the city.”

“Cough……” Hou Haitao tries to remind Feng Yu of his existence in the room. This is the Aviation Factory. It should not be Feng Yu treating General Shen. What’s wrong with this General Shen too? Why was he not getting into the main subject? If he drags this conversation on, this cunning Feng Yu will not let them have the chance to ask him to do things.

“Manager Feng, actually General Shen came here for some matters. We can talk about dinner later.”

Feng Yu’s brows twitched. Still, dare to say you have no motives to meet me? If you have no motives, why did you come to Bing City all the way from Shenyang? Just to meet me? Bullshit!

General Shen took out a badge from his pocket and pinned it on Feng Yu’s chest.

Feng Yu was shocked. What’s the meaning of this? You are giving me an award? Am I a kid? I had brought so many good stuff for the country, and you are just awarding me with a badge?

“Congratulations, Feng Yu. From today onwards, you are an honorable soldier of the People’s army!”

Huh? I am a soldier now?

Damn! Soldiers are all volunteers. Since when do the military forces people to be soldiers?

“Wait, General Shen. What do you mean?” Feng Yu took off the badge and looked at General Shen.

“This is what it means. You are enlisted! Special enlistment. I guarantee that you will be at least a Major within 5 years!”

A Major is very big? Feng Yu was speechless. Didn’t you say that you will not force me to do anything? You might think that being a soldier is honorable, but this is not wartime. Now is an era of peace. Soldiers nowadays only train every day and do disasters relief work!

What Feng Yu wanted was to be a wealthy person who does nothing but enjoys life to his fullest. This was his ideal life.

“Wait, General Shen. What special enlistment? I did not agree to anything. You cannot fool me. I know the law. Now, it is not wartime, and you cannot force me to be enlisted. I reject your offer!”

“Manager Feng, this is a good opportunity for you, and you do not need to serve in the army.” Hou Haitao said.

“What do you mean?” Feng Yu was confused. If he does not need to serve in the army, then how is he a soldier?

“It is only in name. all you need to do is to contribute to the national defense.”

Feng Yu wanted to spit on Hou Haitao’s face. He knew that nothing was good when he was called to the Aviation Factory. Furthermore, Feng Yu was now a leader in his own company, and he manages a few thousand people. If he were to join the army, he had to listen to the orders from the top. Even idiots knew which to choose!

“I will contribute to the country when I have the opportunity. Now, I had already contributed more to the country than anyone else. Also, I am someone with a bad character, and I will disgrace the army. So, I think there is no need for me to be a soldier. You can give this opportunity to Director Hou’s son.”

“My son will be graduating from the University this year, and he does not need this opportunity.”

Damn. Your own son to does not even want to join the army, and you are still asking me to be a soldier? In his heart, Feng Yu had branded Hou Haitao as an evil person!

“I will be entering the University too. Beijing University. General Shen, Director Hou, I still have some matters in my company. I will make a move first. These few days, I will be traveling too. Please do not call me.”

Feng Yu left. He was prepared to fall out with Hou Haitao if he still talks to him about joining the military again!

Chapter 287 – Military to Civilian, Civilian to Military

General Shen and Hou Haitao looked at each other and sighed. Feng Yu really had no intentions to join the military.

Actually, General Shen was really here to meet Feng Yu along the way. The main reason why he was at Bing City was to speak to Hou Haitao. Hou Haitao was also looking forward to General Shen.

Bing City Aviation Factory was formerly a military factory, and it was manufacturing fighter jets. The Aviation Factory was considered one of China’s earlier military factories. But after the last reform, the Aviation Factory was converted to a civilian factory.

It was from then onwards, Bing City Aviation Factory started its automobile project. The Aviation Factory had thought that they would make some profits by incorporating their jet engines technologies into automobile engines.

But they were located too close to FAW, and the cars they produced were nothing special and the sales were not as good as they expected. Although they did not make any losses, they did not make any profits either.

The Aviation Factory then started to manufacture small aircraft and wanted to make profits from those. But the sales were not good.

If it wasn’t for the humidifiers, the Aviation Factory might even turn their helicopters into civilian use helicopters to make ends meet.

The main reason for Aviation Factory’s woes was lack of planning and ability to adapt to the market changes. They do not know how to produce products to meet the needs of the consumers. Even with superior technologies, if they do not know how to market their products, they would not make any profits.

But the Aviation Factory was considered not bad. Many military factories that were converted to civilian factories were bankrupted. Even if the factories were not bankrupt, they were a burden to the local government. There were many such instances in Feng Yu’s past life.

Feng Yu really despised the leaders of this era. They had the technologies and manufacturing capabilities of a military factory, but they do not know how to make use of those capabilities to make money.

Look at the US and the Soviet Union, these countries were exporting their weapons. They made money by selling their obsoleted weapons, and they could still keep their newest technologies and even cover their cost of developing those technologies.

China leaders insist on not selling weapons. They felt China was a peace-loving country and they should not be selling weapons. The countries surrounding China, like Malaysia, Japan, Korea, etc. were all talking about China’s threat to the region. You think by not selling weapons, those countries will not believe China is a threat to them?

Since China was considered a threat to those countries no matter what China does, why not just ignore them? Many of these leaders do not understand this.

Those countries will group together and try to stop China’s growth.

The reforms of those military factories to civilian factories were converting 2/3 of the factory to produce products for the civilians. But how many of these factories could survive? There were less than 10% of these factories that survived. These factories do not know how to make use of their military technologies on civilian products.

As such, there was a weird phenomenon in China. Whenever a popular product appears in China, there will be similar products from different brands. End up, all factories did not make any profits and suffer losses together!

Initially, the Aviation Factory’s conversion was not considered successful, but it did not make any losses. It was only from two years ago, the Aviation Factory made profits. That was because of the humidifiers, and later, the factory bought an ultra-high power electric furnace. With the furnace, the Aviation Factory made some technological breakthroughs and lower their helicopter’s cost of productions.

The leaders from the top start to notice the Aviation Factory again and felt that Hou Haitao was quite capable. Soon, Hou Haitao surprises them again by getting some Soviet Union’s aircraft engines technologies. These technologies were crucial to China.

But the Aviation Factory does not have sophisticated research facilities, and that’s why Shenyang Army gave an order to take the technologies and engines away.

However, Hou Haitao got new helicopter technologies after that. The Aviation factories were experts on helicopters and this time, the higher-ups had no reasons to take away those technologies.

To research on those technologies, the Aviation Factory requires lots of funds. They could only apply for an extra budget from the top.

Hou Haitao’s greatest wish was to let the Aviation Factory to be converted back to a military factory.

In the past, the City Government and even the Provincial Government could not do anything to the Aviation Factory. Now, even the City Government could interfere in the Aviation Factory’s acquisition of a plot of land. This thing that pisses Hou Haitao the most was the taxes imposed on the Aviation Factory. The Aviation Factory had to pay a lot of taxes to the City, and they did not enjoy the same subsidies as other state-own enterprises.

Now, Hou Haitao had the opportunity. Hou Haitao had gotten the MIG fighter jet technologies because of Feng Yu. The higher-ups knew the importance of these technologies and they were considering Hou Haitao’s request to convert Aviation Factory back to be a military factory.

General Shen had come to Bing City to talk to Hou Haitao. He represented the military and wanted to speak to Hou Haitao about converting the Aviation Factory into a 50% military, 50% civilian factory. This would be similar to Japan and the Western countries military factories.

Of course, the Aviation Factory will not need to pay any more taxes and still be able to enjoy the government subsidies for private factories. At the same time, Hou Haitao would be given the rank of a Major.

The higher-ups had already decided. Hou Haitao wanted to get more benefits and supports.

Hou Haitao remembered Feng Yu telling him that Japan’s Mitsubishi, Fuji, Nikon, etc. were all formerly military factories. Although these factories were all civilian factories now, they were still doing R&D for the military and using those R&D results for products for the civilian. The money earned from the products sold to the civilians could even fund their military research. Should a war break out, these factories could manufacture military products immediately!

Mitsubishi had manufactured tanks, Fuji had made aircraft, and Nikon had manufactured scopes for the military. But the trucks, cars, and cameras produced by these brands were very popular in the world and had earned a lot of money for these companies.

Combining both military and civilian factories together was a suggestion by Feng Yu. This was modeled after some successful companies in developed western countries. There were no factories in China currently that had used this model. Feng Yu had told Hou Haitao that if he succeeded, he would be China’s first Factory director that succeeded and would leave his name in history.

Feng Yu was only casually talking about this with Hou Haitao, but Hou Haitao kept it in mind. He treated this as his goal and had been working hard towards this goal.

Now, Hou Haitao had gotten this opportunity, and he does not want to give up. It was hard for the higher-ups to decide about this as this would be a first for China.

Military factories are military factories. Civilian factories are civilian factories. How can both be mixed together? Even if this type of factories exists overseas, it might not be suitable for China!

Hou Haitao even wanted both the benefits of military and civilian factories, and still wanted to manufacture products for civilians. This was not a small sum for the government.

Finally, the higher-ups decided to let Bing city Aviation Factory act as a test. If the Aviation Factory succeeded, it would help the rest of the converted military factories.

Feng Yu did not know about this. With just a casual remark, he had made significant changes to China’s factories. When Hou Haitao was talking to General Shen, Feng Yu was watching the news. The “Great One” was visiting the south!

Chapter 288 – The Great Bull Market

About two weeks ago, the stock market had fallen a bit, and Feng Yu had sent his men to buy in the shares. He used all his available funds to purchase the shares of the listed companies on the Shanghai stock exchange and Shenzhen stock exchange.

Feng Yu clearly remembered that in his past life, after the “Great One” visited the south and made a speech about the financial market, many people started buying shares. This lead to the market increasing by over 500% with a few days.

Feng Yu had analyzed before. With the government’s policies and the people’s ignorance of the financial market and the habits of following trends, China’s stock market will enter its first bull market.

Feng Yu did not use his funds in Hong Kong. He was still letting He Zhaoji use his funds to trade in London Gold. Feng Yu had thought of using those funds to buy these shares.

But it was troublesome to transfer funds from overseas to China in the current era. Even if Feng Yu had successfully transferred his funds into China, he would not be about to buy many shares. It will be even harder for him to move his funds out of China.

Feng Yu only repaid his Hong Kong’s banks loans and got back all the shares he mortgaged. Just with the money, he earned from those shares, he could do a lot of things in China.

Current China was still very backward, and the laws were not as well covered as the future years. Feng Yu does not want to attract unwanted attention from others.

If he were only slightly ahead of others, he would be considered a genius. If he were way ahead of others, he would be regarded as a freak!

……

“I want 10,000 RMB Vacuum Electronics’ shares. What? No more? Then I want the shares of Light Industry Textiles. Hurry up.”

“It’s my turn. What other shares are available? Fine. I will want that shares too. 8,000 RMB.”

“I want 10,000 RMB worth of shares. I want whatever shares you have!” Someone wearing a big gold ring shouted. After shouting, he looked at the people around him arrogantly.

The other customers were gasping in shock. They envied this person. This person must be one of those earlier businessmen who had made a fortune.

At the same time, this person also gave the others confidence about the stock market. Those earlier businessmen were the smarter ones and the ones who were capable. Since the businessmen were also buying shares, that means shares will surely make money. Everyone started to follow the trend and buy stocks.

The two stock exchanges had lots of transactions of people buying in shares. Some people sold their share and made some profits.

But those who had sold their shares early soon regretted. They thought that the share prices were already very high when they sold. It had risen by over 30%, and it was still growing.

Since it was still rising, these people started buying in the shares again. Tomorrow, the prices should go up again.

Not only the two stock exchanges were busy. Even the banks’ investment counters in all cities were busy. People were queuing up to buy shares.

The staff behind the counter had not stopped working since morning until the market closes.

After the trading ended, the staffs tabulated their day’s stock sales, and the volume was more than 10 times in the past days. Share prices kept increasing.

Shares were so profitable? Just today alone, the shares prices had risen by 50%. If they had invested 1,000 RMB, it would become 1,500 RMB. If the investment were 10,000 RMB, the returns would be 5,000 RMB. This was more than the staffs’ 2 to 3 years salaries!

Now, shares were selling like hotcakes, and many people could not even buy shares even when they had the money. But the bank staffs were the one processing the transactions and sales. Other people might not be able to get the shares, but this was not the case for the bank staffs. No one will know if they keep the shares sold by others for themselves.

Although they were not allowed to do this, they can let their family members buy those shares.

……

“Xiao Yu, have you seen today’s stock market? The shares had risen!” During dinner, Li Shiqiang excitedly said to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu slowly picked up a piece of braised ribs and put into his mouth: “I know. I had told you before that the shares will surely rise.”

“Then should we sell off the shares tomorrow?” Li Shiqiang asked.

Even Wen Dongjun was looking at Feng Yu. His family had also bought tens of thousands RMB worth of shares.

“Tomorrow? No. Wait. The earliest will be next week. This week, the shares will be rising the fastest, and it should slow down next week. Even though the shares will still rise, but it will not be increasing so fast. We can slowly sell off our shares to prevent any large fluctuations in the prices.”

“Then this week, how much can make the shares rise?” Wen Dongjun looked at Feng Yu.

“I had said this to you earlier. The shares should rise at least 3 to 5 times. I estimate that our shares will rise more than 5 times!”

“5 times!?” Wen Dongjun and Li Shiqiang looked at each other. They were ecstatic!

This investment was too good to be true. This was better than robbing the bank! They had thought their investments would yield 3 times profits and it would be considered a lot. But they never expect their returns to be 5 times.

The both of them still did not know that the 5 times Feng Yu said was this week’s increase. Their shares had increased almost double in value since the day they bought it. That means their shares’ value would increase by close to 10 times!

Feng Yu had set his target to be 8 times. Now, it seems that he would achieve his goal. He would be able to raise enough funds for his future plans.

After dinner, Wen Dongjun immediately calls home and tell his family that the shares had increased and next week he would sell off the shares. The tens of thousands RMB, his family, had invested would become more than 200,000 RMB!

Wen Deguang breathed heavily. Over 200,000 RMB! He had only invested so little, and he would be satisfied to just get back double his investments. This money was for his son. Now, it seems that the returns were much more than he had expected!

If his family had made so many profits, what about the Feng family? The Feng family had more money than him in the past and had invested more than him. That means the Feng family had made a few million?

Wen Deguang was not sure how much money Feng Yu had and how much was invested. He thought that a few million would be a massive amount.

Old Feng’s family have someone capable. Luckily, this Feng Yu was close friends with his son Wen Dongjun. He knew his son would go far with a friend like Feng Yu.

Even if his son could not be an official, he could help Feng Yu with his business. It should not be a problem for his son to make a fortune.

Wen Deguang took out a bottle of wine which he kept for years. He wanted to celebrate with Old Feng.

Chapter 289 – Jealousy

“Have you sold all the shares today? It’s time to return the money.” A young man in his 20s said while swirling a glass of red wine in his hand.

If it were 10 years later, this scene would be normal. But now, there were very few people in China who drinks red wine. This person was way ahead of everybody else.

“Master Lu, all the shares were sold. In less than 10 days, our money had increased by over 6 times!”

Master Lu smiled. Other people might not know that the shares will rise so fast, but he knew. His uncle was a high ranking official with the central government, and he was in charge of China’s financial market.

His uncle had no son. He only has a daughter, and Master Lu was the groomed by his uncle to be their family’s next head. Master Lu might be in his early 20s and had just graduated two years ago from the university, but he was already a deputy chief with the government. Next year, he would be promoted to Chief, and this was due to his background.

Master Lu was not like the generations before him. He likes to enjoy life. How can he live without money? These type of people dares to sell official documents, but Master Lu was not interested in doing this. He prefers to make use of the information he got from his uncle to make money.

This time, he invested in shares was also because of his uncle. He borrowed 1 million from others, and within 10 days, he got 6 million. This was better than selling official documents.

Furthermore, no one could say anything about him doing this. He used other people’s name to invest and the returns, he would use some other methods to transfer to him and his men.

“Hmmm, you have done well. Take 100,000 RMB for your mother to buy some tonics.” Master Lu said.

“Thank you, Master Lu.”

“Are you the one that attracted the most attention when you sell off the shares?” Master Lu smilingly asked. Selling millions of shares should be the center of attention.

Huh? Why was his expression like this? Could it be someone selling more shares than me?

“Master Lu, I had followed your orders and went to the Shanghai Stock Exchange to sell the shares. But today there were a few big players there. Their transactions were all over 5 million RMB. There were even some that traded over 10 million. From their accents, they seem to be from the Northeast.”

Master Lu had wanted to boost in front of his friends and let them know that he was the one that knew how to make the most money. But today, he was shadowed by others. Master Lu’s transactions were not even in the top 5. How can he still boost?

Northeast? Master Lu was lost in his thoughts. Who is from Northeast? He had never heard of anyone from the northeast that had the power to do so many transactions. The children of the leaders in the 3 provinces were all working with the government quietly, and they were all in their 30s. They were all working hard for their careers and would not jeopardize their career for money.

But if it was not them, who else can these big players be?

“Go and find out who is the one that traded such a high volume of shares. They are worth befriending.”

No matter who this person was, he must be capable for him to invest so much money. This person was worth knowing. Now it was the era of free economy, and if he was posted to the grounds, he could quickly get some investments in the region he oversaw. This was also considered a political achievement. Coupled with his family background, it would be effortless for him to be promoted.

But Master Lu never expected that the few people from the Northeast had no strong backings. They were all employees of Tai Hua Trading.

Feng Yu had asked Li Shiqiang to bring his men to sell off the shares at Shanghai Stock exchange. Feng Yu, on the other hand, lead another team to the Shenzhen Stock exchange to sell off the shares that were mortgaged to the Hong Kong’s banks.

Feng Yu had thought that these few million shares will not attract attention, but things had been going on too smoothly for him these few months. He had forgotten that the total shares in the Chinese market was not a lot. The total volume of shares traded in a day at Shanghai Stock exchange was only about 5 million in the past. Now, with the bull market, the total amount had increased to about 50 million. But Feng Yu’s transactions were in millions and even tens of millions. This was more than 10% of the total transactions. They kept selling their shares, and this had affected the market.

Luckily for Feng Yu, the people now were crazy over the stock market. Even when Feng Yu was selling off the shares at high volume, the shares prices did not fall. It was still increasing steadily.

Those workers of the state-owned enterprises, that were assigned with shares were all regretting. If they had known stocks were so profitable, they would have requested for more shares in the past. This was much better than their salaries.

Many of these workers also started to invest in shares. Anyway, most of them were sitting in the office and had nothing to do.

The funds from these people entered the stock market, and this caused the stock market to continue with the bull run. As such, Feng Yu’s selling of stocks did not suppress the share prices.

After selling a few hundred million shares, Feng Yu received a call from Li Shiqiang. Someone was trying to find out about Li Shiqiang and his men’s background.

This message alarmed Feng Yu. Although what he was doing was legal, but in the era, there were many government officials and their family members that were unreasonable. This was trouble.

Feng Yu immediately ask Li Shiqiang to leave Shanghai Stock exchange and sell the shares in other cities. Feng Yu also left Shenzhen Stock exchange for other cities to quickly sell off his shares.

Feng Yu had thought that he would not attract unwanted attention if he went to the stock exchanges. The transactions at the stock exchanges were bigger, but they had sold their shares too fast. If there were electronic transactions, it would be safer and more convenient. This was the golden era, but the development was still too slow.

Since now people were trying to find out their identities, then it should not be some officials from the top. Feng Yu biggest worries were some arrogant officials’ second generations. These people have the authority and will not obey the rules.

Feng Yu was not really scared of these people. If these people dare to use underhand methods against him, he was confident that he could use his wealth and connections to bring down the officials. When one’s wealth reaches a certain amount, he would be as powerful as a high ranking official!

Feng Yu likes to make friends. This was a habit he had from his previous life. You do know what connections your new friends have, and maybe a piece of information from them will let you earn a sum of money.

Others were trying to find out about Feng Yu, and Feng Yu also let his men find out who the other party was.

If the other party was only interested in befriending him, Feng Yu does not mind. However, if the other party was jealous of him, and wanted to take advantage of him, then they must be prepared for his retaliation.

Early June, Tai Hua Trading had sold off all their shares. Feng Yu actually wanted to keep some of the shares. But someone was trying to investigate him, Feng Yu did not keep any shares. He sold every single stock he held. This was also a way to flaunt his power. A company with assets of over a billion RMB cannot be bullied easily!

……

“Master Lu, I had found out about those people. They were all employees of a company call Tai Hua Trading. This company is registered in Bing city, and they were doing Sino-Soviet trades. The person in charge of the company is a person named Feng Yu.”

“Bing City? The surname is Feng?” Master Lu held his chin and thought. There were no top officials with the surname Feng. Where did this Feng Yu come out from?

At the same time, Feng Yu also found out who was investigating about him. When he found out that it was Master Lu, Feng Yu’s eyes widen. It’s him!

Chapter 290 – Master Lu’s Invitation

This Master Lu was a legend. In the future, Master Lu will be a member of a group “China’s 4 Young Masters”. Master Lu did not remain with the government in the future, and he went into business. He was one of the top businessmen in China.

His reputation was fine, and no one had heard that he had used his authority to bully anyone. There were also rumors that he was someone who values friendships and still like to stick his nose into another people’s business. That why he did not remain with the government. But he still had his influences in the government.

It can be said that this Master Lu was someone Feng Yu admire. He did not have the chance to know this person in his previous life, but now, he has the opportunity to befriend Master Lu.

Master Lu wants to treat Feng Yu to a drink.

After Master Lu found out Feng Yu’s identity, he was also astounded by Feng Yu’s growth. Before Feng Yu turned 15, he was an ordinary teenager. But after 15 years old, he suddenly changed.

The businesses Feng Yu started all made money. Feng Yu started the famous Wind and Rain humidifiers and bladeless fans, Songjiang Motorcycles. Feng Yu was considered a legend of this era.

The thing that surprises Master Lu most was that Feng Yu’s influence in the Longjiang region. Not only he had a good relationship with the City Government, and even the Provincial Government’s leaders were always praising. Feng Yu also had some connections with the military.

Master Lu really wanted to know someone like Feng Yu. If they could get along well, they might become friends. He wants to know how Feng Yu could make money in every business he does! It would even be better if they could become partners.

If it were in the past, Feng Yu would have rushed to get to know Master Lu. But now, Feng Yu’s status was different. There was no need to look up to this Master Lu. Feng Yu could still accept being friends with Master Lu on the equal standing. If this Master Lu wanted to take advantage of Feng Yu, Feng Yu could fight back!

Beijing. There was a table of guests in a private room of a restaurant which had not started operation.

Master Lu saw Feng Yu walking in alone and was shocked. He thought for a while and asked his men to leave the room. Only Feng Yu and he remain in the private room.

This lets Feng Yu felt more comfortable. Master Lu had a strong background but seems like he does not have any airs. No wonder this Master Lu had so many friends. Even when his uncle retires, Master Lu was still very popular in his circle of friends.

“I have heard of you, and today I finally got the chance to meet you. Manager Feng is indeed young and capable.” Master Lu said when he saw Feng Yu. When he was still at Feng Yu’s age, he was still fighting with others.

“I cannot be compared to Master Lu. I had heard of Master Lu’s loyalty to friends even in Bing City.” Feng Yu flattered.

Actually, Master Lu was a bit famous in Beijing now. In a few more years, he would become more famous when his uncle got promoted.

Master Lu smiled when he heard what Feng Yu said.

“These are all rumors that were spread by some friends. Manager Feng, this is the menu. What do you like to eat?”

“Master Lu can make the decision. I am not picky about food.”

Master Lu nodded and shouted towards the door to serve dinner. The restaurant starts to bring in the food, and within 10 minutes, the table was full of dishes. Master Lu had already ordered the food, and if Feng Yu wanted to order some other dishes, then the restaurant will have to prepare. But since Feng Yu did not order anything, the dishes could be served immediately.

The whole restaurant was only serving this table, and the food was served fast.

“Manager Feng, what type of drinks do you like?”

Feng Yu suddenly remembered in his past life, there were rumors that only 3 things could interest Master Lu. Women, wine, and money. Feng Yu was not picky about his liquor. Why not drink some wine?

“I am not good at drinking. I will drink some red wine with Master Lu.”

Master Lu was happy. He seldom meets people who like wine. Just loving wine alone, he had a good impression of Feng Yu. He was even more thrilled when he saw Feng Yu slowly savoring the taste of the wine and did not complain about the dryness of the wine.

“Do you need anything from me or you just want to befriend me?” Feng Yu asked and smiled.

Master Lu was more impressed by Feng Yu. He had met lots of wealthy people before, and those businessmen he met were all holding back when they met. This Feng Yu was speaking to him casually, and he finds this interesting.

Many people want to curry favor with him. They were all eyeing the authority of his uncle. Master Lu had very few real friends. Even those people in his circle, who had similar backgrounds as him, were not real friends with him. He always felt that there was a barrier between him and those people.

“I had invited you to this dinner was because of some matters, and I also want to befriend you. Let’s just put it this way. I am very curious about you and how you can make your fortune in such a short time. You can be considered one of the wealthiest person in China.” Master Lu said.

He knew Feng Yu had made a lot of money. But he was not sure how much Feng Yu had made. He heard that Feng Yu had taken loans to invest in stocks. His profits should be a few hundred million RMB. There was not many in China that made so much from legitimate businesses.

Feng Yu laughed and waved his hands: “Master Lu thinks that I had made a lot of money, but you do not know I had even more loans. I owed the banks in China, Hong Kong, and the Soviet Union. I owed a lot of money. I can be considered working for the banks now. The bank interest is too high, and I might need 3 to 5 years to clear my debts.”

Master Lu raised his eyebrows. Feng Yu still owed the banks a lot of money? He must also have the capabilities to take out so many loans in the first place.

“Manager Feng is too cautious. I only wanted to invest in your company. It doesn’t matter how much shares I get. You can charge me base on your company’s market value. I am not arrogant, but I really have some connections. If Manager Feng’s company run into some trouble in the future, I might be able to help you.”

All this while, it was Feng Yu buying a stake in other people’s company. Today, someone wanted to buy a share of his company. Feng Yu was really tempted by this offer.

This could clear some issues faced by his company, and even if Feng Yu fall out with Master Lu in the future, Feng Yu would have accumulated enough wealth. By that time, Master Lu would think twice before he dares to fall out with Feng Yu.

Also, Master Lu investment in Feng Yu’s company had another benefit. If Feng Yu wanted to continue buying up the shares of the Machinery company now, the City Government would never agree.

But with Master Lu’s involvement, Feng Yu can quickly set up factories in Jinling and Dongguan at the same time. This would dilute the City’s shares further. As for whether this plan would succeed, it would depend on Master Lu’s influences.

Feng Yu’s investment in the recent months might be a bit rush, but China’s automobile and motorcycle market will increase soon. The production must be able to keep up with the demand and not let the imported cars control the market.

If Feng Yu could get more production lines from the Soviet Union, Feng Yu even want to set up branch factories in Ludong and Changan. This way, he could access to the whole country quickly and also export his cars.

“Master Lu, have you heard of Bing City’s Machinery Company? My family is the major shareholder, and the popular Songjiang motorcycles on the market are from this company. We are starting our automobile project soon. We had imported the production lines from the Soviet Union and will be using new design concepts. The motorcycle project will also be expanding, and our goal is to be the world’s number one. But Bing City Government is a shareholder. If Master Lu can convince the City Government to allow me to continue to inject funds into the company and set up more branch factories, I can give 10 million RMB shares!”

Chapter 291 – The Automobile Dream

10 million RMB worth of shares!

Master Lu was shocked by Feng Yu’s generosity!

He was someone who had seen considerable amounts of money before. Even a few million RMB will not attract his attention. But never in his life, he had met someone that would give him 10 million RMB in exchange for some favors.

This 10 million RMB was still not cash. It was shares. Every company Feng Yu invested in, made lots of profits. This was equivalent to giving him a long-term stable investment with lots of returns.

Master Lu looked at Feng Yu and thought deeply. If Feng Yu was willing to give him so many shares, then the things he mentioned should not be an easy task.

It was impossible for a businessman to give away his wealth for nothing. He evidently wants something back in return, and that something will be more valuable than what the businessman gave out. If not, that person is not a qualified businessman.

Master Lu had done a background check on Feng Yu, and he knew that Feng Yu was not only a qualified businessman but a successful businessman.

“Manager Feng, can you tell me in detail what you really want me to do?”

“This Machinery Company was originally a state-owned enterprise owned by the City Government. But later, this company was restructured, and I had used technologies to exchange for a stake in the company. Then I used machinery and equipment to get the shares from another shareholder. Later, I used technologies and machines to invest in the company. Now, I am the biggest shareholder in the company and owns more than 50% shares. The City Government was not happy about this. But now, the company needs to expand and capture the market share. This would need more investments. Bing City Government does not have so much money, and if they want to stop me, there was nothing I could do even if I am the biggest shareholder. After all, most of the people in the factories were all from Bing City, and they were the former employees of the former Machinery Factory……”

Feng Yu explained the issues he was facing. Administrative interferences was a hinder to the development of a company. Feng Yu had promised that he would not dilute the City’s shares further, but he needs to plan for the company’s growth and need to build additional factories. This was the only way to capture the automobile market in a short period of time. He does not want to let the Japanese and German automobile companies the chance to take over the Chinese market!

If there were a policy from the top that encourages the development of privately owned companies and stops the local government from interfering, it would solve Feng Yu’s problems.

When that happens, Feng Yu would go to the City Government and show them the big picture. He believed the City would agree to set up branch factories. Also, the City government would not have enough funds to invest further, and their shares will be diluted further.

Feng Yu wants to be the controlling shareholder. He needs to own over 67% shares! Although he had the support of the Fu family, Feng Yu does not trust the Fu family entirely now. It would be safer for him to own the shares himself.

Feng Yu still have about 1 billion RMB left after repaying his debts to the bank. 100 million RMB was more than enough to set up a new factory. However, Feng Yu was still not sure if Kirilenko could buy more production lines for him.

After investing in Kirilenko’s mining enterprise, Kirilenko had given Feng Yu the equipment and technologies he promised. Feng Yu had also made some profits from those. The most expensive ones were the military-related stuff, like aircraft engines, fighter jest manufacturing technologies, etc. These were all given to the Aviation Factory. There were some other generator related technologies which were given to the Motor Factory. In return, Feng Yu got back the humidifiers shares, automobile related, and batteries associated technologies.

Although it may seem like Feng Yu was making a loss, but Hou Haitao had helped him a lot and saved him from a lot of problems. Also, in the future, Feng Yu would get back whatever he put in, as technological development was the core of any enterprise.

If Feng Yu were to set up 5 new factories for the automobile, he needs to prepare some reserve funds and invest in the R&D. If he does the same for the motorcycles, then Feng Yu’s 1 billion RMB might not even be enough!

Looking at Toyota, one can tell how profitable the automobile industry will be in the future. World’s top 500 companies, top 100 brands, world’s top automobile manufacturer and their most lucrative market is the Chinese market.

Volvo, General Motors, Mercedes, BMW, etc. automobiles companies were all fighting for the Chinese market. Their sales in China, make up a significant percentage of their total sales.

If Japan’s Toyota, from an area so small, can become the top company in the world, then China, with such high population and so many good engineers, coupled with the engineers Feng Yu recruited from the Soviet Union and Feng Yu’s “future vision”, he could capture the Chinese market easily.

It was just like South Korea’s automobile companies. They asked their fellow countrymen to support their own brands and then slowly improve their technologies.

In the future, it was until that person from Hangzhou appears, China finally has its own well-known automobile brand. That person from Hangzhou had a famous saying, and Feng Yu had said it to Zhang Ruiqiang before: Cars are just one engine and four wheels. Since we know how to build these, why can’t we make cars?

What Feng Yu wanted now was a policy from the central government or let the City Government not to interfere with his plans. This way, Feng Yu could continue to use his wealth and machines to dilute the city’s shares and complete his plans.

In 5 years’ time, Feng Yu wants his Songjiang cars to be known all around China and even overseas.

After the <Policies for the Automobile Manufacturing industry> was implemented in 1994, many of China’s automobile companies were restructured after running into difficulties. Some were even taken over!

Master Lu thought for a while and asked Feng Yu: “Issuing a new government policy is hard. But I will get people to try to speak to the central government. You must make it large scale. If you are only setting up 1 branch factory, it would be hard. But if you are setting up 3 branch factories, maybe the higher-up will look into it!”

Feng Yu got Master Lu’s hint. Master Lu was telling Feng Yu to make it large scale. Once the company reaches a certain scale, the City Government could no longer hold him back.

This was in-line with what Feng Yu wanted. He wanted to set up a large enterprise.

“Master Lu, if I am going to set up more than 3 factories for automobile and motorcycle, and my motorcycle factories’ annual production will not be less than 100,000 motorcycles for each factory, my automobile factory’s annual production will not be less than 50,000 cars, will it attract the attention of the higher-ups?”

3 automobile branch factories and the factory in Bing City, the annual automobile production will be 200,000 units. This would surely let the higher-ups pay attention to him. If it was not enough, then Feng Yu can set up 2 more factories. Feng Yu have the money. Now, in China, the annual production of automobiles was not high, and Feng Yu mentioned that he will not only be manufacturing cars, he will also be buying the production line for trucks. China will definitely welcome him.

China had already allowed foreign investment, why they can’t allow the Machinery Company to develop the automobile industry?

This Feng Yu was more powerful than expected. In the future, if Master Lu were assigned to the local government, it would be easy for Feng Yu to make some investment in the region he oversees.

Master Lu was determined to befriend Feng Yu!

Chapter 292 – Current status of China’s Automobile industry

Kirilenko had received a call from Feng Yu. Feng Yu wanted to order a large number of motorcycle and automobile production lines, including the production line for trucks. Kirilenko was surprised.

What was Feng Yu going to do? Does he want to empty the Soviet Union industry? Even though these equipment were not worth much now, but they were not given away free. How many cars can you sell in China annually? Why are you wasting your money to buy so many production lines?

But Feng Yu was using daily necessities to exchange to those production lines. Kirilenko could not reject this offer. Feng Yu had told him to lower the mine productions and resume the normal operations after the Soviet Union had disintegrated. That’s why the Mining Enterprise was not making money now.

If it weren’t for Feng Yu injecting so many funds into the company, Kirilenko would not be able to cope. Kirilenko had invested all his available funds into this company and resulted in a decline of his lifestyle.

Feng Yu’s ordering of production lines was a chance of him making money. How could he miss it?

Kirilenko had found a new goal. He starts to contact those motorcycle and automobile factories. Those facilities that could be dismantled were all dismantled. Kirilenko was more experienced now, and he chose those factories that were outside of Russia.

The Soviet Union’s disintegration was bound to happen. Kirilenko’s father had got the confirmation from Yeltsin, and it was the same as what Feng Yu had predicted. This year, the disintegration will occur.

Feng Yu had told Kirilenko that this would happen between October and December. Although his father did not confirm this, Kirilenko still believed Feng Yu.

Since the Soviet Union will disintegrate, then his father will surely stick to Yeltsin. If he sells Russia’s industrial facilities, it will not be good for his father’s reputation. As such, he chose other allied countries. Even if they charged him higher rates, he also does not mind.

Kirilenko suddenly remembered the time when Feng Yu approached him to get loans and asked him to contact the banks from the allied countries but not from Russia. Russia was Kirilenko’s home. This showed that Feng Yu had kept this in mind.

Since Feng Yu had thought of taking care of him, Kirilenko decided to earn lesser this time and treat it as a form of repayment to Feng Yu.

After ordering the equipment and Kirilenko promised Feng Yu that he would be able to get what he wanted, Feng Yu went to Bing City’s government.

……

“Mayor Zhang, my plans will influence our country’s future developments and will also let our country to catch up with Japan and the Western countries. This is for the good of our nation. Why you do not agree?”

“You are too ambitious! I do not think that your automobile project will succeed in the first place and now you want to build 5 more automobile factories? Are you crazy?”

“These branch factories do not need the city to invest a single cent. I will make all the investments, negotiations with the local government, equipment, land, construction of the factories and even training of the workers. What are you afraid of?”

“Where did you get so much money?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“I earned it. I can let you investigate every single cent, Do I still need to use illegal ways to earn money?” Feng Yu felt that Zhang Ruiqiang’s question was ridiculous.

“You earn it yourself? Every single cent you earned is from the workers’ hard work. Have you done any market research? This is a big project, and if your products do not sell, it will be a waste! It will be wasting your money and also waste the efforts of every single worker! When this happens, the factory will close down, and there will be chaos!” Zhang Ruiqiang banged his desk and shouted.

Feng Yu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang: “You think that making cars will surely fail and the factories will bankrupt? It will affect the economy and will waste resources?”

“Am I wrong? What is the annual production of automobiles in China now? You know how many cars are there in China now and how many of these cars are privately owned?”

Feng Yu seriously said: “Now, in China, there are about 3.3 million automobiles and it includes 2.1 million trucks. There are about 1.2 million cars. I had done my research.”

Feng Yu did not start these projects blindly. He had done his research, and he even knows more detailed information.

“There are only about 1.2 million cars, and you want to manufacture 200,000 annually? This is being ambitious?” Zhang Ruiqiang got angrier when he heard what Feng Yu had said. You had already done your research and yet you still want to start this project? Are you stupid?

Feng Yu laughed and continued: “What I had just said are those automobiles that are registered. There are more than 10% of this figure which is not registered. For example, out Longjiang province have many Lada that was smuggled in. Also, from 1984 to 1987, our country had imported about 640,000 cars. This shows that the demand for cars is increasing. To be self-sufficient, SAIC Motors, FAW, and Guangzhou Automobile were restructured and allows investors to invest. But the ones who made the most profits are not us. It is the foreign investors that had used their technologies to invest in these companies. Now, I am trying to build our own brand and stop those foreign investors from taking advantage of us!”

Although there were not a lot of automobiles in China now, it was these recent years that the number of automobiles increases. The demand for automobiles will increase further, and in Feng Yu’s past life, it was also during this time when German and Japanese companies entered joint ventures with Chinese automobile manufacturers. Their cars entered the Chinese market in large volumes, and the saddest part was those Chinese companies were using the foreign brands. This resulted in China not having their own brand. This had also let the imported German, and Japanese cars controlled the Chinese automobile market.

“You also know that we had many joint partnership factories. Then you should also know that those factories had strong backings and those factories had government policies to support them. How are you going to compete with them? What makes you so sure that you can survive in this industry and not be eliminated?”

Zhang Ruiqiang was angry with Feng Yu’s stubbornness. If it were someone else, he would not be scolding him. But Feng Yu was someone he thought highly of, and he does not want to see him walk the wrong path.

“Germany and Japan’s industrial technologies are good. But, do not forget that the Soviet Union is also an industrial country. Not only I can get machines at low prices, but I can also hire their engineers to do R&D and develop new technologies. This R&D headquarters will be based in Bing city. Actually, our engineers are good too. But many of them lack the funds to start their own researches. I can provide them with the funds and let them research new technologies. This way, we do not need joint partnerships with foreign MNCs. We will not need to work for them and help them promote their brands. Furthermore, in the 1985’s 5-year plan, the Automobile industry is one of the industries which the country will support. It was even named as one of China’s core industry. Is it really good for China’s core industry to depend on joint partnerships with foreign MNCs?”

“When did you heard that the industries the country supported, will allow private companies to enter it?” Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu said with an innocent look: “But the Machinery Company is not entirely a privately-owned company. It is a cooperation between private and government. It is also a shareholding enterprise.”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu. It seems that Feng Yu had found a loophole!

Chapter 293 – City’s Marketing

“Have you calculated how much you need to invest for building so many factories at the same time?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked. This would be an astronomical amount.

“I had calculated. One factory would need an investment of about 100 million RMB. I am planning to invest 1 billion RMB in building 5 automobile factories and 5 motorcycle factories. The factories will be located in the north, south, east and west of China. This way, I can surround the central and cover the whole of China’s market……”

Zhang Ruiqiang was shocked by Feng Yu. Not only Feng Yu wanted to start the automobile project, but he also wanted to expand the motorcycle project. Feng Yu did not mention anything about this before.

Also. Feng Yu planned to invest 1 billion? Where did he get so much money? 1 billion RMB! The whole Bing City’s annual income was not even that much!

“Do you have 1 billion RMB? Can you confirm that 1 billion RMB will be enough? You did not consider the operational cost of the factories. You need at least a few hundred million RMB more for the materials, workers’ salaries and reserve funds!”

Zhang Ruiqiang was the one in charge of the restructuring of the state-owned enterprises, and he was familiar with these. He felt that Feng Yu had not planned properly.

“1 billion RMB is the initial investment for the first phase. I will increase my investments during the second phase. We might not see any returns in the short term, but in the long term, or 5 years cycle, this investment is necessary. Last year, no one thought that our Songjiang Motorcycles will do well. But, what happened after our motorcycles enter the market? Are our motorcycles selling well? We sold out every single motorcycle we produced. We had made a lot of profits from these sales! Cars will be the same. The demand for cars had increased sharply, and furthermore, the new automobile factories will need at least 1 to 2 years to finish construction. Automobile factories are not as simple as motorcycle factories. When my new cars are produced, it will also be the end of next year.”

1 billion RMB as the first phase investment and he will invest more?

Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes widen: “How much money do you have now?”

“I had taken loans from the Soviet Union Banks and deposited in Hong Kong banks. Don’t worry about money. I guaranteed that this investment will be worthwhile!”

Zhang Ruiqiang felt that Feng Yu was possessed. He had so much money, and he could always do something else. Just like the humidifiers and bladeless fans. Those were all selling well, and there were no competitors. The profits were high too. Why was Feng Yu so insistent to enter the automobile market?

There were so many automobile companies in China and why was Feng Yu so sure that he would win against them? However, Zhang Ruiqiang must admit that most people do not think Feng Yu’s investments would do well initially. But in the end, Feng Yu would be racking in huge profits.

Also, Feng Yu understands the market well. At the start of the motorcycle project, Feng Yu corrected the exterior design and the product positioning and quickly solved the motorcycle sales issues. Also, the dealership system had helped Songjiang motorcycles spread throughout the whole of China.

Feng Yu saw that Zhang Ruiqiang was keeping quiet and he continued: “Mayor Zhang, have you thought that in the future, there will be branch factories all over China and the factories will be named as Bing City’s Machinery Company XX branch factory. Do you know the benefits of doing this?”

Zhang Ruiqiang was confused. It was normal to name their branch factories this way. What benefits were there for doing this?

“City’s propaganda. A city also needs to be marketed. For example, when we mention Beijing, we immediately think of the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and Summer Palace. When we mention Chengdu, we would think of Pandas. When we mention Changan, the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor will come to our mind. It is the same for the opposite. When we talk about the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Pandas and the First Qin Emperor, Beijing, Chengdu, and Changan will come to your mind, right?”

Zhang Ruiqiang nodded. It seems this was indeed the case. He had not noticed about this before in the past. But what was Feng Yu trying to say? There was no historical landmarks or protected animals in Bing City.

“Then, when I mention FAW, will you think of Jilin? When I mention Shanghai brand cars, will you think of Shanghai?”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes shined: “You are going to change Songjiang brand to Bing City brand?”

Feng Yu: “……

Dream on! Bing City brand sounds too weak! If you are producing ice cream, Bing City will be a good brand name. Songjiang Motors will be a better name for automobiles.

“I did not say that. What I meant is to let our factories to cover the whole countries and let our cars and motorcycles to be sold everywhere in this country. Soon everyone in China will know that Bing City have the best automobile company and whenever they ride a motorcycle or drive a car, the first thing that comes to their mind is Bing city. This is City marketing. Of course, if the City is willing to foot part of the advertising fees, I can add in the words “Manufactured by Bing City” at the end of all my commercials!” Feng Yu smiled and said.

“Impossible. Your company wants to advertise, and you want the city to pay? Stop dreaming!” Zhang Ruiqiang angrily waved his hands. You can even invest 1 billion and yet you still want to take money from the City?

Feng Yu was too much!

Zhang Ruiqiang did not know that his thinking was slowly leading away by Feng Yu. Now, in his mind, it was not about setting up new factories, but he was thinking about marketing the City.

“Mayor Zhang, have you ever thought that Bing City might one day be like Beijing, becoming world renown? Last year, Beijing had hosted the Asian Games, and many people in Asia remembered Beijing. Now, I owned the patents of two best-selling home appliances. For the next 7 to 8 years, my products will continue to be sold all over the world. What do you think if I add the words “Manufactured by Bing City” on my products?”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s breathing became rapid. If that was the case, then Bing City will be well known, and at the same time, it will increase Bing City’s standings in China!

In two years’ time, the Bing City Party Secretary will retire, and the current Mayor will take over that position. The Mayor position will be vacant, and he was the one with the highest chance to take over that position.

If Bing City’s standings were increased, then he could be promoted to higher ranks. Zhang Ruiqiang was also an ambitious person, and if he had the chance, he would not give up.

Feng Yu continued to entice him: “Mayor Zhang, I need you to support my proposal for the City Government meeting, and we can provide the City with more taxes. Even if Bing City’s government were left with 10% shares of the Machinery Company, the City’s income would be much more! Also, this automobile company will be the first Chinese private and government joint partnership, and the scale is one of China’s top three companies. What do you think the higher-ups will think about you? You are the one who had helped this company to succeed!”

Zhang Ruiqiang waved his hand: “Enough. You go back first. I need to think about this.”

Feng Yu left with a satisfied smile on his face. He knew Zhang Ruiqiang was tempted……

Chapter 294 – Bing City Government Meeting

The Bing city Government meeting. The Mayor had just finished talking about the directives from the Provincial Government, and then he asked everybody if they had any other matters to discuss. This was an indication that he wants to end the meeting.

But today was different. Zhang Ruiqiang raised his hand and said: “Mayor, I have a suggestion.”

Everyone, especially the Mayor, looked at him surprised. Under normal circumstances, if they had something to voice out during the meeting, the deputies will have to discuss with the Mayor before the meeting. But today, Zhang Ruiqiang did not notify him beforehand.

The Mayor frowned and said: “Deputy Zhang, what do you want to say?”

“Everyone should know that the Machinery Company will be starting their automobile project and if everything goes smoothly, the production will start at the end of this year, and the cars will be in the market early next year. Earlier today, I received news that the major shareholder of the Machinery Company, Feng Yu, will be investing more funds to set up branch factories……”

“Wait a minute. Deputy Zhang, I am in-charge of Bing city’s industrial and how come I am unaware of this? Why Li Mingde from the Machinery Company did not report this to me?” Deputy Xu rudely interrupted Zhang Ruiqiang.

Every deputy mayor was in charge of different things, and no one likes others to interfere with their business. If it were the Mayor who had talked about this, Deputy Xu would not interrupt. But this was Zhang Ruiqiang, and the both of them did not get along well. All this while, Deputy Xu felt that Zhang Ruiqiang had snatched away the position of Executive Deputy Mayor from him.

“I had said that it was Feng Yu who told me this information. I am in-charge of organizational restructuring, and the Machinery Company is one of the restructured enterprises. What’s wrong with him reporting this to me?” zhang Ruiqiang retorted.

Zhang Ruiqiang wanted to be the next Mayor, and if he can’t even deal with this deputy who was of a lower rank than him, the higher-ups will think that he was not capable! Furthermore, he was the Executive Deputy and had the authority to look into the jurisdiction of other deputies.

“Deputy Xu, let Deputy Zhang finish what he wanted to say.” The Mayor frowned. Do these two wants get into an argument in front of him?

Zhang Ruiqiang continued: “Feng Yu said that he will be building 10 branch factories. This included 5 motorcycle factories, 4 saloon cars factory and a truck factory. His investment for the first phase will be 1 billion!”

Hiss~~~

Everyone drew in a deep breath. Initial invest was 1 billion RMB! That means this 1 billion was only the start and he will continue to invest more in this project?

They had heard of these types of investments in the coastal areas and were all by foreign investors. The inland cities, especially Bing City which was located near the borders, never had such large-scale investment. Needless to say, investments from a Chinese businessman.

“1 billion? Deputy Zhang, did I hear it correctly?” Deputy Xu asked.

“Yes. It is 1 billion RMB! This will be his initial investment, and Feng Yu said that this sum will be injected into the Machinery Company. He will also continue to procure automobile and motorcycle production lines from the Soviet Union. He is planning to start full production of all the factories within two years……”

“Wait a minute. How much is the market value of the Machinery Company? From what I know, it is worth only a few hundred million. Feng Yu wants to invest 1 billion in the company? Have you ever thought about where did he get so much money? Did he use his Machinery Company shares as collateral to get a loan from the bank? This is a promising enterprise, and if it expands too aggressively, it will be bankrupt! When that happens, our Bing City will have one less enterprise. What about the workers?” Deputy Xu sneered.

Zhang Ruiqiang glanced at Deputy Xu and then turn to the Mayor: “Feng Yu had promised not to use his Machinery Company shares to get loans. His Tai Hua Trading’s account has 1 billion funds!”

What? Tai Hua Trading’s account has 1 billion RMB!

All the City government leaders had weird expressions on their faces. They all know about Tai Hua Trading, but how is it possible for the company to have 1 billion RMB?

“Deputy Zhang, have you confirm this with the banks?”

“I had contacted ICBC, and they verified this. Feng Yu also said that once this proposal starts, this 1 billion will be freeze and Tai Hua Trading will not touch it.”

The Mayor was overjoyed. Investment of 1 billion RMB. That means the Machinery Company’s market value will be more than a billion RMB? This company will be a massive enterprise!

This was when he was the Mayor. A company from his city that had grown from a few million RMB to over a billion RMB within a few years. This was a significant political achievement for him!

But at the same time, he thought about Deputy Xu’s words. The Machinery Company was now worth only a few hundred million, and if 1 billion was invested, then the City’s shares will be diluted further.

“Deputy Xu, how much is the Machinery Company worth?”

“About 400 million and it is still growing! The city owns 28% shares.”

28%, 400 million RMB. If the investment was more than a billion RMB, then the City Government shares will shrink by more than 2 thirds. That means it will be less than 10%?

“Mayor Zhang, must this sum be invested all at once? Can’t it be invested in the company slowly?” Mayor asked. If this amount was invested over 2 to 3 years, then the City could afford to invest their proportion. This way, their shares will not be diluted so severely.

“Mayor, this is a type of business strategy. The overseas companies were also using the same strategy. Now, the motorcycle and automobile industry are expanding, and Japanese and German cars are taking up the market share. We are building our own automobile brand, and this is in-line with the 1985’s 5 year plan!”

“We do not talk about SAIC Motors from Shanghai. Just the FAW from Lin Province, a large state-owned enterprise and is supported by the government. They also dare not to increase their scale so aggressively. Yet Feng Yu wants to blow up the scale? A kid that is not even 20 years’ old and have not even graduate from high school? It is normal for young men to be overly ambitious, but Deputy Zhang, you should not be the same as him!” These words from Deputy Xu can be considered scolding Zhang Ruiqiang.

Deputy Xu had the experience, and also, Zhang Ruiqiang had lost his support from the Provincial Government number 1. Zhang Ruiqiang had asked the <People’s Daily> to publish his article on the disintegration of the Soviet Union, despite the objections of the Provincial Government Number 1. Even the top management could not conclude the Soviet Union political situation, and Zhang Ruiqiang dares to openly make such claims. This was the reason why the Provincial Government no longer support him.

With the number 1 support, what can Zhang Ruiqiang do? This Executive Deputy Mayor will be Zhang Ruiqiang’s highest rank. Zhang Ruiqiang will be a joke at the end of the year. He might even lose his current position of Executive Deputy Mayor. Deputy Xu still had the chance to get this position.

“Young man? A kid? Deputy Xu, what have you done when you are 18 years’ old? Can you help Bing City import so many cheap and advanced machinery and technologies from the Soviet Union? When you are in charge of the Machinery Company, how much is the profits? How much taxes have you generated for the City? How much were your worker’s salaries? Was it above the national average?”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s series of questions shut Deputy Xu up.

Seeing that the both of them started arguing, the Mayor knocked on the table and said: “It is late now and all of you have other matters to attend to. We shall end today’s meeting now and continue the meeting at 10 am tomorrow morning!”

The Mayor decided to let the City’s Party Secretary know about this, and he will also report this matter to the Provincial number 2, before making the final decision if we will support Zhang Ruiqiang!

Chapter 295 – A National Brand

The next day, during the meeting, Deputy Xu continued to disagree with this proposal. He felt that this was overly ambitious. If Feng Yu wants to invest, he can invest in other industries, or even donate to the city.

The Mayor also changed his stance. He felt that this expansion of the motorcycle project can work, but not for the automobile project. They decided to let Zhang Ruiqiang inform Feng Yu about their decision. The City can sell the automobile project to Feng Yu and let Feng Yu set up a new company for the automobile manufacturing business. There was no need for him to invest in the Machinery Company anymore.

The Mayor’s intention was apparent. He wants Feng Yu to invest and take the credit, but he does not want the City’s shares to be diluted. As for what Deputy Xu said, Zhang Ruiqiang chooses to ignore.

……

“What? The City allows the Machinery Company to sell me the automobile project? Is it real?”

The public could not get a license to set up an automobile manufacturing company and that why Feng Yu decided to use the Machinery Company for this project. If the City allows the Machinery Company to sell him this project, Feng Yu would seriously consider it.

“It is like this temporary. But we still need to talk about the details. The City agrees to the setting up of the motorcycle branch factories and will support it. But you must promote our Bing City and the Machinery Company headquarters must remain in Bing City.”

Zhang Ruiqiang felt that the Mayor’s decision was sound. By splitting this project into two parts, they could keep the credit and have lower risks. But it was still up to Feng Yu whether if he would accept it. But it seems that Feng Yu was looking forward to this decision.

Zhang Ruiqiang was the one among the City’s leaders that understands Feng Yu the most. He immediately noticed that if without the City Government’s approval, Feng Yu had no way to start the automobile project. If it was not for this reason, Feng Yu might not even want the City Government to be a part of this project.

The City had made use of many of their connections to get the approval for this automobile project, and they even seek the help of the Provincial number 1. Now, it seems that Feng Yu was the one who had gained from all this. The sales of the automobile project will be decided by the shareholders, and the City could not get any benefits from it!

“Mayor Zhang, I agree to the City’s conditions. I will go back now and ask Li Mingde to calculate the cost of this project.” Feng Yu readily accept and was in a rush to leave.

“Wait. Do you really think that this project will do well? The saloon cars market is really that big?” Zhang Ruiqiang held Feng Yu back.

“I can only say that in the future, this market will grow bigger and bigger. But whether this project will succeed, I am also not very confident. But there is one thing I am sure. If I did not start this project, then in the future, China will not have its own automobile brand. I am doing all this for the country.” Feng Yu said with a noble expression.

“Stop bullshitting. Since when you are so noble? Furthermore, the ratio of imported cars in China had decreased by a lot for the past two years and how can it be possible for the Chinese automobile market to be controlled by foreign brands?”

“Mayor Zhang, I will just point out one thing. Why is the ratio of the imported cars in China decreasing? It is because of an increase in our production. But where is this increase coming from? It is the cars from the joint partnership factories. What are the brands of those cars? It is Volkswagen and Toyota vehicles that are selling the best. These are all foreign brands. Just look at the public buses bought by the City. Are they not all foreign brands? Then what about our own Shanghai brand cars?

Zhang Ruiqiang was shocked. That’s right. Shanghai brand was formerly the nation’s pride. Where are they now?

SAIC Motors is now selling Volkswagen cars that were produced from their joint partnership factories. That’s a foreign brand. Although the sales had increased and lower the importation of vehicles into China, the Shanghai brand cars were slowly disappearing from the roads.

It was like this in Feng Yu’s past life. Not only the Shanghai brand, even the Hongqi (Red Flag cars manufactured by FAW) and many other Chinese brands had declined. When China’s own automobile manufacturing industries developed and wanted to build up those Chinese brands again, they found that the foreign brands had captured the market.

“Mayor Zhang, do you know how important a brand is? I shall put it this way. If an overseas company wants to buy my Wind and Rain brand now, how much do you think they will offer?”

This was not Feng Yu bragging. There were companies from Europe and the US that wanted to buy the Wind and Rain brand. Those companies felt that this Wind and Rain brand represents high tech products and if they use it on their own products, they could save on their advertising cost and still achieve better results. This was because the consumers already linked Wind and Rain brand with the words innovations and high tech.

“How much?”

“100 million. USD!”

This 100 million USD was not only for Wind and Rain brand. It includes the patents for the humidifiers and bladeless fans and also the factory in Dongguan. Although the brand was expensive, it was not as expensive as what Feng Yu claims.

Hiss~~~

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu in shocked: “100 million USD? A brand is really so important?”

Feng Yu nodded: “Look at our beer factory. Bing City Beer. The people in Bing City and the surrounding areas all drink this beer. The Lin Province do not have any beer? Even if Lin Province sells their beer at lower wholesale prices, those small stalls will also not order from them. Our Bing City people only drink Bing City Beer! This is brand awareness and the value of branding!”

“Fine. I will not say any more. Since I am starting my own automobile brand, then I will not use Songjiang Motors anymore. Why not you talk to the city and ask if the City can sell Songjiang brand and the Motorcycle project to me?”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu: “Don’t even think about it!”

The City does not think that the automobile project will do well, but they think highly of the motorcycle project. In Bing City, you can still see many people riding motorcycles during the winter. The sales of Songjiang Motorcycles for this year’s first quarter was still increasing. The city estimate that this year’s sales will be more than 200,000 units.

Soon, the branch factory in Jinling will start operations, and it will be in time to meet the increasing demand for motorcycles. The motorcycle project will also be introducing the 100cc bikes. The prices will be lowered, and the sales volume will undoubtedly increase. With more models on sales, they can foresee the motorcycles bringing in more profits.

Although they will be building many factories at once, the will not be high. It will be only about 50,000 units. At the start, the workers needed training, and their production will not be high. But 2 to 3 years later, the number of motorcycles produce will increase. It will be a golden egg laying goose.

This Songjiang Motorcycle brand will become valuable in 2 to 3 years. Sell this brand to Feng Yu now? Impossible!

Feng Yu suddenly regretted telling Zhang Ruiqiang so much about branding. He should not have bragged about the value of Wind and Rain brand.

Now he got to build a new automobile brand and got to start from scratch. It would be harder.

But even if it was hard, Feng Yu will still do it. During 1991 to 1995, China’s economic growth was at an astonishing speed. The buying power of the people increased, and lots of future tycoons started they businesses during this period. Also, the government regulations during this period were the most relaxing, and if Feng Yu were to begin his development a few years later, he would be the same as those workers from the future years. How can Feng Yu be satisfied with this?

Even if the City had come out with harsher conditions, Feng Yu would also accept it!

Chapter 296 – Change of Attitude

Li Mingde received Feng Yu’s notification to evaluate the market rate of the automobile branch factory. Li Mingde was confused. This automobile factory had not even started operation, and the construction had just begun. Could it be Feng Yu found out that someone was siphoning the construction funds?

But this Automobile Factory’s director is appointed by Feng Yu himself and the factory was still doing the foundation works. How much money can this person siphon? The first phase of the construction fees had not even been reported to the City.

Soon, Li Mingde received a call from Deputy Xu, asking him to calculate the automobile factory’s current value and report to him.

Huh? The City wants to do something to this factory?

Li Minngde immediately asks around and found out that Feng Yu wanted to increase his investment in the Machinery Company and set up more automobile factories. He was shocked by Feng Yu’s wealth.

But he did not think this automobile project will do well in the first place, and since the City had made this decision, it might be a good thing.

Li Mingde quickly completed this task with the help of his men. It was fast as the construction was not completed and he only needs to evaluate the cost of the land, equipment, technologies and the factory’s workers.

At the same time, there were some problems too. The workers from the Machinery Company will have to be transferred back. Those workers will not want to work for a private company. Li Mingde does not need to care about those workers hired from FAW. He believes that Feng Yu would make arrangements for them.

After calculating, the total value of the factory was only about 80 million. This was still a hike up cost under the instruction of Deputy Xu. If Li Mingde had used the standard method of calculations, it would only be about 50 million.

When Feng Yu saw the valuation report, he almost threw the report on Li Mingde’s face!

Feng Yu was clear about the total cost of this project. This project had just started, and Feng Yu clearly remembered how much the machines were worth, how much Fu Guangzheng had invested and how much land was worth.

Now, with just a few workers and only the foundation works of the factory building, the cost increased by tens of millions?

“Li Minde, are you going to sign on the valuation report?” Feng Yu looked at Li Mingde coldly.

Li Mingde suddenly regretted. After all, Feng Yu was the one who had the final say in the Machinery Company. Li Mingde could be removed from his position of General Manager anytime if Feng Yu call for a shareholders meeting. He will not have such a good life in the future.

Li Mingde said with a sad face: “Manager Feng, this was instruction from the City.. I also have no choice. After all, I am still under the City Government. I can help you point out where the problems are in this report. This way, when you are negotiating with the City, you will have the upper hand.”

Li Mingde was not like a double spy. On the one hand, he was helping the City to inflate the factories value, on the other, he was telling Feng Yu where were all the problems in this report. During the negotiations, he will not side with any parties and let Feng Yu and the City negotiate.

As for the other shareholder, Fu Guangzheng, both parties had chosen to forget about him.

Once Feng Yu and the City agree on the valuation report, there was nothing Fu Guangzheng could do. The City was worried that Fu Guangzheng would side with Feng Yu and suppress the value of this factory. Feng Yu did not include Fu Guangzheng in this negotiations was because he could not help much either.

The negotiations did not go smoothly. The City made harsh demands. They knew that Feng Yu could not get the approval documents by himself. That’s why these approval documents were precious. Even if the automobile project was sold to Feng Yu, without the local government help, Feng Yu could not develop this business.

It was tough to build a successful business, but it was very easy for Bing City Government to stop a company from growing. Feng Yu was only someone from one of Bing City’s district with no backgrounds. The City Government was not afraid of him.

The City wants Feng Yu to set the Automobile headquarters in Bing City and cannot be moved to other places. Also, Feng Yu had to build the roads leading to the factory. The City will not pay for it.

The automobile commercials also had to mention “Manufacture in Bing City”, regardless of local or overseas, Feng Yu must not tarnish the image of Bing City. There were many other restrictions imposed on Feng Yu.

Feng Yu knows that the City was acting like a hooligan, but he was not someone who can be bullied so easily. He immediately pointed out that the valuation report of the factory will be decided by the Machinery Company and if the City insists on those conditions, then he works with the Fu family and suppresses the value. This way, the City will be suffering losses too.

Furthermore, Feng Yu could always give up Bing City. He can go and look for partners from other cities. He believes that with his wealth, the enterprises from other places will work with him. Although the approval documents were challenging to get, since Bing City could get it, then other cities can also get it. Worse come to worse, he will work with other City Government! There were many places in China with conditions better than Bing City.

Both parties negotiated for a week, and it was still not settled. But suddenly, the City Government had a change of attitude. The City decided not to sell this project to Feng Yu and even agrees Feng Yu invest in the Machinery Company to expand this company.

Why did the City have a change of attitude so fast? Feng Yu quickly got the answer.

He received a call from Master Lu. He told Feng Yu that the Central Party Committee had decided to encourage the local enterprises to be bolder and be brave to try new things. The local enterprises shake off the reliance on overseas technologies and start developing.

The committee even pointed out the industry they were supporting. The automobile industry. They expressed that there will be government policies implemented soon. There will be many benefits to this industry, and the local government should not hinder the progress of the companies in this industry. The local government must support these companies and help them.

These directives were quickly disseminated to the provincial government and the local regions. The Bing City Party Secretary immediately call for a meeting and everyone agrees to support the development of the Machinery Company.

Although the City cannot afford to invest any more funds into this project, they must be a part of it. They cannot sell this project to Feng Yu and let it be a private company. This project will also let Bing City score political points with the higher-ups.

When Feng Yu got to know about this, he felt that Master Lu had acted too fast.

He had thought that it would take Master Lu a few months to get this sorted out. But who knows, Master Lu got everything settled with a short time.

Feng Yu wanted to cry. Master Lu, why are you so influential?

But there were also benefits from this. This means that the Machinery Company will have a large plot of land and there will be less hindrance from the City in the future. There were pros and cons. In the short term, Feng Yu will have some benefits but in the future, the City will a share of the profits.

Never mind. Just treat it as supporting his homeland. But in 3 to 5 years time, Feng Yu will not let the City interfered with the Machinery Company. He must turn the Machinery Company into a real shareholding company!

A new round of negotiations started again.

Chapter 297 – Li Dafu

With the City’s change of attitude, Feng Yu’s position also changed.

At first, Feng Yu had given in to the city because the City was going to sell the project to him. But now, Feng Yu will not agree to those conditions.

You want me to continue to invest in the Machinery Company? Fine. Then let’s evaluate the market value of the Machinery Company and count the number of employees in the company that was doing nothing.

This time, Fu Guangzheng also attended the negotiations. This was increasing the investment to the Machinery Company, and all shareholders should be notified.

Fu Guangzheng was also shocked when he learned that Feng Yu will be investing 1 billion into the company and will set up multiple automobile and motorcycle factories.

The Fu family supported the proposal for setting up an automobile factory and this automobile project. But to increase the scale so fast without the consideration of the market, the first few years will be making losses. Fu Guangzheng hesitated and called his father and his eldest uncle to discuss it. In the end, Fu Guangzheng expressed that he does not have the money to invest in the project and will accept his shares to be diluted.

Feng Yu injected 1 billion RMB at once, and if Fu Guangzheng wants to keep his shares, he would need to invest a considerable amount too. His father had invested most of his money into the Hong Kong’s property market, and Fu Guangzheng had followed suit. He does not have enough funds now.

Furthermore, his eldest uncle felt that although the Chinese automobile market, especially the saloon cars market, was expanding now, it will not be as what Feng Yu forecast. Feng Yu was going to use his money to buy the market share by starting this large-scale project.

Feng Yu had successfully predicted the Gulf war, London gold, and the oil futures. He had made lots of profits from these events. He could afford to lose 1billion RMB but not Fu Guangzheng.

Fu Rongqi also suspect that Feng Yu had invested so much into this Automobile manufacturing project, was because he had received some benefits from somewhere and Fu Guangzheng had no way to enjoy the same benefits. That’s why Fu Guangzheng rather let Feng Yu dilute his shares.

After evaluating the Machinery Company, the market value of the Machinery Company was 432 million, and this was after the City Government assess multiple times. Feng Yu was satisfied with this valuation report. Those City Government people do not know how to evaluate the market value of a company at all. If Feng Yu wants to inflate the value of the Machinery Company, it will be at least worth 500 million and Feng Yu was still able to provide evidence to prove it.

Feng Yu will invest 1 billion RMB cash and the machinery ordered from Kirilenko were evaluated at 300 million RMB. Feng Yu will spend a total of 1.3 billion RMB.

Feng Yu also gave in a bit to the City Government. The City Government’s shares were lowered to 7%, and Fu Guangzheng’s percentages were reduced to 4%. Feng Yu’s shares increase to 84.4%. There was another mysterious shareholder that owns 0.6% shares.

The people in the accounting department were all Feng Yu’s men, and he also controlled the human resource department. In the future, all the factory directors and the company’s management staffs got to follow the rules and will be decided during the shareholder meeting.

Now, which shareholder will have the final say? Of course, it was the controlling shareholder, Feng Yu!

The automobile branch factory in Bing City expedited the construction and Feng Yu also sent his people to the local government of the areas, he planned to set up branch factories. He wants to set up all the factories in the shortest time. Once the negotiations were over, the land must be leveled before the end of the year.

Feng Yu himself, went to Hangzhou alone.

At Hangzhou, Feng Yu had 2 important things to do. First, he wants to acquire the shares from Lehaha other shareholders. But he will not get the shares from Zhong Qingxian, in case he leaves and set up another company. Secondly, Feng Yu wants to look for a person. China’s future leader in the automobile industry, Li Dafu!

Li Dafu was a legend in Feng Yu’s past life. He was the same as Zhong Qingxian. Zhong Qingxian was China’s leader in the beverage industry, and this Li Dafu was the boss of a private automobile manufacturing company. He was the first person in China to own an international automobile brand which was in the Fortune 500.

But what was Li Dafu doing now? He had set up a small factory, and this factory will be the start of his conglomerate. The factory was not manufacturing refrigerators parts, renovation materials, etc. but his factory was the first in China to develop the magnesium-aluminum alloy. This alloy had strong heat and soundproofing properties and had resistance to corrosion.

This was the person who claims that cars are just an engine with 4 wheels in a metal shell. This person had already started to develop the “metal shell” now.

If it weren’t for Feng Yu, Li Dafu would enter the motorcycle industry 2 to 3 years later, and he will be very successful. Through the motorcycle manufacturing industry, Li Dafu would accumulate the funds and also familiarize with the engines and wheels.

But he had no chance in this life. Feng Yu had already set his plans in place, and China’s biggest motorcycle manufacturer will be Bing city Machinery Company. It might even become the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer.

Those small factories will not get the chance to grow, and Li Dafu will have no chance to get his funds to start manufacturing cars.

There were rumors that this Li Dafu was charismatic and was willing to seek advice from others. His future company was started from a family business and was converted to a shareholding.

It was hard to appoint the next leader to lead the company in a family business. There were too few choices. But for a shareholding, they can pick the next CEO from millions of people.

Li Dafu had financed his company several times and were all successful. He maintained his shares and control, at the same time, he let his company raise enough funds to develop very fast.

Also, Li Dafu paid particular emphasis on R&D. He knew that technologies could stop China’s automobile industry from growing. He spent a lot on setting up a research center to research on engines, gearbox, electronics, etc. This was what Feng Yu liked about him.

This time, Feng Yu wants to approach Li Dafu and see if Li Dafu was really like the rumors from his past life. If the stories were real, then he wants to recruit him to be the Deputy General Manager of the Machinery Company. He will be the person to take charge of the automobile project.

Feng Yu believes that Li Dafu would be tempted by high salaries and shares. Li Dafu might reject high salaries, after all, he was the boss of his own factory. But shares would mean that he would be a shareholder of the company. Feng Yu would not be stingy with the shares. 1% shares were worth more than 10 million RMB!

These conditions should be sufficient to recruit Li Dafu. If it does not work, then Feng Yu would acquire Li Dafu’s current factory. A factory that was worth less than 10 million was an easy target for Feng Yu.

Feng Yu walked into Li Dafu’s factory. Li Dafu, please do not disappoint me!

Chapter 298 – Come, let’s talk about our dreams

Li Dafu had planned to go out for some business today, but he received a call saying that a big boss will be coming to talk about a business deal worth over 10 million.

His factory was very small, and the annual income was only so much. He had never handle business deals more than 10 million RMB.

“Manager Li, Mr. Feng is here.” The secretary knocked on his office door and said with a weird expression.

“Hurry and invite Manager Feng in!” Li Dafu immediately stands up and walk towards the door.

A young man younger than 20 years’ old walked in. Li Dafu was thinking in his heart that why was this young man so rude. His boss had not even entered the room, why was he walking in front?

But after a while, Li Dafu noticed that no one else was coming. He looked at his secretary puzzled.

That young man stretches out his hand and smile: “Mr. Li, I am Feng Yu. We have spoken over the phone.”

Li Dafu stiffly shook hands with Feng Yu and had an unbelievable expression on his face. Although over the phone, he knew that Feng Yu sounded very young, but he thought that it was just the voice. But when he met the real person, he was shocked.

Is this Mr. Feng even 20 years’ old? He said that he has a business deal worth over 10 million, is he talking nonsenses?

“Mr. Feng, nice to meet you. Come, have a seat. Xiao Zhang, serve tea.”

Feng Yu looked at Li Dafu’s office and noticed that his office was nicely renovated. This made sense. Li Dafu was dealing in renovation materials now. If his office was poorly renovated, who would buy his renovation materials?

“Mr. Li might not know me, but I saw a few Songjiang motorcycles downstairs. Those motorcycles are manufactured by my company.”

Feng Yu had a sense of helplessness. His age often let people doubt him. Even when he dressed more maturely, he also can’t cover his youthful looks.

Li Dafu said with a shocked expression: “Songjiang Motorcycles is from your company? That’s amazing. This motorcycle had a beautiful exterior, and it was comfortable to ride on.”

Feng Yu was surprised that Li Dafu was riding a bike now? That means he does not have much money.

These two years, Li Dafu had made some money, but he had invested most of his money in the new factory to increase production. Luckily, his products were still selling well.

“Thank you for the praises. I saw Mr. Li’s renovation materials were selling well too. I heard that many surrounding provinces were all using your magnesium-aluminum alloy.”

Li Dafu modestly said: “It’s all small businesses and cannot be compared to your businesses. I wonder what makes you travel all the way here? Are you going to buy a large quantity of magnesium-aluminum alloy?”

To Li Dafu, other than magnesium-aluminum alloy, his factory does not have any outstanding products that were worth Feng Yu to travel all the way from Bing City to Hangzhou.

“Mr. Li, can you let me look around your factory?” Feng Yu suddenly asked. He wanted to see for himself the management capabilities of Li Dafu through the factory’s operations.

This was to look at my factory’s scale before ordering? Li Dafu had met with this type of request before from other businessmen.

Since Feng Yu had said that he wants to talk about a business deal worth over 10 million, then the order must be enormous. He must be afraid that the factory could not complete the order.

“No problem. I will bring you around my factory personally and at the same time explain our factory’s operations.” Li Dafu warmly replied.

Feng Yu noticed that the workshops Li Dafu brought him to, were all working on the finished products. He did not bring him to essential areas of the factory. This showed that Li Dafu was guarded against Feng Yu.

Feng Yu made an estimation of the production of the factory and then calculated the market value. He can estimate how much this factory can make in a year.

This factory was indeed making money, and with this factory, it would be easy for Li Dafu to become a multimillionaire. If he manages well and develops new products, he might even become a billionaire.

The factory’s operations were smooth and tidy. The workshops were clean and not messy. These prove that he had managed the factory well.

Back at the office, Li Dafu anticipated looked at Feng Yu. He had brought Feng Yu to look at the few prominent areas of his factory, and Feng Yu should be convinced of the capabilities of his factory.

“Mr. Li, your factory is doing well. Will you still remain in this industry in the future?” Feng Yu suddenly asked.

Li Dafu paused for a while. Shouldn’t you be talking about your orders now?

“I will be doing this temporary. When the factory developed, I will consider doing other things.”

“What do you think about the motorcycle industry?”

Li Dafu was feeling puzzled. Why was this Feng Yu asking weird questions? He was the one in the motorcycle manufacturing business, and he was dealing in renovation materials. What has his company’s development got to do with him?

“Mr. Feng, I do not understand what you mean.”

“Mr. Li, I will be truthful with you. Your factory’s growth now might seem to be doing well. You have tens of millions of sales a year, and your profits should be a few million. But sorry to say this, no matter how your factory grows, the scale will remain the same. It will be hard for your factory to develop any further. There are many factories in the market that is producing the same products as yours. Many factories have the same technologies as yours.”

Li Dafu frowned and asked: “What are you trying to say?”

“Mr. Li, do you have dreams?”

Huh? Li Dafu’s jaws dropped. He was confused by Feng Yu’s sudden change of topics.

Dreams?

Someone who was not even 20 years’ old wants to talk about dreams with him. He was almost 30 years’ old. This Feng Yu was too weird. But over the years, Li Dafu had met many kinds of businessmen. There were some who even discuss religions with him.

“Mr. Feng, everyone has dreams, and there are different types of dreams.” Li Dafu gave a general reply.

Feng Yu was not satisfied with Li Dafu’s reply. His first impression of Li Dafu was good, and he could tell that this li Dafu was a proud person.

That’s why Feng Yu wants to talk to Li Dafu about dreams. It was just like how Apple recruited the Pepsi President. Apple talked about visions. Steve Jobs’ legendary pitch to the President of Pepsi at that time became famous: “Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

“Mr. Li, then I will talk about my dreams. Look at our country now. After China had opened up, lots of foreign brands had entered. This had a great impact on our Chinese brands. Although the economy might be seeming to be doing well now, most of the money was earned by the foreigners. My dream is to stop foreigners from taking money away from China. My dream is to earn those foreigners’ money.”

Feng Yu did not talk about bullshits like building and strengthening China. He talked about making money.

“Mr. Feng is someone with great ambitions and have a big dream. I have also thought of this. Just look at my magnesium-aluminum alloy sheets. Before my factory had succeeded in producing this alloy, we have to import it from overseas. The prices were ridiculous. It was just like what you had said. All our money were earned by the foreigners. But now, those foreigners cannot make use of these alloys to earn money from us. This is because of me and others that are like me.”

Feng Yu smiled slyly: “That means we have the same dream. Then are you interested in working together with me towards our dream?”

Chapter 299 – Everybody has dreams

Working together towards our dream?

Lots of questions marks popped up inside Li Dafu’s mind!

Who the hell has the same dream as you? I am following what you said, and you take it seriously?

You are a motorcycle manufacturer, and I am dealing with renovation materials. Our factories have nothing to do with each other! Can magnesium-aluminum alloy be used on your motorcycles?

Actually after Li Dafu’s factory had successfully produced a magnesium-aluminum alloy, he was thinking about the uses for this alloy, other than for renovation. The renovation market was too small.

The areas Li Dafu had thought of and researched on, did not include motorcycles!

“Mr. Feng, what are you trying to say?”

Feng Yu laughed. Li Dafu was confused by him, and that’s good.

“Mr. Li, can you drive? What do you think of the automobile market?”

“Automobile market?” Li Dafu’s eyes widen in shock. This motorcycle manufacturer, Feng Yu, now wants to build cars?

If Feng Yu really wants to manufacture cars, then it was indeed related to him. This aluminum alloy can be used on vehicles. It was lighter than steel and will lessen the vehicle’s weight. Furthermore, this alloy will not rust easily.

That means Feng Yu really wants to manufacture automobiles.

Even if there were only 10,000 cars produced in a year and all the cars used his alloy, it will be a huge business deal, and there will be lots of profits for the factory.

“Our country’s automobile market is expanding, and the living standards of our people had increased. As such, the demand for transportation will increase. Just our Taicheng and Hangzhou alone, there are more cars on the streets these two years. The automobile industry has great potential!”

But Li Dafu knew that although the automobile market is expanding, those established automobile manufacturers’ production is also increasing. There are also imported cars. He was not so optimistic about entering this industry as a new player.

The most promising mode of transportation in China now should be the motorcycles. Maybe Feng Yu had earned a lot from his bikes business and had this thought of manufacturing cars. This might not be a problem two years later. If he were to start now, it might be too early.

“Mr. Li also think automobile industry has the potential? That’s great. Our goals are the same again.|

Li Dafu: “……”

Never mind. I don’t care if it is the same or not as long as you place a big order with me.

“Mr. Li, have you ever thought that one day our Chinese automobile manufacturer will be one of the world’s top automobile manufacturer and might even be the world’s number one?” Feng Yu continued.

World’s number one?

Li Dafu felt that Feng Yu was crazy. Don’t talk about the world, just China alone had so many established automobile enterprises. Their production, scale, and technologies were the best in China, and your new automobile company might not even survive in China, and you want to think about being the World’s number one?

It’s good to have a dream, but it must be realistic. Li Dafu felt that if Feng Yu’s goal was to survive in China’s market and get a part of the market share, it might be possible. But to be the world’s number one, he must be China’s number one first!

“Huh…. Mr. Feng is really ambitious.” Li Dafu doesn’t know what else to say.

The future Chinese market will be the biggest market for the automobile industry, regardless of trucks or saloon cars. The Chinese economy will grow rapidly, and from 1995 onwards, the automobile market starts to flourish. After the year 2000, this automobile market grew even faster. There was another sudden growth of the automobile industry after China joined the WTO in 2003.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Toyota and Volkswagon were also because of their China sales to become the world’s number one and two automobile manufacturer. If Feng Yu could get a large part of China’s market share, then Feng Yu can be the world’s top automobile manufacturer.

China’s automobile market will only be this big in the future, and Feng Yu must get the biggest market share!

“Mr. Li, it is important to have dreams. What if the dreams really come true? The most important thing is to work hard towards your dream then the dream will come true. If one day you are standing on the world stage, you can announce to the whole world that you had firm believes that your dreams will come true from day one. Imagine how beautiful that will be.”

Feng Yu’s words were very encouraging. The entrepreneurs of this era were all people who were not satisfied with working for others. Li Dafu had started his own business in 1986, and after so many years, his factory had grown from a small workshop with only a few employees to this factory with over a hundred employees. But this was still far away from his dream.

Li Dafu had also dreamt of his products being sold all over China and even exported overseas. But reality told him that this dream will remain as a dream. He was only someone who sells renovation materials. He thought that he was successful when he was the first one in China to produce a magnesium-aluminum alloy, but soon, he discovered that other factories also had made breakthroughs and was able to produce the alloy too. His products were not able to be sold all over China. Even in the surrounding provinces, he had many competitors.

But in his heart, he had not admitted his losses. He firmly believes that he would succeed one day. Feng Yu’s words had touched his heart. All this while he was working hard towards his dream.

If his goal was to let his family have a good life, then he had already achieved it. His factory was worth over 10 million, and if he sold his factory, he and his family could retire comfortably. But that kind of lifestyle was not what he wanted. He still wants to work hard and achieve his dreams!

“So, Mr. Li, join my company. Leave this factory for your family members to manage. Come over to my company, and we can create history!”

Huh? Li Dafu returned back to reality. Wasn’t Feng Yu going to place a big order for his alloy to manufacture cars? Give up this factory and work for him?

“Mr. Feng, are you telling me to work for you?” Li Dafu was not happy. He was the boss of a factory and even though his business was not as big as Feng Yu, but why should he work for Feng Yu?

“It is not working for me. It is creating the future together. Our Chinese automobile industry’s future. Join my company as the Deputy General Manager of my automobile project. I will give you some company’s shares within 3 years as a reward. Once you own the shares, you are also a shareholder and consider one of the owners of the company. What do you think? Do you dare to try?”

Chapter 300 – Increased investment in Lehaha

Although Feng Yu had painted a beautiful picture, Li Dafu still felt that it was unrealistic. He did not agree or disagree. He just told Feng Yu that he needs some time to consider.

Feng Yu also understand him. If it were him, he would also be suspicious. Why did you choose me? Are you telling the truth? The picture you described, is it even be possible?

Feng Yu was also not anxious. All the factories had not even started construction, and the negotiations with the local government had not yet begun. He also wants to monitor Li Dafu for a while and see if he was worth the conditions he offered.

……

Feng Yu was looking at the sales report at Lehaha’s headquarters. Zhong Qingxian also tells Feng Yu about the company’s current circumstances. Lehaha’s development was much better than Feng Yu expected. Their products were too popular, and the demand had outweighed the supply by too much. They were already raising funds to expand their operations.

Feng Yu only glance through the reports. He had people in Lehaha’s financial department, and there were no problems with the reports. Zhong Qingxian was honest with him.

“Manager Feng, this is the company’s current situation. There are many orders, which we dare not accept. We did not anticipate that the sales will be so good after we had built up our reputation.” Zhong Qingxian sighed.

Feng Yu laughed and said: “This is normal. The parents had lived in poor conditions for a long time, and when they are young, they suffered hardships. Now, their lives got better, and naturally, they do not want their children to go through what they had gone through. They want to give the best things to their children. I had suggested building more branch factories previously, but now, we are still not too late.”

These two years was the golden period for health supplement products. Although Lehaha oral health supplements were targeting children, they had become the market leaders. There were no other competitors.

The health supplement market was divided among a few brands. King of Hearts was targeting the elderly, Ants Wine, were targeting grown men and only Three Pearls health supplements for the women was the product of Giant Corporation. Shi Dazhu will accumulate lots of funds within these two years, but after that, they will be burdened by financial troubles because of the new Giant Corporation’s building. That will be the time for Feng Yu to invest.

The future health supplement’s industry will be controlled by Shanghai Goldpartner Biotech Co Ltd. (a subsidiary company of Giant Corporation), with their best-selling product “Naobaijin”. The researchers that developed “Naobaijin” had said that the cost of 1 box was only about 2 RMB and the retail price was a few hundred RMB! The returns were huge!

But now, Shi Dazhu will never allow Feng Yu to invest in Giant Corporation. He had too much money now!

Feng Yu was now thinking of ways to let Zhong Qingxian to not only develop Lehaha this product but also develop other types of beverages products like carbonated drinks, etc. In the future, the beverages market will be huge.

In Feng Yu’s past life, there will be a Xurisheng Group appearing in two years’ time. Their ice and warm tea beverages were popular throughout China. Within a few years, this company grew from a small factory worth 30 million RMB to a company that had more than 3 billion RMB annual sales!

But that did not last long. Because of mismanagement, after the millennium, this company did not do well and was even bankrupted. Their brand was also sold.

Zhong Qingxian discussed with Feng Yu about his development plans. He planned to set up 3 branch factories in the next 3 years, and their primary market will still be the provinces in the Southeast region. These provinces were developing the fastest and had the most purchasing power.

Lehaha could easily afford to set up a branch factory every year with their current situation. But Feng Yu felt that Zhong Qingxian’s plan was too slow. By the time Lehaha finished their development plans, Xurisheng Group would appear. They would miss the opportunity to capture the profitable tea beverage market.

“Mr. Zhong, have you ever considered increasing the variety of our company’s products?” Feng Yu suddenly asked.

Product diversification? Zhong Qingxian frowned. Now their company could not even cope with one product, and they still want to develop more products? He also knew that the company’s growth would be limited if they depend on one product. But will it be too early for them to diversify their products now?

“Manager Feng, we did have the intentions to diversify into products like dairy products for children. But this will be after we have controlled the market.”

“Seems like Mr. Zhong have already thought about the future. Children’s dairy product is good. This will be in-line with our company’s direction. But think about where our factory is located and what is the most famous beverage in this area?”

Where is the factory located and the most famous beverage in this area? Hangzhou was famous for Longjing tea! Feng Yu wants to develop Longjing tea?

“Manager Feng, there are already lots of tea merchants for Longjing tea, and they are already in this line for many years. It will be hard for us to enter the market.” Zhong Qingxian frowned. He felt his idea of children dairy products was better and this will be his future plans for the company.

Feng Yu shook his head: “I am not talking about Longjing tea. I am talking about tea beverages. We can combine tea and carbonated drinks together, just like Jianlibao. Have you ever thought of this?”

Jianlibao?

Zhong Qingxian thought for a while. Jianlibao had appeared out of nowhere a few years ago and had captured the Chinese market. Leveraging on the sports arena, it was even exported to the western countries. There was also a nickname “China’s Magic water” for Jianlibao.

Last year’s Asian Games, it was the official drink for China’s team. There were rumors that Jianlibao will be setting up a company in the US and will be buying an office at the Empire State Building.

He had studied Jianlibao before, and that’s only carbonated drinks with electrolyte added. It was not as magical as it claims. But the market responded quite positively.

But Feng Yu was suggesting to tea into carbonated drinks. Isn’t that just adding tea into the carbonated water?

“Manager Feng, will people be buying carbonated tea beverages?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

“Of course. I can guarantee that! During the summer, everybody likes to drink cold soft drinks. If you do not believe me, you can let one factory to test it and see if this type of drinks will be popular.”

Zhong Qingxian frowned: Manager Feng, although the new factory we planned will be bigger if we are to produce Lehaha health supplements and beverage, the workers, materials, machinery and other costs will increase. If we fail……”

Zhong Qingxian also wanted to try. Maybe it will be possible. But they need sufficient funds. He had plans for children dairy products, and it had not even started. Where would he get the funds to start on this carbonated tea beverage project?

“Mr. Zhong, are you worry about the funds? Why not I will invest more money in the company and increase my stake to 49%. With my money and the company’s current funds, we can set up two factories at the same time. If the negotiations are smooth and with the help of loans from the local districts, we can even set up 3 factories at the same time. One factory can manufacture the oral health supplement and the carbonated tea beverage at the same time. Another factory can start on your children’s dairy products. If the market response is poor, we can switch all the factories back to manufacturing oral health supplements. What do you think?”

Zhong Qingxian hesitated. Feng Yu wants to continue to invest and wanted 49%. This meant that he will not interfere with the company’s operations and this additional fund was crucial for the company’s growth.

Should he accept this investment?

Chapter 301 – Flying kites (Part One)

Feng Yu was sitting quietly and did not disturb Zhong Qingxian. He was thinking about what Feng Yu had said.

Zhong Qingxian was in a dilemma. After a while, he stood up and asked Feng Yu to wait while he went for a smoke.

Feng Yu knew that Zhong Qingxian was going to call his two other partners to discuss his suggestions. His partners had gone to other provinces to look at locations for the new factories and were not at the company.

Zhong Qingxian returned 10 minutes later.

“Manager Feng, how much do you intend to invest?”

Feng Yu raised one finger: “10 million RMB for 9% shares. I believe with this price, you can answer to the other two shareholders.”

Although Lehaha was growing at a rapid speed, the market value of the company was only about 70 million RMB. 10 million RMB for 9% shares was considered a very high price.

Zhong Qingxian had just spoken to his partners, and he also received a call from his sales manager telling him that He Boquan from Guangdong, selling Lebai yogurt drinks, had started to enter the northern markets. If Lehaha hesitated any further, the market share would be occupied by Lebai yogurt!

Zhong Qingxian was a decisive person, and he convinced his partners with this piece of information. Those two partners also trusted Zhong Qingxian. After all, since the time Feng Yu invested in their company, they had gotten more returns than they had expected.

“Manager Feng, do you have any suggestions for our company’s development?”

Feng Yu was laughing in his heart. Zhong Qingxian was asking him for suggestions or trying to see if Feng Yu intends to interfere with the company’s operations.

“I do not have any suggestions. I only think that the tea beverages market has great potential. If we start the product development and build the factory now, we will not be in time for this year’s summer. We can introduce our products to the market next summer. Mr. Zhong is more experienced in this field and thinks that the children dairy products will also do well. These are all the company’s operation matters, and you can decide everything. Of course, if Mr. Zhong trusts me, I can help the company to import some second-hand bottling production lines from the Soviet Union. No matter if is it plastic bottles or cans, I can get it cheap.”

Zhong Qingxian was relieved. Seem like Feng Yu does not want to interfere with the company’s operations. He can rest assured.

“That’s great. I will see what types of machinery we need and will order from you.”

There were no canning and bottling production lines in China, and these machines need to be imported. There were very expensive. If they can get second-hand machines, it will lower their cost by a lot. This will also be good for the company. As for the raw materials, Zhong Qingxian believes that with the company’s reputation now, they can have a longer credit term.

Now, it will be possible to build 3 factories at once and start to produce the health supplement drinks, dairy products, and tea beverages.

The next day, the other two partners returned to Hangzhou. The four of them discussed for a while, and that afternoon, Feng Yu signed the agreement with them.

……

Feng Yu finally finished all of his tasks. The money he earned from the stock market was all spent, and he can finally rest for a few days.

Back at Bing City, Feng Yu went back to his school. He had skipped school for a while, and he misses it.

It was almost the final exams. All the year 3 students were preparing for the exams and the school had instructed the year 1 and 2 students to keep their volumes down. They were not allowed to disturb the year 3 students.

When Feng Yu appeared in the classroom, the other students were shocked.

Feng Yu was at school. What was he here?

Feng Yu was the special one among the year 3 students. He was the one to be admitted to Beijing University without the need for entrance exams. The form teacher also allows Feng Yu to skip classes and if he wants to attend classes, he was not allowed to disturb others. He can join the year 1 and 2 physical education classes or go to the library. If he does wish to attend classes, he can go where ever he wants as long as he does not disturb the other students.

All this while, Feng Yu had followed his teacher’s last instructions. Not attending any classes.

The rest of the students were used to Feng Yu not attending classes. When Feng Yu suddenly appears, they were a bit not used to it. It felt that there was a newly transferred student in the class.

But the rest of the students looked at Feng Yu for a while and continued their revision. Only one person was not able to concentrate and kept looking at Feng Yu.

“Come, try this imported chocolate. It tastes good.” Feng Yu walked over to Li Na, ignoring the school bells.

Li Na rolled her eyes and said: “Class is starting. Hurry back to your seat.”

Feng Yu laughed and returned to his seat. He touched his desk and found that there was no dust on it. Someone had been cleaning his desk for him while he was away. It must be Li Na. She must be used to cleaning his desk and chair every day.

The teacher entered the classroom and saw Feng Yu. He was surprised. Why was Feng Yu here today? Could he be here because he misses the way I teach?

But after the teacher started the class, Feng Yu fell asleep on his desk.

The classroom was still a place that was good for sleeping.

The bell rang, signaling the end of class. Feng Yu woke up and rubbed his eyes. Li Na was in front of him smiling. The student sitting beside Feng Yu left, letting Li Na sit beside him.

“How come you are so busy for such a long time? Have you settled all your matters?”

“What’s there to worry about when I handle all these matters personally? Everything is settled, and I can accompany you in class. I will only be busy after the exams.”

During this period, Feng Yu noticed the importance of the management staffs. He will be attending university in Beijing soon, and he hoped that he would be able to recruit some good management staff for his company. There were a lot of future capable people from his university and the surrounding universities in Beijing.

But the ones he wanted to know, like Charles Zhang and Robin Li, were no longer in China. They were in the US to further their studies. But it was also a good thing for them to broaden their horizons and when Feng Yu graduated from university, he could help these people start their career.

By becoming an angel investor, Feng Yu can be friends with them and also, they will give Feng Yu lots of returns. In his past life, these people had sought foreign funds to invest in them, but this time, those foreign investors can move aside. Feng Yu will be the one that invests in these Chinese entrepreneurs.

Li Na smiled sweetly. She likes Feng Yu to accompany her, and she felt more confident with him around.

“Tomorrow is Sunday, and there is no school. I have checked the weather report and tomorrow there will be some winds. Why not we go to the river banks to fly kites? The teacher had said that one must rest once in a while for better grades. I had bought 2 big kites.”

Li Na hesitated for a while and nodded. She doesn’t mind what they do, as long as Feng Yu was with her.

Chapter 302 – Flying kites (Part two)

It was considered Summer now, but Bing City’s temperature was still less than 20 degrees Celsius.

The sky was clear with few clouds. The sun had just rose, and there was a gentle breeze. Underneath a willow tree, there was a girl in a light green dress.

The girl gently tucks her hair behind her ears and smiled towards Feng Yu.

Looking at the young man tripping and running while holding a kite that was bigger than him, she ran towards him: “Slow down, there is no rush.”

The girl took out a handkerchief and helped that young man wiped his sweats.

“I had found out where that boat owner, Old Liu went to. He went to buy cigarettes. I had paid the deposit, and there was no reason for him to not turn up. Let’s wait a while. He will be here soon.”

Yesterday, after Li Na agreed to fly kites with him, he immediately looked for a boat and paid the deposit. He instructed the boat owner to wait for him at 9 am by the river bank. The boat will ferry them to the beach on the other bank. He had also prepared some food for a BBQ during lunch.

It was already 9.10 am and Old Liu had not appeared. Feng Yu asked Li Na to wait for him while he went to find out what happened.

Today, Feng Yu was enthusiastic. That moron Wen Dongjun had not joined them. He had sprained his ankle during a football match a few days ago. He had already secured a place in the university, and he was playing football and basketball every day.

Feng Yu was happy that he had sprained his ankle.

At least for a week, Wen Dongjun could not run about.

Actually, Wen Dongjun had wanted to join them today, but Feng Yu told him that he would not have the time to look after him. He would be so busy flying a kite and would not have the time to look after a handicapped person.

There were video games at home and videotapes. If he was still bored, Feng Yu also took the knitting kit from his sister. He told Wen Dongjun in a serious tone that knitting was interesting. Once you had knitted for a few hours, you will experience the thrill of knitting, and it was fun.

Wen Dongjun asked if Feng Yu had tried knitting before. Feng Yu looked at him and said: “I am so busy every day, where would I find the time to play? You go and try knitting. I need to fly my kite!”

……

After a while, the boat owner, Old Liu arrived and apologized to Feng Yu. The both of them boarded his boat. Feng Yu had booked his boat for the day, and once Old Liu sent them to their destination, he can sleep in the cabin. The amount he earned today was more than a week’s income.

The boat arrived at the northern bank of the river, and Old Liu anchored the boat. He reminded Feng Yu to not to swim as the water was still freezing. He could get cramps easily in the waters.

Feng Yu rolled up his pants and jumped into the water. He asked Li Na to climb onto his back, and he carried Li Na to shore. On Feng Yu’s back, Li Na was overjoyed. She wished she could stay on his back forever.

Old Liu help Feng Yu brought his kite to the shore and returned to the boat.

“You release the string, and I will hold the kite up. You run towards that direction. It is against the wind direction, and the kite will fly up easily.” Feng Yu said, and he ran off to a distance with the kite.

“Pull the string. Okay. Now release bit by bit. It’s up, the kite is flying!”

Feng Yu and Li Na shouted excitedly. That had succeeded the first time, and they had a sense of accomplishment.

Feng Yu had specially ordered this kite from an old craftsman. It was lovely. This morning, when Li Na saw the kite, she likes it immediately. Actually, Feng Yu ordered two kites. The other was in the form of a centipede. He thought about it, and he did not bring the centipede kite. He gave that kite to Wen Dongjun.

The kite flew higher and higher. Li Na kept releasing the string. The both of them held on to the string, laughing together.

“Look, the kite is so high now. It’s beautiful!” Li Na pointed to the kite.

“I am the one who painted the butterfly’s wings.” Feng Yu proudly said.

“Is it the center of the left wings?”

Feng Yu exclaimed: “how do you know?”

Impossible. Li Na was not around when the kite was being made.

“It is because that part is the ugliest!” Li Na said, trying to hold back her laughter.

“Wa…. You dare to laugh at me? That wing is the nicest part of the kite. There must be something wrong with your eyes. Look carefully!” Feng Yu pretended to be angry.

“Hahaha, fine. Your painting is the nicest.”

The both of them was flying a kite and teasing each other. One hour later, it was almost noon, and the both of them were tired.

Feng Yu starts to reel in the string and took out the BBQ equipment. He poured some alcohol on the charcoal and lit it.

Coughed……

He got all the steps right, but the wind direction changed suddenly. From being upwind, Feng Yu was now downwind. He inhaled the thick smoke and choked.

Li Na was laughing hard at him, and she tapped Feng Yu’s hand: “Let me do it. You have not lit a fire at home before?”

Feng Yu “……” I had been living in a farmhouse until two years ago. It was the wind that changed direction. It had nothing to do with my fire starting skills.

Soon, the charcoals were burning red hot, and Feng Yu took out the lamb skewers and chicken wings to cook. He used a small brush to brush condiments on the food.

“What are you spreading on the chicken wings? It smells nice and why it smells a bit sweet?”

“Honey. You should not have tried before. Later you can have a taste of my cooking skills. I love to BBQ chicken wings, and I love to BBQ chicken wings for Li Na~~~” Feng Yu was singing some random songs he heard from the Stephen Chow’s movies. He only changed the lyrics.

“What are you singing? It’s awful.” Li Na stared at Feng Yu.

“This is the <Chicken wing song>. Come, I will teach you how to sing it. BBQ chicken wings, I love to eat Chicken wings~~~, Sing along with me!”

“……”  Li Na: “I don’t want to sing this song! You BBQ first, I will ask Old Liu to eat with us. Help me roast a piece of bread.”

Feng Yu was feeling hurt. This song is so lovely, and my voice is so good. It must be just now, I did not sing it correctly. Hmmm…. I must practice it more: “BBQ chicken wings, I love to eat Chicken wings~~~.”

Old Liu slowly walks towards Feng Yu with a small plate. It contains the small fishes he deep fried in the morning. Feng Yu had paid him so much, and he made some snacks for him. Feng Yu tasted one fish, and it was excellent.

“Young man, what are you singing just now? Chinese opera?” Old Liu laughed and asked.

Feng Yu: “……”

Li Na was trembling from holding back her laughter.

“Ermmm…. Old Liu, you must have heard wrong. I am just humming some tunes. I don’t know any Chinese opera. Old Liu, your deep-fried fishes are delicious. Share with me your recipes.”

……

Chapter 303 – Fu Guangzheng

“Guangzheng, this time let Old Zhou and the rest help you to negotiate with the local government regarding the building of the branch factories.”

“Uncle, do you think that Feng Yu will succeed this time? The automobile industry is not something that can achieve overnight. Furthermore, we are setting up new factories. Other than the high cost, we still do not have experienced workers. We are starting from zero. Why is Feng Yu so insistent to enter the automobile manufacturing industry?” Fu Guangzheng was not sure why Feng Yu wanted to do this. This was apparently a loss-making business.

“You only analyzed these?” Fu Rongqi looked at Fu Guangzheng.

This nephew of his had improved a lot in the recent years. He was more mature now, and Fu Rongqi was happy with his progress. The Fu family needs more capable next generation to take over his generation and let the Fu family continue to be one of Hong Kong’s top influential family. In the recent years, Fu Guangzheng had been entering new industries which were different from the rest of the  Fu family, and he was happy with his performance.

“1 billion RMB might seem to be a lot. But if it is only for 1 or 2 factories, that’s still fine. China’s future automobile market will be better than now, and that is the reason why Feng Yu wants to enter this industry. He is right to set up 5 new branch factories at the same time. Counting the current factory, that will be 6 automobile factories, and he still wants to build 4 more motorcycle factories. This is a business strategy to capture the market. However, his resources will be spread over so many factories. How can he develop this business?”

Investing 1 billion in the automobile manufacturing industry will not be a problem if there were experienced workers and the required technologies. But that was only the resources were gathered together. Now, the funds will be spread over so many factories, and each factory will just have about 100 million, and Fu Guangzheng felt that 100 million was not enough for an automobile factory.

“Then why didn’t you withdraw your investment from the Machinery Company?” Fu Rongqi asked.

“Uncle, to be honest, I am treating this as a gamble. Feng Yu had been successful with all his investment. Since the day I know him, I had never seen him fail before. Every time he spends his money and looks like he was being taken advantage off, but in the end, he would be the one earning the most. When I know him, he does not have a lot of assets. Now, although I do not have the exact figures, I know that he is wealthier than my family and I even suspect that his wealth is catching up with you. That’s why although I do not think that this project will do well, I am willing to take a gamble. At most, I will be losing some money. As long as the humidifiers and the bladeless fans are still around, Feng Yu will not fail, and I will not fail too! Furthermore, there is still the Aiwa Company, and their new product had launched in Japan, and China’s launch will be in June!”

The more Fu Guangzheng know Feng Yu, the more he felt that Feng Yu was mysterious. His every decision does not make sense at first, but in the end, he was always right.

For example, the humidifiers and bladeless fans celebrity endorsements. Feng Yu did not pick the ones Fu Guangzheng chose, but instead, he asked Fu Guangzheng to sign contracts with two not so well-known celebrities. A second rated TV star Johnny Depp and Macaulay Culkin, a kid younger than 8 years old.

But last year, there were two box office hits which no one expected. One movie was <Edward Scissorhands>, starring Johnny Depp, and the other <Home Alone>, starring Macaulay Culkin. These two movies were hits, and these two main leads became famous overnight.

With these two actors’ current popularity, the endorsement fees will be at more 10 times more than what they paid. Fu Guangzheng was puzzled. How come Feng Yu knew that these two actors will be famous?

Even if Feng Yu knew that these two actors will be acting in those two movies, how would he know that these films will be box office hits? Feng Yu had watched the movie before? Impossible. Feng Yu had never been to the US. The furthest he had been was Hong Kong!

But this was a fact. Although Fu Guangzheng did not know what happened, he could only guess that Feng Yu had some connections in the US. With the success of these two movies and the increased fame of the actors, the sales of the humidifiers and the bladeless fans also increased. Those bladeless fans stored in the warehouse were sold out a few days ago, and there were still more orders coming in.

Luckily the new factory in Dongguang’s productivity was higher than Bing City and could still cope with the sudden increased demand. The last time Fu Guangzheng went to Bing City, he found out that Feng Yu now owns all the shares of the humidifiers and bladeless fans. He did not know how Feng Yu was able to get his hands on the Motor Factory and the Aviation Factory’s shares. Now, the Motor Factory only acts as a contractor for Feng Yu to manufacture his products. Feng Yu’s profits had increased by a lot.

When Fu Guangzheng suggested building a new factory to increase production, Feng Yu readily agrees. He even let Fu Guangzheng choose the location and do not mind about how much he had to invest.

This time, Feng Yu invested a considerable amount into the Machinery Company, Fu Rongqi had wanted to let Fu Guangzheng withdraw his investments and sell his shares to Feng Yu or Bing City Government. Fu Guangzheng’s investment had already multiplied by several folds, and he did not need to take on so much risk with Feng Yu.

But this time Fu Guangzheng refused to listen to his eldest uncle. The Aiwa shares incident caused by his father had pissed Feng Yu off, which lead to his father being fooled by him. With the help of his eldest uncle, Feng Yu provided some information for his father to recoup his losses and still made some money, Fu Guangzheng knew that his relationship with Feng Yu was not as close as before.

If he chooses to withdraw his investments, that means the distance between him and Feng Yu will be even further. When Feng Yu had any excellent investment opportunities in the future, he would not ask Fu Guangzheng along. Also, Aiwa products that were launched in Japan two months ago were doing well. Hong Kong Aiwa’s subsidiary will be in charge of China sales, and if Aiwa products sell well, Fu Guangzheng will also earn a lot.

If Fu Guangzheng and Feng Yu had any unpleasant encounters now, Feng Yu might break their contract, and Fu Guangzheng would lose this business.

Furthermore, there was still the humidifiers and bladeless fans. Fu Guangzheng and the rest of the Fu family had made quite a lot from these two products. After he explained to his eldest uncle, his uncle agreed with him.

His eldest uncle had told him that Feng Yu had good foresight and got access to some information network. But Feng Yu lacked one crucial thing. He lacks management talents!

Fu Guangzheng was not considered a talented person, but Fu Rongjing had taught him for many years, and now Fu Rongqi was also guiding him and even help him set up a management team. It can be said that Fu Guangzheng’s management skills were much better than anyone from Feng Yu’s company. He might even be better than Feng Yu.

Just this alone, Fu Guangzheng can help Feng Yu a lot. Feng Yu would also ditch him. Then when Feng Yu made money, he could also tag along. He would even be the bridge between Feng Yu and the Fu family. Fu Rongqi felt that this was more important than anything else.

“It’s good that you have thought this out thoroughly. Go and settle everything with the local government as soon as possible. The earlier that factories are built, the better we can understand the market. The risk will also be smaller this way. Don’t worry about failing. Now, China is developing very fast, and there are many opportunities. There are very few people as capable as Feng Yu nowadays!”

Chapter 304 – Graduation

Time flies, and soon the high school final exams were over.

After the last exam, Feng Yu looked at the smiling Li Na who was walking out of the examination halls. He knew that she would do well in her exams.

“How was it? I had said that with your results, you should have no problems getting good grades.” Feng Yu said while passing her a bottle of Jianlibao.

“I had seen many similar questions before.” Li Na nodded. She was too excited, and her face was blushing.

There were many parents around waiting for their children. High school exams was a big event for them. It was even more important than the high school exams in the future. Now, if their children get into the University, they would be assigned jobs, and in the future, they would be leaders.

In that era, Studying can change one’s fate. Some poor villages even pooled the whole village resources to let one child get into the university.

“Your sister should have done well for her exams. She must be able to get into a university. I still don’t know how my brother does in his exams. Bro, want a smoke?” A man in his 20s beside them passed Feng Yu a cigarette. He thought that Li Na was Feng Yu’s sister. He did not think that the both of them were dating.

At their age, many were already dating, and even some were married. Those that were underage would have their wedding banquets first, and when they passed their legal age, they would then register their marriage. But for university students, especially in the City, it was uncommon.

“Thanks, but I don’t some. I still have something on, and we will make a move first. Good luck to your brother.”

That man saw Feng Yu left with his “sister’ in a car and it was still an imported car. He eyes grew wide. This guy’s family was so wealthy. He can never afford this type of cars. He still has to send his brother to University, and after his brother become a leader in the future, he would also get the opportunity to own a small car.

“Where are you bringing me to?”

“To the fun fair. The Ferris wheel had started operating. Didn’t you want to ride the Ferris wheel? We finally got the chance to go there. The school now must be messy. You will know tonight.”

It was not sure when it started, there was a tradition of throwing books after the high school final exams. It was as if all the students were releasing all their examination stress and saying farewell to the school. There were even howling, and Feng Yu even saw a student throwing away his pencil case after the exams.

Of course, Feng Yu had also done that in his previous life. But this life, he had no stress at all. The school was like a playground for him. He did not even attend the exams, why would he have stress?

With Li Na’s character, she would not participate in those crazy activities. That’s why it was better for Feng Yu to bring her out.

They played at the fun fair for about an hour, and the sky starts to turn dark. After dinner, Feng Yu sent Li Na back to her hostel. Tomorrow will be the day for the students to apply for the universities. Li Na’s first choice was Beijing Teaching University. That evening, the school had organized a party for the students at the nearby cultural palace. This was to celebrate the graduation of the third years.

“Eh, look at what I am wearing today. Do I look handsome?” Wen Dongjun asked while standing in front of a mirror. Because he had gotten a place in Beijing Technological University, he was an honored student, and he would be receiving an award from the school tonight.

Feng Yu glanced at him: “Yes, you are so handsome! I heard that you will even be performing at the party. Have your practice? Don’t disgrace yourself.”

When Feng Yu mentioned this, Wen Dongjun’s face changed: “Sigh… how did the teacher plan this performance? I only get to say the last line!”

“The last line is always the most important. This is the teacher taking care of you. Perform well. I will cheer for you.” Feng Yu said while trying to hold back his laughter. The last line was typically reserved for the worst performer. This teacher could tell Wen Dongjun’s capabilities!

……

The party started, and there were performances like singing, dancing, and many other performances. There were also plays. Some of the year 3 students participated in these performances, and some were from the junior high school students nearby. These students had to practice for this performance before their final exams.

When it was Wen Dongjun’s turn, Feng Yu almost died from laughing.

Wen Dongjun was 1.85m tall and the teacher team him up with 3 other junior high school students who were 1.4m.

This sharp contrast had a substantial impact on the audiences. When the audience saw the sour look on Wen Dongjun’s face, everyone burst out in laughter. Wen Dongjun was famous in school for his height and his skills in basketball and football. He was even exempted from the entrance exams to Beijing Technological University. All the other students envied him.

But today, he was the joke of the party. Luckily Wen Dongjun was a shameless person, and he could still carry on with his performance.

“Third Highschool had lots of outstanding students, and all of them are the future leaders. They had worked hard to go to Beijing. I am exempted from the entrance exams!”

But he did not notice that every line he said, he had to bend his knees slightly. He looks very weird.

After his performance ended, he was feeling proud. Look, my performance was excellent. I received the most laughter and applause. But he did not know that it was because of other reasons.

The other three junior high school students were wearing their school uniforms. Only Wen Dongjun was wearing formal wear. The contrast was too big. All his lines were boasting, and this was in line with his character. The teacher really understands him well!

After the party ended, some of the students were not satisfied. Someone suggested a BBQ on a small island in the north of the river tomorrow, and lots of students agreed.

Feng Yu thought for a while. This might the last time he will be with these students. He also accepted the invitation.

……

“Teachers, today, the both of us invited you here is to thank all of you for your guidance these few years……” Feng Yu and Li Na had reserved a table at a restaurant to thank their teachers.

“The both of you are good students, and I am proud to have taught the both of you.” The form teacher said.

He was the most qualified person to say this. He was Feng Yu and Li Na’s form teacher from year 1 to year 3. He got the chance to teach Arts stream was also because of Feng Yu.

At first, the form teacher was not happy. Getting good results in Science stream was easy. But now, he felt that Arts stream was also able to achieve outstanding results. It does not matter how other students fare in their exams. Feng Yu’s admittance into Beijing University was enough for him to brag to the coming few batches of students. He can claim that he had taught an outstanding student.

The form teacher also got a good performance appraisal because of this class.

The only regret was that after Feng Yu graduate, he would not receive expensive gifts during festivals. Every festival, Feng Yu had asked his men to send his teacher gifts. The last Lunar New Year, the form teacher had received gifts that were worth more than his one-year salary.

Of course, he had also taken good care of Feng Yu and Li Na. Now, both students were admitted to the universities in Beijing, he would not feel guilty for closing one eye and letting the both of them do whatever they wanted.

The form teacher slowly stood up and raise his glass: “Come, let us toast and wish the both of them to have a good future!

Translator notes: Finally, Feng Yu had graduated from High School after 300 chapters. Will the university also takes another 300 chapters?

Chapter 305 – Wen Deguang’s promotion to the Chief of Farm department.

Three days after the final exams, Feng Yu drove Wen Dongjun and the other two back to their district.

There were only the 4 of them in the car. Their luggage was handed over to Wind and Rain Logistics. Their trucks will be making a trip to Tai Hua Food Processing Factory tomorrow, and they will be sending their luggage on the way.

When they start High School, they had very little luggage. But after graduation, Feng Yu found that his car could not even carry Li Na’s luggage.

Maybe Feng Yu had bought too many gifts for Li Na.

After sending his friends home, Feng Yu slowly drove back. When he returned home, his mother was cooking in the kitchen.

“You are back. Hurry, go and wash your hands. We will eat after I finish the last dish.”

“Where’s dad? Is he still at the factory? Didn’t we hire someone to manage the factory?” Feng Yu frowned. It was already noon and why was his father still so busy?

“Your father went to your Uncle Wen’s house for a drink. Your Uncle Wen was promoted!”

Uncle Wen promoted? He was just promoted to deputy chief not long ago. How come he was promoted again?

He was promoted to the Chief of the farm department? Wasn’t this too fast?

“Mum, is Uncle Wen going to be the Chief of the Farm department?” Feng Yu had an unbelievable look on his face. Was this considered the legendary high-flier?

From his progression, Uncle Wen should be retiring with a high rank. Who would believe this would happen in the past?

“Yes. It was announced this morning, and your Uncle Wen had just returned from his office. He immediately asked your father over for a drink to celebrate. Your father has a lot to do with his promotion.” Zhang Muhua said proudly.

The Feng family had made a lot of investments in the district, and their factories were developing very fast. Their process food factory and Tai Peng pig farm were featured many times on the provincial TV news.

During every interview, when the reporters asked Feng Xingtai about his secret to his success, he would say that it was because he got the help of the Chief and Deputy Chief Wen of the Farm Department, and the hard work of all the workers.

If it was once or twice, it was still okay. But it was a few dozen times. Even the higher-ups also noticed this.

The Chief was already due for his promotion. He was promoted straight to the position of a country Mayor. When the country’s Party committee secretary retires in 2 years’ time, he would be taking over that position.

The Chief knew that his promotion was because of the relationship between Wen Deguang and Feng Xingtai. He had the credit for the district’s development. After all, the food processing factory and the pig farm were set up during his term as the chief of the farm department. In the future, whenever people talk about these two companies, he would be mentioned.

Who can continue to have good relationships with the Feng family? Other than Wen Deguang, there was no one else! At first, there were other experienced Deputy Chiefs that tried to use their connections to get this position. But soon, they stopped. Even the Provincial Farm Department head had praised Wen Deguang for his performance.

They were bitter about this. Wen Deguang was always smiling and looking harmless. But they never expected that he had connections with the Provincial Department head.

Their head had already spoken and who would dare to vie for the position of Chief? They can only remain as Deputies and carry on with their duties. They still have the chance after Wen Deguang was promoted again and transferred out.

The head of the Provincial Farm Department had already noticed Wen Deguang, and his next promotion should be fast too. With the speed of his promotion, he should be promoted again within the next 3 years. The deputies can still afford to wait.

Even if Wen Deguang were not promoted, with the district development speed, they would also get some credit. They can always apply for transfer to other districts. They might even be transferred to the Country’s department.

There was only about 20,000 population in the district. But in a country, the population was a few hundred thousand. With more people and a more significant area, they will have more authority. The Deputies had straightened out their thoughts and decided to focus on their work to build up more credentials. They would wait for any vacancies at the Country and request for a transfer.

Wen Deguang was also surprised with his promotion. Although he knew that he would eventually become the Chief of the District Farm Department, he never expects it to be so soon. Furthermore, he would be taking over the role of the District’s Party Committee Secretary in two years’ time.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin, thinking about Wen Deguang’s promotion. The Provincial leaders really think highly of him? Wen Deguang should not have been to the Provincial government office before. The furthest he went was the City Government.

This means that someone had spoken to the leaders at the Provincial Farm Department. Who was this person? Could it be Zhang Han’s father?

Feng Yu felt that this possibility was not high!

Zhang Han’s father was also a leader in the Provincial Government. It was already a blessing he did not stop his daughter was dating with Wen Dongjun. He should not be helping Wen Dongjun’s father.

Was it Zhang Ruiqiang? Feng Yu had mentioned Wen Deguang a few times, and he remembered? Zhang Ruiqiang was transferred to the City from the Provincial Government. He should know the leaders of the Provincial Farm Department. But it doesn’t seem right.

If it were Zhang Ruiqiang, he would surely tell Feng Yu. Someone had done him a favor secretly, what was this person’s motive?

Feng Yu want’s Wen Deguang to be the Chief of the District’s Farm Department. That was because Uncle Wen would never cheat his family. If it was another person, he might make things difficult for his family.

Tai Hua Food Processing Factory and Tian Peng Pig farm were making a lot of money. Last year, some people asked Feng Xingtai to fund the repairs for the roads leading to the farm. There were even people who requested Feng Xingtai to renovate the Farm Department’s office.

Those people act as if they own the money earned by Feng Xingtai. No, it was not the same. These people will never take out money from their own pockets to do these.

Of course, all these suggestions were stopped by Wen Deguang. Feng Xingtai had already donated to the schools in the district and had helped the Farm Department saved lots of money. Repairing the roads still made senses, but renovating the offices? You think the Feng family are stupid?

Feng Xingtai was not happy too. What he donated to the schools was to let the future generations to remember and have honor for his family. Renovating the offices for the leaders? Even without renovating, all the leaders at the district knew him.

Feng Yu supported his father on this matter. He even encouraged his father to blow up this matter. These people dare to try and take advantage of his family!

Now, Wen Deguang was promoted to the Chief and that person who wanted Feng Xingtai to renovate their offices was transferred to other places. He became a small supervisor in charge of filing. He was not even 50 years’ old and was assigned to these types of backend role! His future chances of promotion had become very slim.

“Mum, I had bought 2 dresses for you. See if you like it.”

Zhang Muhua smiled: “I like it as long as it is bought by you. Next time doesn’t waste money.”

The mother and son sat down for lunch and chatted about the minor things that had happened in the district.

Chapter 306 – Dad, you should develop this way

At about 3 pm, Wen Dongjun carried the drunk Feng Xingtai back. Feng Yu was speechless. Was there a need to drink so much for someone else promotions?

When Wen Dongjun said that he needs to go back and take care of his father, Feng Yu knew that Uncle Wen was also drunk.

Feng Xingtai slept until the skies turned dark. Feng Yu woke him up. He was finally sober after he washed his face.

“Huh? Xiao Yu, when are you back?”

Feng Yu: “……” Who do you think was the one that took care of you the whole afternoon?

“Dad, what were you talking with Uncle Wen? I heard from Dongjun that the both of you were chatting happily and drank more and more.”

Feng Yu knew that his father could hold his liquor well and could easily finish a bottle of Baijiu by himself. Feng Xingtai was drunk today because he and Wen Deguang drank 2 bottles of Baijiu each!

According to Wen Dongjun, the both of them was drinking happily and the more they talk, the more they drank. If it were not for Wen Dongjun stopping them, the both of them would open 2 more bottles!

“Nothing much. We are talking about the food factory and the pig farm’s future development.” Feng Xingtai said and drank a glass of warm water.

Huh? Dad was concern about the developments of the factory and farm? But Feng Yu does not trust the foresight of them. The both of them seldom leave the district and could not accept new things. Their vision was not as good as Feng Yu. Feng Yu was curious what was the development they were talking about.

“Dad, what is your development plans?” Feng Yu sat down beside his father.

Feng Xingtai looked at his son and said proudly: “Our brand of pork is now famous throughout the province and even Lin Province is ordering from us. When we started this farm, we had invested a lot of money, and now, we have earned back all our investments. So, the both of us decided to set up another pig farm to increase our scale!”

Feng Yu paused for a while and asked: “Dad, are you going to build the new farm in our district?”

“Of course! It will be in our district. Why should I set up the new farm in another district?” Feng Xingtai rolled his eyes at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu slapped his own forehead. He got a headache. Just the current pig farm, they were supplying to the whole province, and they were even selling to the neighboring provinces. Building a new farm in the district? His dad did not even consider the transportation problems.

“Dad, we cannot even set up the new farm in other district or even in our province. I had told you before. Our pig farm can work with other small farms. Let the other smaller farms to use our method to rear the pigs and buy the animal feed from us. We will sign a contract with them to buy their pigs. We will also let them use our Tian Peng Pig brand to sell their pigs. This method was already implemented in our district, and it had achieved good results. You can use the same method in other provinces or asked the local government of the area to set up a factory there, and we will use our brand name to invest in that factory. This would be the best solution.”

“What are you talking about? Using our brand name to invest?” Feng Xingtai does not understand. A brand name can be used to invest?

“Dad, is our Tian Peng brand of pork selling higher than other brands of pork? Is it the most popular pork in the market? Do you still remember that there was some businessman that wanted to buy our brand name? We can claim that as long as the pork is selling under our brand, they will become premium pork! This is the value of our brand name. We can invest using the value of our brand!” Feng Yu used the simple words to explain to his father.

“Then how do we do that?”

“We let others build pig farms, use our animal feeds, and then sign a contract with them. Their pork will be selling under our Tian Peng Brand, and we will be getting a share of the profits.”

“How much will be the percentage?”

“Should be about 10%. After all, we will not be coming out with a single cent and do not have to worry about anything. We can still sell them our animal feed.”

“That’s too little. What’s the point of doing that? We can set up our own farm, and everything we earn will be ours!” Now, 10% of profits do not attract Feng Xingtai at all.

Feng Yu had told him their Machinery Company shares now were worth about 30 to 40 million. The food processing factory and the pig farm was also worth a lot too. Feng Xingtai was now considered a tycoon!

If he wants to do it, he must be doing it on a big scale!

When Feng Yu heard his father saying this, he was speechless. Even if his father wants to set up a new farm, he should not be setting up the farm in their district.

“Dad, it’s fine if you want to set up our own farm. But we cannot set up in our province. We cannot set up the farm even in Lin Province. The nearest we can set up will be at Liao Province. Now we can even sell our pigs to Lin Province. If we set up the new farm at Lin Province, our market will overlap, and it will not be good for us if we want to increase our scale. If we are rearing more pigs, then how much will it cost to transport our pigs to Liao Province?”

“But I am not familiar with Liao Province. Furthermore, didn’t you say that there is a big pig farm and an animal feed factory there? Will it work out?”

Feng Yu smiled: “Dad, there is still good news which I have not told you. That animal feed factory in Liao Province was not doing well. If you bring some money there, you can buy over that factory and manufacture our Tai Hua brand of animal feed. The pig farms there were not doing well too. They are still using the traditional method. Even though their pig farm’s scale is quite big, they did not manage the farm well. The farms had poor hygiene and earlier this year, there was even an outbreak of swine fever. The farmers had lost quite a lot of money. We can also buy over their farms.”

“You want to buy but do they want to sell?”

“Dad, didn’t a businessman buy over the textile factory in the City? If you make the right offer, do you think the government there would rather make losses or sell the factory and farm to us? If you want, I can help you. Everything will be settled within two months. No matter what, you cannot set up a new farm in our district!”

“But I had promised your Uncle Wen that we will increase our scale and our profits. What should I do?” Feng Xingtai was regretting promising Wen Deguang.

Feng Yu laughed: “What’s there to worry about? We can register a company in our district, and the factory and farms will be the branches of our company. This will settle all the problems. But I would suggest registering the company in the City. The district is too small.”

“What you mean by the district is too small. You go and register the company in the district! Then can we still expand our food processing factory?”

“Dad, when I wanted to build this factory, you still think that it was a waste of money to build such a big factory. Why do you want to expand the factory now? The food factory should be the same. We must set up a branch factory in Lin Province. This way, we can also enter the Beijing market. This is like war. We must strategize and plan where to deploy our troops. This way, our company will develop faster and stronger.”

“Hmmm…. Okay. You go and settle everything. The food factory and pig farm have about 10 million in the accounts. Will it be enough?”

“Don’t worry, your son is around. But I need to make things clear. We will hire someone to manage the farms and factories there. You must not try to do everything by yourself. If you are free, you should travel around China with mum. If the both of you are bored with China, you can go overseas. Last year, you went to Beijing to watch the Asian Games. Isn’t that fun? Don’t worry about business. I promise you that in the future, whenever anyone in China talks about pigs, they will think of you.”

“Okay. Huh? What did you say? It was a long time since I gave you a beating. Are you itching for one now?”

Chapter 307 – Aiwa’s positioning

“Guangzheng, I heard that Wind and Rain Consultancy had moved most of its funds to the US. What do you think Feng Yu is going to do? He wants to enter the US market?” Fu Rongjing frowned and asked.

“Dad, what’s there to worry about? Even if Feng Yu had moved all his money out of Hong Kong, he would never give up his businesses in China. Don’t forget he is a Chinese. The financial market in China is not as developed as Hong Kong. If Feng Yu wants to enter the financial industry, he will still come to Hong Kong. Uncle also told me that the lawyer, Mr. Wilson had left for the US a few days ago.”

“Wilson? That means Feng Yu is investing in something in the US?”

Even lawyer had travelled over to the US. That means it was for contract signing. What investment was that for Wind and Rain Consultancy to use most of their funds? That was a few hundred million USD.

“Dad, stop monitoring Wind and Rain Consultancy. Since Feng Yu did not mention anything about it, that means he does not want us to tag along in this investment. What we should do now is to manage Aiwa company’s sales.” Fu Guangzheng was not curious about what the investment was since Feng Yu did not tell him. Now, he understands one thing. If he treats Feng Yu sincerely, Feng Yu will do the same to him!

“Hmmm, I will help you with Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. You will focus on the China market.” Fu Rongjing nodded, Hong Kong’s Aiwa company’s market was the whole of Asia.

The Fu family had well-established sales channels. But in China, their sales distribution channels were not set up yet. Actually, Fu Rongjing wanted to a Chinese distribution company to act as their agent, but Fu Guangzheng refused.

Fu Guangzheng knew that Feng Yu had already established a good network of distributors for home appliances. Walkman and radios should not be a problem for him.

Furthermore, Hong kong’s Aiwa company was the primary distributor appointed by AIWA Japan, and Feng Yu was the controlling shareholder for AIWA Japan. Why would Feng Yu reject Fu Guangzheng to be the distributor in China?

If it was not for AIWA setting up Hong Kong Aiwa company before Feng Yu bought AIWA shares, Fu Guangzheng felt that Feng Yu would personally be the distributor for AIWA products.

Fu Guangzheng had done the market research in China and there were already Walkman in China now. But the best selling brand was Sony. He had bought the Sony Walkman and made a comparison with AIWA Walkman. AIWA Walkman were better in design, sound quality and prices.

Especially the sound quality. This was the most important. He believes that the sales of AIWA products in China will not be too bad.

……

“You want our Tai Hua Trading home appliances dealers’ contacts? No problem. I will let Wu Zhigang pass it to you. Do you know how to negotiate with those dealers?” Feng Yu asked.

Fu Guangzheng was thinking in his heart. Although you, Feng Yu had developed very fast in the recent years, our Fu family had negotiated with thousands of dealers before. I still do not know how to negotiate with them?

But since Feng Yu asked him about this, he must have some other meanings. Could it be that this negotiation will be difficult?

“How should I negotiate with them?” Fu Guangzheng asked curiously.

“The dealers I am dealing with are all the top dealers in their respective provinces. They have their ways of doing things and have strong financial backings. If you are negotiating with them, what will you be offering them?”

“I will give them a profit of 10 RMB for every Walkman. This should be enough to attract them, right?”

Now, the Walkman prices were over 100 RMB, and for a place where the average annual income was only about 1,500 RMB, it was a big-ticket item. It can even be considered a luxury product.

10 RMB profit was considered very high, and Fu Guangzheng felt that the dealers should be able to accept it. If one dealer sells about 10,000 Walkman a year, that would be profits of over a hundred thousand RMB.

“I am not saying that you are offering too low. I think your offer is too high.”

“Too high?” Fu Guangzheng was confused. 10 RMB profit was too high?

“I think 5 RMB for every Walkman should be enough. You can create a reward system and those that sold a certain number of Walkman, you will give them some bonus. This way, some dealers will be getting less than 10 RMB per Walkman, and some will be getting more. But those that will be getting more than 10 RMB profits will be generating more sales than what you expected!”

Fu Guangzheng nodded. His family had also used this reward system before, and he understood immediately. But should he set the minimum number of Walkman lower? Will the dealers agree to 10,000 units?

“I understand and also knows how to set up this reward system. But what about the minimum number of units? I wanted to set the minimum number of units at 10,000 units per year. If I am to introduce the reward system, should I set it lower?”

Feng Yu was laughing in his heart. Fu Guangzheng really does not understand the Chinese market. From the sales of the bladeless fans, Feng Yu knew that there were more wealthy Chinese now and they were more willing to spend.

In his previous life, without factoring in the other brands, Sony Walkman alone had sold a few million Walkman a year. The total number of Walkman sold in China was more than 10 million units.

Although it was still slightly early, Sony’s sales in China was less than 200,000 units. That was because the sound quality of the Sony Walkman was terrible. It was not as good as those big radios. Also, Sony did not use the right marketing strategies.

The target audience for Walkman was the young adults and teenagers. In Feng Yu’s past life, there were some high school students used the excuse of learning English to get their parents to buy a Walkman for them!

Sony’s marketing strategies were emphasizing music and sound quality. The parents in China think that listening to music was a waste of time! Learning English are good kids.

Feng Yu had even thought about the commercial. A high school student using the Walkman to learn English, Russian and other educational knowledge. Those parents will never stop their kids from getting a Walkman. They would even buy the Walkman for their children.

Feng Yu does not care if their child really uses the Walkman to learn foreign languages or listened to English songs. This way, the annual sales of Walkman will definitely ‘s exceed Fu Guangzheng’s expectations. Feng Yu even felt that this remaining 6 months of the year, the sales could hit more than 500,000 units!

“The minimum number of units is too low. It should be at least 12,000 units. I am talking about the average per province. There are some provinces, like Beijing, Shanghai that should be set higher and some provinces without minimum units. Places like Tibet have low population and the development at these regions were slower. But there should be at least over 20 provinces that can sell more than 12,000 units. I am not talking about annual. I am talking about from now until the end of the year.”

“What? From now until the end of the year? There is only 6 months left. You think the average sales for each province will exceed 12,000 units? That means every month there would be more than 2,000 units sold. Is it even possible? I had done a market research. Sony only sold less than 150,000 units last year. This year, they might reach 200,000 units. We have only 6 months left and you think we can perform better than Sony?”

Feng Yu smile and said: “Leave the commercial to me. There were many reason why Sony was not doing well. The most important reason was that Sony is a Japanese Company. But AIWA is a Chinese company!”

In his past life, AIWA was able to overtake Sony in China was because of 爱华 (AIWA’s Chinese characters. Ai = Love and wa = Chinese or China). The consumers in China misunderstood that AIWA was a Chinese company and now, the consumer does not need to misinterpret this company. Because AIWA was controlled by a Chinese!

It was better for a Chinese to control the Chinese market!

Chapter 308 – All of you are not interested?

Although Feng Yu had explained to Fu Guangzheng, Fu Guangzheng felt it was not really possible. He thought that it was still possible for them to reach Sony’s sales in one year, but to exceed Sony for 6 months was too difficult!

What company was Sony? It was an MNC, the market leader in electronics products! AIWA was still owned by Sony last year. If AIWA was able to exceed Sony, why would Sony sell their AIWA shares to Feng Yu?

Fu Guagzheng felt that Feng Yu was too optimistic. Even if Sony did not focus on the Chinese market, but from their performance in the Western countries, Sony will be the market leader in China, sooner or later.

Feng Yu only told Fu Guangzheng to go and tell the dealers what he said. If those dealers accept it, then it’s okay. If not, Fu Guangzheng can use his own ways.

Fu Guangzheng thought for a while. He did not return back to Hong Kong, but instead, he asked all the dealers to Bing City for negotiations. This way, he can discuss with Feng Yu.

Those dealers heard that there was a new Walkman brand looking for dealers and they were interested. However, they decided to work together and try to get the most benefits out of this deal.

After all, they were the ones who had the sales distribution channels. If they work together, they would be able to increase their profits.

When the dealers were notified that this meeting would be at Bing City, one person came to their minds. This person had a bad temper and will chase people out of the room if he was not happy. But his products were selling very well, and the dealers had all made a lot of money from working with this person. Their success now can be said to be due to this person.

There were at least 800 to 1000 dealers in China when they started. But the few of them overtook the rest of the dealers. It was all because of this company’s products. These dealers were all famous people in their provinces.

When the names of these dealers were mentioned, the first thought that comes to people’s mind was this dealer was a successful businessman, and he was wealthy!

……

“Mr. Huang, do you know about this Hong Kong’s Aiwa company?”

“Although I am based in Guangdong, I had never heard of this company. What AIWA brand? I have not heard of it before. It should be a new electronics company.”

“But this company is named as Hong Kong Aiwa Company. It should be registered in Hong Kong. Why did they host the meeting in the north? Do you think……”

“Are you trying to say that this company had something to do with Tai Hua Trading?”

“It might be possible. Both companies had one character that’s the same.”

“But the one who contacted us is not from Tai Hua Trading.”

“Then how did this company get our contacts?”

These dealers were familiar with each other, and they were trying to find out who was the boss of this Hong Kong Aiwa Company. All of them had never heard of this company before.

……

“Hi everybody, I am the General Manager of Hong Kong Aiwa company, Fu Guangzheng. I had invited all of you to be here is to talk about AIWA brand Walkman and the sales distribution. All of you are the most successful dealers in your provinces, and I believe that our cooperation will be a win-win situation for us……”

Fu Guangzheng had rented a conference room for this meeting. He did not use Tai Hua Trading’s meeting room. He used his usual tactics where he would praise the dealers first and then start to introduce his products. He hoped to attract the attention of these dealers, and they would work with him.

But after speaking for a while, there was a lack of interest from these dealers. Some were even yawning.

Fu Guangzheng was getting nervous. What was happening? Could it be the features of this Walkman were not appealing to them? If these dealers were not interested, how would he negotiate with the profits later?

“Manager Fu, just tell us how much the wholesale price is, and see if we can accept it.” Someone lazily said.

“The wholesale price is 150 RMB per unit.”

“What does this 150 RMB include? Just a Walkman?”

“There will still be headphones and a sample cassette tape.” Fu Guangzheng explained.

“Those are all standard accessories. That means the wholesale price is only 100 RMB. Then who is responsible for the transportation charges?” Someone else asked.

“All of you will be responsible for the transportation charges. I will only send the Walkman to the port in Shenzhen. These Walkman are all imported, so it is slightly expensive.”

“A Walkman in the market is only selling at 150 to 230 RMB. You had set the wholesale price so high and factoring in the transportation, storage, advertising, etc., our cost will be more than 170 RMB. Then how much should we sell to retailers in our downline? How much is the retail price? Yours is a new brand, and you want to set the retail price higher than Sony’s newest model of Walkman? You think people will buy?” Someone shouted.

“Also, I think you should be paying for the marketing and promotion fees. The wholesale price should be lowered to 120 RMB. I believe that you will still have high profits. Walkman is just some electronic board with some magnetic components. How high can your cost be?”

“That’s right. Your company should also be paying for the transportation charges, or you can ship the Walkman to the places we want. We will not pay for this transportation.”

……

This group of dealers was all shouting out their conditions. They were all China’s top dealers for home appliances. Even the products from the state-owned enterprises were sold by them. When all of them work together, all the factories got to bow down to them and accept their conditions.

Fu Guangzheng was breaking out in cold sweat. He was not regretting listening to Feng Yu and meeting all the dealers together. He should meet them one by one. It was evident that they were in cahoots.

Seems like he needs to reveal his last trick up his sleeves!

“Everybody, please be quiet. Aren’t all of you curious how did I get your contacts and why was this meeting held in Bing City? It is because of Tai Hua Trading!”

Those dealers looked at each other. Tai Hua Trading? This was indeed the case. Shit.

Suddenly one of the dealers shouted: “You are also not from Tai Hua Trading. Don’t think by saying this, we will lower down our requirements.”

“Right. These are all our conditions. If you do not accept it, look for someone else.”

“That’s right. Other than us, I want to see who else can you sell your products to!”

“Humph! At most, we won’t do your business.”

“That’s right. If you do not accept our conditions, we will not sell your products!”

The door suddenly opened, and a young man walked in smiling: “What? All of you are not interested? Fine. I will look for someone else.”

The conference room became quiet suddenly. One could even hear a pin drop. All the dealers who were shouting just now had a weird expression on their face.

Why was he here?

Chapter 309 – AIWA Walkman is a learning tool

All the arrogant dealers were all swallowing their saliva and shaking. It was apparent that they were scared of this person.

“Manager Feng, why are you here?” Fatty Huang from Guangdong smiled and asked.

“Manager Fu is my friend, and this AIWA Walkman is our product. Why shouldn’t I be here? If I did not attend this meeting, all of you would be taking away all the profits.” Feng Yu smiled and said casually. But the things he said, gave the dealers immerse pressure.

All of them knew Feng Yu’s temper. If they still carry on with their attitude, Feng Yu would surely flip.

When Feng Yu flips, the dealer will no longer get to sell the profitable motorcycles, humidifiers, and bladeless fans. Now, the Wind and Rain appliances and Songjiang motorcycles were selling all over China. Feng Yu does not need these dealers at all. He can quickly get a new batch of dealers anytime. All the sales channels of these dealers were no longer important to Feng Yu.

But the dealers were curious why Feng Yu did not use Wind and Rain brand since he said that this Walkman was his. If he had used the Wind and Rain brand, then the sales will definitely be good.

“Manager Feng, we are just joking around. Businesses need to negotiate. Everyone is just voicing out their conditions. Everything can still be negotiated.”

“Really? That’s good. I thought I had not met all of you for about a month and all of you are not giving me face. Since everything can be negotiated, then I will tell you my conditions. Now, we are introducing the newest model of Walkman. The wholesale price is 150 RMB. All of you will be given a minimum target. Once you exceed the minimum, there will be tiers, and you will be getting incentives. Hover, if you are not able to reach the minimum target, you will be penalized. Is this condition reasonable?”

“Yes, yes……” All the dealers nodded and agreed.

“That’s good. Then I will say my second condition. The retail price will be set within a range. The dealers can decide how much to sell within this range. But if I find out anyone that is not selling the Walkman within this range, the dealer in charge of that region will be responsible!” Feng Yu sat down on a chair and crossed his legs.

“Manager Feng, what will be the range?”

“230 to 250 RMB. I had calculated. Because of the transportation, your cost will be slightly higher. Also, there are differences in the development of your provinces, and the size of your market will vary. That why I had set the retail price within a range. All of you can decide how much to sell within the range. I will also print “Recommended Retail price: 248 RMB” on the Walkman packaging.”

The group of dealers was all smart businessmen. All of them knew what Feng Yu was talking about. Now, when people were buying expensive items, they still tend to bargain. Even if they managed to save 1 RMB, they would be happy.

With this “Recommended retail price” printed on the packaging, it means that this price was only suggested and was not the final selling price. If the consumers were willing to accept this price, then it’s okay. If not, the dealers can still negotiate with the consumers. The dealers still get to decide the selling price.

The dealers made a mental calculation. The cost of a Walkman was at least 170 RMB, and at most, it would be 190 RMB. They still need to split their profits with their downline and their earnings would be between 10 RMB and 30 RMB.

But the dealers were not really happy even with these high profits. They knew that Feng Yu will surely set different minimum targets and rewards for them. All the dealers will still make some profits, but the difference between them will not be significant.

When they started selling Wind and Rain humidifiers, Tai Hua Trading had given them some concessions for the transportation. But after that, Wind and Rain electric fans had additional conditions. The dealers knew that this time, all these conditions will be included in their contracts.

Feng Yu continued: “Do all of you know who the targeted segment for this Walkman is?”

“Young adults. They like to listen to music. It is definitely not those old men and women.” Someone shouted.

“Hahaha, ~~~” Everyone laughed.

“Wrong!” Feng Yu roared.

All the dealers stopped laughing. What? This targeted segment is wrong? The most popular Walkman brand, Sony is targeting this segment. What’s wrong?

Other than the young adults, who else would buy a Walkman? Walkman is just portable music players with slightly better music quality.

“Manager Feng, Walkman is for those young adults to listen to music. What’s wrong?” Someone was not satisfied. Even if you are Manager Feng, you can’t be right every time. All of us had thought this way, it can’t be everyone is wrong.

“Although our Walkman has better sound quality than the other brands of Walkman in the market, our Walkman are learning tools!” Feng Yu seriously said.

Huh? Learning tool?

All the jaws of the dealers dropped. Even Fu Guangzheng, standing by the side was confused. This Walkman is just a small music player. Even the recording function was removed due to the regulations. How can it be used as a learning tool?

Who had heard of using a music player as a learning tool? What does Feng Yu mean? Was he joking with us?

“All of you don’t understand? Mr. Huang, how old is your child?” Feng Yu suddenly asked Fatty Huang.

“13 years’ old. He is in year 2 of junior high school.”

“Does your child learn foreign languages?”

“Of course. The school has English lessons. But my son’s grades for English is not very good. Manager Zhao’s son has good grades. His son is always in the top 3 of the class!” When mentioned about his son’s grades, Fatty Huang did not have his usual arrogance.

He was the richest among these dealers, but when they compared their children, his son could not be compared to the other dealers’ children. This had been bothering him!

Eh? We were still talking about Walkman and why are we discussing my son’s grades?

“Mr. Huang, I am able to say this because I am good in English and Russian. From my experience, to learn foreign languages, one needs to listen more and speak more.” Feng Yu said this and picked up the Walkman on the table.

Listen more? Listen to cassette tapes in foreign languages?

“Mr. Huang, if your son says he wants a Walkman to listen to songs, will you buy one for your son? But if your son comes to you and says he needs a Walkman to help him learn English, will you buy it?”

Fatty Huang’s eyes shined: “Of course I am willing to buy a Walkman if it can help him with his studies! Manager Feng, are you saying that this Walkman can be used to help students learn foreign languages?”

Feng Yu smiled cunningly: “To the parents, we will market the Walkman this way. But we cannot control what the students do with the Walkman once they bought it.”

All the dealers saw a new horizon. If this Walkman was marketed this way, then most of the parents will buy it for their kids.

Fu Guangzheng was also shocked. How come Feng Yu could always think of weird ideas to sell his products. If they market the Walkman as what Feng Yu said, then this will be selling like hotcakes. It was still the school holidays now. Soon, the school will reopen, and it would be a perfect period to market the Walkman!

The Fu family had been in the retail businesses for so many years, but compared to Feng Yu, who was less than 20 years’ old, Fu Guangzheng felt dejected. Luckily, he was still Feng Yu’s friend!

Chapter 310 – AIWA Walkman, learning languages anytime

With Feng Yu’s help, Fu Guangzheng signed the contract with the dealers on behalf of Hong Kong’s Aiwa Company. The target and rewards for each district differ.

All the dealers accepted this arrangement, and none of them chose to back out of this deal. Some dealers even took over the dealership for the rural and poor provinces.

All of them trusted Feng Yu’s foresight!

Especially after Feng Yu said that AIWA Walkman will be airing commercial on CCTV. The dealers will save a lot on the marketing cost. All of them knew the effect of advertising on CCTV.

Although when Feng Yu signed the contract with CCTV, Feng Yu can only advertise Tai Hua Trading products. But Feng Yu let Tai Hua Trading become the dealer for LongJiang Province, and this was not considered violating the contract terms.

There were many loopholes in the contracted signed with CCTV. The people at CCTV were not strict with the contract terms, and they were proud. CCTV was China’s biggest TV station. Even if there were some mistakes in the contract, as long as CCTV does not suffer any losses, everything is fine.

Feng Yu changing commercials did not let CCTV suffer any losses. Furthermore, Feng Yu was CCTV biggest client. They will not go after Feng Yu over such minor things.

1st July, the TV audience noticed that there was a new advertisement, the advertisement before the weather report was changed to a Walkman advertisement.

The commercial was about a small girl. A famous child actress – Jin Min. Her first drama was Qiong Yao’s drama <Wanjun> and subsequently acted in many other dramas written by Qiong Yao. Everybody knew her and like her acting.

Now, Jin min still had not reached the peak of her popularity, as the hit drama <Green Grass by the River> had not aired yet. Feng Yu signed a 3-year contract with her, and it includes 10 commercials and 100 printed advertisements. The total endorsement fee was only 100,000 RMB. It was a great bargain.

This little girl in the commercial was holding a Walkman, listening to an English cassette tape and repeating the English words.

“AIWA Walkman, !”

The last 3 seconds of the commercial showed the Brand’s logo and slogan: “AIWA electronics, I love China!”

At the same time, a lot of articles about China’s opening up and the importance of foreign languages appeared in many newspapers from different regions. The reports also mentioned that to learn a foreign language, one must listen and speak more. The author of the article shared his experiences of using a Walkman to learn. This way, he did not disturb others and also, he could learn wherever he went to. He even recommends this method to his neighbors.

These similar articles appeared for a few days. Hong Kong’s Aiwa Company was the one footing the advertising fees for the dealers to do these soft advertising in their areas.

This marketing campaign was a success with TV and newspapers advertising at the same time.

The next day, the TV audience saw a new commercial. It was Jin Min sing the Alphabet song. She then took out the cassette tape from a Walkman with the logo covered and played the same cassette on AIWA Walkman. The sound quality of AIWA Walkman was obviously better!

The last 3 secs of the commercial showed the logo with a new message: “AIWA Electronics, high-quality sounds for your enjoyment!”

……

“Eh, how is your child coping with the foreign languages?” A middle age woman carrying a basket of groceries asked her colleague.

“My child is still 9 years’ old, and the school has not started foreign language classes.”

“I tell you, learning a foreign language must start from young. The newspapers had mentioned that younger children can pick up new languages faster. You saw that Jin Min on TV? She is also very young, and she had started learning English. Even if the school had not started the classes, you could let your child learn first. Xin Hua bookshop sells English cassette tapes.”

“My house also does not have a cassette player. One cassette player costs a few hundred RMB.”

“What cassette player? Get a Walkman. It is only this big, and it cost about 250 RMB. It might be slightly expensive, but it is good for your child. I had bought one for my son, and he has been listening to English on the headphones every night. We are not even disturbed by him when we are watching TV.”

“Really? Where can I buy one? Bring me to the shop.”

“The cooperative in front sells it!”

……

“Mom, buy me a Walkman. All my classmates have a Walkman. I want to learn English.” A junior high school student was pestering his mother.

“We have a cassette player at home.”

“It is different. I can’t be bringing the cassette player to school, right? With a Walkman, I can listen to English in between classes and will not disturb the other students.”

“Ermmm…… Wait until your father is back and I will discuss with him.”

“Mom, you are the best. You can surely convince dad. I promise you my English marks will improve by 10 points this semester.”

……

“Eh, Bro. You are still using a Sony Walkman? That’s not good. The sound quality is too lousy. Listen to mine. AIWA brand. The sound quality is much better. This is the Little Tigers new song, and it sounded like they are singing beside me.”

“You are wasting this AIWA Walkman. Listen to this cassette tape. It’s heavy metal songs from the US!”

“How much is this AIWA Walkman?”

“248 RMB. It is slightly more expensive than your Sony. Why not give your younger brother your Sony Walkman and buy an AIWA Walkman? This Walkman is the best for listening to music!”

“But my mom will not let me buy.”

“Stupid. Just tell her that you need this AIWA Walkman to learn Russian. Tell her that this Sony Walkman’s sound quality is not good, and you can’t hear properly. I had used this excuse on my mom. Who knows what you are listening to when you put on the headphones?”

“Good idea. I will go home now!” The young boy hurriedly rushes home. He wants to persuade his mother to buy a better Walkman for him.

……

“Look at you. Why are you always using the foreign brand stuff? This is so expensive, and the sound quality is so bad. Look at mine. AIWA Walkman! AIWA electronics, I love China! As a Chinese, you should use our own products. Stop buying foreigner products. You are letting those foreigners earn your money!” A shop owner was introducing AIWA Walkman to his customers. His profits for AIWA Walkman was higher than Sony.

“Boss, this Sony Walkman is imported. Can even AIWA compete with it?”

“Let me tell you, this AIWA is owned by a Chinese businessman and he invested in a factory in Japan to manufacture these Walkman. This Walkman uses the most advanced technologies, and it is much better than Sony. Look at the packaging. Hong Kong company. It is imported. I heard that this Chinese businessman wants to let those Japanese work for him!”

“Really? Can I test it?”

“Of course. I have a Sony Walkman here too. You can listen to both and make your own comparison. Once you listen to both Walkman, you will know why I recommend AIWA!”

……

As time passes, the commercials’ influence became greater, and AIWA Walkman sales became better. Feng Yu was pleased with this outcome. From the way things are going, Sony will be out of China’s market within 2 years. Now, even if Sony lower down their prices, no one in China wants to buy it. Everyone only wants AIWA Walkman!

Feng Yu’s commercial was too evil. Everybody could tell that Walkman used to compare the sound quality was Sony’s latest Walkman!

“Xiao Yu, this is for you. Mom asked me to buy it for you.”

Feng Yu looked at the AIWA Walkman and asked: “Sis, why did mom ask you to buy this for me?”

“Mom says that you wanted to go overseas in the future and you must polish up your foreign languages. Even if you are good with English and Russian, you still need to practice. The TV also said that AIWA Walkman allows you to learn wherever you go!”

Feng Yu: “……”

Mom, your son wants to tell you that this AIWA Walkman belonged to your son……

Chapter 311 – Sony’s Retaliation (Part One)

Japan, Sony’s headquarters.

“What’s going on? Why are our Walkman sales dropping last quarter? What is the Sales department doing?” Norio Ohga was furious. He was reprimanded by the President this morning.

This was because that in contrast to their drop in Walkman sales, AIWA Walkman’s sales were increasing. Sony had owned AIWA before, and because of AIWA had been making losses, Sony was dragged down too. Coupled with the financial crisis, Sony got to offload some of their assets, and that’s the reason why they sold off AIWA shares to Feng Yu.

But they did not expect that AIWA had already developed their new product at the time of the sales. Heitaro Nakajima had not told Sony about their product development. If Norio Ohga had known about this, he would never sell off AWIA shares. With this new product, AIWA would be making profits this year and will settle all their debts within 3 years.

Sony and AIWA’s agreement to work together against other competitors were still in force.

Now, it seems that this agreement was a success. The other Walkman brands could no longer compete with them. But Sony never expects AIWA to overtake them. From the last quarter sales, AIWA will be on par with Sony this year. What about next year?

Was this Norio Ohga mistake? Everybody had agreed on the sales of AIWA share in the first place, and he was only the Vice President. If the President and the board of directors did not agree, will the sales go through? These people just want to take all the credit, and if anything happens, he would have to take all the blame.

The sales department chief was standing in front of Norio Ohga, bowing his head, letting him scold. After Norio Ohga vented his frustrations, he asked the sales department chief to explain why AIWA’s market share was increasing and in which area their product was better than Sony.

AIWA was still using old production lines, and these production lines were producing single tape head. Single tape head only allows playing music and cannot do any recording. This lowered AIWA’s manufacturing cost and it was still in-line with China’s market at that time. Feng Yu was clear about this. Although China was slowly allowing the cassette player to have a recording function, it was not all regions. Without this recording function, AIWA Walkman can be sold everywhere in China.

Furthermore, people typically use Walkman to listen to music and seldom people will use the recording function. Walkman recording quality was also not as good as those bigger music players.

AIWA’s BEE system also have better sound quality and those that like to listen to music will prefer AIWA Walkman. Coupled with the headphones, AIWA’s technology was catching up with Sony, and this caused Sony’s sales to dip.

The most prominent was Japan and China market. In the Japanese market, AIWA well known for better quality products. Norio Ohga could still accept AIWA overtaking them in the Japanese market. But what about the Chinese market? Why was AIWA so popular in China?

In the past, AIWA had tried to enter the Chinese market. But at the time, they used the English characters AIWA brand, and no one knew about this brand. In the end, AWIA gave up. But since setting up Hong Kong Aiwa company and using AIWA (Chinese characters) to enter the Chinese market, the sales had overtaken Sony within a month.

Sony’s sales department chief had analyzed the situation and had come up with a few reasons. First, AIWA this brand name. It was easy recognized by the Chinese and they thought that it was a Chinese product. The advertising message, “AIWA electronics, I Love China” was emphasizing this too. Secondly, AIWA’s products did not position as a portable music player. Instead, it was marketed as a learning tool for people to learn languages. This resulted in parents to buy their Walkman for their children. Their first choice was AIWA Walkman. Thirdly, AIWA had shamelessly used other Walkman to make comparisons. They had used a Sony Walkman for comparison. By comparing, it clearly shows the differences in quality. Those music lovers all prefer AIWA Walkman!

There were a few other reasons, but those were not the main reasons. For example, AIWA had better sales distribution channels. Within a week, AIWA products can reach every major city in China, and there were TV commercials and soft advertising on the newspapers. AIWA had invested a lot in their TV advertisements. Another reason was AIWA had given their dealers higher profits, and those dealers prefer to recommend AIWA products to the consumers.

After listening to the report, Norio Ohga asked: “How are you going to explain for the Western markets?”

Europe and the US Walkman market leader had been Sony, and now AIWA was catching up. Are all those reasons given by the sales department chief relevant to the western markets too?

AIWA had also advertised in Europe and the US. The commercial showcased the quality of AIWA Walkman and AIWA gave up on having the traditional black color Walkman for different colors. The attractive exterior designs and colors attracted many female consumers.

Sony had not thought of this. Their Walkman was lacking in both the design and quality aspects. That’s why their latest model of Walkman was not doing well.

What worried Norio Ohga the most was why Heitaro Nakajima had kept such vital information from him. After that Chinese guy invested in AIWA, Heitaro Nakajima immediately introduce a new product. That means AIWA had more than one product. If AIWA continues to introduce better quality Walkman in the following year, then the market leader in the Walkman industry will no longer be Sony.

If this really happened, it would be a disaster for Norio Ohga. The current President bought Colombia Pictures and resulted in the company making losses. Many people wanted him to take over the role of President. As a shareholder of Sony, he had a high chance to take over this position.

But if Sony Walkman position as the market leader was overtaken by AIWA, Norio Ohga, the one who proposed the sales of AIWA’s shares, might not even keep his position as the Vice President!

No. AIWA cannot continue to grow. They must suppress AIWA and let them continue to help Sony ward off other competitors!

Norio Ohga had been focusing on the collaboration project with Nintendo and had neglected the Walkman market. If not, he would not let AIWA have the chance to develop so fast!

Norio Ohga suddenly remembered the reason why he sold off AIWA shares and why the board agreed. It was because AIWA was heavily in debt. The debts amounted to more than 10 times its market value!

In the past, it was because of Sony, the banks did not chase after AIWA for repayment. But now, it was time for the banks to go after AIWA for repayments.

Without funds, AIWA would not be able to get their manufacturing materials, and their growth will come to a standstill.

Nothing good will come by competing with Sony!

Chapter 312 – Sony’s Retaliation (Part Two)

Heitaro Nakajima was in cloud nine this period of time. AIWA latest product was introduced to the market and had performed well in the market. It had occupied 40% of the domestic market share, and the sales in the overseas market were also doing very well. The market share was increasing day by day.

This was especially true for the Chinese market. The Hong Kong Aiwa company had reported to him that Sony was almost non-existent there. In Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong, AIWA brand Walkman were the number one Walkman.

Heitaro Nakajima believes that when he introduces a better-quality Walkman later, the company will reach a higher level! This year sales will surely reach 10 million units! This was also his goal!

Next year, AIWA will introduce a better Walkman. He believes that Walkman will become a classic and will be recorded in the history. He wants AIWA Walkman to overtake Sony and other brands!

When that happens, he can be like Sony. Using similar quality products as others to achieve higher sales and sell at higher prices. This way, he can gain more profits!

Maybe next year, he can repay all of AIWA’s debts. After all, AIWA’s profit was about 300 yen for every Walkman sold. Because of AIWA setting up multiple factories around the world, their total debts were over 8 billion yen. Their main creditors were the banks and Sony.

Once AIWA’s production and sales reach a higher level, AIWA will be the market leader!

Heitaro Nakajima thought that he would need another 4 to 5 years to reach this target. After Sony had sold AIWA shares, he thought it he might need a longer time to repay all his debts. But now, he could achieve all his goals within 3 years!

Hahaha, Sony, Norio Ohga, you will regret selling AIWA!

“President, there are a few people from the banks here. From their attitude, they seem to be here for the loan repayments.”

Huh? Collecting debts? It was still within the loan period and why were they here to collect the debts? I had been paying the interest every month. Although two years ago, I had defaulted a few payments, this year, I had been paying the banks diligently. Why were they here for?

“Bring them to the conference room.”

Looking at those people, Heitaro Nakajima had a bad feeling. Why were all AIWA’s creditors here? What do they want?

“What brings all of you here to AIWA today?” Heitaro Nakajima sat down smiling.

“President Heitaro, I heard that AIWA’s sales have been doing well recently. Our bank is currently facing some financial difficulties. You should also know that the economy is not doing well. Can you repay AIWA’s debts earlier?” One bank representative asked.

Heitaro Nakajima said with a straight face: “Mr. Watanabe, what is the meaning of this? It is still not time for me to repay the loan. Why must I make the repayments earlier? I have been paying the interests every month.”

Heitaro Nakajima never expects all his creditors to come chasing for payments at once. AIWA was not still expanding, and if he repays his debts, the company will not have enough funds to operate, and AIWA will be finished.

“President Heitaro, we also have no choice. Can you at least make some partial payments, so I can answer to my bosses?”

“I’m afraid I cannot do that. According to the loan agreement, I can refuse to make any repayments now. All of you should know how my company did for the first half of this year. We had done really well. Based on the sales forecast, our Walkman sales should be exceeding more than 10 million units! If your banks have problems, I can promise you that I will repay all the loans next year. This shouldn’t be a problem, right? If you insist me on repaying the loans now, then AIWA will not have enough to repay you, and we will have cash flow problems. We will even have problems repaying the loans!”

The bank representatives looked at each other. Watanabe said after hesitating for a while: “President Heitaro, since you want to talk about the loan agreement, then we will talk about the agreement. In March, two years ago, your interest repayment was late by 3 days. In May of the same year, your interest repayment was late by 8 days. Last February, June and November, your interest repayments were all late. According to our contract, we have the right to ask you to repay the loans earlier. All the banks here are the same. If you refuse to repay the loans, then we will go to the courts and freeze your company’s account. We got the right to auction off all your company’s assets to repay your loans!”

Heitaro Nakajima stood up furiously: “What are all of you trying to do?”

Are these people crazy? Freeze the company’s account and seize the company’s assets? How much can these assets worth? Even if they sell off all the company’s assets, it can’t even repay all the loans. If they give AIWA 1 or 2 years’ time, AIWA would be able to repay everything, including the high interests. What these people are doing was to force AIWA to close down!

“Cough…. President Heitaro, we can do this last year, but do you know why we never do this? It was because your company’s major shareholder is Sony. But now, Sony had sold all your shares, and our banks also do not own any AIWA shares. How about this, if you are willing to use your company’s shares as collaterals or you are able to get a big corporation to act as your guarantor, we will not push you for repayments.”

Heitaro Nakajima’s eyes narrowed. He finally understood what was happening. These people saw AIWA was progressing well now and wanted to get a share of the profits.

Heitaro Nakajima suspects that all the bank representatives coming here today was planned. The one behind this must be Sony!

Sony will never be AIWA’s guarantor unless AIWA resells its shares to Sony. This way, Sony will regain control over AIWA, and Heitaro Nakajima will have lesser percentages. He will never accept this!

Right. AIWA still have a shareholder. A Chinese shareholder. He was also the controlling shareholder. Heitaro Nakajima must discuss with him about this matter.

“Please leave. I will consider what all of you suggested. I will get back to you all.” Heitaro Nakajima said.

“President Heitaro, please be fast, we can only give you 3 days. 3 days later, if you still cannot give us a satisfactory reply, then we are sorry!”

Heitaro Nakajima was fuming as those people leave.

……

“Hmmm… Okay. I know. How much were the debts to the banks? I am talking about USD. I can transfer a sum of money to AIWA. Part of the money can be used to repay the banks, and the rest will be invested in the company. Based on our agreement, you had failed as your role of President. I will not remove you from your position, but as a punishment, I will dilute your shares by 10%.”

“The total debt owed to the banks is 5 billion yen. Based on the current exchange rates, it is about 400 million USD.” Heitaro Nakajima said.

Even if his shares were dilatated by Feng Yu, he was still the second shareholder and the company’s president. It was better than letting those evil bankers getting AIWA shares. Heitaro Nakajima does not want to be controlled by Sony again too.

It was 400 million USD. Does Feng Yu even have so much cash?

“Fine. Tomorrow, come to Beijing with your lawyer to sign the contract. I will repay all the debts!”

Feng Yu was smiling when he said this. This was a great opportunity. He will be getting more AIWA shares. In 1 or 2 years’ time, these 3% shares will be giving him tens of million USD in profits!

Chapter 313 – What? AIWA repaid the debts?

The next evening, at a restaurant’s private room, Feng Yu, Heitaro Nakajima, Wilson and Heitaro Nakajima’s lawyer were going through a few copies of contracts.

One contract was Feng Yu lending money to AIWA. Of course, it was not a low-interest loan. The interest rate was set at the maximum percentage allowed by the law.

Another contract was about Feng Yu investing a sum of money to AIWA, in exchange for some shares. It was Heitaro Nakajima’s shares. His shares were now 10% from 13%.

With both lawyers acting as a witness, the both of them signed the contracts. Feng Yu also passed Heitaro Nakajima two HSBC cheques.

“Mr. Heitaro, I trusted you with AIWA. I do not have too many requirements for this company. But I do not want to see such things happening again. If you still carry on making such mistakes, then according to our agreement, I can forcibly buy over your shares and kick you out of AIWA!”

Heitaro Nakajima gave Feng Yu a 90 degrees bow and said: “Mr. Feng, I am very sorry, and I promise you that I will not make such mistakes again. I will not let AIWA face such difficulties again. Even though the company still owes Sony more than 3 billion yen, but there are no problems with that loan agreement. We only need to repay Sony the interests every year, and the full loan repayment within 3 years.”

When Sony owns the controlling stake of AIWA, this loan agreement was not that strict. Heitaro Nakajima was the one who had persuaded Sony to give AIWA this low-interest loan.

If AIWA was not able to repay Sony, then Sony can take over AIWA’s technologies and brand. Sony felt that this was a good deal. AIWA had many electronic technologies which were better than Sony.

Feng Yu nodded: “That’s good. I am investing in this company and letting you run it. This shows that I trusted you. Sony does not agree with your business strategy of setting up multiple factories around the world, but I agree with you. I also agree with your development plans for Walkman. I hope you will not let me down.”

“Please rest assured, Mr. Feng. I will surely run the company well and achieve outstanding results!”

……

3 days later, all the bank representatives came to AIWA office again. All of them had an arrogant expression on their faces when they met Heitaro Nakajima.

All the bank representatives thought that Heitaro Nakajima only had two options. One was to sell AIWA shares to them. Second, was to sell AIWA shares to Sony.

All of them thought that Heitaro Nakajima was not able to repay the loans. If AIWA wants to repay their debts, then they would have to sell off their factories, shares and the company’s technologies. Based on the agreement between AIWA and Sony, AIWA’s technologies can only be sold to Sony.

Sony was the major shareholder of one of the banks that was present at the AIWA’s office. The bank representative was Watanabe Ichiro. He was the one who had asked all the banks to come and chase AIWA for repayments.

AIWA was coming up? All of them does not think so. Sony only used some tricks, and AIWA was finished. Other than Watanabe Ichiro’s bank, the rest of the banks does not want AIWA shares. All they want was for AIWA to sell off its shares and repay the loans.

But today, it seems that they could realize their goals.

“President Heitaro, what’s your decision?” Watanabe Ichiro asked with a haughty expression.

He does not care if Heitaro Nakajima was unhappy with him. Can he repay all his debts? If he cannot repay his debts, then he would have to agree to their conditions! How can the almighty Sony lose to a company that was previously owned by Sony?

“I had made my decision.” Heitaro Nakajima said.

“Well, President Heitaro, are you going to sell your shares to our banks, or is there any company that is willing to act as your guarantor? A company like Sony?” Watanabe Ichiro asked.

“No. I will repay all your loans!”

“What? You want to repay all the loans?” Watanabe Ichiro sat upright. He thought he was hallucinating. Heitaro Nakajima was going to repay all his loans?

“That’s right. I will be repaying all the loans. Since all of you are here, then let us calculate how much do I owe your banks. Interest and the principal amount. Oh, I will be using USD to pay. Please hurry up as the exchange rates change every minute.”

Heitaro Nakajima sat on the sofa looking at Watanabe Ichiro’s shocked expression. He was feeling great in his heart.

Humph! You think I do not know that it was Sony that instigate all of you to chase me for repayments? You think I will give in to you all? Impossible! From the day Sony sold AIWA shares without telling me, I had sworn that I will make Sony regret!

Now, all of you were regretting. Then carry on regretting! All of you want to take advantage of AIWA, take advantage of me? Dream on!

“President Heitaro, have you considered carefully? You owe us 5 billion Yen. It is 5 billion Yen!” Watanabe Ichiro shouted.

“I know. My company just received a sum of money. Even if it is more than 5 billion Yen, I can also pay. This is an HSBC cheque. You can check the authenticity of it.”

Watanabe Ichiro looked at the cheque in Heitaro Nakajima’s hand. There was more than one cheque. The figure stated in the first cheque was 400 million USD!

Who? Who was the one who had given Heitaro Nakajima so much money?

All the bank representatives were regretting. If someone was willing to invest so much money in AIWA, then AIWA’s financial woes were over. That means that AIWA will be doing well in the Walkman market. The banks will be losing out a lot of interest. They had also lost a potential high net worth customer.

……

“What did you say? AIWA had repaid all their loans with the banks? Impossible. AIWA does not have so much money!” Norio Ohga screamed into the phone. He nearly smashed the phone.

Impossible. This was impossible. 5 billion Yen. Even if AIWA stop paying his suppliers, they also can’t raise this amount. Unless someone had invested in AIWA!

For no reason, a Chinese man came to his mind. The young man who had bought the AIWA shares from him.

When that young Chinese man bought AIWA shares, he could quickly take out so much money. Maybe he could also take out 5 billion Yen to repay the banks. If AIWA had no problems with the finances, then with AIWA’s technologies and their current sales channels, Sony Walkman will be in deep trouble!

Sony had been helping AIWA in the past and had formed an alliance to stop the other competitors from entering the Walkman market. The both of them had succeeded in keeping their competitors away from this industry.

But Sony never expects that the AIWA they had been helping in the past, had grown to the level where they can threaten Sony’s position as the market leader. Norio Ohga was regretting now.

He should not have sold AIWA shares. Now, Sony can only break their alliance with AIWA!

Chapter 314 – Get Sony out of China

It was early August, and AIWA sales had reached a new height. With their new product launched in the market, their market share became bigger. The threat towards Sony was more significant.

Norio Ohga had already suggested to the board to stop the alliance with AIWA. This way, they could stop AIWA from growing.

Their alliance was set up to set the industry standards for the market, production and share the sales channels, transportation, raw materials, technologies and set the pricing.

Sony had an advantage with this alliance. For the past two years, Sony had been dragging AIWA along. But this year, AIWA will be on par with Sony. What about next year? AIWA will be overtaking Sony?

Although stopping their alliance agreement, Sony will suffer some losses and might let their competitors, like Panasonic, to grow. But those were not important and might not even happen. The most important thing right now was that AIWA was developing quickly and was a threat to them.

The board discussed Norio Ohga’s suggestion, and in the end, the board decided to check with AIWA first. If AIWA does not give in to them, then they will stop their alliance and target AIWA!

Even though Walkman held a considerable percentage of Sony’s revenue, but Sony was also involved in other businesses. They could afford to let one of their business to make some losses. But AIWA was different. AIWA only have Walkman and related products. Once this industry was hit, then AIWA will be a debt-ridden company just last few years ago.

……

“What did you say? Sony wants to stop the alliance?” Feng Yu received a call from Heitaro Nakajima. Feng Yu frowned as he never expects Sony to be so shameless!

But Sony was the one who started this alliance and AIWA at that time was still owned by Sony. That’s why the conditions benefited Sony and Sony does not need to make any compensations for breaking this agreement.

But this will affect AIWA a lot. Although AIWA will not need to start from scratch, their sales channels will be affected. Their production cost will also increase, and their profits will reduce by a lot.

Heitaro Nakajima sounded dejected. He never expects Sony to do such a thing. It was a double-edged sword, and Sony was willing to make losses to stop AIWA from growing.

“Sony stopping the alliance, then can we still use Sony’s sales channel?”

“We can still use those sales channels. But our transportation, sales, production, warehousing, technologies’ R&D cost will increase. Especially for our new products. It will significantly lower our profits and sales.” Heitaro Nakajima said.

“Then do we have our own channels? Will it affect Sony?”

“Yes, we do have. For example, our factories all over the world had overtaken Sony, and our technologies R&D are better than Sony. Also, in the Asian market, with the help of Hong Kong’s Aiwa company, we have more than 50% market share in the region. This was previously Sony’s market.”

Feng Yu made some mental calculations. Sony had paid a considerable price by breaking this alliance. This meant that AIWA’s growth had greatly threatened Sony.

But in his previous life, Feng Yu had seen such things happening before. Many MNC in the same industry would form alliances to share resources. But once one party felt that they were not getting the most out of the coalition, and wanted better conditions, the agreement would be over.

In the end, it was all about profits. In business, there are no enemies or friends. There are only profits.

Since Sony was shameless first, then let’s see who will lose out more. Anyway, AIWA needs to grow and have to compete with Sony head-on sooner or later. Feng Yu felt that AIWA will be the future juggernaut in the electronics industry. How can AIWA be beaten by Sony in the Walkman market?

You want to stop this alliance? Then I shall let you know that your losses will be much higher than AIWA!

Next year, Sony’s electronics will be hit by another blow. Their collaboration project with Nintendo will fail. This will result in Sony making losses in the Video game market. Nintendo will be getting all the benefits.

Sony breaking up with AIWA now, but they did not expect in the future, Nintendo will be doing the same to them.

Of course, two years later, Sony will develop its own flagship video game product. PlayStation. However, how much will Sony lose within these two years? If during this period, AIWA approach Nintendo and work with them?

What does AIWA have? Technologies and market. Maybe in the video games console R&D, AIWA was not that great. But AIWA has the Chinese market. Feng Yu believe that in one year’s time, AIWA will be the electronics market leader of China!

Nintendo products were extremely popular all over the world. But in China, they were progressing slowly. It was not because their products were not good. It was because of piracy and counterfeits.

Nintendo’s console was profitable, but the most profitable were the game cartridges. In China, the “The Little Tyrant” game console would be launch this year. It was much cheaper than Nintendo’s console and was compatible with Nintendo’s game console. Nintendo could not penetrate the Chinese video games market was because of this product. A “The Little Tyrant” console and pirated gaming cartridges would cost much cheaper, and it was this product that kept many video games MNC outside of China.

But the “The Little Tyrant” was still starting, and it was not as popular as the future years yet. “The Little Tyrant” was popular because it was cheap and their advertisements on CCTV. In another 2 years, Jackie Chan will be endorsing this product, and that will be the time where it established its position of number one gaming console in China.

But in this life, Feng Yu will not let them have the chance. China’s number one electronics company can only be AIWA!

Feng Yu told Heitaro Nakajima to speak to the President of Nintendo about collaborating and to develop the Chinese market together. Nintendo might not agree now, but when AIWA becomes China’s number one electronics brand, they will surely change their minds.

Now, Feng Yu want to make AIWA the number one electronics brand in China. First, he must push Sony out of the Chinese market!

……

“Eh, have you heard the news about a Senior management staff insulting China? Damn. He thought it was still decades ago? Even if it was a few dozen years ago, when those Japanese invaded China, they were also chased out by us. Now, they still dare to be so arrogant!”

“Ah? Those Japanese are too much. Should we protest?”

“What protest? I heard that Sony wants to enter the Chinese market. They want to stop our electronic industry from developing. We should boycott Sony’s products and let their products sit on the shelves!”

“Yes. We should do this. We will boycott Sony’s products and chase Sony out of China!”

On the streets, Feng Yu heard two young men talking about this. Feng Yu smiled. The youths nowadays were too xenophobic. He had only let his dealers spread some rumors within the schools in their region, and he did not expect these rumors to spread so fast.

Sony’s targeted segment were all these youths. Now, even their targeted market segment was going to boycott them. Sony will no longer be able to stay in China!

Chapter 315 – Beating Sony in the home ground

Bang!

Norio Ohga threw his teacup on the floor, shattering into pieces.

“What are you telling me? All our Chinese dealers want to return our goods? Is this the way you manage the Chinese market? It’s fine if our sales drop slightly every month, but now you are telling me that our sales in the Chinese market will become zero?”

The person in charge of the Chinese market kept his head down and was trembling slightly. He was appointed to develop China’s market, and due to several reasons, he had not been able to succeed. However, in the long run, he will be able to help Sony increase the profits.

He thought that he will become Sony’s hero and might be able to promote to the higher management. But he never expects that he was fighting a losing battle in China!

In August, the Chinese market became his nightmare!

Sony’s sales did not only drop in August. In fact, Sony starts to suffer losses. Also, all their dealers said that they will not be ordering any more products from them in September. They even wanted to return Sony’s products back to Sony, which was allowed in their contracts with Sony.

Previously, this person in charge had included this “returning of goods” term in their contract was because no dealers wanted to sell Sony’s Walkman products. But at that time, Sony does not have any competitors in the Chinese market. He only wanted to let the dealers see the profits and carry on working with him.

All this while, things were going smoothly. But suddenly, there were malicious rumors that claimed a Sony’s senior management had insulted China. This causes all the Chinese to boycott their products. Even other Japanese products were affected too.

All these had nothing to do with him. He was also not the one that had insulted China. However, he did not react fast enough to stop these rumors and let this incident blew up.

For a rumor to spread so fast, there must be someone behind it. This person must have considerable influence.

Yes. I can push all the blame to AIWA!

“President Norio, I had investigated what happened. There is someone behind this incident. AIWA should be the one behind all these rumors!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

The person in charge was not sure if AIWA was the one behind these rumors. He only wanted to push the blame to someone else. Unexpectedly, he had shifted the blame to the real culprit.

“You stay here and think of a solution. I will report this matter to the President. We will talk about this later!”

This incident had blown up for Sony. That Sony’s higher management statements were reported in a Japanese newspaper. But it was taken out of context. That person did not mean to insult China, but no one wanted to listen to his explanations.

This incident happened too fast. Not only Sony’s products were boycotted by the Chinese, but even other Japanese products were also boycotted.

The most frustrating part for Sony was when the foreign affairs people called and reprimanded them for spoiling Japan’s image.

Japan at this time was trying to build diplomatic relationships with China. Although it was not the honeymoon period, the relationship between both countries had improved slightly. This incident caused by Sony had led to the Chinese boycotting all Japanese products. This had a massive impact on the Japanese economy!

Japan had been trying to enter the Chinese market for the past few years. The Chinese market was critical for the recovery of their economy. All the efforts Japan had put in were ruined by Sony!

Sony’s President explained to the Foreign Affairs officials that Sony did not insult China. All the higher management staff said was that China’s electronic industry was more than 10 years behind Sony. This was the truth. What’s wrong with saying China will never be able to catch up with Sony? This was the confidence of Sony!

It was fine for Sony to have confidence in itself. But Sony should not be arrogant. Sony had to pay the price for the statement from its higher management staff.

In the end, Sony fired that higher management staff to try to calm the situation. No matter what, Sony does not want to give up the Chinese market. China was their next targeted market.

But Sony had underestimated the Chinese fury. Even after Sony sacked that staff and apologized in the newspapers, the Chinese were not appeased.

The boycott against Japanese products in China was not as severe now for other products. It was because the other Japanese products started to give discount and promotions in a bid to salvage the situation. Sony also did the same, but they still do not have any sales. There were even a group of angry youths that got angry at people using Sony products. They do not care when were the Sony’s products bought.

Feng Yu had only wanted to stir up the people’s emotion and boycott Sony. But he did not expect things to blow up until all Japanese products were affected.

This incident even made it to the Foreign Affairs departments. But it was still Japan’s fault, and all China did be to advise the public to be rational. The Chinese government did not really stop the people from boycotting Japanese products.

Japan had no choice but to give China some benefits. As for how this rumor started, no one cares.

Feng Yu thought that without internet and only let the dealers spread some rumors, the effect will not be so serious. Of course, this incident had become so severe was because many old Chinese soldiers who had fought against the Japanese were still alive!

Those dealers were also smart. They printed a banner stating “AIWA Walkman, a company owned by Chinese! This banner, coupled with the anti-Japanese sentiments, created a significant increase in AIWA Walkman sales. It was only a matter of time for AIWA to monopolize China’s market.

This was the Chinese way of retaliating against the Japanese electronics industry.

At the same time, some Chinese businesses start to roll out the “Made in China” campaign. They wanted to make use of the patriotic feelings to increase their brand awareness and sales.

Among these businesses were many counterfeit products. They wanted to make use of this opportunity to make some money. If they were caught, they would be jailed. But those that were not caught made a lot of money!

There were even some “Smart” people that bought those Sony Walkman at low prices, and replaced the logo with stickers, and resold those Walkman.

Sony could only accept their fates. There was nothing they could do. If they want to ship back their products from China, the transportation cost will be high. Sony’s Walkman was selling all over the world. Those Walkman sold in China were all older models, and even if those Walkman were sent to other countries, no one would buy them too. Why not sell it at low prices in China and try to minimize their losses.

Norio Ohga called up Heitaro Nakajima. He wanted to make up with AIWA and to form an alliance again. He needed AIWA’s help to improve Sony’s image in China. But Heitaro Nakajima rejected him flatly!

When I pleaded with you when you want to stop the alliance, did you listen? Furthermore, AIWA’s controlling shareholder, Feng Yu, had said to treat Sony as their main competitor and AIWA will never work with Sony!

Feng Yu saw that Sony started to lower the prices of their products, and he knew that Sony had lost.

Humph! This is China. This is my home ground! There is no way for you, Sony, to win in my home ground!

Chapter 316 – Catching the Train

Sony was crying, and Feng Yu was in a great mood.

Time flies, and soon Feng Yu was packing his luggage and preparing to move to Beijing. His University was starting.

During this break, the district had set off firecrackers several times. It was the celebration by the families whose children had gotten into universities. The families wanted to announce to the whole district that their children were leaving for their universities and they will be officials in the future!

As the Chief of the district, Wen Deguang’s son did not disgrace him. His son had entered Beijing Technological University and admitted without the need for an entrance exam. He was one of the few like Feng Yu and the top student, Liu Kun, who was admitted to a prestigious university.

Liu Kun was a top student, and he does not need any help for his admittance to the University. With his results, he got a place in Huaqing University. The number 2 top student, who had scored 3 points lesser than him, had also entered the same university as his classmate.

The Third High School’s principal was feeling great. This year, there were more students admitted to universities and the Soviet Union Summer Camp will be a permanent event for the school. In the future, more students will be getting places in the universities.

This was the reason why he had given Feng Yu and his friends the title of honorable students.

During the break, Feng Yu was busy. Wen Dongjun, Li Na and the rest were enjoying their holidays. They had traveled back to their hometown or visited their relatives. Their parents were proud of them and wanted to show all their relatives and friends how capable their children were.

Flaunting their children’s capabilities must be done to people they know to feel good!

This was a momentous occasion for the district. The district even rented buses to send the students and their families to Bing City. Some of the students had gotten into the universities in Bing City. The students that get into the universities in other places also got to catch trains from Bing City’s railway station.

In this era, although the kids were more independent than those in the future years, the parents still traveled to Bing City to send their children off. They view university education as more important, compared to the parents of the coming years. At the same time, they also want to take the opportunity to visit the city. This was also because the residents of the district were more prosperous now.

Wen Dongjun’s mother, Li Na’s father, Liu Kun’s parents were all there. The only person that was traveling to Bing City alone was Feng Yu.

Feng Xingtai said that nothing was interesting in Beijing and it was very crowded. Even if he has the time, he would want to go to places that were less crowded. He had already visited Beijing last year for the Asian Games and had visited all the tourist attractions there. This time, he will not go there with his son. He still needs to oversee the expansion of his factory.

It was also not the first time his son had traveled to Beijing. Feng Yu was a grown up and can go by himself. He still has so many friends traveling with him.

Feng Yu had bought a piece of land on the outskirts of Shenyang city to build a Tian Peng farm and Tai Hua Food Processing branch factory. The factory’s construction was fast, but Feng Xingtai wanted to oversee the installation of the machinery personally.

Feng Yu wanted to ask his father if he knows about those machines.

Never mind. Since his father likes it, then let him be. His father can also bring his mother out to Shenyang for a holiday too. Shenyang was a good place for a holiday. There were a few attractions and can cultivate his parents love for traveling.

“Dongjun, this are the tickets for you and auntie. Liu Kun, these tickets are for you and your parents……”

At Bing City, someone was passing them a stack of train tickets. That person was the railway station manager.

“Xiao Yu, your family is so capable. You even know the railway station manager. These tickets come with sleeping accommodation.” Liu Kun’s father said.

“The railway station manager is my brother-in-law’s classmate. We will arrive in Beijing tomorrow morning. The return tickets are also ready. Once we reach Beijing, the railway station will issue the return tickets.

The railway manager was not his brother-in-law’s classmate. It was also because Tai Hua Trading had many business dealings with the Railway station and Feng Yu was able to get these tickets.

There were over a dozen students accompanied by family members. All of them passed through an express lane and got to board the train earlier.

Everyone was surprised that they do not need to queue. This was great. The Feng family have lots of connections.

There was only one person in the group that was not happy. He felt that Feng Yu was treating his daughter better than the others. He even helped his daughter carry her luggage.

This kid was interested in my daughter? Old Li was thinking in his heart.

If his daughter had not admitted into the University, then she would be at the suitable age for dating. But now, his daughter will be studying in a university. In the future, his daughter will need to support the family. What if she got into a relationship and neglected her studies?

This Feng family might be wealthy, but still, this kid might not be good enough for my daughter. The Farm Department Chief’s son would be a better match for my daughter. I must remind my daughter later.

If Feng Yu knew what Li Na’s father was thinking, he would be vomiting blood. As a billionaire, I can’t even be compared to the son of a Farm Department Chief? Can the farm department chief also be comparable to me? There are a few thousand workers at my factory, and after the new factories are set up, there will be tens of thousands of workers working for me. What are you thinking?

Feng Yu’s arrangement was excellent. Everyone was in the same carriage. After loading all the luggage, Feng Yu sat on the lower bunk bed to rest.

Damn. It’s only going to a university in Beijing. Was there a need to pack so much luggage? All the luggage was heavy, and there were even students who had brought their basin along.

Fine. In the era, everybody wants to save money.

After a while, the other passengers started to board the train. From the windows, Feng Yu could see the crowd rushing to the train. Most of them were students returning to their schools.

When the group saw the crowd, they were glad that they get to board the train earlier.

Feng Yu looked at Dongjun. Wen Dongjun does not look happy.

“What’s wrong? You are unhappy to study in Beijing?”

Wen Dongjun replied with a sour expression: “What are you talking about? It is because it is too crowded.”

Huh? What does the crowd get to do with you? You are worried about Zhang Han? It shouldn’t be. Zhang Han will be flying to Beijing.

“We still have not taken our dinner. With such a big crowd on the train, will they still send dinner?” Wen Dongjun said.

Feng Yu stared at him. Damn, that sorrow expression was because of this?

Fuck. All you think was food. You had just eaten something at 3 pm, and now you are still thinking about food?

Feng Yu really wanted to shout to Wen Dongjun’s mother: “Auntie, please look after Dongjun carefully. He is trying to eat the bedsheets!”

“I had brought some sausages and bread with me. You will not be hungry. Furthermore, the meal carriage is just beside our carriage. They will surely send our dinner! Come, I had brought playing cards. Let’s look for people to play.”

When Wen Dongjun heard about playing cards, his facial expression changed. He excitedly said: “Come, let’s play with Liu Kun. We will team up and win this provincial top student!”

Chapter 317 – Taking precautions against Feng Yu

At Beijing, there was someone who came to pass Feng Yu the return tickets. Feng Yu distributed the tickets to the family members of the students and the students left for their respective universities.

“Xiao Feng, you should go and report to your university.” Li Na’s father said.

“Uncle Li, I am not in a hurry. You have lots of luggage, and I only have a suitcase. Why not I send you all to Li Na’s university first.” Feng Yu said and helped Li Na carried her luggage to the bus that was going to Beijing Teaching University.

The universities in Beijing were much better. In that era, the universities had arranged for transportation to pick up their students from the Railway station. Even though the buses were old, but it was a convenience to the students.

Li Na’s father grabbed the suitcase from Feng Yu: “Xiao Feng, we do not need your help. Look, someone is carrying the sign for Beijing University. You better go and report. Leave this luggage to us. We are able to cope.”

Feng Yu raised his head, and his eyes met with Li Na’s father. Her father had a threatening look in his eyes.

Damn, you are worried that your daughter would run away with me? Fine, although I wished for this to happen, it was still too early.

Hmmm…. Old Li must have noticed something. Didn’t I hide my intentions well? But it doesn’t matter. Anyway, he would know about our relationship sooner or later. This was an opportunity to let her father know about us. No matter what, I must send Li Na to her school!

Li Na suddenly said: “Dad, my arms are aching. Let Feng Yu help us since he does not have a lot of luggage. You alone also cannot carry so much stuff.”

Feng Yu immediately put on a smiling face: “That’s right. Uncle Li, it will be too tiring for you to carry everything by yourself. Let me help. Hi senior, we are from Beijing Teaching University. Is this the bus?”

“Beijing Teaching University? Hurry up this bus. The seats are filling up. This bus will send you to the university and still need to come back for a second trip. Beijing is too big. If there are no buses to fetch the students, many new students would be lost.”

After boarding the bus, Feng Yu wanted to sit beside Li Na, but Li Na’s father pushed him aside. He kept staring at Feng Yu. He was taking precaution against Feng Yu.

Never mind. We can still look at each other even when we are not sitting together!

“Eh, are you all from Bing City? I am from Sixth High School. I am in the English faculty.” A girl turned around and smiled at Li Na.

I am from Third High School. I am also in the English Faculty. We will be classmates in the future. Maybe we will even be assigned to the same dormitory.” Li Na smiled. If there was someone from the same city studying together, they could take care of each other.

“Is that your brother?” That girl pointed to Feng Yu.

Li Na stole a glance at her father and said: “No, he is my high school classmate. He will be going to Beijing University. He is just helping me with my luggage.”

Your classmate? The girl thought for a while. She knew that it was not so simple. Which classmate would be so kind as to help with the luggage when they were from a different university. But that guy’s result must be good to enter Beijing University.

“Humph, Na Na, the bus is starting. Sit properly.” Li Na’s father said with a frowned.

You introduce Feng Yu to your classmate, but you did not introduce me?

The bus was not traveling fast. Although the road conditions were not as good as the future years, there were not so many vehicles on the road. There were still many people riding bicycles.

1 hour later, the bus stopped at the University compound. The students from the student committee brought the freshmen to register and then to their respective dormitory, before coming back to take their luggage.

Li Na’s father saw Feng Yu carrying the luggage and laughed coldly: “Xiao Feng, carry these two cases up too. My knees are aching.”

Didn’t you want to help? Then I shall let you help!

“Huh? Then uncle should rest and look after all these things. I will need to make a few trips to bring everything up.”

Feng Yu slowly climb up the stairs with the two suitcases to Li Na’s dormitory. He then came down again to carry the rest of the luggage.

The universities at this time had provided the students with a lot of things. There were bed sheets, blankets, face basin, towels, toothbrushes, etc. Everything was free!

After making a few trips, Feng Yu was covered in sweat.

When Li Na was about to pass Feng Yu a towel to wipe his sweat, her father appeared and took the towel from her. Her father wiped the “sweat” on his forehead.

Feng Yu embarrassedly retract his hands and laughed: “Let me help you unpack.”

Li Na’s father stopped Feng Yu again: “Xiao Feng, thanks for your help today. We can unpack ourselves. The bus is leaving for the railway station. You should get going.”

Damn, you are chasing me off?

I had been carrying all the luggage, and I am still dripping with sweat, Can’t you even let me rest here a while?

This future father-in-law was too difficult to handle. Fine. Anyway, I had already won your daughter’s heart. She will be mine eventually!

“Uncle Li, that bus will only be leaving for the railway station 2 hours later. If I go out and wait now, then I have to stand under the sun for 2 hours.”

Li Na’s father hesitated. It would be quite mean of me to do that to him. Okay, fine. I will be around anyway. He also can’t do anything for Li Na.

Feng Yu hurriedly help Li Na unpack her luggage. Li Na unpacked her clothes and kept all her cases under her bed.

The dormitory was for 8 people. It was all bunk beds. There was an old desk and on top was an old flask. There was not even a metal cabinet. The conditions were terrible.

In the future, all the universities had only the upper bunk beds. Below the beds were the cabinets, desk, and bookshelves. Some dormitories even have toilets and bathrooms attached.

Hmmm, later I must buy two boxes for Li Na. It will be easier for her to keep her things. Does the university allow me to renovate the dormitory?

At least there must be some bookshelves and a ladder to climb up the upper bunk. Railings should also be installed on the side of the top bunk beds to prevent the person sleeping there from falling down.

This blanket was not thick enough. The mattress must also be changed. Li Na also needs a mosquito net. At night, there should be lots of mosquitos. The hot water flask was also not enough. Later I have to get at least 8 to 10 hot water flask.

She is my girlfriend, and I must take good care of her. Hmmm, if I have time, I must also treat her classmates for dinner. This way, Li Na will not be bullied by them.

Li Na’s father saw Feng Yu looking at his daughter’s bed, and he was furious. What was this kid thinking? He wants to climb into my daughter’s bed? I must give him a warning!

“Nana, you still remember what that student, who sent us here, said? The electrical supply to the dormitory is limited. At night, you should sleep after lights out and cannot use candles in case of fire. Also, keep your money safe. There are incidents where outsiders sneak in and steal money. Most importantly, don’t mix with people who make use of the reason that you and he are from the same city!”

After saying this, Li Na’s father stared at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu: “……”

Damn. What’s the meaning of this? You are reminding Li Na to take precautions against burglars, fire and me?!

Chapter 318 – University, a small-scale society

In the end, Feng Yu left grumpily. Before he left, he pointed to his pager on his waist. Feng Yu had already bought Beijing’ pager before he came here. It was the one with Chinese characters. The pager charges were too high!

Feng Yu did not board the bus back to the railway station. He just flagged a taxi.

“Beijing University. Thank you.”

The driver did not drive off. Beijing University was not far from Beijing Teaching University, but it was still over 10 kilometers away. The fare will not be cheap. How can a student afford? There were also a lot of poor students at Beijing University too!

Feng Yu took out 2 ten RMB notes: “Keep the change.”

The taxi driver immediately drove off. It was his lucky day to meet a wealthy student. The diver had to drive more than 10 hours to earn this much. He wondered about the upbringing of this kid. Didn’t his parents tell him to not be a spendthrift?

“Sir, is there any apartments for sale near Beijing University and Beijing Teaching University?”

When Feng Yu saw the state of Beijing Teaching University dormitory, he could have guessed how his dorm at Beijing University would be like. It must be old, and the windows might even be made of wood.

After Feng Yu started university, he wants to brainwash Li Na to achieve his desire to wash Li Na.

It would be too challenging to bring Li Na to a hotel for their first time. If he has a house here, then it will be much easier. Next year, it will be too late for Li Na’s father to oppose their relationship.

Classes in university were more relaxed than high school. Beijing university now was also not as big as the future years. Feng Yu could just get a motorcycle, and he will not be late.

The driver nearly slammed the brakes. What? This kid still wants to buy an apartment?

Did these outsiders think that Beijing apartments cost as cheap as their countryside? Furthermore, the sales of private apartments had only started a few years ago. Who would want to sell their apartments to you?

“I am not sure. You can ask other people.”

Feng Yu sighed. In the future, there will be housing agents everywhere. Where did all the housing agents go to now? Without housing agents, how would he buy an apartment?

His Beijing dealer was also not reliable. All the houses and apartments he recommended to Feng Yu was too far from his schools.

……

At Beijing University, Feng Yu carried his suitcase up the stairs to his dormitory slowly. He had used all his strength when he helped Li Na with her luggage. Luckily, he does not have lots of luggage. If he needs anything, he can just buy it. There were still a few stalls selling daily necessities outside the school.

“Hi everybody, I am Feng Yu. I am in the management faculty. I am from Bing City.”

“You are finally here. All of us will be in the same class. We are all waiting for you. He is also from Bing City. You did not take the bus from the railway station?” Someone in his early 20s said, and he pointed to a shy looking classmate.

“You are also from Bing City? Then you must be Wang Lei of Sixth High School. I am from Third High School.” There were only a few students from Bing City that entered Beijing University, and there was only one student that was on the same faculty with Feng Yu. Feng Yu had found out before coming to Beijing. He wanted to recruit this student to work for his company in the future.

Wang Lei stood up and stretched out his hand: “Hi. I know you. You are the one that was exempted from the entry exams. You are the same as our roommate Li Yong.”

Feng Yu’s exemption of the entry exams had spread throughout Bing City. Almost all the schools in Bing City had used Feng Yu to encourage their students.

All of Feng Yu’s roommates introduced themselves and their age. That person in his early 20s stood up and said: “I am the oldest in our dormitory and I am also from Beijing. In the future, if any of you have any problems, you can come to me. I will help you.”

Feng Yu looked at this “big brother”. He was a few years older than the rest of them, and he should have failed the entrance exams several years. But this person was able to lead. He had some leadership skills. Maybe because he was also from Beijing. Since you said that you can help if we have any problems, then I shall see if you can help me.

“Tian Lei, are you familiar with the places around our school? Do you know if there are any apartments for sales nearby?”

Tian Lei had a shocked expression: “You want to buy an apartment? Why are you buying an apartment for? The rules in our dormitory are stringent. If any students did not return to the dormitory at night, they would be punished.”

This Feng Yu was not that old, and from his dressing, Tian Lei knew that Feng Yu’s family must be wealthy. The pager that was clipped on his waist was the latest model. But Tian Lei did not expect that this Feng Yu’s family to be so wealthy to even want to buy an apartment for Feng Yu in Beijing. What if Feng Yu was posted back to his city and he can’t sell off his apartment in Beijing?

“Of course, it is for me to stay. I have more things, and I am also lazy. I am not used to tidying my things. This dormitory will not be able for me to keep all my things. Don’t worry. I will only go back to the apartment on weekends. I will still be staying here on weekdays.”

Feng Yu still needs to take care of his businesses. With an apartment, he can use it as his office. Also, he can also bring Li Na over. This was his real reason.

“Ermmm…… I know on the West gate there are two newly built apartment buildings. But I am not sure if those apartments are for sales. I will help you ask. The military training camp will only start the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow I will help you ask around and give you an answer tomorrow evening.”

Huh? He was so confident that he could get an answer tomorrow evening? That means this Tian Lei’s family really have some connections in Beijing.

“Thank you. By the way, what activities had all of you planned?”

“We will all be classmates for the next 4 years. So, we decided to eat out and have some drinks together. We can also get to know each other better.”

Feng Yu nodded. “Fine. Since I made all of you waited for so long, it will be my treat tonight.”

Feng Yu knew the importance of having good relationships with classmates. The faster way was to use his money to build up their friendship.

All the roommates were happy when they heard Feng Yu was going to treat them. All of them were still students, and their families were not very rich either. All of them could tell that this Feng Yu’s family must be very wealthy.

Only Tian Lei was not that happy. He was the oldest there, and he wanted to be the leader of the dormitory. He was the one who suggested dinner together. He also wanted his roommates to support him to be the class monitor or at least be the vice monitor.

But Feng Yu said he would be treating all of them, and if Feng Yu wanted to be the monitor, the rest of the roommates would surely support him.

Feng Yu could tell what Tian Lei was thinking, and he smiled: “Tian Lei is the oldest among us, and he is also from Beijing. I think he is the best person to be our dormitory leader. Oh, Tian Lei, do you want to be part of the class committee? What position do you want to be? Tell us. We will all vote for you.”

Tian Lei was overjoyed. Feng Yu does not have the intention to be on the class committee? That’s right. Feng Yu’s family is so wealthy, and he does not need a title in the class committee.

“Thank you for your support. If I can become the class monitor, I promise to put in my best efforts in helping any of you if you encounter any problems in Beijing!” Tian Lei expressed that he wanted to be the class monitor.

“Fine. Let’s go. We can talk during dinner. If we go there later, it might be too crowded.”

Everybody wanted to be on the class committee except for Feng Yu. Feng Yu also do not want to take part in other after-school activities. It was because he does not have the time!

I am here to learn management and also look for managerial talents to recruit. At the same time, I am here to fulfill my parents’ dreams. All of you are here to get better job opportunities. All of you can try to get the title of being in the class committee.

Our goals in life are not the same!

Chapter 319 – Skipping Military Training

When school starts, the first activity was the military training. For people like Wen Dongjun with lots of energy, it was nothing. They might even enjoy it. But for Feng Yu, it was useless.

If this activity can help the students know each other better, Feng Yu would prefer to treat his classmates to a few dinners, which will be more effective. Even playing team sports like football or basketball was much better than this boring military training!

Feng Yu needs to use his usual tricks to skip this training.

“Teacher, I have Achilles tendonitis. I cannot take part in the training.” Feng Yu handed a fake excuse chit and a false medical report to the teacher. He had spent 100 RMB for this.

Even when this was not Bing City, it was still easy to buy fake excuse chits and medical reports.

The teacher looked at Feng Yu from top to toe: “Achilles tendonitis? Why are you still playing football last night? Can you play football with Achilles tendonitis? I think you had taken the wrong report from the hospital!”

The teacher’s tone was evident that he knew Feng Yu was faking his illness. What he really meant was: Keep your fake medical report. Don’t make me expose you!

Damn. I should not have played football last night.

The military training will last a month, and Feng Yu really does not want to take part in it. He had better use for his time. He still needs to look after his business. It was peacetime now, and before he came to this life, China was not involved in any wars. What’s the use for this military training?

Even if a war really breaks out in the future, there are so many soldiers in China. He would also not get his chance to participate in the war. The wars in the future do not need soldiers too. It will all be using high tech weaponry! Wars will be using money!

Furthermore, this military will affect the student’s growth. Feng Yu still wanted to grow taller.

“Teacher, I heard that our school’s stadium is old. My family has some money. Why not let me renovate the stadium for the school?” If the medical report does not work, then I will use the money!

The teacher stared at this student. Was he trying to fool him? Renovating a stadium will cost more than a few thousands RMB. It requires at least a few hundred thousand. It might even cost up to a few million! Even if your family is rich, will your parents agree to take out so much for the school?

As a teacher, he had met many students who tried to skip military training over the years. Feng Yu was not the first one. All the excuses used by the students were similar. He did not saw Feng Yu playing football yesterday, but he had used this trick to expose countless students.

“You want to help the school to renovate the stadium? Fine. Then I will represent the school and thank you. Our University had wanted to renovate the stadium last year, but we do not have the money. 1 million RMB should be enough!”

The teacher sneered. Kid, I want to see how you will react when you hear 1 million RMB! You think that you are exempted from the entry exams, and you are somebody? I was also exempted in the past, and I even got a scholarship for my PH. D!

“No problem. Teacher, I will need to prepare the money. I am afraid that I will not be able to attend the training these few days.” Feng Yu readily agree.

After all, he will be at this university for the next few years. He could also use the newly renovated stadium. With a better stadium, he could also play football.

In another two years, he can renovate the gymnasium too. But he must get the naming rights. How can he not let others remember that he was the one that donated to the school? This way, graduates from Beijing University will remember Tai Hua Trading and it will be easier for him to recruit those graduates.

“you really think you are somebody? No problem? Do you even know how 1 million RMB looks like? You know how much a professor’s research fund was for a year? As a student of Beijing University, you must remember the school’s motto and must be honest. You should not tell lies!” The teacher reprimanded Feng Yu.

This student was too much. If the teacher had not seen his results and knew that he was food at English and Russian and had also scored the highest marks for his interview, he would have punished him severely.

In the future, if Feng Yu was posted to some government agencies and carried on telling lies, China’s future will be gone!

“Teacher, as a student of Beijing University, I know about these. I can really afford 1 million RMB. Teacher, please listen to me. Those Wind and Rain electric fans in your offices were bought 2 years ago. The production for those fans was stopped after the bladeless fans were launched last year. My family owns this Wind and Rain brand!” Feng Yu pointed to himself.

“Wind and Rain brand belongs to your family?” The teacher was shocked. Could this be real?

Wind and Rain brand was China most famous home appliances brand. The humidifiers, electric fans were selling well and were even exported to overseas. If Feng Yu was telling the truth, then he could really afford 1 million RMB!

“Teacher, technology is also mentioned in our school’s teaching. My family’s products are all using advanced technologies. Oh, I think I still want to donate some research funds to our school’s Bioengineering department. This way, the professors will have more funds to do their researches. We can talk about the details later.”

The teacher’s jaw dropped. This Feng Yu still wanted to fund the school’s professors researches?

How did our faculty recruit this student?

This student should not care about his studies and job posting. How should he manage this student? But this was also considered a great achievement for him. If he can really get Feng Yu to donate to the school, he should be able to get his promotion.

“I need to speak to the university’s leaders first. I cannot make any decision. Tomorrow morning, I will bring you to meet our school’s leaders. We can talk about the military training after the meeting.”

The next day, when all the other students were in the military training, Feng Yu went to the University office with the teacher. Feng Yu explained to the University’s leaders about his intentions to donate to the school.

But this time, Feng Yu’s conditions were not so simple. He wanted the naming rights of the stadium. He also promised that he will donate to some projects every year and the university will have to give him the naming rights in return. This was the same as Sir Shaw when he donated to the schools in China. The only difference was that the local government and schools will also need to come up with part of the construction fees. Feng Yu will be paying for everything, and the University will not need to spend a single cent!

As for the research funds for the professors, it can only be decided after Feng Yu met the professors and understand their research. Feng Yu will only fund the research he was interested in, and it was not a donation to the school. Also, the results of the study would be jointly owned by Feng Yu and the University. Feng Yu also have the option to buy over the research.

Feng Yu was excited when he thought about having a group of professors researching medicine for him in the future.

He can get back a few hundred times of his investments now in the future. This was a great opportunity!

Feng Yu was also able to benefit from his donations and investment now. The University accepted his excuse chit and medical report. He does not need to attend the military training. He only needs to attend the last day of the training.

The teacher patted Feng Yu’s back as they walked out of the office. He kept praising him. China’s future should be handed to young men like Feng Yu……

Chapter 320 – Negotiating with the Professor

Professor Sun looked at the student in front of him. He had met students who had started their own businesses, and students in their 30s in this university before.

But this was the first time he met a student like Feng Yu. A student around the age of 18 and owns a successful business. This was also the first time he hears that a student will be funding the professors’ researches. If it were not the vice principal telling him about this, he would have thought that this was a joke!

“Professor Sun, Professor Sun? Are you doing bioengineering research?” Feng Yu looked at the dazed professor.

“Xiao Feng. No, Feng Yu…. Sorry…… Ermmm…. Mr. Feng.” Professor Sun does not know how to address Feng Yu. As a student of Beijing University, he should address Feng Yu as Xiao Feng or student Feng. But Feng Yu’s status was different today. He will be the one that will be providing his research funds. It was still awkward for Professor Sun to address Feng Yu as Mr. Feng.

“Professor Sun, you can address me as Xiao Feng or Feng Yu.” Feng Yu could tell that Professor Sun was feeling awkward. But Feng Yu does not mind at all. He had met professors and even high-ranking officials from the provincial government. All of them had addressed him as Mr. Feng or Manager Feng.

“Then I will address you as Xiao Feng. We are from the biology department. Our university does not have a bioengineering department.”

It was Feng Yu’s turn to be embarrassed. He had heard about bioengineering in his previous life, but he did not know that Beijing University does not have this department. The university’s leaders had not mentioned this to him at their meeting yesterday.

But biology should be about this same as bioengineering. Biology research should also include the medicines he wanted.

“Professor Sun, does biology includes biochemistry?’ Feng Yu asked.

“Of course. Biochemistry is a subject in which all our students have to take. Biology includes a lot of things……”

Professor Sun starts to introduce his expertise. Feng Yu listened attentively. This Professor Sun was the indeed the person he was looking for.

Feng Yu listened to Professor Sun for about half an hour, and he interrupted him. Professor Sun had talked about plants, humans, etc. Feng Yu does not understand what he was talking about.

“Professor Sun, can you turn your expertise into products? A product that can benefit mankind. For example, some calcium, iron, zinc, selenium, etc., tablets which can be absorbed faster by our bodies. Or, some vitamins, Amino acids pills that can relive our tiredness? Or, maybe some tablets that can help us sleep better, grow taller or slim down faster. Are you able to do that?”

Feng Yu did not mention that he wanted to make money with these medicines. He only talks about benefiting mankind. This was something noble, and Professor Sun was smiling.

“I did some researches on the things you mentioned. Other professors in our department wanted to research the things you mentioned. However, we do not have enough funds.” Professor Sun looked at Feng Yu in his eyes.

Feng Yu: “……”

Damn. Who says that the professors in this era were righteous and noble? This professor only wants money. But this was also a good thing.

“Then I will provide the funding. But who will own the results of the research?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

“The research results? Of course, the school will own it.” Professor Sun said. “You want your name on the research papers? Then you must transfer to my faculty. But you need to be a research student first.”

Humph! Who the hell wants to be part of the research? I am funding the researches and even though the study will be conducted by you all, and the school will be providing the laboratories and equipment, how can the university own the research results? I should get a share of it!

If it wasn’t for the difficulties in setting up a research laboratory now, I will also not work with you. I would set up my own research laboratory!

“Professor Sun, I think I did not make things clear to you. I am not giving away my money for nothing. I am funding the researches because I want the results of the studies. To the university, this research result will only be an achievement or some honor. But for me, I can turn these research results into products. Don’t you want the fruits of your labor to be introduced to the market and benefit everyone? Let everyone praise you?

Benefit everyone and let everybody praise?

Professor Sun became excited, and his face turned red. He had thought about this before. He also wanted to get a noble prize. But if he can’t get a noble prize, it would also be good to hear praises from the people.

But he could not make this decision to hand over the result of his research to Feng Yu. All this while, the university owns all their researches. He had never heard of someone owning their research results.

But in the past, no one had ever funded their researches before.

Feng Yu saw that Professor Sun was tempted and he continued: “Professor Sun, think about this. If you give me the result of your researches, I can manufacture it and sell it to the rest of the world. I can use the profits to continue funding you and your fellow professors’ researches. We can even earn money from the Western countries. This will be a great achievement!”

“Of course, as the person leading this research, you should also get some rewards. This would motivate more professors and scientist in your field to conduct more researches and let more people become interested in biology. We can let this subject be known all over China and let more people research on the wonders of biology!”

Feng Yu was getting more and more exaggerated, but Professor Sun likes what he said. This was a dream for him.

“But can those things you mentioned, really make money?”

Will there really be people that want to buy calcium tablets, vitamins, growth enhancement pills, slimming pills, etc.?

“Of course! Our country’s economy is growing at an amazing speed. Do you have grandchildren? Do you want your grandchildren to grow taller? Also, you are looking tired. Do you get tired easily? If there are energy drinks that can relieve your fatigue, or prevent you from getting sleepy, will you take it? Even if no one in China wants to take it, there will be someone in this world that will need it. It can definitely make money!”

Feng Yu was also not greedy. If only one of the things he mentioned were developed successfully, he would make at least a few hundred million of profits. If two or more researches were successful, the profits would be higher.

There also some things that were already discovered, but no one knows how to use it. For example, L-carnitine. In the future years, almost every slimming pills have L-carnitine components in it. But now, it was only used as a form of health supplement and was used primarily in the milk powder for babies.

Even if these professors were not successful with their researches, had only found out the other uses of L-carnitine, and Feng Yu would be happy to give them a few million RMB!

“Let me consider about this. I also need to discuss with the others. I will give you an answer in two days’ time.”

Actually, Professor Sun had already made up his mind. But the things Feng Yu mentioned could not be done by him alone. His expertise was in vitamins. Also, he needs to talk to the University’s leaders. He does not have the authority to make such decisions.

Looking at Professor Sun’s expression, Feng Yu knew that this was a done deal!

Chapter 321 – Last Batch of equipment

Feng Yu sighed as he hangs up the phone.

It was really the same as his previous life. This August, there was indeed a coup in the Soviet Union. Some hardliners had kidnapped Soviet Union’s President Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev during his vacation.

These hardliners had wanted to use this coup to make Yeltsin take on the role of President of the Soviet Union. However, Yeltsin refused. It was easier to manage Russia than to led so many allied countries.

Those hardliners also wanted to take Yeltsin into custody and even assassinate him. But they found out that Yeltsin had already taken full control of Russia. Thus, they could not achieve their plans.

At the same time, the army and KGB also stop supporting those crazy coup leaders. They openly declared their support for Yeltsin. In the end, after some negotiations, Mikhail Gorbachev was released.

Yeltsin also took the opportunity to declare that the communist party in the Soviet Union was a radical party and chased them out of Russia. He also made Mikhail Gorbachev sign a document which recognized him as the President of Russia.

Mikhail Gorbachev stepped down as the President of the Soviet Union and announced the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus immediately enter the United Nations. Russia had the strongest military power and had the support of the KGB, had the advantage in taking over all the Soviet Union overseas assets.

Mikhail Gorbachev was still hoping for Yeltsin to continue his Soviet Union economic reforms. Although Yeltsin agreed, he had other plans. He started the Commonwealth of Independent States.

This alliance does not require all the Soviet Union allied countries to be in. As long as Ukraine and Belarus acknowledged this alliance will do. Without these 3 countries, the other allied nations were nothing. Those countries do not have enough military powers or were economically sound.

Before the signing of this treaty, Kirilenko must quickly export that equipment to Feng Yu. After the coup happened in August and the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev, it was difficult to ship these equipment.

But Kirilenko was smart. He told those factories’ directors that the Soviet Union was finished. They need to think for themselves and their families. Even if the economy collapsed in the future, they would still have some money. They could also push these sales of equipment to those ex-Soviet Union politicians. They will not be blamed for selling their factories; equipment.

Just like this, the machines bought by Kirilenko was much cheaper than he expected. Of course, his rebate to the directors was higher. Although the political situation in the Soviet Union was in a mess, his cost was still the same.

Kirilenko had wanted to slowly ship those machines to China. If he delivers so many machines at once, he could be found out. Furthermore, Feng Yu also does not have enough place or manpower to store and assemble those machines. But Feng Yu kept chasing him. Feng Yu was afraid that after the United Nations recognized Russia’s independence, Kirilenko might not have the chance to export out those machines.

Feng Yu had already spoken to factories and governments in many places. Fu Guangzheng made used of his identity of Hong Kong businessman to negotiate with these governments. At this time, the status of Hong Kong businessman was higher than the Americans. It was like this until the handing over of Hong Kong. China Government was afraid of any issues arising before the handing over.

If Kirilenko could not deliver those machines, then Feng Yu’s investment in the Machinery company will have problems. It will delay his plans and offend Bing City’s government and Master Lu. Feng Yu would also need to pay huge compensations.

With Feng Yu chasing Kirilenko, Kirilenko was under lots of pressure. He used his father’s connection and used all means to send all the machinery to Bing City.

Kirilenko does not care whether if Bing City had the place to store those machines. He will get paid once those machines reach Bing city. It was Feng Yu’s problem to look for a place to store those machines.

Today, the last batch of machines will be delivered to Bing City. Feng Yu was notified that the machines had crossed the borders through a phone call. He was finally relieved. There will be no problems with his investment in the Machinery Company.

But there was another problem for him now. There were too many machines, and there was no place to store them. Feng Yu had already sent a batch of machinery to Dongguan and Jinling. But there were still a lot of machines left in Bing city.

Li Mingde came to Feng Yu and asked him for a solution to this problem. If these machines were to be left in Bing City, the Machinery Company’s warehouses would be insufficient. The Machinery company had already rented all the available warehouses in Bing City. It was still not enough.

The last batch of machines will be arriving soon. Should they send the equipment to the branch factories’ provinces straight?

But the construction for those factories was not completed yet. There were even some regions in which the negotiations with the local government were not completed. The factory’s venue was still an empty plot of land. Even if the machines were sent there, they also need to look for a place to store them. The local governments might use this opportunity to create problems for them.

Li Mingde felt that Feng Yu was too eager. There was no need for him to send those machines over so early. He should have waited for the factories’ construction to complete. There might also be problems with the machines if those machines were left idling for too long.

Feng Yu also wanted to wait for the construction to be completed before sending the machines over. But time does not permit this to happen. These machines were cheap. If he purchases these machines after the constructions were completed, it might cost him at least double.

By that time, the Soviet Union will be disintegrated, and all those countries will be restricting the exports of these machines. Kirilenko might not even get to purchase these machines for him.

Feng Yu also need to get these machines to show Bing city’s Government and Master Lu, that he could set up multiple factories at the same time.

Since all the machines had already arrived, Feng Yu called Fu Guangzheng to ask if his negotiations with the local governments will be affected if he sends those machines to the respective regions first.

Even though the land parcel was already settled, but it does not mean that they had the permission to set up their branch factories. This was an investment of over 100 million RMB. The local government will also want to earn some money. There were still many details that still need to be negotiated.

Fu Guangzheng had a headache when he heard this. If the equipment were sent to the region first, then the local government will know that they must set up the factory there. They will make use of this to charge the Machinery Company higher, and the negotiations will not go smoothly for Fu Guangzheng.

However, this was the only solution. Maybe with the equipment stored there, the local government will expedite the negotiations. Even though the Machinery Company might need to pay a higher price, their risk will be lower.

Feng Yu agreed He told Fu Guangzheng just pay more and get all the negotiations settled as soon as possible. After all, Fu Guangzheng’s Hong Kong businessman had already helped the Machinery Company saved a lot. If it were Feng Yu or Li Mingde, they would not perform better than him.

Once Fu Guangzheng also completed his negotiations with the respective local government, the machines will be sent from Bing City to that region immediately. Some not so essential equipment might be damaged in the process, but Feng Yu was not worried. He could still purchase those machines from overseas. He was only concerned with the core machines.

Even if those not so essential machines rusted, Feng Yu could still sell it as scrap metals. All Feng Yu wanted now was for the factories to complete their construction as soon as possible.

Chapter 322 – Sponsorship is for making money

The Machinery company’s branch factories were under construction, and Feng Yu’s funding of Beijing University Biology Department’s professors’ researches was also settled.

The university had concluded that the researches’ results will be owned by the University and the professors will be named as the researchers. Feng Yu would be allowed to use the research results for free. He could also pay to have the exclusive use of these results. Of course, the university will also have the right to use it too.

Feng Yu was satisfied. Free usage of the results was a great deal. If there were any competitors, Feng Yu would be able to spend some money and get the exclusive use of the researches. This would kill off any competitors, and Feng Yu would be the one getting all the profits.

The professors also felt that this was the best for them. Feng Yu had promised to sponsor all their research funds and even promised them bonuses once their researches were turned into products.

The university also had something to gain. They could let their professors continued with their researches without spending a single cent. Even if their researches failed, the University would only lose some time. But if the professors succeeded, then the university will get the fame!

Feng Yu had only invested 1 million RMB in each professor. But those professors were overjoyed. The professors from other faculties were jealous of them. Even at Beijing University, these professors could only get about 20,000 RMB research funds a year.

Why this tycoon did not sponsor their researches? Their researches were also outstanding. It was also for the good of mankind.

At first, there were still some professors who wanted to make use of the university’s administrative orders to let them use these research funds. Can’t the school even deal with a student? But this was rejected by the Vice-principal. Feng Yu had said that these research funds were given to the respective professors and if someone else uses these research funds, it will be considered a breach of contract. Feng Yu will not fund any more researches.

Feng Yu had agreed to donor school buildings to the university every year. That was more than a few hundred million. The University stopped those jealous professors from making a fuss, but they also secretly told them Feng Yu’s class and dormitory. The professors can go and contact Feng Yu themselves to try and convince him to fund their researches. No matter what, the University will never issue any administrative orders which allow them to use the research funds.

Feng Yu was looking at the other students doing the military training. He was exempted from the training. But Feng Yu was still not aware that he was only exempted from this year’s training. There was another 2 weeks training during the year 1 student’s break. That will be the real military training.

“Teacher, are you looking for me?” Feng Yu was at his dormitory drinking tea when he saw a teacher walking in with two old men with white hair.

“Feng Yu, let me introduce you to these two professors. They are our University’s Computer Science Professors. They have some projects that need your funding.”

Beijing University also have Computer research facilities?

Feng Yu had thought that Beijing University was focused more on arts subjects. Huaqing Universty was more renowned for their researches in computers. He never expects Beijing University to have this department too.

The smile on Feng Yu’s face disappeared after chatting with the professors for a while.

Damn. These two old men were here to cheat money. Their research was in the right direction, but they had started too late. Even AIWA had these technologies, and you are just beginning to research on it now?

The professors even promised that Feng Yu would get the authorization to use their research results. They will also be producing their own products based on their research results themselves.

Shameless!

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that there was a Zhengfang Company in Beijing University. It was set up in 1986, and the company’s general manager was the Chief of the Computer Science research facility now.

This company was owned by Beijing University, and this company main purpose was to use their professors’ researches to turn into products and sells them. Their most successful outcome now was the Chinese characters display technologies!

These professors just wanted some donations from me.

Feng Yu does not mind donating to these professors. But their researches were outdated and was readily available in the market. It was too late for them to start now. This was a waste of money.

Your expertise was the software. Your researches should be in this direction. Why must you compete with Huaqing University and you still want me to fund you?

These two professors thought that since Feng Yu had already funded some professors’ researches, he would surely support them too? Funding researches must have a purpose also. Feng Yu must see the value in the study. The value does not only include monetary returns. Even favors will do. Feng Yu would not spend his money to let these two old men get fame?

“Please hold on. I think there is some misunderstanding. The both of you keep on talking about your conditions, but I had not agreed to fund your research yet.”

“What? What did you say? You are not funding our research? How can you not fund our research?” We are Professors from the University research facility. We are letting you fund our research is giving you face. You will also get your name on the research papers. You still do not agree to support us? This was a great honor!

The two professors were shocked. We are the professors here, and you are only a student!

“Why should I agree? The thing that you are researching on is already on the market. What’s the value of researching something that is already in the market? I can just buy it on the market, and it will be much cheaper. If the both of you have better researches, we can discuss further. If not, please leave. I still have other things to do! Have the both of you wondered why the university had not agreed to fund your research?” Feng Yu picked up his teacup, ignoring the Professors’ angry glare.

These so-called experts, professors were only in name. If they really have the capability, they would be like that Professor in his 30s who had come to see Feng Yu a few days ago.  Even though he was a junior professor but his research had interest Feng Yu, and Feng Yu was willing to fund him.

Even if these two professors were holding high positions, Feng Yu would not fund them a single cent. Feng Yu’s status at Beijing University was exceptional now. These two professors could not do anything to him even if he offended them.

That young professor was researching on materials. The uses for this new material was still unknown, and that’s why he could not get funding from the University. This was the reason why he came to Feng Yu.

That professor wanted to research on silicon and Polyurethane. When Feng Yu heard about this, he already knew where he can use these materials on. There was a massive market for this material. The sex toy industry!

Silicon can be used to make sex-dolls, and Polyurethane properties were similar to rubber, and it can be used to make condoms. The condoms now were still made from latex.

A few days ago, Kameda Masao had called Feng Yu. Kameda Masao had reported that their sales had increased in the 3rd quarter.

Feng Yu had wanted to visit Japan within these few days. He wants to look at AIWA’s development and at the same time, give some advice to the Sixth Senses Company. Of course, he also wanted to avoid those professors.

Although Feng Yu had not used Sixth Senses Company products, he had seen many sex toys on the internet in his previous life. He can just use some of those ideas and make profits!

Chapter 323 – Dream big, Kameda Masao

When the professors at Beijing University wanted to look for Feng Yu, they noticed that Feng Yu was not at the military training camp or his dormitory. He had gone overseas.

The professors were furious. They reprimanded the person-in-charge: Feng Yu was only a student; how can he just leave the country like this.

But the professors could not say out the reason why they don’t allow Feng Yu to go overseas. It was because if Feng Yu was not around, they could not get research funds. The professors cannot announce this reason to anyone.

Feng Yu stepped out of Tokyo Airport, and he says Kameda Masao waiting for him with a prominent sign. Welcome to Japan.

“Boss, you must be tired. Yoshiko, help boss with his luggage. Boss, do you want to go to the hotel first, or you prefer to have your dinner first?”

This VIP treatment was not bad. But why did you look at Yoshiko when you mention about going to the hotel?

“Go to the hotel first and report to me about your progress.”

At the hotel, Yoshiko carried the luggage into the hotel room and left, closing the door behind her. President Kameda had signaled to her to wait outside the room for his instructions.

The Japanese economy now was really bad. A man can no longer support his family. This was especially so after the Japanese property market collapsed. Japanese men had to carry the burden of massive debts. This was also the reason why Yoshiko had to come out and work. She had to do things that she was not willing to do, but she would be paid well.

“Kameda, the last time we spoke, you mentioned that your sex dolls sales were increasing, and you have the confidence that this year, you will capture at least 25% of the market. You had done well. But have you considered monopolizing Japan or even the world’s sex toys industry?”

Feng Yu was leading Kameda Masao. Dreams must be big. This would push one to continually improving himself.

Furthermore, Feng Yu had given Kameda Masao lots of ideas, and the Sixth Sense Company had lots of new products. These new products received rave reviews, but because of lack of funds, Kameda Masao could not increase his scale. There were already some factories that start to imitate their products.

This trip, Feng Yu had decided to increase his investment in the Sixth Sense Company. If this company could perform so well with only 1 million USD investment, then what would happen if Feng Yu gave Kameda Masao 10 million USD? It would not be too hard for Kameda Masao to monopolize the Japanese market, followed by the Asia market and then the world. The Sixth Sense Company could become the world’s biggest sex toy company!

“Boss, I had thought about this, and I am working hard towards this goal. Our factory is already in max production, but the factory can only produce so much. We still do not have enough funds to expand our factory.”

Kameda Masao was facing this difficulty and had mentioned to Feng Yu that he wanted to get loans from the banks. However, Feng Yu rejected his suggestion. Kameda Masao was dejected. He thought that Feng Yu was focusing on AIWA more and had even invested more money into AIWA.

Sigh…. Our products are also popular. Boss does not have any prejudice against this industry but why he does not let me take loans to expand the factory?

Kameda Masao’s forecast was accurate. With Japan in recession, the property bubble burst, and the stock market collapse, many Japanese families had divorced. Those that wanted to get married had postponed. It was because that Japanese man could not support a family like before!

There were more and more single Japanese men. Sex was a way to relieve stress and frustration. Now, those sex establishments and red-light districts had also become desolate, as Japanese men could not afford to go there.

At the time, Kameda Masao introduced all sorts of uninformed sex dolls to the market. These new products were extremely popular! This also pushes the sales of other Sixth Sense Company’s products.

The materials were cheap. It can even be considered dirt cheap, but the designs were enough to attract the consumers. Even when the products were priced slightly more expensive, the sales were still increasing.

There were even some movie companies that ordered their costume. Now, the Sixth Sense Company was already considered the market leader in Japan’s sex doll market. But Kameda Masao still needs at least 6 more months to be the leader in Japanese sex toys industry.

Of course, the company had already earned back the 1 million USD Feng Yu invested. This money was reinvested into the sex toy factory to develop more attractive costumes, cheaper materials and set up more retail stores.

Feng Yu had arrived in Japan, and Kameda Masao wanted to have a talk with him. He wants to increase the company’s scale and occupy the market.

Feng Yu nodded: “You are right. I also think that it is time for Sixth Sense to increase its scale. However, there is a problem with your management, which is your advertising and marketing.”

When Kameda Masao heard the first sentence from Feng Yu, he was overjoyed. Feng Yu had finally decided to increase the company’s scale. But he was confused with the second sentence. Japanese media does not allow sex toys advertising!

“Why? You think that our products are not suitable to advertise? The advertisement I am talking about is not those advertisements on your TV stations or in the newspaper. I am talking about hidden advertising. For example, you can invest in some movies or get some movie stars to endorse our products.”

Invest in movies? Is boss talking about…… those movies?

“I remember you telling me that there is a movie company buying our costumes? Then why don’t we invest some money and get their hottest AV star to promote that movie which will be using our costumes? The movie title can be called <Uniform Temptations>, this can showcase our uniform products. The movie can also showcase our other products like dildos or even sex dolls!”

Kameda Masao was in a daze from the shock he received!

He had not thought of advertising their products this way.

He thought about what Feng Yu had said, and it can really be done. These types of movies were selling well. Men ranging from teenagers to those in their 60s, all love to watch. There were even some women that like to watch too. There was also more and more adult movies company.

“The movies titles can also be called <Sixth Sense> or <Sex Toys Lifestyle>, etc. This can showcase our products and our brands. The better those movies sell; the more people will know about our brand and products. There will be more people that will be interested in our products. Also, you can make a life-size 1:1 scale sex dolls of the AV stars you hired to endorse our products. This 1:1 scale sex dolls include of all her body parts. You understand?”

Huh………

Kameda Masao’s eyeballs nearly pop out. Every part of the body must be the same? Including there?

This will surely be a hit with those men. This would satisfy all of their fantasies. Then should we produce an AV stars sex dolls series?

Once again, Kameda Masao was inspired by what Feng Yu said and starts to think about all sorts of possibilities.

Chapter 324 – Out of Asia, Set your sights on the world

Kameda Masao excitedly discussed his ideas with Feng Yu. He will collaborate with the movie company that had bought his costumes. There was a new director in that company which likes to use “props” in his movies.

Feng Yu was not really interested in these details, and he let Kameda Masao makes all the decisions. He let Kameda Masao decide on the budget, as he does not know much about this industry market rates.

Kameda Masao still felt that they had too few retail stores in Japan. He wants to increase the number of their retail outlets. Having one store in one province was not enough. Some bigger areas like Tokyo or Hokkaido need at least 3 or even 5 stores. Those densely populated provinces will also need at least 2 stores.

That means that they would need to set up more than 30 new stores. Each store will need at least 50,000 USD to set up. Although the property prices in Japan had fallen, the rental of those locations he wanted had not dropped.

Just the new stores alone would almost 2 million USD. The factory still needs to expand and increase the number of workers. There was still the R&D for new products and also the marketing cost. Kameda Masao made a mental calculation and found that he needs at least 6 million USD. He needs to get some loans.

He was confident that he would capture at least 40% of Japan’s market share and be the market leader!

After telling Feng Yu all his plans, Kameda Masao looked at Feng Yu. He hopes that Feng Yu would agree with him. Even if Feng Yu does not invest more money into this company, at least Feng Yu can allow him to get loans from the banks.

Without saying a word, Feng Yu took out his checkbook and wrote a 10 million USD cheque. He turned to Kameda Masao and told him that he was too short-sighted. What can he achieve with that little money? If you want to do it, you must make it big!

Number one in Japan? Although Japan’s population was considered high, can it be compared to the US or Europe? Kameda Masao should not set his sights in only one area. He must look further than Japan.

For example, developing the Southeast Asia market. It might not be easy to penetrate China’s market, but he should be able to enter the coastal regions like Guangzhou or southeast provinces. These places were close to Taiwan and Hong Kong. Their economic development was much faster, and the people there could accept new things readily.

Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, etc. were more developed like Japan. Kameda Masao can also try to enter those places.

Feng Yu patted Kameda Masao on his shoulders: “Kameda, don’t be afraid to dream big. The bigger your dream is, the more potential you will have. You cannot just look at Japan. This is not right. You might not be the number one company in Japan for the time being. But it is actually much easier to be the world’s number one sex toy company.”

Kameda Masao was thinking about what Feng Yu just said. To be the number one company in a country is harder than becoming the number one company in the world? What sort of theory is this?

“You don’t get it? I shall explain to you. Now, the main market for sex toys can be broadly divided into 3 regions. Asia, Europe, and the US. Of course, you can enter these market in future. Now, our Sixth Sense products are well received by Asian. But have you ever thought about the US and Europe side? The market there might not be developed yet. Why not let the company design some products that suit the consumers from those regions? If you can capture 30% of the European market, 30% of the US market, and 30% of the Asia market, then you will capture more than 20% of the world’s market. Isn’t that the number one company in the world?”

Kameda Masao blinked his eyes. Seems like what Feng Yu said made sense. It was easier to get from 0 to 1 compared to from 1 to 2. If you add all the 1s together, you will get 3, and 3 is bigger than 2.

“Well? Do you understand now? I want you to set up subsidiaries in the US and Europe. You also need to set up factories there. If you do not have enough money, you can get loans. If you have problems getting loans, tell me. I can increase my investments. Look at AIWA. It was heavily in debt, and when I take over the company, the total debts amounted to more than 8 billion Yen. But Heitaro Nakajima told me that as all their factories start operating, coupled with his newest products, he was confident that he would be able to pay off all the debts and still have money remain. In Japan, AIWA is still competing with Sony. But in other regions, AIWA’s market share is already catching up with Sony. AIWA’s sales in Asia had already overtaken Sony. Next year, AIWA will overtake Sony in the other regions. AIWA will be the number one company for Walkman!”

Feng Yu uses AIWA as an example to prove his strategy. Kameda Masao had a confident look on his face.

Feng Yu was willing to invest in and trusted him with the running of the company. He was a jobless person and was now a shareholder of this company. This was all because Feng Yu believed him and kept giving him guidance.

He must work hard for his own dreams and also for Feng Yu’s dreams!

If Feng Yu knew what Kameda Masao was thinking right now, he would scream in his face. “My dream is not to be the world’s number one sex toy company boss!”

“Boss, I understand now. I promise you that next year, our companies in the US and Europe will be making profits. Within 3 years, our company will occupy more than 30% of the world’s market share! I had noticed that magazines are very popular in Hong Kong and the western countries. I will make use of movies in Japan to promote our products, and in other regions, I will advertise in those magazines.:

Feng Yu nodded. Kameda Masao was a brilliant person. But this was not enough. Feng Yu still have a great idea which he had not told Kameda Masao.

“Kameda, have you watch any beauty pageant before?”

Kameda Masao looked at Feng Yu with a constipated expression: “Boss, you want to hire those beauty queens to endorse our products?”

“……”

Feng Yu: “What are you thinking? If you can hire them without using any illegal means, go ahead. But do you think it is possible? I am telling you that we can also organize these types of competition. It will be like an audition for the AV actresses. But they must use our products and wear our costumes. Of course, you can also organize an exhibition to showcase all our products, and at the same time, you can invite the other factories to participate. This effect will be better. It is like what you said. Sex toys are no illegal, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. We are helping people to cope with their stress and help lovers with their relationships. Do you understand?”

Ermmm….. Organize an exhibition for sex toys?

Kameda Masao had not heard of anyone doing this, but there were no regulations that state that this sort of exhibition was not permitted. Feng Yu wants him to organize a huge show and invite other factories, media, and visitors. This can not only showcase their products and also increase their sales/

“Boss, I understand. Rest assured, I will do my best!”

Kameda Masao had decided in his heart that he must achieve what he promised to Feng Yu much earlier than what he said just now. He must let Sixth Sense become the world’s number sex toy company!

Oh right, when Feng Yu was looking at their product’s catalog just now, he seems a bit…… like he wanted to test those products himself. Should he ask Yoshiko to stay back after dinner?

Chapter 325 – 10 Billion Yen Goal

Feng Yu was enjoying a traditional Japanese cuisine. This was the most traditional Japanese cuisine he had ever eaten. From the ingredients to the chef, including the location were all Japanese. This was not like those Japanese restaurants in China.

But Feng Yu wondered why all the dishes Kameda Masao ordered were all aphrodisiac dishes?

“Boss, I still need to go back to the office. Yoshiko will send you to your room. She can speak some mandarin. You are sweating a lot, and you should take a bath. Yoshiko can help you.”

Damn. What does Kameda Masao mean by that?

Feng Yu turned and look at Yoshiko, who was blushing with her head bows down. She needs this job to support her family. President Kameda had promised her a sum of money. Furthermore, this boss from China is quite good looking and does not look like he will be rough.

“Kameda! Bring her with you! What sort of person do you think I am? I do not want to see you doing such things again! Tomorrow I will be meeting Heitaro Nakajima, you don’t need to be around!” Feng Yu said furiously.

Kameda Masao immediately bows down until his head almost touched the floor. He never expects that his arrangement will incur the wrath of Feng Yu. He hurriedly waved to Yoshiko to leave the room, and he apologized and bowed again before leaving.

Yoshiko had thick legs, and Feng Yu was not interested. Furthermore, he already has a girlfriend back in China. Yoshiko must have done this before, and Feng Yu could not accept her.

Kameda Masao and Yoshiko left the restaurant disappointed. Feng Yu was disappointed too. Why Kameda Masao did not arrange for a high school girl? If it was a younger girl, he might consider!

……

The next day, Feng Yu opened his hotel room door and saw Heitaro Nakajima standing outside. Feng Yu was not sure how long Heitaro Nakajima had been standing there as he did not knock on the door.

“Good morning Mr. Feng.”

“Morning. Let’s have breakfast together.”

Heitaro Nakajima was waiting for Feng Yu’s invitation. During breakfast, Heitaro Nakajima excitedly reported to Feng Yu about the company’s recent performance.

The offices in Taiwan, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia will start operation before the end of the year. The new factories in Malaysia and Japan will also begin production around December. The expansion of England’s branch factory will also be completed during that period. Next year, AIWA’s global production will increase by over 5 times!

This was still after the fall out with Sony. If AIWA can still borrow Sony’s factories, their production will be more than 10 times!

This was already enough. The subsidiary company and factory in Panamas can be set up much earlier than planned. The earliest will be next year, and the latest will be the following year, and AIWA’s production will increase further!

As more and more consumers know about the AIWA brand, their Walkman sales also increase.  AIWA Walkman was already selling more expensive than Sony!

In the past, Sony, as an international brand, and had no other major competitors, was able to price their products at a high price and enjoyed the high profits. During that time, Sony and AIWA were still in an alliance. Sony was targeting the high-end segment, while AIWA was targeting the mid to low-end segment.

Now, it was the opposite. AIWA had already taken over the high-end segment, and Sony can only target the mid to low end market. This was not Heitaro Nakajima boasting. This was a fact.

When Heitaro Nakajima mentioned this, he had a proud look.

Feng Yu felt that this was not a good sign. “A starved camel is still bigger than a horse.” Furthermore, Sony was not defeated yet. Sony was still having more market share than AIWA in the Walkman marker. Sony was still selling more Walkman than AIWA. Their profit and brand awareness were even higher than AIWA.

Heitaro Nakajima does not accept losing to Sony, and he was thinking of ways to win. He wants to be the market leader for Walkman. He wants to be ahead of Sony.

No one can doubt the capabilities of Sony’s R&D department. Although AIWA was currently leading Sony with the BEE technology, Sony would be able to catch up fast.

“President Heitaro, don’t forget that Sony’s scale is a few hundred times bigger than AIWA. You really think that Sony will give up just like this? For the time being, we had won in Asia. But we are still losing out to Sony in other regions. Our sales might be good in the western countries but what about the total sales? Our production can only catch up with Sony next year. As the market increases, will Sony stop increasing their production? Don’t forget that Sony’s factories are located all over the world.”

The proud smile on Heitaro Nakajima’s face disappeared after he heard what Feng Yu said. Heitaro Nakajima was proud of his results, but he still has not reached the point be being arrogant.

Heitaro Nakajima only wanted to tell Feng Yu some good news to make him happy. In his heart, he had never look down on Sony. Sony will still be his number one enemy!

It was because AIWA was owned by Sony before, and had been in an alliance. Heitaro Nakajima understands about Sony more than Feng Yu.

He knew how powerful Sony was. Although Sony had spent a lot last year and made losses this year, Sony was still the leader of the electronics industry with strong financial backings and technological strength.

Heitaro Nakajima also did not let AIWA stop its R&D of new products and technologies. He had used Feng Yu’s suggestion to remove some useless functions and focuses on the sound quality. Feng Yu wants all the consumer to remember AIWA Walkman as beautiful designs and high-quality sound!

Their latest product had incorporated a small LCD screen into the Walkman. It can show the battery life. This model was extremely popular in the market, and Heitaro Nakajima wants to continue in this direction. Of course, their Walkman will be small as suggested by Feng Yu.

Feng Yu distinctly remember that Sony was continually reducing the size of their Walkman in his previous life. They even introduce the slim Walkman series which were well received by the consumers. But now, Sony can no longer start this trend. Sony will only be a follower behind AIWA!

“Mr. Feng, I will take note of this. I will not let Sony have any chance! I will show you our new product samples later. You can help to decide and see which model will be more suitable for the market.”

Actually, Heitaro Nakajima had already decided in his heart. But he was saying this to Feng Yu to make him happy and also wanted to hear Feng Yu’s opinions. Heitaro Nakajima was deeply impressed by Feng Yu foresight.

……

Feng Yu looked at the Walkman samples, and those were all AIWA’s classic Walkman in his previous life. These models were well received by the market and had brought lots of profits to AIWA.

“These models were all nicely done. Do you intend to introduce all these models to the market? I will only make a small suggestion. You must carry on developing better earphones, and your technology must be the most advanced in the world! You can increase the variety of colors of these models too. This will let the consumers have more choices. The rest, do as you deem fit. I trust you. In the world of Walkman, you are the best!”

Heitaro Nakajima was shaking with excitement after hearing Feng y’s words: “Rest assured Mr. Feng. The target for our company next year will be 10 billion yen!”

Chapter 326 – AWIA, Master of Core Technologies

With AIWA’s current profit percentage, that means that AIWA would have to achieve more than 100 billion yen of sales to achieve the goal of 10 billion Yen profits. That means AIWA would need to sell at least a few hundred million units of Walkman.

“Oh? How did you come up with this number?” Feng Yu was curious. Heitaro Nakajima was telling that that he would be able to sell off all the Walkman that will be produced next year. Possible?

Under normal circumstances, it would be best if the production is slightly higher than their sales. The output cannot be much higher than the demand, or there will be wastage. If the output is lesser than the market demand, then they would need to increase their production to prevent their competitors from gaining more market share. If supply = demand, that means the market had no more room to expand. This was not possible.

“I will be doing a global marketing campaign. I will be hiring celebrities to endorse.”

“Then who will you be hiring? Our products are targeting the younger market. Are you looking for those idols singers?” Feng Yu frowned. This was not a good sign. How can AIWA win Sony when it comes to getting singers for the product endorsement?

Sony will be getting a mega superstar to be their product’s spokesperson. That superstar is Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson had a contract with CBS record, and CBS records were bought over by Sony.

“Whitney Housten? My people had spoken with her before, and she seems to be interested. But her fees are quite high. This would increase our cost by a lot. However, she is the most popular female singer currently.”

Feng Yu shook his head: “Although I do not want to admit it, she is black. She might be very popular in the US and the African countries. But in Asia and Europe, people might still like her songs. But they will not be interested in her looks.”

“Madonna? She will be even more expensive.” Heitaro Nakajima felt that what Feng Yu said does make sense. He had overlooked the skin color.

Feng Yu shook his head again: “We do not need celebrities to act in our commercials. We only need to use their most popular songs. Or we can also hire someone to write a jingle for us. Maybe a 10 seconds jingle. We can use some good-looking models for our commercials.”

“Models? No problem. But the 10 seconds jingle you mentioned is too short. How can you showcase our brand?” Heitaro Nakajima frowned.

Brand taglines…… Feng Yu thought hard about this and he “borrowed “a very popular advertising tagline from his past life: “Why not use – AWIA, Master of Core Technologies, as our brand tagline?”

AWIA, Master of Core Technologies!

Heitaro Nakajima’s eyes nearly popped out. This brand tagline was terrific!

This way, the consumer will get the impression that AIWA was producing the world’s best Walkman! Just nice, AIWA Walkman’s was better than Sony’s Walkman now.

This way, they can showcase AIWA’s capabilities and at the same time, belittled their competitors. Mr. Feng was brilliant. With this brand tagline, AIWA sales will increase further!

“Mr. Feng, I know what to do. I will hire a professional voice artist to say this tagline. This way, it will sound better. As for the music, we can just use parts of those popular songs. This way, the cost will be lower and still have the advertising effects.”

Heitaro Nakajima had a new direction now. With this tagline, it doesn’t matter what songs they use. Now he only needs to find two models with excellent image and let them dance while listening to some music on AIWA’s Walkman.

Feng Yu nodded: “Ok. You can decide on all those details. This tagline is not only our advertising message. It is also what I want of AIWA. We must master all the core technologies and must always be the forerunners in this industry. Now, you had already used all the new technologies, but do you know if Sony had used all their newest technologies in their products?”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Sony had always used their second-best technologies on their newest products. It was because their second best technologies would be sufficient to beat all their competitors. Even if their competitors introduced better products, Sony could always react. Sony will never introduce some technology that would kill off all their competitors.

Sony would need to pay a high fine for creating a monopoly.

Useless Sony was pushed to a corner, they would never use their latest technologies.

“I know about this. Our R&D department staffs are on par with Sony. We have set some research directions and if they are successful, our earphones, speakers and player, will be upgraded. We are also trying to make our Walkman smaller. We should be able to complete all these research within one year. Next year, our Walkman will be lighter and smaller.”

“It would be best if you can produce a series, for example, those with better sound quality, you can name it as Super Original Audio series. Those that had nicer exterior designs, you can produce it in more colors and call it as the Rainbow series. In the future, when we introduce the smaller Walkman, we can call it the Ultra Slim series. This way, the consumers will have more choices and can also show AIWA’s capabilities.”

Feng Yu was using all of Sony’s tactics from his previous life. When Sony thought of this strategy, it would be too late. Now, they were at war with Sony in the Walkman industry, but AIWA’s sound engineers were more capable than making Walkman.

Feng Yu wants AIWA to start to research CD players. He wants to encroach into Sony’s market!

……

“President Norio, AIWA’s Chinese boss, had come to Tokyo. Are they up to something?”

Norio Ohga waved his hand: “Just ignore him. We are Sony. We are the best electronics company in the world. As long as our products are better than them, and with our strength in marketing and our sales channels, AIWA will be no match for us. How is the progress with the sound quality improvement?”

“If we use the BEE technology, we can attain the same sound quality as AIWA.”

“I do not want to be the same as them! I want to be better than them! Also, launch our new earphones into the market. We must hold on to the market. AIWA’s two new factories will start operation next year. Their production will increase by several folds, and we cannot let them snatch the position of market leader from us. You must focus more on the Asian market!”

Asia was Sony’s home ground. But their home ground was taken over by AIWA. In Europe and the US market, Sony was still leading, but it was also they had more products. This does not mean that their products were popular. AIWA had already overtaken Sony regarding sales for Japan, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, etc. this was an insult to Sony!

Humph! AIWA wants to make it big? That was only Sony had overlooked. If we are serious, there is nothing that is unachievable! We have already won against the Americans, how can we lose to the Chinese?

Humph! This time we will hire Michael Jackson to endorse our products. We shall see who will be the winner next year!

Chapter 327 – Friend, you must be brave

Feng Yu was satisfied with this Japan trip. Heitaro Nakajima and Kameda Masao were both talented people. They were much better in management than Feng Yu.

They were good at managing the company operations, and the company should be growing better than expected. Feng Yu also look into the Japanese companies. He wants to look for those companies that were in trouble now but would perform well in the future. He wants to invest in these companies.

But he was too late. Those companies were already invested by bigger corporations.  There were no companies that were worth Feng Yu to invest in. In the end, Feng Yu could only ask Heitaro Nakajima to poach some engineers from a research facility which was closing down. AIWA must have a constant supply of talents!

This Japan trip lasted less than a week. Feng Yu’s visa was also expiring, and he traveled back to Beijing. Of course, there was something important. It was the military training ceremony.

Feng Yu appeared in the military training during the last few days. He joined the practice, but it was all the easy training, like marching. Feng Yu could quickly catch up with the rest of his classmates.

The military training was over, and it was the holidays. Feng Yu’s modified Land Rover was also sent to Beijing. The Beijing dealer helped Feng Yu to get a Beijing’s registration plate. It would be winter soon, and Feng Yu does not want to ride a motorcycle during winter.

Feng Yu drove to Beijing Teaching University in his Land Rover.

The past one month, Feng Yu’s new apartment was ready. This was a newly renovated apartment, and Feng Yu only need to get some furniture, home appliances, and some simple painting.

That Tian Lei was competent. He had really help Feng Yu found some apartments for sales the very next day. Feng Yu offered a high price for the apartment, and the owner agreed to sell immediately.

It was a two-bedroom apartment, about 200 Sqm. But for Feng Yu, it was sufficient.

……

The university campus now was not as strict as the future years. Feng Yu could drive straight into the university, and the guard did not even stop him.

In this era, only the rich or the leaders could afford to drive, and the guards dare not to offend these people.

Feng Yu reached Li Na’s hostel and saw a guy with spectacles in his school uniform standing there. He was looking at a girl, and he looked like he wanted to approach but was too shy.

That girl was holding a book to cover her face, and she was sneaking peeks at that guy. Both of them were far apart, looking at each other. They did not even dare to sit next to each other.

Tsk, tsk……

In this era, even though there was a trend of being free, most of the people were still conservative when it comes to relationships. If you stopped a girl on the streets and offered to send her home, you will be branded as a hooligan, and the police will arrest you.

It was apparent that both the guy and girl were interested in each other, but they were too shy to approach each other. Anyway, there was still time before Li Na comes down. Let me be a matchmaker today.

Feng Yu parked his car by the side and walk to that guy: “Brother, you like that girl?”

“Ah? No, no. I am just passing by.” The bespectacled guy said. His accent sounded like he was from Jiangxi.

Passing by? Why are you still standing here for so long if you are passing by? Even a tortoise can walk faster than you!

“Sigh…… Friend, as a man, you must be brave. You are looking at that short hair girl? You know which class is she from? Do you know where her hometown is? You know what time she normally finishes her classes? You don’t know? Go and ask! If you like her, how can you be so timid?”

“Ask? I don’t think I can. I am scared.” The bespectacled guy said.

Damn. Look at you. If you carry on this way, you will miss your chance. You can only go for matchmaking in the future! In this era, you can apply for the same job assignment together, and the future unit can do their best to accommodate these requests.

Furthermore, they will all be teachers in the future. It should not be too difficult to get to work in the same school.

“Bro, you are too useless. Is that girl from the south or north?” Feng Yu sighed and asked.

“You… Why are you asking about this?” The guy looked at Feng Yu warily.

What? You think I am interested in that girl? Although that girl was not ugly, she cannot be considered pretty. Li Na was much more beautiful than her.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered a saying from his previous life. What is love? That is two people who looked like monkeys but were still worried that someone would snatch the other party away!

“I am also waiting for a girl. I will not vie with you. You just tell me where is she from, and I can teach you some tricks to win her heart.”

Feng Yu knew that this guy does not need to do anything, and he could win that girl’s heart. This guy just needs to approach that girl, and she will agree. But this bespectacled guy was too timid. He doesn’t even dare to walk over and speak to that girl. In this current era, no girls would take the first step!

“She is the same as me. We are from Hangzhou. We had met during the school’s Hangzhou gathering.”

Damn. Both of you are from the same hometown, and you still dare not to talk to her?

“I tell you, girls like guys to be simple and direct. Now you just walk over, and she will definitely put down her book and look at you. You just tell her straight that you like her and wants to date her. She will not reject you. If you hesitate further, someone will win her heart, and you will be crying in a corner!”

“Really? But…… but I dare not to talk to her.”

Feng Yu was pissed off by this timid guy.

“Li Na, let me bring you out for movies. This is a Hong Kong movie, starring Zhou Yu Fatt. I have even bought the tickets.”

Feng Yu turned around. Damn, here I am teaching this guy how to woo girls, and someone is going after my girlfriend? Who is that sickening guy?

“Sorry, I am not free.” Li Na gave that guy a disgusted look. Since the start of their military training, this guy had been harassing her. She had rejected him several times, but he still does not give up.

Feng Yu patted that bespectacled guy on his back and said: “Look careful. This is how you woo a girl.”

Feng Yu straightened his shirt and walked over to I Na: “Hey beautiful, are you alone? I know there is a newly open skating ring nearby. Can I bring you there to skate?”

Li Na saw Feng Yu, and she immediately smiled: “Ice skating? That’s great!”

“Who are you? Li Na, ice skating is too dangerous. If you want to play, I know there is a billiard saloon. We can play some billiards. Billiard is a high-class sport played by the nobles!”

That irritating guy turned to Feng Yu and said softly: “A toad lusting after a swan’s flesh. My father is a department chief in the city’s education department! Li Na and I are both swans. We are meant for each other!”

Damn! A department chief? In Beijing, if a someone drops a rock from the sky and it hit 7 people, 6 of them will be higher ranked than a department chief!

Feng Yu looked at this sickening guy and said gravely: “If you want to be an animal, don’t drag others along with you. Also, did you use perfume? It smells! A department chief is a high-rank official? Girl, shall we go?”

Feng Yu held Li Na’s hand and walk off.

That guy was shocked. Li Na like guys to be direct? They are already holding hands! Damn, I should have held her hands immediately.

That bespectacled guy looked at the back view of Feng Yu and Li Na. He was struggling in his heart. He looked at the girl in the distance, and he mustered up his courage and walk over. He was walking towards the girl of his dreams……

Chapter 328 – Bringing her home

The bespectacled guy did not notice, but the irritating guy hears Feng Yu’s accent was similar to Li Na. Did they both know each other?

When he saw Feng Yu opening the car door for Li Na, all his plans disappear immediately. This was a car, and it was an imported car. This person’s family was not simple. If he uses some underhand methods to get Li Na, he might need to face that person’s revenge.

Never mind. There were still many pretty girls in the University. His father was a department chief with the education department, and he can arrange for Beijing jobs after graduation. He knew that many girls will be interested.

A few years ago, all the graduates from Beijing top schools were targets of various government agencies. Even the graduates from Beijing Teaching University were well received by the government.

But in the recent years, there were more and more graduates and the government cutting down expenses on the benefits, these graduates were no longer popular. There were even rumors that in a few more years, these graduates were no longer assigned to jobs. This year’s Beijing Teaching University graduate could no longer stay in Beijing as there were enough teachers. They would be sent back to their hometowns.

He thought that Li Na was from the northeast region and would be looking forward to staying in Beijing. She would be interested in him. But Li Na had been cold towards him. Now, he knew that it must be this guy was the reason for Li Na to be treating him this way.

Before Feng Yu entered his car, he saw that bespectacled guy aggressively grab that girl’s hand and then tried to hug her. That girl gave him a slap and ran away.

Damn, I only told you to approach that girl. Why are you grabbing her hand and you still tried to hug her? You must be a moron!

Feng Yu immediately boarded his Land Roer and drove off. It seems that he had failed as a matchmaker!

“Where are you bringing me to? Are we really going to ice skate?” Li Na looked out of the windows. Although she was in Beijing, she had never roamed around.

“The national holidays are 3 days. Where do you want to go? Today’s weather is fine. How about we visit the Great Wall of China?” Feng Yu knew that Li Na had wanted to visit the Great Wall.

“Really? I have still not visited the Great Wall!” Li Na was excited. She had only seen the Great Wall on TV and books. She can finally see it with her own eyes.

The National day holidays was not as long as the future years, but it was still a 3 days holiday. Many people from the surrounding provinces would come to Beijing for the holidays.

The Great Wall was the main attraction in Beijing.

When Feng Yu and Li Na arrived at the Great Wall at Badaling, the most famous section of the Great Wall, there were lots of tourists.

Many of these tourists were panting after climbing a small section of the Great Wall. Most of them were sitting on the steps to rest, there were still some people who had brought their own camping chair.

“Don’t move. This view is beautiful. Let me take a picture of you.” Feng Yu took out his camera.

It was a pity that there was no digital camera yet. They would not know how the photo would turn out. But it does not matter. Feng Yu had brought many rolls of film. He only needs to take care to not let the films be exposed with taking it out from the camera.

Feng Yu’s camera was considered a more advanced camera. He does not need to roll the film himself, and the camera even had flash.

After walking for about half an hour, Li Na was out of breath.

Feng Yu bent over in front of Li Na and patted his shoulders: “Come, I will carry you. There are not many people in front. We must visit more beacon towers in front. The view over there should be good. We can take more photos there.”

Li Na was blushing when she climbs onto Feng Yu’s back. Feng Yu used his hands as support for Li Na, and he could felt Li Na’s softness on his back. He slowly walks forward and introduced the history behind the Great Wall. He had done his homework the day before at the library.

A couple was resting on the steps of the Great Wall, and the girl pinched her boyfriend: “Look at them. Carrying his girlfriend while climbing the Great Wall and that guy does not even look tired. Just look at yourself!”

That guy had a helpless look. Why don’t you say that girl looks like she weighs at most 45 KG and you weigh over 60 KG? We are almost at the same weight. You think I can carry you?

Li Na was afraid that Feng Yu would be tired from carrying her and got down. They both climbed the Great Wall for a while more and finished a roll of film, before returning.

On the way back, Feng Yu saw that couple again. That boyfriend was carrying his girlfriend on his back. One of his hand was holding on to the railings, and his legs were shaking.

That boyfriend saw Feng Yu and his eyes were burning with anger. My suffering was all because of you! We were here for a holiday, and now I am suffering!

……

At the foot of the Great Wall, Feng Yu and Li Na ate some noodles. Feng Yu felt that it tastes so-so. It was not as good as those street stalls. But he still finishes two bowls.

“How come you are eating so much? Did you skip breakfast?” Li Na passed her handkerchief to Feng Yu for him to wipe his mouth.

“The food in school sucks. Why not you prepare dinner for me tonight?”

“Go back to your home?” Li Na blushed.

“I still have not eaten anything you made. You kept telling me that you can cook. Do you really know how to cook?” Feng Yu continued.

“I can cook really well. Let’s go and get the ingredients. I will let you try my cooking.”

“Fine. Later we will go to the market. I will laugh at you if your dishes do not taste good.”

Li Na starts to regret after she said that. Why did she agree to go to Feng Yu’s apartment? Will he kiss her again?

After getting the ingredients, they proceeded to Feng Yu’s apartment. It was on the third floor. This was a new building, and there was an elevator installed. Feng Yu was walking in front, and Li Na was following behind.

“Here…. Look… what do you think? This is newly renovated. This will be our home. Do you like it?”

Li Na blushed and rolled her eyes: “What our home? This apartment is lovely. Is it expensive?”

“It does not cost much. There is Jianlibao in the fridge. You rest first. I will wash the vegetables first.” Feng Yu was very excited.

This was step one of his plan. Li Na was in his apartment!

Chapter 329 – Let’s watch a movie

Li Na pushed Feng Yu out of the kitchen: “You better go out first. Look, you had made a mess. Go out and watch TV.”

Feng Yu was waiting for her to say this. He walked out of the kitchen and start to set the table. He also opened a bottle of red wine.

Half an hour later, Feng Yu looked at the 4 dishes on the table. Braised pork, stirred fried tomato and potato, green pepper with shredded potato, sweet and sour fish. These are all his favorites.

“Go and wash your hands.” Li Na pushes Feng Yu.

“To celebrate you cooking for me the first time, let’s have a toast.” Feng Yu tried hard to think of an excuse.

“But I don’t drink.” Li Na said.

“It doesn’t matter. I had added some soft drinks in it. The alcohol content is lesser than beer. Try it.”

Feng Yu added some soft drinks to the half-filled glass of red wine. Li Na took a sip, and it tastes good.

“How is it? Taste good? Come, let’s have a toast.” Feng Yu knocked on Li Na’s glass and finished his glass of red wine.

Hahaha, I am drinking now. I can no longer drive you back later!

“Hmmm, this braised pork is better than my mom’s. These sweet and sour fish taste even better. You can open up a restaurant! You need to eat some before I finish everything.” Feng Yu said exaggeratedly.

Actually, Li Na’s cooking can only be considered so-so. But Feng Yu was in a good mood. This was the first time Li Na had made dinner for him. He must make this a habit for Li Na!

Looking at the way Feng Yu was eating, Li Na ate a piece of egg….. it seems that she had added a bit more salt. She was not used to using a small wok to cook, and she could not estimate the amount of salt to add.

With Feng Yu encouraging her, the both of them finishes the bottle of wine, and Li Na’s face had turned red.

“Ah…… I am so full. Let me clear the dishes. You go and rest for a while.” Feng Yu took all the dirty dishes to the kitchen and placed everything in the basin.

“Let me wash all the dishes for you.”

“No need. Let’s go out and watch a movie. I had just returned from overseas a few days ago. My friend said that this movie is a blockbuster in his country.”

Feng Yu took out a videotape from the cabinet and put it into the player. He had brought back this videotape from Japan. Kamada Masao had given him this videotape and told him that this was a love story.

The both of them sat on the sofa, and Feng Yu had his arms over Li Na’s shoulders. Li Na could not hold her liquor well, and she was leaning against Feng Yu.

This film was about a love story that happened in one of Japan’s university. There were no Chinese subtitles, and the both of them had a hard time trying to understand. But luckily the actors and actresses were good at acting. They could still follow the movie more or less.

At the end of the movie, the male and female lead kissed and Feng Yu also took the opportunity to kiss Li Na.

This was not the first time they kissed. But this time they were kissing passionately. Feng Yu slowly pushes Li Na down on the sofa, and his hands start to roam about on her body.

Li Na grabbed Feng Yu’s hands and sits upright: “I should go back not. If I am late, I can’t enter the dormitory.”

Li Na was flustered, and her heart was racing. She was afraid that if she stayed there any longer, she would not be able to control herself.

Feng Yu plaintively said: “Ah……. I had drunk just now, and I can’t drive. Furthermore, it is the holidays now, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t return to your dormitory. You can stay here tonight. There are two-bedrooms here. I can sleep in the study room.”

Luckily, Feng Yu had thought of this. In this era, girls were too conservative. But tonight, Feng Yu would not let this rabbit escape!

The stimulation just now was not enough. Feng Yu still have plan B!

Li Na had some hesitation, and her heart was beating faster: “Really?”

“Of course. Let’s watch another movie. Ah…… your clothes are dirty. How careless of me. Hurry and change. You can wash it in the washing machine, and you can take a shower. It should be dry tomorrow morning.”

Feng Yu had “accidentally” knock over the drinks on the coffee table and dirtied Li Na’s clothes.

Take a shower in Feng Yu’s house? Li Na’s heart was racing.

“No need. I can just wipe it off.”

“What no need? Just go to the bathroom. I had heated up the water for you. You had also sweated a lot when at the Great Wall. Go and take a shower first while I wash the dishes. You want me to carry you to the bathroom?” Feng Yu said with a naughty smile on his face.

“Hooligan.” Li Na ran into the bathroom and locked the door.

“There is a bathrobe on the shelf in the bathroom. You can wear that.”

Feng Yu was washing the dishes and whistling. Hahaha, that bathrobe can be quickly taken off as there is only one belt holding it together. Li Na cannot leave after she had taken her shower!

After a while, Li Na walked out of the bathroom with her hands holding tightly to the bathrobe. She turned to Feng Yu with a red face: “Feng Yu, I don’t know how to use this washing machine.”

“Let me do it. I can take a shower too.”

Feng Yu entered the bathroom and look at Li Na’s clothes in the washing machine.

Huh? Where’s the bra? She had taken a shower and wore her bra back?

Never mind. It will be more exciting when I remove it myself later.

The washing machines of this era were still semi-automatic. You need to fill the water into the washing machine manually. Feng Yu poured water into the washing machine and switch it on. He added some washing detergent and threw the clothes he was wearing into the washing machine. He presses some buttons, and the washing machine starts to rumble.

Feng Yu had only wet himself and wiped dry after 1 minute. He walks out topless with just a towel wrapped around his waist.

“You…… Why are you not wearing your clothes?” Li Na asked.

“I had taken a shower too, and also I had washed my clothes. Why are you not watching any movies? Let me play a movie.”

Feng Yu took out the videotape that he wanted to watch and insert it into the player. He then sat down beside Li Na and had his arm across her shoulders.

Li Na tried to move away, but she felt happy when she leans against Feng Yu, and she could smell Feng Yu’s scent.

Feng Yu was laughing in his heart when he felt Li Na leaning against him.

The movie started. It was another Japanese movie. But this time, there were English subtitles. Feng Yu could easily understand it, but it was a bit hard for Li Na.

Li Na was puzzled by this movie. Why this movie just shows a man returning home from work and his wife was cooking. It seems a bit boring.

The husband and wife sat down for dinner and had a bottle of red wine. How come this scene looks so familiar? It was just like what happened to them earlier.

After dinner, the husband went to take a shower, and the wife was spreading the bed.

The husband walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around the waist.

The movie scenes were too familiar, and Li Na was confused. What was this movie about?

The husband suddenly grabbed his wife towards him and started to kiss her. His hand was inside his wife’s clothes!

Li Na’s eyes opened wide in shock. This…… was those type of movies?!

Chapter 330 – The next stage of the relationship

Li Na watched the husband took off his wife’s clothes in the movie, and she screamed. She hurriedly closes her eyes.

“Feng Yu, why are you watching this type of movies?”

“What do you mean? This is an artistic film. This type of movie is best watched by couples. Many people can’t even get to watch it.” Feng Yu’s hands start to roam about like that husband in the movie.

“What are you doing? Mmmmmm……”

Li Na raised her head and wanted to scold Feng Yu, but Feng Yu used his lips to cover her mouth.

Li Na was almost breathless from the kiss. She was feeling dizzy and had a weird sensation.

Feng Yu slowly kissed downwards to Li Na’s neck. Li Na was blushing. Her face and neck had all turned red.

She was breathing heavily.

“Feng Yu, no. We are not married yet. We can only do this after we get married.:

“You don’t trust me? I will sure marry you.”

“I believe but……”

“Then everything’s good. Be a good girl.” Once again, Feng Yu stop Li Na from talking with his lips.

Feng Yu hand was holding on to Li Na’s waist, and the other was searching for her bathrobe’s belt.

The moaning from the TV was loud, and Li Na’s body temperature rises.

Feng Yu’s head was buried in Li Na’s chest and was sucking on one of her flower buds. Li Na’s back was in an arc. She had never experienced this type of feeling before. She had even forgotten to stop Feng Yu.

Feng Yu had already pulled down her bathrobe without her knowing. Li Na’s chest was exposed and Feng Yu’s towel around his waist on the floor. Feng Yu’s lips slowly move south.

“No…. don’t touch there…”

“Stop moving.”

At this moment, how could Feng Yu listen to her? He forcefully spread Li Na’s legs and looked at that small piece of cloth covering her most private part.

“Stop looking.” Li Na covered her bottom with one hand, and the other was covering her blushing face.

“You are so beautiful!” Feng Yu mumbled.

“Feng Yu, not here.” Li Na said in a soft voice. She could no longer resist Feng Yu at this moment.

Feng Yu carried Li Na to the bed in the bedroom and continued to shower her with kisses.

Feng Yu’s hands slowly caress Li Na’s body, feeling her smooth skin. Li Na tried to stop Feng Yu from touching her by using her thighs to clamp his hand. But that does not stop Feng Yu’s fingers from moving.

Li Na could felt something pressing against her waist. She tried to move away but she can’t.

Feng Yu pressed down onto Li Na and slowly spread her legs.

“Nana, I love you……”

“Ah…….”

Why is this girl biting me?!

Feng Yu stopped moving and waited for Li Na to release her bite. He kissed Li Na again and slowly starts to move. Li Na does not know what to do. She just hugged Feng Yu tightly.

“It’s painful. Don’t be so rough.”

……

Sunlight entered the room, and a half-naked couple was lying on the bed. The guy slowly opened his eyes and had a smile on his face.

Last night, Feng Yu’s plan was a success. It was Li Na’s first time, and they only did it once. But Feng Yu was satisfied.

He had waited for so many years for this, and he finally succeeded!

Feng Yu looked at the sleeping Li Na. After last night, Li Na looked like a beautiful flower in full bloom. She looks even more beautiful than before.

Li Na’s head was lying against Feng Yu’s chest. Her long hair was tickling Feng Yu, and he was getting aroused.

Feng Yu removed the blanket. Last night, Li Na had wanted Feng Yu to switched off the lights. He did not even have the chance to have a good look at Li Na.

A flat stomach and a pair of long legs. One of her legs was still wrapped around Feng Yu. Feng Yu could not stop his hands moving along her smooth complexion.

Feng Yu grabbed her breast and slowly massage it. It was smooth and firm. Feng Yu was enjoying the sensation. Li Na felt someone was touching her and she turned her body. Feng Yu’s hand moved downwards and starts to explore.

Last night, Feng Yu had prepared concentrative, but he did not use it. It was their first time, and he wanted Li Na to feel natural.

The condoms in that era were still very thick. Also, many people were easily allergic to the material used in the condoms. Another reason was Feng Yu knew that it was Li Na’s safe period.

Li Na still had some of Feng Yu’s residue there, and it acts as a lubricant for Feng Yu’s fingers.

Li Na suddenly felt something weird and woke up. She thought about the dream she had and blushed. Why did she dream of doing naughty things with Feng Yu again?

She opened her eyes and saw the curtains look a bit different. Where is this place?

This is Feng Yu’s apartment! Li Na suddenly remembered that she had stayed overnight at Feng Yu’s place!

She had sex with Feng Yu! How can Feng Yu do such a thing to her? They were not even married yet! Li Na was in a state of confusion and wanted to cry.

Feng Yu noticed that Li Na had woke up and he carried on caressing her body and kissed her.

Li Na felt her anger was rising and raises her hand to give Feng Yu a slap. But Feng Yu caught her hand, and his right hand moved deeper.

Li Na looked at Feng Yu, and her anger slowly subsided. Her body slowly stopped struggling and let Feng Yu touched her all over.

Feng Yu turned over onto Li Na and raise his hips. He was about to enter her again.

Li Na starts to blush again. She did not expect Feng Yu to do this again after they woke up.

“You…… Did you plan everything last night?” Li Na meekly asked.

Feng Yu playfully looked at Li Na: “It does not matter if it is planned or not. Things have already happened, and I will be responsible.”

After saying that, Feng Yu slowly moved backward. Li Na thought that Feng Yu was stopping, but Feng Yu suddenly thrust his hips hard into her.

“Ahhhh……”

“Nana, we did not enjoy ourselves last night. Let’s do it again.” Feng Yu jokingly said.

“Who…… Who did not enjoy…… Oh…….” Li Na instinctively grabbed Feng Yu again, and her toes curl up. She started to move along to Feng Yu’s rhythm.

……

Translator notes: I don’t know what to say about this chapter……

Chapter 331 – Energetic

“Our clothes are still in the washing machine. We did not wring it yesterday. What am I supposed to wear today?” Li Na looked at her dripping clothes in the washing machine.

“Here…… New clothes. This is the latest trend. I had brought them back from Japan.” Feng Yu took out a set of new clothes and showed to Li Na. How could he not think of this?

“Ah……… Why are you not wearing anything!” Li Na screamed and covered her eyes.

Feng Yu: “……” You had already seen my whole body. Does it matter?

“Fine, fine, fine. I will wear something. But you can at least let me take a shower first. I will leave your clothes here. Come out. I am going to take a shower. You want to join me?”

Li Na ran out of the bathroom screaming. Feng Yu was laughing at her. She looked at the clothes on the coffee table. Not only there were top and pants, but there were also even undergarments! Li Na blushes again.

When Feng Yu finished his shower, Li Na was already making breakfast in the kitchen. Both did not eat much during dinner last night, and both had done some strenuous exercise. They were starving.

At the dining table, Feng Yu was eating breakfast and looking at Li Na. Li Na dared not to look at Feng Yu and kept looking down.

“Nana, where do you want to go today? How about visiting the Summer Palace or the Forbidden City?”

“I want to go back to my dormitory.”

“What’s so fun at your dormitory? Let me bring you out, and tomorrow I will send you back to school. Eh…. Nana, why are you crying?”

Feng Yu was nervous. Why did Li Na cry suddenly?

“Will I get pregnant? If I am pregnant, my teachers and classmates will know. My parents will also know. What should I do? What about school? We are not married yet……” Li Na was crying.

“Don’t worry about this. You will not get pregnant. It is your safe period now. What is the safe period? Safe period is the period when the chances of pregnancy are the lowest. No… Is the period where you will not get pregnant. This is science. There are also students in their 30s in universities. Their children were old enough to run about. They can also carry on with their studies in the University. If not, I will call your parents later and tell them that I want to marry you.”

“You cannot call my father. My Father will kill me……”

“Ok, ok…… Don’t worry. I am around. Later we will go out and enjoy ourselves.”

“I am not going anywhere. It’s still painful……” Li Na wiped her tears.

Huh? Feng Yu slapped his forehead. He had forgotten about this. Li Na should not be walking around now. She should not be making breakfast.

“After breakfast, you go and take a nap. We will not go anywhere today. We can go when you feel like it.” Feng Yu looked at Li Na lovingly and wiped her tears.

After breakfast, Feng Yu bring Li Na to the bedroom, and he went to wash the dishes.

After cleaning up the kitchen, he washes their clothes before returning back to the bedroom. Feng Yu softly opened the door, and Li Na was staring at him. She had covered herself with the blanket, and it was evident that she was wearing the new clothes too.

“Why are you wearing all the clothes when you are taking a nap?” Feng Yu walked over and wanted to help Li Na take off her clothing.

Li Na grabbed on to her clothes: “No more, Feng Yu. Please… I cannot take it.”

Feng Yu smiled: “What are you thinking? I only want you to have a good nap. I will be outside watching TV.”

“No……” Li Na grabbed Feng Yu’s hand, “Don’t go. Sing a song for me first. I can’t sleep.”

Feng Yu patted Li Na’s hand and said: “Let me get my guitar from the study room.”

Feng Yu sat on a chair beside the bed with his guitar and asked: “What song do you want to hear?”

“I like whatever songs you sing. But I like that song that you sang during the Soviet Union Summer Camp.”

Feng Yu frowned: “That song is not auspicious. That song is about a guy that did not return from war, and the girl was waiting for him. How about I sing a new song for you? I had specially written this song for you.”

Feng Yu suddenly recall a beautiful song. It was from the song tracks of a famous drama he had watched in his previous life. This song had become famous throughout the whole of China.

Li Na was looking forward to this song. It was specially written for her?

“I will be by your side, I will never turn back; Every move is like my heartbeat. I will stay by your side, I will never let go; I will stay here with you forever until we both grow old. Looking through the clouds, from the horizons, the rainbow. I will never forget you……”

Li Na had thought that this song will not be anything special. Feng Yu had only played a chord on his guitar. But when Feng Yu sang this song, the lyrics touched her.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Was this Feng Yu’s promise to her? He will always be by my side and will never let go?

After Feng Yu finished his song, he was immersed in his own world. Although he did not play the guitar well, he had sung quite well. When he opened his eyes, he saw Li Na crying again. Why was she crying?

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying again? Is my singing so awful?” Feng Yu asked.

“Haha…… Who said your singing is awful? No one could have sung better than you.” Li Na burst out laughing in the midst of crying.

“I am better than the Little Tigers?” The Little Tigers was Li Na’s favorite boy’s group.

“Even better than them!” Li Na replied.

“Then you have to give me a kiss as my reward.” Feng Yu lean forward.

“Stop it. You can go out now. I want to sleep.” Li Na covered her face with the blanket.

As Feng Yu was leaving the room, Li Na shouted at him: “Wait. Sing that song again. I want to listen to it again.”

“Fine. I will sing as many times as you like. This time I will not play the guitar. I will be by your side, I will never turn back; Every move is like my heartbeat. I will stay by your side, I will never let go……”

Feng Yu sang two more times until Li Na closes her eyes.

Feng Yu slowly walk out of the room, taking care not to make any noise. Li Na opened her eyes and smiled…..

At the bathroom, Feng Yu hang Li Na clothes. He also washes her panties by hand.

Feng Yu kept smiling to himself. He was still thinking about the beautiful moment last night and this morning.

After washing the clothes, Feng Yu had nothing to do. He saw that his house was a bit messy, and he starts to tidy up. He also took out his prized videotape out of the player and keep it in a safe place in his study room. This was to prevent Li Na from throwing it away.

After cleaning up the whole house, Feng Yu still feel bored. After so much exercise, he was still feeling very energetic!

Chapter 332 – Peaceful school life

That evening after dinner, Li Na still wanted to return back to her dormitory. Feng Yu used the excuse of her clothes were not dry yet and managed to make Li Na spend another night at his apartment.

When they went to bed, Feng Yu told Li Na that he would not do anything, but he lied……

The afternoon next day, Feng Yu sent Li Na back to her University. Li Na said that she will not go to his apartment again. Feng Yu just laugh. He knew that Li Na will go to his apartment again. Li Na is now in the palm of his hand.

It was the official start of Feng Yu’s lesson. Feng Yu was starting to get used to the life of a university student. He wakes up at 7 am every day, washes up and went for a jog. After breakfast, he would go for his classes.

During lessons, Feng Yu paid attention and even took down notes. He would also consult his lecturers after the class ended.

Feng Yu used his “Zhonghua cigarettes and Maotai” tactics on his Management teachers, and they were willing to explain to him the things that he was not sure. They felt that Feng Yu was a hardworking student. They knew that Feng Yu was from a wealthy family and he would have a bright future!

All the lecturers from the Management faculty thought highly of Feng Yu, but the lecturer that taught Russian was not happy with Feng Yu. Feng Yu had paid attention in other classes, but he will sleep throughout his Russian classes.

Sleeping in class was an insult to this Russian lecturer.

“Feng Yu, stand up and read out this sentence. What does this lesson mean? Explain to the whole class.” The lecturer pointed to a Russian sentence on the blackboard.

“This sentence is read as Пpышлehhtь rвлretcr вaжhon гyдapctвehhon эkohnчeckon hoвы. It means that industrialization is an important foundation of a country.” Feng Yu read out that sentence fluently and translated it to Chinese accurately.

Huh? The Lecturer was surprised. He knew that Feng Yu had gotten a place in this University was because he was good in his English and Russian. But he never expects him to be so good. Even if his Russian is good, he should not be sleeping in class.

“Sit down. Meet me after the lesson ends.”

The rest of the students looked at Feng Yu. He’s finished. Professor Lu cannot stand students sleeping in his class.

After class, Feng Yu was brought to Professor Lu’s office. Professor Lu took out a Russian book and pass it to Feng Yu: “You read this page to me and then translate it into Mandarin.”

Feng Yu looked at the book. It was <How the Steel Was Tempered> in the original Russian language. He had read this novel several times in his previous life. He even owns this book. If it was other books, Feng Yu might not be able to translate fast. But he does not have any problems with this book!

Feng Yu read out two passages and immediately translated it into Mandarin.

Not only Professor Lu, but all the other lecturers in the office were also surprised. This student’s Russian was even better than them. Even they could not translate from Russian to Mandarin so fast. Feng Yu was indeed a genius.

Professor Lu had wanted to use this opportunity to reprimand Feng Yu to make him pay attention in class and not to be so proud. But it seems that his plan had backfired. Feng Yu appears to be even more conceit.

Feng Yu also knew that Professor Lu had wanted to teach him a lesson. He was also helpless. He had asked around. This Professor Lu does not smoke or drink. He does not even accept dinner invitations from students. Feng Yu could not give him any gifts to pull strings.

In this era, even all the top officials of China smoke. Why was this Professor so different? Smoking is good. When you got nothing to do, you can make some smoke rings. Feng Yu was even willing to give this professor a lifetime supply of cigarettes in exchange for some special treatment.

“Cough…… Feng Yu, your translation is quite good, but you should not be proud. You should know that you must carry on learning. You must pay attention in class. Your parents had sent you to school is for your future and for you to make contributions to the country! You should not relax after you entered the university. There are still so much for you to learn……”

Professor Lu lectured Feng Yu for more than half an hour. Even Feng Yu was feeling thirsty, but Professor Lu did not even take a sip of water. While being lectured, Feng Yu was looking around Professor Lu’s desk. He noticed that there were many Russian classical literatures. But it was not the full set. Could it be that Professor Lu did not manage to get the complete collection?

Feng Yu knew how to bribe this old professor!

“You understand?”

“Yes, Professor Lu. I will go back and work hard. Oh, my friend has the book <The Gadfly> and many other famous Russian classics. My dormitory is too small to keep them. Can I leave those books with you?”

Professor Lu had an excited expression and said: “Your dormitory is a bit small to keep so many books. You can bring it to me. If you need it, you can come to me anytime.”

Once out of Professor Lu’s office, Feng Yu smiled. He had successfully settled another lecturer!

……

“Eh, Feng Yu, you are back. I heard that you are called to Professor Lu’s office. How is it? Did he punish you?” Feng Yu’s dormitory leader Tian Lei asked. Feng Yu was number 4 in this dormitory regarding age. This was better than his previous life where he was the youngest. Feng Yu suddenly thought about his classmates from his previous life. Did they enter the same university? Did their life change after his time travel?

“Nope. Professor Lu was good to me. Have you guys eaten?”

“Not yet. We had just come back from classes. Let’s go and eat.” Tian Lei and the rest took out their trays and were about to go to the school’s cafeteria. Feng Yu knew that they were waiting for him to eat together.

These dorm mates were really nice to him, especial this Tian Lei.

“Keep all your trays. Today I am in a good mood. Let me treat all of you at the restaurant opposite the school. We can also have some drinks. We will only leave after one of us is drunk.” After entering University, Feng Yu finally dares to invite others to drink. It was because two of his dorm mates were not good drinkers. They would be dead drunk after a glass of beer!

All of them did not reject Feng Yu’s offer. They knew Feng Yu was extremely rich. Just the first day in school, Feng Yu had bought an apartment. Furthermore, Feng Yu’s dressing was shouting “I am rich!”. They even heard that Feng Yu had a diamond watch which was worth more than his newly bought apartment!

All of them were impressed by Feng Yu. His family was so wealthy, and he could still enter Beijing University. This shows that Feng Yu had studied hard.

When they were drinking, Feng Yu’s pager beeped. Feng Yu frowned. Why was Fu Guangzheng looking for him so urgently?

Chapter 333 – Developing VCD

After returning from the phone booth, everyone could tell Feng Yu was excited.

Feng Yu had asked Fu Guagzheng to look for a genius he heard off in his previous life. Jiang Wanmeng!

In the future years, Jiang Wanmeng had many identities like Engineer, entrepreneur, etc.

But Jiang Wanmeng was most famous for being the inventor of VCD. He had changed the world with this invention!

This can be considered the first time China had to lead the world with an electronic product. But it only lasted for 3 years. Jiang Wanmeng and his partner set up a company called Wanyan Inc., and he disappeared from the limelight. It was because he did not apply for the patent and the Japanese had patented this technology.

Jiang Wanmeng was not still a manager at a research facility’s subsidiary company. Although he had some shares in this company, his total wealth amounted to only 1 to 2 million RMB. Compared to others, he might seem successful. But to Feng Yu, he was just a poor engineer!

Jiang Wanmeng’s company was manufacturing TV, and it was doing well. Their market was limited to the local province, and Jiang Wanmeng was just researching on TV-related technologies.

Based on history, Jiang Wanmeng would be attending an exhibition in the US next year, and he saw a technology invented by a Chinese American, Sun Yanshen, which can compress a picture file into a microchip. This technology gave him the inspiration to start to develop VCD.

But now, this would not happen. It was because Feng Yu had bought the compressing technology from Sun Yanshen company!

During the past summer, Feng Yu had asked his lawyer Wilson to make a trip to the US. He had instructed Wilson to do two things. First, it was to buy as many Microsoft shares as possible.

Microsoft had just stopped their corporation with IBM and Apple. Their share prices were now at rock bottom.

Some of Microsoft shareholders had wanted to sell off their shares, and Wilson had brought a large amount of USD to buy over their shares. Wilson was like a god of fortune to them.

Although the market value of Microsoft at this time was over 1 billion USD, these shareholders had already made lots of profits. When Microsoft was listed in 1986, it was only worth 2 million USD. Those shareholders were criticising Bill Gates for their fallout with Apple and IBM.

Paul Allen, the second biggest shareholder of Microsoft, had returned to the board of directors last year, and he was also cited as one of the reasons for the company’s poor performance. He had his own company and had been selling off his Microsoft shares over the past few years to raise funds for his private company.

Wilson had acted very fast. He did not care whether if the Microsoft shares were still falling. He offered high prices for these shares and had acquired a few hundred million worths of shares. Feng Yu was not the official third-largest shareholder of Microsoft. He now owns 18% of shares. Now, Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Feng Yu own more than 90% of Microsoft.

Among these shares, a part of it had no voting rights. Feng Yu does not care. He will only attend the shareholders meeting and was not interested in meddling with Microsoft operations.

With Bill Gates running Microsoft, Feng Yu does not need to do anything. From next year, Microsoft shares will rise rapidly. By 1995, Microsoft will be worth more than 20 billion USD! That would be the time when Bill Gates became the richest man in the world. He will be holding on to this title for several years!

After the separation, Apple and IBM will also suffer losses for these two years. They need to focus on both the hardware and software. Not many companies can be like these two companies.

The second task was to contact Sun Yanshen. Wilson had used 18 million USD to buy the compressing technology from him. Although it was overpriced, Feng Yu wanted to get this technology fast and apply for a patent.

This technology was patented, and Feng Yu had own all the rights to this technology!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Sun Yanshen will be introducing this technology at a TV technology exhibition next year. But now, this technology is in Feng Yu’s hands, and Feng Yu was not interested in showcasing this technology at the exhibition.

Feng Yu wants to give this technology to Jiang Wanmeng to let him invent VCD. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Jiang Wanmeng had only used less than 600,000 USD to develop VCD.

In this life, Feng Yu will give Jiang Wanmeng 1 million or even 10 million USD for him to develop VCD. Feng Yu wants the VCD to be developed as soon as possible at all cost.

This would be a monopoly. It will bring him high profits, just like his humidifiers and bladeless fans. There will be no competitors, and the profits will be stable.

In the previous life, after VCD was launched, more than 100 million units were sold within 2 years. The profits were at least 1 billion USD!

Having bought the technology, Feng Yu was not assured to let others research on it and to develop VCD. This was a technological breakthrough. Sometimes, it will need talent and luck. This was the reason why Feng Yu asked Fu Guangzheng to look for Jiang Wanmeng.

Fu Guangzheng was also confused. The person Feng Yu was looking for, was only an engineer at a TV factory. There was nothing special about him, yet Feng Yu was willing to spend his money to search for this person.

Was this person worth spending so much effort to look for him? Even in China, there were lots of engineers that was more famous than this Jiang Wanmeng. Why did Feng Yu just wanted this guy?

Fu Guangzheng felt that Feng Yu must have thought of some new ideas to make money and he need this person to help him. Could it be that Feng Yu wants to manufacture TV sets?

There were many TV factories in China. Outshining all the factories was difficult. Fu Guangzheng could not tell how Feng Yu would be able to beat the rest of the competitors. Manufacturing a bigger TV set or a better screen?

If Feng Yu wanted to go into TV manufacturing, should he follow? Feng Yu would not be able to manage so many companies by himself. If he tells Feng Yu, Feng Yu might allow him to buy a stake in this project.

But can manufacturing TV really make money?

Fu Guangzheng had found Jiang Wanmeng a few days ago and had been in touch with him. He did not see anything special about Jiang Wanmeng. He only felt that this person had ambition and creativity. But many people in China were like this too!

Fu Guangzheng called his eldest uncle Fu Rongqi and told him about this. Fu Rongqi was also puzzled. He also does not know what Feng Yu was thinking. In the end, he asked Fu Guangzheng to inform Feng Yu that he had found Jiang Wanmeng.

Fu Rongqi was also curious about what Feng Yu was planning to invest. He needs to know more about this before he can decide whether to let Fu Guangzheng tag along.

Jiang Wanmeng had been found, and he will be coming to Beijing to meet Feng Yu. Feng Yu also called Wilson to go to Beijing tomorrow. He must recruit Jiang Wanmeng!

Chapter 334 – Dreams

Jiang Wanmeng had arrived in Beijing with Fu Guangzheng. He was feeling uneasy. Fu Guangzheng was a successful Hong Kong businessman and had lots of investments in China.

Jiang Wanmeng was deeply impressed with Fu Guangzheng after he found out that Fu Guangzheng was the main overseas distributor for Wind and Rain Humidifiers and bladeless fans. Although it was with the help of the rest of the Fu family, it was still impressive for someone at his age to have such achievement.

He thought that Fu Guangzheng was looking for him to talk about contract jobs. His company can act as contractors to manufacture some electronics components. This was his company main revenue. He was surprised that Fu Guangzheng was looking for him on behalf of someone else.

This person was the inventor of the humidifier and bladeless fans, and he was still a student at Beijing University.

Jiang Wanmeng choked on his own cigarette smoke when he learns about this. The humidifiers and bladeless fans were considered the pride of China now. These were products that were exported all over the world, and it was invented by a university student? Oh, wait… when he developed these products, he was still in High school!

There were lots of genius in this world, and he was about to meet one of them. But he was still not sure what was the purpose of this meeting. He had asked Fu Guangzheng, and he does not know what’s the reason too.

Although Jiang Wanmeng knew that Feng Yu was still attending university, when they met, Jiang Wanmeng was still surprised how ordinary Feng Yu was.

“Mr. Jiang, nice to meet you. I am Feng Yu.” It was a simple introduction, but Jiang Wanmeng felt there was some pressure. This was a genius inventor.

Jiang Wanmeng did not know that Feng Yu had only given the idea and he cannot be considered the inventor. If Feng Yu was to invent by himself, he might be able to succeed if he used the rest of his life to working on it.

“Mr. Feng, I am Jiang Wanmeng from Modern Company. Can I ask why you are looking for me?” Jiang Wanmeng was still confused.

“Mr. Jiang, you are into TV-related technology. I will show you one technology. See if you can get any inspiration from this technology.”

Feng Yu waved his hands, and someone came over and showed the picture compressing technology.

Jiang Wanmeng was glued to this presentation. He did not even hear the others calling him. He had too many things going through in his head.

This technology at first look, it was nothing much. But Jiang Wanmeng felt that this technology can be used to store both picture and audio into a small CD, and it will become a video compact disc. This will be an era-changing product!

“Mr. Feng, what is the theory behind this technology?” Jiang Wanmeng excitedly asked.

But after asking, Jiang Wanmeng regretted. This was an important technology and why would Feng Yu tell him about the details?

Feng Yu smiled and looked at Jiang Wanmeng: “Mr. Jiang, you want to know? Maybe you already have an idea on how to make use of this technology? I can tell you more about this technology, but are you sure you only want to know the theory behind this technology?”

Although Jiang Wanmeng was only an engineer and a manager, he knew how important technologies were to a company. Feng Yu was willing to tell him about this technology, that means he must have something Feng Yu needs.

“Mr. Feng, you can just tell me straight what you want from me.” Jiang Wanmeng replied seriously.

“Mr. Jiang, what do you think about our country’s electronic products? Our TV production is already the world’s number 3. The production of the other electronic products was also increasing. Can China be considered an electronic products production country?” Feng Yu asked.

“It is only on the surface. Now it may seem that our electronic industry is growing well, but it is not true. For example, the televisions my factory produces, we do not have the technology to produce the core components. We need to import them. This will restrict our product development. The cost will be higher, and we do not get high profits. Most of the earnings are taken away from those companies that own those core technologies. Most of these companies were from Japan. This is the same for other electronic products. All the core technologies were owned by foreigners, and we are just assembly workers.”

Jiang Wanmeng was furious when he spoke about this. Just the TV manufacturing industry, most of their profits were taken away by the foreigners.

Now, Jiang Wanmeng could see the potential of Feng Yu’s technology, and if this technology were used in video and audio products, it would put China way ahead of the other countries.

Feng Yu nodded: “I can tell that Mr. Jiang is unhappy about the current situation. Have you ever considered to produce our own electronic product that will change the world?”

To create our own products that will change the world? Jiang Wanmeng was shocked. He did not expect Feng Yu’s dream to be bigger than his!

“Mr. Feng, pardon me for saying this. Even with this technology, China will also not be the forerunners of the electronic industry. Maybe at most China will be one of the top 10 countries.”

Feng Yu laughed: “Do you know about Walkman? The popular AIWA brand Walkman.”

“I know about AIWA Walkman. My company had also bought a few of them. We can manufacture most of the components, but the core component like the magnetic head was too difficult to manufacture. We do not have the technology. The Walkman we produced is too big and heavy. The sound quality is also poor.”

Now, the companies in China only knew how to copy others. Most of those state-owned enterprises or former military factories converted to civilian factories were all doing these. The products they copied the most were electronics products.

“So, Mr. Jiang thinks that AIWA Walkman technologies are good?”

“It is more than good. AIWA technologies can be considered the best among all the Walkman brands.” Jiang Wanmeng sighed. “I heard that AIWA was a Japanese company but was bought over by a Chinese businessman. Now, AIWA can be considered our China’s pride.”

When Jiang Wanmeng finished saying this, he saw Feng Yu had a proud look on his face. Why are you smiling so proudly when I am praising AWIA? Suddenly Jiang Wanmeng had an alarming thought.

“Mr. Feng, are you the one that had bought AIWA?”

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng and asked unhappily: “Brother Fu, didn’t I tell you not to tell anyone about this. Why did you tell him?”

Fu Guangzheng replied: “I did not say anything. Mr. Jiang guessed it himself.”

Fu Guangzheng was thinking in his heart. You are the one that keeps talking about AIWA and isn’t it normal for Jiang Wanmeng to guess it? Also, you have the words “I am the boss of AIWA.” written all over your face!

Jiang Wanmeng was shocked. Feng Yu was the Chinese boss of AIWA. AIWA can be considered the giant of China’s electronics industry!

This meant that Feng Yu had the capabilities to use this picture compressing technology and developed his own products. Why was Feng Yu looking for him?

“Mr. Jiang, are you interested in using my technology and creating a video and audio product which will create a revolution in the video and audio electronics industry?”

Chapter 335 – Money + Dreams

Jiang Wanmeng was thinking in his heart. This should be his main agenda.

Feng Yu really wants to develop this product. Jiang Wanmeng knew that Feng Yu intends to recruit him. Although this project was exciting, his interest was not that big.

Feng Yu was asking if he wants to remain a big fish in a small pond or to join him.

Jiang Wanmeng was now a general manager at his company. Even though this company was a subsidiary of a research facility, he was still a shareholder.

If he joins Feng Yu, he could get access to the technologies he wanted, but he would become an engineer again. He does not want to be an engineer still. If he were willing to remain as an engineer, he would not leave the research facility to set up this company.

“Mr. Jiang, isn’t it your dream to make China one of the leaders in the electronics industry? Don’t you want to pursue your dream with me? If your dreams become a reality, you will get all the credit, and your name will be recorded in the history books!”

Jiang Wanmeng really wanted to tell Feng Yu that he wants his name to be in the history books. But he wants to be the person who invented this new product and not one of the people who invented this product.

“Mr. Feng, let me think about it.”

Feng Yu raised his eyebrows. Seems like it was too difficult to recruit him by talking about dreams. If Jiang Wanmeng was willing to settle for a stable and normal life, he would not leave the research facility and set up a subsidiary company for the facility.

Since he started a company, then money should be one of his motivating factors.

Looking at Jiang Wanmeng’s troubled expression, Feng Yu continued: “Mr. Jiang, I know that you are now the general manager of your company and your net worth is a few million. If I ask you to work for me, you will surely reject. But if I am willing to let you own some shares? I am saying that if you are willing to cooperate with me, I can let you invest in the company.”

In Feng Yu’s past life, Jiang Wanmeng raised a few million USD of research funds. In this life, this had been brought forward, but he should be able to raise at least 1 or 2 million.

This new company, not counting the cost of the technologies, was worth about 20 million USD. Based on the profits that VCD would bring in the future, Feng Yu was very generous to let Jiang Wanmeng buy some shares in this company.

Jiang Wanmeng looked up, what? Feng Yu was willing to sell some shares to him?

“Mr. Feng, can you tell me the details of this cooperation?”

Jiang Wanmeng was tempted, and Feng Yu was relieved.

“Currently, I own this picture compressing technology. I had paid almost 20 million USD for this technology. You think it is not worth so much? But if this technology can help us develop a new video and audio product, then we can monopolize the video market, and the profits will be much more than whatever I invested. I decided to invest 20 million USD in setting up a factory to produce this product which I am naming it as Video Compact Disc, VCD. This VCD will replace all the video cassette tapes and players. It will replace the current Karaoke system. This will be a new electronic product! How many profits do you think we will get if we monopolize the market?”

Jiang Wanmeng was breathing hard. Monopoly means exceptionally high profits!

“That means I will be investing 40 million USD. How much can you invest?”

Jiang Wanmeng suddenly felt like an inflated balloon. Feng Yu had invested 40 million USD, and he knew that it was a marked-up figure. That technology was not worth 20 million USD. But that technology was the only one in the world. He could not argue with Feng Yu about how much it was worth. He could see the potential of this VCD.

But he does not have money. Although he was the general manager of his company, the most he had was about 1 million USD. With his connections, he should be about to raise a total of 2 million USD.

That means the most he could get was only about 2% of the shares. This would be just like he was working for Feng Yu. He wants at least 10% shares!

“I can raise about 3 million USD. This was the best I can do. But as what you said, I can do the product development with this technology. This should not be a problem. My company’s research staffs were all skilled. We can solve a lot of problems for you. Can I get more shares?” Jiang Wanmeng asked.

Feng Yu had also planned to let Jiang Wanmeng be in charge of developing the product. If Jiang Wanmeng does not have enough staff, Feng Yu could still transfer some people from AIWA. But this should be the last resort. There were many skilled technicians and engineers in China.

In Feng Yu ‘s previous life, Jiang Wanmeng could develop the VCD by himself. Even though Sun Yanshen’s company had helped him slightly, but it was only putting the picture compressing technology into a circuit board.

Feng Yu could let Jiang Wanmeng settle all the R&D work. Feng Yu was willing to spend. He has the money, but he needs more technical staffs.

“Mr. Jiang, how long do you need to produce a prototype?”

“6 months should be sufficient! If there are enough funds, I think 5 months should be possible.” Jiang Wanmeng said confidently.

Feng Yu nodded: “Okay. Then how many shares do you, and your team wants?”

Feng Yu was clear that he does not only want to recruit Jiang Wanmeng. He wants to hire his team too.

Jiang Wanmeng thought for a while and said: “I will invest 3 million USD, together with my team, I think the total value is about 5 million USD!”

Jiang Wanmeng said a high price. If Feng Yu does not agree, then there is still room for negotiations.

Feng Yu turned to Fu Guangzheng: “Brother Fu, I will let you handle the overseas sales. You want to take 5 million USD to invest too?

Fu Guangzheng was overjoyed. Feng Yu had invited him to invest with him. He knew that Feng Yu saw the hard work he put in for the Machinery Company.

This VD thingy sounds profitable. He does not even need to ask his family for this 5 million USD. It was a small amount to him.

“Brother Feng, thanks. I have 5 million USD ready. I will also promise you that I will take care of the overseas sales. I will make sure our products can reach all corners of the world!”

Feng Yu turned to Wilson. Wilson had already taken out some documents and passed it to Feng Yu.

“Here, take a look. If there are no problems, you can sign this contract. The registration of the company, Brother Fu will settle. We will use Wind and Rain Electronics for the name of this company. Using Wind and Rain brand will save us the marketing cost. Any problems?”

Fu Guangzheng and Jiang Wanmeng read the contract. It stated clearly that Feng Yu would be using technologies, brand, and cash to invest in this company. He will own 80% of the shares. Fu Guangzheng would be using cash to invest and will be in charging of the management of the company. He will be getting 10% of the shares. Jiang Wanmeng will be using cash to invest, and he will be in charge of the R&D. He will also be owning 10%. Everything was as what they had discussed. Wilson only added one more page to the contract which stated the exact investment from each party.

This contract was prepared before this meeting, and Feng Yu had already known the outcome. Feng Yu was too scary!

Both of them looked at each other and nodded: “We are fine with it!”

This will be the start of Wind and Rain VCD taking the world by storm!

Chapter 336 – Preparations

Fu Guangzheng returned to Hong Kong, and he started to prepare for the Wind and Rain VCD overseas sales. He assembles a team and begins to contact Hong Kong’s movie and music companies. He bought the rights of many movies and songs.

When Fu Rongjing learned about this, he scolded Fu Guangzheng.

“Who told you to do this? The prototype is not even ready, and you are setting the sales team. This was a waste of manpower. What can your team do not? Contact the dealers? You think your cost is too low? You don’t need to pay their salaries?”

“Dad, this is what Feng Yu wanted. He wants to introduce this product to the market once it is ready. He wants to capture the market fast.” Fu Guangzheng explained.

“What does Feng Yu know? The product does not even exist now. What’s the hurry? You think selling a new product is so simple? Disband your team now and stop the hiring!”

“Dad, I am this sales company’s main shareholder and representative!” Fu Guangzheng retorted.

Fu Rongjing was furious: “What did you say? Who do you think you are speaking to? I dare you to repeat it!”

If Fu Rongjing did not transfer his shares to Fu Guangzheng, how can Fu Guangzheng become the main shareholder? If it wasn’t for Fu Rongjing persuading his eldest brother, how can Fu Guangzheng become this company’s representative?

Now, this useless son does not even listen to him. He only talks about Feng Yu day in day out. Does he really want to venture out on his own?

“Dad, calm down. Wind and Rain Electronics is paying for this sales team. We do not need to pay them their salaries. These people are still working for our company. We can just let them familiarise with the operations or do some market research. They are being groomed by us.” Fu Guangzheng explained.

“Huh? Wind and Rain Electronics is paying them? Good. You have done well. But do you need so many people to do market research? And why are you contacting those music and movies companies? What are you up to? You still want to sell videotapes and cassettes?”

When Fu Rongjing heard that they were not the ones paying the salaries, he felt better. This son of mine is really like me. He knows how to make use of other people’s resources as his own.

When Fu Rongjing knew that Fu Guangzheng had invested in this Wind and Rain Electronics, he was angry. China’s electronics industry was not worth investing. If it were AIWA, Fu Rongjing would support his son to invest. But what is this VCD they are developing? He had never heard of such things before!

Fu Rongjing was furious because Fu Guangzheng does not know what VCD was and he invested 5 million USD for only 10% shares.

Fu Guangzheng had been making lots of money nowadays. But 5 million USD was still not a small amount. There were better investments around. Even if this 5 million were invested in the Forex market like Fu Rongqi, there would be high returns.

Fu Rongjing also knew that Feng Yu had a Midas touch. All his investments made money. But they knew about all the products Feng Yu sold. This VCD was something very new to them. They do not know anything about it. What product of the future? This slogan might sound nice, but it was not even developed. Even the humidifiers and bladeless fans cannot be considered products of the future. Can this VCD be more profitable than the humidifiers?

You want to invest in this VCD, okay. It was at least considered a type of home appliances. But why are you buying the movie and music rights? The Chinese market was still very conservative. How many Hong Kong movies and songs were permitted to enter China?

“Dad, the product we are producing is called VCD. It is a compact disc which can store movies and audios. Now, in the market, there are two types of videos. One is the traditional Video Cassette tapes, and the other is the LaserDisc. Videotapes are cheap, but LD cost at least 100 USD a piece! There are also two types of music. Cassette Tapes and CD.”

“We now own a new technology that can compress pictures and audio. We are able to store a 100-minute movie into two small CD! The cost is not even one-tenth of an LD. This was still an estimation from our R&D department. Once we start to mass produce, the cost will be even lower than that. Don’t you think there is a huge potential for this product?”

Fu Rongjing immediately guessed: “So, this is the reason why you are buying the rights to the movies and music. You are preparing to produce these CDs?”

“Yes. We will produce the VCD players, and we must let our consumers have the CDs to play on the players. That’s why we need to have movies and music VCDs for sales. The profits for these VCDs will not be low too.”

“you are just looking at the profits. But even if your VCD is only one-tenth of the cost of an LD, but it is still more expensive than a videotape. I have a video cassette player and videotapes, why should I buy your product?”

Feng Yu, Jiang Wanmeng and Fu Guangzheng had discussed this question too. However, Feng Yu only asked one question back, and they got the answer. “Many families have electric fans that cost less than 10 USD, but why are they still spending a few hundred USD to buy our bladeless fans?”

Fu Guangzheng’s reply at that time was: “Bladeless fans is an innovative hi-tech product, and it is well designed, quiet and easy to clean. Although it is expensive compared to the Air conditioner, it was still much cheaper. Different products suit different market segments.”

Feng Yu told him: “This VCD is also the same. It is more expensive than the Video Cassette players but much cheaper than the LD players. The VCD is also much cheaper than the LDs. LD was able to enter the market was because of its high-quality pictures. Those Japanese companies had made lots of money from this LD. The VCD also have better picture quality than the videotapes and was almost as good as the LD. Furthermore, we will not only sell movie VCDs. We must also sell music VCDs. This will be a revolutionary product for the Karaoke industry!”

Karaoke was invented by the Japanese, and it was popular throughout the world. But the Karaoke now only had music. There were no pictures nor lyrics. This was a test of the singing skills.

In the future, after the launched of the VCD, many of it were bought by the Karaoke lounges. These music VCDs allows the consumers to sing to their heart’s content without the need to memorize the song’s lyrics.

Feng Yu had successfully convinced Fu Guangzheng. He had made Fu Guangzheng believes that once this VCD player is out in the market, and there were sufficient variety of movies and music VCDs, it will be a hit! This product can quickly change the world!

After hearing Fu Guangzheng’s explanation, Fu Rongjing was lost in his thoughts. He felt that what Feng Yu said made sense. If they were able to market this product well, there would be no problem with this VCD sales. The profits might even be higher than the humidifiers and bladeless fans.

“Guangzheng, you have done well. Work hard and don’t disappoint me. What I just said to you is to encourage you.” Fu Rongjing patted on Fu Guangzheng’s shoulders and smile.

Fu Guangzheng: “……” You nearly gave me a beating just now, and you are telling me that it was to encourage me?

Chapter 337 – Huh, suing us for monopolizing the market?

Fu Guangzheng returned back a few days after leaving Beijing.

“What are you here again?” Feng Yu asked in a not so nice tone.

Fu Guangzheng was confused. He did not offend Feng Yu. He had already set up the sales team, and the market research had been completed.

He had also gotten the rights for the movies and music in Hong Kong. He had also contacted the companies in the US and Europe. He had done everything within a few days and yet Feng Yu was speaking to him in this tone?

“You are in a bad mood? What happened?”

Fu Guangzheng does not know that today was a weekend and Feng Yu had a date with Li Na. Li Na’s period was next week, and Feng Yu could not do anything with her next week. Li Na had agreed to this date today, but because of Fu Guangzheng, Feng Yu had to postpone the date.

Feng Yu waved his hand: “I am just in a bad mood. Something bad must have happened for you to be here.”

Feng Yu just pushed the blame to Fu Guangzheng. He will not admit that it was his fault.

Fu Guangzheng smiled bitterly: “I have some bad news for you!”

Damn, there was really bad news.

All the businesses that Feng Yu worked with Fu Guangzheng were all his most profitable businesses. Feng Yu does not want anything wrong to happen to these businesses.

“What bad news?”

“Our company is being sued. Errmmm…. I think Tai Hua trading will also be sued soon!”

Huh? Tai Hua Trading will be sued? Fu Guangzheng sales company will also be sued? That means it must be related to the humidifiers or the bladeless fans.

“Is it the humidifiers or the bladeless fans? Are there any problems with the quality?” Feng Yu frowned. These two products did not encounter any problems in his previous life. How come when he produced these products, he faces these problems? It must be those people at the Aviation Factory who had missed out on something during the development stage!

“There is no problem with the quality. They are suing us for creating a monopoly!”

Shit, monopoly?

Feng Yu was frustrated. He had applied for the patents, and this was to prevent others from imitating his products. He wants to create a monopoly to maximize his profits. He had forgotten about the Antitrust laws in the western countries. Monopolies were not allowed in those countries.

“Will we lose this case? How much will we be fined?” Feng Yu listlessly asked.

Fu Guangzheng was curious. There was no such law in China and how come Feng Yu was willing to accept this news? How did he know about the fines for companies that created monopolies in the Western countries?

“Who says we will lose? We will not lose this case, and we might even make use of this lawsuit to create publicity!” Fu Guangzheng proudly said.

Feng Yu’s mood was like a roller coaster. Win against an Antitrust lawsuit?

In his previous life, no companies had won against an Antitrust lawsuit. Many MNC, including those from Fortune 500, had paid hefty fines. Typically, when people start a lawsuit, they must have collected concrete evidence. He had never heard of any companies that were being sued for creating monopolies and still won the case.

“We can win? Then are they stupid? Why are they still suing us?” Feng Yu asked.

Fu Guangzheng nearly spits out his tea. This Feng Yu changed his attitude so fast.

“The Antitrust laws stipulates some scenarios that constitute a monopoly: Buying and controlling the stocks of other firms to weaken the competitors; Entering the boards of competitors’ companies, for example, being the director of several competing companies; Tying the sales of two products. By tying the sales of a second product to the first and forcing consumers to buy something that they may not need or want is a violation of the antitrust laws; Pricing discrimination. That is selling the same product at different prices to different buyers to keeping competitors out of the market; Business activities that will substantially weaken competition or to establish a monopoly……”

Feng Yu listened to Fu Guangzheng carefully. It seems that the patent owned by Wind and Rain had created a monopoly and was the cause of this lawsuit.

But Feng Yu was still protected by his patents, and this was considered a monopoly?

Feng Yu now understands why so many companies in his previous life were willing to exchange patents with other companies. This was to prevent their company from being sued with the Antitrust laws.

You claimed that I had monopolized this technology? But I had sold this technology to others, and because they don’t produce the products, I need to sell to others?

“It seems that we had violated this law. Then why did you say we can win this case?” Feng Yu become listless again.

“They sued us for monopolizing this technology, and our products are priced too high. However, we did not stop any competitors from entering the market, and we did not fix the prices. We also do not tie up our products with other product. We only increased the difficulties for competitors to enter the market. If we sell our patents to another company and let them produce and sell to the Western companies, then they cannot sue us. Also, an Antitrust lawsuit will take at least 1 year. During this period, we can let another company sell their products on the market there, and we will win!” Fu Guangzheng said.

Damn, you mean that we create a competitor for ourselves? Which idiot come up with this stupid law?

Feng Yu had not thought that his Wind and Rain humidifiers and bladeless fans were selling throughout the US and Europe market. No other companies can enter this market.

Feng Yu was lucky that he did not develop industrial humidifiers. If he had done so, he would be sued a long time ago!

“Do we have other solutions?” Feng Yu does not want to let go of these profits. The overseas sales for his humidifiers and bladeless fans had brought him nearly 30 million USD in profits. As the market grows, this profit will increase further. When the patent protection is over, he would still be able to keep the majority of the market share with his established brand. There will still be high profits. He does not want to share his earnings with others.

I had only produced Ultra Sonic humidifiers, and you can sell thermal humidifiers, or electric humidifiers, cold mist humidifiers, etc. I did not monopolize the market.

You can sell regular fans or air conditioners, and I sell my bladeless fans. Why is this considered a monopoly?

“Yes, there is another solution. We can let others create imitations of our products, and we sue them for infringing on our copyrights. This will divert the attention from us. For instance, we can expose some of our patents to our competitors and let them produce the products. We will sue them after that.”

Feng Yu: “……” What stupid idea is this? I would rather create a competitor for myself.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered YADU. China’s biggest humidifier manufacturer from his previous life. Feng Yu had snatched the household humidifier market from them in this life. Why can’t this YADU develop some new products? In China. YADU was still the leader of the industrial humidifiers.

Furthermore, the biggest humidifier company in the world was a US company. Why they did not develop new products?

Since we are being sued for monopolizing the market, then I will really monopolize the market.

“Go and contact YADU. Tell them that we are willing to share our technologies!”

Chapter 338 – Alliance

Shi Feng, the General Manager of YADU and one of the shareholders, was sitting on a sofa, looking at the people in front of them.

“Manager Feng, why is your Tai Hua Trading looking for us? We are competitors.” Shi Feng asked gruffly.

YADU had already developed humidifier and was about to introduce household humidifiers. But before they could introduce their product to the market, they discovered that there were already household humidifiers in the market. But it was only thermal humidifiers, and they did not care.

Based on their research, Chinese at that time had limited spending power, and not many can afford to buy those humidifiers. But soon Tai Hua Trading introduced the Ultrasonic humidifiers, and YADU knew how much profits Tai Hua Trading could make. The most surprising part was that this product was selling very well.

This produce was even exported overseas, and it was sold several times more expensive than in China.

YADU was only one step behind, and Wind and Rain brand had already captured the market. The most frustrating was this Tai Hua Trading had even patented the technology. YADU could not manufacture similar products. Even though they had introduced another type of electric humidifiers, but the household humidifier market was already owned by Wind and Rain brand. In the end, they could only concentrate on their industrial humidifiers.

But today, Tai Hua Trading people contacted him and wants to talk about cooperation. What cooperation was there to talk about between YADU and Tai Hua Trading?

“Manager Shi, our Tai Hua Trading and your YADU can be considered the leaders in China’s humidifier market. We specialized in household humidifiers, and you specialized in industrial humidifiers. Your company is also selling household humidifiers in the market?”

“What’s wrong? Only you can sell household humidifiers, and we cannot sell? I know you have the patents, but our products are different from yours!” When mentioned about household humidifiers, Shi Feng was furious. They had only used 3 days to figure out this ultrasonic technology, but because it was protected by patents, they could not produce!

“No, no, no. Manager Shi misunderstood us. Our purpose here is to exchange technologies with YADU!”

Shi Feng stood up: “What did you say? Exchange technologies?”

Wind and Rain Humidifiers was now the market leader, and if it were Shi Feng, he would never exchange these technologies. This Tai Hua Trading had gone bonkers?

“That’s right. We want to use our humidifier technology to exchange for YADU’s humidifier and dehumidifier technology. Also, we can have a fair competition and do not engage in a price war.” This was just like AIWA and Sony. Fair competition, legal and cannot be considered as monopolizing the market.

“You want to enter the industrial humidifier market?” Shi Feng felt that Tai Hua Trading wants to enter the industrial market.

“Currently, we are not very interested in the industrial humidifier market. We will still be focusing on household humidifiers. However, we will produce industrial humidifiers, but it will not in high quantities. Your company’s sales will not be affected.

Stop joking. In China, there was YADU, and there were many established industrial humidifiers companies overseas. Feng Yu was not confident to enter this market. He was already contented with the household humidifiers market.

Shi Feng does not understand why Tai Hua Trading wants to do this. But YADU was to stand to gain from this deal. Other than the humidifier technology, YADU had the patents of the other technologies. But other people can just modify the technologies a bit, and they could manufacture those products. However, other than the humidifiers, the market for other products was not that big. What does Tai Hua Trading want to do with those technologies?

“Just exchanging technologies? No cash involved?”

“Of course not. We will not only exchange technologies. We will also form an alliance and act as contractors to help each other manufacture products.”

YADU’s factory was a big factory and was located in a prime location in Beijing. If YADU was able to help Feng Yu manufacture humidifiers and dehumidifiers, it can increase Wind and Rain productions, and also lower the transportation cost. Feng Yu’s factory in Dongguan will also need to help YADU to manufacture their products. Feng Yu even decided to help YADU export their products through Fu Guangzheng company. This way, it will solve their Antitrust lawsuit//.

YADU was also a Government and privately-owned enterprise. This would be better than letting those foreigners earn. Furthermore, YADU’s technology in air purifying was one of the best in the world. In the future, Feng Yu might also need to work with them too.

Shi Feng thought about it. Helping each other manufacture products can also lower their cost and make use of each other advantages. This was not a bad move. Could it be that Tai Hua Trading wanted to make use of YADU’s manufacturing capabilities?

Shi Feng decided to test what was Tai Hua Trading’s baseline: “Manager Feng, I heard that Tai Hua Trading also owns the patent of the bladeless fan technology. Why not exchange this technology with us too? It will not be fair to use if we got to use two technologies to exchange for one technology.”

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng looked at each other. YADU was really greedy as they had expected. Before this meeting, they had discussed this before. Since they need to upgrade the bladeless fan technology, why not use it to exchange something with YADU. YADU still have the air purifying technology. This will be a massive market in the future.

“You want the bladeless fan technology too? This should not be a problem. But you must use your air purifying and vacuum cleaner technologies to exchange for it. We will be at a disadvantage if we do this exchange. So, your side should give us some benefits in our alliance. For example, the R&D to upgrade these technologies will be done on by YADU, and you must let us use it for free. Every year, you must also help us manufacture a minimum number of humidifiers, dehumidifiers, vacuum cleaners, air purifiers and bladeless fans at zero contractor fees. On my side, we will help YADU export your products to other countries. We will enter other countries’ market together and earn their money for China!”

Using two technologies to exchange for one profit-making technology was a great deal. There was no reason for Shi Feng to reject. Feng Yu’s additional conditions were also acceptable. The most intriguing part of this deal to Shi Feng was helping YADU exporting their products to other countries.

YADU was shouldering the whole country’s dream. In 1987, a total of 170 million was invested into this company. Until now, this company had not breakeven even after they had developed so many products.

If YADU could export their products, then their profits will increase by a lot. The only condition which Shi Feng dare not to agree immediately YADU had to research and upgrade these technologies and let Tai Hua Trading use these technologies for free.

R&D cost was the highest expenditure of YADU. He does not know how much Tai Hua Trading spent on R&D, but it should not be low. If not, why would Feng Yu wants them to research the upgraded version of their technologies?

But Feng Yu had not invested much in developing these technologies. He had only let the Aviation Factory get part of his earnings previously. Now, Feng Yu had owned all the shares of these products.

“Manager Feng, Mr. Fu, how long will the both of you stay here in Beijing? I need to discuss with the rest of the shareholders before I can give you a reply.”

“Is 3 days enough? If YADU does not accept our conditions within 3 days, we will consider other partners.” Feng Yu exchanged looks with Fu Guangzheng and gave a deadline.

Chapter 339 – Multi-functional

3 days later, YADU replied to Feng Yu. They agreed to cooperate with him. But they still need to sort out the details.

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng were very excited. They knew that YADU will not reject their offer. It might seem that Tai Hua Trading was at a disadvantage in this deal, but this deal will solve their lawsuit and also increase their presence in China. The happiest thing for Feng Yu was that he had gained a free R&D department.

“Manager Shi, I believe that with our alliance, we would be able to grasp this market tightly in our hands.”

“Manager Feng, don’t you think it will be inappropriate if our new products had similar designs as yours?” Shi Feng was worried that YADU would be considered an imitation of Wind and Rain. This was not good for their reputation.

“Similar designs? No, no, no. I had already considered this problem. For example, our bladeless fans are round, and your fans can be an oval in shaped. My company had already begun designing and testing it. We had planned to introduce it next year. But now, we will not introduce this design. We will let YADU use this design.”

Feng Yu used a pen and drew an oval shape bladeless fan on a piece of paper. In his previous life, cylinder shape fans were the norm, but it took up too much space. The wind surface of an oval shape fan was smaller, but it was not much different if it was set to the rotation mode. Also, this design does not take up too much space and was also popular with the consumers.

The core technologies were the same for both designs. It was only the exterior that’s different. Shi Feng was relieved. This way, consumers will think that it was YADU that had innovated this new design.

“Manager Feng, have you decided which research direction should we go for our new products?” Shi Feng asked. Tai Hua Trading had introduced this product for so long, and it can’t be that they did not research on a new upgraded product. He wants to ask Feng Yu, and this would save them a lot of time.

Feng Yu asked him back: “Have Manager Shi gone to the south before? What do you think of the weather there?”

“Of course. I have been to the south several times. That’s why we introduced the dehumidifiers. These dehumidifiers are to target the southern region markets. During winter, there is no warm air there, and it was damp and humid. I cannot stand the weather there.”

Feng Yu nodded: “Then have you seen the heaters on the market? It looks like those electric heaters we use in the north.”

“Of course I had seen it before. Many people in the south use them during winter.”

Shi Feng looked at Feng Yu puzzledly. Feng Yu wants to manufacture electric heaters? There were not many technologies involved in those heaters, and anyone can produce it. Even if it was under the Wind and Rain brand, there were not many profits.

“Manager Shi, do you know that air conditioners also have heating functions now? Why can’t our bladeless fans also incorporate warm air into it? We only need to add some heating components to it. This should not be too difficult.”

Shi Feng’s eyes sparkled. That’s right, if the bladeless fan can produce warm air, then the sales will increase further. Consumers can still use these fans during winter and consumers from colder regions will also buy their products!

“Manager Feng is really a genius to come up with this idea. This should not be a problem. YADU is confident to develop this product within a week.”

Feng Yu continued: “The mist of our humidifiers is blowing upwards now. If we can also incorporate the humidifier and bladeless fan together, then we can let the mist blow out together with the air. What do you think?”

Feng Yu had already thought about this. This was the same as his previous life. Combining many functions together in a product. This product would be a multi-functional product, and this would be the direction the home appliances industry should go. One product to solve many problems faced by the consumers.

Feng Yu had wanted to introduce this product next year. He had already controlled the market, and it doesn’t matter when he introduces this multi-functional product. But now, he was facing Antitrust lawsuits, and he decided to launch this new product earlier. YADU can do the R&D for him. This should not be difficult. They just need to minimize the components and combine it into a product.

Combining the humidifier and bladeless fan together as one product? That’s right. Why can’t we combine both? This way, it will increase the efficiency of humidifying the air and more people will buy it!

“Also, we can introduce aluminum fans. This will be more durable and at the same time, look classier. We can also use glass instead of plastic for the conventional humidifiers. By replacing parts of the exterior cover with glass, it will look more beautiful and artistic.”

Although it was not easy to transport glass products, they can just sell it to the local market. Anyway, there were many wealthy people in Beijing. It would be better if they break these fans. Once they were used to the products, they will surely buy a replacement. There were many officials in Beijing, and they can sell to the government agencies. This was also a huge market.

Feng Yu had many creative ideas. Shi Feng was deeply impressed with him. He was thinking in his heart. Luckily YADU had agreed to work with Tai Hua Trading. There was no way YADU could compete with Tai Hua Trading once they introduce these products.

Now, the situation had changed. Exchanging technologies, working together and YADU’s products can also be exported overseas.

If a bladeless fan can be combined with the humidifier, then it can also incorporate dehumidifying and air purifying functions. There were lots of combinations.

“Manager Feng, how should we name these multi-functional products?”

“Super fan!” Feng Yu had already thought of this name.

These combinations will be using the outlook of bladeless fans. That’s why it will still be considered a fan.

With the introduction of the heating humidifiers, the air conditioner industry will be affected. Until after 1994, the air conditioners’ installation charges will start to drop, and China’s electricity supply situation improving, Wind and Rain will introduce air conditioners/

But Feng Yu does not need to do it himself. He can just buy over some air conditioner manufacturer plant, like the currently unknown Gree Electric Appliances Inc., or the presently popular Qiu Lan Inc. He was confident that Wind and Rain Air Conditioners will still be the market leader in China’s air conditioner industry!

Also, Feng Yu can also work with YADU for the air conditioners. He could add lots of other features to his air conditioners. Now, air conditioners with heating functions were very new in the market. There were no brands that had introduced an air conditioner with a dehumidifier function.

In the future years, there will be air conditioners with UV light installed. UV lights will be installed inside the air conditioner to kill bacteria and remove the order.

YADU was a manufacturer of air purifier and had all these related technologies. But now, no one had thought of putting different functions together into a product.

One reason was also the technologies were not matured now. If too many functions were to be put together into a product, the product would be huge.

Feng Yu, Shi Feng, and Fu Guangzheng happily signed the contract, and their strategic alliance started……

Chapter 340 – We did not get an award? We shall organize one ourselves

After class, Feng Yu saw Wu Zhigang waiting for him outside.

“How is it? Do we have a chance to get the award?”

It was not sure when it started. China had all sorts of awards. From National level to City level. There were lots of categories, but the product that won an award can print it on the packaging. This will help the sales for the products. These types of products can even be priced higher. The consumers at this time trusted these awards.

There were lesser award categories in Longjiang, and most of these awards were given to state-owned enterprises. Wind and Rain products did not win anything despite the humidifiers, and bladeless fans were nominated for a technological category.

Feng Yu thought that he could get at least 1 award. His products were all best sellers and were even exported. From Wu Zhigang’s expression, Feng Yu knew that he did not win anything.

Wu Zhigang said angrily: “Manager Feng, we will not win anything. I heard that these awards were for the state-owned enterprises. Our products were nominated was because Mayor Zhang pulled some strings. It was impossible for us to win these awards. The organizers did not take the sales volume, technology or profits into considerations. They only look at the background of the company!”

Feng Yu had forgotten to send the organizers some gifts.

“What are the products that will win the awards?”

Wu Zhigang told Feng Yu about the products that had won. Feng Yu had heard of some of these products. But the majority of these products were unheard of. He was not happy to lose to these unknown products.

“Since they do not want to give us the awards, then let’s do it ourselves. We will organize an award ceremony and present awards to ourselves!”

Huh? We create an award ceremony and give the awards to ourselves? Manager Feng wants to create a fake award for themselves?

Wu Zhigang was shocked: “Manager Feng, do we need to create fake awards for ourselves? Even if our products did not win any awards, we are still doing well both in China and overseas. Will it be risky to do this?”

Feng Yu stared at Wu Zhigang: “Risky? No, no, no. There is no risk at all. You go back to your hotel first. I still have one more class. I will discuss with you at your hotel after my lessons.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many created some committees or associations and gave themselves awards. It was until many years later, these people were exposed.

Many companies were making use of these associations and committees to give awards to themselves and increases their sales.

These people engaged some professors or experts as judges. Some even got government officials to be the judges and will pay the judges for their appearances. Since Feng Yu was to organize an award ceremony, he will also have fixed winners.

Your prize is only a certificate? Our award will be more than certificates. We will give something practical, like promote this award ceremony aggressively and let the consumers know about this. This way, those award-winning products will also be in the limelight.

……

“Zhigang, you go and contact those dealers. Ask them if any impressive products did not win any awards before. We will invite these companies when we organize our own award ceremony.”

“Ah? Manager Feng, will they want to come to the ceremony?”

“If the judges are from the planning committee?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

Planning committee? This was an influential government department. If those companies knew about this, they would be queueing up to be part of this award ceremony. There was no need to invite them

Feng Yu will not want to set up some fake association. If he wants to set up an association, he will create a real association!

Master Lu can get officials to be the judges for this award ceremony. He has lots of connections with the planning committee. This association can also be registered under some planning committee. This was an easy task.

Wu Zhigang had an incredible look: “Planning committee? You are saying that our awards will be presented by the planning committee? Didn’t you say this award will be organized by ourselves?”

“We will just use their name as a front. We can just donate some money to them, and they will agree. You don’t need to worry about this. Now the most important thing is to get some state-owned enterprises to participate. We have to make this award as grand as possible. We must also invite some prominent brands to join. I want this award ceremony to be the most prestigious industrial award in China!”

……

“Master Lu, I’m Feng Yu. Are you in Beijing? I have some problems, and I need your help.”

“Brother Feng, your problem is my problem. Tell me what happened?” Master Lu agreed to help readily. The last time he helped Feng Yu, and he got high returns. He knew that Feng Yu could easily take out 1 billion RMB for investment, he treated Feng Yu even better.

“Master Lu, I want to organize an awards ceremony for the business world…… Can you help me register this association under some planning committee? Just tell me how much it will cost. I will transfer the money over!”

Master Lu was surprised. Many people went to him for help, like getting approvals, government subsidies or awards. But this was the first time someone wanted him to help to organize an award ceremony/

What was Feng Yu planning? He…… want to give himself awards?

This was quite a difficult task, but it was not impossible. The most important thing was Feng Yu was willing to spend money. With money, all problems can be solved.

It was not that Master Lu wanted Feng Yu’s money. It was the planning committee that needs money. If the planning committee received some sponsorships, they would be willing to be the organizers. After all, the planning committee at this time was in charge of lots of things.

“This should not be a problem. Let me ask how much is needed, and we can discuss the details later. Is this urgent?”

“A little. If possible, settle this before the year ends and we can have the award ceremony on New Year Eve!”

Master Lu does not understand why Feng Yu wanted the award presentation on New Year Eve. Maybe he wanted to make use of the holiday. Although it was a bit rush, there should be sufficient time. Master Lu agreed and asked Feng Yu to wait for his news.

……

“Director Hou, I’m Feng Yu. You don’t recognize my voice? Are you busy? How’s your research on the engines?”

“Hahaha, Manager Feng. The research is going well. It is all because of your help. Next year, we will complete this research, and we will upgrade all our existing technologies and produce one of the best helicopters in the world!” Hou Haitao was in a good mood. The technologies Feng Yu got for him were a complete set. They could easily digest it and used it to improve their existing technologies. Now, the Aviation Factory was the number one helicopter manufacturer in China.

“Director Hou, our Bing City Aviation Factory had made sure a great contribution to the nation, what award did the higher ups give you?” Feng Yu purposely asked.

“Award? What awards can we get? We had just understood those technologies you gave us and just produce a new prototype. Even if we are able to mass produce this model, the higher-ups will just praise us. That’s enough for us.”

“Sigh…… Director Hou, you have made such a great contribution to our nation. How can the higher up just praise you and your factory? I heard that the planning committee will be organizing a National level award ceremony to present awards to the factories, companies, organizations, that had made great contributions to the nation. Did you receive the invitation? No? I will help you ask around. They must at least give our Bing City Aviation Factory an award for all your hard work. Don’t worry about this. Just leave this to me!”

After hanging up the phone, Hou Haitao was in a daze.

What leave it to you? What is this award? Did I agree to participate? Why is the Feng Yu so enthusiastic to help me today?

Chapter 341 – The awards ceremony will be a gala dinner?

Feng Yu made a few phone calls to the companies he was familiar with. He told them about this award. He also told Lehaha about this, even though Lehaha was manufacturing health supplement products. Health supplements were also contributing to the nation. Children are the future of the nation. This was a company that he had a stake in. How can he not present this company an award? This can be called Children Contribution award.

Wu Zhigang had also contacted the dealers of every province. In their region, there were many companies with outstanding products. However, these companies were still unknown.

Feng Yu asked Wu Zhigang to ask the dealers to check with those companies if they were interested in taking part in this award ceremony organized by the planning committee.

The dealers were shocked. This was a national level award ceremony, and these companies were invited?

Invite? Of course not. This was only informing them that there was this award. If these companies wanted to participate, they have to find their own ways. The organizers were the planning committee, and the details were not announced yet. This was to let those companies know about it.

Wu Zhigang was puzzled. Manager Feng had said to invite more people to take part, and now, he does not want to tell those companies the details?

Feng Yu patted Wu Zhigang’s back: “If we just invite them, they might not attend. But if they are aware of this award and it is organized by the Planning committee, they will find ways to take part in this awards ceremony. We do not even need to invite them. you can go and figure out yourself why they will react this way.”

Feng Yu had already invited some big companies and enterprises. He does not need so many companies. He wanted these companies to compete among themselves and create awareness for this award.

Wu Zhigang nodded and went to the side and think about the reasons why. Feng Yu like Wu Zhigang willingness to learn and analyze his instructions. He had left Tai Hua Trading with Wu Zhigang to manage for him. He had managed Tai Hua Trading very well in his absence.

Wu Zhigang can be considered groomed by Feng Yu. In the future, he will be one of the higher management of the enterprises owned by Feng Yu. However, it will still depend on Wu Zhigang performance.

Just inviting those people for a prize presentation would be boring. A bigger conference would be sufficient.

Feng Yu still wanted to see if there were any future successful businessmen among the participants. Even if there aren’t any future successful businessmen present, he could also get to know these people. Maybe there might be some profit opportunities.

……

“Huh? Manager Feng, you want to organize a gala dinner? You still want to invite celebrities?”

Wu Zhigang had seen the Motor Factory organizing these types of dinners before. He was considered a worker for the Motor Factory in the past and had attended these dinners previously. But most of the performances during the dinner were done by the workers of the factory. Once in a while, they would invite a dance troupe to perform. Now Manager Feng still want to invite celebrities to perform?

The celebrities at this time charge a lot. A performance would cost from a few thousand to tens of thousands RMB! Manager Feng still wanted all the performances to be performed by celebrities and singer. This would cost a lot.

“That’s right. Our ceremony will be like a gala dinner. One performance for every category. This would be the minimum! Just invite all those popular celebrities, like Zhi Simao, Baldy Chen, Liu Daqing, etc.”

“Manager Feng, if you want to make it into a gala dinner, then you need a big venue. Where can we find such a venue?”

“CCTV. The annual spring festival gala dinner’s venue is big enough!” Feng Yu waved his hand. The venue at CCTV now was not as big as the future years. But it could still house at least 1000 people. The companies he invited can also bring some of their workers to attend. This way, there would be enough audiences at the stands.

At the front, there can be tables and the representatives of the companies will be seated there. They would be able to show their faces and could quickly go up the stage to collect their award. They would also be able to interact with each other.

Feng Yu was getting excited as he imagined. The host of this ceremony can be from CCTV. Jiang Shen, Zhao Zhongxiang, Ni Ping, etc. They have the experience of hosting such events. That’s right. We can also work with CCTV to get some of their celebrities to perform. If CCTV were to have a live broadcast or even a delayed broadcast, it would be a win-win situation for both.

CCTV would have a successful gala dinner, and audiences love gala dinners. The most important thing was that CCTV does not need to spend a single cent. Feng Yu would be sponsoring everything.

It was until 1998, CCTV has the New Year Eve gala dinner. Now, were no special programs on TV for New Year Eve.

This award presentation ceremony can be made like a gala dinner and would be shown to everyone in China. CCTV should not reject his idea. No matter what, Feng Yu must make CCTV agree to this!

“Manager Feng, you want to host this ceremony at CCTV?” Wu Zhigang thought that he was hallucinating and had misheard. Has Manager Feng gone mad?

We are just trying to give ourselves an award, and we are going to host this ceremony at CCTV? CCTV is the national TV station!

“You must think big and then work hard towards your goal. This way, you can be successful. Now, what we need to do is to contact all those celebrities to perform for us. If we are hosting at CCTV, then we might not need to spend too much! ‘Nothing is impossible, Just Do It!’”

Feng Yu spurt out some English words which Wu Zhigang does not understand.

“Manager Feng…… What’s your budget for this event?”

“How much do you think is enough?” Feng Yu asked him back.

“If we are not paying for their travel expenses and lodging, and those celebrities lowered their fees, we should need about 1 million RMB. We need to spend a lot to set up the stage.” Wu Zhigang felt that this was a waste of money. 1 million RMB was equivalent to a few commercials. Commercials can still boast their sales.

Wu Zhigang had thought that this would be a small event and would not cost much. However, Feng Yu wanted a gala dinner for this ceremony and still want to make it so grand!

“1 million RMB? It is not efficient. Just sponsoring this ceremony will cost more than 5 million RMB. This ceremony must be grander than the Lunar New Eve’s Spring Festive Gala! You still need to spend some money on publicity. That would cost at least a few million more. The budget would be set at 10 million RMB now. If it is not enough, let me know.”

Feng Yu stared at Wu Zhigang. This Wu Zhigang was too stingy. What can you do with 1 million?

In the future years, those gala programs need at least a few hundred million. Those provincial TV stations were still making money. Countless companies wanted to sponsor these programs. The ratings for these gala programs and the repeat telecast were the highest. The audience can also view it over the internet. This was the chance to let those companies showcase they brands.

Now, other than the Lunar New Year Eve’s Spring Festival Gala night, CCTV does not have any other similar programs. Feng Yu was sure that his award ceremony gala dinner will be a success and it will even be broadcast several times. If he were able to do product placement in this ceremony, it would be like advertising several times. The effects of this product placement would be better than TV commercials!

10 million RMB? Not enough let him know?

Wu Zhigang felt his legs go soft. How grand does Manager Feng want this ceremony to be? Even the Spring Festival Gala night also does not cost so much.

Looking at Feng Yu’s sparkling eyes, Wu Zhigang felt that Feng Yu was possessed. Even if you have the money, you should not be spending this way……

Chapter 342 – Convincing CCTV

“Oh, it’s Manager Feng. Why are you here so early? The bidding for advertisement slots is next month.” Deputy Station Chief Jia saw Feng Yu and shook his hands.

If it weren’t for Feng Yu, their advertisement fees would not increase so fast. During last year’s advertising slots bidding, Feng Yu had renewed his contracts without hesitations and even bought many more slots. If Feng Yu did not choose to renew his contracts, CCTV would be gone.

Chief Jia had heard from his secretary that Manager Feng had come to CCTV and he immediately postponed all his meetings for Feng Yu. He wants to ask Feng Yu how much he was willing to spend on next year’s advertisement slots.

“Chief Jia, I am not here to talk about the advertising slots. I am organizing a gala dinner, and I want to work with CCTV!”

The smile on Chief Jia’s face froze. What was Feng Yu talking about? Want to work with CCTV to organize a gala dinner?

Does Feng Yu not know CCTV is the national TV station? How can a government agency work with a private company? This Feng Yu was getting more and more arrogant. Did he think that he was CCTV biggest client and he can do what he wants?

Chief Jia’s smile disappeared: “Manager Feng, did I hear wrongly? You want CCTV to work with you to organize a gala dinner? This joke is not funny!”

Feng Yu was feeling helpless. He knew that these people were too conservative. He should at least hear him out before rejecting him.

“Deputy Chief Jia, listen to me first. This gala dinner is an award presentation ceremony. The organizer of this event is the Planning Committee. National Planning Committee!”

Huh? National Planning committee award presentation ceremony? How come I had not heard of this before? Even if it is real, what has it got to do with you?

Feng Yu patted his chest: “You should also know that the Planning Committee does not have the money to host a gala dinner and CCTV will never spend on this. I am the humble sponsor of this ceremony!”

“You. Tai Hua Trading is sponsoring a grand gala dinner?” Deputy Chief Jia asked.

A grand gala dinner was not a small event that cost peanuts. You don’t know anything, and you want to sponsor? The expenses for this gala dinner might be more than all of your advertising fees! What an arrogant young brat!

“Oh, Manager Feng is going to sponsor this event. Then do you know how much these types of event cost? Even if we exclude the lightings, props, equipment, actors’ fees, costumes, etc., it will cost at least 2 to 3 million RMB. How much are you going to sponsor?” Deputy Chief Jia sneered and slowly pick up his teacup to take a sip.

“2 to 3 million RMB is enough? I had prepared 5 million!” Feng Yu said with a surprised look.

“Cough…… What did you say? How much did you set aside?” Deputy Chief Jia was choked by his tea.

“5 million RMB. That’s great. Since it does not cost so much, I will call my office and tell them to save the money.”

“No, no, no. It will cost that much!” Deputy Chief Jia shouted.

5 million. This was 5 million RMB! This gala dinner will be the grandest gala dinner. They can use the best materials for the stage, props, performing costumes, makeup. Etc. Even so, they might not cost 5 million RMB!

After shouting, Deputy Chief Jia regretted. He was only thinking about 5 million and forgotten that this would mean he agreed to host this event.

“That’s great. Deputy Chief Jia, then can we talk about the setup for the stage?” Feng Yu said. He does not want to let Chief Jia have the chance to regret.

“Manager Feng, we still need the higher-ups’ approval for this gala dinner. We cannot just host it like this.” Deputy Chief Jia wanted the money, but he dared not agree. At least he needs the approval from the TV station chief. When he said this, he was feeling embarrassed.

“Why do you still need approval? This gala dinner is on New Year Eve. CCTV only have a Spring Gala night once a year and your audiences do not have any special programs. Isn’t New year day our holidays?”

“No! New Year’s Day is not our traditional holiday!” Deputy Chief Jia said firmly. New Year’s Day was only the first day of the calendar. Chinese should go by the Lunar Calendar.

Feng Yu: “……”

“Is New Year’s Day an important holiday for our country?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes.” Deputy Chief Jia nodded. This was a public holiday everywhere. China had also declared 1st January as a public holiday.

“I remember CCTV have a hotline? You can tell your higher-ups that this was the request from your viewers. They want to watch a New Year’s Day Gala event. Your leaders will approve. This was the request by the viewers of the whole of China! They will give in and let you host it!” Feng Yu said. This Deputy Chief Jia does not even know how to persuade the higher-ups. Useless! It’s only a gala dinner. Why would the higher-ups not agree?

Deputy Chief Jia’s jaws dropped: “Request from the public? Can this really do?”

“I am sure! When you report to your leaders, you must emphasize that this is the request by your audiences and also the Planning Committee. This is not only a Gala night. It is also an award presentation ceremony. This most important thing is that CCTV does not need to spend a single cent. CCTV can even profit from this. At the same time, CCTV can train your staff to host major event programs. This way, Spring Gala night will be better!”

Deputy Chief Jia looked at Feng Yu. This Feng Yu was really persuasive.

But what Feng Yu said was really true. There were already complaints that there was a lack of special programs. CCTV also wanted to make special programs, but they do not have the funds.

Now, someone was sponsoring, and the organizer was a prestigious government agency. The most important thing was that CCTV could also profit from it. The higher-ups might give the approval.

Deputy Chief Jia thought about this and felt that this was also a good idea!

“But we do not have enough time to prepare for this show. We will not have any good performances.: Deputy Chief Jia mumbled. He was considering the possibilities of hosting this event.

“What’s so difficult? Get 2 crosstalk performers, get a few actors and actresses from the drama department for some sketches. If you do not have any singers, I can invite some singers from Hong Kong, or get Mr. Li to get his choir to perform. As long as their performance is not the same as the Spring Night Gala, it should not be a problem. You can leave the performers and the performance to me. This program duration would not be as long as the Spring Night Gala. 2 hours should be sufficient. There will be an awards presentation, and ten performances should be enough.”

Deputy Chief Jia did not expect Feng Yu to even consider the details.

He must report this to the Station Chief immediately!

Chapter 343 – Formation of the Judging panel

Deputy Chief Jia reported to the Station Chief. He emphasized that this award ceremony was not only organized by the planning committee and also it was a special New Year Day’s program. If the response is good, they can host it every year since they don’t need to spend and still get profits.

How to get profits? The rental of the venue, their workers’ salaries, etc. CCTV does not need to worry about the performers. Feng Yu had promised to hire celebrities to perform.

CCTV had also considered inviting celebrities to perform during the Spring Festival Gala Night, but they do not have the budget. They can only afford the expenses of the celebrities for a day. This includes train tickets, a packed lunch, and lodging for a night. Many stars were not willing to perform for the Spring Festival Gala Night as they still need to rush home to celebrate Lunar New Year.

This was very different from the future years. In the future, celebrities were even willing to pay to perform.

If a celebrity got to perform at the Spring Festival Gala Night, their net worth would increase by at least 10 times! There was once a second rated singer whose appearance fees was about 30,000 RMB. But after performing at the Spring Festival Gala Night, his appearance fees increased to over 1 million RMB. He had more jobs than he can take on!

The Station Chief thought for a long time: “Old Jia, can this really work?”

“Chief, at least our audiences are on our side. If the higher-ups want to talk about regulations, they would also not go against all the viewers, the whole nation. I think we can try. Furthermore, we can use the planning committee as a shield.”

If this special program were a success, then Deputy Chief Jia would get the credit, and he would be next in line to take over the position of the Station Chief.

But if this does not work out, they can just treat it as an ordinary awards presentation. Anyway, it will be recorded.

“Fine. We will have a meeting with the rest to discuss this. Who did you say is the sponsor? That Tai Hua Trading’s Feng Yu? That young boy who sells humidifiers?”

“Yes. He does not only sell humidifiers. The bladeless fans, Songjiang Motorcycles, and the popular AIWA Walkman are all his. This kid is competent.”

……

Beep, beep…..

Feng Yu took a look at his pager and went to look for a phone booth to return the call: “Is this Section Chief Cheng? I am Feng Yu.”

“Manager Feng, I have good news for you. The TV station leaders agreed to help the planning committee to host the Gala dinner. There is no need for official documents, but it would be best if someone from the planning committee can come over for a meeting. This will prevent any miscommunications.”

“Fine. Thank you. I will let them know.”

After hanging up the phone, Feng Yu waved his fist in triumph. Now he got to settle the planning committee side. He needs to hurry Master Lu. He had to get the Planning Committee to agree if not, the CCTV would be offended.

……

“Master Lu, how is it going?” Feng Yu asked.

“It’s settled. The Development Planning Committee will be the main organizer of this event, the rest of the planning committees will be listed as co-organizers. Also, the industrial department will also be joining in. They will be the judge’s panel. You mentioned that you will be sponsoring all their expenses, am I right?”

“That’s right. The office rental, wages, operation costs, etc. will all be on me! But can I get a place in this committee?” Feng Yu asked.

Want a place in the committee? Master Lu was troubled. If Feng Yu is 40 or 50 years’ old, or even 30 years’ old, it would not be a problem to be on this organizing committee. But Feng Yu was less than 20 years’ old and what would the rest of the members think? They had worked for decades to reach this position, and a young brat is on par with them?

“Brother Feng, this is a bit difficult. Why not you nominate someone else. You are too young.”

Feng Yu: “……” Age discrimination again!

“Fine. I will consider. Oh, how many committee members can I nominate?”

“There will be 7 members on this judging panel. This planning committee and the industrial department will be taking 4 seats for now. The remaining 3 seats can be your people. But you don’t need to worry. Just let me know the companies you wanted to win the awards. I will make arrangements. There should not be any problems.”

3 organizing committee members and still need to be old and have status. Then Hou Haitao, Li Mingde, and Li Shiyou should fit the bill. Feng Yu was confident that these 3 people will help him fix all the winners. He does not want to let others win any awards in this ceremony.

Master Lu had said that the Government side was holding 4 seats for now. That means they might want lesser places. Must find a way to make them give up 2 of their seats.

“Master Lu, what is the name of this awards? What are the categories and how many of these awards are for group and individuals?” This was what Feng Yu was most worried about. If in the end, there were only 1 or 2 awards, then Feng Yu would have wasted his efforts.

Master Lu replied in proud tone: “The committee and awards categories were not decided yet. You can decide the number of awards and categories. The committee will decide the winners. You think about it and let me know. This is the first time we are organizing this award ceremony. Don’t create too many categories.”

Feng Yu also know about this. If he created a few dozen awards, then this award would be worthless. He planned to have about 5 or 6 group awards, and 5 or 6 individual awards. He wants at least half of the winners to be the ones he appointed!

What fair and open? I am spending money, and I will decide the winners!

The organizing committee must use “China” or “National” in its title. This way, it will sound more prestigious.

……

3 days later, Feng Yu had found the office for the organizing committee. It was near the National Planning Committee building. The office was about 100 sqm. But no one would be working in this office. Most of the time this office would be vacant.

The leaders from the Planning Committee were just using their names in this association. They do not care about the running of this association. Their jobs were to be the judges and announce the winners. Feng Yu would be the one that arranges everything, including the winners.

A new graduate was sent by the Planning Committee to be stationed in this office. He was unhappy with this assignment. Feng Yu was laughing in his heart. In the future years, many government officials wanted to be posted to these types of offices. They would get the chance to meet many people and get to accumulate experiences. The most important thing was…… the benefits!

“Master Lu.”

Master Lu nodded: “This is Mr. Feng. He is also the organizer of this ceremony. Later he will tell you the titles of the committee members and also the award categories. You prepare a report for the leaders.”

Master Lu was not from the Planning Committee, but everyone from the Planning Committee knows him. He was ordering this new staff as if he was his staff.

“This association will be named as “China Business Contribution Judging Panel”. There will be a few award categories and each category will have group winners and individual winners……”

Chapter 344 – Dad, you want to show your face on CCTV?

The association was set up. Feng Yu had also decided that Tai Hua Trading will win some innovative awards for his bladeless fans and humidifiers. He still thought what awards should be given to the Motor Factory, Aviation Factory, and the Machinery Company.

The Machinery Company’s agriculture machines were the most advanced in China. Feng Yu decided to set up a category that suits this industry.

What about the Motor Factory and the Aviation Factory?

Feng Yu had discussed with Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao. Some of the things their factories produced were confidential. Even though they had made some breakthrough with their technologies, they were not allowed to disclose to the public. For instance, the helicopter technologies developed by the Aviation Factory were confidential and cannot be disclosed.

When the both of them heard that CCTV will be broadcasting this event and it was organized by the Planning Committee and the Industrial department, they agreed that they will pass Feng Yu some technologies that were allowed to disclose. These technologies were the most advanced in China too.

Feng Yu had also discussed with Lehaha. However, it was not possible to set up a category for the health supplement industry. He can only allocate Lehaha to the beverage category. In this category, Lehaha cannot compete with Jianlibao. Jianlibao was the market leader at that time, and the rest of the companies in this category were only to make up the numbers.

But Feng Yu will give Zhong Qingxian a chance to appear on TV. This will be a recorded program and will be broadcast on TV. But the whole nation will still be watching this program. This was also a chance to market their products.

Wind and Rain Logistics will also not be winning any awards. They were not even qualified to be nominated. If Feng Yu were to let Wind and Rain Logistics qualified or win an award, it would show everybody that this award ceremony was fixed! Although the winners for this award ceremony were set, the winners and the nominated companies must still achieve some result.

Wind and Rain Logistics’ scale was still too small. Despite expanding to Beijing, their fleet and capacity were limiting their growth.

When the Machinery Company starts to their heavy vehicles production, Feng Yu will convince his brother-in-law to procure a bigger fleet of vehicles and expand his operations.

The logistics industry now was not well developed. It was hard to arrange train carriages, and there were not many long-distance trucks. However, this was the best opportunity to capture the market.

In a few more years, there will be a lot of small logistic companies popping up. At that time, companies can only cooperate with each other, and this was not good for their branding and service standards.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that Wind and Rain Logistic cannot be qualified, but his father’s company can. His animal feeds were the best seller in China, and Tian Peng Pig farm was well known in the northeast region. It can be considered the number one Pork brand in China. Furthermore, Tian Peng Pig Farm was the first modernized pig farm in China.

Even if his father cannot win any awards, he can still be one of the nominees.

Feng Yu immediately call home to ask his father. He knows that his father would be glad to know about this.

“Hello? Mum? Where is dad? I need to talk to him!”

“Old Feng, Old Feng. Come over and stop smoking. It’s Feng Yu’s call!” Zhang Muhua shouted.

“Hello. Son, how’s university? Are you able to cope? How’s the food there?” Feng Xingtai asked Feng Yu about his life in Beijing.

“Dad, don’t worry about me. I am good with my studies, and all my teachers and professors kept praising me. The food here is still edible.”

“That’s good to hear.” Feng Xingtai was also not worried about his son. He knew that his son was a spendthrift and will spend a lot to have an extravagant lifestyle. But he still wants to ask him out of concern.

“Dad, I need to discuss something with you. Do you want to appear on CCTV?”

“Huh? CCTV?” Feng Xingtai was surprised. Appear on CCTV?

“The National Planning Committee had set up an association to judge the performance of China’s companies. Those companies or individuals that had made contributions to China will be presented an award. There will be an award ceremony gala dinner on New Year’s Eve, and the winners will be going on stage to receive the award!”

“You are telling me that I will be getting an award in front of the whole nation’s viewers?” Feng Xingtai could not hold back his excitement.

“……” Feng Yu helplessly said: “Dad, listen to me first. This award is a national award for those companies and individuals that had made significant contributions to the nation. Your small company has only, so few workers and the production is too low. You think you can win the award?”

Feng Xingtai lost interest immediately: “Then why are you asking me?”

“Dad, even though you cannot win the award, but you can still qualify as one of the nominees. Your face will still be shown on TV. The whole nation can still see you. Are you interested?” Feng Yu was not interested in being on TV, but he knew that his father wished to be on TV badly.

“What is a nominee? Doesn’t that mean that I have a chance of winning the award? Who will be presenting the award? Is it our Nation’s top leaders?” Feng Xingtai asked.

“Dad…… The winners had all been decided by the judging panel, and your son can only let you be one of the nominees. You will not be winning any awards but trust me, at the rate your company is growing, you will win an award within 3 years!”

“Ah…… Need 3 years?” Feng Xingtai was disappointed.

Feng Yu was feeling speechless. You think 3 years is too long? Most companies and individuals can never even qualify for a National level award in their lifetime. Furthermore, this ceremony was organized by the National Planning Committee and Industry Department. If the Agricultural Department was involved, then Feng Yu can set up an Agricultural category.

“Dad, stop being picky. This is a national level award. It will be an honor to be able to even qualify. You and Mom can come over a few days earlier before the event. I will help the both of you to dress up. I will make sure the both of you will look good on TV! Also, let Professor Su know about this. If he is interested, he can attend with his wife.”

Professor Su was now the expert in modernized pig rearing. He had help Tian Peng Pig Farm for free, and Feng Yu should invite him to this event. Of course, Tian Peng Pig Farm had let Professor Su and his students set up their research facility there to do their researches.

At first, Feng Xingtai was not entirely happy with this arrangement. But Feng Yu had explained to his father what a research facility was. If their pigs had any illness, they could let Professor Su treat them for free. Professor Su and his students will also guide the maintained of their farm. In return, Professor Su will conduct his lessons at their farm. Their staff can also attend his lessons.

This was also good publicity for their farm.

Providing internships for Professor Su’s students was also a good thing. Feng Xingtai only needs to provide food and lodging for them, and he will have free labors. Those interns that performed well will be recruited after they graduated.

After Feng Yu’s explanation, Feng Xingtai treated Professor Su even better. He decided to give in to all of Professor Su’s demands and see if he will assign more interns to Tian Peng Pig Farm. He still lacked manpower at his farm in Shenyang.

“Okay. I will ask Professor Su. I will call you again before we leave for Beijing. Son, I really have no chance to win any awards?” Feng Xingtai asked again.

Feng Yu: “……” Dad, although this award ceremony is created by your son, I can’t make it too obvious! Please stop thinking about winning the awards.

Chapter 345 – Getting the Performers

“Manager Feng, it’s been a while. Are you looking for me to shoot a new commercial?” Zhu Simao shook Feng Yu’s hand enthusiastically.

Although Zhu Simao prefers artistic films, he was not a stubborn person. His contract with Feng Yu was a long-term contract, and every time he shoots a commercial for Feng Yu, he would receive a red packet and star treatments. Many people had told him that he was missing out on this contract, but he does not mind.

Feng Yu was willing to pay!

Zhu Simao had transferred from August First Film Studios to China Broadcasting Performing Arts Troupe. He also planned to further his studies abroad. He had asked Tai Hua Trading if there were plans to shoot a new commercial, as he only has time during the winter.

“New commercial? Not so early. The current commercial can last for a few months. Next Summer, we will shoot the new commercial. We will shoot the new commercial in the southern mountains. I am here for another matter. Have you prepared for your skit on Spring Gala Night?”

“It’s ready. We have started the rehearsals. Why?” Zhu Simao looked at Feng Yu. Why was Feng Yu so concern about his skit for the Spring Gala Night?

“Oh, it’s like this. CCTV will be hosting a Gala dinner on New Year’s Eve. I want to invite you and Baldy Chen to perform a skit. The theme is about contributing to China’s economy. Are you able to prepare a good script?”

New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner? Zhu Simao was wondering when did CCTV have a special program for New Year’s Eve? Just the Spring Night Gala had used up most of CCTV’s resources. How can they still manage a New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner?

Furthermore, does CCTV have the funds to host two major events within a short time? This was not a small sum. The stage for both events cannot be the same. It would be hard for CCTV to arrange for the performers too. How can they cope?

“Manager Feng, how come I have not heard of this New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner?” Zhu Simao was now one of China’s artiste and will receive invitations to perform on Spring Gala Night with Baldy Chen. He had a good relationship with CCTV, but he was not aware of this event.

Feng Yu briefly explained this New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner.

“Awards presentation ceremony Gala night? Why do you need so many programs for an awards ceremony? You are still inviting celebrities from Hong Kong and Taiwan? Their appearance fees are costly.”

“Don’t worry about that. They will be getting the same fees as our local artistes. I promised that they will not be paid more than our performers! Of course, this event is different from Spring Gala Night. Every program will get a red packet, and I guarantee that there will be at least a 5-figure amount in the red packet. This is to thank the hard work of the performers.”

5-figure amount. This was considered a lot. But for Zhu Simao, this was not a lot. After leaving August First Film Studios, he can accept other jobs and his fees was quite high. However, those jobs were for those nightclubs, etc. and he seldom accepts it.

He had even rejected jobs that will pay him more than 500,000 RMB. He felt that endorsing those products would affect his image. He was not short of money.

“Ok. Other than the theme of contributing to China’s economy, is there any more requirements?”

Feng Yu thought for a while: “Can your performance be related to the Machinery Company? About our Songjiang Motorcycle factory. After your performance, Direct Li will be going on stage to receive an award.”

“No problems. I will come up with the script this week, and we can start the rehearsals next week.”

“Ok. Then I will leave it with you. When you are studying aboard, and you need help, you can call me. Maybe I can help you with my overseas connections.”

………

“Mr. Wang, you should know how hard it was for this chance to come by. You should know Fei Xiang. After he had performed at CCTV Spring Gala Night, he was well known throughout China. I know her songs are very popular, and her albums are selling well. But how many albums did she sell in China? In China, many people listened to her songs, but how many recognized her? CCTV will be the best platform for her to show her face in China. This platform can be considered the biggest platform in the whole world. There will be a few hundred million viewers watching this program……”

Fu Guangzheng had followed Feng Yu’s script to speak to the boss of a Hong Kong’s Records Company. He wants to get his approval to let Chyi Yu perform in Beijing New Year’s Eve Gala dinner. She can sing two songs, one old and one new. But other than sponsoring her air tickets and expenses, there were no appearance fees!

The Records Company boss did not agree. Chyi Yu was one of the top singers at that time and charges more than 5-figure for one song. How can she just get sponsors for transportation and expenses only?

But the boss was also tempted by what Fu Guangzheng said. China was a vast market. He had always wanted to enter this market but failed. If his artistes can perform at CCTV like Fei Xiang, then maybe he can have a concert in China. Concerts can bring in lots of money!

In the end, Fu Guangzheng sponsored Chyi Yu, and an assistant’s expenses and the Records Company agreed! At the same time, Fu Guangzheng also bought the music rights from this record company.

Fu Guangzheng had also managed to invite Aaron Kwok. Aaron Kwok had just released his second album, and his popularity was soaring. But in China, he was the same as a lot of other Hong Kong’s singers. Their songs were popular, but no one knows about him. His albums were selling well, but the record company did not make any money. Those albums were all counterfeits!

It was the same conditions. The example used by Fu Guangzheng was Cheung Ming-man. Cheung Ming-man’s songs and dances cannot be compared to Aaron Kwok. But Cheung Ming-man’s fans in China was more than ten times than Aaron Kwok! This was because Cheung Ming-man had performed on China’s Spring Festival Gala Night. He had lots of fans in China and has played more than a hundred concerts there. This was an unbeatable record!

When Aaron Kwok’s company heard that Taiwanese Chyi Yu would also be performing, they agreed. Chyi Yu was more popular than Aaron Kwok at that time. Fu Guangzheng also wanted to buy the rights of most of their songs.

Actually, Feng Yu wanted to invite Theresa Teng from Taiwan. But Theresa Teng was not feeling well and seldom perform outside of Taiwan. In the end, Feng Yu can only ask the singer of <The Olive Tree>, Chyi Yu.

Hong Kong’s Leslie Cheng and Samuel Hui had announced their retirement, and Feng Yu was not able to invite them.

Feng Yu had spent a lot of time to pick the performers. He had to consider their public image and their songs. Although China had started to open up, the performers cannot sing love songs at the Awards Ceremony. Feng Yu could not invite a lot of his favorite singers.

Feng Yu also invite some songs and dance artistes, acrobatics, magic, cross-talks, etc. from China performing troupes. There was a total of 12 performances, one for each award category.

Those local artistes agreed immediately when they heard that it was CCTV’s program. To them, it was an honor to receive an invitation to perform at CCTV!

Within a week, Feng Yu had settled all the performers. Although the cost was high, compared to the market value of those performers, this was nothing. If it were Feng Yu’s previous life, all these performers would cost at least a few million RMB. Now, Feng Yu had spent less than 1,000 RMB for each program!

Feng Yu received the run-down and frowned. This program was too dull.

Chapter 346 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 1)

“Director Xu, I think there are some problems with this program list.” Feng Yu went to look for the Chief Program Director of New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner, Xu Yipeng.

Xu Yipeng heard what Feng Yu said, and his face turned black: “Manager Feng, what do you mean? What’s wrong with this program list? All the performers are invited by you, and you are the one who planned their performances. I am just following what you wanted. What else do you want?”

Xu Yipeng was furious. He was a Chief Program Director, but the higher-ups had let Feng Yu invite all the performers and plan their performances. Now this Feng Yu came to him and tell him that there are problems with the program list. You are the one who designed these performances, why are you saying that there is a problem with this list?

He was the Chief Program Director for the Gala Dinner and the Spring festival Gala Night. He was furious for letting a young brat telling him what to do. If Feng Yu were not the sponsor for this program and also the representative of the association, he would have chased him away!

“Director Xu, I had invited these celebrities and also planned their performances. But your order is not right. For instance, this song <I Believe> should be the opening performance. Then Bing City’s Aviation Factory will be getting their award. This <Flying Red Flag> should be the fourth performance and followed by Bing City’s Machinery Company getting its award. These performances were selected carefully for each award category. You had mixed up the order.” Feng Yu pointed to the program list and said.

Because of the theme, Feng Yu had “wrote” two songs, and invited a new singer Sun Nan to perform.

<Flying Red Flag> was the song that would let Sun Nan become famous. But now, this song was not written. Sun Nan had become China’s top male Singer with this song. In the future, he will sing the song <Saviour>, and he will become well known throughout Asia.

But now, Feng Yu had found Sun Nan and let him participate in this program. He even wrote two songs for him, and Sun Nan agreed readily.

He can perform on CCTV special program?

In this era, anyone that performed on a Gala Night will become famous throughout China. This was a representation of the performer’s status.

Those singers that got the chance to perform at Spring Festival Gala Night were all professional singers. They were the pillar of their companies and troupes. They received star treatments. The rest of the singers could not make any money. Most of their songs might be popular, but no one knows them. If they get the chance to perform on Gala Night, their lives would be different.

Although this was not the Spring Festival Gala Night, it was still the New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner. Sun Nan also knew that some of China’s top singers, dancers, Zhu Simao, and Baldy Chen duo, magicians and cross talkers would be performing. There were even singers from Hong Kong and Taiwan. He was only a newbie in this industry. How could he refuse this offer?

However. Sun Nan was worried that he does not have any good songs to perform. But when he heard a demo of the songs written by Feng Yu, he was overjoyed.

These two songs were great! The pitches of these songs were high and suit his voice perfectly. The lyrics were perfect too!

Feng Yu had written these two songs to promote Bing City Aviation Factory and Motor Factory. He could only find Sun Nan to sing these songs. This director Xu had mixed up the order of the performance and had wasted all his efforts.

The Motor Factory to fly like a flag? They will come falling down!

“You think you know more than me? Have you directed any gala nights before? You know how many times I had directed the Spring Festival Gala Night? If you think you are better than me, then go and tell the leaders to replace me!” Xu Yipeng roared at Feng Yu.

This young brat needs to be taught a lesson. He was too arrogant! Does he think that he was wealthy and he can do whatever he wants?

In CCTV and even in the whole of China, Xu Yipeng was one of the best program directors for big events. He was the one that directs all songs and dances performance during Spring Festival Gala Night. Now someone was telling him that his order of the performance was wrong? What a joke!

What’s wrong with this order?

Feng Yu looked at Xu Yipeng. He had directed the Spring Festival Gala Night? This program now cannot even be compared to the gala nights produced by the provincial TV stations 20 years later. The order of the performances was wrong, and the camera angles and switching order had problems too. These were all not in-line with the themes and why was this director still so proud?

If it wasn’t Feng Yu cannot be the director, he really wanted to replace this director. But Feng Yu was not representing the association, and he cannot order CCTV around. He can only try to persuade this director.

“Director Xu, you misunderstood me. I really like the shows you directed. Someone else should have done this program list. I had only planned the performance for the celebrities, and I do not know the details. However, the lyrics for this song <I Believe> goes like this. Fly to the sky, shoulders to shoulders with the sun. this was specially written for Bing City’s Aviation Factory……”

Feng Yu explained his idea of a performance catered for every award category winner.

Xu Yipeng listened to Feng Yu, and he also has many ideas. He felt that Feng Yu was quite creative. All the performances were related to the awards. This was a good idea.

But something was not right about this. If every program was related to the winners, then the audience will know who the winners were. What’s the point of reading out the nominees?

“Manager Feng, I understand what you are talking about. But have you ever thought that if this song were performed, then the audiences would know that Bing City’s Aviation Factory is the winner? Then what’s the point of announcing the winners during the program?”

Feng Yu’s mouth could fit an egg. Damn. Why didn’t I consider this problem before? I am still a novice. I can only use some ideas from the programs I watched before. It seems that this Director Xu makes sense.

But so what? The winners of the awards ceremonies now knew in advance before the show. You want to reprimand me? I will give you a lesson on how to direct an awards ceremony!

“Those nominees were there to just show their faces. They knew that they would not win the award. The audiences just want to watch the performances. They will not mind. Even if they mind, just let them be. If the performances were good, then that would make up for this.”

There was also no internet yet. Those audiences cannot voice their complaints about the show on internet. Just the line-up of the performers was sufficient to attract viewers. If they do not like, then don’t watch it. This was a program that could challenge the Spring Festival Gala Night!

Xu Yipeng’s foul temper had pissed Feng Yu off. Feng Yu wants to teach him a lesson!

Chapter 347 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 2)

“Director Xu, with this performance order list, how are you going to announce the nominees? How are you going to pan and switch the cameras?” Feng Yu waved the program list at Xu Yipeng.

“Announce the nominees? Just let the host announce them. Why do you still need to pan and switch cameras?”

Feng Yu said in an unpleasant tone: “just read out the names? Don’t need to pan and switch cameras? You really think that this is the New Year’s Eve Gala night? Don’t forget that this is an awards presentation ceremony. This program is to give out awards! Although there are no big screens, the live audiences cannot see, but the audiences in front of the TV see the nominees. Every name that was read out, the camera should zoom in to the nominee’s face for at least 3 seconds.”

“We still have to film them?”

“Of course! This way, people will know who the nominees are. To them, being qualified as a nominee is also an achievement!”

The nominees must show their faces on TV. Feng Yu had promised those companies that participate. Of course, this airtime was not free. Feng Yu had charged these companies that wanted to show their face on TV for 100,000 RMB!

You want to show your face on CCTV for free? You think 100,0000 RMB was too expensive? You will be seated at the round tables in front of the stage, and your seats will have your name and organizations. The whole nation will know you and your company.

Not only this program will be broadcast on New Year’s Day, but there will also be repeat telecast. Soon, this program will be made into VCD, and this VCD will be given free to the consumers when they buy the VCD players. That will be another way to increase your brand awareness.

What? You do not know what a VCD is? VCD player can be considered a new type of Video Cassette Player. It is still under development and will be launched next year!

Don’t you think all these benefits were worth 100,000 RMB?

Feng Yu charges those fixed winners more. Even though some of the winners were not set by Feng Yu, Feng Yu was still able to charge them money. It was because Feng Yu was selling seats.

Why was Feng Yu selling seats? The venue at CCTV was very big, and there were stands at the back. When you are receiving your award on the stage, don’t you want your staffs to see? This can also be a benefit to your workers.

You think 300,000 RMB for the tickets was too expensive? Think about this. If all your workers in the stands were wearing the same clothes, and when the cameras panned towards the audiences, the people in front of the TV will remember your company. This would be better than advertising on CCTV. Furthermore, your staffs are coming to CCTV to watch this program, and they might have the chance to be on TV! There are lots of people fighting for the tickets.

Just be charging those companies, Feng Yu have got back the money he spent to sponsor this event. He still made a small profit. If he did not give the Motor Factory, Aviation Factory discounts, he would have made over a million RMB!

Feng Yu told Xu Yipeng about the switching of cameras. Although he was not in this industry, he was still about to explain his ideas clearly. This way, he needs more cameras, and the cameramen must be able to find those people fast.

This was what Feng Yu learned from those movie awards he watched in his previous life. When the cameras showed the stars in their seats, the stars will make funny faces or actions. This will attract more viewers.

Xu Yipeng was surprised by Feng Yu’s ideas. He had to switch cameras this way for this awards ceremony? This should not be a problem for them, but there was not enough budget for the additional cameras.

Feng Yu waved his hand and said: “You calculate how much more is needed for the additional cameras and let me know. I will pay for it!”

When Feng Yu said this, Xu Yipeng’s anger subsided. This Feng Yu was not the producer, but he was the sponsor.

“Director Xu, there is also a problem with the table arrangements.”

“What is the problem? The two round tables in front are for those nominees, and the other audiences are seated at the back. What’s wrong?” Xu Yipeng was going crazy. Why Feng Yu felt that everything he planned was wrong?

Even if what you said earlier was right, but what’s wrong with the seating arrangements?

“How are you going to arrange the seating for the round tables? The winners will be sitting in front and the other nominees behind them? Those government units in front, individuals at the back? The bigger companies in the middle and the smaller companies at the sides?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Doesn’t all seating arrangements like this? Those more important people in front and center? You said that you wanted to give these people airtime and important people should be getting more airtime.

Feng Yu shook his head: “Director Xu, you are wrong! We are doing an awards presentation ceremony. You must remember it.”

Xu Yipeng felt like strangling Feng Yu. How many times must you remind me that this is an awards presentation ceremony?

“Awards presentation ceremony seating arrangements must be by the awards category. We have a total of 12 awards, 6 group awards, and 5 individual awards. So, there should be 12 tables in two rows.”

“That’s right. This was what I had planned.” Xu Yipeng interrupted.

Feng Yu glanced at Xu Yipeng and continues: “12 tables and the front row are for the groups, and the back rows are for the individuals is fine. But those nominees and the winners for the same categories must be seated at the same table.”

“What? How can all the people from the same award category be sitting at the same table?” Xu Yipeng thought that this was not possible. “They are all competitors, and those that did not win the award will not be happy to be sitting with the winner.”

Feng Yu looked at Xu Yipeng again: “Why can’t they be sitting together? Also, the signage with their names on the tables should be prominent. When the cameras are pointing at them, their names and company should be captured by the cameras too. All the audiences must see it too. You think these people dare to show black faces at CCTV venue? They will be facing the whole nation’s viewers, and they should be glad that they can even be a nominee. Furthermore, the winner can still receive the congratulations of the other nominees in the same industries.”

It does not matter if those congratulations were sincere or not. When the cameras were facing them, they will surely be smiling. They are at CCTV venue, who dares to create trouble? Furthermore, who said that those people must be competitors? They might even cooperate.

“Also, when the winner is getting the award on stage, the cameras can also zoom in on the expressions of the other nominees. The audiences should like to see their reactions.”

Isn’t it too evil to show the expressions of the losers to the viewers? Xu Yipeng cannot accept it. What Feng Yu said early still made some sense, but he cannot accept this!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, this part of the awards presentation was the most interesting. The audiences love it to see the reactions of the other nominees that did not win the awards. Anyway, the winner will be on the stage to say his thank you speech, what’s wrong with giving the losers some airtime?

Hmmm….  Feng Yu can still arrange for some people to show sad faces. The audiences will feel that the winners were not fixed. It was impossible to convince all the viewers, but there should not be a problem to convince most of the viewers.

“Now, we have finished talking about the round tables. I noticed that the audience stands at the back have problems too.”

Xu Yipeng’s veins were almost bursting. How come there are so many problems?!

Chapter 348 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 3)

Feng Yu had gone to look for Deputy Chief Jia to take about this Gala Dinner, and so, Deputy Chief Jia was overall in charge of this event. He had heard that they will be discussing performance order and he wants to come and take a look. If there are any problems, he can make the decision on the spot. This will be CCTV second grandest special program. If this Gala Dinner was a success, Feng Yu said that he would sponsor this program every year!

Eh? What’s happening? Why was Xu Yipeng arguing with Feng Yu?

“Xiao Liu, what is going on over there?” Deputy Chief Jia asked the Chief Video Editor of the Gala Dinner.

“Chief Jia, Little Manager Feng and Director Xu are discussing the Gala Dinner.”

Chief Jia stared at this Chief Video Editor. Their faces were all red, and you are telling me that they are discussing? They are obviously arguing!

Deputy Chief Jia walked over. Chief Video Editor wanted to let Xu Yipeng know, but Deputy Chief Jia signaled to him to keep quiet. He wants to listen to what was the argument about.

Feng Yu might be young, but he was very creative. This can be seen from his commercials at the CCTV. Deputy Chief Jia had heard that Feng Yu was the one that came up with the Songjiang Motorcycle commercial. He was very impressed with Feng Yu’s creativity.

But a Gala Dinner was very different from a commercial. A commercial only needs few people to act and shoot. And also, it was just a few minutes long. A Gala Dinner program was very different. Lots of manpower were required, and it was a few hours long. How come from Xu Yipeng’s expression, he seems to be losing in this argument with Feng Yu?

“Director Xu, this venue should have 500 to 600 seats. I heard that the CCTV staffs will be receiving the tickets for this event.”

“There is nothing wrong with this. Every Spring Festival Gala Night, we will give out tickets to our staffs. You also said that we have 500 to 600 seats. What’s wrong with giving some of the tickets to our staffs?”

“This is a big problem! If it is only the CCTV staffs that will be getting some tickets, it’s fine. But are you going to give the Planning Committee tickets? Are you going to give the Industrial Development Department tickets? What about those people from other ministries? We had invited them, and should we prepare some extra tickets for them? Our association is the organizing party. Do we need to give the judges tickets?”

“Just give them. How many tickets will they need? 100 tickets? The stands will still not be filled. We will be giving the remaining tickets to other units.” Xu Yipeng said this like it was the norm. The tickets for Spring Festival Gala Night were given out this way.

“Cannot fill up the seats? I think that there are not enough seats! What about those winners of the awards? Do they need extra tickets? What about those nominees? I have told you many times that this is an awards presentation ceremony. This is not the Spring Festival Gala Night! We do not want a bustling and exciting show. We are showing our appreciation to the companies and individuals that had made significant contributions to the nation! We must let them have the tickets first. If there are extras, then we can give to other units.”

Huh? Those winners of the awards also need tickets? If they were companies from Beijing, it’s okay. But there are companies from Guangdong province. They will come to Beijing to watch this Gala Dinner?

“Then you tell me, how many tickets do they need?” Xu Yipeng felt that this Feng Yu was talking nonsense. How many tickets can those people need? At most, the winners will want some tickets for their family members. 100 tickets should be more than enough. He still wants to give out the tickets to obtain favors.

“There are 4 participants for an award category. There is a total of 48 participants. Each participant will be given 10 tickets. Those ministries and our association will need tickets too. I think there are not enough tickets!”

“Huh? Each participant will be given 10 tickets? Why do they need so many tickets? They are located so far away. You think they will travel all the way to Beijing to watch a Gala Dinner Program?” Xu Yipeng felt that this was ridiculous. The train ride from Guangdong to Beijing will take more than 24 hours.

Feng Yu was getting frustrated. You are located in Beijing and had often watched these shows. But it is different for those companies’ staffs from other regions. They will be looking forward to watching the recording of a Gala Program live at CCTV.

“Director Xu, do you really think that I am the one who is sponsoring all 5 million RMB? Have you heard of anyone who had spent so much to organize a Gala Dinner? Those nominees have also contributed. Why can’t they get some tickets? Those tickets are their staff’s benefits! Can you don’t give them tickets? Is it reasonable for our association, the organizing party, the judging panel, and the committee members to not get tickets?”

Xu Yipeng could not find anything to retort. Feng Yu was not sponsoring everything. He had still thought that this Feng Yu was stupid to be sponsoring this event by himself. So, this was a collective effort.

Since they were contributing money to this event, then it should be fair for them to get tickets.

But what about those leaders he promised to give them tickets? Many units had called him to request for some tickets.

When CCTV announced the lineups for this New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner, everybody was surprised. All the performers were top celebrities and even the lousiest performer among the lineups, Sun Nan, was also a good singer. The rest were all well-known celebrities, and many people want to come to CCTV to watch their performances.

Watching live was better than watching on TV!

Suddenly, a voice sounded from the side: “There is still some distance between the stage and the audience. We should be able to add another 100 to 300 seats.”

Xu Yipeng wanted to scream at this person who interrupted him. Who was this person that dares to teach him what to do? He was the Chief Program Director. Feng Yu was the association’s representative, and he cannot scold him. But this person was asking for it!

He turned around, and before the words started coming out from his mouth, he paused. His face changed and started smiling: “Chief Jia, how come you are here?”

Deputy Chief Jia looked at Feng Yu and asked: “Manager Feng, this arrangement should not be a problem, right? Those tickets which we promised to give cannot be canceled. But we will still give those participants tickets, and they will be closer to the stage.”

“Chief Jia, since you said this, then I have no more problems. But I still have one more arrangement. Those nominees’ audiences from the same award categories should be seated together. This way, it will be easier for the cameras to capture them.”

“What? The audiences also need airtime?” Xu Yipeng asked with a constipated expression. Usually, he would take a wide-angle shot of the audiences. There was no need to zoom in on a particular group of spectators.

“They are the representatives of their companies. They are the ones that had contributed to the nation. Why can’t we zoom in on them and give them some airtime? The one receiving the award is the leader, the workers cannot be on TV? Director Xu, your way of thinking is not right.” Feng Yu said disappointedly.

Xu Yipeng almost vomits blood. What’s wrong with my thinking? Are you really so noble? I know that you had given your family members the best seats!

Deputy Station Chief Jia patted Xu Yipeng on his back to stop him from arguing. Chief Jia turned to Feng Yu: “Manager Feng, other than these, what other ideas do you have?”

Chapter 349 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 4)

Feng Yu was still thinking about how to incorporate advertisements into this program, and Deputy Station Chief Jia asked him for his ideas on this Gala Dinner.

Feng Yu had many ideas.

“Chief Jia, why is this special program only 2 hours? 2 hours is not enough.”

“2 hours are not enough? Don’t you have only 12 performances? Some performances might be slightly longer, but those songs and dances are at most 5 minutes.” Xu Yipeng interrupts again.

He felt that 2 hours was too long for this program. He still needs to let the host prepare longer scripts to waste time.

“We are making an awards presentation ceremony. We must let our guests and the winners some time for their Thank You speeches. Every winner should be given 5 minutes of airtime. That will be 1 more hour.” Feng Yu gave Xu Yipeng a disgusted look. How can he be the Chief Program director when he doesn’t know anything?

Deputy Chief Jia asked something which Xu Yipeng wanted to ask: “Those award winners still need to give speeches? But they should not need 5 minutes.”

“Why they do not need 5 minutes? They had won the awards. Do they need to thank their workers who had contributed to their company? When they thank their workers, the cameras will switch and zoom in to their workers among the audiences. There must be interactions. This award is because of their collective efforts, and the whole organization should get the credit. The winners can also tell the hardships and suffering they had gone through to get this achievement. Which successful company did not go through hard work? The winners can also express their feelings of winning these awards.”

“But that does not take 5 minutes!” Xu Yipeng interrupted Feng Yu again.

“Director Xu, let me finish first. This is basic respect. Our country emphasizes equality. How come I have the feeling that you think you are of a higher status than me?” Feng Yu said.

This Xu Yipeng might be capable, but he was too petty. I had only given some suggestions and why can’t you listen to me?

Even Deputy Station Chief Jia address me as Manager Feng. This Xu Yipeng dares to address me as Little Manager Feng? How come there is a “little” in front of Manager Feng?

Hmm……. Feng Yu was also a petty person.

Deputy Station Chief Jia stared at Xu Yipeng and then turned to Feng Yu: “Manager Feng, please continue.”

“Look, all of you are focusing only on those winners. But don’t you need to introduce those nominees? Also, why can they qualify for this award? How did they contribute to the Nation? We must at least mention this. Actually, if we can use a projector and show these reasons at the venue live, the effect will be better? Oh, can we get high-quality projectors?”

Let those nominees show a short clip can let them advertise their companies and products.

There were no large screens in this era. Maybe there might be overseas, but CCTV’s venue does not have it. This big screen still has to wait for a few more years. The other local TV stations will install it after CCTV.

The big screen technologies were using projectors. The picture quality was not very clear. Feng Yu thought that CCTV would have such equipment.

But he was disappointed to learn that CCTV does not have high-quality projectors. Those audiences in front will be able to see it clearly, but those at the back will not be able to see it. It will be worst for those TV viewers.

“Didn’t we have agreed that this will be a recorded program? It doesn’t matter if the live audiences can see it or not. The most important is the TV viewers. We will show the edited version, and those clips can be inserted into the program. Why do we need to show live?”

Feng Yu was really speechless for Xu Yipeng’s thinking. How come he doesn’t understand the logic behind this? This was a way for those nominees to promote their companies and products. This was to make those companies that paid happily. Even if Feng Yu increased his charges double next year, companies would still be queuing up.

Even if they did not win any awards, they would be able to show their faces, promote their companies and products. This was a way of advertising.

You think it is too expensive? Fine, then I will pick other companies or organizations. You will also not qualify for any future awards!

If you want, you can look for your connections. The nominees were chosen by a panel of judges. You think you can bribe all the judges? Who do you think you are?

Deputy Chief Jia imagines the scene in his mind. When the host announces the name of a nominee, the camera will switch to the face of the company’s representative, followed by his staffs among the audiences. At the same time, the host will read out the reasons for this company to qualify as a nominee. The big screen in the background will show the short video clip. This effect was wonderful.

He looked at Feng Yu in shock. He did not expect Feng Yu to be so good at planning for a gala night program. Feng Yu had so many ideas for this program.

Xu Yipeng also became silence. If this program had followed what Feng Yu said, then it would be a success. But all these will increase the budget for this program. Didn’t Feng Yu say that he would raise the budget? Then this should not be a problem.

Can this really be done? They had not organized any Gala Nights in this manner. Will the leaders agree? Xu Yipeng looked at Deputy Station Chief Jia.

“We do not have time to film the short video clips.” Deputy Chief Jia said. Those individuals and group nominees were located all over China. CCTV will not have enough time and resources to film those clips.

“Don’t worry about this. Our association will let those nominees know about this and let them prepare the 30 seconds clip themselves. They can hire their local video crew to film. There will not be any problems.”

Feng Yu was in awe by his own intelligence. He will be able to charge those companies with these 30 seconds clips. This way, he would be able to cover his additional costs! If you don’t want to pay? Fine. Then the rest of the nominees will have their promotional clips, and you don’t! Feng Yu can even cover the red packet monies for those performances.

“Do you still have any more suggestions?”

“Nothing much. Director Xu and I had a great discussion to sort out all the rest of the details earlier.” Feng Yu smiled.

Xu Yipeng: “……” Great discussion? Is that what you think?

“Xu Yipeng, do you understand what Manager Feng had said? Change everything according to his suggestions. After you change it, show it to Manager Feng. Even though this is a recorded program, I do not want anything to go wrong.”

Deputy Chief Jia was thinking in his heart. If this year was a success, then next year he will do a live telecast of this event. It will definitively attract more viewers.

He was the one that pushed for this gala dinner, and he will get all the credit. But if anything goes wrong, he will be the one that has to answer.

Xu Yipeng did not expect Deputy Chief Jia to support Feng Yu’s suggestions. Although the program would be better by following Feng Yu’s ideas, there were a lot of things to be changed.

Feng Yu’s suggestions might be right, but it was……  too weird.

Feng Yu walked off with his head held high. Xu Yipeng will settle the rest. If during the rehearsal, and Xu Yipeng did not follow his suggestions, he will point it out. Xu Yipeng will be the one that will be in trouble. He can still be replaced last minute.

But Feng Yu did not expect that fixing the winners of these awards had attracted the attention of someone……

Chapter 350 – Trouble at the Association

“The association is in trouble. Come quick!”

Feng Yu looked at the message displayed on his pager and jumped up.

The association is in trouble? What happen? Why did he receive this message? It was only when others were unreachable then they will contact him!

“That student, what are you doing? Why are you standing up during the class? If you have any question, you should just raise your hand.” The lecturer at the podium said.

“Professor Ma, I need leave. I am working part-time at CCTV for this year’s New Year’s Eve program. They are asking me to go over now.” Feng Yu raised his pager and spurted out lies. CCTV was a good excuse to take leave.

Professor Ma looked at Feng Yu. In his desk’s drawer, there were still a few bottles of Maotai given to him by Feng Yu. Since he had received Feng Yu’s gifts, it was not nice for him to reprimand Feng Yu. Furthermore, the excuse given by Feng Yu was valid too. CCTV was the National TV station, and for them to ask Feng Yu for help, it was an honor for the school.

“Hmm…… just go. But you will need to do an assignment for me, and if you did not do it well, I would mark you as absence today.” Yes, I can give him an easy topic and provide him with the answer.

“Thank you, Professor Ma.”

Feng Yu asked his dorm mates to help him bring back his books, and he ran out of the classroom.

When Feng Yu reached the association, he noticed that the office was tranquil. He felt that something was wrong.

Feng Yu entered the office and see that graduate Zhao Liang, who was assigned by the Planning Committee to the station at this office, sitting on a bench. There was a young man wearing denim clothes sitting on the sofa. Behind him, there was a man that looks like his bodyguard.

“Manager Feng, you are finally here.” Zhao Liang immediately ran over to Feng Yu.

“What happened? Who are they?” Feng Yu asked.

When Feng Yu took a closer look at those two men, he almost burst out in laughter.

Although Denim materials were the trend now, this person really doesn’t know how to dress up. He looks like a monkey wearing a cheongsam. He thinks he looks fashionable? He was still wearing a pair of big sunglasses. What’s wrong with him?

Feng Yu understand why Zhao Liang had called him instead of other leaders. This person should be the second generation of some officials. Zhao Liang must be scared of him.

These second generations were only capable of scaring those young graduates. They do not dare to look for those higher officials. Those older generation officials normally have a lot of children. As long as one of them was capable and was able to take over them, they did not care about the rest. This resulted in many useless second generations.

This person was apparently one of those useless second generations. Zhao Liang dare not to look for his higher-ups. So, he called this “come to me if you have any problems” Feng Yu. Of course, he had also informed Master Lu. But Master Lu was still at work. It was harder for him to skip work and easier for Feng Yu to skip class.

“Who the hell are you? Where did you come from?” The second generation took off his sunglasses and…… a bubble came out of his mouth!

Damn. He was still eating bubble gum? Where did he learn this from? Childish! Feng Yu was really looking down at this person.

“I am Feng Yu, one of the founders of this association. How do I address you?”

“I am Hu Ge. My third uncle is the number one Deputy Section Head with the Ministry of Finance.” Hu Ge stopped talking and crossed his legs. Usually, when he said this introduction, the other party will rush over and curry favor.

But he waited for a while and noticed that the room was silenced. What happened? My uncle is a leader at the Ministry of Finance. Why wasn’t this person surprised?

Hu Ge? This person was too young to be that director Hu Ge, and he was not the actor Hu Ge. It must be the same name. Who cares what his name was. He should at least tell me what he was here for. Why was his head tilted upwards? Did he sprain his neck?

Feng Yu looked at Hu Ge as he was looking at a monkey in the zoo: “I am not interested in knowing who your uncle is. This has nothing to do with our association. What are you here for?”

Hu Ge’s eyes opened wide. Damn, who is this kid? How come he dares to talk back at me? My third uncle’s position did not scare him?

“I think you did not hear what I said. My uncle is……”

“I am asking you what are you here for? Why do you keep talking about your uncle? Did your uncle ask you to come?” Feng Yu sarcastically said. This person keeps harping on his background. This shows that he was not someone capable.

It was impossible for this Hu Ge’s uncle to send him here. The officials in this era were not as shameless as those a few years later. Also, the “Great One” was still around, and he hates officials to abuse their powers. The punishments for abusing powers was severe.

Hu Ge was speechless. This Feng Yu had talked back to him again. Could this Feng Yu have some strong background?

Hu Ge thought hard at all the officials he knew did not have the same surname as Feng Yu. Could Feng Yu be a distant relative of some big officials?

Hu Ge’s attitude changed and stood up: “From Manager Feng’s accent, you don’t sound like you are from Beijing. Are you here to stay with your relatives? Where is your relative staying?”

This was the same as asking what Feng Yu’s background was. From the place Feng Yu was staying, Hu Ge could guess who was the one behind Feng Yu.

Hu Ge’s third uncle was the deputy in the Ministry of Finance and oversaw the giving out of the funds. Most of the officials had to give him face. Since this Feng Yu was not afraid of him, that means the person behind Feng Yu must be of a higher rank!

“Me? I am staying next to Weiminghu lake.”

Weiminghu lake? Where was that? Hu Ge thought hard, and there were no government hostels near this place. This place was the manmade lake beside Beijing University.

This Feng Yu’s background is from the Ministry of Education?

Damn. Even if your relative is the head of the Ministry of Education, I am also not afraid. How much power can someone from the Ministry of Education have?

Hu Ge sat down again and crossed his legs: “Oh, you are working at Beijing University? A teacher? Not bad. Work hard. Maybe you will go far.”

When Feng Yu heard what Hu Ge said, he almost laughed. This person was still trying to give him advice?

A teacher? He thought that I am teaching at Beijing University? Although I might look cultured and educated, teaching should be left to those professionals. I should concentrate on making money.

“I am asking you what you are here for?” Feng Yu asked again.

Hu Ge’s face change and banged on the coffee table: “you still dare to question me? I am here to question you! Why is my company not in this award organized by your stupid association!?”

Oh, this was the reason why you are here. Since this Hu Ge’s company was not a participant in this award ceremony, that means his company was lousy!

If he were polite and had spoken nicely, maybe Feng Yu would be nice to him. Now he had banged tables, that means he has zero chances of even becoming a nominee!

Chapter 351 – Close the door, release Master Lu

Feng Yu gave Hu Ge a side-glance: “Since you think that our association is stupid, of course, your company is not nominated. Could it be that your company is also stupid and useless?” Feng Yu emphasized the word stupid.

Hu Ge looked at Feng Yu, and his anger was rising.

The look on Feng Yu’s face was as if he was despising and disgusted with Hu Ge. It was as if he was facing a big lump of turd! This was looking down on Hu Ge.

If this association was not registered under a government agency, Hu Ge would have beaten Feng Yu up.

“Stop your nonsenses. I will ask you again. Why is my company not one of the nominees?”

“Why must your company be one of the nominees?” Feng Yu asked him back.

Hu Ge almost vomits blood. I am asking you and yet you ask me back the same question?

“It is because I am Hu Ge!” Hu Ge pointed to himself arrogantly.

Hu Ge is someone great? Or you think your third uncle is someone great? This association was set up by me using my money and connections. Just getting those people to be on board the panel of judges had cost me a lot of money and efforts.

You really think that I am doing it for everybody? I am doing it for my own company!

Those winners must have some sort of contributions to the economy, and in this way, people will think that this award is fair. People will then think that Tai Hua Trading, Lehaha, and Tian Peng Pig Farm are special!

Feng Yu had picked those nominees carefully. Some of those companies that had some contributions and had made used their connections were also kicked out by Feng Yu.

Although Feng Yu only had 3 people on the panel of judges, the other judges were invited by Feng Yu using money and connections. Feng Yu was the one that decides who will be nominated and who will be the winners!

Those companies that were picked by Feng Yu had also made significant contributions and had good relationships with the association.

Those that did not win any awards this year was promised to be given awards next year. They would be able to show their faces on TV this year and next. This was a good deal. Those winners this year, might not qualify for next year!

Feng Yu had even rejected those companies that had connections with the government. This Hu Ge was not also an official.

“Zhao Liang, do we still have any slots for nominees?” Feng Yu asked.

Zhao Liang shook his head: “We do not have any more slots. All the winners and nominees were decided.”

“Then add one more category for me. Anyway, there are not a lot of categories and participants. I had heard that some small private companies had qualified. There was even a pig farm that had qualified. What a joke! You know what my company is? It is a hi-tech company. My company should be getting an award!”

Pig farm? You are talking about Tian Peng Pig Farm? Damn, you are laughing at my father?

Now, it was Feng Yu’s turn to get angry. I will get someone to beat you up once you leave this place!

“Did you hear what I just said? Add one more category for me! Also, I heard that this award ceremony will be held at CCTV. I want the president of this association to present me with the award!”

This moron was too arrogant. The president of association? The president of this association was a leader in the National Planning Committee. Even your third uncle cannot order him around! The Finance Ministry might be a department with a lot of authority, but compared to the National Planning Committee, it was nothing! The National Planning Committee was a department that handles the development of the whole nation. This was the nation’s top department and had the most authority. They can even order the finance department!

Feng Yu was still thinking how to get rid of this moron and he saw someone walking in.

Master Lu was here!

Fine. Let these 2nd generations settle this problem by themselves. If Master Lu cannot solve this, then he will think of other ways. Feng Yu had lots of ways to get rid of this arrogant person!

Should beat him up first and then talk later!

After beating him up, then ask his third uncle to apologize to them! If Feng Yu could incite the whole nation to boycott Japanese goods, then he can to encourage the entire country to go against this Hu Ge and his third uncle!

Although there was no internet yet, rumors could be spread quickly through word of mouth. The people now were not as smart as those in the future years, and they would believe anything they heard!

“I am talking to you! Are you dumb? I will leave this to you, and I must be the first person to be getting the award! The one presenting me the award must be your highest ranked leader! Also, your association had forgotten to include my company, and I want your association president to apologize to me personally! What’s with that look on your face? You are not happy? Do you think I dare not tear down this association?” Hu Ge saw Feng Yu kept quiet and became more arrogant!

“You sure you want our Association President to apologize to you and present you with the award?” Feng Yu laughed. He can already see Master Lu’s face changing. This Association President was also Master Lu’s eldest uncle!

This was like giving Master Lu a slap on his face! Feng Yu was interested to see how Master Lu handle this problem.

“I, Hu Ge, will do what I said. Whatever I said…… Damn! Who is the one who hit me?”

Hu Ge was still bragging, and suddenly he received a hard slap on the back of his head. He immediately jumped up. He had brought a bodyguard with him, and he was not afraid of getting into fights!

Before he could see how the person was, he received another slap on his face, and he saw stars!

The bodyguard beside him was shocked. Someone really dares to beat Hu Ge and really gave him a slap on his face? The bodyguard had worked for Hu Ge for quite some time, and most of the time, he was just standing behind him and had never got into fights before. Today was his opportunity to show Hu Ge how good he was!

“Get lost! You dare to create trouble at my place? I will teach you a lesson!” Master Lu had finally shown his 2nd generation’s arrogant personality. He did not care about that bodyguard. He stared at the bodyguard and shouted at him to get lost. The bodyguard suddenly became quiet and stood by the side.

This bodyguard was also street smart. He could tell that this person had more authority and bigger background than Hu Ge from the way he acted. He did not dare to beat this person, but he still tried to cover Hu Ge with his body.

Feng Yu saw that Master Lu had started. He immediately rushed over and gave Hu Ge a kick, sending him rolling on the floor.

Master Lu pushed the bodyguard aside and gave two punches to Hu Ge. The effect of these two punches could be seen immediately. Hu Ge’s tears started to roll down.

“Hu Ge, do you think you are someone now? You dare to come to my place and create trouble? You want my uncle to apologize to you personally? Who the fuck do you think you are? Brother Feng, help me hold him down. Today I will teach him a lesson!”

Hu Ge could finally see who this person that had hit him was.

Damn, isn’t this Master Lu? Did he say that the association president is his uncle?

Before Hu Ge could say anything, Feng Yu pinned him down on the sofa. Hu Ge had a small built, and he can’t even win Feng Yu in a fight. Master Lu rushed over and gave a few more punches to Hu Ge’s face.

“Master Lu, Master Lu, I’m sorry. Please stop!”

Master Lu gave a few more punches before he stopped. Feng Yu realized that this Master Lu fights like a mad dog.

“Brother Feng, release him. I know this idiot!”

Feng Yu happily released Hu Ge. Just now, while pinning him down, Feng Yu also sneakily gave him a few punches for laughing at his father!

After beating Hu Ge up, Feng Yu felt better. After this incident, there should not be any more 2nd generations coming over to create trouble.

If there were still some morons that came over to create trouble, then he will close the door and release Master Lu!

Chapter 352 – Getting a 2nd generation follower?

Master Lu was panting and sat on the sofa. Hu Ge immediately jumped up and stood by the side.

“Brother Feng, did this brat say anything that offended you? Let me know, I will give him a few more punches!”

Feng Yu also sat down on the sofa and waved his hand: “It’s fine. I am a forgiving person.”

Hu Ge stared at Feng Yu angrily. Forgiving person? Who was the one who rained punches to my ribs just now? If I did not cover my crotch, I would become Eunuch Hu!

“Hu Ge, tell me how you are going to settle this trouble you created for us?” Master Lu stared at Hu Ge coldly.

“Master Lu, I did not know that you and uncle Lu is associated with this association. You should know that I am not a smart person. Please forgive me.” Hu Ge bowed down.

Feng Yu looked at this Hu Ge. This Hu Ge knows when to yield. Where was his arrogant attitude just now?

Master Lu waved his hand: “Stop pretending with me! Don’t tell me that you do not know this association is registered under whose names. Xiao Zhao, did he hit you just now?”

Hu Ge turned to Zhao Liang and pleaded with his eyes. Please don’t talk nonsenses. I had only shouted at you. Also, why was Master Lu asked if I hit him? I had not hit anyone today. I was the one getting beaten up here!

Zhao Liang shook his head: “Master Lu, he did not hit me. He only banged the tables and kicked some chairs.”

Hu Ge almost cried. Why must this Zhao Liang mention about him kicking over some chairs?

“Hu Ge, don’t say that I am bullying you. Your elder brother and I have drunk together before. But what you did today was too much. Who gave you the guts to shout at my brother Feng?”

Hu Ge was relieved. Luckily his elder brother known Master Lu. He knew Master Lu was a reasonable person.

Master Lu had a good reputation in the 2nd generation circle. He was known to be reasonable and kind to his friends. Hu Ge was just unlucky to stumble and create trouble in his turf.

Damn, I only wanted to get an award. What trouble have I gotten myself into?

“Master Lu, I had started my own company, and I heard that this association is hosting an awards ceremony at CCTV. I just wanted to get an award. Please forgive me. I will not want any awards.”

“You started a company? What company is that?” Master Lu frowned. He knew Hu Ge’s brother, and although he had reasons to beat him up today, there will inevitably be rumors about him.

If he could help this Hu Ge’s company get an award, then the Hu family will have no reasons to take revenge for him. They might even come over to apologize and praise him!

“A hi-tech company. We are selling hi-tech products.”

“Tell me in detail!” Master Lu stared at Hu Ge.

“I am selling video games cartridges.” Hu Ge said softly.

Feng Yu immediately burst out laughing. Video game cartridges and you claim to be a hi-tech company? Feng Yu was sure that these video games cartridges were pirated games cartridges. This Hu Ge would never buy the rights of the original games since no one would dare to do anything to him.

Damn, a pirated games seller wants to get an award?

If this Hu Ge could be nominated, this award ceremony would get a bad reputation. All his efforts would be gone down the drain.

Master Lu asked blankly: “Brother Feng, what’s a video game cartridge?”

Huh? Master Lu does not know what a game cartridge was?

Oh, that’s right. At his age, he probably had started working and had never played video games before.

“It is a type of cartridge that can be inserted to a machine and is connected to the TV. It is a type of video games.” Feng Yu said and pretended to hold a controller.

Master Lu frowned: “Is this thing very hi-tech?”

Damn. This Master Lu really believed what Hu Ge said? If this thing were hi-tech, there would not be any imitations. If those factories in China wanted, they could quickly produce imitations of those game cartridges. How can this be considered hi-tech?

Hi-tech cannot be used on such things.

Feng Yu stared at Hu Ge. You want to tell him, or do you want me to say it out?

Hu Ge carefully said: “Master Lu, this game cartridge was not considered very hi-tech. However, video games development was not considered an easy task. I am planning to develop my own video games which will rival those Japanese companies. Now, all the video games on the market are all produced by Japan!”

Eh? Feng Yu was shocked. This Hu Ge was another anti-Japanese angry youth?

Master Lu was not too sure, and he turned to Feng Yu: “Brother Feng, is he telling the truth?”

Hu Ge was surprised. Why was Master Lu so polite to this Feng Yu? With Master Lu’s background, he does not need to be so polite to other people. Could it be this Feng Yu was not from the Ministry of Education?

Hu Ge does not know that Feng Yu had no background at all. He thought that this Feng Yu must be some illegitimate child of some leaders.

“The video games industry is really controlled by Japan. Sega and Nintendo are all Japanese companies. Currently, these two companies are holding on to over 90% of the market share.”

Hu Ge was surprised that Feng Yu knew about these figures. How come Feng Yu knew about this industry? Wasn’t Feng Yu a teacher?

Master Lu frowned: “Then can we enter this market and capture the market share? Just like what you did with AIWA Walkman?”

Hu Ge’s panda eyes opened wide. Huh? Feng Yu was the one who had bought AIWA?

Feng Yu laughed: “In fact, we had already entered the market. For instance, one of the nominees, The Little Tyrant, in the electronics category, is producing education video machines. Their machines are using the same game cartridges. Within two years, this company will be the market leader in China.”

Master Lu stared at Hu Ge: “Did you hear that? Someone else is already doing this! You should learn from Brother Feng. Look at him. Buying a Japanese company and turning it into a Chinese Company to earn their money. This is his capability!”

Hu Ge’s eyes sparkled: “Brother Feng, do you own AIWA? Please teach me how you do that? I want to learn from you!”

Feng Yu was feeling uncomfortable with Hu Ge’s sudden change of attitude towards him. I had beaten you up, and you still want to learn from me? What are you? A masochist?

Master Lu continued: “Sigh…… Hu Ge’s grandfather and my grandfather had passed away during the war against the Japanese. That’s why he hated the Japanese. Our grandfathers were from the same platoon. This Hu Ge was also not a bad person. He is only a bit arrogant and proud. Brother Feng, please give him some guidance about business. In China, no one is better than you at doing business.”

Feng Yu really like the last sentence!

So, their families had such a relationship. No wonder Master Lu treats this Hu Ge like a younger brother.

“Brother Feng, please let me learn from you. I promise I do whatever you say.”

Damn, this Hu Ge wants to be my follower?

Feng Yu rubbed his chin……. I am going to have a 2nd generation as my follower?

Chapter 353 – Piracy beating originals

“Brother Feng, Brother Feng?” Master Lu called Feng Yu who was in a daze.

“Ah, nothing. I am just thinking about how I can help Hu Ge.”

“You can just call him Hu Laosan! (Laosan means number 3, Hu Ge has two elder siblings. This is a common way of addressing people in China.)” Master Lu glanced at Hu Ge.

“Yes, yes, yes. Brother Feng, just call me Hu Laosan.”

Feng Yu looked at Hu Ge. He was speechless. This Hu Ge was in his early 20s and was slightly older than him. He could still lower himself and address Feng Yu as Brother Feng.

Zhao Liang brought 3 cups of tea over and cleared up the mess on the floor. He then quietly moves to a corner.

“Hu Laosan, since you are already in this industry, then carry on in this industry. You are now selling pirated game cartridges?”

Hu Ge awkwardly smiled: “Those originals are too expensive.”

“Then carry on selling pirated game cartridges.”

When imitation products reach a big scale, the effects can be very damaging. When Microsoft entered China, there were many pirated versions of their software.

But at that time, Microsoft did not take any action against those pirates. It was because they had just entered the Chinese market and Microsoft operating system was not the only operating system in the market. There were operating systems from Europe and China was also developing their own operating system.

However, Microsoft’s operating system was the most user-friendly. The only thing limiting Microsoft was that their operating system was the price!

When a pirated version of Microsoft operating system entered the market, most of the computers in China started to use Microsoft’s system. Within 3 years, almost all of China companies who were developing operating systems closed down.

It was because no one wants to use their operating system. These companies were also selling their operating systems, but those pirated Microsoft’s operating system was easier to use and was free!

Even the companies from other countries that were developing operating systems were beaten by pirated Microsoft operating system. This allows Microsoft to take over the operating system market in China.

This was what Bill Gates had described. Let China killed their own operating systems companies. This was more effective than spending money to promote the Microsoft operating system. When the consumers had no other choices, they will start to collect money!

At that time, Microsoft started their fight against piracy. They began suing governments, organizations, companies, etc.!

Those organizations had to compensate Microsoft, and there were even some companies that were almost bankrupted. The most famous software company in China that was nearly bankrupted was Kingsoft. China also apologized on behalf of this company.

Microsoft had made use of piracy to monopolize the market. If they had started to fight against piracy at the start, then it might take Microsoft some years before they can capture the Chinese market. They might even fail.

So, why can’t they sell pirated games to steal the market share from Sega and Nintendo? As for the video game machine, there was the Little Tyrant. Some other factories had also started to copy Little Tyrant. Their prices were only one-tenth of Sega and Nintendo!

This way, Sega and Nintendo will not get the chance to capture the Chinese market, and China can start to develop this industry.

Hu Ge looked at Feng Yu disappointedly. Why did Feng Yu give him this suggestion? He does not want to carry on selling pirate video game cartridges. He knew this was not right and was ashamed of doing this.

“Brother Feng, do you have other suggestions?”

“I am asking you to sell pirated video games for the time being and to capture the market. I can also introduce you to the Little Tyrant, and both of you can cooperate. You can sell your game cartridges at their sales point. This way, your profits will increase, Sega and Nintendo’s game cartridges sales will drop. Of course, I am not asking you to sell pirated game cartridges for the rest of your life. Since you can get your people to make pirated games cartridges, you should have people that are good with programming. Why not ask them to develop some games?”

“Develop our own games?”

Hu Ge had also thought of developing his own games. But he does not know what sort of games to build. Whatever they thought of, it was available in the market. Furthermore, it was harder to develop their own games than decoding those games in the market. He does not have enough manpower, and the investment required was not a small sum.

“Why? You don’t believe what I said?”

“I believe. I believe whatever you said. But it is not easy to develop our own games.” Hu Ge replied.

“How many software engineers do you have? Where is your company located? I will go and take a look. At the same time, give you some guidance. I guarantee you will make money. If you can develop a popular game, then you will surely get an award!”

Hmmm… I am saying you will get an award in the future. As for when we will discuss some other days.

“Really?” Hu Ge was overjoyed.

Master Lu said: “Are you doubting Brother Feng? You think Brother Feng would lie to you? How can you compare your small company with him? Do you know how much his company is worth? More than 1 billion!”

Hiss~~~~

More than 1 billion?

Hu Ge had positioned Feng Yu in a very high position in his heart. But he never expects that Feng Yu had more than 1 billion RMB worth of assets. Among their 2nd generation circle, one can be considered wealthy if he has a few million.

He had not even heard of anyone that have more than 100 million RMB! 1 billion could last him several generations!

“Brother Feng made over 1 billion just by selling Walkman?” Hu Ge swallowed his saliva. He was thinking of switching to Walkman since it was so profitable.

Master Lu looked at Hu Ge with despised: “Walkman? That is just one of Brother Feng’s businesses. You see that humidifier on the desk there? It’s manufactured by him. You see that bladeless fan? It is also his. You saw all those Songjiang Motorcycles on the roads? It is also his. Next year, you will see his cars on the roads!”

Hu Ge was at a loss for words. All of Feng Yu’s products were the best-selling products on the market. This Feng Yu was really talented. No wonder Master Lu showed him so much respect.

Feng Yu was enjoying the envious look of Hu Ge. He really likes this feeling of being praised!

“Brother Feng, I will be looking forward to your visit to my company. Why not we go over to my company today?” Hu Ge asked excitedly. He no longer doubts Feng Yu. Compared to Feng Yu, those businessmen he met in the southern provinces were nothing.

There were rumors that Master Lu had invested in a company. He heard that even when Master Lu does nothing every day, he will still get a few million RMB every year. Could it be this company is Feng Yu’s company?

Hu Ge also wanted to be like Master Lu.

“Fine. Let’s go today since I got nothing on. Master Lu, are you free? Want to go together?” Feng Yu still did not trust this Hu Ge completely. It was safer with Master Lu around.

Master Lu nodded: “Ok. I shall take a look too. Later tonight, I will ask Hu Laosan to prepare a banquet for you to apologize. This kid must be taught a lesson!”

Hu Ge nodded his head and smiled: “Of course, of course. I will make arrangements for a banquet tonight for the both of you. Shall we go now?”

“Let’s go.”

Chapter 354 – The Little Tyrant Video Games Console

When Hu Ge saw Feng Yu’s modified Land Rover, he gasped in surprise. There were Land Rovers in Beijing at this time, but it was rare to see them on the roads. Hu Ge, himself, was only driving a Volkswagen Santana. Master Lu was worst. He travels via taxi.

When they reach Hu Ge’s company, Feng Yu noticed that it was not as bad as he thought would be. A pirated games company’s office was even bigger than the Machinery Company’s General Manager office!

“My office is a bit small. Please bear with it.” Hu Ge humbly said.

Feng Yu: “……” This was considered small? In a few more years, maybe those MNC’s CEO office will be this big. This office should be at least 300 sqm.

“How many people do you have in your company?” Feng Yu asked.

“If we don’t include the factory workers, I have a total of 18 staffs. I am the General Manager, and I have two deputies. There are 6 department heads and 6 deputies department head. There is also an office administrative head and his deputy.”

Damn. A total of 18 people and you appointed 17 leaders? That means only one person is working?

A pirated game company was so well structured? Do you really need so many departments?

“Hu Laosan, get all your people from the technology department here.” Feng Yu shook his head, but he still needs to do what he needs to do first.

“Errrr…… My company does not have a technology department.”

Huh? 6 departments and you do not have a technology department? Then what are those 6 departments?

Hu Ge saw Feng Yu had an irritated look on his face and immediately said: “We have a technical staff. He is the one that cracks the code of those game cartridges. I will call him here.”

That was the only staff which was not a leader. What an unlucky guy. This person should be the most essential staff of this company.

That staff arrived. He looks like he was in his 30s and had messy, unkempt hair. He was wearing a pair of thick glasses and was unshaved. He seems like he does not care about his looks.

“Xiao Li, come over. This is Master Lu, and this is Mr. Feng. They are looking for you.”

Xiao Li pushed his spectacles and asked earnestly: “Manager Hu, what happen to your eyes? Did someone beat you up?”

Hu Ge was furious. Stop talking about this! Everybody can see for themselves! You don’t need to say it out!

“I banged into a tree. Mind your own business. Hurry up and come over!”

“Xiao Li, where did you graduate from? What is your expertise?” Feng Yu looked at Xiao Li and asked.

“Me? I am from TV University. I major in TV repairs.”

TV university? Did he mean Radio and TV University? Almost every city has this university. There is another name for this university. Night University.

Damn. How unprofessional. Even if you are producing pirated game cartridges, there should still be some professionalism. A TV repairman as the software engineer? And this company can actually still succeed. Life was really unfair.

“Are you the one that cracks the code of those game cartridges?”

“That’s right. I am the one who cracks it. Actually, it is quite simple. You only need to……”

“Stop. Xiao Li. We don’t need to know the details. You just need to answer Mr. Feng’s questions.” Hu Ge hurriedly stops Xiao Li. Once this Xiao Li starts on the technical aspects, he will go on and on. If it wasn’t for his expertise and his low salary, Hu Ge had wanted to fire him.

“Can you develop games? Create your own games and not cracking the codes of other games.” Feng Yu asked seriously.

“I can, but no one wants to play the games I created.” Xiao Li felt embarrassed.

“Then tell me about the games you made.”

“I made a fighting game that is similar to Street Fighters. But the characters cannot be seen clearly, and their moves are not very nice. The game also keeps hanging. The main reason is Manager Hu does not want to give me the funds. If I have sufficient funds, I can surely create a better game.”

“You know how to create those action games with multiple stages?”

“I have never created those type of games. But it should not be a problem for me. However, I still need money to create it.”

Hu Ge angrily shouted at him: “Stop asking for money. You don’t even want to play the games you created. Why should I give you the money to develop new games?”

Feng Yu thought for a while. This shows that this Xiao Li had the skill, but he lacks the funds. Hmmm….. Maybe he also requires some ideas. If Feng Yu could give some pointers, he should be able to succeed.

“Hu Laosan, how much is your company worth?”

“About a few million.”

“Speak the truth!” Master Lu shouted.

“Errr…… I had spent 120,000 RMB to rent this office. I do not have a factory. I just hire contractors to manufacture those games.”

Feng Yu: “……” This Hu Ge can really brag. This company was worth a few million? There were no factories, and even the office was rented.

“What was your highest profit in a month?”

“Less than 200,000 RMB. Errr…… to be exact, 113,000 RMB.”

Selling pirated game cartridges can earn so much? Maybe it was because he was Hu Ge and had made use of his background. If not, he might not even earn 13,000 RMB.

“I will invest 1 million in your company. Go and find a few more people like Xiao Li to develop some games. You will continue to sell your pirated game cartridges and must increase your scale. At the same time, you must set up proper sales distribution channels. Once the new games are developed, you must let your distributors sell those game cartridges in the shortest time possible. Can you do that?”

“Brother Feng, you are going to give me 1 million RMB?” Hu Ge swallowed his saliva. 1 million RMB! He had never seen so much money in his life!

“That’s right. I will be the major shareholder of this company, and you will run it. I will take 70% of the profits, you will get 20%, and Master Lu will get 10%. I guaranteed that within two years, you will be a real businessman and your monthly income will be at least 1 million!”

Master Lu pointed to himself: “I am also included? What do you need me to do?”

Feng Yu would not give him money for no reason. There must be something he needs to do to get this 10% shares.

“I need a government policy. A policy to develop China’s video games industry!”

“China’s video games industry?”

“Yes. Video games are already popular in China. Not only with the kids. Many adults also enjoy playing video games. For instance, Contra and Super Mario Bros. These games were bringing in more than 1 billion USD of profits from worldwide. This profit is still growing.”

Master Lu was shocked. Video games can bring in over 1 billion USD of profits?

“Also, video games are also a form of cultural invasion. For example, Japan had introduced a game that resembles Romance of the Three Kingdoms. They claimed that this game was based on their history. You can tolerate this? In another few years, they will claim that they are the ones who built the Great Wall of China!” Feng Yu start to rouse Master Lu’s emotions. He knew that this Master Lu was also a patriotic anti-Japanese person. Influencing him was easy.

“We cannot tolerate this. Let this to me! But if we are going to develop our own games, what sort of games should we develop?”

“Our 4 great classical novels do not only have Romance of the 3 Kingdoms. Dream of the Red Chamber is not suitable to develop into a game as there is no fighting in that novel. But Journey to the West and Water Margin can! And it will be extremely popular!”

Everybody was listening attentively. They do not know how to turn a classic novel into a video game.

“We can make a fighting game using Water Margin. There are 108 characters in Water Margin and players can get to choose those characters. Each of those characters should have their individual iconic moves. Journey to the West can be made into action games that scroll from left to right. The characters will keep moving towards the right like a scroll. Those stage bosses can use the iconic demons, like Bull Demon King, Black Wind Demon and Golden Horned King, from the novels. Players can choose to use Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing, Tang Sanzang, and White dragon horse as their characters. In future, you can also include some female characters like the Goddess of Mercy.”

Master Lu and the rest, opened their mouth wide. The Goddess of Mercy? They understand that players will choose Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing as their characters. But who in their right mind would select Tang Sanzang, the monk who was also captured by demons?

Feng Yu saw that they do not believe what he said. He continued to explain “his” ideas to them. There were melee characters and magician characters. In a video game, players must work together to clear the stages. Feng Yu was imitating the video game <Oriental Legend> produced by the Japanese in a few years’ time.

Feng Yu wants to turn those classic arcade video games into game cartridges for The Little Tyrant gaming console.

“Manager Hu, this idea is interesting. It will surely be popular with the consumers. Leave this to me. Mr. Feng had already invested money.” Xiao Lu really likes Feng Yu’s idea and starts to plead with Hu Ge.

“Fine. Didn’t you say you have some friends? Call them here. If they have the capabilities, I will provide the funds for you and your friends to develop these games.” Hu Ge had also made his decision.

“Thank you, Manager Hu. I will go out now. Oh yes, Manager Hu. Please be more careful. Stop walking into trees all the time!” Xiao Li said.

“Get lost!”

Translator notes: This is the longest chapter since I started translating this novel. Took me 3.5 hours! If you like this novel, please leave me a positive review on novel updates.

Chapter 355 – Girl, make me happy

Beijing Teaching University. A few young, pretty girls were walking together back to their hostel when they saw someone walking over with a box of chocolates in his hand.

“Oh, everybody is here. Nana, why didn’t you return my calls?” Feng Yu looked at Li Na. He had bought a new pager that can show Chinese characters for Li Na. He had paged Li Na 3 times, but she did not return calls. Luckily Feng Yu was waiting for her outside her dormitory.

“Someone had not been coming over recently. That’s why our Nana is angry!” Li Na’s roommate jokingly said.

All of Li Na’s roommates envied Li Na for having Feng Yu as her boyfriend. Handsome and smart.

Furthermore, Feng Yu had renovated Li Na’s room, and her roommates also benefited from it. Almost every student in the hostel envied them and had even come over to look at their room.

Every time Feng Yu came to visit Li Na, he will buy lots of candies and sometimes he would bring imported chocolates for her roommates.

But the roommates can only envy Li Na. Both Li Na and Feng Yu had come from the same district and were classmates since primary school. They had grown up together. Li Na was also beautiful. They knew they could not snatch Feng Yu away from Li Na.

“I have been helping out at CCTV. I was too busy. That’s why I can’t come over. See, didn’t I rush over once I finish my work? I can finally rest for a few days.” Feng Yu explained.

Feng Yu was indeed very busy lately. If he had the time, he would have come over to look for Li Na.

Li Na’s roommates were surprised. Feng Yu was helping out at CCTV? No wonder he was a student from the prestigious Beijing University. Only the top students can get to enter CCTV.

Li Na’s thinking why Feng Yu did not visit her these few days. Could it because she was having her period? Feng Yu came to look for her must be because he wanted to do something naughty!

“I will bring Li Na out. On New Year’s Day, I will treat all of you to a great dinner.”

Li Na was blushing when Feng Yu pulled her away from her friends. Her roommates were giggling. The last time Li Na did not return to their dormitory, they had questioned her. They asked her if she had spent the night with Feng Yu.

“Why do you look so unhappy today?” Feng Yu asked.

“What are you busy with these few days?” Li Na asked.

“I am preparing a surprise for you. Don’t you like Aaron Kwok? I had invited him to Beijing. Tomorrow night, you can finally meet your idol. Are you surprised?” The main reason why Feng Yu had chosen Aaron Kwok to perform on his Awards ceremony was that Li Na likes Aaron Kwok.

Aaron Kwok at this time was indeed very handsome, and lots of teenagers like him. Although when he was older, he was still charming. But in this era, no teenagers like those middle age men.

Li Na was really surprised: “Aaron Kwok? That Aaron Kwok from Hong Kong? The one that sang <Love you forever>? The heavenly king?”

“That’s right. Tomorrow CCTV will be recording the New Year’s Day special program, and he will be one of the performers. I had specially invited him over and had paid a hefty sum.”

The air tickets and lodging had cost over 1,000 RMB. In this era, it was considered a hefty amount, although this Aaron Kwok was worth much more than that.

“New Year’s Day Gala Dinner? The program you told me that you are helping CCTV with? When CCTV have special programs for New Year’s Day?” Li Na was surprised. She had never heard about New Year’s Day Gala Night.

They were staying in their university and did not have the chance to watch TV. She did not know about this program at all. But this also reflects that CCTV had not done an excellent job to promote this program.

If it was 20 years later, not only there will be advertisements on TV and the internet, even the subways, bus stops, and malls will have posters.

Because this was the first year, Feng Yu was not really confident too. That’s why he did not ask CCTV to promote this program more aggressively. Luckily this program was a recorded program. If there were any issues, he still has time to rectify.

If this were a live program and any problems arising during the performance, it would be on next day’s headlines! In the future, there was an incident which happened during the Spring Festival Gala Night. The hosts of the program forgot their scripts and said the wrong things. They were scolded by the viewers for a few years! And after that year, whenever there were problems with live programs, netizens would bring up this incident!

Feng Yu pointed to himself and said proudly: “It does not exist in the past was because I am not in Beijing. Now I am in Beijing, there will be this program from this year onwards!”

Li Na rolled his eyes: “Stop bragging! Wait, did you spend money on organizing this program?”

Li Na was worried. If Feng Yu’s parents knew about this, would they be happy? If they knew that Feng Yu had spent so much money to please her by inviting her idol over to Beijing, she would not leave a good impression with her future in-laws! Although Feng Yu was wealthy, no parents would want to see their son marrying a spendthrift wife.

“I did not spend much. Most of the money comes from everyone else. Don’t worry about money when I am around! Tomorrow I will bring you to CCTV to watch the recording live. Are you excited?”

“I can go and watch live? Is the venue at CCTV?”

“Of course. We cannot be seated at round table in front, but we will be sitting at the first row of the audience seats. Oh, I had also invited Liu Kun, Dongjung and Zhang Han. We will be sitting together.”

“Really? That’s great!”

“Happy? Come, girl. Make me happy.” Feng Yu jokingly said.

Li Na rolled her eyes again and ignored him.

Sigh…… It’s only a few days, and she had a bad temper. I do not believe I cannot make her laugh!

Just happened the traffic lights turned red, and Feng Yu turned to Li Na: “Why not let me make you happy? Hehehehe~~~.”

“Hahaha…… You are so sickening……”

Li Na laughed.

Li Na was beautiful when she laughs. All of Feng Yu’s tiredness was gone when he saw the person he loves laughs.

Feng Yu drove back to his apartment. At home, Feng Yu started his moves on the reluctant Li Na.

After the happy moment, Feng Yu laid on the bed with Li Na in his arms.

Li Na suddenly said: “Will we really not get pregnant? I heard there is something that can prevent pregnancy.”

Li Na was anxious that she would be pregnant. If she were pregnant, she would have to quit school, and her parents would be very disappointed with her. How would others look at her?

To Feng Yu, he was not worried. If Li Na were indeed pregnant, they would get married. But Li Na was still afraid, and she wanted to remind Feng Yu to use protection.

Feng Yu opened the side drawers: “Here. I had prepared. But it is fine. Just now, I had not ejaculated inside. Furthermore, it is now your safe period. Don’t worry. Since you mentioned this, we shall try out using protection this time. You also wanted it, right?”

Feng Yu flipped over onto Li Na.

“Ahhhh…… I don’t want……”

Chapter 356 – Cheers and placards on Gala Dinner (Part 1 of 3)

“It’s the time of the season to bide farewell to the old and welcome the New Year!”

“Looking back at last year, we should be proud of ourselves. Together we will march forward to a better future!”

……

“This is China’s first Business Contribution Awards ceremony. The New Year Gala Dinner will start now! I believe we will catch up with the rest of the world; I believe that we will fulfill our Nation’s dreams.”

“I dreamt of flying in the skies, shoulder to shoulder with the sun. The world is waiting for me to change it. Don’t be afraid to dream, we will fulfill all our dreams……”

“The nominees of the aviation category are Bing City’s Aviation Factory.”

The projector on the stage started to play the short clip prepared by the Aviation factory. Small planes and helicopters taking off one after another. The camera switched and zoomed in to Hou Haitao. Hou Haitao smiled at the camera and waved, calmly.

The host continued to introduce the other nominees. The camera also zooms in on the representative of the nominees. These companies were the same as Bing City’s Aviation Factory. They were formerly military factories. Hao Haitao had invited them to participate in this award. Even they knew they would not be winning the award, they still felt proud to show their faces on CCTV’s program!

“Now, we shall invite China’s Engineering Research Center’s Professor Liu to announce the winner and present the award!”

“The winner of the first Business Contribution Awards, aviation category is…… Bing City’s Aviation Factory!”

The audience starts to applause. At this time, the camera switched to Hou Haitao. Hou Haitao had a surprised look on his face. He stood up and waved to the audiences, followed by a bow.

The camera also switched to zoom in to a row of 10 audiences. They were wearing Bing City’s Aviation Factory’s uniforms. When they saw the camera pointing at them, they raise a placard each. There was a total of 10 words, one character on each placard. “Bing City Aviation Factory, Number one in technology!”

This was shown on the projector too. All the live audiences saw it. Some of the representatives sitting in front also spit out their tea!

The director immediately turned to the Chief Director: “Director Xu, this was not according to what was rehearse.”

Placards with slogans? Who arranged this?

Xu Yipeng almost vomits blood. What was this Aviation Factory doing?! Never mind. There was nothing he could do. There were no audiences during the rehearsals, and he could not use the footages from the rehearsals to replace this part.

Hou Haitao slowly walked up the stage. He really wished the distance to the stage was longer, and he could take 5 to 10 minutes to reach the stage. On the stage, he received a bronze trophy and started his emotional Thank You speech. He mainly spoke about how much hard work the Aviation Factory had gone through to complete the Nation’s mission of creating a helicopter that is on par with the rest of the world.

After that, it was a dance segment. After the dance, the winner of the Aviation individual category was announced. It was an old engineer from Shenyang Aviation Factory.

The old engineer received the trophy on the stage. He was very excited and emotional. When he speaks, he was choking back tears. He had worked for decades, and this was the first time he was on the stage of CCTV to receive an award. The whole nation could see him. What an honor!

Feng Yu was also surprised. He was deeply impressed by the higher management of Shenyang’s Aviation Factory. Shenyang’s Aviation Factory was the fixed winner of this individual category. But Feng Yu did not expect that they would let this old engineer get this award. Seems like, in this era, not all leaders were snatching the credits of others. Feng Yu was also applauding. He had a lot of respect for these old engineers!

The host walked up the stage: “There are two people. One of them is the future brother-in-law of the other. The future brother-in-law is a supervisor in Bing City’s Machinery Company workshop, and the other guy is only an ordinary worker there. This is the start of their story……. Please enjoy this skit…… <Leader and the crowd>, starring Zhu Simao and Baldy Chen.”

The audiences cheered when they heard the actors. This duo is China’s most famous actors!

“Brother-in-law, please transfer over me to your workshop. Your workshop has better efficiency and has more bonuses. I can get more money there. I will put in some good words for you in front of my mother.” Baldy Chen smiled and said.

“No way! We are making engines, and these are machines which needed high precision. This is one of the most important parts of a tractor. You do not have enough skills.”

Baldy Chen and Zhu Simao had very different appearances. One was boisterous, and the other was serious. The differences between both created lots of jokes. All the live audiences enjoyed their short skit. This skit also reflects the problems in all the factories. The relationship between the workers and leaders.

When the skit was over, the audience cheered. Only Xu Yipeng was worried. It was because Feng Yu had changed the host’s scripts. The brother-in-law in the skit was supposed to be a supervisor in an ordinary factory. But Feng Yu changed it to Bing City’s Machinery Company. This hint was too obvious!

“The nominees of the first Business Contribution Awards, agriculture category is Tai Hua Food Processing Factory.”

The camera zoomed in on Feng Xingtai. Feng Xingtai stood up proudly and waved with two hands to the audiences. His wife by his side tried to pull him back. When the camera switched to Tai Hua Food Processing Factory workers among the spectators, the director, and Chief director almost fainted!

How come they had so many workers? What was written on their placards?!

“Clouds thinking of nice clothes, flowers thinking of blooming. Pigs thinking if getting fat and men thinking of getting famous!”

What the hell is this? Is this even a slogan? How can this be shown to the audiences? What does this Tai Hua Food Processing Factory do?

They looked at the video clip that was being played on the projector. It was a modernized pig farm. They were speechless. How can a pig farm contribute to the nation’s economy? Also, how come there was a face in the clip? Who edited this clip?

Feng Xingtai’s clip was to show off to everybody. 15 seconds out of the 30 seconds clip was focusing and zoomed in on his face!

Luckily the other nominees did not do this, and Xu Yifeng was relieved.

When Bing City’s Machinery Company was announced as a nominee, the video clip showed brand new tractors and all sorts of farming equipment. But there were also Songjing Motorcycles featured in the video. This category is the agricultural contribution award! What has motorcycles to do with agriculture?

“Now, we shall invite China’s Agricultural Technology Department Head, Mr. Wang, to announce the winner and to give out the award!”

“The winner of the first Business Contribution Awards, the agricultural category is…… Bing City’s Machinery Company!”

Everyone clapped. Li Mingde was the company’s representative to receive the award. Feng Yu was not interested in showing his face.

“I would like to thank Bing City’s Government for their support. I would also want to thank all our shareholders and workers. Thank you for your hard work! We, Bing City’s Machinery Company, promises to produce better quality and cheaper farming machinery for all of China’s farmers. We will increase your efficiency at a lower cost! We are never afraid that our company’s products would lack behind others because we have your support!”

Li Mingde pointed to the audiences. There were about a dozen workers in the Machinery Company’s uniforms among the audiences. The director immediately panned the camera towards the audiences.

Blood rushed up into Xu Yipeng’s head when he saw those workers stood up and raise placards!

Who the hell taught them to do this?! This is CCTV special program. This is not your company’s own annual dinner! How come you are still shouting cheers?!

Chapter 357 – Cheers and placards on Gala Dinner (Part 2 of 3)

“Bing City’s Machinery Company, moving forward, moving out of Asia towards the world!”

The Machinery Company had 16 staffs there. They raised the placards high above their head and shouted their slogans loudly. Not only Xu Yipeng was shocked. The rest of the audiences were shocked too. The host even forgot what he had to say. The director was so shocked that he is forgotten to switch cameras and gave those workers a total of 5 seconds of footage!

“Cut it. Hurry up and cut it. Switch to the host!” Xu Yipeng roared at the director.

Li Mingde proudly said: “Of course. Our Machinery Company has the most advanced technologies in China. Not only in agricultural machinery. Our motorcycles are also the most popular motorcycles in the cities. This year, we will be introducing saloon cars. I welcome everybody to come and buy our new cars!”

The host was shocked. This was an awards ceremony. Why are you advertising your company? You are the winner of the agriculture category and why are you talking about motorcycles and cars?

“Thank you, Manager Li for your speech. Next, let’s enjoy the following performance……”

When the host walked down the stage, he saw Xu Yipeng rushing up to him angrily: “What are you doing just now? How come you let him advertise his company and products?”

The host felt innocent: “Director Xu, who would expect him to say all those. Can’t you just remove that part?”

“We will talk about this later. Be alert! Don’t panic and be prepared for worst.”

The host’s heart skipped a beat: “Director Xu, please don’t scare me. Are you telling me that there will still be more people shouting cheers and slogans?”

“I hope not, but you must be prepared. Don’t mess up your scripts!” Xu Yipeng patted the host on his shoulders and sighed.

“Next, we shall announce the nominees of the individual awards for the agriculture category. Northern Agricultural University’s Professor, Tai Hua Food Processing Factory top consultant, Su Mingrui!”

Many people frowned. How come it is Tai Hua Food Processing Factory’s people again? This time is a consultant?

The video clip showed a pig farm again. But this time, the person in the video was different. It was Professor Su. The audiences soon realized that this pig farm was very hi-tech. Most of the chores, like feeding, cleaning of the pigsty, were all automatic. Pigs can be reared this way?

The director switched the camera to the audiences. Under the “anticipation” of the host and directors, they were not disappointed. The placards for Tian Peng Pig Farm was raised again. This time, the workers shouted out the slogans. Louder than the Machinery Company!

Xu Yipeng was going crazy. He felt that this was the black mark in his entire career. He thought that he was lucky to get the chance to be the chief director of this program. Maybe in a few years’ time, he would get the chance to be the chief director of the Spring Festival Gala Night. That would be a promotion and a pay raise.

But he did not expect that he could not make much decision in this award ceremony. Even that kid Feng Yu had the support of Deputy Station Chief Jia. He still has to collect back the tickets he had given out to exchange for favors. Those tickets were then distributed to the workers.

This was not the end. During rehearsals, this Feng Yu still pointed out all sorts of problems, like the host’s script, had issues, the director had switched the cameras wrongly, and even wanted to place humidifiers on top of every roundtable!

Feng Yu also gave some representatives and workers additional airtime. This was fine. Xu Yipeng could still bear with it. But what were those workers wearing?

Wearing uniforms were fine. But why the hell are they wear safety helmets? You think they are now working in their factories? This is CCTV Gala venue. There is no need for safety helmets!

When the cameras panned towards the audiences, everyone can see those striking blue uniforms and red helmets!

Xu Yipeng tried his best to tolerate all these, he had wanted to direct a good program. But now, everything was gone. Not only those workers brought placards, they even shouted cheers and slogans. When they shouted their slogans, all the live audiences turned towards them. This was shown clearly on the cameras.

Can this footage still be used? This must be cut. But this footage had a wide angle. If he cut away those parts, he will not have enough footage. If he replaces that part with other footages, it will seem that he was targeting that few companies. The TV viewers will be wondering why some companies’ workers got airtime and those few companies did not?

Especially those winners, their workers, must be captured on camera too. Also, that Li Mingde still interacted with his workers while on stage! This is a CCTV program. I am the Chief Director. Who allowed you to interact with the audience? Don’t your workers know the rules?!

Xu Yipeng regretted agreeing to show the live audiences on camera. During rehearsals, there were no audiences, and they do not have extra footages of the live audiences. What can he still do?

Xu Yipeng does not know what his higher-ups will think when they saw this program. How would they rate this program? The more he thinks about this, the more he felt dejected.

……

“Next, we will announce the nominees of the consumer products category. Tai Hua Trading Company.”

Tai Hua? How come it is Tai Hua again? Do all China companies need to use this Hua character? Why can’t you call yourself Tai Xia Company?

Wu Zhigang was standing in front of the camera. In front of him was the newly produced Super Fan.

“Our Tai Hua Trading focuses on developing new innovative home appliances. This Super Fan in front of me does not only have the features of our traditional bladeless fan, but it is also a humidifier. We have incorporated many new features, like heating, Sterilization, dehumidifying, scent, etc. in it. This will be a multi-functional product. This product is extremely popular overseas. You can find this in almost every big department stores in the cities. We are also having a promotion now!”

Wu Zhigang was speaking like a host on those TV shopping programs. Feng Yu was really pleased with his performance.

To make this video, Feng Yu had called Wu Zhigang over to Beijing and trained him for one whole day.

Xu Yipeng covered his face with his palm and slumped on his chair. This was the 30 seconds video clip prepared by Feng Yu? We had agreed that the clip will be showing the reasons for the company to be one of the nominees. Who asked you to make it into an advertisement?! Who was the one who shot this clip? I want to strangle him!

Xu Yipeng knew that this Tai Hua Trading Company will be getting this award.

Oh no. The workers among the audiences will create problems later. What award ceremony is this? A comedy? I will be demoted soon…… I would be glad if I can be a director of a documentary in the future……

Feng Yu, I am going to kill you!

Chapter 358 – Cheers and placards on Gala Dinner (Part 3 of 3)

“Wind and Rain home appliances, Technology to change your life!”

When Tai Hua Trading’s staffs raised their placards and shouted their slogans, Xu Yipeng became quiet.

The rest of the audiences turned and looked at Tai Hua Trading staffs. Tai Hua Trading staffs did not feel awkward or embarrassed. Instead, they had a proud look on their faces.

All of you are representatives of your company? All of our Tai Hua Trading’s staffs are here!

All of you are here to watch the live recording of this award ceremony and are not paid? We are still getting our salary for being here, and we still have a bonus!

All of you traveled here by train? We came here by plane!

All of you are staying at those regular hotels and eat everyday meals? We are all staying in 5 stars hotel and have all of our meals at Quanjude. Our boss is paying for everything. Even when we can’t finish the food, we are also allowed to bring the leftovers home!

All of you are wearing regular clothes or uniforms? We are all in branded suits and leather shoes.

How much are you all earning a month? Do you have bonuses? Not only our salaries are higher than the national average, but we can also claim our pager expenses. From next year onwards, each of us can even claim the petrol expenses for our motorcycles. Which company have benefits that can match us?

We are the staffs from Tai Hua Trading, and we are proud of it!

Furthermore, what’s wrong with our slogan? We are using technologies to change people’s lives! Manager Feng had said that the special bonus for this year will be a Super Fan each. The market value for this fan is a few thousand RMB! On Lunar New Year, we will still be getting red packets, chickens, ducks, fishes, and meat. Our families can’t even finish all these food in a month!

Tai Hua Trading’s welfare was too good. Manager Feng had said that others can only envy them, and no other company’s welfare can be better than them!

When Tai Hua Trading’s Wu Zhigang went up the stage to receive the award, he recited the script written by Feng Yu: “Thank you Bing City’s Government for their support and help. I would also like to thank Bing City’s Aviation Factory, Bing City’s Motor Factory, Beijing’s YADU Company for their support. I would like to thank Mr. Feng Xingtai and Mdm. Zhang Muhua. I would like to thank Mr. Li Shiqiang and Ms. Feng Danying. Technologies should be used to improve our daily lives. We, Tai Hua Trading, have achieved it. I believe that all of you can also do it. Let us use technologies to change our lives and our future!”

When he finished his speech, the audiences cheered. Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua were the most excited. They had been thanked! Li Shiqiang and his wife were not present. Li Shiqiang was temporary helping to look after Tai Hua Trading.

A few companies’ leaders and professors were thinking about what Wu Zhigang had said. Technologies should be used to improve our daily lives!

The government officials looked at each other and nodded. This Tai Hua Trading was right!

Xu Yipeng looked the nominees for the remaining categories. There were no other companies that start with Tai Hua. There should be no more placards or cheers.

But Xu Yipeng did not expect that Bing City’s Motor Factory did it again.

“Bing City Motor Factory, striving to be the best!”

Damn, another Bing City’s company. Did all these Bing City’s companies discuss beforehand? All of them were wearing the same clothing, carried placards and shouted cheers. What were they doing?!

Xu Yipeng must report this to the leaders. These people must be punished. This is CCTV and not Bing City! They are not allowed to do whatever they want!

……

Li Na and the rest looked at Feng Yu. Needless to say, all these must be related to Feng Yu. No one else would do such things!

From the moment they walked into the venue, they saw a humidifier on every table. They knew it must be Feng Yu’s idea. Just now, Feng Yu was the one who started the applause. How could Feng Yu be unrelated to this?

But all of them also noticed something weird. The Motor Factory and Aviation Factory’s slogans were very traditional. Whereas, the Machinery Company and Tai Hua companies were very innovative.

Especially when they heard “Clouds thinking of nice clothes, flowers thinking of blooming. Pigs thinking if getting fat and men thinking of getting famous!”, all the audiences were laughing.

All of them felt that this pig farm was too weird, and had an odd name, Tian Peng Pig Farm. But none of them noticed that they had remembered the name of this pig farm unconsciously!

This was what Feng Yu wanted. This award ceremony will be recorded on VCD and will be given free with Wind and Rain VCD players. When the time VCD players entered the homes of everybody, this advertisement will also reach out to them. Most importantly, this was free.

When Feng Yu notified the Motor Factory and Aviation Factory, Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao were hesitating. But Feng Yu told them that this was an opportunity to show the whole nation their factory’s work culture. They would regret if they missed out this opportunity.

When Li Shiyou and Hou Haitao saw the people at the Machinery Company and Tai Hua Trading preparing their placards and cheers, they immediately organized their staffs to do the same. Although they do not know if they were allowed to do this, if everyone were doing the same thing, they should not get into trouble. Furthermore, Feng Yu had mentioned that he had a lot of authority for this ceremony. Since Feng Yu had said they would not get into trouble, then it should be fine. Feng Yu would not lie to them.

But they refused to use the slogans Feng Yu suggested. What slogans were those? Bing City’s Aviation Factory, soaring to the skies, Bing City’s Aviation Factory, flying among the clouds. Bing City’s Motor Factory, Number one in generators.

These slogans were more like children songs. Also, it was too arrogant. How can they shout such slogans? They would be laughed by other companies if they showed these on TV.

Feng Yu could only sigh and give up on them. These people do not know that slogans should be as simple as possible and must be easy to remember. This way, people will remember and spread. Anyway, these two factories were state-owned enterprises. They do not have to worry about their sales. Since the both of you were not willing to take up my suggestions, so be it. Anyway, my companies must be using these slogans to let the whole nation remember us!

……

“The first nominee for the first Business Contribution Awards ceremony, Health products category, Hangzhou’s Lehaha company.”

“Drink Lehaha, Dinner would taste better!” The projector showed Lehaha’s video clip. There was a group of young children holding a bottle of Lehaha and shouting their slogan together.

When the camera switched to the audiences, all of Lehaha’s staffs shouted one, two, three, and stood up. They raised a huge cut-out of a cartoon character. This cartoon character was their trademark.

Xu Yipeng heard the workers shouting their slogan, “Drink Lehaha, Dinner would taste better!” through his headphones. He threw his headphones on the floor in anger!

How come this Lehaha also joined in this nonsense? This was a company from the southern provinces. What has it got to do with this Feng Yu? Why were they copying Feng Yu’s companies?

Xu Yipeng had thought that there were no more companies from the northeast regions and there would be no more such things. But this Lehaha’s cut-out was the biggest! They had planned this way before this ceremony!

Xu Yipeng was mad. He swore that he would not direct this program next year even if the higher-ups do not punish him!

One of China’s top director and the Chief Director of this award ceremony was about to collapse from his anger!

Chapter 359 – Meeting the in-laws?

The award ceremony ended, and the audiences slowly stood up and left. Their hands were aching from clapping. But they wished they could carry on clapping. They really love this show. All the performers were top celebrities, and it was also an award ceremony. Their companies were being recognized for their hard work. Also, they were also captured by the cameras.

Xu Yipeng heard the applause from the audiences and was slightly relieved. Maybe tonight’s ceremony was a success. The applause seems to be louder than Spring Festival Gala night.

But when Xu Yipeng looked at the monitor, he almost fainted. What are those people doing? Why are they still raising their placards? What are they trying to do?

Feng Yu and his friends were standing outside the entrance, waiting for his parents.

“Dad, Mum, let’s go for supper.”

Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua saw their son standing with his friends. But they noticed that the positions of Feng Yu and his friends, and exchanged looks. They knew something was wrong.

Feng Yu was with 5 other friends. Feng Yu had never expected Liu Kun to have a girlfriend!

Hmm…… Liu Kun’s girlfriend was the top student in his faculty. Both of them had met during a hobby’s club at their university and discovered that both of them were from Northeast regions. Then, both of them got into an argument over the solution of a mathematics problem. In the end, both of them were right. It was only they had used different methods to solve the problem.

Just like that, that top female student started to visit the library with Liu Kun, and they end up being together.

When Feng Yu knew about this, his jaws almost dropped! Mathematics Hobby club? What the hell was that? Both of them got together because of a mathematics problem? Feng Yu could only sigh. He could not understand the world of top students!

So the 3 couples went to watch the live recording of the award ceremony together. When Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua saw them, they immediately knew that Feng Yu and Li Na was a couple!

……

At a lamb hotpot restaurant, all of them sat down and ordered a lot of food.

As usual, Wen Dongjun started eating like he had been starving for years. It was also because he was familiar with Feng Yu’s parents. He had dinners at Feng Yu’s house many times, and Zhang Muhua even praised him for having a good appetite.

Feng Xingtai suddenly remembered that this Li Na was in the same high school with Feng Yu. They had returned to the district together during the holidays. At that time, he felt that something was wrong.

Especially today, Feng Xingtai had arrived in Beijing together with Wu Zhigang and the rest. Feng Yu had bought an apartment in Beijing, but he still arranged for his parents to stay in a hotel. Why didn’t he bring his parents to his apartment?

Feng Yu was obviously hiding something!

“Li Na, which school are you attending?” Feng Xingtai asked.

“I am now studying at Beijing Teaching University. I am learning English.” Li Na blushed and replied.

She felt that she had been seen through. This was the first time she was eating with Feng Yu’s parents. She was uneasy. Can this be considered meeting her future in-laws?

Li Na had met Aaron Kwok earlier that day. Feng Yu had brought her to the backstage and took photographs together with her idol. She was excited the whole day. But now, she was nervous and flustered.

“So, you will be a teacher in the future? Being a teacher is good. Teachers will educate children well.” Feng Xingtai smiled happily.

Beijing Teaching University. Li Na and Feng Yu were not from the same university. Feng Yu still brought her to this award ceremony. There must be something going on between the both of them.

Zhang Muhua pinched her husband under the table. What was he talking about? What educating children? He doesn’t even know how to ask questions.

“Li Na, who else is in your family? Where do you intend to work in the future?” Zhang Muhua continued with the “questioning” session.

Feng Yu coughed. Wen Dongjun was still digging into the plates of lamb. He had finished 4 big plates of sliced lamb himself!

Before the award ceremony, what did I instructed you to do? What did you promise me? All you did now was just eating!

Feng Yu stepped on Wen Dongjun’s foot underneath the table. I had asked you to interrupt the conversation when I coughed. Did you forget that our signal is coughing?

Wen Dongjun was enjoying his food when Feng Yu stepped hard on his foot. He almost shouted. When he saw Feng Yu’s angry look, he remembered what he promised Feng Yu earlier.

Wen Dongjun gave Feng Yu a calm look and stood up: “Uncle Feng, what are you not eating? You don’t like to eat lamb? Then pass me that plate of lamb in front of you!”

Feng Yu lowered his head and covered his face with his palm. Damn. Was this the best you can do?

Zhang Han felt embarrassed. She kept pulling Wen Dongjun’s sleeves. Even when they were familiar with each other, it was still considered very rude. Furthermore, Liu Kun’s girlfriend had met them the first time. Such an embarrassment.

Feng Xingtai still wanted to ask Li Na some questions when he heard Wen Dongjun. He looked at the plate of lamb slices in front of him and then looked at the empty plates in front of Wen Dongjun. He reluctantly passes the plate of lamb slices to Wen Dongjun. This brat from the Wen family can really eat. No wonder he was so tall and strong!

Feng Xingtai turned to Li Na and wanted to ask more questions when Wen Dongjun stood up again: “Auntie Zhang, can you pass me that plate of melon?”

The following 5 minutes, everybody was looking at Feng Yu’s parents passing the plates of dishes to Wen Dongjun. Wen Dongjun devours plates after plates. He really has a good appetite.

Although the dishes in a hotpot restaurant were not big portions, the quantity was still a lot. Wen Dongjun had already eaten a lot before he asked for the plates in front of Feng Xingtai. Yet, he could even finish everything.

When Wen Dongjun stood up for the seventh time, Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua looked at each other. What does this Dongjun want? There was only a plate of cabbage remaining in front of them. Wen Dongjun wants to take away the remaining plate? The both of them had just started eating!

Wen Dongjun suddenly shouted: “Ahhh….. Xiao Yu, this restaurant is closing? Uncle Feng, Auntie Zhang, are the both of you full?”

Feng Xingtai almost vomited blood. He had only eaten a piece of lamb before Wen Dongjun started asking for the dishes in front of him!

Feng Yu secretly gave Wen Dongjun a thumb up. Smart. Really smart. His parents could not get the chance to question Li Na.

“Waiter, give us another 4 plates of lamb and some melons, noodles, mushrooms, etc.” Feng Yu shouted.

“Dad, Mum, eat something first. We can chat later.”

When the dishes were served, Wen Dongjun was already full and started to become service personnel. He begins to cook and serve food from the hotpot to the rest. Mainly he was serving Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua. He kept serving them food to prevent them from talking.

This method was still effective. Wen Dongjun had successfully prevented Feng Yu’s parents from asking Li Na questions.

“The taxi is here. Dongjun, help me send my parents back to the hotel. I have booked a room for you too. I will send Liu Kun and the rest back to their school. Dad, Mum, I will look for you tomorrow afternoon. Have a good rest.”

Not only Feng Yu had sent his parents back, but he had also helped Wen Dongjun. I had set up this opportunity for you, the rest is up too you!

Chapter 360 – This was the only usable version?

Feng Yu sent Liu Kun and his girlfriend to their hostel. But it was too late, and the doors were locked. Feng Yu immediately hinted to Liu Kun. What are you waiting for? This was the best excuse to bring your girlfriend to the hotel!

Although Liu Kun was a nerd, he was not stupid enough to give up this opportunity. Feng Yu secretly passed Liu Kun a 100 RMB note. The staff at the front desk was also smart: “We only have one room left!”

Feng Yu patted Liu Kun on his back and left.

It was very late, and Li Na can only return to Feng Yu’s apartment. Feng Yu told Li Na that his parents had a good impression of her and then, they spent a beautiful night together.

The next morning, Feng Yu sent Li Na back to her University.

After Feng Yu’s lesson in the morning, Feng Yu drove to his parents and noticed that his parents had already packed their luggage. Their flight back to Bing City was in the afternoon.

“Mom, Dad, why don’t you stay for a few days more? Go back with Wu Zhigang and the rest after New Year’s Day.”

“No. We had visited Beijing last year. There are no places here that we want to visit. I will return home with your mum first. When will you return home during your winter break?”

These few years, the time Feng Yu spends at home during his school breaks were getting lesser. Zhang Muhua had been grumbling about this.

“I need to visit Moscow during this coming winter break. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there are some changes to my businesses there. I need to go over for a few days. Don’t worry. I will return home before the end of January.”

“Ok. Remember to take care of yourself, and others.” Feng Xingtai patted Feng Yu’s back. He felt pleased with his son. It was like the piglet he rears had grown up and ready to breed.

Feng Yu rubbed his nosed: “Dad, mum, let’s go for lunch first. After lunch, I will send you to the airport.”

Seems like Mum and Dad does not oppose his relationships with Li Na. With Feng Yu’s family status, they do not have many expectations for their daughter-in-law. It was also hard to find a girl whose family’s situation to match theirs. As long as the girl comes from a typical family, they can accept. They were quite pleased with Li Na when they met her last night.

After lunch, Feng Yu’s parents took a taxi to the airport. Feng Yu was forced by his parents to return to his school. His parents do not want him to behave like during his high school days, skipping lessons all the time.

……

The production staff of New Year’s Day Gala Dinner was all busy. This program had to be broadcast on New Year’s Day, and they had only two days to edit the film.

The staffs had noticed a critical issue. They had recorded the rehearsal, but the host’s clothing was different from the actual night!

That means that most of the rehearsal recordings cannot be used. The footages that showed the host were all useless. Some of the performers and nominees were also wearing casual clothes. The production team had not noticed about this minor detail last night.

When Xu Yipeng looked through the recordings, he noticed that during the rehearsals, the nominees that wore casual clothes were all from Bing City! They must have plotted this. They want to prevent him from using the footages from the rehearsals!

If he cannot use the rehearsal recordings, then they can only edit from last night recordings. But it was only later, the production team noticed that yesterday’s recording was really well planned.

From the start to the end, it was exactly 3 hours and 2 minutes. They had announced the duration of this program to be 3 hours!

That means they can only cut away 2 minutes of footages. It was fine even if they did not cut anything. CCTV had reserved 10 minutes for them, in case of any overruns.

The video editor looked at Xu Yipeng: “Director Xu, do we still need to edit this recording? I think we can just use it.”

Xu Yipeng was furious: “How can we just use this recording? How can those placards and cheers be shown to the TV viewers? Edit those parts away. Take note of the total duration, and the editing must be smooth. Those cheers must be removed!”

The video editor did a rough estimation and looked at Xu Yipeng: “Director Xu if we remove those footages, we will be short of at least 10 minutes.”

Xu Yipeng was shaking. How come it is like this? Oh, we can use the recordings from other cameras. There should be no problems with those recordings.

But when Xu Yipeng viewed the footages from other cameras, he discovered that he cannot use those footages, unless he removes all the footages of Bing City’s Aviation Factory, Tai Hua Trading and the rest of Bing City’s companies. This way, it would seem like CCTV was targeting those companies. Also, the winners that were from Bing City had purposely walk slowly to the stage. Xu Yipeng cannot be showing them walking 30 seconds to the stage! This meant that he was giving these few people preferential treatment.

The higher-ups had passed a regulation that forbids them to give preferential treatments to individuals. This footage cannot be used! Furthermore, it would be too dull to show someone walking toward the stage.

Xu Yipeng grabbed his hair. He does not know what to do. He thought that he had controlled the timing of the recording of the Awards ceremony well and it should be a good thing. But now, he does not think so. He could not edit out the parts with those Bing City’s companies. Why didn’t he ask the host speaks more and extend the time?

All these happened because of Feng Yu.

Feng Yu had given red packets to the directors, cameramen, host, and editors. He told them that these red packets were from the association to reward them for their hard work.

After accepting the red packets from Feng Yu, these staffs tend to follow Feng Yu’s requests. Furthermore, these staffs had seen CCTV’s Deputy Station Chief Jia telling Xu Yipeng to respect the decisions of the organizers. CCTV was only assisting the association in recording this program!

Who’s the organizer? Feng Yu was the main organizer!

Also, Feng Yu did not make any unreasonable demands. He had only asked them to follow the rundown of the program. His only requests were only the switching of cameras must be fast and accurately. The host must give the winners more time for their speeches, and the editor must make sure the video was not edited too much. There cannot be too many changes. Especially those footages of the audiences and award winners. After all, this was an award ceremony.

Before the start of the recording, Feng Yu sent the host a set of new costume. He told the host that this costume was sponsored. The new costume was indeed more beautiful than the costume worn by the host during the rehearsal.

So, the host changed into the new costume. Many of the performers had also received new outfits. This caused differences between the actual and rehearsal recordings!

Feng Yu was satisfied. Even if this was a recorded program, he could also make CCTV broadcast the program the way he wanted. Unless Xu Yipeng really dares to use all the footages from the rehearsal recordings. But Feng Yu could still make use of his status as the organizers and made up an excuse, saying the performances during the rehearsals were not to par, to force CCTV to change it!

No matter what, the broadcasted program must be according to what Feng Yu wants! Feng Yu was not a director, but the directors must listen to Feng Yu!

Xu Yipeng sighed. There was nothing he could do now except for showing his higher-ups the actual and rehearsal recordings. It will be up to the higher-ups to decide. He had accepted his fate……

Chapter 361 – Gathering

“Wake up, wake up. It is almost 7!” Tian Lei shouted in the middle of the dormitory.

Today was an important day for them. They were not going to celebrate New Year. Feng Yu had helped them organized a gathering with a group of female students from Beijing Teaching University!

Other than Feng Yu, the rest of his roommates were all singles. Even this Tian Lei does not have a girlfriend.

“Hurry, wash up and have breakfast. We cannot be late today! We must all learn from Lao Si (number 4 in their room, referring to Feng Yu. They had ranked themselves according to their age.). We must get a girlfriend early. We must not be single when we graduate!” Tian Lei shouted and clapped like those coaches cheering their athletics on.

Surprisingly, Tian Lei’s method was very useful. All of them hurriedly got up and rushed to the bathroom.

Because there were a lot of people, Feng Yu did not drive. He took the public bus with the rest to the zoo. They waited for about 10 minutes at the entrance and saw 8 beautiful ladies walking towards them. Not only Feng Yu and his roommates, but many passers-by were also captivated by these lovely ladies.

“Let me introduce. This is our dorm’s eldest brother. He is also our class monitor. He is Tian Lei from Beijing. This is……”

Feng Yu was speechless when he looked at his roommates, especially Tian Lei. He was overly excited before they came here, but now, he does not even dare to shake hands with the girls! Coward!

“I had bought the tickets. Let’s go in and enjoy ourselves.” Feng Yu waved the bunch of tickets in his hands. There had been standing at the entrance for quite some time.

Feng Yu and Li Na walked together, hand in hand. Both of them were secretly looking at the rest. They wanted to know if any of their friends could hit it off with the opposite sex.

Feng Yu shook his head. Why were they all so reserved? This was a gathering and a chance for you to know more friends. All of his roommates should grasp this opportunity. Although there were lots of female university students in Beijing, how can they be compared to the quality of the girls in Beijing Teaching university? Even the prettiest girl in their class cannot be compared to the ugliest girl from Li Na’s dormitory!

“Oh look, it’s a swan! This is the first time I had seen a swan so close!” One of the girls shouted excitedly.

Tian Lei walked over and said loudly: “Swan is a species of bird. One of the few swimming bird species. They live in groups near lakes and swamps. Their main diet is the water plants. Swans have only one partner in their lives. I heard that if their mate passed away, the other swan would also die!”

“Really? You are so knowledgeable. No wonder you are in Beijing University!” The girl’s eyes sparkles.

Feng Yu was also shocked. Damn, this Tian Lei was terrific. He knows about swans? He must have memorized it before coming here. This was showing off his knowledge.

Tian Lei secretly waved his fist. Success! He knew that the zoology module he had taken would be useful one day. Watching <Animal Planet> was helpful!

Tian Lei moved closer to that girl. He had found his target. The only thing left was to see if both of them had the chemistry.

The rest of the guys looked at each other. This can be considered knowledgeable? They were also from Beijing University, and if you want to talk about grades, Tian Lei had the lowest grades among them!

The rest of them start to demonstrate all of their knowledge. Astronomy, history, etc. They started blabbering everything they know to the girls, hoping to attract their attention.

Feng Yu nodded. That’s right. How can you be shy if you want to know girls? Scholars also need to show off their talents.

Li Na covered her mouth and giggle: “Your roommates are so interesting. They even use classic quotes when they are talking. But all of them are very knowledgeable.”

Feng Yu pointed to a peacock not far from them: “You know? They are just like those peacocks. They are desperate to show off their talents to attract the attention of the opposite sex. Actually, I am the one who was the most talented, but I prefer to be low-profile.”

“Ya, ya, ya. You are the most talented. Tell me the scientific name of the swans we saw earlier.”

Feng Yu: “Oh look, today’s weather is so good. Let’s hurry and catch up with the others.”

Li Na looked at the overcast sky. This was considered good weather? If it wasn’t she had promised to attend this gathering, they would be not be stepping out of their dormitory!

All of them enjoyed themselves after 2 hours. Other than Tian Lei, there were 3 other couples. They were progressing faster than Feng Yu expected.

The group left the zoo at about noon for lunch.

At the restaurant, Feng Yu saw that all of them wanted to sit apart from each other and he shook his head. He immediately suggests having a boy girl boy girl seating arrangement. They occupied two tables, and one table could seat 8 people. Those 4 couples who hit it off were sitting at a table and the rest at another table. Feng Yu and Li Na were sitting together with the other 6 people. They tried to bring them closer to each other.

Li Na’s roommates were willing to come to this gathering was also because of some motives. In this era, Huaqing University and Beijing University graduates were sought after by the government. The worst job posting for these graduates were at one of the cities in the outskirts of Beijing. But Beijing Teaching University’s graduates were mainly posted back to their provinces. Beijing had sufficient teachers.

Although the graduates were posted to the provinces’ cities, it still cannot be compared to Beijing. If the graduates from Beijing University was dating, their partners could be posted in the same region.

Furthermore, these boys were all from Beijing University. They would have a bright future, and they will be assigned houses by the government. Their promotions were also faster than their peers. These boys were also considered a good catch.

However, the couple must stay together until they graduate!

Feng Yu had told them that he would only introduce them to know each other. The rest, it was up to them. Feng Yu and Li Na do not want to interfere.

Other than the initial introduction, Feng Yu and Li Na did not speak much. During lunch, Feng Yu only started a conversation on a topic which his roommates were familiar and let them carry on showing off their knowledge.

After lunch, they walked around for a while before Li Na, and her roommates wanted to go back. Their exams were around the corner, and they need to start their revisions. Li Na also wanted to go back to her dorm. Feng Yu was disappointed. He could always send her back to her dorm tomorrow morning.

Before they parted, Feng Yu reminded the girls to watch the New Year’s Day Gala Dinner special program on CCTV that evening.

On their way back to their dormitory, Feng Yu’s roommates were chatting and comparing their achievements. One of them said that he had already confirmed a date with a girl after their exams. Another said that he and the girl he was chatting with were from the same province, and they had made arrangements to ride the train together back to their hometown after their exams.

Those that did not hit it off with any girls were pulling a long face. Why those girls were not interested in them?

From their performances earlier, Feng Yu knew that no amount of gatherings could help these guys. They were too shy to even talk to the girls. Were they waiting for those girls to make the first move?

Just wait for your family to arrange for matchmaking. Matchmaking suits you guys more!

Chapter 362 – Broadcast of the Awards Ceremony

In the evening, all of Feng Yu’s roommates went to Feng Yu’s apartment to watch TV. They wanted to watch the New Year’s Day Gala Dinner. Feng Yu had claimed that this program was the most entertaining program ever shown on CCTV.

At the start of the program, Tian Lei and the rest were all excited.

“Who is this singer that sang the opening song? The song is beautiful!”

This Sun Nan, China’s top singer in the future, was still an unknown singer now. Even when he had already released his album, no one had heard who he was. But Feng Yu believed that after this program was aired, many people will know who Sun Nan was. His value and popularity will rise several times.

Feng Yu had “wrote” two songs for Sun Nan and had given him an opportunity. He became the person that helped him to fame. Of course, this was not for free. Although there were no artist agencies now, Sun Nan had signed a 10 years contract with Tai Hua Trading to be their spokesperson. His fees were meager. 1 million RMB for 10 years, and he was not limited to only Wind and Rain products.

Sun Nan would be Feng Yu’s future spokesperson for Wind and Rain VCD player. After all, the main consumers for VCD, after it became popular, were the Karaoke lounges. It was also because of VCD, KTV became popular.

Feng Yu had made things clear to Sun Nan. Now, this contract might be lucrative for him. But after the year after next, Sun Nan would surely regret. By that time, every household in China would know who he was. His value would increase several folds. But Feng Yu explained to Sun Nan that after he became the spokesperson for Wind and Rain home appliances and VCD players, there will be more people listening to his songs and know him. It was still beneficial to him.

Sun Nan was grateful to Feng Yu for giving an unknown singer like him this opportunity. He still did not feel like he was being taken advantage of. After he became famous, he could still endorse other products. Although 10 years was very long, Feng Yu gave him 1 million RMB upfront. This 1 million RMB was very important to Sun Nan and his family. It made him felt that all his hard work to become a singer was worthwhile.

From today onwards, Sun Nan would be famous. Feng Yu felt that Sun Nan would be invited to perform at next year’s Spring Festival Gala Night. There were not a lot of pop singers in China now.

“Hey, look. How come the audiences are holding placards? Feng Yu, Wang Lei, your Bing City’s Aviation Factory is incredible!” Tian Lei gave a thumb up.

The people in this era were proud of their hometown. If anything good happened in their hometown, they would feel proud too.

Feng Yu had a calm expression, but Wang Lei raised his chin and had a proud look. His father was also a worker, and Wang Lei was proud of those ordinary workers!

……

“Hahaha, Baldy Chen and Zhu Simao are so funny. Is this based on a real incident in Bing City’s Machinery Company?”

“Yes. It was adapted from a real incident. But that worker looks more like a good guy when compared to Baldy Chen.” Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders.

“Huh, not only the audiences were holding up placards, they are still shouting cheers. But we can’t hear the cheers clearly.”

In the end, Zu Yipeng had only mute the cheers. His leaders allowed the footages with the placards to be aired, so Xu Yipeng relents.

If any higher-ups wanted to punish them, it was his leaders that gave the green light. He would not be shouldering all the blame himself.

The CCTV top leaders had held a meeting to discuss this recording. At first, almost all the people at the meeting objected to the airing of this program. They felt that this was not the way to do a TV program.

But Deputy Station Chief Jia said that this was organized by the association. It was supposed to be for their own entertainment. CCTV was only providing the venue and helping the association. Furthermore, the association was paying for everything. CCTV could also make some profits from this program. This way, CCTV would have more funds for the upcoming Spring Festival Gala Night.

The organizers were fine with it, what more can they say? Also, the performances were exciting, and the whole program was very entertaining. Those award winners had also given excellent and meaningful Thank You speeches. Their speeches would motivate more Chinese and let them believe that China would catch up with the rest of the world. This would prevent China talents from leaving for those western countries.

Finally, the Station Chief gave the green light. This was a good program and only the part when the host was in a daze must be edited out, the rest do not need to edit. The footage of the audiences must be shown. They were the workers of those nominees and winners. How can these footages be cut out? The ones on stage to receive the award was only the representative of the company. This award belongs to all the workers from that organization. If you remove their footages, that means you deny them of their credit!

However, those cheers were not appropriate. It had influenced the whole award ceremony. Those cheers must be muted before airing. After this program was aired, they would wait for the TV audiences’ feedback before deciding if this program was a success. From these leaders’’ experiences, they knew that the TV viewers would like it.

……

“Hahaha, this Tian Peng Pig Farm is so funny.  Clouds thinking of nice clothes, flowers thinking of blooming. Pigs thinking if getting fat and men thinking of getting famous! There should be another line in this poem. I can’t recall it.” One TV audience was laughing in front of the TV.

“I don’t remember it too. Eh, you are wearing red clothes today.” His friend said. (Red had another meaning in Chinese. 红 = Red color or famous)

The TV audience immediately removes his red top. But he was still wearing a red belt.

……

“Eh, that’s Wind and Rain bladeless fan. We had bought that fan. There is a new model? Super Fan? There are so many functions? Dear, should we change a new fan? Our fan is quite old. We can use the old fan in the room.”

“This Super Fan has so many functions. It should be costly.”

“Don’t worry. We have made some money this year. We can afford even if the fan cost 10,000 RMB!”

……

“This representative from Tai Hua Trading had said it! Technologies should be used to improve everybody’s lives. Look at your research center. All you do is to research on fighter jets and bombs. These are all for wars. Why can’t your research center focus on something that can improve our lives?” The wife of a research center’s engineer grumbled.

“We are doing it for our country’s defense. This company’s products are useless.” The engineer retorted.

“What you mean by useless? Then what can your fighter jets and bombs do? We are not at war now. What can you use it for? Look at the things they make. They even export their products and earn money from other countries. Your research center only knows how to buy things from those foreigners!”

The engineer had nothing to say. He was thinking in his heart. Were they wrong? Should they research on something that can change and improve everybody’s life?

……

That night, almost every households were watching the award ceremony. They do not care about those rewards. They only wanted to watch the performances. Those that do not have TV sets would go to their neighbor’s house to watch. Every now and then, there was laughter.

That night, almost all the streets were empty……

Chapter 363 – The after-effects of the award ceremony (Part 1 of 2)

In this era, there were no accurate measures of TV ratings. In simpler terms, many places could receive CCTV channels 1 and 2. People were still using aerial antennas to receive TV signals.

The provincial TV stations seldom have exciting programs. It can be said that the Award Ceremony had achieved almost 100% viewership.

Many people only knew that this special program was an award ceremony when they watched it. But all of them still enjoyed the program.

Those award winners and nominees were envied by everybody. They were able to show their faces on CCTV. That means everyone in China knew who they were.

Oh, these people were the ones that had made considerable contributions to China. China’s industrial and agriculture were catching up with the rest of the world. These people were the pride of China!

It was not the performances or the winners that had left deep impressions with the TV audiences. It was the live audiences’ placards and cheers.

The TV audiences not only remembered the slogans. They also remembered the workers’ uniforms.

If the TV audiences were to rate the group of workers in the live audiences that had left the deepest impression, it would be Lehaha, and their cartoon figure cut out. Even Tian Peng Pig Farm had lost to them.

This increased Lehaha’s sales after this program. The distributors all over China had called Lehaha’s sales office to increase their orders.

Few people may notice Lehaha’s usual TV advertisements. It was because there were still many households in China that do not have TV at home. But this was a CCTV special program. Those without TV would go to their friends or relatives houses to watch this program.

The distributors in different regions noticed this and immediately increased their orders. People would be looking for Lehaha’s products during this period, and it was the best opportunity to earn money.

Once again, Zhong Qingxian was deeply impressed with Feng Yu’s foresight. It was because Feng Yu had asked Tai Hua trading stocked up Lehaha’s liquid supplements one week before. This was to prevent Tai Hua Trading from running out of stocks after becoming famous. Lehaha’s factory was now running at full capacity. Their workers had to work 3 shifts, running at 24 hours to cope with the sudden surge in demand!

When Zhong Qingxian heard his sales manager’s report, he regretted not listening to Feng Yu. If he had set up the new factory earlier, it would be in operations by now.

But now, his factory could not cope with the demands. They had to stop taking orders. It was like money flying out of his hand. The new factory’s construction should be completed soon and should be in operation after the Lunar New Year. All the machines in the new factory were ordered from the Soviet Union by Feng Yu.

……

Li Mingde had called Feng Yu to tell him the good news. The Machinery Company had received a lot of orders for their agriculture machinery. This year’s profits will be at least 30% more than they estimated previously. They can now be compared to those national standard agriculture machines’ factories. Their target next year was to be China’s number one farming equipment manufacturing company. They want to beat those established big brands like Dongfang Hong!

Dongfang Hong was a state-owned factory and had the support of the government. Even with the government support, their technologies were outdated compared to the Machinery Company. They had been losing market share. Feng Yu was glad that the Machinery Company could be China’s number one within the next 2 years.

Feng Yu instructs Li Mingde to listen to the requirements of those old farmers to produce equipment that suits the markets. The Machinery Company must also upgrade their technologies regarding their efficiency and durability. Feng Yu also wanted their tractors to have different classes based on their capacity.

Now, there were only two types of tractors. The 55 horsepower Dongfang Hong tractor and the 12 horsepower smaller tractors. There were no midrange tractors and had to be imported. Feng Yu wanted to capture this market segment. This would be the future mainstream tractor segment. Of course, Feng Yu also wanted to produce higher horsepower tractors too. High horsepower tractors were also selling well in the future. Tractors can not only be used for plowing and seedings at farms. They can also be used to transport goods with there was a trailer attached.

Trailers were good. All the Gaz trucks owned by Wind and Rain Logistics had trailers attached. The traffic police at this time do not care about this. There were very few vehicles on the road. Wind and Rain logistics frequently need to transport big items. It takes up lots of space. By attaching a trailer to their trucks, they can double their load!

Wind and Rain Logistic was using this method temporary. There was no need to increase their truck fleet. When the Machinery Company starts to produce their own trucks, then Wind and Rain Logistics will expand their fleet.

During the award ceremony, many people noticed that Songjiang Motorcycles belongs to Bing City’s Machinery Company. They tried calling the Machinery Company to order Songjiang Motorcycles but were told that Tai Hua Trading was in charge of the motorcycles’ sales.

……

When Wu Zhigang returned to Bing City, he saw his company was in a mess. If it weren’t for Li Shiqiang and the Wind and Rain Logistics staffs there, he would have thought that there was a break-in!

“Manager Li, what happens to our office?” Wu Zhigang asked.

“Hrmph!” Li Shiqiang growled: “All of you had enjoyed yourselves. You don’t even leave one person at your office, and you asked me to help taking care of the company. Do you know how many phone calls we had helped you receive these few days? We don’t even have time for lunch! We also do not know how much you are selling your products. We had helped to take down their contact numbers. Since you are back, you can settle it yourselves.”

As they were talking, the phone rang. Wu Zhigang smiled and went to pick up the call: “Hello, Tai Hua Trading. Yes, it’s our company. Oh, I’m sorry. We have a distributor there. We cannot sell it to you. You want to be a distributor too? No. We had signed a contract with our distributors. You can contact our distributors. Thank you. We will contact you if we need you.”

A few weeks ago, Feng Yu had told Wu Zhigang that after New Year, Tai Hua Trading’s products will increase their prices. He asked Wu Zhigang to inform the distributors to stock up before the New Year. Wu Zhigang had already done that. They had also completed the last trade of the year with the Soviet Union. He thought that there was no more work and that’s why he brought all of Tai Hua Trading’s staffs to Beijing. At the same time, take a short holiday there.

Feng Yu had told him that this trip was considered to be the workers’ reward for this year. In the future, Tai Hua Trading will have annual company trip. Each staff can bring one family member along!

Wu Zhigang thought that since there was not much work to do, he asked Li Shiqiang to help him look after for a few days. Wu Zhigang had forgotten that there will be people calling asking to be their distributors.

Luckily, they had returned on the second day of the New Year and came straight to the company from the airport.

Wu Zhigang sighed in his heart. This award ceremony was more effective than advertising on CCTV. How did Manager Feng thought of this idea?

Chapter 364 – The after-effects of the award ceremony (Part 2 of 2)

After the award ceremony was aired, even Wind and Rain Logistics’ business improved. It was because Tai Hua Trading’s short video clip had shown their office building and Wind and Rain Logistics’ logo was shown too. The clip also captured the rows of Gaz trucks parked outside the building.

Li Shiqiang was also considering whether to take up Feng Yu’s suggestion to expand his operations towards the south and set up a branch office in Beijing.

Things were going well for everybody, but Feng Xingtai was not happy!

After being nominated twice, Tian Peng Pig Farm’s slogan and their video clips had left a deep impression on the whole nation. Everyone knows that there was a modernized pig farm named Tian Peng Pig Farm. This farm was the most advanced farm in China.

There was a sudden surge of customers, and Tian Peng Pig Farm cannot cope with the demand. The farm cannot even meet the demand of the Longjiang province.

The farm at Shenyang was still under construction. It will only be completed in Summer this year. This resulted in an embarrassing situation for Tian Peng Pig Farm.

Luckily Feng Yu had already thought of this in advance. He had asked Tian Peng Pig Farm to work with the other pig farms in Longjiang Provinces. He wanted those farms to use his animal feeds and raise their pigs according to Tian Peng Pig Farm’s methods. These farms were also allowed to sell their pork under the Tian Peng’s brand.

Of course, the quality of the pork from other farms cannot be compared to Tian Peng Pig Farm. But after strict inspections of their farms, their pork was still sold to Lin Province.

Tian Peng Pig farm had started working with the other farms in Liao province late. But it should be in time for the Lunar New Year period. Some of the pork can still be sold to Beijing.

Tai Hua Food Processing Factory’s new manager, hired by Feng Yu, sent his staff to Beijing to do market surveys. But they noticed that Tian Peng’s brand of pork was already selling there.

The manager was furious. Who sold their pork to Beijing? It had disrupted his strategies.

But there was more shocking news. Not only in Beijing but Tianjin and even in many cities from the southern provinces were also selling Tian Peng pork.

The manager knew that something was wrong. If it was only Beijing, it might be possible. Maybe one of their customers had sold Tian Peng Pigs to Beijing. But to send their pork to Tianjin were impossible. The transportation charges will be too high, and there will be no more profits.

Although Tian Peng pork was selling slightly higher than ordinary pork, live pigs were also trading at high prices. It was impossible for people to transport Tian Peng pigs from Shenyang to Tianjin.

The manager sent his people to investigate and found out that the Tian Peng pork in the market was not from their farm. This pork was fatter and was from a different species of pig!

These were imitations. They were using Tian Peng’s brand! The low-quality pork they sold would harm Tian Peng’s brand!

This cannot be tolerated!

Feng Yu knew about this. But his exams were around the corner, and he also wanted to test the abilities of this new manager. This new manager had claimed to be an overseas graduate and had managed modernized farms in the US. That was why Feng Yu had given him a good package.

If this manager could not settle this problem or do not understand China’s culture, he would not be qualified and needed to be replaced.

If it were Feng Yu, he would approach the local government and those pork sellers. He would make sure that the consumers knew that this pork was fake. The sellers will be punished. If the sellers do not know that this pork was not the real Tian Peng pork, it’s their luck. But they can still claim their damages from their suppliers.

The suppliers of these fake Tian Peng Pork were the ones behind this. They must be punished! Of course, it would be very troublesome if Feng Yu were to pursue this himself. This cannot be solved in a short period of time without the support of the government.

Zhang Ming was feeling unwell these few days. After returning from the US, he was hired by a private company as the General Manager. The packaged offered to him was very attractive. He was promised shares after 3 years into his job. This was better than being managing a farm in the US. Most importantly, he was back in China. It would be easier for him to return home compared to working in the US.

This company was expanding, and there were sufficient funds and advanced technologies. The brand was also established. He felt that this was an opportunity for him to shine. After the award ceremony was aired at CCTV, he could foresee Tian Peng Pig farm’s rapid growth this coming year.

But before he could rejoice, imitations of his company’s brand had appeared all over China. It was easier to settle this issue in the Northeast provinces. But those further in the south were not easy to control.

If this was in the US, it could be solved quickly. He could just sue these people for damages. But this is China. He had hired a few top lawyers to send letters to these illegal pork sellers and suppliers. However, all these people ignored him!

Zhang Ming did not expect that the local government was also involved in these. The local governments also had a share of the profits from the fake Tian Peng Pork.

Huh? You are only a private company. Do you really think you will win against the government?

We are the ones in control here! We can do whatever we want! Furthermore, Tian Peng Pig farm could not meet the market demand. What’s wrong with us selling Tian Peng Pork? Did we sell these pork to the northeast regions? There were so many people selling. You can go and look for them. If they stop selling, we will stop too!

Zhang Ming knew that if he did not handle this problem well, he might not be replaced. But it would be impossible for him to renew his contract after 3 years. Needless to say, there will be no company shares reward.

These people were hindering Zhang Ming’s career. Zhang Ming was furious.

Zhang Ming immediately contacts all the big pig farms in China and used Tian Peng brand to exchange for some shares in those farms. He then authorized these farms to use Tian Peng brand to sell their pork.

Zhang Ming was laughing in his heart. You are protected by the local government? Then I will let you fight among yourselves. I shall see these governments will protect who. Those small suppliers and sellers or those large-scale farms?

Although this would lower the value of Tian Peng Brand, it would allow Tian Peng Pork to be sold all over China. It was only a matter of time when Tian Peng Pig Farm become China’s number one pork supplier.

Zhang Ming did not only do this. He also buys over two near bankruptcy animals’ feed factories in the southern provinces. He wanted to enter the southern market with Tai Hua brand of animal feeds. Since those large-scale pig farms were working with him, he was not worried that these factories would make losses!

The pork war had started…

Chapter 365 – Super Fan enters the market

The Super Fan was not fully developed. To incorporate so many features together, the fan would be huge. The Super Fan in the video clip does not have many features. It was just a prototype. It can only incorporate two elements and was not in production.

The model for the southern provinces would have heating elements incorporated into the bladeless fan. Feng Yu had also set the target for Tai Hua Trading. This Super Fans’ sales must be doubled of last year!

The bladeless fan with humidifiers would be introduced into the Northern market. Of course, the humidifying was the selling point of this model. These two models will be their focus for this year. The production for the older version of humidifiers and bladeless fans will be lowered.

These older versions will not be removed completely. After all, this new Super Fan’s retail price was 50% more than those older versions. It was considered very costly in China now. There was still demands for those old models.

But for European and US markets, Super Fans were selling at double the price of those regular bladeless fans!

Even it was priced so high, Super Fan was a new product. It had attracted lots of distributors. Those distributors could see the potential of these fans and knew it would be selling well.

It was just like what Feng Yu said. Those that were willing to spend 350 USD to buy an electric fan would not mind paying another 350 USD to buy a multi-functional fan.

Wind and Rain Home appliances were being sued in many places in the US and Europe for Anti-trust laws. The newspapers had reported about these lawsuits. It was like aggressive advertising for Wind and Rain. Those people that did not know about Wind and Rain Home Appliances previously remembered this brand from mysterious China now.

Many Westerns were interested in Wind and Rain’s logo. They heard that this logo was based on China’s ancient characters. This also sparks the interest of many.

Now, YADU’s products had also entered the western countries. They were priced the same as Wind and Rain, and now the lawsuits cannot carry on.

Fu Guangzheng did not sit back and relaxed. He immediately countersued for defamation. He wanted the public apologies and damages.

This was the Fu family’s strategies. They wanted to drag out the lawsuits and blow things up. The longer this lawsuits last, the more often Wind and Rain brand would appear in the media. This would attract more consumers.

This promotion method was more effective than advertising. As for the damages, 1 USD will do. What Fu Guangzheng wanted was the attention!

People would be curious about these products and why it was involved in so many lawsuits. Were these products really good?

These people soon found out that these products were humidifiers and bladeless fans. At this time, Fu Guangzheng increases the marketing efforts to promote the new multi-functional Super Fan.

The Super Fan were selling at very high prices, but the sales were still outstanding. Many people were curious why this company would sell fans in winter? Are they crazy?

But they realized that this fan could blow out warm air. An electric fan that blows out warm air? No one had ever expected it before!

The sales for the Super Fan with heating elements were increasing. There were still many families in Europe and the US without heating. They were still using fireplaces and stoves to keep warm.

The model with humidifying features was selling quite well too. Those ordinary bladeless fans and humidifiers’ sales had also increased because of the media’s attention.

The sales of those developed countries were much more than China. Of course, the profits were higher too. The distributors were calling up almost every day to request new stocks. Fu Guangzheng had been smiling till his cheeks ache!

Working with YADU was brilliant. With YADU’s technology and factories, Wind and Rain production increased a lot. With YADU entering the market, the distributors and consumers had more choices.

No matter the consumers choose which brand, Fu Guangzheng would still receive profits. This was healthy competition, and their market shares increase rapidly. Now, those fan and air conditioner companies viewed Wind and Rain, and YADU as their main competitors.

These companies thought that this bladeless fan was not a threat to them. But when they saw the sales figures, they knew that they should view these two companies seriously. They did not expect an electric fan to have additional functions.

The air conditioner companies were mainly manufacturing cold air conditioners. Although some companies had developed heating elements in their air conditioners, the response from the market was not good.

These companies could not understand why this Super Fan with warm air was so popular. Was it because of the newspaper articles about their lawsuits? Or could it be that this fan was smaller and saves more electricity?

In fact, those were all the reasons why Super Fan could become popular within a short time. Another reason was that there were too many players in the air conditioners and ordinary electric fans industries. As for Super Fan, there were no competitors. Or it can be said that both Wind and Rain, and their competitor, YADU were on the same side!

The consumers were also driven by their curiosity. They were interested in new stuff although the Super Fans were selling not much cheaper than air conditioners.

But in China, the Super Fans were selling much cheaper than air conditioners. With Wind and Rain brand’s reputation and sales distribution networks, the Super Fan was selling better than those developed countries.

But YADU was not doing well in China. Their sales were not as good as Wind and Rain. Although Feng Yu had introduced his distributors to YADU, those distributors were not interested in YADU’s products.

YADU did not have any advertisements, and their brand awareness was very low. Many people had not heard of this brand. When there were two products at the same prices, the consumers will inevitably pick the brand they had heard of.

When the consumers did not buy YADU’s products, the malls and shops would not order from the distributors, and the distributors would not order from them. It was better for them to sell Wind and Rain products. They had been working together for so long, and consumers trusted this brand.

YADU soon realized that working with Tai Hua Trading was a wrong move. They thought that they could get to use the patents for free and had the advantage. But now, it seems that Tai Hua Trading had the upper hand. Now, YADU’s factories were producing more Wind and Rain products than their own!

YADU’s bladeless fans were oval shaped, and the consumers felt that it was too ugly. The consumers still prefer the round shaped fans! The wind from our fans are also strong and having an oval-shaped would save space. Also, which part of our fans are ugly? This is only an electric fan. How beautiful do you want it to be?

YADU still needs to develop multi-functions Super Fan. They need to incorporate more features into the bladeless fan, and the fan cannot be big. They still have to let Tai Hua Trading use these new technologies.

YADU thought that by exchanging technologies and with their factory’s scale, government support, they would overtake Wind and Rain brand. But now, it seems that if Wind and Rain did not make any mistakes, they would never step out of Wind and Rain’s shadows…….

Chapter 366 – The higher-ups’ attention? (Part 1 of 2)

The exams were over, and everybody returned to their hometown for their school breaks. However, Feng Yu remained in Beijing. The Tian Peng Pork issue was getting out of hand. Zhang Ming’s strategy was effective at first, but when the local authorities ignored this issue, those imitation pork sellers started to expand their operations.

Zhang Ming had used Tian Peng Brand to invest in pig farms all over China. But it was not as successful as he expected. Firstly, the local governments were not willing to accept it. You are not paying a single cent and why should you get the shares? You still want us to buy your animal feeds? What’s wrong with us feeding our pigs with animal feeds from the local factories?

Even if your animal feed makes the pigs grow faster, but it was also costly. We can feed our pigs with the animal feeds from the local factories or even feed them with grains and swill. The pigs will still grow up. This would also let our local factories make more money. Why should I let you earn?

In the end, Zhang Ming’s strategy failed in many places. It was successful in some areas, but that did not solve the issue of imitation Tian Peng Pork.

Zhang Ming did not expect the local governments to be so protective of their local enterprises. The governments openly allowed these illegal activities to carry on. Zhang Ming had told the local governments that this was against the law, but the local government still let those unlawful sellers do whatever they want. Some governments even supported them with subsidies!

Zhang Ming saw that these governments do not want him to invest using his brand, he offered to invest using cash. Anyway, Tai Hua Food Processing Factory still had lots of funds even after buying over some factories. He can also take bank loans.

But the terms set by the local government were harsh. There were even some local governments that rejected him flatly. They do not want investments. They want to sell their own Tian Peng Pork and make profits!

Huh? You say our Tian Peng Pork were imitations? What proof do you have? Only your pig farms can be called Tian Peng? Our pig farms can also use this name!

You had registered this brand? What’s a brand? Tian Peng Marshall is Zhu Bajie. Are you trying to tell me that Zhu Bajie belongs to you?

Zhang Ming realized that these people were utterly disgusting. There was no way to reason with them. The local government refused to act. The local police and Trade and Industry Bureau were under the local government. They would not help outsiders.

Feng Yu felt that Zhang Ming’s strategy was not wrong. But maybe he was overseas for too long and could not adapt to the local culture. Places in a terrible environment and bad customs would produce uncivilized people. These places were poor, and the people had backward thinking. There were many unreasonable people. These people would rush forward when they see the money. Even if you call the police it was no use. The policemen were the same, and they were relatives. What can you do to them?

To deal with these people, you must get the officials. You tell me that the local governments were protecting these people? Then we shall think of a while to stop these local officials from protecting them and dare not to defend them!

……

“Oh, Manager Feng, why are you here today at CCTV? Didn’t we renew the advertising slots contracts?” Cheng Baojun looked at Feng Yu.

Because of the New Year’s Day special program, CCTV’s advertisement slots bidding was brought forward. The prices of the slots were much higher than the previous year. However, Feng Yu still renewed his contracts without any hesitations. He also asked Lehaha to get 2 more advertising slots. This was in preparation for their new products, yogurt, and tea beverages.

CCTV had also announced that from next year onwards, the advertising fees will not be fixed. It would be auctioned. The highest bidder would get the slots.

This was because of Feng Yu extravagant way of buying advertising slots, and Tai Hua Trading’s increasing sales. If Feng Yu had not done these, the auctioning of advertising slots would happen later in 1994.

Feng Yu felt it was a pity that CCTV had rejected his under table offer of fixing the auctions.

Never mind. We can still get whatever slots we want and then we will make you suffer!

“Section Chief Cheng, oh, I should address you as Division Chief now.”

“I’m am a deputy division chief. Deputy.” When Cheng Junbao said this, he was smiling. He could not conceal the happiness within him. He had increased the advertising revenue for the TV station when he was the advertising department chief and was promoted. Although he was still in charge of advertising, his rank was higher. He got a raise and also better benefits.

“I am not here to talk about the advertisement slots. I am here to talk about the program <Serving You>.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, this program <Serving You> would be axed soon. But now, there was Feng Yu. Not only the backdrop of the program was changed, and he had also offered suggestions to improve this program. This program was revived, and the TV audiences enjoyed it. Of course, Feng Yu did it for his product placements in the program.

“<Serving You>? What’s wrong with this program? We have also shown your products in the show according to your requirements. We had changed it to your newest product Super Fan. Is there any problems?” Cheng Junbao asked.

“I want to invite <Serving You> to do a special episode. Of course, I will pay you for it.”

The <Serving You> program had incorporated the concepts and style of the future programs <Oriental Horizon> and <Focus Report>. This program showed the daily lives of ordinary civilians and dug deep into the issues faced by them. It was well received by the TV audiences. This program had also helped Feng Yu to do soft advertising and even interviewed Li Shiyou.

“A special episode? Manager Feng, I might not be able to help you. This is not under my jurisdiction.” Cheng Baojun replied.

Feng Yu glanced at Cheng Baojun: “Division Chief Cheng, this is not right. I remembered that when I wanted the naming rights of the program, you said that it cannot be done. You even told me that the leaders had held a meeting and rejected my suggestion. Last year, your station aired a new program <Zhengda Variety Show>. It was sponsored by Zhengda enterprise, and they get to name this program. Why? Just because it was a foreign enterprise and their boss was a foreigner, you all agree? Just because I am a Chinese and owns a private company, I am being discriminated?”

Feng Yu had forgotten about <Zhengda Variety Show> when he spoke to CCTV previously. If not, he would try all means to persuade CCTV to let him sponsor this program. This program would be the most watched program on CCTV for the next few years.

But since others can do this, why can’t I? you can sponsor and get the naming rights to this variety program, then I can also do the same. <Super Variety Show> which was aired previously was a good program. If the name were changed to <Wind and Rain Super Variety Show>, it would be better!

But CCTV still did not agree to Feng Yu’s demand.

Feng Yu was making use of this point against CCTV. CCTV had used Feng Yu’s suggestions to improve their programs and still did not allow him to have the naming rights. Because of this issue, Feng Yu had looked for Deputy Station Chief several times!

Now, all I want is to do a special episode for me. Why is this impossible? Am I not paying you? We have not even discussed the price, and you are rejecting me?

Cheng Baojun replied with a sad face: “Manager Feng, I will help you ask the leaders. Please don’t make things difficult for me if they reject your request. I am not the one who decided on the <Zhengda Variety Show> program. Why do you keep pestering me on this?”

Chapter 367 – The higher-ups’ attention? (Part 2 of 2)

“What? That Feng Yu is here again? He wants us to film an episode for him? Does he think that CCTV is his home?” Deputy Station Jia was unhappy. Feng Yu had pestered Cheng Junbao several times and had also harassed him. If it were not for the success of the New Year’s Day Special program, he would have fallen out with Feng Yu!

How can CCTV’s Deputy Station Chief be harassed by a young brat?

“Chief Jia, do you want me to chase him out? But didn’t you said that you still need his help to raise the advertising fees during next year’s advertising slots auction?”

This was the main reason why Deputy Chief Jia tolerated Feng Yu for so long. With Feng Yu around, they were not afraid of CCTV’s advertising slots not auctioned out. Feng Yu had told him that he would buy out all the unsold advertising slots.

Chief Jia raised his hand to stop Cheng Baojun: “Call Feng Yu in. I will speak to him.”

“Oh, Chief Jia. You are also here? I think Division Chief Cheng had told you what I wanted. How much does CCTV want?”

“What do you mean by how much do we want? We did not even agree to it!” Chief Jia roared.

“Huh? Did not agree? This year our station will be introducing a few new programs, right? Do you have sufficient funds? Although this year’s advertising fees were higher than last year, CCTV’s staffs’ benefits, salaries, and cost had increased a lot. I heard that almost all of your advertising fees were used for this year’s Spring Festival Gala Night.”

Feng Yu smile slyly. It was apparent that he knew CCTV had insufficient funds and he had the money. He was giving them money now, and they don’t want? Although CCTV can make money from advertising slots fast, they were spending their money even more quickly!

“Chief Jia, why not you listen to what I have in mind for this episode first. You can then decide if it was suitable or not. If it is not suitable, I will just leave. But if it is suitable, then we shall talk about the price.”

In Deputy Station Chief Jia’s mind, he was thinking no matter what Feng Yu said, he would just tell him that it is not suitable and make him leave!

Deputy Station Chief Jia nodded: “Fine. Tell me now.”

Feng Yu sat down and took out a stack of documents from his bag: “Chief Jia, this is last year’s list of counterfeits and imitations products taken from the Trade and Industry Bureau. Among this list, I think that food product was the most dangerous. After all, consumers would eat these foods. If it was other products, and the quality was not good, consumers can just throw them away and not use them. However, imitation food products might kill!”

Chief Jia was shocked and took the documents from Feng Yu. He read the reports carefully.

After a while, Feng Yu continued: “We are going to film an episode on food safety. For food products, rice, flour, oil, salt, meat, eggs, and vegetables are the most basic. We will pick one of them and focus on it. To attract more TV audiences, know, we shall pick the meat, as meat is the most expensive.”

Chief Jia nodded. Consumers would be concern about the more expensive items. If there were imitation rice, it was fine. At most, sand and gravels were mixed into the rice. Consumers can just wash it away. It was also impossible to have imitation eggs. At most, the eggs were turned bad. Once the eggs were cracked open, consumers will know immediately.

Vegetables should not be any problems. Consumers can just wash the vegetables a few times more before cooking. Consumers could tell if the cooking oil was of lower quality by smelling it. Salt was a controlled item by the government. There should not be any fakes.

“How can there be imitation pork? Are you talking about those sick pigs?” There should not be many sick pigs around. Could it be that there was a pandemic and there were lots of dead pigs in the market? If it was only a few dozen sick pigs, it was not worth making an episode on this story.

Feng Yu nodded: “Yes. There is much poor-quality pork being sold as high-quality pork in the market now. These people want to earn the difference by cheating the consumers! Our nation is now the focus of the world. Every day, overseas media are reporting about our country. What do you think the overseas media would write if they knew that our country is selling imitation pork to our people?”

“This…… will it be so serious? How can pork be sold as higher-quality pork?” Deputy Station Chief Jia felt that Feng Yu was exaggerating.

“Very simple. Waterlogged meat. The pig farmers would shove a pipe into the pig’s mouth, and force feed the pig with water until the pig dies. This way, the pig will have 10% more meat. How did the pig gain 10% more meat? It is the water. When the consumers bought the pork back and cook, the meat would shrink. Also, water can be injected into the pigs. This way, the pig will gain a 15% increase in weight. The syringes used by the farmers might be those used for vaccination. Do you still dare to eat that meat?”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, <Focus Report> had one episode on this topic and it was a success. Now, Feng Yu was only bringing it forward. There was indeed water-logged pork in the market now.

Feng Yu continued: “What is the purpose of this program <Serving You>? Aren’t we serving the people? Don’t you think that this issue concerns our people?”

“But if you discover this issue, you can report to the police.” Chief Jia thought for a while and replied.

“I had reported it to the police, but the local police were in cahoots with the pork farmers and sellers. No one cares. Some of them even have the support of the local government. They do not eat those pork themselves, but they still sell them to the people. Don’t you think they are evil and should be punished?”

Deputy Chief Jia was shocked: “The police did not take action and do not care about it? There are still local governments supporting them?”

“You think I dare to lie about such serious matters? If CCTV produces an episode on this topic, don’t you think all the people in China will be grateful to you and praises will be coming in from all over China!” Feng Yu continued his persuasion.

“Something is not right. How are you going to benefit from this? You want to pay us to film an episode on this topic for free?” Deputy Station Chief looked at Feng Yu suspiciously. He knew that Feng Yu was not someone that was so noble.

Feng Yu smiled coyly: “Errr…… those pork were sold as Tian Peng Pork. This Tian Peng Brand is my father’s company. These people are destroying our brand’s reputation. How can we sell our pork in the future?”

Deputy Station Chief Jia thought in his heart. I was right. This pork incident must be related to this brat. This brat was not so noble after all!

“Fine. You are telling me to uncover those local governments that were covering up for those imitation pork sellers?”

“Of course! Those people were too much. They are harming our country’s image, and they are a disgrace to the Party!”

Deputy Station Chief Jia rolled his eyes: “I think it will take at least 1 week to film this episode. We still need to send a few teams to different regions for filming. This is too rush, and a lot of resources is required. I think it will cost at least 100,00 RMB to 200,000 RMB.”

Feng Yu immediately took out a few videotapes from his bag: “I have already hired people to do the filming. These footages are filmed by reputable reporters. The reporters had signed on this paper, and there are serial numbers on the videotapes. The reporters have only one request. When the videos are being aired on the program, the host must read out their names. So, can I lower the price? How about 10,000 RMB?”

What reputable reporters? You paid them to film these footages and told them that they had the chance to appear on CCTV. They would surely listen to you. They will even edit the videos for you! There were enough materials for a 2-hour program!

Deputy Station Chief Jia: “……” Even the whole program was filmed, This brat had prepared everything!

“I think there is no need for your 10,000 RMB. But we do not have enough funds for 2 new programmes on CCTV 3. Do you think you can sponsor us some and we will give you the advertising slots at the end of the program?”

“I want the slots before the program. Also, I want to do product placements in the programmes.” Feng Yu voiced out his terms. Although not many people watch CCTV 3, it was also advertisements. Feng Yu could also showcase his latest products in the programme.

“Deal. I will let Cheng Baojun discuss with you how much is required.”

……

The negotiations went smoothly. 30,000 RMB and 10 humidifiers, for sponsoring these two programs for one year. Before the program starts, Feng Yu’s humidifier commercial will be aired.

Although this sponsorship will not generate any returns and might even suffer a loss, most importantly, Feng Yu’s relationship with CCTV got closer. What Feng Yu wants was that whenever CCTV needs money or have unsold advertising slots, they would think of Feng Yu!

Also, this episode was very important to Feng Yu. Using 30,000 RMB to solve this issue was still considered to be a good deal!

Feng Yu had notified Zhang Ming to negotiate with those pig farms. They thought that they could also sell Tian Peng Pork? In a few days time, those farms will come begging to work with him. The terms will be very different from what Feng Yu was offering now!

Although Zhang Ming does not know why Feng Yu said this, it was evident that Feng Yu had found a solution to this problem. Zhang Ming guessed that Feng Yu must have gone to the higher officials for help.

3 days later, CCTV aired the <Serving You> latest episode and caused an uproar!

What? The Tian Peng Pork they bought were fake? It was from the local farms? Damn. I had paid more for this pork and it’s fake!

Using the local pork as imitation can still be tolerated. But those sellers even injected water into the pig? No wonder water was dripping out of the meat on the way back!

Oh my god! Those evil sellers had sold those sick pigs as Tian Peng pork! People will fall ill if they eat those pork!

……

“County Governor, something had happened at our county’s pig farm!”

“What’s wrong with the farm? An outbreak of swine fever?” The county Governor slowly took a sip from his teacup. It was after office hours, and his subordinate still called him. Can’t he wait until tomorrow morning?

“It is more serious than this. We are on CCTV’s <Serving You> programme! Some reporters had filmed us selling diseased pigs, and it was aired on CCTV! Now, the whole nation knows about this!”

“What? How can you allow this to happen? I shall settle this tomorrow morning.”

The County Governor hang up the phone, and the phone rang again.

“What is wrong with your county? How can your farm sell diseased pigs and still used Tian Peng Brand? Now even the Central Government is looking into this issue. You are a disgrace to our province! You better settle this issue immediately! Those that were involved must be punished accordingly! Tomorrow our City will have a raid on all counterfeits goods! We will start with those selling pork!”

The County Governor closed his eyes. His brother-in-law’s pig farm was finished.  When the investigation team from the City Government arrives, he would also be implicated. He will also be finished!

This type of scene happened in many places. Those people who had watched the programme, were shocked. This was only a small matter. How come it had attracted the attention of the higher-ups? Names were even reported out during the programme. There was no way for these people to escape!

The only solution now was to remove those imitation sellers immediately!

Chapter 368 – Tian Peng Pig Farm wins

It became a nightmare for those illegal sellers of imitation Tian Peng Pork overnight. The Central Government was aware of this issue and was looking into this matter. The names of these sellers and farms were pointed out during the program!

The local officials of those regions where the farms and sellers were located were going crazy. Their higher-ups had called to reprimand them.

This was a disgrace, and their dirty laundry was shown to the whole nation!

The “eradicate imitation Tian Peng Pork” movement had started all over China!

Many pig farms which had to make use of Tian Peng Brand to turn losses into profits. Now, the government started to clamp down on them. There was no way for them to escape. These farm owners suddenly remembered that Tai Hua Food Processing Factory had warned them about the illegal usage of Tian Peng brand.

But these people had ignored the warnings. The local government had not taken any actions against them. What can a private company do to them? Now, the local authorities can no longer turn a blind eye on their activities. The punishment was severe too.

Hefty fines, force closures, confiscation of their vehicles and illegal monetary gains. These pig farm owners and sellers were all in trouble! All of them regretted not heeding the warnings.

Those officials that were in cahoots with these farmers and sellers were investigated by the higher authorities. Some of them were thrown into jail.

All these people had made a lot of money recently. They thought that they would earn more than double than last year.

But none of them expected CCTV to expose them. They heard that the top officials from the Central Government wanted the crackdown on such activities. They were only the first ones to sacrifice.

Once the government began to look into this issue, all the Tian Peng Pork imitations disappeared within 3 days!

At the same time. Tai Hua Food Processing Factory’s representatives appeared again and started to negotiate with those farm owners. Now, Tai Hua Food Processing Factory was no longer negotiating about buying a stake into their farms. They also wanted to buy over the entire farm!

These farm owners had suffered heavy losses, and they can’t even afford to pay the hefty fines. The local government had told them that if they were unable to pay the penalties, their farms would be confiscated!

If their farms were confiscated, they would be left with nothing. However, if they sell their farms to Tai Hua Food Processing Factory, they might still have some money left after paying the fines. They might even have a chance to bounce back.

But when the negotiations started, these farm owners broke down. They had spoken to Tai Hua Food Processing factory’s representatives previously and had almost finalized the prices for their shares. But before the deal was settled, those representatives suddenly left.

Now, those representatives returned. It was evident that they wanted to make use of this opportunity to take advantage of them. All their previous offers were changes. They were not interested in investing anymore. They wanted to buy over their farms, and the amount they offered was too low!

The amount offered to buy out their farms could only buy 70% shares before the crackdown. There were no profits for those owners now!

The representatives were firms in their stand. Times were different now. If you do not agree, fine. We shall sue you. You think after paying the government fines, all your troubles will be over? We will sue you, and you will still need to pay us damages. This matter had blown up now. After paying your fines, you might even be jailed!

We will not sue you, but you must agree to our buyout price of your farms. You have to clear all those pigs in your farms, and we will send a batch of pigs over. We will use our scientific methods of rearing pigs and animal feeds. These pigs will then be qualified to be sold as Tian Peng Pigs!

We are buying your farms because of your locations. The pigsty in your farm will be tear down and rebuild into modernized pig farms!

These people did not agree to such low prices. They have nothing left after paying the fines.

So, these people came up with al sort of tricks. Some of them used bribery, hiring thugs, and some even went into hiding.

Zhang Ming told those representatives to ignore these owners. Whoever that can buyout those farms will get rewards. The highest prize money was more than 10,000 RMB! Those that received bribes from the owners will not only be sacked. They will be handed over to the police!

Actually, it was impossible for Tai Hua Food Processing Factory to buy out all these farms. Not only they do not have enough funds, but they also do not have enough resources to manage so many farms. Furthermore, there was no need to take over those small farms. Most of these farms were still invested using Tian Peng Brand.

But there were a few large farms which Zhang Ming wanted to buyout. These farms were city level scale and were suitable to be converted into Tian Peng Pig farms.

To convert a pig farm was not an easy task. It was because of the layouts and environmental conditions. So, Zhang Ming had to engage Professor Su to help out. Those farms that Professor Su thinks that it was suitable to be converted into modernized farms were Zhang Ming’s target.

Those farms that were not suitable will be invested using Tian Peng brand.

Zhang Ming was still in Chengdu, negotiating with the most prominent pig farm’s owner. This farm was his top target, and he must get it. It was because Sichuan province had the highest population of live pigs. This province was one of the top pork producers in China. China’s most famous ham and sausage company were using the pork from Sichuan.

If Zhang Ming could take over this farm, then Tian Peng brand would be established in this region.

……

“Manager Zhang, these are not the terms offered by you a few days ago. How can you change it?”

“Those are the terms a few days ago. That was in the past! You had used our brand illegal, and now the government is investigating into this. Your losses should be huge, right? If you refuse to sell your farm to use, you will not be able to pay your fines and can’t repay your bank loans. Not only your farm will be confiscated, you will also still be thrown into jail!” Zhang Ming firmly said.

“Manager Zhang, but you cannot lower your offer by so much. You are taking advantage of our plight!”

Zhang Ming smiled: “I have given you this chance. Have you ever wonder how we got the higher-ups to look into this matter and punish the farms all over China?”

……

Feng Yu listened to Zhang Ming’s update and nodded. Zhang Ming had done an excellent job with his business strategy and negotiations. Not only he had successfully invested in more than a dozen pig farms, but he had also acquired 4 large-scale farms. These 4 farms were now under reconstructions.

Zhang Ming had said that Tian Peng brand was now China’s biggest pork brand. But they still have not captured the whole of China’s market. They had only obtained the major cities’ market. When those food processing factories they acquired started operations, Tai Hua animal feeds will be China’s top animal feed.

Overall, Feng Yu was satisfied with Zhang Ming’s performance in the handling of this incident. If Zhang Ming can let Tian Peng Pork to sold all over China within 3 years, Feng Yu would renew his contract and give him the company’s shares as promised!

The Tian Peng Pork incident had finally come to an end. It was time for Feng Yu to fly to Russia. He needs to discuss with Kirilenko about their Mining enterprise’s development.

Translator Notes: This Tian Peng Pig farm incident had shown the reasons why Feng Yu needs to suck up to the government. Local government officials can be in cahoots with businesses. These officials can do whatever they want in their region. Unless the higher-ups from the central government take actions, these officials can turn a blind eye over illegal activities. They had too much authority in their area.

Although Feng Yu was frequently taken advantage by the Bing City government, he did not move his operations out of Bing City. It was because the local governments tends to protect their own people first. If Feng Yu were to shift his businesses to another province or city, the government there might be worst than Bing City’s.

Chapter 369 – The Post-Soviet era

Stepping out of the aircraft, Feng Yu saw Kirilenko waving to him on the tarmac. As usual, Feng Yu received the warm welcome “bear hug” from Kirilenko.

Damn. Can’t this idiot control his strength?

“Feng, you are finally here. Come, we shall follow your Chinese traditions of welcoming guests. We must have a welcome meal and drinks together the moment you arrive.”

Feng Yu’s face changed: “Brother Ki, we can have the meal and drinks later. Let’s have a chat first.”

Damn, what welcome meal? You are just trying to get me drunk. If he were to drink with Kirilenko, he would blackout before the appetizers were served!

Kirilenko had a disappointed look: “Fine. You take a rest first. I will tell you about our Mining company.”

……

“We had acquired of 5 types of natural resources, a total of 12 mines. At the time of purchase, the prices of the mines were low. Now, the value had increased a lot. I had followed your instructions to lower the mining of minerals. We had just mine enough minerals to cover our cost. But when can we start mining at full operations? We should not leave our mines idling and not making profits.”

Kirilenko was slightly frustrated. He had invested all his wealth into this mining company. However, Feng Yu told him that this was not the right time to sell those minerals. The prices were too low. Feng Yu only asked him to mine enough to cover his cost.

Now, Kirilenko’s primary source of revenue was from importing daily necessities from China. There were not many profits. With the Soviet Union disintegration, Kirilenko could only sell his goods in Russia.

For someone with over 1 billion USD worth of assets, his liquid asset was only 1 to 2 million USD.

“The oil prices will not rise now. It will only increase in 1994. Before that, we should just extract enough minerals to cover our cost. We can use some of our funds to improve our equipment. This is the same for iron and other metals. There will be not many changes with their prices. However, the prices will increase as the demand increases. That will be the time when we start to get more profits. This should happen in the late 90s.”

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu: “We can only see the profits at the turn of the century? You had asked me to invest everything I got into this company now!”

Feng Yu opened his hands with his palms facing up: “I did not expect you to buy so many mines. Furthermore, I had invested more money than you. Don’t be anxious. I guaranteed that at the turn of the century, your assets will be increased by folds!”

At the end of this century, energy and minerals prices will increase rapidly. This mining company’s value will increase by several times.

Feng Yu also had other uses for these minerals in the future.

These mines and oil fields would be bought by the Americans if Kirilenko did not buy them. It would be Russia’s loss if that happened. Didn’t you use the money from those loans to invest in this company? When it was time for you to repay your loans, Rubles will be depreciated by several thousand times. It was as if you had picked up these mines and oil fields from the streets!

When they spoke about their investments, Kirilenko had nothing to say. Feng Yu had invested more than him but owns lesser shares than him.

“Brother Ki, did your father got his promotion after the dissolution of the Soviet Union?” Feng Yu wants to change the topic to something that would cheer Kirilenko up.

Last year, the Soviet Union was finally dissolved. The United Nations had also recognized this. This was not the post-Soviet era.

“Hahaha, my father is now an army’s Lieutenant General!” Kirilenko said excitedly. With his father’s age, there should be no problems for him to be promoted to Colonel General in the future. He would have a lot of authority in the future.

His father was only a Major General in charge of logistics. He thought that it was the highest rank he could be promoted.

Kirilenko’s elder brother, who was in the Navy, was also promoted to lieutenant-colonel. He should be getting another promotion two years later. All these were because Kirilenko had supported Yeltsin from the start.

Kirilenko had gained Yeltsin trust after reminding him about those oppositions that had started the coup. Those people had placed Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest and even tried to assassinate Yeltsin. Because of Kirilenko’s father warnings, Yeltsin had taken precautions and got the opportunity to rise to power.

Most all of the Soviet Union’s overseas assets were taken over by Russia. Belarus and Ukraine could only get some assets within the mainland. Russia alone had acquired the more assets than the rest of the allied countries combined. It was just a matter of time for Russia to reach its peak.

Those equipment and machinery sold by Kirilenko to Feng Yu were mainly from the other allied countries. He had not touched Russian factories even when those factories directors were selling their machinery. This had also let Russia recover quickly.

Yeltsin and his team knew what Kirilenko was doing. But when they realized that Kirilenko did not sell Russia’s factories’ facilities to Feng Yu, they did not pursue this matter. It was also good for Yeltsin as what Kirilenko will weaken the other allied countries. This would allow Russia to remain as the leader of Eastern Europe. Kirilenko had sold a lot of machinery and equipment from Belarus and Ukraine.

Kirilenko had also quit from the army. He was now a real businessman. His elder brother would inherit their father’s position in the military. Kirilenko can be a happy millionaire.

After his father’s promotion, Kirilenko had become the leader in Russia’s 2nd generation circles!

“Congrats. I still need your help on the matter I mentioned to you previously. Although I am not in a rush, this should be settled as soon as possible.”

“I have been asking around. Getting it in my country would be impossible. But it should be possible to purchase it from one of those former allied countries.”

Kirilenko does not understand why Feng Yu wanted that thing. Can he even use it? Could it be that Feng Yu was purchasing it for China? But China was also producing this thing. There was no reason to buy the Soviet Union products. It will also be obsolete in a few more years.

“Never mind. I can still wait.” Feng Yu was relieved when Kirilenko agreed. He trusted Kirilenko. He had never broken his promises.

“Feng, can you increase the supplies for next month’s trade?” After the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russia’s commodities prices were still recovering. Russia had opened up the commodities industry, and Kirilenko wanted to make use of this opportunity to make more profits.

“No problem. As long as your military train carriage can fit, I can fill it up. I can even send you the goods first, and you pay me later.” The both of them had joint partnerships worth more than 1 billion USD. They were not worried about the other party not being able to pay a few million USD.

“Feng, you are really my brother. That’s settled then. Help me fill up the whole carriage. I will pay you when I receive the goods. It is getting late now. Let’s go for a drink!” Kirilenko looked at his watch and said.

Damn. Shouldn’t it be “It’s getting late now, let’s go for dinner.”?

Feng Yu was dragged out of his room by Kirilenko. In Feng Yu’s mind, he was thinking of excuses to not drink.

Chapter 370 – Taken advantage of

“Come, Feng. Here’s to our mining enterprise, cheers!”

Damn, there was no way to escape. Feng Yu drowned his glass in one big gulp helplessly.

Why these Russians like to drink Vodka? Why can’t they just drink red wine? Red wine tastes so much better……

Feng Yu wanted to take a bite of his beef stew, but Kirilenko had already refilled his glass.

Fuck, can’t you slow down? Also, who the hell uses such big glasses for vodka? Can’t you switch to smaller glasses?

“Come, Feng. Here’s to our daily commodities trade! I really want to thank you for this. Cheers!”

Kirilenko bottoms up again!

Feng Yu look at his glass of vodka: “Brother Ki, I can’t hold my liquor well. Can we drink slower? This way we can chat longer.”

“Eh…… We can chat anytime we want. We seldom have the chance to meet up and have drinks together. Anyway, you will be in Russia for a few days. We can chat tomorrow. Hurry up and drink. I thought Chinese, especial those from the Northeast, were straightforward?”

Damn, where did you hear these from? Who the hell told you that?

Feng Yu finished his second glass of vodka with difficulty and immediately covered his glass with his palm. He will not let Kirilenko refill his glass again!

“Feng, why are you covering your glass with your hand? When I asked you to drink last year, you told me that in China, the legal age for drinking is 18. Now you are 18 years’ old and why are you not drinking?”

Feng Yu: “……” I had drunk too much last year! I am someone with more than 1 billion assets. How can I be seen being carried back to the hotel room every night after drinking with you?

This was too much. If you want to drink, I can drink beer with you. As someone from Bing City, I am not afraid of drinking beer! We can complete who can hold our bladder better when drinking beer!

“Brother Ki, I had seldom come to Russia. I would like to try your local beer. Why not let me switch to beer?”

Come, we shall see who gets drunk first when we drink beer!

“We can drink beer tomorrow. Tonight, we shall drink this first. This is Russia, no, this is the world’s best vodka. It is only because of you, I took out this bottle!”

Feng Yu wanted to tell Kirilenko to treat him as someone ordinary and not treat him so well.

“Brother Ki, I cannot drink much. Tomorrow we still have to discuss our company. Furthermore, I had only taken a few bites of these dishes. I’m hungry.”

“Tsk…… You are such a wet blanket. Fine. This will be the last glass.”

Damn, one glass is about 150 ml. 3 glasses were equivalent to almost half a liter, and this was still high alcohol content vodka! Feng Yu could feel that everything he had eaten today will be coming out through his mouth!

Wait, why did I think of grabbing that bottle of vodka before Kirilenko could refill his glass?

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that when his brother-in-law drank with Kirilenko previously, he did not drink a single glass. There were many ways to make people drink. He could make Kirilenko drunk first.

“Brother Ki, let me pour for you. Since you mentioned it, tonight we shall drink to our fills. I cannot drink much, but you can. You should drink more.”

Feng Yu grabbed the bottle and filled Kirilenko’s glass. He poured a bit into his glass and immediately drinks it. Kirilenko had not even noticed Feng Yu was playing tricks with him. He still thought that Feng Yu had finished the whole glass. He also emptied his glass.

Feng Yu continued to fill Kirilenko’s glass.

After a while, Feng Yu was feeling tipsy. Kirilenko also had cloudy eyes.

“Feng, drinking with you today is the best. Later tonight, we can continue to chat.”

Damn, which idiot would want to sleep in the same room as you? Your snoring could shatter the windows. How do you expect me to sleep? I still have not mastered the snoring, farting, and teeth grinding skills to compete with you!

“Brother Ki, you should go back tonight. It is inconvenient for us to sleep in the same room.”

Kirilenko suddenly smiles: “Yes, that’s right. It is inconvenient. I will get my men to send you back to your hotel. Tomorrow I will come and pick you up. I will bring you to our mining company to take a look.”

Feng Yu ate some food and Kirilenko’s men sent him back to his hotel. Once in the room, Feng Yu felt that he was handed over to another person.

He opened his eyes slightly and saw Li Na there. Am I back in China? How come Li Na is here? Feng Yu’s clothes were removed by this person, and he felt that person cleaned him up with a warm towel.

Li Na is the best. She knows how to take care of me. Feng Yu stretched out his arm and pulled Li Na into his arms. He turned over and got on top of her.

“Nana, don’t go. Let me kiss you.”

Huh? How come her chest is smaller? I must be drunk.

…….

At midnight, Feng Yu woke up and by the bed, there was a glass of water. He picked it up and drank it. It was honey water.

Where am I? This is not my apartment.

Oh, I am in Moscow. This should be a hotel room. Feng Yu shook his head and went to the toilet. After peeing, he climbs back into the bed.

Feng Yu turned to his side and felt a warm body snuggled into his arms. He hugged that person and wanted to carry on sleeping. Suddenly he jumped up!

This is Moscow and not his apartment. How come there is a woman on his bed?!

Feng Yu jumped out of bed and switched on the lights.

“Mr. Feng, are you thirsty? Do you want me to pour you some warm water?” The girl was awakened by the lights. She blushed as she looked at Feng Yu, but she still got up to pour water for Feng Yu.

Feng Yu looked at that girl and then look down at himself. Damn, where are all my clothes? Where is my underwear?

“Elena, why are you here?” Feng Yu was confused.

“Mr. Feng, last night you were drunk, and I am here to take care of you.”

Feng Yu pointed to himself and then points to the naked Elena: “This is the way you take care of me?”

It had become clear to Feng Yu. It was not a dream last night. It was not Li Na. It was Elena. He could still see some blood stains on his private parts.

Elena lowered her head and shyly replied: “Mr. Feng, you are the one that refuses to let me leave.”

Feng Yu was called her Nana last night. Elena knew that Feng Yu was drunk and had mistaken her for someone else. The previous time they met, Feng Yu had rejected her despite her trying to offer herself to him. Feng Yu was not the type that would pretend to be drunk and take advantage of her?

But she knew that what she had today, was all because of Feng Yu. She was able to reunite with her mother when she was transferred to the Moscow dance troupe from Kiev. She was also given special treatments at Moscow. These were all because of this Chinese man.

If nothing were to happen between her and this Chinese man, then her good luck will come to an end. The fates of all the dancers from dance troupe were the same. They would be married to those uncouth military officers at the end of their dancing careers.

Elena would rather choose this man before her. At least he was younger and better looking. This way, she would receive the protection of this man, and both she and her mother would have better lives!

That’s right. Some of her friends in the troupe were like this too. She heard that their lives were much better than before.

Now everything had happened, and Elena was nervous. How would Mr. Feng react?

Feng Yu looked at Elena. He was at a loss of words. It was all because of liquor. What happened? He had a feeling. It was like he had been…… taken advantage of!

Chapter 371 – Since it had already happened……

They both stared at each other. But there was a problem. Both were naked.

Feng Yu really wanted to ask Elena to leave, but he felt that this would be too irresponsible. He could not really remember what happened last night. He closed his eyes and tried to recall.

“You should know that the reason I rejected you previously was not because I am not interested in you. It was because you are too young.”

Elena pushed her barely developed chest our: “I am already 15 years’ old. In my hometown, girls at my age are already mothers of a few kids!”

“You are only 14!” How can you lie about your age? Even if you are 15, you are still underage.

“I can also get married at 14 years’ old!” Elena insisted.

Feng Yu looked at the stubborn Elena and sighed: “Tell me, what do you want?”

Feng Yu would never believe Elena liked him and offered herself to him. She must have wanted something or need some help from him. Elena knew about his capabilities when he transferred her to Moscow Dance Troupe.

Elena lowered her head and said: “I do not want anything from you. I am grateful to you and wanted to repay you for bringing me back to Moscow from Kiev. If it weren’t for you, I would not be able to see my mother so often. If it wasn’t for you, I might not have the chance to return back to Moscow!”

The Soviet Union was disintegrated into many smaller countries. If she had not returned to Moscow before the disintegration, she might have to spend the rest of her life in Kiev. Many in another two years, she would become someone’s plaything. If she was lucky, she might be married to an officer or politician. But these could not be compared to her returning back to her hometown. Russia was her motherland. This was her home!

Elena really does not want anything? Actually, she wanted a lot. For instance, she wanted to be the lead dancer for the Moscow Dance Troupe. She wanted to perform at the Kremlin and Red Square. She wants her mother to live with her in Moscow.

But she knew Feng Yu was different from what her friends told her. Feng Yu had not touched her previously, yet he had transferred her to Moscow. At the same time, he had rejected her firmly. It was apparent that Feng Yu does not want to have anything to do with her.

However, now they had slept together. If she made any requests, Feng Yu would surely agree. But this will also be the last time she will see Feng Yu. If she did not make any requests, Feng Yu would also help her and even remember her. This way, she would get more benefits!

Elena did not want anything, and Feng Yu was in an awkward position. If she had some requests, like some form of help, jobs or money, Feng Yu would surely agree. But now, Feng Yu did not know what to do with her.

Feng Yu did not believe that Elena was doing this because she wanted to repay her gratitude towards him. He suddenly remembered Kirilenko’s mysterious smile last night when they were drinking. This must be arranged by Kirilenko. That idiot thought that he likes Elena and specially arranged for her to appear in his room.

Damn, it was only a casual remark when I had just asked you to take care of her previously.

Elena was a smart girl. Now they had slept together, Feng Yu would not ignore her. Although Feng Yu had thought to just accept what Elena had said. She had done this to repay him. But that is not him. He will not do something like this.

“Mr. Feng, it is cold, and you are not wearing anything. Come back under the covers. Do you have a headache after drinking so much? Come over, I will give you a head massage. If you are thirsty, I will pour you a glass of water.” Elena quickly poured Feng Yu a glass of warm water.

Feng Yu took the glass from her and sat on the bed. Elena starts to massage his temples. While she was pressing him, she purposely rubbed her body against him, letting him feel her soft body.

Feng Yu must admit that he enjoyed this sensation.

Wait, did he use any protection last night? What would he do if Elena got pregnant? Feng Yu would never agree to let his child live away from him. But he could not explain to his family and Li Na if he were to bring his child back to China.

Feng Yu placed the glass on the side table and grabbed Elena’s hand: “did we use any protection last night?”

“Don’t worry Mr. Feng. I had taken pills yesterday. I will not be pregnant. I still want to dance for a few more years.” Elena pushed Feng Yu slowly down on the bed. Her friends at the dance troupe had advised her to never use pregnancy as an excuse to tie a man down. If the man really loves her, he will ask her to bear a child for him. When that happens, she would not have to worry about anything for the rest of her life.

Feng Yu looked at Elena clumsily massaging him. He was looking at her young exposed body and felt his willpower seeping away bit by bit.

He was able to withstand Elena’s temptation previously was because he was still a virgin in this life. But after what happened between him and Li Na, Feng Yu’s willpower was not as strong as before. Since New Year’s Day, Li Na had been preparing for her exams. After her exams, she left for home immediately. Feng Yu did not have the chance to touch her.

Now, there was a beautiful young girl in front of her. Her body was toned from years of dancing, and her long slender legs were just inches away from Feng Yu. Her long hair and small waist were tempting him.

When Feng Yu’s hands touched Elena’s legs, he could feel Elena pausing for a moment. She acted as if nothing had happened and continued her massage on Feng Yu’s legs. She continued her massage even when she saw something was pointing at her in between Feng Yu’s leg.

Since this had already happened, then what’s the difference between one time or two times?

Feng Yu would be dishonest if he were to say that he was not attracted to Elena. He had never seen such a beautiful girl in both his lives! Even those AV stars were not as pretty as Elena.

But other than having small breasts, Elena was perfect.

All of Feng Yu’s willpower was gone when Elena “accidentally” touched Feng Yu’s little brother.

Feng Yu flip over and press Elena down on the bed. Elena was looking at Feng Yu in his eyes. She was burning with desire!

Worse than a beast?

Feng Yu had become an animal…… this was a path of no return.

Feng Yu woke up in the morning. Elena was still sleeping soundly in his arms.

The both of them woke up at about midnight and carried on until almost dawn. If it wasn’t Elena could not take it anymore, Feng Yu would have gone another round.

Elena was in pain. After all, it was her first time, and she was still young.

Feng Yu got up, and Elena woke up too: “Mr. Feng, are you going to take a shower? I can wash your back for you.”

“I can shower myself. Go back to sleep. Later when you wake up, call for room service.”

Elena laid back on the bed and turn away from Feng Yu. She had a cunning smile on her face. Now, Mr. Feng will not forget her……

Chapter 372 – The evil mining company’s boss

“Feng, did you have a good rest last night?” Kirilenko asked with a lewd smile on his face. He even took a step into Feng Yu’s room to take a look.

Feng Yu Immediately push Kirilenko out. He did not know whether to thank Kirilenko or scold him. Never mind. Forget it. Let nature take its course.

“Feng, her mother is still in Petersburg. You want me to transfer her mother back to Moscow? She will be very grateful if you do that.”

Feng Yu hesitated for a while and nodded: “Okay. Thank you.”

“I need to tell you something. Don’t be too good to her or she will have endless demands. You must let her understand that she cannot make demands as and when she likes. She must know that she will be taken care of when you are in a good mood. This is my experience. Don’t worry. I will ask her dance troupe to take good care of her. I promise you that other than you, no one else can touch her!”

Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko. Damn, how many girls had he bedded to get this type of experience?

After breakfast, Feng Yu and Kirilenko arrived at 5 stories building. Outside of the building, there was Russian signage. Polar Bear Minerals Enterprise. This was the headquarters of Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s mining company!

When they were naming this company, Feng Yu could not change Kirilenko’s mind. Kirilenko had called this company as Polar Bear, as polar bears signify strength! But didn’t Kirilenko know that polar bears can only survive in the north pole? Our company still needs to expand all over the world!

The was a burly Russian man standing at the entrance. When he saw the car stopped, he quickly walks over to open the door.

This man, Mozgov, was the General Manager of Polar Bear Minerals Enterprise. He was a retired mine owner.

“Director, Director Feng, welcome.” Feng Yu’s title in this company was a director. The title was only for show. Feng Yu did not do anything in this company and had left everything to Kirilenko. But Kirilenko trusted Feng Yu a lot. He listened and followed Feng Yu’s suggestions on the company’s operations.

Even when Kirilenko does not have any liquid assets now, he also heeds Feng Yu’s instructions to not start full operations at their mines and oil fields. They had only extract enough to cover their cost.

“Tell Director Feng about the company’s plan for this year.” Kirilenko sat down on the sofa and slowly sip on a cup of red tea.

It was comfortable to have a cup of tea in cold weather.

“Yes. Director Feng, based on your requirements, we will lower down the production of crude oil and coal. We will also lower the production of iron, nickel, and palladium. Most of our mines will be temporarily shut down. We will pay our workers 50% of their salaries for this period of time since we will not be making any profits. This is to lower our cost. We can also reduce the insurance coverage and safety expenses of the workers. There will be less work for them, and there was no need to give the workers so much insurance coverage….”

Feng Yu was listening to the manager. But as he listened, he was shocked. What was this Mozgov thinking? He does not care about the safety of the workers?

Who was the one that wanted to reduce the workers’ salaries? How can he cut the insurance coverage and safety expenses of the workers? Feng Yu wished to reduce the operation cost, but this was not the way to do it.

He would be an evil mining company boss if he were to do these.

They could sell whatever they mined from the mines. Although the prices were not high now, there were still profits. Feng Yu only wanted to control the amount they mine. In another two years, he would sell those minerals to China. Factories like the Motor Factory uses a lot of iron. Although the Machinery Company does not produce steel, the Machinery Company can work with a steel factory.

No matter what, mines were profitable. The money used to purchase these mines were lesser than the actual value. Also, Feng Yu and Kirilenko had used the Rubles loaned from the Soviet Union banks to buy these mines. These mines were almost free. There can never be any losses with these mines.

A profitable company was going to reduce its workers’ salaries and even lower their insurance coverage? This was too much!

Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko: “Brother Ki, did you agree to this?”

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu: “Of course. We can save a lot if we do this. It was after I had set up this company then I realized that the cost of mining is very high. Mozgov’s suggestions are good. You do not agree?”

Kirilenko was confused with Feng Yu’s reaction. Didn’t you want us to save money and lower the production? Mozgov had thought of ways to help us save cost. Why do you seem unhappy?

This was the best solution. Could it be that you have better ideas?

Feng Yu sighed. This was the thinking of the privileged. This was one of the reasons why the Soviet Union disintegrated.

“Brother Ki, if our company mines 30% of our full capacity, we would be able to make some profits and cover our operational cost. The profits will be sufficient to replace the old equipment. I had told you to cut cost, but this is not the way to do it. What happens if our workers die in an accident in our mines? We cannot let any of our workers die or injured from accidents in our mines. I am sure you do not want the family members of our workers staging a protest outside our doorsteps. Do you think that compensations will be lesser than the insurance premiums?”

“Feng, what do you mean?”

“Brother Ki, we are doing businesses, and our image is critical to us. We must have a positive image for both ourselves and our companies. What do you think of my company?”

“It’s good. Your company trusts me and treats me very well. That’s was also the reason why I followed your suggestions for managing this mining company. Even when you wanted to buy those restricted items, I also tried my best to help you. I cannot sell these items to others, but I am willing to sell to you.”

“That’s right. You trusted my company and me. Even when I am not around, my staffs will still trade with your company. Even when there were some mistakes with the number of goods once in a while, you will not mind. It is because you know that my staffs and I will not cheat you. This is the trust you have in us. This is the trust build up by my company. It is also the foundation of my company. Now, you are letting our company cutting our workers’ salaries, reducing their coverage, ignoring their safety, and you don’t even care about their lives.”

Feng Yu paused for a while and continued: “When we decide to increase our production, how are you going to get workers? If some accident happens in our mines, all our workers might just walk out. Compared to making money, lives are more valuable. This is common sense. The workers can always look for another job that pays them better than the 50% salaries here. That’s why the workers’ salaries cannot be cut. Their insurance coverage and safety equipment cannot be reduced. We should even publicize that even when our mines are not making profits, we did not reduce the workers’ salaries and still pay them in full. We must let all the miners know that our company has a conscience. This way, it will be easier to hire experienced workers when we want to increase our mines’ production!”

Kirilenko and Mozgov looked at each other. It seems that Feng Yu was right. Were they wrong before? Maybe they should try out Feng Yu’s way.

Chapter 373 – Shortage of farmers in Russia?

After settling the work at the mining company, Feng Yu was dragged to a restaurant by Kirilenko. It was time for lunch. You mentioned that you wanted beer yesterday evening? Today we shall drink beer.

Duang~~~

A huge barrel of beer was placed on the table. Feng Yu’s eyes nearly popped out. Do Russians drink beer by barrels?

This was a whole barrel of beer. There were at least 10 liters. It was equivalent to 20 bottles! Damn, Kirilenko was also good at drinking beer?

“Director Feng, I heard from Director that you like to drink beer. Director does not like to drink low alcohol content liquor. So, I will be accompanying you to drink beer. Let’s have a barrel each first. If it is not enough, we can order more.” Mozgov said and raised his mug to Feng Yu.

Order more???

This was 10 liters of beer. A barrel each? Even if this was plain water, he could not finish! Feng Yu realized that there was no way to compete with these Russians when it comes to drinking!

“Brother Ki, you…… Fine. Let’s drink beer.” Feng Yu had wanted to ask Kirilenko to help out, but he saw Kirilenko holding a glass of vodka. If Feng Yu were to choose the liquor to get drunk, he would still select beer over vodka. At least he would feel better if it was beer.

Mozgov and Feng Yu chug down a mug of beer, once their 1-liter mug was filled. This was Russian’s drinking culture?

To stop them from forcing him to drink, was to talk to them. Make the other party busy and have no time to raise his mug.

“Brother Ki, how are the Super Fans selling?” Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko. He was determined not to look at Mozgov.

“Not bad. I did not expect an electric fan to blow out warm air. The best part about these fans was that they were not noisy and space saving.” Kirilenko replied. He was deeply impressed with Feng Yu. Feng Yu could always come up with interesting products that were popular with consumers.

Kirilenko knew that he does not have such talents. But he has a good friend named Feng Yu. Kirilenko still has control over some former Soviet Union’s sales channels, and Feng Yu’s most significant investment was partnering him.

That’s why Kirilenko only envied Feng Yu and was not jealous of him.

“What about the farming machinery? Our Machinery Company had developed some new plowing equipment. Do Russia need it?” Feng Yu wanted to promote his Machinery Company’s products. If he can sell his agriculture machines to Russia, that means that his technologies were getting better, and can even export to a developed industrial country.

Of course, it was also Bing City was located near the borders and it was cheap to transport his machines to Russia. There will be lots of profits. If Feng Yu were to export to other countries, the profits would not be this high.

Exporting his products to other countries had been Feng Yu’s goal. But Russia was not interested, then it would be pointless to think of other countries.

Kirilenko frowned and said in an apologetic tone: “Feng, we do not need these agriculture machines. Our own agriculture machinery might not be the best, but it was still on par with yours. Furthermore, Germany has been importing these types of machines into Russia. I do not think that China’s technology is better than Germany’s. Maybe now, your technologies have overtaken Russia, but the prices you gave me have no advantage over the rest of the competitors. I can help you sell your machines, but there will not be any profits for me. Do you need me to help you sell those machines for you? If you need, I can help you, even when there are no profits.”

Feng Yu was puzzled. He thought that the rates he had given to Kirilenko was the market rate and there was not much difference with China’s rates. How can there be no profits at this price?

“Brother Ki, are you joking with me? Russia is so big, and the rates I offered to you will not let you get profits?”

“Feng, although Russia is big, lots of farms were abandoned. Even many of our own agriculture machinery factories had stopped operating. Russians do not like farming.” Kirilenko replied helplessly.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that as during the decline of the Soviet Union’s industrial, the agriculture industry was also affected. This was also the reason why the Soviets had a shortage of food.

When the Soviet Union was still a superpower, they had focused too much on their heavy industrial industries. This had created an imbalance and had affected other industries. The agriculture decline will continue until the end of the century. It was only after the year 2000, Russia’s agriculture starts to recover.

The food production in Russia now, was less than 30% of the Soviet Union when it was at their peak. Russia was formerly one of the world’s top food exporter. However, it had become one of the world’s top importer of food. Even when Feng Yu left his previous life, Russia still had not reached its peak during the 80s.

Of course, several factors limited the growth of Russia’s agriculture industry. Russians prefer to work in factories than the farms. The Russian government also did not provide enough support for the agriculture industry. Although Russia has a vast land area, the land was divided into small parcels.

Those land parcels were too small, and there was no need for farming machinery if it was converted into a farm. There was no need for their people to buy a tractor as there were not much farming work. The tractor will be left idle most of the time. Russia at this time was still similar to the time under the Soviet Union. Most of the land still belongs to the government. Only some parcels were own by individuals. The government still do not allow individuals to purchase the land parcels and combine into a big farm.

Feng Yu remembered in his previous life, many people from Longjiang province went to develop land within the Russian’s border for farming.

The Russians do not grow crops, but they rent their land to the Chinese. Renting out their land was not illegal. Some had cultivated land illegally. But they just gave the local authorities some money, and they were allowed to grow crops there. Russia’s corruption was worse than China. One could tell from the way Kirilenko got his hands on those restricted items and sold to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu had heard about the used tank being modified into tractors in his previous life. He heard that it was done by those Chinese that had gone and set up farms in Russia.

That means Russia does not lack farming equipment. They require farmers. They had lots of good fields but were abandoned. China, on the other hand, had too many farmers and had a shortage of farms.

Even in places with a low population, like Longjiang, there were vast areas, but there was still not enough land for the farmers. If Feng Yu could help Russia get farmers, then it would also solve Longjing province’s oversupply of farmers issue. This could also help to increase the farmers’ income and help China’s economy. At the same time, this can improve the relationship between China and Russia. This was killing many birds with one stone.

Feng Yu leaned forward towards Kirilenko: “Brother Ki, what do you think if I can supply farmers to Russia to grow crops and then sell the crops to Russia?”

Kirilenko stared at Feng Yu: “What are you saying? You can supply farmers? Those that know how to grow crops?”

Feng Yu: “……” Which farmer does not know how to grow crops?

“Of course. But will your government allow people to rent your land? That means rent the fields from the government and combine it together as a bigger field. This could solve your government’s issue of shortage of farmers, and your government could purchase cheaper crops. Your country will no longer need to depend on the importation of food. What do you think?

“How many farmers can you get?” Kirilenko asked excitedly.

“At least over 1,000 farmers. Each of them can handle at least 50 hectares of land. That is 50,000 hectares. This is the minimum!”

“Feng, you have lunch with Mozgov first. I need to make an important phone call!”

Chapter 374 – Supplying Farmers?

After Kirilenko walked out, Mozgov still wanted to drink with Feng Yu. Feng Yu only had one more mug of beer and used the excuse of having to discuss important matters, to stop drinking.

This was a good excuse. Mozgov could tell that the farmer issue, mentioned by Feng Yu, was critical to Kirilenko. Kirilenko and Feng Yu were the owners of companies. He as only working for them. He was also helpless when Feng Yu refuses to drink more. So, he just ate the dishes with Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was enjoying Russian cuisine. He loves Russian food.

When Kirilenko returns, Feng Yu was almost full and had started ordering desserts and fruits.

“Feng, I had made a few phones calls just now to the government officials at the borders. I had discussed with them about the things you told me, and they agree. As long as those farmers abided by the Russian laws, there should not be a problem!” Kirilenko said excitedly.

Feng Yu was helping him to solve the shortage of farmers issue. Then Russia’s agriculture industry will improve. After a few years’ time, Russians will realize that farming was profitable and they will start to farm. Then they would no longer need to rely on the Chinese.

Kirilenko was smart. This way, he could also help some politicians solve this issue, and in return, his business can operate better. He will have more support from the top.

Feng Yu was also happy to help him. He could help Longjiang solve the unemployed farmers’ issue and could still make some profits. Hmmm…… He could also help Zhang Ruiqiang and Uncle Wen gain some political credits.

Of course, Feng Yu would not only gain favors and friendships. He could also get profits from labor supply company and help the Machinery Company enter the Russian market.

“Brother Ki, I will set up a manpower supplying company when I am back. I will contact you after it is set up. The fields I wanted, must be good fields. The land must be flat and cannot be swampy or have hills.” Feng Yu made his requirements very clear. Longjiang province’s farmers were used to farm on flatlands and grow corns, soybeans, and wheat. Hills were not suitable for big farming machinery.

“You can rest assured. I promise that all the fields are good fields. There will still be some uncultivated land too. Your farmers can cultivate those lands if they want. The taxes will be very low.” Kirilenko said.

“Then how long can we rent the land? If it is only for 3 years, the farmers will not be attracted. After all, the farmers had to work away from their homes. I think Russians also do not like to work away from their homes.”

Kirilenko asked: “What about 4 years? 4 years should be sufficient for those farmers to earn some money. Our country is now trying to develop the agriculture industry. We cannot rent the land to you for too long.

4 years? Feng Yu sneered. The first year will be used to cultivate the land. The farmers will still be trying to adapt to their lives there, and they would not have any profits. The second year onwards, the farmers could see some profits. But if they were to buy tractors and other farming equipment, build houses, 4 years will not be sufficient.

If the farmers could not make any money, and Feng Yu still collects their money, then Feng Yu would not be considered helping China’s economy. He would be just earning from his fellow countrymen and making his fellow countrymen work for free!

The duration should be at least 5 years!

Feng Yu remembered that Russia’s agriculture industry starts to recover after Putin rose to power. Russian’s agriculture reform was initiated by Putin when he was the deputy president. Putin was in charge of Russia’s economic developments when Yeltsin was in power.

That would be 6 years later, and there was enough time for the Chinese farmers to make money.

“Brother Ki, I think that our contract should last until the year 2000. The longer the duration, the more focus the farmers will be. They would put in more effort, and their output will be higher. This way, your government will get more crops. We can also set a percentage of the farmers’ crops as taxes and rent. This would be a win-win situation for both the farmers and the government.”

This way, any changes in the prices of the crops will not affect the farmers.

“If we count this year, there will be 9 more years. It is too long. Those politicians will not agree. I can help you persuade the politicians to extend the duration to 5 years. This is the best I can do.” Kirilenko said.

“Brother Ki, I am guessing that after a few years, those officials will take back the land? Although this is good for Russia, I dare to say that your Russian farmers will not be able to make any money. It is not easy to be a good farmer. My family also have a farm. I know more about farming than you. For example, if I ask Mozgov and you to be farmers, are you confident that you can make money?”

Kirilenko and Mozgov looked at each other and knew the answer.

Kirilenko was thinking in his heart. That means after 9 years, the fields were returned to Russia, their farmers will still be clueless about farming.

They still must rely on the Chinese farmers after this duration.

“Brother Ki, it is not up to us to discuss this. I can help you hire farmers from Longjiang province. Why not let the Longjiang government officials discuss with the Russian Officials? We can introduce both parties, and they will still owe us favors.”

Those government officials might be able to get better conditions from the other parties if they sit down and discuss. Furthermore, both Feng Yu and Kirilenko does not want their friendship to sour because of this.

Kirilenko thought for a while and nodded. He only wanted favors from the politician. He was also not interested in this land rental business. How much can this business earn?

Kirilenko had not calculated the profits from this business. There were a lot of profits. If 10,000 hectares of land were to be rented, the yearly profits would be at least a few million. If it were 100,000 hectares, it would be a few hundred million. But the initial investment will be a lot.

Feng Yu could also collect the rental from the farmers upfront and use the money to invest. If the farmers do not have money, they can get a loan from the back. Feng Yu can even be their guarantor.

“Feng, you have helped me again. Cheers!”

Feng Yu raised his half-filled beer mug and knocked on Kirilenko’s full glass of vodka. Without saying a word, Feng Yu chug down his beer. Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu and saw Feng Yu staring at his glass of vodka. Kirilenko had no choice but to finish his drink. He was not as shameless as Feng Yu……

Chapter 375 – Perplexed Zhang Ruiqiang

Feng Yu returned to Bing City the next day. The night before he returns, Elena was still in his room. She did not even step out of Feng Yu’s room.

When she knew that Feng Yu was going to transfer her mother from Petersburg to Moscow, she was full of gratitude. She kept thanking Feng Yu, and she was smart enough to not make any requests.

Feng Yu thought for a while and left a sum of money for her before he returns.

……

The plane touched down at Bing City’s Airport. Feng Yu carried his luggage to the carpark.

“Manager Feng, here! I had driven your car here.” A driver from Wind and Rain Logistics waved to Feng Yu.

Li Shiqiang had asked his staff to drive the Rolls Royce over for Feng Yu. This car had been sitting in the garage and was seldom used. Li Shiqiang felt that it was too flashy.

Feng Yu did not think so. Not to mention the Machinery Company, just Tai Hua Trading alone was successful enough. What’s wrong with being flashy?

The driver drove Feng Yu to the city and passed Feng Yu the keys. Then, he took the public bus back to the company. Feng Yu did not return home and drove straight to the City Government.

At the entrance of the City Government building, Feng Yu was stopped by the guards. Who is this? I had never seen this car before. How can he just enter the City Government just like that?

Feng Yu wind down the window: “Brother Qu, it’s me.”

“Oh, it’s Manager Feng. You have change car? This car looks better than your old boxy car. Please enter. There are no parking spaces outside.”

Even without any permits, Feng Yu could drive into the City Government just by showing his face. Of course, it could be that he had given the guards many gifts before.

Knock, knock~~~

“Manager Feng, how come you are here?” Secretary Zhao greeted Feng Yu and ran out of the room to see if Feng Yu had brought any gifts with him. There were no boxes outside the office, and it seems that Feng Yu had indeed come empty-handed. Secretary Zhao turned and look at Feng Yu suspiciously. How come Feng Yu came here empty-handed? This was not his style.

Feng Yu: “……” What’s with that look? You are not used to me coming here without any gifts?

“Brother Zhao, I have been away for a few months. I have just returned and want to pay our leaders a visit. Brother Zhao, you are looking great today. Huh? This document you are reading…… Brother Zhao, are you going to be transferred to the grounds?”

For a leader’s secretary, being transferred to the grounds was a good thing. Especially when the leader was still in charge of the area, it would be easy for him to earn credits and promote.

Secretary Zhao smiled: “I shall go in and inform the leader that you are here.”

“Come in. He is not busy.”

“Hello leader, you are looking great.”

“Stop your nonsense. Why are you here for?” Zhang Ruiqiang was sitting on the sofa and not behind his desk waiting for Feng Yu to come in. This was the treatment for someone close to him.

“I am here because I have some good news for you. Brother Zhao, can I have a glass of water?”

“If you are thirsty, pour yourself! Xiao Zhao, go back to work. You still need to prepare the planning proposal for me.”

Feng Yu did not mind and walked outside. He goes through the cabinets and drawers to search for the best tea leaves without the secretary noticing. He then started to brew his tea with a hot water flask. When Secretary Zhao saw him, Feng Yu had already poured the hot water. He stared at Feng Yu. There were so many tea leaves here. Can you even tell the difference between the good ones and the bad ones? Why must you choose the most expensive tea?

Feng Yu entered Zhang Ruiqiang’s office again. Zhang Ruiqiang could smell the aroma of the tea, and he shouted at Feng Yu: “You stole my top grade tea leaves again?”

“Ah? I took the wrong one again? I will take note of it next time.” Feng Yu replied with a “surprised” look.

Zhang Ruiqiang started at Feng Yu. You said this every time, and yet you are still doing it again and again. I think I should let the secretary prepare the tea for him next time.

“You said that you have some good news for me. What’s the good news? Which school are you going to donate to this time?”

Zhang Ruiqiang had a love-hate relationship with Feng Yu. Feng Yu had donated new school buildings, stadiums, and libraries to Bing City Schools. Zhang Ruiqiang welcomed these donations.

But every time Feng Yu just do what he wants and ignore the city’s master plan. That school in the district had not many students, and yet Feng Yu built a new spacious building for that school. There was even a new spacious library. There was no need for that small school in the district to have such facilities.

That Third High School too. Feng Yu had donated a new stadium to that school. How many students are there in Third High School? Do they even need that new stadium? The City had already planned for a new stadium to be built for a school in the outskirt of the city. The stadium in that location can also serve the districts nearby. But Feng Yu refused. Everybody could tell that Feng Yu’s donations were for those that were close to him, and not to see if that area needs it or not.

You do not agree with me? Fine, then I will not donate!

Having donations was better than none. It could help the City Government save some money. The money saved can be used on other schools. Last year, Feng Yu had made a bet with Zhang Ruiqiang. They bet on 10 new school buildings, and the government gets to choose where they want the new building to be built.

In the end, Zhang Ruiqiang lost!

Last year, everybody thought that China would win the Olympics bid. But Feng Yu thinks otherwise. He even told Zhang Ruqiang not to plan for any celebrations and to let the local TV station to stop planning for the Olympics programs. Feng Yu was sure that China would not win the bid!

Zhang Ruiqiang was furious. What are you talking about? China was competing with Australia and how can we lose to them? Are you even Chinese? Why are you such a wet blanket?

Although China still a developing nation, but there should not be a problem if they were to host the Olympics games. Furthermore, even the International Olympic Committee had said that China has a high chance of winning the bid.

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders and asked Zhang Ruiqiang to bet with him. Let have a bet. If China wins, I will donate 10 new school buildings to Bing City’s secondary and primary schools. You get to choose the locations. If China loses the bid, then Zhang Ruiqiang have to bring a group of reporters from the TV station to his father’s Tai Hua Food processing factory for a visit.

With Zhang Ruiqiang’s backing, those local authorities would not dare to create problems with his father.

Zhang Ruiqiang agreed to this bet. He thought that this was a sure-win bet and had even started to plan where he should build the new school buildings.

But Zhang Ruiqiang was still wary of what Feng Yu said. He did not agree to the celebrations proposal given to him by his men. This made the Chief of Communications unhappy. He felt Zhang Ruiqiang was creating problems for his department.

But when the Olympics bidding result was announced, Zhang Ruiqiang was shocked. China had lost to Australia by 1 vote. When the Olympics Committee announced the number of votes for China, he had thought China would surely win. It was until the votes for Australia was announced, he realized that China had lost!

This was an unexpected result. No one in China had expected this. Even CCTV was sure that China would win. Everybody was disappointed!

However, Feng Yu had a proud look on his face. He grabbed Zhang Ruiqiang’s office phone and called his father to prepare for the Deputy Mayor Zhang’s visit!

Zhang Ruiqiang could not understand why Feng Yu was so confident that Australia would win. Could it be that Feng Yu could forecast future events?

At that moment, Feng Yu was smiling proudly. I am someone from the future and not some fortune teller. China had lost this bid was because of economic, political reasons. Those European countries and the US does not want China to reverse its image of a poor, backward, uneducated country!

“Mayor Zhang, I am not here to donate school buildings. I am here to solve Bing City’s farmer’s issues!”

“Help our Bing City settle the farmer’s issue?” Zhang Ruiqiang was perplexed. Feng Yu was so noble?

Chapter 376 – Everything is for Bing City!

“Mayor Zhang, how much do you know about the situation of Bing City’s agriculture industry?” Feng Yu smilingly asked.

“Although I am not in charge of Agriculture, I still know about the situation. Our Bing City has over 1 million farmers, and they have good incomes. Many of them are getting more than those working in the factories. Our agriculture industry has been performing well.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was now an Executive Deputy Mayor and had made it a point to understand the situation of the area he was in charge of. The farmers’ income was higher than the national average. That means that the agriculture industry here was performing well.

Feng Yu shook his head: “No. There might be over a million people in Bing City registered as farmers, but that does not mean they are real farmers. Farmers, in simpler terms, are people that make a living from farming. But among these people, there were only a few hundred thousand that really knows how to farm. You said that their incomes are high? But have you ever seen those farmers that do not have any incomes?”

Zhang Ruiqiang frowned: “What do you mean by this?”

Feng Yu sounded like he was reprimanding Zhang Ruiqiang. Bing City was an industrial city. Over 80% of Bing City’s revenue was from industrial. How much did agriculture contribute? Furthermore, how many fields are there in Bing City? It can never be compared to other provinces. Since industrial can support everyone here, they should focus on industrial developments. Why should they waste their energies on something else?

Many other places were better in agriculture than Bing city. But for industrialization, Bing City was one of the top city in China!

“Our Bing City have a lot of farmers that have the know-how and experiences. But there were not enough fields for them. These farmers could not set up large-scale farms. In the districts, those that had high income from farming were mostly animal farmers or had cultivated land themselves. Those that depended on the fields allocated to them by the villages were just barely surviving.”

“Cultivate land? That means they are not paying taxes? You are telling me that this was also happening in your district?” Zhang Ruiqiang was focusing on the wrong point.

“Mayor Zhang, this is not the main issue. The main issue is that I have found an opportunity for our farmers to farm. It is a vast area too!”

“What? You want to ask the Government to grant them approval to cultivate land legally? Impossible! This will destroy the environment. I am about to take action against these people, and the higher-ups are very concern with this issue. Soon, new policies will be announced to curb these actions.” Zhang Ruiqiang was not pleased with Feng Yu’s suggestions.

The higher-ups had mentioned about those illegally cultivated lands. These farmers were not paying taxes and harming the environment. They must be stopped. To develop the agriculture industry, a considerable area was required. These cannot be done in a short time. Zhang Ruiqiang cannot go against the higher-ups.

“Of course. I am not talking about legalizing land cultivations. I am suggesting confiscating those illegally cultivated land and return them to the forest!” Feng Yu said.

Zhang Ruiqiang raised an eyebrow. Returning those land to the forest? Feng Yu also knew about the new policies? But his new policy had not been implemented. What was Feng Yu plotting?

He had thought of stopping those farmers, but not by force. Those farmers will definitely not listen to him. The higher-ups were still discussing this issue and had not finalized the policy. The farmers would need some compensations if the authorities were to confiscate the lands. There were no specific regulations that state the farmers were breaking the law by cultivating the land.

How would the farmers survive if the government were to take back those lands and not giving them compensations? Those farmers will create problems for the government.

Now, Feng Yu was asking him to act against those farmers? Is he crazy?!

“How are you going to return the land back to the forest? How are you going to compensate those farmers? The City does not have money!”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu. What? Are you trying to tell me that you will be paying for the compensations? The compensation will not be a small amount.

“If we can let them know that there is a large area where they can grow crops and still make lots of money, do you think they will be willing to return the land?” Feng Yu asked.

“A bigger area for them to grow crops? How is this possible? You cannot even find such places in the whole of Longjiang Province. There would be lesser fields if those farmers were to return the land!”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu puzzlingly. What was this brat thinking? He had found a way to get a large area of land to farm? The south? Isn’t the southern provinces have more people than land?

“Mayor Zhang, shall we have a bet?”

“No! I am a civil servant. How can I bet with you?” Zhang Ruiqiang immediately reply.

He had lost the last bet with Feng Yu. It seems that he had never won any bets against Feng Yu! Every time, he was taken advantage by Feng Yu. There was no way he could win a bet with Feng Yu that will benefit the city!

Feng Yu rubbed his nose. We had already made many bets before……

“Fine. Then I will tell you straight. I have just returned from Russia. There are a lot of abandon fields there, and there is even more uncultivated land waiting to be cultivated. But Russia has a shortage of farmers!”

“Russia? Lots of fields and a shortage of farmers?” Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes nearly popped out. Could this really be happening?

But he knew that Feng Yu knows more about Russia than him. Feng Yu was suggesting letting Bing city’s Farmers work in Russia? Can this be possible?

“That’s right. I have also asked my friend to ask the government officials there if we can rent their land. However, the Russia government wanted us to rent a large area. It would be impossible for ordinary farmers to rent from them. That’s why I intend to register a company and rent land from the Russian Government. The land I rented will be sublet to our Bing City’s farmers. This way, the farmers will have land to farm, and if they need farming machines or equipment, I can provide. They can pay me back in installments. What do you think? Isn’t this good news?”

Feng Yu was extremely pleased with himself. If everything progresses as he planned, then Zhang Ruiqiang would get another political achievement, and he would owe Feng Yu great favor!

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu from top to toes without saying a word with a suspicion look.

“What’s wrong? You don’t believe me? Since when I lied to you?” Feng Yu angrily said.

“how many times have you tricked me? Maybe in your dictionary, those were not considered lying.” Zhang Ruiqiang sneered.

Feng Yu was sweating. His character was being questioned!

“At least I did not lie when it comes to such important matters.”

Zhang Ruiqiang thought for a while and nodded. This was true. But why was Feng Yu so kind to give him such an achievement? For the good of those farmers? How can Feng Yu benefit from doing this? Feng Yu was a brilliant businessman, and he would not do things without benefits.

“What will you gain from doing this? Are you going to rent the land from Russia at low cost and then charge our farmer high rentals?”

“Am I this type of person?!” Feng Yu felt insulted. “I admit that I will be making profits from this deal. I can’t be investing so much and not getting any returns. If you do not believe me, I can pass you the contact details of the Russian officials. You can talk to them yourselves. I will not get involved with the negotiations. You are talking as if I am desperate for these little profits. I am a good citizen from Bing City!”

Giving out the Russian Government Officials contact number just like this? Was Feng Yu really doing this for Bing City?

“Fine. Give me the other party’s contact details. After this deal is completed the city will give you a good citizen award!” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

Ha…… I got you this time! Are you speechless now?

Chapter 377 – You will still need me

Zhang Ruiqiang was surprised when Feng Yu accepted what he said, and he looks like he wanted to good citizen award badly.

Something must be wrong. What’s the use of having a good citizen award?

Feng Yu readily gave Zhang Ruiqiang the contact details of the Russian Officials. He also explained to Zhang Ruiqiang about the situation in Russia and told him his terms. The duration of the lease must be at least 7 years, and the farmers from his district must have the priority.

Zhang Ruiqiang agreed. This was not the first time Feng Yu wanted to take care of his own people. Although this was a bit too much, Zhang Ruiqiang could still accept it.

Zhang Ruiqiang immediately reported this matter to the Party Secretary. This was an urgent matter. The Party Secretary was elated. No wonder the Provincial Number One had high hopes on this person. He was indeed capable.

When Zhang Ruiqiang predicted the Soviet Union will disintegrate at the end of last year, everybody was laughing at him. Even the Provincial Number one did not agree with his predictions. Zhang Ruiqiang also wrote an article and published on the papers. The whole nation knew about this. He was considered a disgrace to the Party.

Just because Mikhail Gorbachev was visiting China, and you claimed that the Soviet Union will be disintegrating? Ignorant!

But even as the Provincial Number One was unhappy with Zhang Ruiqiang, he did not keep a distance away from him. It was because he felt that Zhang Ruiqiang was capable and responsible. Zhang Ruiqiang had his own beliefs and was viewed as the Provincial Number One’s successor. Even though he had made a mistake, but the Provincial Number One still forgive him.

But when the whole province and the entire nation, were waiting to laugh at Zhang Ruiqiang, news of the coup in the Soviet Union was announced. Although the coup was not successful, the Soviet Union was in a dire state. Mikhail Gorbachev was forced to step down, and the allied countries started to declare independence one after another!

At that time, everybody looked at the Soviet Union’s problems from a new perspective. They realized that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was inevitable. Those that firmly believes the Soviet Union will not be dissolved took out Zhang Ruiqiang’s article and starts to criticize it again.

Even the allied countries declared independence, it was not easy for the Soviet Union to disintegrate so soon. Those allied countries will still need to divide the Soviet union’s assets among them. This should take at least one year. You claimed that the Soviet Union will disintegrate at the end of 1991? Impossible!

But on December 25th, 1991, the United Nations announced that the Soviet Union had been disintegrated! Zhang Ruiqiang’s prediction was accurate!

Those people that had to criticize Zhang Ruiqiang’s article had nothing to say. They were embarrassed. Some of these people even turn around and start to praise Zhang Ruiqiang’s foresight.

The higher-ups also praised the leaders of Longjiang Province and Bing City’s governments. There were rumors that the higher-ups want to re-establish diplomatic relationships with these allied countries and needed people who could analyze international affairs. Some officials will be transferred away from Longjiang Province and Bing City. Most people think that Zhang Ruiqiang might be transferred out.

If it were other people, they would not try to get involved in any troublesome projects before the transfer. If Zhang Ruiqiang were to spearhead this project of leasing land for Bing City’s farmers, then this would be a pilot project. Zhang Ruiqiang would be tied down by this project and could not be transferred to the Central Government.

Every Official wanted to be transferred to the Central Government. This was the place where one would be nearest to the top officials. There were many chances for promotions.

Bing City’s Party Secretary looked at Zhang Ruiqiang and asked: “Ruiqiang, are you sure you want to head this project?”

Zhang Ruiqiang nodded: “Yes, I am sure. I am closed to Feng Yu, and Feng Yu was the one who suggested this. He had also spoken to the Russian Officials. If someone else were to lead this project, we might be at the losing end. After all, most of us are not familiar with Russia.”

“Fine. Go ahead. I will report this matter to the higher-ups.” The Party Secretary patted Zhang Ruiqiang’s back. He felt lucky to have such a capable subordinate.

Zhang Ruiqiang, representing Bing City’s Government started to contact the local Russia government. The Russia side was already informed of this matter. When Bing City faxed the official documents over, the Russian Officials immediately send a team over to Bing City for negotiations.

This had been discussed in Russia. All the officials felt that this was a good thing.

Bing City’s Party Secretary reported this matter to the Provincial No. 1 and 2. Both of them felt that this was a path no one had walked before.

The Provincial No. 2 looked at No.1. Zhang Ruiqiang was your man. He had been given an opportunity to be transferred to the Central Government. If he were to take on this project, he would lose his chance!

Provincial No. 1 was pleased. This was what he liked about Zhang Ruiqiang. Everything Zhang Ruiqiang did was for the people and not for promotions. If this project were a success, the Provincial No. 1 would try his best to promote him!

……

3 days later. Feng Yu was talking to Li Na on the phone.

“Nana, come over to Bing City for a few days. Just tell your family that you are visiting your High School teachers. We should not forget our former teachers even when we are studying in Beijing.”

These were all excuses cook up by Feng Yu.

“I am not convenient these few days.” Li Na purposely said.

“What are you thinking? I really want to visit our former teachers.” Feng Yu “seriously” replied. It’s only a few days. Li Na’s period should be over in a day or two.

“Stop it. I will ask my parents. Dongjun will also be going to Bing City. I can travel with him.”

Wen Dongjun’s purpose of coming to Bing City, was the same as Feng Yu asking Li Na to Bing City. It’s fine if one had not tasted the forbidden fruit. But if one takes a bite, he would be addicted.

They both chatted for a while and hang up.

The phone rang immediately.

“Feng Yu, what are you doing? How come your home number is always engaged, and you did not return my calls after paging you so many times?!” Zhang Ruiqiang shouted into the receiver.

“Huh? Mayor Zhang? What’s wrong? I am at home. Did I offend you?” Feng Yu purposely asked.

Feng Yu knew that the Russian negotiation team had arrived in Bing City from Kirilenko. Needless to ask, the negotiations must not be going on well!

“Come to my office now!”

“Eh…… I am just about to take a shower. I had just finish exercising and is not covered in sweat.”

Zhang Ruiqiang: “……” You were on the phone that’s why your number was engaged. Don’t tell me that you are exercising while on the phone?

“We have some problems negotiating with the Russian Officials. We would like to invite you to help us.” Zhang Ruiqiang changed his tone. After all, Feng Yu was not his subordinate.

“Oh, if that’s the case, I should help out Bing City. I will not take a shower then. I will rush over now.”

After hanging up, Feng Yu smiled. Even if I had given you the other party’s contact details, what can you do? The negotiation team from Russia is here to meet you, so what? In the end, you will still need me.

Chapter 378 – I had also contacted Australia

Feng Yu immediately dress up. He looked at himself in the mirror. He was dressed up maturely to prevent those Russian Officials taking him lightly.

Hmmm…… Not bad. Handsome until no more friends!

When Feng Yu rushed to the City Government, Zhang Ruiqiang was getting impatient.

Zhang Ruiqiang had thought that the negotiations will proceed as he planned. Feng Yu had told him that Russia has the land, but they are short of farmers. This would be a win-win situation for both parties.

But those Russians were too much. They insisted on only 5 years lease, and the rental fees were outrageously high. They claimed that the prices include the usage of their land and taxes. China does not have such high rentals. If the farmers paid the rental costs, they would have nothing left. They would be working for free!

But Bing City government’s negotiation team were no match for the Russians. The Russians were insistent on their terms and do not relent.

Zhang Ruiqiang had no choice but to ask Feng Yu for help. Feng Yu was a businessman, and he should be better at negotiations than them.

“You are finally here. Why are you so late?”

Feng Yu thought for a while and could not come up with any excuses. In this era, there was no such thing as traffic jams. No excuses? So be it. I am here to help you!

“I am already here. What’s wrong? The negotiations did not proceed as planned? Didn’t I tell you about the situation in Russia?” Feng Yu sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs. Ha, you can’t do without me.

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu who was shaking his leg. He got more irritated: “Can you stop shaking your leg first? You told me that Russia has a shortage of farmers, but they claim otherwise. Their conditions are harsh. Not only they want high rentals, they still insist us to buy their farming equipment, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Our farmers will not earn anything. Which farmer will be willing to work in another country just to barely survive? You still want those farmers to return their land? Impossible!”

Must buy their farming equipment? Damn, they want to grab the meat from my bowl? This cannot be tolerated!

“Mayor Zhang, don’t be anxious. The negotiations will continue in the afternoon? I will be the translator. Maybe your translators are not good enough.”

“What do you mean by our translators are not good enough? The translator is a professor from a university. He had studied in Russia for some years. But it would be good if you are present. You can see for yourself. No matter what, our farmers must be able to make money. The farmers must be willing to go to Russia and return their illegally cultivated fields to the City.”

“No problem. Who are the ones that will be taking part in this negotiation? Call them here. I want to hear their thoughts before I can make any decisions.” Feng Yu waved his hand and gave out instructions!

Zhang Ruiqiang’s face turns black. You make decisions? You think you have the authority to make any decisions? Never mind. I should get everybody here and discuss our next course of actions.

Those officials had just returned to their offices, and before they could sit down, they were summoned back to the City Government. When they entered the office, they saw Feng Yu wiping his oily mouth.

He was called to the City Government by Zhang Ruiqiang before he could have any breakfast. Zhang Ruiqiang asked for some meat buns to be delivered to Feng Yu. Zhang Ruiqiang was too stingy. Feng Yu had only asked for a few fried eggs, and Zhang Ruiqiang takes away the soy milk. Feng Yu could just drink congee.

Zhang Ruiqiang said with a killing aura: “Feng Yu, now you are full, tell us about your thoughts.”

What Zhang Ruiqiang meant was, if you are still not going to tell us what you are going to do, I will make you vomit out the food you had just eaten!

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Stingy. I had only eaten a few meat buns. You don’t even let me order what I want to eat for lunch. I am a billionaire. You think I do not have the money to pay? Hmmm…. The meat buns from the City Government’s canteen taste better than elsewhere.

“I had checked out the situation in Russia personally. From last year, their crops production had been on a decline. Their farming equipment production, fertilizer production, pesticide production had been declining too. They even do not have enough seeds left. More and more fields are being abandoned, as there is no one taking care of the fields.”

“Russia, especially the far eastern regions, have a lot of uncultivated lands. Their main agriculture produce is beetroots, sunflower seeds, potatoes, linseeds, wheat, and oat. Among these produces, our farmers specialize in growing wheat, oat, potatoes, and beetroot. Actually, their fields are suitable to grow soybeans, corn, vegetables, etc. too. From what I know, very few Russian farmers are growing corn and soybeans in that region. Corn is a high-yielding crop. It can solve the food shortage issue in Russia.”

“During the Soviet Union era, 10 years ago, the Soviet Union, including Russia, was one of the world’s top producer of crops. But now, they need to depend on importation. One could see the decline of their agriculture industry from this. This situation will surely carry on for a period of time.”

“Their agriculture-related industries’ businesses are dull. This is another indication that their agriculture industry is on a decline. They are more anxious than us. So, we must have a “we are not in a hurry” attitude. Mayor Zhang should not attend the negotiation in the afternoon. I will attend the negotiations with Agriculture Chief Lee. Oh, prepare dinner to host these guests too.”

Zhang Ruiqiang and the rest were listening tentatively to Feng Yu and felt that what he said made sense at the start. But what was he talking about at the end? The head of the negotiation team should not attend the talks in the afternoon? You will attend? What can you do there? You do not even have a position in the City Government.

Also, you want us to prepare dinner for those irritating Russians? Everybody thought that Zhang Ruiqiang would not agree to Feng Yu, and even scold him. But Zhang Ruiqiang nodded. He agreed!

They had heard that Zhang Ruiqiang was close to Feng Yu. But to let a young brat to negotiate with those Russia’s officials?

Many people in the office do not know about Feng Yu’s actual net worth. They thought that the Machinery Company, Tai Hua Trading, etc. were all owned by Feng Xingtai. Feng Yu was only a cunning 2nd generation!

Maybe Feng Yu had some capabilities which Mayor Zhang admires. But Mayor Zhang should not let this kid do whatever he wants.

When the rest of the negotiation team wanted to persuade Zhang Ruiqiang, he waved his hand: “That’s settled! Feng Yu, I do not care what you are going to do, but you must settle this problem!”

Feng Yu smiled and asked: “Then can I earn some spare change from this deal?”

“Yes. The city can don’t make any profits from this deal, but you cannot earn more than the farmers!”

The rest were shocked. Mayor Zhang was allowing Feng Yu to profit from this deal? He was making a deal with this private company’s boss in front of them?

“Fine. Then I will set up a new company later. The City should have a stake in this company. This way, the city will have some profits, and the city can use these profits as subsidies for those farmers. Oh, I had forgotten to tell all of you that our farmers can surely make money from farming overseas. Even if they are unable to go to Russia, it’s fine. I have contacted Australia’s Agriculture department!”

Chapter 379 – Something’s wrong

Feng Yu had contacted Australia’s Agriculture department! Even Zhang Ruiqiang was shocked.

That’s great. Insurance. This way, it would be easier for them to negotiate with the Russians. Although Australia was a bit further from China, there was not much difference from Russia. The farmers were still working overseas. They will still be returning home once a year. The farmers would accept this too. This was their trump card in their negotiations.

But as everybody was talking excitedly about this matter, one member of the negotiation team was calm.

At noon, Feng Yu ate his lunch at the City Government’s cafeteria. Although he was having lunch with Zhang Ruiqiang and the rest of the officials, there were only 4 dishes and 1 soup. Only one dish was a meat dish. According to Zhang Ruiqiang, it was just because Feng Yu was having lunch with them, they have additional dishes. Usually, they only have 2 dishes and 1 soup.

Feng Yu was speechless. You have only added 2 vegetable dishes for me? Wow… that’s generous! I must take this opportunity to make more money for myself. The City cannot keep getting all the benefits. Those farmers will also not be grateful to me.

After lunch, the Russian Officials walked into the meeting room. Every one of them was walking with their heads held high. They had a confident look.

Feng Yu was curious. No matter how useless Zhang Ruiqiang and his team were, there was no way for them to fail at this negotiation. The demands set by the Russian Officials were too harsh.

How did these Russian Officials come up with these conditions?

Huh? Why did those people that just came in kept looking at me? I am sitting in the translator seat. They should not be paying attention to a young translator.

They look like they were wary of me. Why are they so defensive against a translator?

Unless…… these people knew that Feng Yu will be the one that will be leading the negotiations.

But how would they know? Feng Yu was not arrogant enough to think that everyone knows who he was, even in Bing City. Let alone overseas. Feng Yu had only mentioned this matter to Kirilenko, and there was no reason Kirilenko would let them know about him. Where did these people get the news?

Feng Yu lowered his head and try not to let people notice him. Maybe he was overthinking. Perhaps these Russians were only curious about an unfamiliar face. After all, Feng Yu was still too young.

“Mr. Ivanov, we had discussed your terms and thinks that the terms were too harsh. We cannot accept it. If your side is willing to lower your demands, then we can carry on with our discussions.” The Agriculture Chief Lee said.

Feng Yu said at the back and translated everything Chief Lee said into Russian.

The Russian negotiation team consists of representatives of 3 regions. Ivanov was the representative of the biggest area and was also the leader of the team. The other two representatives were his deputies. All the decisions were made by the three of them. The rest of the team were there to serve them.

“Then what does Bing City wants? Which terms do you want to talk about?”

Chief Lee was surprised. Impossible. In the mornings, they refuse to back down. They refused to negotiate. How come they had a change of attitude and were willing to negotiate now?

What happened during the hours from the morning’s talks? Did this Feng Yu translate what I said correctly?

“Tell them that we will not purchase their farming equipment, pesticides, fertilizers, etc. Our farmers are free to compare prices in the market and purchase the items from wherever they want. They can even send these products to Russia from Bing City.” Chief Lee said an unspecific condition to test the other party’s attitude. This time, he asked the Professor from Longjiang university to translate.

The Professor was surprised and looked at Chief Lee. That young translator had been doing well. Fine. Since I had accepted this task, then I should translate.

Feng Yu does not mind. He was lazy to translate too. Damn. This Chief Lee had really treated him as a translator. Zhang Ruiqiang had said that he will be the one heading this negotiation. Which part of this Chief Lee does not understand?

You think you can handle the talks? Go ahead. If you are really that capable, why did the talks fail this morning? Since you think you are capable, carry on. I shall see how well you fare.

The talks carried on, and Chief Lee used all his tricks and skills. It was like he had returned to his youth. A debating champion. He had made the Russian team step back and had successfully let the Russians agree to allow the farmers to have the freedom of purchasing.

Chief Lee and the rest of his team were excited. Only Feng Yu was sighing in his heart. This bunch of useless idiots!

This was making them give in? Other than Russia cannot set the prices, what else have they give up? Giving you the freedom to purchase? If you consider the cost, it would be cheaper for the farmers to buy in Russia. The transportation charges from Bing City to Russia were additional costs to the farmers. Furthermore, the seeds from Bing City might not be suitable to be planted in Russia.

Don’t forget that the Russian are setting the annual minimum production of the fields. Just look at beetroots. Their beetroots have red leaves, and yours have green leaves. These are different species!

You had been talking for hours, and yet nothing was finalized. All of you still can feel proud? If Feng Yu were the other party, Bing City’s farmers would be finished.

For instance, the Russian officials can get their people to manipulate the market prices and priced those items slightly higher in the regions where Bing City’s farmers had leased lands. And then, the government can give subsidies to their local farmers in these regions. This way, their local farmers could still get cheaper pesticides, fertilizers, etc. But the cost of Bing City’s farmers will be higher.

What’s the most essential problem in this negotiation? It is the rental fees and land area. You have been talking for almost half a day on these useless conditions. Why are you not talking about the important stuff first?

The other party let you win on these unimportant terms now. Then when you are discussing the critical conditions and they demanded that you give in to them, will you give in?

Sure enough. Chief Lee realized that the Russian Officials had given in on many areas. But when they start talking about the rental rates and areas, they were firm and refuse to back down.

The Russian Officials now starts to say: We had given in to your demands just now. Shouldn’t Bing City’s Government step back a little? Russia and China have good diplomatic relationships. You should not let us be at a disadvantage. This would affect our countries’ ties.

Feng Yu was sneering in his heart. Chief Lee thinks that he was capable? Earlier he was talking so confidently. Why was he faltering now? What’s the use of getting Russia to agree to his earlier terms? How much can you save from that? The rental rates were the most crucial part of this negotiation, and it would affect the income of the farmers.

Huh? Something was not right. Why was that translator holding his teacup up whenever Chief Lee stops talking? Even though you are drinking your tea after Chief Lee finishes speaking, but you should not be doing it every time.

If one were to drink the tea like that translator, the teacup should be empty. Why was he still pretending to drink his tea?

Something is wrong with this translator!

Feng Yu thinks back to the time when the Russian Officials walked into the room. A frightening thought comes to his mind!

get the chance to earn money overseas.

Chapter 380 – You must be a determined traitor

Feng Yu signaled Chief Lee and whispered something to his ears. Chief Lee looked at Feng Yu puzzledly. What was this kid thinking? He wanted to end the negotiations for today?

Everything had been going on smoothly until now. If they stop the talks now, then tomorrow the Russians will be more arrogant.

“Chief Lee, Trust me. Tomorrow I will give you a satisfied answer. You should also believe in Mayor Zhang’s judgment.”

Chief Lee can brush off the first part of the sentence. But he cannot ignore the last part. Why did Mayor Zhang trust this Feng Yu so much and thinks that he can help them with the negotiations? Could it be that this Feng Yu knows something they were unaware of?

If that’s the case, then the talks should end for the day. After all, they had made some progress. He can also go back and report to Mayor Zhang.

“Mr. Ivanov, I think our negotiations should end for the day. I can tell that all of you are tired. Tonight, we have prepared some performances at the Cultural Palace for you and your team. You should grab an early dinner.”

Ivanov looked at his deputies and nodded. They should not press the Bing City Government too hard. If the news were real, then they would have to give in to the Bing City Government’s demands. It’s good that they end the talks for the day. This way, they will have the time to verify the news.

……

After the negotiations ended, Feng Yu and Chief Lee went back to Zhang Ruiqiang’s office.

Chief Lee proudly reports to Zhang Ruiqiang about the progress he had made with the negotiations. These were all his credit.

Zhang Ruiqiang finished listening to his report and saw Feng Yu frowning. Could it be that Feng Yu thought that it would be difficult to settle this negotiation?

“Feng Yu, why didn’t you tell them that you had spoken to Australian’s Agriculture department?”

Feng Yu opened up his palms: “Mayor Zhang, do you really think that I am that capable and had really contacted Australia?”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s face changed: “What? You have not contacted Australia? Then why did you tell us that?”

“This is only a form of negotiation tactics. This is to provide wrong information to our rivals. At first, I thought that I need more time to be prepared. But now, there is no need. It seems that the Russian Officials was aware of this.”

“Impossible! I did not say anything about this during the talks. The rest also did not mention about this. How can they know?” Chief Lee retorted.

This Feng Yu even dare to lie to them and Mayor Zhang. Chief Zhang now has a very bad impression of Feng Yu.

“Then Chief Lee, can you explain the Russian Officials’ change of attitude in the afternoon? This afternoon, the talks went smoother than the morning, right? Why do you think they gave in to our requests?” Feng Yu asked.

Chief Lee was at a loss of words. He thought back, and it seems that Feng Yu was right. But how did the Russians know about this without them saying anything? Unless…… there was a traitor in the negotiation team!

Chief Lee looked at Mayor Zhang, and their faces changed.

“You know who it is?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked in a serious tone.

Feng Yu nodded: “The translator from the Foreign affairs.”

“How can you proof?” Chief Lee does not believe Feng Yu. He was the one who had hired that translator. That translator had studied in the Soviet Union before. If that translator was the traitor, that means he had picked the wrong person. He might even be suspected to be in cahoots with the traitor. He was innocent and had not done anything to betray the nation. He was still young and have a bright future. This matter would destroy his career.

Feng Yu smiled and asked: “Chief Lee, can you remember that every time after you raise your demands, that translator will hold up his teacup, and the Russians will reject? When that translator just shift his teacup, the Russians will give in to you?”

Chief Lee recalled that the translator had been meddling with his teacup during the talks. But he was not sure if what Feng Yu had said was true.

But this was very simple. They can just bring that translator in for questionings.

“Call him in. I will ask him personally.”

Feng Yu was shocked. Huh? You want to call him in and ask him straight? Who would be so stupid to admit it?

Chief Lee glanced at Feng Yu: “You do not need to worry about anything. I will know if he is a traitor within 5 minutes of questioning.”

Feng Yu turned to Zhang Ruiqiang. Damn, you agree to this too?

That translator arrived, and he saw the two leaders in the office. He warmly greeted them. He does not look like he was betraying them.

Chief Lee smiled and asked: “Translator Xue, you have been working with the Foreign affairs for some years? How’s your health? What expectations of your future do you have?”

“I am healthy. I will listen to the arrangements of the leaders and will perform my duties well.” Translator Xue sat upright. Are the leaders going to promote me?

“Do you have any issues at home? Do you need my help?”

“No. My family is doing fine. I will be getting married at the end of this year. The leader has assigned a 2 bedrooms apartment to me.”

Chief Lee nodded. He continued to ask that translator like he was having a casual chat with him: “Since your leaders and unit have treated you well, why did you betray us?”

Translator Xue was stunned: “Ah…. Mayor Zhang, Chief Lee, I did not betray you.”

“No? You did not keep meddling with your teacup during the negotiations? Were you very thirsty? I am giving you a chance by asking you here. I still have not notified the Discipline Inspection. If you own up, we can carry on talking. But if you are still insistent, then you should know about the consequences!” Chief Lee suddenly became very serious and tapped his finger on the coffee table.

Translator Xue immediately stands at attention: “Mayor Zhang, Chief Lee, I admit. I am sorry for betraying you!”

Feng Yu’s jaws dropped. Can this be real?

Damn, people in this era were so timid? Didn’t the people now know that one should never plead guilty even when caught red-handed?

Feng Yu had forgotten that the government officials had more political power than the future.

One of the Russian Officials in the negotiation team was a former classmate of Translator Xue. They met again when the Russian negotiation team arrived in Bing City. That Russian Official knew that Translator Xue was about to get married. Although the government will provide housing for him, he was still short of money. He came from a poor family, and his family was in debt. His parents had borrowed money for his university education. His salary was not a lot, and most of it was used to repay his debts.

Getting married was not cheap. He still needs to renovate his apartment, wedding banquet, and get household appliances. He does not have enough money!

His former classmate told him that if he reveals some insider information from the Bing City’s team, he will give the Translator Xue a sum of money. He would be about to hold a grand wedding!

At first, Translator Xue did not agree. But yesterday night, he had an argument with his fiancée. His fiancée wanted to buy a television, refrigerator, and a washing machine. She also demanded a grand wedding. She would call off the wedding if Translator Xue could not provide her with these demands.

This was the reason why Translator Xue decided to take the risk. He told those Russian Officials that the Bing City really wanted this deal.

The Russians heard this and knew that since Bing City really wanted this deal, and this would be a pilot site for the Central Government, then the Russians can impose harsher demands from Bing City. This way, the Russian Officials can get greater credits when this deal goes through.

Feng Yu was right. Translator Xue had been using his teacup to give the other party hints. He was also the one that told the other party about Feng Yu contacting the Australia Government. Translator Xue was paid well for this news.

“Hmph! Traitor! You will be punished severely. You will surrender yourself to the Discipline Inspection later. Maybe you can get a lighter sentence.” Chief Lee was furious. He hated traitors the most. His grandfather died because of traitors!

Feng Yu suddenly interrupted: “Sigh…… Chief Lee, we should give him a chance if he is willing to repent.”

Translator Xue immediately nodded: “That’s right. Mayor Zhang, Chief Xue, please give me a chance. I will not betray the nation again. I will not be a traitor again!”

Feng Yu shook his head: “No. You must continue to be a traitor!”

Everyone looked at Feng Yu in surprised. Continue to be a traitor? What are you saying?

Chapter 381 – Double spy

Feng Yu turned towards Mayor Zhang and Chief Lee to explain. He wanted Translator Xue to be a double agent spy!

Didn’t this Translator Xue regretted his actions and wanted a chance to change? Why not make use of him in this negotiation?

Zhang Ruiqiang and Chief Lee looked at each other. That’s right. Since the Russian Officials had bribed Translator Xue, why should they still be gentlemen and play by the rules? This deal was for Bing City. At the most, they will get a bad reputation. But most importantly, it was the Bing City’s farmers that would benefit.

Zhang Ruiqiang and Chief Lee decided to follow Feng Yu’s plans.

Feng Yu was happy. This was like war. How can one win a war without using some tactics? But why was Zhang Ruiqiang looking at him in disgust? Zhang Ruiqiang seemed like he had been cheated by Feng Yu. Huh? Did I trick him in the past? Maybe. But I had increased the City Government’s tax revenue and the civilians’ income.

Feng Yu spoke to Translator Xue for a while, and Translator Xue looked at Mayor Zhang. Mayor Zhang nodded: “You can just do what he said. After this negotiation is over, you will surrender the money you had taken from them, and I will let the matter rest.”

Translator Xue was relieved. He only did not have enough money for his wedding. He and his fiancée were working. They could postpone their wedding. But if he had lost his job, then everything will be gone! His fiancée would even leave him!

Furthermore, Feng Yu had told him that if the talks went on as planned, he would teach him a way to let his fiancée marry him.

……

That night, Ivanov and his team were at the Cultural Palace, watching performances. Even though they do not understand Chinese, they still enjoyed themselves.

They felt that the Bing City Government was more inclined towards Russia. If not, why would Bing City Government prepare such performances for them?

They would return back to Russia after the negotiation was over. They would return with a considerable achievement. Australia and Bing City was too far apart. The climate was also different. They felt that Australia was not a threat to them.

After the performance, Translator Xue and Bing City Government Officials sent Ivanov and his team back to their hotel. Translator Xue waited for the Chinese Officials to leave and he secretly returned back to Ivanov’s room. In Ivanov’s room, there was another Russian Official. He was Translator Xue’s classmate.

“Xue, do you have any good news for us?” Ivanov smiled and asked. He was very confident that he would win in this negotiation.

Translator Xue had a troubled looked on his face. Ivanov signaled to his assistant, and his assistant said: “Xue, don’t worry. If your information is useful, we will pay you well. We had corporate twice, and you should see our sincerity. The money we gave you should be enough for your renovation and wedding.”

Translator gritted his teeth and said: “This time I want 100,000 USD!”

“What? 100,000 USD? This is daylight robbery!” Ivanov stood up. 100,000 USD was more than Translator Xue’s lifetime salary. Impossible!

Translator Xue’s classmate tried to talk to him: “Xue, we are unable to give you so much money now. Why not you tell me about the information you got first. If your information were crucial, I would persuade him to give you 2,000 USD.”

Based on the current exchange rates, 2,000 USD was about 10,000 RMB. This was about Translator Xue’s 5-year salary. This was a great offer.

Although the Russian Officials were able to offer more than 2,000 USD, the average income of Chinese was meager. Their offer was based on China’s average income at that time.

Translator Xue shook his head: “No. My information is definitely worth 100,000 USD. You will regret if you do not listen to me.”

Translator Xue was insistent, and Ivanov hesitated. If the negotiation failed, then they would not get any credits at all. They might even be punished by their political rivals. Furthermore, this sum of money was not from his own pocket. They can claim it as expenses from their government.

If they could clinch this deal, their higher-ups will close one eye and let them off. After all, they were doing this for the good of their motherland.

But this Translator Xue was too greedy. He wanted 100,000 USD.

If he agreed to his demands now, then will he ask for 200,000 USD tomorrow for another information?

“5,000 USD. This is the final offer.” Ivanov tested him.

Translator Xue stood up: “Mr. Ivanov, I will leave then. I think you will regret another 2 days’ time!”

“Wait, 10,000 USD!”

Translator Xue did not stop and continue walking towards the door.

“Fine. I agree.”

Translator Xue returned to his seat: “You had made a wise decision.”

“But I will only give you 10,000 USD first. After hearing your information, I will decide if I shall pay you the rest.” Ivanov added a condition.

“Full payment of 100,000 USD. I will tell you once I receive the money.”

“You are not afraid that I will tell your leaders about you receiving money from us?” Ivanov threatened him.

Translator Xue replied: “Then carry on. At most, I will lose my job. You, however, will disgrace Russia for bribing me. You will also be fired, and even the rest of your team members will be punished! I am only one person, and I will drag everyone in your team down with me!”

Ivanov looked at his assistant and said: “Go and get the Rubles.”

“I said that I want USD. Only USD. Once I received the money, I will leave China.”

So, this was his last deal. No wonder he wanted such a big sum of money. But if this information was not worth this price, then Ivanov will not let Translator Xue leave the room!

10 minutes later, Ivanov’s assistant returned and place a bag on the desk. There were 10 bundles of USD. Translator Xue’s breathing became rapid when he saw the bag of money.

Translator Xue reached out for the money, but Ivanov stopped him: “Tell me what information you have.”

“Fine. Are you not curious why Mayor Zhang did not appear for this afternoon’s talks?”

“I thought he had some urgent matters to attend to?”

“That’s right. He was attending to some matters. But did you know where he went to? He went to Shenzhen to meet with the Australian’s agricultural ministry’s team!”

“What? The Australian’s agricultural team is here too?”

Ivanov was shocked. That means China had a backup plan. So tonight’s welcome celebrations were not to foster relationships with, but it was to stall time.

“But so what? We knew about this in the afternoon. This information is not worth 100,000 USD!” Ivanov furiously said.

“What if I told you that Bing City’s actual target is Australia? The talks with Australia had started since last year. They are only using you to pressurize them. The conditions offered by the Australians were much better than yours. If you are going to let this opportunity slip away, then just treat this trip as a short holiday for you and your team.”

Ivanov was shocked. We are……s only the second choice?

Chapter 382 – Life is like a play, it all depends on your acting skills (Part 1 of 3)

“Repeat what you just said. We are the second choice?”

“What you don’t believe me? Then tell me a reason why Bing City’s Mayor is not involved such important talks? Why did Bing City send a deputy mayor to negotiate with you? And also, why did he leave in the midst of the negotiation?”

Ivanov was at a loss of words. If he could not clinch this deal, he would not have the credit and would even be punished! Oh, since Translator Xue was willing to tell him this, then that means he had a solution to solve this issue.

“Xue, do you have any way to let us win? You surely have a plan in mind, right? What did Australia offer to Bing City? Tell me. We can also match them.”

Translator Xue replied with an arrogant smirk: “Of course. If not, I would also not asked you for so much money. Now, do you think my information is worth 100,000

USD?”

“Yes! Tell us your plans.”

“The solution is that your side will lower your conditions and I shall ask my brother to mess up Australia and Bing City’s talks in Shenzhen.”

“Huh? Your brother can mess up the talks over there?”

“Of course. My elder brother is also a translator, and he is in charge of the translation team for the talks between Australia and Bing City! He needs to verify all the translated documents in that meeting. If he changed some data in the documents, then you will have a high chance of winning. But your side must still accept Bing City’s demands.”

Translator Xue had followed Feng Yu’s instructions. At first, he was afraid. Even his voice was trembling and was worried that Ivanov would find out. But Ivanov and his follower did not notice this. They thought that Translator Xue was too excited to see the money. They will also be excited if they see 100,000 USD in front of them.

“How should we lower our conditions?”

“Tomorrow you should look at me. We will follow our previous signals. If the conditions are those that Bing City would not give in, I will touch my cup with both hands. If the conditions are those that Bing City would give in, then I would hold the cup up to drink water. You will decide for yourself if you are willing to accept Bing City’s conditions!”

Translator Xue points to the money: “It is getting late. I should be leaving. If I stay here for too long, people will notice me.”

Ivanov held on to the bag of money and took out about half and pass it to Translator Xue.

“What is the meaning of this? You want to go back on your words? Without me, you will not know Bing City’s baseline!” Translator Xue roared.

“No, I am not going back on my words. But this matter is not over yet. You cannot take all the money. You will receive half first, and after everything the deal, you will receive the remaining!” Merely to say, if there were no deal, then Translator Xue will only receive 50,000 USD.

Translator Xue stared at Ivanov for a while and back down: “Fine. But I must receive the money before you sign the contract. If not, I will mess up the contract. Trust me, it is easy for me to mess up the contracts!”

Translator Xue left, and Ivanov called his deputies to his room for a discussion. The 3 of them will be sharing the credit and the bribes offered was also divided among them. But their demands would still have to be discussed. Russia’s expectation was simple. There must be people farming in the fields, and part of their harvest got to be handed over to them.

The 3 of them did not know what Bing City’s bottom line was and what conditions did Australia accepted. The 3 of them decided to look at Translator Xue’s signals and decide on the spot.

After leaving Ivanov’s room, Translator Xue did not return home. Instead, he went to the City Government.

He secretively carried a bag into Zhang Ruiqiang’s office. Only a few people who were still working saw him.

“Mayor Zhang, I had followed Mr. Feng’s instructions and told Ivanov everything. This 50,000 USD is from him. I had surrendered everything. After this talk is completed, he will give me another 50,000 USD. I swear I will not keep a single cent.”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared with opened eyes. 50,000 USD? What instruction did Feng Yu give to Translator Xue? How come the Russians were willing to give him 50,000 USD bribes?

Feng Yu nodded: “This is normal. No problem. Tomorrow when they ask you, you just tell them that Bing City Government decided to temporarily suspend the negotiations. You will bring those Russians to visit our Bing City’s attractions.”

Translator Xue was surprised: “We are not continuing with the talks tomorrow?”

“That was our previous plan. Now it had been changed. We are now talking to the Australians. This side can wait. What’s wrong with this?” Feng Yu laughed.

Zhang Ruiqiang also understood why Feng Yu made such a decision. This was to make the other party anxious. The more anxious the other party was, the probability of them making mistakes would be higher. This way, it would be easier for them to lower their demands!

“Just follow according to Feng Yu’s instructions. Go back first. Be natural tomorrow.”

Feng Yu turned to Zhang Ruiqiang: “Mayor Zhang, I thought you are going to the Provincial Government for some work? You should leave now.”

Zhang Ruiqiang nodded and patted Feng Yu on his shoulders: “Do not let our City be taken advantage of.”

……

“What? You saw with your own eyes that the Foreign Affairs’ secretary entered Zhang Ruiqiang’s office with a bag and he left empty-handed? Feng Yu was also inside the office? Good” Deputy Mayor Xu hang the phone and sneered.

Zhang Ruiqiang, I thought you are a righteous person. So, you are a person who accepts bribes! Hrmp! How can this type of person be promoted? He should not be the executive mayor! Maybe I can take over his position.

Maybe I can work for a couple of years before my retirement. If I go to the Provincial Government, he might even be demoted!

This was a piece of good news. If it were one or two months later, Deputy Mayor Xu would not have this opportunity.

……

Manager Yu of the International Hotel had received instructions from the City Government to give the best treatment to the Russian Officials. Those Russian Officials cannot be leaving the hotel by themselves. There must be someone from Bing City’s government accompanying them. This was to prevent any accidents from happening.

There was also another instruction. No strangers should be disturbing the Russian Officials. Hmmm… The phone lines in the Russian Officials’ room should be cut. This was to prevent them from receiving nuisance calls, which would disturb their rest.

Manager Yu was thinking in his heart that no one dares make nuisance calls to International Hotel’s rooms. But since he had received this instruction from the City Government, then he got to follow. He cut the rooms’ telephone lines and told the Russian Officials that they were doing inspections on the telephone lines in the area. It would take one or two days. If the Officials needs to make calls, they can use the phones in the lobby.

Feng Yu saw his plan was proceeding smoothly. Although there were many loopholes, and maybe something might not be going as planned, but he knew that Russia was more anxious than Bing City. There was no way his simple plan would fail!

Chapter 383 – Life is like a play, it all depends on your acting skills (Part 2 of 3)

“What? The negotiations will be suspended for today? Bing City had sent people to bring us around the city?” Ivanov was puzzled. Why were the talks put on old? Who the hell wants to tour your city?!

Bing City was just a city covered in snow and ice. There was not much difference with Russia. Russia had better sceneries.

Could it be that Bing City Government was trying to stall time and negotiate with Australia first?

If Australia had gotten a deal with Bing City first, then Russia would be out of this game. No! We must talk to Bing City immediately. Since Bing City Government was trying to make excuses, then I should take the initiative.

“Oh, Mr. Ivanov, you want to continue with the negotiations? There is still time. The land can only be plow in April and planting can only start in May. There is no difference if we can reach a deal now or tomorrow. Furthermore, our negotiation team leader is not in Bing City. There is no decision maker.” Chief Lee spoke slowly, taking his time.

“Other than Mayor Zhang, there are no other leaders around? This deal will affect the relationship between both our nations. We view this deal highly, and China should also show some sincerity!” Ivanov insisted.

“Hmmm…… But we had planned the itinerary for your tour and had paid the money. If you and your team is not going, I cannot answer to my higher-ups. How about we continue with the negotiations tomorrow? Today we will continue as planned. I will bring you around Bing City.” Chief Lee pretended to give in unwillingly.

Ivanov also dare not to press him too hard. Fine. Tomorrow then. Australia that side should not be able to reach a deal in one day. Translator Xue will definitely help him for that 50,000 USD.

The next day, Ivanov and his team went to the City Government and was notified that Chief Lee had fallen ill! He had caught a cold yesterday when he brought Ivanov and his men around Bing City. He could not continue with the talks today. Even there were other members of Bing City’s negotiation team around, they could not make the decisions. Ivanov needs to wait until Chief Lee to recover.

Ivanov was sure that Bing City Government was stalling time. He tried asking about Mayor Zhang but was told that he had gone to another province for work. Who the hell believes such lies. He must be in Shenzhen negotiating with the Australians!

All the deputy mayors are busy? Ivanov does not believe that all the leaders are busy. They knew the way China’s Cities operate. A City has at least 7 to 8 deputies around. How was it possible that all of them are busy at the same time?

No. Bing City Government must continue with the negotiations as soon as possible. If not, he would go and find Longjiang Province’s leaders! This matter concerned 2 countries. The leaders there will surely take priority in this.  Although Russia was no longer part of the strong Soviet Union, Russia was still considered one of the superpowers in the world. They had one of the strongest military strengths. China cannot just ignore them!

Bing City Mayor received the complaints from the Russia negotiation team. The Russian team had complained that Bing City’s negotiation team was not sincere in this deal. This would affect the relationship between both countries.

Zhang Ruiqiang had already informed the Mayor about his plan and what was going on. Although the mayor felt that Zhang Ruiqiang’s plan was too cunning, this would benefit Bing City. As long as the Russians do not know about this, everything will be fine. Once the contract was signed, it would be too late for them to regret.

The Mayor agreed to continue the negotiations with Russia’s representatives personally, and Ivanov was relieved.

The Australian side was only talking to the deputy mayors, and Ivanov and his team were talking to the Mayor. Even if the Australians had better offers, the Mayor would still have the power to override.

But after the negotiations started, Ivanov discovered that the Mayor was harder to handle compared to Zhang Ruiqiang. The Mayor made a lot of demands and were harsher than what had been previously discussed. This proved that the Bing City Government was not sincere in talking to them!

Because of this, Ivanov asked Translator Xue to ask his brother to create problems for the Australian team. After all, Translator Xue had taken his money!

The next day, the City government contacted Ivanov and said that they wanted to continue with the negotiations.

But Ivanov was disappointed. Although the conditions were not as harsh as the previous day, Russia would be making losses if they agreed!

If Ivanov had signed this contract, he would not get any credit when he returned to Russia. He might even lose his job.

Later the day, Bing City relented and lowered their conditions further. This proved that Translator Xue’s brother had started creating problems for the negotiation team in Shenzhen. Ivanov thought that this was his chance. It all boils down to how they were able to make use of this opportunity to clinch the deal.

Although Bing City had a high population, there were not a lot of farmers that were willing to work overseas. Bing City Government cannot sign a contract with both Russia and Australia. Other Cities in China can cooperate with Australia. Bing City was located just next to Russia and was the ideal partner for Russia.

In the afternoon, the negotiations proceeded on smoothly. They had come eye to eye on the minor details, but the main issues were still not finalized. Both parties refused to back down.

The land area, leasing cost, duration of the lease, and mode of payment were the main issues where both parties could not find the middle ground.

Bing City wanted the land area to be decided by the farmers, and the farmers will be allowed to cultivate the wastelands. Bing City also demanded low rental, and the lease duration should at least be 10 years. This duration can be extended, but the minimum will be 10 years. Bing City also demanded to pay Russia at the end of every year from the farmer’s harvest. The farmers do not need to pay anything before their harvest. The farmers will be paying the rentals themselves, and Bing City would not be responsible if the farmers failed to make any payments. If there were any natural disasters, then the rents would be halved.

Russia’s side had different ideas. They wanted Bing City to take up at least 10,000 hectors, and those land cultivated from the wilderness would be charged the same as the fields. After the lease duration, the farmers got to return that land to its previous state. The farmers got to plant back the grasses, and trees. The rentals must be based on the past few year’s valuations averages. The Russians used the years where the land cost the most in the Soviet Union. The duration was 5 years. That was the maximum they could accept, and after 5 years, they would negotiate again. The rentals must be handed over before the farming starts. The following year, the farmers will be allowed to use part of their harvest to pay the rent.

There was a vast difference between both sides’ conditions. The negotiations came to a deadlock again. At this time, Translator Xue came to Ivanov again and wanted 20,000 USD from him. He would help Ivanov to find out what conditions Australia’s team wanted.

Translator Xue had taken 10,000 USD from him on the first day. He took another 20,000 USD in the next few rounds of negotiations. This time, he wanted money again.

Since Ivanov had already given Translator Xue 80,000 USD, yet the negotiations were still in a stalemate, if he refuses to provide translator Xue this 20,000 USD now, all his efforts and money spent would be wasted. If he clinched the deal in his favor, then this 100,000 USD would be well paid.

Fine. If you can help us find out what the Australians were offering, then I will give you this 20,000 USD!

Chapter 384 – Life is like a play, it all depends on your acting skills (Part 2 of 3)

“You are going to the City Government again?” Li Na pouted.

Feng Yu had asked Li Na to come to Bing City, but Feng Yu had been very busy these few days. He had no time to accompany Li Na. The only thing that made Li Na slightly happier was that Wen Dongjun was staying at a hotel. There was no one to disturb them.

Feng Yu hugged Li Na: “Why not you follow me to the City Government? I should be finishing up my work within the next 2 days.”

“I think not. I got nothing to do there. You should come back earlier today. I will prepare dinner.” Li Na was behaving like his wife, and she helped tidied Feng Yu’s shirt. Feng Yu kissed her forehead, gave a playful smack on her butt and left with an evil laugh.

Things had been going along Feng Yu’s plan. Ivanov had already walked into his trap. There was no way for Ivanov to escape. Feng Yu understands more about the situation in Russia than Ivanov knew about China.

Even the Mayor and Deputy Mayor played a part in this trap. It would be hard for Ivanov to not bite the bait.

……

“The Australian team’s offer was 7 years duration? They can let Bing City lease more than 50,000 hectors of good fields? The exact figures will be up to Bing City to decide? They are still offering low-interest loans? The farmers are also allowed to cultivate the lands there without supervisions? The farmers only need to pay 50% of the rental upfront and the rest at the end of the year?” Ivanov heard the Australian’s offer from Translator Xue and frowned.

The conditions offered by Australia was too good. If he were Bing City’s officials, he would also choose Australia. He could also provide such conditions except for the rental.

Russia needs this sum of money badly. It was to solve the financial woes of their government.

Ivanov called his two deputies into his room for a discussion. They decided on better conditions for Bing City. If they matched Australia’s offer, Bing City would surely pick them as they were closer to Bing City and their country had a better relationship with China. Currently many Chinese dislike Australia due to the Olympics bid.

……

“Mr. Mayor, I had called back and spoke to my higher-ups. We felt that we can offer a longer lease duration. How about 7 years? This is the longest duration we can offer.”

The Mayor lowered his head and saw Feng Yu signaled 8 with his fingers.

“8 years. If the duration is 8 years, I think we can still accept it.”

Ivanov looked at Translator Xue. Translator Xue was touching his teacup with both hands. Ivanov then turned to his deputies. After that, he nodded: “Fine. We can both agree on 8 years. But since we had given in on this condition, shouldn’t Bing City give some concession on the other conditions?”

“The rental must be paid up front for the first year and at the end of every subsequent year. The farmers can use their harvest to pay off their rentals. The rental rates will be based on the average 3 years land valuation. The rental rates should also be like properties. It should be increased by 10% every year.”

The Mayor frowned: “It is impossible for us to agree on a 10% increase every year. We will only accept 3% increase in the rates based on the first year rental. Can we pay 50% of the rentals upfront in the first year and the remaining after the harvest in autumn? It would be difficult for our farmers to cough up so much at once. If our farmers have so much money, they would not be willing to work overseas.”

“We can agree on the 3% increase. But we must collect the rental upfront for the first year. If your farmers do not have enough money, Bing City Government can help them. If you do not accept on this condition, then there is no reason for us to carry on with this negotiation.”

Ivanov secretly glanced at Translator Xue and saw him drinking his tea. Ivanov was relieved. That means Bing City can give in on his condition.

“We do not have so much money.”

“That’s your problem. There is no such thing as using our land without paying. Unless you agree to a 30% increase in the rental!”

The Mayor looked at Feng Yu. It seems that he would have to take up Feng Yu’s proposal.

“We can use another method. We will register an agriculture company and use this company to lease the lands from Russia. The land will be sublet to the farmers. This way, it will relieve the financial pressure on us.”

“Fine. But this company cannot be a fully privatized company.”

“Of course. We do not have enough funds, and we will need investors. But Bing City Government will surely be one of the shareholders.”

“If that’s the case, then there is no problem.” Ivanov was excited. If Bing City were to really set up a company, then there should be no problems getting the first rental. Furthermore, he does not need to collect the rents separately from the farmers.

“We had already given in a lot on this condition. I wish that you will give in on the condition of land cultivations. The land we cultivated from the wild, should not be registered as our fields. We should not be paying any taxes. I believe that Russia is the same as us. Those uncultivated land will affect the harvest, due to the weeds. If our farmers still need to pay taxes, then they would be losing money!”

“Nonono. Mr. Mayor, those uncultivated lands are also Russia’s land. How can the farmers not pay taxes if they are planting crops on our soil? Of course, we will give some concessions on this. How about 50% of the taxes?

“The first year there should be no taxes and the second year, 25% taxes. After that, 50% taxes. There will not be any harvest in the first year on uncultivated land. The farmers would not be able to cover their cost from the cultivation.”

Ivanov spoke to his deputies and saw that they had no objections. At the same time, they were looking at Translator Xue. Translator Xue was fiddling with his teacup.

“Fine. We will also agree on this. For the last condition, your side must at least lease 100,000 hectors of fields.”

“I can promise you that we will take up 50,000 hectors. If we have the capabilities, we will take up more land. One farmer can only look after 100 hectors at most. They would not be able to handle anything more than that. It is also not easy to get 500 farmers.  We will also recruit farmers from the surrounding regions. We have no reason why we do not want to lease more land from you. Maybe at that time, 100,000 hectors might not even be enough.”

Ivanov and his team felt that the Mayor made sense too. Then everything should be settled. They should seal this deal as soon as possible. They must sign this contract before the Australians.

But at this time, the Mayor had a new condition: “Loans. I hope that our farmers are able to get interested in free loans from Russia. It would be too difficult for a farmer to raise enough capital to lease 50 to 100 hectors. Even if Bing City Government were to assist these farmers, we should not be helping with all the cost. They still need to buy agriculture machinery, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. They also need living expenses. All these need monies.”

“It is not possible for us to offer zero-interest loans. But we can help you all to get low-interest loans. The interest will be the same as the Russian farmers.”

“It must be the same interest rates after your government’s subsidies.” The Mayor emphasized.

“There should be no problems with this too. So does this means that we have reached a deal?”

“Basically it can be considered so. We will finalize the details in the afternoon, and then we can sign the contract. We look forward to working with you!” The Mayor laughed and stretched out his hand.

“Looking forward to our cooperation too!” Ivanov shook the Mayor’s hand.

Chapter 385 – Old Xu, I am disappointed with you

To expedite the signing of the contract, Ivanov gave Translator Xue an additional 20,000 USD. Half of the 20,000 USD was for his brother to stall the Australia side.

That afternoon, both parties finalized on the minor details. The negotiation was also as smooth as the morning. It was so smooth that it felt unreal.

During the talks in the past, the Russian Party was arrogant and refused to back down. But today, the Russians gave in and lowered their conditions by more than 50%.

No one knows what had happened. Many people thought that it was because the Mayor had attended the talks with the Russians personally.

During the signing of the contract, Zhang Ruiqiang appeared. He represented Bing City and signed the agreement with Ivanov! But Zhang Ruiqiang does not seem to be pleased.

Ivanov was laughing inside his heart. Australia had almost snatched away this deal from him. Luckily, he had a spy. He had spent over 100,000 USD and finally got this deal, which was worth more than 1 million USD per year. Russia’s land will also be fully utilized. The most important thing was the related industries, like pesticides, fertilizers, etc. will give them additional income. Russia would make over 10 million USD of profits.

Although 10 million USD was not considered a lot to Russia, there will not be any abandon fields in the 3 regions near Bing City. This was a huge political achievement for Ivanov. These regions had also finalized some other cooperation with Bing City. This cooperation was not worth a lot, but it would improve the relationship between China and Russia.

After Ivanov and his team left, the City Government had a small celebration. Those that took part in this negotiation were praised and rewarded. But Feng Yu did not attend. He was not interested in the rewards. He took part in this negotiation was because he does not want to see his future profits be jeopardized by the Russian team.

Furthermore, the celebrations were for all the government officials. He was not interested in celebrating with them. Those song and dance performance were too boring for him. After all, a pretty girl was waiting for him at home.

After dinner, when Feng Yu was hugging Li Na and was about to do something naughty, he heard the sound of someone unlocking the door. Both Feng Yu and Li Na quickly sat upright on the sofa.

Feng Danying was shocked when she saw Li Na in the apartment. She looked at the both of them suspiciously before turning and left. She mumbled loudly: “No wonder you do not come over to my place for dinner and gone missing for so many days despite coming to Bing City for so many days. So, someone has been cooking for you.”

Li Na blushed and punched Feng Yu: “Didn’t you say that sister does not have the keys?”

“We are studying in Beijing, and my parents do not stay here. Someone must take care of this apartment. I also did not expect her to come over at this time. But you see, my sister also likes you. Come, don’t think so much. I will carry you to the room.”

……

“Mayor, I intend to go to Beijing and report to the higher-ups. This agreement is signed with this agriculture company, and that means that not only Bing City, but even the farmers from Longjiang province can also apply.”

“Ok. I had reported to the Provincial Mayor. He will send someone with you to Beijing. This deal does not only affect our Bing City. This concerned the whole Longjiang Province!” Bing City Mayor was also the Provincial Mayor assistant. This agreement was also a political achievement for him. He had a high chance to be promoted.

Knock, knock, knock~~~

“Mayor, the party secretary wants to see you and Deputy Mayor Zhang in his office immediately.” The Mayor’s secretary said.

The Mayor and Zhang Ruiqiang looked at each other. They were unsure why the Party Secretary wanted to see them. They had reported to the Party Secretary in the morning. Why did he want to see them again?

The both of them arrived at the Party Secretary’s office and saw two other people in the office. One was Deputy Mayor Xu and the other was the secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection. What were they doing here?

“Come, have a seat. Old Xu, you can speak now.” The Party secretary was also puzzled. Old Xu had come into his office and said that he had something important to say. He requested for these few people to be present before he announces. The Party Secretary does not know what Old Xu wanted to say. But Deputy Mayor Xu had been with the Bing City Government for a long time, and the Party secretary will still listen to him.

Deputy Mayor Xu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang and sneered coldly. You are the one that is not clean, don’t blame me!

“Deputy Mayor Zhang, I want to ask you why were your talks with the Russians so difficult at first, but after the Mayor took over the talks, both parties can reach a deal so fast?”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at the Mayor and turned to Deputy Mayor Xu: “Maybe it was because the Mayor is more capable than me.”

“Oh? Even if this is true, but as an Executive Deputy Mayor, your capabilities should not be too far away from the Mayor. Is there something going on behind everyone’s back?” Deputy Mayor Xu said. He cannot say Zhang Ruiqiang was as capable as the Mayor. This would anger the Mayor.

Zhang Ruiqiang frowned: “Deputy Mayor Xu, what you are trying to say.”

“You don’t understand? Fine, since you refuse to admit, then I will say it out and let everyone here know. I ask you, did the Translator Xue from the Foreign affairs department came to your office a few days ago with a big bag?”

“That’s right.”

“Did he leave his bag with you when he leaves your office? Is the bag containing money?” Deputy Mayor Xu smiled coldly.

“Yes. That bag contains cash. What’s wrong?” Zhang Ruiqiang replied.

Deputy Mayor Xue had an excited expression on his face and said in a severe tone: “What’s wrong? You are accepting bribes. Our country’s law clearly states that this is illegal. You are breaking the law! You are not fit to be Bing City’s Executive Deputy Mayor!”

Deputy Mayor Xu was waiting for the Party’s Secretary and the Mayor to bang the table in anger and the Discipline Inspection’s Secretary to suspend Zhang Ruiqiang’s duties.

But after waiting for almost 30 seconds, the office was still quiet. What’s happening? Why was the Party’s Secretary and the Mayor not angry? This was corruption, and Zhang Ruiqiang had admitted.

If all of you does not want to punish your colleague, you all can report to the higher-ups. Based on experience and me reporting Zhang Ruiqiang’s corruption, I should be promoted.

Wait, why are these people looking at me like I am an…… idiot?

“Old Xu, we are aware of this, and the money is already deposited into the City’s account. That money was the payment from the Russians for their lodging in Bing City.”

Zhang Ruiqiang would never pocket that money. He deposited that money into the City’s account as payments. The Party’s Secretary and the Mayor were aware of it.

“Impossible. How can this be payment for their lodging?” After saying this, Deputy Mayor Xu regretted. He was talking back to the City’s number one. But since he had brought this up, if he cannot bring Zhang Ruiqiang down, he would be finished.

“Also, there is another issue. Why was Feng Yu allowed to invest in that Agriculture company which had signed the agreement with the Russians? Zhang Ruiqiang and Feng Yu are close to each other. Don’t tell me that both of them did not have any secret transactions.”

Hahaha, I shall see how you, Zhang Ruiqiang, explain!

The Mayor shook his head: “Old Xu, how can you, as an experienced official believe in hear-say and accused others before finding out the truth? We had already reported about this Agriculture company to the higher-ups and was approved. Everyone in the Provincial Committee agreed. The City could not take out so much money to set up this company, and we needed Manager Feng’s help. Also, this farming in Russia idea was also set up by Manager Feng. He was the one who contacted the Russia Government first. Based on what your claims, that means all of us are suspected to have secret dealings with Manager Feng?”

Deputy Mayor Xu was at a loss of words. Why were the Party’s Secretary and the Mayor siding with Feng Yu? What was so good about Feng Yu?

The Party’s Secretary looked at Deputy Mayor Xu: “You are just thinking of backstabbing your colleagues and promotions when you should be focusing on your work. I think you are not suitable to be in your current position. Old Xu, I am disappointed with you!”

Deputy Mayor Xu heard this, and his legs grew weak. This was the top leader of the City Government. His career with the Government had come to an end……

Chapter 386 – Hard to set up a hospital

The next day, Li Na went back to the district alone. She refused to let Feng Yu send her back. Feng Yu was grumpy. His sister had disrupted his sex life.

“Oh, you are here at my place for meals? I thought someone is cooking for you?” Feng Danying glanced at Feng Yu before going to the kitchen to get a setup utensils.

“Sis, can you keep this from Mum and Dad?”

“You rascal. How old are you and you dare to bring a girl home? What if she got pregnant? Are you able to continue with your studies?”

“Then I will not attend school. I meant I will disrupt for a year and continue my studies after that.” Feng Yu saw his sister’s face changed and quickly corrected his statement.

“You better be careful and treat her well. If I know that you betray her, I will ask Dad to break your legs!”

Feng Yu shuddered. No one must know about what had happened in Moscow.

“Sis, where’s brother-in-law? Why is he not back for lunch?” Feng Yu was puzzled. His Brother-in-law had already delegated all his work to his subordinates and why was he still so busy?

“Your Brother-in-law had invited the leaders for lunch. He needs to talk to them about the approval for setting up the hospital.”

“The higher-ups still have not approved the hospital?” Feng Yu was surprised. His Brother-in-law had told him that he had raised enough money to set up the hospital last year, before the National Day. It had been 3 months. How come it was still not approved?

Feng Danying frowned: “It is too hard to set up a hospital. We need to get approvals from many departments. We still need to visit them one after another in the correct sequence. Your Brother-in-law had been busy getting the approvals the past few months. He even gave up the opportunity to expand his logistics business.”

Feng Yu frowned: “Why didn’t the both of you tell me about this? I can help. Later I will ask Brother-in-law which department he is stuck at now.”

Feng Yu had done the City Government a great help. If he speaks to Zhang Ruiqiang, there should be no problems getting the approvals for the hospital.

After lunch, Feng Yu carried his little nephew and played with him, while his sister washes the dishes in the kitchen.

“Call uncle. Call uncle, and I will buy you sweets and chocolates!”

Feng Yu’s little nephew was now over one years’ old. His nephew looked at Feng Yu with his big eyes and giggled. Every once in a while, his nephew would drool, and Feng Yu’s face was covered with his nephew’s saliva.

Feng Yu held his nephew over the top of his head and let his nephew sits on his shoulders. He carried him around the house.

Eh~~~ Little Nephew, why are you peeing on your uncle’s neck……

Feng Yu saw his nephew giggling earlier, and he felt happy. But now, he thought that his nephew was laughing at him!

……

Feng Yu returned his nephew to his sister and returned home to clean up. When he stepped out of the shower, he heard someone knocking on the door.

Feng Yu looked through the door viewer and saw his Brother-in-law.

“Brother-in-law, you are back. Huh…… how much have you drunk? What a while, Sis had prepared some soup for you to freshen up. I will bring it over to you. Just stay here.” Feng Yu helped his brother-in-law over to the sofa and then went over to his sister’s unit for a bowl of soup.

“Sigh…. What everything is so difficult?”

“Brother-in-law, is it about the approval for the hospital? You should have told me about this. I am quite close with Mayor Zhang, and he can help you. He was formerly in charge of education and health.”

Li Shiqiang was depressed. He seemed he had been forced to drink.

Damn, some people dare to mess with my Brother-in-law in Bing City? I will find out who this person is and will teach him a lesson!

Li Shiqiang waved his hand: “No. There is a problem with the policies! If we want to set up a hospital, we must hire doctors. The Dean must also have the qualifications and experience. Not only that, we still need approval from different departments and cannot miss even one department!”

“I had approached some doctors. I had offered them higher salaries than other hospitals, but they just refuse to come over to help me. They are all working in the Government hospitals. Ours is a private hospital. These doctors do not have an “iron rice bowl” if they join us! To date, I had only recruited only 2 junior doctors. I had wanted to ask the health department to close one eye and grant the approval. However, they refused!”

Li Shiqiang poured all his grievances to Feng Yu, and Feng Yu understood that it was not people making things difficult for Li Shiqiang. There was indeed a problem with the procedures.

Feng Yu could understand the need for such strict procedures. The Government cannot allow anyone to set up hospitals as they like. After all, people’s lives were at stake.

Failing to recruit doctors was indeed an issue. In this era, people preferred to get an “Iron Rice Bowl” job with welfare benefits.

At a hospital, the doctors’ salaries were all from the government. The hospital will never close down, and hospitals had the best benefits among all the government units.

If the doctors joined a private company, they might get higher salaries. But they will forgo their benefits like single apartments, assigned houses when they get married, pensions, etc.

Those two junior doctors who had agreed to join Li Shiqiang’s hospital had their own houses and need money. They wanted to earn more within the next two years. Their families also had connections. Even if things do not work out here, their families could also make use of their relationships to get other jobs for them.

Tsk…….

Feng Yu gritted his teeth. He also felt that this was not easy to solve.

The retirement pension was easy to settle. With Wind and Rain Logistics around, his brother-in-law can just promise the doctors about their pensions. Those doctors should believe his brother-in-law, and this can be included in the employment contract.

But it was not easy to assign house for the doctors. Those government units do not need to pay when they utilized land from the government. If Feng Yu were to purchase land and build housing on the land, it would be too expensive. If there were no houses or singles apartment to be assigned to the doctors, he should not be able to attract other doctors to join his hospital even with high salaries.

Without qualified doctors, there was no way Li Shiqiang could set up a hospital. It was not like the future era where qualified doctors only need to have the practicing license and had 5 years’ experience working in a tier 2 hospital.

Just this doctor recruitment issue was a headache for Feng Yu. He could only offer high salaries to the doctors in the Government hospitals. But those senior qualified doctors were all leaders in the hospitals. Will they join a private hospital? Even if they were offered a higher position, they would feel like they were at the losing end. Those leaders in the government hospitals can also be assigned with houses and cars from the government!

But no matter what, Feng Yu still wanted to try and recruit them.

“Brother-in-law, calm down first. Let’s discuss this. How much are you going to invest in this hospital and how much do you intend to make in a year?”

Li Shiqiang waved his hand: I am investing 10 million RMB! This should be enough. I had never thought of making any money from this hospital. I only wish for this hospital to not make any losses.”

Feng Yu rubbed his chin. If his brother-in-law only has this requirement, then it should be easy. Wait. I seem to forget something. There is a shortcut to get the approval for this hospital!

Chapter 387 – We had owned a hospital all this while

Li Shiqiang was falling asleep, and Feng Yu helped him to the guest room’s bed before making a few phone calls.

After hanging up the phone, Feng Yu smiled. The problem had been solved.

In the evenings, Li Shiqiang woke up. He shook his head thinking where he was. When he stepped out of the room and saw Feng Yu, he knew that he was in Feng Yu’s apartment.

“How come I am sleeping here? I thought I had returned home?”

Feng Yu: “……” He must be drunk and had knocked on the wrong door. Luckily he did not go to the other neighbor’s house.

“Brother-in-law, do you still remember what you told me in the afternoon?”

“this afternoon? Is it about the setting up of the hospital?”

“Yes. You said that you are investing 10 million RMB in setting up this hospital. Also, you do not mind not making profits as long as you do not make any losses. Is this really what you think, or are you drunk?” Feng Yu seriously asked.

Actually, Feng Yu thought that 3 to 5 million would be enough to set up a hospital. 10 million RMB in that era was more than enough to set up a luxurious hospital. It was also enough to purchase that medical equipment which the government hospital does not have.

“What nonsense are you talking about? I really meant what I said. Last year, the rest and I had made lots of money. I had made dozens of millions. What’s wrong with spending 10 million RMB to set up a hospital for your sister? If your sister is happy, I am happy. It does not matter if I can make money from the hospital. But it is too difficult to get the approval to set up a hospital.”

“I can rest assured if you think this way. But who said that running a hospital will lose money?”

“Ah…… The hospital can still make money?” Li Shiqiang asked.

Do you think it is still the olden days where all clinics were set up for charity purposes? If the doctors were capable and the hospital was able to sell some medications, the hospital will not make losses!

Medication was a profitable industry. Other than the medicine, the hospital can position itself as a high-class private hospital with some advanced medical diagnostic equipment and set up a few high-class private wards especially for top officials. Just the business from the officials would be more than enough to keep the hospital from making losses.

Those officials were never stingy with their money. After all, they can claim their expenses from the government. These people were willing to splurge on their hospitalization bills!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, there was a village head that traveled a long distance to Beijing to see doctors. He had spent over 100,000 RMB for…… his high blood pressure! Although this was found out after he retires and he was charged in courts. However, before this incident, no one had brought this up.

Rather than letting others earn this sum of money, might as well we earn it for ourselves. This was the norm in this era, and Feng Yu had no ways to change it.

There were many enterprises in Bing City, and the area was big. There was also the nearby Provincial City. If this hospital became famous, then there will be a lot of government officials coming for treatments.

Of course, this hospital must have advanced diagnostic equipment which another hospital in Bing City lacks. Also, the wards must be comfortable with caring nurses and doctors. That’s right. To those people, doctors were the least important.

“Sigh, it is too difficult to set up this hospital. It was too hard to find someone qualified to register this hospital. This person must be highly ranked and had never misdiagnosed before. Those senior doctors that were willing to join our hospital had bad records. They can’t register this hospital.”

Feng Yu proudly said: “Brother-in-law, did you forget that our family owns a hospital?”

“Huh? Since when did our family own a hospital? Our dad bought the hospital in the district?” Li Shiqiang’s eyes nearly popped out. Since when did Father-in-law buy a hospital? Why was I not aware of this?

“What hospital in the district? Did you forget about the Machinery Company?”

“Machinery Company? Are you talking about the employees’ hospital?” Li Shiqiang suddenly remembered about this. That’s right. Why didn’t I think of this earlier?

The Machinery Company was formerly a state-owned enterprise. In this era, those state-owned enterprises with factories were like a small community. These factories have their own security departments, housing, and hospital!

The Machinery Company had been converted into a shareholding company, but the employees’ hospital was still around. There were still a few senior doctors in that hospital.

In the past, these doctors will not listen to Feng Yu. But now, they were no longer employed by the Ministry of Health. They were assigned to the Machinery Company’s hospital. Although these doctors were still holding on to their rank in the government and Feng Yu cannot just ask them to go, but he can ask the Health Ministry to redeploy these doctors to other hospitals.

These doctors were not willing to leave the employees’ hospital. The benefits they received in the Machinery Company Hospital were the highest in Bing City. Not only they salaries were high, but there were also still bonuses. During festivals, there were also gifts.

Many doctors had wanted to join the Machinery Company’s hospital but could not. The Machinery Company does not need them. The Machinery Company will hire newly graduated doctors from the universities, and the senior doctors in the hospital will guide them along. Priority will also be given to the offsprings of the factory’s workers. There were no openings for the doctors outside.

Even the Health Ministry Chief’s brother-in-law was rejected. Li Mingde now had a lot of authorities, and also if the Health Ministry were to create problems for the Machinery Company’s hospital, they would not be able to leave the factory’s compound in one piece!

What? You are not happy? We are Bing City’s top company and the company that was paying the most taxes. We are also a joint-venture company with a Hong Kong businessman. You want to mess with a Hong Kong Businessman?

“Brother-in-law, I will speak to Li Mingde later. The employees’ hospital’s equipment needs to be upgraded. You buy some advanced medical equipment which China does not have and use it to invest in this hospital. This hospital will be privatized.”

Li Shiqiang’s jaws dropped: “Hospital can also be a shareholding?”

Feng Yu confidently replied: “Of course. This hospital cannot be considered a government hospital. It belongs to the Machinery Company. Since this hospital belongs to a shareholding company, then it can also be converted a shareholding hospital. But after the conversion, not only our employees and their families can visit this hospital for treatments, it must also be opened to the public. Of course, our company’s employees will get subsidies like wavier of consultation fees or discounts on medications.”

“Who will have the final say in this hospital?”

“You. The Machinery Company’s hospital is only worth about 800,000 to 1 million RMB. You are buying 10 million RMB worth of medical equipment and had hired a few professors for the hospital. Of course, you will be the managing director!”

“Wait, I can spend the money on the equipment, but I can’t recruit those professors. I can’t even hire those senior doctors.”

“Who asked you to poach doctors from other hospitals? Just go to the universities. There are many professors in the universities. Those universities also have their own hospitals. You have the world’s most advanced medical equipment, you think they will not join you?”

Li Shiqiang brightens up. It seems that this problem was solved and he can finally set up a hospital for his wife!

Chapter 388 – Why can’t the hospital make money?

During dinner, Li Shiqiang excitedly told his wife about what he was about to do. He does not need to worry about the issue of setting up the hospital. He only needs to purchase the most advanced medical equipment which was not available in China. He also needs to hire some specialists and professors for the hospital.

Feng Yu told Li Shiqiang that Fu Guangzheng could help to purchase the medical equipment. The Fu family does not only have sales distribution channels. They also have avenues to get all sort of goods. Although the Fu family does not do medical equipment business, they could still contact the medical equipment companies in the US and Europe.

It was a pity that the Soviet Union does not have any medical equipment companies and Feng Yu could not take advantage of it. Now, the former Soviet Union countries, like Russia, were investing in their basic infrastructures like education, culture, and health. These countries no longer have cheap 2nd hand equipment for sales.

Feng Yu discussed with Li Shiqiang and decided that they would buy the most advanced brain-related medical equipment. No matter who was it, as long as the illness concerns brains, they would be willing to spend a lot of money. This was especially so for those government officials and the wealthy people.

Next, they will be getting the ultrasound machines. The hospital will be busy just by telling the parents about the sex of the unborn babies. Of course, in another 2 years, this would be banned. But every policy will have loopholes. At that time, when doing the checks for pregnant women, the doctor can tell the women: “Look, this is your baby’s head, this is the hand, and this is the penis.” The mother would know that the baby in her womb is a boy. If the doctor did not mention about the penis, that means the baby is a girl.

In conclusion, they just need to buy costly and rare equipment for the hospital. They would not need other ordinary equipment as other government hospitals were also equipped with that equipment. They cannot use this equipment as a selling point for their hospital.

Also, there was the issue of selling medication. This was not those common medications. Bing City also have a huge pharmaceutical factory. The profits for the common medications were too low.

Feng Yu wanted to sell those health supplements medications or health products. There were lots of profits in this industry. Those that were willing to buy these products or medicines were all wealthy people. Even if these products were slightly effective, these people were willing to buy.

Of course, these were all that they planned. The most important thing was that the City Government gave them approval to convert the Machinery Company’s hospital into a private shareholding hospital.

Private hospitals had already appeared since the reforms started. But that private hospital was mostly located along the coastal regions. At first, there were private clinics. Then a few people decided to pool their money together to set up a private specialist hospital. After that, private general hospitals appeared.

Just like the problems Li Shiqiang was facing, it was easy for doctors from the government hospitals to set up private clinics.

But if they were to set up a specialist hospital with more than 10 beds, they would face strict restrictions. It was because government hospitals were not making money. In fact, these government hospitals still needed financial assistance from the government. If there were more private hospitals, then those government hospitals will face more losses and needed more financial aid from the government!

Because of this reason, the Health Ministry made it hard for private hospitals to get approvals. This was also to protect the interest of the government hospitals.

Some policies allow private hospitals. That means the Machinery Company’s hospital can be converted into a shareholding private hospital.

But when Feng Yu arrived at the City Government to look for Zhang Ruiqiang’s help in getting the approvals, he was rejected!

“That is the Machinery Company employees’ hospital, how can you privatize it? Also, how can a hospital be converted into a shareholding and its purpose was to generate profits? Do you still have a conscience?!” Zhang Ruiqiang reprimanded.

“Why should I have a conscience? The doctors are using their expertise, and the hospital needs medications and must provide facilities like operating theatres, wards, etc. to treat patients. Why they should not get paid for the efforts they put in? Since the olden days, which clinic does not make money? Are you telling me that those doctors do not need to earn money for their families?” Feng Yu retorted.

“You are unreasonable! To prevent those private hospitals who was out to earn money, the government set up government hospitals. The government even provide financial assistance to these hospitals. This was to make sure everyone can afford to see doctors. Now you are telling me that you want to make use of this to make money? Are you really that poor?”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu in despise. Others might not know, but Zhang Ruiqiang was clear. The Machinery Company was worth more than 1 billion RMB. He was not sure if Feng Yu was the wealthiest man in China, but he was sure that Feng Yu was the wealthiest person in Bing City and Longjiang Province!

Other than the Machinery Company, Feng Yu still have the humidifiers and bladeless fan businesses. His family still owns pig farms and food processing factories. Which one of these businesses were not making high profits? Yet Feng Yu was thinking of making use of a hospital to earn money? This was too evil!

Feng Yu was speechless. Why should I stop making money when I am not short of money? Furthermore, those government hospitals had terrible services. The quality of the doctors was not good. When the citizens fall sick, they also chose the hospitals for treatments. Even the government officials also decide to go to the best hospital in Bing City when they fall ill.

“The hospital I am setting up will charge the patients according to the regulations. It will also adhere to the Health Ministry’s regulations. What’s wrong with that? Furthermore, I will also be responsible for the Machinery Company’s employees and their families. Those employees and their families, including those retired workers, will still enjoy subsidies when they visit the hospital. We will open the hospital to the public and earn some money from them. The money earned will help to subsidize the employees and their families, and also make some profits for the hospitals. It will not be like those government hospitals where the doctors asked the patients’ families for red packets before operations!”

In this era, doctors will give hints to the patients’ family members for red packets. Last month, Bing City news also reported a series of incidents about this. Even though that doctor was fired from the hospital, but the government hospitals’ reputation among the citizens had fallen to the lowest point. Even the government was affected.

Some people had said that red packets were a must if you are asking the government for assistance. One must also treat government officials for meals. This was the so-called “give and take”!

“I just don’t get it. You said that you wanted a good reputation and had donated so much money to the schools. Why can’t you do the same for this hospital?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

Feng Yu looked up to the ceiling: “How can this be the same? I had donated so much to the schools in Bing City was to repay to my hometown. This was also for my parents. They can hold their heads up high proudly when they go out. Our country also emphasized a lot on education. I am also following the nation’s calls. But our country did not say that private hospitals must benefit the citizens and give welfare to them.

Furthermore, I had donated to the universities was for the future recruitment of my companies. When my companies need to do hiring, all I need to do is to mention that my companies had donated the school buildings in their universities. With the same offers, these people will choose to join my companies even when our competitors are the government agencies!”

Zhang Ruiqiang was at a loss of words. He had never thought that Feng Yu had donated to the school for this motive! All this while, he had full of respect for Feng Yu. But now, he realized that Feng Yu was a real businessman. Every cent that comes out of his pocket had a motive!

Chapter 389 – The best hospital in Bing City

“Since it is like this, why are you asking me for help? Go to the Health Ministry or the Trade and Industry Bureau and get their approvals.”

“Leader, stop joking. I am too embarrassed to mention the efficiency of those departments. Two years ago, you had asked for new policies from the Committee for the farmers to give up their farms. Bing City did not ask the government for a single cent and was still able to solve the farmers’ income issue. But what happened in the end? The Committee said that they were busy and ask you to come back last year. This hospital is the same. We are not considered a government hospital and the government had never given us any financial aid. It was the Machinery Company that was funding the hospital.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was speechless: “Who told you that the committee was inefficient? The officials from the Provincial Government was still discussing with the committee. I am back here to finish up my work. I will be going back to Beijing in a few days’ time! The Machinery company’s employee hospital was not opened to the public and why should the City Government give any financial aid?”

“That’s right. This hospital is not under the jurisdiction of the City Government. What’s wrong with us converting the hospital to a shareholding and make profits? The most important thing is that we will be investing 10 million RMB to purchase the best and most advanced medical equipment for this hospital. Once we got the equipment, it will also benefit the whole city and province.”

“How much are you investing?”

“At least 10 million RMB! My brother-in-law, the owner of Wind and Rain Logistics, had said it himself. Even if he cannot raise the money, I will ask Tai Hua Trading to make up the shortfall. If not, I can let the Machinery Company make this investment. Don’t forget that the City has shares in the Machinery Company. That means the City will also need to take out money for this. However, this can only benefit the Machinery Company’s employees!”

“Stop trying to fool me! Just that small hospital need so much investment? 10 million RMB? What equipment are you purchasing?”

“Brain-scanning machines, abdominal scanning machines, chest scanning equipment. MRI, which is also called magnetic resonance imaging. An MRI machine cost at least 3 million RMB. I think there is only one big hospital in Bing City that has a 2nd hand MRI machine. That is also an old model. We will be buying the newest and best MRI machine in the market. There will also be the CT scan machine. We will be getting the best Siemens Spiral CT scanner. This will also cost at least 3 million RMB. The direct digital radiography machine will also cost 2 million RMB. There is also the Angiography machine. It is about 2 million RMB. There is also a PET scanner. This will allow the patients to detect cancer at an early stage. This also cost about 3 million RMB. If we are getting these equipment and we do not think of ways to earn money, then we will suffer a few million losses each year from its maintenance. Do you want the Machinery Company to pay for these losses?”

“These machines are so expensive?” Zhang Ruiqiang did not expect medical equipment cost so much.

“Of course. These companies had invested a lot of money to develop these machines.  These companies still need to make profits. Also, they need to constantly innovate and develop new machines to benefit mankind. These companies, like Siemens and Philips, were the best overseas companies in this industry. There was no way for the current China companies to produce these machines. Those foreigners had been using these types of advanced facilities to treat illness. Why can’t we do the same? Now I had told you about this. Are you willing to let one of our Government Hospital purchase the cheapest equipment?”

Feng Yu was talking rubbish. The PET-CT scanner from Siemens was still under the research phase. There was no such thing in the market now. Now, only the Double Spiral CT scanner was available in the market. Feng Yu had made up all these to scare Zhang Ruiqiang. Of course, Feng Yu had decided to purchase the MRI and CT scanner for the hospital. These machines will be used to promote the hospital. Hmmm…. The prices for using these machines will not be low too!

“After you had purchased these machines, can the other Bing City’s residents use these machines for their check-ups and treatments?”

Equip one of the government hospitals with this equipment? How can this be possible? Once a hospital was equipped with this machine, the rest of the hospitals will also want. If this hospital were fitted with a Spiral CT scanner, the other hospital would demand an MRI machine. In the end, it will cost the City Government at least tens of millions. The City does not have so many funds.

Feng Yu nodded: “As long as they are willing to pay! These machines are costly and needed high maintenance. The charges will not be cheap. Also, our hospital will be introducing full body check-ups. We will be making use of these machines to check for any ailments during the check-ups. Mayor Zhang, do you want to let the City Government’s official go for these body check-ups? I can give you a discount if you are registering as a group.”

“Stop trying to do business with the City Government. Our Government hospitals are giving out free body check-ups for us. You don’t need to worry about this!” Zhang Ruiqiang rolled his eyes and continued: “This means that your hospital will charge the patients very high rates. Are you not afraid that the residents will be turned off by the high charges and not go to your hospital for treatments?”

“That is my job to worry about this. I dare to invest so much money, that means I am not afraid to make losses.”  Feng Yu replied like a real tycoon.

Zhang Ruiqiang coldly sneered: “Now 10 million RMB is like loose change to you.”

“How can this be possible? I am thinking that even if the hospital is making losses, the Machinery Company’s employees will still benefit from this. I only need you to speak to the Health Ministry and the Trade and Industry Bureau. I need them to follow their procedures.”

Follow procedures? Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu. You think I do not know how those departments operate? Once I speak to them, they will definitely “expedite” the processes, and the approvals will be given even.

“Oh yes, our hospital will be hiring professors and specialist from the universities periodically. Our hospital will be a combination of Western and Eastern medicine hospital. Those professors had spent most of their time giving lectures and seldom see patients now. Our hospital will be helping the city to train new doctors. This can also be considered helping out city’s residents.”

“You think you can hire those professors? All their universities have their own hospitals. You think they will join your hospital?” Zhang Ruiqiang does not believe Feng Yu. Unless Feng Yu uses his wealth to hire these professors, if not, there was no reason why those professors will join Feng Yu’s hospital.

Feng Yu’s reply was really using high salaries to hire those professors!

The advanced machines can let those professors teach their students once every semester. With the professors attending to the patients, the consultation fees will also be higher. Feng Yu would also be setting up a large Chinese traditional pharmacy for those Chinese physicians. Feng Yu had also asked Fu Guangzheng to help him purchase those ancient medical books for the Chinese Physicians to do research. Their consultation fees will not be low either.

Feng Yu knew that one of the Chinese Traditional medicine physicians was an expert in orthopedics. He was able to detect fractures just by touching the patients. It was also the same as using X-rays machines. He had lots of patients.

There were also a few traditional Chinese remedies which were better than western medicine. For example, ginseng. The western countries had researched on ginseng and discovered that ginseng’s nutritional values were about the same as a carrot. But ginseng could save lives in Chinese medicine.

The hospital will make losses if these professors charge high consultation fees? How can this be possible? This was considered a specialist hospital.

Those ordinary doctors’ charges 50 cents for consultations and those specialists will charge more than 5 RMB. Those famous specialists charge more than 10 RMB for consultations. You think it was expensive? Then you can choose to look for other doctors! With those professors sitting in the consultation rooms, the patients will never look for ordinary doctors.

Patients seeking treatments will choose the best doctors available. In Feng Yu’s past life, those that wanted to seek treatments from the specialist would have to take a number and wait for weeks. This scenario will start from this hospital. This will be the best hospital in Bing City!

Chapter 390 – Petition

Even after Feng Yu mentioned the many benefits of the restructuring of the hospital, Zhang Ruiqiang still did not agree to help him. Since you said that doing this was not against the regulations, then go to the Health Ministry and the Trade and Industry Bureau to seek approvals yourself. I am not familiar with this.

Those departments will follow the procedures to grant approvals. If all your documents were in place, they have no reasons to delay the approvals. If there were some problems with your materials or procedures, then it was normal to hold back the approval. Stop bothering me.

Based on Zhang Ruiqiang’s understanding of Feng Yu, Feng Yu should have bought the medical equipment. Even if in the end, the approvals were not granted, the equipment will still be shipped to Bing City. Feng Yu will still install the equipment in that hospital. When that happened, the City Government can do its “wonders” secretly and allow that hospital to be opened to the public and at the same time maintain the current charges.

Feng Yu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang and smiled slyly: “Leader, don’t blame me if things are blown out of proportion.”

Zhang Ruiqiang felt his eyelid twitching: “I am warning you. Do not do anything reckless. If not, even if your hospital met the requirements, I will still not grant the approvals!”

Feng Yu turned and left. He still has a trick up his sleeves. If he used this trick, it would affect all officials.

……

“Manager Feng, what did you say? Our employees’ hospital will be restructured? How will it be restructured?”

“Shareholding. The earnings of the hospital will be paid to the shareholders as dividends. Our employees will still be able to enjoy the same welfare benefits as before. Maybe their benefits would be even better. After the restructuring, we will be opening the hospital to the public. There are a few neighborhoods nearby, and I guaranteed that in the future, people from the city, province and even the nearby provinces will be coming to our hospital!”

“Huh? How can it be possible? Although our hospital is not too old, it still cannot be compared to the other hospitals in the City. It would be impossible for people in the city to visit our hospital. How can the whole province be coming here for treatment?” Li Mingde knew the hospital inside out. This employees’ hospital was only a basic community hospital. There were only about 30 beds, and those bigger hospitals had at least a few hundred beds.

“It is because we will have the most advanced diagnostic equipment. We will have the most professional professor as our doctors. Our hospital will have the best environment and caring staffs. I will talk about the changes to the hospital briefly, and you can ask those employees for feedbacks. Ask them if they agree to the changes.”

When the labor union told the news to the workers’ representative, the representative jumped up with joy. Which idiot will reject this proposal? Their hospital will have the latest and most advanced medical equipment, and the Machinery Company does not need to fork out a single cent. The workers’ year-end bonus will not be affected too. If the workers fall sick, they will still be paying the same subsidized rates. If it were a serious illness, they would also be able to claim up to 80% of the total medical bill. It was the same for the workers’ family members and those retired workers. They do not need to pay for the consultation fees and the medication, operation, ward charges were heavily subsidized.

Open the hospital to the public? No problem. Anyway, there were not many workers that fall sick. Opening to the public can increase the hospital’s profits. This way, the Machinery Company does not need to fund the hospital. Those funds were from their year-end bonus!

Whoever that reject this proposal must be an idiot!

The worker representative still asked when will be the new equipment arriving? When will the professors start seeing patients? Some of the older workers with illness were looking forward to those specialists.

But at this time, the workers were told that this was only a proposal, and it might not be approved.

The workers were furious! What’s the meaning of this? Are you trying to fool us? You had told us so much, and now you are telling us that it might not be implemented?

The people from the labor union explained that it was not that they do not want to implement this proposal. Manager Feng’s brother-in-law had got the money ready, but the City Government does not want to approve this proposal. There was nothing the Machinery Company could do.

The City does not want to give the approval? Why are they not approving this proposal? We are also not asking the City Government for money! The Machinery Company was the City’s biggest company, and the workers had spent most of their lives working in this factory. The Government had restructured the Machinery Company from a state-owned enterprise to a shareholding. The workers had been converted from being state-owned enterprise employees to private company employees.

They did not make any complaints as their salaries had increased after the restructuring. But other state-owned enterprises did not do well after their conversion, and the City had spent lots of the taxes to help those enterprises. The Machinery Company’s workers were the ones that had been contributing to the City Government all this while.

Why should the Machinery Company’s workers only allowed to contribute to the City and not allowed to have more benefits? Just look at this hospital. When did the City give a single cent to help this hospital? Those leaders in the City Government just do not want the Machinery Company’s workers to have better treatments!

What can these workers do? Protest in the City?

Li Mingde was shocked. Stage a protest in the City? Things will be blown out of proportion. He was the General Manager of the Machinery Company, but at the same time, he was also a government official. Even though Feng Yu had told him that even if he were removed from the government, he would still be employed by the company. But for Li Mingde, he would still prefer to keep both identities.

If the workers were to create problems, then Li Mingde would be in trouble. Deputy Mayor Xu, who had been looking after him, had got into trouble and no one in the City Government could help him get out of this mess.

Li Mingde immediately speaks to the workers’ representative. He stared at the Labor Union’s Chief. He had wanted the Union Chief to ask for the workers’ opinions and not ask the workers to create trouble.

The Labour Union Chief had an innocent look on his face. He did not suggest this. It was the workers that want to protest at the City Government. He, himself, also did not know why the workers behaved this way.

Among the crowd of workers, there were a group of people from the Motorcycle Branch Factory gathering together. Earlier, these people were spread out in the crowd, and they were instigating the crowd to stage a protest and incite the wrath of the workers. Anyway, they knew that this proposal was for the benefit of the workers. Manager Feng had told them to do this. Manager Feng had said that all of them should group together and fight for themselves!

Feng Yu suddenly appeared: “Everybody, please quiet down. I know how all of you feel. But if all of you go and protest, what would happen to the factories? We have contributed to the nation for most of our lives. Do you want others to say that we are doing all these just for our own benefits?”

“Manager Feng, what should we do then?”

Feng Yu looked at that worker. He was pleased with this worker’s performance. Later he must remember to give this young man 10 RMB more.

Feng Yu took out a banner: “Everybody, look at this. This a petition signed by all the doctors, nurses and cleaners in our hospital. We are asking for the City support. We are not doing anything illegal. We just want to upgrade out hospital facilities and to provide better health care for everyone!”

“Can we also write a petition? We will also sign on a petition. Manager Feng, Manager Li, this should not be a problem, right?”

Feng Yu smiled and replied: “There is no problem. Look. There is a banner over there. Everyone can sign on that banner. Manager Li and I will convey all of your thoughts to the City Leaders.”

Li Mingde felt the corner of his eyes twitching. This was like the olden days where the peasants wrote petitions to the emperor! Will there really be no problems?

Petitions was actually a nicer name to force those officials to agree to you. It represents the attitude of the people. If you do not accede to our demands, then we will do something which you will regret!

Since when did Manager Feng prepare these banners? How come I was not aware? Also, when did those people at the hospital signed on the banner?

I had failed as the General Manager of this company. I was not aware of all these things happening under my nose!

Li Mingde did not know that Feng Yu had not only asked the workers to sign on the petition. At the same time, someone was asking the worker’s families to sign a petition in support of this proposal.

There might not be a lot of workers. But if you include the workers’ family members and those retired workers, there would be at least 6,000 to 7,000 signatures. The City Government cannot just ignore their demands!

Chapter 391 – Meeting

When Feng Yu carried a stack of banners down from his car, Zhang Ruiqiang, who was by the windows, became nervous.

Nothing good will happen every time Feng Yu brought something with him to the City Government. But since when did this kid start selling banners? Banners can be sold for high profits?

“Brother Liu, come and help me. I can’t carry it all by myself.” Feng Yu strolled towards Zhang Ruiqiang’s office. The whole City Government officials could see him carrying a lot of banners into Zhang Ruiqiang’s office.

But nobody would think this was bribery. No would use banners to bribe someone else.

Zhang Ruiqiang’s new secretary immediately rush over to help Feng Yu. He looked at Feng Yu helplessly and said: “Manager Feng before Brother Zhao left, he told me that you are not allowed to bring anything into Mayor Zhang’s office.”

“These are not gifts. These are petitions.”

“Petitions?!” Secretary Liu was shocked. There were too many banners. All these banners were petitions?

Zhang Ruiqiang could hear from inside his office. Before Feng Yu could enter his office, he went out: “What are all these banners?”

“These are petitions. These are all signed by the Machinery Company’s employees and their family members.”

“What is there to petition about? You think this is the olden society?!” Zhang Ruiqiang was furious. This must be Feng Yu’s idea. No one else would do such things.

“What new society and old society? These banners reflect the thoughts of the people. They had wanted to come to the City Government personally to express their thoughts. But I stopped them.”

Zhang Ruiqiang sneered: “Then should I thank you?”

“No need to thank me. I am just doing what I can.” Feng Yu waved his hand as if it was a small matter.

Zhang Ruiqiang’s hands were shaking and took out a cigarette from the pack on Secretary Liu’s desk. Secretary Liu immediately lit the cigarette for him. After 2 heavy puffs, Zhang Ruiqiang calms down a bit.

“Tell me. What is the meaning of all these petitions?”

“Huh? This petition is for the City government to upgrade our hospital’s equipment. It does not cost a lot. Only 10 million RMB will do. This petition is to ask the City Government to expand our hospital. 8 to 10 hectors of land should be enough. Also, this banner is for…….”

“Enough! Is there anything that is normal?”

“Of course. This one. Look. It is well written. Support the restructuring of the hospital. This would benefit the employees and their families. This one too. Support the hospital hiring of specialists. Also, this one……” Feng Yu happily unfold one banner after another.

Zhang Ruiqiang waved his hand impatiently: “Fine. I know this is all about the restructuring of your hospital, right?”

If someone’s name was Fatty, then he might be skinny now; If someone was dressed poorly, he might be a millionaire; If someone looks like he needs a beating…… then he must really be beaten up!

Zhang Ruiqiang really wishes to beat Feng Yu to death now. Strangling him was fine too.

Feng Yu could tell from Zhang Ruiqiang’s tone that he was now seriously considering this matter.

“Yes, yes, yes. It is only this small matter. Sorry to trouble you.”

Small matter? If this was a small matter, why would you get thousands of people to sign petitions?

“Go back and wait. I will let you know the City Government’s decision tomorrow!”

“Thank you, Mayor. How about having lunch together later?”

“Get lost~~~~.”

Feng Yu left smiling. Ha, you don’t want to help me? You want to follow by the rules? Rules were meant to be broken!

……

“Deputy Mayor Zhang, you called for an emergency meeting for this matter?” The Deputy Mayor Li, who oversaw education and health, was not happy. This type of matter can be discussed privately. There was no need to address it in a meeting.

We know that you are the Executive Deputy Mayor, but there was no need to discuss the things under my jurisdiction in a meeting. Others will think that I am not doing my job.

“Deputy Mayor Li, this is quite urgent. Earlier today, someone from the Machinery Company had sent me a stack of petitions!”

“Petitions? A stack?” Deputy Mayor Li was surprised. Usually, one petition would be enough. He had never heard of a stack of petitions!

“Those banners are the petitions. I think all of you should know that each banner had the signatures of a few hundred workers and their families. There were even the signatures of the Machinery Company’s hospital doctors, nurses, and even the janitors! If we do not give them an answer today, I am afraid that they will come to the City Government tomorrow morning. Don’t you think that we must settle this as soon as possible?”

“Li Mingde dare to do such things?” Deputy Mayor Li looked at Deputy Mayor Xu. Li Mingde was groomed by him. Could Deputy Mayor Xu be the one creating all this trouble at the back?

Deputy Mayor Xu was now trying to stay low. He had heard the news of his transfer after the Lunar New Year. He will be transferred to the backend. He would be demoted too. The higher-ups felt that there was a problem with his working attitude. He was backstabbing his colleagues to get promotions. He was not suitable to be sitting in his current position.

Deputy Mayor Xu was thinking of using all his connections in his remaining days to help his secretary get his promotion. After all, his secretary had been working for him for many years. He should at least help him with his career. As for other matters, he was not interested in getting involved.

“Li Mingde might not dare to do this, but those workers dare. I had explained the situation very clearly. The representatives from the Health Ministry and Trade and Industry Bureau, tell us your thoughts.” Zhang Ruiqiang asked them directly.

The leader from the Health Ministry saw the people from the Trade and Industry Bureau looking down and pretending to take notes. He was cursing in his heart. The leader had already finished talking, and you are still taking notes?!

“Based on our country’s regulations, the public can run private hospitals, and they are allowed to make profits from the hospitals.”

“That means you support this proposal?” Deputy Mayor Li stared coldly at the leader from the Health Ministry.

“This…… This…… I think we should hear from the Trade and Industry Bureau. Can the hospital be converted into a shareholding?”

The leader from the Trade and Industry Bureau was cursing the leader from the Health Ministry in his heart. You can’t answer the question, and you pass the problem to me?

“Based on our country’s laws, although there have not been any units that had done something like this, there are no regulations that state this is not allowed. After all the Machinery Company is now a shareholding. This hospital is a unit under a shareholding company. If you looked at the hospital as a subsidiary under a shareholding company, then it is completely legal for the hospital to be converted into a shareholding!”

It was clear that Deputy Mayor Zhang was in favor of this restructuring and Deputy Mayor Li was not in support. Deputy Mayor Zhang was the Executive Deputy Mayor, and Deputy Mayor Li was not in charge of the Trade and Industry Bureau. Of course, the leader from the Trade and Industry Bureau would choose to support Deputy Mayor Zhang.

After those two had expressed their views, the rest of the deputy mayors start to express their thoughts on this matter. But most of them did not give a definite answer. They were all sitting on the fence and does not want to take sides.

Deputy Mayor Li could not find any good reason to reject this proposal. But at this time, the Mayor said: “I think this is a serious problem. We might face similar problems in the future. We should try this out. If things do not work out, we can rectify it immediately. If things turn out nicely, then we will know what to do when we face with similar issues in the future.”

The City Mayor supported this proposal and what more can the rest say. They raised their hands to vote. Even Deputy Mayor Xu raised his hand to support this proposal. Everyone in the meeting had expressed that they will support this restructuring.

Thus, the restructuring of the hospital was finally approved……

Chapter 392 – Give an inch and take a mile

Zhang Ruiqiang told Feng Yu the news and also instructed the Health Ministry to give the approval before Lunar New Year. Once the equipment arrived after the New Year, the Trade and Industry Bureau will also expedite the procedures.

Zhang Ruiqiang had thought that Feng Yu would be happy with this news. Feng Yu had created this mess was to get the approval, and Zhang Ruiqiang had helped him solved his problems within a day. He hopes Feng Yu would stop creating problems for him and focus on the automobile project.

But at this time, Feng Yu had new conditions.

“Thank you for helping us solve this problem. But we still cannot start this conversion yet.”

“What else do you want?” Zhang Ruiqiang was furious. You are too much!

“Look, after we bought the new equipment, we can’t install it into our current hospital. There is not enough space. That equipment must be installed in a specialized area. For example, X-ray machines. If we just haphazardly install the machine, the doctors will refuse to operate those machines. They could get cancer from the radiation.”

“Just tell me what you want!” Zhang Ruiqiang waved he had impatiently.

“We need to Government to give us a plot of land to build a new hospital. A modern hospital.”

“Impossible! There are still empty spaces in your Machinery Company. Why should we give you land? How big can a hospital be?”

“Currently, we have only about 30 beds. There should be no problem if we tear down the wards and install the machine. But our Machinery Company’s employees and their family’s members add up to a few thousand. 30 beds will not be enough. Further, as the company expands, we will have more employees. We will not ask for more. Just a medium size hospital with about 100 beds should be enough.”

Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. This was indeed a problem. The Machinery Company was expanding very fast, and it was becoming bigger than the Motor Factory and Aviation Factory. A 30 beds hospital was really too small.

But he thought for a while. Something was not right. Who would fall sick and be hospitalized all the time? Usually, patients will be on dripped and be warded for a few days. Empty beds were a waste of resources.

“100 beds hospital? How many of your Machinery Company’s employees will be warded at the same time? This is a waste!”

“How can it be a waste? Our hospital does not serve the Machinery Company only. We are opening the hospital to the public too. Just our Bing City alone has almost 10 million residents. Our hospital has the most advanced equipment and also have professors as consultation doctors. There will be many patients that will be hospitalized. The beds will not be empty. It might not even be enough.”

“Fine. Is there any plot of land near to the Machinery Company? But we will not let you use the land for free. You must pay!” This problem had been discussed during the meeting. Zhang Ruiqiang pretended that this was a difficult task. This was to prevent Feng Yu from wanting to use the land without paying.

“No problem. The Machinery Company will pay. This will also let the Machinery Company have a bigger stack in this hospital. We can also exchange the land where the present hospital was located at, with the new plot of land. This will lower the cost of the new plot of land, right?” Feng Yu said like it was a fair deal.

Zhang Ruiqiang rolled his eyes. Return the original plot to the government? It was not so easy. The Machinery Company’s hospital was located in the Machinery Company premises. You return the land to the government, and who can the property be sold to? The Machinery Company’s main door had security guards, and it was not easy for outsiders to enter the premises. How can that plot of land be utilized?

If I agreed to Feng Yu’s suggestions, then that plot of land will be unsold. In the end, the Machinery Company will still be the one who would gain from this deal. You think I am stupid?

“You already have a plot of land in mind?” Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu from the corner of his eyes. This brat must have a target in mind.

“Since you mentioned this, then I think the government should let the Machinery Company use the land beside our premises. We do not need a big area. Just from the Machinery Company to the end of the street up north should be enough.”

Zhang Ruiqiang recalled the area and was furious. Should be enough? That plot of land was the size of 2 stadiums. How big was his hospital?

“Stop dreaming! Although that plot of land was all one-story buildings, the relocation fees will not be cheap too. Furthermore, that is a big plot of land. Isn’t two hectors be more than enough for you to build your hospital?”

“Our Machinery Company will settle the residents’ relocation. I guarantee that the residents will get the right compensations. With a bigger area, we can build out Machinery Company’s quarters. We have a lot of employees, and they need a place to stay. The Machinery Company’s hostels were almost full. There were also employees that are getting married. They also need their own apartments. We have created so much taxes for the City, and now we are just asking the City for some help. We are also not asking the City to pay for all these. Why is it impossible?”

The Machinery Company will not give out houses to their employees for free. But the company can sell those houses to the employees at cost prices. The land and construction cost will only amount to a few hundred RMB per Square meters. It was affordable for both working couples to own a 2-bedroom apartment. The most important, the apartment was owned by the employees. Those employees will surely agree to this proposal.

Zhang Ruiqianfg looked at Feng Yu. He was too furious to say a thing. So, that plot of land was not only to build a hospital. It was also to build apartment buildings for your employees. The government agencies do not have enough apartments for their employees. Why should the government let the Machinery Company build new apartments?

The relocation task must not be handed over to Feng Yu. If Feng Yu gave those residents high relocation compensation, then how will the City Government relocate the residents in the future? The residents will demand the same compensation as the Machinery Company.

Others might not do such things, but this Feng Yu would surely do it!

“At most, I can only approve half of the land what you wanted. It will also be after the City relocated the residents. It is winter now and the Lunar New Year is around the corner. How can we relocate the residents? Also, the price of that plot of land will be based on the city district’s last year valuation.”

“Huh? That district is in the center of the city. Our Machinery Company is located on the outskirts. How can it be the same? Even if you priced the land 50% of that district, it is also considered overpriced.”

“Deal!” Zhang Ruiqiang banged on the table.

Feng Yu: “……”

What deal? Feng Yu sighed. He was tricked by Zhang Ruiqiang again. But you think that I will suffer loss? Impossible!

“I can accept this price. But we will build a high-rise building. The floor area ratio will be 5.”

“What? Just a workers’ apartment building and you want to build a high-rise building? The floor area ratio is 5?” Although Zhang Ruiqiang was not in charge of construction in the City, he knew about the floor area ratio. When he was at the Foreign Affairs department, he had also overseen the development of their employees’ hostel.  Normally, floor area ratios were about 2. How high can a workers’ quarters be? 7 stories should be considered high. He had never heard of a workers’ quarters that is in a high-rise building!

“That’s right. We have a lot of employees. This is something that will benefit our employees. We will also demolish those old buildings in the factory area. Those employees will be shifted over to this new building. If we are going to build a 3 to 5 stories building, it will not be enough. I had made some calculations. Other than the garden in the center, a 16 stories apartment building should be enough. The maximum will not be more than 18 stories.” Feng Yu counted with his fingers.

“Don’t even think about it. 18 stories building? Even a 10 stories building is not allowed! At most, you are only allowed to build a 7-stories building.” This is just a workers’ quarters. Why do you even need a garden in the center?

“Leader, we are doing this to promote Bing City. Think about this. If people knew that Bing City’s Machinery Company’s workers’ quarters are all high-rise buildings, that means that our Bing City have been doing well. High rise buildings are a must for a modern city. We are just following the trend. This is also a form of promotion. More be will be willing to invest and relocate to Bing City. What’s wrong with that? Furthermore, that plot of land will not block anyone’s view. Why can’t I build a high-rise building?”

“You go back first. I need to think about this!” Zhang Ruiqiang waved his hand in frustration. Why did he felt that everything that Feng Yu does, must be different from others?

Chapter 393 – Employees general meeting

“When we look back into the past, we should be grateful for our current achievements. We had work hard to get to where we are today! We can look forward to a better future. Now, let’s put your hands together to invite Manager Feng on to the stage!”

Li Mingde had said an encouraging speech and all the staffs clapped and cheered.

Feng Yu raised both his hands in the air to quiet the crowd: “Thank you for your applause. We had achieved a lot in the past year. Since the day the Machinery Company was formed from the Machinery Factory, it was the best year. Of course, this would continue for many years to come. I do not want to waste time talking nonsenses.

Simply put it, last year I had made money from my investments. This sum of money was due to everybody’s hard work. That’s why I will apply from the City Government to purchase the plot of land north of our factory this coming ear. We will use that plot of land to build a new apartment building for our employees!”

Wah… wah… wah……

The applauses were louder than before. All the workers were excited. This matter directly affected them. How can they not be excited? Especially those younger workers. They had wanted new houses. They were still living with their parents in a 30 square meters small house. If there were to get married, it would be too crowded.

“Now, there are two options. First, we will build the new building like the current old hostels, and it will be shared among all the employees. The company will own the building. All of you can only live in these buildings. Once you leave the company or you are fired from the company, the company will take back your lodging. The other option is that we will collect the construction cost of the apartment building from you, but this apartment will be under your name. You can sell it in the future. Even if you had left the company, the apartment would still belong to you! Which option do all of you prefer?”

“The 2nd option! We want our own houses!” Someone shouted.

“That’s right. The second option! We want to own our own apartment!”

Welfare housing programs had started from the 1980s. Employees would just need to pay part of the construction fees, and the organization would pay the rest. The ownership of the apartment will belong to the employee. The benefit of this program was that the employees can buy and sell those apartments. These apartments were bigger than those ordinary apartments assigned to those workers. There were even 3 bedrooms apartments, which was suitable for a family of 3 generations.

“Ok. I know everybody’s wishes. We shall be using the second option. For the welfare apartments, there are also 2 options, which is 2 bedrooms and 3 bedrooms apartments. 2 bedrooms apartment will be smaller and suitable for a family of 3. 3 bedrooms apartment will be slightly bigger and is suitable for a family of 3 generations. But at the same time, 3 bedrooms apartments will be more expensive.”

“2 bedrooms apartment!”

“Build 3 bedrooms apartment!”

The workers were shouting at the top of their lungs. But their opinions were divided.

“Since there is demand for both type of apartments, then we will build both. When the building is ready, all of you can apply to purchase these apartments. Those that fit the criteria will have the right to purchase the apartment. The criteria will be announced later, and everyone can apply through your supervisor. Your applications will then be passed on to our Labour Union. There is still a problem. Do all of you want those old type of buildings or do you all prefer those high-rise buildings like those in the City? There will be elevators in the building. Both types of buildings cost about the same.”

Those workers were elated. They can still choose to stay in a high-rise building? We were only ordinary workers, and we can stay in this type of apartments?

“High-rise buildings! The higher, the better!”

“Low-level buildings are better. What if the elevators’ cable snapped and the lift dropped down from above?”

“Other people’s elevators also do not have accidents. Why do you think that your elevators will have an accident? Don’t you take elevators at work?”

It seems that the workers have different opinions on this too. But Feng Yu had a way to solve this.

“Okay. I know about everybody’s wishes. Later we will tabulate everyone’s opinions, and we will take it into considerations. We will try to let every employee stay in a comfortable apartment. Next, I want to share a piece of good news with all of you. Our hospital will be converted to a shareholding hospital. We will be purchasing the best and most advanced medical equipment, and we will be hiring professors and specialists. The City Government had already given us the approvals!”

The workers start to cheer and clap excitedly again. This was something that benefits them and how could they not be excited? They do not care whether if the hospital was converted or not. They would still be paying the same rates when they seek treatments at the hospital. But now, the quality of the doctors in the hospital will be better, and there were better facilities. This was something to cheer.

“Lastly, I need to mention this. Last year, although we had built new factories and our finances were tight, but we will still be giving all of you a one-month bonus, just like the previous year!”

The crowd cheered louder than before. Some of the workers were shouting ‘long live Manager Feng’ and ‘long live Manager Li’. Li Mingde was overjoyed.

“Do everybody know why our meeting is held at the Cultural Palace this year? It is not that our company cannot fit all of you. There is an important reason. We have invited the Provincial Dance Troupe to perform for all of you. Manager Li, help me carry this table down. We should not hold everybody back from with the performances.” Feng Yu smiled.

“No problems. I am also looking forward to the performance.”

The workers laughed, and the performance started.

……

That night, the workers returned home and discussed with their family on what was announced earlier the day. They got to decide which options to take.

The next day, the workers saw the notifications issued from the head office. All of them were excited.

“Eh, have you read the notifications? If you return the old hostels, you can get money. My family will definitely choose the 3 bedrooms apartments. My parents are going to retire, and I will be getting married. They can stay at home and help me look after my children.”

“What a pity. I can only purchase 2 bedrooms apartment. Why didn’t my parents work for the Machinery Factory in the past?”

“At least you are better than some of us. Only those that worked in the Machinery Company for over 3 years can apply for these apartments. Some of us had only worked for less than 1 year. I wonder when they reached the criteria, will there still be apartments left.”

……

“Look at this condition. Those that return the old hostel rooms can apply to stay at the singles hostel. Can we apply for this?”

“Are you stupid? Those new apartments will be ready in Autumn this year. You still want to stay in the singles hostels? Go and apply for a 3 bedrooms apartment.”

“But I am not married yet. I do not qualify for the 3 bedrooms apartment.”

“You and Lingling can get married now. Both of you are working here for more than 3 years. Both of you are qualified. Also, if both of you apply together can get more subsidies. The both of you only need to spend a little, and you can afford to buy the new apartment.

This apartment building is a high-rise building with elevators. Only the City center have such buildings. Those Provincial Government officials also do not have such good apartments!”

“That’s right. If your parents return the old apartment to the company, you can also apply for the bigger 3 bedrooms apartment. This condition will benefit Uncle Li’s family. His son is working in the City Government. He and his wife will fulfill this condition of those families whose children would not take over their positions. They can pay a bit more to purchase a 2 bedrooms apartment. With an elevator, it would be easier for them to move around.”

The conditions were very detailed, but none of the workers felt that it was unreasonable. The higher-ups had also promised them that they will construct the welfare apartments every year. All the workers will have the chance to apply for the flats. There was no need to rush. Although the old hostels can also be purchased, no one was interested. The new buildings will have elevators and will be more spacious. Who would be interested in those old hostels?

All of the Machinery Company’s employees were glad. There were no other units in the whole city and even the whole Province that offers such good benefits!

Li Mingde sighed. Manager Feng has his ways to let those workers pick the options he wanted them to pick…….

Chapter 394 – External Grandson is not as good as our own grandson

“Mum, Dad, I am back.”

“It is almost Lunar New Year, and you just come back.” Zhang Muhua chided Feng Yu.

“Mum, look at his. I had bought a scarf from Moscow for you.” Feng Yu took out the presents he prepared.

“It is only a scarf. You think I have never seen a scarf before?”

“This is not an ordinary scarf. Russia President’s wife have the same scarf! This is a limited edition. Only 10,000 scarfs are produced.”

Zhang Muhua immediately stood up from the sofa and grabbed the scarf from Feng Yu: “Really? Let me see!”

Zhang Muhua wore the scarf and look at herself in the mirror. She happily asked: “Old Feng, come and see. Do I look good with this scarf?”

Feng Xingtai replied without raising his head: “It is only a scarf. Didn’t you say that you want to teach him a lesson when he comes back?”

“Since when did I say that? Who dares to bully my son? Son, are you hungry? I will go and cook now. What do you want to eat?”

“I like whatever you cook.” The perfect answer. Feng Yu gave himself full marks!

“Dad, this cigarette is from Moscow. I had also bought a pair of army boots. Only army officers can wear. Look, isn’t it beautiful?”

“You think I will wear boots?” Feng Xingtai rolled his eyes, but he still accepts the gifts. Although he does not wear boots, he can always keep the boots at home for display. The cigarettes must still be smoked.

Feng Yu happily walk over to his father and massaged his shoulders: “Dad, are you tired this period of time?”

“What’s there to be tired of? That manager you hired had done all my work. Now, I have nothing to do. I can retire anytime.” Feng Xingtai was not pleased. He felt useless in the company.

“Dad, I am worried that you will be tired. Why don’t you manage the factory in the district yourself? If you got nothing to do, you could play some mah-jong with your friends.”

“Hrmph! I don’t like to play mah-jong.” Feng Xingtai replied.

At this time, Zhang Muhua stuck her head out from the kitchen and said: “Last week, your dad played mah-jong with 10 cents stakes, and he lost more than 100 RMB. He is still feeling sore over this.”

Feng Yu: “……” How can you lose over 100 RMB with 10 cents stakes?

“Dad, then what do you want to play? Why not I bring both you and mum overseas for a holiday after the New Year?” Feng Yu suggested.

“It is boring. I want to take care of children.”

“Then move over to Bing City. My little nephew is now fun to play with.” Feng Yu was full of smiles when he thought about Li Ruxing.

“That kid’s surname is Li, not Feng!” Feng Xingtai stared at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu took 2 steps back: “Dad, what do you mean? Are you and mum going to give me a younger brother?”

“Get lost! I am talking about you!” Feng Xingtai threw the book he was reading at Feng Yu.

“Ah? Me? Dad, stop joking.” Feng Yu replied.

“What joking? I am talking to you seriously. Is that girl called Li Na? She is staying at the 2nd street in the east? I think that girl is quite good. When are the both of you getting married? When will you all have kids?”

Feng Yu was going crazy. What marriage and kids?

“Dad, what are you talking about? I am still schooling, and I am only 20! What marriage and kids are you talking about?”

Zhang Muhua sticks her head out from the kitchen again: “What your father says is right. I also like that girl. She is studying in Teaching University and will be a teacher in the future. That’s good.”

“Mum, I am still schooling. Wait, did the both of you went to talk to her parents?” Feng Yu’s eyes opened wide.

“No. But you should also know how big the district is. I had met her father a few times and had chatted for a while over some drinks.” Feng Xingtai casually said.

“I think the both of you should get married first. Being married will also not affect your studies. Your primary school teacher Mr. Xu also got married first before he started his university studies. The both of them were still happily married now.” Zhang Muhua said while cooking at the same time.

“That’s right. It is fine even if both of you have children. You can let your mum, and I look after your child while both of you continue with your studies. If not, you can have kids after the both of you graduated. I am fine with both ways.”

Feng Yu covered his eyes with his hands. I am only 20 years’ old, and I am being rushed to get married? Who else in this world gets to face such a situation?

“Dad, Mum, this will affect our studies. Mr. Xu you mentioned happened more than a decade ago. Now, who gets married while studying at the university? The University will also not issue the recommendation letter.”

Feng Yu felt he was smart to think of such excuses. In this era, all marriages needed the recommendation letter from the unit. Without a group, one must apply for the message from the district office.

“How can there be no recommendation letter? Didn’t your father say that you have donated a Tai Hua building to your university? We have donated so much money, why would the school not issue the letter?” Zhang Muhua angrily replied.

“Mum, Dad, even if my school issued the letter, her school will also not issue the letter. Furthermore, the government is not encouraging their officers getting married early. Their promotions will be affected if they got married young. If you do not believe me, you can ask Uncle Wen.”

Feng Yu thought of another excuse, and it was a valid excuse. Feng Yu knew that his parents still wish for him to enter the government and be an official.

Being a businessman does not sound as prestigious as being a government official. It was better to be a government official. Furthermore, their family had enough money.

“Ah, getting married early will affect the career progression?”

“That’s right. Just look at Mr. Xu. How old is he now and how many years had he worked in that school? Why was he not promoted?”

“This…… Old Feng, what should we do?” Zhang Muhua looked at her husband.

“Mum…… Your food is getting burnt!” Feng Yu shouted. He needs to change the topic fast.

Feng Xingtai was rubbing his chin and deep in thoughts. It was a pity to not get such a good daughter-in-law like Li Na now. But his son was so capable, and this future daughter-in-law should not be able to escape from him.

“Tell dad the truth. Which stage have you and that girl reached?”

“Dad…… Why are you asking this for?” Feng Yu was at a loss of words.

During lunch, Feng Yu ate very fast and said that he was going over to Wen Dongjun’s house. After Feng Yu left, Zhang Muhua moved closer to Feng Xingtai: “Have you asked? Which stage is their relationship?”

“He did not answer, but from the way he acts, he must have done everything with that girl. This daughter-in-law cannot escape from him.”

“What if they are not careful and she got pregnant?”

“Huh? Get married. This is even better. He will have no excuse to not get married, and we can also have our own grandchildren.”

“That’s right. Look at Liu Dazhuang’s son. His son is only one year older than Feng Yu, and his child can call him grandpa already!”

Feng Yu look up at the skies. Men will always have worries out from nowhere.

Chapter 395- The district should develop this way

“Uncle Wen, you are at home?” Feng Yu was curious. Today was not Sunday and why was Uncle Wen at home resting? He should be busy as the year was coming to an end.

“Xiao Yu, you are back. Have a seat. Uncle needs to discuss something with you.” Wen Deguang smiled warily.

Feng Yu was puzzled. Did something happen to the district? Could it be that Uncle Wen found out about Dongjun and Zhang Han?

Wen Dongjun also walked out from his room and sat on the sofa. He kept signaling to Feng Yu with his eyes.

“Our district has been having problems with the electricity supply. For your father’s factory to operate smoothly, our district will cut off the electricity supply during the daytime. I wanted to ask the higher-ups for more electricity, but the higher-ups refused. They said that they have difficulties too. However, they are willing to build a power plant at our district if we are willing to contribute part of the cost. This power plant will also be supplied to the nearby districts. Do you think we should adopt this solution?”

Oh, it regarded his work. Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun were relieved.

Before Feng Yu could answer Wen Deguang, Wen Dongjun replied first: “It is not worth it. This power plant will be built in our district? It will be using our district’s land. It might even utilize our fields. We still have to pay for it? The electricity generated will still be distributed to the nearby districts. We are at the losing end.”

Feng Yu had thought that Wen Dongjun would say some constructive feedbacks. But his views were too stingy.

Wen Deguang stared at his son: “What losing end? This power plant will be built in our district, and our district will be the one that will get the priority to use the electricity. The extra electricity will then be distributed to the rest of the districts. Do you even understand what was going on? Also, the power plant will need workers. The people from our district will get the priority to work there. With enough electricity, or the district can do a lot of things. Last year, some foreign investors wanted to build a factory here. But they changed their minds when they found out that there was not enough power supply in our district.”

Feng Yu was also feeling helpless. He knew that Uncle Wen wanted this political credit. With enough electricity, a lot of problems could be solved, and this can be considered a considerable achievement. But Feng Yu felt that this was not worth it.

“Uncle Wen, can I ask what type of power plant will be built? Thermal power plant? Wind-powered or hydropower plant?”

“It will be a thermal power plant. Our river cannot generate enough electricity. The currents are not strong enough. Although we do have winds here, the wind is not strong enough for wind-powered power plants. Furthermore, the wind-powered plant does not generate electricity as fast as a thermal power plant. If we are going to ship coals from the Eastern provinces, it will also be very cheap. The electricity generated in one day is sufficient for a week’s electrical usage in our district. With this electrical supply, our district can do a lot of things.” Wen Deguang starts to imagine the district’s future. Not only the district’s residents’ lives will be better, and he could still attract more investors.

If it were a thermal power plant, then it would be meaningless. In another one- or two years’ time, the nearby power plants will be expanding, and there will be enough power supply to all the districts. Furthermore, they could build more wind turbines now. The people now might not realize that China’s electrical supplies would increase by several folds within a few years.

In another 20 years, after the few major hydropower plants, like the Three Gorges Dam, were completed, China could not even fully utilize all the electricity generated. China could also sell their electricity to the nearby countries.

“Uncle Wen, do you know how much pollution a thermal power plant will cause? Our district’s main source of revenue is from farming, and if we build a thermal power plant, that soot will be flying all over the place. Who would want to buy our farm produce? We are a farming district and why should we follow those industrialized districts?”

“But if we rely on farming alone, it would be hard for our district to grow. If it weren’t for your family’s food processing factory, our district’s revenue would be the lowest among all the districts.”

“Uncle Wen, we are rearing pigs, why can’t the others rear poultry or rabbits? Furthermore, our district is not far away from Bing City. It is only an hour drive. Why can’t we focus on vegetable farming?”

“Vegetable farming? Are you talking about those greenhouse vegetables?” Wen Deguang brightens up.

That’s right. It was hard for people to eat fresh vegetables in the Winter. Once in a while, there will be someone selling vegetables in the winter, but those were very expensive. Even their small district faced such a situation, that means the demand for fresh vegetables in the City will be higher?

“But no one in our district knows about greenhouses.”

Feng Yu smiled: “No one in our district knows about the greenhouse, but the Agriculture University knows. Did you forget that our Tian Peng Pig Farm have a professor from Agriculture University as a consultant? Why can’t you hire some specialists or professors in this field as your consultants? Many of those professors are still stuck in their theories, and our farms will be the best place for them to put their theories into practice. We can even set up an Agriculture University experimental farm here in our district.”

“Will this work?”

“You have not even started and how will you know that it will not work? Don’t go to the branch office. Go straight to the City and look for the leaders there. Maybe you can even get some policies and funding from the City Government.”

“Get policies and funding from the City? Will they give?” Wen Deguang looked at Feng Yu. Why was Feng Yu so confident?

Wen Dongjun said with his head bow down: “Dad, I also think what Feng Yu said made sense. If you don’t try, how would you know that it will not work? If your proposal attracted the attention of the higher-ups, you might even be promoted.”

Wen Deguang looked at his son and then turned to Feng Yu: “Are the two of you hiding something from me?”

Feng Yu smiled and replied: “Uncle Wen, don’t you think that you have been promoted too fast? There must be some leader among the higher-ups that have noticed you. Am I right, Dongjun?”

“Cough….. I think so too.” Wen Dongjun lowered his head guiltily.”

“Then we should start to build greenhouses before this winter. But the electricity issue in our district is still a problem. If this powerplant is not built, there will not be enough power supply for our district. The greenhouses will also need electricity.”

“Don’t worry about this. This year, the power plants in the north will be expanding. There will be an increase in electrical supply. We will have enough electricity. Furthermore, you can suggest using the wind power electrical plant. This type of power plant is environmentally friendly and also save resources. I heard that the Motor Factory had developed a new type of wind generator. They are looking for places to test the effectiveness of this generator. I can introduce Director Li to you.”

“How much does our district need to pay?”

“Not much. We also need to pay for the electricity generated. The electricity is also not free. But building this generator will definitely be cheaper than building a thermal power plant. What do you think?”

“When can we meet Director Li?” Wen Deguang asked eagerly.

“Uncle Wen, I have just returned. I will help you call him. Can we meet him after the Lunar New Year?” Feng Yu was speechless. The wind powerplant’s construction also cannot start now. The ground was still frozen.

“You are right. I am too anxious. The both of you can go out and play. I need to go back to work. I must discuss this with the others.” Wen Deguang carried his briefcase and hurriedly went out.

Feng Yu patted Wen Dongjun: “Eh, should you go and talk to Zhang Han for your father’s future?”

“Wen Dongjun was furious. What was the meaning of this? I am a man and will be the head of the family in the future!

After Wen Dongjun’s father left and he saw that his mother had not entered the room, he whispered to Feng Yu: “Eh, did Uncle Feng and Auntie Zhang asked you about you and Li Na?”

“Your mum and dad asked you?”

“I have been very discreet about my relationships. But you must not let your parents speak to my parents. That night, Uncle Feng and Auntie Zhang had seen Zhang Han and me sitting together.” Wen Dongjun said.

“What’s there to be afraid of? If your parents found out, you can tell him that you will be the son-in-law of a leader in the Provincial Government.”

“Get lost. In the future, I will be higher ranked than her father!” Wen Dongjun raised one hand in the air like he was swearing.

“Xiao Yu, Dongjun, why are the both of you hiding in the room? Come out and have some fruits.”

Wen Dongjun’s attitude immediately changed and shouted: “Okay, Mum.”

Wen Dongjun turned around and saw Feng Yu looking at him in despise.

Chapter 396 – This is how you play Mahjong.

There was not much entertainment in the district. Luckily, almost every school in the Northeast will have its own ice-skating ring. It was a tradition in the Northeast region to have ice-skating classes from secondary schools to universities.

Feng Yu, Wen Dongjun and Liu Kun went to a nearby secondary school’s ice-skating ring.

At the new Ping Pong hall’s entrance, there was signage. Tai Hua Table Tennis hall. Although it stated that this was a table tennis hall, there was not only table tennis inside. There were also gymnastic facilities and badminton courts. There was also a gym inside too. Most importantly, it stored all of the school’s sports equipment.

If there were an indoor sports hall in the schools, 80% would be table tennis hall. That was the reason why table tennis was China’s national sports.

“Teacher Zhao, you are in charge of the sports hall now? Do you have skating shoes? We want to borrow 3 pairs.” Wen Dongjun said loudly. Even before his father had become a leader in the District office, Wen Dongjun was more well known in the school than the top student Liu Kun. He had created too much trouble!

Those good students will never leave a deeper impression than those notorious students. Especially, Wen Dongjun was good with sports, and the physical education teachers will notice him more.

“Xiao Wen, you are back with the rest? We have skating shoes. 50 cents for 2 hours. The deposit is 10 RMB. What size do you all need?”

“42, 42 and 44.” Wen Dongjun took our 32 RMB and place it on the table.

“Here. You can try it and see if it fits.” Teacher Zhao returned 50 cents change to Wen Dongjun. He was holding on to a small radio, listening to Deng’s selected works!

In the era, what was China’s best seller? First, it was Mao’s selected works, and the second was Deng’s selected works. Almost everybody has a copy of these books. There were even some that own more than one copy. These books were selling better than any other classics. Maybe this record will be broken in a few years’ time when the <Xinhua Dictionary> was published.

Feng Yu could not help but grumble under his breath. Who was the one who did not want others to worship him……

Fine. Feng Yu had also bought these books before and had worshipped these two great leaders.

The trio tried on the skating shoes and walked towards the skating ring.

The skating  was the running tracks of the stadium. The school and poured water onto the tracks, forming a layer of ice. The football field in the center was also covered with ice. It was reserved for those ice sports.

When Feng Yu and the rest arrive at the skating , it was already crowded.

Wen Dongjun was the first to change into the skating shoes. He threw his shoes to the side and started skating.

By the time Feng Yu finish changing his shoes, Wen Dongjun had already skated one round. He must admit that Wen Dongjun was really talented in all sports. Even when he does not skate often, he was still better than a lot of people.

Wen Dongjun was skating happily, and he even spins a few times, attracting the attention of the people nearby, stopping beside Liu Kun.

Liu Kun slowly stood up and skated slowly. But he lost his balance and held on to Wen Dongjun.

Wen Dongjun was feeling proud. Look at this top student. This is his skills level in skating. I am better than him even when I was 10 years’ old.

“Those kids there are just learning to skate, and they are using those training chairs. So you need me to borrow one chair for you?” Wen Dongjun purposely asked.

Liu Kun embarrassedly released his grip on Wen Dongjun’s arm: “Let me practice on my own for a while. You go and skate first.”

After Wen Dongjun left, Liu Kun fell down. Among all the sports, this was his worst. He was solving math problems at home and was dragged here by these two guys!

Feng Yu also skated two rounds along the tracks. Although his speed was slow, he still enjoyed himself. Just when he was enjoying, he felt someone zooming past him at high speed.

He raised his head and saw Liu Kun waving at him!

Damn, I might be slower than Wen Dongjun, but how can I lose to you? You are too arrogant!

Feng Yu started to speed up. But before he could catch up with Liu Kun, he saw Liu Kun falling into the snow pile by the side.

Feng Yu: “……” He was still thinking how come Liu Kun became so good at skating. It seems that Liu Kun still sucks at skating.

Feng Yu stopped by Liu Kun and Liu Kun was picking himself up: “Why didn’t you help me when I waved my hands at you?”

“You are asking me to help you earlier?”

Damn, I thought since when did this Liu Kun start to be so arrogant. He was actually asking me for help.

“If you are not good at skating, why did you skate so fast?” Feng Yu helped Liu Kun up.

“Dongjun had told me that it will be easier to skate if you are going fast. It will be easier to balance.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. How can you believe what that moron says?

“You are going too fast just now. It will be fine if you are moving slightly faster than your walking speed. Look at that young girl. Just follow what she does, and you will know how to skate in no time.” Feng Yu pointed to a young girl around the age of 10.

This Liu Kun had indeed disgraced all the Northeasterners. He still does not know how to skate after so many years!

Feng Yu saw Liu Kun following that young girl. That young girl turned and looked at Liu Kun panicky and immediately speed up, creating a distance between her and Liu Kun.

Liu Kun was following that girl’s speed, and when he saw that girl moving faster, he also speeds up. But that girl could change direction easily, and Liu Kun fell into the snow pile by the side again.

After an hour, Liu Kun wanted to go home. He had fallen too many times. In the physical education classes in the past, he only needs to play around. Their test was also skating in a straight line.

After changing to their own shoes, the three of them ran back to the table tennis hall.

Teacher Zhao saw the three of them and noticed that Liu Kun’s clothes were all dirtied. He knew that Liu Kun must have fallen countless times. How old was he? How come he can’t even skate? But if Teacher Zhao knew that Liu Kun was a student at Huaqing University, he would look at him differently.

……

“It is still too early to go home now. How about we go and look for Xiao Jie?”

Liu Kun hesitated for a while and nodded. The three of them went over to Xiao Jie’s house. Xiao Jie was their classmate and was now studying at a university in Bing City.

“Xiao Jie, are you free? Do you want to play cards with us?” Wen Dongjun smiled.

“Fine. Let’s go over to that room.”

Once they entered that room, Wen Dongjun saw something more interesting.

“Eh, let’s not play cards. Let’s play this instead. This looks more interesting.”

Liu Kun looked at Wen Dongjun: “I do not know how to play. My parents also do not play mah-jong.”

Feng Yu thought for a while and said: “Liu Kun, this is very simple. All you need to do is to change your tiles into nAAA+mABC+DD, and you have a winning hand. M and n can be considered zero. At the start, we will have 13 tiles each. You will take one tile from the stack and discard one tile. If you have a pair and one of the players throw out a tile that matches your pair, you can ‘pong’. If you had 2 tiles of ABC and the player before you throw a tile that matches, you can ‘chi’. If two players ‘pong’ and ‘chi’ at the same tile, ‘pong’ will get the tile. You understand?”

Liu Kun nodded: “This is so easy. I know how to play already.”

Wen Dongjun and Xiao Jie looked at Feng Yu as if he was speaking an alien language. Mahjong can be explained this way?

Top student was indeed smart. After playing once, he knew all the rules and started winning game after game. Wen Dongjun was losing the most.

They played until evenings, and Wen Dongjun was the biggest loser. He looked at Liu Kun angrily. He swore that he would never play mah-jong with Liu Kun again!

Chapter 397 – It is actually simple to ask the farmers to return their fields

Time passes very fast. It was Lunar New Year. This year, the Feng family did not flaunt their wealth. But the district had spent a lot of money on fireworks. Feng Yu and Li Na had only met 2 times during this period. The both of them had purposely not met each other. The district was too small. Any small incident that happened will be known throughout the district within half a day, and it will be discussed among the residents for days.

The Feng family was the district’s wealthiest family. News and information about the Feng family had been circulating around the district. Li Na still does not want her family to know about her relationship with Feng Yu.

The instructions from Bing City had arrived at the district. It was about the leasing of farmlands in Russia.

Wen Deguang had known about this beforehand and had asked his men to spread the news. He wants to know how many farmers were willing to apply. He had wanted more people to go to Russia. The more people that went there, the lesser the farmers will be here in the district. This way, the district can let those remaining farmers farm more fields. They would be able to utilize farming machines and increase their efficiency.

After the information was passed down to the District office, Wen Deguang asked the District’s evening news to air an hour-long segment about the conditions and advantages of going to Russia to farm.

The next day, there was a constant stream of people that went to the District office to apply.

They were to leave for Russia in April and May and stay there for about 6 months. They will be able to return in October. They could also return home during the 6 months periods. The money they would earn was even more. Furthermore, this was organized by the City, and they heard that the Provincial Government was also involved. The Government will even send people to talk to the Russian Government. All they have to do was to take care of their farms.

This was an attractive offer for those poor families. The District had only assigned a small plot of land to them. There were no wastelands for them to cultivate and their family does not have tractors. They were the ones that were the most eager to farm in Russia. The higher-ups had said that the District will act as guarantors for they to take a bank loan. Even the tractors can be paid in installments. This was an opportunity for them to escape poverty.

There were only about 10,000 people and about 3,000 families in the District. More than 1,000 people had applied, and some families had applied separately. For example, the father applied, the son applied, the husband applied, and the wife applied.

There were also some people that came together to share the cost of purchasing a tractor and a harvester. They would share these machines, and they would save a lot. They would be able to lease 50 hectors to 100 hectors in Russia. At the district, each of them was only allowed to use 1 to 2 hectors of land.

Even with 1 to 2 hectors of land in the district, these farmers were able to survive. With such a big plot of land, they would be able to make tens of thousand RMB in a year! In a few years’ time, they would be able to become wealthy. Just the interest from their money was more than enough to survive.

During the news, the District Chief had said that the City will help the people from the districts first. Those that fulfilled the conditions can go to Russia to earn money! Next month, there will be a trip to Russia to look at the fields. Even if the farmers were not selected, they could also treat it as a holiday. They had lived most of their lives in Longjiang province and had never been overseas before. The was an opportunity for them.

Many families were excited, but there were also families that had fought over this.

“Dad, why are we not applying? Our family can lease at least 100 hectors. Even if we lease 200 hectors of land will also not be a problem. Think about how much we can earn in a year. Next year, we will have enough money for the youngest to get married.”

“What do you know? The news mentioned that those that had cultivated wastelands must return the land to the Government before they can go to Russia. They called this the returning farmlands to the wilderness policy.

This wasteland was cultivated through the efforts of this father and his sons. Last year, there was flooding, and they had made losses. They knew that this year, there will be no more floods. This was the time for them to earn money. Why should they return their land to the government?

“Dad, we had only cultivated dozens of wastelands. It was still wetlands. If it rains heavier, our land will start ponding. Russia’s land is all good lands. It will be safer for us to grow crops there. Didn’t the District Chief said that if we return those cultivated land to the government, we will get some compensations?”

“What compensations? Even if they give you 100 RMB, it is also considered compensations. There was a flood last year, and this year there should not be flooding. If we are able to grow our crops well on our farm, we will also have enough money for the youngest’s wedding next year.”

“Dad, then what about your grandson’s high school’s expenses? What about second brother’s daughter’s kindergarten expenses? The youngest will be getting married, and he also needs a house. His house will also need furniture and home appliances. Just look at Huan Zi. He is poor and had gotten married. Both his wife and him had been quarreling over money every day. His wife has been blaming him for earning so little.”

The youngest son said: “Dad, I want to follow elder brother and second brother to go and farm in Russia. Both you and mum have health issues. We should just return the land to the government and take the compensations. Your field in the District can be rented out to others. Just the rental alone will be sufficient for both you and mum. We will go to Russia and farm there. There is so much land, and with the eldest brother and second brother’s skills, we will not make losses. That Blackie Lee is also applying. Do you think that we are worse off than him?”

The father lowered his head and snubbed his cigarette. He lit another cigarette at looked at his two elder sons: “Does both your wives agree to let you farm there?”

The both of them nodded. There were many people from the district applying to go over to Russia. They could take care of each other there. Furthermore, this was headed by the City Government. They would be protected. This was an excellent opportunity for them!

“Then the 3 of them can go. But I will not return the cultivated land and your fields. I will farm by myself!”

Wen Deguang looked at the report in his hands. This report was compiled from all the villages. There were a total of 70 plus households with cultivated land. The cultivated land amounted to over 900 hectors. This was not a small figure.

When Wen Deguang was still a village head, he had also cultivated wastelands. He had no choice. He had bought a tractor, and he needs to earn more money. But when he was promoted to the deputy chief of the District office, he had given his cultivated land to 2 poor families in his village. Now, he needed to take back those land. It was too difficult for him to do so.

Luckily Feng Yu had given Wen Deguang some suggestions, and the higher-ups will also give some compensations for the farmers to return their lands.

“The few of you are from the 3rd village, I also know what the few of you have in common. The cultivated land behind 3rd village belongs to the few of you? Don’t panic. I am not giving you fines. Now the higher-ups had issued a regulation, stating that cultivating wastelands is against the law. The few of you should return those land to the government. Stop panicking. Let me finish first. I saw that the few of you had applied to go to Russia. Let me tell you something, but keep it to yourselves. In Russia, you are allowed to cultivate wastelands too. The rental for those wastelands is half of those fields. You do not need to pay anything during the first year and 50% rental for the second year. If the few of you agrees to return your land to the government, then the higher-ups will allow you all to cultivate wastelands in Russia. This will be more profitable than leasing those ready fields.”

Many people tried to interrupt Wen Deguang when he was talking, but he stopped them. He needs to finish what he had to say in one go. If not, this discussion will go on forever.

Huh? We can also cultivate wastelands in Russia, and it was permitted by the government? Although we still need to rent those lands, the rental was much cheaper. The rental saved every year was a considerable amount.

“District Chief, if we return our cultivated land here, how much land are we allowed to cultivate in Russia?” Someone asked.

“Double!”

Double? All of them were excited. If they were allowed to cultivate double the area of the land, then they would be able to earn much more. Especially if they signed 8 years lease. After the first 2 years, those cultivated lands will be the same as those ordinary fields, and they only need to pay half the rent. It was a good deal!

“District Chief, we had discussed, and we agreed. But I had heard that there are compensations when we return those land?” These people will not let go of any opportunity to get more money!

“The government will be compensating all of you 10 RMB for every hector. The City and District will compensate another 10 RMB. You think it is too low? If you think the compensation is too low, then you can carry on farming there. In Summer, when the new regulation takes effect, don’t blame me for bringing people to confiscate those lands!” Wen Deguang had finished using the soft approach, and now, he was using the hard method. As for the compensation amount, he was the one who decided it.

“District Chief, what are you talking about? We had not mentioned anything about not returning those lands. If the rest agreed, we would also agree!”

“Remember what all of you said today. If you change your minds later, don’t blame me for taking actions against all of you!”

Wen Deguang looked at those people leaving his office, and he smiled. It was as what Feng Yu said. It was easy to get these people to return their lands.

Chapter 398 – Lend him the money

“Fine. I know. Thanks, Brother Fu for your help.” Feng Yu hang up the phone. He was lost in his thoughts.

China’s logistics giant Shunfeng, from Feng Yu’s previous life, had started their operations in Hong Kong. China and Hong Kong’s trade had been increasing, and the government’s ships cannot meet the demands.

This Shunfeng was doing the shipping businesses between Hong Kong and Southern Guangdong.

Currently, this company had just started and had not even registered their company. This company does not even have their own fleet of vehicles, let alone cargo ships. But Shunfeng’s boss had an interesting idea. His slogan was <From Foshan to Hong Kong within a day. Faster than the postal office>.

The postal services require one day to depart from China, and another day to reach Hong Kong. It will take at least 2 days for the postage to reach its destination. If someone needs something urgently, it will be too long.

Shunfeng’s boss, Wang Wei, was in the printing business in the past. At this time, most factories in China were set up by Hong Kong businessmen. The labor, land and material cost was cheaper, and it was not far from Hong Kong. The average salaries in Hong Kong at this time was over 1,500 HKD. It was more than 10 times compared to China!

Wang Wei soon discovered that the product samples from the factories in China need at least 2 to 3 days to reach Hong Kong. It had delayed a lot of time. As such, he and a few friends started to help businessmen in China to carry their samples through hand-carried luggage back to Hong Kong. At the same time, he brought some Hong Kong products into China to sell at Foshan.

Although Wang Wei and his friends were only a few people and do not even have a truck or ship, his business was good. Slowly, through word of mouth, more and more factories knew about them. They traveled to and fro between Hong Kong and Foshan every day.

More and more people started to look for Wang Wei and his friends to ask them to carry things out of China. They do not only help to courier goods to Hong Kong. He even delivered the goods to specific locations.

This became Shunfeng’s business model.

It was worth mentioning that Wang Wei’s father was someone with a small fortune. He had a small factory, but he was not pleased with what Wang Wei was doing. If Wang Wei wishes to do this business, he needs money to set up a company. He needs to pay the couriers both in China and Hong Kong.

Feng Yu had wanted to look for Wang Wei. But since the last time Feng Yu spoke to Li Dafu, he had not given him any replies until now. This let Feng Yu understand one thing. If it were not the correct timing, these people’s thinking would be different. This was the reason why Feng Yu did not look for Wang Wei in the past. He was waiting for the right time.

This was the time when Wang Wei needed money, and Feng Yu asked Fu Guangzheng to lend Wang Wei 100,000 HKD, to help him set up Shunfeng Courier.

Feng Yu did not charge interest for this 100,000 HKD. He just said that he admired these few youngsters and wished for their success.

Wang Wei and his friends were shocked. They did not even need to have any collaterals and only required to sign a loan agreement.

Wang Wei still thought that it was his father who had sent someone to help him.

This was what Feng Yu wanted. The Shunfeng now was not worth investing. Wang Wei was not developed yet. He was still far from the mysterious boss of Shunfeng in the future years.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Jack Ma had mentioned that the person he admired most was Wang Wei. It was because not everyone can manage a 150,000 employees company.

This Wang Wei was similar to Feng Yu in the sense that both do not like to be interviewed. He does not even want to be photographed. He even rejected the top leader of China’s postal services invitation. Maybe the only news about him was that he bought a plot of land in Hong Kong and built a mansion. This was also not on the financial newspapers. It was on the tabloids.

Wang Wei had started with a backpack and then e recruited 5 of his friends to set up a company. Within 10 years, this company which was started from 100,000 HKD grew to a company that was worth hundreds of thousands. This showed how capable Wang Wei was.

Shunfeng was only slightly behind China’s logistics giant EMS. Shunfeng had held 20% of China’s market share. But Shunfeng had never advertised or accepted any investments. It was not even listed.

Wang Wei had said that the company was doing well and they had almost 30% profits. He does not need any investors. The company had never faced any financial issues before. There was no need to raise funds by being listed. The company had enough funds to grow.

There was also no need for any advertisements. Even when Shunfeng had collected the parcel at 6 in the evenings, the package will arrive at the client’s place the next morning. Word of mouth was the best advertisements.

But the future Shunfeng had a big problem which had limited its growth to become China’s number one courier company. That was because Shunfeng had expanded from the south towards the north. Some provinces in the Northeast and Northwest were not covered. Their coverage was not as significant as EMS.

In this life, no matter how Shunfeng developed, it will never reach the scale in Feng Yu’s previous life. It was because of Wind, and Rain Logistics had already expanded from the Northeast to Beijing region. Although it had not reached the extent of reaching the destination in one day.

In another 2 years, Wind and Rain Logistics will expand even faster. At that time, it should have captured the central regions. Shunfeng should also have extended to the southeast.

When that happens, it would be the time for Wind and Rain Logistics to cooperate with Shunfeng. With the favor Feng Yu had given to Wang Wei now, how could Wang Wei refuse to let Feng Yu invest in his company? If both companies could cooperate or even merged, then there would be no problems overtaking EMS!

……

Fu Guangzheng hung up the phone and was puzzled why Feng Yu had asked him to do this. It was evident that Feng Yu does not know those people. Why Feng Yu wanted to lend them money? Why did Feng Yu asked him to monitor this person and borrow him money?

He looked carefully at these few youngsters, but could not see anything special about them. This amount was not enough to do logistics business. Even if you do not have a cargo ship, then at least you must have a truck. These few people do not even own a motorcycle. They were delivering parcels via bicycles.

Fu Guangzheng mentioned that it would be faster to use motorcycles to do deliveries and Wang Wei asked if he could borrow another 100,000 HKD to buy bikes.

Wang Wei had really thought that Fu Guangzheng was his father’s friend. This was also the reason why he was not embarrassed to borrow money. Fu Guangzheng hesitated for a while and remembered about the miracles Feng Yu created in the past. He immediately nodded. He also gave Wang Wei a personal loan of 100,000 HKD for him to buy some motorcycles. Anyway, Feng Yu had only asked him to lend Wang Wei 100,000 HKD. So, even if he lends Wang Wei another 100,000 HKD out from his own pocket, it should be fine.

If Feng Yu really wanted to help Wang Wei, then Feng Yu would owe him a personal favor. Fu Guangzheng would never have thought that Feng Yu lent Wang Wei money was for his future cooperation. Feng Yu was investing in Wang Wei.

At this time, Wang Wei and his friends were not worth investing. Fu Guangzheng could not see any potential in this small company. This company might not even earn 100,000 HKD in a year.

However, Fu Guangzheng was used to follow Feng Yu’s footsteps. Even if Feng Yu had given Wang Wei 100,000 HKD for nothing, he was also fine doing the same. The money he had earned by following Feng Yu was more than a hundred 100,000 HKD!

After the Lunar New Year, Feng Yu returned to Bing City. He needs to help with the district’s developments. Together with him was the District Chief, Wen Deguang.

Chapter 399 – Deceiving Li Shiyou

“Director Li, you are a busy man now. It is hard to get to meet you.” Feng Yu joked.

“Manager Feng, stop kidding with me. I came here once I received your call. How come you have the time to treat me today? It is not easy to get a treat from you.”

Feng Yu thought back, I had not treated Li Shiyou before?

Huh? I really have not treated him to a meal before. I had eaten a few times at his Motor Factory Canteen before. Although I had donated a lot of money the past few years, I am still being treated as a stingy person!

“That’s why I am treating you today. I have prepared noodles.” Feng Yu replied without his face turning red.

“Since you are treating today, I will eat at least 3 bowls!”

Wen Deguang was looking at them in shock. This Feng Yu could speak so casually with Director Li of the Motor Factory? Director Li was a high ranked leader, and he managed a huge factory. He could still joke with Feng Yu?

“Director Li, let me introduce. This is my District Chief and also secretary Wen Deguang. He had watched me grow up. Uncle Wen, this is Director Li of the Motor Factory. He is the person who can help us.”

Li Shiyou heard the way Feng Yu addresses Wen Deguang, and he knew that they both were very close. He saw Wen Deguang stretching out 2 hands to shake hand with him, and he immediately shook his hands with both hands too.

“Let’s talk while we eat?”

“No problems.: Li Shiyou replied.

“Director Li, how good is the technology on wind-powered generators at the Motor Factory?” Feng Yu asked.

“It’s fine I think. Although we are not the best in China, we are still one of the tops regarding technology. It is still all because of your help. If not, our technologies will not be improved so fast.” Li Shiyou said.

If Feng Yu had not brought in so many related technologies from the Soviet Union, the Motor Factory only have hydro and thermal generators’ technologies that were considered advanced. The other types of generators were too ordinary. But now the Motor Factory was different. They even have the technologies for Nuclear powered generators. The factory had received many orders due to their improvement in their technologies.

This was the time when the nation was developing their energy industry. How could the Motor factory’s business not do well? This was especially so after the Motor Factory had appeared on CCTV. The whole nation’s generator factories knew that the Motor Factory had the most advanced technologies. If not, how could they win a national level award?

For the whole nation, getting an award on CCTV was equivalent to getting a national level award. If it was only a small award, why would CCTV air it? How could there be an awards ceremony for small awards?

Li Shiyou was very grateful to Feng Yu. This was why when he heard that Feng Yu needed his help, he came over to meet him. Li Shiyou was clear that if he helped Feng Yu, Feng Yu would undoubtedly remember him. In the future, if there were any good things, Feng Yu would not forget about him and the Motor Factory.

But why was Feng Yu talking about Wind power? What has it got to do with Feng Yu?

“Director Li, how are your wind-powered generators selling?”

When Feng Yu mentioned this, Li Shiyou shook his head: “The sales are so-so only. It is not as good as the hydro and thermal generators.”

So-so was also better than before. In the past, no one had even asked them about their wind-powered generators. Now, at least he had some profits and these profits was enough for them to research on improving their technologies.

“Director Li, do you know why your generators are not selling well?”

“Why?” Li Shiyou was curious. Feng Yu knew the reason?

“It is because you did not let the others see the results.”

“What do you mean?”

“When people want to buy hydro-powered generators, you will say that the Ge Zhou hydropower station is using your generators. If they wanted to buy thermal generators, you have countless examples. Even if those people have not been to those places, they would also have heard of them. They will know about the quality of your generators. But for wind-powered generators, what examples do you have?”

Feng Yu was slowly leading Li Shiyou’s thoughts to where he wants it to be.

“Sigh~~~ It was really like what you said. Last year, we had sold some wind-powered generators to the Xinjiang there, and there were the inquiries about wind-powered generators increased. Are you trying to tell me to increase the marketing of the Wind-powered generators there?” Li Shiyou asked excitedly.

Damn, the west had already started to build wind-powered power stations?

“Director Li, no. you are wrong.” Feng Yu tried to change Li Shiyou’s thinking. “Think about this. If your buyers could see the real thing, do you think that it will be more effective?”

“The real thing? Are you telling me to build a wind-powered power plant in Bing City? That’s impossible. We do not have much wind here.” Li Shiyou waved his hand. Constant winds were a must for wind-powered generators.

“There is a small mountain near my district. You can build a power station there. In future, if you have any potential clients, you can bring them there to look at the real thing. If your generators are able to generate electricity in places without many winds, that means the Motor Factory had more advanced technologies.”

Li Shiyou suddenly stared at Feng Yu and smiled: “This is the reason why you have treated me for this meal? Are you thinking of asking me to build a wind-powered power plant for your district?”

Feng Yu smiled: “It’s an investment. After the power plant is built, you are able to earn on the electricity charges.”

“I knew that you are not so generous to treat me. If you are me and you knew that there is not much wind in your district, will you still build a power plant there?”

Feng Yu carefully asked: “Will there be any losses?”

“Maybe not. But there will not be any profits either. Our generators can be used for about 30 years, but we still need to lay cables, installations, maintenance, etc. You can calculate how much we need to invest in this project.”

Feng Yu brighten up: “It is fine if there are no losses. This is advertising. Which advertisements does not need money? Furthermore, you can let the State Power or the local power to lay the cables. If you use their cables, they will be the ones that will do the maintenance, and you will still have some profits every year. This was a good deal. Your advertisement does not need to pay and could still make some profits.”

“Stop trying to deceive me. Is this advertisement or charity? Our factory is now waiting for big news. If this goes through, our factory will have no worries for the next 10 years. Why would we still need advertisements?”

“What order is this that will sustain your factory for 10 years?”

“Three Gorges! There had been discussions about this long ago. But the National People’s Congress might be approving this project this year. We are competing for 2 compressors. We have high hopes of winning this bid. If this project goes through, then we will become one of the top generator factories in the world. You think our orders will be less in the future?” Li Shiyou said proudly.

Huh? Three Gorges dam will be using Bing City’s Motor Factory?

Feng Yu remembered in his previous life that the Three Gorges dam was using generators from the US, Germany, and France in the first phase. It was only in the 2nd phase when Bing City Motor Factory and other state-owned generator factories supplied the generators.

Could it be that things had changed in this life?

It seems that this was the year when the Three Gorges dam hydro station’s project was approved. As such, Feng Yu told Li Shiyou confidently: “If I can be guaranteed that this project will be approved during this Congress, can you invest in a small wind-powered power station in my district?”

Li Shiyou’s eyes opened wide. Feng Yu could guarantee that this project will be approved?

“Are you gambling?”

“It is fine if Director Li thinks that I am gambling. If this project is not approved, then I will help you think of a way to let your factory earn tens of millions each year! If the project is approved, then our power station?”

“I will invest in that power station even if the Three Gorges dam project is not approved. What idea do you have?” This was tens of millions. It cost only a few millions to build a wind-powered power generator. Using a few million to exchange for a business that will make tens of millions profit. This was a good deal!

Chapter 400 – How do we cooperate?

“Director Li, how is the research on the batteries going? We have paid quite a lot for this.” Feng Yu suddenly asked.

“It is progressing quite well according to your requirements. The batteries should be ready next year. The nickel batteries and Zinc batteries cost are higher than those traditional lead-acid batteries. Are you going to install those batteries in your motorcycles?”

“Not only it will be installed in the motorcycles. The saloon cars and trucks produced by the Machinery Company will also need batteries. I can sign an agreement with the Motor Factory. If you can fulfill our demands, we will purchase the batteries from you. That means the Motor Factory will make quite a hefty sum every year.”

“How many motorcycles and saloon cars are you going to produce each year?”

“This year, we will produce at least 300,000 motorcycles and 20,000 saloon cars. This was mainly due to the factories are still under construction. The factories will be in operation at the end of this year. But from next year, I guaranteed that the production of motorcycles will exceed 600,000 units, and saloon cars will exceed 100,000 units. All these vehicles will be using your batteries!”

“Really? All your branch factories will be using our batteries?” Li Shiyou was overjoyed.

If that’s the case, then just batteries alone will create over 100 million RMB of sales for the Motor Factory. At the production of the Machinery Company increases, their sales and profits will also increase. Maybe there will be over 100 million RMB of profits. But were those batteries really suitable to be used in vehicles?

“That’s right. But I will suggest you set up branch factories to manufacture these batteries. It would be best if you could set up multiple factories like what the Machinery Company did……”

“Wait, you want us to set up branch factories?”

“What’s wrong?”

“You are wealthy, and you can set up 10 branch factories at one go. But our Motor Factory does not have so many funds. We cannot even afford to set up one branch factory.” Li Shiyou replied sourly.

“Then we can work together. I had said that the rights for this battery technologies belonged to me when I asked your factory to research on it. So, I will not use this technology to invest. How about I will provide you with the factories, funds, and equipment, and you will supply the factories with manpower, like engineers and workers. We can set up a joint partnership company.”

Feng Yu had said his real motive. The future battery industry will be huge due to the developments of electric scooters and the automobile industry. How could Feng Yu miss out this opportunity to make money?

Even if he could not monopolize the market, but it should not be a problem for him to be the market leader. Just the batteries for the electric scooters will bring at least a few billions of sales each year. The profits from this will not be a small amount.

“Cooperate?” Li Shiyou was wary when he heard of this word. He knew that every time he cooperates with Feng Yu, the Motor Factory will not suffer any losses. But most of the money will be earned by Feng Yu.

“We can talk about this later. Chief Wen, why are you keeping quiet?” Li Shiyou decided to go back and consider about this cooperation carefully. He needs to think over this before he could choose whether to work with Feng Yu and the details of this cooperation.

Wen Deguang raises his wine glass: “Director Li, let‘s have a toast first. Let me thank you for helping our district.”

Wen Deguang was thinking in his heart. What can he say? The both of them had not given him the chance to open his mouth. He does not even have the opportunity to speak when they were talking about the power station, let alone when they were discussing business.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that Uncle Wen was sitting beside him.

“I will not drink any alcohol. I am driving.” Damn, these two people could drink Baijiu like fishes. Feng Yu does not want to drink with them.

Wen Deguang starts to drink and talk to Li Shiyou about the power station. Feng Yu added some of his views occasionally. He wanted the most for his district.

In the end, Feng Yu represented Tai Hua Food processing factory to invest 1 million RMB in the power station. In the future, the factory will have a 30% discount on the electricity charges and could still get a share of the profits from the power station.

This type of investment was common in some areas. Since there were already precedents, it was not a problem if the district and the Motor Factory pushes for it.

The State Power will also not reject as they would be able to get 10% profits if they allow the power station to use their power lines.

After the meal, Wen Deguang went to the City’s Farm department to report on this matter. The issue of the farmers returning their cultivated lands had been settled. But Wen Deguang does not want to just return those lands to the wilderness. Since the instructions from the top had not been finalized, he intends to lease those land to other farmers. The rents collected will go into the District’s finances, and when the instructions came down from the top, he would then return the land!

……

Li Shiyou returned to the Motor Factory and immediately called the person-in-charge of the batteries development, and the other sales team chiefs to his office. He needs to ask if this battery project can be used to cooperate with Feng Yu. If they were to collaborate with Feng Yu, what would be the details? How many shares should they request?

“Directory, I shall be honest with you. I do not think that this battery project will do well. The cost for this nickel batteries is too high. Who would want to buy it? Lead-acid batteries are more than enough for cars. Anyway, it is only used to start the engines and on the lights. Lead-acid batteries are much cheaper. Other than some equipment that requires special requirements for electricity, I cannot think of other uses for Nickel batteries.” The Deputy Chief Engineer said.

“I think we can cooperate with Feng Yu. Didn’t he say that he will provide the location, funds and also the equipment? We only need to provide the manpower and engineers. We do not need to invest much. If this succeeded, the profits would not be low. Also, Feng Yu promised that the Machinery Company’s cars will use our batteries in the future? But some of their factories are located in the South. Could they ship the batteries from Bing City there? When he said to purchase the batteries from us, I think he meant purchasing the batteries from the joint venture factories. If we do not cooperate with him, then this deal will be gone. Even if we are producing lead-acid batteries, there will still be profits.” The sales chief said.

“The technicians and workers will have to leave their homes to work in another province. We have to give them additional allowances. Their salaries will be higher. Can Feng Yu accept this?”

“This should not be a problem. The Machinery Company’s workers are getting more salaries than us. I heard that this was suggested by Feng Yu. Also, Tai Hua Trading’s staffs were getting increments every year. I heard that their salaries are more than 170 RMB a month. This Feng Yu was generous to his staffs.” The Motor Factory’s Finance Chief said.

Li Shiyou shook his head: “I think all of you had misunderstood me. I am telling all of you about this is not to ask if we should work with Feng Yu. I can confirm that we must work with him. I just want to ask if we should invest a sum of money to increase our stake in the company.”

“What? Director, if we are able to receive the order from the Three Gorges project, then we must focus on it. Where will we get the money to invest in new factories? Furthermore, we might not have enough engineers and technicians for those new factories. From what I understand, Feng Yu does not intend to set up one branch factory.”

Li Shiyou was hesitating. From what he knew, Feng Yu had never made any losses from his investments. But where will he sell these batteries? Use those Nickel batteries in the cars? This would increase the cost of the vehicle.

He had so many people with him, but there were no conclusions. Li Shiyou decided to look for Feng Yu tomorrow again to find out more. He must not miss this opportunity!

Chapter 401 – Small batteries, big business

Feng Yu wanted to collaborate with the Motor Factory to develop batteries was not because batteries will have lots of profits in the future. It was also because China’s giants in the batteries industry will be controlled by foreign MNC, due to a series of takeovers and investments, in the future.

Now, future China’s battery giant, Nanfu (Aka: Excell Batteries), was still starting. They had just successfully developed NiMH batteries, and this company had reached world-class standards.

Maybe Nanfu thought that they have no other competitors in China, but this technology was also developed successfully by the Motor Factory. Feng Yu had gotten some information on this technology and had asked the Motor Factory to research on it. Even the Motor Factory did not know that this technology was the most advanced in China.

The Motor Factory had thought that they were only one of the best in China. They could not see the potential in this technology.

Just the batteries used in remote controls and touch lights were a huge market in the future.

The home appliances now started to use remote controls. There were also some toys in the market that needs batteries. Also, the touch lights and wall clocks, which was a necessity in every home, uses batteries.

Feng Yu clearly remembers that in another 2 years, battery-powered toy cars will be selling like hotcakes. The high-performance batteries used in these toy cars were sold for more than 10 RMB. Some batteries were selling more than the toy cars.

But what was the cost of those batteries? The battery was selling from a few RMB to over 10 RMB a piece. The highest profits were over 300%. Also, the sales for pagers were increasing, and domestic produced pagers started to appear. In the following few years, pagers will be a huge industry, and a battery can only last a pager for one month. It uses batteries faster than remote controls. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Nanfu was successful because they just happened to meet this phase.

Furthermore, it will need about 1 year to set up a battery factory. It will take long periods just to settle the wastewater drainage systems. This was also because the equipment needed for the treatment of the wastewater got to be imported from overseas. Those machines used for wastewater treatment produced in China were only polluting the environment more.

If they start to build the factories now, then it should be ready for operation next year. At that time, VCD should be in the market, and the saloon cars should be produced. The timing was right for these new products to use the newly produced batteries.

If they set up the factories next year, the small batteries will be taken over by Nanfu batteries. Furthermore, Feng Yu does not only want to produce small batteries. He also wants to produce batteries for automobiles. He would be able to train a group of specialists in this field now, and he would not face a shortage of staffs when the new factories were set up.

Also, Feng Yu wants to get these batteries experts trained by the Motor Factory to the new factories was because he wants control over them. There can only be profits when they have the leading technology. Once these experts joined the new factories, Feng Yu would never let them return back to the Motor Factory!

……

“Feng Yu, yesterday we talked about setting up a branch factory together to manufacture batteries. Can we talk about the details?” Li Shiyou had asked Feng Yu to come to the Motor Factory. He wanted to make use of the advantage of having more people to negotiate with him. He needs to make sure that the Motor Factory will not be at a disadvantage.

“Director Li, yesterday I did not say about setting up a factory. I want to set up 5 branch factories. It will be the same as my automobile factories. It will be located all over China. This will be a huge investment. I intend to invest 200 million RMB. Oh, how much can the Motor Factory invest?” Feng Yu purposely asked.

From the way Li Shiyou set up this meeting, he knew Li Shiyou’s intentions. Li Shiyou will surely want to invest, but he does not want to take out any money.

Feng Yu also knew that if the Three Gorges project starts, even if the Motor Factory got the backup generator job, it will not be a small project. The factory will have to focus on that, and the factory will not have sufficient funds to invest in something else.

Li Shiyou wanted a more significant share in these new factories. But Feng Yu kept mentioning about money. No money, then stop thinking of owning more shares!

Feng Yu also did not intend to invest in 5 branch factories at once. One factory in Jinling will be sufficient for the market now. He could set up a few production lines to manufacture batteries in the Machinery Company’s factory here. He was not worried about the production of automobile batteries as the Motor Factory already had the production lines.

The people at the Motor factory were sitting up straight, but when money was mentioned, all of them shrink. The Motor Factory does have the funds, but they cannot use it!

“Manager Feng, why do you need to set up so many branch factories at once? Our factory can also manufacture batteries. Our factory can produce those small batteries that are used in touch lights and those batteries used by motorcycles and automobiles. If you think that the number of batteries produces is not enough, then with one more branch factory it should be able to meet your demand. How many cars and motorcycles can your factories produce in a year? Can your factory produce 1 million cars and motorcycles in a year? There is no need for so many branch factories.” The Deputy Factory Director who was in-charged of production said/

“Furthermore, you do not have experts in this field. We also cannot supply too many people in this field. If these people were to work in other regions, we still have to compensate them. We need to increase their salaries, and we will be taking on a bigger job soon. We will not be able to supply too many people.” The one in charge of the battery development said.

“If you invest so much money at once, it will also be a strain on your finance. What if the sales for this product does not do well? Manager Feng, I think one branch factory should be enough.”

……

The people at the Motor Factory took turns to persuade Feng Yu. But Feng Yu was not convinced. He acted like he insisted on his original plans. This gave the people from the Motor Factory a big headache.

Based on Feng Yu’s plan, how much shares could they get? Even 5% was considered a lot. What sort of joint venture was this? It was like the Motor Factory working for Feng Yu. Why can this be possible?!

“Manager Feng, we have a lot of battery factories in China. Although our battery technologies are better, our cost is higher too. The spending power in our country cannot be compared to other countries. When people buy batteries, they will choose the cheapest ones. Furthermore, all batteries look the same. Unless you’re the amount of electricity in your battery is higher, there is almost no difference between the rest of the batteries. We do not have any significant advantages over the competitors.” Li Shiyou persuaded.

Feng Yu showed a troubled expression and said: “Fine. Then we will build one branch factory. How much are you going to invest?”

“Manager Feng, didn’t you said that we will only supply manpower? Why are you asking us to invest?” Li Shiyou showed a surprised expression.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. All of you only wanted to supply some people and then get a share of the profits. But I am also targeting these people too. Just like this Deputy Chief Engineer who was in-charged of developing the battery technologies.

“Fine. I will provide all the funds, and your Deputy Chief Engineer Li will lead the team of experts and technicians. There should not be less than 30 people on the team, and there should be at least 100 experienced workers. I will give you 7% shares.”

“Manager Feng, we are the ones that are in charge of the battery technologies, and we still need to supply so many workers. How come we are only getting 7% shares?” Li Shiyou replied loudly.

“Technology? I am the one who had given you the original technology. I am also the one paying for the R&D funds. The results from your research also belong to me. I still have the contract with me. Furthermore, am I not the one paying them? These people’s salaries will be paid by the new factory. The Machinery Company will not be responsible for them. Those that retired after one year of working at the factory will be taken care of by us. You think 7% is too little? I am going to invest 40 million RMB! Why not your side also invests some money, and I can let you have more shares.”

If it was only one branch factory, then the Motor Factory will not suffer any losses even if they just relied on the automobiles and motorcycles. With this new factory, the Machinery Company will not order any batteries from the Motor Factory, and the Motor Factory would lose out a lot of profits.

“We will invest 10 million RMB, and you only need to invest 30 million. We want 35% shares.” Li Shiyou gritted his teeth and said.

“Director Li, is your math not good? 30% is my baseline. You can get those engineers from other places. Anyway, I have the technologies.”

Li Shiyou looked at the rest and nodded: “Fine. 30% shares. But we can only take out the money in the second half of this year!

Feng Yu smiled: “No problems.”

You have no problems investing 10 million RMB now. But can you still increase your investment if I continue to invest next year?

Chapter 402 – Buying a computer

After finalizing the details of the agreement, Feng Yu called Fu Guangzheng to ask him to look for a location near to the Jinling branch factory to build a battery factory.

As usual, Fu Guangzheng invested some money for a 10% stake in the battery factory. He also arranged for the management staffs, and Tai Hua Trading will hire the staffs for the finance department.

Feng Yu made a call to Kirilenko and ordered a few battery production lines. He does not care whether if the production lines were used or brand new, as long as they were cheaper than the ones from Europe and US. China still does not have such advanced production lines. Overall, China’s industrial level was still below average compared to the rest of the world.

It was almost the end of February, and Feng Yu returned to Beijing. Li Na and the rest will return to Beijing a few days later. Feng Yu went to Zhongguancun to buy a computer.

Although there was still no good operating system now, the VCD will be launched soon. Feng Yu’s target was to use CD-ROM to replace floppy disk. He needs to look at the current computers had reached what standards and if it could use CD-ROM.

At a small shop, Feng Yu saw a few CRT monitors and some computer parts on display. A dirty looking man saw Feng Yu and warmly greet him: “Brother, what are you looking for? We have the most advanced 486 computers with internal storage of 8M, 3.5in floppy disk driver, most advanced video card, 420M hard disk, 14-inch CRT monitor, DOS system. You will not regret buying it!”

What? Feng Yu was shocked. Luckily, he was here to look around first. If he wasn’t here, he still does not know how backward the computers were in this era.

This was considered the most advanced? The CPU, internal storage, etc. could not even compare to a handphone in the future years. Hard disk space of 420M? Can it even store an HD movie?

The shop owner had recommended this computer proudly. Were these specs really the best?

“Boss, do you have anything that’s better?”

“These are the best secs available. The Government had also bought these computers. Which unit are you from and how many do you need? If you are buying a lot, I can give you some 3.5in floppy disk drive as free gifts.”

The shop owner had thought that Feng Yu was purchasing computers for his unit. Buying a personal computer? Stop kidding. Why would anyone buy a computer? Computers were too expensive and other than units, who would spend money to buy? Also, how many people know how to use computers?

In this era, all the elites in China who had received a higher education were mostly working in the government agencies or state-owned enterprises units. There was only a handful that started their own business. Maybe there might be more in the coastal regions but not a lot in Beijing.

How much did one 486 computers cost? 12,000 RMB! The current average annual salary was not even 1,600 RMB. Who would buy such an expensive item for personal use? It must be purchased for the units.

Even if it was purchasing for the units, it was different from the future years, where the shop owners will ask how many dozens or hundreds of computers. If one unit could afford two or more computers, it will be considered a big unit. Many units do not even have one computer.

The units in this era were only equipped with phone lines, fax, photocopier machines, and typewriters! Even scanners were rare.

In this era, the computers were still pre-assembled Monoblock computers. There was no such thing as self-assembled computers. The CPU was still placed horizontally below the monitor.

“Brother? Are you buying? Which unit are you from and how many do you need? Come on, speak up.” The shop owner was getting anxious.

There were not a lot of shops selling computers, and the shop owner must cherish every customer. The money he earned from selling one computer would be more than working for one year!

The series of questions from the shop owner woke Feng Yu from his daydream.

“What brands do you have?”

“We have IBM, DELL, Lenovo……”

“Wait, you have Lenovo computers?” Feng Yu heard Lenovo and immediately interrupted the shop owner.

Feng Yu remembered that Lenovo was set up in the 1980s and started from manufacturing Chinese language card. It was in the 1990s when they ventured into the personal computers industry. He did not know that Lenovo had its own computers now.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin. He thought if he could recruit Liu Chuanzhi and the rest from Lenovo. Lenovo had not undergone restructuring and was still a subsidiary of a research facility. Liu Chuanzhi and the rest should still be getting salaries.

They should have other thoughts when the company was making so much money, and they do not have a share. But if Feng Yu were to poach them over, he will have to set up a research facility for them. This would be a considerable investment.

“Brother, do you want to buy Lenovo computer?” The shop owner pointed to a computer and asked.

“How much is this computer?” Feng Yu pointed to the Lenovo computer and asked.

“Are you buying one unit?”

“One unit is enough.”

The shop owner was slightly disappointed: “I will give you a discount. 11,800 RMB. Do you need a receipt?”

Feng Yu smiled and said: “10,000 RMB!”

The shop owner jumped: “10,000 RMB? Impossible! This is the latest model. You can ask around in Zhongguancun. No shops are selling this cheap. The lowest I can go is 11,500 RMB!”

Feng Yu: “10,000 RMB!”

“Are you a serious buyer? This is a computer and not a game console. This is not the way to bargain. I had already offered you a discount, and you should not insist on the price.”

“I only have 10,000 RMB, and I am not buying for any unit. I am buying on behalf of my boss.”

“How about 11,000 RMB? I can write you a 12,000 RMB receipt. You can bring the receipt back and claim from your boss.” The shop owner moved closer and said softly. He does not believe that Feng Yu only had 10,000 with him. He thinks that Feng Yu had said this to bargain with him.

Feng Yu looked at the shop owner speechlessly. Nowadays shop could write receipts this way? It was a pity that he was buying the computer for himself. No matter what amount was written on the receipt, he still has to pay.

“10,000 RMB. Not a single cent more. If you are not selling, I will go to other shops. You had said that you are not the only one selling this computer in Zhongguancun. If you do not want to sell, other shops will be willing.”

“eh, brother, don’t go. Let’s discuss. How about 10,800 RMB? This is an auspicious number.” The shop owner pulled Feng Yu back.

Feng Yu looked at the shop owner without any expression: “10,000RMB!”

The shop owner was going crazy. This was the type of customer he was afraid of. Only insist on a specific price and refuse to bargain. Could it be that this kid knew what his cost price was? Domestic produced computers were much cheaper than imported ones. If he sells this unit for 10,000 RMB, he would still make a few hundred RMB of profits. But his shop rarely has any customers. Sometimes, he might be able to sell one or two computers in a month. His rent was high and had invested a lot in these computers. He had even sold his house to set up this shop!

Feng Yu was clear that imported computers would cost about 12,000 RMB, but local computers should be much cheaper. It does not need to pay so much taxes. Lenovo had only bought some parts and assembled it together, making it its own product. Other than the outer casing and the Chinese language card inside, the rest were not manufactured by them.

That was the reason why Feng Yu thinks that 10,000 RMB was a reasonable price. The shop owner would still be able to make some profits.

“Fine, fine, fine. I am scared of you. 10,000 RMB and the receipt will also be 10,000 RMB!”

“Okay. Write the receipt.”

Translator notes: Zhongguancun is a technology hub in Haidian District, Beijing, China. It is very well known in China, and is often referred to as “China’s Silicon Valley”. There are five prominent IT and electronics markets. They are technology bazaars, famous for their “shops with a shop”, where prices are easily but grudgingly bargained. Zhongguancun shops mainly deal in PC-compatible hardware, peripherals, and software.

Chapter 403 – Useless computer

Feng Yu bought a computer, and at the same time, he got the contact number to Lenovo which was printed on the packaging.

Feng Yu went to the post office in his neighborhood, and after giving a red packet, 2 technicians followed him home to install internet line.

In this era, there were no broadband or fiber optics cables. He only installed a modem with a phone line. Although the internet was still in the initial phase, he could send emails. In the future, Feng Yu could manage his companies from remote locations. This would be more convenient than going to shops to send and receive faxes.

The computer started running, dialing and Feng Yu frowned. The noise from the computer was deafening. He had never used computers in his previous life. When he used a computer, it was already 586 and comes with the Win95 operating system.

He was unsure if it was the computers in this era that were noisy or it was because Lenovo computers do not have the technology.

After about a minute, the internet was connected. Feng Yu shook his head. The speed was too slow.

Feng Yu opened the web browser and entered the internet address given to him by the shop owner. There were not many domains at this time.

The shop owner told Feng Yu that there were more than 1 million computers globally and this figure will increase further. It will increase by 200,000 to 3000,000 computers every year. But Feng Yu knew what the shop owner said was too conservative. The growth of computers in the future was much faster than what everyone expected. By the end of the millennium, there were more than 10 million computers that were connected to the internet. The computers that were not connected to the internet were countless.

The internet was developing at an astonishing speed. The internet speed will increase from a few M to a few G. The internet users also increase from about a million users now, to a few hundred million in a few years’ time.

Feng Yu was frustrated over the time taken to load a webpage. When the web page was loaded, Feng Yu wanted to bang his head on the wall!

Fuck! Why was the webpage all in text?

Feng Yu had expected all sort of old school scenarios, but he had never expected this. This was too backward. This was the first time in his life to see a text version webpage!

He was not used to this type of webpage. It was too uncomfortable to look at it!

Seems like this computer was not suitable for web surfing, play games, send or receive emails. At most, one could only type a few words on this computer.

Feng Yu was regretting. This was not worth 10,000 RMB! Ordinary workers got to save every single cent for 6 years before they could afford this computer. What sort of stupid functions was there on this computer?

Feng Yu does not know that under this circumstance, could he teach Wu Zhigang and the rest to learn how to send and receive emails. Maybe they would have difficulties learning how to type.

After registering an email account, Feng Yu sent an email to Fu Guangzheng. Fu Guangzheng’s company had started using computers last year to send and receive emails. Hong Kong was still more advanced than China.

After disconnecting from the internet, Feng Yu start to check the software on the computer. The internet now was charged according to usage, and the charges were exorbitantly high. Although Feng Yu was wealthy, he does not like to waste his money.

Taking out a floppy disk, he inserts it into the floppy disk drive. The computer made even louder noises.

After about 3 minutes, the reading of the disk was finally over, and Feng Yu moved the ball mouse to open a file. His mood became slightly better.

This was an adventure game. It was also the mainstream type of games in the era.

The developer for this game was Softstar from Taiwan. This was the company that made the game <The Legend of Sword and Fairy> series.

It was because the success of adventure games, Softstar developed <The Legend of Sword and Fairy> game and it immediately became a classic. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Softstar made lots of profits just from the merchandises of this game.

Feng Yu wondered if he could get a stake in Softstar before the launch of the <The Legend of Sword and Fairy> game. But Taiwanese does not really like the Chinese businessmen now. Some of them even look down on businessman from China.

Taiwan’s economy was much better than China, and only Taiwanese would come to China to invest. There were no China businessmen who had went to Taiwan to invest yet. It would be difficult for Feng Yu to invest in Taiwanese companies.

But Feng Yu have a company in Hong Kong. Maybe he could make use of it. It would be best if he were successful. It does not matter even if he failed. At least he could still try to get the distribution rights of the game in China. With Master Lu’s help, which other company would dare to vie the distribution rights with him?

Feng Yu played the game for about 2 hours until his pager beeped.

It was Fu Guangzheng paging him. He had received Feng Yu’s email. Feng Yu looked up at the ceiling and hope that Fu Guangzheng had just seen the email and not this email took 2 hours to reach his mailbox!!

The computers now were too slow, and Feng Yu changed his mind about equipping Tai Hua Trading with computers. Let’s wait for a few years after Win 95 was introduced. By that time, the internet should be faster and easier to operate. Wu Zhigang and the rest should be able to pick up the skills to use the internet.

Although there was a Chinese Language Card installed in this computer, many of the commands for the dos system was still in English. Wu Zhigang and the rest of his staffs should go crazy if they had to learn English.!

But the battery factory and the Machinery Company should have some computers. The engineers there need to do research and computers should be about to help them in some ways.

What worried Feng Yu the most was that those engineers do not know how to use computers. They might still use calculators or even paper to do their calculations. Their efficient was too low.

After switching off the computer, Feng Yu looked at Lenovo’s contact number on the box. He wants to contact Lenovo.

Lenovo company at this time was split into two. One was Hong Kong Lenovo, and the other was Beijing Lenovo. Of course, the people in charge was Liu Chuanzhi and his men.

Needless to say, the people who had made it big in this era were not simple. Especially those in the technology sector, all of them have strong backings. In this era, those without strong backings could not enter the technology sector. Even if they were able to enter, they could only be a researcher or engineer. They can never be a leader!

Liu Chuanzhi’s father was a famous engineer in China and was one of the pioneers in setting up the patent law in China.

At that time, Liu Chuanzhi’s father was attacked by many for having the concept of patents. People felt that this was backward thinking. One should contribute the results of their research to the nation without any reward. The country will give you recognition. Benefits? What benefits are you talking about? Are you a capitalist? We should be talking about contributing to the nation!

As more inventions were stolen by foreigners and patented by them, China suffered heavy losses. These voices disappeared, and China started to emphasize patents.

Liu Chuanzhi’s father was assigned by the government to register a company in Hong Kong. His company was to register international patents on behalf of China. He was also a leader in China’s Patent office and also the chairman of Patent Protection Association of China!

It was not easy to be the chairman of a national level association. This was the reason why Liu Chuanzhi was able to be the General Manager of Lenovo. It was also because of his father, Liu Chuanzhi was so familiar with the global developments in technology.

Feng Yu only hope that Liu Chuanzhi’s values were not about contributing to the nation!

Chapter 404 – How can I forget about Ningbo Bird?

“Hello, this is Beijing Lenovo. How can I help you?”

Wow. How come this telephone operator’s voice sound so sweet? Must hire some telephone operators with sweet voices for Tai Hua Trading and the Machinery Company. This voice was enough to attract people to work with them!

“Hi, I would like to speak to Mr. Liu Chuanzhi.”

Liu Chuanzhi was now the CEO of Beijing Lenovo and also the Chairman of Hong Kong Lenovo.

“May I know who I am speaking to, and what’s the purpose of you looking for Mr. Liu?”

“I want to speak to him about collaboration. I can’t tell you the details. Just connect me to Mr. Liu.” Feng Yu was not interested in chatting with this operator even though she sounded lovely.

“Okay. Please hold on to the line.”

1 minute later, it was still the operator who spoke: “I am sorry sir. Mr. Liu is now in Hong Kong and cannot be contacted. Do you want to leave your contact details, and I will inform Mr. Liu when he returns?”

Feng Yu was disappointed. Liu Chuanzhi was a big boss, and he does not have a mobile phone! Feng Yu could only leave his pager number with the operator.

Feng Yu had not bought a mobile phone. It was because the mobile phones at this time could only last 30 minutes for a full charge.

It was only late last year when new mobile phones were launched. The new models just weight 250 grams. It was much lighter than those phones which weighs more than 800 grams. The signal was also better.

Feng Yu had decided to buy 2 for himself. It was more convenient than pagers. But the mobile phones could only last for 1 hour. Just charging the phone could drive him nuts.

It would be best if it were the GSM mobile phones, which was also known as 2G mobile phones. The signals would be crystal clear, and currently, Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia were still developing their phones. It would only be later this year when Nokia would start to produce 1011. This model could only be considered a real mobile phone.

But in China, 2G network was only available in late 1995. That means the few years before 1995, people in China could only use Analog signal mobile phones!

Pagers were still the norm before mobile phones became common!

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that around this time in his previous life, China’s telecommunication equipment giant, Ningbo Bird, was set up.

Feng Yu immediately look through the contacts of Tai Hua Trading’s distributors and called the distributor in Jiangsu and Zhejiang region.

“Hello, who are you looking for?”

Huh? This voice was even sweeter! Tai Hua Trading must hire a telephone operator immediately!

“I am Tai Hua Trading’s General Manager Feng Yu. I want to speak to your Director Sun.” Feng Yu was not so courteous when he called his distributors.

“Please hold the line, Manager Feng. I will get Director Sun on the line.” Feng Yu could hear the sound of chairs dragging and someone running in high heels.

“Hello, Manager Feng. I am Xiao Sun.” Someone spoke over the phone.

This “Xiao Sun” was already over 30 years’ old. But in front of Feng Yu, he called himself Xiao Sun. He was not pleased when Feng Yu called him Old Sun.

“Director Sun, I need to trouble you with some matters.”

“Manager Feng’s matters are my matters. There is no trouble at all! I promise you that I will do my best!” All the distributors who had worked with Tai Hua Trading made tons of money. They knew that if it weren’t for Tai Hua Trading, they would not be so wealthy.

Just the Songjiang Motorcycles alone had helped them made lots of profits. This group of distributors was the top companies in their respective regions. This was all Tai Hua Trading’s credit!

Now Feng Yu was asking him for help, and this was an opportunity to build better relationships with Feng Yu. In the future, if there were excellent opportunities, Feng Yu would not forget him.

“Director Sun, are you familiar with Ningbo Fenghua District?”

“Of course. It is my hometown. My parents are still staying there.”

Feng Yu was overjoyed: “Then can trouble you to help me ask around if there is a company calls Ningbo Bird? It is a company that research on electronic products. I am interested in this company.”

“Rest assured manager Feng. Leave this to me. I will call you back later in the evenings. How about 8pm?”

“Okay. Thank you, Director Sun.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Ningbo Bird was set up this year by a few technicians and was funded by the government. The technicians used their expertise to get 49% of the shares.

Needless to say, the local government was being very generous. It gave these technicians 49% of shares to these technicians without them investing a single RMB. Although these technicians were not involved in the management of the company, the government also do not interfere with their research.

These technicians were also incredible. They used the government’s funds to set up a small research facility and successfully developed their own pagers. At about this time next year, Ningbo Bird would introduce their pagers to the market!

At that time, they realized that even after they had successfully come up with a product, they had no money to manufacture in big scale and had no money for marketing. The local government had not much confidence in their pagers. Just happened, that was the time when China was attracting foreign investors. Ningbo Bird was invested by foreigners and became a joint venture.

But because of the differences in management concepts, the foreign investors soon retracted their investment. It was because the foreigner investor wanted to shift the office to Guangdong because of the convenience in traffic and exportation. Furthermore, there were more workers there, and Guangdong’s industrial developments were faster. The policies there were also better.

But Fenghua’s government refused. If the factory was shifted, how would they collect the taxes? What would happen to their workers? Without the investor’s funds, the company’s growth was affected. In the later years, when the company went into the development of mobile phones, it became a joint venture again with foreign investors.

Regardless of pagers or mobile phones, Ningbo Bird was the leader in China’s telecommunications industry. The research team behind the company should be formed by now.

With this team, Feng Yu’s investment and his knowledge of the future trends, this company should be the industry leader earlier. It might even venture overseas earlier. In the future, the leader in the mobile phone market might not be Nokia, Motorola, Samsung or Apple. It will be Wind and Rain brand or Aiwa brand!

After Feng Yu’s investment, he will not let them use the brand Ningbo Bird. Wind and Rain or Aiwa brand would be more suitable. After all, these two brands were well known in the local and overseas market. It will also increase brand value.

But Feng Yu was not sure if things were the same as history. Were there any changes? Was he in time to make this investment? Or the local government will allow him to invest.

Feng Yu does not mind spending more money to get the decision-making rights of the company. They can have management rights. Feng Yu was too lazy to manage the company.

But the company’s direction and crucial decisions must follow his wishes. This way, Feng Yu could guarantee that this company would take over the local and overseas telecommunication industry!

Chapter 405 – Ningbo Bird in poverty

At 8 pm, Feng Yu was waiting for Director Sun’s call on his sofa.

The phone rang, and Feng Yu immediately picked it up: “Hello? Is this director Sun?”

“Manager Feng, it’s me. I got the information you wanted. There is indeed a company named Ningbo Bird in Fenghua district. It is a partnership between a small research facility and a local government. But the start-up capital for the company is only 1000,000 RMB.”

Huh? Start-up capital was only 100,000 RMB? So little?

Feng Yu’s interest in these few technicians increased. A company with a start-up capital of 100,000 RMB will become the leader in China’s telecommunications equipment industry in the future. One must admit that these few people were indeed capable. With so little funds, they were able to develop the pager, and their technologies were the most advanced in China!

“Director Sun, can I trouble you to sound them out? I am thinking of buying over this company. Help me ask if they are interested. If buying over the company is not possible, investing in the company is also fine.”

Director Sun was surprised. Was Manager Feng joking with him? When Feng Yu told him that he was interested in this company, he thought that this was a big company. But after investigating, it was only a small company in a town.

He thought that this company was small, and Feng Yu would not be interested. But now he wants to buy over this company? What’s the use of acquiring such a small company?

All the distributors had heard about Feng Yu buying over a small design company when he started Songjiang Motorcycles. At that time, everybody thought that Feng Yu had made a failed investment.

But now, that small company with only a handful employees had grown to the number one design company in Shanghai. The annual profits were more than 1 million! Feng Yu had just invested a few hundred thousand initially.

This time, Feng Yu had set his sights on this small company. Could it be that this small company had something that was worth investing? Director Sun could also afford 100,000 RMB, but he would never invest in this company. It was because he could not see how the company could make profits.

But he was the one helping Feng Yu with this matter. Feng Yu should not reject him if he wants to buy a stake in this company. He could invest 30,000 to 50,000 RMB for some shares. Even if this company failed, he could also accept the loss. But if this company was like that design company, he could get back his capital within 2 years.

“Manager Feng, leave this to me. I will depart for Fenghua tonight, and tomorrow I will speak to the company. I will get back to you latest by tomorrow evening.”

“Sure. Director Sun, if I am able to buy over this company successfully, I will not forget you.”

“Hahaha. Thank you.”

Feng Yu start to play computer games again after he hangs up the phone. He remembered that Nintendo games on computers. He must make a trip back to Zhongguancun to look for it. This computer can only be used as a game console now.

After hanging up the phone, Director Sun immediately drove to Fenghua in his Volkswagen Santana. This was the best opportunity to get close to Manager Feng, and he does not want to miss it. If he could foster good relationships with Tai Hua Trading like Fatty Huang, then his company’s future prospects will not be worse off than Fatty Huang.

Fatty Huang was successful because he was located in the coastal region. Our Zhejiang region will not lose to Guangdong. Our City was also one of the pilot testing city for opening up!

2 and a half hours later, Director Sun arrived at his parent’s place in Fenghua.

“Why are you back at this time? Did something happen?” Director Sun’s mother asked worriedly.

“Nothing happened. Mum, go back to sleep. Tomorrow I need to go to Da Qiao there for business.”

“Did you quarrel with daughter-in-law?”

“No. Mum, go back and rest. It is really for business. I am afraid that I will be late if I depart tomorrow. Leave these things at the corner. You and dad must remember to eat before this stuff turns bad.”

Although Director Sun had made a lot of money in the past two years, he had also spent a lot. He had bought a new house in Hangzhou and a car. But his home was too small, and he also has kids. He could not fetch his parents over to stay with him. If this time, he could earn some money by following Feng Yu to invest in this company, then next year he would shift to a bigger house or buy over the house next door for his parents.

The next morning, Director Sun went out immediately after breakfast. He wants to settle this as soon as possible. He needs to leave a good impression with Feng Yu. He knew that Feng Yu prefers efficient and capable people!

……

“Hi, is this Fenghua Ningbo Bird company?” Director Sun had finally found Ningbo Bird’s office after asking around.

“That’s right. Who are you looking for?”

“I am looking for your manager.”

“Our manager is busy in the research facility. I am the only one in the company now. How can I help?”

Director Sun looked at the small company. How can this place be called an office? It was apparently a living quarter. It was a one-story apartment, and it was also very dim. There was not even proper furniture in here.

Was this company really worth acquiring by Manager Feng?

“I have a friend that is interested in this company, and he wishes to buy over it. Can you call your manager over?” Director Sun did not enter the messy office. He would rather wait in his car.

What? Buy over our company? Xu Xiguang looked at Director Sun and saw the Volkswagen Santana parked outside. He knew that this person must be a big boss.

“Please wait a while. I will go and call them.”

Xu Xiguang locked the office’s door and push a bicycle out from the back of the building!

Director Sun was going crazy. What company was this? It does not even have phone lines. One still needs to ride a bicycle to call others? How long will it take for you to come back?

“Never mind. Get into the car. You will give me the directions, and we will look for your manager together.”

Xu Xiguang did not reject the offer and boarded the car. He looked at the vehicle enviously. He wanted to touch everything in the car but was afraid of damaging it.

After driving for about 20 minutes, they reached a place with a sign Ningbo Bird Research Center. Director Sun was glad that he had driven over to this place. If he had waited for this person to ride his bicycle, it would take at least 2 hours.

What company was this? The office was an old and rundown one-story house, and the research center was so far away.

Director Sun did not know that the one-story house was given to them by the local government. There were no places near the research center for them to use as an office. They also could not afford the rents.

After entering the research facility, Director Sun felt better. At least he got see high-tech equipment lying around. This was at least worth buying over.

A bespectacled man, with messy hair and dirty overalls, walked over and offered a handshake to Director Sun: “Hi, I am Ningbo Bird’s Manager, Xu Lihua.”

Director Sun looked at Xu Lihua’s dirty hand, but he still shook his hand. When he started doing business, he was also not better than this Xu Lihua.

“Manager Xu, how do you do? I am Sun Lijie. I am the owner of Hangzhou’s Li Jie Trading Company.”

Xu Lihua looked at Sun Lijie with a blank look. Li Jie Trading Company? Never heard of this company before!

“It is fine if you have not heard of my company. I am the sole distributor of Songjiang Motorcycles in our province. I have a friend who wants to buy over your Ningbo Bird Company!”

When Xu Lihua heard Songjiang Motorcycles, he was in shock. This was indeed a big boss.

What? His friend wants to buy over our company?!

Chapter 406 – Fast Acquisition

The next evening, Feng Yu walked out of Hangzhou airport and saw Director Sun waiting for him with a sign there.

“Director Sun, how come you are here in Hangzhou? I thought you are at Fenghua?”

“I am back to spend time with my wife and kids. Manager Feng, are you going to Fenghua tonight or tomorrow morning?”

Spend time with his family? It was apparent that Director Sun was here to pick him. This Director Sun was very thoughtful.

“I will go tomorrow. I need to find a hotel now.”

“I had helped you book a hotel room. Leave your luggage to me. Let’s have dinner first and then I will send you to the hotel.”

It was a North-eastern restaurant. Director Sun had picked this restaurant, especially for Feng Yu.

“Before work starts, it would be best to eat something familiar. After you have successfully acquired the company, I will treat you the best local Zhejiang cuisine.”

After dinner, Director Sun sent Feng Yu to the hotel and placed his luggage in his room. Before leaving the room, Director Sun meddled with the phone in the room. He told Feng Yu that he will pick him up in the early afternoon for Fenghua tomorrow. He wants to visit his parents on the way.

Director Sun had returned from Fenghua today, and he wants to go back tomorrow? What visit his parents on the way? He had purposely come back to Hangzhou to send Feng Yu to Fenghua. If the negotiations went smoothly and he had successfully acquired Ningbo Bird, he would let Director Sun invest in this company. This was to repay him for his help.

After Director Sun left, Feng Yu walked over to the phone to see if there was anything wrong with it. There was indeed a surprise waiting for him!

There was a small card with a picture of a sexy lady printed on it. The word “Massage” was printed on it and there was a telephone number.

Feng Yu threw the card into the waste paper bin. He might be young, but that does not mean he does not have self-control. Furthermore, Feng Yu was not into prostitution.

This Old Sun ah……

After breakfast, Feng Yu returned to his room to rest for a while and Director Sun came. Feng Yu does not know how come his timing was so accurate.

The both boarded Director Sun’s car and drove to Fenghua district, Daqiao village’s government office.

“Ningbo Bird’s biggest shareholder is this village government. If we are able to persuade them, then it will not be a problem to acquire this company. The rest of the shareholders had not come out with a single cent.”

Yesterday afternoon, Director Sun had chatted with Xu Lihua and the rest for a while. He knew that the village government was the one who had paid the 100,000 RMB start-up capital of this company. These technicians were too poor to invest!

He also realized that this company was researching pagers!

This was interesting. 100,000 RMB to develop pager? Radio should be a better option! If it was so simple, then there will be pager factories everywhere!

Director Sun starts to look down on these people. But he remembered that Feng Yu wanted to acquire this company. He begins to suspect that maybe Feng Yu felt that these people would succeed?

This should not be possible. Even the many old engineers in the Cities’ research centers could not succeed. How could these few young men accomplish?

In the end, Director Sun did not think much. After all, he was helping Feng Yu. These few people had used their expertise to exchange for the company’s shares. They were also the shareholders. But they do not have the power to make decisions in this company. It was the village government that had the authority.

Director Sun also contacted the village government. When the village government knew that someone was interested in buying out Ningbo Bird company, they were overjoyed.

The village government had treated this investment as a gamble. They felt that these young men were ambitious and wanted to give them a chance. However, the government was not sure if they would succeed. But if they can sell this company at a high price to someone, that means they had won the gamble!

The village head and secretary had arrived early after they heard that the buyer was coming. It would be an achievement if they were able to sell off this company at a high price.

“Director Sun, you are here. Come, take a seat. Who is this?”

“Secretary Chen, Village head Zhang, this is the person I have told you, Manager Feng. He is interested in buying over Ningbo Bird Company.”

Secretary Chen and Village Head Zhang looked at each other. This young man was a big boss? Were they conmen? But this Director Sun owns a company in Hangzhou and Fenghua was his hometown. He was also driving a Santana. From his dressing, he does not look like a conman.

Was this Manager Feng really a big boss? Maybe it was his father who was rich.

“Hello, Manager Feng. Have a seat. This is the best Longjing Tea.”

“Thank you, Secretary Chen.” Feng Yu smiled.

“Secretary Chen” smile froze: “I am the village head, and that is our secretary.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Village Head Zhang. Hello, Secretary Chen.” There was not a hint of embarrassment on Feng Yu’s face. On the way here, he had discussed with Director Sun. He will act like an arrogant tycoon. This was to create the impression that he was stupid and wealthy.

Director Sun does not know why Feng Yu wants to do this. The village government would demand more money. However, he does not know that Feng Yu intends to settle this acquisition as fast as possible. If those technicians suddenly made a breakthrough in their research, then even if he offered higher prices, the village government will also not sell it.

“Manager Feng is very young. From your accent, are you from the north?”

“I am living in Beijing now.”

Village Head Zhang and Secretary Chen exchanged looks. Living in Beijing? Could this young man the son of some leader? There were only low-rank government officials and does not know if there were any high ranking officials with the surname Feng. But one thing for sure, they could not afford to offend any officials.

“We had heard from Director Sun that Manager Feng was interested in our Ningbo Bird Company. Are you going to invest in this company?” Village Head Zhang asked.

“Invest? I think Director Sun had not made things clear. I want to buy this company. I want to buy out everything. I want full control of this company. I do not like to be one of the shareholders!”

Secretary Chen was thinking in his heart. This person was so arrogant. He must be some second-generation useless son! But with this character, they should be able to sell the company at a high price.

“Manager Feng, this company was set up not too long ago, and if we sell it to you, we need to explain to the public and our higher-ups.”

Feng Yu knew that they were worried that they could not answer to their higher-ups. In this era, the government does not need to explain to the public.

“200,000 RMB. I know that the start-up capital for this company is only 100,000 RMB. I will give your village 200,000 RMB for this company!” Feng Yu showed two fingers.

“Errr……. Manager Feng, this company is not fully owned by the village government. There are also some technicians that own the company’s shares. We only own 51% of the company.”

“300,000 RMB. I will buy your 51% of shares! I will speak to them later.” Feng Yu showed 3 fingers.

Village Head Zhang was shocked. He had only said one sentence and Feng Yu increased the offer by 100,000 RMB. If he were to mention a few more sentences, then will the offer be increased further?

“Manager Feng. Our Fenghua and Ningbo government had high hopes for this high-tech company. If we were to sell this company for 300,000 RMB…….”

“500,0000 RMB! This is my final offer!” Feng Yu said with an impatient expression. “If you are not willing to sell, then I will look for similar companies elsewhere. Anyway, such companies were common not only in Beijing and Shanghai. There were lots of similar companies in Hangzhou too!”

Feng Yu was willing to offer such high prices was to expedite the acquisition process. Another reason was that he does not want people to say that he had taken advantage of the government. He had used 500,0000 RMB to buy 51% shares of a 100,000 RMB start-up capital company. How was this taking advantage of the government? He had paid many times more than the company’s value. Who could say anything in the future?

Secretary Chen and Village Head Zhang exchanged looks and stood up to offer Feng Yu a handshake: “Manager Feng is indeed a straightforward person. Deal!”

Chapter 407 – You will become a multi-millionaire

After they had finalized the price, Feng Yu wanted to sign the contract immediately. But Secretary Chen insists on inviting Feng Yu and Director Sun for lunch. He wanted to talk about the details of this acquisition.

During the lunch, a number of the village government officials and Xu Lihua, the manager of Ningbo Bird Company were present.

When Xu Lihua knew that the village government had reached an agreement with Feng Yu to sell off their shares, he was shocked. How come they agreed to sell off the company shares so fast? They were about to make a breakthrough in their research. How cloud the village sell off the company?

What would happen to them if this company was sold?

“Manager Feng, what do you intend to do with this company after you had bought it?” Village Head Zhang asked.

Xu Lihua almost fainted. You do not even know what the other party wants to do with the company and yet you still sell them your shares? Also, why did you ask us here after you had sold the company? Meet our new boss? I am also one of the shareholders. Should you discuss with me before you sold off your company shares?

“I had heard about Manager Xu and the rest. They are the specialist in electronic signal research. Didn’t the company is researching on pagers? Then they should carry on with this project.” Feng Yu replied.

“If the research is successful, do you intend to build a factory to manufacture pagers?”

“Of course. We have to produce pagers and build a factory if their research is successful.”

“Will this new factory be in our village?” The Village Head finally asked the question he wanted to ask.

If the factory was still in this village, then this political achievement will still be his. To set up a factory, there must be investments, equipment, purchase of land, labor, etc. All these will bring lots of benefits to the village. After the factory starts its operations, taxes must also be paid to them. This would all be his credit.

Feng Yu nodded: “It will surely be located in Ningbo. But whether if the factory will be built in Fenghua or in your village, will depend on the situation.”

Ningbo also had a port, and the traffic conditions were good. If the factory was built here, it was also good. Zhejiang’s government policies were also excellent. This was indeed the province that could rival Guangdong in the future!

Furthermore, this place was also close to Japan. Feng Yu also wanted to help those Chinese students working in Aiwa return to China. It should be a good idea to set up an electronics research center here.

Although Village Head Zhang did not get a satisfied answer from Feng Yu, as long as the factory will be built in Zhejiang, it does not matter. Their village and Fenghua were also part of Zhejiang, and the leaders should see their contribution.

But he still wanted to try his best to persuade Feng Yu: “Manager Feng, if you are setting up the factory in our village, I guaranteed that I will give you the best deals. You will be able to save a lot of money!”

“Fine. Then I shall thank you in advance.”

……

During the lunch, Feng Yu used the excuse of wanting to visit the company later to avoid drinking. He knew that all these government officials could hold their liquor well!

Feng Yu’s expression was more interesting than Director Sun when he saw the company’s office. When Director Sun started his business, he had endured hardships. He could fully understand their plight. But when Feng Yu started his business, he had rented a large warehouse. It was spacious and well furnished.

This rundown building even had mold on the walls. This place can be called an office? Was this really the office of China’s future leader of telecommunication equipment?

Today, all the technicians of Ningbo Bird were present. They were also the company’s shareholders. Feng Yu would soon be the company’s biggest shareholder, and he was the one who had called everybody here for a meeting.

When all of them saw Feng Yu, their faces were interesting. Our company was bought over by this young man? Is he even 20 years’ old? He is now our boss?

“Everybody here is also shareholders of this company. I will be announcing that I will be injecting 1 million RMB into the company. All of you can also invest according to the proportion of your shares. If not, your shares will be diluted.” Feng Yu announced.

“What? Inject 1 million RMB? The company’s start-up capital is only 100,0000 RMB. If you are investing 1 million into the company, then our shares will be diluted to less than 1/10 of our original percentage.” Xu Lihua said.

“I have said that all of you can also invest according to the percentage of your shares. This is very normal. There will be no changes to the value of the shares you are holding. When this company was set up, the start-up capital was 100,000 RMB. All of you owns 49% of the shares, which was also 49,000 RMB. Now, the company’s assets will increase by 1 million, and the shares all of you holds will still be worth 49,000 RMB. There is no change at all.”

Director Sun frowned. What was Manager Feng thinking? First, it was 500,000 RMB. He had spent several times more to buy the shares from the Village Government. Now he wants to inject 1 million RMB into the company. Could this company and these people really develop pager?

These people need to have money to invest in the first place. Xu Lihua and the rest looked at each other. Their faces showed the difficulties they were facing.

To not let their shares be diluted, they need to invest almost 1 million. If they have 1 million RMB, they would not require the government to invest 100,000 RMB in the first place.

The most hateful part of this deal was that Feng Yu had spent 500,000 RMB to buy the shares from the Village Government. But in the contract, it was stated as 51,000 RMB. The remaining 449,0000 RMB was in the form of donations to the Village government.

This way, the value of their shares remained at 49,000 RMB. If the contract had stated 500,000 RMB, then the values of their share will be increased to almost 500,000 RMB!

“Manager Feng, we cannot afford so much money.” Xu Lihua, who represented all of them said.

Feng Yu made an understanding expression: “Oh I see. Then how much can all of you afford?”

“All of us could not even cough out 50,000 RMB!” Xu Lihua replied dejectedly. At the same time, he was cursing the Village Government for selling their shares to Feng Yu so easily!

Feng Yu turned to Director Sun: “Director Sun, are you interested in investing some money?”

Director Sun was in a daze. Me? Invest in this rundown company? Isn’t this throwing my money down the drain?

But he could tell that Feng Yu was sincerely inviting him to invest. This company really can make money? Director Sun gritted his teeth. Take a gamble!

“Manager Feng, how much can I invest?”

“How much do you want to invest?”

“Can I invest 100,000 RMB? I do not have too much spare cash. If I invested all my money here, then I will not have enough to buy goods next month.”

“Fine. 100,000 RMB. I will give you 10% shares.”

10% shares? Shouldn’t it be 8.3%? Feng Yu was giving him more shares. Was this the way he was thanking him?

“Manager Feng, it’s too much.”

“You deserved it. Manager Xu, after Director Sun and I, invested in this company, all of your shares will be diluted to 4.1%. But I know the importance of technicians in this company. That’s why I will be giving all of you 10% shares, and you decide how to split.”

Xu Lihua and the rest did not expect Feng Yu would be giving them more shares. This made them feel better.

“Manager Feng, do you really think that we will succeed?”

“As long as you all believe that you will succeed, I will believe in you! I shall be honest with all of you. I had bought this company was because of all of you! It is because you are a group of hot-blooded youths. It is to prevent our country’s pager industry from being monopolized by foreign companies!”

……

After leaving the Trade and Industry Bureau, Ningbo Bird Company was officially renamed as Aiwa electronics company. All of them suddenly realized that Feng Yu was that mysterious person who had bought Japan’s Aiwa! Feng Yu will be the legal representative of this company, and Xu Lihua will remain as the General Manager. Director Sun was appointed as the Deputy General Manager and also the Finance Director.

Director Sun asked Feng Yu out of curiosity. Could this company really make money, and could these people succeed in developing their own pagers?

Feng Yu looked at Director Sun seriously: “Director Sun, I guaranteed that you will become a multi-millionaire within 5 years!”

Chapter 408 – VCD player Prototype

Back at Beijing, school reopens. Feng Yu was able to enjoy his blissful school life again. He was able to do some readings and play some basketballs with classmates after classes. It was a relaxing life.

It was lessons as usual when Feng Yu’s pager starts to vibrate. He took a peep, and it did not indicate any urgent matters. He waited until after the lesson and went to the toilet. He took out a newly bought Sony Z1 and dial the number: “Hello? I am Feng Yu.”

“Manager Feng, the prototype is ready!” Jiang Wanmeng shouted excitedly over the phone.

The prototype was developed so early? The corners of Feng Yu’s lips curled up. Another cash cow had appeared.

“Have you notified Manager Fu?”

“I have called him. He said that he will be arriving tomorrow with his men. When are you coming over?”

“Maybe tomorrow. I can’t wait to see the prototype!”

Back at the classroom, Feng Yu asked Tian Lei to help him apply 2 days leave. He needs to go to Hefei City tonight. The earliest he could return was tomorrow evenings. Tian Lei did not ask why Feng Yu was going there. He just told him to leave everything to him.

After making some calls in the afternoon, Feng Yu knew that there was a flight to Hefei City in the afternoon at 3 pm. Thus, he skipped the afternoon classes and drove straight to the airport.

Feng Yu arrived at Hefei City at about 5 pm. When he stepped out of the airport, Jiang Wanmeng had sent someone to pick him up. That person was carrying a large placard waiting for him at the arrival hall. The car he used was an old rundown van!

Feng Yu was pleased. He knew Jiang Wanmeng did not use his money on luxury items. He had used all the funds on his research. It was worth giving Jiang Wanmeng shares.

“Have Manager Fu arrived?”

“Manager Fu will be reaching at night. He needs to transfer at Chengdu Tianfu airport.”

There were no direct flights from Hong Kong to Hefei in this era. There was only one flight in the morning between Shenzhen and Hefei, and this flight still have to stop over at Shanghai.

That night, Feng Yu was in his hotel room. But he could not sleep. VCD! This was a product that would revolutionize the world!

Videotapes and Laserdiscs will be replaced by VCD. As the compressing technology evolves, there will be Super VCD and DVD later on. These were all products that could monopolize the market.

But this time, Feng Yu will not only introduce Wind and Rain VCD. He will introduce Aiwa brand of VCD. The technologies used by both company will be slightly different, and both companies will be competitors. This was to prevent the companies from being sued for monopolizing the market.

If people found out that Wind and Rain brand, and Aiwa, were owned by the same person, then Feng Yu would use this technology to work with Lenovo. He will let CD-ROM replace all the floppy disk in the computers.

Feng Yu had finally contacted Lenovo, but the results were disappointing. The current Lenovo has not been restructured yet. It was not a shareholding. Liu Chuanzhi does not have a single share in the company.

When Feng Yu invited Liu Chuanzhi and his men to join him, he was rejected. It was because the computer research facility had told them that the company might be changed to a shareholding.

When the company was to change to a shareholding company, Liu Chuanzhi and the rest of the pioneer staffs will get some shares. Liu Chuanzhi will undoubtedly remain as the General Manager of the company, and the higher-ups had said that Liu Chuanzhi might even become the Chairman!

This was not a choice between being first in a village or second in Rome. Both options were good options. With the support of the country, Liu Chuanzhi felt that Lenovo will be the best in China and even the world. Although Feng Yu had promised to invest and give him shares, Feng Yu will still be holding on to the overall authority of the company.

Feng Yu was very disappointed when Liu Chuanzhi rejected him. But he remembered that after Lenovo was restructured, it sold some of its shares to other companies and these companies were private companies. The was also why Lenovo was known as a private enterprise in the future. It was because the government had only owned 30% of the shares.

Liu Chuanzhi refusal to join Feng Yu and insisted on remaining in Lenovo did not stop Feng Yu’s determination of getting a stake in Lenovo. If Lenovo wants to grow fast, funds were needed. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Lenovo used the strategy of reinvesting their profits to grow, and this strategy had limited its growth.

It was until 1996, Lenovo had accumulated enough funds to engage in a price war. That was the time when Lenovo became China’s number one computer company. It was only after a few more years when they accumulate enough funds to become one of the top few computer companies in the world.

If Feng Yu could not poach Liu Chuanzhi, then could he stop Feng Yu from investing in Lenovo? 586 computers will appear next year, and the development of computers will grow more rapidly. Foreign companies’ products will enter China.

Feng Yu does not believe that when he wants to invest in Lenovo at that time, they will reject him.

The computer research facility got its funding from the government. Don’t they want more funds to continue their research?

When the VCD entered the market next year, Wind and Rain will become one of the superpowers in the consumer electronics appliances. Feng Yu could exchange his shares with Lenovo.

Feng Yu fell asleep late at night. The next morning, when he went downstairs for breakfast, he saw Fu Guangzheng having breakfast. He had arrived late last night, and he did not wake Feng Yu up.

After breakfast, both went to the research facility. Jiang Wanmeng had been waiting for them.

“Please take a look at this. This is the VCD player prototype we have developed!” Jiang Wanmeng removed a piece of red cloth, showing a machine underneath.

It was about 20 cm thick and 50 cm long. The width was about 40 cm. It was much larger than what Feng Yu imagined. The casing was made of metal and seems heavy.”

“Manager Jiang, how heavy is this prototype?”

“About 13 KG.”

13KG? This was too heavy. A video cassette player weights only about 5 kg. Feng Yu remembered that VCD players were much lighter than video cassette players.

“Manager Jiang, can this player be made smaller and lighter?” Feng Yu frowned and asked.

“There should not be any problems. This was only a prototype. Many of the components can be replaced by plastics. But the cost will increase.” Jiang Wanmeng replied.

“Will it affect the quality?”

“That is not possible. The video quality is the most important technology of this player. We cannot compromise on the quality. This is only a prototype. We guaranteed that we will reduce the weight to about 8 kg within a month. We will change some parts, like the buttons, to plastics. The quality will not be affected.”

8KG was still acceptable. In the future years, an LCD TV will also weigh about 15 to 20KG. It seems that the heavier a product was, the consumers will think that it was of better quality. If the product was too light, consumers might think that it was an empty box.

“Fine. Do you have VCD discs? Play it. I want to look at the picture quality.”

Jiang Wanmeng removed the antenna from the back of the TV and connected the VCD player. He switched it on and insert the VCD into the player. He pressed a few buttons, and it started playing.

The TV showed the New Year’s Day award ceremony. The host’s features could be clearly seen on the TV, and the sound quality was crystal clear.

When the first song was performed, Feng Yu heard Nan Ge’s voice. He nodded with approval.

“Brother Fu, what do you think?”

Fu Guangzheng was clapping and nodding: “Luckily I had invested in this company. This VCD will surely replace video cassette players and will take the world by storm!”

Fu Guangzheng was overjoyed. He had never made any losses when he followed Feng Yu!

Luckily he was friends with Feng Yu!

Chapter 409 – Sony’s outraged

The VCD factory was still under construction and was scheduled to be completed last this year. The factory’s production would reach 500,000 units monthly.

After the success of the VCD, Feng Yu reminded Fu Guangzheng to quickly apply for the patent. This time, they must take the anti-trust laws into consideration.

Feng Yu had also told Fu Guangzheng that Wind and Rain, and Aiwa will work together. Wind and Rain will give the VCD technology to Aiwa. Aiwa brand was also a force not to be reckoned with.

This VCD was not only for movies. It can also be used to revolutionize the Karaoke industry. Aiwa was a prominent brand in music players. This will also increase the sales of music VCDs sales.

Currently, Fu Guangzheng had the rights to several records companies’ songs. These songs were not only in Chinese but also in English, Japanese, French and many other languages.

Feng Yu told them that once the factory was completed, they will manufacture the VCD disc first. It was because VCD disc sales will be several times more than the players!

This was the best opportunity. When the VCD players are launched, there will not be any pirated discs. But when the pirated VCDs start to appear in the market, the original discs will have a significant impact.

In Feng Yu’s past life, pirated VCDs sales were more than 10 times of those original discs. China’s piracy was one of the tops in the world. For example, when a Hong Kong singer launches a music VCD, the original version might be able to sell over 100,000 copies. But in reality, over a million people had bought this VCD. People were listening to this singer’s songs, but the singer did not earn a single cent from them. All the money were made by the piracy businessman!

But without a doubt, the appearance of VCD will stimulate the records industry again. Music videos allowed the fans to watch their favorite singers performing. Many songs got famous because of their music videos.

Feng Yu wished for this to happen as soon as possible. The more music videos were produced, the more people will buy VCD players, and the more he will earn!

Exchanging technologies with Aiwa would also mean that Wind and Rain will introduce its own Walkman or CD/

Heitaro Nakajima had been following Feng Yu’s instruction to continue to develop Walkman and CD players. CD and VCD had some common technologies. After these two companies exchanged technologies, both companies will benefit greatly.

Actually, Aiwa could start to produce CD players now. But their technologies were still behind Sony. If Aiwa were to introduce CD players into the market now, they will not earn many profits but will also suffer reputation losses.

Aiwa was now the best Walkman manufacture. Even when Sony had used BEE technology in their Walkman and had quality sounds, they were labeled as imitations.

Sony felt wronged. They had this technology for a long time. But they just had not introduced it. Norio Ohga was frustrated. After all, he was in-charge of Aiwa in the past.

Norio Ohga was tricked by Heitaro Nakajima. If Norio Ohga had known that Aiwa’s technology was so advanced, he would never sell off Aiwa’s shares. With Sony’s scale, they were still able to help Aiwa with their debts.

After Sony had bought Columbia Pictures, they were losing money every year. The losses they incurred could buy several Aiwa.

Aiwa would surely be able to repay their debts to Sony this year. After Aiwa had repaid their debts, they will have no relationships with Sony! Sony will also not want to see their former little brother becoming bigger than them.

But Sony was really unlucky. They had introduced better Walkman, but they were still losing to Aiwa. If this carries on, this year, Aiwa will overtake Sony and become the world’s leader in the Walkman industry!

How did Sony got labeled as imitations? It was all because of Feng Yu. Feng Yu had spent money to get the media in the Western countries to write articles about Sony copying Aiwa. He even provides the media with proofs.

For instance, one of Sony’s latest model had the most advanced technologies and also the best-looking design. Aiwa immediately pointed out the areas, like colors, technologies, where Sony had copied them.

Sony felt innocent. These technologies were almost the same. How could a Walkman function without a magnetic head? Colors were the most ridiculous. How many colors were there in this world? Aiwa had shamelessly introduced almost all sort of colors. No matter what color Sony uses, there will be similarities.

Similar does not mean imitating!

The exterior design was also nonsensical. All the Walkman were rectangular. Does Sony need to produce round Walkman just like CD players? If being rectangular shaped was imitating Aiwa, then all Walkman brands in this world were copying them!

But no matter what, Sony’s reputation was affected. Even their other products’ sales had dropped.

A Walkman had affected Sony’s brand value!

Once again, Norio Ohga was reprimanded at the board of directors by the Chairman. But luckily for him, his rival was also not spared.

This was because Nintendo had broken their partnership with Sony!

The video game industry had been Sony’s focus all this while. As people lives became better, they faced more stress. Video games were an excellent way to relieve stress. This will be a striving industry.

Sony had wanted to venture into this industry but was suddenly kicked aside by Nintendo. It was just like the way Sony had treated Aiwa in the past.

Sony had finally experienced the feeling of being betrayed.

They had invested lots of manpower, resources, and energy in the video game industry. But when they finally beat SEGA, they were kicked aside by Nintendo.

That’s right. Nintendo was the market leader in the video game industry. Without Sony, Nintendo will still be the number one video game company in the world.

Because of this incident, Sony made a critical decision. They will develop their own video game console. They have the technology and will surely take back the market share.

But at this time, Nintendo made an announcement. They will be working with Aiwa to continue to develop a video game console!

Sony was going crazy. How could Aiwa capabilities be compared with them? Nintendo had decided to stop working with them and chose Aiwa?

Sony discovered that this was the reason why there was no room for negotiations with Nintendo. They had been backstabbed by Aiwa!

Why did Nintendo choose to cooperate with Aiwa? It was because of China! Nintendo had wanted to enter the Chinese market. The Chinese market was a huge market due to the population. Their spending power was also increasing rapidly. This would increase their profits in the future.

Aiwa’s Chinese brand meant “love China,” and it was extremely popular in China now. It had occupied over 90% of the market share in the Walkman industry.

Also, there was already many video game consoles in China. There was no way for Nintendo to enter the Chinese market. They need Aiwa’s distribution channels and connections to open up the Chinese market. This was critical to Nintendo.

Furthermore, Aiwa had good engineers and diversified sales channels. Aiwa could make up for the losses incurred by Nintendo for breaking their agreement with Sony.

Aiwa had entered the video game industry!

Chapter 410 – Learning Machine

Feng Yu had been eyeing the video games industry a long time ago. Just look at Nintendo! Their annual profits were a few hundred million USD! How much was the cost of a gaming console? It was only about 100 USD, and it was selling for hundreds and even up to thousands.

Feng Yu had done his research. Currently, in China, there were only those small and simple video game consoles. One console only cost less than 800 RMB. Compared to Nintendo consoles, which cost over 1,000 RMB, it was very cheap.

This was also because of Little Tyrant. The gaming consoles they introduced were very cheap and was compatible with Nintendo’s game cartridges. The places that sold the game cartridges had lots of pirated cartridges. This was also one of the reasons why Nintendo could not establish a foothold in China. Although they had lower the prices of their games, they could not penetrate the market.

Their consoles were not allowed to be exported to China at that time!

The Little Tyrant video game console was now the market leader in China and had occupied over 60% of the market share. No other company in China could challenge them.

The Little Tyrant had used low prices to attract consumers. But one console still cost over 100 RMB. Feng Yu remembered that the video game consoles’ prices will drop to only 40 RMB in his past life. If the distributer’s profits and transportation cost were not included, the cost of one console was less than 30 RMB.

The Little Tyrant had relied on their advertising on CCTV and lucky draws to increase their popularity. But if Aiwa or Wind and Rain brand were to introduce video game consoles, the consumers will surely pick them over The Little Tyrant because of their branding.

The problem faced by Aiwa or Wind and Rain, if they were to introduce video game consoles, was that its prices cannot be lower than The Little Tyrant. Both brands were positioning themselves as high-end brands and even when their products had similar functions with other brands, they were priced higher. If they were to introduce a game console that cost only a few dozen RMB, it would give the consumers the impression that this was a low-end product. It will also affect the Walkman or even the Super fans’ sales.

But Feng Yu does not have a way to work around this problem? What was the most profitable product sold by The Little Tyrant in his previous life? Video game console? No. It was The Little Tyrant learning machine!

What was a learning machine? It was a small machine with a keyboard and look like a 486 computer. One could learn a simple programming language, typing, languages and even foreign languages. All it needs were the right cartridges.

The Little Tyrant had introduced this type of learning machine was because China had allowed the importation of video game console. Nintendo had entered the Chinese market, and the Little Tyrant game consoles were only imitations of the Nintendo. Nintendo had the patents, and The Little Tyrant had infringed their copyright. Even their advertisement at CCTV was considered illegal!

Nintendo’s products were not sold in China because China at this time had banned all gaming consoles entering China. Other than some that were brought back to China, most of Nintendo that was sold on China were smuggled goods!

China’s policy had let The Little Tyrant the opportunity to grow. Of course, there were also other factories in China that were doing the same thing. But The Little Tyrant was the one that successfully became China’s market leader!

The Little Tyrant does not know that they were imitating Nintendo and had infringed the copyright? Of course, they knew it! But in this era, China does not care about patents and copyrights. There were only a handful of companies like Tai Hua Trading who applied for patents for their products.

Anyway, everybody was doing this, and the government also did not take action against them. Nintendo was also unable to sue them. They could take the opportunity to grow. Early last year, The Little Tyrant still had 2 million RMB debts.

But this year, The Little Tyrant had more than 10 million RMB of assets, and this was still growing rapidly!

The Little Tyrant’s growth will come to an end now. Aiwa and Nintendo will jointly develop a new product, and it will be the learning machine, which was produced by The Little Tyrant in Feng Yu’s previous life.

This idea will be used by Feng Yu, and it will be called the Aiwa Learning Machine. It will only be sold in the Chinese market. This was suggested by Aiwa as Aiwa’s products were popular in China. Aiwa will get 70% of the profits, while Nintendo will only get 30%.

Nintendo’s only aim was to penetrate the Chinese market. Thus, its only condition was for them to use Aiwa’s China sales distribution channels free of charge. They firmly believed that their products will quickly gain a foothold in China and will capture the market. They do not care about this learning machines as the profits were too negligible. It was not in line with Nintendo’s way of doing things.

The proud Nintendo thought that they could stand on top of the world’s video game industry. They had even beaten SEGA. Who else could challenge them?

The Chinese market was a vast market. They firmly believe that it will be just like how they had penetrated and control the US and Europe markets. Their products will beat all competitors!

Feng Yu and Nintendo had different views. Games were the biggest asset of the video game industry. Nintendo thinks the games they developed will continue to control the industry, but they never expect that they will be replaced by computer games in the future. Consoles were slowly replaced by computers.

No matter how sophisticated and advanced Nintendo’s technologies were, the sales of their consoles will drop. This would happen in only a few years’ time.

Aiwa and Nintendo’s cooperation were progressing very fast. In another month’s time, the learning machines prototype will be ready, and by July, it will be produced in large scale for the Chinese market/

To entice Nintendo to work with Aiwa, Feng Yu had sought the help of Master Lu to allow video game console to be imported into China. Feng Yu knew that even when China enable foreign companies to import their game consoles into China, they will not sell.

The Little Tyrant and the other low-cost video game console had already controlled the market. Even Aiwa’s Learning Machine, which was priced similar to Nintendo consoles, will be selling better than these foreign video game console.

The same prices, learning machine, will encourage learning, and at the same time, one could have fun. Video game consoles can only be used to play games. Who do you think will the parents buy for their children? Which parents do not want their children to do well in their studies? Which parent will want their children to play video games every day? Just the name itself will increase the sales!

If Nintendo performed better than what Feng Yu expects, then Feng Yu will start another movement to support China goods. If this could create problems for Sony, it will be the same for Nintendo.

Feng Yu had to take precautions against the foreign companies and also the domestic companies. The Little Tyrant will be introducing their learning machine sometime late this year. But Feng Yu will not let them have the chance. He still has a trick up his sleeve!

“Fine, Manager Feng. I know what to do. I will register this brand.”

After hanging up the phone, Wu Zhigang immediately went to the Trade and Industry Bureau to register “Learning Machine” as a trademark. That means no other products can be called Learning Machine in the future. This will be a brand. A brand that was owned by Aiwa!

After hanging up, Feng Yu smiled. Without the Learning Machine, he wants to see how The Little Tyrant competes with him. The Little Tyrant should be going into his arms soon……

Chapter 411 – Why does he want to sell medicine?

“Manager Feng, my research and development of the multivitamin tablets is almost complete. Now, we can combine a few vitamins into a small tablet.” Professor Zhao showed his sample to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was speechless. This was a huge tablet. Do you really want people to eat such big vitamin tablets?

“How many vitamins are there in this tablet and what is contents of each vitamin?”

“There are about 20 vitamins and about 2 grams for each vitamin.”

“Then Professor Zhao, do you know how much vitamins one person needs every day?” Feng Yu patiently asked. This tablet was over 40 grams. No wonder it as this big!

Who the hell would eat such a huge tablet every day? One would still need to chew before he could swallow the pill. Vitamin tablets should be swallowed and not chewed!

Professor Zhao immediately understood. This tablet had more than a week’s worth of vitamins. Feng Yu had said that he wanted health supplements and not medicines. This tablet should be good for the body when taken, but one would not die from not taking this tablet. Professor Zhao had made this tablet like medicine.

“We can cut this tablet into smaller tablets. One tablet can be made into 5 grams. This will be enough for one person’s daily intake of vitamins.”

“Are you telling me that people don’t eat other food? The food they eat does not have vitamins? Make it into 1 to 2 grams tablets. Also, it must be absorbed by the body easily. The contents of vitamins should be according to how much a person can absorb. You cannot have the same amount for each type of vitamins!”

Feng Yu sighed. This Professor Zhao was too one-track. If he made these health supplements into medicine, how much can these sells? If it were sold as health supplements, the prices would be several times higher!

Most importantly, it will let the consumers think that a small tablet a day will be enough for their daily vitamin intake. They will believe that this health supplement will be worth it.

This thinking will let the consumers accept higher prices.

“This should not be a problem. Give me one week to change it. Manager Feng, is there a market for this product?”

“Of course. It is a huge market. You have made a significant contribution to the country. I will be giving you the funds you needed!” Feng Yu seriously said.

Wahahaha…… It was so simple to develop a type of health supplement. Feng Yu had decided to price this multivitamin tablet at 5 times its cost. Hmmm…… I am still considered trustworthy. At least I did not price these tablets at hundred times its cost like that company Gold Partner!

This was only 1 million RMB of research funds. It was not a lot. Just this multivitamin tablet alone would bring in millions of profits every year. The returns would be several times more than what he invested. How could Feng Yu not be happy with this?

This was not the only health supplement that had been successfully developed. The Zinc Gluconate and Calcium gluconate liquid health supplements were also developed. Actually, it was effortless to develop these liquid health supplements. However, no one had done it because the Chinese were not concerned with their Zinc and calcium intake.

From the earliest Zinc and Calcium supplements, China’s health supplement industry will develop more products like all-in-one health supplements which contained iron, calcium, zinc, etc. There were also all sorts of vitamin tablets which claimed to help people increase their blood, improve their sleep and all sorts of ailements. Among these health supplements, some were to boost male vitality.

This type of concepts had started from pharmaceutical companies overseas. They were the ones that produce health supplements first. But foreigners seldom need calcium supplements, and calcium tablets were introduced as medicine in the first place.

But the pharmaceutical companies saw that these calcium tablets were not selling well as medicine. They soon discover the Chinese market. As the Chinese living standards improved, they started to look into their health. The companies thought of a way to introduce their calcium tablets to China. This was to market these tablets as health supplements.

This was why Calcium supplements had appeared in China first before the other companies started to introduce different types of health supplements!

In the future, some foreigners joked about the Chinese were all suffering from calcium deficiency. Calcium could be taken in by one’s body through a healthy diet and vitamins that would be produced by one’s body by being under the sun, could be sold as health supplements in China.

These pharmaceutical companies had made used of the Chinese thinking of wanting longevity and wanting the best for their children, to sell their calcium tablets. They marketed their pills as some supplements that could prevent Osteoporosis and also help children grow taller.

Because of these simple marketing tactics, China became the world’s highest intake of Calcium health supplements in the future!

Were these companies telling the truth? Maybe it was to a certain extent. Calcium tablets were not that useful to prevent Osteoporosis in old people. There were many causes of Osteoporosis. No matter how much calcium tablets you take or how well your body could absorb, it would be useless if you do not seek the right medical treatment. There were also many reasons that would affect a child’s growth. Calcium was only one of the many reasons.

Rather than letting those foreigner companies earn this money, Feng Yu would want to earn this sum of money himself.

However, Feng Yu needed a Pharmaceutical factory before he could manufacture these tablets! Feng Yu recalled about the development of the pharmaceutical factory in Bing city. It became successful because of Zinc Gluconate and Calcium gluconate liquid health supplements.

At their peak, their sales were twice of the total sales of all other companies!

In the future, some wealthy businessmen were into the pharmaceutical business. Most of their companies were joint partnerships with foreign companies. Foreigners had made a fortune from this industry.

But in this life, this scenario will never happen. China’s pharmaceutical industry will start the health supplement trend. The first company to enter this trend was Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Factory!

……

“what did you say? You want to invest in Bing City Pharmaceutical Factory?” Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu surprised. He does not understand why Feng Yu had wanted to sell medicine when all his other businesses were doing so well.

Zhang Ruiqiang had come to Beijing to brief the higher-ups on the developments of the farmers returning the cultivated lands. The government will be issuing a sum of compensation to the farmers. By sending out the farmers to farm overseas, China would also benefit from it. This had also reminded the Government that China had lots of farmers and not enough fields. This was an excellent way to solve this problem!

Zhang Ruiqiang was in-charged of these two projects, and he had also missed his chance to enter the ministries. When he had forecasted the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the higher-ups had high expectations of him. But as the person in charge of these projects, Zhang Ruiqiang could be transferred to the ministries immediately. Thus, Bing City’s party secretary got to be transferred to the Foreign Affairs Ministry. He was appointed as the number 3 man there. Although he was still the same rank, his authority now was higher than when he was at Bing City!

The Mayor was to take over the Party Secretary position, and the mayor position was vacant. Bing City was considered a Sub-Provincial City and the Mayor got to assist the Provincial Mayor. Bing City’s Mayor will also be the Provincial Deputy Mayor. Many people were eyeing this position. This was a promotion.

But Longjiang Province’s Mayor wanted Zhang Ruiqiang to take over the position of Bing City’s Mayor. Although Zhang Ruiqiang had moved up the ranks fast, he was already in his 40s. He was one of the younger officials that the higher-ups were looking at. Also, Zhang Ruiqiang had accomplished some feats, and he deserved this promotion.

In the end, Zhang Ruiqiang won against all his rivals and got the position of Bing City’s Mayor. He had come to Beijing for his promotion procedures when he received Feng Yu’s call. He thought that Feng Yu had a good deal for him and he purposely spare time to meet Feng Yu.

But Zhang Ruiqiang never expects that Feng Yu wanted to sell medicine now.

Chapter 412 – Persuading Zhang Ruiqiang

“Feng Yu ah, why do you want to invest in the pharmaceutical factory out of no reason? I have to agree that you have are talented in the manufacturing industry. Regardless of Tai Hua Trading or the Machinery Company, and even when you want to manufacture automobiles, the city will support you. But this pharmaceutical business is totally different. Medicine and mechanical are two different fields!” Zhang Ruiqiang tried to persuade Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was someone he admired. Both of them were not like government officials and businessman. They were more like friends. Feng Yu had brought many changes to Bing City and had helped to revive the industrial sector there. Zhang Ruiqiang had also helped Feng Yu a lot and had helped him prevent problems arising from the government. He had even gone to look for the Provincial Number 1 for Feng Yu. This was all because many people were jealous of Feng Yu for making so much money.

If Feng Yu wanted to try manufacturing new products in the manufacturing sector or want to invest in Bing City’s state-owned factories, he would not reject. He will even support Feng Yu’s decision. But while he supports Feng Yu, he will also try to get the best benefits for the city.

But now Feng Yu wanted to invest in the pharmaceutical factory. Was he kidding? Although the pharmaceutical factory was about to undergo restructuring, it was not about to let others invest in the factory. After all, this factory was producing life-saving medicine. If Feng Yu were to invest in the factory, he would surely try to maximize the profits. The prices of the medicine will be increased to gain more profits. This would cause outrage among the residents!

“Leader, how does the pharmaceutical factory earn money? Selling that conventional medicine? Can’t the other factories can also produce the same things? The profitable medicines were all in the hands of the foreign companies. For example, the companies that discovered penicillin and Oxytetracycline had made lots of profits then. Now, if we were to produce penicillin, how much can we earn? I have some formulas in my hands now. Of course, it is not developed by me. It was developed by the professors from Beijing University. These products will surely fill the gaps. How many profits do you think there is?”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu suspiciously. Feng Yu had some medicine formulas that could fill the gaps for the country? He does not only have one formula? If Feng Yu said that he has only one formula, Zhang Ruiqiang might still believe him. Maybe he had gotten the formula from somewhere. He does not believe that Feng Yu had more than one formula.

Although the professors at Beijing University were smart, they were not the top professors in the medical field. They could not even be compared to the professors in Bing City Pharmaceutical Factory. They should be considered lucky if there had inspirations to create one type of medicine. How could they develop a few types of medicine?

There must be something going on behind!

“Tell me about the medicines. What illness are these medicine for? If it is for common flu and cough, then there is no need to talk anymore. There are almost a hundred of this type of medicines around!”

Feng Yu started to count with his fingers while telling Zhang Ruiqiang about his formulas: “There is a Calcium Gluconate solution which will supplement calcium for children.  Zinc gluconate solution which will supplement zinc for children. There is also Antianemic, which is to help women increase their red blood cells. There is also calcium tablets for the elderly to supplement their calcium. There is also a multivitamin tablet……”

“Wait, are these all medicines?” Zhang Ruiqiang interrupted Feng Yu. These sound more like tonics!

What sort of medicines are these? These were obviously health supplement products! This rascal was trying to fool him!

“These are medicines. Health supplements. You can also call these tonics….”

“Stop your nonsenses. What tonics are you talking about? You might as well tell me that these are health supplements. You want Bing City’s Pharmaceutical factory to help you manufacture these health supplements? That is our Pharmaceutical Factory and not any food-related factory!” Zhang Ruiqiang was furious.

The pharmaceutical factory should focus on producing drugs. These drugs will be used to save lives. What were health supplements? These were products that might not be beneficial to a human body, but also, it will not harm the body!

You want to invest in Bing City Pharmaceutical Factory to produce these products? Dream on!

“Leader, are you sure you do not want me to invest in our pharmaceutical factory? Let me analyze for you. It is not that I cannot produce these liquid oral medicines. I am the major shareholder of Lehaha. I do not even need to increase the production lines. All I need is to modify one of the production lines. Also, I can just hire or acquire any small pharmaceutical factory to produce calcium tablets and the multivitamin tablets.”

Then go ahead. Stop thinking about Bing City’s factory!” Zhang Ruiqiang angrily said. His expression now was like a mother hen protecting her chicks.

“Leader, how many pharmaceutical factories are there in Bing City and how much profits do all the factories make in total?”

“There are about 30 factories. I do not know the exact figures, but it should be over 10 million RMB annually.” Zhang Ruiqiang proudly replied. 10 million profits were a lot, and the taxes were not a small amount. These factories also provided employment to thousands of workers. This was one of the more significant industry in Bing City.

“Only 10 million? If those factories are producing my medicines at full scale…… Fine. Health supplements. The total monthly profits will over 10 million RMB!” Feng Yu showed one finger and said confidently.

“What did you say? One-month profit can reach 10 million?”

“This is the minimum!”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the sales for just the Calcium Gluconate and Zinc gluconate oral solution annually were more than 1 billion RMB. Although the spending power of the people was not as strong as a few years later, there were other products like the Antianemic oral solution and a multivitamin tablet. Then, diet pills will also be introduced. All of these products were cash cows in his previous life.

Zhang Ruiqiang was tempted by the high profits. If Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Factory could have over 100 million RMB of profits, then the city could use this money for many things. The city’s development will be much faster. The plans he had could also be realized earlier.

“We are not the first pharmaceutical factory to produce health supplements. This is also not illegal. Also, it is market economy now, and we should follow the market trend. When Bing City pharmaceutical factories’ profits increases, the workers’ lives will also be better. The city will also have more money and the taxes collected will increase. Think about what the city can do with the money.”

“Do you have the approval papers for all these health supplements?” Zhang Ruiqiang suddenly asked.

Feng Yu laughed embarrassedly: “I think Bing City’s pharmaceutical factory should be more suitable to apply for the permits for production. This is their expertise.”

If I have the permits, would I still be wasting time talking to you? I would be talking to those factories already.

Zhang Ruiqiang laughed: “How much do you want to invest?”

Feng Yu’s eyes brighten up. Zhang Ruiqiang had agreed? It was not easy to obtain the permits for these products. Feng Yu had asked Master Lu, but Master Lu had told him that he does not have many connections in the medical field. It might take some time and money to get the permits.

Feng Yu then remembered the pharmaceutical factories in Bing City. He needs to work with large pharmaceutical factories to produce his products anyway. The factories in Bing City was considered significant and could fully satisfy Feng Yu’s demands. But the factories now were very different from the future years, where these factories had merged into a large corporation. Furthermore, if he were to cooperate with Bing City’s pharmaceutical factories, he could save a lot of troubles.

In current China, the local government will make life difficult for the investors after they had invested in their area. This was especially so for joint ventures. This type of situation will change only in about 2 years’ time. It would be a thorough change. The investors at that time will sign harsh contracts with the local government to squeeze them dry.

“Based on the current value of Bing city’s pharmaceutical factories, all the pharmaceutical factories in Bing City that is owned by the government have to be merged into a large corporation. I will use my formulas and money to invest in this company for 49% of the shares. I also want the decision-making rights. I promise that Bing City Pharmaceutical Corporation will be China’s largest pharmaceutical company!”

China’s biggest pharmaceutical company, these few words attracted the attention of Zhang Ruiqiang. He had plans to restructure all the pharmaceutical factories under him before. But his proposal was rejected by the former Party Secretary as he felt that it was not the right time yet.

But now, it is the right time!

“Come back to Bing City in a few days’ time. We still need to discuss the details.”

Chapter 413 – Wu Zhigang’s superiority

The first thing Zhang Ruiqiang did when he took over the position of Bing City’s Mayor was to restructure Bing city’s pharmaceutical factories. He wants to merge all the factories under the Bing City’s Ministry of Health into a large corporation. He also wants to increase the products and also attract investors. This news created an uproar in the City.

Most of the companies that were restructured were making loss-making companies. Although some companies were not making losses, it was only a handful. These companies were usually consumer goods companies. None of these companies were related medical companies.

There were about 30 to 40 companies under the Ministry of Health, and some of these companies had been restructured before. They were not wholly owned by the government. It was too difficult to implement this plan.

The people do not understand why Zhang Ruiqiang wanted to merge all these companies together. The city government needs to spend a lot to implement this proposal. Many people suspect that Zhang Ruiqiang was doing this to earn political achievement. He wanted Bing City to have a sizeable Pharmaceutical Corporation the moment he became the mayor!

Zhang Ruiqiang had already proposed this when he was still the executive deputy mayor. But the Mayor at that time did not agree nor disagree. It was Bing City’s Party Secretary that had opposed to this proposal. But now, the Secretary had left, and Zhang Ruiqiang had become the Mayor. He immediately proposes this matter again. What was he thinking?

The pharmaceutical industry can become Bing City’s mainstay industry? What a joke! No one had ever heard of which city had treated this industry as their mainstay industry. If selling medicine were profitable, the public will be cursing!

Zhang Ruiqiang had already thought of this problem. He knew that there was a similar example overseas. A city with an MNC Pharmaceutical Corporation could change the city. Not only there will be an increase in tax revenue, but also it will create jobs. It will also promote the city. There were also lots of other benefits.

There were too many pharmaceutical factories in Bing City, and their scale was too small. Each was fighting its own battles. From Feng Yu’s Tai Hua Trading, Zhang Ruiqiang saw the importance of branding. If in the future, all the medicine produced by Bing City Pharmaceutical Factories had the words ‘Bing City Pharmaceutical Corporation’ printed on the packaging, people would think that this Pharmaceutical corporation was a reliable company. This would increase their sales for other medications.

Other than some anti-inflammation medicines, the pharmaceutical factories in Bing City could not compete with other pharmaceutical factories. If it wasn’t for the City providing support, some of these factories were already deeply in debt.

Those factories were doing well were making about 1 million RMB annually. Those that were not doing well were only breaking even. If these factories were not merged, then those factories that were not doing well will be obsolete soon. When that happens, the City Government will need to think of a way to save these factories and find employment for those workers. This would be a massive problem for the government.

These companies were valued at about 200 million RMB, but their annual profits were only approximately 100 million. Look at the Machinery Company. What was their company’s value when it was restructured and what was their yearly profits? Needless to say, Feng Yu’s Tai Hua Trading had only a start-up capital of 200,000 RMB. But the profits for their first year was more than 1 million! The taxes Tai Hua Trading paid last year was more than 10 million!

At first, Zhang Ruiqiang still has some hesitations. He was worried that after the merger, those factories that were doing well will be drag down by the rest of the factories. But since Feng Yu gave his promise, he believed that Feng Yu would be able to deliver what he said. This kid had a Midas touch. All his businesses were profitable. Even when his family rear pigs, the annual profits could let people’s jaws dropped to the ground!

Feng Yu was indeed a genius when it comes to sales. But Zhang Ruiqiang was unsure if Feng Yu knew how to sell medicine. If Feng Yu was also good in this field, then Bing City Pharmaceutical Corporation will definitely be a success!

Zhang Ruiqiang was a capable person and had the most experience when it comes to company restructuring in Bing City. Most of the companies that had undergone restructuring were doing well. Of course, there were some that failed. But it was fine as the workers were also arranged to work in other companies. Overall, it was more good than harm.

Those that were capable were more decisive. Since Zhang Ruiqiang had already decided on this course of action, then it must be successful.

There might be some problems in this proposal in the first place. It was because mergers and restructuring require lots of funds. But now, with Feng Yu coming into the picture, Feng Yu could provide the funds. Also, Feng Yu had promised that he would not want the majority stake. All these critical issues were solved.

Others might not understand Feng Yu, but Zhang Ruiqiang was the only official that understands him the most. He believed in Feng Yu. Feng Yu was already a super tycoon, but he did not spend his money lavishly, other than donating all sorts of school buildings.

It was hard to find someone that behave this way after becoming wealthy. This was Feng Yu’s plus point!

To let Feng Yu invest, Zhang Ruiqiang must first persuade the other leaders in the City.

……

“I had called for this meeting today is to discuss the possibility of merging all pharmaceutical factories under out Ministry of Health into a corporation. Today I had invited the representatives of our Ministry of Health, and Pharmaceutical Administration to this meeting. I have also invited Tai Hua Trading’s Manager Wu Zhigang. I have already sent out the information to everybody. If you have any opinions, you can voice out now.”

When the other leaders saw Wu Zhigang attending this meeting, they were shocked. This was a City Government meeting. As this concerns the related medical industry, it was okay for the representatives of our Ministry of Health, and Pharmaceutical Administration to attend this meeting. But what does this meeting got to do with Wu Zhigang? How can Tai Hua Trading Company even qualify to be present in this meeting?

Although Wu Zhigang was sitting at a corner, he was the center of attraction like Zhang Ruiqiang. All the leaders were looking at him, but he was not afraid.

Wu Zhigang remembered what Feng Yu had told him and had been using these words to encourage himself.

You are the deputy manager of Tai Hua Trading. Tai Hu Trading Company is the largest private company in Longjiang province. The annual taxes paid by the company are the salaries of these officials. You are a taxpayer, and they are the public servants. They should be serving us, and their salaries come from the taxes we paid. We are the ones that are giving them their bread and butter!

Furthermore, how did Bing City’s industries develop so rapidly? Without Tai Hua Trading selling those advanced and cheap equipment from the Soviet Union to those factories, would it be possible?

Also, our Tai Hua Trading is not any pushover. Just treat those leaders with respect. But if they do not give you any respects, then you do not need to care about them. As long as it is not illegal, I will help you get back to those that bully you!

This was the reason why when Wu Zhigang felt like he was looking at those distributors when he saw those officials. He was not afraid of them. He even dares to stare back at those who stared at him.

It was all those government officials that backed down first. They knew that the Mayor was backing Tai Hua Trading. Wu Zhigang could attend this meeting must be invited by the Mayor. If they make things difficult for Wu Zhigang, that means they were going against the Mayor. Zhang Ruiqiang had just become the Mayor, and this was not the right time to go against him.

But this Wu Zhigang was too sickening. He was only a deputy manager of a private company and why does he have a sense of superiority in his eyes when he looks at us?

Chapter 414 – Speaking with facts!

This meeting was very weird. No one wants to say anything first. Zhang Ruiqiang had no choice but to call out names. The first person was someone he arranged.

It was Bing City’s new Deputy Mayor. He was also the lowest ranking Deputy Mayor. But his opinions outweigh most of the rest as last month, he was still the Provincial Mayor’s personal secretary!

“I had just been transferred over to Bing City, but I am familiar with this city. Restructuring of state-owned enterprises has been happening all over the country now. Our Bing City is one of the forerunners in China, and the higher-ups were pleased with our restructuring results over the past few years. Who was the one that had led these restructuring? It is Mayor Zhang. Among all of us here, no one is more experienced than him when it comes to restructuring. I had read through the information carefully. I am not sure if the rest had noticed one thing. Most of the pharmaceutical factories are producing the same medicines. This means that we are competing among ourselves. Also, the resources and energy are too diversified, and this is not good if we were to compete with pharmaceutical companies from other provinces. If we can merge all these factories and companies into a corporation, we can pool our resources together and increases our competitiveness. This is the reason why I support Mayor Zhang’s proposal!”

Those that wanted to object this proposal starts to hesitate. This was the Provincial number 1’s secretary. Are his views in line with the Provincial number? If the Provincial number 1 supports this proposal and they object, they will be going against him. Will there still be promotions for them? Will they be transferred to the backend like Deputy Mayor Xu?

After that, the rest of the deputies started to express their views. They did not say that they support or reject this proposal. They also expressed their concerns. All of them felt that this merger was a good thing, but it could not be implemented. This should be put off for a later date.

When it was the Executive Deputy Mayor’s turn to talk, he strongly objects to this proposal.

“There are 31 factories, which are not restructured, under our Pharmaceutical Administration office. If we add in those restructured factories, there will be 43 factories. How much effort is required if we were to merge all these companies into a corporation? If we are going on with this proposal, then this will be the city government main focus. Maybe one month is not sufficient even when all of us here focuses all our efforts on this merger! Furthermore, some individuals and foreign investors have shares in some of those factories. How will we go about implementing this merger?”

The Executive Deputy Mayor was pleased when he noticed everybody listening to him tentatively. He was groomed by the Provincial Number 2. He had very different views from Zhang Ruiqiang. He felt that it should be those loss-making factories that need to be restructured. Those that were doing well should carry on. If this proposal fails, then those factories that were doing well will also be affected. There were some precedents of this happening.

“Even if we were to merge all these factories and the restructuring process were proceeding smoothly, but what about the money? After the merger, we will have to pool the resources, and we have to let go of those toxic assets. Some people will have to let go, and some factories will have to be close down. The City must have the funds to take care of these issues. This will not be a small sum. It will be at least over 10 million. Based on the information given, we are still going to expand. This will also not be a small figure. If the City were to fund this, then what would happen to the other projects? Just building the urban construction needs a lot of funds. Where will the City Government get the money?”

“That’s why I think this cannot be implemented. Those factories’ leaders should think of a way to make their factories profitable themselves. They cannot depend on the government all the time. Since they are the ones in that position, then they have to take on the responsibility!”

After the Executive Deputy Mayor had finished talking, he drank his tea before turning to Zhang Ruiqiang. He wants to see how Zhang Ruiqiang answers his questions.”

Zhang Ruiqiang nodded: “Deputy Mayor Li had finished. Ministry of Health representative, tell us your views.”

The Representative from the Ministry of Health thought for a while and said: “We do not object to this proposal, but the Pharmaceutical Administration Office is the one overseeing this. We can only assist them.”

This sentence was obviously shifting the responsibility to others. But others could not say anything. Those factories were indeed registered under the Pharmaceutical Administration office.

Chief Qian of the Pharmaceutical Administration Office saw Zhang Ruiqiang looking at him and start to express his thoughts: “I am very familiar with these factories. I have also studied pharmaceutical factories in other provinces. Many of those provinces had merged those small factories together, forming a more powerful company which could compete with the rest of the big players. If we want to step out of Longjiang province, then the merger will be our only option. As for those factories where there were other shareholders, we can negotiate with them. They can convert their shares to the new company’s shares, or we can buy over their shares.”

“Ridiculous! Where do you get the money from?” The Executive Deputy Mayor retorted.

“We can look for investors. The City Government does not need to come up with a single cent.” Chief Qian replied. The Mayor had spoken to him before this meeting, and of course, he will choose to support the Mayor. The Mayor had promised him that after restructuring, he will be the Chairman of this new corporation!

“Get investors? Just like the Machinery Company? Giving the government assets to those businessmen?” The Executive Deputy Mayor sarcastically replied.

At this moment, everybody understands why Wu Zhigang was attending this meeting. The investor should be Tai Hua Trading!

Wu Zhigang suddenly said: “Deputy Mayor Li, I do not agree with what you said! What do you mean by giving the government assets to businessmen?”

“Isn’t this the truth? The Machinery Company was invested by your company for development. But now, how many shares do the city have in that company? Who is holding on to the majority shares?”

“Deputy Mayor Li, I have a set of data here. I am representing my boss to show all of you these figures. Before the Machinery Company was restructured, its best annual profit was less than 6 million RMB. The taxes it paid was never more than 1 million RMB, and the Machinery Company was worth only about 30 million RMB. Now, the city owns 28% shares of the Machinery Company, and the value of these shares are worth more than 300 million RMB! Last year, the Machinery Company’s profit was more than 100 million. Based on the shares, the city will get more than 30 million RMB of the profits. Also, the taxes paid by the Machinery Company was more than 17 million. Do you still have doubts about whether the city had gain or loss from this?” Wu Zhigang replied.

This was also what Feng Yu taught him over the phone. This was called speaking with facts!

By disclosing all these figures was to prevent these people from thinking that Feng Yu had taken advantage of the City. If it weren’t for Feng Yu, even when the Machinery Company was growing, at most, the Machinery Company would only be valued at 50 million RMB. How much will be the profits and how much tax will this company pay? Most likely, the Machinery Company would be making losses.

Although the city does not hold the majority of the shares, the city was making more than the previous few years. This was also the reason why the higher-ups felt that this restructuring was a success.

“That is the Machinery Company. Pharmaceutical companies are not the same. Can you guarantee that after restructuring, this corporation will make so many profits?” Deputy Mayor Li argued.

Wu Zhigang looked at everybody and loudly said: “Our boss had said, he can do it!”

Chapter 415 – The formulas are worthless?

The statement said by Wu Zhigang had silenced the room. Everybody was staring at Wu Zhigang, but he does not back down.

“Hmph! That’s what you claimed. What if you are unable to fulfill your promise?” Deputy Mayor Li sneered.

“As long as all of you do not interfere with the operations, then it will surely be possible. One year later, Bing City Pharmaceutical Corporation’s profits will reach 100 million RMB! If we do not achieve it, then Tai Hua Trading will donate 10 million RMB to the city!” Wu Zhigang proudly said.

The rest of the leaders were shocked. Where did Tai Hua Trading get this confidence from? These companies’ profits were less than 10 million now. After merging these companies, the profits can reach 100 million RMB? Was this a joke?

But this statement also reflected the wealth of Tai Hua Trading. Last year, Tai Hua Trading had promised to donate 10 school buildings to the city which will be completed in this Summer. They had helped with the City’s lack of funds and also demolished some old and dangerous buildings.

The rest of the leaders felt that this was a good deal. Win or lose, the city will still gain. If the city wins, Tai Hua Trading will donate a sum of money. If the city fails, that means after the merger, the pharmaceutical corporation could really bring in lots of profits to the City.

Zhang Ruiqiang was also surprised.  Wu Zhigang dares to make such bold statement, must be the instructions from Feng Yu. But Feng Yu had not told him about this. This was a good thing, and he had no reason to reject.

“Does everyone still have other opinions now?” Zhang Ruiqiang looked at everyone at the meeting, and he stopped his gaze at Deputy Mayor Li. One could never find such attractive deal elsewhere in China. If you are still going to oppose, then there must be a problem with your attitude. Don’t blame me for punishing you!

“Are we going to set up a team for this merger? I want to be part of this team.” Deputy Mayor Li firmly said.

If I discover that something was going on between you and Tai Hua Trading, that will be your last day as the Mayor!

“I will be the leader of this team. Deputy Mayor Li will be the vice leader. Deputy Mayor Liu, you will be the third in charge. The rest of you shall be the team members. The first thing we should do now is to calculate the total value of these companies. As we are going to have investors, I had hired valuation experts from the Province to evaluate the assets. The valuation report should be out within a week. Today’s meeting shall end here. Dismiss!”

Wu Zhigang returned to the company and paged Feng Yu. After a while, Feng Yu returned call, and Wu Zhigang reported what happened at the meeting to Feng Yu. Everything had gone according to as planned and when Wu Zhigang used the killer move ‘donation’ no one else objected to this.

Many people were skeptical about Tai Hua Trading’s claim of increasing the profits to 100 million RMB! but Wu Zhigang had never doubt about this. Manager Feng had never made any losses in all his businesses. Manager Feng’s estimation of the market was always conservative and had never exaggerated the figures.

Manager Feng had said that one year later, the Pharmaceutical Factory’s profits will reach 100 million RMB and he believed that it will surely come true!

The valuation process was swift. In 5 days, it was completed. The 43 companies had a total of 287,640,000 RMB. Some other assets belong to individuals and some other companies. It amounted to 11,270,000 RMB.

Feng Yu applied for leave from his university and returned back to Bing City. Fu Guangzheng had also brought along his team to Bing City. They were more professional than Feng Yu when it comes to the valuation of assets.

Feng Yu felt that he should also form an investment team. He cannot always ask others for help or do everything by himself.

Seems like it was time he must recruit some fresh graduates who were also investment experts from Huaqing University!

Fu Guangzheng’s team were very professional and used several methods to validate the valuation report. Feng Yu was very pleased with their results. There were no problems with the valuation report. Although some of the buildings were valued higher, those were old buildings with historical values. It was not easy to evaluate the value of these buildings. But overall, this report can be used.

Zhang Ruiqiang did not ask his men to play tricks in the report? Feng Yu was not used to this. Did Zhang Ruiqiang change?

The total assets were less than 300 million, and if Feng Yu wanted 49% of the shares, he would need to pay at least 145 million RMB. Fu Guangzheng does not want to invest in this pharmaceutical corporation. He was only here to help Feng Yu.

Fu Guangzheng had asked Feng Yu if he had gotten some unique formulas. But when Feng Yu told him about his formulas, Fu Guangzheng was disappointed. These formulas could fill the gaps in China’s pharmaceutical industry?

You want to earn money with these formulas? If Feng Yu had the formulas of medicines which could cure some rare illness, Fu Guangzheng would surely want to invest. But he was not interested in these health supplements.

Fu Guangzheng was very busy. Feng Yu had most of the work to him. Basically, it was Fu Guangzheng and his team that was managing the business. Just those branch factories were enough to keep him busy. But Fu Guangzheng was still happy with this arrangement. He had lots of authority, and this showed that Feng Yu trusted him a lot. Of course, this was also because the finance department heads were all Feng Yu’s men.

Feng Yu was laughing in his heart when he knows that Fu Guangzheng does not want to invest. Fu Guangzheng would not get a share of the hefty profits.

Feng Yu had asked Fu Guangzheng’s men to help him appraise his medical formulas. He wants to know how much it was worth. The formulas could be used as his capital. He had spent a lot of money to get the professors from Beijing University to develop.

Fu Guangzheng’s men looked at Feng Yu and then at Fu Guangzheng awkwardly.

“Just tell us what you wanted to say. We are here to assist Manager Feng.” Fu Guangzheng looked down at his teacup.

“Manager Feng, we are sorry to say that these few medical formulas are complicated to appraise. These are not for treatments. That’s why the value of each formula…… Why not we write a valuation report that states each formula is worth 100,000 RMB?”

Damn. What did you say? I had spent a few hundred thousand to over 1 million RMB for these formulas. Those professors’ research fees were sky high, and their minimum requests were in millions!

I had spent almost 10 million RMB on these formulas, and you are telling that these are not even worth 1 million in total? From your faces, all of you seem to be taking a huge risk to give a ‘high’ valuation for these formulas!

These were all precious formulas! A bunch of ignorant people! No wonder Fu Guangzheng does not want to invest. They thought that these formulas were worthless!

“All of you think that these formulas are worthless? Let me tell all of you, you are wrong. Write in the report that each of these formulas is worth 1 million, USD!”

All of them looked at Feng Yu in shocked. Are you crazy? You want us to state that these formulas are worth 1 million USD each? Could it be that Feng Yu had some under table deals with Bing City’s leaders?

Chapter 416 – These medical formulas are valuable!

There were only 5 medical formulas, and Feng Yu wanted these formulas to be worth 5 million USD. Based on the exchange rates 1: 5.5, each formula was worth about 5.5 million RMB! But Fu Guangzheng and his men felt that these were not worth more than 500,000 RMB!

Fu Guangzheng saw Feng Yu was very serious and he asked his men: “Will there be any problems?”

“If the other party harped on this, Manager Feng might face some problems. We will not have any problems.” They were all employees of the Fu family, and they do not do valuation reports for other companies. Furthermore, this was Bing City, and it will not affect their reputations in Hong Kong.

“I am not afraid of those problems, and the amount I stated is absolutely reasonable!”

Although these research funds for these formulas were less than 1 million, Feng Yu had donated additional funds for those professors’ other researches. Those were also his money. Of course, he must find ways to recoup them.

When the Pharmaceutical Administration Office restructuring team saw the valuation report of Feng Yu’s medical formulas, they thought it was for some sort of rare conditions. If not, why was it so expensive? But when they say the effects of those formulas, they realized that these were all health supplement products.

What health products formulas were these? Why were they so expensive? These were only calcium, zinc, blood and vitamins supplements. How can these be worth 1 million USD?

“I have never heard of a medical formula that cost 1 million USD! Do you know how much is 1 million USD? Do you know how many things can be done with 1 million USD?” Deputy Mayor Li furiously shouted.

Feng Yu looked at Deputy Mayor Li: “Is 1 million USD a lot? The school buildings I donated to the City last year are worth more than 2 million USD! If 1 million USD are all in 100 notes and stack together, then it should be this high.”

Feng Yu showed the height with his hands while talking. Deputy Mayor Li almost died from anger. He realized that the money Feng Yu has seen before should be more than what he had seen in his lifetime! Just Feng Yu’s shares in the Machinery Company was worth a more than a billion!

Deputy Mayor Li was a high ranking official and when was the last time someone looks at him with despise? He was very unhappy with Feng Yu, especially with Feng Yu’s age. But he just could not find any words to retort.

“Even if you think that 1 million USD is not a lot, but that does not mean that these formulas are worth 1 million USD each. Furthermore, how can these formulas be considered medicine formulas? These are all health supplements formulas.”

Feng Yu looked at Deputy Mayor Li and smiled: “Deputy Mayor Li, have you heard of Lehaha oral solution?”

“I have heard of it. So what?” Deputy Mayor Li frowned. He does not know why Feng Yu had asked him about Lehaha.

“Many people want to buy the formula for Lehaha Oral Solution. The least these people offered was 5 million USD. The highest offer is 10 million USD! What do you think of this? Oh, I forgot to mention that I am also the major shareholder of Lehaha.”

What? This Feng Yu was also Lehaha major shareholder? Lehaha’s advertising was very aggressive. Even the kids know about their slogan. This company should be very profitable. But isn’t Lehaha a Hangzhou company? How did Feng Yu become Lehaha’s major shareholder?

“That is for children. It is different!” Deputy Mayor Li tried to argue.

“Then what should Lehaha’s product be categorized as? Medicine? Drinks? Or health supplements?”

“This…… it should be considered as health products. Lehaha’s formula is so valuable is because it is a popular product. how much is the formula worth before Lehaha became popular?”

“Then Deputy Mayor Li, how do you know that my products will not be popular?” Feng Yu asked.

Deputy Mayor Li was speechless from Feng Yu’s questions. Zhang Ruiqiang stepped in and asked: “Then why do you think that your products will become popular?”

Feng Yu pointed to himself: “Because these are my products!”

Everyone was stunned by Feng Yu’s crazy confidence. What does this mean? Because these are your products and it will surely be popular? But when all of them thought about this, it seems to be true. As long as it the product was from Feng Yu, every single one of them was selling like hotcakes all over China. At first, it was the plastic fans, followed by the humidifiers, bladeless fans, Songjiang motorcycles. Every product was well known throughout China. Feng Yu was also the major shareholder of the popular Lehaha Children oral solution.

It should be whatever Feng Yu sells, it will be the best-selling products in China. No one could argue about this!

“Feng Yu, we cannot trust you just because of this sentence.” Zhang Ruiqiang frowned.

Feng Yu nodded: “What Mayor Zhang said made sense. I know everyone here is curious why I said that after the pharmaceutical companies merged, I can increase the profits to 100 million in one year. It is because of these products! How much can the current bestselling penicillin jabs produced by these pharmaceutical factories make? A few cents each? How much is the cost and how much can the profits be? The cost for my products are higher than penicillin, but I can sell it for more than 10 times the retail price of penicillin jabs! These are still not prescription medicines. Can you even imagine about the profits?”

“Ridiculous! More than 10 times the retail price? Then the retail price for these will be more tens of RMB? Who would spend so much for these things?” Deputy Mayor Li said.

Feng Yu looked at Deputy Mayor Li curiously: “Deputy Mayor Li, the Exclusive Cigarettes in front of you should be expansive, right? Also, the retail price of that thermal mug you are using should be more than 10 RMB. There are cheaper cigarettes and cheaper mug in the market. Why are you not using them?”

“What do you mean?!” Deputy Mayor Li banged on the table and barked. Feng Yu was implying that I received bribes? I use luxury goods? These cigarettes and mugs were issued to all deputy mayors. I am not the only one using these!

“What I meant was that if it is a good product, there will surely be consumers that are willing to buy it, regardless of the price. These products are health medication products. In the olden days, it is called tonics. The impression tonics gave to everyone is that it is pricey. Now, our country is developing rapidly, and everybody’s lives are getting better. Don’t you think that people will want to buy some tonics for their families and loved ones? Just like everyone present here. All of you have made so many contributions to Bing City, these are what all of you deserved.”

Deputy Mayor Li felt better when he heard what Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu continued: “This is just like Apollo Oral Solution and Sanzhu Oral Solution. Even without taking these health supplements, we will still be living normally. I think I do not need to explain how well these products are selling. I believe that everyone here will know someone that is taking these types of supplements.”

Deputy Mayor Li lowered his head. He was also drinking Apollo Oral Solution!

“I guaranteed that these 5 products will be popular throughout China and will even be exported! If I am unable to fulfill what I said, I will shift Lehaha to Bing City! That’s why these formulas are worth 1 million USD each. If it is so easy to develop these health supplements, why none of the Pharmaceutical factories in Bing City developed it?”

Shift Lehaha to Bing City? All the leaders were excited. If Lehaha was a company in Bing City, then the taxes received by the government will be a considerable amount. His would be a great achievement!

Zhang Ruiqiang suddenly said: “Feng Yu, 5 million RMB for each formula. That will be a total of 25 million RMB. If you agree, then it will be settled.”

Feng Yu replied with a painful expression: “Sigh…… I will just accept these losses. Who asked me to be from Bing City. Fine. I will go along with what you had just said. All the 5 formulas will be worth 35 million RMB!”

Actually, Feng Yu was jumping with joy in his heart……

Chapter 417 – Everyone has their uses

After the value of the formulas was settled, the rest of the negotiations went smoothly. Feng Yu used 13 million RMB to purchase all the non-government assets. Based on the actual figures, it should be 11.27 million RMB. But since Feng Yu had already benefited from the formulas, he was willing to pay more for this. He only wanted things to speed up a little.

Feng Yu and the City decided that these 43 companies will be merged into a corporation with some subsidiaries.

Some of those companies which were heavily in debts were merged into one company and applied for bankruptcy.

The city had objected to this. They felt that Feng Yu had let those workers who had contributed to the factories down. The workers will lose their jobs. This was a severe mistake. It must not be implemented.

Feng Yu explained that he was not going to retrench all those workers. This company might be closed down, but those workers will be transferred to other factories. Of course, those leaders will have to return to the Pharmaceutical Administration Office. It will be up to the office on where they want to deploy them next. But these people cannot be sent to Bing City Pharmaceutical Corporation. There cannot be more than one person for every position!

When Feng Yu was at the Machinery Company, he did the same thing. He wanted the workers but does not want those leaders! Especially those that were from the Party. To Feng Yu, these people were useless compared to those workers. Yet they were still receiving high salaries and benefits.

Just their salaries and benefits were not a small amount. Although Feng Yu could easily afford these people, he was not happy to do so. They do not have any capabilities, and they got this position was because they were from the Party. Why should Feng Yu pay them so high? You said that you had made many contributions? Fine. List them down on paper.

You said you had groomed many Party members? But what else have you done as a leader in the Party? Have you ever done anything to help the company? You have not done anything and only know how to recruit more party members for membership fees. Why should I still employ you?

Those activities you organized can also be arranged by the union. The Union can still coordinate better activities than you. With the workers Union around and the merger of the companies, there were lesser positions for the higher management. Many of these people have to be let go. Only those that have the capabilities will get to keep their jobs.

“Manager Feng, after the merger, there were lesser positions available. The City could make arrangements for some of these people. But you cannot just remove over 300 people at once. There was a total of 43 companies, and you removed 8 higher management staffs from each company. These people will be jobless, and the City cannot make arrangements for all of them!” Deputy Mayor Li snarled.

“The City cannot make arrangements for them, but there are no more vacancies for them in the company. After the merger, there are a total of 12 companies including the head company and the subsidiaries. You tell me, how do I arrange the positions for them? Just dump 30 useless staffs in each company? Or should I set up a company just to let them have a job? Do you think that those companies that were not doing in the past have nothing to do with these people? I am investing so much money, and if I still have to take care of these people, then my yearly expenses will increase by over 1 million.”

“How come it is so much? Their average salaries are less than 2,000 a year.”

“Yes. If you only consider their salaries. But what about their benefits? Do you know what did they say when we are restructuring the companies? They said that with their ranks, they deserved to enjoy these benefits. These people who only know how to enjoy lives, and if I still let them stay in the company, what’s the use of restructuring the company? Why did restructuring fail for Bing City’s Ceramics Factory, Thermal flask factory, leather shoe factories, etc.? It was because it was still old wine in new bottle. Those people were still the ones that managed the companies. These companies had wasted more than 1 million of the city’s funds. Although 1 million RMB to me is nothing, I am investing 100 million. I must be cautious.”

Everybody knew about the examples give n by Feng Yu. Those factories were the few that failed after restructuring. They thought about it, and it was really like what Feng Yu had said. There were no changes to the higher management after the restructuring.

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart. It was the market economy, and these people’s thinking was still stuck in the planned economy era. They were still waiting for the higher-ups to give them tasks. Without any work assigned, they do not know what to produce. Even when they were able to create something, they also do know how to sell them. They do not even know what products were popular in the market and doesn’t even understand the importance of packaging. How could these factories not fail?

But Feng Yu would never tell anyone about his thoughts. He was also not willing to let those people go. Actually, those people still have their uses. Their most significant advantage was that they knew how to hoodwink others!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, how did Apollo Oral Solution become popular? Because of advertisements? Was the product really that good? None of these reasons. They were popular was because they used the direct sales model.

Apollo in Feng Yu’s previous life had more tens of thousands of sales personnel. Their target was every county there should be 100 sales personnel. In China, there were more than a thousand counties. There were also the cities’ districts. With everything add up, there were more than 2000.

Although they did not achieve the 100 sales personnel in every county, other than those minorities regions, every county have their sales personnel! It can be said that at that time, there was more Apollo’s sales personnel than postmen!

Feng Yu also decided to use the same sales model for Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Corporation’s health products. For direct sales model, the most important thing was for those sales personnel to believe in their products, and they would be able to earn lots of money from selling these products.

Brainwashing was those officials’ fundamental skills. Most of them were doing this for all their lives. They had to let make the workers work hard and contribute to the company and also at the same time, make them accept the harsh working environment. They will just sit back and enjoy life!

This group of people will be the sales managers of the different cities. Their performances will be based on their sales results. Those with poor results will be asked to leave, while those with good results will be rewarded by Feng Yu!

But now, it was not the time for Feng Yu to tell the city his plans. The city must think that Feng Yu compromised with them before he could negotiate with the city.

“Manager Feng, the city is unable to arrange for these people. After these companies were merged, the Pharmaceutical Administration do not have so many positions for them. The city has no ways to help these 300 people.”

“Fine. I will give them a chance. But this is the last time I am compromising. I am a businessman, and the reason for investing is to make money. I am not a philanthropist!”

Chapter 418 – Stock up

Feng Yu had agreed to give these people a chance. He will let these people in charge of selling health supplements. Not willing to do sales? You want to sit around and do nothing? Then don’t come to Bing City Pharmaceutical Corporation!

The City also agreed. They were thinking, at least this would solve the employment issue of these people. If these people were not suitable to do sales, then the city would also have an excuse. Look, I had arranged a job for you. You are the one that was not up to the task.

The city knew that there were too many people in the enterprises and they need to learn from the enterprises overseas. Retrenchment! But they were the government, and they need to take care of their people. This was the reason why they could not act like those private companies.

Now, it was the same throughout China. This would last until the iron fist president comes into power. He would force those enterprises to change. Those enterprises that were supposed to be bankrupt were shut down. He would stop these enterprises from sucking the City dry. He would give those retrenched workers a sum of money and let them look for jobs themselves or reassign them. This was better than letting them sit at home without any salaries.

The conditions were all finalized. Feng Yu does not have any problems with most of the conditions. He only wanted the position of vice chairman for himself. Of course, he also wanted a veto vote. Also, he also assigned his man to be the factory director of Sixth Pharmaceutical Factory. This factory would be in-charge of producing his health products. Wu Zhigang has a new title now. He was not also the factory director of this factory.

Feng Yu also transferred a few financial staffs from the Machinery Company to this corporation and reassigned the financial staffs from the Pharmaceutical to the Machinery Company. This was because the staffs were not familiar with the leaders and would prevent them from being in cahoots with each other.

Now, most of Tai Hua Trading’s recruitment was for financial staffs. Those new recruits will be getting high salaries after their 3 months probations. There were very few openings for other positions. Even the positions for translators were few. This was because Translator Xue had entered Tai Hua Trading and his salaries were higher than before. A few of his former colleagues in the Foreign Affairs department started to moonlight at Tai Hua Trading.

This was advantageous for Tai Hua Trading. These translators were much cheaper than those University’s professors, and they specialized in translating business documents.

After the conditions were finalized, it comes down to the last part. This was the hardest part of the negotiation. Feng Yu wants this company to be registered with a capital of 400 million RMB. This way, they would have enough funds to purchase some equipment. They could also buy some medical formulas from overseas.

But the City does not agree. They felt that 300 million would be sufficient. This way, the city could take away 100 million RMB after Feng Yu invested his money into the company.

If this corporation were registered with the start-up capital of 400 million, the City would not be able to profit so much from this deal. They could only get 60 million. This was not in-line with what they had planned. Although this was still in negotiations, the City had already planned what they were going to do with the money!

When Feng Yu learned how the city was going to spend the money, he was shocked! He had finally seen how the government spent money.

Damn, we had not even finalized all the conditions, you had already finish spending the money?

But even if they were not going to buy medicine formulas from overseas, they should at least get the equipment for R&D. Although these factories do have research facilities, they were using the inefficient and old equipment. These should all be replaced!

But the City had already planned how to spend the money, and this let Feng Yu have more rooms to negotiate.

“The registered capital should be at least 360 million. The City can still take out 100 million from the funds. Other than the money used to reassigned those retrenched workers, the city still has a lot of money left. This sum of money can be used for another purpose. If the City does not agree, then forget it. I will cooperate with smaller pharmaceutical factories in other cities. I can even be the major shareholder there!”

Feng Yu leaned back on the sofa and crossed his legs. He was shaking his legs with an irritating expression!

Deputy Mayor Li became nervous. We had finalized almost all the details, and we had given in to your requests on the merger. Now you are telling me that you want to stop this cooperation?

“Feng Yu, what is the meaning of this?! You think this is a joke? You think you can stop this cooperation as and when you like?” Deputy Mayor Li shouted.

“What’s wrong? You are Bing City’s, Deputy Mayor. Don’t tell me that you are going to beat me up?  If we are about to see eye to eye on the conditions, then we will cooperate. If not, this deal is off. Don’t you understand such simple things?”

Feng Yu’s attitude was very arrogant. Who does this Deputy Mayor Li think he was? It’s okay if he thinks highly of himself and talks down on others. But he does not even know how to speak nicely to others and keeps shouting.

You think I am your subordinate? You think you can bang tables and stare at me? Even Old Zhang must speak nicely to me. Last year, when the Deputy Provincial Mayor wanted to meet me, I also dare to reject him. Who do you think you are?

If this were a few years earlier, maybe I would still give in. After all, I do not have so much money at that time. I was also afraid of you using some political means to deal with me. But now, you can try. We shall see who would go down first!

Zhang Ruiqiang signaled to Deputy Mayor Li and turned to Feng Yu: “Feng Yu, the City has important uses for this sum of money. We need to repair the roads and improve the City’s traffic conditions. This would involve relocations of the affected residents. This is not a small amount.”

“Mayor Zhang, you want me to create China’s top pharmaceutical corporation within a year, with only a factory and old equipment? You think I am a god? The production and research facilities must be replaced. How much can those old production lines produce in a month? The capacity is not enough!”

“Not enough? This is not possible. The whole Sixth Pharmaceutical Factory will be manufacturing those 5 types of health supplements. The factory’s production now is doubled compared to before the merger. This is still not enough?” Zhang Ruiqiang was very curious. Those 5 products were medicines, and the permits they applied were also medical products permits.

“It is not enough. Just the current production lines for oral solution are only sufficient for Zinc gluconate oral solution. I am still thinking of a manufacturing Calcium gluconate oral solution and Oral solution for red blood cells. As for the tablets, other than Calcium tablets and multivitamins, I will still be producing Zinc gluconate and Calcium gluconate tablets in the future. The current production will not be able to keep up.”

“What if all these products are not sold?” Deputy Mayor Li interrupted.

“Even if that really happens, I, Tai Hua Trading will buy all those unsold products!” Feng Yu looked at Deputy Mayor Li. What else do you have to say?

Once again, Deputy Mayor Li was speechless. He was really pissed off! This Feng Yu was too arrogant!

In the end, the City accepted Feng Yu’s proposal. The registered capital was 360 million RMB, and the City will own 51% of the shares. Feng Yu would own 49% of the shares. The Sixth Pharmaceutical Factory would be entirely under Feng Yu’s control. The City will not interfere. Also, the Sixth Pharmaceutical Factory will be using the most advanced equipment.

Feng Yu was the second largest shareholder of this Pharmaceutical Corporation. However, not a lot of people knows about this. The Government will not announce such news to the public. Even those factories’ workers do not know about this. They only know that there was a change in their leaders. Most of them do not even know who Feng Yu was.

Everything was finalized, and Feng Yu asked Wu Zhigang to inform the Sixth Pharmaceutical Factory to start producing Zinc gluconate, Calcium gluconate and Blood enrichment oral solution with the existing equipment. He also ordered the production of the calcium and multivitamin tablets.

Feng Yu does not care whether there were permits. Anyway, he was not selling these products now. When the approval was granted, then he would print it on the packaging. His goal now was to stock up his products!

Chapter 419 – Disgustingly in love

After settling all the work in Bing City, Feng Yu returned to Beijing for his lessons. He had not informed his parents when he returned to Bing City. If his parents knew that he had skipped school, they would have rushed to Bing City and drag Feng Yu by his collars back to Beijing.

When Tian Lei saw Feng Yu at the hostel, he said with a serious expression: “Lao Si, you are finally back. The college counselor had looked for you several times. He said that if you are not back, he will not let you graduate! I had paged you several times. Why did you not return calls?”

“I was too busy, and I forgot. Don’t worry. I will surely graduate. Oh, what lessons are we having this afternoon?”

“Eh, Lao Si, what’s wrong with you? It’s the weekend today. We do not have lessons!”

“Today is the weekend? Ah…… I got something important! I need to go to Teaching University now.” Feng Yu suddenly remembered that he had promised Li Na that he would visit her this weekend.

“Eh, eh, eh. Wait for me. Are you driving? Give me a lift.”

After the last gathering, Tian Lei and Li Na’s roommate got together. The rest of the guys were not making any progress. Seems like they do not have any chances. Tian Leo was from Beijing, and he was familiar with the city. He was also willing to spend time and attention to the girl. He was unlike the rest, where they do not even bother to give the girls calls. They do not even dare to ask the girls out for dates.

The rest of the guys only likes to go to Feng Yu’s apartment and watch videotapes. Their favorite movies were those “action movies”! These students were also human, and they were in their puberty stage. But it was a pity that Feng Yu does not have lots of these videotapes. They had watched the same few videotapes several times.

Feng Yu really despise them. They were brilliant, and many people admired them. But they do not know how to make use of this advantage. What’s the purpose of watching these videotapes. Doing it real life was more fun!

They should learn from Tian Lei. Feng Yu estimated that by next semester Tian Lei would have scored a home run with that girl!

At Beijing Teaching University, Feng Yu called Li Na to inform her that he had reached. He also asked Li Na to call her roommate down for Tian Lei.

Li Na ran into Feng Yu’s arms when she saw him. Feng Yu wanted to hug her and give her a kiss, but Li Na pushed him away. They were still in the campus!

Tian Lei and his target walked towards the library holding hands. Tian Lei said that he will be teaching his girl maths. Feng Yu was surprised by this excuse!

But Tian Lei had brought his Maths books along with him. Could it be that he was really teaching that girl maths?

“Tian Lei is really a nice person. He often comes over and helps Qingqing with her studies.”

“Hee, that is because Qingqing is not so smart. If she is as hardworking as you, would she still need help with her studies? Furthermore, if she has any problems with her studies, she can always ask the teachers.”

Li Na rolled her eyes at Feng Yu and slowly said: “You really think that Qingqing is not good with her maths? Last semester, she scored first in maths among our cohort.”

Oh damn. Qingqing was really scheming. Tian Lei should be under her thumbs in future.

Feng Yu held Li Na’s hand and strolled around the campus. The university was not like high schools, where they forbid their students dating. Many couples were strolling around like them.

But it was still not as open as the future years. The couples were only holding hands. They do not dare to kiss openly or do something exciting in corners. Or it might be that Feng Yu had not encountered any such incidents. Hmmm…. Maybe it was also because it was too cold.

This sort of incidents should be normal. Even in the olden days, young ladies would secretly meet poor scholars in the woods and returned home pregnant.

Feng Yu had also thought of doing these “exciting stuff” with Li Na in the campus. But he knew that Li Na would not go along with him. He was also worried that if they were caught, they would be expelled from the school.

Although he was not afraid of being expelled from the school, he was scared of the embarrassment.

Feng Yu had the knowledge from his previous life, and he was able to make use of his knowledge to make money from his business. But he was always tired after the negotiations.

In the previous life, he was a Financial broker and had never managed a company. Now, the businesses he was involved were all things he had not touched before. It was too tiring to negotiate with others. He was not physically tired. It was mentally drained.

He had thought before. Should he listen to his father? Having enough money is sufficient. But when he thought about those foreign companies coming into China and earning all their money, destroying the environment, stealing their technologies, etc. he knew he could not stop.

Since the gods had given him a chance to do everything all over again, then he should do something for his country, like helping China’s automobile industry, electronics industry, medical industry, etc. In his previous life, the health products in China were mostly foreign brands. In this life, Feng Yu wants to export China’s products to other countries. These dreams were his motivations.

As Feng Yu’s businesses expand, he became more and busier. He could only forget about his work when he was with Li Na. He was satisfied even when he was strolling with Li Na around her campus.

They both walked to a small pavilion, sat down and admire the scenery.

Li Na would always help Feng Yu tidy up his shirt and told him about the small things that happened around her. One of her classmates drooled while sleeping in class, another classmate snored, or another classmate bought a new beautiful pen. These were all unimportant stuff, but Feng Yu enjoyed listening to Li Na.

A breeze messed up Li Na’s hair, and Feng Yu softly helped her tidy up. Li Na had a sweet smile on her face.

Beijing’s weather was warmer than Bing City. Bing City was already freezing, but in Beijing, the temperature was still above 0 degrees Celsius.

There was still no smog in Beijing at this time. The skies were still blue, and one could still feel the warm sunlight. Unknowingly, Feng Yu fell asleep with his head on Li Na’s lap.

Li Na massaged Feng Yu’s temples softly, smiling blissfully.

When Feng Yu woke up, it was one hour later. Li Na’s legs were numb, and Feng Yu immediately bend over in front of her: “I am the one which causes your legs to be numb. Let me carry you on my back.”

Li Na looked around and saw that no one was looking at them. She jumped onto Feng Yu’s back and wrapped her hands around his neck, pressing her body into his back. She rested her chin on Feng Yu’s shoulders. Feng Yu could feel her hot breath on his neck and ears.

Maybe Li Na was feeling mischievous. She used her long hair to tickle Feng Yu’s ears. She giggled when she saw Feng Yu feeling ticklish and fidgeting about.

Feng Yu gave Li Na’s ass a tight squeeze with the hand that was supporting her. Li Na stopped tickling him immediately and gave a playful punch on his arms: “Disgusting……”

Feng Yu smiled: “Disgusting? Are you complimenting me? I am disgustingly in love with you?”

Li Na: “……”

How can he interpret it this way?

Chapter 420 – Buying advertisement spaces

This afternoon, Feng Yu came to CCTV again. He was here so frequent until the guards knew him. As usual, Feng Yu gave the guards a packet of cigarettes and drove in. He does not need any permit to enter the premises.

“Is Chief Cheng in?” Feng Yu went to the advertising department. Last year, he was only a division chief.

A bespectacled young man stood up: “You are looking for Chief Cheng? Do you have an appointment?

Damn, this Cheng Baojun was now a big shot? Advance appointments must be made before I can meet him? But who was this person? How come I had not seen him in the past? Cheng Baojun’s rank should not be assigned to a secretary.

“Are you new here? Help me go in and tell him that Feng Yu is here.” Feng Yu sat down on one of the work stations like his own office.

The young man was surprised. Who was this person? The department was having a meeting today, and he was newly transferred over. So, he was made to look after the office.

“Chief Cheng is in a meeting now. The rest is not here. Do you want to come back tomorrow?”

Feng Yu looked at his watch. It was only 2 pm in the afternoon. There were still a few more hours before the end of the day. Does the meeting last so long?

“I will wait here for him. I think his meeting will end soon. Do you have anything to drink?”

“Yes. I will make tea for you.”

The young man saw Feng Yu’s attitude and thought that he was some leader’s son. He could not afford to offend these types of people. It was not easy for him to be transferred to this unit. He had to make sure that he would not be fired because of small matters.

When Cheng Baojun came back from the meeting, he saw Feng Yu sitting on the sofa in the office with his legs crossed. Feng Yu was slowly sipping on his tea and eating melon seeds.

Cheng Baojun was speechless. This was an office and how could anyone eat melon seeds here? He stared at the newcomer. Why didn’t you stop him?

The young man saw the look on his leader’s face and got nervous. He also did not expect Feng Yu to take out a packet of melon seeds from his pocket and start eating. Feng Yu even asked him if he wants some. From Feng Yu’s attitude, he did not dare to stop him.

“Chief Cheng, your meeting is too long.” Feng Yu looked at his watch. It was already 4 pm. He knew that the meeting must be filled with bullshit and every sentence must be started with “I think this…. I think that……” and a simple thing will turn into a profound discussion. Feng Yu was someone that prefers to keep everything short and straight to the point. He wants efficiency.

Cheng Baojun looked at Feng Yu speechless. Our department’s meeting was to talk about the problems they faced in their work. What has the length of our meeting got to do with you?

“Manager Feng, why are you here?”

“Oh, I heard that CCTV will be airing a few new programs and there are many new advertising slots.”

Cheng Baojun’s eyes widen: “Manager Feng, you want to buy advertisement slots?”

“Yes. Tell me about the advertisement slots you have now. If I am happy, I will buy multiple slots.” Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Was this something new? If I am not buying advertising slots, why am I here for? Chat with you?

“Manager Feng, come into my office. Xiao Wang, prepare the tea. Old Li, bring the price list for the available advertising slots over.”

Feng Yu took the melon seeds on the table in his hands and slowly make his way into Cheng Baojun’s office. The newcomer was shocked!

The seniors in the office told the young man that this was Tai Hua Trading’s, Manager Feng. He was CCTV biggest client for the past two years. He had never bargain over the advertising prices! The advertising fees at CCTV now took a reference to Manager Feng’s spending on advertisements. Manager Feng was also close to the Station’s top leaders. He was the sponsor for the New Year Eve’s Gala dinner.

Feng Yu entered Cheng Baojun’s office and noticed that Cheng Baojun was looking at his hand.

“Chief Cheng, you want some melon seeds?” Feng Yu offered the melon seeds in his hand to him.

Cheng Baojun’s face turned black: “No! This is an office!” I want you to keep those seeds. Who the hell wants your melon seeds?!

Feng Yu reluctantly keep the melon seeds into his pocket. Stopping in the midst of eating melon seeds was torture. It was hard to stop eating melon seeds once you started.

Old Li brought a list into the room for Cheng Baojun, and Cheng Baojun passed the list to Feng Yu after taking a look: “Manager Feng, these are all the available slots. See if you like any of the slots. Why not you buy out all these slots? There are only 8 slots.”

Feng Yu took a look. Because there was a change in the programs, the timings and length of some programs were changed. As such, there were available slots. The longest was 1 minute, and the shortest was 15 seconds. There were 2 slots in the early afternoon, 4 in the afternoon and 2 in the evenings.

The timing of these slots was not that bad. These could be used to promote the VCD and the Learning Machine. 4 advertisements a day will be sufficient for the viewers to remember his products.

“Since Chief Cheng had said it, then I shall give you face. I can buy out all these slots. Name me a price.” Feng Yu placed the list on the table and said.

Cheng Baojun’s face lit up: “You want all the slots? Let me see, what’s the total.”

He opened his drawer and took out a notebook and…… a calculator!

He punched the numbers on the calculator for some time and pushed the calculator to Feng Yu: “Manager Feng, this is the final figure. Since you are so forthright, I shall give you a 10% discount. The length of the contract will last until December 31st this year.”

Feng Yu took a glance at the calculator and made a mental calculation. He compared to the prices of the primetime slots. Damn, was this Cheng Baojun joking? These 8 slots were worth this price?

Feng Yu punched a few numbers on the calculator and pushed it back to Cheng Baojun: “I will take it if it is at this price. Chief Cheng, I may be rich, but I do not spend my money wastefully.”

Cheng Baojun smiled: “How can you say that? This price is too low. I can’t answer my higher-ups with this price.”

Feng Yu would never agree to the doubled price. The price he wanted was about what CCTV had in mind.

But Cheng Baojun still wanted to try and get more out of Feng Yu. He would get some credits if he were able to let Feng Yu spend more. The advertising department highest rank allowed was only a Deputy Chief. He wants the department to be upgraded and be promoted to Chief. He could also be promoted and do something that he was familiar with.

“What do you mean that you are unable to answer to your higher-ups? Is the price I offered not reasonable? I am paying the advertising fees. In CCTV, there are some that do not need to pay for advertising.”

“Since when did we let people advertise for free?” Cheng Baojun asked back. He was the one overlooking this department and does not want Feng Yu to make baseless claims.

“Didn’t Panasonic air their advertisements during last year’s <Doraemon>? Did they pay CCTV?”

“How can that be the same? That anime was given to us by Japan and had waived the copyright fees.” Cheng Baojun retorted.

“Then which is more expensive? Copyright fees or advertising fees?” Feng Yu snickered.

“Erm…… That is different. We are doing this to get quality programs from overseas. Their anime is better, and if we do not let them advertise, they will not sell us that anime. Furthermore, Japan had also promised us that they will give us the rights for more anime.”

“Does that mean that they will be able to air their advertisements every time? Can’t you tell whether you are making a gain or loss in this deal? If animations can get an advertising slot for free, then I will buy a few animations copyrights from the US and Europe. Does that mean CCTV will let me advertise for free?” Feng Yu asked.

“Ermm…… Manager Feng, I can’t make this decision. Let’s take about the advertising fees. Increase that rate by 20% and I will sell you all these slots.” Cheng Baojun dare not to make any decisions on the anime. These were decided by CCTV’s top leaders.

“10%. This will surely be higher than the original rates. Don’t think that I do not know the market rates.”

Cheng Baojun replied with an embarrassed look: “Deal. I will let my men draft the contract now.”

Chapter 421 – The Complacent Duan Yongping

Duan Yongping gathered all the top executives in his company for a meeting. The government had opened up the video game industry and allowed importation of video game consoles.

Currently, The Little Tyrant was making use of its cheap pricing, pirated game cartridges, and aggressive advertising to control China’s market.

But Duan Yonping knew that their consoles were imitations of Nintendo’s old model, and Nintendo still has the patents of the consoles. All the game cartridges were counterfeits. If Nintendo were to sue them for copyright infringement, then they would be facing hefty fines and possible shut down.

Luckily, they were aware of this problem in advanced and had been developing a new product. A product that belongs to The Little Tyrant.

They had made some progress with this new product. They had noticed that the income of families had increased, but the parents were not willing to buy a video game console for their children. Most parents think that video games will affect their studies.

Duan Yongping suddenly had an idea. What if they were producing educational game consoles which will help children with their studies? He could make simple games with words, idioms or foreign languages and the parents will be willing to buy these games for their children. The kids will be able to play games and learn at the same time. This was killing two birds with one stone!

Of course, before the production of this new product, Duan Yongping needs to do market research. They realized that other than computers which had this function, there were no similar products. Computers cost more than 10,0000 RMB. If they simplify the manufacturing process and produce a cheap and useful product, the cost can be controlled within 2,000 RMB. If they priced it at 3,000 RMB, it should be selling well!

Duan Yongping was excited by this idea. He believes that The Little Tyrant had found a new revenue source. This was a new product that was between a video game console and a computer.

Duan Yongping got the support from the rest of the top executives in the company. All of them felt that a new product will secure The Little Tyrant’s position in China. The company will not be a cheapskate game console factory.

Duan Yongping presented his idea to his leaders. The Little Tyrant currently was still a state-owned enterprise. The leaders also felt that this was a good idea, but when they probe further, they found out that The Little Tyrant had spent all their funds on developing this new product. Duan Yongping wanted the City to give them 1 million to carry on developing this product.

The City refused. They had already given The Little Tyrant 1 million RMB to develop new products, and they had spent it all. The new product was still not developed, and they still want 1 million more?

Duan Yongping explained to the leaders patiently. This new product will monopolize the country and will beat all other video game console factories in China. Their factory’s profits will increase by several folds.

Most importantly, they will not infringe the patent rights!

China had opened up the market for video games and allowed importation of game console. These foreign companies will surely do market research and will know that they were using their technologies illegally. If The Little Tyrant were to be sued by them, then they have to stop the production of their consoles. Even if those companies did not sue them, they might introduce low-cost consoles. These big brands will also affect their sales.

Duan Yongping was also helpless about this. In this era, the Chinese always thinks that imported products were better than their domestic products. Expensive stuff was better quality products. He was afraid that even when those imported consoles did not lower their prices, his market share will also be affected.

It was important for the Little Tyrant to develop a new product as this would affect their survival in this industry.

Actually, the City leader was not pleased with Duan Yongping way back. Duan Yongping had been saying that there were problems with the management in The Little Tyrant. He wanted a restructuring.

Restructuring? You are already the General Manager. What else do you want? You want to be the Chairman? This company belongs to the City and not you!

The last time Duan Yongping had told the leader that management and technology were most important to The Little Tyrant and he wanted to exchange them for shares after the restructuring.

What does this mean? Duan Yongping wants to split The Little Tyrant? He thinks that the company will close down without him? Also, the salaries of those technicians were not high enough? Their wages were 200 RMB a month. It was even higher than the leader in the City. What more do they want?

Guangdong does not lack talents. The recent few years, there were a lot of skilled technicians from the north that came to their province. If the current technicians were not happy, then the City will replace them. Those technicians from the north might be even willing to work for 150 RMB!

Duan Yongping had said that The Little Tyrant should be changed to a shareholding and some of the useless departments in the company must be removed. They should increase the R&D and sales department. Shares can be given out as rewards. This was to show the company’s appreciation for the employees who had made huge contributions.

Of course, Duan Yongping also felt that he was the one that set up The Little Tyrant. When he took over this company, the company had debts or more than 2 million RMB. He did not ask the City for money to repay the debts. Instead, he persuaded the distributors and suppliers to give him time. It was because of him, The Little Tyrant was developed. Even when in debt, he placed advertisements in CCTV. This was the reason why The Little Tyrant became the market leader in the video game console industry.

The name The Little Tyrant was to let this console become the tyrant in this industry. It can be said that Duan Yongping had achieved it. The few years, he had earned tens of millions for the City.

He was the one who had brought all these for the city and should he be rewarded? Look at those foreign enterprises. All their top executives held the company’s shares. Why can’t he have the same thing? Which senior executive in the company was more capable and made more contributions than him? Why were those foreign companies’ top executives getting thousands of RMB salaries and he was only getting slightly more than 200 RMB a month?

There were a lot of companies in other provinces that had undergone restructuring, and the leaders were rewarded with shares of the company, based on their contribution. Duan Yongping felt that this should be the benchmark. No one in the company will have other opinions. He was the one that brought the company back to life, and everyone in the company were grateful to him.

But the City does not agree with him. They felt that the company does not need to be restructured. This was a state-owned enterprise, and the company was progressing well. There was no need for any changes.

But after Duan Yongping’’s constant protest, the City relented. If Duan Yongping were to quit, they could not find anyone suitable to replace him.

The City gave Duan Yongping a condition. If The Little Tyrant’s profit were able to exceed 100 million RMB in a year, then they would talk about the restructuring of the company.

Duan Yongping was overjoyed. The City had finally relented to his request. But now the City does not want to give him funds to develop the new product. Without the funds, then there will not be any new product. How can the company make money without the new product? If the City had not taken away all the company’s profits last year, the company does not even need to beg the City.

After Duan Yongping persistent pleads, the City agreed to give him 500,000 RMB. If he made any breakthrough, then the City will consider if they will provide him with more funds. Duan Yongping happily left. He was determined to develop the learning machine and let the City sees his capabilities!

However, Duan Yongping was not aware that Aiwa’s prototype of learning machine was ready!

Chapter 422 – Compete with yourself

Beijing, a recording studio. A young woman was recording a new song, and Feng Yu had his headphone on listening to the beautiful voice. This young woman was the top female singer in China in Feng Yu’s previous life. Her vocal cords were really unique.

“Mr. Feng, I really like this song. Thank you very much.” Na Ying stepped out of the studio and bowed to Feng Yu.

“I also like your voice too. I had written this song especially for you. Of course, I am still saying the same thing. If you sign this contract, you will be getting much more.”

Feng Yu passed an endorsement contract to Na Ying. Sun Nan will be endorsing Wind and Rain VCD player, and Na Ying was selected by Feng Yu to endorse for Aiwa VCD player.

Both Sun Nan and Na Ying were China’s top singers currently. After the New Year Eve Gala Dinner, Sun Nan became famous overnight. He had lots of performances lined up. A Hong Kong label wanted to sign him and help him cut a specially tailored album for him.

If this were in Feng Yu’s past life, Sun Nan would be at a losing end in this contract. As a new singer, the money he will get will be very little. But now, Sun Nan was already famous and will get more benefits if he were to sign this contract.

Sun Nan had called Feng Yu to express his gratitude. If Feng Yu had not picked him and wrote two songs for him, he would never get such opportunities. Even when Sun Nan was confident of his singing, there was still a difference between becoming famous now and one year later.

Na Ying was China’s up and rising female singer. Her status in the pop music category currently could still not be compared to Mao Amin and a few other Chinese singers, but Feng Yu knew that with her vocal cords, she would be popular. Most importantly, Feng Yu liked her songs.

Feng Yu had offered 1 million for a 10 years contract. Na Ying will not be allowed to endorse similar products. Even music or recording products were not allowed.

Na Ying was tempted by this offer. But she felt that 10 years was too long. She would prefer a 3 years contract worth 300,000 RMB. Also, she was not sure what Aiwa VCD player was.

At this time, Feng Yu gave her a new song to see if she likes it or not.

<Day does not know how dark night was> was Na Ying’s song in Feng Yu’s previous life. It was the song that shot her to stardom and became the queen of Chinese pop. Her other song, <Conquer>, was also a good song which had topped the music charts, but it was not as good. The lyrics for that song was also not suitable for the current era. This <Day does not know how dark night was> was enough for her to catch up with Mao Amin.

“Mr. Feng, 10 years is a bit long. Can we change it to 5 years? 400,000 RMB will do.”

Feng Yu smiled: “Sister Na, do you think this song is better than <Mountains does not move, water can>? Can this song improve your singing career?”

Although Na Ying does not want to admit, she knew that this was the truth.

Na Ying nodded: “But……”

Feng Yu waved his hand and interrupted Na Ying: “You think that the endorsement fee I offered is too low and in two years, your fees will increase by a lot, right? But have you ever considered the fact that Aiwa is a big brand? Our Walkman has more than 90% of China’s market share. Even without you endorsing our brand, just the advertisement alone, will our VCD player sales be affected? Remember Yan Wu Kid? He became famous and entered the showbiz after he advertised for Yan Wu cassette player. Our brand will be marketing our products more aggressively than Yan Wu.”

Feng Yu was speaking the truth. Yan Wu Kid was still a student when he stared in that commercial. He became famous because of that commercial. But Na Ying was different. She had some popularity now. But Feng Yu did not lie that Na Ying would gain more exposure after she became the spokesperson for Aiwa. More people will know about her.

“Can I go back and consider?”

“Yes, of course. But please hurry. We need to shoot the commercial soon. If you drag it for too long, I might have to change another spokesperson. You know about Sun Nan? I had written two songs for him, and he had just signed with a Hong Kong Label. He will be releasing a new album for the South East Asia market. Don’t you want to be like him?”

……

The next day, after Na Ying had consulted her teacher and discussed with her family members, she signed the contract. Although the length of the contract was long, it was an excellent opportunity for her.

“You will not regret your decision. I guaranteed that you will be performing on CCTV Spring Festival Gala Night this year!” Feng Yu said mysteriously. In his previous life, Na Ying was invited to perform on this year Gala Night. People started to notice her after her performance on Gala Night. Previously, people only heard her songs but does not know her.

Na Ying was shocked. Feng Yu dare to guarantee that she would be performing on the Gala Night? If Feng Yu had said this earlier, she would not even consider for one night.

“This 1 million RMB is after ta. With this sum of money, you can concentrate on your singing career. But I need to remind you that in future, you must remember to declare all your earnings for every performance, even in nightclubs, and pay your taxes.”

Feng Yu had also reminded Sun Nan, Liu Daqing, Baldy Chen, etc. In his previous life, they had under-declared their earnings, and some did not even pay taxes. Liu Daqing and Mao Amin were some of the many who were punished severely by the government.

Now, Sun Nan and Na Ying were the spokespersons for Wind and Rain and Aiwa. Feng Yu does not want them to make such mistakes. Of course, if they get into trouble with the law, it would be a breeched of contract. They do not need to compensate Feng Yu any amount, but they need to return the endorsement fee to Feng Yu. Feng Yu does not want them to affect his brands’ image.

After this, Na Ying and Sun Nan start to shoot the commercial for both brands.

Wind and Rain used the song <Red flags flying> as background music, while Aiwa uses <Day does not know how dark night was>. Both songs had different styles, and the singer had very different voices. Even the way the advertisement was shot, was very different.

Feng Yu had no choice. Na Ying had good looks, and she was also considered a pretty singer, but Sun Nan’s looks…… can only be marketed as a good singer! Idol? This word got nothing to do with him for his whole life.

Feng Yu had also hired two famous directors to shoot the commercials. One was Chen Kaige, who had filmed <Yellow Earth>. The other was the director for <Red Sorghum>, Zhang Yimou.

Fu Guangzheng does not understand why Feng Yu had hired two directors to film the commercials. They were the leading directors in China and also the most expensive.

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart that he had not only hired them as the directors for the commercials. He had also signed the contracts with them for 3 commercials and had paid them in full. They were not still not considered expensive now. Their fees will increase by several folds in one or two years!

“I want to let the consumers see the rivalry between these two brands and are competing to outdo each other.” Feng Yu replied to Fu Guangzheng.

Rivalry? Fu Guangzheng saw the light suddenly. This way, the fans of these two singers and directors will support their brands and no matter which brand they supported, Feng Yu would be the one talking all the money!

This was what Sony and Aiwa did in the past. The rivalry between both brands let them establish a strong foothold in the industry and at the same time, kick out other competitors.

Fu Guangzhen gave Feng Yu a thumb up.

Feng Yu saw Fu Guangzheng’s expression and felt that this guy should add in one line: “Smart, you are so smart!”

Chapter 423 – Aiwa learning machine, learn at your own pace

The agreement between Aiwa and Nintendo was before the launch of Aiwa’s learning machine, Aiwa will not let Nintendo use its distribution channels in China.

China had allowed the importation of video game console. Nintendo wants to enter the China market earlier than Sega to prevent the latter from controlling the Chinese market. As such, Nintendo helped Aiwa to manufacture a batch of learning machines first. As for the game cartridges, China’s factories will be producing for them. The games were mainly games that involve idioms, words, languages, etc.

At the end of May, Aiwa Learning Machine was launched in China. Feng Yu had set the retail price at 3,288 RMB per unit, and the wholesale price at 3,000 RMB per unit. The cost price per unit was only about 1,500 RMB. This was still the cost of having Nintendo manufacturing for him, and it includes the importation taxes and transportation cost. If it were manufactured by China’s factories, the cost would be lowered to about 1,000 RMB.

Nintendo had also introduced a few models of game consoles for different consumer segments. The prices range from 1,000 to 3,000 RMB. Nintendo wishes to occupy China’s market with these products. Sega also introduces a few different models to counter Nintendo.

Both Nintendo and Sega think little of Aiwa’s Learning Machine and The Little Tyrant. They felt that their consoles were cheaper, had better quality games and more beautiful. Their consoles would take over China’s video game industry in no time. This would be just like when they penetrate the US and European market.

Nintendo was still doing well as they had cooperated with Aiwa and had access to their distribution channels. Those distributors were willing to try to sell their products. They want to know if Nintendo consoles and games could let them make any profits. But as they were only treating this as a trial, they did not order too many goods from Nintendo. On the other hand, Sega was not doing well. No retailers wanted to bring in their products. It was because no one in China had heard of this brand and it was still pricey. Everyone felt that this product would not sell in China!

When Sega’s person in charge of the Chinese market heard these reasons, he almost cried. Sega was also one of the top Video game consoles, but in China, Sega was only considered the second rated product. What’s wrong with our brand? Our products were popular in western countries!

But soon, Nintendo and Sega realized that China was full of cheap game consoles. They bought some of these consoles back and found out that these consoles were using their patented technologies. Even the exterior designs were imitating them. These companies had not paid them for using their patents!

These companies were illegally using their technologies!

Nintendo and Sega start to complain to the Chinese Government. They wanted the Government to stop these companies from selling those consoles, and at the same time compensate them for their losses. However, the Chinese Government sided with their own people. What patents are you talking about? Did you apply for the licenses in China? Did you apply for the patents in Asia? We are not aware of these in China.

Asia was very different from Western countries. In the West, there were treaties and all those countries abided by the agreements. This includes the patent protection. This was the reason why patents were more protected there, compared to Asia. This was mainly so for South East Asia. The patent needs to be applied in different countries. For instance, Japan’s patents were not recognized in China.

When Nintendo and Sega were negotiating with the Chinese Government, Aiwa Learning Machine’s advertisements started to air on CCTV.

The star of this commercial was still Jin Ming, China’s most famous child actress. No one was more popular than her. Her endorsement fees were also not high.

Feng Yu was also the one who thought of the idea for the commercial. Jin Ming was at home. On her table was Aiwa Learning Machine connected to a TV.

On the TV screen, there were a few birds with English words on them flying about. Jin Ming was typing on the keyboard, and those little birds start dropping like they were shot.

A middle-aged woman walked in and passed an apple to Jin Ming: “Dear, how do you call this apple in English?”

“A-P-P-L-E, apple! So easy!” As Jin ming was spelling the word out, she also made an “OK” sign.

The woman hugged Jin Ming with one hand and pointed the Aiwa Learning Machine with the other: “Since I had bought Aiwa Learning Machine for my child, I do not have to worry about her studies.”

The camera panned and zoom in to Aiwa Learning Machine on the table, and Jin Ming’s voice could be heard in the background: “Aiwa learning the machine, learn at your own pace!”

The screen changed to a picture of Aiwa Learning Machine with Aiwa’s slogan: “Aiwa Electronics, I love China!”

……

“Dear, shall we buy this Aiwa Learning Machine for our child? Our child had scored lower than next door Old Zhang’s child for his English!”

“Fine. Tomorrow you go to the mall and check it out. We really supervise our child’s studies. His teacher had reprimanded me whenever I see her!”

……

“Mum, I want that Aiwa Learning Machine.”

“What do you want that for? You are also not learning English.”

“There is an idiom game in it too. I want to learn idioms. Furthermore, this can also be used to learn to type. Our teacher had told us that in the future, everyone will be using computers for typing.”

“Then you go and ask your father. If he agrees, I will buy one for you.”

……

“Dad, I am going to Xiao Ming house. His father had bought Aiwa Learning Machine. I am going to study with him.”

“Will your grades improve when you use that thing?”

“It is better than nothing.”

“Go ahead. We will also buy one this weekend at the mall. In the future, you can stay at home and study.”

……

“Eh, your father had bought Aiwa Learning Machine for you? Are you staying at home on weekends studying?”

“Shhhh…… Video game cartridges are also compatible with this Learning Machine. I have been playing Contra!”

“Huh? This Learning Machine can also be used as a video game console?”

“That’s right. My father did not want to buy video games for me. But this time, he had bought this Learning Machine for me. My father is outstation, and my mother is working night shift tonight. You want to come over to my house to play the game?”

“Ok. I will tell my mum that I am going over to your place to study!”

……

The advertisements at CCTV were very effective. The VCD player was not launched yet, and the advertising slots Feng Yu bought were all airing Aiwa Learning Machine. Within 3 days, the distributors were calling Tai Hua Trading to order more goods.

There were only 10,000 units of Aiwa Learning Machine for the first batch, and each distributor got only 300 to 500 units. From the current situation, their stock would be sold out within a week!

Wu Zhigang immediately contacted Fu Guangzheng. Aiwa Learning Machine was also imported into China through Hong Kong as the taxes were lower. Hong Kong Aiwa Co. had also exported this product to Taiwan and Malaysia.

Luckily Aiwa had been expanding their factories. When Feng Yu said that he wants to launch the Learning Machine, they bought two more production lines. These were all in Japan and had started manufacturing the Learning Machine. Nintendo was manufacturing for Aiwa as a contractor.

When the second batch of 20,000 units was delivered to China, the Learning Machine had also gained popularity in other South East Asia markets.

This Learning Machine was using 486 processors. It has some functions similar to a computer, and it was only selling for 600 USD! Aiwa’s technologies were outstanding. No wonder Aiwa Walkman was better than Sony. This was the power of technology!

At first, Heitaro Nakajima does not think well of this Learning Machine. But Feng Yu was insistent and had even asked him to pay Nintendo to manufacture for them. Now, from the sales figures, Feng Yu was right. If this Learning Machine were produced by others, they would have missed out all these profits.

Moreover, Heitaro Nakajima had wanted to enter the computer market. This Learning Machine was a test of his technicians’ abilities!

Along with the growing popularity of the Learning Machine, Aiwa Walkman sales in South East Asia had increased further. This was the benefit of branding! As long as a brand have a successful product, the consumers will also take notice of the other products!

Aiwa Learning Machine was a success!

Chapter 424 – The Little Tyrant’s premature death

When The Little Tyrant was still developing the Learning Machine, they discovered that there was already a similar product in the market and it was advertising on CCTV. It was Aiwa that had introduced this product.

All of them had never expected Aiwa, who had been manufacturing Walkman, would produce Learning Machines!

They immediately purchased a few units from the market and dismantled them. This was faster than developing the product themselves. Soon, Duan Yongping extracted the technologies in the Learning Machine.

Duan Yongping excitedly reported to his leaders that they had successfully developed their new product. The cost was also less than 1,300 RMB. Although Aiwa Learning Machine was already in the market, he was not worried.

When he started to manufacturing video game consoles, there were also similar products in the market. But in the end, The Little Tyrant had beaten all their competitors.

This Learning Machine will also be the same. You are selling at 3,000 RMB because it is an imported product. The importation taxes and transportation were a fixed cost and could not be lowered. The Little Tyrant was different. Their cost was lower and could set the retail price as 2,000 RMB per unit.

The Little Tyrant had won all its competitors through price war in the past. Although Aiwa was a big brand, The Little Tyrant’s brand was also popular, especially in the southern region.

The leaders were glad that the new product was finally ready. The research funds had not gone to waste. Duan Yongping had promised them that The Little Tyrant’s learning machine will quickly occupy the market. Even though Aiwa was advertising on CCTV, The Little Tyrant also had advertising contracts with CCTV.

Aiwa’s commercial was about to entice the parents to purchase their Learning Machine for their children, but Duan Yongping also had an excellent idea for his ads. Children’s song. A song that could be remembered easily by children. When they were playing, they could sing this song. This would be very effective.

Now, Duan Yongping needs funds for marketing. They can get the local TV stations to air their commercials, and they had established sales channels. It would not be a problem for them to grab the market share from Aiwa!

The leader nodded and agreed with Duan Yongping. He gave Duan Yongping a sum of money for marketing. He was looking forward to the Little Tyrant’s Learning Machine to become famous throughout China and the annual profit to be over 100 million!

After getting the funds, Duan Yongping immediately ordered the factory to manufacture the Learning Machine at full capacity. They can stop the production for their consoles. The foreign video game consoles had already entered China, and they have more interesting games. He wants The Little Tyrant to slowly move away from the video game industry. He needs the consumer to think that the Little Tyrant was a company that manufactures Learning Machines.

But when he went to the Trade and Industry Bureau, he found out that his product cannot be named as Learning Machine!

Duan Yongping was puzzled. Why can’t his product be named as Learning Machine?

The staff at the Trade and Industry Bureau told him that “Learning Machine” was registered by Tai Hua Trading as their trademark and had authorized Hong Kong Aiwa Co. to use this name. The Little Tyrant was not authorized, and if he uses it, it would be a breach. Their product would be considered counterfeit merchandise!

Duan Yongping had never expected the product he was developing for so long was already registered. But this did not stop him. You called your product Learning Machine, then I will call my product Super Learning Machine. The Little Tyrant Super Learning Machine sounds superior to Aiwa Learning Machine. When the parents heard this name, they would surely buy his product!

After leaving the Trade and Industry Bureau, Duan Yongping suddenly remembered about the patents. Did the Learning Machine register their technologies?

After some inquiries, it was really as what he had thought. The few technologies in the Learning Machine were registered. If the Little Tyrant were to use those technologies, they needed the authorization from Aiwa Japan!

Duan Yongping listlessly returns to the company. He had asked his staff to develop this product, but now, they cannot manufacture it. How can he even make 100 million?

Duan Yongping will not get the shares of the company from the City. He might even be taken to task! He knew that the leader in the City had been unhappy with him, but the leader does not have an excuse to deal with him. Now, he had presented this excuse to the Leader personally!

The factory had purchased the materials and had started manufacturing the Learning Machine. Duan Yongping had also contacted all his distributors to get ready for his products next month.

But now, he cannot sell this product. This was patent infringement! He could argue with Japan’s video game companies, and the Chinese government will still support him.

But what if both parties were Chinese companies? Which side will the Government take? Aiwa was more powerful than them, and Tai Hua Trading was still a company that had won a national level award!

If both companies were to get involved in a lawsuit, he would surely lose. His product will even be branded as a counterfeit product. As the General Manager, he might also be put behind bars!

The City’s Leader was still dreaming about the Little Tyrant’s Learning Machine. This would be his credit, and he will be promoted!

But Duan Yongping told him that the Little Tyrant cannot manufacture the Learning Machine suddenly.

This was shocking news. The Leader was shocked. Why can’t the product be manufactured? Didn’t this product was successfully developed? You had told me that the production lines were changed, and we can produce the product at full capacity.

Infringement. We had infringed Aiwa’s patent and their trademark. The Leader could settle the trademark infringement easily, but it was impossible for the patents. Unless the Little Tyrant could get the authorization from Aiwa!

But how was this possible? Aiwa’s Learning Machine had no competitors, and this product was new to the market. No one in the right mind would authorize someone else their patents.

The Leader was furious!

You need funds, I had given you funds. I had supported you in everything you do, and now you are telling me that we can’t sell this product?

“How much funds have you taken from the City? What did you promise me at the start? Now, how am I going to answer the higher-ups? Answer me!”

“I will take full responsibility for this matter!” Duan Yongping lowered his head. If he did not take full responsibility, then someone else in the company got to take the blame. He believed that with his ability, even if he was fired, he could still get a high paying job. He might even start his own business.

But what would happen to someone else if he was sacked? After all, he was the one who had given the orders to start this new product. There was no way he could push the blame to someone else.

“You will take full responsibility? How are you going to take responsibility? A few million is spent on developing this new product and what about the distributors? We have already collected over 10 million RMB from the distributors, and according to the contract, we have to compensate them double! That is more than 20 million! You think everything will be solved just by you telling me that you will take full responsibility?!”

Duan Yongping realized that his decision had cost The Little Tyrant more than 20 million! Even if he resigns, this will not be settled.

“Continue to produce and send the goods to the distributors according to the contract. This is the only solution!” The Leader thought for a while and said.

Duan Yongping was shocked. This was illegal. He will be the one taking the blame, and he will go to jail!

“Ni. I do not agree. The Little Tyrant will be finished. We should compensate the distributors. With The Little Tyrant around, there is still hope. The money we lost can still earn back. If we carry on manufacturing counterfeit products, The Little Tyrant will really be gone!”

Chapter 425 – Buying the Little Tyrant

When Duan Yongping was feeling helplessness, an unexpected guest arrived at The Little Tyrant’s office.

“Hi, I am Fu Guangzheng, General Manager of Hong Kong Aiwa Co., there is something I need to discuss with you.”

Feng Yu had told Fu Guangzheng to monitor this company. This company will surely manufacture Learning Machine. Fu Guangzheng must let this company know that they will be infringing patents before their products are introduced into the market. He must make sure that this company could not sell even one product!

If The Little Tyrant dares to sell, then Fu Guanzheng will get a team of lawyers to sue them!

But Feng Yu had not expected The Little Tyrant dare not to sell their learning machines, although they had already produced those products! Now, their factory had stop production, and all their goods were sitting in the warehouse collecting dust.

Fu Guangzheng showed up at The Little Tyrant was not to grant them the authorization. It was Feng Yu who was interested in The Little Tyrant’s factory, brand, and staffs. He wants to acquire The Little Tyrant!

“You want to buy The Little Tyrant?”

“That’s right. The Little Tyrant should be in debt now, right? The newly produced product cannot be sold. If you sell them, it will consider patent infringement. Your company will also have to be close down! If you sell The Little Tyrant to me, the City will get a sum of money, the workers will not be out of a job, and the company will still be here. The City will still be able to collect taxes.”

Duan Yongping stared at Fu Guangzheng: “Did you do this on purpose?” How did he found out that The Little Tyrant was manufacturing Learning Machines? Had he been monitoring us way before everything had happened? Was this a trap?

Fu Guangzheng calmly replied: “Purposely? We purposely let you use our technologies illegally? If this is really on purpose, then I will place a huge order with your company. I will wait until you can’t deliver the goods and demand compensations from you. Maybe I do not even need to come over to acquire this company. The courts might even give The Little Tyrant to me!”

Duan Yongping slumped back into his chair. That’s right. If Fu Guangzheng really does that, then there was no way for The Little Tyrant to survive. But he still felt something fishy. Why someone else had already developed the Learning Machine when they just started to develop? It was normal to register the patents, but why was Learning Machine was registered as their brand?

This was weird. But like what Fu Guanzheng had said, if this were plotted, The Little Tyrant would be in a worse off situation than now. Also, Aiwa should not know that The Little Tyrant was developing Learning Machine.

But no matter what, selling the company to Aiwa was the best solution.

“Are you going to fully own The Little Tyrant?”

“No, I am only a small shareholder. There is still a major shareholder from Bing City. But he had said that in the future, he will give you some of this company’s shares as a reward!”

……

“Duan Yongpping, this is the solution you are talking about? Sell The Little Tyrant?” The City’s leader looked at Duan Yongping angrily. You want the City to sell a company that had made almost 30 million last year?

“Secretary Liu, other than selling this company to me, what other solution do you have? I am the only who can prevent The Little Tyrant from compensating the distributors double the amount. Because we can supply the distributors with Aiwa Learning Machine and they will definitely accept. Maybe we can also authorize The Little Tyrant to use our technologies. This is also something that only we can do, as we own all the patents.” Fu Guangzheng beat his chest arrogantly.

Secretary Liu lowered his head and kept quiet. Duan Yongping was also sitting by the side and keeping quiet.

“Are there another other solution? How about we let you invest in The Little Tyrant?”

Fu Guanzheng shook his head and smiled: “I am not only representing myself. The Little Tyrant, including the company, factory, brand and all assets must be sold to us. Of course, we will also promise that we will not fire any workers without any reasons. We will also not deduct their salaries!”

Hmmm… Workers cannot be sacked, but not for those at the management level. It was too easy to look for an excuse to sack those in the management level.

Fu Guangzheng was the same as Feng Yu. They could accept the union in the company but cannot allow anyone who does not do anything in the company. A company is a company and not a government. There was no need for the company to have all sorts of departments. Some of these departments have overlapping functions! The salaries for those department heads were much higher than the workers!

“Can the City still keep some shares? You can own the majority of the shares.” Secretary Liu’s attitude was almost like he was begging with Fu Guangzheng.

If the City still owns some shares, then he can say that he had gotten investors from Hong Kong and private companies to invest in the company for expansion. However, if he were to sell off the company entirely, how would he explain to the higher-ups? Because we almost sold counterfeit products, the company was facing closure and was acquired by someone else?

Fu Guangzheng shook his head: “I’m sorry. We can’t do that! If you sell The Little Tyrant to us, we will evaluate all the assets, including your stocks in the warehouse. Other than us, no other companies will accept those stocks! The city will get at least 20 million RMB. If you do not sell the company to us, then The Little Tyrant needs at least 30 million RMB to settle all the debts. You can think it over carefully. Do you want 20 million cash, your workers will continue to have a job, and a company that will carry on paying taxes to the city, or you want to take out 30 million to save this company. There is also a high possibility of the company going bankrupt after you have saved it. I will be waiting for your answer.”

Fu Guangzheng made a call to Feng Yu when he arrived at the hotel. He told Feng Yu that they would definitely acquire this company. But why didn’t Feng Yu take this opportunity to buy out this company at a low price? He believes that if he uses some strategies, he might be able to press the amount to less than 10 million RMB. Now, they were using almost 20 million RMB to buy this company. This was a waste.

However, Feng Yu was okay with this. This way, their relationship with the City will also be better, and they could still keep the technical staffs in the company.

Fu Guangzheng also felt that The Little Tyrant’s technical staffs were really skillful. They managed to break the Learning Machine’s technologies in such a short time. But they should not be worth for Feng Yu to invest so much money. As a Hong Kong Businessman, he was not afraid of the Local Government.

……

That very day, Zhongshan City government meeting lasted until midnight. All the leaders were discussing whether to accept Fu Guanzheng’s offer. At the end of the session, all of them agreed to accept this deal.

After all, all the situations mentioned by Fu Guangzheng might happen, and they must face it. They only have two solutions. One was to sell the company and take the money. The other was to come out with 30 million to save the company, but the company could still be bankrupt, and the workers will be out of jobs.

Secretary Liu reported this to his higher-up in Yang City, and his higher-up hesitated for a while and agreed to sell The Little Tyrant to the Hong Kong businessman.

Fu Guangzheng brought his team to evaluate The Little Tyrant’s assets. The materials and products in the warehouse were worth a few million. All the equipment and other assets were still in the company. But the liquid assets were missing. The city had withdrawn all the money from the company.

Fu Guangzheng was furious. They had agreed that he will take over all the company’s debts and the city cannot touch all the assets. Now, the money was missing. During negotiations, Fu Guangzheng did not give the City any face. He pointed out the many problems in The Little Tyrant company. For instance, the factory was too small, the workers were too old, the management was too messy, multiple mistakes in the accounts, the bad assets were also valued too high, etc.

You mentioned that you have tens of millions of orders? Please…… Can you even finish those orders? Without us, those orders will kill you!

In the end, Fu Guangzheng sacked most of the people in the management level. Only a few people that were in charge of production, sales and R&D remained. The final takeover amount was also lowered to 17 million RMB. At first, Fu Guangzheng had promised 20 million RMB, and the City had withdrawn only about 800,000 RMB from the accounts. Because of the City’s greediness, they lost a few million!

The Little Tyrant was officially renamed as Aiwa Little Tyrant Company. Feng Yu held 80% shares, and Fu Guangzheng held 10%. Feng Yu gave Duan Yongping the remaining 10% shares for him to distribute to the rest of the staffs. It was up to him to decide which staff would get the shares. Feng Yu also promised Duan Yongping the company’s shares if he could make significant contributions to the company.

Chapter 426 – Everyone is cursing Aiwa

After taking over The Little Tyrant, the factory will produce products for two brands. One was the Aiwa Learning Machine, and the other was The Little Tyrant Super Learning Machine. The retail prices for both products were different. The Little Tyrant Super Learning Machine was priced at 2,680 RMB.

Feng Yu had finally monopolized the Learning Machine industry.

Norio Ohga had been monitoring Aiwa closely. After all, Aiwa had not fully repaid their debts to Sony. Aiwa had introduced two models of Walkman this year and had beaten Sony again. Now, Aiwa holds more than 40% of the Walkman market share globally, and this figure was still raising. Sony’s market share had dropped to about 30%, and it was still declining!

Norio Ohga also discovered that Aiwa had made a big mistake, which was the Learning Machine, jointly developed by Aiwa and Nintendo!

What the hell was this thing? It looks like a game console, but it was not a game console. It looks like a computer, but it was not a computer. Who would buy such a product? Seems like Aiwa will waste all the profits made from their Walkman on this Learning Machine.

For such a useless product, Aiwa still asked Nintendo to manufacture for them. Was Nintendo stupid? Why did Nintendo let Aiwa take the bigger share of the profits? That’s because not much profits could be generated from this product! Nintendo only wanted Aiwa’s distribution channels in China.

That Chinese boss of Aiwa was really stupid. He had even persuaded the government to allow video game consoles to enter China.

After Nintendo and Sega entered the Chinese market, those Chinese video game consoles companies will be finished. That laughable Learning Machine will surely be obsolete. This was a lack of foresight!

Just like in the past, Aiwa might return to its previous situation. Being in debts because of a failed product!

Once Aiwa has problems with their finances, Sony’s Walkman will rise again. Sony was now researching on super slim Walkman. When this model was introduced into the market, it would be Sony’s turnaround!

Aiwa had focused all their attention on this Learning Machine. Norio Ohga had also heard that Aiwa had exchanged some technologies with another company and purchased two new production lines to manufacture a new type of video player.

Norio Ohga was overjoyed. Heitaro Nakajima was a greedy person. He wants to do everything and does not take Aiwa’s capabilities into consideration. How could Aiwa take care of so many fronts? Does the company have enough R&D staffs? Not every company have so many developers like Sony!

Sony will definitely overtake Aiwa this time! Especially Aiwa will need to repay their debts at the end of this year. We shall see how Aiwa repay their debts after spending so much money this year. Will, that Chinese brat have money to repay the debts?

If Heitaro Nakajima was sacked by the Chinese boss, then Aiwa will be gone. Without Heitaro Nakajima, Aiwa will have no way to revive!

When Norio Ohga, all of Sony’s higher management and all of Japan’s electronics companies were waiting for Aiwa to fail, they received news that Aiwa Learning Machine was out of stock. All the distributors in China were waving their cheques, requesting Aiwa to increase their production.

Soon after, the Learning Machine started to appear in many South East Asia countries. Although the sales in these countries were not outstanding, they did not have any competitors and did not make any losses. From the way things were going, it was only a matter of time before Aiwa make big profits in these countries!

Now, Norio Ohga, all of Sony’s higher management and all of Japan’s electronics companies were stunned. They started to investigate why this Learning Machine could sell so well and how this product makes money.

From their perspective, this was only a video game console with old outdated game cartridges. Although there was a keyboard attached and could learn foreign languages, there was nothing special. But this product was hugely popular with the consumers!

Soon, Aiwa had bought a company in China and started to produce another brand of Learning Machine. Aiwa also begins to sell this Learning Machine in Japan.

All of them did not expect that this Learning Machine could sell well in Japan. As Aiwa Learning Machine was only sold in Aiwa’s retail shops, they did not need to do many promotions. Aiwa’s retail shop has high traffic, and the Learning Machines were widely accepted by the Japanese!

Now, the consumers were saying that Aiwa’s technologies were good enough to produce computers and were better than Sony. What a joke! Were computers so easily manufactured? If it were so easy, Sony would have created their own computers ages ago. Aiwa’s electronic technologies could never be better than Sony, except for Walkman!

But all these people firmly believe that this was only for the time being. Aiwa will not depend on this product to earn money. Furthermore, Aiwa was also going to introduce a new type of video player. This was a greater joke!

It was impossible for Aiwa to make money from every product!

……

The Nintendo Chairman was fuming at their headquarters.

Nintendo had entered the Chinese market for about a month, but what were the sales? All of you had said that China was a new market and once we had penetrated into the market, we will surely increase Nintendo’s sales and profits.

But what happened in the end? This was the second month, and none of the distributors were ordering goods. This was because the consoles they ordered in the first month were still sitting on the shelves!

Nintendo’s factories had increased their consoles productions, and all these consoles were sitting in their warehouse. If this carries on, they have to lower the selling price. The Chairman could still accept if the China market were taken over by Sega. After all, Sega was still number 2 in the global video game industry. Some of Sega’s technologies were more advanced than Nintendo.

But in truth, the Chinese do not like Nintendo, and they had not even heard of Sega!

Nintendo had paid the advertising fees but why were there only newspaper advertisements? Where’s the TV commercials? China has TV stations that cover the whole of China, why can’t you advertise on these channels? What? No available advertising slots? Useless! All of you are useless!

Nintendo had wrongly estimated the Chinese market. Their products were too expensive, and the Chinese could not accept their prices. The consoles that were sold were only those models that cost about 1,000 RMB. No one was buying those consoles which cost more than 2,000 RMB.

Both consoles had the same functions. It was only the games cartridges that comes along with the consoles that were different. Nintendo also realized that there were counterfeit games of their newest titles within a short period. These counterfeits cost ranging from a few RMB to over 10 RMB. All the original game cartridges cost more than 100 RMB.

Nintendo also noticed that Learning Machine was selling very well. Although this Learning Machine was using Aiwa brand, Aiwa was taking the significant share of the profits and Nintendo was getting only a small part.

But very soon, Nintendo found out that Aiwa had reduced their production and had bought a Chinese company. Authorization was given to this Chinese company to produce another model of Learning Machine, called The Little Tyrant Super Learning Machine!

Nintendo felt that they were fooled by Aiwa. They had given Aiwa these technologies and had help Aiwa developed this product. However, the profits were reduced now!

“Call Heitaro Nakajima now! If he still wants to cooperate with us, then he has to give me an explanation!”

The Nintendo Chairman thought that with Nintendo’s influences, Aiwa will inevitably give in to his demands. But Heitaro Nakajima did not hesitate to tell him that if Nintendo thinks that Nintendo was at a losing end of this cooperation, then we can go separate ways!

At this time, Nintendo knew that Aiwa had made use of them and they were fooled by Aiwa! This was just like what happened between them and Sony.

Aiwa had terminated their cooperation, but they had gotten some of Nintendo’s technologies. The technologies Nintendo acquired from Aiwa were not as valuable. Although Nintendo had gotten what they wished for, entering the Chinese market and share Aiwa’s sales distribution channels, but their products were not selling in China. They had suffered an enormous loss!

Now, Nintendo was the same as Sony. Both were cursing Aiwa and praying for Aiwa to fail. They cursed Aiwa’s new video player to fail, and the learning machine was only a passing trend!

Chapter 427 – Brand Killer

The Little Tyrant’s Super Learning Machine was introduced to the market. Although it was priced lower than Aiwa Learning Machine, the sales were not as good as Duan Yongping expects.

Duan Yongping came up with an idea for his commercial. “The Clapping Song.” Feng Yu immediately arrange two advertising slots for him.

“You clap once, I clap once, The Little Tyrant has a new Learning Machine.”

In Feng Yu’s past life, this was the classic Little Tyrant’s advertising jingle. However, in this life, this jingle will not be as effective as it was in his past life. In his previous life, The Little Tyrant did not have any competitors.

In this life, Aiwa Learning Machine was already in the market for almost a month and was advertising aggressively. There were 8 advertisements on CCTV every day. No other company or brands had done this before.

Duan Yongping had analyzed his marketing tactics and felt that it was because The Little Tyrant does not have any celebrities endorsing its products. If he could get a celebrity to endorse his Learning Machine, the sales should pick up. There were not many famous celebrities now. The only one that was famous throughout China and even the whole world was Jackie Chan.

Duan Yongping called Feng Yu and told Feng Yu that he was thinking of getting Jackie Chan to endorse The Little Tyrant Learning Machine.

Feng Yu got a shock and almost threw the phone on the floor. Who did you say? Jackie Chan?

For goodness sake, Jackie Chan was also known as a brand killer in his previous life. Whatever products he endorses, something terrible will happen to that brand. There was even a term called “Jackie Chan’s endorsement” in the business world to describe the death of a company!

After Jackie Chan had endorsed for The Little Tyrant’s Learning Machine and The Little Tyrant close down. He endorsed for Ai Duo VCD player, and the boss of that company was put behind bars, and the company closes down. He endorsed for Fen Huang Cola, and this brand disappeared. He endorsed for Volkswagen Caddy, and only about 900 units were sold in entire China. This model withdrew from the Chinese market soon after. He endorsed for Bawang shampoo and later this shampoo was rumored to cause cancer. He endorsed for Si Lian Dumplings, and these dumplings were ordered to be removed from the shelves as it was contaminated with bacteria. He endorsed for Mitsubishi cars, and Mitsubishi had a massive recall of its vehicles due to faulty parts.

In Feng Yu’s past life, The Little Tyrant was the first company that was killed by this curse! This was why when Feng Yu heard Duan Yongping mentioning Jackie Chan, he almost had a stroke.

“Manager Feng, Jackie Chan is famous throughout China, Asia, and even the whole world. He is the hottest Asian celebrity now. If we can get him to endorse our products, we can even export. I had called his manager and the endorsement fees for two years, including commercials and printed advertisements, is only about 5 million RMB. I have bargained this amount to 4.5 million.”

4.5 million for 2 years was really a good deal. Compared to Jackie Chan’s fame, even it was only in Asia, this price was worth it. Jackie Chan seldom visits China now as Hong Kong’s handover still had not happened. He did not attend any business activities in China yet. As such, his pricing was still low in China.

The price given to The Little Tyrant was only to test the market. He wants to know how much he could charge in China.

There was someone who had come to Jackie Chan’s defense about his curse in Feng Yu’s previous life. After Jackie Chan’s endorsement, the product sales will increase exponentially. Everybody liked celebrities and trusted them. The consumers will choose to buy the products they endorsed. As the sales rose, the production could not keep up, and the companies had to expand their operations. The management could not keep up and made the wrong decisions. Some companies’ products had problems too, and the companies had relied too much on Jackie Chan’s popularity.

Most importantly, a tall tree catches the wind. There might be no problem with the brand or product, but because it was Jackie Chan, more people will take note of the product he endorsed. A small issue will be blown out of proportion. Some of the companies’ rival might be behind all these.

If Duan Yongping got Jackie Chan as the brand ambassador, then Feng Yu must make sure that there were no problems in The Little Tyrant’s management. Actually, he does not need to worry too much. The Little Tyrant in his previous life had too many government staff in the management, and there were rumors that the company’s accounts were very messy.

Now, The Little Tyrant was restructured and changed to a shareholding. Fu Guangzheng had also sent his men to manage this company. Without the government interfering with the management, there should not be any problems.

The only worry Feng Yu had was The Little Tyrant could not keep up with the production. If they hire factories as their contractors, the quality might be affected, and this would be a big problem.

There were many electronics factories in Guangdong. In Feng Yu’s past life, The Little Tyrant had to get some of these companies to manufacture their products, and there were problems with the quality. This resulted in The Little Tyrant shut down.

Feng Yu was considering if he should acquire some small factories to increase The Little Tyrant’s production. Managing these factories himself was better than getting factories to manufacture on behalf for them.

“Have you asked Manager Fu? Did he agree?” Feng Yu had a headache.

“I had asked Manager Fu, and he told me to get your opinion.” Fu Guangzheng also thinks that Jackie Chan was a suitable celebrity to endorse this product. Furthermore, 4.5 million RMB was way cheaper than his standard fees in Hong Kong.

But Fu Guangzheng knew about Feng Yu’s skills in choosing celebrities as brand ambassador. Just look at the spokesperson for bladeless fans and the humidifiers.

This was why even though Fu Guangzheng felt that Jackie Chan was a good choice, he did not agree immediately. What if Feng Yu had someone cheaper and more effective in mind?

“Manager Duan, have you considered that our factory is now manufacturing Super Learning Machine and also Aiwa Learning Machine? The sales now are almost matching to our production speed. What if the Super Learning Machine sales increase sharply after Jackie Chan’s endorsement and our production cannot keep up?”

“We have a lot of small electronic factories around us. We can hire them as contractors.”

Sure enough, this was the usual solution.

“Can we acquire some of these factories? It is better for us to manage the factories ourselves than hiring them. Discuss with Manager Fu and think of a solution.”

Damn. If Jackie Chan were to endorse this product, then they must not get some other factories to manufacture this product!

Duan Yongping discussed with Fu Guangzheng. With the current funds, they have no problems acquiring a small factory. But it was too difficult to buy 2 factories. They could use the usual method, using advance payments from the distributors and use the money to acquire these factories. Once after the products were produced, then they can send it to the distributors. If the funds were still insufficient, they can hold back on the materials payment and even hold back the workers’ wages.

Hold back the workers’ wages? Fu Guangzheng and Feng Yu had the same view on this. No way! They can hold back the distributors and suppliers’ payments and goods, but they must never hold back the workers’ salaries!

After both had discussed, they contacted Feng Yu. Feng Yu also agreed with Fu Guangzheng’s solution, which was getting a bank loan. The Little Tyrant must expand no matter what.

China’s economy had been improving these few years, and the people’s salaries had been increasing. Learning Machine sales will also become better. Coupled with Jackie Chan’s endorsement, the sales will definitely increase sharply.

As the Learning Machine was getting popular, Wind and Rain VCD factory was completed, and production could start. However, Feng Yu does not have time to visit the factory as his exams were around the corner.

Chapter 428 – Military Training

Paying attention in class paid off for Feng Yu. Although his teacher did not give any tips or told them which chapters to focus, Feng Yu was still able to answer all the questions in the exams.

Feng Yu had also done well for his Business Negotiations, an elective is chosen by him. Feng Yu had learned more negotiation techniques from this course.

Year One was over. But for Beijing University’s students, it was not over yet. This was because Beijing University has a tradition. All the year one student need to go to the military for a stay-in 2 weeks military training.

This training does not only include marching. It includes survival in the wilderness, shooting, etc. training. No one can skip this training without special reasons!

Feng Yu was also interested in this training, and he did not make up any excuse to skip it.

……

“I know everyone here is smart and higher educated than me. But this is not the reason for all of you to be so laidback! You must know that all of you are reservist soldiers. If a war is to break out, all of you will have to go to war! Even now, there is a small-scale war going on in the southwest. A country without a strong army will not be a powerful country! Now we shall start your first training. Regardless of your gender, everyone has to do 100 push-ups!”

Huh?

All the students were stunned. 100 push-ups? This is military training? Do our soldiers all train this way?

Feng Yu knew that the officer was only scaring them. The officer will not force all of them to finish 100 push-ups. He just wanted the students to follow his orders. Furthermore, China was not involved in any major wars and had reduced the number of soldiers in his previous life.

Everybody got down onto the ground and start to push-ups. Feng Yu also noticed the officer was doing push-ups with the students!

“1, 2, 3…… 98, 99, 100!”

The officer stood up sweating. But some of the students were already sitting on the ground, and some were lying flat. All of them could not feel their arms!

Feng Yu was considered quite fit. But after 50 push-ups, he also laid on the ground to rest. Damn, why this officer did not ask them to stop? Could it be that he really wanted everybody to finish 100 push-ups?

“All of you must complete. The ones who had finish can rest for a while. We will be doing squat jumps in a while. This training will end once everyone completed the jumps. If anyone cannot finish this training by noon, then there will be no lunch for all of you! Continue!”

Wtf? We are also not professional soldiers. Is there a need to train us so hard?

Feng Yu clenched his teeth and continued. He was the second person in the cohort to finish. The first person was a guy from the farms. His arms were thicker than many girls’ thighs. Feng Yu was full of respect for this guy. He was farming and studying at the same time, and he still managed to get a place in Beijing University!

For the next few days, the training was tough. Feng Yu had regretted his decision to join this training. He should have used some medical excuses to skip these training. He should get some medical conditions that allow him to skip the training for the next 4 years! How can a multi-billionaire be training under the sun?!

It was July, and the skies were clear. Feng Yu felt that he had become darker these few days. Ahhhh……. My beautiful complexion……

Feng Yu also noticed that the officer was giving him weird looks.

Damn, in this era, there should not be those “special activities” happening in an army camp.

……

“Today the training will be firearms shooting. We will be shooting rifles and pistols. Who thinks he can shoot well and want to try first?”

Some of the students raised their hands. Feng Yu’s eyes sparkled. Hmph, I had even driven a tank in the Soviet Union. I am surely better than the other students.

Furthermore, the first ones to will get to shoot more rounds than the rest.

“Fine, the few of you come forward! Have you ever fired a gun before?”

All of them nodded. Feng Yu was feeling proud in his heart. These people should have only fired hunting rifles. I had shot the Soviet army’s weapons. Those weapons were total on another scale!

Type 81 assault rifle, China’s most classic gun. Feng Yu held the rifle in his hands and check the magazine. It was all blanks. This was the only practice and was afraid that the students will get hurt.

When all of them got into the prone shooting position, the officer was staring at Feng Yu. This student’s movements were precise. He still knows how to check the magazine. Could any of his family members were in the military and had taught him? Or could he have received training in the military before?

China at this time had the most soldiers in the world. Even at Beijing University, many of the students’ parents are full-time soldiers.

There was a benefit growing up in a military family. Kids could learn to shoot with firearms since young.

Bang, bang, bang……

The students took turns to shoot. The target was close, and all of Feng Yu’s rounds hit the target. One of the bullets even hit the bullseye!

When the results were announced, Feng Yu found out that out of the 7 students who had shot, he was only in fourth place. 39 points. Feng Yu was quite satisfied with this result. What type of monsters are those top 3 places?

Those 2 of the 3 students had grown up in the military camps, and the other was from a hunter family. All of them had been playing with firearms since young. Even the ones that scored lower than Feng Yu had fired a lot of rounds in their life.

Feng Yu had only hunted a few times and had played with guns in the Soviet Union once. He was able to get this score because of luck.

“Good! Li Yong, Zhao Gang, Wang Qiang, and Feng Yu’s movements are very accurate. The other 3 students had made many mistakes. Now, I will demonstrate the precise movements. Pay attention. You will have to do 10 squat jumps with the rifle over your head for any rounds that did not hit the target. You will be given 3 rounds each later. I do not want to see any of you doing squat jumps later!”

Although someone was teaching the students, this was the first time for most of the students. Half an hour later, the area outside the range was full of jumping frogs!

Feng Yu and the remaining few were looking at the others doing jumps.

“The 7 of you will fire 3 rounds each. If you get lesser than 24 points, for every point, it will be 10 jumps!”

Damn, the officer was obviously targeting them!

As such, Feng Yu also became a frog. He was not as lucky as the first time.

……

The 2 weeks training was over in no time. On the last day, Feng Yu and some students were called to the officer’s office.

Feng Yu looked around, and those that were called to the office were the ones that had performed well during this training. Could the officer want to give them medals for their performances? If he had gotten some commendations from the army, his parents would be thrilled.

“The few of you are the scholars from Beijing University. In the future, all of you will be making significant contributions to our nation. But there are also many ways to contribute to the country. Have all of you ever consider joining the army?

Huh? Join the military?

Feng Yu immediately shook his head. If he had wanted to join, he would have joined when he graduated from high school. He could still receive special treatment. Now, he had already entered Beijing University. Who would be so stupid to join?

“Sir, are you serious? But I have not even graduated yet. How can I join?”

Damn, there was indeed someone that was willing to join! Feng Yu looked around and saw that it was the student whose arms were thicker than a girl’s thigh who had asked.

“There are two ways for you to join. First, you can transfer to the military university. You will be at least a Second lieutenant platoon leader when you graduate! The second way is to disrupt your current studies and enter the army for 3 years. After 3 years, you can return choose to remain in the army or return to school. You will also have the opportunity to be promoted to the Second lieutenant! Who wants to be a soldier? Brotherhood! You will never get to experience this elsewhere. If you are a soldier,, not only you can get to play with guns, you can still drive tanks, fly planes, fire cannons, etc.”

Feng Yu was cursing in his heart. Carry on bragging……. Some of the soldiers were rearing pigs for years!

The officer was very disappointed when he saw only 2 people hesitating. The rest rejected him flatly. He was very disappointed when he saw Feng Yu turning down his offer without even considering. Most of the graduates from Beijing University will be government officials, and they were not interested in becoming soldiers. Why was it so hard to recruit some educated soldiers?

When Feng Yu left the training camp, he felt that he was returned. He had finally completed the training!

Feng Yu was wondering about his company. Was the VCD players introduced into the market? How were the sales?

Chapter 429 and 430 – Organize an exhibition

On 1st July, many advertising slots on CCTV’s channels were changed to Wind and Rain VCD players and Aiwa VCD players commercials.

All the viewers felt that these commercials were entertaining. A small VCD was placed into a player, and clear videos were played on the TV. It was just like Video Cassette players.

The most surprising part that wow the audiences was the VCD. It was much smaller than Video Cassette Tapes and LaserDisc, and the image was clearer than cassette tapes, and the quality was almost on par as LD.

The VCD could be stored in a small box for easy storage. The audiences also noticed that there was karaoke function in the VCD player.

Sun Nan and Na Ying were happily singing along to their song, and their Music Videos was playing on the screen.

Wind and Rain VCD’s advertising slogan was: Wind and Rain Electronics, Technology can change our lives.

Aiwa VCD’s advertising slogan was: Aiwa Electronics, Master of Core Technologies.

These two brands were both promoting similar products and gave the feeling that these two were rival brands. Although there were many advertisements, there were not a lot of people who had bought the VCD players.

Two weeks after the launch of the VCD player, Feng Yu knew that no distributors that had placed orders for next month. The market’s response was not as enthusiastic as he expected.

Feng Yu was very curious. Could it be that the VCD was introduced earlier than it was supposed to be and that’s why no one was interested in this product? In his previous life, only about 10,000 units were sold by Wan Yan VCD player in the first year, when they launch this VCD player. Most of these players were bought by other electronic companies to research on it. VCD players became popular was also after 3 to 4 years!

Among those companies that had bought the VCD players, Japanese were the first ones who managed to break the code and had applied for the patent. They had snatched the profits away. But it was still the same. Japan had not applied for a license in China, and this was why there were still many companies competing in China.

Wan Yan was soon beaten by its competitors in China. Among these Chinese companies, Shinco and Aiduo VCD players were the more prominent ones. They were also out of this industry due to the introduction of DVD. The main reason was that these two companies did not know how to upgrade their technologies.

Based on history, VCD players should be introduced into the market next year, and there were only about 10,000 units sold. After that, the sales will increase rapidly and, in a few years, later, it will replace the traditional video cassette players. Feng Yu felt that his commercials were shot well, and the marketing was aggressive. He also had engaged celebrities to endorse his products. How come the sales was not picking up?

It seems that it would be good if 10,000 units were sold in the first month. But just the Wind and Rain VCD players, the monthly production was about 50,000 units. There will be too many units left in the warehouse. He might even have to stop the production.

The marketing was not enough? Do the consumers still do not know about the benefits of this VCD technology? Feng Yu wondered if those distributors had promoted these players based on the right selling points? They should be selling these players to those video lounges. These places were the first few that had bought VCD players in his previous life.

Feng Yu called Fu Guangzheng. Fu Guangzheng was relived. Feng Yu had finally appeared. These VCD players were not selling as they had expected.

Fu Guangzheng had wanted to discuss with Feng Yu if they should also advertise overseas to generate interest and at the same time, lower the production rates of their factories. They should at least not make losses now.

……

“Could it be that we had positioned our products wrongly? We position out VCD players as karaoke machines. But in fact, this is a new type of video players.” Jian Wanmeng asked.

Feng Yu slapped his forehead. Maybe he had made a mistake. Feng Yu knew how to position his products. The families overseas placed particular emphasis on family values. It was because most people were not living with their families. It was only on weekends when they have family gatherings.

This VCD player can be sold as a family cinema!

It was cheaper than LD, and the pictures were clearer than Video cassette players. The VCD was also smaller than LD and Cassette tapes. This should be the selling point.

Should a commercial about the comparison between VCD and Videocassette tapes picture quality be filmed? Or a comparison between the size of VCD and LD?

“Brother Fu, how can we let others know about the benefits of our products fast?” Feng Yu asked Fu Guangzheng.

Fu Guangzheng was surprised. All this while, Feng Yu was the one making all the decisions. This was the first time Feng Yu was asking him for advice. He was feeling proud. The Fu family have several ways to market products.

“The fastest way will be aggressive marketing. But we have already placed several advertisements on CCTV, and although the number of advertisements is not a lot, it can be considered sufficient. If possible, change the primetime advertisement slots of Wind and Rain Super fans, and Aiwa Walkman advertisements with the VCD players’ slots.”

“No problem. I will speak to CCTV tomorrow.” Feng Yu nodded. Since these were all his products, it was normal to switch the commercials about. Anyway, these products were all from the same brand.

“Actually, the fastest way for a new electronic product to be accepted by the consumers is to let the rest of the players in the electronics industry to accept this product and make they praise the benefits of the product.”

“Let our competitors praise us? How can this be possible?” Jiang Wanmeng frowned. Who would praise their competitors? If it was him, he would never do that.

Feng Yu suddenly ask: “What if the reporters filmed them praising or surprised unknowingly by reporters? Or we can force them to praise us?”

“Brother Feng, you have an idea?” Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu could think of a solution so fast?

“What do you think if we organize an exhibition? We can also showcase our products in some overseas exhibitions.”

“Exhibition? There are no exhibitions relating to this industry overseas. But there is some in China. However, the scale is not big and could not attract those big brands from overseas.” Jiang Wanmeng was more familiar with this industry. He had attended some related products exhibitions in China more than once.

Feng Yu smiled and said: “If there are no exhibitions, then we can organize one ourselves. Brother Fu, can you invite some electronics brands from Europe, the US, and Asia to participate in it? It would be best if you can get some big brands. I will liaise with Japan and Eastern Europe. Manager Jiang, you will invite those electronic companies in China.”

If Feng Yu were to invite the Japanese companies through Aiwa, those companies would most likely participate. For Eastern Europe, he can get Kirilenko to help. Kirilenko will not reject doing Feng Yu this favor.

With the domestic companies, there will be more than 100 companies participating. It does not matter if the company was big or small. Most importantly, there must have enough participants.

Huh? Such a big scale and there were still oversea companies participating? This can be on a national level scale, and it should be reported on CCTV news.

The exhibition can be held at Bing City. Maybe the City will provide the venue free of charge. The exhibition booths could be rented out, and this was a profitable business.

But when Feng Yu suggested Bing City, Fu Guangzheng shook his head. He felt that there were only 3 places that were suitable. Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Bing City was too out of place, and its development could not be compared to the other 3 cities.

Feng Yu had also considered about this. But he felt that this would be the fastest way for Bing City’s development. If it was Beijing, Shanghai or Shenzhen, he would still have to deal with the government. It would be best if the government were one of the organizers for this exhibition. This would increase the quality of the exhibition.

If it was Bing City, he only needs to tell Zhang Ruiqiang about the benefits of organizing this exhibition, and he will support him. The other cities might not be so supportive. Furthermore, this was an excellent opportunity to promote Bing City.

The three of them settled on the venue, and they started to invite the participants. Feng Yu had also returned to Bing City on the very day to persuade Zhang Ruiqiang……

“What? You want to host an electronics appliances exhibition? An international exhibition?”

“No, it is the City or the Province that is organizing. If you are about to use our country’s name for this exhibition, it would be better.”

“What is the use of this?” Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu. Was this rascal thinking of using the City to help him advertise his products?

“Promote our city. Think about this. Many companies from overseas and other provinces will be coming to Bing City. This is a great opportunity.”

“Great opportunity?” Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu with slanted eyes. He felt that this was not as simple as what Feng Yu said.

“Of course. Now, the companies that have agreed to participate in this exhibition are Japan’s Sony, Panasonic, Aiwa, Toshiba, Fujitsu, etc. There is also TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited), Acer, etc. from Taiwan. The companies from the US are…… These are all the top international electronics brands in the world. With these brands participating in this exhibition, how grand do you think it will be?”

Zhang Ruiqiang was stunned. Although he had not heard of most of the brands mentioned by Feng Yu, he had heard of Sony and Panasonic. These were all MNC, and Feng Yu could invite them?

These Japanese companies had no intention to participate in the first place when they received Aiwa’s invitation. But Heitaro Nakajima announced on their TV program that his company had developed a new product which will be introduced into the market soon. He claims that this product will change the future and Aiwa will be way ahead of the other Japanese electronics companies.

This was too arrogant and attracted the fury of the other companies. Sony and the rest of the companies were also curious about VCD technology. Was it really as good as what Heitaro Nakajima claims?

Another reason why the companies had agreed to participate was to showcase how advanced Japanese products were. They want to show the Chinese that the Japanese were the smartest people on earth. The products they produced are the best in the world.

At the same time, they want to promote their brands and products, and also break the Chinese confidence. They can also take the opportunity to penetrate into the Chinese market. This was killing many birds with one stone!

This was especially so when the Japanese companies had that the big brands from Europe and the US will be participating. They want to see the technologies from these companies and let these western companies know how great Japanese products were!

So, arrogant Japanese agreed to participate in this exhibition.

Fu Guangzheng then told those Western companies that the top Japanese companies will be participating in this exhibition. Don’t you want to attend? Western brands saw that Sony had agreed to join and confirmed that this exhibition’s level was not low. Furthermore, this was an opportunity for them to enter the Chinese market. There were more than 1 billion Chinese, and this was a huge market.

Within 5 days, more than 50 companies responded to the invitations and had agreed to participate. They will also be arriving at the venue earlier.

“Leader, this will be China’s most successful industrial exhibition ever organized. If this exhibition is successful, we can carry on organizing it next year and make it into a brand. This will be helpful for Bing City’s development. Think about it, those big companies coming to our city and they will see our traffic conditions, industrial developments, etc. These companies might invest in some factories or our local companies.”

“Is this really this simple?” Zhang Ruiqiang dare not to believe Feng Yu. The picture Feng Yu painted was too beautiful.

“Of course it is simple. Furthermore, even if these companies did not invest in factories here, they will also be bringing a lot of people here. The city can also earn from the food, lodging, traffic, etc. Also, the exhibition venue’s booth will not be free for them to use. They will need to rent those booths. This rental will also be a sum of money.” Feng Yu start to entice Zhang Ruiqiang.

“But our Bing City does not have such a big venue to host this exhibition. You said that there will be more than 100 companies participating? If one exhibition booth is 5 SQM, then the venue will need at least 1,000 Sqm if you include the walkways. Where can we find such a big space?” Zhang Ruiqiang frowned.

He was already interested in this exhibition, but Bing City does not have such a big convention hall. How can they host this exhibition?

Feng Yu sighed. The Bing City now still does not have an Exhibition Center. Hosting such a big exhibition will be hard. The only solution now was to build a shed over a football field. But this will be too low class and will affect Bing City’s image. It will also affect China’s reputation.

Secretary Liu just happened to enter the office with Feng Yu’s tea, and he hesitated for a while before saying: “Leader, I knew a place that is big enough to host this exhibition.”

“You know? Where is it?”

“At the Dongli area, there is a newly constructed mall. There are 5 stories and have more than 500 Sqm on every floor. Now, the construction has just been completed, and it is not in operations. It should be enough. But that is considered the Provincial Government’s assets.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was overjoyed: “I will settle that! Help me get all the City’s leaders here. We will have a meeting in 30 minutes. Also, get the leaders from the China Investment Promotion Agency, Ministry of Urban-Rural Development, Police Department, Ministry of Environment, Foreign Trades here for the meeting.”

“Wait, Mayor Zhang, there should be no need for Ministry of Urban-Rural Development. Bing City Pharmaceutical’s subsidiary Real Estate Developments is also good with renovations. We can let them set up the venue.” Feng Yu stopped Zhang Ruiqiang’s secretary.

Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head: “You will not miss any chance to make money. Fine. Don’t notify the Ministry of Urban-Rural Development. Go and call them. tell them that I will punish whoever that is late!”

Zhang Ruiqiang asked Feng Yu a few more questions like which countries were participating and if any countries had bad relationships with China. Was there anything he needs to look out for, etc.

Feng Yu was sweating. He did not know that it was so troublesome to organize an exhibition. Luckily, he did not try to hold the exhibition himself, or he might get into trouble.

The ground floor will be empty, and the 2nd to 5th floors will be the exhibition areas for the companies. Feng Yu reserved the best location near the stairs for his companies. The remaining booths will be arranged after the representatives from the companies arrived.

Feng Yu’s request to hang banners was rejected by Zhang Ruiqiang. If you start to hang banners, then the rest will follow. The exhibition will be very messy.

Feng Yu felt it was a pity. But it should not be a problem if he were to sponsor two huge balloons, like lanterns, outside the entrance. It’s free and has a festive feel.

“No banners!”

“No problem.” Feng Yu replied immediately.

Does he need to hang banners? He can just print Wind and Rain’s logo on the balloons. This should be considered home ground advantage.

Oh yes, red carpet should be laid at the entrance leading to the exhibition hall, and there will be rolls of flower baskets beside. This will make the place look better. I will also sponsor that.

Not allowed to print wordings on the carpet? No problem. I also do not want people stepping all over my companies’ brands.

No one had said anything about not allowing wordings to be on the flower baskets. The company that oversaw setting up the venue belongs to Bing City Pharmaceutical Corporation. Do they dare to go against Feng Yu, their deputy General Manager’s orders?

Hmmm… must get them to make sure that Aiwa, Wind, and Rain, etc. booths were setups differently from the rest. Our booths must leave a deep impression with the visitors and prominent.

Zhang Ruiqiang left for the meeting, and Feng Yu returned to Tai Hua Trading to prepare for their booths……

Chapter 431 – Songjiang Concept Car

“Welcome to China’s first International Consumer Electronics Exhibition at Bing city!”

“Best wishes for a successful exhibition!”

“We welcome all the distinguish guests from every companies and country!”

“Learn through experience, build a strong China together!”

……

Feng Yu was driving the first Songjiang saloon car from the Motor Company to the exhibition venue. Along the road, there were lots of banners.

At every traffic junction, there were traffic police directing the traffic. The streets were cleaner than usual. There were also some roads that were closed. All these show how important this exhibition was to the City!

Actually, it was not only the City. Even the Provincial Government was monitoring this exhibition closely. There were also some leaders from the Ministerial level calling to make sure Bing City do a good job. Bing City must showcase China to the world, and there must not be any incidents that will tarnish China’s reputation!

Feng Yu was not pleased. You had hung so many banners, but you do not let me hang a few. Furthermore, didn’t I offer to sponsor all the banners? This Old Zhang was too stingy!

Look at all these banners. This was a waste. How useful were these slogans? You should at least state which company or agency sponsored this banner. This was also a form of promotion for the City’s companies.

Hmmm… What a waste!

Feng Yu was sighing while diving and this made the person sitting at the back unhappy!

“Feng Yu, can you drive properly? Why are you shaking your head?!” Zhang Ruiqiang scolded.

Actually, Zhang Ruiqiang was supposed to be sitting in his own car, but Feng Yu dragged him away from his car. Feng Yu told him that the Motor Company first “Concept car” was ready and he should experience it.

Although Zhang Ruiqiang does not know what a concept car was, he still boarded Feng Yu’s unlicensed vehicle. He wants to know what sort of car Feng Yu manufactured behind closed doors!

The design of this car was sleek and in shiny black paint. The car feels heavy and has a grand presence. It looks better than his Audi 100. The seats were leather, and the interior was spacious. It was very comfortable, and the front seats could still move in 4 directions.

This car was very stable and not much noise could be heard. The windows were auto, and it looked at a luxury car.

Zhang Ruiqiang asked about the cost of building this car.

Feng Yu’s answer made Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. What? The cost of this car was 3000,000 RMB? How much will this car be sold for? 400,000 or 500,000 RMB? How many people can afford this?

Feng Yu explained to Zhang Ruiqang that this car was only a concept car and will not be mass produced. All the parts used were the best. When this model was to mass-produced, there will many be many changes. For example, the interior fittings and the engine’s capacity will be changed. The cost will be controlled within 100,000 RMB, and the retail price will not be more than 200,000 RMB.

200,000 RMB? 200,000 RMB was also too expensive! How much does a Santana cost?

Feng Yu continued. If the tires, lights, batteries, etc. were changed, then the cost can be lowered to less than 80,000 RMB. The retail price will be about 120,000 RMB, and it will be just enough to compete with Santana!

Also, this car’s fuel consumption was much better than Santana. It uses turbocharged technology and even the cheapest model, it will still be more powerful than Santana!

The engine and turbocharged technologies were from Bing City’s Aviation Factory. The engineer who had designed this was an aviation engineer. This fuel saving technology was the most advanced in China and among one of the tops in the whole world. But it was a pity that in his past life, no luxurious cars were manufactured using this technology.

“Leader, what do you think of this car? Have you ever consider changing all the government’s cars?” Feng Yu asked. He had finally shown his motive of dragging Zhang Ruiqiang onto his car.

“Stop the car. I want to alight!” Zhang Ruiqiang was furious. He knew that Feng Yu was up to no good when he offered to send him to the exhibition! When the Motor Company launched its motorcycles, Feng Yu asked the City’s traffic and police department to purchase a batch of motorcycles. Zhang Ruiqiang did not think much of it as the cost of the motorcycles were not high and it could help the city in regulating the streets. The police also needed these vehicles to maintain law and order. The city also had enough funds to purchase those motorcycles.

But now, Feng Yu was targeting the City Government’s cars. The city had just changed their vehicles a few years ago. How can they change it again so soon? Although the City Government have more funds now, and there were a lot of agencies requesting for vehicles, Zhang Ruiqiang felt that they should not be wasting their funds on these things. The City’s development should come first!

“Eh, Leader, why do you want to stop? Brother Liu, you should also persuade your leader. How can he work when he is so impatient?”

Secretary Liu looked down and dare not to say a word. You are close to the leader, and you can joke with him. I am only his new secretary. Please do not get me into trouble.

“Are you worried that no one is buying your cars?” Zhang Ruiqiang frowned and ignored Feng Yu. He already used to Feng Yu’s way of talking.

“Stop joking. Since when did you see any of my products not selling well? Those small factories in the city also depend on Tai Hua Trading’s exports to survive. I am only making a suggestion. In the future, if the city wants to change cars, don’t go to First Automobile Works. You should let our own people earn this money. Yes, I will also give you some discounts.”

“Then you will have to wait for a while. The City will not be changing vehicles these two years!” Zhang Ruiqiang wanted Feng Yu to stop thinking of selling his cars to the City Government. The City should not waste its funds!

There were many cities and provinces mayors and deputy mayors who were traveling in imported Audi 200 cars which were released last year. But in Bing City, only the Party Secretary owns one. Zhang Ruiqiang was still using the Audi 100. Who else would dare to request for Audi 200?

The government agencies in Bing City can only use Santana and Xiali cars. Those unit leaders were traveling using vans manufactured by the Aviation Factory.

Feng Yu smiled. This was not up to you to decide. When the Provincial Leader changed his car, all of you will also have to change. The agencies below will constantly request the leaders to replace all the vehicles. Even if you do not want to change, will the Party Secretary also think the same?

When all the government departments in China had changed their vehicles, will Bing city change? If the rest of the cities in Longjiang province change their cars, will you be about to withstand the pressure? Others will be saying that you are seeking praise. You will also have no choice!

Feng Yu did not say all these out. Nothing good will happen even when he says all these to Zhang Ruiqiang now.

“Leader, then tell me what you think of this Motor Company’s car? Are the exterior design and the engine performance better than Santana?” Feng Yu asked proudly.

“Santana is very durable. What about this car?”

“The chassis and frame are all using the technologies from the former Soviet Union. Although Soviet cars are lacking in many areas, they still have their plus points, which was the best in the world. Their cars seldom break down. Even when the car has some minor issues, the car can still move.”

As for the engine, it was using the technologies from Bing City’s Aviation Factory. The suspensions and low noise technologies were developed from the Motor Company. It seems that the suspensions were doing well.

The Motor Company had compared this car and Santana. Their vehicle had beat Santana in all areas. Some of the specs were even better than Audi 100. But they were not sure if the cheapest model of this car could still be better than Santana and Audi.

The traffic was smooth, and soon they arrived at the entrance of the exhibition venue. Feng Yu parked his car beside the red carpet. Secretary Liu immediately alighted from the car to open the door for Zhang Ruiqiang.

After Zhang Ruiqiang alighted, Secretary Liu closed the door and waved the car away.

Feng Yu was speechless……. Fuck, he really treated me like a driver!

Chapter 432 – Opening Ceremony of the Exhibition

Bing City has never been so bustling with life in its history. Representatives of more than 200 companies from both local and overseas were in the lobby of the exhibition venue. About half of these companies were local. Multiple languages could be heard in the hall, and there were not enough translators from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The city still has to bring in many students, teachers, and professors to work as translators.

While walking on the red carpet, Zhang Ruiqiang saw the rolls of flower baskets lining up by the side. Wind and Rain’s logo was printed on them. He looked up and saw two big balloons in the form of lanterns. Wind and Rain logo was also printed on it!

Zhang Ruiqiang knew that brat would not be so kind to sponsor so many things. Although he had tried his best to stop Feng Yu from doing these, Feng Yu was still able to get the chance to advertise his brand!

Oh shit. It was the Pharmaceutical Corporation’s subsidiary that had set up the exhibition venue. Could it be that the exhibition halls were also like this? If it was, then it must be removed immediately. This was a national level exhibition. Does that brat think that this was his company’s exhibition?

When Feng Yu was about to park his car, he noticed that there were no available lots. There was a large empty space for vehicles, but it was full. There were lots of taxis parked there too. Many foreigners had booked those taxis, and those taxis were parked there waiting for their guests.

Those taxi drivers knew each other and were gathering together, smoking and chatting.

“Eh, what is this consumer electronics thing?”

“Country bumpkin, you don’t even know about consumer electronics? It is semiconductors and digital parts!” Another driver said proudly.

“Huh? Why are they organizing such a huge event for those things? Not only our City Mayor is here for a speech, and there are still so many foreigners from so many countries. Sigh….. the guest I am ferrying is from the Soviet Union. No….. is from Russia. What about you? Where is your guest from?”

“Mine is from England.”

“My guest is from France.”

“Mine is from the US. Old Liu, why are you keeping quiet?”

“I am ferrying a Japanese!” Old Liu bowed down his head in shame.

“You ferry a Japanese guest? Go away. Don’t smoke with us!”

“But I only know that he is a Japanese after I picked him up. That Japanese can speak Chinese.”

“Then stop ferrying him!”

“But I had taken his money. I will not pick up tomorrow!” Old Liu beat his chest.

“Sirs, can you move your vehicles slightly to let me park my car here?” Mistake. I should have reserved a lot for myself.

“Eh, what is the brand of your car? It looks familiar, but I have never seen this model before. Also, why there is no registration plate on your car? You better drive your car away before the traffic police come and impound your car!”

Eh? Traffic Police?

Feng Yu slapped his forehead: “Thanks. I will leave now.”

Feng Yu drove up to traffic police and wind down the window: “The Mayor had come here in this car. Where is the lot reserved for the Mayor’s car?”

“This is the Mayor’s car?” The Traffic Police was suspicious. Don’t all the City Government top officials use Audi 100? Furthermore, this vehicle also does not have a registration plate.

“This is our Motor Company’s newly manufactured car. The Mayor is just supporting the local industries. Hurry up, I still need to pass the Mayor’s script to him.” Feng Yu said impatiently.

“Eh, you go in that direction and turn left. The lots reserved for the City’s officials are there. There are still a lot of lots there.” The Traffic Police said politely.

Feng Yu pressed a button and drove towards the carpark. The Traffic Police was in awe. This car was gorgeous and advanced. The windows could be wound up by pressing a button. Only the Mayor has the privilege of sitting in this car!

After parking the car, Feng Yu walked to the exhibition hall. It was very quiet. He looked around, and it was full of people. There were at least 1,000 people there! Luckily there were no exhibition booths on the ground floor. Otherwise, it will not fit everybody. Even the rostrum was placed on the stairs.

Zhang Ruiqiang was standing on the rostrum, giving a speech. There was two officers from the City beside him translating to Russian and English. Those officials were excited. It was because they knew foreign languages and they get to stand beside the Mayor on such an important event.

“This is our Bing City’s glory, our Longjiang Province’s glory, and China’s glory!” Zhang Ruiqiang waved his hand when he said this. The audience cheered and applauded.

The applause continued after the Russian translation. It was the same for the English translation.

Feng Yu was among the crowd and saw some small build men showing unhappiness. From their attire and hairstyle, Feng Yu could tell that they were Japanese. It seems that they were unhappy that there were no Japanese translators. So what if they were not happy with this arrangement? Who asked the Japanese to be so unpopular?

Zhang Ruiqiang continued to introduce the layout of the exhibition hall, like the category of products on each floor, and also where to get help from the staff. If any contracts have to be signed, where the photocopier machines were located.

When the Japanese heard this, they had a proud look on their faces. They had arrived 2 days before and had seen that those printers and photocopier machines were Japanese products. Even the sound systems in the exhibition were from Japan. China can’t even manufacture these things, and yet they want to organize a consumer electronics exhibition?

This was an opportunity for the Japanese to showcase their products. They could show the Chinese and those westerners how strong Japan was in consumer electronics!

Zhang Ruiqiang continued with his speech and requested all the participants to abide by the rules. He ended his speech by thanking all the participants and wish the exhibition success.

Zhang Ruiqiang’s speech was concise. Feng Yu had reminded him about this. These people were not here to listen to his speech. They were here to showcase their products and interact with others from the same industry. If his speech were too long, the crowd would be impatient, and he would be embarrassed.

After the applause, the firecrackers were lit outside. Actually, someone from the City suggested arranging for Lion and Dragon dance performances. Zhang Ruiqiang asked Feng Yu if overseas exhibitions had ever done anything like this. Feng Yu was shocked.

Dragon dance? Luckily no one had suggested Chinese Folk songs!

Feng Yu thought for a while and felt that it was okay to have or do without. But the opening ceremony should not be too long. This Lion and Dragon Dance performances can be saved for the closing ceremony. Provided that all the participants had not left yet.

The rostrum was removed, and everybody went upstairs orderly. Actually, there were some staffs still in their respective booths. If all of them were on the ground floor, it would be too crowded!

Zhang Ruiqiang accompanied by the exhibition staffs toured the exhibition halls and visited every booth. There were also some government officials from smaller countries there. They were there to see if there were any opportunities to cooperate with Bing City.

Feng Yu went to a corner and took an exhibition brochure. He looked at the brochure and smiled. The City Leaders will never expect that he would advertise on the brochure when he offered to sponsor the printing of the brochures. Everyone who had taken a brochure would see pictures of Wind and Rain, and Aiwa’s VCD players in color!

I had never made losses when I do any sponsorship!

Chapter 433 – Making comparisons

Zhang Ruiqiang walked around the exhibition, and his brows were tightly knitted together. How come the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors were like this?

He had noticed that this was an exhibition hosted in China, but all the Chinese booths were not as well located as the foreign companies’ booths. All the foreign companies’ booths were well decorated and huge. Those Chinese companies’ booths were small and unnoticeable.

It seems that only Feng Yu’s companies were the only Chinese companies that were nicely decorated. But why did Feng Yu get so many girls in Cheongsams standing in his booths?

“Leader, look at my booths. What do you think of the decorations? Don’t you think that these are attractive? I had said that those companies’ booth locations are not good, and they still got angry with me.” Feng Yu suddenly appear beside Zhang Ruiqiang and said proudly.

“Where are these girls from? Your company?”

“They are from Beijing Teaching University. Just like the ones welcoming the guests at the entrance. 10 RMB a day and lunch are provided. Many had wanted to come, but the slots are full.” Feng Yu was feeling regrettable. In this era, he could not get girls in swimsuits to be standing at his booths attracting a crowd. If he were to do that, he would be arrested on the spot!

Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head. Feng Yu was full of ideas. But he felt that these were all unorthodox ideas! You should be attracting crowds with your products and not by young women!

“Leader, have you noticed anything problems? Look at how those foreigners’ set up their booths and how they display their products. Look at what our China companies are doing. They do not have many products on display, and many of these companies’ products are all the same. Even the technologies used are the same.”

“Sigh…. Our country’s consumer electronics have a huge gap to fill.” Zhang Ruiqiang sighed.

“That might not be the case. Maybe we can be better than them in certain products just like this VCD player. This is something that the other countries does not have, and it will create a huge amount of profits and bring in lots of foreign currencies!”

“This thing is really that good?”

“Of course. If you don’t believe me, I can demonstrate to you.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was dragged to Tai Hua Trading’s booth. There were only a few foreigners there and not much crowd.

But when people noticed Zhang Ruiqiang walking into the booth, the crowd start to grow. Not only the Chinese likes to follow the group, but those foreigners also like to do this too.

In about one minute, when Feng Yu was still setting up the VCD player, the crowd grew to a few dozens, and it was still growing.

Zhang Ruiqiang started to regret coming to Tai Hua Trading’s booth, and he should not even sit there. He was tricked by this brat again. Feng Yu was making use of him to attract people!

Feng Yu took out a disc and showed it to the crowd before placing it into the VCD player. Soon images appeared on the TV, and it was Elvis Presley performing.

The image was very clear, and the sound quality was excellent. There were no lags, and the crowd was surprised.

The image quality was almost as good as LaserDisc, but it was a compact disc.

The Chinese had seen it on the commercials, but not a lot of people had bought it. There were also not a lot of people purchasing video cassette players in China as it was too expensive. There were still many families in China that do not have a TV.

Actually, LaserDisc was also not selling in China. Even in the West, the sales were not doing well. Only Japan and Southeast Asia were selling well. The biggest manufacturer of LaserDisc was Japan.

From the lack of pirated LaserDisc in China, one could tell that this product has no market here.

“Our VCD player will soon replace LD players and the Video cassette players. It can be used as a Karaoke machine and video players.”

“Nonsenses!” Feng Yu was still speaking in front of the VCD player telling the crowd about the features when he was interrupted by an angry voice! The accent was also peculiar.

The representative from Pioneer Corporation squeezed himself through the crowd and stood in front of Feng Yu. He said in an agitated tone: “Our LD can store 100 minutes of the movie and uses laser technologies to record. Both sides can be read, and the image and audio are clearer. How can our LD be replaced by such products?”

Feng Yu lowered his head and glanced at the representative from Pioneer Corporation. Ha, 1.6m tall even after wearing shoes? I am 1.8m. Don’t your neck feel tired standing so close to me?

Speaking down to others will have felt more powerful! Since you are asking for it, then don’t blame me for using your products for comparison.

“Really? Then is our image and audio not clear enough? Yes, our technologies now only store 60 minutes of video but this is enough for those ordinary music videos. One movie only uses 2 VCD. Oh, our VCD is only selling at 10 RMB a piece. Which is about 2 USD. Can I ask you how much is one LD selling for? 40 USD or 30 USD? I heard that it is selling for about 20 USD in some places. The money uses to buy one LD can buy 10 VCD.”

The crowd starts to talk among themselves. A video player cannot be used to watch only one movie. It was the disc that’s important and most sought after by the consumers.

One cost at least 20 USD and the other was less than 2 USD. Which will the consumers pick? Even morons will know that if there were not much difference in the quality, they would choose the cheaper ones.

“Here, this is your company’s LD, and this is our VCD. The storage for your LD is enough to store 8 VCD.” Feng Yu took out 2 boxes and placed the Discs on the table to show everybody.

“Furthermore, the prices for LD players in the market is above 1,300 USD, but our VCD player is selling for about 1,000 USD! Look at the size difference between the LD player and our VCD player. Which one will you buy?”

“Even if your product can replace LD, but how can you replace Videocassettes? Videocassettes are the mainstream, and the prices for a video cassette is only a few USD.” Someone from the crowd shouted.

The representative from Pioneer Corporation was still thinking how to refute Feng Yu when he heard this person asking. He kept quiet. Although he knew Chinese, it was still tough for him to argue with others in Chinese.

“Good question. I shall tell all of you why this VCD will replace cassette tapes. Look at this video. It is Elvis Presley’s music video.” Feng Yu took a microphone and plugged it into the VCD player and pressed a button. Elvis’ voice disappeared, but the music was still going on.

Feng Yu sang a few lines along with the music. His singing was terrible, but he had proved his point.

“See this? This can still be used as a Karaoke machine. We will be introducing a large variety of this karaoke VCD. No matter if you want to sing or listen to music, this would be the right player for you. Look at the image. It is much clearer than video cassette tapes, and you will not face the problem of your tapes getting stuck in the player. There is another benefit to our VCD. The space of two videotapes is more than 8 VCDs. Normal video cassette players are selling from 900 USD to 1,500 USD. We have the same advantage!”

“Do you have available stocks now? I want to buy 2!” Someone arranged by Feng Yu shouted.

This reminded the rest in the crowd. They also want to get two units back to research on it. If they were able to figure out the technology in it, they could also produce VCD.

Chapter 434 – Taking a step too far

“I shall trouble you with this, Master Lu. We shall have a chat when I am back in Beijing.” Feng Yu hanged up the phone with a smile.

Just the exhibition alone was not enough. The exhibition had given those foreign brands a chance to showcase their latest technologies. For China companies, other than The Little Tyrant and Wind and Rain brand, no other companies could stand out.

Feng Yu had wanted to see if he had missed out any gems. But China’s consumer electronics were too far behind other countries.

The closing ceremony’s performances were canceled. Those foreign companies had taken all the limelight, and we still must perform for them?

During the exhibition, the VCD, regardless of Wind and Rain brand or Aiwa brand, had attracted the attention of all the foreign companies. Feng Yu hired someone to write an article about this VCD.

This article was handed over to Master Lu for him to send to all the mainstream newspapers, like <People’s Daily>. This was the first time China’s consumer electronics overtake the rest of the world. They should be proud and flaunt this to everyone.

Feng Yu had also sought the help of Kirilenko and Fu Guangzheng to use their connections with the overseas media to report on this VCD and China’s consumer electronics.

After these articles were published, lots of media paid close attention to this exhibition. Some of the foreign media had not attended this exhibition but had also written some articles regarding this exhibition.

The reports were divided into 3 perspectives. One faction said that the article that was published earlier was fake. China had been closed off to the world for so long, and their consumer electronics technologies could not be the best in the world. China must have used Aiwa’s technology and claimed to be theirs. This technology was invented by the Japanese.

These types of reports were mainly from England, Japan, Europe, and Southeast Asia’s media.

There was another faction that agreed with the earlier article. It states that China was up and rising, and China had a huge population. It would be a matter of time before China will take over the world. These articles were mainly talking about China’s threat to the world. These reports were primarily from the US media.

The last group of reports was congratulating China catching up with the rest of the world. These media were from those former Soviet Union countries and other countries that had good relationships with China. Of course, the Chinese press were the most supportive.

The strategy of using media to market their products was thought up by Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng. They want people to believe that VCD technology will bring the world to the next era.

Coupled with aggressive advertising, they will be able to open up a market for VCD.

Fu Guangzheng told Feng Yu that advertising might help their products’ sales in the in the initial phase, but it will not let the sales grow steadily. The Fu Family had lots of experience in this area.

For example, the Learning Machine. Although the sales might seem fine for now, the overseas market’s sales were starting to shrink after the initial spike.

The Chinese market might still be growing, but there were talks that this Learning Machine was only a video game console disguised as a computer.

The Fu Family had conducted market research. If the VCD were to replace video cassette players and LD players to become the consumer’s family movie systems, it might take 2 to 3 years.

This was why Fu Guangzheng warned Feng Yu to not increase the production of the VCD players. If things were not going well, their products would fill up their warehouses in no time with the current production rate.

But luckily for them, although the sales of the VCD was not as good as they expected, it was still enough for them to break even and occupy the market. This was also a good thing.

Feng Yu knew that he was not a sales genius. He was able to come up with so many sales ideas and knew which products could make money, was because of his memories from his previous life.

Feng Yu’s memories do not include the process of how those people make money. He only knew which products would be popular and can make money. This was why he tried his best to keep all the founders of the companies, whenever he takeover or invest in those companies.

It seems that Feng Yu was conceited. He had believed too much on his memories from his previous life and had been changing history. He kept introducing products earlier than it was supposed to be. He had forgotten about the timings and the consumer’s spending power.

This resulted in Feng Yu got to think of ways to market and push the sales of these supposedly popular products.

The exhibition had ended. Wind and Rain and Aiwa VCD players’ sales were much lower than what Feng Yu had expected.

Those companies’ representatives knew that the VCD technologies patent were in the hands of Tai Hua Trading and had authorized Aiwa to use the patents. Japanese media had also found out that Aiwa and Wind and Rain’s major shareholder were the same people!

That means the VCD technologies were in the hands of one person. Many people went up to Feng Yu, wanting to get the patent authorization to develop this market together.

But Feng Yu rejected them without any hesitation!

Although with more brands, this market will be developed faster. But it will also lower his profits. Those companies’ technologies were more advanced than Wind and Rain, and Aiwa. Their brands were also more well-known than Wind and Rain. If these companies were able to develop better products, like DVD, then VCD will be replaced by DVD before it was able to flourish. This was not something Feng Yu wanted to see.

Because Feng Yu did not want to authorize other companies and had established the sales distribution channels, he cannot let those companies be the distributors for Wind and Rain VCD or Aiwa VCD. If he did that, he would breach the contract with the Fu family. Tai Hua Trading was in-charge of China’s internal distribution, while the Fu Family was in-charge of the overseas distribution.

The Fu Family was very grateful that Feng Yu did this. The was the opportunity for Feng Yu to kick the Fu Family aside, but Feng Yu did not do that.

Fu Rongjing was the only one that did not think this way. He felt that his son, Fu Guangzheng had helped Feng Yu too much. The Motor Company’s new factory construction, Aiwa electronics, Wind and Rain electronics factories were all taken care of by Fu Guangzheng. Feng Yu was the one that needed Fu Guangzheng and cannot do without the Fu family’s management team.

Fu Rongjing had hinted to Fu Guangzheng that Feng Yu needed him, and he should have asked for more shares several times. He does not need to take the shares for free. He can pay for those shares. Fu Rongjing was willing to pay the market rate.

But Fu Guangzheng rejected this suggestion. He understands Feng Yu’s character well. Feng Yu looks like he was a generous person, but in reality, he was very stingy. If he made this request to Feng Yu, it would be best if Feng Yu agrees. But what would he do if Feng Yu disagree? Withdraw from all these companies?

Although Feng Yu would suffer huge losses if Fu Guangzheng withdraws from those companies. But it will not hurt Feng Yu. Feng Yu can just let the middle management staffs take over the crucial roles in the company, while he poaches people from other companies with high salaries. Fu Guangzheng will be the one that will lose the opportunity to follow Feng Yu to make money. He will be at the losing end.

Fu Rongqi also felt this way. He reminded Fu Guangzheng to try and build a closer relationship with Feng Yu.

Feng Yu looked at the August VCD sales report. It was not up to his expectation. He can’t help but sigh. He had taken a step too big…. He had shot himself in his foot!

Chapter 435 and 436 – Penpal

“Eh? Lao Si, don’t you have a mobile phone? Why are you writing letters?” The Lao San at the dormitory asked.

Feng Yu replied casually: “Oh, I have a pen pal.”

Penpal was the trendiest way to make new friends for the youngsters in that era. Feng Yu was also not someone that casually befriend pen pals. This pen pal was also not for his business.

He was writing this letter to her. The ‘her’ from his previous life.

Zhou Kexin of Jiangcheng District. She had just entered high school this year, and her hobbies were reading the newspaper. Her ambition was to be a reporter.

Today when Zhou Kexin arrived at school, she saw an envelope pasted on the reception room’s window. The letter was addressed to her.

“Grandpa Li, I am here to collect my letter. My name is Zhou Kexin, from Year 1 class 3.”

“Not bad, little girl. You have relative studying at Beijing University. Are you also going to enter that university? You have to work hard. It is not easy to enter Beijing University.” Old Li took the letter and passed to Zhou Kexin.

Zhou Kexin smiled and thanked him.

When she saw the envelope, she understands why Grandpa Li said that. This letter was sent from Beijing University! But none of her friends and relatives were in Beijing. Who sent her this letter?

Until Zhou Kexin reached home, she had not read the letter yet. She was afraid that someone else would see it. After finishing her homework, she secretly took out the letter when she was about to sleep. With a touch light, she hid under her blanket to read it.

This was a letter to befriend her. This person wants to be her pen pal.

Pen pals started from those youngsters who had gone to the cities or returned back to the villages. This was their way of communicating with their former friends. Many places in China still do not have access to telephones, and even if there were phone lines, the charges were costly. Letters were the cheapest way for them to communicate.

When it started, letters and postcards were sent to and fro between childhood sweethearts. Soon letters were sent between friends. These letters were mainly talking about their recent events, etc.

Most pen pals were girls. Maybe it was because girls like to pour their sorrows to strangers and they seek comfort.

Zhou Kexin had wanted a pen pal long time ago, but she did not know who to write to. Her classmates had written letters to other people, but after a semester, there were no replies. Not everybody likes to have pen pals.

This person was studying at Beijing University. How come he knew her contact information? There was also a Jackie Chan postcard along with the letter. How come this person knows that she likes Jackie Chan? Maybe Jackie Chan was a famous celebrity, and everyone in China loves him.

In the letter, he wrote about how beautiful Beijing University was. But he mentioned that the girls at Beijing University were ordinary looking. He concludes that smart girls are not pretty!

He also mentioned that he wanted to visit Jiangcheng district. He heard that Jiangzheng district was a beautiful place, but he never got the opportunity. He was also not good at swimming and wonder if he would drown if he goes to Jiangcheng.

Zhou Kexin read the letter thrice. The way this person wrote the letter was interesting. Smart girls are not pretty, that means he was implying that smart girls are ugly? Also, Jiangcheng district was only named as Jiangcheng, and it was not really built on the river. How can he drown?

In the letter, nothing was mentioned about how this person got to know her contact details and why he was writing to her. Only some trivial matters about his school life were mentioned, and he hopes Zhou Kexin would reply to him. He signed off the letter as “Second most handsome person on earth,” and there was a cute drawing of himself.

The second most handsome person on earth? Who would use this as his pen name? This person was not humble, but he seems interesting.

In this era, the pen names used by most people were trying to express how pure and elegant they were. Examples of such names were Snow, Winter Plum or New Moon. This was the first time she heard of someone using “Second most handsome person on earth” as pen name!

This “Second most handsome person on earth” wants to be my pen pal? This letter was sent from Beijing University and this “Second most handsome person on earth” must be studying there!

But this person was a bit…… too mischievous and not modest at all!

No matter what, this was Zhou Kexin’s first pen pal’s letter, and she was overjoyed. She read the letter several times more until she could almost memorize the letter before she put it under her pillow. She fell asleep with a sweet smile.

When Zhou Kexin woke up the next day, she lifted her pillow and saw her letter was still there. She was relieved. This was real and not a dream. She really has a pen pal now!

Although this ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ pen name was weird, his handwriting was beautiful, and the stories were interesting and humorous. Most importantly, he was studying at Beijing University!

During breakfast, Zhou Kexin’s mother asked her why she was smiling to herself. Zhou Kexin made up an excuse that she was the only one who had answered a question in class correctly yesterday. Her mother still praised her.

On the way to school, Zhou Kexin kept smiling. Even during her lesson, she was still thinking about the contents of the letter.

At noon, when all of her classmates went out for lunch, she remained in class to draft a reply letter in her notebook.

After she had finished writing, she read it several times and made some amendments. She copied the contents onto a sheet of paper and folded it carefully and kept it in between a book.

“Kexin, the school’s over. Why are you not going back?”

“You go back first. I have to pass something to the teacher.” Zhou Kexin made up some excuse. She does not want others to know about her pen pal, even when this was her childhood friend. This was her personal secret.

“Shall I wait for you?”

“No need. You go back first. I will go back alone later. Anyway, the skies turn dark later during this period.”

“Okay then. Be careful. I will go off first. Bye.”

Zhou Kexin waited for about 10 minutes before she carried her bag and got onto her bicycle. She was not heading towards the direction of her house. She was heading towards the direction of the post office.

The post office was closed, but the small shop opposite was still opened. This small shop also sells stamps and envelopes.

Zhou Kexin wrote the address on the envelope and ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ as the recipient. The boss of the small shop looked at Zhou Kexin and her envelope. ‘Second most handsome person on earth’…… Who the hell calls himself this name?

The boss thought for a while and realized that this was a pen name. But for someone to use such pen name, he must be not highly educated and does not know what modesty was. Wait, the address was Beijing University? Hmm…… this pen name was still quite modest. At least he does not claim to be the most handsome person on earth!

Zhou Kexin carefully places her letter into the envelop and use glue to stick the stamp and seal it. She carefully blows the glue dry and used her hands to straighten out the folds. She happily dropped the letter into the post box. She can’t wait for the postman to deliver her letter to Beijing, into the hands of ‘Second most handsome person on earth.’

……

“Eh, who do you think this shameless person is? He calls himself ‘Second most handsome person on earth.’”

“That’s right. Could this be a prank or this letter is wrongly delivered?”

“Cannot be. This handwriting must be a girl. Will girls play a prank on others? Furthermore, this is Beijing University. The address is correct.”

“Then you tell me which girl will call herself ‘Third ugliest person on earth’?”

When Feng Yu reached the classroom, he heard the conversation between Tian Lei and the rest. Was this letter really a prank? Feng Yu also wanted to laugh. But when he heard Second most handsome person on earth, he remembered that it was his pen name.

“Cough. Class monitor Tian, that letter is addressed to me.”

Everyone turned and look at Feng Yu like he was a monkey in the zoo.

“What’s wrong? I cannot use this pen name?” Feng Yu barked. These people do not understand his humor!

“Pen name? This is your pen pal’s reply letter?” Tian Lei waved the letter and asked.

If this letter were not addressed to their class, Tian Lei would not collect it. He remembered the teacher’s look when he received this letter from the office. The teacher looked at him as if this was his letter.

But it was normal for the teacher to suspect this letter was Tian Lei. Tian Lei was the class monitor, and all the letters for his class will be collected by him. The teacher felt that Tian Lei would use this pen name because the rest of the students in the class will not get to see it.

Tian Lei never expect this letter was for Feng Yu. Feng Yu also did not consider whether this pen name can be accepted by his classmates.

Feng Yu snatched the letter from Tian Lei and stuffed it into his pocket: “What? All of you do not have pen pals before?”

“We have, but we have never used such arrogant pen name. Come and tell us. You claim to be the second most handsome person on earth, who is the most handsome person on earth?” Dormitory’s Lao San (number 3) teased.

Feng Yu puff out his chest and tilted his head up 45 degrees towards the sky and said 2 words: “My dad!”

The classmates surrounding him: “……”

“Err….. Lao Si (Number 4), is your whole family so confident?” Tian Lei could not help but ask.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes and walked to a corner to open the envelope.

“Jiangcheng’s weather is hot and stuffy…… My language teacher’s voice sounds like a chicken, and whenever he speaks, all my classmates laugh……. My Math teacher is bald and once in class, he scratched his head, and his wig fell off……”

Zhou Kexin’s letter was all about the funny things that happened in her school, and in the end, she mentioned something that was bothering her. She wanted to go to universities in big cities like Beijing or Shanghai. But her parents do not allow her to go. They only want her to attend the university in Jiangcheng. If she cannot make it into this university, then she will have to take over her mother’s position in the company. She asked Feng Yu what she should do.

Feng Yu smiled. Her parents were only just saying this. She will get a place in a university in Shanghai, and her parents agreed to let her study there. They can’t be stopping her from studying at a university. This silly girl. She was still so innocent.

It was during the lesson, and Feng Yu suddenly laughed.

The old professor in front looked at Feng Yu annoyed: “That student. Stand up. Is my lesson so funny?”

Feng Yu was still in a daze and Lao San (number 3), who was sitting near him, threw a pencil at him. He suddenly realized that the professor was talking to him.

“Professor Li, what is your question again?” Feng Yu asked with a blank look.

“I am asking you if you think that my lessons are funny?!” Professor Li asked slowly. His expression had also told Feng Yu that if his reply were ‘yes,’ he would be torn to pieces!

“No.”

“No? Then why are you laughing?!” Professor Li asked angrily.

This Feng Yu thought that he could do anything he wants in school just because he had donated some research funds to the school? This is Beijing University, China’s top University. Countless people are queuing to enter. He should be studying hard!

This Professor Li was a senior professor and will be retiring in 2 years. He does not conduct any research now and does not need Feng Yu’s funding. He also does not smoke or drink. Other than teaching, he does not have any other hobbies. He was the only teacher Feng Yu could not bribe.

Professor Li seems to have only two sets of Chinese tunic suit. He wears them every day in all seasons. His hair was always combed, and his leather shoes were always shiny. You can never see a single wrinkle on his pants. Feng Yu had heard that Professor Li likes poetry and he had given him a few poetry books. But these books were all returned to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu knew Professor Li’s way of teaching and he immediately bow down his head and admit his fault: “I am sorry. Professor Li.”

“Sit down. Your parents had sent all of you to Beijing University was for you to learn. It is to prepare all of you to serve our nation and have a brighter future. If you do not do well in school, how can you answer to your parents and our country?”

When Professor Li was scolding Feng Yu, he also takes the opportunity to tell the rest of the students off. He turned back to the blackboard and starts to write something, continuing with the lesson.

Feng Yu saw Professor Li was not looking at him anymore, he secretly took out a stack of papers to write the reply letter.

Feng Yu understood Zhou Kexin really well and knew what types of jokes she likes. He wrote some jokes taken from the internet in his previous life and some greetings. After he had finished, he folded the letter carefully and placed it into an envelope he prepared earlier.

……

Zhou Kexin had thought why she had not received any replies these few nights. The postage service was too slow, or ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ did not send any replies to her?

She would take particular notice at the reception office’s window whenever she walks past. She was looking for her letter, but she was disappointed every time.

Finally, she saw a letter addressed to her pasted on the window one day. This feeling was like her mother giving her the dress she was hoping for when she was young.

She immediately ran into the office to collect the letter she was looking forward to.

During lessons, she tried her best to not open the letter immediately. She managed to resist the temptation of reading the letter and returned home after school. After dinner, she did not even watch her favorite programs on TV and returned to her room. She told her mother that she needs to do her homework.

Zhou Kexin took out the letter from her bag after locking the door. As she was too anxious, she tore part of the letter when she was opening the envelope. Her tears almost fell. She carefully unfolds the letter and starts reading it under her table lamp.

Two jokes were written in the letter, and she got to bite her fingers to stop her from laughing out loud. She was afraid that her parents would find out. Her parents must not know about her pen pal!

The letter was too short. There were only a few hundred words. She read the letter twice before keeping it in a box underneath her bed. In the box, there was the first letter.

She took the opportunity to write the reply. It seems that writing this reply letter was easier than writing her school’s essays. In 30 minutes, she had written two pages.

After some amendments and rewriting it neatly on a new piece of paper, she carefully places it into the envelope she had prepared. On her way to school tomorrow morning, she will drop it into the post box.

After keeping everything, she looks at the wall clock. Oh no, she still had not started on her homework. She tips toe to the door and unlocks it silently before settling into her desk to start on her homework.

Zhou Kexin’s mother was about to go to bed, and she went to check on her daughter. She was glad that her daughter was working hard: “You are still studying? Sleep early. You still have school tomorrow.”

“Yes, mum. You sleep first. I will be finishing soon.”

Zhou Kexin saw her mum closed the door. She sticks out her tongue and continues doing her homework. She was smiling happily to herself……

Chapter 437 – Pirated VCD appeared

It was the end of October. Feng Yu was about to start preparing for the New Year’s award ceremony when he received a call from Jian Wanmeng. There were pirated VCDs in the market.

The VCD technologies were not that difficult. Those companies that manufacture CDs could quickly figure out the technology behind the VCD. They could also produce VCDs. The cost of a VCD was not high and was about 1 RMB. A movie consists of A and B VCDs. If you include the packaging and transportation, the total cost was still less than 3 RMB.

The original VCDs prices were set by Wind and Rain. It costs from 10 RMB to 30 RMB. Those movies which cost 10 RMB were old movies or old music videos. The 30 RMB VCDs were all new movies and songs. This 30 RMB pricetag will slowly decline as time passes.

No matter whether it’s 10 RMB or 30 RMB VCDs, the profits of the VCD companies were about the same. Feng Yu thought that others will not enter this market so fast.

After all, Wind and Rain, and Aiwa were all producing VCDs. The VCDs were sold in all of their VCD players retailers. Those that buy VCD players will also need to buy some VCDs.

Feng Yu had made precautions against other companies copying the VCD players, but he did not take any precautions against pirated VCDs. Those 5 RMB VCDs were not different from those originals.

Those small video lounges tried to keep their cost low as they only charge their customers 0.5 RMB per person. They were the ones that supported these pirated VCDs.

Feng Yu had asked his staff to promote the VCD at those video lounges, and this led to those businessmen noticing this business opportunity.

Feng Yu went to the Audio and Video shops to have a feel of how serious this problem was.

“The world is leisurely passing hastily onwards, visitors passing by, tides rise and falls. Love and hate, life and death, old age, how many people can see through? Mundane world passing……”

Chapter 438 – Someone named Song

The result of this investigation made Feng Yu furious!

There were more pirated VCDs in the cities than the originals. Many small factories were not only producing those normal pirated VCDs. They were also producing those European, Japanese and Hong Kong’s adult movies!

Selling those movies were illegal, and Wind and Rain brand were still printed on the covers. Feng Yu could not tolerate this!

But Feng Yu knew that it was useless to just attack these small workshops and factories. Even if these factories close down, there will still be countless small workshops popping up. He must attack these pirates from the source. He must find the source of their master copies.

Feng Yu went to look for Hu Ge. This moron had owned a company making pirated game cartridges. After Feng Yu invested in his company, he quits making pirated games and switches to develop his own original games. But Feng Yu had thought too highly of Hu Ge’s staffs. The games they made were far from the games Feng Yu played in his previous life. The graphics and designs were horrible. If this game were introduced into the market, their reputation would be gone!

Games development was not as easy as Feng Yu thinks.

Hu Ge knew a lot of pirated businessmen. He asked around and found out that there was a syndicate behind all these. Not only they were making pirated VCDs, but there were also pirated CDs, pirated video cassette tapes, cassettes, video game cartridges, etc.

A rough estimation, the sales of the pirated goods were several times more than the originals.

Not only the VCDs had Wind and Rain brand printed on it, the other pirated video, and audio cassette tapes and games were also under Wind and Rain brand. Feng Yu’s companies do not even manufacture these products!

Damn, this was a conspiracy that was targeting him or his company.

Once the consumers think that these were really Wind and Rain products, then Wind and Rain will be a pirated goods company. All the efforts of building the brand will be wasted!

When Fu Guangzheng heard the news, he was very shocked. He knew there were many pirated goods in the market and there were also pirated VCD players. But he had ignored them.

He wanted to make use of these to build up the VCD market and challenge the traditional video cassette player. He had never expected this would create problems for himself.

“Brother Feng, should we make some formal complaints, give some money for the higher-ups to start cracking down on piracy?” The Chinese market was too big, and it was not like Hong Kong. They could not settle this by themselves. They need the government’s help.

Feng Yu shook his head: “These people are able to do this on such scale, that means they have some sort of protection. What we can do not is to find the source. If not, their factories will still be appearing after we shut them down.”

“I thought you had asked Hu Ge to investigate the source for you?”

Feng Yu sighed: “Don’t mention him. That Hu Ge cannot resist the temptations and went back to make pirated games. I had already withdrawn my investment from his company, and Master Lu had got some people to teach him a lesson. Currently, he is hiding in some Southeast Asia country.”

Master Lu thought Feng Yu had invested in Hu Ge’s company because of him. Now, Hu Ge started making pirated games again, and he still tried to cheat Feng Yu. Master Lu felt that this was a slap to his face.

If it weren’t for the Hu family, Master Lu would have broken one of Hu Ge’s leg! Master Lu also let him off because of the information he got.

The source of the pirated discs was in Guancheng district of Guangdong province!

Fu Guangzheng felt embarrassed. There was a Wind and Rain electronics factory in Guancheng, and he did not even notice the pirated VCDs were from that area.

There were other factories all over China, but the master copies were said to be from Guangcheng. Those master copies were sent to Guangcheng from Hong Kong.

Feng Yu told Fu Guangzheng about this, and his face turned red: “Brother Feng, leave this to me. I will think of a way to kill the source!”

“Brother Fu, stopping piracy is only one of our aims. We must also find the mastermind behind this. We must know why they are using our Wind and Rain brand for their pirated goods!”

“Are you suspecting that someone is targeting us? We manufacture VCDs, and we are the biggest company making original VCDs. Those pirates like to make imitations from the number one company’s products.”

“But do they still need to use our brand for those adult movies? Anyway, Brother Fu, I hope the mastermind hiding in the dark will be arrested.”

Fu Guangzheng arrived at Guancheng and asked the local government to close down the pirated VCDs base. The government raided that place and recovered a huge amount of pirated cassette tapes, videotapes, and discs. But they did not find out who the mastermind was. Every week, there will be someone coming to the factory with boxes to collect the money. The factory’s in-charge had never met the boss behind the scenes.

But he had provided a crucial clue. The big boss behind the scenes was from Hong Kong.

Fu Guangzheng was furious. Someone dares to mess with the Fu family in Hong Kong? Those people that were powerful enough to compete with the Fu family will not do such business. Those that dealt with such activities were not from any reputable big families.

Fu Guangzheng told his uncles about this and asked them to help investigate the person behind this syndicate.

The Fu family was very unhappy. They had shares in Hong Kong’s electronics sales company. This had encroached into their profits. A full investigation must be conducted!

The Fu family made use of all their connections and all their tricks, but they could not find out who was behind this. They managed to crush a few pirated factories in Hong Kong along the way, but the head of the syndicate was nowhere to be found.

The Fu family was embarrassed. They had told Feng Yu that they would be able to get the head of the syndicate and put him behind bars in a few days.

But now, more than 10 days had passed. There were no clues at all. The Fu family had used their connections in both the underworld and law enforcement units, but there were no clues at all.

In the end, Fu Rongqi put up a reward of 1 million HKD for any clues about the head of this syndicate. Even if you are only able to provide the name of this person, you can also get this sum of money. If you are able to capture this person, then you will get 1 million USD!

Someone will always step forward if there were high rewards.

Finally, the Fu family received information about this syndicate boss. Although no one had ever met him, someone had overheard his henchman speaking to this person over the phone. This person was addressed as Mr. Song!

Feng Yu frowned. Mr. Song? Did he ever offend any businessman with this surname? Why was this Mr. Song targeting him? This Mr. Song must have strong grudges against him!

Feng Yu thought for a long time, and it seems that there was only one person who hated him to the core and this person have the money to set up factories. But this person had gone missing a long time ago.

Feng Yu had asked the Fu family to search for this person for quite some time. But the Fu family could not find him. There were rumors that this person had only stopped in Hong Kong for a while before going to the US.

Could this person come back to revenge for his uncle?

Feng Yu had already experienced the craziness of this guy. If Feng Yu had the chance, he would not want this person to take another breath.

“Brother Fu, I will offer 10 million. Help me find this person!”

Fu Guangzheng was shocked. Who was this guy that’s worth 10 million?

“I will hire people to look for him. If we are able to find him, then we can talk about the money! With the crackdowns on piracy recently, those pirates will not be so arrogant for some time. We can develop the market in peace.”

Feng Yu sighed. That man is still alive, how can he be at ease?

Chapter 439 – How do we sell cars?

Songjiang Motors had already developed 3 categories of vehicles with a total of 6 models. The 3 classes were named as Olympic, Red Star, and Off-road. The production had just started. As this was still in the starting phase, the output was not high, and the two new branch factories had only produced less than 1,000 vehicles for all 3 categories.

In China, the rest of the automobile enterprises knew that Bing City’s Machinery Company will be introducing their cars soon and will be focusing on small vehicles. All of them felt that this was a joke.

A company that manufactures tractors and motorcycles want to produce saloon cars?

Bing City’s Machinery Company was one of the top company in China for their tractors and motorcycles. With their sales and the quality of their products, they might even be the best in China.

But automobiles? Even if China’s automobile industry was already matured, there were still many other established brands in the market. Songjiang Motors will have no chance to get a slice of this cake.

We are all using the advanced technologies from Germany, the US, and Japan. The production lines were also imported from overseas, and their experts were stationed here to give us guidance. What does Songjiang Motors have?

What? They had hired Soviet Union’s automobile engineers?

What a joke. Since when did the Soviet Union produce good cars? The Soviet Union’s cars were noisy, ugly and old fashion, and it was not comfortable to drive. In the recent few years, even China does not import these Soviet cars. Oh, it’s the former Soviet Union.

The company that was most eager to see the Machinery Company fail was First Automobile Works in Jilin.

Bing City’s Machinery Company had poached many staffs from them. Many of these staffs were from the technical department. FAW can still clearly remember how the Machinery Company set up recruitment booth outside their premises!

FAW wants to see how the consumers ignore the Machinery Company’s cars and the Machinery Company had no choice but to sell off their factories and equipment. When that happens, they will buy over one or two factories to expand FAW. At the same time, they will poach all the staffs from the Machinery Company. Not only they will steal the technicians and experienced workers. Even those ordinary workers will be targeted. They want the Machinery Company to have no workers!

When everybody does not think Songjiang Motors will succeed, Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng and the rest were feeling confident. They had tested those 6 models of vehicles. The price ranges from 120,000 RMB to 500,000 RMB. There was even a model of Diesel Off-road vehicle. Currently, in China, there were no other off-road vehicles that run on diesel.

But marketing these vehicles was the biggest headache for them.

Fu Guangzheng wanted to place advertisements on all media, especially CCTV. He also wanted to hire celebrities to endorse their cars. It would be best to organize a grand motor show. This will increase brand awareness.

The impression of Songjiang Motors among Chinese consumers were motorcycles. Most of the consumers will not dare to purchase their vehicles if they introduce their cars into the market. After all, there were other options like imported vehicles and domestic joint venture vehicles. These vehicles were of high quality and have after sales services. The Machinery Company does not have these.

Feng Yu had asked his men to do a rough estimation of the cost of setting up servicing centers in all provinces. It will cost over 100 million RMB! Unless Feng Yu could set up the service centers like the 4S shops of the future years, and charges higher than the market rates, he would not make money. He will even be making a loss.

But if there were no after-sales services, the consumers will get the impression of the company does not care about the after sales services and they will not be interested in their cars.

Also, the prices for their vehicles were too high, those motorcycle distributors do not have the ability to be the authorized retailers of these cars. Even if they were to bring in 2 vehicles for every model, it would cost them at least 2 million RMB. But as a retailer, how can they only bring in so few cars? They still have to bear the cost of rentals, wages, etc. It was tough for those distributors to incur all these costs.

Feng Yu had thought of all these problems before. His solution was to supply the cars to those long-time distributors first, and they were only required to place a 1 million deposit. But the sales proceeds of the vehicles have to be deposited into Tai Hua Trading’s account. Tai Hua Trading will then settle the payments with the distributors. This was the sales model of those 4S shops.

Bing City’s Machinery Company will also station a mechanic at every shop. The shops will need to hire two mechanics themselves. This should be sufficient for the time being. Songjiang Motors’ vehicles were still very durable.

This will form the basic structure of the 4S shops model from Feng Yu’s previous life. But this will also cause the Machinery factories to be locked up. There will be a considerable strain on the company’s finance. Once the sales were not good, the Machinery Company will face cash flow problems. If this problem persisted, the vehicles’ production might come to a halt.

But if the sales of the cars were good, this will create a sales distribution network fast and will increase the sales volume. Also, this will be easier than setting up retail shops themselves.

Li Mingde opposed to this solution. Look at First Automobile Works, Second Automobile Works, and the rest of China’s automobile manufacturers. All of them have their own showrooms and sells all their vehicles by themselves. You are letting those distributors holding on to our cars. What if they disappear with our cars? With only 1 million RMB as a deposit, and you are allowing them to hold on to dozens of our vehicles? The cost of those vehicles was more than 2 million RMB. This was too high risk.

Li Mingde had opposed to Feng Yu’s plans initially. China’s automobile market was not a big market, and Feng Yu’s plan was too large scale.

Although there were only two branch factories in operation, the construction for the rest of the factories was almost completing. The constructions will be completed early next year and will start productions. What if the vehicles’ sales were not doing well?

Feng Yu smiled. He still has a second sales strategy which was the salesmen model.

In the US, door-to-door sales was a common sales model. A good salesman can earn as much as the top executives in those enterprises. The salesmen do not need to stock up on the goods. They only need to bring their clients to the factories to look at the products. It will be up to the clients to decide whether if they want to buy.

Of course, Feng Yu was not asking his salesmen to go to ordinary households to sell his cars. He wants them to visit all the government and government-related agencies.

If Feng Yu remembered correctly, next year would be the year that China’s government increases their spending on cars. The Deputy Division head level officials were assigned a personal vehicle. In some regions, even the Section Head level got their own car!

There were many reasons for this. One of the reason was the government’s 5-year plan. The officials need to attract foreign investors and foreign investments in their area will affect their chances of promotion. Another reason, there was a sudden increase in the domestic production of automobiles. These were those joint-ventured automobile companies’ vehicles. The sudden increase caused the car prices to drop and at the same, the Chinese government’s revenue increases. Many of the officials felt that it was the time to increase their benefits and welfare.

This was Songjiang Motors’ opportunity to increase their brand awareness. Feng Yu had taken part in the design of the 6 models. He told Michael Liu how he wanted the vehicles to look like and Michael Liu and his team came out with the final design.

The 3 categories of vehicles were the traditional small saloon cars (Olympic), Luxury (Red Star) and SUV (Off-road).

The competitor for Songjiang Motors’ small saloon cars was the Santana. The SUV’s competitors were Jeep and Cherokee. The luxury cars’ competitors were Mercedes and Audi!

Because of the sales of their vehicles, Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng start to look for those officials that were close to them. They want to sell their cars to these top officials first, and their subordinates will tend to follow their leaders.

Feng Yu had picked CCTV as his first stop!

Chapter 440 – Visiting CCTV

“Manager Feng, why are you so early today? The rehearsal for the programs has not started yet.” A deputy director saw Feng Yu and warmly greet him.

The success of last year’s New Year’s Eve Awards Ceremony and Gala dinner had led to CCTV receiving praises from the higher-ups. As for the slogans and chants from the live audiences had also captured the attention of the viewers. The viewers felt these slogans and cheers were very interesting.

This year, CCTV had contacted the association before the association starts planning. CCTV wanted to ask if the association would be organizing the awards ceremony this year. The CCTV wants to make preparations.

This was an excellent advertising opportunity for Feng Yu and how could he miss it? Those companies that showed their faces during the awards ceremony knew the benefits of taking part in this award. Their sales had increased a lot after the ceremony last year. Look at Lehaha. After the awards ceremony was aired, their sales doubled!

Those companies who were nominated but did not win any awards last year went to visit the association. They wanted to win the award. There was a big difference between being nominated and winning. At least, the companies had one minute less to showcase their products!

This year, all these companies knew what to do. They were all prepared. During the ceremony, their staffs in the live audience will have placards and will shout out cheers. They want to take this opportunity to promote their companies.

This year’s award ceremony’s main sponsor was Feng Yu again. This year’s stage and the performance line-ups were better than last year. There were more than 10 singers from Hong Kong and Taiwan approaching the association to express their intention of performing during the ceremony.

Those two singers who had performed last year were famous in China. Their income from their records and their product endorsements had increased significantly. Their charges had also doubled. How could the rest of the singers not be jealous?

With the experience from last year, organizing this year’s ceremony was a piece of cake. Although this year Feng Yu had spent 1 million RMB more than last year, the companies that were nominated were all willing to pay money.

But those companies were disappointed. Feng Yu does not want to take their money! Feng Yu had already promoted his companies, and now, he wants to make this award fair. How can he receive money from those companies?

Last year, the association did not have enough money and need the support of the participating companies. This year, the association does not need money from those companies. The association had collected the membership fees from those companies, and the fees will fund this year’s ceremony!

This was why Feng Yu was able to sponsor this event without spending too much. Not only the nominated companies and CCTV were happy, but even the top leader of the Publicity Department was also delighted. The higher-ups do not need to spend a single cent, and the viewers could still watch a wonderful program. This ceremony also helps the country show their recognition of the companies who had made significant contributions to the nation. The organizing committee and CCTV had done an excellent job!

Feng Yu was the representative of the organizing committee this year again. He was also the ceremony’s Associate Producer. He was also considered a leader, and this was why the deputy director greeted him warmly.

“I heard that Station Chief Jia is here. I am looking for him.”

“Oh, Chief Jia is over there. I will bring you over.”

“Manager Feng, are you looking for me?” Chief Jia saw Feng Yu not leaving after greeting him, he knew Feng Yu wants to speak to him.

“I have some work-related matters to discuss with you.”

The secretary left and closes the door after serving tea. Chief Jia slowly sip on his drink and asked: “Are you here to ask me about this year’s advertisement slots auctions? There is nothing I can do. But since you are our biggest client, I guarantee that you will get the slots before and after the weather report.”

This year, CCTV will be switching the advertisement slots tendering to auctions. This was already announced on TV, and next month it will be implemented. Chief Jia thought that Feng Yu wanted to pull strings to get the slots he wanted.

Feng Yu eyes lit up. Although he was paying close attention to this auction, he was not too worried. He knew which were the enterprises that would be spending a lot on advertisement slots. Even though he could not find out their budget, but he knew from his previous life how much these companies will pay.

Feng Yu was confident to win the slots. He also decided to not bid for the prime slots before and after the news blindly. Anyway, this year’s auction consists of both blind and open auctions. Feng Yu could just buy out all the slots from the open auctions.

“Thank you, Chief Jia. But I am here today because of other matters.”

“Other matters?” Chief Jia looked at Feng Yu puzzledly. Other than advertising slots, what other matters does he have?

“I heard that CCTV will be obsoleting a batch of vehicles.”

“You want to buy second-hand cars? I can’t help much. These cars will be distributed to the departments below.” Chief Jia frowned. Feng Yu wants to buy second-hand cars? He wants to buy these cars for his staffs?

Feng Yu was speechless. Who the hell wants those old and wear out second-hand cars? Those were old models of Santana. What do you want me to do with these antique cars? Put it in a museum?

“You misunderstood me. I do not want to buy second-hand cars. I am asking if CCTV have any special requirements for purchasing new cars?”

“What? You have cars to sell to us? But we do not have the intention of buying imported cars. We are CCTV and can only purchase domestically produced cars.”

“The cars I am recommending are all locally manufactured, and these are the best cars produced in China.”

“What cars are you talking about? Santana or Audi 100?” Among China produced cars, these two brands were more famous, and the quality was better. These two brands of cars were the top choices for government agencies.

Like a magician, Feng Yu took out a colored brochure from his bag and passed it to Chief Jia: “Please take a look. Songjiang Motors cars. These are the real locally manufactured cars. It is not from joint-ventured companies. This is China’s own brand. It uses modified technologies from the former Soviet Union. The quality and designs are the best in China. This model is specially designed for executives. The interior is spacious, and the seats are as comfortable as a sofa. Also, this model is selling the same price as Santana, but it is better. This model’s performance can even rival Audi 200, but the selling price is about the same as the Audi 100. The exterior looks grander.”

Feng Yu pointed to the pictures in the brochure and starts to talk about the features of the different models. Of course, there were also shortcomings, but Feng Yu was not that stupid to point out all the shortcomings to him.

Station Chief Jia must admit that the cars in the pictures were stunning. But isn’t this Songjiang Motors a motorcycle manufacturer? Since when did it start to manufacture cars?

“Is this Songjiang Motors cars from that……”

“Bing City Machinery Company.”

“That’s right. Bing City Machinery Company is the company that manufactures these cars? You are saying that these cars are 100% China produced?”

“Yes. Although a bit of the share is owned by a Hong Kong businessman, Hong Kong is also part of China. As the national TV station of China, shouldn’t you support our own Chinese brands? If you look outside on the streets now, all you can see is those foreign brands. If you do not support Chinese brands, do you think you will see Chinese cars in the future?” Feng Yu asked.

“Is the performance of your cars good? What are the prices?” Chief Jia was now promoted to Executive Deputy Station Chief. The Station Chief was also the Publicity Department Chief and was seldom in his CCTV’s office. Chief Jia was the one handling almost all the matters at CCTV.

“If CCTV is willing to tell us some insider information about the advertisement slots auctions, then we will sell you all these cars at cost price. I will not make a single cent of profit from you!”

Chapter 441 – Test drive

“Reveal the minimum bid? Impossible. However, due to your contributions to CCTV for the past two years, the most I can do is to let you win two bids secretly. I cannot reveal the rest of the minimum bids to you.” Deputy Station Chief shook his head.

Feng Yu was slightly disappointed. This Chief Jia does not know how to be flexible? This will help CCTV save money. If CCTV got more profits from the advertising slots, he still has to hand over the money to his higher-ups.

After Feng Yu left, Chief Jia went to look for his higher-ups with the car brochures. In his heart, he was more inclined to Songjiang Motor’s cars. But Bing City Machinery Company was not a state-owned enterprise like First Auto Works. FAW was a government supported vital enterprise. If Feng Yu’s Machinery Company were state-owned, he would not have any hesitations.

“Old Jia, why are you thinking of buying this brand of cars? I have heard of this brand. This brand had advertised on CCTV previously, and Baldy Chen and Xhu Simao had starred in the commercials. But isn’t this a Motorcycle brand? You dare to drive a car manufactured by a motorcycle manufacturer?” The Station Chief shook his head. He knew that Chief Jia and Feng Yu were close, but Chief Jia should not give Feng Yu special treatments on everything.

“There is a national level’s inspection report at the back. In the report, the stats are comparable with the cars we are familiar with. Also, the higher-ups wanted us to lower our spending. It was not easy to get the approval from the Publicity Department, and the funds we have is insufficient to purchase the number of vehicles we needed. If there are cheap but high-quality cars, we can purchase more vehicles.”

Station Chief frowned. This was indeed a problem. The money allocated to them was fixed. If there were able to purchase cheaper cars, then they will be able to get more vehicles. If they picked the more expensive brands, then they will have to make do with lesser cars.

The Station Chief looked at the pictures in the brochures. The design of the cars was beautiful and looks grand. The interior looks spacious, and it should be comfortable sitting in it. The brochure also claimed to have good suspensions and soundproofing. The only problem was the price of the cars was not stated in the brochure.

“We had discussed before, and we will be picking either Audi 200, Audi 100 or Santana. How good is this Songjiang Motor? Is it as good as what it claims in the brochure?” The Station Chief was worried. If he purchases a batch of lousy cars for the sake of saving money, he would be in trouble.

Feng Yu had already foreseen this problem. He had sent a batch of cars from Bing City to Beijing. These cars were parked outside the awards ceremony’s studio.

Even if CCTV does not want to buy his cars, Feng Yu will also want those bosses and government officials attending the ceremony to see Songjiang Motors cars. He will also want his vehicles to be in the photos taken by the reporters.

“The cost of these cars is not more than 100,000 RMB. you can let the driver test drive it. The performance is definitely better than Santana.”

An engineer from the Machinery Company introduced his cars proudly. This Olympic model is the most basic model. The cost was not more than 90,000 RMB, but Feng Yu had instructed him to say the cost was not more than 100,000 RMB.

The drivers looked at their leaders and went to test drive the cars. When they returned, they nodded to the leaders excitedly. It felt excellent to drive this car. The suspensions and soundproofing were much better than Santana, and the exterior looks grand.

“The cost for this model is about 200,0000 RMB. This model is designed for executives and businessmen. The features of this model are the spacious interiors, high body, and the larger passengers’ seats. It is incredibly comfortable.”

This time, Chief Jia boarded the car and sat in the passenger’s seat. He wanted to experience this “Red Star” model himself.

Feng Yu also followed along to show Chief Jia how to adjust the seats and showed him how to lower a tray in front of him. This was designed like the food trays in the airplanes.

Before Chief Jia could explore all the features in the car, his driver turned and told him that they had already driven one round around the premises.

So fast? Chief Jia could not feel any bumps or hear any noise. The interior was very quiet. The side windows were tinted, and from outside, one could not see the interior unless the person stick his face really close to the windows. Chief Jia was extremely pleased with this.

“This is Songjiang Off-road. This car is an SUV and is suitable of all sort of terrains in the rural regions. It uses a diesel engine, and it has a lot of horsepowers. It is suitable for all sorts of road conditions. Your staff can drive this car to villages when they need to interview those villagers. This car is very useful.”

There were 3 categories for the Songjiang Motor’s Olympic model, 1 for Red Star and 2 types of Songjiang Off-Road model (Diesel and Petrol models). Feng Yu explained all the 6 different types of cars from the 3 models to Chief Jia. The team leader of the drivers and the rest of the drivers looked at Chief Jia and nodded.

These drivers were the drivers for the leaders and staffs. All of them felt that this Songjiang brand of cars was really as what it was stated in the brochure.

The prices were also lower than Audi and Santana. The price of Luxurious Category of an Olympic model for CCTV was 350,000 RMB, and the performance was better than Audi 200. It was more than 100,000 RMB cheaper than an imported Audi 200. An Audi 200 cost about 500,000 RMB.

The mid-range Olympic model cost 200,000 RMB, and the performance was much better than Audi 100. Audi 100 cost about 350,000 RMB, and it was still a locally produced joint-ventured car!

Songjiang’s lowest range of Olympic model cost 100,000 RMB. It was cheaper than Santana which cost 120,000 RMB. The exterior and interior designs, performance and the price were better. The only thing Santana was better than Songjiang was the brand.

There was nothing Feng Yu could do with this. Songjiang Motor’s brand was indeed the worst automobile brand in China. It could not be compared to those joint-ventured automobile brands, Shanghai Motors, and Red Flag Motors.

But now, Shanghai Motors and Red Flag Motors had stopped production. Shanghai was now producing Santana under the Volvo brand. The Red Flag Motors was now only manufacturing Audi 100. They were able to sell off all their cars as most of the government agencies were using this model.

Earlier this year, after Audi 200 was imported into China, Audi 100 was allowed to be sold to individuals. In the past, no one except for government agencies could purchase a brand new Audi 100. They could only buy second-hand Audi 100.

Feng Yu looked at Chief Jia and shouted: “Our Songjiang Motors is indeed a new brand, but we are China’s only National automobile brand. Are our cars’ quality, prices, and designs not better than those joint-ventured cars? Just because our brand is not as famous as Audi and Santana, you want to purchase their vehicles? Do you know that those foreigners are taking our money away?”

Chief Jia waved his hands: “Manager Feng, you are too agitated. We have not made any decisions yet. I need to have a meeting with the rest first. We can talk about the details after we have come to a decision.”

Anyway, CCTV needs to purchase a batch of vehicles, but CCTV needs to wait until they got the funds from the advertisement fees. The Publicity Department will not provide the funds for CCTV to purchase cars. The department does not even have enough vehicles for themselves.

After Chief Jia left, Feng Yu’s agitated facial expression disappeared. He could still keep his emotions under control. He was not acting when he said all those things. He was really sad about China’s current automobile industry. Those joint-ventured cars were doing harm to the industry!

“Engineer Wang, take a taxi back to the hotel. You have done well today. Remember to keep the pager assigned to you on at all times.” Feng Yu gave Engineer Wang 20 RMB.

“Yes. I will leave now.” Engineer Wang will not take a taxi. It was much cheaper to take public transports, and he would be able to keep the 20 RMB.

Chief Jia was persuaded. Now, Feng Yu need to wait for Master Lu to publish the article. With that article, there will be at least 80% chance that CCTV will procure Songjiang Motors cars. This will be the first step for Songjiang Motors to enter the Government Agencies!

Chapter 442 – National Automobile Brand

The next morning, the Station Chief was still considering about Deputy Station Chief Jia’s suggestion about purchasing Songjiang Motors vehicles when his secretary come into his office with the newspapers.

As usual, the first papers he read was the People’s Daily.

Is joint-venture the only way to build our automobile industry?

The was the headlines. This article was written by someone Station Chief knew, and he immediately starts to read the article seriously.

The automobile companies from the developed nations were making use of joint ventures to control the Chinese market. But the western countries were setting barriers to their technologies from us, and this was unfair! If China’s automobile manufacturer got to depend on the technologies of these western companies to develop, then most of the profits will be taken away by them. Our country will be at the losing end!

On the surface, those developed nations were transferring their automobile manufacturing technologies to us, but these technologies were all their obsoleted or about to outdated technologies. These companies will never sell us their advanced technologies.

Our automobile manufacturing industry might seem to be doing well with the production and sales figures increasing rapidly, but at the same time, a large portion of their profits was siphoned away by those foreign companies. Those companies were taking away our people’s money.

If this carries on, we will be those developed nation automobile companies’ cash cow. They were eating away our grass and still milking us dry!

China does have our own automobile brands. But these brands have stopped the production of their own cars to manufacture vehicles for those foreign brands. Our local automobile brands were disappearing slowly.

All these while, we were just tools for the foreign brands. Our Chinese consumers prefer overseas brands, and the local brands were slowly dying. Even if these local brands wanted to make a comeback in the future, there was no way for these brands to survive. Joint-venture might look like a shortcut, but it was killing our own local companies!

It was because there were no other choices in the past and the state-owned enterprises had to go into joint ventures with those foreign companies. But now, we have better options!

The Machinery Company in Bing City had successfully developed its own vehicles without any support from the government. Their cars were the most advanced in China and can be compared to some of the top vehicle models in the world. Do note that this company was also a joint-venture. But all of the company’s assets were owned by Chinese and Hong Kong’s private enterprises. This company can be considered a real Chinese company.

They had created Songjiang Motors vehicles. The exterior designs and core technologies were all developed in China and had better performances than those joint-ventured vehicles. This company had even developed a diesel engine to be used on cars.

This company had carved out its own path, showed its creativity and grew independently to become our own national automobile brand. This brand will break the barriers to automobile technologies imposed by those western nations and lead our Chinese automobile manufacturers to the peak!

CCTV’s Station Chief finished reading the article and lit a cigarette. Joint-venture was suggested by that person first, and the whole nation starts to use this strategy. This article, which criticized this strategy, was allowed to be published now. Does that mean the higher-ups were going to change their direction?

Luckily, he did not object to purchasing Songjiang Motors vehicles yesterday. The TV station still needs to discuss this today. This article had shown the intentions of the higher-ups. It seems that the higher-ups want to support this Songjiang Motors.

This Songjiang Motors must have strong backings. They even got connections with that person. There was nothing more to discuss. There was only one brand of vehicles for CCTV, Songjiang Motors!

Feng Yu was also reading the article. He had only written the brief of this article and someone had written this article from his brief. This person was able to transform this article into such a compelling article.

Will any problems be arising from this article? Feng Yu remembered that it was the Chief Architect. Damn, will Bing City Machinery Company get into trouble?

But the Chief Architect was still in power now. Since this article was able to be published, there should not be any problems. If the Chief Architect agrees with this article, Songjiang Motors will be a success!

At the same time, all the leaders around China had read this article, and they realized that other than joint-ventured cars, China also has its own brand of vehicles with advanced technologies.

Not only the People’s Daily had published this article. Other papers also published similar reports. Of course, the newspapers from the places where the joint-ventured automobile manufacturers were based did not publish.

The leader if the Planning Commission called the person who wrote the article to his office. He wanted to know why this person wrote such an article.

Both of them spoke for a long time, and the Leader of the Planning Commission was convinced.

China’s 5-year plan currently was to developed China’s automobile industry, and this industry will become one of the key sectors in the next 5-year plan.

If the technologies of China’s key industry were in the hands of foreign companies, then if those companies withdraw from China, like the time when those Soviet Union experts withdraw from China, China’s automobile industry will go back 10 years!

But the actual situation was not as severe as what was written in the papers. Those foreign companies in the joint-ventures had given the Chinese companies some of their technologies and had increased China’s technologies. If these Chinese companies were to continue to develop these technologies, they would be able to catch up with the developed countries.

But this Bing City’s Machinery Company was able to successfully develop China’s best cars, and the technologies used was said to be one of the best in the world. This was something to shout about.

Although the Leader of the Planning Commission knew this Songjiang Motors had imported the production lines and technologies from the former Soviet Union and merged it with Bing City’s Aviation Factory’s automobile manufacturing technologies, he never expects the combination of these two technologies could create such a significant improvement.

Then if all the automobile manufacturer in China were to combine their technologies, will they develop a more advanced technology?

This way, China does not need to renew the joint partnership with those foreign companies once the contract was over. China could concentrate on building their own national brand and develop their own automobile industry!

The Chief Architect was also reading this article seriously. He knew about the contents of this article before it was published, and he was the one who had given the green light. He was someone who likes everybody to discuss the problems together and think of a solution.

Also, he does not care whether Bing City’s Machinery Company was a state-owned enterprise or a private-owned enterprise. As long as this company was a Chinese company, he was okay with it. This Spring, when he was inspecting Shenzhen, he said his famous quote. This Machinery Company was the cat that could catch mice.

Although the article seems to be against joint partnerships and ventures, the Chief Architect was not angry. Only the ones who dare to explore can find the most suitable path. This Bing City’s Machinery Company was very interesting. He wants to make a visit when he’s free/

That afternoon, Feng Yu received a page from Chief Jia to ask him to be at CCTV for a discussion about their purchase of Songjiang Motors vehicles.

Feng Yu was overjoyed. His tactics were successful. In the future, those public buses should be changed to Songjiang Motors! Audi, Volvo, Toyota can all step aside!

Chapter 443 – Recover the capital first

Feng Yu was not pleased when he left CCTV. This CCTV had just ordered only 30 vehicles! The total deal was not even worth 4 million RMB! Feng Yu had heard that this was still CCTV ordering more than what they wanted. They had only wanted a batch of 20 vehicles.

In his previous life, even a county will order more cars than this. During that time, when a leader was holding to more than one position, he would be assigned to more than one car. The government now was too poor!

The Station Chief will be assigned with a Songjiang Olympic Luxury edition, and his men will be assigned with the economy edition which was worth only 100,000 RMB each. If it weren’t for CCTV wanting a dew more Songjiang Off-Road SUV and Songjiang Red Star vehicles, Feng Yu would not even want to sell them. There were not many profits from this deal. The profit was lower than his motorcycles sales. If this deal were 4 million RMB of motorcycles, the Machinery Company would make at least 1 million RMB of profits. The profits for these vehicles only amounted to a few hundred thousand.

Feng Yu kept telling himself that things would be better in a few years.

Li Mingde and the rest of the Machinery Company’s staffs were excited when they knew that CCTV had ordered their cars. All of them had thought that this Motor Cars branch factory will be making a loss. Feng Yu had told them that the targeted customers for their vehicles were the government agencies.

But all of them felt that not a single vehicle will be sold before the New Year. When the first order came in, it was not one or two vehicles. It was an order of 30 cars.

Of course, these 30 vehicles compared to their monthly production was nothing. But at least it was a good start.

Wu Zhigang had contacted those distributors, but all of them were not willing to place the 1 million RMB deposit. All of those distributors said that the deposit and the setup of the car’s showroom was a strain on their finances.

Although these distributors had made quite a lot from Songjiang Motorcycles the past year, they had also spent a lot. They do not have so much money for the deposit and showrooms.

It was worth to mention that Songjiang Motorcycles was ranked number 2 in China. More than 250,000 units were sold. With the completion of the new factories next year, their production will increase further, and it was only a matter of time for them to be the leader of the motorcycle industry!

All the new motorcycles that were produced by other brands were copying the designs of Songjiang Motorcycles. Currently, Songjiang Motorcycles’ exterior designs were the fad in China.

But there was also bad news. Some motorcycle factories discovered the benefits of getting celebrities to endorse their products and advertising on CCTV. It seems that a few bosses of motorcycle factories will be attending CCTV’s advertising slots auctions.

Feng Yu was furious with those distributors for refusing to be the distributor for his vehicles. He asked Wu Zhigang to be more aggressive against them. Did these distributors think that Tai Hua Trading cannot do without them, or it’s been a while since he had taught them a lesson?

Wu Zhigang used a more aggressive approach, but it was still useless. These distributors really do not have enough money! But all of them expressed that they will buy a Songjiang Motors vehicle each to show their support.

Damn, there were only slightly more than 20 distributors, and even if they buy the most expensive model each, there will still be not many profits.

At this time, Wu Zhigang suggested using the same method as the motorcycles. The top distributor will be rewarded with a small car!

With such a big reward, these distributors will do their best.

Feng Yu thought for a while and felt that this might work. But he must set a minimum target. It can’t be that only one distributor only sells one car while the rest did not sell, and that distributor got the reward.

Feng Yu decided to set a minimum target of 500 vehicles for the distributors. Those that sold more than 500 units will be eligible to compete for the reward. If anyone of their sales were more than 1,000 units, they would be rewarded with one car, and the top sales will get a cash reward of 300,000 RMB.

Maybe only the distributor for Beijing and those coastal provinces could achieve these conditions. The rest of the distributors should average around 300 units in a year.

Feng Yu also gritted his teeth and agree to supply the distributors with the showroom cars for all 6 models with only 500,000 RMB deposit. However, those distributors must have a showroom to display these cars. They can also place these cars in their motorcycle showrooms.

All of Songjiang Motors vehicles only have one color. Glossy black. Actually, this color was the color that will get dirty the most. Even the economy version has the same paintwork. What happens if the paint of the car was damaged?

Those cars that were sold can bring their cars back for aftersales services. But if the vehicles were unsold and the paint was damaged, who would want to buy their cars?

500,000 RMB deposit for 6 showroom cars was a good deal for those distributors. All of them agreed. There were even some distributors asking if they take on more than one province, will the deposit still be 500,000 RMB and they could get 12 showroom cars.

When Feng Yu heard this question, he almost vomits blood. These group of people was more shameless than Wen Dongjun! 500,000 RMB deposit is for one province!

“We will set the retail price, and you will get 5% commission. All your sales proceeds must be deposited into Tai Hua Trading’s account, and we will transfer your commissions to your account at the end of every month. All of you can see that it only takes me one day to sell 30 vehicles to CCTV. So, I don’t need to tell all of you what customers to target.”

All these distributors have some connections with their local government. They had sold quite a number of motorcycles to their local government. To them, it was only a different product, and all of them knew which government agencies have the budget and which does not.

Using the cheapest model’s retail price, 120,000 RMB for calculations, if they were able to sell 10 vehicles, their commission would be 60,000 RMB. Even if they were to sell only 20 to 30 cars a month, their commissions for that year would be about 1 to 2 million RMB, and their investment was only 500,000 RMB deposit and the showroom rental.

How could all these distributors miss this opportunity? If it wasn’t for the increase of the motorcycle’s deposits, they could also afford the 1 million RMB deposits.

Of course, Feng Yu dares to offer such lucrative rewards, he must set harsher conditions. He had made some market research and knew the production of Santana for this year was more than 80,000 units, and all of these were sold. Audi 100 production was over 20,000 units, and they were sold out too. Most of these vehicles were bought by the government agencies or government-related agencies.

Next year, these production figures will still increase by 30%, and the market still has room to improve. There should not be a problem for Songjiang Motors vehicles to enter the market. But first of all, the distributors must get the order from their local government.

Luckily Feng Yu had sold a batch of vehicles to CCTV, and this was considered setting an example for the distributors. CCTV was the government’s mouthpiece, and they had purchased Songjiang Motors vehicles. The other units will start to copy them.

If these distributors were able to sell 10,000 vehicles this coming year, then Songjiang Motors will not make any losses!

Chapter 444 – Brother Ki, do you want to buy cars?

Feng Yu will not be satisfied with only the Chinese market. No businessman would be happy with just breaking even and not make any profits. There was a vast market nearby waiting for him to penetrate.

“Hello? Brother Ki? You want to buy cars?”

Kirilenko received a call from Feng Yu and was puzzled by his question. He has a lot of cars sitting in his garage. Sports cars, off-roads, MPVs, and even a long limousine. Why would he still need to buy more cars?

Feng Yu also knew about his cars. But why was Feng Yu still asking him if he wants to buy cars? Could it be Feng Yu have some special cars to introduce to him? Kirilenko was interested.

“Feng, what car is it? What brand?”

“Songjiang Motors brand.”

Songjiang Motors? Cars?

Kirilenko knocked his head and wondered what company Songjiang Motors was. He had never heard of any automobile company with this name. This name, Songjiang, sounds Chinese. Could this company introduce by Feng Yu, a Chinese company?

Kirilenko suddenly remembered that Feng Yu had bought a few Volga production lines from him. This car was manufactured by Feng Yu’s factories?

“Feng, is this car manufactured by your company?”

“That’s right. I guarantee the quality of this car is better than your Volga.” Feng Yu smiled and answer.

“Feng, tell you honestly, although the Volga is my country’s brand, its quality is only so-so. If not, why would we import so many cars from England.”

Kirilenko did not tell Feng Yu everything. Other than England cars, there were also a lot of Japanese cars in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union countries. These Japanese cars were smuggled into Russia. Japan was a country Russians dislike.

They rather drive the cars produced from their enemies than buy their own Russian vehicles. This could tell how bad Volga cars were.

The production lines bought by Feng Yu were not some advanced production lines. Those were the former Soviet Union second-hand production lines. Feng Yu had also purchased some related technologies from him. This shows that Feng Yu does not have any good technologies in hand. Those technologies bought by Feng Yu were also out-dated Volga technologies. It was even worse than those lousy Volga cars. Kirilenko had lost interest.

“Brother Ki, I know that the Volga cars are not good. But my Songjiang Motors cars can be compared with Audi and Cherokee.” Feng Yu mentioned two prominent automobile brands to get Kirilenko’s attention.

“Feng, are you sure you are not drunk?”

Feng Yu: “……” You think everyone drinks vodka the first thing in the morning when they wake up like you? I do not like to drink!”

“Brother Ki, I am very sober. I think you should make a trip here when you are free. Come and visit my factory in Bing City. Let me show you how great my products are. This is also an opportunity for you to make money!”

Russia’s automobile market was a vast market. With Kirilenko’s abilities, his market will not only be Russia. He still has lots of connections in the former Soviet Union countries.

Don’t think that those former Soviet Union countries were impoverished. These countries might be poor, but this does not mean that its people were poor too. The former Soviet Union was very corrupted, and after the dissolution, there were many tycoons. Their purchasing power should not be disregarded.

In the coming years, most of the cars in Russia were imported. Although Russia’s industrial had recovered rapidly, its automobile manufacturing industry was not doing well. This continued until before Feng Yu’s rebirth.

Even the Russian government does not use Volga cars. This showed how bad their cars were! Feng Yu had heard that Volga’s technologies remain stagnant for many years. It had dropped from being one of the best automobile manufacturers to one of the worst performing manufacturers in the world. There were even some people who joked that it was a compliment if Russia’s automobile industry was as good as Fatty Kim’s country!

Feng Yu had thought about this before. In China, there were many competitors like those joint-partnership cars and also those imported Japanese, European and US cars. It will be hard for Songjiang Motors to establish a strong foothold in China within a short time.

But Russia was different. Their cars were mainly imported, and most of the imported cars were from England. German cars? US and Japanese cars? Haha, the former Soviet Union and Russia’s current relationship with these countries were worse than China’s relationship with Japan!

Russia had over 100 million population, and the number of vehicles in Russia was more than China. There was potential in all the consumer demographics.

Feng Yu’s last sentence had sparked Kirilenko’s interest.

Opportunity to make money?

Kirilenko had never doubt Feng Yu’s ability to make money. Since Feng Yu said that this could make money, he knows he will make a fortune from this deal with Feng Yu.

Now, Kirilenko had a high status among the Russian businessmen. Just his imported goods from China, no other businessmen could replace him.

But there were still many people wealthier than him. Although Kirilenko had bought many mines and natural resources before the disintegration, he did not start to mine because of Feng Yu’s suggestion. There were no profits from his mines yet.

Also, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Kirilenko could no longer sell industrial equipment and technologies. The only business he has left was the commodities trade with China.

There was a significant difference with the money available to him and his total assets. He was not happy with this. He felt that he was the owner of several mines, but his life was still the same as before.

The thing that troubled him the most was the depreciation of Rubles. The depreciation had been continuing all this while. Yeltsin had implemented some measures to try to stop the depreciation, but it failed.

Kirilenko should be happy with this depreciation as the money he owes were all in Rubles. As the value of Rubles drop, the amount he needs to repay will be lesser. However, this depreciation also affected his commodities trade with China. Those Chinese goods he was selling were in Rubles, and this means that he was losing a significant portion of his profits.

These were the reason why Kirilenko was interested in making more money.

“Feng, you should have told me about this earlier. I am free these few days. I will give you a call before I board my flight.”

“No problem. I will take care of you when you are here. There will be sufficient liquor and nice Chinese cuisine for you. But I cannot arrange any Chinese girls for you.”

Feng Yu does not want his fellow Chinese ladies to be ruined by this big polar bear!

“Hahaha. Oh, do you want me to bring Elena over to you? The last time I met her, she was asking about you.” Kirilenko joked.

When Elena’s name was mentioned, her youthful and sexy body immediately comes to Feng Yu’s mind. Feng Yu shook his head and said: “Never mind. I will go visit her in Moscow when I have the time.”

“That’s right. I will be very disappointed with you if you ask me to bring her over. How can a woman lead a man by the nose? Don’t you Chinese have this saying? ‘A woman’s bosom is a hero’s grave’”

Damn, where did this Kirilenko hear this saying?

“Fine. I will be waiting for you in China. I promise you will not be disappointed!”

Chapter 445 – Brother Ki is a foodie?

Tian Lei was feeling helpless. Feng Yu wants to apply leave from school again. The frequency of Feng Yu taking leave had increased during this semester. But Tian Lei could not reject Feng Yu because of his reasons. Organizing a national level exhibition, helping CCTV organize the award ceremony. The excuse this time was to play host to a big shot from overseas.

Although Tian Lei does not know why Feng Yu was involved with hosting someone from overseas, he still helps him applied for the leave. Feng Yu had helped him a lot in school, and his girlfriend was introduced by Feng Yu.

This bigshot from overseas was referring to Kirilenko.

When Feng Yu arrived at Bing City, Kirilenko had already reached, and Li Shiqiang had sent his men to pick him with Songjiang Motors vehicle.

By the time Feng Yu arrived at the restaurant, Kirilenko was already high. The most surprising part was that Li Shiqiang had not even drunk a single drop of alcohol.

Feng Yu swore that he must learn this skill from his brother-in-law. How did he get Kirilenko drunk and he did not even drink!? The weirdest part was Li Shiqiang does not understand Russian, and Kirilenko does not know Chinese. The translators were not present too. How did both of them communicate?

Using sign language to make Kirilenko drink?

Feng Yu had still wanted to talk to Kirilenko about his cars today, but it seems impossible now. Feng Yu sat down and ate something before both he and Li Shiqiang carried Kirilenko back to the car.

“You can stay with him at the international hotel. I still have 2 friends visiting me. They are waiting for me at home.”

Li Shiqiang had escaped, and Feng Yu was going crazy.

Sleeping under the same roof with Kirilenko? Have you heard the noise of electric drills drilling the wall?!

Luckily there were still available rooms at the hotel, and Feng Yu booked another room next to Kirilenko for himself.

Soon, Feng Yu regretted. He should have booked a room two floors away from Kirilenko’s room. What soundproofing did this goddamn hotel have? He could hear Kirilenko’s thunderous snoring clearly in the adjacent room!

When Feng Yu was about to fall asleep, he heard someone knocking on his door.

“Who is it?”

“Feng, are you in there? Are you awake?” Kirilenko was knocking on his door shouting energetically.

Feng Yu opened the door unwillingly. He was full of respect for Kirilenko. Last night, Kirilenko was dead drunk, and after sleeping for one night, he was revived with full hit points! But what about me? Your snoring had kept me awake the whole night!

“Ah… Brother Ki. It is still early. You should go for some breakfast first. I need to sleep a while more.” Feng Yu yawned.

Kirilenko gave Feng Yu a “Wake up and play with me” look and stopped Feng Yu from closing the door. He went into the room and shoved Feng Yu into the bathroom: “Hurry up. Didn’t you say you had arranged a fun day today?”

What the hell did brother-in-law arrange to make Kirilenko so excited? How come no one informed me?

“Fine. Wait a while. I need to use the bathroom.”

After half an hour of washing up, Feng Yu slowly came out of the bathroom. Kirilenko was already running out of patience.

When the both of them reach downstairs, Li Shiqiang had driven over: “The both of you are early.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes at his brother-in-law. It was all because of the things you told Kirilenko yesterday. If not, why would he wake me up so early today?

“Li, are you here to pick us up? You are really my good friend.” Kirilenko patted Li Shiqiang’s shoulders with a grateful look.

Feng Yu looked at the both of them. If he did not know about their sexual preferences, he might have thought that both of them were gay!

“Let’s go. I will bring you to have breakfast.”

This was a small shop with a short metal chimney sticking out from a hole in the roof. Thick smoke was billowing out from the chimney.

There were some writings on the door, and Feng Yu knew that this was only a regular shop selling breakfast. Why was Kirilenko so excited?

Damn, did Brother-in-law arranged some young waitress for Kirilenko in this small shop?

But when Feng Yu entered the shop, he saw a plumped middle age auntie. He was relieved. He knew that Kirilenko would not have such exquisite tastes in women. Hmmm… Maybe he really has such fetish. Feng Yu had heard that Russian middle age women were also very popular in Russia.

“What do you want to order?”

“Do you have freshly fried Youtiao (dough sticks)?”

“Yes. There are also freshly fried pancakes, pancakes with fillings, meat buns, porridge, and soy milk. What do you want?”

“3 youtiao, 3 fried pancakes, 3 pancakes with fillings, 3 meat buns, 3 bowls of soy milk and 3 salted duck eggs for now.”

Feng Yu’s eyes widen. All these for now? How could the 3 of them finish so much food?

When the food arrived, Kirilenko gobbled up the food in a few mouthfuls. Now, Feng Yu knew his brother-in-law was right to order so much food. The food he ordered might not be enough!

“Feng, this ‘Youtiao” taste so good. This pancake with fillings is good too. The taste of this meat bun is also exceptional. Why are you not eating?” Kirilenko asked with his mouth full of food.

Damn, how long have you been starving? Feng Yu suddenly remembered that Kirilenko did not have any dinner the night before. But he should also not be so hungry.

Li Shiqiang laughed and told Feng Yu: “He had not tasted all these foods. That’s why it is interesting to him.”

This was the problem with the International Hotel. Their breakfast was prepared according to the nationality of their guests. They claimed that they were respecting their guests. Kirilenko had come to Bing City several times, and he still had not tried the traditional Chinese breakfast.

“Brother-in-law, what did you promise him yesterday? Why is he so excited today?” Feng Yu asked.

Li Shiqiang was also surprised: “I had only asked the translator to tell him that I will be bringing him around to try out our China’s street food. Later at the restaurant, the translator left. I can’t speak Russian, so we start ordering. But every time I raise my glass, he will finish his glass. Because I have to drive, I am drinking plain water.”

Feng Yu: “……”

Damn, this will work? This meant that Kirilenko had made himself drunk yesterday!

But was there a need for Kirilenko to be so excited over some street food? This Kirilenko is a foodie?

Russia does not have delicious food? The pies and sausages I ate in Moscow taste nice too. But it seems that other than these, there isn’t any other delicious food.

China was like France. Their cuisines were famous throughout the world. Foreign delegates had praised Chinese cuisine more than once.

Feng Yu had only eaten a bun, and a fried pancake and Kirilenko had finished the rest of the food on the table. He seems to like deep fried food a lot. He had finished 4 youtiao!

“Brother Ki, how is the food?”

“Very good. What are we having for lunch?” Kirilenko asked excitedly.

Huh? Did you forget why you are here in Bing City? Why are you only asking about food?

“We can talk about lunch later. We need to visit the Machinery Company’s automobile factory later. I told you that you will be able to make money.”

Kirilenko took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth with a satisfied look: “Ok. I will follow your arrangements.”

Feng Yu was staring at that handkerchief. He remembered that when he was helping Kirilenko to change yesterday, this handkerchief had dropped onto the floor. He had also stepped on it with his smelly socks.

Hmmm…. Feng Yu decided to keep this a secret from Kirilenko. Maybe it was because of the smell from this handkerchief, he has such a good appetite.

Chapter 446, 447 and 448 – Buying hen and selling eggs

All the employees of the Automobile branch factories, including Li Mingde and Zhang Ruiqiang, were excited when they heard that there will be a big boss from Russia visiting the factory. This big boss will place a significant order if he is satisfied with the cars.

Zhang Ruiqiang was invited by Li Mingde to represent the City to meet this Russian boss. This can also be considered the City’s support of the Machinery Company.

When Feng Yu and Kirilenko arrived at the automobile factory, Kirilenko’s men had already reached. The streets leading to the factory were lined with banners written in Russian, welcoming Kirilenko.

Kirilenko saw the banners and was very excited. The Chinese were too passionate. Were all these arranged by Feng Yu? The next time when Feng Yu goes to Moscow, I must welcome him this way. I cannot let him think that we, Russians, are not as welcoming as the Chinese.

Actually, these banners were arranged by Li Mingde. In the past, when the Machinery Company was still a state-owned enterprise, they would also do the same thing whenever any big businessman visits. Of course, those “big businessman” and their “huge” orders amounted only about 1 million RMB worth of agriculture machinery. Now, even a 10 million RMB deal will not get this treatment.

“Mayor Zhang, Old Li, this is the businessman from Russia. Mr. Kirilenko. Brother Ki, this is our Bing City’s Mayor Mr. Zhang Ruiqiang, and this is our Machinery Company’s General Manager, Mr. Li Mingde.” Feng Yu introduced both parties.

Zhang Ruiiqiang warmly shook Kirilenko’s hands and even greeted him in Russian. Kirilenko shook his hands for only a second. If it wasn’t for Feng Yu introducing this person, he was not interested to know him. In Russia, the number of top regional officials who had dined with him was more than double digits. He was not interested to know some City’s mayor! (Russia’s regional top official was equivalent to China’s Provincial Governor.)

But Kirilenko shook Li Mingde’s hand longer. He had met Li Mingde twice before. Li Mingde was puzzled. This Russian does not know who had more authority? He was reluctant to shake the Mayor’s hand and greeted Li Mingde so warmly?

Kirilenko had visited the Machinery Company before, and Li Mingde had also met him previously. But to Li Mingde, all Caucasians look the same. He was still thinking in his heart, why was there so many Russians named Kirilenko? Was this their surname?

Kirilenko’s were glued to the vehicles the moment he stepped into the factory. These were Volga’s cars?

I knew Feng Yu was exaggerating. How could he produce any good cars? These cars were the exact replica of Volga’s cars. Kirilenko turned and look at Feng Yu.

Li Mingde immediately explained: “These Volga’s cars were manufactured using the technologies we got from the former Soviet Union. We will be using this car for comparisons later.”

After hearing the explanation from his translator, Kirilenko looked at Li Mingde in doubt. Using Volga’s car for comparison? That means you have successfully built better cars than the Volga?

So what? Kirilenko had also admitted that Russia, including the former Soviet Union, does not have any good cars. Many of the Russian politicians also prefer to sit in England cars. Those cars were much better than Volga’s cars. Moreover, you had built this Volga’s car using the old technology. The current Volga’s models were much better than this car.

Also, this Volga car you had assembled might even be worse than Volga’s older model. It was never easy to develop new automobile technologies.

“Manager Li, can I let my men test drive this vehicle?”

“Of course. No problem. This car had been tested by our engineer hired from Petersburg. He said that the quality of this car can be compared to the best Volga’s model in Russia.”

Li Mingde pointed to a big sized man with a thick beard. This mechanical engineer was hired by the Machinery Company from the former Soviet Union.

Kirilenko frowned. He had forgotten Feng Yu had hired some engineers from the Soviet Union previously. That means this Volga’s car should not have any problems.

But Kirilenko still asked his own mechanical engineer to inspect the car. Feng Yu had invited him over for business. What if there were problems with the quality of these products? He would make a loss if he were to place orders for defective goods. Feng Yu also do not know much about Russia’s automobile market. His judgment might also not be so accurate.

The engineer opened the bonnet to take a look. Then he climbed under the car to check the undercarriage. After that, he entered the vehicle to inspect the interior. He made a thorough inspection of the vehicle.

While the engineer was inspecting the vehicle, Li Mingde was telling Kirilenko about the factory. He was telling Kirilenko things like how big this factory was, the number of workers and professional engineers, the initial investments, the yearly production, etc. Li Mingde had a flair for telling others about the company’s history and past achievements. But he was unable to showcase this skill as the Machinery Company’s automobile factory was very new.

When Li Mingde starts to explain about the Songjiang Motors’ vehicles with a colored brochure, Kirilenko’s engineer had finish inspecting that Volga’s car.

“This car’s performance is outstanding. This is definitely a new car and had used our Volga’s technologies. The technologies used are about our standards ten years ago. The performance of this car only loses to the current Volga’s models slightly.”

Kirilenko nodded and turned to Feng Yu. Heard that? This car is about our standards 10 years ago and not as good as our Volga’s cars now. What can you prove by using this car to compare?

Feng Yu also knew about this. But Volga’s technological upgrades was the slowest among the major automobile manufacturers. It could not even be compared to China. The Volga’s newest models of cars were not much better than 10 years ago.

Later when Kirilenko saw the Songjiang Motors vehicles, he will have nothing to say.

Kirilenko had also noticed that the exterior design of Songjiang Motors vehicles was gorgeous. All 3 types of cars had captured his attention.

The Olympic model looked grand and was suitable for businessmen and families. The Off-road model looks rugged and domineering. The Red Star model looks like a van but does not have a bulky feel.

Overall, Kirilenko likes the designs of all three models. But no matter how beautiful the exterior designs were, it was the performance of the vehicles that matters the most. Cars were for driving and not for display. If he really wants to compare the exterior designs, he still thinks his sports cars in his garage were more beautiful.

But not everybody could afford to own a sports car. These cars which cost tens of thousands USD were still the automobile mainstream. These were also Russian consumer’s preferred vehicles.

Kirilenko passed the brochure to his engineer for him to give his professional opinions.

The engineer saw the pictures of the cars and was captivated by the beautiful designs. This is an SUV? The width seems to be quite wide. The interior must be very spacious. The angle of the front portion of this car should be able to lower the air resistance, and the whole body was sleek. It was really stunning.

That’s for sure. This Songjiang Off-road designed was based on Audi Q7 from the future. After Liu Michael’s numerous modifications, it looks different from Q7, but it still seems better than Jeep and Cherokee.

Kirilenko waited for a while and saw his engineer not saying a word. What was this guy doing? Why was he keeping quiet after looking at the brochures for so long?

Kirilenko coughed, and the engineer jumped. He was too engrossed with the brochures.

The engineer immediately flips to the last few pages of the brochures, where it states the specifications of the vehicles. The engineer’s jaw dropped with he saw the specs.

How can this be possible? This is impossible!

China’s cars can have such technologies? These technologies were not only ahead of Russia. These technologies were ahead of Russia by at least 10 years. The vehicles’ performance can be compared to European cars!

Li Mingde was feeling proud when he saw the shocked expression on the engineer’s face. When he knew about the specs of Machinery Company’s vehicles, he was also shocked like this engineer.

Li Mingde had thought their vehicles would catch up with Santana at most after they had combined the technologies bought by Feng Yu. He never expects that after adding the Motor Factory’s engine, turbocharge technology, suspensions, etc., their vehicles would reach such high standards!

Although the overall performance still could not be compared to European and Japanese cars, their cars were the best in China!

When Li Mingde looked at the manufacturing cost, he was alarmed. The cost was about the same as those joint-partnership cars, but the performances were much better.

At that moment, Li Mingde believed what Feng Yu had said in the past. We will build China’s best cars, and our goal in the future will be producing the best cars in the world!

Li Mingde had never thought that the goal of building China’s best cars could be achieved so easily. Also, the cost of their factories, compared to First Automobile Works (FAW) and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), were much cheaper. The production lines bought from the former Soviet Union were considered a steal when compared to FAW’s production lines.

Although the production lines bought from the former Soviet Union were old, FAW’s production lines were also old models. There was not much difference between both production lines. The production lines from the former Soviet Union were noisy and had many other flaws, but they were durable.

Li Mingde was very impressed with Feng Yu’s guts and foresight.

He now firmly believes what Feng Yu had said in the past. More than 50,000 Songjiang Motors vehicles will be sold annually within 3 years.

The sales of their vehicles were not doing well now, but it was because they had not started any large-scale marketing campaigns yet. When the commercials were aired after the Lunar New Year, the sales will definitely pick up. Furthermore, Tai Hua Trading’s selling capabilities were one of the best in China.

Also, CCTV had already purchased Songjiang Motors vehicles. This means that the market was willing to recognize their cars!

“Mr. Kirilenko, these specifications had been proven, and we can let your men test it. Our factory has all these models now, and they are all mass produced. This factory is only manufacturing the 3 versions of the Olympic model. The other two models are manufactured by our factory in Jinling. If you have the time, I can bring you there for a visit.” Li Mingde said with a proud look on his face.

Kirilenko looked at his engineer, and his engineer said: “Sir, these specifications are among the best in the world. If these figures are real, then these cars are way ahead of Volga’s latest models!”

What? Way ahead of Volga’s latest models?

“You sure?”

“I must test the cars first to be sure.” The engineer replied seriously.

Kirilenko nodded. Li Mingde waved his hand, and his staff brought the Russian engineer to test drive the vehicles.

Feng Yu smilingly looked at Kirilenko: “Brother Ki, how is it? Do you like the interior and exterior designs of my cars? Do you think that these cars will be popular in your country?”

“How are these cars selling in your country?” Kirilenko asked Feng Yu back.

Feng Yu casually replied: “A few days ago, CCTV, our national TV station, had purchased a batch of our cars. Mayor Zhang here can prove that I am not lying to you.”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu. This rascal was quoting out of context again. CCTV had indeed placed an order, but CCTV was the only one who had placed any orders. Other than CCTV, Feng Yu had not sold a single car yet.

But Zhang Ruiqiang chooses to support Feng Yu as the other party was a Russian.

“That’s right. CCTV is the voice of our government. This TV station has a high status in China. They have indeed ordered a batch of Songjiang Motors vehicles. They had wanted to purchase German’s Audi and Santana. But they realized Songjiang Motors vehicles are better and have better specifications. That’s why they changed their mind.”

Li Mingde added: “We have already delivered CCTV’s cars to them. You do not need to worry about our production not keeping up.”

But one of Kirilenko’s men suddenly asked: “Can I ask Mayor Zhang, is Bing City’s Government buying Songjiang Motors vehicles too?”

Zhang Ruiqiang was stunned. Why was this question suddenly thrown to him? His faced changed. He understood what that Russian wanted to know. Since you claim this Songjiang Motors vehicles are so good, then why is Bing City’s government not purchasing these figures?

“We are still discussing the purchasing contract. As we will be purchasing in large numbers, we need to get approval from the Provincial government. That’s why we still cannot finalize the contract yet.” Zhang Ruiqiang explained after thinking for a while.

Kirilenko frowned: “Mayor Zhang, why do you still need to consult the Provincial Government over such a trivial matter? I did not see your car when I come. Can you tell me what car you are using now?”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu, and Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. Why are you looking at me for? Answer him yourself.

“My car is an old car, Audi 100. We are planning to change our cars. Personally, I prefer the Songjiang Motors Olympic model. It looks grand and suits government officials.” Zhang Ruiqiang gritted his teeth and said.

Zhang Ruiqiang was regretting. He should return back to his office after he met Kirilenko. He can just show up again when Kirilenko was about to sign the contract.

Now, Zhang Ruiqiang had no choice. He can’t tell Kirilenko that he does not want to purchase Songjiang Motors vehicles. This was the Machinery Company to export their vehicles. He can’t mess up this deal.

Wait, Li Mingde had told the City that there will be a businessman from Russia visiting the Machinery Company and they will be discussing about his purchase. Was this on purpose? If this was not on purpose, why would Li Mingde ask him to be present to show his support for the Machinery Company?

Zhang Ruiqiang gave Feng Yu a stare. He felt he had been tricked by Feng Yu!

Feng Yu had an innocent look. He also did not expect Kirilenko’s man to ask this question. He was innocent.

But now, Zhang Ruiqiang could not stop the City Government from purchasing Songjiang Motors vehicles. Li Mingde had tried to persuade the City to buy these vehicles but were stopped by Zhang Ruiqiang. Zhang Ruiqiang had set an example by traveling in the former Mayor’s Audi 100. How could his subordinates still dare to suggest changing their vehicles for better ones?

If the City Government changed their vehicles, then the counties and agencies will find all sort of excuses to replace their current fleet. Bing City’s finances were still doing well these few years.

Kirilenko looked at Zhang Ruiqiang: “How many Songjiang Motors vehicles does Bing City wants to purchase and which model?”

Zhang Ruiqiang was cursing in his heart. Why are you keep focusing on me? Seems like he cannot just purchase a few cars to fool Kirilenko. Does this mean that the City will have to buy a batch of vehicles?

“Ermm…… we are still considering about the models. But the total number of vehicles should not be less than 100 units!” Zhang Ruiqiang replied.

He was afraid that if the number of vehicles was too little, Kirilenko would have doubts. As for how many cars will be purchased in the end can be discussed later.

Kirilenko still wanted to ask more questions, but Zhang Ruiqiang glanced at Li Mingde, and Li Mingde immediately changed the topic.

“Mr. Kirilenko, if these cars are as good as what was written on the brochures, will you be interested in ordering a batch?”

“I am interested of course. But there are still many factors like prices and some other conditions to consider.” Kirilenko smiled and answered.

Feng Yu gave Li Mingde a look, and Li Mingde did not carry on asking. Feng Yu can negotiate the prices with Kirilenko himself. After all, Feng Yu was more familiar with Russia than them.

“Brother Ki, the cheapest version of our Olympic model, is also equipped with airbags. The cost is more than 20,000 USD. The cost for this mid-range version is almost 40,000 USD. The top tier model’s cost is 60,000 USD. The cost for both diesel and petrol versions of this Off-road SUV model is about the same. About 40,000 USD. Finally, this Red Star model is about 60,000 USD. How many do you want? I can give you some discounts.”

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu. The cost of these cars was so high? Then if Feng Yu were to add in the profits and the transportation charges to Moscow, there would not be any profits left.

“Feng, the prices for your cars is a bit high. If I want to sell your cars, I will not have any profits.” Kirilenko was not happy. Didn’t you promise that I will be able to make lots of money?

Feng Yu also knows that prices he gave were slightly higher. Those were not the cost of the vehicles. Those were the retail prices in China.

“Brother Ki, look. We are selling these cars to Russia, and we need to pay the exportation taxes. The taxes are included in the price.”

Currently, China’s exportation tax was very low for vehicles. Not only vehicles, but the rest of the products were also the same. China was encouraging exportation. To earn foreign currency, China had used all ways and means. Some items that were lacking in China were also exported and then imported again. This was turning exports into domestic sales. This way, China would be able to get foreign currencies.

“I also need to pay importation taxes, and our taxes are quite high too. These are not those small tickets items.” Kirilenko winked at Feng Yu.

Kirilenko had never paid any taxes for his commodities trade all this while. Anyway, all his goods were in the military train carriages. When the train reaches Russia, there will be no one checking. When the products reach Moscow, no one dares to interfere with his business due to his father.

But vehicles were different. There was no way to hide. If he were to import these vehicles into Russia without paying any taxes, there would be some impact on his father’s reputation.

“How about this, Brother Ki? Our production had not started completely. That’s why our cost is a bit higher. I will speak to the leaders and see if we can get some government policies to lower the taxes. This way, the cost of each car can be lowered by about 1,000 USD. With these new prices, I think you will surely have more profits.”

Damn, England imported cars used by the Russian officials were more expensive. If Kirilenko was able to make use of his connections and background properly, he should get at least a few thousand USD of profits for each car. If he could sell 1,000 cars, his earnings will be at least a few million USD. This was not a small sum and was much higher than his monthly commodities trade.

Of course, this was only if Kirilenko was able to sell so many vehicles.

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu and said: “Hmmm… We can discuss this later.”

Of course, this was only lip service. Zhang Ruiqiang will never agree to waive off the taxes. Feng Yu had made so much money. What’s wrong with him paying the country and the City some taxes?

Kirilenko was still thinking about this deal when his engineer returned. The engineer was very excited and kept nodding to Kirilenko.

“Sir, there are no problems with the cars’ performances. Their cars and engines are much better than the Volga. The suspension, anti-collision, and other safety features were much better than Volga cars. Overall, these cars are excellent.”

The engineer had wanted to say the overall performance of these cars were almost perfect. But he did not want to say it in front of all the Chinese.

“Brother Ki, why are you hesitating? The performance is much better than your country’s Volga and is about the same as those English cars. The prices are also much lower. Not only individuals will buy. Have you ever considered if your government will make a bulk purchase?” Feng Yu raised one eyebrow.

That’s right. Why didn’t I think of this earlier? If I could sell these cars to the local governments, it will be much easier. I can also place an order with Feng Yu after I receive orders from the local governments. This way, I do not have to use any of my capital.

“Feng, after you have spoken to your government, give me the final price list.” Kirilenko said after a short pause.

“No problem. The price I am giving you will surely let you make lots of profits.” Feng Yu was overjoyed. Seems like Kirilenko was interested. He knew that Kirilenko would be interested if the profits were high enough.

The deal this time was considered a win-win situation for both parties. Feng Yu believed that Kirilenko could sell off this batch of vehicles at high prices to the corrupted Russian governments easily. Even if the rates offered to Kirilenko remained the same, Kirilenko would still have high profits.

Now, Feng Yu had offered to lower the prices slightly, that means Kirilenko’s profits will increase further. His profits might even be higher than the Machinery Company.

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu in a daze. Did this kid plan to sell these vehicles to Russia from the start? No wonder he dares to guarantee that the sales will exceed 50,000 units within 3 years.

Now it seems that Feng Yu does not even need 3 years.

Zhang Ruiqiang was puzzled. Russia had inherited most of the Soviet Union’s assets. Why did their automobile industry decline to such state? Even if the former Soviet Union’s industrial developments were in the wrong direction, but Russia now should also be considered a powerful industrial country.

This Russian had agreed to import a batch of vehicles from the Machinery Company!

This Russian should be the one who had been selling the former Soviet Union industrial equipment to Feng Yu. That means he should also know that this factory’s production lines were second-hand production lines from the former Soviet Union. Why was he still willing to buy the Machinery Company’s vehicles?

Could it be that these vehicles were really as good as what Feng Yu claims?

Feng Yu had bought second-hand equipment from the former Soviet Union previously and then manufactured vehicles from those equipment. The cars produced were then sold back to Russia. Was this considered buying a hen and then selling eggs back to the seller?

Li Mingde immediately asked his men to prepare lunch at the factory’s canteen.

Kirilenko’s eyes widened and said something in a weird accent: “Xiao Chi?” (Xiao Chi refers to street food or snacks in Chinese)

Li Mingde looked at the translator confused. The translator was also staring at Kirilenko blankly. The translator had not heard of such Russian word before.

Feng Yu helplessly said: “He wants to eat street food. Tell the canteen to prepare some local snacks. Oh, prepare a carton of Bing City’s strongest Baijiu!”

Feng Yu was screaming in his heart. Die Kirilenko! This afternoon, we have so many people. You will be drunk for sure!

Chapter 449 – I took that seriously

At noon, Zhang Ruiqiang had made an exception and drank a glass of Baijiu. With Feng Yu’s instructions, Li Mingde arranged for the factory’s supervisors and leaders to take turns drinking with Kirilenko.

Kirilenko was very impressed with the hospitality shown by the Chinese. When the lunch ended, he was carried onto the car by his men. Feng Yu was smiling. The Russian translator still thought that Feng Yu was smiling out of courtesy. He did not know that Feng Yu would be laughing out loud if there were not so many people around.

Hahahaha…… I had finally made you drunk!

“Manager Feng, are you having cramps on your face?” Li Mingde asked out of concern.

You are the one who had cramps on your face. Even your brains are having cramps. Can’t you see that I am so happy and can’t stop smiling?!

“What are you looking at? Arrange a driver to send Mayor Zhang back to rest. Get the canteen to prepare some hot soup. All of you should drink the soup to sober up. Those that can’t sober up can go back and rest. All of you had done well today.”

Feng Yu patted Li Mingde’s shoulders. He did not know that this old man could hold his liquor so well. Although Li Mingde’s eyes were all red, he was still sober after drinking one bottle of Baijiu himself. Feng Yu was very impressed with him. Li Mingde’s arrangement to get Kirilenko drunk was also well planned.

Zhang Ruiqiang was also very pleased with this lunch. It was not because Kirilenko had promised to place a large order when he was drunk. It was because this lunch had not cost too much.

There were only 8 main dishes, and the rest were all street food. Those were very cheap, and the liquor was Bing City’s Baijiu. 2 RMB per bottle.

Zhang Ruiqiang had decided to discuss with the rest of leaders in the City Government to learn from the Machinery Company and lower their expenses.

After drinking some hot soup, Feng Yu returned to his office to take a nap. When he woke up, he was feeling fresh. The first thing he did was to drive to the City Government.

Although Feng Yu was driving a vehicle with a temporary registration plate, he could enter the City Government compound easily by showing his face.

“Brother Liu, is the Leader awake?” Feng Yu pointed to the office.

“Manager Feng, Leader has a headache. He had drunk too much at noon. Is there anything important?” Secretary Liu asked curiously. Didn’t both of you had lunch together earlier?

Feng Yu showed a surprised expression: “Didn’t Mayor Zhang said that he wants to order a batch of Songjiang cars? I am here to discuss the quantity and model.”

Secretary Liu was sweating. The Mayor had said that earlier today to help the Machinery Company, and you took that seriously? Was this Manager Feng feigning ignorance?

Secretary Liu remembered the former secretary had instructed him to take precautions against Feng Yu. Feng Yu’s was too thick skin. He does not care about what others think of him. He will do anything to get what he wants!

“Manager Feng, please have a seat first. The Mayor has a meeting in a while and does not have time to talk to you about this.”

Feng Yu’s voice was loud, and if Mayor Zhang wanted to meet him, he would call out for him. But Zhang Ruiqiang had not called for Feng Yu. That means Zhang Ruiqiang does not wish to meet Feng Yu. It was Secretary Liu’s duty to stop Feng Yu.

Feng Yu sat on a chair by the wall and crossed his legs: “No problem. I can wait.”

Secretary Liu opened his mouth, but no words could come out. If it was others, they should get his meaning. The Leader does not want to meet you. But this Feng Yu was different from others and just sat there as if nothing had happened.

Secretary Liu was thinking in his heart. If the Leader does not call for you and I also ignore you, you will still have to leave.

But after a while, Feng Yu walked to the cabinet and took out a metal tin of tea leaves from the innermost of the drawer. Secretary Liu could no longer ignore Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, Manager Feng, stop. You don’t need to use so much tea leaves. Just a bit will do.” Secretary Liu’s heart was bleeding. These tea leaves were priceless. Even the Mayor could not bear to drink!

“No worries. Don’t need to help me. Carry on with your work. I can help myself. I like my tea to be thick.” Feng Yu said, and he was still continuing to add tea leaves to his cup.

Secretary Liu snatched the tin of tea leaves from Feng Yu and looked at him. If this person were not Feng Yu, he would have called for security to chase him out. But this was not the first time Feng Yu had done this. Every time, the Mayor would just scold Feng Yu but had never given any instructions to his secretaries to stop Feng Yu from taking those tea leaves.

Furthermore, everyone in the City Government knew that Feng Yu and the Mayor was very close. There were rumors that the Mayor had known Feng Yu when he was still the Chief of the Foreign Trade Bureau. Although Secretary Liu had not seen the Mayor accepting any gifts from Feng Yu, he had not rejected Feng Yu’s offer to treat him to meals. There was even one time when the Mayor treated Feng Yu to dinner!

Zhang Ruiqiang was aware when Feng Yu arrived. The door of his room was opened, and he could hear Feng Yu’s voice clearly inside his room.

But what was Feng Yu here for? He was here to sell his cars to the City. Zhang Ruiqiang still thought if that Russian had placed the order for the vehicles, then the City will just order one or two cars from Feng Yu. But Feng Yu was here to talk about the City’s purchase before that Russian had placed any orders.

Zhang Ruiqiang did not want to meet Feng Yu and wanted to find some excuse to brush off Feng Yu. But now it seems that this Feng Yu would not leave and will shamelessly stay there to wait for him! If he still does not call for Feng Yu, the office would be in a mess!

Zhang Ruiqiang rubbed his temples to try to soothe his headache and walked to the door with a black face: “Feng Yu, come in now. Xiao Liu help me brew a cup of thick tea too.”

Feng Yu smiled and enter Zhang Ruiqiang’s room. He walked straight to the sofa in the room and sat there sipping on his tea.

Damn, there were too many tea leaves. Feng Yu must add water for every sip he took!

Zhang Ruiqiang’s headache worsen when he saw the tea leaves in Feng Yu’s cup. These leaves were given to him by his former leader, and Feng Yu had wasted it. Later he must lock up these tea leaves in his room. If not, Feng Yu would have wasted it all!

Zhang Ruiqiang lit a cigarette and sat down opposite Feng Yu: “What are you here for?”

Feng Yu opened his eyes wide: “Didn’t you say that the City will be purchasing a batch of Songjiang Motors vehicles? I am here to discuss the contract.”

Secretary Liu entered the room with Zhang Ruiqiang’s tea and replaced the ashtray on the coffee table. Every time when Zhang Ruiqiang speaks with Feng Yu, he would smoke a lot more.

“Did I say anything like this?” Zhang Ruiqiang side glanced Feng Yu and blew out smoke from his nostrils. If I denied saying this, what can you do?

Damn. Who did this Old Zhang learn from? How can he be so shameless to deny what he had said?

Feng Yu showed a painful expression and said: “Leader, I have a piece of advice for you. What is the most important character a leader should have? Honesty! If you go back on your words, the people will lose trust in the government.”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu angrily: “Stop talking nonsenses! I had told you before that the City has no plans to replace all our vehicles. I had said those things was to help your Machinery Company clinched the deal with that Russian. You take that seriously?

Feng Yu blinked and replied: “I took that seriously……”

Chapter 450 – The City does not need to pay

Zhang Ruiqiang’s hand was trembling from his anger. He stared at Feng Yu and kept quiet.

“Leader. Look, you have already told the Russian that the City will be purchasing a batch of Songjiang Motors vehicles and the quantity will not be less than 100. That Russian will remember this. If they returned and find out that the City did not make any purchase, they will surely think that there are problems with Songjiang Motors vehicles. If not, why would the City go back on their words?”

“The City does not need any new vehicles!” Zhang Ruiqiang barked.

“Why is there no need? Our City is a Provincial City, and the population is one of the highest in China. Also, our City’s region is quite big with many districts. Many of the City Government leaders did not go down to the grounds for inspections. Why? It is because there are not enough vehicles in the City. There are only one or two vehicles for every department. This is too pitiful. We don’t talk about other cities. Just the non-provincial cities in the South have more vehicles than us. As such, their efficiency is much higher.”

“How are one or two vehicles not enough for a department? Do you still want those deputy chiefs to be assigned with a vehicle each?” Zhang Ruiqiang retorted.

When Zhang Ruiqiang was still a Deputy Chief at the Foreign Trade Bureau, he was also not assigned with his own vehicle. Whenever he needs to go out for official matters, he needs to book a car from the transport office.

“Leader, times are different now. How much tax revenue does the City Government have in the past and how much is the revenue now? How much had the revenue increased? Even if you don’t assign a personal car for those deputies, but you should still increase the number of vehicles for all your departments. If some major event happens, it will be faster for them to react. Look at the Agriculture Department and Bureau of Animal Husbandry. They have only 3 vehicles each, and the vehicles are still the minivans from Bing City’s Aviation Factory. Do you think the leaders there are happy with this? Don’t you think this will affect their performances and efficiency?”

“They dare?! I will punish them severely if they slack in their work!” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

Feng Yu slapped his forehead. This Old Zhang was really impenetrable.

“Leader, carrot, and stick should go together. This way, their efficiency will increase. Just look at Jidong County north of our City. Their deputy head also has his own vehicle. What about us? It will be hard for you to lead your men in this way.”

“You know a lot about the government’s work?”

“Even if I do not know about how the government works, but I have my companies, and I have a few thousand staffs all over China and overseas. Staffs need to be motivated. If not, they will stop moving forward. Not everyone who works in the government service is because they want to contribute to the nation. Some of them are after status and authority. Many of them are capable, and if you dangle a carrot in front of them, they will put in more effort.”

“You are telling me that the City needs to buy your cars to motivate the staffs?” Zhang Ruiqiang sneered. What logic was this?

“Then I want to know why is it that the City will use that Mercedes Benz whenever some businessman visits?” Feng Yu asked.

To be honest, the City wants ‘face.’ Also, even if the City wants to stop its departments from ordering vehicles from the Machinery Company, it was impossible. There was more than one City’s department calling Li Mingde to ask about the cars.

Those departments do not have the funds to purchase new vehicles if the City does not give them the funds? Those leaders will find ways to get money from their department to buy. Isn’t it better to consolidate all the orders for a bulk purchase? It will be cheaper this way.

“Government vehicles are for safety, convenience, and speed. That Mercedes Benz is to host investors. This is very normal and is happening all over China. What’s wrong with this?”

“The City needs to host investors and businessmen. The other departments and counties don’t need to host guests? Look at your men. What cars are they using? Santana is still fine. They are driving Xiali, Passat, and Hongqi. Which one of these cars is safe? My cars are the safest. All my models are equipped with airbags, and the exterior looks grand. It is the most suitable car for work. Also, even the City does not purchase my vehicles, the Provincial Government will not buy my cars?”

Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. He knew that his men will find ways and means to purchase Songjiang Motors vehicles even if he tries to stop them.

“Also, some departments must increase the number of their vehicles. For example, Public Security Offices. They have lots of confidential documents, and you let them take public transport and taxis? Their transportation expenses in a year is also not a small sum. Look at our Police department and compare it to the Policemen from other major Cities. The gap is too big. You want our policemen to take public transports back to the station with the criminal they caught from the streets?”

“You just want the City to buy your vehicles. We are still considering this. What you are doing now is useless!” Zhang Ruiqiang was determined not to buy new vehicles for the City.

Swished~~~

Feng Yu took out a copy of the newspaper and place it on the coffee table.

“Leader, look at this. This is yesterday’s Bing City news. Two hooligans had snatched a handbag while riding a motorcycle. Two policemen ran after them on foot for about 200 meters, and the criminals escaped. If the policemen are chasing after those thieves in a car, do you think they will escape? Here state the interviews on the public conducted by the reporter. The public are very concern with the security of our City and most of them do not have confidence in our policemen!”

Zhang Ruiqiang sneered and said: “Humph! Those two hooligans are riding Songjiang Motorcycles?”

“That is not important. The important thing is our police department need patrol cars. If there is an emergency, the police department can dispatch policemen immediately. Don’t tell me the City did not receive complains about the Policemen arriving at the crime scene too late?” Feng Yu asked while tapping the coffee table with his fingers.

Zhang Ruiqiang kept quiet. Of course, he had received complains about the Police department. But which city doesn’t? Even Beijing will also receive such complaints. If based on what Feng Yu said, that means every Police division will need to purchase vehicles. Then do the police stations need vehicles? There are almost 20 police divisions in the whole City and more than 100 police stations. All of them needs to be assigned to cars?

Even if the City had purchased the cheapest model, it would also cost 20 million RMB. Where will the City get this much money?

“This situation will improve. The City does not have so much money now. If we had spent too much money on the Police department, what about the other departments? Even if we were to improve our Police department equipment, this is also not the way to do it.”

Finally, this Old Zhang was moved. This was what Feng Yu wanted.

Feng Yu smiled and said: “Don’t have money? I can help you think of a way. The City does not need to worry about the money. Once you give the approval, the departments will be able to raise funds themselves.”

“Raise the funds themselves? How?”

“Didn’t you realize that since the recovery of our Bing City industries, there has been a revival of nightclubs, bathhouses, etc.? A number of them are illegal.” Feng Yu said and raised his brows.

“Really?” Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. How come he was not aware of this?

“It is not as serious as the Song Laosi’s era. But there are still many fights, gambling, and prostitution. If the Police department were to catch them, the fines they receive would be sufficient for them to buy new vehicles. This will also keep our crime rates low, and at the same time, the police department can improve their equipment. Killing two birds with one stone.”

“In fact, many departments can raise their own funds. These departments have been doing this almost every festive season. For example, the Trade and Industry Bureau can catch those illegal factories, the Health Bureau can catch those illegal clinics. Those departments will be able to think of ways to raise their own funds. The City does not need to spend a single cent and even make some money from this.”

“Make money?” Zhang Ruiqiang was confused. How can the City make money from this?

“That’s right. The City can consolidate all the departments’ orders of vehicles, and I will give you a bulk discount. Those departments will be providing the City the funds of the new cars based on the retail prices and the City can earn from the difference.” Feng Yu continued.

Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes widened. He could not catch up with Feng Yu. But…… this seems to be a good idea!

Chapter 451 – Major Crackdown in the City

The next day, Feng Yu noticed there was a lot of changes in Bing City when he brought Kirilenko out for street foods. Since morning, Bing City residents saw lots of men with red armband patrolling the streets. If the armband did not indicate these people were from the City’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, they would have thought they had returned to that particular era.

“Spitting on the streets, fine 2 RMB!” An old lady with a red armband tore a ticket and gave to a young man who had just spat on the floor.

“What? Fine? 2 RMB? Auntie, can I just wipe it myself?” The young man used his shoes to wipe his spit.

“No. Didn’t you see the City’s news yesterday? There will be a crackdown in our City. The City wants to increase the quality of its residents. Hurry up and pay your fine. There are policemen over there.” The old lady stubbornly said.

Her leader had told her that they had a target to hit and they would also get a part of the fines collected. Each of them had to collect 100 RMB of fines. Of course, these were all internal instructions and were not disclosed to the public.

The young man turned and saw the policemen standing on the other side of the streets. What was happening today? Policemen were patrolling so early in the morning? Since when did Bing City Policemen become so hardworking? Could it be that some great leader will be visiting today?

The young man paid his fine unwillingly and threw his ticket into the trash bin. However, a gust of wind blew the ticket onto the floor.

The young man saw the old lady running towards him, and he immediately picked up the ticket and stuff it into his pocket. He was mumbling to himself: “How come this ticket dropped onto the floor? If I get fine again, I will have no way to answer to my wife for the missing money.”

The old lady could not issue the littering ticket and was disappointed. She could get 10 cents for a 2 RMB fine! If she were able to collect 100 RMB fines, she would earn more than what she usually earned from sweeping the streets. Furthermore, as a road sweeper, she hated those people who spit and litter on the streets!

At a clinic, the health bureau had sealed a clinic. This clinic was opened by an unlicensed doctor. The doctor had got his practicing license suspended for malpractice in the past.

This doctor did not follow the procedures to test a patient for allergies before injecting penicillin into him, and the patient had an anaphylactic shock. This doctor was still the same after he had lost his license. When the people from the Health Bureau arrived at his clinic, there was also a patient suffering from mild allergies.

In the clinic, the health Bureau also found expired medications. This person was too evil. Seems like this could not be settled with just fines.

This was a good arrest, but the people from the Health Bureau were unhappy. This was a severe crime, but they could not fine this unlicensed doctor.

In the evenings, Feng Yu and Kirilenko was standing at a street hawker stall buying some barbeque skewers when a few men in uniforms came running towards the hawker: “How many time have I warn you? Who gives you the permission to set up your stall here? Do you have a permit? Do you have the license to operate? Hurry and pay your fine. 50 RMB!”

Feng Yu’s jaws dropped, and the piece of meat in his mouth fell onto the table. What time was it now? These officers from Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau were supposed to be off-duty and why were they just giving fines to this hawker and not confiscating his stall?

Damn, was it because of my suggestion to Zhang Ruiqiang that caused all these?

This hawker’s life was also not easy. Feng Yu also like his food very much. So, he walked over and passed a 100 RMB note to the hawker’s wife: “Pay the fine with this. With your skills, both of you should set up a proper stall. Being an unlicensed hawker is not a long-term solution.”

“Thank you, young man. We also want to set up a shop, but we could not find a good location. Our loyal customers are all staying in this area, and if we leave this place, we will have to start all over again. Don’t leave first. When these officers leave, I will barbeque some skewers for you.”

The hawker’s wife thought Feng Yu had helped them out of kindness, but she did not know that Feng Yu was feeling guilty.

Kirilenko was not full yet when he was dragged away by Feng Yu. When he left, he was still holding on to two skewers of barbeque kidneys.

Feng Yu does not eat these things, but Kirilenko likes it very much.

That night, a local businessman had brought his client to a bathhouse for some massage when someone kicked opened the door.

“Police, don’t move! Which unit are you from? Call your unit’s leader here to bail you.”

“Sir, I am self-employed.”

“Self-employed? Then call your family over to bail you and pay the fine!”

“Please don’t let my family members know. Can I pay the fines now? How much? 1,000 RMB? How come the fine is so high? Wait, wait, wait. I will pay the fine. I will also pay the fines for that person. Can you release him too?”

This businessman had thought of spending only 50 RMB to entertain his guest, but in the end, he paid 2,000 RMB. Even if he had clinched this deal, there would be no profits.

Were these policemen crazy? Why was there a crackdown suddenly?

Most of the people at the bathhouse paid their fines on the spot. Those proceeds from the prostitutes were also confiscated. This was why the Police department could raise funds quickly. The people they caught were willing to pay their fines without letting their companies, units, and family knows.

“Both hands on your head and face the wall. No one is allowed to talk!”

Four businessmen were playing mah-jong in a private room, and Policemen rushed in. They didn’t even have the chance to say anything and were arrested. One of them tried to call his connections but was pinned down on the floor by one of the policemen.

The money used for gambling were confiscated, and they were asked if they want to pay fines or be in remand. These few bosses did not want to be in custody and chose to pay the hefty fines. They will also not leave any criminal records if they paid their fines. One of the four businessmen took out a handphone and called his brother-in-law to bring 20,000 RMB over to pay their fines.

At a nightclub’s private room, two men had pinned down a hostess and were about to do something terrible to her when the door was kicked open.

“Didn’t I say no one is allowed to enter my room? Who the hell gives you the guts to enter? Ah……. Mr. Policeman, I am not talking to you.” One of the men was about to shout profanities when he saw a few policemen rushing into the room.

“All of you, squat down on the floor. Which unit are you from?”

“Sir, can I don’t tell you my unit? We are not doing anything.”

“Not doing anything? Then why are you not wearing your pants?”

“We are a couple.” The other man shouted.

“Couple? There are 4 of you. This means all of you had committed group licentiousness and will be charged in court. Fine. I will not take the prostitution charge into consideration but we will treat this as a criminal case and will hand you over to the detectives to handle.

“Please, Police Comrade. Please give us a chance.”

“Who is comrades with you, criminals?”

“Mr. Senior Police Officer.”

“I am only 25 years’ old.”

“Brother Officer, I am 20 years old. Errm…… these girls here are prostitutes. I admit to the charges, and we will pay the fines. Can you don’t inform my unit?” A breaded man who looked like he was in his forties, was begging the police officer.

That night, Bing City’s crackdown had left a deep impression on the residents. Most of the residents were happy with this. They had wanted Bing City to be cleansed from all these vices. They praised the City Government for this crackdown. The person that received the most praises was Bing City’s Mayor Zhang Ruiqiang. The residents had heard that this crackdown was instructed by the Mayor.

Of course, those that were fined were cursing the City in their hearts.

Chapter 452 – Sufficient funds were raised in one day

Feng Yu had given Kirilenko a new price list, but Kirilenko was still not satisfied. His men had told him that Bing City did not purchase any Songjiang Motors vehicles. He was worried that there might be some problems with these vehicles.

Kirilenko trusted Feng Yu, as Feng Yu was his important partner in his mining enterprise. But he does not believe the Machinery Company. What if Feng Yu was also tricked by the Machinery Company’s people? He wants to wait until the City Government place their orders before he makes any purchases.

Feng Yu was also anxious. This Kirilenko had become smarter and was not easily hoodwink like before. But at this moment, Feng Yu received a phone call from Zhang Ruiqiang. Zhang Ruiqiang asked Feng Yu to make a trip to the City Government.

“All because of your suggestion, Bing City is in chaos. All my men are too much. They want to impose fines on everything. They are issuing fines for the sake of getting the fines!” Zhang Ruiqiang was furious.

Feng Yu spread his arms out with his palms facing up: “These enforcers are all the City’s staff. What has it got to do with me? Furthermore, this is also a good thing. At least the streets are cleaner now, and those places of ill-repute were all shut down. Are you worried about the tax revenues?”

“Rubbish!”

Tax revenues? Those places had never paid taxes. Zhang Ruiqiang had never expected there were so many problems in the City.

Zhang Ruiqiang had thought Bing City was in good shape under his leadership. The City’s revenue was increasing steadily, and the residents had a good life. But he did not know that there were so many problems under the surface!

The total amount of fines collected had shocked Zhang Ruiqiang!

Just the money confiscated from illegal gambling amounted to over 3 million RMB! This amount does not include the fines. If he were to include the fines, the Police department had collected almost 8 million RMB!

The average annual salary of Bing City residents after the increase in recent years was about 1,800 RMB. How come there were so many people involved in gambling?

There was still the issue of prostitution. The police department had arrested over 300 patrons of prostitutes and had confiscated a few hundred thousand of proceeds from prostitution. Coupled with the fines, the total amount collected was a few million.

Those prostitutes were mainly former female workers of textile mills and other failed state-owned factories. Zhang Ruiqiang was sad to know that some of the prostitutes were even underaged.

He felt that he had failed in his duties. The reformation of the state-owned enterprises had failed, and this was the result. If there were jobs available for these women, they would not go into prostitution.

If Feng Yu knew what Zhang Ruiqiang was thinking, he would surely tell Zhang Ruiqiang that these women had entered this trade because it was easy money!

There were no problems with the Police Department conducting raids at those places and making those arrests. But what made him furious was the way the Police handled fighting cases. The Police officers did not even try to pacify the situation and investigate the cause of the fights. The first thing the officers did was to slap both parties with fines. Pay 200 RMB fine and then get lost. In the end, those two men fought again outside the police station. The officers arrested them again, and the fines were increased to 400 RMB each.

How could the Police Officers handle this case like this?! Although these two men do not dare to fight again outside the station, who knows if they would fight again somewhere else?

Those Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau’s enforcers had arrested those illegal hawkers but did not confiscate the hawkers’ stalls and released them on the spot after they paid their fines. Some even negotiated with the hawkers on an amount to be paid for not catching them again in the next few days.

What’s the difference between those hooligans collecting protection fees and them?!

Also, since when did the Health Bureau was authorized to issue fines? Which law had permitted them to fine people?

In conclusion, all the government agencies used all sorts of ways and excuses to justify their actions of issuing fines. Yesterday, the whole City and even the counties were issuing fines.

The total amount collected by the City yesterday was more than 20 million RMB!

Even after the city had collected so much, many units were still not satisfied. How come other units had collected so many fines, and our unit had so little? Those units could even afford to assign vehicles to their deputy chiefs. The fines collected by our unit was not even enough for all the deputy heads to be assigned with cars.

As such, many units continued their operation today. They were finding all sorts of excuses to fine offenders to raise funds for new vehicles. As for the Police Department, most of the officers were resting. Their operations were mostly conducted at night.

This morning, on the way to work, Zhang Ruiqiang saw many people enforcing the law along the streets.

Although it was reported in the newspapers that the City had a crackdown yesterday to cleanse the city, but Zhang Ruiqiang knew that if this carried on, there would be lots of problems arising.

All these happened because Zhang Ruiqiang had believed what Feng Yu said. He told the heads of the agencies that after they had raised enough funds, the City will consolidate all their orders and purchase the vehicles from the Machinery Company. But he had never expected the situation would be so dire.

In just one day, more than one unit had raised enough funds.

Even the City’s National Health and Family Planning Commission had incurred the wrath of many people. They wanted to issue fines for people with twins! Those people had almost complained to the City Government!

Zhang Ruiqiang felt it was Feng Yu that had caused all these problems for him. But deep in his heart, he knew that he could not blame Feng Yu for all these.

Feng Yu saw Zhang Ruiqiang deep in thoughts and continued to ask: “Leader, from the way you speak, it seems that the fundraising conducted by the agencies is a success?”

Zhang Ruiqiang almost choked on his own cigarette smoke. Fundraising? If the residents knew the government agencies were raising funds this way, they would throw eggs at the City Government!

Luckily all the agencies were on the same page and maintained that they were trying to increase the City’s image and eliminate all black sheep in the City. They want to welcome the new year with a better and cleaner city!

“Stop talking nonsense with me. Tell me the truth. Did you get someone to teach those units all these methods?” Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang in his eyes: “No.”

Feng Yu had not taught those people all those tricks. Even Feng Yu also did not expect those agencies to stretch things so far. But overall, this was indeed a good thing for the City. But those units should not do this so frequently. The residents will not be happy with this.

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu for a long time. He believed his words.

“You had mentioned that if the City were to purchase your vehicles, you would sell your vehicles to us at cost price?”

Feng Yu nodded. What he wanted now was to make use of the City to advertise for him. The other cities will also follow Bing City and purchase Songjiang Motors vehicles. He might not make money from Bing City’s deal, but he will make profits from the sales with other cities.

Zhang Ruiqiang took out a piece of paper from a stack of documents and passed to Feng Yu: “Good. These are the models and quantity. I will let my men contact Li Mingde.”

Li Mingde does not dare to hide the cost of the vehicles from Zhang Ruiqiang.

Feng Yu took the piece of paper from zhang Ruiqiang, and his eyes nearly popped out. Damn, how come the City wants to order 316 vehicles?

Didn’t they agree on 100 vehicles? How come this order exceeded what they had agreed on previously? Did Old Zhang gone bonkers or my eyes are playing tricks? Those agencies’ leaders gone crazy?

Even if these orders were for the cheapest model, the total value of the orders was more than 26 million RMB. How many fines did the City collect yesterday? Old Zhang was not afraid the Provincial Governor will be unhappy with this?

Feng Yu was regretting. Cost price…… What a loss! If this was calculated based on the retail prices, the Machinery Company had lost over 10 million RMB from this deal! No way. He must speak to Old Zhang again.

Chapter 453 – Taught a lesson by Zhang Ruiqiang

Feng Yu’s face was all black when he left Zhang Ruiqiang’s office! This Zhang Ruiqiang was too evil. Only half of the orders were the cheapest version of the Olympic model. There were also dozens of orders for the most expensive version. Zhang Ruiqiang happily walked Feng Yu to the door and even told him to come by his office often for a chat.

But in his car, Feng Yu smiled. Zhang Ruiqiang ah, Zhang Ruiqiang. You thought that the City had taken advantage from me? Hrmph! Just the quantity of your orders will be our promotional tools. This is not a loss for us!

There was no way for Feng Yu to accept these cars to be sold at cost price. After some haggling, he was able to convince Zhang Ruiqiang to let the Machinery Company have some profits. If not, Feng Yu would not be able to answer to Fu Guangzheng.

Feng Yu must tell Li Mingde to add in the marketing cost, management cost and all sorts of cost into the vehicles. He must not let Zhang Ruiqiang use the Machinery Company’s money to please others so easily.

Feng Yu had asked Zhang Ruiqiang about his orders. Even if the Police Department wanted so many cars, but those old cars can still be issued to the counties and districts. Why did they still need to order so many vehicles?

Feng Yu found out that Zhang Ruiqiang had helped the Provincial Government to order a batch of vehicles! The Provincial Government had wanted to purchase a batch of Audi vehicles from First Automobile Works. But they heard that Bing City had started to manufacture their own cars, and the performances of these cars were better and cheaper than Audi. Thus, the Provincial Government decided to use the Songjiang brand. On the surface, they claim to be supporting the local industry, but in reality, they just wanted more value for their money.

It was okay if the Machinery Company does not make any profit from selling the cars to the City. But to not make money from selling to the Provincial Government? Feng Yu quarreled with Zhang Ruiqiang on the spot. How can the City make such decisions for the Machinery Company?

What? You will give us some tax subsidies? This year’s tax will be exempted and 50% taxes for next year? You should have mentioned this earlier. The Provincial Government can enjoy the same rates as our Bing City.

Feng Yu agreed immediately. There will only be 5% profits from each vehicle. But actually, the profits were at least 10%.

Although the profits were minimal, it was still acceptable. The most important thing was his taxes for this year was waived, and next year, the Machinery Company will only need to pay 50% taxes. This will help his automobile project development.

Although Bing City only have a branch factory, from the current demand, they will be selling mostly the Olympic model. This should be the same for next year.

On the way back to the Machinery Company, Feng Yu felt something was off from the way Zhang Ruiqiang smiled at him.

Feng Yu arrived at the Machinery Company and passed the City’s order to Li Mingde.

“Old Li, this is the City’s order. 316 vehicles. You make the arrangements to deliver the cars as soon as possible.”

“Over 300 vehicles? This is a big order. I knew this order will be big when you are the one handling. There should be almost 10 million in profits from this deal if each car’s profit is 30,000 RMB.” Li Mingde was overjoyed. Although 10 million RMB was nothing compared to the billions invested, it was still a good start.

“The profit is not so high. You add in all the materials, manpower, machinery wear and tear cost into the vehicles’ cost and add in a 5% profit will do.” Feng Yu sighed.

Huh? What’s with Li Mingde’s expression? Not happy? He does not know that the taxes for the automobile branch factory was also quite high?

“Manager Feng, this tax exemption is what I had discussed with the City last week, and they have already agreed.”

Huh?

Feng Yu was stunned. F*ck! The City had already agreed to this last week? I have been conned by Zhang Ruiqiang!

“Is Mayor Zhang aware of this?” Feng Yu asked/

“Of course. This is not a small matter. How can the Mayor not aware of this?”

“Old Li, take that order form with you. We will go to the City Government now!” Feng Yu was furious. Using some conditions that were already approved to con him? This was too despicable!

“Where is Mayor Zhang?” Feng Yu looked at Secretary Liu and asked.

“He went to the Provincial Government for a meeting.”

Feng Yu sneered: “You think I am a fool? Why are you still here if he went to the Provincial Government for a meeting?”

Secretary Liu smiled: “Mayor Zhang had asked me to stay here to wait for you.”

Secretary Liu also did not expect Zhang Ruiqiang to give him such a difficult task! When he thinks of Feng Yu’s character, he was troubled. Both soft and hard approaches do not work on Feng Yu. Secretary Liu was only a secretary after all. Other people gave him face because of Zhang Ruiqiang. But from Feng Yu’s attitude, he knew that Feng Yu was here to quarrel with the Mayor.

But the leader’s instruction was for Secretary Liu to fool Feng Yu. Secretary Liu was praying in his heart that Feng Yu would not bear grudges against him.

“Where is that agreement I signed? Bring it over. I want to tear it into pieces!” Feng Yu stretched out his hand towards Secretary Liu.

“Manager Feng, how can you tear a signed agreement? Manager Li, help me persuade Manager Feng.” Secretary Liu looked at Li Mingde.

Li Mingde does not dare to go against Feng Yu, and at the same time, he does not want to offend the Mayor’s secretary. So……

“Ahhhh…. I am old now. I have some prostate problems. I need to go to the gents again. Please wait a while.”

Li Mingde made up an excuse and escaped. Feng Yu also did not expect Li Mingde to help him much. He only needed Li Mingde to act as a witness that he had been hoodwinked by Zhang Ruiqiang.

Old Zhang was too much! If Zhang Ruiqiang had a mobile phone, Feng Yu would have called him and scolded him!

After Li Mingde left, Secretary Liu led Feng Yu to a seat: “Manager Feng, calm down. This is not what you think.” Secretary Liu thought that it was better to tell Feng Yu the truth and not fool him.

“What do you mean? The City had already given us these conditions as their support for our Bing City’s Machinery Company. Because I am not aware of this, you used it to trick me?! How can the City do this? Think about how much I had contributed to the City over the past few years?”

“Lower your voice. Manager Feng, let me finish what I have to say.” Secretary Liu patted Feng Yu’s shoulders. His voice was too loud.

“Fine. You say. I want to hear what explanation you have for me.” Feng Yu angrily replied.

“Leader had asked me to show you this contract when you arrive. He was only joking with you with the previous contract.” Secretary Liu took out a contract from his drawer.

Feng Yu took a look at the contract. The rates of the vehicles in this contract had 10,000 to 20,000 RMB profits for each car. This rate was even higher than what he had offered to CCTV.

“What is the meaning of this?” Feng Yu looked at Secretary Liu in a daze.

“The leader said, ‘Feng Yu is overconfident, and he is not good in managing a company. If the Machinery Company does not have Li Mingde, it will surely be in a mess. This is a lesson for him. Don’t think that he can do everything and keep his trickery. Even Li Mingde can easily outdo Feng Yu when it comes to trickery.’ Mayor Zhang also wanted me to tell you that he had torn the previous contract. But he had helped you pointed out some of your weakness, and you will take note of it in your future business deals. Shouldn’t you do something to show your appreciation? In the northern region from the river, the City wants to build a high school and two junior high schools. But the City has a lack of funds and us short of 3 school buildings. The Leader said that ordinary school buildings will do.” Secretary Liu imitated Zhang Ruiqiang’s tone.

Damn, did Zhang Ruiqiang just taught me a lesson? Have I been overconfident?

Chapter 454 – Brother Ki, think about your Russian army

Zhang Ruiqiang knew Feng Yu inside out. Feng Yu really donated 3 modern school building and all the facilities in it. Each building cost over 1 million RMB. Of course, this donation was not from the Machinery Company. It was from Feng Yu’s pocket.

Tai Hua building will be a brand in the future and how can the buildings be ordinary? 20 years from now, these buildings should still be in good shape and can satisfy the demands of the schools!

After Feng Yu left, he reflected on himself. Most importantly, he must set up a professional team for business negotiations.

Feng Yu cannot rely on his current skills and his experiences from his previous life. He must look for the elites in negotiation. It was impossible for Feng Yu to train someone that specialized in this field.

Just look at the people in Tai Hua Trading. All of them had performed well, but they were still far from the elites. If they were outstanding, they would leave the company to set up their own business.

Although Zhang Ruiqiang had taught Feng Yu a lesson with this deal, it had also helped Feng Yu a lot. At least he could show Kirilenko that the City had purchased more than 300 vehicles.

Russia’s economy had declined severely, but the government’s expenditure did not reduce much. The country’s budget will issue their money to the government agencies first.

If Bing City could purchase more than 300 vehicles, then it should not be a problem to sell these cars to the Russian Government.

“Feng, I will be returning to Moscow tomorrow. I will surely purchase your cars, and I am willing to accept the price you offered. But I do not have so much cash with me. Ii will place a deposit, and after I sold the cars, I will transfer the balance to you. Is this fine with you?”

“Why not? I trust you. It’s a deal then. You can transfer to Tai Hua Trading’s account. Tai Hua Trading is the main distributor for Machinery Company’s vehicles.”

The both of them had worked together for quite a long time and trusted each other.

The prices offered to Kirilenko was higher than the prices Feng Yu sold to the City. Even if he deducts the export taxes, the profits were still a lot higher than what he got from the deal with the City.

Why did Kirilenko still accept this price? It was because the Russian market only has the top range and the lowest range cars. The cheapest imported English cars will cost more than 80,000 USD. The top tier cars will cost a few hundred thousand USD. The Russian Volga cost less than 20,000 USD. There were very few mid-range vehicles.

Kirilenko discussed with his men and felt that even if these cars were used as family cars, the market would be vast. Kirilenko can still use his connections with the government.

Kirilenko was confident that he could sell 10,000 vehicles to the government easily. If he put in more effort, he might sell even more.

10,000 vehicles, even if Kirilenko earns 2,000 USD per car, that will be 20 million USD. This was much more profitable than his commodities trade. Most importantly, he does not need to put in much investment.

Kirilenko would receive the deposits from the Government in cash and then he would use these deposits to place orders from Tai Hua Trading. After he delivered the vehicles, he would collect the balance from the government and then transfer the payments to Tai Hua Trading.

As for selling these vehicles to the individuals as family cars, Kirilenko decided to target only those businessmen.

“Brother Ki, do you think the Russian automobile market is only this small? You can only sell 10,000 vehicles in a year?” Feng Yu showed his index finger to Kirilenko.

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu in surprised: “10,000 cars is still considered little?” How many cars can you sell in China annually?

Feng Yu sighed and asked: “Brother Ki, did you forget what your family is doing?”

Kirilenko paused for a second. What is my family doing? My father and brother are in the Russian Army…… Wait, my father was the overall in-charge of the Army’s logistics, and he does the procurement of the military equipment!

Kirilenko opened his eyes wide: “Feng, are you telling me to sell your vehicles to our Russian army?”

“Why not?”

“But only your Songjiang Off-roads model suits our army.”

“I am talking about Songjiang Off-roads. Especially the diesel engine model. This model has a lot of power, durable, uses lesser fuel and suits the cold environment. Also, we can help you paint the vehicles into Army Green color or camouflage paint. What do you think?”

Kirilenko was still not smart enough. Actually, Feng Yu felt that all the Songjiang models can be sold to the Russia army. It was just up to Kirilenko.

This diesel engine Off-road vehicle will not be popular in China. It was not because the Chinese do not like this technology. But it was because of the quality of diesel in China. China’s diesel quality was the worst in Asia and cannot be compared to Europe.

If the quality of diesel was not good, then the vehicle will consume more fuel, and there will be wear and tear. Furthermore, the acceleration of diesel vehicles was slower and loud. The sales of such vehicles will not be good.

The most frustrating part was that many petrol stations in the Cities do not have diesel! It was the villages that use more diesel due to the tractors.

But for the family car market, the Cities will be more popular. This was because the cities’ residents had more spending power. This diesel engine off-road model was specially designed for military use.

The quality of diesel in Russia was excellent and could withstand the harsh and cold environment there. Russia had the most advanced diesel technologies in the world.

Of course, if the Russian thinks the diesel engine model was not good enough, they have the option of choosing the petrol engine model. This model also uses the turbo-charge technology and the power will not lose to the diesel model.

Kirilenko was thinking. If he could sell the vehicles to the army, then this could be a new revenue source for him. The number of cars sold will inevitably increase.

But now, Kirilenko was not short of money. If he were to use his father’s connection, will it affect him? What would others think about his father if he were to sell these vehicles to the army?

But Kirilenko’s father was not in charge of the logistics now. His influence in logistics was not as powerful as before. Kirilenko could give the one in-charge now some benefits in exchange for selling these vehicles to the army. His father should not be affected much.

Kirilenko was also tempted by the profits. If the Russian military were to purchase these vehicles, it would be more than 10,000 units. He had also received news that the army was considering replacing some equipment. Vehicles were one of the equipment in the list.

If Kirilenko could become the military’s vehicles supplier, his profit might be more than 100 million USD!

100 million USD of profits was really tempting to Kirilenko.

“Feng, can you guarantee that your vehicles have no problems?”

“I cannot be 100% sure. All the automobile factories in the world cannot guarantee this. But you have checked the quality of our vehicles. I am confident that our vehicles will meet your military’s requirements. Don’t tell me you are not tempted by the profits from this deal?”

If the Russian army were to use Songjiang Motors vehicles, then would China’s army will need to purchase foreign cars? Feng Yu could use this as an example to sell his off-road models to China’s military!

“Feng, I need to consider about this. I will let you know about my decision later.”

“No problem.” Feng Yu smiled. He could see the ‘$$$; symbols in Kirilenko’s eyes!

Chapter 455 – Old Hou, do you have friends in the army?

After sending Kirilenko and his team off, Feng Yu did not return to Beijing. He went to the Aviation Factory instead.

“Oh, Manager Feng. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in Beijing university now?” Hou Haitao asked and smiled.

“It’s been a while since I visited you and I miss your tea.” Feng Yu was cursing Hou Haitao for his pretenses. I was in Bing City for a few days. Don’t pretend you do not know! “These Russian cigarettes are given to me from my friend. Try it and see if the taste is different from our local cigarettes.”

“Oh, thank you so much. Xiao Sun, use my best tea leaves to brew a cup of tea for Manager Feng.”

Hou Haitao kept quiet after giving instructions to his secretary. He smiled and looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu must have other motives when he gives him gifts. There are no free lunches in this world. There were a lot of such sayings since the olden days.

Feng Yu cursed this wily old fox in his heart. Hou Haitao definitely knew Feng Yu needed something from him, but he just refuses to ask first.

This was a challenge to see who was more patient.

Feng Yu also kept quiet and when his tea was served, he just quietly enjoys his tea. But when Feng Yu saw How Haitao lit a cigar, he knew he had lost this patient challenges.

Since when did Hou Haitao smoke cigars? Where did this cigar come from? Bing City should not have any shops selling cigars. It will take at least half an hour to finish this damn cigar, and the smoke was unbearable! Hou Haitao looked at Feng Yu smugly and still asked: “Manager Feng, do you want a cigar? This was given to me by a friend.”

“Cough…… Director Hou, I don’t smoke. Erm…… I hear that the Aviation Factory was converted back to a military installation recently?”

“No. But our factory is now considered one of the military subsidiaries. We are still making products for the consumers.” Hou Haitao was smiling when he said this. He was proud of this, and he should be getting his promotion next year.

This was his dream. Hou Haitao could finally achieve his goal. He was going to be promoted to a general! Although he had been enjoying the benefits and welfare of a Major General, he did not hold that rank. Now, he will become a real Major General! Many people could not even be promoted to this rank in their lives.

Hou Haitao did not expect he would get this chance at his age. He got to admit that Feng Yu had played a part in his promotion. Feng Yu had given the Aviation Factory an opportunity to make money, helped the factory to purchase China’s first high powered electric furnace, and bought many other aircraft technologies for them. All these helped the Aviation Factory become the most advanced aircraft manufacturer in China.

“Director Hou, does this mean you have some connections in the military?” Feng Yu asked.

Huo Haitao’s hand which was holding the cigar shook and looked at Feng Yu cautiously. What does this brat want? Why was he asking about the military?

“Manager Feng, what do you want?”

“Director Hou, why are you so nervous? I am a good citizen. You think I will do something terrible? I just wanted to know if you have strong connections in the military.” Feng Yu smiled like a cunning fox.

“I do have some connections, but whether if the connections are strong or not will depend on what is it regarding. Just say what do you want.” Hou Haitao was rejoicing secretly in his heart. He had not touched that carton of Russian cigarettes given to him by Feng Yu. He might need to ask Feng Yu to take back the cigarettes later.

But even if he refused to help Feng Yu, Feng Yu should not be taking back this cigarette. Hou Haitao is really interested to know how Russian cigarettes taste like.

“I remembered you are quite close to that General Shen who came to Bing City. What is he in charge of in the army?” Feng Yu asked.

“Old Shen? What are you looking for him?” Hou Haitao looked at Feng Yu suspiciously. Did this Feng Yu hear of Old Shen’s recent promotion?

“Nothing much. I am just wondering if he can make decisions about the military procurement.” Feng Yu rubbed his nose and said.

“Huh? Military procurement? Manager Feng, your business is successful enough. You should not think about doing business with our military.” Hou Haitao shook his head. This Feng Yu wants to do business with the military? He was still not up to that level yet.

“Director Hou, what do you think I want to sell to our army?”

“It should be your company’s humidifiers, electric fans, etc. The military does not need all these things. They are soldiers and must be able to take hardships.” Hou Haitao looked at Feng Yu. The military does not have enough budget to buy Feng Yu’s products. Feng Yu was selling an electric fan for a few hundred RMB, and he knew clearly how much its actual cost was.

In the past, when the Aviation Factory had a share of the profits and Hou Haitao felt that the bladeless fans should be selling for so expensive.  But after he could not get a share of the profits, he thought that Feng Yu was too evil for selling those fans at high prices!

“Who says I want to sell those things? Furthermore, I don’t think that no one in the military uses my products.” Feng Yu looked at Hou Haitao. Don’t you have a humidifier in your office? Don’t tell me those generals’ offices in the military does not have humidifiers.

“Then what do you want to sell?”

“Vehicles. Vehicles produced by the Machinery Company. Off-road vehicles.”

Hou Haitao frowned. Off-road vehicles? The army does need such vehicles. But he had no say in this.

“Manager Feng, you think too highly of me. If it is aircraft related, I might still be able to help you. You can also forget about Old Shen. He will not help you.” Hou Haitao was thinking in his heart. Do you even know Old Shen? Why should he help you?

“Director Hou, we have known each other for quite some time. Did I ever cheat you? I also play a part for the Aviation Factory’s success. Don’t you agree?”

Hou Haitao showed a painful expression and said: “Manager Feng, I really can’t help much with this.”

“Director Hou, who do you sell the aircraft manufactured by your factory to? Don’t tell me you do not know the person in charge of the military purchase?” Feng Yu asked unhappily.

“I do know him, but we are not selling our aircraft from our side. It is the military that places the order, and we manufacture.” Hou Haitao explained. All the military orders in his factory were still based on the old practices during the planned economy era.

“Director Hou, help me get in touch with the person in charge. He can come over to take a look at my vehicles. I will give the Aviation Factory 1 million no matter whether if this deal goes through or not.” Feng Yu showed one finger.

The Aviation Factory now was not the same as it was in the past. 1 million RMB was nothing to Hou Haitao now. Most importantly, he does not want this matter to affect his promotion.

“Manager Feng, I really cannot help you much. At most, I can help you pass a message. I can’t ask that person to come over.”

“2 million. I only need to meet that person. I will persuade him myself.” Feng Yu upped his offer.

“Only one meeting?”

“I only need to meet and speak to him once.”

“Fine. Come over before New Year’s Day. There will be some top leaders from the Shen City military coming over. How are you going to give us the 2 million?” Hou Haitao agreed.

Damn, I had wasted an extra million!

“Do you still remember I had told you that the bladeless fan technology can be used to make hand dryers? This should not be difficult for your factory. Help me develop this product, and I will buy this technology with this 2 million.”

“Deal!”

Chapter 456 – Bargain?

“Feng Yu, where have you been these few days? You keep applying for leave. Do you still want to graduate?” The school’s counselor stared at Feng Yu. This student was too hard to manage!

“Teacher, I did not forget my studies. I could catch up with all my classes. Furthermore, I do have something important to do. I had gone back to help the school get more research funds.” Feng Yu used his usual trick. I had gone back to get funding for the university. You dare to penalize me for that? If I were to get punished, those professors who were waiting for my funds would drown you with their saliva!

“You use the same excuse every time! You can forget about getting a good testimonial this year!”

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. Who cares about the testimonial? Testimonials were only used to apply for scholarships and jobs. There were no other uses. Do you think I care about getting scholarships and a good job after I graduate?

Huh?

The counselor saw Feng Yu’s can’t be bothered attitude and got more furious: “You will only get a pass for my elective classes this year!”

A pass was good enough. What else does he want? Good grades? You have not heard of the saying “Celebrate at 60?” Fine. Maybe there was no such saying in Beijing University now. But Feng Yu felt that those subjects that he will be using in the future, he will work hard. A pass would be sufficient for the other subjects.

Feng Yu saw no one was around and took out a book he had prepared from his bag. This book could not be bought in China.

“Teacher, I heard that you are looking for this book. One of my friends just happens to give me this book. I do not understand it so you can have it.”

“How much is this book?” The counselor starts to dig his pockets. But after digging for some time, he did not take out any money. He could only find some meal tickets. It was not that he does not want to pay Feng Yu. It was because his wife was controlling his expenses. She knew that if he had some money, he would spend it all on books.

“I have no use for this, how can I still collect money from you?”

“This…… is not right.” The counselor replied, but he was still holding on to the book tightly. He had been looking for this book for a long time. He does not know where Feng Yu got this book from.

“Never mind. Books should be in the hands of those that appreciate them. Ermm…… if there is nothing else, I will go back. I still have lessons this afternoon.”

Feng Yu walked out of the office. Who says the teachers at Beijing University does not receive gifts? No matter how noble and virtuous one person was, he will still have his weakness. All you need to do is to find it.

This was also the reason why Feng Yu dares to take leave so often and was not worried about not passing.

……

Feng Yu had only attended one day of lessons, and it was the weekend. Feng Yu brought the Bing City’s specialties with him to Beijing Teaching University. Tian Lei also hopped on for a lift over.

Feng Yu was also willing to give him a lift as there will be someone chatting with him while he drives. Tian Lei also did not make any requests from him and would just leave once they reach their destination. Tian Lei was a smoker, but he knows Feng Yu does not smoke and he had never smoke in Feng Yu’s car. Feng Yu was very appreciative of his actions.

At Beijing Teaching University, Feng Yu parked his car: “Are you going back this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. I will be going back this afternoon at about 2 pm. If you are also going back at that time, I can give you a lift.” Feng Yu said.

“Then you will be free this afternoon? That’s great. I need your help this afternoon.” Tian Lei was overjoyed.

Li Na and her roommate Qingqing came out of their hostel together. They said some greetings and both couples went off in different directions.

“I have brought some red sausages back from Bing city. I will pass to you later.” Feng Yu said while tucking Li Na’s hair behind her ears.

Li Na smiled sweetly. She had only mentioned this casually the last time they met, and Feng Yu really went all his way to get the sausages for her. She felt blissful.

“You should be tired these few days. Didn’t you say that you will be hiring some people to help you? Have you hire anyone?” Li Na asked.

“I had asked someone to help me keep a lookout. There is no hurry.” Feng Yu was not too anxious.

The person he hires must have the capabilities and experiences. Hiring someone mediocre was useless.

Feng Yu had many staffs, but Kameda Masao was the best. He had experiences in management and knows a few foreign languages. He had managed his company well. Kameda Masao had already increased Feng Yu’s investment by several folds.

Feng Yu had never expected Kameda Masao to be so capable. He was now Japan’s largest sex dolls manufacturer. Maybe he might even be the world’s largest sex dolls manufacturer.

The rest of his products were selling well too. Feng Yu had only mentioned something casually, and Kameda Masao continued to develop new products along that line of thoughts. Now, his company had developed lots of products, and all of them were selling well.

The Sixth Sense Company was not only famous in Japan. It was also well known in many Southeast Asia countries.

Maybe it will not even take 10 years for Sixth Sense Company to become the sex toys industry leader with the way it was developing now.

A few days ago, Kameda Masao had called Feng Yu to report his progress. Feng Yu had wanted to ask Kameda Masao to help him manage his companies. But he thought for a while and changed his mind.

Firstly, it was Kameda Masao’s dream to sell sex toys. This can be considered his family business. Furthermore, Feng Yu does not know if Kameda Masao could manage other products that were not related to the sex toys industry.

Also, Kameda Masao was a Japanese. If Feng Yu were to let him handle his companies, his father would surely give Feng Yu a beating!

Luckily Feng Yu had sought the help of Fu Guangzheng to look for someone capable from the state-owned enterprises and government agencies. Feng Yu got to admit that most of the competent people in China during this era were working for the government. A few of them were working for the state-owned enterprises, and some were working overseas. A handful of them started their own businesses.

Other than these 4 classes of people, where are the rest of the elites? The rest of the people cannot be considered as elites as they can’t even sell themselves. They can only be regarded as someone with a bit of capability!

“Oh, you will be participating in a performance for your school’s New Year’s Day celebrations. How is your preparation?”

“The preparation is doing fine. Although sign language is hard to learn, we are only learning a few signs. So, it is not that difficult.” Li Na said excitedly.

Li Na and 2 other roommates from her dormitory will be performing The Little Tigers’ <Love>. They will not only be singing the song, but they will also be performing a sign language dance. One of the performers was Qingqing. Feng Yu knew why Tian Lei will be going back early today.

The both of them strolled around the school’s campus and had lunch in a small restaurant.

They walked back to Feng Yu’s car, and Feng Yu helped Li Na carry the Bing City’s specialties to her dormitory and then sent her for her rehearsals.

Qingqing and the other girl had arrived. Feng Yu watch their practice for a while before leaving.

“Lao Si, can you accompany me to the mall this afternoon? The mall which we pass by early. You are doing trading, so you should know about the cost prices of many goods. Can you help me bargain?” Tian Lei asked.

“No problem.” Feng Yu agreed. He had never tried bargaining before.

Chapter 457 – This is also my product

“Here? When did this mall open?” Feng Yu parked his car along the roadside, attracting the stares of many people. It was not because these people recognized the brand of his car, but it was because everybody in that era envied those who could afford a car.

Feng Yu raised his head up and look at the mall. It seemed big and was a modernized integrated mall. But in this era, most of the malls were integrated malls. It was rare to see malls selling only a particular type of products.

“It is not this mall. We are going to the shop at the back.” Tian Lei alighted from the car and brought Feng Yu to a nearby street.

Gome Electronics?!

Feng Yu opened his eyes wide. There were US products in China now? That means Huang Guangyu had started his retail chain? Feng Yu had still wanted to use Wind and Rain Electronics to set up a chain of electrical appliances retail shops next year. But now, he was too late.

“Let’s go in. Why are you standing at the entrance?” Tian Lei gave Feng Yu a push. Why was he in a daze?

“Ah…… Let’s go in and take a look.”

“Welcome.”

A group of salesgirls warmly welcomed them the moment they entered the shop, and one of them walked over. The rest continued to stand at the entrance waiting for customers.

Wow, Huang Guangyu really knows about customer service!

Although the staffs at the shop did not give the customers, a “feels like home” feeling, but they do make the customers feel welcomed. Hmmm… if those salesgirls could greet in unison, “Welcome Sir……” it will feel better!

“Where are the Walkmans?”

“Please follow me. This is the counter for Walkman. If you have any questions, you can ask our counter staffs. I hope you will enjoy your time shopping here.” The salesgirl brought them to a counter and then walked back to the entrance.

Feng Yu discovered that all the staffs in this shop were smiling and it seems that they had received specialized training on customer service.

Huang Guangyu was really capable! No wonder he became a billionaire at such a young age in Feng Yu’s previous life!

“Let me take a look at that Aiwa Walkman.” Tian Lei pointed to the newest model of Aiwa Walkman.

Huh? Tian Lei wanted to buy Walkman?

“I thought you seldom listen to music?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

“I am buying for Qingqing. She can use it to learn English.” Tian Lei smiled.

Dang! This Tian Lei was willing to spend to please his girlfriend. This Walkman model was the latest model, and it was much smaller than the older models. This was the first of the super slim series. The price tag for this Walkman was equivalent to an average person’s one-month salary!

“Lao Si, come and try it. How is the sound quality?” Tian Lei passed the earphones to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu looked at Tian Lei. Do you even need high sound quality to learn English?

“The sound quality is good, but it is not considered the best. At most, it is above average. The selling point for this model is the size. It is small and could be easily carried around. The exterior casing is made from metal, and it is more durable. The minus points of this model are the lack of LCD display and use more battery.”

Feng Yu casually pointed out the pros and cons of this model. Not only Tian Lei, but even the counter staff was also shocked.

This young man was too professional. He also owns one of this model?

“Sir, your friend is right. But he did not mention one thing. This Walkman is Aiwa’s latest model, and Aiwa is the world’s largest Walkman company. There is also a 3-months warranty. If there are any problems with the Walkman within 7 days of purchase, we can do a one-for-one exchange.”

This aftersales service would attract those customers who had doubts. This was an expensive item and customers would be afraid if the product were faulty. But this was the Aiwa brand, and there should not be any problems with the quality.

“Can this be cheaper?” Tian Lei asked.

“Sir, ours is fixed price, and our prices are already lower than other shops. You can check out the other shops first. I cannot give any discount. But I can give you tow batteries as free gifts.” All purchases will come with free batteries. This was the rule set by Huang Guangyu. But coming from the counter staff, the customers will feel that they had gotten a fantastic deal.

Tian Lei looked at Feng Yu, and Feng Yu whispered to him: “This price should be the cheapest in the whole City. I know the distributor of Aiwa Walkman. If you can wait for a few days, I will help you buy this model from him. You will be able to save about 20 RMB more.”

Gome Electronics prices were already very low. It was because they ordered in large quantity from Beijing’s distributor. Although the distributor will get a cut, Gome Electronics cost was lower than others. Even if they maintain the same profit margin as others, their retail prices will still be the lowest.

Tian Lei looked at Feng Yu surprised. Feng Yu knew Aiwa’s distributor? But after some considerations, he decided not to wait. He had promised Qingqing that he will give her a Walkman tomorrow. If he waited for 2 days, he would have broken his promise.

Feng Yu had also thought of giving Tian Lei a Walkman. But if he gave Tian Lei a Walkman, he would have to give to the rest of his dormitory friends one each. Then what about the rest of his classmates?

Feng Yu decided not to give out Walkman to his friends. This was because no matter how many Walkman he gave out, someone will be unhappy and speak ill of him. Furthermore, Tian Lei’s family was considered well-to-do. He has a sister who works in Guangdong, and her job pays her highly.

Feng Yu also could not call the Beijing distributor and ask him to deliver a Walkman to him.

Tian Lei paid for the Walkman, and they left. Feng Yu turned back and looked at this shop. He thought if he should look for Huang Guangyu to see if he could invest in him.

It was time for Tai Hua Trading’s distributors to sign next year’s contract with Tai Hua Trading. Feng Yu could single out Gome Electronics and let them be one of the distributors. The rest of the distributors still have the motorcycles and vehicles contracts, so they should not be affected much. Feng Yu only needs to deal with the Beijing distributor. Gome Electronics shops were mainly located in Beijing.

Feng Yu thought that Tian Lei will leave after buying the Walkman. But Tian Lei dragged Feng Yu towards another street.

“What else do you want to buy?” Feng Yu looked at Tian Lei. Tian Lei should not have too much money left. What else does he want to buy?

“I am not buying. I just want to take a look. The weather is getting colder. I will decide if I want to buy after Lunar New Year.”

What product was Tian Lei talking about? What has it got to do with the cold weather?

Feng Yu raised his head and saw the signage — Songjiang Motorcycles Authorised Seller!

Tian Lei wants to buy motorcycles?

“Are the both of you looking for motorcycles? Come in and look. Our Songjiang Motorcycles are the bestselling motorcycles in China. Look at this exterior design. You will surely feel good when you ride it. Current, there are two models, Songjiang 1st Generation, you can also call it Songjiang 125. The other model is Songjiang 2nd Generation, also known as Songjiang 100. I will recommend you this Songjiang 100 model. The speed is only slightly slower, but it is cheaper by a few thousand.”

The shop owner starts to introduce the motorcycles when he saw customers going into the shop.

Feng Yu looked at Tian Lei and asked: “You like this brand?”

“Of course. Look at how beautiful this Songjiang Motorcycle is. I heard that the suspensions are the best in China.” Tian Lei was already drooling when he looked at those motorcycles.

“You are absolutely right! Songjiang Motorcycles’ suspensions use the technologies from the former Soviet Union. It is the most advanced suspension in the world!” The shop owner said.

Feng Yu rubbed his nose. Did Tian Lei find out about my business? How come all the product he was looking at today belongs to me?

“You sure you want to buy this brand of motorcycles?” Feng Yu asked Tian Lei again.

“I am not buying now. But I might buy one Songjiang Motorcycle before May next year. What’s wrong?”

Feng Yu moved closer to Tian Lei and said softly: “My company is selling for this brand.”

Chapter 458 – Huh? That person is coming?

This is sold by your company?

Tian Lei’s jaws dropped. He knew that Feng Yu had a lot of business, but he had never expected his business to be so big.

This Songjiang Motorcycle had gotten a national award for the most popular brand, last year. The shop owner had also mentioned that this brand was China’s top-selling motorcycle. This motorcycle is sold by Feng Yu’s company?

When Tian Lei thought back about Feng Yu mentioning he knew the Aiwa’s distributor, something comes to his mind. Could Aiwa Walkman also belong to Feng Yu’s company?

But Tian Lei did not ask Feng Yu. After all, he had already bought the Walkman.

“Fine. Lao Si, then I will let you know before I buy the motorcycle next year. You must give me a discount.”

“No problem. I will let the distributor know and sell you at cost price!” A Songjiang 100 motorcycle cost was about 5,000 RMB, and the retail price was slightly more than 10,000 RMB.

……

The next day, Tian Lei went to look for Qingqing to pass her the Walkman. Feng Yu also called Li Na to inform her that he will be going over to the association to take a look. The results for this year’s awards was out.

Last year’s award ceremony was popular with the audiences. This year’s ceremony must also be a success!

Feng Yu was glad that this year, no companies created trouble. Many people knew that this association had strong backings.

“Old Li, bring me the information on The Little Swan Company.”

“It is on your table. Where is the information on Le Bai Company? Who took it away? It was here moments ago!”

“It had dropped onto the floor. Be careful not to step on it.”

When Feng Yu arrived at the association, it was in a mess. Last year, Feng Yu had given out the awards to the influential brands he remembered from his previous life and the companies he was close with. But this year, he cannot do this again.

Although in China, there was an unusual situation which was companies could get awards year after year at the provincial level.

This was because the local government had given special treatment to those companies. This also showed that these provinces’ economies were not performing well. If it was, why were there no other companies getting awards?

Li Mingde had also asked Feng Yu if they should also do the same thing. Feng Yu had a say in the association, and the Machinery Company’s products could get awards year after year too.

Feng Yu thought for a while. It was impossible for the same product to get awards year after year. But there should not be a problem for different products from the same company to get the awards.

This year, Feng Yu decided to showcase Songjiang Motors vehicles. He must let everyone believe that Songjiang Motors vehicles’ quality and technologies were the best in China. If not, how can he get a national award?

There was still the Wind and Rain VCD player. The sales for this VCD player had not reached Feng Yu’s expectation. He must make use of this opportunity to market this product to everybody and let them know that this was China’s consumer electronics most advanced product!

As for the rest of the awards, Feng Yu did not interfere. He let the rest of the people at the association handled that. Feng Yu would just make sure that the award winners and nominees really had the capabilities.

Those companies that were related to the judges must also show their capabilities and results before they can qualify for the award. If not, those companies could only get a nominee for the individual award at most. This year, Tai Hua Food Agriculture Products was not even nominated. Feng Yu had tried his best to be fair to the rest of the companies.

Of course, Tai Hua Agriculture Products will most likely be China’s top animal feed and Pork supplier next year with the rate it was growing.

Now, Tian Peng Pig Farm had expanded into Chengdu region, China’s traditional pig rearing stronghold. Also, last year’s countrywide crackdown on imitation Tian Peng Pork had made Tian Peng Pig Farm famous.

Zhang Ming’s business strategies were well planned. Now, Tai Hua Agriculture Products wholly owns 6 pig farms. All these pig farms were modern pig farms and had become the industry’s benchmark.

Tai Hua Agriculture Products also had shares in more than 10 pig farms. Tai Hua Agriculture Products had used Tian Peng brand name to invest in these farms. These farms used Tian Peng Pig farm’s feeding system and use Tai Hua brand of animal feed.

Tai Hua Agriculture Products also owns 7 animal feed factories. The animal feeds were sold all over China. Zhang Ming had also forced a few small factories who were producing imitation Tai Hua animal feeds to stop their production. Feng Yu was really pleased with his abilities.

Zhang Ming did not go all out on those small factories. He only stops them from using Tian Peng’s brand! How dare you use our brand name? If our Tian Peng pigs were not selling well, will you still name your animal feeds as Tai Hua’s animal feed? Our Tian Peng pigs were not fed with your animal feeds. You had added so many additives in your animal feeds, how could your pork taste good?

From these incidents, Feng Yu knew that he had made the right decision to appoint Zhang Ming as the general manager. This Zhang Ming was really worth the high price paid by Feng Yu.

But this year, Zhang Ming’s investment was slightly higher and had taken quite a lot of loans. But Feng Yu does not mind. It was the end results that matter. From next year onwards, those pig farms will be able to grow rapidly, and Zhang Ming had told Feng Yu that he decided to manufacture Chinese ham. Feng Yu agreed. Next year will be the fall of Chundu’s Jinhua ham. This was an opportunity to get the Jinhua ham market share.

Tian Peng Pigs and Tai Hua animal feed will surely get awards next year.

……

What is this company? From one look, you can tell that this is a shell company. How can this company get an award? Feng Yu struck off this company from a list and picked another company from the nominees to be the winner of the state-owned enterprise category.

Who is this person that invented a new way of making salted vegetables? He still wants to win an award for this?

Feng Yu looked through the list of nominees and saw the names of some individuals from Jianlibao, Le Bai Shi, Chundu Ham, and other companies. Feng Yu thought for a while. Chundu Ham will be in trouble next year, and if he were to let Chundu Ham win any awards now, it would be bad for the association’s reputation. Bai Le Shi and Lehaha were competitors. Although their yogurt drinks taste good, Feng Yu cannot let them win the award. They can be considered lucky to be one of the nominees. This was Feng Yu’s way of being fair to them.

In the end, Feng Yu draw a tick beside Jianlibao. This food category individual award will be given to the one who developed the recipe of Jianlibao. Feng Yu knew that no one would dispute this. Jianlibao was exported and sold in many countries! They were also known as China’s Magic water!

Feng Yu checked through all the winners and nominees for the awards and then pass back the list to the association staff: “Pass this list to the leaders and also to CCTV. Tell CCTV to prepare the performances based on the winners.”

“Mr. Feng, why did you strike this person off the list?”

Feng Yu looked at the list. Damn, it’s the one who sells salted vegetables. Does he have a strong background? Cannot be. If he had someone backing him, why would he still need to sell salted vegetables?

“What’s wrong with giving this award to Jianlibao? If the person who invented the formula of Jianlibao could not get this award, why should that person win this award? Have you tasted his salted vegetables?”

“Mr. Feng, this is a brand from Zhejiang region. It is selling very well in the South, and the new deputy head of the award judging committee is from Zhejiang.”

Damn, we need to curry favor?!

“Do you think the leader will be proud to see someone selling salted vegetables winning this award? Last year, Hangzhou’s Lehaha had won this award, and next year, I promise to let a company from Zhejiang win. That’s settle. If the leader disagrees, ask him to call me.”

Feng Yu does not believe those judges, which consist of retired leaders and industries experts, will disagree with him. He had given each of them allowances for being the judges for this award.

Feng Yu wanted to reprimand this staff. Even if he wants to fix this award, he should at least get the right candidate. How can someone who sells salted vegetables win this award? How much profit can he generate from something that cost 20 cents for a big bag?

But before Feng Yu could start his lecture, his handphone rang.

Feng Yu answered, and Li Mingde’s excited voice could be heard over the phone: “Manager Feng, come back now. The ‘Chief Architect’ will be visiting our Machinery Company tomorrow!”

Chapter 459 – The Leader knows me?

Feng Yu almost dropped his handphone. What? That leader is coming to visit our Machinery Company? He confirmed this news with Li Mingde again and immediately drove to the airport. On his way, he called Tian Lei to help him apply leave from the school. By the time he reaches Bing City, it was already midnight. Li Mingde had come over to the airport to fetch him. Li Mingde’s eyes were bloodshot. Although Li Mingde was very tired, Feng Yu could tell that he was very excited!

“Old Li, why is this so sudden? You know why is that Leader visiting our company? What does he want to see?”

“I was also informed by the City Government. It seems that this was the Leader’s sudden decision. There are no details. I had asked the night shift workers to clean up the place. Tomorrow, the production will carry on as usual, and we must show the Leader our company’s spirit!”

Stop production because of the Leader’s visit? Only fools will do that! This Leader likes to see his people working hard.

Li Mingde discussed with Feng Yu if they should arrange for Wu Zhigang to put up a show of him making orders in front of the Leader. This was to show the Leader how popular their products were.

Feng Yu thought for a minute and shook his head. Tai Hua Trading was the main distributor for the motorcycles and vehicles. Feng Yu was still thinking of telling the Leader about his difficulties of selling these products. As for the agriculture machines, it had nothing to do with Tai Hua Trading. There was no need to put up a show for the Leader.

Feng Yu still said that they should not have any welcoming ceremony. Only a few management staffs will welcome the leader. Also, don’t roll out the red carpet. The Leader does not like such things.

The company can hang a few banners. But the slogans on the banners must not be those “Work hard to be the first” type of old-school slogans. If we were going to hang banners, then our slogans must be something related to us.

Like “Technology is the number one productivity”, “Breaking the barriers, embrace creativity” and “Keep both feet on the ground and not chase fame; Be fair and honest for a good reputation”.

All these banners should be placed at suitable locations in the factory. Don’t hang outside the factory.

Feng Yu arrived at the Machinery Company. It had been snowing for the past two days, and the courtyard was brightly lit. A few people were clearing the snow. Actually, Feng Yu felt that there was no need to remove the snow. But since they had already cleared almost half the courtyard, it would look weird if they were to stop now.

“Can Manager Fu come tomorrow?”

“Yes. I had informed Manager Fu this afternoon. He said that he will surely be here on time. We will be meeting the ‘Chief Architect.’ Even if Manager Fu is from Hong Kong, he must also feel honored to get to meet this great leader.”

Feng Yu nodded. This was true. The Chief Architect had greater influence and reputation in Hong Kong than the Founding Father.

“Manager Feng, are we going to light firecrackers tomorrow?” Li Mingde asked.

Feng Yu stared at him: “There will be smoke everywhere, and it will be troublesome to clean up. Are all the data and figures ready?”

“We have prepared everything. You can take a look first. I had memorized everything.” Li Mingde pointed to his head.

Although Feng Yu felt that Li Mingde had many shortcomings, Li Mingde could manage the company well and kept everything under his control. Feng Yu was impressed with his ability.

“Good. You should rest early too. If you appear listless and tired in front of the Leader, it will affect our company’s image. Don’t you have a deputy that is on duty?”

“Deputy Manager Zhao went to the Automobile branch factory. He thinks that the Leader will surely visit the automobile factory.”

Feng Yu waved his hand and ask Li Mingde to go rest. Feng Yu will just rest in the office. He still needs to memorize all the company’s information and data/

Early in the morning, Feng Yu’s sleep was disturbed by someone knocking on his door. He looked at his watch, and it was 6 am.

Damn. Even if the Chief Architect was coming, he should not be coming over so early in the morning. No matter what, he will still need to have a meeting at the Provincial Government and then come over in the afternoon.

Feng Yu opened the door, and it was Fu Guangzheng with messy hair.

“Brother Feng, how come you can still sleep?”

“You are here? After you mention this, I really feel a bit hungry. Then let’s have some breakfast and continue to sleep after that.” Feng Yu rubbed his eyes and yawned.

Fu Guangzheng: “……” Why was Feng Yu so relaxed? Did I come here to ask you for breakfast?

But after breakfast, Feng Yu did not have the chance to go back to sleep. Li Mingde had found out that the private plane had landed in Bing City at 7 am. The City Government had called to ask the Machinery Company to be on standby.

Since Feng Yu could not go back to sleep, he went to the production area. The main factory production area was manufacturing agriculture machinery, and Feng Yu was not familiar with these. He only looked for the supervisor and reminded him that his priority today was safety. There can be absolutely no accidents today!

Even when the workers see the Leader, they should ignore him and carry on with their work. If the workers were too excited to carry on with their duties, then stop the production temporary to prevent any accidents from happening!

The Leader’s mood would be dampened if there were any accidents during his visit. He will not have a good impression of the company and might even think that the managers had ignored the safety of the workers!

At 9.30 am, Li Mingde’s secretary came rushing into Feng Yu’s office and shouted to the people inside: “They are on the way and will arrive in 20 minutes!”

“Li Mingde jumped up from the sofa and said: “Inform the security to be alert and check if the company is clean. Have you informed the branch factory and the rest of the supervisors? Tell them to be ready!”

“I have arranged people to inform them.:” The secretary replied.

“Old Li, why are you so nervous? Sit down.” Feng Yu said calmly, but his hand which was holding the teacup was shaking.

This was the Chief Architect. Feng Yu had only seen him on TV in his previous life. This time, he could finally meet him, and maybe he might even get the chance to shake his hand.

After a while, all of them went to the entrance to welcome the convoy.

They did not wait for too long and saw a car stopping at the entrance. A man alighted from the vehicle and told them to wait for a while. In a few minutes, dozens of vehicles entered the factory area, and one of the vehicles stopped at the entrance of the office building. The driver alighted and opened the rear passenger door. The person who alighted from the vehicle was the Chief Architect.

The other person who alighted from the other side was the Provincial Governor. Two people also alighted from the second car. Feng Yu opened his eyes wide. Iron-fist Zhu was also here?

Oh yes, Iron-fist Zhu should be the Vice-Premier of the State Council and was also in charge of China’s overall production, finance and trade ministries.

Someone started clapping, and Feng Yu also followed.

The Chief Architect stretch out his arm: “You must be the major shareholder of this Machinery Company, Feng Yu, right?”

Feng Yu immediately stretch out both his hands to shake his hand. The Chief Architect had a firm grip. Feng Yu never expect the Chief Architect to know his name!

“Good morning Leader! Please call me Xiao Feng.”

“Hahahaha, Xiao Feng, you have done well. All of you have done well!” The Chief Architect patted Feng Yu’s shoulder. Feng Yu was overjoyed. The Chief Architect had praised him and even patted his shoulder!

“Stop standing here. Let’s go for a walk in your factory. We can talk while walking.”

Li Mingde immediately rushes forward to show the way and show his presence at the same time: “Leader, this way please.”

Chapter 460 – Questions (Part 1 of 3)

At the agriculture machinery production workshop, the production lines were in full operations. All the workers were concentrating on their work. The Chief Architect was very pleased with what he saw. This company did not arrange for those useless welcoming ceremony. Very good.

“I heard that your company’s agriculture machinery is the most advanced in China and had already reached international standards?”

“That’s right. Currently, our tractors, seeding and some other machines had reached international standards. But our harvesters and rice transplanter still needs improvement to reach that standard. We are trying to catch up with the rest of the world.” Feng Yu replied cautiously.

The Chief Architect nodded. This young man was not too modest and not boastful. He only speaks the truth. Very good.

This company’s banners had interesting slogans. Technology is the number one productivity was something he had said before. But the other slogan was something new. “Keep both feet on the ground and not chase fame; Be fair and honest for a good reputation”. This slogan will remind the workers to focus on their work and not to be over-ambitious.

Iron-fist Zhu also nodded when he saw the banners. All the government workers should also be like this.

The Chief Architect stopped and said: “These slogans are very interesting.”

Li Mingde replied loudly: “All our workers must keep these slogans in mind and had to abide by them. The Party members are leading the rest of the workers by setting examples.”

“Isn’t this company a private enterprise? Why are there Party members?” The Chief Architect asked. He knew that many private enterprises were not willing to keep Party members in their companies. Especially for those Hong Kong companies and foreign enterprises.

“We are a joint-venture enterprise, and there are many Party members in the company. So, we keep the Party branch. Actually, the department that has the most authority is our Union. Our Union has a rule. If two-thirds of the workers think that I am not qualified to lead them, I will be removed from my position by the shareholders!” Li Mingde explained.

“Worker’s Union can sack the General Manager? This is something new. Who is the one who came out with this rule?”

“I feel that the General Manager must have the ability to lead the whole company towards the right direction. This is also the reason why many MNC can succeed. We can learn and use this method too.” Feng Yu said. If two-thirds of the workers want to sack the General Manager, that means this General Manager had failed in his duties and was incapable. He should be sacked. Anyway, the shareholders were not affected.

Iron-fist Zhu, who was standing behind the Chief Architect looked at Feng Yu with interest. With Feng Yu’s age and could set up such a successful company, no wonder he has such thinking. Interesting.

After touring the main production area, the Chief Architect went to visit the motorcycle factory.

At the motorcycle factory, the Chief Architect saw the assembly of the motorcycles. Every motorcycle was tested by at least two people. The workers even checked every single screw. The Chief Architect was very pleased to see the workers working so seriously.

“Your motorcycle production lines are also from the former Soviet Union?”

“Yes. But we have modified it to suit our people. We are also exporting some of our motorcycles to Russia. We are planning to export our motorcycles to Taiwan next year.”

The Chief Architect asked with interest: “Our motorcycles are already better than Taiwanese motorcycles?” Taiwan’s motorcycle industry was more developed than China as it had started much earlier.

“Our suspensions, headlights and exterior designs are better than them. But they are still better regarding fuel efficiency and the weight of the motorcycles. We are currently also developing smaller CC motorcycles.” Feng Yu explained.

“Hmmm….. Good, good…….” The Chief Architect nodded.

The Chief Architect did not mention which part of the motorcycle was good.

After his visit to the motorcycle factory, the Chief Architect still wants to visit the automobile factory.

The Provincial Governor and the rest of the official persuaded him to take a rest first. He can visit the automobile factory later in the afternoon.

The Chief Architect insisted and waved his hand: “No need. I want to see the vehicles is produced by our China’s biggest private automobile manufacturer!”

The Provincial Governor saw the Chief Architect insistence, and he was delighted. It seems he was right to help the Machinery Company to get the paperwork done and give them subsidy!

“Xiao Feng, sit in our car with us.” The Chief Architect waved to Feng Yu.

Huh? Sit together with the Chief Architect in the same car?

In the car, Feng Yu sat in the middle of the rear passenger seat. Both his arms were in between his leg, trying to make himself smaller. He was afraid he would take up too much space, and the Chief Architect will feel the squeeze. Hmmm…. it was also not good for the Provincial Governor to feel squeezy too.

“Xiao Feng, I saw an article on the <People’s Daily> some time back. The article is criticizing the joint-venture vehicles and said that it is doing more harm than good to China. What are your views on this?”

Feng Yu starts to sweat.

How would I know the author would write such things? This joint-venture vehicle was suggested by the Chief Architect to increase the competitiveness of China’s backward automobile manufacturer. But this author had criticized this and claimed that this was harming the industry!

Was this Chief Architect here to get even with me?

But it can’t be. If he wants to get even with me, why would he still visit the Machinery Company? He must be interested in my views.

“Many of the things mentioned in that article had come from me. If this was a few years back, this joint-venture was the fastest way to improve our automobile manufacturers’ technologies. Everybody had no choice but to partner with foreign MNC. However, I think joint-venture had done more harm than good for this industry! Why is the difference between the selling price and the cost price for a car so wide? The most valuable thing in a car is the technology. Our country has many talents, but because we started off later than the rest of the world and we lack the development funds, we are unable to develop fast. Joint-ventures was the fastest way for us to get the technologies we need, but the length of the joint-ventures are too long, and our skills will still be behind the developed countries.”

“From what I know, Toyota has set up two R&D centers in China. The technologies they are developing are not the core technologies. On the surface, they seem to be helping us to develop our technologies. But in reality, they are taking advantage of our low-cost technicians to do research for them. Did these centers develop any talents? Yes, but where are they? They had resigned and went to work in Japan for higher salaries.”

“The biggest problem with Joint-venture is the issue of branding. Why does those foreign MNC insist the Joint-venture vehicles use their brands at the expenses of even giving up part of their profits? It is because 10 or 20 years later, their brands will become part of the consumers. Even if we stop working with them, those foreign brands had already entered the Chinese market. This is the reason why we must protect our own brand and increase the scale of our automobile manufacturers.”

“Our Machinery Company had spent a lot to hire the top automobile engineers from Russia and Germany. At the same time, we are also training our own engineers. This way, we can prevent those developed countries from monopolizing technologies and selling us obsoleted technologies from their countries. Because we are able to develop more advanced technologies ourselves.”

“You are saying that your technologies are better than the overseas technologies at First Automobile Works?”

“We are better in certain aspects and in some areas, we are about the same. But overall, our vehicles will not lose to those joint-ventured vehicles! Also, the current government policies are helping those joint-venture factories. The reason why we want to start our own automobile factory is that we do not wish to see our China automobile brand disappear from the roads. We do not want to see only foreign brands’ cars on the streets in China!”

The Chief Architect closed his eyes and leaned back. He was thinking about what Feng Yu said and that article.

Joint-ventures cannot carry on. Those automobile manufacturers who were still thinking about partnering with foreign MNC should wake up. How come a private company could develop its own vehicles and those state-owned enterprises can’t? Even after the country had invested so much money in these state-owned enterprises, they still lacked in technologies?

Was this the engineers’ problem or the management? Although Feng Yu had viewed this issue from several perspectives, this issue involves many areas where Feng Yu does not understand. However, what Feng Yu said was right. Especially the problem of brands. Seems like he had to look into this issue and think about the direction of the Chinese automobile manufacturing industry.

“Sir, we have arrived at the automobile branch factory.” The officer in the front passenger seat turned and said.

“Let’s go and see the performance of this Songjiang Motor vehicles!”

Chapter 461 – Questions (Part 2 of 3)

Feng Yu stood beside the Chief Architect to explain about the facilities in the factory. This was the opportunity to show off his talents. But Feng Yu only know what those facilities were for. He does not know about the technical details.

“Why are they assembling that car by hand? You had told me earlier that your factory’s production uses production lines?”

Feng Yu was also surprised. Assembling by hand were only for the prototypes and samples. Was there a new model? How come I am not aware of it?

Li Mingde stepped forward and answered: “Leader, this car uses the best technologies in our factory and after we had assembled it, we will be giving it to the government as a New Year Gift.”

“Oh? Best technologies? Let’s go over there for a look.” This had sparked the Chief Architect’s interest.

Feng Yu remembered that this was mentioned in one of the documents he read yesterday, and Li Mingde had told him. But he had forgotten.

Two eight grade mechanics were working on the car when they noticed a group of people approaching them. One of them scolded impatiently: “You are blocking the light! Didn’t I said that no one should come close when we are working?”

Li Mingde frowned. Who the hell are you shouting at?

Li Mingde turned and explained embarrassedly: “This is our factory’s most skilled mechanic, Mr. Liu, eight Grade workers. But his temper is a bit impatient.”

Li Mingde turned back to Mr. Liu and said in a softer voice: “Old Liu, shut up! Stop working first.”

Mr. Liu looked up and saw it was Li Mingde. He stopped working reluctantly and realized that there were a lot of people looking at him.

This…… the Chief Architect?

“Sir…… Leader……?” Mr. Liu stretched out both hands to shake the Chief Architect’s hand.

Li Mingde’s eyes opened wide. The gloves you are wearing is covered with oil. How can you shake his hand?! He immediately pushes Mr. Liu’s hands away and stared at him. The other mechanic was standing there in a daze.

The Chief Architect does not mind the oil on Mr. Liu’s gloves. He had participated in wars when he was younger, why would he be bothered with some machine oil? The branch factory’s director immediately passed a pair of new work gloves to the Chief Architect and two other pairs to Mr. Liu and the other mechanic. This was the production floor of the factory. It’s normal for people to wear gloves.

“The both of you had worked hard. This car uses the best technologies in the factory?”

“Of course. These technologies might not be the best in the world, but it is definitely the best in China. Over there, there are two Russians who had attended Germany’s car exhibition two years ago. They said that our technologies had caught up with the technologies of the European cars then.” Mr. Liu said proudly.

Iron-fist Zhu suddenly asked: “How much is the cost of this vehicle? Can this be mass produced?”

“The cost is about 1 million. Mass production? It should not be possible for the time being. This car is too expensive. Not a lot of people can afford.” Li Mingde explained.

“What is the cost of those foreign cars with similar specs?”

“About 300,000 to 400,000 RMB.” Li Mingde replied.

Iron-fist Zhu shook his head. There was a hint of disappointment in his eyes. There was still a significant difference in their production technologies with overseas manufacturers. Their cost was only 300,000 to 400,000, and your cost is about 1 million. How can you compete?

Feng Yu was also helpless. There was nothing he could do. Although he had invested a lot into R&D, these cannot be changed overnight. At least, the Machinery Company had achieved something the other Chinese automobile manufacturers could not. Feng Yu was confident that he would catch up with the rest of the world!

“The cars you manufactured should not be cheap. How are the sales?”

“We had just started selling recently. We do not have many sales yet. But we had already contacted a businessman from Russia. Most of our cars will be exported overseas.”

“Export? Our cars can be exported?” The Chief Architect was surprised. Chinese cars can be exported?

“The prices and quality of our cars suit the Russian market. Of course, we can export to Russia. Mayor Zhang had also met that Russian businessman.” Feng Yu mentioned Zhang Ruiqiang.

Zhang Ruiqiang nodded: “I had met that Russian businessman and he had signed an agreement with the Machinery Company to confirm their purchasing prices. He will send in his order after the new year.”

“Good, good, good!” The Chief Architect said. “I believe the Songjiang Motors vehicles produced by the Machinery Company is the best in China! What difficulties is your company facing? Tell me. I will help you!”

Zhang Ruiqiang immediately pulled Feng Yu back. He knew Feng Yu’s character. Feng Yu would dare to make all sorts of requests!”

Feng Yu kept quiet, but it was Fu Guangzheng that spoke: “Our Machinery Company should get the same government subsidies like those joint-ventured manufacturers!”

Feng Yu had discussed with Fu Guangzheng and Li Mingde. Fu Guangzheng’s status as a Hong Konger was useful. He was the most suitable person to make this request. Furthermore, his surname was Fu. One of the influential family in Hong Kong and even Asia!

The Chief Architect turned and looked at Fu Guangzheng: “You must be Xiao Fu from Hong Kong? When I visited Hong Kong a few years back, I had met your eldest uncle. How is he now?”

The identities and backgrounds of Feng Yu and the rest of them had been investigated by the Chief Architect’s men.

“Thank you, Leader, for asking. My uncle is in good health. But he has been grumbling about Hong Kong should return to our motherland earlier.”

“Hahaha, tell him that I will treat him to Peking duck when he visits Beijing! Zhang Ruiqiang, prepare a report for Iron-fist Zhu. He will help you settle all the Machinery Company’s problems. No matter if this is a private enterprise or a state-owned enterprise, as long as this is a Chinese enterprise, we must support!”

……

Under the persuasion of the accompanying officials, the Chief Architect concluded his tour of Bing City’s Machinery Company and returned to his hotel for lunch. After lunch, he still must visit other places.

When all the leaders had left, Feng Yu waved his hand: “Old Li, Brother Fu, let’s go for lunch. Everybody had done well today. We will have a celebration tonight!” They had shown the top leaders their company’s capabilities and gotten the Leader’s promise of government assistance. This was the perfect ending.

But when the dishes were served, Feng Yu received a call from Zhang Ruiqiang asking him and Fu Guangzheng to go to the Provincial Guesthouse immediately. The top leader wants to see them.

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng immediately drove there. The both of them were confused. Why were they summoned over again?

When they arrived, they found out that the Chief Architect had left for other places with the Provincial Governor. It was another top official, Iron-fist Zhu, that wanted to meet them.

“I had asked the both of you here so urgently is because the Senior Official will be leaving when he returns from his visits in Bing City. We still have to go to other provinces.”

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng expressed that they do not mind coming over.

“Xiao Fu, I know that you have invested quite a lot of money in China these recent years.”

“I feel that China’s economy will pick up soon and will grow rapidly in the next few years. Furthermore, I am Chinese, and I should do my part of developing China’s economy.” Fu Guangzheng replied.

Feng Yu was despising Fu Guangzheng in his heart. Curry favor. Don’t tell me you also grew up under the red banner?

“You had invested yourself or on behalf of your family?” Iron-fist Zhu continued to ask.

“It’s my family’s idea.” Fu Guangzheng replied confidently. It was his eldest uncle’s instructions.

“I am really thankful that Hong Kong has businessmen like your Fu family. Send my regards to your family.” Iron-fist Zhu stood up and shook hands with Fu Guangzheng.

Fu Guangzheng had represented the Fu family, and this was enough. After all, Fu Guangzheng was not the head of the Fu family. At this moment, Feng Yu was feeling awkward. This talk was over? What about me? Why did you call me over?

Chapter 462 – Questions (Part 3 of 3)

“Xiao Feng, stay here for a moment.” Iron-fist Zhu looked at Feng Yu. “Your resume is fascinating, and I don’t know how to assess you. It seems that you have better foresight and smarter than a lot of people. I am very curious.”

“I like to read and try out new things. Is this weird?” Feng Yu said. Things had gotten a bit out of hand. Will he bring me to some lab and conduct experiments on me?

“This is also not considered weird. You have only made use of technologies differently for the humidifiers and bladeless fans you invented. Others have not thought of using these technologies this way, but you did.”

“That’s right. Is there any problem?” Feng Yu asked with an innocent look.

“Although this might be weird, young people are more creative. So, I can understand. But I am very curious about the first time you bought shares. Why did you buy so many shares? You had even mortgage your assets to buy shares. You are very sure that you can make money from shares?”

Iron-fist Zhu’s eyes suddenly became very sharp and were staring at Feng Yu. His aura of someone with great authority could be felt by Feng Yu!

“Ah? I am not sure I will make lots of money. But I know I will surely make profits.”

That’s right. When China first introduce shares trading, there were no daily fluctuation limits. But later, the government wanted to control the shares market and introduced limits. When this started, it was 1%, but later, it was reduced to 0.5%. This was to prevent the shares from fluctuating too much. But this was only the official prices. There was still a lot of trading done privately!

But after the Chief Architect concluded his visits to the south, this daily fluctuation limit was also stopped suddenly. On that day, share prices shot up. No one could foresee this happening. Of course, Feng Yu knew about this. But he will never admit that he knew and no one could say anything.

“Why are you so sure that you will profit from shares trading?”

“Where a lot of people are buying those shares, the prices will surely rise. The Bonds market is already so active, the shares market will surely be the same. Overseas is also like this.”

“Only this simple?” Iron-fist Zhu still has some doubts.

“Yes. It is so simple. At that time, there were already not many profits from Treasury Bonds trading, so I switch to shares. I also did not expect to make so much money from shares. If I know that the prices of the shares will increase suddenly, I will not sell my shares in the past. Isn’t the whole nation also buying shares? Is there any problem?” Feng Yu continued to feign ignorance. Luckily, he had sold a fair bit of his shares before the sudden increase of the share prices. This became evidence of him not knowing of the sudden increase.

“Then why are you not continuing to buy shares?”

“I have no money. All my money was invested in the Machinery Company’s Automobile project. If I still have money, I will definitely continue to invest in shares.”

This was a good explanation, but Iron-fist Zhu still felt something seems off. Why Feng Yu dare to use all his assets to buy shares? But there was no evidence of Feng Yu manipulating the market. If Feng Yu was involved in insider trading or market manipulation, will not sell off some of his shares before the sudden increase of share prices.

“What is your views on China’s financial market?” Iron-fist Zhu wants to know how others view the Chinese Financial Market.

Currently, there were still many loopholes in the financial market. If Feng Yu really wants to manipulate the market, it was a piece of cake. Luckily, no foreign funds had entered the newly established Chinese financial market, if not, those foreign institutions will take away all the money.

The Chinese stock market severely lacks regulations. For instance, in July this year, a company was delisted from the Chinese stock market because a Hong Kong businessman had emptied out all its funds.

In August, when an IPO was launched in Shenzhen, fights broke out. This was because a fixed number of shares was issued to every identification card. But someone brought hundreds of identification cards to apply for the shares.

The people behind could not get the shares and got angry. Fights broke out. At that time, many people rushed to Shenzhen for this IPO. The train tickets were sold out, and the ticket scalpers increased the prices of tickets by 7 to 8 folds!

The authorities had no choice but to allow more applications in a bid to calm those investors. After this incident, shares of unlisted companies were issued in the Sichuan region.

Within 3 days, the Shanghai Composite Index had fallen from 1,500 points to 1,000. This caused panic selling, and the shares prices fell further. A lot of investors suffered heavy losses!

The State Council formed a Securities Regulatory Committee because of these incidents. Iron-fist Zhu was the head of this Committee! At the same time, The China Securities Regulatory Commission was set up.

But the committee and the commission could not save the stock market. The stock market continued to fall, and it was about to drop below 400 points! Iron-fist Zhu thought that Feng Yu was one of the earliest people to trade shares. He should have some views. But after hearing Feng Yu’s explanation, he felt that Feng Yu could make profits from share trading was because he had the guts and luck.

“My views? I think that there should be a daily fluctuation limit. We can follow those developed countries. 10% will be a good limit. Didn’t we have a China Securities Regulatory Commission? We can let the commission to regulate the market and check the finances of those listed companies!”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.” Feng Yu had some hesitations. He was not sure if what he said will change the history. If the history had digressed, then most of his experiences and knowledge from his previous life will be useless.

The stock market would develop well even if it had followed the original course. Anyway, no foreign funds had entered the Chinese market, and all the money will still remain in China.

“How should we regulate those listed companies?”

“Financial disclosure. The company should disclose their financial report to their shareholders. Before a company can be listed, the commission should consider their past 3 years and future 3 years financial. The company must also be audited, and their accounts must be clear. Companies cannot be listed just because they had made a lot of profits in the previous year.”

Iron-fist Zhu thought for a while and nodded: “You seems to know a lot about finance.”

“Not really. I had gone to Hong Kong with Fu Guangzheng and had learned from Mr. Fu Rongqi for some time. Mr. Fu Rongqi is really good with the financial market.” Feng Yu used Fu Rongqi as his shield. Fu Rongqi was famous throughout Asia for his investment in the financial markets.

Feng Yu really wanted to tell Iron-fist Zhu that although the stock market performed poorly this year, the market will recover after the RMB stocks were issued. The bull market will continue until sometime the mid of next year.

Feng Yu had wanted to make use of this opportunity to make some money. But now, he decided to not get involved. He will just let Wu Zhigang and the rest invest a bit.

“Is that Aiwa your company?” Iron-fist Zhu suddenly asked.

“I am the major shareholder.” He also knows about this? He had changed the topic. Did he believe what I said about the stock market?

“Buying over a Japanese company and still managed it well. Good. Xiao Feng, are you interested in coming and working in the State Council after you graduate?”

Damn, I am headhunted by one of China most senior official!

If this were in Feng Yu’s previous life, he would surely agree. But now, he was not interested.

Government officials had too many rules, and it will be tiring working for Iron-fist Zhu. Feng Yu will never want to experience that!

“Thank you for your offer. But I still prefer to do business. No matter what I am working as I am still contributing to our country, right?”

“I will not force you. All right. That’s all for today. I need to go back to work.”

“Goodbye, sir.”

Iron-fist Zhu frowned when he looked at Feng Yu’s back view. He felt that this Feng Yu was not a 20-year-old young man, but instead someone in his 40s or 50s.

Iron-fist Zhu still has a lot of questions for Feng Yu, but he does not have the time. He will ask those questions some other time. This young man is very interesting.

After leaving Iron-fist Zhu’s room, Feng Yu was relieved. He was under immense stress when he speaking to Iron-fist Zhu. Feng Yu wondered if he could also have this aura when he has hundreds of billions in the future.

Hmmm… I must go to my company in Japan to practice. Even if I can’t have this aura, I will also feel better from listening to Kameda Masao’s flattery.

Chapter 463 – Exchange Student

Fu Guangzheng was waiting for Feng Yu outside the room. After they boarded the car, Fu Guangzheng did not ask what Feng Yu and the Leader discussed in the room. He could tell from that Feng Yu was still in a good mood, so their discussion should not be about some bad things. Feng Yu worries had been solved temporarily. How could he not be happy? In a few more years, the status of businessmen will rise, and his business empire should be established. Feng Yu will not have any more worries.

These few years, Feng Yu must be low profile. In this era, being too successful was not a good thing. He was also considering if he should get some protection or shield to avoid from the top officials monitoring.

“Brother Fu, does Hong Kong and China university exchange students?”

Fu Guangzheng blinked: “You want to study in Hong Kong’s university? Why do you want to go there?”

“Study, of course!”

Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu. Who would believe that you are going there to study!

“I will help you ask around. If there is, my family should be able to secure a place for you as an exchange student.”

This will fulfill Feng Yu’s parent’s dream of sending him abroad for studies and still remain close to China. He can also monitor the Chinese market closely. Also, he could also follow the financial markets of other countries in Hong Kong. Most importantly, Hong Kong University is not as strict as China. Feng Yu will have lots of spare time for his businesses and investments.

At night, there was a celebration, and after setting the company’s future directions and some other minor issues, Feng Yu returned to Beijing. Fu Guangzheng also visited the rest of the branch factories before returning to Hong Kong.

3 days later, Feng Yu received a call from Fu Guangzheng.

“What? You say Beijing University cannot?”

This shouldn’t be. Beijing University’s ranking might not be high, but it was also one of China’s top university. How come Hong Kong University does not allow exchange students?

Fu Guangzheng explained, and Feng Yu finally understood. It was not because Beijing University was not qualified. It was because all China Universities were not allowed.

Exchange students started from “international student exchanging program.” The purpose of this program was to let the students experience the culture and environment of another country. This was started by the Americans, and China was not part of this program.

No wonder Feng Yu had asked around, and Beijing University only has foreign students, but there were no exchange students.

Hong Kong University does have exchange students, but the university mainly exchanges students with the UK and other countries. Two years ago, with the assistance of the Chinese government, China also started to exchange students with Hong Kong University. But it was for only two universities in Guangdong. These two universities were the only universities in China to have exchange students.

The main reason was Hong Kong University students do not want to be exchanged to a University in China. They have the impression that China was backward and impoverished. They refused to go to China. Guangdong Province was the furthest they could accept as it was closer to Hong Kong.

Beijing University had wanted to partner with Hong Kong University, but both universities only have professors exchange program and students interaction programs. The student exchange program had not been successful despite the fact that Hong Kong was about to return to China in a few years.

Exchange can only be done when students from both universities agree. It can’t be Beijing University send its student to Hong Kong, and no students from Hong Kong University goes to Beijing.

“Brother Fu, I think you should be able to take care of this small issue. I will wait for your good news.”

Fu Guangzheng was speechless. But there was indeed a solution. He could offer students scholarships or a job in the Fu Family’s company after they graduate. There will surely be willing students. There were also a lot of poor students at Hong Kong University.

Those well-to-do families will send their children to universities in the UK. The Fu Family was like this. Anyway, Hong Kong was still a British Colony now, and they were allowed to apply for the universities in the UK. Hong Kong University only became famous in the recent few years. Before that, it was an unknown university.

“Wait, Brother Feng. I had asked around. There are two types of an exchange program. One type is per semester, and the other is one year. Which one do you want?” Fu Guangzheng wanted to make sure that he was applying for the correct type of program for Feng Yu.

“Of course, the one-year program. It will start during my year 3, and I will return back to Beijing for my final year. Is this a problem?”

“This might be a problem for other people, but not a problem for our Fu Family. Then what course are you picking? Hong Kong University does not have Management programs.”

Damn, Hong Kong University do not have Management courses?

But Feng Yu remembered that Hong Kong was small and have a few universities. It was normal for a university to not have all the courses. Seems like he had to switch courses.

“You have any good recommendations?”

“The best faculty in our Hong Kong University is the faculty of arts. This faculty has the most girls!” Fu Guangzheng replied.

Feng Yu replied helplessly: “Who cares about girls. I am going there to study!”

“You are not for the girls? Fine. You can pick business school or finance. You should be interested in these subjects.” Fu Guangzheng had doubts. If Feng Yu was not coming to Hong Kong University for girls?

Study? Bullshit! Feng Yu had skipped classes countless times at Beijing University. He must have found out that there were a lot of pretty girls at Hong Kong University!

It was easy to settle this exchange program issue, but it was very troublesome. This was not a simple case of both universities communicating with each other.

Fu Guangzheng acted very fast. He donated a sum of money to Hong Kong University, and the Dean promised to push for this exchange program. But the Dean also mentioned that not only the schools and students have to agree to participate in this program. Approval must also be obtained from the Hong Kong Government and China Government.

The previous exchange program with the Guangdong universities was for one semester. One-year program was different and harder to get approval.

Luckily, the Fu family was influential and even the Hong Kong Governor had to give them face. As such, the Hong Kong side was settled.

Feng Yu personally told the Beijing University about this program. At Beijing University, Feng Yu still have some influence.

When the university heard that Hong Kong University was interested in exchanging students, the school’s leaders were very excited. If they could start an exchange program with Hong Kong University, it will be significant!

This was an opportunity for the Hong Kongers to understand the mainland better and will help with the integration with Hong Kong after the return. Furthermore, Beijing was China’s capital, and Beijing University represented China’s top-level education.

But there was still a slight problem. Most of the Hong Kong students do not speak Mandarin. It will be difficult for them to communicate.

After speaking to Hong Kong University, the Hong Kong University decided to send their Chinese language students over for the exchange program. Beijing University was the best university in the world for Chinese language studies!

To prevent any accidents, Feng Yu asked Fu Guangzheng to register his name for this program from the Hong Kong side. Feng Yu does not want his name to be struck off by some students with strong connections. Although he would stand out this way, it was safer.

Now, everything was ready and only waiting for the English Government’s approval.

But before Feng Yu got the news, he received the notification from CCTV that the auction of the advertising slots will be starting. Feng Yu was invited to participate!

Chapter 464 – Rigged Auctions

“Eh, is that ugly guy Shi Yuzhu? He also wants to advertise on CCTV?” Feng Yu mumbled to himself. This person will be known as one of China’s pair of “Short, ugly, rich” in the future!

Feng Yu remembered that Shi Yuzhu should have just entered the business and he started with a technology company. Giant Group should not have launched their health products yet. He should still be selling Chinese Language cards. Why was he auctioning for advertising slots? Shouldn’t he be looking for companies to sell his products?

Wait, that’s Coach Ma? He is the Long distance running coach. Why is he here at CCTV? Damn, he still knows the deputy station chief? What is he advertising? The Ma family army wants to do recruitment?

In China, which coach has the best techniques and training for mid to long distance running? Coach Ma!

Feng Yu saw Coach Ma introducing someone to the deputy station chief. It was evident that they were making use of their connections to go through backdoors.

Feng Yu waved to Zhong Qingxian, who was still quite a distance away. Feng Yu noticed that Zhong Qingxian was staring at a man.

“Who is that guy? Why are you staring at him?” Feng Yu asked.

“The boss of Lebaishi.”

People of the same trade are enemies. No wonder Zhong Qingxian was staring at him. It seems that in Feng Yu’s previous life, this was the year when Lebaishi first advertised on CCTV. After this, Lebaishi’s yogurt drinks became famous and their sales multiplied by several folds over the next 10 years. It was considered a miracle!

Wait, why was the boss of Lebaishi shaking hands with Coach Ma? They know each other?

Oh ya, Coach Ma became famous because of this year’s Olympic games. Wang Junxia and many other China’s long distance running athletes were trained by Coach Ma. Because of the excellent performance of his athletes at the Olympic games, Coach Ma appeared on TV several times. The whole China knew who he was.

Feng Yu saw a lot of those successful businessmen who appeared on TV during his previous life during this advertising slots auction. But Feng Yu did not approach them. Most of them will become bankrupt in a few years, and one of them was Shi Yuzhu.

Feng Yu decided to be the angel investor who appears in front of them during their most difficult times. Wahahahaha…….

“Everyone, please quiet down. 1993 CCTV’s advertisement slots nodding will begin soon. This time, some of the advertising slots will be using the sealed-bid auction. All the bidders will write the bid amount on a piece of paper, and each of you will one have one chance. We will tabulate the bids and the winner will ……”

The seal-bid auction was suggested by CCTV top management. They felt that this type of auction can reveal what the highest prices these businessmen had in mind were. They cannot be using Tai Hua Trading’s prices as the benchmark. There might be someone who was more generous than Feng Yu.

The first slot was the 15 seconds slot before the News. Feng Yu looked around and saw everyone scribing on a piece of paper. All of them tried to hide what they were written with their hands and body.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, advertisement slot auction started in 1995. The first slot was sold for 31 million RMB to Kongfuyan Distillery, and their Baijiu’s sales increased by more than 10 times.

Feng Yu thought for a while and wrote 12.02 million RMB. He felt that he should win with this bid. He does not mind even if he lost. If the price was any higher, it will not worth it.

Kongfuyan’s boss was also writing his bid on the paper. He wanted to write 10 million, but he felt that others will also bid this amount. So, he changed the amount to 11 million. Even if he had to get a loan from the banks, he must also advertise on CCTV!

Lebaishi’s boss was also writing down his bid. He wrote 11.01 million.

Pan Ning, wrote down 11.2 million RMB. his company, Ronshen Refrigerator Co. was the company that developed China’s first 2-doors refrigerators. Feng Yu had a hard time selling off his fridges in the past was because Ronshen’s products were already in the Chinese market. Their fridges were of good quality and cheap.

Zhang Ruimin, Li Dongsheng and other businessmen only made a “high” of 7 million RMB. It was apparent that they will not be winning this slot.

Feng Yu had a suspicion that this auction was rigged. If not, why the CCTV did not reveal the bids in front of everybody and they need to go to another room to tabulate the bids?

At this moment, many people were looking at their pagers. Some of them raised their head and smiled confidently, and some were disappointed.

Was there someone inside giving them newest? This should not be possible. These people do not have handphones and how can they change their bids?

After waiting for a while, Cheng Baojun came out smiling and showed a bidding form.

“The winner of this slot is Lebaishi. The winning bid is 12.1 million.”

Lebaishi’s boss stood up and wave to everyone proudly.

Feng Yu frowned. Coincident? He won Feng Yu’s bid by less than 100 thousand?

Feng Yu looked at Cheng Baojun and noticed that he was avoiding looking at Feng Yu. Something must be going on! This was the best slot, and someone had snatched it away from him.

“Next will be the ad slot after the news. This slot is also 15 seconds. All of you can start writing your bids now.”

Feng Yu thought about the effectiveness of this slot and wrote 5.11 million.

Pan Ning wrote 5.02 million, and Kongfuyan’s boss wrote 5.04 million. This time, Lebaishi chose to drop out.

When Ronshen Refrigerator Co. won the slot with 5.21 million RMB, Feng Yu got pissed.

“Chief Cheng, why are you just waving that bidding form and not showing to us?” Feng Yu shouted.

Cheng Baojun’s face changed and smiled: “What is the problem? Don’t tell me that you do not know how much you wrote on the bidding form? Which one of you dares to claim that you had made a higher bid than Ronshen?”

Pan Ning had a proud look on his face. Luckily, he had paid someone. If his bid was slightly lower than the highest bid, he would add 100,000 RMB more than the highest bid to buy the slot.

Feng Yu saw the smirk on Cheng Baojun’s face. CCTV was too shameless to rig this auction. But Feng Yu had forgotten that CCTV had promised him the slots before and after the weather forecast.

Indeed, this time Feng Yu wrote down 2 figures and the winning bid was entirely different from what he had written. But he was the winner.

Damn. If you tell me about this earlier, I will increase my bids for the previous two slots by 1 million or even 10 million. I want to see how you can still rig this auction!

The auction was very fast. Most of the staff at CCTV were there to help. Also, the businessmen did not bid on every slot.

The only person who bid on every slot was Feng Yu.

Lebaishi, Ronsheng, Little Swan and the other companies had won a primetime slot each during this segment of the auction. Feng Yu had won 4 primetime slots. There was a stark difference when compared to the previous years, where he owns most of the primetime slots.

Feng Yu got to change the way he advertises his products. The internet had just started, and very few people in China own PC. There was no internet advertising yet. TV advertising was still the mainstream channel.

Feng Yu was very unhappy over this auction. He wants to speak to Cheng Baojun. If Cheng Baojun refused to help him, he would look for his higher-ups. He will cancel his sponsorship of the Spring Festival Gala night and will work with other TV stations for the next New Year’s Day Gala Dinner Award Ceremony!

Chapter 465 – Product placement in Gala night

Cheong Baojun was trying to avoid meeting Feng Yu’s eyes during the contract signing. Feng Yu signed the contract and threw the pen on the table: “Chief Cheng, what is going on? Shouldn’t you give me an explanation?”

“What do you mean? This auction is fair and open. Is there any problem?”

“Really? Since there is no problem, take all the bidding forms out and show it to everyone. If not, I will look for the higher-ups and see what they have to say. I think if others know that this auction was rigged, CCTV’s advertising slots will not be sold next year.” Feng Yu sneered.

“Ah…. Hahaha…. Manager Feng, here are the slots that are not for auctions. There are a few timings which are not bad. You can pick the timings first. I will announce the rest to the others.” Cheng Baojun laughed and passed a list of advertising slots to Feng Yu. The prices of the slots were also stated in the list.

Feng Yu nodded. This Cheng Baojun knows how to please him.

But when Feng Yu saw the prices of the slots on the list, he cursed. Damn, CCTV had increased the prices by 30%. Did they think that people were bidding high prices for the primetime slots and they can raise the rates of the rest of the slots?

“I want all these slots. Give me a discount.” Feng Yu passed the marked list back to Cheng Baojun.

Cheng Baojun looked at the list. Feng Yu had picked 16 slots. He dared not give Feng Yu discount for some of the slots.

“Manager Feng, you have picked too many slots. Does your company have so many advertisements? I think half of these will do. It is a waste of money if you buy so many slots. I am able to give you a 2% discount.”

“I have a lot of companies. These slots might not even be enough. 2% is also considered a discount? 5%. That’s settled. Go and prepare the contracts. I still have to attend the final rehearsal for the New Year’s Day Award Ceremony.”

Cheng Baojun made a mental calculation. 5% discount was almost 1 million RMB. But overall, these advertisement slots were sold a few million more than last year. Also, Feng Yu might go to the higher-ups if he does not give Feng Yu the discount. Although the higher-ups knew about the rigged auctions, this will put Cheng Baojun in a bad light. He might as well do Feng Yu favor and give him the discount. Feng Yu signed the contract, and Cheng Baojun walked Feng Yu to the door personally.

Feng Yu signed the contracts, and this proves that a 30% increase in the rates was acceptable by the market. Cheng Baojun had successfully increase CCTV revenues again!

Feng Yu did not intend to attend this year’s award ceremony. CCTV had informed the association that it was okay for the companies to put up banners. But the audiences were not allowed to shout slogans.

So be it. Anyway, Feng Yu had already planned to advertise his products through product placements in the performances.

This year’s ceremony was also recorded. But from next year, this ceremony will be a delayed telecast. In a few years, this ceremony will become a live telecast.

The TB audiences still prefer live telecast, and the live telecast was proof of the popularity of this program.

Feng Yu got the rights of the program after the ceremony. He passed the recordings to Jiang Wanmeng for him to make it into VCD. This VCD will not be sold. It will be the free gift that comes along with the VCD player.

……

After New Year, it was examinations for Feng Yu. When the exams were over, Feng Yu remained in Beijing while all his friends returned home for Lunar New Year celebrations. This year, Feng Yu might have to spend his Lunar New Year in Beijing.

During the rehearsal for the awards ceremony, Feng Yu mentioned that this New Year’s Day award ceremony’s stage was almost better than the Spring Festival Gala night. Station Chief Jia replied that it was because they do not have enough budget.

Feng Yu knew what Chief Jia wanted. CCTV wanted some funding. This was an excellent opportunity for Feng Yu. He immediately discussed with Chief Jia about sponsoring for the Gala night.

Feng Yu did not just sponsor CCTV like this. He wanted to be the director for the program, but CCTV cannot agree to this request. CCTV can only allow Feng Yu to have some say in the stage decorations and performances.

This was what Feng Yu wanted. Not only he will place his company’s products on the VIP tables in front of the stage if the performances’ props have tables, but he will also put his Superfans on it.

Feng Yu still made some suggestions and changes for the scripts of some performances to include his advertisement.

I am the sponsor for this special program. So, it shouldn’t be too much to have some close up on my products during the telecast. 3 seconds will do. The advertising effect was more effective on this special program than the news!

But this year, Baldy Chen and Zhu Simao were not performing, and Feng Yu felt this was a pity. This duo was the most popular comedy duo in China.

How come there is no performance for children during this gala night? Add in some children songs performances. There should be at least two songs. One song will be <Our motherland is a garden>, and the other will be <I am a little green dragon>. There should be some cartoon characters dancing along with these songs.

I think Lehaha’s cartoon character is suitable for this role……

During the award ceremony on New Year’s Day, the most popular performance was a group of children singing <I am a Little Dragon> and not the comedy skits or the Hong Kong and Taiwanese singers.

“I have horns and a tail on my back. No one knows how many secrets I have…… I am a little dragon boy, little dragon boy, little dragon boy. I have many secrets, secrets, secrets…… I will not tell you, not tell you, not tell you……”

Feng Yu had not been watching TV for quite some time and did not know that <Little Dragon Boy> was already aired. This cartoon was even more popular than <Journey to the West>. Even the adults like it.

When the children were performing this song, men in their 30s and 40s were singing along. Feng Yu was surprised.

After the awards ceremony, Feng Yu told Zhong Qingxian to quickly sign at the kid as their product’s spokesmen. Lehaha’s AD milk’s commercial stars will be that kid!

This year, this kid will be more popular than Jin Ming! If Lehaha were to make use of him to promote Lehaha’s yogurt drinks, a lot of children would be buying Lehaha’s drinks.

In the second half of 1992, Lehaha had introduced AD milk and green tea beverages. But the market was not responding well. These products were not as popular as Lehaha’s children’s health solution. This year, Lebaishi had bought the primetime advertising slot. 1993, Lehaha will not win the yogurt beverages market.

But Lehaha’s oral solution was still number one. They do not have any competitors. If they place some advertisements for their green tea beverages, there should be some sales. Last year, Lehaha did not advertise for this product, but they did not make any losses. This year, with the advertisements, the results should be better.

……

This magic show performance was too boring. Oranges and apples appearing from thin air were too mainstream. If the magician made an Aiwa Walkman appeared, he could give it to one of the audiences.

Also, the items in the crosstalk performance, <Auction> by Feng Gong and Ma Ji, should be changed to our products. Walkman, Superfan, VCD players and even motorcycles. Their performances should be realistic.

Zhang Guoli’s skit, <Selling>, can also be selling our products. After their performances, those products can be given to the performers and CCTV staffs.

Chief Jia had let Feng Yu help set up the stage and planned the performances, but Feng Yu make use of this to place all his products into the performances……

Chapter 466 – Come to Beijing to watch the Gala night

“Old Feng, why are you lugging your luggage? Where are you going?”

“To Beijing to watch CCTV Spring Festival Gala night!” Feng Xingtai replied with his head up high.

“Huh? Going to Beijing to watch the Gala night? As a live audience?

Feng Xingtai saw the other party’s unbelievable eyes and got even prouder: “Of course. Why would I be going to Beijing to watch it on TV? My son is working with the producers of this program. He said he can even let me meet Mao Amin face to face!”

“Oh! Xiao Yu is really capable. Old Feng, you are so lucky. You are so rich, and your son is so capable. Look at XX district’s Wang Baiwan. His son got into a fight and was arrested two days ago. Your son is so much better than him. Beijing University’s student. Does this mean Xiao Feng will be working at CCTV in the future?

“Who knows? That kid has his own plans. Alright. I got to go.” Although Feng Xingtai was trying to be humble, he got a proud look on his face.

“Hurry up and start the car. Stop bullshitting with others. You had wasted 30 minutes chatting with others!” Zhang Muhua scolded.

“I caused the delay? Who is the one who chatted with Sister Li downstairs?” Feng Xingtai grumbled and started to drive towards Bing City.

……

“Hi, Chixing, call grandpa.”

“What grandpa? Call grandma and grandma will buy you snacks.”

“Dad, Mum, go and rest first.” Li Shiqiang took the luggage from his parents-in-law.

Feng Xingtai ignored Li Shiqiang and carried Li Chixing above his head, making him laugh.

“Is Chixing obedient?” Zhang Muhua played with her grandson’s hands and asked.

“Him? Obedient? He is too mischievous. I brought him downstairs, and he ran off once I took my eyes off him.” Li Shiqiang said.

“What? You let Chixing run off by himself? What if he falls or got into any accidents? What kind of dad are you?” Zhang Muhua scolded.

“We are just downstairs within the front yard. There are no cars and people around.”

“Even so, you should not let him run about by himself. This building is so tall and what if someone threw something down? Listen to me, after Lunar New Year, let Chixiang follow us back to the district. The air is better, and there are lesser people and cars. Chixing can run around freely.” Zhang Muhua said.

“Mum…… I am taking care of Chixing. Furthermore, my mother-in-law will be retiring this year, and she can help me. Children should not leave the parents when they are young. Chixing, don’t put your fingers in your mouth!” Feng Danying slapped her son’s hand lightly.

“Why are you hitting him? Which kid does not put their fingers in their mouths?” Zhang Muhua scolded.

“Mum, he kept putting his fingers into his mouth after touching everything. He will get sick. If we do not discipline him when he is young, he will get into trouble when he gets older. You remember that Zhang San? His parents did not care about him when he was young, and he killed someone after he grew up. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. He will have to spend his remaining life in prison.”

“What are you saying? Our Chixing is so obedient. Oh, the both of you are not going to Beijing for the Gala night?”

“We are not going. Chixing is too young. My in-laws will be going with you. I will stay here with Shiqiang. There are still lots of things in the hospital waiting for us. We cannot leave.

Feng Xingtai was unhappy when he heard the hospital: “Shiqiang, your son is still so young and how can you let Danying go and work at the hospital? Why can’t you just hire someone to run the hospital?”

“Dad, Danying will get bored staying at home alone. Furthermore, I am sending and fetching her from the hospital. At the Machinery Company, Chixing will stay at the childcare center. The teachers there will help to look after him. The childcare center and kindergarten elsewhere do not look after such young children.” Li Shiqiang explained.

Li Shiqiang noticed that Feng Danying’s mood got better when she started work at the Machinery Company’s hospital. She no longer pulls a long face when she was staying at home.

“What did you say? Chixing is still so young, and the both of you put him in childcare?” Feng Xingtai was furious. What if Chixing got bully by other kids at the childcare?

“Dad, you all might not know that Chixing is very strong. We are glad that he did not bully others. Dad, you stay here with Mum. I will help Danying in the kitchen.” Li Shiqiang ran into the kitchen.

……

“In-laws, this is the first time in my life traveling on a plane, and also my first time going to Beijing.” Li Shiqiang’s father said.

“That’s right. I am scared of heights.” Li Shiqiang’s mother sat nervously in her seat. The plane had not even taken off yet.

Li Shiqiang’s parents were also very excited to travel to Beijing to watch the Gala night. They had boasted to their colleagues for a few days.

But Li’s father’s leader at his unit was not happy. Since you can get the tickets to Gala night, why didn’t you get two tickets for me? Don’t you have any respect for me?

Li’s father’s leader had hinted to him that even if you can’t get extra tickets, you can give me your tickets this year. You can go next year. Think about how I had treated you. You should give me the tickets as an appreciation of what I had done for you.

Although the leader had made things so obvious, Li’s father did not agree. This might be his only chance in life to watch the Gala night as the live audience. How can he give up his tickets?

Also, these tickets were not given to him by his son. It was Feng Yu who had given him the tickets. He could be so shameless to ask for extra tickets for his leader. There were only 1,000 tickets to the Gala night, and many officials in the country could not even get the tickets. It should not be easy for Feng Yu to get these tickets.

Furthermore, he was already a deputy chief. If he did not make any mistakes, the most he would just be transferred out. The leader could not do anything to him. Li Shiqiang’s business was doing well, and even if he lost this job, it was fine.

Li Shiqiang’s father does not have the intention to be promoted. His position now was already good enough. He knew his own capabilities. If it wasn’t for Mayor Zhang attending his son’s wedding, he might not even be promoted.

Of course, this was all because of the Feng family. His daughter-in-law was also a fine lady. She treated them well. Their only wish now was for his grandson to grow up healthy and well.

The flight landed safely, and Li Shiqiang’s parents saw Feng Yu holding up a sign waiting for them at the arrival hall.

“Mr. and Mrs. Li, let me help with your luggage. Dad, Mum, the car is over there. I will bring you to the hotel first. Later in the afternoon, I will bring all of you around Beijing, and after dinner, we will go and watch the Gala night.”

“Will we be visiting Tiananmen Square?” Li’s father asked. His greatest wish was to visit Tiananmen Square.

“No problem! Xiao Yu, let’s go to Tiananmen Square!” Feng Xingtai instructed proudly. He had visited Tiananmen Square many times.

Chapter 467 – The never-ending product placement (Part 1 of 2)

After the opening dancing, Zhao Zhongxiang, Yang Lan, Ni Ping, Liang Yanlling, Li Qingan, and Zhang Yongquan walked to the center of the stage.

This year’s Gala night was different from the previous years. This year was the first time China’s Gala night had collaborated with Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other places. Some of the performances were telecast live in different areas.

Also, there were two levels of audience stand at the venue of the Gala night. The higher level was the VIP rooms. Feng Yu and his family were seated in the best room upstairs.

During the opening dance, the camera had panned over to Feng Yu’s VIP room. Feng Xingtai and the rest were standing by the railings, and they were waving to the camera excitedly. This was CCTV’s Gala Night. The whole nation was watching this program! Feng Yu sat at the back munching on sunflower seeds.

Feng Yu was not sure if the rest of the people in the VIP rooms were eating snacks. He had brought lots of snacks and fruits with him to the VIP room. CCTV’s staffs saw it was Feng Yu and did not stop him. Maybe they also did not expect someone to treat CCTV like his home.

“It is New Year again. I wish everyone a prosperous new year……” Zhao Zhongxiang said. His voice was still so attractive.

Feng Xingtai and the rest had just sat down, but quickly stand up again to cheer and clap. They were acting like they were watching opera at their district and forgotten that this was CCTV.

“Eh, eh, eh, is that the singer for <The Back Basket>?” Feng Xingtai patted Feng Yu on his head.

“Dad, I think so. Why are you so excited?” Feng Yu looked at his father. Later, his father’s favorite singers will perform. Feng Yu can’t imagine how excited his father will be.

……

Qin Mingxiao and Yao Jinfen went onto the stage. They were the most famous magicians in China at that time. Everyone in China knew who they were.

The both of them invited an audience from the stands to participate in their performance. They dressed the audience like Granny Liu, and he had an apron on. Many things appeared from that apron.

Oranges, apples, etc. were thrown to the audiences, and the audiences were all fighting over them.

Feng Xingtai said scornfully: “It’s just an apple. Why are they fighting over it?” He picked up an apple from the table and bite into it.

Although the second floor was considered VIP rooms, it was not really rooms. The area was not enclosed, and many of the workers and their families were standing there watching the performances.

They saw Feng Yu and his family at one of the booths. Why was there a table in this booth and the rest of the booth does not have?

On this table, there were many snacks. Peanuts, seeds, peaches, oranges, apples…… etc.

All the onlookers were wondering who this family was. If they were top officials, they should be sitting at the VIP tables in front of the stage. But if they were not officials, how could they bring so many snacks in and arranged for a table to be placed in their booth?

“Dad, look. This is the best part.”

Yao Jinfen took out a handkerchief and covered her hand. Qin Mingxiao took out a wand, tapped on it and remove the scarf. On her hand, there was a Walkman.

The camera zoomed in on the logo, and it was Aiwa’s latest model of Walkman. All the TV audiences could see it clearly.

This product placement was too obvious!

“Who wants this Aiwa Walkman?” Qin Mingxiao asked.

“Me!”

All the audience stands raised their hands and shouted in unison.

“If you want, buy it yourself! This is for this lucky audience who performed with us!” Qin Mingxiao laughed.

The audience on the stage had thought that he was being made to look embarrassed when he was called up to the stage. But now, he felt really lucky. This Walkman was worth a few hundred RMB!

Feng Xingtai’s mouth twitched and threw the apple’s core into the trash bin beside him: “So what? They had only made a Walkman appear. If they are outstanding, they should make a big radio appear!”

Feng Yu shook his head: “Dad, the magicians, can’t hide such a big item.”

The performances continued, and Feng Yu soon discovered that his father will be one of the keyboard warriors who will criticize the program in 10 years!

His father was nit-picking on all the performances. Feng Yu was the one who had planned all the performances, including the Walkman magic.

……

Yan Shunkai was holding an egg and explaining to someone: “I bought this egg. I did not steal your egg.”

“Huh? It’s just an egg. You can have it.”

“No, this is my egg. I really did not take your egg. If you don’t believe me, you can count all your eggs.”

This performance was a classic. No matter how many time Feng Yu watched it, he would laugh. Yan Shunkai was too funny. His facial expressions and eyebrows made him comical.

Feng Yu did not make any changes to this performance. But he had placed a Superfan on the table used in the performance. This performance was set in Summer, and there should be a fan around.

Huh? Director said that this Superfan was too expensive and does not fit the character? Who cares? No one will bother to notice this minor detail. Later I will give CCTV 10 Superfans!

Feng Yu thought that no one would be bothered about this detail, but his father who was beside him tapped on his shoulder: “Isn’t that Zhang San, a security guard? How can he afford to own a bladeless fan? Also, the performance before this, there is also a bladeless fan. What is the director thinking? Does he even know how much the commoners are earning?”

Feng Yu wanted to cry. Dad, why do you have so many questions?

Feng Yu whispered to his father: “Dad that Superfan is our company’s product. I had spent money for them to place it there. This is advertising.”

Feng Xingtai’s eyes opened wide and asked Feng Yu softly: “Gala night can also advertise?”

“Shhhh…… they do not allow. But I had my ways. Let’s just enjoy the performances and not talk about this.” Feng Yu hinted that there were many people around them.

Actually, Feng Yu had invested a lot of money to place his products in the performances. The amount he spent was almost the same as a primetime advertising slot.

But Feng Yu does not mind. He could foster a good relationship with CCTV leaders and still advertise his products to the whole nation. He remembered in his previous life, a Baijiu company’s sales increased exponentially after they had showcased their products on the Gala night!

Feng Xingtai heard what Feng Yu said, and he stops his criticism of the performances.

“This song is so nice. Who is that singer?” Zhang Muhua pointed to the singer and asked.

Feng Yu was sweating. You should be glad that you are able to listen to this singer live. In a few more years, this singer will no longer perform. She will be the first lady, and her nickname was “Peng Mama.”

Feng Yu also felt that this song, <Spring’s blessing> was perfect and he felt proud that he was able to listen to the future first lady’s singing in person.

Chapter 468 – The never-ending product placement (Part 2 of 2)

“The third item to be auction is the famous movie star, Liu Daqing’s helmet. Everyone should know that Liu Daqing is one of the prettiest actresses in China.” Niu Qun held a blue colored helmet in his hands. On the helmet, Songjiang Motors logo could be seen clearly.

“Sir, do you want a lift?” Feng Gong copied Liu Daqing’s lines and flicked his hair. The audiences roared with laughter. All of them remembered the motorcycle commercial starring Liu Daqing and Zhu Shimao.

“This is a lucky helmet. Since putting on this helmet, Liu Daqing had starred in many great roles.”

Feng Gong interrupted Niu Qun: “Wait a minute. Didn’t you say the cap earlier is also **** lucky cap? Why is this helmet also a lucky helmet? Are you saying that all your items here are lucky items?”

“No all are lucky items. This hat was worn by Baldy Chen. After he had worn this hat, he became bald. Do you think this hat is lucky?”

“So you are saying that Ge You should bid for this hat?” Feng Gong asked.

This year, Ge You had won the best actor award for his role in the TV series <Stories from The Editorial Board>. In the series, Ge You was not bald yet. But he was balding.

Feng Gong’s question made the audiences laughed. The helmet was then “sold” for 2,000 RMB!

At this moment, someone rode a motorcycle onto the stage. The rider took off her helmet and flicked her hair.

The crowd cheered.

Liu Daqing. The rider was Liu Daqing!

Hahaha. Interesting. Niu Qun and Feng Gong had just sold her helmet, and now she appeared on the stage wearing another helmet. The previous helmet was apparently a fake. The audience remembered that Liu Daqing’s helmet in the commercial was red in color and Zhu Simao was wearing a blue helmet.

Liu Daqing passed her helmet to Niu Qun: “You took the wrong helmet. This is my helmet, and that is Baldy Chen’s helmet. If you wear it, your hair will not grow, and your head will be shiny than before!”

The audience on the stage, who was wearing the blue helmet immediately take it off, making the audience laugh.

Liu Daqing got off the stage. She had left her motorcycle on the stage.

“This is the era of commodities. You know about celebrity effect? Have you heard of Li Ning brand of clothing? Have you heard of Tian Peng Pigs? That is General Tian Peng……”

Feng Xingtai clapped. He was very impressed with Feng Yu. Even the lines of the performances were used to advertise for their companies.

This skit ended but the motorcycle was still on the stage. Ni Ping went on stage and said: “This Songjiang Motorcycle is Songjiang Motors’ first motorcycle and is the motorcycle which Liu Daqing rode in the commercial. Bing City Machinery Company had decided to donate it. We will auction this bike here, and the proceeds will be given to the schools in the mountainous regions!”

The people Feng Yu arranged in the audience stand immediately raise their hands and shout: “Aiwa Electronics will offer 10,000RMB!”

“Wind and Rain Electronics will offer 20,000 RMB!”

“Tian Peng Pig Farm offers 50,000 RMB!”

“Tai Hua Education fund offers 100,000 RMB! How can we, Tai Hua Education fund not do our part in helping those poor students in the mountainous region?!”

Before the rest of the audiences could react, Ni Ping pointed to the representative from Tai Hua Education fund and lifted the Auction hammer: “Deal!”

She banged the table with the hammer hard!

The representative from Tai Hua Education fund went onto the stage and shook hands with Ni Ping. The both of them signed on a contract, and the audience knew that this was for real. This was not a performance!

Feng Xingtai looked at the representative from Tai Hua Education fund on the stage. Isn’t that Wu Zhigang from Tai Hua Trading? Where did this Tai Hua Education fund come from?

But all these don’t matter. This must be arranged by Feng Yu. Feng Xingtai can’t wait to boast to his friends.

A motorcycle and 100,000 RMB for an advertisement and the cheers of the audience. Feng Yu knew that Tai Hua Trading and Songjiang Motors had won the hearts of the viewers.

CCTV station chief had agreed to let Feng Yu add in this performance in the program was because this was spreading positive vibes. Feng Yu also said that Tai Hua Education fund will sponsor 50 primary schools around China.

Actually, it does not cost 100,000 RMB to build a school in the mountainous region. There were not a lot of children in those regions, and many areas were not suitable to build high-rise school buildings.

A row of one-story building, a courtyard, concrete flooring, and wooden furniture will not cost more than 100,000 RMB.

Feng Yu had made his parents happy and still advertised for his company. Even the top leaders will have a good impression of Tai Hua Trading, Machinery Company and him.

……

The skit <Selling> performed by Zhang Guoli, Liu Yajing, and some other actors was supposed to be selling some medicine. But Feng Yu had changed the script to VCD players.

One person was selling Wind and Rain VCD player, and the other was selling Aiwa VCD player.

From the start of the performance, both actors started to argue and then began to fight. Feng Yu was deeply impressed. Although the script was changed, the execution was still great. They had said what Feng Yu wanted them to say, and even able to add in some jokes.

“People will surely prefer our Wind and Rain VCD player. How was Sun Nan’s singing just now?” Zhang Guoli asked the audience.

“Perfect……” The audience replied.

Sun nana had sung <Red flags flying> earlier. Sun Nan had wanted to perform his new single, but CCTV refused. The top leaders at CCTV preferred <Red flags flying>.

“No. This is not right. I remembered Na Ying had received bigger applause earlier.” Liu Yajing replied. Na Ying had also sung <The day doesn’t know the night> earlier.

Feng Yu had brought both singers to Station Chief Jia and the Chief Director of the Gala Night personally. Both singers sang in front of them and got the approval to perform on the Gala night.

Both Sun Nan and Na Ying will become more popular after their performances on the Gala Night. The VCD players they endorsed will undoubtedly sell well. Furthermore, this skit had mentioned all the features of the VCD players.

……

Zhang Ruiqiang was at home watching the Gala Night at home. When the magicians made an Aiwa Walkman appeared in their performance, and there was even a close-up, he knew that this must be Feng Yu’s doing.

In the other performances, Zhang Ruiqiang noticed Wind and Rain Superfans appearing as props and in all sort of places on the stage. It disregards whether if the fans will fit into the performances. The fans were also placed on the VIP tables near the stage.

Also, that representative from Tai Hua Education fund was Tai Hua Trading’s Wu Zhigang. Even the skit <Selling> was promoting Feng Yu’s products. Those two brands belong to Feng Yu!

Zhang Ruiqing was sure that Feng Yu had made use of the Gala night to advertise his products!

Chapter 469 – Export tax rebate

After watching the Gala night, Feng Yu, his parents, and Li Shiqiang’s parents toured Beijing for a couple of days before returning to Bing City by train. Li Shiqiang’s mother was still afraid to travel by plane.

When Feng Yu woke up, they had already arrived at Bing City. Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua stayed in Bing City for another two days to wait for Feng Yu to return to the district together.

During Lunar New Year, Feng Yu was very busy. He needs to do lots of visiting. But this year’s New year was different. The Machinery Company’s automobile branch factory had completed the construction of the car using the most advanced technology they had. They were waiting for Feng Yu to return and gift it to the Provincial Government.

This car was supposed to be donated to the country, but the Chief Architect wanted this car to remain in Longjiang province. This car can be given to the Country after the Machinery Company could control the cost of construction of this car to be about the same as overseas automobile manufacturers.

Early in the morning on the 5th day of Lunar New Year, Li Mingde called Feng Yu to ask if he was ready. The people from the TV station was already there.

The Provincial Governor had said that the country will not only give the subsidies to the Machinery Company and the gifting of this car will be reported on CCTV.

Feng Yu was overjoyed. He did not expect the Governor to do this. CCTV news was the national news station and watched by millions of viewers all over China. The ratings of this news were almost equivalent to the Gala night.

Feng Yu had got up very early. It was not because he wanted to wake up so early. It was because his parents woke him up to eat dumplings. In the Northeast region, it was their custom to eat dumplings on the 5th and 10th day of Lunar New Year.

Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua were used to live as farmers. They had the habit of sleeping and waking up early. Although they do not exercise regularly, they were still very fit.

Every year, Feng Yu would bring his parents to the hospital for a full body checkup. He was afraid the tragedy in his previous life would happen again. Luckily, all his parents’ illnesses were discovered early and cured in this life.

Now, they owned a hospital, and it was very convenient. Feng Danying was the Chief Nurse of Tai Hua Hospital. But no one in the hospital dares to offend this Chief Nurse. Not even CEO of the hospital dares to offend her.

Tai Hua Hospital had the most advanced equipment in China, and there were also many professors and specialist sitting in from time to time. Although the charges were higher than other hospitals, this hospital quickly became the most famous hospital in Longjiang. People from the neighboring provinces would also travel all the way here to seek treatment.

Most of the patients were government officials.

……

Crackle, crackle, crackle……

Two strings of 10,000 firecrackers were crackling. After it had stopped, Li Mingde appeared.

Feng Yu only wanted to attend the ceremony, and he let Li Mingde face the media. Li Mingde was overjoyed.

Not everybody has the chance to appear on CCTV news. Manager Feng treated me really well. He was even willing to give me this great opportunity.

But Li Mingde does not know that it was not because Feng Yu had given special treatment to him. It was because Feng Yu does not want to show his face publicly. He prefers to hide behind the curtains and make money.

Feng Xingtai was also one of the shareholders of the Machinery Company. However, he had resigned from his position as the Deputy General Manager.

“I am representing the Longjiang Province and the Provincial Government to thank Bing City Machinery Company for donating this Songjiang Motors car – Take-Off. Thank you, Machinery Company, for making great contributions to China’s automobile industry! This car will be used to fetch our Prestigious Provincial’s guests……” The Governor started his speech.

Feng Yu was very impressed with these leaders. Even without a script, they were able to speak for a long time, and none of the contents were repeated.

Although this car was not used by the Governor and Deputy Governor, it will still be used to fetch the Provincial’s guests.

Li Mingde and told Feng Yu privately that this car’s performance was much better than the Governor’s car. The Governor was using Audi 200. But there was only one Take-Off, and it cost more than 1 million RMB. The governor was afraid that people might talk behind his back.

Feng Yu had not thought of this. But he would never agree to give the Provincial Government a few more cars.

Giving these people such good cars will also not increase their sales. The money could be put to better use, like donating to some schools.

When the ceremony was over, it was one hour later. The rest of the people starts to leave. However, Feng Yu and Li Mingde remained in the Governor’s office.

“This is the reply from the State Council. The two of you can take a look and voice out if you have any problems.”

Li Mingde took the letter and passed to Feng Yu. Feng Yu start reading the letter carefully.

The Machinery Company will be allowed to get talents from graduating students like the rest of the government agencies.

Although the university graduates were now assigned jobs by the government, the best students were generally assigned to the central government agencies first.

After the central government agencies had picked the students they wanted, the provincial governments will select from the remaining students. This will carry on down the hierarchy. The students that were left behind were then be assigned to the private enterprises.

Of course, if the student had some units in mind, they can apply for it. Most of the graduating students who asked to return to their hometown will be approved. But it was difficult for them to apply for a job in the Central Government.

Some students would give up their assigned jobs. However, the government will no longer take care of them. Under normal circumstances, the universities will persuade these students.

No matter what, it was still tough for private entities to recruit university graduates. With this condition given by the government, the Machinery Company can compete with the rest of the government agencies for talents.

Feng Yu strike off this benefit. What the hell is this benefit? Who wants these students? I can hold recruitment talks and look for talents myself. Who wants these leftovers from the state-owned enterprises?!

Feng Yu was not very satisfied with some benefits. Although these benefits might help the Machinery Company in some ways, it was not a lot of help. They make it like they were doing the Machinery Company a great favor. Bing City Machinery Company was no longer a state-owned enterprise, and the benefits it received in the past was way better than what was offered now.

The last benefits that were given to the Machinery Company were specially catered for them. Export tax rebate!

What was this export tax rebate? Companies will have to pay taxes to export their products overseas in China. This tax rebate meant that the government will give them rebates for their exportations. This will reduce the cost significantly and increase their competitiveness against competitors.

For the Machinery Company, this benefit will increase their profits a lot. This was the country’s way of helping the Machinery Company earn money from other countries.

Feng Yu passed the documents back to Li Mingde and looked at the Governor” Secretary Xu, these are the benefits given to us. Can we refuse some of these?”

“Hahaha, Zhang Ruiqiang was right about you. Just tell Zhang Ruiqiang which benefits you do not want and let him write a report to cancel it. He had tried his best to get these benefits for you and yet you are still so picky.” Secretary Xu laughed.

“Thank you, leader, for the help you have given to the Machinery Company. Can you do me one more favor? The last time when we delivered a batch of cars to Russia, there was a delay of a few days for loading. This had disrupted my Russian partner’s business. Can you help to assign a few train carriages specially to us?” Feng Yu asked.

“Tell this to Zhang Ruiqiang. Ask him to settle this for you.”

When Feng Yu walked out of the Governor’s office, he had an unhappy expression on his face. He might not get any benefits if he were to ask Zhang Ruiqiang for help. Secretary Xu was too stingy. It’s only a few train carriages, and I still got to look for Zhang Ruiqiang. Feng Yu had forgotten that there was a shortage of train carriages in China at that time.

But overall, Feng Yu was still glad that he was able to get these benefits and he could finally return to the district and have a good rest.

Chapter 470 – Brothers in bad mood

Back at the district, Feng Yu went to look for Li Na. But Li Na’s father was not happy to see him. He could tell that Feng Yu was going after his daughter.

But everyone around him sang praises about Feng Yu. Feng Yu’s father owns a factory, and his family was wealthy. Feng Yu was also a student at the prestigious Beijing University. He was good looking and have many good qualities. The more people praise Feng Yu, the more Li Na’s father dislike him. He felt that Feng Yu was not dependable.

He had heard rumors of young couples getting pregnant, and the boy asked the girl to go for abortion. These guys were mostly the second generation of government officials and businessmen.

Li Na’s father had heard that Feng Yu was very mischievous since young and was a lousy student. He had even fallen into an ice hole. He had also heard that his family had spent money to get Feng Yu into Third High School and Beijing University.

How can Li Na depend on him? His daughter was also a top student at Beijing Teaching University. She will be teaching at one of the high schools in the future. Maybe she will be working at the Education Ministry in the future. There was no need for her to depend on Feng Yu.

Li Na’s father just does not like Feng Yu!

Feng Yu also did not know how he offended Li Na’s father. He felt that his looks, height, studies were all doing well. Why does he still dislike him?

If it wasn’t for Li Na’s mother, Feng Yu might not even get to enter Li Na’s house!

The more Li Na’s father dislikes him, the more Feng Yu does not want to please him. He can wait until his status to be at a level where Li Na’s father cannot oppose him and Li Na!

When he returned home, Feng Yu was sulking. Zhang Muhua saw him and asked him what happened. When she knew that Li Na’s father looks down on Feng Yu, she was furious!

“What did you say? I will look for him now! How can he look down on my son? Who is he to look down on my son?”

“Mum, calm down. Why are you shouting? The neighbors will hear you.” Feng Yu quickly stopped his mother from going out. He regrets telling his mother what happened.

“Did you ask him why he dislikes you?”

“I also do not know the answer.” Feng Yu replied grumpily. He had asked Li Na about this, and she also does not know.

“I will go and look for Mdm Lee. She will help me find out what happened.”

“Which Mdm Lee?” Feng Yu asked.

“She is that matchmaker who had helped Zhang San’s second son find a partner. That Tian Laoliu’s daughter and Zhao Laowu’s nephew……”

“Mum, why are you so anxious?” Feng Yu was sweating. Mdm Lee was that famous matchmaker in the district.

“How can I not be anxious?”

“Mum, we are still schooling. We can talk about this in the future. Maybe Li Na’s father will change his mind when we graduate.” Feng Yu could settle this by himself. He does not want his mother to get involved. With her temper, she will make things worse.

Zhang Muhua said: “It’s a pity our district does not have the practice of engagement. If not, both of you can get engaged first.”

“Alright. Mum, don’t worry about me. I will go and look for Dongjun now. Don’t tell dad about this.”

Feng Yu left, and Zhang Muhua immediately pick up the phone: “Hello? Old Feng, I need to tell you something. That girl’s family does not like our son. Which girl? That pretty girl from the Li family. The one studying at Beijing Teaching University……”

At Wen Dongjun’s house, Feng Yu saw Wen Dongjun looking listlessly. Feng Yu thought that Wen Donngjun could cheer him up, but it seems that he was in a worse position than him. The both of them were not in the mood to do anything. So, they decided to play Chinese chess. Maybe playing chess can cheer them up.

“Sigh……”

“Stop sighing! Hurry up and make your move!” Feng Yu said in an irritated manner.

“Checkmate!”

“What checkmate? That piece is a horse and not an elephant!” Feng Yu was furious. Why can’t he play chess properly?

“I am not in the mood to play chess!” Wen Dongjun said in a foul mood.

“What’s wrong with you?” Feng Yu asked.

Wen Dongjun should not be feeling so down. His father had been promoted and had done well in his work. Feng Yu heard that Uncle Wen might be promoted again next year.

Feng Yu had also taught Wen Dongjun about shares trading and last year, he had sold off all his shares before the sudden drop in prices. This year, Wen Dongjun had bought the shares again, and the prices of the stocks were rising steadily. He will make lots of money when he sells the shares in February.

If Wen Dongjun’s family does not have any problems, then the issue should lie with him. But Dongjun’s result was still fine. He did not fail any of his subjects. What’s there to be irritated about?

“Zhang Han’s father was transferred to Beijing! He was promoted to the Vice-minister of the Public Security and Beijing City’s Chief of Police!”

Feng Yu raised his brows. This was a good thing. Zhang Han’s father was in his 50s and should be able to work for some years more. Maybe he will be promoted to be a ministry before he retires. Even if he was not promoted, he got more authority now. Why was Wen Dongjun unhappy?

“Doesn’t her family know about you? You had gone to her house last year. What’s wrong? Her father opposes both of you?”

“No. But after her father was transferred to Beijing, Zhang Han got to return home during the weekends……” Wen Dongjun said.

Wen Dongjun had already bedded Zhang Han, and he thought they would be able to spend their weekends in hotels.

But now, all his weekend plans were gone!

Damn, I still thought what had happened. This moron!

“The both of you are in the same school. Why must you wait until the weekends? Why can’t you go on weekdays?” Feng Yu asked.

“The school will check the dormitory on weekdays.” Wen Dongjun replied.

“They will be strict with the first year. Will the teachers still be so strict to the year 2 students? Furthermore, what’s wrong with spending the night outside of the dormitory? Sell off your shares before you go back. You will have enough money to buy two apartments near to your school! You can tell your teachers that your house is just outside the school. Will the teachers still forbid you to stay out of the dormitory at night? If they still disagree, just give them some gifts.”

Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun and wondered why his best friend was so stupid! He was not a good student in the first place. Why should he bother with the teachers checking the dormitory at night?

Wen Dongjun brightens up: “That’s right. We can go out on weekdays. Why I did not think of this earlier? Come, let’s play chess!”

Feng Yu: “……”

“Carry on with the game. Why are you not making your move? Is it my turn? Checkmate!”

“Check your head! I do not want to play anymore!” Feng Yu was furious!

Damn, now your mood is better, and shouldn’t you be asking about me?

“Eh? You also seem to be a bad mood.”

Feng Yu felt better. This moron finally noticed that he was in a bad mood.

“Your mood will be better if you play some chess. You are the one who said this. Hurry up and continue! Checkmate! It’s your turn.”

Feng Yu: “……”

Chapter 471 – He is finally here

“What? The leader is here? Good. I will reach in the evenings!” Feng Yu had stayed at home for two days, and he finally received a call from Hou Haitao. The Military leader was finally here.

This leader was supposed to visit Bing City Aviation before the New Year and at the same time inspect Hou Haitao’s work. But the leader had something on and postponed his trip. Feng Yu had been waiting for him.

Now, the leader was finally here. Feng Yu immediately return to Bing City. If he could get the military to order his cars, then Songjiang Motors will have no more worries!

……

“General Gan, this is Feng Yu, General Manager of Bing City’s Machinery Company. Manager Feng, this is General Gan, from Shenyang Army.”

Although General Gan had heard of Feng Yu, he was still surprised to see Feng Yu. This was the person who was praised by the Chief Architect?

“Manager Feng, I heard that you wanted to meet me?”

Feng Yu was looking down at this person. Hou Haitao did not tell you why I wanted to meet you? But Feng Yu looked at General Gan’s shoulders. Lieutenant General? His position was not low. Can he make the decisions?

“General Gan, I am wondering if the army needs vehicles? Our Songjiang Motors had won a national level award, and even the Chief Architect had praised our cars. Also, our cars are also exported to Russia. Director Hou also knows about this.”

One of the reasons why General Gan came to Bing City’s Aviation factory was to look at Songjiang Motors vehicles. The military does have intentions to procure a batch of new military vehicles. The army had been using Jeep. The performance of Jeep was only mediocre and often breakdowns.

The higher ups had decided to purchase a batch of good military use vehicles. These vehicles will be used by the leaders. They had contacted Japan and US automobile manufacturers, but the prices were too high. One vehicle cost over 300,000 RMB.

In one of Hou Haitao’s report, he mentioned that Bing City’s Machinery Company had developed their own Off-Roads vehicles. Not only the exterior was well designed, but the performance was also great. The prices were also not high. However, the higher ups do not want to buy the Songjiang brand.

They had the impression that China domestic cars were not good. The best off-road vehicle in China was still Jeep’s J2020 model. Jeep was an established brand and specialized in this category of vehicles.

The military could not afford to buy vehicles from Japan and the US. When they were about to go to Beijing’s Jeep company to talk about their purchase, the Chief Architect went to Longjiang Province and had visited Bing City’s Machinery Company. The Chief Architect had praised Songjiang Motors vehicles!

The military remembered that Hou Haitao had recommended this company’s vehicles to them before. Since China’s top leader had praised this brand of cars, they should also show their support.

The military leaders asked around in the market and found that Songjiang Motors Off-Road was much better than Jeep J2020. They were satisfied with the vehicle’s performance, but the prices were too high. One Songjiang Motors Off-Road was equivalent to 2 to 3 Jeep cars.

The leaders had to rethink if they should purchase the Songjiang brand.

The leaders had different opinions, and the officer-in-charge of procurement had to report to the higher-ups for them to make the decision.

Discussions were made by the higher-ups, and this caused delays. This was why General Gan got to postpone his trip to Bing City.

General Gan, who was representing the Logistic department, was here to negotiate with Feng Yu to see if the military could get discounts.

The military knew that Songjiang Motors were exporting their vehicles to Russia. This shows that there were no problems with Songjiang Motors vehicles.

Now, Feng Yu had brought up this matter first, and General Gan had the upper hand. He could make use of this to suppress the price of the vehicles.

“Eh, Manager Feng, I cannot really help you about this. Old Hou had told us about your cars. But your cars are too expensive. Look at Beijing’s Jeep. Their latest model’s retail price is less than 80,000 RMB, and their cheapest model is selling for 60,000 RMB. If we make a bulk purchase, we will still get discounts. Your cars really cannot compete with them.” General Gan said this purposely.

“You get what you pay. General Gan can get experts to test the quality of our cars. Also, our cars have bigger space than Jeep. It is a 7-seater, and it can even fit 10 people. Our Off-Road also have more power and is more stable. It is also more fuel efficient. There are too many features that win Jeep.”

“But I can buy at least two Jeep with the amount of one Songjiang Off-Road. It is too expensive!” General Gan shook his head.

“General Gan, I had bought a Jeep before. There are too many problems. It breakdown often. Our army needs efficiency, and our soldiers need to be at a specific place within a specific time to complete their missions. If they were mobilized and their vehicles breakdown halfway, their mission would fail. There will not be such problems with our vehicles. Furthermore, if the leaders were to travel by Jeep, their bones will break from the suspension. How could they still give instructions to the soldiers? Our suspension is much better, and our cars come in military green and camouflage colors. It is very suitable for military use.” Feng Yu continued with the features.

Feng Yu also made eye signals to Hou Haitao. I had given you 2 million, why are you not helping me?

Hao Haitao was also helpless. He should have gone to make tea. He was still under the military, and General Gan was his supervisor!

“General Gan, I heard that the Russian Army had also purchase Songjiang Off-Roads for military use.”

“Really? But Russia is rich. We do not have so much budget.”

If Russia really has money, the Soviet Union will not be disintegrated so fast. Although Russia had taken over most of the wealth, they also took over some of its debts. Also, Rubles had been depreciating, and the value of Russia’s assets was shrinking. Now, even Feng Yu and Kirilenko no longer use Rubles to trade.

No USD? We accept Pounds, Franc, Yen or whatever currency you have, except for Rubles!

Kirilenko had made two orders with Tai Hua Trading. One was for 300 Songjiang Olympic, and the other was for 200 Songjiang Off-Roads. Feng Yu was also not sure if the Off-Roads were for the Russian Army, but Bing City claims that those were sold to the Russian military.

Feng Yu could tell that General Gan had the intentions of purchasing his cars but could not accept the pricing. Fine. As long as the military was willing to buy his vehicles, Feng Yu was ready to earn lesser.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Beijing Jeep was able to survive because of China’s army. Beijing Jeep was even China’s top vehicle sales for one year. Their annual production had crossed the 50,000 units marked two years ago. Jeep was the leader of China’s automobile industry.

If Songjiang Motors could get a deal with China’s army, they will also be like Beijing Jeep. The Chinese will trust their brand more. This was the reason why Feng Yu wanted this deal badly.

“Then General Gan, how much do you want for one vehicle? If we are able to keep our cost, we can try to work a deal out. We will just treat this as supporting our military!” Feng Yu said after pausing for a while.

General Gan was overjoyed. He was waiting for Feng Yu to say this!

Chapter 472 – Hao Haitao’s fustrations

“150,000 RMB per unit.”

“General Gan, are you joking? We did not even sell our cars to Bing City government at this price. We would make losses if we were to sell you at this price.”

Feng Yu was not lying. Songjiang Motors Off-Road’s cost was about 160,000 RMB for both the diesel and petrol models. This was because the Machinery Company’s technologies were not good enough to lower the cost. But if Beijing Jeep were to use these technologies to build the Off-Road vehicles, their cost would be at least 200,000 RMB!

General Gan saw Feng Yu’s attitude and knew that the price he wanted was too low. Although Hao Haitao does not know how much the cost was, his Aviation Factory estimated the value of one vehicle to be about 150,000 to 170,000 RMB. He had told General Gan about his estimation, and he would not get involved with the pricing negotiations.

“Then how much does Manager Feng want for one vehicle?” General Gan asked.

Feng Yu suddenly turned and look at Hou Haitao without saying a word. Hou Haitao looked at himself and then asked: “Manager Feng, why are you looking at me?”

“Director Hou, is the Aviation Factory going to purchase our Songjiang Motors vehicles?”

“No.” We are also manufacturing vehicles. Why should we purchase yours?

“Then why are you still here?” Feng Yu looked at Hao Haitao surprised.

Hao Haitao opened his mouth and looked at Feng Yu. Damn. What’s the meaning of this? This is Bing City’s Aviation Factory, and this is my office! Why am I being treated like an outsider?!

General Gan did not say anything. This meant that General Gan also agreed to speak with Feng Yu privately.

Hou Haitao left his office sulking. At the door, his secretary saw him and stood up: “Director, are you looking for me?”

“Follow me to the workshops.” Damn. I am being chased out of my own office by two outsiders! Fine! I will not get involved in this deal. Don’t blame me if this deal fails!

Hao Haitao’s secretary looked at Hao Haitao’s office. How come Director Hou came out alone? Feng Yu and General Gan were still inside the office?

“General Gan, is the army only going to purchase Songjiang Off-Roads?”

“It will depend on the situation.” General Gan gave a vague answer.

Feng Yu understood when he heard General Gan’s reply. These leaders also wanted other models, but the higher-ups might not approve. Those Off-Roads can be used for military training, but they can’t use the same excuse for the other models. Who will use the other models during wars?

“General Gan, I suggest purchasing our Songjiang Off-Roads Diesel engine. It has more torque and suits many types of road conditions. Also, at the back of the vehicle, you can choose to put passenger seats to increase the capacity or remove the seats to transport logistics. I will sell you this model at a wholesale price of 200,000 RMB per unit.”

China’s diesel quality was not good, and diesel engines need to be maintained regularly. But this was not a problem. The Jeep J2020. Which the army was using now, requires repairs on a weekly basis. The mechanics in the army were well trained because of this reason.

“200,000 RMB? It is too expensive. Your cost is also not that high. I had also heard that the vehicles you sold to CCTV were also not so expensive.” General Gan shook his head.

“CCTV had bought the petrol model, and CCTV also gave me some benefits for our advertisements. In reality, CCTV had paid more than 200,000 RMB.

“But this is also too expensive. The number of vehicles we needed is a lot. With this price, the higher-ups will not approve.”

“General Gan, calm down. I still have not finished. To show our support for the military, we had decided to give one Olympic model, Prestige edition to the army for every 10 Songjiang Off-Roads you purchase. This Songjiang Olympic Luxury version cost more than 200,000 RMB. If you purchase 1,000 Off-Roads, we will add in 100 Olympic cars!” Feng Yu said and showed his index finger.

What? Free Olympic model? Buy 10 free 1?

General Gan looked at Feng Yu. This kid knows what he wanted. All the leaders in the army had wanted to change cars. Most of the leaders in the military were still using the old Red Flag vehicles. There were only a few Audi 100 in the army. Needless to say, there were no Audi 200.

Now, the higher-ups had approved the budget to purchase new vehicles. But if they were to buy luxury cars, they will not be able to answer to the higher ups. Feng Yu’s proposal would solve this problem. The leaders will get new cars, and they will still be able to explain to the higher-ups.

Feng Yu lifted his tea and slowly drank it. This method was not thought up by him. He got this idea from the military leaders from his previous life. Feng Yu had thought this was a joke. But it seems that this joke was really useful.

“Only Songjiang Motors Olympic model?” General Gan asked.

Feng Yu raised his eyebrows. General Gan was interested.

“I can give you other models, including Songjiang Motors Red Star. But it will not be 1 car for every 10 vehicles purchased. We can discuss the details.” Feng Yu smiled.

“Ermm…… I cannot make the decision now. But we will consider your proposal. I will report to my leaders and will give you a reply once they decided.” General Gan thought for a while and reply.

General Gan had not thought of this method. Now, Feng Yu had made this proposal, and he needs to revisit their procurement plans. They might increase the numbers of vehicles because of this proposal. They had plans to purchase more Jeeps later this year. Now, it was confirmed that they will not take Japanese and Americans cars into consideration.

“Then I will wait for your good news. After your confirmation, I will let my factories to increase our production. We will prepare the military orders first.” Feng Yu stood up and shook hands with General Gan.

Hou Haitao had gone to the workshops to make supervisory rounds. He thought the negotiations between both of them will break down. Without him around, one side would try to suppress the price, and the other would try to increase the amount. How can the both of them work out a deal?

But Hou Haitao saw the both of them walked out of his office full of smiles. General Gan had even walked Feng Yu out to the door.

Hou Haitao’s eyes opened wide. What the hell was happening? The both of them had worked out a deal? Impossible. There was a significant difference between the prices in their minds. Their negotiations will also not go on so smoothly even if the talks did not break down. How did they work things out?

“Director Hou, I will make a move first. I still need to return to the Machinery Company to ask them to increase the production.” Feng Yu waved to Hou Haitao and left.

Hou Haitao looked at Feng Yu’s back view and then turn to General Gan in a daze.

“Old Hou?” General Gan waved his hand in front of Hao Haitao.

“Ah…. The both of you had worked out a deal?” Hou Haitao asked. This was unbelievable.

“We still have not finalized the details, but we do work out some things. I still need to report to the leaders before we can confirm this deal. What’s wrong? You seem to be unhappy to hear that we had worked out a deal.” General Gan looked at Hou Haitao. You are the one who introduced Feng Yu to me. Furthermore, your Aviation Factory only manufactures vans. Your vehicles are not suitable for military use.

“No, how can I be unhappy? We will be meeting Deputy Commander Wang from the Provincial Army later in the afternoon.” Happy? What’s there to be pleased about? How come they could work out a deal in such a short time?

“I need to make a call to the leaders to report about Feng Yu’s proposal. Old Hou, lend me your office phone.”

Banged.

Hou Haitao was speechless. Damn, I am lockout of my own office again? Whose office is this?!

Chapter 473 – Good Cop Bad Cop

Feng Yu returned to the Machinery Company and chatted with Li Mingde for a while. After the New year, Songjiang Motors vehicles started airing their advertisements on CCTV. At the same time, printed advertisements were published in many provinces’ newspaper.

As Songjiang Motors had appeared on CCTV and Bing City had made a bulk purchase, people started to take note of Songjiang Motor vehicles. But the sales did not increase. The Machinery Company was still stocking up on the cars.

Feng Yu and the rest were prepared for this. Their vehicles were expensive and regular families could not afford. Also, Songjiang brand was not well known. Even with the aggressive marketing efforts, their sales could not increase immediately.

Luckily Kirilenko had bought their cars. Feng Yu believed that his warehouse would not be pack with unsold cars by Winter this year. He could still recover part of his investments. Feng Yu looked at the sales figures and noticed that the Olympic model was the bestselling model. Red Star and Off-Roads were not selling well.

Feng Yu was wondering if the Red Star model was introduced into the market too early. Do the people now do not like this type of business cars? Business cars’ exterior design was not as rugged as the Off-Roads and not as beautiful as the smaller saloon cars. But this model was efficient and comfortable.

Fu Guangzheng had also conducted a market survey about this model in the Southern region. He felt that there should be a market for this model. When the branch factory in Guangdong was ready, this model should be manufactured there. Southeast provinces were the first to become prosperous. There were many wealthy businessmen there. The sales of this model should be better there.

The other branch factory should manufacture Songjiang Off-Roads. They should focus on producing the diesel engine model more. The petrol engine Off-Road model could still not win J2020. Jeep J2020 was too cheap.

Li Mingde also agreed. They should manufacture more of the better selling models. The Machinery Company was also short of funds. Those unsold vehicles had locked up most of their funds. Feng Yu still insist on not lessening the R&D investments. Although the Machinery Company’s production had increased, their profits had decreased.

The profits from vehicles were much lesser than Agriculture machines and motorcycles. Also, the City had given the Machinery Company tax exemption, Feng Yu could not let Tai Hua Trading be the primary distributor or use the funds from Tai Hua Trading. The City had only given the Machinery Company tax exemption but not Tai Hua Trading!

3 days later, Feng Yu received a call from Hao Haitao asking him to go to the Aviation Factory to talk about the military deal.

If it weren’t because General Gan was a higher rank than Hou Haitao, he would never make this call. Why can’t the talks be at the Machinery Company? Why must they pick the Aviation factory?

This time, Hao Haitao will never allow the negotiations to be in his office. If both of you wants to talk, go to the meeting room!

……

Feng Yu and Li Mingde arrived at the Aviation Factory’s meeting room. When they entered the room, they were almost blinded by the shiny medals!

Damn. This was only the talks about the details of the contract. Was there a need to mobilize 6 generals? Other than General Gan, the other 5 were all Major General!

Hao Haitao greeted the generals and left. He was not interested in being present at this meeting.

“Good morning, Manager Feng.” A Major General stretched out his hand towards Li Mingde.

Li Mingde looked at Feng Yu embarrassed and turned towards the Major General: “I am Li Mingde. This is our Machinery Company’s main shareholder, Feng Yu, Manager Feng.”

That Major General looked at Feng Yu and then General Gan. He saw General Gan nodded to him. This young man was the major shareholder of the Machinery Company?

Feng Yu asked loudly: “General Gan, have you all decided? Are we signing the contract today?” Feng Yu pretended not to see that Major General’s outstretched hand.

I am a petty person, what can you do?

“Cough…… Manager Feng, we can’t sign the contract immediately. We still have not decided whether to buy your cars.” General Gan replied and stared at that Major General.

“Huh? You received better offers than us?” Feng Yu asked.

Since the military had sent so many generals here for the talks, they will definitely buy Songjiang Motors vehicles. They only want to press the prices down and get better conditions.

Feng Yu does not care about all these people. Although he was not a good negotiator, and Li Mingde was also not much better, but he was confident that he was better than these people from the military. In his previous life, the military had made several purchases at higher prices. This was because these generals do not know how to negotiate.

“Of course. Beijing Jeep. We had bought their Jeeps more than once. Their vehicles were really well built.” It was still that Major General who replied.

Feng Yu glanced at him. There were 5 Major General and 1 Lieutenant General in this room. Why was this guy so talkative? Feng Yu does not know that this procurement of vehicles had been handled by this Major General. He had been buying Beijing Jeep for the military. The boss of Beijing Jeep and he were relatives.

“Oh, then why didn’t you continue to buy from Beijing Jeep? I don’t want to flaunt, but our vehicle can still be driven after banging into 5 Beijing Jeep J2020!” Feng Yu said proudly.

The military generals were dumbfounded. This was the first time they heard of such comparisons.

“Manager Feng, we shall not speak about other things. Your Songjiang Off-Roads specifications are outstanding. We are interested in purchasing your cars. But the prices are too high.” General Gan said.

“Is it costly? I shall still say the same thing. You get what you paid. The Russian Army had placed orders with us. This shows that our vehicles are of good quality. Also, the prices for the Russians are much higher than what I offered to you. I had already offered you a free car for every 10 vehicles you purchase. Can Beijing Jeep give you such an attractive offer?”

“The amount used to buy 10 cars from you, is enough to buy more than 20 Jeeps. Is there still a need for free gifts?” it was the same Major General.

“Then why don’t you go to Beijing Jeep?” Feng Yu asked him back.

“Manager Feng, we are very sincere to work with you.  Also, we are representing the military, the country.”

Feng Yu glanced at General Gan: “The country can take advantage of us commoners? If it weren’t for the sake of the military protecting our country, I would not even offer you buy 10 free 1!”

General Gan almost vomit blood. Who wants to take advantage of you? We want to buy things from you and shouldn’t we haggle on the prices?! He had wanted to make use of the country and military to press the prices down. But Feng Yu used the same reason to prevent them from doing so.

“From our estimation, your cost per unit is not more than 170,000 RMB. Yet you want to sell us at 200,000 RMB per unit? This rate is not considered high?” A bespectacled Major General said.

Feng Yu lifted one finger and asked: “Where did you get this 170,000 RMB? Do you know our Machinery Company’s workers are getting at least 20% more wages than other factories? Do you know our workers are getting month rewards every month? Do you know how much we spent on the production lines and factories? Do you know how much we invested in those technologies? You do not know about these and how can you determine our cost? Did you estimate the cost of our vehicles by weight?”

Cost? You are not the who determine how much cost per vehicle. We are the ones who decide the value of the car. Your military personnel can come and check our Machinery Company’s accounts? Even Bing City Government will not agree to you checking on our accounts!

We shall see who will win from this negotiation.

Chapter 474 – Good Cop Bad Cop (Part 2)

After Feng Yu finished, he looked at Li Mingde. Li Mingde immediately got the hint. He did give the other party had a chance to speak: “The cars we sold to Russia were much more expensive than what we offered you. Also, we are able to make some profits because of the export tax exemptions. Now, our Machinery Company is not making money, and we might even make losses. We are also not a wholly private company. Other than Manager Feng and Manager Fu, Bing City Government is only a shareholder of the company. We also represent China.”

The other party wanted to say something, but Feng Yu continued: “Our Bing City Machinery Company have employed a few thousand workers. If we include the retired workers and the workers’ families, it will be tens of thousands of people depending on our company. If base on what you wanted, we should sell you the vehicles at a loss, then how are we going to pay the workers’ salaries? How will our workers’ families survive?”

“Manager Feng, listen to me. We have never say that you should sell us the cars at a loss. We only hope that you will lower the prices. After all, we are spending the government’s money.”

Feng Yu really wanted to tell him that they are spending our taxpayers’ money.

“Then how much do you want?”

“190,000 RMB and it will still be 1 free vehicle for every 10 cars purchased. Also, every 100 vehicles, you have to give us one more luxury edition Olympic model.”

Damn. This price was almost the Machinery Company’s cost of production.

Before Feng Yu could answer, Li Mingde declined this proposal: “Sorry. 190,000 RMB and an additional condition of buy 100 free 1 vehicle are not acceptable. We refuse to accept this! We had made it very clear. Our company also need to feed a lot of people. We would rather not sell our vehicles than to sell our cars at a loss.

Furthermore, it is not like our cars could not find buyers. Other than the Russians, we had received two orders from other cities. Their prices were much higher then what we offered to you. 200,000 RMB per vehicle and 1 free vehicle for every 10 purchases. This is our best offer.”

“Manager Feng, didn’t you say that you will support China’s military and will give us a good offer? How come you are singing a different tune now?”

Feng Yu pretended to be troubled and looked at Li Mingde: “Old Li, why not we give the army a few more Luxury editions of the Olympic model? We should take up their additional condition of 1 free vehicle for every 100 purchases. We will just accept this loss.”

Li Mingde saw Feng Yu’s hand gestures below the table and said righteously: “Manager Feng, you are not the one who call the shots at the Machinery Company. I am the General Manager, and I should be in charge of running the company! How can I answer to the workers if we are going to sell it at such low prices?”

“Old Li, how can you say this? I am the main shareholder of the company, and this is settled. I call the shots in the company! General Gan, let’s sign the contract now.”

General Gan and the rest were stunned. What contract? Did we even agree to your terms?

But the generals saw Feng Yu and Li Mingde started to argue. If they continued to press the prices down further, the talks would break down. The higher-ups had told them that the top officials like Songjiang Motors vehicles. They had even praised these vehicles publicly. How can they not purchase a batch of these vehicles?

In the meeting room, the Major Generals who did not even get an opportunity to speak were frustrated. It seems like they no longer had the chance to talk in this meeting!

Li Mingde saw the generals did not agree immediately, he continued with his act: “Manager Feng, you cannot sign this contract. I am the General Manager, and I need to be responsible for the company. Manager Fu also had not agreed to this deal!”

“Eh….. We had agreed that I am the one in charge of sales. Even if Manager Fu is here, he also has to listen to me!” Feng Yu said in an unpleasant tone.

General Gan turned to the one beside him: “The two of you should have a chat with Manager Li.”

Two Major Generals stood up and dragged Li Mingde out of the meeting. On the way out, Li Mingde starts to curse and swear at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was speechless. This Li Mingde was putting up a performance, or he was taking this opportunity to curse him?

“Manager Feng, those unimportant people had left. Can we continue with the minor details of the contract?” General Gan smiled.

“What minor details do we need to discuss?” Feng Yu frowned. This old man still want to haggle?

“The terms will remain the same. Our purchases are tax-free!” General Gan had said this confidently. This was his final card up his sleeves. Tax-free. You should lower your rates further.

General Gan did not want to mention this term. But he knew that Feng Yu would never lower the price if he did not add in this offer into the deal.

Feng Yu raised his eyebrows. Waive off the tax? If this offer was offered to him two years later, it would be very attractive. But this year, the Machinery Company’s automobile arm does not need to pay any taxes!

“I’m sorry. Our automobile factories do not need to pay tax this year!” Feng Yu replied calmly.

General Gan was in a daze. What? They do not need to pay taxes? He turned to the other Major Generals and saw that they were also in shocked!

“Manager Feng, if we are going to purchase more vehicles, can you give us a better price?” General Gan was no longer confident.

Feng Yu tapped on the table: “All of you should know what the actual rate is I am quoting you. It is less than 170,000 RMB. This amount is the same as your estimations of our cost. All of you had seen how Old Li reacted just now. I had only agreed to give you the Luxury version of the Olympic model, and he wants to complain to the Hong Kong shareholder. If I were to lower the price further, how will the workers view me?”

Feng Yu knew clearly that the military could afford to spend money in this era. China had been generous with their military spending. The rates he offered to the military was lower than what he provided to CCTV. If he were to lower the prices further, he would really make a loss.

It was just like what Li Mingde said just now. He would rather not sell than to sell these vehicles at a loss!

Despite getting some additional advantageous from this deal, General Gan was still not satisfied. His higher-ups were willing to accept this price, but it will also reflect the fact that he was not able to bargain it lower.

“Manager Feng, the Machinery Company also make motorcycles, right? The military also needs motorcycles. Why not you give us a few motorcycles as free gifts?” General Gan suddenly thought of this idea.

Feng Yu replied with a painful expression: “Fine. For every 100 vehicles, I will give you a motorcycle.”

“Manager Feng, your business is so successful. Don’t be so stingy. For every 100 vehicles, give us 10 Songjiang 125cc motorcycles.”

“Impossible! Two Songjiang 125cc motorcycles are my limit!” Feng Yu replied.

“Add in 2 more Songjiang 100 cc motorcycles. The army will not forget your contributions! We will give your Machinery Company a plaque!” General Gan waved his hand and said.

Damn. It’s only a plaque. You think the Machinery Company is a state-owned enterprise and need these plaques to get projects?

“Unless the army is willing to help us advertise.” Feng Yu threw what he wanted at General Gan.

“Huh? We help you advertise? No. How can the army help your company advertise?!” General Gan was going crazy. How could this Manager Feng make such suggestions?

“I do not need you to say anything. I just need the permission to publish some photographs. For example, soldiers standing beside our vehicles. The vehicles do not need military registration plates and will not state which unit the vehicles are from. Is this not allowed?”

“Ermmm…… Fine. Then for every 100 vehicles, give us one more Songjiang 125 cc.”

“I cannot give you one more Songjiang 125 cc motorcycle. I can only give you one more Songjiang 100cc motorcycle for every 100 vehicles.”

“Deal!”

Chapter 475 – Aggression

Li Mingde was furious when he was leaving the Aviation Factory. Hou Haitao also tried to help persuade and calm him down. But after he boarded the car, his facial expression changed back to normal. He asked excitedly: “Manager Feng, how was it? Is the contract signed? Show it to me now.”

Feng Yu threw the contract at Li Mingde. He was still sore from the cursing and swearing from Li Mingde earlier!

Li Mingde smiled: “Manager Feng, you are the one who asked me to act. How was my acting?”

“Very good. Especially the part where you point at me and start scolding me. It was spectacular. I thought you are scolding me for real!” Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Li Mingde must be waiting for this chance to scold me!

“Aiya…… It is all an act. I’m sorry. Let me see the contract. Let’s look at the contract first.” Li Mingde does not know how to continue with the conversation, so he chose to keep quiet.

Li Mingde flipped the contract, and the total number of vehicles was…… 3,000!!!

Li Mingde’s eyes opened wide. This was a huge order! He had discussed with Feng Yu and thought that the most the military would order was 1,000 vehicles! This was perfect! 3,000 cars!

Hmmm… For every 10 vehicles purchased, 1 Olympic model, Prestige edition will be given to them for free. Every 100 vehicles purchase, the Machinery Company give them one Songjiang Olympic Luxury edition vehicle + 2 Songjiang 125 cc motorcycles + 3 Songjiang 100 cc motorcycles. Although the profits from this deal was not a lot, it was better than none.

Li Mingde made a mental calculation. The profits were about 6,000 to 7,000 RMB per vehicle. 3,000 vehicles mean the gains will be almost 20 million!

“That’s great. Manager Feng, with this order, it will help with our marketing. Huh? Wait a minute. This is the military’s order, and we are not allowed to publicize this?” Li Mingde asked.

“Who says we cannot publicize this? Contact Longjiang newspaper, the evening newspapers and also our dealers in the other provinces immediately. We will publish an article on the papers about this deal. Not only we shall talk about this deal, but we must also show that we are not making money from this deal. We are doing this to contribute to the nation. Most importantly, get a few soldiers in full uniform to stand beside our camouflage paint Off-Roads. Take a series of pictures and publish it on the papers!”

Cannot publicize? If I cannot publicize this deal, why would I lower the rates for them? Earning only 6,000 to 7,000 RMB from a 200,000 RMB vehicle. The profits were not even 5%!

“What did you say? It is an offense to impersonate soldiers!” Li Mingde was shocked. Had Manager Feng gone crazy? This will offend the military.

“They had agreed. Get those that just retired from the army. They do not need to put on their ranks and medals. It would be better if we are able to get newly retired soldiers from the army, navy and air force. If they agree to be our models, I can give them a motorcycle each!” Feng Yu said. What’s there to be afraid of? Who wants to impersonate soldiers? Why can’t retired soldiers take pictures in their old uniforms?

The following two days, pictures of all sort of soldiers in their uniforms appeared in every newspaper in every province. If it was not February now, people might have thought it was nearing to People’s Liberation Army Day!

Other than the pictures on the newspaper, there were similar articles across all papers. Our army had purchased XX number of Songjiang Off-Roads vehicles. Our military had increased their combat power. The articles did not mention the exact figures for the number of vehicles bought and also how much stronger the military became. But coupled with the pictures, the readers all believed what was stated in the articles.

Many people also took note of the majestic looking Songjiang Off-Road vehicles in the pictures. No matter whether if they could afford this vehicle, all of them remembered this brand.

Those distributors in the different provinces also used this military’s order to speak to their local government.

In this era, the road conditions were not as good as the future years. Many of the roads leading to the counties were not cemented.

Those distributors took the opportunity to promote Songjiang Off-Roads vehicles. The body was high and have a powerful engine. The suspensions were also very good, and the interior was very spacious.

In the end, Songjiang Off-Roads were selling better than Songjiang Olympic models.

……

At the office of First Automobile Works Director, the head of departments had gathered together. The office was filled with smoke.

“Think of a solution and come up with a plan. If this carries on, our Audi 100 sales will not reach our target. Look at how Songjiang Motors sells their vehicles. Who was the one who said that we can ignore Songjiang Motors and they are not a threat to us?” Director Zhao knocked on the table and asked.

No one dares to say a word. Director Zhao had also agreed to that statement previous. Now, he turns around and starts to blame others.

“Songjiang Motors is only a stone throw away from us in Bing City. Yesterday, the counties around Jilin City had ordered Songjiang Motors. Don’t all of you feel embarrassed?”

Director Zhao was furious. His First Automobile Works had not started to suppress Songjiang Motors, but Songjiang Motors had already climbed onto their head. This was a disgrace!

“Director Zhao, we had looked into Songjiang Motors cars. Their performance is better than our vehicles. However, they had put in protection measures in their engines. We are not confident that we could dismantle the engine without damaging the core components.” One of the leaders said softly.

“Think of a way. What are the engineers and mechanics doing? How can we lose to a factory that makes tractors?” Director Zhao became more furious.

“Ok. Director Zhao, I will lead them to look into Songjiang Motors’ technologies.” That leader said and left the room. The rest of the leaders were cursing him in their hearts. You left the room, and we still have to bear the brunt of Director Zhao.

……

The director of Beijing Benz Automotive Co. was also furious. Songjiang Motors was detestable! They had snatched the military orders from them! If the army had used the same amount to purchase their Jeeps J2020, it would be almost a 10,000 vehicles order! That means they would exceed 100,000 vehicles sales this year!

“Sales department and technology department. Go back and reflect on yourselves! Find out where is the difference between our vehicles and theirs! Why they are able to snatch away the order from us?”

10,000 vehicles were a significant impact on them. The profit was at least tens of millions. They could do a lot with this amount!

Not only Songjiang Motors had snatched the military orders from Beijing Benz Automotive. Even their retail shops were affected. Many of their customers had said that their Jeeps were not as powerful as Songjiang Off-Roads after they test drive their Jeeps. This further lowers their sales.

What nonsense are they talking about? Our J2020 is only selling for how much and how much is Songjiang Off-Road selling for?

……

At Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, the director was also frustrated. They had confidently bought the Santana’s production line and thought that they could occupy the mid-low range automobile market segment. They wanted to be China’s top automobile manufacturer.

But the Songjiang Motors, who they looked down upon, suddenly entered this market segment. Not only they developed a better car than them, but the retail prices were almost the same as them. Also, Songjiang Motors was able to sell their vehicles all over China within a short time.

Their Santana sales had dropped drastically. Although they have an established brand, a long history, and acceptable sales figures, Songjiang Motors under the tagline of “Developed and made in China” will overtake them sooner or later!

All the major automobile manufacturers in China felt threaten by Songjiang Motors! But the Chief Architect had praised this company, and they can’t suppress this company openly.

You claim to have advanced technologies? We shall compete with technologies. I do not believe that after building cars for so many years, our techs will lose to a tractor factory.

All the state-owned enterprises started to develop newer technologies and Feng Yu returned back to Beijing.

Beijing Benz Automotive

Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation

Chapter 476 – Everybody wants to be exchange students (Part 1 of 3)

The first thing Feng Yu did was not to go back to class, gathering with friends or look for his teachers. He went straight to Beijing Teaching University to fetch Li Na.

The both of them had returned back to their schools early. They spent their days watching movies, shopping and visit amusement parks. Of course, sleeping together!

“Nana, if we are unable to meet for some time, will you miss me?” Feng Yu hugged Li Na and asked.

Li Na sat up and asked nervously: “What do you mean? Are you still worried about my father?”

Feng Yu laughed: “What are you thinking? I am not talking about your father. I am saying that I might be going to Hong Kong as an exchange student. I will not be able to visit you every weekend. But I will try to fly back every month.”

“Exchange student? What is that?” Li Na asked puzzledly. She had never heard of this term and was not sure what does it mean.

“I will be switching places with a student from Hong Kong University. I will attend Hong Kong University for a year, and that student will come to Beijing University for a year. I will return in year 4.” Feng Yu explained.

“Oh, that’s good. You can visit Hong Kong.” Li Na said enviously.

Feng Yu knocked his head: “I will talk to Hong Kong University and help you get a place as an exchange student.”

Li Na shook her head: “I cannot speak Cantonese, and my English is not good. I think I should not go. Furthermore, it should be quite troublesome to get a place.”

“This is only a small matter. I will just donate 1 million to that university, and they will arrange for you.” Feng Yu said.

“Huh? Need 1 million?! I do not want to go anymore. 1 million…… how many sacks of rice can you buy with 1 million?” Li Na was shocked.

Feng Yu rubbed Li Na’s nose: “I know you like to eat rice, but you shouldn’t use sacks of rice as comparison. 1 million to us is really nothing. I can earn it within minutes.”

Feng Yu was not bragging when he said this. He was confident of his trading skills, and he knew his skills were better than 99% of all the traders in this era. The analytic techniques Feng Yu learned in his previous life was not even developed yet. Also, he still has his memories from his previous life. For instance, he knew that the US market was having a bull run now and this will last for a few more years. Unless one is really unlucky, almost everybody who bought shares will make money!

If he invested 100 million, and the shares increase by 1%, it will be 1 million in profits. To Feng Yu, it was really a matter of a few minutes.

For the past year plus, Feng Yu had instructed Wind and Rain Consulting company to acquire Microsoft shares. This was the only shares he bought, and the number of shares he owns was increasing.

Feng Yu did not lose any money from his investments in Microsoft. No matter what price he bought the shares, the share prices will increase after a while.

But buying Microsoft shares had slowly used up Wind and Rain Consulting’s funds. Now, the company only have about 10 million USD left. Feng Yu let the traders in his company use this amount to trade. He did not tell them what to invest and make them polish up their trading skills.

Feng Yu was very satisfied with their performance. These traders had followed Feng Yu’s instructions to make risk-averse investments and practice hedging. Although the returns were low, they did not make any losses.

During 1997, these people will be useful to Feng Yu. Feng Yu will let those greedy wall street capitalists know who is the king of the financial world!

In the end, Li Na did not agree to go to Hong Kong. But Feng Yu told Li Na to visit him in Hong Kong during the October holidays. He will bring her around, and she agreed excitedly.

Li Na hugged Feng Yu around his waist and buried her head in his chest. She felt that she was the luckiest woman on earth.

But after hugging a while, Li Na felt Feng Yu’s hand roaming about on her body. She playfully slapped his hand, and Feng Yu said: “You cannot blame me. Who asked your body to be so tempting and you are not covering it up. I cannot resist your temptations. It is still early now. How about we have another round?”

“Early? It is almost midnight. Ahhhh…….”

The next morning, when Feng Yu opened his eyes, Li Na had already prepared breakfast. Feng Yu looked at his watch beside him. It was only 6 am. Seem like he should not let her rest last night. She still has the energy to make breakfast so early!

After breakfast, Feng Yu sent Li Na to school first before returning back to his university. His school reopens today!

After the lesson ended, the 6 dorm mates gathered in their dormitory. They had secretly brought liquor into their room, and each of them had brought snacks from their hometowns.

Although these snacks were not expensive, and some were even not hygienic, Feng Yu really enjoyed it.

“Lao Si (Number 4, they had numbered themselves based on their age. Feng Yu was the fourth oldest), I heard that our school had started a student exchange program with Hong Kong University.” Tian Lei suddenly said.

Feng Yu’s eyes twitched. Do these news travel so fast in this era?

“I know about this. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing much. I just want to congratulate you. I heard that you are selected for this program.” Tian Lei raised his glass.

Feng Yu laughed: “My friend had helped me.” Feng Yu does not want to explain. He does not want to say that he had used money and connections to be an exchange student to hide away from the higher-ups in Hong Kong.

The youngest asked curiously: “What is this student exchange program? How useful is it?”

“The exchange student will study in another school for some time. The student will get the chance to experience the culture of another place. But the student still has to pay school fees. I heard that Hong Kong University’s school fees are much more expensive than our university.” Feng Yu explained and told them the cons of being an exchange student to prevent others from wanting to be one.

In the room, other than Feng Yu and Tian Lei, the rest could not afford. But Feng Yu did not tell them that exchange students can also apply for scholarships.

Hong Kong University’s scholarship amount was much more than Beijing University!

“Huh? Then what’s the difference from spending money to study abroad? You will be spending money, and you still cannot get an overseas certificate. I will not go.” The youngest finished his wine in his glass in one gulp.

Tian Lei laughed and said: “You should work hard and get a spot as a research student overseas. I heard that the scholarships for research students overseas are a lot. You do not have to worry about your expenses, and you can even remit some of your money home. This exchange program is not very important. Only some people who think that Hong Kong is a better place would want to go.”

“You do not want to go?” Feng Yu asked.

Tian Lei shook his head: “I have not even considered being an exchange student. I will be gone for 1 year. Who will take care of Qingqing when I am gone?

Damn. This guy was not willing to be an exchange student was because he was afraid that his girlfriend would run off with other guys!

“We are not interested, but I heard that many people in our school are interested in getting a spot in this program. Especially your spot.” Tian Lei said.

Feng Yu frowned. Indeed, this exchange student’s spot was too attractive to many students.

I do not care what connections or background you have. If you dare to touch my spot, don’t blame me for being ruthless! If I really get pissed, I will stop this exchange program, and everyone has to remain here!

Chapter 477 – Everybody wants to be exchange students (Part 2 of 3)

“Director Li, these two bottles of Maotai is from my father. It is directly from the factory. You can’t get it outside.” A Chinese Literature year 2 student, Xiao Sun, placed his gift on the coffee table.

“Xiao Sun, why are you doing this?” Director Li said, but his eyes were fixated on those two bottles of Maotai. Oh, it was exclusive brewed. This Xiao Sun’s family was not simple.

“Director Li, I heard that our school have an exchange program with Hong Kong University next semester. Can I participate?” Xiao Sun looked at Professor Li.

Director Li was the director of the Chinese Literature faculty, and there were rumors that the student from Hong Kong University was a Chinese Literature student. Director Li will have a say in this exchange program.

Of course, Xiao Sun had not only gave Director Li gifts. He had given gifts to all the leaders. He had specially picked the gifts for each leader. He knows that Director Li likes to drink, and he especially got these bottles of Maotai for him

“Xiao Sun, this exchange program is not under my charge. Although the students from Hong Kong will be coming over to our Chinese Literature faculty, our students do not need to be from the same faculty.” Director Li was troubled. He wanted to accept this gift, but he felt that he could not help much.

“Director Li, when the higher ups ask you for recommendations, please recommend me. You don’t need to worry about anything else.”

“If that’s the case, it should not be a problem.” Director Li knew that Xiao Sun had already spoken to the other leaders.

“Thank you, Director Li. I will revisit you.” Before Xiao Sun left, he hinted that he will be giving more gifts if he became one of the exchange students.

“Xiao Sun, take these with you.” Director Li pretended to be angry.

“Director Li, I am staying in the dormitory. I cannot bring alcohol back. I am going back to practice my English.”

“Principal Chu, about my son becoming one of the exchange students?”

“Chief Zhao, I will help you settle this. There are 4 exchange students places. I will leave one spot for him. If he studied in Hong Kong for 1 year, he will get some overseas experience and will definitely enter the ministries and committees when he graduates. He will have a bright future!”

“Then I shall thank you in advance. Oh, there are some manpower movements in my department, and a divisional chief position is vacant. Your son had been a deputy divisional chief for almost two years. I think he is suitable to move up the ranks. In the future, his workload will increase. Don’t blame me for giving him too much work.” Chief Zhao joked.

“No, young men should work harder.” Principal Chu smiled. The both of them had completed their exchange of benefits.

“Secretary Lin, my girl’s results are the best in her faculty every semester. Don’t you think she should be one of the exchange students?”

“Mdm Liu, your daughter’s results are outstanding. But Hong Kong University does not have her course. If she were to go over as an exchange student, she would have to switch her major. If her results in Hong Kong is not good, it will affect her job postings in the future.”

“Secretary Lin, you don’t need to say so much. I am sick of all these nonsenses. I heard that one of the students in the Management faculty had got a place in the exchange student program. Hong Kong University also does not have Management courses. Why is that student allowed to go and not my daughter?” Mdm Liu was furious.

“That student is a bit special.”

“Special? What’s so special about him? Because his family does business? For someone from Longjiang province, what background does he have? What’s wrong? You are not giving my husband face?” Mdm Liu said with a black face.

“Mdm Liu, please calm down. I am not the one who has the final say in this. We still need to discuss. I will help you submit your daughter’s name. But whether if she will be selected, it will depend on our discussion.”

“Uncle, this exchange student will be sent to Hong Kong University? You must help me get a place. I have not even left Beijing my whole life. I want to study overseas and have a beautiful resume.”

“What overseas? Hong Kong is part of China!” Director of Student Affairs, Director Niu, said.

“Yes. But Hong Kong is still under British rule now. Uncle, with this experience, I will not have to worry about jobs after I graduate. I promise I will not disgrace you when I am in Hong Kong.”

“Don’t even think about this. Those people who had pulled strings have strong connections and backgrounds. I have a headache on who to recommend during the meeting.”

“Uncle, you are not the one who has the final say? You can just point out some flaws of the nominees.”

“Go out first. If things are this simple, I would have nominated you. Study hard. If you make any mistakes within these two months, you will not have any chances. Currently, you still have some hope.”

“Thank you.”

When school reopens, news of the student exchange program with Hong Kong University spread like wildfire. Those students with some connections and backgrounds tried all ways and means to be one of the exchange students.

There were 4 places, and all these students were vying for them. But since this exchange program was only selecting from Year 2 students, they stand higher chances.

These few days, all the leaders in the school had received phone calls, dinner invitations, and gifts. If it wasn’t for this program, the leaders still do not know so many students have strong backgrounds!

In comparison, Bureau Chiefs were considered low ranks. There were many students whose connections were ministries level. The school leaders were troubled.

The school leaders had a meeting to select the candidates for this exchange program.

“I think that these 4 students are very suitable. These are their files. Please take a look.” Director Niu passed the information to the rest of the leaders in the meeting. In the files, the student’s basic information and even their family members’ information were stated. Hmmm…. family’s information was the most crucial part of this selection process.

These 4 students had “greeted” the leaders and their backgrounds were deep. Someone from their family was at least a deputy ministerial level. One student was even the granddaughter of a minister. But that minister had retired to the back end.

“Four? Why is it four? Didn’t I ask you to submit only three names?” The Principal frowned. Although there were 4 places, one was reserved for Feng Yu. Director Niu was also aware of this.

“Principal, I can’t decide which of these students are better. I think if we can change the program slightly. Since Hong Kong University allows the duration of the exchange program to be one year, why not we change it into semesters? This way, we can have 8 places, and more students can participate in this program.” Director Niu asked.

The rest of the leaders’ faces brighten up. That’s right. Why didn’t they think of this? 8 places can be given to more students. This way, they will not offend those officials and still got their favors.

“Do we need to speak to Feng Yu first? After all, Feng Yu was the one who set up this exchange program.” The Vice Principal, who was the closest to Feng Yu, asked. Feng Yu had called him and told him straight that he had set up this exchange program for himself. If he cannot go, then this program will cease!

Director Niu patted his chest: “Leave this to me. I will speak to Feng Yu.”

Chapter 478 – Everybody wants to be exchange students (Part 3 of 3)

“Director Niu, are you looking for me?”

“Feng Yu, please take a seat. Tea? Young men should prefer green tea? I will help you brew a cup.”

Feng Yu was confused. This Director Niu was the director of student affairs in the university. Why was he so polite? He must be up to something.

“Director Niu, I am not thirsty. What do you want to say? The school needs my help?” Feng Yu thought that this should be about money. The school should need some money. I can donate some money to the school, but it is not so easy to get my donation. I must see the rewards first.

“Feng Yu, you are the one who set up this exchange program with Hong Kong University?” Director Niu asked.

Feng Yu’s face changed. Huh? He was after my spot as an exchange student. I had warned the vice principal. You want to ignore my warnings?

“Yes, I am the one. What’s wrong?”

Hearing Feng Yu’s change of tone, Director Niu immediately explained: “Feng Yu, don’t be mistaken. I only wanted to ask if this exchange program’s duration can be changed from 1 academic year to 1 semester? This way we can send more students to Hong Kong, and we can improve the relationship between mainland China and Hong Kong. There are also other benefits……”

Director Niu said all sort of reasons and Feng Yu looked at him: “Are you done?”

Director Niu was embarrassed: “Feng Yu, if you help the school, the school will not forget you. When you graduate, we will reserve a place for you as a research student.”

“Not interested.”

“How about we let you continue your studies until you reach Ph.D.? You can choose to take whatever major you want!” Director Niu said.

“Director Niu, what is the purpose of studying in University? Learn a new skill? If you want to put it nicely, this is called contributing for the nation. But the basics are still learning a skill to survive in the workplace, or you can call it survival skills.” Feng Yu paused and pointed to himself. “Do you think I need these?”

Director Niu smiled. Although he does not know Feng Yu well, he knew that Feng Yu’s family was very wealthy. If not, how could Feng Yu donate so much money to repair and build the school’s stadium and library? Feng Yu had also provided the research funds for a lot of professors and research students. He had spent more than what the government spends on this university!

This type of household does not need to further their studies. Feng Yu must be studying management to take over his family business in the future. Also, Feng Yu did not take on any positions in the school. This means he was not interested in going into the government sector after he graduates. Director Niu does not know what could make Feng Yu changed his mind.

But Director Niu really needs more slots in this exchange program. If he could get 6 places, then his nephew could enter this program. It would be better if there were 7 spots.

“Feng Yu, the university had been taking care of you. You had been taking leave, and the school had never penalized you, right?”

Feng Yu glanced at Director Niu: “I had donated a few million to the school last year!”

“The school also did not fail you when you skip the exams for two elective modules.”

Feng Yu: “I had donated a few million to the school last year!”

“You do not return to your dormitory frequently and even drove to school. The school also did not do anything to you, right?”

Feng Yu: “I had donated a few million to the school last year!”

Director Niu was at a loss of words. Stop telling me that you had donated money to the school.

“Feng Yu, we will not touch your spot. We only request you to change the duration for the rest of the students from 1 year into semesters. If not, other people will not find trouble with you.” Director Niu continued to persuade Feng Yu.

Feng Yu raised his eyebrows: “Without me, there will be no exchange program!”

“Feng Yu, it is essential to maintain a good relationship with your fellow schoolmates. Many of the leaders’ children want to take part in this program. If you help them, they will not forget your help.”

“That’s why I left 3 places with the school. The school can use these 3 places to win favors with those leaders. But if you dare to touch my place, then I will stop this exchange program! I am able to set up this exchange program, I am also able to cancel it!” Feng Yu sneered.

Since the day Director Niu became the Director of Student Affairs, he had never been so frustrated. Since when he had to bow down to a student? Even those Leaders’ children speak to him with respect. It was because his words would affect the students’ future in their workplaces.

But this Feng Yu was different. He will not be interested in the school’s job posting. Those students from affluent families will not be interested in working in the government sector.

Director Niu had contacted Hong Kong University, and the other side refused to change the duration into semesters and increase the number of students. This was the reason why Director Niu came to look for Feng Yu. If not, he would never want to speak to him.

“Feng Yu, if you help the school this time, other than the core modules, you do not need to attend the rest of your lessons. You will still graduate with honors. Honor graduate is a prestigious title, and I believe your parents will be glad, right?”

This offer hits the spot. Feng Yu rubbed his chin and felt that his parents will be elated if they found out he graduate with honors. Also, he does not need to attend lessons so often. For a lazy person like him, this offer was very attractive!

“Fine. I will ask my friend to speak to Hong Kong University. I will not promise you anything. Actually, the school can also contact the universities in Taiwan and Macau. With Hong Kong University as precedence, those universities might be willing to partner with our school.”

“We have contacted them. But no students are willing to go there. Taiwan does not have a good relationship with us and Macau is a gambling city. The parents do not agree to send their children over to these places.”

Feng Yu lips twitched. It must be no students from the other universities were interested in coming over.

……

Three days later, Feng Yu received a call from Fu Guangzheng: “It’s settled. Why are you so troublesome? At first, you wanted the duration to be 1 year. Then you want to change it into semesters. But you still do not want to change all the spots into semesters. Your own place remained as 1-year duration, and the rest of the spots had to change into semesters. Didn’t you said that you have lots of connections in Beijing University?”

“How do I know there are so many government officials’ students in my school? If I do not help them, they will bear grudges against me, and our businesses might be affected. This way, they will owe me a favor, and maybe we might need their help in the future.”

That’s right. Feng Yu had asked Director Niu to tell those students that he was the one who helped them get a place in the program. Feng Yu was not the kind who wants to remain anonymous after helping others. The students’ parents were senior officials with the government, and Feng Yu remembered that one of them will be promoted to one of the top officials in China.

After the places of this exchange program was settled, the school started a short course to teach Cantonese and Hong Kong’s culture. Feng Yu had also attended this course to let those students know who they should thank.

Feng Yu had helped them, and he must make sure these students and their families were grateful to him!

After the course, all the students went out for dinner. Feng Yu was treating them. When making payments, a photo dropped out of Feng Yu’s wallet accidentally. All the students’ face changed.

It was the photograph of Feng Yu and the Chief Architect.

Because of their family backgrounds, these students were arrogant and prideful. But at that moment, all of their attitudes changed.

Even if these students do not become close friends like Master Lu and Feng Yu, they will never choose to offend Feng Yu in anyways!

Feng Yu thought that after this exchange program problem was settled, he would be able to relax for a while. But his VCD players got into trouble again.

Chapter 479 – Feng Hua VCD (Part 1of 2)

“What did you say? There is a third VCD brand in the market?” Feng Yu frowned. Could it be that someone had developed better technologies to replace VCD?

This should not be possible. No one should be able to go around the video compressing technology. This must be an imitation. This new VCD brand had infringed his copyright! Feng Yu owns all the patents about this VCD.

But if these people were able to break the code and replicate this technology, it means they were skillful. Feng Yu felt that he should pouch these people over.

Feng Yu drove to the mall and walked to the VCD counter. There was indeed a third VCD player brand. Feng Hua Brand (Meaning: Wind and China, a combination of Wind and Rain, and Aiwa).

Even the name was copying my companies. This was apparently an imitation!

“Hi, can I take a look at that Feng Hua brand VCD player?” Feng Yu pointed to a VCD player and asked.

The counter staff looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu was very young, but she saw the watch Feng Yu was wearing. Also, Feng Yu was carrying a men’s handbag. This person must be very wealthy.

“Ok. This is the latest model of VCD player this year. Overseas celebrity had advertised for this brand, and it is very cheap. It only cost 2,900 RMB. It is cheaper than Wind and Rain and Aiwa brands by a few hundred!”

Latest model? Overseas celebrity endorsement?

Feng Yu looked at the pictures on the box of VCD player. Damn, the celebrity printed on the packaging looks like Madonna! Fine. She was indeed a famous international celebrity. But this VCD player was an imitation. How can they pay Madonna? This celebrity endorsement should also be fake.

But Madonna had never been to China and will not know her face and name was used to “endorse” an imitation product. She won’t be suing this company for damages! In Feng Yu’s previous life, many companies had used this trick to market their products.

“Can I test it?”

“Of course.” The Salesgirl connected the VD player and placed this year’s Gala Night VCD into the player.

Feng Yu had bought the exclusive rights of this program from CCTV for 1 million RMB. This VCD was given out free for every purchase of Wind and Rain and Aiwa VCD players. Now, this salesgirl was using his VCDs to test this Feng Hua VCD player!

The image quality was excellent. There were not choppy images, and the sound quality was clear. Feng Yu was shocked. This imitation was well made.

Feng Yu took out a hundred RMB note and passed it to the salesgirl: “Actually I am not buying this VCD player. Can you get me the contact details of the manufacturer?”

Feng Yu had looked at the packaging, and there was no contact information and manufacturing permit stated.

The salesgirl looked around and took out a name card from below the counter. She passed the name card to Feng Yu secretly: “Don’t let the manager see this.”

“Oh, how long has your store been selling this Feng Hua VCD player?”

“We started selling since Lunar New Year. This brand is cheaper and sells better than Wind and Rain and Aiwa brands. You cannot find this in other malls!”

Feng Yu frowned. This had been going on for quite some time, and Wu Zhigang had only just found out about this. This problem should lie with the distributors. They were the ones who order the stocks and how could they not aware of this?

……

“Hello, is this Manager Ou?” Feng Yu called the number on the name card. The name on the card was Ou Debao, and his title was General Manager.

“Speaking. Who is this?”

“I am from Da Hua Shopping Mall. I heard from my friend that you have cheaper VCD players for sale? I am thinking of getting some from you. Cash! Good. I will go over to look for you now.”

After hanging up, Feng Yu called Master Lu to borrow some men. He will not let this Ou Debao escape!

From afar, Feng Yu saw the person sitting by the window. He does not look like those typical unscrupulous businessmen. This bespectacled skinny man with messy hair looks more like a technician.

“Are you Feng Hua Company’s Ou Debao?”

“I am. Manager Feng?” Ou Debao stood up and extend a hand to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu shook Ou Debao’s hand and smiled: “I am from Aiwa Company. You really have the guts to turn up!”

Two muscular men standing by the door saw Feng Yu’s signal and came rushing in. They pinned Ou Debao down.

The restaurant owner came running over: “Stop fighting. I will call the police!”

One of the men took out an identification card: “We are the police and is here to arrest a suspect. You want to interfere?”

The restaurant owner moved two steps back: “No, no. Do you need help? I can get my men from the kitchen to help you.”

“What are you all doing? What crimes did I commit?” Ou Debao was shocked. He started to struggle and shout.

“Shut up. You do not know what crimes you had committed?”

Ou Debao was escorted to into Feng Yu’s car and brought to a Police station. The two policemen borrowed an interview room.

“What are you all doing to me?” Ou Debao was scared and could burst out in tears anytime.

“Just answer our questions!”

Feng Yu walked in front of Ou Debao and asked: “Are you Ou Debao? General Manager of Feng Hua VCD company, Ou Debao?”

“That’s right. What’s the problem?”

“Did you develop this Feng Hua VCD players yourself or you get it from someone else?”

“Someone sold it to me.” Ou Debao’s eyes were avoiding Feng Yu’s glaze.

“Lies! You want to be beaten up?” One of the policeman threatened.

“I am not the only one who develop it. We are a group, and we have developed this by ourselves!”

“Develop? By dismantling other people’s VCD players and then reverse engineered the technology? Do you know that you are manufacturing counterfeit products? This is illegal!”

“Illegal? How is this illegal? We develop this technology ourselves and have our own brand. How can you say we are manufacturing counterfeit products? Have you used our VCD players before? Our VCD players have sharper image and audio than Wind and Rain and Aiwa brands. How can you say we are imitating them?” Ou Debao shouted.

Feng Yu suddenly asked: “Then can your products remove mosaic?”

Damn, did these people developed Super VCD? Wind and Rain Electronics still have not developed this technology yet.

“No.”

Feng Yu was relived. He thought he had wasted his money on those engineers at Wind and Rain Electronics. This was a false alarm.

“Even if you have made some improvements, but you are making improvements on Wind and Rain and Aiwa products. Do you know that “VCD” is also a brand? This is my brand. You had used “VCD” in naming your products. This is an infringement of copyrights!”

There was little awareness of Intellectual property rights in this era. In the early 90s, China was listed on US priority watchlist and was restricted from accessing technology. This was because there was no IP protection.

Feng Yu knew that the US government was suppressing China enterprises after other companies had sued Wind and Rain for monopolizing the humidifier and bladeless fans market. The US wanted to use this as one of their chips when negotiating with China.

Within these few years, China’s awareness of IP protection will increase. Last September, the Copyrights law was amended to cover up the loopholes. This was even reported on the news. How can this person not know?

“I really don’t know about this. We are the ones who developed this technology.”

Feng Yu shook his head. There was no point reasoning with this ignorant person.

“When the Trade Bureau and the police shut down your company, you will know that you have committed an offense. If you are free, go and read up on the copyrights law. I am not scaring you. If I were to sue you, you would be bankrupted!”

Hmmm… Feng Yu was only scaring him. In current China, the punishment was not that severe.

“Ah? We are only manufacturing our own VCD players. Why is this not allowed?” Ou Debao mumbled to himself.

“How many VCD players have you manufactured?”

“About 100. We had assembled everything ourselves, and it is sold only in a few malls. I really do not know that this is against the law. Can you let me go? I will not do this again!”

Only 100 units? Feng Yu nodded. No wonder the distributors were not aware of this. Seems like it was those malls that were hiding this VCD player from the distributors. The profits for this Feng Hua VCD players might be higher than Wind and Rain brand.

These people can still be considered skillful. They should be working at Wind and Rain Electronics.

Chapter 480 – Feng Hua VCD (Part 2 of 2)

“This is your factory?”

Feng Yu looked at the surroundings. This was a junkyard. A rundown building with a courtyard full of trash. That noisy place is the workshop?

If this was Feng Yu’s previous life, even a junkyard had better conditions than this place. That rundown seems like it was about to collapse anytime. These people were not worried that this build will fall on their head?

“We do not have money to rent a workshop. This place is an abandon factory’s warehouse. We are just using this place temporarily.” Ou Debao said embarrassedly.

Feng Yu became more interested. He thought that these people would at least have a workshop. But it turns out that they were so poor.

“What did all of you work as in the past?”

“Video Cassette players.”

Video Cassette Players? Although the sales of Video Cassette Players were dipping, it should not be so severe. Video Cassette Players were still making profits in the past few years. The profits were higher than television. Although the total sales were not as good, these people should not be so poor.

Feng Yu asked: “What is the brand of your Video Cassette Players?”

“Song Shang.”

Song Shang? Damn, this guy was also manufacturing imitation products in the past. Song Shang was the leading brand of Video Cassette Players in the market.

“Then why did you stop?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

“My factory was shut down by the authorities.”

Goddamn. This guy was feigning ignorance all this while! Their factory had been shut down and should know what they had done was illegal. Why did he still ask what crimes he had committed just now? He looked honest, but everything about him was fake!

Now, Feng Yu had doubts about recruiting these people. They might have the skills, but they do not follow the rules. What if Jiang Wanmeng and the rest were led astray by these people?!

Feng Yu sneered at Ou Debao: “You think that using other people’s brand and technologies will be prosecuted and no one will do anything to you if you use our technologies?”

“We also have no choice. We have no money, and we cannot even pay the medical bills of our family members. If we have money, will we still remain in this place?” Ou Debao pointed to the rundown factory.

Feng Yu paused for a while: “Alright. Ask everyone to come out. I had made things clear to you in the car. If all of you pass my test, I will provide jobs for all of you. The salary will not be less than 200 RMB every month. Later, you are not allowed to say anything!”

In Beijing, the average annual salary was less than 2,000 RMB. Feng Yu offered 200 RMB monthly was considered very high! Of course, if these people were grade 7 or 8 workers, then their salaries will be higher.

But from the way they look, they should not be some high-grade workers in the past.

“Old Yao, ask them to stop for a while. There is a big boss visiting!” Ou Debao shouted.

The noise stopped, and 6 people walked out of the building. Every one of them was dirty and skinny. They looked malnutrition.

“Old Ou, which boss are you talking about? Wind and Rain’s boss or Aiwa’s boss?” One of them asked excitedly.

Feng Yu was curious as for why these people knew it was the boss of either Aiwa or Wind and Rain visiting?

“I am the big boss. How do you know my company manufactures VCD players?” Feng Yu asked that man.

“Hi. I am Yao Jinbo. We manufactured this VCD player is to meet you. Are you the leader of Wind and Rain or Aiwa? You better call your boss here. We only want to speak to the boss.”

Damn. He thought I am only a small fry in the company! But this Yao Jinbo was interesting. He just wants to speak with the boss? What does he want?

“The boss is my father, and I am running the company on his behalf. You can speak to me.” Feng Yu used his father as a shield.

“We have discovered the way to improve the VCD imaging compression. If we are successful, the pictures will be clearer and will even be better than Laserdisc. This will let your company’s products outshine your rivals!”

Yao Jinbo stopped. He was waiting for Feng Yu to ask questions. Feng Yu only smiled at him. I refused to answer you anything. I shall see if you want to carry on or not.

“Oh.”

Yao Jinbo was stunned. Oh? What’s the meaning of Oh? He thought that no matter which company’s boss heard what he said would be excited. This was because the technology they developed will let one company’s products beat their rivals, and might even monopolize the market. This was an important technology. The other party should be interested.

This person’s reply was only oh? What is the meaning of Oh? He knows this was different from what Yao Jinbo had imagined. How can he carry on this conversation?

“Brother Huang, Brother Su, these are the people who manufactured imitations. They are repeat offenders. Arrest them!”

Yao Jinbo and the rest were shocked. The rest of them looked at Yao Jinbo. You said that if we manufactured these things, and sell them under Feng Hua Brand, we will be about to attract the boss of Wind and Rain or Aiwa. Then we can sell this technology to him or even work for him.

But now? We had suffered for a few months and had not earned a single cent. Now, we are going to be arrested!

“Mr. Police man, please wait…. Sir, I think you did not hear what I said earlier. I said we have the technology to make the image clearer. You should know how important this technology is to your company.” Yao Jinbo said anxiously.

Feng Yu glanced at Yao Jinbo: “We are the ones who had invented this VCD player. You really think we do not know how to increase the quality of the images? We have the technologies to do what you just said and will even be better than what your technology. I am not interested in what you said!”

Huh?

Yao Jinbo was in a daze. He had devised this plan and hope to be able to attract one of the bosses over. But in the end, the other party was not interested in their technologies!

“Old Yao, what should we do now? You are the one who came up with this idea. Say something!”

“That’s right. Old Yao, we had said we do not want to do this. But you made us do it. We have just been released, and now we are going back to jail?”

These people were arrested last year for manufacturing counterfeit Song Shang Video Cassette Players. They were thrown to jail and were released earlier this year. They were workers from Beijing Television Factory in the past. They wanted to start their own business to earn some money. Even if they fail, they could still return to the factory to work.

But after they were arrested, they were fired by the factory. Although all of them had the skills, even if they set up a TV repair shop, no one dares to let them repair their TV. The customers said that they will surely replace the parts of their TV!

The smartest of these people came up with a plan. He led the rest to research on VCD technologies thinking they would be making profits or be invited to work in the VCD factories. But now, they do not have this chance and might even be jailed again!

If they were charged in courts again, they would be totally finished!

“Sir, we are able to develop this technology under such harsh conditions. This proved that we are skillful. Can we work for you for 150 RMB a month?”

Ou Debao was trying his best to make eye signals to him. He does not dare to say a word. This boss had said that if they passed his test, he would give them 200 RMB a month to work for him. Now you are asking for 150 RMB. If this boss agrees, all of us will lose 50 RMB per month!

“Are you all willing to work in other provinces?” Feng Yu asked suddenly.

These people were really interesting. This was actually a plot to lure Feng Yu to meet them. Feng Yu also wanted to give these people a chance.

“No problem. As long as we have enough to feed our families, we will do it!” Before Yao Jinbo could answer, the rest shouted.

“Fine. There will be someone here to interview all of you three days later. If all of you pass his interview, then I will use you. The monthly salary will not be less than 200 RMB. Our engineers’ salaries are at least 980 RMB a month. If you perform well, all of you can also be getting that much. If he says, your skills are not to par, then…….”

When Feng Yu turned and was about to leave, he heard Yao Jinbo shouting: “Sir, we will definitely pass the test!”

Translator’s note: Panasonic’s Chinese name is ‘Song Xia’ and the ‘Xia’ means down or below. Yao Jinbo’s previous brand was named ‘Song Shang’ and ‘Shang’ means upwards or above in Chinese. It was obviously an imitation.

Chapter 481 – Network access license

3 days later, Jiang Wanmeng personally brought a few of his men to interview these people. Feng Yu had told him that these people were talented, and the result of the interviews proved that these people were indeed genius. With such simple facilities, they had achieved amazing progress with their VCD technologies.

Jiang Wanmeng was wondering what was Feng Yu thinking by asking him to interview these people? Could Feng Yu feel that they had spent a lot of funds, but their progress was too slow? He must monitor the R&D department closely and must lead them personally. He must use the least money to get the results Feng Yu wanted!

Feng Yu does not know about this. This episode had made Jiang Wanmeng helped the company to save lots of research funds. But Jiang Wanmeng had become a stingy person!

Feng Yu told Jiang Wanmeng that these people had manufactured counterfeit video cassette players in the past and their factory was shut down by the authorities. He asked Jiang Wanmeng to pay special attention to them and not let these people return to their old ways. Of course, if these people do their work seriously and produced results, their salaries can be increased.

Feng Yu also informed Beijing’s distributor about those malls who were selling Feng Hua VCD players. That Beijing distributor was furious as counterfeits had appeared in his district.

The Beijing distributors made use of all his connections and sued those malls. Those malls were fined, and he gave part of the compensations he gotten from the malls to Tai Hua Trading. This was according to his contract with Tai Hua Trading.

This incident let the rest of the shopping malls knows the severity of selling counterfeit products.

“Master Lu, how is it? Can you help to hurry them?”

Master Lu blew out rings of smoke: “I can help to hurry them. But you all should still go to the government personally. It is not easy to get approvals for private companies. This sector is still not opened up.”

Feng Yu was frustrated. Xu Anhua and the rest had successfully developed pagers before the New Year. During Lunar New Year, the production lines were also installed.

By right, the production and sales should have started. Feng Yu was about to get people to film the commercial. All the paper works were ready, but Feng Yu realized that pagers were the same as mobile phones. It needed Network access license! Without this license, he was not allowed to sell.

Feng Yu does not know how Ningbo managed to get the approval in his previous life. Maybe it was a state-owned enterprise and had the government support. Now, the local government was not helping him.

Feng Yu thought that Master Lu would be able to help him. It’s just a Network access license after all. At most, Feng Yu could just make some donations or give some gifts. This pager was different from VCD players. It was the mainstream product now.

In China, there was still no local brands of pagers. The pagers in the market were manufactured by China factories contracted with those overseas companies, and some were joint ventures. Wave pagers, the first to successfully developed Chinese characters pagers, was in partnership with Motorola. All the pagers produced were under the Motorola brand!

“Master Lu, this pager is locally developed and produced. Shouldn’t the country support us? I am sure the higher-ups do not want everyone to use pagers under foreign brands.”

Master Lu glanced at Feng Yu: “Aren’t you are also using Motorola pagers?”

“That’s why I want to manufacture our own Chinese pagers. I will go to my provincial government, and you help me ask on your side? If your side needs any money, just let me know. I will not hesitate to pay.”

Master Lu waved his hand: “If you are able to ask Zhejiang Province Governor to help you, then this matter will be at least 50% done. Didn’t you say that you had met the Chief Architect and you still show me your photograph with him? You can go to him directly. Only one phone call from him, you will get your approval on the spot!”

Feng Yu: “……”

If I am really close to that old man, this approval will not be taking so long.

“Thanks for helping. Oh, how is our car? The car you are driving is a limited edition. I do not even have it myself.” Feng Yu knocked glass with Master Lu and took a sip. He only wet his lips with the liquor.

“Wow. This car is really powerful. I can never imagine our locally manufactured cars can be so powerful!”

“Of course. This car is built using Songjiang Motors’ most advanced technologies. The standards can be comparable with overseas cars. There are only two limited edition cars in this world. One is with Longjiang Provincial Government, used for hosting guests. The other is yours. The exterior design is the same as Songjiang Olympic models and is not attention grabbing. No one will know your car is worth more than 1 million RMB.”

Feng Yu did not want to give Master Lu this car. He had asked the Machinery Company to build this car for himself. The cost of this car is about 1 million RMB. But on the day the car was delivered to him, it was Master Lu’s birthday. Master Lu invited Feng Yu to his celebration.

At Master Lu’s birthday party, there was a lot of Official second generations. Feng Yu met them at the party and knew some of them will be promoted to senior officials in the future. There were some which he had not heard of before. These people were all his connections. In the future, they could help Feng Yu with his business.

Feng Yu got drunk at the party from drinking beer. He saw the others giving Master Lu Gold watches, sunglass, the newest model of mobile phones, etc. Feng Yu had forgotten to prepare Master Lu’s birthday gift. He only has a car key in his pocket.

After a while, Feng Yu blackout!

The next day when he woke up, those second generations greeted him warmly. Feng Yu was still in a daze. But he soon found out from the others what happened yesterday. Feng Yu had given Master Lu a car worth more than 1 million RMB!

Feng Yu saw his Land Rover parked outside. Damn! The car he gave to Master Lu was that Limited-edition Songjiang concept car!

Feng Yu was crying in his heart. But when he saw Master Lu, he did not ask him for his car back. This was too shameful, and he could not do it. It will also be a slap to Master Lu’s face. Feng Yu could only say that car was specially prepared for Master Lu!

Today, Feng Yu remembered this incident and reminded Master Lu that he had given such an expensive birthday present, and how could he not help him?

The earlier the pagers enter the market; the earlier Feng Yu could recover his investment. The amount recovered will be used to develop mobile phones!

Furthermore, it was the best timing for pagers now. The market was already established, and if Feng Yu’s product entered the market, he does not need to worry about the sales.

The cost of this Aiwa pagers was less than 1,000 RMB, and the Chinese characters pagers in the market cost at least 4,000 RMB! How much will be Feng Yu’s profits?

After 2 years, the pager prices will decline. If Feng Yu got the license then, it would be too late. The golden era of pagers will be missed. All his investments will be down the drain.

Master Lu was reminded by Feng Yu and felt obligated to help. He had earned a lot from Feng Yu. The amount he made was more than helping others getting government approvals and was more stable. Most importantly, the amount he received from Feng Yu would not affect his career.

If Master Lu did not help Feng Yu, he would be seen as ungrateful! In his circle of friends, he was known to be loyal to his friends. If his friends knew that he did not help Feng Yu, his reputation would be gone!

“Brother Feng, if you are able to get Ningbo’s top official to help, I will settle this for you!” Master Lu said.

“Alright. Thank you. If you need my help in the future, just let me know!” Feng Yu raised his glass and then wet his lips.

Chapter 482 – China’s own pager (Part 1 of 3)

Sun Lijie received a call from Feng Yu, asking him to go to Ningbo City government to pass a message to the Mayor. If the Mayor was able to speak to the Provincial Committee, this license would most likely be approved.

Once Aiwa Pagers entered the market, Feng Yu will provide Ningbo City lots of taxes, and he promised that he will never move this company out of the City!

If there was such a company in their city, the Mayor of Ningbo City was overjoyed. He also did not know that a network access license was required for this pager.

Although Ningbo City was a Provincial Level City, the Mayor was also the Deputy Provincial Governor level official. But he does not know anyone from the telecommunications ministry. Now, this Manager Feng had already used his connections to contact the higher-ups and told him that once he speaks to the committee, his application will not be rejected.

Once this license was approved, it was a political achievement for the Mayor. China’s first domestically developed pager company will be in Ningbo. His chances to be promoted will be higher.

The Ningbo City Mayor immediately put aside his work and went to Beijing with his secretary to visit the relevant departments. He must get this approval!

At the Ministry of Telecommunications, the Mayor spoke to the person-in-charge, and the process went on smoothly.

The Planning Committee had just issued an internal order, stating that the government should encourage private enterprises to develop the telecommunication industry. The level of entry should be lowered to encourage private companies to be more innovative and support this industry. This will help China’s telecommunication industry to develop!

The Ministry of Telecommunications was still thinking of how to encourage private enterprises to enter this industry, and someone came knocking at their doors. They were overjoyed. If they were able to make this company a success, the planning committee would take note of their achievements. All of they might even be promoted!

As such, this application went on smoothly. All the documents were in place, and the approval process took only 3 days.

3 days later, Ningbo’s Mayor received the approval papers. He couldn’t believe his eyes. This was too easy. If he knew that this was so easy, he would have made this trip earlier, and Aiwa Pagers will already be sold in the market.

Feng Yu knew that Master Lu had helped him to get his application approved within 3 days. He immediately called Master Lu to thank him.

Master Lu said he was only helping his friend and there was no need to thank him. In the future, if I need help, will you help me?

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart. I will surely help you settle your problem in two years. He had developed this friendship with Master Lu when he was still a low ranking official. He must not let Master Lu get into any trouble when he becomes one of the top officials.

The network access license was approved, and Feng Yu immediately instructed the factory to start production at full capacity. He also asked Wu Zhigang to contact all the distributors and asked them to come over to Beijing to discuss the pager contracts.

From two years ago, pagers and mobile phones were no longer sold only at the post office. Many state-owned companies and some private companies started to sell them. It included many shopping malls. The shops only require a sales permit, and they can sell them!

Luckily it was like this now, and Feng Yu would be able to sell his pagers everywhere and make high profits.

“Manager Feng, it’s been a while, and you look more handsome now.” A distributor smiled and greeted Feng Yu.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes: “Do I still need you to remind me?”

Hmmm… this distributor has good foresight. Later I must ask Wu Zhigang to take care of him. In the future, give him more benefits during the festive promotions.

That distributor did not say anything and sat on his chair. All the distributors knew Feng Yu’s character by now.

The rest of the distributors were sulking. Damn. This Old Zhao had curry favor with Manager Feng first again!

“Manager Feng, Manager Wu, what product are you introducing this time?”

“What? Old Huang, you are selling Tai Hua Trading’s products, and you still want to pick? If you do not want to sell, I can take over your province!” One of the distributors joked.

These distributors had become close over the years. They remained in contact with each other and often joked with each other.

“Get lost! You are targeting my market? I am still waiting for you to retire and take over your province!” Mr. Huang scolded him in a joking manner.

Feng Yu turned to Sun Lijie and nodded. Sun Lijie stood up beside Feng Yu and cleared his throat: “Today I will introduce this product to everyone here.”

“Old Sun? Stop joking. Hurry and come sit here. Later Manager Feng and Manager Wu will get angry!” Someone shouted.

“That’s right. Hurry and come back here. Stop currying favor. Manager Feng is not that kind of person!” Old Zhao shouted.

The rest of the distributors rolled their eyes at Old Zhao. He was the one who carries favor the most!

“Everyone be quiet and listen to him.” Feng Yu frowned and said.

Once Feng Yu opened his mouth, the distributors shut up immediately and looked at Sun Lijie. This Sun Lijie had become so close to Manager Feng?

“The product we will be selling is Aiwa Pagers!”

Huh?!

All the distributors were surprised. Aiwa Pagers? From the name, they knew this was Aiwa’s product. But isn’t Aiwa a Walkman company? Although it introduced VCD players later, it was entirely different from pagers.

Can this Pager’s features compete with those pagers from overseas?

“This time, it will be the same as the Super Fans. All of you will buy the pagers in cash, we guarantee that all of you will be the exclusive distributor for your province. You will be in charge of your downstream. This Aiwa Chinese Pager’s wholesale price is 2,800 RMB. The retail price will be set at 3,600 RMB. There will be 800 RMB profit per Pager. It will be up to each of you to spill this profits with your retailers. The company will not get involved. But the rules remain. There can only be fluctuations of 5% for the retail price.” Sun Lijie said.

“Old Sun, you also agree to this condition?”

Sun Lijie nodded: “Yes. I agreed.”

“Manager Feng, this wholesale price is too high. We will have to lock in a lot of our capital. The deposit for your motorcycles and cars are also very high. We still have to place deposits for your VCD players, Super Fans, humidifiers, etc. Our profits will be lowered.” Someone said.

“The Chinese characters pagers in the market is selling above 4,000 RMB. Our product’s retail price is lower and of good quality. It is also under a reputable brand. These pagers will surely sell well. All of you will be able to get profits from this product.” Wu Zhigang said.

“Manager Wu, this product is different. In the past, we have been selling exclusive products. From the humidifiers to the bladeless fans, then the VCD players. We are selling these products and do not have other competitors. But this pager is different. We are the latecomers into this market. Also, Aiwa’s reputation is in Walkman and VCD players. Who would believe that Aiwa will manufacture Pagers?”

Feng Yu waved his hand to stop Wu Zhigang from arguing with this distributor. He smiled and said: “I am asking you if you want to sell or not?”

That distributor became quiet. Although Feng Yu was smiling, he was apparently threatening him!

This pager will definitely be profitable. But the distributors wanted higher profits. If they make Feng Yu angry, Feng Yu might break the contract between them, pay them compensation and remove them from the distributor list. They will no longer be able to sell Super Fans, VCD players, motorcycles, etc. Their losses will be high!

“All of you are willing to sell this pager? Let me ask another question. Which one of my products is not profitable? Which one of you had made losses from selling my products? What was your net worth when we started working together and how much are your total assets now? Which of my products is not launch with marketing? When did Tai Hua Trading’s commercials disappoint you? The selling feature of this pager is this a pager that is manufactured and developed locally! Now, those who are willing to accept my condition can remain. Those who do not accept can leave!”

All the distributors remained in their seats. After waiting for 1 minute, Feng Yu nodded and look at Wu Zhigang. Did you see that? You must be firm with these people! It is useless if you talk nicely to them. If they want to make money with us, they have to listen to us!

Chapter 483 – China’s own pager (Part 2 of 3)

All the distributors signed the contracts obediently. But soon, they realized that Sun Lijie did not sign the contract.

“Old Sun, you signed the contract?” Someone asked.

All of them felt that Sun Lijie’s contract might be different from theirs.

“I do not need to sign the contract with Tai Hua Trading. I will sign it directly with Aiwa Electronics.” Sun Lijie replied.

Sun Lijie was too excited. He had only invested 100,000 RMB. Those people had really developed the pager technology. After some tests, the pager’s quality, signal, etc. were on par with Motorola’s latest model of Pager.

This means that there will be huge profits! Although he took a bank loan to invest more money in setting up a factory, it was nothing compared to the vast benefits!

The initial investment had given him 10% of shares. This 10% shares will provide him with an estimated 10 million RMB returns this year. The estimated number of pagers produce was about 300,000 units. This was also because there were some problems with the factory’s production lines. If not, at least 1 million pagers will be produced this year!

Although there was still a considerable difference from Motorola’s last year sales of 1 million units, Sun Lijie believed that Aiwa Pagers become the market leader next year.

Sun Lijie would be able to multiply his investment within 6 months. He was very grateful that those people were from his hometown, Ningbo. He was fortunate that he had helped Feng Yu a lot and was granted with this opportunity!

In the future, even if he closes down his company, he can still become a multi-millionaire or even a billionaire with these shares! His decision to invest was right!

Sun Lijie swore that in the future, all the tasks given to him by Manager Feng will take priority over all other jobs. His wish of fetching his parents to live with him would come true this year!

All the distributors felt that Old Sun was very lucky. He was the closest to the Pager factory and got to sign the contract first. But all of them did not know that Sun Lijie was one of the shareholders of this pager company!

In the past, all of them felt that Tai Hua Trading was pushing them to hit high sales target. But this time was different. All the distributors felt that the supply was too low!

Now, each distributor could only get 1,000 pagers monthly. Feng Yu told them that the number of pager users in China will reach more than 2 million. But the supply was too low to meet this demand!

Feng Yu also have no choice. Although the construction of the factory started last year, it was hard to find experienced workers. Also, the production lines were semi-automatic. It was still not as advanced as the future years. It was also tough to install a production line. But Aiwa Electronics had taken a bank loan to set up a second factory. The address was still in Ningbo, but it was not located in Feng Hua district.

The leader at Feng Hua district was not happy with this arrangement, but the higher-ups wanted the second factory to be located elsewhere.

Ningbo Government policies were very attractive, good traffic conditions and lower taxes. Feng Yu had no reason to set up the factory in other provinces. But if there were any changes to the policies in the future, Feng Yu will set up his new factories in other places.

Feng Hua district’s leaders were unhappy that the shares of this small company they sold had successfully developed the pager. If they knew the pager could be developed so quickly, they would never agree to sell the shares.

Although the shares were sold for 500,000 RMB and compared to their 100,000 RMB investment, it was 4 times more. However, if the pagers were manufactured and sold in the market, there will be at least tens of millions of profits.

The Daqiao village’s leader was scolded. The leader that had praised him in the past turn around and put all the blame on him. He almost strangled Daqiao village’s Leader: Are all of you idiots?! You have sold the shares of such a potential company for only 500,000 RMB?

But all of them could only resign to their fates. At least this company will still be paying taxes to the district. Feng Hua district also has a factory. If the boss of this company gets pissed, he might shift the factory and all the workers away. The losses will be more severed.

Xu Lihua and the rest had asked Feng Yu, why didn’t he set up a bigger factory? They felt that Pagers were the main form of telecommunication device in the world and the profits were high. With the low labor cost, their pagers can be competitive with the other big brands. They could also work with other countries to develop products with the local languages. They were able to produce English version of pagers now.

But Feng Yu told them a fact. Other than China, no other countries in the world will recognize their patents. Their technology was too similar to the other companies. In China, the licenses of those pager companies were also not accepted. If they were to export their pagers, they would need to pay Motorola to use this technology, and there will not be any profits left.

There were patents for this pager’s exterior design, material, features, internal structures, parts, etc. Although some of these patents had passed the protection period, there were some that were still protected by the patents. If they had miss applying for the usage of one of those patents, they would be sued, and Aiwa’s reputation will be affected.

Feng Yu had decided to change AIWA company’s name to Aiwa company (The author had used AIWA in English characters and Aiwa as Chinese characters. Aiwa’s Chinese characters means ‘Love China’ and had the same pronunciation.) Feng Yu will keep bot AIWA and Aiwa brands, and now, Aiwa’s brand awareness was increasing. He cannot afford any incident to tarnish his brand image.

As such, this Aiwa pager can only be sold in China. They should grow slowly and not rush into it.

Feng Yu also told Xu Lihua and the rest to look into mobile phone technologies. This was to prepare them to enter into the mobile phone market in the future. When they developed any new technologies, even a small improvement, they must apply for patents immediately!

Everything was ready, and Feng Yu called CCTV to replace two Super Fans advertisements to Aiwa Pager commercials. The advertising campaign will start at CCTV!

A pager beep twice and a man pressed a button on the pager. The LCD display a message: Manager Li, please call back immediately. Number: 345678.

Then it was a close up of Aiwa’s logo, and there was a voiceover of the slogan at the same time. It was a simple slogan: Aiwa Pagers, China’s own pagers!

There was no celebrity endorsement, and the actor did not show his face. The whole commercial only showed the pager and a person’s hand. But there was also a big name in this commercial. Feng Yu had invited Zhao Zhongxiang to do the voice over. His voice was easily recognized in China!

Feng Yu had only paid Zhao Zhongxiang 100,000 RMB for a 5-year contract, and he only needs to read this short slogan. Zhao Zhongxiang was also very pleased with this contract. He had asked for only 50,000 RMB, but Feng Yu increased it to 100,000 RMB. Feng Yu was overjoyed! This was too cheap. He thought he would need to spend at least 300,000 RMB!

Feng Yu firmly believed that this commercial and those distributors’ sales networks will allow his pager to enter the market in a short time. After all, the demand for pagers had outweighed supply greatly in China now!

Chapter 484 – China’s own pager (Part 3 of 3)

Many viewers were confused when they saw the commercials. Aiwa Pagers? Aiwa was the company that makes Walkman? Oh, they also sell VCD players.

But both Walkman and VCD players were somehow related. These were considered audio electronics products. But Pagers? The pager was a telecommunication product. This was a completely different sector!

But it was as what Feng Yu had forecasted. Aiwa brand still has some influence in China. Many people in China were curious about Aiwa Pagers. How good were these pagers?

At first, most of the people had a wait and see attitude. Feng Yu had also planned for this. If it was him, a company that makes Walkman suddenly produce pagers, he will also hesitate.

But Feng Yu believed that the selling price of Aiwa Pagers will be able to attract some customers. After all, his pagers were much cheaper than Motorola. The other two brands, Panasonic and NEC, were not selling well in China because they were Japanese brands.

Although the boycott of Japanese products had ended in China, Japanese brands were significantly affected and made hefty losses in China.

The Japanese Government had raised this issue to the Chinese government, but the reply from the Chinese government was that they had advised the consumers to spend wisely. They cannot force the Chinese to use Japanese products. If Japanese products were of good quality and cheap, why would the consumers not buy them?

Japan’s government suspects that this was a plot by the Chinese government to protect their own industries. This was like South Korea. This was against the trade treaty signed between both nations.

But Japan has no evidence to prove this and can only accept it. They were not willing to forgo the Chinese market. This was a vast market, and once this market matured, it will bring lots of profits to the Japanese companies. This was very important to Japan as their recession was not over yet. They desperately need the Chinese market.

If they were to terminate the trade agreement, then the US and Europe will sign all forms of treaties with China and kick Japan out of the picture. Their losses will be much higher!

What can they do now? Nothing. They can no longer export inferior goods to China. They can only export second-tier Japanese products to China. Those inferior goods can only be sold to the other Southeast Asia countries.

But those countries’ market was not established, and the cost of the products exported to China had increased. This resulted in the decline of profits of the Japanese companies. Coupled with the declining sales in China, many of these companies were struggling to stay afloat!

Panasonic was still doing well. They were still producing TV and Video Cassette players, and there were still lots of profits with these products. NEC only have pagers in the Chinese market. In the pager market, Motorola owns about 80% of the market share, and NEC and Panasonic own the remaining 20%. But they still have some profits.

Panasonic and NEC do not dare to withdraw from China like Sony. It will be tough to re-enter the Chinese market once they leave. At least now, they will continue to promote their brand, and they still have a chance when they have new products.

But just when they were thinking of how to increase their sales and profits in China, Aiwa pager, which claimed to be developed in China appeared, and they suffered another blow!

Aiwa pager’s retail price was cheaper than their products by a few hundred RMB. Also, they do not understand how this Aiwa pager was able to sell all over China in a short time.

This was apparently a private company and had the support of the Chinese government. How can Panasonic and NEC compete with them in China?

Now, in all the post offices, shopping malls and shops that specialized in telecommunication products were selling Aiwa Pagers!

At a certain mall. A middle-aged man was standing in front of the pager sales counter. He could not decide which to buy.

“Sir, are you getting a pager? Do you prefer the Chinese characters pagers or only the numeric pagers? If you are looking for Chinese characters pager, I would recommend you our locally manufactured Aiwa Pagers. The commercials are showing on CCTV, and the price is also lower. The money you saved is enough to pay your one-year pager bills!”

“Is this Aiwa pager good?”

“Of course. My brother had bought this too. If this pager is not good, will I ask my brother to buy it?” The sales staff continued.

“Alright, give me one of this and help me activate it.”

Within a week, many people remembered Aiwa pagers. It was not known if the advertisements were effective or people recognized it due to its low prices.

At the same time, Motorola was still able to maintain their sales because of its brand. But Panasonic and NEC Chinese characters pager sales start to decline!

As more people became aware of Aiwa Pagers, there were praises of Aiwa Pagers’ designs.

The pager companies could tell that Aiwa was using their aggressive marketing and affordable prices to compete with them.

They also want to lower their selling prices, but they could not do that. First, they were the same as Motorola. They need to purchase the patent rights of the Chinese characters, and their pagers were produced in Japan. They need to pay taxes to the Chinese Government to bring in their pagers. Motorola was different. Motorola had a factory in China, and their cost and taxes were much lower than the Japanese companies.

The Japanese pager companies could not afford to engage in price wars with Aiwa Pagers. Aiwa pagers made used of low labor cost, and they enjoyed tax subsidies. When their production increases, their cost will be lowered further. If they were to engage in price wars with Aiwa, NEC and Panasonic would suffer heavy losses.

If the heavy losses could exchange for a more significant market share, it was fine. But the problem was that even if they lower their prices, they could not get a more substantial market share. Motorola was still around!

Motorola had also noticed Aiwa Pagers, but they were not worried. Aiwa Pagers might be marketing their pagers aggressively, but they could not jeopardize Motorola’s position in China.

It does not matter if you are cheaper than us. Our brand, Motorola, is worth increasing more than 1,000 RMB per pager! If it wasn’t they were afraid of getting sued for monopolizing the market, Motorola can also use the price war strategy to kill off all their competitors and capture the whole Chinese market!

Feng Yu hanged up the phone. Li Shiqiang had just reported the sales figures to him. Feng Yu was not satisfied with this result. The telecommunication market was already developed, and the demand was increasing every day. How come some pagers were sold for the past 2 weeks? The commercials were not sufficient?

Seems like Feng Yu needs to use some of his connections to get some government policies to support. For instance, getting all the post offices to promote Aiwa pagers. This way, the sales will increase.

In a few more months, the new production line will be installed, and the new factory will be in operation. The production of Aiwa Pagers will increase and if the sales do not improve, how can he occupy the market share? His target was to be the leader of China’s pager market!

Chapter 485 – Ministries and Commissions recommendations (Part 1 of 2)

The distributors also discovered that products might also not sell well even when there were enough product awareness and advertisements. This was what they were worried about. The pagers were not an exclusive product, and they were the latecomers to the industry.

At first, the distributors were worried that they might not have enough goods to meet the demand. Tai Hua Trading had supplied too little goods to them. Now, they realized that no matter how they speak to the shopping malls, they would never win Motorola. They can only compete with Panasonic and NEC.

If the sales carry on like this and there will be an increase in the supply of pagers in a few months, their unsold pagers will be piling up in their warehouse. The distributors’ money will be locked up in those pagers, and they will have cash flow problems.

Because of the automobile dealership, almost all the distributors had taken bank loans or owe some other bosses money. If these pagers could not get profits, then their retailers will not continue to order from them, and they would still have to place more than 2 million RMB deposit every month with Tai Hua Trading. Their company will be in danger!

Feng Yu had put in lots of efforts in building these sales channels. Could he let these sales channels disappear? Feng Yu still have a card up his sleeves. If Feng Yu this trump card, he was confident that the sales will pick up immediately!

Feng Yu assured the distributors that if the sales did not pick up by the end of the month, the minimum target would be lowered.

The distributors regained their confidence in Feng Yu. All of them knew Feng Yu was good in sales. Now they were only in trouble temporary, and all of them knew that they would beat Panasonic and NEC if they could last one year.

The only worry they had was that they could not last one year. Even if they had 500,000 RMB worth of unsold goods a month, it would be 2 million RMB in 4 months. All of their liquid cash will be used up, and their company will be under considerable financial stress!

……

“Master Lu, can this be done?”

“It is only treating someone to dinner. What’s so difficult? Don’t worry and wait for my call. If I cannot ask him out tonight, it will be tomorrow!” Master Lu replied confidently.

Feng Yu had asked Master Lu for help to invite a high-ranking officer from the Telecommunication Ministry. This director was in charge of the Finance in the Ministry of Telecommunication. Feng Yu wants to speak to him about the sales issues of Aiwa Pagers!

Master Lu was very efficient. Maybe it was because of his family background and that Director accepted his invitation to the dinner.

“Director Fan, this is the boss of Aiwa Electronics, Feng Yu. Manager Feng, this is the one you had wanted to meet, Director Fan. I had to help you invited him to dinner today.” Master Lu introduced both parties.

“Director Fan, it’s an honor to dine with you.”

“You are the boss of Aiwa Electronics? You are really young and capable. Your Aiwa Electronics had done well for developing the pager technology. The Minister had praised you.” Director Fan smiled and replied.

Director Fan was very curious why Feng Yu wanted to meet him. He was in charge of Finance, and if Feng Yu wanted some government policies, he should be looking for the planning director or the regulations director. Why was Feng Yu looking for him?

“Director Fan, can I ask what the source of income for our Ministry of Telecommunications is? How are your subsidiaries doing and does the research facilities have enough research funds?” Feng Yu asked.

Director Fan looked at Feng Yu weirdly and then turn to Master Lu. Was there something wrong with this Manager Feng? Why was he asking about our ministry’s finances?

Master Lu looked at Feng Yu puzzledly. He also does not know what Feng Yu was thinking. He thought Feng Yu only wants to know Director Fan in person or wants to make use of Director Fan’s connections. Feng Yu’s questions were too weird.

“Why are you asking this?”

“Director Fan, do you want to help your ministry increase the revenue?” Feng Yu asked with a smile. In this era, the government does not have enough funds to spend, and all the ministries had a shortage of funds. Feng Yu was able to spark Director Fan’s interest with a solution to increase their department’s funds.

“Increase revenue? How do you increase the revenue?” Director Fan was tempted. Although he was in charge of the Ministry finances and it looks like it was a good position, but his job was not simple. All the departments need money, but the ministry does not have enough for all the departments. He had to pick who to release the funds to, and it was easy to offend others. This was also it was the hardest for someone in his position to be promoted. Director Fan was not able to be promoted because of this reason!

“Director Fan should know that our Aiwa Electronics is selling pagers. We are the only Chinese company in China that develop and manufacture pagers. Also, all the shareholders of this company are Chinese! Our success represented China’s advances in the telecommunication sector and will stop those foreign enterprises from monopolizing all the profits……”

Director Fan frowned. Why was this Manager Feng kept praising himself nonstop? I also know what you are talking about and what’s there to do with increasing the Ministry’s revenue?

“That’s why I hope we can collaborate together and add in a sentence in our commercials: ‘Product recommended by the Ministry of Telecommunications.’ We can pay you. Can this be done?”

Huh? Ministry of Telecommunications recommended product? How can this be done?! What was this Manager Feng thinking? No matter how much he pays, this cannot be allowed! If it weren’t for Master Lu, Director Fan would have stood up can scold Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, the ministry will not allow you to add in that sentence in your commercials. Not only me, but even the minister also will not agree to your request! We will not earn your money! Master Lu, if there is nothing else, I will leave. I will treat you to a drink next time.” Director Fan stood up and wanted to leave.

“Director Fan, wait a minute. I still have something to tell you. After I have finished, I will not stop you if you still want to leave.” Feng Yu calmly said.

“What else do you want to say?” Director Fan frowned. I do not even care about Master Lu now, who else can you bring out?

“Our Ministry of Telecommunications has lots of cooperation with the postage services, right? Then can you issue a memo to ask all the post office to promote Aiwa Pagers at their sales counter? For every Aiwa Pager sold at the Post Offices, I will pay 10 RMB to the Ministry!”

Only 10 RMB for pager and this Manager Feng wants my support? But this was indeed a revenue source. Although Director Fan was in charge of Finance in the Ministry of Telecommunication, he also understands about the pager industry well.

“How many pagers can your factory produce in a year?”

When Director Fan asked this question, Feng Yu knew that his proposal had capture Director Fan’s attention.

“Our production will reach about 300,000 pagers this year. Next year, we will exceed 3 million! Even if half of these pagers were sold at the post offices, the Ministry would get about 1.5 million RMB this year and next year, it will be more than 15 million!” Feng Yu said with particular emphasis on the 15 Million.

Director Fan’s eyes widen. This Aiwa Electronics factory’s production could be so high? If he could increase the Ministry’s revenue by 15 million, then he will be next in line after that Vice minister retires!

Chapter 486 – Ministries and Commissions recommendations (Part 2 of 2)

“Manager Feng, how can you be sure that you will be able to sell off all the pagers you produced? From the research we conducted, it seems that Motorola, the world-renowned pager manufacturer, is the market leader in China. Their China sales last year was only about 500,000 units. This figure consists of both Chinese Characters and numeric pagers. Furthermore, there are still other companies, like Panasonic and NEC in the market. Even if we help you to promote, do you still think that you will sell off all your pagers?” Director Fan looked at Feng Yu and asked.

“Director Fan, we do not need to text each other. We had also conducted market research ourselves. We had looked into the demands, the consumer’s income growth and many other factors. We are sure that although there are only about 3 million pager users now, there will be more than 10 million next year. In two years, there will be more than 20 million users!”

Director Fan raised his eyebrows. He was shocked. This Aiwa Electronics analysis was about the same as theirs. The Ministry of Telecommunications also felt that the demand for pagers will increase. They could tell from the number of pager companies’ application. The pager era was about to start!

The Ministry of Telecommunications had access to all this information and could analyze the future trend. But how did this Aiwa Electronics get the same result? Through market research? Or they have other ways?

What Director Fan did not know was Feng Yu had not conducted any large-scale market research. Sun Lijie had only conducted simple market research in Zhejiang, and the results were the same as Feng Yu’s previous life. The pager boom was coming!

Feng Yu remembered that before Hong Kong was returned to China, China was the world’s number one pager market. There were more than 80 million pager users! Then the numbers fell as pagers were slowly replaced by mobile phones!

The real boom was in 1994 and 1995. These two years, there were more than 10 pager brands in China, and many of these brands were small companies from the cities. These companies made use of the subsidies and benefits offered to them by their local government and sold their pagers at very low prices. These two years were the most profitable years for these companies.

But in this life, those small factories will not be able to survive. Later this year, Feng Yu will increase his investment in his pagers and set up a third factory. This factory will start operation early next year. The total production will be over 5 million! But Feng Yu was afraid that Director Fan would not believe him if he told him the truth.

Feng Yu was clear that even if he gave up the numeric pagers market and concentrate on the alphanumeric pagers with Chinese characters, his pagers will still not meet the market demand.

Master Lu was also shocked. Feng Yu was willing to give up so many profits? At first, he thought that 10 RMB per pager was only a small amount. But when he heard Feng Yu’s production, the amount was too shocking!

Director Fan was worried that this Aiwa Pagers will not have such good sales.

“Manager Feng, why not we change your proposal to the total amount of pagers you produce, and you give us a certain sum per pager?”

“Director Fan, are you worried that our pagers will not be popular?” Feng Yu laughed and shook his head. If the post offices were willing to promote his pagers, coupled with his established sales distribution channels and they still can’t control the market, then there must really be a problem with the product!

“I cannot disregard this.”

“But Director Fan, our pagers are not only sold at the post offices. We are also selling our pagers at some shopping malls and some pager companies. Your department cannot help us in those places, right? We also have our concerns. What if our pagers remained on the shelves and we still have to pay your ministry? If we were to pay your ministry based on the number of pagers produced, you should also agree to let us add in that sentence in our commercials and advertisements.”

Director Fan shook his head. How can the Ministry advertise for a company? This company was still not the Ministry’s subsidiary!

“Impossible! Then we shall go with your initial proposal. But 10 RMB per pager is too low. I think 20 RMB is more suitable!”

“20 RMB? Director Fan, don’t you think you are too greedy? Actually, I can go straight to the Post offices. I think they will be satisfied even if I offered them 5 RMB.” Feng Yu smiled.

Damn, if it wasn’t Feng Yu wanted to build a good relationship with this ministry to prepare for his mobile phone, why would he be willing to offer so much money to them?!

“Then can you guarantee that the post offices’ sales will be at least 50%?” Director Fan asked.

“Based on the market research on the pager sales, 60% of the consumers bought their pagers from the Post Offices. Also, the post offices have an advantage. Their branches are located all over China in every province! No other sales distribution channels can be compared to the Post Offices’ network. This was the reason why I am willing to forgo part of my profits.”

Feng Yu was not wrong. In another two years, the demand for pagers in the cities will be met. However, there will still be demands in those counties and districts. But by that time, there will be retail shops in almost all those districts and counties!

Feng Yu estimates that the Ministry of Telecommunications will get at most 10 million RMB a year. Although the sales of the pagers will increase, there will be more shops selling pagers everywhere. The post offices’ sales will fall.

“Fine. It’s a deal. I will report to the leader tomorrow and give you an answer!”

All of them continued with the dinner, and after dinner, Master Lu sent Director Fan back.

The next day, Feng Yu received a call asking him to go to the Ministry of Telecommunications. The leader wants to meet him.

“You are Aiwa Electronics’ Manager Feng? You are quite young. I know about what you had discussed with Xiao Fan yesterday, and I think it is doable.”

Xiao Fan? Hawker? Feng Yu looked at Director Fan and almost laughed. (Xiao Fan have the same pronunciation as a hawker in Chinese.) For someone in his fifties, and still, a Director to be called as a hawker, Feng Yu wonders how he felt!

Maybe Feng Yu’s proposal was too attractive to the Ministry, or Director Fan had put in a lot of kind words for him. The whole negotiation went on smoothly. The Leader did not make things difficult for Feng Yu, and almost all the terms of this collaboration remained the same except for the duration. Both parties had different views on the length of this collaboration. Feng Yu suggested 3 years and the ministry wanted at least 10 years!

10 years? Pagers will cease to exist in 10 years! Feng Yu had only planned to manufacture pagers for 5 years. After 5 years, the number of new pagers users will drop drastically, and mobile phones will replace pagers!

In the end, both parties took one step back and agreed on 6 years duration. Although Feng Yu was forced to sign the 6 years contract, he did not regret his decision. This amount was nothing if he was able to set up a new sales channel and increase his brand awareness. Furthermore, his relationship with this ministry would be better.

The agreement was simple. Both parties will record the sales figures and will tally the statistics every month, and Aiwa Electronics will pay the Ministry. The Ministry was not afraid that Feng Yu would terminate this agreement as the Ministry could issue an order to take Aiwa Pagers off the shelves and barred them from this industry!

Feng Yu will not beak this agreement on his own. This amount was nothing compared to the vast profits from these pagers! Furthermore, if there were any changes to the telecommunication policies, he will be the first to know. The Ministry will even give special treatment to Aiwa Electronics. There was nothing to lose!

With the agreement, Feng Yu left with a wide grin on his face. Let’s see who can stop Aiwa Pagers from growing big?!

Chapter 487 – Sudden increase in sales

One day later, all the distributors noticed that there was an increase in the orders from the Post Offices. They were confused by the sudden increase. They had spoken to the shopping malls; telecommunication equipment retailers and these places were willing to help them promote Aiwa Pagers. But Post Offices were special units, and it was not easy for the distributors to get their support. But why did the post offices’ orders increase so suddenly?

The distributors received a notification from Tai Hua Trading informing them that they had signed a contract with the higher-ups and the Post Offices will promote Aiwa Pagers. Tai Hua Trading had paid a heavy price for this contract.

The cost of this contract was almost more than 10 million RMB a year. This was more than the advertising fees on CCTV. This was considered a heavy price to pay. But as the sales increases, the profits also increased. 10 million RMB was nothing compared to the profits.

The Post Offices was China’s most extensive network covering all of China. After receiving the orders from their higher-ups, all the post offices start to push Aiwa Pagers. Not only the counter staffs at the post offices were recommending Aiwa Pagers. Posters were also placed outside the post offices.

Before this, the post offices were recommending pagers to their customers based on the prices. The higher the selling prices of the pagers, the higher their profits were. These profits were the post offices’ profits and had nothing to do with the Telecommunications Ministry. Aiwa Pagers will be giving a share of their profits to the Telecommunications Ministry.

The Telecommunications Ministry’s memo to all the post offices had stated clearly that Aiwa Pagers were developed and manufactured in China. These pagers were China’s pride, and they should give their full support.

This was instructions from the Ministry, and how could all those post offices defy this instruction? The Post Offices were China’s biggest retailer of Pagers.

As such, all the post offices followed the instructions from the higher-ups and proactively promote Aiwa Pagers. After all, this pager’s commercials were aired on CCTV, and lots of consumers knew about this.

As consumers had heard of Aiwa brand, it was easy for the post offices to promote these pagers.

From that very day, all the counter staffs at the post offices recommended Aiwa Pagers to every customer that walked in.

Because of this, Aiwa Pagers sales shot up suddenly.

Panasonic and NEC were still struggling to survive in China’s Pager market. Even without the alphanumeric Chinese Pagers, they still have numeric pagers. Although the profits for numeric pagers were lower, it was better than none. However, their numeric pagers were also not selling well and soon, they found it hard to survive.

It seems that their sales had dropped overnight. No one was buying their pagers regardless whether it was alphanumeric or numeric pagers.

From their market analysis, the number of pager users was increasing, but why was their pager sales dropping?

Both Panasonic and NEC start to investigate this and found that it was Aiwa Pagers that was taking their market share! A Chinese character pager company had beat them with one pager model!

Now, Panasonic and NEC had two choices. One was to continue to struggle even when they were making losses and think of a way to increase their sales. The other was to withdraw from the Chinese market to stop their losses.

Both companies had chosen two different strategies. NEC decided to leave the Chinese Market, and Panasonic decided to remain as they still have other products like TV and Video Cassette players, and they could still make use of their branding to sell their pagers. Panasonic was worried that if they leave the Pager market, their other products will be affected too and had to withdraw from China.

NEC’s decision to leave the Chinese market had attracted the attention of Motorola. Motorola had also discovered that the number of pager users had increased faster than last month, but their sales did not increase. Their Chinese Characters pagers’ sales had even declined. This was way out of the norm.

There was one less competitor, and with Motorola’s reputation, branding and market share, most of the new pager users should be choosing their products. Why were their sales not increasing?

Panasonic also did not introduce any new products, and they did not even have any marketing campaign. Who was taking away all the market share?

In the end, Motorola singled out the new pager brand, Aiwa Pagers, that was taking away all the market share. A company that manufactures Chinese Characters pager. The retail prices were cheaper than their cheapest Chinese Character pager by a few hundred RMB!

A few hundred RMB was a lot for the Chinese in this era. This was mainly when Motorola pagers had similar features as Aiwa Pagers, and there was not much difference to the consumers. The consumers had no reason to purchase the more expensive pagers.

If Motorola was not the first pager brand that entered the Chinese market and had build up their branding, their sales would be affected further. But Motorola knew that Aiwa Pagers does not have high production and they were not worried that Aiwa Pagers will affect their market share.

Feng Yu was listening to Wu Zhigang’s report. All the distributors were increasing their orders, and Feng Yu nodded satisfied. With the post offices sales channel, the result was different. In about a week, the results were shown, and in a month, Aiwa Pagers should be the number two brand in China’s pager market. Feng Yu’s target was to be China’s number one pager by the end of next year. He wants to beat Motorola!

Feng Yu was not building castles in the air. In his previous life, many Chinese pager brands will be appearing early next year. Although these brands were not selling well, they also occupied half of the market shares.

In his previous life, those unknown Chinese pager companies had snatched half of the market share from Motorola, and in this lifetime, Feng Yu had the support of the government and had sufficient funds, better marketing campaigns, and better products. There was no reason why he could not beat Motorola!

Motorola’s primary focus at this time had shifted from pagers to handphones. The leader in the handphone market was still Ericsson. But in a few years, Motorola will take over their position and become the leader in the handphone industry.

It was inevitable for Motorola to lose its pager market share as they shift their focus away from pagers. But Motorola was still receiving high profits from their pagers as their retail prices were the highest in the market!

Feng Yu wanted to increase Aiwa’s position in the Chinese telecommunication market before Motorola could react. Next year, Aiwa will face Motorola head-on in a showdown!

As for this year, Aiwa Pagers’ production was limited. Even if there were high demands, there could only be so many sales. But this was also a good thing, as it can avoid Motorola’s attention.

It might be very dangerous if Motorola starts to target Aiwa Pagers now. After all, Motorola was a world-renowned telecommunications giant, and if Motorola were to take precautions now, Feng Yu does not know if all his plans will succeed.

Although Feng Yu was confident that his sales will not fall, those other smaller brands will not be able to survive then. It will be a duopoly.

Without those smaller brands entering the market, Feng Yu was not sure if he could still beat Motorola and drag Motorola down from its throne!

Chapter 488 – Sports Meet

“Lao Si, you will be participating in this year’s Spring Sports Meet.” Tian Lei passed an application form to Feng Yu.

“Spring Sports Meet? I am not interested, but I can sponsor some clothing or equipment. How about Li Ning’s sports attire?”

This Sports meet was an athletic event.  If there were sports like basketball or soccer, Feng Yu would be interested in taking part. He was not interested in track and field sports.

“But we do not have enough people. There is an event which needs lots of people.” Tian Lei said.

Could it be soccer? If it’s soccer, then I will take part.

Feng Yu looked at the different categories of events in the application form. The only ball related event listed in the form was shotput!

Right at the bottom of the form, Feng Yu saw the even Tian Lei was talking about. Damn, it was a tug-of-war. This sport really needs lots of people! Who was the one who thought of including this sport into the sports meet?!

“Are you talking about a tug-of-war?”

“Yes. 20 men tug-of-war. It will be faculty vs. faculty. There can be 5 substitutes, and 10 participants must be from the 2nd and 3rd years. 5 will be from the first years. With your fitness and you do not take part, who else will take part? Furthermore, this will be a fast event and does not need much training.” Most of the university students were skinny.

“Fine. I will participate. Hmmm…… u will also sponsor everyone a short sleeve top, a pair of sports shoes and a cap. It will all be Li Ning brand.”

Feng Yu called the Tai Hua Trading’s Beijing distributor and asked him to help to purchase a batch of sports attire. It was for every student in his faculty, no matter if they were taking part in the sports meet.

Feng Yu also instructed the distributor on something else. This was Beijing University’s sports meet and was considered a major event for the school. This was an opportunity to promote some of his products.

“Lao Si, do we really have to pin this on our tops?” Tian Lei frowned.

“That’s right. What’s wrong? All the attires were sponsored by the company and what’s wrong with putting some advertisement on it? Those that are not willing can don’t take the attire.” Feng Yu was thinking in his heart. I did not print my logos on the clothes and only ask you to pin it on the attire. After the sports meet, all of you can remove the logos and wear it. The whole set of attire was not cheap. Feng Yu does not believe that any student would give up this attire!

“What about all these banners?” Tian Lei pointed to a mountain of banners on the floor.

“Those that are not participating in the events also received the sponsored attires. When they are watching the competitions, they can help to raise the banners. Some of these can be hung outside. Those are all some encouragement phases.”

Tian Lei suddenly felt that it was not a good idea to let Feng Yu participate in this Spring Sports Meet. Their Management faculty will be the center of attraction.

This center of attraction might not be a good thing for the faculty.

Tian Lei and some other fellow students went to distribute the sports attire, while Feng Yu brought some students to hang the banners.

“Here, facing the stadium. Higher, make it more noticeable. Not this banner. This banner should be hung over there.”

Some students from other faculty walked past and saw the banners. Those banners were interesting, and they wondered who was the one who came up with those phrases on the banners.

Spring Sports Meet, Management will be number one; Sun rises from the East, Management will not be beaten; If Management participates, who else will be the top; Beijing University’s Sports Meet, Management will win it all.

None of these phases had a hint of humbleness. All of the banners were shameless praising the Management Faculty. Those people from the Management Faculty wants to be the number one in the sports meet? Don’t talk about the overall winner, they might not even win a single event!

The students also noticed that at the bottom of every banner, there will be a logo of Wind and Rain, Aiwa Electronics, etc. These banners were not from the Management Faculty.

All the students knew about the companies on the banners. They watch their commercials on TV every day. But what do these companies got to do with the Management Faculty?

But who cares about all these details. All the other faculties were determined to make the Management Faculty look bad. This Management Faculty was too arrogant with their banners. They will be a joke at the sports meet!

When the athletes from other faculties entered the stadium, they were shocked. What’s with the attire of those from the Management faculty? Everyone else was wearing their either their school uniforms or a white top. But everyone from the Management Faculty was wearing the same short sleeves sports attire.

It was normal for the students to wear uniform attires, but why was there a white cloth pinned onto their backs and logos of Wind and Rain and Aiwa Electronics were printed on it!

All the other students were wearing clean attires. At most, they will pin the Party or school badge on it. This was the first time they saw people wearing the logos of companies on their attires. Was this a form of advertising?

The Principal and the other leaders of the University at the stands were not looking well. They knew about these two brands. The Management Faculty Feng Yu’s family owns these two companies! Why were these two brands appearing on the Sports Meet?

There were also lots of banners hang around the stadium. Those were all advertisements in disguise. It was like the Coca Cola advertisements appearing I the Olympics games. This was a school meet and why does it feel like a commercial event?

After the opening ceremony, all the leaders left with a black face. As they were going, they saw the Management Faculty raising another banner!

The whole afternoon, the Management Faculty did not even win once. They do not even qualify for the finals of some events! Although this was only Beijing University’s Sports Meet, the students were all very competitive. All the students from the other faculties did not stop mocking the Management students!

You had hung so many banners with arrogant phases and shouted so many slogans, but you did not even win one event. There was not a single one of you in your faculty that was better than the rest of the school in any games.

The Great One had said that the body is the capital of the revolution. All of you do not even have the capital and what else can you do? Do you know what we drank before this sports meet? Softshell Turtle essences!

Tian Lei was embarrassed. In this sports meet, the main players were the year 2 and year 3. Those in the final year will not participate. Those freshmen were still new, and not many of them signed up for this sports meet.

“Lao Si, will we be the laughing stock of the school?” Tian Lei asked. The representative from the 3rd year had reprimanded him for what Feng Yu did.

“I am not sure about the rest of the events, but we will definitely win the tug-of-war!” Feng Yu replied calmly.

“Tug-of-war? We will surely win? Many of the students from the science faculties are from the soccer and basketball teams. We can win them?” Tian Lei could not believe what Feng Yu said.

“Other than the top 4, the rest of the matches are all knock out rounds? I guarantee that we will reach the semi-finals easily and win the competition! Come over here. I will tell you my tactics. Later at noon, look for a deserted place and inform the rest.” Feng Yu asked Tian Lei to move closer to him and tell him about his secret weapon!

Later in the afternoon, someone from the Management Faculty finally won third place in an event. They still did not get first in any other games. They were still the laughing stock of the other faculties. Soon, the tug-of-war event started.

“Ready……. Go!”

“Change the rice…… Change the rice…….” The youngest from the dormitory shouted into the loudhailer, imitating Guo Da voice.

The Mathematics Faculty students on the other side almost laughed out, and the Management Faculty students took the opportunity to tuck vigorously on the rope.

“We won!” Everyone from the Management Faculty cheered.

“This is unfair. They are distracting us.”

“All of you are also shouting ‘Pull, pull, pull’ too. You are also distracting us. Is there a rule that forbid us from shouting as spectators?” The youngest asked.

The referee hesitated for a while and announced: “The red marking had crossed the line. The Management Faculty wins!”

“Yay…….”

This was their tactic. Shouting all sorts of funny cheers in different dialects. The Management Faculty won all the preliminaries and entered the semi-finals.

But from the semi-finals onwards, there were 3 rounds for every match. The Management Faculty won the first round by shouting “Change the Rice” in Northern Shaanxi accent. The opponents were not happy and swore that they will not fall for the same trick again.

But for the second round, the Management Faculty did not shout ‘Change the rice’. Instead, they shouted ‘collect chicken feathers’.

They won the second round!

During the finals, the other teams all knew about the Management Faculty team’s tactics. The whole school was aware of their tactics. The Management Faculty had used underhand methods to enter the finals.

But the finals started immediately after the semi-finals. There was no time for the teams to rest. Although the Management Faculty team was weak, it had only played two rounds in the semi-finals, while the other side had played three rounds in the semi-finals. Their arms were still aching.

This time, the Management faculty team did not use any tactics. They used their own strength and won the following two rounds and became the champion!

The opposing team was not happy. If the Management Team did not use their underhand methods, they would be tired too, and the final results will not be the same.

“Now all of you should know why we hung those banners? We focus on team spirit! We emphasize teamwork. Our teamwork is number one!” Some Management students shouted.

“What’s the use of drinking turtle essence? This is our real strength!”

Of course, there were a lot more students that were like Tian Lei and the rest. They lowered their head and left the stadium quietly. They had won the tug-of-war through underhand methods! Although Feng Yu claims that this was strategy and had told them in advance, they still felt ashamed of themselves.

Tian Lei was regretting the most. In the future, he will not ask Feng Yu to participate in such events. Feng Yu should be banned from taking part in these events!

Chapter 489 – Overrun of health products in the market

“Feng Yu, this is your business plan? You think that the sales of health products will pick up with just advertisements alone?” Zhang Ruiqiang threw the stack of documents on the table and looked at Feng Yu. “You do not agree with me? Although these can be classified as medications, these are all non-prescribed medication. You do not need a doctor’s prescription to buy these products from the pharmacies. What’s the purpose of taking these medicines? To supplement the Zinc intake, Calcium intake and increase red blood cells. The word is supplement!”

“But these are all medications, and why are your retail prices set so high? Are you trying to fool others into thinking that these are health supplement products and purchase them?” Zhang Ruiqiang scolded.

“High prices? Although these products can give us lots of profits, our profits cannot be compared to those health products in the market. I dare to guarantee that our sales volume will be huge, and our profit margin will be small. We are making use of the volume to make profits.” Feng Yu said casually.

From how Lehaha became so popular, it showed that the people now were very concern with their children’s health. What was Lehaha selling? It was just a type of liquid health supplement that improves the digestive system of the children, creating a better appetite for the kids. This was Lehaha’s selling point.

Because of this liquid supplement, many foreign companies had approached them to purchase their formulas. Children that do not like to have proper meals does not only occur in China. This was happening in countries all over the world. Of course, this does not include some parts of Africa. The children there do not even have enough to eat.

When children do not eat properly, the parents will be worried about their growth. Their only solution was to buy some health supplements for their kids to try and solve this issue.

The body needs vitamins, Zinc, Calcium, etc. With Feng Yu’s health supplements, these will all be covered. This is science. Zinc deficiency is one of the causes of eating disorders.

Feng Yu was prepared to include this in his commercials. With his ads, he believes that the sales will not be bad.

“With just these advertisements and your sales team? Those former executives from the pharmaceutical factories?” Zhang Ruiqiang could not accept Feng Yu’s business plan. When Feng Yu promised that he would create a vast amount of profits within a year, Zhang Ruiqiang thought that he would make use of Tai Hua Trading’s existing sales network and not setting up a sales team.

Also, what kind of sales team was this? These were all former executives from the pharmaceutical factories. They had not been doing much over the years. They only want to laze around and enjoy the benefits given by the government. Zhang Ruiqiang was sick of facing them.

“Only these! I promise that you will be surprised by the results!”

On 1st May, Feng Yu changed the advertisements on CCTV to Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s products. He got a mother and son to star in the commercial for Zinc gluconate and Calcium gluconate, a woman to star in the ad for Red blood cells supplement and old men and women to act in the Calcium tablets and vitamins commercials.

These commercials were conveying the message of the extensive uses of these medicines. At the same time, promoting Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise as a proper pharmaceutical company. These were not some bogus wonder medicine.

Coincidentally, there was another wonder health product that appeared in the market. This product’s ingredients claimed to have used the extracts from Chinese softshell turtles and some traditional Chinese herbs. The effects of this product were to improve mental capabilities, vitality, and longevity.

Who was the person that endorsed this product? Coach Ma! This wonder drug was called Chinese turtle essence! This was what the students from the other faculties drank before the sports meet!

Feng Yu also did not know that Chinese turtle essence had purchased advertising slots at CCTV. No wonder Coach Ma appeared at CCTV during the advertising slots auctions.

But this drug was extremely popular in Feng Yu’s previous life. This was because of Coach Ma. Coach Ma had claimed that all his students were able to win so many medals were due to this wonder medicine.

The Ma Family Army had appeared in almost all major competitions, like the Asian games, Olympics, etc. and had won lots of medals and broke many world records for China. This year, the Ma Family Army was at their peak, and many coaches from other countries came over to learn from Coach Ma.

With Coach Ma as the spokesperson for this product, this product was flying off the shelves.

Regardless of old and young, men and women, all of them wanted to live longer. Just this selling point had let this Chinese turtle essence to extremely popular.

This Chinese turtle essence had also bought dozens of smaller factories within a month to increase their production. Despite this, they still could not meet the demand!

Another reason for its popularity was their advertisement’s message. “We do not accept gifts this year, the only gift we accept is Chinese Turtle Essence!”

Feng Yu knew that the ingredient of this Chinese Turtle Essence was not from softshell turtles. It was certified that this product was only water with sweetener. In the future, there was a saying in China: “A turtle can feed a factory!”

Also, this Coach Ma also had his ways to make money. He sold a medicine formula invented by his team doctor to Le Baishi at 10 million RMB, and introduced a new product called “The energy of life”. It was discovered that the main ingredients for this product were only vitamins and Amino acid.

The cost of this “The energy of life” was not more than 10 RMB and what was the retail price? Over 100 RMB per box! Of course, the “Chinese Turtle Essence” was more ridiculous. The cost was less than 1 RMB, and it was also selling for more than 100 RMB per box!

Le Baishi had a strong sales team and despite the sales team, “The energy of life” was not selling as well as the “Chinese Turtle Essence”. However, it was still the number two bestselling health products in the market!

Feng Yu immediately added a sentence at the end of all his Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise commercials: “Safe Medicine, Made with a conscience.”

This sentence might not be of any use right now as there were not a lot of fake medicine in the market. Or should it be that there were already many fake medicines in the market but was not discovered by the authorities? All the consumers were not aware of.

With the advertisements on CCTV, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise was introduced to the viewers all over China. But the sales were not doing as well as those health products.

Your product can only supplement the body with calcium, Zinc, etc. The other products can stimulate the body’s potential and increases the vitality. We will buy those better products even if it cost more. Tonics should be more expensive!

In that era, the Chinese had a saying: Cheap things are not good! But they did not know that even if the product was more expensive, it might not be good as well!

Feng Yu really despise those that sell these type of fake health products. They were cheating their fellow countrymen. If they were competent, they should be cheating those foreigners in other countries!

If they were capable of doing that, Feng Yu would still praise them. But these unscrupulous merchants were not doing that. They were only taking advantage of the Chinese.

Didn’t you advertise your products on CCTV, newspapers and radio stations? You are promoting the wonders of your fake health products and exaggerated the benefits? Then I will use the same method to give you the killing blow! I will let you know what is call people power.

“Is this Station Chief Jia? I’m Feng Yu. I would like to invite <Focus Report> to do an episode for me. Don’t worry. I am sure that the leaders and viewers will like this episode. 500,000 RMB? It’s too expensive. 300,000 RMB? Fine. Deal!”

Chapter 490 – Ma Family Army’s reputation

“What? You are saying that the Chinese Turtle Essences and the energy of life are all fake products?” Sui Junyi of <Focus Report> looked at Feng Yu. He could not believe what he heard. Was this a joke? Those products were endorsed by Coach Ma. How could it be fake products?

<Focus Report> was a news program created by the same team who had created <Serving You>. It focuses on the news and talks about the things that the people were most concern. The concept of this show was suggested by Feng Yu.

<Serving You> had lasted longer than what it should be in Feng Yu’s previous life. But in the end, this program was also stopped. The production team went on to create two shows. One was called <Oriental Horizon>, and the other was <Focus Report>.

These two programs were quite popular with the viewers. Compared to Feng Yu’s previous life, these two programs had appeared earlier than it should be. But this was also because of Feng Yu’s interference.

Sui Junyi was from Xinhua News Agency and had been to the gulf as a war reporter. From the start of this year, he was working as a reporter for both <Oriental Horizon> and <Focus Report>. He was also the host for <Focus Report>.

This time, the reporter tasked with helping Feng Yu was Sui Junyi. Feng Yu had a deep impression of Sui Junyi from his previous life, because of his stern looks. However, Feng Yu was not used to how Sui Junyi looks like now.

“Reporter Sui, the “Energy of Life” cannot be considered a fake health product entirely. But the commercials had exaggerated the effects of this product. From this point of view, you can say that this is a fake product. As for the “Chinese Turtle Essence,” I can confidently tell you that this is definitely a fake health product. I had sent this product to Beijing University’s professors to analyze the contents and verify their claims!”

Sui Junyi still does not believe Feng Yu. The Energy of Life was a medical formula from the Ma Family Army, and the Chinese Turtle Essence was the health supplement taken by all the athletes in the Ma Family Army. Coach Ma had said that it was because of these supplements, his athletes won so many medals and broke so many records!

“Manager Feng, is this real? Coach Ma had proven the effectiveness of these products. How can these be fake?”

As a reporter, Sui Junyi should not be taking sides and seek to uncover the truth. But in his heart, he still believed Coach Ma and his Ma Family Army. This Manager Feng should be jealous of other products selling better than his and resorted to using underhand methods. Since <Oriental Horizons> and <Focus Report> started, he had received similar requests.

“The Ma Family Army was able to achieve good results had nothing to do with the Chinese Turtle Essence! The Chinese Turtle Essence is only water with sweetener! The energy of life is only some vitamin and protein product. The retail price for these products are more than 100 RMB, and the cost is less than 10 RMB! These products do not have the effects as claimed in their advertisements!” Feng Yu said firmly.

Feng Yu had received the test reports on the Chinese Turtle Essence. The main ingredients of this product were only sweetener and water. There was no other nutritional value in this product. Instead, some harmful bacteria were found in the product. This shows the lack of hygiene in the factory’s production process!

The Energy of Life product was even more ridiculous. This was just water added with some proteins and vitamins. It was only an ordinary beverage. It might still qualify as a health product, but the effects of longevity, vitality, etc. were all bullshit!

Sui Junyi found it hard to accept what Feng Yu told him. The Energy of Life was only selling at a higher price and had exaggerated claims of the efforts. But that Chinese Turtle Essence was really just water with sweeteners?

“Manager Feng, you have to take responsibilities for what you said.”

“I know.” Feng Yu replied.

“This… I need to report to the higher-ups. I will tell them that you discover some fake health products in the market and you did not say that this fake product is the Chinese Turtle Essence endorsed by Coach Ma!”

“Is there a difference?” Feng Yu asked.

“Please wait for a while.”

Feng Yu was feeling helpless. This was the influence of the Ma Family Army. No one dares to report any news that would damage their reputation. This was because the Ma Family Army represents China’s track and fields on a global stage. All of the athletes from the Ma Family Army had won medals and broke records in the mid to long distance events. They had brought glory to China!

The Ma Family Army’s influence was higher than the Queen of Table Tennis, Deng Yaping, and the Gymnastic prince, Li Ning. They were the pride of China and had brought honor to China!

Sui Junyi dares not to act on his own with matters regarding the Ma Family Army. Any negative news about the Ma Family Army will be picked up by foreign media.

Currently, the Ma Family Army was still competing overseas. Some time ago, they had just won a few events and became world champions. This year, they still have a lot of competitions. They cannot let some negative news to affect the Ma Family Army. They still have to win medals for China.

But Feng Yu knew the truth behind the Ma Family Army. The Ma Family Army was able to win so many medals were because of drugs! But these drugs were not Chinese Turtle Essence or Energy of Life. They were using illegal performance-enhancing drugs. They were using the most advanced stimulants which could not be detected currently!

This was discovered during the Sydney Games in the year 2000. Later, some members of the Ma Family Army revealed that Coach Ma forced them to take these stimulants and even injected these drugs to the athletes himself. Some of the athletes had written letters to report about this.

Of course, these were all not verified. Even before Feng Yu returned to this life, Coach Ma was still living well, and there were rumors that he had a Tibetan mastiff which worth 40 million RMB as a pet!

Feng Yu refused to believe this news. He thought that all the athletes had failed the doping test because they had trained too hard and caused hormones imbalance. They had won the medals due to their hard work and not through cheating!

Nevertheless, the Ma Family Army was at its peak of their popularity. They were even more popular than gymnastics and table tennis because there was no world record in gymnastics and table tennis.

Also, China’s top official was scheduled to meet the representative of the Ma Family Army. All these athletes were named as the Ma Family Army, and everyone should know who the representative will be!

If at this time, someone was to investigate the product Coach Ma endorsed, there will undoubtedly be some higher-ups stopping him.

Sui Junyi returned and told Feng Yu that they will not be doing this episode. The 300,000 RMB sponsorship will be returned to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was pissed. Even if the Ma Family Army had good results, it had nothing to do with the products Coach Ma endorsed! The products had severe problems! Feng Yu had wanted to expose those products to show that his products are safe and genuine.

Now, CCTV refuses to report this on their program, and this made Feng Yu pissed. The more you don’t allow me to expose, the more I will reveal! Why can’t I disclose Coach Ma sells fake health products? I do not care if my products can sell well or not. These harmful fake products should be taken off the shelves!

I do not care if you did this on purpose. This is the fact. You can just apologize to the public and claim that you are cheated. But from Feng Yu’s understanding of Coach Ma in his previous life, he knew that Coach Ma will never admit his wrongs.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the Ma Family Army’s athletes were forced to withdraw from the Olympic games due to the doping incident, Coach Ma kept quiet and refused to say a single word. If there were no problems with the athletes, why were they forced to withdraw from the competitions? You can request for a second test to prove your innocent!

Feng Yu wants to speak to station chief Jia. This was the truth, and there was no way for them to cover up!

Chapter 491 – Persuading Deputy Station Chief Jia

“Feng Yu, do you know what you are saying? The product endorsed by Coach Ma is fake health product?” Station Chief Jia’ asked with an annoyed tone. Even if it was the Station Chief, he also needs to report to the higher-ups on this matter before they could film this episode.

“I am telling you the truth! I don’t know why the station is willing to expose those fake medicines and health products and tried to cover up the products endorsed by Coach Ma. Where is the impartiality of your news?” Feng Yu asked.

“Do you know what does Coach Ma represent? He is the world’s best coach for mid to long distance running events!” Chief Jia replied.

“I do not know about coaching, and I will not comment on this. Even if he is the best, but what has it got to do with exposing those fake products? Just because Coach Ma had said that all his Ma Family Army drank Chinese Turtle Essence? Just because Coach Ma is the one who provided the formula for Energy of Life? Chief Jia, everyone has their expertise. Coach Ma might be the best in coaching, but if you think carefully, can he really develop the formula for that so-call Energy of Life?”

Feng Yu does not believe that a coach, without much education and does not know about basic chemistry and medicine can invent the formula for some out of this world wonder health product.

Deputy Chief Jia was at a loss of words. He also does not believe Coach Ma was the one who invented the formula. But Coach Ma was the one who told everyone that.

Feng Yu continued: “I have evidence to prove that the Chinese Turtle Essence is a fake drug. I also have evidence that the Energy of Life does not have the effects it claims. You can also interview the members of the Ma Family Army, like Wang Junxia and the others. I think you will get the real answer from them!”

“No matter what you say, they had created miracles during last year’s Olympic games! They are now competing in the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. They cannot be distracted at this moment.”

“You want to cover up the truth because of this? You bear to see those consumers spending so much money to buy some fake health products? I don’t know what you are thinking. For me, if I know the truth and don’t expose them, I will be very uncomfortable. I will not sleep well! Chief Jia, there can be no conflict for this matter. You can contact Coach Ma and tell him in advance to quit his endorsement, and then we expose these products.”

Feng Yu offered a solution which he knew that Coach Ma and Chief Jia will not agree to.

Chief Jia shook his head: “Impossible!”

Coach Ma had openly told the world that his athletes had drank the Chinese Turtle Essence, and it was because of this product, they could run so fast. The Energy of Life was also his secret recipe to provide nutrients to his athletes. If he were to quit his endorsement now, he would be lying. This will have a massive impact on the Ma Family Army.

“Chief Jia, do you still remember the purpose of us creating the programs <Oriental Horizon> and <Focus Report>?” Feng Yu asked.

The purpose? Chief Jia does not get what Feng Yu was trying to say.

“Chief Jia, do you remember the motto written on the wall of <Oriental Horizons> production team’s office?

Motto? Fairness, Justice, Forward-looking. These were the mottos of this program. They want to produce a current affairs program that the audiences love.

“Chief Jia, I had seen the mottos once, and I like the first word. Fairness. The reporters must be fair and impartial to everyone they interviewed. They have to maintain the same attitude and cannot be influenced by the interviewee. This way, the interviewees will be truthful in answering to the reporter.”

Chief Jia frowned. He understood what Feng Yu was trying to tell him. Feng Yu wants him to be fair and impartial to all matters. Right is right and wrong is wrong. He should not cover anything up because of the person’s past achievements.

Chief Jia suddenly remembered the purpose of starting the program <Focus Report>. It is to report on issues which the leaders had overlooked.

The higher-ups might not be aware of this matter, and this program would attract their attention. However, it might also be that the culprits had deceived the higher ups.

The advertisement for <Focus Report> was: “Following the current affairs, analyzing the news, looking at the social issues. The people will be the judge!”

Health products were the current most talk about topic among the people. If not, CCTV will not agree immediately when Feng Yu mentioned he wants to sponsor an episode about health products. One of the reasons was money, and the other was that this topic would be popular with the viewers.

Their choice of topics for the program was from the viewers, and there was an unspoken criterion, which was the higher-up’s approval.

Chief Jia was sure that if this issue were reported to the higher ups, they would look into this. But this was different from other topics they had done before!

“Chief Jia, don’t you think that this matter was newsworthy? If this episode is aired, the people will be talking about it. We can don’t make any comments or exaggerated this matter. We will only prove that these two products have problems. Should this what we are supposed to do? Reporting the truth is our principles. Chief Jia, some matters do not need to get approvals from the higher-ups. This is the opportunity to show that your decisiveness and capability of passing judgment, right?”

“We also have another rule. We will not listen to hear-say! You said that you have the evidence. Show it to me!” Chief Jia made his decision. He knew that if he reported this matter to his higher-ups, the approval would not be approved. He might as well do what Feng Yu said. He will take this matter into his own hands and make the decision.

If the truth was really as what Feng Yu claims, then this episode will surely be well-received by the audiences. There will be an uproar, and the higher-ups will notice him. Chief Jia was not sure if things will end up good or bad, but if he knew the truth and do not expose these products, he will not sleep well at night.

But first of all, Feng Yu must be able to provide concrete evidence to make everyone believe his words! The impact of this issue will be huge!

First, the trust in CCTV will be affected. The Chinese Turtle Essence and the Energy of Life had placed advertisements on CCTV. Next, Ma Family Army was the pride of China, and their reputation will be damaged! No one would like liars, even if the liar had brought honor to the country!

On a more serious note, this report will also affect China’s economic growth. Since the appearance of health products, it had to boost China’s economy.

Feng Yu was relieved when he heard Chief Jia making up his mind. It does not matter which part of what Feng Yu said persuaded him as long as he agrees to film and air this episode.

If Chief Jia did not agree to report this matter, Feng Yu would use the favors owed to him by those second generations schoolmates in his university. Those second generations had influential backgrounds, and most of their family members were still holding high positions in the government. Maybe Feng Yu would ask Master Lu for help. He remembered that Master Lu was also an angry patriotic youth and should not be able to stand such people going scot-free.

Feng Yu smiled: “Chief Jia, you want the evidence? No problem. I will give you the evidence now!”

Chapter 492 – Groundbreaking news

“Professor Sun, this is the reporter, director, and host, Sui Junyi. Reporter Sui, this is the Beijing University’s, Professor Sun. The expert in biochemistry.”

“Eh…… I cannot be considered an expert. I had only conducted more research than others.” Professor Sun laughed and waved his hand.

This type of professors does not like money. They only go after fame! Feng Yu calls him an expert in his field, and he was overjoyed.

“Hello, Professor Sun. Are you the person who had conducted tests on the Chinese Turtle Essence? Are the results out?”

“The results are out. What Turtle Essence? If you can find any components in this product that is related to turtles, I will write my name backward from then on! This is just water with some sweetener! Those evil businessmen! This is the test report, and it is signed off by my assistants and me.” Professor Sun was furious. This product was selling for more than 100 RMB a box? It was not even worth 1 cent! Drinking plain water was healthier than this!

Sui Junyi frowned. This Chinese Turtle Essence was really water with sweetener as what Feng Yu had claimed!

“What about the test for the Energy of Life?” Sui Junyi continued to ask.

“This product does have some health benefits. But to claim that it will increase the vitality or whatever other benefits, are all bullshit! We don’t need to talk about large scale production. It only cost less than 20 RMB even if produce in our laboratories. How can this product be sold at such high prices?! Also, this brand of liquid health supplement, this XX essences, etc. all does not have the benefits they claim!” Professor Sun angrily said.

Professor Sun had researched on Gluconate Zinc, Gluconate Calcium and they were only selling for a few RMB for a small box. If it were the same packaging as the Energy of Life, it would only cost about 20 RMB in retail stores. How can this Energy of Life be sold at such high prices? This was cheating. Also, these few liquid supplements in the market had exaggerated their claims. They were all cheating the consumers!

“Manager Feng, is Professor Sun, the only person who had conducted tests on these products?” Sui Junyi asked.

“What do you mean? My assistants are also involved. Can’t you see their signatures in the report? Are you suspecting me of making a false report?” Professor Sun was furious. This Report Sui doubted his professionalism!

“Calm down Professor Sun. Reporter Sui does not mean that. Tests should not be conducted by only one institution. Reporter Sui, I had also engaged Beijing Medical University, Beijing 4th General Hospital, People’s Liberation Army Hospital, Military Hospital, and other institutions. There is a total of 14 institutions that are conducting independent tests. All of them are specialist in this field. I will bring you to each of them.”

Feng Yu would not be so dumb to hire one person or one institute to conduct tests on these products. He needs concrete evidence to prevent those businessmen behind these products from escaping!

Within 3 days, Reporter Sui interviewed more than a dozen experts and professors. He had a stack of test results. These were the test results on 12 health products in the market. Each product was tested by 3 independent institutes. 4 of these products had advertised on CCTV. The rest were advertising on the local TV stations, newspapers and radio stations. All of them had exaggerated the benefits!

5 out of the 12 health products were confirmed to be fake products with no benefits to a person’s health. Although the rest of the products were not considered fake products, the ingredients do not meet the claimed benefits. This was also against the regulations!

Sui Junyi saw the reports and heard what the experts said. He was shocked! All of these products had problems. Not a single one was safe!

Sui Junyi spent one day on editing the interview footages. But he discovered that he had overshot the time limit. <Focus Report> was only an 18 minutes segment. The footage he edited was almost 30 minutes!

Sui Junyi felt all the footages he captured were essential and should not be left out. He still got to visit the related companies to interview people secretly. This episode might be over an hour!

Whatever. Finish the episode first, and we will talk about the rest later!

Sui Junyi brought one of his colleagues to the Chinese Turtle Essence factory to conduct interviews. He does not have time to visit the other factories and also those products were not as popular as this Chinese Turtle Essence!

……

“Eh, switch on the TV. There is a special episode of <Oriental Horizons> today!” Someone said after hanging up the phone. He was not looking well.

“What special episode? <Oriental Horizons>? What’s so nice about this program? It’s your turn to throw a tile. San Wan, do you want?” The person beside said. They were playing Mahjong.

“Ehehehe…… Old Wu, what are you doing? You really must watch TV? Are we still continuing with this game?” Another Mahjong player asked.

“I am not playing. I want to watch TV!” Old Wu immediately switch on the TV and tuned in to CCTV channel. <Oriental Horizons Special Episode – Health Products>

The rest of the Mahjong players saw Old Wu’s attitude and knew that something terrible had happened. When they looked at the TV program, they were shocked too. Why was <Oriental Horizons> reporting on health products? They were all shareholders of a type of health product – Hercules wine!

“…… based on our market research, there are more than 30 commonly seen health products in the market. These products claim to improve blood circulation, vitality, memories, increase lifespan, etc. But after our investigations, we were shocked by the results. We had conducted a random test on 12 of these health products in the market…….” Bai Yansong said. Old Wu and the rest felt their hearts sinking.

Their Hercules Wine was a health product that claims to have increases libido effect.

Immediately, they saw the list of products sent for the tests. Their Hercules Wine was one of the products that were tested!

When Old Wu and the rest started this business, they were trying all means to increase the sales, trying to catch up with the other products. But now, they were regretting. Why did was their sales so high? If their product had not performed so well, they might not be chosen to be tested.

“The results were unbelievable. After randomly testing 12 products in the market, none of them had passed the tests! Not a single product was up to standard! Some of these products had problems with the ratio of the ingredients, some of these products were lacking in the ingredients. Some of these products do not even have the stated ingredients in them! All these 12 products belong to 12 different companies, and only 8 of these companies had the permits to sell and manufacture health products. The other 4 companies do not even have any past experiences of manufacturing health products!”

“2 of the products from these 8 companies do not even have the product serial numbers! One company even printed the product serial number of another food product! The quality of the products for the 5 companies that had all the permits and approval also had serious problems. I can name a few examples……”

Old Wu and the rest slumped back into their chairs. They knew that they were finished! This was already reported on CCTV. There was no way to escape. At the same time, the bosses of almost all of the health products were panicking. All of them were thinking of ways to avoid punishments!

……

Bang!

The office door of Li Jiayu, the boss of the Chinese Turtle Essence, was kicked open. Even the lock was damaged. He immediately stood up, and his female secretary sat up and tidied her clothes.

“What’s wrong? I had said before that without my orders, no one is supposed to enter my office. You are fired!” Li Jiayu roared.

The person who barged into the office said in a rush: “Director Li, something bad had happened……”

Chapter 493 – National uproar

Li Jiayu switched on the Tv, and in his heart, he was still cursing his assistant. If the news on the Tv had nothing to do with his company, he would surely sack this assistant! Do you think I return to the company so late to work overtime?!

“Our <Oriental Horizons> special episode will end here. Do take note of <Focus Report> after this!”

Li Jiayu looked at the clock on the wall. Didn’t the program <Focus Report> starts earlier than <Oriental Horizons>? Why was the schedule different today?

“What was the special episode about? What do you want me to watch?”

“Director Li, this special episode is about the issues relating to health products!” The assistant replied.

“Issues relating to health products? What’s wrong with the health products?!” Li Jiayu stood up.

“Director Li, the <Focus Report> is starting soon. You will know if you watch it.”

……

“Director Le, our Energy of Life is featured in <Oriental Horizons>.”

“Oh really? Hahaha…… Even < Oriental Horizons> is reporting about our product? Seems like it is impossible for our product to be unpopular.” Director Le laughed. “How did they praise our products?”

“Director Le, they are not praising our product. They reported the problems with our ingredients! Also, they also reported us for fake advertisements. Someone from CCTV had called and told us that they will stop airing our commercials and will not refund us the advertising fees as this was stated in the contract!”

“What? There are problems with our product and advertisements?” Director Le was shocked.

“Some of the ingredients are insufficient as what was stated on the labels. Also, our advertisements stated, “Unleashing life’s potential, extending the lifespan”. This statement is also not true. This is fake advertisements. The program had engaged experts to verify our claims. Our product does not have such effects. They say our product is only vitamin water with proteins!”

Director Le was an experienced businessman. He immediately passed out instructions: “Notify the factory to stop the production of Energy of Life immediately. Also, let the sales team know that we will not take in new orders for this product! Lastly, investigate which ingredients are insufficient and which part of the production process had gone wrong!”

……

All the bosses of the health products were trying their last-ditch efforts to save their factories and themselves. Some of them even took the company’s money and went into hiding. They know that they were manufacturing fake health products. The higher-ups will surely look into this, and if they do not run away now, they will lose all their wealth and still need to be jailed!

Among all the bosses, Li Jiayu was the worst. Among all the products, his was the worst. Other products still have some vitamins or proteins in them. Chinese Turtle Essence was especially singled out by <Focus Report>. This product was only water mixed with some sweeteners. Is there any other content in the product? Yes. All sorts of harmful bacteria like E. coli!

Fake health product was not enough to describe the Chinese Turtle Essence now!

After <Oriental Horizon> and <Focus Report> was aired, the whole nation was in an uproar!

The viewers had heard of almost all the health products featured in the episodes, and many of them had bought them as gifts to their parents, children and even themselves. Those products that have insufficient ingredients were still fine. Those people who had purchased the 100% fake products were furious!

The people started to call their relatives, friends, colleagues to tell them to stop taking those health supplement products! Especially the Chinese Turtle Essence and those entirely fake products! These products do not have the effects they claimed in their advertisements and still have lots of harmful bacteria in them. One could fall sick if they take those health products!

……

“Mum, have you drunk the Chinese Turtle Essence I bought for you?”

“What are you asking me to drink? Are those tonics? The TV station had already exposed it. Those are fake products. Are you trying to kill me?” An old lady scolded.

“Mum, I also do not know that this is a fake product. You must remember not to drink those products from now on. I will buy you some fruits tomorrow, and we will go to the hospital for a full check-up.”

“Where did you buy those products from? Tomorrow we will go and demand a refund! Refund is not enough. We must get the police to arrest them!” The old lady said furiously.

“Alright, Mum. Even if you do not mention this, I will also return to look for them. But can we go to the hospital for checks first? Did dad drink those products? Remember to stop taking any health supplements now. If you think that you need some health supplements, we will go to the government pharmacy to buy those products from reputable pharmaceutical companies. I heard that those are safe to consume.”

……

All the people were determined to not let those evil businessmen go scot-free! Also, the malls and shops that sold those products will not be let off easily!

The phones of the Trade and Industry Bureaus and Police stations all over China were ringing nonstop. The number of complaints and reports that day was more than what they had received in one year! All the complains and reports were asking them to arrest the people who sold the fake health products, shut down those shops who sold these products and asking for compensations!

Some of the smarter ones do not only ask for refunds, they still want compensations for their loss of incomes and medical bills.

At this time, a young man in Beijing was reading the newspaper. There was a health product advertisement in the papers that states it will refund 10 times the amount if their products were found to be fake! His eyes darted and thought of a way to make money. Seeking compensations! This person’s name was Wang Dahai!

……

“Contact Li Jiayu immediately and notify all the City’s executive committee members. We will have a meeting in 15 minutes! Also, get the person-in-charge of the Trade and Industry Bureau, Police Department and Health Bureau to be present at the meeting!” The Party Secretary of the city where the Chinese Turtle Essence was based in shouted into the phone. After hanging up, he rushed out of his office. He did not even bring his favorite teacup with him.

……

“Tomorrow morning, no…. Tonight, the Trade and Industry Bureau, Health Bureau must make sure all those health products are taken off the shelves and make sure that no one is still selling those products with problems! Also, those retail shops that sold these products must be shut down and fined!”

“Secretary Li, the pharmacies are also selling those products. If we shut down all the pharmacies, where should the civilians buy their medicines?” The Chief of Health Bureau asked.

“You are saying that every single pharmacy in this city is involved?” Secretary Li asked. This was a big headache. It seems that the regulatory checks were not enough.

“What is the Health Bureau doing? How can you let these fake products appear in the pharmacies? This is your responsibility!” The Mayor shouted.

The Chief of the City’s health bureau was grumbling in his heart. Pushing all the blame to me? Didn’t you just praise that Chinese Turtle Essence factory last month for bringing high revenues to the city? That Li Jiayu was even featured in the City’s Tv station. Furthermore, you are the one who told me to not make frequent checks on their factories.

“What other solutions do everyone have? Say it out now. This is a difficult time for us, and we must work together! Mayor Liu, you are in charge of finance. How much money does the City have now?” This was a major incident. The other cities and provinces were outside of their jurisdiction, and there was nothing they could do. But the city might have to pay the compensations to their city’s consumers! They must calm the masses in their City first. If riots were to break out in the city, the Secretary would also get into trouble.

“The city does not have many reserves left. Why is Li Jiayu not here? Inform the bank to freeze his company’s account. Freeze Li Jiayu and his immediate family members’ bank accounts too!”

“Secretary Li, the Provincial Party Secretary is calling you.” His secretary came into the meeting room and told him.

“Continue with the meeting and think of the emergency response!” Secretary Li walked out of the meeting room.

Chapter 494 – The Leader’s attitude

“Old Jia, are you the one who review this special episode?” The Station Chief looked at Deputy Station Chief Jia with a serious look. “Yes. I am the one who gave the approval. Is there any problem?” Deputy Station Chief Jia replied.

“Old Jia, you are also a senior official. Don’t you know the implications of exposing such news?” The station chief knocked on his desk and asked.

“Of course, I knew what will happen. But I cannot let the people be deceived.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that. But shouldn’t you inform me before you film this episode? Was there a need to blow up this matter? Now the whole nation is monitoring this matter closely. Our station’s phone lines are ringing nonstop!”

“So what? This is the result we wanted for making this episode. We must expose those matters which the higher-ups had overlooked, and the citizens are concerned with. Isn’t this the core of these two programs?” Chief Jia was not afraid as he knew what he did was not wrong.

“Old Jia, don’t you understand what I am trying to tell you? Do you know that this news had been picked up by foreign media?”

“At least this is still better than the foreign media reporting about this incident first.” Chief Jia argued.

Chief Jia also did not expect this news to be so sensational. There were even people calling CCTV to scold them. If CCTV had not advertised these products, they would not have bought those fake products. But the majority of the calls to the station were to praise their programs for exposing these unscrupulous company. This particular episode was a hit with the viewers!

“Old Jia, tell me, who told you about this news and who was the one who sent these products to the individual institutions for tests?”

“Manager Feng of Songjiang Motors.”

“Songjiang Motors Manager Feng? That Manager Feng who was praised by the Chief Architect?”

When Station Chief saw Deputy Chief Jia nodded, he was troubled. This Feng Yu was someone who was praised by the great Chief Architect. He can’t pin all the blame to him!

Although he was the CCTV Station Chief, his rank was only a deputy director. He had already received multiple calls to ask CCTV to film another special episode for the enterprises under their charge a chance. They should not kill off all these enterprises. There was a negative impact on the country’s reputation.

Those people who called the Station Chief had good relationships with him. Some of them were former classmates, some were Provincial governors or deputy governors. All of them held higher ranks than the station chief. There was even a secretary of a top official from the central committee calling him to reprimand him for creating trouble for a province! This province was the province whom the official was in charge of before his transfer. It was also the province that the Chinese Turtle Essence Company was based in!

If it was one or two calls, the Station Chief could still handle the stress. But with so many leaders calling him, he was going crazy!

“Tell me what we should do now?” The Station Chief looked at Deputy Chief Jia bitterly. If the higher-ups were to look for a scapegoat, you would also be in trouble!

“I think……”

When Deputy Chief Jia was about to speak, the Station Chief’s secretary rushed into the room: “Station Chief, Vice-premier Zhu is on the line.”

Vice-premier Zhu? Even this person is calling? This person was the Vice-premier of the state council. Because of the health issues of the Premier, Vice-premier Zhu was the one leading the state council. He was calling now. It seems that there was no chance for the Station Chief to retire in his current position.

“I am CCTV’s Xiao He. What instructions do you have for me? Go to your office with that reporter and the person in charge of the program? Yes. I will go over immediately.”

The Station Chief looked at his watch. It was almost 9 pm. Seems like Vice Premier Zhu had learned about this incident.

“Old Jia, call Xiao Sui. Vice Premier Zhu wants to meet us. Old Jia, the both us is already so old, and we had worked together for so many years. If there are any punishments, both of us should take on all the responsibilities. We should not let Xiao Sui and the rest of the production team be punished.” The Station Chief was feeling very depressed.

“Station Chief. Let me shoulder all the blame. You are about to retire. You should not be punished at this time.” Deputy Chief Jia had a hint of remorse. He should notify the local authorities to look into this matter before he aired this episode.

“Xiao Sui, is there any part of this news falsely fabricated?” Iron-fist Zhu asked.

“No! I am the one who had conducted all the interviews. If there are any false elements in this news, I will take on all the responsibilities!” Sui Junyi replied.

“I am not blaming you. You are a reporter, and you should be reporting the truth. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong. You had done nothing wrong. The production team and CCTV had done nothing wrong.”

“Sir, we are wrong. We should report to the higher-ups and inform the provinces involved to let them handle this incident before airing the episode.” The Station Chief lowered his head and said.

“No. This is the right way to expose them. If you let them know in advance, they will find ways to cover up this incident. This is a good program. Tomorrow I will make a trip to CCTV to meet the production team. The state council will issue a statement tomorrow. Prepare 5 minutes of the evening news for me.”

The next day, Station Chief and the rest of the deputy station chiefs received lots of phone calls in the morning. Everyone was trying to make use of their connections to try to get CCTV to film a special episode for them. They want to change their image. The leader of China’s National Sports Committee had also called to ask for the removal of Coach Ma’s involvement in this incident. He claims that Coach Ma was also a victim in this incident.

In the late afternoon, when all the workers were about to report off, they saw the Station Chief and all the other leaders in CCTV standing at the entrance. After a while, the workers saw Iron-fist Zhu walking in.

Iron-Fist Zhu looked around the CCTV for a while and walked straight to the office of <Oriental Horizons> and <Focus Report>.

Iron-Fist Zhu asked a few questions and also answered some queries by the production team members. Station Chief also invited him to write a few words of encouragement and appreciation to the team, but he refused. He does not like to do such things. He felt that this was not a good practice. However, he said a sentence to the team: Monitoring the public opinions, the voice of the people, a mirror to the government, frontline soldiers of the reforms!

This sentence was his affirmation and support to the production team. When he was saying this sentence, it was recorded on film by the reporters. This will be edited and aired during the evening news.

At the same time, Iron-Fist Zhu reveals the nation’s response to this incident. All the factories that manufacture those fake health products will be shut down, and refunds will be made to the consumers. Hefty fines will be imposed on the companies whose ingredients were lacking in their products. All the false advertisements must be stopped, and the companies will be taken to task!

Iron-Fist Zhu also reprimanded CCTV for not checking the products when they place advertisements. Although advertising revenue was essential to CCTV, they should take more precautions and must prevent this from happening again in the future!

During the evening news, the audiences saw the Vice Premier of the State Council announced a statement on the health product industry. He was upset by what happened. The departments that were supposed to examine products will be severely punished! The relevant departments will also conduct their internal investigations. The Provincial Governments that were involved will also be punished. At the same time, all Provincial Governments have to perform checks and investigations in their provinces. There must not be any fake health products or drugs in the market. If any fake health products or medicines were discovered, the local government of that place would be punished!

When Iron-Fist Zhu said this, he was very firm and had expressed his determination to end this incident. His words also let those local government officials think twice from trying to cover up such events.

There was finally a response from the Central Government. While all the provincial and city governments’ officials were busily clearing the aftermath of this incident, Feng Yu was whistling and driving to CCTV. Chief Jia had repaid Feng Yu by contacting him for the advertising slots free up by those fake advertisements.

Chapter 495 – Sixth Sense is going to be listed

Feng Yu was pleased to know that CCTV had free up 6 advertising slots from this incident. One of the slots was still a primetime slot. Because Feng Yu was taking over these slots in the middle of the year, Chief Jia was willing to offer him a discount if he were to buy up all the 6 slots. Feng Yu made some calculations and found that these slots were less than half of what was paid at the start of the year. Chief Jia also hinted to Feng Yu that it might be close bidding system for next year’s advertising slots auctions and he will make sure that Feng Yu would be able to win more bids. The <Focus Report> can also help Feng Yu do film an exclusive episode on the company he picked.

Old Jia was a good man!

There were finally enough advertising slots for Feng Yu to use. Feng Yu had thought of advertising on Radio stations because of the insufficient advertising slots on CCTV. Now, he does not need to do that. After leaving CCTV, Feng Yu went straight to the airport. Kameda Masao had come to Beijing.

“Boss, thank you for receiving me at the airport. Actually, I can call a taxi myself, and you do not need to come.” Kameda Masao was touched by Feng Yu.

In Japan, there was a clear line between superior and subordinates. Only superiors can order subordinates around. Acting as an equal? The boss will not be viewed as a good leader!

“That’s enough. Stop bowing. Are you afraid that everyone does not know you are Japanese? Hurry up and get into the car. We still have many things to do.” Feng Yu chided.

On the way, Kameda Masao was telling Feng Yu the current status of the Sixth Sense Company. The Company was doing well and had achieved its initial goals. Kameda Masao was thinking of getting this company listed!

Tokyo was the world’s second-biggest financial hub. The Sixth Sense Company’s profits had increased by several folds in the past two years. This company might become the world’s largest sex toys company shortly. There was no way it could not be listed.

After the company was listed, the value of the shares will increase, and the dividends taxes will also increase. But if it were shares allotment, they would be able to be exempted from the high taxes.

Kameda Masao also wanted to give some shares to his fellow colleagues who had worked with him from the start as a form of encouragement. Before the company was listed, the employees can purchase some of the shares at lower prices. The prices of the shares will be much lower than the market rate. This can be considered as employees’ benefits and had been used by many big companies.

Kameda Masao had spoken to Feng Yu over the phone about this. Feng Yu was fine with this idea, but he felt that the company should not be listed in Japan. Japan’s stock market had not recovered from the recession, and even if the company was listed in Japan, there would not be much profits. This was because the Japanese do not have any spare cash now. How would the share prices rise?

Feng Yu was thinking of getting the company to be listed in the US to earn money from the Americans. The Americans were wealthy now, and their stock market was still bullish. Also, there was no sex toys company listed in the US, and this will be a good thing for the Sixth Sense Company.

All Feng Yu needs to do was to control the number of shares issued, and he would still be owning more than 50% of the company’s shares. He will still be the major shareholder and have the biggest authority in the company.

But after the company was listed, Feng Yu will no longer be the controlling shareholder. He will no longer have the biggest say in the company. However, the ones holding the significant stakes in the company was still him and Kameda Masao. He was not worried about losing the company.

Feng Yu had not invested much into the Sixth Sense Company, and he had only invested for fun in the past. Now, he had recovered his initial investment and still made lots of profits. The company under the leadership of Kameda Masao was doing better than expected. If the company was listed, it would be a good thing for Feng Yu too.

Feng Yu would be able to free up some of his money to invest in other companies or take over some companies he was interested in.

At the hotel, Kameda Masao took out a stack of documents from his luggage. It was all written in Chinese, and he passed the documents to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu only looked at the variety of products, their sales figures, market shares in the different regions and profits.

“Kameda…. our sex dolls’ sales the world’s number one now?” Feng Yu’s eyes widen. Kameda Masao had already penetrated into the western market and was now the market leader there. Kameda Masao was really outstanding!

Kameda Masao felt proud for a while but immediately said with a humble tone: “Our company is able to achieve this result is all because of your leadership. Being able to work for you is the luckiest thing that had happened to me.”

Feng Yu looked at Kameda Masao. This Kameda Masao really know how to talk!

“Don’t say this. You are also a capable person to get this result.” Feng Yu also tried to be “humble”.

“If it was not your initial investment, the Sixth Sense Company would not have such results. Without your guidance, the company will not succeed. Without your support and trust, I will not be where I am today!”

“Fine, fine, fine. I know, I know….” Feng Yu laughed.

Even if Feng Yu’s initial investment did not yield any returns, he would also be satisfied because of Kameda Masao’s curry favor skills.

“Tell me your thoughts on the listing of the company.” Feng Yu patted Kameda Masao’s back to stop him from continuing his praises.

“Our company started in 1990, and there was nothing special in the first year. According to your requirements, our financial year is different from the rest of the Japanese companies. Our financial year ends in December, and to date, we have positive earnings records for more than 2 years. After the financial report for the third year is out, we will apply to be listed in the stock market. It should be easy for us to be listed. This is the reason why I want to start preparations now and get our company to be listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.”

Feng Yu shook his head: “Tokyo’s stock market is not a good place for our company to be listed. I think New York is a better place. Japan’s economy is still in recession, and even if we are listed there, we will not make much money. Most importantly, it will be our own employees who had bought the company’s share that will be at the losing end of this listing. Get the company to be listed in the US. The current US market is doing well, and we will surely profit within a short time once we are listed there. With our company’s profits over the past few years, our share prices will surely rise in the US market. It will be much faster than Japan. What do you think?”

“What you are saying is exactly the same as the consultant I hired. I am not an expert in the financial market, but luckily you are around. If not, our company will lose a big portion of profits!” Kameda Masao said.

“How many shares are you issuing for this listing?” Feng Yu asked.

“About 30%. Can we offer our employees 2.5% out of the 30% of the shares?” Kameda Masao asked carefully.

Actually, Kameda Masao wanted to issue more shares, but he knew that Feng Yu would never agree.

“It does not matter if you offer slightly more or less shares to the employees. Since you had already thought of this, then I will leave this to you. What will be the initial offering price?”

“10 USD per share. Is this fine?” Kameda Masao replied after doing some mental calculations.

“10 USD per share? Based on our company’s current scale and potential, this price is too conservative. 10 USD per share should be the price offered to our employees. The IPO price should be at least 20 USD per share! Do not think that this amount is overpriced. People can tell the earning potential of our company, and we are not scared that no one will buy our shares. I guarantee that our share prices will surely increase once we are listed! It should not be a problem for our share prices to increase 2 to 4 folds!” Feng Yu said confidently.

20 USD per share? Doesn’t this mean that the company’s value would be doubled once it was listed? The amount will increase by several folds after that? That means Kameda Masao will become a multi-millionaire? Two $$ sign appeared in Kameda Masao’s eyes.

Chapter 496 – Are you familiar with the TV stations?

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he was only a stockbroker. Although he had never helped a company to be listed before, he still knew the basics and knew more than Kameda Masao. Feng Yu told Kameda Masao that he must hire a US accounting firm and a reputable law firm, even if he had to spend slightly more. Also, the IPO should be handled by an experienced Securities service agency. All these would have an impact on the shares after the company was listed.

Feng Yu said a lot and Kameda Masao took down notes. Feng Yu was pleased with the attitude he was showing.

This was a capable person. He was good with management, knew a few foreign languages, strong fighting spirit and understands the market well. Why was he a Japanese? If he were a Chinese, Feng Yu would have set up a shareholding and consolidate all his assets into that shareholdings. This Kameda Masao would be the perfect CEO to manage all his business.

Kameda Masao was still taking notes diligently when he saw Feng Yu shaking his head and had sorrowful eyes. He was shocked. He does not know what happened.

What does boss mean by that when he looks at me with those eyes? He was unhappy with my performance and felt that I am not capable enough? Or was he suspecting me of making falsifying the financial report? Was he thinking of taking back the authority given to me?

“Boss? Did I do anything wrong that made you unhappy?” Kameda Masao asked carefully.

Kameda Masao’s family business had finally revived under his leadership and was not the world’s number one sex toy company. He had even introduced a new way of managing the company, and he was the pride of his family. If Feng Yu took back his authority, it would be a big hit to him and his family would be disappointed!

“No. You had done very well and had exceeded my expectations.” Feng Yu looked at the worried Kameda Masao and knew that he had misunderstood him. “Didn’t I told you that I will not interfere with the Sixth Sense Company’s operations? I will leave everything to you as long as you do not do anything against me.”

“Don’t worry boss. I will never betray you.” Kameda Masao swore. It was in Japanese genes to respect people more capable than them. Kameda Masao was full of respect for Feng Yu and firmly believes that without Feng Yu’s guidance, there will be no Sixth Sense company.

“Fine. I know. Oh, are you familiar with the Japanese TV stations?” Feng Yu suddenly asked.

Kameda Masao blinked: “I know some people on Fuji Tv. Because of the nature of our products, I am not familiar with the rest of the TV stations.”

Why was the boss asking about Japan’s Tv stations?

Feng Yu frowned. Not familiar? Hmmm… Indeed, the company’s products are not suitable to be advertised on TV.

“Boss, actually Heitaro Nakajima is more familiar with the TV stations than me.” Kameda Masao reminded Feng Yu.

In Japan, Kameda Masao and Heitaro Nakajima had met several times in some event. They did not speak much with each other, but both of them knew that they were working under the same boss. As their companies were of a different nature, there was no way of them working together.

Feng Yu’s eyes brighten up. That’s right. Heitaro Nakajima should be more familiar with the TV stations as Aiwa had placed lots of advertisements on TV and newspapers!

Feng Yu went downstairs immediately and ran to the hotel’s front desk: “Can you phone here make international calls?”

“Yes. May I know which room you are staying?”

“Feng Yu took out a stack of 100 RMB bills and placed it on the counter: “I will pay by cash.”

Feng Yu took out a small telephone book from his pocket. The handphone Feng Yu was carrying could not store telephone numbers, and Feng Yu was the same as the rest of the people. He had to bring his own telephone book around.

Feng Yu had only memorized his home and Li Na’s telephone number. He does not even remember Zhang Ruiqiang’s number.

“I am Feng Yu. Get Heitaro Nakajima on the line.” When the call was through, Feng Yu said in Japanese.

The other party does not dare to take his time. He could see that this call was from China. This was the mysterious Chinese boss of the company.

“Boss, are you looking for me?”

“Are you familiar with Japan’s TV stations?” Feng Yu asked.

“Quite familiar. Although we are not advertising our Walkman so aggressively now, whenever we launch a new model, we will do some marketing campaigns with them. Furthermore, we are also advertising our VCD players with the TV stations. We can be considered quite familiar with the stations.”

“Then if I want to place some advertisements for medicine in those stations, is it allowed?”

“Medicines advertisements?Pprescription medicines?”

“No. These are non-prescription medicines. The medicines are for Zinc, Calcium supplements and increasing the red blood cells.” Feng Yu explained. China also does not allow advertising for prescription drugs.

Zinc supplement? Calcium supplement? What the hell are all these things? Heitaro Nakajima was confused. The market for these things should not be significant.

The market for medicine used to treat common ailments like common flu or coughs should be more significant as these were used commonly. But those supplement medicines do not have a vast market. Why did Feng Yu want to advertise for these products?

“Boss, I do not understand what you are saying.” Heitaro Nakajima replied.

Feng Yu: “……” Japanese does not have the concept of health products?

“These medicines are a type of health products, used to supplement the body’s nutrients.”

Heitaro Nakajima understood what Feng Yu was talking about. Health products. But why were these health products categorized as medicines?

“Boss, you want to advertise these medical products to which segment of consumers?” Heitaro Nakajima asked.

“Which consumer segments? All Japanese.”

All Japanese? Heitaro Nakajima was even more confused. What sort of health products was suitable for all Japanese? Weren’t these products all health products? Calcium, Zinc supplement? It was impossible that all Japanese had calcium and zinc deficiency. Furthermore, the Japanese ate lots of fishes and fishes were high calcium food.

Heitaro Nakajima explained to Feng Yu about the Japanese diet and Japanese does not lack in proteins, calcium, iron, etc.

Feng Yu was feeling regretful. The Japanese do not lack in all these? Then he can only sell his vitamins and Zinc supplements.

Feng Yu also found out that there were similar products in Japan and they were not doing well. The Japanese consumers will only purchase such products when they were advised by their doctors. Usually, no one would want to take such supplements.

“Heitaro Nakajima, although the Japanese do not lack Calcium and iron due to your diets, I know that the Japanese must surely be lacking in vitamins and Zinc. I could tell this from looking at Japanese. For example, the height of the average Japanese.”

Feng Yu continued to explain the effects of Zinc and some vitamin deficiencies. Some of the things he said were true, and some were made up by him. But in the end, Heitaro Nakajima was convinced!

“So now you understand? All Japanese lack Zinc! They need a product to increase their zinc intake. I have an excellent and effective Zinc supplement product.”

“Boss, I understand now. I will help you contact the TV stations and buy two advertising slots. Once this is done, I will contact you again.”

“Alright.”

After hanging up the phone, Feng Yu saw the receptionist at the front desk looking at him. Am I really that handsome and attractive?

“Sir, it is 30 RMB per minute, and your call is 11 minute and 6 seconds. We will round it off to 12 minutes. You still owe me 260 RMB.”

Damn. Feng Yu quickly took out 300 RMB and threw it on the counter: “Keep the change!”

The pretty receptionist looked at Feng Yu’s back as he was walking away. Although she had gotten 40 RMB tips, she was still despising Feng Yu. This person was working for the Japanese and must not be a good person. Hmph!

Chapter 497 – Old Ma’s grudge

Feng Yu returned to the hotel room and continued his discussions with Kameda Masao on the company’s future plans. Kameda Masao was mainly the one who does all the talking, reporting to Feng Yu. Feng Yu was only nodding as he was not familiar with running a company. He was not as good as Kameda Masao when it comes to managing a company! Kameda Masao wanted to use Hong Kong as a stepping stone to enter the Chinese market. He wants to target the coastal regions and Beijing first.

Feng Yu thought for a while. There were already lots of ladies wearing stockings and knee-length skirts on the streets now. That means the Chinese were getting more open-minded. The mini skirts will only appear in China after Hong Kong’s return.

Kameda Masao was thinking of asking Feng Yu to help. Feng Yu had an established sales network in China, and if he could make use of this network, it will be easier for him to enter the Chinese market.

Feng Yu hesitated, but still gave Kameda Masao the contacts of the distributors. Tai Hua Trading will still not get involved in this business yet.

Feng Yu does not want to interfere in this. It will be up to the distributors on whether if they’re going to sell these products.

After this, Feng Yu continued with his school as usual. He had to prepare for his examinations. Kameda Masao also started to visit the distributors personally and at the same time, monitor the Chinese market.

Maybe it was because of the advertisements or the capabilities of the sales representatives, the sales of Bing City’s Pharmaceutical health products started to increase steadily.

Some of CCTV viewers had noticed that the advertisement slots of those fake products were changed to Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise, Songjiang Motors advertisements. All these products were all manufactured in Bing City!

When the sales of Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise increases, Zhang Ruiqiang was overjoyed. This shows that the restructuring of the pharmaceutical industry in Bing City was a success.

But soon, he found out that Bing City’s relationships with the other cities had soured. Even Shenyang City, who had a good relationship with Bing City in the past, had stopped some joint projects.

Zhang Ruiqiang thought back to what had happened and soon understood why this was happening.

Where was the Ma Family Army originated from? Shenyang! They were not the National team. They were the Shenyang Provincial team, but they enjoyed the same benefits as the national team. This was the reason why Shenyang got to enjoy the same honor whenever the Ma Family Army won any competitions. The city can also enjoy a portion of the advertising and sponsorships of the Ma Family Army. The Ma Family Army was the front of Shenyang!

Now, the reputation of the Ma Family Army was tarnished by CCTV and why was all the advertisement slots changed to Bing City’s products? Who would believe that Bing City had nothing to do with this incident?

Of course, Coach Ma also played a huge role in this. When Coach Ma brought his athletes to participate in a competition, he knew that he will be caught up in this incident.

While he was overseas, he heard of this incident. But he needed to concentrate on the competition and had no time to look into that scandal. From his point of view, he had so many achievements under his belt and what could happen to him? He had only endorsed a product, and the commercial and advertising message was thought up by others. He just needs to say that he does not know about all these and he will be fine.

The Ma Family Army had shown outstanding results at the competition again. When they arrived back in China, they were surrounded by reporters the moment they touch down. Coach Ma thought that it would be like in the past and the reporters will be congratulating him on his team’s results. They will be asking him how his team was able to achieve those results and what will be their future targets, etc. He had already prepared the answers to these questions.

But this time it was different. He was furious by the reporters’ questions!

“Coach Ma, is the Chinese Turtle Essence the reason for the Ma Family Army winning so many medals at the competition?”

“Coach Ma, what do you think of CCTV exposing the Chinese Turtle Essence was actually water with sweeteners?”

“Coach Ma, the Energy of Life was verified to be just a normal product with some vitamins and proteins. This is just an ordinary product and not some mysterious and special product. Why are you able to sell this formula for 10 million RMB?”

“Coach Ma, as a graduate from a vocational school, how are you about to develop the formula for the Energy of Life? Is it true that this formula was developed by your team doctors and you took credit for that?”

“Wang Junxia, you had won the gold medal in this competition. What was the contributing factor that let you win? Is it because of the Chinese Turtle Essence? Did all of you pack the Chinese Turtle Essence in your luggage whenever all of you participate in overseas competitions?”

All the questions by the reports were like wooden stakes piercing through Coach Ma’s heart. This was the first time he had experienced the cons of being famous.

“Sorry. Our athletes had just completed a tiring competition, and we still need to prepare for the upcoming IAAF World Championships in Athletics. Please do not disturb us.” Coach Ma said.

“Coach Ma, are you avoiding our questions? Wang Junxia, what’re your views on these questions?”

Wang Junxia and the rest of the athletes had been unhappy with Coach making use of their results to make money and his rigid training schedule. All the athletes were tied together on the waist and was dragged behind a motorcycle ridden by Coach Ma. Even if they fell, they had to get up and continue running. Who could stand such training methods?

But in front of the reporters, Wang Junxia and the rest of the athletes did not say much.  All of them were escorted by the assistant coaches to their cars and left. But Coach Ma was the only who was not able to board the vehicle as he was still surrounded by the reporters.

“I am also the victim. I still have many questions myself. I have just returned from overseas. I will answer all your questions after I know what actually had happened.”

When Coach Ma returned to his training camp, he was called to Shenyang leader’s office.

Coach Ma was furious when he left the leader’s office. Why does he need to hand over all his money? It was those businessmen that cheated the consumers. I am not involved! Why should my salary be docked, and bonuses forfeited?

But the governor of Shenyang just asked him one question, and he got nothing to argued: “You really do not know that those products were not as wonderful as what was claimed in the advertisements? Have you drunk the Chinese Turtle Essence yourself? Do all the team athletes really drink this Chinese Turtle Essence?”

Coach Ma had no choice but to surrender the 10 million RMB he got from selling the formula to Le Bashi and the 1 million endorsement fees he got from the Chinese Turtle Essence. This amount will be used to compensate the victims.

Also, Shenyang city was reprimanded by the higher-ups for failing to monitor their staffs. They had let their coach endorse for products and resulted in this incident.

At the training camp, Coach Ma opened up a copy of the newspaper on his desk. Half the page were articles criticizing him, and the other half was Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s advertisements.

Coach Ma crushed the papers in anger. But he suddenly thought of a way to divert the public’s attention from him.

He immediately called the governor and claims that he was the victim in this incident. The entire health product industry were victims, and the only winner was Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise!

Even though this incident had blown up, Coach Ma was not worried that his status would be affected. It will be the World Championships soon, and then it will be the National Games of the People’s Republic of China, followed by the Asian games. As long as his athletes continued to achieve good results in these competitions, people will forget about his involvement in this scandal.

But what Coach Ma did not know was that there was a bigger storm coming his way.

Chapter 498 – I am the one who caused the Ma Family Army to be disbanded?

After the examinations, Feng Yu finally had the time to look into the sales issues of Bing City’s Pharmaceutical. Other than the health supplements, the medicines for common flu and inflammation also need advertising. These medicines should be kept in every household. This was what Feng Yu had in mind.

But before Feng Yu could start working on this advertisement, there was a report on the news that shook the whole nation!

Wang Junxia and another two top athletes had jointly announced that they want to change their coach!

When this news was reported, not only China’s sports circle were shocked. Even the public was shocked! These three athletes, also known as “The 3 Xia” were the pillars of Ma Family Army. If they requested a change of coach, what about the rest of the athletes?

Soon after, the rest of the members if the Ma Family Army, especially the ones who had gotten good results, regardless of men and women, starts to announce that they wanted a new coach. They wanted Shenyang’s men’s athletics coach as their chief coach.

It was normal for athletes to switch clubs, but these were not regular athletes. They were top international athletes. Furthermore, they were not switching clubs. They wanted to change their coach!

In this era, the status of athletes was not as high as the later years. Just look at the Ma Family Army. Coach Ma was more famous than his medal-winning athletes! People will say it was the coach’s credit when the athlete won a medal. It can’t be that you had worked hard and the rest of the athletes did not. Why are you the one who had won the medal?

Also, coaches in the athletic world were prestigious. It was even more prestigious than the status of teachers in the olden days. This was the reason why the athletes did not receive offers to star in commercials and endorsement, and Coach Ma could get million RMB offers to endorse a product.

Actually, the rift between Coach Ma and his athletes in the Ma Family Army had started a long time ago. For an athlete to be successful, talent, training and their hard work were critical. But the most crucial aspect was the athlete’s talent!

Training and hard work would determine the baseline of an athlete. But talent will determine whether if the athlete would succeed. All of China’s best mid to long distance young runners were in Ma Family Army. This was the main reason why Ma Family Army was so victorious.

Coach Ma’s claims of “inventing” the deer stride running method, was only imitating the way those western athletes ran in competitions. He changes the name of this technique and claims that he was the one who invented it. Actually, it was the same basic principles. Whatever Coach Ma knew, the other coaches also knew. This was why the athletes do not mind changing a new coach.

There was an uproar when this news came out. Isn’t the World Championships around the corner? Why such things happened just when the athletes were about to depart to the Championships?

Once again, the reporters gathered at the training grounds of the Ma Family Army. Feng Yu saw the dark face of Coach Ma on the news. Coach Ma did not answer many questions asked by the reporters and left.

Others might not know, but Feng Yu knew that these athletes will achieve good results at this year’s championships, National Games, next year’s Asian Games and even in 1996’s Olympic Games.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the cost of hiring an athlete to endorse a product was more expensive than those movie stars. As long as the athlete was famous, like Yao Ming, Liu Xiang, etc. their fees were costly. But other than Yao Ming and Liu Xiang, the products endorsed by the athletes were not very successful.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin, thinking if he should sign these athletes up. A 5 years endorsement contract should cost less than 500,000 RMB for each athlete, and their influences would be worth more than this amount. Feng Yu could still make use of them to enter the foreign markets.

The more Feng Yu thought about this, the more he feels it was worth. He immediately departs for Shenyang. He wants to speak to Wang Junxia and the rest of the athletes personally. At the same time, he wants to watch the happenings there.

The reasons why Wang Junxia and the rest of the athletes were unhappy with Coach Ma was because Coach Ma only paid them basic salaries. Their allowances, rewards and prize money was controlled by Coach Ma. All of them do not get a single cent of their prize!

Also, Coach Ma do not allow them to take on endorsements for companies. But Coach Ma himself was about to take on these endorsements at high fees.

All these athletes were initially not coached by Coach Ma. They joined Coach Ma after they had started their athletic career. For instances, Wang Junnxia had shown good results in 1991 National Games and was transferred to be under Coach Ma. All this while, Wang Junxia prefers her former coach, Coach Wang. She felt that Coach Wang treated her better.

The impression of Coach Ma in the athletes was an abusive, stubborn, greedy and extreme person. All of them do not like this coach.

After the health products scandal, the athletes realized that all of their hard work put in was erased by what Coach Ma said. “All of them have good results because they had drunk the Chinese Turtle Essence.”

Coach Ma had earned all the money, and they do not even get a single cent from him. Their achievements and hard work were also taken away by him. All the athletes felt that there was no reason to stay with such a coach.

When all the athletes gathered to speak with Coach Ma, they were scolded by him. Coach Ma even told them that it was because of him, they got to where they are today!

He wanted them to tell the media that they have been drinking the Chinese Turtle Essence and the Energy of Life all this while. The problems with these products were with the manufacturers and had nothing to do with the Ma Family Army. Also, the prize money for the world championships will be as usual. All prize money will be given to the coach and the training grounds!

Coach Ma had no choice. He does not have money now. If it weren’t for the bank loans, his training grounds would have shut down. He had to cough out the 10 million RMB in one go, and he was now in debt.

Coach Ma was only hoping that his Ma Family Army would achieve good results at the World Championships to change the public’s impression of him. This way, he would be able to continue to make money to cover the gaps.

But his athletes refused. Why should we help you when you got into trouble yourself? The top athletes from both the men and women teams started to announce their desire to leave Ma Family Army and followed by the rest of the athletes. Coach Ma could not stop them from going!

All the athletes knew that the whole nation was waiting for their performances at the World Championships and the higher-ups will not punish them for wanting to change the coach. The athletes had decided that if Coach Ma still insists his old ways, they would report Coach Ma to the higher-ups. Report Coach Ma for hitting and scolding the athletes. Report him for forcing them to tell lies and making them eat some unknown medicine!

Feng Yu remembered that the Ma Family Army was disbanded next year in his previous life. It should be sometime before the Asian Games. There was also lots of media attention on them. At that time, everyone felt that it was Wang Junxia and the rest were being ungrateful to Coach Ma. Not a single person sided with the athletes. It was until Wang Junxia won the 1996 Olympic Games, things got better for her.

Feng Yu also felt unjust for the athletes when he found out about their treatment. Why was the coach taking the most credit for the athlete’s performances? Why Coach Ma was entitled to the athletes’ prize money? Whose money was used to build that training camp by the beach? Why does it belong to Coach Ma?

There was one thing puzzling Feng Yu. He remembered that it was the male athletes that brought up this matter first in his previous life. He heard that this time, it was Wang Junxia the first to announce she was leaving Coach Ma.

Also, Coach Ma was the reason for Ma Family Army’s disbandment in Feng Yu’s previous life. In this life, it was because of the health products scandal. Feng Yu realized that the Ma Family Army was disbanded because of him……

Chapter 499 – Name sponsor of training grounds

Feng Yu, accompanied by Shenyang’s distributor, arrived at the Shenyang’s track and field team training ground and told the person in charge there about the purpose of his visits. “You want to sponsor our training grounds? You still want our athletes to endorse your products?” The person in charge looked at Feng Yu weirdly.

The athletes there were affected by the health products scandal, and they were at the lowest point of their career. Hiring them as spokesmen for Feng Yu’s products at this time was a good deal and can change the image of the athletes.

Most importantly, after the upcoming World Championships, these athletes will recover their fame and reputation. Feng Yu would be able to gain from that. As for Coach Ma, Feng Yu can’t be bothered with him.

From Feng Yu’s perspective, Coach Ma was one of the people who created the Chinese Turtle Essence mess, and he was not someone good!

“That’s right. I feel that the health products scandal had affected our athletes a lot and they are innocent. That’s why I want to do my part to provide some assistance to them.”

“Then which athlete are you looking for? Also, how are you going to sponsor our training grounds?” Chief Tian was overjoyed. This young man knew that the reputations of the athletes were tarnished and still dare to hire them as spokespeople for his products. Seems like he was sincere in helping the athletes.

“The facilities in this training ground is outdated. Just tell me what you lack, and I will sponsor it. Also, my sister owns a hospital with the most advanced diagnostic equipment. We will be able to detect even the most minor injuries in the athletes. I can also rebuild and renovate the whole training ground. How much will it cost?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

Chief Tian almost fainted from this surprise. He never expects Feng Yu’s sponsorship to be so big!

“Rebuilding and renovating the training ground and adding new facilities should cost about 1 million RMB. If we do save on some parts, 700,000 to 800,000 RMB should be sufficient.” Chief Tian saw the expression on Feng Yu’s face when he mentioned 1 million and immediately said another amount.

“1 Million? Don’t help me save money. I will give you 2 million. The athletes’ dormitory should be more spacious. Their rooms should not be too small. Oh, how many athletes are staying in one dormitory room?”

“8 to a standard dormitory room.”

Huh? 8 to a dormitory room? This was still considered standard? Was the way to treat those champions?

“Change it to 2 to a room. Every dormitory room should have bathrooms. Also, the rooms must be equipped with home appliances, like TV, etc. You calculate again, what is the total cost?”

Chief Tian was in a dazed from Feng Yu’s generosity. This person was too wealthy. He does not even care about a few million RMB. A few million RMB was not an amount he could earn in his lifetime.

“3 million?” Chief Tian said a higher amount. Actually, the dormitory was all one-story houses. If they were to raise funds themselves, they could continue to build more one-story houses. But since there was a sponsor, they would surely choose to construct a building. The cost would be much higher as home appliances and bathrooms had to be included in the rooms.

“Fine. Just settle it as 3 million for now. If this amount is not enough, we can discuss it later. Are there any other areas where you need money? Tell me.”

Chief Tian told Feng Yu about some other areas where it needs money for improvements. Feng Yu agreed to sponsor everything that was mentioned. He had already spent a few million and does not mind paying a few hundred thousand more.

After Chief Tian reported this sponsorship to his higher-ups, Feng Yu smiled and said: “Do I own the naming rights for this training grounds?”

Chief Tian was stunned: “What naming rights are you talking about?”

“The naming rights to this training ground. In future, this training ground will be renamed to Wind and Rain Training Ground, and this will be its permanent name.”

“Manager Feng, who had agreed to this condition?”

“Eh? I cannot get to name this training grounds? Then why should I sponsor a few million?” Feng Yu looked at Chief Tian in shocked.

Chief Tian: “……”

Earlier you said that you want to do a part to help the athletes.

“Manager Feng, the naming rights belong to the country. How can you own the naming rights?”

“Why not? There are lots of counties in China that are named after someone’s name. Why can’t a training ground do the same?”

“That’s because those people had made huge contributions to that area.”

“I am also making a huge contribution to our training ground. Can you get the higher-ups to issue you a sum of money now? Did the provincial government sponsor anything for the training ground? All their funding should have stopped now. I can provide funding for this training ground. The total amount you calculated just now is slightly more than 4 million RMB? I can sponsor a total of 5 million. What’s wrong with me owning the naming rights?”

Chief Tian was shocked. Feng Yu had not mentioned anything about the naming rights earlier, and he had reported this sponsorship to the General Administration of Sport. Now, if he were to tell them that the sponsorship had failed, his leader will come over and strangle him immediately!

“Manager Feng, I need to report to the higher-ups regarding this naming right. I’m afraid that this needs the approval of the Provincial Government.”

Feng Yu points to the phone: “Then call your leaders to report about this. I can wait.”

Actually, Feng Yu does not want to wait further. He wants to settle this and change the name of the training grounds as soon as possible. He wanted to have Wind and Rain Training Grounds in the background during the interviews of the athletes.

Chief Tian gritted his teeth and called his leader to report on this matter. He explained the situation to his leader and shouting could be heard from the receiver. This leader of his had already reported this sponsorship to his higher-ups.

The news of this sponsorship had traveled upwards to the top officials, and Feng Yu was sitting with his legs crossed, enjoying a cup of tea. That Liao Province’s distributor was keeping quiet and looking down all this while. He was thinking in his heart. He knew Manager Feng would not be so good to sponsor this training ground. The naming rights were his real motive.

Chief Tian was surprised when the higher-ups reply him that this matter can be negotiated.

The General Administration of Sport of China had this idea since some time back. They want to copy other countries where some stadiums and training grounds have naming sponsorships. This would reduce their financial strain, and there was nothing wrong with this as long as there was no negative news regarding the sponsor.

In fact, there were already Table Tennis halls in the southern region that had its name sponsored by companies. Those were even foreign companies. If foreign companies could get the naming rights to the Table Tennis halls, why can’t a Chinese brand sponsor this training ground and owns the naming rights?

“Manager Feng, our leader would like to invite you to lunch and at the same time discuss the naming rights.” Chief Tian walked over to Feng Yu and told him.

“No problem. Then we will discuss during lunch. I will arrange the location. I will not take advantage of the government.” Feng Yu looked the person beside him.

The Liao Province distributor quickly went to arrange for a restaurant. Of course, Feng Yu does not need to spend for this lunch.

During the lunch, Feng Yu asked the distributor to drink more with the government official and that leader promised to settle this naming sponsorship issue. If 5 million RMB sponsorship could not resolve this issue, then there was no other way.

The leader promised to settle all paperwork and approvals within 3 days, and the signage at the entrance of the training ground can be replaced. But permanent changing of the name was impossible. At most, it would be 20 years.

Feng Yu did a mental calculation, 250,000 RMB for a year. This was a great deal!

Shortly, this training ground would be the featured in all Chinese media. This was even better than advertising at CCTV. Feng Yu felt that even if it was 10 years, it was also worthy of his sponsorship.

Feng Yu said many nice things to the leader, but he was laughing in his heart. Although he seems to be a fool to spend so much money now, soon, others will know that this deal was way better than it looks!

Chapter 500 – Team endorsement

“Chief Tian, is this the name list of your track and fields team?” Feng Yu looked at a small booklet given to him by Chief Tian. This training ground was really so poor? This booklet seems like it had been used for over 10 years.

“Yes. It records the athletes’ results in competitions. I am wondering how much you will be paying the athletes and what products are the athletes be endorsing?”

At first, Chief Tian was not too concern about the endorsement fees for the athletes. He felt that it should be around 80,000 to 100,000 RMB. After the athlete and the coaches taken their share, there will not be much left for the training ground.

But when Chief Tian saw Feng Yu’s willingness to spend 5 million RMB to get the naming sponsorship of the training ground, he thought that the endorsement fees for the athletes should not be low. He was also wondering what products Feng Yu wants those athletes to endorse. Clothing or footwear?

“Medicine!”

“What? Medicine?!” Chief Tian looked at Feng Yu in shock. The health products scandal was not over yet, and this Manager Feng wants the athletes to endorse medicine products?

“That’s right. Medicine for flu, gastric, health supplements, etc. All of the products are non-prescription medicines. Hmmm… Athletes can also take medicine.” Feng Yu explained.

“Is there a need to advertise for these medicines?”

“Why not? Is there a need to visit a doctor if you have a headache or fever? Have you ever experienced catching a cold and you do not have medicine at home? When you drag until the next day, your cold got worse?” Feng Yu asked.

“I did experience this before.”

“That’s right. This is why these types of medicine are important to every household and should be prepared at home. Who doesn’t fall sick? If you do not take your meals on time, you might get gastric problems. You just need to take some pills for that, and you will recover. Who would be able to endure the pain and visit a pharmacy? Our commercials are to let everyone know how to take care of themselves and their families. If their body is not strong, they can supplement their bodies with vitamins, zinc, calcium, etc. This would be better than visiting the hospital for injections.” Feng Yu continued his brainwashing.

“But are these medicines allowed to advertise?” Chief Tian asked.

“Why not? There is already this sort of advertisements on TV. These are also not health products. Only health products are not allowed to be advertised. It had nothing to do with medicine and food products. Furthermore, athletes will not fall sick? Even if they do not fall sick, their family members will also fall sick.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

Chief Tian scratched his head. It seems that Manager Feng made sense.

“Manager Feng, is there any other products for the athletes to endorse?” Chief Tian asked. He was still not willing to let these athletes endorse medicine products. Coach Ma had done an endorsement for a fake product, and his reputation was gone. It would be hard for him to make a comeback in the future. But luckily Coach Ma was the only one blamed for the fake products and advertising. The rest of the athletes were not involved. If the athletes were to endorse some products, and the advertisements were not the truth, then they would be finished too.

“I do have other products. If I like the athlete and thinks that he or she is suitable for that product, I will let him or her endorse. For example, saloon cars.”

“Saloon cars?”

At this time, there were still no celebrities endorsing saloon cars in China. That’s why Chief Tian was curious about what car Feng Yu was talking about.

“That’s right. Songjiang Motors vehicles. Have you heard before? CCTV is airing the commercials now. It has even appeared on the news, and even the Chief Architect praised the cars.” Feng Yu starts to brag.

“Songjiang Motors? This is also your business?” Chief Tian was shocked. Feng Yu did not appear on the news, and not many people know that he was the biggest shareholder of Bing City Machinery Company.

“My dad has some shares in the company. I still have some say in the company.” Feng Yu rubbed his nose and used his father as a shield.

If the athletes can endorse the vehicles, it would be great. Most of the athletes there were mid to long distance runners. They were most suitable to endorse for cars. Furthermore, cars were more expensive, and the endorsement fees will not be cheap!

“Manager Feng, who will you hire to endorse your products?” Chief Tian was more enthusiastic.

Feng Yu nodded and start flipping the booklet.

Wang Junxia, Qu Yunxia, Liu Dong, Ma Liyan, Zhang Lilin, Li Ying, Ma Huiwen, Lui Yi, Li Jianping, Wang Yuan, Wang Xiaoxia, Dong Yanmei, Jiang Bo……

All of these athletes were well known throughout China. At the back of the booklet, their best timings and records were listed. These records were not world records but were considered one of the best in China and Asia.

However, Feng Yu knew that although many of the athletes from the Ma Family Army became famous during last year’s Olympic games, it was after this year’s World Championship and National games, their popularity reaches the peak. They will win the top placings for a lot of categories and even broke many world records!

Among these athletes, Wang Junxia, Qu Yunxia, and Wang Xiaoxia would earn the nickname of “Long distance 3 Xia’. Zhang Lilin and Zhang Lirong would be known as the Zhang Sisters…… These athletes would break lots of records and bring honor back to China.

Feng Yu looked at the list and felt that it was a pity if he were to leave any one of them out. Especially, Wang Junxia, Qu Yunxia, and Liu Dong. They will be the world record holders in the future, and this was the year they broke the world records. They must be signed.

Feng Yu pretended to not know who to pick: “Chief Tian, there are so many people here. I really don’t know who to choose. If I were to get some of them to endorse, will the rest be upset and affect their performances at the competitions?”

“No, during their training, they also compete among themselves. Those that did not perform well or too young will not overthink. I can also speak to them to make them understand.” Chief Tian really wanted to get the endorsement deal.

If the endorsement fees were high, then the training grounds will be able to take a portion of it!

“Then I will just pick a few of them.” Feng Yu picked up the pencil from the table and pretended to pick the athletes randomly. He circled a few of the athletes he wanted and also some unknown athletes. He chose a total of 20 people, and this was almost a third of all the athletes there.

“Manager Feng, you want all these people?” It was only a commercial. Was there a need for so many people?

“That’s right. I want all these people. This is also a form of encouragement for them. All of them will endorse our medical products. You calculate for me how much will it cost?”

Chief Tian had a troubled look on his face. He thought Feng Yu would pick only a few of the more famous athletes like Qu Yunxia and Wang Junxia. Why did Feng Yu choose so many athletes?

If it was according to the amount in he was thinking, it would surely be sky high. Maybe he should use an average figure?

“For every product, the endorsement fees for each athlete is 20,000 RMB a year?” Chief Tian said an amount whom he thought it was a high price.

“20,000 RMB a year for an athlete? That means 400,000 RMB endorsement fees for a year?” Feng Yu’s jaws dropped. The people in this era does not know the value of the athletes. Even if it were 400,000 RMB endorsement fees a year for Wang Junxia, it would be a bargain.

“If Manager Feng thinks it is too high, we can lower it slightly. But the fees cannot be too low, as some of them are already world champions.” Chief Tian asked.

“No need to lower. Let’s talk about the details.” Feng Yu waved. He was too embarrassed to bargain further at this price!

Chapter 501 – Household medications

Feng Yu was in the driver seat for the negotiations for the endorsement fees. Feng Yu had listed a few examples to show that these athletes’ fees should not be compared to the celebrities as not there were not a lot of people into sports.

But Feng Yu also knew that these athletes will be meeting China’s top officials, making appearances on CCTV Spring Festival Gala Night and will receive international media attention for their performances in competitions.

Feng Yu also decided to pay the athletes some filming allowances. The training ground cannot get a share of this allowance. He will not take advantage of these sportsmen who had contributed so much to the country.

……

“Wang Junxia, your competition is around the corner. Where are you going?” Qu Yunxia asked.

“My nephew is having leg pains. The doctor says he has a calcium deficiency. I am going to visit him.” Wang Junxia replied.

“Get some Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise Calcium Gluconate oral solution for him. When kids are growing up, they need lots of calcium. My nephew is also taking this calcium supplement now. If kids do not get enough calcium, they will not grow tall.”

“Really? Is it costly? My salary is not a lot.”

“It is not expensive at all. If it is expensive, I will also not be able to afford it. This is a product from a reputable pharmaceutical company. Don’t worry.”

The camera zoomed out, and the screen changed to a bottle of medicine. There was a voiceover: Bing City’s Medicine, Safe Medicine!

……

A group of people was training on the tracks, and Liu Dong slowed down and went to the sides. Wang Junxia walked over and asked out of concern: “Liu Dong, what’s wrong?”

“Sis Wang, I caught a cold.”

“Cold? Take some cold medicine then. Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s cold medicine is very effective.” Wang Junxia took out a packet of cold medicine from her bag by the side and passed it to Liu Dong. “I also have this cold medicine with me. I have also prepared this medicine for my parents.”

The camera zoomed out, and a box of cold medicine appeared in the foreground with a voiceover: Household backup cold medicine, Feel better without cold. Bing City’s Medicine, Safe Medicine!

……

“Coach Tian, what’s wrong with you?” A group of athletes crowded around Chief Tian, who was bending over clutching his stomach.

“I am having gastric problems. Don’t crowd around me and carry on with your training.”

“Coach Tian, take two gastric pills, and the pain will be gone in a while. All of us had forgotten to take our meals regularly due to our training and also have gastric problems. You should be like me and keep this medicine in your bag along with you. Two pills and you will be fine.” Wang Junxia walked over with a box of medicine.

The camera zoomed out, and a box of gastric medicine appeared with a voiceover: Backup medication in your bag, Remedy for gastric pains. Bing City’s Medicine, Safe Medicine!

……

“Eh, where are the 3 of you going?” Coach Tian was carrying a bag standing at the entrance of Wind and Rain Training Grounds.

“Coach Tian, we are taking this multi-vitamin pills and felt it is quite effective. We want to buy some for our parents.” The 3 athletes looked at the bag Coach Tian was carrying and laughingly asked: “Coach Tian, where are you going?”

“I had also bought this multi-vitamin pills for my nephew. Kids need vitamins when they are growing up. The 3 of you be back early. You still have training.”

The camera zoomed out, and a box of multi-vitamins appeared in the foreground with a voiceover: Multi-vitamin pills, supplement 12 types of vitamins. Bing City’s Medicine, Safe Medicine!

……

Feng Yu watched all these commercials and showed a thumbs up to Baldy Chen: “Teacher Chen, your directing skills is awesome. I am delighted with these commercials.”

Baldy Chen laughed: “What directing skills can you see from these commercials. All I did was to control the timing of the filming. You are the one who thought of the story behind the commercials. You are still paying me so much.”

“Ai….. Teacher Chen, you deserve it. Oh, your movie was launched sometime earlier, but I did not have the time to watch it. How was it?”

This year, Baldy Chen and Zhao Lirong had filmed a movie <Erxiao’s Mother/Filial Son and Filial Piety>. Feng Yu remembered about this film from his previous life. He had watched this film on Movie channels and thought it was funny. But he heard that this movie had made losses because of market influences.

“Don’t mention about it. Although the movie was screened, no one is buying tickets to watch it.” When mentioned about his movie, Baldy Chen was apparently upset.

“Teacher Chen, why didn’t you tell me about this? Have you sold the VCD rights of the movie?”

“Ah? VCD rights? I have never sold such rights before.” Baldy Chen replied.

“Then sell it to me. Name me a price. I will not bargain with you.”

Baldy Chen did some mental calculations on his losses from this movie and asked: “100,000 RMB?”

“No problem. In the future, I buy out all your VCD rights to your movies. Just name me the price.” 100,0000 RMB. A VCD disc was selling for 10 RMB, and the cost of the disc was only 1 RMB. How many profits were there in this deal? If over 10,000 VCD discs were sold, Feng Yu would recover his cost. This VCD disc would surely sell more than 10,000 RMB. Furthermore, it would increase the variety of VCD in the market. Wind and Rain Electronics had been buying the rights to lots of movies.

With this 100,000 RMB, Baldy Chen will not make any losses. His film was the first movie that made money since 1990 and will be recorded in history. Baldy Chen was very grateful to Feng Yu and told him that he would direct Feng Yu’s future commercials at half of his usual fees. He will not accept anything more!

Feng Yu thanked him profusely. 100,000 RMB could help Feng Yu save lots of money in the future……

Feng Yu had let Chief Tian, a few other coaches and all the athletes appeared in these commercials. He had also paid all of them some appearance fees. Each of them got 5,000 RMB for starring in the ads and 5,000 RMB of allowances.

This amount belongs to them. All the coaches and athletes had never earned so much money before. This way, when Chief Tian and the rest knew that the athletes would be getting additional allowances from Feng Yu, they would not report to the higher-ups, and they would close one eye.

After Feng Yu issued the allowances to the athletes, he noticed all the athletes were excited and moved. All of them thanked Feng Yu continuously.

Feng Yu also looked at the athletes and said coolly: “I am doing this to thank for the contributions all of you have put in for our nation. I hope all of you would create miracles at this upcoming World Championships!”

Hmmm…. I am only able to recover all my investments when all of you got good results.

After Feng Yu finish speaking, all the athletes swore to put in their best performance at the upcoming competitions and will not let Feng Yu down. Feng Yu was shocked. Don’t let me down? Actually, there was no need for that. If during interviews, these athletes could……

Feng Yu waved those athletes over and told them something. All the athletes nodded and said that this was not a problem. There were even some who said it was their duties to do all these.

……

“Chief Cheng, help me change the advertisements at these slots to these commercials. You can check these commercials now and give the approvals.” Feng Yu passed the commercials films to Cheng Baojun.

“Manager Feng, you kept changing your commercials. You are currently holding CCTV’s record of changing commercials.”

Feng Yu glanced at Cheng Baojun: “That’s right. I am also holding the record of paying CCTV the most advertising fees all these years.”

“Hahaha. Manager Feng, you also own the most advertising slots.”

“Let’s stop talking about these. Hurry up and check the commercials. I had made a reservation at Dong Lai restaurant in the evening. Ask your wife and kids along.”

“You are too generous. How can I let you do this>” Although Cheng Baojun said these, he immediately picked up the phone to call his wife?

After watching the commercials. Cheng Baojun lit a cigarette: “Manager Feng, is there any fake advertising in your commercials?”

Feng Yu was the one who exposed all the fake health products and why would he make the same mistake?

“Of course not. Every sentence in the commercials is real. For example, all the athletes are taking our Calcium Gluconate, and when they say their nephews are taking them, their nephews are really taking them. When they say they are buying for their nephew, they are really buying for their nephew. Everything that was mentioned in the commercials is real!”

All these medicines are approved medicines for the athletes. As long as they do not take in a large amount of these medicines, nothing will go wrong. Chief Tian really has gastric pains and was really taking Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s Gastric medication.

“Since you dare to say this, then it should not be a problem. Which slots are you changing and do you have any other requests?”

“No other request. Just change the advertisements based on the timings of the commercials.” Feng Yu was changing advertisements of the primetime slots he got from the fake health products.

……

“Eh, isn’t that the world champion Qu Yunxia? Athletes also will catch a cold?” A young woman tapped her husband.

“Huh? Athletes are also human. Why can’t they fall sick?”

“Should we also prepare a box of cold medicine at home? The last time I caught the flu, you had to bring me to the hospital in the middle of the night, and you are scolded by your leader for being too tired at work the next day.”

“Ok. Tomorrow I will buy a box of cold medicine. Which brand should I get?”

“Just this brand will do. Even top athletes are taking this medicine.”

“Alright. Oh, what’s the name of the gastric pills?”

“Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s gastric pills.”

“Right. I should get a box of that gastric medicine. I can’t stand gastric pains.” The man said.

“Should we get a box of anti-inflammation medicine too? Also, you have been feeling tired recently. Could it be that you lack some nutrients?”

“You still want me to take those health products?” The man looked at the woman.

“What health products? I am talking about the multi-vitamins pills that were advertised on TV. It contains 12 types of vitamins.”

“Is that a real product?” The man asked suspiciously.

“The box had printed they will compensate 10 times the amount if the product was found to be fake. Furthermore, it is manufactured by Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise and claims to make safe medicine. It’s settled. I will help you buy a box of the vitamins tomorrow. You must eat it. Your work is so tiring, and you must take care of your health.”  The woman said.

“Fine. Buy it then.”

……

“Honey, why did you buy so many medicines back?”

“What do you know? These medicines should be back up at home. In case any of us fall sick, we do not need to go to the hospital. Sister Zhao next door had also bought these medicines. It is not expensive too. All these medicines cost less than 10 RMB and are manufactured by a reputable factory. Don’t worry.”

“Really? Then why didn’t you buy more? We can give it to our parents.”

“Do I still need you to tell me that? I have already sent the medicines to them!”

……

“Madam Wang, why are you buying so many medicines?”

“To keep at home. If I caught a cold or fever, I do not need to go to the hospital. You should also keep some at home. Your kid often got cold.”

“Keep at home? Fine. Tomorrow I will buy two boxes when I pass by the pharmacy.”

As time passes, people start to stock up medications at home, and Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s sales begin to rise.

Chapter 502 – Suboptimal health status

On Monday morning, Zhang Ruiqiang arrived at work and starts to read the newspaper as usual. This was his habit. He needs to know what was happening in the Longjiang Province and if he had missed out certain areas of concerns.

Huh? Suboptimal health status? What was this article about? Zhang Ruiqiang starts reading the article.

Suboptimal health status was the stage between healthy and falling sick. The symptoms of this stage were lethargic and listlessness. The current medical diagnosis would not be able to diagnose the illness accurately.

Most of the symptoms were giddiness, headaches, insomnias, sensitive to the temperature, quickly catching a cold, listlessness, aching all over.

This article was well written, but it was quite frightening. Eh? The author of this article was a professor from Bing City’s Medical University? There was also a column for him in the newspaper. He will be talking about the dangers of lacking nutrients? Today he will be talking about the risks of calcium deficiencies?

At the end of the article, the professor still reminded the readers to take note about the lack of calcium and should consume some medical products to supplement their calcium to prevent them from becoming Suboptimal health status.

What is this Suboptimal health status? All human beings should have the symptoms listed in the article. Who doesn’t feel tired after working for a long time? Who doesn’t become listlessness when they get older? Isn’t it typical for kids to not being able to concentrate? If all the kids were able to focus, there would not be students doing poorly in school.

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at the article and felt he had experienced this before. But he could not remember when he encountered this in the past.

Zhang Ruiqiang picked up the phone and called the Chief Editor of the Provincial newspaper: “Chief Hu, I am Zhang Ruiqiang.”

“Yes, Mayor Zhang. What can I do for you?” Although Zhang Ruiqiang was not his direct superior, he was still the assistant to the Provincial Governor. His rank was much higher than the Chief Editor.

Furthermore, Zhang Ruiqiang was the blue-eyed boy of the Governor. This was shown through the numerous promotions in the past few years. The Chief Editor was wary to not offend him.

The Chief Editor thought back on the articles over the past few days. There were no articles that criticized Bing City. There were even some articles that commented on the success of Bing City. Why was Zhang Ruiqiang calling?

“Chief Hu, I saw an article about Suboptimal health status in the papers today and there was an announcement about a new column to talk about this topic and the issue of nutrients deficiencies. Why was this article published?”

Chief Hu picked up a copy of the newspaper on his desk and flipped to that article. He quickly scanned through the article. What’s wrong with this article? It was talking about health issues, and readers like to read these types of articles.

“Mayor Zhang, I do not understand what you mean. This is a collaboration with medical professors from universities to create a column about health. This is for the good of everyone in the province. It is to highlight the importance of their health. What’s wrong?”

“Nonono. I am not saying that this article is not good. I am only asking if this column is your idea or someone else gave you this idea?”

“Ermmm…. Is there any difference?”

“Yes. I want to know if Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise has anything to do with this.”

“A little. One of the professors that will be writing in the column is also the consultant for Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. But these professors are from reputable universities and should not have many dealings with Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise.” Chief Hu was feeling puzzled. These experts were writing articles for this column, and what has it got to do with Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise?

“Then can you tell me what the articles that will be published are? Have you planned it out?”

“Let me see. Tomorrow it will be about the harmful effects of Zinc deficiencies, and the day after, it will be about iron deficiencies. The day after that is about vitamin A. Is there any problem?”

“No problem. I just want to find out more. I shall not disturb you further. Let’s meet up when we are free.”

After hanging up the call, Zhang Ruiqiang was sure that Feng Yu had something to do with this! He finally recalled why such articles were familiar. When Feng Yu started to sell Tai Hua Premium Cooking oil, there were articles about the differences between the types of oil in the market.

In the end, Feng Yu’s cooking oil, which was selling much expensive, could not meet the market demands. Now, Tai Hua Premium Cooking Oil was even selling at Shenyang and will be entering Beijing region!

This kid was using the same tricks. He was starting to brainwash the readers?

“Oh, it’s Mayor Zhang. Why are you so free to call me? You know I just arrive at Bing City?” Feng Yu joked.

“Come to my office now.”

“Are you the one behind this article and the column?” Zhang Ruiqiang pointed to the newspaper and questioned Feng Yu.

“What do you mean by I am behind this? This article is scientifically proof. It is written by a group of medical professors from reputable universities. This was also verified by experts from other universities.” Feng Yu proudly replied.

“You are doing this to sell those supplements?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with this?”

“Why can’t you use some normal marketing methods? Didn’t you get good results from advertising in CCTV? All the medicines are selling well.” Zhang Ruiqiang reprimanded Feng Yu. This Feng Yu was always using unorthodox ways to sell his products.

“Mayor Zhang, what did I do wrong? I am letting everyone know more about their health and at the same time tell them to supplement the necessary nutrients if they are lacking. I am doing a good deed.”

“All these nutrients just happen to be products of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise?” Zhang Ruiqiang sneered.

“Mayor Zhang, the Pharmaceutical Enterprise is also our City’s company. We are also paying taxes. Don’t you want this company to do well?” Feng Yu smiled and asked Zhang Ruiqiang back.

This……

Zhang Ruiqiang was at a loss of words. Indeed, if Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s products were selling well, then the City will benefit from it. This was also something he wanted to see. But he still felt Feng Yu’s method was too weird and not suitable. But he got to admit that Feng Yu’s methods always achieved outstanding results.

“You only use this method at Longjiang Daily?”

“Of course not. I have advertised with more than 20 provincial newspapers and radio stations. Oh, a book about this topic will be published later.”

“Publish a book?”

“That’s right. The title of this book is Suboptimal health. Not only this book will be sold in China, but it will also be translated to over 20 languages and be sold all over the world. This book will be launch worldwide at the same time!”

“Sold all over the world? Who is the author? You?” Zhang Ruiqiang could not accept Feng Yu publishing a book.

“Of course it is not me. This book is written by the professors from our Bing City Medical University and the Chinese traditional medical university. We have verified the contents of this book with experts all over the world, and they recommended it. I estimate the sales of this book to be so-so. At about 1 million copies.”

“How many? 1 million copies?” Zhang Ruiqiang was shocked. 1 million copies? Was Feng Yu joking? How many copies would an average medical journal sell? “Hurry and tell me about the details.”

“Brother Liu, Brother Liu, I have been here for quite some time. Where is my tea? You want me to brew a cup for myself personally?” Feng Yu shouted towards the door. This conversation will be taking some time and how can he do without a cup of tea?

Secretary Liu immediately jump up from his seat: “I am brewing your tea. It will be ready soon!”

Zhang Ruiqiang thought in his heart: “Whose secretary was this? Why was my secretary following your orders more diligently?”

Chapter 503 – Instilling new ideas

“Brother Liu, you are too stingy. What tea is this? Where is Mayor Zhang’s top-grade Long Jing Tea Leaves?” Feng Yu took a sip and shouted.”

“No. This is the only tea. You can don’t drink if you don’t like it!” Zhang Ruiqiang roared with a black face. I only have that bit of good tea leaves, and it’s a waste to let you drink those!

Feng Yu rolled his eyes at Zhang Ruiqiang. Mayor? Where can you find such a stingy mayor?! Never mind. This tea will do. Anyway, I do not like to drink tea too.

“Have you drink enough? Do you want me to help you lit a cigarette?” Zhang Ruiqiang snarled. The way Feng Yu was sipping on that cup of tea, it will take more than 10 minutes to finish!

“There is no need for cigarettes. My sister had gone to work, and I still did not have my lunch yet. Ask the canteen to add 2 more dishes. It does not need to be too lavish. Just braise a big silver carp. Those common carp does not taste good. Also, a braised pork ribs will do. I prefer the leaner parts and do not like fatty meat.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was thinking in his heart: “You are coming to our government canteen for lunch and still want to be so picky?”

“Are you going to talk?!”

“Fine. Why are you so anxious?” Feng Yu rolled his eyes again. This Zhang Ruiqiang was not calm at all. “Mayor Zhang, do you think that only the Chinese are concerned with their health? Those foreigners are not concern about their health? Don’t they want to live longer and healthier?”

“They should have the same thinking.”

“Of course they want to live longer and healthier. This is the concern of everyone on this planet. Other than the war-torn regions, most of the people will want to live longer and enjoy life. This is why being healthy is a concern and area of focus. The concept of Suboptimal health status is not thought up by us. A former Soviet Union scholar, Berkman, first mentioned about this in the 1980s. He described this status as the “The Third Status” (Zhang & Shao, 2015). Oh, Berkman is also a translator for the Russian version of this book. He is also one of the experts who verified the contents of this book.”

“You are telling me that this Suboptimal health is not something you made up? This is something by the former Soviet Union?”

“What made up? I had said many times. This is science. Science!” Feng Yu was furious. Do I look like a conman? Why are you always thinking that I am hoodwinking others?

“Fine. Science. I also did not say this is not science. Why are you shouting?” Zhang Ruiqiang slowly lit a cigarette. He likes to see Feng Yu getting angry.

Chapter 504 – Every Chinese lacks nutrient

“Eh, have you read the papers? It is suboptimal health if one is unable to focus. The body is lacking Zinc. Should we get some Zinc supplement medication for our son?”

“Is this real?” The man was hanging his coat in the wardrobe.

“Why not? Even the experts have said this. Those experts are the professors from Medical Universities.  They are as qualified as the doctors in the company’s hospital.” The woman replied.

“Fine, just buy some. How much does it cost?”

“Not much. It is only a few RMB per box and will last 10 days. The treatment phase is 3 boxes, and the total should be slightly more than 20 RMB. You are not willing to spend 20 RMB a month for our son’s health?”

“Of course not. Just go and buy. All my money is kept by you.” The man replied.

“I am just discussing with you. Why are you giving me this attitude?”

“Fine, fine, fine. I’m sorry. It is all my fault. Is dinner ready?”

“You only know how to eat. Lingling, come out for dinner.” The woman grumbled and went to fill her husband’s bowl with rice.

Those who smoke, drink and likes sweet food should increase their vitamin B1 intake. Those that have Angular cheilitis, mouth ulcers, and Beriberi often are symptoms of vitamin B1 deficiencies.

Conjunctivitis, Angular cheilitis, etc. is a sign of vitamin B2 deficiency. Low immunity, unable to focus, tiredness, etc. are signs of the body lacks vitamin B6.

Losing concentrations, anemia might be caused by the lack of vitamin B12. One could increase this vitamin intake by eating more grapes, oranges, peaches, etc. As the body could not store vitamins like B1, these fruits should be taken daily.

“Dear, Dear, look at this. This article says that your Beriberi condition might be caused by a lack of vitamin B.”

“What is vitamin?”

“Vitamins, the essential vitamins needed by our bodies. This is very important to our bodies. Tomorrow I will buy a bottle of that medicine advertised on TV. What’s the name of that medicine? Right. It is called Multi-vitamin pills. It will supplement more than 20 types of vitamins. It is also inexpensive.”

“Is lack of vitamins really the cause?”

“Even if it is not the cause, having more vitamins will not harm us. It is also not expensive. If it is effective, you should carry on taking it to prevent the subhealth status. This was written in the article.”

Feng Yu had published these articles on newspapers all over China. Health columns were set up in the papers to promote awareness of suboptimal health status. Feng Yu also hired the local experts to write about this issue.

Of course, those experts were conservatives and used words like “Maybe, might be, high possibilities, etc.” But the readers interpreted in another way. From their understandings, even the experts had advised them on this. So, this must be correct. There was no second way about this.

When the readers read the newspapers and listened to the radios, they realized they had some of these symptoms, and it was a sign of Suboptimal health status. They might fall sick anytime.

The people learned a lot from the newspapers and the radio stations.

But all of them did not fully understand this subhealth status. Suboptimal health status is a long-term condition. Who does not feel tired once in a while? If the person was feeling tired over a prolonged period, then it will be considered as Suboptimal Health status.

When the people read those articles and listened to the radio stations, they only pick the contents they wanted to hear. Even in a paragraph or a passage, they would just choose to remember a sentence or even some phrases to remember.

And it was because of this, all of them became “experts.” These “experts” like to advice others to show that they know more and are cultured.

As this information was passed from one to another, the information became twisted. Those words, like “Maybe, might be, high possibilities, etc.” used by the experts were going.

The foods recommended by the experts were expensive foods. Some were costly seasonal fruits and meat like chicken, fish or ducks.  All these were more expensive than Feng Yu’s products!

Furthermore, if eating those foods was effective, why was there still medical products? It was advertised on TV that even top athletes took these medical products and had bought for their family members. These must be very effective.

Taking these medical products was better than those health products. What were health products? If CCTV had not exposed them, everyone would still be in the dark.

These products were manufactured by a reputable big pharmaceutical company and had advertised with CCTV. This should be safe to consume. CCTV had announced they will reflect and promise to not air any false advertising.

The articles in the newspapers were very objective. It did not recommend any products and had only talked about knowledge and information. But actually, this was marketing strategies. Knowledge-based marketing and concept marketing.

This strategy makes use of spreading information and knowledge to everyone. When the masses read the articles and listened to the radio stations, they would think of buying those medical products. But they might not be purchasing your products as there might be similar products on the market.

The second type of strategy was making use of the experts to sell those products. Through newspaper articles, radio stations and seminars, the concept of Subhealth status were spread. The consumers were reminded and warned that if they do not do anything about their health, they might fall sick easily.

When those experts finish talking about the sub-health status on the radio stations, they would typically interact with the listeners by letting listeners call in. Most of the listeners will be asking if the experts have any products to recommend to them.

During this time, these experts will recommend some medical products. All of these experts had collected money, and they knew that Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise was a reputable company and the medicines they produced were up to standards. They had no qualms about recommending these products!

The listeners will hear the recommendations made by the experts and saw the advertisements on TV. They would believe and subconsciously pick this brand of medical products.

Also, there was the Suboptimal Health book. The experts had taken part in writing this book. Although they were not paid much for their work, these experts do not mind when they heard this book would be translated into more than 20 languages. All of them wanted the fame.

When recommending the medical products, the experts also recommended this book. They would mention this book was translated into more than 20 languages and will be published in over a dozen countries, the sales of this book also increase exponentially.

This was also what Feng Yu wanted. China’s sales figures would help Fu Guangzheng negotiate with the overseas publishers. This was a bestseller, and you should be paying more for our rights.

Feng Yu was confident to recover all the amount paid to the experts and professors just from the book sales.

What’s the outcome? A win-win situation for all parties!

The experts and professors got money and fame. Without Feng Yu pulling strings, all these experts would not be able to get their own columns in the newspapers. The overseas experts also got the exposures they wanted.

Feng Yu did not spend money and could market his products effectively. From the way things are going, he would be able to profit from this book.

Feng Yu was lying on his couch, looking at the book’s sales report.

The era of “whole nation lack nutrients” was finally here. Europeans, Americans, Asians, etc. all of you are having suboptimal health and lack nutrient!

Translator”s notes: This was a chapter with lots of medical terms. I could not find anything about the marketing strategy written by the author. I had translated the name of the strategy literally from the raws. If you know about the correct term of these strategies, please let me know.

Angular cheilitis

Conjunctivitis

Chapter 505 – All these honor should be mine

Mid-August, the news suddenly reported about China’s athlete, Qu Yunxia, had won the gold medal for the 3,000 meters event in the IAAF World Championships in Athletics!

Qu Yunxia’s popularity rose. Before this, there might be people who do not take note of the sporting events. But when this was reported on the news, it was different.

Many people noticed that this Qu Yunxia looks familiar. Oh, she was the one who acted in some commercials.

Wait that means the Calcium medicine Qu Yunxia endorsed was really useful? Those people that do not believe in this product before started to buy the calcium Gluconate for their children.

Two days later, CCTV news reported another news. China’s athlete Liu Dong had won the gold medal for the 1,500 meters event in the IAAF World Championships in Athletics!

This news was almost the same as the previous one, except the name and event was changed. More people start to notice Liu Dong.

And two days later, Wang Junxia had won the 10,000 meters event. People were getting used to this news.

Was the athletic team we sent really so strong? Not only they had won the gold medal, but there were also several others who had won the silver and bronze medals. Of course, silver and bronze medals were not worthy to be reported on the news.

Because CCTV news had reported on the World Championships, the rest of the local TV stations, radio stations, newspapers and even magazine follow suit. Those athletes who had won medals but were not featured on CCTV news were also reported. The popularity of these athletes rose further.

As such, many people start to take note of the advertisements aired on CCTV and subconsciously, they memorized the advertising messages in the commercials.

And then, there was more significant news. As the athletes had made breakthrough performances and did China proud, China’s Premier will be meeting all of them, including the coaches.

Coach Ma was upset and happy at the same time when he heard about the performance of all those athletes at the World Championships. He should be the coach who led all these athletes to victory. He should be getting the credit of their performances and their prize money.

However, Coach Ma was glad that all these athletes had achieved good results, and everyone should know that this was due to his training. Will the higher ups help him get back his position as the head coach of this team?

It was an honor for the country’s Premier to meet all those athletes and coaches. Shouldn’t he be one of the coaches?

But Coach Ma waited until all the athletes returned back to Beijing and he still did not receive the notification from his leaders to attend the meeting between the team and Premier.

Coach Ma was anxious. This was an opportunity for him. If he did not grasp this opportunity, then he would be out of the athletic circle. He would not be able to make a comeback!

Coach Ma had started construction of his own training base at Lianyungang. Initially, he had the funds. He made use of the National Team’s name, and the local government gave him the land parcel for free. He sold the health product formula, take on the endorsement for the Chinese Turtle Essence and took the prize money from the athletes. He had more than enough funds to build the training base. Even the athlete’s dormitory was designed to be 3 stories building.

But after the construction started, all of Coach Ma’s money was confiscated! Not only that, his 3 months’ salary, bonuses, allowances, etc. were deducted. Then, all of his athletes decided to leave him for another coach. Now, he does not even have an athlete to participate in international competitions!

Coach Ma was in debt now. He owes the bank, the construction company, and the materials supplier! But he firmly believes that if he could resume his position as the head coach of this team of athletes, it will not be a problem for him to clear all these debts.

This team was the national team. They were athletes who competed on the world stage. With these athletes, money would be rolling in when they perform well in competitions, take on endorsements or attend some promotional events. Previously, there was a hotel owner who wanted to get him and a few athletes to participate in the opening of his hotel. The owner had offered 10,000 RMB. But Coach Ma thinks that 10,000 RMB was too little and rejected the offer.

But now, even if someone offered Coach Ma 1,000 RMB, he would also attend. But no one had made any offers. He was only a coach. Without the world champions, who would take note of the coach?

“Hello? Chief Lee? I am Old Ma.”

“Old Ma? Why are you calling me at this time? I am about to go out. If there is nothing else, we will take some other time. Bye.”

“Wait a minute. Chief Lee. Hello? Hello?” Coach Ma clenched the phone in his hand and wanted to smash it on the floor. But he did not do that. It was a mobile phone, and it cost 30,000 RMB!

What does he mean by going out? This was an excuse. It was apparent that Chief Lee was avoiding him. When I was the head coach, all of these officials lined up to meet me. Now, they are treating me like the plague!

Coach Ma did not dare to show his anger. He no longer has a group of world-class athletes under him. If he showed his anger towards his leader, he would be in trouble.

Coach Ma called a few more leaders who were quite close to him previously. But now, all of them were avoiding him.

As the sky became dark, Coach Ma decided to shamelessly attend the meeting without an invitation. He was the one who had trained these athletes, and he should be getting credit for his part!

Coach Ma immediately drove to the State Guesthouse. This was the venue where the Premier will be meeting the athletic team. He was staying quite near to the State Guesthouse.

“Sir, we do not allow people to enter without invitation.” Someone at the door stopped Coach Ma. The Premier was there and how could anyone just enter the place?

Coach Ma pointed to himself: “I am the coach of the athletic team. The Premier is meeting the athletic team and the coaches today. Let me in.”

“Sorry. Do you have the approval papers?”

“Approval papers? Do I still need approval? Don’t you know that I am the one who trained Qu Yunxia, Wang Junxia, and Liu Dong?” Coach Ma roared.

“I do not know about this. Without approval papers, I cannot let you in. You can contact your leader and let them escort you in.” This person was not an ordinary security guard. Even if it were a Provincial Governor, without prior notification, he would also not let the governor in!

Contact the leaders to escort me in? If they were willing to speak to me, I would not be standing here talking to you.

Coach Ma saw something bulging under the security’s coat. This security was carrying weapons. He thought about the people attending this event and changed his mind about forcing his way in.

In the end, Coach Ma left quietly. The next day, he watched the news and saw the athletes and coaches smiling and talking to the Premier. He was so furious that he smashes a glass on the floor.

This was all because of the person who exposed about the health products. It was all because of that Li Jiayu. All these honor should be mine!

Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, don’t blame me for letting you take the blame!

Translator’s note: It’s weird when people did something wrong, most would not reflect on themselves. Instead, they would think that it was the fault of someone else.

The author wrote Lian Gang as the location of Coach Ma’s new training base. But I did a search, there was no such location in China. The closest to this name I could find was Lianyungang in Jiangsu Province.

Chapter 506 – We are the ones!

Feng Yu was happy to see Wang Junxia, Qu Yunxia and the rest on the news. Look at those footages, especially the footages at the training grounds. The name, Wind, and Rain Training Center was shown clearly in the footages. This would bring in lots of benefits for Wind and Rain brand. The more famous these athletes were, the more rewards he would get, and it would be easier to enter the international market.

Feng Yu had already planned. Tomorrow, he will continue to contact some newspaper agencies, spend some money to get them to publish more reports on these athletes. The reports should claim these athletes could break world records.

Next, it will be the National Games. These athletes will break the world records, and then there will be the World Marathon Cup, where the athletes will win the gold medal. All these will be worth reporting.

When the athletes break the world records, it will be the time for Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise to enter the international market! In other countries, athletes’ influences were greater than China, especially the world record holders!

But as Feng Yu was planning to enter the overseas market, there were articles published on the papers about Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise!

“The exposed of fake health products was a plot!”

“Someone made up fake news to sell their medicines!”

“Bing city Pharmaceutical Enterprise was the one behind this!”

The headlines of all major newspapers in China were news of Coach Ma bashing of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. The articles reported him as the victim, and he does not know that the Chinese Turtle Essence was a fake product. When the product was exposed, he immediately donated the endorsement fees and the proceeds he got from the Energy of Life out. All of which were used to compensate the victims.

The boss of the Chinese Turtle Essence, Li Jiayu was an ex-employee of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. Coach Ma was tricked to endorse this product as he thought this was a reputable brand. The lines in the commercials were given to him by someone else, and he had signed a contract. He had to say those lines. He felt that all these were a plot. If not, why did Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s medicines appeared so suddenly when all the health products disappeared from the market?

Coach Ma made lots of accusations on Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. He also claims that because of this incident, he does not have any more athletes training under him.

Coach Ma also added that many countries had offered him high salaries for him to coach their athletes, but he refused. He wants to do his part for China and train more Chinese athletes.

If it were not for him, the athletes would not be able to achieve the results they got at the World Championships. The athletes were ungrateful to him! These athletes had betrayed him one month ago. Can those athletes improve so fast? Those athletes’ performances were all because of his training!

After the athletes’ switch coaches, they endorsed for Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. Did they really take those medicine? All were lies. They were all lying!

Coach Ma could only do this to attract attention. This was the only way for his leaders to notice him. Although he would surely be punished, if he does not do this, he would be finished. He was heavily in debt!

Zhang Ruiqiang, the General Manager of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise and a few other people called Feng Yu to discuss how they should get respond to these allegations. If this was not handled well, then their sales will be significantly affected.

Feng Yu was glad that the internet at this time was not popular when he saw the articles in the newspapers. Also, the TV media did not dare to report on this. It was only newspapers. This was something he could handle easily.

The consequences of newspaper reports were clear. All the reporters will publish similar stories and will create many rumors to blow up the matter. Reports of good news were not as enticing to the readers compared to negative press.

This was just arguing through media. Since when did Feng Yu lose in an argument?

Feng Yu gathered some information, and after verifying the information, he asked the General Manager of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise to organize a press conference. In this era, only the Government will have press conferences. Even the celebrities do not have press conferences. When Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise organizes a press conference, all the reporters were excited as this was something new. All of them wanted to gather more information from Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, and now, the company was willing to release more details.

“I shall now talk about the ridiculous accusations made by Coach Ma about our company! First, the Chinese Turtle Essence is set up early last year and was set up before Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. Secondly, Li Jiayu was a salesman from XX Pharmaceutical Factory. But Li Jiayu had only worked for one month. This XX Pharmaceutical Factory was one of the companies that were merged to become Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. XX Pharmaceutical Factory was a joint-venture, and the main shareholder was a private individual. Thirdly, our medicines were developed by the Professors from Beijing Universities and had International standards certifications. We will be exporting our products to other countries soon. There are absolutely no problems with the quality of our products. Fourthly, not a single part of our commercials was false. Every sentence is true!”

“Fifth, from what we understand, Coach Ma had taken out 11 million RMB was not because he wanted to donate that amount. This amount was confiscated by the government! This was different from what he claims! Sixth, Coach Ma claims that the athletes were able to achieve their results because of his training. What about the rest of the coaches? Can one person personally train dozens of athletes? Seventh, Coach Ma said he was the victim in the health products scandal. But has everyone forgotten what those athletes said? Why did they demand a change of coach? Eighth, Coach Ma claims that the athletes’ performances will drop after he left. I do not think so. I believe that these athletes will perform better under the guidance of the new coach. They will surely break the world record!”

All the reporters were excited by the General Manager’s words. All of Coach Ma’s accusations were rebutted. The General Manager was implying that Coach Ma was making false allegations against Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise and had denied all of Coach Ma’s claims!

“How do you explain about the rise of your company’s products after the health products were taken off the shelves? Although your products are all medicines, people are treating them as health supplements.” A reporter asked.

“What’s wrong with this? The health products are taken off the shelves is because there are problems with their products. Our products do not have any problems and are trusted by consumers. The consumers want to increase their nutrients intake, and they buy our products. This is very normal.”

“Coach Ma had claimed that Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise was the one behind the exposing of the fake health products. Do you admit it?” Another reporter asked a tough question.

Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise General Manager smiled: “That’s right. We are the ones!”

The reporters were in an uproar. Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise was indeed the one who exposed those fake health products. That means Coach Ma’s accusation was true. Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise really have something to do with the health product scandal!

Bing City Government officials by the side were also shocked. How can the General Manager say that? Regardless if you had anything to do with the scandal, you should not admit it. Was there something wrong with your brains?!

The Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise General Manager continued: “What’s wrong with us exposing those fake products? Did we do anything wrong?”

The reporters were stunned. That’s right. What’s wrong with exposing those fake products?!

Chapter 507 – All Japanese lacks Zinc

The next day, Coach Ma saw the article in the newspaper, and he tore it into pieces. There were already shreds of papers on the floor.

Questionable character and immorality? Since when did these words were used to describe a world-class coach?

Coach Ma had wanted to burn his boat, but his boat had sunk. He had fallen into the river, and he can’t swim.

Coach Ma had blown up this matter, and his leader had noticed him again. But this time, his leader had fired him!

If it weren’t for a mysterious businessman buying over Coach Ma’s half-completed training grounds and turning it into a sea-view villa area, Coach Ma would be thrown into jail!

Coach Ma regretted what he had done. If he were not so greedy, he would not be in this plight. His future was gone now. Coaching overseas? Even if China allowed him to go, those countries that tried to recruit him in the past would no longer hire him. No one would want their athletes to be trained by an immoral person!

Feng Yu was not delighted when he learns that Coach Ma was sacked. In the end, Feng Yu decided to help Coach Ma out to avoid being jailed. Of course, Feng Yu would never make losses. Lianyungan’s local government can’t wait for someone to take over the project. If not, the material suppliers and the construction company would be looking for them for the outstanding payments. The businessman even donated some money to the local government to change the use of the land parcel.

The City Government does not care whether if the villas could be sold or not.

It was Feng Yu’s dream in his previous life to own a sea-view villa. This dream had come true in this life. Also, this area will be gazetted as an economic development zone in a few years, and the property prices will shoot up. There was no way for Feng Yu to make losses!

“You can start airing the commercials.” Feng Yu called Kameda Masao.

The Japanese start to notice an advertisement for a book on Fuji TV. This book was called Suboptimal Health. In Japan, there had been authors promoting their new books. But most of them only advertise on newspapers. Even if they used TV stations to promote their new books, they also did not make it into a TV program.

This program had hired a medical professor as the host, and it talks about the health and daily nutrient intake. The nutrients in food and the causes of Suboptimal health status.

“Because of our diet, Japanese lacks lots of nutrients, and most of us are in the suboptimal status. We mostly lack in Zinc. Lacking zinc in our bodies will lead to a lack of proteins and will affect our children’s growth and men’s fertility.”

“to be honest, I often take zinc supplements. This type of medicine is bought from China. Zinc is an important factor in men’s fertility. As all of you know, I have 2 sons and 2 daughters. At my current age, I still have a healthy sex life with my wife. Most of the men in their 30s start to stop having sex with their partners.”

Not only there was a TV program, but there were also advertisements in newspapers. The ads were for Multivitamins and Zinc gluconate.

Most Japanese women were housewife and hen they saw the advertisement, they decided to buy these supplements for their husband.

The TV program had said that lacking Zinc will lead to lower sex drive and sperm count in men.

Their husbands were usually home late and seldom touch them. This was because they were too tired due to their work. But now, they know that it was because their husband lacks zinc.

Hmmm…. Should also get that book about Suboptimal Health and prepare some tonics for our husbands. The professor on TV had also recommended that Chinese medicine, Zinc Gluconate. No wonder China had such a high population. They already knew about the effects of Zinc in our bodies.

The program also warned about the harmful effects of Zinc deficiency in children. All the families with sons start to buy Zinc gluconate for their children.

Many Japanese men returned home to see a bottle of blue medicine waiting for them, prepared by their wives. Their wives wanted them to take the medication. One course of treatment was 4 weeks, and effects could be seen when the treatment ends.

The wives will not tell their husbands about their purpose of getting this medicine. They told their husband that this was a tonic which was good for their health.

Some of the husbands were touched by their wives’ gestures. Some of them scolded their wives for wasting money. Japan’s economy was not doing well, and this was a waste of money. Although they said this, they still take medicine.

The husband also noticed that there was a book at home. Typical housewife normally will watch TV and seldom reads.

Suboptimal health. What was this book about? From the title, it seems to be a medical book. The curious husbands started to flip the book.

After reading, the husbands realized that they were showing symptoms of Suboptimal Heath status. They were always tired at work because they lacked in some nutrients. They should increase their nutrient intake through specific food and supplements.

Soon, Japanese men knew what medicine they were drinking. This was a Zinc supplement product from China. The book had stated the effects of lacking in Zinc.

All the husband knew why their wives bought this medicine for them.

What to do now? They got to force themselves to fake interest in their wives. If not, their wives will know that they did not lack in Zinc, but they were indeed losing interest in their wives.

In the end, the frequency of sex with their wives increases. The wives were happy to see the effects of this medicine. The professor did not lie to them!

Got to buy more of this medicine!

Of course, there were some men with some problems with their bodies, and they secretly bought this medicine for themselves. They kept the medication in their offices and drank a bottle during lunch every day! Maybe it was the placebo effect, or the drug was effective. They felt their “power” increases a lot after taking medicine.

Because of this, Zinc Gluconate sales increase exponentially. The sales in certain regions were even higher than China.

Feng Yu was surprised by this. He had only wanted to make use of the psychological concerns of people to sell his medicine, but he did not expect the results to be so good.

This also let Feng Yu felt more confident about the sales of his medicine in the Western countries.

However, Feng Yu does not need to do much for the sales over there. He had handed over the sales of these medications to his Medical sales company partners in those countries. It was time for Feng Yu to report to Hong Kong University.

Chapter 508 – Hong Kong University

Hong Kong University. A university with a long history. This university was famous for its medical, business, humanities and political science. The Faculty of Medicine was even renamed to honor Superman Li’s donation. Even a faculty could be renamed. Feng Yu was envious of this. He also wanted to have a university to be named after him. Having the whole university to be named after him was a higher achievement than a faculty!

What made Feng Yu happiest was there were no roll calls for attendances at this university. The year-end examinations were also not that important, but there were assignments. This university emphasizes practicality.

Although Feng Yu had chosen the business faculty and not the economic and finance faculties he was good at, he was still confident that he would be able to complete his assignments efficiently.

“Feng, I will bring you to meet the university’s leader. I had also help you purchase an apartment near to the university.” Fu Guangzheng glanced at Feng Yu. Why do you want an apartment outside of the university? You still want to deny you are not here for our Hong Kong girls?

Feng Yu followed Fu Guangzheng through the campus. Of course, Fu Guangzheng had also engaged a lecturer to lead the way. Along the way, Feng Yu noticed that there were a lot of campus buildings named after individuals. He had heard of some of these names. These people were Hong Kong’s billionaires.

These wealthy people were used to charity works. They did this to increase their reputations and also to prevent people from talking behind their backs. Of course, they also did this to enhance their social status. The university graduates will be Hong Kong’s elites, and some of them might even become the governor or some officials.

The highest-ranking person at the university was not the principal. It was the Chancellor. The principal’s role in the university was like a company’s CEO, while the Chancellor was like a company’s Chairman.

Fu Guangzheng brought Feng Yu to meet the vice principal and asked the vice principal to take care of him. He hinted to the vice principal that Feng Yu had come to Hong Kong to pass time, and they should not make things difficult for him. The University should not take his attendances or give him assignments. Feng Yu should also not to be forced to take part in after-school activities or forced to stay in the university’s dormitory. Also, other than Feng Yu passing the university’s exams, he does not need to do any other things.

Feng Yu stared at Fu Guangzheng angrily. What’s the meaning of this? Who is here to pass the time? I really want to study and increase my knowledge. Feng Yu really wanted to attend that Professor Liang’s lectures. This professor will be hired as one of the consultants to stabilize Hong Kong’s economy by the Government after Hong Kong was handed over to China. He was not only well versed with the Chinese economy, but he had also researched the economies of Asia and the rest of the world.

“Here, this car is for you. But you do not have a Hong Kong driving license. This is the driver I arranged for you. He used to drive delivery trucks and is from China. He can speak Mandarin and Cantonese well. Do you want me to arrange for a driving instructor for you and get you a driving license?” Fu Guangzheng threw a car key to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu looked at the driver: “Can you teach me?”

“Yes, but I am not a professional instructor.”

Feng Yu waved his hand: “That’s enough. I do not speed. I only need to get used to right-hand drive. Most of the time, I will also not drive.”

Feng Yu was not stupid to speed around and risk his life. Only those silly rich brats will do this. To him, cars were merely a form of transport from one place to another. He just wants to familiarize with right-hand drive and will just drive when necessary.

“You insisted on being an exchange student, but you are late for your first day. I really don’t know what to say.” Fu Guangzheng grumbled.

The other exchange students had arrived at the university a few days earlier. Only Feng Yu did not arrive early. Instead, he was late. If it weren’t for the Fu Family, Hong Kong University would have punished Feng Yu. Even exchange students have to obey the school rules.

“I am too busy. Oh, how was Wang Junxia’s commercials in the western countries?”

“Now that you mentioned this, it was a great idea to get athletes to star in commercials. The response was great. With the growing awareness and promotion of the suboptimal health status, our products’ sales increased a lot. Those partner companies were smiling their way to the banks.”

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart. How could those companies not earn money with such new marketing strategies? Using athletes to endorse health products Amway’s marketing strategy, and Feng Yu had copied this idea.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Amway had hired athletes to endorse their health products and achieved excellent results. Wang Junxia and the rest had not reached the peak of their popularity. When they break the world records, they would be more influential.

Feng Yu felt that not much money could be made from these medical products. But there were still some profits from selling all the existing stocks. It should not be a problem to hit the sales target this year.

Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s brand will also be known all over the world. Feng Yu hope this brand would be as famous as Bayer in the future and the new medicines produced could sell well because of the brand.

“The athletes are not at the peak of their popularity. Next year, they will be more popular, and our sales will be better.”

Fu Guangzheng shook his head: “I still think that it was not worth to invest so much for such returns. That Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise still does not have any flagship products. What’s the use of you building up this brand? There is no way you are able to compete with those overseas pharmaceutical giants.”

Fu Guangzheng could not understand why Feng Yu did not focus in China or Asia. Why did Feng Yu insist on selling his products to the western countries? Brand awareness? Those medical products Feng Yu sells were not any special products. Was there a need to build the brand? It was unnecessary for Feng Yu to increase brand awareness through advertising.

But Fu Guangzheng did not know about Feng Yu’s plans. This was to pave the way for the future Viagra. It was easier for a well-known company to market their medicine.

Also, this would help with Zhang Ruiqiang’s promotion. The higher Zhang Ruiqiang climbs, the more Feng Yu would benefit in the future.

“Let’s stop talking about these. Bring me to the dormitory. I want to meet my roommate.”

Feng Yu suddenly noticed the change in expressions on Fu Guangzheng’s face when he asks about the dormitory. What’s wrong with this roommate? Didn’t I ask for a twin sharing dormitory room? You did not arrange for a good roommate?

Chapter 509 – I am gay

In Hong Kong, Fu Guangzheng was the host.

During dinner, Fu Guangwei told Feng Yu about all the fun places in Hong Kong. But Feng Yu does not seem interested.

“Wei Zai, I am warning you. Do not take part in those activities and you must not bring Brother Feng to those places! If not, I will tell Third Uncle to stop giving you allowances!” Fu Guangzheng warned.

“You still did not ask if Brother Feng wants to go.” Fu Guangwei argued.

“I am not interested in those places.” Feng Yu shook his head.

What underground racing, underground fight clubs…… Feng Yu was not interested in these. It might be interesting to visit these places once in a while, but he would never be like Fu Guangwei taking part in those activities.

Fu Guangwei frowned: “Then what about bars and disco? Brother Feng, our Hong Kong’s bars and discos are more fun than the ones in China. There are many hot girls. Don’t you want to go?”

Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu, waiting for his answer. But Feng Yu could see the eagerness in his eyes.

Damn, the both of you wanted to go to those places and wanted to use me as an excuse? But Feng Yu had not visited the discos in Hong Kong and wanted to have a look to see if it was really like those Hong Kong dramas. He wonders if it was as happening like the movies.

Music was blaring, and Feng Yu frowned. The music was too loud. There was no way for them to hear each other when they were inside.

“Wei Zai, you are here with Zheng Zai? You still have a new friend? As usual?” The bartender saw the both of them and greeted them.

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng. As usual? The both of you were regulars here. I am only an excuse for both of you to visit this place.

“Brother Feng, what do you want to drink?”

“Rum.” Feng Yu had wanted to drink beer, but no one around them drinks beer. So, he ordered Rum.

“Wei Zai, look to your left. There are 3 girls. Why don’t you go over and drink with them?” The bartender leaned forward and said to Fu Guangwei. His expression was just like those pimps in old Hong Kong dramas.

Feng Yu and the rest turned to their left. The girls’ dressing was hotter than the girls in China. But Feng Yu was not interested. Their makeup was too thick. How could they be considered pretty? What if they remove their makeup and looks like ghosts?

Feng Yu thought that Fu Guangzheng and his cousin would be more reserve as he was around. But he was wrong. The both of them stood up immediately and walked towards those 3 girls.

Damn. They were too desperate. Fu Guangzheng lacks women?

Feng Yu was not interested and sat there drinking, looking at the people around him. Never mind. I will return home by myself later. I want to see what sort of apartment Fu Guangzheng bought for him.

WTF? Dragging the girl by force? Feng Yu saw Fu Guangzheng standing there dragging a girl by the wrist.

This Fu Family young master was also rejected? Fu Guangzheng can be considered handsome and was very wealthy. The Rolex he was wearing was signs of his wealth. It was almost impossible for Fu Guangzheng to not get any girls he wants at this place.

Could it be that Fu Guangzheng was too anxious or he felt embarrassed for being rejected?

Wow…. This is getting more exciting. Both cousins were interested in the same girl?! Feng Yu saw Fu Guangwei grabbing the girl too.

Damn. The handphone now could not take pictures. If this were recorded, it would surely be a classic. This can be made into a TVB drama. With this picture in hand, Feng Yu would be able to make fun of Fu Guangzheng for the next year!

Woooo…. That girl slapped Fu Guangwei!

Fu Guangwei did not hit her back? Why didn’t he retaliate? Although Feng Yu had only met Fu Guangwei, he knew Fu Guangwei was an impulsive and rash person. He was slapped by the girl, and he just kept quiet?

Fine. I should stop them. If this incident blows up, it would not be good for the Fu Family. These two guys were drunk before they even start drinking?

“Brother Fu, Wei Zai, forget it. There is no need for both of you to force this girl.” Feng Yu pulled Fu Guangzheng back.

“Brother Feng. Sorry for letting you see this. This is my younger sister, Fu Mengying. You dare to dress up like this and come to these places? Aren’t you afraid of getting drunk and raped by those hooligans?!” Fu Guangzheng scolded the girl.

Huh? Your younger sister? Damn, this girl who dressed like a slut was from the Fu Family? Wait, was this girl the rebellious girl from the Fu Family reported by the media in Feng Yu’s previous life? That rebellious Fu Mengying?

Eh? Wasn’t this Fu Mengying a lesbian in my previous life?

Feng Yu looked at the two girls beside Fu Mengying. These two girls were also lesbians? 3 young girls having a threesome? This would be a pretty picture.

“What are you looking at?!” Fu Mengying screamed at Feng Yu.

“Mengying, how can you speak to Brother Feng this way? What did our family teach you?” Fu Guangzheng was feeling embarrassed. Feng Yu had seen his sister dressed up like a slut and Fu Guangzheng was already ashamed of this. Now, his sister even screamed at Feng Yu, making him more embarrassed.

“What Brother Feng? Did you see the way he looked at me? Are you still my brother?” Fu Mengying shouted.

Feng Yu glanced at Fu Mengying: “I am gay, and I am not interested in you. You are a lesbian?”

Fu Guangzheng was stunned. Huh? Feng Yu said he was gay? What a joke. Feng Yu had a girlfriend back in China, and he knew about it. Hmmm…. Feng Yu must have said that to calm the situation.

Fu Mengying shouted in shocked: “How did you know?!”

Huh? Fu Guangzheng and Fu Guangwei’s jaws dropped. Little Sis was gay?

“I’m sorry. I was joking with you just now. I am not gay.” Feng Yu looked at Fu Mengying with a surprised look. Hmph…. How could you win me with your low intelligence?

Fu Mengying was furious. She had blurted out her biggest secret because of Feng Yu. The most irritating part was Feng Yu was not gay, and he had tricked her.

But what puzzled Fu Mengying the most was why Feng Yu knew she was gay? Not even her family members knew about this secret!

“I…… I am also joking!” Fu Mengying tried to rebut.

But it was self-evident. No one would believe she was joking.

Fu Guangzheng looked at the two girls beside Fu Mengying coldly. He felt this was a disgrace! A daughter from the Fu Family was a lesbian?!

And Fu Mengying had admitted this herself. The worst part was she admitted to being gay in front of Feng Yu. This made Fu Guangzheng even more embarrassed. During the dinner earlier, Fu Guangzheng was still bragging to Feng Yu about how influential the Fu Family was in Hong Kong and had boasted about their family’s upbringing and his brothers and sisters.

Now, Fu Guangzheng felt like he was given a big slap on his face, and this slap was in front of everybody!

Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu trying to hold back his laughter and thought Feng Yu was mocking him and his family. But he had nothing to say.

If this were another Hong Kong’s top family, Fu Guangzheng would also laugh and gossip about that family. But now, this was his family!

“Shut up. Follow me home! The two of you, stay away from my sister or you will get it from me!” Fu Guangzheng said before dragging his sister out. He does not care if he hurt his sister. He just wants to leave that place as soon as possible!

Feng Yu saw Fu Guangzheng staring at him angrily, and he put on an innocent look. He looks like he had said a harmless joke, but he was laughing in his heart!

Coming to this disco tonight was really worth it!

Chapter 510 – Stupid Mainlander

“Old Chen, drive me back.: Feng Yu told the driver.

Fu Guangzheng and the rest had left. He did not even tell Feng Yu when he left. That bartender was already dumbfounded. He had only wanted to bootlick the two young masters of the Fu family to get additional tips. But his plan had backfired.

Fu Guangzheng still had a good reputation. But Fu Guangwei will surely bring some thugs to smash up this disco. The boss of this disco will not let this bartender off. Also, the boss of this disco was also a gangster. The bartender only hopes he would not be beaten up too badly by his boss.

The apartment Fu Guangzheng bought for Feng Yu was a small apartment with one room. The living room was bigger, and this was the most common type of apartment in Hong Kong. The total area, including the balcony, was less than 50 square meters.

Feng Yu had wanted to get a better apartment, but the apartments near to Hong Kong University were overpriced. Anyway, Feng Yu was staying alone, and there was no need for a large apartment. Fu Guangzheng had recommended him the Mid-levels villas, but Feng Yu rejected. What private roads and better security? These were all bullshit.

If the security in Hong Kong were so good, Superman Li’s son would not be kidnapped! The residential estates near the Police stations were the safest. Anyway, Feng Yu does not want to live with Fu Guangwei. That guy had a fucked-up lifestyle.

The next day, when Feng Yu woke up, he remembered a serious problem…… He knew what time his classes start, but he does not know where his class was!

Although Feng Yu had not planned to be a hardworking student, he can’t keep on skipping his lessons. This would affect Beijing University’s reputation. Furthermore, Feng Yu wanted to see the standard of Hong Kong University’ lecturers.

If the lecturers were capable, then there will be some outstanding students. Feng Yu wants to see if he could spot some of these elites and recruit them.

Feng Yu was involved in a wide range of businesses. He had no worries about recruiting workers and capital. The most important aspect of his company were the management staffs, designs, research, sales, etc…. He needs professionals in specialized fields. Even a grade 8 worker was not as important.

If someone could design an attractive automobile model, Feng Yu will surely reward the designer handsomely. If someone could develop advanced technology, Feng Yu would even give that person some shares.

It was still the same saying. What was the most expensive in the 21st century? Talents!

……

“Hi, how do I get to the Business faculty office?” Feng Yu asked a student.

The student, who was stopped by Feng Yu, looked at him from top to toes: “You are from the mainland?”

“Yes. I am here to study.”

“I don’t know!”

That student walked away with his head held high. Feng Yu was puzzled. I did not offend you in any way. I am only asking for directions, was there a need to be so stuck up?

Also, what’s wrong with coming from the mainland? Discrimination?

Feng Yu knew that this sort of scenarios will continue until the year 2000. This was because after Hong Kong was returned to China, many Chinese came over to work in Hong Kong. They were getting lesser wages but were more efficient. Also, some Hong Kong businessmen went to China to set up factories.

This would lead to an increase in unemployment in Hong Kong, and many Hong Kongers resent the Chinese for taking away their jobs.

If you are capable, there is no reason why you can’t get a high paying job.

All major cities in the world could not isolate themselves from the rest of the world. There were lots of foreigners working in major cities in the world, including the most flourished city, New York.

In fact, if it were not for China, Hong Kong would not be so prosperous. When Hong Kong had a financial crisis in the future years, it was China that helped. If not, Hong Kong would be finished. That was the time when Hong Kongers started to face reality and continued to work hard.

Most of the capable people had gone over to work in China. They realized that China was not like what they imagined. There were even more opportunities in China compared to Hong Kong.

Feng Yu shook his head and continued his search for his class. If he still could not find his way, he would give Fu Guangwei a call.

Feng Yu asked a few students. But when they heard Feng Yu’s accent, all of them refuse to talk to him. Feng Yu had no choice but to use English to ask for directions. It was only when he used English, people would tell him the directions.

“Dr. Smith, I am Feng Yu, the exchange student from Beijing University. I do not know where my classes are held.” Feng Yu said embarrassedly. Damn, that Fu Guangzheng was really unreliable. Feng Yu had not noticed that his timetable only states the time and subjects. The classrooms were not indicated in it!

“You are Feng Yu? You should be in class at this time. This is your course’s detailed timetable.” Dr. Smith said with an unhappy tone.

“I had reported to the university yesterday, but no one gave me this detailed timetable.” Feng Yu explained.

“Go to your class first. We can talk about this another time.” Dr. Smith was an external lecturer in the Business Faculty. He got his Doctorate in Economics from the University of Oxford in the UK. He was a Hong Konger, but he likes people to call him Dr. Smith. Even the nameplate on his desk was written in English.

Dr. Smith was very unhappy with Feng Yu. This was an excellent opportunity for Feng Yu to come to Hong Kong University and he does not know how to cherish it.

What would happen to Hong Kong after it was returned to China? Look at the attitude of these mainlanders. How can a student not know he does not have a detailed timetable? Luckily it will be one country two systems. If not, Hong Kong would be finished!

Feng Yu could tell that the lecturers in the Business Faculty do not like him and he left. If Dr. Smith did not ask him to “go to class first,” Feng Yu would think that he was an irresponsible lecturer. Feng Yu really wanted to ask Dr. Smith why was he looking down on mainlanders?

The first class had ended by the time Feng Yu reached the class. There was a second class in the same room, and Feng Yu went to sit in an empty seat.

“Hi, I am Feng Yu. Can I ask where the lecturer stopped?” Feng Yu asked the student beside him.

“You are from China?”

Feng Yu frowned: “Yes. Is there anything wrong?”

“Exchange student?”

“Exchange student.”

“Oh.” That student said that and start packing his bag and shifted to another seat.

WTF? This is pissing me off. What’s wrong with me being a Chinese? Did I offend you? Discrimination?

Feng Yu was pissed. He immediately grabs his bag and moved to the seat beside that student.

“Stay away from me.”

“What if I refuse?” Feng Yu raised his brows. Why? You dare to hit me? I am 1.8 meters, and you are not even 1.7 meters. You are also as skinny as a toothpick. You think I am scared of you?

“You all mainlanders are all uncultured! You are just like that guy I met two days ago. Old fashion!” That student said and flicked his hair.

Fuck you! What’s wrong with having short hair? Old fashion? Long hair like yours are fashionable? Who was the one who set this rule? I like to keep my hair short!

“Who are you calling uncultured?”

“I am calling you uncultured, Stupid Mainlander!”

Chapter 511 – Surpassing in all aspects

Stupid Mainlanders?

Feng Yu was furious. This was an insult.

Feng Yu stood up, and the surrounding students also stood up. But the other students were supporting that skinny toothpick. All of them were looking down on mainlanders and China.

“Apologise!” Feng Yu said coldly.

“What if I don’t?” That toothpick student said with his chin pointing upwards. He was also tiptoeing, trying to look taller.

“You say I am uncultured? Then I will let you know that uncultured people do not argue. They will beat you up without saying anything!” Feng Yu gave that student a kick, making him fall backward. Feng Yu immediately rushed forward and gave him two punches in the face.

The rest of the students were shocked. It was until when that toothpick student pleading Feng Yu to stop, the rest of the students went forward to pull Feng Yu back.

This group of students was so timid. All of them dare not to fight. Feng Yu was thinking in his heart. If only Wen Dongjun were here. Even 5 students could not pull him back when he was in a fight. That toothpick student would surely piss his pants if he met Wen Dongjun!

If this group of students dares to get more people to wait for Feng Yu after school, the Fu Family would surely step in to settle this. If not, he would hire two bodyguards. It would be like in the movies: “Whoever that dares to bully me, beat him up! Whoever I want to bully, beat him up too!”

“Let go of me. In the future, if I hear anyone says things like Stupid Mainlanders, I will break that person’s leg!” Feng Yu roared.

“You… You dare to hit me? I will report this to the university, and you will be sent back to the Mainland! You wait!” That toothpick student shouted while hiding behind the rest of the students.

That student had never expected this mainlander to suddenly hit him in front of all the students. At the same time, he was disappointed with the rest of his classmates. They wanted him to make things difficult for Feng Yu, but when Feng Yu hit him, no one came to his help. There were so many of them and yet they were afraid of that mainlander?

“Go on. Let the lecturers be the judge. You are discriminating a student from China. Is this how a student from Hong Kong University should behave?” Feng Yu looked at that toothpick student. Cultured? You dare to talk to me about cultured?

The bell rang, and all the students returned to their seats. That toothpick student was still staring at Feng Yu. Feng Yu nonchalantly seat on a chair and looked at the student provocatively.

The lecturer entered the classroom and starts the lesson.

Suddenly there was a loud sound of glass shattering. Feng Yu looked down, and there was a glass smashed beside him.

“That student, stand up. Why are you making such a loud noise in class? Do you know you will affect the rest of the students?” The Lecturer stared at Feng Yu.

Damn. That toothpick student was playing dirty.

“Sir, are you talking about me? I am not the one who smashed this glass. It’s him. If you don’t believe, you can take a closer look at the glass shards. His name was written on it.”

Feng Yu looked at that skinny student. Wang Mingji? How did this guy enter Hong Kong University with his IQ?

Wang Mingji was stunned. He knew this lecturer hated his lessons to be interrupted. He had wanted to get Feng Yu into trouble. He should not have used his own glass and should not have written his name at the bottom of his glass.

“Wang Mingji! Don’t you know the rules during the lesson? If you do this again, get out of my class!”

Wang Mingji was now like a quail. He was looking down and keeping quiet. His hatred for Feng Yu increased. It was all because of this Mainlander, he made a fool of himself. He must take revenge!

The lesson carried on, and after a while, the lecturer asked a question and look at the class. He points to Wang Mingji: “Wang Mingji, answer this question.:

Ah? Wang Mingji was shocked. He was not paying attention in class and was thinking of ways to get back at Feng Yu. He does not even know what the question was!

“You can’t even answer such a simple question? Your parents had wasted their money to send you here! That student, can you answer?” The lecturer points at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu stood up and answered: “There are many ways to look at products. The method used should depends on what do we want to find out. For instance, we can send the product to laboratories for scientific analysis, Comparative analysis, market research…… etc. For this type of product, I would use comparative analysis.”

“Good. You are an exchange student from China? All of you should follow his example. This student had paid attention to my lessons and was serious in his learning. Look at the rest of you, such a big difference from him! The rest of the lecturers had told me that Chinese students were serious in their education and very smart. At first, I do not believe them. But now, I am convinced. Luckily all of you did not go the China’s university as exchange students. If not, you will be a disgrace to our Hong Kong University!”

The rest of the students looked at Feng Yu in surprise. What Feng Yu said was not covered in this lesson. How did this mainlander know about this? Was it really like what the lecturer said? All Chinese students were serious in their studies?

Some of the students were thinking like Wang Mingji. They felt Feng Yu was too arrogant. Even if you knew the answer to that question, you should also tell the lecturer you don’t know!

At noon, the lesson ended. Feng Yu packed his bag, and when he was walking pass Wang Mingji, he purposely stops.

“What do you want? If you dare to hit me again, I will really report to the University!” Wang Mingji said with a threatening tone.

Feng Yu smiled disdainfully: “Keep your mouth clean in the future and don’t be a moron!”

“You…. Who are you calling a moron?” Although Wang Mingji can’t really understand what Feng Yu was saying, from his expression, he could tell that the word used by Feng Yu was not something good.

“I am calling you that. So?”

Wang Mingji dare not to utter a word until Feng Yu left the classroom.

Feng Yu despised Wang Mingji even more. This type of people was the main reason why Hong Kong’s economic slowdown in the future. Looking down on others when he does not have any capabilities. This type of people was destined to be a small worker for the rest of his life.

Feng Yu does not intend to attend the afternoon lessons. All these lessons were about basic theories, and he was not interested. All the theories that were taught were similar to what he had learned back in Beijing. Feng Yu decided to only attend those more critical lessons.

When Feng Yu reached the carpark, he saw Wang Mingji entering an old Toyota: “Hey, Mainlander, can you afford a car?”

Feng Yu waved his hand, and driver Old Chen stopped his Mercedes beside Feng Yu. Old Chen alighted from the Mercedes to open the rear passenger door for Feng Yu. Wang Mingji’s jaws dropped. This Mainlander could afford a Mercedes? He looked at his old second-hand Toyota. Such a big contrast!

Impossible. All mainlanders should be in poverty. How can he afford a Mercedes? And he even hired a driver! It can’t be! That mainlander was still wearing a cheap watch!

Wang Mingji would never know that the watch Feng Yu wore was Shanghai brand mechanical watch. This watch was very accurate, and he had donned it out of habit. To Feng Yu, a watch was just to tell time. There was no need to wear a diamond-studded gold watch. Those affluent people do not need such accessories to flaunt their wealth.

Wang Mingji frowned. This Mainlander was not simple. Should he still carry on with his revenge? It should be how he should carry on with his revenge?

Chapter 512 – Fu Rongbing’s invitation

Feng Yu was still looking for a place to have lunch when he received a call from Fu Guangwei: “Brother Feng, my father asked me to invite you to my house for lunch.”

Huh? Fu Guangwei father? Then he should be the third brother of the Fu Family, Fu Rongbing. He wants to invite me to lunch? I do not have any dealings with him. If it were Fu Rongqi inviting him, he would still think that it was normal. After all, both of them were into the financial markets and had lots to talk about.

Typically, invitations were for dinners and lunch were for business talks. Feng Yu felt this a bit strange.

Wait. That Fu Mengying was Fu Rongbing’s daughter. Damn, did Fu Mengying asked her father to cut me into pieces? Or Fu Rongbing knew that I knew she was a lesbian and want to silence me?

Feng Yu felt this was not a simple lunch!

But Feng Yu could not reject this invitation. Although they had some conflicts in the past, that was a long time ago, and it was solved. Now, Feng Yu still have lots of business collaborations with the Fu Family. Especially Fu Guangzheng had sent many management staffs to help out his businesses in China. Most of them were from the Fu Family businesses. The Fu Family had helped Feng Yu a lot.

When Feng Yu arrived at Hong Kong and the Fu Family did not invite him for dinners, then it would be their fault for not playing host. But if they invite Feng Yu and Feng Yu rejected their invitations, then it will be Feng Yu bearing a grudge against them. It would be harder for Feng Yu to pull the Fu Family to his side in the future.

In Hong Kong, there were some western customs. When you are going to someone’s place for lunch or dinner, you are required to bring some gifts, like red wine or cigars, along. But never fruit baskets. In Hong Kong, fruit baskets were usually used when visiting someone in the hospital.

Feng Yu also followed the Hong Kong customs and bought a bottle of Latour.

The Fu Family was indeed one of the wealthiest families in Hong Kong. The four brothers were staying in Mid-levels villas. The floor areas were huge. There were rumors that the Feng Shui for that area was the best in Hong Kong.

When Feng Yu arrived at Fu Rongbing’s villa, Fu Rongbing came out to receive him. His eldest brother had told him to not look down on Feng Yu. Feng Yu might not have disclosed his wealth, but his total assets should be a humongous figure. Even with the assets Feng Yu disclosed now, was enough for him to be China’s top tycoon!

Also, Feng Yu had met Premier Deng personally. His status was different!

Even Fu Rongqi treats Feng Yu with great respect, needless to say, Fu Rongbing had to do so too. Fu Rongbing’s business was similar to Fu Rongjing, and their assets were worth only about one billion HKD each. These were lesser than what Feng Yu’s disclosed assets. What’s there for Fu Rongbing to be arrogant about?

Feng Yu was surprised to see the whole family waiting for him outside the front door when he alights from the car. It does not seem to be a Hongmen Banquet. If it were a Hongmen banquet, Fu Rongbing would not be waiting for him with his two wives outside the house.

In Hong Kong, it was common for these tycoons to have more than one wife. Although other than the first wife, the rest of the wives were not officially registered. Fu Mengying was the daughter of Fu Rongbing’s second wife.

“Uncle Fu, why are you standing outside? Please don’t stand on ceremony.” Feng Yu said hypocritically. On his way over, he was still thinking of how to teach this Fu Family third brother a lesson if he were to act arrogantly!

“Eh…. Nephew Feng Yu, this is the first time you are coming to my house. How can I not come out to welcome you? Let me do the introductions. This is my wife…… This is my daughter, Fu Mengying.” Fu Rongbing introduced his family to Feng Yu.

Nephew? Feng Yu raised his brows. You are not even a family friend of my Feng family; how can I be considered your nephew? But when Feng Yu thought about it, the was the best way for Fu Rongbing to address him. If he called Feng Yu by his name, it would be like treating him as an outsider. If he calls Feng Yu as Xiao Feng, it would sound too rude. If he calls Feng Yu as Manager Feng, there will be a distance between them. Fu Rongbing could only make use of Feng Yu’s relationship with Fu Guangzheng and address him as nephew. This would sound closer.

Everyone smiled and greeted Feng Yu, except for Fu Mengying, who was staring hard at him.

It was all because of this damn guy. If not, no one in the family will know she was a lesbian. Now, not only her own family knows about this, even her cousin from her Eldest uncle called her to ask if she was really a lesbian. She still wants to introduce guys to Fu Mengying.

That Fu Guangwei had told the rest of the Fu Family about her and even encouraged her father to invite Feng Yu. What’s so great about this Feng Yu? Was there a need to invite him over for lunch?

Feng Yu was only someone who had business dealings with the Fu Family, and he was closer to the 4th uncle’s family. Was there a need for us to invite him over? Furthermore, didn’t this Feng Yu con 4th uncle? Why didn’t the Fu Family “take care” of him?

When Feng Yu saw Fu Mengying staring at him angrily, he smiled: “Ah, it’s Sister Mengying. You look much prettier today compared to the last time we met!”

Fu Mengying continued to stare at Feng Yu. If her parents were not there, she would have started to curse Feng Yu. Who is your sister? Am I familiar with you? Are you trying to tell me that I am not pretty the last time we met?

But now, Fu Mengying could only say: “Thank you, brother Feng, for your compliments. Please come in.”

Fu Mengying stretched out her hand to take the bottle of red wine from Feng Yu. Hmph, when you let go of the bottle, I will retract my hand. I will make you embarrass by smashing your wine in front of my house!

But this little trick could not fool Feng Yu. Feng Yu ignored Fu Mengying’s hand, turned towards Fu Guangwei and passed the bottle of wine to him: “I don’t know what to bring, so I bought a bottle of wine from a good year.”

“Nephew, you can come over anytime you want. There is no need to bring any gifts. Come in. Lunch is ready.” Fu Rongbing stepped aside and let Feng Yu enter his house.

Fu Mengying retracted her hand embarrassedly. Damn. This Feng Yu was too irritating. He saw my hand and still pass the wine to Fu Guangwei? Am I invisible?

The most irritating part was Fu Guangwei passed the wine to Fu Mengying. She was the youngest in the family. She really wanted to throw the bottle on the ground, but it was her brother who passes her the bottle. If she really did that, even her mother could not protect her.

Also, Fu Mengying’s mother was the second wife and had only a daughter. The was why the first wife had treated her and her mother well. In Hong Kong, if a household has a son, then the daughter will only get a small part of the inheritance.

But if Fu Mengying made Fu Guangwei embarrassed, the first wife might beat her, and her mother could only keep quiet.

Wow…. This Fu Rongbing’s house was really well renovated. The furniture and fittings were antique themes. Must ask who the renovation contractor was. The villas at Longyungang should also follow this theme. It will surely attract lots of buyers.

“Uncle Fu, your house is lovely.” Feng Yu said.

“Hahaha, all these are antique furniture. I had spent a lot on these and had bought these from overseas. Some of these were bought by Guangzheng from China. I like these antiques.” Fu Rongbing was very happy to hear someone praising his collections.

Feng Yu was surprised. Damn, all these were not imitations, but real antiques. All this furniture should cost a lot. That means that vases on the shelves were also antiques?

“Come, sit beside me. Let’s have a good talk.” Fu Rongbing asked Feng Yu to sit beside him and arranged for Fu Mengying to be seated beside Feng Yu.

Feng Yu paused for a while. This sitting arrangement……. Why does this feel weird?

Chapter 513 – Matchmaking?

“Nephew, how are your parents?” Fu Rongbing asked.

“They are doing very healthy. My Brother-in-law runs a hospital.” Feng Yu was feeling puzzled. You really treat me as your nephew?

“I heard from Guangzheng that you are doing medicine business recently?”

Fu Rongbing was also interested in Medicine business?

“Feng Yu nodded: “Yes. This is to help my country. This business is not very successful. The profits cannot be compared to Uncle’s supermarket business.”

“But you are still making money. As long as a business is making money, it is considered successful. What hobbies do you have? What do you do when you are free?”

A large question mark was formed in Feng Yu’s mind. If a businessman asked a government official this question, the businessman was most likely trying to bribe that official. If it was an older person asking a younger person, it was most likely out of concern. But this could not explain the current situation now.

“I do not have any hobby. I just like to make money. I want to retire by 30 years’ old and travel the world with my parents.” Let’s see how you are going to continue this conversation with this answer!

“Shallow!” Fu Mengying muttered.

Fu Rongbing stared at his daughter and then turned to Feng Yu, smiling: “You are very ambitious and treats your parents well. You are so different from Guangwei. He only asks me for money every day and had never done anything properly.”

Huh? Was Fu Rongbing trying to ask me to guide Fu Guangwei? Was this his agenda for hosting this lunch?

“Dad, I am not like what you said. Since when I do not know how to do business? I am reselling antiques with Brother Guangzheng. That is also business.” Fu Guangwei retorted.

“You want to be compared with Guangzheng? Guangzheng’s assets are almost on par with your father’s total worth! He is buying and selling antiques. You? You are always conned into buying fake antiques. Do you know how much money you had wasted?” Fu Rongbing reprimanded.

“Who doesn’t get conned once in a while? You had also wasted lots of money in the past.” Fu Guangwei said.

“I had wasted the money I earned. It was not your grandfather who gave me the money! You? How much have you earned? Don’t think I do not know that you had spent your mother’s monthly allowances. I do not wish for you to be like Nephew Feng. I only hope you are able to show me some results!”

Feng Yu was the first-person Fu Rongbing met who had made so much money by himself at such a young age. Even Superman Li, at Feng Yu’s age, was still an ordinary worker! Bill Gates also had the support of his family in his computer software business. He could not be compared to Feng Yu.

Bill Gates was very wealth now, but the Fu Family felt that Feng Yu could overtake him in the future. Feng Yu would be able to exceed everyone on the Forbes Billionaire list shortly. Even if he could not pass them, he would still be one of the world’s top billionaire.

This was the reason why the Fu Family used Feng Yu as the benchmark for their children. In Fu Guangzheng’s generation, other than Fu Guangzheng who was working closely with Feng Yu, the rest had no chance to be as successful as Feng Yu.

Feng Yu rubbed his nose and kept quiet. He had become the “role model” to the Fu Family’s next generation. Wei Zai, why are you staring at me? There is no way you will win me in this life. You want to have more assets than me? Sure…. You only need to return back to your past, like me. Hahahaha…..

Fu Rongbing saw his son keeping quiet, and he turned to Feng Yu and smiled: “Nephew, you intend to get married at what age?”

Feng Yu immediately took a sip of water. He was almost choked by a piece of beef. Are we really that close? Why are you asking me when am I getting married?

“Uncle Fu, I still have no intention of getting married.”

Fu Rongbing continued asking: “Then do you have a girlfriend?”

“Yes.” Feng Yu lowered his head and ate his food. He does not want to talk about this subject anymore. Fu Rongbing was trying to matchmake him. Feng Yu looked at Fu Mengying suspiciously. This was the real agenda for this meal?

But this was impossible. All of them should know Fu Mengying was a lesbian. It was impossible for both to be together.

Wait, why did Fu Rongbing bring his two wives along for this lunch?

Oh, no….

Feng Yu saw the look on Fu Mengying’s shocked expression. It seems that she understood what was happening.

Damn. Hope Fu Rongbing will not say: Since you already have a girlfriend, then do you mind having another one?

Luckily Fu Rongbing did not say that. Feng Yu was relived. Fu Rongbing saw Feng Yu looking down at his food, and he did not carry on chatting with him. He also starts eating, but he kept looking at Feng Yu.

After an awkward meal, Feng Yu wanted to leave that place immediately. He rejected Fu Rongbing’s offer for tea politely.

“Mengying, go and change and send Nephew Feng back.” Fu Rongbing looked at his daughter.

“Dad, I have a headache.” Fu Mengying suddenly rubbed her temples with one hand. Feng Yu took one look at her. What poor acting skills. Shouldn’t you at least have frowned when feigning a headache?

“A headache? Are you sick? Oh, Guangwei and I still have something on later in the afternoon. Nephew Feng, can I bother you to send Mengying to see a doctor?” Fu Rongbing asked.

Shit. He was really trying to matchmake both of us!

Fuck. Don’t you have a better excuse? Even if your whole family is busy, you still have lots of helpers. You do not have drivers? Most importantly, which Hong Kong’s top families do not have personal doctors?

Do you still need to visit a doctor? With just a call, the doctor will be rushing here to give Fu Mengying a full check up!

But when Feng Yu saw Fu Mengying’s expression, he changed his mind and nodded: “No problems. I can bring her to the doctor on my way back.”

“Mengying, what are you waiting for? Nephew Feng is waiting for you. Go and get change.” Fu Rongbing said.

Fu Rongbing had spoken to his doctor, and his doctor told him that young girls became lesbian could be due to some external circumstances and caused them to change psychologically. But there was also a possibility that they were only curious about being a lesbian and wanted to experience themselves. The doctor suggested introducing an excellent young man to see if the girl was just curious or really a lesbian.

There were medical records that lesbians changed after meeting some handsome guys, and they even got married.

If Fu Rongbing wanted to use other methods to verify if his daughter was really a lesbian, it would be too troublesome. He still has to let the family doctor know “that girl” was his daughter.

This was why he chose to try the doctor’s suggestion to introduce a handsome young man to his daughter. He thought for a long time and did not know who was suitable to be introduced to Fu Mengying. Fu Guangwei suddenly suggested Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was not bad looking and was a successful businessman. His age was also close to Fu Mengying, and most importantly, if Feng Yu and Mengying really got together, it will be a good thing for them and the whole Fu Family!

This was why Fu Rongbing tried his best to matchmake Feng Yu and his daughter today. In his heart, even if his daughter becomes Feng Yu second wife, it would be better than her being a lesbian!

“Uncle Fu, I will send Sister Mengying to the doctor now.”

“Ok. After the doctor visit, ask Mengying to bring you around Hong Kong. Both of you should have lots of common topics. Both of you should get together more often in the future.” Fu Rongbing looks like he can’t wait to give Feng Yu his daughter.

Feng Yu smiled and agreed. Should stay in touch with each other. Yes. After all, he was a bit bored after coming to Hong Kong!

Chapter 514 – Fu Mengying’s resentment

Once the car moved out of Fu Rongbing’s villa, Fu Mengying immediately shifted away from Feng Yu. She wants to get as far as possible from Feng Yu. But the space in the rear passenger seats of a Mercedes was only so big. Where can she run?

Feng Yu purposely moved closer to Fu Mengying: “Sister Mengying, are you still feeling unwell?”

“Get away from me!” Fu Mengying screamed.

“Sister Mengying, can’t you tell what your father’s intention? I had said I have a girlfriend and he still tries to matchmake both of us. He was implying that he does not mind you to be my mistress.” Feng Yu purposely said this.

“Shit!”

Feng Yu raised his eyebrows and looked at Fu Mengying in surprised: “You are so vulgar? Does Uncle Fu know about this?”

“Feng Yu, you bastard. Don’t you dare to have dirty thoughts about me? If not, I will not let you off!” Fu Mengying shouted.

Fu Mengying had never met such a shameless person in her life. In Hong Kong, all she needs to do was to mention the Fu Family and who dares to bully her? All the while, she was the one who does the bullying!

Feng Yu had a bigger smile on his face: “Dirty thoughts? Save it. Look at yourself in the mirror. You do not have a pretty face and hot body. Why would I have dirty thoughts about you? If you are not from the Fu Family, I would have kick you off the car just now. Fine. I will drop you at a bus stop.”

Fu Mengying’s eyes grew wide: “You want to drop me at a bus stop in such a secluded place?” Also, I am not good enough? When I wear men’s clothing, I had attracted so many women!

“Why? You really think I am sending you to see a doctor? You do not have money for the bus ride? Old Chen, do you have a small change? Change 200 HKD and give it to Miss. Fu.” Feng Yu took out a 500 HKD and pass it to the driver in front.

Fu Mengying was going crazy. What does Feng Yu mean by that? I do not have the money to take the bus? What I meant was, since when do I need to use the public bus?

From Fu Mengying’s memories, she had only sat in Taxi with her mother before. After she stayed with her father, she had drivers to send her where ever she wants to go. Now, she had a driving license, and her father had bought her a car. She had never taken public buses, subway before. Feng Yu does not know about this?

Furthermore, you want me to take a public bus in this dress? The most frustrating part was Feng Yu’s driver really passed Feng Yu 200 HKD, and Feng Yu threw the 200 HKD at Fu Mengying. It was just like the HK dramas’ hooligans throwing money at a hooker after they had finished the deed.

Here. I am giving you money. Pick it up…….

Feng Yu saw Fu Mengying suddenly lowered her head and buried her face on her laps. Her shoulders were shaking and could hear her crying.

Shit. This girl cries so easily?

“Hey, hey, are you really crying?” Feng Yu poked Fu Mengying’s shoulder with his finger.

Feng Yu looked up and saw his driver, Old Chen, peeping at him through the rear-view mirror. WTF was wrong with this driver? Don’t you know it was the driver’s responsibility to pretend not to see what your passengers are doing at the back?

“Fine, fine……. You win. Where are you going later? I will ask Old Chen to send you there.” Feng Yu said.

“I want to buy something.”

Feng Yu’s lips twitched. He was almost fooled by this girl. The voice of someone who was crying will tremble.

“What do you want to buy? Men’s apparel? And then go and meet women?”

Fu Mengying did not continue her act and raise her head to stare at Feng Yu: “You…… How do you know I am…… I am……”

“You are what? Say it out!” Feng Yu looked at Fu Mengying happily and then looked towards his driver.

Fu Mengying also secretly looked at Old Chen. She does not want too many people to know about her secret.

“You know what I am talking about! How did you find out? Even my parents do not know.”

Feng Yu could not tell her that he knew she was a lesbian because this was reported on Hong Kong’s entertainment news in his previous life. If he had not watched the news, he would also not tell she was a lesbian. He had also not met many lesbians in both his lifetimes.

But Feng Yu pretended to by mysterious: “I could tell from your actions with those two girls that night.”

Fu Mengying screamed: “Liar! They are not lesbians. How could you tell by looking at us?!”

Huh? Those two girls were not lesbians? Wait, from Fu Mengying’s eyes, she was lying again!

“It’s up to you whether if you want to believe me. Where are you getting down? I still have problems later.” Feng Yu turned towards the window and starts to whistle.

“Can you do me a favour……”

“No!” Before Fu Mengying could finish her sentence, Feng Yu rejected her. If this girl was not from the Fu Family and just lookalikes like Fu Mengying and a lesbian, Feng Yu would be attracted to her. It was a challenge for him to change the sexual orientation of a lesbian!

But Feng Yu’s rational told him that he must not get involved with Fu Mengying!

Feng Yu had lots of cooperation with the Fu Family. To a certain extent, Feng Yu still had the upper hand. Also, he still has plans to make the Fu Family a part of his financial empire under him in the future.

If he got involved with Fu Mengying, then he would lose his advantage, and this will not be good for his plans.

Feng Yu was not someone who was that desperate.

Fu Mengying shouted: “I still have not finished what I wanted to say!” What kind of person is this? You do not even know what help I wanted from you, and you rejected me!

“I do not need to listen to you. First, do you think we are friends? I don’t think so. Do we have any relationship? No. Have you ever wished for me to be knocked down by a car and die? Or I fall out of the windows, or I got choke to death?”

Fu Mengying opened her eyes wide. How did this person know what she was thinking?

“Your eyes had told me that. Since you wanted me to die so badly, why should I help you?” Feng Yu asked.

If it were him, who was exposed by someone else, he would also wish for that person to die!

Furthermore, what favor does Fu Mengying need? The Fu Family was so powerful and influential in Hong Kong. She does not need anything, except for someone to cover up her secret!

Feng Yu was clear about this. Even if he had guessed wrongly, and needed a favour for something else, he would also not agree to it. Fu Mengying had so many cousins to help her and what else does she need? If he helped her, Fu Rongbing would misunderstand him further. If this matter could not be told to your cousins, then it must not be something good. The more Feng Yu should stay away from her!

“Stop the car, now!” Fu Mengying screamed. But Old Chen continued to drive and looked at Feng Yu through the rear-view mirror.

Feng Yu nodded: “Old Chen, stop the car.” Hah, this was my driver, and I pay his salary. Do you think he will listen to your orders?

“You better talk to your family and tell them you like me. This would be better than me telling them that I do not like you.” Feng Yu said as Fu Mengying was getting out of the vehicle.

Feng Yu must stop this from progressing any further. It would be better for Fu Mengying to speak to her family. This was why Feng Yu agreed to send her to the doctors.

Bang!

Fu Mengying slammed the door and stormed off in her high heels.

I heard that there’s an old lady who was an expert in villain hitting. Hmph! Die Feng Yu!!

Translator’s note: I don’t understand why Feng Yu was so mean to Fu Mengying. She had done nothing to offend him.

Villain hitting was a form of Hong Kong’s culture. I had only seen it in Hong Kong movies. If you visit Hong Kong, you can go and take a look.

Chapter 515 – Meeting Liu Chuanzhi

After stopping things from advancing between him and Fu Mengying, Feng Yu asked Old Chen to drive him to his real destination.

It was a low-rise building. There was a signature at the entrance. Hong Kong Lenovo Company. Feng Yu knew he was at the right place. Hong Kong Lenovo company’s office building was doing much better than Beijing Lenovo. They could afford to rent such an office building.

Feng Yu entered the building and took the lift after registering at the lobby.

“Hi, is Liu Chuanzhi, Chairman Liu around?” Feng Yu asked.

Liu Chuanzhi was the Chairman of the Hong Kong Lenovo Company and the CEO of Beijing Lenovo company.

The receptionist could tell Feng Yu was from China because of his accent, and she replied in broken Mandarin: “Chairman Liu is in a meeting. Do you have any appointments with him?”

“Just tell him Feng Yu is here.” Appointment? I am here to invest. Do I need to make appointments?

Hong Kong Lenovo Company was going to focus in the PC industry and had plans to set up a computer division. But they do not have the funds.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) had the funds, but they could not use all the funds in Lenovo. Also, the leaders at CAS does not think Lenovo’s development in PC will allow them to compete with the PC companies from Overseas. This was the time when they thought of a way to raise funds. Listing the company for the company’s future development.

But there was a problem. CAS was holding the majority of the shares, and they had not been doing well for the past few years. Also, they had a poor risk capacity. All these factors would affect their listing. Even if the company got listed, the share prices would not be high. It will not help them accumulate enough funds for them to enter the PC market.

Liu Chuanzhi suddenly remembered there was a Chinese businessman who had called him in the past. That businessman wanted to invest in Lenovo, but he had rejected him. Now, the company needs investment, and he suddenly thought of this businessman.

But when Liu Chuanzhi called this businessman, the businessman was no longer in Beijing. He was in Hong Kong. Liu Chuuanzhi immediately packed his bags and fly to Hong Kong.

His leader had told him that he could sell Lenovo’s shares to Chinese, Hong Kongers or even Macanese. But he cannot sell the company’s shares to westerners!

The Chinese leaders had seen many companies who were invested by Westerners and was slowly taken over by them. In the end, the Westerners held the majority of the shares and the Chinese had no said in the company. All the profits were taken away by the westerners.

This was why Liu Chuanzhi felt Feng Yu was the most suitable investor.

When Liu Chuanzhi told his leaders that Feng Yu was the boss of the Wind and Rain brand, the leaders were delighted. They knew the Wind and Rain brand was from a reputable and trustworthy company. Most importantly, Feng Yu had expressed interest in their company and had wanted to invest. This deal could be settled quickly.

Liu Chuanzhi had been waiting in his Hong Kong office since morning. He was waiting for Feng Yu to look for him. When he received the notification from his receptionist, he immediately stood up: “Invite Manager Feng in immediately!”

Ah…… Liu Chuanzhi was not bald. Feng Yu was surprised when he saw Liu Chuanzhi. He felt this was funny. The Liu Chuanzhi was still young, and his hair had not fallen off.

“Chairman Liu, we have finally met.” Feng Yu smiled and extend out his hand.

Liu Chuanzhi heard Feng Yu’s voice, and he instantly knew this young man was the one who called him. This was the businessman who wanted to invest in Lenovo.

But Liu Chuanzhi had met many successful young men in Hong Kong, and he recovered from his shock quickly. He shook Feng Yu’s hand: “We had spoken over the phone several times but had no chance to meet each other. Now, we have finally met.”

Feng Yu was grumbling in his heart. No chance to meet? You are the one who does not want me to invest in Lenovo. Now, you need my investment, and you start to look for me?

“Chairman Liu, Lenovo is a good company. When I was in Beijing, I had bought a Lenovo computer.” Feng Yu smiled.

“Seems like we can be considered successful for Manager Feng to buy our products.” Feng Yu was a successful business, and he did not use better computers from overseas. Instead, he bought a Lenovo computer. Liu Chuanzhi felt really proud.

“Chairman Liu, you called me here, is it you have some good news for me?” Although Liu Chuanzhi did not mention anything over the phone, Feng Yu knew what was this about. Liu Chuanzhi needs his investment.

“Manager Feng, you had told me several times over the phone in the past that you are interested in investing in Lenovo. Are you still interested in investing now?” Liu Chuanzhi was the proactive party in this negotiation.

Feng Yu does not care about all these negotiation tactics. Yes, he wants to invest in Lenovo. If possible, he still wants to be the majority shareholder!

“I am interested of course. I had always wanted to enter the IT industry and do PC business. But it was too troublesome and slow for me to set up a development team myself. That’s why I wanted to invest in Lenovo.”

“Are you going to invest in Hong Kong Lenovo or Beijing Lenovo?”

Lenovo was still split into two companies at this time. Each company was financially independent of each other. But the top management was the same group of people.

“I can’t invest in both companies?” Feng Yu smiled and answered. If possible, he would want to own the shares of the whole Lenovo company and not part of it. If not, Feng Yu shares would be diluted when both companies merged in the future.

In another two years, Lenovo will be China’s PC leader, and then it will become Asia’s leader. Lenovo will be one of the top 5 PC companies in the world. The profits from this company will be massive and how could Feng Yu miss this opportunity?

“Manager Feng, although Lenovo’s initial investment was not a lot, we had also developed quite some products and own some technology patents. We had developed well in the past few years, and the market value of both companies was much higher compared to last year.” Liu Chuanzhi reminded Feng Yu.

“Much higher? How high can this be? Maybe you are still not aware that I am the major shareholder of China’s Songjiang Motors. Last year, I had invested a more than 1 billion RMB into Songjiang Motors.” Feng Yu said casually.

Liu Chuanzhi’s eyes opened wide. What? Feng Yu was also the major shareholder of Songjiang Motors? He invested over a billion RMB last year?

How much were Feng Yu’s assets? If Feng Yu was not bragging, his total assets could buy out both Lenovo companies at once.

This person was a big boss. A real big boss!

This means that the leader does not need to look for another state own enterprise to invest in Lenovo. Feng Yu alone could fill the gap!

Liu Chuanzhi immediately changes his attitude to become more enthusiastic: “Manager Feng, have some tea. Oh, do you smoke? I have bought some Zhonghua cigarettes from China. Let me get it for you.”

Feng Yu laughed and waved his hand: “I do not smoke. Chairman Liu is convinced of my financial ability now?”

“I am convinced. Let me tell you about our company’s future plans. I promise you that you will not regret your decision to invest in our companies!” Liu Chuanzhi said excitedly.

Chapter 516 – Opportunity to invest in Lenovo

“Chairman Liu, there is no need to talk about the company’s future plans now. I still have trust in you on that part. I heard that some of you also own the shares of this company?” Feng Yu was not sure how many shares Liu Chuanzhi owns now. In his previous life, the most shares held by Liu Chuanzhi was 3.8%

“I do not own many shares now. I only have 1%. In the company, there are a few more people who are like me. The main shareholder of this company is still the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the rest is owned by the employees.”

Feng Yu raised his brows. Shares were already distributed to the employees? He remembered in his previous life, CAS owns 65% of the company’s shares and the employees, including Liu Chuanzhi and the other founders, owns the remaining 35%. Feng Yu wanted to know how much shares does the employees own now.

If Feng Yu were to invest in Lenovo, the best scenario was to lower the CAS shares percentage. But CAS will never allow this to happen. Lenovo will be listed soon, and after the share prices had risen, they would sell off some of their shares to get the profits.

Since Liu Chuanzhi had approached Feng Yu now, that means the company have some financial issues or does not have enough funds. Feng Yu was thinking hard about how he can own more shares, even if he had to spend more.

In the future, Lenovo’s profit margin might not be high, but the company will still be doing well. The company will divert and invest in many areas to maintain high profits. This was all due to Liu Chuanzhi and his team.

Most importantly, CAS had only invested 200,000 RMB in the company initially and did not spend a single cent after. A decade later, CAS’s shares in the company were worth more than 150 billion RMB!

The return on investment was fucking high! Even if Feng Yu were to invest 100 million for a 10% stake in the company, the shares will worth more than 20 billion RMB 10 years!

Even Warren Buffett could not get such high returns.

Feng Yu had decided to get as many shares as possible even if he had to pay double or triple for the shares!

The PC and IT industry will be one of the most profitable business in the coming 10 years!

“Chairman Liu, what is the total value of Beijing and Hong Kong Lenovo?”

“Hong Kong Lenovo’s value is about 100 million HKD, and Beijing Lenovo is worth about 70 million RMB.”

Huh? So little? Although compared to the 200,000 RMB initial investment, this was a few hundred times, but the total market value of both companies was much lower than Feng Yu’s estimation.

That means Feng Yu could afford to invest easily without any stress. Even if he had to pay 5 times more for the shares, 500 million RMB could buy more than 50% of shares!

“Then how many shares is Lenovo willing to sell?” Feng Yu asked.

Feng Yu wished Liu Chuanzhi will tell him there were no limits. But this was impossible. Feng Yu hope that the percentage of shares he could own will not be too low, like 3% or 5%. It would be meaningless.

“How many shares do you want to buy?” Liu Chuanzhi asked.

“I will buy all the shares you sell.” Feng Yu confidently replied.

Liu Chuanzhi thought in his heart. This was what he had imagined. But when he told his leaders, his leaders only wanted investment and not selling their shares.

The company was preparing to be listed, and after the company was listed, the share prices will increase. It might even increase several folds. If they were to sell off the company’s shares now, they would lose out a lot.

Liu Chuanzhi had asked this question to test Feng Yu.

“Hmmm…. I need to report to my leaders and might need a few days. How long will you be in Hong Kong?”

“I should be in Hong Kong for the most part of this year. Give me a call when you got a reply from your leaders. Oh, I heard that Hong Kong Lenovo is going to be listed in Hong Kong? I am quite close to Hong Kong’s Fu Family and also have a consultancy company here. We should be able to help you get the approval to be listed.” Feng Yu said.

“That’s great. We can save a lot of trouble this way.” Liu Chuanzhi smiled, but in his heart, he was shocked.

How did Feng Yu know Hong Kong Lenovo wants to be listed in Hong Kong? This was still in the planning stage, and only the top management and some leaders in the CAS knew about this. How did this news leak out?

Could it be Feng Yu had bribed a top management staff in Hong Kong Lenovo? But it can’t be. All the senior management staffs were the ones who had founded Lenovo with him, and all of them owns the company’s shares. There was no reason for them to tell others about this news.

But no matter what, Liu Chuanzhi must investigate how Feng Yu got the news. He was the one who suggested to get Feng Yu to invest in the company. If something were to happen, he would be the one to take the blame!

After leaving Hong Kong Lenovo, Feng Yu called Wu Zhigang to ask how much liquid cash Tai Hua Trading has. When he got the answer from Wu Zhigang, Feng Yu felt even more confident.

Tai Hua Trading had sufficient funds to buy out both Lenovo companies. If it wasn’t for Liu Chuanzhi and the rest of the founders were talents but impossible to recruit, Feng Yu would have agreed to Heitaro Nakajima’s request for Aiwa to enter the PC market.

This year, Aiwa had successfully beaten Sony in the Walkman market. In Feng Yu’s previous life, the slim series Walkman introduced by Sony was produced by Aiwa earlier in this life. Sony had become a follower again!

Heitaro Nakajima was overjoyed. He felt that his Walkman sales will exceed more than 1 billion USD and their profits will not be less than 100 million USD!

The CD player was also introduced into the market. Under the influence of Aiwa’s brand, the sales were also doing well. Although it still can’t be compared to Sony and Panasonic, Aiwa had the VCD technologies. They could have caught up with the rest of the companies in terms of CD technologies.

The quality of Aiwa CD players does not lose to the rest of the companies, and the brand was already established in the audio player industry. Coupled with the established sales distribution channels, there were no worries that Aiwa would fail.

Although Aiwa CD players did not become hugely popular overnight, the sales had reached their targets. At the same time, the market share of the other companies dropped. The company that was affected the most was Sony!

Heitaro Nakajima became more ambitious. Aiwa was also developing video games, and he wanted to enter the PC industry. He had conducted market researches and felt that the PC market had a bright future. Also, Aiwa’s existing engineers were capable. If he recruits a few more talents from other companies, Aiwa could also set up a Computer division.

Although Feng Yu had great foresight and could give Heitaro Nakajima advice on the PC industry, Feng Yu felt it would be easier to invest in Lenovo directly. After all, Lenovo were the experts in this field.

Also, until the day Feng Yu returned to the present life, Japan’s top 3 best-selling computer brands were their own domestic brands. Dell, Apple, Lenovo, and Samsung were not doing well in Japan. In this area, Japan’s protectionism policies were still an issue for foreign brands.

Furthermore, if Aiwa were to enter the PC market, Sony, Panasonic, and other MNC companies will surely join hands to attack Aiwa. Feng Yu still does not have the means to compete with so many MNCs.

Feng Yu also did not think Aiwa will be successful in PC development as they will be starting from scratch. The products they developed will not be able to outdo the rest of its competitors. Aiwa should concentrate on audio equipment. Feng Yu had already planned out Aiwa’s future direction. When Walkman and CD reach the peak, Aiwa will introduce MP3.

Feng Yu still trust Lenovo when it comes to the IT and PC industry. Feng Yu must own a stake in Lenovo!

Chapter 517 – Heard of Self-assembled PC?

After Feng Yu left, Liu Chuanzhi spoke to Hong Kong Lenovo’s top management, including the fellow founders of Lenovo. He wants to know if Feng Yu had bribed any of them to get information about Hong Kong Lenovo’s plans of being listed on the stock exchange.

If Feng Yu knew about this, then he would surely offer a lower buying price and Lenovo would lose out in this deal.

But after Liu Chuanzhi’s investigation, he noticed that none of the senior management and the other founders had leaked this information. He felt that these senior management staffs will not accept Feng Yu’s bribes. If Feng Yu were to bribe someone in Lenovo, he should be bribing Liu Chuanzhi.

Liu Chuanzhi called Beijing and reported to his leader. The leader found out that Feng Yu owned Wind and Rain brand and was the major shareholder of Songjiang Motors.

That means Feng Yu had lots of money. Feng Yu had shown his eagerness in buying Lenovo’s shares. They should be able to sell the shares at a high price to Feng Yu.

Of course, the leaders told Liu Chuanzhi that the shares cannot be sold to Feng Yu. Feng Yu can only invest, and their shares will be diluted. But the shares value will not be lowered. If Feng Yu invested more, their share prices would increase.

But the leaders had not considered Liu Chuanzhi and the rest of the founders. Their shares will also be diluted. The senior management and founders were the ones who had built Lenovo.

Liu Chuanzhi and the rest had requested for the company to be restructured and wanted shares to be issued to the employees. CAS had agreed to this request. But the stocks that were given out were not a lot. Although, if the shares were based on the market value, it was considered a considerable amount. But there were still much senior management complaining to Liu Chuanzhi that the company had issued too little shares.

Look at those private companies’ bosses. They were not as capable compared to them, but they had taken loans to start their businesses. Now, they are earning more than the senior management staffs.

With the private companies as a comparison, the senior management staffs felt unbalanced. Once they started to have such thoughts, their attitude will change. This includes Liu Chuanzhi. He had wondered if he had requested for too little shares. His earnings were too small compared to the effort he put into this company!

But no matter what, Liu Chuanzhi will never leave Lenovo. This was the place where his dream started. He firmly believes that with his contribution to the company, he will be getting more shares in the future.

……

“Manager Feng, please take a seat. I had reported to my higher ups, and they said that you can invest in the company. However, they will not sell the shares of the company to you directly.” Liu Chuanzhi said.

Feng Yu has already thought of this. Someone who had confidence in the company would never sell his shares before the company was listed. But it was common for companies to look for investors before they listed their companies. This was why Feng Yu was not surprised when Liu Chuanzhi said this.

“Then Chairman Liu, how much can I invest and how many shares will I get?”

“50 million for 18% of the shares.” Liu Chuanzhi looked at Feng Yu.

“Chairman Liu, are you joking with me? The total worth of both Lenovo companies was not even 180 million RMB. I am investing 50 million RMB, and I should be getting at least 21.7% of the shares. How did you get this 18% stake from? How did you do the calculations?” Feng Yu asked.

Feng Yu knew that the other party will undoubtedly increase the prices and he must not agree to it immediately. Furthermore, 18% of shares of the company were too low. Since the other party was willing to let him own so many shares, there should not be a problem if he were to ask for more.

In Feng Yu’s past life, CAS was also not the controlling shareholder in Lenovo. CAS was only the biggest shareholder. That means CAS does not need control over Lenovo.

Feng Yu also wanted to test if he were to offer an extremely high amount, will CAS be willing to sell their shares to him.

Feng Yu also felt that it was impossible for him to own the controlling stake of Lenovo immediately. Liu Chuanzhi and the rest will never agree. But it should not be a problem if he were to be the second biggest shareholder of this company.

“Manager Feng, I know that both companies do not have such high market value now. But our companies still own lots of technology patents, and we have lots of talented staffs. Also, we still have an unevaluated project, which is our PC project. This is why we think that 50 million for 18% shares is reasonable.” Liu Chuanzhi slowly explained.

“Oh? Doesn’t Lenovo’s PC project had been in existence for quite some time? I had told you that I had bought a Lenovo computer back in China.” If Feng Yu were in the shoes of Liu Chuanzhi, he would felt that this price was too low. 50 million RMB should get at most, 10% shares of the company. This was because Lenovo’s PC businesses will be the company’s cash cow in the next few years.

But Liu Chuanzhi does not know that PC would be so profitable, and Feng Yu was not so stupid to tell him this. Instead, Feng Yu pretended that he could not accept such a low percentage.

“This is different. In the past, our focus was not on the PC business. But we will set up our PC division to focus on this aspect. This business will bring in lots of profits for the company and will also yield high dividends for the shareholders.”

“PC division? Do you have the related patents? Can you produce PC parts? I guess what you all are doing is to import some motherboards, chips, hard disk, etc. and then assemble it yourself. You will then add in a Chinese language card in it and call it your own products. Am I right?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

In Feng Yu ‘s previous life, many people had mocked Lenovo for outsourcing 90% of the PC parts and then get a factory to assemble them. Only the exterior designs, configuration, and the software were done by them.

The Lenovo now was very poor, and it was impossible for them to produce these parts. That means the production cost of a PC will be outrageously high. Lenovo will also not be able to engage in price wars with the other companies, and it would be impossible for them to control the Chinese and Asia market.

Liu Chuanzhi heard what Feng Yu said and turned red with embarrassment. He did not expect Feng Yu to know about this. But when he thought about the business Feng Yu owns, and he had also used a computer before, it should be normal for him to have some knowledge about PC.

“We will look for factories to manufacture parts for us. As for the patents, we will purchase the rights to use them. This way, the cost will be lowered, and our products will be more competitive.” Liu Chuanzhi tried to argue.

Feng Yu smiled and asked: “Chairman Liu, have you heard of self-assembled PC?

After the year 2000, PCs will enter almost all households. At that time, the prices of the laptop were still very high, and desktop PC were the optimal choice for everyone.

During that time, other than the companies and government agencies, most of the students and families will go to the electronic retail complexes to get someone to assemble a PC for them. They just have to tell the shop owner the parts and specs they wanted, and the shop owner will charge them accordingly.

A self-assembled PC was cheaper than a branded PC by a few thousand RMB. Although the branded PC offers warranties, the shop also provides after-sales services. In fact, the self-assembly PC shops offered better customer services than branded PC companies.

But at this time, there were no self-assembled PC. This was because there were a lack of skilled technicians in the market and these computer parts were delicate. Now was different from the future where many university students and even secondary students knew how to assemble their own PC.

Liu Chuanzhi paused for a while: “What did you say? Self-assembled PC?”

Chapter 518 – I also have technologies

Feng Yu looked at Liu Chuanzhi, thinking “What a country bumkin. Don’t even know what a self-assembled PC was.”

“In the future, there will be retail shops that specialized in selling computer parts and then assemble it for customers. Don’t you think they are able to sell their PCs to customers at a lower price without marketing and branding? Also, customers are able to pick and choose the parts and specs of their PC. The PC will suit their needs better than getting the standard package from the PC companies.” Feng Yu smiled and replied.

This trend will only appear after Hong Kong returned back to China. China still does not have such shops now. Feng Yu said this was to scare Liu Chuanzhi and tell him that he might not make money if he enters the PC industry like this.

How did Lenovo make so much money from their PC in Feng Yu’s previous life? First, they hired many factories as contractors to lower their cost of production. Second, they made use of their status as China’s own PC brand and had the support of the Chinese Government. The Chinese government agencies and related units were all using Lenovo PC.

Other PC brands do not have such a big client, and their sales could not exceed Lenovo. Lenovo was also the company who started the price war with the other brands. Lenovo does not need to pay the Government high importation taxes, and they had retail outlets in every county of China.

There were many other reasons why Lenovo was successful in China. Of course, Liu Chuanzhi still had not thought about this yet. He felt what Feng Yu had said seems reasonable. If someone were to set up self-assembled PC shops, their products’ sales would be affected.

“But we have the technologies, and we are able to make software. Also, we understand people’s requirements. We can surely produce the best PC that suits the Chinese. We are also China’s first PC brand for consumers, and it will not be a problem for us to capture China’s market. Therefore, I think our PC products will rake in profits for the company.”

Subconsciously, Liu Chuanzhi changed from getting high profits from PC products to getting profits from PC products. His conviction started to sway.

“You say you have the technologies? But can your technologies compare with the technologies from other countries? I also have lots of engineers working for me.”

“Manager Feng, you also have electronic engineers? Are you talking about Jiang Wanmeng and his colleagues from Wind and Rain VCD?” Liu Chuanzhi asked.

“Chairman Liu also know Jiang Wanmeng and his colleagues? But they are not the only electronic engineers hired by me. Is that pager clipped on your belt Aiwa Pager? Aiwa brand is also mine.” Feng Yu leaned back and cross his legs.

“Aiwa brand? The company that manufactures Walkman, VCD players, and pagers?” Liu Chuanzhi’s eyes opened wide.

The whole nation knew that Aiwa VCD player was Wind and Rain VCD player’s competitor. But Liu Chuanzhi had never expected both brands belongs to the same person!

But what have these two companies got to do with Lenovo? There were many types of electronic engineers. Those engineers that specialized in audio players, telecommunications were different from the engineers that specialized in PC.

“Manager Feng, even if you own Aiwa and have lots of electronic engineers, that does not mean you are able to manufacture PC.” Liu Chuanzhi said.

“Chairman Liu, what do you think of the storage of floppy disk?” Feng Yu suddenly asked, changing the topic.

“Floppy disk storage? The capacity of the Floppy Disk has been improving. Currently, the standard floppy disk storage is 1.44M, but the 2.88M floppy disk is already available in the market.” Liu Chuanzhi was an expert in this field.

1.44M, even if this was doubled, it could only store simple data. It could not even store a PC game!

“Then what do you think if the floppy disk drive is changed to CD-ROM drive?

“CD-ROM drive?”

“Optical disk drive. I am sure you are familiar with this.” Feng Yu said.

CD-ROM drive was already in the market in 1991. But the CD-ROM drive currently was very slow and very costly. It was not common for regular PC to use CD-ROM drive now.

The computers at this time use Floppy disk drive, and when Feng Yu visited the Computer shops in Hong Kong, he saw a computer with two floppy disk drives. One was for 3.5” floppy disk, and the other was for the soon-to-be-obsolete 5.25” floppy disk.

But these floppy disk drive could not be compared to the 640M storage CD. The CD was better and more suitable to store data, games, movies, etc.

When the CD-ROM drive was launched, Liu Chuanzhi had also looked into it. But this CD-ROM was too expensive, and they do not have the related technologies. It was not suitable for them to use this drive in their PC.

Wait, Feng Yu’s companies were producing CD and VCD players. CD and VCD players were related to CD-ROM drive. The basics were the same. Feng Yu could manufacture CD-ROM?

If Feng Yu had the optical disk drive technology, then this would be an opportunity for Lenovo. They would be able to produce a PC with a CD-ROM drive. Their PC will be top tier if it comes with the software and the CD-ROM.

“Manager Feng, you are telling me that you hold the technology for CD-ROM?” Liu Chuanzhi asked anxiously.

Feng Yu nodded and asked: “Is it that hard to develop this technology? The traditional CD-ROM drive speed was 150KB/s. The latest standard is 300KB/s, and we are able to produce the optical drive for this 300KB/s. I can use this technology to invest in Lenovo and include some engineers that specialized in this field.”

The reason why Heitaro Nakajima wanted to enter the PC market was that when he was developing the CD players, he had also looked into the CD-ROM technology. This was also why Heitaro Nakajima felt that it was easy to manufacture PC. He thought that with this CD-ROM drive, he would be able to produce better PCs for top-tier consumers.

But Feng Yu knew that Floppy Disk was still mainstream. Regardless it was a laptop or a desktop, most of the files were still stored in the floppy disk.

Just like the PC game Feng Yu was playing, <Vertical and horizontal seven seas>. For every stage he completed, he needs to insert a new floppy disk. It was too troublesome. If there were CD-ROM, one CD-ROM would be enough to store all the files. The CD-ROM could even store many games.

There were already PC games using CD-ROMs. But those were only for publicity. CD-ROMs will replace floppy disk 3 to 5 years later. If any companies produced PCs with only CD-ROM drives now, it would inevitably fail!

But Feng Yu did not tell Heitaro Nakajima about this. He only told Heitaro Nakajima to set up a team to research on CD-ROM with higher speeds. It was enough to be able to manufacture CD-ROMs, but he should not think about going into the PC industry. It was still impossible for them to compete with so many other competitors currently.

Computers were not like Walkman. After all, Aiwa’s brand was already well known in the Walkman among the consumers. Feng Yu finally convinced Heitaro Nakajima, but Heitaro Nakajima does not intend to continue to research on CD-ROMs. He wants to focus on CD player technologies. Feng Yu used this reason to buy the CD-ROM technology from him.

“Manager Feng, I need to report to my higher-ups. Can you wait for another two days? I will contact you again.” Liu Chuanzhi needs to reconsider about Feng Yu’s investment into Lenovo. Using technology to invest was entirely different from using funds to invest.

Feng Yu smiled and nodded: “No problem. But do not let me wait for too long.”

Chapter 519 – Inducements (Part 1 of 2)

Liu Chuanzhi will not let Feng Yu wait for too long. In fact, he was the one that does not want to wait. The earlier Feng Yu invest into Lenovo, the easier they could get the approval for their listing. Also, their share prices will increase higher.

For a listed company’s shares to rise, a good company development plan is required. If the company does not have the necessary funds, what’s the use for the development plan?

Although Lenovo was only getting listed in Hong Kong, their main business in Hong Kong were servers and PC. If Lenovo were to announce they had advanced CD-ROM technology and their PC business will improve and achieve high profits, the share prices will rise.

After Liu Chuanzhi reported to his leader, the leaders held a meeting to discuss this. Their conclusion was they agree to let Feng Yu invest in Lenovo using cash and technology. But they want Liu Chuanzhi to evaluate the value of the technology carefully.

Since the higher-ups had agreed, Liu Chuanzhi and the rest of the founders had a discussion to evaluate the CD-ROM technology before calling Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, our main shareholder had agreed for you to invest with technology and cash. Let’s discuss how much your CD-ROM technology is worth.” Liu Chuanzhi did not beat around the bush.

“How much do Chairman Liu think the most advanced CD-ROM technology is worth?” Feng Yu asked/

To Feng Yu, this technology was not very valuable as Aiwa had not spent too long to develop it. Aiwa had been developing CD and VCD technologies. Not much effort was put in developing this technology, and Feng Yu had not spent much to buy this technology from Aiwa.

“1 million?” Liu Chuanzhi asked.

“1 million USD? At least 5 million USD!” Feng Yu purposely said.

“Manager Feng, I am talking about RMB!” Liu Chuanzhi said.

We had been using RMB in our negotiations, and you should know about this. Even if we were to buy the rights to use this technology, it would not cost so much. 5 million USD? Why don’t you go rob a bank?!

“RMB? 1 million RMB? I think you are not sincere. Do you still need me to state how important this technology is to Lenovo? Increased storage space is the direction of all PC companies are heading. You want to deny this? Not many companies in the world have this second-generation CD-ROM technology. Do you think those western companies will sell the rights to you? Even if they are willing to sell, how much do you think it will cost?” Feng Yu laughed and said.

Although Feng Yu had not spent much on this technology, it still cost 200,000 USD. Covert to RMB, it was also more than 1.1 million RMB. Even if Feng Yu was not looking for profits, he also does not want to lose money. If Lenovo were to develop this technology themselves, they would need at least 5 million RMB!

“Manager Feng, technology changes very fast. That’s why we need to discount on our prices. But even if we had offered a lower price, this technology is also not worth 1 million USD. Let alone 5 million USD!” Liu Chuanzhi was not happy with Feng Yu’s counteroffer.

“If you look at the technology alone, it might not be worth 5 million USD. But for Lenovo, this technology is worth this price! With this technology, Lenovo will be able to produce a better PC. A PC with CD-ROM drive can sell much higher than those PC with only Floppy Disk drive. The profits from this deal are very high.”

Feng Yu was not talking nonsense. CD-ROM was a new thing, and people will feel this was very hi-tech. The storage capability was a few hundred times more than a floppy disk. It was suitable to store lots of documents. Most of the organizations that buy computers now were the banks and government agencies. They had lots of data, and floppy disks will not be enough to store their data.

With CD-ROM, Lenovo will be able to develop newer and bigger markets. This was very important to Lenovo. Furthermore, with the CD-ROM drive, the profit margin of their PC will be higher.

“Manager Feng, this is only what you said. Are you able to show me the figures to prove you are right?” Liu Chuanzhi could not agree with Feng Yu’s price.

“You want figures? Then I will show you the figures. This is the production cost of the C-ROM drives. This is the price difference between a PC with and without CD-ROM drive. This will show you how much profits you can get from CD-ROM drive. This is the sales figure of PC with CD-ROM drives in Hong Kong. From the trend, you should be able to tell that the market demand is increasing. As our data continue to grow and increase, who will still want to use Floppy disk to store? Moreover, CD-ROM can be used to store videos. Can floppy disk do that? It would be hard for a floppy disk to store even one song.”

Feng Yu had conducted market research. He had spent some money to tabulate this data about Hong Kong’s PC market. This was the reason why he dares to ask for high prices.

“This is only Hong Kong’s data. It does not represent other places. Our biggest market is China. China and Hong Kong had vast differences.” Liu Chuanzhi said.

“Chairman Liu should know clearly how much this technology is worth. But I do not want to talk about this anymore. If Lenovo is able to let me increase my investments, I can give this technology to Lenovo for free!” Feng Yu smiled.

Feng Yu wants to use this technology to induce Liu Chuanzhi. Feng Yu’s objective was to own more of Lenovo’s shares. Even if he can’t be the major shareholder, he still wants to be the second shareholder.

Liu Chuanzhi looked at Feng Yu. What does Feng Yu mean by this? How much did Feng Yu want to invest, for him to give this technology to Lenovo for free? Feng Yu wants to be the controlling shareholder?

“Manager Feng, you kept saying that you want to increase your investments. How much do you intend to invest and how much shares do you want?” Liu Chuanzhi asked.

“Chairman Liu, don’t you think that you own too little Lenovo’s shares? Lenovo could get to where it is today is all due to you and the rest of the founders, right? Do you know how many shares my engineers and researchers own in my companies? I gave Old Jiang, Jiang Wanmeng, 4% of the company’s shares. I gave 10% shares to those engineers at Aiwa pagers. They do not even have to pay a single cent. Do you know how much are their monthly salaries? 10,000 RMB a month!”

Errrr…. Only the head gets 10,000 RMB. The rest does not reach such high salaries. Those normal engineers only get 200 RMB a month. Feng Yu did not say this too clearly. He wants Liu Chuanzhi to misunderstand his words and disrupt his thoughts.

Liu Chuanzhi was dumbfounded as he looked at Feng Yu’s raised index finger. What? Feng Yu gave his engineers so many shares?! Old Jiang and the rest own the company’s shares, and their salaries were 10,000 RMB a month?!

Although Liu Chuanzhi was from CAS and set up Lenovo, as the head of the company, his salary was only about 1,000 RMB a month. This was still using Hong Kong’s standards. If his salary were to follow the pay scale of China, it would be less than 300 RMB!

The salary differences were 10 times, and shares were several times more. Liu Chuanzhi could not calm himself down. He remembered the grumbles of his colleagues who had worked hard with him to set up Lenovo. All of them felt that CAS had given them too little shares. Now, Liu Chuanzhi really want to speak to the leaders at CAS about their shares!

Wait, why was Feng Yu telling me these? Could it be that he will give us some shares after he invested in Lenovo? He wants the controlling stake?!

Chapter 520 – Inducements (Part 2 of 2)

Liu Chuanzhi looked at Feng Yu and asked: “Manager Feng, you want to be the controlling shareholder of Lenovo?”

“If that’s possible, why not?”

Liu Chuanzhi shook his head: “This is impossible. Although Lenovo is registered as a private company, in reality, it is the same as those state-owned enterprises. There are many things in the company which I can’t tell you in detail. But it was impossible for you to get the controlling stake.”

“I only want to control stake, and you can have all the authority to run the company. Other than finance, I will not interfere with the management, operations, etc. The company can set up a board of directors, and I will support you to be the chairman!” Feng Yu pointed to Liu Chuanzhi.

What? Feng Yu was not after the authority? I will be the chairman of the company? Then why does he want to get the controlling shares? Liu Chuanzhi had never heard of someone who does not want to be in charge.

Was Feng Yu hoodwinking him or was he telling the truth?

Feng Yu saw Liu Chuanzhi doubting his words, and he laughed: “Chairman Liu, have you heard of Lehaha company?”

“Lehaha? The company that sells children health supplements? I had heard of this company before. Why?” Liu Chuanzhi was in a daze. Feng Yu changes topics too fast. We were talking about Lenovo, and he suddenly talks about Lehaha.

“I am the major shareholder of Lehaha. Lehaha does not have a board of directors, but there is an Executive Director to make the managerial decisions. This Executive Director is the former boss of Lehaha, Zhong Qingxian. I only have a title of deputy general manager there. I do not have any duties or responsibilities there. I only provide some suggestions to Zhong Qingxian and had never interfered with his decisions.”

Liu Chuanzhi looked at Feng Yu in shock. Feng Yu was also the biggest shareholder of Lehaha? This Manager Feng was involved in too many businesses!

Although Liu Chuanzhi was not in the health supplements industry, he knew that Lehaha’s sales were outstanding. Will a company with good sales have low profits? Feng Yu does not want to be the person in charge of such a company?

“Why? You don’t believe me?”

“Should I?” Liu Chuanzhi asked Feng Yu back.

“Since you know Old Jiang personally, you can ask him if I had ever interfered with the operations of Aiwa Electronics? Other than the finance department, Manager Jiang is the one who makes all the decisions on the hiring of staffs. He had never asked me about anything. The abilities of one person are limited. I cannot be monitoring all of my companies closely. In fact, I do not even want to manage any company. This is the same as Lenovo after I become the major shareholder. To you, 1 or 2 hundred million might seem to be a considerable sum of money. But I can afford to lose this sum!”

Liu Chuanzhi almost choked when Feng Yu said this. Feng Yu was too arrogant. Can afford to lose 1 or 2 hundred million?

But when Liu Chuanzhi thinks back, this was indeed true. This Manager Feng had too many businesses, and all the companies were racking in high profits. All the companies mentioned by Feng Yu had a market value of more than 200 million!

“Manager Feng, what are your plans?” Liu Chuanzhi narrowed his eyes and asked.

“Help me get the most shares out of my investment. As long as the total shares owned by both of us are more than 51%, we do not need to listen to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. To be honest, the leaders there do not know how to do business. If you are not in this company, I will never consider investing in Lenovo.”

Feng Yu had tried to poach Liu Chuanzhi over the phone previously. But Liu Chuanzhi had rejected him. This was because the Lenovo Company had agreed to issue shares to him. But the shares given to him could not satisfy him. Compared to the senior executives in Feng Yu’s company, Liu Chuanzhi was really disappointed with his leaders.

Now, Feng Yu had made things very clear. He needs Liu Chuanzhi to help him get more shares. Money was not a problem. After that, he will let Liu Chuanzhi the authority over the company and money.

There were two choices in front of Liu Chuanzhi. One was to help Feng Yu, and in the future, he will be the person with the most authority in Lenovo. Those officials, who knew nothing about businesses, could not interfere with his decisions. He will also gain personal benefits. Second, he does not help Feng Yu. Then after Feng Yu would resent against him. He would lose a great opportunity. All the plans and dreams in his heart will not be fulfilled.

“Manager Feng, you said that the senior engineers in your companies will get shares as rewards and bonuses?” Liu Chuanzhi had made his decision.

“Of course. Lenovo will be the same too. I will suggest this during the shareholders meeting. I cannot guarantee you how many shares all of you can get, but I think the 1% shares you owned is too little. It should be at least 3%. The rest of the pioneers should also get some shares as rewards.”

Liu Chuanzhi brightens up. Feng Yu was so generous to give them so many shares? He was calculating in his heart. The shares owned by the rest of the founders and him amounted to about 8%. He had wanted to fight for the clause that their shares will not be diluted after Feng Yu invested in the company. They wanted to maintain their 8% stake of the company. However, Feng Yu will be giving them more than they had expected!

But how should Liu Chuanzhi report to his leader in CAS? This was a problem. He had previously told his leaders that Lenovo needed only 50 million RMB to set up the computer division. How should he get the leaders to agree to let Feng Yu invest more than 100 million RMB?

Even with the CD-ROM technology, the leaders will also not agree to this. The company was still making profits and why should they allow someone to invest in the company and dilute their shares?

Seeing Liu Chuanzhi becoming quiet again, Feng Yu asked: “Chairman Liu, are you having some concerns?”

“It’s too difficult. Your investment is too big, and the leaders might not agree. The CD-ROM technology will not be sufficient to persuade them.”

“What if you tell the leaders that I am still the third biggest shareholders of Microsoft?” Feng Yu smiled.

“Huh? What did you say? The third biggest shareholder of what company?” Liu Chuanzhi thought he heard wrong.

“US, Microsoft. The company that made the Windows operating system!” Feng Yu explained.

“You…… You are a shareholder of Microsoft?”

“I am the third biggest shareholders. I do not own any equity shares and do not have voting rights. But it should not be a problem to form a partnership between Microsoft and Lenovo. Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system for PC manufacturers. Microsoft had also produced much great application software. If we are able to collaborate with Microsoft to produce a Chinese version of those application software, how much profits do you think Lenovo will get?”

Liu Chuanzhi’s breathing became rapid. He could see the opportunity and profits if this deal goes through. If they could partner with this top software company, Microsoft, Lenovo would benefit a lot. Not only there were vast profits, but Lenovo could also increase their technologies. Liu Chuanzhi will have the confidence to take over the Chinese market!

“Manager Feng, I know how to negotiate with the leaders. Can you tell me what is the minimum amount of shares you want to own?”

“35%. The more, the merrier. I can pay more if required. If CAS is willing to sell me all their shares, I am willing to pay them 4 times the market value! I hope CAS’s proportion of shares will be lowered to below 50%.” With 35% shares in hand, Feng Yu could prevent one person or party to be the only voice in shareholders’ meeting. As for becoming the controlling shareholder, Feng Yu does not have too much hope.

If Feng Yu could be the controlling shareholder, it’s okay. But it does not matter if he does not become the controlling shareholder. Of course, if he could own more shares, he does not mind paying premium prices for those shares. He will get back 10 times the amount he spent today within 2 years.

“Fine. Manager Feng, I think we have reached an initial consensus. I hope you will be able to make a trip to Beijing to speak with the leaders from CAS.”

“No problem. It’s settled then.” Feng Yu smiled.

Chapter 521 – Liu Chuanzhi’s hard work

Liu Chuanzhi was very excited after his meeting with Feng Yu. He immediately gathered the rest of the founding staffs for a meeting. They need to discuss how to negotiate with the leaders from CAS.

When all these people learned that Feng Yu would not lower their shares percentage and will increase their shares after he became the shareholder, they were on the same page.

Feng Yu’s investment must go through. To them, this was a rare opportunity!

All of them were from CAS. They set up Lenovo with only 200,000 RMB. Can anyone else achieve what they had done?

Since the higher-ups had agreed to restructure the company into a shareholdings company, why can’t the higher-ups give them more shares? Look at Manager Feng’s generosity!

If Feng Yu had not got involved in Lenovo, these people might only grumble about the number f shares given to them. There was nothing they could do except to beg the higher-ups to provide them with more benefits. They had not thought about leaving Lenovo. The two people who had left two years ago were not doing as well as them.

But now, it was different. Liu Chuanzhi had said that if Feng Yu became the major shareholder, he will hold a shareholders’ meeting and give out shares to the senior management as rewards.

This would help the senior management manage the company easier, and they will get more in return. The company will also have enough funds for future developments. They no longer need to wait for the company to be listed. Also, when the company was listed, the share prices will surely shoot up.

With the company’s shares, they would be getting dividends when the company makes profits. These people will be able to save enough money to pursue their dreams.

With all these people thinking along the same line, Liu Chuanzhi told them to look for the leaders they were close with to help support this investment. He will also look for the leaders he was familiar with to help out.

……

“Director Li, Manager Feng does not only have the funds. He still has the technology and connections. If we let him invest, it will help with the company’s future development.”

“How do you know that he was not lying to you? 3rd biggest shareholder of Microsoft? How come I have never heard of this before? Doesn’t Microsoft only have two big shareholders?” Director Li asked.

“Manager Feng is willing to include that in the contract. I believe that he will not lie to us about this. You might not know about this. The businesses under Manager Feng were all making lots of profits.”

“What businesses does he have? The Wind and Rain brand?”

“Not only that. He also owns the Aiwa brand. That CD-ROM technology is developed by Aiwa. He is also the biggest shareholder of Lehaha. The company that makes health supplements for children. I remembered that your grandson is also drinking that supplement. He is also the biggest shareholder of the Machinery Company which owns Songjiang Motors. That is a company who have more than 2 billion assets!!” Liu Chuanzhi emphasized 2 billion.

“We do not object to him investing into Lenovo. But he wants to increase his stake to 49%. The share percentage owned by CAS will drop suddenly and how can I answer to the higher ups?” Director Li said.

“He is investing a lot of money. How can our company grow without money? How can we compete with MNCs from other countries? What is our purpose of setting up this company? Wasn’t it to increase our country’s electronic engineering skills?”

This was Director Li’s soft spot. When computers were still a new thing overseas and scarce in China, he gave Liu Chuanzhi and his colleagues 200,000 RMB. This was only a trial, but to others, he claims that this was to increase China’s electronic engineering skills.

But now, Lenovo’s growth was much better than expected. Director Li was also promoted from an Assistant Director to his current position.

Director Li was not interested in money. He only wants enough political achievements and credits to move up the ranks. However, all his accomplishments and credits needed the help of Liu Chuanzhi and the rest of the founders.

Director Li knew that without Liu Chuanzhi and the rest, Lenovo will never grow to today’s scale. If Liu Chuanzhi and the rest left Lenovo, it would be disastrous.

Without Liu Chuanzhi and the rest, and someone else were to take over Lenovo’s R&D, the company’s technologies will inevitably regress. Other companies only knew Liu Chuanzhi and his fellow colleagues. They do not know about the company’s name.

Director Li had also heard rumors of many MNC trying to poach Liu Chuanzhi and the rest. They were even promised shares of the company if they were to join those MNC.

This was also why Director Li agreed immediately when Liu Chuanzhi requested the company to be restructured into a shareholding. If he does not give these key people shares, they will leave for other companies.

“Since he is investing so much money into the company, why do we still need to be listed? Why can’t we just use the money he invested in setting up the computer division?” Director Li frowned and asked.

“This will not affect our decision to be listed. If the company has sufficient funds, we can still get it listed. We can even merge both Hong Kong and Beijing Lenovo companies and then get it listed. It is totally different for a 10 million listed company and a 50 million listed company.” Liu Chuanzhi continued. “Furthermore, our CAS had lacked funds. This is a good opportunity to sell some shares to Feng Yu to raise funds. Thus, CAS will have enough funds for other research.”

Although Lenovo had grown, there was something Director Li was unhappy about. Lenovo had been making profits but had never given any part of their earnings to CAS! Liu Chuanzhi had spent all the profits!

But Liu Chuanzhi had not squandered the profits. For every cent he spent, he got 1 RMB back as profits. No one could criticize him on this.

Liu Chuanzhi kept telling the leaders that the company was still growing and needed lots of money. That’s why he could not hand over the profits to CAS. But the leaders do not think so. Both Lenovo companies were worth almost 20 million. You can’t even hand over 2 million?

But Liu Chuanzhi refused to hand over parts of the profits to CAS. Not even 20,000 RMB! He does not want to start giving the companies’ earnings to CAS. If he starts, then it would be 2 million today and another 2 million tomorrow. The company will surely have financial issues soon.

Even Director Li, who had been Liu Chuanzhi’s longtime supporter was troubled. Lenovo had been developing well, and he was glad. But it was hard for him to answer to the other leaders if Lenovo does not give part of their profits back to CAS.

“Then what do you think we should do?” Director Li asked.

“I can guarantee that Feng Yu will pay 3 times the market value of the shares CAS sells to him!” Liu Chuanzhi said confidently.

“3 times?! How is this possible? You said that he had lots of successful businesses. That means he is not stupid. Why would he pay 3 times more for the shares?” Director Li asked.

“Not only that. We can still insist on our management staffs’ shares will not be diluted after his investment. This way, even if Feng Yu spent more money, we still have control over Lenovo!” Liu Chuanzhi continued.

“All of the management staffs’ shares will not be diluted? That means our shares will be diluted even further?” Director Li frowned.

“I guaranteed that this will not happen! If you agree to his investment, I promise that we will not lose out in this deal! Manager Feng is a Venture capitalist. He will exit once the company is listed. We are just taking out a sum of money now, and you can answer to your higher-ups. When we have the money in two years, we can buy back those shares for CAS to have the controlling stake! Even so, we still have the final say over Lenovo now.”

Both of them continued to discuss this investment, and Director Li told Liu Chuanzhi: “We need to hold a meeting to discuss this. You can go back first.”

When Liu Chuanzhi leaves Director Li’s office, he knew that Director Li was persuaded…..

Chapter 522 – Stupid rich man

“Director? What did you say? Liu Chuanzhi told you that if we sell out shares to that Manager Feng, he could persuade him to pay 3 times the market value?” Deputy Director Zhao asked.

“That’s what he told me, and he promises that he would succeed.”

“How is he going to succeed? Who would spend 3 times the amount to buy things? Liu Chuanzhi thinks that Feng Yu is an idiot? Even he knew that Feng Yu was wealthy, but all businessmen were smart. I had never heard of a stupid businessman. How can someone so stupid run a successful business?”

Director Li was unpleased and said: “We are discussing what should we do if Liu Chuanzhi really persuaded Feng Yu. Will we agree to Feng Yu’s investment and maintain Liu Chuanzhi and his men’s share proportion?”

“I can tell that Liu Chuanzhi only wants to not let his shares be diluted. Someone had invested in the company, and the percentage of shares held by all the shareholders will surely be lowered. Did they pay for those shares? All of their shares are given to them as a reward by the company! They had gotten so many shares for nothing, and they are still not satisfied? They are not asking for more shares?” Deputy Zhao sneered.

Deputy Director Zhao was the one who opposed to giving Liu Chuanzhi and the rest of the founding staff’s shares. The capital was provided by the CAS, and Liu Chuanzhi and his men were taking high salaries and benefits like houses, cars, allowances, etc. These benefits were also on par with the deputy directors. What more do they want?

What should this company that had to perform so well be restructured into a shareholding? It’s all about money. Such a big company and after so many years, they only return the 200,000 RMB capital. Did they hand over a cent of the profits to CAS?

The company’s accounts had the money, why did they not hand over all that money? Previously, the leaders tried to claim reimbursement from Lenovo but were rejected by Liu Chuanzhi. Liu Chuanzhi had no respect for them!

Why you can spend the company’s money and we can’t? You really think that Lenovo company belongs to you?

“Old Zhao, think about this. If we sell out shares to Feng Yu at 3 times the market value, then the shares we hold will be lowered. If we still want to be in control, we need Liu Chuanzhi and his men to be on our side. We are also able to keep Liu Chuanzhi and his men’s motivation by letting them maintain their shares proportion and maintain our control. This is a good thing!” Director Li explained.

“Good thing? If we allowed them to maintain their stakes in the company, then our shares will be diluted further. If we lower their percentage, the impact on us will be lowered, and we can still be in control!” Deputy Zhao said.

The rest of the deputies nodded. They cannot let CAS be at a disadvantage just because they want to take care of Liu Chuanzhi.

“Liu Chuanzhi had also promised that Feng Yu would be investing a large amount, but the shares he is getting will be lesser than what he is supposed to get. Feng Yu would also give the company an important technology and set up a collaboration with Microsoft. This will greatly increase our technologies. Most importantly, Lenovo will be issuing dividends next year. That means we will be getting high returns from Lenovo. Which one of you is capable of doing all these?”

“Wait, Director. Investing a huge amount but getting lesser shares? Do you think that Feng Yu is stupid and rich? This does not make sense at all. I think Liu Chuanzhi is hiding something from us.” Deputy Zhao firmly insists.

Indeed. This was really suspicious. But Liu Chuanzhi did not explain the details to Director Li. He only convinced Director Li that he could persuade Feng Yu.

“I do not care if there is anything fishy about this investment. I only want to know about your decision on Feng Yu’s investment if Liu Chuanzhi is able to convince him.”

Deputy Zhao did not say anything. The rest of the deputies agreed. There were no reasons for them to disagree as they were the ones taking advantage of Feng Yu. This company was set up to make money. With more funds, they would be able to conduct more research and studies. Furthermore, these deputies were close to Liu Chuanzhi’s fellow founders, and they had spoken about this privately.

As for Deputy Zhao’s questions, the rest of the deputies does not need to know the answers. They could just summon Liu Chuanzhi over to question him anytime. Moreover, the deputies knew that Liu Chuanzhi’s father and Director Li were classmates, and Director Li was obviously supporting Liu Chuanzhi. The deputies also do not want to go against their head.

If Liu Chuanzhi is successful, then all of them will benefit from this deal. They will get some credits from this accomplishment. They would also be able to get some research funds from selling their shares. All of them lacked research funds for their studies.

All of the deputies suspect Deputy Zhao had opposed to this deal just because he had lost the director position to Director Li previously. Both of them had clashed several times and can’t stand the sight of each other.

“All of you……. Don’t all of you think that this Feng Yu could be a conman? How can there be such attractive terms? Fine. I shall see how Liu Chuanzhi persuade that Feng Yu! Hmph!”

……

“Manager Feng, let me introduce. This is the Director of CAS, Director Li Fangyuan. Director Li, this is Feng Yu, Manager Feng. He is a businessman who wants to invest in Lenovo.” Liu Chuanzhi introduced both parties at a private room of a restaurant.

“Nice to meet you, Director Li. I had heard from you. You are the most famous scientist in China.” Feng Yu smiled and extended his hand.

“Sigh. I am old now. I can only step back and handle administrative matters. There are so many talented scientists now.” Director Li said modestly.

“How is that possible? I had read one of your articles in a magazine overseas recently. Only the world’s top scientists’ articles were published in that magazine.” Feng Yu said. Hmmmm…. It was Liu Chuanzhi who told him about this.

“Hahaha. Manager Feng, you also like to read science magazines? That article is written by me and some other professors. I cannot take all the credit.” Although Director Li said this, he was smiling proudly. Yes. How can this Manager Feng be a conman? From one look, I can tell that he is a good man!

“I dream of being a scientist since I was young. But I lack the talent. I heard that all scientists are genius and outstanding. Too bad I am not that smart. That’s why I like to do such businesses. How can the products invented by geniuses be a poor product?” Feng Yu purposely said.

Director Li looked at Feng Yu. This young man was willing to invest in Lenovo just because he likes such products? But from what Liu Chuanzhi said, it seems that all of Feng Yu’s businesses involves lots of advanced technologies. But this excuse seems to be a bit ridiculous.

“I am not considered a genius. You speak too highly of me. I heard from Chuanzhi that both of you had spoken more than once and had some initial agreement?”  Director Li asked. He felt that the agreed conditions were beneficial to CAS. Could it be that Liu Chuanzhi wanted to get credits and exaggerated the terms?

Feng Yu nodded: “That’s right. I had spoken with Chairman Liu several times and had finalized the initial terms of this deal. He said that the shares percentages of the management staffs and key engineers should not be lowered. I had agreed to this. I will invest using 300 million RMB and CD-ROM technology. I will also set up a meeting between Lenovo and Microsoft. At the end of this deal, I will own 49% of Lenovo, CAS’s share proportion will be lowered to 37% and will get 100 million RMB cash. The employees’ shares will be increased to 6%. Chairman Liu, am I right?”

Liu Chuanzhi quickly replied: “Yes, yes, yes. This was what we concluded.”

Director Li was relieved. If anyone in CAS still wants to disagree with these conditions, he or she must be an idiot. He looked at Feng Yu and in his heart: Spending so much money just because of his interest? This Manager Feng was a classic example of a stupid rich man!

Chapter 523 – Losses or gain?

Feng Yu had purposely offered such attractive terms. His objective was to own more Lenovo shares. Just the reason for Liu Chuanzhi and his team were in Lenovo, was worth Feng Yu paying such a huge price.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many MNCs were trying to pouch Liu Chuanzhi. They offered 10 million USD annual salaries and also shares, but Liu Chuanzhi never agreed. It was because Liu Chuanzhi firmly believed that he would gain more if he remains in Lenovo.

Actually, not only Liu Chuanzhi and his team were capable. They also have lots of connections with the higher-ups of the Chinese government. Liu Chuanzhi was already the forerunner of the Chinese IT industry now.

Liu Chuanzhi still has lots of friends both in China and overseas. His friends were all giants in the IT industry. Although he will lose contacts with most of them in the future years, now, he was still close to the senior management of many IT MNCs. This was why Lenovo had been doing so well in the past few years.

In Feng Yu’s past life, Liu Chuanzhi had never made any wrong strategic decisions in Lenovo. This was due to the experiences he learned from his friends.

If Feng Yu were to manage Lenovo himself, he could not guarantee that he will perform better than Liu Chuanzhi. Also, Lenovo was considered a big company, and it was not easy to manage such companies.

Although Feng Yu had let Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa Electronics hired some fresh graduates to groom them, but it would still be years before these new graduates were ready to take on the higher management positions. Feng Yu had also approached those successful businessmen from the future years. But they refused to work for Feng Yu, or they were still not capable now.

Having paid such high prices, Liu Chuanzhi did not disappoint Feng Yu. He had successfully helped Feng Yu get 49% of the company’s shares. This percentage was much higher than expected.

It seems Feng Yu was right to make his promise with Liu Chuanzhi. If Feng Yu had approached the leaders in CAS, it would be hard for him to succeed and he also could not sell Liu Chuanzhi the favor.

After speaking with Director Li, Director Li told Feng Yu that he will give him an answer 3 days later. If nothing goes wrong, they will sign the contract then.

Zhong Qingxian just happened to be in Shenyang to sign a contract. He decided to set up a new factory in Shenyang next year. As the Energy of Life’s advertisements were removed from CCTV, Le Bashi’s yogurt drinks’ sales were also affected. Although the yogurt drinks’ sales did not drop overnight like the Energy of Life, it was falling steadily.

But there was still a demand in the yogurt drinks market, and Lehaha was happy to fill this gap. Lehaha’s AD Calcium Milk sales had been rising. Their tea beverages sales were also increased.

Lehaha’s production could not meet this demand, and Zhong Qingxian decided to set up a factory in Shenyang to meet the needs in the 3 northeast provinces and the Beijing region. As Lehaha was already an established brand, the agreement was settled in no time.

Zhong Qingxian heard that Feng Yu was in Beijing and he made a trip over. He wants to report about Lehaha’s developments to Feng Yu. Lehaha’s finance department were all Feng Yu’s men. Zhong Qingxian was making a considerable investment, in the new factory and Feng Yu will be informed. But Zhong Qingxian still wanted to tell this to Feng Yu personally.

Feng Yu nodded after Zhong Qingxian report: “You can make all these decisions yourself. If you need me for anything, just let me know.”

Feng Yu still does not intend to interfere with Lehaha’s operations, and Zhong Qingxian was glad.

“Manager Feng, I thought you are studying in Hong Kong now? Why are you back in Beijing?” Zhong Qingxian chatted with Feng Yu.

“I am here to talk about my investment in Lenovo.”

“Lenovo? What company is this? What does it sell?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

Feng Yu: “……” Lenovo will be a world-renowned IT company in the future, and their current scale was already massive. But this Zhong Qingxian had never heard of this company?

Oh, this Zhong Qingxian also does not buy IT products. There were only 2 PC in his company and Lenovo had never advertised before. It was natural for Zhong Qingxian to not know about this company.

“Electronics products. The company makes computers. Have you heard of Lenovo 1+1 Computers?”

“Computers? There should not be many people buying computers now. Can this company make money?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s set up a computer company.”

Feng Yu looked at Zhong Qingxian speechlessly. He had never heard about Zhong Qingxian entering the IT industry in his previous life. Did history change? Or Zhong Qingxian had entered the IT industry and failed. But this was not recorded. It was just like Nintendo had sold instant rice before, but not many people were aware of it.

“You also want to invest in Lenovo?”

“If I follow you, will I still make losses?” Zhong Qingxian smiled cunningly.

“How much can you invest? I can let you have some shares. But I need to tell you that I am paying a premium of 3 times the market value for these shares. I can sell some of my shares to you, but I can’t sell you too many shares.”

“3 times premium price? What do you mean?” Zhong Qingxian was shocked. Can this company make so many profits? 3 times the market value of the shares? Feng Yu had gone crazy?

Feng Yu told Zhong Qingxian about Lenovo’s current value, his total investments and the shares he would own.

“Manager Feng, that means if I invest 10 million, I can only get 2% of the company’s shares?” Zhong Qingxian’s eyes opened wide.

“Hmmm…. Maybe it might be less than 2%. Based on the current value, you will only get about 1.6% or 1.7% shares. If you calculate based on the amount I acquire the shares, you will not get even 1%.”

“Huh? Manager Feng, are you sure about this? You said that this company is worth less than 180 million and you spent 300 million plus technology for 49% shares? And the current value of the company is not even worth 400 million RMB? Aren’t you making a big loss?”

Zhong Qingxian could not understand. 300 million RMB would at least get more than 60% of the company’s shares. This was still based on the full amount as the invested fund. Now, the other party had too away 100 million, and Feng Yu should be getting at least 77% of the company’s shares.

Feng Yu was getting only 49% of the shares. Could this be some sort of plot against Feng Yu?

Could it be that Feng Yu was conned in this business deal? Cannot be. Feng Yu still had not handed over his money, and he was still smiling. Zhong Qingxian had already decided not to invest. The dividends he got from Lehaha can be used for something else. If there were no other investment opportunities, then he will buy a villa at West Lake area.

Feng Yu was thinking in his heart. I had made a loss? Even if I do not do anything, the market value of Lenovo in 3 years will be over 2 billion RMB. In 10 years, it will be worth over 20 billion. Most importantly, without CAS and its connections, without the brains of Liu Chuanzhi and his men, even Feng Yu could not achieve this feat.

The annual returns will be 50%. Even the experts in wall street could not guarantee such returns. Zhong Qingxian felt Feng Yu had made a significant loss, but Feng Yu thought he had gotten a great deal!

Chapter 524 – Successfully invested in Lenovo

It was very crowded at Beijing Lenovo today. Many cars were parked outside the entrance. There were even reporters from Hong Kong waiting outside.

A businessman will be investing in Lenovo and Lenovo had announced that it was planning to be listed. However, there was no fixed date.

Lenovo Company was China’s largest IT company. It had the most significant scale and the most funds. Why did such a successful company let others invest in them? They heard that it was a newly set up company that had invested in Lenovo. The name of the company was Wind and Rain Holdings.

Many were thinking if this Wind and Rain Holdings had something to do with Wind and Rain Brand, which was owned by Tai Hua Trading, Wind and Rain Electronics, and Wind and Rain home appliances?

But there was a lack of information. There was no way for the reporters to find out about this. It was the first time they heard of Wind and Rain Holdings, and they could not find out who was the person in charge.

Wasn’t this Lenovo Company supported by the Chinese government? This company was enjoying special privileges from the government. Why did they sell their shares to Wind and Rain Holdings? Was this Wind and Rain Holdings a government-owned enterprise?

……

In the meeting room, Feng Yu and Director Li signed two contracts. One was for Feng Yu’s investment in Lenovo, and the other was for Feng Yu’s purchase of CAS’s Lenovo shares.

There was a vast difference between both contracts. But CAS was the party that gained the most out of both contracts.

During the meeting with all the CAS leaders, Director Li had announced that the CAS will accept Feng Yu’s conditions and agree to Feng Yu’s investment. The CAS will also sell some of their shares to Feng Yu. Deputy Zhao immediately expressed his disapproval.

But Deputy Zhao was the only one opposing to this investment, and his reason was unconvincing. Feng Yu’s offer was too good, and this was suspicious. Since when private companies’ businessmen were so noble to spend so much money to support China’s IT industry.

Director Li slowly replied that this Manager Feng was the biggest shareholder of Bing City Machinery Company and had met with the Chief Architect and Iron-fist Zhu. If Feng Yu was not so noble, why would the top 2 leaders of China meet him?

Deputy Zhao could not rebut Director Li. In CAS, there were rumors that Feng Yu was actually donating to CAS through this investment. If you do not believe this was actually a donation, you can ask the professors from Beijing University. Feng Yu had funded many professor’s research at the university. Some of Beijing University’s professors were also holding positions in CAS.

If CAS leaders did not agree to such a lucrative deal, they would be too stupid. They would have wasted Liu Chuanzhi’s hard work. How can they answer to their higher-ups?

CAS had the opportunity to make money. If they rejected this deal, how could they still request for funds from their higher-ups? No higher-ups will agree to their requests.

When the higher-ups heard that there was a considerable investment and the CAS will still be getting 100 million RMB, they were overjoyed. During some meetings, the higher-ups had still praised the leaders of CAS. There were even some high-ranking officers present at this contract signing ceremony.

What surprised the CAS leaders the most was one of the high-ranking officers was from Iron-Fist Zhu’s office. Did Iron-fist Zhu found out about this investment and sent his man here to find out more, or he was aware of Feng Yu’s plan to invest in Lenovo long time ago?

There was a great difference between both.

But no matter what, Iron-Fist Zhu had shown his support of this investment by sending his man to attend this signing ceremony.

With Iron-Fist Zhu’s support, Director Li was more confident. No one would dare to say that Lenovo should not be letting others invest in the company. Restructuring a state-owned enterprise to a shareholding was also a policy introduced by Iron-Fist Zhu.

The most controversial part of this deal was there were no changes to the percentage of shares owned by Liu Chuanzhi and the other employees. The amount invested was more than Lenovo’s total value, and the portion of shares owned by Liu Chuanzhi and the other employees should be significantly lowered. But these management staffs were still holding the same proportions of shares!

As such, Deputy Zhao said that Liu Chuanzhi and the other management staffs should not be entitled to this benefit. They should hand over some of their shares to CAS, or distribute their shares to the other employees. Liu Chuanzhi and the rest should not be holding on to so many shares.

Although Lenovo was not a state-owned enterprise, the initial management style was the same as state-owned enterprises. Deputy Zhao’s way of doing things had never changed and was like several years back. It was sufficient for Liu Chuanzhi and the management staffs to get some benefits. Why should they be getting so many shares? All these shares were the government’s assets, and they were embezzling the assets.

Even if Lenovo was a private entity, but a private company should also be reasonable. Liu Chuanzhi and the rest had not spent a single cent and why should they be getting so many shares? The company had already given them a house and a car. What else do they want? They should not be embezzling the company’s assets! They should not be taking so much from the company!

But the other leaders of CAS felt that these people had contributed a lot to the company and should be rewarded. The Chinese government had also mentioned that hard work should be rewarded. These people had helped the CAS gained so much from this deal. This was not something others could do. Compared to the gain CAS were to receive from this deal, their shares were not a lot.

If it wasn’t for this condition, will Liu Chuanzhi and the rest still work so hard to make this deal go through? If their shares were diluted, then Feng Yu’s shares would be more than 51%.

Finally, the contracts were signed, and this cannot be changed. After signing the contract, Feng Yu immediately make a phone call to Wind and Rain Holdings to ask them to wire the money to CAS’s account. Feng Yu wants this deal to take effect as soon as possible and does not wish CAS to go back on their words!

As for the other details, Feng Yu does not need to do the follow-ups. Someone from Wind and Rain Holdings will settle the rest of the details. His staffs from Wind and Rain Holdings were a group of talented people hired from Hong Kong. These people were not the successful businessmen in the future, but Feng Yu felt that these people could complete the tasks given to them after the interview and it was enough.

In the coming few years, Feng Yu had plans to transfer his shares of all his companies to this Wind and Rain Holdings. But it was still too early now. Hong Kong was still not part of China, and it was not easy for him to transfer his assets out of China. This could only be done after Hong Kong’s return.

Master Lu had made use of his connections in the Planning Committee to let the other party accept that Hong Kong was a part of China, and Feng Yu would not transfer these assets out of China. Of course, Iron-Fist Zhu’s office got wind of this and reported to Iron-Fist Zhu.

Iron-Fist Zhu asked his men to pass Feng Yu a message. Lenovo was a company supported by the Chinese Government to compete with the overseas MNCs. He wants Feng Yu to remember this. Lenovo was China’s hope!

Feng Yu really wanted to tell Iron-Fist Zhu that if Lenovo follows his suggestions, Lenovo will be more successful in the future than his previous life. But Feng Yu did not say it out. He will have to do lots of explanations about how he could let Lenovo be more successful and will have lots of problems.

Feng Yu could only keep quiet. He will let his result do the talking.

Feng Yu looked at Director Li, Liu Chuanzhi and the rest being interviewed by the reporters and he quietly left the place……

Chapter 525 – I want to set up a TV station

“Chief Jia, I am here to see you, why are you not letting me drink a cup of good tea?” Feng Yu grumbled as he sat in Deputy Station Chief Jia’s office. He was drinking a cup of tea.

“This is the best tea leaves I have. I do not have any other better tea leaves. My monthly salary cannot even pay for one of your meals. Why are you here today? Do you have anything for me?” Deputy Chief Jia laughed and asked.

Every time Feng Yu came to look for him, something good will happen. For example, the health product scandal that occurred recently had led to CCTV receiving many praises from the public. The higher-ups had also noticed Deputy Chief Jia.

“Nothing much. I just happened to pass by and came over to pay you a visit.”

“Manager Feng, since when have you heard of people paying visits to others empty-handed?” Deputy Jia joked.

“Ah? If the leaders heard what you just said, you would be in trouble. You are asking for bribes. Fine. Since we are friends, you just tell me an amount. I will write you a cheque now.” Feng Yu pretended to take out his cheque book from his pocket.

“Fine, fine. You must be here for a reason. If you do not have anything, you will not come and look for me.” Deputy Jia looked at Feng Yu, who had slumped back on the sofa. From Feng Yu’s sitting posture, he knew that Feng Yu was a lazy person. How could such a lazy person visit him for nothing?

“Chief Jia, your words had hurt me.”

Just when Deputy Chief Jia thought he had misunderstood Feng Yu, he heard Feng Yu said: “But to prove that Chief Jia’s words are right, then I will think of a request.”

Deputy Chief Jia: “……” You are asking me for a favor just to prove I am right? Deputy Chief Jia glanced at Feng Yu. I knew that you must be here for something!

“Chief Jia, can I ask you a question? I am just asking. Is it possible to set up a private TV station in China?” Feng Yu looked at Deputy Chief Jia eagerly.

Deputy Chief Jia was leaning back on the sofa. But when he heard what Feng Yu said, he immediately sat up straight: “What did you say? Private TV station? You want to set up a TV station?”

What was Feng Yu thinking? How can there be a private TV station? News and media should be controlled by the Government. This was the national policy!

This brat was thinking of setting up a TV station? Could it be that he had thought of some good programs?

Feng Yu had helped to plan the New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner program and made many suggestions for the Spring Festival Gala night, making it successful. If it wasn’t for Feng Yu had no interest in going into the government service, Deputy Chief Jia would surely recruit Feng Yu into CCTV after he graduates.

“That’s right. Set up a TV station and air some movies and dramas. Can this be done?” Feng Yu asked.

Feng Yu’s primary purpose of setting up a TV station was for TV shopping! As for the movies and dramas, he was not too concern. He can just buy the rights of some old films and shows. It will not cost much.

Currently, there were only 4 channels in CCTV, and 3 of these channels were not broadcasted via satellite. Only the regions near to Beijing could receive the signals for these channels. All Feng Yu needs to do was to produce an outstanding variety program, and he will have the viewership. It will be enough to support his TV shopping channel!

“No!” Deputy Chief Jia replied. “TV stations cannot be run privately. You can forget about it. Did you think you can own a TV station in China like other countries? Let me tell you. The government will never approve this!”

Feng Yu smacked his lips. What government policies? Government policies had always been changing. Even if it was not allowed now, it was still allowed in the future. In Feng Yu’s previous life, there was not an only shareholding TV station, but there were also internet TV stations. It was a pity that the internet was still not developed in China now. If Feng Yu were to set up an internet TV station, he would be making massive losses!

“Chief Jia, didn’t the government forbid private entities to set up newspaper agencies? But now? There were privately owned newspapers. The newspaper was also media. There were also many other magazines. Did the government stop those media? How do you know that privately owned TV stations cannot be approved without trying?” Feng Yu asked.

Deputy Chief Jia immediately raised his hand to stop Feng Yu: “Wait. What did you say? How would I know without trying? What do you mean by this? You want me to ask the higher-ups for you?”

“That right. You are from CCTV and is in this industry. You are the most suitable person to help me ask the higher-ups. You also know a lot of people in this sector. I do not know anyone other than you. Chief Jia, can you do me this small favor?” Feng Yu showed his index and thumb fingers to indicate something tiny.

“Small Favor? Stop joking with me! How can this be considered small favor?!” Deputy Chief Jia almost swears at Feng Yu.

“Why not? You only need to help me inquire about the procedures with your higher-ups. If it is not possible, why is it not possible and what should I do to get the approval. If it is possible, then you can help me find out what are the areas where I cannot touch.”

Deputy Chief Jia was stunned by what Feng Yu said. What possible or not? Since when did I agree to help you?

“Feng Yu, tell me the truth. Why do you want to set up a TV station?” Broadcast dramas and movies? Who are you trying to fool?!

“Chief Jia, you really want to hear the truth?”

“Of course!”

“Then I shall tell you the truth……”

“What are you waiting for?!” Deputy Chief Jia raised his voice.

“The truth is, CCTV advertisement fees are too expensive! I realized that the operational cost of running a TV station is only tens of millions. The advertising fees I paid to CCTV and the various sponsorships are also about this amount. With the same amount, I might as well set up my own TV station.”

Deputy Chief Jia almost choked when Feng Yu said this. You want to set up a TV station to save on your advertising fees?

Then I will not help you. If I help you, CCTV will lose our biggest advertising client. Wait. If this were the truth, Feng Yu would never tell him.

“Is this your only reason?” Deputy Chief Jia asked.

“This is the main reason. I also want to produce a few TV programs that I like.”

Deputy Chief Jia got pissed when he heard this: “What did you say? You are trying to tell me that you do not like our CCTV programs?”

You are implying that our CCTV’s programs are not interesting?

Feng Yu laughed: “It’s not all the programs. I just do not like to watch most of the programs. I do like CCTV’s weather report.”

Weather report? Can that even be considered a TV program? Why don’t you tell me that you like the news? Wait. Feng Yu had mentioned that he wants to produce a few programs which he likes? Could it be that Feng Yu had new ideas for TV programs?

“Do you have new ideas for TV programs? Tell me. If your ideas are good, I can let CCTV produce these programs for you.” Deputy Chief Jia crossed his legs and slowly drank his tea.

Feng Yu stared at Deputy Chief Jia. It was too apparent that you are trying to steal my ideas. You made it sound like you are doing me a favor by letting me tell you my ideas. Shameless!

There was a saying that all government officials were thick skin. The higher they climb, the thicker their skins were.

Chapter 526 – Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary

“Chief Jia, I shall say this first. I can tell you my idea, and I can promise you that the ratings for this program will surely be high. But this program must be broadcasted over the satellite. It can be on CCTV 1 or 2, but I cannot be on CCTV 3.”

It was a waste for a classic variety program to not be broadcast to the whole nation!

“Tell me about this program first, and I will decide.” Deputy Chief Jia said cunningly.

“Wait. I still have not finished telling you about my conditions. Other than broadcasting over the satellite, there is still something very important. You must let me sponsor the name of the program, and I want to do product placement in this program. Also, at the start and end of the program, it must state that I am the one who had sponsored this program. I will also not be paying a single cent for this program!”

“What? You are not paying for anything, and you still have so many conditions?” Deputy Chief Jia asked.

“What if the ratings for this program will exceed <Zhengda Variety Show>?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

“Exceed what program? <Zhengda Variety Show>? Are you joking?” Deputy Chief Jia rolled his eyes. <Zhengda Variety Show> was CCTV’s top variety program was watched by many viewers.

There were only a few programs in CCTV that had higher ratings than <Zhengda Variety Show>. Other than the news and weather report, only <Oriental Horizon> and <Focus Report> could win in ratings!

Why was Feng Yu so confident?

Why was Feng Yu so confident? That was because there was a classic variety program which had taken China by storm. It was even copied by variety shows all over the world!

“Chief Jia, I am not joking with you. Don’t you think that all my suggestions for the Gala Dinner were good and effective? Furthermore, all my companies’ commercials are better than the other companies? That’s why I am confident that my variety program will be more popular than <Zhengda Variety Show>. What’s wrong? Are you trying to tell me that I am not allowed to put my company’s name in the program’s title?”

Deputy Chief Jia smiled: “I did not say that. But if you are not spending money and still get to put your company’s name in the title, it will be too much.” This Feng Yu kept harping about this matter. CCTV had allowed Zhengda Enterprise to put their name in the title of this variety program and Feng Yu was not pleased with that.

“Of course. I am also not saying that I will not be spending money. I can sponsor all the prizes in the variety program.”

“Prizes? What do you mean?” Deputy Chief Jia stretched out his neck. This program will be giving out prizes?

“Chief Jia, there is a saying by the higher-ups now. Education will strengthen the nation, right?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

“That’s right. What has that got to do with this program?”

“Of course, it is related. This variety program I thought of, will incorporate entertainment, wits, humor, general knowledge, excitement, and many other elements. This will be a new type of educational variety program!”

Deputy Chief Jia frowned. He does not believe what Feng Yu said. It sounds like Feng Yu was bragging and exaggerating. With so many elements incorporated into a program, how can this program be good?! A TV program should have only one core element and at most, 1 or 2 more elements. This program will not be interesting that there were too many elements in it!

“You don’t believe me?”

Deputy Chief Jia shook his head: “I don’t believe!”

“How about we make a bet? If you market the first 4 episodes of this program according to my ways, it will surely be China’s top variety program with the highest ratings. And, if I am successful, I will get the permanent naming rights of this program, the product placement advertising, the sponsorship advertisements at the start and end of the program, etc. If I fail, then I will double the sponsorship of Zhengda Enterprise in this variety program. What do you think?”

Stop kidding. If this variety show were marketed correctly, it would surely be a hit! In Feng Yu’s previous life, this program had a slow start initially. But that was because there were many popular programs at the same time. But now, there were only a few satellite channels, and there were not much entertaining variety shows. It would be weird if this program were not a hit now!

Feng Yu’s confidence had scared Deputy Chief Jia. Although Deputy Jia does not think that Feng Yu would succeed, he was still afraid that if Feng Yu really won the bet, then there will not be any advertising revenue from this program. CCTV will suffer huge losses! He will be the one taking responsibility.

These two years were critical to Deputy Chief Jia. The Station Chief will be retiring within these two years, and this was the opportunity for him to be promoted. If he was lucky, he might even be promoted to a deputy minister in the Ministry of Radio and Television!

If Feng Yu’s variety program were a hit and had high ratings, then Chief Jia would stand a high chance to take over the position of TV station Chief. It was a hard decision for Chief Jia to make.

After thinking for a while, Deputy Chief Jia looked at Feng Yu and said: “I can let you have the naming rights for this program in exchange for your program concept. However, you still have to pay for your product placements and advertising at the start and end of the program. We can talk about the fees later. So, you can tell me more about this variety show now?”

Chief Jia agreed to let me have the naming rights? That’s great! As for the fees for product placements, it will not be too expensive. This was still a great deal.

“This program is a quiz show. Viewers can write in or call in to register as a participant. There will be a selection process through a preliminary round, and one participant will be selected to answer the questions. The questions comprise of all sort of knowledge, like astronomy, geography, history, literature, science, maths, general knowledge, etc. For every question the contestant answered correctly, he will get points. As he proceeds further, the points for each question will be higher. These points can be used to exchange for cash, for the contestant to pursue his dreams. There will be stages, and at certain checkpoints, the contestant got the option to move on to the next stage or to take the prize money. If the contestant answered a question wrong, all of his points would be reset to zero. The contestant will only get a consolation prize…….”

Feng Yu explained the concept of this game show in detail to Deputy Chief Jia. Chief Jia was listening attentively and was frowning. This was a brilliant concept, but will it attract the viewers in front of the TV? The participants will find it interesting as they were the ones getting the prizes. But what about TV viewers? Will they find it interesting too?

Deputy Chief Jia told Feng Yu his worries, and Feng Yu said to him that this can be easily solved. The host of the program can let the viewers call in to answer the questions, have a lucky draw. The TV viewers will also win some fabulous prizes like Wind and Rain VCD players, etc.

“If it’s like this, we can really consider producing this program. What is the name of this variety show?”

Feng Yu smiled and said: “This program is called <Wind and Rain Happy Dictionary>!”

Chapter 527 – The two devise a plan

Deputy Chief Jia asked about the minute details of this new variety show. The contents of the show were all within the regulations. But he felt that this program still lacks a climax.

Feng Yu had said that the cash prizes will be given out at the end of 4 stages. 1,000 RMB will be given out at the first stage, followed by 2,000 RMB, 5,000 RMB and lastly 10,000 RMB. Other than the cash prizes, Wind and Rain, and Aiwa products will also be given out to the contestants.

But the highest value of the cash prizes and products the contestants could win was less than 20,000 RMB. Will it generate enough excitement like what Feng Yu said? Will it attract TV viewers to participate? Will the rating increase?

“This variety show was to create heroes out of ordinary commoners. The cash prizes at every stage represented the dreams of an ordinary family. Which family does not have dreams? We are here to fulfill their dreams! When the viewers noticed that they could answer the questions and could easily win the final prize, do you think they will not want to participate?”

“They should be interested.”

“Then if they want to participate in this variety show and win the prizes, what do you think they need?” Feng Yu continued to lead Deputy Chief Jia.

“Register and get selected?”

“No. They need to get prepared. It is just like those students preparing for their high school examinations. So how will they get prepared? Will teachers be teaching them? No. Will they have past year examination papers to practice? Yes. Our program is equivalent to past year examination questions!”

“You are telling me that before they participate, they will need to watch out show to familiarized with rules of the games and the type of questions?” Deputy Chief Jia asked excitedly.

“Of course. This is the only way. Our questions will be so diverse, and not even an encyclopedia could fit all the answers! Do you think our ratings will not increase because of this reason?” Feng Yu replied.

“But you said that you want to promote this variety program before it is aired. How should we promote it?”

“Simple. We can promote our show in other various programs. For example, We can tell the viewers about when our show will be aired, how to participate and what are out prizes, during <Super Variety Show>. I have thought of the host for our show. I think the host of <Super Variety Show>, Ni Ping, is suitable to be the host of our program.”

Ni Ping was currently one of the most popular TV hosts in China. As a female, she could easily speak to the participants and calm them down. Of course, Feng Yu also has a backup host. She was the host of <Zhengda Variety Show>.

As for the rest of the hosts that will be popular in the future years, Feng Yu had not met them and does not know where they were. For example, Wang Xiaoya, a popular TV host in the future, was nowhere to be found. There was no such person in CCTV!

“That’s all? Are you sure the ratings will exceed <Zhengda Variety Show>?”

Feng Yu rubbed his chin. In his previous life, Happy Dictionary only became popular after 6 months. Although there was not much competition now, <Zhengda Variety Show> was the most popular show and there were other variety shows like <Super Variety Show>, etc. These variety shows were well received by TV viewers. Feng Yu was also not very confident when he thought about the other variety shows.

“That’s it. If there is no highlights in our show, then we will create the highlight! What do you think if we invite some top university students, teachers or even professors to participate?”

“Ah? If we invite them to participate, then it will clash with your idea to let commoners participate in this program. If they are participating, the rest of the participants will have no chance of winning.” Deputy Chief Jia puzzledly looked at Feng Yu.

“Who says the common folks can’t win? Professors know everything? You try asking a Physics Professor, where is the capital of Uzbekistan. You think he can answer you?” Feng Yu glanced at Deputy Chief Jia. Do Deputy Chief Jia thinks that professors know everything in this world? They were only experts in their field.

This was like someone asking Feng Yu a question and Feng Yu could not answer him. And then that person would give Feng Yu a despised look and insulted him: “How can someone who does not even know such a simple thing be a university student?”

Deputy Chief Jia looked at Feng Yu speechlessly. This question was too random. Even he does not know the answer! Trying to ask this question to the people on the streets. See how many people know the answer?

“This is what I meant. There will be 10 questions, and the category of each question are different. The question from that category will be randomly picked. If the contestant could answer all 10 questions correctly, they will be the defending champion. When there are enough defending champions, there will be a special episode where all the champions will compete with each other for a bigger prize!”

“But how can you guarantee that common folk can answer all 10 questions? Didn’t you say that there will be physics questions and maths questions?” Deputy Chief Jia asked. How would a commoner know the answers to all those questions?

“We can cheat. You don’t even know how to cheat?!” Feng Yu said. In his previous life, which variety show does not cheat to create highlights for that show? Why were these people from CCTV so inflexible?

Deputy Chief Jia’s jaws dropped: “Che… Cheat?”

“Yes. We can arrange for someone to be the contestant and tell him the answers. He can claim that it was luck when he answered some difficult questions correctly. Anyway, the questions are in multiple choices format. He has a 25% chance to get it right. He can also call out to a friend, ask the audiences and eliminate one wrong answer, helplines. What’s wrong with this contestant getting the questions correct due to luck?”

“Can…… Can this work out?”

“Why not?! Think about this. An ordinary worker, whose monthly salary is not more than 200 RMB, winning the grand prize of 10,000 RMB and other prizes. What a surprise will that be for TV viewers? A University Professor who was earning a few hundred RMB reached the final question and answer it wrong. All the viewers will pity him. All the TV viewers will be rooting for the contestants, hoping for them to win. This will guarantee our ratings to be better!” Feng Yu said.

“Most importantly, this show is suitable for all ages. Viewers can learn lots of knowledge from this show and will the parents not let their children watch it? There will also be lots of general knowledge. Those in their middle age will like it, and the older viewers will like the history and health questions.”

Deputy Chief Jia thought about this for a while, and it seems that this variety show really has the potential to be the top variety show. This show was suitable for all ages and how can the ratings for this show be bad?

“I think this program will be a success. I will ask my men to do all the planning now!” Currently, CCTV was airing lots of re-runs of past programs. All Deputy Jia needs to do was to replace one of the re-runs with this program. He could still earn more from the advertising fees.

“Chief Jia, congratulations for coming up with the concept of a new TV program!” Feng Yu smiled and said.

Deputy Chief Jia looked at Feng Yu. Congratulations to me for coming up with the concept of a new program? Feng Yu wants to let me take all the credit for this program? Then, I should give in a bit to Feng Yu on the sponsorships and advertising fees……. We should all benefit together……

Info about Ni Ping

Info about Wang Xiaoya

In case you are wondering where the capital of Uzbekistan is, it is Tashkent.

Chapter 528 – Drawing lots

“Xiao Yu, why are you back? Shouldn’t you studying be in Hong Kong now?” Li Shiqiang saw Feng Yu and was shocked.

“Shhhh…. Brother-in-law, please don’t tell my sister and parents. I had returned secretly. I have something important.”

Li Shiqiang shook his head. This brother-in-law of his had too many matters on hand. Anyway, he also does not have the time to look after Feng Yu. He had his hands full with his Wind and Rain Logistics. Almost every month, there will be several new franchisees. He was used to taking care of all the company’s matters personally.

“Brother-in-law does your company have any outstanding employee?” Feng Yu suddenly asked.

Tai Hua Trading only have a few staff, and Feng Yu had assigned a car to Wu Zhigang. There were more employees in Wind and Rain Logistics. Li Shiqiang also assigned a car to his deputies, but he had too many staffs, and he had 3 deputies. All the 3 deputies got to share that one car.

But why was Feng Yu asking him about this? Was there anything good?

“Brother-in-law, I do not want management staffs. I am looking for ordinary workers. Do you have any worker that has exceptional performance? The types that you can use him as role models?”

“I do have 2 drivers that had performed well. did you find some good deals?”

“Not really. CCTV has a new variety show coming up, and I am thinking of sending someone to participate. I promise that the participants will surely get some prizes. If the participant is lucky, the prizes might be worth up to 10,000 RMB to 20,000 RMB.”

“Huh? CCTV variety show? How many people are you getting? You are so close to CCTV now? Wait, did you spend money again?” Li Shiqiang thought about it. Feng Yu must have spent money to do some sponsorships. If now, where will he get this opportunity to send people to participate in the variety show?

“Yes. It is like <Zhengda Variety Show>. This new variety show will include Wind and Rain in the name.”

“Participating in a CCTV program? Can I participate too?” Li Shiqiang looked at Feng Yu eagerly.

“Brother-in-law, if you want to participate, it’s fine. But I will not let them help you cheat. The feature of this program is to let common folks participate. It will be too obvious if you win the prizes. But if I pick one a driver and help him cheat to win the grand prize, he can also use the chance to promote your logistics company.”

Li Shiqiang was slightly disappointed. The driver was allowed to cheat but not him. If he participates in this show, he will lose to his own driver! He might as well not attend.

“How much did you spend for this variety show?” Li Shiqiang lit a cigarette and asked.

“Not much. I had spent 100,000 RMB for the stage, and every episode needs about 50,000 RMB. It is about 200,000 RMB a month. One whole year will only cost about 2.4 million RMB. I had set aside 5 million RMB for this. But I think this is more than sufficient.”

“5 million RMB should be enough to buy a primetime advertising slot?” Li Shiqiang felt that Feng Yu had wasted his money.

“If it was last year, 5 million RMB was enough. But this year, the primetime slots cost more than 10 million. Also, the primetime slots were only 15 seconds. Although this is a weekly program, there will be re-runs, and every episode is 1 hour. It is still worth it. A good variety show is more effective than a primetime slot!”

This was proven in Feng Yu’s previous life. Just look at Zhengda Enterprise. Zhengda Enterprise had sponsored <Zhengda Variety Show>, and it was more effective compared to advertisements. Furthermore, the amount spent on the sponsorships of the top variety programs were about the same as the primetime slots.

Happy Dictionary will not only promote Wind and Rain brand, but it can also help the Aiwa brand too. It was killing two birds with one stone. Feng Yu felt that it was worthwhile. Also, after this variety show was aired, Wind and Rain and Aiwa can lessen their advertisements on CCTV.

When Li Shiqiang heard that the primetime slots cost more than 10 million RMB this year, he was shocked. The advertisement slots were too expensive. It will increase the cost of the products significantly. Had all these people gone crazy?

“Brother-in-law, let me know when you pick someone. I will submit his name to CCTV. I will speak to the other companies and let them arrange two candidates. I will be returning to Beijing tonight. Don’t tell my sister.”

……

Feng Yu remained in his Tai Hua Trading’s office for a while, and Wu Zhigang came back. He had just supervised the loading of the goods onto the train to Moscow. Despite there were many staffs in Tai Hua Trading, Wu Zhigang still had many things to do like the overall in-charge.

But Wu Zhigang does not have any complaints. Feng Yu had given him a high salary, bonuses and even gave him a car to drive. He also had a handphone. With such welfare, Wu Zhigang was too embarrassed to slack off at work.

Wu Zhigang had heard that the year-end bonus this year will be a surprise. But he still does not know what it was. He was a bit nervous when he heard that the boss had returned suddenly.

There was nothing wrong with the business recently, and the trade volume had increased the past few months. Sales and profits had been growing steadily. Did something happen?

“Manager Feng.”

“Ah, Zhigang, come and have a seat. How is the business recently?”

“Not bad. This quarter’s profits should be more than 10% more than in the previous quarter. There are a few suppliers approached us, and I had signed the contracts with a few of them.”

“Hmmm… All of you had worked hard. I will not look at the reports as I am in a rush. Since everyone is here, then I will announce something. CCTV will be producing a new variety show and need some contestants…… Who wants to participate?”

Feng Yu picked up his teacup and took a sip. He noticed that no one had uttered a word, but from their eyes, he could tell that all of them wants to go!

Wu Zhigang hesitated for a while and said: “I will not be going. I will let them have this opportunity.”

Feng Yu nodded. Wu Zhigang had established his authority in Tai Hua Trading over the years. Of course, this was due to his hard work. Feng Yu was assured to let him run the company.

“I think it will be hard to pick the ones to participate from all of you. Let’s draw lots. Whoever that picked the winning lot will get to go. I cannot promise or help the ones who participate in the show win the grand prize. It will be up to you all. But all of you should not be jealous when you see others winning the prizes.” Draw lots. This was the fairest method.

“Did all of you hear that? Don’t disgrace our company when you are in Beijing CCTV. Come. I have a bunch of new pencils here. I had made a marking on one of them. The lucky one who had picked the winning lot will be giving the rest a treat tonight.” Wu Zhigang lifted a bunch of pencils in his hand.

“Ah……. It’’s me! I got the pencil with the marking! I will be on TV! I will be on TV!” A young lady from the accounts department picked the pencil with the marking was jumping with joy.

Feng Yu: “……” She was already so excited to be on TV? She was not excited because she got the chance to win the prizes?

The rest of the staffs were disappointed. This young lady had joined the company recently, and she was the luckiest among them! She will appear on TV in front of viewers all over China!

“I will not be joining all of you for dinner. I still need to go to the Machinery Company and will be leaving tonight. Work hard. I promise that all of you will not be disappointed with this year’s bonus!”

Using the same method, drawing lots, Feng Yu picked a representative from Bing City Machinery Company and Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise respectively. The ones that were selected were jumping up and down with joy. They were excited to be participating in a CCTV variety show. This was much better than being a live audience at CCTV.

At night, Feng Yu took a train back to Beijing. It was the national holidays soon, and he wants to bring Li Na along back to Hong Kong.

Chapter 529 – Bullying the customer

“Why are you back?” Li Na looked at Feng Yu happily. If it weren’t for her classmates beside her, she would have jumped into Feng Yu’s arms.

“I am here to fetch you. Didn’t we agree that you will come to Hong Kong during the National Holidays? I am afraid that you will be bored to travel on a plane alone.” Feng Yu had returned back for Lenovo, but in front of Li Na, it became that he had purposely returned for her.

Li Na smiled. She was a simple and innocent girl. She will never think that Feng Yu would lie to her. She looked at Feng Yu and asked: “Are you tired? Actually, I can go to Hong Kong by myself.”

“It is different. This is a show of my sincerity! I had bought the plane tickets for tomorrow afternoon. We will be flying to Guangzhou, and we will reach tomorrow night. Then we will be going to Hong Kong by ship. Have you ever traveled by ship?”

Li Na shook her head. She looked excited: “No. I had only sat in a small boat with you.”

“This time we will be on a big ship. When we reach Hong Kong, we can still go on a yacht. Come, let’s go for dinner.” Feng Yu could not stop flaunting in front of Li Na. Maybe it was his male instincts. Males would always want to exhibit their strengths in front of females.

“I still have not packed.”

“There is no need for you to pack. We can buy everything in Hong Kong. The clothes there is much nicer!” Feng Yu said proudly.

Feng Yu had already prepared Li Na’s travel documents. He asked Master Lu for help, and it was settled within a day.

After dinner, both returned home straight. It’s been a while since them met. That night, Feng Yu felt Li Na was more passionate.

The morning sun shines through the curtains onto Feng Yu’s face. Feng Yu turned to his side and noticed that Li Na was not beside him. He slowly opened his eyes, and he heard someone cooking in the kitchen.

“Nana, why are you up so early? It is only 7am.” Feng Yu was only wearing his briefs, and he hugged Li Na from the back.

“You are not wearing your clothes.” Li Na scolded. 7 am was still early? She was used to getting up so early as her classes start at 8 am.

“We are the only people in this house. What’s wrong?”

“I am afraid you will catch a cold.”

“Stop joking. Don’t you know how fit I am? I will catch a cold? Why not let’s do some exercise together to warm me up?” Feng Yu said with an evil laugh, and his hands start roaming about on Li Na.

“Stop it. The egg is getting burnt.” Li Na slapped Feng Yu’s hands.

Feng Yu still wanted to do something terrible to Li Na when his mobile phone rang. Who is calling so early in the morning?!

“Hello? Who are you?”

“Manager Feng? It’s me. I have two important news to tell you.” Deputy Chief Jia’s voice was heard over the phone.

“Don’t tell me that it is bad news. Are there any problems with the variety show? The Station Chief does not agree to produce it?” Feng Yu felt his eyelid twitching.

Feng Yu’s biggest worry was for something bad to happen to this variety show. He had already picked some participants for this variety show. If it were canceled, he would be ashamed to face those participants.

“Cough…… The TV station had discussed this variety show, and it can be aired. We had already started to set up the production team and had finalized the host. Ni Ping will be the host of this program.”

There were no problems with the variety show? Then why was Chief Jia hesitating?

“Chief Jia, we have known each other for quite some time. You do not need to beat around the bush. Just tell me what’s wrong.” Feng Yu said.

“The biggest problem is this program might not be airing on CCTV 2. The station wants this program to be aired on CCTV 3.”

“Huh? Change to CCTV 3?!”

“Yes. The head of CCTV 2 is the Station Chief man. I am in no position to interfere with the program’s arrangements. The Station Chief also felt that this variety show does not have any highlights and the ratings might not be good. It should not be shown on the satellite channel.”

“Chief Jia, you are the top deputy, and you can’t even make arrangements for this show to be aired on CCTV 2? CCTV 2 still have lots of re-runs of old programs. Why can’t you replace one of them?” Feng Yu felt this was too ridiculous.

Although Deputy Chief Jia was not the station chief, he was supposed to be the one taking over the position of Station Chief. How can he not be able to settle such a small problem?

“They did agree to let us have a slot on the satellite channel. But the timing was not good. It was on Wednesdays after 10.30 PM. That timing will ruin this program.” Deputy Chief Jia was also unhappy about this. He was the producer of this Happy Dictionary variety show. There was a vast difference between CCTV 2, a satellite channel, and CCTV 3, a local channel.

If Chief Jia had not been promoted to the number one Deputy Station Chief, he would still be the head of CCTV 2. He had only been promoted recently, and now, no one in CCTV 2 listens to him!

The reason given to him left him speechless. The programs that were airing now had excellent ratings and cannot be replaced with Happy Dictionary. Also, the advertising fees for Happy Dictionary was too low! CCTV still does not know that the person who came up with this program was Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was also feeling helpless. There was no internet TV now. Wednesdays after 10.30 PM? How many ratings can this show get at this timing? A good variety show will be ruined!

“Then what about CCTV 1? There are no good time slots?”

“It is impossible for CCTV 1. The programs on CCTV 1 are all new and cannot be replaced. Also, the Station Chief oversees CCTV 1. I cannot go straight to the Station Chief.”

Deputy Chief Jia had made it very clear. The Station Chief still was not retired, and if he were to interfere with CCTV 1 programs, others would think that he was too eager to take over that position. It will affect his prospect of him being promoted.

“Then I will increase the advertising fees. It’s not a big deal. What does the head of CCTV 2 want? How much more advertising fees do I need to pay?” It must be the advertising fees was not enough.

“This is not about the advertising fees. Our show is set to be aired after the New Year. It was mainly because they do not think much about our program and felt that it is not worthy to be aired on a satellite!”

“Chief Jia, if this is the case, then I will go to other satellite channels. I heard that Ludong TV and Zhejiang TV will be starting their satellite channels. I think they will be happy to produce this variety show. I had made myself very clear. If it is not a satellite channel, it will ruin this program!”

“Feng Yu, it is useless. We have already started the preparations for this program. Do you think the other satellite channels can still produce similar programs?”

Fuck. They were hooligans. They had gotten the concept of my variety show, and now they were telling me that it cannot be aired on a satellite channel?

“Deputy Station Chief Jia. You are not fair to me!” Feng Yu addressed Chief Jia as Deputy Station Chief. He was very pissed with him. If this program were not on the satellite channel, the advertising effect would not be good. How would he answer to those participants he picked?

“Actually CCTV 3 is also not bad. It will also be converted to a satellite channel in 2 years. How about this? I will help you get two more good advertising slots during the coming auctions.” Deputy Station Chief was also feeling embarrassed.

“Chief Jia. Tell them that if this show is not on CCTV 2 primetime, then I will not be buying any advertising slots for the coming year!

Big corporation bullying the customer? Now it is the customer that intimidates the corporation!

Chapter 530 – Going out to Sea

Deputy Station Chief Jia was nervous when he heard what Feng Yu said. He tried to persuade Feng Yu, but Feng Yu ignored him. Instead, Feng Yu told him that he will not be sponsoring the coming Spring Festival Gala Night and the New Year Gala Dinner. He will go to Ludong TV or Zhejiang TV as a form of congratulating them for being a satellite channel. Feng Yu thinks that they will be very supportive of him and will pull all their resources to make the show a success.

Feng Yu was threating Deputy Chief Jia. Deputy Chief Jia can no longer sit still. He immediately reported this matter to the Station Chief. But he did not say that Feng Yu wanted a weekday primetime slot on CCTV. Instead, he told the Station Chief that Feng Yu demands for a primetime weekend slot.

The Station Chief was furious. But when he thought about it carefully, he had no choice but to give in to Feng Yu’s demand. The New Year Gala Dinner had been successful for the past two years, and if this special program stopped this year, the whole nation would be scolding CCTV. As the Station Chief, he will be the number one target!

If this really happens, the Station Chief will not have to wait to retire two years later. He might be removed from his position within this year! Also, CCTV’s advertising slots auctions will be starting soon. If Feng Yu pulled out from the auctions, it would significantly affect the sales of their advertising slots. The Station Chief was also puzzled on Feng Yu’s threat over a variety show.

The Station Chief suspects that it was Deputy Chief Jia that was creating trouble for him. He asked for Feng Yu’s number and called Feng Yu personally. Feng Yu told him the same thing. Either it’s a win-win situation, or they will go on separate ways!

CCTV finally agreed to Feng Yu’s demands, and they will not increase the product placement fees. Feng Yu was satisfied with this outcome and agreed to continue to bid for the advertising slots and help CCTV increase the prices of their slots. He will also continue to sponsor the New Year Gala Dinner and the Spring Festival Gala Night.

It was necessary to be tough sometimes.

……

Feng Yu and Li Na arrived at Guangzhou and boarded the ferry to Hong Kong.

When they arrived in Hong Kong, it was already dark. Hong Kong was also known as Pearl of the Orient. The bright lights from the buildings lit up the skies. It was really a beautiful scene.

“Wa……. Hong Kong is wonderful…. Look at that building. It’s so tall….. Look at that…….” Along the way, Li Na was behaving like a country bumpkin. She was fascinated by everything she saw.

Hong Kong was more prosperous and developed than Beijing. There were many skyscrapers, and the roads were wide and leveled. There was also no shortage of electricity. Hong Kong’s night scenery was more beautiful than the day. But Feng Yu had seen the big cities of China 20 years later, and this was nothing compared to then.

Driver Old Chen was seated in front driving the car. After being reprimanded by Feng Yu previously, he does not dare to look into the rear-view mirror. He sent Feng Yu and Li Na home. Feng Yu made arrangements with him to pick them up at 9 am tomorrow, and Old Chen left.

“This should not be the school hostel.” Li Na curiously asked. Even if this was Hong Kong University, the hostels should not be so good.

“I had bought this apartment. You are visiting Hong Kong for the first time. I cannot be letting you stay at a hotel. Furthermore, I will not lose money from this apartment. I can sell it two years later and still be able to make some money. You should be tired after traveling the whole day. Come, let’s bath together.”

“Who wants to bath with you?” Li Na blushed. She was moved because Feng Yu had bought an apartment just for her visit.

“I want to bath with you. This bathtub is really comfortable. Come and try it.” Feng Yu carried Li Na up and walked into the bathroom with a naughty grin on his face.

The next morning, Old Chen came to pick them. Feng Yu brought Li Na to try Hong Kong’s traditional breakfast. It was Dim Sum. There were buns, shrimp dumplings, porridge, etc. The food was delicious, and both of them ate a lot. Maybe they had used too much energy last night.

This day, Feng Yu brought Li Na to shop at the commercial district. Feng Yu bought all the clothes Li Na tried in the shops. The salesgirls were shocked. The mainlanders were so wealthy now? Feng Yu was even more generous than those Hong Kong tycoons.

The salesgirls tried to flirt with Feng Yu but were ignored. All of them were unhappy with this young girl from China. How did she hook up with such a wealthy man?

Feng Yu was young and rich. He still can be considered as good looking. Feng Yu was the prince charming in the eyes of those salesgirls. But Feng Yu was also speechless. Li Na was not bothered when she saw those salesgirls trying to flirt with him.

Was Li Na really not bothered by those salesgirls? When she was in the dressing room, she secretly peeps at Feng Yu several times. She noticed that Feng Yu was unfazed by those salesgirls and she was relieved.

Feng Yu had stayed in Hong Kong for quite some time, and Li Na was worried that Feng Yu would change. She had heard that Hong Kong was a place full of temptations. But Feng Yu’s actions, she knew her Feng Yu was still the same! She felt terrible to suspect Feng Yu.

At night, Fu Guangzheng appeared and invited Feng Yu and Li Na to a hotel for dinner. They had Chinese cuisine again. Feng Yu had brought Li Na to try western cuisine. But Li Na does not like it, and she does not like the troublesome table etiquettes. Fu Guangzheng had asked Feng Yu about Li Na’s preferences before inviting them.

“Brother Feng, the yacht is ready. Tomorrow’s weather will be good, and the waves will not be strong. I can bring you and Miss Li out to sea.”

Feng Yu had borrowed a yacht from Fu Guangzheng. It was Li Na’s first visit to Hong Kong. How can he not bring her out to sea?

“Thanks.” Feng Yu raised gave a toast to Fu Guangzheng.

Fu Guangzheng bottoms up his mug. He was troubled. Why Feng Yu does not like red wine? Why does he like beer so much? Drinking too much beer will cause burping. Burping during meals was rude.

Red wine was sour and acidic, and Feng Yu does not like that taste. He firmly believes that those who claim to like red wines were pretending to be high class!

Bing City was the city that had the highest beer consumption in China. The residents from Bing City had been drinking beer since young.

“Brother Feng, I have prepared everything for tomorrow’s outing. You do not need to bring anything. The captain is experienced, and you do not need to worry. Miss Li, what else do you need? I will ask the captain to prepare for you.” Fu Guangzheng was meticulous in his preparations.

“I’m fine. Thank you, Brother Fu.”

……

When they saw the yacht, Feng Yu and Li Na were excited. No wonder so many tycoons like to buy yachts. Hmmm…. later I must get Guangzheng to pass me the contacts to buy a yacht.

“Nana, come over here. The captain said that we can try to steer the yacht for a while.” Feng Yu was steering the yacht. It felt better than driving a car.

“I can also try steering it? Hurry up and let me try it.” Li Na had never expected she would be steering a yacht. She was behaving like a kid who had discovered a new toy.

The captain was standing beside Li Na guiding her and at the same time, looking at all the gauges on the dashboard. Safety was still his top priority.

Eh? There was a yacht in front signaling them to slow down. That was…… Li’s Family yacht!

“Mr. Feng, the yacht in front belongs to the Li Family. They are signaling to us that they want to approach us. What are your instructions?”

“Li Family? Which Li Family?”

“Superman Li’s family!”

Superman Li’s family? Who was the one on board that yacht? Superman Li or his son? Feng Yu had wanted to know the Li family all along. His opportunity had finally come.

Chapter 531 – Little Superman

Both yachts slowed down and were sailing side by side. Before Feng Yu could walk out of the cabin and he heard someone shouting: “Is it Brother Guangzheng?”

Feng Yu walked out of the cabin and saw a young man wearing shades on the other yacht. That young man was also shocked when he saw Feng Yu. Wasn’t this Guangzheng’s yacht? Who is this young man?

“Are you Second Young Master of the Li Family? I am Fu Guangzheng’s friend. I had borrowed his yacht to come out to sea.” Feng Yu shouted. This second son of Superman Li looks like he was really young.

Li Zekai frowned. Why was this person speaking with a Chinese accent? Wait. Could this person be the mysterious Chinese partner of the Fu Family, Manager Feng? He had heard rumors that Manager Feng was very young. The age of the person in front was young too. He might be that mysterious Manager Feng.

“Are you Mr. Feng from China?”

“What? Mr. Li know me?” Feng Yu was pleased. If Li Zekai had heard of him, then he must have been monitoring him. It would be easier for Feng Yu to get to know him.

“Of course I had heard of you. I am going to that small island in front. Do you want to join me?” Li Zekai invited Feng Yu.

“My pleasure. Let’s meet at that small island.”

Back in the cabin, Feng Yu told the captain to follow Li Zekai’s yacht and anchor near the island.

Li Na moved closer: “Who is that Second Young Master?”

“He is the second son of Hong Kong’s biggest tycoon, Superman Li. He is a friend of Fu Guangzheng, and he thought Guangzheng was onboard the yacht just now. That’s why he stopped us to say hello. He is going to that small island too. We will have two friends with us on that island.”

Li Na does not know who Superman Li was too. Feng Yu was the richest person she had ever met. He could buy whatever he wants. If Feng Yu said that Superman Li was a Hong Kong Tycoon, then he must be someone very wealthy.

Half an hour later, the yacht anchored near the small island. There was a small boat at the rear of the yacht, and a crew member ferried Feng Yu and Li Na to the boat.

Li Zekai had already arrived on the island. He was standing on the beach waiting for Feng Yu. A sexy pretty lady was standing by his side. That lady was not Miss Liang, Feng Yu knew from his previous life. Miss Liang should be still in kindergarten now.

“Mr. Feng, nice to meet you. This is my friend, Shen Huihui.” Li Zekai extended his hand for a handshake.

“Nice to meet you, Young Master Li. This is my girlfriend, Li Na. She had just arrived from Beijing.” Li Zekai had introduced his partner to Feng Yu, and Feng Yu must do the same too. But that Shen Huihui should not be only a friend.

This Young Master Li really knows how to enjoy life compared to Feng Yu. He had come to this deserted island with beach chairs and umbrellas. He also brought tables, tents, and a BBQ pit. He looks like he was prepared to cook his lunch there.

When all of them were seated, Shen Huihui opened a bottle of champagne and poured each of them a glass. Feng Yu laughed when he saw Li Na feeling uneasy. He moved closer to Li Na and whisper to her: “Don’t need to feel restrained. I am richer than him!”

This was the truth. Li Zekai’s wealth was only tens of million USD. He could not be compared to Feng Yu. Feng Yu was used to dine with Fu Rongqi, and he does not feel intimated by Li Zekai.

Li Na almost laughed when she heard what Feng Yu said, and she playfully gave Feng Yu a punch. She felt more at ease after that.

“I am envious of Mr. Feng and Miss Li.” Li Zekai laughed.

“Yes. We had grown up together and can be considered childhood sweethearts.” Feng Yu joked. Li Zekai does not have a good reputation with women. He had girlfriends all over the world. The tabloids had more stories of him and various girls than those movie stars.

Li Zekai was very different from his elder brother in this aspect. This was also why Superman Li likes his elder brother. Superman Li was prepared to pass his fortune to his eldest son instead of Li Zekai. This was obvious. Li Zekai’s character was not too good. There were rumors that Li Zekai had fallen out his Superman Li and he does not have a good relationship with his elder brother!

Feng Yu suspects that Li Zekai could be friends with Fu Guangzheng was because Fu Guangzheng was also not liked by his father. Both were not the eldest and were not groomed to be the next head of the family. Most importantly, both of them were womanizers!

Feng Yu had known Fu Guangzheng for many years, and during this period, Fu Guangzheng had changed countless girlfriends. Both of them were the same kind.

“Hahaha. I studied overseas, and I do not have the good fortune like you. I heard that you and Fu Guangzheng are partners in many businesses?” Li Zekai asked. He was still not sure if Mr. Feng was that big boss in China.

“I do not like to manage the company and just happen. Brother Fu is good at management. So, every time I make any investment, I will ask Brother Fu along. These few years, we have made some money together.” Feng Yu placed his glass on the table and swallowed a freshly peeled grape given to him by Li Na.

Li Zekai was sure that this person was that mysterious Manager Feng. There were rumors that this person had lots of connections and had never made losses from his investments. Fu Guangzheng’s wealth had increased by several folds within a few years. His wealth was now more than him.

There were also rumors that Fu Family’s head, Fu Rongqi, had followed this person to trade in London Gold and had made high profits.

There must be a reason for these rumors. Li Zekai wants to befriend Feng Yu no matter what.

Li Zekai’s father had told him to invest in mainland China. Many industries in China were still in the starting phases, and there were lots of opportunities. Even if it was a low-risk investment like properties, there would always be high profits. If he were to invest in financial instruments, then the profits will be higher.

If Li Zekai could get the help of a China big boss, then his risk will be lowered significantly.

“Mr. Feng are you in Hong Kong for vacation?” Li Zekai looked at Feng Yu. Was this Manager Feng here in Hong Kong for some investments?

“School.”

Li Zekai had thought of lots of possibilities, but he was wrong. Feng Yu’s answer was school.

Li Zekai had dropped out of the university. He felt that he could learn the same things at work. A university certification means nothing to him. He went to university was to gain some basic knowledge and make friends. To him, making friends was more important than learning all the basics.

There were rumors that this Manager Feng had a personal wealth of tens of millions USD and why does he still want to attend school? Even if he wants to carry on his education, he should be going to the prestigious universities in the US or Europe. Hong Kong University? It was not even considered one of the top universities in the world, and there were several universities in Asia that were better than it.

Li Zekai does not know what to say, and he could only toast with Feng Yu.

“What are you busy with recently? TV station?” If Feng Yu’s memories did not fail him, Li Zekai should be investing in Hong Kong’s satellite TV station, StarTV. This TV station will become Phoenix Chinese Channel in a few more years. It seems that Li Zekai will sell his TV station to Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch this year or next year. He will make lots of profits from this deal.

“Mr. Feng have also heard of my satellite TV station? But I had already finalized a deal with Australia’s Rupert Murdoch and had just signed the deal with him a few days ago. This satellite TV station no longer belongs to my family.” Li Zekai was surprised that Feng Yu knew he owns a TV station. Seems like this Feng Yu was also interested in him.

The TV station was sold? This means that the little Superman will be setting up Pacific Century Group? Feng Yu wonders if he could buy a stake in this Pacific Century Group….

Chapter 532 – The Little Superman’s ambitions

Seeing that Feng Yu and Li Zekai were having a conversation, and the BBQ set up, Li Na pulled Shen Huihui towards the BBQ pit to prepare lunch. She does not want to disturb her man.

Li Zekai looked at Feng Yu enviously. How come his girlfriend was so understanding and pretty? Li Zekai’s girlfriend only know how to pester him!

“Young Master Li, you should make quite a sum after selling your TV station. Are you going to set up the Pacific Century Group?” Feng Yu purposely asked.

Feng Yu knew that satellite TV station was Superman Li’s investment. He had only assigned Li Zekai to manage it. Li Zekai will just have a company under his name, which was Pacific Century Group.

Superman Li, like most of the influential families in Hong Kong, trusted his eldest son more. The eldest son was being groomed to be his successor. As for the second son, it’s okay if he is capable. If they are not capable, it is fine too, as the elder brother will take care of his siblings. If both sons were very capable, they might fight over the family’s assets after he was gone.

But Feng Yu knew the Li Zekai in his previous life had made lots of good investments and received high returns. Although it was partly due to Superman Li, Li Zekai was still very capable.

Li Zekai had wanted to walk out of Superman Li’s shadows. All his businesses were different from the Li Family’s traditional businesses and were successful.

This was why Li Zekai earned the nickname of Little Superman. The media felt that Li Zekai’s character was more similar to Superman Li, compared to his elder brother, Li Zeju.

This was why Feng Yu purposely asked Li Zekai that question. He wanted to know if the rumors were true. If the stories were true, then Li Zekai should need money now!

“I had just set up the Pacific Century Group, and you know about it?” Li Zekai looked at Feng Yu. This Feng Yu had stronger connections then he expected.

Feng Yu raised his brows. Just set up? Damn. I thought it was set up for quite some time. This means Pacific Century Group had just started and was still not influential yet.

“Hahaha. I heard it from Brother Fu. Oh, is this Pacific Century Group fully owned by you?”

“It’s mine. Why are you asking?” Li Zekai could guess what Feng Yu wants.

“I am wondering if I can have the honor to invest in Pacific Century Group?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

“Mr. Feng wants to invest in my company? Why?” Li Zekai does not understand. His company was focusing on technology, and his father thinks that this company will not be doing well. This Feng Yu wants to invest? This was weird.

“In China, there is a saying, Science and technology are primary productive forces. I firmly believe that technology will change our lives and our future! Therefore, I like technological products like humidifiers, bladeless fans, VCD players, etc. These products can be considered technological products and are popular all over the world. Both Brother Fu and I received high returns from these products. Your company is also a technological company, and I believe that your company will be profitable.”

Feng Yu’s explanation was straightforward, and Li Zekai does not believe him. No businessman will make investments based on their interests. These types of businessmen might become rich overnight but will not be sustainable in the long run. Investment decisions must be made wisely. This way, the returns from the investments will be high.

However, Li Zekai was interested in Feng Yu’s intention of investing in his company. He had invited Feng Yu along to this island was to get to know Fu Guangzheng’s business partner.

Li Zekai’s father and brother do not think much about his company. Although his father had given him a sum of money, that money was what he should get for managing the satellite TV station.

If Superman Li were supportive of him, he would have given him a more significant sum of money.

Why was elder brother allowed to join Cheung Kong Holdings once he graduated and was promoted to Vice Chairman and General Manager within a few years? Why was he given Cheung Kong Holdings shares by his father and hold key positions in many listed companies?

Li Zekai was only given the task to manage a TV station and some other businesses that were not doing well? Now, he still must sell off the TV station he developed. What else does he have now?

Li Zekai felt that he had the abilities, but his father did not give him the chance to shine. His father would reject him whenever he made some suggestions. His father wants him to move up the ranks slowly and follow his instructions. He hated this!

Li Zekai wants to show his results to his father. He wants to prove that all his suggestions were right. He can be as capable as his elder brother!

All of you does not think my Pacific Century Group would succeed and are not willing to invest in me? Then I will look for investors myself. I can still manage without your help!

Now, Feng Yu expressed interest in his company and this was what he wanted. But Li Zekai did not agree immediately. After all, this was their first meeting, and he still does not know Feng Yu well.

Li Zekai intends to ask Fu Guangzheng out for a chat. He wants to get Fu Guangzheng to invest in his company, and also, to find out more about Feng Yu. He needs to know about Feng Yu’s abilities and character. Most importantly, Feng Yu’s reputation.

If Feng Yu’s reputation were not good, he would not let Feng Yu invest even if Feng Yu had the capabilities. Others would look down on him if he allowed someone with a lousy reputation to invest in his company.

Although Li Zekai was not on good terms with his family, he also does not want his family’s reputation to be affected. Deep in his heart, he was still proud to be a part of the Li Family.

All Li Zekai wanted was to prove himself to his father and elder brother. He does not want to be restrained. He does not want to be known as Superman Li’s son and Li Zeju’s younger brother.

“Mr. Feng, we can discuss this when we are back. We are here to enjoy ourselves today. The BBQ pit is set up. Let’s go and help out.”

Li Zekai did not agree with Feng Yu’s investment immediately. This was very normal. If Li Zekai accepted without any consideration, then Feng Yu would suspect something was wrong.

Li Zekai does not know much about Feng Yu, and it was the same for Feng Yu. Feng Yu had only heard of Li Zekai in the news from his previous life. He had not met him personally. What if this Li Zekai was not as capable as the media claims? It does not matter if Feng Yu loses some money. His track record of not making losses from his investment would be broken!

“How is the BBQ? We are here to help.” Feng Yu smiled and walked over to Li Na. He took a bite from a sausage Li Na cooked: “Taste good. The fire is just right. Come, let me show you my skills. Do you want to eat chicken wings?”

Li Zekai had also walked to Shen Huihui. He looked at the burnt chicken wing in Shen Huihui’s hand and then looked at Feng Yu eating the well-cooked sausage. He sighed.

But 5 minutes later, Li Zekai’s expression could not hide his embarrassment. The chicken wing he was cooking was burnt too!

On the other side, Feng Yu was feeding his girlfriend and cooking at the same time. Their loving antics made Li Zekai more depressed.

Chapter 533 – The Fustrated Little Superman

Li Zekai was also a womanizer. At his young age, he had changed several girlfriends. This does not include the one night stands he had. His current girlfriend was a lawyer he got to know from his business dealings.

At first, Li Zekai felt this girlfriend was excellent. She was pretty and had her own career. She was also from a good family. Her father was a Queen’s Counsel and was considered someone prominent in Hong Kong.

Li Zekai was thinking of having a serious relationship with her and see if they were suitable to tie the knot. But today, he realized that woman should be more docile. Career or whatever was not necessary!

Look at Feng Yu. His girlfriend cooks whatever he wants, and if he were thirsty, his girlfriend would bring him water. When Feng Yu was sunbathing on the beach chair, his girlfriend would stay by his side and peel grapes for him. She would even extend her hand for Feng Yu to spit the seeds out.

Li Zekai looks at his girlfriend, Shen Huihui. Everything she cooks was burnt, and she still insists on coming here for a BBQ. If Feng Yu’s yacht does not have a cook, they will not have anything edible for lunch!

Of course, Li Zekai also does not know how to cook, and he selectively chooses to forget about that.

“Nana, do you want to swim?”

Li Na had brought her swimsuit. Even though it was a one-piece swimsuit, she was embarrassed to change into with Li Zekai around. Furthermore, she does not know how to swim and need a float. Feng Yu felt it does not matter. What can be exposed in a one-piece swimsuit? Also, they were on the beach.

“I am not going. I will wait for you here while I sunbathe.”

“The sun is too strong now. I have sunblock. Let me rub it on for you.” Feng Yu took out his sunblock and start to rub it on Li Na.

“Stop. There are people around.” When Feng Yu was rubbing Li Na’s legs, she stopped him.

“Look at them. This is very normal. Those athletes in the Olympic games also do not wear a lot when they are swimming or performing gymnastics.”

“Their coaches also do not help them put on sunblock.” Li Na argued.

“I am not your coach. I am your boyfriend. Here, put on your shades to protect your eyes. This towel is for you. You can take a nap while I go swimming. If we are lucky, I might be able to catch a lobster or some seafood. We have a chef on our yacht. He can prepare it for us.”

Li Shikai asked Shen Huihui to accompany him for a swim, but Shen Huihui refused. She wanted to rest for a while. Before Li Zekai could say anything, he saw Feng Yu going towards the water alone. He shook his head and followed Feng Yu.

“Young Master Li, why are you swimming alone?”

“You are also alone.” Li Zekai replied.

“Oh, Nana does not know how to swim, and she is afraid of the sea. I asked her to take a rest and will accompany her later.”

Li Zekai turned and looked at Shen Huihui. He was unhappy with her. Feng Yu’s girlfriend did not enter the water because she does not know how to swim. You know how to swim, and yet you are not accompanying me? You were the one who suggested to go out to the sea, and now you are refusing to enter the water?!

“Young Master Li, there is a reef there. Will there be seafood?” Feng Yu asked excitedly. He had never tried catching seafood with his bare hands.

“Should be. Let’s take a look.” Li Zekai was bored and might as well tag along with Feng Yu. He could also take the opportunity to get to know Feng Yu better.

“Eh, is this oyster?” Feng Yu picked up an oyster and asked Li Zekai.

“Yes. Oyster can be eaten raw. It is good for man.” Li Zekai looked at Feng Yu and smiled.

Damn, with my fitness, will I need to eat this? Hmmm… Little Superman had dark rings around his eyes. One look and I can tell his body was weak. He should be the one eating this.

“Really? Then I shall pick a few backs and see if it is effective. Oh, Young Master Li, do you need some?”

Li Zekai looked at Feng Yu. He noticed that Feng Yu did not get offended easily. It shows that he had a good character.

“Alright. I will also pick some back. When I was young, my father used to bring me to catch oysters. But as Hong Kong became more developed, we have to sail out to a deserted island to catch. Even on this island, it is tough to find.” Li Zekai sighed.

“Tough to find? There are a lot of them beside me.”

Li Zekai was stunned.  He walked over to Feng Yu, and there were lots of oysters there. Damn. I had just said it was hard to find oyster and this Feng Yu found so many of them!

“Maybe it was because of the tides.” Li Zekai replied embarrassedly.

“Oh really? I have never lived by the sea, and I do not know about all these. Other than oysters, what else can we catch?”

“What else? Starfish maybe. I am not sure about other seafood. I have come to this island several times and had not noticed any other seafood.”

“Is that a lobster? Stop running!” Feng Yu jumped forward and caught a palm size lobster with his bare hand.

Li Zekai was dumbfounded. This small island had lobsters? He had come to this island several times but had never seen lobsters before. He had also swum to this reef before, and there was nothing.

“Maybe it’s rare. The last time I came here, there were no lobsters.”

“Rare? Look over there and there. There are at least 4 lobsters. Hahaha. Let’s catch all of them for dinner. The lobsters we caught ourselves will be the freshest! Young Master Li, help me hold on to this lobster. I will go and catch the rest.”

Li Zekai looked at the lobster in his hand. How could this be possible? Since when this area has so many lobsters? Was it because Feng Yu was lucky?

“Young Master Li, you continue catching them. I will go and bring the pail.” Feng Yu held two lobsters in his hands and ran to Li Na to show off.

Li Na and Shen Huihui became interested and followed Feng Yu back to the reefs.

“Nana, there is a crab here. You can catch it from it’s back. Be careful. Let me do it.”

“Nana, look. It’s a big lobster. Its claws can’t reach it’s back. Don’t worry.”

“Nana look at this big oyster I caught.”

“Nana……”

Feng Yu’s voice was all around. He kept showing off to Li Na. of course, it also means that he had caught lots of seafood. On the other hand, Li Zekai had tried his best, but he did not find any.

He was feeling even more frustrated when he saw the disappointment in Shen Huihui’s eyes. All the seafood in this area were caught by Feng Yu!

When Li Zekai finally spotted a big crab, he felt it was his chance. He immediately ran after the crab, but he saw a hand scooping the crab up.

“Young Master Li, here. Your crab.” Feng Yu saw the crab had run to his side and immediately pick it up by instinct. He knew Li Zekai was chasing after this crab and he passed it to him.

Li Zekai looked at the crab in Feng Yu’s hand. He almost cried. He had finally spotted a crab, and Feng Yu was the one who caught it. Luckily Feng Yu was willing to give me that crab. This made him feel better.

“Oh, since you are the one who caught it, it belongs to you.”

“Really? Thank you. Nana, look. I had caught another big crab!” Feng Yu turned and ran towards Li Na.

The smile on Li Zekai’s face froze. He was only trying to be courteous. Give me back my crab…………..

Chapter 534 – Because he is investing

At 3 pm in the afternoon, all of them set sailed to return. Feng Yu and Li Na had a seafood feast on board the yacht before returning. Seafood tastes better when it was caught by themselves.

The next day, Feng Yu brought Li Na to some places of interests in Hong Kong. At the same time, Li Zekai called Fu Guangzheng out.

“Guangzheng. Over here.”

“Young Master Li, why are you so free to ask me out for lunch today? Shouldn’t you be busy with your new company?” Fu Guangzheng sat down opposite Li Zekai.

“No matter how busy I am, I should still dine with my friends. Oh, yesterday when I was out at sea, I saw your family’ yacht. I thought you were on board, but it turns out to be Mr. Feng.” Li Zekai pretended to be nonchalant about it.

“Oh, you have met Feng Yu? Brother Feng is my good friend. His girlfriend had come over from China for a holiday, and I lent him the yacht. Have you spoke to him?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“We chatted for a while and had a BBQ lunch. Is this Mr. Feng your business partner in China?”

Fu Guanzheng nodded: “My first investment in China is with him. Later on, I joined him to invest many other investments.”

Li Zekai was thinking in his heart. That Mr. Feng was really that wealthy Manager Feng.

“Among our fellow Hong Kong businessmen, your investments in China should be considered the highest?”

“I am not too sure about this. There should be some businessmen who had invested the same amount as me. But there should not be anyone who earns more than me.” Fu Guangzheng said proudly.

The returns of Fu Guanzheng’s investments in Feng Yu’s businesses were more than 10 times his capital. If he counts the money he made from the sales company in Hong Kong, his profits were even higher.

When Fu Guangzheng just met Feng Yu, he does not even have 10 million. Now, he can easily amass 100 million.

At that time, Fu Guangzheng was envious of his elder brother because he was more successful, and his father liked him more. But now, his own assets were on par with his father and had exceeded his elder brother a long time ago. He was confident he will surpass his father within 3 years.

It was very rare for someone at his age in Hong Kong to amass his fortune. The only ones were the eldest sons of those influential families.

Just look at Li Zekai. He was the second son of Superman Li, and the company he set up was only worth tens of million HKD. His wealth was nowhere near Fu Guangzheng.

Li Zekai heard Fu Guangzheng’s bragging, and his eyes narrowed. All of Feng Yu’s businesses were profitable. From Fu Guangzheng’s wealth to estimate, Feng Yu’s shares should be at least 3 times more than Fu Guangzheng. That means Feng Yu’s assets were now at least over 3 billion HKD?

How old was that Feng Yu? 20? He was so young and had already accumulated so many assets?

Li Zekai did not know that Feng Yu’s assets were more than what he estimated. Just Feng Yu’s assets in Japan was worth a few billion HKD. Feng Yu still has assets in Russia and the US. When the Sixth Sense Company was listed, his wealth will increase further!

“That Manager Feng is really capable. Who is his father?” Li Zekai asked.

“Senior Mr. Feng? I had only met him a few times. His father is a farmer.” Fu Guangzheng was puzzled. Why was this Li ZeKai asking about Feng Yu?

Farmer? Feng Yu’s father owns a big farm? But does China have those large farms? The Chinese government was the one assigning the land to the farmers. How can he own a big farm?

“Young Master Li, what are you thinking?”

“Oh, nothing. Feng Yu’s father should have given him a large sum of money to start his business, right?”

“I heard that his father had not given him money. Feng Yu had made all his money by himself.” Fu Guangzheng frowned. Feng Yu’s father was just an ordinary farmer and was equivalent to the Hong Kong farmers in the outskirts. How much money will a farmer have? Also, he had chatted with Feng Yu’s father before. It seems that Senior Mr. Feng does not know how to do business.

“He made all his money himself? What did he do to make so much money?” Li Zekai could not believe his ears. Was there really so many opportunities to make money in China?

“Feng Yu is into a lot of businesses. There are some that you surely know. He owns the patent of VCD technology. Both the VCD players brand in the market belongs to him. Also, you should know that I have a Hong Kong Aiwa company here. That company is a joint partnership with Feng Yu. He still owns the bladeless fans, humidifiers, etc. Oh, he also owns the second-best selling pager brand in China currently. He also has motorcycles, cars, agriculture machinery manufacturing businesses. I think he still has a beverage business and some medical products. I did not invest in these businesses.”

“The profits of all these products are very high?”

“I am not too sure. But I know he had made quite a large sum from the bladeless fans, humidifiers and the learning machines as I was the one exporting those products to overseas. Most importantly, it was the patents he owns. He had almost monopolized many markets.” Fu Guanzheng said.

“Young Master Li, why are you asking about all these?” Fu Guangzheng realized that something was off. Li Zekai had called him out for lunch and why was he kept asking about Feng Yu?

“Mr. Feng wants to invest in my company. Pacific Century Group!” Li Zekai did not hide from Fu Guangzheng.

Fu Guangzheng’s eyes opened wide: “Young Master Li, are you sure you are not joking with me? Feng Yu wants to invest in your Pacific Century Group?”

Li Zekai became nervous when he saw Fu Guangzheng’s expression: “Guangzheng, what’s wrong? Are there any problems? Tell me!”

“Anything wrong? No. I have a question. Young Master Li, can you also let me invest in your company?” Fu Guangzheng looked at Li Zekai seriously.

Li Zekai opened his mouth. What’s happening? Fu Guangzheng wants to invest in my company? Although he does have the intention of asking Fu Guangzheng to invest, he had not said anything yet.

“Guangzheng, why do you want to invest in my company?”

“I cannot invest? How about exchanging shares? I still own some Hong Kong companies’ shares. I can let you pick one of them and exchange with you?”

“No, that’s not it. Guangzheng, why do you want to invest in my company?”

“Because Feng Yu wants to invest in your company.” Fu Guangzheng replied confidently.

Because Feng Yu wants to invest? What reason was this? Just because someone else was investing and you want to invest? You do not even know what my company is dealing with and you want to invest?

Why are you so confident about Feng Yu’s decision? Then if you know that Feng Yu wanted to invest in my company without asking much details, will you still invest?

“Just because of this?”

“Yes. Young Master Li, I had my doubts when I heard you are setting up a technology company. Everyone was saying that you might not succeed. But now, I am sure you will succeed!” Fu Guangzheng confidently said.

“You think I will succeed?” Li Zekai was overjoyed. He had finally found someone who believes in him!

“Actually, I trusted Feng Yu. He had never made any loss with his investments. Not even once. All of his investments had high returns! Since he wants to invest in your company, that means your company has high potential. I had missed several opportunities. I must not miss it this time. Young Master Li, how about it? Please consider letting me invest in your company. I can also exchange shares with you.”

Li Zekai could not believe his ears. This Fu Guangzheng was considered one of Hong Kong’s best businessman in their generation. He was not considered young too. Yet, he was full of respect for that Feng Yu!

Seems like he needs to carefully consider about Feng Yu’s investment into his company.

Chapter 535 – You can’t cheat me

3 days later, Feng Yu sent Li Na off at the airport. This time, Li Na does not want Feng Yu to fly back with her. But Feng Yu still called Wen Dongjun to picked Li Na from the airport. He had lent Wen Dongjun his car in Beijing. So it should not be a problem to ask him to help fetch Li Na.

This was mainly due to the amount of luggage Li Na was bring back. Feng Yu had bought too many things for her. Clothes, shoes, etc. There were also some Hong Kong specialties. If no one were to help Li Na in Beijing, she would not be able to bring everything home. Furthermore, Feng Yu had bought some specialties for Wen Dongjun. A box of Hong Kong famous Lao Po Cake.

After Li Na left, Feng Yu returned to school. Hong Kong University does not have holidays on October 1st. Hong Kong was still under British rule.

Hong Kong University does not mark attendances. Feng Yu had skipped some classes, and his lecturers did not notice about this. Maybe they had forgotten about having such a student.

Feng Yu was also happy with the freedom he had. He gets to pick the lectures he likes. But when he does not have anything to do, he will still attend his lessons. He was bored staying at home alone. Most of the TV programs were in Cantonese. There should at least have more English programs.

If there were no English programs, they could also air some Japanese movies……..

“Brother Feng, why are you here?” Fu Guangwei’s expression looked like he had picked up gold when he saw Feng Yu.

Feng Yu: “……” Why can’t I come over? Even though we were not studying in the same faculty, but my name was also written on the door.

“I am bored at home.” Feng Yu replied.

“Bored? Do you want me to bring you to clubs? I know a club where there are many hot ladies!” When Fu Guangwei talks about having fun, his eyes sparkled.

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangwei with despise. Clubs? Hot ladies? How can a Wealthy second generation be such a loser?!

All the other wealthy second generations would look for models or those pretty young girls. Would those girls with thick makeup in the clubs be pretty after removing their makeup?

“If you want to go, just go alone. Don’t drag me along. I am not interested in clubs.” Feng Yu shook his head and took out a book from his bag.

“Brother Feng, my sister……”

“Don’t talk about your sister. I am not familiar with her. Also, stop trying to matchmake the both of us. You should know how your sister is like.” Feng Yu’s face turned black when Fu Mengying was mentioned.

Feng Yu had made things clear with Fu Mengying. Could it be that Fu Rongbing still does not know about Feng Yu’s attitude on this matter?

“No. Brother Feng, I am not trying to matchmake the both of you. I am only curious. The last time my sister came back, she kept saying good things about you.” Fu Guangwei looked confused. How come both of them reacted differently?

“She said nice things about me? Nevermind. Since there is no one else around, I will tell you the truth. The last time she was using me as a shield to prevent your father from introducing men to her. I have a girlfriend, and we had dined with Fu Guangzheng two days ago. All of you should forget about me. She said good things about me was just to fool your father.” Feng Yu said.

Damn. This crazy woman was too much. If it weren’t for the Fu Family, Feng Yu would have fallen out with her!

Fu Guangwei embarrassedly said: “Ah? I will give her a scolding when I return home. Brother Feng doesn’t be angry. I will pay for the drinks tonight.”

“No need. If you want to drink, you can go alone. I intend to watch a movie tonight.”

Drinking with friends is an enjoyable activity. But drinking with someone like Fu Guangwei, who was on a different frequency, was called entertaining.

Does Feng Yu need to entertain Fu Guangwei?

“Watch the movie at night?” Fu Guangwei blinked and asked with a lecherous look: “Are you going to watch the midnight shows?”

Midnight shows? Damn. What was this moron thinking? How did he grow up as a wealthy second generation?

“Mind your own business. I am watching a horror film!”

“I know. Horror film. Brother Feng, do you need me to recommend a good cinema? I guarantee that the screens are big and clear.”

“Get lost….”

Damn. How can there be such a vast difference between both Fu family members? Where was his upbringing? His family antics? Could it be Fu Guangzheng was hiding his true nature from him?

Hmmm… High possibility!

……

“Mengying, where are you going at this hour?” Fu Rongbing stopped his daughter who was sneaking out.

“Dad, I am going to the movies with friends.”

“Watch a movie? What movie are you watching?”

“A horror movie. Lin Zhengying acted in this movie. I heard good reviews about this film and tomorrow will be the last day. If I don’t watch it today, I will miss it.” Fu Mengying pleaded her father with her eyes.

Fu Guangwei who was playing chess with his father suddenly raises his head: “Sis, what did you say? You are going to watch a horror film?”

“That’s right. What’s wrong? You want to join me?” Fu Mengying asked. But in her heart, she was praying that her brother would not tag along.

Fu Guangwei had a mischievous smile on his face: “You are going with your friend? Is your friend a man or a girl?”

“He is a man. Why are you asking so many questions?” Fu Mengying shouted.

“Man? Good. Hurry up and go. Don’t let your friend wait. You can come back later tonight. Enjoy yourself.” Fu Rongbing laughed.

The father of an 18 years old’ girl should forbid his daughter to go out so late at night or would be worried sick when his daughter go out with another man.

But Fu Mengying was different. When Fu Rongbing heard that his daughter was going out with a man to watch a movie, he was full of smiles. He was even willing to send his daughter personally to the cinema.

His daughter had finally agreed to go out with another man. This was an improvement. His doctor had said that his daughter might recover from her “illness’ if she was willing to go out with men more often.

Fu Rongbing would rather his daughter to change boyfriends frequently than have girlfriends!

Fu Mengying stomped out of the house and slammed the door shut. Fu Guangwei also took the opportunity to mess up the chess pieces as he was losing.

“Damn brat. What are you doing?!” Fu Rongbing scolded.

“Dad, I know who is going to the movies with sister!” Fu Guangwei said.

“Who?” Fu Rongbing asked.

“Dad, my allowances for this month is not enough.”

“Come with me upstairs. I will give you 50,000 HKD more for this month!” Fu Rongbing replied.

“Thank you. Sis must be going to the movies with Feng Yu. I met Feng Yu in school earlier today, and he said that he will be going to the movies at night. He is going to watch a horror film. Sis is also going to watch a horror film at night. Do you think this is coincidental?”

During the day, Fu Guangwei had believed Feng Yu’s words. He thought that it was impossible between Feng Yu and his sister. But now, he discovered that both of them were going for a movie date. No wonder his sister was unhappy the past few days. Feng Yu’s girlfriend was in Hong Kong for the holidays.

Feng Yu had asked his sister out once his girlfriend left Hong Kong. Both of them were innocent? Feng Yu had tried to trick me during the day? You think you can fool me?

I am the super detective — Wisely!

Chapter 536 – Superman Li’s guess

That night, Feng Yu really went to the movies. But Fu Mengying went out with her friend. As for whether if her friend was a man or girl……

At about 7 plus in the evenings, Li Zekai returned home after dinner with his friends. When he reached home, Superman Li was sitting in the living room with his eldest son, Li Zeju. They were chatting and asked Li Zekai to join them as he entered the room.

“Dad, Brother.” Li Zekai was puzzled. At this hour, both of them should be in the study. Even if they were in the living room, they should be watching TV. Were they waiting for him?

“Zekai, have a seat. The satellite TV station is sold. How is your Pacific Century Group doing?” Superman Li asked.

“It’s doing fine. I am looking for investors to raise funds. If I can’t raise enough funds, I might get a bank loan.” Loans were Li Zekai’s last resort. Once he took a loan, it would be hard for him to get the company listed.

If his company was not listed, then he will not have enough funds to develop and will not reach the scale he wants. He would not be able to prove to his father that he was right!

“Looking for investors? Who did you look for?” Superman Li asked curiously.

“Fu Guangzheng of the Fu Family and a big boss from China.”

“Dad, Fu Guangzheng is the second son of Fu Rongjing. He is the one managing the Fu Family’s assets in China. He had been doing quite well in recent years.” Li Zeju explained to his father.

Superman Li knew all the older Hong Kong Tycoons. Even if he was not close with them, but he had heard of their names. However, Superman Li does not know the younger generations nor remember their names!

“Oh… it’s that kid. Not bad. Zekai, you are friends with him?” Superman Li nodded. He knew who Fu Guangzheng was after Li Zeju’s explanation.

It was not a secret that the Fu Family had invested a significant amount in China. Many Hong Kong businessmen also had an investment in China. But the Fu Family was the only one who had invested the most and was the most successful.

Fu Rongqi dares to let a young man manage the Fu Family’s assets in China, and that young man was still not the eldest son of their family. Superman Li really respect Fu Rongqi for making such decision.

The Fu Family was indeed one of the influential Hong Kong families. They have unique ways of grooming their next generation. This might also be the reason why the 4 brothers of the Fu Family were all having their own successful careers.

“I am friends with Fu Guangzheng for some years. But there is one thing Brother said wrongly. All the businesses in the Mainland belong to Fu Guangzheng. He is not taking care of the Fu Family’s business!” Li Zekai looked at his elder brother.

Look at the Fu Family. They had given Fu Guangzheng a sum of start-up capital and whatever he earns belongs to him. Me? The family had provided 400 million USD to invest in the satellite TV, and I sold it for 950 million USD. The returns were 1.5 times. This still does not prove my abilities?

What happened in the end? This was considered your investments and the share I am getting was so little. If this was not the case, would I still need to look for investors for my own company? I had not set up this company for fun. I had thought about it seriously and did careful planning. Why can’t all of you trust me?

Even if the satellite TV station was an investment, why can’t I have slightly more returns? All I needed was 100 million USD, and my company would have sufficient funds. It’s only 100 million USD. The family could easily afford it.

“Zekai, who is the Chinese boss you are talking about?” Superman Li continued to ask.

“The Chinese boss calls Feng Yu. He is a young man about 20 years’ old. He is Fu Guangzheng’s partner in China. His estimated wealth was at least 3 times of Fu Guangzheng, which is about 3 billion HKD. This figure is only a conservative estimate. The actual value should be more than this.”

Li Zekai wants to tell his father that his friends were all competent! Also, he made these friends on his own, without the help of his father.

“It’s him?” Superman Li was slightly worked up.

“Dad, you have heard of him?” Li Zekai was surprised. His father had heard of Feng Yu?

“Not only I had heard of his name. I shall tell you something, and you will know his status in China. Mr. Deng and Iron-fist Zhu had asked to meet him personally.”

“Who? Mr. Deng and Iron-fist Zhu?” Le Zekai was shocked. Mr. Deng was not someone you can meet. In the eyes of the Hong Kongers, Mr. Deng had more authority than the Queen of England. He was the real leader of China. Why did he ask to meet Feng Yu?

Li Zekai felt it was shocking enough for Iron-Fist Zhu to meet Feng Yu. Only the ones who were his father’s equivalent could meet with the Queen of England. Feng Yu was only 20 years’ old and how did he do that?

Superman Li had been in contact with the Chinese government, and he was very supportive of Hong Kong’s return to China. If Le Zakai’s father said this, then It must be real.

“This is why this Feng Yu is not simple. Have you checked his background?” Superman Li asked.

“I had chatted with Fu Guangzheng. Guangzheng said that Feng Yu build up his business all by himself. His starting capital was only tens of thousands of RMB. He started his career by trading some Government bonds. Then he starts to do trades with the Soviet Union. But it was during the Gulf War Feng Yu made his fortune by shorting oil with high leverage!” Li Zekai explained.

“He shorts oil during the Gulf War?!” Superman Li had a disbelieving look on his face. During the war, oil prices were falling like crazy. Why did Feng Yu make such decisions?

“Fu Guangzheng swore he was telling the truth. I heard that even the Fu Family’s head, Fu Rongjing was in awe with Feng Yu when it comes to financial investments. He had even invited Feng Yu for meals. Feng Yu had told Fu Guangzheng about his forecast on the financial market several times, and he was spot on every time. I heard that Feng Yu also had strong connections in the former Soviet Union and he is still doing trades with Russia.”

Superman Li nodded: “You said that Feng Yu’s assets are about 3 billion HKD?”

“I did not ask Fu Guangzheng about this. But Fu Guangzheng said that Feng Yu’s shares of the investments back in China was several times more than him. I estimate it to be at least 3 times.”

Superman Li shook his head: “I think it should be more than that. Do all of you still remember about 2 years ago, there was a rumor which no one believes? Fu Rongqi had stood in front of the Peninsula Hotel to receive a young man.”

Li Zekai stared at his father: “You are saying that Feng Yu was the one Fu Rongqi received?”

Who was Fu Rongqi? He was the head of the Fu Family. One of the top 10 Hong Kong Tycoons. In terms of the overall family’s influences, the Fu Family might be stronger than the Li Family! Fu Rongqi had stood at the entrance to receive Feng Yu?!

“I think the rumor is true. Fu Rongqi had listed a few of his companies these few years and his total assets are more than 15 Billion HKD. Even if it were 2 years ago, his assets would still be at least 7 to 8 billion HKD. How many assets do you think Feng Yu had to let Fu Rongqi stand at the entrance to receive him?”

Fu Rongqi had gone to receive Feng Yu personally two years ago was also to apologize to him. At that time, Feng Yu’s assets could not be compared to him. But now, Feng Yu had exceeded Fu Rongqi, but no one knows about it.

Li Zekai and Li Zeju looked at each other, and both could not accept what they heard. A 20 years’ old man, from a backward place, could achieve this? Based on what their father said, the worth of Feng Yu’s assets should be at least more than 6 billion HKD. It might even be more!

Superman Li patted Li Zekai’s back: “If you are able to persuade them to invest in your company, I will also help out with the amount you are lacking!”

Chapter 537 – Making friends

“Young Master Li wants to ask us out for golf? I’m not going!”

“Why? I thought you said you had a good time chatting with him?” Fu Guangzheng curiously asked.

“I don’t know how to play golf!” Damn. Feng Yu had never played golf in both his lifetimes. Currently, only the Guangdong province had a golf course in China, and it was also catered to Hong Kong businessmen. Feng Yu had never stepped foot on a golf course in his lifetime! Golf was a stupid sports! Swimming was a better choice anytime!

“Hahaha, I forgot that no one plays golf in China. How about bowling, billiard or snooker?”

“I am not good at it, but I know how to play.” Why were there no 8-ball or 9-ball pool?

“Then we shall go bowling. The 3 of us can play together. I will book the place and let you know the address later.”

Young Master Li does not have intentions to venture into China. This was why Fu Guangzheng was not worried that Feng Yu would become closer to Li Zekai and drifted away from him and the Fu Family. The Li Family had started to venture into China, but the scale for their investment was still small.

Fu Guangzheng was willing to help both of them to become closer.

……

Strike!

Feng Yu’s eyes opened wide. It was his first ball, and it was a strike! He had only played bowling a few times in his previous life, and this was the first time he was so lucky.

Li Zekai clapped and walked over: “Brother Feng is a professional bowler? If I know you are so good, I would suggest we play snooker. I think both of us will be losing very badly.”

This meeting, both of them were closer and had changed the way they addressed each other. Only thing was Li Zekai’s pronunciations. Li Zekai’s Mandarin was not as good as Fu Guangzheng, as the latter had been in China for quite some time.

“Hahaha, this is luck. I had heard from Brother Fu that you are really good at bowling.”

It was unknown that Feng Yu was lucky, or Li Zekai and Fu Guangzheng did not perform well. Feng Yu had actually won the first game with a high score.

The 3 of them played for a while and sat down for a drink.

“Guangzheng, Brother Feng, the last time we chatted, the both of you wanted to invest in my company. Are both of you serious?” Li Zekai smiled and asked.

Fu Guangzheng kept quiet and looked at Feng Yu. He was following Feng Yu. If Feng Yu does not invest, then he would only invest a small amount into Li Zekai’s company.

“Huh? Brother Kai agree to let me invest? Then how much can I invest and how much shares can I own?” Feng Yu’s eyes sparkled.

“10 million USD for 5% shares.” Li Zekai showed his index finger.

Before Feng Yu could say anything, Fu Guangzheng said: “That’s not right. I remembered that the capital of your company should not have such high value. I remembered that it is not even worth 100 million USD, right?”

Even if they were friends, they should not be taking advantage of each other. Fu Guangzheng was not Feng Yu. Feng Yu could ignore the number of shares he received as long as the whole deal could be expedited. Fu Guangzheng would fight for what he deserved.

When Feng Yu heard what Fu Guangzheng said, he frowned. The shares he will get for this deal was too little, and he still has to pay a premium price for it? He thought if he should reconsider his decision to invest.

Li Zekai patted Fu Guangzheng’s back: “Guangzheng, we have known each other for so long and do I look like the type who take advantage of friends? This company is currently worth 100 million USD, and I do not include the value of the technologies. My father has agreed to invest 80 million USD into the company. That’s why I am offering both of you 10 million USD for 5% shares. I will never take advantage of my friends.”

Fu Guangzheng looked at Li Zekai puzzled. Superman Li will be investing 80 million USD in your company, and why was he still asking both of them to invest? If he was really short of that 20 million RMB, he could just tell his father. He had already given you 80 million USD, he would not mind giving you 20 million more. Li Zekai could also look for his elder brother. He will definitely help you with the remaining 20 million.

Feng Yu does not care about all these, and he laughed: “Then I will ask my staff to transfer that 10 million USD to you tomorrow, and we can sign the contract.”

Superman Li was willing to invest in Li Zekai’s company, that means it was impossible for this company to fail. Superman Li had never suffered losses from his investments. There were rumors that the Queen of England wanted to award him the title of Duke, but he rejected the offer. He was not willing to be British.

This proves that Superman Li was a powerful tycoon even in England. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Superman Li was the wealthiest tycoon in Hong Kong and had held the title of the richest man in Asia for a long time. He was also one of the top ten wealthiest people in the world.

With Superman Li’s status, one word from him, Li Zekai’s company shares will shoot up!

Fu Guangzheng saw Feng Yu agreed and immediately told Li Zekai: “I will be going to your company tomorrow to sign the contract. The money will also be in tomorrow!”

Li Zekai laughed and asked: “The both of you does not want to ask me what my company is doing and look at the development plans?”

Feng Yu shook his head: “We do not need to be so troublesome. You can ask Brother Fu. We had cooperated on several occasions, and we settled the details with only a few sentences.”

Fu Guangzheng also laughed: “That’s right. I am still worried that you will not call me along when you invest. But truth be told, I had never suffered any losses when I invested with you. Even if I were to suffer losses once or twice, I also would not mind. I am where I am today is all because of partnering you.”

“If you did not bring your men to help manage those companies, I would not be so free. Actually, you are the one who cares the most about those companies.” Feng Yu said.

This was the truth. Without Fu Guangzheng, Feng Yu’s businesses would not grow to the existing scale. Just the overseas sales distribution channels would be a headache for Feng Yu. Feng Yu would need many years to develop those channels. Also, the negotiations with the local authorities for their new factories. Without Fu Guangzheng, Feng Yu would have to do everything himself.

Although Feng Yu had to let Fu Guangzheng owns some shares, Feng Yu does not need to worry over lots of things. He could enjoy his life and do whatever he wants.

“The both of you can stop praising each other. Have you all rest enough? I did not perform well just now. Should we play 2 more games?” Both of them had agreed to invest in Li Zekai’s company, and his father will surely invest too. Li Zekai was over the moon.

“No problem. I also did not put in my best effort just now!” Fu Guangzheng agreed immediately.

After bowling, the 3 of them had dinner before going their separate ways. When Feng Yu was on his way home, Fu Guangzheng called him.

“Brother Feng, why are you so interested in Li Zekai’s Pacific Century Group?”

“Does it matter? I have already agreed to invest.”

“You are not afraid that you will lose your investment?”

“Lose my investment? Just be it. It does not matter. Most importantly, I am now friends with Young Master Li!”

Fu Guangzheng: “……” You invested 10 million USD just to be friends with Young Master Li, and not because his company had the potential to make money?

Damn.  Why did I invest too? I am already close friends with Li Zekai, and even without this investment, it will not affect our friendship. But this investment should not be losing money. Even Superman Li had invested. This investment must not make losses…. If not, the reputation of the “investment god of the younger generation” I built over the years will be gone. How can I brag to others in the future?

Chapter 538 – Supermarket idea

The next day, all the paperwork were settled, and the contracts signed. It was just like the partnerships between Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng. Nothing was asked, and they signed the contracts after their lawyers had gone through the contracts. The money was transferred, and the shares ownership documents were handed over. Both Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng did not take on any roles in Li Zekai’s company. Both of them were not worried that Li Zekai would cheat them.

Li Zekai was also moved by their actions. It might be that both of them were confident of themselves or confident that Li Zekai would not dare to cheat them. After all, Li Zekai was from the Li Family, and if he were to deceive them, the Li Family’s reputation would be affected. The Fu Family was also influential in Hong Kong.

But this was also a form of trust. It felt good to be trusted.

“Guangzheng, Brother Feng, let’s have lunch together?” After signing the contract, Li Zekai smiled and invited them to have lunch.

Today, not only Fu Guangzheng and Feng Yu’s funds were transferred to him, even his father had transferred the invested funds. He was overjoyed to get the recognition from his father.

Although these second generations of the influential families were born with a golden spoon, they were also facing lots of stress. After selling the shares of the satellite TV station, Hong Kong’s media had given Li Zekai the nickname of Little Superman. This was an honor and also a form of stress on him.

Li Zekai could imagine what the media will write about him once he made a wrong decision. Media influences could sometimes cloud his judgment. He does not hope to take over his father’s businesses, but he wishes to receive his father’s support and investments to let him prove himself. He hopes to be worthy of the nickname!

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng had nothing to do and agreed to have lunch together. Fu Guangzheng had invested in Pacific Century Group, and now he wants to know the development plans of the company and how long does it take to see the returns of his investments.

The investments Fu Guangzheng made to Feng Yu’s company, had returned after about 1 year and he could get back his invested amount within 2 years. Sometimes, it was even shorter.

“Guangzheng, Brother Feng, let’s have a toast. For our future endeavors!”

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng raised their glasses: “Cheers!”

“Brother Feng, Guangzheng, when are the both of you going back to China? I would like to tag along.” Li Zekai said.

“Why? Are you thinking of investing in China? Is this your idea or your father’s idea?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

There was a significant difference in whose idea this was. If it was only Li Zekai’s idea, then Fu Guangzheng could just exchange some shares with him. But if it was Superman Li’s idea, then Fu Guangzheng could not help much. Only Feng Yu could assist him. Fu Guangzheng’s total assets were too little compared to Superman Li.

“It’s my idea. I am no longer holding any positions in Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa.” Li Zekai said.

“Congratulations. Brother Kai, you are free now.” Feng Yu laughed.

“Congratulations? Why are you saying this?” Li Zekai frowned. He was no longer holding any positions in his father’s companies, and that means he was giving up his chance to succeed his father’s shares of the companies. What’s there to congratulate about?

“I am congratulating Brother Kai to be able to do whatever you want on the developments of your company. You do not need to have any reservations.” Feng Yu raised his glass for another toast.

“Hahaha. You are right. This was indeed worth celebrating! All this while, I am envious of Guangzheng. But now, I can also do the same.” Li Zekai laughed.

In Hong Kong, unless the eldest son was really a good-for-nothing, they will generally succeed the family’s businesses. But what if the family does not have sons? Then even when the head of the family was in his 60s or 70s, he will look for a young woman to have a son. Hong Kongers still believed in letting the eldest son take over the family businesses. This phenomenon was more severe in Hong Kong than in China.

Although Li Zekai does not want to admit it, his elder brother, Li Zeju was competent. If not, his father would not let him hold on to an essential role in his companies, and the rest of the shareholders also agreed to this decision.

Li Zekai’s elder brother was already so outstanding, and that means there was no chance for him to take over their family business. Maybe their father will leave some shares for him, but his elder brother will still have the overall control of the company. To compensate him, their father might still leave some other assets for him.

Most importantly, Li Zekai’s father will not interfere with his career and will not force him to follow his arrangements. Li Zekai could do whatever he wants.

“When it comes to investing in China, you should ask Brother Feng’s advice. To be honest, I had also invested in some small companies in China, but their growth was too slow. All of Brother Feng’s companies were doing well.” Fu Guangzheng said. He knew that Feng Yu want to be friends with Li Zekai and this was an excellent opportunity for both of them to be closer.

Feng Yu rubbed his nose: “Actually I have an idea. But I did not act on it all this while.”

Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai looked at each other. Both could see the excitement in each other’s eyes. They both asked at the same time: “What idea is it?”

“Supermarket! Both of you should not be stranger to this. Both the Fu Family and the Li Family have successful supermarket businesses. Why don’t we set up a chain of supermarkets in China?”

Feng Yu had thought of setting up a supermarket chain a long time ago. But he was not familiar with the supermarket business. In his previous life, he had only heard that a successful supermarket chain could generate over 10 million sales every day. The two most important aspects of a supermarket were the suppliers and location. Feng Yu could settle the supplier part by himself, but the location should be picked by the professionals.

The Fu Family and the Li Family had Supermarket businesses and were doing well. They should have lots of expertise in this industry. Also, Feng Yu could leave the management of the supermarkets to them, and he can be a sleeping partner.

But there were already supermarkets in China now. One of the world’s top leading supermarket chain, Century Lianhua Group, had started operations two years ago.

Currently, Century Lianhua was only focusing its operations in Shanghai. It still had not entered the Zhejiang region. Although it so has branches in Beijing, the scale was still small. The market was still huge. Feng Yu was thinking of investing a vast amount at once and set up supermarkets all over China. He wants to set up a chain of supermarkets and build up a supermarket brand. This supermarket chain will be China’s top supermarket company!

Every hyper supermarket’s investment should be more than 100 million RMB. But Feng Yu should be able to get a loan for this. Even if he set up 10 supermarkets at the same time, his total investments might be less than 500 million RMB. Also, he could delay payments for the goods in the supermarket for about 1 to 2 months. The goods would use the least capital.

Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai looked at each other again. Supermarkets? That’s right. China had a high population, and if they had picked an excellent location to set up a supermarket, they would surely make high profits! Both families had lots of talents that understand this trade inside out. They could just pick them to help them run this supermarket business!

“Brother Feng, tell us your plans.” Li Zekai asked excitedly.

Chapter 539 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 1 of 6)

Supermarkets appeared in China after the Chinese economic reform. But at that time, it was known as the “Self-service market.” The first supermarket was in Foshan, Guangdong under the name of “Friendship Store.” Because at that time, Guangdong province was one of the first test sites of the market economy. Other than cooking oil and food had limited supply, all the products could be bought using the money. Of course, the products were more expensive than using food tickets.

At that time, the supermarkets were very rundown. There were no display shelves and cashiers. Even the shopping carts had to be imported.

Luckily Foshan was very near to Hong Kong. All these items could be imported from Hong Kong. Using the imported items as samples, the small factories start to manufacture them. This lowered the cost significantly. If not, the cost of the shelves, trolleys, etc. would be 3 times more expensive.

But now, there were lots of supermarkets and supermarkets were no longer called “Self-service market.” They were called a supermarket. China had already implemented price changes, and a few years ago, the policy of unified and fixed state purchases of farm produces were abolished. Most major cities’ household still had lots of food tickets left.

This year May, food tickets will be gone, and the era of using food tickets to purchase food in China was over. Chinese no longer need to use cash and food tickets to buy their food.

This marks the end of China’s planned economy. China will be entering the era of the market economy. This was the best time to set up supermarkets in China.

Although there were a lot of supermarkets in China now, their scale was still small, and there were still no chain supermarkets. Also, these supermarkets were selling mainly food products. Only a handful was selling daily necessities. The varieties of products in the supermarkets could not be compared to the supermarkets in the future years.

Feng Yu felt his supermarkets would emerge from the rest and capture the market with just the imported daily necessities products the Fu Family and the Li Family could bring in!

“Brother Fu, Brother Kai, what do you think we will need the most when we set up this supermarket? Set aside money. The money will never be a problem for us. I can even use my connections to help us get low-interest loans.” Feng Yu felt that it would be better for spilled up the work clearly.

Fu Guangzheng looked at Li Zekai. Both the Li Family and the Fu Family had supermarket business, but at the same time, both of them had nothing to do with this business.

Li Family’s supermarkets were managed by Li Zeju, and the Fu Family’s Supermarkets was managed by Fu Rongbing. Fu Guangzheng had nothing to do with it.

Of course, both of them could help to pull strings and at the same time be the shareholders. But to set up supermarkets in China, Feng Yu was the most important person.

Fu Guangzheng understands Feng Yu very well. Feng Yu had suggested this, and he will want to have the most significant share. He will also be the one who will invest the most. Also, Feng Yu had connections with food and daily necessities suppliers. His Tai Hua Trading was working with a few hundred suppliers. This would save them lots of work.

Li Zekai remembered his father telling him that Feng Yu had met with Mr. Deng personally and this person was very influential in China. It was an excellent opportunity for him to be friends with Feng Yu.

Li Zekai firmly believes that his father would support him and lend him a considerable sum of money if he were to tell his father that he was going to set up supermarkets with Feng Yu. His father might even give him the contacts of their suppliers and lend him some staffs who were specialized in the Supermarket business.

“Government policies, capital, locations, channels, and management. I think these 5 elements are the most important. What government policies? This supermarket will be a joint venture between China and Hong Kong, and if Brother Feng uses your connections with the higher-ups, the Government might let us enjoy some government subsidies. Will this be a problem?” Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu.

“No problem. What are the policies you? Just tell me, and I will settle it.” Feng Yu nodded. Although he does not know what government policies they need, Master Lu should be able to help. Master Lu’s uncle was a member of the planning committee, and he will be promoted to the head of the committee soon.

Feng Yu could also contact the local government through his distributors. If all else fails, then he can throw money at them! The one thing that Feng Yu had the most was money!

“As for the start-up capital, the 3 of us should not be enough. I think we should divide it into 6 portions. Other then the 3 of us, we should invite my third uncle, Young Master Li should also get someone from his family. The remaining portion can be used to reward those management staffs.” Fu Guangzheng continues.

“Are we splitting the portions equally?”

Feng Yu raised his eyebrows. Equal share? Are you telling me that I will own only one-sixth of this business?

Fu Guangzheng waved his hand: “Brother Feng is the most influential in China, and he will be handling all the supplier channels there. He was also the one who proposed this. Why not let him invest the most and own the biggest share?”

Tsk tsk. Brother Fu was right. What he said was reasonable!

“How much should we invest and what will be the scale of our supermarket enterprise? Also, what is the name of our supermarket?” Li Zekai asked.

The name of the supermarket was very important. Why did Feng Yu insist Li Shiqiang name his logistics company as Wind and Rain Logistics? Why did Feng Yu use Wind and Rain or Aiwa in all his new products? Even when he set up new companies, he also named it as Wind and Rain Electronics or Aiwa Electronics, etc.

This was brand management. The brand would link all the products and resources together to achieve higher profits. This was to increase brand awareness and increase brand value. Feng Yu could make use of his brands to earn more money.

For example, two cars with the same technologies and quality. But one of them was the Porsche brand, and the other was Honda. The Porsche brand would cost several times more than Honda!

It was easy to create a brand, but it was hard to manage it. All of them believed that this supermarket will be profitable and will be influential. This was why the name was very important.

If possible, Fu Guangzheng would want to use his Third uncle’s supermarket brand. Li  Zekai would also wish to do the same. They were looking at Feng Yu. Since Feng Yu was the one who suggested this venture, he had the most significant say in this.

Feng Yu had also thought about using this supermarket to develop his brands. But it was not possible for him to use his own brands. Wind and Rain Supermarket? Zhang Ruiqiang had mentioned several times to him that Wind and Rain do not sound auspicious.

Aiwa Supermarket? Aiwa was the brand of electronics products. It’s not suitable too.

Tai Hua was the most suitable among all of Feng Yu’s brands. Other than Tai Hua Trading, there was also Tai Hua Agricultural Products. There should be agricultural products in a supermarket.

Also, Tai Hua had the word Hua in it. Hua means Chinese, and people would relate it with China.

“I think the supermarket should be called Tai Hua Supermarket. I can invest more. As for the scale, the initial phase should have at least 20 supermarkets in all the major cities. I can also let CCTV news to report on our supermarkets. It’s fine if we can set up the supermarkets in the existing shopping malls. If not, then we have to build it up from scratch. We need to take note of the time.” Feng Yu said his opinion.

“20 supermarkets at once? Is the scale slightly too big?” Li Zekai frowned and asked.

Fu Guangzheng laughed: “He is like this. He likes large scale ventures. He calls this a strategic move. I think it’s fine. You have never been to China. China is developing very fast, and the population of the major cities is very high. If we have enough funds, we should be setting up more than 30 supermarkets for the initial phase!”

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng. My best buddy……

Li Zekai looked at Fu Guangzheng without saying a word. You think you are great just because you are familiar with China? Are you discriminating those who had not been to China?!

Chapter 540 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 2 of 6)

Looking at Li Zekai’s unhappy face, Feng Yu laughed and said: “I shall leave the locations to the professionals from your family’s supermarkets. After both of you had chosen the locations, I will check if there will be future changes to the City’s development. I do not want the area around our supermarket to be tear down one year later.”

“This is not a problem. I can negotiate with the local government as I have the experience. I will go personally, and I will make sure the cost will be at the lowest.” Fu Guangzheng beat his chest.

“That’s for sure. But if you let me do the negotiations, it will be faster.” Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders.

Fu Guangzheng was scared of Feng Yu’s negotiation skills. Feng Yu always felt it was troublesome and every deal he negotiates, he wants it to end fast and does not care how much he spends. Although speed was necessary, money was also important.

Yes, you might earn profits from all your investments but if you are able to lower your cost, why not? We will be setting up so many supermarkets at once, and if we were to spend an extra few millions for each supermarket, it would add up to over tens of millions!

Li Zekai interrupted: “We should set up a negotiation team and let Guangzheng lead the team.”

All of them had invested in this venture, and Fu Guangzheng should not be the one making all the decisions during the negotiations. The scale of this venture was quite big, and the funds involved should be huge. Li Zekai might not be worried, but his family will not feel the same way.

“Hahaha, that’s settled. You think he will really let me make all the decisions? Although I am in control of the management of all the companies, he was the one in control of financial matters.” Fu Guangzheng points at Feng Yu and laughed.

Feng Yu smiled: “You also have some power over the financial matters. When have I ever stop you from spending money? Look, I have also never interfered with your management decisions.”

“That is because you are lazy!” Fu Guangzheng hits the spot.

Li Zekai was shocked. Will there be any problem working with these two people? Why does he feel like the both of them were unreliable?

“Then we shall not talk about that. I will handle all of China’s suppliers for food products and daily necessities. But if our supermarket wants to attract more customers, we should bring in some special products, like imported goods. Both of you should have no problems getting the suppliers, right?”

If they want their supermarkets to stand out from the rest and increase their status, then their supermarkets must be different. It was not sufficient for its supermarkets to be bigger. They need to have reliable sources of goods and products. The more suppliers they have, the retail prices will be lower and have more verity. This way, they can attract more customers.

If the supermarket has some products that were unavailable in other supermarkets or even in the cities, it would be better.

Li Zekai said: “My family has some contacts for food products and cosmetics. We also have contacts for some apparel brands.”

“My third uncle also have these contacts. We still have electronics products, stationaries, hardware, etc. Most of these were imported goods.” Fu Guangzheng glanced at Li Zekai. He had a proud look on his face. Can your family’s supermarket compare to my third uncle’s supermarkets?

“The supermarket should also have fresh food products. If we can let our customers get used to buying groceries in the supermarkets, it would increase the customer flow.” Li Zekai reminded.

“I can settle this fresh food product.” Feng Yu might need to look for his Tai Hua Trading’s distributors. All the distributors were prominent figures of their provinces and should not have a problem to help him a source for suppliers.

“Lastly, the management issue. Are we going to set up a board of directors for our supermarket enterprise? If we are going to set up, then who should be on board?” Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu.

“The both of you can decide on this. Anyway, this is a shareholding company, and if you are going to list this company on the stock exchange in the future, we can set up a board of directors now.” Feng Yu said.

Li Zekai looked at Feng Yu curiously: “Brother Feng, you have not considered listing the company?”

Fu Guangzheng leaned back and turned to Li Zekai: “I also do not understand what he was thinking. Some of his companies were eligible to be listed, but he just refuses to do so. I will not mention the companies we partnered with. Just look at his Tai Hua Trading. If his Tai Hua Trading is listed, the share prices will surely shoot up!”

“What is the reason for a company to be listed? Isn’t it to raise more funds for future developments? My companies do not lack money and why should do that to raise funds? Do you lack money now?” Feng Yu asked.

Actually, Feng Yu had another reason. He does not want to reveal his wealth. Once his wealth was announced, then he can no longer be an invisible tycoon. Although many people knew Feng Yu was a tycoon, no one knew how much Feng Yu has. Even Fu Guangzheng was not sure of Feng Yu’s total assets.

The Chinese had a hatred for the super wealthy tycoons. If a 20 years’ old young man suddenly appear and become China’s top tycoon, he will be the target.

Feng Yu wants to wait for a few more years. After Tai Hua school buildings were built all over China, he will then list all his companies on the stock exchange. At the same time, he can also avoid 1997, global financial crisis. Now, he does not need to worry about the share prices of his companies when he moves his funds around his companies. Feng Yu was preparing himself to make a killing during the financial crisis and teach those overseas speculators a lesson!

“We should still set up a board of directors. The 3 of us, Uncle Fu and my elder brother. The 5 of us can form the board of directors and who should be the chairman?” Li Zekai looked at Feng Yu.

Since Feng Yu was investing the most, and Fu Guangzheng was so supportive of him, Feng Yu should be the chairman.

“Chairman of the board? I am not interested. If anyone of you wants to be the chairman, go ahead. But I want to be the Executive Director.”

The position of Executive Director was much better. He could monitor the finances and all other company related matters. His authority will be higher than other directors. He can also suggest deposing the Chairman or other directors to the board!

Fu Guangzheng had an “I knew it” look on his face. This Feng Yu still wants to throw all the troublesome work to others!

Li Zekai was confused. Feng Yu had invested the most, and he does not want to be the Chairman of the board? He only wants to be an Executive Director? What’s the use of being an Executive Director? Other than the power to monitor the finances, what else can he do? How many rules and regulations matters can there be in the company for him to monitor? Other than financial matters, since when was there any Chairman being reported to the board by the Executive Director for other issues?

But when Li Zekai remembered what Fu Guangzheng said, Feng Yu only likes to monitor the finance of the company and does not want to handle other things.  This Feng Yu was weird. Li Zekai had never seen someone who dislikes being in power all his life. Feng Yu was not worried that someone would usurp all the power in the company?

The Chairman can make the strategic decisions and gets to side whichever parties he wants to gain benefits. Feng Yu was not interested?

Li Zekai looked at Fu Guangzheng. Fu Guangzheng said without any hesitations: “I want to be the Chairman.”

Before Li Zekai could say anything, Feng Yu nodded: “Fine. I will support you.”

Li Zekai: “……” Feng Yu and the Fu Family were together in this. There was no way he could get the Chairman position. Fu Rongbing will surely support his own nephew. Fu Guangzheng will be the Chairman. But to balance out the powers, I should be the General Manager.

Executive Director

Chapter 541 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 3 of 6)

Li Zekai also expressed his intention to be the General Manager. Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng agreed. In fact, being the General Manager was the most tiring position. Although he would have lots of authority, his authority was not very powerful either. Luckily, he was also one of the directors and can be considered the second in command in the company.

The 3 of them carried on with their lunch and assigned the duties to all parties. Now, they have to wait to see if Superman Li and Fu Rongbing wants to be part of this venture.

……

That evening, at the Li Family’s mansion, Li Zekai stopped Superman Li and Li Zeju: “Dad, Brother, can the both of you go to the study room for a while? I have something to tell the both of you.”

Superman Li looked at Li Zekai puzzled. Earlier in the morning, he had already given him 100 million USD. Could it be that the company had encountered some difficulties? Cannot be. Both Feng Yu and that kid from the Fu Family had invested. Li Zekai’s lawyer, who was also the Li Family’s lawyer had informed him after the contract was signed.

“Brother, your company had run into some problems?” Li Zeju asked concernedly.

Although both brothers were not close, they were brothers after all. Their relationship was not as bad as what the media reported. Also, Li Zeju was already appointed to be the successor, and there was nothing for both brothers to fight for.

“Dad, Brother, I had signed the contracts with Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng. They had invested 10 million USD each into Pacific Century Group. After that, we had lunch together, and we chatted about investing in China……”

Li Zekai told his father and brother about what was discussed over lunch and hinted that he does not have enough cash on hand. He only has 20 million USD, and it was not enough to invest. Based on what was discussed, Fu Guangzheng, Fu Rongbing, Li Zekai, and Superman Li will invest 30 million USD each for 15% shares. Feng Yu would invest 75 million USD for 35% shares. The remaining 5% of shares will be sold at 50% discount, 5 million USD, to the key employees.

This was why Li Zekai wants to borrow at least 10 million USD from his family and asked his father and brother to invest with 30 million USD into this venture. Also, he needs to select some staffs from their supermarket to be the managers in the company. Most importantly, he wants to use their family’s supplier network to supply Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise with products.

“The total worth of the shares was only 200 million USD. Why Feng Yu was willing to invest an extra 5 million USD?” Li Zeju asked curiously. 5 million USD might not be a lot to them, but it was also not a small amount.

“He gets to name the supermarket, and he wants to be the Executive Director.”

“He wants to be the Executive Director? Then who will be the Chairman?” Li Zeju was shocked. He thought Feng Yu would want to be the Chairman. Executive Director cannot take on the role of Chairman or General Manager. Feng Yu was giving up his authority!

“Fu Guangzheng will be the Chairman, and I will be the General Manager.”

“Fu Guangzheng and not Fu Rongbing? Zeju, what do you think of Fu Guangzheng’s ability?” Superman Li asked. Fu Rongbing had been managing the Fu Family’s supermarket business for decades. He should be the most suitable person to be the Chairman.

“I do not know much about Fu Guangzheng. However, in the past two years, he has been managing Hong Kong’s Guanghui Trading company and had been doing well. I had also heard of a joke about him. He likes to buy antiques. He attended an antique auction once and said that he had skipped an important meeting just for this auction.” Li Zeju replied.

Li Zeju had pointed out Fu Guangzheng’s capabilities and also his flaws.

“Dad, Brother, let me add one more thing. Feng Yu have lots of businesses in China, and Fu Guangzheng has some shares in those businesses. Fu Guangzheng is also the one managing those businesses.”

Without this reason, would Feng Yu support Fu Guangzheng to be the Chairman? This was also why Li Zekai did not oppose Fu Guangzheng to be the Chairman and opt to be the General Manager.

“Fu Guangzheng is managing Feng Yu’s businesses in China?” Li Zeju was confused. Feng Yu was the major shareholder, and he gives out his authority? Why? He really trusts Fu Guangzheng so much? How long have they known each other?

Superman Li understood why Feng Yu made such decisions, and he looked at his eldest son: “Do you think a 20 years’ old young man can have the energy to learn management while focusing on making investments?”

Many geniuses were talented in one field, but Superman Li have never seen someone who was gifted in all areas! Feng Yu wanted to be the Executive Director and could keep an eye on the company’s finances was enough. No matter who was in charge of the company, their ultimate motive was for the company to make money. Feng Yu, as the major shareholder, will be the one who will profit the most from the company.

Li Zeju finally understood. Feng Yu was not good at managing. But even if he was not good at it, he could still hold on to all the authority over his companies. He was full of respect for Feng Yu for letting go of all his power to others.

“Dad, I think this venture has the potential. But why is the total investment so high? 200 million USD. How many supermarkets are you all going to set up? With China’s current economy, are you sure you can make money? Have you calculated how long will it takes before you can get back the investments?” Li Zeju asked.

200 million USD was equivalent to more than 1 billion HKD. They could set up at least 10 supermarkets. Other than Shanghai and Beijing, were there other areas that were suitable to set up supermarkets?

“Our initial plan was to set up at least 20 supermarkets at once. The funds will be mainly used for the rental, fittings, marketing, and deposits for the goods. We will control the funds for every supermarket to be less than 100 million. I do not know China’s economic situation well, but Fu Guangzheng has been in China for some years. The Fu Family also have a supermarket business. He estimated it will take 3 years to get back our investments.” Li Zekai said.

“100 million for one supermarket and you all are going to set up 20 at once with your current funds? That means you all are going to get loans?” Li Zeju frowned. They were going all out. They did not consider the risks?

“That’s right. We are getting at least 1 billion loans. Our target is to set up at least 5 supermarkets within 3 years and 100 within 5 years!” Li Zekai replied.

“Did Feng Yu say how long he thinks he will get back his investments?” Superman Li asked suddenly.

Li Zekai’s expression suddenly became awkward, but he replied gravely: “Feng Yu said that at most it will take one year to get back our investments and then we can continue to invest in new supermarkets.”

“One year? Stop joking. How can you recover your investments within a year from a supermarket? Don’t you know that supermarkets depend on volume and the profits will not be over than 15%? Most of the time, the profits are only about 10%! To be able to earn back 100 million within a year, then how much must the monthly sales be? 100 million?” Li Zeju shook his head. This Feng Yu was too optimistic. Have you ever managed a supermarket before? Does he think that the profits from supermarkets were very high?

“Zeju, do you still remember that we have analyzed the Fu Family’s first supermarket’s profits?”

“About 30 to 35%.” Li Zeju answered. He still remembers the figures.

Wait, what did dad mean by this? Could it be that the profits from the supermarkets in China will also be so high? This…… Could this even be possible?

Chapter 542 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 4 of 6)

In the end, Superman Li agreed to support his younger son. He gave Li Zekai 20 million USD for him to invest. He also took out another 20 million to invest. He let Li Zekai owns 20% of the shares, while he owns 10%. As for transferring some staffs from their supermarkets to their new company, it was not an issue.

Furthermore, the people that were sent from their company will have 2 higher management staffs. They could get to purchase the shares at half the price. This was considered a reward for the ones that were sent over.

Also, Superman Li had wanted to enter the Chinese market. This venture was considered an experiment. Li Zeju did not want to invest. This was also a hint to his brother. This asset will be left for him in the future, and he will not fight with him over this.

Li Zekai was overjoyed when his father was persuaded. He also gets to own more shares.

At the same time, Fu Guangzheng was at his uncle, Fu Rongbing’s study to discuss this venture.

“You are saying that the Li Family will also be part of the venture? Can you confirm this?” Fu Rongbing asked.

“Li Zekai will be in this venture for sure. Superman Li is not confirmed yet. But I think there is an 80% chance he will invest.”

“Where did you get this confident?” Fu Rongbing picked up the cigar on the table and Fu Guangwei immediately help him light it.

Today, Fu Guangzheng was there to invite Fu Rongbing to invest in a new venture in China. Fu Guangwei also shamelessly tagged along in the study. He was the only son, and his family’s supermarket business will be handed over to him in the future. His sister will only be given some other assets. But if his father put this investment under his name, then he will have more money to spend in the future.

Fu Rongbing looked at his son and took the cigar from him. He knew what his son was thinking. He had given Fu Guangwei a high salary position in his company without any responsibilities. This was considered his allowances.

At the same time, this was a form of training for his son. He wants to see if his son would interfere with the company’s operations or steal the company’s money. Luckily, his Fu Guangwei did not do any of that. However, he was also very disappointed with him.

This son of his was given the title of Deputy General Manager. But he had never given any constructive suggestions. What the hell did he learn in school? Now, he still wants this investment? Fu Rongbing intends to test his son later. If he passes, then he will put this investment under his name. But if he does not know anything and still wants the shares, then he will “wake” him up.

Fu Rongbing’s eldest brother had said that Feng Yu was more influential than they imagined. If they could maintain a good relationship with Feng Yu, the Fu Family will be able to enter the Chinese market. Feng Yu would also be able to help them in many other ways.

Fu Rongbing’s business had hit a bottleneck. There were no more places for him to set up supermarkets in Hong Kong. He had expanded his business to Macau, Malaysia, etc. Now, China was the only place left untouched in Asia.

Although it was not his supermarket that will be entering the Chinese market, he will own some of its shares. It was the same. Most importantly, he could let Fu Guangwei get closer to Feng Yu. If Guangwei can build up a good relationship with Feng Yu, like Fu Guangzheng, then Feng Yu would allow him to invest in his new ventures. Fu Rongbing will not need to worry about his son’s future.

“Guangwei, you have also heard what Guangzheng said. What do you think?”

Fu Guangwei’s eyes brighten up. Was his dad testing him? If he gave a good answer, will he be handling this investment?

Fu Guangwei organized his thoughts and said: “Dad, I think this is a good opportunity. Our supermarket business has reached a bottleneck. Although the profits are still good, there are no more opportunities for us to grow. We have already set up supermarkets at all the good locations in Hong Kong and Macau. We have also ventured into Malaysia and Taiwan. But to be honest, other than the promotional periods, our profits were average. The returns from investments were too low.”

Fu Rongbing’s eyes widen. This son of his was not like what he imagined. He did not waste his life away. He still knows a lot about the company.

Looking at his father’s expression, Fu Guangwei was overjoyed. Some time ago, Feng Yu had told him to learn more about his family’s business and show off in front of his father. His father will be happy with him and give him more allowances. This was why he put in some effort to learn about the company, and he could finally use what he learned today!

What Fu Guangwei said was the company deputy Manager’s exact words. He knows nothing. But he could repeat everything. Brother Guangzheng was right. Being friends with Feng Yu will bring you luck!

“That’s why there are only two ways for our company to grow. First, we can take over our competitors’ supermarkets in Hong Kong, Macao, etc. But they might not sell their supermarkets at those better locations unless we offer a sky-high price. Those lousy locations will also not be useful for us and we might not even breakeven if we were to take over those. Locations have a significant impact on supermarkets.”

“The second way was to continue to enter new markets, like regions where the supermarket industry is not that developed. But I have also found out that we have only considered about Guangdong province and even in Guangdong province, we are only looking at 2 cities. These two cities already have supermarkets, and the supermarkets have their regular customers. If we were to enter these cities, we would face lots of resistance. Most importantly, our business model might not work in China. After all, we have different cultures and habits. It will be hard for us to be very successful. Of course, with our business model, we will not fail easily. I think it will be like our supermarkets in Malaysia. We will not suffer losses, but we will not have lots of profits too. It will take a long time for us to recover our investments.”

“But now, it is different. We will be partnering with others, and Fu Guangzheng will be the Chairman. He will be the one in command of the company. Although the Li Family will be part of this venture, the scale of their supermarket business is nothing compared to us. Theirs are only small supermarkets and looks more like retail shops. Ours are all big supermarkets. That’s why the new supermarkets in this venture will be using our people. Most importantly, we have more suppliers than the Li Family. Tai Hua Supermarket will be most likely to use our suppliers, and even though we might not earn from this, we can ask for discounts when they supply their goods to our supermarkets. This will lower our cost and increase our competitivity and profits!”

“There is still one more thing. China now was about the same as the old Hong Kong a few decades ago. What were our profits then when we just started the supermarket business? Also, there is one thing I agree with Brother Guangzheng. 5 years after we invested in Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise, we will get more than 10 times returns from our investment!”

Fu Guangzheng was shocked beyond words. He looked at Fu Guangwei. Since when did he start to have insights on the family’s business? Looking at his uncle’s expression, he could tell his uncle was satisfied with his son’s answer.

Did Fu Guangwei change for the better?

Chapter 543 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 5 of 6)

Fu Guangwei had given an insightful analysis of the industry. He remembered what the Deputy Manager told him, and he added some of his own thoughts. Fu Rongbing’s face was gleaming with happiness. His son had finally grown up!

“Are all these your own ideas?”

“Of course, Dad, you really think that I am not concerned with our family’s business?” Fu Guangwei asked with an innocent expression.

Fu Rongbing looked at Fu Guangzheng and noticed that Fu Guangzheng also had a shocked expression. Fe Guangzheng was not the one who thought him to say all these?

“Guangwei, I am pleased for you to have such foresight. But you are still too inexperienced on several aspects. But you are right on several points. One of them is about Guangzheng being the Chairman. This is very important. 30 million USD? I will invest in this venture. Guangwei, do you have the confidence to express your views on the board of directors?” Fu Rongbing was very happy to see his son grow up.

Fu Guangwei was elated. He knew what his father meant.

“Don’t worry. I am not a kid. Furthermore, Brother Guangzheng is around. The supermarket managers’ training will surely be handed over to us. Maybe we can even send our supermarket managers over. We will have total control over the mid-management staffs. What’s there to be afraid of?” Fu Guangwei pumped out his chest and said.

“Guangzheng, we will be sending our managers over?”

“We had discussed this. One supermarket will need at least 10 management staffs, managers, floor managers, supervisors, etc. We plan to set up at least 20 supermarkets. We can hire the locals for junior positions, but the supermarket managers must have the relevant experiences. At first, I had wanted to supply all the managers from our ParknShop Supermarkets. But Li Zekai pointed out one thing. Our managers do not know who to speak Mandarin. It will be hard for them to manage the staffs!”

“The Li Family’s staffs can speak Mandarin? They are also the same!” Fu Rongbing said unhappily.

“The Li Family’s Watsons had entered China a few years ago. They do have staffs that were familiar with the Chinese market and can speak Mandarin well.” Fu Guangzheng explained.

“How big are their shops? Can their shop managers manage a big supermarket?” Fu Rongbing said with disdain. Was it really that important to speak Mandarin? The ability to manage was the most important!

“We concluded that we will each pick 10 supermarket managers each for training at our supermarkets. Li Family’s staffs will teach our people how to speak Mandarin and how to communicate with the Chinese. In return, we will teach them how to manage a big supermarket. The assistant store managers and floor managers will be hired from the locals, as many places in China still speak their local dialects.”

Fu Guangzheng was also feeling very helpless over this problem. Although the Fu Family have lots of experiences in managing big supermarkets, the Li Family had entered the Chinese market earlier. The Li Family’s businesses in China was only a trial and had stores in only Beijing and Shanghai. But the Fu Family does not have any stores in China yet.

Fu Guangzheng laughed at the issue of speaking Mandarin. You can try speaking Mandarin in Shangdong. It is no difference in speaking Cantonese with them! But Feng Yu said that speaking Mandarin was very important and he had to give in.

Fu Guangzheng had to let go of some of his authority, and he was unhappy with it. Luckily, after their supermarkets were in operation, these managers will have to compete for the positions. He was confident that the managers from the Fu Family will win!

“If the Li Family’s managers cannot perform, sack them immediately. It is only 20 store managers. Any floor managers from our supermarkets can easily take on these roles. I will send Bai Yiming to help you. He is from Guangdong and should be willing to return back to China to work there. He is also capable and trustworthy. You see who else is suitable and I will transfer them over to help you.”

Bai Yiming was Wellcome Supermarket’s Deputy General Manager. His salaries were quite high, but he does not have any shares in the company. He will be returning back to China for work, and there will be no changes with his salaries. He will even get the opportunity to own the company’s shares. Also, he had already gained 1 million USD from the 1% shares. The Fu Family had given this opportunity to Bai Yiming, and Bai Yiming will surely pledge his loyalty to the Fu Family.

“Thank you, Uncle. With Deputy Manager Bai helping me, it will be easier for me to manage the company.” Fu Guangzheng was glad. His third uncle was sending someone capable to help him. This will make his job easier.

Fu Guanzheng left after finishing discussing the details. Fu Rongbing called Fu Guangwei over and gave him a lecture. He wanted Fu Guangwei to observe how the rest work and learn from them. If he encountered any problem, he should discuss with Fu Guangzheng and Bai Yiming. He can also call back home to ask for advice.

Fu Guangwei acknowledged. He knew his own capabilities, and he would not do well if he were to really manage the business. He admired Feng Yu for throwing all the work to others and gets to do whatever he likes.

“Guangwei, how is your sister and Feng Yu getting along? Have you asked your sister?” Fu Rongbing asked.

“I have not asked her. I will ask Feng Yu tomorrow when I see him. But both are hiding this matter from us, and they will not admit it even if I ask them.” Fu Guangwei replied.

“She is your sister, and you show to be more concern with her. Both of them do not want to admit it is not important. You must help to bring them together. If Feng Yu becomes your brother-in-law, you might be even more successful than Guangzheng in the future!”

Fu Guangwei suddenly realized this. That’s right. If Feng Yu becomes my brother-in-law, then his sister can help him ask Feng Yu to let him join in future investments.

“Dad, rest assured. I will make sure Feng Yu will fall in love with Sis!” Fu Guangwei said.

……

The next morning, Feng Yu received a call from Fu Guangzheng after his breakfast. Fu Guangzheng asked him to come to Hong Kong Guanghui Trading Company for a final discussion over the details of their venture.

Everyone was already there when Feng Yu arrived. Feng Yu saw that Fu Rongbing was not present, but Fu Guangwei was the one who came. Li Zekai was seated with another person who looks like him. This person must be Li Zeju. There were a few more people who Feng Yu had not met before. They should be higher management staffs from both families.

“Brother Feng let me introduce. This is Li Zeju, eldest son of the Li Family. This is Uncle Li’s assistant, Mr. Su. Mr. Su also has shares in Uncle Li’s company. This is Watsons Hong Kong’s Deputy General Manager Lin Jiang. This is Watsons China’s Deputy General Manager Huang Yishan. This is my Third uncle’s assistant, Hong Guofa. This gentleman here is Bai Yiming. He is the Deputy General Manager of Wellcome Superman. He is from Guangdong. This person is Wellcome Supermarket’s overseas operations manager, Yang Mingyuen……” Fu Guangzheng introduced everybody to Feng Yu.

Li Zeju was the one first to speak: “I have long heard of Brother Feng’s name. I can finally meet you today. My father cannot be here because of his work. That’s why he sent Mr. Su and me to represent him. My father is the one who is investing in this venture.”

Li Zeju will not be investing? That means Superman Li intents to leave the supermarket shares to Li Zekai in the future? But these were not important. Superman Li was investing in this venture, and this was a good sign!

Fu Guangwei proudly said: “My dad had handed this investment to me. The funds are already in my account.”

“Congratulations, Guangwei. You are finally independent.” Feng Yu laughed. If your father really thinks that you can do well, he will not send his assistant, Hong Guofa over. He was obviously keeping you in check!

Those 4 people should be the supermarket higher management staffs selected by both families. They should be the ones who will get those shares and will be in charge of the key roles.

5% of shares will be split equally to 5 people. Both families will each appoint 2 people, and Feng Yu will also need to select one person. This person was Tai Hua Agriculture Products Company’s Deputy General Manager. His name was Huang Zhigao. He was the one who Feng Yu had been grooming and monitoring Zhang Ming. Now, Feng Yu no longer needs to watch Zhang Ming, as he had proved his abilities and his character.

Huang Zhigao does not have 1 million USD to buy the shares. Feng Yu personally lend him the money, and he can slowly repay Feng Yu in the future. This made Huang Zhigao more loyal to Feng Yu!

Watsons

Chapter 544 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 6 of 6)

When everybody thought that the contracts will be signed soon, Superman Li’s assistant, Mr. Su suddenly asked.

“Mr. Feng, you all want to set up so many big supermarkets at once. Can I ask about the market position of your supermarkets?”

“Market positioning? We want to create a core concept of one-stop shopping! We are not managing a normal supermarket. We are building hypermarkets! We will satisfy the consumers in terms of prices, varieties, qualities, convivence, customer service and lots more. We want to meet our customer’s needs. Tai Hua Supermarkets will be the best hypermarket in any cities and will be the City’s landmark!”

Feng Yu was copying the Carrefour model from his previous life. Carrefour was the first to open hypermarkets, and also Europe’s and the world’s number 2 supermarket chain. After Carrefour entered the Chinese market, it climbed to the top position of the Chinese Supermarket industry. Their model was very successful!

Mr. Su frowned. City’s landmark? Their target was too high. It was not an easy task for a supermarket to become a city’s landmark.

Nevertheless, Mr. Su felt that Feng Yu wanted was quite good. It would not be easy to reach this goal. It will take lots of energy to take care of the prices, varieties, qualities, convivence, and customer service. Was the target set too high?

“You want good quality products at low prices, and you still want to have a wide variety of goods? Then where are you getting the profits from?” Mr. Su asked directly.

The prices for good quality products were not low. To have a wide variety of goods, that means some of the least popular goods will be left on the shelves and might even expire. There will be high wastage, and their cost will increase. Where will they get the profits from?

Feng Yu smiled at Mr. Su and looked at the rest. Seems like everybody there was interested to know the answer. These people had discussed this before he arrived.

“What? Don’t all of you know the answer to this simple question? If we are going to rent the location of our supermarkets, how much will it cost? We had set a budget of 100 million RMB for a supermarket because it includes the land parcel! Our supermarket will be the core, and we will open a hypermarket. The remaining empty spaces can be rented out. With our hypermarket pulling in customers, do you think the rents will be low?”

“Also, we are opening more than 20 supermarkets at once. We are a huge sales platform for manufacturers. Why can’t collect slotting fees?”

“Wait.” Mr. Su interrupted Feng Yu. “I understand what about the rents, but what is slotting fees?”

“Simply put it, it is the entrance fees to our stores! The products sold in our supermarkets will be classified based on the product’s brand influences. The bigger the brand’s influence is, the lower the fees are. The lower the brand’s influence is, the higher the fees are. This is because they are making use of our supermarkets to display their products!”

Mr. Su, including the rest, jaws dropped. Feng Yu was too bold to suggest this! Collecting entrance fees? Only those prominent shopping malls can do that. Their supermarket was still new, and there was no awareness. Furthermore, they were just a supermarket. Why would the suppliers be willing to pay to display their goods with them?

“All of you don’t believe me? What if our hypermarkets are featured in China’s national media? If our hypermarkets are visited by China’s top leaders? Do you think the suppliers will object to us collecting fees from them?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

It suddenly dawned on Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai. Both of them remembered that Feng Yu had said he could let their supermarkets to be featured on CCTV. CCTV was the national TV station of China and had a significant impact on the Chinese. If this works out, then the slotting fees will not be a small amount. The rentals will also be raised.

“If that’s the case, then the slotting fees should generate a high revenue to us. Is there anything else?” Mr. Su continued to ask.

Of course. For example, we can use a force promotions model. Our supermarkets will have promotional products every day to increase customer flow. The suppliers will take turns to offer their products, and they have to pay for the marketing fees. During the promotions, we will place the discounted products at a prominent space. This is also good for the company to increase its brand awareness.”

“Force promotions? That means the suppliers will have to suffer losses to help our supermarkets increase our customer flows and profits? Are you sure they will agree to this?” Mr. Su frowned and asked.

“They will surely agree. I can guarantee this. Don’t forget that we will be China’s top supermarket chain. We will have the highest customer flow and sales volume. Also, the suppliers will be taking turns to offer discounts on their products. I am not asking them to do promotions every day. When it was another supplier’s turn, you will also benefit from it. This is like a collective effort to advertise. Whoever that do not agree will not be allowed to sell their products in our supermarkets!” Feng Yu said with an arrogant tone.

“Anything else?” Mr. Su felt this might be possible, but it will still depend on the actual situation.

“Of course. It is also like collective advertising. For instance, during festivals and weekends, we will be giving out leaflets. Whoever wants their products to be featured on the leaflets will have to pay the advertising fees and also the people distributing the leaflets. We can also collect a display fee. We will allocate a space along the aisle or an empty space for the suppliers to display their goods. These places will attract the most attention and will increase their sales. The suppliers cannot use these places for free. If they want those places, they have to pay for it!”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, there were some “God-level” packers at supermarkets whose daily salaries were more than thousands and even more than tens of thousand RMB. It was because the way they packed the products will attract the customers’ attention and increase brand awareness.

“Lastly, our fresh produce sections must ensure our products are the freshest. We can get these products directly from the farmers, and we can even build a supply base. There will be no middlemen, and if our stocks are running low, we can stock up anytime. We want our customers to get used to coming to our supermarkets to buy their groceries every day. After they had bought their vegetables, meat, etc. they can buy other items like salt, cooking oil, etc. When they are buying those items, they will see the milk, ham, instant noodles, etc. nearby. So, even if the customer had come to buy 2 cucumbers, they will end up purchasing lots of other items.”

“I have access to many suppliers for a wide variety of goods in China. I do not need to say how much cheaper I can get those goods and all of you will be supplying the imported products and this will attract more customers. Mr. Su, do you have any more questions?”

“I have no more questions. Mr. Feng is indeed like what my boss said. Although this might seem to be an idea out of nowhere, you have already planned everything out.”

Mr. Su finished talking and turned to Li Zeju. Li Zeju nodded. This was an indication that the Li Family will be part of this venture!

Chapter 545 – Issues of a partnership (Part 1 of 2)

The Li Family had confirmed their investments, and so does Fu Rongbing. Fu Rongbing was very interested in this venture and had sent his assistant over. Now that the Li Family had confirmed, Hong Guofa also nodded to Fu Guangwei.

The investors were settled. Now, all the parties need to confirm the amount they will be investing in. Other than Superman Li and Li Zekai shares had some changes, there were no changes to the rest of the parties. The total amount of Li Family’s investment did not change, but Li Zekai will own more shares while Superman Li will be getting lesser percentages. This was within their own family, and the other parties did not object to this.

The remaining 5% of shares were offered to the 5 assistant General managers. Among the assistants, Huang Zhigao was not present and Feng Yu represented him. Each of the assistants was offered 1% shares for 1 million USD, and they will be one of the shareholders.

Shareholders meeting and board of directors were different. Shareholder meetings do not take into account the number of votes. It was based on the percentage of the shares to make decisions. Whoever’s suggestions received the support of more than 50% shares, it will be approved.

The shareholders appointed Feng Yu as the Executive Director and his duty was to watch the company’s finances and the other higher management. He will also have the power to set up an audit team to audit the various departments. He will only answer to the board.

Feng Yu and the other 4 key shareholders will form Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise’s board of directors. Feng Yu will be an independent director, and he will step down from the board once the company was listed. This was because as Executive Director, he should not be on holding on to any positions in the company.

Everyone voted Fu Guangzheng to be the Chairman of the board and Fu Guangzheng nominated Li Zekai as the General Manger of the company. The 5 smaller shareholders were also appointed to be the Deputy General Managers and were put in charge of various departments. Among them, Huang Zhigao was put in charge of the Finance department.

These were only some arrangements of their position after the company was officially set up. The Deputy General Managers envied Feng Yu for his position of Independent Director in the board. The board of directors was the core of the company’s management and had the most authorities.

With all these matters sorted out, Fu Guangzheng asked his lawyer to draft out the contracts.

The next day, Fu Guangzheng flew to Beijing. He registered Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise in Beijing, and he will be the legal representative of the company. Feng Yu was the one who wanted the company to be registered in China. He had wished for the company to be registered in Bing City, but the rest of his partners objected.

One week later, all of them received the documents which stated their shares. This company was officially set up. But now, all of the shareholders had only transferred 10% of their investments into the company. After all, the locations of the supermarkets were not finalized yet, and there was no use for the company to hold so many funds. When the locations were finalized, then the shareholders will wire the money in.

The company had also formed a team to look for suitable locations for its supermarkets in various cities. Fu Guangzheng was still the one who will have the final say on the location.

At the same time, the Li Family had also sent some of his supermarket staffs over to the Fu Family’s company for training. But during training, issues arise. Fu Rongbing refuses to reveal his core business management secrets to the Li Family.

Both the Li Family and Fu Family were in the retail business. The Fu Family will never let their competitors know their secrets. Although both families were partners now, both families had their own strengths. If one party knew the secrets of the other party, then the latter will be out of the game soon!

At first, the Li Family’s staffs thought that they would be able to receive training at Wellcome Supermarkets and they would be appointed as the assistants of the store managers to learn how to manage a big supermarket.

But the Fu Family arranged them to ordinary positions like cashiers and packer. This was not what the Li Family expected.

What can the staffs learn in those positions? The Li Family’s staffs nearly resign on the spot! They knew their own capabilities. They could quickly get the position of a floor manager in bigger supermarkets. Was there a need for them to learn how to be a cashier or packer? What’s there to learn?

The Fu Family had also sent their staffs over to the Li Supermarket for training. They also wanted to learn the Li Family’s style of management and see if they could learn their secrets. At the same time, they wanted to learn Mandarin and other stuff.

But the Fu Family had mistreated the Li Family’s staffs, the Li Family’s staffs refuse to teach them anything.

Fu Guangzheng was busy in China, and he called Feng Yu to help settle this dispute. No matter if it was Li Zeju or Fu Guangwei stepping forward to resolve this issue, there will be biases. Feng Yu was the most suitable person.

Feng Yu was also feeling irritated when he heard about this issue. Why can’t everyone work together happily? When Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise makes money, everyone will get a share. Was there a need to be hostile to each other?

But not everyone thought the same way as Feng Yu and was willing to surrender the authority to others. All of them were used to be in power and to get the most out of it.

Especially those store managers. Once more supermarkets were opened, it will be divided into zones. All the store managers will be fighting among themselves for the position of area managers.

The higher their positions, the higher their salaries. None of them were willing to give it up. At a more senior position, they would be able to command more people. If they could order others around, why should they choose to be ordered by someone else?

In the future, when the company was listed, the company will surely reward them with shares. The higher their positions were, the more shares they will be getting. If they were lucky, they might even become one of the directors!

Feng Yu called Fu Guangwei and Li Zekai over for a discussion. He wanted them to restrain their staffs. They have not even set up their first supermarket, and the infighting had already started!

How can this company prosperous if there were no unity within? Now, the staffs have their own positions, and they were already fighting among themselves. When the new supermarkets open, the fights will worsen when they compete for the store manager positions.

“Brother Kai, Wei Zai, when I asked every one together for this venture is to gather the strength of all parties and resources. But now, it seems that before we can combine our strengths, the infighting started. Although it was not recorded on the files, we do agree that the Li Family will send their staffs to Wellcome for training and at the same time pass some experiences of working in China to the Fu Family’s staffs. How did things turn out this way?” Feng Yu looked at both of them and said with an angry tone.

“Wei Zai, shouldn’t you give me an explanation? Your family had assigned our staffs to those junior roles, and they are not even management roles.” Li Zekai was the first show his displeasure.

Li Zekai and Fu Guangwei were not friends, and he despises him for being a useless 2nd generation, who knows nothing but to play. If Fu Guangwei were not Fu Rongbing’s only son, he would not have such a good life.

“Young Master Li, we had an agreement that we will conduct the training. Also, all the store managers in my family’s supermarket need to know all the positions in the store. This will help them manage the store better. We had agreed that they will be rotating their positions and they will be moving to another role after a week. Is there a problem with this? I still want to ask you about your staff’s attitude. All of them were so arrogant!” Fu Guangwei was young and impulsive. He was not ready to back down on this matter.

Others might be afraid of you and your Li Family. But I am not scared. If you want to compare our family’s wealth, we will win!

Feng Yu had a severe headache. He asked both of them here to solve this problem. How come both of them started to fight?

Chapter 546 – Issues of a partnership (Part 2 of 2)

Li Zekai and Fu Guangwei started arguing, and both felt that their staffs were not wrong. The fault lies on the other party, and the other party has to give in!

At this moment, both of them were not listening to each other and firmly believe their own staffs. Both Li Zekai and Fu Guangwei were brought up with a silver spoon and were hard-headed. The words “Giving in” was not in their dictionaries.

As the argument got more furious, Feng Yu suddenly banged hard on the table.

Bang!

Li Zekai and Fu Guangwei were stunned. Both of them turned to look at Feng Yu.

“Stop arguing! What’s there to argue? Did we set up this company for both of you to argue? One of you is the Second Master of the Li Family, and the other is from the Fu Family. If words get out, your families will be laughing stock!” Feng Yu roared.

Both of them kept quiet and turned their heads away from each other.

Feng Yu sighed and continued: “What have we agreed on initially? The Li Family will select their staffs from Watsons and their supermarkets and send them over the Wellcome supermarkets to learn how to manage big supermarkets. At the same time, they are to share their experiences of working in China with the Fu Family’s managers. They are also supposed to teach them some basic Mandarin. Am I right? Now, let’s sort this out slowly and see which part of this arrangement had gone wrong. Wei Zai, you start first.”

Fu Guangwei glanced at Li Zekai and turned to Feng Yu: “Our supermarkets is scheduled to open mid next year. Deducting the preparation works, we still have a few months to train those people. A few months are more than enough to let these people experience all the positions in our supermarkets. All our Wellcome Supermarkets’ managers were trained this way. What’s wrong with training the Li Family’s staffs the same way? They have to experience all the positions and make their way up.”

Fu Guangwei was saying that the Li Family’s staffs were too pampered. The fault does not lie with their arrangements. The Li Family’s staffs do not know how to manage supermarkets, and yet they were not willing to learn.

“Our people are experienced staffs. One of them is still a Deputy Director of a shopping mall in China. You make someone like him be a shop assistant? This is an insult to him!” Li Zekai rebutted.

Li Sekai had never heard of being a store manager have to be trained to be a shop assistant first. The store manager’s responsibility was to manage the supermarket and not manage the shop assistants only. The Fu Family was obvious fooling them! If outsiders knew that the Li Family’s management staffs worked as shop assistants at the Fu Family’s supermarkets, they would lose face.

Was the Fu Family implying that a Deputy Director from the Li Family can only be a Shop assistant in their supermarket? Although the Fu Family was powerful, it depends on who they were facing. The Li Family was not someone they could mess with. Furthermore, they were facing Fu Rongbing and not Fu Rongqi. Fu Rongbing was still not qualified to go head on with the Li Family!

“Do you think managing a shopping mall and a supermarket is the same? When I entered the Wellcome Supermarket, I also started off as a Cashier. Why can’t they do the same?” Fu Guangzheng pointed to himself and said.

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangwei in surprised. This idiot had worked as a cashier before?

Fu Guangwei had not disclosed something. He quit after half an hour as a cashier. A cashier needs to be standing the whole time in a small space. It was tiring, and he was embarrassed. He was afraid he would meet someone who knew him.

Li Zekai was also surprised by what Fu Guangwei said. Could this really how the Fu Family manage their staffs? But that’s your family methods of training. The same thing cannot be applied to the Li Family’s staffs. He quickly thought of an excuse.

“You should not have any prior working experiences when you are assigned to be a cashier, right? Our staffs have many years of management experiences. They are only not familiar with managing a big supermarket. How can you compare this way? I will be honest with you. Your management skills cannot even be compared with any one of them!” Li Zekai said.

Fu Guangwei blew up, and Feng Yu immediately pull him back. Damn, this moron was about to hit Li Zekai. It would be headlines on Hong Kong’s media if both of them got into a fight.

Feng Yu was the one who asked both to come out. If they got into a fight in front of him, there was no way for him to face both families. He would not be able to make both families work with him against those western financial speculators in the future.

“Fine. Stop fighting and listen to me! Those people from the Li Family do have lots of management experiences, but malls and small supermarkets are different from big supermarkets. This is the reason why they are sent to Wellcome Supermarkets for training. But Wai Zai, those people are also considered middle management staffs. They are all qualified to be a store manager. They are only not familiar with the big supermarket operations, and they might face difficulties when managing in the future. This is why they are at the Wellcome Supermarket for training. But all of them can also share their experiences with your people. All of them are supposed to be learning from each other!”

“Does it include our financial reports?” Fu Guangzehgn sneered. Those people still wanted to see Wellcome Supermarket’s development plans. Can this confidential information be revealed to outsiders?

Feng Yu looked at Li Zekai. What’s your explanation? Your people were supposed to learn at people’s supermarket. Why were they asking for their financial reports? Were they there to be trained or audit?

“They just want to learn about financial management.” Li Zekai tried to argue.

“Brother Kai, I shall not say much. If the managers from the Fu Family were to go to your company for training, will you let them see your financial reports?” Feng Yu asked.

“That’s right. You all can show me your financial reports and also your company’s future plans.” Fu Guangwei interrupted.

“Why not we let the Fu Family’s managers go over to your family’s businesses in China for training? They could experience the differences between China and Hong Kong first hand. They can also learn basic Mandarin.” Feng Yu suggested.

No matter how good you are at in theory, it is useless if you are unable to use it in real life. Fu Guangzheng had suggested to Feng Yu before, but Feng Yu wanted to let Fu Guangwei speak to Li Zekai himself. It was unsure whether Fu Guangwei had told Li Zekai and was rejected, or he did not even ask.

But this suggestion was the simplest way to solve this argument.

Feng Yu saw Fu Guangwei still wanting to say something, he stopped him and continued: “No more requesting to see other company’s financial reports or development plans. No parties will agree to this. Lastly, I want to remind both of you. I can afford to let this Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise fail, but not the both of you!”

Feng Yu had used his own money and does not rely on others. But both of them were different. If they failed, their status in front of their fathers will be lowered and will have a significant impact on their futures.

Both Li Zekai and Fu Guangwei looked at each other, and Li Zekai stood up and said: “I will discuss with my father and let you all know the answers tomorrow.”

Fu Guangwei left after Li Zekai. He also needs to discuss with his father about this. If those managers were to leave their supermarket earlier, they need to make the arrangements.

Feng Yu was relieved when both of them took note of his warnings. It was Feng Yu’s turn to feel frustrated. When was Fu Guangzheng coming back? This should be the job of the chairman. He was only an executive director. His duties were not to solve conflicts between directors!

Feng Yu thought that the supermarket should be easily set up if he were to work with the Li and Fu Families. He did not expect so many conflicts to arise from this cooperation. If he had known this would happen, he would have set up the supermarkets himself!

Chapter 547 – Little Superman was reprimanded

“Dad, that’s what happened. Can we arrange for the Fu Family’s staffs to undergo training at our China Shopping malls?” Li Zaikai told Superman Li what happened, hoping to get his father’s support.

“You are telling me that the people you sent wanted to see the Fu Family’s financial reports and development plans?” Superman Li asked.

“Ermmm… I also did not expect this to happen.” Li Zekai was ashamed. The staffs were handed to him, and he did not manage them well.

“Just because of this, you agree to let the Fu Family’s staffs come to our malls to learn?”

“Dad, is there anything wrong? We are giving training to each other staffs. It’s fair to both parties.” Li Zekai asked. He could not understand what was wrong.

“Stupid! Don’t you know what the real objective of this Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise is? We are going to set up Hypermarkets with supermarkets as the core business! The Fu Family only know how to manage supermarkets and the people I gave you are all the managers of shopping malls. When we are choosing the position regional area managers in the future, they will have a great advantage. Now, you are letting the Fu Family’s people come to our malls to learn how to manage. We will all be back to square one in the future. You made us lose our advantage!” Superman Li knocked on the table hard.

Superman Li still had high hopes for this younger son. Although Li Zekai was not as mature as his elder brother, he was creative, and most importantly, he was friends with Feng Yu.

Since the late 80s, many Hong Kong businessmen had started to withdraw their investments from China. They felt that once Hong Kong was returned back to China, there will be changes to the policies and the situation would be risky.

But Superman Li did the opposite. He starts to focus in China and begins to buy over the assets of those businessmen. This included the land, factories, and many more. Among the assets, land, and properties were the most, and the factories were the least.

The past 3 to 4 years, the Li Family did not buy any land parcels in Hong Kong. All the land parcels in Hong Kong were purchased by a Hong Kong businessman, Mr. Lee, Fu Rongqi, Fu Rongqu, and other Hong Kong businessmen. The Li Family focuses all their resources in China, and the land they owned in China was 10 times more than what they had in Hong Kong.  This was the same as the properties.

Superman Li had spoken to Mr. Deng. He knew that Mr. Deng would not make things difficult for the Hong Kong Businessmen. Instead, he would support and help to maintain Hong Kong’s stability. Hong Kong will continue as an Economic powerhouse of Asia.

Superman Li knew that after the first housing reforms in China, there will undoubtedly be second reforms within the next few years. When that happen, the property prices will skyrocket. The land and properties prices will start to rise. With all the assets in his hands, he would make a killing.

To show the Chinese Government that he was not buying the land and not doing anything, he starts to build some shopping malls and office buildings on a few land parcels. He also submitted the land development proposals for some parcels. But the proposals were full of errors. This way, the higher-ups will not approve the plans, and Superman Li can still hold on to the land, waiting for the land value to increase.

The Li Family’s business in China was Shopping malls. This was also the industry Superman Li wanted to focus in China. This had no conflicts with Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise. Even if there were overlapping areas, it does not matter. The market segments they were targeting were different. Superman Li’s shopping malls were targeting more affluent demographics.

But no matter which demographics they were targeting, there will still be profits. If the Li Family’s staffs were in-charge of the regional area supermarkets, then they could influence the management decisions to prevent Tai Hua Supermarkets locations from being too close to the Li Family’s shopping malls. This would prevent competitions, and they could even pass the better sites to the Li Family.

But now, Li Zekai had disrupted all of Superman Li’s plans. Li Zekai had not kept his men in check and gave Feng Yu this opportunity.

Superman Li does not believe what Li Zekai said. Feng Yu suggested this to be fair. Feng Yu was China most wealthy person. Li Zekai estimates his wealth to be more than 6 billion HKD. But Superman Li felt it was much more than that. All of Feng Yu’s companies were not listed on the stock exchange. If the companies were listed, Feng Yu’s assets would increase by several folds. He would have the strength to go head on with the Li Family.

Feng Yu and the Fu Family was also very close. If both work together, then the vast China market might end up in their hands. Feng Yu must have made use of this opportunity to blow up this matter. He might even plan this with the Fu Family!

Li Zekai looked at his furious father. He realized that he had made a mistake. Although his ego was high, he would still apologize when he made mistakes.

“Dad, I still did not agree to this proposal. I told them that I need to discuss with you first. Why not I reject this proposal tomorrow and promise to keep our people in check?”

“Reject? How do you reject? You think Fu Rongbing will accept this? Don’t think that Fu Rongbing does not have many assets. No matter what, he is still someone from the Fu Family. If all 4 brothers of the Fu Family come together, it will be hard to deal with them. Furthermore, there is still Feng Yu! Feng Yu is still young, and he worked his way up from scratch. He can make his fortune all by himself, you think he is not full of pride? Offending him might be even more troublesome than offending the Fu Family!” Superman Li shook his head. His younger son still requires more training.

“Dad, do we need to be so cautious about Feng Yu? Yes, he is competent and is very wealthy. But there is no way he can compete with you. He might have met Mr. Deng personally, but you have met Mr. Deng many more times. He might have lots of assets, but his assets are nothing compared to our family. In terms of connections, experiences, strengths, our family is better than him. Why do we need to worry about him?” Li Zekai said.

“If you are talking about Hong Kong, we do need to worry. But what if it is in China? Feng Yu’s base is in China, and he is more powerful than us there. He also has investments in Japan and Russia. If I guessed correctly, he should have invested in the US too. Lawyer Wilson had bought quite some properties in Hong Kong over the past 2 years. Those are all high-value properties. Where do you think he got his money from? Think about how much our lawyers’ charges and you will know how many contracts Wilson had gone through for Feng Yu.”

Superman Li sighed. If he did not pay close attention to these details, he would still be unaware of Feng Yu’s real capabilities. Feng Yu might be a super tycoon, and his wealth might not be less than him. Even in Hong Kong, Feng Yu should be one of the top 10 tycoons.

The top 10 tycoons in Hong Kong had more than 10 billion HKD worth of assets. The businesses they controlled might even be worth more than 10 billion USD.

Most importantly, Feng Yu was only 20 years’ old, and Superman Li heard that he made all his fortune within 5 years. 5 years. From zero to someone with assets worth more than 10 billion HKD and he did not even own a listed company. This showed how scary Feng Yu was.

In Superman Li’s heart, Feng Yu status was on the same level as the Fu Family. It was the whole Fu Family and not someone from the Fu Family!

Li Zekai’s jaws dropped. He does not know what to say. Feng Yu was more powerful than he had imagined. He thought he had overestimated Feng Yu’s abilities, but it was the opposite. He had underestimated Feng Yu.

“Just agree to his proposal and let our staffs follow the rules. Know their places and undergo the training as told. This will be their last chance. You! Don’t disappoint me again!”

“Sorry, dad. I will go back to work. Have a good rest.”

Li Zekai walked out of the study and returned back to his room. He made some phone calls and sighed. In his heart, he was also feeling excited. He found out how powerful Feng Yu was, and they were friends. This would surely help him with his career!

Chapter 548 – Discussion of the Gold Market with Fu Rongqi

The next day, Feng Yu received the calls from Li Zekai and Fu Guangwei. Both had accepted his suggestion to send their people to each other companies for training. Both had also expressed that they will not make things difficult for the staffs.

Feng Yu was satisfied with their attitude. That’s right. This way we can all make money together happily. What’s the fun of making those schemes?

Feng Yu had nothing to do in the day, and he attended some classes. Among the lessons he attended, one of them was Professor Liang’s class. Professor Liang was really an expert on economics. Feng Yu had learned a lot in his lesson.

Professor Liang was able to use the simplest way to let his students understand his lesson. He was different from other lecturers where they would use complicated words and jargons. Maybe this was to show that they were knowledgeable and had a high standard. However, their students will not really understand what they were teaching.

After lessons, Feng Yu noticed that someone had paged him. He took out his handphone, but it was low batt. The battery life of handphones now was too short. The handphone was fully charged in the morning, and it was fully depleted before the end of the day! The battery factory’s construction was too slow. This was mainly because of the pollution prevention measures that slowed everything down. Feng Yu felt that he should get his R&D departments to help him develop a bigger capacity battery for him first.

Feng Yu found a telephone booth and returned the call.

“Hello, I’m Feng Yu. Who is this?”

“Nephew Feng. I’m your Uncle Qi. Are you free tonight to have dinner at my place? It’s been a while since we chatted.”

Fu Rongqi? He was inviting me over to his house for dinner? Does he have something to discuss with me?

“No problem. I will go over in a while.”

Feng Yu walked to the carpark and asked Old Chen to open up the boot. He took out a bottle of red wine. This was the gifts he prepared. He does not want to keep going to the malls to buy wine every time he was invited.

“Nephew Feng, you are here. Come and take a seat. The food is ready.”

During dinner, Fu Rongqi asked about Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise and Feng Yu gave him some simple answers. He knew that Fu Rongqi called him over was not to invest in Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise. It must be some other matters.

Half an hour later, the dinner was over, and Fu Rongqi invited Feng Yu to have tea in his study.

“Nephew Feng, other than the Supermarket, what else are you busy with?”

“Classes.” Feng Yu replied. He was still a student. Other than lessons, what else can he be busy with?

Fu Rongqi was stunned. Classes? He remembered that Feng Yu was still studying at Hong Kong University. But this was not what he wants to know. He was referring to businesses.

“Other than classes? Have you been monitoring the international financial market?” Fu Rongqi asked.

“International financial market? I have been following the news. What’s wrong? Uncle Qi have good information?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

Fu Rongqi does not have any information. He only wanted to ask if Feng Yu have any excellent information which he can follow to make some money. The recent forex market was quite stable, and he did not make much money from it. The gold prices had fallen a while ago, and he also did not make money from that. Luckily, he still has some other businesses which helped him make some profits.

“I also do not have any good information. I only wanted to ask you if you have any forecast or analysis for us to discuss.” Fu Rongqi replied directly.

Feng Yu also understood what Fu Rongqi wanted. He also has the intention to show what he was capable of, to Fu Rongqi. He needs to Fu Rongqi trust. This way, Fu Rongqi would be on his side to deal with the international speculators in 1997.

“Uncle Qi, what have you been busy with recently? Maybe I can give you some of my inputs.”

No matter if it was Gold, oil or stock markets. Feng Yu could remember the future trends from the Financial charts from his previous life. Coupled with his experiences, he was able to make accurate predictions.

“Recently, I have been investing in Gold Futures. But a while ago, gold prices had fallen. Although I did not make any losses, I did not make profits.” Fu Rongqi was not ashamed to let Feng Yu know about this. The Futures market was unpredictable, and he had used high leverage to invest. No making losses was already an achievement.

“Do you have the recent few months’ charts?”

“Yes.” Fu Rongqi immediately took out the charts he had prepared, for Feng Yu.

Feng Yu took a look at the charts and knew about the situation. He remembered that at the end of 1993, the gold prices will rise to nearly 400 USD/ ounce. Now, the prices were at about 360 USD / ounce. If you continue to bet on the price rising, there will inevitably be profits.

At the start of the year, the gold prices were only about 330 USD. In July, it reaches more than 400 USD, and then, it fell sharply to 343 USD. It will rise slightly to 370 USD and then fall back to around 360 USD. Feng Yu guessed that all the money Fu Rongqi made in the first half of the year were lost during this period.

“Uncle Qi, tomorrow I will be making some investments in Gold. I will be betting it on rising.” Feng Yu put down the charts and looked at Fu Rongqi.

“You think it will rise? Why?”

“Because of the international markets. These few years, the US stock market has been bullish, and this should continue for the next few years. Many people will make profits from the stock market, and some of them will invest their profits into Gold to avoid risk! If you want to be safer, you can invest in the US stock market now. You should be able to make some profits.”

Fu Rongqi nodded. Most of his investments were also in the US stock markets. Feng Yu’s analysis was the same as him. But the stock market was too slow. Although it will continue to rise, the profits were much lesser than futures.

Fu Rongqi and his second brother had bought some land parcels in Hong Kong this year. As such, he does not have lots of available funds. He had to take out some of his funds from the US stock market.

Fu Rongqi also had some other businesses. This was to lower his risk from losing all his wealth in the financial market if there was a crisis. His companies will help him tide over the financial crisis. But Fu Rongqi still prefers to do trading in the financial market. The money was fast, and he was more familiar with it.

If Fu Rongqi had believed Feng Yu and used high leverage to Short oil during the Gulf war, he would be Hong Kong’s wealthiest person now.

The Fu Family was Hong Kong’s influential family, but Fu Rongqi’s father had split his assets to him and his brothers. Although he had gotten most of the inheritance, he can only be Hong Kong’s 4th wealthiest person.

If the brothers combined their wealth, Fu Rongqi was the wealthiest person in Hong Kong. But since the assets were split to the 4 brothers, they became 4 individuals. Nevertheless, Fu Rongqi was still the head of the family.

Fu Rongqi wanted to become one of the top 3 richest men in Hong Kong. He even wanted to pull Superman Li down from his number 1 position. Financial market was the only place where he can make his dreams come true.

Fu Rongqi’s analysis was pointing to the Gold prices continue to rise, but some of his team members think otherwise. They felt that the gold prices will continue to fluctuate, and it was not a good idea to speculate in Gold. This was why Fu Rongqi called Feng Yu. After all, Feng Yu had made accurate predictions of the oil prices during the Gulf war and was an expert in his eyes!

“Then how much do you think the gold prices will reach at the end of the year?”

“At least 380 USD. It might even reach 390 USD.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

According to Fu Rongqi’s analysis, 380 USD was the highest. Feng Yu’s analysis was even 10 USD higher! This made him firmly believe that Gold will surely reach 380 USD at the end of the year.

This time, Fu Rongqi decided to make a big bet with Feng Yu!

Chapter 549 – Wind and Rain Consulting Company’s developments

The next morning, Feng Yu arrived at Wind and Rain Consulting company. A pretty girl at the front counter saw Feng Yu and said: “Sir, how can we help you?”

Feng Yu looked at her and asked: “Are you new here?”

The pretty girl was surprised. I had tried my best to be professional. How did this person know I am new here? Could this person one of the regular customers here? But he does not look like one.

This person seems to be only 20 years’ old. Wind and Rain Consulting Company’s clients’ requirements were at least 1 million.

“Sir, are you our customer?” The receptionist bows forward slightly and asked.

“No.”

The pretty girl immediately straightens her back. You are not a customer; why are you still so arrogant? It’s none of your concern whether I am new here or not! Do you even know what company this is?

“Sir, our minimum investment here is 1 million, and the minimum duration is one month.”

Feng Yu smiled and shook his head: “I am not here to invest. I am the boss of this company.”

After saying that, Feng Yu wanted to walk in, but the pretty girl ran in front of him to stop him.

“Sir, please stop joking. If you carry on, I will call the security. Our company is the most successful company in this building! Do you know how much funds our company managed?!” The girl said in an angry tone. You are the boss? Bullshit!

At that moment, a senior broker walked in from outside. From his expression, he should have gotten a big customer.

“Boss? Why are you here today?” That broker was one of the more senior employees of the company. He joined the company together with He Zhaoji, and he knew who Feng Yu was.

“I am here to take a look. Go and do your work.” After speaking to that broker, Feng Yu turned to the front counter girl.

That pretty girl was stunned. This person, who was about her younger brother’s age, was the boss of this company? She kept asking herself if she had scolded this person just now. Will she be fired after working there for a few days? Where else will she find such a high paying job?

If it weren’t for the former receptionist going for maternity leave, she would never get the chance to enter this company.

“Boss…… Boss…… I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Carry on with your work. In the future, if you are not sure, you can check with your senior colleagues. Don’t make assumptions.” Feng Yu will not make things difficult for her. It was normal for people to not recognize him. Feng Yu was the one who told He Zhaoji to not show his photographs in the company. Furthermore, this girl was very pretty, and she was suitable to be sitting at the entrance greeting the customers.

Feng Yu walked into the office, and the staffs stood up to greet him. Feng Yu waved them off. As a financial broker, they have to monitor their screens closely. If they made any mistakes, there might be high losses.

When Feng Yu reaches He Zhaoji’s office, he saw He Zhaoji walking out of the pantry with a teacup: “Boss, I have prepared your tea.” He Zhaoji heard that the boss was there, and he immediately went to prepare a cup of tea.

“Ok. Tell me about the company’s progress.” Feng Yu entered He Zhaoji’s office and sat on the sofa drinking the tea. He frowned and put down the cup. Zhang Ruiqiang’s tea leaves still taste better.

“Boss, the funds we are managing have just crossed the 1 billion HKD mark. Among the total funds, there is your 300 million HKD, and the rest are from our brokers’ customers. We followed your instructions and only accept customers who invested more than 1 million HKD. Currently, our company has made a name for ourselves in Hong Kong. Many Hong Kong stars are our customers.” He Zhaoji said.

Feng Yu nodded: “What is our rate of returns?”

“We are mainly investing in the US market and a small portion in oil, gold, and futures. Our returns are at least 6% every month. The highest yield in a month is 17%. Our average monthly yield for this year is 9.3%.

9.3% returns a month was alarming. Of course, this was also because Feng Yu had often guided them. Although the company does not have lots of brokers, they had improved a lot.

Maybe Feng Yu had given the brokers higher commissions, and they could make more money than before. It might also be that Feng Yu had told them the future trends accurately and they were impressed by Feng Yu. Since the company was set up, not a single broker had left their job. In fact, a few more top brokers had joined the company.

Those brokers had spoken among themselves. Even if they could not get customers, they could also invest with their own money. After deducting the cost, the returns will not be low either. The trend forecasted by the boss had never been wrong, and all of them made profits from their investments.

There were a few times when the oil and forex market was quite volatile, and they were worried sick. But in the end, it was as what their boss predicted.

At first, the brokers had to go out to find customers. They were mainly looking for their old customers when they were still working as independent brokers. But now, they do not need to look for customers. Customers started to look for them on their own accord.

Feng Yu had also set the rules for this company. He only wants elite brokers. The company started off with 10 brokers, and later they hired a few more people. Including the front counter and the cleaning staffs, there were not more than 20 people in the company. This was very different from other brokerages.

But Wind and Rain Consulting Company had something other companies could not win. Since the company started, it had never lost money. There will be profits every month.

The people who looked for brokers were people who do not know how to invest. This was why they hired brokers. These people wanted to make money, but they were also afraid of losing money.

In every company, there will be some who made lots of profits and some who loses all the investments. But in Wind and Rain Consultancy, this had never happened.

Although the company could not make its customers rich overnight, they had never let their customers lose money. This was also the selling point of Wind and Rain Consulting Company.

Other companies had used all sorts of methods to attract customers. For example, they would announce their daily profits and showed how much money they had made for their customers. One brokerage will have at least a hundred of customer accounts, and some might even have a few thousand. If the company diversified its investments, they would still be making money for some accounts.

But at the same time, they will also have customers who had lost all their investments. Some unethical brokers would even use their customer’s money to speculate, and if they are lucky, they might be able to make money for the customers. But if they are unlucky, they would lose all their customers’ money.

The customer might be able to take it if they lose 10,000. But if the customer loses 1 million, they will not accept it. Those customers who had invested more significant amounts with the companies would want to kill people if they were told that the brokers had helped them lost a few million or even tens of millions.

But even if the customer killed that broker, they will also not get back their money.

This was why Wind and Rain Consulting Company emerged top from the rest of the consultancies, brokerage firms, investment house, etc. More and more people start to look for Wind and Rain Consulting Company to invest for them.

A Hong Kong celebrity, who does not know how to invest, came to Wind and Rain Consulting Company and his investments turned from 3 million to 4 million in 6 months. His friend had invested 3 million with another company, but after 6 months, his account was left with less than 100,000.

When both of them compared the results, they knew which company was more reliable and soon words spread. More and more celebrities start to look for Wind and Rain Consulting to help them invest. Some customers who had spare cash also came to Wind and Rain Consulting Company. The amount of fund managed by Wind and Rain Consulting grew bigger and slowly became one of the more successful investment company in Hong Kong.

“What do you think of the Gold market recently?”

He Zhaoji’s eyes sparkled. Feng Yu was going to lead them to trade Gold futures? Every time when the boss leads them to invest, the company’s profits will increase by a lot. The commissions and earnings of all the brokers will also increase. But Feng Yu was always busy. Today, Feng Yu finally had the time, and He Zhaoji can finally follow his boss to make some profits!

Chapter 550 – Huge investment

“We have been investing in Gold futures, and we will have hedging positions to lower the risks. In August, the gold prices had dropped a lot, but we are able to react in time and shorted Gold. We were able to get some profits. We had discussed Gold prices and felt that gold prices will continue to rise this year. It should be able to reach about 380 USD.”

He Zhaoji and Fu Rongqi had the same views on Gold. Although their analysis was quite conservative, in the short term, gold prices will inevitably rise. Both did not know that gold prices will rise higher than 380 USD and even reach 390 USD.

But this was enough to prove these people’s abilities. Feng Yu does not need a broker who likes to take risks. He wants someone who was experienced, have good judgments and was able to follow instructions. If the broker could not follow directions, Feng Yu would not want him even if he was capable.

In Feng Yu’s mind, he had the memories of his previous life. He remembered the trends of the financial instruments. In his past life, he had studied the historical trends countless times, and everything was in the back of his mind.

Feng Yu was confident that in this era, George Soros and Warren Buffett were no match to him when it comes to investment. He was the real Financial magnate in this era!

“How much funds do we have to invest in Gold Futures?”

“Including you and our brokers’ own accounts, and some customers who agreed to invest in Gold Futures, we have about 500 million HKD.”

Boss was really going to place a big bet. He was going to use all available funds?

But soon, He Zhaoji realized that this 500 million HKD was only a small amount to Feng Yu. Because there was be a significant fund coming in later.

“Only 500 million? Fine. Take note of the company’s account. Later there will be some funds wired to our company. When all the funds are in, we will start to trade Gold Futures.”

Not every customer dares to let their brokers invest in futures. Most of the customers had only signed the agreement to allow their brokers invest in the stock markets on their behalf. If their funds were used to invest in futures by the brokers, it would be against the law and will affect the company’s reputation.

500 million HKD of funds was not a lot. Luckily Feng Yu had prepared some money. It was rare for him to invest in futures personally and he wants to gain the most profits out of this.

“Boss, China’s Tai Hua Trading had transferred 300 million RMB!” After a while, He Zhaoji saw the money credited into the company’s account and immediately reported to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu calmly nodded: “Ok. Ask someone to go downstairs to buy a cup of milk tea. Your tea leaves do not taste good.”

10 minutes later, He Zhaoji entered the office with a cup of milk tea: “Boss, China’s Wind, and Rain Electronics had wired 100 million RMB to our account!”

“Ok. Leave the milk tea here.” Feng Yu was holding on to a novel <Wisely>. His eyes were glued to the novel. If this novel were written in simplified Chinese and not traditional Chinese, it would be great. Reading traditional Chinese was too complicated and tiring.

This <Wisely> series of novels was not available in Bing City. After Feng Yu arrived in Hong Kong, he bought the whole set and read it whenever he was free.

15 minutes later, He Zhaoji entered the office again and took a deep breath: “Boss, Japan’s Aiwa company had transferred 30 million USD to your account!”

“Ok.” Feng Yu replied without even taking his eyes off the novel. He made a sip of his tea and did not give any other instructions.

He Zhaoji looked at Feng Yu. The total amount of the funds that were transferred over was more than 500 million HKD, and Feng Yu was still waiting. More funds were coming in?

5 minutes later, He Zhaoji came into the office to report to Feng Yu: “Boss, a Sixth Sense Company from Japan, had just transferred 50 million USD into your account!”

He Zhaoji was looking at Feng Yu weirdly. It was not because another large amount was transferred into his account. It was because he had heard of the Sixth Sense Company. It was a company that sells those “products.” Could that company also belongs to Feng Yu?

Feng Yu placed a bookmark into his novel and put it down. He did not notice the look in He Zhaoji. If not, he would have lost his temper. What’s wrong with owning a sex toys company? Why can’t an ordinary person own such company?

Feng Yu looked at his watch. There was still enough time: “Ok. Get ready to place the orders. What is the Gold prices now?”

There was internet now, and they do not need to be at the exchange personally. They could place the orders through the internet. But the orders still require confirmation from the exchange. It was still not as convenient as the future years.

He Zhaoji saw in front of a computer and turned to Feng Yu: “Boss, current the price is at 259.8 USD / ounce.”

“All our customers’ funds will use 10 times leverage and set it to sell at 280 USD automatically.” Feng Yu said.

“All? Boss, we are not hedging?” Feng Yu plans to use his own funds to short? But Feng Yu had agreed with his analysis and also thinks that gold prices will rise before the end of the year.

“Everything! This time we will not do hedging. We will bet on the price to rise!”

What? Not hedging?! Feng Yu wanted to bet more than 1 billion HKD on gold prices rising and not hedging? This was 10 times leverage. If the prices fell by 1 USD, the losses will be 10 USD! Didn’t Feng Yu tell them to invest conservatively all this while? What was he so aggressive this time?

“What are you waiting for? Hurry up and place the orders! Tell the rest to use their customers’ accounts to place the orders.”

He Zhaoji walked to the entrance of the office and clapped a few times to attract everyone’s attention: “Boss asked us to buy gold at the current price with the funds we have. Everything will be using 10 times leverage. The sell-off price is at 280 USD.”

The rest of the brokers were shocked like He Zhaoji. 280 USD? Did their boss firmly believe that gold prices will rise above 280 USD? But the leverage will be set at 10 times, and they will be investing everything. This was quite risky.

But when all the brokers thought about their boss miraculous predictions, they chose to believe their boss. Furthermore, their boss was the one who performed the legendary feat of short selling oil with high leverage during the Gulf War!

After all the brokers placed their orders, He Zhaoji returned back to his office to help his customers place their orders.

“Wait a minute. Set the selling price at 281 or 282 USD for your customers.” He Zhaoji was the company’s general manager. Feng Yu want to help him establish his standing. Also, Feng Yu also want to see if He Zhaoji dares to place such orders.

“Boss, is this too high?”

“High? I do not think so. I plan to set the selling price for my own money from 285 to 288 USD. You can start to place your orders.”

He Zhaoji’s eyes opened wide. Feng Yu felt that the gold prices will reach 285 USD? Was this even possible?

The gold prices had just rebounded from the previous drop. Feng Yu felt the gold prices will be following a V curve? That means Feng Yu felt that there will be an increase in people investing in gold, causing the prices to rise?

He Zhaoji gritted his teeth. Feng Yu was investing more than 1 billion HKD, and that means he was very confident. Feng Yu had better foresight then him, and he had complete trust in him. Since Feng Yu was convinced that gold prices will rise, then it will undoubtedly increase.

He Zhaoji placed the orders for his customers and set the selling price at 282 USD. He also used all his money in his account to place the order. He was also using 10 times leverage, and he set his selling price at 285 USD!

He Zhaoji did not hedge against this trade and had used all his money. If gold prices really reach 285 USD, his investment will be doubled! He will then invest all his money into the US stock market. If he monitors the market closely, he could be a millionaire in less than 2 years!

Chapter 551 – The Fu Family

Fu Rongqi hanged up the phone. His men at the exchange had told him that they had received a lot of orders today. All the orders were betting gold prices rising. The total volume was more than 1.3 billion HKD!

At this moment, Feng Yu also called Fu Rongqi: “Uncle Qi, I have used all my available funds to invest. I had invested slightly more than 1 billion HKD, with 10 times leverage. The selling price was set above 285 USD!”

Feng Yu believed that after this time, Fu Rongqi’s trust in him will increase. Although it will not be at the stage where he blindly follows Feng Yu, if Feng Yu asked him to cooperate with him, Fu Rongqi would not reject him.

Feng Yu did not know that Fu Rongqi had already trusted him a lot. Fu Rongqi had sold most of his US stocks and was prepared to place a considerable investment into the Gold market.

Fu Rongqi even called his 3 other brothers and told them about this information.

……

Fu Rongqu was sitting in his office going through the proposal of a residential site when he received a call from his eldest brother. He immediately threw the proposal aside. No matter how well this proposal was, the profits were low, and the time taken to see the profits was too long. Investing in the financial market was faster, and the profits were higher!

Fu Rongqu immediately called his broker, who was also one of the brokers working for Fu Rongqi: “Old Hu, use all the money in my account to invest into gold. Use 10 times leverage and set the selling price at 285 USD, like what my brother said.”

Yesterday, Fu Rongqi had told Fu Rongqu that Feng Yu will be investing in the gold futures with him. Fu Rongqu immediately transferred all his available funds into his trading account in the morning.

Fu Rongqu remembered his youngest brother losing all his money previously. However, his youngest brother borrowed money from the banks and friends to invest and got back the money he lost. Fu Rongqu also invested then. But he did not invest a lot and did not gain high returns.

This time, Fu Rongqu does not want to miss this opportunity when he heard that Feng Yu was going to invest with his eldest brother. He was bolder this time, and this was the opportunity to increase his money by several folds. If it weren’t for his eldest brother’s objection, he would have gone to the black market to increase the leverage.

……

“Ok. Feng Yu had placed his order? I have prepared my money, and I will call my broker to place the order now.”

Fu Rongbing received his eldest brother’s call and immediately called his broker. He told him to use all the funds in his account to buy gold futures with 10 times leverage. The selling price was set at 286 USD!

Feng Yu was someone who had performed miracles. His selling price was set about 285 USD. So, 286 USD should be quite safe. This was a rare opportunity, and Fu Rongbing wanted to get the most out of it.

Hmmm… Fu Guangwei’s account still has some money. That sum of money was supposed to be invested into Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise. But there was no need to use that sum of money yet. Might as well use the money to invest in gold now. When this sum of money is needed, this trade should also be settled.

……

After Fu Rongjing received the information from his eldest brother, he did something crazier than his two older brothers. Not only he asked both his sons to transfer all the available funds, he even took out every single cent from his company. He was intending on getting a bank loan later for his company’s operating cost. Anyway, his eldest brother had told him that the duration of this investment should not be more than 2 months.

The last time they followed Feng Yu to invest, Fu Rongjing was the boldest. It was because he was desperate to recover his losses. That time, he manages to recoup his losses and still make some profits with the money he borrowed from his eldest brother.

Fu Rongjing had thought about this. He had not offended Feng Yu recently, and his son, Guangzheng and his third brother were in a joint venture with Feng Yu. Feng Yu had no reason to trick them.

Fu Rongjing had asked his eldest brother and found that Feng Yu had invested more than 1 billion HKD and used 10 times leverage. If Feng Yu dares to invest like this, then he can also do the same. His eldest brother had also said that gold prices will continue to increase.

Fu Rongqi had said that Feng Yu felt the prices will rise above 285 USD, but he thought that the price will be at least 280 USD. He told his brothers to make their own judgment.

Fu Rongqi will not help them invest directly as they were considered separate. But when he has useful information about the market, he will still tell his brothers. All of his brothers’ trading accounts were handled by the brokers in his company, and he does not help them manage their investments personally.

Fu Rongjing thought for a while and told his sons to set their trade settlement price at 285 USD. He divided his money into several portions, and the lowest selling price was at 286 USD and the highest at 290 USD!

Fu Rongjing was the most daring among all 4 brothers. He had almost lost all his fortune before, and he still dares to invest most of his money this time!

The highest settlement price set by Feng Yu was only 288 USD. He was not aware that Fu Rongjing had set it at 290 USD!

It was not because Feng Yu was timid. It was because, at 288 USD, Feng Yu was 100% sure that he would make money. But it was not the same for 290 USD. He remembered that when entering 1994, the gold prices’ fluctuations will be quite volatile. He was also very sure that the gold prices will not reach 400 USD this year.

Feng Yu had used the charts and other information to analyze the market, and he was also not sure of the exact figures. But this 288 USD, was the highest price he was confident of!

One decision will have 100% chance of making profits, and the other decision could increase the earnings by 3%. But at the same time, there was a possibility to lose all the invested amount. Even an idiot knows which to pick.

Fu Guangzheng, who was in China, received a call from his father, telling him the Feng Yu will be investing in the financial market with his eldest uncle. They will be investing in Gold futures. His father asked him to invest some of his money too. Fu Guangzheng still has some cash on hand. His money was his investment funds for Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise and other Hong Kong companies.

Since his father had said that Feng Yu and his eldest uncle will be investing in Gold futures, Fu Guangzheng immediately transferred all his money to his father to invest on behalf of him. He was willing to invest was because of Feng Yu, and not his eldest uncle or his father.

Have Feng Yu ever made losses with his investments? There is a rule in Fu Guangzheng’s mind now. Follow and invest in whatever Feng Yu invested and there will be profits!

……

Fu Rongqi knew that all his brothers had invested in gold futures, and he also asked his men to place his trades. When his men asked him if he needs to do hedging, he hesitated.

Under normal circumstances, Fu Rongqi would do hedging for high-risk investments to lower his risk. Even the leverage will not be high.

But this time, maybe he was influenced by his younger brothers or Feng Yu, he decided to increase his bets.

Fu Rongqi used a few accounts to make several trades. The total amount was more the 300 million USD and all the trades were using 10 times leverage without hedging. He placed all his bets on gold prices rising! Of course, he did not set the settlement price as he would be monitoring the market personally. If the prices reached 280 USD and do not seem to be increasing, he would sell at that price.

If it were really as what Feng Yu analyzed, gold prices would reach more than 285 USD, then Fu Rongqi’s returns would be more than 250 million USD!

Chapter 552 – Charity Ball (Part 1 of 3)

After placing the trades for the Gold futures, Feng Yu returned home with his novels. He continued to attend lessons, watch the international news and at night, he would read his novels or watch some movies. It was a satisfying lifestyle for him.

Feng Yu intend to return back to Beijing next week. These winners of the awards ceremony were already picked by the association. But Feng Yu still need to make sure nothing goes wrong for the New Year’s Gala Dinner. This year, Feng Yu’s Aiwa Pager, Lehaha’s tea beverages, and Tian Peng Pigs were the winners. At the same time, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s General Manager will be getting the individual award.

“Look over my shoulder, I blow you a kiss can you handle, handle this……”

Feng Yu was at home listening to a new album he bought when he received a call from Fu Guangwei.

“Brother Feng, what are you doing? Do you want to have dinner together later?”

“Ok. I will meet you at the carpark downstairs in a while.”

“Oh, I will bring you to an interesting event after dinner. I am sure you will enjoy it.” Fu Guangwei said mysteriously.

Feng Yu raised his brows. I will be interested in your event? Could it be some bars or nightclubs? I might as well stay at home and listen to music.

“What did you say? I did not hear clearly.”

Fu Guangwei repeated: “I said that I will be bringing to attend an event after dinner. You will enjoy it.”

“No. The question before this.”

“Before this? Want to have dinner together?”

Feng Yu immediately replied: “I can’t. I am busy tonight. You should ask your other friends. I will just have a quick dinner at the food stalls nearby.”

Fu Guangwei: “……” You had agreed just now and why are you changing your mind?

Although Fu Guangwei had brought Feng Yu to some clubs before and Feng Yu was not interested, but this time he was not going to bring Feng Yu to the clubs. This was a high-class gathering.

“Brother Feng. Please don’t joke with me. There is a Charity Ball tonight. The ones attending are all successful young people. Brother Guangzheng had told me that you like to do charity. Don’t you want to experience our Hong Kong Charity Ball?”

Huh? Charity Ball? Feng Yu was not interested in doing charity in Hong Kong. He could build a name for himself when he makes donations in China. There was no reason for him to do charity in Hong Kong. He does not have many business in Hong Kong and does not need to be known as a philanthropist.

Even back in China, Feng Yu had never branded himself as a philanthropist. This was because, in earlier years, the word ‘Charity’ was a taboo in China. The Chinese felt that charity was something that the capitalists used to show off to the commoners.

The government was also not willing to accept donations under the name of ‘Charity’ as it symbolized the government was incapable, and it was an insult! This continued until the end of the 80s. But the news and media will never admit that the assistance the governments received was charity.

This was why when Feng Yu donated to the schools and built school buildings, he calls it as sponsoring China’s education. He will never say he was doing it for charity. It will need a few more years before the Chinese accepted the term Charity.

Hong Kong’s Charity was mostly gimmicked in Feng Yu’s eyes. But he got to admit that it was quite effective. Of course, some people donated large amounts of money. But after they had donated, they will get so sort of subsidies or assistance from the government. Some will receive help from the government to promote their business or services. These people would be able to earn back the money they donated in one way or other.

Also, Hong Kong had better welfare than China. But this resulted in Hong Kong have more lazy people than China. Feng Yu felt that the government should use the donations from the Charities to hire more policemen and get rid of all the Hong Kong Triads.

Although Feng Yu was not interested in doing charities, he was interested in the ball. The last time he attended a ball was in the former Soviet Union Ukraine’s Kiev. Many of Hong Kong’s rich second generations will attend this charity ball. It’s not a bad idea to do some networking there.

“Do I need a partner for this charity ball?”

“Leave this to me. I promise I will get a pretty girl to be your partner.”

“Fine. Pick me up from my place in a while. I will get change first.”

In Feng Yu’s mind, the pretty girl whom Fu Guangwei will arrange must be some Hong Kong actress or celebrity. In his previous life, he had read articles in the papers that many Hong Kong actresses will find all ways to attend these functions. Their favorite was these types of balls.

Attending balls was more prestigious than walking the red carpet. If they were lucky, they might get hook up with some rich second generation. They would have a good life after that.

Feng Yu was wondering which actress his partner will be tonight, and in this era, who are the pretty actresses? In his previous life, his favorite actress was Chingmy Yau. She should not meet her husband yet. Feng Yu did not expect to do anything with her. He only wishes to be able to dance with her, and he will be satisfied.

Feng Yu changed into his formal clothes and stood in front of the mirror…… Handsome! So handsome until I do not have friends!

……

During dinner, Feng Yu did not see the companion Fu Guangwei arranged for him.

“Wei Zai, where is the partner you arranged for me?” Feng Yu asked. Damn, did this idiot tricked me?

Fu Guangwei swallowed his food and took a sip of water: “Your partner needs to dress up. She should be here before we finish dinner. I promise you that she is a beauty!”

Beauty? Feng Yu hoped Fu Guangwei’s taste in women could be trusted. If Fu Guangwei arranged for someone like Kingdom Yuen King-dan, he would immediately return home and sleep!

“Beauty? Who? Tell me who is this beauty?” Feng Yu was looking forward to knowing who this beauty was.

“I cannot disclose to you now. If I tell you who it is now, it will not be a surprise.” Fu Guangwei said mysteriously. He continued eating his steak. He was determined to keep the identity of this beauty from Feng Yu.

Surprise? I like surprises!

Never mind if you do not tell me now. Anyway, I will be meeting her later. Feng Yu began eating faster. Damn, why did they have to eat steak for dinner? If it’s Chinese Cuisine, they could eat more quickly.

……

“Dad, I don’t want to go. Can I accompany you at home and watch TV?” Fu Mengying was holding on to Fu Rongbing’s arm.

“You have to go even you do not want to do! Your elder brother had said that Feng Yu was looking forward to meeting you there. Didn’t you say that you like Feng Yu?”

This charity call was organized by Fu Guangwei under his father’s instruction. The objective was not for charity or reputation. It was to bring Fu Mengying and Feng Yu together!

Fu Rongbing said that even if Fu Mengying and Feng Yu did not become a couple, there might be other guys at the ball who might fall for Fu Mengying. Anyway, those who were able to attend such functions will have some backgrounds. The worst of the men there will also be doctors or lawyers. There will not be ordinary people there.

Fu Rongbing’s greatest wish now was for his daughter to fall for a man. If that man were Feng Yu, it would be perfect.

Although the Fu Family was Hong Kong’s top family, Feng Yu’s wealth was greater than Fu Rongbing. With his daughter’s situation, he does not mind even if his daughter became Feng Yu’s mistress.

Fu Mengying wanted to cry. Others might not know, but she understood that Feng Yu does not like her. Of course, the feelings were mutual because Feng Yu was a man!

had used Feng Yu as an excuse to stop her father from introducing men to her. Not now, she was had shot herself in her foot. She could not find any reasons to not be Feng Yu’s partner at the ball.

Forget it. Fu Mengying will have to play by the ear. This was a Charity Ball, and Feng Yu should not say anything rude. She might even be able to use Feng Yu as her shield for a while more!

Chapter 553 – Charity Ball (Part 2 of 3)

“Wei Zai, we do not need to go and fetch our partners?” After dinner, Feng Yu felt something was off when his partner still has not arrived.

“No need, no need. They will go to the venue themselves. Let’s go there and wait for them.”

This Charity Ball was held in a country club. At the carpark of the building, Feng Yu finally saw his partner. It was her!

“Wei Zai, can you give me an explanation?” Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangwei coldly.

This is the beauty you are talking about? Why did Fu Mengying become the beauty? Don’t you know that we are at loggerheads? Why does this feel like your Fu Family is determined to force me to accept this lesbian?

“What’s wrong? Brother Feng, with my sister’s looks and body, she is still not considered a beauty? She can win Miss Hong Kong anything. In our circle of friends, my sister is famous for her beauty.”

“I had made myself very clear. It is impossible between your sister and me!” Feng Yu said.

“I do not have any other intentions. I had only asked her to be your partner at this ball. Brother Feng, you might not know, but it is difficult to find someone suitable to be your partner.”

“Really? Then why is she your partner?” Feng Yu pointed Yammie Lam who was walking towards them with Fu Mengying. You are able to get one of TVB’s goddess as your partner, why can’t you get another actress to be my partner?

“Brother Feng, it’s almost time. Don’t mind this nitty-gritty stuff. Sis hurry up.”

Yammie Lam walked over and held Fu Guangwei’s arm, while Feng Yu was in a staring contest with Fu Mengying. Suddenly Fu Mengying smiled sweetly and said in the sweetest voice possible: “Brother Feng……”

Fu Mengying sounded like the female lead in <The Legend of the Condor Heroes>, Huang Rong calling her Guo Jing.

Be Feng Yu got to admit that Fu Mengying was indeed a beauty. She was nowhere inferior to his favorite actress, Chingmy Yau. He should be proud to have such a beauty as his partner. But the rumors of Fu Mengying was a lesbian had spread and those rich second generations might have heard of the talks. If Feng Yu attended the ball with her as his partner, he would become a laughing stock.

“Brother Feng Yu, please help me out. Once we entered the ball, you are free to dance with others.” If Feng Yu was not there, then Fu Mengying had to be Fu Guangwei’s partner. Although they will have a dance, and then both of them will be dancing with other people for the rest of the night.

Seeing the pitiful look on Fu Mengying’s face, Feng Yu remembered that if he had not disclosed her secrets, she might be able to hide it for a few more years.

Never mind. Just treat this as doing charity.

Feng Yu bend his arm and Fu Mengying immediately brighten up and quickly held on to him. Both of them start walking towards the elevator.

Fu Guangwei was monitoring both of them all this while. When he saw both of them were walking arms in arms, he was thinking in his heart. Everyone in my family knew the both of you were together. Why are you all still trying to hide it?

The ballroom of the private club was about the size of 3 basketball courts. There was a small stage, and beside the stage, there was a band. Around the ballroom, there were long tables full of desserts, food, and liquor. It was like a buffet. Near the walls, there were some chairs and small tables for the guests.

Fu Guangwei looked at the time and walked up the stage with his partner. He was the organizer of this charity ball.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I am Fu Guangwei. A few days ago, I found out that XXX Children’s home has a group of disabled children from the papers. Some of them needed medical treatment, but the Home does not have the funds. This is why I thought of gathering all of us here to pool some money to help this poor children.…”

This reason was just a random excuse for Fu Guangwei to organize this ball. To all the guests, Fu Guangwei was able to host this ball, was because his father had given him some money to do business. He was only hosting this ball to show off.

Fu Mengying stood beside Feng Yu and explained to him softly how the charity ball in Hong Kong works. Later, everyone will be dancing in the dance floor, and a spotlight will stop randomly on someone, and that person will have to donate. Of course, there was no minimum amount for the donation. But these rich second generation will give at least 100,000 HKD.

After the dance, there will be a small auction. The females will be auctioning one of their personal belongs, like handbags or jewelry. Basically, their male counterparts will buy those items back for them. The rest of the crowd will pretend to bid for those items, but they will not purposely push the prices up.

Of course, there will be people who will bring some prized items to be auctioned. Everyone can bid for these items freely. The highest bidder wins. There will also be some singers here who put their voices up for bid.

Fu Mengying was standing very close to Feng Yu and Feng Yu could feel her hot breath on his face when she speaks. Feng Yu was very tempted. But when he thought of Fu Mengying’s status and her sexual orientation, the temptation disappeared.

Feng Yu must make things clear in front of Fu Guangwei after the ball.

Fu Guangwei ended his speech and announced the start of the ball.

Music started, and everyone starts to dance with their partners. Feng Yu and Fu Mengying also danced. Luckily, the steps were easy, and Feng Yu did not step on her toes. But Fu Mengying’s dance cannot be compared to Elena. During the dance, Feng Yu suddenly remembered Elena.

“Brother Feng Yu….”

“Call me by my name.” Damn, stop acting like a little girl!

Fu Mengyu clenched her teeth and forced a smile: “Feng Yu, this is arranged by my family. I also do not have a choice. I really do not have the intention of pestering you.”

“Really? Then why did Wei Zai tell me that you told your family that we are getting along well?” Feng Yu had almost thrown Fu Mengying off the car at a deserted bus stop previously. How can this be considered getting along well?

“That was just a casual remark. I did not mean that. I am not sure why my family thinks that both of us have been going out.” Fu Mengying was also puzzled why his father thinks that she likes Feng Yu.”

“Never mind. We will clear up this misunderstanding later.”

“Can we talk about this when we return? I still have other cousins here. I don’t want them to see me as a joke.” Fu Mengying begged.

Organizing a charity ball was a task too big for Fu Guangwei. He was known as a useless second rich generation, and the Fu family sent him some of his cousins to help out. Many people were there because of Fu Guangwei’s cousin. Fu Rongqi’s eldest son was still respected by many second generations.

Feng Yu looked at the rest of Fu Family’s second generations. He hesitated for a while and nodded. If he made things clear with Fu Guangwei now, he would be embarrassing Fu Mengying in front of many people. He decided to clear up this misunderstanding when they were returning home.

As the number slowly reaches the end, Feng Yu saw the couples around him preparing to make the ending moves. Feng Yu looked at Fu Mengying, and she got the hint. She released one hand and increases the distance between her and Feng Yu. Then she spun two rounds and stopped with Feng Yu supporting her back with one hand. She finishes the dance with a perfect pose.

At the same time, the spotlight above the dance floor stops moving as the music end. The spotlight was shone directly on Feng Yu and Fu Mengying!

Chapter 554 – Charity Ball (Part 3 of 3)

WTF!

Feng Yu was cursing. He wanted to be low profile and had planned to hide in one corner after this dance. At the same time, he wants to see if there were any future successful people there whom he could be friends with.

But now, he and Fu Mengying became the focus of this ball. Stupid lights. If he was dancing with an ordinary woman, even if the woman was not pretty, Feng Yu does not mind. But Fu Mengying was a lesbian and the most frustrating part, he was the one who exposed her. He was shooting himself in his foot.

Feng Yu could feel everyone staring at him. Some were shocked, some were puzzled, some were mocking him, and some were happy to see this happening. Feng Yu was pissed. He suspects that Fu Guangwei was the one who arranged for this.

But since it had happened, Feng Yu remained calm. When the cheers from the crowd subsided, Feng Yu raised his right hand and announced: “Since I am so lucky tonight, I shall start the balling rolling. I represent Wind and Rain Consulting to donate 1 million USD!”

When the spotlight stops on Fu Guangwei’s sister, everybody knew that this was arranged. This was to set the benchmark. If the first donation was only 100,000 HKD, then the rest will not donate much. But everyone did not expect Fu Mengying’s partner to give 1 million USD!

Could this charity ball raise a record-breaking sum tonight?

The Fu Family and Li Zekai clapped, and the rest followed. Some second-generation wealthy ladies were laughing at Feng Yu just now and treating as a laughing stock. But after hearing Feng Yu’s pledged amount, their jaws dropped.

This person was not hired by Fu Mengying? He was not here to cover up the rumors of her being a lesbian? How come he could casually donate 1 million, and it was still in USD?! Even if their fathers attended Charity fundraising events, they will also not give such a large amount! What company did he say? Wind and Rain Consulting? I think I had heard of this company before? Tomorrow, I must send people to find out more.

These women immediately became interested in Feng Yu. Especially, when they say Li Family’s second young master approaching Feng Yu with his partner. Li Family’s young master know this guy?

“Brother Feng, you had set a high benchmark. What should we do now?” Li Zekai pretended to be angry.

Feng Yu replied with a nonchalant attitude: “Is 1 million USD a lot? When I am in China. I donated at least this amount every month.”

Shen Huihui was shocked. She knew that Feng Yu was wealthy, but she did not realize Feng Yu was so generous. Every month donating at least 1 million USD? Then he will have given at least 10 million USD a year! Then how much did he make in a year? If comparing Li Zekai and Feng Yu, Li Zekai was nothing.

Li Zekai was also shocked. He also did not expect Feng Yu to be so generous. But what he did not know was that Feng Yu had purposely said this. He wanted to attract the attention of the people at the ball and let them approach him. At the same time, he could help to advertise Wind and Rain Consulting and do Fu Guangwei favor.

These wealthy second generations were all snobs and will only make friends with people on the same or higher level than them. Feng Yu had shown what he was capable of and later, there will surely be a lot of people approaching him.

Immediately someone walked over. But when Li Zekai saw the person walking over, he walked away.

Huh? There was someone in Hong Kong that could make Li Zekai walk away? Feng Yu could not recall who this person was from his previous life memories. This person should not be on good terms with Li Zekai.

“Sister Mengying, care to introduce your partner?”

“Brother Jiacheng, this is the boss of Wind and Rain Consulting, Feng Yu. He is also Brother Guangzheng’s friend and is a successful businessman from China. Feng Yu, this is Li Jiacheng, Executive Director of Henderson Land Development.

Oh…. This was the youngest son of Li Zhaoji. Feng Yu remember who this person was. In his previous life, people often joked about this person’s name on the internet. His name had the same pronunciation as Superman Li. No wonder Li Zekai walked away. No one would like to speak to someone whose name sounded like their father.

“Mr. Feng. Hi, I’, Li Jiacheng.” Li Jiacheng heard that this person was the boss of the up and coming Wind and Rain Consulting, and he was from China? This was the person who set up a company in China with the Fu and Li families?

“Hello, Mr. Li.” Feng Yu naturally was interested to know this person. Although this person was the younger son of Li Zhaoji, in his previous life, Li Zhaoji had let him manage most of his companies and assets. Li Zhaoji did not leave any shares for his eldest son.

“Mr. Feng, your Wind and Rain Consulting is famous in Hong Kong. I hear that since it was set up, it had maintained high profits and had never suffered losses!” Li Jiacheng said.

“The economy is good. This is all luck.” The US market was bullish, and this will continue for a few more years. If Feng Yu’s brokers continued to follow those technologies, computers, telecommunications, etc. stocks which Feng Yu pointed out to them, it would be hard for the company to make losses. All the brokers had to do was to avoid high-risk instruments like futures and invest conservatively. There was no reason for them to lose money. What surprised Feng Yu the most was Li Jiacheng knew about Wind and Rain Consulting.

“Mr. Feng is too modest. How about we have lunch together when we are free?” Li Jiacheng passed Feng Yu his name card.

“Sure.” Feng Yu exchanged name cards with him, and he left.

After Li Jiacheng left, there was a constant stream of people coming up to introduce themselves to Feng Yu. Almost all of them treated Fu Mengying as invisible, and she got mad. She walked away to grab some food. She was the young lady of the Fu Family, and this was the first time she was treated this way. This charity ball was organized by her brother, and she should be the center of attraction!

The Fu Family’s brothers were chatting in one corner and quietly observing Feng Yu. They realized that almost everyone at the ball had gone up to Feng Yu and exchanged name cards.

What they really wanted to see was Feng Yu getting closer with Fu Mengying, but it did not happen. On the contrary, they saw lots of people pointing and gossiping about Fu Mengying. They must be saying some nasty things about her. Luckily, Feng Yu had danced with Fu Mengying, and those people could not confirm whether the rumors were real or not.

After those people left, Feng Yu felt it was worthwhile to come to this ball. Not only he got to know Li Jiacheng, but he also knows the second-generations of the Zheng Family, He Family, Wu Family, Huo Family, Chen Family, and many others. These families were like the Fu Family. Their assets were worth more than 1 billion USD, and all of them were worth more than 1 billion HKD.

Feng Yu did not expect Fu Guangwei to invite so many second-generation and third-generation of Hong Kong’s top 10 families. He was overjoyed.

Hong Kong was one of the places with the most tycoons. If Feng Yu could gather all of them and pool their resources together, the total amount should be more than George Soros’s funds.

Not only the male members of the top families had approached Feng Yu, but there were also some women from these families coming up to Feng Yu to invite him for a dance. But Feng Yu rejected them. He was not interested in interacting with them. The women who were rejected were cursing and swearing in their hearts. They even suspect Feng Yu was gay. If he wasn’t, why was his partner that rumored lesbian Fu Mengying?

Feng Yu does not know that refusing to dance would result in him being labeled as gay.

Suddenly, all the lights were switched on, and Fu Guangwei appeared on the stage. On the stage, there was a small table and an auction hammer.

“Hello everyone, please quiet down for a moment. Now, we shall start with the highlight of this Charity Ball. Charity Auction!”

Chapter 555 – Charity Auction

“The first item we will be auctioning today is a diamond-studded ladies bracelet donated by Shen Huihui. This bracelet us her favorite bracelet. The base price is 50,000 HKD, and the minimum bid is 10,000 HKD. Ladies and gentlemen, you may start bidding.

Li Zekai was there to show the both of them had gotten over their conflict. He purposely donated this item for auction. But what Fu Guangwei said just now was hinting to the others that Li Zekai will want to win the bid for this bracelet.

“100,000 HKD.” Li Zekai raised his hand.

“110,000 HKD.”

“130,000 HKD.”

“150,000 HKD.”

……

“200,000 HKD.” After a round of bidding, Li Zekai bid again. The value of the bracelet was not more than 100,000 HKD. Li Zekai became the final bidder and won back this bracelet for Shen Huihui.

But no one noticed the look in Shen Huihui’s eyes. She was not happy at all. This Li Family’s young master was only willing to spend 200,000 HKD on her?

Other people also start to put up their items for auctions. There were sunglasses, ties, brooch, necklace, rings, etc. These were all personal belongings and were won by the people who donated them.

Fu Guangwei was very excited. These people had bid more than the charity auctions he attended before. The auctions he participated in the past, the highest bid was only 30,000 to 50,000 HKD. But this time, the lowest bid was 100,000 HKD!

The first amount donated by Feng Yu had an influence on the rest. Everybody there does not want to lose face. 30,000 to 50,000 HKD for a pair of sunglasses was the sky-high amount. But, they would appear to be too stingy compared to others.

There was ugly calligraphy work that was put up for auction, and the winning bid was 100,000 HKD. If that calligraphy were put up for sale outside, no one would buy it even if it was selling for 5 HKD!

“The next item is a scarf donated by my sister, Fu Mengying. The base price is 10,000 HKD. Every bid is at least 5,000 HKD.”

Fu Mengying immediately raised her hand: “20,000 HKD.”

“50,000 HKD.”

“100,000 HKD.”

“180,000 HKD.”

“250,000 HKD.”

……

Feng Yu suddenly realized that something was off. Why were there so many people bidding for this scarf? The previous few items only had about 3 to 5 bids. This scarf was not worth more than 10,000 HKD, and now the current amount was 320,000 HKD!

Usually, the men there bid for items to please their partners. But no one would raise the bids so high.

This round of auction was also different from the previous items. All the ones who bid were women. Why were those women fighting over that scarf? Don’t they know that Fu Mengying wanted to win back her scarf? They did this on purpose?

Fu Mengying was so unpopular among the ladies? But those women should at least give the Fu Family face. Were the ladies from the top families in Hong Kong all so unreasonable?

Fu Mengying also did not expect this to happen. She had only donated a scarf. Although Feng Yu had increased the benchmark for donations, she thought the scarf would reach 100,000 HKD at most.

The current amount for this scarf was more than 300,000 HKD. She does not have enough money to bid. If she did not win back her scarf, then the Fu Family and she will lose face. But she does not have enough money. Fu Guangwei also does not have so much money.

Fu Mengying pulled Feng Yu’s sleeves lightly. Feng Yu turned and looked at her: “What’s wrong?”

“Feng Yu, can you help me bid for that scarf? I will return you the money another day.” Fu Mengying could only ask Feng Yu for help. Damnit! Why were her cousins not helping her? Do they really want to see her spending a few hundred HKD? Her monthly allowance was not that much.

Feng Yu realized that many people were looking at him. What’s the meaning of this? I should help this lesbian win that scarfs back? What does this get to do with me? We are not even friends!

But if Feng Yu did not help Fu Mengying, she would be embarrassed, and Feng Yu would be looked down upon by others. The 1 million USD donation will lose its impact. This scarf was now his problem. He had no other choices.

“400,000 HKD.” Feng Yu raised his hand and shouted.

“450,000 HKD!” A woman immediately shouted.

Feng Yu turned towards the voice and saw a woman with an arrogant look. Who was she? What’s her surname? Feng Yu could not recall offending this person. He looked at Fu Mengying, and she was also looking puzzled. She also did not offend the Young Lady of the Huo Family.

Feng Yu did not know that this arises because he rejected the invitations of those women to dance. Those women, especially that Huo Family’s young lady, felt insulted. This was her first time inviting a man for a dance and was rejected!

Even if Feng Yu won the auction for this scarf, his pride would not allow him to ask Fu Mengying for the money. This was spending his money, and there must be a purpose for spending money. Money should not be used to spite others meaninglessly.

“This is the last time I will bid. 460,000 HKD! If anyone wants to outbid me, they can win it.” Feng Yu said.

Everybody was looking at Feng Yu, but after they heard what Feng Yu said, all of them turned and look at that Huo Family’s young lady. She was being scolded by her elder brother. Why are you provoking the Fu Family for no reason? Her brother had just become Feng Yu’s acquittance, and she was creating trouble for him. She does not know that useless Fu Guangzheng, who used to sell antiques, became wealthy after he knew Feng Yu!

As the Huo family’s young lady did not carry on bidding for the scarf, Feng Yu won the auction for 460,000 HKD for the scarf which was worth only a few thousand HKD. The crowd applauded. Feng Yu was the highest bidder in the auction!

The auction continued. Soon it was the lady from the Huo Family’s turn. She had donated her necklace, and the base price was 80,000 HKD. Fu Mengying immediately shouted 300,000 HKD and turned to look at that lady. She was returning her the favor.

Feng Yu looked at Fu Mengying surprised. Didn’t you say you do not have enough money? Are you expecting me to pay for you?

That lady from the Huo Family saw the look in Fu Mengying’s eyes and her face changed color. This necklace was given to her by her mother, and it meant a lot to her. She does not want someone else to win the necklace.

Fu Mengying continued to raise the bid to 500,000 HKD before she stopped. The Huo family’s lady was furious and kept stomping her foot. But her brother told her that she was the one who started this and doesn’t expect him to give her money this month. She got no choice but to accept the fact that she was donating the most for this auction.

Feng Yu thought this was over, but Fu Mengying continued to raise the bids of several other items. Those items were from the ones who purposely bid for her scarf.

Fu Mengying was taking revenge. But those women had to win back their items. If Fu Mengying won their handkerchief and use it to wipe her heels, before throwing it away, they would lose face. It will be a disgrace to their family.

Feng Yu realized that Fu Mengying was a revengeful person. Fu Guangwei had hinted to Fu Mengying several times to stop. He was the organizer of this charity ball, and he does not want his sister to screw things up. But Fu Mengying pretended not to see him. She was unwilling to be bullied. She was still upset about spending over 300,000 HKD. However, she was unaware that Feng Yu had no intention of asking her to return the money.

Until the auction ends, Feng Yu did not make any more bids. Fu Guangwei was overjoyed. The donation from this charity ball, excluding Feng Yu’s 1 million USD, had reached more than 10 million HKD. This charity ball was a success!

But the thing that made Fu Guangwei happiest was Feng Yu had spent more than 400,000 HKD to help his sister win her scarf back. It seems that Feng Yu was interested in his sister. If both really became a couple, it will be great!

Chapter 556 – They had come to invest

The charity ball ended quite late. Most of the guests left. Only the Fu Family’s members remained at the venue to help Fu Guangwei to wrap things up.

Feng Yu also remained there in a corner eating fruits. He was still thinking about those singers and dancers’ songs and dance during the ball. What were their partners thinking? How could they auction their skills? Were those women items to them and other people could bid for them?

The total amount collected from this Charity Ball was 1 million USD and 13,280,000 HKD. This was 4 million HKD more than Fu Guangwei estimation.

The few members of the Fu Family congrats Fu Guangwei. At the same time, they felt Fu Guangwei was too lucky. This was his first time organizing a charity ball, and it was a success.

The only person who was mad there was Fu Mengying. She was shouting at her elder cousins: “Those damn women had purposely pushed up the bid for my scarf. Why didn’t anyone of you help me?”

All of them looked at Fu Guangwei. If this was other places and Fu Mengying was bullied, they would surely help her. If Fu Mengying disgraced herself, the whole Fu Family would be disgraced too. But this time was different. Fu Guangwei had told them not to interfere.

Fu Guangwei smiled and pointed to Feng Yu, who was still eating fruits in his corner: “Didn’t someone helped you?”

Fu Mengying stared at his brother and then looked at the rest of her cousins. She kept quiet. Feng Yu had helped her pay, but they do not know that she had to asked him for help. She still has to return Feng Yu the money.

“Wei Zai, we are going off now. You should go back straight too. You are holding on to so many cheques. Don’t go elsewhere.”

“Ok. You all go ahead first.”

Before the Fu Family’s people left, they walked over to bid their goodbyes to Feng Yu. They were all looking at Feng Yu as if he was their…… Brother-in-law!

When there were only the three of them left in the venue, Feng Yu called Fu Mengying and Fu Guangwei over: “Wei Zai, I need to be clear to you. I have no interest in your sister, and she also does not have any interest in me. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?”

Fu Guangwei blinked. You are not interested in my sister? Who are you fooling? Why did you spend a few hundred thousand HKD to help my sister win her scarf back? Why did you donate 1 million USD at the first dance? If you are not doing these to impress my sister, then why?

These two people were too stubborn.

“I know. I know. Both of you have nothing to do with each other?” Fu Guangwei said. But his eyes and expressions state that he does not believe Feng Yu!

Feng Yu looked at Fu Mengying, and she mustered up her courage: “Bro, it is impossible for me and Feng Yu to be together. I am the one who asked him to help me win the scarf. I still have to return him the money.”

Huh? Sister was the one who asked Feng Yu for help, and that’s why he bid for her scarf? When he thinks back about the auction, this was indeed true. Other than the scarf, Feng Yu did not make any bids.

“Brother Feng, I think sister really suits you. My Dad had also said he does not mind letting her be your mistress.” Fu Guangwei said.

“Bro, what are you saying?!” Fu Mengying screamed.

“What did I say? Didn’t you saw how those people looked at you just now?!” Fu Guangwei snapped at her.

The rumors were still contained within their circles of friends. If one day, the media picked up this news and the whole Hong Kong knew about this, the Fu Family will be disgraced. Furthermore, what’s wrong with Feng Yu? Young, rich and had huge potential. Where else can she find someone like Feng Yu?

Feng Yu grabbed Fu Guangwei’s shoulders: “Wei Zai, this was only what you all wanted. Did you ever ask me what I wanted? You go back and tell Uncle Fu about this. I do not want to see such things happening again.”

Feng Yu turned and walked away. You push your daughter to me, and I have to accept? Yes, you do not mind; she becomes my mistress. But I am not interested in trying to change the sexual orientation of a lesbian.

Seeing Feng Yu leaving, Fu Guangwei sighed. Seems like his sister and Feng Yu were not fated to be together. At the same time, he was also pissed. Why was she a lesbian? If sis and Feng Yu got together, he would let Feng Yu invest all his money for him. He could just enjoy life every day and had an unlimited amount of money!

But even if Fu Mengying and Feng Yu were not destined to be together, she should at least have more interaction with other men. During the whole ball, Fu Mengying was only eating the entire time!

……

He Zhaoji had just returned from lunch he noticed there were a lot of people standing at the company’s entrance. Did something happen in the company?

“What’s wrong? I am the General Manager of Wind and Rain Consulting. All of you can come to me if you have any issues with the company.” He Zhaoji shouted.

“Manager He, don’t worry. We can handle these clients ourselves.” A broker walked out from the crowd.

He Zhaoji was stunned. What did this broker say? These people were…… clients?

The brokers knew the company’s rules. They only accept investments above 1 million HKD. There were at least a dozen people there. All of them were the company’s clients?

He Zhaoji immediately asks the front counter staff about these people. When He Zhaoji heard that these people were indeed all clients, he was excited.

There were so many people there. Even if they invest 1 million HKD each, there will be more than 10 million HKD. This month’s target will increase again.

“Manager He, please sign on this document.” A broker passed a pen and contract to He Zhaoji.

He Zhaoji scanned the document. It was the company’s contract stating the investment amount. 8 million!

Old Liu was lucky today. He managed to clinch a big client. Hmmm…. this month’s result would be even better.

Another broker passed him another contract. He Zhaoji could not even go back to his office.

This contract was for 10 million HKD. It was even more significant than the previous deal.

Huh? Another big client? What’s happening today? Where did all these big clients come from?

The next contract was worth 7 million HKD.

The contract after that was 13 million HKD.

……

He Zhaoji was regretting his decision to go to a far place for lunch. If he was nearby, some of these people might become his client.

He was not sure where did these people come from. These people were not at the company in the morning, and no one told him that there will be clients coming in to sign a contract. This meant that these people had come over at noon and they signed the agreement on the spot.

How much trust did they have in the company for them to sign the contract in a short period? The brokers don’t even have to explain the company’s products, and they signed the contract?

Why was this happening? These people were investing so much money and shouldn’t they have to be rational? Although He Zhaoji had been telling his clients that if they leave their money with Wind and Rain Consulting, it will be the best decision in their life. But no clients will sign the contract so fast.

These people were those who received Feng Yu’s name cards yesterday. They thought about Feng Yu’s donation and were all interested to know about his company. When they ask around about Wind and Rain Consulting, they found out that this investment company had never made losses since the day it was opened. The returns were high too.

No wonder Feng Yu was able to donate so much money without battering his eyelid. His company had been making money. If their company could also have such returns, they would also be able to make donations like Feng Yu.

Also, these people want to be closer to Feng Yu after they found out that Feng Yu was Fu Guangzheng’s Chinese partner. If they could be like Fu Guangzheng and have a partnership with Feng Yu, then their assets will increase by folds!

The whole afternoon, there was a constant stream of customers. The stack of contracts in front of He Zhaoji was piling higher and higher.

He Zhaoji worked until night and realized that more than 50 people had came to invest with the company on that day. Many of these people look familiar. He seems to have seen them in the newspapers. The total amount of funds going into the company on that day was more than 500 million HKD!

The amount invested on this day was more than the total of last year! But why was this happening?

Chapter 557 – Recording of Happy Dictionary starts

Two days after the Charity Ball, Fu Rongbing invited Feng Yu to his house for dinner again. But this time, Feng Yu rejected his invitation.

After that, Feng Yu bought a plane ticket and returned to Beijing. He still has lots of work in Beijing. But his top priority was still the recording of <Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary>.

The recording studio was set up, and Feng Yu insist on checking the studio personally. He had spent money and what if his product placement were not set up correctly?

“What is this picture on the floor? Change it to our Wind and Rain Logo and the words Happy Dictionary on both sides. That’s right. The Logo must be big and prominent.”

“Why is the screen upright? Change it to 445 degrees. This way, the participants and the host can interact. If you put it upright, it will block the host. How can they interact?”

“Make the tables bigger. This is too small to place anything on it. Huh? The host does not have cue cards and no scripts, so we don’t need a table to place things on it? The host and participants do not need to drink water? Didn’t I tell you that Lehaha is also one of the sponsors? Green tea can calm the participants’ nerves. Do you know that?”

“You can place a giant doll of Lehaha’s cartoon character, a gigantic Superfan or Aiwa Pager here in the audience stand. If not, the audience stands will be too boring. You are saying that the viewers are not interested in seeing the audience stand? Have you participated in CCTV’s Gala dinner production before? Don’t you know that the audiences in from of the TV like to see the live audiences? Do you know that one of the segments in this program is asking the live audiences for help?”

“Why are the shelves for the prizes so small? Who says we are going to place the real products here? We just need to place the boxes of the products. You want the participants to carry a real VCD player down the stage? Just let them carry the empty packaging down from the stage and then redeem the real thing in the backstage.”

……

At the <Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary> studio, Feng Yu was furious. These people were too dumb. All of them could not think out of the box. Feng Yu had spent so much money, and they do not know how to let his products have more screen time. The stage arrangements and the audience stand were almost the same as <Serving You>!

Every single detail must be eye-catching and must also showcase the sponsored products.

Deputy Chief Jia had also placed particular importance on this program. Because of this program, he had fallen out with the rest of the Deputies. If this program were not well received by the viewers, there would be a negative impact on him.

Feng Yu was barking orders to the workers while Deputy Chief Jia was speaking to the Chief Director: “Old Yan, what do you think of the changes Feng Yu wanted?”

“Some were reasonable, but some were just to showcase his company’s products. He wants to put his company’s logos on the floor of the stage, pillars, surroundings and even the roof. What has that got to do with this program?” Director Yan complained.

“Old Yan, let it go. <Zhengda Variety Show> is also like this. Feng Yu had spent lots of money to sponsor this program. Other than the venue and workers, CCTV does not need to spend a single cent. We must make sure this program is a success. Next year, CCTV 3’s Deputy Chief Director will be retiring. Do you understand?”

Director Yan heard this, and his hand shook with excitement. He immediately beat his chest and promised that he will listen to Feng Yu’s suggestions. He will make sure that this program will be better than <Zhengda Variety Show>!

Since Deputy Chief Jia had made it so apparent to Director Yan, Director Yan also did not care about his director’s ego. He will just do what Feng Yu wanted. If he becomes the Deputy Chief Director, he will not need to work so hard.

Deputy Chief Jia patted Director Yan’s shoulders and left smiling. In another two days, after the changes wanted by Feng Yu were completed, the program will start recording. Deputy Chief Jia will come again to watch the live recordings by the side.

……

3 days later, the recording of the first episode was about to start. The audiences were mainly students from Beijing University. There were also some family members of CCTV employees. Some of the spectators were CCTV workers. But the ones seated in front were the leaders from CCTV. They wanted to see what this program was all about.

In the backstage, Feng Yu was telling Ni Ping about the things to note.

“This program will test the contestants’ mental state. After the contestant had chosen his answer, no matter whether if his answer is right or wrong, you must ask him ‘Is this your final answer?’ and let the contestant reconsider his answer.”

“What if his first answer is right and changed to a wrong answer after I asked him this question?” Ni Ping asked.

“But if he had chosen the wrong answer in the first place, he might change to the correct one. No matter what answer the contestant picks, that’s their problem. You only need to let him confirm his answer and don’t let him change his mind later. This is also only of the features of this program.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the part of this program that left a lasting impression on him was Wang Xiaoya asking the contestants ‘Is this your final answer?’. Although the viewers will mock the way Wang Xiaoya hosted this program, this phrase became the most popular phase at that time.

The opening music ends, and Ni Ping walked to the center of the stage. All the audience stood up and shouted: “Wind and Rain Happy Dictionary, an exciting test of knowledge!”

The leaders in the audience stand also stood up immediately when they saw the rest of the spectators standing up. They do not know the cheers, and they could only open and close their mouths to pretend they were shouting in unison. After all the audiences sat down, the leaders were thinking in their hearts. This cheer was interesting. It includes the program’s name and still pointed out the core of this program. It was also easily remembered by the viewers. Who was the one that thought this up? Letting the live audiences to shout out the program’s name?

“Good evening to all viewers. This is CCTV’s newest quiz show. Happy Dictionary. Answer the questions correctly and win big prizes. This program is sponsored by Wind and Rain Electronics, Technology can change our lives. We are open to applications from the viewers to participate in this program…… Ok. Now, let’s welcome our first contestant.”

The audience cheered as this contestant walked up the stage. This contestant was a Professor from Beijing University, and he was specially invited by CCTV to participate. There were many Beijing University students among the audiences, and they will surely support their professor.

“Good evening Sir. Please take a sit. I am Ni Ping. Can you introduce yourself?”

“Good evening. My name is Zhao Luyi, 38 years old. I am a professor at Beijing University. I had seen your program’s advertisement in the papers asking for participants, and I called. I am quite surprised that I am selected to be one of the contested.” Professor Zhao sat down with a confident look.

A professor at a young age of 38, was proof of his success. This was a selling point. Although the professor looks confident, Feng Yu does not think that this professor Zhao will be able to answer all 10 questions correct. The questions were changed from 12 to 10, but the difficulty of the questions had increased a lot.

“Professor Zhao, what is your greatest dream?”

“My hometown is a poor village in the countryside. There are many kids who can’t afford to go to school. I want to win the prize money and donate to them.”

Feng Yu looked at the director by the side of the studio, and the director shook his head. This was not arranged by them. Feng Yu did not know this Professor Zhao and had never expected this professor’s dream was to donate his prize money. Feng Yu leaned over and whispered into the director’s ears. The director nodded.

“Professor Zhao, I see a lot of students from Beijing University. They seem to be here to support you. Are you confident to answer all 10 questions correctly and win the top prize to fulfill your dreams?”

“Yes!”

“Alright, I wish you success. Now, answer me. Are you ready to start?”

“I am ready!”

Chapter 558 – Professor lost to a worker?

“The first question, 1 Kg of wool and 1 Kg of metal, which is heavier? A: 1 Kg of wool, B: 1 Kg of metal, C: Both are the same.”

Professor Zhao smiled and answered: “The answer is C. Both are the same.”

A leader from CCTV in the audience stand laughed. The same? Professor? 1 Kg of metal must be heavier!

“Is this your final answer?” Ni Ping asked again.

“Yes. Because both the wool and metal are 1 Kg. But the wool’s volume will be much more than the metal.”

“Congratulations. Your answer is correct!”

The audiences cheered. The leader who laughed just now realized that he had overlooked the weight of the wool and metal. He had thought that if the questions were so simple, he would be able to answer all the questions quickly. But now it seems that the questions were not that simple.

Professor Zhao continued to answer two questions correctly and had passed the first stage. The prizes for the first stage was 1,000 RMB and a prize. But if he chose to take the prize, he got to give up the rest of the questions.

“Professor Zhao, are you sure you want to continue?”

“I am sure. I need to win more prize money.”

“Alright. We shall continue with the questions. Please look at the next question……”

On the fifth question, Professor Zhao hesitated. This was a Lifestyle question. He does not know the answer, and he told Ni Ping: “I will use one of my lifelines. I request to seek help from the live audiences.”

A student raised his hand and gave Professor Zhao the correct answer. Professor Zhao had passed the second stage.

When Professor Zhao reached the eighth question, he had used up all his lifelines. But he still chose to continue answering the remaining questions.

However, when Professor Zhao reached the 10th question, he got the answer wrong.

“I’m sorry. Your answer to this question is wrong. Your prize money will be reset to zero. However, you will still have a Consolation prize, an Aiwa Walkman.”

The live audiences groaned with disappointment. Professor Zhao was also feeling depressed. He had never expected that he had answered all the difficult questions about physics, chemistry, math, and history. But he got the final question about lifestyle wrong.

The percentage of a tri-colored cat being female was more than 99%! Professor Zhao had never kept pets before and how could he know the answer?!

“Professor Zhao, I am sorry that all your prize money is forfeited. But don’t worry. The director had just passed me a message for you. Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics, Lehaha Corporation, and Tai Hua Education Fund will study the situation of your hometown and will sponsor the education system there. They will make sure all the kids there will be able to go to school!”

The live audiences cheered when they heard what Ni Ping said. Professor Zhao was also stunned. He stood up and thank the host and the sponsors.

Feng Yu had all along been donating to schools and does not mind giving some money to this village. After this episode was aired and with the newspaper reporting, it will surely increase the social standings of his companies further!

Next year’s summer, it should be easier to recruit graduating students from Beijing University.

The few leaders sitting in front nodded with approval. If this were aired, the rating would surely be high. This program was exciting. The questions had covered all sorts of weird topics. They could not even answer more than half of them. But were these questions too difficult?

Even a professor had failed to answer all the questions. What about the rest? Will the viewers still be interested to watch?

“Let’s welcome the next contestant.”

Someone in working attire walked up the stage and waved to the audience enthusiastically. He felt like he was a superstar. His uniform was printed with the words – Songjiang Motors.

When Ni Ping saw this worker walking up the stage in his uniform, she was stunned. But she was able to recover fast.

“Good evening Sir. Have a seat. I am Ni Ping, can you introduce yourself?”

“Good evening. My name is Sun Dahai. I am from Northeast Bing City. I am a worker in Bing City Machinery Company’s First Automobile Branch Factory.” He spoke with a Northeast accent, and the live audience laughed.

“Mr. sun, can I ask how you are selected?”

“One day after work, I heard about this program from the radio, and I called in to apply. I also did not expect myself to be selected. My wife actually did not allow me to come. She said that I only have a middle school education and I will surely lose on the first question in this type of quiz. But I want to win the prize money to bring my family on holiday. I want to bring them to visit all provinces of China.”

The leaders from CCTV frowned. This contestant was selected by the sponsors? A worker with a middle school education? He might not even answer the first three questions. If he can’t even answer the first question, this program will be a laughing stock!

All the live audience were thinking the same way too. Even a highly educated Professor could not answer all the questions, let alone a worker like Sun Dahai.

The audience laughed when the first question appeared. This Sun Dahai does not even know ABC. How come this person dare to participate in this program?

But Sun Dahai managed to answer the first 3 questions correctly. Sun Dahai had learned that knowledge in the course of his work in the workshops and was able to apply what he learned in answering the questions.

But the audiences felt that this was Sun Dahai’s limit. He should take the first stage of prize money and leave. However, Sun Dahai still wanted to continue!

The 5th question was an about history. This was an uncommon question. It was asking who the third emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty was.

“I pick the third answer. Zhao Heng.”

“Is this your final answer?”

“Actually, I do not know the answer. I am only making a guess. My parents have 3 sons, and I am the third son. So, I pick the third answer. Yes, the third answer.” Sun Dahai replied.

“Congratulations. Your answer is correct!”

The live audiences were shocked. WTF? This contestant did not know the answer and made a random guess. Just because he was the third son and picked the third answer, he got it correct?

But this was the rule. The contestant does not need to know whether if they know the answer to the questions as long as they got it correct. It was just like sitting for a multiple-choice test. Marks will be given for every correct answer.

The live audiences thought that this lucky contestant would give up answering the rest of the questions and take the second stage prize money, but he chose to carry on with the quiz. Did he think that he will still be so lucky to answer the rest of the questions correctly? 3,000 RMB was not a small sum, and there were still other prizes.

When this worker was answering the 8th question, even the leaders among the audiences felt this person was too lucky. The 8th question was about astronomy. This worker does not know the answer, and he picked the answer with the most words. He got it right!

This worker had reached stage 3 purely due to his luck, and he still wanted to continue.

This worker does not know the answer to the last 2 questions, but he still got it right with his luck. This was out of expectations from the audiences. This worker had answered all 10 questions right with his extraordinary luck!

When the host announced this worker had successfully cleared all the stages and won 10,000 RMB and other prizes, the audiences cheered.

A worker had accomplished what a highly educated professor couldn’t! Does this mean that anyone can also win this quiz just by luck alone?

Other than Deputy Chief Jia, the rest of the CCTV leaders did not know this was arranged and the worker knew the answers before the start of the quiz.

Everybody was shocked. This was too dramatic. A professor had just lost to a worker?!

Chapter 559 – Professors are applying as participants

The recording of the first episode was over. The few leaders looked at each other, and all of them does not know what to comment about this program. This program was entertaining, educational and still have many highlights. But a professor losing to a worker? Was this even possible?

Deputy Chief Jia also looked for Feng Yu. Was this too much? The first episode had shown a professor failing to complete this quiz, and the one who won the quiz was a worker. There was also a housewife who gave up in the middle and took back part of her prize money…… But what will be the impact to show a professor losing to a worker?

Luckily, this was a recorded program. This program will be aired after the New Year, and there was still time to tweet it.

“Feng Yu, I could tell from the live audiences’ reaction that they enjoyed this. But can this really be aired?”

“Chief Jia, most of the audiences here are the students from Beijing University. They are here to support their professor. They did not raise any objections when the worker won. Why should the other viewers raise issues with the worker winning? An ordinary worker winning a professor. Don’t you think this is a good promotional tool?”

“Promotional tool?”

“That’s right. We will broadcast this news over the radio and newspaper to promote this episode. The headline will be ‘Professor losing to a worker.’ I guarantee you that the first episode’s ratings will surprise you.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

Gimmicks are a must when promoting. If it were only a typical advertisement, the audiences would forget it. But once the headlines were announced, it will definitely spark the interest of many viewers.

The next day, Beijing Dailly, Longjiang Daily, and the newspapers of every province had the same headlines. Professor losing to a worker!

Many people when they saw the headlines became interested. They even skipped the rest of the news and read this report first. How could a professor lose to a worker? Was it a fight?

If it were a fight, those skinny and frail professors would not be a match for those fit and strong workers. But how could a professor get into a fight with a worker?

Huh? A quiz?

A professor from Beijing University had lost to a worker from a Bing City’s factory?

This worker only studied until middle school?

When they finished reading this report, they noticed the last sentence. “For more details, please tune in to CCTV’s brand-new variety show <Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary>, airing on 2nd January 1994 at 7.40pm.”

There were also details on how to apply to be a contestant. Interested parties can call in to register or by post.

There were no details about this program and did not state the rules.

But without any details, it increases the curiosity of the readers. They were interested to know about the rules of this quiz show and how did someone with middle school education win a professor in a quiz show? Some of the more curious readers start to apply.

This report caused an uproar. The one who was most affected was Beijing University’s, Professor Zhao.

A professor from one of China’s top university, losing to a worker in a quiz show. Were the professors from Beijing University useless or that work was extraordinary?

Even if that worker was extraordinary, a professor from Beijing University should not lose!

When the leaders of Beijing University saw the report, they had an uneasy feeling. This incident will undoubtedly affect the university’s reputation. Who was this Professor Zhao? Which faculty was he from? Summon him over now!

……

“These are the questions you answered that day?” The school’s leaders gathered around a piece of paper. Professor Zhao had written down all the questions he answered.

The few leaders looked at each other and swallowed their saliva. Some of them were not sure of the answers.

“How many questions did you got it right?” A vice principal asked.

“9 questions. I got the last question wrong.”

All the leaders immediately look at the 10th question. The percentage of a tri-colored cat is A: 99% female; B: 99% male; C: 100% male.

They looked at the options and analyzed the question. From the options, the chances of this tri-colored cat being a male should be higher. The answer should not be 100% male. The answer to this question must be B, 99% male.

“What answer did you pick?”

“I chose B.” Professor Zhao replied.

The school leaders were shocked. What? B was the wrong answer? Could the answer be C?

Professor Zhao continued: “The correct answer is A. This is a lifestyle question. This can also be considered a Biological Generic question. I had asked a professor from our biology faculty and found out why the answer was A. Based on the generic……”

Professor Zhao was upset for getting the question wrong, and after he returned from CCTV, he immediately went to look for a professor in biology to find out the reason behind the answer.

The leaders do not know what to say. All of them could not even be compared to Professor Zhao. At least Professor Zhao was able to answer the first 9 questions correctly. But why did he lose to a worker? If he lost to a university student, the university will still not look bad.

After questioning Professor Zhao, they found out that the worker only knew the answers to 4 questions. He used his lifelines to answer 3 questions, and the rest was because of his lucky guess!

Guess?! A worker won their university’s professor by guessing? The leaders really wanted to cry.

When the leaders found out that Professor Zhao had participated in this program to raise funds for his hometown village’s kids, they did not reprimand him.

But after looking at the questions in the quiz, they were more relaxed. They knew that Huaqing University will undoubtedly send their people to participate. When Huaqing University loses in the quiz, then Beijing University will not be a disgrace. Hmmm…. If Huaqing university was not going to join, they should give them some “encouragements.”

When they were still planning what to do, the phone on the principal’s desk rang.

“Hello? The old Chu? Today’s Beijing Daily? Oh, I read it. What’s wrong? You are talking about Professor Zhao? It’s fine. Although he lost, he did us proud…… Your Huaqing University’s professor is also participating? The recording is in 2 days? Hmph! I am not free to have lunch with you. If there is nothing else, I will hang up!”

After hanging up, the principal smiled. He does not even need to do anything, and Huaqing University had sent someone to participate. Every year, Beijing and Huaqing university were fighting to recruit the top students. But Beijing University will always be the first!

Hmph! You think by sending a professor to participate in this program will show the capabilities of your university? You think you will recruit more students this way? Hahaha. You got to have the luck first. But I think the professor you sent cannot even reach the third stage. If that really happens, it will be Huaqing University’s reputation that will be affected!

CCTV’s <Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary> production team had suddenly received lots of applicants. Most of the applications were from professors. What surprised them was the number of professors from Huaqing University that was applying.

But the production team remembered what Feng Yu said. This program was for the commoners. There should not be too many professors participating. So, the team picked two professors based on their university’s popularity. One of them was from Huaqing University.

The production team was sighing. Did this Huaqing University think that the questions in this program were easy? Wait until you see the questions and you will know.

The production team felt that after this program was aired, they should not be receiving any applications from professors again. These professors loved to be in the limelight and cherished their reputation. They can’t accept losing in on national TV. Even if they do not mind, their schools will also not allow them to participate!

Chapter 560 – Wen Dongjun also want to take part

“Professor Yang is also going to be in this program? I want to watch it.” Li Na hugged Feng Yu and said excitedly.

“There’s no hurry. The recording in the afternoon. It is still early now. Come…. I will teach you a new position today. It’s call doggy.”

“Stop it. We did it 3 times yesterday. You are not tired?”

“Who will feel tired from doing this? If you are worried I am tired, you can be on top. Come… come and conquer me…….”

……

“It’s on my body.” Li Na said.

“Never mind. I will bath you later.” Feng Yu got off the bed and was about to carry Li Na into the bathroom.

“Ahhhh…. I can bath myself.”

“I am the one who makes you dirty, so I have to help you wash it off. This is what our teacher taught us!” Feng Yu said.

“Which teach taught you this?”

“Teacher Aoi Sora…… Never mind. You also don’t know who she is. I will show you her VCDs another day.” Feng Yu replied.

Li Na paused for a while before realizing what “VCDs” Feng Yu was talking about. It must be those Japanese movies! When she was still thinking about the VCDs, Feng Yu carried her into the bathroom.

Although they did not do anything, Feng Yu was still feeling very happy. When both of them came out of the bathroom, it was already late morning.

Both went out for lunch before going to CCTV.

At the entrance, they saw Wen Dongjun pacing up and down. Zhang Han and Wen Dongjun had never seen the live recording of a variety program before. Zhang Han had to beg her father and lied to him before he allowed her to come out.

Wen Dongjun does not have the entry pass to CCTV, and they could not enter.

When Wen Dongjun saw Feng Yu and Li Na, he waved to a stationary car not far away. Zhang Han alighted from the vehicle and ran over.

“Li Na, Feng Yu, why are you two so late?” Zhang Han grumbled. They were supposed to meet at 1 pm, and it was already 1.30 pm.

Li Na blushed, but Feng Yu calmly replied: “We could not get a taxi.”

Hmph! I had lent you my car for so long. What’s wrong with being late for a while?

Wen Dongjun smiled and said: “It’s good you are here. Hurry and bring us in.”

Feng Yu also do not have the entry pass. But he just walks in with Li Na. The guard at the entrance still gave Feng Yu a salute. Wen Dongjun saw this and quickly followed Feng Yu together with Zhang Han.

What a big difference…… Earlier, this guard was still asking for the entry pass. Why was he keeping quiet now?

“This afternoon, CCTV will record two episodes. There will be a Professor from Huaqing University, and a Professor from Beijing Teaching University. There is a policeman, a doctor, a work, a technician, a writer and a housewife taking part too. Who do you think will win?” Feng Yu asked while walking.

“Isn’t this a quiz? It must be the professors who will win.” Wen Dongjun said confidently.

How could the rest of the participants win the professors in terms of knowledge?

Zhang Han tugged Wen Dongjun’s arm: “Did you forget about the news reported over the radio? A professor from Beijing University had lost to a worker.”

“That must be fake. I think the worker had known the answers before the quiz. There is something wrong with that worker!” Wen Dongjun said confidently.

Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun surprised. Even this moron could guess that this was arranged, then the TV audience should be able to figure it out.

Feng Yu immediately asked: “How do you know?”

Wen Dongjun looked at Feng Yu with despised: “Do I even need to guess? Tell me, do you have anything to do with this program?”

“I am the sponsor for this program, and I am providing the prizes. What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? It is written clearly in the newspaper. That worker is a worker in Bing City’s Machinery Company. You are also related to that company, right? I know you too well. You must have told him the answers. When we are in primary school, you always cheat during the tests by copying my answers!” Wen Dongjun said and looked up proudly.

“You are the one who copied my homework all the time!” Feng Yu retorted. At the same time, he was relieved. Wen Dongjun could guess it because he knew Feng Yu too well. The TV audiences will not be able to see it was rigged.

Li Na tapped Feng Yu: “You had arranged it?”

“Yes. It is to create some highlights for this program. Therefore, those two professors might not be able to pass too many stages today!” Feng Yu glanced at Wen Dongjun. You guessed that the professors will win today? Those weird questions require at least a group of professors to answer all correctly!

Wen Dongjun looks like he had suffered a massive blow: “Did you let anyone know the answers today? You cannot do this. I have a bet with my roommates!”

“Serve you right!” You knew that this program had something to do with me and you still dare to bet with someone?

“If I am the participant, I will not lose!” Wen Dongjun argued.

Feng Yu ignored Wen Dongjun. Even the production team workers who had collected those questions dare not to say that they will surely win this quiz. There were at least 10,000 questions, and it will be updated every week. Who knows what question will be asked.

At the recording studio, Feng Yu noticed that everyone were very busy. What’s wrong? There shouldn’t be any problems. They had already recorded 3 episodes.

Feng Yu grabbed hold of a director, and the director said: “Manager Feng, let me go. I am in a rush.”

“What’s wrong? Is there any problem with the recording?”

“A contestant could not make it here today. We are thinking of a solution.”

One backup contestant could not make it? Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun. Didn’t this moron boost that he could win the quiz? I shall let you try!

“Director, can my childhood friend take part? He is a student at Technology University.”

That director saw it was Feng Yu who asked and immediately said: “I will report this to the Chief Director. Please wait a while.”

Wen Dongjun pointed to himself: “I can take part? I can really take part in the program just like that?”

“You said you want to take part. If you are not afraid of embarrassing yourself, go ahead. I bet you will answer 4 questions at most.”

“Wahahaha. I can take part! Today I shall show you that I can answer all 10 questions!” Wen Dongjun said confidently.

The Chief Director heard that it was Feng Yu who asked and agreed immediately. He does not need to go and contact others. Furthermore, if the other contestants before him performed well, then there was no need for Feng Yu’s friend to take part.

Wen Dongjun ran to the backstage for makeup. Feng Yu and the rest sat on the second row, waiting for the program to start.

The first two contestants had not performed well. The first person only answered 4 questions, while the second person answered 6 questions. They just received the consolation prize. Finally, it was the professor from Huaqing University turn. He walked up the stage and waved to the live audience confidently. The spectators cheered for him.

But 5 minutes later, that professor walks off the stage embarrassed. He had only answer 4 questions correctly. The 5th question was a lifestyle question. The professor who had never cook before does not know the answer!

Next, it was a driver with Wind and Rain Logistics. This driver was well prepared. He had practiced his scripts and knew what to say for guessing all the correct answers. He made it look like he was guessing the answers and the reasons he gave also seems logical.

When the audiences saw the driver clearing all the stages and answered all 10 questions, they cheered.

Feng Yu saw the live audiences’ reaction, including the students from Huaqing University, he knew that his plan to create a commoner hero was a success!

But as the first few contestants had failed too fast, Wen Dongjun had the chance to participate.

Chapter 561 – Quanjude

Wen Dongjun went up the stage and waved to the audience proudly. He looked like he had won the quiz. Zhang Han covered her face. She knew that with Wen Dongjun’s character, he would surely behave this way on stage. She should have stopped him from participating.

Feng Yu was bending over laughing. The more confident and prouder you are now, the more the viewers will talk about this program and the ratings will be higher!

Before the host asked Wen Dongjong, he started to ramble everything about himself. He even told the host where his hometown was, what school he had attended, who his parents were and also reveal his hostel number!

Ni Ping embarrassedly interrupted Wen Dongjun: “Mr. Wen, can we start now?”

Wen Dongjun sat down confidently: “Let’s start!”

“Ok. This is the first question……”

Wen Dongjun was stunned by the first question. He does not know the answer and all the options available seem to be the correct answer.

“I choose to ask the live audience!” Wen Donghun said.

The live audience roared with laughter. They had seen many participants before Wen Dongjun, and none of them used their helpline on the first question.

Wen Dongjun looked at the audiences and pointed to Feng Yu: “Can he help me answer the question?”

Feng Yu sneered. You are the one asking for it. Even if I knew the answer, I would tell you the wrong one. Moreover, I also do not know the answer to this question. If I am able to guess the right answer, then we should go and buy a lottery ticket!

“I pick C!” Feng Yu made a random guess.

Wen Dongjun immediately said: “I pick C as the answer.” He thought Feng Yu knew the answers to all the questions.

“Is this your final answer?”

“Yes!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am sure. C!” Wen Dongjun confidently replied. This host was weird. I had already confirmed my answer, and she still wants to ask so many times. I will not support her in the future.

“I’m sorry. Your answer is wrong. The correct answer is A!” Ni Ping also did not want any contestant to get the first question wrong. She had tried to give him a chance, but he was the one who insisted on the answer.

Hahaha………

The live audience laughed and cheered. They had never seen anyone get the first question wrong. He had even used a helpline.

Even if you want to ask the audience, you should ask someone who knew the answer. Why did you pick someone who gave you a wrong answer?

Feng Yu also did not expect his answer given to Wen Dongjun was wrong. Seems like Wen Dongjun had bad luck!

The director saw this person who was recommended by Manager Feng was not reliable. With all the rubbish he said and the answering of the first question, the total time was less than 2 minutes. Fine. He decided to record 2 episodes back to back. This person’s footage can be edited and shown as the first contestant of the 4th episode. Eh, if this joker was the opening contestant, it can also attract more viewers!

After leaving the studio, Wen Dongjun was still sulking. When this was aired, he will be the laughing stock in his school!

“Dongjun, you are going to be famous!” Feng Yu purposely said.

“Famous? I had embarrassed myself!” Wen Dongjun sighed.

“How can this be? I will personally write the contents for the advertisement of this episode. I will write ‘a student from Technological University had participated in <Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary> and broke the records! Think about it. You will be the center of attention in your school. Everyone in your school will know you!”

But Feng Yu did not tell him that those people who were looking at him will be saying, look, that’s the person who can’t even get the first question correct in <Wind and Rain – Happy dictionary>!

“Are you sure? They will not laugh at me?”

“Who will laugh at you? They will envy you for appearing on TV. Can they even get selected?”

Without me, you will also not get selected!

Wen Dongjun brightens up and smiles: “That’s right. I appeared on TV, and it’s a CCTV program. If they are so capable, then they can get selected and participate!”

Damn. This moron really feels good about himself. But no matter what, it was worthwhile bringing him here to the studio.

“Come, I will treat you all to dinner. You can turn your grief into your appetite. Are you excited?”

Li Na looked at Feng Yu speechlessly. Turn your grief into strength had become appetite?

……

Quanjude, Beijing’s most famous Chinese restaurant. It was famous for its duck feast. This restaurant had been cooking the national banquet for foreign delegates!

Feng Yu had picked to come here for dinner, was also to observe the restaurant. This was because Quanjude will be restructured into a company this year!

Feng Yu had all along thought of setting up an F&B business. But for f&b companies, the food should have a distinguishing characteristic. Feng Yu does not know any distinguished food. Deep fried ice-cream? Or deep-fried chicken? He was not interested in setting up fast food restaurants. He would rather help out the traditional Chinese restaurants.

Quanjude was an established branded traditional Chinese restaurant. This would save Feng Yu lots of trouble.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Feng Yu remembered that Quanjude was a private enterprise and not a state-owned enterprise. Although the government had some shares in it, it was restructured into a shareholding company. The restructuring had happened this year.

This year, Quanjude had already been converted into a company. But the top management was still the same leaders. These people had the same mindsets. With them around, the restructuring will not succeed.

Since Quanjude could let people invest in Feng Yu’s previous life, then in this life, why can’t Feng Yu buy a stake in it? The Quanjude brand in his previous life was worth more than 1 billion! This was a sure win investment, and the returns were extremely high!

Feng Yu felt that if he invests now, he does not need to spend too much money. Most importantly, Feng Yu likes to eat roast duck!

A chef was performing the slicing of a roast duck in the dining hall. His knife skills were good, and within minutes, the whole roast duck was deboned.

“Chef, what time does Manager Jiang comes in?” Feng Yu suddenly asked. Manager Jiang Xianjun was Quanjude’s future Chairman.

“Manager Jiang? He will visit our restaurants every day. But we do not have only one restaurant, you might not be able to see him today. Are you Manager Jiang’s friend?” The chef asked.

These 4 people look young, but the clothes they were wearing were branded. The Chef knew they were wealthy from their dressing. Also, the car parked outside was expensive. This was why he asked if they were Manager Jiang’s friend.

“No. But I am a businessman, and I would like to meet Manager Jiang.” Feng Yu smiled.

“I’m sorry. I can’t be of much help. You can try asking our branch manager. I shall use these bones to make soup for you. Please enjoy your meal.” The Chef pushed his trolley back into the kitchen.

“Why do you want to know the boss of a duck restaurant?” Wen Dongjun asked while stuffing his face.

“Boss of a duck restaurant? This is a company now, and I want to befriend their deputy general manager. You will know how capable he is in the future.”

Feng Yu shook his head. Quanjude will be Asia’s top F&B’s brand, and Feng Yu wants to get a stake in it. Although this was only a roast duck restaurant now, in the future, Quanjude will have more than 70 branches. It will no longer be just a restaurant selling roost ducks.

“Nana, try this. The duck skin is crispy and delicious.” Feng Yu picked up a piece of duck skin and wrap it up with some sauce.

Wen Dongjung had already finished 3 wraps. This moron was really trying his best to turn his grief into appetite.

Feng Yu also made a wrap for himself and slowly ate it. But suddenly, Wen Dongjun’s face changed!

Chapter 562 – Creating a Hero from the Police force

Wen Dongjun suddenly stops eating. Feng Yu was surprised. He turned around and saw a man in his 50s. He seems familiar.

“Dad, you are here too?” Zhang Han stood up and timidly asked.

This was Zhang Han’s father? The boss of Beijing’s police force?

“I thought you said you have some activities in your school? This is your so-call activity?” Zhang Han’s father asked coldly.

“Uncle.” Wen Dongjun greeted. He was now like a kid being caught by the farmer for stealing apples on a farm.

Wen Dongjun and Zhang Han stood up. The young girl also stopped eating. But there was still a young man who was still eating slowly like nothing had happened. Zhang Han’s father was curious. All of Zhang Han’s friends knew who he was and his position in the government. This young man was not simple.

Feng Yu took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth and hands. He stood up and extend his hand to Zhang Han’s father: “Hello, Minister Zhang. I am Feng Yu. Nice to meet you.”

Feng Yu addressed him as Minister Zhang and not Uncle Zhang. His attitude was like speaking to someone on the same level. Zhang Han’s father frowned. Who was this young man?

Wait, did he say he was Feng Yu? Could it be that Feng Yu?!

“You are that Feng Yu from Bing City’s Tai Hua Trading?” Zhang Han’s father shook his hand.

“Uncle Zhang have heard of me? If you are not busy, how about joining us for dinner?”

All the officials from Bing City had heard of Feng Yu. Maybe those small fries might not know, but all the top leaders knew who Feng Yu was.

Feng Yu had even met both the Premier and old Premier. This was why he was not afraid of Zhang Han’s father. He just treated him as a regular government official.

Wen Dongjun saw Zhang Han’s father shaking hands with Feng Yu and was shocked. He had met Zhang Han’s father before and knew his temper. Since when did he become so friendly?

But what was Feng Yu doing? Why did he invite Zhang Han’s father to join them? Shit. Zhang Han’s father really sits down?

“I happen to have some free time now. I can chat with you all, but there is no need for dinner.” Zhang Han’s father sat down, and Wen Dongjun immediately pours a cup of tea for him.

“Manager Feng.”

“Uncle Zhang, just call me Xiao Feng will do.” Feng Yu politely said. There was no need for him to act like some official here.

“Ok. All of you are classmates?”

“We were in the same class in High School. Later we went to separate classes because we picked different subjects.”

“Oh, then are you also studying in Beijing?”

“Yes. I am studying at Beijing University. But recently, I am studying at Hong Kong University as an exchange student.”

Exchange student? What’s that? Although Zhang Han’s father does not know what’s that, it sounds important.

“Then why are you back?”

Zhang Han’s father chatted with Feng Yu like friends, and Wen Dongjun and the rest were sitting at attention. They did not even continue eating.

“I got some work at CCTV, so I came back. I will return back to Hong Kong in a few days. Exams are around the corner.”

“I heard from Zhang Ruiqiang that you are a smart person. When he has some issues at work, he will look for you, and he will have the solution.”

Eh? Zhang Ruiqiang had mentioned about me? He said good things about me? Not bad. At least helping him getting those political credits were not wasted.

“On-lookers see most of the game.”

Zhang Han’s father nodded. It’s rare for him to meet humble young men. Zhang Ruiqiang had told him that Feng Yu was a genius. But he could not tell from this meeting. But he noticed Feng Yu was a modest and matured person.

When Zhang Han’s father thought about this, he looked at Wen Dongjun. These two people had grown up together and why was there such a huge difference? Wen Dongjun was an only bigger size than Feng Yu. What other uses does he have?”

Wen Dongjun was the too big size, and it will not be easy to arrange jobs for him. No leaders would want an assistant that’s 1.9 m tall. They will need to look up with telling him instructions. Zhang Han was so pretty and why did she like him?

“Xiao Wen.”

“Yes, Uncle.” Wen Dongjun immediately straightens his back.

“If a branch bureau’s case-solving rate is low and the civilians were worried about their security, what should you do?”

Wen Dongjun frowned. This again. I do not want to enter the police force. Can you stop testing me every time we met? But Wen Dongjun also knows that Zhang Han’s father was trying to groom him. If he enters the police force, Zhang Han’s father would be able to help him get promoted.

Obviously, Wen Dongjun does not know how to answer Zhang Han’s father. If the case solving rate was too low, then punish the head of the branch!

But Wen Dongjun dares not to answer him this way. Suddenly he remembered about the variety program recording this afternoon. Why can’t there be a variety program about law enforcement? Feng Yu had mentioned that his Happy Dictionary was to create a hero from commoners. Why not create a hero policeman?

Wen Dongjun had heard Feng Yu telling him that many of the stories about Lei Feng were created to portray him as a national hero. It should not be a problem to create a model policeman.

“Uncle Zhang, I think we can work with the TV station to create a program about law enforcement, to showcase the policemen crime solving. In a way, this will serve as a warning to those criminals and promote the Police force’s good image. Just like Lei Feng.”

“Lei Feng?” Zhang Han’s father looked at Wen Dongjun curiously.

“Lei Feng’s stories are mostly fake. For example, the donations he made was several times more than his income. Also, he needs to do a lot of things every day and where did he get the time to train? If you look at the stories carefully, there are many loopholes. But there are still many people who believe in Lei Feng’s stories and look up to him as a role model……”

Wen Dongjun became softer as he said. Lei Feng was portrayed as a model citizen, and he was talking bad about him. It does not seem like this was the right thing to do. Even Chairman Mao had said everyone should follow Lei Feng as an example. But this was the truth.

“You are saying that we should create a “Lei Feng” from the police force?” Zhang Han’s father looked at Wen Dongjun expressionless.

“That’s right.”

“But what if the police force does not have someone like him?” Zhang Han’s father asked.

“I know. As long as we credit of everybody’s good deeds to one person and that person will be made into a hero.”

Feng Yu nearly choked from his tea when he heard this.

I was talking rubbish in the past, and you remembered everything I said? I thought you were a good listener. I didn’t know you have such a good memory. These things can only be said between us. Although this was a VIP room, the door was still open!

Zhang Han’s father looked at Wen Dongjun and narrowed his eyes. “You are telling me to create a fake hero?”

“No need to be fake. You can just exaggerate some small incidents. Many officers had lots of achievements under their belts which the public was unaware of. You can just publicize and promote what they had done and their achievements. At the same time, let the public know how difficult it was for them to solve the crimes. This way, the public will not blame the policemen for low crime solving rates, and they will know that there were some Super Cops around. They will feel more secure.”

“You are the one who thought this up?”

“Yes. I am the one.” Wen Dongjun replied. He cannot say it was Feng Yu who told him these.

“In the future, stop thinking of these unorthodox methods. Han Han, are you done with your dinner? Come home with me now. You all can carry on with your dinner. I will bring Han Han home first.”

Zhang Han’s father stood up and left with the unwilling Zhang Han. Using marketing strategies to create a Super Cop from the Police Force was a good idea. Zhang Han’s father wanted to think it through and see if this idea would work.

Wen Dongjun saw Zhang Han leaving with her father. He was depressed. Was there anything wrong with my answer just now?

Feng Yu noticed the excitement in Zhang Han’s father eyes when he left. Seems like Wen Dongjun’s had inspired Zhang Han’s father a lot.

Government Officials need to know these tricks too!

Chapter 563 – Jiang Xianjun

The next day, when Li Na and the rest were in school, Feng Yu went to Beijing Quanjude Company. He had called the company, and Jiang Xianjun will be waiting for him in his office.

Of course, it was not just a phone call. Feng Yu had asked Shi Feng, the boss of Yadu to pass him a message. There was a difference when someone he knew introduced Feng Yu.

Yadu was China’s hi-tech company. Although Feng Yu had introduced the humidifier before Yadu, the Chinese government still supported it. The company had developed well, and in Beijing, Yadu had a higher standing than Quanjude.

However, Feng Yu felt that Quanjude was worth much more than Yadu because of its brand!

“Manager Jiang, a young man is looking for you. He says he had called you and his name is Feng Yu.” The secretary reported.

“Invite him in and prepare two cups of tea.”

Jiang Xianjjun was surprised when he saw Feng Yu. This was Feng Yu? The person introduced by Manager Shi? Jiang Xianjun was in his 40s, and he thought no matter how young Feng Yu was, he should be in his 30s. If it were not for Feng Yu’s mature dressing, he would believe Feng Yu was still a student.

“Hi, Manager Jiang. Tai Hua Trading’s Feng Yu.”

“Manager Feng, have a seat. Smoke?” Jiang Xianjun took out his cigarettes and offered to Feng Yu.

“No thanks.”

“I heard from Yadu’s Manager Shi that you want to talk business with me?” Jiang Xianjun asked. Was Manager Shi joking with him? How can this young man be a businessman?

“Manager Jiang, this Quanjude Company should just be set up not long ago? I wonder if the restructuring is completed?” Feng Yu smiled.

“It is still in progress. Thanks for asking.” No one wants to let an outsider knows what was happening in the company.

“Manager Jiang, it should not be easy for you to implement your ideas, right?”

Jiang Xianjun’s face changes. “Manager Feng, what do you mean?”

Jiang Xianjun had started his career as an ordinary worker and was promoted to a technician. After that, he worked his way up to a production manager and was then transferred to manage a factory before being transferred to Beijing as an F&B Deputy General Manager. This year, he was ordered to reorganize Quanjude and to set up a company. He needs to revamp Quanjude.

A few years ago, Jiang Xianjun had gone to further his studies in the US. In the US, he saw the franchise management model. It was still a new concept and could help the company expand quickly.

He starts to think about how he could apply this model in the F&B industry back in China. It should be as successful as those US fast food chains.

To implement this idea, he had submitted a few proposals to his leaders. But there were no replies. This year, his higher-up was changed, and his new leader had seen his proposals and called him over for a talk.

Jiang Xianjun managed to persuade his leader, and he was a task to choose an F&B state-owned restaurant for pilot testing. He picked Quanjude, 100 years’ old restaurant.

Although the leader had some hesitations initially, he gave in when Jiang Xianjun promised to resign if he could not achieve results within a year!

Jiang Xianjun was appointed as the Deputy General Manager of this new company by his leader, despite being tasked to restructure this company. He had to report to an “Experienced” leader. This leader created a lot of obstacles to prevent him from implementing all his ideas!

This was the issue with all state-owned enterprises. On the one hand, they wanted reform. But they still want those old leaders to lead.

These were all their internal issues. How come this manager Feng knew about this?

Feng Yu crossed his legs: “Manager Jiang, all my companies, were doing very well. I am more experience than you when it comes to reorganizing a state-owned enterprise.”

“Manager Feng, are you trying to teach me what to do?” Jiang Xianjun was slightly pissed. He was in his 40s and was used to lead others. He was not used to be taught by someone less than half his age! You are more experienced than me in reorganizing a state-owned enterprise? Young men nowadays were getting more and more arrogant!

Feng Yu smiled: “Have you heard of Songjiang Motors? I am the one who recreated this brand, including Songjiang cars. I am also the biggest shareholder in this company. After I restructured this company, this small factory which used to make a few million annually, had made more than 300 million last year! I think this will prove how experience I am when it comes to restructuring or reorganizing a company.”

Jiang Xianjun was shocked. That Songjiang cars and motorcycles which were advertised on TV every day, was created by Feng Yu? Manager Shi did not tell him about this!

Feng Yu saw Jiang Xianjun keeping quiet, and he continued: “Since Manager Jiang asked if I am going to teach you just now, then I will give you some pointers. You had made at least 3 mistakes when you are restructuring your company!”

This statement by Feng Yu was considered rude, and Jiang Xianjun was angry. “Really? 3 mistakes? I would like to hear from you!”

You might have successfully restructured the Machinery Company, but it’s different industry from Quanjude. I have been in the F&B industry for so many years, and you want to teach me?

“The first mistake is your position in the company. You are the Deputy Chairman and Deputy General Manager. You should have used lots of connections to be on the board of directors, right? If you had told them that you do not want to be the Deputy Chairman and only want to be the General Manager then, your work will be much easier now.”

Although the position of a Deputy Chairman was higher than the General Manager, their duties were different. A General Manager can control and manage the whole company, but a Deputy Chairman can’t.

During the start of this company’s restructuring, the leaders wanted to show their capabilities and immediately set up a board of directors. But it was the same state-owned enterprise’s leaders on board and management style was still the same. The board of directors had a lot of power, and the General Manager was just a puppet.

If you have the capabilities, you should be the Chairman and also the General Manager. Being the deputies of both the Chairman and General Manager was not as powerful as a General Manager.

“The second mistake is you are trying to imitate those western companies by giving the top management staffs the shares of the company. You had forgotten that they are still government employees and cannot own shares. If they are going to take the shares, they need to leave their positions in the government. Are they willing to leave their positions in the government and forfeit their retirement benefits?”

Jiang Xianjun was thinking about what Feng Yu said. The Chairman of the board had not agreed to this suggestion, and he had wondered why.

“The third mistake was the shareholders of this company. Although this company was “privatized” and had become a shareholding, the shareholders were the government and the City’s F&B enterprise. These are all state-owned enterprises. What the point of having this restructuring?”

Converting to shareholding was for the shareholders to share the risk. At the same time, shareholders can share their views. But the shareholders of this Beijing Quanjude Company were only the 2 subsidiaries of the City Government. It was the same as before.

The titles of the leaders in the company were changed, but it was the same people running the company.

Jiang Xianjun lit a cigarette and took a big puff: “What is your suggestion?”

Chapter 564 – Let me be a shareholder

Feng Yu was satisfied to see Jiang Xianjun believing him. If Jiang Xianjun had not made much progress in the past 6 months, if Jiang Xianjun does not want the shares of the company, if Jiang Xianjun did not make so many mistakes, it will be hard for Feng Yu to invest into Quanjude.

But now, Feng Yu stands a high chance to become a shareholder.

“Simple. Get investor from outside and let Beijing Quanjude Company become a real shareholding company!”

Get an investor from outside and let Beijing Quanjude Company become a real shareholding company? Where do I get this investor? Jiang Xianjun looked at Feng Yu and realized the purpose of Feng Yu’s visit. He wants to be a shareholder?

“Manager Feng, are you saying that you want to invest in Quanjude?”

“What’s wrong? You doubt my financial abilities or my sincerity?” Feng Yu lean back on the couch and look up.

Jiang Xianjun looked at Feng Yu and asked in a firm tone: “Manager Feng, are you investing in our company on impulse or you have been planning this for some time?”

“Is there any difference?”

“Of course. If you are doing this on impulse, then forget it. You might change your mind anytime and what we discussed now will be a waste of time. If you have been planning for this, then we can carry on with this discussion.”

“To be honest, I am only interested in Quanjude’s brand. But I know that you all will surely not sell this brand to me. So, I can only invest in Quanjude.”

“Then how are you going to invest?”

Feng Yu was slightly disappointed when he heard Jiang Xianjun asked that question. He was hoping for Jiang Xianjun to tell him that they were willing to selling Quanjude’s brand.

“It’s simple. I will give you money and come up with a development plan. I want to own as many shares as possible. Money is not a problem.”

Quanjude does not worth much now. There were only a few branches, and every branch was only worth tens of millions. This amount includes the property’s value. China still does not have the concept of brand value, and Quanjude’s brand was considered worthless!

Even if they wanted to sell the whole company to Feng Yu, Feng Yu could also afford it. Feng Yu had spent all his profits from his China’s company, but his Wind and Rain Consulting still have enough money to do it.

Feng Yu does not know how to manage an F&B company. But he could always hire people from Hong Kong or overseas to manage for him. He can afford to pay them high salaries and also give them some shares.

If the brand Quanjude was managed well, it will bring in several folds of profits for Feng Yu in a few more years.

But Feng Yu was only thinking about this and never really expect this would really happen. Feng Yu estimates that Quanjude would just sell him 30% shares at most. If it were him looking for investors, he would also not let the investor become the major shareholder.

Furthermore, Quanjude was still profitable and not making losses. They were only thinking of becoming big.

Feng Yu remembered that in his previous life, Quanjude had merged with a few other companies to become Quanjude holdings. Those few companies were also F&B companies and had wanted to make us of Quanjude’s brand. Those restaurants only need to sell Quanjude’s roast ducks.

But now, those still did not happen. Quanjude brand was still not utilized fully yet. The development plans Feng Yu mentioned was this. He knew Jiang Xianjun would agree to it.

“Manager Feng, how many shares do you want?”

“How many shares can I buy? I will buy everything that you can sell.” Feng Yu smiled.

Jiang Xianjun shook his head: “Manager Feng, I am afraid I will have to disappoint you. Although I am the Deputy Chairman and General Manager of this company, I cannot make any decision. I need to speak to the Chairman first.”

Eh? Feng Yu was puzzled. Why did Jiang Xianjun stop this discussion so suddenly? Feng Yu was sure he did not say anything wrong. Was there anything wrong for wanting to buy more shares?

“Manager Jiang, since I came to look for you, I believe that you will be the person in charge of Quanjude in the future.”

“I will be the one in charge of this company after you invested?” Jiang Xianjun asked.

Feng Yu understood why Jiang Xianjun wanted to stop the discussion. He was afraid that he would lose his power after Feng Yu became a shareholder.

Feng Yu does not know about the F&B industry, and even if he knew about this industry, he was also not interested in managing it. He rather spends some money to hire someone to do that. He only wants to check the finances once in a while.

Feng Yu had too many companies, and he does not have the energy to manage. He only wants his companies to develop and grow without worries.

“That’s right. After I become a shareholder, I will support you to be the one in charge! Also, I have ways to let Quanjude set up branches in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and even Malaysia and Singapore.”

The Fu Family have businesses in all these places. Feng Yu was confident that they would help him look for suitable locations. Roast ducks are well received by Asians. But in those countries, the preparation of roast ducks is different in Beijing and taste different.

In Hong Kong, those cafes serve steaks, and the Peninsula Hotel also serves steaks. But why were the prices different by more than 10 times?

First, it is the ambiance. Next, it was the status of their target customers. Lastly, it is the taste. Quanjude’s roast duck was very delicious. Feng Yu was confident that if he set up branches in those countries, it will become popular there fast.

The only worry Feng Yu had was the ducks. The ducks Quanjude used were force feed ducks. He was worried that the taste of the ducks will be different in other countries.

But even if the taste was different, it should not be very different. Most of the people in that country had never eaten the traditional Quanjude roast ducks, and they should not be able to tell the difference.

Jiang Xianjun heard what Feng Yu said and opened his eyes wide in shock: “What did you say? You are able to set up branches in so many Southeast Asia countries?”

“It’s not a big deal. I have some connections in Hong Kong, or I can just ask the restaurants there to invest.”

Feng Yu thought for a while. He can buy some restaurants in those countries and then use them to invest and convert into Quanjude restaurants. This way, the City Government will not refuse him owning more shares.

“Manager Feng, I need to report this to my leaders.”

Seeing that Jiang Xianjun was still hesitating, Feng Yu laughed. “I can also introduce one or two more Hong Kong investors, like the son of Hong Kong’s wealthiest person, Superman Li and Hong Kong’s 4th wealthiest person, Fu Rongqi’s nephew. With their help, we can even set up branches in other countries out of Southeast Asia. Of course. I will also team up with them to propose giving shares to the top management staffs.”

Feng Yu had added one more sweetener. He was confident that with so many benefits, Jiang Xianjun will be tempted.

Jiang Xianjun narrowed his eyes and looked at Feng Yu: “Manager Feng, I will give you an answer within 3 days!”

Chapter 565 – Looking for connections

The next 3 days, Feng Yu was busy with New Year’s Day CCTV awards ceremony. He made some phone calls and Sun Nan, Na Ying and the rest arrived. The New Year’s Day Gala Dinner was well received by the TV audiences. Other than the Spring Festival Gala night, this was the next highest ratings special program. This program will significantly increase the popularity of the performers. Furthermore, Wind and Rain Electronics will still record this program into VCDs. More people will be able to watch their performances and their worth will increase.

After the first Gala Dinner, the TV audiences were used to watch this program on New Year’s Day. Some of the viewers even felt that this program was more interesting than the Spring Festival Gala Night. Especially the award winners’ speeches. The short video footages of their companies and the banners in the live audiences.

Many companies who organized dinners will imitate this program. Their different departments will wear the same attires and shout slogans. Their bosses on stage will also openly praise their workers in their departments.

Feng Yu did not spend much on The New Year’s Day Gala Dinner. The funds of this program were collectively sponsored by the nominated companies. They were “forced” to sponsor. If they do not sponsor this program, then they will not be nominated.

Some companies wanted to sponsor the association more money for this program. The reason they did this was to try and buy the award. But Feng Yu had set the rules. The sponsorship has only two categories. One was for the nominated companies, and the other was for the association members.

With the funds collected, it was sufficient to fund this New Year’s Day Gala Dinner. Feng Yu does not want to collect excess. If the excess funds were exposed, he would not be able to explain it. The current fund was about 100,000 to 200,000 RMB, and it was enough. Feng Yu does not want the credibility of these awards to be lowered.

This year’s New Year’s Day Gala Dinner will be a delayed telecast. It will be an hour delay and will be aired while still recording? The recording will start at 7 pm and will be broadcast at 8 pm.

This will be a test for the directors, performers, and host. There was no room for mistakes. But as this was not a live telecast, they still have an hour to rectify their mistakes.

CCTV does not dare to broadcast this program live as they were afraid the award winners would say something unappropriated or forgot their lines.

But Chief Director of this program was confident. This year was only a test and next year, they will change it to 5 minutes delay telecast. The following year, it will be live!

During the first awards ceremony, the Chief Director was very unhappy with Feng Yu. Feng Yu had product placements all over the program and had arranged for the workers to shout out slogans. Even the short video clips were advertisements.

But TV audiences like it. They felt it was interesting and entertaining. The following year, only the shouting of slogans was banned. The banners, short video advertisements, and advertising during the speeches were still allowed. After all, they were the organizers and sponsors of this program.

CCTV Station Chief had allowed this and what can the Chief Director say? The reputation of the Chief Director was also increased because of this program. He was promoted to be the Deputy Director of the Spring Festival Gala Night and this year’s Spring Festival Gala Night, he had performed well. Next year, he will be the Chief Director for the Spring Festival Gala Night!

With these achievements under his belt, the Chief Director will be able to enter the higher management ranks.

The director for Happy Dictionary had also noticed that Feng Yu had a talent for making TV programs. If Feng Yu were part of his team, he would have promoted him to be his right-hand man. But Feng Yu was the boss of several companies and will never work for CCTV.

This year, Feng Yu had come to “interfere” with the Awards Ceremony. But the Chief Director had no complaints. He thought about Feng Yu’s suggestions, and if it does not break any rules, he will arrange his men to implement it.

Don’t forget, Feng Yu was also the primary sponsor for the Spring Festival Gala night, and he had a say in that program. Also, Feng Yu was able to invite Hong Kong and Taiwanese celebrities to perform easily. This was not something the Chief Director could do.

But this year, Feng Yu only appeared once during the rehearsal. He said some suggestions to the Chief Director and left. The

Feng Yu felt this Chief Director was doing great and he does not need to give any more inputs.

Feng Yu still have more important things to do. He needs to look for connections.

Jiang Xianjun had replied to Feng Yu. He said he was only a Deputy Chairman and even though he had the support of a leader in the higher-ups, he can’t make the final decision. This investment will need the City Government’s top leader to approve.

Jiang Xianjun told Feng Yu that if he wants to buy a stake of Quanjude, Feng Yu will need to discuss with the City Government.

Feng Yu also knew that it will not be easy to buy a stake of a 100 years old branded restaurant. Furthermore, this restaurant was in Beijing, and the higher-ups do not dare to accept bribes.

Feng Yu was happy that Jiang Xianjun agreed to his investment. As for the higher-ups, he needs to find a way to settle it. Feng Yu could do everything he wants in Bing City, and the City Government will approve. He was confident that he could do the same in Beijing.

In Bing City, Feng Yu had Zhang Ruiqiang. As long as Zhang Ruiqiang was persuaded, there will be no problem. But Feng Yu does not know Beijing’s Mayor.

Feng Yu called Master Lu, and Master Lu told him that Beijing’s Mayor was not on good terms with his Eldest Uncle. They were rivals, and he could not help Feng Yu. Furthermore, the next rank for Beijing’s Mayor will be the National Deputy rank.

But Master Lu said that he could try and introduce the Deputy Mayor to Feng Yu, but he was not sure if the Deputy Mayor will meet Feng Yu. Even if they met, it would be up to Feng Yu to convince the Deputy Mayor. Master Lu does not have any say.

Feng Yu also understands. He only asked Master Lu how old this Deputy Mayor was and what was he in-charge of.

Giving money was the last resort, and Feng Yu was not interested in doing that. It was not safe, and might becomes complicated. The best was to give this Deputy Mayor some political achievements. A political achievement which the Deputy Mayor could not resist.

Even if other people know about this, what can they say? The Deputy Mayor was doing something for the City and had done nothing wrong. His political achievement will also be the City’s achievement, and he was doing it for the people.

Feng Yu thought for a while. He only needs the City Government to approve his investment, and everything will be settled. He will be able to bring this National brand overseas. This will be an achievement the City Government will not refuse.

But Master Lu called him back and told Feng Yu that he did not manage to ask this Deputy Mayor out. He said he needs a few more days.

Feng Yu thanked him and told him that it’s okay. If Master Lu cannot ask that Deputy Mayor out, then Zhang Han’s father should be able to.

Chapter 566 – No Choice but to agree (Part 1 of 2)

This was the first time Feng Yu went to Zhang Han’s office. This was his Beijing Municipal Party Committee office. Beijing was richer than Bing City, and the office was bigger and nicer than Zhang Ruiqiang’s.

The only thing Feng Yu was not satisfied was the tea. Zhang Han’s father’s tea was not as nice as Zhang Ruiqiang’s.

“Uncle Zhang, I need a favor from you.” Feng Yu was straight to the point.

“As long as it is not against the rules, I will try my best to help.” Zhang Han’s father knew that his daughter and Wen Dongjun will be together in the future and there was nothing he could do. But Wen Dongjun was not a scheming person, and if he enters the government service, he will be at a disadvantage. When Zhang Han’s father was still in power, he could take care of Wen Dongjun. But what if he retires? Who will look after Wen Dongjun?

Zhang Han’s father was not confident to take care of Wen Dongjun after he retires. To let his daughter, have a good life in the future, Wen Dongjun needs to move up the ranks in the government.

Although Zhang Han’s father could not help Wen Dongjun for long, Wen Dongjun’s childhood friend, Feng Yu could. These two grew up wearing the same pant and were very close. If it were not for Feng Yu’s help, Wen Dongjun would not be able to buy two apartments in Beijing.

Zhang Han’s father cannot make both of them closer, but he must not let both of them drift apart. He knows that when he was still in power, he must help Feng Yu as much as possible to pave a path for his precious daughter.

When Feng Yu heard that Zhang Han’s father was willing to help him, he said: “I would want to treat Deputy Mayor Liu to a meal.”

Zhang Han’s father choked on his cigarette smoke. He knew that it should not be an easy task when Feng Yu had come to him for help. But he never expects Feng Yu wants to meet the Deputy Mayor.

“Xiao Feng, why do you want to meet Old Liu?”

“Nothing much. I want to buy a stake in Beijing Quanjude Company. I heard that the City Government is the one who makes all the decision. That’s why I am asking you to introduce me to Deputy Mayor Liu.” Feng Yu said casually.

“You want to buy a stake in what company? Quanjude? Isn’t that a roast duck restaurant?”

“This year May, the Beijing Quanjude Company was set up. I am interested in this company and want to invest in it.” Feng Yu explained.

“Although I do not have many interactions with Old Liu at work, we do not have any conflicts. It should not be a problem to ask him up. But I cannot interfere with the City Government’s work. I can’t help you much.” Zhang Han’s father wanted Feng Yu to know that he can’t help to persuade Deputy Mayor Liu.

“No problem. I am confident that I can convince him.” Feng Yu smiled.

“Okay. I will call him now.”

Deputy Mayor Liu did not know why Zhang Han’s father asked him out for dinner. But this was the first time Zhang Han’s father had invited him for dinner, and he can’t refuse. Furthermore, many of the City’s work needs the approval of Public Security. Zhang Han’s father was not only Beijing’s Director of Police Force, but he was also the Secretary of Public Security Committee.

“This evening 7 pm. Gao Zhuang Hotpot. You need me to send someone to pick you?”

“No need. I will be there myself.”

Gao Zhuang Hotpot was also an established restaurant in Beijing. It serves Sichuan Hotpot. Deputy Mayor Liu was from Shancheng, and Feng Yu had purposely arranged for the dinner to be at this restaurant.

10 minutes before 7 pm, 2 Songjiang Olympic model, cars stopped in front of the Hotpot restaurant. Misuse of government cars? Never mind. Even their higher-ups do not care about this. Why should he care?

Feng Yu had made a reservation for a VIP room and also a table in the main hall for the drivers.

After some simple introductions, Feng Yu invite everyone to have dinner first.

“It’s been a while since I had such authentic Sichuan Hotpot. I did not know that there is a restaurant in Beijing that serves such good hotpot.” Deputy Mayor Liu put down his chopsticks and wiped his sweat with a clean handkerchief.

“Hahaha. Luckily this is a double pot. I can’t handle the heat. It is too spicy.” Zhang Han’s father looked at the boiling red-hot chili oil in the pot. He tried a bit of the soup earlier and dare not to touch it again/

“Everyone of us has different tastes. But we still have hotpot together.” Feng Yu said.

Deputy Mayor Liu took a sip of tea: “Manager Feng, we are done eating. What is it you are looking for me?”

Deputy Mayor Liu was not sure of Feng Yu’s relationship with Secretary Zhang. Just because both were from Bing City? There was a huge difference in their age, and both should not be friends. Both of them might have some under table dealings.

But Deputy Mayor Liu also felt that this was impossible. Secretary Zhang had good reputations and was never seen being close to any businessmen. Could it be that this Manager Feng had some relations with the higher-ups? Secretary Zhang did not tell him anything.

“Mayor Zhang, are you in charge of the City’s funds?”

Deputy Mayor Zhang frowned. What does this young man want? He was interested in the City’s assets?

“I am the person-in-charge.” He was the Senior Deputy Mayor of Beijing, and even if he was not in charge of this, he could also make decisions. Deputy Mayor Liu was now very interested in what favors does Feng Yu wants from him.

“I want to invest in Beijing Quanjude Company.” Feng Yu replied.

“You want to invest in Quanjude? Why?” Deputy Mayor Liu knew that Beijing Quanjude Company was converted into a shareholding and he was the one who issued this order.

“Because I like Quanjude and I want to bring it to greater heights.” Feng Yu replied calmly as if bringing Quanjude to greater heights was an easy task.

“Bring it to greater heights? How are you going to do that?”

“Setting up a chain of restaurants.”

“We do not need your help to do this. We are also planning to do this ourselves.” What Feng Yu said was similar to Jiang Xianjun’s plans. Deputy Mayor Liu knew the benefits of this proposal, but why should they let other people invest in the company? They could do it themselves.

“Because I can let Quanjude grow within a short period. For instance, I can use restaurants to invest and merge into Quanjude Holdings. Or we can let the restaurants in Shancheng to serve our Quanjude roast ducks as their specialty. At the same time, we can serve the specialties of other regions.”

“You have restaurants in ShanCheng?” Deputy Mayor Liu asked.

“Currently I do not own any restaurants, but if you agree to let me invest, I will have restaurants immediately. Not only in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Singapore and even in the US.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

All Feng Yu needs to do was to buy over some restaurants in good locations. This was an easy task for Feng Yu. In his previous life, customers need to queue up for Quanjude restaurants. The demand was much more than the supply. One reason was because of Quanjude’s brand, and the other was their roast ducks were very delicious.

With Quanjude’s brand and it’s roast ducks, the chain of restaurants will surely have good businesses. Especially the special sauce that comes with the roast ducks. Even the Westerners like the taste.

Deputy Mayor Liu saw Feng Yu’s confident reply, and he turned to Zhang Han’s father: “Secretary Zhang, what do you think?”

Deputy Mayor Liu was not asked Zhang Han’s father for his opinions. He was asking of Feng Yu can really deliver what he said. Zhang Han’s father had only introduced Feng Yu as a businessman from Bing City and did not tell him what business Feng Yu was doing.

“Manager Feng’s Wind and Rain brand, Aiwa brand, and Songjiang brand are all doing very well. I think it should not be a problem for him to manage Quanjude!”

Chapter 567 – No Choice but to agree (Part 2 of 2)

Deputy Mayor Liu stared at Feng Yu: “Is what Secretary Zhang said real?”

“What’s there to lie to you? I owned these brands. Initially, I just wanted to have an electric fan, but I ended up creating the Wind and Rain brand. I felt that Japan’s AIWA is a good brand, so I bought it and change it into Aiwa. I wanted to build a motorcycle for myself, but the motorcycle I produced became popular. Next year, my motorcycles will be China’s best selling motorcycle brand. But I thought it would be meaningless once I became first. So, I started to manufacture saloon cars. I also did not expect the Chief Architect to visit and praise me. Actually, I did not do much.”

Feng Yu replied in a “modest” way, but he pointed out the success of his companies. He was telling Deputy Mayor Liu that he could and have the capability to manage Quanjude well!

But Deputy Mayor Liu shook his head: “Although all those companies you mentioned were doing well, we are able to set up restaurant chains ourselves. We don’t really need your help.”

“Mayor Liu, Quanjude currently have 6 branches and all of which are located in Beijing. How long do you think it will take before Quanjude can set up branches all over China and even overseas?”

“We have the time. Since we had converted this restaurant into a company, we will have our plans.” Deputy Mayor Liu retorted.

“What about the funds? If you are going to expand, you need a lot of funds. The City will issue the funds or are you going to get a bank loan? How much money can the City issue and how much loans can you get from the banks? When all of these are ready, do you think you still have the opportunity to expand?”

“Why not? Even if we do not have so many funds, we can take it slow. We can use the company’s profits to grow.”

“Time. After the reforms, the standard of living has been increasing rapidly. Even food tickets were obsolete. Now, there are restaurants opening every day in China, and there are also restaurants closing down everyday. When you raise enough funds, all the good locations will be taken up. How are you going to expand? Location is crucial for a restaurant.”

Feng Yu starts to brainwash Deputy Mayor Liu. Before Deputy Mayor Liu could retort, Feng Yu continued: “You should that chain outlets model is from the western countries, but do you know that the western chain restaurants are starting to open up restaurants in China?”

“Are you talking about those western restaurants?”

Feng Yu shook his head: “Those western restaurants still have not established their brands. I am talking about fast food restaurants like Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s. Simply put it, it is the deep fried chicken and hamburgers.”

“I know about these restaurants. We have some of them in Beijing. But their restaurants are not big.”

“But have you ever thought about their profits? Because it is fast food and the restaurants are opened 24 hours, the sales of one such restaurant are much more than a traditional Chinese restaurant, and their cost is less than half. With such high profits, what do you think these companies will do? Will, they not expand their operations in China? Even if they had to invest a vast amount, they would also want to take over the market share. Furthermore, they are also using the franchising model. This means that they do not need capital. The franchisees will still have to pay them and be restricted by their policies.”

KFC and Mcdonald’s had interesting management models. You pay the franchising fees, and they will help to pick the location, train your staff. But you have to pay them a proportion of the money profits. Of course, they will promise that the restaurants will be profitable as they will pick the locations of the restaurants.

These two fast food chains were able to expand quickly and become one of the few leading international fast food restaurants. All this was done without having the capital of setting up restaurants all over the world. This was a successful model, and it can be replicated.

Of course, Quanjude has their secret recipes, and KFC and McDonald’s model is not suitable. They must have someone to roast the ducks. The safer bet will be those restaurants that will be selling Quanjude roast ducks must be part of Quanjude Holdings, and Quanjude must own most of the shares of the restaurants!

It will be like Coke. Their recipe is their top secret. They claim that no other beverage companies will be able to replicate Coke’s taste.

“You are telling me that those hamburger shops can affect our Quanjude?” Deputy Mayor Liu felt Feng Yu was joking with him. These were two different products. He had never heard of a shop selling bun being affected by a shop selling cakes!

“Will not affect? Do you know that before KFC and McDonald’s there are also other hamburger restaurants and all of them lost to these two companies? This is because of their chain restaurants model. Those hamburger restaurants could not expand as fast as these two companies. The one who captures the market share will be the final winner. In Beijing, is Quanjude the only restaurant that sells roast ducks?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I like roast ducks, and that does not mean that I must pick Quanjude. Bianyifang seems to have a longer history than Quanjude? Do you think Quanjude will be able to expand if I invest in Bianyifang?”

“You are threatening me! But Bianyifang is also a state-owned enterprise!” Deputy Mayor Liu replied proudly.

Feng Yu paused for a while. Bianyifang is also a state-owned enterprise? But there should be other brands of roast ducks.

“No, I am merely stating the facts. Even if Bianyifang is a state-owned enterprise, there will be some private entities. McDonald’s is a good example of an imitator beating the creator. If you talk about funds, there is no way Quanjude can compete with me. Anyone of my company is worth much more than Quanjude. If I really want to start a roast duck brand, even Bianyifang will not stand a chance. It is up to you whether to believe what I said.”

“How can you be so sure that you will win? We have the backing of Beijing City Government.”

“Mayor Liu, have you heard of Lebaishi’s yogurt drinks? It was formerly China’s top yogurt drink brand. At their peak, they own more than 70% of the market share. But I own some shares of a rival company, and now, both companies own the same amount of market share. Lebaishi is left with only a 40% market share. We also own 40%! Oh, the company I am talking about is Lehaha.” Feng Yu replied.

Zhang Han’s father was surprised. He did not know that Feng Yu was also a shareholder of Lehaha. What was more shocking was the way Feng Yu speaks to Deputy Mayor Liu. Feng Yu was saying that if you don’t let me invest in Quanjude, then I will stop Quanjude’s expansion!

“Lebaishi yogurt drinks are affected by their Energy of Life products. What has it got to do with you?” Deputy Mayor Liu smirked.

“Then do you know who is the one that exposes those fake health products? What is the product that took over the market of those health products?”

Deputy Mayor Liu narrowed his eyes: “You have something to do with this incident?”

“The one who exposed these fake products is a CCTV program. I am the one who provided all the information to them. Maybe Mayor Liu still does not know that I am the one who started CCTV’s New Year’s Day Gala dinner and I am the sponsor for this program. I am also the sponsor for the Spring Festival Gala night. That’s why CCTV is willing to help me do this. The medical products which replaced the fake health products market currently occupy 60% of the market share. It is Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, and I happen to own some of the shares.” Feng Yu pointed to himself.

Deputy Mayor Liu took a deep breath. How many businesses does this Manager Feng own? How come he owns shares of companies in so many industries?

“Mayor Liu, I wonder if you have heard of Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise? It is registered in Beijing recently. Soon, there will be over 150 million USD of funds wired into the company and will set up supermarkets in cities all over China at the same time. I am the major shareholder of this company. We can announce that we set up our headquarters in Beijing because of you.”

150 million USD? How much will be taxes that will be generated from this company? The scale of this company is massive. If he was the one who set up this investment, then it will be a huge political achievement.

“Manager Feng, I need to consider this.” Deputy Mayor Liu said.

“Fine. I will be waiting for your good news.” Feng Yu smiles and raise his glass.

Chapter 568 – Entering the F&B industry

Feng Yu’s direct and straightforward words had left a deep impression with Deputy Mayor Liu and Zhang Han’s father. Zhang Han’s father even wondered if Feng Yu had developed his businesses in the manner in the past.

Zhang Han’s father would never know that Feng Yu hated business negotiations the most. To shorten the negotiation process, he would offer conditions that the other party could not resist. What matter the most to Feng Yu was the efficiency.

With the conditions offered, Deputy Mayor Liu agreed readily. He was the head, and once he decided, there were no more issues. Feng Yu believed that Deputy Mayor Liu will help him settle all the minor problems.

The next day, Feng Yu received a call from Deputy Mayor Liu. The City Government agrees to let Feng Yu invest in Quanjude on one condition. Feng Yu had to use restaurants to invest!

This was what happened in Feng Yu’s previous life. This was not an issue for Feng Yu. Anyway, Feng Yu had to return to Hong Kong to prepare for his exams. He could just buy some restaurants there.

……

“What did you say? You want to buy restaurants?” Fu Guangzheng was summoned back to Hong Kong. He thought Feng Yu had some excellent investment opportunities for him. But restaurants?

“That’s right. Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and even New York. I want to buy some restaurants in these places. The restaurants must be big, at good locations with high traffic and must be some popular restaurants.”

“Why are you buying so many restaurants? You want to set up a restaurant chain?” Fu Guangzheng lit a cigar and blew out a smoke ring.

Feng Yu smiled and asked him back: “What’s wrong with that?”

“Is this a joke?”

“Do I look like I am joking?” Feng Yu asked. Why can’t I set up a restaurant chain? F&B business can generate high profits and is stable. Most importantly, I am able to use Quanjude’s brand.

“But you also do not need to set up so many restaurants at once. Do you think others will sell their restaurants that fit the requirements you mentioned? Even if they are willing to sell, the prices will also be sky-high!” Fu Guangzheng shook his head. If you are opening a restaurant for fun, then just open one restaurant. Is there a need to set up so many at once?

F&B was a good business. But if you do not have good chefs and specialty dishes, how would you attract customers? If your food was delicious, customers will even wait for hours to eat your food and does not mind the bad services.

You want to buy out existing restaurants? Why would they sell their restaurants? Yes, they might be able to receive a lump sum of money from the sales of their restaurant, but this sum will run out sooner or later. With a restaurant around, they would still have money going into their pocket every month. This was like exchanging a goose that lays golden eggs with a golden goose!

“If the restaurants are too expensive, then pick a good location to set up new restaurants. Poach the experience chefs from other restaurants. I need to make it clear that I want to sell Chinese Cuisine.”

“Do you have a specialty dish? Without a specialty, how are you going to set up a restaurant chain?”

“My restaurant specialty will be Beijing roast duck. Quanjude roast ducks!”

“What? Quanjude roast ducks?”

“That’s right. You had also tried their roast ducks before. Don’t you think their ducks taste good?”

“But you are also unable to replicate the same taste. Don’t tell me that you have already poached their chefs? The Chef that know their secret recipe?

“I did not poach them. But I can invest in Quanjude!”

Fu Guangzheng was disappointed when he heard the first sentence. But when he listened to the second sentence, his eyes brighten up with excitement.

“You are going to invest in Quanjude? Can I invest too? I don’t mind the proportion of shares. Just count me in.” A specialty dish can bring a restaurant to greater heights. Let alone, Quanjude was a traditional restaurant with over a 100 years history. Even Mr. Deng goes to this restaurant to entertain foreign delegates. Just this fact alone would be sufficient to attract lots of customers.

Also, Feng Yu will be investing and what’s there to be afraid of? Just invest in whatever Feng Yu invest, and there will undoubtedly be profits!

Fu Guangzheng’s father had used his money to invest in Gold futures, and gold prices had been raising. It had increased to about 380 USD and stopped for one or two days. But after that, it continued to grow slowly.

Fu Guangzheng had made profits from the Gold futures and was still looking for excellent investment opportunities. Investing in F&B business with Feng Yu seems to be an excellent opportunity. The returns should be higher than other investments in Hong Kong.

Feng Yu waved his hand: “Why not? But first, you need to help me buy out some restaurants so I can use these restaurants to negotiate with them.”

Fu Guangzheng frowned: “Buying out restaurants will be an issue. Why can’t we set up restaurant chains in China? For example, Jinlin, Xian, Shanghai, Guangdong, etc. We have factories and companies in these places, and we are familiar there too.”

“We will set up branches in China. But Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc. is more important. I had promised to expand Quanjude’s brand overseas. In China, some companies had already contacted Quanjude. We will not be at an advantage if we only focus in China.”

This was what Jiang Xianjun told Feng Yu. That’s the reason why Feng Yu wants to settle this as soon as possible. If not, it will be like what happened in his previous life. Quanjude will work with other companies. Even if Feng Yu successfully bought a stake in Quanjude later, his proportion of shares will be lowered.

Feng Yu’s advantage was he could bring Quanjude’s brand overseas. This was not the other F&B companies which approached Jiang Xianjun could do.

If Feng Yu could not meet this expectation, Quanjude will not trust him, and all his efforts will be wasted.

“Then our investment will be quite high. We might not even see the returns after 1 or 2 years.” Fu Guangheng frowned.

“But once Quanjude was listed, the share prices will surely shoot up. Because this is an established 100 years old brand. It is worth a few billion!” Feng Yu knocked on the desk and said confidently.

“That’s right. We can still list this company. But I am not familiar with the F&B industry. I don’t think I can help you manage the company.” Fu Guangzheng said honestly.

“No need. You just need to help me buy some good restaurants. You can make use of your Fu Family’s reputation if necessary. If you are unable to help, then I will have to look for Li Family’s young master. I think he should have no problem.”

“Who says I am unable to help? If our Fu Family join hands, we are stronger than the Li Family! I am able to settle this, and you do not need to look for Li Zekai. It’s just buying a few restaurants around Southeast Asia. Just leave this to me.” Li Guangzheng was furious when he was compared to the Li Familly.

Furthermore, if Feng Yu looked for Li Zekai, then he will be out of this game. The profits from the F&B business was too lucrative for him to give up.

“Then I shall wait for your call.”

Chapter 569 – One year had passed again

Hong Kong University’s examinations were much easier than China’s university. It tests the students more on the applications of the theories and general knowledge.

Feng Yu completed the exams with no difficulties. As the examinations’ dates clashed with CCTV advertisement slots bidding, Feng Yu asked Wu Zhigang, Li Mingde and the rest to go and bid for the slots themselves. Of course, Feng Yu had given Chief Jia a call beforehand.

Chief Jia was willing to help Feng Yu. Other than the slot before the evening news, he let Feng Yu’s companies win the slots of most of the other timings.

Although the slots for the programs with the highest ratings cannot be arranged, Feng Yu asked Wu Zhigang to bid at 16 million RMB. This amount was much higher than last year and should be able to win the bid. If they still lost the bid with this amount, that means there was someone crazier than Feng Yu out there.

Feng Yu’s companies currently do not have any new products. All he wanted was to make sure his products were still remembered by the consumers. He does not really need this top primetime slot. This amount was more than enough to buy 3 other primetime slots at CCTV 2.

In the end, Feng Yu’s companies had won 24 advertising slots and spent a total of 73 million RMB.

The top primetime slot was won by Kongfu Liquor with the winning bid of 20.3 million. This was officially the start of Baijiu Companies’ monopoly of the primetime advertising slots.

When Feng Yu heard about this, he remembered that in the next few years, the Baijiu industry will be winning the top primetime advertising slots and creates their record-breaking sales.

But these Baijiu factories became popular fast and also close down fast. Their production could not keep up with the demand, and their sales personnel were still selling aggressively. The bigger Baijiu factories had no choice but to take over the smaller factories in a bid to increase their productions.

This caused decreasing quality. There were some Baijiu in the market that does not even have the required alcohol content. There was also another problem. As a brand of Baijiu became popular, lots of imitations and fake baijiu appeared.

Brewing liquor does not need any big factory. This Baijiu could also be brew in people’s backyard. Those imitations used the same bottles and brand. Consumers would not be able to tell if they were fakes without opening the bottles.

After advertising on CCTV, Kongfu Alcohol’s prices increased by several folds. This caused jealousy. Commoners might not know about Kongfu Alcohol’s production cost, but those in the same trade knew. They could easily calculate a rough estimation of their cost. Kongfu Alcohol was making high profits, and the rest also wanted a slice of the pie.

This was also why Feng Yu rejected Zhang Ruiqiang in the past when the latter asked Feng Yu to invest in Bing City’s Baijiu Factory. Anyone can brew Baijiu. If Feng Yu increased the popularity of Bing City’s Baijiu, he knew the City Government leaders will want to improve their profits further and start to expand aggressively.

But the results of such expansion were death. Feng Yu would be able to escape unscathed when that time comes. But Bing City’s government and residents will be the one who suffered. Feng Yu will never do anything to cheat people in his hometown.

Furthermore, Feng Yu only knew how to increase the popularity of Baijiu. But he does not like to drink it and does not know the differences between the good and bad Baijiu. If he improved the popularity of Bing City’s Baijiu and found that the Baijiu were of inferior quality, his reputation will be gone.

This year there was a difference in CCTV advertisements. There were no Health supplements products advertisements, and there were only 3 nourishment products advertisements. These nourishment products’ companies were all state-owned enterprises.

Although the health supplement products were affected by the scandal, nourishment products were not affected. The Suboptimal health concept was common knowledge now. The sales of the book on Suboptimal health had broke records. Even old men and women on the streets knew about the symptoms of Suboptimal Health.

The people now no longer buy products from small factories. They preferred the bigger factories and pharmaceutical factories. Their first choice was Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise. Even the world champions choose this company’s products.

Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s products were not expensive, but effective. All of their products were accepted by the people. When the people went to pharmacies, they would ask for medicines produced by Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise.

The other pharmaceutical factories also noticed this. They started to follow Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise and produce medical health supplements. Look at Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise. Their products were even exported to western countries. What’s so difficult about producing those medicines? We can also manufacture the same things. You have patents? We can just adjust the dosage, and it will not be a problem.

Your vitamin supplement is 20 in 1? Then we will produce 21 in 1.

Health products were out of the market, but Medicine products became popular again. The pharmaceutical companies start to advertise and promote their products in their local TV stations.

The people thought that pharmaceutical companies’ products were safe, but they do not know that some of these factories’ products were also unsafe.

Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s chief asked Feng Yu if they should look for some connections to check on those pharmaceutical companies.

But those products were mainly in the coastal and southern regions. They were rarely seen in the northern areas. That means the factories of these companies were mostly located in the southeast regions.

Feng Yu asked Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise chief to report to the authorities. Feng Yu does not want to be the bad guy again. He had reported on the health products previously was because the Turtle Essences was too much. This trick cannot be used over and over again.

CCTV’s Chief Jia had helped Feng Yu a lot on the advertising slots. Feng Yu also did not want to trouble him again.

‘Guanxi’ or relationships between people are like this. You help me, and I help you. For example, Feng Yu helped Zhang Ruiqiang get credits with his higher-ups, and no other officials will target Feng Yu’s businesses in Bing City. Zhang Ruiqiang will help Feng Yu to fend off those officials. Even the leaders in the Provincial Government could not do anything to Feng Yu with Zhang Ruiqiang’s protection.

When a company becomes successful, many government agencies will think of ways to get money from the company. If it weren’t for Zhang Ruiqiang, all sorts of devils from those agencies would be coming after Feng Yu.

Zhang Ruiqiang had helped Feng Yu a lot but did not tell Feng Yu about most of these incidents. However, Feng Yu knew about it. Many of the Provincial Government agencies had approached Tai Hua Trading, Machinery company to ask for money. But Zhang Ruiqiang had stopped them. These companies had donated a lot of money to Bing City, and all of them should get lost. Even if these companies were to donate more money, it would also be donated to Bing City’s Government. It will have nothing to do with the Provincial Government.

The agencies in the City Government were also unhappy with Feng Yu. Why did Feng Yu only donate to the education ministry? Why didn’t he donate to the other departments? Zhang Ruiqiang will come in and reprimand these people. Feng Yu had already given so much money and how can they still ask for more? Why don’t you donate your monthly salaries? Just because he is rich, and he must give?

Luckily Feng Xingtai was still living in the town. The town was a small area, and Wen Deguang was around. No one dares to find trouble with Feng Xingtai. Furthermore, Feng Xingtai had a excellent reputation in the town. He had donated to the schools there. Which family in the town does not have children? They do not even need to pay any miscellaneous fees to the school. Whoever dares to speak ill of Feng Xingtai in the town will be spat by people around.

After the exams, Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng sat down again to discuss the plan of buying restaurants.

Chapter 570 – The Fu Family went crazy

Fu Guangzheng had asked for help with his uncles. He made use of their connections to buy some restaurants. His eldest and second uncles had properties in Taiwan, Malaysia, and many other regions. His third uncle also had supermarkets there. Fu Guangzheng and his father also had sales channels in those places.

This was an easy task for the whole Fu Family. When they combined their strengths, they were more influential than the Li Family. Of course, Fu Guangzheng also had to let them have some of the benefits. He can’t be expecting the whole Fu Family to help him for free.

Fu Guangzheng will transfer his shares of some Hong Kong companies to his cousins. The shares were not worth a lot, but it was a token of appreciation for his uncles’ help. He did not give anything to his elder brother. His father will pass on all his fortune to his elder brother, and there was no reason for his elder brother to ask him for shares or money.

Fu Guangzheng was meeting up with Feng Yu to discuss the number of restaurants they were buying and how will they split the shares.

Feng Yu had said that he had paid a heavy price to invest in Quanjude and he wants the more significant share of these restaurants. Of course, he will also be spending more money.

Fu Guangzheng does not mind. It was not as if he owns these restaurants, he could invest in Quanjude. Also, he still wants to maintain a good relationship with Feng Yu.

If Fu Guangzheng intercepted Feng Yu after hearing his plans and went ahead to invest in Quanjude alone, Feng Yu would be pissed. The last time Feng Yu got pissed, Fu Guangzheng’s father suffered massive losses. Being friends with Feng Yu was better, as Feng Yu would include him in for investment opportunities.

Just the recent Gold Futures trade. Gold prices had increased to 391 USD after hovering at 380 USD for a few days.

His uncles had sold some of their futures contracts at 385 USD. As the prices continued to rise, they slowly sell off their gold. But the highest amount they sold was at 387 USD.

Fu Guangzheng’s father was the only one who sold off his gold contracts at 390 USD. The percentage of his returns was the highest.

The past 1 month, Fu Guangzheng’s father had increased his returns by several times. If he were able to do this once a year, he would not do anything else!

Of course, Fu Guangzheng’s father knew that this was a rare opportunity. Feng Yu had also said that the gold prices will fluctuate aggressively after 1994. Even his own company will avoid trading in Gold Futures.

Fu Guangzheng’s rule of thumb now was to follow Feng Yu in everything he does!

After the discussions, Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng settled the shares proportion at 3:7. Feng Yu will come out with 70% of the money and Fu Guangzheng 30%. After they had successfully invested in Quanjude Company, Feng Yu would not care if Fu Guangzheng was able to obtain more of the company’s shares.

Feng Yu did not ask Fu Guangzheng about the price for asking his family to help him buy over those restaurants. Feng Yu did not ask, and Fu Guangzheng also did not tell him. Fu Guangzheng had to make some contributions on his part for getting this opportunity from Feng Yu.

In the past, Feng Yu had asked Fu Guangzheng along in his investments in other companies, was because Fu Guangzheng will send his people to manage those companies. Now it was also the same. Feng Yu needs the Fu Family’s connections. If it were for money, Feng Yu would not look for him. Feng Yu does not lack money.

Fu Guangzheng did not care about the rest of the work. He returned to China to focus on Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise. The task of buying restaurants was handled over to the rest of the Fu Family members.

3 days later, Fu Rongqi purchased a restaurant. He successfully bought a restaurant in Central, Hong Kong. This was a Shandong cuisine restaurant. It was not extremely popular, but it was located in a good location. Most importantly, this restaurant was big, and the area had high traffic.

Many people do not understand why Fu Rongqi bought this restaurant. They heard that he had paid a high price for this restaurant. They estimate that Fu Rongqi will take more than 5 years to get back his investment. Although this restaurant will not make any losses, the rate of return was too low. This was not in line with Fu Rongqi’s usual practice.

Who was Fu Rongqi? Hong Kong’s top investor in the financial market. Over the past few years, he had made his fortune from the financial market. Why did he buy a restaurant suddenly?

Some tabloids start to make up stories. They reported that Fu Rongqi had dined at that restaurant and had an argument with the restaurant manager. In a fit of anger, he bought the restaurant and fired that manager!

Buying a restaurant just to sack a manager? People love to read these rumors.

But before this news was settled, another newspaper reported that Fu Rongqu had bought a restaurant in Macau. The restaurant was located opposite the most popular Casino there. This was a Cantonese restaurant.

Everybody was puzzled. Fu Rongqu should not also have some conflicts with the manager of another restaurant. The Fu Family have issues with all restaurant managers?

But people remembered that Fu Rongqu was into properties. He must have bought that restaurant for investment.

But there were others that do not believe this purchase was for investment. This was a good location, but Fu Rongqu did not rent out this restaurant. Could it be that he wants to run a restaurant himself?

The Fu Family brothers had gone crazy, or was the Fu Family entering the F&B business? Even if they were going into the F&B business, they do not need to use high prices to buy out other people’s restaurants.

Fu Rongqi and Fu Rongqu had gone crazy?

But before they finish talking about this news, someone said that Fu Rongbing was negotiating to take over a restaurant located in Taiwan. The negotiations were almost completed.

Everyone was confused. Even the third brother of the Fu Family was going into the restaurant business? What happened to the Fu Family? Did they suffer from a curse or something? A curse that will kill them if they do not set up a restaurant?

People’s attention turned to the youngest brother of the Fu Family, Fu Rongjing. People wanted to know if the youngest brother of the Fu Family was also going to set up a restaurant.

In the end, they found out that Fu Rongjing had gone to Malaysia. Fu Rongqi and Fu Rongqu’s sons had gone to Singapore.

Why were they heading to other countries? To buy restaurants!

Even if the Fu Family were to enter the F&B industry, they should start from small. No one would buy restaurants like them. Some people knew that the Fu Family had made some money from Gold future, but this was not the right way to spend their money.

Even the other Tycoons does not understand what the Fu family were up to, let alone those commoners. All of them had the same thing in their minds. Which is…… The whole Fu Family had gone crazy!

Chapter 571 – Hotpot

While the Fu Family were busily working, Feng Yu was not lazing around. Fu Guangzheng and his men to look for suitable locations around China. Thus, he does not have the time to check on their companies.

Because Feng Yu had wanted the financial year of the companies to end at the same time, the companies’ annual report for last year were ready at the same time. Feng Yu needs to visit all his factories and companies.

But before Feng Yu was able to finish his work in Guangdong, he received a call asking him to return to Beijing. Kirilenko will be arriving in Beijing soon.

Kirilenko was Feng Yu’s most significant business partner. During the start of Feng Yu’s career, he had been partnering Kirilenko. Feng Yu was closer to Kirilenko than Fu Guangzheng.

Kirilenko was coming to Beijing, and Feng Yu had to play host.

This time, Kirilenko was not visiting in his own capacity. He was representing Russia’s Foreign Affairs for a courtesy visit. Feng Yu gasped in astonishment. Brother Ki was really somebody in Russia. He can even enter Foreign Affairs!

But Kirilenko was only a businessman!

Feng Yu still does not understand Kirilenko. Kirilenko was now Russia’s most successful importer. Just his trade with Tai Hua Trading was several times more than any other companies.

Last year, Kirilenko started to import Songjiang Motors into Russia and sell them to the military and Government Agencies. He was now a celebrity there.

When Kirilenko saw Feng Yu, he gave him a bear hug as usual. His hug was still so powerful that it made Feng Yu breathless. Feng Yu was older and fitter now, but in front of this polar bear, he still looks like a chick!

“Brother Ki, what’s your plan for the afternoon?”

“I do not have any plans for the afternoon. I can go anywhere I want. Why? Are you bringing me to experience China’s……?” Kirilenko asked with a lecherous smile.

Damn. Did this idiot call me back because of this?

Never mind. I will just bring him to some clubs at night. I just wonder if any women like this bear-like person!

Wen Dongjun and the rest were having their school break, and Feng Yu took back his car. Kirilenko ordered his men to return back to their hotel and boarded Feng Yu’s car.

“Brother Ki, if you are looking to have fun, you will have to wait until night. I will bring you to some clubs. But I am not sure if the women there will be willing to follow you back to your room. If you are really desperate, I will get someone to bring you to other places.” Feng Yu said while driving.

“Ok. Let’s wait until night time. With my charms, the girls there will surely be attracted.” Kirilenko replied confidently. This was the same “confidence” as Wen Dongjun.

“Then are we looking for someplace to drink?”

“Yes, yes, yes. Let’s go drink now!” Kirilenko replied excitedly.

Drink? Feng Yu had an evil smile. He wanted to use his brother-in-law’s trick and make Kirilenko drunk!

“Brother Ki, come and try this Hotpot.”

Kirilenko started with his big eyes in shock. In front of him was a pot full of boiling red oil. Can this be eaten? Is this soup? Does it taste good? Since Feng Yu brought him here, it should be edible!

Feng Yu saw Kirilenko pick up his spoon and was about to drink the red oil. He immediately stops him.

If Kirilenko drank this spoonful of chili oil, he would have to be hospitalized. His tongue and esophagus will be burned!

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu’s hand puzzledly. Why are you stopping me? Isn’t this soup?

“Brother Ki, this is Hotpot.”

“I know this is a hotpot. You said before that we should drink the soup first.” Kirilenko was confused.

I had brought you to eat clear broth hotpot in Bing City. That soup can be drunk directly, and it was also delicious. But this time, it’s Chongqing Hotpot, and it’s still hot oil pot. In both Feng Yu’s lives, he yet has yet to see anyone that dares to drink hot chili oil.

“It’s different. These are chili oil. The temperature is even hotter than boiling water. You cannot drink it. It is eaten this way. You dip the meat in the pot for a while and then dip in your sauce before you eat. Try it.”

Feng Yu cook a piece of thinly sliced beef and place it in Kirilenko’s bowl. At the same time, he took away that bowl of chili oil. He does not want Kirilenko to drink it by mistake!

Kirilenko picked up that piece of beef clumsily with chopsticks and ate it. He chewed a few times, and his eyes suddenly sparkled. He said in his broken Mandarin: “This is good!”

“It’s delicious right? China has lots of delicacies. There are the famous 8 cuisine styles and other local specialties. Just this hotpot alone, there are more than 10 varieties! If you like this, tomorrow I will bring you to try Mongolian Hot Pot!”

When Feng Yu was speaking, he raises his glass. Kirilenko unconsciously picked up his glass and finish it in one gulp.

Feng Yu sneakily placed his glass back on the table and helped Kirilenko fill up his empty glass. Brother-in-law was right. Once you raise your glass, Kirilenko will bottom up! Since this was the case, then today I must make him drunk!

Although Kirilenko could use chopsticks, he was not good enough to use chopsticks for hotpot. He threw his chopsticks aside and used a fork and skimming spoon to cook his meat. He dipped the meat into the pot of boiling oil once and took it up. He does not care whether if the meat was cook or not. He dipped the meat into the sauce and stuff it into his mouth.

Feng Yu also slowly cook his meat and eat it.

It was winter, and the room had heating. Coupled with the pot of boiling chili oil and the hot sauce, Kirilenko was sweating and panting from the spiciness.

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu who was enjoying himself. Feng Yu does not feel the spiciness?

“Feng, this is too spicy.” Kirilenko points to the hotpot.

“Spicy? You do not have experience. This spiciness is only in your mouth. You can cancel out the spiciness with something spicy. Our Chinese traditional medicine has a saying, fight fire with fire, fight spiciness with spiciness! This is why you must drink more Baijiu, and you will not feel the spiciness.” Feng Yu replied.

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu with a “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” and immediately drank a glass of Baijiu.

Kirilenko could feel that his mouth was not as numbed as before.

“How is it? Do you feel better? Eat more. I have ordered a lot of meat. This is also sliced pork, tripe, bamboo shoots…… All of them are delicious. Try it.” Feng Yu recommended excitedly.

Kirilenko did not wait for Feng Yu to tell him again. He immediately uses his fork and skimming spoon to cook his meat. Spoons after spoons of meat and other food were stuffed into his face.

“Eh? You do not have any more dip. Come, I will help you mix a bowl of dip. Without this dip, it will not taste good.” Feng Yu filled Kirilenko sauce bowl with lots of chopped chilies and filled up his glass with Baijiu.

Feng Yu does not need to do anything, and Kirilenko was taking a sip of Baijiu for every two spoonsful of meat. After a while, Kirilenko had finished a bottle of Baijiu.

Feng Yu shouted to the door: “Waiter, one more bottle of Ergoutou. Bring me the 56% type.”

Chapter 572 – Cargo Vans

After the hotpot meal, both of them were satisfied. Feng Yu had not touched his glass of baijiu. He mainly drank tea. That glass of Baijiu was left untouched from the start till the end of the meal!

Kirilenko had finished two bottles of Ergoutou by himself. He could not even walk straight when leaving the restaurant. Feng Yu still had to get two waiters to carry Kirilenko into the car.

On the way back to the hotel, the drunk Kirilenko was still telling Feng Yu he wanted to eat this hotpot again! He kept saying that Feng Yu was his best friend for bringing him to eat such delicious food!

Best friend? Ok. I shall let you drink more the next time!

At the hotel, Feng Yu and a bellboy helped Kirilenko into his room and gave the bellboy a 100 RMB tips. The bellboy was surprised. He had received tips from foreign guests, and very few Chinese would provide tips. Even if they gave tips, it would not be so much. He thanked Feng Yu and told himself he must work harder in the future!

“Feng, I have some documents in my bag. I need to rest a while. You read those documents first.”

Before Feng Yu could reach Kirilenko’s bag, he was already snoring like thunder.

Wow…. Kirilenko had fallen asleep once his head touched the pillow.

Feng Yu found Kirilenko’s bag and saw the documents. It was the mining company’s last year annual report. Feng Yu scanned through the report. Last year’s revenue was less than 30 million USD and had spent over 20 million on new equipment. With the workers’ salaries, the net profits were only 36,000 USD. If Feng Yu told others, no one would believe him.

But Feng Yu was very satisfied. Kirilenko had followed his instructions and mined the minimum. He had used most of the revenue to buy more equipment and increase the safety of the mines.

The prices of minerals now were not high. There were only a few countries that were exporting high volume of minerals. Russia was one of them.

In another two years, these few countries will join hands and lower their exports. That will be the time when the prices of minerals skyrockets. When that happens, all of Feng Yu’s mines will have new equipment and can increase the speed of mining.

After finish reading the mineral company’s report, Feng Yu saw an analysis of Russia’s automobile industry. Base on this analysis, Kirilenko was doing to increase the importation of automobile this year. The number of automobiles will be doubled last year.

After the Russian government and military bought Songjiang Motors vehicles, their people also get to know this brand of vehicles. Kirilenko had people to help him plan the marketing of Songjiang Vehicles. In Russia, Songjiang Vehicles was now an imported branded vehicle!

Songjiang Motors had developed much better than Feng Yu’s expectations because of Kirilenko. Just last year alone, the number of Songjiang Off roads imported into Russia was more than any other brand of vehicles. Seems like this year, this figure will increase further.

As the automobile branch factories around China started productions, profits begin to stream in from this business. Maybe in less than 5 years, Feng Yu could recover all his investments and starts to make profits. By that time, Songjiang Motors should be China’s top automobile brand. It will overtake Audi and the rest of those Japanese cars.

But the biggest issue faced by Feng Yu, or Bing City Machinery Company was Songjiang’s Qiankun, a cargo van. This Songjiang Qiankun model of cargo van had started production and based on Feng Yu’s requirement. The vans were big. But other than Wind and Rain Logistics who ordered 100 vehicles, there were no other big orders. The orders were only in single digits, and it was the distributors that ordered.

Feng Yu had thought of a big client. The postal services. Li Mingde has gone to speak to them. He had experience of dealing with these government officials and should not disappoint Feng Yu.

As for what discount or rebates Li Mingde gave to those officials, Feng Yu does not care. These were the basic rules of sales in this era. No matter how good your vehicles were, or how urgent they needed cargo vans, the higher-ups do not buy your cars if they do not receive any benefits.

Those officials could find lots of reasons to not buy your vehicles.

Cargo van was very popular in Feng Yu’s previous life. Especially after the electronic industry boom. A lot of logistics companies appeared and grew rapidly. Thus, the demand for cargo vans also increased.

Although there were not many electronic factories and no online shopping, there was a shortage of train carriage, and the prices of airfreight were high. There should still be a demand for cargo vans for short distance deliveries.

For example, the fur in the Northeast regions needs to be sent to the garment factories in the south. From the southern areas, factories need to send their products back to the north. Products like electronics, garments, etc., still need cargo vans to transport.

Feng Yu had also called Li Zekai. Their Tai Hua supermarkets need fresh fruits and vegetables from the farms. They also need to use these huge cargo vans.

1 supermarket needs at least 2 vans. 20 supermarkets require at least 40 vans, and it was the biggest model.

Li Zekai also knew that Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng had shares in Songjiang motors. He will definitely purchase the supermarket’s cargo vans from Songjiang motors. Also, Songjiang Motors vehicles were better in quality than other brands.

As the General Manager, Li Zekai was in charge of the procurement. He immediately asked his men to write a report and place the order with Bing city Machinery Company. His requirements were 50 cargo vans in 3 months, and every van must be painted with Tai Hua Supermarket’s logo and name.

Wind and Rain Logistics and Tai Hua Supermarket had bought all the cargo vans in the Machinery Company’s warehouse. The production of these big cargo vans was much slower than regular saloon cars and was much more expensive. The profits were also much higher. But as the clients were Wind and Rain Logistics and Tai Hua Supermarket, lots of discounts were given, and the profits were not high.

Li Mingde helped Feng Yu think of an excuse to give special rates to these 2 companies. These 2 companies had made bulk purchases and were influential. This was considered an advertisement for Songjiang Motor’s Qiankun model. So, they should give them discounted rates.

The branch factories knew that these vans were selling much lower than their standard rates, but there was still profit. They could not argue since their General Manager was the one who set these rates. Furthermore, Feng Yu was involved in those 2 companies. Without Feng Yu, these cargo vans might still be sitting in the warehouse!

The employees in the Machinery Company really respect Feng Yu. Although they were converted from being a state-owned enterprise’s employees to a private enterprise’s employees, their salaries had increased a lot. The managers and leaders also had an increase in their benefits.

The company employee hospital’s equipment was all imported from Germany and had specialists providing consultation. The employees were assigned with lodging when the company was still state-owned. But those houses cannot be compared to the apartments they were living now. Although they had to pay a portion of the apartment, they were the ones who own the apartment.

Their apartments were spacious and come with centralizing heating. It was also a high-rise building, equipped with lifts.

Also, the employees had the chance to go on TV and will receive all sorts of gifts during festive periods. If they had to put in extra hours, they would have overtime pay. Their one-off day per week was also converted to 1.5 days off.

Who was the one that gave them these benefits? It’s Feng Yu! The Machinery Company had progressed from manufacturing Agricultural machinery to motorcycles and from motorcycles to saloon cars. Bing City Machinery Company became well known, and the employees were proud to let others know that they were working for the company. This was why no one would say anything even if the company gave all those cargo vans to Feng Yu’s companies for free!

All the employees in Bing City Machinery Company no longer listen to the City Government. They only listen to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu’s plans to change the employees’ mindset was very successful, and this was a surprise to him too. He thought it will take some time before the employees acknowledge his changes to the Machinery Company.

The workers were united and hardworking. Feng Yu felt that if he wants, he could even convert the company into a religion!

After looking through all the documents and listening to the Kirilenko’s thunderous snoring, Feng Yu decided to book another room to rest until Kirilenko wakes up in the evening.

Chapter 573 – Pub in the Embassy Area

After a short nap, Feng Yu looked at his watch. It was already 6 pm. He went to wake Kirilenko up. After Kirilenko washed up and changed, half an hour had passed.

Feng Yu was impressed with Kirilenko’s recovery from alcohol. He had drunk almost 2 bottles of Baijiu and was sober in just a few hours.

Feng Yu felt that Kirilenko might have started drinking since he was a kid and recovering from this bit of alcohol should be an easy task. Anyway, Feng Yu does not like to drink. At most, he would drink some beer to relax.

This was the difference between Feng Yu and Kirilenko. Kirilenko said that if you do not want to be drunk, then why do you still want to drink alcohol?

During dinner, Kirilenko displayed his enormous appetite again. The hotpot lunch seems to be fully digested.

But during dinner, Kirilenko did not drink any alcohol. He wanted to drink with women later the night.

Feng Yu had never been to pubs and clubs in Beijing. In Beijing, there were not many pubs and clubs in this era. Feng Yu only knew Sanlitun. This was the most famous clubbing street in Beijing during his previous life.

The first pub there was set up in 1983, and after 10 years, there were only a few clubs in that street. The Chinese were not used to party after work. The people who went to this street were people staying nearby and some foreigners. This first pub was located in the embassy area!

Foreigners had a different lifestyle from the Chinese. They were used to find some places to relax after work. Of course, when they were at work, they really work hard. But the Chinese were different. They will try to skive during work and return home straight after work. Once in a while, they will volunteer to work overtime. Those who went to pubs or clubs after work were seen as hooligans!

When Feng Yu arrived at the location, it was already dark. This place was very different from his previous life. It was too quiet.

Although there were not a lot of bars and customers when Feng Yu and Kirilenko entered the most popular club there, they saw a lot of beautiful girls there.

Many of the girls were very young. Feng Yu remembered that there were lots of schools nearby. This place was near to Beijing Teaching University, but Feng Yu had never been here before. Li Na dislikes these places, and Feng Yu was also not interested. This was his first time here.

Kirilenko thought that he would be the only foreigner there and with his size, he would be the center of attraction. He was surprised to see so many foreigners there.

“Feng, are you sure this is a China’s pub? What are most of the people here not Chinese? I can even hear people speaking in Russian!” Kirilenko asked angrily.

“Brother Ki, this is one of China’s most popular club/ Look around you. There are so many young pretty girls. This place is located near the embassy, and that’s why there are so many foreigners.” Feng Yu explained. There was nothing he could do.

I thought you are very confident in yourself? Where is your confidence now after seeing so many Caucasians? Are you only capable of winning Chinese and not foreigners?

Someone had said that women are curious creatures. They look forward to things there were rare. For example, foreigners were rare in China, and Chinese girls were willing to throw themselves to them. Even before Feng Yu returned to his present life, it was still happening.

For example, Kirilenko went up to a girl and started chatting with her.

Damn. This idiot doesn’t even know a proper sentence of Chinese and could chat with that girl? That girl knows what Kirilenko was talking about? They could understand each other?

Wow… those two really can chat. They were laughing and chatting happily. Did they really understand each other? Kirilenko turned around and look at Feng Yu proudly.

Were the girls in the era so easy? Then why no girls approach me?

Although Feng Yu did not want anything to happen, he was bored drinking alone. Also, he was pissed with Kirilenko’s proud look.

Suddenly a Caucasian woman sat down beside Feng Yu and asked him in English if he was willing to buy her a drink.

Damn. It’s winter now. The pub might have heating, but this woman was a dress too skimpily. Doesn’t she feel cold?

Feng Yu looked at the woman’s thick makeup. He does not like this woman, and she looks like she was in her thirties. What’s her purpose for coming here? Look for young Chinese men? Feng Yu replied in English: “Sorry, I am waiting for someone.”

That Caucasian woman walked away and sat down at another table with a single man. There were still many people there looking for foreigner women.

Feng Yu saw Kirilenko waving asking him to go over.

“Feng, you are now my translator and driver. Help me tell this girl to go back with me to my hotel room.”

Damn. Fucking shameless. You are the one who is looking for girls, and I became your translator? Also, why are you so sure that this girl is willing to follow you back? Are you sure that both of you understood each other?

Seeing Feng Yu’s reluctant look, Kirilenko continued. “Feng, I forgot to tell you that there is a performance troupe from Russia that had came to China with us. Elena is one of the performers. Their performance is tomorrow afternoon, and she wants you to look for her tonight.”

Are you trying to entice me? Fine. I will accept it. Why didn’t you tell me earlier that Elena was here!

Thus, Feng Yu became Kirilenko’s translator and turned to the girl: “My boss wants to invite you back to his hotel room to look at his goldfish.”

The girl: “……” Goldfish? How come hotel rooms have goldfish? What is this translator talking about?

“Is your boss wealthy?” The girl asked.

“He should be richer than everyone here in the pub. But I need to make it clear. My boss will not marry you or bring you overseas.” Feng Yu wants this girl to stop daydreaming.

“Then will your boss give me some Russian souvenirs?” The girl asked and rubbed her two fingers like she was counting money.

Feng Yu sighed and tells Kirilenko in Russian: “She wants money!”

Hmph! Feng Yu thought that this girl really likes Kirilenko, but in fact, she was only after his money.

Kirilenko replied immediately: “No problem. I can give her money, but I only have USD.”

“USD should not be a problem. But are you sure that you want to bring her back?” Feng Yu asked. He knew that Kirilenko had a mistress in the Russian performance troupe. He already had a woman waiting for him, and he still wants to bring another girl back?

“Why not? I still have not to spend a night with an Oriental girl.”

Feng Yu sent Kirilenko and the girl back to the hotel. After sending them back, he looked at a small card in his hand. There was a phone number on the card, and it should be the hotel’s number.

Feng Yu dialed the number, and it was Elena who answered: “Mr. Feng, is that you? Did Mr. Kirilenko tell you that I am in China?”

Feng Yu’s heart melted when he heard Elena’s sweet and excited voice.

“Yes. I heard that you are representing Russian to perform for my country’s leaders. Congratulations.”

“I got this opportunity because of Mr. Kirilenko’s help. Oh, the rest of the performers are sharing rooms, but I am staying alone. My hotel is XX hotel, and I am in room 601.”

Damn. She was too direct. Feng Yu only ask her to wait for him, and he drove over to the hotel at a nearby street…….

Chapter 574 – Elena’s feelings

Before Feng Yu could knock on the door, the door opened, and Elena appeared. Was Elena waiting for him by the door all this while, and opened the door when she heard his footsteps?

“Mr. Feng, you are here? Here are the slippers for you to change.”

Elena placed a pair of slippers on the floor and squat down to help Feng Yu remove his shoes.

“Elena, how have you been?”

“Very good. I became the lead dancer, and there I am assigned with a personal teacher. Mr. Kirilenko told me that you are the one who arranged for it.” Elena looked at Feng Yu with her big eyes.

I am the one who arranged it? How come I am not aware of it? I owe Kirilenko favor.

“But you must have put in a lot of hard work. If not, you will also not become the lead dancer.” Feng Yu could still remember Elena’s dance clearly.

“Mr. Feng, I learned a new dance, and I will be performing in front of your country’s leaders tomorrow. Can I show you this dance first?”

Feng Yu felt Elena was like a kitten seeking attention. She wants the focus of her master and hopes her master would cuddle her more.

Feng Yu sat on a chair and nodded to Elena: “Alright. I still have you seen you dance alone.”

Elena immediately changed into her dancing shoes and press the play button on a Walkman, before getting into position. This was Aiwa’s latest model of Walkman. The speakers were loud and clear.

As the music starts, Elena started to dance. Ballet was originated from Italy and became famous by the Soviet Union. Until today, the world’s best ballet dancers and troupe were from Russia and not from Italy.

Feng Yu felt that Ballet was like Soccer. The country that invents it might not be better than the others.

Feng Yu felt like he was watching a movie as Elena dance and spin in the small space of the hotel room.

Ballet dancers had the same characteristics. Their arms, legs, and necks were long and had good postures. They were trained since young and will look confident even without doing anything.

The dancing Elena gave Feng Yu this feeling. She was usually timid and shy, but when the music starts, she became another person. Someone confident and proud.

The dance was about 10 minutes, and when the music ends, Feng Yu clapped.

“Mr. Feng, what do you think of my dance?” Elena was waiting for Feng Yu to praise her.

“Your dance is perfect. My mood became better when I see you dance.” Feng Yu was telling the truth. Not everyone could see Elena dance so close.

“Are you able to watch my performance tomorrow?” Elena looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu could not bear to reject her, but she will be dancing for China’s top leaders, and Feng Yu was not qualified to enter the venue.

“Elena, I am only a businessman. I can’t watch your performance tomorrow.”

Elena was disappointed. But she immediately smiled. “It’s okay. If Mr. Feng wants to watch me dance in the future, you can come to Moscow.”

“Ok. I promise you that I will definitely go to Moscow to watch you dance.”

“Great. Mr. Feng, let me massage your shoulders. When I am at home, I will massage my mother. She says it felt good.”

Feng Yu nodded. Elena went behind Feng Yu and started massaging him. Her strength and techniques were good, and Feng Yu felt really relaxed.

After a while, Elena told Feng Yu: “Mr. Feng, are you tired? Do you want to take a shower?”

Feng Yu stood up, and Elena helped to undress him. Even Japanese women might not be as obedient and gentle as her. Feng Yu really like Elena.

When Feng Yu entered the bathroom, Elena appeared at the door and ask: “I am sweaty after the dance. Can I bath with you?”

Which man would reject this beautiful woman? Bath? To hell with bath. There were more important things to do!

……

Elena was clinging on Feng Yu as they walked out of the bathroom. She was like an octopus hugging Feng Yu tightly. When round 2 was over, Elena laid on Feng Yu chest quietly.

“Elena, there is something I need to tell you.”

Elena shook her head: “Mr. Feng, you don’t need to say anything. I understand.” After saying that, she opened a drawer beside the bed. There was a pill there, and she swallowed it.

“Mr. Feng, I understand that you will not marry me. I know. But I really love you. I do not wish for you to remain by my side. I just hope you can visit me when you are free.”

What Feng Yu wanted to say was not this. He suddenly felt guilty for not being able to give any promises to this sweet girl.

“Elena, other than dancing, what else do you like?”

“Sing. But my vocals are not very good. I can sing a song call <Birch Forest>. Mr. Kirilenko told me that you are the one who wrote this song. In Moscow, many people love this song.” Elena looked at Feng Yu with admiration.

“Other than singing and dancing? Do you have any other wish?”

“No. I was already living with my mother and had entered Moscow top Ballet Company, Bolshoi Ballet. This is the world’s best Ballet troupe.”

Feng Yu had heard of this Company. <Swan Lake> was premiered by this Company. Elena had already fulfilled her dream to enter this Company and become the leading dancer.

Elena was only 15 years old now. It was impossible for her to continue dancing forever. She should have other hobbies and interests.

“Elena, how is the house you are staying with your mother? I will buy a bigger house for you.”

“No need. Only my mother and I are staying in the house. If the house is bigger, it will feel very empty. We do not need anything. Both of us are working, and we can take care of ourselves.” Elena stubbornly said.

“You can learn how to drive. It will be more convenient if you have a car. Don’t reject me. Just accept whatever I give you.” Feng Yu said.

“Yes.” Elena lowered her head. She had a blissful smile on her face. Compared to her friends in the troupe, she was the luckiest.

Mr. Feng was not rough on her and treated her well. He was also competent, and no other men could be compared to him. Although she does not know if she could be with Feng Yu forever, she realized that she had fallen in love with him. No matter how Feng Yu treated her, he will always have a place in her heart.

Chapter 575 – Key shareholder of a Mining Company

The next day, Elena went for her dance rehearsal. The performance was in the afternoon, and as one of the representatives of Russia’s party, Kirilenko was invited to this event. Feng Yu went to CCTV to watch the Spring Festival Gala night rehearsal and offered some suggestions.

In the evenings, Feng Yu and Kirilenko were seated together again. Kirilenko wanted to have a serious talk with Feng Yu. He wants to know if Yeltsin will continue to be in power and if he will lose to any opposition rivals.

Russia had sent this party to China was because Yeltsin and Bush had signed a treaty to stop their arms race early last year. The relationship between Russia and the US improved.

But last July, the relationship between the US and China had suddenly turned bad. This was because Clinton became the President and the US targeted China for the first time.

This incident was called the “Yinhe incident”!

The US government claims that they had received intelligence that this Chinese vessel, Yinhe, was sending dangerous chemicals used in chemical weapons to Iran. They sent their warships and planes to force Yinhe to stop in International waters for more than a month.

They conducted inspections twice but could not find the said chemicals. The Chinese Government asked the US government sarcastically: “Did you buy your information for 1 dollar?”

The US officials were embarrassed but insisted they did nothing wrong. In the end, the US government admitted their intelligence was false and offered compensation. But the US still refuse to apologize!

Because of this incident, there were anti-US sentiments in China. Lots of Chinese students were condemning the US and expressed that they will never go to the US to further their studies.

Russia sees this as an opportunity. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Russia’s relationship with the US had improved, but that does not mean Russia will forget their hatred for the US.

Russia had followed the former Soviet Union’s ideologies. They can never be friends with the US. They can only be enemies. Although this could not be announced openly, most of the Russians think this way. No one knows, but the Russian Government might be involved.

This time, Russia’s visit to China was to seek cooperation in many areas. They want to collaborate with China economically and also the military. During the former Soviet Union era, China was treated as a little brother to them. Thus, their relationship soured. The former Soviet Union’s government were arrogant and felt that the Soviet Union were bigger and stronger than China.

But after the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russia’s economy was a big issue for Yeltsin, and it was his duties to solve this.

Collaborating with China, the current rising economic powerhouse, was the fastest way to stabilize Russia’s economy. After Japan went into recession, they had to depend on China’s market to survive. However, the Japanese government had to pay a heavy price for it.

Russia could afford to do so too. Especially Yeltsin. He needs the Chinese government’s support. Last September, Yeltsin dismissed the Russian parliament, and only Russia’s Federal Assembly was left to vie for powers with the President. They even fought during the parliamentary meetings.

In the end, Yeltsin won, and all those “oppositions” were arrested. The representative president appointed by the parliament was arrested along with his supporters. The supporters include some military officials.

At that time, Kirilenko had called Feng Yu. Because his father was a Lieutenant General in charge of a principal department. He was considered someone with lots of authority. If his father leans towards the parliament, Yeltsin will be in a lot of trouble.

But Feng Yu told Kirilenko that those people in the parliament were clowns and can be ignored. Yeltsin had risen to powers from the support of the Russians.

Yeltsin also had influence over the military. The soldiers listened to Yeltsin more than the parliament. At the same time, Feng Yu told Kirilenko that if the parliament council won, Russia would lose a good president and his father will also be implicated.

No one was willing to have a general that was formerly his enemy. Even if Yeltsin promised to promote Kirilenko’s father, he will also not give him any authority.

After hearing Feng Yu’s analysis, Kirilenko’s father knew what to do. Since he was already branded as Yeltsin’s man, he must support Yeltsin wholeheartedly. If Yeltsin wins, then he will get more benefits.

Yeltsin had a lot of power. Although he only controls half of the military, he was seen as on the side of the angels. The Parliamentary Council were seen as the opposition party. It was clear which side had the advantage.

If Kirilenko’s father chose the wrong side, he might also not win Yeltsin. The final outcome would be Kirilenko’s father escaping to other countries for asylum and Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s investment in the minerals company will be lost!

That was Feng Yu most significant investment. He cannot afford to lose it. Also, Feng Yu felt Kirilenko was a good friend, and he treasured the friendship.

Furthermore, Kirilenko had the financial capabilities to help Feng Yu fight against US corporations. Everyone will unite to teach those US speculators a lesson!

After this incident, Kirilenko owes Feng Yu another favor. His father’s decisions and actions received praise from Yeltsin, and his father should be due for another promotion within this year.

Kirilenko had entered this Russia’s party as one of the delegates to see if there were any areas where both countries could cooperate and also thank Feng Yu.

That vehicle importation proposal was to tell Feng Yu that he will not only import Songjiang Motors vehicles into Russia, he will also import it to the former Soviet Union’s allied countries.

“Brother Ki, rest assured. Just stick with Yeltsin and your father’s position will be as stable as a rock!”

“Feng, if you say this, then my father and I will be at ease. If you need any help from me, just tell me. I promise I will put in my 100% to help you!” Kirilenko beat his chest.

“In another 2 years, I will be fighting a financial war with a few US financial giants. I hope you will support me by using all your financial powers when the time comes.”

“Feng, if we are going against the US, I will surely support you even if you do not ask me. Errrmmm…. Will we suffer heavy losses?” Kirilenko asked. He was not very confident.

“Loss? You think I will suffer losses? We will not suffer any losses. In fact, we will still make lots of profits. We will be hitting the US economy and beat those financial giants. But to be honest, if it was not for them, Rubles will not depreciate so fast, and both of us will not become where we are now. No matter what, they are the ones who had hurt your country’s economy!”

“Feng, since you are helping me to earn money, then it is not considered a request from you. What request do you need? Tell me! If you don’t let me help you, then it will transfer all my shares in the mining company to you.”

“No need. But if you really want to give me the shares, then give me 2% will do.” Feng Yu pretended to reject and then tell Kirilenko what he wanted.

“Fine. Look at this document and sign it.” Kirilenko took out a stack of documents he prepared. It states precisely 2%.

Feng Yu read through the documents twice and signed it. He was now the major shareholder of the mining company!

Chapter 576 – Human Ham

Feng Yu spent the night with Elena again. The next day, the Russian delegates returned back to Russia. Feng Yu also did not ask what sort of agreements were signed with the Chinese Government. But Kirilenko told Feng Yu that he would increase his trade with Tai Hua Trading. This means the agreements did not affect Feng Yu.

Feng Yu stayed in Beijing for one more day before Tai Hua Agricultural products General Manager Zhang Ming came to meet him. He said he had something important to discuss with Feng Yu.

When Zhang Ming saw Feng Yu, he excitedly said: “Manager Feng, we have a great opportunity!”

“What opportunity? Why are you so excited?” Feng Yu frowned.

“Have you read the papers?” Zhang Ming passed a copy of the newspaper to Feng Yu and pointed to a report.

Human Ham?

Feng Yu remembered the turning point of Qiudu Preserve Ham empire. Had it happened? If it weren’t for Zhang Ming telling him about this, he would have forgotten about it.

Qiudu was China and the world’s biggest preserve ham brand. It was extremely popular in China, and there was a period, where you could not even buy their ham even if you have the money. This ham was once Tai Hua Trading’s merchandise to be sold to Russia.

But a few days ago, someone reported Qiudu was using human flesh to make their ham. They claimed that they had evidence. It was the smoky taste in the ham, and some other people claims they had found fingernails, hair, etc., of human in the ham.

This was reported in the papers and the whole nation knew about it.

Suddenly, Qiudu’s preserved ham had turned from China’s top brand of ham into something everyone avoids. Not only they had no more orders, but the distributors and customers were also demanding for refunds.

But this was only a misunderstanding.

The truth was there was a fire in one of Qiudu’s cold storage. The insulation material in the cold room had foam and caused thick poisonous smoke. The 2500 tons of raw ingredients, pork, were all burnt. The total damage was more than 40 million RMB!

Qiudu Company’s leaders were afraid of taking responsibility for these damages. They reported to the City that it was only a small fire and only the storage facility was slightly damaged. Some minor repairs were required, and their losses were only about 360,000 RMB.

For a company like Qiudu, whose annual profits were more than 100 million, 360,000 RMB was nothing. Qiudu’s leaders tried to cover up their losses and thought this matter was over.

But the pork was all burnt, and they reported a smaller amount of losses. The company does not have enough funds to bring in fresh ingredients. So, the advisor of the company, a fortune teller, gave the stupidest advice.

This pork was only smoked. In the south, many people like smoked meat. This port can also be made into ham. Anyway, the pork will be minced, and no one will know.

So, the burnt pork which was also smoked by poisonous gas was mixed with fresh pork and made into ham and sold to the customers.

When the can of ham was opened, there was a smoky smell, and the color was different. There were even bits of bones in there.

Qiudu’s competitors immediately get people to report in the papers that Qiudu was selling human flesh ham. They also sent people to spread rumors that Qiudu had tied up with the local crematorium and used dead bodies for their ham. Even Qiudu’s employees dare not to eat their own products!

All the major papers in China reported on this incident and caused an uproar.

However, some people felt that these were all fake news. Qiudu was selling tons of ham every year. Even all the crematoriums in the province could not provide enough dead bodies to make tons of ham!

But most of the commoners believed in the rumors. They firmly believed that it was made from human remains. If not, why would the papers publish this report? The higher-ups had said that they only suspect Qiudu was using dead human remains. But for the commoners, it was a confirmation by the authorities.

The earliest people who started the rumors were from Qiudu company’s province. Who was the one who backstabbed Qiudu Company? It was not an outsider. It was another preserve ham company from the same province.

They started the rumors in the province and then spread it all over China. They make use of the newspaper and also bribed Qiudu’s distributors.

Based on the contracts between the distributors and Qiudu, if there were any issues with the ham, Qiudu has to compensate the distributors.

All the distributors knew there were issues with this batch of ham. At the same time, a preserve ham company from a nearby city approached them offering them discounts.

The taste of the ham was similar to Qiudu, but it was an unknown brand. The distributors start to order from this company as they will have higher profits with discounts.

When all the distributors start to ask for compensations, it added more woes to Qiudu. Their operations were halted, and the City Government was trying to salvage the situation. The government made a deal with the distributors for them to issue a statement in the papers stating that it was the quality of Qiudu’s ham that was affected and it was not made from human remains!

But the reputation of Qiudu’s brand was tarnished. In just 3 days, the whole nation knew about this incident and who would still buy their products? People don’t even want to buy any brand of ham.

Feng Yu put down the papers and looked at Zhang Ming. He asked Zhang Ming in a serious tone: “Manager Zhang, tell me. Are you involve in spreading this rumor?”

“Involve? Of course not! We do not even need to do anything. Those distributors had made use of those small stores to spread these rumors. You are not aware of this?”

Damn. I have been accompanying Kirilenko and Elena in the past two days. Where do I find the time to read papers?!

“Tell all our workers that no one is allowed for spreading this rumor! Human flesh? Crematorium? Who in the right mind would believe this? What is the opportunity you are saying just now?”

“This Qiudu is in deep trouble now, and the ham market is free up. We had started our production of Tai Hua Brand of ham last year. This is the best opportunity to expand our market share! You are close with the CCTV leaders. Can you tell them to change our advertisement?”

Tai Hua Ham was a product of Tian Peng pork. The weight, ingredients, price, etc. were almost the same as Qiudu. But it was currently only sold in the 3 provinces in the northeast and Russia. The sales volume cannot be compared with Qiudu.

It cannot even be compared to the other smaller brands of ham!

But Tai Hua Ham has an advantage, which was Tian Peng pigs. This brand of pork was the top choice of consumers. Almost the whole nation knew about this brand of pork.

This year, Zhang Ming had bought an advertising slot at CCTV to promote Tai Hua brand of animal feed. But now, he was thinking of changing it to Tai Hua Ham.

“The overall sales of ham this year will decline. Especially these few months. Why not we wait for this incident to be over first. This was indeed an opportunity for us. I believe you have already thought of a plan to take over the market. Don’t disappoint me. Don’t change the current advertisement. The current advertisement was aired only for a few days. If we change now, people will think there were some problems with our animal feed. You go and get people to shoot the commercial first. A 15 seconds commercial. It must tell the audience that we are using the top-quality Tian Peng Pork to make our ham. I will change another commercial to this new commercial in a few days.”

Feng Yu suddenly thought of a way to win both Qiudu and the other ham company. But first, he must let people know that it was this company, Danhui, that spread the rumors!

Chapter 577 – The third-party benefits from the tussle

After Qiudu Ham was alleged to contain human flesh, the whole nation was in an uproar. The leaders of the company were immediately replaced, and they were to take on the full responsibility for this incident!

If this were Feng Yu’s company, he would have fired all the leaders, especially the “Advisor”! How can a fortune teller be appointed as the company’s advisor? This was ridiculous!

If Feng Yu were the boss of Qiudu, he would immediately introduce a new flavor of ham, Smoked Ham! Although there were people who do not like the smoky flavor, there will still be someone who likes it.

This would contain the damages of Qiudu. At most, it was a failed new product. There will not be any rumors of human ham. But if it was a success, then it will add one more variety of product for the company. However, the chances of success were slim.

But it will lower the damages and will not affect the brand much. This Smoked Ham can still be sold at a higher price. It might even increase the company’s profits.

Another solution was to own up and accept the losses. At the same time, announce to the whole nation that Qiudu will not use inferior pork for their ham. This would be the best solution.

Although the losses would amount up to 40 million, at the same time, it can increase the retail prices of their ham. The consumers will know that Qiudu’s ham was safe to consume and had strict requirements for their products! The brand value will increase.

When the brand value increases, the reputation of the brand will also increase. It will stimulate higher sales. The 40 million RMB losses will be negligible! Qiudu’s annual profits were more than 1 billion RMB, and they could afford losses of 40 million RMB!

That damaged meat could also be distributed to the factory’s employees as a form of welfare. After all, in this era, not every household could afford to eat pork daily. Although the meat was slightly damaged, it was still edible. The employees will still feel grateful to the company.

There were many ways to handle this incident. But the leaders of Qiudu chose the stupidest idea. Selecting the most foolish choice was still fine. They should at least inform the distributors.

The distributors were unaware of this and did not know that this batch of ham had problems. The taste of Qiudu’s ham had changed, and the reputation of the distributors will be affected. They will surely be unhappy. Those consumers that bought this batch of ham will suspect that it was an imitation product and the distributors had to explain to their customers. But they were unaware of what had happened and could not give an explanation.

At this time, Qiudu’s competitor, Danhui made their move. They easily bribed these distributors and some media to spread rumors of Qiudu’s ham contains human remains. This was the critical blow!

Both companies were selling ham, and Danhui’s ham tastes good too. The cost of Qiudu Hams was higher, and the distributors were looking forward to seeing a competitor competing with Qiudu. They wanted to teach that arrogant Qiudu a lesson and let them know that without the distributors, Qiudu Ham will never be famous.

This was the time when Qiudu Company realized that they had made so many mistakes and tried to salvage the situation!

But once the rumors started, it spread very fast. It takes more effect to stop a rumor than to start it. It was several times harder!

This rumor was still started on purpose. It was almost impossible to stop it!

Since Danhui had already backstabbed Qiudu, then they must make sure there was no way for Qiudu to recover. If not, when Qiudu recovered from this crisis, they will go after them. Danhui might even close down from Qiudu’s retaliation.

The rumors were spreading like wildfire. Qiudu ham’s sales plunged. Although Danhui’s sales did not increase too much, when Qiudu was shut down, their sales will surely skyrocket. After all, there was still a demand for ham in China!

This matter was too big for Qiudu Company to handle. They had no choice but to seek help from their higher-ups. They approached the City Government. Qiudu was a state-owned enterprise and seeking help from the higher-ups when they met any trouble was their usual practice.

The Qiudu company knew that it was another company from a neighboring city that had started the rumors, they immediately reported to their higher-ups!

Qiudu City government’s leaders were furious to learn that it was that Danhui who had started this crisis. They immediate raise complains to that city’s leaders.

The city leaders, where Danhui Company was located, were aware of this. They also felt this was not right. After all, Danhui Company had even visited Qiudu Company to learn from them in the past.

But since it had already happened, and the city leaders will still gain from this incident, then it was a different story. If the market leader of the Ham industry was Danhui, then it will be their credit.

Which leader was willing to forgo the credit? Furthermore, Qiudu Company did not have concrete proof that it was Danhui who accused them. Those government officials will also not admit that the rumors were started by Danhui.

So, the city leaders retorted that it was Qiudu who was making baseless allegations again Danhui. Qiudu does not have any proof that points to Danhui. How can they claim that they were the ones who started the rumors? It was Qiudu that had problems with their products in the first place.

The war between two companies escalated to a war of words between two cities. In the end, it escalated to the Provincial Government. The Provincial Government had plans to use the food products industry as their province’s Mainstay industry to push the province’s economy.

Qiudu Ham was in high demand, and the provincial leaders were glad to see another Ham company appearing in their province.

Copy and follow was what the government officials were good at. This was a shortcut to develop their area’s economy. Nationwide, almost all the Ham factories were state-owned and supported by their local governments.

Qiudu and Danhui Companies did not have any bad blood between them in the past. Both were state-owned enterprises under the same province government. They were increasing the provincial government’s revenue. Both companies could even join hands to prevent other ham companies from overtaking them.

Both companies were considered the provincial government’s children. What happens when both of your kids fight? The parents could not take sides and both the kids must be punished equally. This was what the provincial government did.

The mayors of both cities were reprimanded. But they insist they did nothing wrong. It was the other party that was at fault. Danhui saw this as an opportunity to shine, and Qiudu claims that Danhui was out to destroy them.

But when both companies and cities were arguing, they did not notice a new brand of ham, Tai Hua Ham from the Northeast had entered the market and was sold all over China.

Feng Yu had sought the help of Tai Hua Trading’s distributors to market this Tai Hua Ham. Although it was still an unknown brand, Feng Yu promise them that Tai Hua Ham’s commercial will be aired on CCTV soon. It will also be endorsed by a top celebrity.

Now, the top two brands of ham, Qiudu and Danhui were at war and the third party, Tai Hua Ham, will be the one that benefits from their tussles!

Chapter 578 – The third-party benefits from the tussle (Part 2)

The Provincial Government will be glad to see Qiudu and Danhui engaging in healthy competitions, but now, the Provincial Government got to step in. The most important thing to do now was to restore Qiudu’s reputation!

To restore Qiudu’s reputation, the most direct way was to admit they had used inferior pork to manufacture their ham. This had to be done through a reputable media. Using inferior ingredients were at least better than using human remains.

The most influential media in China was CCTV. The Provincial Government leaders made use of their connections to let CCTV <Focus Report> to film an episode for them and to clarify the rumors.

But coincidentally, Feng Yu was at CCTV that day to change one of his advertisement to Tai Hua Ham.

“Chief Jia, are you going to send the production team of <Focus Report> to interview that Qiudu Company?”

Deputy Chief Jia nodded: “You also heard about it? We must film one special episode to prevent these rumors from spreading. Although rumors were limited to the wise, not all commoners will see it. It is our program’s duties to clarify these rumors.”

Feng Yu immediately said: “That’s right. But that Qiudu Company had used inferior pork for their products. This is their punishment! Simply put it, it is their Karma!”

Deputy Chief Jia glanced at Feng Yu: “Are you hoping Qiudu company will shut down because your father’s Tai Hua Agricultural Products is also selling ham?” All businessmen hope their competitors will shut down and Deputy Chief Jia felt this was what Feng Yu was thinking.

Feng Yu replied with an arrogant tone: “I hope they will close down, but what I wanted was a fair competition. I will take away their market share and let them close down. It was they who invited their own destruction. Who would have thought this would happen? My father’s company and my companies did not spread any of these rumors. You can ask around. We are the first ones who came out to stop these rumors.”

Feng Yu helped his competitors to stop the rumors? Deputy Chief Jia felt this was unbelievable!

Under normal circumstances, Feng Yu was considered a saint when his companies did not spread the rumors. But Feng Yu had even stepped out to stop the rumors?

Was there really a businessman with such qualities?

But what Feng Yu said next confirmed Deputy Chief Jia’s views on businessmen.

“Chief Jia, I think the program should criticize Qiudu for using that damaged pork in their ham. Those smoke were poisonous smoke. Their factory should stop production, and the health department should issue a heavy fine on them to prevent other similar incidents from happening!”

Deputy Chief Jia was speechless. He knew Feng Yu will not be so kind as to help his competitors.

What Feng Yu said was not wrong. Qiudu had used inferior ingredients, and it was still unsure if those ham were safe for consumption. This will still need to wait for the test results.

If the test results proved that those ham made from the inferior pork did not meet the safety requirements, then Qiudu Company must be slapped with a hefty fine.

But if the Industrial Bureau, Health Department, etc. issued heavy fines, then it will also be the end of Qiudu Company. At least no one would be willing to buy their hams and other products.

Hams were not cheap products in the first place and if the consumers might fall sick if they eat those ham, who would buy Qiudu’s ham? Qiudu still had to pay the penalty and halt their production. When all these were over, Tai Hua Ham would have taken over the market share. There was no way for Qiudu to stage a comeback!

“I don’t think we should do this….” Deputy Chief Jia replied.

“Chief Jia, I heard that this year’s Spring Festival Gala Night is slightly tight on its budget. To let the whole Nation watch a good program, I decided to donate 1 million RMB.”

“Oh, thank you, Manager Feng, for your generosity. I also think that these food products companies that ignored the food safety regulations should be punished.” Deputy Chief Jia immediately changes his stance.

But Feng Yu was still not satisfied. 1 million RMB was enough for him to buy a one-year primetime advertising slot at a local TV station.

“Deputy Chief Jia, actually stopping the rumors about Qiudu Company was not the main aspect. Most importantly we must find out who was the one that started the rumors.” Feng Yu hinted.

“Manager Feng, you are really not the one who started this rumors?” Deputy Chief Jia asked again.

Feng Yu: “……” You did not hear what I said earlier? Why are you still suspecting me?

I have lots of ways to kill my competitors if I wanted to. Even the stupidest method of throwing money at them can also kill off my competitors. Do I still need to use such underhand methods?

“I will not use such underhand methods. It is easy to find out who started the rumors. But the investigation was stopped by someone.”

“Who?” Deputy Chief Jia sat up straight. Someone was covering up this incident? This must be exposed!

Feng Yu suddenly asked: “Who had approach you to let <Focus Report> to film this episode today?”

“Deputy Provincial Governor Luo? Impossible. He was my classmate, and I knew him well. Furthermore, Qiudu was his provincial enterprise. If he knew who it was, he would surely arrest that person. Why would he cover up for that person?” Deputy Chief Jia shook his head. What Feng Yu said does not make sense.

“What if the one who started the rumors was also one of their provincial’s state-owned enterprise?” Feng Yu smiled.

Deputy Chief Jia’s eyes opened wide. If what Feng Yu said was true, then it will explain everything.

“How do you know about this?” Deputy Chief Jia asked.

“We are going to manufacture and sell ham. Of course, we will do market research and competitor analysis. China’s number one brand of ham is Qiudu. It owns more than 60% of the market share. The number 2 brand is also a new company from their province, Danhui. This new company owns 10% of the market share. The rest of the market was shared by all the other companies.”

“If something happens to the top brand, who will benefit from it? It will surely be the brand that has the next most market share. More importantly, those distributors that were working with Qiudu suddenly switched to Danhui Company. This is not a secret. Do you think all these are a coincidence? You can send your people to investigate both Qiudu and Danhui company. Qiudu had made an official complaint against Danhui, and it was also not a big secret.”

Deputy Chief Jia frowned. Even he will not believe that this was coincident. But both companies were state-owned enterprise from the same province. They should be working together. What actually happened?

Deputy Chief Jia suddenly remembered that if Danhui Company was exposed as the one creating all this mess, then Danhui company will also be punished. Tai Hua Ham which was going to air their commercials on CCTV will surely be taking over all their market share.

Deputy Chief Jia looked at Feng Yu. You think 1 million RMB was enough for us to help you win your two biggest competitors?

“Manager Feng, I think our CCTV workers had worked very hard for this year’s Spring Festival Gala Night. They have been putting in extra hours, and our TV station cannot afford to pay them overtime salaries. What do you think?”

Feng Yu immediately said: “How can they work overtime without salaries? I will donate another 500,000 RMB! It should be enough to compensate these workers. I heard that CCTV 3 still have some advertising slots unsold. Can you sell one of the slots to Tai Hua Ham?”

“No problem. Let this to me. That’s settled then. Manager Feng, wait for my good news!”

Chapter 579 – CCTV’s report (Part 1 of 2)

To kill off Danhui and Qiudu completely, CCTV alone was not enough. Feng Yu had prepared a few more tricks up his sleeves. Danhui and Qiudu have only themselves to blame for this mess.

When Feng Yu was visiting his branch companies and factories in the different provinces, he also contacted the media there. Feng Yu was preparing to give those two companies the killing blow!

The Qiudu leaders were hosting two CCTV reporters. They had approached CCTV for help, and with their support, they will surely recover from this crisis!

“Reporter Sui, I have already told you everything. I promise I did not hide anything from you. That human remains ham were all accusations. We are framed!”

“Manager Ma, do you know who the one that framed you is? We have investigated. Your local, provincial newspaper was the first to report that Qiudu ham had a weird smell and this smell was similar to the smell of burning human flesh in the crematorium. Are you aware of this?” Sui Junyi asked.

Manager Ma narrowed his eyes. What was this Reporter Sui implying? Was he going to help us hit back at Danhui Company? This was a great opportunity. Danhui Company was the one who framed us first. We should let everyone knows that they were the one behind this!

“Of course. We knew who was the one that framed us, but I will not reveal their names. When their company wanted to start producing ham, they even visited our factories to learn from us. We even shared our experiences with them. But they turn around and spread rumors and tarnished our company’s reputation!” Manager Ma snarled.

“Manager Ma, you knew which company had spread the rumors, but you refuse to reveal their identity? That means both your company and that someone is very close?” Sui Junyi immediately took note of this vital clue.

“That is all in the past. In the future, we will have nothing to do with them. We will be competitors and rivals!” Manager Ma said.

“Are you sure that you do not want to tell the whole nation who was the one that had inflicted these damages to your company?” Sui Junyi continued asking.

Manager Ma hesitated for a while. He remembered that he was due for his promotion. But because of this incident and Danhui Company’s rumors, all his hopes were gone. He should be stagnant at his current rank until he retires.

If it wasn’t for someone taking the blame, he would be the one that was sacked! But the Provincial Leaders had ordered him to not reveal Danhui company, despite he had all the evidence. But what if the reporter found out by himself?

If Danhui company gets into trouble. Then those distributors will return to Qiudu Company. Manager Ma will be able to revive the company. Anyway, there was a high demand for Qiudu ham in the past, and their production could not keep up. Now, even if there was a decline in their sales, they should still be able to get some profits. If the Provincial Government was forced to save one of the two companies, the obvious choice was, of course, the established and reputable company, Qiudu.

When Manager Ma thought about this, he pretended to touch a document file on his desk accidentally. It was a document of Danhui Company coming to Qiudu to learn from them.

Sui Junyi noticed it immediately and asked: “Is the company you mentioned just now Danhui? Because Danhui is also your provincial enterprise, you are unwilling to expose them?”

Manager Ma sighed. Since you already know about this, then I will tell you the truth: “If we were not from the same province, do you think we will let another company learn our operations? Their leaders were the ones who spread the rumors. They were the ones that claim we had used human remains for our ham. They had also bribed a Deputy Editor to publish this rumor on the papers! You can go and investigate.”

Sui Junyi looked at the cameraman behind him. The cameraman nodded, indicating that he got everything on camera.

“Fine. Manager Ma, we will report everything. We will not let you be accused. But I still have one more question. You had used the pork that was contaminated with smoke in your ham. Have you ever thought that this pork might not be safe for consumption?”

“What do you mean by this?” Manager Ma was shocked. This reporter did not seem to be here to help them restore the public confidence in their company.

“Have your ham pass the food safety test before they leave your factory?”

“Of course. All our ham has passed the food safety test! The pork was only smoked. In the south, there is also smoked meat. Why can’t our pork be edible?” Manager Ma asked.

“Okay. Then I do not have any more question. Manager Ma, do you wish to add anything else?” Sui Junyi asked.

“No. I only wish to apologize to the consumers. I had not managed the company well, and this had happened. I promise this will not happen again. Please continue to support our Qiudu ham……”

After Sui Junyi and his crew left, Manager Ma did not feel anything wrong. Although Sui Junyi did not accept his red packet, he was a reporter from CCTV’s <Focus Report>. He might be a righteous person.

Furthermore, Manager Ma thought back on the interview. There was nothing out of place. He had prepared his final speech a long time ago. He hopes that his words will help change the consumer’s opinion of Qiudu ham or get Danhui Company into trouble!

……

CCTV was very efficient. 3 days after the interview, <Focus Report> aired this episode and had informed Manager Ma in advance. Manager Ma arranged for all the leaders in the company to watch this episode in the meeting room. He wants everyone to see this magical moment together!

“A while ago, there were some rumors. Qiudu Ham was made from human flesh. There are also rumors that Qiudu Company had collaborated with the crematorium. So, we sent our reporter to investigate this matter. Today, we will announce the results of our investigations. These rumors are false!”

Manager Ma and the rest clapped and cheered. CCTV’s <Focus Report> had helped them cleared up the rumors. What’s there to worry about?

The Provincial Government leaders also watched this program, and they nodded. Seems like this PR effort was just in time. It should be able to save Qiudu’s reputation and recover some of the losses.

“…… you can see from this footage. This cold storage is under repair. This storage caught fire not long ago, and some of the pork stored inside were burnt and smoked. To minimize their losses, Qiudu Company mixed this pork with other pork and make it into their ham. Base on our interview, Qiudu Company’s Manager Ma told us that this smoked pork was safe for consumption. We have sent samples of this batch of test to Beijing Food and Drug Testing Center to conduct a series of test. Next, will be the employees from the test center announcing the test results.”

When this segment was shown, Manager Ma and the rest of the leaders’ face changed. Why did CCTV send those ham for the test? What was this <Focus Report> doing? Didn’t the leaders said that CCTV will help them squash those rumors? Why does it look like they were targeting them?

The leaders from Qiudu knew that there will undoubtedly be issues with this batch of ham. But this batch of ham should not be too poisonous to cause fatalities.

When this segment was shown, the leaders from Danhui Company cheered. Seems like the Provincial Government will only support their company in the future. Qiudu Company was finished!

Chapter 580 – CCTV’s report (Part 2 of 2)

In the TV, a man in a white coat was being interviewed by Sui Junyi.

“We have conducted a sample check on this batch of Qiudu ham. We had pick 100 samples randomly, and none of it had passed. From our analysis, the salmonella levels in the ham are 5 times over the safety limit, Listeria is 3 times over the safety limits, E.coli is 4 times over the limit, Staphylococcus is 3 times over the limits……”

Manager Ma’s sweat dripped down from his forehead. He knows that the checks for this batch of ham were not stringent as Qiudu was in a rush to fulfill their orders. But he never expects that the quality of their products was so poor.

This batch of ham can be considered poisonous from the bacteria in the product! This was the finishing blow for Qiudu Company!

Manager Ma realized the reason why Sui Junyi asked him if this batch of ham had passed the food safety requirements. He wanted to make a comparison of his words against the actual test results. Manager Ma could feel that it was the end of his career and Qiudu.

“Thank you for the explanation on the test results. As everyone can see, this batch of ham is not safe for consumption! But this batch of ham was still sold in the market! Who should be responsible for this? The Qiudu leaders who had ordered to use the contaminated pork for their ham? The workers who had did not conducted the sample checks and claims that this batch was fit for consumption? Because of the lack of time, we could not conduct a more in-depth investigation. But our reporter will follow up on this issue.”

“Next, we will be showing an interesting interview with Qiudu’s General Manager. From this interview, we got a shocking information. Qiudu company knew who was the one that spread rumors about their ham. The following is the actual interview footage.”

Danhui’s leaders were shocked. What’s the meaning of this? Didn’t the Provincial Leaders order no one were to mention about the one who spread the rumors? How come Qiudu Company reveal this news? What were they trying to do?

The Provincial Leaders who were watching <Focus Report> were shocked! Because of this Qiudu Company, they had become the laughing stock of the whole nation. Now, they will become the laughing stock for the second time!

The interview with Manager Ma was broadcasted. In the interview, Manager Ma had claimed that it was Danhui Company that had spread the rumors. He was also willing to take responsibility for his words. This was a serious accusation. But the viewers believed him after Manager Ma had provided some evidence.

“Why did Danhui Company did this? What will they gain for spreading rumors about Qiudu company? I have a report here which will provide the answer.”

The nationwide audiences saw that after all the Qiudu’s orders were stopped, those distributors ordered the ham from Danhui Company. Although Danhui’s prices were lower, there was no reason why all the distributors switch to them.

Danhui Company’s orders could still not be comparable to Qiudu when the latter was at his peak. Because of the rumors, the ham market was on a decline. But the market share of Danhui had increased.

All the audiences knew that it was Danhui Company that had backstabbed Qiudu Company in a bid to take over more market share.

“This company had resorted to underhand methods to get more market share. Are their products safe to consume? All those that are involved should be prosecuted. Our reporters will continue to follow this story…… This is the end of today’s <Focus Report>. Please tune in tomorrow at the same time. Thank you.”

The familiar melody sounded marking the end of the program. Feng Yu switched off the TV and smiled.

CCTV was really efficient. They had completed this episode within 3 days. Deputy Chief Jia was also great. He managed to dig out and reported all the dark secrets of these two companies. There was no way for these two companies to escape!

Feng Yu immediately picked up his phone and made some calls. He asks his men to continue to report about this incident in all the provinces. This incident must continue to be the headlines and not die off after one or two days.

……

“Old Jia, why did <Focus Report> show all that information? Didn’t you promise me that you will help me?” Deputy Governor Luo furiously asked. He had requested Deputy Chief Jia to let <Focus Report> to help save Qiudu’s reputation. He had even told his higher-ups that he was the one who arranged for CCTV to interview Qiudu.

Now, Deputy Governor Luo’s higher-ups really wanted to kill him!

“Old Luo, didn’t I ask you if there were any problems with that Qiudu Company? What did you tell me? You told me that there were absolutely no problems with that company! Do you know what is the consequences if we did not report the truth accordingly? You should know that this period is crucial for me. Are you trying to get me into trouble?” Deputy Chief Jia asked him back.

Deputy Governor Luo and Deputy Chief Jia were classmates in the Party’s school for 3 months. He had not contacted Deputy Chief Jia after they finish their course. He only remembered Deputy Chief Jia when he needs his help, and Deputy Chief Jia was not very happy with him.

Now, Deputy Chief Jia was right and had even had credit for reporting the truth behind this incident. This was beneficial for his promotion. Even Iron-fist Zhu watched this <Focus Report>. The better this program was, the more the higher-ups will notice him. Furthermore, were there any fake information in the report? No! All they did was not covering up for those two companies.

Why should CCTV cover up for those companies?

“Old Jia, we are all classmates. You must help me.” Deputy Governor Luo begged.

“Old Luo, it’s not I do not want to help you. But this matter had been exposed. You should make the right decision. If you still want to cover up this matter, then the following reports will get you in trouble. It is up to you to choose.” Deputy Chief Jia hangs up the phone and lit a cigarette.

……

“Party Secretary, I also did not expect this to happen when I said that. What I said was the truth. I did not expect this to be aired on TV. Secretary, please help me. I promise I will manage Qiudu Company well.” Manager Ma was standing in front of the City Party’s Secretary. He was sweating profusely.

“Telling the truth? If you had told us the truth from the start, this would not happen! I am unable to help you this time. The Provincial Government had issued orders. The ones involved will be investigated and punished. You better pray that you are clean. If your accounts are not clean, then you will really be finished!”

At the same time, the boss of Danhui Company was also at their City’s Party Secretary’s office getting scolded. What did you think when you tried to frame Qiudu? In the end, you get into trouble yourself!”

Will the consumers still buy Danhui Ham now? If this incident was not managed well, not only the boss of Danhui will be in trouble, even the City government’s leaders will be in trouble.

Henan province’s Governor switched off the TV. He knew that both Qiudu and Danhui brands, which the province spent many efforts to build, were finished!

Chapter 581 – Tai Hua Ham

Although CCTV’s <Focus Report> had reported on Qiudu and Danhui companies, Henan Province’s leaders were still thinking of ways to save these two companies.

The simplest way to save them was to get a scapegoat to claim full responsibility and divert the people’s attention.

The General Managers of both Qiudu and Danhui Companies were removed. Henan Province had acted fast. Under normal circumstances, this move was enough to appease the consumers. But they did not expect there was someone who was not willing to let this matter go like this.

Zhejiang Newspaper had published a report questioning if the local government was aware that Qiudu Company had used contaminated pork to manufacture their ham. If <Focus Report> had not covered this story, will that General Manager Ma still continue to be the person in charge of the company?

This was a serious matter, and only the General Manager had to step down? Was that enough? The Trade and Industrial Bureau and the Health Department were not going to take actions? The company can still continue to operate? Shouldn’t it be suspended for further investigations?

After this newspaper published this report, the local papers in various provinces also published similar stories. They started to question the Trade and Industrial Bureau and the Health Department on their actions and questioned the food safety of some other enterprises.

But no matter what other enterprises the newspapers questioned, their attitude towards Qiudu and Danhui were the same. These companies should be suspended and punished severely!

The reporter from CCTV had arrived again to find out about the aftermath of this Qiudu Company. The Provincial Government had no choice but to do something. Since this matter had blown out of their control, The Provincial Government suspends Qiudu Company for investigation.

If this were a private enterprise, the local government would take action immediately. But state-owned enterprises were considered their own people. They usually will not melt out harsh punishment to them. Now, everyone was watching them. There was no way the local government could cover up this matter or take sides. If they did not act on this matter fast, they might even get into trouble themselves.

Qiudu Company was suspended, and everyone from the workers to the leaders was investigated. Even one of the City’s Deputy Mayor was implicated and forced to retire. He was only in his 40s.

Qiudu Company was finished. But Danhui Company was not far away too. The newspapers started to focus their attention on Danhui Company. Why was the General Manager of an enterprise, which spread malicious rumors and widespread fears, the only person that was removed from the position? Are there no one else that was involved?

The mastermind was punished, but what about the accomplices? Shouldn’t they be punished too? Danhui was the only set up two years ago. How did they develop so fast? Did they use the same methods in the past?

It was against the law to spread rumors. Shouldn’t the local Police step in? Because of the rumors they spread, they had earned some profits. Shouldn’t that money be confiscated?

The newspaper agencies of several provinces dig up the past of Danhui. There were reports that some packets of their ham had insufficient ham in it. Some of their products were expired before the expiry dates. There were also reports that the percentages of the ingredients do not match their labels.

The distributors were smart. They saw that Danhui Ham was in trouble and they refuse to sell their products. There were still many ham manufacturers in China. They do not need to sell Danhui ham.

In the past, Danhui was considered a well-known brand, and it tastes good. Furthermore, the consumers were not going to buy Qiudu’s products and the distributors immediately switch to Danhui. But now, it was apparent Danhui Company was finished too. Why should the distributors help them? Their cooperation had only just started and were not close to each other.

Now, no consumers were willing to buy Danhui’s products too, and Danhui’s General Manager was taken to task. The company should also be finish.

The other ham companies were all in a good mood. This was the opportunity for them to rise to the top. One month ago, the Ham market was controlled by Qiudu. Then Qiudu collapsed, and Danhui took over as the market leader.

But now, Danhui was in trouble too. It might be these companies’ turn to be the market leader!

However, a new commercial appeared on CCTV, and the hearts of the ham companies sank.

“Tai Hua Ham, made from premium Tian Peng Pork. Quality meat, Safe meat. Suitable for all ages. Nationwide Quality Supervision. Call XXXX-XXXXXX.”

Where did this Tai Hua Ham come out from? How come they are working with the popular Tian Peng Pig farm? Their ham was made from Tian Peng Pigs? Then their cost should be much higher.

But the ham companies soon noticed that Tai Hua Ham’s retail price was the same as Qiudu. They did not increase their rates at all. This means that the profits of Tai Hua Ham were lesser than Qiudu Ham. But the ham manufacturers knew the cost of one piece of ham. The cost will not be more than 40 cents, and the retail price was 70 cents. Even if the wholesale price was the same as before, at about 50 cents, the profits should be about 25%.

Now, the earnings of Tai Hua Agricultural products, the distributors and the retailers were about 10 cents each. But the cost of Tai Hua Agricultural Products Company was the lowest and had the highest profits.

At first, Zhang Ming wanted to increase the wholesales and retail prices by 10 cents. He had spent a lot on advertising and had used Tian Peng Pigs as the raw ingredients. This had increased its cost. He analyzed and found out that there was not much difference to their total sales volume even when the retail price was set at 80 cents.

But Feng Yu stopped him and told him that this was not the time yet. They should focus on building their brand first. The consumers must be used to eating and like Tai Hua Ham. After that, they will increase the prices.

The profits might not be high now, but their sales volume will increase. After Tai Hua Supermarkets were in operation, the sales of Tai Hua Ham will increase further.

At that time, Tai Hua Ham will be a household brand.

Feng Yu reminded Zhang Ming again to monitor the quality of Tai Hua Ham closely. Especially the percentage of meat in the ham. It must now be lowered. Although the starch used in the ham was cheap, if too much starch were used, the taste would not be good. Feng Yu wants the consumers to acknowledge Tai Hua Ham and thinks this was the best ham in China!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, some companies tried to lower their cost and reduce the percentage of meat in the ham. With lower cost, these companies were able to reduce their retail prices and gain more market share.

But in the end, these companies were unable to increase their market shares, and the consumers felt their ham were the worst ham. Their brands’ reputation was affected severely.

Feng Yu’s goal was to let Tai Hua Ham replace the former Qiudu Ham and become the industry standard. With Tian Peng Pigs becoming the pork industry’s benchmark, he will be able to take over China’s pork related industry.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the frozen meat market was very popular. Several big brands were competing for the market share, and it was the Danhui Company that emerges as the final winner. Danhui Company later became the world’s biggest frozen meat company. Not to mention their meat related products, just the frozen meat alone had created more than 1 billion RMB of profits annually.

But from this moment on, all these belong to Tai Hua Agricultural Products Company. Tai Hua Frozen meat will appear all over China soon. But first, Tai Hua Frozen meat should be sold in exclusive counters inside Tai Hua Supermarkets.

Chapter 582 – Heard of Supermarket?

For two weeks, Feng Yu was flying all over China. This made him realized how much work Fu Guangzheng had done before.

Feng Yu must set up a holding company and recruit a team to manage all these companies’ shares. He only needs to sit in his headquarters and wait for people to report to him. He also will not need to worry about missing out any details.

Feng Yu finally completed his inspection of all his companies and branch factories and returned to Bing City. He still needs to settle the Tai Hua Supermarket in Bing City.

Fu Guangzheng and the rest were visiting the different provinces and cities to look for suitable locations for their supermarket. They were accompanied by the local government officials wherever they went. As for Feng Yu, he went straight to Bing City’s Mayor Office.

After taking in a sip of tea, Feng Yu let out a groan: “Hah…….”

Hmmm…. Old Zhang’s tea still tastes the best.

“Are you here just to drink tea? What is it you want? It is the end of the year, and I have a lot of work waiting for me.”

As the Mayor, Zhang Ruiqiang was very busy at the end of the year. Not only he needs to review all the work, he still needs to participate in communities’ events. Just this afternoon alone, he got to attend 3 events.

“I am a guest. How can you treat your guest this way?” Feng Yu grumbled.

Zhang Ruiqiang: “……” You dare to call yourself a guest? Where did you see a guest coming to another person’s office and search the cabinet for the best tea leaves? You did not even knock on the door and treated this place like your own house.

“If you have nothing to say, then stay here and drink your tea. I still have work.” Zhang Ruiqiang got up and was prepared to leave.

“Fine. I am scared of you. Brother Liu, help me bring in some hot water! I am here today to give you some good news.” Feng Yu said while ordering Zhang Ruiqiang’s secretary.

“Good news? What sort of good news?”

“I am going to set up a hypermarket in Bing City. If the conditions are good, it should not be a problem to set up 2 or 3.”

“Hypermarket? What is that?” Zhang Ruiqiang understood what a market was. It should be a mall or a place that sells things. But what’s a hypermarket? A bigger mall or place?

There were a few malls in Bing City. Some were state-owned, and some were private. What’s so special about those? But Hypermarket sounds quite extraordinary.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes at Zhang Ruiqiang as if he was someone ignorant.

“A Hypermarket is just like what its name. It is a type of marketplace which is very big. But this Hypermarket is different from the other malls in Bing City. It represents our City. It is Tai Hua Supermarket.”

“Represent our city? Tai Hua Supermarket? What are you talking about?” Zhang Ruiqiang was confused.

“Supermarket. It is just like the supermarkets overseas. It will display all sorts of merchandise on the shelves, and the customers get to pick what they want. They will choose and take what they want and pay at the counter when they leave.” Feng Yu explained.

So, it’s just a shop. Zhang Ruiqiang was not interested. You want to set up a shop, and yet you made it sounds like some sort of MNC. I thought you are going to invest a large sum of money in Bing City.  It’s just a shop. What do you need to come and see me?

Feng Yu was not pleased when he saw Zhang Ruiqiang’s expression: “Do you know how much we invested in this Hypermarket?”

“How much? 1 million? 10 million?” Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu. How much can it cost to set up a shop? You think I don’t know? All the goods can be on credit, and it does not require much. The City Government also have its own malls. Zhang Ruiqiang knew all these things well.

Feng Yu showed one finger and smiled: “100 million!”

Secretary Liu had just entered the room with the hot water, and he heard what Feng Yu said. His hand shook, and some of the hot water splashed on his hand. He hastily put down the teacup and waved his hand.

“Secretary Liu, what’s wrong with you? Why are you so careless? It is only 100 million. It’s not much money. Why are you so surprised?” Feng Yu purposely said.

“Xiao Liu, go out and apply some medication.” Zhang Ruiqiang turned and look at Feng Yu. “100 million is nothing to you? Fine. The Province’s library needs some renovation this year. Why not you donate 100 million to renovate it?”

Feng Yu replied nonchalantly: “Sure. Then the Provincial Library must be renamed to Wind and Rain Library, or Tai Hua Library.”

“Don’t even think about it? That is the province’s library. You cannot rename it!” Zhang Ruiqiang replied furiously.

“Then why should I donate if I don’t get anything in return?” Feng Yu looked at him with the corner of his eyes.

“Fine. I will not look for you regarding this. What is this Hypermarket you are talking about? Why do you need to invest 100 million for a mall?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked curiously.

“Do you still remember that place where we held the Electronics Exhibition? The Hypermarket will be bigger than that.” Feng Yu casually replied.

That mall had 5 stories, and each floor was over 2,000 Sqm. It had more than 10,000 Sqm in total. Feng Yu wants to build a mall bigger than that?

Zhang Ruiqiang does not know that in the future, the floor area of one floor of a Hypermarket was more than 3,000 Sqm. Some were more than 5,000 Sqm. Hypermarkets, like Carrefour and Walmart, usually have 2 to 3 stories. Just the supermarket itself was more than 10,000 Sqm.

“You are going to build a big shopping mall and use it as a supermarket? What are you going to sell in the supermarket?”

“Everything. Food, drinks, clothes, necessities, electric appliances, etc. We will be selling everything. There will still have some storefronts like fast food restaurants, etc. in the mall. As long as there is enough space, we will sell everything.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was puzzled. This was just like a grocery store which sells everything. How can there be profits? Even if you set up a Super grocery store, how much profits can there be? Your investment was 100 million RMB and how long will it take to recover your investments?

But Zhang Ruiqiang knew Feng Yu well. Feng Yu would never do any business that will lose money. There must be some other ways of generating revenue which he did not know.

“You are able to make money from this? How much tax can you give the city?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“I am partnering with a few others. Fu Guangzheng, his third uncle, who was also Hong Kong’s Supermarket king. Hong Kong’s Superman Li and his youngest son. Our initial total investment is 200 million USD. We will be setting up 20 Hypermarkets first and then use the revenue to expand. Our target is to have more than 100 Hypermarkets within 5 years and over 500 Hypermarkets within 10 years.”

“Wait…… What did you say? Expand using the revenue generated? Set up over 100 Hypermarkets within 5 years? That means you expect your 5-year profits to be over 4 times your investment?” Zhang Ruiqiang’s jaws dropped.

Hypermarkets can generate so many profits?

“You don’t believe me? Since when did I lie to you?  If I say can, then it will surely be possible. Also, this was my most conservative estimation. If everything goes well according to plan, the expansion might even be faster. Let me put it this way. A Hypermarket is like a shopping district. In the future, many cities will be inviting us to set up Hypermarkets in their cities. I picked Bing City is because this is my hometown. If not, the most suitable place should be Beijing, Shanghai and other coastal developed cities. This is an opportunity. It is up to you to decide.

Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. Was this really an opportunity?

Chapter 583 – Our Supermarkets are extraordinary

Zhang Ruiqiang asked: “Where do you want to build it?”

“Here. There is a building that had just started construction this year. That 5 stories commercial building that is still under construction. I want that building.” Feng Yu points to a spot on Bing City’s map in Zhang Ruiqiang’s office.

“What? You want to build it here? This is the commercial district planned by the city. The city needs to depend on this district to push the economy of the surrounding areas.” Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head. If he sells this building to Feng Yu, it will disrupt the City’s planning.

“Our Hypermarket can also help the economies of the surrounding areas.”

“You are only setting up a big grocery store. What economies can you help?” Zhang Ruiqiang shoots a glance at Feng Yu. What rubbish was he talking about?

“Leader, you do not understand about this Hypermarket. In other countries, this type of Hypermarkets can help push the economy of the area. There are lots of examples. The most prominent area is Switzerland, France, and the US. Even Hong Kong is also one of them.”

“I have never been to those places. I only trust my own eyes. How can a big grocery store push the economies of the surrounding areas?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“I will say this one more time. This is a Megamall with Tai Hua Supermarket as it’s core. It is not a grocery store!” Feng Yu shouted. “A Megamall will attract lots of customers because our goods will be cheaper. With human traffic, why can’t that area be a commercial district? Doesn’t this considered pushing up the economy?”

“Your goods are cheaper? How much cheaper can it be?”

“We will set up at least 20 hypermarkets this year. That is 20 Megamalls. It will be China’s biggest chain malls. Our scale is enormous, and the suppliers will surely give us a lower price. A can of drink, a packet of instant noodles, a pair of slippers and even a tube of toothpaste. The prices will surely be lower than those grocery stores. It might be 10 cents cheaper or even a few cents cheaper. But if you are buying a lot of products, they will save a few dollars, tens of dollars, or even more than that!”

“How much is our average income of Bing City’s residents? Not more than 3,000 RMB? If the customers could save 10 RMB per visit, it will be more than their one day’s wages. Do you think they will not come to our Hypermarket?” Feng Yu asked Zhang Ruiqiang back.

“How much can a tube of toothpaste cost and how much can a pair of slippers cost? Who will travel all the way to your hypermarket to buy these things?”

“We are not only selling these things. Almost every daily necessity you can think of will be sold in our Hypermarket. Also, there will be some other stores within the mall. It will just be like shopping in a shopping mall. The customer does not need to feel embarrassed even if they cannot afford those items.”

The current customer service was far from the future years. The salespeople working at shopping malls were snobbish. If you can afford their products, they will be nice to you. But if you cannot afford, they will chase you out of their stores!

The Hypermarket is a one-stop shopping area. Although there were shop assistants around, it was up to the customer whether if they want to purchase anything. Also, all the products were placed on the shelves, and the prices were clearly shown. The customers will be able to judge for themselves if they want to purchase it or not.

Those customers who were not well off can also shop there. They could look at the various products, and if they feel any products were worth buying, they can just buy. This was the advantage of shopping in a supermarket.

“But that will also not attract a lot of customers. Are you also going to advertise your hypermarket?” Zhang Ruiqiang still does not understand the operations of this Hypermarket. Even if the products were cheap, not everyone would be willing to go there to buy items. The customers must know that they were able to purchase more affordable products in your hypermarket in the first place.

“Of course. We will advertise by using the simplest way. Giving out flyers. On the opening day, CCTV’s news will be reporting about us. The whole nation will know about our Hypermarkets.”

“What? You all will be on the news?” Zhang Ruiqiang glanced at Feng Yu. What rubbish are you talking about? This was only the opening of a company and not some high-tech technology. How can this be reported on CCTV’s news? CCTV’s news reports just the latest news of the country’s top leaders and other international events. How can this Hypermarket be on the news?

Feng Yu showed two fingers: “Just because of two reasons. First, I am very close to CCTV. Second, Superman Li and the Fu Family have shares in Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise. They are investing in China, and this is very meaningful for Hong Kong’s return to China.”

With the Li and Fu families participating in this venture, Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise had lots of advantages. There were only a few more years before Hong Kong’s return to China. Although it will be one country two systems, many Hong Kong businessmen do not dare to invest in China. Some even pull out their investments. If the Li and Fu families came to China and invest, it will boost the confidence of many Hong Kong businessmen.

With this backing, this reason and connections, Feng Yu were confident that this will be reported by CCTV. Furthermore, he could also invite some leaders to visit Tai Hua Hypermarkets. It’s normal for CCTV news to report about the country’s leaders.

If the leaders were not willing to visit? They get Superman Li to visit. With Superman Li around, all the leaders will be rushing to meet him. Even if Superman Li were to visit the US, it would also be on the news!

When Tai Hua Supermarket appears on CCTV’s news, it will spark the curiosity of the people. Coupled with the promotional efforts of flyers, it will surely be a hit on an opening day.

Zhang Ruiqiang was deep in thoughts. This hypermarket would not go wrong if Hong Kong’s Li and Fu families had shares in it. They were the super tycoons of Asia. They will not invest in loss-making businesses.

Furthermore, Zhang Ruiqiang remembered that Feng Yu’s businesses had never made any losses before. With so many capable people joining hands, there will undoubtedly be great results. But he was still hesitating whether if he should let Feng Yu use the mall. It was reserved for the city’s planning.

Feng Yu saw Zhang Ruiqiang’s hesitation and start to count his fingers: “20 Hypermarkets. Beijing and Shanghai will have 3 each. Tianjin, Qingdao, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Jinlin, Tianfu…… Ah……. I think we do not have enough funds…… I think Bing City should be put on hold first.”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu angrily. This brat was threatening him again. After telling him all the benefits of this Hypermarket and now telling him that he does not want to set up this Hypermarket in Bing City? How can he do this?!

“You want that building? No problem. We will sell you that building. The price will not be higher than the market price, but it will not be low either! You say your Hypermarket will help the economies of the surrounding areas? Then can you open a few more Hypermarkets in Bing City?” Zhang Ruiqiang made his decision.

“Open a few more? Not this year. But when we are going to set up more hypermarkets next year, I will consider Bing City first. But what government reliefs are you going to give us for setting up this Hypermarket? How about 3 years tax-free and 2 years 50% tax relief?” Feng Yu got an inch and wants a mile.

“3 years tax-free and 2 years 50% tax relief? What are you thinking?! At most is 1-year tax-free and 1-year 50% tax relief!” Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu.

“Fine. That’s settled then. Gather all your men, and we will discuss the details in the afternoon. Once it is done, we will sign the agreement.” 1-year tax-free and 1-year 50% tax relief was what Feng Yu actually wanted.

After Feng Yu left Zhang Ruiqiang’s office and returned to his car, he called Fu Guangzheng: “Brother Fu, Bing City, have agreed to us getting 1-year tax free and 1-year 50% tax relief. You ask the leaders of the respective provinces and cities if they agree to this condition. If they don’t agree, then we will not invest in their area!”

Although Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng were working separately, they continued to exchange information. Now, Feng Yu had gotten some government subsidies, and they could make use of this to negotiate for better deals with the leaders in other cities. If Bing City could give them these benefits, why can’t the other cities do the same too? Don’t agree? Fine. We will go to other places!

Chapter 584 – Free repainting of the public buses

In the afternoon, the people in-charge arrived at Zhang Ruiqiang’s office to discuss the Hypermarket with Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, although the overall construction of our mall had not been completed, the structures and exteriors were completed. The interior can be renovated anytime. You had saved lots of time. So, can we increase the prices a little?” An official from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) asked.

“Chief Bai, you should not say this. If you are opening a restaurant, the renovations and interior of the store must be suitable for the restaurant. Although the exterior of this mall was completed, we still need to modify the interior. For instance, the current interior layout does not fit our Hypermarket. We still have to change the whole layout. This is much harder than building it from scratch. That’s why I cannot increase the price. Instead, I need you to reduce the prices. Don’t forget that we are paying you the full amount of the building at once. This is not something anyone can do.”

Chief Bai retorted: “This mall is supposed to be used by us. We had spent a large sum of money, and we should get some profits in return.”

“How much is the construction cost of that building? How much have you marked up when you quote me the prices? The profits you are getting is already higher than other commercial buildings in Bing City. I only request you to give me a price that is at the market value. Am I asking too much from you?”

This building had 5 stories, and there was 3,000 Sqm each floor. The total floor area was over 15,000 Sqm. The Hypermarket only needs 2 to 3 levels. The remaining spaces need to be rented out, and even so, Feng Yu felt it was too big.

In the current era, the economy was not developed yet. Those that invested in cinema industry were bound to make losses. China’s first blockbuster only appeared after Hong Kong’s return to China. That blockbuster was <The Dream Factory> directed by Feng Xiaogang. Currently, many Chinese does not have the habit of visiting the cinemas on weekends, and there were not many movies showing. Those that built cinemas can only lose money.

The remaining was fast food restaurants, arcades, fashion boutiques, etc. were the industries that could rent the remaining spaces. But it was not easy to get them to rent the spaces. Tai Hua Supermarket was not opened yet, and the businessmen do not know whether the supermarket could attract the crowds. There was not even an example. It will not be easy to charge high rental for the remaining spaces.

Of course, these will be handled by the ones in Beijing headquarters, and Feng Yu does not need to handle these. He was only helping them out by getting a building 3 to 5 stories high and have 3,000 to 5,000 Sqm floor area each floor. The building must be in a good location surrounded by residential estates. He will only purchase the building, and the rest will be handled by other people.

But Feng Yu could not spend too many funds on purchasing this building. Bing City is located near the borders and the price quoted by Chief Bai was almost the same as the property prices in the developed cities along the coastal regions. Although Bing City had a high population and was one of the first city in China to have private housing, if Feng Yu were to use the cost of living to calculate, the price was too high.

Furthermore, Fu Guangzheng and the rest had negotiated with almost 20 cities. This price quoted to Feng Yu was among the top 5 highest. This would make Feng Yu look bad.

Chief Bai looked at Zhang Ruiqiang and noticed that he did not have any expressions. Chief Bai does not know whether if he should give in or not. After all almost every government official in Bing City knew that Feng Yu was very close to Zhang Ruiqiang. It seems that the mayor has no indications of asking him to lower the prices.

“Manager Feng, we need to include the land cost into the price. The construction materials might not cost much, but what about the land? Sometime back, a Taiwanese businessman had come to us, and he also wanted to build a shopping mall. The price he quoted was also very high.” Chief Bai continued to try to get as much as possible for the City.

“The land? Then tell me how much is the land, the construction materials, the workers’ salaries cost? We can see how much the city will be getting from this breakdown.” Feng Yu said.

Chief Bai was speechless. How can he tell Feng Yu about the exact cost? How can someone be so shameless to request for these costs directly?

At this time, Zhang Ruiqiang said: “Feng Yu, you also do not mind this small amount. What is the difference between 40 million and 50 million RMB to you?”

“There is a huge difference. We will be buying 20 buildings all over China at the same time. If I am paying you a higher amount, the other cities will also take the opportunity to raise their prices. The prices you quoted can purchase a similar mall with the same floor area in Beijing and Shanghai. But this place is Bing City. Are you telling me that Bing City is already comparable with Beijing and Shanghai? 40 million RMB is already very high. It is our average price.”

“Since you are only willing to spend so little money, why should we sell this building to you?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“Because we are able to make this area prosperous. You all can build new commercial buildings nearby, and their value will increase. This area will become a shopping district and our Tai Hua Supermarket will be a landmark in Bing City.”

This was a fact. In Feng Yu’s previous life, the value of the land around Carrefour and Walmart increased. This was also the reason why Carrefour and Walmart were popular.

“But I still think that we are at a disadvantage and making a loss here.” Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head.

Feng Yu lowered his head and said with a painful expression: “How about this? I see all the public buses in Bing City are a bit old. I will donate money and send workers to repaint all our public buses. This is also not a small amount.”

Zhang Ruiqiang immediately raises a new condition: “You must include the bus stops too.”

“Hey, there are so many bus stops in Bing City. If we refurbish, all the bus stops it will cost at least a few million.” Feng Yu said.

“We can report in the papers that it is your Tai Hua Super Market Enterprise that sponsored the refurbishment of all the buses and bus stops. This is considered helping you all to advertise.” Zhang Ruiqiang cunningly said.

“Fine. I will add shelter and also a big bus stop sign for all the bus stops. But I want to add something besides the bus stop sign. You all cannot stop me.”

“What do you want to add?” Zhang Ruiqiang felt that Feng Yu had agreed too quickly. There must be something wrong somewhere.

“Advertisements. The bus stop is about so long. After reserving the spaces for the buses to stop and the passengers, there are still lots of spaces available. We can put our advertisements here. What’s wrong? This is also considering making full use of all the available resources.” Feng Yu wanted to own all the advertising spaces at the bus stops. Bus stops have high human traffic.

Advertising at the bus stops? Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes became big. Why should the City give this to Feng Yu? The City also has the money to build bus stop shelters and signages. It would be better for the City to earn this money themselves.

“Forget about the bus stops. The City can build it ourselves. You just repaint all the public buses. Don’t try to hoodwink us. Make sure every single public bus must be repainted.” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

“No problem. You can include this in the contract. I promise you that not a single bus will be left out.”

After signing the contract, Feng Yu left Zhang Ruiqiang’s office. He sat in his car and laughed. Repaint all the public buses? I will repaint it as advertisements. The contract also did not state that this cannot be done. The ads on the bus stops can be changed easily. But public buses are much harder.

If the city has enough money, repaint those buses again. Will the City be willing to spend that amount of money? This was mobile advertising, and it will cover every corner of the City. The amount paid was worth it!

Chapter 585 – Veterans placement

“Leader, are you treating me for dinner because we had signed the contract and you are in a good mood? There is no need for this. This, this, this, are the ones I don’t want. Serve everything else on the menu will do.”

Feng Yu had just returned home and was about to call Fu Guangzheng to talk about the public buses advertisements when he received Zhang Ruiqiang’s call. He wants to treat Feng Yu for dinner.

“Everything else? You think I am earning as much as you? Just 4 dishes and nothing more!”

Feng Yu pouted: “You want to treat me and don’t let me order? Stingy!”

Zhang Ruiqiang: “……” Who orders food this way? There were dozens of dishes on the menu, and you want to order everything else except for two dishes you don’t like?

“If you can finish everything you ordered, then go ahead and order whatever you want.”

Fine. Feng Yu was only joking with Zhang Ruiqiang. In the end, he just ordered 4 dishes. Two meat and two vegetables dishes. He also ordered 4 bottles of beer. This was not a fancy restaurant, and Zhang Ruiqiang could surely afford it.

“What is it you want from me? You must be up to no good when you offered to treat me dinner. What industry’s developments run into problems and you need my advice? Or you want me to help you check on the City’s planning?” Feng Yu asked.

“No. I only need a small favor from you. The scale of your supermarket business is so big, and you are still opening so many branches. The Bing City Machinery Company is also set up so many branch factories. Do you need workers?” Zhang Ruiqiang was quite speechless with Feng Yu. I need you to help me check on the City’s planning? Who do you think you are? Do you think I don’t now know about your management capabilities?

“Recruit people? Which Government owned enterprise is going bankrupt?” There was no news of this. If the enterprise is related to machinery, then it’s okay for the Machinery Company to take over all the workers. Just nice there was an increase in orders and a shortage of workers.

The automobile manufacturing industry was a labor-intensive industry now. It can also be considered an expensive and Technology-intensive industry. It requires too many workers.

No matter which country, the number of workers in automobile manufacturing factories will be the highest. Even the countries with matured automobile industries, like the US, Germany, Japan, England, etc. have more automobile workers than other sectors.

Automobile factories still could not automate their assembly line 100%. At most, they could only make it semi-automated. This was why it still requires lots of workers.

If there were skilled workers in the machinery field, Feng Yu would be willing to take in all the workers. This would be better than training ordinary workers from scratch. This was why Feng Yu was ready to agree to Zhang Ruiqiang. He was still feeling happy that Zhang Ruiqiang will owe him one more favor.

But what Zhang Ruiqiang wanted to say was no this.

“Can’t you say something nice about Bing City? Where do you find some many enterprises going bankrupt?! I am talking about the placement of the Longjiang Province soldiers. Are you able to help?” Zhang Ruiqiang was furious. I am the Mayor of Bing City, and you are hoping for the government-owned enterprises here to be bankrupt? Are you telling me that I am not doing my job?

“Huh? Longjiang soldiers’ placement? Shouldn’t this the job of the Provincial Personnel Office? Why are you getting involved with this?” Feng Yu was puzzled. Zhang Ruiqiang was only the Provincial Governor’s assistant. Although he might be promoted to be a deputy governor, the Personnel Office was an important department. Zhang Ruiqiang should not be qualified to meddle with the work there yet.

“I know I am not in charge of that department, but I need to take care of those retiring soldiers from Bing City. Our Bing City had just privatized some enterprises, and we can’t continue to send people into the remaining enterprises. I know you have lots of factories. Can you help me take care of some of these people?” Zhang Ruiqiang told Feng Yu to want he wanted.

“How many people?” Feng Yu asked.

“How many people can you take in?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked Feng Yu back.

“Leader, this is not right. I am helping you and not asking you for help. This meal does not cost more than 30 RMB and how much work do you want me to do for you?” Feng Yu asked.

“Hahaha. I am only asking how many people can you take in and I can plan for the remaining people.”

Other state-owned enterprises and even those privatized enterprises faced the same problems. There were too many workers and have a Succession system, where the children of the workers will take over their parent’s role in the factory. The factories had to take care of their workers and still have to give them retirement funds.

But Feng Yu’s companies were different. It was newly set up not long ago. Some of the companies were converted from State-owned enterprises and does not have the policy of Succession system.

Because Feng Yu’s factories had been expanding and hiring, all the workers will try to arrange for their friends and relatives into the companies first. Other factories and companies had too many workers, but Feng Yu’s companies were always short of manpower.

Usually, the City Government will help the soldiers retiring from service every year to arrange for jobs.

But since the 1990s, there was a reform of the military service. In the past, soldiers were recruited during the summer. But in 1990, it was changed to the winter. The newly hired soldiers were also different from the previous batches. Their length of service was adjusted to 3 years.

There should be no problems with all these changes. But in the past two years, there was a war, and a batch of Shenyang army soldiers was sent there. This was why there were no problems of assigning jobs for the soldiers in the past few years as lesser soldiers were retiring from service.

But last year, that batch of soldiers which were sent to war had returned. They had fought against Vietnam and the local troops there was able to handle the rest. Now, there were two batches of soldiers that were going to retire from service. This resulted in the number of soldiers retiring this year much higher than the previous few years.

“I also did not expect there were so many soldiers retiring this year. The truth is I am unable to find so many jobs for them.” Zhang Ruiqiang was helpless. There were too many people.  Although Bing City’s economy had recovered slightly, there were still not enough jobs for them.

Feng Yu thought for a while. A supermarket needs store assistants, cashiers, packers, warehouses, drivers, etc. The most it will only be about 100 people. Even if he hired the veterans for all these positions, he also could not help much. However, he could take in more people for the rest of his factories. Those factories were not state owned. The City government had no right to force a private company to take in those veterans. This was why Zhang Ruiqiang came to ask Feng Yu for help.

“I can help you arrange jobs for some of them. 300 is my limit now. I can accept more female soldiers to help you. You still have to settle the rest yourself. This is the most I can help.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was overjoyed: “300? That’s great! I represent Bing City to thank you for your contributions. Are you willing to accept those retiring officers?”

“Impossible!” Feng Yu was furious. The soldiers might still be manageable. But if those officers were there, who knows what would happen? They might not even have any skills and were used to be leaders and likes to give orders. These people will only create chaos in the company!

“I have helped the City Government arrange jobs for so many soldiers. Shouldn’t the city give me some benefits, like tax subsidies?” Feng Yu asked.

“Huh??? I will try.” Zhang Ruiqiang was surprised that Feng Yu knows about this government policy.

“Not try. I must have tax subsidies. If not, I will not accept any one of them. This is something I am getting from the local governments for my supermarkets. Don’t think I do not know about this.”

“Fine. I will go through the documents when I return and see how much subsidies can you get for each year!” Zhang Ruiqiang gritted his teeth and agreed. But to settle the job placement for 300 veterans was still a great help to him. The province can resolve the rest of the veterans by themselves. There should not be any problems.

Chapter 586 – Celebrity Wen Dongjun

If it weren’t for the tax subsidies, Feng Yu would not accept Zhang Ruiqiang’s request. In his previous life, Feng Yu had heard of many enterprises that like to recruit retired soldiers, handicaps, etc. But were these enterprises really trying to help them?

Maybe some of them were. But there were some that wanted to make use of this tax subsidy policy. They only need to give out some wages and exchange for more savings from the tax subsidy.

This situation will stop after the next batch of soldiers retires. As for now, it was still an issue for the government and military officials to assign jobs for the retired soldiers.

Feng Yu called Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai to tell them about this arrangement. Both of them were supportive of Feng Yu’s decision. This would increase their supermarket’s reputation and still get some benefits. They also decided to implement the same thing in other regions.

There were a lot of positions in the supermarket that does not requires high education. Some positions do not even need the employee to be literate. The employee only needs to work hard.

Both Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai were glad that Feng Yu could reach an agreement with Bing City Government in so fast. With this contract as an example, it would be easier for them to negotiate with the other local governments. Maybe they would complete all the negotiations by in May, and Tai Hua Supermarkets would be open by then. Even if the shopping malls could not fill up their spaces with tenants by then, the high customer’s volume would be able to attract interested parties, and the rental will also increase.

After arranging someone to do the follow-ups, Feng Yu could finally return home for a break.

When Feng Yu arrived home, Wen Dongjun came to look for him. These few days, Wen Dongjun had been hanging around outside even though it was snowing heavily outside.

It was because the <Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary> episode where he had participated was aired!

Although Wen Dongjun had only appeared on TV for a short 2 minutes, most of the time, it was him introducing himself. Also, he was the only participant that did not even answer a question correctly. But no matter what, Wen Dongjun was on TV, and it was still a CCTV program. This was the most popular and widely discussed variety show.

In Wen Dongjun’s district, he was now a celebrity.

Mainly, he was Wen Deguang’s son. The son of the district’s chief. The whole neighborhood was talking about him after the episode was aired.

After several rounds of discussions, this incident had become the following version.

Not everyone can participate in the program <Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary>. The ones that can join were professors from renowned universities and students from overseas. All the participants had some backgrounds.

How could a university student be allowed to participate? That’s because he was Chief Wen’s son and the top student of his university. If not, how can he qualify to participate?

What did you say? Our district has kids attending Beijing University and Huaqing University? Even if they were attending these top universities, but not every student was outstanding. Furthermore, Chief Wen’s son was attending Beijing Technological University. It was also a good university, and many of the county’s top professors were teaching in the university.

You said that he did not even answer 1 question correctly and had embarrassed himself?

Then can you answer those questions? Those questions in the program covered all sorts of topics, and it was selected randomly. Do you know what randomly is? The questions are all picked by the computer. Computers are a very high-tech thing. Have you even touched one before? That thing had select the questions randomly, and it all depends on luck. Can’t you see that we know the answers to some of the questions where the professors could not answer?

Furthermore, Chief Wen’s son had said that he was from our district on the program. He had made our neighborhood proud. If you think you are better, then you can participate too.

Wen Dongjun, who did not even get one question right, became the district’s celebrity. He was not mocked by others. Instead, he was the pride of the district. Even Wen Deguang did not felt that his son had disgraced him. He was proud of him.

When Wen Dongjun knew Feng Yu had returned to the district, he immediately looks for him to flaunt.

“Do you know? On my way to our place, 6 people waved to me. 6 people!” Wen Dongjun proudly said.

You are so proud because some people waved to you?

“What did they say to you? Did they call you the King of Quiz?” Feng Yu snickered.

“That’s not important. The important thing is that they recognized me. In our district, there might still be some people who do not know who my father is. But everyone knows me. Even the kids and those elderlies know me!” Wen Dongjun points to himself.

“Ummm…… all of them know you are that King of Quiz.”

“Can you stop calling me King of Quiz?”

“Sure, King of Quiz.”

Wen Dongjun was furious. Why can’t you be nice to me?

“I was there to help you, and you are still not grateful to me? Do you know that program rating’s had spiked because of me? The newspaper had also mentioned that the episode I was on, had the highest ratings. The rating is even higher than CCTV’s <Zhengda Variety Show>!” Wen Dongjun emphasized.

“Top ratings? How do you know?”

“China’s Entertainment Newspaper. Don’t you like to read newspapers? You missed it? I knew it! Here. This is a copy of the newspaper. I had brought it with me.” Wen Dongjun took out a copy of tattered newspapers.

WTF? This moron even brought along that copy of the newspaper with him?

Feng Yu looked at the papers. The 4th episode of <Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary> had the highest ratings in CCTV. There was a short introduction of all the participants of that episode, including Wen Dongjun. But although the ratings were high, it was still from breaking <Zhengda Variety Show> record.

There were more satellite channels now, and the TV viewers had more options. Breaking <Zhengda Variety Show> previous record would be hard. But to get the top ratings on that day was already an achievement. This proves that the program was a success!

Feng Yu wants to call Chief Jia to congratulate him and at the same time to remind him to remember this favor.

It was worthwhile to have product placement and name sponsorship in a top TV program. The money invested by Feng Yu was worth it.

“Fine. Now I have seen the article, what else do you want from me? King of Quiz?” Feng Yu asked.

“You are close to CCTV. Are there any other opportunities to appear on their program again? Help me arrange one more time. Why not let me participate in <Happy Dictionary> again, and this time, you let me know the answers in advance. Let me clear all the questions!”

Feng Yu pushed Wen Dongjun’s face away from him: “Don’t even think about it. You really think that being famous is a good thing? Didn’t you notice that people are looking at you as if you are a monkey in the Zoo?”

Wen Dongjun paused for a while and then got furious: “No wonder they were laughing when they see me. I thought they envied me. They actually treated me like a monkey?! Oh, do you know Liu Jichuan had returned?”

Chapter 587 – Liu Jichuan’s return

Who? Liu Jichuan? He had returned?

“How do you know? He came to look for you?” Feng Yu asked curiously. Liu Jichuan’s home was still in the village, and Wen Dongjun was living in the district. Both of them should not have met each other.

“He is one of the soldiers that is retiring from service this year. He had returned before New Year’s Day. My father told me.”

This era was not like the time before Feng Yu returned to this present life. In the future years, people joined the military in Summer and retires in Summer. Now, most of the soldiers were recruited in Winter and retires from service in Winter. Although Liu Jichuan had joined the military in 1990, before the reform of the army, his retirement from the military service was the same as those who joined after the changes.

Liu Jichuan did not only serve 3 years of military service. He should be an officer for his length of service.

“Which unit is he assigned to? The Police?” Feng Yu asked.

When soldiers retire, they were sent back to their hometowns, and the officers were offered a job with the Police or National Security agencies. For a small district, few people will join the military service, and Liu Jichuan had served the military for quite some time in the same unit with Uncle Wen. He should have no problem entering the Police force.

“No. I think he was sent to the Livestock Division by drawing lots.”

Feng Yu: “……” Draw lots? How could this type of job placement be fair to the soldiers?! Was this suggested by Uncle Wen?

Livestock Division’s jobs should be reserved for those who were trained in that field. At least the people posted there should have a specialist diploma. Li Jichuan had served in the military for so many years, how could he know about the livestock?

“Do you know which unit did he serve in the military? What soldier was he?” Feng Yu asked.

“How would I know? But maybe I can ask my father. He should know. Why are you asking about this? You also want to join the military?” Wen Dongjun asked.

“Do you think I will go and torture myself?” Become a soldier? It might be the dream of many people. But soldiers might not have the chance to go to war. Most likely they will be training day and night. Some of them might even have to rear pigs in the military camps!

Feng Yu does not have the intention of becoming a soldier. But he was interested in Liu Jichuan. He wants to know if he had changed over the years.

“Oh yes. Liu Jichuan and some of them are going to report to the livestock division today. We have not met him for quite some time. Want to meet up with him and see if he has any gifts for us?”

Feng Yu glanced at Wen Dongjun. The last sentence was his real intention.

The district was not big. Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun walked to the Livestock Divison, and it took less than 10 minutes. It was Wen Dongjun’s idea to walk over. He wants to verify if people looked at him because he was a monkey, or they were in awe of him.

But it was snowing, and no one noticed him.

……

“Brother Chuan.” Wen Dongjun was very excited to see Liu Jichuan. After all his first-time hunting was with Liu Jichuan.

“Dongjun, Xiao Yu? Why are you here?” Liu Jichuan smiled when he saw them. It was not he missed the people from his hometown. But he felt glad to see someone from his village.

Feng Yu smiled and greeted him. He was looking at Liu Jichuan by his side. He noticed there was something different about Liu Jichuan. It was a feeling. It was the same feeling given out by one of Master Lu’s bodyguard.

Master Lu’s bodyguard had gone to war and had killed people before. Could it be that Liu Jichuan had gone to war? He had killed someone before?!

“Brother Chuan, you are back. Why didn’t you come and find me? I will go and tell my father to transfer you to the Police department. There are lesser work and more allowances. It is better than facing livestock.” Wen Dongjun said, ignoring the fact he was at the Livestock Division.

Liu Jichuan smiled: “No need. Actually, I am here today to settle the paperwork. I do not want to work in the district.”

“Why? What are you going to do then?” Wen Dongjun asked. If Liu Jichuan does not work, how would he support his family? Continue to be a farmer like his father?

But working at the Livestock Division was better than being a farmer. Liu Jichuan’s father had cultivated some waste lands many years back. He received quite a sum when he returned the land to the Government. Although he did not go and farm in Russia, he was one of the first in the district to build a greenhouse. His annual profits were quite good too. Liu Jichuan wanted to build greenhouses like his father? But he could do this when he finishes work at the Livestock Division.

“My Company Commander had set up a private security company in Shenyang. He wants me to go over to help him.”

Feng Yu was surprised. There were private security companies now? But what could Liu Jichuan do at a private security company? He might be conned into committing crimes.

“Private security company? What does it do?” Feng Yu frowned and asked.

“Be the driver for some bosses and ensure their safety, etc. The salary is quite high. 500 RMB a month!”

Before Liu Jichuan joined the military service, Bing City’s average annual income was about 1,000 RMB. Even now, the average yearly salary was less than 3,000 RMB. The monthly salary was about 200 to 300 RMB.

Some people might be earning more or less, but the Livestock Division’s salary was only about 200 RMB a month. Now, there was another job offer with a 500 RMB salary, Liu Jichuan was very tempted.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that he had a driver in Hong Kong. But when he returns to China, he had to drive himself. Why doesn’t he hire a driver in China too?

Also, Feng Yu’s father likes to drink. What if he drinks and drives? His father should also get a driver.

Feng Yu remembered that after the last crackdown, triads resurfaced in the past two years. In another 1 and a half years, he will be graduating. He should be getting a bodyguard for his own safety.

“Brother Chuan, what unit did you serve in the military? Which military arm?” Feng Yu asked.

Liu Jichuan had a troubled looked: “Sorry. I am not allowed to reveal because of the disciplinary actions.”

Cannot reveal? Was this some top-secret military unit?

“Then have you experienced real war? Have you fought in a war?” Feng Yu continued asking.

Liu Jichuan nodded: “Yes.”

“You have fought in a war? Do you have any medals of merit? What rank were you when you retire from service? Second Lieutenant? Major?” Wen Dongjun asked. His eyes were sparkling. Liu Jichuan had really fought in a war!

“I am only a Sergeant. I do not have the educational levels, and it’s hard for me to move up the ranks.” Liu Jichuan explained.

Feng Yu looked at Liu Jichuan. This guy’s lips were tight. But soldiers were not allowed to drink. He should not be able to hold his liquor after so many years.

Yes, make him drunk and then make him reveal everything.

To let Liu Jichuan be his bodyguard, he must understand his past first.

“Brother Chuan, everyone has his own aspirations. It’s fine if you do not wish to work here. In another two years, you can fetch Uncle Liu to live in the city. He can enjoy life there. Since you have nothing else now, why not we have a drink? 2nd street has opened a new restaurant. Let’s go there to have a drink.”

Wen Dongjun looked at Feng Yu surprised. This Feng Yu suggested going for a drink? Did the sun rise from the west today?

Liu Jichuan carried his bag and laughed: “Good idea. I will treat!”

Chapter 588 – Questions

Although the district was not as big as other bigger towns, and the population was less than 20,000 people, there were still restaurants and small hotels.

This restaurant was newly opened this year. It was a small restaurant run by a husband and wife team, with some of their relatives helping out. Because there were not many restaurants in the district, this restaurant’s business was doing well.

When Feng Yu and the rest arrived, 4 out of the 6 tables in the restaurant was occupied. The 3 of them sat down, and Wen Dongjun ordered 6 dishes.

Liu Jichuan frowned. How could 3 people eat so much? But he had said that he will be treating them, and he did not say anything. After retiring from service, his family was better off and had some savings.

But little does he knows that Wen Dongjun and Feng Yu have no intentions of asking him to treat. All this while, if they went to bigger restaurants, Feng Yu would be paying. If they ate at smaller restaurants, Wen Dongjun would pay for their meal. Today Wen Dongjun will be paying, so he was the one ordering.

“Beer or Baijiu?” Wen Dongjun looked at Feng Yu. He knows Feng Yu could not hold his liquor well. But Feng Yu had suggested drinking. Wen Dongjun wants to take this opportunity to make Feng Yu drunk.

“I have just returned and is still feeling car sick slightly from the long journey. I think beer will do. Dongjun, you order some Baijiu for you and Brother Chuan. Boss, 1 bottle of 60% alcohol Baijiu and a bottle of beer.” Feng Yu shouted.

Wen Dongjun snickered. Carsick? This was the first time I heard someone getting car sick when driving!

Just say you can’t drink. 1 bottle of beer and you still dare to order?!

Liu Jichuan did not say anything. The boss of the restaurant served a plate of peanuts and liquor. Feng Yu immediately raise his glass.

Feng Yu finished his glass of beer: “I had a bottom up. You all just carry on.”

Wen Dongjun glanced at Feng Yu. Damn. You have a beer, and you want to bottom up with us? You try to finish a glass of Baijiu yourself. I am sure the next moment you are sleeping under the table!

But Wen Dongjun saw Feng Yu giving him a signal with his eyes. Both of them had grown up together, and Wen Dongjun immediately knows what Feng Yu was up to. Feng Yu wants to make Liu Jichuan drunk.

Wen Dongjun thought Feng Yu was trying to prank Liu Jichuan, but what Feng Yu actually wanted was to make Liu Jichuan talk after he was drunk.

Liu Jichuan saw Feng Yu had bottom ups and Wen Dongjun hesitated for a while before taking in a big gulp and drinking almost a third of his glass.

These two were Liu Jichuan’s first friends he met after he retired from service. He did not say anything and also drank a big mouthful. The stinging and burning feeling could be felt from his mouth to his stomach. Liu Jichuan immediately ate a few peanuts to make himself feel better.

After Feng Yu finished his glass of beer, he ate a few peanuts too.

“Brother Chuan, you can really drink. Today, we must drink more.” Wen Dongjun was surprised when he saw the way Liu Jichuan drank.

Liu Jichuan was cursing himself in his heart. If he knew, he should just take a small sip. He was in the military for a few years and other than New Year, he was not allowed to drink alcohol. The only time he got drunk was the day before he retires from service.

Liu Jichuan’s family was poor before he joined the military. He does drinks once in a while but has never got drunk before. As a former soldier, he had high ego and pride. He does not like to look down by others. Even if he can’t drink, he must also put up a brave front. Seems like today will be the second time in his life to get drunk.

“Yes. We must drink our fill today. Xiao Yu, you must also drink more.” Liu Jichuan said.

“Of course. I will surely drink more. Oh, the dishes are served. Here, one more glass.” Feng Yu raises his glass again and immediately finishes it.

Wen Dongjun did not say a word and finishes half his glass. After having two big mouthfuls of Baijiu, he felt he could not take it anymore. Usually, Wen Dongjun could finish about 300 ml of this 60% alcohol Baijiu. But today, they were drinking too fast. Liu Jichuan was worse than him. His face was flushed.

After that, Feng Yu purposely slow down their speed of drinking and keep telling Wen Dongjun to slow down. As if Wen Dongjun was the one trying to make Liu Jichuan drunk.

Wen Dongjun stepped on Feng Yu’s feet under the table. You are the one who asked me to make him drunk. Now, you are trying to be the good guy?

But Wen Dongjun did not know that Feng Yu was trying to catch Liu Jichuan unaware. If they were too obvious, Liu Jichuan might stop drinking with them.

Feng Yu had learned this trick from his Brother-in-law. He had learned this to make Kirilenko drunk. But it seems that this was also useful against Liu Jichuan.

Wen Dongjun and Liu Jichuan ate very fast when all the dishes were served. It was not that they were hungry. They wanted to suppress the alcohol in their stomach. Feng Yu ate slowly. The food in this small restaurant was actually delicious.

After Feng Yu had finished his bottle of beer, Wen Dongjun and Liu Jichuan had also finished their bottle of Baijiu.

“Lady boss, one more bottle of Baijiu and beer.” Feng Yu ordered.

Wen Dongjun was at his limits. He looked at Feng Yu. Why were they still drinking? Can’t you see that Liu Jichuan was almost gone? He might vomit if he swallows one more sip!

Feng Yu happily filled their glasses. He was very good at pouring drinks for others.

“Come, Brother Chuan, it’s really been a long time since we met. I will give you a toast.” Feng Yu shamelessly said and finishes his glass of beer. It was only two bottles of beer, and he knew he would not get drunk.

Liu Jichuan forced himself to take a sip of Baijiu. He gasped for air after that. He was trying to keep sober.

“Brother Chuan, do you still remember the 3 of us went hunting?” Feng Yu asked.

Wen Dongjun excitedly said: “Yes. I had even hunted a beer!”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Was that your credit? If it weren’t for Liu Jichuan, both of them would be killed by that bear!

Liu jichuan’s face was all red and replied: “Of course. How could I forget it?”

Feng Yu looked at Liu Jichuan’s eyes and could see he recalled the events of that day. But Liu Jichuan was too drunk, and Feng Yu could not tell if he had something to hide.

“Dongjun, do you have any cigarettes? No? Can you help me buy a pack?”

Wen Dongjun was confused. I am a non-smoker, why would I be carrying a pack of cigarettes with me? Oh, it must be for Brother Chuan.

Wen Dongjun walked out of the restaurant to buy cigarettes. Feng Yu looked around him, and all the customers there were drinking. Other than the lady boss who was sitting at the cashier, he was the soberest person in the restaurant. The cashier was quite far from where they were seated, and the place was noisy from the sound of the kitchen and other customers talking loudly.

“Brother Chuan, I have a question in my heart which I wanted to ask you. If I had not followed you all for that hunt, can Wen Dongjun return safely?”

Chapter 589 – Come and work for me

Liu Jichuan’s eyes were in a daze due to the effects of the alcohol, but it opened up wide when he heard what Feng Yu asked. He looked at Feng Yu for a while and sighed: “Actually I also do not know the answer. My thinking was very extreme at that time. I felt that it was the Wen family that caused my family to be so poor. I had thought of teaching Dongjun a lesson. I only want to teach him a lesson. But I did not know what I want to do. I was confused at that time. How can you tell that I harbor ill intentions towards Dongjun?”

Feng Yu looked at Liu Jichuan’s eyes. He could tell that he was not lying. Feng Yu was relieved. Although Feng Yu could not know what had really happened in his previous life that caused Dongjun to be crippled at least this tragedy was avoided in this life.

Feng Yu laughed: “At that time, revenge was written all over your face. Dongjun and I are childhood friends and had grown up together. How can I not tag along for the hunt? When we met that bear, I thought we are all going to be dead. But luckily, we managed to kill that bear. I remembered that you are very accurate with guns. Have you killed anyone in the war?”

Feng Yu suddenly asked this question, and Liu Jichuan nodded. But he quickly shook his head.

“Brother Chuan, you don’t need to lie to me. I have met someone similar like you in Beijing. Both you and he have the same aura. You might not notice it. But when you enter a new place, you will look around and observe everyone there closely first. This is not something a normal soldier will do. These few years, the only war China is involved is with Vietnam. A few years ago, Shenyang Army had sent a batch of soldiers to the war front. You should be one of the soldiers that were sent there?”

Liu Jichuan stared at Feng Yu with his eyes wide opened. How did Feng Yu know about all these? This information was not even reported on the news. The news had stated that the war had ended in the 80s. How could Feng Yu know about all this classified information?

“From your eyes, I know I have guessed it correctly. You should be a scout or maybe with the special forces. I will not guess about this. If you are not willing to tell me, I will also not ask.” Ordinary soldiers will not have this habit to observe their surroundings before stepping in.

Liu Jichuan sighed and changed the topic: “A university undergrad is different. You are smart, unlike me. I cannot even get into junior high school. I heard that Uncle Feng is the district richest person?”

Feng Yu nodded. He did not try to hide this as this was also not a secret in the district. Feng Xingtai was more famous than Wen Deguang in the district.

“Brother Chuan, let’s not mention about the past. But with your skills, 500 RMB a month is too little.” Feng Yu purposely said.

“500 RMB a month is still considered little?” Liu Jichuan was shocked. That’s 500 RMB a month. Even the district chief does not get 500 RMB a month.

“You know my family’s processing food factory’s in charge gets how much salary a year? Also, Uncle Liu’s greenhouse’s vegetables can earn how much during winter? Is your 500 RMB a month really a lot? With this salary, how long do you need to save to buy a small apartment in the City? How long do you think it will take to save enough for Uncle Liu to live in the city?”

Liu Jichuan kept quiet. He thought he had found a high paying job and could earn lots of money to give his father a good life. But after hearing from Feng Yu, it seems that 500 RMB a month was really nothing.

But other than this job, what else can he do? The things he learned in the army were useless in this society. Only if he works in the Police force, he might be able to apply what he had learned. But how much can he earn? How long will it take for him to be promoted to be a leader?

“I bought the cigarettes. It’s so tiring. There are no shops around. I need to walk two streets to buy this. Here, Brother Chuan. Both of us do not smoke. Take it.” Wen Dongjun placed the packet of cigarettes in front of Liu Jichuan.

Liu Jichuan had also stopped smoking. Smoking can affect his stamina and addiction could affect his missions. But today, he suddenly craves for a smoke. He lit a cigarette and took a puff before he started to cough.

Wen Dongjun laughed and asked: “What are you two chatting about? I’ve been away for so long, and both of you did not even touch your glasses.”

Feng Yu did not let Li Jichuan speak and turned to Wen Dongjun: “Nothing. We are talking about that hunting trip.”

“Yes, yes, yes. Let’s talk about that hunting trip. That is shot was my life’s most accurate shot……” When mentioned about that hunt, Wen Dongjun talks nonstop.

Liu Jichuan only finishes half the stick of cigarette, and he threw it on the floor. He raised his glass and turned to Wen Dongjun: “Dongjun, I want to tell you something. That time when I call you out to hunt was actually to teach you a lesson.”

Wen Dongjun who was talking nonstop was confused. What are you talking about? You called me out to hunt was to teach me a lesson? Wen Dongjun turned and looked at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu sighed. This moron still wants to work for the government in the future? How could he compete with the others with his IQ?

Since Liu Jichuan admits this himself, Feng Yu did not stop him. This matter had been bothering Feng Yu for a long time and was finally resolved. But for Liu Jichuan, this matter was not closed yet.

Liu Jichuan told Wen Dongjun honestly about his family condition and what he was thinking at that time. He hopes to seek Wen Dongjun’s forgiveness.

Wen Dongjun slapped his thighs and said: “I thought it’s something important. You only want to beat me up that time. Luckily you did not try that time. Even now, you might not be my match.”

Feng Yu stared at Wen Dongjun. What was this moron thinking? He might be taller and bigger than Liu Jichuan, but if they were to fight now, he would surely lose. Liu Jichuan had fought in a war and had killed enemies before. All his moves were lethal.

“I had also fought with Feng Yu many times before. But we continued playing with each other less than a day after fighting.”

Feng Yu: “…….” What example was this?

“There was once he fell into a vegetable cellar in the woods (In the northeast villages, people tends to dig a hole to keep their potatoes, carrots, radish, and other vegetables. The hole will be covered with straws, wood and plastic sheets. The opening of the hole is 0.5m x 0.5m. Anyone might fall into the hole if they are not careful). If it were not for me helping him to get a ladder, he would have to live in the cellar for the next two weeks! Another time, he was bullied by other students. 3 students had ganged up on him in the toilet. If it was not for me, he might have cried from being beaten up by them. There was another incident when he fell into the ice hole. It was me who save him and pull him out…….”

Feng Yu was furious. “Enough. Can you stop talking about all these?” This moron does not know how to chat nicely!

“Fine, fine, fine. Let’s stop talking and drink. All our grudges will end with this drink. Bottoms up!”

Damn. Do you think I am afraid of you? I am drinking beer!

Liu Jichuan felt relieved when he heard that Wen Dongjun had forgiven him. He had asked himself many times when he was lying in bed. If Feng Yu had not tagged along for the hunt, will he do something regrettable like running away by himself and letting Wen Dongjun face the bear alone?

But Liu Jichuan had no answer. He did not know what he would do. But luckily everything was over.

After they finished their glasses, Feng Yu looked at Liu Jichuan and said: “Brother Chuan, come and work for me.”

Chapter 590 – I want all of them

Liu Jichuan looked at Feng Yu in a daze. Work for you? What do you mean?

Wen Dongjun turned to Liu Jichuan and said: “Brother Chuan, Feng Yu is now also a big boss. If you work for him, you will earn more than working for your Company Commander.”

“Xiao Yu, you are not studying at the University?” Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun were admitted to the universities in Beijing. Liu Jichuan’s father told him the day he returned. They were the pride of the village.

“Going to school and doing business have no conflicts. I am still attending University, and at the same time, I have some business. Come and work for me. Be my bodyguard. I will give you 1,000 RMB every month, and I promise you to have increments every year. During festivals, you will also get a bonus.”

“How much? 1,000 RMB? Xiao Yu, are you joking with me?” Liu Jichuan was shocked. 1,000 RMB a month was very high. Did Xiao Yu offended someone and need his help? If someone was going to find trouble, Feng Yu could just tell him. Who would give a driver and bodyguard 1,000 RMB a month?

“I am not joking with you. People like you are worth this much. I do not have any grudges with anyone. But I want to be safe. Prevention is better than cure. Work for me for a few years. If you do not want to work for me after you got married, you can quit anytime, or transfer to another position. You will still earn enough to raise a family.” 1,000 RMB a month was nothing to Feng Yu. To have a war veteran as a bodyguard, it was worth it.

“What business are you doing?” Liu Jichuan was curious. What business could afford to give a bodyguard such high salaries? Was he spending Uncle Feng’s money? Will Uncle Feng be angry and say he was cheating Feng Yu’s money? How would he return to the village in the future?

Wen Dongjun removed his pager which was clipped to his belt: “Here, this brand of the pager is his. Also, the Wind and Rain, Songjiang, etc. are all his. You see that Lehaha drinks on the counter? That is also his. Anyway, the amount of money he earns in one day is more than what other people earn in their lifetime.”

Liu Jichuan’s eyes were wide opened. His earnings in one day were more than what other people earn in their lifetime? Was this exaggerated? But Wen Dongjun does not look like he was lying.

Actually, Wen Dongjun was not exaggerating. If Feng Yu earns 400 million RMB a year, then it was more than 1 million a day. In the current era where the average annual salary was only a few thousand a years, this was more than what others could earn in their lifetime. But Feng Yu’s earnings was more than 400 million a year. On average, he was making millions or even tens of million a day!

This might seem a lot and looks like an astronomical amount. But compared to the top tycoons in the West, this was nothing. Feng Yu’s income was also as much as some tycoons in Japan and Hong Kong.

This was because Feng Yu’s biggest investment was in Russia. There were still no profits from this investment. If it was not for the value of minerals kept going up, Feng Yu would have made losses from this investment.

The bigger the invested amount, the higher the returns. Feng Yu’s returns for his investments could reach 100%. Even if others were getting 20% returns, but if the invested amount was 10 times more than Feng Yu, their profits will be two times of his!

Feng Yu does not have lots of liquid cash. His biggest investment in China was the Machinery Company. Until now, he still had not recovered his investment.

People like George Soros and other financial predators had more than 1 billion USD of funds a few years back. Compared to them, Feng Yu was nothing. But this would change in a few years.

“Brother Chuan, work for me. Uncle Liu can also be assured. In less than two years, you will be able to buy an apartment in Bing City and fetch him to the city. If Uncle Liu does not want to move to the city, you can also buy an apartment in the district. He is not young now. Can you bear to see him farming at his age?”

Feng Yu mentioned Liu Jichuan’s father and Liu Jichuan had a troubled look: “But I had already promised my Company Commander. I cannot break my promise to them. How can I face my old comrades in the future?”

Feng Yu was happy to hear Liu Jichuan say this. He was not tempted by money, and this made Feng Yu wanted to recruit him more.

“Brother Chuan, how many people did you old Company Commander contacted? Why not I buy over that company. This way you can continue to work for me, and you will not break your promise to them.”

Huh? Buy the company over because of me?

Liu Jichuan was touched. If his old comrades could also get such high salaries like him, it would be great.

“Xiao Yu, no…. Manager Feng, although we are no full company, we have more than 30 people. Other than those that are injured, there are about more than 20 people who can work as drivers and bodyguards. Is it a lot?” Liu Jichuan asked.

“About 20 people? It’s not a lot. I want all of them!”

More than 20 people? Feng Yu could assign 2 of them to protect his father and also assign bodyguards to all the keyholders of his companies. This was to prevent any accidents from happening. Furthermore, if he assigned bodyguards and drivers to protect his key personnel, they will be grateful to him and be more loyal.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, there was an online poll about what employees want from their employers. The number one thing which the employees wished was not salary or benefits. The employees wanted their bosses to show more concern and respect for them.

“all? All of them? Manager Feng, are their salaries also the same as mine?” Liu Jichuan asked.

“That will depend on their performances. If they are about the same as you, then it should not be a problem. If they are not as good as you, then their salary will be lower. If they are better than you by a lot, they will be getting more.”

“Manager Feng, I represent my comrades to give you a toast. I will bottoms up!” Liu Jichuan was very excited. He downs his glass of Baijiu in one big gulp. Feng Yu could not stop him.

“Brother Chuan.”

“Manager Feng, in future, you are my boss. You should not be calling me Brother Chuan. Call me Chuan Zhi or Da Chuan will do.”

“Fine. Then I will call you Da Chuan. Give a call to your old Company Commander tomorrow and let him notify the rest of the people. After Lunar New Year, get them to Bing City or Beijing to have a meeting. All those injured personnel can also come and work for me. I will help them find a suitable job with a good salary in my companies. They will be able to support themselves and do not need to depend on others.”

There were lots of injured soldiers who retired from service. They do not want to depend on the country to support them. Their pride will not allow them to be a parasite leeching on the government. Many of them would rather work as guards for a measly salary than to get payouts from the government. Feng Yu was full of respect for these people.

Liu Jichuan was deeply touched when he heard what Feng Yu said. “Manager Feng, rest assured. My comrades and I will work hard for you. We will put in our 100%!”

“Da Chuan, you are too serious now. You should also stop drinking. Give a call home to let them know you are staying at the district tonight. Tomorrow when you wake up, we will continue to talk.”

At the district hotel, Feng Yu booked a room for Liu Jichuan before returning home.

“Where did you go today? I did not see you the whole day after you return.” Feng Xingtai asked.

“Dad, I saw Liu Jichuan today. The son of that Uncle Liu from our village. He is slightly older than me by a few years. He and his comrades had retired from military service. I want to recruit all of them and set up a private security company. In the future, you will have a personal driver to drive you around like those top officials.”

“Really? Hehehe…. That sounds cool. Your father has not experienced this type of treatment before. Come and tell me about the details.”

Chapter 591 – Lunar New Year visit to Li Na’s house

Liu Jichuan told his old Company Commander about Feng Yu, and he was overjoyed. They were lucky to meet such this type of boss. He said he will bring everyone to Bing City to meet with Feng Yu after the New Year to discuss the details of the company.

Li Jichuan’s father learned that his son will be working for Feng Yu and the monthly salary was 1,000 RMB, he was overjoyed too. With Liu Jichuan and his income, they should be able to buy an apartment in the City after saving for 2 years. Then his son can get married in another one or two more years.

Liu Jichuan’s father felt that Feng Yu helped his son because they were from the same village. If not, why would Feng Yu offer such a high salary?

It was the Lunar New Year. The time of celebration. All the household starts to decorate their houses with red paper. Every family left their lights on the whole night.

Everyone has hoped. For instance, that old man working in Tian Peng Pig farm hopes to earn more money for his sons to get married. His sons had also started working at Tian Peng Pig farm. As Tian Peng Pig’s brand became more popular, the father and sons’ team also became famous.

Not only in the district, but even many matchmakers from the county and city had also approached them to introduce women. Both the sons had girlfriends now, and even the old man has a partner.

After Tai Hua Processing Food Company was set up, the father and sons no longer need to rear pigs. They became senior workers, and their job was to inspect Tian Peng Pig Farms and train the new workers. They often had to travel to other provinces to check the farms there. Their work was no longer tiring and was paid higher than before.

After Wen Deguang became the district Chief, he was busier than before. In the past, he could still play mah-jong and drink during winters. But now, he was too busy with all the work in the district. He had no choice but to give up on these hobbies.

Only Feng Yu felt life was still the same. His stay in the district was not long, and he could just meet up with Li Na once or twice.

Today was the first day of Lunar New Year. Feng Yu decided to visit Li Na’s house.

Somebody once said that father-in-law was the scariest creature on earth. There was also someone who claims that mother-in-law was scariest person on the planet. But no matter whether it was father-in-law or mother-in-law, getting married was not so easy.

Look at Wen Dongjun. Other than a bigger and stronger body, what else does he have? He was always doing stupid things. Both families still had a big difference in status. Did Zhang Han’s father say anything? He did not oppose Wen Dongjun from dating his daughter. Instead, he even tried to groom Wen Dongjun and help to plan his career. He also uses his connections to help Wen Dongjun’s father.

But Li Na’s father was different. He just dislikes Feng Yu. Feng Yu also did not understand why. Which part of him was not worthy of being with Li Na?

You don’t let me visit on other days? Today is the first day of Lunar New Year. I don’t believe that you will chase me out of the house!

Feng Yu woke up very early in the morning. He took a few boxes of gifts with him and left the house. Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua looked at each other. They both knew where their son was going. Their son had grown up.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Who’s that?”

“Happy New Year!” Feng Yu suspect that if he said who he was, the other party would not open the door. He greeted Happy New Year, and they had to open the door out of courtesy.

It was Lunar New Year. Even if you went to the wrong unit, no one would be unhappy when you greet them with Happy New Year.

“You are Xiao Yu?”

“Happy New Year Aunty.” Feng Yu smiled and did not wait for Li Na’s mother to invite him in. He walked into the compound and enter the house.

Li Na’s father, Li Quan, was sitting in the hall when he heard the sounds of the door opening. He was holding on to a plate of melon seeds and peanuts on the one hand and candies on the other hand. He was about to entertain his guest.

But when he saw Feng Yu, his smile was gone.

Why was this brat here?

Li Na saw Feng Yu, and she smiled brightly. She laughed when she saw Feng Yu purposely raise his brows at her.

Li Na also did not know Feng Yu would visit her house today.

“Happy New Year Uncle Li. I am here to greet you on the first day of Lunar New Year.”  Feng Yu placed his gifts on the floor.

“Ok. Happy New Year to you too.” Li Na’s father replied emotionlessly. He continued standing there staring at Feng Yu and did not invite him to sit.

Li Na’s mother, Wang Lanying, entered the room and saw the tension in the room. He immediately calls Feng Yu: “Xiao Feng, please take a seat and have some melon seeds. Nana, go and pour a cup of tea.”

With her mother’s permission, Li Na quickly pours a cup of tea for Feng Yu.

“Xiao Feng, you are also studying in Beijing, right?” Wang Lanying smiled and asked.

“Yes. I am studying at Beijing University Management Faculty.” Feng Yu answered.

“Is your school far from Nana’s school?”

“Not very far. It is only about a 30 minutes drive.” Feng Yu replied.

“Drive? Old Feng had sent you to Beijing to study, and you are enjoying life there? You even bought a car?” Li Quan roared. How much does a car cost? This Feng Yu was really a useless good for nothing!

“Uncle Li, I can study at Beijing University is because of my results in High school. I had also attended the former Soviet Union Summer Camp. The car is also bought by my own money.” What’s wrong with driving? Our universities are so far. If I do not drive, I have to take public transport?

“Your own money? Where did you get your money from? Your savings?”

“Dad, Feng Yu is really capable……”

“Shut up. I am not asking you.” Li Quan snapped.

“I am doing business. All the machinery in my father’s farm were from the former Soviet Union. I am the one who brought them back. Many of the factories in Bing City were using second-hand machines from the former Soviet Union. I am the one who sold most of the machines to them. I bought the machines from the Soviet Union and then sell to the factories for some profits. I also invented the humidifier and bladeless fans. The Wind and Rain brand you see on TV every day is also mine. I am the one who created this brand. All these are very profitable.”

“Wind and Rain? Old Li, this kid is really outstanding.” Wang Lanying gasped. Feng Yu was the creator of Wind and Rain brand!

Feng Yu did not explain much. Li Quan was still suspecting Feng Yu’s words. If Feng Yu were to tell him that he was now China’s wealthiest person now, he would surely not believe him.

China’s wealthiest person and your father is still living in this small district? Why didn’t he move to the City?

“Uncle, Aunty, I am sure that both of you could tell that Li Na and I are in a relationship. That’s right. We are dating.” Feng Yu decided to come clean with Li Na’s parents. He held Li Na’s hand when he said that.

Li Na tried to pull her hand out, but Feng Yu had a firm grip on her. She timidly looks at her father.

Li Quan and Wang Lanying did not expect Feng Yu to say these words. This Feng Yu was very brave to own up. But when they saw their daughter’s shy look, they knew that there was no way to stop them from dating.

Both of them also have no excuse to stop them from dating. Feng Yu was good looking, high education, knows how to make money and have a good family background. There was nothing bad about him.

Actually, Wang Lanying had approved her daughter dating Feng Yu a long time ago. She looks at her husband. She does not know what her husband will say.

Li Quan opened his mouth and then straighten his back. He did not say anything. He had thought that Feng Yu was a good for nothing wealthy second generation. But it seems that this kid was more capable than he imagined. His daughter should have a good life in the future if they were together. Never mind. Just let them be.

Li Quan waved his hand. Gesturing the both of them to go out. He lit a cigarette quietly……

Chapter 592 – Wind and Rain Private Security

Li Na had gotten the permission to go out for New Year visiting with Feng Yu. They walked an entire street before she realized what her father meant. He will not oppose both of them dating!

Li Na felt this year’s New Year was the happiest New Year she had ever experienced.

That evening, Feng Yu returned home full of smiles. Feng Xingtai saw his son’s gifts were given out and that means he will be getting a daughter-in-law soon!

After resting at home for a few days, Feng Yu received a call from Liu Jichuan on the sixth day of New Year. His old Company Commander had arrived at Bing City and wanted to meet with Feng Yu.

Feng Yu had wanted to meet these people. He had heard that there was a murder case in a nearby county a few days ago. The suspect was still on the run. What if he escaped to their district and harm his father?

But before Feng Yu go to Bing City, he went to Li Na’s home. He made up an excuse that they were going to Bing City to visit their former teachers and will be back a few days later.

Feng Yu and Li Na will surely visit their former teachers, but one day was enough. Feng Yu wanted to spend some time alone with Li Na for the rest of the days.

Li Quan could tell from his daughter’s eyes that she really wanted to go to Bing City with Feng Yu. He sighed. Visit the teachers? Then where will they stay at night? Never mind……. It’s beyond his control.

So, Feng Yu, Li Na, and Liu Jichuan drove to Bing City.

When Feng Yu met the old Company Commander, he was surprised. The Company Commander looks quite young. He should not be more than 30 years old. Liu Jichuan had been telling Feng Yu about his old Company Commander, and Feng Yu thought the commander should be at least in his late 30s.

“Manager Feng, this is my old Company Commander. But he is not the Commander. His rank is actually Deputy Company Commander. Sir, this is the boss I told you. Feng Yu, Manager Feng.”

“Nice to meet you, Manager Feng. My name is Sha Tianyu.”

“Hi. You look younger than I expected.” Sha Tianyu’s hand was rough and strong.

“I joined the military once I graduate from University. That’s why I move up faster.” Sha Tianyu was an officer, and after he retired from service, it was hard for the army to assign a job for him. That’s why he decided to start his own business. After all, he was a graduate and knows more than those ordinary soldiers.

“Mr. Sha, what did you studied in University? How come you decided to join the military back then?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

In this era, University graduates were all officers when they join the government or military. Why did he join the military? His family agrees to let him join?

“It is to fulfill my father’s last wish. My mother’s health is not too good, if not I will also not choose to retire from service. I studied history at my university. It might seem to be useless, but I can apply what I learned from the historic battles during the war and bring all of them back alive.” Sha Tianyu proudly said.

“All subjects are useful in one way or another. If any subject was deemed to be useless, it should be that no one had discovered the way to apply it. Mr. Sha, you wanted to let your men join you to be private security is the proof that you have exceptional foresight. But I have a question for you. Did you get this idea from overseas?”

Sha Tianyu nodded: “Yes. I read from the papers that in other countries, many businessmen will hire professional bodyguards and most of them were retired soldiers. I feel that our country’s rapid growth will increase the number of wealthy businessmen. With demands, there will be a market. That’s why I want to set up a private security company.”

“But Mr. Sha, do you know that the bodyguards overseas are all armed? In China, we are not even allowed to carry a baton. That means you and your comrades have to protect the businessman with bare hands. You think they can protect them?” Feng Yu asked.

“There are also unarmed bodyguards overseas. If they can do it, so can we!” Sha Tianyu insisted.

“Then Mr. Sha, do you know that the overseas bodyguard will shield the ones they are protecting with their bodies first when comes face to face with a gunman. Can your men do the same?”

Using their bodies to shield their hirers means they have to be shot. They might be killed for their job. Sha Tianyu hesitated. Those were his comrades. The government had assigned jobs to them, but he had called all of them to join him. If they were killed in their line of duty, he would feel guilty.

Feng Yu was slightly disappointed. Seems like these people were still far from being those overseas professional bodyguards. But China was still not that dangerous. If Feng Yu were to go overseas, especially the US or other countries without gun control, he must hire some professional guards.

“Manager Feng, if we wore a bulletproof vest, we should be able to do that. Also, all of my men had fought in the war before. Even if there were dozens of enemies, they would still be able to let the one they are protecting escape. You can rest assured.” Sha Tianyu replied firmly.

Actually, Sha Tianyu had thought of this before. China had crackdown on illegal arms several times. Even hunting rifles were confiscated. It was rare to see illegal firearms nowadays.

If there were really someone who used guns to attack them, his men would still be shot even if they were not shielding their hirer with their bodies.

“Fine. Mr. Sha, since you already decided to set up this private security company, then you should have conducted your market research and make arrangements with the local authorities. I will buy this security company, and all of you will work for me. I will pay all your salaries.”

Sha Tianyu was confused. What do you mean by you will buy this company? This company was not even registered. This Manager Feng wants to use this excuse to give them money?

“Manager Feng, how much are you offering for this company?”

“500,000 RMB. It is enough to give each of you 10,000 to 20,000 each. This should not be a small amount. But all of your men, including you, must sign a long-term contract. That means other than my company, all of you cannot work for another company in the same nature. Not even the door guard of a factory! All of you must also sign a confidentiality agreement. No one can reveal any information about my companies without permission. Not even your parents, wife, and children.”

Feng Yu was paying them a large sum of money, but in exchange, all of them have to sign this overbearing agreement. These people might be given access to the companies’ core technologies information. If these people leak out the information, the losses would be even higher.

The profits from technologies were the highest.

Sha Tianyu thought for a while. Giving them a sum of money was to give his men and him some financial relief for their families. As for the long-term contract and confidentiality agreement it was fine. When they retired from the military, they also had to sign a confidentiality agreement.

“Fine. I will agree to your conditions on behalf of my comrades! But what will be our salaries?”

“You are the manager of this company, and you will be getting 2,000 RMB a month plus year-end bonus. If the rest of your men were of the same standard as Da Chuan, then they will be getting 1,000 RMB plus bonus. If they are better than Da Chuan, their monthly salary will be 1,500 RMB. However, I need to test their abilities first.”

“We will surely meet your expectations.” Feng Yu had offered salaries much higher than Sha Tianyu expected.

“Tomorrow I will send someone to accompany you to register this company. Oh, in the future, our company will be called – Wind and Rain Private Security!”

Chapter 593 – Testing their capabilities

Feng Yu did not register this security company as a security branch under one of his company. He registers this company as a standalone company under the Wind and Rain Holdings.

The benefit of this was Feng Yu had total control over all these people. If this company was set up as a branch of some companies, other people might be able to interfere with the management of this company.

Although Feng Yu had to pay more taxes this way, he does not mind. When the company grows, it will become a real security company and can get contracts to provide security to a neighborhood or commercial buildings.

Sha Tianyu was fast. Within 3 days, he gathered all his men to Bing City. Including those who were injured from the war.

Looking at the 3 rows of men standing at attention in front of him. One of them only had one leg. He was using crutches to stand with the rest of his company. Despite having only one leg, he was standing upright like the rest of the men proudly. This was the pride of a soldier.

“You, you…… Fall out!” Feng Yu pointed out about a dozen men with obvious disabilities. These people were not suitable to be bodyguards, but they can take up other positions.

But these people did not move after hearing what Feng Yu said. Sha Tianyu saw Feng Yu’s face changed and immediately scolded: “Have all of you heard Manager Feng’s instructions? In the future, he is our top leader. All of you must listen to his orders!”

“Sir!”

Feng Yu had attended military training during his high school before. He looked at that former soldier: “Speak!” Hmmm…. Feng Yu felt like he was an army officer.

“Manager Feng, I had only lost 2 fingers and cannot hold guns. But my martial arts is as good as the rest of them! I can still be a bodyguard!”

All of them knew that Feng Yu will assign work for those disabled soldiers. But those positions will not be paid as handsomely as bodyguards. Feng Yu was not an idiot. He will not pay someone 1,000 RMB to open and close doors for his companies. He will not waste his money.

Feng Yu nodded. All of them wanted to earn more money. This was normal. But whether if they could receive a high salary will still depend on their capabilities.

“All of you fall out first. You all will also take the test later. If all of you pass the test, then it’s alright for you all to be bodyguards.”

Those disabled soldiers heard Feng Yu and fall out from the squad.

“Later all of you will be taking a test to gauge your abilities. All of you will enter this room with me one by one. The results of the test will be announced later. Everyone should know whether if this test is fair or not. Okay, you will start first.” Feng Yu pointed to the first person and said.

In the room, there were Physical Education schools’ students. They were trained in boxing, martial arts, Judo, etc. They heard that they will be sparing with former soldiers. If they win, they will get 100 RMB. If they lose, they will get 50 RMB. Also, it will be 2 vs. 1.

This group of students had often fought outside of schools, and they had to pay medical bills and compensations to their victims. But this time, they could fight to their hearts contents and still be paid. They immediately called their friends to participate. There were more than 20 of them today.

“Manager Feng, we are hired to test this skinny man? There is no need for two of them. I can beat him up alone.” A muscular boxer who was about 1.85m tall exclaimed.

The soldier who entered the room did not say anything. He faced that boxer and gestured him to come forward with one finger provocatively. The soldier was trained to kill and not for performance or sports. He was someone who had fought in a war and trained in killing techniques. Even his opponent was much taller and bigger sized than him, he was confident that he could finish him within 3 moves!

The boxer was pissed. He felt he was insulted in front of his friends. He charged forward.

One move. The former soldier only used one move, and this boxer was lying on the floor.

But Feng Yu was not satisfied. How can this damn soldier kick people in the groin?! Although this was very effective, it could not showcase his skills.

“No hitting below the belt, no poking of eyes. Both of you, go!” Feng Yu pointed to another two people.

These two people saw their friend was knocked out by a dirty move and were furious. They rushed forward, and one of them attacked the head, and the other was prepared to execute a throw.

That former soldier suddenly moved forward and threw a punch at one of the students, knocking him out, and then swiped the leg of the other student with his feet, before pinning him down on the ground. This was all done effortlessly.

“The both of you had lost. If I used my strength just now, he would faint, and your arm will be broken.”

WTF?! The former was too strong.

“Fine. You passed. Zhigang, bring him next door to rest and let the next candidate in.”

These 20 over men, including Sha Tianyu, who looked like he was non-combat personnel, used less than 30 seconds to knock down those physical school students. All of them were very skillful and deadly.

This group of students was suffering. They thought they had come here to make some money and get to beat people up. But who knows that it was the opposite. All of them were beaten up and were complaining.

Wu Zhigang shouted at them. “I had explained to all of you before coming here. But what did all of you say? You all claim to be able to win those soldiers even if it was 1 vs. 1. But now, 2 vs. 1 and all of you did not even win one match! All of you still dare to complain? Who was the one that claims to be the first runner up in the Provincial competition? Was there only two contestants in that competition?”

The last abled body ex-soldier left the room, and Wu Zhigang asked one disabled soldier to enter. It was the one who had lost 2 fingers in the war.

The boxer who was knocked out first had recovered. He saw the soldier had lost two fingers and knew that the soldier could not perform some unarmed combat moves. He called one of his friends, who was about the same size as him to be his partner. They were ready to get revenge.

Damn! We could not win against those able bodies, but how can we lose to a disabled person?

Feng Yu could not bear to watch it. Although this soldier had lost two fingers, he was the most lethal. He wanted to prove that he was as good as the others and used more strength. If this were not a test, these two students would be dead or paralyzed.

This former soldier had received a punch to his face but had no effect on him. He fought like his life was on the line and had a fierce expression on his face. Feng Yu could feel the jitters when he looked at him.

After a while, all the disabled former soldiers had completed their test. Other than those missing one arm or leg, the rest who were missing fingers, toes and ears passed the test. Even if those that had lost their limbs won against the students, but they could not drive. So, they could only resign to their fates.

“Zhigang, double their salaries. They are too pathetic.” Feng Yu looked at those students who were covered in bruises. He pitied them.

This group of students was those that got into fights outside of their schools? They were all trained in martial arts, boxing, Judo, etc.? How come they were so useless?

But Feng Yu could see that this group of students were stronger than ordinary people. This also proves that the group of former soldiers were very good at unarmed combat.

This bunch of pathetic students should behave themselves in the future. They had experienced how it felt to be beaten up.

Wu Zhigang paid those students while Feng Yu happily went next door to discuss the welfare of the former soldiers with Sha Tianyu. Feng Yu felt that even 10,000 RMB a month to hire these people as bodyguards was considered cheap! Now, he was only paying them 1,000 RMB a month.

It’s worthwhile!

Chapter 594 – Huh? Bodyguard?

Liu Jichuan was assigned to be Feng Yu’s personal bodyguard. That soldier who had lost two fingers, but was ruthless and another soldier was assigned to be Feng Yu’s father’s bodyguards and drivers. The rest of the men had to draw lots to be in groups of two or one people. They were assigned to protect Jiang Wanmeng and the rest.

When Wu Zhigang knew that a bodyguard cum driver was assigned to him, he was ecstatic. He was happier than getting a 15% increment earlier this year.

Wow… I finally have a bodyguard!

In Wu Zhigang’s impression, only those Hong Kong and overseas big bosses have personal guards. He had never seen any China businessmen that hire bodyguards. He finally has a personal guard. Other people will definitely be jealous of him.

Furthermore, Wu Zhigang does not need to pay his bodyguard salary and have to listen to his instructions. If he needs to meet clients after working hours, he can also drink alcohol without worrying about driving.

After coming to Bing City for a few days, Li Na wants to return home. She had stayed in Bing City with Feng Yu doe too long. Her parents will not be happy.

Feng Yu still had matters to attend in Bing City, and he does not wish Li Na to take public transport back. So, he brought Li Na to Wind and Rain Logistics to see if she can catch a ride.

Anyway, Wind and Rain Logistics have new trucks now. The front driver and passenger seats were more spacious and cleaner.

“Old Zhao, where is my brother-in-law?” Feng Yu greeted Wind and Rain Logistics Deputy General Manager.

“Manager Li was still around just now. I think he had gone out for some errands. Are you looking for him urgently? Do you need me to call him?”

“It’s okay. Are there any trucks going to the north today? Can they send my girlfriend home on the way?”

“There is a truck sending plastic bottles to your father’s factory later and will be bringing back soybean oil. The truck will leave after lunch. Is it okay?” The truck was supposed to leave for the north later the day. But since Feng Yu needs someone to send his girlfriend to the district, then the driver has to leave earlier.

“Okay. Thank you. I will give you a call later at noon.”

Back upstairs, Li Na was still sitting in Feng Yu’s office. Feng Yu got the keys to the company’s warehouse and left with Li Na for Tai Hua Trading’s warehouse.

“Here, see what uncle and aunty likes. You can pack it onto the car and bring back along with you. All these are New Year Gifts.”

Liu Jichuan was shocked. Feng Yu was too rich! He needs warehouses to store his New Year Gifts.

“These things are the goods which your company sells? The stock will not tally if I take them.”

Feng Yu laughed. “Don’t worry. I have asked them before coming here. We ordered extra in case of wear and tear. It is not a problem. How about this jacket? This jacket is used by Russia’s Airforce. It is very warm and looks smart. Also, these boots. It can keep your feet warm even if it is -30 degrees. Da Chuan, what are you waiting for? Take what you want and send some of them to Uncle Liu later.”

Liu Jichuan points to himself: “I also get to take these?”

“Don’t worry. Although these things are all imported from Russia, we got these on wholesale price. It is not as expensive as you thought.”

Feng Yu does not want to be too generous to Liu Jichuan, in case he becomes too greedy. But he does not mind giving him some small gifts to him.

Liu Jichuan took a leather jacket, a pair of Russia’s leather shoes and a pair of leather gloves.

“Da Chuan, don’t stand on ceremony with me. Take a few more.”

“It’s okay Manager Feng. These are enough.” Liu Jichuan knew that Feng Yu does not mind him taking a few more items. But if he really takes a lot of items, he will appear as a greedy person to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was satisfied with Liu Jichuan for controlling his desires. He gave Liu Jichuan a box of Tai Hua Ham and a box of Jianlibao for him to send back home.

After loading all these things on the car, Feng Yu directed Liu Jichuan to drive them back to the office for lunch.

The current era was not as prosperous as the future years. It was the tenth day of the Lunar New Year, but lots of shops and restaurants were not opened yet. Luckily, Wind and Rain Logistics have its own canteen, and the food was delicious.

“Nana, is the food okay?” Feng Yu asked.

“Why not? This taste much better than the school’s cafeteria.” Li Na laughed.

School’s cafeteria was a scary place in that era. Luckily the food was still considered edible. If not, Li Na will not eat her meals in school.

After lunch, Feng Yu send Li Na to the plastic factory. The truck was loaded. Feng Yu and Liu Jichuan loaded all the New Year gifts into the front compartment. Feng Yu also gave the driver a carton of Hongtashan cigarettes.

“Manager Feng, no need for this.” The driver was rejecting Feng Yu verbally, but he was holding on to the carton of cigarettes tightly.

“Just take it. Send her home straight and also help her carry these things home.”

“Rest assure, Manager Feng.” The driver laughed and keeps the carton of cigarettes. He had to leave earlier today, but in returned, got a carton of cigarettes from Feng Yu. It was worth it.

Hmmm…. It’s a waste for me to smoke this carton of Hongtashan cigarettes. I should give this carton to my father-in-law.

After reminding Li Na to watch out for herself, Feng Yu bid his farewell to Li Na. It should be May before they could see each other again.

“Come, let’s go back to the company.”

Back at his company, Feng Yu saw his Brother-in-law’s car parked downstairs. Just nice, he has something to discuss with him and at the same time show off to him about the bodyguards.

“Brother-in-law.”

“Xiao Yu, I heard from Old Zhao that you are looking for me. Have you sent your girlfriend back?” Li Shiqiang makes fun of Feng Yu.

“Yes. I have just sent her back. Oh, this is Da Chuan. Da Chuan, this is my brother-in-law, Li Shiqiang. This Wind and Rain Logistics is his company.”

Li Shiqiang extended his hand towards Liu Jichuan. He thought this person was Feng Yu’s friend. But Liu Jichuan stood at attention and salute: “Good afternoon, Manager Li!”

Li Shiqiang subconsciously returned the salute and asked: “You are from the military?”

“Yes. I have just retired from the military, and I am now Manager Feng’s personal bodyguard and driver.” Liu Jichuan felt happy to see Manager Li returning his salute.

Li Shiqiang looked at Feng Yu in surprised. What? Bodyguard?

This kid hired a personal bodyguard?

Even Bing City’s party secretary and the Mayor do not have bodyguards. Didn’t Feng Yu always want to be low profile and shun the limelight? Why was he so high profile this time?

“Brother-in-law, I will assign a bodyguard to you too. It will be safer, and someone can drive you around. It will be more convenient for you too.”

“No, I want to know how many bodyguards you hired?”

When they were talking, Wu Zhigang came downstairs. He was about to go out. He had someone following behind him helping him to carry his briefcase. That person was Wu Zhigang’s bodyguard? Even that brat, Wu Zhigang, had a bodyguard?

“Don’t you envy him? I have hired a lot of bodyguards and have assigned one of them to Wu Zhigang. How about I assign one of them to you?”

Li Shiqiang saw Wu Zhigang walking down the stairs with his bodyguard. No matter whether if there was a need for a bodyguard, but the thoughts of going out with a personal bodyguard following behind, made him excited.

Li Shiqiang nodded: “Okay. I will also hire one.”

Feng Yu called Sha Tianyu and asked him to assign someone to his brother-in-law. After settling this, Feng Yu brought Liu Jichuan along to look for Zhang Ruiqiang. He wants to show off his bodyguard in front of him!

Chapter 595 – Eye protection device?

Zhang Ruiqiang saw Feng Yu entered his office with someone. He thought this person was some businessman at first, but he realized that this person was more like Feng Yu’s follower.

“Feng Yu, who is this?”

“Sir! My name is Liu Jichuan. I was a soldier that had retired from service this year. I am now Manager Feng’s bodyguard cum driver!” Liu Jichuan immediately stood at attention and salute when he heard the Mayor asking about him.

Feng Yu was speechless. He had wanted to bring Liu Jichuan along to show off to Zhang Ruiqiang. But it seems that Liu Jichuan was more excited to see Zhang Ruiqiang.

“Da Chuan, you have met the Mayor. Please wait for me downstairs.” Damn, I am here to flaunt, but how can I flaunt when you are so excited to see the Mayor!?

After Liu Jichuan left, Zhang Ruiqiang asked unbelievably: “This is your bodyguard? You need a bodyguard?”

Why was it so hard for you to believe I have a bodyguard? What backward thinking! Before Feng Yu came to this life, many businessmen had many bodyguards protecting them when they go out. For example, Jack Ma was one of them.

“Sighed……. He is just my driver. What bodyguard? You must have misheard.” Feng Yu purposely said. But the proud look on his face clearly states that “I have a bodyguard with me!”

“You should have a bodyguard. If people know how rich you are, they might try to harm you. With your skinny body, they will be able to catch you easily.”

Feng Yu stared at Zhang Ruiqiang. What do you mean by skinny body and easily caught by them? I am fitter than you!

“Oh, I have something to ask you. You have been to many places and had seen many things. Do you know if overseas have this thing?” Zhang Ruiqiang took out a small box and pass to Feng Yu.

“I have seen too many things. I don’t even need to read the manuals, and I know what it is.” Feng Yu bragged while opening the box.

Feng Yu was someone from the future. He had seen lots of things. Even if he does not know what that was, he could also easily guess it.

Feng Yu was in shock after he opened the box.

Damn. This Old Zhang was so adventurous at his age. He was into these things?

But why did Zhang Ruiqiang show him this thing? Was this right?

“Did you buy this yourself or was this a gift from others?” Feng Yu asked.

It was no surprised why Feng Yu was shocked. The thing Feng Yu held in his hand was about the size of his thumb, and there was a small controller connected to it by a wire.

This thing had appeared quite frequently in Japanese Action movies. This was Feng Yu first time in both his lives holding it in his hands. The name of this thing was – Love Egg!

“This was given to me as a sample by a businessman. He told me that this is good stuff from overseas and wants to introduce it in Bing City.” Zhang Ruiqiang explained.

WTF?! Was Bing City so open now? Feng Yu had permitted Kameda Masao to sell their Sixth Sense products along the coastal regions first. That means he could enter China’s market?

Bing City was considered a rural and backward city. If this city could accept these toys, that means other regions will have no problem accepting it.

But why was Old Zhang not embarrass to discuss with me about this thing and Old Zhang was about to use the City Government to introduce this thing?

This…… does not sound right.

“You want to introduce this thing to the residents of Bing City?” Feng Yu asked with great difficulties.

“Yes. Is this thing really as effective as it claims?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“I think it should be effective?” Feng Yu had not used it before and how can he know if it was effective or not. But in the Japanese “action” movies, it looks useful. Kameda Masao had also said the same thing.

“Okay. I will call Chief Li to introduce this to his Junior and High schools.”

“Wait!” Feng Yu was going crazy. Zhang Ruiqiang wants to introduce this vibrator to Junior and High schools? What was he thinking? He was sick of being the Mayor and looking for a quick exit?

“What’s wrong?” Zhang Ruiqiang was confused.

“You want to introduce this thing to the schools?”

“If we don’t introduce this thing to the schools, where else should we introduce it to? Hospital?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked Feng Yu back.

Feng Yu thought in his heart. If this thing was introduced at the Hospital, it might still be barely acceptable. But schools? Which genius gave Zhang Ruiqiang this idea? Did Zhang Ruiqiang also get a fortune teller to be his advisor like Qiudu Company? Was Zhang Ruiqiang sick today? Although students were able to accept new things faster, this thing should not be introduced to them. Especially the Junior and High schools.

How are they going to introduce this thing to the students? Get the teacher to demonstrate how to use it? Show it to the parents? Did everyone go crazy?

“Leader are you okay?” Feng Yu asked. Was Old Zhang playing a prank on him? But Zhang Ruiqiang was not a humorous person. Even if he was, this joke was too much.

Was Old Zhang bewitched by someone or was he under a curse?

“I am fine. What’s wrong with you? Why are you behaving so weird today?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

I am weird? Who is the weird one between us? Am I weirder than you?!

Feng Yu suddenly thought of a possibility. Old Zhang might be hoodwinked by others and did not know what the use of this thing was.

“Leader, do you know the uses of this thing?” Feng Yu asked.

“Of course. That businessman had demonstrated the uses to me once.” Zhang Ruiqiang replied and switched on the Love egg. He then picks up the vibrating love egg and…… place it under his eye!

Feng Yu stared at him with his eyes opened wide. This was how you use a vibrator?

“This eye protection device is more comfortable than massaging the acupuncture points with my hands. If the students use this, they will be able to protect their eyes and prevent them from being short-sighted. What were those foreigners thinking to invent this thing? In the future, all of our students will have better visions!” Zhang Ruiqiang said while rubbing the love egg around his eyes.

Eye protection device?

WTF?! Which moron told you this thing is called an eye protection device?

Feng Yu was hesitating whether to tell Zhang Ruiqiang the real uses of this thing. Will Zhang Ruiqiang commit suicide from being so shameful?

Someone in his 40s, rubbing his face with a sex toy……

Feng Yu suddenly thought if it was Kameda Masao that get someone to sell this thing in Bing City.

If it were really Kameda Masao behind this, then he would be in deep shit!!

Feng Yu immediately snatched the Love Egg from Zhang Ruiqiang and kept it back into the box.

“Leader. Please wait for a while. I will make a phone call. Remember, before I return, don’t show this thing to anyone else!”

Zhang Ruiqiang saw Feng Yu’s face changed. He looked at Feng Yu and the eye protection device. He immediately feels that something was wrong with this eye protection device!

But what was wrong? Could Feng Yu had invented this thing, and someone had infringed his patent? Hmmmm…. This might be possible. Feng Yu placed lots of emphasis on his patents. If someone had infringed his patents, he would surely go after the other party.

This brat…… This is a good thing, and he did not introduce it to his hometown. I must give him a scolding when he returns.

Chapter 596 – The Furious Zhang Ruiqiang

Feng Yu quickly ran down the stairs and entered a toilet. He made sure there was no one in the bathroom before he took out his phone to call Kameda Masao.

“Boss, you need me to do something?” Kameda Masao was puzzled. Feng Yu usually would not call him and seldom ask about the company.

A few days ago, during China’s biggest festival, he had called Feng Yu to send his New Year Wishes. How come Feng Yu called him again?

“Kameda, which cities of China did you send the Sixth Sense products to?” Feng Yu asked.

“We only send to a few provincial cities along the coast and Beijing and Tianjin. The furthest was Jinlin. What’s wrong?” Kameda Masao was confused. Could it be Feng Yu had thought of a way to enter the Chinese market fast?

But Kameda Masao felt that he was more experience in selling those products than Feng Yu. The Chinese were still not open-minded to accept their products. How was it possible for Feng Yu to open the Chinese market fast?

“You did not sell the products to Bing City?” Feng Yu asked.

“Absolutely no! We did not export our products to the 3 provinces in the Northeast. Our company had set up our own distribution channels, and we did not look for distributors there. The Northeast region was more conservative than those along with the coastal areas. If we set up the distribution channels there, we will not be able to recover the cost.”

“Then is it possible that some distributors bring our products to sell in Bing City?”

“No. I had offered the distributors bonuses if they increased the market share. If they really sell it to Bing City, they would have told me to get the bonuses. What’s wrong? Why are you asking about this?”

“I am in Bing City now, and I saw someone selling Love eggs. I am not sure if it is from our company. Nothing is written on the packaging.”

“Then it must not be ours. If any distributors dare to change our company’s packaging, they will have to pay substantial compensation.” Kameda Masao replied confidently.

Feng Yu was relieved. It was not the Sixth Sense Company’s products.

“Ok. It fine now.” Feng Yu hangs up the phone.

Kameda Masao realized what happened. Some sex toys had appeared in Bing City, and it was not their Sixth Sense Company’s products?

How can this be? The market share was snatched by someone else! Hmmm…… It’s time to look into the expansion of the Chinese market more aggressively. Even if there were no profits, they must control the market first!

When Feng Yu returned to Zhang Ruiqiang’s office, Zhang Ruiqiang asked: “Is your company also manufacturing this product?”

Feng Yu got shocked. Even Fu Guangzheng does not know that he owns the Sixth Sense Company. How did Zhang Ruiqiang know?

“Are you the one who invented this thing and got a patent registered? Now, someone had infringed your patent?” Zhang Ruiqiang continued.

I invented this thing? Damn! You are the one who invented this vibrator! Your whole family is the inventors of vibrators!

Feng Yu pick up the box again to scrutinize it. Nothing was written on the box. Not even a word, picture or even a black dot. It was just a plain white box.

“This thing is not invented by me. I had just made a phone call to check. You have been deceived by that person! Are you still able to contact the person who sold you this thing?”

“What? I have been deceived?” Zhang Ruiqiang was puzzled. Even if this thing was priced higher, but he still had not made any orders or paid anything. How can he be deceived?

“Leader, do you know the actual way to use this thing?” Feng Yu asked.

“Isn’t this an eye protection device? Are there other uses for this thing?” Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu, who was trying to hold back his laughter. He immediately got a bad feeling.

Feng Yu walked to the door and closes the room’s door. Before closing, he told Secretary Liu to close the door of the main office. This matter must not be leaked, or else, Zhang Ruiqiang would be disgraced.

It might even affect Zhang Ruiqiang’s promotions.

Zhang Ruiqiang was groomed by Feng Yu to protect himself. From his performances, he should at least reach the rank of Provincial-Ministerial level. If he were to be drag down by this sex toy, all of Feng Yu’s efforts would have gone down the drain.

Feng Yu moved closer to Zhang Ruiqiang and said softly into his ears. “The real name of this thing is called Love Egg or Vibrator. It is used by women to please themselves.”

Damn, why Old Zhang has a confused look on his face? Was I still not direct enough?

Seeing that Zhang Ruiqiang did not get what he said, Feng Yu continued: “It is used to vibrate against the women’s private parts, making them feel good. It is a sex toy used by couples in the bedroom.”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes became bigger and bigger. This was that sort of thing? He had still rubbed it on his face!

Fuck!!! That businessman was a con man! Zhang Ruiqiang wanted to get a gun and execute that conman on the spot!

Zhang Ruiqiang finally understood why Feng Yu was speaking so weirdly earlier with a strange expression. If he really introduced this thing to the schools and others found out what it really was, his reputation will be gone!

“You. Are you joking with me?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“How can I joke with you about this?” Feng Yu was pinching himself secretly with his hand behind his back. He was afraid that he would laugh out loud. Old Zhang had rubbed a vibrator on his face and was still enjoying the feeling. It was too funny!

Zhang Ruiqiang tightens his grip on his fountain pen. Crack! He had broken his pen with one hand!

“Liu Tianyong! Come in now!” Zhang Ruiqiang shouted.

Secretary Liu immediately entered the room: “Sir, are you looking for me? Ah…… You are bleeding. Hurry and get it treated to prevent infection.”

Secretary Liu looked at Feng Yu. What did Manager Feng say to the leader that causes him to be so angry? That fountain pen was Zhang Ruiqiang’s favorite pen, and he had used it for years.

“Get that Sun Fulin, the one who is selling that Eye Protection Device, here immediately! Also, call the public security bureau Chief Zhao here!” When Zhang Ruiqiang mentioned the eye protection device, he clenched his teeth hard. He really wants to tear that Sun Fulin into pieces.

“Yes, sir. I will call them immediately, but your hand……”

“Call them first!” Zhang Ruiqiang roared.

Secretary Liu was shocked and immediately ran out to make the phone calls. After Zhang Ruiqiang became the Deputy Mayor, Secretary Liu knew him and had never seen him so furious before.

Why does he need Chief Zhao to be here? Could it be that Sun Fulin commit some crimes? Cannot be…… If Sun Fulin had committed a crime, they could just call the police to arrest him. There was no need to call him over.

Zhang Ruiqiang turned to Feng Yu: “You are not allowed to tell anyone about what happened today!”

Damn. I had helped you today. If it weren’t for me, you would have introduced a sex toy to the schools, and you will be finished! Why are you threatening me now?

But everyone will lose his cool once in a while. I will forgive you this time.

“Don’t worry. Even if I tell others, no one would believe me. How are you going to tell Chief Zhao about this matter?” Feng Yu asked curiously and leans forward. He really wanted to know what Zhang Ruiqiang would say.

“It is none of your business! You can go now.” Zhang Ruiqiang replied coldly.

“I am not busy today. Just treat me as if I am invisible.” Feng Yu replied with an “I will just watch quietly by the side” expression.

“You are not busy, but I am!” Zhang Ruiqiang shouts.

“Let’s talk about something else. How about I donate some money to the City? Come, let’s discuss what projects and the amount I should donate.”

“I don’t want your donations!” Zhang Ruiqiang was furious. What donation? Feng Yu was just finding excuses to remain in his office, waiting to watch the show.

Feng Yu was dragged out of Zhang Ruiqiang’s office by Secretary Liu under Zhang Ruiqiang’s orders. Feng Yu was sulking as he walked back to his car.

“Manager Feng, where are you going now?” Liu Jichuan asked.

“We will not go anywhere. Just stay here to enjoy the show!” You chase me out, and you think I will give up? Encountering such an entertaining incident was rare. There was no way I will give up.

Eh? Will Old Zhang beat up that conman later? Can he win against that conman? Hmm…… I think I should go back there to help him later.

Chapter 597 – Mother******!

After Feng Yu left the office, Zhang Ruiqiang vents his anger by smashing up things.

Teacups, penholders, ashtrays, newspapers, magazines, lighters, etc. were thrown across his office.

Zhang Ruiqiang had worked for more than 20 years and was in his 40s. He had never been so disgraced in his entire life. What made things worst was Feng Yu knew about this and that busybody look on his face!

But if Feng Yu had not come by his office today and he asked him about this vibrator casually, he would be the laughing stock of the whole province.

Maybe the whole nation will be talking about him. A Sub-Provincial (Ministerial) level official introduces sex toys to the schools?!

This matter will stick to him forever. Even after he died, this joke will still be passed on for generations.

If a businessman tried to sell his products at a premium price, Zhang Ruiqiang could still accept it. But to call a vibrator an eye protection device was too much!

If the parents of the students know about it, he would be cursed and spit upon!

Secretary Liu saw Feng Yu leaving and immediately hurried back into the room. The Leader’s office looks like it was just broken in. Zhang Ruiqiang was very furious.

Secretary Liu did not dare to say a word or ask anything. He quietly picks up the things on the floor.

He put the documents aside and sweep the broken pieces of the teacups, ashtrays, etc.

Secretary Liu did not dare to bring all the trash out like this. This must not be seen by others.

He threw everything into a black trash bag and bring it to the toilet’s trash bin. He returned back to the office and mopped the floor. He also brought a new ashtray and place it on Zhang Ruiqiang’s desk.

While Secretary Liu was doing all these, Zhang Ruiqiang was looking out of his window. He looks like he was waiting for someone.

But Zhang Ruiqiang was not waiting for anyone. He was staring at a car parked in the compound. Feng Yu had not left yet and was waiting in his car to watch this entertaining show!

“Leader, you are supposed to be at the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) in 10 minutes. Are you still going?” Secretary Liu asked.

“Cancel all my appointments today!”

Secretary Liu replaced a new teacup, exactly the same as the old one, and helped to pour a cup of tea. He went out to call the SASAC to inform them that the Mayor was not able to meet them today. He also canceled all the other appointments.

Secretary Liu still does not know why Zhang Ruiqiang was so angry. He thought it was because of Feng Yu. But now, Feng Yu does not seem to be the reason. Why did Zhang Ruiqiang had called for Sun Fulin and Chief Zhao? Both of them had no dealings with each other. One was a businessman, and the other was a Police Officer. What’s the reason for calling them to the office?

Chief Zhao arrived after a while and saw Secretary Liu. He smiled and greeted him. But he noticed that Secretary Liu’s expression was not right. Could it be the Mayor was not pleased with the Police department?

“Chief Liu, do you know why the Mayor called for me?” Chief Zhao asked Secretary Liu. Secretary Liu’s rank was a Deputy Division Chief.

Secretary Liu shook his head. “I also don’t know the reason. But the Mayor is in a bad mood today.”

Chief Zhao nodded his head gratefully. With Secretary Liu’s warning, he had to watch what he says when meeting the leader. If he was not careful, he might get into trouble. This was why it was essential to have close relationships with the leader’s secretary.

“Sir, Chief Zhao is here.” Secretary Liu knocked on the door and inform Zhang Ruiqiang.

“Let him in and help him brew a cup of tea.”

Chief Zhao was relieved to hear what Zhang Ruiqiang said. Zhang Ruiqiang had asked his secretary to give him a cup of tea means he was not going to scold Chief Zhao. Zhang Ruiqiang should be asking him about something.

“Mayor, you want to see me?”

“Old Zhao, what is the heaviest punishment for conmen?” Zhang Ruiqiang saw Chief Zhao entering his office and asked. Chief Zhao was also the Deputy Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission and knew the penalties of the law at the back of his head.

Conmen? Was the Mayor conned by someone? Which conman have the guts to con the Mayor?!

“If it was a serious fraud case, the penalty will be at least than 10 years imprisonment to life imprisonment! The lightest punishment for fraud is 3 years imprisonment and also fines.” Chief Zhao replied.

The highest penalty was only life imprisonment? The conman should get death sentence!

“There will be a conman coming over later. He tried to con the City Government. You will look at him and see how heavy his sentence will be.” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

Chief Zhao can confirm that the Mayor called him to his office was to teach someone a lesson. This was not a bad thing. Instead, this was a good thing. Most of the City Police Chiefs were able to move up the ranks. They could become the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission secretaries and join the Communist Party of China. The rank will be Bureau-Director level. Chief Zhao was currently a Deputy Secretary of the Central Political, and Legal Affairs Commission and his rank was only a Deputy Bureau-Director level.

If the Mayor was satisfied with his performance, the Mayor could put in a few good words and help him promote faster.

This conman must be punished severely regardless of the seriousness of the fraud! The punishment must be severe enough to please the Mayor!

……

Sun Fulin was from Fujian. He had visited Taiwan and saw some sex toys there. He felt that there should be a market for this sex toy in China. So, he set up a factory to manufacture sex toys back in China. But when his first product, Love Egg, was produced, he discovered the sex toy MNC, Sixth Sense, had entered the Chinese market.

No one was interested in Sun Fulin’s vibrators even after he lowered the selling price. He does not have the capital to set up a retail stall!

So, Sun Fulin decided to go to the inland provinces to sell his products. But the inland people were more conservative and does not even know what a vibrator was.

There was once when he was introducing his products to one person. That person asked if his product was an eye protection device and used for massaging the area around the eyes.

Sun Fulin immediately decided to sell his vibrators as eye protection devices. He targets the provinces near the borders, and the first place he chose was Bing City.

Sun Fulin forged an overseas document which claims that this product was invented by a scientist overseas and was used to protect the user’s vision. He was the distributor in China. Everything was proceeding smoothly for him, and he even manages to meet the Mayor of the City!

The Mayor was interested after seeing his product. Sun Fulin knew that Bing City government had sufficient funds for education and the government could provide some subsidy for the students if they want to purchase this eye protection device.

The population of Bing City was about 10 million. The students in the City amounted to more than 100,000. Sun Fulin was going to be rich! Even if he earns 10 RMB from a student, his profits will be more than 1 million!

The Mayor’s secretary had called him over to meet the mayor today. Could it be that the Mayor had agreed to his price and want to order?

“Mayor Zhang, I am here. Have the City government decided to buy my products?” Sun Fulin laughed and asked, as he entered the office.

“Sun Fulin, you mother******! You call this thing an eye protection device?!”

Sun Fulin had just stepped into the office, and a box hit him on his face. He was stunned……

Chapter 598 – The poor Sun Fulin

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Sun Fulin and could feel his blood boiling again. He had calmed down, but when he saw Sun Fulin, his temper rise again!

Sun Fulin who was smiling when he enters the room was stunned. Mayor Zhang had called him to his office was not to sign the procurement contract? Could it be that he found out what the product was used for?

Impossible. Many people who lived in the coastal cities had not seen this thing. How could people from this rural Bing City know about it?

“That’s the eye protection device. What’s wrong?” Sun Fulin asked.

Zhang Ruiqiang narrowed his eyes. You still do not want to admit? Do you think I am easily fooled, or you think everyone in Bing City is fooled?

“You really think I have never traveled overseas, and I will not know what this thing is? Sun Fulin, if you admit what you had done just now, I might still give you a chance to repent. But now, be prepared to spend years in prison!” Zhang Ruiqiang shouted.

Chief Zhao was shocked. What did the Mayor just say to that businessman? Although Chief Zhao does not know what happened, he knows that this person was the conman, Zhang Ruiqiang was talking about, and he wants this person to be jailed!

“You are Sun Fulin? I am from the City Police Department. You are suspected to be involved in a fraud. I need you to come with me!” Chief Zhao stood up and said. He does not need to know what happened. Once inside the station, he will have ways to find out.

Also, once Sun Fulin enters the police station, all his past deeds will be dug out. He will be in trouble no matter what. If Chief Zhao questions Sun Fulin now and found that the Mayor was also involved, he would not know what to do.

From the Mayor’s reactions, he seems to be conned by this businessman. These conmen were stubborn and will scream and shout to resist arrest. If this matter were leaked out, the Mayor would lose face and might be angry with Chief Zhao. His promotion will be gone and might even be replaced!

Sun Fulin realized that there was a policeman in Zhang Ruiqiang’s office. For a police officer to enter the Mayor’s office, the ranks should at least be a Deputy Chief. He might even be the Chief!

Mayor Zhang had called the Police Chief to wait for him in the office? That means the Mayor knows what this product was.

Sun Fulin could feel his legs turning soft. He immediately thought of an excuse. An excuse that could let him escape scot free. If he admitted committing fraud, he would surely be jailed!

“Mayor Zhang, Officer, what are you all talking about? Even if you do not want to buy my products, you should not say I am committing fraud. What did I cheat you? First, I did not have any meals with you. Secondly, I have never collected a single cent from you all. Even my lodging and transportation are my own expense. How can you claim I am committing fraud?” Sun Fulin argued.

Chief Zhao looked at Zhang Ruiqiang. No monetary exchange? Then I will be hard to charge him. Even if he had collected 1 RMB, it could also be considered the deposit. But now, not a single cent was exchanged, and at most this was considered an attempt to commit fraud.

No. Since the Mayor had called Chief Zhang here, this matter must be settled. The penalties for an attempt to commit fraud was only fine and in custody for a few days. The punishment should not be enough to please the Mayor.

“You think you had not eaten a meal, and it is not considered fraud? I only need to prove that you had gained some benefits in exchange and it is a fraud!” Chief Zhao raised his voice. He does not believe that this person had never done anything bad in his life. Once in the station, he will dig out everything from Sun Fulin. Even if he had stolen an eraser in school, he would also be charged!

Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. That’s right. The contract was not signed yet. They had only spoken verbally. Can this be considered fraud? But his anger could not be appeased if this guy was not thrown into prison.

This Sun Fulin was too wicked. He made use of other’s ignorance to make money. He should be punished severely. If this were the old times, he would sure be flocked to death!

“Old Zhao, bring this man back. This is the evidence.” Zhang Ruiqiang passed the box with the vibrator inside to Chief Zhao.

Chief Zhao did not open the box. He held the box in one hand and grab Sun Fulin with his other hand and walked out of the office.

Everyone who walked past were surprised. What happened? How come the Police Chief arrest someone in the Mayor’s office? Wasn’t this person the businessman who was invited over by the Mayor?

……

Feng Yu had been waiting outside. Although his car had air condition, it was still uncomfortable. When Chief Zhao walks out of the building dragging a person with him, his driver immediately runs forward to handcuff that person.

Feng Yu also alighted from his car and walks to Chief Zhao: “Chief Zhao, It’s been a while since we met. Is this the conman the Mayor was talking about?”

Chief Zhao was surprised. Manager Feng also knows about this? But when he thought about the relationship between Feng Yu and the Mayor, it was normal for him to know about this. Maybe he could gather more information about this case from Feng Yu.

“That’s right. The Mayor had called me over to bring this person back for questioning. The Mayor says this person was committing fraud! Manager Feng, do you know how did this person con others?”

Feng Yu almost burst out laughing. He thought for a while. It should be better for him to tell Chief Zhao than Zhang Ruiqiang. While Feng Yu was waiting in his car, he could also see Zhang Ruiqiang standing by the windows. The reason Zhang Ruiqiang allowed him to remain there and did not chase him out might be he wants Feng Yu to tell Chief Zhao about the details of this case.

So, Feng Yu whispered into Chief Zhao’s ears and explained the whole incident.

Chief Zhao’s face changed. This moron dared to use a vibrator to con the Mayor and had almost succeeded. No wonder the Mayor was so furious.

“Manager Feng, thank you for telling me this. This Sun Fulin wants to make our Bing City the laughing stock of the whole nation! I will make sure to find the evidence and throw him into jail!”

If the Mayor was conned by this Sun Fulin, not only the Mayor will be disgraced. Bing City and all the City Government officials, especially the education and police department, will be the laughing stock of the whole nation!

After Chief Zhao left, Feng Yu slowly makes his way back to Zhang Ruiqiang’s office.

“I had told Chief Zhao about the whole incident. He should be able to handle it well.”

Zhang Ruiqiang glanced at Feng Yu and did not say anything. It was better for Feng Yu to tell Chief Zhao about this incident than him.

“Why are you here again? Do you think I will ask you to stay for dinner?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“Shouldn’t you be treating me dinner? I had helped you this time. Shouldn’t you show some appreciation?”

“Appreciation? What are you targeting this time?!” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Am I that type of person? If I am interested in something in the City, will I not pay? I only want to ask you a question. Did you hit him just now? If it were me, I would surely beat him up! Eh……. Why are you pushing me? We are just talking. Brother Liu, stop dragging me. I am discussing something important with the Mayor.”

Zhang Ruiqiang shouted furiously: “Get out of here, or your supermarket will not be allowed to be opened in Bing City. If you open the supermarket market elsewhere, we will copy you!”

“Brother Liu, did you hear what your leader said? He wants to copy us and still dare to say it righteously! What sort of person is he?” Feng Yu was shouting.

“Manager Feng, the door is not closed. There are people around. Please come back another day. The Mayor is busy today.” Secretary Liu dragged Feng Yu out of the office and looked at him walking out of the building. He wiped the sweat on his forehead.

After working for the Mayor for so long, today was the most tiring day!

Chapter 599 – Bing City Pharmaceutical developments

Sun Fulin was brought back by Chief Zhao for questioning. After one night of interrogations, he broke down and admitted he was trying to commit fraud.

But he insist that he had not succeed and his charges should be an attempt to commit fraud. The heaviest punishment should be hefty fines.

Although it was only fines, but if Sun Fulin was released, will the Mayor be happy with this outcome? Chief Zhao was also furious. This Sun Fulin had almost got him into trouble. Even if the Mayor had no say anything, he will also not let him off easily.

After some investigations, Chief Zhao found out that this Sun Fulin was penniless. He still owe money for his lodging in Bing City. Sun Fulin had also signed a contract with a printing company to print the packaging for the vibrators. The packaging will be printed with the words Eye Protection Device.

The amount of money involved in this contract was huge. Because the deposit was paid, it could be considered as evidence. Also, Sun Fulin had owed the suppliers and did not paid his bank loans. Everything about him were dug out.

Although all the charges does not amount to life imprisonment, but he should be staying behind bars for at least 10 years. This wicked businessman had to pay a heavy price for his crimes!

…….

Bing City Pharmaceutical had been developing well. Just the few health supplement medicines had made lots of profits. Orders for these products were coming in non-stop. The company does not even need to send their sales people out to get business.

The flu, gastric, anti-inflammation. Etc. medications were also selling well. Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise should be China’s best performing pharmaceutical company. If not, it should be at least the second-best performing company. The growth and profits should be the country’s first!

The top management of the company were happy with their results. Their medicines were marketed as safe medications and those world champions’ endorsements had achieved great results.

Feng Yu did not let them increase the prices of their medicines. If not, they would increase the prices by at least 10%.

Feng Yu felt that these medications could also be produced by other pharmaceutical companies. The effects of the medications were more or less the same. They should not increase the prices because of profits.

Of course, if Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise were famous overseas like they were in China, it would be different. Feng Yu does not mind increasing their selling price overseas to earn money. In China, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s profits were already higher than most other pharmaceutical companies.

Although Bing City Pharmaceutical’s Zinc gluconate and other health supplement medicines were exported to other countries and had achieved high profits, but compared to those pharmaceutical MNCs, they were still far behind.

In the future, will there be any medicine from China that becomes famous in other countries? Yes. It is a type of medicine called Yunnan Baiyao. The company still had a scandal of the state-owned enterprise illegally breaking a contract and was sued by a private company.

This medicine was widely used by athletes and many households will keep a bottle in their first aid kit at home. This medicine can stop bleeding and relieve pain. Children will bound to have knocks and falls.

The formula of this Yunnan Baiyao was a national secret! Just this alone had increased the values of this medicine. But currently, the company still had not invented the aerosol spray medicine. The medicine only comes in powder and capsule forms. This limited their growth greatly.

Last year, Feng Yu had told his staff at Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise to contact Yunnan Baiyao factory. He wants to buy the formula of the medicine. But Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise was privatized and was not a state-owned enterprise. The factory does not want to sell. In Feng Yu past life, Xinhua Company had also tried to buy the formula and had more than 2 billion RMB locked up in their attempt for more than a year. Their losses were significant.

But in Feng Yu’s previous life, Yunnan Baiyao wanted to export their medicine to the US and had to print their ingredients on the label because of the regulations in the US. The secret formula of China’s Yunnan Baiyao was printed on the packaging of those products that were exported to the US.

Feng Yu had a friend who bought this Yunnan Baiyao from the US in his previous life. His friend left this medicine in Feng Yu’s home and Feng Yu had read the labels a few times when he was bored.

Boea Clarkean 85mg, Galanga 30mg, Cranebill 36mg, Tienchi 200mg, Companatum 57.5mg, Chinese Yam 66.5mg.

Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprises had a Chinese traditional medication factory. Feng Yu told them about this formula and said that he bought it from an old Chinese Traditional Physician for 1 million RMB. He asked his factory to research and try to develop this medicine.

After testing the formula, it was found to be effective. But further research shows that Feng Yu’s formula was slightly different from Yunnan Baiyao. That means Yunnan Baiyao had either hide their formula from the US or Feng Yu had remembered wrongly.

Feng Yu remembered that in his past life, there was a saying on the internet that Yunnan Baiyao had components of Kudzu and ginseng. Feng Yu told the Chinese Traditional medication factory to research and experiment on this formula. He also asked them to research on aerosol spray to combine it with the medicine. He wants to develop a type of medical aerosol spray which will disinfect, heal and not hurt the skin.

This was the top priority set by Feng Yu. If Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise could develop the Yunnan Baiyao medical spray from his past life, then it will be their top product and greatly raise the company’s brand image!

As for the antibiotics and anti-inflammation medicines produced by the factory will remain. The profits from these medicines might not be a lot, but it was still selling well. The sales of those health supplement medications will also drop when other pharmaceutical companies introduce cheaper and similar products.

Although there was no way for Feng Yu to increase Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s reputation overseas, but the book <Suboptimal Health> was the best seller.

Feng Yu also did not expect that book to be so popular. It must be related to the experts who wrote the book. No matter it was in China or Overseas, people will trust those specialist and experts.

Furthermore, the book was not selling at a high price. The book claims to contain the essence of China’s few thousand years of traditional medicine and was recommended by experts all over the world. How can the contents of the book be wrong?

Other than those countries that were in poverty or war, which country’s people does not care about their health? The book had sold over 10 million copies worldwide and just in China, it had sold over 3 million copies!

Feng Yu could earn about 3 RMB for every copy of this book sold. That means the past 6 months after the book was published, Feng Yu had earned more than 30 million RMB. After the number of copies sold had reached 10 million, Feng Yu used soft advertising in the newspapers all over the world again to try to boost the sales further.

Even if <Suboptimal Health> number of copies sold could not break <Xinhua Dictionary> Guinness World Records, but as long as the concept of Suboptimal Health exist, people will continue to buy this book. New editions will also be publish every year. In the future, it might even hit 100 million copies!

With this book and the recommendations of experts from other countries, Bing City Pharmaceutical enterprise health supplement medicines’ sales had increased. This time, Feng Yu discovered another opportunity to make money.

Chapter 600 – Medical plaster (Part 1 of 2)

The most popular pharmaceutical brand in China currently was Bing City Pharmaceutical. The second was the Band-Aid, and the third was Janssen.

The second and third brands were joint ventured. They were all owned by a US pharmaceutical giant. This Pharmaceutical Giant was Johnson and Johnson!

Johnson and Johnson were one of the top 5 Pharmaceutical companies in the world, and it had the most extensive variety of products. A lot of their businesses was into health and medical care products manufacturing.

Janssen had patents, and Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise could not imitate its products. But Band-aid was different. It was just an adhesive bandage or medical plaster. The technology involves was very simple.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the newspapers had reported the purpose of band-aids were to stop bleeding and prevent infection. It does not help to heal the wounds. It might even slow the healing process of the wound. Unless it was the special band-aids produced by Yunnan Baiyao. But it was very costly and going to the hospital to clean up the wounds was cheaper.

This was why the band-aid had the biggest market share of the medical plaster market. Feng Yu had not seen other competitors. Maybe there were competitors, but no one was willing to buy their products.

The people in the current era tend to believe that popular products were better. Band Aid was the most famous medical plaster, and most some of the people do not even know the product was called medical plaster. They called that product band-aid!

Although there was nothing wrong with it, Feng Yu felt that medical products should be known by its name and not a brand of a company. He does not want to let Johnson and Johnson earn all the money. Why can’t this medical plaster be Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprises’ popular product?

From Feng Yu’s view, Band Aid was only a type of medical plaster, and it was the old fashion design where there was a small non-adhesive absorbent pad in the center. It was not waterproof and had airtight.

The funniest part was that many consumers thought that Band Aid was the original product and other medical plasters were imitation goods! Even when the effects of the products were the same and other brands were cheaper, but consumers will not buy other brands.

Feng Yu could let Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise produce medical plasters which were waterproof and breathable. The medical plasters could still be printed with cartoon designs. With the reputation of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, Feng Yu was not worried that consumers will think that his medical plasters were imitations.

Also, the cost of medical plasters was very low. In the current era, the cost was not more than 10 cents RMB, but the retail price could reach 1 RMB. The profits were huge!

Although the distributors and retailers will get a cut, Feng Yu was confident that the wholesale price of Band-aid was more than 40 cents per piece. That was at least 3 times the cost!

Band-Aids had brought enormous profits to Johnson and Johnson.  Just China alone, Band-Aid controls more than 98% of the market share!

This was a simple business, but others could not enter. It was mainly because of the branding. But Bing City Pharmaceutical have no issue with their branding. Feng Yu does not have high requirements. He set his goal to be 30% of the market share this year. He will advertise on the media, and with his sales distribution channels, it should not be a problem to overtake Band-Aid and becomes China’s top medical plaster brand!

Thus, Feng Yu told the General Manager of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise to develop their own medical plaster. Their plasters must not be the same as Band-Aids.

Band-Aid was browned in color. This color was chosen to make it not too noticeable when used on the skin. So, Feng Yu decided to be the opposite of Band-Aid. His plasters must be as colorful as possible.

The ones who use plasters the most were children. Most adults do not mind small cuts or wounds, and it was the children that fall or injured themselves more often. They were young, and people will notice their plasters no matter what color it was.

Feng Yu’s plaster must be colorful, and they can even print cartoon characters on it. Regardless of children and young girls, they will like it. Also, medical plaster must be waterproof.

This way, people will not be afraid of getting their wounds wet, and if the weather is warm, their sweat will not come into contact with their wounds.

Also, these breathable plasters are more suitable for athletes.

When Feng Yu told the leaders at Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise about his ideas, all of them felt he was a genius.

This medical plaster market was vast, and if they succeed, it will bring in at least 10 million RMB profits annually.

The cost of production was also very low. Even if they fail, their losses will not be a lot. But if they succeed, their profits will be massive. Low risk, high profits. There was no reason why they should not produce medical plasters.

Of course, to compete with Band-Aid for the market share, they must educate the consumers that this product was called Plasters and not Band-Aid. Band Aid was only the brand name. This will lower Band Aid’s brand influences.

Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s medical plaster brand must be easily remembered by the consumers and must demonstrate the differences from Band-Aid.

But after many rounds of brainstorming, no one was satisfied with the suggestions. Feng Yu wanted to name the plaster as Huatou Brand, but the leaders told him that this name will not be approved.

Tai Hua Brand? Feng Yu felt it does not sound nice. He had lots of products under the Tai Hua brand, and it will not be suitable to use Tai Hua on medical products. It will not elevate the brand status and might even cause the brand reputation to fall.

As for Wind and Rain, Aiwa was not possible. These were electric appliances’ brand, and if they were to use these brands on medical products, it might bring down the reputation of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise.

In the end, no one could think of a suitable brand name. Wu Zhigang suggests that they might as well use Bing City Pharmacy and name it as Bing City Pharmacy Medical Plaster. They do not need to register this brand name if they use this name. Also, it will not be good to have many brand names under Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise.

All the top management staffs felt this was a good suggestion and agreed to it. The designs of the plasters were handed over to Liu Michael and his team. That was also Feng Yu’s company.

The cartoon characters will use Journey to the West’s Monkey King. Everyone felt that Monkey king as the main character should be enough. Who would want to stick a Pigsy plaster on themselves? Sha Wujing or Sandy, and Tripitaka will not be suitable too.

But Feng Yu told Liu Michael and his team to design Pigsy as a cute character. His ears could be designed as his wings. A piglet with wings. Sandy can also be designed as a fierce character and Tripitaka can be designed as a kind and benevolent look. The white dragon can be designed as a handsome man. He was the third son of the Dragon King and princes should be handsome in fairy tales.

There can also be other characters like Bull Demon King, Red Boy, and Guanyin from the story. All the characters in the story must be included. The characters could be handsome, pretty, cute or fierce looking. It must be designed to be loved by children and adults!

Feng Yu believed that with this <Journey to the West> series of plaster, children will want to stick the plasters even they do not have wounds or cuts. It will just be like stickers.

This cartoon waterproof medical plasters will be Feng Yu’s weapon to compete with Band-Aid!

Chapter 601 – Medical plaster (Part 2 of 2)

Lunar New Year was just over, and everyone was still in their holiday mood. People returned to work, and the first thing they did was to read the papers. Anyway, most people do not have lots to do after the holidays.

Eh? How come there is a full-page advertisement? What is this product? Medical Plaster? What is a medical plaster?

The advertisement stated that it was a bandage that could be stick onto a small wound easily. The readers looked at the pictures and realized that it was Band-aid, which had advertised on TV a few years back. But the advertisement states that Bing City Pharmaceutical’s plasters were more effective. It was waterproof and breathable. It even has cartoon prints on it. Most importantly, it was recommended by the General Administration of Sport.

Feng Yu quickly got the General Administration of Sport to recommend his products. He only sponsored them his medical plasters and also donated 1 million RMB to them. In return, he was granted permission to print the words ‘Recommended by the General Administration of Sport’ on the packaging and mentioned it in the commercials.

In the evenings, people saw the plaster’s commercial on CCTV 2.

A child was playing at home and accidentally fell and knocked his head. There was a small cut on his head, and the child sat there crying. His mother took out plaster and stick it on the child’s head.

The child says sticking a plaster on the head was ugly, but the mother told him that he looks good with the plaster. The child looked at himself in the mirror. The plaster was beautiful. It had a monkey king printed on it. The child laughed, and his mother smiled.

Then a doctor in his white gown appeared on the screen. There were some words below introducing him as Bing City Medical University Professor Zhou Airen. He said that when children have open wounds, it would be best to cover it up with plaster as soon as possible. It will stop the bleeding and prevent infections.

The camera zoomed out and changed to a close of up the plasters. There were different Journey to the West characters designs on the plasters.

There was a voiceover: “Bing City Pharmacy waterproof medical plasters. Bing City Pharmaceutical enterprise. Safe medicine! Recommended by the General Administration of Sport!

This commercial had attracted the attention of children and their parents. Waterproof? That means the wounds will not get wet? This plaster was produced by Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. It should be a quality product. Furthermore, the athletes from the General Administration of Sport uses it.

The children were attracted to the cartoon characters on the plasters. Those pictures on the plasters were beautiful. The plasters look nicer than Band-aids.

Not only the newspapers and TV were advertising. Even the radios were talking about this plaster. It recommended the features of the product to their listeners and compared them to the traditional plasters. The radio broadcasters did not say what the traditional plasters were. But the listeners knew that it was talking about Band-aids. This Bing City Pharmacy plasters were better than Band-aids?

When Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise advertised on CCTV, newspapers, and radio, Band-aid Company was aware of it. In the past, there were also other companies who tried to sell plasters. But they could not complete with Band-aid.

But after Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s plaster entered the market, they noticed that the plasters could be found in all pharmacies. Band-aid could feel the threat.

Band-aid company immediately had a meeting to try to counter Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. They cannot wait until their market share was snatched away and then they react. It will be too late.

……

“It is only waterproof plaster. We can also manufacture it. We will also introduce a waterproof band-aid. The consumers will still choose us!” Band-aid Deputy General Manager, a foreigner, said.

Band-aid was the inventor of this plaster. How could they not have waterproof and breathable plasters? They only felt that it was unnecessary to introduce it in China because the cost was higher for waterproof plaster. They had already monopolized the market with the regular plasters. There was no need to introduce better products.

But now, Band-aid had a strong competitor. It was the widely popular Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. It was advertising aggressively and was a threat to them.

The higher-ups of Band-aid was not very worried. Whatever Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise could produce, they could also do the same. Almost everyone in China knew about Band-aid, and medical plaster was still a new term. The consumers should not be able to accept it easily.

After Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise introduces its waterproof and breathable plasters, Band-aid immediately introduces similar products. As one of the top plaster companies in the world, they could not afford to lose the Chinese market.

Furthermore, Band-aid had entered the Chinese market for almost 3 years. The brand, Band-aid, was already accepted by the Chinese and with the brand awareness in China, they were confident that they would be able to win Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise.

Feng Yu received a call from Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s General Manager telling him that Band-aid had also introduced a waterproof and breathable plaster. Although Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise was supplying the plasters to most pharmacies, their sales were not very good.

Feng Yu told him to remain calm. Waterproof and breathable were only one of the features. The real selling point of their plasters were still cartoon prints. It was tough for Band-aid to imitate that.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin. If the plasters were only sold in the pharmacies, children would not be able to buy it. Their parents will also not go to the pharmacies often. The best place to sell his plasters should be those small stores!

Feng Yu remembered that in his past life, those small stores were also selling plasters. Plasters were the same as bandages. The small stores were allowed to sell them, and some stores even had promotions on the plasters.

Then why can’t Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s plasters could not be sold in these small stores? It can use the same strategy as Lehaha. It can be sold at the small stores near to the schools and capture the small children segment fast.

Feng Yu told the General Manager of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise about this strategy. General Manager hesitated. Those small stores were selling household items and food. How can they sell these medical products?

The General Manager had seen Lehaha drinks being sold at the small stores nearby the schools. But Lehaha was selling drinks, and they were selling medical plasters. How can it be the same?

But when the General Manager thought about Feng Yu’s miraculous way of selling the medical health supplement products, he chose to believe him.

Feng Yu was like the god of sales and marketing to the general manager. Also, Feng Yu was one of the directors of the company, and he will not do anything to hurt the company.

Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise currently had lots of salespeople who were the former state-owned employees. Some of them were good at talking and had achieved excellent results. Some could not stand making sales and resigned. The city government reassigned them new jobs.

Those remained were good at sales. Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s General Manager was confident that they could persuade people to know that Band-aid was only a brand of plaster and not the only plaster brand in the market.

Feng Yu had mentioned that once they had changed the mindset of the people, Band-aid company will not be able to monopolize the market anymore. It will only a matter of time when they were overtaken. When Feng Yu said that Bing City Pharmaceutical Company will be China’s top pharmaceutical company in China, no one believed him. But now, Bing City Pharmaceutical Company’s sales and profits had risen from 30th position to the second position. It was only slightly behinds Shanghai Pharmaceutical Company. This year, they should be able to overtake and clinched the top place.

Shanghai Pharmaceutical Company was also one of the shareholders of Band-aid. If Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise could beat Band-aid, then it will surely be China’s number one!

Feng Yu had also said that the total sales volume of these plasters could reach over 100 million pieces annually. If Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise could capture 30% of the market share, and there was a profit of 30 cents per piece, the profits will be almost 10 million RMB!

For this 10 million RMB, we will fight to our death with Band-aid!

Chapter 602 – Exclusive Supplier

Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise had organized promotions near the schools in many areas, and Band-aid Company’s management was laughing their asses off.

What do you think you are selling? Stationary? Toys? Food? These were plasters! No one in their right mind would do promotions for plasters!

The promotional price of the regular waterproof and breathable plasters was cheap and selling for 80 cents per piece and 5 in a pack. The cartoon prints plasters were slightly more expensive, and the promotional price was 1.20 RMB per piece, and it was also sold bundles of 5.

When Band-aid’s management knew that Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s promotions were a success, they laughed harder. How much money can these plasters make? The most expensive was only 1.20 RMB. How many must it sell to cover the cost of wages and transportation?

These promotions were making losses for the company!

Who would buy medical products along the streets? Who would purchase medical plasters from the roads? Those people that need these stuff will go to the hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies.

Even if the promotions attracted lots of customers, Band-aid was also not worried. They had never heard of anyone doing sales promotions for medical products along the streets and will still sell well!

Band-aid still does not know that Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise staffs had tabulated the total sales for their promotions. In the past 3 days, the roadside promotions had attracted a large crowd and had successfully introduced Bing City Pharmacy Plasters to them.

The most popular plasters were the cartoon prints plasters. Many children pestered their parents to buy those printed plasters for them.

When children were at schools, they often play roughly with their friends and will usually get cuts or bruises. Getting some plasters on standby at home will be good. This was the advertising message by Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise.

Although the cartoon print plasters were more expensive than the normal ones, it was still within the acceptable range of the parents. Most importantly, their children will not think that plasters were ugly and do not want to put it on.

Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise had sold more than 1 million pieces over the past 3 days. Although the salaries for the staffs were not cheap, the profits from the plasters were enough to cover all the cost. Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise had not made any profits from the promotions, but it did not suffer any losses either. They were able to introduce their products to the consumers and let them remember their brand.

In the future, when families were to buy plasters, they will not only remember Band-aid. Some of the families will also consider buying Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise plasters.

During this period, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s employees had contacted some distributors. They were the distributors who supply goods to the small stores.

When the distributors met the salespeople from Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, they were shocked. We are the distributors supplying goods for those small stores. Why is a pharmaceutical company looking for us? Shouldn’t you be contacting those pharmaceutical sales companies?

But when they know that Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise wants to sell their plasters in the small stores, all the distributors were excited. The small stores were allowed to sell plasters? They were allowed to distribute these plasters?

All the distributors did not receive any information whether they were allowed to sell this product in the small stores. But there was also no written rule that they were not allowed to sell. Most of the people knew that plasters were not medicines. It is a small bandage use in emergencies.

Since the plasters were used for emergencies, then it should be sold at the most popular retail stores. There were not many pharmacies in China during this era unlike the future years, where there was a pharmacy at every corner. When people want to buy plasters, they had to go to the hospital, clinics or pharmacies.

Some villages, people had to travel to the town hospital. Not every village had a clinic. But every village will have a small store! It would be convenient for people to buy this product if it was sold in the stores.

Since this was considered a loophole in the regulations, these distributors will not miss this opportunity to earn money. But the distributors had to sign an exclusive contract with Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. They do not mind signing this contract as the company had allowed them to return all the goods if the higher-ups forbid them the small stores from selling plasters. If the distributors were fined, the company would help them to pay the fines.

All these were stated in the contract clearly. The distributors immediately agree and signed the contracts. According to the agreement, all their retailers must put up a promotional poster at their stores.

Feng Yu was also not idling during this period. He was going through his contacts. He wanted to get a large order for his plasters!

……

General Gan, I am Feng Yu from Bing City Machinery Company. Are you free today? I need to discuss something with you.” Feng Yu called General Gan. He was the person in charge of procurement in the army. He should have some say for the purchase in medically related supplies.

“Oh, it’s Manager Feng? Are you thinking of treating me to dinner?” General Gan joked.

“Dinner is not a big deal. But what I wanted to discuss with you is very important. Are you fine with Quanjude? I will reserve a table this evening, and we can talk during dinner.”

“Fine, I will go over after work.” General Gan was looking forward to Quanjude. The army officers in this era were not earning a lot. Although the military had been spending a lot on weapons, with the Chief Architect around, who dares to receive kickbacks? Even though he was a General, he could not get reimbursement if he dines at Quanjude.

……

“What did you say? You want our army to use your Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise products exclusively?” General Gan felt this meal was not simple.

“That’s right. Our Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s medicines are comprehensive and are reputable. It is also cheap and effective. We have lots of experts working with us, and we are also working with overseas pharmaceutical companies. We are currently one of the top pharmaceutical company in China. If the military works with us, you will be able to get the medicines at a cheaper rate. This will save money for the military.”

General Gan shook his head: “Manager Feng, let’s stop the discussion now. I can’t help you with this. If you are talking about Songjiang Motors vehicles, we have plans for procurement next year, and I can promise you that we will order from you. But you are an automobile manufacturer, why are you investing in pharmaceutical companies?”

Feng Yu was disappointed. It seems that General Gan was not able to help him. But he will not give up.

“Then what about other products, or one particular product? Plaster? Currently, in the market, only Band-aid and Bing City Pharmacy brands are the better ones. The military should not feel comfortable if they were to order from the other small factories, right? Also, Band-aid is a joint ventured product. It would be better to let our fellow Chinese to earn this money rather than those foreigners. If you can allow us to advertise we are the sole provider of plaster to the Chinese army, I don’t mind supplying the plaster for free.” Feng Yu said.

“You wish! Don’t mention the vehicles. You still want the army to advertise for your plasters? No way. But it’s still possible for us to use your plasters on the condition that your plasters must be cheap.”

“Waterproof and breathable plaster cost 30 cents per piece, and it is 5 to a pack. The wholesale price is 1.5 RMB, and the retail price is 4.80 RMB. We are not getting any profits if we are selling at this price.”

“No profits? Then why are you still selling?” General Gan does not believe that there were no profits.

“We are selling so cheap because you are the army. This is also considered supporting the Chinese army. This is considered a good thing for you all.” Feng Yu said. Although the waterproof and breathable plaster had a higher cost, if it was produced on a large scale, the cost could be lowered to less than 20 cents. The company could still get some profits if they sell to the military.

“This…… Fine. I will ask for you. If your Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s plasters are cheaper and effective, then it should not be a problem.”

“Thank you. Let’s have a toast!” Feng Yu raised his half-filled glass of beer and knocked General Gan’s full mug. He drowned his beer. Feng Yu had toasted General Gan 4 times with the same mug!

Chapter 603 – Medical Plaster strategy

The exclusive supplier agreement with the military was quickly signed. General Gan still had some say in the procurement of medical supplies. Furthermore, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s rates were much lower than Band-aid.

But Feng Yu was still not satisfied. With this alone, it was not sufficient to beat Band-aid.

In his previous life, it was 5 years after Yunnan Baiyao introduces their healing plasters before Band-aid was beaten.

That means 2 years after Band-aid entered the Chinese market, the brand’s presence had grown tremendously and held the majority of the market share for the next 10 years.

During this period, there were lots of medical plaster companies. But none of them could compete with Band-aid. If it was not because of the Government’s help, Yunnan Baiyao might take more than 5 years to beat Band-aid.

Even after Yunnan Baiyao had won Band-aid in terms of sales, but market research was conducted. Band-aid was still the number one brand of plasters, and Yunnan Baiyao was second.

Of course, it was because, in Feng Yu’s previous life, Band-aid had monopolized the market for more than 10 years. It was difficult for other companies to overtake them.

Feng Yu was full of respect for Yunnan Baiyao. They had successfully overtaken Band-aid in terms of sales volume!

Feng Yu does not have the patience to wait for 5 years. His target was 2 years. In 2 years, he wants to overtake Band-aid in terms of sales volume, profits, branding, and other areas. He was to step all over Band-aid.

This will affect Johnson and Johnson from controlling the Chinese market.

In Feng Yu’s past life, just before he came back to this life, the top few pharmaceutical companies were mainly owned by foreign companies or joint ventures with international companies. Those truly Chinese Pharmaceutical companies were way behind them.

The pharmaceutical industry was an important industry. It was quite sad to see foreign companies controlling the industry in China.

This life, Feng Yu does not want to see this happen again. China does have excellent researchers, but they do not have enough sponsors for their research. They do not have enough funds to promote their findings. Many of the top drugs in the world were developed by Chinese scientists and teams of researchers with Chinese scientists in the team.

Research usually is conducted by a team lead by a Professor and assisted by his students. The research students might contribute most of the work, but in the end, who gets the most credit?

The Professor!

This was because most of the people will think that the team had the findings and results due to the Professor’s leadership. But, this was not the truth.

Feng Yu was now supporting lots of researchers. A lot of them were capable and could develop affordable and effective medicines. This was what Feng Yu wants from them. In return, Feng Yu will provide them with funding and reputation.

You had contributed to developing medicine, and you should get the credit. This was a trade. Feng Yu paid them and gets to reap the rewards from their research. The researchers will get fame and funds to do more projects.

For instance, the Yunnan Baiyao formula which Feng Yu remembered. The researchers from Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise found that the formula was not accurate, and it was not as effective as the real Yunnan Baiyao. But after the researchers at from Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, Professors from Beijing University, Medical Universities, and many other agencies came together to research and amend the formula, the final product was not too far behind from the real Yunnan Baiyao.

These people might even develop better medicines and stands a high chance of developing the Spray medication earlier than Yunnan Baiyao

One of the main reasons for this was Feng Yu. He had asked Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise to increase their R&D spending.

Feng Yu had made it clear with the top management of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. The company could achieve high profits last year was because the medicine they produced were of good quality and effective. To achieve higher profits, the company must have an exclusive medical product.

For example, the top few Pharmaceutical companies in the world had become successful because they own the patent of at least a type of drug. None of them had relied on low-cost medicines and advertisements to get to where they were now.

Look at Band-aid. Why was this brand of medical plaster the world’s top-selling plaster and had achieved the highest profits? It was because they were the inventors of medical plasters. It was the oldest brand, and when people think of plasters, Band-aid was the first brand that comes to their mind. In fact, the brand Band-aid had replaced the words medical plasters for a lot of consumers!

If Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise wants to win Band-aid, just waterproof and breathable plasters were not enough. These features were only good enough to win those smaller brands.

Shortly after Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise had introduced waterproof and breathable plasters, Band-aid also introduced similar plasters. Band-aid had this product all along, and it was successful overseas. They did not introduce this product in China was because they feel there wasn’t a need. With their old products, they had already monopolized the Chinese market.

Band-aid was just like Sony and another electronics giant. When they introduce a new product, it was not because their technologies were good enough. They introduced it to show that their technology was the best in the industry. If their technology were still ahead of their competitors, they would not introduce their latest technology, unless it will lower their cost.

Most MNCs will introduce a new technology once in a while to maintain their lead in their industry and increase the influence and value of their brand.

Currently, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise only has the cartoon prints plasters that’s different from Band-aid. This product was their main focus now. Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise had ordered not only one series of cartoon designs from Liu Michael. They had ordered several series of designs like the cartoon series <Calabash Brothers> and <Black Cat Detective>.

The copyrights of these cartoon series were cheap. If they could not get the copyrights, then they will develop their own characters from novels like <Water Margin> or <Romance of the 3 Kingdoms>. There were many characters in these novels, and it reflects on the Chinese culture.

These were little tricks, and it was not enough to win Band-aid. The only way to win was to develop a plaster that will speed up the healing of the wound, which was the main reason why Yunnan Baiyao overtook Band-aid in Feng Yu’s previous life.

However, this product could not be developed in one or two days. Feng Yu could still afford to wait, but he was only willing to wait for one year. He set a one-year deadline to his researchers to develop this product.

This year, Feng Yu had made use of his connections to be the exclusive supplier of bandages to the General Administration of Sport of China and the army. The advertisements on the mainstream media were only some marketing tactics. Band-aid could also do the same.

But because of all these marketing strategies, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise could not get any profits from their plasters. The company had spent a lot on the marketing cost, and the plasters were selling too cheaply.

Feng Yu’s biggest worry was to win the sales volume and revenue but lose out on the profits and branding.

Now, it was just to control the market share and increase brand awareness. The real battle had to wait until the medical plaster was developed.

Chapter 604 – Partnership with Quanjude (Part 1 of 2)

Band-aid noticed that their market share was declining. Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise was quite aggressive in their marketing efforts. Not only they were advertising everywhere, but they were also trying to damage their branding. The concept of Band-aid = Plasters which they built over the years was shredded to pieces.

But luckily for Band-aid, their brand’s influences were not easily removed from the consumers’ minds. They do not even need to do market research to know that their plasters were still the first choice of consumers.

But little do they know that the village market segment which they had been trying to develop was taken over by Bing City Pharmaceutical secretly. They had lost their advantage of controlling this market segment.

Even the roadside promotions which the management of Band-aid thought it was a joke, had caused their sales to decline. But the management of Band-aid firmly believes that Bing City Pharmaceutical could not do these promotions forever and will never be a threat to them.

This period, Feng Yu did not plan new marketing activities for Bing City Pharmaceutical. The current strategy was the best he could come up with. Feng Yu was now in Beijing speaking to the Beijing City Government leaders about his partnership with Quanjude.

The Fu Family was very efficient. Within a short time, they had bought over popular restaurants in many countries and cities, like Singapore, Malaysia, Macau, Hong Kong, New York, Sichuan, Hangzhou, Jinlin, etc.

The restaurants they bought had good reputations, and each of them had their own specialties. They were also located in good locations.

With all these reputable restaurants forming a partnership with Quanjude was what the Beijing City Government wanted. They do not wish to see those restaurants affecting Quanjude’s reputation.

But there was a problem. After those restaurants combined and formed a company, the company was worth much higher than Quanjude!

If they were to form a partnership, then Quanjude will become a small shareholder. Feng Yu wanted this partnership to create a restaurant chain and make use of Quanjude’s brand and roast ducks to expand and increase the profits.

But Feng Yu will never give up the controlling shares of the company!

The Beijing City Government allowed Quanjude to be a shareholding and let individuals invest in it. The individuals even include funds from Hong Kong. But this was on a condition that the government still holds the majority of shares and had the full control of the company. They do not want others to have control over Quanjude.

Even if the government held the majority of the shares, but if the other shareholders combined their shares, they would take full control of the company. Quanjude will be fully privatized!

“Mayor Liu, we had agreed on the terms and had signed the letter of intent. It is not stated that if my restaurant’s overall value is higher than Quanjude, this deal will not go through. This was what you all wanted, and we tried our best to increase our scale to better increase Quanjude’s brand. We had done it, and now you are blaming us for that? Isn’t this unreasonable?” Feng Yu was pissed.

Of course, the Fu family did not intend to buy the restaurants in China at first. Feng Yu was the one who suggested it. Feng Yu just want their restaurant enterprise’s value to be much higher than Quanjude.

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng both knew that on paper, their restaurants’ total value was much higher than Quanjude. But if Quanjude includes their brand value, they will still be higher.

However, Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng will not let the Beijing City Government knows about this. This Deputy Mayor Liu was not Zhang Ruiqiang. Feng Yu will not give up the opportunity to take advantage of him.

“That’s what we said, and it was stated in the agreement. But your restaurants’ value should not be so much higher than us. If we still want the controlling stake, we will have to invest an additional 100 million RMB? If we had the money, why should we work for you? We can expand ourselves.” Deputy Mayor Liu frowned and said.

2 F&B companies had approached Quanjude before. One of them was a Sichuan company, and it was a shareholdings company where the state owned the majority of the shares. The other company was a partnership company, and it was a private enterprise.

These two companies were quite influential. But compared to Feng Yu and the Fu Family, it was still considered small. Even if both companies combined, the total value still cannot be compared. After all, the restaurants bought by the Fu Family were valued much higher than China’s restaurants. Also, because of Feng Yu’s instructions to acquire the restaurants fast, the Fu Family paid a premium price for those restaurants.

Feng Yu had expected this. If he was major shareholder of Quanjude and someone wants to buy the controlling shares, he will also not agree to it.

Feng Yu had discussed with Fu Guangzheng on how to get Beijing City Government to agree to their partnership. Their solution was to expand the scale further and increase the number of shareholders. Also, they had to show their support for the City Government and let them hold the position of Chairman.

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng do not have experience in managing F&B companies. They only want to make money. So, as investors, they only need to attend the shareholders’ meetings and sit back and collect the profits.

Of course, Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng will not be stupid to give up all their shareholders’ rights. If the City government let an idiot to lead the company, they must have the right to veto.

“Mayor Liu, I think this issue is easily solved. I heard that when we approached the Quanjude company, two other companies were interested in investing in Quanjude. Why not we rope them in for this partnership?”

“Let them invest too? We have almost 20 restaurants, and if we let them in, it will be almost 40 restaurants. Will the scale be too big?” Deputy Mayor Liu was worried that it will not be easy to manage, and they do not have so many roast duck chefs. If this fails, it will be a disaster for Quanjude.

“Mayor Liu, we are only forming a partnership to increase the brand reputation of Quanjude. All of the restaurants involved were profit-making before this venture. After the partnership, Quanjude and Beijing City Government will have no losses. Also, after this partnership is formed, both of us will support the person assigned by the Beijing City Government to be the chairman of the board!”

Fu Guangzheng also expressed that he was on the same page as Feng Yu.

Mayor Liu was quiet. If the City Government could be the Chairman, then they will have control over the company’s strategy and directions. Also, after this partnership, Quanjude will become China’s biggest restaurant chain, and the headquarters was in Beijing. The annual tax revenue will be a large sum.

But at the same time, Mayor Liu was worried. Beijing City Government will own lesser shares. Feng Yu still suggest giving the restaurant managers and the top management of Quanjude some shares as a reward. This was a hard decision to make.

“Mayor Liu, after this partnership, Quanjude Company’s value will not only be the highest in China. It will be the highest in Asia! You are the one who brings about this Asia number 1 restaurant enterprise. Also, the headquarters of this large company is in Beijing. Have you ever thought of this?” Fu Guangzheng suddenly said.

Asia number 1?

Deputy Mayor Liu was attracted by this……. Agree or disagree?

Chapter 605 – Partnership with Quanjude (Part 2 of 2)

On the one hand, it was the responsibility towards Quanjude, the other was a great political credit. Deputy Mayor Liu was in a dilemma. If the partnership was a success under him and Quanjude becomes Asia’s number one F&B company, he will gain significant benefits.

He was now the Deputy Mayor. Although it was impossible for him to replace the Mayor, he might be promoted and deployed to some province to the be governor there. Or, he might be promoted to be the City’s Deputy Party Secretary. No matter what, he will definitely be promoted if this partnership goes through.

Which government employee does not want to be promoted? Every Civil servant, especial those officers had a blueprint in their heart. All of them wants to higher authority and power.

But it was not easy to be promoted. The country’s economy was now doing well, and if one does now have economic results, it was hard to be promoted. But if one made a significant contribution to the economy, he was sure to be promoted!

Feng Yu does not like corrupted officials who were hungry for money. But towards the officials who were desperate for promotions, he was fine. If an official does not want to be promoted, does not want to do their work and just want to read newspapers in their office, they were worse than those corrupted officials.

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng decided to entice Deputy Mayor Liu with this political credit.

“Mayor Liu, we are thinking of bringing Quanjude out of China. We want to bring Chinese cuisine to every part of the world and earn those foreigners’ money. Once the partnership is formed, it can be done immediately.” Fu Guangzheng continued.

“But there are so many companies in this partnership and so many restaurants. Quanjude will suddenly become tens of restaurants. We will not have enough roast duck chefs.” Deputy Mayor Liu said.

Feng Yu smiled: “Mayor Liu, Bianyifang is also one of the City’s enterprise? There are lots of chefs there. If Quanjude could train them, they could master the skills within a month. Beijing also has lots of other roast duck restaurants. We can poach their chefs and roast ducks for Quanjude.”

“How can you do that?” Quanjude roast ducks are different from the rest of the restaurants!” Deputy Mayor Liu replied firmly.

“Mayor Liu, people from different regions have different taste buds. Some places preferred sweet and some preferred spicy. Since region have different taste, what’s wrong if the taste of our ducks differs in different areas? We just need to make sure our ducks taste good, and the customers like it.”

“But will the customers feel that we are cheating them?”

“Of course not!”

In Feng Yu previous life, the ducks served in Quanjude’s restaurant in the US was slightly different from Beijing. But the restaurant was still popular among the locals. It was just like Sichuan cuisine sold in Zhejiang. It was not as spicy as the original.

No matter how excellent Chinese cuisine was, the recipe will be changed to suit the local consumers. The US Chinese restaurant bought by Fu Guangzheng was the same too. He told Feng Yu that the food served in the restaurant cannot even be considered Chinese cuisine, but it was still very popular in New York.

Deputy Mayor Liu was hesitating. But he really wanted to be promoted.

He reported this to the Mayor, and when the Mayor questions him, he used what Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng said to reply to him.

In the end, this partnership was approved after a meeting. But there was a condition. The Chairman of the new Quanjude must be someone from the City Government!

The City had wanted to let a “senior and experienced” to be the Chairman and General Manager of the company, but Feng Yu rejected.

It is either you be the Chairman or the General Manager. You can’t be holding on to both positions!

Feng Yu wanted Jiang Xianjun to be in power. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Jiang Xianjun had managed Quanjude and its brand well.

Also, Jiang Xianjun was open to new ideas and had his own unique style of managing the company. Feng Yu will feel assure if Jiang Xianjun was leading the company. Jiang Xianjun’s reputation in the company was outstanding. He was close to everyone and does not have airs.

Fu Guangzheng also feels the same way after chatting with Jiang Xianjun. That old man was too conservative. If he becomes the Chairman and General Manager, he will slow down the company’s developments.

Jiang Xianjun had also contributed in forming this partnership, and Feng Yu wanted to reward him with some shares. The position of Chairman can be given away to the City Government, but Jiang Xianjun must be the General Manager.

Feng Yu was very firm in his demands. So, Deputy Mayor Liu went to speak to Jiang Xianjun. He wants to find out why Jiang Xianjun, as a state-owned enterprise’s employee, sided with Feng Yu.

Deputy Mayor Liu found out from Jiang Xianjun that Feng Yu had promised him the position of General Manager and if he quit his position in the State-owned enterprise, he will give him shares of the company. Jiang Xianjun also feels that Feng Yu was a man of his words.

He told Deputy Mayor what he was thinking and said to him that even if he resigned from the State-owned enterprise, he will still be loyal to the Party and will still someone from Beijing. He will never forget the guidance given to him by the City Government. He will protect and manage Quanjude well.

Jiang Xianjun also told Deputy Mayor Liu about his plans for Quanjude, and he proved himself to be better than that old leader to manage Quanjude!

……

Deputy Mayor Liu contacted the other 2 F&B companies. The F&B companies had thought that they had no more chance to form an invest in Quanjude. They never expect the City Government to contact them.

Quanjude’s condition was reasonable. After Quanjude Group was formed, the headquarters will be Beijing, and the City Government will assign the Group’s Chairman. The rest of the positions will be decided by all the shareholders.

When the companies knew that a Hong Kong Company will be investing in this venture and will be speeding up the group’s expansion, they agreed. Anyway, they can also be the Deputy Chairman. They will also have some say in the company and will earn more money after the group was formed.

Now, everybody was on the same page, and the rest of the details were quickly finalized.

4 parties came together to form Quanjude Group. Beijing City Government, Sichuan City Government, Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng, the group of businessmen from Zhejiang, the group of businessmen from Sichuan and Jiang Xianjun became the company’s shareholders. Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng, Jiang Xianjun, and a few others formed the board of directors, and the old man from Beijing City Government became the first Chairman of the Group, and Jiang Xianjun was the General Manager.

Quanjude Group total value was now 1.72 billion RMB. Beijing City Government owns 16.3%, Feng Yu owns, 15.8%, Fu Guangzheng owns 10%, Sichuan Government owns 8.2%…… Jiang Xianjun was given 0.8%, and the rest of the restaurant manager were given 0.05% each. Feng Yu was the most significant individual shareholder, and the Beijing City Government was the next key shareholder.

Beijing City Government was relieved to know that no two shareholders can combine to have the controlling share of the company. They believed that Quanjude will never be fully privatized!

Thus, Quanjude Group started its operations, and one month later, all of Quanjude restaurants started selling their specialty roast ducks. The specialty dishes from each restaurant were also available in other restaurants. A powerful restaurant chain was formed…….

Chapter 606 – China’s food chart

Feng Yu was excited to successfully invest in Quanjude. He knows that even if he does nothing, the Quanjude Group will bring in high returns from his investment.

In another 3 to 5 years, Quanjude Group could be listed, and his returns will be higher.

Of course, Feng Yu will not sit by the side and not do anything. Since he had become a shareholder, he must help Quanjude Group grow and increase the brand influences.

The easiest way to achieve this was to let everyone know that Quanjude has the top chefs and the best roast ducks!

Feng Yu’s method was straightforward. He creates food columns in newspapers and radio stations to promote Quanjude’s restaurants as the best restaurants in China!

In Feng Yu’s past life, there were many food segments on the radio. When you are not sure what to eat, you can call the radio station to ask for a recommendation. The broadcaster will provide recommendations.

You want to treat your customers and not sure which restaurant to go to? Go to Quanjude’s restaurant. The National Banquet was held there. This will show your respect for your clients.

You want to have a family gathering and not sure which restaurant to go to? Go to Quanjude’s restaurant. It serves the best roast ducks in China. There are also many other dishes available. It is great for family dinners.

You want to meet up with your friends and not which restaurant to go to? Quanjude……..

The purpose of this radio program was to recommend people to Quanjude’s restaurants. Of course, if you tell the broadcaster that you only have 30 RMB, they will not recommend Quanjude. They will ask you to eat from the roadside stalls. But most likely, your call will not be aired.

To the listeners, it was a radio food recommendation program. But actually, it was Quanjude advertisements. As for the newspapers, it was Feng Yu’s specialty. Soft advertising. But this time, it was much more straightforward. Feng Yu created China’s top food chart!

The number one on China’s top food chart was Quanjude’s roast duck. What? You say you like the braised duck web with mushrooms, one of the dishes from Manchu Han Imperial Feast?

Oh sorry. Based on our polls, no one likes this dish!

Manchu Han Imperial Feast was China’s most prominent banquet. But not everyone knows about the dishes served in the banquet. In fact, most of the people do not know about the name of the dishes.

But Quanjude was different. It was the National Banquet and had served foreign delegates!

This restaurant was picked by China’s top leaders to host foreign delegates and all of them like it. How can this roast duck not be number one on the chart? Although this chart was not fair, no one could provide evidence that it was rigged!

So, newspapers all over China published this chart and the words ‘Number one’ were in bold and bigger fonts.

Whoever that read the papers will notice this article. Everyone will see the name Quanjude Roast Duck! When they read the article, they will realize that Quanjude roast ducks were number one on China’s top food chart.

Not many people could resist the temptation of good food. But in reality, there was not a lot of good food around. But with sufficient marketing, people will try to like that food.

For example, truffles. Many people do not like the smell of truffles. But when they heard that truffles were costly and delicious, they will want to try. Although after trying, many of them regretted and it was not as tasty as they imagined, but it was still enough to let some of these people like the taste.

Quanjude roast ducks were easier to market compared to truffles. Not many people in China do not eat ducks. Also, Quanjude was a 100 years old brand and was still the National Banquet restaurant.

Many people were still able to resist the temptation of Quanjude roast ducks in the past. After all, the restaurant was only located in Beijing. Not many people were willing to travel to Beijing for roast duck.

But now, it was different. Dozens of restaurants in many cities of China serves Quanjude roast ducks. Those that did not have the chance to taste the roast ducks could eat it in a city near to them now.

The restaurants under Quanjude Group were not cheap, but it was also not very expensive. Many people were still able to afford a meal there. In the current era, there was still no pricy wine. When people were giving treats, they will just choose a good restaurant and not some fanciful places that serve pricy wine.

In the past, people did not know which restaurant to go when they were treating their clients, friends, leaders, etc. for meals. But now, they know where to go. They would look for a restaurant that hangs the Quanjude sign outside.

They will be able to enjoy good food and at the same time will not lose face.

The face was an important part of Chinese culture. Since they were going to treat others, they must not let the other party feel unhappy before they even eat the food. The food quality at restaurants under Quanjude Group was very high. There will not be an instance of the host losing face.

You do not like to eat roast ducks? No problems. The restaurants do not only serve roast ducks. They also serve other specialty dishes. In the past, one restaurant only has one or two specialty dishes. But now, it was different. The chefs of the restaurants under the Group will share their recipes with each other, and the diners have more options.

Customers can also get to eat other provinces’ cuisine in Sichuan restaurant, But Sichuan cuisine was still the primary cuisine style in that restaurant. To be able to enjoy food from all over China in a restaurant could meet the needs of the customers.

These marketing methods were not only in China. It was also used in other countries like Hong Kong, Malaysia, etc. The local newspapers also published the same article on China’s food chart. But the readers do not know that the paper was paid to publish it.

Since ancient times, China had given the impression that the country has lots of good food. An average meal of the Emperor consists of over 100 dishes. Although in the present world, it was not possible. But when entertaining guests, Chinese surely pick the best.

Quanjude roast ducks were the best!

Especially in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, etc.  The people there were curious about Quanjude roast ducks. All of them knew that Mr. Deng loves to eat this restaurant’s roast ducks. They want to taste it themselves.

With the aggressive advertising on newspaper and radio stations, the trend of looking for good food started.

Rich people would be embarrassed to tell their friends that they had not tasted Quanjude’s roast ducks.

Quanjude Group made use of these marketing strategies to bring Quanjude brand to the next level. It might not be the most delicious food in China, but it is the most famous food.

All the restaurants under the group were racking in high profits. All the shareholders were laughing and waiting for this year’s dividends.

At this time, Feng Yu decided to return back to school at Hong Kong University. He still needs to increase his knowledge. He needs to be able to make better decisions during the 1997 financial crisis.

But before Feng Yu left for Hong Kong, he received a call. A call from someone he had been waiting for.

This person was the proud Li Dafu. He was the Chairman of Geely Automobile in Feng Yu’s former life. Feng Yu had tried to recruit him personally but was rejected.

Why was he calling now? Did he change his mind?

Chapter 607 – The frustrated Li Dafu

Feng Yu had wanted to recruit Li Dafu to manage Bing City’s Machinery Company automobile manufacturing division. But at that time, Li Dafu’s sheet metal and other businesses were doing well. He was not willing to give it up and work for Feng Yu.

But when Li Dafu saw the rise of Songjiang Motors, he was shocked. He did not expect Songjiang Motors to be so popular in China and was even exported to Eastern Europe!

Li Dafu also likes cars. He had dreamt of owning his own automobile empire. But currently, China already had several automobile manufacturers like FAW, SAIC, BAIC, GAC, Bing City Machinery Company and some others. Although the scale of these companies still could not be compared to overseas Automobile Companies, it was enough to meet China’s demand. He felt his chances of setting up an automobile company was slim.

Li Dafu had joined the Zhejiang trade union and had plans to gather a group of people there to set up a private automobile company. But the businessmen there do not think highly of his proposal. They felt it was impossible to succeed.

What a joke! You want to start off with manufacturing motorcycles, and when you are familiar with the manufacturing, you will venture into cars?

If this was 2 years early, motorcycles might be a profitable business. But in China now, 5 out of 10 people who want to buy bikes will choose Songjiang motorcycles.

Not only Songjiang motorcycles were beautifully designed, but the performance was also outstanding. The bike was also endorsed by top celebrities, and it was from a reputable brand. How can your company grow if you manufacture bikes? You want to follow those small factories and sell your bikes cheaply?

Even if you could make profits by doing this, how much can you earn? Also, a motorcycle factory might not be big, but it must still be on a particular scale. How many years will it takes for us to recover our investments? When will we see the profits?

Even if it was a success and profitable, will the profits be enough to set up an automobile company? None of us were familiar with this trade. You don’t tell me that a car is just 4 wheels with an engine fitted on it. Many automobile companies also had the same mindset. But the consumers were not buying the cars they manufactured.

In China, there were not only big automobile brands. Some small factories had tried to manufacture their own cars. If the local government did not protect them, they would not even be allowed to sell their vehicles.

These factories’ annual production was only a few hundred to one thousand. But the cars they manufactured were not safe, and the performance sucks!

Other than the locals, who else would buy their cars?

You say they can have better exterior designs? Do they have designers? Songjiang Motors was working with Shanghai most prominent designing firm. Those designers were all elites who had overseas experience. Which other automobile manufacturers in China can achieve that?

If you want to go by a low-cost strategy? Can you be cheaper than Jeep? Jeep and Xiali automobiles were cheap. But were they popular? If the military had not supported Jeep and the government did not purchase Xiali as taxis, do you think these two factories can survive until now?

Li Dafu’s dream of an automobile empire was shattered. None of his friends supported him. He tried getting a loan from banks, but no banks were willing to lend him sufficient funds.

Loans? Banks will also need to see his ability to repay the loans. The banks felt Li Dafu’s proposal was a joke. Why would the bank lend him so much money?

But Li Dafu did not want to give up. He does not lack money. His factory had more than 10 million in profits annually. The money he had could last him his whole life.

But when a man does not lack money, he will start to chase after his dreams. Li Dafu really wanted to drive a car he manufactured himself, and he remembered that Feng Yu had told him to call him if he changed his mind.

So, Li Dafu went to Zhong Qingxian and got Feng Yu’s contacts. He immediately calls Feng Yu.

“Manager Li, are you calling me to tell me that you had made up your mind to join Bing City Machinery Company?” Feng Yu joked.

“To be precise, I only want to join Bing City Machinery Company automobile division. I am not interested in agriculture machinery.” Li Dafu explained.

Feng Yu thought in his heart. We still have not recovered our capital for our automobile venture. The agriculture machinery which you look down upon was still bringing in high profits. The profits were even higher than motorcycles.

“Manager Li, I will be going over to Hangzhou to meet up with Zhong Qingxian soon. How about we have a face to face discussion when I am there?”

Li Mingde was getting older, and Bing City Machinery Company had grown a lot. He was no longer able to keep up with the operations. Although Feng Yu had asked him to groom a group of young executives, it will take at least 5 years for them to be able to assist him. Feng Yu does not dare to let these young graduates take on the role of managers so soon.

No matter how good the grades of these graduates were, they were still inexperienced in managing such a big company. Management was not something that could be learned in schools. It requires experiences.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Li Dafu had made implemented lots of good strategies and achieved excellent results. Feng Yu was very impressed with him. But he wondered if Li Dafu was still as impressive in this life. This was why Feng Yu wanted to meet with him and hear his views on Songjiang Motors’ future and operations.

……

Zhong Qingxian had planned to inspect his new factories in other provinces, but because Feng Yu was going to Hangzhou, he changed his plans. Lehaha was growing rapidly. The yogurt drinks, tea beverages were selling well, but Lehaha Children’s health supplement had reached a bottleneck. The sales had reached a point where it could not increase further.

After studying the market, Zhong Qingxian felt it was because the market was saturated and Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise had affected the sales. Many parents chose to buy Calcium gluconate for their children.

Lehaha Children’s health supplement sales had not increased, but Lehaha revenue was still growing. Their AD calcium milk might be overtaking Lebashi this year. In the tea beverages market, a new competitor appeared. The new competitor was Rising Sun Group.

But Zhong Qingxian did not think of Rising Sun Group as a threat to him. They were just imitators. How could they be stronger than Lehaha? If Rising Sun Group used plastic containers like Lehaha, they would be bankrupt any time.

Even when Rising Sun Group used cans for their drinks, their sales could not affect Lehaha at all. In fact, they were assisting Lehaha to promote tea beverages. This was also one of the reasons why Lehaha did not engage them in a price war to bankrupt them.

This was only a small factory with an investment of only tens of millions. How could they snatch the market share from Lehaha? Rising Sun Group only had a few millions RMB of liquid cash. Lehaha’s investments in this year’s new factory alone were much more than them.

Zhong Qingxian told Feng Yu about his plans for the company, but Feng Yu does not seem interested. It was not because Feng Yu was not interested. He was worried that if Rising Sun Group did not grow like his previous life, will the future be changed?

Chapter 608 – To be the market leader (Part 1 of 2)

Screw it. Even if history was changed and Feng Yu could no longer predict the future, with his wealth now, he could still do whatever he wants. Furthermore, Russia had developed quickly, but it did not affect international affairs. Feng Yu decided to ignore all these and let nature takes its course.

“Manager Feng, Manager Feng? You do not agree with my plans for the company?” Zhong Qingxian felt that his plans were well thought out, but why Feng Yu did not have any reactions?

“Oh, sorry. I was thinking about other things. You said that you want to expand the dairy and tea beverages products, and lower the production of Children’s health supplement drinks?”

Zhong Qingxian nodded. Although he was curious why Feng Yu was in a daze just now, he did not ask him.

“You can decide on these matters. I will agree with you. But the Rising Sun Group had introduced canned tea beverages. Will Lehaha also do the same?”

“Of course. But canned drinks are not as popular as plastic bottled drinks. Bottled drinks can still be kept if the customer could not finish the drinks and does not need to afraid of it spilling. If it’s canned drinks, once opened, it had to be finished. Furthermore, our tea beverages are not carbonated. Their canned drinks should be copying our tea beverages and Jianlibao. But I feel that they would not do well.”

Zhong Qingxian had belittled the Rising Sun Group, and Feng Yu does not like it. If the Raising Sun Group could develop, Lehaha will not be able to beat them easily. But luckily Zhong Qingxian had been monitoring them closely. There should still be enough time for him to deal with the Rising Sun Group if they were developing rapidly.

“Have you considered the fruit and carbonated beverages I told you previously?” Feng Yu asked.

“My men had conducted market research on this. The carbonated drinks market is matured. If we were to introduce our Lehaha brand of carbonated drinks, our sales should still do well. Although the fruit juice beverage market still has room for growth, other companies had introduced such beverages before. Other than coconut juice, no other juices had done well.”

Coconut Tree brand of coconut water was one of the legendary beverages in Feng Yu’s previous life. It was a canning factory converted into a beverage company. Feng Yu had forgotten about them. But now, this company was already developed. Natural coconut water. It was even served at the National Banquet last year. The company also own several patents.

Feng Yu had asked Zhong Qingxian to go and speak to them. He wants to buy over or invest in the company before it grew too big.

But the leaders at Hainan firmly rejected them. Coconut Tree brand of coconut water was already exported to several countries in Asia. They will be targeting the European market this year. This company was profitable and would bring credits to the leaders there. They will never allow anyone to own a stake of the company.

You offered such a high price for a stake in our company? That means you are confident of our coconut water. If not, why are you willing to pay such high prices?

Since Lehaha could not buy over the company or own a stake in it, Feng Yu decided to stop this company from developing new products. He wants to make sure that this company could only sell canned coconut water and nothing else. Lehaha will introduce all the other products produced by this company in Feng Yu’s previous life before them. The products include different types of fruit juices, Eight-treasure porridge, etc.

Eight-treasure porridge was one of Lehaha popular products in Feng Yu’s previous life. Eight-treasure porridge was not easily produced. Although many people know the recipe, it was not easy to make them delicious in canned form.

Zhong Qingxian and his men had conducted experiments on this Eight-treasure porridge and felt that it can be done. But they still need to improve the taste and storage life. They should concentrate on developing their beverages first.

Feng Yu did not object to this. But Feng Yu was worried that if Lehaha did not enter the carbonated beverage market soon, the market would be taken over by Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Pepsi and Coca-Cola sales in China had been increasing.

Feng Yu remembered that in his previous life, there was a famous carbonated beverage called Fen Huang Coke, also known as ‘China’s own Coke.’ When it was introduced, it focuses its sales in the villages around the cities. It was very effective and was very profitable at the start.

But after Coca-Cola and Pepsi joined hands to lower the price of coke, increase the volume of their bottles and getting top celebrities to endorse their products, Fen Huang Coke disappeared from the market.

The strategies used by Coca-Cola and Pepsi were straightforward. They only need to spend tons of money!

No matter if it was a price war, increasing the volume of their bottles or celebrity’s endorsement, the companies need to spend a lot of money. There was no way for Fen Huang Coke to compete with these two MNC.

Lehaha could also afford to use this strategy. The current Lehaha’s worth was much higher than Feng Huang Coke at their peak. If it were a price war, Lehaha would not be worried. In fact, Lehaha could start a price war anytime. Lehaha had better distribution channels, and their labor and transportation cost were much lower than the two coke companies.

If a price war was really started by those two companies and those two companies dare to sell their products below their cost, Feng Yu will sue them for trying to monopolize the market. This was China, Lehaha’s home ground. There was no way for Lehaha to lose the suit.

The first carbonated drink Zhong Qingxian wants to introduce was coke. In the past, Pepsi could succeed against Coca-Cola. Although it was partly due to the Anti-trust laws, Pepsi had grown to be a successful company.

If Pepsi was possible, then there was no reason for Lehaha to fail. Lehaha had asked his R&D department to look into the Pepsi formula. Zhong Qingxian does not need his coke to taste the same as Pepsi, but it must be as tasty as them.

Anyway, the patent protection for Coke was over. But no one knew what their formula was. However, all their ingredients were written on the labels. What was unknown was the proportion of the ingredients.

“Other than coke, have you considered others? For example, other fruits flavor carbonated drinks, like apples or grapes? I remembered that the most popular drink in China was orange juice.”

Feng Yu felt that people will not remember Lehaha carbonated drinks if they only introduce Coke favored. People will also think that they were trying to copy those two companies. Lehaha should introduce a carbonated beverage which Pepsi and Coca-Cola did not introduce in China. This will allow Lehaha to gain market share faster.

“Fruit-flavored carbonated water? Like those soft drinks sold by those small factories?” Zhong Qingxian was hesitating. Almost every provinces and city have their own factories selling this type of soft drinks.

“They are producing soft drinks. What we produce will not be called soft drinks. We can call it cool refreshing water. Don’t forget that we are the top Chinese beverage brand in China. Even if it is a bottle of water, the value will be different if Lehaha is printed on it!” Feng Yu smiled.

It was the same as Chinese Gooseberry. Those that were imported from other countries were called Kiwi fruit. Basically, both were the same. The carbonated drinks sold by those small factories were called soft drinks. But it’s different if it was produced by Lehaha!

Zhong Qingxian nodded. “Manager Feng, are you asking me to introduce this drink with our coke before 1st May, the summer season?” This drink was named Cool Refreshing. It was most suitable to drink in the hot summer.

“That’s what I am thinking. You all can sort out the rest of the details. I feel that fruit juice is a good option for us to explore. Also, our AD milk. Why can’t we introduce bigger bottles like the other drinks? We can introduce a wide variety of beverages. You can get your men to research on this. Our target is to become China’s beverage market leader within the next 5 years!”

Chapter 609 – To be the market leader (Part 2 of 2)

Feng Yu’s goal seems to be set too high, but this goal was not too far for Lehaha. The current market leader in China’s beverage market was still Jianlibao. Lehaha had already overtaken other competitors like Coconut Tree, Lebashi, etc.

As for the overseas brands like Coca-Cola. Etc. was still not very popular in China. Although they were still making profits, their earnings were not very high. Their brands were also not very well known. The overseas companies did not try to increase their brand awareness in China as they felt the Chinese could not afford to drink soft drinks every day.

The other Chinese beverage juggernauts, like Jiaduobao (JDB Group) and Fen Huang from Feng Yu’s previous life still had not appeared. The Rising Sun group were only popular in their own province. Huiyuan does have some progress, but they were only focusing on the Shangdong and Jingjinji regions. Their sales were far from Lehaha.

If Lehaha suppressed Jianlibao, they would be the market leaders. But Lehaha, even when they added in their Children’s supplement sales, they were still far from Jianlibao. It was also because of Jianlibao that Coca-Cola and Pepsi could not expand its market share in China. When it comes to carbonated drinks, the Chinese top pick was still Jianlibao.

Last year, Jianlibao had set up a soccer youth team and sent them to Brazil for training. They wanted to groom the next generation of top soccer players. But many of the players had entered the team because of their connections. This was why only a few of the players from the team became top players. This grooming of the next generation’s top players was a joke.

This year, Jianlibao had become the leading beverage sponsor of the Asian Games. In the next 4 to 5 years, their sales will increase further and will hold on to the position of market leader firmly. The annual sales of Jianlibao now had crossed the 1 billion RMB mark, and it was still growing.

But Feng Yu remembered that Jianlibao will start to decline after 1998. There were several reasons for this. First, it was the appearance of many types of beverages in the market. There were aggressive marketing, and the newcomers were trying to get as much market share as possible. Jianlibao was the market leader and looks down on these new competitors. In the end, Jianlibao lost its market share to them, and their brand influences were also affected.

The second reason was compelling. When Jianlibao was at the top, their local government kept taking away their profits and asked Jianlibao to increase their scale. How did Jianlibao increase their scale without their earnings? Loans. They took bank loans and buy out the smaller factories in their province. This increased Jianlibao’s scale quickly, but they forgot about their fund issue. As their sales decline and affect their profits, the company encountered cashflow problems. They do not even have the funds to continue their operations.

Thirdly, it was Jianlibao’s sales model. They were still using their traditional sales model and did not even set up their sales distribution channels correctly. When Jianlibao realized this and wanted to set up their distribution channels, it was too late. They do not have the funds to do it.

Fourth, it was the fall out with the local government. If Jianlibao used their profits to expand and grow, there would not be cash flow issues. But the local government kept taking their profits away and caused the fund shortage in the company. The leader of Jianlibao felt that the local government was interfering too much in the company’s decisions and taking too much of their profits. The interference by the local government was the cause of the company’s downfall.

There were many reasons for the decline. Feng Yu only knew that Jianlibao had failed to maintain their lead because of the cashflow problems, lack of branding and outdated sales model. Feng Yu does not think highly of Jianlibao’s management team because of these reasons.

Of course, the only person from the management team that was considered impressive, was the founder and Chairman, Li Jingwei. He had founded Jianlibao and later founded Li-Ning Company with the world champion, Li Ning. However, Li Jingwei was kicked out of Li-Ning soon after the company was set up. Li Jingwei had good foresight in the current era.

Another reason why Feng Yu did not try to recruit Li Jingwei was because of his age. He was already in his 50s and had made some bad management decisions.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Li Jingwei was also jailed for misappropriation of Jianlibao’s fund. He had misappropriated tens of millions during the company’s reformation. This person could not be trusted.

Li Jingwei had started a brand but does not know how to manage it. He depended on the government. But as all the state-owned enterprises in China were undergoing reforms, he dragged the reformation to much later than the rest of the companies. During the Reformation, he misappropriated the company’s funds and ended up in jail.

If Li Jingwei were as good as Hongtashan tobacco’s, Chu Shijian, he would be able to misappropriate the company’s funds and still had his workers’ support. Chu Shijian was sentenced to life imprisonment for misappropriation of state assets but got his sentence reduced because of his workers’ petition to the government. No one tried to help Li Jingwei after he was arrested.

Of course, Chu Shijian had the support of his workers because he had created billions of profits for Hongtashan and all his workers were able to have good lives. Li Jingwei had also helped Jianlibao achieved high gains, but his workers did not benefit from the company’s success. When Li Jingwei finally decided to give his workers some benefits, the company does not have the funds to do it. Jianlibao was already on a decline.

Another reason why Feng Yu did not try to buy out Jianlibao now was that he needs to pay at least several billions to buy out the company now. Feng Yu only need to wait for Jianlibao’s downfall, and he could buy out the company for a few hundred million RMB.

No matter what, there was no way for Lehaha to overtake Jianlibao now unless Feng Yu used some underhand methods.

It was easy for Feng Yu to cheat Jianlibao, but he did not do it. He rather waits for its downfall and then buys them over.

Furthermore, without using those underhand methods, Feng Yu was confident that he would beat Jianlibao within 5 years!

Jianlibao’s biggest failure was not knowing how to manage and make use of its brand to increase their profits. If Feng Yu were to manage Jianlibao, he would introduce all sorts of energy drinks and carbonated drinks, like Red Bull, Mai Dong, etc. These drinks were in-line with Jianlibao’s brand image and will help the company bring in lots of profits.

But Jianlibao only has one sports drinks. They did not even introduce other favors and did not put in any efforts on marketing. They do not know the influence of TV advertising.

There was something interesting about Jianlibao too. Jianlibao was currently the brand that was stopping Coca-Cola and Pepsi from expanding in China. But the first bottle of Jianlibao was produced using Pepsi’s production line.

That means Pepsi had helped Jianlibao in the past, but Jianlibao turned around and stopped Pepsi’s expansion in China. Pepsi was not satisfied with them. This was why when Jianlibao was down-and-out, Pepsi still targeted them.

Lehaha wanted to introduce carbonated drinks was to try to get as much market share as possible, when Jianlibao was still stopping Coco-Cola and Pepsi from expanding. Lehaha can collaborate with Jianlibao to attack Coco-Cola and Pepsi later.

Lehaha will be a newcomer for the carbonated drinks industry. But for the yogurt drinks, Lehaha was the market leader. Feng Yu wants Lehaha to introduced one of the most popular beverage in his previous life, Nutri-Express!

Nutri-Express was just yogurt drinks with some other vitamins added to it. It was not anything special, but Lehaha had hit 4 billion annual sales revenue with this beverage alone!

Bigger bottle of yogurt drinks? Zhong Qingxian was deep in thoughts and nodded. That’s right. Why didn’t I think of this before? Not only children like yogurt drinks, but adults can also drink it. This will increase the company’s profits further!

It was possible to catch up with Jianlibao within 5 years! Why can’t Lehaha be the market leader of China’s beverage industry?

Chapter 610 – How do you want to invest?

Feng Yu and Zhong Qingxian discussed their plans for Lehaha for a while, and Zhong Qingxian’s secretary came in and informed them that Li Dafu had arrived.

Feng Yu did not have an office in Hangzhou, so he asked Li Dafu to come to Lehaha. He can’t be going over to Li Dafu’s office. Lehaha office was still considered Feng Yu’s base.

Li Dafu knew that Feng Yu was Lehaha’s shareholder, but he does not know that he was the major shareholder. He greeted Zhong Qingxian first when he arrived. Both of them had met each other previously at the Zhejiang Business Association.

It was not known when it started. Businessmen from the same area will gather together to form a business association. They would work together and corporate against businessmen from other provinces.

But Feng Yu was not interested in taking part in these associations. What’s the use of hiding in one place and fighting against your own fellow men? If their target were the overseas market, then Feng Yu would be interested. These associations were only trying to protect their personal interest. These existed since ancient times. But disappeared and reappeared after the reformations.

This Zhejiang association was a joke to Feng Yu. These people felt proud to be a member, and they wanted to bring honor to the Zhejiang’s businessmen through this association.

After exchanging some pleasantries with Li Dafu, Zhong Qingxian left the meeting room. Only Feng Yu and Li Dafu remained. This concerned another company, and it was not appropriate for Zhong Qingxian to sit in the meeting.

“Manager Feng, you should know my purpose for meeting you. I wonder if I can still work with you to increase the status of our China’s automobile industry and let Songjiang Motors rise to a greater height?”

Feng Yu had asked Li Dafu if he was interested in creating the best Chinese automobile vehicles with him in the past. But Li Dafu rejected Feng Yu. Now, he can only say he wants to help Songjiang Motors to a greater height.

“So, you have considered about this? What about your company? You are not going to manage your company anymore?”

“I intend to let someone else manage my company for me, and I will go to Bing City Machinery Company to work. Will there be any problem?” Li Dafu asked. Many people held a high position in another company while owning businesses outside. But he was not sure if Feng Yu would agree to this.

“There is no problem. Are you going to be one of the normal management staff or do you want to own some shares?” Feng Yu asked.

If Li Dafu had agreed to Feng Yu in the past, Feng Yu would surely give him some shares. But now, if Li Dafu wants the stocks, he needs to buy them!

“Of course I want some shares of the company!” Li Dafu replied without any hesitations. Without the shares of the company, he has nothing to do with Songjiang Motors.

Feng Yu nodded: “Let me calculate for you. Bing City Machinery Company is currently worth about 4 billion RMB. How much money do you have? I can sell you some shares.”

Li Dafu’s jaws dropped. Did Feng Yu get the figures wrong? Bing City Machinery Company was worth 4 billion RMB now?!

“Manager Feng, Bing City Machinery Company is worth so much?”

“Let me tell you the breakdown. Our agriculture machinery’s brand and technology are the best in China and one of the tops in the world. I did not add to the brand value. Just the technologies, equipment, land and workers, were worth more than 1 billion RMB! If you count the brand value, it will worth more than 3 billion RMB!”

Feng Yu was feeling proud when he saw Li Dafu’s shocked expression. Others might think that branding was not necessary. But Feng Yu knew the value of branding.

“Also, our Songjiang Motorcycles is worth more than 1 billion. We are China’s top motorcycle, and we forecast our sales volume to be over 450,000 units this year!”

“Our investments in Songjiang Motors cars is also not a small sum. Currently, our cars have a good reputation and are exported to Europe. Just this business alone is worth more than 1 billion. I said 4 billion RMB is not including the brand value. If you include Bing City Machinery Company’s brand value, it is worth at least 6 billion RMB!”

Li Dafu was speechless. He thought he had managed his company well and had earned a fortune. He thought he could still afford to buy some shares in Bing City Machinery Company with his money, but it seems that even if he sells off his company, he would only afford to buy 2% of the shares. This was much lower than the 5% shares he expected!

“Manager Feng, can I just invest in Songjiang Motors cars?”

Feng Yu laughed: “Songjiang Motors have 5 factories and a research center. Which one do you want to invest? I had told you a lower value of the company to let you have the chance to own some shares. We still have not to recover our investments for our automobile business. Our company’s most profitable business is still the agriculture machinery, followed by motorcycles and the cars are the last!”

Li Dafu was stunned. Songjiang Motors cars were so famous in China, and their profits were the least? Agriculture machinery was so profitable?

Li Dafu does not understand the agriculture machinery industry. He had expected Songjiang Motors cars’ profits to be lesser than the motorcycles. But he never expects the agriculture machinery to be so profitable.

China was an agriculture country and claims to have more than 900 million farmers. How was it possible to have a lack of demand for agriculture machinery? Furthermore, Bing City Machinery Company’s facilities were from the former Soviet Union. Their products were cheap and durable. The technologies were the best in China and could even be considered one of the best in the world. The company does not need to worry about their sales. People were queuing up to order their agriculture machinery.

If Feng Yu had not increased the company’s spending in the R&D of the harvesters, tractors, etc. their profits would be higher.

If the agriculture machinery were good, there would be no shortage of buyers. Bing City Machinery Company’s agriculture machinery was the most famous in China. Farmers were willing to buy their machines just by looking at the brand!

Some technologies from the agriculture machinery could be used for motorcycles and cars. This will help the company to save some of the R&D funds. Also, China’s top tire manufacturer, bearings manufacturer, etc. were in Bing City. This also reduces cost significantly.

First Automobile Works was one of the shareholders for the tire company and bearings company. These companies were mainly supplying parts to FAW. But now, most of their orders were from Bing City Machinery Company. FAW’s management was pissed. However, they could not interfere with the companies’ operations. After all, Bing City Government held shares in those companies and FAW were in no position to interfere!

FAW had given many technologies to those companies and to FAW’s CEO, this was considered funding their enemy! If possible, he wants to fire his Deputy CEO, who suggested to invest in those spare parts companies in Bing City!

“Manager Li, how is it? Have you considered enough? How do you want to invest?”

Li Dafu’s face turns red. How can he invest? If he invested in only one factory and Feng Yu adjusted the operations model, he would lose all his investments. He can only invest in the main company.

Should he sell off his company? From the boss of a company to a minor shareholder who owns 1 to 2% shares? Was this really what he wants?

Chapter 611 – Having the same views (Part 1 of 2)

Feng Yu kept quiet and drank his tea as Li Dafu hesitated. He wants Li Dafu to make his decision. Even if Li Dafu had decided, he still might not enter the top management. He needs to show Feng Yu that he can lead the company to greater heights. At least he got to prove himself in the motorcycles and cars division.

“Manager Feng, can I ask what position you will give me if I sell my company and buy your shares?”

Li Dafu was not a stupid person. He knows that even if he was a shareholder, he might not get a management role.

“What position do you want? I need to be clear with you. Our company does not have a lot of shareholders. We hold shareholders meeting every quarter, but most of the time, not all shareholders will be present. That’s why most of the company’s decisions and management are decided by the General Manager, his deputies, and the factory directors.  What is your target?”

If Li Dafu wants to be the General Manager, then there’s no need to discuss anymore. Li Mingde’s role in Bing City Machinery Company could not be replaced now. Li Dafu does not know about agriculture machinery, and Feng Yu would never let him run the company.

“I want to be in charge of the automobile division. Can I be a Deputy General Manager?” Li Dafu asked.

“The company currently have a General Manager and 5 deputies. Another shareholder and I hold the position of Deputy. We normally do not care about the management of the company. There is another shareholder who holds the position of Deputy Chairman of the workers’ union. His salary is 1 RMB. The rest of the 3 Deputies had worked in the company for a very long time and were very familiar with the company’s business and market. You think you are suitable to be a Deputy straight when you come on board?” Feng Yu asked him back. His father could only be a Deputy Chairman of the workers’ union. Investment and management were two entirely different things.

Li Dafu had set his sights high. If he was competent, Feng Yu does not mind letting him be a Deputy. But he does not have prior experiences and becomes a Deputy once he joined the company, the rest of the people will not be happy.

Li Dafu could tell what Feng Yu was saying. He could not be a Deputy General Manager now. Feng Yu still wants to see his abilities first.

Rather than letting people question his capabilities, Li Dafu prefers to say it himself.

“Manager Feng, before meeting you, I had studied the market. But I did not look into the agriculture machinery market. I do have my own views on the motorcycles and cars industry’s developments.”

Feng Yu raised his brows. Li Dafu admitted himself?

“Fine. Let’s talk about motorcycles first. What do you think of our motorcycle developments and tell me how you would develop our business in the future.”

Finally, they were talking about what Li Dafu specializations. Li Dafu felt that Feng Yu would change his opinion of him after he tells him about his views. Maybe he could enter the company as a Deputy General Manager.

“The first Songjiang Motorcycles were 125cc bikes. These motorcycles were considered the biggest capacity bikes in China. This also proves that the Songjiang motor has the best technologies in China. The exterior designs were attractive, and consumers love it. The performance and designs were much better than other China made motorcycles. Later, these motorcycles were advertised on CCTV and had hired celebrities to endorse it. The sales of the motorcycles should yield high profits for the company that year.”

“But after that, Songjiang Motors did not introduce more powerful bikes. Instead, it introduced Songjiang 100. Other motorcycle manufacturers started with 50cc bikes and increase the capacity of their bikes from there. Only Songjiang Motors did the opposite way and succeeded! I had looked into Taiwan and Japan’s markets. I discovered that the number of motorcycles in those countries is like the number of bicycles in China. Many people there were willing to buy motorcycles but were not willing to spend on petrol. That’s why smaller bikes had an advantage there. That’s why I feel that Songjiang Motors should continue introducing smaller cc bikes!”

After saying these, Li Dafu looks at Feng Yu proudly. He felt that he had articulated his views well with good reasons. Feng Yu would surely be surprised with what he said. All of China’s manufacturers were trying to build bigger bikes, and none of them were building small bikes.

But Li Dafu realized that Feng Yu still have a calm expression on his face. He was not surprised by his suggestions. Could it be that someone from Bing City Machinery Company had already suggested this?

Feng Yu was glad that Li Dafu had thought about this. He was indeed that successful businessman from his previous life. Li Dafu’s plans were the same as what Feng Yu told Li Mingde in the past. They will continue to introduce smaller bikes this year. Even the model of the bikes was completed. It was a 50cc scooter model, and it targeted the women’s market.

Li Mingde and the rest had doubts about this. They felt they should introduce 3 wheels bikes and target the villages. These 3 wheels bikes could be used to carry goods, and it should sell well. Scooters and women’s market? Will this succeed?

Currently, China still has the thinking that men should go out and work, and women should stay at home. Many men still did not own motorcycles yet. Why would they spend money to buy bikes for their women?

But Feng Yu knew that scooters’ sales will be shockingly high in the future. If they did not introduce scooters now, Japan would introduce it first next year. Then Songjiang Motors will be one step behind again. Even if this year scooter’s sales were not high, Songjiang Motors would not make losses. It was only a matter of higher or lower profits.

3 wheels motorcycle was also a good direction. Feng Yu agreed to this proposal and asked Li Mingde to get someone to design the production lines. Currently, they do not have enough production lines, and they had to expand their company. Bing City Machinery Company had enough funds to build more branch factories. They can always buy over the factories of other motorcycle brands.

Feng Yu knew about Li Mingde’s foresight in the automobile industry. But for him to thought about the 3 wheels motorcycle was good enough and Feng Yu was satisfied.

“What do you think about 3 wheels motorcycles’ market?” Feng Yu asked.

“3 wheels bikes? That is mainly targeting the regions in the county and villages. The main use of these bikes is to transport goods. It should be targeted at the villages. If you are going to sell it in the city, then you can build a cover on it, and it can be used as a taxi.” Li Dafu thought for a while and said.

Feng Yu’s eyes sparkled. Li Dafu could still come up with the idea of replacing the taxis with 3 wheels motorcycles. Even Li Mingde and the rest never thought about this. 3 wheels bikes became popular was because it had replaced taxis. People called it “Vintage cars” and were cheaper and slower than taxis. Many counties and poorer cites used these bikes to replace taxis.

Initially, the authorities did not say whether if these 3 wheels motorcycles taxis were legal. But as the number of 3 wheels motorcycle taxis increased, the authorities stepped in to stop them. But many counties still have these bikes running around their streets.

Even if these bikes were not allowed to be taxis, they were still used to be mini cargo vans. It was still very popular. Feng Yu was quite surprised that Li Dafu had thought of this!

Just base on this point alone, Feng Yu would want to recruit Li Dafu and put him in charge of the motorcycles’ business. He was more suitable than Li Mingde and the rest of the deputies!

Chapter 612 – Having the same views (Part 2 of 2)

“Manager Li, are you interested in coming over to take charge of our motorcycle division? After you bought the shares, I can arrange for a position of Deputy General Manager, just to handle the motorcycle business.” Feng Yu invited Li Dafu. He had shown that he had better foresight than the Deputy who was in charge of the motorcycle division.

Li Dafu was stunned for a while and shook his head. “Manager Feng, I still prefer cars. I hope I can handle the automobile division.”

Feng Yu nodded. Li Dafu would not look for him if he were not interested in managing the automobile division.

“Then let’s talk about the cars. What suggestions do you have for Songjiang Motors cars?”

“Other than the cargo vans, there are 3 models of cars. Small saloon car, off-road and business purpose car. Among the 3 models, the sales of the business purpose cars are not doing well. The off-roads main customer is the military. The small saloon cars are sold to the companies as the company’s vehicles. The sales of these two models should be doing well?”

“Your analysis is right. Continue.”

Li Dafu continued. “But the price of these 3 models are above 100,000 RMB. Although 100,000 RMB is not considered a lot for cars now, the price tag will stop many people from thinking of buying cars. I feel that we should introduce a new budget model under a new brand. The price of this new model should be under 50,000 RMB or even 30,000 RMB.”

Feng Yu thought to himself. This Li Dafu still wants to use the low-cost strategy. But luckily, he did not say he would use the Songjiang Motors brand. Budget cars will lower the value of the brand. It will influence their plans to continue selling mid to high tier cars.

Feng Yu had also thought about introducing low-cost cars. But in his previous life, low-cost cars entered the market after the year 2000. That was the time when China’s development increased rapidly, and the demand for vehicles was high. People want to own a car for their transportation.

But now, people’s mode of transportation was still a motorcycle. Songjiang 100 was selling for about 10,000 RMB. People still do not need to worry about road conditions when they were riding bikes. The only issue was the weather.

“You think we should introduce budget cars now?” Feng Yu asked.

“Of course not. We should start to research and develop this technology now and introduce it when the time is right. I think we can introduce this model in 3 to 4 years. Our technologies should be ready by then, and the Chinese’s income would have increased. They should be able to afford a small car. Although motorcycles are good, most people will think that driving a car beats riding a motorcycle.”

“That means you think Songjiang Motors should start to develop smaller capacity cars technologies now?”

“No. We should research both luxurious and budget cars at the same time. The brand, Songjiang Motors should stick to be a luxury brand, and we will introduce another brand to target the mass market. Both of this should be ongoing at the same time.”

“Since we are going to develop technologies for both types of cars, then how much more money should we invest into the R&D? With so much capital invested, when will we recover our investments?” Feng Yu asked.

“Automobile manufacturing is a capital-intensive business. But technologies are critical in this business. If not, our China-made vehicles will not need to collaborate with MNCs. The automobile manufacturers in other countries rely on their technologies to earn profits. Our Songjiang Motors might have the best technologies in China, but compared to other overseas manufacturers, we are still outdated. If our technologies cannot keep up with the rest of the world, then we can only remain in China. Even the European market will be taken over by other automobile companies.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Geely had a strong emphasis on technological developments. They had acquired Volvo, not only for their brand. They wanted Volvo’s technologies. This was why Geely paid such a high price for a declining brand.

Feng Yu had kept telling Li Mingde to focus on technological developments. Without technical advantages, they could only exploit their workers. If this was the case, then what’s the use of manufacturing cars?

Feng Yu only knows about the development of the automobile industry. He knows about future technologies in the industry. But he does not know how these technologies were invented.

Luckily, Bing City Machinery Company had hired lots of specialists and experts. Many of them were engineers from the former Soviet Union. The company was also grooming Chinese engineers all this while.

Compared to the big automobile manufacturers overseas, Songjiang Motors’ developments were not considered fast. But they were not slow either. Songjiang Motors technologies were much faster than those Joint venture factories in China.

Songjiang Motors could develop in China was not because they were more technologically advanced. It was mainly because of its exterior designs, performance, prices, etc. Most importantly, it was the procurement from the Government and military.

Since the military had bought Songjiang Motors vehicles, the Chinese knew about this brand. Songjiang Motors vehicles were also exported to Europe. Many provinces’ government starts to make bulk purchases of Songjiang Motors cars.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, these local governments will only purchase SAIC and FAW vehicles. They will use either Audi or Santana. But for the same price, Songjiang Motors were better looking and more comfortable. Most importantly, it was their domestic brand. The local governments were considered supporting their domestic brands when they purchase Songjiang motorcars. This was also an excuse for the agencies to buy cars without getting scolded by their higher-ups.

These few years were the years where business purpose cars developed the fastest. Almost all the local governments were buying vehicles in large volumes. There was someone in Feng Yu’s previous life that tabulated the expenditure on cars by the government in 1995. The amount spent on cars by the government was astronomical, and it still increases for the next few years.

The Chinese Government had to restrict the number of vehicles bought by the local government. Feng Yu had only snatched the market from the overseas manufacturers and used the profits from there to upgrade Songjiang Motors technologies.

Li Dafu had lots of ideas that were in line with Feng Yu. Feng Yu was impressed by Li Dafu and felt that it was not a bad idea to let him handle the automobile division.

“Manager Li, I agree with your views. You are suitable to work in Bing City Machinery Company. Now you can tell me how much money you have to buy the shares.” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

“If I sell away my company, I should have about 60 to 70 million. With my savings, I should raise about 80 million. I would like to buy 2% shares.” Li Dafu replied.

“Manager Li, your company is doing well. Don’t you think it is a waste to sell off your company? You might not get so many profits after to buy our shares.”

“My company had reached its limits. Unless there is an injection of funds, we will not make any breakthroughs in the materials. Also, I think highly of the future of the automobile industry. I feel that the value of Bing City Machinery Company shares will multiply several folds in 3 to 5 years later!”

“Good! For your trust in us, I will give you a personal loan of 2 million without interest. You will be able to purchase 2.5% of shares. What do you think?”

Li Dafu was overjoyed. “Thank you very much. Manager Feng, I promise to put in my 100% to bring Songjiang Motors to a greater height!”

Chapter 613 – Changes to the ownership structure

“Hello? Dad, can I discuss something with you?”

“What? I am busy. Keep things short! Stop, San Wan, I win!”

Feng Yu: “……” You said you are busy? Playing Mahjong is also considered busy?

“Dad, can you sell me your Bing City Machinery Company’s shares?”

Feng Xingtai also holds Bing City Machinery Company’s shares. But he does not care about it. Even the dividends were credited into Feng Yu’s account. He even forgets he was a shareholder.

When Feng Yu mentioned about this, he was confused: “Are you asking for a beating? Those shares are yours in the first place.”

“Dad, you must at least sign the documents to prove you had sold the shares to me. I still have some money in Tai Hua Trading. I will transfer the money to you, and you can invest the money into your factory. Tai Hua Processed Food factory is expanding very fast and needs money.”

“Ok, ok. Just get someone to bring the contract over, and I will sign it. Don’t bother me with all these matters. Eh, eh, eh…… It’s my turn? Six Bamboos.”

“Ok. I will let the lawyer look for you. It is the Caucasian man with a big mustache. You will not hold any position in Bing City Machinery Company in the future, and you will have to return your office.”

“I know. Is there anything else? How is school? Can you understand your classes?” Feng Xingtai asked.

“Yes. No problem. Errr…… Dad, I will hang up first. I still have work to do.” Feng Yu quickly hang up. What school? Feng Yu was still in China and did not return to Hong Kong.

……

“Old Feng, can you stop answering the phone when we are playing mah-jong? You think you are the only one who has a mobile phone?” Wen Deguang said. It was the annoying look on Feng Xingtai’s face when he speaks on the phone. He was trying to show off his mobile phone. Wen Deguang, the district chief only had a pager.

“What’s wrong with answering the phone? I can’t even answer the phone? Your son had wanted to buy a mobile phone for you, and you are the one who does not want it. Who can you blame?” Feng Xingtai purposely put his mobile phone on the table on top of a stack of 1 and 2 RMB bills.

Feng Xingtai was rich now, but he noticed that he does not have a lot of friends. He spends his days fishing, strolling along the river banks. He could not finish spending his money, but his friends still need to work.

Only on weekends, Feng Xingtai could meet up with Wen Deguang and the rest to play a few rounds of mah-jong.

Zhang Muhua was different. She had a new hobby introduced to her by Feng Yu. Cross stitch.

Cross stitch was an ancient art. But it was not popular in the current era. In Feng Yu’s previous life, cross stitch only became popular in 2005. Currently only a factory was producing cross-stitch products, and there was only one design.

After Feng Yu got people to bring back more designs from overseas, Zhang Muhua was addicted. She shared with her neighbors, and all of them gathered to do cross stitch together when they were free.

……

3 days later, Li Dafu sold off his company. Because he was in a hurry to sell off his company which was worth at least 70 million for only sold for 65 million. It was sold to another businessman from Zhejiang business association.

Li Dafu’s company annual profits were more than 10 million. If he had the funds, it could increase further. In the previous life, Li Dafu had borrowed money from the banks to grow his business and then started his motorcycle business. Later, he set up Geely.

But in this life, there will not be Geely anymore. Even if there is a Geely, Li Dafu will not be the boss of it. Maybe the other Geely founders will start a new Geely.

On the surface, Li Dafu seems to have made a loss. The dividends he will get from Bing City Machinery will not be as high as 10 million. Although Bing City Machinery Company’s profits were very high, more than 4 billion, but the dividends paid out were only a small portion. Most of the profits were reinvested into the company’s R&D.

Li Dafu felt the value of his shares will multiply in 3 years, and it does not include the millions of dividends every year.

Furthermore, the company might be listed in the future. Once listed, the company’s value will increase further. The dividends will be much higher in the future.

Li Dafu firmly believes that he made the right decision. If he could show Feng Yu his management capabilities in these two years, he might even vie for the position of Chairman once a board of directors was set up. From what Feng Yu said, it seems that Feng Yu was not interested in becoming the Chairman. That means he might get full control of Bing city Machinery Company one day.

Of course, he also felt this was not possible. No shareholders would want to give up their authorities and let someone else run the company. Even if Feng Yu was not interested, there is still the other shareholder from Hong Kong.

Li Dafu did not expect that once he entered Bing City Machinery Company, there was a change in the ownership structure. Feng Yu had persuaded Fu Guangzheng and Bing City Government to give Li Mingde and dozens of management staffs some shares. The total amount of shares owned by these people adds up to 2.5%.

Although Li Mingde had not reached the retirement age, he requested early retirement. He was no longer a government servant. Bing City Machinery Company immediately employed Li Mingde and gave him 0.5% shares. Of course, Li Mingde’s monthly salary was also adjusted to only 500 RMB. But Li Mingde does not mind as he will be getting a lot more dividends.

The rest of the branch factories’ directors, deputy general managers, and other top management staffs were given 0.01 to 0.02% of shares. Coupled with the 2.5% shares Feng Yu sold to Li Dafu, Bing City Machinery Company have more than 20 shareholders. But Feng Yu still holds 53% shares of the company!

The company also form a board of directors. Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng, Li Mingde, Li Dafu and a representative from the City Government form the board. Li Mingde was appointed as the Chairman and General Manager.

Li Dafu finally got what he wished. He became one of the Deputy General Manager with 4 others. Feng Yu and Fu Guanzheng no longer hold the position of deputies. Anyway, they were on the board, and they could watch over the company as one of the directors.

Many people in the company were shocked at Li Dafu’s appearance. Why did Feng Yu sell the company’s shares to this person and let him handle the automobile division?

Li Dafu was formerly the boss of a company. He was able to secure his position in a short time and impressed those that were unhappy with him.

These were not important. Feng Yu had returned to Hong Kong……

Chapter 614

School had started for 10 days, and Feng Yu did not appear even once. He did not apply for any leave, and the University was worried about him and called him.

It was then when Feng Yu realized that he had forgotten about applying for leave from his university because of Li Dafu and Bing City Machinery Company.

Feng Yu apologized to his school and immediately return to Hong Kong. As for the Machinery Company, he leaves it to the management to sort out the rest of the details. If something happens, Fu Guangzheng could help out. Now, Fu Guangzheng spends most of his time in China.

Another reason why Feng Yu rushed back to his university was that he does not want to miss Professor Liang’s class. This Professor was the consultant who had helped managed Hong Kong and China’s funds to hit back at Soros’ Quantum Fund in Feng Yu’s previous life.

Feng Yu had asked He Zhaoji to get in touch with Professor Liang. Feng Yu wanted to hire him to work at Wind and Rain Consulting. He even offered him shares of the company, but Professor Liang rejected this offer.

Professor Liang was not a tycoon. But his salary at Hong Kong University was not low. Also, he was an expert in the financial markets. He could just make his own investments.

Although Professor Liang was not wealthy, he could get a commission when he gave advice to the tycoons. His assets had increased to over 10 million HKD within a few years. He was very famous in Hong Kong financial trade. Many tycoons, including Fu Rongqi, wanted to recruit him. But he turned down all offers. He said he only wanted to do research and money was not his priority. His interest was to groom Hong Kong’s next generation of financial talents.

Professor Liang does not like money, women and no other bad habits, and Feng Yu has no way to entice him to work for him. But Feng Yu thought that since he could not recruit Professor Liang, then they could at least be friends.

So, when Feng Yu was in Hong Kong, he would attend Professor Liang’s lectures. He would even skip other classes to sit in Professor Liang’s classes. Professor Liang also notices Feng Yu because he had appeared in almost every class.

Professor Liang’s lectures were not only for one module. It was almost impossible for the same student to appear in all his lessons. This student must have skipped other classes to attend his class.

Professor Liang thought Feng Yu was some of Hong Kong’s rich second generation because of his dressing and was sent to attend his lectures. Maybe this young man was not even a student at Hong Kong University.

But when Professor Liang chatted with Feng Yu, he was surprised by this young man’s insights to the financial markets. Since when did this genius appear in Hong Kong? Which family was Feng Yu from?

When Professor Liang found out Feng Yu’s name, he tried to recall which Hong Kong tycoon had the same surname. There were no financial experts in Hong Kong or any tycoon with the surname Feng.

He chatted with Feng Yu longer and found out that Feng Yu was an exchange student from Beijing University. This gave Professor Liang a shocked. How could a mainlander be so well versed with the financial market?

It was not Professor Liang looks down on mainlanders. It was because China’s financial markets’ developments started much later than Hong Kong. He had also research on China’s financial market and found many loopholes in their systems. If China’s financial market opens up to the rest of the world, it will be disastrous.

A genius appeared in a country whose financial market started so much later? Professor Liang was amazed. Feng Yu’s talents in the financial market had already surpassed many Hong Kong top economic elites. He was really a genius!

When Professor Liang found out that Feng Yu was the boss of that Wind and Rain Consultancy, his jaws dropped!

Feng Yu was still so young. Not only he was eager to learn, he knew all the fundamental theories at the back of his mind. He also has practical experiences. There should be no one else in this world that was a genius as Feng Yu.

Feng Yu told Professor Liang that he likes his lectures and could learn lots of things from him. This made Professor Liang proud.

With Professor Liang’s status and a student told him that, he will feel it was normal. He will not feel happy about it. But when a genius like Feng Yu or a successful tycoon told him that, he would be overjoyed.

The same words that come out from different people will yield different results.

So, Professor Liang gave Feng Yu his lecture schedules and invite Feng Yu to attend his lessons. Professor Liang felt that most lectures at the University were not critical to the students. They could choose whether if they want to attend. Many students also skipped their lectures to attend the lessons they want.

Professor Liang was the same as most lecturers. He likes students to attend his lessons and when the number of students increases, he felt proud. He felt even better when a student like Feng Yu says he likes his lectures.

But when the semester starts, Professor Liang did not see Feng Yu in many of his lessons. Feng Yu had told him that his exchange was one year and Professor Liang wondered why he had skipped his lectures.

Professor Liang does not mind other students skipping his classes. But he felt disappointed when he did not see Feng Yu in his classes.

Feng Yu had lost interest in his lessons?

But today, Professor Liang saw that familiar figure in his class, and he taught more passionately.

After the lecture, Feng Yu followed Professor Liang back to his office.

“Feng Yu, where were you the past few days? Why you did not attend my lessons?”

“Professor Liang, I went back to China. My company has some matters to attend.”

“You have a company in China?” Professor Liang was surprised. But after he thought about it, he felt it was also reasonable. Feng Yu was from China, and China’s financial industry had just started and the economy there will be much better than Hong Kong in the future. But currently, Hong Kong’s conditions were still better than the mainland. Hong Kong was still one of the world’s top financial hub now.

“Yes. I have a few companies in China.” Feng Yu replied modestly.

A few? Professor Liang had thought highly of Feng Yu, but it seems that he had still belittled this young man.

“What does your company back in China do? Also in the finance sector?”

Feng Yu shook his head: “The financial market in China is not good. It cannot be compared to Hong Kong or the Western countries. My investments in China are mainly physical assets in other industries.”

No investors will only trade in the financial market. They will invest in some physical assets. It would be risky for someone to put all their money in the financial markets. If the market crash, they might lose all their money. With physical assets like businesses in other industries, they could still make a comeback.

Professor Liang had spoken to Feng Yu about this. But at that time, he was unaware that Feng Yu had other businesses.

“Professor Liang, I will be going back to China in July. I am not sure when is the next time I come back to Hong Kong. You really don’t want to manage Wind and Rain Consulting’s funds? If you think Wind and Rain Consulting funds is too small, I can increase it.” Feng Yu tried to invite Professor Liang again.

Professor Liang laughed and shook his head. “I had said before. The US stock market is doing well now. With your understanding of the market, you should be able to earn high returns when you invest. You do not need me to help you.”

“Then if one day I have to face George Soros and other financial predators from the western countries, will you help me?” Feng Yu asked in a serious tone.

Professor Liang’s face changed. “You want to go against Quantum Funds? If you really have the abilities, I will be interested in joining in. It’s time for those western predators to pay their dues!”

Chapter 615 – The Dismal Li Zekai

Feng Yu was excited when he got the answer he wanted from Professor Liang. Professor Liang would be part of his team in 1997. Will the Hong Kong Government have a replacement for Professor Liang?

But this should not be a problem as Feng Yu’s funds are also targeting Quantum Funds. It is the same as what the Hong Kong Government will be doing. Maybe Feng Yu might even become the consultant for the Hong Kong Government.

Feng Yu attended lessons every day, and when he has free time, he went to the movies or go fishing. It was a peaceful life for Feng Yu, but not for Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai. They were very busy.

Fu Guangzheng was still able to cope. His father was helping him to manage his businesses in Hong Kong. He does not need to worry. Li Zekai was different. He needs to manage his Pacific Century Group and also set up the Tai Hua Supermarket in China.

Just happen Pacific Century Group had some matters for Li Zekai to attend and he had to return to Hong Kong. After settling his work at Pacific Century Group, he took a break for 2 days and asked Feng Yu out for dinner.

……

“This is the restaurant you are talking about? I had come here before, and although the food is not bad, it is still not considered delicious. I remembered this restaurant was sold to the Fu Family before Lunar New Year.” Li Zekai had wanted to dine at the Peninsula Hotel, but Feng Yu insisted on coming to this restaurant instead.

“Do you see that? The name of this restaurant is still the same. But there are 3 new characters in the front, Quanjude!” Feng Yu pointed to the signboard outside.

“Quanjude? I have heard of this before. Isn’t this a famous restaurant in Beijing? I think it sells roast ducks. The Fu Family bought this restaurant to sell ducks?” Li Zekai asked curiously.

Feng Yu wanted to laugh. If Fu Guangzheng heard what Li Zekai said, they would surely fight. (See notes.)

“Chain restaurants. The original chefs are still around, and a few new specialty dishes are added to the menu.” Feng Yu explained.

The door boy opened the door for them to enter. The restaurant floor manager saw Feng Yu and ran over: “Manager Feng, Master Li, your table is on the second floor. I will show you the way.”

Li Zekai looked at the floor manager and then at Feng Yu. It was usual for people to recognize him as he appeared on Hong Kong papers quite frequently. But how did that floor manager recognize Feng Yu? Did they know Feng Yu because he frequents this restaurant?

When both just sat down at their table, Li Zekai saw a waiter pushing a trolley over before he could see the menu. He looked at Feng Yu. Did Feng Yu order the food before they arrived?

Usually, when two people, especially friends, have dinner together, they would not order the food in advance. They would let the other party order something they like. Feng Yu was not the type that would do something like this. Li Zekai thought if this was some recommended dishes Feng Yu wanted to show him?

Duck. Roasted ducks!

Li Zekai had eaten Quanjude’s roast ducks before. He had been to Beijing, and with his status, all the meals were at the top restaurants.

Feng Yu chose this restaurant to recommend this roast duck to him?

The past few months, Li Zekai had been busy with his work and did not notice about China’s top food charts which were reported on the papers. Li Zekai does not really like to eat roast ducks. He felt Quanjude’s roast ducks were not to his taste.

“Brother Kai, this roast duck recipe is altered to suit Hong Kongers’ taste. Try it.”

Li Zekai took a bite, and his eyes opened wide. This roast duck tastes better than what he ate in China! This was a restaurant the right choice.

“Brother Feng, are you a regular at this restaurant?” Li Zekai asked.

“I have only been here for a few times. Are you curious about why the floor manager know me? It is because I own the shares of this restaurant.” Feng Yu smiled.

“This restaurant is opened by you and the Fu Family?” Li Zekai was surprised. Feng Yu had opened a restaurant with the Fu Family?

No matter if it was Feng Yu or the Fu Family, all of them could afford to open restaurants by themselves. Each of them could even open 10 restaurants at once. Why would they need to collaborate? Also, were restaurants very profitable? Yet if this restaurant has a specialty roast duck and an increase of customers, how much more money can they make? The funds used to open this restaurant can be put to better use.

“Not only this restaurant. Fu Guangzheng and I are partners, and we asked the Fu Family to help us acquire some restaurants to form a company. We merge this company with Quanjude to form Quanjude Group. We will be using the Quanjude brand to create the largest restaurant chain in Asia. I had asked you here today is to help me taste the roast duck. What do you think of this roast duck and it’s special sauce?”

Quanjude Group? Asia’s biggest restaurant chain?

A restaurant might not be profitable if there was only one restaurant. But if a restaurant chain was different. It will be extremely profitable. If the group was listed in the future, the share prices might not shoot up. But it will not be affected by other forces.

Li Zekai thought about this for a while and felt this was a good investment.

“The duck taste good. When did this investment start?” Li Zekai asked casually.

“About 1 month ago.”

Li Zekai was a bit disappointed. He had known Feng Yu for quite some time, and Feng Yu asked Fu Guangzheng to invest instead of him. Seems like Feng Yu was still closer to Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai could not compare to him.

“The plan started last year, and the Fu family had started to acquire restaurants then. Many people still laughed at them. But after all the restaurants were merged with Quanjude, their value rose. Also, after the restaurants joined the Quanjude Group, all of their sales had increased. The best restaurant’s monthly sales increased by 50%! Although the invested amount is higher, it should be recovered in 2 to 3 years. We felt this was still a good deal.”

Li Zekai was thinking in his heart. This was a fucking good deal! The restaurants’ sales increased, that means their profits will also increase. The invested amount will be recovered in 2 to 3 years, and after that, it will be pure profits. At that time, the company should be listed, and they will earn a big sum again. Why was I not included for such good investment?

But Li Zekai thought for a while. If Feng Yu had invited him to join in this venture, he might not be able to take part too. A restaurant this big, including the business, etc. will cost at least tens of millions. He had also heard about the restaurants bought by the Fu Family. If he took part in this venture, what could he do with his measly funds?

Unless Li Zekai continued to ask for money from his father, then it would be possible. But his father had just given him a sum of money to invest in the supermarkets and will he still provide him with money? If only he met Feng Yu a few years earlier.

If he knew Feng Yu a few years earlier, Feng Yu would surely choose him as his partner. He was the second son of Superman Li, and Fu Guangzheng was only the second son of Fu Rongjing!

“Brother Feng, you must call me along if you have any investment opportunities in the future.” Li Zekai said gloomily.

“Sure…… sure…… Oh, I still have something to discuss with you. Can you invite your father for the opening ceremony for our supermarkets?”

Chapter 616 – Superman Li is impressed

“You want my father to be at the opening ceremony?” Li Zekai looked as if he had seen an alien. Li Zhekai had never seen his father attending any opening ceremony in his life!

“What’s wrong with that? He also owns the shares of this Tai Hua Supermarket. Shouldn’t he be present for the opening ceremony?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

“It’s hard to invite him. My father does not like to attend these types of events. He had shunned the limelight for several years and left most of these matters to my elder brother and his assistant.”

“You still have not asked him, how do you know he is not willing to go? Don’t forget what country he will be going.”

Li Zekai frowned. What country he will be going? That’s right. He will be going to Beijing, capital of China!

“I will ask him when I get home. But don’t keep your hopes high.”

Li Zekai also wanted his father to be present at the opening ceremony. This will be his father’s support for him. But his father did not even appear for the opening of his Pacific Century Group, will he even attend the opening of Tai Hua Supermarket?

That evening, Li Zekai returned home for dinner. During dinner, he tried to speak but stopped on second thoughts.

Superman Li ate slowly, and he could tell that Li Zekai wanted to say to him something. He finished his dinner and told Li Zekai: “If you have anything to say to me, come to my study room.”

“Dad, Tai Hua Supermarket should be opening at the end of July or early August. Feng Yu wants to invite all the shareholders to the opening ceremony. He asked me to invite you.”

“Didn’t you tell him that I do not like to attend these events?” Superman Li looked at his younger son.

“I told him that. But he says you might be interested as the location is in Beijing.”

Superman Li’s eyes sparkled. Beijing? This Feng Yu is an interesting fellow.

“Invite Feng Yu over for dinner tomorrow. Come to say, I still have not met him yet.” Superman Li suddenly said.

Li Zekai’s eyes opened wide. His father invited Feng Yu over to his house for dinner? It’s been years since his father asked someone over to their home.

“Ok. I will tell him to come over tomorrow.”

……

“Your father is inviting me over for dinner? Ok. I will be there.”

Feng Yu was not surprised by Superman Li’s invitation. He had been invited by Fu Rongqi in the past, and Superman Li should be aware of it. In Feng Yu’s previous life, he heard that Superman Li will watch the news and read newspapers from all over the world. He should have read China, Japan, and US newspapers. Maybe Superman Li had an estimate of his real wealth.

Who would not be curious about a miraculous young man? Superman Li is also human, and he should be curious about him.

Feng Yu arrived at the Li family’s villa precisely at 6.30 pm. He remembered a newspaper article that Superman Li waked up at 6am and got off work at 6 pm. The was his habit for years. Since he finishes work at 6 pm, then arriving at 6.30pm should be just right on time.

Feng Yu brought a bottle of wine as usual. Superman Li loves to play golf and was good at it. But Feng Yu did not know anything about golf and did not even know where to buy golf clubs. Wine is still more convenient.

Li Zekai opened the door for Feng Yu personally and his elder brother, Li Zeju was also there to welcome him. Superman Li did not walk out and remain seated on the sofa.

Superman Li only stood up when Feng Yu entered the living room. “Nephew Feng, come over and have a chat. Dinner will be ready soon.”

Nephew again? Why does Hong Kongers like to address others as a nephew? But Feng Yu thought about his relationship with Li Zekai. This way of addressing him was not wrong. Feng Yu and Li Zekai were quite close like brothers.

“Uncle Li, I have known Brother Kai for quite some time but did not visit you. I hope you are not angry.”

“Hahaha. It is me who invited you late. Nephew Feng is so capable, and I should have invited you over earlier.” Superman Li was quite friendly unlike the rumors about him. Of course, it might have something to do with Feng Yu’s status. Superman Li positioned Feng Yu quite high. He might even place Feng Yu as someone his equal.

Everyone said some pleasantries and the chef came out to inform them dinner was ready.

During dinner, Superman Li also chatted with Feng Yu and Feng Yu noticed there were lots of Northeast dishes on the dining table. These were specially cooked for him.

After dinner, Superman Li invited Feng Yu to his study for some tea. Feng Yu knew that Superman Li wants to talk business with him.

No matter whether it was Hong Kong’s tycoons or China tycoons, all of them likes to talk business in a quiet place. Hong Kongers preferred study rooms. Many of the books in the study might be for decorations, and most of the tycoons had never touched them. Also, most tycoons in Hong Kong live in large villas and had lots of helpers.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he heard that Superman Li was a careful person. He does not trust others quickly even if it was his own helpers. This was because if what he said was to spread, he might lose some opportunities.

That’s why Superman Li would discuss with his guests about trivial matters in the living and dining rooms. But for important issues, he would talk in his study. Once the door of the study was closed, no one could hear a thing outside.

Feng Yu looked around the study when he entered. He noticed that it was a novel on the table. He had heard that Superman Li have a habit of reading every night. He might have read all the books on the shelves.

“What would you like?” Li Zekai asked.

“Green tea will do.”

The helper brought a cup of green tea into the room and left, closing the door behind her.

“Nephew Feng, I heard from Zekai that you are inviting me to the opening ceremony of Tai Hua Supermarket?”

“Yes. I intend to create a hype for the opening and let CCTV report it in their news. This way, it will increase Tai Hua Supermarket awareness in the shortest time.”

“CCTV will report about the opening in their news is because I am present. I am only a minor shareholder, and I should not have any obligations to attend the opening ceremony, right?” Superman Li jokingly asked. He knew that the opening ceremony would be on the news only if he were attending.

“Uncle Li should have plans to visit China soon, right? Don’t you want to have a chat with China’s top leaders about the issue of Hong Kong’s return? Or maybe you would like to see the changes in China and help your company’s investments in China to make more money?” Feng Yu asked him back.

Currently, Superman Li’s investments were mainly in Hong Kong, followed by China. Canada’s investments were only ranked third. If there were any political changes in China, his businesses would be affected.

“Why should I be a concern with these?”

“Because you had set your sights on China’s developments and believe that China will develop rapidly in the next 20 years. Also, your main investments should be in China, right?”

Li Zekai knew his father was optimistic about China’s developments. But how did Feng Yu find out about this? Also, what Feng Yu said was precisely what his father was thinking. Both felt China’s economy will be one of the fastest growing economies in the world, in the next 20 years!

Superman Li looked hard at Feng Yu and gasped. “You can predict this. Just this point alone, both my sons cannot be compared to you.”

Chapter 617 – The nosy Li Zekai

Li Zeju and Li Zekai were ashamed when they heard their father’s comment. They received proper educations, but both of them were not enough to be compared to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was calm as he received the praise from Superman Li. He had admired Superman Li since his previous life. In his previous life, Superman Li’s businesses were doing better and better as he aged. If Feng Yu could learn from Superman Li, he would be able to grow his businesses further.

“I do have intentions of going over to China recently. Mr. Deng had invited me over. Since Tai Hua Supermarket is opening soon, I will attend the opening ceremony while I am there.”

Father had agreed? Li Zekai was surprised. Why did his father agree to Feng Yu’s request? But the following words from his father made him understand his father’s decision.

“Mr. Deng had mentioned about you to me. He says you are the most capable youth he had ever met. Mr. Deng had a good eye for talents. You can receive praise from Mr. Deng, that means you have something special. I heard there is a third shareholder in Microsoft. Is that person you?”

Feng Yu smiled and nodded: “That’s right. I had made some money from the financial markets in the past, and I invested all the returns into the US market to acquire Microsoft shares. I am quite lucky as Microsoft share prices had been rising. My investment had already increased by several folds.”

“You and Zekai can get along well. He does not now have a lot of friends. But with friends like you and Fu Guangzheng, it is enough. Although Zekai is not matured enough, he will never cheat his friends. If you need any help, you can just go to him.”

“Uncle Li, you are too serious. Brother Kai and I are good friends. If not, I will not rope him in to invest together.” Feng Yu will not say that he roped Li Zekai in to make use of the Li family’s fame.

“Zeju have a steadier personality. He is good at protecting the company’s interest, but not good at expanding. He had joined the company not long ago, but the shareholders and the managers acknowledged him. However, Zekai is more impatient. Although he is capable, he is prideful and does things without many considerations. Many people say his character is like me. But he is more aggressive than me when I was younger. In the future, he might get into trouble. I hope Nephew Feng will give him a hand when that time comes.”

Feng Yu could feel shivers down his spine. Why does this feel like Superman Li is entrusting his children to him? Were these his last words? But in his previous life, Superman Li was very healthy and still could play golf every now and then.

Feng Yu does not know what to say and just kept quiet. Silence is the best answer.

“Young men have nothing to say to this old man? You all should go out and enjoy yourselves. I will do some reading and will go to bed soon.” Superman Li said.

Superman Li’s assessment of Feng Yu was very high, and both his sons did not expect this. They were shocked to know that Feng Yu was Microsoft’s third biggest shareholder! That’s Microsoft. One of the top companies in the 20th century. The value of this company was worth more than 2 billion USD!

How many shares does Feng Yu own and his total worth?

“Brother, you want to have a drink with us?” Li Zekai asked.

“I’m not going. Your sister-in-law does not like me to drink. Both of you go ahead. Oh, where is Huihui? How come you did not bring her back with you?”

Li Zekai was quiet for a while: “Don’t talk about her. We broke up.”

Damn. Young Master Li broke up with Shen Huihui? Wasn’t it too early? In Feng Yu previous life, the woman who was rumored to be with Li Zekai should appear two years later. These few years, he should be with Shen Huihui.

Li Zekai brought Feng Yu to a classy bar. It was membership based. Although this place was expensive, it was quiet without the rowdy crowd.

Feng Yu likes this bar. It was better than the bar Fu Guangwei brought him to. This bar was like the high-class places in Feng Yu’s previous life. Maybe those places in his previous life were imitating these private clubs in Hong Kong.

Feng Yu and Li Zekai sat in a corner, and Li Zekai lit a cigar. Feng Yu asked him. “Brother Kai, why did you break up with your girlfriend? Tell me.”

Li Zekai’s love life was as exciting as TVB dramas. Feng Yu was curious to know if these tycoons were the same as ordinary people.

Li Zekai smiled wearily. “We are separated most of the time. I am busy with work and had no time for her. She also does not trust me. So, we broke up.”

Busy with work? Separated most of the time? Damn. Am I the reason? If I did not ask him to invest in Tai Hua Supermarket, he would not be spending most of his time in China. I caused both of them to break up?

I should not be blamed for their breakup. The main reason should be she does not trust you. That’s your fault. Look at me. I am in Hong Kong for so long, and Li Na did not make any noise.

What should I say to console him? My condolences? Move on?

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Li Zekai did move on, and in the end, he did not settle down. Li Zekai should be looking for someone pretty, virtuous and could take care of his family. She must also be supportive of his work and not stick to him like a gum.

This type of woman…… should be out of this world!

But Li Zekai had average looks. He is not considered ugly and always look confident. He was the younger son of Superman Li and was wealthy. There should be lots of women throwing themselves to him.

Feng Yu thought for a while and asked: “Brother Kai, are you going to have girlfriends in all industry?”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Li Zekai’s girlfriends were all over the world. Other than Asians, he still has Caucasians and Mixed girlfriends. Feng Yu wondered if Li Zekai was trying to create a collection of women from all over the world!

Li Zekai rolled his eyes. “You think I am like Guangzheng? He is changing his girlfriends every month. I am serious in my relationships.”

Feng Yu’s eyes opened wide. “You say Guangzheng is changing girlfriend every month? Are you serious?”

Damn! Fu Guangzheng was a player!

“Many people in this bar know Fu Guangzheng. You can ask around and see if I am telling the truth. If he did not spend most of his time in China, he should be Hong Kong’s number one wastrel!”

“Really? Do you know any gossips about the second generations? Tell me. I am curious.” Listening to gossip about others was one of Feng Yu’s hobbies.

With Feng Yu interrupting, Li Zekai forgot about his breakup, and Feng Yu noticed Li Zekai had the potential to be a paparazzi.

Li Zekai knew lots of gossips. Where did he hear these gossips from? No wonder he does not have lots of friends. He was too nosy!

Luckily Feng Yu knew Li Zekai recently. If not, he might be gossiping about Feng Yu to others.

Feng Yu still wanted to know about the gossips of other rich second generations when Li Zekai stood up and grabbed his wine glass: “Brother Feng if you are busy, you can go back first. You do not need to wait for me.” He finished saying this and quickly walk towards a pretty woman.

Feng Yu shook his head. Li Zekai had said Fu Guangzheng was a player, and now, he showed his true colors?

Chapter 618 – Super VCD

“Manager Feng, good news! Good news!”

Feng Yu held his phone away from his ears. What the hell was he shouting for?

“What’s wrong? Old Jiang, why are you so excited?” Feng Yu asked. He was also curious. Did Jiang Wanmeng make any breakthrough in his research?

“We have successfully developed MPEG-II!” Jiang Wanmeng shouted excitedly.

“What did you say?” Feng Yu was stunned.

“We have conducted research on the coding based on your requirements. The audio can reach 4 audio channels, and it is clearer and crisp. The video quality is also better. The resolution is the highest in the world. Most importantly, no mosaics will appear in the video!”

Mosaics was the error of the video’s picture quality. Colors of the part of the video were mixed, and it looks like burry squares.

Mosaics was one of the more pressing issues faced by VCD development. VCD video quality was clearer than cassette tapes, but the discs are easily damaged. Once there are scratches, the video and audio will be lagged, and mosaics will appear. The user experience will be bad when this happens.

The small cinemas and video lounges in China had feedback. After playing the same VCD several times, Mosaics will appear. The more time the VCD was played, the more mosaics will appear in the video.

Wind and Rain electronics had introduced a VCD repair solution. It is a type of cleaning solution, which could clean the VCDs and let the player read the data better. Later on, Wind and Rain introduced a new kind of cleaning solution made from Alkaline solvent and polishing material. It can be used to polish the VCDs.

Polishing will lighten the scratches, and the player could read the data better. But after polishing, the VCD will be damaged more easily. This solution was only temporarily.

If the mosaics could not be eradicated, then they must lower the possibilities of mosaics appearing. Feng Yu remembered about the Super VCD from his previous life. This technology appeared in the era between VCD and DVD. It was also because of this technology that let VCD became more popular and caused the death of VHS.

The earliest VCD used MPEG-1 technology, and the video quality was not very clear. The audio also did not have channels to choose from. This next generation technology had 4 channels to choose from. The viewers had more options for the movies’ audio. It will also have duo audio for two languages and increase the market for VCD.

Also, this new technology will increase the functions of VCD players. The VCD will have the option to play music only. This was most suitable for karaoke.

This Super VCD will also threaten the position of Laserdisc. Not only this technology will cause VHS death, but it also caused the decline of Laserdisc.

Feng Yu had asked Wind and Rain Electronic and Aiwa to conduct research on this technology together. But he never expects this technology to be developed so fast.

Feng Yu remembered in his previous life, Sony was the one who had developed this technology. Later, Sony exchanged the technologies with Philips and set the standards for this industry.

The players that were produced were not called Super VCD. It was called a DVD. That means the Super VCD and DVD were using the same players. But the DVD had more significant storage than the Super VCD.

In Feng Yu previous life, many people discovered some players could play VCDs and some could not. That’s because some of them were using Super VCD players and these players could read DVD.

There was also another advantage of this technology. Which is the increased storage of the disc? A super VCD disc could store a whole movie. It no longer needs to split a movie into 2 discs. This would save the trouble of switching disc in the middle of a movie.

Two Super VCD disc could record a concert, or one disc could store more than 20 music videos. It was a good deal for the consumers, and they will be more willing to buy music VCDs.

Feng Yu unintentionally faced Sony again. First, Aiwa’s Walkman had beat Sony and lowered their profits from their Walkman sales. Then, Aiwa introduces their CD players. It snatches Sony’s music players market share.

It also caused Nintendo to fall out with Sony. This made Sony video games business to shrink. To recover their sales, Sony had to channel their funds to set up a Video games division to developed CD-ROM game console. This was to fight back at Nintendo’s monopoly of the gaming industry.

Feng Yu remembered that at the end of this year, Sony will introduce the first generation of PlayStation. It was Sony’s most successful electronic product after Walkman. It held the record of having sales of 100 million units!

Later, PSP, PS2, PS3, and PS4 were all successful. All the models had high sales.

This year should be Sony’s best year in terms of technologies breakthrough. But in this lifetime, this year was a tragedy for Sony. Sony does not own the DVD technology anymore.

Feng Yu had asked Jiang Wanmeng to contact Fu Guangzheng immediately to apply for the patents. They must announce their player’s standards and make it the industry’s benchmark!

Someone had said that a top company will set the standards for the industry and a second rated company will sell its brand. A third rated company will sell its products, and a fourth-rated company will sell its resources. Setting the standards and benchmark for the industry was what most companies were aiming for.

Patented technologies could only prevent other company from using it in their products. It will not prevent others from making a breakthrough with that technology. Sony could always breakdown Wind and Rain Electronic’s technologies and develop new technologies.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many companies fought for the industry standards for several years. All the companies’ products had different technologies, and all of them wanted their technologies to be the industry’s standards. These companies include Toshiba, Pioneer, etc.

In the end, all the companies realized it will not end well for them if they carry on fighting against each other. If two influential companies fought against each other, some other company would take advantage of this. That’s why all the companies stopped.

But sometime later, the companies started to compete against each other for the DVD players and many DVD encoding technologies were introduced.

In the current life, these electronic giants’ technologies were all outdated. Wind and Rain Electronics had introduced the VCD first. Wind and Rain electronics had the advantage in R&D. Also, other companies’ businesses were diversified. They were not concentrating on developing one product like Wind and Rain. For instance, Sony was also developing PlayStation at the same time. Toshiba and other companies were researching digital cameras and computers. They were not focusing all their efforts on one product.

Wind and Rain Electronics was different. Feng Yu does not want Wind and Rain to enter the computer industry. He had Lenovo’s shares after all. The digital camera market will be a massive market in the future. But currently, the resolution was not good enough to replace film camera. Digital cameras will only be accepted by the consumers after the resolution was over 1 million.

That will only happen at the end of the century. At that time, Wind and Rain Electronics could just exchange technologies with other companies to get what they want.

2 weeks later, Wind and Rain Electronics held a press conference in Beijing to introduce their high storage multimedia disc’s technologies. They also told the press that Wind and Rain Electronics had successfully developed MPEG-II technology. The first generation of Super VCD will be introduced to the market at the end of the year!

Chapter 619 – Philips request for collaboration

The press conference was not considered a success as many electronic giants did not attend. The ones present were their representatives in China. Most companies did not expect Wind and Rain Electronics to introduce something good despite them introducing the VCD previously.

But when the companies knew Wind and Rain Electronics had successfully developed MPEG-II technology, all of them were stunned! They had been researching this technology after they saw the VCD. They wanted to use this technology to win Wind and Rain VCD and Aiwa VCD. But before their research was completed, Wind and Rain Electronics had introduced this new technology!

How was this possible? Wind and Rain Electronics was worth so little compared to the other electronics giants. How could they develop this technology so fast?

The companies compared Wind and Rain’s MPEG-II technology with their research. Both were similar, but before they could complete their research, Wind and Rain were already setting the industry’s standards!

After this press conference, all the electronics giant immediately response. Sony immediately held a conference to announce they had also developed this technology. But they did not release the news to the public.

Heitaro Nakajima immediately calls for a press conference. He said Sony only know how to imitate Aiwa. Sony had been following Aiwa’s footsteps and had never overtaken them! Sony had copied Aiwa’s Walkman, CD players. After Aiwa introduced VCD, Sony still wants to copy them!

Sony’s top management was furious!

What copy? We are also conducting our own research on new technologies. We are also researching new MPEG technologies. Our research had overlapped, but Aiwa cannot claim that we are copying them. How can we develop this technology by copying within this short period?

We also did not copy your Walkman and CD players. Heitaro Nakajima was too shameless!

Wind and Rain Electronics immediately announce that they had registered MPEG-II technologies. Sony should not try to copy their technologies. It will be against the copyright laws!

There were rumors that Sony’s President, Norio Ohga, had scolded the head of R&D in his office that day. He was so furious that he smashed an antique vase.

Norio Ohga instructed Sony’s R&D department to research the opposite of what Wind and Rain Electronics technology. Wind and Rain had used a single side and double layer structure for its technologies. They will do the opposite!

But when Sony was about to start their research, Toshiba announced they will be introducing a new technology which was double layer and double sided. They were ahead of Sony!

Double layer structure technology was the latest technology. Does Sony need to develop a triple layer structure technology? What’s the use of it? A disc to store 5 hours of video and audio? The purpose of this disc was to store songs and videos. What’s the use of having such high storages? It would be a waste!

But Sony immediately thought of collaborating with Toshiba. They want to use this Double layer and double-sided disc technology as the industry standards. This will counter Wind, and Rain Electronics single sided double layered technology.

Sony and Toshiba were top consumer electronics companies in the world. Wind and Rain and Aiwa could not compete with them in terms of assets. Aiwa and Wind and Rain had been doing well these few years. Aiwa’s sales had reached over 100 billion Yen, and their profits were over 10 billion Yen. But when converted to USD, its profits were not more than 100 million USD. How could they compete with Sony and Toshiba?

If Sony and Toshiba join hands to set the industry standards, they could prevent Wind and Rain Electronics’ technology to be accepted by the industry!

So, Norio Ohga went to Toshiba’s headquarters to meet with Toshiba’s President. It was unclear what price he paid, but Toshiba agrees to share their technologies with Sony.

“Manager Feng, our technology standards might be replaced by Toshiba and Sony. They had strong foundations, and it would be easier for them to set the industry standards with their technologies.” Jiang Wanmeng called Feng Yu to ask for help.

This was reality. Those two companies had set many industry standards before, and Wind and Rain Electronics were not as influential as them. There was no way to compete with them.

Once both companies had set the standards for this industry, they will dictate the direction of the technology research in the future. It will not be good for Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa.

Most of the profits would be earned by these two companies when they enter the DVD era. This was not what Feng Yu wanted!

The only solution was to work with a top consumer electronics giant. Many companies approached Wind and Rain Electronics for collaborations. One of them was Pioneer. The market leader for Laserdisc. They had gone to Heitaro Nakajima and expressed their intentions to work with Aiwa and Wind and Rain Electronics. They want to stop Sony and Toshiba from setting the industry standards.

Pioneer was one of the big names in the industry. It was an excellent choice to work with them. But Pioneer was too greedy. Not only they wanted the authorization to use the MPEG-II technology, they still wanted to share all the VCD technologies. In return, they would share their Laserdisc technologies with Wind and Rain electronics and Aiwa.

Feng Yu immediately told Heitaro Nakajima to reject them. What a joke? LD technology will be outdated soon. Currently, Pioneer was not the only company who had this LD technology. How can they use this technology to exchange with us? They still want to be authorized to use MPEG-II technology for free?

Without Pioneer’s support, Wind and Rain electronics and Aiwa were at the losing end against Sony and Toshiba. They will not be able to set industry standards.

But at the time, an Electronics Giant approached Wind and Rain Electronics. This company was Philips.

Philips impression for many consumers was shavers. But Philips started off selling lightbulbs! It made a breakthrough in radio technology later. They were one of the first few companies to introduce cassette music recorder.

Of course, it was Philips X-ray tubes that made them famous. It was used on medical devices, and Philips was one of the main competitors of Siemens in the medical devices industry.

Philips most successful product was the shaver. Before the end of the second quarter of 1994, Philips had sold more than 250 million shavers globally. It was way ahead of other brands.

Many people were also unaware that Philips was the inventor of the LaserDisc and optical communication system. Many music lovers should have heard of a record label PolyGram. It was also set up by Philips.

Digital Compact disc was also invented by Philips. Philips was also good at transistors and integrated circuits and chips. As such, their television was widely popular all over the world.

A few years ago, Philips had a restructuring. The company was streamlined to have better growth.

When Philips saw Wind and Rain Electronics introduced the VCD, they also start to research in this area. But sadly, they were like Sony and the rest of the companies. Their R&D was researching several fields at the same time, and this leads to slower progress. Their speed could not be compared to Aiwa and Wind and Rain.

Now, Wind and Rain Electronics had successfully developed MPEG-II technology and will be introducing Super VCD soon. Philips also had good technologies when it comes to compressing technology. They thought it would be best to collaborate with Wind and Rain electronics to set the industry standards. Together, they would be able to beat Toshiba and Sony!

So, the Vice president of Philips came to China.

Chapter 620 – Thomas’s surprise

This was an urgent matter, and Jiang Wanmeng could not make the decision. He immediately called Feng Yu to ask him back.

When Feng Yu knew Philips wanted a collaboration, he was surprised and shocked. He would not need to be afraid of Toshiba and Sony if they were collaborating with Philips. They might even be faster than Toshiba and Sony in setting the industry standards!

Feng Yu flew back to China immediately and waited for Philips vice president Thomas at Aiwa Electronics headquarters.

Thomas arrived in China and saw the buildings. It was a vast difference from Holland, and this was still China’s capital. The Chinese economy was not doing well.

But this third world country to develop the first and second generation of MPEG technologies and VCD, it was still impressive. The Chinese were very creative.

Thomas was confident about this cooperation. He believes that he does not need to offer any good conditions and the other party will agree to this cooperation. First, the Chinese economy was not doing well. That Wind and Rain Electronics was also not a big company. If he offers Wind and Rain Electronics some money, they would surely agree. Even if money could not solve the problem, Wind and Rain Electronics will still give in because of Toshiba and Sony. The negations should be smooth sailing for him.

The Chinese likes to have a joint venture. Philips had set up several joint venture factories in China. Maybe Philips have the chance to buy over Wind and Rain Electronics through this cooperation.

Thomas was more confident when he arrived at Hefei, the city where Wind and Rain Electronics headquarters was located. It was a rural and poor city.

Thomas saw a sign that wrote Philips – Thomas when he stepped out of the airport. It should be Wind and Rain Electronics staff who was there to receive him. Accompanied by Philips employees in China, Thomas walked over proudly.

Eh? The car used by Wind and Rain Electronics was much better than he expected. Although this was not some branded luxury European car, its exterior was well designed, and the interior was spacious and comfortable. It was more comfortable than the Mercedes Benz assigned to him by his company.

This car should be costly. Was this a Japanese car or a US car? This car should be a Japanese car.

“Mr. Thomas is asking if the shareholders of Wind and Rain Electronics here?” When they reached the destination, the translator asked Jiang Wanmeng.

“He is already here and is currently waiting inside.” Jiang Wanmeng replied in English. He spoke excellent English, and this was the reason why he was sent overseas for interaction by his company.

Jiang Wanmeng could tell Thomas was slightly unhappy because Manager Feng and he did not receive him at the airport. They only sent two staffs to fetch him. At the headquarters, Feng Yu also did not go down to receive him. Thomas felt he was not respected by these Chinese.

When they stepped into the building, Thomas was shocked. The exterior of this building looks normal, but the interior was well renovated.

Artificial hill, fountains, flowing water and goldfishes. These were all used to create a natural look. This was not what Thomas had expected. He thought Wind and Rain Electronics headquarter should be run down. Even if it was not rundown, it should be old fashion. Didn’t everyone say the Chinese are all old fashion? How come this company is so unique? He felt his mood changed for the better when he sees the decoration of the lobby.

Feng Yu was standing on top of the spiral staircase and saw Thomas’s surprised look. He felt proud. My new factory and office buildings all have this garden style designs. Hah! Are you surprised?

“Mr. Thomas, this is our Wind and Rain key shareholder, Feng Yu. Manager Feng, this is the representative from Philips, Vice President of Philips, Mr. Thomas.”

“Mr. Thomas, nice to meet you. I represent Wind and Rain Electronics to welcome you.” Feng Yu spoke in English with an American accent. Thomas was surprised to see the major shareholder of Wind and Rain Electronics to be a young man. Did he inherit this business from his family? He speaks good English. Was he from the US? Damn. This is not good.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Feng. I feel honored to be here.”

Both of them exchanged some pleasantries and walked in. Thomas’s eyes grew wide. What is this? There is a swing in the office? What are those people doing? Drinking tea, reading papers and some of them are still watching movies?!

“Mr. Feng, is this your office?” Thomas asked.

“Yes. Don’t you think our office is very humanized? This is the area for the staffs to relax. There is a bathroom and resting area there. There is also a 24 hours cafeteria in here. On the other side, there is an exercise area. if you are interested, we can have a game of Ping-Pong later.” Feng Yu smiled and explained.

The relaxation area, exercise, cafeteria, bathrooms, rest areas? Was this really a workplace?

Was there something wrong with this person’s brains? How can this be an office? Everyone here was not working. Were the staffs here paid to relax and enjoy life?

To Thomas, this company lacks discipline, but these people were the ones that developed the MPEG-II technology!

“Mr. Thomas, are you thinking why no one is working and all of the staffs are relaxing? Our company is paying them for their performance. The more task they completed, the higher their salaries. On the other hand, if the staffs could not complete their tasks, their salaries will be very low and might even be sacked. Research and development of technologies do not depend on time accumulation. Most of the time, it needs inspiration and creativity. Letting them relax will increase their creativity. Many of them worked more than 12 hours a day. Some even worked for more than 16 hours. These are the welfare they deserve. Our Wind and Rain Electronics treat all our staff as family members.”

When Feng Yu suggested this in the past, Fu Guangzheng and Jiang Wanmeng thought Feng Yu was joking. But Feng Yu insisted the company to operate this way. After firing some people who were skiving on the job, the efficiency of the rest of the staffs increased. Also, the staffs had a sense of belonging in the company.

Some other companies tried to poach Wind and Rain Electronics staffs with higher salaries. But none of the staffs went over. The bosses here treated them well, and their work was relaxing. If they work harder, their salary might even be higher. Also, the staff also noticed their health were better than before.

After passing this place, they entered the meeting room. Thomas was still feeling puzzled by this company. Why was this company operating so differently from other companies? He had heard of some software companies in the US operating this way.

This operation model was rare even in Europe. Thomas never expects to see this in China. It was still not some big city in China. This Wind and Rain Electronics was very different, and this young man was not simple!

The meeting room was painted in a soothing color. The renovations and layout of the room were relaxing. Negotiating in this room feels like having a chat between friends. Thomas was not used to this feeling, but he got to admit that he likes this ambiance.

“Mr. Thomas, try this tea beverage. Maybe you will like it.” Feng Yu asked someone to bring a bottle of Lehaha’s green tea.

“This taste is special. I do not like to drink tea, but I enjoy this very much. China is a really amazing place. I am so lucky to be here!” Thomas said.

Chapter 621 – Setting the Industry standards together (Part 1 of 2)

“Philips will be cooperating with our Wind and Rain electronics and Aiwa to set the industry standards for DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), and we will change the world!” Feng Yu said.

“Since Mr. Feng knew the purpose of my visit, then shall we talk about the terms of our cooperation?” Thomas asked eagerly.

“Of course. What does Philips want? You can speak your mind. Hmmm…… We also have our terms.” Feng Yu wanted to hear what Philips wanted from him before telling Thomas his conditions.

“We are very interested in MPEG technologies, regardless of whether it is the first- or second-generation technology. These are what we wanted. We have advanced technologies for Laserdisc and Compact Disc. The compressing technology used by your VCD is invented by us, and we own the patent.”

“We are using new technology. It is not your patented technology, and it is not an infringement.” Jiang Wanmeng interrupted.

“You misunderstood me. I am not saying you all had infringed our patents. Compact Disc technologies are changing every day. There are changed to technologies almost every month. But as the inventors, we have the best technologies. If we cooperate, we will surely let Compact Disc replace the tradition cassette tapes. This is a win-win situation for both of us.” Thomas explained.

“Currently, our VCD occupies 20% market share of the video market, and it is still increasing. In China, our VCD had taken over more than 60% of the videocassette market. In the US, we owned more than 30% market share. Even without your company’s help, we are confident that Compact Disc will replace cassette tapes in 3 to 5 years.”

Are we fools? With your help, the process will only speed up slightly, but we still have you give you a cut of our profits. Without your help, we can still succeed, and we are still able to get all the profits. To Wind and Rain Electronics, both ways will work. But for Thomas, Wind and Rain Electronics was walking down the wrong path.

If the VCD was just invented, what Thomas said was not wrong. But after so long, VCD had been accepted by consumers, and this was the time to reap the profits. There is no difference between getting the benefits two years earlier and two years later.

“If this is completed one day earlier, you get the profits one day earlier. Don’t you agree that capturing the market is more important?” Thomas asked.

“We only take a few months to invent this technology from scratch and used two years to introduce to the rest of the world. We are occupying the market right now.” Feng Yu replied calmly.

Thomas did not retort and continued: “Ok. Then I will talk about other things. You all invented the Digital versatile disc is to sell this product and the players, right? Then the technology for the players is very critical. I believe that you all have already started the developments for this. However, are you confident that you all will be faster at developing the encoding technology than Sony and Toshiba?”

The encoding technology was what Feng Yu wanted. If the players could only read and could not encode the disc, the uses of the disc will be limited. If a PC was equipped with a burning optical drive, then compact disc can replace the floppy disk. The profits from this will be huge!

If Lenovo could use this technology effectively in its computers, then Lenovo’s development would be much faster. Maybe it will become one of the world’s top PC manufacturer!

On the other hand, Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa also needed this technology. If not, they will only be able to encode VCD disc, or the DVD they produce will not be compatible with other companies’ players. That will hinder the introduction of the DVD players.

DVD will ultimately replace VCD. That’s for sure. If the industry standards were like the VCD, which was set by Wind and Rain Electronics, then Wind and Rain Electronics status in the international electronics industry will rise. The profits will be significant.

“How can you prove that the development speed will be faster than Toshiba and Sony if we cooperate with you? Furthermore, Pioneer, Hewlett-Packard, etc. are also researching into this technology.” Feng Yu asked.

“Because our company is Philips! We are the first ones to invent the encoding technology. We have the best foundations!” Thomas replied proudly.

“Fine. Even if you all were the best in this technology, but why are we faster at developing the MPEG technologies than you? We can also cooperate with other companies, and the results will still be the same.” Feng Yu replied.

Damn. You are talking as if Philips is the best company in the world. If Philips is really that good, then why didn’t you all invent the VCD? You all are just greedy and wanted a slice of the pie now.

“Manager Feng, let us analyze the market situation. After you all announced your latest technology, Toshiba and Sony immediately introduce another set of standards for the industry. Pioneer also started to look into this technology. Hewlett-Packard also announced that they will be researching this technology. That means 4 world class consumer electronics companies are entering the market. This does not include us. I want to know in the consumer electronics industry, where does Wind and Rain Electronics stand? What position does your company stand?”

This was a slap on Feng Yu’s face! If we are in the first position, do we still need to cooperate with others?

“Compare to the whole industry, our position might not be high. But when it comes to video players, our technologies are one of the best in the world. Just look at VCD. This is a product that will change the consumer electronics industry. We will be introducing Super VCD soon, and we will surely beat the old school video cassette players. When we introduce the DVD players, we will become one of the top consumer electronics company.”

“Time, Mr. Feng. I would like to remind you that time is an important aspect. What if other companies introduced DVD when you introduced your Super VCD? Your disc can store 100 minutes of high-quality video. What if other companies introduce a disc that can store 200 minutes of video? The disc is not only used to store movies. There is another popular option for consumers. TV dramas. Your disc can store 2 to 3 episodes, but others can store up to 10 episodes. It will be a great difference.”

“Don’t forget we are still partnering with Aiwa.”

“Aiwa is a good company. But its strength is only in the Walkman industry. Their CD technologies are not better than Sony and many other companies. Aiwa is only making use of its reputation as a good music player. When it comes to video, Aiwa is still a newcomer. It is not known for video players, and their technologies are not outstanding. It cannot be compared to us, Philips!”

Damn. How can he belittled Aiwa to this extent?! If Heitaro Nakajima knew about this, he would bring his samurai sword to duel with you! If he loses, he might even cut his own belly.

Feng Yu stop frowning. “Mr. Thomas. The more you say, the more you look like you want to cooperate with us. Tell me your conditions.”

Chapter 622 – Setting the Industry standards together (Part 2 of 2)

This was like bargaining at a bazaar. You kept saying that this thing is not good, but you are still staying there. This is a tactic for negotiation. This was what Thomas was doing.

Thomas smiled. “Then I shall not say anymore. Before I come here, we had discussed in our meeting. Philips and Wind and Rain Electronics will research and develop a writeable DVD together. We will develop a small device to record data into a DVD disc and set the standards for the DVD industry.”

This was what Feng Yu had expected. Philips was really a formidable partner.

“Let’s talk about the details.”

“Your company had achieved good results in China, but compared to us, you are still far behind. Our research lab is several times bigger than your company. We have more researchers and experts then yours. So, I suggest that we take charge of R&D. Your company had made significant contributions to this technology. So, when we set the industry standards, we should name it as Philips – Wind and Rain DVD standard.”

Go to hell. Are you treating me as an idiot? Philips – Wind and Rain DVD standard might sound like cooperation. But from looking at the name, people will know that we are just helping Philips as a follower. We are the ones who own MPEG-II technology!

Just like Yang-Mills theory. Yang Channing’s name is in front, followed by Robert Mills. At that time, although Robert Mills received higher recognition, from the name of the theory, one could tell who contributed more in theory. Whoever contributed more, its name will be in front.

“Mr. Thomas. I think you have misunderstood one thing. We are the ones who developed this MPEG-II technology. We also own the patent for the first generation of technology. This technology is the core of the DVD Yes, your company might have more scientist and researcher than us. But are they better than us in this field? Can you all concentrate on researching on one technology? We are different. We are the experts in this field, and we only research into this MPEG technology. I dare to claim that no other companies are better than us when it comes to this field. Also, the research on writeable DVDs, we will also be ahead of other companies. You all should be the one accommodating to us and not the opposite way!”

Damn. Know your place!

“Mr. Feng, don’t forget that the industry standards set by us will be accepted by the consumers easier than your company. Did your company set the standards for VCD? You all only had marketed the VCD well. You all had the chance to set the industry standards for VCD. If we are the ones who developed this VCD, the current VHS players will already be obsolete.” Thomas took a sip of green tea.

Philips did not set any high requirements for this negotiation. When Thomas arrived in China, he decided to set higher standards. But after looking at Wind and Rain company’s culture, he chose to stick with his company’s original requirements. He cannot be too greedy.

Thomas’s initial plan was to let Philips set the industry standards. Both companies will conduct research and development together and share all related technologies. If he could get a stake of Wind and Rain Electronics, it would be better. After chatting with Feng Yu, he decided to give in and followed his company’s directions. Both companies’ will be used in industry standards. But Philips must be in front.

Feng Yu was not happy with this decision. You want to put Wind and Rain Electronics name in front of Philips? Are you kidding me? Do you think Wind and Rain Electronics is bigger than Philips?

“Mr. Thomas, are you thinking that Wind and Rain Electronics is not big enough to set the industry standards?”

Although Thomas felt this way, he did not reply Feng Yu. His facial expression had shown what he was thinking.

“If our Wind and Rain Electronics can set and implement the industry standards ourselves, why should we cooperate with Philips? Mr. Thomas should also know that this MPEG-II technology is jointly developed by Aiwa and us. Then what do you think if Aiwa chooses to work with Japan’s Sony instead? Don’t you think it will be easier to set the industry standards if Aiwa cooperates with Sony? Don’t forget that Aiwa had worked with Sony for quite some time in the past.”

“We shall not say how much losses will Wind and Rain Electronics face if you asked Aiwa to set the industry standards. It is impossible for Aiwa to work with Sony. Aiwa had snatched the Walkman market from Sony and Aiwa’s market share of the Walking market is almost 70%. Currently, Sony is only left with less than 20% market share, and Aiwa is starting to snatch the CD player market share from Sony. Aiwa’s biggest competitor is Sony. Why would Aiwa choose to work with Sony?” Thomas smiled and asked Feng Yu back.

Before Thomas came to China, he had done his homework. This information was not any secrets. He knows about these when he asked around.

Oh, you have done your homework? But the more you know, the easier it is for me to hoodwink you.

“You are right, and it is also because of the things you said. If Aiwa approached Sony to collaborate and offered to join hands to control the Walkman and CD player market, do you think Sony will reject this offer?!”

Thomas’s face changes. Indeed, Aiwa was willing to give up some of the Walkman and CD player market share to Sony, Sony would surely work with them. But Thomas did not know it was impossible for Sony and Aiwa to work together in this lifetime!

Heitaro Nakajima had insulted Sony’s Acting President Norio Ohga publicly in front of the media before. Norio Ohga will never agree to cooperate with Aiwa. If given a chance, he would want to step all over Aiwa! If it weren’t for Aiwa disrupting his plans, he would be the President of Sony now!

“Mr. Feng, Aiwa is Aiwa and not Wind and Rain Electronics. If Aiwa were to set the industry standards, what benefit will Wind and Rain Electronics get? I know Wind and Rain Electronics had been collaborating with Aiwa and shared many technologies. But are you willing to help another brand grow?” Thomas decided to use branding to persuade Feng Yu.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you that I am not only the founder of Wind and Rain Electronics. I am also the major shareholder of Aiwa. To me, both companies are the same. In fact, I own more shares in Aiwa than Wind and Rain Electronics. Didn’t you notice that there is a sub-brand under Aiwa which is in Chinese?” Feng Yu smiled and replied.

What? Feng Yu is the major shareholder of Aiwa?!

That means both companies are the same as Feng Yu. No wonder both companies cooperated in so many projects and Aiwa was able to open up the Chinese market.

Damn. This way, Philips will not have any advantage in this negotiation.

“Then how do you want to cooperate?”

“Simple. Wind and Rain Electronics will be doing the R&D, and Philips will assist us. We will set the industry standards together, and it will be called Wind and Rain Philips DVD standards. There should be other companies that are working with Philips. Get them to recognize this standard. We will own the writeable DVD technology patent, and Philip will enjoy lifetime authorization to use this technology. At the same time, we will authorize Philips to use our MPEG and VCD technologies for free. We will share the market with you all.”

The patent belongs to the other party, but Philips will get the rights to use the patents. This deal was not beneficial to Philips. But if they do not agree, Philips will be kicked out of this game. They will not even get a bite of the cake.

“Mr. Feng, I need to discuss with my headquarters before I can give you an answer.” Thomas’s proud look on his face was long gone. Now, Feng Yu had the upper hand.

Feng Yu stretched out his hand: “Of course. I will wait for your good news. If Mr. Thomas does not mind, stay at our Wind and Rain Electronics hotel tonight.”

Chapter 623 – The Amazing show flat

Feng Yu turned to Jiang Wanmeng and said: “Bring him to our show flat.”

Jiang Wanmeng nodded. He was looking forward to seeing how this proud Dutch would react when he saw their show flat.

This show flat was suggested by Feng Yu. Feng Yu wanted a place to showcase and experiment with the future of home appliances. Almost all home appliances in the show flat were “invented” by Feng Yu. Many of them were simple but very practical. It includes Wind and Rain Home appliances products.

At the door, there was an electronic lock. Jiang Wanmeng keyed in 9527, and there was a beep to notify the user that the door was unlocked. The password was set by Feng Yu, and he likes this number.

Electronic locks were invented a long time ago, but it was still not widespread. It was because there were still many disadvantages to electronic locks. For instance, the keypad was not sensitive enough, and it could not be easily unlocked. The microchip was also easily decoded. But at Wind and Rain Electronics, most of the locks were electronic.

Thomas raised his brows when he saw the electronic lock. It’s just an electronic lock. What’s there to be surprised? We also have these at Philips. These people from Wind and Rain Electronics have been living in the mountains?!

But when Thomas saw the Wind and Rain logo at the door lock, he was slightly surprised. This electronic lock was invented by Wind and Rain themselves? Philips also can develop such locks.

“These are something our staffs invented in their free time.” Jiang Wanmeng said as he opened the door. He introduced the features of the show flat to Thomas. “This is our best room. It is set up like an apartment and had used all the futuristic concept suggested by Manager Feng. Manager Feng does not only own Wind and Rain Electronics. He also owns Wind and Rain Home Appliances. I am sure you have heard of the bladeless fans. It is one of the products of Wind and Rain Home Appliances.”

Thomas had a surprised look on his face. Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, were own by the same person? Mr. Feng had so many businesses. Seems like it was impossible to use the government to pressurize them to give in.

But what do futuristic concepts mean?

Jiang Wanmeng picked up a remote control near the door and points it at the window. Beep. The curtains opened. He then points the remote at the TV, and the TV was switched on. He pressed another button, and the VCD player was switched on. The TV was playing a video of Elvis Presley.

“This remote control is used to control everything in this flat. You only need to point it at the home appliances, and you can control it.” Jiang Wanmeng explained.

But Jiang Wanmeng noticed that Thomas was not listening to him. His eyes were glued to the TV.

This was a flat screen TV using a plasma display panel. Although it was not as flat as the future flat screen TV, the thickness was only 10 cm. It was much slimmer than the traditional cathode-ray tube (CRT) TV.

“You all also knows about this technology?” It was the Japanese that were good at Plasma TV technology. Companies like Panasonic, NEC, and Fujitsu, were researching into this technology. Wind and Rain electronics also got hold of this technology?

Philips was also researching this technology and tried to introduce this type of TV. But it was not popular among the consumers as it was costly and the picture quality was about the same as regular TV. But Philips felt that these Plasma TV would be popular in the future.

“We cannot say we are good at this technology. We are currently researching Liquid-crystal-display televisions (LCD TVs). We are still deciding whether to focus on Plasma or LCD.” Jiang Wanmeng rubbed his nose and replied.

Jiang Wanmeng was lying. Wind and Rain Electronics still did not understand about this technology. They had only reversed engineered other people’s product and was still studying it. They can only be considered beginners in this field.

Thomas was shocked. Wind and Rain Electronics was also researching LCD monitors? This was what Philips was focusing on. But LCD resolution was not as high as Plasma TV. However, it was much cheaper, lighter, and thinner than plasma TV!

Why was Wind and Rain Electronics research direction similar to them?

The answer was simple. Because Feng Yu knew about the future of consumer electronics. Plasma Tv was very popular at the start, but when LCD TV’s resolution increases and the cost lowered, Plasma TV became obsolete.

This was why Feng Yu refuses to waste time researching into Plasma TV. When Jiang Wanmeng and his team told Feng Yu that they wanted to study Plasma technology, Feng Yu said them to consider LCD tv instead. He knew that before Plasma TV becomes widespread, it will be replaced by LCD TVs.

Also, LCD monitors were more suitable to be used for computer monitors, and the growth of this technology was rapid. It replaced Plasma TV and CRT TV within a few years!

Jiang Wanmeng switched on the air purifier in the corner. This technology was actually invented by Yadu. But when Wind and Rain Home Appliances exchanged technologies with Yadu, it was included in it.

This Air purifier also has the aromatherapy function in it. Soon, the whole room was filled with a mild fragrant.

“This air purifier has aromatherapy and humidifying functions incorporated in it. The air here is dry, and you will feel better if the air is humidified.” Jang Wanmeng explained.

“There is a computer here, and you can send emails to your company. You are also free to surf the net. Oh, this computer is equipped with an optical drive. There are some game discs here. If you are bored, you can play some computer games or watch a movie. Other than the monitor is smaller, the quality is as good as VCD players. With these earphones, the sound is better than watching from the TV.”

Computer with optical drives? What a crazy idea! If this were introduced to the market, it would inevitably replace the floppy disk. CD will be able to store more data than floppy disk!

“Is this computer also manufactured from your company? But the logo is not from Wind and Rain.”

“This is Lenovo. China’s best computer brand. Manager Feng also owns some shares in this company.”

Thomas had a disbelieving look on his face. Feng Yu also have shares in this company? How many businesses did Feng Yu have? How come he seems to do anything related to electronics and home appliances?

“Oh, let me show you the bathroom.”

Thomas was stunned. What’s there to show in the bathroom? You think I did not use a bathroom before? Don’t tell me that your bathroom is fully automated?

“This water heater adjust the water temperature automatically. You can set the temperature you want here, and there is an LCD display. The + sign means to increase the temperature and – sign is to lower the temperature. The highest you can set is 72 degree Celsius.”

“I think I do not need to introduce the hairdryer. This is the hand dryer. There is a built-in infrared sensor. It will blow out hot air to dry your hands. This will prevent your hands from getting germs when you come into contact with the towels or paper. If you are interested, you can experience it yourself.”

Automatic hand dryer technology was based on bladeless fan technology. It was small and could be hung on the wall. Wind and Rain Home appliances had applied patent for this technology. The Japanese company who owns this patent in Feng Yu’s previous life can only watch Feng Yu reap all the benefits.

“This is a robotic vacuum cleaner. It is also in-built with infrared sensors. After you switch it on and place on the floor, it will vacuum the floor itself. Look, after it touched the wall, it will change direction on its own. If you switch it on before you leave for work, your floor will be clean when you return home.”

“This is the kitchen. This is a light wave microwave oven. It combines the technology of microwave and light wave. It will heat up your food faster and save more electricity. This is a product which Wind and Rain Home Appliances will introduce later this year. This is an induction cooker. You should have used it before.”

When Jiang Wanmeng turned back to look at Thomas, he saw Thomas was still in shocked.

Thomas was stunned by all the home appliances in this show flat. Were these home appliances for average households? Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances were already so technologically advanced?

Chapter 624 – Full cooperation

Thomas was stunned by all the home appliances in the show flat. Jiang Wanmeng was trying to hold back his laughter. These appliances were mostly samples.

For instance, that universal remote controller. Although it could control the TV, VCD player and many other appliances, there was a problem with the signal. If you are not careful, you could switch off the VCD when you are switching on the TV. The controller can be considered a useless product.

Also, that vacuum robot. The cost of producing it was very high, and it was almost impossible to mass produce it. That infrared sensor was not sensitive enough, and there was no timer set in the robot. It wastes lots of electricity.

The water heater was simple to manufacture, but with the heating controller in the heater was very expensive. That LCD display indicating the temperature was only a prototype.

The infrared sensor tap, voice control switches, automatic electric kettle, air conditioner equipped with air purifying features, etc. had shocked Thomas.

This was the power of Wind and Rain company? It was too advanced. How did they come up with these ideas? Are these invented by the staff who were all drinking tea and playing ping pong during their working hours?

“Mr. Thomas, you can leave your luggage here, and we will go for dinner. I bring you around and have a taste our local cuisine.”

“Ah? Oh ok. Let’s go.” As Thomas was walking out of the room, he kept turning back to look at the appliances. If possible, he would like to bring some of those products back to experiment with it.

Thomas even wanted to dismantle all those appliances now. He knew he would have lots of inspirations from those appliances. But since Jiang Wanmeng dares to show him these products, that means they would have applied for the patents and was not afraid of letting him know the theories and technologies behind the appliances.

These appliances had shocked him. This was the strength of Wind and Rain company? Philips should be cooperating with such company fully and not bargaining with them over one or two technologies.

“Mr. Jiang, I would like to make a phone call first,” Thomas said.

“Are you calling Holland? Come with me. You can make long distance calls in my office.”

Jiang Wanmeng brought Thomas to his office and left. Leaving Thomas alone in his office with the door closed.

Thomas was about to make his phone call when he noticed there was a stack of documents left on Jiang Wanmeng’s desk. Although he knew that it was unethical and even against the law to peep at another person documents, he could not resist it.

Chinese, Chinese, Chinese. Most of the documents were in Chinese, and Thomas could not understand. He finally found a document in English. He opened it up and was shocked.

This was a report about a collaboration with Dell. Dell wanted to cooperate with Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances and enter the Chinese market. They wanted to set up their Asia headquarters in China and expand their operations to the rest of Asia.

Dell was also a juggernaut in the electronics industry. If Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances cooperate with Dell, then Philips will be out of the game.

So, other than Sony, Wind and Rain Electronics still have other partners to choose from!

Thomas immediately called his headquarters and report his findings and what he saw to the President of Philips. He requests the company to give him an answer as soon as possible. His opinion was to cooperate with Wind and Rain Electronics fully. Just this company’s creativity was worthy for Philips to collaborate with them!

Philips top management was very concern after they heard Thomas’s report. They had sent Thomas over to China was because they knew Thomas was capable and was able to make the right decisions. Thomas also owns Philips shares and will never betray the company. In the past, Thomas had also represented Philips for several negotiations and had never made any blunders.

This time, Philips top management trusted Thomas’s judgment and sincerely wanted to collaborate with Wind and Rain Electronics after knowing how strong this company was.

Philips knew how much profits can an advanced technology, or an advanced product brings to the company. This Wind and Rain Company was able to invent so many advanced technologies. The future of this company was limitless. If Philips were able to cooperate with such a potential company now, they would be establishing a good working relationship with this company, and they would also be able to share those technologies. They would be ahead of their competitors!

During dinner, Feng Yu used his tactics to make his guest drunk. He would raise his glass every few minutes. They were drinking Baijiu. But Feng Yu used an excuse of under medication to avoid drinking. He was drinking fruit juice!

Toasting with a glass of fruit juice was too embarrassing for Jiang Wanmeng to watch. But when he saw Feng Yu continued toasting Thomas with his fruit juice and Thomas was about to pass out, he also joined in to make Thomas drink more.

Those home appliances still have lots of defects. If Thomas were sober, he would notice the problems in those products and the surprise they gave him will be gone. That English document about the cooperation with Dell was also fake.

These were all traps laid for Thomas. If Thomas did not peep at the documents on the desk, he would not fall for the trap. But since he peeked at the documents, naturally he would fall for it.

If someone read that document carefully, he would realize that it was fake. But Thomas did not have the time to read it carefully. He also did not dare to read someone else documents so openly in their offices. If he were caught, he would bring trouble to Philips and might even be fired.

Feng Yu said that this trap cannot fool gentlemen. It was only applicable to sneaky people.

That afternoon, the top management of Philips held a meeting. They wanted to contact Thomas again to discuss their cooperation with Wind and Rain. In the phone call earlier, Thomas had asked them to make a decision as soon as possible.

But Philips China staffs told the top management of Philips that Thomas was drunk and was sleeping!

The next morning, Jiang Wanmeng woke Thomas up for breakfast. Thomas had a bad hangover. He could not even remember how he returned to the show flat yesterday.

Thomas swore that he would never drink with Chinese again! These Chinese can hold their liquor well. He did not know what happened, and he passed out. The Chinese are the ones who invented Baijiu, and it is in their blood to hold their liquor well!

“Mr. Thomas, yesterday during dinner, you said that you will be able to give us a decision this morning. I wonder, what’s your company’s decision.” Feng Yu asked.

“Mr. Feng, can I make a phone call?”

“Of course.”

After breakfast, Thomas called his headquarters and was scolded for being drunk yesterday. The management asked Thomas about some details, and he explained. Thomas still insisted on cooperating with Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances fully. Philips must collaborate on both electronics and home appliances.

Thomas also mentioned that Wind and Rain was a powerful company, and they could not make use of their government to pressurize them to give in to their demands.

Philips made its decision. They agree to Thomas’s views and will collaborate with Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home appliances fully. The details of this cooperation will still need to be discussed after Thomas negotiation.

After leaving Jiang Wanmeng’s office, Thomas said to Feng Yu: “Mr. Feng, our board of directors had decided to collaborate with Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home appliances fully!”

“Collaborate fully? How are we going to cooperate? Can you be more specific?” Feng Yu replied calmly. But in his heart, he was jumping with joy.

Chapter 625 – Full cooperation continued

The negotiations went on smoothly. It was also because Thomas was impressed by Wind and Rain’s “strength” and gave lots of concessions.

In terms of branding and electronics industry, Philips was much stronger than Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances.

But Feng Yu made it very clear. If Philips were to work with Wind and Rain, they will be able to develop many electronics products which would change the world. The VCD, Super VCD, the upcoming DVD and optical drive for computers and even the home appliances like vacuum robots, lightwave microwave oven, etc. will bring lots of profits to Philips.

Because of these profits, Thomas and Philips agreed to Feng Yu’s terms. They will cooperate fully and will set the industry standards together. They will popularize the VCD and DVD together and will also introduce the rest of the new home appliances.

Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances will let Philips have access to their technologies. Philips will share its optical disc technology, TV technologies, LCD display technologies, and optical communication technology with Wind and Rain. Technologies will be shared between both companies at no cost.

The companies will still retain the patents they own, but the other party will get to use it for free. All new patents developed from the related technologies will still be owned by the company.

Feng Yu had made serious considerations before exchanging the VCD technologies with Philips. He had thought why the VCD developments were not as fast as his previous life. There was only one reason. It was because there were only two companies in the market, producing VCD players, and both companies belong to him.

Feng Yu could not compete with the several companies who worked together in introducing the VCD players in his previous life. His marketing and distribution channels were not sufficient to popularize this product. In his earlier life, most of the top Japanese electronics companies own VCD technology. They were the ones who discovered that this technology was not patented, and they rushed to apply for patents.

This was why, in the future, the Chinese VCD companies still had to pay patent fees to those Japanese companies. The Japanese companies used the fees collected to develop better technologies and became the best in the industry.

In this life, this patent belongs to Feng Yu. Japanese companies will not share this pie. But the VCD was not growing as fast as Feng Yu’s previous life. But it was still the same as history. All the companies were trying to develop DVD players to replace VCD.

DVD will replace VCD in time to come. The technology and user experiences were better than VCD. The companies had acted fast, but Wind and Rain Electronics were still able to develop the latest DVD technology before them.

It was like the gaming industry. Nintendo and ditched Sony and Sony used the next 2 years to develop the PlayStation gaming console. In the end, Sony occupied most of the market share and profits!

Aiwa had beaten Sony in the Walkman industry, but that was because Sony’s focus at that moment was on the Columbia Pictures. Columbia Pictures was their most significant investment in the 1990s. It was still an overseas investment. Nothing must go wrong with this investment.

Once Columbia Pictures start to make money, Sony would have more time and resources to fight against Aiwa. But Feng Yu was not worried about this. By the time Columbia Pictures makes profits, Walkman will be almost obsolete. If Sony wants to get back the Walkman market at that time, they can have it.

But now, Sony and Toshiba had teamed up and wants to set the industry standards. They realized this DVD is better than VCD. It will ultimately replace traditional VHS players. Also, this was what Sony wanted for their Columbia Pictures. With this technology, they would be able to sell their films on DVD.

Columbia Pictures owns the rights to an enormous volume of movies. If Sony was able to introduce a good DVD player and those movies in DVD formats, then Columbia Pictures’ profits will increase. This will revive this struggling production company.

So, Sony would definitely increase its investments on its DVD research and developments. Feng Yu knew that if he were to go against Sony head-on, he might still win in the end. All he needs to do was to increase his investment into Aiwa and Wind and Rain Electronics. But it was not worth doing this.

There’s a lot of advantages by collaborating with Philips. Especially one specific term in the contract. Both companies will help the other party manufacture products.

Aiwa only has a factory in London, and it was manufacturing Walkman. That factory had to fulfill the orders for the whole of West Europe, and the factory had no more space to produce VCD players. Aiwa and Wind and Rain brand of VCD players were all manufactured in China. The cost was high due to the transportation of the goods to the Europe and US markets.

Those VHS player manufacturers had lowered their retail prices to compete with VCD players. All VHS players manufacturers were working together to prevent VCD players from gaining popularity in the western countries.

Feng Yu got to admit that those companies were influential and could stop VCD players from becoming popular overseas. Although there was still profits, it was still a different feeling from monopolizing the market.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the VCD market was doing very well. The manufacturers were selling an astronomical number of VCD players every year. But now, after Feng Yu had monopolized the VCD market, the sales of the players remained low and Feng Yu was worried.

But now, with Philips coming into the picture, the VCD player sales will surely shoot up due to its distribution channels in Europe and the US. Thomas also had the same thinking as Feng Yu. He also wanted to introduce the Super VCD immediately. He did not want to introduce the old VCD players. This way, it will widen the gap between VCD and the traditional VHS. It would be easier to kick them out of the market!

Feng Yu had only authorized Philips to use his technology. Once Feng Yu got hold of newer technologies, his VCD technologies’ authorization could be given to more companies, and it would be a collective effort to open up the VCD market. But the biggest slice of the pie still belongs to Wind and Rain Electronics.

The returns from setting the industry standards cannot be seen anytime soon. But the profits from producing Super VCD was immediate. Thomas also accepts Feng Yu request for manufacturing Wind and Rain Electronics for him. This will lower the cost for Wind and Rain VCD and Aiwa VCD players. It will shorten the time taken to introduce newer models and open up the market.

In China, Feng Yu’s main focus was still Wind and Rain VCD players and Aiwa VCD players. For the overseas, Feng Yu would use AIWA VCD and Wind and Rain VCD players. Aiwa brand was used to target China and the Southeast Asia markets.

(Aiwa = Ai Hua, Chinese characters for Aiwa brand. Feng Yu had set up a sub-brand for Aiwa, which is in Chinese characters. This is to target the China market. AIWA is the international brand and its written in English characters.)

Philips will also benefit from this deal. They will also get profits from the Super VCD players and the future DVD players. Also, there will be profits from other innovative home appliances.

With so much more profits coming in, Philips would be able to increase their R&D funds for their medical equipment. They would be able to overtake Siemens in the medical machines industry!

After knowing Feng Yu had a Pager manufacturing company under the Aiwa brand, Philips felt that they could also cooperate on telecommunication devices and develop mobile phones. Philips also felt that mobile phones would replace pagers in the future.

Philips felt that it would take at least 10 years for mobile phones to replace pagers, but Feng Yu felt pagers would be a sunset industry in 3 years. In the next 5 years, it would be replaced by mobile phones!

Thomas felt Feng Yu was too radical. He even made a bet with Feng Yu that if the demand for pagers start to decline in 3 years, and mobile phones replaced pagers in the next 5 years, he would agree to one condition set by Feng Yu!

After signing the agreement, Thomas returned to Holland immediately. They had no time as the race to set the DVD industry standards had started!

Chapter 626 – Industry Standards race

Wind and Rain Electronics introduced the single side double layer model and technology. Single side double layer disc was very different from Toshiba’s Double side double layers technology. The Double side double layers had more storage than single side double layer technology.

But the single side double layer encoding technology was simple and a lot easier to introduce to the market. Feng Yu and Philips both felt the storage for the disc does not need to so high. Single side double layer structure was enough for now.

In the future, the discs for movies, music, games, etc. were mostly using single side single layer structure. It was because a single side single layer structure storage would reach more than 5 gigabytes. It was more than sufficient to store a standard movie or even a high definition movie!

Movie collections? That’s after the year 2000. Some movies became popular and introduced part 2, 3, and so on. Movies collection of the same series appeared then. But there was a lot of pirated version, and most of the pirated movie was produced in China.

DVD was still not applicable for drama series. It was the movie companies that wanted to use DVD. They need the DVD to distribute their movies, and consumers were willing to buy their products. The movie companies usually do not own the rights for dramas.

Most of the dramas were aired on TV. If the viewers like the drama, the TV station will air a rerun of the drama. Movies were seldom air on TV as the rights were too expensive. The rights cost almost the same as a drama series, but a movie was too short. The TV station could not even earn back the amount they paid for the film.

In the future, CCTV movie channel will be the biggest buyer of movie rights. Many people shoot movies because they wanted to sell the rights. They can sell to VCD companies, CCTV movie channel, etc. This was because the producers could not make money even when the movie was aired in the cinema.

So, Feng Yu told Thomas that the Double side double layer structure was a waste. The cost was higher, and the technological requirements were higher. It was hard to implement it too. Even the single side double layer structure was not required now. When both companies were researching on single side double layer structure disc currently, they should continue to upgrade the encoding technology. Their aim should be using single side and single layer disc to meet the demands of the cinema companies.

Of course, they also need to research on high storage disc. In the future, the blue ray high definition movies would be too big to be stored on a standard disc. One blue ray high definition movie was more than 20 gigabytes!

But currently, high definition movies do not even exist. Who would they sell this high storage disc to? The VCD or DVD players had to be connected to the TV. The resolution of the TV in this era was only so high. Even if there were a high definition movie disc, it would not be shown on the TV!

After Thomas returned to Holland, Philips immediately call for a press conference to announce they would use Wind and Rain Electronics, Single side double layer structure disc and technology, to enter the VCD market.

This news caused an uproar in the consumer electronics industry.

Many companies were still laughing at Wind and Rain Electronics when they introduced this format and technology. A small electronic company from China wants to set the industry standards? Who would listen to you? We will be the one who would set the standards, and you must follow our standards.

Toshiba was one of those companies, and Sony announced that they will be collaborating with Toshiba to set the DVD players standard.

But now, Philips, a world-renowned electronics company, had announced they will abide by Wind and Rain Electronics standards. This means they were helping and supporting Wind and Rain to seek profits.

Everyone knows that the one who set the industry standards will be the industry’s leader. Philips had recognized Wind and Rain Electronics as the industry leader?!

But everyone immediately knew Wind and Rain Electronics had authorized Philips to use their patents. With Philips helping to set the industry standards, other companies will also agree to follow it.

PolyGram, a record label under Philips had started to collaborate with Wind and Rain Electronics. They sold the rights of their music at low cost to Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind, and Rain Electronics will produce music and videos VCD according to the new format.

Many other companies, including movie companies, record labels, etc. which had worked with Philips previously also announce that they will use Wind and Rain Electronics standards.

Toshiba and Sony start to act. They had joined hands to set the industry standards. They firmly believe that they had bigger storage and more advanced technology. Their disc should be more suitable for the industry. They also start to contact more movie and music companies to introduce their format.

Toshiba and Sony had thought that they would be able to suppress Wind and Rain Electronics when they join forces. After the industry standards were set by them, their related technologies’ worth would increase. Wind and Rain Electronics will waste time and funds for developing those technologies.

But Toshiba and Sony did not expect Philips would come into the picture and collaborate with Wind and Rain Electronics!

It was frustrating for Toshiba. Toshiba had approached Aiwa and Wind and Rain Electronics to try and get the authorization to use the VCD patents. But their request was rejected!

Many other companies like NEC, Fujitsu, Panasonic, etc. had contacted them too. All of them were also rejected and did not get the authorization!

Big companies do not dare to use other people’s patents illegally. If they were caught, they would be punished heavily. The company would have to surrender their profits from the products which had used another company’s technology. It will also affect the company’s reputation.

Why Feng Yu did not sell the authorization to those companies? Authorizing, those companies were also profitable.

There were two reasons. First, Feng Yu was waiting for MPEG-II technology to be developed. He does not want other companies to develop this technology earlier than him.

Secondly, those companies were all Japanese companies!

Feng Yu does not want the Japanese to make profits from this technology.

Now, Feng Yu had asked Jiang Wanmeng to contact other companies. They were preparing to have a large-scale patent authorization for the first generation of MPEG technology and the VCD player technology.

Feng Yu has the most advanced technology in his hands, and he wanted to make the most out of his older technologies. This was what many big companies were doing. This way, the company could make more money and also prevent other companies from overtaking them.

Many companies focus on developing new technology and patenting them. These companies will not produce any products but make use of authorizing their patents to earn money. For example, Ericsson will stop making mobile phones in the future. But Ericsson owns lots of patents in the mobile phone industry, and they used it to make money. Their annual profits were even higher than some mobile phone companies.

When Toshiba and Sony were looking for companies to use their formats, Pioneer and Hewlett-Packard announced that they will collaborate and introduce a new standard of DVD, which will be rewritable.

Another two electronics giant were cooperating and want to set a new direction for the DVD industry.

You all are fighting to set the encoding standards for single side double layer and double side double layers structures for encoding standards? We will develop a new rewriteable encoding standard. We can also make money from this.

Now, there were 3 types of DVD standards in the market. All of which were introduced by world-class companies, and it was a stalemate.

The funniest part was there were no DVD players in the market yet! The fight for the industry standards was ongoing, and DVD will not be popularized.

Feng Yu got to admit that he was pissed by these. These companies could not make money, and they do not want others to make money too. Let’s see who will last until the end!

Chapter 627 – Giving out authorization like crazy (Part 1 of 2)

To set the industry standards, others must first accept it. If no one recognizes the standards, it will be useless!

The DVD industry standard was also the same. There must be people to produce the DVD first and customers who buy it. This way, the DVD market will be opened up.

MPEG technology belongs to Feng Yu. No matter how advanced the other companies were, they could not use this technology. If they used this technology to make money, it would be an infringement!

Feng Yu wants to see how the other companies set the industry standards without the patents. I will let you all try to set the DVD standards and then throw in a bait. I will see if you all are willing to take the bait!

After Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips developed the Super VCD player, Feng Yu will ask his men to call for a Technology Authorization Tender.

Sony, Toshiba, and the rest of the companies must be feeling proud now. We are going to introduce new technological standards for this industry. Are you shitting your pants? You are being forced to give out authorization for your patent?

When we develop the more advanced 3rd generation of technology, we will be having the final say in this industry!

Of course, those companies were still interested in MPEG technology. If they could produce VCD or use the MPEG technology to develop MPEG-II technology, they would be able to produce DVD. The profits they will get will be higher.

If Wind and Rain Electronics still hold on to the MPEG-II technology, it’s okay too. We will set the standards for all the related technologies, and you all will have no choice but to use the MPEG-II technologies to exchange with us. We will still have profits!

Those companies were glad to make profits earlier. They were invited by Feng Yu to this Technology Authorization Tender.

Sony, Toshiba, Hewlett-Packard, Pioneer, and many large electronics companies gathered in China again. Previously, they had only sent regular representatives. But now, the lowest ranked representatives were at least a Vice President.

All the companies knew the value of this technology. If all the companies worked together and did not introduce DVD temporary, they would make high profits from just VCDs.

Wind and Rain electronics was not able to grow their VCD business was also because of these companies. These companies had worked together to stop VCD players from being popular. If they also produce VCD players, they would help to open up this market.

These companies abided by a rule. Profits come first. If companies have a common goal and will get profits, they could forget everything in the past and work together for more profits.

……

“Feng Yu ah…… I heard that Wind and Rain Electronics is calling for a Technology Authorization Tender and lots of international electronics companies will be taking part. Why is it not held in Bing City?” Zhang Ruiqiang heard news of this tender and called Feng Yu.

“You also said these are international electronics companies. This technology is also not related to Bing City. Wind and Rain Electronics headquarters is also in Hefei. I set the location in Beijing is because it is more convenient. Furthermore, there will be leaders from the central government participating. If you are interested, I can send you an invitation. You can come over and take a look.”

Beijing was a big city, and it represented China’s image. Bing City was too rural and was not very accessible. The last time, many exhibitors had complained that it was hard to get a taxi in Bing City.

“Forget it. I am very busy. Just don’t forget your hometown the next time.”

“Ok. Songjiang Motorcycles will be introducing its third generation of bikes. Songjiang Light. I am sure Bing City will be bustling with life when it is launched.”

Zhang Ruiqiang hung up the phone. He was pleased. For Bing City’s developments, he got to be shameless at times.

……

Deputy Mayor Liu shook Feng Yu’s hands: “Manager Feng, thank you so much. Your tender had attracted so many MNC to our city.”

“Mayor Liu, I can’t help you much in getting investment from them. It will be up to you to get them to invest. Our company’s headquarters is in Hefei. The leaders there are scolding me behind our backs.”

“The leaders there are too much. Why not you move your Wind and Rain Electronics headquarters to Beijing. I will take care of all the paperwork for you and will offset the taxes for one year. What do you think?” Deputy Mayor Liu joked.

Feng Yu smiled and politely rejected his offer. Although he sounded like he was joking, if Feng Yu agreed, Deputy Mayor Liu would surely do what he said. The taxes paid by Wind and Rain Electronics was a significant amount.

It would be Deputy Mayor Liu’s credit if he could get investments for his city. He did not care which city did he snatch the investments from.

“Mayor Liu, those foreign businessmen are proud and arrogant. But all of them still have to travel all the way here to buy our technology. So, during the negotiations, you must not give them too many benefits, and you must make sure to protect the environment. We must not let their factories pollute our capital.”

“I know. Actually, it is not suitable to set up factories in Beijing. We will not give them good conditions. But if they are willing to set up their China’s branch headquarters in Beijing, we will still give them some preferential policies.”

Feng Yu was overthinking. Deputy Mayor Liu could climb his way to this position means he was not stupid. He was a smart person. All he wanted was the company and not the factories.

“The tender is about to start. Let’s go.” Feng Yu said.

Deputy Mayor Liu gave an opening speech. He praised Wind and Rain Electronics, China’s electronics industry and then talk about how business-friendly China was. He hopes the companies will come and invest in China before announcing the start of the tender.

Actually, it does not matter whether Deputy Mayor Liu attended this tender. Feng Yu had invited him was only to help him get some credit and to foster a better relationship.

The one who decides which company will win the tender was still Feng Yu.

Jiang Wanmeng went up to the stage and looked at the audiences. He was very excited. These were representatives from the top electronics companies, and they were listening to him talk.

Jiang Wanmeng took out a WWind and Rain VCD player and showed the features. This VCD player was a newer model from the one that was displayed at the Electronics exhibition. There were a lot of added features, and it was lighter and smaller.

“Previously, our country had held a World Consumer Electronics exhibition, and many of you had noticed our products. Many of you had approached us to buy the authorization for our patents. But at the time, our company had just introduced this product and had rejected most of you. Now, our company realized that one or two companies are not enough to open up this market. For our company’s growth and the consumers to enjoy this product earlier, we decided to sell the authorization for our patent to other companies.”

“The authorization is straightforward. We, Wind and Rain Electronics, must get at least 50 USD patent fees for every VCD player produced. This is because we had invested a lot of money in the R&D for this technology.”

Sony’s representative raised his hand and asked: “Didn’t you develop the MPEG-II technology? Why are you not giving out authorization for that technology? We are not interested in the first generation technology.”

Jiang Wanmeng nodded. “Ok. Security, please show the representative from Sony to the door. They are giving up their opportunity to get the authorization. Are there any other companies that are not interested too? You all can leave now.”

Sony’s representative was stunned. I am kicked out just like that?

Chapter 628 – Giving out authorization like crazy (Part 2 of 2)

Before Sony’s representative could argue, two security guards came and drag him out. The rest of the people from Sony stood up.

“Mayor Liu, Minister Zhao, is this the way your country treat your guests?” A Sony representative shouted.

Deputy Mayor Liu turned and saw the look in Feng Yu’s eyes. He immediately knew Feng Yu’s attitude. Before Minister Zhao said anything, Deputy Mayor Liu stood up and said. “We are not the organizer. The Organizer of this tender is Wind and Rain Electronics. Also, your company had said that you all are not interested in getting the authorization for the patents. Why are you all here? Are you trying to create trouble here? We have all the rights to ask you to leave.”

The rest of the representatives were shocked. Didn’t they say the Chinese officials like to brown nose foreigners? Why were they so firm?

Jiang Wanmeng also said: “Can the people from Sony please leave? Please don’t delay the rest of the companies from bidding.”

The representatives from the other companies looked at Sony’s people angrily. Just hurry up and leave. Stop wasting our time. Even the representatives from Toshiba were looking at them.

The Sony representatives were furious. They only wanted the second-generation technology. Everyone in the room wanted the latest technology, and they were kicked out just because they voiced it out. Everyone would benefit if Wind and Rain gave out authorizations for the newest technology. Yet no one from other companies said a word to help them!

Especially Toshiba. We are collaborating to set the industry standards. How can you treat us this way?

Sony’s representative knew that he would be fired if the rest of the companies got the authorization except for Sony. He would even be blacklisted in the industry. He is finished!

After the representatives from Sony left, Jiang Wanmeng continued: “We will authorize all the interested companies. But there is another condition. If two companies from the same country want the authorization from us, and one of the companies wants exclusive authorization, then the authorization fees will increase by 10 USD. If 3 companies are competing, then it will be increased by 20 USD. The amount will increase base on the number of companies interested in the authorization.”

“Mr. Jiang, isn’t 50 USD for a unit too high? Also, this figure is based on the number produced. Shouldn’t it be based on the sales figures?” A representative from Pioneer asked.

“I said earlier that we had spent a lot on the R&D and the authorization fees will not be cheap. All of you should know how much profits you will get from this technology. I believe that all of your companies had tried to develop your own VCD players. If any of the companies here feels that this authorization fees are too high and cannot accept it, it’s fine with me. You all are free to walk away.”

Jiang Wanmeng had learned this negotiation style from Feng Yu. If you are not happy, get lost! There were more than 100 companies here. If you don’t want the authorization, there will still be many other companies queuing up.

You think the price is high? Then you can choose not to buy it!

With Sony as an example, the Pioneer representative immediately reply: “We can accept this. Our company will accept your conditions.”

The rest of the representatives were cursing in their hearts. This idiot. If you say you cannot accept this price, we will surely back you up. All of us can work together to lower the fees.

Now you say your company will accept this price. There is no way we can bargain.

It was also a slip of the tongue. After the representative from Pioneer sat down, he noticed the angry stares, and he realized the mistake he made. He almost slapped himself for talking too much. The rest of the representatives here will surely voice out about the prices. Why did he ask about this first?!

“Can accept the fees? Good. The representatives from the rest of the companies should have decided. Those that wanted the country’s exclusive authorization can come over here. The companies that do not want exclusivity, and only normal authorization can wait in your seats.”

A few representatives wanted to stand up, but they saw the rest of the people remained in their seats, they changed their minds. Most of the representatives were laughing at this authorization model in their hearts.

What model is this? What’s the use if we are the only ones producing VCD players in our country? We will still need to compete with products from other countries. In the end, it will be Wind and Rain Electronics who benefits. We can just cooperate internally.

After we got the authorization, we can set up a joint venture factory and earn money together. The company who wants to put their brand on the product will have to give up part of their shares.

Countries like Japan and the US have lots of electronics companies. If it was based on 10 USD per company, then the company who got the exclusive authorization will have to pay at least 200 USD for every unit manufactured.

How much profits can they get after giving so many fees to Wind and Rain? Also, in their country, Wind and Rain VCD were also selling there. Philips will also be competing with them. These companies were not so stupid to opt for exclusive authorization.

But these companies did not know that was what Feng Yu wanted. He wanted VCD to rise up and force the VHS and Laserdisc systems out of the market.

The crucial patent technology was still in Feng Yu’s hands. He will still be ahead of the rest of the companies. Only Wind and Rain and Philips can produce DVD players in the future. Philips also did not have the rights to authorize other companies to use the technology. A significant portion of the profits will still go into Feng Yu’s pocket.

These people might still make some profits, but the authorization fees paid to Wind and Rain Electronics was not a small amount. Furthermore, Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips will be introducing the Super VCD soon. All these companies will just be paving the way for Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips.

“No companies want to have the exclusive rights to the technology in their countries? Fine. This is the contract for industry standard technology. Those companies who are interested can come forward to get a copy. You all can sign the contract now if there are no more questions. Once the prepayments are in, you all get the related technologies authorization.” Jiang Wanmeng said with a disappointed look on his face. But it was all an act.

Feng Yu had told him earlier that no one would be stupid enough to ask for exclusive authorization. Jiang Wanmeng had expected this too. All these Electronics brands will be competing with each other, but the biggest winner will be Wind and Rain Electronics.

There were more than 100 world-renowned electronics companies present. Even if half of them signed the contract, the VCD players manufactured annually will be more than 1 million. The VHS player will lose their market share soon and be obsoleted.

When there were more VCD players in the market, the demand for VCD disc will increase. Wind and Rain electronics and Philips had planned for this in advance. They were able to make vast amounts of profits just from producing VCD disc alone. They also wanted to get rid of all their VCD disc to prepare for the production of the bigger storage disc, DVD disc!

After these companies got the authorization, Wind and Rain Electronics will announce the number of companies who had bought the rights to use their patents. This will prove that Wind and Rain Electronics is the world’s leading electronics company. Their status in the industry and brand value will increase a lot!

The representatives of the companies who had signed the contracts were whispering among themselves. Some companies decided to collaborate and manufacture VCD players together, and some gave up. These were small companies. Unlike the big companies, they do not have a reputable brand and had a high cost of production. They also lack distribution channels. If they were to sign the contract, they would suffer heavy losses.

In the end, only 46 companies signed the contract. Among them, 4 were Chinese companies.

Those companies that did not buy the authorization left quietly. Those who had purchased the authorization were not happy either. In competition in this industry was intense!

The only person smiling was Feng Yu. He had made money out of old technologies! Branding and technology are the lifelines of a company!

Chapter 629 – VCD brands

The companies that bought the authorization could manufacture VCD players long ago. But the patent protection was not over, and they could not produce the VCD players.

Although the companies were paying high fees for the authorization, it was still acceptable as there were still profits. Most importantly, companies did not want to miss this opportunity. They could also manufacture VCD players and at the same time, research on new technology. If they could develop newer technologies, they might get more profits in the future!

Toshiba also bought the patent authorization. Almost all the big Electronics MNC got the authorization. Some of them purchased the authorization by themselves, and some were cooperating with others. Sony was the odd one out. They were kicked out from the start.

Norio Ohga scolded Sony’s representatives when they got back to Japan. Sony had wanted to enter the Chinese market with their VCD players. They had prepared the production lines in their factories, and it was wasted!

Sony was not eyeing the profits from VCD players. They wanted to train their staffs to prepare for the upcoming DVD players. The DVD primary technology belongs to Feng Yu, but if Sony were able to set the industry standards successfully, Wind and Rain Electronics would still have to give in to them. DVD disc had higher storage and better picture quality. It can even be used in computers. These were what Sony was after.

That’s it. Sony cannot manufacture VCD players, and the war for the DVD industry standards was still ongoing. They had invested a lot and got no returns. This was a massive loss for the company!

But Sony had partnered with Toshiba to set the DVD industry standards. So, Norio Ohga went to look for the president of Toshiba personally to discuss if they could work together to produce VCD players.

Sony had prepared the production lines, and they could use it to manufacture VCD players. They only want a share of the profits. If they were able to develop the DVD players together, then their earnings might even be higher than Wind and Rain electronics.

Toshiba considered for a while and agree to cooperate with Sony. Toshiba had many dealings with Sony and did not want to offend them.

But both companies argued over the name of the brand for this VCD player. Toshiba did not agree to name it as Toshiba-Sony. Even a shorten name like Toshi-sony was rejected. Toshiba insists on using its brand. Sony had no choice but to give in. In the end, both parties came to an agreement. Sony will own 40% of Toshiba VCD players, and they also had to provide the production facilities, workers, and funds.

Toshiba VCD players entered the market. But in Japan, they faced fierce competitions from Sharp, Fujitsu, Panasonic, NEC, etc. All these top electronics companies also introduced their VCD players into the market.

The production for Toshiba VCD players was low due to their production capabilities and higher efficiency. But the rest of the companies were strong too. The production cost for companies was about the same. All of them could afford to lower their retail rates to attract consumers.

All this while, AIWA company which had monopolized the Japan VCD market was quiet. They did not even lower their retail prices.

Not only in Japan, but many VCD brands also appeared in Europe, America, and other regions. Even in China, new VCD brands were appearing.

Feng Yu does not care about other countries. But he made it clear to the 4 Chinese factories. You all can manufacture VCD players, but if you all want to lower the retail prices to have a price war, then Wind and Rain VCD and Aiwa VCD will also enter the price war. When it happens, you all will be finished!

Of course, Feng Yu did not ask them to set retail prices high. Feng Yu told them that Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa Electronics main target were overseas. But if anyone of them wants to create problems for them in their backyard, then don’t blame him.

Feng Yu will let their VCD players remain on the shelves and loses all their deposits!

Those companies that bought the VCD authorization had to place deposits. The companies had to sell at least 10,000 units annually. Wind and Rain Electronics set this as the benchmark and collected deposits from every company. If any company could not fulfill the target, the deposit will be forfeited. The authorization for the second year will end.

The deposit for each company was 500,000 USD. There were 46 companies. Just the deposit alone, Wind and Rain Electronics collected 23 million USD. It was used to expand their production lines to manufacture the more advanced Super VCD!

Not only Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics, and AIWA company’s factories were upgrading their facilities and expanding their production lines.

Now, everyone agreed with Feng Yu that the era of VCD had arrived. Feng Yu’s Super VCD player will be accepted easier by the consumers. The Super VCD player had more storage, better picture quality, and had more functions. Wind and Rain will continue to lead the direction of where the industry is heading and get the most significant market share.

Although the VCD market share was taken up by many other brands, the market was opened up. Wind and Rain Electronics’ profits increased further.

Many companies who were manufacturing VCD players were curious why Philips, who was cooperating with Wind and Rain Electronics, did not introduce their VCD players. They should have patent authorization.

Also, other than China, the VCD player prices in different markets started to drop. Wind and Rain VCD player and AIWA VCD player sales were declining. Were they giving up on those markets?

This should not be the case. The companies felt that it was Wind and Rain Electronics misjudged the market and gave out too many authorizations. This caused their poor performance of their brand of VCD players.

Wind and Rain Electronics had made a mistake. They lost the profits from VCD players for some patent authorization fees.

The happiest company was Sony. Serve you, right! You think you could snatch the market shares from us? You all were only able to seize the music player market from us because we were focusing on the movie and gaming industry.

Now, we have taken over your VCD market share. Where is the Super VCD you are boasting about? Not yet developed?

The more prosperous the VCD market, the happier Sony was. Although Sony did not make money from the VCD players, Sony’s Columbia Pictures movie rights increased in value.

Sony might cooperate with Toshiba for the VCD players. But Sony produced the VCD discs themselves. Sony got high profits from the sales of their movie VCD discs. They also owned many movie companies and record labels. Sony was the real winner of this VCD war!

Feng Yu had asked Fu Guangzheng to buy as many movie rights as possible. But some rights could not be purchased. Those companies that were close to Sony refused to sell their rights to Fu Guangzheng.

But Feng Yu was not worried. His partner was Philips. Philips also has its own record labels and lots of connections. Feng Yu was able to make use of this.

The world’s largest VCD disc producer was still Wind and Rain Electronics. The factories not only need to manufacture VCD discs, but they also had to produce Super VCD discs which will meet the DVD player format.

When the Super VCD player was launched, these companies will be crying their hearts out!

Chapter 630 – Nurturing the market

“Brother Feng, why is the Super VCD player not launched yet? I heard from Jiang Wanmeng that the Super VCD technology, your 9 imaging, 4 channel stereo, countdown timer, etc. are all developed. What are you waiting for?” Fu Guangzheng was getting impatient. The overseas VCD brands had started to enter the Chinese market and lowered Wind and Rain Electronics profits.

Fu Guangzheng wanted to introduce the Super VCD player now. Although the technology was not perfect, they can introduce a transition product first. A few months later, they can introduce a better product.

It hurts to see money flowing into someone else pockets.

“Brother Fu, what’s the hurry? The market is booming yet. The traditional VHS is not completely out of the market. The Laserdisc is still making profits. Let’s wait for a while more.” Feng Yu took a sip of his coffee and replied calmly.

“Wait for the market to be booming? The market is already booming elsewhere outside of China. Many foreigner brands are fighting for market share. Although we are receiving patent fees, the fees compared to the profits if we were to produce ourselves was too low.”

The authorization fees for a VCD player was 50 USD. But if they were to produce their own VCD players, the profits will be more than 300 USD! Even when there are more brands now, and the profits are declining, there are at least 200 USD profits.

What was Feng Yu thinking? Giving up all these profits?

Fu Guangzheng was overjoyed when Feng Yu decided to collaborate with Philips to set the industry standard, increase the R&D funds, and successfully develop the second-generation of technology.

He knew that if a company set the standard format for an industry, that means the company was one of the top companies in the industry.

But you cannot only set the industry standards. Now, many companies were racing to develop their encoding technologies. If you succeed in developing your encoding technology, it’s okay. But if you fail? Then you will have to follow another company’s encoding technology. We will fall behind others.

Fu Guangzheng wanted to keep their brand’s advantage and let Wind and Rain VCD continue to be the world’s biggest VCD player manufacturer. They will lead the industry and make profits at the same time. But Feng Yu refused to listen to him.

Fu Guangzheng understood the importance of beating the traditional VHS and Laserdisc. But what’s the difference with beating them one year earlier and one year later? These were what Feng Yu said in the past. Why was he acting this way now?

“Brother Fu, don’t be too anxious. Soon, those companies will be lagging behind us again. You have also seen the performance of our Super VCD player. But the Super VCD player is still not perfect. It is too heavy, and the production cost could not be lowered. The heat dissipation is another problem. All these need to be sorted out, and it will be sorted out soon. Since we are going to introduce a new product, then we must introduce a different product. We will let the other brands eat our leftovers!”

“How different do you want your Super VCD player to be? It is good enough. Didn’t you say the newer technologies are for the DVD players? What if the market is saturated when we introduce our latest product?” Fu Guangzheng was worried.

A family can only afford one VCD player. How many families can afford to buy two? Although the income of most families, especially China, had increased, this VCD player was like TV. Many families will use it for more than 10 years after they bought a TV. As long as it is still working, they will not change it.

By the time Wind and Rain introduce the Super VCD, most people would have bought the regular VCD players. The new players might be better, but those people will not change to the newer ones. Even if the market became prosperous, but the market will not belong to only Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa.

Many of those VCD companies were world class consumer electronics brands. In many regions, they have loyal followers. Even if their products were not as good as other brands, but the consumers will still stick to them.

Those top consumer electronics brands had their own territories. It’s hard for another brand to enter its territory. Look at Sony Walkman. Even Aiwa had overtaken them, but Sony Walkman was still ranked number 2 in the world. It was because Sony still has a lot of loyal followers.

Furthermore, it was Sony who allowed Aiwa to grow. Now, Feng Yu had increased the number of brands competing in this industry. Wind and Rain VCD players might not be kicked out of the market, but the market share and sales had been declining. If this carries on, this VCD brand might be obsolete.

“Brother Fu, before the other brands appear, how much is our total VCD player sales? Wind and Rain, Aiwa and AIWA brands add up to about a few hundred thousand units. The results are not satisfying. But now, many brands had entered the market. I am not sure of the total number of VCD players sold. But I know how many units of VCD players were produced by them. In less than a month, these companies had produced more than 500,000 units of VCD players. It is more than our previous two years of sales.”

Fu Guangzheng frowned. Why was Feng Yu so happy? Shouldn’t he be worried?

“Brother Fu, can you still remember if every household owns a TV when you are young?” Feng Yu asked.

“Although Hong Kong is more advanced than China, when I was young, not every household owns a TV. Even now, there are still households that could not afford a TV. Poor people exist in every region.”

“Brother Fu, that’s not what I mean. What I am saying is the popularization rate of the TV. I am not sure about Hong Kong. But I know about China. 10 years ago, it was still the black and white TV era. At that time, most households in China cannot afford a TV. TVs were only bought at people’s wedding. 5 years ago, black and white TV died out and were replaced by color TV. Now, even with color TV, people want clearer and bigger screens. This is the trend.”

“But did you realized that TV technology has had been evolving and the number of users kept increasing. Every time the TV technology evolves, the number of users increases. This was what happened when TV evolves from black and white to color. It was the same when the TV screen increases from 10+ inches to 20+ inches. The initial TV market was created by the black and white TVs, and it was the color TVs that made the market prosperous. In the end, it was those companies that produce big screen TV that gets most of the market shares!”

Fu Guangzheng was confused. “Are you saying that we are the black and white TVs and those companies are the color TVs? We will be the brands that will produce better quality color TV?”

Feng Yu nodded. “The future of VCD will be the same as TV. Every household will be buying one, and the market is vast. We do not need to worry now. We will focus on developing new technologies and nurture the market. Those companies are opening up the market for us!”

Chapter 631 – Returning back to China

When other brands were trying to gain more market shares, Feng Yu’s brands were not in a rush. The production rates were the same as before. Although the sales were not declining too much, it was still declining gradually.

Other brands saw Wind and Rain Electronics did not introduce their new Super VCD player and thought it was just a marketing gimmick. All the companies were racing to develop new DVD technologies, and if they succeeded, they might be able to control the market.

Thomas also asked Feng Yu how long more they should wait. Their production lines were already modified and had understood all the technologies given to them by Wind and Rain Electronics. They could start manufacturing the Super VCD anytime.

Feng Yu told him to wait for another 1 to 2 months before they introduce the Super VCD player. Now, they should continue to develop the DVD players. The target was to launch the DVD players 2 years after the Super VCD.

Wind and Rain Electronics was now focusing on developing the DVD optical drive. VCD optical drive was good, but it was still not good enough. The optical drives supplied to Lenovo could only read data from the disc and could not write any data into the disc.

Feng Yu wanted the optical drive to have the function of storing data into the disc. This way, his optical drives could replace the floppy disc.

If Feng Yu could monopolize this market, then all the PC manufacturers had to look for Wind and Rain to cooperate. He will be able to gain higher profits.

Of course, Feng Yu wanted Lenovo’s PC to be the first to have this optical drive. This way, Lenovo would be able to gain more market share and increase its brand value. After all, he has shares in this company.

Give Lenovo the authorization to use the patent? Of course not. But Feng Yu was willing to exchange this patent for more shares.

Lenovo will not reject this offer as they knew this was their opportunity to enter the world market. Their brand value and profits will also increase. They will be willing to give up some shares in exchange.

Even if Lenovo does not want to trade, Feng Yu could top up the offer with cash. As long as Lenovo was willing to sell its shares, Feng Yu would be ready to buy! Not only Lenovo’s brand and technologies, but Liu Chuanzhi was also crucial. Feng Yu felt that Liu Chuanzhi was more critical than Lenovo itself.

Time passes very fast, and it was June. As an exchange student, Feng Yu handed a few assignments and took a simple exam. He does not need to worry about the rest of the paperwork.

This year’s May holidays, Li Na did not come to Hong Kong. It was because Feng Yu had returned to China and went to look for her. It was their 3rd year, and they had lots of lessons to attend. Feng Yu must get back to Beijing soon.

As the most prominent exchange student who went to Hong Kong for 2 semesters and Beijing University’s special treatment student, Feng Yu did not leave a deep impression with the Hong Kong University. It was due to him skipping lots of classes.

The classes Feng Yu attended the most was Professor Liang’s classes. He was not able to recruit Professor Liang, but luckily Professor Liang had agreed to help him if he were to face the overseas financial predators in the future.

Feng Yu biggest gain from this trip to Hong Kong knew a few Hong Kong Tycoons’ second generations. Some of these wealthy second generations were really good for nothing and some, like Li Zekai, were outstanding. These were all Feng Yu’s connections and will help him in the future.

Feng Yu also noticed Li Zekai was very capable. At least more capable than him. Of course, it was because Feng Yu was…… lazy!

Feng Yu always felt that if others could do his work for him, why should he do it himself? Many people wanted to be the boss of a company was to enjoy the feeling of being high up and making decisions.

But it was different for Feng Yu. He wants to be the boss was to make more money and make sure the companies were heading in the right direction. He was also very generous and was willing to give the company’s shares to those management staffs and let them run the company. He had never interfered with the hiring of the middle management staffs, other than the person in charge of the finances.

Even for companies like Lehaha and Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, Feng Yu only bought a stake in the companies and offered some suggestions. He was not the one who makes the final decision in these companies.

But the more Feng Yu behave this way, the more others were willing to listen to his suggestions. Because all of them knew that all of Feng Yu’s recommendations were right.

After listening to Feng Yu’s advice, the companies grew rapidly. Although Feng Yu invested in these companies and took away a portion of their profits, the overall earnings were way higher than before.

Feng Yu’s specialization was in the financial market. Although he had learned a bit on management in school, it was still not enough compared to those wealthy second generations.

Feng Yu handed almost everything to others. From the procurement of raw materials to production and sales. What he did was only to give suggestions, set the general direction of the company, and invest in the company.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, those super tycoons did not only invest in one company or product. Even Bill Gates also owns the shares of many other companies.

Many of the conglomerates also did not focus on one industry. They will diversify their business. Just like Lenovo in Feng Yu’s previous life. It was a software company initially, but it expands into real estate, retail, computers, software, apparels, and food industry.

There was a benefit for doing this. If anyone industry was not doing well, the rest of the sectors could still help the company gain profits. But the disadvantage for doing this was the company’s resources will be diversified too. This will result in the company unable to get the most out of every industry.

Feng Yu’s investments do not have these worries. His investments were separated from each other. Other than Wind and Rain, he does not need to worry about the rest of the brands like Tai Hua Brand, Aiwa, Lehaha, Songjiang Motors, Sixth Sense. These companies might be related to each other, but most of them were individual companies in their own industries.

Feng Yu was able to get the most profits out of every company. His wealth was growing at an alarming rate. No one knows how much money Feng Yu have. The only person who knew how much money he has was Feng Yu.

When Feng Yu combines all his wealth together, that will be the time he will go on the offensive. By that time, he should have more than 10 billion USD. He would be able to make a killing in the financial markets during the coming financial crisis, with the funds raised from the Hong Kong and China tycoons.

Feng Yu returned to Beijing after his exam at Hong Kong University. It was time for Wind and Rain Electronics next step!

Chapter 632 – Promotions (Part 1 of 2)

Now, all sorts of VCD player brands had appeared all over the world. The traditional VHS market had shrunk. All the manufacturers were losing money. Some of the big brands stopped their production of VHS players. This was because they had the authorization to use VCD technology.

Those smaller factories went burst. They had tried to sell their VHS players at a loss, but no one wants to buy them. This was like after the appearance of mobile phones, no one wants to purchase pagers.

When all the companies were negotiating on the retail price to protect their profits, Wind and Rain did something unexpected.

Wind and Rain VCD player had a promotion for their price cuts!

Wind and Rain Electronics had invented the VCD player, and the initial prices were set by them. After the authorization was issued to the other companies and other brands of VCD players appeared, Wind and Rain Electronics was still selling their VCD players at 3,000 RMB.

Sony and the other companies were still laughing at Wind and Rain. You think Wind and Rain is a big brand? Is your brand value as high as Sony? You will fail if you try to make use of your brand to increase your profits.

This was the truth. Wind and Rain VCD player sales start to decline. When Sony’s Norio Ohga knew about this, he was overjoyed.

Do you think you can sell your VCD players at such high prices because you are the ones who produce it first? Are you regretting? Your high prices are causing you to fail.

But now, Wind and Rain VCD players suddenly announced a promotion and price cuts. It was a massive price cut! The VCD player retail prices had dropped to 1,999 RMB from 3,000 RMB! The other companies were selling their players at over 2,000 RMB. Wind and Rain was a few hundred RMB cheaper!

At the same time, Aiwa VCD and AIWA VCD also announced their price cuts. It was the same as Wind and Rain!

The other brands were stunned. The consumers will no longer buy their VCD players. These 3 brands were the oldest brand of VCD players.

This year, RMB suddenly depreciated against other currencies. Last year, the rates of RMB against USD was about 5.8:1. Now, it was 8.2:1. That means 50 USD of authorization fees were equivalent to more than 400 RMB!

The difference in retail prices of Wind and Rain VCD players against other brands was about 50 USD. All the companies were furious.

Wind and Rain Electronics was too much. They lowered their retail prices, and the other companies had to follow. They had to lower their retail prices to about 200 USD. Their production cost was about 100 USD, and the authorization fees were 50 USD. There were not many profits left. Almost all the profits were taken away by Wind and Rain Electronics.

The most frustrating part was Wind and Rain did not lower their retail prices after they issue out the authorization. If Wind and Rain dropped the prices from the start before the other companies expanded their factories, the losses would not be so high. Now, the companies had increased their production, and their profits dropped. It will be hard for them to survive.

Feng Yu had been waiting and maintaining the retail prices for this moment. He wanted to wait until those big brands expanded their operations and then lower the prices. He wants to use this opportunity to wear them out.

Feng Yu knew clearly the production cost of a VCD player. In the past, the cost of producing a Wind and Rain VCD player was more than 1,000 RMB. But as the factory scale increase, workers became trained, and the efficiency of the facilities upgraded, the cost dropped to about 600 RMB. This also showed that Feng Yu’s profits were way higher than other companies. The production cost of other companies should be more than 1,000 RMB.

Those companies had just expanded their scale. Their workers were still not familiar with the production process. Some of the core techniques were not sold to them, and these cause their production cost to remain on the high side.

Actually, this was still fine for the companies. If their production cost was about 1,000 RMB, they could sell the players at 2,000 RMB. But these companies still had to pay taxes, transport, and sales cost. Their profits will not be high, especially in Chinese companies. The earnings for one VCD player was about 50 USD.

But Feng Yu’s sudden price cuts had killed these overseas brands. There was no way for them to continue manufacturing VCD players. They had two possible solutions. First, companies can produce VCD players in China. This way, the companies will not have to pay the import duties and lower the cost of transportation. But the companies had to build factories in China. The investment will be huge. The second solution was to withdraw from the Chinese market.

Most of the overseas brands chose to withdraw from the Chinese market. The companies also withdraw from the region where AIWA had branch factories. These factories were also producing Aiwa, AIWA, and Wind and Rain brand of VCD players.

But those companies realized that they had handed over most of Asia, Europe, and US markets to Wind and Rain.

How can this be done?! The companies had just opened up the market, and when they were about to see the profits, they had to give up the market. They had been busy for nothing.

In the end, these companies came to an agreement. They will only withdraw from the Chinese market. In other regions, these companies had bigger factories than AIWA. They will be able to compete with them.

Most importantly, if these companies withdraw from these areas, they will lose their VCD market share and the DVD market in the future.

There was nothing these companies could do about this. They also drop their retail prices. After all, these companies still have a small profit after the price cut. But if they withdraw from these regions, they will not even get this small profit!

…….

Price cuts were the fastest and simplest way to get the market share. In Feng Yu’s previous life, many brands used this method to gain market shares fast. When they have obtained the market share, they will increase the retail prices for more profits.

After Feng Yu used this strategy, the Wind and Rain VCD player market share increase to 50% again. This figure was still increasing as their sales rise.

The overseas market sales also increase. Once again, Feng Yu had the upper hand.

Jiang Wanmeng and the rest also noticed that after the price cuts, their profits did not drop as there was an increase in sales. These few months, the sales of VCD discs had increased beyond their imagination. Wind and Rain Electronics had received more profits than before!

There was still the authorization fees collected from the various companies.

Feng Yu started the second phase of his promotion campaign after the other companies drop their retail prices. Buy a VCD player and receive free movie and music discs.

Buy 1 and receive 2 free. This promotional effort was too big.

Most of the people bought this VCD player to watch movies, listen to music or to sing. The consumers had to buy the player and the disc. The total amount of consumers had to spend was a lot. It was like buying a car and paying for petrol. The consumers might not feel the pinch when they purchase the discs. But if they total up the amount spent on discs, it was a lot.

The cost of one disc, including the copyrights, transportation, etc. was not more than 10 RMB. The free discs were worth only 20 RMB.

“Manager Feng, our sales had increased again. This promotion you suggested was too worthwhile!” Jiang Wanmeng said excitedly.

“This is nothing. The next promotion will be a lucky draw. Whoever that bought our product will entitle to a lucky draw. The top price will be a full rebate of the things the consumer purchase. The second prize will be a rebate of 50%. The third price will be the Bladeless fan……. The consolation prize will be a movie or music VCD disc. Everyone will win something!”

Feng Yu made use of some of the promotion strategies used in his previous life. Those big brands did not know who to set up a good promotion campaign, and they will fail!

Chapter 633 – Promotions (Part 2 of 2)

The other VCD player brands went crazy when the second phase of the promotions started. Shouldn’t this promotion end after some time? This promotion had been ongoing for almost 2 weeks. Now, the second phase started. Who will do such things?

The other companies also realized that other than giving out some discs, there was still a lucky draw. Only a handful will be able to win the top prize and 99% of the time, customers will be able to win a VCD disc. This resulted in many consumers preferring to buy Wind and Rain VCD players. Almost everyone in this world loves small surprises in their life.

Sony was the first company to react. This was because Sony was the world’s number 2 VCD disc producer. Although Sony had made profits from the discs, compared to Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain electronics made more!

Despite Philips not manufacturing VCD players, but they produced VCD discs. They were now the world’s number 3 VCD disc producers.

It was because Feng Yu had told Philips and Philips gave up the idea of producing VCD players and focus on the discs manufacturing technologies.

Of course, in about 1 month, Philips will also introduce the Super VCD players.

Philips does not want to produce cheap goods. They only want to sell the best products. This was their brand’s positioning.

Having price cuts promotions will affect their brand image, and this was not what Philips wanted.

But Feng Yu was willing to do this. Anyway, there was still profits in the VCD players after the price cuts. Wind and Rain brand will also increase their influences.

As for his brand image, Feng Yu still have other tricks up his sleeves.

Giving out some discs? We had already accepted the price cuts, what’s the big deal of giving out some discs? We can also do the same promotions!

So, all the VCD manufacturers started to reduce their prices and giving away free VCD discs. Wind and Rain VCD players were giving away 2 discs as free gifts? We will give out 3 or even 5 discs!

You have a lucky draw? We will also do the same. The lucky draw model will be exactly the same as yours, but the prizes will be better. We will give out our other products, at the same time, we can clear our remaining stocks.

Jiang Wanmeng called Feng Yu to tell him that the other companies started to imitate their promotions. Especially Toshiba. Their promotions were almost identical to theirs. If this carries on, the other companies’ sales will increase back to normal.

Other brands started to imitate them? It’s fine. Feng Yu still have lots of tricks in his mind. In his previous life, he had seen all sorts of promotions. Many of those were invented by the Chinese, and the Chinese were the best in coming out with all kinds of promotions!

Although Feng Yu had not done any promotions in his life, he had seen too many of these. He could easily just name a few and let those companies unable to catch up with them!

……

After the second phase of the promotions, Feng Yu made those companies who bought the authorizations vomit blood again. Those companies thought the second phase was the end, but the third phase of the promotions started!

Summer holidays sales. Students will get a 10% discount.

Those VCD player companies were stunned. What the hell was this promotion?!

VCD players were considered home appliances in the US. How could a student afford it? Even if the students wanted to buy, can they afford it? Anyone who can prove they are students will get a 10 % discount? This will be a fruitless approach!

The other companies were laughing at Wind and Rain, but they realize something was off. Many parents brought their kids to buy VCD players. Their kids were students, but they do not have money. It’s alright. Their parents can afford it.

The tragedy of those VCD player manufacturers started again. Their sales dropped further, and Wind and Rain sales increases.

This type of promotion had purposely left a loophole for the consumers. This will let the consumers feel they had gotten a good deal and had taken advantage of the promotion. But the purpose of this promotion was to sell the products to the consumers and let the brand enter the households!

When the third phase of the promotions started, the second phase did not end. Both promotions were ongoing at the same time. The other VCD players manufacturers were under enormous pressure.

But when the other companies tried to follow Wind and Rain’s promotions, they realized that the results were not satisfactory. This was because those families that wanted to buy VCD players had already bought them, like Wind and Rain and Aiwa’s third phase promotions only lasted for 3 days. Most of the consumers had already purchased the VCD players.

The sales from the 3 days of promotion were more than the previous month’s sales. What made the other companies speechless was this promotion continued after 3 days! The reason given was the consumers wanted this promotion to be extended.

What nonsensical reason was this? The consumers want your VCD players for free. Why didn’t you give in to their demands?

Although the other companies were feeling helpless, they have to admit that Wind and Rain, Aiwa, and AIWA brands were better than them. These 3 companies caused them to have lots of stocks stuck in their warehouse.

The companies noticed another critical problem. The patent authorization fees paid to Wind and Rain electronics was based on the number of VCD players produced and their VCD players remained unsold. They could not make any profits and Wind, and Rain was still collecting the authorization fees from them.

The companies understood why Wind and Rain Electronics did not react when they dropped the VCD players’ prices a few months ago. Wind and Rain wanted them to increase their production.

Now the companies increased their operations and production, Wind and Rain VCD players suddenly drop their prices and come up with so many promotions. Their purpose was to let these companies have a severe stockpile of VCD players.

This blow was heavy.

The companies were stuck in between. If they continue to drop their prices, they will not have any profits. If they do nothing, the sales of all the brands added up will be less than Wind and Rain. They will also have no profits.

The companies finally saw how despicable Wind and Rain Electronics. Initially, the companies felt 50 USD authorization fees were not high, and they thought they had gotten a good deal.

But in the end, it was a trap!

The companies introduced so many brands into the market and won against the traditional VHS and Laserdisc. They thought it was time for them to reap the benefits.

But what was waiting for them was the summer heat. Wind and Rain, Aiwa and AIWA brands were shining like 3 suns burning them!

The companies were suffering under the suns. They could not see the fruits of the labor as they were almost dried out.

Damn! Every one of us planted fruit trees. Your fruits are bigger and tastier, and it’s fine with us. But you turned around and killed all our trees. We did not even see the fruits! The most frustrating part is you are the one who sold us the fruit tree seedlings!

All of us are left standing by the side looking at you sell the fruits.

Sony was the happiest among the companies. Other companies were losing money, and luckily, Sony did not manufacture the VCD players themselves. They had cooperated with Toshiba. They suffered some losses in the VCD player venture, but their VCD discs were selling fast. The discs were more profitable than the players!

The companies that laughed at Sony in the past were stunned.

Chapter 634 – Separating from the rest

Thomas came to China again to discuss with Feng Yu on when they should introduce the Super VCD players.

Although they had agreed that Philips will not introduce the ordinary VCD players, but the Super VCD player technologies were ready. Thomas felt that it was a waste of time to continue waiting.

“Mr. Feng, we had agreed that we will introduce the Super VCD players in September, but the VCD player market is on the rise now, and the traditional VHS players are history. Should we bring forward the date for the Super VCD?” Thomas asked.

Feng Yu nodded: “Of course. There are no problems with technologies. We can introduce the first generation this year and the second-generation next year. But I suggest we should have differences in our exterior designs, like the position of the buttons and colors. But the remote control should be the same.”

“I understand and know that you Chinese likes red color. We will give up on red color and use other colors. We will use silver, grey and black colors mainly and two colors in a design. We can introduce 3 different models with different colors.” Thomas had already thought of the designs and chose the popular colors usually used for mainstream home appliances.

“Okay. Then we will give up a grey color and will use other colors to match it. We will use the same colors for the amplifier as the Super VCD players? Is it fine with you?”

The amplifier can also be called loudspeakers. It was one of the fundamental components of a sound system. It will amplify the sound to a better effect like a home cinema and karaoke.

The Philips amplifier is called an AV amplifier. There were 4 sound channels and surround sound. When people were watching movies, the surround sound will be more realistic and feels like watching a movie in the cinema. This feature was mainly designed to target consumers who like to watch movies at home.

AIWA’s amplifier was the HI-FI amplifier. Hi-Fi or High fidelity have only two sound channels and was most suitable to be used for music. This function main customer segment were the KTV, nightclubs, and lounges.

This technology was not complicated. Philips and AIWA had been producing speakers, and both companies had exchanged their technologies and upgraded their technology.

“Then what free gifts should we give out with our Super VCD players? Other than a music disc, should we still give out other things?” Thomas was asking for advice. Wind and Rain Electronics was better than them at promotions.

“Two microphones, a cleaning solution for cleaning the discs and a VCD storage box.”

“Mr. Feng, I know the microphones are for singing, and the cleaning solution is to clean the disc. Giving all these to our customers are normal. But what’s the use of giving out a VCD storage box?” Thomas was puzzled. It did not make sense to give out the storage box.

Feng Yu smiled and asked: “Mr. Thomas if you have a big TV cabinet at home and there is only a small TV on it. Won’t you feel uncomfortable? Will you want to buy a bigger TV to place in your TV cabinet?”

Thomas replied: “I will. But a lot of households can only afford smaller TVs.”

Feng Yu snapped his fingers. “That’s right. They can only afford smaller TVs. Although they wish to buy bigger TVs, they will not bear to spend the money. But the discs are different. A disc cost only 2 to 3 USD, and the more expensive ones cost 5 USD. Don’t you think those who bought the VCD players will not want to buy more discs when they see an empty VCD storage box?”

Thomas’s eyes brightened up and said excitedly. “Mr. Feng, you are a genius! That’s right! Many people might not be willing to spend money to get a new TV, but they can afford to buy discs to fill up the empty storage box. Even kids can afford. If there is only a disc in the storage box, most people will feel uncomfortable and will buy more discs to fill it up. We are two of the biggest supplier of original VCDs in the world. There is a high chance of them buying our discs.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he had experienced this. He bought a VCD player, and a disc storage box came with it as a free gift. He also felt uncomfortable when he saw one disc in the box. He also wants to fill up the box with discs. He can put the box aside, but he felt it was a waste. VCD storage box should be placed next to the VCD player.

The old TV cabinet was really a cabinet, and there were drawers at the bottom. But the newer TV cabinets were designed differently. There were 2 to 3 shelves and were used to place the VCD players or speakers. The drawer is at the bottom under the shelves, and it is for storing the discs or controllers.

Some of the TV cabinets have a plastic tray attached for storing discs. Those who own a VCD player will not get used to seeing the tray being empty. They will buy more discs to fill it up.

This disc storage box was designed for those who did not have a TV cabinet. After one box was filled, most people will buy a second box. This was to entice the consumers to spend more.

“Mr. Thomas, our biggest competitor in the disc market, is Sony. Our main market is in Asia, and your market is in Europe. We will surround Sony in the US market.”

“Ok. We must control the VCD market together!” Thomas nodded.

“How much is Philips’s retail price for the Super VCD player?” Feng Yu asked.

“400 USD? Will it be too high?” Thomas asked. The production cost of the Super VCD player was slightly higher than ordinary VCD player. The cost of the Super VCD player was about 100 USD.

The retail prices of VCD players currently were about 300 USD, and Thomas was worried that he had priced the Super VCD players too high.

After he finished, he saw Feng Yu shook his head.

“How can you price it at 400 USD? I think it should be priced at about 500 USD!” Feng Yu replied.

Ah? The price was not too high? Feng Yu felt it was priced too low? Thomas was confused. Why Feng Yu wanted to set the retail price so high? Was it to stimulate the ordinary VCD player sales? But Philips was not selling VCD players.

“Mr. Thomas, are you thinking that 500 USD is too high? Don’t worry. This is because our Super VCD features are much better than the ordinary VCD players. Also, the discs we are going to introduce will all bigger storage discs. Those normal VCD players might not be able to read them.”

“What I wanted is to create two tiers for VCD players, just like black and white TV and color TV. Color TV is priced more than double black and white TV, but many people still prefer to buy a color TV. The Super VCD player is considered the higher tier product in the VCD players. I will lower the prices of normal VCD players further to show the difference.” Feng Yu explained.

“You are going to lower the retail prices for the normal VCD players further?”

“The prices of normal VCD players will be lowered to about 200 USD. This way, the other VCD player brands will be beaten by us. They had opened up the market for us, but they are not allowed to take a bite of this cake!” Feng Yu smiled.

“Then when will we introduce the Super VCD player?”

“August 1st. It will be launch everywhere at the same time!”

Chapter 635 – Opening of the Supermarket (Part 1 of 2)

In China, August 1st was an important date. But the Super VCD picked this date to be launched was not to honor the Chinese Communist Party. It was because this was the date where Tai Wah Supermarket opens!

Tai Wah Supermarket was initially scheduled in July. But because of some issues with the renovation and tenants, there were some delays with some stores. To ensure all the stores opened on the same day, the opening was postponed.

Fu Guangzheng had suggested renting spaces from existing shopping malls. The cost will be lower, and they could open more supermarkets at the same time.

But Feng Yu rejected this suggestion.

Renting shopping malls might be cheaper initially. But once the supermarket became popular, the malls will increase the rentals. Even if you signed a 10 years contract with the malls, what will you do after 10 years? Move the supermarket to elsewhere? Customers will be lost. Regular customers were critical to a supermarket.

There is another news this year. Fu Guangzheng did not notice it, but Feng Yu caught it. China had announced a reform on the practice of assigning jobs to the graduates. From 1996 onwards, graduates will no longer be assigned jobs. Those graduates will no longer be given higher management positions once they graduate from university, and they will be the same as everyone else!

This was proposed and started in 1992. From 1992, the number of government jobs given to graduates was reducing.

Of course, although it stated that this policy started in 1992, but most of the graduates were still recruited by the state-owned enterprises and government agencies. They will begin as Staff members. But these people were to be trained to be section level ranks. Once they are promoted, they will be deputy section chiefs. Those Master degree holders will be given the position of Section Chief once they enter the government agencies.

On paper, these benefits will be removed, but Feng Yu knew that this will still be ongoing for at least 5 years. Those students that did not get assigned with jobs were those with lousy grads. The ones with above-average grades will be recruited by various agencies. Some of them were even selected before they graduate.

This policy will filter out those lazy students, and those who studied hard will not have to worry. Also, there were more and more private companies, especially in the coastal regions. Many graduates were not willing to enter the government agencies as they could not apply what they learned in school there!

Without job assigning, there were also problems. One of the biggest challenges was the introduction of social insurance. Those that worked for the private companies will no longer be given housing from their companies.

This was good news to the commercial housing. Housing prices might not increase overnight, but they will inevitably rise. Not only private houses, but even commercial buildings prices will also increase. Commercial buildings’ prices rise faster than private housing.

If they were to lease commercial spaces now, then the rental will surely be sky high after the contract ends in 10 years. If they were to buy the shopping malls now, they could still rent it out to others. The value of the malls will increase gradually. Even if the supermarket was not doing well, they could sell off the mall in the future for a profit. Even if they can carry on collecting rents, they will not suffer any losses.

The Chinese economy was still not well developed. Feng Yu might feel supermarkets could do well, but he also did not want to increase the scale so fast. If the returns from this investment are good this year, they can increase their scale next year by getting loans.

None of the 20 hypermarkets storefronts was 100% rented out. There were still many empty stores remaining. But all of them were confident that after the Hypermarkets were opened, there will be people going up to them to rent the spaces.

Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai were more optimistic than Feng Yu. They firmly believe that this operation model, which was popular in overseas and Hong Kong, will be successful in China. Furthermore, they had started marketing this Hypermarket a long time ago.

Also, they still have not used their most important promotion tool. In another 2 days, Superman Li and Fu Rongbing will be coming to Beijing to meet with the top officials, and it will be reported on the CCTV news. The opening ceremony will also be on the news.

There will be a nationwide TV station giving Tai Hua Supermarket publicity. What’s there to worry about? No other company in China will get such advertising when they open for business. How could they fail?

Of course, CCTV promotion was not enough. They had invited the Provincial Leaders from various provinces to the opening ceremonies. After all, the hypermarkets will bring up the economy in their provinces, and why would those leaders reject this invitation?

At first, they could only invite the City’s leaders. But Fu Guangzheng told the Provincial Leaders that Hong Kong’s richest man, Superman Li, and head of Hong Kong’s biggest supermarket chain, Fu Rongbing, will be attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Hypermarket headquarters. One of China’s top official will also be attending.

The Provincial leaders did not care if Superman Li will be at the opening ceremony. They have nothing to do with him even if he was Hong Kong’s richest man. But when they heard that one of China’s top official will be there at the opening ceremony, they agreed. What connections and background did this Hypermarket chain have to invite a top official?

The Provincial leaders had to put up a show even if they were unwilling to attend. China’s top official will be attending, and as subordinates, they had to sing the same tune.

Those leaders also realized that this Tai Hua Supermarket might be more profitable than they imagine. This supermarket chain had opened a branch in their city, and it will be good for them too.

This will be some credits which will help in their promotion, and all of them did not want to miss this opportunity.

But these Provincial Leaders were not enough. Since it was the grand opening, then it should be grand!

Feng Yu used his connections to invite guests to the opening of their branches in every province. The distributors and dealers of Tai Hua Trading, the General Manager of Aiwa Pagers, Wind and Rain Electronics General Manager, Lehaha’s Zhong Qingxian, Lenovo’s Liu Chuanzhi, Little’s Tyrant’s Duan Yongping, Tai Hua Agriculture Food Factory’s Zhang Ming, Bing City’s Machinery Company’s Li Mingde and all the branch factories directors, were invited to attend the opening ceremony of their nearest Tai Hua Supermarket branch.

Of course, Li Zekai also invited the Li family’s connections in China to attend. Some of Tai Hua Supermarket’s suppliers and representatives of the brands who had rented stores in the Hypermarket were also invited. Feng Yu checked the name list, and there should be at least 3 prominent figures at each branch for the opening ceremonies. This will surely create hype.

The leaders of each province will attend the opening ceremony and how could the provincial TV station and newspaper not report about this event? This will be a free advertisement for Tai Hua Supermarket.

Currently, Feng Yu was sitting in Deputy Station Chief Jia’s office, discussing the possibilities of <Oriental Horizon> making a special episode on Tai Hua Supermarket on the day of opening.

The program <Oriental Horizon> was not all about complaining or exposing bad deeds. It will also praise good deeds once in a while. This Supermarket chain was an investment by Hong Kong’s top tycoon, and it was his way of showing his support of Hong Kong’s unification with China. This was worth reporting.

Other than the 7pm news, there will be news aired in different time slots. Can you air more footages of Tai Hua Supermarket during the different time slots? We are so close with each other…… Come on….. Don’t be stingy…..

Author’s notes:

August 1st Declaration

Chapter 636 – Opening of the Supermarket (Part 2 of 2)

Deputy Station Chief Jia just stood there listening and looking at Feng Yu bragging, not saying a word.

“Chief Jia, say something. Just tell me whether if you agree or not.” Feng Yu was slightly pissed.

“Manager Feng, it is only the opening ceremony of your shopping mall, and CCTV had already given you 2 minutes of air time in the news. That’s 2 minutes! You are still not satisfied? It will not be easy for me to increase the time of the footage and you even want to be featured on <Oriental Horizon> and other news slots? Do you think I have the authority to approve it?”

When Feng Yu came to visit Chief Jia, Chief Jia was still treating him nicely. If Chief Jia knew that Feng Yu was there to make such harsh demands, he would hide from him.

“Chief Jia, it’s not the same. CCTV news is reporting because the top officials will be attending the opening ceremony. How can 2 minutes airtime be enough? You can even tell your audiences the full story.”

“We are reporting the news. We are not advertising for you!” Deputy Chief Jia retorted.

“How about I make some donations for your TV station? Come on.”

“Enough. Our TV station dare not to take money from you. Our Premier only gets 5 minutes of airtime on tomorrow’s news. You think the opening ceremony of supermarkets will get the same treatment? Furthermore, <Oriental Horizon> is to praise companies that had outstanding results. You all still have not achieved any results, and you want to be featured?”

“Then what about the news in other time slots? You should be able to give us more airtime in other time slots. Can’t you report on Superman Li?” Feng Yu insisted.

“Yes, we can, but the airtime will not be too long. The morning and afternoon news also have timing restrictions. But I must make things clear with you. The interview cannot be conducted in from of your supermarkets. Don’t think I don’t know you are trying to do product placement.” Deputy Chief Jia stared at Feng Yu.

Damn! Old Jia had become smarter.

“Superman Lee is here for the opening of the Supermarket. If he is not standing at the supermarket entrance, where should he stand? Also, Hong Kong’s Fu Family Fu Rongbing will also be present. The Fu Family’s total wealth is higher than the Li Family and can be considered more influential than them. I want CCTV to interview the representative of the Fu Family. I remember our CCTV have a talk show. If someone from the Fu Family showed their support on Hong Kong’s return to China on a CCTV program, it would be good for our government.” Feng Yu threw a bait at Chief Jia.

“Someone from the Fu Family agrees to be interviewed by us? Are you sure?”

“You think I will lie about this? I am very close with the Fu Family.” Feng Yu patted his chest. Hmmm…… Fu Guangzheng is also a member of the Fu Family, and he was the representative of the Fu Family in China.

“Okay. Then I will give you 2 to 3 minutes of airtime in the morning and afternoon news. But it will still depend on the higher-ups. If there is no important news to be reported, then it should not be a problem.”

“What about <Oriental Horizon>?” Feng Yu asked.

“You just won’t give up. How about this? If you all can achieve outstanding results after one month, then it should not be a problem to be featured on <Oriental Horizon>. Our CCTV program does not only report on state-owned enterprises. We also report on other companies.” Deputy Chief Jia replied.

“Deal. Chief Jia, I heard that the Station Chief will be retiring after this year and you will be taking over his position. Congratulations.” Feng Yu smiles.

“It’s not confirmed yet.” Although Chief Jia said it was not confirmed, but from his facial expression, it was already confirmed he will be promoted in a few months.

“Chief Jia, if you need any help from me, just tell me. We are good friends, and I will do my best to help you.” Feng Yu proudly said.

“Thank you. I will surely look for you if I needed any help.”

“Errrr…… Chief Jia, tomorrow is the opening of Tai Hua Supermarket. Are you coming?” Feng Yu invited him.

“It’s not suitable for me to be there. I will drop by some other time.” Chief Jia promised. He wanted to be safe and steady until he takes over the post of Station Chief. If he gets too much limelight, he might get into trouble.

“Okay. Oh, here is a gift from our Tai Hua Supermarket.” Feng Yu took out a stack of cards and pass it to Chief Jia.

“What’s this?” Chief Jia asked. From the way Feng Yu speaks, he seems to be giving him some special gift. But this card was not a bank card. Feng Yu also knew that he does not accept bribes.

“It’s a shopping card for our supermarkets. You can use it at any of our supermarkets. The value of the card is written at the back. You can use these cards as benefits for your staffs. These are just some small gifts from us. If there is nothing else, I will leave now. There are still many things to do in the company.”

Superman Li is in Beijing, Fu Rongbing in Shanghai, Fu Guangzheng in Jinling, Li Zekai in Shancheng, and Feng Yu had to go to Hangzhou. All of them were separated into different provinces to ensure there will be someone important at the opening ceremony of every branch.

After Feng Yu left, Deputy Chief Jia looked at the stack of shopping cards. He flipped it over and look at the value. Damn. Feng Yu’s small gift to him was not small. There were 3 different values for the cards. 500, 1,000 and 3,000 RMB. The total value of all the cards was more than 15,000 RMB. It was several times his annual salary!

But Feng Yu had said that these cards were for CCTV staffs and not for him. This was why he accepted it. But if he knew the value of the cards earlier, he will not take it.

But Deputy Chief Jia needs to win over people’s support for his upcoming promotion. Feng Yu’s gift came just at the right time. He had accepted a favor from Feng Yu, and he will return the favor to Feng Yu in the future. Anyway, Feng Yu’s businesses were all legit, and no one will say anything when he returns the favors.

……

“Today is the opening of our Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation’s 20 hypermarkets all over China. We set up this hypermarket is to let our customers experience better shopping experiences and convenience. We will ensure the customers will get everything they needed in our hypermarkets……. I represent Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation to invite our Beijing’s Secretary of Municipal Party Committee and Beijing Mayor to cut the ribbon with me!” Superman Li stood on the stage and made a speech.

Beijing’s Secretary of Municipal Party Committee also represented Beijing to make a speech. He thanked Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation to build such a convenient shopping outlet for the residents.

Bang, bang, bang…….

20 big confetti cannons were launched, and Superman Li, Beijing’s Secretary of Municipal Party Committee and Beijing Mayor cut a long red statin to announce the opening. There was also a special guest present at the ceremony. Iron-fist Zhu was the first person to enter Tai Hua Supermarket. He was there to experience the new shopping experience.

Iron-fist Zhu was satisfied with Tai Hua Supermarket using confetti cannons instead of firecrackers. The reason given was firecrackers were dangerous and will pollute the air. There were many guests at the opening ceremony, and it’s better to be safe.

Why did Tai Hua Supermarket use 20 confetti cannons? It was because 20 branches were opening at the same time. It was the world’s first corporation to open 20 hypermarkets at the same time.

World’s first. This made Iron-fist Zhu happy. This shows that China was developing fast and had caught up with the rest of the world.

“Mr. Li, can we enter?”

“Mr. Zhu, please enter.” Superman Li smiled and entered the Hypermarket with Iron-fist Zhu.

Chapter 637 – Iron-fist Zhu shopping in a supermarket

“Why is this place so spacious?” Iron-fist Zhu asked curiously. After entering the supermarket, there was a big empty space. Wasn’t this a waste of space?

“We have high customer traffic, and we need this place to be more spacious. Also, this place leads to the elevator and stairs. To prevent overcrowding, we did not display any goods here.” The supermarket manager explained.

The supermarket manager was very excited today. He got the chance to speak to Iron-fist Zhu and walk beside him around the supermarket. It was an honor.

Iron-fist Zhu looks around him and noticed something. There was a picture on the floor tiles. It was a familiar picture.

Isn’t this Wind and Rain Logo? It’s that Xiao Feng’s company.

“This picture is?”

“Advertisement. Wind and Rain brand’s advertisement. This is also one of our income revenues. There is a Songjiang Motor car on display at that corner. It is also advertising.”

Iron-fist Zhu frowned. Songjiang brand? It’s that Xiao Feng’s company again. Hehe…. This kid really knows how to advertise his brands.

In the supermarket, Iron-fist Zhu looked at the neat rows of shelves. The distances between the shelves were precisely the same, and all the goods were displayed on the shelves neatly.

The most interesting part that he noticed was the price tags on the shelves. The customers will know the prices of the products at one glance and do not need to ask the sales assistants. The customers will be able to decide whether if they wanted to buy that product.

“There are no salespeople?”

“Our supermarket do not have salespeople. We only have store assistants. If you need to buy anything, our store assistants will guide you to the shelves. We also have shopping carts for our customers to place the things they wanted to buy. If you are not buying a lot of things, you can use the shopping baskets.”

Iron-fist Zhu nodded. This was indeed convenient.

“Hi, can I know where the peanuts are?” Iron-fist Zhu waved to a store assistant and asked softly.

The store assistant’s face turns red from his excitement. But all the store assistants there were well trained, and this store assistant was able to answer Iron-Fist Zhu clearly.

“Thank you.” Iron-fist Zhu nodded and pushed his own shopping cart towards that shelf.

The store assistant almost fainted. Iron-fist Zhu said thank you to him!

As Iron-fist Zhu walked pass the drinks section, he saw some drinks stacked up into a rocket shape in the empty space.

“What’s this?” Iron-fist Zhu turned and asked.

“This is the exhibit booth. The purpose is to attract the attention of the customers. For example, this is the carbonated drinks introduced by Lehaha. This is the Refreshing Cola, this is Refreshing Orange, this is Refreshing Apple……”

“Cola? This is the cola developed by us? Is this same as the Coca Cola that is selling well overseas?” Iron-fist Zhu asked in shock.

“That’s right. This is developed by us, and it is already advertised on CCTV. The advertising slogan is very interesting. Our own Chinese Cola!”

“Mr. Li, Hong Kong also display your goods this way?”

Superman Li shook his head. “Our Hong Kong supermarket do not display our goods this way. This is thought up by one of our shareholders. That young man is very creative.”

“Oh? This kid is from which Hong Kong family?”  Iron-fist Zhu pushes his shopping cart and asked curiously.

“He is not from Hong Kong. He is from China Bing City.”

“His surname is Feng?” Feng Yu’s face immediately appeared in Iron-fist Zhu’s mind. Young man, Bing City and one of the shareholders. Other than Feng Yu, he could not think of anyone else.

“That’s right. Feng Yu. This supermarket venture is also suggested by him, and he is the biggest shareholder.” Superman Li was not surprised that Iron-fist Zhu knew who Feng Yu was. Feng Yu is a genius, and no matter where he is, the leaders will surely notice him.

Iron-fist Zhu was shocked. Feng Yu was the one who came up with this Supermarket idea, and he even manages to get Superman Li to invest in it? This kid was becoming more capable!

No wonder the Wind and Rain advertisement was placed right at the entrance, and there was Songjiang Motors advertisement here. So, Feng Yu was the biggest shareholder in this Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation.

At the fresh produce section, Iron-fist Zhu saw much fresh poultry, fish, meat, vegetables, etc. But the pork section was different from the rest. There was a sign on top. It states, ‘Supplied by Tian Peng Pigs.’

Iron-fist Zhu smiled and shook his head. He knew Feng Yu was the one who created this Tian Peng Pigs. He was the only one who will think of such names. But this name was easy to remember by people, and it even becomes the brand of the pork.

“All our products here are purchased from the farmers directly. There are no middlemen. For instance, we signed a contract with a chicken farm for the chickens. We also have a contract with a fish pond for those freshwater fish. For the sea fishes, we send people to purchase them on the fishing boats. The vegetables are bought directly from the fields and greenhouses. These are all very fresh.” The store manager said.

“Do Hong Kong supermarkets operate this way too?” Iron-fist Zhu asked.

Superman Li laughed. “This is also Feng Yu’s idea. He wanted all our products to be the freshest. We are not so detailed in Hong Kong. Those fruits are the same too. We booked the whole orchard and sent our own people to pick the freshest fruits and delivered to our supermarkets. All of our supermarkets have at least 2 trucks. One is for delivering poultry, fish, and meat, and the other is for vegetables and fruits. Those trucks are also from Songjiang Motors.”

“That means most of the products in your supermarkets are Feng Yu’s brands?”

“We must take care of our own brands in our supermarkets first. Furthermore, Feng Yu’s companies have good products. For instance, Lehaha, electronics brands like Wind and Rain, Aiwa, Little Tyrant, Lenovo, etc. are all popular brands.” Superman Li laughed.

When Superman Li knew Feng Yu had so many brands, he was also surprised. All the brands were also managed well and were popular with the consumers.

“This section is very interesting. Other than health supplements, you are also selling medicines. This supermarket is also allowed to sell medicine?”

“We got the approvals, and these are non-prescription medications. All the prices are priced according to the price tags.” The store manager immediately explained that they did not do anything against the regulations.

Iron-fist Zhu picked up a box of Calcium gluconate to take a closer look. Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. Was this company related to that Feng Yu again?

Superman Li can’t help but said: “I think Feng Yu is also the key shareholder for this Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, and he had helped this company exported its products overseas. Also, there is a book called <Suboptimal health status> in the books section. It is published by Feng Yu too. I also have this book at home.”

<Suboptimal health status>? Iron-fist Zhu raised his brows. He also bought this book, and it was still on his bookshelf. This book was published by Feng Yu?

This Feng Yu was not simple!

Chapter 638 – Immediate success

All of Tai Hua Supermarkets opened at the same time except for the Beijing branch. The opening was delayed for half an hour for Iron-fist Zhu’s visit.

After Iron-fist Zhu made payments for his purchases and left, the store manager looked at his watch and waved his hand. “It’s time! Open the doors!”

The doors opened, and a big crowd rushed in. Some people knew there were discounted items and were there to get the bargain. Some were there just to take a look, and some were there to look at the leaders. Some did not even know what was happening. They only saw a crowd gathering and went over to see what was going on.

“Tian Peng Pigs is 10 cents cheaper per catty. Hurry up and get some before it’s sold out.”

“I heard there is an in-store promotion today. Wind and Rain VCD players and other products will be having a discount. The VCD player is only selling for 1,599 RMB.”

“I heard the Wind and Rain Super fan is also having a promotion. I want to buy one of them. It can also be used during winters.”

“Do you all know? I heard that imported goods are selling here. You cannot get them elsewhere.”

……

Luckily, Feng Yu had predicted this would happen. Tai Hua Supermarket had given out lots of fliers and 3 days before the opening, they organized promotional events to promote the supermarkets. There will surely be a huge crowd. Feng Yu had hired lots of people for crowd control and even asked the local authorities to send policemen there.

Those policemen were there to help maintain order. But they were not working for free. Shopping cards were given to them as an appreciation for their help. At the same time, Tai Hua Supermarket was able to foster better relationships with the local police officers.

Those who were there just to watch the ceremony also entered the supermarkets. But after they entered the supermarket, they realized this supermarket was huge. One could find almost anything in there.

The products were cheaper than what the shoppers could find elsewhere. Some products were less expensive by a few cents and some products like Wind and Rain VCD players were even cheaper by a few hundred RMB.

The shoppers also saw lots of newly launched products like Wind and Rain Super VCD players, Aiwa’s pagers that give stock prices updates, The Little Tyrant’s second generation of learning machine, etc.

This stock pager was a modern device in this era. It looks like a standard pager, but it will update the user on the stock prices and other related news. This was very important for those who play shares.

Aiwa Electronics had developed this product two months ago and was ready to mass produce it. But Feng Yu waited until the opening of Tai Hua Supermarket to launch this product together with the Super VCD players.

Those distributors were unhappy with the lowered retail prices for the VCD players at first. Although the supplier prices were reduced, their profits had shrunk too.

But when the distributors knew that Tai Hua Trading was the main distributor for the Super VCD players, and the Super VCD players were more expensive, advanced and had a higher profit margin, they were pleased.

Also, all the distributors were present at Tai Hua Supermarkets’ opening ceremony. They also brought their business partners and friends with them.

The distributors thought Tai Hua Supermarket would be proud of their presences, but when they arrived at the opening ceremony, they realized that they were considered nobody there.

The City’s leaders were considered low ranked officials at the opening ceremony. Almost all the top officials from the Provincial government were invited. Also, all the top businessmen from the province were also present. All the guests were the powerful connections of Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation shareholders.

But the distributors were looking down on this business in their hearts. This was only a supermarket. How much can you earn from this business? They also heard that the goods sold there were cheaper than in other places.

Although this would attract customers, the profits will be lower. Even with high traffic, the profits will not be high.

Furthermore, Tai Hua Supermarket did not rent the building. They bought the whole building, and most of the supermarkets were built by them. Only a handful of the supermarkets were renovated from old shopping malls. The initial investments should be very high.

The interior renovations and fittings should also cost a lot. From the distributors’ point of view, Feng Yu was taking a considerable risk in this venture.

The distributors also saw some familiar guests at the venue. Those guests were Tai Hua Trading’s suppliers. Were they also the suppliers for Tai Hua Supermarkets?

The distributors were only hoping that Tai Hua Supermarkets will not suffer too many losses and affect Tai Hua Trading. They do not want to be affected by the failure of this supermarket.

But as the supermarket opened its doors, the distributors were shocked. Had these people gone mad? Why were they rushing in?

Wow…… That old man looks like he is 72 years old and he was as nimble as a 27 years old young man.

Look! That old man even manages to push some young men aside. Was his hair dyed white? How can that old man be so strong?

If there were not so many staffs and policemen maintaining order, there might be a stampede.

Zhong Qingxian was also shocked to see so many people rushing into the supermarket. The supermarket was so popular on its opening day. If the supermarket was able to retain 10% of today’s crowd, then it should not be a problem for the supermarket to achieve high profits.

“Manager Feng, seems like your Tai Hua Supermarket is a success.”

Feng Yu laughed and waved his hand. “It’s too early to say this. We can only tell whether if it is a success after one month. Word of mouth is the most important factor. If the shoppers did not like our supermarkets after they enter, they would not come back again. If all of them enjoyed shopping here, then it will be impossible for us to fail!”

……

That evening, CCTV news reported about the meeting between the Chief Architect, Iron-fist Zhu, and Superman Li. The report states that Superman Li was in Beijing for the opening of Tai Hua Supermarket, and there was close-up footage of the supermarket.”

The midnight news showed an extended version of this report.   It was extended from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.

The morning news the next day reported on the crowd at the opening of the supermarket and two lucky shoppers who won the lucky draw. The reporters also interviewed random shoppers. But those “random shoppers” were prearranged by Tai Hua Supermarkets, and they only mentioned good things about the supermarket. The items they “bought” were all given to them free by Tai Hua Supermarkets.

Many elderly viewers who watched last night and the next morning news brought their shopping bags with them to Tai Hua Supermarkets after their morning exercise. They heard that the things at Tai Hua Supermarkets were cheaper than other places. Their neighbors had gone there yesterday, and even the top official of China shopped there!

The afternoon news reported on Superman Li again, and Tai Hua Supermarket’s name was mentioned once more. That afternoon, shoppers were streaming into Tai Hua Supermarkets nonstop. The staffs had to replenish the goods on the shelves again and again.

Tai Hua Supermarket was a success!

Chapter 639 – Mutual benefits

Thomas raised a glass of champagne and gave Feng Yu a toast.

The Super VCD player was launched on August 1st, and it was only sold at Tai Hua Supermarket. It was a new supermarket, and Thomas was worried.

But after one week, Thomas saw the results.

Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation had too many talents. From the locations of the supermarkets to the goods displayed on the shelves, even the smallest details were well taken care of.

The arrangement of goods was different from all other shopping malls.

Of course, Thomas did not know that it was Feng Yu, who insisted on displaying the goods this way. Feng Yu had lived more than 20 years ahead and saw the various types of products presentation in shopping malls. He knows the best way to attract customers.

The Super VCD player was not displayed by itself. It was presented as part of a home theatre system. There was a huge TV, and the Super VCD player was connected to it. Customers who saw the display wanted to buy the whole set.

“Mr. Feng, your supermarket is the best supermarket I had seen in Europe and the US. Our products are selling better in your supermarkets than the dealers. I am impressed.”

Philips had entered the Chinese market for more than 2 years. They had more than a dozen joint ventured factories and companies in China. More than 100 retail stores were selling their products in China, but Tai Hua Supermarkets managed to sell more of their products than all their retail stores.

Every Tai Hua Supermarket has an electronics section, and Philips was allowed to send 2 promoters to promote the Super VCD players and their other products like shavers, TV, etc.

Philips’s home theatre system had sold better than Wind and Rain and Aiwa brand. It was because of Philips include a 21 inch TV as part of their system. Wind and Rain and Aiwa used another brand of TV.

Although Wind and Rain Electronics had gotten the TV technologies from Philips, they needed time to understand the technologies and to build factories before they could start production.

This was why Feng Yu chose to work with China’s popular domestic TV brand, Changhong. When customers wanted to buy Aiwa or Wind and Rain Super VCD players, and the home theatre system, the TV in the package was Changhong 21 inch TV/

This was also helping Changhong to market their products. But Changhong was already China’s top brand of TV and does not need Aiwa or Wind and Rain help to raise their brand awareness.

Feng Yu had still wanted Changhong to help manufacture a batch of the TV for Wind and Rain or Aiwa. But Changhong’s charges were too high, and the other smaller factories lack the expertise. If Feng Yu engaged those smaller factories to manufacture TVs for him, the quality might not be good and will affect the reputation of the Super VCD players.

The sales of the 3 brands of Super VCD players were about the same. Wind and Rain brands sales were slightly higher, but when it comes to home theatre systems, Philips had the best results. As a latecomer into the VCD player market, Philips managed to get 40% of the Super VCD player market. Although it was not more than Wind and Rain and Aiwa combined, but Philips was satisfied with this result.

Furthermore, Philips and Wind and Rain Electronics had exchanged other technologies, and there will be other new products launched into the market. They will be able to increase their market share and profits!

This was why Thomas was feeling proud. We might be using your technologies, but our branding is better than yours. Our company is bigger and more repeatable. We are the winners in the cooperation!

“Mr. Thomas, now you believe that despite the high price tags of the Super VCD players, the sales will still be good? This is only the China market. A developing country. I suppose Philips sales will be higher in Europe?” Feng Yu laughed and asked.

“Our sales still cannot be compared to AIWA and Wind and Rain. But I got to admit that the sales volume is higher than expected. Those normal VCD players’ sales are slowly declining, and the market will be taken over by our Super VCD players. I think in another one or two years, there will be no more normal VCD players in the market.”

Thomas was saying that Philips sales cannot be compared to the other two brands combined. But if they were to compare specific brands, Philips sales was the same and might even be higher than Wind and Rain Electronics.

As the Super VCD players were only sold at Tai Hua Supermarkets first, it attracted lots of crowds. Many people visited the supermarket to buy the Super VCD players, but when they saw other products selling at lower prices, they also bought those too.

The Super VCD player was not the only product launched at the Supermarket. Songjiang Motors’ third generation of motorcycles, Songjiang – Light, a 50cc scooter was also launched and sold at retail stores in Tai Hua Supermarket first. It also attracted some crowd and had good sales.

Some of the shoppers went there to buy the scooters and then used the bikes to carry their groceries back.

There was also the newest Aiwa Pagers and Aiwa Stock pagers. There was a counter in the supermarkets reserved for these pagers. The pager sales were also going well.

In Aiwa Pager counters, Wind and Rain batteries were also sold. These batteries were manufactured by a battery factory owned by Feng Yu and Bing City’s Aviation Company. It was an advanced and long-lasting battery.

These batteries lasted longer than average, but the prices were also higher. Because of its high retail prices, the sales were low in the past.

But now, the batteries were placed together with Aiwa Pagers, and the sales improved. Those who could afford a pager which cost a few thousand RMB will not mind spending 10 RMB for a battery.

Lehaha’s newest products, the Refreshing series carbonated drinks, and tea beverages were also selling well in Tai Hua Supermarkets.

Although these drinks were sold in the supermarkets and the profits were lower, but the sales volume increased a lot. Also, this was good for their branding. Not everyone visits the supermarket frequently. But when they saw Lehaha’s amazing display of their drinks, the shoppers will feel curious and want to try how the drinks taste. Once they feel the drinks taste good, they will buy it again.

Tian Peng Pork, Tai Hua Ham and other processed food products have their own counters in Tai Hua Supermarkets. They were also well received by the shoppers.

Tai Hua Supermarket and these brands were working together for mutual benefits. Tai Hua Supermarkets pulls in the crowd and increase the sales of these products. Those who wanted to buy these products will also go to Tai Hua Supermarkets. Most of the time, these people will also buy other things in the supermarket.

Feng Yu knew this would happen, but he did not expect it to be so effective. Bing City’s products, which were the first to enter Tai Hua Supermarket, were selling well too.

Bing City enterprises trusted Feng Yu because of his relationship with Zhang Ruiqiang. The Bing City businessmen believed their Mayor, and because of this trust, they were able to get high returns.

One week was over, and the supermarkets were still as crowded. People were seen walking in and out of the supermarkets since the moment the doors opened until it closes at night. No one steps out of the supermarkets empty-handed.

Feng Yu chatted with Thomas for a while and decided on the Super VCD player marketing plans for the next phase. It’s time to make the other brands cry……

Sichuan Changhong Electric Co., Ltd.

Chapter 640 – Channels sharing

Feng Yu and Philips had different sales distribution channels. Each of them has its own channels. In China. Feng Yu have better distribution channels, but Philips have their own retail stores and Wind, and Rain doesn’t.

In overseas, Feng Yu have the Fu Family and AIWA sales channels. AIWA also have quite a several retail stores. Philips also worked with many partners and also have their own retail stores.

Feng Yu and Thomas decided to share their channels. They will join hands to bring the Super VCD players to the next level. However, both of them had some differences in regular VCD players.

Thomas made it very clear that Philips will be at a disadvantage if only Wind and Rain Electronics is selling the VCD players. Philips is not producing regular VCD players.

But Feng Yu thought of a simple solution. Philips still have other products. Why not we exchange sales channels for all our products?

Philips was also producing shavers, TVs, lamps, etc. They even produced professional medical equipment. But the medical equipment was not included in this agreement. Wind and Rain and Aiwa still have humidifiers, bladeless fans, pagers, etc. The sales for these products should be good if they were sold in Philips’s retail stores.

Both parties managed to come to an agreement and shared their distribution channels. Even their retail stores will set up a counter to sell the other parties’ products. This way, the retail stores had a wider variety of products, and consumers were able to purchase these products easier.

But the disadvantage was the consumers might think that both companies had merged and all these products belong to the same company. Feng Yu was actually at the losing end for this.

But Feng Yu does not mind. What he wanted was the market. Wind and Rain Electronics’ reputation might be affected, but Wind and Rain brand value will remain. When the market was opened entirely, the consumers will know that both companies were in an alliance.

In the past, Sony owned the majority of AIWA’s shares, but the AIWA brand remained. Now, AIWA’s Walkman had already overtaken Sony.

Both parties were satisfied with this cooperation. Both companies were working together on many technologies, and helping each other with their distribution channels were normal.

One week later, both parties’ retail stores saw an increase of more than 50% in their sales.

But the Super VCD players’ retail prices were still very high and not many people were willing to buy. However, the profit margin was high, and Feng Yu was still satisfied with the result.

Feng Yu was also pleased to know that his regular VCD players sales had increased. There was a reduction in the selling prices, but the quality of the products was still the same. There were also many promotions, and customers could compare the VCD players with other brands. The profits from these regular VCD players were much higher than before.

The other brands also realized that if they were to fight against Wind and Rain alone, they would lose. After all, Wind and Rain electronics own the patent of the VCD players, and they were the ones who invented this VCD player.

Now, VCD players’ selling price had been reduced, and it lowered their profits. Philips, Wind, and Rain and AIWA had formed an alliance, and the other brands decided to collaborate to share their distribution channels too.

These were world class consumer electronics brands. All of them have massive distribution networks. They have several dealers and their own retail stores. Once they cooperate, they would be able to sell their products in any city in the world.

Regardless of the channels or retail stores, these brands got the upper hand. They firmly believe this strategy will increase their sales.

Most importantly, these brands have no other choices. All the brands have too many stocks piled up in their warehouses. If they could not get rid of them, they might not have the chance to do so in the future when there is an upgrade to the technology.

There is only a Super VCD player in the market now, and the features are already more advanced. If the second generation of Super VCD player is launched next year, what can they do? What if Wind and Rain Electronics decided to launch the DVD players?

If that really happens, these brands will not be able to sell off their existing goods even if they reduce the prices further. They might as well collaborate now and try to clear off their stocks. Although they will not have any profits, at least they will be able to break even.

If the VCD players were to reduce its prices further, all of them would not be able to take it. They were all tricked by Wind and Rain Electronics!

Wind and Rain Electronics, a small electronics company, dare to trick so many world’s top electronics brands? This was a slap to their faces!

All the brands wanted to retaliate and at the same time, work together to set the DVD encoding standards together. They want to teach Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips a lesson!

If these brands were able to set the encoding standards for DVD, then the DVD players will have to use their formats. This way, they will lead the DVD player development.

……

“Manager Feng, those big companies have collaborated against us. They are sharing their channels, and overall, they are stronger than us!” Jiang Wanmeng saw Feng Yu and told him this anxiously.

Feng Yu laughed. “No need to panic. They only have more retail points. What’s there to worry? They are still using our patented technology and still have to pay us.

Furthermore, everyone can see the difference between Super VCD and regular VCD players. In another two days, CCTV will air our new commercials, and the advertisements for other countries will start soon. That will be a killing blow to them.”

Jiang Wanmeng frowned. He felt that Feng Yu trusted the effects of advertising too much. The other brands were some of the biggest brands in the world. Their scales were several times bigger, and their brands were more influential.

Just the loyal fans of those brands will increase sales. Furthermore, they had formed an alliance and will help each other. Wind and Rain Electronics only have Philips and AIWA as their partners. The overall scale was too small, and it was no match for the other major brands.

“Manager Feng, although they are selling normal VCD players and we are earning from them, but if the VCD players sold are our brands, we will earn more. Also, we are expanding our factories, and our capabilities have been increased. If they can snatch the market share away from us, then our stocks will pile up!” Jiang Wanmeng worrying said.

“How much is the production cost of our normal VCD players now?” Feng Yu calmly asked.

“Less than 700 RMB and we can still lower it further. The lowest should be about 500 RMB a unit.” Jiang Wanmeng replied.

Feng Yu frowned. He was not satisfied with this progress. He remembered in his past life, VCD players were selling slightly more than 300 RMB before the year 2000. That means the production cost of one VCD player was about 300 RMB or lower. Now, Wind and Rain Electronics have the world’s top VCD engineers, and they could not lower the cost further?

“The lowest production cost is 500 RMB per unit? Can it be lower than that?”

“That’s the lowest. The cost of many interior components cannot be lower, and our manpower cost is also very high.”

Feng Yu finally understood. Those small factories in his past life must have exploited their workers, and the interior parts must be substandard parts. This was the only way they could control the production cost to about 300 RMB. But that was when VCD players were almost obsolete.

“Ok. I know what to do. Those brands are just clowns, and we do not need to worry about them. Come and watch these new commercials and you will know why I am so confident.”

Chapter 641 – Advertising campaign

Jiang Wanmeng did not expect much from advertising. Advertising was only a form of marketing to let the audiences remember the name of the brand. What more can advertising do?

But after he read the commercial script written by Feng Yu, he was convinced.

“Manager Feng, this advertising message is terrific! We will surely win!”

Feng Yu was overjoyed, but he did not show it on his face. He fake a modest look. “You never know until it’s played.”

“I am not sure how this commercial will affect those overseas viewers. But in China, it will surely be effective. The other VCD brands should be finished. But this commercial seems to be quite long. I thought our TV stations limit the advertisements to 30 seconds?” Jiang Wanmeng asked.

“For CCTV, there is a limit of 30 seconds. But the local TV stations can give us 2 minutes. This commercial is exactly 2 minutes.” Feng Yu had considered this. The other VCD brands were advertising on the local TV stations, and we will also go there to advertise.

This will stop them in their path.

……

“Wind and Rain Super VCD player. Choose from 4 sounds channels and switch from Chinese to Cantonese at your preference. 9 types of display modes for your movies. Unique countdown timer to let you control your watch time. Wind and Rain Electronics. The inventor of VCD, a pioneer in the industry and leading brand. Wind and Rain Super VCD payers. Often imitated, but NEVER exceeded!”

This was the basic 30 seconds commercial. No faces appeared in the commercial. There was only a pair of hands, a remote control, a Super VCD player and a TV monitor in the commercial.

With only a few words, the Super VCD player’s features were explained. The words “Inventor, Pioneer, and leading brand” clearly shows the difference between Wind and Rain Super VCD player and other VCD players.

This commercial showed Wind and Rain Electronics’ superiority over Toshiba and the other VCD player brands. Even Aiwa and Philips had no way to retort them. The advertising message was not exaggerated. Wind and Rain Electronics was really the inventor, pioneer, and the leader in the VCD industry.

The two minutes commercial was slightly different. The start of the commercial shows a family gathering and Nan Ge was holding a mic singing in front of a TV. His amazing vocals attracted the applause of the people at the gathering.

Then, Nan Ge pressed a few buttons on the Super VCD player to choose the audio channels. He purposely shows that he could mute the original sound of the artist, can mute the mic and have a sing-along the function.

“For VCD players, I will only choose Wind and Rain brand. The international brand from China you can trust!”

After Nan Ge said the advertising message, the scene changed to a close up of the Super VCD player. It ends with Wind and Rain’s logo and the brand slogan. Often imitated, but NEVER exceeded!

This advertising slogan made all the other VCD player manufacturers furious.

Damn. We bought the authorization for the patents from you all and paid you for every unit we produce. Yet you turn around and step all over us!

“Often imitated, but NEVER exceeded!” What stupid slogan was this?!

If you all do not have patent protection, the VCD players might even have more features. Furthermore, who said we are imitating you all? Our exterior designs and colors were different from yours. How can you claim that we are imitating you all?

Never been exceeded? What’s the meaning of this? You really think that Wind and Rain Electronics will maintain the lead in front of everyone else?! What until we set the industry standards and replace you. We shall see who’s the loser!

Soon, AIWA Super VCD player’s commercial also appeared. The 30 seconds commercial was about the same, but it emphasizes on the audio quality. But the 2 minutes long commercial was filmed in a Karaoke lounge. There was still no Karaoke lounge yet. At least it was still not available in China.

Na Ying was singing, and everyone in the lounge was cheering.

“Using Aiwa Super VCD player feels like in a recording studio. I can practice my singing at home in the future. VCD, high-quality audio enjoyment. I love Aiwa.”

The camera zoom in on the Super VCD player and the advertising slogan appeared. Aiwa Electronics. I love China.

The overseas version of the commercials was different. But all the 30 seconds versions were about the same. It all showed the product, and no faces were shown. But the longer version of the commercials was different. The actor was changed to Hong Kong’s God of Songs, Jacky Cheung. This was because Jacky Cheung was going to hold a concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden next year. He was also the top Chinese male singer.

Because Jacky Cheung had decided to stop acting these two years, his endorsement fees were not high. It was only 1 million USD per year. But Feng Yu bargained because of this reason. He also argued that this commercial will be aired all over the world, and it will increase Jacky Cheung’s popularity. Feng Yu used Jacky Chan’s endorsement fees for The Little Tyrant as an example. He only offered Jacky Cheung 5 million HKD per year for 5 years.

After some bargaining from both parties, they settled on the terms of the contract. 30 million HKD for 5 years. Jacky Cheung had to film two commercials every year, some print ads, attend 4 promotional events and some other miscellaneous conditions. Feng Yu felt it was a great bargain! In the next two years, Jacky Cheung will be presented an international music award from International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. His albums were also selling well. He only lost to Michael Jackson in record sales.

This advertising campaign was massive. Feng Yu had poured all of this year’s profits from the regular VCD players into this campaign. Despite using all of his earnings, Feng Yu did not make any losses. He still had the gains from the Super VCD players and the authorization fees. Most importantly, his brand value will increase further. These were all not measurable temporary. The value can only be seen with Wind, and Rain Electronics got listed.

Wind and Rain’s advertising slogan: ‘Often imitated, but NEVER exceeded!’ was implying to the audiences that only Wind and Rain VCD players were the original. The rest of the brands were imitations. This was to raise Wind and Rain Electronics’ status.

AIWA maintained their usual style. They focus on audio quality. The spokesperson for their Super VCD players was the same spokesperson who signed with them last year. The most popular female singer, Madonna.

Although Madonna’s endorsement fees were very high, she endorsed all of AIWA’s products. AIWA could use her in their advertisements for all music related products. Of course, Madonna also has to film 2 commercials and attend 2 promotional events every year.

The first part of the year, AIWA had invited Madonna to film a CD player commercial and gotten good results. The second commercial this year was for the Super VCD player.

Wind and Rain, Aiwa, and AIWA brands started to spend large amounts into their advertising campaign worldwide. They also reminded Philips. Although they had formed an alliance, they were still competing against each other for the Super VCD player sales. If Philips did not step up their advertising campaign for the Super VCD players, they would lose the market share to Feng Yu.

So, Philips also start to market its products aggressively…….

Chapter 642 – One thing leads to another

Philips did not hire any celebrities to endorse. They had wanted to hire an A-list singer, but negotiations fell through. It was because Philips wanted to hire Michael Jackson and Michael Jackson was under Sony labels. There was no way Sony will allow him to endorse Philips products.

In the end, Philips chose to use its traditional style. They will use the technology approach like Wind and Rain. They will only showcase the technological features of the product and its brand.

The amount Philips allocated for their advertising campaign was also a lot. Their advertisement could be seen almost everywhere, especially in Europe.

The Super VCD player was market aggressively, and their sales increased steadily. The regular VCD player selling price was reduced further, and the other VCD player brands sales declined.

Even those big electronics companies could not take it. Other than Sony, Toshiba, Hewlett-Packard, and Pioneer, the different brands decided to look for Wind and Rain Electronics for a talk.

……

“Manager Feng, NEC’s China’s representative, had called. He wishes to speak to you about the DVD industry standards.” Jiang Wanmeng reported.

Feng Yu raised his brows. The time had come?

Everything Feng Yu did was for those consumer electronics to bow down to him.

At the start, Feng Yu gave those companies the authorization to the VCD patents and allow them to produce VCD players. After that, he maintained the prices of his VCD players when those companies lowered their selling prices. He purposely gave some market share to those companies.

When those companies saw the market was doing better, they increased their productions and promotional efforts. All of them wanted a more significant market share and more profits.

But at this moment, Feng Yu lowered the retail prices of his regular VCD players. This was not considered a heavy blow to those companies as they still have some profits.

Since there was still profits and the production was increased, the companies will not admit defeat. To those big companies, if a new product were launched and taken off the shelves after a few months, their brand image would be affected.

Some smaller companies were forced to sell off their existing stocks and stop production. These smaller companies only fulfill the minimum production figure of 10,000 units stated in their contract with Wind and Rain electronics. These companies were able to make some money at the start but suffered losses later on. Overall, they managed to break even or made a tiny margin. But if they continue to produce VCD players, they will inevitably suffer heavy losses.

Soon after, the Super VCD player was launched. The regular VCD players selling prices dropped again. This was the time when Wind and Rain, AIWA and Philips started sharing their distribution channels. Their retail stores begin to sell a variety of products, and this hit the other companies badly.

Those big companies still insist on producing VCD players, and they also formed an alliance to share their distribution channels to increase their sales.

At the start, these companies’ sales did improve, and they thought the crisis was over.  But out of their expectations, Wind, and Rain, AIWA and Philips started to market their Super VCD players aggressively. They poured large amounts into their advertising campaigns.

You all spent so much on advertising, can you still make profits? The profits for one regular VCD player was only so much. Even if the earnings for Super VCD players were high, it should also be around 200 USD at most. The profits for 10,000 units was only approximately 2 million USD.

This large-scale advertising campaign cost more than 10 million USD a year. How many VCD players can you sell in a year? The bosses of these few companies are all nuts! Do they even know how to count?!

But those companies soon realized that it was not the bosses of those companies had gone crazy. It was because their products could really make money.

Just the Super VCD players alone sold over 500,000 units after the advertising campaign. Only 4 brands were competing in this market, and on average, each brand sold at least 100,000 units. The profits were more than 20 million USD. It was more than sufficient to recoup the money spent on advertising.

Most importantly, the sales for the regular VCD players, including Wind and Rain and AIWA, started to drop drastically. The regular VCD player market was on the verge of collapsing.

Based on those big companies’ calculations, the total sales for regular VCD players should exceed 1,000,000 units this year. They should be able to get at least half of this figure and the rest by Wind and Rain and AIWA. The profits from the regular VCD players was not a small amount.

The most frustrating part for those companies was that they had open up the market, and the fruits of their labor were taken away from them!

Of course, those companies did not know that the future VCD player sales will be an astronomical amount, and the profits could even support a country. On average, every two households will own one VCD player. The overall amount of VCD players in the market was more than 100 million units.

When the DVD players entered the market, the total sales for both players was more than 1 billion!

This will happen to start in 1997 in Feng Yu’s previous life and reaches its peak in 1999. But now, everything was brought forward. Feng Yu estimate that next year will be the start of the boom and the peak will happen much earlier.

Wind and Rain Electronics will have lots of reserves and invest in developing the laser optic drive faster.

Feng Yu had led all these companies by the nose. They had help Feng Yu open up the market, and most of the money earned went into his pocket. Now, these companies were forced into a dead end. If this still carries on, these companies will suffer heavy losses.

Now, some of these companies could not hold up any longer. After all, these companies did not have any grudges against Wind and Rain Electronics. If two big companies wanted the own the more significant market share, they should not compete. They should collaborate to monopolize the market, like Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips.

These companies had chosen to support the other party for the DVD industry standards, and therefore, there was no way for them to work with Wind and Rain Electronics. But now, some of these companies changed their minds and want to support Wind and Rain Electronics’ DVD industry standards – Wind and Rain Philips industry standards. These companies were willing to do so to get a slice of the future DVD industry pie.

NEC was the first company to approach Wind and Rain Electronics. This was also due to the bad relationship between them and Sony and Toshiba.

But Feng Yu did not meet China’s representative of NEC. How could a small representative meet him? It should be at least the company’s president or the vice president.

Feng Yu had just rejected the NEC representative, and a representative from another company contacted Jiang Wanmeng. He wanted to meet the real boss of Wind and Rain Electronics to discuss some matters.

These people had contacted Jiang Wanmeng because they thought Jiang Wanmeng could make the decision. But Jiang Wanmeng told them that although he was the General Manager and one of the shareholders, there was still a controlling shareholder in the company. This shareholder was the final decision maker in Wind and Rain Electronics.

So, there was a constant stream of people wanting to meet Feng Yu. The ranks of the people sent to Wind and Rain Electronics also became higher.

All of these people wanted the same thing. All of them wanted to support Wind and Rain Philips DVD standards first, in return for lower authorization fees. They wanted to make some profits.

These companies were free to support the industry standards from any company. They were also not the ones who started the industry standard in the first place. There were no friends or enemies in the business world. There are only benefits!

When Panasonic Vice President came over personally, Feng Yu finally made his appearance. He was about to deal a heavy blow to Sony and the rest!

Chapter 643 – DVD Forum (Part 1 of 2)

Feng Yu notified those companies’ representative that he will make an important announcement in Wind and Rain Electronics headquarters and will meet them there. It will be held 3 days later.

After receiving the notification, the higher management of the various companies immediately reacted. All of them heard that Panasonic had sent their vice president to meet Wind and Rain Electronics and they knew that should also send someone of similar status. They sent either their Deputy Chairman or Vice President. Some of them even sent their directors.

Thomas naturally was invited. But he did not know what Feng Yu was going to do. Feng Yu only told him that this meeting will be something good.

When Thomas met Feng Yu the first time, they formed an alliance, and because of this, Thomas’s status in Philips immediately rise. Now, he has more say in the company. Although he owns some shares of Philips, he was not a member of the board.

If Thomas could perform well this time to show his capabilities to the shareholders, then he might get the chance to enter the core management level of the company.

Even if he did not enter the higher management, he might also get more authority and get more company shares.

Feng Yu looked at the list of companies which he will be meeting. Sony, Toshiba, HP, and Pioneer were not invited as they were the first ones who set their DVD standards to rival Wind and Rain Electronics. The rest of the companies were all invited and had shown up.

……

“I am glad to see all of you here to attend this DVD exchange organized by Wind and Rain Electronics. This is a discussion about the development of DVD. I am sure everyone here knows that VCD is only a passing phase. The product that will rule the home video players in the future will be the DVD players. Everyone here should be trying to develop your own DVD technologies, right? But the core technology on the video and audio encoding patent are still in our hands. Also, we are working together with Philips to introduce the industry standards for the DVD format.”

“I know everyone is here for the developments of the VCD players. But a moment of failure does not represent a lifetime of failure. All the companies here should be researching on DVD technologies in a bid to replace us, right?”

Feng Yu had a sly smile on his face when he saw the different expressions on the companies’ representatives faces. Want to replace us? Maybe in your next life!

“Everyone should know that the current CD encoding technology is very mature. The VCD encoding technology was also evolved from CD encoding technology. But the DVD encoding technology is totally different. Now, the DVD standards and format is still not uniform, and this will affect the development of DVD technologies. This is what I want to do today. I want to set a uniform standard to let this industry grow faster.”

All the companies’ representative had an ‘I knew it’ look on their faces. They knew that Wind and Rain Electronics had invited them over to set a uniform standard. Wind and Rain Electronics wanted the industry to use their standard format, Wind and Rain Philips industry standards.

This was not a problem for the companies, but Wind and Rain Electronics had to give them some benefits. If not, they would instead support the other two encoding formats. With all these companies creating problems, Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips will not be able to develop fast.

“For the DVD industry’s growth and our future, we should set up an international organization. I call this organization DVD Forum. Wind and Rain Electronics, Philips, AIWA and Aiwa are the core founding members of this forum. I invite all of you to be a member of this forum, and in the future, every new DVD format will be scrutinized and approve by DVD Forum. We will work together for a better future!”

After Feng Yu finished, there was no applause, and he frowned.

Jiang Wanmeng knew Feng Yu was not pleased with the response and he immediately starts to clap. The rest of the people there soon followed. These representatives did not want to applaud. Setting up an organization to introduce industry standards? What standards do we have? You all are the ones holding on to the standards. This organization was obviously trying to recruit them and introduce your standards.

Feng Yu waited for a while, and no one said a word. He grew impatient and asked: “What’s wrong? All of you are unhappy with my suggestion?”

Taiwan’s BenQ representative raised his hand and stood up: “Mr. Feng, can I know what is the approval process and who will the ones who grant the approvals? The ones that grant the approval will be fixed, or the members will be rotated?”

Feng Yu took a glanced at him: “It will be fixed and rotated. The 4 founding companies will have fixed places in the approval committee. The other 5 members in the committee will be rotated every year among the other members. There will be 9 people in the committee, and if 5 committee members agree, the standard will be approved, and all the companies in the forum have to abide by the committee’s decision.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, there was also such an organization. It was also an international organization, and they were the ones who collected patent authorization fees from China’s DVD manufacturers. But in Feng Yu’s previous life, joining this organization was not compulsory, and this was why there was a race to set the standards for DVD formats. But now, Feng Yu wants to make it mandatory. You are not happy? You can choose not to join this organization!

4 founding companies? Damn! All of them knew that AIWA, Aiwa, and Wind and Rain Electronics were Feng Yu’s companies. Feng Yu was too shameless. He wants to hold 3 permanent places in the approval committee!

With Philips, they will be holding on to 4 out of 9 spots in the committee. They could just recruit one more company, and they would be able to implement whatever industry standards they want. This was not fair!

Feng Yu had a deep impression on this BenQ company. It was because this company had invented a technology called Book Type Management. This technology was able to change DVD+R/RW disc to DVD-ROM format. It was able to read all the different disc formats.

But now, this technology will belong to Wind and Rain Electronics. Feng Yu had already instructed Jiang Wanmeng to research and develop this technology. Although Feng Yu did not know how it works, he was able to tell Jiang Wanmeng what he wants and invested a large amount of R&D fund, Wind and Rain Electronics was already one step ahead of BenQ and Wind, and Rain Electronics R&D capabilities were better than BenQ. The technology Wind and Rain Electronics developed might even let their DVD players read all sorts of DVD discs. This way, it will stop the industry standard race!

Of course, Feng Yu will not tell anyone about this now. He wants to let Toshiba and Sony thinks that they would be able to set the industry standards and replace Wind and Rain Philips standard.

After Feng Yu said the approval process, all the representatives were looking at each other. All of them do not want to agree, but they know that if they did not join this organization, they would have no chance left. They will be left out of the circle, and there will be no chance for them to get a slice of the DVD cake.

But even if these companies were to agree, they did not want to be the first to voice out. The first person would be seen as a coward. If this organization did not work out and all the companies did not make any money, all the companies will blame the first company.

Seeing no representative wanting to say a word, Feng Yu also kept quiet. He sat on the rostrum and look at all the companies’ representatives calmly.

Chapter 644 – DVD Forum (Part 2 of 2)

Why was Feng Yu so calm? It was not because he feels that these representatives will beg him to be a member of this organization after he told them about these conditions. It was because he had planted an actor among the representatives!

These actors were important at critical times. If they get the timing right, they would be able to affect the crowd.

“Mr. Feng, we, Microsoft, will join this organization!”

Huh?

All the representatives were shocked to see an American claiming to represent Microsoft wanting to join this organization.

Stop joking with me! Microsoft was a software company. What does software get to do with DVD? Why are you here in the first place?

Feng Yu purposely asked with a ‘shock’ expression: “Are you Vice President James? You want to represent Microsoft to join the DVD Forum?”

“Yes. I am authorized by the Microsoft board of directors to represent Microsoft to take part in the DVD Forum. We will work together with everyone else to develop and implement Wind and Rain Philips industry standards.” James replied loudly.

“Since when Microsoft is involved in DVD?” Panasonic’s Vice President asked in doubt. Although he knows that Feng Yu would not get someone to impersonate someone from Microsoft to get everyone join the forum. During the signing of the agreement, the company and representative will be stated, and it will be legally binding.

“We are not going to manufacture DVD players. But we are interested in DVD encoding technology.” James replied.

This James from Microsoft was there because Feng Yu had called and convinced Bill Gates. Feng Yu was the third shareholder of Microsoft. Although he had no say in Microsoft, Feng Yu had shown Bill Gates his financial power.

Furthermore, Feng Yu told Bill Gates that once the DVD optic drives were developed, he will tie up with Microsoft operating system. This way, every PC will have to use their operating system and optical drives. Everything will be bundled together, and they will get higher profits.

It should be the profits from this cooperation that had convinced Bill Gates rather than Feng Yu. There was no reason why Bill Gates would reject this opportunity to make more money.

So, James appeared in this meeting. James was aware that Feng Yu was Microsoft’s third-biggest shareholder, and naturally, he has no qualms to be the first to express his desire to join this DVD Forum organization.

After Microsoft voiced out, the other companies’ representatives were deep in thoughts. Microsoft was already the leader in the PC operating system. Their shares value had increased by several folds in the past two years. It was the fastest growing company in recent years. Many people had predicted Microsoft will become the world’s biggest company in the future. For a company of this scale to participate, the other companies had to think twice if they were to opt out.

At this time, a representative from a second company stood up: “I represent Thompson to join this organization as a member.”

Huh? Thompson also wants to be part of this organization? This was a French state-owned enterprise. This company owned the biggest market share in the US and was Europe’s second-biggest electronics company. It was highly regarded in the consumer electronics industry. Even they agree to join this forum?

But Thompson was one of the world’s top manufacturer of TV and Video players. It’s normal for them to be interested in these DVD players.

After that, Taiwan’s BenQ and many other companies expressed their willingness to join the Forum. Some other big European companies also agreed to participate.

The Japanese companies had wanted to cooperate to bargain for better benefits. But now, if they did not join this Forum, they would be left out.

“Panasonic will join.”

“JVC will also join this Forum.”

“We, NEC, agree to join.”

“I represent Mitsubishi to be a part of this Forum.”

“Samsung agrees to join this organization.”

“We, Hitachi, will join this Forum.”

……

More than 30 representatives from various companies agree to join this DVD Forum. All the companies that were present agreed. Even the top companies had decided to participate, there was no reason for the smaller companies to object.

Feng Yu smiles as he looked at the representatives. This was so simple. I invited Microsoft, and Philips asked Thompson to help them. Fu Guangzheng had also spoken to some Taiwanese companies. How could this DVD Forum fail?

Now, almost half of the world’s consumer electronics companies had joined DVD Forum. The rest were either not involved in the DVD businesses, or related to Toshiba, Sony, Pioneer, etc.

That means from this moment onwards, the DVD industry will only have two alliances. But Feng Yu’s DVD Forum was more powerful as they had a uniformed standard.

The formats and standards introduced by Toshiba and Pioneer were different. Even if they were to cooperate now, both of them would not give up on the format they developed halfway.

Things were proceeding smoothly, and all the representatives signed an agreement to state that they will abide by the format and standard set by the DVD Forum. If any company were to violate the terms of the agreement, that company would have to compensate all the members of the DVD Forum and the compensation for each company will not be lesser than 10 million USD.

Although 10 million USD might seem a lot, for those big companies, it was not a big deal. But if this amount was to multiply by more than 30 times, it will be more than 300 million USD. 300 million USD was a vast amount, and all the companies had to think of this consequence if they decided to betray the Forum.

Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics, Philips, AIWA, Microsoft, Thompson, Samsung, Panasonic, and Tata group, were the 9 committee members of the Forum.

After the committee members were selected, Aiwa Electronics immediately states that the DVD industry standards should be Wind and Rain Philips Standards. Those that agree had to raise their hand.

The representatives from Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics, Philips, AIWA, Microsoft, and Thompson immediately raise their hands. The other 3 companies’ representatives looked at each other. They knew that this would be approved even if they did not raise their hands. Rather than opposing, they might as well show their support. They also raise their hands, and that means all the companies under the DVD Forum will have to use Wind and Rain Philips DVD standards.

The members of the DVD Forum thought there was nothing essential to discuss after the DVD standards were set. Everyone was waiting for Feng Yu to give them some benefits. The agreement had stated that after joining the DVD Forum, the authorization fees for the VCD patents will be lowered.

But AIWA raised another topic to discuss. It was about the standards for optic drives. To be more precise, DVD optic drive.

There was already optic drives now, but most of it was CD optical drives. The only VCD optic drive in the market belongs to Wind and Rain Electronics, and Lenovo had the authorization to use this technology in their newest PC.

But the VCD optic drive was only a passing product. In the future, DVD optical drives will be the mainstream and will be used for a long time. Wind and Rain Electronics specialized in this technology and was way ahead of the other companies.

The standard was suggested, and no surprises. It was agreed by the committee. Feng Yu had finally gotten everything he wanted.

Chapter 645 – The era of two formats

All the companies had agreed to Feng Yu’s demands, and Feng Yu would naturally give them some benefits. If not, no other companies would want to cooperate with Feng Yu in the future. If all these companies were to withdraw from the DVD Forum together, then each of them only has to compensate 40 million USD. If these companies go all out for revenge against Wind and Rain Electronics, Toshiba and Sony will benefit from it.

“From next month onwards, the authorization fees for the VCD will be lowered by 50%, and in the future, the fees will be lowered by 5 USD every year.” Feng Yu announced.

Even if the authorization fees were lowered by half, it was still 25 USD per unit, and the companies had to pay Feng Yu for the next 5 years. Actually, these companies will not need to pay Feng Yu for the next 5 years, DVD will replace VCD players within the next 3 years.

This condition seems beneficial to these companies, but it was useless. Feng Yu had announced the reduction of the authorization fees by half and every year onwards, it will reduce further, what else could these companies say? Reduce further? Why not ask for the authorization fees to be waived? But which idiot would agree to this?

If these companies made this demand, that shows they lack sincerity to cooperate.

These companies could only accept this announcement, but some Japanese companies were not happy. They made another demand. The VCD player prices cannot be lowered anymore this year. If it was reduced further, then all of them will have not profits and might even lose money.

Now, their profits for every VCD players after the reduction of authorization fees was about 20 USD. It was considered very low.

Feng Yu agreed. He was also not willing to let the VCD player prices drop further as it will affect his profits too. He also needs these people to help him introduce his DVD standards. Also, he only agrees to maintain the prices for this year. He could reduce the rates after this year if he wants.

Also, Feng Yu’s current primary focus was Super VCD players. The profits from Super VCD players were several times of VCD players, and it was selling well. The second-generation of Super VCD players should be out next year, and VCD players will be obsolete soon.

If Feng Yu wanted to teach these companies a lesson, he could lower the prices of Super VCD players. These companies will surely vomit blood!

But now was not the time. Sony and the other companies were still going strong.

When the DVD Forum managed to attract, more than 30 world’s biggest consumer electronics to join and set up their headquarters in China, Sony, and the rest panic.

Why didn’t they receive the invitation for this DVD Forum? They were some of the biggest consumer electronics companies in the world. Which company was the organizer of this Forum?

The headquarters was set in China’s Hefei? That means it was Wind and Rain Electronics that started this organization. This small company thinks they can be the leader with those two patented technologies? Are those companies stupid? Why would they join this organization?

When Sony and the rest of the companies saw the list of members that joined this forum, they realized Microsoft and Tata were also included. What has the DVD got to do with software companies? Why were they getting involved?

Although Sony and the rest of the companies do not want to admit, after these companies formed the DVD Forum, they were isolated.

There were 3 types of DVD encoding formats and 5 specifications. DVD+R/RW was from Wind and Rain Electronics. DVD-R/RW was introduced by Pioneer and Toshiba’s format was DVD-RAM. RW was still in the theory stage, and it was still being developed, while RAM will be replaced by ROM in the future.

Actually, AIWA company was still developing DVD-Audio. After DVD audio optic drive, Wind and Rain Electronics had been researching on DVD-video. These technologies were still in the development stage and could not be introduced to the market yet.

So, DVD+R, DVD-R, and DVD-RAM were the formats in the industry, and it was a race for the companies to make their format the industry standard. At first, DVD+R was the weakest, and it had the least companies supporting this format. Toshiba’s RAM format had the most supporters.

But now, everything was changed. DVD+R will become the mainstream format, and the other two formats will slowly lose their support.

These opposing companies were already in an alliance against Wind and Rain Electronics. They were leading at first, but suddenly, the tides had changed.

The only solution was for the two companies to cooperate and introduce only one type of format. If not, they will be beaten by Wind and Rain Electronics.

But here’s the problem. Which format should they use as the industry standards?

Both parties had to work together, but for this cooperation to work out, it must be fair. Both companies were big companies and had good technologies. There was no reason to give up their own format to support another company.

So, Toshiba, Sony, Pioneer, HP, and the rest of the companies met up for a discussion. All of them had only one aim. They want the other parties to give in and support their format.

These companies understood that if they were to go on their own ways, they would fail. If they cooperate, they will be able to resist against Wind and Rain Electronics. The party who give in will fail.

Toshiba and Sony were working together, and Sony had a large disc production facility. Also, Toshiba was one of the shareholders of Warner Bros., and Sony owns Columbia Pictures.

Pioneer also has a large disc production facility and had HP’s support. HP was the best in Laser technology. Also, HP was one of the world’s top PC company and needed the DVD drive.

Both parties started negotiating. This cooperation must be finalized fast as both parties need to decide on the format and standard to rival those companies in the DVD Forum.

In the end, HP gave in under the condition that the DVD drive technology must be authorized to them for free. Pioneer had no other choice.

To prevent being kick out of the game, Pioneer could only agree to introduce DVD-RAM format and give up on introducing DVD-R. But Pioneer will carry on its R&D on DVD-R.

These companies had come to a conclusion and decided to follow the DVD Forum. They will also set up an alliance of companies and name this alliance as DVD Alliance. These few companies used their connections to invite the rest of the consumer electronics companies to join this alliance. They will work together to develop this technology and fight against DVD Forum.

But the majority of the big companies had joined the DVD Forum. They could only invite some second-rate companies. However, they still managed to set up this alliance.

After the DVD Alliance was set up, they immediately announced that they will continue to research and introduce DVD-RAM format. They also claimed that DVD-RAM was the best format in the industry, and the DVD+R format was not as good as theirs.

DVD Forum immediately retorted. There was a comparison between both formats. DVD+R storage was 2.8G, and DVD-RAM’s storage was only 2.58G. It was clear, which was a better format!

But these figures were derived from theories and experimental labs. It still could not be mass produced. Both parties’ technologies were still not completed. The format that was more popular with the consumers will be the leading the pack and will be the most profitable in the future.

So, the DVD industry had entered a two formats era.

Chapter 646 – The long-awaited letter

Although it was the summer holidays, Zhou Kexin still goes to school every day. Her parents were glad to know that their daughter was working hard for her studies.

But Zhou Kexin’s parents did not want her to tire herself out, despite her University entrance exams were around the corner.

“Xinxin, it’s raining today. Don’t go to school today. You can stay at home for revision or go out and play with your friends.” Her mother said.

“Mum, it’s fine. The rain is not heavy, and I can take the bus to school.” Zhou Kexin carried her school bag and an umbrella and left for school.

Zhou Kexin went to school every day during the school holidays was to prepare for her exams. But there was something more important. She was waiting for a letter.

Since year 1, she will receive 2 to 3 letters. But during year 2, that ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ went to Hong Kong University as an exchange student. They had only exchanged 3 letters in total.

‘Second most handsome person on earth’ had stated that he will be returning back to Beijing University soon in his last letter. He also said that he will write to her after he returns. But where was the letter?

To receive the letter earlier, Zhou Kexin returned to school every day. Of course, she told her parents and friends that she was doing her revision in school.

“Girl, no need to ask. There are no letters for you today.” Mr. Li, the security guard at the school, said.

Zhou Kexin was disappointed. She lowered her head and walked slowly to her classroom. Why was there no letters? Did he forget about me? He wants to stop being my penpal? But in the last letter, we are still chatting happily.

Zhou Kexin was alone in her classroom. It was raining today, and none of her classmates were back in school for revision. Zhou Kexin sat at her seat and took out her history textbook. She opened the book carefully. There were a few letters in between the pages.

She took out the letters and starts reading them. She had read these letters dozens of times until the edges of the letter began to curl.

But Zhou Kexin still wants to read them even when she could memorize all the contents of the letters. She had read it until she was able to imitate ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ handwriting.

After reading all the letters, she folds it back carefully and kept it in between her history textbooks. After that, she took out her geography books and start studying.

……

The next day, it was still raining. But Zhou Kexin still insists on going back to school. She did not want to miss the letter.

When Zhou Kexin arrived at her school’s entrance, Mr. Li ran out from his security post and waved to her. “Hey, Girl! Your letter is here!”

My letter?!

This moment was Zhou Kexin’s happiest moment of her life. She had waited long enough for this letter.

Zhou Kexin ran to the security post. In her hurry, she even forgets to lift up her umbrella. She did not mind the raindrops falling on her. Her uniform and hair were slightly wet from the rain. She would normally walk carefully during rain to avoid the puddles on the ground. But now, she couldn’t care less. Her shoes were wet when she ran towards the security post.

“Grandpa Li, give me my letter!” She ran into Old Mr. Li’s security post and shouted.

“Here is a towel I gotten last month and still have not used it before. Wipe yourself dry first. If your letter got wet, the words might be smudged.” Old Mr. Li laughed and passed a new white towel to Zhou Kexin.

Zhou Kexin heard that she might make the letter wet, and she resist the urge to touch the letter. She took the towel and wipe away the water droplets on her, especially her hands.

“Here, have some hot water. You must be careful not to catch a cold.”

“Thank you. Grandpa Li, I will not drink the water. I will go to the classroom now.” Zhou Kexin grabbed the letter on the table and kept it in her school bag. She kept it in between her books and opened up her umbrella. She walked quickly towards her class.

Old Mr. Li shook his head. It’s just a letter, and she had been asking every day. Now, she got her letter, and she does not need to be so excited. The letter will also not fly away.

Zhou Kevin ran back to her classroom and opened the door with her keys. There was no one in the classroom. She closed the door and returned to her seat. She can’t wait to read the letter.

But Zhou Kexin took out a handkerchief to wipe her hands first before taking out the letter from her books.

On the envelope, the address was written in familiar handwriting. The name written on the envelope was ‘Second most handsome person on earth’!

Zhou Kexin was smiling even before she read the letter. She opened up the envelope carefully and took out the letter.

There were only two pages. Zhou Kexin unfolds the letter and starts reading.

I had returned from Hong Kong University. You can use this address in the future. To be back at a familiar place feels so good…….

After reading the two-page letter, Zhou Kexin felt it was not enough. She wanted more. She picked up the envelope and look inside. It was empty.

She read the letter two more times and took out a stake of letter papers from her bag to write a return letter.

‘Second most handsome person on earth,’ have you become the most handsome person on earth? The last time you said that Hong Kong is a bustling city. Do you feel disappointed to return back to Beijing? After you graduate, will you go to Hong Kong to look for work?

I was second in my class for my last semester exams. The difference between me and the first position was only 1 mark. I knew how to answer one of the questions, but I still got it wrong.

Do you think that I will be able to get into a university in Beijing? Our school is not some good high school. I heard that if I apply for some unpopular courses, I get a higher chance of getting accepted. Should I do so?

……

Zhou Kexin finishes writing her letter, and she checked her letter twice for spelling and punctuations mistakes. It was just like she was sitting for her exams. She blew lightly on the letter to make sure the ink was dry before she starts folding the letter carefully.

Zhou Kexin was not like Feng Yu. Feng Yu would just fold the letter twice and stuff it into the envelope. Zhou Kexin used origami methods she learned when she was young to fold her letter. She folded her letter into the shape of a little man. Although she was not good at origami, she still feels the letter looks more beautiful this way.

She placed the paper man into an envelope she prepared a long time ago. The address and stamp were already written on the envelope. She sealed the envelope with glue and double-check if the envelope was sealed properly before keeping it in between her books.

“Bye, Grandpa Li.”

“You are going back early today? Remember to drink more hot water to prevent catching a cold. Aside from studying, your health is also very important.” Old Mr. Li waved to Zhou kexin. How come she only stayed in school for about an hour? She usually stays in school for at least 2 hours.

If Old Mr. Li knew that Zhou Kexin did not even look at her books and just spent all her time reading and writing a letter, he would surely be speechless.

It was raining, and Zhou Kexin did not want to drop the letter into the letterbox in case it got wet. She went to a post office and passed the letter to the staff there.

On her way back, Zhou Kexin was wondering how that ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ would react when he received her letter……

Chapter 647 – Thieves in the Supermarket (Part 1 of 2)

“Manager Zhao, what is it that you can’t settle by yourself and need to invite me over?” Feng Yu was sitting in Beijing’s Tai Hua Supermarket’s office.

“Manager Feng, someone is stealing in our supermarkets.”

There are thieves in the supermarket? Wasn’t that normal? This happens to every supermarket in the world.

Some of these thieves were forced by circumstances and had no other choices. Some of them wanted easy money. Stealing something from the supermarket would feed them for a few days.

“Ok. There are thieves in our supermarket, and then?”

“We caught one of them.”

“Hand him over to the police. Do you still need me to tell you what to do?” Feng Yu was puzzled. These store managers did not know how to handle these situations?

“Our normal practice is to hand the shoplifter to the police. This is what we did back in Hong Kong. But I asked some of the locals here. They told me that even if we hand over these people to the police, it was also useless. They will be released after one night in custody, and they will return with more people to steal from our supermarket!” Store Manager Zhao said.

Damn. Does this mean that these thieves were a syndicate?

But this was the current law. Those that did not have multiple records of stealing will be fined or put in custody for one or two nights. These thieves stole for money and will not pay the fines. Their only choice was only to remain in custody. This Manager Zhao does not want to hand them over to the police?

“Then what do you want to do?”

“We will interrogate the thief ourselves!” Manager Zhao looked at Feng Yu and said.

Interrogate ourselves? This ‘supermarket security guards interrogating shoplifters’ was happening in my supermarket? Don’t tell me that this method was started in my supermarket?

“We do not have the powers to interrogate those thieves. You should know about this.” Feng Yu frowned.

“They are stealing from our supermarket and why can’t we question them? Furthermore, do they dare to report us to the police?” Manager Zhao replied angrily.

Eh? Those thieves will think this way? Right. Those thieves will surely not go to the police. They will only seek protection from the police if they received special treatment. Under normal circumstances, these thieves will avoid having anything to do with the police.

“Ok. Just do what you want. But remember not to create any trouble and must not damage our supermarket’s reputation. If you are unsure, you must not catch those thieves. If the words spread, no one will want to shop in our supermarket.” Feng Yu said.

“I know what to do. We are going to interrogate that thieve. Do you want to see?”

Interrogate that shoplifter? Feng Yu had never seen any interrogation real live in both his lives. Although this was a private interrogation, Feng Yu was still curious.

“Where is the thief?”

“In the Security office. The security officers are watching over the thief.”

Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation had hired ex-soldiers as their security officers. These soldiers had just retired from the army and were still in good shape.

“Did they beat up that thief?” Feng Yu immediately asked. If those guards beat that thief badly, the supermarket will have to compensate him.

“No. Ermmmm…… That thief is a woman.”

Woman? Ok. Those guards should not lay their hands on a woman.

“Let’s go and take a look. Did those guards perform any body search on her?” Feng Yu asked.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he had watched a Japanese “Action” movie. The story was a female shoplifter was caught by 3 security guards, and they performed a strip search on the shoplifter. It was an exciting movie as the shoplifter tried to steal from…… a sex toy shop!

“Manager Feng, Store Manager.”

Store Manager Zhao nodded and asked: “Did she admit?”

“No. She insists she is innocent. But our store assistant saw her holding on to some products, and after she walked to a corner, those products disappear. I believe that those products are still on her!” A security guard pointed to a fat woman.

“I did not steal anything. You are all accusing me!” That fat woman shouted.

Feng Yu looked at that woman. Her eyes were blinking, and she was looking around nervously. If she were really innocent, her behavior would not be like this. The security guard’s judgment was right. This person must be guilty.

Something was off. The weather now was scorching. Although the Chinese were not so open now, no one would wear coats in the current climate. At most, people will wear long sleeves clothes. Furthermore, that woman was still wearing a long skirt. Her dressing was too weird. No wonder the store assistant will take note of her.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered a news report in his previous life. A shoplifter used less than 1 second to hide a carton of soft drinks in between her legs and walk out of the store normally.

After that report, some shoplifters tried to imitate her in China but were caught. It was because there was CCTV every was in the supermarkets.

Feng Yu had also thought about installing CCTV in the supermarkets during the opening. Although the cameras were no clear and expensive, it will deter many thieves.

But the Chinese currently does not like being watched. Feng Yu had heard a rumor about how Walmart had lost to Carrefour in his previous life. It was because Walmart had installed CCTV in their supermarkets, and Carrefour did not.

Although this rumor might not be accurate, it seems reasonable. Feng Yu was sure that if he were to announce that the supermarket was under surveillance and security guards were watching all the customers through CCTV, the shoppers will feel uncomfortable and will not want to shop there.

This had got to wait for another 8 to 10 years when people were used to cameras and understand that the security guards will not stare at the monitors nonstop. At that time, it would be weird if the stores did not install CCTV.

Tai Hua Supermarket did not install CCTV and had no evidence to prove that this fat woman had stolen from the supermarket. Searching her was the best solution. Feng Yu was confident that this woman had hidden many things under her coat.

“You say you are innocent? Fine. I have reported to the police, and they will be sending a female officer over. The female officer will search your body later, and we will know if you are really innocent.” Feng Yu replied calmly.

Manager Zhao added. “If we wrongly accused you, we will compensate you. But if you are caught stealing from us and did not want to admit, then don’t blame us!”

That fat woman’s face changed. “What right do you have to confine me? You all are not police officers. Move aside. I want to go out!”

Two security guards moved one step and block that woman.

“Before the police arrive, you are not allowed to leave. As I said earlier, we will compensate you if we wrongly accuse you. I am giving you one last chance. Own up and return everything you took to us. Also, tell your people to stay away from our Tai Hua Supermarkets!” Store manager Zhao said.

Feng Yu understood why Store Manager Zhao wanted to interrogate that woman himself.

Chapter 648 – Thieves in the Supermarket (Part 2 of 2)

The woman kept quiet. She was just the lowest level thief in the syndicate. She could not make others listen to her. If the police came, she would surely be arrested. Also, Tai Hua Supermarket’s boss was Asia Richest man, and even the Chief Architect had met him several times.

This woman had been arrested before in other shopping malls. Those mall managers all have good relationships with the local police stations. She knew that if she were arrested, she would not be released after one or two days. She might even be beaten up in the police station.

The woman had seen someone from her trade being beaten up by the police officers. She did not want to go through the same thing.

“I will return the things to you, and you all have to release me.” That fat woman said.

“Dream on! You stole our stuff, and you have already committed a crime. You must return everything you stole. You have no rights to negotiate with us!” Manager Zhao shouted.

“I promise not to step into your supermarket and malls. I will not step into any of your branches.” The woman pleads.

Feng Yu stared coldly at that woman. Although she was pleading, her eyes were darting around. It was clear that she was telling lies. She might not return to this supermarket. But if she goes to another supermarket? In Beijing, there were 3 Tai Hua Supermarkets!

“Why should we believe you?” Feng Yu asked coldly.

That fat woman could tell that Feng Yu was the person in charge in the room from the positions they were standing and the attitude of the security guards.

The fat woman turned to Feng Yu. “Boss, please have pity on me. I have 3 children, and I can’t even afford to give them a proper meal. If not, I will also not come and steal from you. Please…… let me go. If I am caught, I will starve to death!”

Damn. All lies. 3 children and will starve to death? Who are you trying to fool?

“Really? Don’t worry about your children. After the police take you away, they will send people to take care of your children.” Feng Yu replied.

Let’s see what other lies you can come up with.

The woman was stunned, and then she covered her face with her hands and started wailing.

Ordinary people when they were wailing and upset, they would squat down. But this woman was still standing and did not even lean against the wall.

“Shut up! Stop crying! Even if you roll on the floor, it is also useless. I have seen so many people like you!” Manager Zhao shouted at her.

The woman’s cries stopped, and she lifted her head. Feng Yu noticed that she was not crying at all. It was all fake.

Damn. Pretending to cry? Feng Yu had wanted to ask this woman if she was really in some difficulties. He does not mind offering this woman a job to support herself.

But now, Feng Yu changed his mind. These people do not deserve any help. Handing her over to the police was the best solution. Maybe that’s the only way for her to repent.

“Give me the contacts of your people and ask them to come and we will release you when they come and pick you up.” Feng Yu suddenly said.

The woman looked at Feng Yu in shock. Store Manager Zhao was also stunned. Manager Feng agreed to let this woman off? Earlier Feng Yu still wanted to hand over this woman to the female police officer. Now, he was pitying her?

But this woman did not deserve any pity. From her behavior, this was not the first time she was doing this.

“You agree to let me off?”

“I said it very clear. Let the police come and catch you or let your boss come and fetch you.” Feng Yu wants to speak to the boss of this syndicate. He wants to tell him to stop creating trouble at Tai Hua Supermarket. They cannot steal anything from his supermarket and customers!

Shoppers that comes to Tai Hua Supermarket must be able to shop in peace. If they were picked pocketed or lost some valuables, they would know that there are many thieves in their supermarket. Who would want to visit his supermarkets in future?

“I do not have any boss.”

“Then there is no other choice. Wait for the police. She should not be a fat woman. All the things she stole should be hidden under her skirt and clothes. When the police arrive, we will be able to get our goods back. Also, tell Chief Li to lock this woman up for at least 2 weeks. Also, conduct a background check on her to see if she was wanted for other crimes. It would be best to lock her up with some bullies in the lockup. They should be able to teach her how to behave in the future!”

Store Manager Zhao saw Feng Yu winking at him, and he immediately said: “Don’t worry. I will make sure she will have a good time inside! Dare to steal from our supermarkets? I will give her an unforgettable lesson!”

“What are you all trying to do to me?” The woman screamed.

Feng Yu ignored her and walked out of the room. The woman immediately runs towards Feng Yu but was stopped by the two security guards. They thought she was trying to attack Feng Yu.

“Boss, boss, don’t leave. I will give you my leader’s contact details!” The woman cried.

Feng Yu had a smirk on his face. “You should have done so earlier.”

The woman gave a string of numbers. Feng Yu and Store Manager Zhao looked at each other and were cursing in their hearts.

This goddamn leader of a thieve syndicate uses a mobile phone! Seems like stealing was a profitable business!

Feng Yu took out his mobile phone and called.

“Hello? Who are you?”

Feng Yu placed his phone against the woman’s ears, and the woman immediately shouts: “Brother Hei? I am Yingzi. I am caught, and they want you to come over. You must save me.”

Feng Yu took back his phone and said: “Brother Hei? I am the boss of Tai Hua Supermarket. Your man is caught stealing in my supermarket. This is not right. Come over and fetch her back personally. I will let the matter rest.”

Store Manager Zhao frowned when he heard what Feng Yu said. How come Manager Feng speaks like he was scared of these thieves?

Based on Feng Yu’s age, he should be rush and impulsive. Also, he had so many businesses and should not be scared of these petty thieves. Furthermore, they had sent gifts to all the local police stations. Even if they beat up these thieves, the police would close one eye.

Brother Hei was in a good mood today. Beijing had suddenly opened this Tai Hua Supermarket, and he heard that it was a nationwide chain. Even the top leaders visited this supermarket, and there were a wide variety of goods sold there. There were also imported products and a constant flow of shoppers. He immediately sent his men to Tai Hua Supermarkets. There were 3 branches in Beijing, and he had sent quite several men there to steal. They were a bunch of pickpockets, and he would get at least a few hundred RMB a day.

This Yingzi was not that skillful in pickpocketing, and Brother Hei sent her to steal from the supermarket. Although this Yingzi was his woman, she must also work.

But Brother Hei never expect Yingzi to be caught on her first trip to Tai Hua Supermarket and the boss of the supermarket called him to fetch her?

But if Brother Hei did not go and rescue Yingzi, his other followers will not respect him. Furthermore, Yingzi was his woman.

“Ok. I will be there in an hour. You all don’t touch Yingzi. If you have any grudges, come and look for me!”

After hanging up, Feng Yu made another call in front of Yingzi. “Hello? Is this Chief Li? I am Tai Hua Supermarket’s Feng Yu. I have a little problem, and I need your help.”

Chapter 649 – Tricks (Part 1 of 3)

“Da Zhuang, come over for a while. Later you will go with me and……”

Although Brother Hei was going to fetch Yingzi, he will not go alone. Da Zhuang was one of his followers and does not know how to steal. But he was tall and strong. Usually, he will be the one who would show up if any of them got caught. He was more like a bodyguard.

Da Zhuang was also very loyal to Brother Hei. He will not hesitate to stab someone if Brother Hei orders him. But this time, Brother Hei did not ask Da Zhuang along as his bodyguard.

Feng Yu hang up the phone with Police Station Chief Li, and Yingzi was stunned. This person was not trustworthy at all. He had asked Brother Hei to fetch her and the next moment called the Police Chief.

Damn! This person wants to catch them all! If Brother Hei was arrested, then he will be finished. Brother Hei was still wanted for other crimes!

“Who did you call? What are you trying to do?” Yingzi shouts.

“Branch Station Chief Li. I think those smaller police stations cannot do anything to you all. So, I got to get someone from a higher office to deal with you all. You really think I will let you off? I only treat you as bait for your leader to come over.” Feng Yu did not feel ashamed to tell others that he lied.

Feng Yu was not a saint. He did not care about the reasons why these people resort to stealing. He was also not the type that wants to uphold justice. It was because these people had targeted Tai Hua Supermarket and he wants to blow up this incident to let all the thieve syndicates know they should not target Tai Hua Supermarket!

Manager Zhao had told Feng Yu that he wanted to teach these thieves a lesson and let stay away from Tai Hua Supermarket. But Feng Yu’s method was more thorough!

Chief Li arrived within 15 minutes. How did Feng Yu know him? Feng Yu had met him once during a dinner with Secretary Zhang. Secretary Zhang was Beijing City’s overall in charge of the Judicial system, and Police Department’s Deputy Minister was his direct superior. In Beijing City, his words were more powerful than the Beijing City Party Committee’s secretary.

Secretary Zhang was from Bing City, and this Manager Feng was also from Bing City. Chief Li knew that both should have some connections. The shocking part was during Tai Hua Supermarket’s opening ceremony, 3 Police Chiefs from 3 different districts were invited. This shows that the higher ups want Beijing Police department to take care of Tai Hua Supermarkets.

Now, Feng Yu said that a syndicate had targeted Tai Hua Supermarket and he had even caught one of the members. Chief Li had no choice but to rush over.

He must interrogate this thief personally and handle this incident thoroughly.

“Manager Feng, this is the thief?” Chief Li asked.

“Yes. The things she stole is still on her. We do not have female security officers and cannot search for her.” Feng Yu explained.

“No problem. I have brought a female officer with me. Xiao Su, go and search her. I want to see how many things are hidden in her.” Chief Li waved his hand, and a female officer in the uniform walk towards Yingzi.

“What are you doing? Boss, didn’t you agree to let me off when Brother Hei arrive?” Yingzi shouts.

“I only agree to let your leader come and fetch you. But I did not say I will let you go after your leader arrives. You are the one that misinterpreted my words.” Feng Yu glanced at Yingzi.

Yingzi still wanted to say something, but the female officer pinned her down. Before she even conducts the body search, things start dropping from Yingzi.

Yingzi had used hooks to hang the things she stole. This sudden movement causes some strings under her clothes to snap, and some items dropped.

Beer, ham, baseball cap, tea leaves, shampoo……

The female officer pulled open Yingzi’s coat, and everyone was shocked!

All of them had thought Yingzi would stuff the things she stole under her coat. But she used hooks to hook the items onto strings underneath her coat!

This Yingzi was a slim girl. But with her coat on, she looks like a fat woman. This coat had hooked lots of stuff. She looks like those people who sold counterfeits under a coat.

After all the items were taken down from her coat, everyone in the room was staring at Yingzi’s long skirt. It was a long puffy skirt.

“What are you all trying to do to me? I am a girl!” Yingzi screams.

Chief Li stopped the female officer, Xiao Su from taking Yingzi’s skirt off. “I will give you a chance. You surrender everything you took yourself. Don’t force us to use force on you. We already have evidence!”

The highest rank Police officer Yingzi met in her whole life was the Chief of a small station. This was the first time she met a District Chief. That uniform and imposing manner made her dare not to oppose him.

“I will take it out myself.”

Feng Yu and the rest saw something amazing. None of them had thought that a long skirt could hold so many items. Especially that 5 liters bottle of imported beer, a big bottle of soybean oil and other bulky items. All these items were on Yingzi’s body. How was she able to keep standing straight?

The floor had all sorts of items. The total value of these items was more than 1,000 RMB! The imported items were more expensive, and this Yingzi had picked lots of imported goods.

“The total value of these items is 1,326.53 RMB.” A supermarket staff said after she calculated.

Feng Yu really want to tell Yingzi to perform what she did, and he will let her off. This was better than a magic show. Even magicians might not be able to pull this off.

“Thee value is over 1,000 RMB. With your previous records, I can put you in jail for more than 15 days.” Chief Li casually said.

“I have surrendered everything.” Yingzi tried to argue.

“Shut up! You have hands and legs, and yet you go around stealing from others? You really make your family proud. Let me think…… I think I can send you to the labor camps for reformation.” Chief Li said, and he secretly looks at Feng Yu’s reaction. This was the heaviest punishment he could melt out. If Feng Yu were still not satisfied, he would have to think of other ways.

Labor camps? Feng Yu nodded. Although he was not sure about the current laws, he knew that stealing was not considered a serious criminal case. There was no way to give her a hefty sentence. Reformation should be the harshest punishment.

“How long is the reformation duration?” Feng Yu asked.

“There is no fixed duration. It depends on her progress. If she performs well, she will be released within a month.” Chief Li saw Feng Yu’s face changed and immediately added. “There are people who refuse to repent and stayed in the labor camps for years.”

Yingzi almost broke down. What? A few years in Labor camp? I had only stolen some items, and you want to punish me so heavily?

This was the first time Yingzi regrets. She did not regret stealing. She regrets coming to Tai Hua Supermarket to steal!

At this moment, a security officer entered and told Feng Yu: “Manager Feng, a big size man is claiming to be Brother Hei outside. He says he is here to fetch his friend.”

The lead actor is finally here. Feng Yu had a sly smile on his face……

Chapter 650 – Tricks (Part 2 of 3)

Chief Li replied calmly: “I want to see what this small-time criminal have to call himself Brother in front of me!”

Feng Yu, Chief Li, and Store Manager Zhao left for the manager’s office.

Wow…… this Brother Hei was bigger and looks stronger than Wen Dongjun. His height should be more than 1.9m.

Chief Li suddenly says: “You are not Brother Hei. Where is your boss?”

Feng Yu and Manager Zhao were confused. This person is not Brother Hei? How come Chief Li knew about this? Have Chief Li met Brother Hei before? It should not be the case. If he had met Brother Hei before, he should have said it earlier.

Da Zhuang was shocked to see Chief Li in his police uniform. Why was the police here? Brother Hei did not say anything about the police. He had only asked Da Zhuang to come and fetch Yingzi back. This Police Officer seems like a high-rank officer.

“I am Brother Hei. Who is the one who called me just now?” Da Zhuang pretended to be calm and asked. But his expressions were unnatural and kept looking at the door. His body language had already betrayed him. He was already thinking of ways to escape.

“You are just a nobody. Stop your pretenses. I can tell from one look! You can’t-fool me! Tell me, where your boss is? Did he send you here to be his scapegoat?” Chief Li asked.

Mind games were the simplest way to make the other party yield. Since Chief Li had come to help Feng Yu, he must put up a show for him.

What’s the use of arresting a nobody? If they must arrest someone, then it must be the boss of the syndicate and all its members. This will be a huge favor.

Luckily, Chief Li still had some capabilities. He was not in this position because of his connections. He had lots of experiences, and if he could not even tell this simple trick, he might as well hang up his uniform.

This person’s size was so big, and how can he mix into the crowd to steal things?

“I don’t know what you are talking about. Where is Yingzi? I am here to fetch her.” Da Zhuang insisted.

Feng Yu took out his mobile phone and dial the number Yingzi gave. A phone rang, and it was from this person.

Da Zhuang took out a mobile phone and showed it to Feng Yu. “I said that I am Brother Hei. Where is she? We have agreed that you will release her once I am here.”

“I am the one who called you just now. You can’t recognize my voice?” Store Manager Zhao suddenly said.

“Of course. But it is not very clear over the phone just now.” Da Zhuang tried his best to remain calm.

Now, everyone knew that this person was not Brother Hei. The sound quality of mobile phones was not very clear, but Store Manager Zhao’s heavily accented mandarin was a vast difference from Feng Yu. Anyone would be able to tell the difference.

“Call your boss. Tell him that if he does not come over, I will put him on the wanted list all over the city.” Chief Li laughed.

This person wants to be the leader of a syndicate with his intelligence? The leader of a thief syndicate must have the skills and must be very smart. If not, he will have no way to tame his followers. This person was too stupid to be the leader. If he were really the leader, no one would want to follow him.

“I am Brother Hei.” Da Zhuang firmly insisted.

“That woman had told us that your leader is not so tall. Even if you all want to get someone to impersonate the leader, you all should get someone that has some resemblance. Both you and your leader size are too different.” Chief Li slowly said.

Yingzi did not say anything. These were all made up by Chief Li. Although he does not know who this Brother Hei was, he could not recall any criminal bosses thatwere over 1.9m tall. Furthermore, this size was too obvious to be a thief. He can’t even squeeze himself through a window.

This was why Chief Li dares to claim that Brother Hei was shorter than this man.

After Chief Li finishes saying, that man’s face changed. “What’s wrong with me coming over? My boss is busy with something else. He sent me as a representative.”

“You cannot represent him. I think you are still able to contact your boss. Call him here. I will speak to him.”

Da Zhuang was hesitating. He was not sure if he should contact Brother Hei. But this person said he will put Brother Hei on the City’s wanted list. That means he must be somebody from the City’s Police department. This person wants to speak to Brother Hei. What if the negotiations fail and he arrests Brother Hei?

“Just tell me what you want, and I will pass the message to Brother Hei.”

“Who do you think you are?! Call him and tell him that I, Li Changshan, is here. Tell him to be here within 10 minutes! If I don’t see him in front of me, he will suffer the consequences!” Chief Li said.

Da Zhuang was scared. He dialed a number on his mobile phone: “Brother Hei, I have reached…… Errr….. I still have not seen Sister Ying…… There is a police officer here, and he says his name is Li Changshan. He wanted you to be here within 10 minutes…… Ok. I know.”

After hanging up the phone, Da Zhuang turned to Chief Li and said: “I have told Brother Hei. He is on his way here. Can you let me see Sister Ying?”

Yingzi was brought into the office, and she was stunned when she saw Da Zhuang. Why was Da Zhuang here? Where’s Brother Hei?

“Seems like Brother Hei dare not to come over. Maybe he is already on the run. Is it worth for you to follow such people?” Chief Li continued with mind games.

Before Yingzi could say anything, Chief Li asked the female officer to bring Yingzi out. Yingzi and Da Zhuang cannot be locked up together. Chief Li still need to make them spill everything out to get the evidence against Brother Hei.

From Yingzi’s expression, Chief Li was sure that the man in the office was not Brother Hei. His instinct was right.

……

Brother Hei hangs up the phone and thought for a while. He then made a phone call. After that call, Brother Hei’s hands were trembling.

Li Changshan was the police chief of a district and also the City’s Police Department deputy chief. This was only stealing from a supermarket. Was there a need for someone of this rank to show up?

Brother Hei regrets asking Yingzi to go to Tai Hua Supermarket. To be targeted by someone like Li Changshan, there will be dire consequences. But after thinking for a while, it was just a small incident of shoplifting. Li Changshan should only reprimand for a while and at most stay in the lockup for a few nights. He will just avoid Tai Hua Supermarket when he was released.

Yes. I must go there with the right attitude and admit my mistakes. There is no point going against him.

……

“Good afternoon, leaders. I am Hei Zhi. Please call me Xiao Hei. This time it is my woman that is at fault. I promise I will teach her a lesson and make sure she will not steal again.” Brother Hei walked into the office and start apologizing.

“Xiao Hei? Tell me your real name!” Chief Li shouts.

“My name is Qian Jing. Because my complexion is darker, people gave me this nickname.” Qian Jing explained.

“Qian Jing? Your parents really know how to name you. From what you said, coming here to steal is all her decision? This has nothing to do with you?” Chief Li sneered.

“I am not aware of this. I have already turned over a new leaf. I am now running a small video lounge.” Qian Jing replied.

Video lounge? Chief Li’s eyes brighten up. This will be easier to convict him!

Chapter 651 – Tricks (Part 3 of 3)

In this era, those that run video lounge were mostly not clean. They did not commit any serious crimes, but most of them will air pornography!

This can consider an offense and can be charged in courts. Chief Li knew that the person in front of him was not a good person.

But since this Qian Jing dares to tell him about his video lounge, then he should have kept all those illegal stuff away. Even if Chief Li conducted a raid now, it would be a waste of time.

“Qian Jing, do you have those type of films in your video lounge?”

“Absolutely not. My video lounge plays VCDs, and all my VCDs are originals.” Qian Jing quickly replied.

“Good. How many times have you go in?” Chief Li suddenly asked.

“6 times. The last time was more than 1 year ago. I have changed for the better.”

6 times? Then you are considered a serial offender. There was a research on serial offenders turning over a new leaf. The chances of them not returning to their old ways was less than 1%. The crimes they committed will be more severe after every release. Chief Li did not continue to question him, and Feng Yu suddenly asked.

“How is your video lounge business?”

“It’s quite good. People are coming over every day, and the rental business is also doing well.” Although Qian Jing did not know who this person was, for him to sit beside Chief Li, he should not be someone ordinary.

“How much are you charging for a disc rental and how much are you charging to watch a film? How many discs are there in your video lounge in total? Are there any disco or nightclubs near to your video lounge? Are they also using VCD players? Oh, what brand is your VCD player?”

Feng Yu asked a series of questions, and everyone in the room was stunned. What was Manager Feng doing? Chief Li was also confused. Why did Feng Yu interrupt his interrogation with so many weird questions?

It was rare for Feng Yu to meet someone who runs video lounge and he wants to understand the market. Wind and Rain Electronics was Feng Yu’s baby. He had put in a lot of efforts into this company, and this company was China’s first company to stand before all other electronics company. Feng Yu does not want anything to go wrong.

“The rental of the disc is 20 cents a day and watching a film is also 20 cents. All the video lounges charge the same prices. Our video lounge has more than 1,000 discs. I am not sure about the exact figures. There are a few bars nearby that use VCD players too. Their businesses are also quite well. I am using Wind and Rain VCD player. It is a world-renowned brand.”

Qian Jing was also confused why Feng Yu had asked these questions. But he still replied honestly. He thought that if he showed the right attitude, these people might let him and his men off.

It was much cheaper than movie tickets, and there were a wide variety of choices. No wonder China’s movies were not able to make money in the cinemas. It was not the movies’ quality. It was these video lounges that was affecting China’s movie industry.

There were more and more small nightclubs and bars. That means the VCD sales will get better in the future.

“How many people are there in total?” Feng Yu asked.

Chief Li was confused by Feng Yu’s questions. What were those earlier questions for and how come he changed the topic back again? The only person in the room that knew what was going in Feng Yu’s mind was Store Manager Zhao. He knew that Feng Yu owns Wind and Rain VCD player.

Qian Jing was also not used to Feng Yu’s way of asking. But he was still able to react. This was because he had predicted that he will be asked this question.

“There are only 3 of us. Me, Da Zhuang and Yingzi. The 3 of us are running this video lounge. I really did not know that Yingzi will come and steal from you all. I’m very sorry. I will make sure that Yingzi accepts her punishment.”

“Seems like your video lounge business is very good. You can even afford mobile phones.” Feng Yu smiled.

An owner of a video lounge could afford a mobile phone? The mobile phone prices had dropped a lot, but it still cost 20,000 RMB. It was equivalent to an average person’s two years’ salary!

Chief Li immediately realized it. “If the value of the stolen items is more than 1,000 RMB, the fine will be 5,000 and at least 15 days in lockup. Prepare to help her pay the fine.”

5,000 RMB!

Qian Jing was stunned. Why was fine so high? In the past, the fines were only 200 to 300 RMB. He felt even 200 to 300 RMB was very high. Some thieves could not even steal that amount in a week. This was why if any of his followers were caught, they would choose to be lockup instead of paying fines.

Qian Jing looked at his mobile phone. It was not bought by him. He had stolen it. Although it was hard to change numbers, it was still possible. Qian Jing did not bear to spend money to buy a mobile phone.

“What’s wrong? You don’t have 5,000 RMB? Is your mobile phone stolen from others? Oh, do you still have the receipt for your mobile phone? If the stolen item’s value is more than 10,000 RMB, the punishment will be heavier!” Chief Li knocked on the table.

“This is a second-hand mobile phone. There is no receipt. I really do not have 5,000 RMB. Since she had committed an offense, then I will leave it to the police. I shall not disturb you all. I will go back to tend to my shop.” Qian Jing turned and tried to leave.

“You are leaving? Wait a while. Liu Tian, come in!” Chief Li shouted at the door.

A police officer entered the room and salute to Chief Li. “Sir! Everyone is here.”

“Ok. Release that big size fellow and tail him secretly. You must not let their accomplices escape! Also, send someone to accompany Xiao Su and that woman to bring back all the stolen goods. Arrest those that bought the stolen goods too!”

“Yes, Sir!”

Qian Jing’s eyes widen. What’s the meaning of this? They want to arrest all of us?

“Sir, what did I do wrong? Why are you arresting me?”

“You should know what you did. That woman had already confessed and told us all the crimes you did. You really think that I believe all your bullshit just now? If it weren’t to prevent alarming your accomplices, I would have brought you out through the front door.”

Chief Li was pissed. He was the Police Chief of a district, and he had to leave through the back door.

Now, it all boils down to that Da Zhuang to lead them to their nest and arrest everyone!

Qian Jing realized that he had been tricked. He was arrested, and after Da Zhuang was released, he would not know what to do. He will surely look for other members of the syndicate to ask for help.

And this way, the police would be able to arrest every one of them!

The most confusing part was why Yingzi betrayed him. Yingzi was the only one who knew where he hides his stash. If Qian Jing knew Yingzi would betray him, he would never tell her any secrets.

That’s it. The value of his hidden stash was very high. He will surely be in jail for a long time. Any crimes that involve a syndicate, the punishment will be very heavy.

Qian Jian thought that he was here to negotiate with the supermarket boss, and at most he will not come back to steal from this supermarket. He thought he was able to bring his men back. Maybe the supermarket might still give him some money to ask them to leave.

But it turns out to be like this……

……

2 hours later, Chief Li looked at his pager on his waist. There were only a few words. “Mission accomplished!”

Chapter 652 – Killing many birds with one stone

“Eh, have you read the evening papers? The City Bureau had a joint operation with Tai Hua Supermarket and busted a thieve syndicate. The higher-ups said that this syndicate if from other provinces. They saw Tai Hua Supermarket had good business, so they went there to steal. But in the end, one of them was caught by the Supermarket securities, and the City Bureau leader leads his men to arrest more than 30 people!”

“Really? I will buy a copy later. These thieves were too much. They should be punished severely.” One of them angrily replied. He had been pickpocketed before when he had gotten his salary.

“This time, these people will be punished severely. I heard that this syndicate was involved in many other crimes. The lowest punishment for them is at least 1 year in the labor camps. The City Bureau really did a great job. This is what the police should do!”

“I feel it is the security guards at Tai Hua Supermarket who had done a good job. They are the ones that caught the thief. The last time I went to XX shopping mall, my wallet was stolen, and that mall did not even care. Tai Hua Supermarket is much better.”

“That’s right. Tai Hua Supermarket sells things cheaper than other places too. If you buy a lot of stuff, you can save up to 100 RMB!”

“Ya. I had received a promotional brochure yesterday. There will be a sale this coming weekend.”

“Really? There is another sale this weekend? I thought last week there was a sale? Why do they have sales every week?”

“Who knows? Anyway, we will be the ones who will benefit from this. I will be going this weekend. Are you going?”

“Yes. Even if I am not getting anything, window shopping there is also fine. That place is too spacious.”

……

Brother Hei and his accomplices were arrested, and Chief Li purposely let others know that they were detained at Tai Hua Supermarket. This was a form of deterrence to other thieves.

This was a warning to all criminals that they should not target Tai Hua Supermarket!

Feng Yu had also used his connections to publish this incident in the evening newspapers. On the one hand, it was to praise the City Police Bureau and the local Police, especially Chief Li. The other hand, it was to publicize Tai Hua Supermarket. Lastly, it was to spread the news to any criminals that Tai Hua Supermarket was not to be trifled with.

When this news was published, Chief Li immediately called Feng Yu to thank him. This article will increase the Police and his reputation. Although he will not be promoted directly, the higher-ups will notice and have a good impression of him.

There were a lot of stolen goods recovered from this operation. The owner of most of these goods could not found, and the police procedure was to take care of these internally. A portion of the recovered goods will be handed over to the City Bureau and the rest split between the police stations. The local police stations will have more funds, and the police officers became more motivated.

You want the police officers to work harder and be more motivated, but their reimbursements were delayed for a few months. How could they be motived and be passionate in their job?

All criminals knew about Tai Hua Supermarket because of this report. Although there was a constant crowd at Tai Hua Supermarket, the thieves will still avoid this place because of Brother Hei.

In the past, the punishment for stealing was at most lock up for 3 to 5 days. The more severe cases were also 2 weeks. But Brother Hei and his accomplices were charged in court!

This was only petty theft, and it should not be so severe.

But even if these criminals did not know what happens exactly, but this was the truth. The article had said that all 30 over people in the syndicate will be sentenced to jail.

This Tai Hua Supermarket is a scary place which no one dares to go near.

Beijing was a big place. Other than Tai Hua Supermarket, there were still many places for them to steal. Those places will not be so scary.

The newspaper report also reported that Tai Hua Supermarket’s security guards were all ex-soldiers. All of them were fit and agile.

If a thief were caught, they would be beaten up by the security officers. This was a common practice.

The police also knew about this. But they will not care. If the public saw this, it will be worst. The public will also join in to beat up the thief!

Overall, thieves will get the worst treatment among all criminals.

Tai Hua Supermarket also created publicity for this incident. They told this incident in the form of a story over the radio. The name, Tai Hua Supermarket was repeated several times in the story. They wanted to let the name of their supermarket stick with the listeners.

As long as the listeners were curious about this supermarket, they will visit when they pass by Tai Hua Supermarket. They will become Tai Hua Supermarket customers unknowingly.

Those who had visited Tai Hua Supermarket will still want to visit that place again. There was always something on promotion.

Actually, Tai Hua Supermarket has promotional items every day. This was set even before their opening. There were a wide variety of products, and every day, these brands will take turns to have promotions.

Today it is your turn, and you must have a special promotional price for your products even if you are not willing. It’s not your turn, and you want to promote your products? No problem. Pay up first!

No matter what, the supermarket will have profits. The cost of the promotions will be bored by the brands. This will also increase the customers, sales, reputation for the supermarket.

Every week, new promotions leaflets will be printed. Also, during festive seasons, there will be more programs for shoppers. These were all arranged by supermarket managers.

As the shoppers of the supermarket’s increases, coupled with this incident, people knew that the security at Tai Hua Supermarket is excellent and there were more enquires about the empty shop spaces in the Tai Hua Supermarket.

In the past, many people felt the rent was too high. Also, Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation had a condition which put off many potential customers. But these people saw the traffic and security at Tai Hua Supermarket, and they changed their minds.

No matter how good a product was, no businessmen would sell their products at a low human traffic place.

These businessmen thought the crowd at Tai Hua Supermarket would only last for a few days after their opening and there will not be so many shoppers after that. The craze will die off eventually. This was normal.

But soon they realized that Tai Hua Supermarket has promotions every day. Although the number of shoppers was not as high as the first few days, it was still very high. During weekends, the number of shoppers was almost like the opening day.

This was an excellent location to set up their shops. These businessmen no longer hesitate. They approached Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation to try to rent some shop spaces. The first few to contact were some jewelry and accessories businessmen. They were satisfied with the traffic and security at Tai Hua Supermarket and feel safe to set up their shops there.

These shops were the most concern with safety and security. They were assured at Tai Hua Supermarket!

……

“Manager Feng, after we publicized our security officers had caught the thief, many companies had approached us to rent the shops. I think all our shops will be rented out within this month. We also do not need to lower the rents!”

“Ok. Choose those reputable companies and brands. We must not let our reputation be tarnish because of profits. You should be more experience at this than me. I will leave everything to you.”

If this matter could be handled by others, Feng Yu would not do it himself. This was why these people were hired.

A thief was caught in their supermarket, and this should not be a good thing. But who would expect things to turn out this way?

Chapter 653 – Selling cards for money (Part 1 of 4)

It was almost the end of August. All the shop spaces at Tai Hua Supermarket were rented out. This was much faster than expected.

The main reason was because of the number of shoppers at Tai Hua Supermarket. Soon, Tai Hua Supermarkets branches had become the landmark in their respective cities.

Tai Hua Supermarket had shown its powerful connections and the potential. All these companies were too smart to give up this opportunity.

Someone once said that KFC and McDonalds were successful because of two factors. First was the branding and secondly, the locations.

A simple example would be if KFC and McDonalds opened their restaurants in the villages, they will not make any profits even if the villagers knew these were international fast food restaurants. That’s because there were too few people in the villages and they do not have the spending power.

Why did KFC and McDonald’s franchisees have to hire professionals to pick their locations? That’s because they must make sure that there will be sufficient human traffic, which is the most important. Not everybody will travel all the way to visit your restaurant because your restaurant is an international brand.

To be honest, fast foods does not taste good either. Many shops could also replicate the same taste. This was also why many other fast food restaurant brands were able to grow rapidly. They only need a suitable location and reasonable taste food, and their business will be okay.

Although Tai Hua Supermarkets had rented out all their shop fronts and the rentals were charged annually, but the first year’s rental was very cheap. Both Tai Hua Supermarket and those companies wanted to test the market.

Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation wanted to see how much those companies could earn before they decide if they should raise the rents next year. The companies were also worried about Tai Hua Supermarkets’ crowd would continue. If the crowd dies off after two months, they will be making losses.

With so many shops rented out and the deposits placed by the brands, Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation had amassed a vast amount. But Fu Guangzheng saw the craze over Tai Hua Supermarkets, he felt 20 branches were too little. They should set up more than 100 supermarkets as soon as possible. He wants to have at least 3 supermarkets in every province. Those densely populated provinces and cities should have more branches.

Fu Guangzheng had received news that Carrefour was already in China sourcing for locations. He heard that they will enter the Chinese market next year. Currently, they were only targeting at two cities, Beijing and Shanghai.

Currently, Carrefour still does not think that China was suitable for Hypermarkets. But that’s because they did not see the market potential of the Chinese. China’s population was very high, and these types of hypermarkets will have potential to grow.

When Carrefour opened up their supermarkets in France, France economy was worse than China’s economy now.

Also, Walmart’s Asia person-in-charge had spread words that he is interested in the Chinese market.

If these two big corporations entered China with their hypermarkets, then they will be Tai Hua Supermarket’s strongest rivals.

These were not the only threats. Fu Guangzheng also knew that many people had registered companies in several cities. They wanted to imitate Tai Hua Supermarket’s operating model and set up supermarket chains.

These companies had the backing of their local governments, and they will be able to develop faster than Tai Hua Supermarket.

These companies might not be able to set up many big supermarkets like Tai Hua Supermarket, but they would have no problems if they were to set up only one. If they succeeded, they would set up a supermarket chain.

In Bing City, there was a state-owned supermarket that had started preparations. They were swift. Before Fu Guangzheng could react, they were ready, and the opening was set in October!

Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation had become the public enemy in the industry! If the good locations were taken up by other companies, it would halt Tai Hua Supermarket’s developments.

Fu Guangzheng was anxious because of this. Li Zekai, Superman Li, and Fu Rongbing also saw this problem.

There were a few options for them. First was to increase their investments and use the money to set up more supermarkets.

Second, it will be taking up loans. But Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation had injected a lot of money into the business and had fixed assets, but the brand value was not high yet. The amount they could loan was not a lot.

The third option was to use all of Tai Hua Supermarket’s profits and liquid assets, including the deposits from the brands.

But at this time, Feng Yu came up with another option.

“Increasing our investments is not a problem for all of us. But you all should know that if we were to expand so aggressively, we would not make much money. That means our funds will be locked up for a long time. This is not a good option. We spent a long time to look for the locations of our first 20 branches. If we rushed in to set up more supermarkets, we will bound to make mistakes.”

“We also know this. But our Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation could not rival Walmart and Carrefour. Once they enter the market, they will surely be given some concessions from the government. If they were able to obtain a foothold, they would take away most of the market share. Also, those imitators will take away some of our market shares. If they took away all the good locations, then it will be hard for us to open up our supermarket there. Now, we must speed up our expansion plans and reserved those good locations. At least we should sign some agreements with the local authorities.” Fu Guangzheng said.

“I know what you are talking about. I am not against expansion. I only feel that we do not need to increase our investments. Taking loans is one solution. Although the amount we can get is not a lot, it should be enough for us to open up 10 more Hypermarkets. What I want to say is using Tai Hua Supermarket’s profits and funds is also a good solution.” Feng Yu smiled and explained.

“Brother Feng, we can raise funds within a short time if we utilized the supermarket’s profits and funds. If the company faces cash flow problems, we can inject money into the company. But it will affect our company’s image. People might think that we are a shell company.” Li Zekai frowned and said.

Superman Li had agreed to continue to invest, and Li Zekai was against the idea of using up all of the company’s funds and profits.

“I remember that our Tai Hua Supermarkets still have not introduced membership cards and shopping cards. I think we should exploit the potential of these two types of cards!” Feng Yu mysteriously said.

Chapter 654 – Selling cards for money (Part 2 of 4)

Membership cards and shopping cards? These two cards have enormous potential? All the top management staffs were confused. How come they did not know about the potential of these two types of cards?

The supermarkets in Hong Kong also had membership cards and shopping cards. The sales of these cards were only so-so. It was not as profitable as what Feng Yu claims.

Membership cards were only used to identify members. Supermarket membership cards only give the members some benefits and nothing else.

Shopping cards were gift cards. Shoppers could use it to pay for their purchases.

“Seems like everyone here does not believe me. All of you are more experience than me in the supermarket industry. But all of you do not understand China’s culture! All of you are worried when I wanted to set up more supermarkets at the start. You all think that the risk is too high if we open up more supermarkets. But now, all of you are more eager than me to open up more branches.”

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng and the rest, and continued: “Did all of you realized that China already has private clubs in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and a lot more cities? To enter these clubs, you need a membership card.”

“To all of you, a membership card is only a card for members to accumulate points or a discount card. But all of you forget the word ‘member’. It is a form of identity and status.”

Fu Guangzheng and the rest were still confused. Members are a form of identity and status? Membership cards are so important? Wasn’t it to attract customers and increase the rate of them returning?

Feng Yu sighed as he looked at everyone’s puzzled expression. All of them did not know that the Chinese in this era likes to compare with others. At the supermarket, when the shopper is a member, and he sees someone who wasn’t, the member will have a sense of superiority.

“Our supermarkets have parking lots, and we charge them parking fees. But all of you should know that there are not many cars in China now. Some cars are not willing to pay the parking charges and would rather park along the road and walk a few more steps. This is why not many people park their cars in our parking lots. But what if the shoppers have our membership cards and could accumulate points and free parking? If every month, we have a members’ day to let them enjoy member discounts? Or the members will get priority queues at the cashier?”

Anyway, there were not many cars in the parking lots. In the first place, they did not intend to make any money from the parking. But with these member benefits, many people with cars will want to be a member. It will be more convenient for them. They will not need to carry their purchases and walk a distance to their cars.

Not all members will be free on the Members’ day. But it will stimulate sales. This was a bandwagon effect. Chinese love to be in crowded places. When they see many people shopping at Tai Hua Supermarkets, they will be curious and want to join in.

The priority queue for members will solve the issue of people not willing to queue. They can even set up a cashier just for the members. This will let the members have a sense of superiority over the non-members.

Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai looked at each other. They feel what Feng Yu said made sense. These do not sound anything special, but if they were able to market it well, they should be able to sell lots of membership cards.

“How do the shoppers apply to be a member? In Hong Kong, we usually give out membership cards when the shopper purchase above a certain amount on a single receipt. Also, the members will be given points for the amount they spent, and they can use the points to get rebates.” Fu Guangwei said.

“Give out free? Of course not. Our membership cards must be purchased! There will be two types of membership. The ordinary membership cards will be called VIP cards. The higher tier membership cards will be called SVIP cards. The ordinary VIP card will be sold at 30 RMB, and the SVIP card will be sold at 200 RMB.”

“200 RMB for a card? In Hong Kong, this price is not a lot. But this is China. Will people buy it? This price is almost half of an average person monthly salary. Will they spend this amount just to get a membership card?” Li Zekai frowned. Actually, he wanted to tell Feng Yu that even in Hong Kong, no one will buy a membership card at this price.

Feng Yu shook his finger. “Average workers will just buy ordinary membership cards, and the benefits they enjoy will not be that many. For example, free parking will not be offered to ordinary members, as most of them will not afford to own a car. The SVIP cards are for those wealthy people or people with some social status. 200 RMB to them is nothing. I even feel that 200 RMB is too low.”

“How many membership cards do you think we can sell?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

Feng Yu showed one finger.

“1,000?”

“10,000 SVIP cards…… per branch.”

“10,000? Per the supermarket? You are saying that we can earn 40 million RMB from just the SVIP cards alone? Don’t you think you are too optimistic?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“I’m not. I can even tell you that 10,000 might not even be enough. Our supermarkets will announce to the shoppers that we have only 3,000 SVIP membership cards per branch. The rest of the people can only get ordinary memberships cars.”

“Hunger marketing?” Fu Guangzheng knew what Feng Yu was thinking. But hunger marketing could not be easily implemented. Many companies tried but failed.

“That’s right. You all do not understand what the Chinese are thinking. The lesser things that are available, the more people will want to get it. The more people who want it, the more they are willing to buy.” Feng Yu confidently replied.

“Then what are the total profits we can get from these membership cards?”

“At least 100 million RMB! Even though the members will be getting discounts, but we will still have profits. We can also clear our remaining stocks on members’ day.”

“Ok. Even if this is a success like you said, but 100 million RMB is only enough for us to set up two Hypermarkets.”

Feng Yu calmly replied. “That’s what I am going to say next. The shopping cars. Although our supermarkets had introduced shopping cards, we do not hire anyone to promote these cards. These cards are just placed at the cashiers. The prices of these cards are not low, and there should not be many inquiries, right?”

Fu Guangwei nodded. “That’s right. We tried to promote these cards, but many shoppers were turned off by the price tags. We are still discussing whether if we should introduce smaller denominations shopping cards so that people can buy them back as the company’s benefits for their staffs.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes at Fu Guangwei. They had positioned these shopping cards wrongly. These shopping cards might be given out by companies as benefits for their staffs. But in China, how many companies are willing to give out such benefits?

What’re the advantages of shopping cards? No names and no pins are required to use these cards. No one needs to worry even if they accepted these cards as there were no names. I can claim that I had picked up this card on the streets and was about to hand it over to the police.

To use these Shopping cards is also very convenient. There are all sorts of products in Tai Hua Supermarkets. This shopping card is equivalent to an ATM card, except it can only be used in certain places.

The shopping cards are like shopping vouchers. But the difference is that the cards are not easily damaged and more convenient to bring it around. The biggest denomination of vouchers available in China is 100 RMB. If someone is going to give 10,000 RMB worth of vouchers, that will be one thick stack of vouchers.

“You all still have not to find the right use of these shopping cards. The real purpose of these shopping cards is…… gifts!”

Chapter 655 – Selling cards for money (Part 3 of 4)

Shopping cards as gifts?

After Feng Yu said this, everyone was confused. These shopping cards were just like shopping vouchers. How can these cards be given out as gifts? What’s the use of giving out these cards as gifts? It will be more direct to give cash.

Fu Guangzheng had stayed in China for quite some time. He knew that although the Chinese did not have the culture of exchanging gifts, many officials like to accept gifts. The gift they preferred most were cash.

Fu Guangzheng’s eyes brighten up. Shopping Cards = Cash!

That’s right. Shopping cards can be used to purchase many things, including refrigerators, TVs, VCD players, etc. It’s almost the same as cash.

Feng Yu saw Fu Guangzheng’s expression, and he smiled. “You understand now?”

“Yes. This gift is mainly to target the leaders?”

Feng Yu nodded. “That’s right. But it is not only limited to leaders. It includes parents, in-laws, future in-laws, elders, or someone who had helped you before. During festivals, choosing gifts is always a big headache. If you bought the wrong gift, you will waste your money and not get any favors in return. But if you give our shopping cards as a gift, the other party can use it to buy whatever he needs.”

“Also, we can set an expiry date on the shopping cards. For instance, 3 months. If this card is not utilized in 3 months, the credit in it will be gone. This way, people who received this card will be in a hurry to spend it. Don’t think that this will lower their purchasing power. People will not use these shopping cards to buy their groceries. They will use it to buy big ticket items. Those big tickets items are not your daily necessities like toilet rolls or toothbrushes. If they want to buy these things, they will come back again to buy.”

“Most importantly, when people buy things with the cards, they will try to fully utilize the credits in it. They know that if they do not use all the credits in it, the credits cannot be used after the expiry date. So, they will either buy more products or choose something that matches the amount of the card. Most of the time, the total of their purchase will be more than the value of the cards. That means these people will not only use the shopping cards, they will also need to spend some cash.”

Tai Hua Supermarket’s higher management staffs were in awe of Feng Yu. None of them had thought about this before. The Fu Family’s staffs were embarrassed. They had been in the supermarket business for so many years, and yet they were not aware of this strategy. Even Feng Yu, a novice in this industry, could come up with this idea. They had wasted all their years in this industry!

“Manager Feng, what dominations of shopping cards should we introduce?”

“500, 1,000, 3,000, 5,000 and 10,000 RMB. There will be 5 different values of shopping cards. 500 RMB type are the ones you all are talking about. Companies will buy them to give to their employees as benefits or rewards. Of course, people can also buy them for their parents or elders. When people made some money and want to give to their parents, their parents will usually not spend the money on themselves. But if it is a shopping card, the value in it be gone in 3 months, the parents will be forced to spend. The 1,000 value cards are also the same. People will need to give some gifts to their superiors in their company or return some favors. The 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 RMB cards are mainly used as gifts to leaders or officials. The good thing about shopping cards is there are no records of the person who bought them, and there is no pin or name on the card. With this card in hand, you can just use it.”

“This is the benefit of the card? What if the card is lost?” Fu Guangwei asked.

“It’s their loss if they misplace their cards. It has nothing to do with us. In China, there is a department Commission for Discipline Inspection. It is the same as Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption. They will conduct random checks on government officials’ banks and finances. The value of this shopping card cannot be deposit into the banks. Even if they were caught with this card, they could just say they had won in lucky draws or picked it up on the streets. The officials will feel safer to accept them.”

Corruption had always been a problem. Even before Feng Yu came back to this life, corruption still exists in China. This was an issue in every country. Feng Yu only wanted to change the practice of giving cash into giving shopping cards.

“Brother Feng, how much shopping cards do you think we will sell?” Li Zekai asked.

“It will definitely be much higher than the membership cards!”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he had a friend that works in Carrefour. During festive seasons, Carrefour would introduce these shopping cards, and every outlet sells at least a few hundred million worths of cards! During the mid-autumn and Lunar New Year, some branches even sold more than 1 billion RMB of shopping cards. Later, the government issued a restriction on these shopping cards to limit the value of the cards. But every month, hundreds of millions worth of shopping cards were still sold.

The economy now was not as good as 10 or 20 years later. But Feng Yu knew that if they market the cards right, every branch should be able to sell at least 20 million RMB. The 5,000 and 10,000 RMB cards will also be selling well.

20 branches should be able to raise 500 million RMB from these shopping cards. It will be teachers’ day soon, and after that, it will be the Mid-autumn festival and the national day holidays. These were the peak season for shopping cards.

With the next 6 months, there is the New Year day, and the Lunar New Year. The amount raised from selling these shopping cards will be an enormous figure.

Although this shopping card must still be used at the supermarkets, it will stimulate the sales of the supermarkets and they will able to raise cash fast.

Most importantly, it will create a false perception of good business, and they could use this to loan more money from the banks.

With the loans and profits, it will not be a problem in raising over a billion RMB in the next 6 months. That means they could open up another 20 branches.

This way, they will be able to set up branches in almost all provinces. Aside from those undeveloped cities, the rest of the cities will have 2 to 3 branches.

Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation will be able to build their branches at the best locations in every city. They do not need to worry about Carrefour or Walmart getting the good places before them. They also do not need to worry about those smaller supermarkets who tried to imitate them. Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation will be China’s number one supermarket corporation. They might even be one of the world’s top 5 supermarket brands in the future.

However, Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation still needs to be wary of those trend followers. Everyone knew that Walmart held the number one spot Fortune 500 company ranking for several years. But in the future, some Fortune 500 companies were in the retail industry, and their operation model was like Walmart.

Even for a strong company like Walmart, they also got to face competitors. Some of those competitors did even better than Walmart in terms of their returns, and their annual profits were even higher than Walmart.

Being the first to develop in the industry does not mean that you will own all the market share. In Feng Yu’s previous life, there were also many supermarket chains in China. They were all competitors.

Tai Hua Supermarket’s strategy now was to take up all the prime locations to prevent those trend followers from making profits. This will stop their growth!

Commission for Discipline Inspection

Independent Commission Against Corruption

Chapter 656 – Selling cards for money (Part 4 of 4)

Next, everyone starts to discuss the marketing of the cards.

Advertising was a must. But which media should they use and what type of advertisements was more suitable.

“I feel that advertising on the City’s TV stations will be sufficient. Within one month, everyone in the city will know about our membership and shopping cards. Also, local TV stations’ advertising slots are cheaper. We had advertised with them before our opening, and the results are good.” Fu Guangzheng said.

Li Zekai had a different opinion: “Advertising on the city’s TV stations are a waste of money. We only need to let people know about this event. I think that giving out leaflets is the simplest and most effective way. All this while, we have employed many people to give out leaflets. We can also save on advertising.”

“How can we just rely on leaflets alone? We are selling SVIP membership cards and high-value shopping cards. The targeted market is big clients. Have you seen any big clients taking leaflets on the streets? They are all driving.” Fu Guangwei retorted.

“We can place the leaflets on their cars. I have seen many cars with leaflets and brochures on their windscreen.” Li Zekai argued.

“Ya. If it is you, will you read it? The leaflet will either be thrown on the floor or into the bin. No one will bring it into their cars. I think the best way is to promote it outside of our supermarkets. We can use a big blow-up doll and loudspeakers. The cost will be meager, and it will be effective. It will also attract more customers. In the supermarket, we will announce it over our P.A. systems and posters.”

Fu Guangwei’s way was considered traditional. This was what their family used in Hong Kong, and it was quite useful. But Fu Guangwei did not know that his family used this method was because TV advertising was costly in Hong Kong, and they had many competitors.

But in China, the advertising fees were not high, and Tai Hua Supermarket still does not have any competitors. Tai Hua Supermarket had just opened and still did not have a stable customers flow. This was why Feng Yu was more inclined to TV advertisements.

But it was not worthwhile to advertise on the City’s TV station. Feng Yu still feel that they should advertise on the radio and newspaper.

“I think radio and newspapers are most suitable to advertise. Firstly, the viewership for the City TV stations is not high. Those businessmen do not have time to watch TV. They will just read the newspaper at work or listen to the radio while driving. After work, they will either meet clients or go out to relax. Only a handful will watch TV. Even if they were to watch TV, they would only watch CCTV.”

“Currently, the newspaper is the mainstream source of information. No matter whether if you are a worker, businessman, civil servant, or an ordinary person, you will still read the newspaper. Even in our company, the newspaper is everywhere.”

“Brother Feng, have you ever thought about the literacy level? There are still a lot of illiterate people.” Fu Guangzheng reminded.

Fu Guangzheng was in China for quite long and seen many illiterate people. Some of them were even leaders. Newspapers might be the mainstream media, but there were still people who don’t read them.

“I know there will be people who can’t read. But most of them are in the countryside and rural areas. There are not many of them in the cities. You are in China for quite some time. How many illiterate people have you seen? The cities have been organizing night classes for adults for many years. I admit that there are still illiterates in the cities, but they are only a handful. We can also work on our advertisements to prevent this.”

“Newspaper advertisements still can be different?” Li Zekai frowned.

“Of course. For instance, we can include humor in our advertisements. I believe all of you here have read comics, right?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes!” Fu Guangwei raised his hand excitedly. But when he noticed everyone staring at him, he lowers his hand weakly. “I really read comics. My favorite is <Dragon Tiger Gate>.”

“Brother Feng, do you think those people at work will have the time to read comics? Those are for kids.” Li Zekai said and gave a distant look at Fu Guangwei.

Fu Guangwei was pissed, and he stared at him back. Which Hong Konger has not read <Dragon Tiger Gate> before? You still dare to call yourself a Hong Konger?!

“I am not talking about those fighting comics. Have you all seen those 4-panel comic strips? Using 4 panels to tell a simple and funny story. For example, the first panel can show a man looking for a parking lot along the road. The second panel shows another man driving into our carpark, and the first man is laughing at him for wasting his money. The third panel will show the man who had entered the carpark taking out a SVIP membership card. The final panel shows that man who parked in the carpark leaving and showing off his SVIP card where he had parked for free!”

Fu Guangzheng and the rest heard what Feng Yu said and frowned. This will show the benefits of their membership cards and seems a lot more interesting. When people read newspapers, they will also look at the pictures. But all of them were not sure if this would work.

“I am only stating an example. We still must hire professionals to do it. But I can guarantee that this type of advertisement will attract people easily and people will remember it. Another advantage of advertising in the papers is we can buy the advertising slots by days or weeks. TV advertising requires us to buy the slots for a least a month. I know one design firm that is about to come up with this type of advertisement.”

“That’s true. The TV stations will not allow us to advertise for only a few days unless we are paying them a high rate. But it will increase our cost.” A Deputy General Manager said.

“The other media is the radio. The radio advertisements should be aired during the morning and evening peak hours. Our target segments are those who are driving and their passengers. While driving, most people will have the habit of listening to the radio.”

Now, the standard accessories that were fitted in cars were the in-car radio. Those cars that are fitted with CD players were considered luxurious vehicles.

Even before Feng Yu came back to this life, there were a lot of people still tuning in to radios. Even if the cars were fitted with DVD players, people would still prefer radio. That’s why advertising on the radio was the most effective way.

“For radio advertisements, we should find someone which a recognizable voice. I want to recommend someone. Zhao Zhongxiang. I have worked with him before, and he is not expensive.”

“How long should our radio advertisements be and what should we do?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“We can use a longer duration for our radio advertisements. Even if we are not selling our cards, we can use those slots to promote our other products. There is a good opportunity to sell our cards coming. It is Teachers’ Day soon!”

Chapter 657 – Teachers’ Day, Teachers’ Day Suffering

From 1985, China Government states that every year’s September 10th will be Teachers’ Day. This date was fixed until even before Feng Yu returned to this life.

The purpose of Teachers’ Day was to appreciate the teachers’ contribution to society. During the turmoil times, teachers were criticized for being “Stinking Old Ninth” and were considered to be the bad influences. During that time, many teachers were beaten up by their students and humiliated by forcing them to live in the cowshed and hanging a spittoon on their neck.

Although the turmoil times were over, and the government advocates the people to respect teachers, but there were still teachers that were beaten up students and parents. This caused many teachers to protest.

This was why the government implemented Teachers’ Day, and the date was discussed several times.

In the end, it was set on September 10th. This date was chosen because the new school semester had just started.

The Chinese government also implemented a few policies to show its support for the teachers. For instance, the welfare and benefits for teachers were better, a reward system, changes to their appraisal system, better housing, medical, etc. Many resources were allocated to the education sector.

Even before Feng Yu returned to the present life, the teachers were still enjoying these benefits and welfare.

All these implemented for the teachers in the first place, but as time passes, many things changed.

As the status of teachers became higher, many parents felt that studying was the only way for their children to be successful. If their children were educated, they would not need to work in the farms or be low wage workers. They can even be officials or leaders and work in offices.

To let their children be well taken care of, these parents will try their best to please the teachers. In this era, there were no “teaching by their aptitude” or “Quality education.” The only thing that matters was the results.

Furthermore, the policies for the previous years were University graduates will be recruited into the government service and will be a leader once they graduated!

This was why respecting the teachers slowly became pleasing the teachers. Parents will try all means to satisfy their children’s teachers. Everyone wants the teachers to give special attention to their children.

For example, if the students do not understand a question or subject, they can approach the teachers after school. The teachers will also take note of the students to make sure the student will not skip school or be bullied.

In the era, most families were dual income. Both parents were working and had no time to look after their children. Even their children were bullied in school, they also do not have time to go to school look for the bullies.

Then what should the parents do? They can only rely on the teachers to look after their children. But in a classroom full of students, why should the teacher just look after your child?

Giving a gift to the teacher!

There was a saying in China that there’s no harm giving more gifts. Furthermore, in the olden days, it was a must to provide teachers a gift or set up a banquet for them. They were only following old traditions.

So, the teachers did not only get special treatment from the government, but they were also taken care of by the parents of their students. This period was the time when students can still receive physical punishments in school. This lasted until a few years later when the State Council reprimanded the Minister of Education during a dinner. From then onwards, there was a regulation that teachers were not allowed to punish the students physically. But some teachers still do that behind closed doors.

After the year 2000, people’s lives got better, and many people realized that even without high education, they can still make money. This was the time when the parents no longer tell the teachers: “Please take care of our child. If he misbehaves, you can beat them up.”

It was changed to: “Please take care of our child. If he misbehaves, let me know. I will scold him. Please ensure that he is not bullied in school, and this is a token of our appreciation. Please accept it.”

There were even some people who spoiled their children. Most of them were grandparents of the child. If the teacher lay a finger on the child, the grandparents will go all out for that teacher!

At first, the most common gift for teachers were some pens or cards. There were not worth a lot of money, and it was only a token. But later, people start to give the teachers eggs, meat, food tickets, etc.

As time passes, the gifts became more and more expensive. Bicycles and even home appliances were given to the teachers in return for special treatments to their child.

Many teachers became accustomed to receiving expensive gifts. They no longer want to receive pens or cards. They only look forward to expensive gifts.

There were still many upright teachers around, and even if they did not receive any gifts, they would also do their best to educate their students. But when many people treated teaching as a job, the teachers’ quality dropped. Teachers’ Day also became a day for teachers to compete to see who received the most gifts.

Someone once said. Teachers might not remember who gave them gifts. But they will remember which student’s parents did not give them gifts! To make sure the teachers remember the student, the gift must be valuable.

In the current era, not only the teachers feel this practice is normal. Even the parents think it is normal to give the teachers a gift. No one thinks that teachers should not be receiving gifts.

But what gifts should be given? This was a headache for everyone. You want to give the teacher a bicycle? But the teacher already owns one. What’s the use of having one more bike? You want to give an expensive gift, but you can’t afford it. You also can’t get anything cheap. Alcohol and cigarettes? What if it was a female teacher and she doesn’t drink?

Giving money was the most direct solution, but there were still problems. Money was not as obvious as other items. 1,000 RMB was only ten 100 RMB notes. You can’t even feel it if it was in an envelope.

But if you buy a 1,000 RMB item, it will surely be obvious. Furthermore, most parents could not afford a 1,000 RMB gift. At most, they were only willing to use their one-month salary as a gift. It was only a few hundred RMB.

It would not look nice if the parents were to give a few notes directly to the teachers. Many teachers also do not dare to accept money directly from their parents. The parents were also worried that other parents might give the teachers more than them.

So, to many parents, Teachers’ Day was also suffering for them.

Almost everyone does not know what gifts should they prepare and how much should they spend.

But now, shopping cards will solve this problem!

Giving the teacher a shopping card was the same as preparing the Red Packet for weddings. People can discuss the amount to be given. It was not like giving an item. No one would give the same thing as others.

The teachers can use the shopping cards to buy whatever they like. It was not like cash when the teachers were embarrassed to receive it openly. But for a small card, the parents can just stuff it into the teachers’ pocket or their hands discreetly.

This was the current practice in China, and it will not be changed for the next few years.

The new school semester was about to start. Many students were looking forward to it. So were many teachers…….

Chapter 658 – It’s easy to get a postgraduate recommendation

“Feng Yu, I want to take the postgraduate qualifying exams. My instructor said that those who completed Master will be able to remind in school as a teaching assistant. She was one of them.” Li Na, who was in Feng Yu’s arms, said.

“You want to be a postgraduate student? Why do you still need to take the exams? Your university does not have a recommendation?” Feng Yu thought it was some important matters. It’s only continuing her studies. Li Na likes to study, then just consider. What’s the big deal?

University lecturers’ lives were more relaxed than high school teachers. High school students were mischievous, and Li Na’s character will not be able to handle them.

“We do have recommendations. But I don’t have the chance to get it. I am not close to any lecturers in the university. I heard that recommendations are not based on the results. It depends on whether if the lecturers want to recommend you or not.” Li Na replied.

Li Na’s results were among the top in her school. If the recommendation was based on results, she should be getting one. But postgraduate recommendations do not only look at the results of the student. It also depends on the lecturers and teachers’ recommendations.

“How’s the reputation of the course’s lecturer you are taking? Does he have any hobbies or likings?” Feng Yu asked.

“I am not sure what he likes, and he has a good reputation.”

“What I meant is if that lecturer is an upright person with no desires.”

“I don’t think so. He had mentioned before in his lecture that people should be flexible and adaptive to the environment. He also said that if he were not flexible in the past, he would be dead in the cowshed with his friends.”

Feng Yu heard this and knew how to manage this lecturer.

Feng Yu got off the bed and went to the living room. He took out 7 to 8 shopping cards from his bag: “Give one card to that lecturer and the head of the department. Give one to your instructor and all other related teachers. Hmmm…… If there are extras, give the remaining cards to that lecturer. Just tell him that you want a recommendation.”

Li Na was shocked. “You want me to bribe them? How can you do this?”

Feng Yu immediately start to brainwash Li Na. “How can this be considered bribery? Do you know what day it is in two days?”

“Teachers’ Day?”

“Yes. It’s Teachers’ Day. It’s normal to give gifts to your teachers. This tradition had been passed down since ancient times. During the olden days, you need to give teachers gifts for them to accept you as a student, and you still need to pay school fees and work for them for free. The teacher can also scold and hit you. During your teacher’s birthday or your teacher’s wife birthdays, you also need to give them gifts. Have you given your teachers any birthday presents on their birthday? Have you treated them to dinner before? That’s why you should show your appreciation of this coming Teachers’ Day.”

“But from what you said, it should be enough to treat my teachers to a meal. Also, what are these cards? Shopping cards? The Tai Hua Supermarket’s shopping cards that are being advertised on the papers? The value is…… 5,000 RMB?! It’s too much. This amount is too much! This is no longer showing my appreciation.” Li Na immediately places the cards on the table.

“Listen to me. It’s fine to give more. You are getting knowledge from them and not learning their bad habits. Just think about it. If you don’t give them gifts, other students will still give them. Then you will miss your opportunity. It is your dream to be a teacher. You want to educate the future generation, but isn’t it better if you can let more students be teachers like you?” Feng Yu continued his brainwashing tactics.

“Stop hesitating. It’s settled. Tomorrow when you go to school, visit every teacher and give them these gifts. It is very tiring to sit for the postgraduate entrance exams. Getting a recommendation is so much convenient. The time used to prepare for the exams can be put into better use, like going out to play. Let’s visit Guozijian next weekend to have a feel of the imperial university in the olden days.”

Li Na looked at Feng Yu speechlessly. Feng Yu seems to be someone without ambition, but his businesses were doing well. His companies had even expanded to overseas. But to label him as someone ambitious, he kept asking Li Na to go out and play and don’t encourage her to study hard. Feng Yu was a righteous person? No. He often asks Li Na to use his connections and go through backdoors. But if anyone calls Feng Yu as someone unrighteous, Li Na will argue that Feng Yu had donated a lot of school buildings to many schools.

“Nana, I’m hungry.” Feng Yu gave a pitiful look to Li Na.

“We did not buy any groceries today. We can only have congee. There is still an egg in the fridge.”

“I don’t want to eat that. I want to eat you. Come…… To celebrate getting a postgraduate recommendation, let’s have another round!”

“What sort of reason is this? You don’t…… Ah…….”

……

Li Na was unwilling to give gifts. In the end, she still refuses. So, Feng Yu got to do this on behalf of her. He will clear all obstacles for Li Na!

Feng Yu feels that there’s no need to donate anything to Li Na’s university. It cost so much more. Furthermore, this year’s plans were to donate to middle and high schools. This problem could be settled using less than 100 thousand RMB. Why spend a few million?

Furthermore, Teaching University only has a few Postgraduate courses. The university has enough funds from the ministry and school fees.

“Hi, Teacher Su. I am Li Na’s cousin, Feng Yu. I need to discuss something with you

“Oh, Mr. Feng. Nice to meet you. How can I help you?” Instructor Teacher Su asked.

“It’s Teachers’ Day. According to our hometown’s custom, we must treat the teachers for dinner. When are you free?”

Teacher Su was surprised. Hometown’s custom? Since when the Northeast have such traditions? I am also from the Northeast. How come I do not know?

“There is no need for dinner. Li Na is doing well in school. A few days ago, I had suggested to her to continue her postgraduate studies.”

“I also heard that she wants to continue. This school should have postgraduate recommendations. What do you think of Li Na?”

“I am not qualified to say anything about this. It’s the head of the department and the lecturers who can decide.” Teacher Su’s face changes when she knew Feng Yu was trying to go through the backdoor.

“I will speak to the head and lecturer. I am here today to thank Teacher Su for taking care of Li Na. Since you have no time for dinner, then it’s fine. I will go back now. I will treat you next time.””

Feng Yu left. Teacher Su walked Feng Yu to the door. After she returned to her seat, she noticed there was a card on her desk.

She picked it up. It was the Tai Hua Shopping card. The newspaper and radio had been advertising this card. Oh my god! The value of this card was 5,000 RMB!

Teacher Su panicked. 5,000 RMB. This should be left behind by Feng Yu on purpose. I can’t help with this matter. The most I can do is to submit Li Na’s name for the recommendation. It’s the head of the department and lecturer that had the final say.

But this was a 5,000 RMB value shopping card. It was more than Teacher Su’s annual salary + allowances!

Chapter 659 – Everyone is giving shopping cards

Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation spent some money to advertise in all the cities where their branches were located. Newspapers + Radio.

At the same time, many interesting articles and comics appeared in the newspaper. The articles were praising the contributions of teachers and their influences on the students. These were all paid articles.

When Tai Hua Supermarket hired people to write these articles, they were puzzled. But when they remembered that Teachers’ Day was around the corner, they felt this was not surprising. Furthermore, they were paid, and their articles were to be published in the newspaper.

Although these people were not used to praise teachers and the teaching profession, they were professional writers. All of them were able to write good articles. But when they showed the drafts to Tai Hua Supermarket. They were all rejected!

What a joke? How can our articles be rejected? We are professionals, and which part of our articles did not meet the standards? If you all are the editors, you can still criticize our articles. Who are you to pick on our articles?

Tai Hua Supermarket only gave one reason. The articles did not express the olden traditions of respecting teachers.

Olden traditions of respecting teachers? What traditions?

Only one smart writer remembered the custom of giving gifts to teachers. It’s going to be Teachers’ Day soon. Could this be the direction where Tai Hua Supermarket wants them to write? Tai Hua Supermarket wants them to make ‘giving gifts to teachers’ as a way to express respect for teachers?

So, this writer wrote a new article based on this direction and Tai Hua Supermarket immediately paid him for his article. His article will be published in the newspaper in many cities.

This writer was only a reporter from a city’s newspaper. He would be famous if his article were published in many cities’ paper.

After this article was published, many other writers understood what Tai Hua Supermarket wanted. They started to check history classics and events and wrote them into their articles. All of them begin to promote this ‘wonderful’ tradition. Finally, their articles were accepted by Tai Hua Supermarkets and were published in various newspapers. The writers were paid handsomely by Tai Hua Supermarket and newspaper agencies.

Look, since ancient times, people are giving teachers gifts. This is a tradition. It is the same as giving gifts during Lunar New Year. This is a custom passed down from the olden times. This is not bribery!

Some parents who had no intention of giving the teachers gifts at first changed their minds. At the same time, they were also cursing these writers.

These people were encouraging teachers to accept gifts!

With these articles published and if we do not give the teachers gifts, we will be seen as not following traditions. If we do not follow traditions, will our children have a good life in school?

Although the schools claim that the teachers will treat every student equally, that’s what the schools claims. Teachers were also humans. Everyone will have preferences, and this is a fact.

How can they make the teachers like their children? One way was the student must be obedient, have good results, and could make the teacher proud. Another approach was to give the teacher gifts.

Now, the parents were thinking about what gifts to give to the teachers. Give gifts like the olden days? In ancient times, gifts to teachers consist of 6 items of great significance. Celery, red beans, preserved meat, etc. This should not work!

If the students were to give the teachers those gifts, the teachers’ families would have to eat celery for more than a month. They will never finish all the celery. But what about other items? In the olden days, people also give Four Treasures of the Study. But in this era, who still practice calligraphy? Many teachers do not even know how to hold the brush. Ballpoint pens? Then it must be a gold pen at least. Which teacher does not have ballpoint pens?

Gifts should be something the other party need and the other party will remember you. But what is a suitable gift? All the parents were troubled over this.

……

“Eh, Old Sun, your son is in the year 3 of high school? It is the teachers’ day soon. Are you going to give the teacher any gift?”

“How can we not give the teacher gifts? The other parents are giving gifts, and if you don’t give the teacher any gifts, do you think our children will have a good life in school? My son is going to take the university entrance exams next year. This year is crucial to him. I must make sure his teacher will not neglect him. Your son is also in the Junior High school final year. You are not going to give the teacher any gifts?”

“I want to give. But I do not know what gifts to get. This is why I am asking you what gift are you giving?”

“Didn’t you read the papers? Tai Hua Supermarket had introduced a shopping card. You can use this card to shop in Tai Hua Supermarket. We are going to give a 500 RMB value card. All my colleagues at my workplace are getting the same thing. Just give the teacher this shopping card. Although it is costly, the teachers will take care of our children.”

“500 RMB? It is very expensive. I am only earning 360 RMB a month.”

“Don’t be stingy. Your wife is also working. Just bear with it for one month. This is a critical period for your son. If he did not go to a good high school, it would be difficult for him to enter a good university. I am going to Tai Hua Supermarket to buy the shopping card now. Are you going?”

“Yes. Wait for me. I need to get money from my wife first.”

……

“Dear, our son is in his final year of high school. He will be graduating this year, and how can he be seated at the back of the class? It is Teachers’ Day soon. I heard from my colleagues that they will be giving their children’s teachers gifts. Should we also give our son’s teacher gift? We must make sure our son gets into university.”

“Ok. But what should we get? His teacher is a guy. How about we give him two bottles of alcohol and two cartons of cigarettes?”

“No. Other people are giving Tai Hua Supermarket shopping cards. With that card, the teacher can buy whatever he needed. The supermarket also sells cigarettes and alcohol.”

“How much should we give?”

“I heard that many parents will be giving 500 RMB shopping cards. We are better off than most of them. Let’s give the 1,000 RMB shopping card!”

“1,000 RMB? Dear, although I am working for an overseas company, my salary is only 800 RMB a month.”

“You still have bonuses. This is for our son’s future. We must give something to let the teacher remember our son. You go and buy a 1,000 RMB value card tomorrow. We will give it to the teacher and also tell him about changing the sitting arrangement for our son.”

“Okay.”

……

“Dear, when you send our son to school tomorrow, pass this card to Teacher Liu.”

“This is Tai Hua Supermarket shopping card? You bought this? How come it is 1,000 RMB card? What can you do with 1,000 RMB? I know you still have a 3,000 RMB card with you. Give Teacher Liu the 3,000 RMB card. You are willing to give your clients so much money, how can you save when it comes to our son?”

“Fine, fine, fine. I will listen to you. I thought that 1,000 RMB is enough. I give my clients gifts is because I can make much more from him. Where do you think our house and our Songjiang Motor car come from? Give these two 3,000 RMB shopping cards to your parents and our parents. Let them get something good for themselves. They are always so thrifty.”

“I know. Our son must be an official in the future. Look at you. You might make a lot of money from doing business, but when you meet those government officials, you still have to bow to them.”

“Stop nagging. I had drunk a lot just now and have a headache. Help me brew a pot of tea.”

“You only know how to order me around. Take off your coat first. I will hang it up. The water is boiled. Go and bath first.” The woman nagged and went to brew tea.

……

Tai Hua Supermarket sold more than 10,000 pieces of 500 RMB shopping cards per branch during the few days before Teachers’ Day. Even Feng Yu did not expect the sales to be so high. The parents in this era were crazy. They will do anything for their children!

1. Celery: It symbolizes hardworking and earnest to learn.

2. Lotus seeds: The bitterness of lotus seeds symbolized the hardship of the teachers.

3. Red beans: Red beans symbolizes good fortune.

4. Red dates: This symbolizes getting good results in the imperial exams.

5. Longan: This symbolizes the completion of studies.

6. Preserved meat: This symbolizes the student’s appreciation of the teacher.

Chapter 660 – Everyone is giving shopping cards part 2

The meaning of Teachers’ Day had changed.

Many people had said this. This day was supposed to be a day to thank and respect the teachers. This date was set for this ancient profession and to improve the teachers’ life and work. But now, it became a day to give teachers gifts.

The parents also start to compare with each other. They might not give some gifts that were more expensive than others, but they will never give anything lesser than others. All the teachers will be receiving large amounts of gifts on this day.

The teachers’ days in the past few years, the teachers will receive some cigarettes or tea leaves. Maybe some will receive chicken or ducks. Most of these gifts were useless. But this year was different for the teachers. Especially those teachers in some cities. They received Tai Hua Supermarket Shopping cards.

It was not sure if the parents had discussed beforehand. The value of the shopping cards was about the same. The head of departments received the most.

The teachers tried to keep these cards a secret. Although everyone knew what was happening, no one would flaunt about the total amount they received. After all, this was not something they were proud of.

But after work, the teachers bumped into each other in Tai Hua Supermarket.

The first thing the teachers did after receiving the shopping cards were to visit Tai Hua Supermarket with their wives or husbands. These cards were only valid for a limited period.

When the teachers bumped into their colleagues, they smiled embarrassedly. But this was Tai Hua Supermarket and not their school. Furthermore, almost all the teachers from the school were there, and their shopping cart was filled with big-ticket items like VCD players. This means that other teachers had also received a lot of shopping cards.

Since everyone was the same, what’s there to be embarrassed about? They can shop together.

“Teacher Niu, there is a good rice cooker for sale over there. Want to take a look together?”

“Ok. Oh, is this VCD player you pick good? I am also thinking of getting a VCD player.”

“Of course. This is Wind and Rain brand. A world-renowned brand! Their advertisements state that they are Often imitated, but NEVER exceeded!”

“Where are the VCD players? I want to get one.”

Teacher Niu frowned. Seems that this Teacher Sun had received a lot of shopping cards today. But Teacher Sun was a form teacher, and those parents will try their best to please him.

“It’s over there. Let’s look at the rice cooker first, and I will bring you to the VCD player section.”

During payments, they saw lots of familiar faces. Some were their colleagues from the same school, and some were teachers from other schools. They even saw some leaders from the education department.

This proves that everyone had received a lot of gifts during this Teachers’ Day.

……

Xiao Li was a cashier in Tai Hua Supermarket. She was overjoyed when she got this job. Although her work was tough, her salary was much higher than her parents.

Today, she noticed something different. Many of the customers making payments knew each other. The was a big city. Although it might not be as big as Beijing or Shanghai, the population was a few million. Was this really a coincident?

Hmmm…… Maybe it’s because this was Tai Hua Supermarket and these people were here because of the advertisements.

But these people addressed each other as teachers. Most of these people were teachers? Tai Hua Supermarket had become the number one choice for teachers today?

When making payments, Xiao Li was shocked. Shopping cards. Shopping cards again. Everyone was paying with shopping cards.

What? The value of the shopping card is not enough? Never mind. Use all the value in it. I still have one more card with me. Not enough? It’s fine. I still have another shopping card.

More than half the shoppers paid with shopping cards, and most of them had more than one shopping card.

The smallest denomination of the shopping card Xiao Li saw was 500 RMB, and the highest value was 5,000 RMB shopping cars. Most of these people were teachers.

What school was this? How come their benefits were so good? All the teachers received shopping cards from the school on Teachers’ Days? The school should have given out a large amount. The average monthly salary of a teacher was less than 500 RMB. Those teachers in university might be getting slightly more, but it should also be about 500 RMB. The professors will get more.

But how can there be so many professors here? Where did they get their shopping cards from? How come each of them had more than one card?

Xiao Li do not understand and was very curious. But during training, she was told that customer service was the most important and she must not chat with the customers. Many customers do not like to talk with cashiers or cashiers asking them about their income.

Xiao Li kept quiet and carry on working. She kept swiping the cards and let the customers about the balance value in their cards. This was repeated over and over again.

Today was more tiring than any other days. It was not a weekend, but the crowd was bigger than weekends. Also, most of the items that were bought were big-ticket items. Even if the customers bought alcohol and cigarettes, alcohol and cigarettes were all expensive brands. It feels like there was a sudden increase of wealthy people in the city.

Xiao Li had worked in Tai Hua Supermarket for more than 1 month. Even on the opening day, she had not seen so many people buying so many expensive items. Imported Philips color TV that’s worth a few thousand RMB, imported refrigerators were flying off the shelves.

The delivery staffs of Tai Hua Supermarket were going crazy. Their deliveries today was more than the total for last week.

But these delivery staffs were smiling. It was because of the more deliveries they made, the more they earn. Tai Hua Supermarket had not implemented free deliveries yet. They charged for deliveries. Although the charges were not high, most shoppers could not bring those big items back themselves. They need a vehicle to carry those items.

Tai Hua Supermarket delivery charges were cheaper than those tri motorcycles outside, and installations were included. If there were any damages to the items during delivery, Tai Hua Supermarket will take responsibility and compensate the shopper.

No one wants anything to happen to their purchases, which were worth a few thousand RMB. Although the shoppers will feel the pinch to pay for the deliveries, if their items got damaged when they try to carry it home themselves, they would be heartbroken.

……

“Manager, we have tabulated the total sales today. 85% of the shoppers today used shopping cards to pay for their purchases. The total amount is more than the total for last week!”

The Supermarket manager nodded. “Manager Feng’s idea is really wonderful. There are no new promotions, but the sales are much higher than during promotions. But this is only the first day. There will be more people tomorrow.”

The manager understands that those with shopping cards might not visit Tai Hua Supermarket today. They might visit the supermarket tomorrow or the day after that. But it does not matter. The shopping cards have an expiry date, and shoppers must finish using them before the date.

Feng Yu had wanted to set a 3 months validity for the shopping cards, but Fu Guangzheng and the rest felt 1-month validity was sufficient. Other than Teachers’ Day, there are still many other festivals in the same month. There were 3 festivals in the same month, and there was no way these people could not finish using the values in their cards.

Feng Yu agreed. The shoppers had behaved as they had expected. These shoppers had no qualms when they use shopping cards to pay.

It’s time for Tai Hua Supermarket to print another batch of shopping cards.

Chapter 661 – Huh? Setup a bank?

“Old Li, do you think we should buy shopping cards for the Mid-autumn Festival and National Day holidays? Do our company have spare cash?”

“it’s fine. But the cities where our factories are in do not have Tai Hua Supermarkets. The workers will not be able to use those cards.” Li Mingde replied.

“You can decide about this by yourself. Anyway, I heard that our workers are unhappy about getting the usual items. Oh, you can also give the workers shopping vouchers from other shopping malls. But don’t worry. By next year, those cities where our factories are located will have Tai Hua Supermarkets. I will let the person in charge of Bing City speak to you. You can also recommend him to other companies.”

Feng Yu would definitely support this shopping cards. All his companies will be giving our holiday gifts to the workers, and Feng Yu wants them to replace the gifts with shopping cards. His main priority now was to raise cash for Tai Hua Supermarket. This way, Tai Hua Supermarket can get a higher loan amount at the end of the year.

In this era, to get a bank loan, connections, and the cash flow for the past 3 months were required.

Now, Fu Guangzheng and the rest were scouting for suitable locations again. Once again, Feng Yu had nothing to do. He only needs to sit in the Beijing Headquarters. But if there were any issues at Tai Hua Supermarket, he will have to settle it.

A Deputy General Manager knew Feng Yu had a lot of companies and approached him to ask him to buy or reserve some shopping cards. As long as the money enters the accounts, then the banks will take note of it. This will also set an example to other companies and increase the sales of shopping cards.

Feng Yu agreed. All this while, his workers had been receiving excellent benefits and welfare. It might not be the best in China, but it should be one of the top few companies. Feng Yu also realized one problem. His companies were too scattered around China. It was still okay for the factories in the outskirts of the cities. But what about the factory in Guancheng? How are the workers going to use Tai Hua Supermarket shopping card?

Ride a train to Shenzhen or Guangzhou to visit Tai Hua Supermarket and then ride a train back?

But Fu Guanzheng had started sourcing for a suitable location in Guancheng. He believes that the population of Guancheng will increase and will become a top industrial city in the future.

Factory workers’ lives were tough, and most of them were thrifty. They like to save money by getting cheap items. They do not mind traveling a long distance to buy items only to save 10 or 20 cents.

Feng Yu continued to make phone calls.

“Manager Liu, I am Feng Yu. Are you in Beijing? I want to ask you something. Does Lenovo give out gifts for the staffs during mid-autumn and National Day holidays?”

“Ah…… We give out mooncakes and fruits during the mid-autumn festival and some groceries for the national day holidays. We also give out cash sometimes.” Liu Chuanzhi replied. He wonders why Feng Yu was asking him about this.

“Mooncakes? Do you like to eat?” Feng Yu asked.

“It’s not about whether if I like it. It is a tradition. We must eat mooncakes during the mid-autumn festival and rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival.”

“What I mean is, do you think if cash or Tai Hua Shopping cards is a better gift? The workers can go and get mooncakes themselves. I have seen last month’s financial report. Our company is doing well. We must treat our staffs better.”

“Manager Feng, I know you have shares in Tai Hua Supermarket. You want to sell your shopping cards, just say so. There is no need to beat around the bush. I will discuss with the rest and will buy a batch of shopping cards. Oh, you are in Beijing now? If you are free, can you make a trip to the company? I need to discuss something with you.”

“Ok. I do not have lessons this afternoon. I can go to the company.”

……

This was not the first time Feng Yu went to Beijing Lenovo. He does not like to come to the place. Liu Chuanzhi was too stingy. He did not even allocate an office for Feng Yu here!

Fine. Feng Yu also do not work there. He did not even attend the monthly meetings. He had only been to Beijing Lenovo once to look at the annual financial report in the meeting room. He left immediately after that. Most of the staffs there do not even know Feng Yu was the biggest shareholder of the company. They thought he was just Liu Chuanzhi’s relative.

Feng Yu arrived at Beijing Lenovo. The receptionist brought this “Mr. Feng” to the meeting room and left after pouring a cup of tea. If she knew this “Mr. Feng” was the company’s biggest shareholder, she would not show this attitude.

“Manager Feng, you are here. Do you have spare money now?” Liu Chuanzhi entered the room and asked.

Feng Yu looked at Liu Chuanzhi curiously: “What’s wrong? The company is short of cash? But I saw last month’s report. It is doing well. Is there someone selling off his shares? How much? I will buy it.”

Feng Yu will surely buy Lenovo shares if anyone sells it. Lenovo PC business was getting better, and after Win95 is introduced next year, PC will be easier to use. That’s the time when PC became popular all over the world. All government agencies, banks, companies, etc. will be purchasing PCs in large quantity. That’s the opportunity for Lenovo to take over the Chinese PC market.

Also, Lenovo PCs were equipped with optical drives much earlier than Feng Yu’s previous life. It was not an ordinary CD drive. Lenovo PCs were fitted with VCD drives. With just this feature, Lenovo PCs will be selling like hotcakes.

This was the time for Lenovo to shine. Why would anyone choose to sell their shares now?

“It is not anyone selling their shares. It is some entrepreneurs who want to set up a non-government bank. One of them is my friend. He asked me to contact you. He wants you to join them. Are you interested?”

Set up a bank? Damn! These people were crazy.

But Feng Yu suddenly remember that in his previous life, there was a non-government bank set up in China. Could this be that bank?

“I am interested. But can you let me know who the ones are in this partnership? Also, can they get all the approvals, and will the higher-ups agree?”

“The Central Government supported this. If not, I will also not ask you. The ones who suggested this are well known in the business circle. They are New Hope Group’s Liu Yonghao, Oceanwide Holdings’ Lu Zhiqiang, China Life Insurance Company, Giant Interactive Group’s Shi Dazhu and a few more. All the companies and people involved are reputable.” Liu Chuanzhi explained.

“Then how did they know about me?”

Feng Yu was also curious. He had not met most of these people mentioned by Liu Chuanzhi before. The only person he met once was Shi Dazhu, but they did not even speak to each other.

“Actually, it is Lu Zhiqiang and Liu Yonghao who approached me. They want to invite Lenovo to join them and let us take care of the bank’s software and systems. But this is a crucial time for Lenovo. All our funds have been invested back into the company, and we do not have spare funds to invest in the bank. But I think this is a good opportunity. So, I recommended you to them. I think in terms of finances, you should be one of the richest among them.”

Liu Chuanzhi had been guessing how much money Feng Yu has. Although he did not have any figure in mind, he knew Feng Yu was the third biggest shareholder of Microsoft.

Feng Yu also owns factories and companies all over China. He should have lots of connections. If Feng Yu joined this venture, then the bank should be able to develop smoothly. This was the reason why Liu Chuanzhi called Feng Yu over to tell him.

“What will be the name of this bank?”

“China Minsheng Bank!”

Chapter 662 – Meeting Liu Yonghao

“I need some time to consider about this. Don’t you know that my father’s Tai Hua Agriculture Products company is a competitor of New Hope Group? Their New Hope Group is China’s number one animal feed supplier, and my father’s company is number two.”

Liu Chuanzhi was stunned. How could he know about this? Manager Feng’s father business was really successful. China’s number 2 biggest animal feed supplier? But how come this company’s name was so familiar?

“Manager Feng, even if both of you are competitors, it is also a healthy competition. There is no need for you to treat each other as enemies. Furthermore, the both of you also do not have conflicts before. This should not be a problem, right?”

“Manager Liu, I have no problems. Can you help me ask Liu Yonghao out? I would like to speak to him.” Feng Yu smiled.

Actually, when Tai Hua Agriculture Products company was newly set up, Feng Yu had wanted to recruit Liu Yonghao. But at that time, Liu Yonghao and his brothers’ animal feed factory were already set up and was very successful.

Sichuan province was China’s biggest pig rearing base. It was the world biggest pig rearing base. With this strategic location, the New Hope Group was able to develop rapidly.

Tai Hua Agriculture Products company’s animal feed was mainly supplied to its own pig farms. They were unable to enter the Sichuan market.

Feng Yu did not know Liu Yonghao, but Zhang Ming knew him. It was because Tai Hua Agriculture Products company had snatched part of New Hope Group’s market share.

Luckily, the New Hope Group does not only produce pig feed. They also produce cows, goats, chicken, ducks, etc. feed. They might be affected by Tai Hua Agriculture Products company, but the impact was not that big.

Feng Yu was very interested to know the Liu brothers, especially the eldest brother, Liu Yonghao.

“Ok. I will arrange this meeting. I will let you know the time and place. Do you think this Minsheng Bank is possible? Will people deposit their money into this bank?” Liu Chuanzhi worryingly asked.

“Banks are just Qianzhuang in ancient times. If we are going to set up a bank, we must first let the people have confidence with us. Then we will make use of high saving interest rates and low-interest loans to attract customers. It is very easy to run a bank.”

In this era, the hardest part about setting up a bank was the issue of withdrawing funds from other places and the charges involved. If there were no branches in certain areas, the customer would not be able to withdraw their money, and even if they could, there will be charges.

The advantages for Feng Yu to join this venture was the number of his employees and the financial capacity of his companies. Even if it were only his employees who used this Minsheng bank, it would be a considerable amount. If all of Feng Yu’s companies use Minsheng Bank for their transactions and accounts, it will be perfect.

That day, after Feng Yu returned home, he called Zhang Ming and asked him to come to Beijing. Even if Feng Yu did not partake in this venture, it would still be suitable for Tai Hua Agriculture to form a partnership or collaboration with New Hope Group.

Now was the best time for banks in China to develop. But at the same time, it was also the most challenging period. This was because the existing banks in China were not as powerful as the future years. There were also lots of loopholes that were not discovered. The banks also faced many interventions by the government. For instance, the local government will interfere with the bank’s operation and management, even though they do not have the authority to do so.

Currently, there were many banks in China, and Iron Fist Zhu was the Governor of People’s Bank of China. He was an expert in economics. The government banks were developing rapidly during this period and had eliminated many malpractices. Furthermore, there were no banking alliances yet. Although there were ATM cards now, there were not many ATM machines around, and there were no POS machines. People were still using bank books.

The interbank transactions were troublesome, and UnionPay was not set up yet. There were high charges for transactions. It was tedious for a new bank to establish a relationship with all other banks.

Furthermore, the people were still having the old mindset. When they heard this was a non-government bank, their first thought was “this bank is not safe.” What if they deposit their money into this bank and cannot withdraw it? What if it closes down?

A shareholding bank was the same as a shareholding company. A company will have the risk of being bankrupt and close down. People had seen lots of companies shutting down these few years.

But Feng Yu wanted to be part of this venture because Minsheng Bank was able to let him take loans and the paperwork will be simplified, and he could get a higher amount.

After UnionPay was set up, there will be more ATM machines around, and Minsheng bank should be able to grow. Feng Yu did not expect to earn much from this investment. He just wants the convenience when he needs to get loans.

These people wanted to set up this Minsheng Bank should also have the same thinking. This was a different way of raising funds. Legally raising funds.

In the future years, these people who founded Minsheng Bank, all took lots of loans from the bank. Their businesses grew and developed rapidly because of the availability of funds.

……

3 days later, all of them met in Quanjude’s private room.

If the meeting were held in the office, it would be a formal meeting. This meeting was held in a restaurant. It was more like a gathering of friends. Even if no deals work out, there will be no hard feelings.

Liu Yonghao was stunned when he saw Zhang Ming. “You are Manager Zhang of Tai Hua?”

Zhang Ming smiled and extended his hand for a handshake. “Mr. Liu, this should not be the first time we met. I thought you have forgotten about me.”

Liu Chuanzhi immediately introduces: “Tai Hua Agriculture Products is owned by Manager Feng’s father. Manager Feng, this is Mr. Liu Yonghao.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Feng Yu.” Feng Yu smiled and extended his hand.

“Liu Yonghao. I have heard a lot about you. I finally get to meet you today. I never expect that Tai Hua Agriculture is owned by your family.”

Liu Yonghao did not leave immediately after he saw Zhang Ming and Feng Yu and Liu Chuanzhi was relieved. “Let’s have dinner. I have ordered the dishes. Let’s talk over dinner.”

Liu Yonghao arrogantly said: “The ducks from Beijing Quanjude are fed with my animal feeds. Now, most of the farms all over China orders their animal feed from us.”

Liu Yonghao glanced at Zhang Ming. He only has animal feed for pigs. How can he compete with New Hope Group?

Zhang Ming laughed and replied: “We have Tian Peng Pigs. We are the number one pork supplier in China. We also have pig farms and ham products. Oh, we are selling our products in Tai Hua Supermarket. It’s Tai Hua Supermarket. You get what I mean?”

Tia Hua Supermarket, Tai Hua Agriculture Products? These two companies are related? Liu Yonghao looked up and saw Feng Yu smiling. This Tai Hua Supermarket belongs to his family too? But it was reported that Hong Kong richest man, Superman Li, had invested in this supermarket. This supermarket had something to do with Feng Yu?

Feng Yu gestured to Zhang Ming to stop him. “Zhang Ming, Mr. Liu’s New Hope Group, is really better than us in animal feeds. But, Mr. Liu, your company, is run by you and your family. Are there any conflicts between you and your brothers when you all split the profits?”

Chapter 663 – Guangcai Program

Liu Yonghao frowned. What does this Feng Yu mean? This is my family’s affairs. What has it got to do with you? But this Feng Yu had highlighted the biggest issue faced by New Hope Group. The 4 brothers had set up this company together, but the shares were not clearly allocated, and this was a significant problem when it comes to managing the company.

In 1992, Liu Yonghao had seen this problem, and he hired someone outside to manage the company. But in a family business, the biggest issue was the brothers had different views. Furthermore, all of them were married, and they all have their own family issues, and there was an issue with the future inheritance of this company. These were problems they had to face.

If there were only 4 brothers, these issues could be solved quickly. But now, it was 4 families. This was a headache for Liu Yonghao.

“I can handle this. You don’t have to worry about me.” Liu Yonghao replied. His tone was slightly pissed.

“I am not good at managing companies. My father is the same. That’s why I made a lot of investment and never managed any companies. My advice to you is to split up early. Any later, the relationship between brothers might turn sour. The minimum you all should do is to state the shares clearly and split the market. But you should own the most share. Without you, there will not be a New Hope Group.”

Liu Yonghao heard what Feng Yu said. This was what he wanted to do. If he does not make things clear with his brother, then it will be hard to split up with his brothers when the business grows bigger. At least, his younger brothers still listen to him now. in a few more years, all their kids would have grown up, and many things would have changed.

So, this Manager Feng does not manage his companies. This is weird. Which boss would hand over his authority to others? But Liu Chuanzhi had said that all of Manager Feng’s businesses were doing well. Could this be his secret formula?

Should I listen to those higher management staffs more often and stop making all the decision myself?

“Thank you, Manager Feng, for your advice. I will consider it.”

“I heard that Mr. Liu is setting up a Guangzai Program. Am I qualified to join?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

Feng Yu has great respect for Liu Yonghao because he was a philanthropist. He started this Guangcai Program with 9 other entrepreneurs. This program was to help the poor in China. It had helped many people, especially in rural villages.

Of course, Liu Yonghao was also a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and National People’s Congress. The other 9 entrepreneurs were also the same. Maybe he had different reasons for setting up this Guangcai Program, but Feng Yu was willing to believe they sincerely want to help the impoverished region and do some charity work.

Guangcai Program was set up to support the government’s Seven-Year Program for Lifting 80 Million People Out of Poverty (1994-2000). The purpose of the Guangcai Program was to eradicate poverty. They were private enterprises and invest in rural and impoverished regions.

In layman terms, this Guangcai Program was to ask businessmen to invest in poor areas economically. This was not giving aids or welfare to the people in the regions. All investments must have returned. But the returns might be minimal or will take a long time to see the profits.

Feng Yu was interested in Guangcai Program because the Guangcai Program also looks at education. This was in line with Feng Yu’s thinking. Feng Yu wants to join the Guangcai Program. He doesn’t mind setting up factories in the western provinces as long as there were profits.

In the future, this Guangcai Program association will even get an award from the United Nations.

Liu Yonghao was shocked to hear Feng Yu wants to join the Guangcai Program. Usually, businessmen view profits as their priority. But this Manager Feng was different.

“No problem. I will recommend you in the program. But do you know that the returns from this program are not high and the duration is quite long? Also, you have to donate a sum of money or supplies every year. Are you sure you want to join?” Liu Yonghao explained.

Liu Yonghao does not want Feng Yu to think that they were working with the government to make money from the western provinces and forgot their purpose. Although all of them do not mind making profits, that’s not the purpose of this program. The program was to help the poor and change the region.

This program might take 3 to 5 years. It might even take up to 30 to 50 years. Feng Yu was still young. Does he have the patient?

“I remember there should be quite a several Tai Hua buildings in the Sichuan province. Have you seen it? My family and I donate a large amount every year. But we only focus on education, unlike you all. I heard you all also look into the sanitation and culture of those regions. You all are much better than us.”

Zhang Ming added: “Manager Feng had donated more than 100 million RMB these few years.” Zhang Ming had included the research funds Feng Yu gave to the universities. It’s definitely more than 100 million RMB.

Liu Yonghao’s jaws dropped. “How much? More than 100 million RMB?!” Feng Yu was willing to donate so much money? What was his motive behind it?

Feng Yu was satisfied with Zhang Ming’s interruption, but he put on an unhappy face. “Zhang Ming, why did you mention that? What Mr. Liu and his friends did is real charity work.”

“Manager Feng, why did you donate so much money?” Liu Yonghao asked curiously. He does not believe that Feng Yu had donated so much money without any motive. Feng Yu was a successful businessman, and no businessman will do anything for no returns.

“I want a good reputation and to make my parents happy. I want those children in the poor region to be able to go to school safely. I want those students that studied in Tai Hua school buildings to contribute to our nation in the future.” Feng Yu seriously replied.

“Manager Feng is really generous. I admire what you did.” Liu Yonghao said.

“That means Mr. Liu does not oppose me joining the Guangcai Program?”

“Of course, I will not oppose it. If anyone dares to oppose, I will surely fight him! We can discuss the details of you joining some other day. We should have a good talk. I am glad to have met you today.” Liu Yonghao exclaimed.

Liu Chuanzhi was puzzled when he saw both of them chatting happily. But what were they talking about? Should they be discussing the joint venture of Minsheng Bank? I am still waiting for Lenovo to get the contract of setting up the computer system and software for the bank. You all can talk about the Guangcai Program some other days.

“Old Liu, Manager Feng, the roast duck is cut. Let’s eat it while it’s warm. The taste will change if it is cold.” Liu Chuanzhi interrupted them.

“Speaking of this Quanjude, I heard that someone invested in it, and it expanded quite aggressively. But it seems to be doing great.” Liu Yonghao said casually.

“Thank you for your compliments.”

Liu Yonghao was surprised. I am praising Quanjude, what has it got to do with you?

Liu Chuanzhi added. “Manager Feng also have shares in Quanjude Group.”

Ah? How come this Manager Feng is involved in all sorts of business? You told me that he is in machinery and electronics businesses. Is this roast duck a machine or an electronic device?

Chapter 664 – Do these companies qualify?

Liu Chuanzhi’s interruption reminded Liu Yonghao of the purpose of this meeting. This meeting was to discuss the setting up of Minsheng Bank. He had forgotten about it after they talk about the Guangcai Program.

“Manager Feng, I did not expect your businesses to be so successful.”

“It’s not very successful. Compared to many multination companies, my businesses are nothing. I am only more diversified.”

“If Manager Feng’s companies are not successful, then what about us? You are too humble. Has Chuanzhi spoken to you about Minsheng Bank? What is your view?”

“I can invest in this venture. But I have a question. Who knows how to manage a bank?” Feng Yu asked him back.

“Feng Yu knows someone very familiar with the banking industry. That’s Li Zekai. When he was in Canada, he worked in a bank.

“We do not have to worry about the managing aspect of the bank. The major shareholder should be China Life Insurance Company. We are just investing in this venture.”

This was the same as Feng Yu’s previous life. Although it was a non-government bank, the biggest shareholder was still a state-owned enterprise. This bank was only a shareholding with more transparencies.

This was also a good thing as Minsheng bank was quite successful in Feng Yu’s previous life. After 1998, this bank grew rapidly. Of course, that was the period when almost all of China’s banks quickly developed.

But there was still an issue that will hinder the growth of Minsheng Bank. In this era, there were many banking regulations and policies restricting the growth of the banks. It includes the Provident fund and housing loans. In the beginning, Minsheng Bank was not allowed to handle these funds, and it restricted the growth of the bank.

If Minsheng Bank was about to operate like the rest of the government’s banks, then the development will be much better.

China Life Insurance will become China’s biggest life insurance company will become the world’s highest-valued insurance company in the future. The company has lots of funds. With this company as one of the shareholders, Minsheng Bank will have robust financial backing. Next year, China’s <Mandatory Laws> will be implemented and will speed up the development of China’s insurance industry. China Life Insurance’s profits will increase tremendously.

Combining insurance and banking was a successful model overseas. The banks will use the clients’ premiums to give out loans and do investments. The returns were used to pay out insurance claims. If there were no banks, what will the companies do with the premiums? Deposit in banks for interest?

The Chinese government wants to develop the insurance industry and indirectly allowed Minsheng Bank to develop. It was not because of these entrepreneurs who set up this bank.

“What is the initial capital for this bank and how many companies are needed for this venture? Also, what’s the highest number of shares we can own?” Feng Yu asked.

It was impossible to get the controlling shares or be the major shareholder. But Feng Yu could use many companies to invest in this bank and occupy many seats on the board of directors. He will still have influence over the bank.

Feng Yu does not want to interfere with the bank’s operations, and the government will also not allow this to happen. But he also does not want to let other people do whatever they want with the bank and does not listen to his suggestions.

“The initial registered capital is 10 billion RMB, and the most shares we can own is 49%. But there are no regulations that restrict us to trade the shares in the future. There is no restriction on the number of companies, but we wanted at least 10 to 20 companies. This way, we can diversify the risk.” Liu Yonghao explained.

10 billion RMB was nothing to Feng Yu. But it was not worthwhile to invest so much now. Feng Yu could easily take out 10 billion RMB from his Russian fund, US fund, and even his own pocket.

But the Chinese current economic conditions and the number of Minsheng Bank’s competitors will lower the profitability of the bank. However, if the bank was to operate normally, the risk of losing money was low.

Investing in banks is for the future. If Feng Yu could become Minsheng Bank’s major shareholder, then it will be easier for him to manage his finances and raise capital. Also, the banking industry was closely related to the Government. Feng Yu will be able to get first-hand news of the government’s policies. This will have a significant impact on investments.

Feng Yu suspects that these businessmen joined this venture was to know the government’s future plans and direction. This was because the banking industry was not a profitable industry now. But in the future, if the bank was to be listed and the introduction of wealth management products, it will be profitable.

“Mr. Liu, can I introduce a few other bosses or companies to join in? Can Hong Kong businessmen participate?” Feng Yu asked.

“Hong Kong businessmen? I’m afraid not. Although Hong Kong is part of China, the current policies are still slightly different. One country, two systems. Also, Hong Kong is not returned to China yet. What if the businessman suddenly changes nationality?”

“But our country also have foreign banks.”

“This Minsheng bank is different. China Life Insurance company is involved. It cannot be influenced by any foreign funds. It’s fine if you want to recommend businessmen or large corporations. But the companies must be clean and have enough financial backings. Most importantly, these companies must be Chinese companies.”

“Can the companies have Hong Kong shareholders? The major shareholder is Chinese. Can this be allowed?” Feng Yu asked.

“This is not stated. I will ask and get back to you. What are the companies?” Liu Yonghao asked.

“Bing City’s Machinery Company, Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, etc. Also, Lehaha Group, Aiwa Little Tyrant, Tai Hua Trading, Tai Hua Agriculture Products, Tai Hua Supermarket Group, Bing City Pharmaceutical. Wind and Rain Logistics, Quanjude Group.”

Liu Yonghao heard the first few companies, and he knew Feng Yu had shares in these companies. Feng Yu might even have controlling shares. He could tell from the names of the companies. Wind and Rain, Aiwa, Tai Hua, etc. These companies must be related to Feng Yu. But he did not expect there were so many companies.

Liu Yonghao knew Feng Yu had shares in Bing City’s Machinery Company. But Lehaha Group and Bing City Pharmaceutical were also related to Feng Yu?

Liu Yonghao admired Lehaha’s Zhong Qingxian for developing his company. Lehaha had been developing well and had grown to become one of China’s top companies. Did Feng Yu have shares in this company or he only know Zhong Qingxian?

Also, Bing City Pharmaceutical was set up just last year. The products it produced were very popular, and it should be very profitable. This company was also related to Feng Yu?

Wait, why did this Feng Yu suggest so many companies? He wants all these companies to join this venture and then get a seat in the board of directors?

Chapter 665 – The supermarket have competitors!

The first meeting between both of them went smoothly. Liu Yonghao felt that even if Feng Yu did not invest in Minsheng Bank, it was fine as Feng Yu had expressed his intention of joining the Guangcai Program.

Liu Yonghao was not the decision maker. Although he was one of the founders who suggested this venture, it was still the government that has the final say.

Feng Yu was in no hurry. If this bank could wait until 1998, it would be best. It was not worthwhile to invest now. But after 1998, Feng Yu would have made a killing from the Asian Financial Crisis, and he will have lots of funds to invest.

Furthermore, Feng Yu knew that it was impossible for Minsheng bank to be set up next year. The earliest will be 1996. He might as well let other people invest in the bank first, and he invests after 1998. He wants to get bank loans from Minsheng Bank, but he knew this was not possible now.

Tai Hua Supermarket’s expansion still needs to get bank loans from other banks. Feng Yu in charge of contacting the China banks and Fu Guangzheng, and the rest will contact the Hong Kong banks. They will compare the interest rates and conditions before deciding to get the loan from which bank.

But Feng Yu remembered in his previous life, Li Zekai had gotten a considerable loan amount with just one project. Hong Kong side should not be a problem as Superman Li was one of the shareholders of Tai Hua Supermarket.

Feng Yu felt that funds were not the priority now. Suitable locations were their top priority. They must get it before any competitors appear.

Currently, there were already some small supermarkets, like BHG, in China. They were registered earlier than Tai Hua Supermarket, but their scale was not significant. Their product variety, service, product display, marketing, sales strategy, etc. were far behind Tai Hua Supermarket. Although BHG also wanted to set up a hypermarket, their hypermarket was only a bigger supermarket.

Having a good location means a steady flow of customers. This was very important.

In Shanghai, BHG’s supermarket had affected Tai Hua Supermarket’s development. Although BHG only have two branches, their profits were high.

But after Tai Hua Supermarkets opened up two branches in Shanghai, BHG’s profits start to decline.

Feng Yu’s strategy was to snatch away the BHG market share. After all, BHG’s management model, product placement, supply chains, operational models could not be compared to Tai Hua Supermarket. Even their buildings were old, and wires could be seen everywhere. BHG supermarkets were messy, unlike Tai Hua Supermarkets.

The supermarket manager of the branches in Shanghai also starts to poach BHG staffs. Tai Hua Supermarket was paying better than BHG and had better benefits and prospects.

Those staff that joined Tai Hua Supermarket were told that Tai Hua Supermarket will continue to expand and there will be many more new branches set up. If they were picked to go to the new branches, they will have an increment and might even be promoted to the management staffs.

The new branches might not be far from Shanghai. It might be in Suzhou or in Shanghai. The staffs will not need to work far from their home.

Tai Hua Supermarkets had a steady supply chain, and the products they got were much cheaper. Tai Hua Supermarket staffs will visit BHG supermarkets to check on their pricing and then set lower prices for the same products.

At first, Feng Yu thought the profits from supermarkets will not be high. It should be 20% of profits at most. But after the supermarkets were opened, the profits were much higher than expected.

A pair of stockings were sold for 10 RMB in the shopping malls. The cost of the stockings was only 3 RMB, and Tai Hua Supermarket sold it for 8 RMB. The profits almost doubled off the cost.

China’s Great Wall Red Wine was selling for over 20 RMB in most stores. But the cost price Tai Hua Supermarket got for this wine was less than 10 RMB, and it was sold for 18 RMB per bottle. Just this wine alone attracted many customers.

The profits for those imported products were even higher. These imported products were usually sold by some companies for several times profits.

But for the same product, it was much cheaper at Tai Hua Supermarket. But the profits were still more than double the cost.

All the items in the Tai Hua Supermarket were selling cheaper than other places. Even the eggs were less expensive than the market.

Coupled with marketing, there was a constant flow of shoppers visiting the supermarkets every day. For example, the two branches in Shanghai attracted shoppers living far away. This was because the products in Tai Hua Supermarket were on average cheaper by 10%. Some items were even 20% less expensive than in other places.

The profits were not low, and the sales keep increasing. There were promotions daily, and Tai Hua Supermarkets total revenue was growing every week.

The success of Tai Hua Supermarket had a significant impact on BHG. This was what Fu Guangzheng wanted. Fu Guangzheng had set his sights on BHG supermarkets’ locations. If he could buy over those two BHG supermarkets, he can build a new shopping mall at the site. The business will surely be great. Although it will take a few months to build the new mall, the potential profits make it worthwhile, and it will eliminate one future competitor.

Not only in Shanghai. Many shopping malls in Beijing, Bing City, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Jinlin and many cities had been converted into Hypermarkets. They were trying to imitate Tai Hua Supermarkets.

For instance, two-stories of a shopping mall in Bing City was converted into a supermarket. Even the shelves, the space of the aisles, product placements were identical to Tai Hua Supermarket.

Feng Yu called Zhang Ruiqiang to ask him about this. He had wanted to buy this mall previously, and the City government refused to sell it because they wanted to have a shopping center. How come this supermarket suddenly appear?

Zhang Ruiqiang replied embarrassedly. It was his men who made this decision, and he was not aware of it. When he knew about this, the supermarket was almost set to open. All the shelves were built, and they could not remove it. Furthermore, this was only a small supermarket. It will not affect Tai Hua Supermarket at all.

Feng Yu does not mind. Tai Hua Supermarkets was able to catch up from behind even when the good locations were taken in cities like Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. What’s there to worry about that small supermarket?

Fu Guangzheng was also interested in the location of that mall in Bing City. He wanted to buy over the mall.

Tai Hua Supermarket had strong marketing, and many people had seen this supermarket on the news. They will want to visit this supermarket out of curiosity. Once people entered Tai Hua Supermarkets, they will realize how cheap the products were.

After the introduction of the membership and shopping cards, Tai Hua Supermarket was able to retain most of the shoppers. After Tai Hua Supermarket opened up, all the grocery shops, markets, shops, etc. nearby were affected. Their businesses were not as good as before.

The locations Fu Guangzheng and the rest scouted were mostly taken up by other supermarkets, and the solution they had was merger!

Chapter 666 – Adolf’s frustrations

The President of Carrefour Asia, Adolf, looked at the report on the table. He was in a bad mood.

What happened? How come there was such a company in China? This company had set up a supermarket chain with so many branches!

Adolf could not understand why this company did not rent the shopping spaces but bought the whole mall. They used the supermarket as its core and set up a hypermarket. Wasn’t this Carrefour’s usual practice?

Adolf sent someone to investigate Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation. It was similar to Carrefour. The operating model, the revenue sources, management model, etc. were almost identical to them.

To claim that Tai Hua Supermarkets were imitating Carrefour, it was also not true. After all, Tai Hua Supermarket had strong financial backings. Almost all supermarkets’ marketing and promotions strategies in the world were about the same. But Tai Hua Supermarket’s plans were one notch higher.

Carrefour in the current era was not as big as the future years. Although Carrefour also has promotions every day, it was nothing when compared to Tai Hua Supermarket.

Tai Hua Supermarket’s products were much more diversified. Their fruits and vegetables were better than Carrefour supermarkets.

Carrefour was only researching the Chinese market initially. France and China’s government were not close, and there were not many collaborations between both nations. This might be due to China’s relationship with Germany. The whole world knows that France and Germany did not have a harmonious relationship in the past.

But now, relationships between France and China had improved, and Carrefour had decided to enter China’s market within the next two years to test the market. But they realized they were late. When they were still scouting for suitable locations, Tai Hua Supermarket had appeared suddenly.

This Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation was too crazy. Who would set up so many hypermarket branches at once? They were not worried about making losses?

Carrefour dug into Tai Hua Supermarket’s background and found that Hong Kong’s Superman Li had shares in it. Superman Li was a well-known businessman around the world. He was very influential in Asia and was extremely wealthy.

Superman Li was not the only shareholder in this business. He still has many partners, and one of them was a big boss in China. This company’s financial backing was strong and does not need to worry about their funds. The properties in China were also cheap. They do not need a lot of funds to set up one big supermarket.

Carrefour knew that based on Tai Hua Supermarket’s scale and products, each branch needs at least 200 million RMB to set up. This was also one of the reasons Carrefour did not enter China immediately.

This was a substantial investment, and Carrefour could not predict the returns. The risk was too high.

But Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation start-up capital was not high, and even if funds were injected into the company, it should not be a lot. If every branch cost 200 million RMB, 20 branches will cost 500 million USD! This was based on the current exchange rates. If it were based on last year’s exchange rate, the amount would be higher!

This was a substantial investment.

But Adolf did not know that Tai Hua Supermarket market’s products were all on credit terms. All they need was to place some deposits and pay the supplier at the end of the month. One branch does not even cost 20 million RMB to set up. If not, Tai Hua Supermarket’s initial investment would not be enough to support 20 hypermarkets at once.

The initial investment might not be enough to even set up 20 big supermarkets or have enough funds to bring in the products!

Adolf suspects that Tai Hua Supermarkets had support from the Chinese Government. If not, why would the opening ceremony of their supermarkets be reported on the national TV station? Since when did the Chinese Government do free publicity for businessmen?

After Tai Hua Supermarkets opened, it was very popular. Adolf did not expect this, and he couldn’t understand the reason behind the popularity. How did such a backward country, which had undergone reformation for a few years, have such high purchasing power?

Adolf did not know that although the Chinese were not earning high incomes, the population was high and the Chinese love to join in the crowd.

The supermarket was a crowded place. The shoppers were free to roam about in it, and the store assistants will not chase them out. They could also get good bargains there. These reasons attracted lots of shoppers.

Every time Tai Hua Supermarket announces new promotions, there will be a large crowd. The current promotion slogan was enough to attract lots of shoppers.

Shop at Tai Hua, you will have more pay!

Tai Hua Supermarket items were cheaper. If every family were to get their groceries from Tai Hua Supermarket, the amount they saved was equivalent to having a pay increment.

This slogan attracted lots of shoppers who do not have a high income. They would travel a bit more or ride a bus for over an hour to shop at Tai Hua Supermarkets.

There were slogans like “Everyday sales, Everyday discounts.”, “Clear pricing, variety of products.” and  “Shop in Tai Hua and feel good.” appearing in the newspaper and radio advertisements. Tai Hua Supermarket also hired people to give out flyers in crowded places, and bus stops.

Within a month, almost all the residents in the cities, where Tai Hua Supermarkets were located, knew about Tai Hua Supermarket. Even those residents from cities where Tai Hua Supermarkets do not have branches also understand about the supermarkets. This was because they saw the supermarkets on the news.

Adolf was regretting. If he knew that setting up supermarkets in China would be so easy, he would have scouted for locations earlier. Maybe by now, Carrefour would have a few branches in China now. The site of some of Tai Hua Supermarket branches was located at the locations his team had in mind. This made him more frustrated.

Adolf had thought that its competitors in China would only be Walmart. But this Tai Hua Supermarket was a more significant threat.

Adolf knew a local enterprise had more advantages than foreign companies. He was not familiar with the local culture, and the government policies will protect the locals.

Now, it was more difficult for Carrefour to enter China. Even if they managed to penetrate the Chinese market, the results would not be like other countries.

This Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation was not to be trifle with. Adolf could only hope that Tai Hua Supermarket was only targeting the Chinese market. If it expands overseas, they will be another strong competitor to Carrefour. They will be one of the obstacles to Carrefour expansion.

Adolf reported this to his headquarters. It will be up to the headquarters to decide when Carrefour should take the risk and enter the Chinese market or take and wait and see approach. If Tai Hua Supermarket starts to expand further, Carrefour would have missed this opportunity to enter China. But all these will be up to the higher management.

Chapter 667 – Beverage wars (Part 1 of 2)

After days later, Feng Yu received a call from Liu Yonghao. There were good news and bad news.

The good news was Feng Yu was welcomed to join the Guangcai Program, and the government had granted approval to set up a Guangcai Committee. This will be a government recognized organization.

There will be an organizing committee and Liu Yonghao promised Feng Yu that Feng Yu will be one of the members in the committee. The chairman and vice chairman of the committee will be selected from the 10 founders of this program.

In the future, Feng Yu can also volunteer to take part in the selection of Chairman. This was fair to everyone. The success of Feng Yu’s businesses was more than enough for him to run for the position of Chairman. He was more qualify than all the other members.

Although Liu Yonghao did not know how many shares Feng Yu owns in all those companies, those companies were all doing very well. Even if Feng Yu only owns 10% shares of those companies, his total assets were much higher than all of them.

Feng Yu was satisfied with this piece of good news. He was not interested in becoming the Chairman or vice chairman. It was good enough to be one of the members. He wants to be in charge of education. He knows that no one will vie with him for this role, as even if all of them add up, their contributions were not more than Feng Yu alone.

Feng Yu wanted to be in charge of education was because he knew how the people outside work. You donated 1 million RMB to build a building, but the cost of the project might be lesser than 500,000 RMB or lower.

Feng Yu did not want to donate money to build school buildings, and the buildings collapse in the future. If that happens, it will be too late to get hold of the one responsible. Lives will be gone!

Feng Yu discussed with Liu Yonghao, and he agreed. He said that he will help to convince the other founders.

Feng Yu was delighted with this news. The bad news was also acceptable. Feng Yu was not really upset over it.

The bad news was companies which have Hong Kong shares were temporarily not allowed to invest in Minsheng Bank. Even if the company was owned majority by Chinese funds, it was also not allowed. So, many of Feng Yu’s companies were not allowed to invest in the bank as Fu Guangzheng owns shares in those companies.

The other companies where only one person who owns the controlling stake of the company, was also not allowed too.

That means Feng Yu was not allowed to use several companies to invest in the bank and get a place in the Board of directors. Feng Yu thought back on his companies. Only a few of his companies could participate in this venture.

Wind and Rain Logistics should not be investing as Feng Yu’s brother-in-law was not interested. Tai Hua Agriculture products were eligible to participate, but the company does not have a lot of liquid assets. Tai Hua Trading was also eligible. But if Tai Hua Trading invested in Minsheng bank, then Feng Yu had to change the bank account, and there will be issues with settling the payments with Kirilenko. After all, ICBC bank had given Tai Hua Trading the green light to do international fund transfer, and the charges were lower. The transactions were also faster as a lot of paperwork were exempted.

Bing City Pharmaceutical was also eligible. But it needs the approval from the Bing City Government first. Will Zhang Ruiqiang agree to invest in Minsheng bank? Even if he agrees, the amount invested will also be minimal.

Wind and Rain Battery Factory was eligible, but it does not have enough funds. The battery factory had used all its profits for its R&D, and its sales were only average.

The next company Feng Yu considered was Lehaha. Zhong Qingxian might not be willing to use the company’s funds to invest in this bank. After all, this bank might not be profitable anytime soon.

So, Feng Yu decided to not invest temporarily. However, Liu Yonghao told Feng Yu that he could invest as a private investor. That means Feng Yu could invest 100 million RMB out of his own pocket in return for 1% shares.

If Feng Yu invested and then disclose his wealth, he should have no problems getting a place in the Board of Directors even when he owns 1% shares.

Liu Yonghao felt apologetic towards Feng Yu. Feng Yu had shown his interest and his financial capabilities. But Liu Yonghao told Feng Yu that most of those companies were ineligible.

Feng Yu was okay with it. He was also not interested in investing a lot of his money. Minsheng bank would yield no returns for the time being. He will increase his investments 8 to 9 years later.

Feng Yu called Zhong Qianxian to tell him that he decided to halt Lehaha’s investment in Minsheng bank and its better for Lehaha to carry on with their development plans.

Zhong Qingxian was also relieved. If Lehaha were to invest its funds into Minsheng bank, his plans for Lehaha would be disrupted. Now, it was the best opportunity for Lehaha to grow rapidly.

Lehaha had a competitor for its tea beverages. The competitor was Xurisheng Group.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Xurisheng Group was China’s market leader in tea beverages and was the first company to introduce tea beverages. This company held the number one position until the year 2000.

But in this life, the market leader of tea beverages had become Lehaha. No only Lehaha was the first to introduce tea beverages, it still owns the trademark for Red Tea.

But Xurisheng Group still introduced their product, and it was named as Ice Tea. But actually, it was Ice Red Tea.

Xurisheng Group Ice Tea was only sold in two provinces. It was because their production was not capable enough and their brand was not established.

If it wasn’t for Xurisheng Group Ice Tea was a carbonated can drink, no one will buy their products.

In this era, carbonated drinks were extremely popular in China. Letting out a loud burp after drinking a can of carbonated drink feels good. Also, many Chinese felt canned drinks were high-class products and were better than bottled drinks!

Xurisheng Group was considered an imitator. Lehaha had gotten the head start and had introduced the Refreshing series of carbonated drinks. They secured the number 2 position for the beverage sales for this summer. The number one position was still Jianlibao.

It was easy for Lehaha to suppress Xurisheng Group, but Xurisheng Group suddenly introduced a new product. It’s warm tea.

It will be the winter season soon, and carbonated drinks’ sales will drop. But Xurisheng Group introduced warm tea beverage now and Zhong Qingxian was pissed.

Zhong Qingxian was not able to beat Jianlibao, as Jianlibao had already been exported overseas. Jianlibao was also China’s top beverage company for years. But Xurisheng Group was a newly set up company and was now trying to snatch Lehaha’s market share.

Don’t you know that Lebaishi’s carbonated drinks were also beaten by us?!

Lehaha will also be introducing warm beverages. This warm beverage was Tang, a kind of powdered fruit drink!

Feng Yu had drunk Tang before in his previous life. Also, there was nothing special with the taste, but it felt good during winter. The Chinese were used to powdered beverages in the era because of another popular product in China. It was a foreign brand drink. Cola Cao!

Lehaha had been researching Cola Cao’s formula. But they were unable to replicate the taste. Even if they produced a product that tastes similar to Cola Cao, it was also useless. Cola Cao had entered the Chinese market in 1990 and had set up a joint venture factory. It positions itself as a high-end nutritional drink. It will not be easy to beat Cola Cao.

But Zhong Qingxian did not want to give up. If Lehaha was able to establish their brand in the warm beverage market, then they will be able to rival and even beat Jianlibao.

Chapter 668 – Beverage wars (Part 2 of 2)

Feng Yu tasted a cup of Lehaha’s latest product, fruit Tang. It was a warm, orange drink. The taste was normal. It did not taste good or bad. It was a bit sour and sweet. It was similar to what Feng Yu had drunk in his previous life. There should be people who like this taste.

But Feng Yu was not satisfied. How can this drink compete with Cola Cao? If Lehaha’s target were on the Xurisheng Group, then they would have set their sights too low. If Lehaha were to compete with some other companies, then it must be the best company out there. What’s the point of competing with a weaker competitor?

In Feng Yu’s previous life, what was China’s most popular hot beverage? It was not tea or coffee. It was not Cola Cao too. It was milk tea!

The more famous brand of milk tea was U.Loveit and Xiang Piao Piao. Currently, these two instant milk tea were still not available.

The advantages of milk tea were different from the Cola Cao. Cola Cao had positioned its product as a nutrition drink and good taste. The selling point for Milk tea was only the taste. In the future, coffee and chocolate were added to the milk tea.

Zhong Qingxian frowned: “That’s right. Children like to drink this, but adults felt it was too sweet. But after we lower the sugar content, children do not like it. We can’t find the midpoint. This is an instant beverage, and we can’t tell our customers to add in sugar.”

Feng Yu wanted to tell him that it’s not impossible to ask consumers to add in sugar to instant beverages. In the future, many drinks come with a small sachet of sugar. But this Tang were all in big packaging. It will be troublesome to pack sugar sachets together.

“Then, we will target the children as our main segment. After all, our brand has been targeting the children market. But we cannot only have orange favor. We can introduce pineapple, apple, etc. favors. Ask your staff to research on that. Even if the sales are not good, at least we can increase the variety of our products and prevent other competitors from appearing.”

Zhong Qingxian nodded. “I have already asked my people to develop other favors. Orange favor was the easiest to develop and lots of consumers like this favour. But with just this favour, we won’t be able to beat Cola Cao. After the health supplement product incident, nutrition products appeared. Cola Cao was one of them and had already acquired a strong customer base. It was even thought to be an imported product. Their products were also advertised on CCTV. It will be tough to compete with them.”

“Have you thought of developing a similar product to compete with Cola Cao?” Feng Yu asked.

“You are saying that we produce this type of chocolate milk powder? We do have the expertise to produce milk powder, but the taste is not as good as them. It is also hard to control the nutrition values. Cola Cao only has one product, and we do not have any advantage with our brand.” Zhong Qingxian frowned.

Zhong Qingxian had thought about this before. Unless he used aggressive advertising, but that will increase the cost. If the product fails, the losses will be a lot. The advertising fees could be used to market their yogurt and tea beverages. These beverages have lots of competitors.

“Have you been to Taiwan to check out the market there? Have you seen the bubble tea there?” Bubble tea had appeared for 3 months, and it took over Taiwan’s beverage scene. Zhong Qingxian should have tasted it before.

“Bubble Tea? I have drunk it before. Why?”

“What do you think of that milk tea?”

“It tastes alright. The tea is just normal, and I don’t quite like it. But there are lots of people who love it. Manager Feng, are you telling me that we should produce this bubble tea?”

“Why not? It should not be difficult to produce this, right? We can just buy the formula from them or develop it ourselves.”

Currently, there was powder tea in the market. But it was not mixed with milk powder. Customers had to mix it themselves.

Lehaha only needs to find the right proportion of tea and milk and pack it together. Even the raw ingredients could be purchased outside, and they do not need to produce it themselves.

Even the pearls or jelly in the bubble tea could be purchased outside or get some companies to produce for them. All they need to do was to print Lehaha’s label on the package. It was effortless.

“This…… it seems possible. But will the Chinese like this favor?” Zhong Qingxian still has some hesitations.

“If you don’t try, how will you know that no one likes it? This milk tea just needs to have a strong fragrance. Consumers must be attracted to the fragrance. Even if it was not popular in China, we could export it overseas, like Taiwan or Hong Kong. Also, this will be a new product to compete with Cola Cao. We can introduce a milk tea with chocolate favor.”

“Chocolate favor milk tea? Can it still be called milk tea?”

“Don’t worry about this. As long as consumers like it, it is a success. Have you drunk coffee before? The westerns like to drink coffee, and there are many cafes in the coastal cities. The prices are outrageous, and the cost is low. It is mainly for people who want to try what foreigners’ beverage tastes like. We can also satisfy these people curiosity by introducing coffee favor milk tea.”

Zhong Qingxian was confused. He felt what Feng Yu say was not right. Traditional bubble tea might still be possible. Just like what Feng Yu said, they could still export it to Taiwan, and they will not suffer any losses.

But milk tea mixed with chocolate and coffee? It will be a product that’s either here nor there. Who would like it?

Zhong Qingxian was not bold enough to try out new things. Feng Yu remembered Lehaha in his previous life was adventurous with their products. They had introduced Coffee cola, beer favored tea, Kvass, etc. Although people were criticizing their products, they still made profits.

“Ok. Manager Feng, I will get the R&D staffs to test it. But our factory’s capacity might not be enough. Although we have been expanding our factories, we have not produced such products before, and we do not have existing production lines. This will be a huge investment.”

“You can pick the Western region for our new factories. Have you heard of the Guangcai program?”

“Guangcai program? I have heard of it. Are you telling me that we should join this program?” Someone had invited Zhong Qingxian in the past but was rejected. It was because Zhong Qingxian does not have intentions of setting up new branch factories at that time.

“Why not? We can help society and increase our brand image at the same time. Also, the factory over there will be producing powder form beverages. We do not need to worry about transportation. It doesn’t matter even if the transportation takes a long time, as the expiry date is long and will not turn bad easily. The labor cost and land are also very cheap. Overall, our losses will not be high. Most importantly, we will be able to leave a good impression with the leaders. Don’t you want to be known as an entrepreneur with a conscience?”

“Alright. I will look into it. If everything is alright, then Lehaha will join the Guangcai program and contribute to the nation.”

“That’s settled then. Let us celebrate our success in advance.”

Zhong Qingxian paused for a while and asked. “Manager Feng, will there really be people who like this combination?”

Feng Yu: “……” You still don’t believe what I said!

Translator’s note:

Bubble Tea

Chapter 669 – Young spokesperson

Although Zhong Qingxian did not really believe Feng Yu’s words, he still gets his men to develop the formula, and he went to contact other factories as their contractors.

Zhong Qingxian needs to look for 3 contractor factories. The first factory must be a factory that can produce milk tea powder. Zhong Qingxian’s target was a milk powder factory. This factory could produce Tang, creamer, tea powder, coffee powder, chocolate powder, etc. It can also produce artificial food coloring and preservatives.

The next type of factory Zhong Qingxian was looking for was a factory that could produce tapioca balls. He looked for some food processing factories and placed some orders. This was only the testing phase. One or two small factories will be enough to provide the supply. If this product was really popular, then Lehaha will produce it themselves in their western region new factory next year.

The third contractor was for producing coconut jelly. Zhong Qingxian contacted a few factories but was not satisfied with the results. Also, the cost of coconut jelly was too high.

Lehaha could produce the packaging by themselves in their factories. Of course, it could also be outsourced.

Lehaha could use plastic cups, but heat resistant plastic cups were too expensive. The cost of the cups was higher than the milk tea powder.

Feng Yu suggested using paper cups. Paper cups have been in the market for quite some time, and the cost was not high. But Zhong Qingxian felt it will lower their milk tea status.

Feng Yu argued that those coffee cafes were also using paper cups. Paper cups were one-time use, and it is more hygienic. The cost was also low and not easily damaged. It was also easy to transport as it is very light. The paper cups just need to be heat and water resistant. No one will feel that this will make the product look, low class. Maybe the office workers might even think this product is a high-end product.

In the end, Zhong Qingxian chose to believe Feng Yu and decided to use paper cups. The packaging designs were handed over to Liu Michael. They had been working together on many past projects.

The paper cup will have the cartoon character of Lehaha printed on it. The other side will be a picture of a cup of milk tea. It was simple and straightforward.

Feng Yu looked at Lehaha’s cartoon picture and frowned. This packaging seems more like a children’s drink. This milk tea was suitable for all age groups, but the main target segment should be young adults.

“Qingxian, I have received your fax. But the designs on the cup…… I feel that we should not add the cartoon character figure on the cup. We should use a picture of a beautiful woman or a handsome man.”

“Picture of a beautiful woman and man? Are you trying to say that we should find someone attractive to endorse this product?”

“That’s right. We do not need anyone extremely famous. We just need to get someone with a good image. This milk tea main target segment is young consumers. Think about it. Who is more willing to accept new things? Is it young adults? Also, when we market this product, we can say this is Taiwanese favor. This will let the consumers have the impression that this is an imported product. This will satisfy the consumers’ curiosity of what overseas beverages taste like.” Feng Yu said.

“Manager Feng, do you have someone in mind?”

“The most suitable artiste should be from Taiwan. I like The Little Tigers. We can also get a pretty young model to partner with them.”

“The Little Tigers? They are quite famous, and their endorsement fees should be very high.” Zhong Qingxian was not willing to spend so much on endorsements. He seldom listens to pop songs, but he knew who the Little Tigers were. That proves the Little Tigers were extremely popular and an artiste’s endorsement fees were based on their popularity.

“Don’t worry about the price. Most importantly, they are Taiwanese idols, and they suit our product. Actually, 2 million RMB per year is enough. If you are not confident, let me speak to them.”

Since the product was Taiwan milk tea, how can they not get Taiwanese celebrities to endorse it? It would be weird if Chinese celebrities were to endorse this product. Furthermore, China’s relationship with Taiwan had improved recently. Taiwanese stars also wanted to enter the Chinese market. Feng Yu was not confident of letting Taiwanese celebrities to perform in the Spring Festival Gala Night, but the New Year Gala Dinner was not a problem. The New Year Gala Dinner was China’s second-highest rating program.

“Ok. I will get my staff to contact the Little Tigers’ manager and invite him over.”

……

“Mr. Song, the conditions we are offering is very sincere. 1 million RMB endorsement fee for a year, and we will let Little Tigers perform on one of China’s biggest stage. No one other than me can promise you this. Also, Lehaha is an influential company, and we will be entering Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and other Southeast Asia markets soon. This will be a boost to Little Tigers’ popularity.” Feng Yu said to the Little Tigers’ manager, Song Wen.

“Mr. Feng, our Little Tigers are already well known in Asia. Do we still need other people’s help to boost their popularity? 1 million RMB is an insult to the Little Tigers. My minimum expectation is at least 5 million a year for a 5 years contract.” Song Wen pulled a long face. But he did not walk away.

“Mr. Song, do you think the Little Tigers is more popular than Jackie Chan? Do you know how much I paid him to endorse for my company? 3 years contract, 4 million RMB.” It should be 4 million RMB per year, but Feng Yu did not make it clear.

Song Wen was shocked. How could Jackie Chan’s endorsement fee be so low? He was a superstar and one of the most popular Action Star in Asia. His endorsement fees should be at least 5 million HKD.

“Mr. Song, I have connections to let Little Tigers perform in CCTV. This is not something others can do. To put things bluntly, I can also stop the Little Tigers from entering the Chinese market. Although the endorsement fees I am offering is not high, but it will stimulate their record sales and increase their popularity.”

“Increase the Little Tigers’ popularity? Do you have a record label or artist management company? Our Little Tigers had held concerts in China.” The Little Tigers was one of the earliest Taiwanese celebrities to hold concerts in China, and Song Wen was very proud of this.

“I own the world’s biggest VCD disc production line. I can give a VCD of their concert to everyone who buys a VCD player and helps them develop in China. Wind and Rain VCD and Aiwa VCD are my companies. You should know what this means.”

Song Wen’s jaw dropped. He thought Feng Yu was the son or relative of Lehaha’s boss. He never expects him to be a big boss!

With this big boss’s support, the Little Tigers’ development in China will undoubtedly be faster. If the Little Tigers were able to enter the Chinese market and held more concerts, the profits will be much higher.

“1 million RMB is really very low. 3 million RMB per year for a 5-year contract.”

“5 years? If I remember correctly, men in Taiwan have to be enlisted. The last time the Little Tigers are disbanded is because one of them entered the army. How will I know if this group still exist 3 years later? You expect me to sign a 5-year contract with you? I will take a step back too. 4 years is the maximum. 3 million RMB for 1 year is too high. Jackie Chan’s endorsement fees were only slightly more than 1 million in China. Ok. I will factor in inflation. I will offer 1.5 million RMB endorsement fees. The contract duration is 4 years. The total will be 6 million RMB. This is my final offer.”

“Mr. Feng, I need to consider this.”

“Ok. Don’t let me wait too long. We are also considering Aaron Kwok.”

From Song Wen’s expression, Feng Yu knew he will accept the deal.

Chapter 670 – Meeting the Little Tigers

Song Wen went back to consider the deal. He still asked his friends about Wind and Rain VCD and Aiwa VCD. He found out that the boss behind these two brands was a young man. He also found out that this young man was extremely wealthy and have lots of connections.

If the Little Tigers were to enter the Chinese market, they would need someone like this to take care of them. This way, the Little Tigers will not be threatened in China like the previous time.

Although the endorsement fees were lower, if the popularity in China could increase, then they can charge higher endorsement fees for other products. If the Little Tigers could get more endorsement deals in China because of their increased fame, they will make much more.

Song Wen reported back to his company, and the company agreed. Even Jackie Chan’s endorsement fees in China were not high, what else can they expect for the Little Tigers? Also, Aaron Kwok was more popular than the Little Tigers in Hong Kong and China. If Aaron Kwok signed the deal, then the Little Tigers will miss this opportunity.

The next day, Song Wen signed the contract with Zhong Qingxian. 6 million RMB for a 4 years endorsement contract. The amount will be paid annually. Each year, the Little Tigers had to film a TV commercial and attend a promotional event. There were also print ads. The pictures of the Little Tigers will also be printed on Lehaha’s milk tea paper cups.

Hmmm, the promotional event could be held at Tai Hua Supermarkets. The returns will be doubled. This was a great deal!

The female actress was also a young female artiste from The Little Tigers’ agency. Her fees were much cheaper. It was only 50,000 RMB per year, and the contract duration was 4 years.

Feng Yu could not remember what happened to this female artiste in the future. That means she did not make it big in the future. So, there was no need to sign a long term contract with her.

After the issue of spokesperson was settled, they started to look for people to film the commercial. The paper cups were also redesigned.

Feng Yu looked at the new paper cups. There was a picture of the Little Tigers with a cup of milk tea each, offering to the girl. The girl had a shy look on her face.

Yes. This picture looks good. Every girl will wish they were the girl in the picture. Even if only young female consumers like to drink this tea, the sales will not be low. Furthermore, this female artiste was young and pretty. She will be able to attract many young male consumers.

The filming for the commercial started, and Feng Yu gave some suggestions. There was a storyline in this commercial. 3 boys were wooing a young girl. But they should not be foolish looking. One of them should act attentive, one should try to be cool, and one should look shy. The 3 of them should not be running after the girl with a cup of milk tea each.

There should also be several versions of the commercial and they will pick the best footages to edit.

During filming, Feng Yu brought Li Na to the set. Li Na had always wanted to meet the Little Tigers. Today was the day where her wish come true.

When Li Na heard that she will be meeting the Little Tigers, she immediately skips school. Li Na also called Zhang Han to tell her about it. In the end, Zhang Han and Wen Dongjun also tag along.

“You invited the Little Tigers over? What commercial are you filming? Is it for the cars?”

“Milk tea.”

“Milk tea? What is that? Does it taste good?” Wen Dongjun immediately asked.

“It should taste not bad. But it is still not produced yet. The cups they are holding are all empty cups.”

Wen Dongjun had a disappointed look on his face when Feng Yu said that. It was a torture for him to not taste the milk tea after hearing it.

……

“Cut! Ok. It’s a wrap!” The director shouted.

The workers start to pack the lights and props. Wen Dongjun was the first to run over. “Handsome Tiger, I really like you!”

Zhang Han grabbed Wen Dongjun and pulled him behind. He was an embarrassment to them. Wen Dongjun was facing Thunder Tiger when he said that!

Luckily, the 3 members of Little Tigers were about the same age as Wen Dongjun and the rest, and they were artists. They will not get angry with their fans. They just treat it as a joke.

“Mr. Feng, your script for this commercial is very interesting. I am thinking of going into acting in the future.” Well-behaved tiger said.

“You will be able to act in a top-rated drama, like Qiong Yao dramas, in the future.” Feng Yu said with an ‘I know you will make it big’ look on his face.

Without Well-behaved tiger acting in <My Fair Princess>, the drama would not be as exciting. Although Well-behaved tiger was still young, his role in the drama was likable by many viewers.

“Thank you for your kind words.”

“Feng Yu, can you let us take a picture with them?” Wen Dongjun shouted.

“Photographer, can you help us take a picture?” Feng Yu waved to a photographer at the set.

Feng Yu was the boss, and the photographer did not dare to reject him. He immediately ran over. But he held the camera for a while without pressing the shutter.

“Sir, you are too tall. The picture will look weird. Can you do a half squat?”

Wen Dongjun pointed to himself. Me? Half squat? Damn! All I wanted was a picture with the Little Tigers, and I still need to squat down? Is it my fault for being tall?

Feng Yu tried to hold back his laughter. Who ask you to eat so much and grow so tall? Serve you, right!

Li Na and the rest were not those crazy die-hard fans Feng Yu saw in his previous life. Although they were happy to meet their idols, there was not screaming or grabbing.

Feng Yu looked at the 3 members of the Little Tigers during the photo taking. They were well behaved, and their eyes were clear. Feng Yu was satisfied with them. If anyone of them had designs on Li Na, he would not hold back!

Feng Yu invited everyone to have dinner together, and the Little Tigers agreed. Li Na and the rest were overjoyed. They could chat with their idols longer.

During dinner, Li Na asked softly: “Can we hear you sing now?”

The Little Tigers looked at each other and then look at their manager, Song Wen. Song Wen nodded. This question was considered very rude because it will lower their status. But they could tell Li Na did not have any ill intentions and Feng Yu was around.

The Little Tigers sang <Love>. They did not dance and just sang. Feng Yu got to admit that these 3 Tigers had good vocals.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered a song. This song was most suitable to be the song for the commercial and suits the Little Tigers’ vocals.

“I suddenly remember a song I composed a few days ago. It is a song that suits you all. I will give this song to you all.”

When Feng Yu said this, the 3 members of the Little Tigers could feel Feng Yu was trying to take care of them. But the song? Their songs were given to them from their company and were carefully selected from thousands of songs. Song Wen gave a look to the Little Tigers. No matter what Manager Feng’s song was, they must praise it. They must not let Manager Feng feel embarrassed.

If this song was nothing special, then they can send it to some famous composer to edit it slightly and record it in their next album. But if the song really sucks, then Song Wen will have to fend it off. The Little Tigers could not refuse, and their manager had to step in and be the bad guy.

“You compose another song?” Li Na’s eyes were shining like little stars.

Another? The Little Tigers looked at each other. It can’t be. This Manager Feng had composed songs before? The song he wrote was good? They could tell it from Li Na’s eyes. Even when Li Na first met them, she did not have this worship look in her eyes.

“Yes. I have written it for you. But I do not have a guitar with me. So, I will just sing it straight.” Feng Yu looked at Li Na with loving eyes.

Chapter 671 – My Good Mood

Everyone was looking at Feng Yu. But one side of the table was looking at him with doubts, and the other side was looking at him with adoration. Even Wen Dongjun knew Feng Yu’s vocals were terrible, but the songs he wrote were good. Na Ying and Nan Ge had sung Feng Yu’s songs and became very famous.

Feng Yu used a chopstick to knock on a bowl.

“Falling in love with you is like drinking milk tea, warm and there is aftertaste in. The world will change, the love will fade, it’s not terrible.

Let me express my love in other ways. Love not just words. When I have concerns, love is more harmonious, not complicated.

I want to go shopping, I want to meet, I miss you until 12 midnight, I don’t feel tired. I will be greedy for your love forever. I want to make use of every day. I am elated to fall in love with you.

My good mood is up to you. From now on, I will not waver. Do you want to grow old with me, let me know? My good mood is up to you, leave no question marks for my love. All the answers will be all revealed, we are like this, we need each other.”

Feng Yu changed some of the lyrics, and it could be used in the commercial. The first line should be “drinking tea,” but Feng Yu changed it to “drinking milk tea.”

When Feng Yu sang the first line, Song Wen’s face changed. Feng Yu’s voice was really not suitable for singing. But maybe Feng Yu had put emotions into his singing, and they felt this song was good.

The lyrics for this song was not fantastic, and the melody was not complicated. The song was about a man expressing his love for a woman.

They looked at Li Na, who was beside Feng Yu, and they knew this song was written base on what both of them had gone through. But was this song really written by Feng Yu?

If this were a comic, Li Na’s eyes would have been changed to the heart shape. The lyrics in this song was obviously telling Li Na how much Feng Yu love her.

Li Na was shy as Feng Yu sang this song to her in front of the Little Tigers. Why did he sing this song in front of so many people? He should wait until they are at home alone.

After Feng Yu finished the song, he held Li Na’s hand. Li Na’s face was as red as a tomato. She looked down and kept quiet.

Huh? What’s wrong with my singing? Although the vocals were not that good, Feng Yu had put in his emotions into this song and did not go out of tune. He had practiced this song in KTV during his previous life. There should be no problem.

Where is the applause?

Clap…… clap…… clap……

Wen Dongjun grew up with Feng Yu, and he immediately knows that Feng Yu was waiting for applause from his look. He immediately starts to clap.

Song Wen and the Little Tigers recovered from their shock and start to clap. They must admit that this song was well written. If this song was edited slightly, it should be able to become a hit.

“Mr. Feng, this song is composed by you?” Song Wen knew the answer in his heart, but he was still not very sure. This song was too well written, and how can a businessman, without a music background write this song?

“You still don’t believe him? Have you heard of Na Ying’s <The day doesn’t know the night>? Sun Nan’s <I Believe>? He is the one who wrote the songs for them. You all really think that only you all know how to write songs?” Wen Dongjun retorted.

“That’s not what I meant. What I wanted to ask is Mr. Feng really want to give this song to the Little Tigers? Is he serious?” Song Wen asked.

The two songs written by Mr. Feng were famous in Taiwan. Mr. Feng was really a genius. Not only he was good at doing business, but he was also talented in writing songs!

Just this song alone was worth recording an album. I must get someone to write some more songs of similar style. The Little Tigers will definitely be more famous than now.

“Do I look like someone who likes to joke? I said I will give this song to them and I will keep to my words. I only know numbered musical notation. I will write it down for you and you all can get someone to rearrange it. I had only sung the first part. The second part is about the same. How is it? Does this song suit the Little Tigers?”

Before Song Wen could answer, Handsome tiger said: “This song is really suitable for us. Thank you, Manager Feng, for giving us such a beautiful song. The first line of this song seems to suit this milk tea commercial.”

Handsome tiger was also curious. This song should be written some time ago. But have Mr. Feng drank milk tea then? If this song was written recently, then Mr. Feng should not be able to sing it so well. It was apparent that Mr. Feng had practiced singing this song. This was too weird.

But no matter what, this song suits their vocals and style. If the Little Tigers performed this song, they should be able to get more fans. Mr. Feng was really a genius, and they should not have doubted him earlier.

“I wrote this song when I had nothing to do. I had changed some of the lyrics. Now you mentioned it, I also think it is suitable for this commercial. You all should get someone to prepare this song, and we will use it for this commercial.” Feng Yu said.

It was because of Well-behaved Tiger, Feng Yu remembered this song. After the Little Tigers disbanded, this was Well-behaved Tiger’s only song that became famous.

“Don’t worry Manager Feng, I will get someone to write out this song tonight. I will make sure we will record this song as soon as possible. But what about the royalties and rights of this song?”

“There is no need for all those. I said that this song is a gift to them. Let them sing more nice songs for us.” Feng Yu waved his hand. How many royalties can there be for a song?

After dinner, Feng Yu took out a piece of paper and wrote down the numbered notation and lyrics of the song before leaving with Li Na.

In the car, Li Na was looking at Feng Yu lovingly without saying a word.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Are you happy to meet the Little Tigers?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes. But I am happier to hear the song you wrote. Your song is really well written, and your singing is great.”

“Better than the Little Tigers?” Feng Yu asked shyly.

“Better than them.” Li Na replied.

Feng Yu was perfect in Li Na’s eyes. Even her idols, the Little Tigers, cannot be compared with Feng Yu in anyways. Furthermore, Feng Yu knew how to write songs. How many of the Little Tigers’ songs were written by them?

Feng Yu laughed and said: “I love the look on your face when you lie.”

“Ahh…..” Li Na punched Feng Yu lightly.

“Hahaha, I will sing the song for you later.”

……

“…… my good mood is up to you……”

Feng Yu played the guitar and sang this song to Li Na. Li Na was memorized by Feng Yu’s singing.

“Play it one more time.”

“Ok. One more time.”

After singing the song again, Feng Yu was about to put down his guitar when Li Na said. “I love this song. Play it again.”

Feng Yu looked at his fingers. Although he had used a pick, his fingers still hurt. But when he saw Li Na’s face, he gritted his teeth and played the song again.

After the song ended, Feng Yu could tell Li Na was about to say something. He immediately says: “My fingers are hurting. I will not play the guitar and just sing it to you. How about I teach you this song?”

Li Na massaged Feng Yu’s fingers for him. “Let’s stop. Why didn’t you tell me that your fingers hurt?”

“You want to listen to this song, so I will sing it for you. Because…… my good mood is up to you……”

Feng Yu finished his sentence and carried Li Na from the sofa and walked towards the bedroom. He wants to do something that will let him have a better mood!

Chapter 672 – Does your company needs money?

Zhong Qingxian had been looking for contractors. The commercial was filmed, and it was in the post editing phase. The formula was also developed, and he had let many people taste it. The results were positive.

Feng Yu also said that this milk tea tastes good. It will surely sell well.

Through connections, Zhong Qingxian got the approvals from the government and was permitted to produce and sell this new product. But the issue of contractors was still not finalized.

Zhong Qingxian had already contacted a few factories. These factories had the capabilities to deliver what he wanted, and he will be deciding which factory to work with these few days. After that, the production will start.

Feng Yu had agreed to let Tai Hua Supermarket sell Lehaha’s milk tea first. Next year, after CCTV start to advertise this milk tea, this milk tea will be introduced to the rest of the nation.

At this moment, a Guangdong factory, which manufactures children food products, came knocking on the door. This factory wanted to be Lehaha’s contractor for tapioca balls and coconut jelly.

“Mr. Zhong, our company might not be big, but we can surely meet Lehaha’s order. the profits we want is also not high.” Li Dajun said anxiously.

“Manager Li, despite what you said, but business is business. We will be investing a large amount for the initial phase, and we cannot afford any failures. Your company is set up not long ago, and your factory is not big. You also do not have a lot of workers. How can we trust you?” Zhong Qingxian replied.

If anybody could walk in and claim that they could deliver whatever we want, and I give them the contract, then Lehaha would have been bankrupt a long time ago. I also need to be responsible for Lehaha’s shareholders and workers.

“We have already taken a bank loan, and we are expanding our factory now. We have also bought the machinery, and our new workers are under training. We will definitely deliver your order. You can set the compensation amount higher. If we can’t deliver, we are willing to compensate for a higher amount for breaking the contract.” Li Dajun begged.

“Higher compensation? I don’t think this is a good idea. Even if the compensation amount is higher, you all still have to be able to afford to compensate us. Your company is only worth 1 to 2 million RMB. If something goes wrong, the bank will freeze your accounts first because of your loans. That means we will not get a single cent of compensation. If you delay the production of our products, our losses might be up to tens of millions. Can you compensate us?” Zhong Qingxian was pissed.

“Mr. Zhong, we might be selling jelly, but our jelly is selling very well. There will be no problems. I guarantee that there will be no issue with our quality.”

“Enough. It’s the only jelly. There are hundreds of factories producing jelly in China. Most of them are bigger than your company. Why should we give you this contract? Furthermore, if you accept our order, do you still have people to produce jelly? Do you still have production lines? Are you going to be our contractor full time? I am very busy. Xiao Wang, send him out!”

Zhong Qingxian stood up and walked out of the meeting room. Feng Yu was at Lehaha, and he did not have time to waste with a small factory.

“Mr. Zhong, our Strong Group is very sincere to work with you all. Please believe us!” Li Dajun shouted.

Feng Yu was in the meeting room next door, and he heard the commotion outside. He walked out: “Qingxian, what’s wrong?”

“A small company heard that we were looking for contractors and came to look for us.” Zhong Qingxian explained.

“Oh. Is the company too small?”

“It’s not only small. Although they are also producing food products, they are manufacturing children jelly products. They do not meet our requirements.”

Li Dajun saw this person could casually speak to Mr. Zhong, he immediately shouted at Feng Yu. “Sir, our Strong Group really have the potential. Please consider us.”

“Xiao Wang, call the security to drag him out!” Zhong Qingxian was furious. What type of person was this?

“Wait!” Feng Yu suddenly stopped Xiao Wang. “What is your company called again?”

“Guangdong Strong Group. We manufacture jelly. We started last year, but we are growing rapidly. In less than 2 years, our value has increased by several folds.” Li Dajun said.

“That is because your foundation is small. Even if your value had increased by several folds, your company is worth 2 million RMB at most.” Zhong Qingxian added.

You want to trick Manager Feng with these words? What if Manager Feng agreed and your factory cannot keep up with the production and deliver the order?

Feng Yu heard Li Dajun, and he frowned. Damn. I asked Zhong Qingxian to name the brand of milk tea as U.Loveit and Strong Group immediately came knocking on our doors. Was this coincident? But how did this famous Strong Group become like this?

“Xiao Wang, prepare some tea. Qingxian, I would like to have a chat with him.”

Feng Yu had spoken, and Zhong Qingxian could not reject him. He also entered the meeting room with Feng Yu. He does not want this Li Dajun to trick Feng Yu and let Lehaha suffer losses.

Feng Yu seldom interfere with Lehaha’s management. He only gave some useful suggestions before. How come he was so interested in this Strong Group today?

Could it be that Manager Feng wants Lehaha to start producing jelly too? But anyone can produce jelly. Even if the jelly were selling under Lehaha’s brand, the sales would not be good. It might even be a failed product. Lehaha still does not have any failed products. Their first failed product must not be jelly.

“What is your name? I am one of Lehaha’s shareholders. I do not have more authority than Mr. Zhong, but I still have some say in this company. Tell me why you are so confident that you can be Lehaha’s contractor?”

“I have worked in a food production plant in Taiwan. That factory is producing tapioca balls. Also, our company has strict management of our factory’s food safety and hygiene. You all do not need to worry about this aspect, and we will not give Lehaha any problems. Our workers are all very hard working, and we will deliver the order.”

Feng Yu shook his head. “Our order is too big, and your company will not be able to handle it. Also, have you produced coconut jelly before and have your company made any canned products before?”

“We will be introducing a new type of jelly. There are fruits added into the jelly. We also have research on coconut before. We are confident that we will be able to deliver the order. Sir, Mr. Zhong, you cannot only get one contractor to prepare your order. If there is any problem, your product will be affected. We only want to be one of your contractors. We do not need to take on the full order.” Li Dajun said.

Feng Yu frowned. What Li Dajun said was true. If all the eggs were kept in one basket, all the eggs might be gone if there were any accidents.

“Qingxian, what is the other company you have in mind? Have you signed the contract?”

“China Coconut Palm Group will be helping to manufacture the coconut jelly for us. Dongnan Sanfa Company will be producing the tapioca balls, which is the pearls in the milk tea. We still have not signed the contract as we are still considering.”

“Why not give Strong Group some orders to help them out? I think his factory really need this order.” Feng Yu said.

Since Feng Yu had said, Zhong Qingxian nodded. “Ok. We will give them some orders, but the quantity will not be large. After all, this company will not be able to manage big orders. Also, if there are any problems, we will terminate the contract immediately.”

Feng Yu turned and looked at Li Dajun. “Your problem is solved.”

“Thank you, Mr. Zhong. Thank You, sir.”

A wide grin appeared on Feng Yu’s face. “Oh, your company is growing. Does your company need money?”

Chapter 673 – Should we acquire them?

Li Dajun and Zhong Qingxian were stunned when Feng Yu asked this question.  Feng Yu wants to invest in Strong Group?

Zhong Qingxian frowned. This was a small company and was it worth to invest in it? It’s only a company that produce jelly. There were several such companies in Hangzhou alone. What’s so special about making jelly?

Feng Yu was interested in this Strong Group or this Li Dajun? However, this Li Dajun was very hardworking. He knew that we were looking for contractors, that means he has some connections. But other than this, he did not have any other strong traits.

Zhong Qingxian knew Feng Yu likes to invest. But this investment was unnecessary. There was nothing special about this company at all.

Li Dajun looked at Feng Yu, confused. What does this gentleman mean? How come I feel that he was trying to help me? Have I met him before?

“Sir……”

“My surname is Feng.”

“Mr. Feng, I do not understand what you mean.” Li Dajun said.

“You approached us and wanted to be our contractor. That means your company is not doing well, right? Although you said that your company had grown several times but what Qingxian said was right. Your company was not big in the first place. The jelly market is very developed, and everyone in this market is making money. So, it is normal for your company to make some too.”

“Huh…… My company is in difficulties because so some bad debts. But please be assured that it will not affect Lehaha’s orders.”

Feng Yu waved his hand. “I am not worried about that. What I am saying is I can invest in your company if your company lacks money. Just like Lehaha, I will invest in you all and will not interfere with your company’s operations and management. You will still be in charge of the company, and I will just collect my share of the profits.”

Li Dajun looked at Zhong Qingxian puzzledly. Zhong Qingxian nodded: “Manager Feng is our Lehaha’s main shareholder, and he had never interfered with the company’s operations and management. You can rest assured.”

“Mr. Feng, oh…… Manager Feng, Strong Group is set up by a few brothers and me. Although I am in charge, I still need to discuss with the rest.”

“You should. Let me know after you all have reached a decision. You can contact me through this number. No matter how much you want me to invest, I will be able to satisfy you.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

How many investments can a small factory that’s worth 1 to 2 million need? If they want a large amount, they will not be able to control Strong Group.

When Li Dajun left, he was still feeling dizzy. Because of bad debt, his company needs funds urgently to solve their cashflow problems. He had come over to collect his debts and overheard someone saying Lehaha was looking for contractors in a restaurant. So, he came over to try to get a small contract. He needs to increase the income of his company to tide them over this crisis.

But Zhong Qingxian rejected Li Dajun because of his company’s size and that Mr. Feng appeared. He persuaded Zhong Qingxian to give Strong Group a chance.

Although this was not a big order, it was sufficient to solve the company’s cash flow problems. That customer’s debt will be repaid next month. After the debt was collected, even without Lehaha’s contract, and they concentrate on producing jelly, the company will also make profits.

But at this moment, Mr. Feng wanted to invest in their company. He even claims he was able to invest any amount we needed. Why does he want to do this?

Li Dajun was also having the same thoughts as Zhong Qingxian. It’s the only jelly. There were lots of companies that were producing the same products. Even Lehaha can produce jelly or buyout some smaller factories. Why did Mr. Feng choose his company?

Was it because Mr. Feng heard that he will be introducing Jelly with fruits and he decided to invest in the company? But adding fruits to jelly will shorten the shelf life of the product, and he was still not sure how the market will respond to this new product.

Also, this new product was still in the R&D phase. It was still not ready yet as they still could not get the right taste and texture. Should I inform Mr. Feng about this?

If I keep quiet about this, then Stong Group will be able to get this investment and don’t need to worry about the bank loan repayments. But that will be cheating. If Mr. Feng found out the truth, there might be severe consequences.

If I tell Mr. Feng, I might be able to leave a good impression with Mr. Feng, but I might lose this investment. Strong Group will remain this way and might not have an opportunity to become the top jelly producer in China.

Li Dajun was in a dilemma.

……

“Manager Feng, why are you investing in that small company? If you are thinking of producing jelly, we can acquire a jelly factory or invest in a bigger jelly factory. That Stong Group is too small and did not have any potential.” After Li Dajun left, Zhong Qingxian asked.

“Don’t worry about this. If you have spare cash, you can also invest in this company. As for other jelly company, I am not interested.”

Feng Yu cannot tell Zhong Qingxian that he was trying not to influence the future. He did not want the future to divert too much from its original course and cause a chain effect. Also, Feng Yu was interested in Li Dajun and not his company.

Jelly appeared in the early eighties and in Feng Yu’s previous life, Li Dajun started his factory last year. It was more about 8 years after jelly appeared and his company grew to become the world’s number one jelly company. It’s market share in Asia was more than 50%. This was Li Dayou’s ability.

Also, Strong Group was strong in managing their brands. In previous life, Strong Group was the most popular children’s food brand. Every product produced by Strong Group were popular.

Strong Group Jelly, CiCi, Crystal Love Jelly, U.Loveit, etc. were all famous brands under Strong Group.

U.Loveit Milk Tea had changed the instant tapioca balls to coconut jelly. This was also their creativity. Without the tapioca balls, the taste and texture changed, and children were able to swallow the small jelly easily. Not only this drink has more nutrition value, but parents were also not worried that their children will choke on the pearls.

This was one of the reasons why U. Loveit became popular.

Strong Group was good at building their brands and attracting customers. Also, they were able to build a strong distribution channel. They invested heavily in advertising, and this let Strong Group’s sales increase rapidly.

All these achievements were proof that Li Dajun was a talented leader. He was also a very low profile person and seldom appears in front of the media. This was the same as Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, you are really interested in this small company?” Zhong Qingxian asked. He still could not find the reason.

Feng Yu laughed. “You known me for so long, have you ever see me making a bad investment?”

Zhong Qingxian’s face changed. That’s right. He had never heard of Feng Yu making any bad investments. That means this company was really worth investing in.

But why should they invest in this company? They might as well let Lehaha acquire Strong Group and let this company be one of their subsidiaries. The results might be better.

Chapter 674 – Creative Person

After waiting for a few days, Feng Yu did not get any replies from Li Dajun. He was slightly disappointed. He thought Li Dajun did not want to him to invest in Strong Group.

Feng Yu was at school when his pager suddenly vibrates. He took a look and was stunned.

Zhong Qingxian, are you joking with me? Lehaha acquired Stong Group?!

Feng Yu sneaked out in the middle of the lesson to call Zhong Qingxian.

“Are you the one who left me that message? Lehaha had acquired Stong Group?”

“That’s right. Didn’t you say that Strong Group has the potential? You also asked me to invest in the company. I got my men to investigate the market. There is still no jelly with fruits’ pulp in it. That means this new product from Strong Group will help the company bring in high profits and let this company stand out from the rest of the jelly companies.”

“No. Why did he agree to this deal?”

“Their new jelly is still not ready yet. The fruits’ pulp is easily separated from the jelly. Their jellies are either too hard or too soft, and the shelf life is too short. The production of this new product is still not ready. I clarified with Li Dajun, and he admitted to that. Since this product is not ready, it is not worth investing.”

“But I think that if Strong Group can perfect their production techniques, this new fruit jelly with pulp will surely be popular. I told him that I want to buy out Strong Group. At first, he does not agree. But his production techniques are still not ready yet. If Lehaha also introduces this type of jelly, then Strong Group will not be able to survive because of our branding.”

Damn! This was the strategy I often use. When did Zhong Qingxian learn this?

“What happens then? He agrees just like that?”

“No. But I had a chat with him and noticed that he is excellent at management and have lots of ideas in brand building, marketing, and managing brands. Most of his views are in line with us, and he can understand what the children are thinking. So, I offered him a management position to take charge of children food products. Strong Group will still be operating independently under their own brand, and he agrees.”

Huh? This was settled so quickly? Li Dajun was recruited by Lehaha?

Damn. I had overthought too much. Zhong Qingxian was still more capable!

Feng Yu had thought too much. If it were one year later, Li Dajun would never agree to this deal. But now, Strong Group was in difficulties, and Li Dajun would surely be interested in working for Lehaha because of the high salaries and shares rewards.

Zhong Qingxian also promised that he will not interfere with Strong Group’s management. The management of Strong Group will be handed over to Li Dajun’s younger brother. This was what Zhong Qingxian learned from Feng Yu.

“Did you give him any shares? How many shares did you give him?”

“We will be giving out the company’s shares at the end of the year. I gave him 1 million shares and 100,000 shares to his three brothers each. Strong Group will be Lehaha’s subsidiary in the future. It will be our sub-brand. This is a good deal for us.”

1.3 million shares. Based on what Zhong Qingxian said a few days ago, 1 share was worth only 1.5 RMB. That means Strong Group was acquired using less than 2 million RMB?

Although Zhong Qingxian had given Li Dajun and his brothers higher management positions, it was also a good deal.

Feng Yu had not noticed Zhong Qingxian was good at business negotiations before! Did this successful beverage industry businessman change?

“Are we going to inject funds into Strong Group then?”

“Of course. Strong Group is still in debt, and they still have some bad debts. I decided to not give Strong Group the tapioca balls contract. They should focus on developing fruit jelly. Lehaha’s R&D department will also be helping them in their research. Manager Feng, do you think the consumers will like fruit pulps in our fruit beverages? This will let our fruit juice looks fresher and taste better.” Zhong Qingxian excitedly said.

Huh? The orange juice with pulp and Crystal Grapes drinks are being brought forward?

Damn! I still have not made this suggestion, and Zhong Qingxian had thought about it? How can I be called a creative person in the future?

“You have started the research?”

“Yes. This can be ongoing with the fruit pulp jelly research. Initially, I thought this would be difficult as we do not have any experience. But we have already found a shortcut.” Zhong Qingxian proudly replied.

Hmph! If I don’t make any suggestions, you will not know who the creative person behind Lehaha’s products is!

“You only think about the fruit juice? Can’t the fruits be added to the dairy drinks? Also, why can’t you mix fruit juice with dairy products to become fruit favored yogurt drinks or yogurt drinks with fruits?”

“Ah? We can mix it this way?” Zhong Qingxian was stunned. How come this Manager Feng kept thinking of weird combinations of products. Did he think that creativity was just by combining two different things together?

“Why not? You still have not tried it before, and how do you know people will not like it? Also, the nutritional value of our yogurt will increase if we add in fruit pieces and juice. People are very concern about their nutritional values, especially parents.”

These new ideas were all from Lehaha in Feng Yu’s previous life. How come Zhong Qingxian had doubts when he heard it?

“Errr…… Ok. I will get our men to research on this and also conduct market research.”

WTF. Zhong Qingxian still does not believe me.

“Also, I had told you before that our AD calcium milk is nutritional yogurt. But the market segment for this product are the children. You think the young adults do not like to drink that? I suggested to introduce bigger bottles and increase the nutritional values of this drink. Don’t limit it to only vitamin A, D, etc. We can add in more vitamins and other nutrition components. We must let the consumers know that the nutrition of our products can be easily absorbed by their bodies. Have you considered about this before?”

“Manager Feng, we have conducted market research on this. Not many adults like to drink this, and not many people are willing to buy this. Most of them still prefer carbonated drinks. So, we will not be introducing bigger bottles of yogurt drinks for the time being as there is no market.”

Huh? Market research? No one likes to drink yogurt drinks? The popular yogurt drinks do not have a market now? Errr…… It seems that the popular yogurt drinks which were introduced in the future were launched around the time when these children, who drank AD calcium milk, grew up. Was the drink popular because the children were used to the taste?

“Children can also drink big bottles. I am only making a suggestion. You can decide for yourself. I still have classes. Bye.”

Feng Yu quickly hang up the phone. Shit! My track record as a creative person was almost broken. How can someone from the future lose on creativity?!

Chapter 675 – Suppliers’ headaches (Part 1 of 2)

The National Day holidays were over, and it was November. This period was the down period for retail.

Someone had said that November was a lousy month for retailers because it was the end of the year the following money. Everyone was working hard to complete their annual tasks and did not have time to go shopping.

Someone said that it was because everyone had overspent during the National Day holidays and the Mid-autumn festival and did not have spare cash to shop.

There were also people who said that November was the start of the Winter season and people were not willing to go out. All of them prefers to stay indoors to avoid the cold.

These excuses did not apply to Tai Hua Supermarkets.

Even when the weather was cold and the Northeast regions were snowing, it did not stop people from wanting to shop at Tai Hua Supermarkets. There were many reasons. One of them was because the products sold at Tai Hua Supermarkets were cheaper.

Another reason was that the shopping cards that were received on 1st October will be expiring. The duration was only 50 days. If the consumers still did not use the cards, it will be expired. Tai Hua Supermarkets were also warm, and even if the shoppers were there for window shopping, the store assistants would not chase them away. The store assistants will still greet them nicely, and the shoppers felt good. The shoppers had only wanted to spend some time at the supermarkets, but they will end up buying something.

Tai Hua Supermarkets’ suppliers were also excited. Tai Hua Supermarket only had 20 branches, but how come the sales were so good?

Initially, Tai Hua Supermarkets offered harsh terms to the suppliers, and the suppliers were unhappy. Tai Hua Supermarket wanted credit terms and demanded deposits. The suppliers still had to pay for promotions and let Tai Hua Supermarket manage them. They even had to pay for the printing of leaflets.

If Tai Hua Supermarket did not guarantee that their products will be selling fast and gave them a good price, they would definitely agree with those terms.

But now, all the suppliers felt they had made the right choice by signing the contract with Tai Hua Supermarket. The volume was high, and it was good for their branding.

When the suppliers went to check on their products at the supermarkets, they saw their products packed neatly on the shelves. It increases the attractiveness of their products to shoppers. Look at the way other malls and shops displayed their products. It was messy and dirty. There was even dust on the shelves, and the attitude of the shop assistants was terrible. No other shops could compare to Tai Hua Supermarkets.

At the end of the month, Tai Hua Supermarkets settled the credit terms with the suppliers. There were no delays at all.

This was not the end. The orders for the second month was more than the first month. Tai Hua Supermarkets still wanted them to deliver their products once a week. There was no reason for the suppliers to reject this request. They do not mind sending goods every day if the sales of their products were excellent. The more goods they delivered, the more money they earn.

Many other brands noticed that if this growth continued, by next year, Tai Hua Supermarket’s sales volume would be more than their previous year’s annual sales. They also received more orders from smaller retailers.

At first, the suppliers also did not know the reason for the sudden spike in orders by the other retailers. Their salesmen went to ask around and found out the cause. It was because the customers had bought their products from Tai Hua Supermarkets before and they felt the product was not bad. For instance, toilet rolls or a bottle of fruit juice. But when the customers suddenly ran out of the products, they might not have the time to travel to Tai Hua Supermarkets.

So, they would just go to the nearest retail stores to buy. Their first choice would be the products they saw at Tai Hua Supermarkets.

Everyone felt that the brands that were sold in Tai Hua Supermarkets must be good brands and good products.

The supermarkets were meant for the masses, but many people treated Tai Hua Supermarkets as high-end markets. Even Feng Yu had not expected this.

But from the cleanliness and tidiness of Tai Hua Supermarkets, it was way ahead from other malls and shops. There were many janitors at Tai Hua Supermarkets.

So, the suppliers who had signed short-term contracts with Tai Hua Supermarkets wanted to extend their contracts. They wanted a long-term contract with Tai Hua Supermarket. Tai Hua Supermarkets were their best retailer.

But now, it was not Tai Hua Supermarkets that went to look for them to place their products in the supermarkets. Tai Hua Supermarkets no longer needs to make use of their connections to get the suppliers to supply their products. Now, it was Tai Hua Supermarket that calls the shot. The positions of Tai Hua Supermarkets and the suppliers had changed.

Now you want to sign a long-term contract? No problem. Supply us with your products, and we will settle the payment at the end of the month. You also have to abide by our rules. If we ask you to pay, you all must pay. Shouldn’t the supplier prices be lowered? Although the prices you all offered were low, it was about the same as those the Provincial suppliers.

We, Tai Hua Supermarket, have branches in more than a dozen cities. We have already established our presences in almost half of the cities in China. Is this rate the lowest you can offer? No other retailers will be able to place such a big order with you.

Before, Tai Hua Supermarket had been paying the suppliers at a slightly lower rate compared to the other malls and shops in the cities. If it wasn’t for the imported goods, Tai Hua Supermarket might not have high profits.

But after the new contracts, Tai Hua Supermarket got the lowest supplier rates in China. You are not willing to give us a better price? Fine. When all the existing stocks were sold out, we will not order any products under your brand. You are not the only company that produces such products. Suppliers all over China were waiting to sell their products to us. We don’t need you.

Also, Tai Hua Supermarket was good at marketing. After the suppliers’ products entered the supermarket, their brand image, and value increases.

Philips, Wind and Rain brand, Aiwa, The Little Tyrant, Lehaha, and all the famous Chinese brands had signed long-term contracts with Tai Hua Supermarket. Some smaller local brands gritted their teeth and accepted the harsh terms issued by Tai Hua Supermarkets and signed the contracts.

Although the terms were harsh, the sales volume was significant, and the companies were still able to make money.

Some of the other brands still had a “wait and see” attitude, and some gave in to the pressure and chose to sign the contract.

Feng Yu looked at the list of companies that did not sign the new contracts. Those brands that did not have replacements can remain. Their short-term contracts were not up anyway. Those brands that could be replaced will be replaced when the short-term contract ends!

Chapter 676 – Suppliers’ headaches (Part 2 of 2)

“Eh, have you all heard the news? Qinwang Jelly has been taken off the shelves and is replaced by a Strong Group Jelly. Have you all heard of this brand?”

“Ah? Why? Qinwang Jelly has been doing well. Why are they being replaced? Is this a big brand? An imported brand?”

“What imported brand? It is a small factory in Guangdong. But I heard this Strong Group have strong connections. They seem to be related to Lehaha.”

“Oh…… Lehaha’s products have been selling well. They are one of the earliest companies who had signed a long-term contract with Tai Hua Supermarket. But I heard that it was Qinwang Jelly who had refused to give Tai Hua Supermarket a lower supplier rate.”

“Huh? You are saying that Qinwang is kicked out of Tai Hua Supermarket because their rates are higher? That Strong Group is their replacement?”

“This is possible. Tai Hua Supermarket had notified us to sign a new contract with them. They demanded a lower rate, and we are now stalling the signing. Do you think they are using Qinwang Jelly as an example?”

Some suppliers of Tai Hua Supermarket were sitting together discussing the new contracts. They were invited over by Tai Hua Supermarket and had wanted to stall for more time. But now, it seems that they cannot wait any longer.

One supplier was taken off shelves. That means there will be other suppliers’ products that will be kicked out. All the suppliers there were not the only suppliers in the market. They could be replaced easily like Qinwang Jelly. If this happened to them, their companies would suffer massive losses.

Although Tai Hua Supermarket wanted a new supplier price and the suppliers will make lesser profits, but lower profits are still profits. If they were kicked out, then there will be zero profits. Because of their sales were increasing due to the success of Tai Hua Supermarkets, all the suppliers had increased their production. If they were kicked out suddenly, they would be left with lots of stocks.

If they do not want their stocks to remain in their warehouses, they have to lower their prices to clear their stocks. If that’s the case, they might as well sign the new contract with Tai Hua Supermarket. They will be able to increase their brand awareness because of Tai Hua Supermarket.

……

“Manager Guo, the prices they wanted is too low. I know the price quoted by another company is real, but can their quality be compared to us? Regardless of packaging, taste, and quality, they are lower than us. Our cost is higher than them. The prices you wanted is really very low.”

“We did not lower the rates unreasonably. This new rate is based on our calculations. Look at this figure. This should be your cost, right? The rates we wanted includes your profits. Think about it. After you work with us, Tai Hua Supermarket, how much did your sales increase? Just the sales from Tai Hua Supermarkets alone is more than your previous 6 months sales. Are you telling me that this is not due to our Tai Hua Supermarket’s management?” Manager Guo crossed his arms and asked calmly.

“But Manager Guo, your supermarkets should also be selling quality products. You can price our products higher and let the customers more choices.”

“This is not up to you to decide. We will consider it. Also, this product is not only produced by two companies. There are still many brands out there who wanted to enter our Tai Hua Supermarket.” Manager Guo arrogantly replied.

There should be a variety of products. Different brands will have different pricing. Tai Hua Supermarkets wanted to offer a wide range of products to their shoppers. Two brands for a product was not sufficient. There should be at least more than 5 brands.

“Manager Guo, please increase the prices slightly. Just increase by 10 RMB per item will do. If you increase, I will sign the contract immediately.”

Manager Guo looked at the person beside him and discussed softly. Then Manager Guo said: “I will increase 5 RMB per item. This is the maximum I can offer. If you don’t sign, then we will not work with your company in the future.”

“Sign! I will sign the contract now!”

……

“Manager Fu, I heard that you went to the south. When did you return?”

“Tai Hua Supermarket is going to renew the contracts with the suppliers. There is a shortage of hands, and all of us returned to help out. This is the new contract we have prepared for you. Here.” Fu Guangzheng passed a document over.

“Manager Fu, is there something wrong with this contract? How come the prices are so low?”

“This is the new rates we offered. If you accept the new rates, then we will sign the contract. If you disagree, then forget it.” Fu Guangzheng replied.

“What do you mean? If we don’t accept this rate, you all will not buy our stocks?”

“You can see it that way.”

“Our contract duration is one year. You all are breaking the contract!”

“Look at No.3 and No.4 conditions in your contract. It is stated clearly that if we cannot accept the pricing, we can terminate the contract anytime. We had explained this condition to you before you signed this contract. I remembered that I was the one who explained it to you, personally.” Business is all about profits. If your pricing is higher than others, why should we buy your products?

“Manager Fu, what you are doing now is not right. Our products are selling well, and you should know it. Based on the market share, we owned the second biggest market share.”

“You also said that you all are only the second. China’s No.1 had already signed a contract with us. We don’t really need you.”

What’s so great about having the second biggest market share in China? Lots of the world’s number one brands are selling their products in our supermarkets!

“You all better, don’t regret this!”

“Seems like you do not want to sign the new contract. Then I’m sorry. Tomorrow is the last day we sell your products in our supermarkets. Thank you. You can leave now. Please call Manager Wang from Dafai Company in.”

……

These few days, Tai Hua Supermarket’s suppliers saw Tai Hua Supermarket’s firm stance on the new pricing. The new pricing was very low. But the sales volume of Tai Hua Supermarkets were more substantial than all other retailers. If the suppliers agree to the new pricing, then Tai Hua Supermarket will offer some concessions in the future.

But if the suppliers disagree, they can still negotiate. But if the suppliers chose to fall out with Tai Hua Supermarkets, then sorry. Tai Hua Supermarket will ask the supplier to get out immediately!

Especially Feng Yu. He was ruthless and never negotiate with the suppliers. The suppliers had to follow whatever rates he set, and if they disagree, Feng Yu would ask them to get out immediately.

This was the current situation. There were too many brands that wanted to sell their products in Tai Hua Supermarkets. Tai Hua Supermarket still had to choose the suppliers and did not sign contracts with all the suppliers. This was because there were not enough shelves in Tai Hua Supermarkets.

Tai Hua Supermarket set the conditions and those who were willing to sign the new contract, will be able to carry on their partnership. Those that refused to sign will see their products having a huge discount the next day. Tai Hua Supermarket will try to sell off all their existing stocks that day and then remove them from the shelves altogether. The following day, there will be a new brand of the same product on the shelves.

Even if it was an unknown brand, but once it was sold in Tai Hua Supermarkets, shoppers will think that it was a good product. Tai Hua Supermarkets had promised their customers that if they discover any expired or lower quality products, they will compensate the customer 10 times the amount.

The renewal of the contracts was completed in a week. At least 10% of the brands had disappeared from Tai Hua Supermarket, and they were replaced by new and more brands. Consumers had a wider range of choices than before.

Chapter 677 – Milk Tea promotion

Tai Hua Supermarket had renewed new contracts with all their suppliers. The new rates were cheaper, but Tai Hua Supermarket also allowed them to hold promotions.

Tai Hua Supermarket gave them an excellent position to display their products and also help them to showcase their products in a spectacular way to attract customers. The suppliers were also allowed to promote their products in other ways. For instance, Lehaha was having a promotion for their latest product. Milk Tea.

There was a 2 meters giant poster of the Little Tigers and a young model. The Little Tigers were holding a cup of milk tea each and offering to the female model. The female model was smiling and did not know which to choose.

Just the Little Tigers poster was enough to attract lots of shoppers. There was also a table beside the poster, and there were many small cups on it. The scent of milk tea was everywhere.

These were not the only things that attract shoppers. Behind the table, there were a few young and pretty girls. They were all air stewardess trainees. They were standing there, attracting shoppers.

One of them was holding a microphone: “Lehaha’s latest product, Taiwanese Bubble Milk Tea. A new beverage which you all have not tasted before. Come and look at this cup. Can you see the black pearls? Can everybody smell the fragrance of this tea? This is Lehaha’s newest product. U.Loveit Bubble Milk Tea!”

A good promotion cannot only have people standing there talking about the product. There must be an insider among the crowd!

A bespectacled man asked. “I had tried Taiwanese milk tea last year when I went to Taiwan. Is your milk tea authentic?”

“It is not up to me to say whether if this tea is authentic. You see this sign here? Free sampling! Let’s invite this gentleman to have a taste and see if it is authentic.”

Some milk tea was poured into a small cup of about 50ml. This was the smallest paper cup available in the market.

The bespectacled man took a sip and opened his eyes wide in an exaggerated manner: “Hmmm…… This is the taste. It is exactly the same as what I tasted in Taiwan! Delicious!”

After saying that, he drank two cups.

The second insider among the crowd appeared. “I thought it is milk tea? What are you chewing?”

“Pearls. This is Bubble Milk Tea, and there are pearls in it. It is delicious. But it’s a pity that this Bubble Milk Tea is not available elsewhere in China.” The bespectacled man said.

“Is it really that delicious? Are these free samples? Let me try one cup.”

“Ok. Sir, place come over and try.”

“Wait, if I do not like the taste and do not buy after I drank the free samples, will I be allowed to leave?” The second insider asked.

There some shoppers who wanted to try the samples, but they immediately stop. That’s right. If I tried the sample, then I will have to buy it. What if this product is costly?

“Rest assured. We will not force anyone to buy. Even if we want to do that, the supermarket staffs will stop us. This is China, and we are all reasonable people. Everyone has a different taste. I do not dare to claim that everyone here will like it. It’s normal for some people to prefer tea, milk, fruit juice, or carbonated drinks. Don’t worry, and just try it.

After the second insider tried the sample and swallowed the pearl, he said: “This taste good. Oh, why are there different color packaging for the tea?”

“These are different flavors. The one you tried is the original favor. We still have fragrant yam, red bean, wheat, chocolate, coffee, etc. These different colors stand for different flavors. There will surely one favor that suits your taste.”

Fragrant Yam was just yam. But just yam does not sound attractive. So it was named as fragrant yam.

“Can I try one more cup?”

“Of course. Change the paper cup for this gentleman. This will prevent the taste of different flavors from mixing together. If there is anyone else that want to try our samples, please queue up here. If you like our products, you can purchase them over here. We are having a promotion now. Buy 2 and get 1 free. This promotion is only for 3 days……”

The salespeople kept promoting the milk tea, and those air stewardess trainees poured samples for the shoppers. When the tea was used up, they will open a new packet and use hot water to make the milk tea in front of the shoppers.

The other shoppers who passed by, saw many people queuing up for the free samples given out by pretty girls. They were also curious and joined the queue.

Someone once said that if 5 people were standing in a row, passers-by will join in and start queuing without knowing the reason. Most people will think that there must be good stuff or bargains if people queued up.

Now, more and more people were queuing, and the long queue attracted more shoppers.

Some of the shoppers tried the milk tea and liked the taste. They heard that there was a promotion now for the tea. Although 2 RMB for a cup of Milk Tea was too expensive for many people, there were still shoppers who felt it was a good deal. After all, this was Taiwanese Milk Tea, and it was delicious.

Most of the shoppers who bought the milk tea took 4 cups. With the 2 free cups, they will be able to try all 6 flavors.

The milk tea on the shelves was cleared quickly, and the supermarket staffs restocked it immediately.

Feng Yu smiled when he saw the long queue in the Supermarket. There were more people interested in such promotions than in the future.

The production cost of this milk tea was 50 cents per cup. The supplier rates given to Tai Hua Supermarket was 1 RMB. Even if the promotion and marketing cost were added, the total cost was less than 1 RMB. Tai Hua Supermarket’s retail price was 1.80 RMB. This was to let the shoppers feel that it cost less than 2 RMB, and it was 20 cents cheaper than places.

In this cold weather, having a cup of hot beverage felt good. Also, this milk tea smells really lovely, and many shoppers who did not queue up for the samples also bought a few cups because of the promotion.

Most of the customers who bought the milk tea were young adults. They had just started work and were not interested in saving money. They like to try out new things. Another group of customers was young parents. They bought some for their children.

These parents only treated milk tea as a regular beverage. This was better than giving their children cold carbonated drinks in this cold weather.

After the supermarket closes at night, Lehaha staffs and the supermarket staffs tally their total sales for the day.

When the figures were tabulated, the staffs could not believe their eyes. They counted again twice to confirm if they had gotten the right number. Today’s promotion had created an extraordinary sales volume.

How many cups of milk tea were sold in all 20 branches? This was only the first day. There were still two more days before the promotion ends. 3 days later, there will not be any promotion staffs stationed at the supermarkets. But the buy 2 get 1 free promotion was still ongoing. This will last for a week. The sales of this one week should be more than what they forecast in one month!

The sales potential of Tai Hua Supermarket was astonishing!

Chapter 678 – Refusal

3 days later, Zhong Qingxian had gotten the total sales figures for the Milk Tea. But he did not inform the factories to increase their production. He was waiting. It was the promotion period now, and the milk tea was cheap. He wants to wait and see after the promotion ends in one week, will the sales still be so good.

If no shoppers buy the milk tea after the promotion period, then this product will be considered a failure. At least, it was the pricing that failed. They would have to look into their pricing again.

If there were still shoppers who buy milk tea, then it will be considered a success. With TV commercials and other marketing strategies, this milk tea will become one of Lehaha’s flagship products.

The Milk Tea promotion in Tai Hua Supermarket ended, and Lehaha started to promote Strong Group’s jelly. Strong Group did not have many distribution channels. They only sold their products in Guangzhou. The furthest they went was Southen Guangzhou.

Now, after Lehaha acquired them, Zhong Qingxian quickly bought two small jelly factories and merge them with Strong Group. They will be producing jelly products for Strong Group.

Strong Group’s production increases overnight.

The production had increased, but brand awareness was still low. The most popular jelly brands in the market were Qingqing Jelly, followed by Qinwang. But the market share of both companies was about the same. No company had occupied most of the market share.

Zhong Qingxian had sent his people to investigate. Strong Group’s jelly tasted very good, but it lacks the funds to promote, and it was an unknown brand. They did not have proper distribution channels.

But now, it was different. The first step of Strong Group marketing campaign was at Tai Hua Supermarket.

This time, there were no free sampling. Strong Group changed its packaging. There were two more cups of jellies in the packet, and it was stated on the packaging. This will let shoppers feel it was a good bargain.

Also, Strong Group introduced jellies of mixed flavors in one packet. This will allow customers who wanted to try out different flavors to buy just one pack.

Also, Strong Group had stacked their products to form a picture of Lehaha’s cartoon character in Tai Hua Supermarket’s product display area. This was a huge display, and children could see it from far.

People might not know Strong Group brand, but shoppers still bought their products. The other brands of jellies were left on the shelves. This was because the flavors of all brands of jellies were about the same. But Strong Group’s products were cheaper, and their display was attractive. When the children saw the display, they insisted on getting Strong Group’s jellies.

Zhong Qingxian saw Strong Group’s products were doing well and decided to help Strong Group buy an advertising slot with CCTV. He wants to let Strong Group be China’s number one jelly brand!

……

Tai Hua Supermarket’s product display changes every day, and some other brands learned and start to create new promotions to sell their products. Some of their promotions were more creative than the promotions in the future.

But no matter how well the brands sold their products, Tai Hua Supermarkets will make money. The promotion cost was also not paid by Tai Hua Supermarket. It was those companies that paid for the promotion.

Because of Tai Hua Supermarket strong sales, many big companies start to notice them. Today, 4 men came to Beijing Tai Hua Supermarket headquarters. They wanted to discuss placing their products in Tai Hua Supermarkets.

“Manager Guo, we are from international brands, and if Tai Hua Supermarket sells our products, it will increase the status of your supermarkets. You must remember this.” One man said arrogantly.

“That’s right. Our brands are very popular in Europe and the US. Our main customer segments are the high net worth families, and we are their top choices. If your supermarkets sell our products, there will be an increase in the number of shoppers.” Another man added.

“We want a specialized counter. This counter can only sell our products, and you all must let us display our products at the display area for free. We want the most prominent area. You all also have to help to promote our products. Our logos must also be displayed outside your supermarket. This will be a good promotion for your supermarkets.”

“We are from the world’s greatest electronics country, Japan. We represent the most advanced technologies in electronics products. There is no one who did not know our brands.”

Manager Guo sneered. These few people in front of him were all Chinese. He could understand that they were working for a Japanese company, but was there a need to feel so proud and arrogant? What was wrong with these people?

Manager Guo still thought these people were Japanese!

Do you all need to brag about how well other countries’ products are? You all speak as if China does not have any good electronics products. Don’t forget the VCD patents belongs to China!

“Have you all finish talking?”

“Manager Guo, what’s your decision?”

“Nothing. All of you can go back now. We, Tai Hua Supermarket, will not accept any of your conditions!”

What? Will not accept our conditions? The representatives from the Japanese companies all stood up. How can it be possible? We are all from world-renowned brands. All other malls who heard of our brands will offer all sorts of benefits to beg us to sell our products in their malls. We still did not discuss other conditions, and we were rejected? Who are they to reject us?!

“Manager Guo, I did not hear you clearly. What did you say?” A representative asked with a long face.

“I said Tai Hua Supermarket will not accept any of your conditions! Am I clear enough now? All of you can leave now.”

Manager Guo smacked his lips. You think your brands are so great? Before Tai Hua Supermarket opens, Manager Li had invited you all and what did you all say?

All of you thinks that our Tai Hua Supermarket will not make it and felt our conditions were not good enough. You all said that we are not even qualified to negotiate and rejected us. Now, you all want to sell your products in our supermarkets?

If you all played by our rules and go according to our current contract terms, it was still okay. But all of you were too arrogant. You all speak as if our Tai Hua Supermarkets need your products to increase our status. Display your logos outside our supermarkets? Since when did you see Tai Hua Supermarket display any other company’s logo outside?

Specialized counter and the most prominent display area for free? Dream on!

Is the Philips brand smaller than you all? Is Thompson brand smaller than you all? Is the Motorola brand smaller than you all? All these brands are bigger than you all, and they are arrogant. They also followed our rules.

You all just want in with all your demands and act as if you all are superior to us. Even if we have available counters, we will also not give it to you all.

The Chairman, Manager Li, Manager Feng, and the rest had instructed us to reject those companies who refused us with no hesitations in the past.

“We represent a few companies to negotiate with you all, and you want to reject us all? Is this your decision or is this Tai Hua Supermarket’s decision?” One of the men asked coldly.

Manager Guo remembered what Manager Feng told him. He smiled and looked at those people: “A good horse will never turn round to graze on an old pasture. We are rejecting all of you just like how you all rejected us in the past!”

Chapter 679 – Got sued again

The Japanese firms’ representatives left Tai Hua Supermarket headquarters angrily. They represented a few companies and should be receiving the best treatment. They never felt so insulted before. They were chased out by Tai Hua Supermarket!

Arrogant! Tai Hua Supermarket was too arrogant!

You think our companies will let this off lightly? You all are only a supermarket chain. What’s there to be arrogant? We must teach this supermarket a lesson, and that Manager Guo must be sacked!

The next day, a few newspapers reported that Tai Hua Supermarket was discriminating Japanese companies and was sued jointly by several Japanese firms. The report claims that Tai Hua Supermarket was breaking the friendship between China and Japan. They demanded an apology from Tai Hua Supermarket. The Beijing Government must also apologize!

Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai were in other provinces scouting for new locations for their supermarkets when they got the news. They called Feng Yu immediately to find out what happened.

Manager Guo had also told Feng Yu about this incident. Feng Yu also felt Manager Guo did nothing wrong. If this was a typical business deal, it does not matter whether if they were Japanese firms or not. But they were too arrogant. Chasing them out of the office was just a light punishment. If Feng Yu were there, he would ask the security guards to beat them up!

Feng Yu told Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai not to worry. He will settle this and will not let Tai Hua Supermarket suffer any losses.

Zhang Han’s father also called Feng Yu because of this incident. He knew that Feng Yu had shares in Tai Hua Supermarket. This incident was no longer a business dispute. It was escalated to a political disagreement.

“Uncle Zhang, it’s okay. They wanted to sell their products in our supermarkets, but was rejected by us and got angry. They are just nobodies and can’t create any problems..”

“Xiao Feng, if the higher-ups were to pursue this matter, there is nothing I can do to help you. This morning we had a meeting, and the Mayor and Secretary were concerned about this matter. This will affect the relationship between the two nations. I tried to say a few good things for you, but I can’t do much.”

“Thank you for your help. I will handle this myself and will not bring any trouble to the City Government or the Chinese Government. I will let these companies know that they can’t just make such baseless claims!” Feng Yu replied with an evil smile.

Sue Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation? Don’t blame us for countersuing you all!

Sony, Toshiba, Pioneer, and Sharp. These 4 companies want to sue us? You all think that you all are big multinational corporations and can influence the higher-ups to pressure Tai Hua Supermarket and insult China at the same time?

If that’s what you all are thinking, then you all are wrong! China can do without Japan, but Japan’s economy cannot do without the Chinese market. If the relationship between both countries deteriorates, Japan will be at the losing end!

Feng Yu took out his mobile phone and dialed a number he did not call before. “Hello, Director Fang. I am Feng Yu from Bing City Machinery…… I also have shares in Tai Hua Supermarket. It regards today’s newspaper report. I would like to explain to Premier Zhu……. Ok. I will wait for your call.”

10 minutes later, Feng Yu received a call from Director Fang asking him to go to the Zhongnanhai at 12.30 pm. Someone there will bring Feng Yu to meet Premier Zhu.

Liu Jichuan’s hands were shaking as he drove: “Are we really going to Zhongnanhai to meet with Premier Zhu?”

“Watch the road. You are driving. Also, I am the one meeting him. You cannot enter.” Feng Yu knew he was not allowed to bring a bodyguard with him for this meeting.

Liu Jichuan was slightly disappointed and concentrated on driving. But even if he could not meet Premier Zhu, he was still able to look at Zhongnanhai up close.

It would be best if he could enter Zhongnanhai’s compound. But Liu Jichuan knew that this was impossible.

Liu jichuan did not know how come Feng Yu could enter that place and did not know why Feng Yu was able to contact Premier Zhu’s office director. But he did not think much about this as this was not something he should be concerned with.

Liu Jichuan was satisfied with his current job. He did not have much to do, and his salary was high. He does not need to worry about other things, and in less than 2 years, he will be able to save enough to buy a house in the city for his father.

The car slowly reached the destination. Security was tight, and the vehicle was searched thoroughly.

Feng Yu made a phone call, and a bespectacled middle-aged man walked out. He saw Feng Yu and brought Feng Yu into the building.

Before entering the office, two bodyguards approached Feng Yu and wanted to conduct a body search.

“The Premier said the search is not needed.”

The two bodyguards nodded and stood aside. Feng Yu felt better. He was not willing to be searched even when he was meeting the Premier. He does not like this feeling of being suspected and not respected.

“Thank you.” Feng Yu said.

After entering the office, he saw Iron fist Zhu reading a document. It was lunchtime, and he was still working.

Iron fist Zhu looked up: “Xiao Feng is here? Have a sit. Let me finish reading this document first.”

Feng Yu sat down in one corner, and someone served him tea. There were only 3 people left in the office. Iron Fist Zhu, Director Fang, and Feng Yu.

5 minutes later, Iron Fist Zhu put down the document and massaged the bridge of his nose. He walked over to Feng Yu and sat down on the sofa beside him. “You are here to talk about Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation?”

Feng Yu replied calmly: “I want to explain about the accusations by those Japanese firms. Actually, I think that even if I did not come here to explain to you, I would also be fine. The government will do anything and let those Japanese firms bully us.”

Iron Fist Zhu did not accept Feng Yu’s claims.

“Why do you say that? Those companies are related to the Japanese Government one way or another. They have issued a joint complaint against Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation. This matter is now escalated to national level dispute. Where did you get the confidence that our government will support you all?”

“Because we are a Chinese enterprise and we are Chinese! Also, we, Tai Hua Supermarket did nothing wrong!” Feng Yu replied confidently.

“Oh? You all did nothing wrong? Are you telling me that those companies’ representatives have accused your company?” Iron Fist Zhu smiled and looked at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu’s reply surprised Iron Fist Zhu. “They also did not accuse us. Our company does discriminate them!”

Director Fang frowned. That means those Japanese companies were right in this dispute. Then why was Feng Yu here? Did he come here to ask the government to protect them?

Now was a crucial time for China and Japan diplomatic relationship. There were many areas where both nations need to corporate. This Feng Yu was just creating trouble for the Chinese government.

“Why are you all discriminating them? What right do you have to discriminate them?” Iron Fist Zhu did not reprimand Feng Yu. But he just asked him back these questions.

“We do not only discriminate them. We even despise them. Those companies cannot do without our Chinese market. That means they are here to seek a living. Without us, Japan’s economy will not be able to recover. Japan is an almost bankrupt country, and we are the next up and rising nation. This includes the companies. They are all on the decline, and we are rising to the top. Why can’t our company despise them?”

Chapter 680 – Support

“This your reason?”

“Of course, there are other reasons. They are too arrogant. They had belittled China, and they had made use of contract loopholes to take advantage of us too many times.” Feng Yu replied.

“Then how should the government support you all? Tell the whole world what you just said?” Iron Fist Zhu asked.

“I don’t need the Chinese Government to tell the whole world. I only need the Chinese Government to tell the Japanese Government and give them some pressure. This will be enough. Currently, Japan needs us to help with their economy. If not, their economy will go into recession. China’s international status had been increasing. After the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russia and many surrounding countries had been building diplomatic relationships with us. The US also want to work together with us as a countermeasure against Russia. Befriending distant the distant enemy while attacking a nearby enemy is a strategy passed down since the olden days. That means China is one of the most critical countries in the world. Japan political status cannot be compared to us! This is why Japan will not get any support from other nations, and they will have to give in to us!” Feng Yu said his analysis of the current international affairs.

“The US will not support Japan? After WW2, Japan had recovered quickly and become one of the most powerful economies with US support.” Director Fang interrupted.

“If Japan did not try to buy the whole world, its economy will not deteriorate so fast. The US will not want Japan to recover so fast and then see the buyout half of America. We also do not want to have a powerful neighbor appearing, especially a neighbor with evil intentions!”

“This time, the Japanese Government demanded an apology from the Beijing Government, and not China’s Government is only to sound us out. If the Beijing Government apologizes, then the Japanese Government will try to make us give in to them more by demanding harsher demands. This is not what our Government wants, right?”

Iron Fist Zhu and Director Fang exchanged looks. Although Feng Yu’s analysis had lots of loopholes, the general direction was right. They had analyzed this incident, and their conclusion was about the same as Feng Yu. They also feel that the Japanese firms had support from their government to test the attitude of the Chinese Government.

Feng Yu saw the both was not saying anything and he continued. “Do you still remember what was written in the history books? During the Qing dynasty, there was a saying, the top social tier is the foreigners, followed by the Government Officials. Until today, many Chinese still have this mindset. Many people still think that foreigners are of higher standing than the Chinese. Even when we go out to negotiate with other companies, they will look down upon us when they find out that we are a Chinese company. They will tell us that some Japanese companies had already contacted them. Also, the government policies for the Japanese are better than what our companies are getting. Many local governments are doing this, and the people are being deprived of what they should be getting. It’s such an irony. Are foreigners really better than us?”

Feng Yu was not exaggerating. When Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation was negotiating for their current locations, what he said had happened. If Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation did not have Hong Kong shares, the negotiation would be much harder.

These few years, until Hong Kong’s return in 1997, Hong Kong companies got more support from the Chinese Government than other countries’ companies. This was for the smooth return of Hong Kong and Macau.

Iron Fist Zhu frowned and looked at Director Fang. Director Fang nodded, admitting that this was really happening at some places. He had heard about such news before.

“Some of our government officials had forgotten their core values to get more political credits. They had forgotten who they are serving!” Iron Fist Zhu disappointedly replied.

Iron Fist Zhu wanted to speed up the Chinese economy and wanted to bring China to the next level economically. He wanted China to catch up with the rest of the world in the shortest time possible.

But he was not willing to bow down to others in exchange for China’s development. Bowing down to others was a dangerous signal and might have severe consequences. He cannot let this happen!

“But even if we pressure the Japanese Government, there might not be any favorable result. They can just ignore us and say this is only a business dispute.” Director Fang said.

“Don’t forget that Hong Kong’s Superman Li is one of Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation shareholders. He is the world’s king of seaports. He owns 40% of the world’s most important ports, and he has a say in this. 80% of Japanese products are exported by sea. If Japan got into a dispute with Superman Li, their transportation fees would increase tremendously.”

“Is Mr. Li willing to step in?” Director Fang asked.

“He will. Now, someone is stepping all over Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation. Who will still sit back and tolerate this? Furthermore, he is Superman Li.” Feng Yu was not sure about others, but he was confident that he will be able to convince Superman Li.

“You should be able to do something too, right?” Iron Fist Zhu asked suddenly.

Feng Yu rubbed his nose: “I do have a bit of influence. I will be able to pressure them slightly in certain areas. But I still hope to get the government’s support.”

Those Japanese companies had their government’s backing, and their market value was several billion USD each. If it was only one company, Feng Yu was not afraid of them. But when the four companies combined, Feng Yu was not able to win them now.

Luckily for Feng Yu, the Japanese companies were not united. Feng Yu could give some benefits to Panasonic and other companies, and ask them to point their guns at Sony and the other 3 companies. After all, these companies were competitors. They were also supported by different Japanese political parties.

Also, Feng Yu could make use of public opinions. He was able to position Tai Hua Supermarket on higher moral grounds and gain an advantage.

Of course, all these strategies, including asking Superman Li for help, were not as crucial as getting the Chinese Government’s support. If the Chinese Government were willing to support him, even 40 Japanese companies would be no match for him.

Also, these 4 companies were competing with Wind and Rain Electronics for the DVD standards. Feng Yu could also make use of the DVD forum to attack them.

In front of interest, Panasonic and the other companies will stand on Feng Yu’s side.

Feng Yu suspect Sony and the other 3 companies were doing this on purpose. They knew the shareholders of Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa Electronics were also the shareholders of Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation. The shareholders were Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng. Those companies purposely make us of their government to attack Tai Hua Supermarket corporation to delay Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa Electronics. So, they will have more time to develop DVD technologies.

Feng Yu told Iron Fist Zhu about the DVD. This was something that benefits China greatly. If the Japanese companies were ahead of him, then China’s consumer electronics will continue to be looking up to Japan.

“I know about VCD. You all have a new product? You all must maintain the lead. A Chinese company that earns patent authorization fees from overseas companies. You all have done well!”

Iron Fist Zhu was excited to hear that a Chinese company was able to be ahead of Japanese electronics firms. This industry was Japan’s forte. He had heard about VCD before, but he did not know about the benefits that come along with it.

If such a potential company can do China proud, then more the Chinese Government must support them!

The real intention of those companies was to delay the progress of DVD technology. They must not succeed.

Actually, the Chinese Government had been silent for years. This was the time to use Japan as an example to show the other nations that China was not to be trifled with!

Chapter 681 – The man behind the curtain

“Old Hu, everything is going to plan as instructed by Mr. Norio.”

“Hahaha, this time, Sony can make use of this opportunity to re-enter the Chinese market. Everyone here has credits. The three of you are the same. You all will surely be rewarded handsomely.”

“But are we too much? No matter what, we are also Chinese. We are making up stories to harm our fellow Chinese company. I don’t feel good about this.”

“Don’t feel good? What’s there to not feel good? When you are working at your former company, how did your leader treat you? How much are you earning that time? Even with the bonuses and subsidies, are you getting more than 500 RMB? You are getting at least 10,000 RMB a month. How much more is this compared to your previous salary?”

“That’s right. We are all doing this for the money. We need to earn more for our families!” Someone tried to justified their actions by using their families as an excuse.

A few men were drinking and discussing together. In the current era, money talks. They do not care about whatever nationality or country. They only serve the one who pays them well!

These men had received instructions from their company to speak to Tai Hua Supermarket. Their companies wanted to bring in their products to Tai Hua Supermarkets. They thought this would be an easy negotiation and they will get good conditions. They wanted to gain some credits in front of their bosses.

But Tai Hua Supermarket did not care about what they said. The Deputy General Manager of Tai Hua Supermarket even told them directly that they were not interested in working with them!

These men had no choice but to report to their higher-ups. In the end, the person-in-charge of Sony’s Asia operations told Old Hu that Norio Ohga wanted them to think of a way to create trouble for Tai Hua Supermarket. It would be good if they could create a big problem for them.

This Tai Hua Supermarket was very profitable. If it got into trouble, Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng and the rest would inevitably be distracted. Then, they would not have the time to focus their energies on Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics. Feng Yu might even have to use funds from these two companies to help Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation.

This way, their DVD technologies development would be slowed down. Sony, Toshiba, and the other companies will have the chance to overtake Wind and Rain Electronics, and they might even have the opportunity to acquire Wind and Rain Electronics.

So, Old Hu got together with a few others to think of a plan. They came up with an idea. Accuse Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation and blow up their rejection by Tai Hua Supermarket. They escalated this problem to an international dispute to make us of the higher-ups to pressure Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation. The 4 of them were former government officials, and they were well versed with using such methods.

Any incident which was escalated to such levels were not small issues!

But the 4 of them did not know that they had left the government service for many years and China was now a rising country. The Chief Architect was still around, and he was like a flag that prevents other Imperialistic countries from targeting China.

When China negotiated with Japan on cooperations, China stance was firmed. But because China was not familiar with the international laws, there were lots of loopholes in the agreement. These loopholes were taken advantage of by Japanese companies.

But it was a joke to say China was afraid of Japan!

Japanese were the type that yields to the strong. Of course, if they were the stronger ones, they will try to enslave others.

At the end of the 80s, Japan’s economy had reached its peak. They felt they were the world’s strongest economy and tried to buy out the whole of America.

In the end, Japan’s economic bubble burst, and it’s stock market crash. Their real estate, which was supporting their economy, had crashed. Many of their manufacturing companies went bust, and Japan’s economy went downhill. Because of their arrogance, they paid a heavy price.

All this happened when China was trying to develop its economy and lacks technology. The Soviet Union was in turmoil at that time, and China could not cooperate with them. So, China used its resources to exchange with Japan in a bid to increase China’s technologies and economic power.

Japan also needed a vast market to save their economy. So, both parties disregarded their previous enmities and started to cooperate in many economic areas. At that time, both parties also had a common enemy, which was the US.

This cooperation agreement between both countries was not wrong. The policies set and general direction this agreement was right. But there were problems when the people below start to implement the policies.

Initially, when the Japanese come to China to invest, they were low profile. After all, they were defeated by the US, and due to this defeat, they kept their arrogant nature in their hearts.

But after they arrived in China and were bootlicked by those Chinese Local Officials, they started showing their true colors. They began to despise the Chinese and look down on China. They felt that they could control China through economic means, and Japan would rise up to its peak again.

Thus, many Japanese invested factories appeared in China. These factories were unlike other factories which were invested by the western nations. These factories ignored the damages to the environment as long as they see profits. The Japanese knew that as long as the local officials got their political credits, they will help the factories to cover up.

Even if there were officials that refuse to help them, they would change their minds after the factories gave them some money. All these made the Japanese more arrogant.

But as these Japanese companies were making money in China, Sony suffered a heavy blow. First, it was a hugely profitable Walkman market. This market was taken away from them by Aiwa. If Aiwa was still under them, it’s fine. But Norio Ohga had sold Aiwa shares at a low price to Feng Yu, and this was a problem to Sony.

Sony most essential products in China were the Walkman and CD players. But an anti-Japanese products movement suddenly appeared in China, and Sony’s products became unpopular overnight.

Because of this, Sony moved out of the Chinese market, and many other Japanese companies were also severely affected by this movement. But Sony was affected the most. They had to retreat from the Chinese market. The other companies were still able to survive the storm.

Later, Wind and Rain Electronics invented the VCD player. It beat Japan’s strongest industry, which was the electronics industry, and Wind and Rain issued out patent authorizations to a lot of companies except for Sony!

Wind and Rain Electronics and Sony were also competing for the DVD standards. Both factions had support from various companies and had formed alliances to set the industry standards.

It can be said that if there were one company that hated Feng Yu the most, it would be Sony.

After Old Hu and the other 3 representatives came up with this idea, the first person to agree was Norio Ohga. If it were not because of Feng Yu, he would not be the acting President now. He would have been the actual President!

Sony will be introducing its PlayStation gaming console. If they gave up on the China market, it would be a waste. Nintendo had failed in China before, but that does not mean Sony will fail. This time, all the employees in China’s Sony office were all Chinese!

Norio Ohga listened to Old Hu’s report over the phone and was overjoyed. Feng Yu, ah, Feng Yu……. It’s time you get what you deserve. When you are trying to save yourself, our Sony will re-enter the Chinese market!

Chapter 682 – War of words on Media

<China’s pride or China’s disgrace?>

<Tai Hua Supermarket look down on others>

<International dispute arises from a business dispute!>

……

These were the headlines that appeared in the newspaper all over China. This was discussed even on radio programs. This was no longer a minor business disagreement. It was now a severe dispute between the two nations!

Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation was the biggest supermarket chain in China and had overshadowed all other imitators in many provinces. This had caused much unhappiness with many, especially the local shopping malls and state-owned enterprises.

Now, everyone wants to give Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation a kick when they are down. Before this incident, these people could not find any reason to find fault with Tai Hua Supermarket. But now, there was a good reason. They just had to go along and will be able to give Tai Hua Supermarket a big headache. Their malls will be able to take advantage of this incident. If they were lucky, they might be able to win some of Tai Hua Supermarket’s customers over.

The media was not one-sided. Some media had published articles that were objective. One of them was the <People’s Daily>, a national newspaper.

The article said that this incident was still under investigation and the public should not listen to one side of the story and conclude Tai Hua Supermarket was in the wrong. Also, no matter whether if Tai Hua Supermarket was found to be in the wrong or not, the Beijing Government have no reason or obligation to apologize to the Japanese Government! If Tai Hua Supermarket was found to be innocent, then the Japanese companies should come out and apologize!

The article did not say much about the Japanese Government, but those big Japanese companies were closely related to their government. If those companies apologize, then it was equivalent to giving a hard slap to the Japanese Government! Furthermore, this was only a temporary measure. If there were proof that the Japanese Companies had wrongly accused Tai Hua Supermarket, the Japanese Government would not get away unscattered!

Although the <People’s Daily> published this article, this article was not as influential as the countless articles published across many other local newspapers. The local authorities used their influences, coupled with the Japanese Companies paying those newspaper agencies, most of the people were siding with them.

The people felt that Tai Hua Supermarket had disgraced China. But…… they still prefer to shop at Tai Hua Supermarket as the items there were cheaper.

Feng Yu sneered as he looks at the pile of newspapers on his table.

The more articles these newspapers published, the harder they will fall when Iron Fist Zhu came out and showed his support for Tai Hua Supermarket. Of course, Feng Yu would not sit there to let Tai Hua Supermarket’s reputation take this beating. When it comes to the war of words, Feng Yu was the expert!

It’s just writing articles and create news. Feng Yu had been through the internet era, where it was filled with sensational news. This argument over media was never an issue for Feng Yu.

<Why people would believe an accusation?>

<First class: foreigners, Second class: official, Third class: Minority tribes, Fourth class: The Hans?>

<Japanese Companies’ plunder in China>

<Why did Tai Hua Supermarket reject those companies?>

……

Was China still an old conservative society? Why are the people still thinks that whatever the foreigners did were always right? Why are foreigners being treated as someone of higher social status?

When someone was accused of a crime by another person, will the judge melt out the punishment based on the one-sided accusations and do not need any evidence? Then, whoever started the lawsuit would be the winner!

……

Worshipping foreigners blindly was a terrible practice. What’s more terrible was some of our officials were worshipping foreigners. They were the root of this problem, and they caused the people under them to follow their footsteps. Is the grass greener on the other side of the fence?

The ones who contributed the most to this country are the Chinese and not those foreigners. Those foreigners had come to China to invest are just for the profits and not to help us!

They did not come to China for nothing. They are all businessmen. A group of businessmen that wants to earn money from China.

……

The foreigners claim that they were helping us to clear our rubbish and had sold us products at cheaper rates. These were all lies. The Japanese companies who bought the so-called “rubbish” from us, contains rare resources. They were taking away our precious rare earth element from us and then process it into electronic components. They will then sell these components back to us. Their cost was meager, but they exaggerated their cost to earn our money.

Were these high tech refining technology really so difficult? Our country can also refine these rare earth element. But we did not notice this before, and when we realized what was happening, this had been ongoing for years.

……

Fair. This was what Tai Hua Supermarket had been emphasizing on. Any company who wishes to enter our Tai Hua Supermarket will be treated fairly.

The representatives of Sony, Toshiba…… had come to our company to demand special treatments. They think that their Japanese products are better than the rest and they do not need to give anything in return. They think that Japanese companies were more significant than all other companies.

One reason why our company had rejected them was that we do not have any more space for them. Our partner brands had already filled the shelves with their products. We will not break our contracts with other brands and ask them to remove their products from the shelves just to let these Japanese brands sell their products in Tai Hua Supermarkets. Another reason is we have lots of other imported brands whose products are of a higher quality than those few companies’ products. Tai Hua Supermarket has the obligation to provide the best products for our customers. We will not promote those few companies’ products just because they think their products are the best in the world!

……

Feng Yu and the rest had gotten people to read lots of articles and published them in leading magazines and provincial newspapers. These articles were starting to change the public’s opinion on this incident.

These articles had increased the sales of the newspapers, and Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation had paid the newspaper agencies to publish. Why would the newspaper agencies reject them? Although some local government had to step in to interfere, most newspaper agencies still published these articles.

Because this incident had become more intense, Fu Guangzheng, Li Zekai and the rest returned back to Beijing. They wanted to discuss with Feng Yu on how to handle this crisis.

“Brother Feng, having a war of words on the newspaper, is your solution to this incident?” Li Zekai frowned. War of words was common in Hong Kong. It can be seen almost every day in their newspapers.

Some arguments were between celebrities, some were between authors, businessmen, and politicians. There were some arguments over legal cases. Reports and articles were published in the newspaper to influence the public’s opinion.

But it was hard to find a winner in these war of words. Also, this will drag for a long time. Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation could not afford to wait for so long as they were still building their brand and expanding their operations now.

If Tai Hua Supermarket’s reputation was affected, then they will be finished. The supermarket might still be able to continue to operate, but it would be hard for them to set up new branches. Those cities who wanted to bring in Tai Hua Supermarket might not be so enthusiastic anymore and will not offer good conditions.

Even if it was only lower taxes, the total amount in a year was considerable. If Tai Hua Supermarket were able to get concession for the land parcel and other benefits like building bus stops around their supermarkets, it would be suitable for their supermarket’s development.

But all these depend on the image of Tai Hua Supermarket’s brand. If Tai Hua Supermarket was found to have brought shame to China, then they will not be getting all these benefits, and many cities will not negotiate with them.

One of the reasons why Fu Guangzheng, Li Zekai, and the rest returned to Beijing was that their talks with some cities had been halted. The cities demanded harsh conditions and implemented new terms suddenly. There were even some cities that terminated their negotiations. They knew that even if they stayed in those cities, there would not be any progress, and they might as well return back to Beijing to see what they can do to help with the situation.

After hearing Li Zekai’s question, Feng Yu laughed. “This is not the only measure we are taking. This is only to stimulate them further and make them retaliate harder. Look at this information. I had sent people to collect this information some time ago. If this information were released to the public, do you think we will lose the public opinion war?”

Li Zekai took the document and gave some of it to Fu Guangzheng. Both of them read the document seriously. The more they read, the more they got angry. These Japanese companies should be chase out of China!

“If this information is accurate, then we will not lose to them. I never expect these Japanese factories operated this way in China! They think that this is decades ago?!” Fu Guangzheng replied angrily.

“It should not be enough to just win the public’s opinion. Those Japanese companies can claim that what they are doing is following China’s regulations. It is China that did not take any actions, and it is none of their business. Also, they will claim that we are discriminating Japanese companies. What can we retort to these claims?” Li Zekai asked.

“From the top down. I will contact the companies in the DVD forum and ask them to speak up for us internationally and at the same time, suppress Sony, Toshiba and the rest. I also hope that Brother Kai will borrow your father’s influence to issue a warning to those companies. For example, you will stop their distribution channels by restricting them from using your family’s ports. I have also gotten a promise from the higher-ups. The Chinese Government will intervene and speak to the Japanese Government.” Feng Yu said and pointed upwards.

Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai remembered that China’s top official who had come to their opening ceremony. That person will help them? If China Government supports them, then they will win for sure.

Li Zekai thought for a while and said: “I need to speak to my father first.”

“I am only requesting for his help. I am not forcing him. Of course, if your father wants to establish a closer relationship with the top Chinese officials, then he should know what to do. We do not need to try to convince him. Brother Fu, can you tell your eldest uncle that those companies’ share prices might drop soon. It is a good time to enter the market. Ask him to use all his tricks to press down those companies’ share prices.”

Even if the share prices of those big companies fall by 1%, the losses will amount up to 100 million USD! Those companies will surely think of ways to pull up their share prices. Feng Yu and the rest will be able to profit from this.

“Ok. I will speak to my eldest uncle.”

Feng Yu showed one finger. “The winner will be announced in one week!”

Chapter 683 – Pollution

When Tai Hua Supermarket published their articles, people start to doubt Japanese Companies, especially those 4 companies. The 4 companies also started to retaliate.

They published articles on the papers about the scale of their companies. They talk about how many companies they had invested in China and created how many jobs for the Chinese. They also disclosed how much taxes they paid to the Chinese Government. In other words, they were telling everyone that they had made significant contributions to China’s economy.

They were also showing off their positions in the world’s top 500 companies. This was to show how powerful their companies were and indirectly states that it was the Chinese Government who had begged them to come to China.

Now, these 4 companies were being treated unjustly, especially by Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation. Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation’s attitude towards them had saddened them greatly.

When people read these reports, they were anxious. If these factories moved out of China, many people would be out of jobs, and China’s economy will be finished!

What the 4 companies said was a joke. Without these Japanese companies, no other companies from other countries will invest in China? The local authorities cannot invest themselves? If those factories were to shift out of China, they would not suffer losses? In fact, whose losses will be more significant if they were to pull out of China?

When Feng Yu read these articles, he sighed. This was the best opportunity to fight back!

Feng Yu immediately contact the newspaper agencies to publish those articles. He also called Station Chief Jia and told him to air the episode of <Focus Report> they had filmed before.

<Lead Poisoning of several workers at Toshiba Electronics Factory!>

<High level of pollutants in Sharp Factory’s sewage disposal!>

<Proportion of Japanese Factories in China>

<Heavy metal pollution will shorten life span by more than 20 years!>

All these headlines were directing towards the Japanese Companies. This time, Feng Yu used environmental pollution to attack them.

Feng Yu had been waiting for Sony and the rest of the companies to announce how big they were. If not, this news will not have a significant impact. Now was the time. Pictures, people, and locations were all stated clearly. There were also independent doctors and environmentalist expressing their professional views. They increased the creditability of the reports.

Although these reports might not let all the people believe about the pollution caused by those companies, the majority of the people still believed the reports. People typically pay more attention to negative news. These reports were too shocking.

In the evenings, <Focus Report> air a special episode that talks about environmental pollution.

“Electric components contain more heavy metals, and the discharge must be regulated. If people drink water contaminated by heavy metal, they will fall sick. They will feel tired, hair loss, listless, and breathing difficulties. If it was more serious, it could cause heart failure. Regardless of internationally or in China, there are strict regulations on the level of heavy metals. Now, we shall see the laboratory test results of the water samples taken from drains near to Toshiba factory.”

“Reporter Sui, I am a researcher with Beijing Water Quality Control. Professor Li Changtian. The analysis of these water samples is conducted by us.”

“What’s the result of the test?” Sui Junyi asked.

The researcher shook his head. “The heavy metal contamination is at least 8 times above the regulated levels. Some samples are over 46 times. This water is not fit for consumption, and they cannot even be used for domestic use. If people use this water to wash their clothes, they will also fall sick. This contamination has a significant impact on the surrounding environment. It will cause mutation to the plants and animals nearby. The plants might take a few generations of mutation before they could withstand the pollution. But how many generations will it take before our bodies can resist this? Who is willing to shorten their lifespan to only 50 years maximum?”

“Wait, Professor Li, what do you mean by 50 years lifespan?” Sui Junyi suddenly interrupted.

“It’s what I said. If someone were to live in such conditions, they would not be able to live more than 30 years in theory. But we have factored in the increased body immunity of these people. Even with medical treatments, it was impossible for them to live more than 50 years old! Their chances of getting cancer are more than 10,000 times compared to an ordinary person!”

“10,000 times?!” Sui Junyi was shocked. He did not expect this contamination was so severe.

“That’s right. This is why I suggest the people living nearby to the factories to have a body checkup. They must check to see if they were affected by heavy metal contamination. These are all caused by the factories there. They should be held responsible.”

……

“Hi, I am a researcher with China’s air quality research laboratory. Professor Zhao Ligang. We have collected samples from the fumes released by these electronic factories. The samples contain high concentration of lead particles. These lead particles are released by those factories’ high-temperature furnaces. These particles can be removed by filtration easily. I am curious why these factories did not filter the fumes and release it directly. These factories do have filtration devices. Why are they not using it? Are those devices for show, or are they trying to save cost? They don’t care about polluting the environment?”

……

“As everyone can see, this is just outside of the factory. There is a lot of smog. We will interview some passerby about the situation here. Good afternoon Mdm. I am reporter Sui Junyi with CCTV.”

“I know you. I love to watch your program. CCTV programs are very well produced.” The middle-aged woman said excitedly.

“Thank you for your compliments. I have a few questions to ask you. There is a lot of smog around here. Do you still remember when did this start?”

When mentioned this, the woman pointed to a factory angrily. “The smog appears after that factory shifted here. In the past, this place is clean and beautiful. Look at this place now. The air has a pungent smell. We have complained to the higher-ups, but no one cares!”

The camera zoomed in on that factory. Toshiba China XXX Factory.

“Eh, eh, eh, I am not finished yet. There are still loud noises constantly. Can you hear it? The noise continues day and night. We can’t even sleep well.”

“What about now?” Sui Junyi asked.

“Now? We are all used to it.” The woman replied helplessly. “My son is working in other provinces after he graduates. When he was studying, he was not willing to return home. He will start coughing badly when he returns. We will be shifting out in another two years. This place is not fit for living!”

……

The whole episode was talking about the pollution caused by these factories. But the viewers can see that these factories were specially picked. All the factories shown in the program belong to Toshiba and the other 3 companies.

Now, no one supported those companies. Everyone start to point their fingers at them. These evil businessmen are making profits at the expense of human lives!

Chapter 684 – The fire spread to home (Part 1 of 2)

In China, the tides changed, and everyone was scolding Sony, Toshiba, and the other two companies. At about the same time, Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai returned back to Hong Kong.

Li Zekai was speaking to his father, hoping for him to give those companies some pressure.

Currently, the mainstream freight was by sea, and Superman Li was the king of seaports. This was also the reason why Superman Li was one of the wealthiest people in the world. In terms of influences, he was more influential than the tycoons ranked above him.

This was because Superman Li can choose to be ruthless. He can choose to not earn your money, but your transportation cost will increase by several times. This was why many companies were not willing to offend Superman Li.

Superman Li’s most significant investment was the ports, followed by properties, energy, technology, etc. Although managing seaports might not seem to be more profitable than properties, seaports were Superman Li’s biggest assets. He could make use of his ports to influence the politics of other countries.

Superman Li was calm as usual. He picked up his teacup and took a sip, before asking Li Zeju: “What do you think?”

Li Zeju looked at his father and his younger brother and asked seriously. “I think we should give those companies some warnings. Those Japanese companies knew that our family has shares in Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation and younger brother is still the Chairman. They are no showing us respect by making those claims.”

“If Japan wants to export its products to the west or other parts of Asia, the most convenient and economical way of transportation is by sea freight. Those Japanese companies had been wanting to have some say in the ports. If it weren’t for them, we would not need to spend so much more when we acquire some of those ports. Now, it is time to teach them a lesson. We must let them know the consequences of offending our Li family!”

“Also, I feel that the Chinese Government might sit by and doing nothing regarding this incident. Our family has shares in Tai Hua Supermarket, and the Chinese Government has been paying particular attention to our company. By giving those companies warnings, should be in line with what the Chinese government’s intention. We will be able to increase our impression with the Chinese Government. This is also a benefit.”

Superman Li nodded: “The Chinese Government will not stand on the sidelines. They will surely support us! Don’t forget that person was still around. China is a rising power; no other country can ignore. No matter which country China is facing, the Chinese Government will take a firm stance. This incident had escalated from a business dispute to an international level. That person will never give in to Japan!”

Li Zekai’s eyes brighten up. “Dad, you agree to this?”

“Yes. Why should I disagree? I also have shares in Tai Hua Supermarket. Setting an example to others is a tactic since ancient times. We want others to follow our rules and not follow the standards set by others. Now, those few companies are giving us a chance to show our influences. Zeju, make the call now. Notify all our ports to restrict those few companies’ ships from docking. Do not allow those few companies to unload their goods at our ports. If those companies ask for the reason, just tell them we don’t own them any reasons!”

Superman Li might look like kind usually. But he was scary when it comes to times like this.

“Oh, Feng Yu had also asked the Fu Family to suppress those few companies’ share prices and then make use of the opportunity to make some profits. Should we join them?” Li Zekai asked.

“We don’t need to interfere with the share prices. We are different from Fu Rongqi. His company is dealing with financial markets and have lots of experience. The risk of doing this is very high, and we could easily get into trouble. If possible, we will stay away from this area. We will only participate if they asked us for help.”

……

“Uncle, Feng Yu said that he had called you. He wants to suppress those few companies’ shares and then take the opportunity to acquire their shares to make money. He asked me to tell you that it is about time.”

“I know. This time I will handle this personally. Guangzheng, what are the chances of us winning in this incident?” Fu Rongqi asked.

“I think we have more than 95% chances of winning!”

“Oh? Why do you think so? Those few companies are worth several billion. They are all multinational corporations. They are combining their strengths and have the backing of the Japanese Government. You are so sure that you all will win?” Fu Rongqi asked him back.

“We also have the support of the Chinese Government. Feng Yu had already gotten the help from the higher-ups. Also, the Chinese Government will benefit by supporting us. Although Japan’s economy seems to be stronger than China, everyone knows the potential of the Chinese market. Many countries wish to trade with China, and because of this, the Chinese Government has more confidence to face off Japan. Also, Feng Yu said that something interesting will happen in Japan. I think he still has some other tricks up his sleeves.”

“You don’t know what is his plans and you believe that you all will succeed?” Fu Rongqi asked.

Fu Guangzheng smiled cunningly: “There is also one more thing that affirms my confidence. You have agreed to help Feng Yu to suppress those few companies’ share prices.”

“Hahaha.”

……

“President, this is today’s papers.” Norio Ohga’s assistant passed the newspaper to him. He paused for a while and seems to have something to tell him.

“What’s the matter?”

“President, please look at the newspaper first.” The assistant said.

Newspaper? Was there some important news today? Is there a report on our PlayStation sales? Is Nintendo introducing a new gaming console to compete with us?

Norio Ohga looked at the papers. When he saw the headlines, his face changed!

Toshiba, Sony and some other companies’ factories in China had caused serious pollution. Workers’ health and safety were ignored, and many work-related injuries were being disregarded.

The Chinese Government is concerned about these incidents and wanted investigations to be conducted on these companies. The Japanese companies involved had tarnished Japan’s image and caused served damages to Japan’s reputation. Japan’s economy will also be affected because of this incident…….

What’s the meaning of this? Sony does not have any factories in China! Errr……. After Sony and Toshiba partnered, Toshiba’s factories in China were helping Sony to manufacture their products.

But what does the pollution and work-related injuries caused by Toshiba’s factories got to do with Sony? Why was Sony mentioned in the news?!

Also, this matter had blown up to this proportion, how come I am unaware of it? This was already reported in Japan’s newspaper, and it was not good for Sony’s brand image!

Chapter 685 – The fire spread to home (Part 2 of 2)

The President of Panasonic arrived at work and asked his assistant: “Have the newspapers we control, report about the uproar caused by Sony, Toshiba, and those companies in China?”

“Yes. Not only our papers but many other newspapers had also reported this matter. Also, we have arranged for the afternoon news to broadcast yesterday’s episode of CCTV popular news program. The episode shows all the negative news about Toshiba, Sony and the rest.” The Assistant replied, excitedly.

Panasonic and Sony were competitors, and Panasonic was ahead of those 4 companies once. But now, all 4 companies were doing better than Panasonic. Now, those companies were in trouble, and this was an excellent opportunity for Panasonic.

If the politician behind those 4 companies had not won and gave them special treatments, how can these 4 companies develop so fast?

This incident had blown up. Not only the share prices of those 4 companies will fall, the politician who was backing them will also be implicated. This was the opportunity for Panasonic to rise to the top again and beat Sony, Toshiba, and many other companies.

This was why when Aiwa’s Heitaro Nakajima represented Feng Yu contacted the President of Panasonic and wanted him to target Sony, Toshiba, and the other two companies through the media, he was tempted.

Aiwa also told him that they will give them the authorization of a related patent and he agreed immediately.

Just getting Sony, Toshiba, and the other two companies into trouble were enough for Panasonic to agree. Also, Panasonic feels that those companies were too much.

It was still acceptable if those companies were to take China’s resources. But to pollute the environment and disregarded the injured workers, it was too much. They had disgrace all Japanese. Those factories could also make money by producing products without damaging the environment. Why must they pollute the environment? Even if they had to destroy the environment, they must not let others find out. Even if they were caught, they must also find a good excuse, like the local authorities gave them permission or other countries’ factories were doing the same.

The other countries’ factories in China did not cause heavy pollution? Yes, they did. But the damages caused by them were not as serious.

Actually, Toshiba and the other factories had covered up this matter thoroughly. They had taken care of the local authorities. But now, they were being exposed, and it was specifically targeting them.

Heitaro Nakajima had not only contacted Panasonic. He had also contacted several big corporations in Japan. Those companies were all members of the DVD Forum. They were promised some benefits in return for them to get the media under their control to spread about this incident.

Those companies got some benefits, and at the same time, they will be able to suppress their competitors and widen the gap between them. DVD alliance and DVD forum were still competing for the industry standards. If the reputation of those 4 companies were affected by this incident, their progress would be delayed.

Profits. What those companies wanted were profits. Brand image or company’s reputations were only some minor reasons for them to help Feng Yu. Their main goal was the profits that will arise from getting Sony, Toshiba, and the other two companies into trouble.

All the companies wanted the authorization for DVD technologies. The prospects of the DVD was good, and all of them wanted a slice of the profits.

Although the pie was big, if one less person were sharing, the rest would get bigger slices.

This was why all those companies were willing to join in, and rain blows on Sony, Toshiba, and the other two companies. At the same time, the companies were able to increase their brand image. This was a good thing for them, and how can they miss this opportunity?

……

“Panasonic had issued a statement on the pollution caused by Toshiba and some companies in China. No companies should do this in any other countries. Toshiba, Sony, and the other two companies had brought shame to Japan for their actions in China. They should apologize immediately and stop denying their actions.”

“Aiwa’s President Heitaro Nakajima said that Aiwa’s Walkman was able to beat Sony and Aiwa’s CD players were able to catch up with them, is not only because Aiwa’s products are better. It is also because Aiwa’s brand image is better than Sony and had treated every employee as one big family.”

“We can see that after news of Toshiba and the other companies polluting the environment were picked up by many other European and US media, many reporters were sent to contact the companies involved. But the President of Toshiba and the other companies were nowhere to be seen.

“Are they keeping silence to hide their guilt? None of the companies involved have come out to clarify the news reported on China’s media. From the pictures and footages, we can see the logos of those companies.”

…….

By noon, this incident was reported all over Japan’s media. This incident had even overshadowed the news of some politicians.

This incident was blown out of proportion was because of Panasonic and several other companies. Fu Rongqi also used his connections to add fuel to the fire. To suppress a company’s share prices, the simplest way was to let this company lose its credibility and make the shareholders lose confidence with the company. This way, the shareholders will dump all the shares they were holding, and the share prices will plummet.

The Fu Family have many distribution channels in many regions. Because they often had to advertise their products, they had good relationships with the media in that region. With a small sum of money, they could easily get those media to report this incident.

When people start to notice this news, the rest of the media will begin to report on this incident for free. This was because this news will attract views and can bring profits to the media.

Also, many countries hate Japan. This was mainly because the Japanese were arrogant by nature, and Japanese companies were too greedy. This was a chance to discredit Japanese Companies and even tarnish Japan’s image. How can they miss this opportunity?

Late afternoon, there was another piece of news that caused Japan to panic.

Superman Li, the king of seaports, announced that his company’s ports will not do business with Toshiba, Sony and some other companies. The reason given was…… Everyone should know the reason.

This “everyone should know the reason” was the reason given by Superman Li. What’s the real meaning behind this statement? Many people were guessing, but everyone believes that the main reason was that Hong Kong was going to be returned to China, and Superman Li wants to take this opportunity to suck up to the Chinese Government.

But no matter what Superman Li meant by that statement, Sony, Toshiba, and the other two companies’ share prices plunged further after this news was released. All the shareholders felt that the transportation cost of these companies will rise and they will lose the vast Chinese market. Also, the factories in China will be shut down, and the production capabilities of those companies will be affected, and their production cost will increase further. This will cause the companies to have reduced profits, and they might even go into the red.

Under such circumstances, who would want to continue holding the shares of these companies?

……

Snapped!

Norio Ohga snapped the pen in his hands. How come things turned out this way?!

Chapter 686 – Hitting someone when he is down

“President, our share prices keep dropping!” The assistant came running into the office panicking.

Share prices dropped? Norio Ohga’s face was dark. When the papers reported this incident in the morning, he knows that this would happen and had stepped up measures to prevent this from happening. He exaggerated the sales of PlayStation to try to give the shareholders some confidence.

“How much have the share prices dropped?”

“It is already 5%.”

“What? The share prices fell by 5%?!” Norio Ohga was shocked. 5%? How come the share prices had dropped by so much? Although Sony was listed in Tokyo Stock Exchange, it was also listed on the New York stock exchange, and NYSE was their primary focus. But if the share prices fell in Tokyo, it will affect their share prices in NYSE.

At night, when the NYSE opens, Sony will have a crisis! If this crisis were not handled well, Sony’s total worth would drop by several billion USD!

Norio Ohga had achieved some success with Sony’s movie VCDs and lowered Sony-Columbia Pictures losses. He even felt that Sony-Columbia Pictures would start to bring in profits next year.

Also, the newly launched PlayStation gaming console will bring in high profits for Sony. Coupled with their CD-ROM technologies and their partnership with Toshiba, they would be able to develop DVD-ROM soon. This will be Sony’s newest revenue source. But everything was halted.

Now, all of Norio Ohga’s hopes were dashed because of the negative news and the drop in share prices!

The negative news will affect Sony’s brand value and their product sales. Whoever that uses Sony’s products will be despised by others: “Why are you using products from that heartless evil company?”

Sony had been making losses all these years. If it weren’t for Sony’s strong financial backing, they would have been bankrupt years ago.

Sony’s share prices had not dropped due to the losses. They had maintained their share prices with their brand while finding ways to turn losses to profits. This was also the reason why Norio Ohga was able to be promoted to Acting President.

But if Sony’s share prices plummeted under Norio Ohga’s charge, then the shareholders and board of directors will pin the blame on him and replace him!

“Is Mr. Akio aware of this?” Norio Ohga asked.

“He should be aware of this news. All the shareholders and board of directors should also be aware of this.” Before the assistant could finish talking, Norio Ohga’s phone on the desk rang.

“Hello? I know.”

After hanging up the phone, Norio Ohga’s face became more gloomy. A last minute board meeting was called, and the reason was apparent.

……

“Norio Ohga, you should know about our company’s share prices. The prices were dropping until the market close. It had fallen by 9.2%. Do you know how much losses we have suffered?” A director questioned.

“You have been with Sony for quite some time. From the time when you are still the Vice President, you sold AIWA shares to a Chinese man, our Walkman sales have been dropping year on year. Our market share had fallen from 60% to 20%. We can understand if the market share is taken over by Panasonic, JVC, or other companies. But from what we know, the market share is taken over by AIWA. That Heitaro Nakajima!” Another director shouted.

“What did you do for Columbia Pictures? A large amount of funds is invested in making movies, but none of the movies are selling well. You can’t even create sales from movie-related merchandise. We are suffering losses annually. Is this what you are supposed to do?”

Now, someone had mentioned something Norio Ohga could retort.

“I am not the one who decided to acquire Columbia Pictures. This was a collective decision. I am also not the one who chose to sell AIWA shares to that Chinese man. It is also decided by everyone here! I am the one who helped Columbia Pictures make profits from their old movie rights. How many VCDs have we sold this year? This is not considered my contributions to the company?”

“That is because the market is getting better overall, and it is not because of your efforts. After Nintendo’s betrayal, you supported Ken Kutaragi to develop our gaming console. How many funds and resources have we invested? What happened in the end? The PlayStation has launched a few days ago, and we believed your words that this product will bring profits to the company. But now, who is willing to buy our Sony’s products?!”

“Director Watanabe, how can you say this? We have been investing in the video game industry all these years. Are we going to give up years of effects because of Nintendo’s betrayal? We also need a new revenue source to increase our profits. Our PlayStation is also very successful. We used CD-ROM technologies in this console, and our product is the most advanced in the market. Is this not what everyone wish for?”

“CD-ROM? I admit that this technology is good, and to use it on the gaming console is very creative. But to develop this technology, we lag behind others in the development of DVD. We, Sony, have to follow Toshiba’s standards?! Also, your decision to corporate with Toshiba is a disaster. A disaster for our brand image!”

“Those are all false accusations. We do not have any factories in China. Toshiba is only producing some products for us. This is to lower our production cost and let us re-enter the Chinese market. This has been our goal all this while.”

Norio Ohga was almost bursting. He had to bear all the blames. This incident of environmental pollution has nothing to do with Sony. But Sony was burnt along the way!”

“Do you think Toshiba will come out to give an explanation now? Do you really think Toshiba will take full responsibility?”

Norio Ohga was quiet. If he was the President of Toshiba, he will also not take on full responsibility. After all, it was Norio Ohga’s instruction to get people to create trouble in China. There was no way Norio Ohga could escape this responsibility.

Now, this incident had blown up, and everyone suffered losses. It was too late for Sony to stay out of the way! If Sony were to push all the blame to Toshiba to escape responsibilities, then they will fall out with Toshiba. Toshiba will surely retaliate, and Sony will have one more enemy. Also, Sony will be out of the DVD game.

Sony’s Vice Chairman of the board suddenly speaks: “Norio Ohga, it’s time for you to step down. You have to take responsibility for all the blames. This way, Sony will be saved.”

Norio Ohga felt he was hit by a thunderbolt. He had tried to explain himself, but these people still wanted him to resign!

This moment was the darkest moment of Norio Ohga’s life. How did things turn out to be this way?

No! I still have one last chance!

Chapter 687 – The Higher-ups acted

Norio Ohga refused to resign. The Chairman still had not said anything. When the Chairman picked him to be the acting President of Sony, he was supportive of him.

That night, Norio Ohga and the rest were looking at the NYSE. That’s the battleground of Sony’s financial war. If their share prices there drops, they will suffer massive losses.

Sony had taken a series of measures, like the shareholders announcing to the public that they will increase their stakes and announcing the dividends for this year. They hope the shareholders will not dump their shares. This way, their share prices will not plummet drastically.

But when the market opens, Sony, Toshiba, and the other two companies’ share prices plunged. In less than 10 minutes, their share prices fell by 5%, and it was still falling.

The US had also reported China’s news on this incident. Everyone knows that Sony, Toshiba, and the other two companies’ factories in China were sealed.

When this news was released, all the shareholders felt the cost of Sony, Toshiba, and the other two companies will skyrocket. How could they still give out dividends?

The US market was doing well, and there were many companies worth investing. The investors have no reason to hold on to the shares of these few companies.

This news was spread by Fu Rongqi’s men. This more serious this crisis was, the harder the share prices will fall.

Of course, Sony, Toshiba, and the other two companies’ offices in the US also tried to save the situation. They kept announcing positive news to cover up the negativity. Their share prices were fluctuating, but it still continues to fall. This panic selling was unstoppable.

Many people felt that the Chinese Government will penalize these companies and will create more problems for these companies.

Everyone’s guess was right. The Chinese Government issued a statement on this incident. The first to speak out was the Mayor of the City reported in <Focus Report>. He came out to apologize for failing to regulate these factories. He had already suspended the operations of those factories and arranged for all the workers to undergo medical checks. He had also sent all his environmental-related departments to try to salvage the environmental pollution.

All the expenses from these measures will be borne by Toshiba. Toshiba will also have to take care of all the medical treatments of the workers. The City will take Toshiba to the courts for their damage to the environment. Currently, Toshiba’s accounts in China were frozen!

This was only the first step. The Chinese government had also sent out several investigation teams to investigate all Japanese factories in China. The factories include electronic factories, chemical factories, and other heavy industries. There was no more trust for the Japanese companies in China.

The action of sending out investigation teams showed the attitude of the Chinese Government. They will not let this incident go by so easily and were treating this matter seriously.

Many Chinese leaders from various ministries publicly announced that they will pursue this matter and disciplinary actions will be taken against those officials who allowed those factories to operate this way.

Warnings were also issued to all government officials. They should not cover up for those companies in return for political credits. No matter what the reason was, the people of China must come first.

Those who try to develop the economy of their regions blindly and ignore the safety of the citizens and the environment should be removed from their positions. China does not need such investments to develop!

At the same time, warnings were issued to the companies in other regions. Companies would be punished severely if their factories were found to have polluted the environment!

China supported the decision of freezing the bank accounts of those companies involved in this saga. The government will melt out severe punishments to them. Even if they move out of China, the Chinese Government will still pursue them internationally!

After this news was aired on CCTV, the whole nation cheered. All the major newspapers reported about this, and many people started to write in or call in to whistleblow on the factories that were causing pollution all over China.

The local authorities panicked. They immediately start to clamp down on the factories under their charge. Once they find any wrongdoings by a factory, the factory will be suspended immediately for investigation.

Feng Yu did not expect the Central Government to take such a serious view on this incident. But this was a good thing, unlike the government in his previous life.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the government brought in lots of foreign companies to make money. But in the end, the government got to spend more money to clean up the pollution caused by those companies. The people at that time did not get to enjoy the economic benefits brought in by those companies. Instead, most of the people in that region, where the factories located fell sick.

Feng Yu looked down on those local officials. How could they claim they were not aware of what the factories were doing under their charge. They can’t claim that they were not aware that those companies were dealing in heavy industries and could damage the environment.

Feng Yu felt that the suspension of those factories was only a temporary measure for them to lie low until the wind blows over. Who knows whether if these factories will carry on operating and continue to pollute the environment after the dust had settled. After all, the local governments still have to depend on these factories for taxes.

Feng Yu could even guess what those companies bosses were doing now. They should be at the local government leader offices negotiating with them. If they are supposed to be fined 1 million RMB, they will send gifts worth 500,000 RMB, in exchange for the government to not fine them and lift the suspension.

How to settle the whistleblowers’ complains? There were lots of ways to prove that there were no pollutions. The local government might impose some measures and light punishments to those factories and then let them continue to operate as before secretly. No one would know.

Even if someone found out about this, what can a civilian do against the local authorities? Giving some benefits to that civilian will be sufficient to silence him. The most crucial factors in this crackdown were the attitude of the government officials and transparency. These were the source of the problem.

……

This news dealt a heavy blow to Sony, Toshiba, and the rest of the companies. Some other Japanese factories in the chemical industry were also exposed. All these companies’ share prices plunged overnight.

Now, the Japanese Government could no longer sit still. All those factories were suspended, and their bank accounts were frozen. The companies involved still had to compensate the Chinese Government for their damages to the environment. These had a significant impact on Japan’s economy.

Even before the compensations, the share prices of many Japanese companies had fallen and caused the Japan stock market to crash. In only two days, the total losses amounted up to a few billion USD.

If this carries on, it will become a crisis for Japan. The Japanese economy had just shown slight improvements, and everything will be back to square one.

Now, Japanese factories all over the world were in crisis. Even those factories that complied with the regulations were suspended for checks.

How many losses will a company suffer if their factories were suspended for one day? No companies will agree to this. But now, there was a trust issue with Japanese companies. Everyone in the world was suspecting Japanese factories were did not meet the required standards. Their factories’ waste discharge were harmful to the environment and will cause serious pollution. Many people also come out to demand compensation from Japanese companies for their illness caused by their factories.

The Japanese Government was in trouble. But the Chinese Government had not contacted them. The Chinese Government seems to want to blow up this incident further. Japan could no longer wait for the Chinese Government to contact them. They immediately contact China…….

Chapter 688 – Iron Fist Zhu’s conditions

Knock, knock, knock.

Director Fang knocked on the door and entered the office. Iron Fist Zhu asked without lifting his head. “What is it?”

“Premier, Japan’s Prime Minister Office had sent you an invitation. They want to invite you over to Japan for a visit.” Director Fang replied.

“Not going. Tell them I am busy.”

“Yes. I know.”

Japan’s Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama was walking up and down in his office. Japan will have to face another financial crisis? This time was different from the previous crisis. The crisis this time was caused by some negative news, and it resulted in the lack of trust in Japanese companies worldwide. This crisis might bankrupt several Japanese companies.

Now, this crisis must be solved before it gets any worse. The root cause must be handled well. If the Chinese Government could issue an official statement that these were all a misunderstanding, then most of the problems will be solved. But the Chinese Government would surely have harsh conditions. Japan will have to suffer heavy losses this time.

But Tomiichi Murayama did not expect his invitation to be turned down by the Chinese Government. Didn’t China want to visit Japan all these years? Why did they reject his official invitation?

Tomiichi Murayama immediately asks his men to contact Iron Fist Zhu. He wants to speak to Iron Fist Zhu and tell him that if China was not willing to send diplomats over to Japan, he could visit China instead.

“Mr. Zhu, I sincerely invite you to represent China to visit Japan. We can cooperate economically in many areas. We can even talk about military cooperation!” Tomiichi Murayama had expressed his full sincerity. Military cooperation can only happen behind closed doors if not, the US will interfere.

“China is a neutral country and will not engage in wars. We do not need to have military cooperations with Japan. As for our economy, we are doing well, and we do not need any cooperations with Japan. Also, we are not interested in your Japanese companies.” Iron Fist Zhu rejected him flatly.

Rejection. Iron Fist Zhu had rejected Japan’s offer for cooperations! Japan’s air force and navy had more advanced weaponry than China. Tomiichi Murayama thought Iron Fist Zhu will be interested. But he rejected this offer!

The reason given was a joke. China was still in the war in the southwest region. There were still lots of small scale fightings. These fightings were not considered engaging in wars?

“Mr. Zhu, Japan, has many technologies that are the most advanced in the world. We can set up joint partnership factories in China and pass those technologies to you. This will increase the technological levels of China’s industries. It will be good for China’s developments.”

“I’m sorry. We are not interested in working with companies that damage the environment and ignore the wellbeing of its workers. Also, we will drive all Japan related factories out of China. We do not welcome such companies to set up factories in China.” Iron Fist Zhu replied straightforwardly.

Tomiichi Murayama panicked when he heard this. “Mr. Zhu, please don’t do this. We have been working well all this while, and if all our companies were to pull out of China, there would be a significant impact on China’s economy. You should take this into considerations.”

The translator translated what Tomiichi Murayama said to Iron Fist Zhu, and Iron Fist Zhu’s face turned black. Tomiichi Murayama was threatening him!

But China had never given in to these threats. Even if they had to go to war, China has never been afraid of anything!

“You all want to pull out of China? Great. We welcome you all to leave. Maybe you are still unaware that the US, Germany and some other countries had contacted us. They want to have multi-aspect cooperations with us. Industrial developments are included in these cooperations. Maybe our economy will be affected slightly. But we can withstand it. Japan’s industries are strong. But we can still grow and develop without your industries.”

The old industrial cities in the Northeast had been developing well in recent years. Many former Soviet Union experts were still working there, and all the new technologies developed, belongs to China. It was not like those Japanese companies. The Chinese were working for them, and all the technologies developed belongs to Japan. It was obvious which side the Government should support.

Welcome? China welcomes Japan companies to pull out? How can this be possible?! Japanese companies were the biggest investors in China. Have the Chinese Government gone crazy?!

Tomiichi Murayama knew that it was not the Chinese Government that had gone mad. It was because the Chinese Government knew that it was impossible for the Japanese companies to pull out of China. If the Japanese companies really leave China, Japan will suffer even higher losses.

Withdrawing from China might have an impact on China’s economy, but with Japan’s investments, there will still be investments coming in from other countries. Also, there will be existing factories and skilled workers. These will attract more foreign direct investors.

Japan will then lose the vast Chinese market. They will not have low-cost labor, and without these factories, Japan’s economy will suffer even more.

Because those Japanese companies will need to rebuild new factories elsewhere, it will take time, and their losses will be higher. Their cost will also increase because of the increase in their transportation cost. All their efforts in developing the Chinese market will be wasted.

China’s economy could afford to take such a beating. Anyway, the Chinese have been poor for decades. They could afford to wait 1 or 2 years more. But the Japanese economy had just crashed a few years ago. These few years, Japan’s Prime Minister had changed 7 to 8 times. If Japanese companies were to withdraw from China, then Tomiichi Murayama will have to step down soon!

Tomiichi Murayama absolutely does not want this to happen. He will have not to prove himself. Also, the longer he stayed in power, the more benefits he will get when he retires. He also needs to remain in power for the development of his family.

“Mr. Zhu, you have mistaken. That’s not what I meant. What I wanted to say was, I will let those companies who had damaged the environment leave China. The rest of the companies will increase their investments in China. We can cooperate in many areas and prosper together.

Tomiichi Murayama had given in, but Iron Fist Zhu does not care. What he wanted was not only these. He had waited for a long time, and there was still not an apology from Tomiichi Murayama.

“Really? It might be an error with the translation. But those companies who had polluted our country cannot only just leave China. They have to compensate us. The compensation includes the expenses for the clean up of the pollution, the expenses for the treatment of those who got sick because of the pollution and all other related costs. They also have to pay fines according to international laws.

“Of course. We will also punish those companies. Most of our companies are still ethical. These companies are the black sheep. We can discuss the compensation amount when you come over to Japan for.”

“I am not free. It will be better if you come over. Also, before you come over, ask your Emperor to make a public apology for the actions of those companies!”

What? Ask the Emperor to apologize? Even if the Emperor agrees, it will also be Tomiichi Murayama’s last day as Japan’s Prime Minister. Japan’s Emperor symbolized Japan. How can the Emperor apologize?!

“Mr. Zhu, the Emperor, will not interfere in this matter. He is meditating today. I can let our Foreign Minister issue an apology. This is the most we can do.” Tomiichi Murayama tried to negotiate.

“Foreign Minister? Seems like Japan is not sincere at all. There’s no need to talk anymore!”

“Wait, Mr. Zhu, if Foreign Minister is not enough, we can still let other Ministers or the parliament to represent Japan to apologize to China.”

Chapter 689 – Tomiichi Murayama’s Decision

Tomiichi Murayama was stunned when he heard the busy tone. Since the day he becomes Japan’s Prime Minister, no one had ever hung up on him.

Even if the other party was a top official of a big country, Tomiichi Murayama still felt uncomfortable. He felt insulted!

But even if Tomiichi Murayama was insulted, what can he do? Even if he was furious, there was nothing he could do. After all, this incident was Japan’s fault, and there was no way to argue with China.

Tomiichi Murayama really wanted to strangle the Chairmen and Presidents of those companies. These people had dragged the whole nation down with them. He was also implicated. His political career might end because of this incident!

“Contact the Chairmen of Toshiba, Sony, Pioneer, Sharp, and all the companies involved. Also, ask the Chairmen of Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, and the other chemical companies involved to come here immediately!”

Tomiichi Murayama’s biggest headache now was Iron Fist Zhu’s demand for an apology from the Japanese Government, and the apology must be issued by at least the Prime Minister.

If Tomiichi Murayama were to apologize as the Prime Minister, how will the people see him? Will he follow the footsteps of his predecessors and forced to step down?

This period, Tomiichi Murayama felt he had done well. Japan’s economy had shown signs of recovering. Although it was still far from the peak 5 years ago, it was at least better than last year.

If everything went smoothly, he might be able to complete his term as the Prime Minister without any troubles. As the Prime Minister who helped Japan’s economy recover, he will surely be liked by all Japanese, and the future generations of his family will be able to go far.

But now, all these dreams were dashed. It was like building blocks. Tomiichi Murayama had stacked the blocks high, and suddenly a kid comes over and topples everything!

Those companies that tarnished Japan’s reputation must pay. Even if Tomiichi Murayama could not be the Prime Minister anymore, he must not be blamed for this incident.

“Mr. Prime Minister, we must never apologize. If you apologized, it would cause an uproar with the people. Japan is a more advanced country than China. How can we bow down to them? Furthermore, we had occupied China in the past. If it weren’t for the atomic bombs, we would be the world’s strongest country now. We might even be the world’s number one superpower!”

“You really think so?” Tomiichi Murayama looked at that advisor coldly. This sort of mindset was foolish!

“I object. I think we should apologize. There is no way we can stop China from growing, and we still need China’s market for our economy to recover. China’s rapid developments these few years is not a force to be reckoned with. If we did not enter the Chinese market, our economy will also not show signs of recovery. If we do not apologize, then Japan’s economy will go into recession again. Do you think you will not be forced to step down if that happens?” Another advisor said.

“I also think that we should apologize. By apologizing, we can build a better relationship with China. If we can sign some trade treaties or cooperation agreements with China because of this, then it will help our economy to recover faster. The companies that are involved in this saga is only a handful, and we have many other companies in Japan. We can let those involved companies pull out of China and sell their factories in China to other Japanese companies. This way, Japan will be able to make profits and still can correct Japan’s image. If we do not apologize, then the relationship between us and China will sour, and it will be almost impossible for the rest of our companies to grow in China. Those companies that are involved might even have their factories shut down by the authorities, and we will also lose this case in the international courts. This is the truth, and we got to face it.”

Tomiichi Murayama brightens up when he heard what this advisor said. Suppress some companies and support some? This was a good solution. He could get those involved companies to sell their factories and let another Japanese company make use of this opportunity to enter the Chinese market. As long as the new company takes measures to prevent damaging the environment, they will be able to continue to make profits. This solution will also allow Tomiichi Murayama to pull a big enterprise over to his side. In the parliament, many members were supported by these enterprises. If Tomiichi Murayama was able to get their support, then it should not be a problem for him to secure his position as the Prime Minister.

But if Japan had to apologize, how should he apologize? To what degree must Japan apologize? This must be discussed thoroughly.

……

“This is my decision. All of you must do as instructed!” Tomiichi Murayama said firmly.

“Why? Who are you to make the decision for us? We have no problems to increase our waste treatment facilities. But we do not agree to compensate them. China had frozen our bank accounts in China. As the Prime Minister of Japan, instead of helping us get our money back, you want us to give China more money?”

These Chairmen from those big enterprises were not easy to deal with. All of them have control over several billion USD worths of assets and have tens of thousands of employees. Some of them have over 100,000 employees.

Also, the Prime Minister of Japan changed frequently, and these Chairmen were in their positions for decades. Furthermore, they have support from their people in the Parliament, and they were not afraid of the Prime Minister. This decision made by the Prime Minister will affect their profits!

“I am the Prime Minister of Jpan, and I represent the Government. You all have tarnished the reputation of Japan and create a crisis for all Japanese companies worldwide! You all can don’t accept this condition, but be prepared to be targeted by the rest of the companies. You all might have support from some people in the parliament. But they are only a minority. You all have caused a significant impact on the profits of more people!” Tomiichi Murayama said firmly.

“Even if this is the case, we will just pay China the compensation. Why should we sell off our factories in China to others at such low rates? The rates you said is equivalent to giving them the factories for free. Even if we were to pull out of China, the equipment in the factories could still fetch a high price!”

“If you all don’t do this, how can you show your sincerity? How can you let the people continue to believe you all? This is a crisis. All of you should know the seriousness of this crisis. Giving up those factories might cause some losses, but you all still have the chance to earn back the money you lose in the future. That what I have to say. Tell me about your decision.”

Sony’s Chairman suddenly said: “We, Sony will make a public apology. But we have nothing to do with the compensation as we do not have any factories in China. Our factories in other parts of the world do not have any problem. But we will still donate a sum of money as a token. If there is nothing else, I will leave. I still have lots of work waiting for me.”

The rest of the Chairmen were stunned. Damn! You agreed so readily, what about us?

Chapter 690 – Public Apology

Sony’s Chairman, Akio Morita agreed to the conditions set by the Prime Minister readily as their losses were not a lot. Also, Sony had nothing to do with this incident. They now depended solely on their brand name. If their brand was destroyed, then Sony will be finished.

To date, there was still no multi-billion company that went bankrupt.

Toshiba, which had discussed with Sony, immediately expressed that they were willing to apologize and compensate. They were also willing to let other companies take over their factories. But in return, they wanted the Japanese Government to give them some orders.

In conclusion, Toshiba wanted the Government to compensate them for some of their losses. The factories that caused the most severe pollution were not them also. It was those chemical factories. Toshiba’s factories in China was only built not long ago, and the damage caused was not as severe as the reports.

After a lengthy discussion, all the companies agreed.

Tomiichi Murayama immediately submits this proposal to the parliament, and the parliament approved. This was the best solution for now. Maybe, they might find a better solution if they had the time, but they had no more time now. The longer they take, the more losses they incurred. Those companies’ share prices were still plunging.

……

Norio Ohga was the first to make the public apology as the Acting President of Sony. He announced that Sony do not have any factories in China and all the China produced products were produced by other factories on behalf of Sony. Many of those factories were China companies. Also, Sony will never allow their factories to damage the environment like what happened in China. Sony will donate 1 million USD to help those that fell sick due to the pollution.

This statement let Sony stand on higher moral grounds and also change the public’s impression of them. This will pave the way for them to return to the Chinese market.

The impact of this statement was still unknown, but Sony share prices had stabilized for the time being. It did not continue to drop.

After Sony, Toshiba’s person-in-charge of their Asia operations also made a public apology. He apologized for his lack of supervision over those factories, and Toshiba was willing to compensate. The compensation amount will be discussed with the Chinese Government.

But Feng Yu felt the share prices were not low enough. He should do more to let those companies’ share prices drop further.

……

Why was the person-in-charge of China operations apologizing? This person’s position in the company was very low despite the factories in China, making high profits for their company.

If someone had to apologize, it should be at least the President of the company. Even the Chairman of the company should come out and apologize! We do not accept this apology!

The newspaper reported this view and the public anger, which had started to subside, started again.

The Chinese government had also issued a statement, demanding the top person of those companies to apologize. The most senior leader of the Japan government must also apologize to China!

The Chinese were pleased and expressed their support for their Government. The Chinese government was firm in their stance, and the Chinese were proud.

Feng Yu was thinking to himself. Luckily the internet was still in the initial stage, and there were not many Chinese netizens now. If not, there will be a war of words over the internet!

Feng Yu had expected the Japanese companies to behave this way. But he firmly believes that if the Chinese Government stand firm on their demands, the other party will give in. Those companies might not care about the Chinese Government, but the Japanese Government cannot ignore China’s demands. If relationships between China and Japan deteriorate, it will be a killing blow to Japan’s economy.

This was a big crisis for Japan and the US, which was Japan’s backing, had not issued any statements on this issue. This was because the US also did not support Japan in this incident. The pictures and video footages were proof of Japan’s companies wrongdoings.

Russia and Germany, which had close ties with China, also expressed support for China and made things more difficult for the Japanese Government.

Tomiichi Murayama was going crazy. He thought that after those companies apologize, he would be able to contact Iron Fist Zhu, or appeased the other party’s anger. He would then represent Japan to give some benefits to China, and this incident would be over.

If this issue were still not settled, Tomiichi Murayama would ask some of the cabinet ministers to apologize. He wants to avoid coming out to apologize and face China.

But now, things were different from his plan. Those top brass of the companies did not come out to apologize, and Tomiichi Murayama could no longer hide behind everyone. China’s foreign ministry had issued a statement demanding the top leader of the Japanese Government to apologize. He could not ask the Emperor to make a public apology.

If Tomiichi Murayama dares to ask the Emperor to apologize, then it will be his last day as the Prime Minister.

Tomiichi Murayama immediately calls the chairmen of those companies. The President of those companies apologizing now was not enough. The Chairmen of those companies must apologize!

The President of Japanese companies were like CEO, and the Chairman was equivalent to the Chairman of the board of directors. This incident could be settled with the President of the companies apologizing. But now, China demands the Chairman of those companies to come out and apologize to them. These were all because of their own stupidity.

The Japanese cabinet also starts to pressure those companies to force the Chairmen of those companies to make public apologies. If not, their companies will be penalized.

…….

“Brother Feng, do you think the Prime Minister of Japan will come out and apologize?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“He must. If he still does not apologize, then China and Japan will fall out. Japan cannot afford for this to happen.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

“Those few companies have been contacting us. They want us to let them have access to our ports.” Li Zekai said proudly. The Li family controls more than 60% of the ports. Those companies have no choice but to bow down to them. Especially at times like this.

“Hahaha. Serve them right. They created this mess for themselves. They really think they can step all over the Chinese?” Fu Guangzheng said angrily, and everyone nodded.

“Why is Japan’s Emperor, not the one that comes out to apologize? iI would be best if he kneels down and apologizes.” Fu Guangzheng laughed.

Feng Yu shook his head. “It is impossible for their Emperor to apologize. But we can expect their Prime Minister to apologize with a 90 degrees bow. To be honest, China is not strong enough. If this incident happens in the US, then the Emperor might come out. I believe that in 10 years, China will be one of the superpowers in the world.”

“Is 10 years enough?” Fu Guangzheng raised his brows.

“It’s enough!” Feng Yu believed that China will develop faster than his previous life!

“Director, hurry up and watch the news. Something great is happening now!” Fu Guangzheng’s secretary rushed into the room without knocking.

“What’s on the news?” Fu Guangzheng frowned and asked.

The Secretary switched on the TV in the meeting room and replied excitedly. “Japan’s Prime Minister is making an apology live on TV!”

Chapter 691 – The world’s shock

“Hurry, switch on the TV. Switch to CCTV or whatever channel which is airing the news!” A young man ran into the guardhouse of a factory and shouted to the guard.

The security guards have a 14-inch black and white TV. Other than the guardhouse, there was no other TV in the factory.

The security guard was not sure what happened, and more than a dozen young men entered the guardhouse. They were panting and seems to have run all the way here.

What’s wrong with these young men? Shouldn’t they be at work now? Why were they all coming here to watch TV? Eh? That’s the supervisor of their workshop? That’s it. These young men will be scolded and have their salaries docked.

But when the supervisor entered the guardhouse, he also rushed the guard to switch on the TV.

“My TV can only receive CCTV 1 and our provincial TV channels. The rest of the channels like our City TV station are not clear.” The guard said.

“CCTV 1 will do. That’s a big announcement now. The Prime Minister of Japan is apologizing to us! Hahahaha. It feels good. Those Japanese had to apologize to us!” A young man laughed.

“What? Japan’s Prime Minister is apologizing? Our army is going to attack them?” The guard asked excitedly. If China were to go to war with Japan, he would be the first to join!

“There is no war. It’s those Japanese companies that had caused heavy pollution in China. Their Prime Minister is coming out to apologize and announce the compensation to us. This time, the Japanese will have to bow down to us!”

“That’s right. My third uncle is working in the City Government service. There was once a Japanese who came here to discuss setting up a factory in our City. He is damn proud and arrogant. He speaks like the whole world revolve around him. Luckily the city did not give in to his demands. I heard the factory is a chemical factory.”

“Luckily, our leaders in the City Government have foresight. If our city water is polluted, we will all suffer.”

“Shhhh……. Stop talking. The apology is starting!” The Supervisor shouted.

“You understand Japanese?”

“There is an interpreter. Even if we don’t understand, it also feels good to watch!”

……

“I represent Japan’s government to apologize for the actions of some of our companies in China. Sorry.” Tomiichi Murayama bows down at 90 degrees for 5 seconds.

Cameras were flashing nonstop. Tomiichi Murayama’s heart was bleeding! Damn! It’s so difficult to be a Prime Minister!

“We are still investigating the claims by the Chinese Government. We will not refute the allegations. We are willing to accept the conditions set by the Chinese Government and will discuss the amount of compensation. Those companies that are involved in this incident will be withdrawn out of China. I hope this incident will not affect the relationship between our two nations……”

President Bill Clinton was watching the live telecast in the White House.

When he saw Tomiichi Murayama admitting to the allegations, he lit a cigar and took in a deep breath. Tomiichi Murayama, this idiot. How can you admit to this incident and pull those companies out of the Chinese market? Do you think China will still carry on working with Japan in the future? What you should do is to deny all allegations and refuse to admit anything.

You all should cry and claimed that you all are falsely accused. This way, we will have the chance to enter and help you all. Of course, if there is sufficient evidence, then it’s another story. From your behavior, it seems that the allegations are all true.

Damn. Why is that small size fellow still alive? With him around, China is not easy to deal with. That small size fellow is headstrong and negotiating with him is a pain in the ass. No one can get any advantage when negotiating with him. That fellow’s way of negotiating was, ‘I set the conditions, and you comply with it. If not, forget it, or we go to war.’

After the Gulf War, Clinton’s policy was to maintain peace and had used the war to attack the previous president. If a war were to break out during his term, then he will have no more chance of getting re-elected in two years. He might even be forced to step down!

Yeltsin was also watching the live telecast of the apology in Russia’s Kremlin.

He sneered when he saw Tomiichi Murayama bowing down. How can this person be the head of Japan? His actions reflect the attitude of the whole country!

Japan wants to cooperate with Russia? Dream on!

But China was getting stronger now, and Russia had helped China a lot. It’s time to invite the Chinese leaders over to discuss more cooperations between China and Russia.

Hmmm…… I must invite them over. The better Russia’s relationship with China, the more the US will be afraid. This way, Russia will have time to develop. There were many benefits to building better relationships with China.

The President of South Korea was also watching the apology on TV. He was laughing to himself. Many Koreans were also feeling great.

There was a saying in Feng Yu’s previous life. How can Korean, Chinese, and Japanese sit down peacefully for a chat? Very easy. When the Chinese are with the Korean, they will talk bad about the Japanese. This way, both will be friends. When the Chinese are with the Japanese, they will scold the Koreans, and both will be friends. When the Japanese are with the Korean, they will scold Chinese, and they can be friends.

These countries needed each other, but at the same time, hated each other. It was a weird relationship.

The leaders of the UK, Germany, France, and many other nations were all watching the live telecast. Japan was still an economic superpower, and it was forced to apologize to China? This was big news.

Some people were glad to see Japan disgracing themselves internationally. Some were frowning. China was able to force the Prime Minister of Japan to apologize to them publicly? Is China so powerful now?

Many leaders had been taking precautions against Japan. But they did not expect to see China to be rising so fast. Although China still lacked in many areas, it’s developments was too fast. How develop will China be in 10 years if it continues to grow at this rate?

The leaders of many nations thought if they should suppress China’s development and slow down their progress. Some leaders felt they should have more cooperations with China and develop a close diplomatic relationship. This way, their nation will benefit when China develops.

The Chinese were concerned about their reputations. If any nations were friends with China, China would choose not to fall out with that nation unless the other party started a fight first. Seems like it’s time to lift some restrictions against China.

……

Feng Yu and the rest were also watching the live telecast in the meeting room. A lot was spoken during the apology, and none of them understood what was said. But it was clear that Japan had shown her sincerity in this apology, and the Chinese ambassador in Japan represented China to accept it. At the same time, he announced that some Chinese Officials will be flying to Japan to negotiate on the compensation.

The Chinese Ambassador’s attitude was very arrogant. He behaved like a winner, and many Japanese could only bow their heads. Some Japanese who were more extreme started to protest and want Tomiichi Murayama to step down. How can almighty Japan be apologizing to China?!

But nothing can be changed now. This apology was broadcasted live to the whole world.

Japan was defeated this time!

Chapter 692 – Buying out at bottom prices

Feng Yu had nothing to do with the compensation and the Japanese companies no longer demand Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation to apologize to them. All the Japanese companies in China were keeping a low profile.

It was going to be New Year’s Day soon, and it was time for another Tai Hua Supermarket shopping cards frenzy. But Feng Yu did not remain in Beijing. Instead, he flew over to Hong Kong.

“Nephew Feng, after this round of beating, is their share prices at rock bottom? Will the rebound happen soon?” Fu Rongqi asked.

Feng Yu shook his head. “It’s not time yet. Those companies only accepted to pay the compensations and agreed to the fine. I heard there is still shocking news that was not announced yet. After the news is announced, their share prices will drop further.”

Fu Rongqi frowned. There’s more shocking news? This should be interesting. Feng Yu is close to the top Chinese officials and should be able to get insider information.

“Sony-Columbia Pictures will be releasing a blockbuster movie this Christmas. I had asked my men to spread rumors that this movie sucks. The moviegoers will avoid this movie, and the ticket sales will not be high. Lesser cinemas will be screening this movie, and their movie-related merchandise sales will drop. Even their VCDs for this movie will not sell. Sony’s share prices in the US will drop further.” Fu Rongqi was smiling like a cunning fox. He does not need to spend much to press a company’s share prices down. Sometimes, a rumor was sufficient.

“Let’s stick to our plan. I will be mainly acquiring those chemical companies’ shares, and you will acquire those electronics shares. I believe that in January, those companies will take some measures to save their companies’ shares, and the share prices will rise slowly. We will be able to make high profits then!”

In less than a week, those companies’ share prices fell by almost 50%. It was still falling now, but the drop was not as drastic as earlier the week. But after the compensation was announced and those companies sold their factories in China, their shares will drop again.

All these large multinational enterprises’ shares will definitely rebound after their share prices crashed. The rebound will be strong. Also, it’s the end of the year, and after the financial reports were released, these companies will take the opportunity to announce their future plans and profits forecast.

The key shareholders will also announce they will be increasing their stakes in the companies to boost the confidence of the investors. Their shares will surely recover from the crash. Now, Feng Yu and Fu Rongqi only need to predict when will the share prices hit rock bottom!

……

Buffett was sitting in his office, looking at his computer. This Japanese companies saga was an excellent opportunity for him.

Warren Buffet had lots of investments, and he invested the most in the financial market, especially shares. He had invested in Washington Post, Coca Cola, General Dynamics, etc. and made high profits from these companies.

Although Buffett also owns an industrial factory, dealing in textile manufacturing, but the profits from this factory was a small part of his income. Most of his money came from his shares.

His formula for investing was very simple. He looks for “cheap” shares to buy and then wait for the share prices to rise. But he did not explain what he meant by cheap.

The dividends and the returns from the sales of his shares gave him high profits.

Basically, whenever Buffett acquires large amounts of the shares of a company, that company share prices will shoot up. His strategy for investing is long term investment. He was in no hurry to sell even if the share prices plunged after he bought it. This was because he believes that the shares will rebound soon and he will have high returns.

Since he started his company, his company’s value had increased by almost 400 times! No one could compare to Buffett’s foresight in investing.

There was a strange phenomenon. People start to follow whatever Buffett invest, and this creates a short term increase in that particular company’s share prices.

Warren Buffett had become an indicator of the stock market!

Now, Warren Buffett had set his sights on those Japanese companies. Those companies that were kicked out of China.

Buffett realized that the output of many factories in China was not very high and was not a significant proportion of the companies’ total production. When those companies withdraw their management staffs from those factories in China, they will surely think of other ways to increase their companies’ profits and the company’s share prices will inevitably rise again.

Although the company’s brand will be affected in the short-term, in the long run, Buffett felt those companies will be able to recover. These companies have a strong technological background and do not have any cash flow problems. Also, the Japanese Government will think of ways to help those companies. After all, the Japanese Government cannot afford these companies to fail.

Warren Buffett had also researched on these companies. Some of them were doing quite well and had high returns for this year. It was not normal for their share prices to plunge so suddenly. When these companies announced their annual profits, the investors will regain confidence in these companies, and the share prices will bounce back.

Warren Buffett was considering which company’s shares should he acquire. There were too many choices. He wanted to look for a company that is stable and have good returns.

There was one more important factor. If another big player were investing in the same company, the share prices would rise faster.

……

“The compensation amount was agreed upon. Although it was still not announced yet, the rough estimation was a significant amount!” Fu Rongqi’s assistant exclaimed.

“Most importantly, those companies had withdrawn out from the Chinese market, and their factories in China were sold to other Japanese companies. The selling prices are undisclosed, but from the looks on their faces, the prices should not be high. Japan had played its cards well this time. They had shown their sincerity and did not suffer any heavy losses. Japanese companies are still making money in China.” He Zhaoji was impressed at how Japan handled this situation. The Japanese Government did not suffer any losses. The ones that suffered losses were those companies.

“When this news is release, those companies shares will drop again.”

“That’s right. But it would be best if their share prices plunged. It’s such a dilemma. On the one hand, I wish for their share prices to bounce back as soon as possible for us to make profits. On the other hand, I hope those companies will go bankrupt.” Someone said and laughed.

Hahaha…… The rest of the staffs are laughing while staring at their computer monitors. There were monitoring the stock market closely.

Feng Yu and Fu Rongqi were also starting at their computers, and both stood up at the same time suddenly. A few stock brokers also stood up, and everyone said at the same time. “The prices are almost rock bottom. Prepare to buy in!”

Chapter 693 – Taking part

Mitsui Chemicals was Feng Yu’s first choice. This period, Mitsui Chemicals’ share prices had dropped from 32 USD to 14 USD. This company had caused the most severed contamination in China and was fined the heaviest.

Mitsui Chemicals owns many patents for their chemical products. Just the patents alone were enough to guarantee the company’s profitability.

Feng Yu sold some of his Microsoft shares and uses some of the funds from Wind and Rain Consulting to buy in 500 million USD worth of Mitsui Chemicals shares.

With such a significant sum of money entering the stock market, there were immediate results. Mitsui Chemicals still thought it was because of the measures they had taken to save their share prices. They were overjoyed. Their shareholders also increased their stakes to continue to push the share prices up.

After that, Feng Yu split his funds into several portions and invested in several Japanese Chemical companies. These companies were similar, and they own the world’s most advanced technologies.

Now, these companies had admitted their mistakes and fired some scapegoats. They were trying their best to repair their tarnished image. They announced the donations they made to society over the years and what they had contributed to the society.

This announcement took effect. The share prices of these companies were stabilized and start to rise slowly.

Fu Rongqi led the Fu Family’s combined funds to buy in Toshiba, Pioneer and the other electronics companies shares. These companies also own some of the most advanced technologies and patents. The damaged caused by their factories in China were not very serious, and their compensations and fines were not as hefty.

Also, these companies had introduced new products and implemented promotions to boost their sales.

At this time, Warren Buffett entered the market. He bought a large number of Mitsui Chemicals shares and then start to buy in Toshiba shares.

With Buffett buying the shares of these two companies, many investors started to follow and purchased the stocks of these two companies. These investors push up the share prices of these two companies.

Some institutions from the US and Europe also saw this opportunity and start to buy in the shares of these companies in large amounts. They also analyzed the market and felt these shares will not plunge like the previous time. In fact, these shares should shoot up in the short term.

3 days later, Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng, and the rest had successfully used up all their funds to acquire those shares. They start to celebrate with champagne. In just 3 days, they could see the profits. After deducting the cost of spreading rumors and suppressing those share prices, they had already made high profits.

“Hahaha, Nephew Feng, 1 month, at most 2 months and we can all reap the profits.” Fu Rongqi said while holding on to his champagne glass.

“We will dump all our shares and let their share prices plummet again. We will give them a sad New Year.” They were helping those companies to increase their share prices for the high returns.

When there were enough profits, Feng Yu and the rest will dump all the shares in their hands. This will cause the share prices of those companies to drop. The drop might not be severe, but the share prices will undoubtedly be affected.

Feng Yu and the rest must withdraw out as fast as possible, and then those shareholders of those companies will be stuck with those companies shares and have to bear the losses for those companies.

Fu Rongqi and Feng Yu looked at each other and laughed. This cooperation had helped these two to make more than 30% of profits. It might even reach 50%!

This was a good investment which allowed them to make this high profit in the span of 1 to 2 months!

This was also not a risky investment. The risk was very low unless those companies do stupid things again and have negative news about them. The Japanese Government had paid a heavy price for these companies, and the Chinese Government had stopped pursuing this incident.

In China, the news no longer reports on these Japanese companies. Instead, the news now focuses on the visits to China by the leaders of several nations. These leaders were coming to China to seek cooperations.

These countries wanted to cooperate in many areas, like economic, culture, technology, and even military. They just wanted to have a better diplomatic relationship with China.

Some third world countries, which had been sitting on the fence, started to lean towards China. After all, China was one of the permanent members of the United Nations. Although the impression of China had been weak, it had started to demonstrate their prowess now. China had shown the world that they have what it takes to go against another developed nation and won.

……

“Dad, they had bought the shares of those companies. It seems profitable. Should we also follow them and buy some shares?” Li Zeju was a bit jealous when he saw the returns.

At first, Li Zeju had the same thinking as his father. He did not want to get involved in the stock market. After all, they were not in financial trade.

But now, Li Zeju could see this opportunity to make money clearly. Even if the profits were lower and they exit the market earlier, they will not suffer any losses. If they were to sit out on this opportunity, he would feel uncomfortable.

“That’s right. Dad, let’s join them. Fu Rongqi had persuaded several Hong Kong families, and they had also invested. Everyone is working together to push up the share prices of those few companies, and then, everyone will dump their shares at the same time to give those companies another blow.” Li Zekai said.

Superman Li sat on the sofa, sipping on a cup of tea slowly. “You all can’t wait any longer? Do you all think that I do not know this is an excellent opportunity to make money? I only want to see how you all will act in front of high profits.”

Li Zekai and his elder brother exchanged looks and then bow down. Both of them could not control themselves in front of high profits.

“Also, this operation is led by the Fu Family. If we participate, we will be lower than them. Can you all tolerate that?” Superman Li asked.

Li Zekai immediately said: “Why is the Fu Family higher than us? In terms of influence and power, how can the Fu Family be compared to us? The Fu Family’s retail shops still have to depend on us. Without our ports, their cost will increase a lot.”

Li Zeju retort: “It does not matter who leads in business as long as the other party can prove that we will not lose money in this investment. Zekai, the biggest investor in Tai Hua supermarket corporation, is Feng Yu. Why are you willing to accept that? Are you trying to say that Feng Yu is more powerful and influential than the Fu Family?”

Li Zekai immediately understood what his father was trying to teach them. It does not matter whether winning or losing. It’s the end results and profits that matter. If he could let Feng Yu be the biggest shareholder of Tai Hua Supermarket, why can’t he let the Fu Family lead this operation?

“Dad, I understand. Everyone will have something they are good at. Actually, it’s good for us to follow the Fu Family in this investment. We can even help to stimulate the share prices. For example, we can start to negotiate with those companies to let our ports cooperate with them. Their share prices will surely increase because of this negotiation. But we will not sign any contracts with them and drag this matter. After everyone had dumped their shares, we will announce that our negotiations had broken down and let their share prices plunge further!” Li Zekai said.

“this way, which will still want to stop at our ports? We cannot do this. It will harm our company’s reputation. We will just use some of our funds to buy their shares and earn some profits with the rest. How can we not participate when so many influential families from Macao and Hong Kong had taken part? This time, we do not need to do anything and just follow the rest to make money.”

Chapter 694 – A wealthy fool (Part 1 of 2)

Feng Yu returned back to Beijing after he settled all the investments, as he got to take his exams. He does not need to worry about his investments because the Fu Family will help him monitor the market. When the price was right, everyone will dump their shares.

Many Hong Kong influential families were cooperating together to make money from the US stock market. Their targets were those Japanese companies, and this was Feng Yu’s idea.

Feng Yu wanted to see how powerful these families were when they combine forces. He also wants to see if these families were willing to put down their grudges against each other for profits. He does not want any of these families to create problems during Hong Kong’s return to China in another 2 years.

From the current situation, everything seems fine. Maybe it was because of the Fu Family, or the Li Family were participating in this operation. Or maybe, everyone was interested in making money and were in a good mood. Overall, everything was going as planned.

Now, Feng Yu have a new target. He was going to do something big!

……

Victor, the person-in-charge of Pfizer’s China operations, was in a new villa district in Lian Gang. He was waiting for a big boss. Someone who has a significant influence in China. A big boss with strong financial backing.

Victor had heard of this big boss, but he has not met him before. He heard that this big boss was very low profile and had never appeared on TV or have any pictures published on the papers. There were rumors that a picture of this person had appeared on a few Hong Kong magazines, but it might not be accurate.

Pfizer had entered China for quite some time. From the start of the eighties, Pfizer had started to sell their medicines in China. Around the end of the eighties, they set up a modern pharmaceutical factory in China, Lian Gang. This was also Pfizer’s headquarters in China.

Two years later, Pfizer will set up another factory in Suzhou. This new factory produces nutritional type medications.

After the health supplement products were suppressed for the past two years, nutritional type medications were selling well. Pfizer’s “imported” nutritional medicines were also selling well. Victor heard that this big boss was the person behind all these.

Someone who could influence the whole nation. Even Pfizer could not do this! There were rumors that in China, there were many ‘Red families’. This person might be from one of the families?

When Victor was getting impatient from waiting, he saw a few cars approaching his villa. These were the best cars in China. Songjiang cars. But one of the vehicles in the center was a model not seen before in China.

The cars stopped, and dozens of men in black suit alighted from the vehicles in front and back. They looked at the surroundings, and one of them took out a walkie talkie and shouted: “Safe!”

The driver of the car in the center alighted and ran to open the passenger door. He used his hand to block the roof of the car, and a leg stretched out of the vehicle. The leather shoes were polished shiny.

This person’s dressing was really like a big boss. There was not a single crease on his pants.

But when Victor saw that person’s face, he was stunned. How come this person was so young? Should this big boss be an old man? Even if he was young, he should also be middle-aged. This person who alighted from the center car, surrounded by bodyguards, seems to be around 20 years old.

A bodyguard standing behind Feng Yu helped him put on a long coat, and Feng Yu slowly walk towards Victor.

Victor immediately walks towards Feng Yu and reach out with both hands. He was afraid that if he was slow in approaching him, Feng Yu might find him rude. He had heard that the Chinese speak a lot about “face” and all successful businessmen in China wanted “face.” But this was only an ordinary meeting for the first time, was there a need for this extravagance appearance?

Victor had also heard that this villa area belongs to this big boss. In the US, it was normal for wealthy people to buy villas. But he had never seen anyone buying the entire villa area. The whole villa area was bigger than any estate owned by many tycoons.

This type of people must be given enough respect. This was what Victor learned during his years in China. If he gave the other party “face,,” then they will be able to get along well, and negotiations will be smoother.

“Hi, Mr. Feng. I’m Victor.” Victor said with his weird accented mandarin.

“Mr. Victor. Nice to meet you. It’s so cold. You do not need to receive me outside. Let’s go in first.” Feng Yu laughed and replied in mandarin.

Yes. Feng Yu’s identity now was someone who does not understand English.

Seeing Feng Yu speaking politely to him, Victor was relieved. This person should be easy to get along.

“Mr. Feng, I heard that you asked me here is to discuss a business deal?” After entering the villa, Victor asked. Mr. Feng’s staff had contacted him and said that Mr. Feng was interested in discussing a business deal with him. If he could represent Pfizer and clinched this deal, he might be able to be transferred back to the US and do not need to stay so far away from home.

The current living standard in China was far behind the US. Furthermore, Victor’s family was still in the US, and he really misses his wife and children.

Feng Yu raised his brows and said: “That’s right. I do have a business deal to discuss with you. It should be a business deal for Pfizer.”

Victor was excited when he heard what Feng Yu said. If this deal was with Pfizer, that means it should be a deal that’s worth a lot. He could tell Feng Yu was someone with strong influence and power from the way he speaks and acts.

“What is this deal? Are you thinking of setting up a joint venture pharmaceutical factory with us?” Pfizer had already set up their factory in China, and they need to set up their distribution channels for their products. Feng Yu should know that consigning Pfizer products was impossible, and the discussion should about setting up a joint venture factory.

There were many businessmen in China, who were wealthy, but do not have the technology. Most of them like to invest in joint-venture with foreign firms. Many businessmen had approached Victor before but were all rejected. It was because those businessmen were not powerful enough. Pfizer will not work with ordinary businessmen. If they were to look for a business partner, the partner must be China’s most prominent company!

From what Victor found out, this Feng Yu was the most powerful businessman he had met and fit the requirements set by his company’s headquarters. It would be best if Feng Yu still have some political backings.

Feng Yu shook his head. “Joint venture factory? I am not interested in that. I have my own pharmaceutical factory, and it is the biggest in China. I do not lack money, and there is no need for me to set up joint ventures with others.”

Victor’s eyes widened. This person owns the biggest pharmaceutical factory in China? Shanghai Pharmaceutical or Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise?

“Mr. Feng, your factory is?”

“Bing City Pharmaceutical. I acquired and restructured this factory last year. This sale is still doing well now. Our products are also exported to western countries. We will surely be number one in China’s pharmaceutical industry soon.” Feng Yu replied with a proud look.

“Since Mr. Feng is not interested in setting up a joint venture factory with us, then what are we cooperating?” Victor could not hide his disappointment on his face. What else could they discuss other than joint venture?

“I did not say we are going to cooperate. I only want to ask about the Pfizer’s patented medicine formula. I heard that Pfizer have the patents to a lot of medicine. Can you sell us some? I am willing to pay a high price for it!” Feng Yu said and waved his hand. He was trying to show he was rich.

What? This Mr. Feng wanted to buy Pfizer’s patents?

Chapter 695 – A wealthy fool (Part 2 of 2)

Pfizer was one of the world’s top pharmaceutical company. Although it was not the biggest in the world, it was about the same as the rest of the top pharmaceutical companies. It was established in the last century. It started as a small chemical factory and then ventured into the pharmaceutical industry. During the Civil war, they prospered and became one of the biggest pharmaceutical company in the US.

Later, antibiotic was discovered, and Pfizer started to research on it. Pfizer slowly grows to become one of the leading companies in antibiotics.

This was around the time when WW2 started. Pfizer started to supply penicillin at a low cost to the US Army and subsequently became the biggest supplier of Penicillin during the war. This resulted in the company growing even bigger.

After that, Pfizer successfully developed Oxytetracycline, Tetracycline, and Piroxicam. All these medications brought high profits to the company.

Currently, most of China’s Oxytetracycline, Tetracycline, etc. were manufactured by Pfizer. Tetracycline was cheap and effective, and it became a commonly used drug in China. This also resulted in people getting tetracycline pigmentation teeth.

Pfizer saw the benefits of developing drugs and used their funds to research and develop more drugs. Their focus was the medications which will be needed in large volume worldwide.

For instance, blood pressure medications, cholesterol medicine, painkillers, and anti-inflammation medicines. They also produce the most advanced antibiotics and anticancer drugs.

Pfizer had good results. They were continually developing new drugs, and every new drug bought high profits for the company.

Pfizer was able to become one of the top pharmaceutical companies was because they own many patented drugs. The protection for drugs and medications was 20 years. Within these 20 years, Pfizer was able to get high returns from the sales of these drugs. Even after the protection years, they would still be able to make high profits as they had perfected the production of these drugs and were able to produce at high volume.

Coupled with Pfizer’s brand and reputation, their drugs sold very well.

Now, Mr. Feng wanted to buy their patents? How can this be possible? It was unheard of for Pfizer to sell their patents unless it was nearing to the end of the patent protection.

“Mr. Feng, I cannot make this decision because the patents are our company’s greatest assets,” Victor replied.

Feng Yu showed an unhappy expression: “Assets are supposed to be sold for profits. You still have not heard my offer. How do you know your company will not agree? Furthermore, you all have not sold any patented formula before?”

What Feng Yu said was true. Developing medicines and applying for patents were for creating wealth. It was not as what they claimed of benefiting mankind with their drugs. If they could sell their patents at high prices, they would.

But Pfizer’s medicines were all very profitable and were in demand all over the world. Why would they sell the patented formulas of these medicines to others?

However, they could sell the authorization of these patents. If Victor were able to negotiate a high authorization fee for these patents, maybe the company would give him some rewards. He does not want any monetary rewards. He only wishes to be transferred back to the US. He wants to be with his family.

“We have not sold our patented formulas before. But we had authorized other companies to produce our medicines in the past. If Mr. Feng wants the authorization, we can discuss it.” Victor replied.

Authorization? There were no profits in that. Most of the profits will be taken away by Pfizer. Bing City Pharmaceutical also have their own R&D department, and many top researchers were employed. There was no need to buy the authorization from Pfizer.

Feng Yu was interested in one type of medicine that was still being developed by Pfizer. This medicine has a “side effect,” which is more effective than what this medicine was developed for. Sildenafil!

This was a new drug which was still being developed by Pfizer. It was supposed to be used for treating Angina Pectoris, blood coagulation, and lower blood pressure. But after this drug was developed, the results from the clinical trials were not depressing.

This drug was a failure. It was not as effective, and it will not sell.

But the researchers discovered that many participants of the clinical trials secretly kept some of this medicine. A few researchers tried taking this drug themselves and found the “side effect.” This drug was able to give men a raging erection.

So, the researchers changed the direction of their research and made this drug as a treatment for erectile dysfunction. The was reported to their higher-ups in Pfizer, and Pfizer conducted market research for drug over 3 years.

It was until early this year when the clinical trials started. The results of the trials were splendid. More than 80% of the participants had improved after taking this drug.

There were similar drugs in the market, but those were injected into the bodies, and it was not that effective. Also, who would want to give themselves an injection before making love? All mood would be gone.

Feng Yu had sent his men to contact Pfizer and asked if he could buy the formula for this medicine. But he found out that Pfizer had started trials for this drug. That means it was too late for him to buy it.

Pfizer was a world-renowned company, and it was impossible to buy their formula with some money. Although Feng Yu had made a high offer, Pfizer rejected him. Pfizer could sell the authorization but not the patent.

Feng Yu was not satisfied with just getting the authorization. He wanted more than that. He wants to own the patent of this drug. But it was difficult. He could only set a trap.

“Victor, do you think I am someone who would pay others authorization fees? What I want is to buy some formulas. Some formulas for drugs which can treat some illness. It doesn’t matter what sort of illness. Even half-finished products are fine. I am not choosy. I am sure your company will be satisfied with my offers.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu only know that Sildenafil is a PDE5 Inhibitor. In his previous life, there was more than one type of Sildenafil. There were at least two types of similar drugs. Feng Yu only need to buy the formula for PDE5 Inhibitor. The rest of the research will be easy once he got this formula.

With the formula for PDE5 Inhibitor, Feng Yu was confident that Bing City Pharmaceutical would be able to launch Sildenafil earlier than Pfizer. This was because China was not as strict as the US. Once Bing City Pharmaceutical became the first in the world to produce this wonder drug, the sales of this drug will surely be better than any other companies.

Victor heard what Feng Yu said. Half-finished products? That means Pfizer could sell most of their failed products to him?

Mr. Feng was wealthy, but he was a fool. If he really bought all the half-finished formula, then the company’s cost will be reduced. Victor would have helped Pfizer a lot.

Victor should be able to apply for a transfer back to the US with this credit.

“Mr. Feng, if you are interested in our half-finished products, I can help you ask my headquarters.”

Oxytetracycline

Tetracycline

Piroxicam

Angina

Sildenafil

PDE5 inhibitor

Chapter 696 – The Enthusiastic Victor (Part 1 of 2)

That night, Feng Yu let Victor stay at his villas and told him that if he likes this place, he can pick one villa. He can give one villa to him for free.

Victor was shocked. If he could own a villa at this place, it would be fantastic. This villa area was by the seaside, and it was still in Lian Gang. Pfizer’s China headquarters was also in Lian Gang.

Many Chinese will feel that this place was out of the way. But for Americans, they were used to living in the suburbs with lesser people. They prefer quiet areas, with good scenery. They do not like to be bothered by others.

Anyway, Victor owns a car. Although he needs to travel 1 hour to his office, he was okay with it. If he could stay in this villa area, he can ask his family to come over for a vacation. His children like to play with snow during winter.

Also, if Victor could clinch this deal, he would be able to get more than this villa. This villa in China was excellent, but it was not as good as his home in the US. He would be getting a handsome reward and move to a bigger house in the US. He could still change to a better car for his family.

At night, Feng Yu prepared a banquet for Victor. Victor had never seen the dishes served in the banquet. He heard that these dishes were what the Emperors ate hundreds of years ago. He loves the taste of most of the dishes. Also, the wine they drank was brewed using the techniques passed down from thousands of years.

Victor tossed and turn that night and could not sleep. He was excited. It was not because he will be getting his promotion or the reward. It was because after drinking the wine, he had an erection the whole night!

What was that wine? How come it has this effect? Victor was not stimulated, but he got such a reaction?

The wine during the banquet was the highlight. Feng Yu wants Victor to think that their wonder drug was nothing in China. The Chinese had already invented this medicine thousands of years before.

Victor hitched a ride in Feng Yu’s latest model of Songjiang vehicle back to his office. He was impressed. This car was too comfortable. Movies can even be played in the car! How much does this vehicle cost?

Currently, LCD displays were only used in laptops, and most laptops were equipped with a CD-ROM drive. Feng Yu had only used the most advanced DVD drive to install in the vehicle.

Ordinary vehicles were mostly equipped with radios. The more expensive cars were equipped with cassette players. The car given to Master Lu by Feng Yu was fitted with a cassette player.

This new concept model was equipped with a DVD drive and an LCD display. Although the manufacturing cost of these items was very high, it will increase the value of this vehicle. This vehicle was categorized as a luxury car.

Concept vehicles were all like this. Anyway, it will not be mass-produced, and the interior can be fitted with all sorts of luxurious items. Cars can also be equipped with refrigerators. But this was not needed currently.

The windows of the vehicle used color-changing glass, and the soundproofing were terrific. The interior was quiet and spacious. It felt very comfortable in the passenger seat.

After Victor alighted from the car, he was still thinking about it. He wonders when he could ride in this car again. When he was boarding this car earlier, Feng Yu had casually said that this car was produced by his company and will be launched soon. This model was for the high net worth market.

Victor did not remember Feng Yu’s exact words. He only knows that Feng Yu was very rich. He had never seen this type of car back in the US. Maybe only the President’s ride could compare to this car.

If Feng Yu’s company could mass-produce this car, how powerful was his company? China’s technical abilities had reached such a high level? If Feng Yu owns such a powerful automotive manufacturing company and China’s biggest pharmaceutical company, how much was his total net worth?

Those patented medicine formulas or it should be called half-developed formulas, should be able to fetch a high price if they were sold to Feng Yu!

Back at his office, Victor called his headquarters immediately. He needs to report this to Pfizer’s CEO, Mr. George.

“Mr. George, I’m Victor. I need to report something to you.”

“Victor, do you have any good news for me? Is the China sales report for this year ready?” George seems to be in a good mood.

“I still need 3 more days. But this year’s sales are much higher compared to last year. What I want to tell you is I found an influential Chinese boss who is interested in buying our medicine formulas.”

Victor did not tell George that it was Feng Yu, who had approached him. Instead, he said that he was the one who found Feng Yu. This way, he will gain more significant credit. By twisting this small detail, it shows how smart Victor was.

“An influential Chinese boss? What big boss does China have? Also, did you say he wants to buy our medicine formulas? Did you agree? We, Pfizer, do not sell our formulas and patents.” George replied. He was slightly pissed.

Had Victor stayed in China for too long? He had forgotten about Pfizer’s rules!

“Mr. George, I did not agree to sell him our developed medicine formulas. I agreed to only sell him our half-finished products.” Victor quickly explained.

“Half-finished products? What do you mean?” George was getting frustrated.

“Half-finished products are our products that failed the clinical trials, or were developed but did not fulfilled our requirements.” Victor said.

“Ah? Who would want to buy these formulas?”

“Yes. This Chinese businessman is interested in buying these formulas. He owns a pharmaceutical factory, and it was one of China’s biggest pharmaceutical factory. Although their factory is big, they are unable to develop their own medicines. They need new medicine urgently to boost their sales. We only need to show them some reports on the possibility of developing those half-finished products successfully, we should be able to sell them at a high price.” Victor excitedly said.

“This…… Are you sure?” This was cheating. But George was tempted because of the profits.

“I am very sure. That Chinese is wealthy. He even owns an automobile manufacturing company. That company is also one of the top companies in China. From my observations, this person is generous. If we should be able to sell off some of our half-finished product formulas and help the company profit! This deal can also increase our research funds.”

George was overjoyed. “Victor, you must clinch this deal. If you can sell those formulas for 10 million USD, I will transfer you back and give you a promotion!”

“Thank you, Mr. George. Leave this to me!”

Chapter 697 – The Enthusiastic Victor (Part 2 of 2)

Victor called Pfizer’s R&D head, Mark. Mark had received instructions from George to consolidate all the information on the failed products. He compiles all the information and sent it to Victor through an Email.

Victor opened the email and scan through it.

Medicine for treating high blood pressure. Might cause blood pressure to go lower than usual. Although this medicine was effective, the results from clinical trials show that this medicine was not suitable to be introduced to the market.

Anti-lymphoma medication. It kills healthy lymph easily and worsens the patient’s conditions. It also lowers the patient’s immunity. This medicine did not pass the first trial.

Anti-inflammation medicine for treating Prostatitis. It caused a heavy burden on the kidneys. This medicine might cure Prostatitis, but it will also cause kidney failures. The trial was stopped after the first phase.

Medicine for Cardiovascular disease. No obvious side effects., but the effectiveness of this medicine was not visible. After the first trial, this medicine was found to be heading in the wrong direction.

Behind every medicine listed, the reason for the failures was stated. The R&D cost of these medicines was also listed. Some of the developed medicines were not in the right direction and did not serve the purpose it was developed for. These medicines were still worth a bit of money.

Some of the medicines listed had side effects and could not pass the US FDA requirements. The researchers at Pfizer could not find any ways to lower the side effects, and all their effects in developing this medicine were wasted.

The R&D cost for these medicines was more than 100 million USD. Mark told Victor that this list was only part of their medications that were considered confirmed failures. If they include all the other half developed medicines, the cost will be much more than that.

These medicines that were on the list were mainly used by new researchers to practice.

This was common in R&D. Sometimes, effects and resources were wasted when the final product did not serve the purpose it was designed for. But if the final product was a success, the returns might reach more than 100 times its cost.

The cost used for developing these failed products could not be recovered in the past. But today, Victor said a Chinese businessman wants to buy these failed products. A stupid China businessman was willing to buy the formula of these failed products at high prices!

Although Mark was not convinced, he still followed George’s instructions to compile a list for Victor. If Victor could sell these failed products’ formula, they would be able to have more research funds for more new projects.

All the researchers’ salaries depend on the success of their R&D at Pfizer.

Victor read through the list and rearrange it before calling Feng Yu.

“Mr. Feng, I am Victor. I have convinced my CEO to sell you part of our research. When are you free to meet up for a discussion?”

Victor was impressed by Feng Yu. He saw Feng Yu traveling around with a convey and had dozens of bodyguards surrounding him. In China, firearms were banned. But those bodyguards’ suits were bulging and seems to be carrying weapons underneath.

Feng Yu was overjoyed when he received Victor’s call. His first step was considered a success.

Feng Yu immediately call his men to accompany him to meet Victor. He also hired a translator, although he does not need one.

……

“Mr. Feng, I am still at work and cannot leave my workplace. Thank you for coming over to my office?” Victor politely said. This was only a trip to his office at Pfizer. Was there a need to bring so many people along?

Feng Yu raised his brows. This Victor was very polite.

“It’s okay. If you can leave your office anything you want, you will also not be sent over to China to take charge of the operations here. Are the things I want ready?” Feng Yu asked eagerly.

“Mr. Feng, don’t be anxious. This is the list given by my company. Please take a look and see which medicines you are interested in.” Victor passed a piece of A4 paper to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu scanned through the list and saw a medicine for Cardiovascular disease. But he knows that Sildenafil was not included in the list.

Feng Yu pretended he did not understand the list and passed to his translator beside: “Help me take a look. What’s written in this paper?”

The translator read the list while Victor’s secretary poured coffee for Feng Yu. Victor invites Feng Yu to taste his coffee. Feng Yu took a sip. Too much sugar and milk were added to the coffee. Victor’s secretary was afraid that Feng Yu was not used to the taste of coffee, and she added more sugar and milk. But with more sugar and milk, the coffee tastes weird.

Feng Yu and Victor chatted for a while and during the conversation, Feng Yu “casually” mentioned how rich he was. Victor was smiling all along.

“Mr. Feng, there is 3 types of medicine on the list. The medicines are used to treat high blood pressure, Cardiovascular disease, and Lymphoma. But all these medicines are not developed successfully yet. It stopped halfway.” The translator whispered into Feng Yu’s ears.

Feng Yu pretended to frown. “An unfinished product? These are all half-developed products? Have the clinical trials started?”

“It is not stated in the list.”

Feng Yu turned to Victor: “Mr. Victor, have these drugs passed the clinical trials?”

Victor shook his head. “My company would not sell if these medicines entered clinical trials. These are still in the development phase. Because of limited resources and our company’s change in directions, the development of these medicines was stopped. This is why we are willing to sell them to you.”

Limited resources? Change in company’s direction? Bullshit!

These medicines should have gone through the clinical trials and found that it was not effective, or there were too many side effects. Pfizer is a big pharmaceutical company. Even if they have to stop the R&D on these drugs, they can also sell this research to other pharmaceutical factories or laboratories. Victor does not need to sell them to China. Pfizer could easily sell this research to the companies in the US.

“Mr. Victor, there are only 3 kinds of medicines? We are not interested in anti-cancer drugs. Currently, there are no effective anti-cancer drugs in the world. If your company’s research in this drug has no problems, you all will not stop the development of this medicine. As for the other two medicines which are used for treating high blood pressure and Cardiovascular disease, I need more detail information on the research. I will ask my researchers to go through the information before I can decide.” Feng Yu said after he pretended to discuss with the person beside him.

“This….. Ok. But the information cannot be taken out of our factory. I can bring your researchers to our laboratory to take a look. They will understand how much this drug is worth when they see the research data.” Victor replied. If he gave Feng Yu the information and data, Feng Yu’s researchers might discover that these drugs will not be developed successfully.

Feng Yu pretended to be troubled. “We still need to go to your laboratory? Fine. But can you prepare more medicines? It is a waste off time to visit your lab for just two medicines!”

Hahahaha……. Feng Yu knew that Victor will never give him the research data. What Feng Yu wanted was to visit Pfizer’s lab. Victor had finally invited him to visit his laboratory. I will be easier to deal with those nerdy researchers than a businessman!

Chapter 698 – Chartering a flight

To show how wealthy he was, Feng Yu had to take care of many details. For instance, a super tycoon would never take the plane together with others.

Many tycoons in the US have their own private jets. But this was not possible in China. The Fu Family and Li family also have their private jets. But their planes were not suitable to fly long distances.

So, Feng Yu decided to charter a flight!

……

“What the hell are you thinking? Even if you are going to the US, is there a need to charter a flight? You have too much money until you don’t know how to spend it?” Hou Haitao grumbled.

“Just tell me if you can help me or not. This is very important. I am going to meet an important client. In the US, public image is vital. This is also to show them our financial strength.” Feng Yu replied.

“Then just go and charter a flight. Why are you looking for me? Are you trying to ask me to help you get a discount?” Hou Haitao looked at Feng Yu speechless. How many people are you bringing to the US? Are you really going to charter a flight?

“How do you know? I want a plane with the biggest first-class section. Also, I need to meet with all the crew first. I need to pass some instructions to them.”

Hou Haitao looked at Feng Yu warily. “Are you thinking of doing bad things? What instructions are you going to give them? You also do not know how to fly a plane!”

“It is business-related. I cannot tell you everything. Those foreigners are all very arrogant. They might find fault over the smallest detail and demand harsh conditions. Or maybe our conversations on the plane are a leak by the crew?” Feng Yu starts to talk nonsenses. He only wants to ask the crew to help him put on a show.

“You always have all sort of reasons. I will help you ask around.”

“Don’t just ask. You must make sure this matter is settled. This is very important to me! It is about my ‘face.’ ”

Hou Haitao stared at Feng Yu angrily. “I knew it. What you just said is all rubbish! You only want to look good in front of others!”

“Just hurry up. I am waiting. It would be best if the flight is scheduled tomorrow morning.”

Hou Haitao contacted a leader of Beijing Capital Airlines and told him about Feng Yu’s request. Feng Yu wants to charter a plane with a lot of first-class seats, from Beijing to New York. Preferably departing tomorrow morning.

Huh? Charter a flight?

The leader of Beijing Capital Airlines was stunned. China’s top officials did have personal planes when they were on official duties. Some travel agencies do book out all the economy seats for their clients. But he has never heard of anyone chartering the whole flight for a business trip! And he still requests for a plane with the most first-class seats!

“Old Hou, if the whole flight is chartered, we have to include the ticket prices for every seat on the plane. This will be an insane amount.”

Hou Haitao glanced at Feng Yu and then said: “Stop bullshitting me. Is your tickets from Beijing to New York selling well? Give me a discount. I will tell him to use your airlines when his company’s staff goes on business trips.”

The airline companies were now operating as private companies. The tickets were already discounted as the planes were always not full. Although Hou Haitao kept saying Feng Yu was wasting his money, he still tries to help him get a discount.

“Ok, then. I will give you a 15% discount. Which company is this? How come he needs to charter a flight?”

“Feng Yu’s company.”

“Feng Yu? Which Feng Yu?”

“Who did you buy your Soviet Union planes from?” Hou Haitao reminded him.

“That Feng Yu from Tai Hua Trading?”

“What do you think? Other than this, Feng Yu, who else can make me call you? Ok. I will leave everything to you. Let’s meet up in the afternoon. I have something else to discuss with you.”

……

“Mr. Feng, what did you say? You have chartered a flight to New York?” Victor was shocked. How rich was Feng Yu? Was there a need to charter a flight when going overseas?

“Our aviation security is quite strict here. I had wanted to buy a private plane as I do not like to travel with strangers. This is why I charter a flight every time I travel. Anyway, it does not cost much.” Feng Yu casually replied.

Chartering a plane does not cost much? Even if the living expenses in China was much lower than the US, but the air tickets were much more expensive compared to the US. The was an extravagant behavior, and it was still a long-distance flight!

“Mr. Feng, please use the special entrance over here.” A stewardess leads them over to a special entrance at the airport.

The row of bodyguards walked over and went up the plane to make a security check, before letting Feng Yu and Victor enter the plane. Another group of people boarded the plane and were seated at the back.

“Mr. Victor, there is coffee, cigar, wine, cigarettes on board. If you need anything, just let the stewardess know.”

“Oh, ok. I will.” Victor nodded.

“Mr. Feng, everyone is on board, and we can leave anytime.” A man in pilot uniform walked over and reported.

“Let’s go.” Feng Yu nodded. He pretended to be familiar with all these operations.

The plane took off, and the stewardess walked over: “Mr. Feng, is it as usual?”

Feng Yu nodded. The stewardess poured a cup of tea for Feng Yu and then turn to Victor. “Sir, what would you like?”

“Coffee.”

This was an eye-opener for Victor. This was a real tycoon. Feng Yu must have been chartering flights when he travels. Even the stewardess does not need to ask and knows what he wants. Also, Feng Yu was able to get the passports for so many people within a short time. This shows how influential Feng Yu was.

For many years, Victor felt proud in China because he was American. His country was powerful, and he was rich. But after today, he dare not to be arrogant and proud in China. China was a mysterious country. Who knew that there was someone so rich and influential in China.

“Mr. Victor. It is boring. Shall we play poker?” Feng Yu asked.

“Poker? Our rules should be different from China.” Victor hesitated. But the flight was more than 10 hours, and he got nothing to do.

“How about BlackJack? The rules should be the same.” Feng Yu laughed and waved his hand. A man wearing a dealer uniform walked over. The feature of a dealer’s uniform was no pockets.

Victor frowned. Who brings a dealer along when traveling? This Feng Yu likes to gamble?

“Mr. Victor, it would be boring if we are playing Blackjack without any bets.” Feng Yu smiled and looked at Victor.

Victor had been to Las Vegas a few times and likes to gamble. But he knew his bet was nothing compared to Feng Yu.

“Mr. Feng, I do not have much money with me.”

“It’s fine. We are just playing for fun. How about 400 USD per bet? I will be the banker. If your men are interested, they can also join in.” Feng Yu said. He suggested 400 USD per bet was because Blackjack’s payout has 1.25 times, 1.5 times and double. It will be easier to calculate if it was 400 USD.

400 USD? This was not consider a large amount and Victor could afford it. He nodded, but he did not ask his assistant to join. He felt Feng Yu was only being courteous and did not really mean it when he said to ask his assistant to join.

“Ok. Let’s play a few games for fun.”

Chapter 699 – The lucky Victor

Feng Yu knocked on the table lightly, indicating the dealer to start.

The dealer opened up a deck of new cards and took out the joker. Then, he spread the cards facing upwards for Feng Yu and Victor to check. Victor took a look and nodded. Feng Yu did not even look at the cards.

The dealer shuffles for a while, before giving out the cards.

The first card Feng Yu got was ace of spades and the second card was diamond K. He got blackjack in his first game. Victor only got 13. Base on the rules, Feng Yu won double.

Feng Yu laughed. “My luck is good today.”

Victor took out 800 USD and gave it to Feng Yu unwillingly. He signaled to the dealer to continue.

The second round, Feng Yu got a Q and 10, and he waved, signaling to the dealer that he will stand.

Victor frowned. Feng Yu got 20. How come Feng Yu was so lucky? He looked at his cards. It was J pair. He also got 20.

Now, Victor has a few options. First, he can stop asking for cards, and this round will end in a draw. But if it was a draw, it was considered the banker wins. The other option was to get one more card, hopping for an Ace. But the probability was slim.

But Victor still has a third option. He got two of the same cards, and he can choose to split. But his bet will increase.

Victor chooses to split the cards and bet another 400 USD.

After splitting, Victor got 2 more J! He was surprised. He had gotten all 4 J from the deck of cards. Victor was troubled. He could continue to split the cards or admit his loss.

“Ah…… Mr. Victor, you are really lucky. You got all the J from the deck. This is so rare.” Feng Yu purposely said.

Lucky? Victor thought to himself. That’s right. I could get all 4 J. That means it’s my lucky day today. Maybe I will get A next.

Victor chose to split the cards and increased his bets by another 800 USD. He was now playing 4 hands.

The dealer starts to deal with the cards. The first card Victor got was a 4, and he must get more cards if not, he will lose. The next card for the second hand was an 8. The card for the third hand was a 6, and the fourth hand was a 2.

All hands were less than 21, and Victor must Hit for all 4 hands.

Victor knocked on the table: “Carry on!”

The first hand got a 7, and the total was 21! Victor almost jumped up from his excitement. But based on the rules, the payout was only 1.25 times.

The second hand got a 3, and it was 21 again! Was my luck really this good today?”

The third hand got a 5, and the total was 21!

He got a 9 for his fourth hand, and the total was 21!

Victor got 21 for all 4 hands, and the payouts for all 4 hands were 1.25. Feng Yu had lost 2,000 USD!

“Hahaha, seems like my luck is good today.” Victor was about to laugh out loud but immediately stopped. He was afraid he might anger this Chinese businessman.

Feng Yu casually said: “This is the first time in my life to see these cards. You are really lucky. 2,000 USD? Here.”

Victor happily kept the money and tried to cover his smile on his face

After two rounds, the dealer took out a new deck of cards, and one of Feng Yu’s researcher walked over and said. “Can I join in? I have a few thousand RMB with me. I can play a few games.”

Feng Yu nodded: “It will be fun if more people played. If anyone else wants to play can just join in.” Feng Yu said to the rest.

Victor hesitated for a while and then waved to his assistant to ask him to join. Now, there were 6 people in the game.

Because Victor got 21 in the previous game, he will be the banker according to the rules.

The next game, Victor got Blackjack and won. Everyone got to pay him double.

Victor laughed excitedly.

The following games, Victor won some and lost some. But his wins were more than losses. Within an hour, Feng Yu’s translator, researcher, and 3 bodyguards lost almost all their money.

The researcher looked at Feng Yu and asked: “Boss, can I get an advance salary?”

Feng Yu took out 10,000 USD from his bag and pass it to that researcher. “What advance salary? I asked you all to play cards with me is to pass the time. Even if I win, how much can I win from you all?”

After a few more games, the Chief of the bodyguards also lost all his money, and Feng Yu gave him 10,000 USD too. After him, Feng Yu’s translator also lost all his money. Feng Yu also gave him 10,000 USD.

Victor and his assistant kept winning. Victor had got 21 a few times and won quite a lot.

By noon, after 2 hours of Blackjack, Victor had won 70,000 to 80,000 USD.

The stewardess came over and asked if they wanted lunch. Victor did not feel any hunger. He was on a roll and wanted to win more.

Within 2 hours, Victor had won more than his 2 months salary!

But when Victor saw Feng Yu and the rest looking tired, he did not ask them to carry on.

The stewardess served lunch. This lunch was too luxurious. All the dishes were prepared by a chef from a 5-star hotel. Victor felt he was too lucky to get to travel with Feng Yu.

These few days were the luckiest days of Victor’s life. He had won quite a sum from the morning Blackjack. If he could clinch the deal with Feng Yu tomorrow and sell those useless formulas to him, he would be able to get a transfer back to the US and also a promotion!

It seems that Victor’s luck had changed after meeting Feng Yu. He hopes his good luck would carry on forever.

After lunch, the researcher and the translator went to the bathroom. At the bathroom, the translator said to that researcher: “Professor Wang, you look too calm just now. You had lost quite a sum back then, how can you still behave this way?”

“Didn’t Manager Feng said that he will cover all our losses?” Professor Wang replied unhappily. How can a translator question him?

“Manager Feng didn’t tell you that you can keep all the winnings too? Those are all USD. The current exchange rates are 1 USD to 8 RMB. Do you know how much you have lost?”

Professor Wang’s face changed color. Huh? We can keep all the winnings? How come no one tells me earlier? I had lost 30,000 USD just now. That’s equivalent to more than 200,000 RMB!

When the translator saw the change on Professor Wang’s face, he was relieved. This way, Victor will not suspect anything. This way, Victor will not think that Professor Wang was wealthy and does not lack money. If he really feels this way, no one will approach him for help tomorrow.

“Professor Wang, don’t forget about our plan. If we are successful, our company will sponsor all your research fundings and still give you a reward. We will also help you send your son for overseas studies. Don’t forget what you are supposed to do!”

Chapter 700 – The plan

After lunch, Professor Wang suggested continuing playing cards before Victor could even say anything. This was what Victor had in mind, but he was shy to say it.

Professor Wang wanted to win some money back. He was unlucky in the morning, and his luck should improve in the afternoon. But it was weird that he did not get any good cards in the morning. Even if he got 20, the banker would get 21. He was really down on his luck.

The translator and the chief of the bodyguards were also very unlucky. Feng Yu’s luck was so-so. Although he had lost a bit, he was still playing happily. He does not seem to mind losing tens of thousands USD.

Victor was the winner in the morning, and his assistant had also won some.

When Professor Wang and the rest lost over 100,000 USD, Feng Yu felt it was enough. There were also no more new cards on board.

“Everyone is tired. Let’s take a break. There are laptops on the tables. You all can play video games, watch TV or take a nap. The crew will call you when dinner is ready.”

Victor agreed. He had won enough and had wanted to stop playing. After winning so much, he was afraid of losing his winnings back. Victor’s assistant was not as lucky as Victor. He had only won slightly over 10,000 USD. Victor had won more than 300,000 USD!

Winning so much from 400 USD bets per game proved how lucky Victor was!

But was Victor really so lucky? Of course not. This was all because of the dealer.

The dealer was not really a dealer. He was a magician, specializing in cards tricks. Feng Yu had told him to let Victor win and let Professor Wang, his translator and the head of bodyguards lose. He, himself also have to lose.

This was all a plot. A trap set for Victor.

Victor happily watched a movie on the latest model of Lenovo laptop. This was a laptop produced by the Chinese? Since when has China become so advanced? Victor still thought this was an IBM laptop! China is getting more and more developed.

Professor Wang’s face was twitching. He did not expect his luck to be so bad in the afternoon. Although Feng Yu had said that he does not need to pay him back, but if he won, he could keep the winnings. How come he was so unlucky? This blackjack should be a game of probability and luck. Although he was trained in Chemistry, his math was much better than average people.

The translator and the bodyguard also pulled a long face as they watch a movie. The translator even went to a corner for a smoke before taking a nap.

Victor was observing them. It seems that the people around Feng Yu loves money.

But Feng Yu treated them well. From Feng Yu’s tone, he does not seems to be asking them to pay him back. But all of them will owe Feng Yu a favor. Each of them had lost more than 100,000 USD. This was not a small amount.

Maybe I could make use of them to know what does Mr. Feng wants.

Victor smiles.

After dinner, everyone returned to their seats to rest. The stewardess woke them up when they were about to land.

It was midnight when they left the Airport. Although Feng Yu does not have any companies in New York, the Fu Family have. That’s why there were people there to fetch him. The staffs in New York made arrangements based on Feng Yu’s requirements. Feng Yu wanted the best treatment.

Victor thought Feng Yu had some connections with the mafias in the US. There were too many people at the airport waiting for him. Even the CEO of Pfizer do not get such treatments.

“I will be staying at the Hilton hotel. I hope to meet the person-in-charge of your R&D tomorrow afternoon.” Feng Yu told Victor.

“No problem. If our CEO is not outstation, he will surely meet up with you. I will contact you tomorrow morning.” The CEO was not overseas. He only felt he didn’t have to meet Feng Yu. After all, they were trying to cheat Feng Yu.

If everything was handled by his men, and when something happens, he could let his men take the blame. But if the CEO were to meet Feng Yu, then everything was different. Anything happens, the share prices will drop, and the company’s reputation will be affected.

At Hilton Hotel, Feng Yu called Professor Wang, his translator and the head of the bodyguards over to remind them the things to look out for.

This purpose of this trip was to buy formula. Everything else was not important. As long as they could get this formula, it’s a success. All of them will be rewarded. But if they could not get this formula, Feng Yu would be pissed. They would have wasted their time!

All of them acknowledged and said they will do their best to support Feng Yu. But all of them does not understand why Feng Yu needs them to prepare. But Feng Yu told them that there might be someone approaching them to bribe them. He asked them to just accept the bribes and inform him. Feng Yu will have further instructions for them.

As to why would people want to bribe them, some of them knew the reason, and some do not. The one who did not understand why someone would bribe him was Professor Wang.

……

At 8 in the morning, Victor went to his company to meet the CEO. He didn’t even have the time to cuddle with his wife.

If this deal were a success, he would have all the time to cuddle with his wife slowly.

“Mr. George, Mr. Feng, and his team had arrived. But, weirdly, Mr. Feng had brought a team of bodyguards, a team of medical researchers and a team of translators. He did not bring any negotiation team with him.” Victor reported.

This was not normal for business deals that involve a large amount. Usually, a negotiation team of at least 4 to 5 members was needed. Could this Mr. Feng want to negotiate the deal himself?

But this was possible. Feng Yu does not look like he lacks money, and there was a possibility that his translator and the medical experts were part of his negotiation team.

“What is the possibility of him buying our formulas during this trip?” George asked.

“Very high. He even chartered a plane and brought so many people along with him. If he is not willing to buy, he will not waste his time coming to New York. I am confident that he will surely buy our research data and we can sell those data for a high price!” Victor replied, confidently.

“Good. I will ask the rest to follow your instructions. But you must make sure to clinch this deal. Our reputation will be affected if others knew that we sold our failed products to others.” George replied.

Victor also knew that if Feng Yu found out the truth, this blame will fall on him. But he was sure that no one will discover. Once the formulas were sold, he will be able to gain more benefits.

Victor only needs to make sure that nothing goes wrong now, and once Feng Yu brought the research data and formulas back to China, Pfizer can refuse to admit anything. It’s your problem if the medicine you produce from our data is useless. When you sell these formulas to you, we have told you that these are all half-finished products.

“Rest assured, Mr. George. I will make sure this deal will go on smoothly. I am confident!” Victor remembered the look on Professor Wang and the rest when they lost money on board the plane. If all else fails, he can bribe one or two of them!

Chapter 701 – It’s too little

“Mr. Feng, this is Professor Mark, the person in charge of our laboratories. Professor Mark, this Mr. Feng from China.”

Feng Yu shook hands with Mark and then turned to the translator: “How do you say Nice to meet you in English?”

The translator told Feng Yu, and Feng Yu greeted Mark in English. Then, Feng Yu just looked at his translator regardless of what Mark said.

“Mr. Feng, this is our Pfizer’s biggest medical research laboratory. We do not have only one research lab. We have a few in the US and also in Europe. We invest heavily in the development of new drugs. Of course, this is also because we are researching on many drugs at the same time.”

Feng Yu pretended to be shocked by what he saw. He acted like he was impressed at Pfizer’s scale. The Medical researcher, Professor Wang, looked at the research laboratory with envy. Victor and Mark felt proud.

Everyone who visited Pfizer’s laboratory was all impressed by what they saw. Pfizer’s success was due to all these research laboratories.

“Can we go in to take a look?” Feng Yu asked politely.

Victor looked at Mark, and Mark nodded. Mark does not mind Feng Yu and his men visiting his research facilities as the core areas were inaccessible for the visitors. Also, all the important data were locked up.

If Professor Wang could know their formulas just by taking a few looks, Feng Yu would not need to buy formulas from them.

Feng Yu listened to Victor’s introduction to the laboratories as they toured the place. Once in a while, Mark will add on to Victor’s introductions. Feng Yu also showed his interest in the research facility.

After taking a tour around the lab, Victor asked. “Mr. Feng, we have many projects on new drugs development. Which are the ones you are interested in?”

Feng Yu looked at Professor Wang, and the latter shook his head, indicating that he could not tell what they were researching on. But the facilities in this lab were state of the art. Professor Wang wished he could own such a research lab or work there.

“I am interested in Cardiovascular and high blood pressure medicines. How many medicines are you all developing here?” Feng Yu asked.

A hint of excitement flashed across Victor’s face, and he looked at Mark before replying. “We have 5 research going on. But we need to keep some of the new medicines for ourselves. We can only sell two research to you.”

Mark frowned. All the researchers here are showing those failed products. If you can sell them, why don’t you sell everything? Why are you only selling only two of them?

Mark does not know about business negotiations. If Victor told Feng Yu that Pfizer was willing to sell all their research, Feng Yu would be suspicious, and the prices will not be high. Now, Victor said that he could only sell two research to Feng Yu, and he was confident that the prices of these two research would be more than the cost of all 5 failed products!

Feng Yu had a disappointed look on his face: “Can we look at the basic research data and then pick the ones we wanted?”

Victor looked at Mark, and he nodded. Although these were all failed products, at the start of the research, everything was going well and had no problems. If not, they would also not continue the research.

“Yes, which research do you want to see?”

“Show me all. We need to see if this research is worth for us to carry on, and what will be the side effects.”

“Ok. I will get my men to prepare the information you need. But please forgive us. We can only allow a professional in this industry to validate the information, and we cannot let you all bring any documents out of our lab. Once we have finalized a deal and the deposit is paid, then we can let you all conduct simple experiments and look at the full research data.”

“No problem. Professor Wang will look through the research data.”

Feng Yu was not interested in all these research information. He only wants to see if there were any familiar words or medicine names in the data. If there were none, then he will not buy single research. If the words or names were found in the data, he does not mind spending tens of million USD to buy them.

After a while, Mark returned with 5 sets of basic information about the research.

Professor Wang sat there looking through the data, while Feng Yu drank coffee by his side.

After reading the first set of data, Professor Wang nodded. This research was heading in the right direction and in theory, it should be possible. The progress of this research had almost reached clinical trials.

Professor Wang was shocked at the second research. If this drug were successfully developed, it would take the world by storm.

Professor Wang read through all 5 sets of data and felt he had learned a lot.

Professor Wang understood the theories mentioned in the research, but in China, there were no laboratories that have such state of the art facilities. Without the facilities, they also could not carry on with the research.

Feng Yu sighed in his heart when he saw the excitement on Professor Wang’s face. These types of people do not know how scheming people were in the business world. Feng Yu was sure that there will be no problems with these data. But in reality, all of these research had issues.

“Mr. Victor, Professor Mark, can you give us some time to discuss?” Feng Yu asked politely.

“Sure. We will be next door. If you need anything, just give us a call.” Victor and Mark exchanged looks and left the room.

The translator immediately walked over to the windows and pull down the blinds before sitting down beside Feng Yu. He flipped open the documents and pretended to translate for Feng Yu. But it was Feng Yu who was reading the documents.

After half an hour, Feng Yu finished reading all 5 sets of data but did not find any familiar words. He could not remember the components of Sildenafil. He only remembers the spelling. But the word Sildenafil did not appear in any of these documents.

The translator looked at Feng Yu, and Feng Yu shook his head. These data was not enough. He needed more detail data.

“Professor Wang, what do you think of this research?” The translator asked and raised his left hand.

Professor Wang had wanted to say all these research were excellent but suddenly stopped. He thought for a while and said. “The information is insufficient, and it is hard to predict the outcome.”

“Yes. You will say this later.”

The translator left the room to call Mark and Victor.

“Mr. Feng, what do you all think? Which research are you all interested in and wants to know the price?” Victor laughed and asked. He could visualize Mr. George patting him on his back, telling him he had done a great job. And then he was promoted to be the person in charge of the US market!

Professor Wang suddenly opened his mouth: “These data are too simple, and it’s hard for us to make the decision. Can you provide us with more details of the research?”

“We cannot do this. But we can negotiate if you all can confirm which research you all want to buy.” Victor laughed and said.

Feng Yu waved his hand: “Mr. Victor. Pfizer only have these few research? Do you have any more? I said before that if I am interested in the research, money is not a problem. Even if it’s a half-finished product or some techniques is also fine. The options you gave us is too little!”

Victor and Mark exchanged looks. Too little? That means Feng Yu wanted to buy a lot of their research?

Terrific!

Chapter 702 – Bluff (Part 1 of 2)

“Mr. Feng, although the research is half-completed, we had spent a lot on the research. Are you sure you wanted more options?” Victor asked.

Feng Yu glanced at Victor and said arrogantly: “We had bought more than a dozen medicine formulas and half-finished research last year. The amount we spent is also not small. Our target this year is more than doubled of last year. Money is never a problem for me. If I can get a formula I like, my company will be able to give me higher returns with its distribution channels!”

Mark’s eyes brighten up. But he dare not to take out more failed research information. He was afraid that he would scare Feng Yu away. But now, this Chinese businessman wanted more. If he still doesn’t take out more drugs research, it will look bad on Pfizer.

Pfizer had been conducting dozens of research at the same time. Most of the research failed. They can sell off lots of these failed research to Feng Yu.

“Mr. Feng, is there any requirements for the research you want?”

“I had said just now that I want the medicine to treat Cardiovascular and high blood pressure. These are the medicine that has the biggest market in China.”

Victor was looking down at Feng Yu in his heart. How can you be so honest with us? If I don’t charge you a high price for the research data, it would be disrespectful to your honesty!

Mark did not wait any longer. He took out the research data of a few other failed projects and pass it to Victor, letting Victor go and negotiate with Feng Yu.

Feng Yu read through the data and was disappointed again. The drug he was looking for was not there.

“Mr. Victor, are these all the research you have for me? Pfizer, a world-renowned company, only have so few research? Are you hiding your research from me? I said before, I don’t mind those half-completed research. As long as I am satisfied, the offer I make will also satisfy you.” Feng Yu said, slightly annoyed.

“Mr. Feng, there are already dozens of research data here. It is still little? I dare to say that Pfizer is one of the best drug manufacturers in the world. We might even be the best in the world. No other companies can conduct so many research like us. We are willing to show you so many research is because of your sincerity. These are all our company’s top secrets.” Victor said.

“Then, I will go back to consider. This is a big business deal, and I can’t make the decision in one day.” Feng Yu stood up and said.

“Of course. I will walk you out.”

“No need.”

Victor frowned as he look at Feng Yu and his team leaves the lab. Why does Mr. Feng only want medicine to treat Cardiovascular and high blood pressure?

If he could find out the reason, he might be able to charge him higher and complete this deal faster.

Mark walked over: “Victor, what happened? Why did Mr. Feng leave suddenly?”

“He says he needs to go back and consider. Why do you think he only wants medicine to treat Cardiovascular and high blood pressure?” Victor asked.

Mark thought for a while and replied: “Didn’t he say that these two drugs can sell well in China?”

Victor rolled his eyes: “I am in charge of China market. Do you think I do not know what medicine will sell in China? Most of the Chinese with high blood pressure will just take a rest if they feel unwell. They don’t care about this illness.”

“Then it should be one of his family members have these conditions,” Mark replied, confidently.

Victor’s eyes brighten up. That’s right. If someone close to Feng Yu has Cardiovascular problems or high blood pressure, then he should be in a hurry to develop a medicine to cure them. Now, what they must do was to confirm whether if Feng Yu’s family members have these conditions!

It will be impossible to ask Feng Yu straight. Maybe they can approach the people around Feng Yu, like Professor Wang, or the bodyguard chief. It should be easy to get information from them.

……

Back at the hotel, Professor Wang received a call from Victor. He was surprised when he received the call. Could it be Victor dialed the wrong number?

“Professor Wang, I am looking for you. Are you free at night? Do you want to have a drink with me?”

“No, thanks. I am tired and need to rest early.”

“Professor Wang, you have seen our Pfizer research lab. I wonder if you are interested in working at our lab?” Victor was making empty promises.

“What did you say? I have the chance to work at Pfizer’s lab?” Professor Wang asked. He had never expected someone would pouch him and never thought whether if Victor had the authority to hire him.

“Of course. We welcome anyone capable to join us at Pfizer. Oh, Professor Wang. Do you know why Mr. Feng like Cardiovascular and high blood pressure medicine so much? Is it because someone in his family has this illness?” Victor pretended to ask casually.

“How do you know?”

“It’s only a random guess. Let’s discuss the details next time.”

After hanging up the phone, Victor punched his fist in the air. Terrific. So, someone in Feng Yu’s family has this illness. That means the research will be more valuable. He does not care whether if Feng Yu could develop the drugs successfully after he bought it. Feng Yu can always buy Pfizer’s developed products to treat the illness.

Professor Wang turned and looked at the translator: “I had said everything you instructed. He wants me to work at Pfizer.”

The translator shook his head: “Since when did you hear someone in charge of China sales can make decisions for the headquarters on hiring researcher? Even at your school, it will be the HR personnel who hire professors. For companies, it is always the HR who handles the hiring. He is lying to you! Also, if this deal is successful, you will have the money to research on your projects. You will be the one in charge. Isn’t it better than working for someone in America? Bing City Pharmaceutical will be purchasing the most advanced laboratory equipment for its R&D department.”

Professor Wang realized that he was almost tricked by Victor. Furthermore, what would happen to his family if he came to America to work? It would be better if he could work at home.

“Tomorrow, you will have the opportunity to meet him alone. If he gives you money, you can accept it.”

“How can I do that? I will not be bribed.” Professor Wang said.

“You can donate the money to those poor children for their education. Just treat it as doing some charity for that American.”

“Ok.”

The translator went to Feng Yu’s room to tell him about what happened.

Feng Yu patted the translator on his shoulders: “Liu Michael, you have done well. You will have the biggest credit if this is a success! That American wants to trick us? Let’s see who will have the last laugh!”

This translator was Liu Michael from Feng Yu’s designing firm. He had studied in the US before, and his English was excellent. Most importantly, Liu Michael was smart and could easily persuade others.

Liu Micheal had helped Feng Yu to formulate this plan. Although there were lots of loopholes, they only need to hide it from the other party temporary. Everything will be over once Feng Yu got the formula and signed the contract. Maybe the other party did not even know what Feng Yu’s purpose was.

Chapter 703 – Bluff (Part 2 of 2)

“Mr. Feng, this is all the information for this research. It is worth at least 8 million USD, and it is because we have not gone far with this research. If not, we will not sell even for 10 million USD!”

8 million USD? Damn! You think I am a fool?! You don’t even get that much when you rob the bank.

“Mr. Victor. You also said that you all have not progressed far for this research and the data is so little. How can it be worth 8 million?”

“The prospect for this project is good. You all will get high returns after you developed the medicine successfully.”

“If this project is so good, why are you all selling it? I am guessing that a large amount of funds is needed to carry on with the research, or there are problems with this research. No matter what’s the reason, the potential of this project is not as good as what you claim.” Liu Michael said.

Victor frowned. This translator was really one of Feng Yu’s negotiator. He could discover the flaws from what I said. Damn! If it wasn’t for this translator, Feng Yu might have already agreed to the price!

Before Victor could retort, Liu Michael continued: “Unless you all can package all these research together and sell everything to us.”

Victor was stunned. Pack everything together and sell as a package? The effects of these medicines are similar, but if these medicines were mixed together, they might become poison. Do these people know what they were doing?

Even if they were ignorant about all these, Professor Wang should know.

The Chinese were all like this. Their traditional Chinese medicines also mixed all sorts of herbs together and claimed it can cure ailments. They have no standard drugs, and the medicine formulas were all thought up by their doctors. It’s a miracle for the Chinese to survive so long!

“Mr. Feng, is this what you want?” Victor turns to Feng Yu.

“Yes. How is it? It cannot be done? Isn’t all these research half completed? You all should not have spent a lot on these projects. Are you worried that the effects of these drugs will clash? We can just add some inhibitor in it, and it will solve all these problems.” Feng Yu replied with an “I am also an expert, don’t try to fool me” look on his face.

Victor was surprised that Feng Yu knew what an inhibitor was.

Inhibitor could be used to stop or lower the effects of chemical reactions between substances. It is a negative catalyst.

But even if inhibitor was added, it could not stop the chemical reactions of the drugs completely. An ignorant person is not scary. What’s scary is an ignorant person thinking he knows everything.

In Victor’s eyes, Feng Yu was such a person. But this type of people has one plus point, which was they will be easily tricked when you use some jargons they do not understand.

Liu Michael added: “Pfizer should have a lot of inhibitor products. You all can also sell us some inhibitors. We are willing to pay.”

They still want to buy inhibitors? Pfizer does have lots of inhibitors that were added to their medicines. But if they were to sell the inhibitors, it must be useable, or at least in the experimental observation stage.

“Mr. Feng, I need to speak to my company first. Can we discuss the prices for the other research?” Victor asked.

Feng Yu waved his hand: “We have to discuss the prices for all these drugs. We want to combine all these to create a super-effective medicine. How can we just discuss the price of one medicine?”

Damn! Do you think you are making a fruit platter? Mixing all these drugs together will not create a super-effective medicine. You will get a super poison!

Feng Yu did not give Victor any chance to persuade him and returned back to his hotel.

Victor was feeling disappointed. He thought Feng Yu would buy at least two abandon research today and he would hit his target of 10 million USD easily.

If Victor could sell these research higher than 10 million, he could still get a handsome reward. But what were these people thinking? They really believe that getting more research data and combining everything together, they will get new medicine?

Victor reported to George and George was also hesitating. The inhibitor must be effective if they were to sell to Feng Yu. There was no way for them to fool Feng Yu for the inhibitor. But the inhibitors were developed by them and had spent lots of funds. They had never considered selling these inhibitors.

But if they package the inhibitors together with the other research, they would be able to sell off those useless research data and get more than 10 million USD. This was like money dropping from the skies.

“Mr. George, if there is an inhibitor included, they will surely buy our products, and I am confident that we can sell them at higher prices. It will surely be more than 10 million USD!”

“No. We had also spent a lot on developing the inhibitors. 10 million is not enough. We must get at least 20 million USD! Can you do it?” George made his decision.

Victor gritted his teeth and said: “Yes if you can tell Mark to let them choose the ones they wanted from all our inhibitors!”

“No problem. I trust you, and I hope you will not disappoint me. If this deal is successful, I will not forget you. But if you fail, I will transfer you to Africa!”

Africa? Victor would never want to go to Africa!

Victor was determined to complete this deal. He needs to use some underhand methods.

“Mr. George, I need a sum of money to entertain them.”

“How much?”

“1 million USD. I promise I will be able to sell the research data for more than 21 million USD. We will be able to cover back these entertainment expenses! In China, the Chinese like to accept gifts.”

George looked at Victor for a while and then pick up the phone on his table to call the finance department: “Prepare a million USD for Victor as entertainment expenses.”

Victor thanked George and left. He was confident that he will succeed!

In the afternoon, Feng Yu received a call from Victor. Victor told him that the company had approved the sales of inhibitors. He asked Feng Yu to go over to Pfizer’s lab to see which inhibitors they want.

Feng Yu told him straight that he was tired. Professor Wang and the translator will go on his behalf.

Victor did not expect things to proceed so smoothly. Feng Yu will not be around, and the two who he wanted to bribe will be going over to the lab.

Professor Wang was looking through the production techniques of Pfizer’s inhibitors. He also spotted the research data which Feng Yu was looking for.

“Professor Wang, you have come to America for so long, will you be buying some souvenirs for your family?”

“Oh, I will be buying some.”

“Professor Wang, this is a gift for you. You can also cash it in China.” Victor passed a few cheques to Professor Wang. Victor knew Professor Wang likes money when they were playing Blackjack on the plane.

Professor Wang narrowed his eyes. 100,000 USD? This Victor really wants to bribe him.

“Mr. Victor. I cannot accept this gift.”

“Nonono…… This is for you. I think you need this, don’t you? No one else will know about this. After you return to China, I will still give you a sum of money.”

“What do you want from me?” Professor Wang asked.

“I only want to know which research data does Feng Yu wants and how much will he pay for it?”

“I only know which research he is interested in. But I do not know how much he will pay for it. Translator Liu does know about that.”

“Thank you. It is enough to know which research he picks.”

“Don’t you think 100,000 USD is too little?” Professor Wang suddenly said.

Victor laughed. He was not afraid of Professor Wang wanting more. He was worried that Professor Wang does not accept his bribes.

“I will pass you another 200,000 USD after I got the information.

“300,000 USD.”

“Hahaha. Professor Wang, you are so direct. Ok. 300,000 USD. I will pass it to you later. Looking forward to working with you!”

Chapter 704 – Got it

Victor was in a good mood after he settled Professor Wang. If he knew what research Feng Yu wants, it would be easier for him to raise the price. Next, he met Liu Michael alone and got information on how much Feng Yu was willing to pay with 500,000 USD.

Victor did not keep the remaining 100,000 USD. If his company found out, his career would be gone. This 100,000 USD will be his reserve, and he will return back to the company if he did not use it.

Victor knew the rules well and shouldn’t keep the money that does not belong to him.

……

“Mr. Feng, have you all chose the inhabitors you all want?” Victor smiles and asked. Actually, he knew Feng Yu wanted 3 types of inhibitors, and the prices he quoted for the 3 inhibitors were high.

Feng Yu looked at Liu Michael and then pick out 5 sets of research data. It includes the 3 inhibitors Professor Wang told Victor.

Victor was overjoyed. The money spent was worthwhile.

“Mr. Feng, the price for this is 3 million USD, this one is 5 million, and that is 6 million……”

The 3 inhibitors Feng Yu wanted was quoted above 5 million USD. Actually, Pfizer had already recovered their R&D cost when the inhibitors were developed. In fact, other research labs also have two of the inhibitors, and the third inhibitor was not invented by them. They only have more in-depth research on it.

Feng Yu casually pick two more sets of research data from the table and then push it towards Victor, together with the rest of the drugs research data. “These. Quote me a price.”

Victor was already used to Feng Yu’s negotiation style. Anyone who buys things will take their time to pick and choose. Furthermore, this deal was worth millions, and it was medical research data. But Feng Yu acted like he was buying potatoes in the market. He just picked the research data randomly.

Victor pretended to look at the research data. He already knew the prices beforehand.

“These research data are very important to us. We have spent a lot of money and resources in these research. How about this? I will give you a discounted price. 30 million USD!”

Before Feng Yu says anything, Liu Michael shouted: “30 million USD? Impossible. I had said that this research might be useful, but there is a high possibility that the result of the research will be a failure. The only thing that is worth something is the research data on inhibitors. You have overquoted us!”

“No. The price I quoted is reasonable. The cost of inhibitors is very high, and it is a finished product. But those incomplete research data are also worth a lot. If you are successful with the drugs development, you will be able to get hundreds of millions USD in returns. This is a gamble, isn’t it?”

Feng Yu laughed: “Hahaha. I like to gamble. You are right. This is a gamble. But even if I were to gamble, I prefer higher payouts. 30 million USD. If I win, I will get 300 million. But who knows how long will it takes for me to get this 300 million? I don’t like this gamble.”

“These research data are not worth 30 million USD!” Liu Michael added.

Liu Michael and Victor started arguing. This argument was planned by both of them. Victor saw the engrossed and agitated Liu Micheal and gave him a thumbs up in his heart. Liu Michael’s acting deserved an Oscar!

“Why are these data not worth 30 million? You will not even get half the results even if you give 30 million to another company. Pfizer is home to the top researchers in the world!” Victor proudly said.

Feng Yu suddenly reach out and split the stack of documents into two piles, and then point to one stack. “15 million. Sign the contract now.”

Ah? Why is the amount cut by half? Didn’t you say that the data are too little? Now you only want half of the data?

15 million for that stack of research data was still a lot. But Victor had promised George that he will sell the research for more than 21 million. Now, it had become 15 million. He had still asked for 1 million USD from the company. There was no way for him to answer to George!

What if George really gets angry and send him to Africa? There was no way he could survive there.

“Mr. Feng, I had bundled all the research together for you. Even if you want half of them, the price is also not half.” Victor explained.

“Mr. Victor, my boss, might be rich, but you cannot treat him like a fool. You all are not sincere in making this deal. Maybe you all should get someone else to negotiate with us. Or perhaps we should contact Bayer. I think Bayer will be more sincere with the price my boss is paying.” Liu Michael threatens.

Victor suddenly switched to English: “We have acted enough. 22 million for these data!”

Feng Yu sat there calmly, pretending not to understand what they were talking. But in his heart, he was jumping with joy. 22 million USD and he could get the formula for these inhibitors. He only needs to improve the formula, and then he can sell it in the market. The future returns will be several billion.

Liu Micheal moved closer to Feng Yu and whispered that they should lower the price by a few more million. He asked if Feng Yu wants all those research data.

Feng Yu nodded.

“Fine. This is the final price my boss is offering. 22 million USD. If you all agree, then we will sign the contract and give us the full set of data. If not, then the deal is off!”

Victor pretended that he could not make the decision and made a phone call. After the call, he said that the company agreed to the price and they can sign the contract now.

Both parties were worried each other would change their minds, and the contract was signed quickly. When the contract was signed, Feng Yu was relieved.

He had finally gotten the technique for producing inhibitors!

Feng Yu quickly called his men to transfer the money to Pfizer. When Victor received news that the money was paid, he asked his men to give Feng Yu the full set of research data. Feng Yu’s medical research team immediately check if the data was real. Once confirmed, they quickly send the data to Feng Yu’s chartered plane.

The plane was considered China’s territory, and it was safe there. Without China’s approval, the US cannot enter the aircraft.

Back on the plane, Feng Yu gave a toast to everyone. With the formula for inhibitors, he can let his researchers research and develop Sildenafil. This drug will be developed much faster than the Americans.

With connections, the rules for clinical trials can be changed, and the approvals will be granted easily. Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise will be the first company in the world to develop oral medication for impotence!

Chapter 705 – Using a medical formula to invest again?

“Victor, who give you permission to sell this inhibitor’s formula?” Mark shouted.

“Mr. George gave permission.”

“But this inhibitor is the main component for the development of our newest drug. What if the other party developed this drug first?”

“What newest drug? The medicine for treating impotence? Do you think people will buy it? They will be too embarrassed to buy it. Even if there is a market for this new drug, Feng Yu also do not need it. China already has this type of medical wine thousand of years ago. I had drunk it before, and my erection lasted the whole night.” Victor replied.

This Mark still thought the medicine he was researching on was miraculous. But China already has this type of medicine since ancient times. This medicine will fill the gap in the market? Bullshit!

“Fine. Stop arguing. Their research will not be as fast as us, and we have 21 million USD of the fund now. We will use this fund to invest in our R&D department. Victor, ii will give you two choices. First, you will be the Deputy CEO for the Asia region, and you will be based in Tokyo. There will be lots of opportunities there, and you can easily get promotions. Secondly, the Deputy CEO for the North American market. Your working location is in New York. You will be closer to home, but it will be difficult for you to be promoted.”

“I pick New York. I miss my family.”

George was disappointed with Victor, but he still kept his promise and agreed to let Victor stay in New York. After all, Victor had helped the company made lots of money. Those two inhibitor formulas were only worth a few million USD at most. That means Victor had sold the useless research data for more than 10 million USD. He deserved to be rewarded.

Furthermore, Victor had managed the Chinese market well, and he had proved himself there.

Victor thanked George several times before he left. Mark was still arguing with George. George waved his hand: “You should go back now and oversee the clinical tests. We have already reached the clinical trials phase. Even if they discover the effects of this drug, they still have to undergo clinical trials. By the time they developed this medicine successfully, we will have launched the medicine in the market.”

Back at China, Feng Yu immediately fly to Bing City. As for the bribes received by Professor Wang and Liu Michael, Feng Yu told them to keep it. However, Feng Yu was surprised by Professor Wang’s actions. He had donated every single cent to charities.

Feng Yu did not go back on his words. He helped Professor Wang to get the approval for his son to go to the US to further his studies and all his expenses in the US will be covered by Feng Yu. He will not let Professor Wang’s son work part-time in the US.

Liu Michael also donated his money. He told Feng Yu that he felt uneasy to keep the bribes. Feng Yu laughed and bought a bungalow for Liu Michael as his reward.

Feng Yu had spent a total of 25 million USD, but he felt the money spent was worth it.

Back at Bing City, Feng Yu wanted to use this medical formula to increase his stakes in Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise during the company’s annual meeting. But Bing City’s representative of state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) strongly rejected him.

All this while, the rest of the shareholders do not want Feng Yu to increase his stakes in the company. Now, Feng Yu appears with some medical research data, claiming its some medicine formulas and tried to use it to invest in the company.

Even if the rest of the shareholders agrees, but how can you value these formulas as 200 million RMB? Who are you trying to fool? Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise registered value was only 360 million RMB. If we allow you to value these formulas as 200 million, then you will be the biggest shareholder of this company.

Furthermore, what sort of research data is worth so much? Cancer treatment drugs?

Huh? Medicine to treat that type of illness?

Nonsense! It will be a disgrace to produce this type of medicine.

Other than Wu Zhigang, no one agreed to Feng Yu’s demands. The rest of the shareholders do not object Feng Yu to use medical formulas to invest in the company, but they cannot accept that this formula is worth 200 million RMB!

Wu Zhigang firmly supported Feng Yu. He was a stanched supporter of Feng Yu and trusted him fully.

“Manager Feng Yu says that this formula is worth 200 million, then it is worth 200 million. You all say he is trying to cheat the company’s money? What a joke. Do you know how much is Manager Feng’s annual donation to the schools? Do you know much he earns from Bing City Machinery Company? Just the profits from Tai Hua Trading is more than this amount. Does he need to come and cheat you all?”

“Gang Zhi, it’s fine that they don’t understand. At most, I will buy another pharmaceutical factory to produce this medicine. They will regret it when they can’t get a share of the profits.” Feng Yu patted Wu Zhigang’s shoulders, telling him to calm down.

Feng Yu understands what these people were thinking. If he was in their position, he will also not believe that this formula is worth 200 million RMB. If it was really worth 200 million, how long will it take to recover this amount?

Also, if Feng Yu were to use the value of this formula to increase his stakes in the company, he will become the biggest shareholder. The City Government will never agree.

Now, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise was making high profits, and all the shareholders were very happy with the returns. Their vitamins and health medicine products had brought over 100 million RMB of profits. It also pushes the sales of their other medicines. This year, the company will get at least 200 million RMB of profits.

Next year, the profits should be higher as Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s brand becomes more famous. The forecasted profits for the coming year was more than 300 million RMB.

3 years later, when Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise got listed, the share prices should increase by more than 5 times. It might even be more than 10 times. The value of the company should be over 5 billion RMB then. The company will be one of the top companies in China and even the whole of Asia.

Also, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise paid a high amount of taxes to the City Government and had help the government subsidizes many projects. Feng Yu had never opposed to these.

This was a company with great potential. The City will not let Feng Yu become the biggest shareholder. They do not want to see this company becomes another Bing City Machinery, where Feng Yu had the final say in everything.

This incident was reported to Zhang Ruiqiang by the General Manager of Bing City Pharmaceutical. Zhang Ruiqiang immediately called Feng Yu to go over to his office. He also wants to know why Feng Yu felt his medicine formula was worth 200 million RMB.

When Feng Yu arrived at Zhang Ruiqiang’s office, Secretary Liu immediately prepare a cup of tea for him. He does not want Feng Yu to ransack the leader’s cabinet and waste his tea leaves.

Feng Yu looked at Secretary Liu. He was satisfied with him. Look, people need to be trained. This person is so hardworking now. I must also get a secretary for myself. But the secretary must be a girl.

Who wants a male secretary? Feng Yu also do not have a lot of work. He had handed over almost all his work to others, and all he had to do was to sit there can count his money. Every time he looks at the financial reports of his company, he will calculate how much was his share, and he will be in a good mood.

“Are you also thinking that I am trying to cheat others with this medicine formula, and it is not worth 200 million?” Feng Yu asked after he sat down.

Chapter 706 – Zhang Ruiqiang’s decision

Out of Feng Yu’s expectations, Zhang Ruiqiang seriously replied: “It is the opposite. I trust you. If you say this is worth 200 million, then it is worth 200 million! I am only curious why is it worth 200 million RMB.”

Feng Yu was stunned. His hand, which was reaching out for the tea leaves stopped in midair: “You believe what I said?”

“Why not? You have never lied to me about these things. Unless you are trying to con me this time.” Zhang Ruiqiang laughed.

Damn! Old Zhang is still dependable during times like this. Look at him. This is why he can be the Mayor of Bing City. He was smarter than those people from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC)! Why would I try to cheat 200 million RMB from them?

“I am not lying to you.” Feng Yu replied honestly.

“Ok, then it’s fine.” Zhang Ruiqiang lit a cigarette and took a puff.

“What do you mean by it’s fine?” Feng Yu was confused.

“I will help you settle this. It is not a problem for this formula to be valued at 200 million. But the share proportion must remain the same.” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

“The City government is willing to increase the investment by more than 200 million?” Feng Yu was curious.

The Bing City Government could afford to increase its investment by 200 million. But this will not be in the City’s budget plan. The City’s budget had been planned long ago.

How will the City cover up this 200 million RMB deficit? Which City’s development project will be postponed?

“The City cannot come up with 200 million. This is why I hope you will give in a little. Give the medicine formula to Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise first, and then start the production and sales of this medicine. The City will use our share of profits from the following two years to re-invest into the company, or you can take out 200 million RMB, including interest from our profits. This way, it can be considered that you sold this medicine to the company.” Zhang Ruiqiang told Feng Yu his proposed solution.

This was the most straightforward solution Zhang Ruiqiang could come up with, and it was based on his trust in Feng Yu. If it wasn’t for Feng Yu, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise will also not grow to its current scale. It will still be like in the past, struggling to survive. How could this company get such high profits and became one of the top pharmaceutical company in China?

Feng Yu opened his mouth and then said: “But this medicine is still not developed successfully yet. Also, the clinical trial has not started yet. We cannot produce it.”

“What? This formula is not successful yet?” Zhang Ruiqiang was stunned, and his face changed: “What are you trying to do? You want to value a yet to develop medicine formula for 200 million?!”

“It is not one formula. It is two formulas. Two formulas for inhibitors. We have confirmed the uses for these inhibitors, and I dare to guarantee that the medicine will be a success. But the medicine still needs to undergo clinical trials.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was deep in thoughts. If this was the truth, then he will have no reason to support Feng Yu. Everyone knows about those nutritional medicine formulas. Those medicines were sent straight for test and got the approval fast. The clinical trials for those medicines were very short.

But now, this medicine cannot be produced immediately for profits, and they still need to continue to spend money to research and develop this medicine. This was completely different from the previous medicine formulas.

Secretary Liu, who was listening by the side, suddenly asked: “Manager Feng, I heard that the formula you bought is medicine for treating that type of ailment?”

Zhang Ruiqiang raised his head: “What type of ailment?”

Feng Yu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang. Damn. Old Zhang don’t even know what the medicine is for? No wonder he wanted to support me without hesitations.

“It is for treating impotence in men. To be more specific, erectile dysfunction!” Feng Yu replied calmly.

Zhang Ruiqiang looked into Feng Yu’s eyes and then slowly look down. He had a troubled looked on his face and seems to want to ask Feng Yu some questions.

Feng Yu was furious. Where the hell are you looking at?! Your eyes tell me that you are suspecting that I have some issues and need to develop this drug for myself?

Goddamn! I am only in my early twenties. This is the period where I am the strongest!

“I HAVE NO PROBLEMS!” Feng Yu replied firmly.

Zhang Ruiqiang looked away and replied slowly: “I did not say you have any issues with your body. Why are you trying to explain yourself?”

Feng Yu glared at Zhang Ruiqiang, and Zhang Ruiqiang looked away.

Feng Yu took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. “Based on overseas research, 1 out of every 10 males in the world have erectile dysfunction. Some of them are because of psychological issues, and some are physical problems. This inhibitor is a core component in developing this drug, and it can treat this ailment effectively. The chances of this drug curing this condition are up to 80%. How big do you think this market is?”

Zhang Ruiqiang paused for a while and asked: “Will the men affected admit they have this condition?”

Feng Yu immediately look at Zhang Ruiqiang suspiciously and let him have a feel of being suspected of having this condition.

Zhang Ruiqiang’s face immediately changed. He looks like he was able to transform into Incredible Hulk. No matter how calm he was, he could not stay calm with Feng Yu looking at him like this.

“This is because many people are shy to admit they have this condition, and they will try to seek treatment from unlicensed practitioners. On my way here, I have seen all sorts of advertisements posted on a lamppost, claiming they have their traditional miraculous wine or some pills that will help men. All those “medicines” are not proven, and we do not even know if it is harmful to the bodies of those who took it. This medicine is different. There are little side effects and will not harm the body. Also, it is a prescribed drug.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he had seen lots of advertisements about treating men’s problems. Most of these advertisements were dodgy, and the components in their products were weird. It was neither Chinese traditional medicines or Western medicines. The claims in the ads were exaggerated, and even if people were tricked by these companies, they were too embarrassed to look for them. This was because they do not want others to know that they were taking such medicines.

Pfizer’s Sildenafil was effective and was from a reputable pharmaceutical company. What impressed Feng Yu the most was that even CCTV news reported on this drug. This shows how effective this drug was.

“But how will you market this drug? How are you going to sell it?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“This will be a prescription drug. We only need to ask the hospitals that are close to Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise to help us promote this medicine. This medicine can also let us enter the overseas market. It will be our flagship medicine in the international market!”

Zhang Ruiqiang was still hesitating. Use this medicine as flagship medicine for the company? Then Bing City Pharmaceutical will be known as a company that specialized in such illness. It will not be suitable for their brand reputation.

“This medicine will bring at least a few hundred million USD of profits for our company in the future.”

Feng Yu remembered Pfizer’s annual profits exceeding over 1 billion USD in his previous life. But that was because this medicine was already well known all over the world. The profits for the first few years were not that high, and Pfizer had spent quite a lot to market it.

“A few hundred million USD of profits? Will the profits be so high?” Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes turned into $$ signs.

“That’s the minimum!” Feng Yu confidently replied.

Zhang Ruiqiang took in a deep breath and said: “Fine. Leave this to me. But we will only return you 200 million after our profits exceed that amount. Also, the interest will only start after this medicine enters the market!”

Feng Yu nodded: “Although I am taken advantage of by the City Government, I do not mind. Deal!”

Chapter 707 – Didn’t come in vain

Feng Yu did not mind being taken advantage because Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise was now an established brand. This medicine will be popular if sold under the brand name. Also, Bing City Pharmaceutical had lots of researchers and could perfect the formula and conduct the clinical trials faster.

Also, China’s regulations on medications were not as stringent. Feng Yu could get the approvals earlier than Pfizer and start the production. He would be able to apply for patents and delay Pfizer’s drugs from entering the market. Bing City Pharmaceutical will be the first company to develop and produce this drug.

If it were another small pharmaceutical company, it would be difficult to do all these. Also, Feng Yu did not suffer any significant losses. Those research data were only references and contains some technical knowledge of producing this drug.

After the discussion ended, Feng Yu continued to sit on the sofa with his legs crossed.

“Why are you still here? If you want to have lunch at our cafeteria here, it’s fine. But don’t think of ordering any expensive dishes.”

“Eh, eh, eh…… You are the Mayor. Look at your stingy look. You think I cannot afford to pay for myself?” Feng Yu replied arrogantly.

“Then what do you want from me? It’s almost the end of the year, and I am very busy. I still have to attend lots of meetings.” Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. He knew Feng Yu too well and knew that Feng Yu must be up to something.

If it were something good, Feng Yu would have opened his mouth earlier.

“Is the City Government giving out some welfare to your employees during the coming Lunar New Year?”

“What has this got to do with you? Are you asking for your cousin? You are used to flaunting your wealth. Now, your cousin is also following your footsteps. He is only a junior staff member, and he drives to work? He is driving a Songjiang Olympic.”

When mentioned this, Zhang Ruiqiang was furious. At first, he had a good impression of Feng Yu’s older cousin and tried to help him by transferring him to work for his secretary. He was even thinking of promoting him this year.

But this cousin of Feng Yu drove to work and don’t even live in the quarters arranged by the City. He bought a new private apartment next to Bing City River. He heard that the floor area of that apartment was bigger than the quarters for Director level staffs.

That fellow even had a handphone. Many Section Chief in the government were not even assigned a pager.

Feng Yu was also speechless. These were all given to his older cousin by his father. If he did not stop his father, his father would have given his cousin the luxury model of Songjiang Olympic. That’s the model assigned to the Mayor.

That apartment was also bought by Feng Yu’s father. He said that with a big apartment, his cousin would be able to get a girlfriend easier. Now, as a civil servant from a wealthy family and even own a car, it was really easy for him to get a girlfriend. Many leaders in the City Government wanted to introduce their daughters or niece to him.

Feng Yu smiled: “That is his private car. He spends his own money to pump petrol, and it is not against the regulations. Furthermore, it’s my father who bought the car for him. I also cannot stop him. You said the City Government do not have shuttle bus? Bing City Machinery can manufacture buses now. Do you want to order 8 or 10 buses for the City?”

Zhang Ruiqiang: “……” Feng Yu was treating the City Government as his regular customer. He tries to sell his products every time he comes.

“We are not buying it. There is another matter…… but nevermind. What else do you want to tell me?” Zhang Ruiqiang stopped halfway.

Damn. Why can’t you finish what you wanted to say? It’s unbearable when you mentioned something and stopped in the middle.

Feng Yu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang and continued enthusiastically like a salesman: “Buy our Tai Hua shopping cards as the welfare gifts for the City government employees. I will give you a 2% discount.”

Zhang Ruiqiang turned and walked back to his seat behind his desk. “Xiao Liu, send Mr. Feng out.”

“Eh, don’t be like this. We are all chatting happily here. The Government is not giving out Lunar New Year gifts? How about our Tai Hua Supermarket shopping cards? It will be cheaper this way. The items in the supermarket are also cheap, and there is a variety of products for your staffs to pick. It’s so much better than you all giving out meat, rice, etc.”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu: “The year before last year, you promoted your Tai Hua Premium cooking oil. Last year, it was your Tian Peng Pork. This year, you are trying to help your Tai Hua Supermarket clear those leftover stocks?”

“What are you talking about? Since when my products have leftover stocks? Tai Hua Supermarket’s business is excellent, and the whole city knows it!”

“That’s right. Even our state-owned shopping mall’s supermarket is struggling to survive.” Zhang Ruiqiang replied angrily.

This state-owned shopping mall was located in the best location in the city and tried to copy the Tai Hua Supermarkets, by opening a supermarket. But not long after opening, it was facing difficulties.

Zhang Ruiqiang asked his men to investigate and found out that it was Tai Hua Supermarket that was targeting them. All the items sold at Tai Hua Supermarkets were cheaper than the state-owned supermarket. Tai Hua Supermarket even gave out fliers outside of the state-owned supermarket.

Even if they were competitors, but they should not be so aggressive. Tai Hua Supermarket’s business was very good, and why can’t they let others survive? This year, the City Government will be giving out some welfare gifts for their employees. But all the gifts will be purchased at the state-owned supermarket. They will never go to Tai Hua Supermarket.

“It’s all fair competition. We are the original, and they are the imitators. How can you group us together and you shouldn’t say that we are suppressing them. They are not doing well, might be due to their management issues, or there might be something wrong with their marketing.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

Management issues? The manager of the state-owned supermarket was pouched over to your Tai Hua Supermarket to be the floor manager. You all offered more than double salaries, and several managers from the finance and warehouse departments had gone over to your side. How can we still manage our supermarket well?

The state-owned supermarket’s business went downhill, and the shopping mall was also affected. Zhang Ruiqiang was frustrated. He had high hopes for this mall.

This was not the first time Bing City set up shopping malls. This mall was located in a better location, had nicer renovations and better customer service. However, the business was worse than those older malls.

The biggest probability was because of Tai Hua Supermarket. They had hired all the management staffs from the state-owned supermarket, and Tai Hua Supermarket was located very near to them.

“If it is a fair competition, then stop hiring our people.”

“You all are unable to give them higher salaries, and yet you want to stop them from earning more? They also have families to feed. What’s wrong with them trying to earn more? If that state-owned supermarket can no longer survive, I can offer some advice. Close it and move to another location, like near to the universities. Their business will improve.”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu suspiciously: “Move them to somewhere near the universities will do?”

“Of course, it’s not any universities. The location near Longjiang University is not bad. There are many schools in that vicinity. Although it is a bit out of the way, there are lots of human traffic. That is a good place to build a shopping mall.”

“Nevermind. We will talk about this another time. What else do you have for me?”

“There is one more thing. I know that the City had relocated the residents of these two places. The land parcel will be auctioned off? How about selling it to Tai Hua Supermarket? We will build our hypermarket malls there, and I guarantee that these two places will be a bustling commercial area.”

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu angrily. Do you think I do not know that these two places are suitable to build shopping malls? Why should we sell the land parcels to you? But Zhang Ruiqiang thought for a while. It seems that state-owned shopping malls were not easy to manage. Even the mall in the best location of the city was struggling. If the City really build and manage their malls in the new areas, they might suffer heavy losses. The City might as well sell off the land and profit. The City will still be able to receive high taxes annually after that.

“We will auction those two plots of land after Lunar New Year. I will inform you all on the exact dates later. If you have nothing else, just leave.”

Feng Yu picked up his cup of tea and finish it in one big gulp. Then he slowly leaves. His trip to the Mayor’s office was not in vain.

Chapter 708 – Can we change the name of the village?

A well-polished black car was parked downstairs, and everyone who was shoving snow stopped working. They looked at that beautiful black vehicle. It must be someone looking for Old Feng.

Look at Old Feng. He had a capable son, and his life got better.

The driver alighted and quickly opened the passenger door for Feng Yu.

Eh? Isn’t that Old Feng’s son? He is back?

“Xiao Yu, you are back to visit your parents?” An auntie greeted him first. It seems that it was an honor to greet Feng Yu before anyone else.

“Auntie Li, you are shoving snow? Leave it to me. Uncle Zhao, Mr. Wang……” Feng Yu greeted all his neighbors. These people were considered old neighbors.

“No need. I treat shoving snow as exercise. I thought the winter break for university had started long ago? Why are you back so late?”

“I have some matters to handle in Bing City. But I am still in time to return for Lunar New Year.”

A kid appeared from behind the adults and asked: “Brother Feng Yu, will there be fireworks this year?”

“Hahaha, if Xiao Bao likes to see fireworks, then we will let off fireworks. This time, we will let off lots of fireworks! I promise you will love it!”

“Yay!!! Brother Feng Yu is the best!” Xiao Bao cheered excitedly.

Zhang Muhua had been waiting at the windows for her son. She wanted to be the first to welcome her son back.

“Aunties, Uncles, I will go back first. If you all are free, drop by my place for a chat.” Feng Yu said and walked entered the building empty-handed. His driver and Liu Jichuan followed behind, carrying all the stuff he bought.

Feng Yu had monitored Liu Jichuan for some time and decided to let him learn management. Although they did not grow up together, they were from the same village. Feng Yu felt uneasy about making him be his bodyguard.

Feng Yu’s new bodyguard cum driver, was Mei Zhigao. He was also from Bing City.

“Jichuan, you go back first. I am sure Uncle Liu is waiting for you. Zhigao, you can also go back to celebrate New Year with your family. Nothing will happen in the village. Furthermore, there is Da Zhuang around.”

Da Zhuang was the bodyguard assigned to Feng Yu’s father. His parents had passed away, and his sister had moved to another province. He was alone and chose to spend the holidays with the Feng family.

Mei Zhigao nodded. He already knew that Manager Feng will ask them to go back. After thanking Feng Yu, he left with Liu Jichuan. Liu Jichuan sent him to the bus station for a bus back to Bing City.

“Son, why are you back so late? Is it because of your business? Didn’t you hand over all the work to others?” Zhang Muhua grumbled.

“I went to American to buy somethings. I came back immediately after I finished my work. Why not both of you move to Bing City. You all still can see Chixing often.” Feng Yu replied casually.

Although the air in the village was excellent, the traffic, medical services, etc. cannot be compared to the City. Furthermore, Bing City was not as polluted as the future years.

“Ok. Your father and I intend to buy a house by the river. It will be more convenient for your father to go fishing.”

“Ah? Really?” Feng Yu was surprised. He had tried to ask his parents to move to the city, but his parents refused. How come they want to move suddenly?

“Your Uncle Wen is going to be transferred to Bing City, and your father does not have many friends in the village. Also, your grandfather’s health is not as good as before. Your father wants to fetch your grandfather over to Bing City to stay with us. If he falls sick, it will be more convenient to send him to the main hospital for treatment.”

“Uncle Wen is transferring to Bing City? He got promoted again?” Wen Dongjun’s father was moving up the ranks too fast. Was he sitting on a rocket?

“I think it is only a transfer. He will be going to be the Deputy Chief of the City’s Agriculture bureau.”

Feng Yu raised his brows: “Is the Chief going to retire?”

“That’s right. I heard he will be retiring in less than 2 years. How do you know?” Zhang Muhua asked curiously.

Was there a need to ask? Uncle Wen was transferred to the City to take over the position as the Chief of the City’s Agriculture bureau. Bing City was a Sub-provincial division. That means Uncle Wen will be promoted to Deputy Bureau Director level soon? Many people will be jealous of him. But Uncle Wen had achieved great results during his time here.

“I guessed it. Where is dad? At the factory?”

“He went digging for frogs with Old Zhao. He said he wants to eat deep-fried frogs. Why should he go and catch the frogs himself if he wants to eat frogs? He can just buy it from the shops.”

“Haha, Dad is just having fun. Maybe he is bored with playing mah-jong every day.”

At noon, Feng Xingtai returned home with a pail of frogs and small fishes. He immediately asks Feng Yu to call Wen Dongjun to invite his family over for dinner and drinks. It was as if the frogs were some delicacies.

Wen Dongjun had arrived at Feng Yu’s house early to play video games with him. They plugged in the second generation Little Tyrant to the TV and played. They were shouting and playing excitedly. It’s been a while since they played together.

“Eh, a game arcade just opened up in the Village. Want to go there and play tomorrow?” For Wen Dongjun, school breaks are just for him to play and enjoy himself. He does not have many friends and had been waiting for Feng Yu to return to the village.

There are games arcade now? Feng Yu was very interested in visiting this place. So, he agreed to go with Wen Dongjun tomorrow.

Wen Dongjun’s mother had helped with preparing dinner. With extra help, dinner was ready soon. When Wen Deguang came back from work, the dining table was full of food. The main dish for dinner was deep-fried frogs.

“Both of you are going to graduate soon. What are your plans?” Feng Xingtai asked.

“Me? Should continue doing business.”

“Didn’t you say you want to enter the government service?” Feng Xingtai was unhappy. This brat had lied to him in the past.

“Dad, doing business is also contributing to the country. Didn’t you hear that it is honorable to pay taxes? Furthermore, with my assets now, do you think I can be someone’s subordinate?” With Feng Yu’s current assets, he can easily enter the central government’s party committee despite his age.

“Old Feng, kids nowadays have their own thinking. Just let them be.” Wen Deguang said and turned to Wen Dongjun. “What about you?”

Wen Dongjun was still stuffing his face with frogs. His mouth was oily and immediately swallowed his food when he heard his father asking him.

“Me? I should be entering the government service.” Wen Dongjun replied casually. Zhang Han’s father had already helped him pave his way. It would be stupid if he doesn’t enter the government. Furthermore, it was his dream to be a government official. He wants to be a top official. But he still has not decided what to do after he becomes one!

“There are lots of departments in government service. Which department are you going to?” Wen Deguang knew about his son’s relationship with Zhang Han and also knew that Zhang Han’s father had already made arrangements.

“Ah? I also don’t know.” Wen Dongjun replied with a blank look.

Feng Yu covered his face with his palm. “You still have not thought about this after so long?”

“I did consider this. I will just enter the same department as Zhang Han!” Wen Dongjun replied with an “I have my plans” look on his face.

“Useless!” If they were not at Feng Yu’s house, Wen Deguang would have beaten his son up. How can a man do things without planning?

Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun. He was 1.9m tall, and no matter what department he went to, no leaders will like him. Maybe only the Police or Sports related departments were suitable for him. But with his character, can he survive in the Police department?

“Dongjun, you better don’t follow Zhang Han. Let Zhang Han join the Police department and you enter the General Administration of Sport of China. If both of you work in the same department, one of you will not go far. With your size, your supervisor will surely not promote you. But at the General Administration of Sport, you will not stand out because of your size. Also, you can play sports with athletes there. It suits you better.”

Wen Dongjun’s eyes brighten up: “That’s right. I will go and manage a stadium, and I can play with the sportsmen there! Dad, I have considered it carefully. I want to enter the General Administration of Sport of China!”

Wen Deguang shook his head. The General Administration of Sport of China? Fine. This brat’s character would surely offend the leaders in other departments. It might be better for him to work at the General Administration of Sport of China.

“Ok.”

“Oh, Uncle Wen, can we change the name of our village?” Feng Yu asked suddenly.

Chapter 709 – Use money

Wen Deguang froze when he heard what Feng Yu said.

“What did you say? Change the name of the village?”

“That’s right. Can it be done?”

Feng Xingtai looked at Feng Yu, shocked. He scolded: “What are you up to again? Why are you thinking of changing the village’s name?”

Feng Yu looked at his father and smiles: “Dad, what do you think if our village changes its name to Tai Hua Village? Does it sounds nice?”

Feng Xingtai’s eyes became bright: “huh? Tai Hua Village? Sounds nice. This is the perfect name for the village! Deguang, can the village change its name?”

Wen Deguang: “……” Like father like son!

“Although our village is not a county, the level is the same. How can we just change the name as we like?” Wen Deguang replied.

“Why not? That XXX county had also changed its name to XXX district.” Feng Xingtai said.

“That is a county converting to a district. How can this be the same? What are you all thinking? You want to name the village after your names?”

“That Shangzhi is also named after someone’s name. Jingyu County is also the same. You really think I do not know about these?” Feng Xingtai retort. If the village could be named as Tai Hua Village, it would be an honor to his family, and he could boast for the rest of his life!

“Those are all national heroes who fought against the Japanese during the war. How can you compare yourself with them? Have you gone crazy after you become rich? I had helped you change the names of the schools. Almost all the schools in the village and even the kindergartens are called Tai Hua Kindergartens. Isn’t that enough? Now, you still want to name the village as Tai Hua?” Wen Deguang replied angrily.

“Jealous! You are jealous! I ask you if there is an opportunity to change the name of the village, will you change it?” Feng Xingtai stared at Wen Deguang.

“Stop talking nonsense. Do you know how many approvals need to change the name of the village? This can only be decided by the Central Government! You think this is decided by the City or the Provincial Government?”

Feng Yu frowned. This troublesome? It’s only a small village and had to be decided by the central government?

Feng Yu looked at his father and then asked: “Then how much contribution must I do before the Central Government agrees to change the name of the village?”

Wen Deguang: “……” This brat still does not want to give up?!

“You think it can be settled with money? It is not about money. You have to make a significant contribution to the country or save a lot of lives. Even if you have a lot of money or paid a lot of taxes, it is also useless. But there might still be a solution. You can donate all your money to the country, and the higher-ups might agree!”

What a joke! Donate all my money? I earned so much money and still have not enjoyed my life. How can I donate away everything?

Furthermore, I can make use of the money I had to earn more. If the money were donated to those civil servants, it would be a waste!

Make significant contributions to the nation? That incident is only a few years away. If I bring up this matter to the higher-ups, they should agree to my request.

Feng Xingtai patted Feng Yu on his back and said: “Nevermind. We are also moving to Bing City soon.”

“We are not coming back to the village? Don’t worry Dad. I will surely change the name of our village to Tai Hua Village within 5 years!” Feng Yu said.

“Ok, ok. I know you are capable of. Your face is all red. If you can’t drink, then don’t drink. We have Jianlibao at home too.”

Feng Yu looked up to the ceilings. He was telling the truth but was treated as a drunkard sprouting nonsense.

“Dad, if the name of the village cannot be changed, how about the street names?” Wen Dongjun asked suddenly.

Eh? That’s a good idea. Feng Yu had not thought about this.

“Uncle Wen, Dongjun is right. It should not be a problem to change the street names, right?”

“This…… It seems that the City government can decide on this. But are you sure the city will give the approvals?” Wen Deguang asked.

“Leave this to me. Look at our village. Other than this crossroad junction is new, the rest of the roads are in dire conditions. We will donate money to build 8 or 10 concrete roads in the village. This way, we can use my Dad and mum’s names as the road names?”

“Ah? You want to repair 8 to 10 roads? Your parents only have two names.”

Feng Yu placed a few pairs of chopsticks on the table and pointed to one chopstick: “This road will be called Xingtai Road.”

“This will be called Xingtai Road 2. This will be called Xingtai Road 3. This will be Mu Hua Road. This will be called Mu Hua Road 2, and this will be Mu Hua Road 3. The rest will be numbered the same way.”

Wen Deguang looked at Feng Yu stunned. Smart brat. This way, all the roads in the village will be named after your parents? If you arranged the roads this way, then there will be no roads with other names in the village. It will be no difference from changing the name of the village. Everyone in the village will remember your parents’ names!

Feng Xingtai happily raised his glass: “This is a good idea!”

Zhang Muhua frowned: “But this will be costly.”

“Mum, don’t worry about money. Our family does not lack money. Also, how much can repairing roads cost? Furthermore, the village is only this big. The roads are not very long. A four-lane two direction road is good enough. There is already a dirt road. We only need to clean up a bit and pave concrete over the existing roads. Think about this. In the future, this road will be called Mu Hua Road. Don’t you think the money is well spent?” Feng Yu asked.

Zhang Muhua starts to imagine and nodded. “I will let you and your father decide.”

Although this sounded ridiculous, Wen Deguang will not stop them. His transfer order will only be out after the Lunar New Year. If he could help Feng Xingtai settle this road building, it will be his credit.

Repairing road was not as easy as what Feng Yu claims. It will not be a small amount to build the roads. If not, the village would have build concrete roads a long time ago. But now, Wen Deguang would be the one who brought in sponsors to build those roads.

The government and the village do not need to spend a single cent, and the villagers will get to enjoy the benefits. This was a great credit.

The more credits Wen Deguang had, then he will be more influential when he was transferred to a new place. He knew that it was Zhang Han’s father helping him to be promoted. If he could not achieve any results, it will be the end of his career. He was not even in his fifties and still wanted to be promoted.

“Xiao Yu, come to my office tomorrow to discuss this.”

“We are having dinner now. Why are you talking about work?” Wen Dongjun’s mother grumbled.

“Ok. Let’s not talk about work. Old Feng, let’s have a toast!”

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun also raised their glass and knocked. Wen Dongjun immediately bottoms up, and Feng Yu……. only took a sip.

Wen Dongjun stared at Feng Yu angrily. Feng Yu smiled embarrassedly and finished his glass of beer. This was home, and they were not talking business. But Feng Yu was used to cheating while drinking.

“We are in a good mood today. Son, go and switch on the Super VCD player. Your Uncle Wen and I will sing a few songs for everyone!” Feng Xingtai’s face was flushed.

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun exchanged looks and made a decision in their hearts. They will go to Wen Dongjun’s place immediately. These two old men can’t sing!

Chapter 710 – Start selling

“Happy Lunar New Year, Brother Feng.” It was the first day of Lunar New Year, and Fu Guangzheng called Feng Yu to wish him. This was what the Chinese do and says on Lunar New Year.

“Brother Fu, thank you. Happy New Year to you too. I was about to call you.” Feng Yu lied. He was about to visit Li Na’s home and was not free to call anyone.

“Hahaha. I have a piece of good news for you. The shares we bought had increased by a lot. My eldest Uncle says it is about time to dump them.”

“Ok. I will ask He Zhaoji to contact you all. Are we going to dump everything today or split it into several batches?”

“My Uncle says we should sell everything within these two days. Today we will start with the electronics companies and tomorrow we will sell those chemical companies’ shares.”

“Ok. I know. Help me wish your uncles Happy New Year. I will make the arrangements.”

Both chatted a while more and then Feng Yu called He Zhaoji: “Old Zhao, help me make the preparations. Contact the Fu Family and dump all the chemical companies’ shares tomorrow. Also, notify all those who had bought the electronic companies’ shares to dump their shares tonight.”

“Yes, Boss. What should we do with the funds after we dump the shares?” This operation does not only involve Wind and Rain Consulting funds. It also includes Feng Yu’s personal funds. Feng Yu had even sold some of his Microsoft shares to buy these companies’ shares.

“Use my funds to buy Microsoft shares. It’s still the same as before. Buy whatever that is available in the market. If there are no better choices in the market, our clients’ funds can also buy Microsoft shares or other technology shares. We should focus most of our funds in the US market. If there are remaining funds, we can speculate on foreign exchange, gold or commodities. You all can decide on this. Just follow our rules. We rather not make any money than to let our clients lose money. You must minimize the risk, and no high leverage is allowed!”

Wind and Rain Consulting was able to attract lots of customers was because none of their clients had lost money when investing with them. Firstly, the global economy was doing well, especially in the US market. Next, it was because Feng Yu asked his staffs to invest conservatively. Also, Feng Yu would give them pointers to prevent them from investing in the wrong direction.

“Rest assure, Boss. We will not let our clients lose money. I will call everyone back to work tonight. Also, I want to wish you a Happy Lunar New Year.”

“I wish you all a happy New Year too. Oh, everyone had worked hard. Use 1% of our profits as the staffs’ bonus. That’s all.”

1% of profits might not sound a lot. But the invested amount in this operation was vast. Just Feng Yu alone had invested 1 billion HKD. The returns from this operation should be more than 50%. Coupled with the clients’ funds, 1% of their profits will be more than 10 million HKD. This amount still does not include the brokers’ commission.

Furthermore, the investment this time was directed by Feng Yu, and all the staffs only had to follow instructions and could earn a substantial amount. Just working two nights during the New Year could let them make a few hundred thousand. All of them were overjoyed.

The returns from the investment this time was much more than expected. Maybe it was because the shares had plunged too low at the start. The shareholders of those companies were trying their best to increase the value of their shares. It might also because of the US financial institutions buying in those companies’ stocks. There were also Hong Kong, Macau, and many other tycoons buying in the shares. These actions let the share prices recovered quickly.

Everyone who had bought those companies’ shares will be able to get returns more than 50%, and it only took 2 months.

Feng Yu had expected the share prices to increase further. Of course, the share prices’ increase had slowed down now. But if the Fu Family and the rest want to dump the shares now, the share prices will dive again. Feng Yu also felt that the returns were high enough. 50% profits within 2 months and it was even a significant amount. This was not considered a small success. It was an overwhelming success!

Many people had said that it is easy to turn $1 to $2. But to turn 100 million to 200 million was not easy. Feng Yu laughed at this saying. If you invested in the right direction, 1 billion could become 2 billion quickly.

……

“President Norio, our share prices had increased significantly recently. Although it still did not reach the peak of last year, it’s only a matter of time. We should be able to reach the peak within 3 months. All of us had listened to you and hold on to our shares. This time, we will be able to get high returns.”

A director laughed and said during Sony’s board of directors’ meeting. They had forgotten they had wanted Norio Ohga to step down during their last meeting.

Norio Ohga was feeling pleased. All of you still wanted me to step down? This share prices saving plan is thought up by me. Which one of you can come up with such plans? If it were not because of my plans, there would not be so many people buying our shares.

I will be the one who will become the President of Sony. None of you can take it away from me!

At night, Norio Ohga monitored the US market. He was used to seeing Sony’s share prices increasing every night before sleep. His beautiful wide was bathing. Later he still wanted to have some romantic time with his wife.

Norio Ohga was looking at the share prices while undressing himself. The shares had risen another 0.5%, and trading had just started. Today, share prices should increase by another 2%.

Norio Ohga’s wife entered the room, took off her bathrobe, and kneel in front of Norio Ohga. Norio Ohga leaned back against his chair and sighed comfortably.

He stroked his wife’s hair and was about to start the real action. His eyes accidentally glanced at his monitor, and he froze. He immediately became soft.

His wife was stunned. She thought her teeth had accidentally brushed against that sensitive organ and immediately used her tongue to continue pleasuring Norio Ohga in an attempt to revive the limping little Norio Ohga.

But Norio Ohga suddenly pushed her away, causing her to fall down on the Tatami.

But Norio Ohga’s wife thought Norio Ohga was roleplaying with her. It was not the first time her husband treated her so rough. She immediately pretends to be scared and closes her eyes to wait for her husband to pounce on her.

But after waiting for a while, her husband did not pounce on her. Instead, she heard the sound of a glass of water smashing on the floor. The water even splashed onto her body.

Norio Ohga’s wife opens her eyes in shock. She knew this was not role-playing. Her husband only throws things around when he was in a bad mood. What happened? During dinner, Norio Ohga had told her that the company was doing well and will be promoted from Acting President to President soon.

Norio Ohga’s wife immediately stood up and saw her husband staring at the computer’s monitor. She saw the screen was full of green color. Although she was a full-time housewife, she knew that green color means losing money.

Norio Ohga had said that the company’s share prices had been rising and he had even invested all their savings into the company’s shares. Now, the shares had plunged. No wonder Norio Ohga was so furious.

But why did the company’s shares plunged? Didn’t Norio Ohga say that the company’s shares will continue to rise?

Chapter 711 – Some laughs, other cries (Part 1 of 2)

Norio Ohga could not understand why Sony’s shares would dive so suddenly. There were no problems with the company’s operations, and PlayStation was selling very well. The reviews of PlayStation were excellent, and the sales of their discs, Walkman, CD players, etc. were also doing well. The artistes under their record labels did not have any negative news, and their concerts were sold out.

The share prices should continue to rise. Even if there were some fluctuations, it should not plunge this way. The US market was bullish, and there was no reason why the shares will drop by almost 5% within minutes after trading starts!

Norio Ohga looked at the transactions. There were multiple transactions of massive amount selling that was causing their share prices to drop.

Who is dumping our shares? Those speculators? Was there someone targeting Sony?

Norio Ohga could not care less. He immediately calls the person-in-charge in the US.

“President, a large volume of shares are dumped by overseas investors. It’s not only our company. Toshiba, Sharp, Pioneer, and many other electronics companies, which was listed in the US stock exchange, were also affected. Everyone’s shares were dropping like crazy. It had even affected the US Technology Index!”

“Overseas investors? Do you know where they are from?”

“I am still investigating. But I can confirm that it should be from Asia.”

Asia? Who is it? Which company is doing this? The whole electronic companies’ shares are affected, and even the stock market Index is affected? This should not be speculators dumping their shares. This should be planned some time ago!

But why are these people dumping all at once? They should be selling the shares batches by batches. They will also suffer losses if they dumped all their shares at once. Why are they not afraid of suffering losses?

Norio Ohga still had not hung up his handphone when his home phone rang. His wife immediately passed the phone to him. Norio Ohga said spoke a few words on the phone and then hang up.

“I am going back to the company and will not be back tonight.”

……

Toshiba’s President was sleeping when he was woken up by someone. He was pissed. It was late at night, and he still needed to work the next day.

“President, our company’s shares plunged suddenly!”

“What did you say? What happened? How much did it drop?” Toshiba’s President immediately wakes up. How come his company’s share prices suddenly dropped? The electronics industry was doing well. This should not be happening.

“It had dropped by 8%. No, it’s 10% now!” Their share prices dropped by 10% during the call.

“Why is this happening? Is there any negative news about our company?”

“No. Everything is normal at our company, and there is no negative news about us in the US. I am not sure about Europe side, I had called out headquarters, and nothing happened.”

“That means someone is manipulating our share prices?” He was furious and shocked at the same time. Toshiba was a big Multi National Company, and it’s worth more than a billion USD. If anyone wants to manipulate their share prices, the funds needed will not be a small amount. No one should have the financial power to do this unless it was a group!

He immediately got out of bed and called for a directors’ meeting. They must think of a solution before Tokyo Stock Exchange starts trading in the morning. They cannot afford their shares in Japan to plunge!

If their share prices dropped like last year again, then it might be his last day as the company’s President. He also owns quite a number of the company’s shares. He will also suffer massive losses!

This night was not quiet for many Japanese MNCs.

Everyone does not know what happened to their company. Why were people dumping their company’s shares? The share prices of these companies were dropping like crazy. They noticed they were not the only company that was affected. Many Japanese electronic companies’ share prices were also falling. The average drop for the companies was about 10%.

The whole electronics industry shares were falling, and even the stock index fell because of their shares. The US market was supposed to be bullish, and share prices had been rising recently. How come the market crashed today?

At this moment, many people start to buy in the shares of these companies at low prices, and the shares begin to rise slightly. Among these people, some were companies.

If someone was targeting one electronic company, it might be possible. But who was so powerful to target so many companies at once?

Everyone was trying to find out and started to contact each other. They must stabilize their share prices first. The Prime Minister of Japan also heard about what happened. If the stock market crash again, then Japan’s economy would suffer again. He will also suffer another blow.

The next day, all the Japan Electronic companies, including the government, start to announce all sorts of good news, hoping to stabilize their stock market. But after last night, many investors do not believe them. When trading starts in Tokyo, their share prices start to drop.

Some Hong Kong tycoons who had bought those Electronic companies’ shares were celebrating with champagne. Some of them had made a killing, and some made lesser. But overall, everyone made money.

This operation to make a killing in the US stock market was a success. Only some regretted. If they knew this would happen, they would have invested more. The returns were so much higher than their business. No wonder Fu Rongqi focuses on the financial market. The financial market was profitable!

The tycoons were waiting for tonight to sell off their chemical companies’ shares. They had planned for another celebration tomorrow. Just nice, it will be Fu Rongqi’s birthday in a few days. This year, everyone will be celebrating his birthday with him. He was the reason why all of them were able to make a killing.

But Fu Rongqi was not in a good mood. These people do not know about the financial market. How can they dump their shares like this? If they listened to him and sell off their shares bit by bit, everyone would earn more. But these people did not listen to him. If it wasn’t for someone buying in those shares at low prices, all of them might not be able to dump their shares!

When the Tokyo stock market close, Norio Ohga and the rest were looking pale. They were unable to stabilize their share prices, and there was panic selling, which caused their shares to drop further.

“Norio Ohga, you better explain to us why are our shares dropping like this?” The director who had praised Norio Ohga yesterday questioned him.

“Someone is targeting us and the whole Japanese electronics industry, especially the companies that were affected by that incident in China. We had investigated and those people who dumped our shares, are from Hong Kong!” Norio Ohga raised his voice.

Those people did not try to conceal their identities. They had worked together to buy their shares and push up the share prices before exiting the market together. This caused their stocks to plunge. Those people were treating their companies like ATMs.

“Hong Kong? Why are they targeting us? Are there any electronic companies in Hong Kong? There are also no Japanese companies that caused trouble in Hong Kong. Why are they doing this?”

Norio Ohga looked at that director. Are you an idiot? You don’t know the root cause of the problem?

“It is because of profits. They predicted our share prices will rise and all of them bought our shares in large volume and cause our share prices to rise sharply. Now, they felt it had reached the price they wanted and start to dump our shares. Does everyone still remember when our share prices plunged last year? We did not do much, and our share prices recovered. That was the time when these people bought in our shares.”

“This is very critical. How come you did not notice back then? You even tell us to increase our stakes? Now our shares plunge again. How are you going to answer to us?”

Norio Ohga was also furious. These directors will claim it was everyone’s efforts when they make money. But when they suffered losses, it would be his fault. I give up on this damn position! I do not want to hold on to this Acting President position anymore!

“I have nothing to say. If all of you thinks that there is someone more suitable than me to be the Acting President, tell me. I will step down!”

Chapter 712 – Some laughs, other cries (Part 2 of 2)

It was night time in Tokyo and Hong Kong, and it was morning in the US. The US stock market opens for trading.

Yesterday, after the electronics companies’ shares plunged, they rise slightly before the market close. But when the market opens today, the share prices continued to drop. It was hard to control panic selling.

The US investors, who had bought the shares of these companies, also started to dump their shares. But they were too late yesterday and did not manage to sell off their shares before the market closes. So, when the market opens today, they started to dump the shares. They wanted to stop as much losses as possible. But if they had bought these shares two weeks ago, then they will not suffer losses.

The companies were trying their best to stabilize their shares and start to pump a large amount of fund to push up their share prices. Some speculators and individual investors also enter the market. They wanted to buy in these shares at low prices and hope to make a killing. Even Japan’s Government also participates in helping pull up those share prices. But at this time, those chemical companies’ shares also start to plunge.

It was precisely the same as yesterday. A large volume of shares was dumped, and there were no warning signs.

At first, many people were celebrating. These companies’ shares have potential, and many had been waiting for the opportunity to own them. Now, a large volume of shares was available in the market, and all of them rushed to buy them.

But they soon realize that these share prices start to plunge. It was even faster than yesterday. Everyone was confused by this phenomenon.

Even Warren Buffet was confused. Why so many people were dumping these companies’ shares? Was this related to those electronic companies’ shares yesterday?

After some investigations, he found out that the ones dumping those shares were all from Hong Kong and Macau. These were the same people as yesterday?

To claim these people had manipulated the market, it was not possible. The share prices of these companies had raised was because of the companies’ shareholders. This group of people had only bought the shares and then did nothing!

Warren Buffett frowned. These people knew that the shares of these companies will rise and then bought the share together? But why did they dump the shares all at once? Shouldn’t they dump their shares bit by bit? That should be the right way, and the share prices can still be stabilized, and they would make more profits.

Their profits will be lesser when they dumped a large volume of shares at once. Unless they did this on purpose. But what’s in it for them? Were they going to buy back those shares? But that will be flagged as manipulating the market!

But Warren Buffett did not know that it was not because these people wanted the share prices to plummet. It was because these people do not understand the market well. They just wanted to cash out quickly. Anyway, they had made enough. As long as the shares were sold, they would make profits.

Although their brokers had told them this was not the right way, these people did not listen to them. They only know that whoever that dumped their shares first would make the most profits!

When Feng Yu heard of the situation, he was also speechless. He still had to lead these people to fight against foreign speculators in another 2 years. If these people ran away at crucial moments, then he and the Fu Family will be trapped in the market.

Feng Yu did not hear any stories about these people being shortsighted in his previous life. Was it because the Chinese Government injected a large amount into the market?

Fu Rongqi knew that it was impossible to control these people, and this was why he told Feng Yu to dump his shares as fast as possible. But he did not expect those people to be faster than them.

Those people made more than the Fu Family and Feng Yu. But Feng Yu couldn’t care less. This might increase the trust of these people, and they might follow instructions in the future.

All of them had helped to raise the prices of those shares. If it weren’t for them participating in this operation, those shares prices would have dropped even further.

But this was also a good thing. Those Japanese companies will suffer another blow. This was also what Feng Yu wanted. The previous crash had caused heavy losses to those companies and affected the whole Japanese economy.

The same thing happened again, and Japan’s economy suffered another blow. Although this was not as severe as a few years back, some companies will inevitably be bankrupted. Maybe it might trigger a round of suicides.

There was statics that shows the Japanese had the highest suicide rates, and the numbers were increasing yearly.

Those companies will be using most of their funds to stabilize their shares and will not have extra funds for their R&D. This was good for Wind and Rain Electronics developments.

Just from this alone, Feng Yu did not suffer any losses. The returns from being more advanced in the consumer electronics industry were high.

When the market close, those chemical companies’ shares had plunged a lot, and it attracted the regulatory bodies in the US. After some investigations, they realized that this was a joint operation.

But what they were doing was not manipulating those shares. Those few who dumped their shares first were selling their shares for the sake of selling them. They were not trying to maximize their profits.

But why were these investors doing this? There were no issues with those companies.

The US authorities soon found out that these investors were all from Hong Kong and Macau. Could it be that those tycoons cooperated? Hong Kong had the highest proportions of Tycoons in the whole world.

A few days later, Feng Yu and the Fu Family sold the remaining shares of those companies. Fu Rongqi then invested his money back into the Forex market, and Feng Yu continues with his acquisition of Microsoft and other technology companies’ shares.

Feng Yu’s thumb of rule now was, if there is nothing to buy, then just buy Microsoft.  Anyway, Microsoft will be flying high these few years. He could make money even with his eyes close.

……

The Japanese companies’ shares dropped more than 20%. At least the decline of their shares had stopped, and they were relieved. Warren Buffett did not dump his shares. He was used to long term investing, and he knew these shares will ultimately rise again.

Many investors saw Warren Buffett holding on to the shares of those companies and regained confidence. They also stop selling their shares. Some even make use of the opportunity to buy in more shares.

It was these people that helped Feng Yu and the rest exit the market. Feng Yu did not even need to do anything. They should really thank Warren Buffett.

Those Japanese companies should also thank Warren Buffett. If he did not hold on to their shares and helped regained the investors’ confidence, the shares would drop further!

The Fu Family made the most profit in this investment, followed by Feng Yu. But if they were to calculate based on individuals, Feng Yu had earned the most. Many tycoons thought they had made high returns. But compared to Feng Yu, they were dar behind/

Kirilenko, who was in Moscow called Feng Yu to thank him. He had also invested a considerable amount in this operation and made a killing…….

Chapter 713 – Everyone loves Teacher Li

Feng Yu did not attend Fu Rongqi’s birthday banquet. It was not because he did not have the time. It was because he felt it was unnecessary to do so. His position in the Fu Family will not change even if he did not attend the banquet. As for the other tycoons, Feng Yu will let them know his capabilities.

Many students were having their internship for the coming semester during their 4th year of the university. Li Na was already accepted by that professor for her postgraduate course.

Of course, even though Li Na was accepted, she still has to go for her internship. Feng Yu had helped her find a junior high school. Although the students in junior high were in their rebellious phase, compared to senior high school, they were easier to manage.

Standing at the entrance of the school, Feng Yu saw many people with flowers waiting there. Feng Yu thought to himself, what’s the special occasion today?

“Zhao Yan, take a look at yourself. Teacher Li will never like you!” A man with flowers said to another man, who was also holding a bouquet of flowers.

“What’s wrong with me? My father is from the Education department. If Teacher Li wants to remain in Beijing as a teacher, I will be able to help him. Can you do that? Wang Liang, your father is from the State Administration for Religious Affairs. Are you thinking of asking Teacher Li to work there? Be a nun?” Zhao Yan retorted.

“Hmph! You two still need to depend on your family, and yet you all dare to go after Teacher Li? I am working as higher management in an MNC. My salary is higher than both your father and I even studied overseas. I can bring Teacher Li overseas for holidays. Can you two do that?” Another man who was dressed up like a successful businessman said.

Feng Yu looked at them from the corner of his eyes. He had a bad feeling. These people were waiting for Teacher Li? Could it be……

School end and students were rushing out.

A student ran to Zhao Yan: “Cousin, Teacher Li is at the carpark and will be coming out soon.”

Zhao Yan immediately checks his attire and then pump his chest out. He held his bouquet of flowers with both hands. Everyone else was behaving the same way. All of them knew that this school has a new beautiful teacher and all of them wanted to woo her.

Many people were interested in this new Teacher Li. If it were not because these few people have some backings, there would be dozens of people waiting for her outside the school gates.

Li Na pushes her scooter out of the school. Although she knew how to drive, she was not good at driving. This was why Feng Yu gave her a small scooter, which was more convenient than her riding a bicycle.

Li Na insists that as a teacher, she cannot take a taxi to and fro from work. She will leave a bad impression on her students. Feng Yu laughed at this. In his previous life, he had seen teachers going to work in Mercedes Benz. Those people who gossiped behind others’ back were jealous.

Li Na smiles when she saw Feng Yu waiting for her at the school gate.

Zhao Yan saw Teacher Li smiling in his direction, and he was overjoyed. Did all of you see that? Teacher Li likes me. All of you should move aside!

Zhao Yan walked forward with both hands carrying the flowers. He was walking like a winner, and he glanced at the other two losers. You all don’t stand a chance!

Wang Liang quickly rushed forward and presented his flowers to Li Na: “Teacher Li, these flowers are for you. Only this beautiful bouquet of flowers can suit your beauty.”

Zhao Yan’s face changed. This Wang Liang was too shameless. He had practiced this line earlier, and Wang Liang copied him! He even said the line before him!

Zhao Yan also walked up to Li Na quickly and presented his flowers to Li Na: “Teacher Li, please accept my flowers. I wish you to be this pretty every day.”

“Teacher Li, I have made a reservation at a Western restaurant. I would like to treat you to steaks and wine.” That guy who works at an MNC shouted.

Everyone at the school gates rushed forward to present their flowers to Li Na. All of them were trying to please her. There was even one man who drove, tried to put Li Na’s scooter into his boot.

Li Na was speechless. This group of people had waited for her several times at her school. They were annoying. She had said that she had a boyfriend, but these people still continued to pester her!

Luckily Feng Yu was there today.

Feng Yu walked over and tried to squeeze his way through these away. Damn, these people were skinny, but they were strong!

“Excuse me, excuse me.”

“Who the hell are you? Why are you trying to squeeze to the front?” Zhao Yan shouted at Feng Yu.

Teacher Li had smiled at me earlier, and these people still do not know what that means? Also, where did this brat come out from? He came here, empty-handed?

“I am her boyfriend and is here to fetch her from work.” Feng Yu replied.

“Ugh! Watch your words, kid! Teacher Li is still single. Don’t try to blow your trumpet here! Look at your poor look. You can’t even afford a bouquet of flowers and still dare to woo Teacher Li?”

Li Na burst out laughing. Although she does not know how much money Feng Yu has, she was sure that Feng Yu was way richer than everyone here. The word ‘Poor’ definitely has nothing to do with Feng Yu. Today, Feng Yu was labeled as someone poor? It was too funny.”

Mei Zhigao was in the car not far away from the school gates. He clenched his fist and had wanted to go over to beat up those people several times. But Feng Yu had instructed him to wait for him in the car. However, he had opened the car door. If those people tried to gang up on Feng Yu, he will rush over and beat the shit out of them!

Feng Yu pointed to himself: “Me? Poor? Are you wealthy?”

“I am definitely richer than you!” Zhao Yan replied arrogantly.

“Oh, I heard that the school is thinking of renovating the school field and stadium. I had donated to the school for them to renovate the stadium. Since you are richer, then you can donate to renovate the school field.” Feng Yu replied calmly.

“You donated money to renovate the stadium? Bullshit. You can’t even afford a brick!”

Li Na suddenly said: “You are here?” She smiles, sweetly at Feng Yu.

Everyone there saw Li Na’s smile and got more excited. All of them thinks that Teacher Li was smiling at them.

Feng Yu looked at those people and pick up the helmet on Li Na’s scooter. He wore it and said: “Excuse me, I am very busy. I don’t have the time to entertain you, idiots.”

Zhao Yan and the rest were furious. This guy dares to sit on Teacher Li’s scooter?! Was he really, Teacher Li’s boyfriend?

How can this person, who likes to brag, be compared to him?

“He is not bragging. He had donated a lot of money. It’s only because all of you are unaware of it.” Li Na helped to explain for Feng Yu.

“There is no need to explain. Let’s go home.” Feng Yu can’t be bothered with these people. He waved to Mei Zhigao, and Mei Zhigao ran over.

Before the group of people could say anything, they saw a muscular man rushing towards them. “Please don’t bother my boss. If not, you will bear the consequences!”

Boss? This poor guy is a boss? What a joke! Just get a friend to act as a bodyguard, and he can become a boss?

Zhao Yan shoved Mei Zhigao and had wanted to scold him. But suddenly he saw the whole world turned upside down. He was thrown onto the floor with a shoulder throw by Mei Zhigao.

“I will repeat this. Move aside and don’t block my boss!” Mei Zhigao coldly said.

Mei Zhigao could throw a man onto the floor so swiftly and everyone there was shocked. They were afraid of this man. Maybe he is really a bodyguard. This group of people was good at bragging. But if when it comes to fighting…… they were cowards!

Someone in the crowd saw Mei Zhigao alighting from a car not far away. That’s a Songjiang Motors vehicle. Although they had never seen that model before, from its exterior, it was definitely a luxury car!

This person cannot be offended. Those that dare not to offend stepped aside. Those who were more arrogant also moved aside. They were frightened of Mei Zhigao. Mei Zhigao’s eyes gave them immerse pressure. They could feel the killing intent in his eyes.

The crowd opened up a path, and Li Na drove off with Feng Yu on her scooter……

State Administration for Religious Affairs

Chapter 714 – Who will teach who a lesson?

Feng Yu hugged Li Na’s waist on the motorcycle, and asked loudly: “How many times has this happened? Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“It’s been a few days. At first, there is only a couple of them. But the crowd slowly increase. They are all the students’ family and relatives. I had told them that I have a boyfriend, but they still come and pester me.”

“You should have told me earlier. I will teach them a lesson, and they will not bother you. They should look at themselves in the mirror. How dare they come and woo my girlfriend?! Also, you are not allowed to bother with them!” Feng Yu said.

“What do you want to eat for dinner? Let’s go and buy some groceries first.” Feng Yu might be unreasonable, but Li Na was still happy to see him so concerned.

Feng Yu tightened his hug on Li Na’s waist and said: “Eat you!”

“Stop it!” Li Na said shyly.

They went to the nearby market to buy some groceries and then went back to their new apartment. This was an apartment near to Li Na’s school. It was also near to the Junior High school where she was doing her internship. At first, the owners of this apartment was not willing to sell to them, as they had just renovated their house. But Feng Yu’s offer was enough for them to buy two apartments. They immediately agree and move out the next day.

Feng Yu then get some people to clean up the apartment, and it became their newest love nest.

Li Na was busy in the kitchen, and Feng Yu was on the couch watching TV. The curtains were closed. Feng Yu really likes this type of relaxing lifestyle.

After dinner, Li Na was cleaning up, and Feng Yu hugged her from the back: “Leave these here. I will clean up tomorrow morning. I want to question you now. How many suitors do you have?”

Li Na pushes Feng Yu lightly: “Stop fooling around. This cleaning up will be done in a minute.”

“Who is fooling around? Seems like someone is being naughty recently and need a spanking!” Feng Yu said and slapped Li Na’s butt.

“Ahhh…….”

“Tell me! How many suitors do you have now? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“I didn’t count. How would I know?”

“Ah…… you are not honest with me. Seems like you need some punishment!” Feng Yu had a naughty smile on his face as he carried Li Na over his shoulders to the couch.

“Are you going to tell me? Tell me now!” Feng Yu asked while thrusting.

Li Na’s whole body had turned to jelly. If she were not holding on to the couch, she would have fallen off.

After everything was over, Li Na slumped on Feng Yu. Both of them were on the couch. Feng Yu picked up a piece of clothing from the floor and covered Li Na’s back.

Li Na moved slightly, and Feng Yu suddenly remembered. He immediately hugged Li NA tightly: “Where are you going? You still have not told me everything. The questioning has to continue!”

“Ah? You are still not done?” Li Na asked.

“The questioning is not over yet. Hmph! Now, it’s time for some water torture!” Feng Yu stood up and carried Li Na to the bathroom.

……

The next day when Feng Yu woke up, Li Na was preparing breakfast. She had also cleared the dirty dishes from last night dinner.

Feng Yu went over and hugged Li Na’s waist: “After breakfast, I will send you to work.”

“You are not going to school?”

“I am also doing my internship now. But I am doing it in my own company.” Feng Yu replied happily.

“Go and wash up. It is time for breakfast.” Li Na pushes Feng Yu’s hand, which was roaming about, away. They had done it 4 times last night, and Feng Yu was still not tired?

When they went downstairs, Mei Zhigao was waiting for them with the car. This was the benefit of having a driver.

“Boss, should we call a few more men over?” Mei Zhigao asked.

Li Na looked at Feng Yu, confused. Why was there a need to call people over?

Feng Yu nodded: “Yes. Call all the trainees over. It’s fine if they don’t start a fight. But if whoever dares to lift a finger, beat them up!’

All men will not tolerate such things to happen to their girlfriend. Furthermore, Feng Yu was not someone with tolerance. He could tell that Zhao Yan will surely seek revenge for what happened yesterday.

The car moved slowly towards the school gate, and Feng Yu saw a group of men roaming outside. All of them were looking at the gates. There was also a car parked along the road.

Li Na felt something was off. She turns to Feng Yu: “You go off first. I will give Zhang Han a call.”

Feng Yu held Li Na’s hand and smiled: “Trust me. I am not someone rush. If I am unable to settle this, I will not come here with you. Go for your lessons. Don’t let your students wait.”

Li Na alighted from the car. But she kept turning around as she walks to her classroom. Feng Yu waved goodbye to her.

After the students arrived and their parents left after sending their children, there were lesser people outside the school.

That group of people immediately surrounded Feng Yu’s car and Mei Zhigao alighted.

“Hey! Are you the one who beat up my brother yesterday?” A man wearing denim material clothes arrogantly asked.

“It’s me. What’s wrong?”

Damn! This person dares to admit?!

“It’s you? Then don’t blame us! Also, ask that person in the car to come out and apologize to my brother. Stop harassing Teacher Li in the future!”

Feng Yu closed his eyes and relax in the car. It was as if whatever that happens outside does not concern him. He was tired from all the exercise last night.

The denim shirt guy tried to open the passenger door, and Mei Zhigao grabbed his hand: “Stop it!”

“Damn! Beat him up!”

Bang!

That denim shirt guy flew several meters away, and Mei Zhigao lowered his leg. He then turned around and grabbed a man’s fist and twist it. Although he was outnumbered, he did not feel threatened. Furthermore, he saw a few Songjiang Offroad were approaching at high speed.

Zhao Yan had a smirk on his face. You think you are great by bringing a bodyguard with you yesterday? You are only a small businessman at most, and you dare to be arrogant in front of me? This is Beijing! You dare to hit me? I will teach you a lesson today!

Huh? What’s wrong? 7 people still can’t win a single person? Luckily Zhao Yan still has men on standby. After hearing his instructions, the remaining men alighted from the car and were about to teach this arrogant person an unforgettable lesson!

Those few people ran over to Feng Yu’s car, and one of them pulled open the passenger door. He had just put his head into the car, and a kick landed on his face.

The second person tried to enter the vehicle, and he was pulled back by the collar. Before he could do anything, a heavy punch landed on his face!

“What the hell are you doing? Protecting our clients is our top priority. Don’t you know you should close the car door first?!” Liu Jichuan scolded.

Liu Jichuan was treating this as a training exercise!

Zhao Yan saw a group of men appeared and all of them were good at fighting. His men were no match for them.

Zhao Yan immediately opens the car door. He wanted to drive away himself, but a kick landed on his waist, and he fell face down on the road.

Feng Yu sat in his car and took out his phone to call Zhang Han’s father: “Uncle Zhang, I am at the gates of 4th Junior High School. Someone wants to beat me…… I’m fine. I have my bodyguards with me…… Oh, those people might be in bad shape. Can you help me drop a message to your policemen? Thank you.”

Many people could help Feng Yu settle this issue. But Feng Yu still chose to call Zhang Han’s father. This way, both of them will be closer. If he looked for someone else, Zhang Han’s father might be unhappy.

Feng Yu shook his head as he looked at those people outside of his vehicle. They were asking for it. Who can they blame?

Chapter 715 – The pathetic Zhao Yan

During the lesson, Li Na kept glancing out of the windows. She knew what Feng Yu’s bodyguard meant and also felt something was off.

She wondered about the situation outside and was worried that Feng Yu would get hurt.

After her lessons ended, Li Na rushed out to the school gates. But the streets outside were empty. There were only pedestrians walking there, and she did not see Feng Yu around.

“Sir, did anything happen outside the school?” Li Na asked the security guard.

“Teacher Li? How can anything happen outside the school? There is only a fight in the morning, and the police came and bring everyone back.”

Li Na was relieved when she heard that. Zhang Han’s father was the Chief of Police there. Nothing will happen if they were brought to the police station.

Li Na returned back to her office. She wanted to give Feng Yu a call but did not do so. She knows nothing will happen to Feng Yu and does not want to disturb him as he might be busy.

At this moment, Feng Yu was sitting crossed legged in one of the district’s Police Station. He was in a room, drinking a cup of tea slowly. Zhao Yan, who was beaten up badly, was sitting opposite him.

“How many times have I said? My father is Zhao Shuanggang. This hooligan had asked people to beat me up. Why is he not arrested?” Zhao Yan shouted and banged the table.

“This is not your home! Try banging the table again?” A Police Team Leader said.

Damn. If your father is not Zhao Shuanggang, will you still be sitting here? You are the one who gathered those people to beat up Mr. Feng. But in the end, all of you are beaten up by his bodyguards.

Also, can someone with so many ex-soldiers bodyguards an ordinary person? From the moment they stepped into the police station, this person only says one word. “Wait.” He was very calm and even when Zhao Yan said who his father was, he didn’t even flinch.

There was only 2 possibilities. First, there was something wrong with this person’s brains. But this was not possible. Second, your father was a nobody in front of him.

Did you see what this person’s car? I have never seen this model in Beijing! You are still stupidly shouting threats here? I shall see what you will say when this person’s connection comes.

If it were not because you kept harping about who your father was, this matter would have been settled now. I would not have to stay here to deal with such a small case.

After a while, a car from the Education Department stopped outside. Someone who looks like a leader alighted. He was looking furious. The District Police Chief was standing by the windows upstairs and saw this car. He turned to his secretary and told him that no matter who comes and look for him, just say he is not in the office!

In terms of rank, both Zhao Shuanggang and the District Police Chief were the same. Both have high authority in their respective departments. But both of them does not have any dealings with each other. That Mr. Feng does not seem to be someone easy to trifled with. The District Police Chief decided to wait and see. If this Mr. Feng was only an ordinary businessman, then he will come out and help Zhao Shuanggang.

Zhao Shuanggang entered the District Police Station and saw a Deputy Chief coming out to receive him. He frowned and did not say anything. After all, they were from different departments, and the Police department was a powerful department. It was normal for the Chief to avoid him.

Zhao Shuanggang had called the District Police Station, and they did not give him any face. He was not pleased. My son is beaten up, and you all claim my son is the mastermind for an assault with intention charge? I know my son well. He is a good boy.

When the door of the room was pushed opened, Zhao Shuanggang and the Deputy Police Chief entered. The Team Leader immediately stands up and salute to the Deputy Chief. Seeing the Deputy Chief did not introduce the Zhao Shuanggang, the team leader did not greet him.

“Dad!” Zhao Yan also stands up when his father enters. His face immediately changed. All this while, he had a fierce look on his face, and he quickly switched to a pitiful expression. His voice was also shaking.

Feng Yu looked at him. This brat can really act pitiful. But no matter how good your acting was, it will still depend on your father’s attitude. If he made the wrong decisions, then don’t blame me!

Zhao Shuanggang looked at his son and then turn to the Deputy Chief, waiting for an explanation. When I called, you all gave me all sorts of excuses. Now I am here personally. Are you still not giving me face?

“This incident is settled. Zhao Yan can leave.” The Team Leader saw the Deputy Chief’s expression and immediately said.

Zhao Yan still wanted to say he will teach Feng Yu a lesson. But his father stared at him, and he kept quiet. But when he walked pass Feng Yu, he mouthed the words: “You are dead!”

Feng Yu put down the teacup he was holding and suddenly said: “Did I say you all can leave?”

The whole room became quiet when they heard what Feng Yu said. The Deputy Chief and Zhao Shuanggang’s face changes. Zhao Shuanggang looked at Feng Yu. The Deputy Chief was in his uniform, and Feng Yu should know he was one of the leaders in the district. He still dares to say these words?

Who does he think he is?

“Damn! I still have not teach you a lesson! You still dare to behave so arrogantly?” Zhao Yan shouted. His father was there with the Deputy Chief. This person still dares to speak to him in this manner?!

“Shut up!” Zhao Shuanggang scolded.

Zhao Yan does not understand why his father did not ask people to deal with Feng Yu. Why was his father not helping him?

“You are his father from the Education Department? I think you should have heard of my name. I am Feng Yu.” Feng Yu was still seated as he casually said.

Feng Yu? How come this name was so familiar? But Zhao Shuanggang could not recall who this person was. This person was so calm, and it was not an act. He had worked in the government service for many years and knew how to judge a person from their looks.

Zhao Yan was furious. He moved closer to his father and wanted to let his father look at his injuries. He wanted his father to get angry and teach this arrogant brat a lesson. It would be best if his father could make this person disappear from Beijing. If that happens, Teacher Li will surely be his girlfriend.

At this moment, the District Police Chief enters the room.

The Deputy Chief was surprised. Didn’t the Chief asked him to settle this incident? How come he come over personally?

The most surprising part was after the Chief enters the room, he did not greet Zhao Shuanggang. Instead, he extended both hands and walked towards Feng Yu quickly.

“Mr. Feng. I’m sorry for being late. Please forgive me.”

Zhao Shuanggang’s jaws almost dropped to the floor. What was happening? Why was Chief Liu so respectful to this person? He seems to be…… afraid of him?

Feng Yu? Feng Yu!

Zhao Shuanggang finally recalls who this person was. In the past few years, many Tai Hua buildings were built in Beijing’s schools. It was Feng Yu, who had donated those buildings! No matter how capable Feng Yu was, the higher-ups will surely want to maintain a good relationship with him. If this incident spreads, there will be an uproar.

How did Zhao Yan offend this person? From Chief Liu’s behavior, he must have gotten some instructions from the higher-ups. Zhao Shuanggang and Chief Liu were holding the same rank. Chief Liu’s higher-ups were also his higher-ups!

Slap!

Zhao Shuanggang gave his son a hard slap suddenly. Zhao Yan could see stars and took two steps back from the impact, before landing on his butt.

He could not believe that his father had slapped him.

“Mr. Feng, I am sorry for the troubles my son caused. He lacks discipline. There is an opening for an exchange at his workplace. I will let him participate and send him over to the Western provinces for training. Hurry up and apologize to Mr. Feng!”

Zhao Yan was stunned. Go to the western regions? Those poor mountainous areas?

But when he saw his father’s stern expressions, he still lowers his head and apologizes unwillingly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Feng.”

Feng Yu slowly stands up: “You have a good reputation. But you should not spoil your son. It is also a good thing for him to go over to the western regions for some training. I will not pursue this matter.”

Feng Yu walked out of the room, and his bodyguards were already waiting outside. They left the District Police Station in neat rows behind Feng Yu. Even after all of them had left in their vehicles, the people at the station were still looking out from the windows.

Who was this person?

If it was not because Feng Yu still have some matters to attend; if it was not because Zhao Shuanggang had a good reputation; if it was not because Zhao Yan still has not done anything to Li Na…… Feng Yu would never let him off so easily.

Feng Yu called Zhang Han’s father to thank him and then dial another number: “You have arrived? I will be there in a while.”

Chapter 716 – Cordless phone

It was a new office building located in the East Third Ring Road. On the building, there were two ancient Chinese characters. “Wind and Rain”

This building had cost Feng Yu quite a lot. But he felt the money spent was worthwhile. This was because this area was gazetted as Beijing business district.

In the future, many international and Chinese companies will set up their China’s headquarters here. This includes CCTV, the People’s Daily. This place will be China’s most famous business district. It can even be compared to Shanghai’s business district.

Also, the two prominent ancient Chinese characters on the building were huge. This building will definitely be a landmark here.

Of course, Wind and Rain Electronics does not need such a big office building. So, Wind and Rain Logistics, Aiwa Electronics, Wind and Rain Pharmaceutical, Bing City Machinery Company, and the rest of Feng Yu’s companies, set up their Beijing offices in this building. Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise headquarters had also shifted their headquarters to this building.

The remaining empty floors of the building were rented out. Feng Yu was satisfied with the rents, and it was still the rentals in this era. In another 3 to 5 years, rents will increase by several folds. Those companies that rented offices in this building were 3-years short term lease. If they do not agree with the increase in rents, they can move out. There will be other companies who were willing to pay the high rentals.

The biggest office on the top floor was Feng Yu’s office. It was more than 500 sqm. In his office, there was a gym, a recreation corner, an entertainment corner, a resting area, and many other rooms for different purposes. There was even a private stairwell to the rooftop. This was specially requested by Feng Yu. He wants to build a helipad on the roof for his helicopter in the future.

The aviation regulations in China was stringent. But in a few years, the rules will relax, and people start to own private planes and airline companies.

Feng Yu took the special elevator up to his office. Mei Zhigao picked up the phone on the table and called the room next door. “Boss has arrived.”

Feng Yu walked towards the recreation corner. There was a bar there, and he opened a cabinet. There were all sorts of dried fruits and other titbits. He took a few plates of dried fruits and sat at the bar to wait.

Aiwa Little Tyrant’s Duan Yongping, Aiwa Electronics’ Xu Lihua, Wind and Rain Electronics’ Jiang Wanmeng, and a few other people entered. Feng Yu waved them over to have the snacks together, and Mei Zhigao left the room, closing the door behind him.

“Old Duan, what is this cordless phone you are talking about? We have brought all our engineers over. Just tell us what you need us to do.”

Feng Yu was relaxed as he knew this project will surely be a success. In his previous life, Duan Yongping had left the Little Tyrant after falling out with them over the restructuring of the company.

But Duan Yongping was not in despair. He had the technical skills and understands the market well. He made use of his connections and got the license to manufacture cordless phones.

In the past life, BBK cordless phones were very popular in China. They had occupied more than 70% of the market share. This product helped Duan Yongping amassed funds quickly and forms the foundation of the company.

Later, BBK Electronics introduces a series of products, including repeaters, reading machines, cellphones, etc. All of their products sold well in the market.

That’s why Feng Yu had confidence in Duan Yongping. In his previous life, this was the year when Duan Yongping set up BBK Electronics. Although it was a few months earlier, the company’s technological abilities were much higher than Feng Yu’s previous life.

Duan Yongping nodded and said to everyone: “Cordless phones have existed in other countries for many years. It is only a telephone that uses radio waves to connect the handset and the base station. The handset can still be connected dozens of meters away from the base station. This cordless phone is more convenient than the traditional telephone. This is not a difficult technology and has great market potential.”

Xu Lihua tapped his cigarette ash into the ashtray and said to others: “We Aiwa Electronics can handle the part on radio waves. We are more familiar in this technology then the rest of you.”

Although Aiwa Electronics currently only manufactures pagers and stock pagers, they started off with manufacturing walkie talkies. They might not be the best in China for this technology, but they were definitely better than Duan Yongping and the rest.

Also, Xu Lihua and his men had wanted to produce mobile phones. Feng Yu was also supportive of this idea. They could make use of this cordless phone to perfect their mobile phone technologies.

Jiang Wanmeng added: “We are better in LCD and keypads. We can handle this part.”

Aiwa Home Appliances person in charge said: “We are not as good as you all in those areas. But if you all need phone recording features, we are good at it. Or if you need any help with the speakers and receivers, we can also help.”

After they finished, all of them looked at Duan Yongping. They will be handling all the critical components of this product. Then what will Aiwa Little Tyrant handle?

“We had accidentally developed a new technology which allows a base station to connect to multiple handsets. That means we can leave a handset in every room at home with only a base station. This way, no matter which room you are in, you will be able to pick up the call. My men are also good at radio waves. We are also able to help in this area. Also, I have conducted market research for this product. In the market, there is a huge demand for cordless phones. But the imported brands are too expensive. The cost of production of a cordless phone is not high. We can use low prices to compete against them.”

How much does a cordless phone cost in China now? 1 to 2 thousand RMB! The leading cordless phone brands in China were Philips, Motorola. Panasonic and Siemens. Based on Jiang Wanmeng’s calculations, the cost of a cordless phone was less than 200 RMB. They even felt that the cost might be much lower due to those big companies’ economies of scale.

How much were their profits? Several times of its cost!

All of them who were present at this meeting had the abilities to manufacture this product too. With such high profits at stake, why not just produce and sell this product themselves?

The few of them discussed for a while and suddenly noticed Feng Yu had not said a word. They all quieted down and looked at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu put down the dried peach he was holding and wiped his hands. He then drank some water before pointing to a stack of documents on the table. “There. Those are the information send over by Philips. You all can take a look.”

All of them were confused when Jiang Wanmeng suddenly opened his eyes wide: “Philips had given us their cordless phone technologies?”

“We are partners with Philips, and we agreed to share our technologies. Although this is not some new technology, it should help you all save a lot of time. Also, Philips owns some patents of these related technologies. These are also free for us to use.”

All of them knew that this was not a new technology. The technologies Wind and Rain Electronics exchanged with Philips were also not the latest technologies.

“That’s great. Manager Feng, with this information, we guarantee that we will develop the best cordless phone in the world within 3 months!” Duan Yongping’s face had turned red from his excitement.

Feng Yu laughed. “I trust all of you. This cordless phone project will be headed by Duan Yongping. The rest of you can send some of your men to form a development team. When this project is successful, all of you will get the credit. You all will be rewarded handsomely!!”

Chapter 717 – Getting listed?

“Manager Feng, all the contracts are signed. We have not missed out any employees.”

Li Mingde called Feng Yu to report on his progress. This was because, from January 1st this year, China’s Labour Law had been inforced. All companies must sign contracts with their employees and must contribute to the social security system.

When this law was announced, Feng Yu asked Li Mingde to quickly sign official contracts with all their employees. This was to prevent them from overthinking.

However, Li Mingde said there was no need for them to do so. Everyone in the company trust Feng Yu.

Feng Yu knew that Li Mingde was bootlicking, and all the employees trust Li Mingde more. But Feng Yu still insist Li Mingde complete the contract signings as soon as possible. He must also explain all the terms in the contract and must not hide anything from the employees.

The Machinery Company must also pay the social security for all the employees, including those at their branch factories, on time.

Li Mingde still does no know about the benefits of paying social security. The government will be taking care of all the retired employees instead of the company. This would help the company save lots of money.

Because this was the first year the law had started, those workers who were nearing retirement have the option of paying a lump sum and then still enjoy retirement funds. Of course, this lump sum payment to social security will be borne by the company and not the worker.

When Li Mingde announced this news, all the employees were overjoyed. Although they kept saying they trust the company and Li Mingde, all of them were still worried the company will not take care of them after their retirement.

Now, the country promises to take care of them, and they have no more worries.

Bing City Machinery Company was one of the fastest companies among all big enterprises to complete the contract signings. Some company’s leaders were still trying to delay. They wanted to wait until the end of the year. But they did not know that late payments can incur interest. The interest rates were the same as the banks. The business owners felt that they could have better use for this amount, and the returns will inevitably be higher than the interest incurred.

But Feng Yu’s companies do not need to do this. All of his companies had sufficient funds. If Bing City Machinery Company needs to get a bank loan, all the bank managers in Longjiang province will be queuing up at Li Mingde’s office and will try to give their best offer.

The past two years, the higher-ups had given high targets to the banks for giving out loans. To hit the target, banks simplified their loans procedures.

Now, the banks had completed the mission given to them by the higher-ups, and some banks had even loaned out more than the target. But now, the banks faced a series of problems. Many companies and individuals were unable to repay their loans!

The banks had lots of bad debts and cost the banks to suffered massive losses.

But if the banks loan money to Bing City Machinery Company, they do not need to worry. All of them knew how profitable Bing City Machinery Company was and their products were sold all over China and were even exported to Russia.

Even if Bing City Machinery Company could not repay their loans, the banks could also recover the debts from auctioning their assets. But Li Mingde rejected all the offers from the banks as the company does not need any loans.

If Bing City Machinery Company lack funds, Feng Yu could just inject some money into the company. Of course, the City will not agree to it as this will dilute their shares. This was a good company, and the City does not want their shares to be diluted. Another way was to list the company on the stock exchange.

Since the stock exchange was set up in China two years ago, there was an increase in the number of listed companies. These companies wanted to raise funds for their developments. One of the more successful company was Changhong.

Changhong was already listed, and Feng Yu knew that they share prices would skyrocket after they got listed. They amassed a substantial fund from the market and expanded their factories, R&D facilities, and marketing.

Currently, Changhong had become the leader in China’s domestic TV brands. No other companies could threaten them of this status in China.

The Provincial Leaders of where Changhong was located also start to promote Changhong. This was also considered the Province’s achievement. A company like Changhong had appeared in their province, and how can they not make use of this company?

But Feng Yu remembered that Changhong was only successful for these 2 to 3 years. The management of Changhong will be making a grave mistake soon and resulted in the company to go downhill.

Changhong was too confident of their 21-inch color TV and felt this will be mainstream TV in the market. Now, the 21-inch color TV might seem to be the mainstream TV and Changhong had China’s most advanced technology in this field. Their manufacturing cost was also the lowest compared to other foreign MNCs.

But in another 2 years, the TV will become bigger. 25 inches, 29 inches, 32 inches, 34 inches, and even 42 inches TVs start appearing in the market. All TV manufacturers start to manufacture bigger TV to meet market demand.

However, Changhong still insists on producing 21 inch TV and did not lower their production. As a result, their TVs were unsold and stuck in their warehouse.

This was the turning point of the company, and Changhong fell from being the domestic market leader to number 2. Their placing continues to drop to number 4, etc.

But now, all these still have not happened yet. Changhong was still able to make lots of profits for the next 3 years.

The local government was jealous of many companies’ success. They realized that companies do not need to get loans and could still be able to raise funds and develop quickly.

Also, after the company was listed, the company’s value would increase as the share prices increases. This way, a successful company will appear in the province or city governed by those local authorities. A company that was worth 100 million might become 300 million RMB after getting listed. The local authorities could brag to their higher-ups and try to get the credit.

Look, this listed XXX company was set up when I was in charge of the city. This company was only worth 100 million RMB, and now, it’s worth had increased by several folds. The higher-ups will think that this person was good at business. This was the time when the Chinese government emphasizes on the economy. The higher-ups will surely groom this person.

So, there were a large number of companies that were listed. Many of these companies did not even reach the minimum requirements of being listed. But this was not important as the local government will help them/ Furthermore, there were lots of loopholes in the laws. The number of companies getting listed on the stock market had increased by more than 10 times compared to the previous year.

Some of these listed companies had grown after being listed, and the investors all made money. But there were many companies whose shares did not move after they got listed. Some companies had raised a large sum from the stock market, but all their funds disappeared. The local government had taken the money away, or the companies’ leaders ran away with the money.

But no matter what, all the local government felt that getting the companies under their jurisdictions to be listed on the stock exchange was one way to show the higher-ups how successful they were. All the local governments wanted more listed companies to appear.

Li Mingde was also summoned by his leader for a talk. He wanted Bing City Machinery Company to be listed on the stock exchange!

This was also one of the reasons why Li Mingde called Feng Yu. He needed Feng Yu’s help.

Chapter 718 – It’s not the time yet

It was not Zhang Ruiqiang who had looked for Li Mingde. If Zhang Ruiqiang wanted Bing City Machinery Company to be listed, he would not look for Li Mingde. This was because he knew who makes the decisions at this company. It was Feng Yu.

The one who had looked for Li Mingde was Bing City Government Secretary. He needed credits for his promotion. He knew Feng Yu was the main shareholder of the Machinery Company and was the overall in charge.

But when the Secretary called Feng Yu, he knew that Feng Yu was unwilling to get this company listed. So, he looked for Li Mingde, hoping that Li Mingde could persuade Feng Yu. He knew Feng Yu trusted Li Mingde a lot. If not, Feng Yu would also not ask Li Mingde to retire early from the government service and rehired him into the company. Li Mingde was even given shares of the company.

The Secretary also felt that Zhang Ruiqiang would not stop this as the whole Bing City Government will get the credit if this company was listed. If the Secretary got promoted, Zhang Ruiqiang would be able to take over his position. Zhang Ruiqiang had performed well in the past two years and will have high hopes of taking over his position. Moreover, he also had support from the Provincial Government no. 1.

There were also rumors that the Provincial Government No. 1 will be retiring to the backend at the end of the year. At that time, Zhang Ruiqiang will lose his strongest backing in the Provincial Government. Zhang Ruiqiang will not want to be Bing City Government’s Party Secretary? In government service, one wrong step will mean failure.

Li Mingde dare not to offend the Party Secretary, and he could only ask Feng Yu for help.

Tsk. Feng Yu knew that getting listed was the norm for many companies to raise funds. It was better than getting loans from banks and could increase the company’s value effectively.

But Feng Yu does not want to get listed. This was because once the company was listed, his shares in Bing City Machinery Company would be diluted. For the company to be listed, at least 25% of the total shares had to be offered to the public. Then, Feng Yu and his father would be less than 50%.

Of course, after the company was listed, the share prices will rise, and the shares will be more valuable. But that’s only for people who wanted to sell their shares. Feng Yu had no intention of selling his shares.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many big companies wanted to be listed was not because they want to raise funds. It was because they were invested by venture capital. How does a venture capitalist make money? They depend on selling the shares of the company after they got listed.

The share prices of some good performing companies or companies favored by investors will rise after they got listed. The Venture capitalist could sell off their shares during that period. Sometimes, they might get more than 20 times the returns.

Also, Venture capital normally owns preferred stocks. They do not have voting rights but will get dividends. Also, they get priority in selling their shares.

Some companies got listed was to lower their debt ratio. Many companies had lots of debts, but could still get listed. Once listed, they would be able to repay their debts.

Of course, there was also a great benefit for getting listed now. There were not a lot of listed companies on the stock exchange now. If the company were listed, it would be able to increase its brand awareness and image. But Bing City Machinery Company does not need this. Since Bing City Machinery Company launched its motorcycles, the company had become the leading brand throughout China. All their products were selling like hotcakes.

Many companies that were doing well, especially those companies that were owned by an individual, will choose not to be listed. For instance, Shun Feng Logistics. In Feng Yu’s previous life, many people had tried to get this company listed. They told the owner that he could make much more if the company were listed. But the owner refused as he does not lack money.

Another disadvantage of getting listed was the finances had to be disclosed to the public. This was not because Bing City Machinery Company have any debts or fake accounting. It was because Feng Yu does not want his name to appear in the reports.

Although Feng Yu could not hide his wealth completely, he still prefers to keep a low profile and make money silently.

Feng Yu had wanted to set up a holding company in Hong Kong and then transfer all his shares in the various companies to this Hong Kong holding company. But it was too troublesome. Feng Yu must cough out a large amount to do this.

Current, Hong Kong was still not considered part of China. If Feng Yu were to do this, people would think that he is transferring his assets overseas. Feng Yu had also asked Master Lu for help, but Master Lu could not do anything about this unless Feng Yu sold off all his shares at the market price. If not, the Central Government will step in and stop the transactions.

If this were after 1997, the return of Hong Kong, it would be easier for Feng Yu to set up a holding company in Hong Kong.

Feng Yu thought about this and decided to wait. Also, this was not the right time to get his companies listed. Especially in the Chinese stock exchange. The stock market of China had just started T+1. This was to prevent the manipulation of the stock market.

But this year, China’s stock market was unstable. China had issued a lot of treasury bonds, and many security companies start to manipulate the market. These two years, the market would be bearish, and investors do not have confidence. If a company were to be listed now, the share prices might even fall.

Of course, if Feng Yu really wanted to manipulate the market, no one would be his match. His technical knowledge and financial backings were the top in China.

But Feng Yu does not want to do this. He does not want to get into trouble. Even if he could cover everything up, others might find out in the future and labeled him as a market manipulator. He will be guilty of cheating all other investors of their hard-earned money.

After the company was listed, the management had to do a lot more. Feng Yu felt that Li Mingde and the rest still do not have what it takes to manage a listed company. Although these people could accept new things, their speed and ability to accept new things were not fast enough.

Also, the cost of getting listed was very high. The company needs to hire people to audit the company, hire lawyers, etc. The audit of the company would be more stringent, and every tiny detail of the company had to be audited. It would be more troublesome if Feng Yu were to transfer all his companies shares to a holding company in Hong Kong.

There were pros and cons for a company to be listed. Feng Yu thought about it and felt this was not the time for him to get his companies to be listed.

Feng Yu told Li Mingde to fend off those government officials. He had given Li Mingde some shares of the company, and this was his responsibility. Feng Yu would never get his company listed for the government officials to claim credits.

Especially…… Feng Yu does not know Bing City’s Party Secretary.

Feng Yu told Li Mingde to inform him if he really could not settle this. He will go back to settle this problem.

Chapter 719 – The troubled Zhang Ruiqiang

Feng Yu thought that Li Mingde would be able to fend off those government officials for at least a few days. Even if he could not handle them, he could always as Zhang Ruiqiang for help. But Zhang Ruiqiang called Feng Yu, asking him to go over to his office for a discussion about getting the Machinery Company listed.

Why did Zhang Ruiqiang change his mind? Feng Yu had told Zhang Ruiqiang clearly that it was not he does not want to get his companies listed. It was because this was not the right time yet. Feng Yu wanted to let his company grow for a few more years before getting listed. Also, he promised that he will list his company during Zhang Ruiqiang’s term as the Mayor. Zhang Ruiqiang cannot even wait for 2 years?

Actually, it was not Zhang Ruiqiang that could not wait. It was the Provincial Government’s No. 1.

The Provincial Government’s No. 1 was old, and his higher-ups had asked him to be prepared to retire to the backend at the end of the year. Based on past experiences, the Provincial Government’s No. 1 might be promoted first. But there was also the possibility that he would not be promoted and transferred to a relaxing and leisure position.

The Provincial Government’s No. 1’s rank was now Provincial-Ministerial level and was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. His next rank was the Sub-national Leader. There was a great difference for the retirement benefits between those two ranks. Also, if he were promoted to a Sub-national Leader, he would be able to continue to work for a few more years. He still does not want to retire. He felt he could still contribute to the nation.

The problem with Longjiang province was its location. It cannot be compared with the coastal regions in terms of trading. Also, the government does not have the support of the central government, and its development was slow. There was another reason. Agriculture and Forestry were separated into two departments. The Ministry of state farms and land reclamation was in charge of the agriculture, and the forestry was handled by the State Forestry and Grassland Administration. All the profits and taxes in these two industries were handed over to their respective departments and not the Provincial Government.

Longjiang Province’s biggest trading partner was Russia. They mainly export food products. Of course, now they were also exporting Feng Yu’s motor vehicles and other necessities. But compared to the coastal regions, there was still a vast difference.

But the heavy industry in LongJiang province was doing well. The growth of this industry was higher than the national average. In some sectors like agricultural machinery and automobile manufacturing were the most advanced in China.

The Provincial Government’s No. 1 had never expect to be promoted before his retirement to the backend. But now, he felt he could be promoted and does not need to retire!

The Provincial Government’s No. 1 had some achievements under his belt and could try fighting for his promotion. But his opponents also had some significant contributions which were about his equivalent. He wanted to remain in power and not retired.

Some time ago, during a meeting at the Central Government, the Provincial Government’s No. 1 heard other provincial governors reporting about their work. He knew why these people were allowed to report about their provinces’ developments during the meeting. It was because their provinces had many listed companies.

The Provincial Government’s No. 1 realized that once a company got listed, the company’s value will increase by several folds! That means 1 RMB would become 3 to 5 RMB? 100 million would become 3 to 5 million? That means the province’s economy would improve by leaps and bounds!

Although the Provincial Government’s No. 1 knew that the government’s shares would be diluted after the company was listed, he felt there should be more benefits. If not, why would so many companies get listed?

Looking at the proud looks of those leaders and the Central Government Leaders’ approving looks, Longjiang’s Provincial Government’s No. 1 was jealous.

If he still could not get more results, then he will lose his promotion to his opponents!

Most government officials had retired at his age. However, the Provincial Government’s No. 1 was used to be in power and have authority. He was used to commanding people around and could not give up his authority.

He felt he still had not achieved what he wanted and could still continue working. Why should he retire to the backend and hold leisure and relax position? He felt his results were better than most of the other leaders and should be promoted.

It was not the higher-ups not appreciating his contributions. It was because he lacks something that makes him stand out among the rest.

Bing City had a machinery company that’s worth only tens of millions. After a few years of development, the company’s worth grew to billions. This company had become one of China’s biggest company. This was considered a huge political achievement.

But the Provincial Government’s No. 1 felt it was not enough. Other provinces also have companies that were worth billions, and those companies were state-owned enterprises. If the Machinery Company could increase its value to more than 10 billion RMB, then his chances of getting promoted would be higher.

China’s first listed company, which was worth more than 10 billion, had appeared in the province under his charge. Who can claim that this was not his credit? The higher-ups will surely notice him.

The Provincial Government’s No. 1 had been praised by the Chief Architect, Jiang Daming, Iron-fist Zhu, and many other national-level leaders before. If he were 5 to 8 years younger, he would surely be able to enter the central government.

But he was old now, and this was his last chance to fight for his promotion.

The Provincial Government’s No. 1 knew it was Zhang Ruiqiang who proposed the restructuring of the Machinery Company, and he had also supported this proposal. If he had not supported this restructuring, would it be successful? At that time, all the state-owned enterprises’ restructuring was for those loss-making enterprises. The Machinery Company was still profitable.

Zhang Ruiqiang was very close with Feng Yu, and the Provincial Government’s No. 1 had received complains that Zhang Ruiqiang was in cahoots with this private businessman. He was the one who stopped all these rumors and supported Zhang Ruiqiang.

Zhang Ruiqiang could get to his current position was because of him. If he did not transfer Zhang Ruiqiang from Foreign Trade Office to Bing City Government, Zhang Ruiqiang would still be a nobody.

Zhang Ruiqiang was able to get to his current position was also partially because of his own abilities. But without the support of the Provincial Government’s No. 1, he would not be able to become the Mayor of Bing City. Even if Zhang Ruiqiang could be promoted to a Mayor, he would also not be the Mayor of Bing City and get the rank of Sub-Provincial (Ministerial) level.

Also, the Provincial Government’s No. 1 had supported Zhang Ruiqiang’s proposal for restructuring the whole Bing City pharmaceutical industry. This resulted in the formation of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise.

Men are all selfish and tend to think for themselves. Although Zhang Ruiqiang could help extend the Provincial Government’s No. 1’s career, after he got promoted, Zhang Ruiqiang could still receive support from the Provincial Government’s No. 1. This was a win-win situation.

The Provincial Government’s No. 1 spoke to Zhang Ruiqiang and wish Zhang Ruiqiang could help him to persuade Feng Yu to let Bing City Machinery Company be listed on the stock exchange as soon as possible. He wanted a listed company which was worth billions to appear in Longjiang province. This was the bargaining chip for him to further his career.

Zhang Ruiqiang was also feeling troubled. He knew Feng Yu was a genius when it comes to business. He had never seen anyone as successful as Feng Yu. Even those legendary businessmen from other countries could not be compared to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu had said that now was not the right time for Bing City Machinery Company to be listed and Zhang Ruiqiang chose to believe him. This was why he did not bring up this subject again. But now, he needs to return the Provincial Government’s No. 1’s favor. The Provincial Government’s No. 1 had groomed him to become the Mayor, and he was in a dilemma.

In the end, the Provincial Government’s No. 1 took one step back. He only asked Zhang Ruiqiang to call Feng Yu over, and he will speak to Feng Yu personally. This was why Zhang Ruiqiang called Feng Yu.

Chapter 720 – Refusal

After Feng Yu met Zhang Ruiqiang, they had a short chat behind closed doors. Zhang Ruiqiang told Feng Yu about what happened and did not force Feng Yu to get his company listed. Feng Yu was glad that Zhang Ruiqiang did not try to force him.

Without Zhang Ruiqiang’s help, Feng Yu’s businesses would not be able to grow so fast. When Feng Yu was starting out, Zhang Ruiqiang had many opportunities to forcefully take over his businesses.

Furthermore, the Provincial Government’s No. 1 only wanted to meet Feng Yu. Feng Yu does not mind meeting him, but he was determined to not let Bing City Machinery Company or Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise to be listed. Even if the Provincial Government simplified the procedures, he will also not agree.

This was not the right time.

Although listing the companies in a bearish market might not have losses, it will still lower the share prices. Why not wait until the bull market?

At 10 am, Feng Yu followed Zhang Ruiqiang to the Provincial Government’s No. 1 office.

This was not their first meeting, and the Provincial Government’s No. 1 had spoken to Feng Yu a few times. But they were not close. Feng Yu was also not as relaxed as he was in Zhang Ruiqiang’s office.

“Secretary Xu.”

“Come and take a seat. Xiao Wang, prepare the tea.”

Secretary Xu walked towards the sofa with Zhang Ruiqiang and Feng Yu. This was a show of friendliness, and he would only do this with people close to him. When he first met Feng Yu, he felt this young man was not simple. It was because people will get nervous when they met someone in his position.

When the Provincial Government’s No. 1 saw Feng Yu’s meeting with the Chief Architect and Iron-fist Zhu, he also noticed Feng Yu was not nervous at all. This let him believe that Feng Yu’s success was not by luck.

How could a young man, who could speak normally with the Chief Architect, bow down to his pressure? This young man was praised by the Chief Architect, and he heard rumors that Iron-fist Zhu tried to recruit him. The Provincial Government’s No. 1 dare not to use his authority to pressure Feng Yu. If words spread, then it will really be the end of his career. Another reason was Feng Yu’s Hong Kong friend and one of the shareholders of the Machinery Company.

The Provincial Government’s No. 1 does not dare to pressurize that Hong Kong businessman. He was afraid of the consequences. During this period, all government officials must make sure everything goes smoothly for Hong Kong’s return to China and cannot offend or create trouble for Hong Kong businessmen.

“Manager Feng, I am curious. Why you do not want Bing City Machinery Company to be listed? There are a lot of benefits from listing your company. You will also get high returns.” Secretary Xu asked.

“I admit that there are lots of benefits from a listed company. It will increase the funds, and it will be a good promotion for the company. But this is not the right time yet. I am sure you about our stock exchange now. Most of the shares are dropping, and only a handful of shares are increasing. That means many investors are not buying shares. Last year and early this year, the US and Japan stock market have high fluctuations and had affected the Chinese investors. If Bing City Machinery Company were to be listed now, the share prices might not drop. But the increase will not be a lot. This is not wise.”

“Why is this not wise? From your words, you do not object to list this company on the stock exchange. You only feel that the share prices will not increase a lot? But that is also an increase in your share prices. Even if the share prices will increase a lot when you list the company two years later, but what’s the difference if you list the company now? The growth might be slower now, but it should be able to reach the same level as two years later.” Secretary Xu asked.

Feng Yu shook his head: “The problem is, what are the reasons for us to get listed now? To raise more funds for the company’s development? To increase our company’s brand awareness? Bing City Machinery does not lack development funds. Even if the company is short of funds, I can also increase my investment in the company. I had said before that I want to build China and the world’s best vehicles. This will not change. Currently, our Songjiang cars are very famous in China. We might not be the number one in China, but we are one for the top 3 automobile brands in China. There are no other automobile brands that grow as fast as us.”

Feng Yu had made it clear to the Provincial Government’s No. 1 that he does not need all those so-call benefits from listed companies. The Bing City Machinery Company does not lack the funds or publicity, and why should the company get listed?

Feng Yu knew why Secretary Xu insisted on him listing his company. It was because he wanted to get the credit. But Feng Yu was not close with Secretary Xu and does not think that he would get much help from Secretary in the future if he helps him now.

“Manager Feng, if Bing City Machinery Company were to get listed, I will take care of all the paperwork and approvals personally. Also, policies like tax subsidies and cheaper land parcels will be implemented to help your company. The Provincial Government can even purchase a batch of Songjiang vehicles!” Secretary Xu said.

This was the highest offer Secretary Xu could offer to Feng Yu. He could give more promises, but that would be against the law. If he really steps out of the line, he would be in trouble.

Feng Yu shook his head firmly: “Secretary Xu, we have been paying all the taxes and had even donated large sums of money to the schools in Longjiang province every year. Bing City’s geographical location is not suitable for us to expand our factory. Even if our factory has plans to expand, we will choose to set up branch factories in other regions. I hope you can understand.”

Secretary Xu was disappointed. Why Feng Yu does not want to give in? I had already show my sincerity, and he still does not accept my proposal?

Many companies that wanted to be listed will try all ways to get support from the Provincial Government. But Feng Yu does not want his company to be listed. He was not even moved by the conditions offered.

What should Secretary Xu do? Will this be the end of his political career?

Zhang Ruiqiang was not sure whether to console Secretary Xu or persuade Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, is there any other way to change your mind?” Secretary Xu had been a stern and firm leader in front of his subordinates. But at this moment, he looks dejected, and Zhang Ruiqiang felt sad to see the leader he respected looking so devastated.

Zhang Ruiqiang asked: “Feng Yu, can you consider this? This is very important to Secretary Xu.”

Feng Yu shook his head: “I need to be responsible to all the employees of Bing City Machinery Company. This is really not the right time to get the company listed. If we get listed and our shares remain unsold, or the share prices drop, it will be all the employees’ losses. It will also be Bing City’s losses. But I promise that I will surely invite Secretary Xu when Bing City Machinery Company gets listed.”

Secretary Xu did not get angry with Feng Yu after hearing what he said. He had worked hard all his life and did not want to let others blame him for forcing a company to get listed for his own benefits. Furthermore, this might let the employees suffer losses. He would feel guilty.

Never mind. At most, I will retire to the back end and spend the rest of my days in a relaxing post.

Chapter 721 – Social Security

When Secretary Xu was about to ask Feng Yu to leave, Feng Yu asked suddenly: “What are your views on Social Security Insurance?”

Secretary Xu was puzzled. Why did Feng Yu bring up this subject so suddenly? Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu. Was Feng Yu trying to change the subject to stop the awkwardness?

Zhang Ruqiang cannot let Secretary Xu answer this question, and he replied: “Social Security insurance is just a form of retirement fund. In the past, it is the companies that take care of the retired staffs and their pensions. That means 20 to 30 workers had to support a retired staff, and this number is increasing as more people retires. Also, many people could not retire because they are not working for any companies. They had to work even at old age. We learned this social security insurance from developed countries.”

Secretary Xu looked at Feng Yu. Zhang Ruiqiang had given a good reply, and he wanted to hear what Feng Yu have to say about this Social Security Insurance.

“Mayor Zhang’s reply is very simple. But have you all ever thought how long it will take to implement this policy? Now, our government is forcing the companies in China to pay the social security insurance for their staffs. But you all should know how effective this policy is.”

“What are you trying to say? Stop beating around the bush!” Zhang Ruiqiang was pissed. This Feng Yu always like to flaunt his knowledge. Zhang Ruiqiang did not really research into this policy, and even the people at the Central Government were not very sure about social security insurance. They only treat this as an experiment.

“I dare to say that this policy will not succeed even after you all have retired!”

“What did you say? Are you joking with us?! This is a national policy, and how can it take such a long time to succeed?” Zhang Ruiqiang was furious, especially Feng Yu brought up the subject of retirement. He was afraid that Secretary Xu would be affected. Furthermore, Zhang Ruiqiang has at least more than 10 years before his retirement. Why Feng Yu dare to claim that this policy will not succeed?

Feng Yu laughed: “Did our Family Planning Policy succeed? How many people really followed this policy?”

Secretary Xu had wanted to retort Feng Yu. You are not a civil servant, and how dare you criticize the government’s policy?

But when Feng Yu used the Family Planning Policy as an example, Secretary Xu kept quiet.

This policy was suggested in 1971 and started promoting this idea in 1980. They started with the CPC members and their youth members. This was enforced on their CPC members. In 1982, this policy became official and was set as a law. To date, this policy had been in force for more than a decade. But the population was still increasing every year. The government had their hands tied. They can’t be strangling all those babies once they are born.

In the villages, the population is very important to the farmers. This policy might be fine in the cities, but in the farmlands and villages, people ignored this policy. Even when the government increases its efforts in enforcing this policy in 1991, it was still not successful.

A basic government’s policy and law were still not successful after more than a decade. The government had wasted lots of resources and manpower on this implementation. Moreover, this Social Security insurance policy was still not set up as China’s basic law, and how could it succeed?

Most importantly, social security insurance needs both the company and employees to pay. Firstly, many employees will oppose to this. Why should their salary be deducted? All those people who retired in the past also did not pay a single cent for their pension. Why can’t the companies or factories take care of them after they retire? They had contributed almost all their life for the company!

The workers will want the companies to pay for all the premiums of Social Security Insurance. But no companies can afford to do this. This would not be a small amount if they were to consider those workers who were about to retire. Some companies that were not doing very well went straight to the local government. We cannot afford to pay for this social security insurance. If you force us to pay, then the company will be bankrupt, and all the workers will be out of jobs!

“To make this policy success, it is important to implement both the company’s insurance and social security insurance together. But how to get the right balance? If they’re too many people are accepted into the social security insurance, the premiums collected by the government will not be enough to take care of the people. If the premiums are too high, the companies will not be willing to accept this policy.”

In other countries, there are many ways those governments collect premiums for their social security insurance. It was more common for them to implement proportional contributions from both the companies and the individuals, or equal contributions from both the companies and individuals.

These two methods were more common in other countries. But both have its pros and cons. What China was trying to implement was contributions from both the companies and employees based on a fixed proportion. This policy was still in force even before Feng Yu returned back to his current life.

Implement both company and social security insurances together? Zhang Ruiqiang and Secretary Xu looked at each other. It would be hard to implement both together. But the reality was like what Feng Yu had said. If both types of insurances were not implemented together, this policy would not succeed. The companies will have to take care of their retired staffs and pay social security insurance. It will be hard on the company’s finances.

Secretary Xu looked at Feng Yu: “How does Bing City Machinery Company pay the social security insurance for the workers?”

“Our company and employees are paying the premiums together. Isn’t this want the government wanted?” This was only suggested by the Central Government and was not compulsory for the companies to follow. This was because the government was not sure how the workers would react.

“All your workers agreed to this arrangement?” Secretary Xu asked curiously. He had heard from his men that many workers were creating trouble for their companies because of this social security insurance. Some of them went on strike, and some went to the higher-ups. All of them do not want this policy.

“It is very simple. Just raise those workers’ salaries. If they have to pay 40 RMB a month for social security insurance, then I will raise their salaries by 100 RMB a month. Why would they object? The company will still be paying for most of the premiums. If we make things clear with the workers, they will understand.” Feng Yu had a “why are you asking such a stupid question?” expression on his face.

Secretary Xu was at a loss of words. You think all companies in China are like your Bing City Machinery Company? How can they afford to increase their workers’ salaries? What do you mean by making things clear with the workers and they will understand? A pay raise is the main reason they accepted this social security insurance.

What matters the most to employees? It’s their salaries!

Secretary Xu sighed in his heart. This Bing City Machinery Company was really rich. They were already paying their workers’ high salaries and were still willing to increase their salaries by 100 RMB? This means their grade 8 workers will get more than 1,000 RMB a month? The average annual salary for Bing City was only slightly more than 5,000 RMB last year. Will this average salary increase to over 6,000 RMB this year because of Feng Yu?

“Feng Yu, your method will not work for other companies. How can other companies increase their worker’s salary by so much?” Zhang Ruiqiang frowned.

“They still must increase their workers’ salaries. Didn’t all the workers have their salaries increased because of inflation last year? The economy this year is much better than last year. Why can’t the companies increase their salaries? Are you expecting those companies to pay the government more taxes and let the government pay for the workers’ social security insurances?” Feng Yu asked.

Increasing the workers’ salaries was equivalent to increase the cost of the companies and lowering their profits. As such, the taxes paid by the companies will also be lowered, resulting in the local governments getting lesser tax incomes.

But if the companies do not increase the workers’ salaries, this social security insurance policy could not be implemented successfully. Feng Yu suspects the separation of the national tax and land usage tax last year had something to do with this social security insurance. On the surface, the local government will be receiving more tax income, but in reality, their responsibility had increased.

Secretary Xu and Zhang Ruiqiang were deep in thoughts. Feng Yu was right, but should they go ahead with what Feng Yu had said?

Chapter 722 – Merger

Zhang Ruiqiang made up his mind very fast. It was not because he was more decisive than Secretary Xu. It was because Bing City’s population was only about 26% of the whole Longjiang province, but the tax income was more than 43% of the whole province!

This means that the rest of the cities in the provinces could not achieve what Bing City had achieved. Furthermore, Bing City was a designated planned city and had more independence than the rest of the cities. They could make a lot of decisions without interference by the Provincial Government or consulting the higher-ups.

Feng Yu said to let the companies increase their workers’ salaries to lower their resistances to social security insurance. This would increase the implementation of this policy. Bing City could use this method.

Bing City also could implement both the companies’ insurance and social security insurance together. After all, Bing City’s industries were growing faster than expected. They were already ahead of the rest of the cities in China.

Bing City Machinery Company, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, Bing City Aviation Factory, and even the textile mills were achieving outstanding results.

Bing City was developing at a fast pace, and the local government had more than enough funds.

But Secretary Xu could not make the decision. There were many regions in Longjiang province that were still in poverty. Many companies were still not doing well and were struggling to survive.

The taxes collected from those struggling companies were very little. If Secretary Xu followed Feng Yu’s method to pacify the workers and introduce the social security insurance policy, there would be more problems. The taxes paid by those companies will be much lower than before. Then the provincial government will not have sufficient funds for other projects.

To implement one policy at the expense of other projects? Can this even be considered a success?

The best solution was to increase the economy of the whole province as a whole. If everyone could earn more money, this will not be an issue. But this was harder than said.

When both Zhang Ruiqiang and Secretary Xu were deep in thoughts, Feng Yu was sipping on his tea casually. He had said too much and was getting thirsty.

Zhang Ruiqiang could tell Secretary Xu had difficulties if he were to follow Feng Yu’s suggestions. He wanted comfort Secretary Xu when he noticed Feng Yu drinking his tea happily. He remembered that this subject was brought up by Feng Yu and he should have the solution to Secretary Xu’s troubles?

You have the solution and don’t want to tell us? Do you really like to see us feeling troubled?

Zhang Ruiqiang cleared his throat. He was hinting to Feng Yu quickly tell them the solution.

“Feng Yu, since you mentioned this, then you should have a solution, right?”

“Yes. Just increase the income of those companies, and they will be able to increase the salaries of their workers.”

Damn. Stop stating the obvious. What I want to know is how do you increase the income of those companies?!

Feng Yu saw Zhang Ruiqiang’s angry expression and slowly said. “There is an easy solution. But I am not sure if Secretary Xu could pull it off. This solution will offend a lot of people, especially the other cites.”

Secretary Xu frowned and looked at Feng Yu. “I am not afraid of offending others. We can’t please everyone. As long as this solution is for the good of the people, that’s enough. But what do you mean by the other cities will be offended?”

The other cities should be happy if the income of those companies were increased. They will be able to receive more taxes from those companies and will be able to use those taxes for more projects. This will be part of their cities’ achievements. Why would they be offended?

Feng Yu did not give Secretary Xu an answer straight. He asked Secretary Xu back: “Secretary Xu, what do you think of my companies’ products? Why are my products making high profits and the consumers still prefer them?”

Secretary Xu thought for a while: “Is it because of the quality of your products or the designs? Or maybe it is because of the advertisements?”

“What you mentioned are all parts of the reason. For example, our humidifiers and bladeless fans. The exterior designs are not considered new and other brands had caught up with our product’s quality. Our products are still selling well after we lowered the frequency of our advertisements. Our selling prices are even higher than the other brands. Why?” Feng Yu continued asking.

Zhang Ruiqiang blurted out a word: “Branding!”

Feng Yu gave Zhang Ruiqiang an approving look: “That’s right. It’s the brand effect! I will explain what a brand effect is. It is considered the extension of a company’s value. Which is to say that the brand will increase the value of a product.”

Seeing Secretary Xu still could not fully understand what he was saying, Feng Yu thought for a while and gave an example: “If there is a product and I printed an imported label on the product, lots of people will be willing to buy the product even if I increase the price by 10%, 20% or even more. This is because people’s impression of imported goods is better than domestically produced products. Also, in China, there are lots of factories producing agriculture machinery other than Bing City Machinery Company. But for the same tractor, why Bing City Machinery Company can price it higher than other companies and still able to achieve better sales than them? If you were to compare both tractors, there is not much difference in the quality.”

“This is the effects of branding. Consumers know about our brand. They know that we are a could wide brand and have the best technologies in China. They also heard of our aftersales services. If you look at roast duck restaurants, why is Quanjude more expensive than Bianyifang Roast Duck restaurants? Bianyifang has a longer history than Quanjude, but because Quanjude roast ducks were featured in the national banquet. Many people do not even know that Bianyifang started out selling roast ducks. Even when the customers saw the roast ducks in the Bianyifang’s menu, they will not order it. But when customers step into Quanjude, they will surely order the roast ducks. Simply put it, in accounting, brand value is considered an intangible asset. It is the company’s asset, which lacks physical substance.”

Luckily Feng Yu had learned about these. If not, it will be hard to explain this to Secretary Xu. Feng Yu used examples and some economic jargons which confused Secretary Xu. At Secretary Xu’s age, he had never learned about all these in schools. Although he does not understand the words used by Feng Yu, he understood the examples.

Secretary Xu sighed in his heart. Feng Yu could become so successful, was not by luck. He was really knowledgeable. Secretary Xu had never heard of these things before. There were economists among his subordinates and advisors, and they also know about all these. They can even give a more in-depth explanation.

But they knew Secretary Xu would not be able to understand all these and did not mention about this knowledge. This was why Secretary Xu was impressed by what Feng Yu said.

“You are saying that we should ask those companies to build up their brands? How should they start? Advertisements?” Secretary Xu asked.

“Build up their brands? It is too troublesome, and there is not enough time. We already have a strong brand, why are we not using it?”

“We have a strong brand? What do you mean?”

Feng Yu laughed and said a word which was familiar to both Secretary Xu and Zhang Ruiqiang. “Merger!”

Chapter 723 – Decision

Zhang Ruiqiang and Secretary Xu looked at each other. Merger? What merger?

Zhang Ruiqiang was speechless as he looks at Feng Yu. This brat had stopped halfway again. Why can’t he just finish whatever he got to say at once?

“You should have thought about how to merge. Tell us about it.”

Feng Yu picked up his teacup and then place it back on the table. He had drunk all the tea. Zhang Ruiqiang was afraid that Feng Yu would call Secretary Xu’s secretary to pour tea for him. He immediately pushes his teacup towards Feng Yu: “I have not touched this cup of tea.”

Feng Yu picked it up and finishes all the tea. After that, he looked at Secretary Xu’s cup.

This was Secretary Xu’s office, and he was using his personal cup. How can he give it to Feng Yu? Secretary Xu immediately called for his secretary to brew two cups of tea.

Feng Yu was satisfied and said: “There are two forms of mergers. Firstly, consolidate all the small companies, dealing in the same industry, and merge them into a big company. This way, their assets, scale, etc. will increase. All their resources will be combined to introduce a brand. This company will be bigger, and it will be easier for them to market their brand. If the company becomes the biggest in China, it will increase the consumer’s trust in that brand. Of course, this will not happen overnight and needs time to see the effect.”

“The second solution was to make use of an established brand. All the other smaller companies in the same industry will merge with that established brand and become the company’s subsidiaries. Their products will use that established brand name. All the companies will see an increase in their profits, and it is much faster than the first method. You will be able to see the results in a short time.”

Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. “Are you trying to tell us to choose the second method? Are you thinking of merging all the machinery, pharmaceutical, and electronics companies with your companies?”

Feng Yu replied with a proud tone: “You want to let those almost bankrupt companies merge and become my companies’ subsidiaries? You must ask my companies’ employees and see if they are willing or not!”

Damn! Old Zhang is getting smarter. He can tell what I am thinking?

Feng Yu planned to let those small factories take on contracting jobs for his companies. Those small machinery factories might not be able to manufacture any good machines or engines. But they should not have a problem to produce some parts for the main factory.

Anyway, Bing City Machinery Company also had to buy many spare parts. The profits from producing spare parts were quite high too. If the cars and motorcycle spare parts were Songjiang brand, then those people who own Songjiang vehicles would surely pick Songjiang spare parts. Most people still prefer original parts.

This would lower Bing City Machinery Company’s production cost and increase the profits. It will also solve the Provincial Government’s headache.

It was the same for the electronic and pharmaceutical factories. As for the other products, those small companies can merge under the most popular brand. This way, they would be combining all their resources to increase the brand awareness of a single brand. It will be easier compared to those small companies trying to fight for themselves.

Just look at last year CCTV’s highest spender in advertising slots auctions, Confucius Distillery. This company had combined the resources of many small companies and market under a single brand. It was very effective, and their sales last year were excellent.

This year, Confucius Distillery had introduced a local Confucius Banquet Wine, and they were the highest bidder of CCTV advertising slots auctions. This wine was extremely popular, and they hit record sales.

Now, Confucius Banquet Wine was already exported to overseas. Many customers will order this brand of baijiu at restaurants as their first choice. Those bosses, who did not receive high education tends to prefer this brand because of their advertising slogan. Drink Confucius Banquet Wine and write the best essays!

Those bosses might not even be able to write a primary school essay!

This Confucius Banquet Wine was the product after some small distilleries merged. They merged and managed a single brand. Once this brand of alcohol becomes popular, all the distilleries were able to make money. This was better than each of them trying to market their own brands.

Secretary Xu was hesitating. What Feng Yu said seems to be true. But the most popular brands in Longjiang province were Bing City Machinery Company and Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. Both were Feng Yu’s companies. Other than these two companies, no other companies’ brands were famous. There was another well-known brand, Tian Peng Pigs. This was not Feng Yu’s company……. It was Feng Yu’s father’s company!

That means if Feng Yu or his companies does not participate in this merger, then the Provincial Government will have to use the first method mentioned by Feng Yu? Merge the small companies to form a big company and introduces a brand?

However, it will be like what Feng Yu had said. It will succeed, but it will take a long time. Secretary Xu could not wait any longer.

Secretary Xu needs results. If he could not achieve outstanding results soon, he will be asked to retire to the back office.

Also, there was another issue. The implementation of this plan will take some time. If he chose the first method, he would be transferred away before he could see the results. What would happen to this plan after he was transferred away?

This was why all the government officials have to stay for at least a term. The shortest duration of a term was 2 years, and a full term was 5 years. This was for the government officials to have time to implement the changes they proposed.

But not all changes will have effects instantly.

“Manager Feng, I think Bing City Machinery Company can merge with some smaller machinery factories, or you can acquire them if you want.” Secretary Xu said.

Feng Yu shook his head: “Most of those machinery factories’ equipment are old, and do not have the technologies. The workers and leaders there are not very skilled too. Also, they are located in areas not easily accessible. It is not worth to acquire them. Furthermore, the local government will not be willing to sell them.”

“They will be willing to sell those factories. I can promise you.” Secretary Xu could climb to his current position was because he was a dominating person. If he were unable to control his subordinates, he would have been asked to retired a long time ago.

Secretary Xu needs those small companies to merge with an established brand. Even if those companies were to be acquired, it was fine. To him, it was the same. He would rather sell those struggling state-owned companies than to see them just trying to survive every month. Those companies would have better developments and higher profits if they were acquired by an established company. The Provincial Government would also be able to increase the tax income.

Most importantly, the Provincial Government would be able to implement the Social Security Insurance policy!

Secretary Xu finally understood why Feng Yu brought up the subject of Social Security Insurance. This policy was set by the Central Government and had to be fully implemented in the next phase. If Secretary Xu could introduce this policy successfully in Longjiang Province, ahead of others, he will get an opportunity to enter the Central Government to take charge of this policy.

Secretary Xu might not be promoted, but he will get to do the work of a Provincial-Ministerial level official. He will be satisfied.

What Feng Yu had said were all interlinked. No matter what Feng Yu’s motive was, his advice had given Secretary Xu hope. He could see his future career progression!

Chapter 724 – Conditions

Although Xu Changyou (Secretary Xu) promised Feng Yu that he will settle those small companies, Feng Yu still shook his head. “It’s not worth it. The purpose of investing is to make more money. Mayor Zhang, if I do not own any Bing City Machinery Company shares and it is still a state-owned enterprise, will you agree to let those small factories merge with the company?”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked embarrassed. He will definitely not agree to it. It was just like Feng Yu said. If Bing City Machinery Company wants to expand, it should be expanding towards the southern regions. Furthermore, Bing City Machinery Company had already set up multiple branch factories in different cities. It was not wise to diversify their resources in the same province.

But as a Provincial Government official, he had to support this proposal. These small factories would be part of Bing City Machinery Company, and all their products will be sold under Songjiang brand or Bing City (Agriculture Machinery) brand. The profits would be much more than before.

The local governments would be able to increase their tax income, and all the workers’ salaries will be increased. But it will be harder for Bing City Machinery Company to manage those factories.

Feng Yu could also help in the agriculture and pharmaceutical industries. But from Feng Yu’s attitude, he will not agree unless he stands to gain something from this.

“Feng Yu, if you let Bing City Machinery Company acquire or merge with the machinery factories or metal works factories, we can let you have some tax subsidies this year. Also, if you need to expand your factories, I will help you get the land parcels. Are you willing to accept this proposal?”

Zhang Ruiqiang felt that Feng Yu was waiting for him to offer some benefits. If not, Feng Yu would not mention this. This was Feng Yu’s usual habit. Leading people into his trap.

But at this moment, Zhang Ruiqiang got to choose a stance. Furthermore, this would help Xu Changyou, and it would be a good thing for the whole province.

Feng Yu looked at the provincial and Bing City map on the wall. He walked over and used his finger to draw two circles. “These two plots of land will be auctioned next month? I think we should save the trouble and just sell it to Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation.”

Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. Feng Yu had wanted these two plots of land last year. But due to a delay in the demolition and relocation of the residents, the auction of the land parcels was delayed to next month. Was Feng Yu eyeing these plots of land from the start?

Xu Changyou looked at Zhang Ruiqiang. The land was in Bing City, and Zhang Ruiqiang was more familiar with that area.

“These two plots of land are the prime location in Bing City. We are going to turn it into a commercial zone.”

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders: “Can’t you see how successful our Tai Hua Supermarkets are? With our supermarkets there, the traffic will increase. We are also making huge contributions to the city. Many cities had invited us to set up our supermarkets in their area. Moreover, our hypermarkets are not considered commercial buildings?”

“Those two plots of land cost 40 million RMB!” Zhang Ruiqiang raised the price. The area of those two plots of land was not big, and last year’s valuation was around 30 million RMB. If the land was put up for auction, it should fetch slightly more than 30 million. Zhang Ruiqiang does not think it will fetch 40 million RMB at the auction. He knew Feng Yu was a tycoon and purposely raise the price.

Feng Yu suddenly slapped his forehead. “Ah…… I almost forget that Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation does not want to set up any more supermarkets in Bing City and the surrounding cities. I think the city should continue to put those land parcels up for auctions. I still have a flight to catch. I will make a move first.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was dumbstruck. If it weren’t for Xu Changyou, he would have shouted at Feng Yu. What flight? If you think the price is too high, just say so!

“How much do you think is suitable?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked with a long face.

“The market rate is more suitable. My men had evaluated those areas. The land area of those parcels are not a lot, and we are willing to offer 32 million RMB to buy them.” Feng Yu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang and said.

“35 million RMB! This should be the price at the auctions!” Zhang Ruiqiang gritted his teeth and replied.

“Fine, fine…… I can accept even if it is slightly more expensive. My hometown is also Bing City, after all.” Feng Yu said with an “I am letting you take advantage of me” tone.

Actually, when Zhang Ruiqiang said 40 million, Feng Yu almost agreed. Tai Hua Supermarket had intended to bid for these two land parcels at the auctions, and they knew two other companies were also interested. The final price of those two land parcels will surely be much more than the valuation.

Furthermore, 40 million RMB was cheap, according to Feng Yu’s standards. The location of the land parcels was among the best in Bing City. In his previous life, it as Carrefour and Walmart that owns them. Their businesses were terrific. The surrounding areas already have other shopping malls and many residential estates.

“I have agreed to your terms. Shouldn’t you say something about our conditions?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“You said Bing City Machinery Company will be exempted from taxes earlier.”

“It’s tax subsidies!” Zhang Ruiqiang corrected Feng Yu. There was a great difference between tax exemption and tax subsidy.

“Both are the same.” Feng Yu replied. “How much subsidies are you giving us?”

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Xu Changyou, and then said: “This year, there will be a 10% tax subsidy from all the factories.”

“I suddenly realized that we cannot afford to buy so many factories. But since you all mentioned this, I will discuss with the other shareholders and buy two factories.”

“20%! That’s the max! You are also not investing in a new factory. Those factories can start work immediately after you take over. We can’t deduct too much tax for you!” Zhang Ruiqiang furiously replied.

“Feng Yu nodded: “Ok. Deal. If there is nothing else, I will leave now.”

“We have not finished yet. Why are you leaving? Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise must also acquire those small pharmaceutical factories. Are you ok with this?” Zhang Ruiqiang grabbed onto Feng Yu. We had sold two land parcels to you, and you just agree to one condition?

“Bing City State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council is the biggest shareholder of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. I am fine with it.” There were only 3 to 4 small pharmaceutical factories in the province, and it was not a problem for Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise to buy them out. These small factories could manufacture some simple drugs. As long as those drugs were sold under Bing City Pharmaceutical, their sales will not be bad.

“Then what about Tai Hua Food Processing company? Can they acquire some pig farms and smaller food processing factories?” Zhang Ruiqiang continued asking.

“We will not acquire any more pig farms. We have already started cooperation with those smaller pig farms, and it was working well. As for those smaller food processing factories, we can still discuss. But what’s the use of us acquiring them? Our Longjiang province already has our milk powder brand. My suggestion is to merge all those factories and sell milk powder under this brand?”

“You all can also restructure and organize those food processing plants. For instance, flour mills, alcohol, etc. These factories can be merged together to become a bigger enterprise and increase their competitiveness. I am sure you all have your own plans on how to do this. I can help if you all encounter any problems in building your brands.”

Feng Yu mentioned some successful products from his previous life. He does not have any experience in these areas, and it is better to let the provincial government handle it. There are still some capable people in government service.

Chapter 725 – Domineering Xu Changyou

Feng Yu told Fu Guangzheng about the acquisition of the small machinery factories in the other areas of the province. Fu Guangzheng was very supportive of this idea.

He had also seen the financial reports of Bing City Machinery Company and knew that the spare parts amounted to a large portion of their operating cost. The technology of producing those parts was not high and does not need any unique materials or techniques. It was only very labor-intensive.

By acquiring those small factories, they could foster a good relationship with the Provincial Government and also get some benefits. Furthermore, Tai Hua Supermarket could purchase the two plots of land they wanted. They could build two commercial buildings there and secure the Bing City market. Even when Walmart and Carrefour were to enter Bing City, they would not be able to compete with Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation.

It was Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation’s dream to monopolize China’s supermarket industry. The company still does not have all the strategic locations or funds. Although Tai Hua Supermarkets’ sales were doing well, high cashflow was needed. They could get high loans from the banks, but they dare not claim that they had already monopolized the Chinese market.

If some of Tai Hua Supermarkets were to lose money, the impact on their brands would be significant. The consumers will lose confidence in Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation.

This was why Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation’s aim in the coming few years was to monopolize the 2nd tier and above cites. They want to prevent Carrefour and Walmart from getting the prime locations.

What Feng Yu did have helped Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation to control the Bing City market. He also showed Fu Guangzheng that he could use other ways of cooperation to get the support of the local governments.

As long as it was a win-win situation, the other party will not reject.

After Feng Yu left the Provincial Government, Xu Changyou called for a meeting to discuss this proposal. The other industries could wait, but the Machinery companies must be settled first.

After the mergers of the small factories, Bing City Machinery Company’s employees shot up. Their entire staffs amounted to more than 20,000. Bing City Machinery Company will be China’s biggest employer in the machinery industry.

The other big manufacturing plants like FAW, SAIC, YTO Group Corporation, etc. only had slightly more than 10,000 staffs. Bing City Machinery Company had become the biggest machinery manufacturer in China.

Xu Changyou could claim credit from his higher-ups from this fact alone. Of course. He had to pull this off first.

The next day, Xu Changyou called for a meeting with the whole province’s machinery factories’ heads. He wants to announce his decision.

During yesterday’s meeting with the Provincial Government leaders, there were some objections. They felt this proposal of privatizing state-owned enterprises was equivalent to selling away state-owned assets!

Many of these machinery factories were still making money. All they need were some minor changes, and everything will be fine. Why should they sell all the machinery factories to Bing City Machinery company? That company’s biggest shareholder was an individual.

Privatization of the state-owned enterprises was an issue that had been in discussion by the central government. Many people criticized that this was giving away the national assets.

Xu Changyou asked those officers who objected. Why was this move a loss for the government? Look at Bing City Machinery Company. If there were no other shareholders, new technologies, can they grow to their current scale? Their agriculture machinery products were the most advanced in China. Their motorcycles were selling very well. After the motorbikes, the company introduces cars. They had caught up with FAW and SAIC and will be overtaking them soon.

The taxes paid by this company was several times more than the former Bing City Machinery Factory. The company also provided employment for much more workers. Bing City’s stake in the company might be lesser, but the dividends from their shares were several times more than before.

Furthermore, the Central Government wants to implement Social Security Insurance. How can the Provincial Government implement this Social Security when so many companies could not afford it? Who is going to be responsible for this?

Selling those state-owned enterprises is not selling away those workers. Bing City Machinery Company is also not a private company. It is considered a joint venture. The Central Government is also encouraging more joint-venture companies. This way, all those companies can afford to pay the Social Security Insurance and also develop faster. The employees will also be able to receive higher wages. Why is this not a good thing?

Every worker is essential to the country. Those workers would be given a better life if those companies were sold. They will have more security in the future. What’s wrong with this proposal?

When the issue of Social Security Insurance was brought up, those that objects had nothing to retort. Xu Changyou’s proposal could really solve the Social Security Insurance of those state-owned enterprises.

If these state-owned enterprises paid for Social Security Insurance, the Provincial Government would be able to force other companies to pay. Look, those companies can pay for the Social Security Insurance, why is your factory not paying?

Now, many companies had grouped up to object to paying the social security insurance. They want the government to take care of retired workers and does not want to spend a single cent. This was the local government’s biggest headache.

This proposal would break up those groups, and the government would be able to achieve its target. If the governments could collect more Social Security Insurance premiums, it will be an achievement, and they will get more credit. Credits were given to the local government for achieving excellent results for the birth planning policy, let alone this policy that involves collecting money from the companies.

Xu Changyou was a domineering person. He immediately approved this proposal and stopped all those objections. He wants this proposal to be implemented quickly. The Provincial Government also had to come up with a plan to reorganize many industries in the whole province. The province must set up a few competitive companies to increase the economy.

The Provincial Government’s No. 2 was not happy. Xu Changyou had interfered with his work. But there was nothing he could do as Xu Changyou was the head of the whole Longjiang Province! Also, he had never thought of this idea.

There were not many objections for the mergers of the pharmaceutical factories, as the major shareholder of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise was Bing City’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

But all the leaders never expect Xu Changyou to implement his plan so fast. He called all the related parties over for a meeting to announce the government’s decision.

The leaders of all the local government and factories objected to this proposal. The City Governments felt they would receive fewer taxes, and the factories’ leaders were worried that they would lose their positions. If the factories were acquired, will they still be the factories’ head? Can they still hold on to the authority?

“Why are you all still opposing this proposal after I list out all the benefits? Are you all opposing for the sake of opposing? I had made it clear on the taxes of the respective local government. The factories’ income will be much higher than before. Even though the percentage of tax had become lesser, it was only for a year. The tax income will be much more than before. Also, the workers’ salaries will be increased, and the issue of Social Security Insurance will be solved. All the local government will be able to get credit for implementing this policy successfully. You all will be able to use this example to press the rest of the companies to implement this policy. Is this a problem?” Xu Changyou banged the table and questioned them.

Xu Changyou knew that selling these state-owned enterprises away will affect the income of these local governments. Afterall these state-owned enterprises were a source of income for these governments. Some of these governments also made use of these enterprises to “clean” their accounts.

But merging these factories with Bing City Machinery Company would benefit the whole province as a whole. Even if Xu Changyou could not get his promotion from this merger, he had done something that helped everyone in the region.

“I am telling all of you for the last time. We are not discussing with you all. This is an order. The Provincial Government had reached an agreement with Bing City Machinery Company. The paperwork will be sent to the local governments after this meeting. Don’t blame me for punishing anyone who tries to stop this!”

Chapter 726 – Agricultural Industry Plan

The people below were not willing to go ahead, but they had no choice. Xu Changyou was too overbearing. However, because of Xu Changyou’s domineering character, the negotiations went smoothly.

Li Mingde was in-charge to negotiate with the small factories. He knew most of the leaders from the factories. He knew which of them were capable and who were the useless ones.

Li Mingde persuaded those who were capable to stay on as the person-in-charge of this branch factories. They might even have the opportunity to be transferred to Bing City in the future. They might also get some company shares as rewards. As for those useless leaders, Li Mingde persuaded them to get a transfer using their connections. Otherwise, they might be fired after the factories were acquired.

Bing City Machinery Company promised that they will not fire anyone without valid reasons. But these smaller factories do not have problems after all these years as a state-owned enterprise? If Bing City Machinery Company really wants to investigate into these factories, these people might not only get sacked. They might even be arrested for corruption!

While the negotiations were ongoing, the Provincial Government were discussing how to reorganize the provincial resources to set up competitive companies, and how can these companies improve the province’s economy.

……

“Our Longjiang Province is an agriculture province, and we should merge all our agriculture resources to set up an Agricultural Food Company. This is to our advantage.” Niu Jun, the Director of the Provincial Department of Agriculture, said.

Someone immediately objects. “Agricultural Food Company? Are you kidding? Don’t think this will work just because someone suggested this. Although we are an agriculture province but don’t forget there is still a Ministry of State farms and land reclamation. This company should fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of State farms and land reclamation.”

“We should set up a company of this nature. But this company should be under the Provincial Government.”

The ones who rejected were deep in thoughts. If this company were to fall under the Provincial Government, then the farms will be under the control of the Provincial Government instead of the Department of Agriculture. This way, the Provincial Government’s income will increase!

This was a good idea. It would be indirectly taking back control of the farms from the Department of Agriculture. But will the higher-ups agree?

“Tell me more about the plans for this company. What will it be dealing with, and how will it be managed?” Xu Changyou was very interested. This seems to be a great idea.

“In the US and Australia, they do have such agricultural products companies. When I visited the US last year for a study visit, I learned their operating models. After I came back, I came up with an operating model that would suit our farms.”

“We can sign contracts with the farms and ask them to plant the crops we wanted. For example, we can purchase the corns and wheat from the farmers and process it before we export to Russia. Even if it were a simple process of drying the crops, we would be able to get a share of the profits. We can even process the crops to oil or flour, and we can export it to the rest of China.”

“Our province has a big food processing factory, but their products are limited. They are good at pork-related products and are one of the best in China. However, they are not very good when it comes to other products.”

Xu Changyou asked. “Are you talking about Tai Hua Process Food Company?”

“Yes. Their Tian Peng Pig and animal feeds are the best in China. Now, they are also producing pork-related products, like ham and canned pork, and are the best in China. But there are so many other processed products from the agricultural industry. For instance, we can produce other types of meat, like beef or chicken, products. We have an advantage over them as we can order straight from the state farmers or build chicken or cow farms. These meat products are very popular in the market.”

“Our province also has more than one dairy products factory. We can merge these factories together to form a big dairy products factory. We also have a big forest in our province. There are many valuable items, like pine nuts, hazelnuts, etc. from the forest. We can purchase these items in bulk from the farmers and package them to sell to other places.”

“I even have an idea that will let us see the results earlier. But that might be slightly against the regulation. We can cultivate the wasteland ourselves and set up a gigantic farm.”

“Don’t talk about anything that is against the law.” Xu Changyou waved his hand. “What you said is very good. How come you did not submit this proposal in the past?”

“This is only an idea. But there is a big problem for this plan to work.”

“What’s the problem? Tell me, I will solve it for you!” Xu Changyou was excited. They will surely find a solution to all problems. How come I did not notice this Niu Kun before? He is quite capable.

Longjiang Province’s agriculture industry has enormous potential, and there is still no large-scale agriculture company in China. If they could set up this company, Longjiang Province will be way ahead of other provinces!

This was an excellent opportunity for the province. Problems? We must overcome all difficulties to make this work!

“Money! To set up such a large-scale company, we need a lot of money. Even the Provincial Government will not have so much money to set up a company of this scale.” Niu Kun replied.

Niu Kun had this idea last year, but it was impossible to implement. He had suggested during this meeting was to prove that he was not idling in his office, and he hopes that Xu Changyou was able to solve this problem.

“The amount is too much, even for the Provincial Government? How much is needed for this plan to work?” Xu Changyou frowned and asked.

“At least a few billion. If we have 10 billion, it will be better. We need funds to procure the crops or products from the farmers. We also need funds to build the processing factory. We still need some extra funds for emergencies, marketing, machinery, etc. Can the Provincial Government take care of it?”

Niu Kun looked at Xu Changyou eagerly. If the Provincial Government could solve all these problems, then he will get part of the credit.

At least a few billion RMB? How can the provincial government afford it?

If it was only a few hundred million, the Provincial Government might still have a solution. They could apply for the funds from the higher-ups, raise the amount from the cities, etc. They could also get bank loans.

But it was impossible for the provincial government to raise a few billion.

Niu Kun’s excitement in his eyes slowly dies off as he saw Niu Kun lowered his head. Not possible? If even the Provincial Government could not find a solution, then it would be impossible for this company to set up.

Seems like this idea can only remain an idea.

……

Xu Changyou returned back to his office. He thought for a while and called Zhang Ruiqiang to come over to his office. He wants to see if Zhang Ruiqiang has any solution.

When Zhang Ruiqiang heard that the Provincial Government need to raise a few billion, he was also helpless. If the Provincial Government did not have the money, let alone Bing City.

But suddenly, Zhang Ruiqiang remembered someone. Maybe this person might have a solution.

Hmmm……. Whenever Zhang Ruiqiang encounters some problems and needed solutions, this person will always be able to provide him with the solutions. This person has the answer to everything.

Chapter 727 – Huh? Beidacang?

Feng Yu had returned to Beijing for a few days. He completed his thesis and had submitted to his professor for the first review. After submitting his thesis, he received a call from Zhang Ruiqiang, summoning him to go back to Bing City immediately. The Provincial Government wants to consult Feng Yu to seeking his opinion.

Feng Yu had nothing to do and wanted to see the progress of the acquisition of those factories. So, he flew back to Bing City.

Feng Yu walked into Zhang Ruiqiang’s office and sat on the sofa, as his own home. Before he could say anything, Secretary Liu brought a cup of freshly brewed tea over.

“Xiao Liu, come over and sit with me.”

Secretary Liu was surprised. He controlled his excitement and sat beside Feng Yu. But his posture was like a soldier. His back was straight, and his hands were resting on his knee.

Feng Yu asked curiously: “We sit down is to take a break. You are not tired, sitting like this?”

Secretary Liu was confused. What sort of question was this? How was he going to answer?

If Secretary Liu replied that this posture was not tiring, Feng Yu would surely say he was lying. But how can he answer that it’s tiring in front of his leader?!

Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu and told his secretary: “Just ignore him. Just relax. There are not so many rules here.”

Secretary Liu was relieved. But he was still uptight and sitting properly. He did not dare to sit like how Feng Yu sat, leaning back with his legs crossed.

“What’s wrong? What’s the problem you all encounter now?” Feng Yu asked.

The frequency of Zhang Ruiqiang consulting Feng Yu had lessened in the past two years. But the questions were getting harder. It was not because Zhang Ruiqiang had grown in recent years, it was also because his position was higher now. The difficulty of the issues he faced had also increased.

Feng Yu was not very familiar with politics, and it was difficult for him to help Zhang Ruiqiang in this area.

“You suggested merging our resources to form a bigger company and concentrate on one single brand. The Provincial Government had considered your suggestion and decided to start from the agricultural industry.”

Feng Yu nodded: “Our province is an agriculture province in the first place. We have a large flat land area that is suitable for farming. Our modern farming is also the most advanced in China. This is a good idea. Are there any problems?”

“We are thinking of starting from the livestock and grains processing industry. What do you think of this direction? Will it work out?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“No problems. If livestock breeding is large scale and a brand is formed, it will be very effective. Look at our Tian Peng Pigs. I dare not claim that the whole of China knows about our pigs. But almost everyone in the cities knows about our pigs. Also, if you are doing large scale livestock breeding, the cost will be lowered and could gain the trust of the consumers. The grains processing plant is also a good idea. You can also create a brand out of it. I can help if you all encounter any problems with sales.”

I will be your leading distributor, and whatever products you produce, I can sell it in Tai Hua Supermarkets. Just nice, I can introduce the healthy food section in the supermarkets. This will differential from other products and increase profits.

These products can also be exported. Brother Ki should be overjoyed.

“That means you also think that this idea will work? Will there be any problems with sales?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“If the quality of the products is good, you don’t need to worry about sales. My company has established distribution networks and have partners in all provinces. If you are worried, you can work with our Tai Hua Processed Food Company and sell it under Tai Hua Food Products brand.”

“Use your brand? Don’t even think about that! We want to create our own brand. You cannot stuff everything onto your own plate!” Zhang Ruiqiang chided Feng Yu.

Feng Yu smiles. It had become his habit to stick his hand in whenever he saw a profitable business. This business will be extremely lucrative.

“Then why are you telling me all these? You want my opinions? This is a good business, and you all should be able to tell.” Feng Yu was curious. Was there a need to consult him about this? The leaders at the Provincial Government can’t even make this simple judgment call?

“I want to know if it is possible to implement all our ideas at once. This includes cows, goats, and poultry farming, dairy products, and processed grains products. We will also produce the pinenuts, hazelnuts, etc. from the forest. Will we be too diversified? Should we set up several companies to handle each product or sell all our products under one company?”

“One company is better, and you can set up subsidiaries under the main company. The benefits of setting up one company are to better manage your brand. Managing one brand is more cost-effective and efficient than managing multiple brands. Look at Bing City Machinery Company. Our cars are also using Songjiang brand. Consumers have trust in this brand, and our cars are selling well. The brand also helped increase our motorcycle sales.”

“You are saying that we should set up the main company and set up the main brand first. From there, we will set up sub-brands or different product categories under it?”

“That’s right.” Feng Yu had an annoying look on his face. It was like a teacher teaching his students.

Zhang Ruiqiang ignored him and continue asking. “That means you think that it is alright for us to implement everything together, and there will be no conflicts?”

“Why will there be conflicts? Look, the better quality grains from the crops can be separated out and sold as premium grains. The remaining can be processed to produce animal feeds for the cows, goats, chicken, etc. This way, you can lower the cost of getting animal feeds.”

“Your livestock can be sold as meat, and you will get eggs from the chicken and ducks, which can be sold too. You can also process the eggs as salted eggs or century eggs. The animal droppings can be processed into fertilizers for your crops. You all can use this as a selling point. These are healthy food products. Your food products used natural fertilizers and do not use any pesticides. The livestock is also fed with natural grains. You all can also use the free-range farming method for the chickens and ducks. Free-ranged poultry and eggs can fetch higher prices.”

“You can also breed more dairy cows and goats and can sell cow’s milk and Goat’s milk. Goat milk is more nutritious than cow milk. If you all can produce just goat milk powder, your profits will be high. You can also produce dairy products. If you have any problems with dairy products, I can persuade Lehaha to set up a factory in Bing city to produce yogurt. You all don’t have to worry about the sales of your milk.”

“All these productions are inter-related. If you do all these together, your cost will be lowered and get higher profits. We can even market the company as an ecological agriculture farm. We will use agriculture as the fundamentals, and developed the second and third level industries. We will be able to protect the environment and at the same time, get the products we want. This will be a first in China. Just this concept alone is sufficient for the province to get funding from the higher-ups. Oh, what is the name of this new company?”

“Beidacang Group.” Secretary Liu replied.

Huh? Beidacang Group? Was it because of me, this brand appeared much earlier?

Chapter 728 – Let the farms invest

In Feng Yu previous life, Beidacang Group was an enterprise set up by the Bureau of State Farms and Land Reclamation. It was a pilot project on setting up large state-owned enterprises. China was trying to copy Japan’s large corporation managing model. They felt large corporation will be more competitive internationally. Of course, the companies in the pilot project were all state-funded. The companies were later restructured to be shareholdings with the government as the biggest shareholder.

Beidacang Group was considered a group effect of all the departments under the Bureau of State Farms and Land Reclamation. They combined all the farms under their jurisdiction to form this company. The branch bureaus under the Bureau of State Farms and Land Reclamation set up branch companies under them. This company was mainly agriculture-related products.

China had invested a significant amount into this company. The debt ratio for this company was very high. But it changed for the better after it was listed. This company had increased the average income of all the farmers. It was considered a success. It was the most prominent agriculture company in China and had increases China’s exports.

But the formation of Beidacang Group was after 1998 and completely setup after 2000. In between, the company had made several mistakes. Feng Yu was quite shocked to see the formation of Beidacang Group so early.

This was a diversion from the original path. Can history still return back to its original course?

“Who comes up with this name?” Feng Yu asked.

Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Secretary Liu. Secretary Liu replied shyly. “I am the one who came up with this name. The leaders also felt this is a good name. I think that our Longjiang Province will be China’s biggest granary in the future.”

Feng Yu gave him a thumbs up. “That’s right. We will succeed.”

After that, Feng Yu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang. Zhang Ruiqiang will never call Feng Yu back just for these questions. There must be something else. Could it be that he wanted to work with Tai Hua Processed Food Company?

There are pros and cons in setting up a joint venture with the government. Feng Yu needs to consider it carefully. Most importantly, who will have the final say in this joint venture. A good decision-maker can help the company avoid unnecessary risks and increase profits. But a lousy leader can bankrupt the company in a short time!

Zhang Ruiqiang saw Feng Yu not saying anything, and he continued. “We are thinking of setting up a large corporation. Like what you said, we want to venture in all aspects of agriculture. We also have some good brands like Beidacang Baijiu in our Province. It has a long history. We also have Bao brand Bean paste. This brand also has decades of history. There are a few other milk powder factories which have been in the market for more than 10 years. For the grain products, we have Wu Chang rice. This type of rice is specially grown for the emperor in the olden days. There are a few other brands which we can develop.”

Feng Yu nodded: “And then?”

“And then…… we do not have enough fund to execute this plan.” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

Feng Yu had thought about the fund needed when Zhang Ruiqiang talked about the government’s plans. If the provincial government were to concentrate on one idea, they would have enough fund. But to implement everything at once, 10 billion RMB might not be enough.

In Feng Yu’s precious life, how did Beidacang Group start? They let the farms invest, and the different units and bureau owned shares of the company. All these formed a multi-billion RMB company that had more than 100 billion sales annually.

What’s the most significant assets of the state farms? The land, farmers, and crops. That means Beidacang Group have their own raw materials. This was the company’s greatest asset.

Without the farms, the company might not be able to grow. 10 billion RMB investment might not be enough to set up this company now. Even if it is enough, the growth will not be the same as Feng Yu’s previous life. The risk was too high, and Feng Yu does not want to invest.

“Did you call me over to ask me to invest in this company? You mentioned so many industries earlier. If you want to implement everything at once, 10 billion might not be enough. You plan to use scale to increase the company’s competitiveness. But if you increase the scale, you will have to increase your investment. Furthermore, you all are planning to implement all the plans together. The risk is too high. I will not invest in this company.” Feng Yu shook his head.

Zhang Ruiqiang panicked. “You are the one who suggested this. How come you are saying the risk is too high now? Are you lying to us when you suggest this?”

Secretary Liu added: “Manager Feng, this is very important to the leaders. You should joke about this matter.”

Feng Yu controlled his laughter. “Why are you all so anxious? I said I will not invest, but I did not say I do not have a solution for you all. Actually, the solution is in front of you.”

Zhang Ruiqiang exchanged looks. The solution is in front of them? How come they can’t see the answer?

Feng Yu stood up and walked over to the map on the wall. He pointed to Longjiang’s map and waved to them. “Come over. What’s the difference between where we are and the other provinces?”

Zhang Ruiqiang asked: “Our land is more leveled and more fertile then the other provinces?”

Feng Yu shook his head and looked at Secretary Liu. Secretary Liu looked at the map and said: “Is it because of our history and we have more farms than other provinces?”

“You are right! The biggest difference between our province and the others is the farms.”

“What is the use of farms? The farms are under the jurisdiction of two departments, and the majority of the profits are handed over to the higher-ups. The Provincial Government can only get a small percentage. It is not even considered in our province’s GDP.” Zhang Ruiqiang replied angrily.

“You all want to set up this company up is to let the province keep the profits from the farms? Then I will give you a better solution. You all will not only keep most of the profits within the province and still get support from the higher-ups.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes opened wide. Was their target so obvious? But all of them had put their heads together and could not find any solutions. Why was Feng Yu so confidence? His answer will surely work?

“What is the farm’s biggest value? Other than harvest and crops, they do not have other value. They are only a place that produces raw materials. You all should know that the profits from raw materials production are much lower compared to processed materials. Just look at our Tai Hua Premium oil. The main ingredient is soybeans, and the residue is made into animal feed. This greatly reduces the production cost, and our cooking oil is selling at higher prices. Our sales are doing very well compared to other brands.”

“That’s right. This is what we want to do.” Zhang Ruiqiang replied. What does Feng Yu mean by saying all these?

“Your difficulty now is the fund. You all have the fund to set up the processing plant, but do not have enough to purchase the raw ingredients? On the other hand, the farmers at the state farms have to handover a portion of their harvest to the government, and they are not willing to let you all have the rest of their harvest on credit. They do not trust the local government.”

Although Zhang Ruiqiang does not want to admit it, those farmers would rather accept credit terms from businessmen than the government.

“The solution is straightforward. Let those farmers invest in the company!”

Chapter 729 – Crying babies get the milk

“The farms can also invest?” Zhang Ruiqiang’s face was almost distorted. He was confused and could not figure out how this would work.

“Why can’t the farms invest? Every farm is an individual unit, right? The land area, production, harvest all have economic values. Anyway, these farms belong to the state and are not owned by individuals. The way, their crops can be considered the farmers’ investment capital. Beidacang Group does not need to spend money to purchase the raw ingredients, and when the processed products are sold, the farmers will get dividends.”

“No…… if the farms invest with their harvest and crops, then how will those state farms operate? They will not be able to pay the farmers. Let the state farms owe the farmers?” Secretary Liu asked.

“That is the Ministry of State Farms and Land Reclamation’s problem. They would think of away. The Ministry can get funding from the central government, bank loans or get subsidies, etc. You all should know better in this aspect. Also, the state farms will only use their first year’s harvest to invest. From the second year onwards, the products will be sold, and the company will have money to purchase the raw ingredients. This way, Beidacang Group does not need to worry about the start-up capital and will also get a steady supply of ingredients.”

Zhang Ruiqiang lit a cigarette. He thought for a while and then gave a cigarette to Secretary Liu. Secretary Liu received the cigarette with both hands and turned away from Zhang Ruiqiang to light it.

Feng Yu stared at the two men in front of him. They were deep in thoughts and ignoring him.

Damn. When I was a stockbroker in my previous life, I am also a heavy smoker. How come I can’t stand cigarette smell now? It is torture to be surrounded by two smokers.

I must bring a cigar next time. If they start smoking cigarettes, I will smoke a cigar. Let’s see who can tolerate the smoke!

After the cigarettes were finished, Zhang Ruiqiang raised his head and looked at Feng Yu: “What about the rest of the money? How can we solve it?”

“Report to the higher-ups. Longjiang Province is going to be China’s most significant agriculture province. Agriculture is one of the vital industry in China. You all are paving the way for the agriculture industry future development. The Central Government will not support? Is the Government supporting with only words? Shouldn’t they give some monetary support?” Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Getting money from the higher-ups. You all should be better than me.

“Are you saying that we do not even need to set aside any fund and will be able to set up this company with just a proposal?” Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes opened wide.

“What’s new? I am just giving you ideas. Are you still thinking that I am lying to you? Shouldn’t the Government provide the funding? This company is a pilot project. Shouldn’t pilot projects get the funding from the country and supported with government policies? Also, this is not a shell company. We have set up the distribution channels.”

“Since when did we set up the distribution channels?” Zhang Ruiqiang was confused. They had not even started Beidacang Group, and you claim that the distribution channels have been set up? Are you asking me to lie to the higher-ups?

Feng Yu patted himself in the chest. “I will take care of all Beidacang Group’s products. I guarantee Beidacang Group’s profits. I dare to ensure that if the products are quality products, it will not be left on the shelves and the payments will be swift. I can even help with the branding for free.”

Feng Yu gave Zhang Ruiqiang an “I am very helpful. Quick, praise me!” look. But Zhang Ruiqiang just rolled his eyes.

“You will take care of all the products? You will be in control of the company’s distribution. That’s the company’s lifeline. How can we hand it over to you?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“Hah. You all want to set up the distribution channels yourselves? Even I give you 3 years, you all will also not reach 50% of my distribution channels now. I can even export the products to overseas, like Europe and the US. Can you all do that? It will be considered a success if you all can sell the products out of the Northeast provinces. The Baijiu, milk powder, etc. brands you mentioned earlier. The furthest you all can sell those products, is only in Liao Province?” Feng Yu said with his arms crossed. His legs were crossed and purposely shaking. He had an annoying look on his face.

Zhang Ruiqiang was quiet. What Feng Yu said was the truth. If the Provincial Government have Feng Yu’s distribution channels, Longjiang’s economy would be one of the best in China. They can’t even set up a strong trading relationship with Russia.

But Feng Yu’s Tai Hua Trading was different. Other than agriculture produce, the whole province’s total export to Russia could not be compared to a single Tai Hua Trading!

Also, Feng Yu was always able to sell his latest products all over China and overseas in a short time. There was no way the Provincial Government could do this. Also, if they got Feng Yu’s help, they could tell the higher-ups that the company will have no problems with their sales. They only need to set up factories and start production.

“Even if we do not need to worry about the sales issue, but will the higher-ups agree because of this reason? What if they only approve a small amount of fund?” Zhang Ruiqang asked.

“Have you heard of crying babies will get the milk? This type of getting funding from the higher-ups depends on your connections and proposal. Connections will be up to you all. I believe the leaders in the Provincial Government will have some links with the higher-ups. As for the proposal, it will depend on how you all paint a beautiful picture.”

Crying babies will get the milk? What analogy was this?!

But after Zhang Ruiqiang thought about this seriously, it was really like what Feng Yu had said. Usually, if the leaders did not make use of their relationships with the higher-ups, they will not get favorable policies issued by the Central Government. But this analogy was too crude.

Also, painting a beautiful picture in the proposal? This sounds like they were trying to cheat the higher-ups.

“We will take care of getting in touch with the various departments in the Central Government. How should we write the proposal?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“This is up to you all too. I am also not the one managing this company. I don’t need to write this proposal for you all, right? Unless……, you all give me some shares!”

“Fat hope! You want shares for writing a proposal? You are already so rich. Leave some for the rest.” Zhang Ruiqiang was scolded. Feng Yu cannot be considered greedy for money as he donated a large amount of money every year. But this brat wants a share of whatever business that is profitable and tries to take advantage of everything.

“See… We have differences. You don’t know how to write the proposal and don’t even know how the company would operate. I am the one who gave you all this idea. Do you know that in other countries, there are consulting firms which specialize in this? They charge consultation fees, and the rates are very high. Why can’t I charge you all some consultation fees? Do you know that the companies in the southern region have consultants? The consultants’ salaries are even higher than the General Managers in some companies!”

“This is impossible. Do you think the higher-ups will agree if an individual is one of the shareholders in this company?”

“Are you saying that I should work for free and not get anything in return? Brother Liu, look at your leader. If he is doing business, I am sure he will not have friends!” Feng Yu complains to Secretary Liu.

Secretary Liu: “……” Manager Feng, I am begging you. Can you don’t complain to me about my leader? You make it sound like we have been discussing about my leader behind his back. Are you trying to get me into trouble?

“You help us with the proposal, and I will give Tai Hua Processed Food Company some subsidies. Is that fine?” Zhang Ruiqiang replied angrily.

“Ahhh……. That’s more like it. Come, Brother Liu, I will start to speak now and you record the notes.” Feng Yu felt better when he heard Zhang Ruiqiang’s promise.

Chapter 730 – “168” Strategy

In his previous life, Feng Yu had not written any proposals. But he had read many proposals on the internet. It was interesting to note that whenever the Government announces any plans, their staffs on the ground will come up with similar proposals. It was as if they were not supporting the Central Government if they did not come up with similar proposals.

For example, the Belt and Road Initiative, which was also known as The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road. There were also the Strategy of Invigorating China Through Science and Education, Sustainable Development of China plans, Great Western Development Strategy, Northeast Area Revitalization Plan, New industrialization strategy, Urbanization of towns strategies, Reinvigorating China through Human Resource strategy, etc.

Among all these strategies, Feng Yu had the deepest impression of 168 plan. This was the slogan of a government initiative. The plan consists of 1 target, 6 core supports and 8 important projects. Many local governments kept repeating this slogan even the villages have similar plans.

But at this time, this plan was still not suggested.

“Our Longjiang Province proposed to set up Beidacang Group after serious consideration. To make this company a success, we have come up with a 168 strategic plan.”

“Huh? What plan? 168 strategic plan?” Zhang Ruiqiang interrupted. What sort of plan was this? He had never heard of this plan before. Who came up with this?

Feng Yu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang unhappily: “Do you still want me to continue?”

“Fine…… continue. I will ask after you have finish.”

“168 strategic plan is made up of 1 goal, 6 core supports and 8 important projects.”

Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. How come this sounds like a slogan? He was a practical person and hated all these slogans with no substances. He hated his men coming up with beautiful slogans but got no results.

When Zhang Ruiqiang writes Government reports, he seldom uses slogans. He only set a target and then work towards the target. More than often, he did more than the target. This was his way of working.

Was Feng Yu’s ‘168 strategic plan’ another empty promise? What age were they in now? The higher-ups were not interested in these slogans!

“The goal of this plan is to commercialize the Agricultural industry. We aim to develop Beidacang Group to become a strong and competitive company in 10 years. We strive to become the model company in China’s modern agriculture industry and have influences in the international market!”

Eh? Zhang Ruiqiang felt this was still a slogan, but this slogan seems possible to achieve. If Beidacang Group was set up successfully, then the company will be very competitive and strong. Among the whole nation modern agriculture industry, they will surely be the model example. But he still have some hesitations about influences in the international market.

It was not because he was not confident enough. Zhang Ruiqiang had also been to other countries for studies visit. China’s agriculture development was still far behind countries like Canada, US, Australia, etc.

But Zhang Ruiqiang thought about this statement for a while. With this statement, it will increase the chances of getting the approval from the higher-ups.

“The six core supports to achieve this goal are, cows and poultry breeding base, grain production base, farm products processing base, agriculture research base.” Feng Yu stopped suddenly.

“6 core supports? Why are there only 4?” Secretary Liu looked up and asked. “What’s the other two?”

Feng Yu was swearing in his heart. What’s the other two? If his graduation thesis for his school was not <Modern Agriculture Management>, he could not even come up with the first 4 support.

But who am I? Don’t say 2 more core supports. I can even come up with another 20 core supports. But I just need time to think about it.

“There is no more tea.”

“Manager Feng, please don’t stop halfway. Can you finish the 6 core supports? Fine…… I will get you a fresh cup of tea now.” Secretary Liu walked out of the office with Feng Yu’s teacup, and Feng Yu quickly rake his brains to think. He still must come up with 8 important projects later.

“Manager Feng, your tea. But it is still very hot. Can you continue with the 6 core supports? It should cool down when you finish.” Secretary Liu returned quickly. He sat down and picked up his pen eagerly.

“The other two core support bases are logistics base and Ecological Agriculture base.” Feng Yu was impressed with himself for coming up with the answers. I am smart.

“What about the 8 important projects?” Secretary Liu took down notes and asked.

“The 8 projects are forestry industry Improvement project, training and education of civilians project, machinery upgrading project…… Errr…… upgrading of food processing project, small towns upgrading project, upgrading of the state enterprises project, land usage project and large-scale agriculture project.”

Feng Yu was counting with his fingers as he listed out the 8 important projects. He had finally thought of 8 projects.

“Manager Feng, there are something I don’t understand. What do you mean by forestry industry Improvement project?” Secretary Liu asked.

“Forest can also be industrialized. You are able to get and sell the pine nuts or mushrooms from the forest. What about wood? Wood are common construction materials and can also be used to make furniture. If the provincial government is able to set up a brand for furniture, it will also be profitable.”

Secretary Liu wrote building materials and furniture in his notes and continued asking. “What about training and education of civilians project? What does it got to do with Beidacang Group?”

“It is very important. If you all are going to let all the state farms enter the company, then it is very important to educate the farmers. The company should take charge of teaching them. Education is critical for the citizens. There are still many farmers who are illiterates. It is also the government’s policy to increase the education level of the people. Beidacang Group is a responsible company. Doing all these are our duties!” Feng Yu starts bullshitting.

But Zhang Ruiqiang and Secretary Liu did not feel Feng Yu was sprouting nonsenses. Their impression of Feng Yu was someone who likes to donate to education.

“Then what is small towns upgrading project? What is the reason for this project?”

“Look, the population at the state farms are very small. There is a big plot of land, but the population is only 10 to 20 thousand. Some bigger state farm have about 100,000 people and they are still split into small groups. We also know that small population will limit our growth and will be hard to manage. It will also waste our resources. We should gather all the people in the farms and build modern small towns for them. Who says that farmers cannot live in high-rise apartments? Who says that there can’t be concrete roads in the farmlands?”

Zhang Ruiqiang nodded. This was a good point. The Central Government had similar suggestions before. But it was not implemented yet as the government do not have to money to relocate so many residents. Who is going to pay for the constructions?

Feng Yu’s plan was to let Beidacang Group take charge of this in the future. But it will cost the company a lot.

“Have you recorded everything down? You all can expend on the points I provided. Remember, you all must elaborate more on the pros and list out one or two cons, like high initial investments, etc. This is to prevent this proposal from being too one-sided. As for the rest, I think I don’t need to teach you all.”

Feng Yu picked up his teacup and sip on his tea. He was feeling proud when he saw the way Zhang Ruiqiang and Secretary Liu looked at him. I am talented!

Chapter 731 – Capital usage

Xu Changyou flipped the report in front of him. He was reading every line and word seriously. He even read some sentences several times. After half an hour, he raises his head.

“Did you write this report?”

Zhang Ruiqiang bowed slightly and replied: “It is written by my secretary and I made some minor amendments. Many of the ideas, like letting the farms invest and contacting the distributors in advanced, and the ‘168’ plan, stated in this proposal is from Feng Yu. We only amend it slightly.”

Xu Changyou was pleased with Zhang Ruiqiang. This was what he likes about Zhang Ruiqiang. It was not because he was capable. Xu Changyou had met many competent people in the government. Almost all the elites in China at this time were in the government. He likes Zhang Ruiqiang because Zhang Ruiqiang would also speak the truth and never claim another person’s credit.

This was an important character trait which much capable government officer lacks.

Xu Changyou felt that someone with this character would not forget their initial aspiration even when they had climbed to the top. They will still think for the people, and this was why Xu Changyou groomed and supported Zhang Ruiqiang.

“Your proposal mentioned that the total investment needed 10 billion RMB and appeal to the Central Government for funding. We will raise the remaining amount. But why didn’t you state the proportion?”

“If I state the proportion, then I will ask for more fund from the Central Government. But Feng Yu reminded me that if the Central Government funded most of this project, then this company will not be under the Provincial Government. It will fall directly under the Central Government. We will only get a small portion of the profits.”

Xu Changyou nodded. Setting up Beidacang Group was to develop Longjiang province, and it was Longjiang province who came up with this idea. They must not let the Central Government take it away from them.

“I still have one more question. We are asking the Central Government for money. What if the Central Government wants a share in the company? How can we reject them?” Xu Changyou asked. If the Central Government insist on getting a stake in this company, then they will have to hand over some of the profits to them.

“The Central Government will be able to get a portion of the profits from the Ministry of State Farms and Land Reclamation. This proposal must be supported by the local government. Why will the Central Government leave us out? I am only worried that the Ministry of Agriculture will try to get the overall control of this company. We must make it clear that this company is significant to us.”

“Are you saying that we should set up a Leadership Group?” This was what the Chinese Government usually do. A Leadership Group will divide the responsibility to individual leaders and show others that the Provincial Government takes a serious view in this company.

“No. This company will be a shareholding and will be listed in the future. We, Longjiang province, will be the biggest shareholder and we should have the right to appoint the Chairman of this company.”

Xu Changyou thought Zhang Ruiqiang would want to be the head of the Leadership Group. But now, it seems like Zhang Ruiqiang intends to be the Chairman of Beidacang Group?

“You want to take on this role?”

“No. I think you should be the first Chairman. You are the most suitable person.”

Xu Changyou was surprised. Let him be the Chairman? He thought for a while. That’s right. If I become the Chairman, then who will compete with him over the control of the company? Those qualified people in the Central Government will not request to be transferred to Longjiang Province to compete with him. This way, Longjiang Province will take over full control of the company.

“It is a good idea for me to be the Chairman. Then who do you think should be the General Manager?”

If the leader is willing to discuss the appointment of personnel with you, that means he treated you as his trusted aide.

“I think we should get someone in the agriculture industry to be the General Manager. We can also find someone good in business.”

“You don’t want to be the General Manager?” Xu Changyou looked at Zhang Ruiqiang and asked.

“There is still a lot of work with Bing City. I don’t have the energy to take on another role for the time being.” Zhang Ruiqiang did not say he does not want to be the General Manager. He said that he doesn’t have the means for the time being.

If Beidacang Group were set up successfully, the company would have a bright future. It was also a place to make significant achievements. Zhang Ruiqiang will not give up taking on the role of the General Manager.

But Zhang Ruiqiang knew that it will be time and energy-consuming during the start-up phase. If he were to concentrate on Beidacang Group, then he will not do an excellent job at managing Bing City. This was why he chose Bing City first.

“Fine. If I am the Chairman of the company, we should be able to get some favorable policies and funding from the Central Government. But what if the fund given to us is not sufficient, and we cannot raise the remaining?”

“We can take bank loans and use the provincial government as guarantor. This should not be a problem.” Although the higher-ups had put a stopped to such actions, but the local government still have many ways to go about this regulation. Everything will be fine if the higher-ups close one eye.

“The issue of start-up capital is solved then. You mentioned that every farm must set up a company. This will solve our initial shortage of ingredients. But the harvest belongs to the farmers and not the farm. Are telling us to issue IOUs to those farmers?”

“They can operate like us and get loans from the banks to pay for the crops. The farms will invest in their land area. The shares they get will be a small percentage. The Provincial Government will hold more shares of the company. If the farms could not get sufficient loans, then let them ask the Central Government for funding. I think the Ministry of State Farms and Land Reclamation will be able to find a solution for those farms. This is the same for the woodlands or forest farms. But the forest farms can only use the forest where logging is allowed to invest. Those areas where logging is prohibited cannot be used to invest. This way, the Ministry of State Farms and Land Reclamation and State Forestry and Grassland Administration will be restricted by Beidacang group, which is the same as restricted by us.”

“From what you say, it seems that the Provincial Government does not need to come up with a lot of money.”

“Of course. We do not need to use a lot of our funds. Someone told me that good capital usage are like tying a white wolf with bare hands. It operates the same way.” Zhang Ruiqiang had a weird expression on his face when he said this. He thought about how that brat become wealthy suddenly.

“Tying a white wolf with bare hands? But we will be getting a big loan from the bank and still have to repay the loan in the future.”

“Get listed, raise fund, and use the fund to pay the bank loan. We might even have some money left for faster growth after the loan repayments.”

This strategy was what Feng Yu thought Zhang Ruiqiang. Take loans to develop the company first. After the company was listed, use the fund to pay the loans. Although the Provincial Government’s shares in the company will be lowered, the company’s value will increase significantly. The value of the shares will also increase.

This company will still belong to the Province. This was only a simple way of capital usage, and the provincial government could get control over a big company without using much capital.

If not enough funds were raised from the listing, Feng Yu is willing to purchase some shares, or even invest directly into the company.

Zhang Ruiqiang was shocked when Feng Yu thought him about this strategy. They could even raise capital this way, and it was even legal!

“Ok. I will call for a meeting in the afternoon, and you will announce this plan at the meeting. We will mobilize everyone to make this plan a success!”

Chapter 732 – Thesis Defence

Today was the day for thesis defense at a classroom at Beijing University.

The faculty head and two professors were sitting behind a long table. Each of them had a thesis in front of them. A confident-looking student was standing not far from them. Behind him, a few other nervous-looking students sitting in rows.

“You may start when you are ready.” The faculty head said.

“Dear teachers and students. I am Feng Yu from Management class 91. I am happy to be here for my thesis defense. I hope all of you will be able to get something out from my session.”

The other students who were waiting for their turn were whispering among themselves. This Feng Yu was too arrogant. All of us will start with hoping the teachers and other students would be satisfied with our answers or say something like this will mark the end of our university life. This Feng Yu dares to claim that he wants everyone here to get something out of his thesis? Does he think that the professors can also learn something from him?

The whole university knew Feng Yu was from a wealthy family. He could afford to buy an apartment outside of school. Even some of the high-paying professors in the university were still riding motorcycles, and Feng Yu drove to school. The most frustrating Feng Yu’s car was already costly. They heard his car was worth hundreds of thousands. But later, he changed to a Songjiang car. It was even a model they had not seen before. The seats were all made from real leather.

There were rumors that the principal and all the staffs at the university were close to Feng Yu. He could just skip school as and when he likes and did not need to repeat any modules!

All the students were also puzzled how Feng Yu got a spot to be one of the students for the Hong Kong University exchange students. The rest of the exchange students were only 6 months, but Feng Yu was able to stay there for 1 year!

Even if you have strong connections and background, you should also know your place. How can you speak like you are giving the professors a lesson?

If the professors got pissed, they will fail you and make you repeat! I would love to see that.

Also, you still have not sign any contract with work units. All of us have already entered government service. The government might put a stop to job assignments now, but that’s for regular universities. Beijing University students were different. Government agencies will still come here to recruit the graduating students who are not continuing their studies.

Only a handful of the students did not enter the government service. These students were going to work in the private sector. They heard that private sectors pay their staffs well. They could get up to 1,000 RMB a month!

“What I had said is the summary of my thesis. I welcome any questions about my thesis?”

Feng Yu did not look at his script for the past 20 minutes. He was able to summarize his thesis well. This pressurized the other students. Even when looking at their scripts, most of the students were stuttering.

But telling the professors you welcome any questions seems to be too much. A student before Feng Yu said the same thing and got scolded.

Eh? What’s happening? How come the professors did not question him? They were discussing among themselves about the thesis? Were there any problems with his thesis? The lecturer should have seen his thesis. It should not have any issues.

The faculty head looked at Feng Yu: “Feng Yu, I remembered you are a direct entry student? You also attended the Moscow Summer camp, and you left a deep impression with your Russian. The requirement for your thesis is to translate it into a foreign language. But you chose to translate it into 2 foreign languages. Russian and English. Are you very good with these two foreign languages?”

The other students were stunned. What question was this? This was supposed to be a thesis defense session. Shouldn’t the questions be about the thesis? Why was the question about the language?

Also, this Feng Yu had translated his thesis into two other foreign languages? Was he trying to be smart? Based on the faculty head’s strict character, Feng Yu, will be in trouble!

“That’s right. I can use Russian and English for my thesis defense.” Feng Yu replied proudly.

Feng Yu had written this thesis himself. He had also used professional dictionary to check the words. He understood all the words in the thesis and had no problems using those words in conversations. To Feng Yu, oral thesis defense was much easier than writing the dissertation.

When the other students heard Feng Yu’s reply, they start to whisper among themselves again. Feng Yu was too arrogant. He even wants to conduct his defense in two different foreign languages?!

But this time, Feng Yu should be in trouble. Professor Nu and Professor Huang were good in their foreign languages. One of them knew English, and the other knew Russian. This Feng Yu will have to conduct his defense twice!

Professor Nu asked two questions in English, and Feng Yu answered with ease. The other students heard Feng Yu’s fluent English and felt embarrassed. Many of them wanted to continue their studies overseas, but they were weak in their foreign languages.

When Professor Huang questioned Feng Yu in Russian, Feng Yu was also able to answer him in perfect Russian. The questions asked by both professors were not difficult, and Feng Yu knew the answers.

“Quiet down! The thesis defense for this student is still ongoing. Why are you discussing among yourselves there?” The faculty head shouted and banged the table. These students had no discipline at all. How can they do well in their jobs in the future?

All the other students kept quiet and bow their heads low. If they were marked by the faculty head, then it will be the end of his thesis defense.

If they failed this thesis defense, then they will not be able to graduate. There have been many instances in the past.

The faculty head also asked Feng Yu a few questions. Some of his questions were about the theories, and some were about his methods. There was still one question which asked about the thesis in great detail. But these questions were answered well by Feng Yu.

Feng Yu replied all the questions with ease. He did not even pause or spend time to think for an answer.

After Feng Yu replied the last question, the faculty head and the two professors had a small discussion. Then they told Feng Yu: “Excellent. We are satisfied with your thesis defense. We can tell you now that your score is full marks! You are the only person in our university to get full marks for thesis defense!”

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The other students gasped with astonishment. The professors announced Feng Yu got full marks and was the only person to get full marks? Was his thesis really that good? It’s only a thesis about farm management. How good can it be?

This Feng Yu must have used his connections. If not, he will never get this score! When he answered the questions, he did not even think about the answer. I am from the debating team, and yet I can’t do it. The only possibility was Feng Yu knew the questions before this session. He knew what the professors were going to ask and had prepared the answers beforehand!

Sigh…… Was this still China’s top university? Even a thesis defense can also be rigged. Seems that it was the right choice to not continue my studies here.

“Thank you.” Feng Yu gave a bow and walked back to his seat.

Feng Yu looked very calm. He does not seem to be nervous at all. It seems that answering all those questions were nothing to him. Notably, he had a smile on his face throughout the whole session. He looks too confident.

All these details let the other students draw the conclusion that Feng Yu had made used of his connections. Any students who completed their thesis defense would be relieved. But Feng Yu was not surprised at all to hear he got the full marks!

Corruption!

Chapter 733 – Fighting over him

“Old Lu, this is not the first time I come back to recruit students. I am also a graduate of this school. Why are you hiding this talent from me? If he is continuing his post-graduate studies, I have nothing to say. But he is not going to continue his studies. Why didn’t you tell me?” A man was sitting at the Management faculty head’s office.

“Old Zhou, I am not hiding anything from you. I had asked this student, and he does not want to enter the government service.” Director Lu replied.

“Are we any government agency? We are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs! We do not accept anyone just like this. Call that student over. I will speak to him. I don’t believe he does not want to join my department!” Old Zhou raises his voice.

“Oh, Old Lu, are you busy? Old Zhou is here too?” A man walked in and greeted them.

“Old Meng? Why are you here?” Old Zhou had a bad feeling. The recruitment by the government agencies should be over. It should be settled during the internship.

Old Meng was here today, that means he should be eyeing that talented student too!

“I am here to recruit a student.”

“Recruitment? Your unit should have completed your recruitment long time ago.” Old Zhou asked.

“What about you? Why are you here?”

“I am here for a chat with Old Lu.” Old Zhou replied.

“You are here for a chat? Ok. I am here to speak to Old Lu about work. Old Lu, your faculty has a student called Feng Yu? Can you call him over? Our Ministry of Agriculture wants him.”

What? This Old Meng also want to recruit Feng Yu? How can they do that? We want this student first!

“Wait a minute. Old Meng, what do you mean by your Ministry of Agriculture wants him? I am here first. He belongs to our Foreign Affairs!”

Old Zhou immediately stood up. If Old Lu agreed to Old Meng’s demands, he could not answer to his superiors. This student knew two foreign languages, attended Moscow Summer Camp, and had been to Hong Kong as an exchange student. This talented student should enter the Ministry of Foreign Affairs!

What can this student do in the Ministry of Agriculture? This will be a waste of his talents!

Old Meng knew Old Zhou still have not recruited Feng Yu from his words. He was still waiting for Feng Yu. Ok. He will also remain in the office too. He doesn’t believe that his offer will be less attractive than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. How many young men were willing to travel every few days?

“I do not want to talk to you. I will wait here too. Later, when Feng Yu arrives, let him decide. I know he will definitely pick my department. Old Zhou, you better go back now.” Old Meng confidently said.

“Bullshit! What can he do at your department? Be a technician or drive a tractor? His future will be ruin if he enters your department. He knows two foreign languages and has overseas experiences. He is more suitable in my department!”

Old Meng was pissed. Entering our Ministry of Agriculture mean becoming a technician or drive tractors? Damn! This was too insulting!

Old Meng did not continue arguing with Old Zhou. When Feng Yu arrived, he was confident that he will choose to work in his department. The welfare in his department was excellent!

Director Lu saw both men had started arguing and quickly move in between them. “Stop quarreling. This is a school. Also, I will repeat myself. That Feng Yu had clearly said that he does not want to enter the government ministries. It is pointless for both of you to fight over him.”

“Old Lu, whether he wants to enter or not is our business. You just call him over.” Old Zhou replied.

Old Meng heard this. They still have not called the student over? He immediately said: “Old Lu, you don’t need to call Feng Yu over. Tell me which hostel he is staying at. I will go and look for him myself.”

To get a talented student, Old Meng was willing to lower himself.

Old Meng was so desperate to recruit Feng Yu because his higher-up had issued this order. Two days ago, his higher-up had read an article in an internal circular. The article was about the management of farms. It was awe-inspiring.

The higher-up knew the person who wrote this article was a talent in agriculture. Was this person a professor or an expert from some province? No matter where this person was, he should be transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture!

The higher-up instructed his men to investigate who was the author of this article. He was overjoyed when he learned that the author was a graduating student from Beijing University. This article was submitted by the university and was part of his graduating thesis.

This student must be recruited into his department!

On the other hand, Old Zhou heard from one of the professors at Beijing University that there was a student who was good at two foreign languages. This student was still not recruited by any units. If the professor had not participated in the thesis defense, he also did not know this student was so fluent in two foreign languages. That professor had only taught Feng Yu for one semester before and did not know much about him.

Old Zhou knew this talented student must be recruited into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He quickly reported this finding to his higher-up, and his leader agreed with him. It was rare to find someone so talented. This student must be recruited. Even if his department had hit the recruitment quota, he would add one more spot for Feng Yu!

“Old Meng, you are too much. I am here first, and I should meet this student first.”

“What you mean by you are here first? You think you are buying vegetables in the market?! This is the student’s future career. We must respect his decision. My department has just built a new quarter for our staffs. If Feng Yu enters my department, he can live in a new quarter, and if he gets married, he can apply for a new apartment with 3 bedrooms. You hear it? It’s an apartment with 3 bedrooms!” Old Meng raised his voice.

“He can get an apartment with 3 bedrooms? He is not qualified to apply for that type of housing yet. You all cannot do this!” Old Zhou was furious. 3-bedroom apartments were only for Divisional Chiefs and above!

“Our leader says that we should take care and groom this type of talented staff. No one would say anything for giving him special privileges. Also, our staff quarter is beside Railway Dance Troupe. There are lots of pretty young girls. We can still introduce a girlfriend to him.” Old Meng replied proudly.

“You…… How can you recruit staffs like this?” Old Zhou’s hands were trembling from his anger. He was from Foreign Affairs and could articulate well. But now, he was speechless.

“It’s none of your business. Old Lu, tell me which hostel Feng Yu is in. I will go and speak to him now.”

Director Lu wanted to tell both men that Feng Yu would not be interested in their offers. But since you all don’t want to listen to me, then I will just let you all bang your heads against the wall.

Hmph! Don’t think all of my students are desperate to join your department!

Chapter 734 – My ambition is to be a businessman

“Brothers! The thesis defense is over. I will treat dinner tonight! Let’s go to Quanjude together!” Feng Yu shouted in his hostel.

“Let’s change and go now!”

Knock, knock, knock……

“Is Feng Yu staying in this hostel?” Old Meng entered the room and asked.

“Huh? That’s right. You are?” Tian Lei immediately pulled up his pants and asked. Who was this person? How can he just enter our room like this?

Luckily this was a man. What if it’s a girl who enters?

“I am from the Ministry of Agriculture. My surname is Meng. I am looking for Feng Yu.”

“Oh, Lao Si, someone is looking for you.” Tian Lei shouted. This person seems to be a government official. Could he be finding trouble with Feng Yu?

Which one was Feng Yu?

Feng Yu was packing his stuff. He wanted to bring back some of his stuff, so he will not have too many things to bring back after he graduates.

Feng Yu raised his head when he heard Tian Lei calling for him. He saw another man walking into their room. He seems to be looking for him too.

“Eh, Old Zhou, what are you doing here?” Old Meng held Old Zhou back.

Tian Lei was about to ask who this man was. But when he saw Old Meng’s attitude, he chose to keep quiet. The man who just entered their room seems to be a government official too. Although Tian Lei’s family have some connections, they were not very powerful. He did not want to offend these two government officials.

Tian Lei was more reserved, but the rest were not. Many young men at their age were impulsive.

Wang Lei, who was from Bing City, stood up and stopped both men. “I don’t care which unit you two are from, but you should have some basic courtesy. Who allows you two to enter?”

When Wang Lei just entered the university, he was quiet. But now, he had become more confident. He was also the only person in their hostel to pursue postgraduate studies.

Wang Lei will not be going out to work this year. The rest of their roommates were influenced by Feng Yu. Other than Tian Lei entering the government service, the rest chose to enter the private sector. The private sector pays better and has better benefits. Wang Lei also decided to join the private sector in the future. He does not like to be working in the government.

Since Wang Lei have no intentions to enter the government, then he does not need to treat these leaders so well.

Old Zhou paused for a while, and he flared up. This student was too arrogant. He dares to scold a leader? When Old Zhou was about to scold Wang Lei, Old Meng laughed and said: “Sorry. I had knocked the door and was pushed inside by him. Can you help me call Feng Yu? I need to discuss something with him.”

Old Zhou was pissed. What do you mean by this? You are the one fighting with me over this student. If you did not come here before me, will I be barging into the room? Now you are trying to be the good guy and try to paint me as the bad guy?

Feng Yu walked over and said: “I am Feng Yu. You all are looking for me?”

“Feng Yu. Hi, I am from Foreign Affairs. You can address me as Old Zhou. I would like to invite you to join our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With your abilities, you can climb up the ranks very fast. There is another advantage of working with Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You will be able to travel to a lot of countries and meet leaders from all over the world!”

Before Feng Yu could react, Old Zhou grabbed Feng Yu with both his hands and did not let go.

As Feng Yu was about to pull back his right hand, his left hand was grabbed by someone.

“Feng Yu. I am Meng Daming. I am from the Ministry of Agriculture. I represent my department to invite you to work with us. We will offer good benefits for you. When you join, we will assign an apartment to you. If you get married, we will give you an apartment with 3 bedrooms! Their unit does not even have enough 2-bedrooms apartments for their staffs. What visits a lot of countries? You have to be away from home most of your time! We will groom you, and I promise you will be a Section Chief within 3 years!”

Wang Lei was shocked. What? 3-bedrooms apartment? This was the usual practice in the past, but the government tried to stop this. However, this practice was still ongoing. Section Chief within 3 years was too much! That was the treatment of postgraduate students.

Also, these two men were from Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Agriculture. They were departments from the Central Government. Was there a manpower shortage? Was the shortage so severe that government officials had to do recruitment in student hostels?

Feng Yu shook his hands and pulled his hands out. Tian Lei brought two chairs for the two leaders. The rest of the roommates does not care about these leaders, but he can’t ignore them. He was going to enter the government service soon. Who knows if one of these two leaders will be his future leaders?

Working in this era had to depend on the leaders. New joiners had to do whatever the leader instructs. The leaders do not care what your specialty was. Jobs were assigned based on the leader’s preference. Very often, one would find computer science graduate working in the communication department.

Old Zhou was about to sit down, but Old Meng waved his hand. “No, thanks. I will stand and speak to Feng Yu.”

Old Zhou was cursing in his heart. Old Meng, your rank is equivalent to a Deputy City Mayor. Do you need to be so desperate to recruit a student?!

“Feng Yu, do consider our Ministry of Agriculture. You must not waste your talents!” Old Meng looked at Feng Yu. He had made his offer and was confident Feng Yu would surely accept it.

The roommates who had signed contracts with the private companies were also envying Feng Yu. If any government agencies offered these benefits to them, they would not join the private companies.

But all of them knew Feng Yu would never agree regardless what offers these two leaders made. Did these two leaders find out about Feng Yu’s background? Feng Yu was so wealthy, and how was it possible for him to join a government agency as a staff member?

“Hi. Nice to meet both of you. But when you all came over for recruitment, I did not participate. I had made it clear that I am not interested in joining the government.” Feng Yu shook his head. At the same time, he was wondering why these two people came to recruit him?

Feng Yu did not know that his thesis was published in an internal circular. He was not even paid. The University also did not inform Feng Yu about this.

The university will submit selected graduating students’ thesis to the higher-ups. All the students knew about this. Feng Yu also knew about this, but he did not expect his thesis was submitted.

Old Zhou and Old Meng were stunned to hear Feng Yu rejected them directly. They had made such good offers, and Feng Yu still rejected them like this?!

“Feng Yu, please reconsider. If you have any demands, we can discuss. If we can offer you, we will!” Old Meng moved forward. His leader had instructed him to recruit Feng Yu at all cost.

Feng Yu thought for a while and took out his car keys from his pocket. He showed it to the two men and said: “My family is wealthy and my ambition is to do business. How long will it take to buy a car if I enter the government? My car is more expensive than your leaders’. Even if they have the money, they can’t also buy it.”

Feng Yu turned to his roommates and shouted: “Are you all ready? Let’s go. Quanjude. Eat whatever you all want!”

Wang Lei was the last to leave the room. He looks at Old Zhou and Old Meng. “Are you all going off? I need to lock the room.”

Old Zhou and Old Meng looked at each other and left. Old Zhou was still able to accept this, but Old Meng could not. He does not know how to face his leader.

Chapter 735 – Goodbye University

It was July, and Feng Yu had graduated from University. When he got his graduation certificate, it signifies the end of his school days.

Feng Yu had been skipping classes and only attend the lessons he was interested in. He did not even attend a single lesson for some modules. But he couldn’t bear to leave university life.

Feng Yu seldom mix with his classmates. He interacted more with his roommates and were not considered very close friends. But when all of them were parting, Feng Yu misses living in the hostel.

They played poker, soccer, drank and ate together.

Feng Yu had lived two lives. These people who were strangers to him in his previous life had bonded with him.

Although Feng Yu knew that it was easy to meet his roommates as most of them will be staying in Beijing. Also, Feng Yu had lots of free time. But it was different from living together in a room.

After everyone started work, they will have new friends and interest. Maybe they will not be as close as before.

Some graduating students will take a last look at their classrooms, cafeterias, etc. before they leave.

Many of them miss their time in school. They walked around the school compound reminiscing their lives there.

After waving goodbye to his roommates, Feng Yu drive to his apartment nearby. He might not return to this apartment in the future, but he will not sell it. This was also a good investment. The value of this apartment will rise several times 10 years later.

Feng Yu took a last look at his friends and school before he left. He hopes all of them would be able to achieve their dreams and live happily in the future.

Everyone had their own goals in life. Feng Yu had asked his roommates before if they were interested in working in his companies. But all of them shook their heads.

When all of them were in school, Feng Yu had been paying whenever they eat out. The rest did not try to pay as Feng Yu told them that he was so rich until he can’t finish spending his money. All of them should help their parents save some money. When they can make money in the future, they can treat him. Even if they treat him to some street food, he will also be pleased.

After some time, all of Feng Yu’s roommates did not try to save for Feng Yu. They would just order whatever they want when they eat together. But when Feng Yu asked them to work in his companies, his roommates refused.

Treating them to dinner was one thing, and working for Feng Yu was another.

Feng Yu did not force them. He only told them to look for him if they encounter any troubles in the future.

“Manager Feng, where to now?”

“Go to Shida University and pick her up.”

Li Na’s graduation ceremony was over too. But she will be pursuing her postgraduate studies at her university.

Feng Yu sometimes felt pursuing her postgraduate studies was also a good thing for Li Na. Anyway, with Feng Yu around, no one could bully her.

……

“You are not in a good mood? Are you feeling sad because you have graduated?”

Feng Yu looked at Li Na: “You think I am an emotional person?”

As a financial broker in his previous life, he was good at managing his emotions. If he lost his cool and let emotions cloud his judgments, he would lose everything. Just like how he lost everything in his previous life.

Of course. Feng Yu also has his emotional side. But Feng Yu felt there was no need to be emotional for graduation. It was not like they would not meet each other again in the future.

Li Na playful pinched both of Feng Yu’s cheeks and pull them outwards. “Then smile for me.”

Feng Yu “……” This was how you force a smile from me?

“Let’s go. What do you want to eat today?”

Li Na thought for a while and said: “I want to eat Jian Bing Guo Zi.”

Feng Yu pinched her nose: “You can ask for something better. The person beside you is already China’s richest man. In another two years, I will be the richest man in Asia. You are asking me to eat Jian Bing Gou Zi with you?”

“Wow!!!! You are terrific! You are the richest man in China? Didn’t you tell me this last year? I just want to eat Jian Bing Guo Zi now. There is a roadside stall run by an old lady at the corner in front. Eat with me please……” Li Na hugged Feng Yu’s arm and shook lightly.

Feng Yu gave in and said: “Turn left in front and stop when you see the Jian Bing food cart.

Mei Zhigang nodded and pretended not to see what was happening in the back seats. Liu Jichuan had instructed him to not ask questions and ignore everything he sees. His job was only to drive and protect Manager Feng. If he could do all these, his salary might even be higher than their old Company Commander.

This food cart was selling the most traditional Jian Bing Guo Zi. It was only a crepe with an egg, wrapping a dough stick. There were no chives or shredded potatoes toppings. It was too small. Even if Feng Yu did not have an appetite like Wen Dongjun, he will also not feel full.

“Grandma Wang, I want 3 Jian Bing Guo Zi. Add eggs for two of the Jian Bing Guo Zi. I want the big size ones.” Li Na was holding onto Feng Yu’s hands as she ordered her food.

Li Na even know the name of this stall owner? She must be a regular here. The Jian Bing Guo Zi here taste better than before? How come I did not know about this?

When Li Na pass a big Jian Bing to Feng Yu, and he took a big bite, it tastes still the same as before. It was not considered delicious at all.

But when Feng Yu saw Li Na eating happily, he felt the Jian Bing taste better. Mei Zhigang was the same as before. He finished the whole Jian Bing in less than a minute and wiped his mouth. After that, he stood not far away from Feng Yu looking at their surroundings.

“Is it good?” Back in the car, Li Na asked Feng Yu.

“I do not really like to eat this. Did you come here often? You like the taste of this Jian Bing Guo Zi?”

“Yes. My grandmother used to make Jian Bing Guo Zi for me, and this stall’s Jian Bing taste exactly the same. After I came here and found this stall, I have been coming back often.”

“Ok. I will accompany you here to eat in the future. We will come back often.” Feng Yu said.

“Come back often? No. I don’t really like the taste too. It’s all your fault. You got me used to eat good food.”

“Hahaha…… Ok. It’s all my fault. I am still not full yet. Let’s get something to eat.”

Li Na moved closer to Feng Yu and whisper softly: “I am not full also. My Jian Bing is smaller than yours. There is a bakery in front. Let’s get some cakes. I feel like eating a chocolate cake.”

“Ok. If you like their cakes, I will buy the whole bakery for you.”

Being with Li Na made Feng Yu forgot about the sedimental feelings of graduating…….

Chapter 736 – Different Treatment

Work at Government agencies starts at end of July. Wen Dongjun and Zhang Han took this opportunity to go for a holiday. The top student Liu Kun was the same as Li Na. He will be continuing his postgraduate studies. This summer break, he had to help his professors do some research, and only Feng Yu and Li Na returned back to their hometown.

Feng Yu’s parents met Li Na before in Bing City. They were very pleased with this future daughter-in-law.

Li Na was educated and virtuous. Zhang Muhua secretly told Feng Yu that she had visited a fortuneteller with Li Na’s 8 characters. The fortuneteller said to her that Li Na was very suitable to be with Feng Yu. She has the fortune to help her future husband in his career and will have lots of children.

Although China’s family planning policy had been in force for a few years, the penalty was only fines. Zhang Muhua told Feng Yu, it was only fines and they can afford it. He must have more children no matter what.

Li Zhixing might be cute, but he was Zhang Muhua’s maternal grandson. Feng Yu’s parents cannot keep him by their side all the time. Li Zhixing’s grandparents will not allow that to happen. That’s why Zhang Muhua and Feng Xingtai hope Feng Yu would have more children to accompany them.

Feng Yu asked his mother what if Li Na’s parents also want to take care of their grandchildren? Zhang Muhua rolled her eyes. That’s why I wanted you two to have more children. This way, each of us can take care of our grandchildren and will not fight.

Feng Yu broke out in cold sweat. He likes children but could not agree with his parents’ thinking.

If Feng Yu and Li Na have two children, then they will have to be separated and taken care of by their grandparents? How can this be good for the children? Luckily Feng Yu had thought of a good excuse. Li Na was a teacher and will be teaching in university in the future. So, she should be the one taking care of their children!

Although this was not the first time Li Na met Feng Yu’s parents, she still blushes as this time was different. She was meeting Feng Yu’s parents as Feng Yu’s girlfriend. The moment Zhang Muhua saw Li Na, she held on to her hands.

Li Na did not expect Zhang Muhua to give her a red packet and insisted her to keep it.

Feng Yu was also speechless. He could only tell Li Na to keep it. This red packet signifies his parents had accepted her.

Li Na also knew how to impress her future in-laws. She offered to cook lunch. Feng Yu’s parents kept praising her cooking skills during the meal and said her cooking was on par with imperial chefs.

Feng Yu felt his parents were exaggerating. Although Li Na could cook, the taste was average. It cannot be compared to 5 stars restaurants’ chef. But this only shows that his parents were delighted with Li Na.

Feng Yu’s parents had praised Li Na’s cooking was because all the dishes Li Na cooked were Feng Yu’s favorites. This shows that Li Na could take good care of their son in the future.

That night, Feng Yu and Li Na pretended to be good children and slept in different rooms. But after half an hour, Feng Yu secretly went over to Li Na’s room and tried to open her door.

Locked!

“Li Na, it’s me. Open the door.” Feng Yu said softly.

Li Na was also not asleep. She tiptoed to the door and asked softly: “What are you doing? Your parents are next door.”

“They are asleep.”

“Even so, we also cannot do this. They will hear us.” Li Na said.

“Open the door now. If not, I will knock.” Feng Yu said.

Li Na opened the door slight, and Feng Yu immediately squeezed himself in and locked the door behind him.

“Hahaha…… There is no way for you to escape from me! I am here…….” Feng Yu pushes her down on the bed.

After they had finished, Li Na pushed Feng Yu, asking him to return to his room. But Feng Yu refused and hugged Li Na to sleep.

The next morning, Li Na woke up early. She woke Feng Yu up. She wanted Feng Yu to return to his own room. Feng Yu woke up and put on his underwear. Then he opened the door…… and saw his mother cooking breakfast.

Zhang Muhua saw his son and quickly turn away, pretending not to see him. She continued cooking breakfast, and Feng Yu quickly ran back to his room.

But at his room, Feng Yu realized that he had made a mistake. He had forgotten to close the door of his room last night.

That means Feng Yu’s mother knew he was in Li Na’s room the whole night. If Li Na knows that Feng Yu’s parents knew they had slept together, she will die from embarrassment!

During breakfast, Feng Yu’s parents were looking at both of them with a strange look in their eyes. Li Na felt something was off. After breakfast, Li Na wanted to return back to the village. Feng Yu told his parents and sent Li Na back.

In the car, Li Na pinched Feng Yu’s waist and questioned him: “This morning, did your mother see you sneaking out of my room?”

“No! They are only guessing because you looked like you had done something wrong. When I left your room, my mother is in the kitchen, and she did not see me!” Feng Yu lied.

Although Li Na was suspicious, she could only choose to believe Feng Yu.

……

“Hello, Aunty and Uncle.” Feng Yu’s hands were full of gifts as he greeted Li Na’s parents. Li Na’s mother received Feng Yu’s gifts, but Li Na’s father was expressionless.

Li Na was unhappy and called out to his father: “Dad……”

Li Na’s father nodded: “Ok. Have a seat. Drink with me later.”

Feng Yu immediately smiles: “Yes.”

Although Feng Yu was not good at drinking, Li Na’s father was asking him to drink with him. He had to accompany him. This will improve their relationship.

“Haaaa…….” After bottoming up a glass of Baijiu, Feng Yu was feeling slightly dizzy. He grumbled in his heart. I had brought a bottle of Baijiu with 43% alcohol. Why must we drink this bottle of Baijiu with 60% alcohol?

Li Na immediately picks up some food and put it into Feng Yu’s bowl.

Li Na’s father was unhappy. I am also drinking, why are you not putting food onto my plate?!

“Xiao Feng! Let’s have another toast!”

Another toast? Feng Yu looked at the big glass in his hand. This was a big glass. He would be drunk if he drunk another glass.

But when Feng Yu saw Li Na’s father staring at him, he obliged. “Ok. Let’s have a toast.”

Feng Yu finished his glass of Baijiu in two gulps. Li Na was rubbing his back trying to make him feel better. She pushes her bottle of Jianlibao to Feng Yu: “Drink some of this. You can’t hold your liquor well, and you dare to drink with my father like that?”

Li Na’s father had a triumphed look on his face as he looked at Feng Yu. It was like he was mocking Feng Yu. What’s wrong? You are scared?

Feng Yu refuses to admit defeat. It’s only alcohol. It’s been a while since I got drunk. I must leave a good impression with Li Na’s father today! I am prepared!

“Come, Uncle. Let me pour your glass. Let’s have another toast!”

“That’s more like it!” Li Na’s father was pleased and finishes his glass in one gulp.

“What are you doing? Xiao Feng, hurry up and eat something.” Li Na’s mother stares at her husband.

Two glasses were almost Feng Yu’s limit. But he was young and healthy. He was still able to take it. He raised his glass again and gave Li Na’s father another toast.

After half an hour, Feng Yu and Li Na’s father had finished two bottles of 62% Baijiu. Li Na’s father also cannot hold his liquor well. He only wanted to teach Feng Yu a lesson.

Li Na’s father was also drunk now. He patted Feng Yu’s shoulders and said: “Xiao Feng, you can hold your liquor well like me. Let’s drink again next time.”

“Ok…… Let’s drink the next time I come over.”

Chapter 737 – Beidacang Group was set up

After this drinking session, Li Na’s father impression of Feng Yu changed. Someone had said that drinking would bring two men closer. It seems to be true.

The next day, Li Na’s father woke up with a bad headache. Feng Yu was feeling much better than him. It was not because Feng Yu was younger. It was because Feng Yu had secretly eaten Bing City Pharmaceutical latest medicine…… Anti-hangover pills!

Yesterday, Feng Yu was drunk and spent the night at Li Na’s home. Li Na’s house only has two bedrooms, and Feng Yu slept with Li Na in her room. Although they did not do anything that night, Feng Yu was very excited when he woke up. This time, Li Na’s father cannot object to their relationship anymore. He had already slept in his precious daughter’s bed!

Maybe this was the reason why Li Na’s father changed his attitude towards Feng Yu.

Feng Yu spent the day at the village and visited Tian Peng Farm and the Food factory, before returning to Bing City. But tonight, he got to sleep alone as Li Na did not return with him.

Damn! I have a girlfriend by I still got to sleep alone…….

……

Zhang Ruiqiang alighted from the train and looked very tired. But he was feeling very excited.

He had gone to Beijing Central Government with his leader to visit the various departments.

The proposal had been revised and improved several rounds by the Provincial Government before submitting to the higher-ups. Their higher-ups read the plan and reported to Iron-fist Zhu. After Iron-Fist Zhu read the report, he summoned Xu Changyou and Zhang Ruiqiang to his office to ask about this proposal.

Luckily, Xu Changyou and Zhang Ruiqiang were involved in the revision of this proposal and were familiar with the details. They were able to answer Iron-fist Zhu’s questions.

Iron-fist Zhu was pleased with this plan. He was also very interested in some of the things mentioned in the proposal.

Agriculture had always been one of China’s most vital industry, supported by the government. The Government had always wanted to revamp and develop this industry but could not find any good way to do it.

This proposal had stated how the company would increase the value of the agriculture products and export their products out of their province and even to overseas.

These were what Iron-fist Zhu and the Government wanted. Exportation is crucial to China’s rising economy.

Xu Changyou was 61 years old. Based on the current regulations, at Xu Changyou’s rank, he should retire at 63. The government’s plan for him was to transfer him to a relaxing position or enter the Central Government to spend his remaining days in the government before his retirement.

But it seems that Xu Changyou does not want to retire. He was still burning with passion!

Many people had wanted younger officials to take on essential roles in the government. Iron-fist Zhu was also supportive of this idea. But he realizes that these old officials still have lots to offer.

This proposal for Beidacang Group was well written. Xu Changyou, who suggested this plan, was a competent person.

Since Xu Changyou was the one who came up with this plan and wanted to be the first Chairman of this company, then he cannot be transferred away after this company was set up.

Longjiang Province’s head cannot be changed for the next two years. Xu Changyou had also made significant contributions in the past. Iron-fist Zhu decided to let him remain in this position until he retires.

When Iron-fist Zhu asked Xu Changyou if he wanted to remain in his current position until his retirement, Xu Changyou agreed without any hesitation.

From Iron-fist Zhu’s words, Xu Changyou knew that he will not be promoted. But to be able to keep his current position was enough for him.

Also, Xu Changyou was full of hopes for this Beidacang Group. He really wanted to see this company grow.

If this company could grow strong and significant, it would be the perfect ending to Xu Changyou’s career. He could proudly tell everyone what he had done for Longjiang Province and China after he had retired!

With Iron-fist Zhu’s support, this proposal was discussed during the General Office of the State Council meeting. Xu Changyou and Zhang Ruiqiang had the opportunity to join the meeting to answer all the queries.

Xu Changyou knew a lot of people at the meeting. After all, he was also a high-ranking official. He had worked with many of the people at the meeting. But Zhang Ruiqiang was a new face for them. Many leaders had a good impression of Zhang Ruiqiang. They felt he was capable.

When Zhang Ruiqiang was explaining the proposal to all the leaders at the meeting, there was one person who was unhappy with this proposal. It was a leader from the Ministry of Agriculture.

This leader from the Ministry of Agriculture realized that even if the Ministry of Agriculture was able to own some of the company’s shares, but most of the profits will be taken away by the company.

Xu Changyou had announced that there will be dividends in the future, and he promised the dividends will be higher than what the Ministry of Agriculture past income. But that leader still felt this was not right.

State farms should be the most crucial factor in this company. The Ministry of Agriculture should be the one leading this company. If Longjiang Provincial Government were to set up this Beidacang Group, then the Ministry of Agriculture would lose their authority over the farms.

This company had high potential, and most of their future earnings will go into Longjiang Provincial Government’s pockets. Xu Changyou made it sound like the Ministry of Agriculture was taking advantage of them. This was too much. Xu Changyou had given them too little shares. You all should not get the majority of the shares just because you all came up with this idea!

The other leaders have no objections. After all, the setup of this company did not affect them much. Also, when Iron-fist Zhu speaks earlier, he sounded supportive of this proposal. The other leaders also felt this Beidacang Group seems promising. They could not find any reason to object.

Most of those who disagree with this proposal was also keeping quiet because someone had raised objections before them.

Zhang Ruiqiang started to handle all the objections and explained the importance of this company to Longjiang Province. He was trying to say that they were the ones who came up with this idea and should be the ones who implement it. You all have no right to take over this project from us.

After several rounds of discussions, Iron-fist Zhu concluded and announced Longjiang Provincial Government will lead in this Beidacang Group project. The Central Government will also help this company by offering special subsidies and 1 billion RMB.

The amount given by the Central Government was far from the 10 billion startup capital stated in the proposal. Longjiang Provincial Government will raise 5 billion themselves and then get a 1.5 billion loan from the bank. It should be enough to set up the company. If the company lacks funds in the future, they could continue to get loans from the banks or from the Central Government.

……

After 2 months of visiting various departments and ministries, the approval was finally granted, and the Ministry of Finance released the funds. Xu Changyou remained in Beijing to ask for more subsidies, and Zhang Ruiqiang returned to Bing City first.

3 days later, Beidacang Group was registered and starts operation!

Chapter 738 – Good Strategy

Beidacang Group was set up and had started operation. First, they had to settle the issue of letting those state farms invest in this company. There were more than 100 state-run farms, and the land area of every farm and population were different.

There were too many small farms, and Beidacang Group had to change their strategy. The overseeing government agencies will set up their own companies. This way, the companies set up by the 9 Ministry of Agriculture bureaus will become Beidacang group’s subsidiaries, and after using their farms they own to invest in the company.

During the valuation, the state farms’ value was very low and lowered the proportion of shares the Ministry of Agriculture could own.

Beidacang Group also could not get the forests they wanted. This was because a few years ago, a state-owned forestry company was set up in Longjiang Province. The provincial government also knew about this company. But they wanted the support of the Central Government to acquire this company.

But this suggestion was strongly opposed by the State Forestry Administration. Longjiang Forestry Group was China’s first pilot testing company in this industry, and it was doing well. How can this company merge with you all?

In Xu Changyou’s proposal, it had mentioned the development plans for the forestry industry. This Longjiang Forestry Group was also part of the Longjiang province. The leaders from the State Forestry Administration felt that they could implement Xu Changyou’s plans themselves. In the end, they will still be paying the Provincial Government taxes.

You mentioned the advantages of the merger and one management in your proposal. But we can cooperate. Our Longjiang Forestry Group can cooperate with Beidacang Group. We are also developing building materials, furniture branding, forestry food products, herbs, plantation, etc. now. We do not need Longjiang Province to interfere with our operations.

The set up of Beidacang Group had let Longjiang Provincial Government benefit a lot. They had gotten the funding from the Central Government and the control over the state farms. Longjiang Forestry Group had also benefited from Beidacang Group.

Longjiang Provincial Government had wanted to extend their authority over Longjiang Forestry Group but was unsuccessful. However, Xu Changyou had gotten the support from some of the higher-ups. He was given permission to cooperate with Longjiang Forestry Group and authority as the final decision maker over their cooperations.

It will be tedious to implement this plan, but luckily, the provincial government had lots of talented staffs. They were able to set up the main frame of this proposal. They forecasted that they would suffer some losses this year. But it was more critical for them to set up their sub-brands now.

Everyone felt the grains and meat products can just use Beidacang brand. The Beidacang brand of Baijiu was also merged with Beidacang Group. All the smaller Baijiu factories were also acquired. This was to focus on and develop a single brand.

The Provincial Government officials discussed and felt Beidacang brand should include beef, lamb, pork, poultry, flour, Baijiu, etc. products.

There were still a lot of agriculture product brands in the province. It includes Bao brand of Bean Paste, Wu Chang rice, etc.

But there were different opinions for sugar and soybean cooking oil.

The local businesses all wanted their brands to be selected by Beidacang Group. They wanted to eliminate the other brands and be the only brand left. But all these brands were not well-known at all. These brands were all unknown brands, even in Longjiang Province, let alone in the Northeast region. Only some consumers had heard of their brands in their local cities.

What’s the most well-known brand of soybean cooking oil and sugar in Longjiang Province and the whole nation? Tai Hua Brand!

Because of Tai Hua Brand, the other local brands were unknown by the consumers. It was also because before Tai Hua Brand appears, these companies do not have the concept of branding. To them, these products were all basic necessities, and consumers do not need to choose the brands.

After Tai Hua Premium Cooking oil and Tai Hua Pure Sugar appeared in the market, these companies saw the effects of branding and started to develop their own brands. But it was too late.

Xu Changyou was not happy with any of these brands. No one had heard of them, and what’s the difference between using their brands and setting up a new brand? They might as well use Beidacang as their brand!

But someone opposed to this suggestion. Beidacang brand had too many products. Meat, flour, alcohol, and if they added sugar and cooking oil, it would be too diversified. Also, there was another issue. They will be competing with Tai Hua Brand!

Tai Hua Brand was also selling cooking oil, sugar, pork and pork-related food products. They would be selling the same products and will have to compete with Tai Hua. They will face a big headache of how to compete with Tai Hua Processed Food Company.

Tai Hua Processed Food Company had already set up branch offices in the 3 northeast provinces and some of the southern provinces. Their distribution channels and branding were way ahead of Beidacang Group. How can they win this company?

Xu Changyou frowned. How come you did not mention about this before the set up of Beidacang Group? How are we going to solve this issue?

No one can answer Xu Changyou’s questions. They really have to compete with Tai Hua Processed Food Company? Just look at Tai Hua Supermarkets, and you will know how famous Tai Hua brand is.

Can they even win such a famous brand? All of them knew that the boss of Tai Hua Processed Food Company was also one of the shareholders of Bing City Machinery Company. He is also Feng Yu’s father.

When all of them thought about Feng Yu, they knew they will lose. All of Feng Yu’s products were selling like hotcakes! They will surely be beaten.

It was a pity Zhang Ruiqiang did not hold any positions in Beidacang Group. If Zhang Ruiqiang could represent Beidacang Group to speak to Feng Yu, then this problem might be solved. Everyone in the Provincial Government knew Zhang Ruiqiang and Feng Yu were close. This was an open secret.

If they get Zhang Ruiqiang to negotiate with Feng Yu, despite the fact that he was not holding any position in Beidacang Group, it will show how useless they were.

At this moment, someone raised his hand weakly.

“You have any suggestions?” Xu Changyou was open to all suggestions.

“Can’t we cooperate with Tai Hua Processed Food Company?”

“Cooperation? How are we going to cooperate with them? Like Bing City Machinery Company? After we cooperate with them, they have become the main shareholder.” Someone immediately opposed to this suggestion.

This feeling was like letting their child go to school, and their child changed his surname to be the same as the teacher. Although the child became educated and was able to make money, this child was no longer their son!

“How can that be possible?! How much does our Beidacang Group worth and how much does Tai Hua Processed Food Company worth? Furthermore, I am saying we cooperate with them and not merge with them. It’s like how we are working with the Longjiang Forestry Group.”

“Explain in more details.” Xu Changyou became interested.

“We can cooperate in developing the brand. Tai Hua Brand of sugar and cooking oil are famous? Our sugar and cooking oil can be sold under their brand. Wait. Let me finish first. We can add our Beidacang brand above Tai Hua brand on the packaging! This way, the consumers will think that Tai Hua Brand has been acquired by Beidacang Group. The consumers will be reminded of Beidacang Group whenever they buy Tai Hua products!”

Everyone in the meeting room clapped. This strategy might be evil, but if they succeed, it will solve all their problems!

Chapter 739 – Brand Cooperation

“Should I call you Manager Niu or Director Niu?”

“Hahaha, I am here to talk business with you as the General Manager of Beidacang Group. You can just call me Manager Niu or Old Niu.” Niu Kun replied.

Feng Yu felt this Niu Kun was only pretending to be friendly. He just wanted to be closer to Feng Yu. He must be up to something.

“Talk about business? What business?”

“Beidacang Group’s cooperation with Tai Hua Processed Food Company!”

“Manager Niu, I think you got the wrong person. Tai Hua Processed Food Company is not my company.” Feng Yu calmly replied.

“We have contacted your father, but your father does not seem to be interested in dealing with all these. Manager Zhang is in Tianjin for work and will not be back soon. That’s why I can only look for you.” Niu Kun was also feeling frustrated. Dealing with Feng Xingtai was easier than dealing with Feng Yu.

But Feng Xingtai told Niu Kun that he was recuperating in the hospital and does not have time for all these. He asked Niu Kun to look for Feng Yu or Zhang Ming. Damn. You are staying at your daughter-in-law’s hospital. The best hospital in the Northeast region, and you still have 2 nurses taking care of you 24 hours. You are telling me that you do not have time?!

The Provincial Government contacted Zhang Ming, but Zhang Ming was in Tianjin and will not be back until 2 weeks later. This was why they had to look for Feng Yu.

“What cooperation do you all want?” Feng Yu asked.

It was usual for them to cooperate since both companies were dealing with agriculture products. Feng Yu also wanted cooperation with Beidacang, but he was rejected by Zhang Ruiqiang. Zhang Ruiqiang was worried that Feng Yu would take over Beidacang Group.

“Manager Feng, Beidacang Group would like to have brand cooperation with Tai Hua Processed Food Company.”

Brand cooperation? Co-branding? Damn! These government officials also know about co-branding?

Brand cooperation was common in future years. For example, FAW-Volvo, Panasonic-Wuxi Little Swan, etc. The benefits of such collaboration were making use of each other brand advantage to increase their own brand awareness.

But the criterial of such cooperation was that both brands had to be equal and stand to gain from each other. Feng Yu does not think that Tai Hua Processed Food Company and Tian Peng Pigs can gain anything from Beidacang Group. This cooperation will only benefit Beidacang Group!

If Beidacang Group had been in the market for a few years and were known throughout the whole nation, then there will not be any problem for this cooperation. Feng Yu only need to make sure that Tai Hua brand must be before Beidacang Group in their collaboration.

But now? Are you kidding me?!

“Manager Niu, are you joking with me? How can our Tai Hua brand be compared with Beidacang Group?” Feng Yu purposely asked.

Niu Kun knew Feng Yu was sarcastic and he was trying to say that Beidacang was not qualified to cooperate with Tai Hua Brand!

“Manager Feng, our Beidacang Group initial capital is 5 billion. We are a large-scale agriculture production company. We will further increase our capital in the future.”

Feng Yu immediately raised his hand to stop Niu Kun from boasting. “I know more about Beidacang Group than you. Baidacang Group can be set up is because of my suggestions. I will be honest with you. Beidacang Group’s initial capital might be a lot, but in reality, this company is an empty shell. The Central and Provincial Government might invest a lot in this company. But the problem with the company’s fund is that it is not enough! You dare to tell me how much money do Beidacang Group have?”

Want to boast in front of me? It’s because you have the government as your backing. If this is a private company, I don’t even need 3 months to make you all shut down! The biggest shortcoming of this company is the fund!

The money given by the higher-ups had to be used to get machinery and then acquire those smaller factories. They will be spending their money happily. Feng Yu heard that there was a small cooking oil factory which was worth not more than 100,000 RMB, and the people at Beidacang Group spent more than 1 million to acquire them!

No wonder in Feng Yu’s previous life there was a saying. Government and state-owned companies do not know how to spend money. Even 10 billion RMB will not be enough for them!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he heard that people love to do businesses with the government. Something worth a tens of thousand can be sold to them for a few hundred thousand. Also, the businessmen could buy a few million worths of goods from the government with only a few hundred thousand!

Something was wrong with this company! If it was not corruptions, then it means those people were useless. They did not check whether if they had been conned. But no matter what reasons it was, Beidacang Group was the losing party.

If Beidacang Group was managed by competent officials, or someone capable, then Beidacang Group will be able to grow fast.

But now, Feng Yu felt Beidacang Group had appeared too early. This was not a good thing as most of the government officials still had the old mindset. They had yet to experience the 1997 mass lay-offs, and Beidacang Group would have to face many difficulties before it could grow into a world-renowned company.

Niu Kun was embarrassed by Feng Yu’s retort. But it was important for Beidacang Group to cooperate with Tai Hua Processed Food Company if they want a stable growth in the initial stage. Their brand awareness would increase at a rapid rate from this cooperation, and this was the cheapest method.

Feng Yu was right. Beidacang Group does not have money. If they had money, they would advertise all over China and build up their brand within a few months.

Brand cooperation will eliminate one strong competitor and also promote their brand in the most efficient way. This was the best solution Beidacang Group had at the moment.

But Feng Yu does not seem to be interested, and Niu Kun can’t stand Feng Yu’s attitude. But he had to bear with Feng Yu as he must make this cooperation a success!

“Manager Feng, our Beidacang Group, have an abundant source of agriculture resources. Also, don’t you want Tai Hua Processed Food Company to develop? We will not only be cooperating in branding. We can still cooperate in many areas.” Niu Kun tried to persuade Feng Yu again.

Feng Yu was interested in cooperation of other areas. Tai Hua Processed Food Company flagship products were Tian Peng Pigs, Tai Hua Animal Feeds and lastly, Tai Hua Premium Soybean oil. Their other products like Tian Peng Ham etc. were only by-products from Tai Peng Pigs.

It was still a significant difference from the meat empire Feng Yu wanted to build in the past. Also, Tian Peng brand could only make pork-related products. Tian Peng Ham had introduced Chicken meat products, but the sales were not good. Zhang Ming even asked Feng Yu if they should register a brand like Bull Demon King for beef products!

Feng Yu also does not know if this would work. Tian Peng Pigs could become widespread throughout China was because there was a shortage of pork in the past. The pork was also the most common meat eaten by Chinese. It was because pork had more fats and taste better.

But recently, there were more people in the cities buying lean meat. This means the demand for beef and lamb will increase. If Beidacang group were to supply Tai Hua Processed Food Company beef and lamb to be sold at Tai Hua Supermarkets, there would be high profits.

“How do you want to cooperate? I’m listening.”

Chapter 740 – You think I am a fool?!

“Our Beidacang Group have breeding farms and farms for all sort of crops. These are what Tai Hua Processed Food Company needs, right?”

Feng Yu nodded. He was right. Tai Hua Processed Food Company only has pig farms. Tian Peng Pig Farm. The most prominent modern pig farm in China.

“We have more advantage in this area. The whole of China, or even Asia, we have the biggest advantage, right?”

Feng Yu shook his head. “That is after Beidacang Group grew and developed. But now, can your cow and goat farms be compared to the Northwest region? Can your crops farm be compared to the Shandong region? Don’t talk about Asia. You all are not even the best in China yet.”

This was a negotiation. Feng Yu had to pour cold water on the other party. If Feng Yu agrees with whatever the other party said, then he would allow the other party to set all the conditions.

Manager Feng, you cannot say this. We have the most significant land area and potential. It’s only a matter of time when we become the biggest agriculture production company in Asia.” Niu Kun said. He was slightly pissed with what Feng Yu said.

“Maybe. Continue.” Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. Even before Feng Yu came to this life, Beidacang Group’s production had not exceeded the Shandong region. Restoration of the forests and pasture, wetland conservations, etc. had reduced the number of farms in the Longjiang Province. The wasteland which had been cultivated now will have to be returned back to their original state 10 years later.

“We have a variety of products and Tai Hua Processed Food Company only has a few products. That’s why we want a collaboration with our brands. We will print both our companies’ brands on the packaging for all our products. This way, we can help each other increase brand influences.”

“Wait. Help each other increase brand awareness? What brand influence do you all have? How are you all going to help our brand? Even in Longjiang province, your brands are not as famous as mine, let alone the rest of the country. Our products are even exported to Europe and Southeast Asia!”

Tian Peng Ham had been exported to Hong Kong, and it’s considered Southeast Asia. It was also sold to Moscow and Moscow was considered Europe!

“Manager Feng, the selling points of our brand will be products from Black Soil and modern agriculture, breeding and green ecological farming. There is no other such company in China.”

Huh? There is the concept of green ecological farming now!?

Green ecological farming can also be known as safe, organic, and green farm products. China had this food standard, logo, and this name Green Food in the early 1990s. But the people then were poor, and no one cares about when the food they ate was green or organic. All they want was to fill their stomachs.

But it was different now. The average salary had increased a lot in the past two years. Private and overseas companies’ salary was the highest. Lots of people there were getting more than 1,000 RMB monthly. Some leaders there were reaching more than 10,000 RMB.

These few years, China’s economy was developing rapidly, and there was an increase in private companies. There were more wealthy people, and these people started to pay attention to their children’s health. This was the time to promote green food products and capture the market share.

Feng Yu had not expected someone at Beidacang Group to suggest selling marketing their products through Green Food labels. Seems that there were still lots of smart people in state-owned enterprises.

“Green ecological agriculture is a good selling point. But can you all get the certification for green food products?” Feng Yu asked Niu Kun.

“Our farms fulfilled environmental requirements. The processes, production, hygiene, quality, etc. are all qualified. We will surely get this certification easily. We have already applied for it, and the approval should be out this month.” Niu Kun smiled confidently.

They were a state-owned enterprise, and this certification was issued by the Ministry of Agriculture. It’s all their own people. Even if there were some issues, they would cover it up!

“Ok. I am slightly interested in this Green Ecological farming. But we can also apply for this certification. This reason is not sufficient for me to agree to this cooperation.”

Feng Yu believed that he would also be able to get the certification himself. If anyone in the government purposely prevents him from getting this certification, he will make sure that person would be fired from the government!

“Also, we are a state-owned enterprise which is funded by the Central Government. We are the first company and will be setting the benchmark for the industry. We have much more subsidies than all of you. If your products printed our logo and brand, you would be able to enjoy tax subsidies. This is a great benefit.”

“Then can you tell me how much tax relief we will get if we print your logo on the packaging? Also, is this legal? I don’t want to get into trouble for tax evasion in the future.” Feng Yu looked at Niu Kun from the corner of his eyes.

Tax relieves and subsidies were not based on the brands of the products. It was based on the companies. Beidacang Group could enjoy tax benefits, but Tai Hua Processed Food Company were not eligible. If Feng Yu believed what Niu Kun had said and someone reported this in the future, his company would get into trouble!

“With us around, this will be legal!”

“That’s what you say. To be honest, I don’t have any trust in you!” Feng Yu told Niu Kun directly.

Niu Kun was slightly embarrassed, but he continued: “We will be letting your company sell all of our products. The profits from this deal should be quite high.”

“That’s right. If it is all of Beidacang Group’s products, the profits will be very high. But you all can always look for someone else to be your main distributor. Can you all set up sales distribution channels yourselves? Without me helping you all to sell your products, all your products will be stocked up in your warehouses!” You want to use this matter to negotiate with me? If I do not help you all sell your products, your losses will be significant!

“Manager Feng, didn’t we agree on this last time?”

“Since we have already agreed on this, why are you still bringing this up?” Feng Yu looked at Niu Kun. Using a condition which had been agreed upon by both parties to negotiate again? Is there anything wrong with your brains?

“Manager Feng, this cooperation will be a win-win situation for both of our companies. The green ecological farming and our supplies of raw ingredients to your company show that we will be your best partner!”

If Tai Hua Processed Food Company and Beidacang Group could cooperate, Tai Hua Processed Food Company will get a steady supply of raw ingredients. The demand for animal feed had increased, and grains were needed for the production of animal feed.

“We can cooperate. But have you all thought about how are we going to cooperate?” Feng Yu asked.

Niu Kun was delighted. “We had discussed about this. Now, Tai Hua Processed Food Company is producing and selling their own products. The packaging must be changed. Our company’s brand and name must be printed above your brand. All your advertisements must also include our brand name and logo……”

Niu Kun excitedly told Feng Yu about all his demands. But after speaking for a while, he noticed Feng Yu not saying a word. He looked up and saw Feng Yu sneering.

“Manager Niu, do I look like a fool to you?!”

Chapter 741 – On my terms!

Niu Kun was stunned when he heard what Feng Yu said. Feng Yu was angry.

“Manager Feng, what do you mean by this? I am discussing with you about this cooperation.” Niu Kun asked.

“Cooperation? This is the cooperation you are talking about? Beidacang Group does not have any products now, let along any brand awareness. Green agriculture is still not implemented. Yet, you all want to print your brand and logo in front of my brand? Do you really think I will agree?” Feng Yu asked coldly.

Feng Yu had thought the cooperation was about the crops after the harvest or the products they produced in another two months. They will change the packaging of their products and discuss the minor details then.

Feng Yu does not mind letting Beidacang Group take some advantage of him. Anyway, Beidacang Group’s brand will be famous in the future. It will be easier to do sales promotion then.

If Feng Yu could get a stake in Beidacang Group, his profits will be higher.

But Feng Yu did not expect this Niu Kun to be so shameless. They did not have anything to offer in return and want Feng Yu to market their brand for them. What adding Beidacang brand and logo in all their advertising? They dare to make such demands?

“Manager Feng, this is cooperation. Of course you must give in a little.” Niu Kun shamelessly said.

“Really? Then what can you all offer in return? Are you going to pay me the advertising fees? If you all are paying the advertising fees, we can still negotiate.”

“How much for the advertising fees? Is 1 million RMB enough?” Niu Kun showed one finger and make it sound like it’s a significant amount.

Feng Yu took glanced at him. Damn. You all paid so much for a worthless small factory, and when it comes to the essential things, you all are only willing to pay so little?

1 million? This year, CCTV advertising fees had increased again. The top advertising slot was more than 30 million RMB. Feng Yu’s companies had spent more than 100 million RMB on advertising slots alone! Even Tai Hua Processed Food Company’s advertising slots were during the off-peak hours, it also costs 6 million per year. You want to advertise with only 1 million?

“We had spent a few million on CCTV advertisement. We will share the cost equally. 4 million RMB. You all will also benefit from the marketing of our brand and must pay for it too. I will charge you 2 million for this. I will not calculate all other miscellaneous charges. Just give me 6 million, and all the packaging of all Tai Hua Processed Food Company’s products will be changed.”

“What? 6 million? Manager Feng, are you joking with me? I know CCTV advertising slots are expensive. But even if you had spent a few million for the slot, more than 6 months have passed this year. If we average the cost, it will be less than 2 million. Also, what marketing of the brand needs 2 million?!” Niu Kun shouted.

“Ok. I will charge you 2 million RMB for CCTV advertising. I can give in on this.” Feng Yu said generously. “Let’s talk about brand marketing. You all do not have any products yet and have no way to market your brand. Without our products, you all cannot do any advertising. Our products are already well known in the market and don’t you think it is a form of marketing for your brand by printing your brand name on our product’s packaging? When consumers buy our products, they will know your brand. You all do not stand to gain from this? Do you know how popular our products are? You all will be getting a huge advantage from us!”

“Wait. Manager Feng. I have already paid advertising fees. It should include all the charges for marketing. Also, when did I agree to pay you 2 million for CCTV advertising?” Niu Kun was going crazy. It was hard for him to follow Feng Yu in this negotiation. He feels he was going nowhere in this negotiation.

“That is for TV advertisements. How can it be the same as using our brand to market? Do you know what marketing using physical products? I know you don’t understand what I am talking about. You do not know how to do business at all. No wonder all the companies under the Ministry of Agriculture are doing so badly.” Feng Yu said.

Niu Kun took a few deep breaths. He looked down and criticized his work by a brat in his early twenties. In the past, he would teach this brat a lesson or just walk away. But now, he could not walk off. Beidacang Group’s development still needed Feng Yu’s help.

In Beidacang Group, Niu Kun could be replaced anytime. But Feng Yu was irreplaceable! If they fall out, then the outcome will be him losing his General Manager position and maybe even his position of Director of Longjiang’s Ministry of Agriculture bureau! Feng Yu will still remain as a big boss, and nothing will happen to him!

“Then can you tell me how you get this figure?”

“Knowledge is valuable. Why should I tell you without anything in return? I can just tell you straight. You want a brand collaboration? No problem. You want us to change the packaging? It’s fine too. Money! Pay me if not, this cooperation is off!”

“Manager Feng, our negotiation earlier is going so well, how did it turn out this way?” Niu Kun tried to change the subject.

“Ask yourself.” Feng Yu replied.

“Manager Feng, can we discuss this cooperation from the start again?”

“Sure.” Feng Yu smiles and agreed.

Niu Kun was overjoyed. When he was about to state his conditions, Feng Yu asked: “Where shall we start?”

“Let’s start with our brands’ collaboration.”

Feng Yu shook his head. “You still remember what your question was earlier?”

“What question?” Niu Kun was confused.

“The sentence before I agree to our brands’ collaboration.”

“I don’t remember what I said.”

“Let me remind you. You asked me about brand cooperation.”

“That’s right. I asked you what you think if Beidacang Group and Tai Hua Processed Food Company have brand cooperation. You said……”

Before Niu Kun could finish, Feng Yu shook his head and interrupt: “I refuse!”

Niu Kun: “……” What? Didn’t you agree earlier? We are starting this negotiation again, and if you are going to reject this cooperation, what’s the point of renegotiation?

“Manager Feng, this is not what you said earlier.” Niu Kun was panicking.

“That’s earlier, and it’s different from now. People will change.”

“Manager Feng, just tell me your conditions. If I can accept, I will surely agree. Beidacang Group’s products will also be handed over to your company to sell. You also want our products to sell well, right?” Niu Kun gave in. He had no choice. If negotiation broke down, he might even lose his job.

Feng Yu looked at Niu Kun with satisfaction. “Manager Niu. Don’t make it sound like this. We are all friends. We can still cooperate, but it must be on my terms!”

Niu Kun: “……” We can never be friends just from this sentence alone!

Chapter 742 – Special Privileges!

In the end, Niu Kun agreed to Feng Yu’s harsh conditions. He had no choice. As a high-ranking official, this was the first time he felt he was suppressed by the other party in a business negotiation. This had never happened before.

Feng Yu and Niu Kun had only settled on the main terms of this cooperation. Zhang Ming will have to follow up on the rest of the details. After all, Zhang Ming was the best person to go to on matters concerning Tai Hua Processed Food Company.

Also, Feng Yu was lazy to carry on this discussion. The returns were too meager for him to waste his energy to think about all these.

Feng Yu would be able to earn a significant sum of money and fulfill many of plans soon. But before this, he had something important to settle first.

No matter it was now or the future, the identity of a Hong Kong citizen was more convenient than a Chinese national. For example, he does not need visas to visit a lot of countries. There were even more benefits in this era. Within the next 5 years, Hong Kongers still enjoy more privileges in China, compared to an American!

What Feng Yu wants was a Hong Kong passport!

But it was harder for Feng Yu to get Hong Kong passport now than others. It was because Feng Yu had too many assets.

Others might not know how much Feng Yu had. But there must be some higher-ups monitoring Feng Yu. Feng Yu is a tycoon in China, and if he migrates to Hong Kong and then from Hong Kong migrate to the UK, he would be taking away all his wealth to another country. The Chinese government does not want this to happen.

If Feng Yu had only 1 million or several million, it would be easy for him to migrate to Hong Kong and the government would not care.

The easiest way to migrate was to invest in that country. The approvals will be easily granted. In this era, Hong Kong and many countries welcome this type of immigrants.

These countries do not really care about the person. They only want a person’s wealth. Even before Feng Yu’s rebirth, many countries were still encouraging migration using investments. This was like getting foreign investments for those countries.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many Chinese tycoons had migrated to other countries. This was a big headache for the Chinese government. But the top tycoons, the ones who could influence the Chinese economy were not allowed to migrate to other countries. Maybe these people also did not want to leave China. After all, they had attained a special status in China.

Now, Feng Yu was in an awkward position. His future plans will still be focus in China and do not have the intentions of switching nationality. He only wanted an identity for greater convenience.

This was why Feng Yu went to Beijing. He had called Director Fang to request a meeting with Iron-fist Zhu.

It was noon, and when Feng Yu met with Iron-fist Zhu, he was still working. This man had worked hard for the country. This was why Feng Yu really respected this man.

“You say you need to see me for something very important? What is it?” Iron-fist Zhu asked as he massages the bridge of his nose. He looked exhausted.

“I want to migrate.”

“What? You want to migrate?!” It was hard for Iron-fist Zhu to get shocked. But what Feng Yu said shocked him.

Feng Yu had donated a lot of money in China. He should be patriotic. Iron-fist Zhu had spoken to Feng Yu in the past when he visited Songjiang Motors factory. They talked about the importance of Chinese companies. How come Feng Yu wants to migrate now?

Did Feng Yu meet with some unjust treatment? Cannot be. Who dares to offend a tycoon like Feng Yu? Was it some government officials trying to take over Feng Yu’s company?

“Why?” Iron-fist Zhu asked sternly.

“Don’t get angry. I am not migrating to the US or any western countries. I want to migrate to Hong Kong. The reason is also straightforward. I need a Hong Kong passport. A passport that can let me travel easily. This is more convenient for me. I am going to the US in a few days, and after that, I need to go to Europe, Japan, and many other countries. Chinese passport is really inconvenient.” Feng Yu replied calmly.

“That’s the reason?”

“Yes. My parents are still in China. Where can I run to? I only don’t want other people to think that I am trying to transfer my assets out of China. Actually, my investments overseas are more than my investments in China. I think you all also do not know about this, right?”

Iron-fist Zhu looked at Feng Yu curiously: “Why are you telling me this?”

“Nothing. I only want to say that although I am migrating to Hong Kong, Hong Kong will become part of China in a few more years, and I am still Chinese. Even for thee two years, I do not want others to see me as a Hong Konger. So, I am thinking of asking a favor from you. Can you give me a card? A card that allows me to stay in China permanently.”

Many countries have such permits. This sort of card represented permanent residency in that country, and the holder of the card is protected by that country’s law. But that does not mean the holder of this card is that country’s citizen.

Many Chinese in Feng Yu’s previous life had US green cards or holds the permanent residents of another nation. Many Chinese in China felt that these people were no longer Chinese national. They had gone over to the enemies and were foreigners now. But some of these people were still members of the National People’s Congress standing committee! These people were still Chinese nationals, except they were allowed to stay in another country.

Feng Yu had wanted to get dual nationality. But he knows that China does not recognize dual citizenship. That’s what he only asks for a China’s green card.

Iron-fist Zhu looks at Feng Yu. Someone at his age should not have such maturity. He seems too much more experienced than his peers. Iron-fist Zhu was very curious about this.

Iron-fist Zhu had investigated Feng Yu and his family background. Feng Yu’s family was typical and had nothing special. They did not have any connections with anyone overseas.

Feng Yu got his starting capital from a bear! It was that bear that helped this young man create a business empire. What was more shocking was that he could only find out part of Feng Yu’s assets. He did not know Feng Yu still had more investments overseas!

If this person could work for the government, then China’s economy would develop much faster. It’s a pity that this young man was not interested.

“There is no need to be so troublesome. You can have a Hong Konger identity and at the same time, retain your Chinese national identity. That means you are allowed to hold two legal passports!”

Ah? That means dual nationality? I am getting special privileges?

“You are saying that I am allowed to hold two nationalities?” Feng Yu asked again.

“It will be one country soon. It’s all the same. You are brilliant. I hope you will contribute more than donations and taxes to our nation.” Iron-fist Zhu looked at Feng Yu into his eyes.

But Feng Yu did not reply. He was not interested in politics. It was not because he does not know about government politics. But it was because he was better in finance and also there were too many restrictions working for the government. He does not like to be restricted.

“If I am about to do it, then I will do my best. I am a Chinese National, after all!”

“Hahaha, well said! I will get someone to settle this for you. You will get a legal Hong Kong passport 3 days later.” Iron-fist Zhu was pleased with Feng Yu’s reply.

Iron-fist Zhu looks at Feng Yu’s back view as he left. This was someone whom he can’t read. This person appeared in China. Was this excellent fortune or……

Chapter 743 – Are you all regretting now?

“President Kameda, oh sorry. I should address you as Chairman Kameda now. Chairman Kameda, no sex toys company have been listed before. Today, you announced that the Sixth Sense Company will be listed on Nasdaq 3 days later. Is this true?” A reported raised a microphone and asked.

A group of reporters had surrounded Kameda Masao at the entrance of the Sixth Sense Company. All of them wanted to interview him.

“This is true. You can still call me President Kameda. After all, I am still the President of the Sixth Sense Kabushiki Kaisha.” Kameda Masao was smiling happily in front of the reporters.

When Feng Yu asked him to be the Sixth Sense Company’s President, he was overjoyed. He worked hard to transform the previous Black Dragon brand to a newer Sixth Sense brand. The popularity of this new brand had increased tremendously.

After that, Kameda Masao saw a lot of companies getting listed even when they were not making profits. After those companies were listed, their market value increased.

Getting listed was also an excellent way to promote the company and brand. The company could also raise funds from the public for further development. So, Kameda Masao went to look for Feng Yu to get his opinions for the listing of the Sixth Sense Company.

Feng Yu agreed and offered some suggestions like getting the company listed on the Nasdaq instead of Tokyo.

Kameda Masao faced some difficulties with the application. But in the end, he managed to get the approvals with the company’s good results and financial reports.

What Kameda Masao did not expect was Feng Yu asking him to be the Sixth Sense Company’s Chairman. He felt Feng Yu really trusted him!

Kameda Masao had never seen or heard any major shareholder in Japan not wanting to be the Chairman and offered this position to others. Feng Yu was the first person that did this.

Kameda Masao was grateful to Feng Yu. If he did not meet Feng Yu, he would not be so successful now. He would also not be able to re-establish the Kameda family!

The Kameda family might not be a top-tier family in Japan, does not have strong foundations nor any influence in politics. But the Kameda Family is no longer a weak family, where anyone can step all over them. At least in their province, the Kameda family had become a respectable family!

Kameda Masao had appeared in the papers and TV often. Many people called him the king of the sex toy industry and even the king of the porn industry. But Kamesa Masao does not care. He was now a respectable man in the upper class!

Feng Yu agreed with Kameda Masao when the latter suggested to let the company’s employees purchase the company’s shares. Feng Yu did not even ask about the details and told him to do whatever he wants.

Kameda Masao felt he was lucky to meet a boss who trusted him this much.

“Chairman Kameda, how much are the shares and how many shares will be issued?” A reporter asked.

“We will be issuing 30% of the company’s shares, which is 30 million shares. The IPO price is 10 USD per share.” Kameda Masao replied.

Very soon, someone calculated the figures. Kameda Masao was saying that the Sixth Sense, a sex toy manufacturer company was worth 1 billion USD?

What a joke! How can a company with a few hundred million USD of debts be worth so much?

“President Kameda, is the IPO price set too high? I heard that your company’s total assets were not so high. Are you setting a premium price for the shares?”

Kameda Masao glanced at that report. Are you an idiot? Which company does not issue their shares at premium prices? Are you telling me that I should sell a 10 USD share at 5 USD? Is there anything wrong with your brains?

Kameda Masao did not answer that question.

The other reporters immediately pushed that idiot report to the back. Someone asked: “Chairman Kameda, why did you choose to get your company listed in Nasdaq and not Toyko? Our country is very open, and your company’s products are extremely popular here. Many people here want to buy your company’s shares. But you chose to get listed in the US. Is there a reason for this?”

Kameda Masao looked at that reporter. “There are a lot of Japanese companies which were listed on Nasdaq. Have you asked them about the reasons?”

“I am not sure about them, and I do not want to know. I am only asking on behalf of Japanese. Why you did not get your company listed in Tokyo?” The reporter replied.

“Fine. I will tell you my reasons. I had applied to be listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange first. But my application was rejected. The reason given by them was that my company is not profitable, and the number of shareholders is too little. So, I submit my application to Nasdaq. Although I did not get the approval immediately, they still kept in touch with me.”

“The second reason is about funding. Getting listed is to raise fund for the growth of the company. Our company will definitely choose a more prosperous market. Our Tokyo financial market was formerly the world’s number one financial market. But since the market crash a few years ago, we have not recovered. There are no companies like The Sixth Sense Company got listed before. That’s why I prefer a more prosperous market to be safe. There are more investors in the US.”

“Also, the Sixth Sense Company will use the Americans’ money to develop, and then we will earn their money. Isn’t this a good thing?”

“Chairman Kameda, there are rumors that you are not the biggest shareholder of the company. Is this true?” A reporter squeezed to the front and asked.

“The Sixth Sense Company belongs to all our workers. Does it matter who the biggest shareholder is? I am also the President of the company, and I will continue to lead the company like before.” Kameda Masao did not answer that question directly. Feng Yu had instructed Kameda Masao not to mention anything about him.

“President Kameda……”

“Ok. Let’s stop for today. I still need to catch my flight. The company is getting listed in the US. Even when my staffs are there to do the preparations, but I can’t be arriving there on the day of listing, right? Please excuse me. I don’t want the other passengers to wait for me.”

Two bodyguards opened up a path in between the reporters and escorted Kameda Masao to a waiting car. The reporters saw Kameda Masao had left and they immediately rush back to publish this news.

This was the world’s first sex toy manufacturer company to be listed. It was still a Japanese company. This company had made the whole country proud.

On the way to the airport, Kameda Masao never stops smiling. He had never been surrounded by so many reporters before in his life.

Kameda Masao and the Sixth Sense Company will be on the headlines of all media in Japan for the next few days!

Kameda Masao was feeling proud of the listing of the Sixth Sense Company. Those that looked down on him and those that refused to invest in his company. Are you all regretting now?

Chapter 744 – Future plans

With Iron-fist Zhu’s help, Feng Yu got a Hong Kong passport in the morning 3 days later. His China Passport was still valid.

After Feng Yu got his passport, he contacted the US side and then fly to New York with some of his Hong Kong staffs.

The last time Feng Yu went to the US was to trick Pfizer Company. But this time, Feng Yu will be staying in the US for a while. The US economy was thriving in this era. Although the growth was not more than 4% and average at 3%, it was still alarming because of its strong base.

There were a lot of opportunities in the US during this era. This was also the time when the US tech industry developed. Telecommunications, PC, technology, software, etc. will replace the US traditional manufacturers as the primary industry.

This trip, Feng Yu had targeted 3 industries. PC, software, and telecommunications. These were also the industries he wanted to introduce in China.

Telecommunications does not need any further explanations. Pagers will be slowly replaced by mobile phones. After 1999, SMS technology was introduced, and it could manage more than 500 SMS every second. This was the technology that killed pagers.

Feng Yu’s plan for Aiwa Electronics was to introduce the Aiwa brand and Wind and Rain brand of mobile phone before 1997. Then they will modify their factories’ production line. Pager production will stop within 3 years after the mobile phones are introduced in the market.

This decision puzzled many people at Aiwa Electronics. They felt pagers should still be in the market for at least the next 10 years. They should increase their productions to meet the demand. Why are they withdrawing from the pager market so early?

Feng Yu told them that after mobile phones have SMS services, pagers will be obsolete. The staff at Aiwa Electronics does not believe. It was because the messaging system now could only process 1 short message per second. That’s why there was a long delay. SMS now was not as convenient as pagers.

No one would expect the SMS technology would develop so fast. In the future, it could process 16,000 messages in a second, and SMS was the most popular feature used by mobile phone users. This was because SMS cost the lowest. It was about the same as pagers.

Feng Yu told his staffs at Aiwa electronics that this is an order. There’s no room for discussion. Feng Yu was the main shareholder and could make the overall decision as long as it is not against the law. He can override the decisions made by other shareholders.

For the PC industry, Feng Yu will leave it to Lenovo. Lenovo was good at controlling their manufacturing cost. China taxes on imported electronic products were high, and Lenovo will be starting a price war this year. They wanted to take over the whole China market.

Soon, it will be the PC era as Windows 95 operating system will be launch soon.

This operating system was the main reason the PC became popular. It was simple, convenient, fast, user-friendly. Users only need to click on the mouse, and they could operate it. Even seniors and children can operate it. Microsoft will also introduce Internet Explorer. This dramatically increases the development of the internet.

This was a great opportunity that cannot be missed. It might be impossible for Lenovo to become a world-class PC manufacturer now, but it should not be a problem for them to control the Chinese market.

Lenovo had signed contracts with many companies to supply parts for their hardware products. They will also be producing the core components in China. This year will be China’s PC peak!

Feng Yu wants Lenovo to seize this opportunity, and Liu Chuanzhi agreed. He also felt this was the right time to start a price war.

Lenovo in this life was different from Feng Yu’s previous life. In his previous life, Lenovo had to get listed in Hong Kong to raise funds for its development. In this life, Feng Yu had invested in Lenovo directly and stopped them from getting listed.

Feng Yu wanted Lenovo to wait for a few more years. Even if Lenovo were to get listed now, they have to pick the best location for their listing. The top choice now is the US. Regardless whether if it is NYSE or the Nasdaq, both are much better than Hong Kong.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Lenovo was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and got delisted after a few years. Feng Yu does not want this to happen again. Getting delisted will affect the confidence of the investors.

Feng Yu firmly oppose Lenovo to get listed now. He does not want his shares to be diluted now. Unless he could purchase more shares internally and his proportion of his stake in the company will not be affected, he will never allow the company to be listed.

As for software, Lenovo is also working hard to develop their software products. Feng Yu made some suggestions to Liu Chuanzhi. The number one Chinese software developer company, Kingsoft, in Feng Yu’s previous life, was already established. There were lots of talents in this company.

If Lenovo could acquire Kingsoft, then they will be able to gain a stronger foothold in the Chinese market. They would have software and hardware to go hand-in-hand.

Liu Chuanzhi also likes those developers at Kingsoft. They were quite famous in the software developers’ circles. But they are not the best developers in China now.

China’s best software company in this era is Rising. But it was owned by the government, and Feng Yu doesn’t suggest acquiring them. Liu Chuanzhi had wanted to merge with both Rising and Kingsoft but was stopped by Feng Yu.

Rising was a good company, but if they merged with Lenovo, Lenovo’s shareholding structure would collapse. Rising’s backing was too powerful. They were so powerful that they might takeover Lenovo.

Kingsoft was a better choice. They were strong in software development too and does not have a strong backing. It will be easy for Lenovo to take over them. Also, Kingsoft was the most advanced when it comes to Chinese language software.

In the current era, no companies in the world could catch up with Microsoft when it comes to the operating system. Feng Yu also did not expect his companies to develop an operating system which was better than Win95 now.

But it was crucial to creating a Chinese version of Win95. Microsoft still does not have operating systems in other languages except for English.

If there was only an English version of Win95, then it will be difficult for it to be introduced in China. Feng Yu remembered that it was Kinston that developed the Chinese language pack for Windows operating system in his previous life.

But later, Kingsoft used Microsoft system’s codes and produced a free version of the operating system. They were sued by Microsoft, and lots of their top developers quit after Kingsoft lost. Kingsoft changed its direction after that and entered the mobile phone systems. They started Xiao Mi and Lei Jun, the former boss of Kingsoft, entered the limelight again!

Feng Yu intends to replicate US current successful development in China. He wants to let China companies takeover and acquire US companies.

Now, Feng Yu was going to the US to check out the businesses there.

Chapter 745 – Sixth Sense Company’s developments

Nasdaq is a stock exchange in New York but operates differently from the NYSE. The most significant difference is Nasdaq uses electronic trades, while NYSE still needed to go through brokers.

In its early days, Nasdaq was a platform for unlisted small companies to raise funds and for people to trade unlisted companies’ shares. It was also the world’s first electronic stock market.

Nasdaq grew at an alarming rate. Their over-the-counter trading system does not require brokers and dealers. Some people even felt that Nasdaq was not a real stock exchange, but a virtual stock market!

But the Nasdaq will become one of US major stock exchange. Nasdaq composite index also became an essential indicator of the security markets.

Microsoft and Apple were listed on the Nasdaq.

Of course. Trading can also be done on NYSE through phone or internet. But it was still not as convenient as Nasdaq.

The Sixth Sense Company will be getting listed on Nasdaq. This was because the requirements to get listed there were the lowest. The conditions were much lower than NYSE, Tokyo Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, etc.

The requirements for getting listed on Nasdaq was tangible or physical assets worth more than 6 million USD, profits of more than 1 million USD before taxes the year before, outstanding shares of more than 1.1 million shares, minimum of three market makers, each stock must be at least 5 USD and at least 400 shareholders.

All other stock exchange needed the financial reports for the last 3 years and must have more than 2,000 shareholders. The company’s tangible assets must be worth more than 1.8 million USD, etc.

Because of the lower requirements of Nasdaq, there were a lot of companies listed. Most of the companies were small-medium enterprises and new startups. These small companies were able to raise funds quickly. Nasdaq was like China’s Growth Enterprise Market.

The Sixth Sense Company had met the criteria for both the assets and income. But they did not have enough shareholders because they only had a few hundred longtime employees.

Most Japanese companies will have lifetime employment contracts for their employees. But these contracts were only for mainly Japanese, and companies seldom issue this contract to a foreign worker. This was a common practice in big Japanese enterprises. As long as the employee did not make any grave mistake or committed any crimes, they could remain at the company for the rest of their lives.

Also, these employees will get salary increments based on their age. Some companies, like Panasonic will offer unique benefits. For instance, a male employee got married, the company will ask the wife to resign and stay at home to take care of the house. At the same time, the husband will get a pay raise of about 50% or even more. The increment will have to depend on the wife’s previous salary. In Japan, female employees’ wages were generally about half of the male employees at equivalent rank.

Japanese firms took good care of their employees. The Sixth Sense Company had more than 5,000 employees, but only a few hundred of them were given lifetime employment contracts. This was because the rest of their staffs were from other countries like Europe, the US and other parts of Asia. Kameda Masao will not give such employment contracts to these staffs.

If something happened at the company and there was a need for retrenchment, Kameda Masao could just retrench those ordinary employees. The company would not need to pay out a large amount of retrenchment fees.

Kameda Masao will not tell the press about this. If he told the media, the reporters would question him why can’t the other employees not under lifetime employment contracts purchase the company’s shares?

The other employees were also allowed to purchase the company’s shares. But it was limited to the middle and higher management staffs. Their treatment was not like Japan, where even a lifetime employment security guard can purchase the Sixth Sense Company’s shares.

Feng Yu was speechless when he learned about this. All of them were employed under the same company. You can just set a minimum year of service as the criteria. This way, more people will be willing to buy the company’s shares.

But Kameda Masao explained that their overseas employees were mainly salespeople. Everyone knew that sales had the highest turnovers. He cannot just issue a long-term contract to them just because their performance is good for the past two years. Unless the staff is the top salesman in the company. But if the staff is the top salesman in the company, he will be given a management role, and he could also buy the company’s shares.

Feng Yu could not retort Kameda Masao, as Kameda Masao was more familiar with the company. Even when it comes to managing a company, Kameda Masao was much better than Feng Yu.

Feng Yu did not use his status as the main shareholder to pressurize Kameda Masao. He just let Kameda Masao do whatever he wants. Anyway, the Sixth Sense Company was developing much faster than Feng Yu’s expectation. It was already the world’s biggest sex toy manufacturer. Most of the company’s profits came from their sex dolls, lingerie, vibrators, and condoms.

Out of the 4 products, sex dolls and lingerie had already dominated the global market in terms of market share and sales.

The other two products’ sales and market share were also rising. They were closing in on the global leaders fast.

As Japanese porn adult videos became more popular in the US and Europe, Kameda Masao believes that the sales of his vibrators will also increase. Japan’s design of such products is the most advanced in the world!

Condoms are the Sixth Sense Company’s latest product. Although the sales were not bad, their condoms were still not the best in Japan. Currently, Okamoto brand was still the top condom in Japan.

Kameda Masao had planned to use the fund raised from this listing to invest in the R&D of condoms. He aimed to beat Okamoto in Japan first and then be the top condom producer in Asia, followed by the world/

Feng Yu was not optimistic about Kameda Masao’s goal. It was still a question mark whether if he could win Okamoto. Even if he exceeds Okamoto, there are still lots of big condoms manufacturers in the world.

But Feng Yu agreed that the condom market will increase in the next few years, and it’s a must for the company to increase its scale and invest more into R&D after the listing.

If it weren’t for Feng Yu taking away parts of Sixth Sense Company’s profits, they would need to depend on this listing to raise funds.

Feng Yu and Kameda Masao were very confident about this listing. This was because they had engaged the services of a few top brokerages as their market makers!

Chapter 746 – Wait and See

Although Nasdaq’s requirement was only 3 market makers, Feng Yu went to look for more than required.

This was because the more market makers there were, there will be more competition. This way, the gap between the bid and sell price will not be too big, and the commission will be lowered. This was also one of the costs of getting listed.

Also, this will lower the risk. If there were too little market makers, they might collude and purposely raise the share prices, and Feng Yu would have to pay them the difference or additional commission. After that, the share prices will plunge, and Feng Yu would be at the losing end. This had happened before.

This time, Feng Yu had gotten Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Morgen Stanley, Wells Fargo, etc. to be the market makers. All of these institutions were American top financial institutions. Each of them was able to sell the Sixth Sense Company’s shares at high prices.

Feng Yu also found out that Citibank had high hopes in the listing of Sixth Sense Company, and this gave him confidence. The was why he was confident when he contacted Barclays and Goldman Sachs.

Morgen Stanley, Wells Fargo, etc. were also US famous financial institutions. Some other financial institutions even approached Feng Yu.

Those that approached Feng Yu were not because they had high hopes on Sixth Sense Company, or they had seen the company’s financial reports or proposals. It was because they heard that the biggest shareholder of Sixth Sense Company also owns more than 15% of Microsoft!

Feng Yu’s Microsoft shares were not sold to him by the founders of Microsoft. It was bought from the open market at high prices and had no voting rights. But no one dares to look down on him.

The current market value of Microsoft was already more than 30 billion USD. That means this unknown Microsoft shareholder’s assets were more than 4.5 billion USD!

All the representatives of the financial institutions wanted to know this super tycoon. When the Sixth Sense Company was looking for market makers, they took this opportunity to approach Feng Yu.

The financial institutions knew that this super tycoon should not have only one company. He must have other companies. When his other companies were to get listed, and they could be his market makers, they could make high profits. If they could collaborate with this person in other areas, it would be better.

But the representatives from these financial institutions could not negotiate with Feng Yu. They felt they had shown enough sincerity by sending their top management staffs. But Feng Yu knew that these people were not the final decision-makers and were not interested in talking to them.

If these financial institutions want to speak to Feng Yu, then they should send their real decision-maker over. These people were only working for their institutions. Their status in their company was even lower than Kameda Masao in Sixth Sense Company. They might be able to make some decisions, but they could be replaced anytime.

Feng Yu wanted always wanted to speak to Bill Gates. After all, Feng Yu was also the third-biggest shareholder.

Feng Yu and Bill Gates had met once in the past. It was when Feng Yu started to acquire Microsoft shares. Feng Yu had bought Microsoft shares regardless of the prices. As long as someone wants to sell Microsoft shares, he will just buy it without thinking. This was because he knew Microsoft share prices will continue to rise.

This was what happened. No matter how much Feng Yu paid for those shares, Microsoft shares still maintained a steady growth. This year, the increase will be even faster, and Microsoft will be splitting their shares.

This was because after Win95 was launched, Microsoft profits shot up. Although they still have not monopolized the operating system industry because of Apple and IBM, their operating system was the easiest to use. Most importantly, Microsoft had signed contracts with many PC manufacturers. All their PC will be installed with Microsoft software!

Feng Yu will not sell his Microsoft shares now. All his profits and liquid assets were all invested in Microsoft. As Microsoft share prices rise, his net-worth also increases.

Feng Yu never worried that Microsoft shares will plunge. Even if the share prices fell, it was only for short term. The prices will recover very fast. If you look at their share prices by months, you will discover that Microsoft shares were increasing steadily.

Were there other shares that grow faster than Microsoft? Yes. There was a lot. Even in Hong Kong and China, there were more than one company’s shares that rise more quickly than Microsoft in the short term. But those shares only increase for a while, and Feng Yu had to continually monitor them. Microsoft, on the other hand, does not need to worry.

Also, Microsoft shares were Feng Yu’s capital to enter the US market. He will be able to enjoy high status with these shares.

Just getting the market makers for Sixth Senses Company could tell. Feng Yu had only let out some news, and those representatives from the financial institutions believed it without even verifying the news.

Even if the news about Feng Yu was fake, those financial institutions had nothing to lose. As market makers, it was still very profitable. If the news about Feng Yu was real, then they will get to know a tycoon. They could make more profits from Feng Yu.

……

Kameda Masao was sitting beside Feng Yu. He was very nervous. “Manager Feng, How much do you think our shares will rise when the market open? Will it shoot up by more than 10%?”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes at Kameda Masao. “10%? Are you belittling those market makers? The shares they sold had never grown less than 13% during the IPO. Our shares are issued by so many financial institutions. You should be more ambitious.”

With Feng Yu’s encouragement, Kameda Masao cautiously asked: “15%?”

Feng Yu shook his head, and Kameda Masao was slightly disappointed. He had expected too much. But 13% was good enough. Feng Yu continued: “How can 15% be enough? Before the market opens, the market makers will have to discuss among themselves about the initial share prices. I estimate our share prices will rise at least 20% when the market opens!”

Kameda Masao was shocked. “How much? 20% increase when the market opens? How can this be possible? Only the tech companies will get such a high increase during their IPO.”

Feng Yu patted Kameda Masao on his back: “I have always turned the impossible to possible. You just wait and see.”

Chapter 747 – Market Opens

Kameda Masao was wearing a smart-looking suit. He had combed his hair neatly and stood on the stage speaking to the reporters.

This was the ceremony whenever a company was newly listed. A representative of the company will announce the company’s future plans and their forecast profits. This was to persuade more people to buy the company’s shares.

Kameda Masao spoke in perfect English and Feng Yu was standing in a corner sipping on his champagne. Kameda Masao was moved when Feng Yu told him to go on the stage on his behalf.

Kameda Masao was very superstitious and wore a green colored shirt with a green colored tie. He also had a green color handkerchief in his suit pocket. Many of the reporters were also wearing green ties. There was even one reporter with a green hat.

Feng Yu was speechless by their dressing. He did not have any green-colored item on him, but he also did not wear anything red in color.

In the US market, green color represents prices going up, and red represents drop.

Feng Yu did not expect the people here to be so superstitious too. Kameda Masao told Feng Yu that green was his lucky color and Feng Yu did not say anything much.

But in his previous life, Feng Yu had seen representatives from companies wearing red from top to toe before their company was listed. Feng Yu does not care about what others think, but he felt dizzy looking at them.

Feng Yu felt that whether the share prices go up or down, have nothing to do with the color of the clothes they were wearing. What matters most was the financial report and future development plans. Even if the boss of the company was wearing his lucky color, and the company does not have a good development plan or announcements, the shares will also plunge after it got listed.

It might even get delisted!

Kameda Masao was a good speaker. He was well prepared for this opening speech. He even added a few jokes in between.

After Kameda Masao finishes his speech, he was invited to sound the bell to announce the opening of the market.

Starting from this year, NYSE began to invite special guests to sound the opening bell. Nasdaq also copied this ceremony. Those that sounded the bell in the past were the stock exchange managers, and it was nothing special.

But after some special guests sounded the bell, it will be reported on the papers. This was also a form of marketing. From then onwards, many bosses felt it was an honor to sound the opening bell.

Who were the special guests? They were the representatives of the companies that were going to be listed on that day. Usually, they were the company’s directors or CEO.

Today’s Nasdaq opening bell ceremony’s special guest was Kameda Masao. As usual, Feng Yu refused to be in the limelight or being reported in the media.

Kameda Masao stood in front of the bell. He felt this was his greatest achievement. All the ones who had sounded the bell before him were all tycoons.

He will be sounding the bell and will be envied by others.

Dang!!!!

The bell was sounded. Feng Yu was also excited. This was his first listed company in this life. No. This was his first listed company in both his lifetimes. This company must not let him down.

Kameda Masao was in a daze and holding on to the hammer. It was as if time had stopped for him.

He was brought back to his senses by the applause, and someone took the hammer from his hand. Kameda Masao took a deep breath and waited for the initial share prices.

Sounding the bell only announces the opening of the market. It does not mean that there will be transactions immediately. Usually, it will be delayed for about 15 minutes.

When some big companies got listed, the delay was longer. Some were even delayed for more than an hour.

Why was there a delay? It was the market makers setting the prices of the shares. They will discuss and settle on the opening price.

Many people were interested in the Sixth Sense Company as it was the first sex toy company to be listed and Feng Yu had gotten top tier financial institutions to be their market makers to determine the value of this company.

But there was no company for Sixth Sense Company to be compared with. They were the first company of such nature to be listed. There was no benchmark or any companies as reference.

The market makers could only use the company’s past performance and their future earning capabilities as a gauge. Of course, the brand value also played a big part in their considerations.

But the market was interested in the Sixth Sense Company during a market survey before the listing. Everyone had high hopes for this company, and this was why Feng Yu was confident that the share prices will surge by 20%!

Kameda Masao was very nervous and kept talking to the people beside him. He had wanted to go over to Feng Yu there, but when he looked over at Feng Yu, he saw him shaking his head.

Kameda Masao knew Feng Yu does not like to be in the spotlight, and he just kept chatting with the people beside him. This was to distract himself from the nervousness.

Although Feng Yu was calmer than Kameda Masao, the opening price of their company’s shares was still not announced.

……

Warren Buffett contacted the people at Goldman Sachs. He had a good relationship with the people at Goldman Sachs. He told that he wants to buy out all of the Sixth Sense Company’s shares.

Who was Warren Buffett? He is the god of investment! If he wants to buy out all the shares, that means this company’s shares will inevitably rise!

There are several types of companies Warren Buffett would not invest. The first type is the companies that have incredibly high profits. Everyone will be curious why. If the profits are very high, that means the dividends will be high too. Why did he avoid these companies? The answer given by him was high profits will attract competitors. If the company is not ready for new competitors, their market share will be snatched away.

These companies’ financial reports only look good when they have high profits. But if their profits dropped, then this company will not be worth investing.

Warren Buffett will also avoid high-risk companies, companies that monopolized the market, and tech shares. His favorite companies are those with long term prospects.

The type of shares Buffett avoided most is the technology shares. This was because he does not understand such companies’ development and their competitors. Thus, he does not know how to evaluate the company. In Feng Yu’s previous life, IBM was the only technology shares he bought.

Today, Warren Buffett wanted to buy the Sixth Sense Company, and after this news was released by Goldman Sachs, many people had more confidence with this company. This also caused the market makers couldn’t decide on the opening price as there were more and more bids for the shares!

After more than an hour, the Sixth Sense Company’s opening share prices was released……

Chapter 748 – Losses

14.86 USD!

The opening share price was 48.6% more than the prices they set!

Kameda Masao was overjoyed, and Feng Yu was also astounded by this. Both had not expected the opening share price to be so much higher!

Of course. In another 2 days, there will be a company’s share that shoots up even higher. This company’s share prices increase by several folds on the day they got listed. It was a company dealing in web browser. The US currently has “Information Superhighway” plan, and all related companies’ share prices were rising rapidly. This includes Microsoft.

Information Superhighway plan is a highway linking the whole world through high-speed communications system. It was mainly made up of 4 parts. Fiber-optic cable, PC and servers, software, and massive information resources.

As long as the company was related to these 4 categories, the company’s share prices will rise from 1993. This was the time where Bill Gates become a billionaire!

In short, this was to build a global network. It was the US that started this project. Later, Clinton felt this was a good plan and will increase the US economy, productivity and most importantly, can spread “Democracy” to other parts of the world. This was to covert the people from different countries to have their mindsets and establish the US as the world leader!

The one who proposed this plan was promoted to the Vice President by Clinton, and this proposal was implemented. This was the start of the information age and lead to the rise of many companies in the related industries.

This also created the Dot-Com Bubble in the future.

For the next two years, all internet-based companies’ opening share prices when they were listed were much higher than the rates they set. Of course, these companies’ shares also plummet during the Dot-Com crash.

But the Sixth Sense Company had nothing to do with the Internet, Communications, and Technology, and their share prices shot up by 48.6% when the market open. This was too shocking!

Last month, some companies were listed, and their opening share prices were lower than the prices they set. Compared to those companies, investors were more confident in the Sixth Sense Company.

Kameda Masao was only thinking about how much money the company had made. The higher the market value of the company, the more he and the company will earn.

From the opening price, the Sixth Sense Company share prices will be doubled within the month, and by year-end, it might be several times higher.

Kameda Masao also owns the company’s shares. This sudden increase in the company’s share prices, his net-worth had also increased by several folds. He had officially become a millionaire with more than 200 million USD net worth. He was also managing a company that’s worth more than 2 billion. The world’s number one sex toy company!

After this listing, Kameda Masao will have the funds to set up new factories, retail shops, and marketing.

Kameda Masao will soon become the world’s most famous sex toy magnate. Now, he also has the fund to invest in adult magazines, movies and even set up an adult channel. He had always wanted to enter these related industries to increase the company’s profits!

Kameda Masao was eager to share his joy, and the first person he had in mind was Feng Yu.

Compared to Kameda Masao and the other employees of the Sixth Sense Company joys, Feng Yu was frowning.

Feng Yu could feel his heart aching. It was because he had suffered losses. Big losses!

The opening share prices were so high, and the shares were still rising. Why does Feng Yu felt he had suffered losses?

Feng Yu was now regretting. He had not made enough preparations for this listing. He did not know that the Sixth Sense Company would be so popular with the investors.

If Feng Yu knew this would happen, he would have set his share prices higher. Even if he set the share prices at 15 USD, he would also be able to sell them off.

Both Feng Yu and Kameda Masao had consulted some financial professionals, and they concluded that their share prices should be set at 8 to 9 USD. If Feng Yu did not insist, the share prices they set would definitely be less than 10 USD.

But Feng Yu never expect the opening share price to be so high!

Even if they sold their shares at 10 USD, Feng Yu would also not issue so many shares. He should have issue 25% shares. Why did he issue 30%?

Although the Sixth Sense Company had taken lots of loans to set up branch companies and factories in the US and Europe, the company’s debts were nothing.

Even with high debts, the Sixth Sense Company can split their shares and sell them to the public twice. After the initial sales of their shares, they would know the prices and then issue the remaining shares at a higher rate. They would be able to raise more funds this way.

Many companies had done this in the past. They did not issue a lot of shares during their IPO. They waited until the share prices had gone up, and they issued more shares to the public for the second and third time. They used the excuse of needing more funds. Every time they release shares, the principal shareholders will be given the choice of purchasing the shares at a lower rate. This was equivalent to giving them some bonuses.

This way of issuing shares will accumulate more funds than issuing all shares at once. But now, this difference had been taken away by the investors. This was why Feng Yu felt he had suffered a loss!

In his previous life, Feng Yu did not follow any companies that had used this strategy and had made this mistake.

To many people, what Feng Yu did might not be considered a mistake. But to Feng Yu, this was a grave mistake as he had let others made more money from him!

“Manager Feng, our Sixth Sense Company’s shares are rising, and our opening share price is much higher than we expected. Why are you still unhappy?” Kameda Masao was puzzled. Everyone from the company was excited, but Feng Yu was frowning. Something was not right.

The commissions given to the market makers were very low, and the market makers were still able to sell off all of their shares. After deducting their cost, the Sixth Sense Company still made quite a sum.

No matter how Kameda Masao looks at it, this listing was successful. The company will have better development and they would able to clinch deals easily after this listing. Why was Manager Feng still frowning?

Feng Yu was mumbling to himself, calculating his losses. When Kameda Masao asked him, he raised his head and said: “If we had issued lesser shares now and set the prices higher, how much more will we get?”

Feng Yu was unhappy, and he does not want to see others feeling better than him!

After hearing what Feng Yu said, Kameda Masao was no longer excited. They had suffered heavy losses in this listing……

Chapter 749 – Ambitions

The Six Sense Company became the talk of the town after it got listed. After all, it was the world’s first sex toy manufacturer to be listed. Many media reported about this, and this was free promotion for the company. As the Sixth Sense Company’s share prices increases, their sales also increased.

The debt ratio of the Sixth Sense company was very high. It was because of bank loans. Feng Yu had supported Kameda Masao when he took loans from the banks.

Japan’s economy was still under recession, and this year, Japanese Electronics and Chemical companies had got into trouble. This further worsens their economy, resulting in negative growth.

Tomiichi Murayama made a radical decision. He cut the interest rates to stimulate economic growth. It was usual for countries to cut interest rates to stimulate their economy. But no other countries did it like what Japan did this year.

Japan’s saving interest rates had dropped to 0.08%, and people joked that they had to pay to put their money in the banks. As the saving rates fell, the lending rates will also be lowered.

So, Kameda Masao it was a pity if he did not take any loans from the banks because of the low-interest rates. He made use of his connections and took out a loan of 400 million USD. From the exchange rate in this era, it was 3.6 billion Yen!

The exchange rate between USD and Yen was 1:80. Kameda Masao was able to change more USD with the yen he had. All he had to do was to exchange his yen for USD, and he will be able to get profits. Feng Yu was also tempted to get this easy profit. He called Heitaro Nakajima to get a loan in USD, and the repayment will be in Yen. He asked him to take the maximum loan. Even if they used the money to invest in the US market, they would also make a big profit.

Furthermore, Feng Yu had invested all his spare cash into the US market. Most of his money was in Microsoft, and even if he needs to use money, he will not sell his Microsoft shares. How will happen to his companies if this happened?

With low-interest bank loans, this problem will be solved! Aiwa was also not a listed company, and Feng Yu was the controlling shareholder. If he needs to use money, he could just transfer out this sum of money from the loans. Feng Yu had already taken out most of Aiwa’s money to invest in the US market, including Microsoft shares.

Many international investors had taken loans from Japanese banks during this period. Their motives were the same as Feng Yu. They used the loan amounts to invest in the US market. This also stimulates the US market.

Many people, including Feng Yu, felt the US market will be bullish this year. Feng Yu had analyzed all types of charts and graphs. It was almost the same as his previous life, except for some minor differences.

With so many funds entering the US stock markets, the Dow Jones Index had risen from about 3,800 early this year to more than 4,000 now. Even after the index broke through the 4,000 points, it was still rising.

Feng Yu predict the Dow Jones Index will reach more than 5,000 at the end of the year. It will be like what happened in his previous life. The US stock market will become a bull market and formed an economic bubble. This period was later described as a period of irrational exuberance by economists!

What Feng Yu wants to do was to earn a substantial profit and exit the market before the bubble burst!

This period was purposely created by President Clinton. The better the US economy, the higher his chances to be re-elected for another term.

Of course. In the final year of President Clinton’s term, the Dot-com bubble burst. But his term was over.

……

After the listing was over, Kameda Masao went to Europe. The Sixth Sense Company was building a new factory and many retail stores in Europe. He wants to oversee everything personally and make sure nothing goes wrong. Any mistake will cause their company’s shares to drop.

Other companies could still ride on other companies in the same industry. If any companies in one sector announce high profits, all other companies’ shares in that industry will also rise. But the Sixth Sense Company does not have this benefit, because there were no similar companies listed!

Any large listed company could become its industry indicator, especially the Nasdaq Composite. The Nasdaq Composite was an index based on 100 Nasdaq listed companies’ shares. The S&P was also an index measuring the performance of 500 large companies.

It is a great honor to be one of the companies to be used in these indices. Kameda Masao felt the Sixth Sense Company should be one of the companies under the Nasdaq Composite!

Feng Yu also supported this. In the future, the Nasdaq Composite will include more than 5,000 companies. Why can’t the Sixth Sense Company be one of them?

Although the Sixth Sense Company was not in the technology, financial or biotechnology sector, it should be considered under the manufacturing industry.

Who says manufacturing sex dolls, condoms, silicone, and rubber products are not un the manufacturing sector?

Even if the company does not fall under the manufacturing category, it should still be able to enter the index. After the Sixth Sense Company got listed, there will be many more companies in the same industry getting listed. The Sixth Sense Company was the first and biggest sex toy company to be listed. Why can’t it represent the industry?

Maybe no investors had expected a sex toy manufacturer to be one of the companies under the Nasdaq Composite in the future.

Even Feng Yu had never thought about this.

It was until when Kameda Masao suggested to Feng Yu, then he starts looking forward to this.

Feng Yu knew Kameda Masao was very ambitious for a long time ago. Someone once said that someone who was not ambitious will not achieve great things. Every famous man recorded in history were ambitious.

Ambitious can be in politics or business. Those in politics will want to be the country’s top leader, and those in business will want to be successful and be well known. No one without ambition will be successful.

Feng Yu was glad that Kameda Masao was very ambitious. This was because he will work hard to achieve his dreams and keep growing the Sixth Sense Company. He will also keep earning money for Feng Yu!

The Sixth Sense Company biggest shareholder was still Feng Yu after it got listed. After issuing 30% of the company’s shares, Feng Yu’s shares were still more than 51%. He still owns more than 2/3 of the voting rights.

That’s why Feng Yu was not afraid Kameda Masao will take over the company from him. As long as he still has control over the Sixth Sense Company, he will be able to control Kameda Masao!

Chapter 750 – Hi, Bill!

Today was Feng Yu first time visiting Microsoft’s headquarters. It was located in Redmond, Washington. But because of Microsoft, this small city had become famous!

Feng Yu was not familiar with this place. This was his first time here in both his lives.

Microsoft had divided their land into many different sections. There were dozens of 3 to 4 stories office buildings and Bill Gates’ office was located on the top floor of building 34.

Feng Yu had called Bill Gates before he came, and Bill Gates had been waiting for Feng Yu. This July, <Forbes> announced the World’s Billionaires ranking and reveal Bill Gates’ shares in Microsoft. He owns more than 60% voting rights of Microsoft!

Many people felt Microsoft would do well and bought the shares. But only one of Bill Gates’ friend did not buy a single share of Microsoft. This friend of his was also one of the world’s top billionaires, Warren Buffett.

Warren Buffett does not like technology shares. He believed that Microsoft would be able to enjoy high profits for the next 10 years, but he was not familiar with this industry. That’s why he chooses not to invest. Another reason was that even if he bought Microsoft shares, Bill Gates would not allow Buffett to enter the board of directors. He was worried that Buffett would seize control over the company. After all, this had happened to the company Buffett invested in.

During this time, a mysterious tycoon had been acquiring Microsoft shares. This mysterious tycoon had even paid more than the market value for the shares and attracted Bill Gates attention.

Bill Gates discovered that the funds buying his company’s shares were from Hong Kong. Mid of last year, Bill Gates had met Feng Yu briefly. Since their meeting, he was interested in this Chinese young man.

What made Bill Gates more interested in this young Chinese tycoon was his shares in China’s biggest PC manufacturer. This will help Microsoft enter the Chinese market and seize the market share.

During that brief meeting, they chatted for a while, and no decisions had been made. Late last year, this Chinese tycoon started selling some of his Microsoft shares and Bill Gates was shocked.

Bill Gates thought it was because he had not given Feng Yu any answers to their cooperation, and Feng Yu was angry, or Feng Yu had found a new partner like Apple or IBM. If Feng Yu cooperate with any of those companies and monopolized the Chinese market, then Microsoft would lose lots of profits.

Microsoft had analyzed the Chinese market. Based on China’s rapid economic growth, the number of PC users in China will increase suddenly within the next 5 years. If all the PC uses Microsoft operating systems and software, the profits will be enormous. It might even be higher than the whole North America. The population of China was high, after all.

Bill Gates had contacted Feng Yu at that time, and Feng Yu explained that he needed some cash. He will buy back the Microsoft shares. Feng Yu told him that he was still interested in Microsoft.

Starting from March, Feng Yu began acquiring Microsoft shares again and increased his stake from 13% to 15%.

But Feng Yu kept low and did not reveal his identity. Many media were interested to know who this third-biggest shareholder of Microsoft was. But they could not get any information about Feng Yu.

Today, this mysterious tycoon was going to pay Bill Gates a visit.

Someone had said Bill Gates likes to be free, and this was why he set up a free and comfortable working environment for his engineers.

Someone also said that Bill Gates was a greedy person. When Microsoft just started, Paul Allen had contributed more than Bill Gates. But because Paul Allen does not have family and Bill Gates’ family was richer, Bill Gates managed to get 60% of the company’s shares, and Paul Allen only got 40%.

There were some rumors that Bill Gates had a foul temper. He kept shouting at his programmers: “That is the stupidest idea I ever heard!”

Someone also claims that Bill Gates was a narcissistic person. He had praised himself in front of others more than once, and he does not allow anyone to question his decisions!

But all these rumors could not deny the fact that Bill Gates was a genius!

As for Feng Yu, he was full of respect for Bill Gates. Without Bill Gates, there will be no Microsoft. Without him, the PC and internet will not develop so fast!

Feng Yu was surprised when he walked into Bill Gates’ office. This office was much smaller than he imagined. It was the size of other management staffs and not what Feng Yu had expected. Feng Yu thought Bill Gates will be super spacious and occupies the whole floor of the building.

The setup of this office looks like the office of an ordinary programmer. Seems like Bill Gate was not lying about him being the head of software engineers. Even until today, Bill Gates was still involved in the development and testing of their software.

“Mr. Feng, glad to see you again.” Bill Gates extended his right hand.

“Hi, Bill.” Feng Yu smiled and shook his hand, but Bill Gates pulled him over and gave him a hug.

“Feng, what do you think of Microsoft?” Bill Gates asked.

Feng Yu smiles: “Good. It’s better than I imagined. If not, I will also not acquire Microsoft shares. Seems like I am not wrong. The share prices rise quite a bit recently.”

“Hahaha. Feng, you made the right choice to hold our Microsoft shares.” Bill Gates exclaimed proudly.

“Oh, I forgot to congratulate you, Mr. Richest man in the world.”

Bill Gate smiled. This was his first time becoming the world’s richest man and he was only 40 years old. This was something he should be proud of.

But the young man in front of him was only in his early twenties. If he announces his assets, it should be shocking. Just the Microsoft shares he owns was more than enough to get him listed on Forbes. Compared to this young man, Bill Gates felt his accomplishment was nothing.

“Feng, I am very curious. Why are you refusing all interviews? Don’t you know the benefits of being interviewed by the media? I think if you are willing to appear before the media, Steve will be overjoyed.”

Steve, which Bill Gates was talking about, was Steve Forbes, the CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes. Of course, he was also a close friend of Bill Gates.

Feng Yu laughed and shook his head. “I do not like to be under the limelight.”

“Oh, what a pity. Maybe Chinese prefers to be low key.” Bill Gates shrugged his shoulders. “Right, you mentioned that the time for Microsoft to enter the Chinese market is here? Is it real?”

Paul Allen

Steve Forbes

Chapter 751 – Two conditions

“Of course, it’s real.”

Microsoft had just launched Win95, and it comes along with IE browser. This was Microsoft first step to monopolize the PC operating system. But Microsoft only has the English version of their Win95. It will be difficult for them to penetrate the Chinese market with their English versions of Win95.

In 1992, Microsoft had set up a branch office in Beijing to promote their operating system and Microsoft Office. But the response was lacking. This was also due to the number of PC users in China.

But now it was different. DOS will soon be obsolete. The user-friendly Win95 will take over the whole market, and in the future, most office software, games, etc. were developed based on Windows operating system. The price war in China between Lenovo and other PC makers will start soon, and the number of PC users in China will increase rapidly.

If Lenovo were to install a Chinese version of Win95 now, it would help Microsoft entering the Chinese market!

But Bill Gates know that Feng Yu would not do this for free. He also knows that Feng Yu owns the shares of China’s biggest PC manufacturer. Feng Yu must be here to talk about cooperation between both companies.

“All Lenovo’s PCs will be installed with Windows, Office, and IE browsers. Are you fine with this condition?”

Bill Gates was excited. He was satisfied with this condition. If they had a deal, then Microsoft’s profits will rise to the next level. Also, the share prices will increase after this cooperation was announced.

Opening a new market like China will attract more investors, and they will be fighting over Microsoft shares.

“What do I need to do?” Bill Gates asked.

This was an attractive condition. But if Feng Yu’s demands were too harsh, Bill Gates will also not agree. After all, there were many brands of PC in China, and some of them were already working with Microsoft.

Feng Yu showed two fingers: “I only have 2 requests. First, I want the lowest prices in the whole world!”

“Feng, this is impossible. Our products have standard prices, and it’s the same worldwide. We can’t give you lower prices.” Bill Gates rejected.

Feng Yu glanced at him. Same worldwide? Bullshit! No products in the world will have the same prices. In different areas and regions, there will definitely be differences in rates!

“Bill, don’t you want to enter the Chinese market? I have said before, my men will take care of the Chinese version. The prices must be lowered. If not, how can we cover the cost?”

“We can also produce Chinese language Windows.” Bill Gates argued.

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. “You know, Chinese? How many people in Microsoft knows Chinese? Chinese language is one of the oldest languages in the world. It is too complicated. Even us, Chinese, don’t dare to claim we know everything about this language. Who in your company dares to say it?”

“We have lots of engineers from China, and we also do not need too complex words. We just need to make it simple. The concept of our Win95 operating system is simple and user-friendly.” Bill Gates replied.

Who says Microsoft does not have Chinese staffs? We had hired many Chinese overseas graduates. This was to make preparations to enter the Chinese market! See, I have the foresight!

Feng Yu raised his brows. Seems like Microsoft had thought about this way before. But those Chinese overseas graduates were really that outstanding? Maybe in the future, there might be some exceptional Chinese engineers. But in this era, the best Chinese language programmers were all in China!

“You are talking about the graduates you recruit these two years? You really think they are outstanding? Also, they were educated in the US. Do they really know what the Chinese want? Only China Chinese knows the Chinese best.”

“Those Chinese overseas students are not Chinese? Also, we do not need any complicated words. We need to cater to old people and kids too. They should be enough.”

Feng Yu looked at Bill Gates and then lean back and crossed his legs. “Bill, maybe you do not know me well enough. I have lots of investments, and no matter what company I invest, I am always the best in the industry. You really think there are no companies in those industries better than my companies?”

Bill Gates’ face changed. He remembered what his China staff told him. They said to him that in China, the Government was more powerful than the market. Some people with authority can influence the economy anytime and force the shut down of any company they like.

Was Feng trying to tell him that he could stop Microsoft from entering the Chinese market?

“Feng, what do you mean by this?”

Feng Yu smiled and replied: “It’s up to you to interpret my message. I will still suggest cooperation with me. After all, I also own Microsoft shares, and I do not want to see Microsoft losing the big Chinese market.”

Feng Yu purposely did not explain and let Bill Gates go and imagine.

“Since you also own Microsoft shares, why are you not wanting Microsoft to make more money?” Bill Gates asked Feng Yu.

“That’s my second request. I want to enter the Microsoft board of directors!”

Every time Warren Buffett invests, he will spend a lot to acquire the shares of the company and then enter the board of directors. He had also bought out some companies directly.

If Warren Buffett could do that, why can’t Feng Yu?

Although this company was called Microsoft, and Bill Gates was now the world’s richest man, but Feng Yu was still able to face him calmly. Feng Yu was Microsoft’s third-biggest shareholder and owns more shares than those people on the board.

Feng Yu had never thought about being the Chairman of the board. This was not possible. Bill Gates and Paul Allen were still around, and they will never let go of their authority.

Paul Allen had left Microsoft for a few years, but he returned back to the board a few years ago. He still has a good relationship with Bill Gates. He was definitely closer to Bill Gates compared to Feng Yu.

The rest of the directors on board will also support Bill Gates. It was impossible for Feng Yu to be the Chairman. However, it should not be a problem for Feng Yu to be one of the directors.

If Feng Yu had not become a director, he would not have a say in the company’s operations. This was not what Feng Yu could tolerate. Feng Yu’s investment in Microsoft will be surely profitable, but if he could influence the company’s strategy, it will be much better.

Bill Gates looked at Feng Yu for a while. So, this was what Feng wanted? He was aiming to enter the board of directors!

With 15% shares of the company, it should be reasonable for Feng Yu to enter the board of directors. But the shares owned by Feng Yu were all non-voting common stocks. If Feng Yu was allowed to enter the board of directors, then he will have voting rights. Although Feng Yu percentage of shares will not be able to threaten Bill Gates position, he must not belittle Feng Yu.

Bill Gates thought for a while and then look at Feng Yu. “I cannot make the decision on you joining the board of directors by myself.”

Feng Yu crossed his arms and smiled: “I can wait. But can Microsoft operating system’s launch in China wait?”

Chapter 752 – Win-win situation

Bill Gates went silent again. Microsoft was facing multiple anti-trust lawsuits since last July. They were sued by many corporations and had to change their business conducts.

Microsoft had made use of their status as the leader of the operating system and demanded the hardware manufacturers pay them usage fees of their operating systems, even when the PC was not using Microsoft operating systems!

This shows how overbearing Microsoft was. It was also because of this demand, the US government intervene, and Microsoft share prices fell at that time.

Apple had also been suing Microsoft for infringing its patents. The boss of Apple currently was still not Steve Jobs.

Microsoft had its hands tied in the US and was desperately in need to venture overseas and open up a new market. They need to secure their position as the market leader and to prevent Apple and other companies from taking away the market share.

There were other companies that produces operating systems. Apple’s operating system was also prevalent. There were many other companies in Europe and Asia competing with Microsoft. For instance, India has its own operating systems and was able to keep Microsoft from entering the India market.

Chinese’s innovation was also world-renowned. Who knows when the Chinese will set up a company and developed their own operating system. This will lower the chances of Microsoft from entering the Chinese market.

Basically, time was a critical factor. Feng Yu was telling Bill Gates that the longer he delays, the more disadvantages Microsoft have.

Also, Feng Yu had hinted that he can block Microsoft from entering China.

Feng Yu was not boasting. He could just go to the top leaders in the Central Government and suggest to them to develop China’s own operating systems. Then there will be a high possibility for China to block Microsoft.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, although Microsoft’s operating system was commonly used, the Chinese governments and many state-owned enterprises still use their own unique operating systems. These operating systems were developed by Chinese companies.

Also, there will be the issue of internet security. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Lenovo bought IBM, and the US government stopped its governments from procuring IBM products. Although IBM products were cheaper, the US government dare not to use them. They were afraid of hidden backdoor programs that would compromise security.

This was the same for the Chinese Government. Why did not choose Lenovo PC instead of other cheaper PCs? It was because of security issues.

Of course, these reasons were not able to stop Microsoft from entering the Chinese market. How did Microsoft become popular in the Chinese market in Feng Yu’s previous life? By suing Kingsoft for cracking and using Microsoft operating system’s codes.

At that time, many Chinese companies and individuals, including the government, were using pirated Microsoft software. Microsoft chose to ignore them, and when the Chinese were used to using the pirated software and caused the collapse of other software companies, Microsoft sued Kingsoft. Microsoft then took over the whole Chinese market and did not have any more competitors in China!

This strategy had let Microsoft suffer massive loss of profits, but that was their last resort. Now, if Bill Gates agree to Feng Yu’s conditions, Microsoft will be able to introduce their original software in China and would still be able to get high returns. This was critical for Microsoft’s development.

“Feng, I need to discuss with the others about this. Let’s talk about the special rates of our operating systems in China. How much do you want?” Bill Gates continued asking.

“The whole set of the operating system, including Win95 and Office. Of course, we will also install IE in all our PC. This will help to promote Microsoft in China. Hmmm…… 100 RMB for the whole package and include free upgrade services.”

“100 RMB? How much is that in USD?” Bill Gates had an uneasy feeling. He remembered that RMB was very low against the USD.

“About 12 USD.” Feng Yu replied casually.

“What? 12 USD?! Impossible! The usage fees for our systems are more than 12 USD. Win95 cost at least 100 USD. You are only giving us less than 10%, and still wanted a package consisting of other software?! How is this possible?”

This was a ridiculous rate. Bill Gates will never agree to this!

“Bill, let me remind you. If you cooperate with Lenovo, you will still be able to make money. After all, after your system is developed, you will be able to earn from every PC installed with it. If no one uses the Microsoft operating system, you will not be able to earn a single cent.”

“How is it possible? Our operating system is the best.”

“There are still a lot of companies producing operating systems. In China, there are also a lot of companies developing software and operating systems. If those companies work together and develop a Chinese language operating system, then Microsoft will lose the Chinese market totally.”

“You all do not have such good programmers.” Bill Gates confidently replied.

Microsoft was successful because they had the best programmers and engineers working for them. This was the reason why it was way ahead of its competitors.

“But I have money. Microsoft engineers are also poached from other companies using high salaries? I don’t need to poach your core programmers and engineers. I only need to poach those programmers who know Chinese. What do you think?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

Threat! Feng Yu was threatening him! Bill Gates was pissed, but he can’t find the words to retort. Feng Yu was able to do that with his money. Just his Microsoft shares were worth a lot of money.

Furthermore, this Feng Yu must have some relationship with the Chinese government. No matter how powerful Microsoft was, it can’t compete with a government!

“But the rates you demand is too low.”

“I also have no choice. China’s economy is still developing. The Chinese are not willing to spend on expensive items. You have not seen pirated versions of your systems and software in other countries? If you set the same rates as the US in China, I dare to guarantee that the pirated version of your operating systems and software will prevent Microsoft from selling your original versions in China.”

This was what happened in Feng Yu’s previous life. Although Microsoft had signed contracts with many PC manufacturers, there was still a type of PC called self-assemble PC!

Self-assembled PC does not have software and operating system. It was popular because it was much cheaper than those branded PC. For the same specs, self-assembled PC was 50% less expensive than those off the shelf PC! Pirated versions of operating systems will be installed in those self-assembled PC, and the users will not need to spend a single cent. This was why Microsoft systems were selling much cheaper in China compared to the US in the end.

“I need to consider about this and cannot give you an answer immediately. Also, I need to tell you that the board of directors will not approve this price!” Bill Gates said.

Feng Yu laughed. “You are the Chairman of the board, right? You have the final say. I hope to get a reply from you as soon as possible. Let’s make Microsoft success in China!”

Chapter 753 – Bill Gates’ decision

After leaving Microsoft headquarters, Feng Yu gave Liu Chuanzhi a call, telling him to speed up the development for the browser, platform, office software, etc. All these software had to be suitable for Win95. More importantly, they have to speed up the anti-virus software.

The current system’s firewall was too fragile and had many loopholes. These few years were the years where anti-virus software become popular. If Feng Yu could get half of China’s market share, his profits will be high.

Feng Yu was surprised when Liu Chuanzhi told him that they failed in taking over Kingsoft. Those people at Kingsoft were very arrogant and priced their software development technologies too high. Liu Chuanzhi did not agree to their demands.

But Liu Chuanzhi and his men saw Kingsoft’s potential. They were strong in office software, anti-virus, and browsers. Although Liu Chuanzhi failed to takeover Kingsoft, he invested a sum of money in them to get some shares.

It was too difficult to catch up with Microsoft on PC’s operating systems. But in the future, there will be mobile phone operating systems. The profits from mobile phone operating systems will be higher than PC operating systems.

Currently, Feng Yu want to groom a group of top software engineers, and then tell them what he wanted, and they will go and develop it.

The most significant difference between the PC and mobile phone operating system was the size of the system. Mobile phone operating system does not require ample memory space. However, the size of the operating systems will get bigger in the future.

This was also the reason why Microsoft failed in the mobile phone’s operating system, and Google’s Android and Apple took over the market.

If Feng Yu remembered correctly, the next two years would be Apple’s worst years. Apple suffered massive losses, and Jobs had left Apple. Feng Yu wondered if he could take this opportunity to poach some of Apple’s top developers.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the elite software developers were working for top firms, like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, etc. The developers from other companies were considered second-rate. This includes a top technology company, Yahoo. Many people said the reason why Yahoo failed was that they do not have the best developers, and could not maintain their lead.

Feng Yu knew the importance of having advanced technologies. If he could apply for some patents in this industry, he could get high profits and stop his competitors. Stopping his competitors was not Feng Yu aim. He only wants to be ahead of the rest in terms of technology developments.

……

“Paul, what do you think of Feng’s request?” Bill Gates had a headache. Feng Yu’s demands were too harsh, but Bill Gates could not reject him.

“Reject them!” Paul Allen barked. “We can still discuss his request to enter the board. But he used China’s market to threaten us? This is unforgivable. How can someone threaten us, Microsoft?”

“Paul, calm down first. I also want to reject his demands. But what he said was right. We need to open up the Chinese market. That is a bigger market than America and have high potential. You don’t want to get this market?” Bill Gates had thought of rejecting Feng Yu, but the returns were too attractive.

“But we are Microsoft. We can make all the hardware companies bow down to us, why can’t we make him give in?” Paul Allen replied unhappily. Although Microsoft was penalized for forcing those hardware manufacturers to do their biddings, it also shows how powerful they were.

“That is China. One of the most powerful countries in the East. Their market is totally different from us. Moreover, Feng had hinted that if he does not want us to enter the Chinese market, we will never be able to take a step into China. Think about India. We are blocked there. If we lose China’s market after India, do you know how much will be out losses? What if China started its own operating system company? We will have one more competitor. A company with the support of its government will develop faster than we imagine!” Bill Gates worrying said.

Paul Allen frowned. Now, the other party had made it clear to them. If they cooperate, Microsoft will get some benefits and the other party will get more benefits. If they do not cooperate, then Microsoft will suffer massive losses, and the other party’s losses will be much lower than them.

“Damn! How about we agree to one of his demands? Like letting him enter the board of directors, under the condition that he must help Microsoft enter the Chinese market. When Microsoft makes money, he will also make money.” Paul Allen said after thinking for a while.

“I had suggested this to him, but he disagrees. He said both requests must be met. He wants to enter the board of directors and also want us to sell our systems to Lenovo at 12 USD!” Bill Gates shook his head. If there was only one demand, he might not hesitate.

“But if other companies know about this pricing, it will affect our reputation!”

After all, Microsoft was charging other companies at a much higher rate for installing their operating systems. If the other companies found out about Lenovo’s prices, they would also want lower prices. This will result in high losses for Microsoft, and their shares would also drop.

“Paul, this is also what I am troubled about. Feng had made use of this. If he enters the board, then he will not let this news leak out. He owns quite a number of shares in Lenovo. He will be able to keep this a secret and will make sure this will not be leaked. If not, he will also suffer losses if Microsoft suffered losses.”

“Bill, you are saying you have already decided? You want to accept his ridiculous demands? What can we earn at such low rates? A few million or tens of millions USD?” Paul Allen retorted.

“I decided to agree to him this time. We will offer him a low rate, but their PC must print our logo and also advertise Microsoft in China. Their product advertisements must also include us. Also, we can make use of them to promote our IE to the rest of the world. We will be able to claim that our IE browser has the most users in the world. This will help when we promote our IE browser in Europe.”

“Then what about his demand for entering the board? His shares are all non-voting shares. If all his shares are converted, he will own 15% voting rights!”

“Exchange. You and I will take out 1% voting shares each to exchange with him. You need money to invest in your new company, right? You can take this chance to sell those non-voting shares.” Bill Gates had made his decision.

“Fine. Since you have already decided, then I will support you.” Paul Allen snubbed out his cigar.

This damn decision!

Chapter 754 – Agreeing to the conditions

3 days later, Bill Gates called Feng Yu. Actually, he had made his decision on the day after their meeting. He delayed for another 2 days as he did not want to show Feng Yu, he was anxious to make a decision. But in fact, 3 days was much faster than Feng Yu expected.

“Hi, Bill, Hi Paul.” Feng Yu was surprised to see Paul Allen.

Although Paul Allen was Microsoft second-biggest shareholder, he mainly focuses on his own software company. Also, Paul Allen loves sports and had bought many sports team, like NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers. In the future, he will buy Seattle Seahawks. He was also known as the wealthiest owner in the NBA.

When Paul Allen saw Feng Yu, he was surprised. Feng Yu was too young. At Feng Yu’s age, he was still starting Microsoft with Bill Gates. However, Feng Yu was already a multi-millionaire at such a young age. Did he make all his money by himself? But even if he made all his money himself, I am still richer than him!

“Seems like I don’t need to introduce.” Bill Gates laughed.

“Paul, I feel it is hard for your Portland Trail Blazers to win the Championship. Jordan is back, right?” Feng Yu asked suddenly.

Damn! You tried to embarrass me the moment you step in? You are the one who started this. I will make things difficult for you!

“Who says so? Jordan will not be back this year. Also, he will not qualify for the finals! Our Blazers will surely win the Championships within 5 years!” Paul Allen replied angrily.

“Really? How about we have a bet. If I manage to buy a team, my team will become the Champion faster than you.” Feng Yu smiled.

“You will not be able to buy any teams, because you are not a citizen! Even if you buy a stake in a team, you will not win, unless the team is Bulls or Rockets!”

“Hey, Paul, Feng, we are here to talk about Microsoft and not NBA. You all can talk about NBA later.” Bill Gates said.

How much does a sports team cost? If Bill Gates wants, he could buy out the whole NBA! The best teams were only worth around 100 million. Those average teams cost much lesser than 100 million.

What’s there to talk about these small businesses? Microsoft is more important!

Paul Allen turned his head away. This Feng was too irritating!

“Then let’s talk about Microsoft. You all agree to my conditions?” Feng Yu smiled.

When someone is angry, and you are smiling, the other party will get angrier, even if you did not say a word.

Paul Allen was furious!

“We will not accept any of your conditions!”

Bill Gates immediately pull his old friend back. They had already discussed, and why did Paul change his mind at the last minute?

“Feng, what he meant is we will not accept your conditions fully. We wish to discuss with you.” Bill Gates explained.

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. “Ok. What do you all want to discuss?”

“Firstly, we can accept you to the board of directors. But after you enter the board, you must put Microsoft interest before yourself. Are you clear?”

Putting Microsoft’s interest before self? That means you want to raise the price?

“I’m sorry. I don’t get what you mean. I will surely protect Microsoft’s interest, but I also do not want to suffer any losses on my side.”

“But you cannot let Microsoft suffer losses, just for you to make money.” Paul Allen barked.

Feng Yu looked at Paul Allen: “Paul, what do you mean? What losses does Microsoft have? I am helping Microsoft open up a new market. The world’s biggest market. It is several times bigger than the US market!”

“You are just playing with words. You think we do not know about China’s economy? We have a sales office in China and it been there for more than 3 years. China is still a poor country. Most of the people there are poor!” Paul Allen sneered.

In terms of population, China seems to be a massive market. But the population in Africa is higher. Can Africa be considered a big market? Many parts of Africa do not even have electricity, how can they use a PC?

“Do you all understand China better than me? Microsoft’s sales office is in China for 3 years. Have they analyzed the growth of PCs in China? Do they know about how much China’s economy had grown? Have they tabulated the growth of wealthy Chinese people? You all should also know how fast China’s economy is growing. How does it compare with the US market? A city in China has a bigger market than one US state.”

China’s economy was starting to grow these two years. Although at the initial phase, the growth was slow, after the year 2000, it shocked the world. The Chinese economy might not be spectacular now, but it was no longer considered a poverty nation.

“Since you say Chinese economy is growing rapidly, then Microsoft should treat China the same as the others. The price of the operating system and software should be the same as in other countries.” Paul Allen said arrogantly.

Didn’t you say China is prosperous now? Then why should we sell our products to you all at a lower rate?

“It is because of consumer behavior. A poor man, who had slogged for many years, finally got some money. Do you think he will spend his money like a spendthrift? He is used to saving every penny, and it has become a habit! If you still insist on selling your products at the usual price, then I can guarantee that you will not be able to sell many copies. Also, it is not that difficult to crack Microsoft system codes.”

Paul Allen’s face changed. “You are going to produce counterfeits? This is illegal!”

“I am not the one doing this. It is those users. Can you all tell who is using the original version and who are using the pirated version? You all also cannot go and search everyone’s home. Low prices + Bundle, is the right way to do it. This year, Lenovo will take over the whole Chinese PC market. Do you believe me?”

Bill Gates pulled Paul Allen back. Feng Yu and Paul Allen were about to fight. Bill Gates wondered what was wrong with Paul Allen. He was not someone with a foul temper.

“Feng, I do not want to argue with you. I will just tell you what our conditions are. If you are willing to accept, then we will cooperate. If you do not want to accept, then we will give up.”

Feng Yu gestured to Bill Gates to continue. Then he picked up his coffee and took a sip. At the same time, he glanced at Paul Allen.

“Paul and I will each exchange 1% of Microsoft shares with you. This way, you will own 2% voting shares, and I will nominate you to enter the board of directors. Can you tell me what you are good at and what position do you want?”

“I want to be the overall in-charge of the Chinese market. I promise I will help Microsoft penetrate the Chinese market, and I will not care about other things.”

“Ok. You will be the Vice President of Asia Pacific and will be overseeing the China market. Your first condition is settled. Let’s talk about your other demand. We have discussed and do not agree with 12 USD. The lowest price we can accept is 20 USD. This is already the cheapest rate in the whole world. Your cost will not increase a lot if you include it into Lenovo’s PC. After all, China’s tax on electronic products is so high, and you all will still have the price advantage!”

Feng Yu thought for a while. Microsoft’s operating system price in other regions was still much higher than 20 USD. Now, Microsoft is selling the operating system, bundled with the full Office software. This was already a good bargain and can be accepted.

“Fine. I will give in to you. I will accept this condition.”

Chapter 755 – Tony’s surprise

After the main conditions were settled, Bill Gates added some a few other conditions. When Lenovo market their new products, they must include Microsoft’s products in their advertisements. They must also help to push Microsoft’s products and display Microsoft logo.

Feng Yu agreed to this condition, but he also requests Microsoft to purchase Lenovo’s PC when they buy new PCs. Lenovo’s PC was still more advanced in some areas compared to other brands. Lenovo’s optical drive was much better than IBM.

For this condition, Bill Gates said he would add Lenovo into their procurement list. He doesn’t care about this. Microsoft would use any PC except for Apple and IBM. He also expressed that if Lenovo is willing to manufacture a batch of Microsoft PC for them, he doesn’t mind changing all his company’s PC to Lenovo.

But how much can Lenovo earn from this deal if they could not display their brand and just manufacture PC for Microsoft? At most, it is only 10,000 PC, and the profits will be about 1 million USD. Feng Yu would still owe Bill Gates a favor.

To be added on Microsoft procurement list, Microsoft China’s office will switch to Lenovo. After this, it is Liu Chuanzhi’s problem to convince Microsoft’s offices in other regions to change to Lenovo. Feng Yu had helped Liu Chuanzhi get this opportunity, and it is up to him whether if he could make full use of it.

Both men discussed a few other conditions, and these were minor terms to benefit both parties. Both sides agreed readily.

As for Paul Allen, he did not say a single word to Feng Yu. He was thinking about his NBA team. He planned to recruit a few more star players to Blazers. He must win the Championships to show Feng Yu!

……

The next day, Feng Yu brought his lawyer, Wilson, and a few other staffs to Microsoft’s headquarters. They had brought Lenovo’s authorization letter, proving Feng Yu could represent Lenovo in the US, including signing contracts.

Paul Allen was not around. But a signed contract on their exchange of shares was on the table. Feng Yu only have to sign on the contract.

There were a few sets of contracts on the table, and Feng Yu gestured to Wilson. Wilson immediately brought his men over to check the contracts. The amount involved in these contracts were astronomical. They had to be careful. Every contract had to go through 3 rounds of checks, before deciding whether Feng Yu could sign.

This might be troublesome, but Wilson and his staffs were getting paid well for all these works. Wilson’s law firm had signed a contract with Feng Yu. He will be paid a monthly amount + commission. The more work his firm does for Feng Yu, the more he will earn.

Wilson was considering whether if he should be Feng Yu’s personal lawyer. The rest of his clients can be pass to his staffs.

No one knows how much assets Feng Yu has. Even Feng Yu’s parents do not know. But Wilson knew much more than others. He was sure that what he knew was not all of Feng Yu’s assets, but it was enough to convince him to stay with Feng Yu!

“Want to try this cigar?” Bill Gates pushed his cigar box to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu casually lifts his right hand and someone behind quickly took a cigar out of the box. That man cut and roast the cigar before placing it between Feng Yu’s fingers.

Bill Gates was surprised. Feng Yu’s actions were smoother than him, the world’s richest man. Was this Feng Yu from some China mysterious ancient family?

“Where is Paul? I am still thinking of discussing basketball with him.” Feng Yu asked.

Bill Gates replied: “He has his own company and is very busy. Since you also like basketball, both of you should be able to click well.”

“Maybe. But I only like winning in basketball. I am not interested in losing.”

Bill Gates kept quiet. Seems like Feng Yu and Paul can never be friends.

……

“Boss, this contract is fine. You can sign it now.” Wilson passed a contract to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu took it and flipped it casually, before signing it.

The checking of the documents took the whole morning before Feng Yu signed all the contracts. During the wait, Feng Yu did not speak much to Bill Gates.

“Want to have lunch together? I can introduce you to the other directors.”

“No, thanks. I will be attending the directors’ meeting two days later. I still have something on now.”

Rejected. This new director from China declined Bill Gates’ invitation?! Bill Gates’ secretary, Tony, looked at Feng Yu is shocked. He had never seen anyone rejecting his boss’s invitation!

Even the US President, had to speak politely to Bill Gates. This Feng Yu was too arrogant!

But what was more shocking to Tony, was his boss did not get angry. He only laughed. Others might not understand Bill Gates well, but Tony knew his temper well. He could start scolding suddenly.

As Bill Gates’s secretary, Tony had been scolded by Bill Gates more than once. He had been scolded when Bill Gates was doing coding and was interrupted by him or interrupting Bill Gates when he was deep in thoughts.

Tony had only seen Bill Gates treating other arrogantly, and no one dares to reject him!

Maybe Bill Gates had faced rejections when he was starting out. But during that time, Tony still had not started working with Bill Gates. He had only joined Microsoft 4 years ago, and at that time, Microsoft had already launched its Office software. The company’s shares had also increased, and Bill Gates have what it takes to be proud.

That’s right, Bill Gates have the qualifications to be proud. This Feng Yu have what it takes to reject Bill Gates? Tony’s boss was the richest man in the world. Microsoft is one of the biggest companies in the world, the world’s top software development company. Who is this Feng Yu?

Although Feng Yu owns 15% of Microsoft shares and can be considered a top tycoon, the voting shares he owned was only 2%. If it weren’t for Bill Gates’s help, Feng Yu would not even qualify to enter the board!

Actually, Bill Gates does not mind Feng Yu rejecting him. Feng Yu had told him before that he does not want to be in the limelight. Also, Feng Yu had explained that he will be attending the meeting a few days later.

Paul Allen also seldom attend the company’s meeting. He had his own software company, and his company can be considered Microsoft’s competitor. But have Bill Gates say anything? Bill Gates also can’t force Paul Allen to shut down his company.

This was why Tony was still a secretary, and Bill Gates’s former secretary was already in the top management of the company.

Tony looked at Feng Yu as the latter was leaving. The directors meeting two days later should be interesting.

Chapter 756 – Microsoft Board of Directors meeting

Feng Yu was not giving an excuse when he said he had something on. He really had something to do. He needs to read up about the members of the board.

Feng Yu only remember one of the board members in this era. Steve Ballmer. He will also be Microsoft’s CEO in the future. He was not a co-founder and did not invest a single cent. But he got the company’s shares.

At the start of Microsoft, Bill Gates owned 49% of the shares, and Paul Allen owned 35%. Steve Ballmer had 8%, and the rest of the employees had the remaining 8%. Of course, these were all voting shares.

During the days when Paul Allen left Microsoft, he invested in many companies. But most of these companies failed. Just last year, a TV company he invested, rejected his request to increase his stakes. In a fit of anger, he sold all his shares. But after he sold his shares, that company’s value raised by more than 50%.

Paul Allen had also argued with Bill Gates over shares more than once. Bill Gates told Paul that he sold his shares to raise money for his investments, and this would lower their stakes in the company. He should just sell his shares to Bill Gates. But Paul Allen felt he had sacrificed before in the past, and he should not do it again. He was also not happy when Bill Gates gave Steve Ballmer so many shares.

Steve Ballmer was now Microsoft’s Vice President. The other directors, except for one director from an investment company, were holding positions in the top management. What surprises Feng Yu was, there were only 8 directors on the board.

Seems like Bill Gates loves being in control. There was an even number of directors, and when it comes to making decisions, they will decide base on the % of the shares. That means Feng Yu, who owns only 2% voting shares, does not have any say.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, when Bill Gates retires, there were 10 directors on the board. 8 years after that, Microsoft increased the number of directors to 11. That was the time when Bill Gates was only an ordinary director on the board. He was no longer the biggest shareholder.

Feng Yu looked through all the members of the board. There was only one person he should pull over to his side. This person was Steve Ballmer because he was trusted by Bill Gates and will become Microsoft’s CEO in a few years. Most importantly, he and Paul Allen did not get along well.

If Feng Yu could influence Steve Ballmer to make some wrong decisions, like stopping Microsoft from entering the hardware sector, then Lenovo will increase its chance of becoming the top PC manufacturer in the world!

……

A few days later, Microsoft board meeting started. All the directors were shocked to see Feng Yu in the meeting room. Who is this young man? He looks like a Chinese. How did he come in?

Paul Allen took a glanced at Feng Yu and sneered. Steve Ballmer was looking at Feng Yu with interest. This person is the new director Bill Gates talking about?

The other directors did not know about Feng Yu, and there will be a new member on the board from today onwards. The new member is this young man.

The other directors saw the Chairman of the board nodding and smiling to that young man. That means they knew each other. From Paul Allen’s reactions, he should also know this person.

They were curious about who this person was, and what was he doing at their board meeting.

“I have something to announce in this meeting. Feng, from the far east, is the mysterious tycoon who has been buying our shares.”

The directors were surprised and looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu only nodded and did not even stand up to greet everyone. The rest of the directors also did not mind. After all, Feng Yu was richer than them.

But Paul Allen was pissed. He felt Feng Yu was rude. But he did not think about himself. He also looks down on the other directors.

“Paul and I had exchanged some shares, about 1% each, with Feng. That means Feng currently owns 2% voting shares. So, I nominated Feng to enter the board of directors.”

Bill Gates was the largest shareholder and have the authority to nominate Feng Yu to enter the board.

Many people thought that all members of the board must be the shareholders of the company. But this was not true. The board is formed during the shareholders’ meeting through voting. Usually, the shareholders will nominate their self. But there are also board members who are not the shareholders. However, this is not common in China.

Those non-shareholders who had entered the board will generally be rewarded with the company’s shares. They will eventually become a shareholder of the company.

This was why even if Bill Gates did not nominate Feng Yu, Feng Yu could also nominate himself. But if Bill Gates rejected Feng Yu’s applications, Feng Yu will also not be able to enter the board.

Actually, Bill Gates and Paul Allen or Steve Ballmer can decide whether to let Feng Yu enter the board. Bill Gates was not nominating Feng Yu to join the board today. He was just informing the rest of the members.

The board of directors is chosen by the shareholders to lead the company. The members can also be removed. In the past, some directors were removed from the board. Those that opposed Bill Gates’s decisions were all replaced.

Bill Gates was the biggest-shareholder, Chairman, President, and CEO of the company. In many smaller companies, the Chairman and the CEO were the same people. But most large corporations had a more complex structure. That’s why the board will appoint two people to manage the company and at the same time, check on each other.

Steve Ballmer was the Vice President, but he is currently doing the work of a President.

After the members heard what Bill Gates had said, clapped to welcome Feng Yu. Only Paul Allen continued to sip on his coffee.

Everyone was looking at Feng Yu. This person will be the newest member of the board? Seems like Bill Gates was supportive of him, and Paul does not. These two men have conflicts again?

“Ok. The welcome ceremony shall end here. Now, I appoint Feng as the Vice-President of Asia-Pacific region. He will be in charge of China’s business.”

Everyone immediately understood why the new member was Chinese. He should be from China. Microsoft is going to enter the Chinese market?

Steve Ballmer asked: “What businesses will he be in charge of?”

Feng Yu replied before Bill Gates: “Everything. I will decide on all the businesses in China, and will not interfere with the company’s other matters.”

Steve Ballmer frowned. China is an essential market for Microsoft. Is it too rush to hand it over to this young man? Although Feng is also a shareholder, that does not mean he is a good manager.

Why did Bill Gates agree to let him be the overall in-charge of China? This young man is someone special in China?

Bill Gates added: “Feng can help Microsoft takeover the whole Chinese market. Don’t worry. Is there anything else to discuss? If not, the meeting shall end now.”

This board meeting was set up just for Feng Yu.

Steve Ballmer noticed that Feng Yu had smiled to him a few times, and he was puzzled…….

Chapter 757 – Steve’s doubts

The board meeting was very short. This was mainly because these directors also held other positions in Microsoft, and they do not have much to discuss during the session.

Feng Yu had become Microsoft’s director and got his own office. His office was the same as the rest of the directors. It was a small office located on the top floor.

Feng Yu was surprised to learn that Ballmer was the President of Microsoft’s Asia-Pacific region. Now, Feng Yu had the chance to speak to Ballmer in private.

“Steve, have a seat. Ralph, help us get 2 coffees.” Ralph was Feng Yu’s assistant in Microsoft. Feng Yu had hired him personally. He does not want to use the people assigned by Microsoft. Of course, he got to pay his assistant himself.

Steve Ballmer seat down on the sofa and looked at Feng Yu: “Feng, you are from China?”

“Yes. What’s wrong? Are you looking down on Chinese?” Feng Yu pretended to be angry.

Steve laughed. “Feng, you think I will look down on someone richer than me? I am only curious. China’s economic development is still in its starting phase, how come you are so wealthy? Are you from some ancient Chinese family line and got the support from them?”

Family line? To these westerners, a young man with so many assets must have some family backing him. But in Feng Yu’s previous life, a young man by the name of Mark Zuckerberg changed all these stereotypes.

Without any backings and only with his visions and dreams, Mark Zuckerberg worked hard and became one of the world’s top billionaire.

“You can say so. My father and my brother-in-law are considered tycoons in China. But I feel that I got so much money is because of my hard work.” Feng Yu purposely said this.

Steve raised his brows. Due to your hard work? This young man is proud. But if his family dares to let him handle so many assets, he should have some capabilities. But more importantly, he is the only successor in his family.

Feng Yu had mentioned that his father and brother-in-law were tycoons back in China. Steve had heard that in China, there is discrimination against women. Families felt that daughters are outsiders, and all their fortune will be passed down to their sons. That means Feng Yu will be the next successor. Did his family send him to the US to train him?

Steve thought for a while and then smiles. “That’s right. All your achievements must be due to your hard work.”

Steve still had something he kept to himself. It is your family that had helped you. If Bill Gates and Warren Buffett did not have their families helping them, they will also not be the world’s top billionaires! I am the one who used my own abilities to get to where I am now. I did not invest a single cent and become Microsoft’s shareholder. I become a billionaire based on my own efforts!

These were what Steve was thinking in his heart.

“Steve, you are the overall in charge of the Asia Pacific region. You have heard what was discussed during the board meeting. The Chairman had said that I will be handling the China market and have the final say. Are you unhappy with this arrangement?”

Steve thought to himself. If it was you will you be happy? I had planned to enter the Chinese market. Now, the most potential market is taken away from me. The rest of the markets combined are not as big as China. You have taken away half of my authority, and you are asking me if I am unhappy with this?

“You are Chinese, and you understand China better. You are the best person to handle this market. I will also have less work too. Furthermore, all of us are working for the good of Microsoft. The better Microsoft is, the more we will earn, right?”

Feng Yu smiled and looked at Steve. You really think this way? I remembered in my previous life, the media reported you as someone power-hungry.

“Steve, if it is you, how will you open up China’s market?” Feng Yu asked.

Steve was puzzled. This Feng Yu did not have any plans? If he did not have plans, why did Bill Gates give him the Chinese market?

Could Feng Yu be testing him?

Arrogant!

Steve only respect a few people in his life, and this young man in front of him is definitely not one of them!

“If I were to open up China’s market, I will use aggressive advertising in China and work with every single PC brand there. I will make sure every PC buyers will think of our operating system when they purchase their PC. I will make sure they can only choose our operating system!”

Feng Yu nodded: “This is a good strategy. But if Microsoft can do this, the rest of the software companies can also do the same.”

“We have software which only works on our operating systems. You should know how good our software is. Now, in the US and many countries in Europe, many governments and companies are using our software. They can only use our operating system!” Steve replied proudly.

“I remember that other companies have similar software like our Office. There are at least a dozen of such programs out there. If Microsoft did not have agreements with those hardware manufacturers, then Microsoft operating systems will not be so popular, and our software will not be able to get so much market share. Maybe you do not know about this. Currently, in China, the most popular way of working in offices are still pen and paper.”

Why was this happening? It is not hard to use a PC. But to some, it is not so easy. Win 95 might be easy to use, but it is not as user-friendly as XP. No matter whether if it was the government agency or private companies, the first users of the PC were not those office staffs. It was the leaders.

The leaders were much older and were reluctant to accept changes or new things, compared to young adults. This resulted in a weird cycle. Those who knew how to use computers do not have a PC, and those who do not know how to use were given a PC!

When the leaders buy things, they will not consider whether if that item is useful. Their first consideration is what benefit will they get from purchasing this item. In Feng Yu’s previous life, there are a lot of operating systems in this era.

Steve frowned and asked Feng Yu back. “Then how will you market?”

“My method is similar to yours. But I will focus on the price. Our operating systems and Office software are cheaper than other operating systems. Also, I can make use of the lowest cost to speed up the marketing of our products. Our main profits will not be from the retail sales of our systems.”

Whenever there was an upgrade of the operating system, someone would crack the code within 2 days. Very soon, the whole nation will own your latest version of the operating system. Very few people would choose to buy more expensive items. The Chinese still does not know about Intellectual property rights. They only know whether this item is expensive or cheap. Why should they spend a few hundred dollars for an item which can be bought for 10 to 20 dollars?

Of course, the receipt can be written as a few hundred dollars for that cheap item.

“Then how do we make money?”

“Wait. Wait until they are used to our operating systems and software, then we will make money. The initial phase of opening up a new market is the most difficult and high resources are needed. I guarantee that within 3 years, more than 90% of the PC in China will be using Microsoft operating system!”

Yes. I cannot promise if they had spent money to buy Microsoft products. I only want to get more time for Lenovo to gain experience for developing operating system. This will be their foundations of overtaking Microsoft in the future……

Chapter 758 – Another Steve

Steve is a common name in America. It is like Xiao Qiang in Hong Kong, Xiao Ming in China, Tom in English textbooks. It is very, very common. But if the last name of Steve is Forbes, then it is no longer common.

Steve Forbes was the Editor-in-Chief and CEO of Forbes. The Chairman of Forbes was an old man. The real decisionmaker in Forbes was Steve.

Today, Steve was here to meet a Chinese man from China. Someone he always wanted to interview but had no chance.

Feng Yu did not expect to meet another person by the name of Steve. Although this person was famous in the business circle, Feng Yu did not want to meet him.

It was because Steve was also a reporter, other than a businessman. This type of people was susceptible. Feng Yu could not explain about the things he did in the past, and those should be what Steve wants to ask.

But this meeting was arranged by Bill Gates, and it was hard for Feng Yu to reject him. Actually, Feng Yu was also curious about Steve. He was also known as “The best forecaster of the financial market.”  Feng Yu also wanted to know how Forbes magazine become so successful? There were at least 5 million readers of that magazine, and it was one of the top business magazines in the world.

Bill Gates and Steve Forbes entered Feng Yu’s office.

“You all should not need me to introduce, right?”

Feng Yu turned to Bill Gates: “Have you tell Steve about my conditions?”

Steve nodded. “Of course. This is not an interview, and I do not have any recording devices with me. Without Bill’s permission, even I have to leave those devices outside.”

Feng Yu was satisfied. He still wants to keep low for the time being. In the future, he will be fine to appear in front of the cameras. But now it was still not a good time, especially in the US, where guns are everywhere.

The US President had the best protection in the world, but one of them was also assassinated. Feng Yu does not want to die early without enjoying his life!

More importantly, Feng Yu was not a US citizen!

“Feng, can we have a chat?” Steve took out his pen and notebook from his bag. This was his habit of taking notes.

Feng Yu frowned. “Steve, I think I have made myself clear. I do not want to expose myself. Please do not take notes.”

Feng Yu was speechless. I said this is not an interview and why the hell are you taking notes?

Steve kept his pen embarrassedly. “Sorry. It’s a habit. I have written some questions in my notebook. Can I look at it?”

Damn. Why does this still feel like an interview? Did Bill Gates say this meeting is just a chat among friends? Also, why is Bill Gates sitting down? I thought you are very busy?!

Bill Gates saw Feng Yu looking at him and shrugged his shoulders. “I do not have anything to do now. Let’s have a chat.”

Bill Gates is also very curious about Feng Yu. But Feng Yu is not an American, and he had no way to look into Feng Yu’s past. He had asked his men in China to find out more about Feng Yu. The information gathered was shocking. There was only one man in China that was a super tycoon like Bill Gates, and his age also matches Feng Yu.

This man is the king of manufacturing, retail, electronics, home appliances, and there were rumors that he was also involved in telecommunications and F&B, etc. Someone also said that “person” had even sat down and chatted with this man.

Of course, these were all rumors and could not be verified with any media reports. But for all these rumors to spread, there must be some truth elements in it. Even if Feng Yu held only one of the rumored titles, it was also terrifying.

Look at all those MNC. All of them were controlling some industries, like manufacturing, electronics, telecommunications, retail, etc. No matter what industry Feng Yu had control over in China, it just shows how influential he is.

Based on China’s growth potential, Feng Yu’s net worth would reach more than 1 billion USD in the future. Bill Gates wants to hear from Feng Yu, which industries he was involved in.

In the future, Bill Gates will sell away his Microsoft shares and set up a fund to invest in other industries. This shows that Bill Gates was not willing to focus on one sector for his whole life.

Ralph brought the coffee in and left, closing the door behind him. Feng Yu was pleased with Ralph’s actions. He does not need to tell him much, and he knew what to do.

Steve looked at Feng Yu. “Feng, are you really holding on to 15% of Microsoft shares?”

“Actually, it is not so much. I am only holding on to 14.9%.”

Steve used his fingernails to scratch the first question in his notebook. Feng Yu had answered this question.

“I am very curious. All your shares are circulating shares. That means you bought it from other investors in the open market. Is it because you are confident of Microsoft’s earning potential, that’s why you invest in it?”

“Of course. To be more precise, I am confident of the whole industry. Microsoft is one of the top companies in this industry. In China, we call such companies as the head goat, meaning the leader of the pack. Investments are for making more money, and Microsoft can help me make more money.”

There was nothing to hide about this. Feng Yu couldn’t be telling them that he invests in Microsoft was not for money, and it was because he wants to enter the board of directors and then let his company overtake Microsoft in the future.

“I understand that Microsoft shares are still growing. All your shares are bought over the past few years. Can we talk about where did you get so much money to buy these shares? Even if it was two years ago, your investment is also a large amount.”

“I earned it. I earned every single cent legally. With my status, do I need to get involved with illegal businesses?” Feng Yu did not give a direct reply. Why should I tell you how I earn my money from? Do you want me to tell you all my trade secrets?

Steve was not happy with Feng Yu’s answer. He had interviewed other tycoons and knew their primary source of income and how they become wealthy. But he knew nothing about Feng Yu, as Forbes was not influential in China.

If it was in the US, Forbes could quickly obtain any information he wants. At least all the available information. But this was enough. Forbes would not dig into someone’s hidden past. That’s the job of other media.

“Feng, you should know what I want to ask. Let me change the question a bit. Other than Microsoft, what other companies did you invest in? Hmmm, the more profitable companies.”

Chapter 759 – How did you get your money from?

Feng Yu noticed when Steve asked him this question, Bill Gates sat up straight. Seems like he was also interested in this question.

“Consumer electronics, including some home appliances. This is my primary investment. That multi-function Superfan over there is invented by my company. Currently, it is selling very well all over the world.” Feng Yu smiled.

“So, this Wind and Rain brand’s Superfan belongs to you?” Steve asked seriously.

“I have the controlling shares.”

Steve took a mental note of this and continued asking. “What do you mean by consumer electronics? Just this Wind and Rain brand?”

“That’s right. Look. That Super VCD is also Wind and Rain Brand. My company has the most advanced technologies in the VCD industry. Do you all know about VCD?”

Feng Yu had reorganized his office and added lots of Wind and Rain, and Aiwa products in it. He hopes that everyone who enters his office would notice these products. He was also used to using his own products.

VCD? That belongs to Feng Yu too?

Steve thought it was the Chinese government who invented this VCD. Didn’t they say all the profitable businesses were all state-owned companies in China?

Was there some sort of misunderstanding?

“VCD, is also Wind and Rain brand? That means the brand value of Wind and Rain is very high. Can you share how much is this brand worth?”

Steve had heard that the Chinese do not know much about brand value. Was this question too difficult for Feng to answer? But Forbes magazine had published some embarrassing moments of tycoons before. It’s fine as long as it was the truth.

“It should be about 10 billion.” Feng Yu replied casually.

“Feng, I’m talking about USD.” Chinese loves to use their currency. Don’t they know that USD is the most common currency in the world?

“I am talking about USD.” Feng Yu gave Steve a weird look.

Steve was frustrated. Seems like this Feng does not know what brand value means. 10 Billion USD? You think your company is Disney?

“Feng, maybe we have some miscommunication. The brand value does not mean the value of the products and assets. It is how much the brand is worth.” Steve explained. He felt that even if Feng Yu include all the company’s products and assets, this Wind and Rain will also not reach 1 billion USD.

“Of course, I know that. Have you heard of Wind and Rain brand?”

Steve frowned and nodded. “Yes. I have bought the humidifier.”

“What about you, Bill?” Feng Yu turned and look at Bill Gates.

“I had used the humidifier before and also bought the bladeless fan. But at that time, there is only this brand.”

“You all have also heard of my brand, but will the two of you take note of normal brands? This shows that Wind and Rain brand has already entered the lives of people. Even tycoons like you two are using my products. Our humidifier, bladeless fans, VCD players, etc. are the best in the world. I also own all the related patents.”

“Although this Wind and Rain is not established for a long time, the brand awareness is high. Wind and Rain products can be considered the best in certain fields, and we are still growing. Most importantly, it is the most famous brand in China. Any products if labeled under Wind and Rain brand will be the top seller in China. Why do you thinks a brand which controls a market of over 1 billion consumers, and is the top company in its industry, cannot be worth 10 billion USD? This amount will increase in as time passes!”

Any products would sell well in China if it were under Wind and Rain brand? If this were the case, then this brand would be more influential than big brands like Sony or IBM?

But was Feng Yu exaggerating? How can a brand be so influential?

Feng Yu did not exaggerate his brand value. No other home appliances or electronics brands were as well managed as Wind and Rain. What’s the sub-brand of Wind and Rain? Aiwa!

Steve thought for a while and did not retort what Feng Yu said. He decided to ask the next question. But what Feng Yu said can be used as a header. A boss who claims to own a 10 billion brand! This will attract a lot of readers!

“Is there anything else? Other than electronics and home appliances, did you invest in other industries?”

“Yes. Computer-related companies. I own some shares in China’s biggest PC manufacturer and the world’s top software company.” Feng Yu replied with a smile.

Steve was not satisfied with this answer. Feng Yu had been avoiding answering his questions. Until now, he still does not know where Feng Yu got the money to buy so many Microsoft shares.

“Feng, what was your first business? You should be able to reveal that, right?”

“Humidifiers and bladeless fans. My products had monopolized the market and were sued in several states in the US for anti-trust. But monopolizing the market should not be considered illegal, right? Microsoft’s products are also sued in some areas for monopolizing the market, but Microsoft was not penalized. That only proves that our products are the best in the world. Later, one Chinese company introduce another brand of humidifiers into US, and those lawsuits against us were dropped.”

When saying all these, Feng Yu purposely show a proud look. He was still in his twenties. If he behaved too calm and mature, it would be weird. Young men should behave arrogantly when they have some success.

After Feng Yu said that, Steve showed some despised, and Bill Gates nodded. He agreed with Feng Yu. That’s right. So what if Microsoft had created a monopoly and had signed an agreement with the authorities? Microsoft is a software company and is the leader of the industry. The products are the best in the world!

“Pardon me for asking. Are the profits from humidifiers and bladeless fans very high?” Steve asked.

This was a difficult question to answer. If Feng Yu says the profits are not high, then Steve will continue questioning where Feng Yu got his money from. If Feng Yu said his earnings are very high, then he will be seen as someone who profited from monopolizing the market. This will not be good for the brand image and will affect its sales.

“The R&D cost for my products is very high too. You know how much we spent to develop the bladeless fans? Also, we had to make sure we have the most advanced products. We had invested a lot into the development of our products. Do you know how much does a top engineer and researcher cost? You can just look at Microsoft. How much do you think is the cost of developing Microsoft’s operating system? But how much is Microsoft selling its operating system? You think it is costly? Technology and creativity are priceless!”

Feng Yu made used for Microsoft as his shield. Microsoft’s profits this year is several billion. But how much is its cost? The technologies and creativity behind its products cannot be measured with money.

Bill Gates agreed with Feng Yu’s reply, and Steve could not find anything to retort. However, after so long, Steve still does not know where Feng Yu got his money from?!

Chapter 760 – I would like to buy a house

No matter what Steve asked, Feng Yu would just give nonsensical replies. Other than Lenovo and Wind and Rain brands, Feng Yu did not reveal anything else. Most of his answers were ambiguous, which made Steve helpless.

Although Steve said this was not an interview, he treated this meeting as an interview. All along, Forbes magazine did not ask for permission before revealing someone’s net worth. Most people felt proud to be listed in Forbes magazine. Some even felt insulted when Forbes magazine announced its assets lesser than it should be.

But Feng Yu was someone different. Steve had never met a billionaire who does not want to be famous. Was Feng Yu like that Rothschild family? He will wish to reveal some of his assets and kept the rest in secret?

Bill Gates also did not get what he wanted to know. But Feng Yu had praised Microsoft several times during the meeting and made him happy. Even as the world’s richest man, he was still concern about how others think of his company. He will be still proud when he heard people praising Microsoft.

Bill Gates wanted to ask Feng Yu if the rumors, like he was a magnate in the manufacturing, F&B, retail, etc. were real.

But after thinking for a while, he decided not to ask. He was not Steve. If he asked Feng Yu about this, he would be seen as someone trying to dig into Feng Yu’s background, and it was disrespectful. Anyway, Feng Yu would not be able to hide all these for the long run.

Steve left the meeting, frustrated. Feng Yu was the most difficult tycoon he had ever met.

Feng Yu was only a young man in his early twenties, but he gave a matured feel. His replies were foolproof and kept changing the subject. This made Steve pissed.

Feng Yu was a stockbroker in his previous life. His strength was to use words to persuade clients to give him money to invest.

Even though Steve was brilliant, but Feng Yu did not let him dig out his secrets.

Looking at the notebook, Steve was in a daze. He was at a loss. He had prepared so many questions, but most of them did not have answers. He really did not how to write this article.

Steve could not write that Feng Yu had invested in humidifiers and bladeless fans. After that he invested in VCD players, followed by PC and then Microsoft. He got to explain where Feng Yu got the money to start his initial investment.

Even Steve himself did not believe Feng Yu, let alone the readers. If Feng Yu sold his companies or listed his companies, he might still be able to get enough money to buy Microsoft shares. But Feng Yu did not list or sell his companies. Where did he get so much money to buy Microsoft shares?

It would be irresponsible to write an article based on Steve’s guesses.

But Feng Yu was a tycoon and Forbes magazine had failed to write an article about him. Will this disappoint the loyal readers of Forbes magazine? Forbes magazine is a biweekly magazine, and it was frustrating for Steve to not be able to publish an article about Feng Yu in the upcoming issue.

Steve wondered if he should wait for the next issue. Feng Yu is a Chinese, and Forbes does not have offices in China. This should be a good excuse. That’s right. Forbes had offices in Asia. The staffs there can find out more about Feng Yu, and they might be able to dig out more information.

……

“Bill.” Feng Yu stopped Bill Gates as he was about to leave. “Are there any regulations in the company that I have to be here every day?”

Bill Gates looked at Feng Yu, confused. “No. You are the director of the company, and you manage your own time. As long as you get your work done, it’s okay.

“Ok. I will assign some work, and I decided to take a break for some time.”

Bill Gates did not know what to say. You have only started work for a few days, and you need a break? But Bill Gates remembered that Feng Yu was not taking any salary from the company. Asking for a break from work is also normal.”

“You have something to do? Do you need any help?” Bill Gates asked.

Feng Yu know Bill Gates was not acting courteous when he said this. This was the difference between Chinese and Western cultures. In China, even when you do not wish to help, you still got to ask. If the other party really ask you for help, then you got to think of a way to reject them.

But in the US, people really mean it when they offered help. They will not offer help and then find ways to reject you. They would not even ask if they are not willing to help!

“I have been staying in Hotels since arriving here. I am thinking of buying a house here.” Although Microsoft offers its employees lodging, Feng Yu does not want to live in those apartments with the rest of those programmers and engineers.

Bill Gates heard this and got excited. “You got to build your own house. You will be able to build your own mansion to cater to what you want. I know a few architects. I can link you up with them.”

Feng Yu remembered Bill Gates’s mansion was world-renowned in his previous life. The construction started in 1990 and took 7 years to construct. Even after the construction was completed, the property had still undergone several modifications and renovations. It was reported that the construction cost was more than 63 million USD. But the land was bought for less than 2 million USD.

Of course, all the furniture in the mansion were costly too. Someone said that if this mansion were in New York or Los Angles, it would worth at least 10 times more!

The fittings and decorations in the mansion were outrageously expensive. Feng Yu heard that there were several paints worth tens of millions in the mansion.

Feng Yu also like such luxury mansions. But he does not want to build one in the US. If he were to build a mansion, he would build one in China. This way, his family could also stay with him. Also, the location of the mansion is critical. It must be in an area without natural disasters and danger.

Feng Yu only wanted to buy an ordinary house in the US. It does not need to be big, but it must be safe.

Feng Yu had hired quite a lot of ex-soldiers and professional bodyguards. But those bodyguards were armed, and this made Feng Yu feel dangerous.

When the bodyguards feel someone is about to harm Feng Yu, they will use their firearms!

Even though these bodyguards hired by Feng Yu were trustworthy, but Feng Yu did not trust them fully. In public places, these bodyguards might do their part to protect Feng Yu. But if any of them harbor evil thoughts, they would be able to kill Feng Yu easily in his home.

Feng Yu felt insecure in a country where firearms could be easily obtained. Feng Yu does not understand why people feel safe when they have a gun. In fact, even if he is owned a gun, he felt unsafe as others are also holding on to weapons too.

This was why, in the US, Feng Yu would never step into a dangerous neighborhood. He does not want to experience firsthand.

“Bill, it will take too long to build my own house. I just need to buy a house to stay in. Do you have any recommendations?”

Chapter 761 – Seattle

“There are lots of good houses in Seattle. I can introduce some real estate agents I know to you. They had helped me, and many of our staffs find suitable properties. Bill Gates replied.

“Bill, I am not used to live so far from here. Is there any places near the company?”

“Nearer to the company? There are no good houses here. The houses here are small and don’t even have a swimming pool.” Someone like Feng Yu should be living in a big house.

Americans do not mind driving 2 hours to work. But Feng Yu was not used to it. Most Americans preferred quite place, but Feng Yu prefers areas bustling with life. Most of the houses in the US have a lawn in front and a pool at the back of the house. But if the yard is not maintained, the owner might be fine!

Feng Yu only wanted a place to stay. He did consider buying a mansion in the US, but Feng Yu it must be in big cities, like New York, Los Angeles, etc.

Feng Yu had even considered getting an apartment.

“I don’t need a pool, garden, or lawn. I am currently living alone here. I just don’t want to stay in a hotel.”

“What about your bodyguards? I know you have hired more than a dozen bodyguards. They will not be living with you?” Bill Gates asked. How can a small house fit so many people?

“I can just buy the whole floor of a building. I can also buy out the floors above and below.” Feng Yu replied.

“You like to invest in properties?” Bill Gates was puzzled. Buying out 3 floors of an apartment building was much more expensive than buying a big house. Also, living in an apartment was not a pleasant environment. He could not understand what Feng Yu was thinking.

“I only want to live in a safe place.” Feng Yu replied.

“Hahaha, Feng, you are the same as many first-time visitors to the US. Many people thought that the US is dangerous because of firearms. But you don’t have to worry about this. With all your bodyguards around, no one would dare to go near you. If you reveal your identity as a Microsoft director, you will be safer. Also, this is Washington. One of the safest states in the US.” Bill Gates laughed.

“No matter how safe this place is, people can still own guns. The US has the highest rate of shooting in the world, right?”

After being mocked, Feng Yu retorted even when the person who laughed at him was Bill Gates.

“No. It is not what you think. Those cases normally happen in their homes. If you don’t let strangers enter your house, you will be safe. No one would point a gun at you on the streets. Especially when you have so many bodyguards with you. I think all of them are armed? It will be fine unless you go to the back alleys at night. The media reports are mostly exaggerated. I think even in China, crimes are happening every day. Firing a gun will attract police. Furthermore, guns are prohibited in public places. So, no one will try to harm you in public areas.”

Feng Yu’s bodyguards had explained about gun laws to Feng Yu before. But their words could not be compared to Bill Gates. Furthermore, the bodyguards were paid well. All of them were hoping for Feng Yu to be worried for his safety and hire more bodyguards. This way, they will have less work to do.

Feng Yu was worried was also because of those bodyguards’ explanation of the situation in the US.

Feng Yu realized that he might be overthinking. His situation was not as dangerous as he imagined. Maybe when he is free, he will buy a few guns for fun. He had heard that even students could buy a gun easily.

Feng Yu held his chin and thought for a while. “How far is Seattle from here?”

“It is about an hour drive from here or even nearer. Didn’t you hire a driver?” Bill Gates asked. The freeway in the US is also very famous. Vehicles could travel at high speed there.

Less than an hour? Feng Yu thought for a while. Maybe Seattle is a good option after all.

Feng Yu had watch <Sleepless in Seattle> and <Finding Mr. Right> movies in his previous life. In fact, many Chinese had heard of Seattle because of the beautiful sceneries in the films.

Seattle is a beautiful city. There are forests, rivers, lakes, yachts, skiing, etc. it is an excellent place to live in. There is even an Olympic National Park there.

The most prominent company in this area was Boeing, followed by Microsoft. Feng Yu remembered in his previous life, Seattle was also famous for its software and internet companies.

How prosperous was the software and internet companies in Seattle? Even Starbucks had invested in several of many such companies. Although most of these companies were acquired by more prominent companies or bankrupted, these companies kept appearing, and this year was the peak.

“Ok. That means Seattle is a good choice then. Can you give the contacts of those real estate agents to Ralph? I can take the next few days to look for a suitable house.”

The next few days are not weekends. Bill Gates did not say anything. Paul Allen was also one of the directors, and he also did not come to the office often. Bill Gates was used to this.

Bill Gates was very efficient. Within half an hour, the contacts of a few real estate agents were placed on Feng Yu’s table.

Feng Yu called the first number and told him his requirements. The real estate agent immediately tell Feng Yu that he has two properties which fit his demands and made an appointment with Feng Yu to view the houses tomorrow morning.

Since Feng Yu had decided to get a mansion, he does not mind having a swimming pool and garden. He heard from Ralph that without these facilities, it would be hard for him to invite people to his mansion. Kids will have no entertainment, and it will not fit his status.

Feng Yu accepted Ralph’s suggestions. Anyway, he will be hiring someone to clean up his place. He could just hire one more gardener to take care of the garden and pool. If Feng Yu had the time, he would also build a mansion from scratch.

Feng Yu needs a mansion with at least 5 rooms. A room for bodyguards, a place for helper, a guest room, a study room, and his own bedroom.

Yes. He must also check out the neighbors. They must be someone prominent to prevent troubles.

Feng Yu hopes that he could get his own place tomorrow as he does not want to stay in hotels.

The next morning, Feng Yu instructed his driver to drive him to meet the agent…….

Chapter 762 – I want both of them

“Mr. Feng, nice to meet you. My name is Tony Payton. You can call me Tony. But don’t call me Payton, because, in Seattle, the name Payton refers to The Glove.” The real estate agent greeted Feng Yu warmly and even made a small joke.

But after saying his joke, Tony regretted. This customer was Asian. He might not get his joke. But this Asian should be filthy rich. He even has bodyguards!

Feng Yu laughed and shook Tony’s hand. He asked: “Seattle Supersonics’ Gary Payton is also living nearby?”

This Chinese man knows about the NBA? He even knows about the star player Gary Payton’s nickname? This was a surprise.

This was good news for Tony.

“That’s right. Mr. Gloves is staying at that house over there. Maybe you all will be neighbors in the future. It’s less than 30 mins of walk from this property to his mansion. Isn’t it very near?” Tony asked, excitedly.

Feng Yu looked at Tony. He was speechless. Do you know what neighbors mean in China? The distance is more than 1km, and you are telling me it is very near?

“These are not important. I am just interested in this property.”

“Sure. Mr. Feng, let me bring you around your future house. This house was newly built-in 1990. The current owner had moved to California this year. You should know that even if the owner is not staying here, he also must pay taxes and hire people to maintain the property. That’s why the owner decided to sell it. I can guarantee that this is not a haunted house, and no crimes had occurred here before. Also, all the furniture and electric appliances are still in good condition, as the owner had just moved not long ago. If it is two months earlier, I also cannot offer this house to you…….”

Tony introduces the house as they toured around. He could talk nonstop. Maybe it was because of his occupation. He had said so much was to persuade Feng Yu to buy this house. But his words do not work on Feng Yu. As a stockbroker in his previous life, he said similar things to his clients too.

“This is the best house in the area. You can move in straight without renovations. Of course, if you want to renovate or even rebuild this house, I can introduce a few construction companies to you.”

Tony did not give up on any opportunities. In the US, buying a house includes the land beneath it. These properties were all freehold properties. However, there are restrictions on how high you can build the property and 800 meters below ground belongs to you. If you discover oil, gold or any minerals underground, it belongs to you.

Tony saw Feng Yu frowning after they had seen the house. It was apparent Feng Yu was not satisfied with this house. Tony had heard that Asians prefer to live with their family. Feng Yu was unhappy with the number of rooms? But the land area for this property is significant. He can build a bigger house.

What Tony wanted was only to sell this property and get his commission.

“Where is the other house?” Feng Yu asked. Since the agent has two houses for him to view, he was not in a hurry to make his decision.

“The other house is just next to this property. Both lands are adjacent to each other. But there is a problem with that house. 1 of the 3 previous owners of that property was bankrupt, and another owner died in a car accident. The last previous owner had been conned of all his assets. Many people feel that house is inauspicious and is cursed. It has been vacant for years. No one even wants to rent it.” Tony replied.

Tony had heard Asians were particular about this. It was something called “Fengshui.” This was why Tony tried his best to sell the first house. The other house was only a reference.

Feng Yu still entered the second house to take a look. This house was slightly smaller and did not have swimming pools or gardens. It also has one room less than the first house. But it was considered spacious, and Feng Yu likes it.

“What is the difference in pricing for both houses?” Feng Yu asked.

Tony was overjoyed. This customer was considering these two houses!

“Mr. Feng, are you using mortgage loans or making full payments?” Tony asked.

Feng Yu glanced at him: “Do you think I need to take a loan?”

“Of course not. But the returns from investments is much more than the bank interest rates. Since Mr. Feng preferred to make full payment in cash, then based on the evaluation and the owner, this plot of land is 1328.6 sqm, and the house is 536.3 sqm. The price of this property is 770,000 USD. The other property is 816.9 sqm, and the house is 368.8 sqm. The selling price is 320,000 USD.”

Tony looked at Feng Yu after telling him about the prices. He hopes Feng Yu would buy the first house. This way, he will get a higher commission. Even if Feng Yu picks the second house, it was also fine. The price for the second property might be half of the first, but he would still get good commission.

But ordinary wealthy people would choose the more expensive house. Tony had already said that the second house was cursed. This Chinese man should not pick it.

Feng Yu looked at Tony and asked. “You said this is a good location?”

“That’s right. If not, why would so many wealthy people pick this place to live in?” Tony was curious why Feng Yu was asking about this.

Why was Feng Yu asking? This was a big plot of land and the houses were nicely renovated, big and the prices include all the furniture. Why were these properties selling so cheap?

These were freehold properties and were much cheaper than China. Was it because the US had a lesser population and that’s why the land was cheap?

Feng Yu turned and looked at Wilson. When Wilson heard Feng Yu would be making some investments in the US, he also remained there to help Feng Yu.

The income from working for Feng Yu for a year was equivalent to Wilson previous 3 to 5 years income. Wilson might be able to retire 10 years earlier if he carries on working for Feng Yu.

Wilson moved closer and whispered to Feng Yu: “Mr. Feng, is it because you think the prices are too low? In the US, you need to pay property taxes of about 1.1% of the property’s value. If one day, you are not able to pay the property tax, your property will be seized. During this period, you will not be able to sell this property. If anyone were to buy over your property tax rights and repay the property tax, he would get the ownership of your property. Also, if your property’s value increases, your tax will increase…….”

Damn! So that’s the reason! When the property was seized, the taxes I paid in the past will not be refunded? The tax was much more than China! When the property’s value increases, the taxes paid would be enough to buy another property.

But Feng Yu still decided to buy both properties and combine both plots of land. That “cursed” house can be torn down and rebuilt.

“I want both houses!

Chapter 763 – Advertising message and Reality

Tony felt it was his lucky day. This Mr. Feng from China wanted to buy both properties, including that cursed house!

Tony made a mental calculation of his commission from both properties and was overjoyed. In the US, real estate agents will get about 6% commission of the properties’ value.

However, Tony had to hand over a portion of his commission to his company and will get about 3.4% in the end. But Tony would get 5.5% for that cursed property as his company wanted to offload this property as soon as possible.

Tony would get about 40,000 USD from both properties. This was the best month this year!

Mr. Feng was too generous. He had only seen the properties once and decided to buy them within half an hour. This was the first time Tony met a buyer like Feng Yu.

“Mr. Feng, I will bring you the contracts.” Tony was about to run back to his car.

“Wait a minute,” Wilson called Tony. “I remember that if we are going to move into a neighborhood, we still need the approval of the residences, right?”

Feng Yu was puzzled. What the hell? I bought the house and still the approval from others before moving in?

Wilson was not talking nonsense. In the US, the residents in the neighborhood had the authority to stop others from moving in. Although in the US, if oil was discovered under your house, it belongs to you.

But it is hard for crude oil to be discovered near the surface. Even if there is, you still need the approval of the government and the residents before you can extract the oil!

Under normal circumstances, who would want an oil well next to his house?

This was only an advertising message. Even if someone were to dig a well in their own backyard, approval from other residents must be obtained first. This was because underground water belongs to everyone!

Everything underground belongs to the owner of the land, was only a saying. You want to do whatever you want on your property? Then you will be invited to have coffee with the authorities soon. The neighbors might sue you anytime!

Most of the time, neighbors will not speak with the owner and call the police straight!

Especially when the residents see that the new owner is not a local. Despite this was a democratic country, but most people also know that discrimination still exists in the US.

Tony looked at Wilson. This man knows about the laws and regulations. He smiled embarrassedly: “Mr. Feng will have no problems. I will speak to all the residents.”

Wilson sneered. “Mr. Feng will sign the contracts only after you persuaded the residents.”

Feng Yu felt it was right to bring Wilson with him. No wonder lawyers in the western countries made so much money. There were too many laws and regulations!

“What’s wrong? You cannot do that? Mr. Feng, I remember you still have the contacts of other real estates agents? I think we can contact them and shop around first.” Wilson said.

Feng Yu was also pissed. Damn! This agent was too evil. He tried to hide something so important? If I can’t move into the houses I bought, then why should I buy it in the first place? Pay more taxes?

“Wait…. Mr. Feng, please wait…. Can you give me this afternoon? I will definitely convince the residents. My uncle is the Community Representative here.”

Huh? This neighborhood also has a Representative?

Most of the Representative in the US were under an inheritance system. Although they do not admit it, this was the truth. Political families exist everywhere, including the presidency. Just look at the Bush family. It was tough for an ordinary citizen to be a representative, let alone the president. This was already not the US in the past.

“You better settle this as soon as possible. Mr. Feng’s time is very precious.” Wilson replied.

Feng Yu was quite satisfied with these two properties. This place was less than an hour drive to Microsoft’s headquarters, and it was a nice neighborhood with good security.

But if Feng Yu could only buy these properties and not able to move in, then all these were useless.

“Wilson, can you go with him? I really like these two houses.” Feng Yu said to Wilson.

“Mr. Feng, can I reveal your position in Microsoft if needed? Or can I tell others that you are in the higher management of Microsoft?” Wilson asked.

There should be lesser objections if the residents knew Feng Yu was working with Microsoft. If this still does not work, then they could only ask others, like Bill Gates, for help.

But Feng Yu does not want to owe Bill Gates over such a trivial matter. He would rather not buy these properties.

“Ok. I hope this will be settled as soon as possible.” Feng Yu nodded. His position at Microsoft was still quite useful. Maybe he could make use of this position to get more benefits.

……

“What? You want to sell that house to a Chinese? Tony, are you crazy?! Can that China man even get a loan? Do you know if he could not repay his loans, your reputation will be affected? Also, the residents in this community will not agree. Don’t you know how difficult the residents here is?”

“Sir. I want to remind you that my boss is from Hong Kong! Also, from what you just said, there are some elements of racial discrimination. I am here based on my boss’s orders and might take legal actions against you. You better apologize for what you said now!” Wilson raised his voice.

“Tony, who is this man?” Tony’s uncle, Joe, the Community Representative, asked.

“I am Queen’s counsel Wilson from the UK. I am also Mr. Feng’s personal lawyer. Also, my boss does not need to get loans. This amount is peanuts to my boss. Now, apologize!” Wilson replied.

Maybe it was Wilson’s title as Queen’s Counsel or his firm attitude that intimidated Joe. Joe apologizes for what he said.

Wilson turned to Tony and said: “The community here should feel proud for my boss to live here. My boss is working at Microsoft!”

Tony was surprised. Mr. Feng should be a graduate from some prestigious school in the US. Many Chinese overseas students will end up working in the US. This was the same for those Hong Kong students.

“Microsoft has tens of thousands of employees. There are also criminals among them. You cannot convince the residents with this.” Joe purposely said this loudly.

Joe was forced to apologize in front of his nephew and was still feeling sore!

“How many Microsoft’s top management executives have committed crimes? Which neighborhood has rejected a top executive from Microsoft from moving in? Just yesterday afternoon, my boss had lunch with Bill Gates!”

Tony was overjoyed. Mr. Feng is a top executive from Microsoft? Then this should not be a problem. No one would oppose.

Joe’s eyes widen in shock. Then he stared at Tony angrily. Idiot! Why didn’t you tell me the buyer is a top executive with Microsoft?

If Joe knew the buyer was from Microsoft, he would never say those things. If he could be friends with a top executive from Microsoft, he might even have the opportunity to move up to be the district representative or even the City’s representative.

“Tony, I will go with you. I will make sure Mr. Feng will be able to move into his new house as soon as possible!” Joe said.

Wilson replied, coldly. “That would be best. My boss does not have patience.”

Chapter 764 – Housekeeping staffs

The title of Microsoft top executive was very useful. That evening, Tony brought the contracts to Feng Yu’s hotel.

When the door opened, Tony got a shock. 6 tall bodyguards walked out. What was Feng Yu trying to do to him?

Of course, Feng Yu did not do anything to Tony. After Wilson checked the contracts, Feng Yu signed it, and they gave a 1 million cheque to Tony. He told Tony that the extra 10,000 USD was his tips and wanted him to settle all the paperwork as soon as possible.

Tony nodded. Feng Yu was too generous. 10,000 USD tips!

The bodyguards looked at Tony with envy. A 10,000 USD tips for such a simple job?

Feng Yu was secretly observing those bodyguards. He was satisfied to see them envying Tony and not jealous of him.

Feng Yu did not move into that house immediately. Some of the items in the house must be replaced. Most of the furniture does not need to be changed, but all the home appliances got to be changed.

If possible, Feng Yu would use Wind and Rain brand appliances. He will use Philips brand if Wind and Rain do not have the appliances he needs. He will not consider other brands temporary. Also, Feng Yu wants to give away those books he was not interested in. He does not want to keep those books which he does not read to decorate his study room. Feng Yu wants to buy the whole set of novels by Gu Long and Jin Yong.

Of course, Feng Yu also want to get business magazines like <Forbes>, <Bloomberg>, <Fortune> and <The Economist>.

But Feng Yu was not interested in those books on economics. In Feng Yu’s previous life, many people had read Dale Carnegie’s books, but who can replicate his success? Those books were just talking about things where everyone knows.

Feng Yu felt those books were all bullshit! His compilation of <Suboptimal Health> was much better. At least <Suboptimal Health> had lots of information which most people does not know.

As for that “Cursed” house, Feng Yu asked Wilson to prepare the paperwork for rebuilding it. He wants to build a new house and then fence up the lawn of both properties.

Feng Yu could keep dogs in the lawn and could increase his privacy. Maybe he could even build a helicopter pad in the backyard.

The aviation back in China had still not been open up. No one can own private helicopters. But the regulations in the US is more relaxed. Feng Yu only need to pay more tax.

Furthermore, this is Seattle. The headquarters of Boeing. Boeing does not only manufacture planes and cargo helicopters. They also produce Civil helicopters. But Boeing helicopters were not as famous as their aircraft. Feng Yu could just purchase the helicopter from Boeing, and they will take care of all paperwork.

Feng Yu finally experienced the inconvenience in the US. Permissions must be obtained from the neighbors for building a house, there are restrictions on the height of the building, and his home cannot block the neighbor’s sunlight. The style of his house cannot be different from the neighbors, and the colors must be similar…….

There were too many restrictions. Damn!

Luckily, Feng Yu had Wilson and Ralph to assist him. If not, he would be frustrated. Goddamn! Even changing the floor tiles had to notify the neighbors. If not, the police will come!

Feng Yu’s new house was huge, and he needed some housekeepers, cooks, and gardeners.

Although Feng Yu could hire part-timers to do these jobs, he felt it would be better to get some permanent staffs. He does not like to see unfamiliar faces around him. Who knows if those people would harbor ill intentions?

……

A house had been renovated, and the other was still under construction. Today, there will be a few housekeepers coming in for interview, and Feng Yu decided to interview them personally.

“Boss, this couple had worked as the housekeepers for a Boeing’s Chinese Engineer. But the engineer had been transferred to another state, and they are currently out of a job. They had opened a Chinese restaurant before and were said to be good cooks. I am not familiar with Chinese cuisine, so I am not able to judge.” Ralph was holding on to a file and explaining to Feng Yu.

“They are Americans?”

“No. They are both Chinese and are currently holding work permits. If they still can’t get a job this month, they will be sent back. Their son is studying at University of Washington, and they came over to help earn money for his son’s tuition fees. Their son will be graduating next year. “

Feng Yu nodded. Actually, this couple’s son can support himself while studying here. In Feng Yu’s previous life, he also worked part-time to support himself while in University. Maybe this student’s parents felt they could make more money in the US. After all, many Chinese felt money could be quickly earned in the US.

Of course. If one could find a job and is willing to work hard in the US, he or she could make more money than in China.

“Good morning, Mr. Feng.” A middle-aged couple entered. They were dressed plainly and looks nervous. They even bowed to Feng Yu. It was the man who greeted Feng Yu in English.

“I am from China. You can speak Chinese with me.”

The couple seems relaxed a little. The man bowed slightly forward and said: “Mr. Feng, I had worked as a gardener back in China. I am confident in my skills. I also know about cleaning and maintaining swimming pools and still know a bit about electricity. I can repair many things. I don’t mind getting a lower salary if you are willing to take us in. My wife is a good cook too. She had opened a restaurant back in China and have no problem as a housekeeper. She also does not mind getting a lower salary.”

“Salary is not a problem. I am curious. Do you two know English? How did you all get the work permits in the first place?”

This couple’s son knew that Boeing’s Chinese Engineer. That Chinese engineer pitied the couple and got a recruitment agency to help them get the work permit in the US.

But that engineer was transferred to another state after helping them get the work permits. He could not bring the couple with him, and so, this couple was out of job.

The husband had studied up to High school and knows some English words. It was hard for him to communicate with others. However, he had no problems buying groceries. The wife did not know any English, but she looks tidy.

“Go and clear the lawn and that flowerbed. I will ask someone to get the groceries, and you prepare 4 dishes. If you all can satisfy me, then we will talk about your salaries. If not, I’m sorry. Don’t come and tell me that we are all fellow Chinese and ask me to hire you.” Feng Yu will not pity this couple as he does not know them personally. He does not care whether if they were sent back or not.

“Thank you, Mr. Feng. We will definitely do a good job.” The couple bowed and left the room. The wife went to the kitchen, and the husband went to the garage to get the gardening tools. Both of them were eager to prove themselves.

“Are there any more people? Call them in. We shall continue with the interviews.”

Chapter 765 – High salaries

An American man came for the interview for the cook’s position. Feng Yu casually asked two questions. How do you cook sweet and sour fish, and how do you cook Kung pao Chicken? The other party had a blank look on his face.

Feng Yu turned to look at Ralph. This is the Chinese Chef you got? He does not even know a single Chinese word. Kao Pao chicken had to be deep-fried? Sweet and sour fish had to use sea fishes?!

Also, this gardener with a full beard. He looks professional, but he only knows how to mow the lawn? What about my flowerbed? What about those lemon trees in the backyard?

This electrician does not know anything except for connecting wires.

That man came here to ask for the job of a swimming coach cum lifeguard? Why the hell do I need a lifeguard for my own swimming pool? I can just fill the pool with lesser water.

Also, that part-time cleaner. She can only work one day per week and still dare to ask for 300 USD per week? She might as well go and rob a bank!

Just when Feng Yu was about to blow up, he smelled food. He stood up and walked over to the dining hall.

“Mr. Feng, please wait a while. Give me 5 more minutes.”

Sweet and sour fish and Kung Pao Chicken? She had heard what I said earlier? Hmmm…… She is smart. The smell and looks of these two dishes make me hungry. But does it taste as good as it looks?

“Mr. Feng, there is no rice, so I made some Chinese pies. I had only learned how to make these, and I am not sure about the taste.”

Feng Yu had been in the US for some time and had been to Chinese restaurants. The Chinese restaurants in the US had been westernized and taste weird. He does not like the food there.

It was weird that this Chinese couple were from the southern province and could cook the food Feng Yu like. The meal cooked today was not cheap.

The fish used in Sweet and Sour fish was carp. In the US, Americans seldom eat freshwater fishes. There were too many bones. Feng Yu had asked his men to get a carp, and this carp was especially fished from a lake for him.

Only people with fishing permits could fish in the US, and the license cost tens of USD annually. There were also many restrictions on fishing. If the fish is too small, the fisherman had to release it. If a fish with marker is fished, the fisherman got to report to the authorities. There are seasons every year when fishing is prohibited. During the time when they could catch, the fisherman can only bring back 2 fishes.

That’s why the price of this carp, is worth more dozens of carps back in China, and those carps are way bigger than this carp.

The beef and chicken used were also the best. Even the vegetables were the freshest vegetables from Walmart. Many of the seasonings used in Chinese cuisines could not be found in the supermarkets. It was Ralph who got these seasonings from a Chinese supermarket, and it was costly!

Of course. All these were considered expensive compared to regular products. Feng Yu could easily afford it.

After Feng Yu finished the meal, he noticed that the woman had disappeared. He turned and look at Ralph. Ralph pointed to the living room, and Feng Yu saw the woman was doing housekeeping in the living room.

Wow…… She’s very hardworking. Feng Yu felt he could hire her as his cook. Her cooking cannot be compared to those restaurant’s chefs in China, but she can be considered skilled when compared to those housewives. She was not lying when she said she had opened a restaurant before. Feng Yu decided to ask how much salary she wants.

Feng Yu walked out to the garden to have a look. When Feng Yu and Ralph stepped out, Ralph was shocked. How can someone work so fast?

The garden which was filled with dried grass and leaves were cleared, and the grass was mowed. The whole place was clean. Most importantly, the flowerbed by the fence was tidied. Although the flowers were not looking healthy, the soil was tossed. This man was fast. How can he be so fast?

“Mr. Feng, the lemon tree has fruits now, and it’s hard to trim. This is the best I can do now. If it is 2 months before, I can make it look nicer and bear more fruits. I will go and clean the pool now. I promise I can clean it within an hour.”

“No need.” Feng Yu waved his hand.

That man panicked: “Mr. Feng, is it because I am too slow? I will be faster next time. This garden had not been maintained for some time, and the trees had fruits. The salary I am asking is very low. Really.”

“You don’t need to panic. What I am saying is I am satisfied with your performance. Come in first. Let’s talk about your salary. Oh, I forgot to ask. How do I address both of you?”

That man was overjoyed: “Mr. Feng. My name is Tian Dajun. You can call me Old Tian. My wife is called Zhao Aiying. You can call her Old Zhao.”

Feng Yu turned and looked at Ralph. Ralph whispered to Feng Yu: “They were getting 600 USD monthly in their previous job. Food and lodging are provided.”

600 USD was about 5,000 RMB. In China, the salary of a gardener will never be more than 500 RMB, and the salary of a housekeeper is about 300 RMB. Of course, if it is a house as big as this, they will also not get such high salary back in China. This couple, they are really here to make big bucks!

“How much is the salary of a fulltime housekeeper and gardener?”

“Based on the size of this property and the average salary of Seattle, their salaries should be above 1,200 USD.”

Damn! Such high salaries! But these two really worked hard. Furthermore, that person who wanted to work once a week also asked for a monthly salary of 1,200 USD. 1,200 USD was like small change to Feng Yu too.

In the US, the salaries of these workers were very high. Sometimes, these workers could get more than those office workers. But their employers have to be satisfied with their performance. If not, they will not be paid.

“Old Tian, Sister Zhao, can I address you two this way?”

“Yes, yes.” Old Tian quickly replied.

“How much salary are you all expecting?”

“We are getting 600 USD previously……. We are willing to accept 500 USD a month.” Old Tian saw Feng Yu frowning. He was afraid that Feng Yu would not agree and quickly lower his asking salary.

“Ok. Ralph had told me that based on the salary scale here, you all should be getting 1,200 USD and above. Let’s set it as 1,200 USD, and I will give you additional bonus based on your performances. Are you all satisfy this amount?” Feng Yu does not mind letting this couple get more. Anyway, he also has to pay the same amount if he hires other people. He might as well give his fellow countrymen this salary.

“Mr. Feng, it is too high. You don’t need to give us so high salaries.” Old Tian replied.

“I will treat it as you two are satisfied with this salary. Tomorrow, Ralph will bring you two to settle your work permits. I will let you all know if I am not coming back. If I am not around, you two can rest or visit your son. If your son wants to come over and visit you two, let me know in advance. He can stay in the guest room. Oh, you two can start work tomorrow. Now, you two can go and prepare lunch for yourselves. That will be your room. Other than my bedroom and study, you two can go any way you all like.”

“Thank you, Mr. Feng.”

Feng Yu waved his hand and went up to his study to read some novels. It was also time to write a letter to her…….

Chapter 766 – When did it start?

“Kexin, there is a letter from you. It is sent from the US. You have relatives in the US?” Wang Shenjing, Kexin’s roommate, asked.

“No. Let me see.”

Zhou Kexin saw the handwriting on the envelope and immediately knew who sent her this letter.

Zhou Kexin smiled happily as she held the letter against her chest.

“Eh, Kexin, who send you this letter? Could it be your boyfriend?” Wang Shenjing could tell Zhou Kexin knew who the sender from her expression was. The sender’s name was written in English. But who would call himself as ‘Ugly’ and No. 2 behind it?! What does this mean? Number two ugly person?

“Boyfriend? It’s my pen pal.” Zhou Kexin replied and blushed.

“What? Pen pal? You have a foreign penpal? An American penpal? I heard there are black people there.” Wang Shenjing exclaimed.

“He is not a foreigner. He is Chinese and had graduated from Beijing University!” Zhou Kexin retort. To her, no Americans or anyone can be compared to “Second most handsome person on earth.”

“Beijing University’s graduate? You still have a pen pal from there? How come to this letter is sent from the US? Did he continue his studies overseas?”

Wang Shenjing was surprised. After all, most top students will go overseas to continue their studies and will choose to remain there.

Wang Shenjing’s hometown had one person like this. After migrating overseas, that person brought his parents with him. She heard that money can be made easily in other countries. She also wanted to go abroad but did not have the opportunity.

“No. He told me that he was going to the US for work. He will be back during Lunar New Year.” Zhou Kexin felt slightly disappointed. It will take too long for her letter to reach Feng Yu.

“Wow! He went to the US to make money? How are his benefits at his unit there? Do they also have holidays during Lunar New Year?” Wang Shenjing exclaimed.

“They don’t call it units there. It’s called a company.” Zhou Kexin replied.

“It’s the same. How much is he earning every month?” Wang Shenjing asked. She does not care whether if it is called Units or companies. What matter most was the income!

“How would I know? I have never asked him about this. Ok. Thanks for collecting this letter for me. I heard that Li Lin had bought a big plush toy. You should go next door to visit her.”

Wang Shenjing glanced at Zhou Kexin: “You just want me to leave. Li Lin has allergies. She will not buy any plush toys. Fine. I shall not disturb you. Chat with you later.”

Zhou Kexin smiled and carefully opened the envelope and took out the letter.

“I am now in the US, Washington state. The capital of the US. The scenery here is wonderful, but everyone here is speaking in a foreign language. The culture here is very different from China, and everything is unfamiliar…….”

Zhou Kexin frowned as she read the letter. Since you think the US is not good, then why did you still go there? As a graduate of Beijing University, you can easily get a job in China.

Even if you do not go to any state-owned enterprises, you can also go to foreign companies. There are many international companies in Shanghai. They are paying their staffs well.

Zhou Kexin had entered Shanghai University, Journalism. She had chosen this course under the encouragement of “Second most handsome person on earth” and her parents.

Zhou Kexin was looking forward to being a reporter. She hopes to be able to interview those people who had made significant contributions to the country.

But Zhou Kexin did not understand why “Second most handsome person on earth” went to work in the US. He does not want to contribute to his motherland?

Since young, Zhou Kexin had been taught to repay the motherland by making contributions like the previous generations. But these teachings were quickly replaced by “overseas is better.” Wang Shenjing was one of them. Her dream was to go to the US.

Those people who left for other countries and never return did not undergo such education when they were young? Those people who dream of migrating did not study these ideologies before?

This was all because of the current economic conditions of the Chinese. People had suffered for too long, and everything they own had to be shared. Many capable people start to think if they should carry on like this or……. Leave for a better place?

When Zhou Kexin received Feng Yu’s letter today, she made up her mind to never leave China. China was still the best. Even “Second most handsome person on earth” cannot get used to life overseas, she will also not be able to.

This letter had 3 pages, and Zhou Kexin still felt it was too short. She wished for the letter to be longer. She took out her letter paper and start to write a reply letter.

After Zhou Kexin finishes her letter, she read it twice and then amend it. She wrote everything she saw and did in the letter, at the same time, she also wrote her inner secrets, which she had never told anyone else.

She checked her letter a few more times and then took out a new sheet of paper to write it nicely. She had written a wrong character earlier and had to strike it off. She does not want to send a letter with a cancellation to him.

“Kexin, what are you writing?” Another roommate, Wang Lei, entered.

Zhou Kexin quickly covered her letter. “You are back? I am not writing anything.”

“Not writing anything? Then why are you trying to cover it? Let me see what you are hiding. This must not be a letter to your parents. It must be your boyfriend. Is he from the same high school as you? Which university is he from?” Wang Lei asked.

“No. It’s only my penpal.” Zhou Kexin replied.

“Penpal? Why are you so nervous? Since it’s a penpal, then let me take a look at what you have written.” Wang Lei extends her hand in front of Zhou Kexin.

“No way! This is our secret.” Zhou Kexin lay flat on the table, covering her letter with her body.

“It’s really only a penpal?”

“Yes. It’s only my penpal! Zhou Kexin firmly replied.

“Don’t lie to me. Even if you two started as penpals, now it’s different. Look at you. Your face is all red. You like him, right?”

“You…… Nonsense.”

Zhou Kexin could feel her face burning up. Her heart was racing. She did not know when it started, but she seems to have fallen in love with this “Second most handsome person on earth.”

When he is happy, she will also be happy. When he is upset, she will also be in a bad mood.

This…… When did this start?

Chapter 767 – Price war

“Manager Feng, you are not coming back?” Liu Chuanzhi asked over the phone.

“I will not be going back. If you need anything, call me. I will ask someone to help you. Have you considered this well? We will be the industry’s public enemy!” Feng Yu reminded.

Liu Chuanzhi wanted to make use of the National Day Holidays to start the price war in the PC sector! PC prices will be lowered drastically, and at the same time, he will offend the PC manufacturers.

Of course, the PC manufacturers will not be limited to China’s manufacturers. Lenovo will be the common enemy of all international PC manufacturers. In the future, it will be hard for Lenovo to venture into other countries.

Lenovo’s advantage in this price war was the high tariffs on electronic products in China. Their manufacturing cost was about the same or even more than overseas PC manufacturers. Other than the transportation cost and exemption from tariffs, they do not have any other advantages.

But with the high tariffs, overseas PC brands will cost at least more than 10,000 RMB. Lenovo could sell their PC at 7,000 to 8,000 RMB and will still have profits.

What was the cost of those overseas brands? The manufacturing cost was about 5,000 RMB and coupled with branding, distribution, transportation, storage, marketing, etc., it will be a loss if they sell their PC below 10,000RMB.

“Manager Feng, this is the best opportunity to take over the Chinese market. After we become China’s number one PC brand, our profits will surely improve by leaps and bounds. We will have the funds to invest in new factories and increase our productions. This way, we will be able to lower our manufacturing cost further.” Liu Chuanzhi also knew he would be the offending all other PC brands if he started this price war.

But Liu Chuanzhi had to do it. If not, it will be harder for him to occupy the market. After all, Lenovo’s brand awareness, technologies, etc. were still not comparable with those big companies.

Pricing was Lenovo’s most significant advantage as it is China’s domestic brand.

When Lenovo become China’s top PC brand, it could easily monopolize the Chinese market. The government agencies will surely purchase Lenovo PC. Also, the software they developed could help increase its sales.

Lenovo had also signed an agreement with Microsoft. Lenovo was the only company in the world to be able to get the cheapest Win95 Chinese edition. The other brands could only use an outdated operating system or the Eng version of Win95.

You all want to buy the Chinese version of Win95? Sure. One PC will cost at least 800RMB! This is the wholesales price. If you’re going to install it into one PC, it will cost 1,300 RMB!

Microsoft Win95 Chinese version was jointly developed by Microsoft, Kingsoft, and Lenovo. But all the profits will go to Microsoft. Feng Yu was the one who set the market price. In the US, original version of Win95 cost this much. I am offering a Chinese version now and is not charging you extra.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Microsoft’s operating system was the most expensive, and this was also one of the reasons why there was so many pirated version of it.

The original version of the XP operating system cost 998 RMB and a PC cost around 3,000 to 4,000 RMB. The operating system cost almost 25% of the PC. More importantly, those PC sellers will install a pirated version of the operating system to attract customers.

Lenovo had the advantages of pricing, location, and operating system. It also got the support of the Chinese Government. If Lenovo still cannot control the Chinese market with these advantages, then they should forget about venturing overseas.

“Old Liu, remember we talked about self-assembled PC? Do you think that if we sell the components of a PC, like motherboard, graphics card, hard disk, RAM, mouse, keyboards, monitors, optical drives, etc. separately, will the price be lowered further? The taxes on electronics parts were not high, and many of Lenovo’s PC parts were imported.” Feng Yu reminded him.

“You are saying that the customers can buy parts and assemble their own PC? Although PC is not considered complicated, ordinary people will not know how to assemble one. PCs are more complicated than TV. Also, these are expensive items. How many people would dare to DIY themselves?” Liu Chuanzhi replied.

“What if those people who know who to repair PC set up a shop to assemble PCs for people? They can use the same parts and without the branding cost and high taxes, how much do you think they can sell their self-assembled PC for?”

“This…… This should not be possible. Where can you find so many people who know about assembling a PC? Even if there is, their operating systems will be much more expensive. There will not be much difference between our pricing. Also, we are branded and have after-sales service. They will still not win us.” Liu Chuanzhi replied after thinking for a while.

“Then have you ever considered that if the other PC manufacturers did this? They can customize the PC according to the customer’s demands and sell to them. They will be importing parts and not a PC.”

“Manager Feng, the government will not let them exploit this loophole. PC parts importation has limits. After a certain volume, the taxes will be the same as importing a PC. We can do this is because we have the support of the government. But this support is not forever. That’s why we still need to set up factories to produce parts in China. In the future, we will try to produce most of our parts ourselves.”

Feng Yu was more assured when he heard what Liu Chuanzhi said. If there are restrictions, then those big brands will never win Lenovo in pricing. PCs of the same specs will have a few thousand RMB differences. How are they going to compete?

“How much are you going to sell our PC?” Feng Yu asked.

“8,800 RMB, with a free operating system, office software, and other software for them to access the internet.” Other than the operating system and office, the rest of the software was developed by Lenovo themselves. Of course, some of the software was developed by Kingsoft. The software was also another way to attract customers.

“How much is our cost?”

“Around 6,000 RMB, inclusive of the software. The profit is quite high. I am confident that we will become China’s top-selling PC brand within 3 months.” Liu Chuanzhi was very confident. He will be targeting the government agencies too.

“Fine. I will trust you. Remember to keep a lookout for self-assembled PC. Also, you must have total control over the retail shops. They must not just raise the prices as and when they like.”

“Don’t worry. We have our own retail shops and counters. We have also signed contracts with distributors. If they breach the contract, we will make sure they will pay the consequences!”

Lenovo had wanted to sell their products only in their own retail stores. But they had to take care of some distributors in certain regions because of some ‘special reasons’ and to prevent trouble from the local authorities. Also, the cost of managing its own retail stores was high. Lenovo still does not have enough funds to set up so many retail stores. But if anyone does not abide by the contract, Lenovo will not let them off lightly!

“Ok. Then I will wish for our success in this price war. We will take over China first, followed by Asia, and then the world!”

Chapter 768 – The effects of position

The price war waged by Lenovo had caught all other PC brands by surprise. There were no warnings at all, and Lenovo just slashed their prices.

Lenovo was selling their PC at 8,800 RMB. Even the cost of Japanese PCs was more than 10,000 RMB.

Those PC manufacturers could not afford the losses to compete. If they endured the losses and monopolized the market, they will be fined heavily by the Chinese government. Furthermore, Lenovo might lower the prices further. They might suffer losses and still not achieve the results they wanted.

The worst was the laptops. The other PC brands were selling more than 20,000 RMB for their laptops. But Lenovo was selling 14,000 RMB for a laptop with similar or better specs.

Lenovo used 3 selling points for this exercise. First, their PCs are the cheapest in China. Secondly, they are using the best operating system and software. Thirdly, they have the most advanced VCD optical drive.

From these 3 points, Lenovo’s PCs had better specs than the other brands.

The other brands also started to think of ways to compete with Lenovo. The simplest way was to join hands and force Lenovo to increase their prices. This way, all of them will be back on the same starting line. They would be able to make use of their brands to get back their market share and profits.

After Microsoft’s Win 95 was launched, the whole world’s PC sales had increased. The PC manufacturers had to admit that the operating system will stimulate their sales.

But in China, those PC manufacturers found it difficult to compete using the operating system!

This was because Lenovo’s PC comes along with Microsoft’s Chinese language operating system, and it was free. There were also lots of software pre-installed into their PC. Those PC manufacturers had tried them, and all of them were well developed.

Those PC manufacturers could not understand why the software was also given to the customers free. Just the software which comes along for free cost at least 2,000 RMB and might be even worth 3,000 RMB. That means Lenovo’s cost was less than 5,000 RMB?

This was impossible!

Those PC manufacturers had better production lines, higher efficiency and had lower cost for getting the parts. They were able to lower their cost to around 5,000 RMB. Lenovo’s scale was not as big as them and should have a higher manufacturing cost. It should be about 6,000 RMB.

Lenovo still has to factor in their marketing, storage, transportation, retail, etc. costs. They were selling their PC at 8,800 RMB. How many profits were they getting? It would be a miracle if they did not make any losses. How much money does Lenovo have to burn, and how long can they last?

It can’t be they were getting their software for free. Just Microsoft’s software alone cost a lot. Microsoft was like a bloodsucker. Those PC manufacturers had purchased Microsoft’s products in bulk, but it was still expensive.

Could it be Lenovo was getting those software at low prices?

Those PC manufacturers knew that some of the programs installed on Lenovo’s PC were developed by them and it could be provided free. Kingsoft was also partially owned by Lenovo and, Lenovo could get those software at a cheaper rate. But Microsoft operating system and software were different and should not be cheap.

Those PC manufacturers came up with 2 possibilities and much discussions. First, Lenovo’s PC parts were very cheap. Secondly, the programs installed in their PCs were very affordable!

Those PC manufacturers immediately contact the hardware suppliers to find out Lenovo’s rates. Although their volume had some differences with Lenovo, their prices should not be very different.

In the end, those PC manufacturers found out that it was not the hardware. The hardware suppliers told those PC manufacturers that their costs were fixed and there was no way for them to lower their selling price to Lenovo.

So, the PC manufacturers got the answer. The problems lie with the software!

They checked Lenovo and Kingsoft’s software prices in the market and found out that the software that was installed cost about 1,000 RMB. This was about the same as what they estimated.

Even if the cost of these programs were not included, Lenovo also has to pay Microsoft for their operating system and software. Microsoft’s operating system and software cost at least 200 USD.

Unless Microsoft was selling their products to Lenovo at a much cheaper rate. But…… was this possible?

These PC manufacturers had worked with Microsoft for a long time. Their cooperation had started since Microsoft was a small company. These manufacturers had been manufacturing PC much earlier than Lenovo and had the economy of scale. Their brands were several times bigger than Lenovo. If Microsoft’s products pricing had differences, then they should be the ones getting discounted prices.

All the PC manufacturers came to the same conclusion, and all of them went to Microsoft to verify it. They want Microsoft to tell them that the prices of their products were the same as Lenovo.

They contacted Microsoft’s headquarters, and the reply they got was to contact the head of the Asia market, Mr. Steve Ballmer.

The PC manufacturers called Ballmer’s secretary and were informed that the Chinese market was handled by Mr. Feng. Mr. Ballmer had given Mr. Feng full authority for the Chinese market.

So, the PC manufacturers called this director, Mr. Feng.

“Hi, this is Microsoft Mr. Feng’s office. Who are you looking for?” Ralph answered the call.

“I am Toshiba’s Vice President, Saburo Hiratani. I would like to speak to Mr. Feng.”

“I’m sorry. Mr. Feng is on vacation. If you do not have anything urgent, please wait for Mr. Feng to contact you after he is back.”

Huh? Mr. Feng is on vacation? Contact me after he is back? Is this the way Microsoft operates?

Even if Mr. Feng is on vacation, you should tell me who is taking over his work or let me know when he will be back.

“Wait. How do I address you?”

“I am Ralph. Mr. Feng’s assistant.”

“Ok, Mr. Ralph. When will Mr. Feng’s vacation end? Or during this period when he is not around, who is taking over his work?” Saburo Hiratani asked.

“I am not sure when Mr. Feng will be back. It has to depend on his mood. Who is taking over his work? I’m sorry. No one is taking over his work. You are Mr. Saburo Hiratani, right? Please leave your contact number, and if Mr. Feng wants to contact you, he will call you.”

Saburo Hiratani was confused. You are Mr. Feng’s assistant, and you don’t know when his vacation ends? Also, why no one is taking over his work? Mr. Feng was also not some developers, why can’t someone take over his duties?

But Saburo Hiratani also had no choice. He could only leave his contact number with Ralph and asked Ralph to tell Mr. Feng that he had something important to discuss with him.

Saburo Hiratani knew it was useless to ask Ralph and did not tell Ralph anything. But Ralph knew what was going on. Saburo Hiratani’s call was the 6th call to Feng Yu’s office. All the callers were from PC manufacturers, and Ralph’s reply was the same for all of them.

This was also one of the benefits of Feng Yu’s position in Microsoft.

At this moment, Feng Yu was also no doing anything important. He was at a pet shop, picking a pet.

Chapter 769 – Tu Hao (Rich man)

“Sir, can I help you with anything?” The shop assistant greeted warmly.

“I would want to get a puppy. Can you show me around?”

“Sure. Sir, please come with me. What type of breed are you looking for? Big, medium or small size dog? Do you prefer long or short hair, or do you have any breed in mind? Are you looking for a male or a female dog?” The shop assistant asked while bringing Feng Yu around.

“Woof, woof, woof…….”

Feng Yu looked around and saw a Caucasian Sheepdog in a cage. Not far away, there was an American Pitbull in another cage.

Damn! That dog is for dogfighting. Who would keep that dog as pets?

“Mr. Feng, you prefer big-size dogs? Do you have children at home? If yes, then I will not suggest you keeping this dog. We don’t have puppies for this breed, and they are not easy to train at this age.” The shop assistant saw Feng Yu looking at that Pitbull.

“It’s fine. Do you all have any smart and gentle big-size breeds?”

“If you are looking for a smart dog, I would recommend Scotch Collie. They are brilliant and have long fur. They are suitable for the winter climate. If you prefer bigger dogs, Golden Retriever is a good choice. They are easily trained and can perform simple tricks. We have puppies of these two breeds. I can also recommend our dog trainer to train your dog.”

A few puppies crawling around in a big cage. Some of them were trying to climb up the sides of the cage. However, dogs were not good at climbing. One of the most hardworking puppies caught Feng Yu’s attention.

“How much is this puppy?”

“80 USD. These puppies are all vaccinated. We can also help you to prepare the paperwork.”

This puppy cost 80 USD? The living standards in the US is very high. The minimum standard of living in the US was not very high, but pet shops were not meant for those people living in poverty. That’s why their prices were much higher than in China.

“Give me a set of food, dog bowl, kennel, leash, toys, etc. Is that enough?” Feng Yu took out a few 100-dollar bills and pass it to the shop assistant.

“Yes, it’s enough. I recommend this kennel. You can place it in your backyard. I will prepare the dog food, toys and the rest for you. I guarantee your dog will love it. Oh, you should also think of a name for your dog. We need his name for the paperwork.”

Feng Yu immediately replied: “Tu Hao (Rich man). His name will be Tu Hao.”

Tu Hao’s gold. What an auspicious name!

“Too How? You sure?” The shop assistant asked. Who would name a pet as “Too How”?

“Sure. This is a Chinese name. Chinese is very complicated. It’s fine if you don’t understand.” Feng Yu replied with both his hands behind his back.

“Ok. Sir, can you give me your address and contact details? The documents will be sent to your house within 3 days. You can keep this temporary permit now.”

Feng Yu sat in his car and was carrying Tu Hao in his arms. “Tu Hao, Tu Hao, you will be my companion in the future.”

Little Tu Hao replied with some whining and kept licking Feng Yu’s hand.

……

“Mr. Feng, you got a puppy?” Sister Zhao saw the little puppy and immediately fell in love with him.

“Yes. I just bought it. I always feel that something is lacking at home.”

“What is its name?”

“Tu Hao.”

“Tu Hao?” Sister Zhao was stunned. She does not understand why Mr. Feng would give this puppy this name.

Feng Yu felt speechless when he saw the weird look on Sister Zhao’s face. Even the Chinese also don’t understand my humor? He felt like he had said a funny joke, but no one appreciates it.

“That’s right. Tu Hao. It is only a name. Don’t overthink. Old Tian, Old Tian, come and help me put this kennel together.” Feng Yu shouted.

When Old Tian was putting together the kennel, Feng Yu received Ralph’s call, telling him that he could not cope with it anymore. He had received more than 30 calls from PC manufacturers, looking for Feng Yu.

If Feng Yu still ignore them, this matter will be brought up to the board of directors, and it will not be good for Feng Yu.

Feng Yu replied lazily. “Ok. I know. I will go back tomorrow. I will settle this tomorrow. Oh, have you got the information I asked for?”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Seattle was home to some of the top internet companies in the world. There were lots of big companies which were registered here and many talents around.

Feng Yu wanted to hire some of these talents or look for any potential companies to invest. If he could invest in Ali Baba like Softbank, it would be like striking the top price of a lottery!

Feng Yu have not intended to make any significant investments during his time in the US. He will be investing in the stock market and getting some tech shares.

Feng Yu’s Wind and Rain Consulting was now following Feng Yu’s instruction to invest all their money into the US tech shares. These shares were rising every day. This was an indication of the start of the US bull run.

Wind and Rain Consulting’s ability to make money for their customers had spread. More and more people were willing to let Wind and Rain Consulting handle their money.

Wind and Rain Consulting was also able to attract more customers with more funds. They only need to reveal how much they made for their clients.

The public saw that Wind and Rain Consulting was making more and more profits, and everyone wish to open a trading account with them. Now, Wind and Rain Consulting had become Hong Kong’s top stock brokerage. They had even overshadowed Fu Rongqi’s consulting firm.

If Wind and Rain Consulting invested all their funds into a stock, the price of this stock would be affected. This was Feng Yu’s aim. He wanted Wind and Rain Consulting to be famous and make more people hand over their money to them for investment. This way, he would be able to raise a large amount of fund to prepare for 1997!

This was Feng Yu’s backup.

Feng Yu does not have much liquid assets current, but if he needs cash, he could take out large amounts from his companies. He could even use the shares of his companies as a mortgage to get loans.

“Boss, I have a list of registered companies with me. I got it through a friend. But is this list handy?”

“You don’t need to think about that. Leave the list on my desk. I will read it tomorrow.”

After hanging up, the kennel was set up and placed in the backyard. Feng Yu put little Tu Hao into the Kennel and placed some food and water into the bowls beside.

“Tu Hao…… quickly grow up and become a big Tu Hao.”

Chapter 770 – Surprise

“How many calls are there yesterday? Which companies had called? Also, give me the list of the companies whom the callers are not the directors or CEO.” Feng Yu sat down in his chair and drank his coffee.

“There is a total of 62 calls. I had made a list based on their companies’ size and caller’s position in their company. It is on your PC.” Ralph reported.

Feng Yu opened up an Excel file. Excel in this era does not have many functions, but it was more advanced than most of the office software in the market. Feng Yu knew all the basic functions of this program. The more advanced features he used in his previous life were still not developed yet.

But Feng Yu had told Liu Chuanzhi about the more advanced Excel functions and told him to develop it as an extension of Microsoft Office. Feng Yu does not know how to develop it, but he knows the results.

If Liu Chuanzhi were successful, then Feng Yu would be able to snatch Microsoft’s Office market from them. Even if it was the Chinese market at first, they could slowly expand their market share to other countries. This software was a cash cow. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Microsoft Office was Microsoft’s other money-making product. It helped to bring in several billions of profits!

Of course, Feng Yu will not let Lenovo infringe the IP. But Feng Yu could always buy the rights. As Microsoft’s director and high prices, it should not be a problem for him to obtain the most basic patent of Microsoft Office. Maybe other software companies would also have similar licenses.

The first company on the list surprises Feng Yu. Dell. This CEO of this company had called up personally. Seems like he really wanted the Chinese market.

The following companies were all big brands. But the companies at the bottom of the list were unfamiliar to Feng Yu. Maybe they were acquired before Feng Yu noticed them in his previous life.

“Where is the list of Seattle’s internet and software companies I wanted?” Feng Yu closed the Excel file and asked.

“Boss, you are not going to call these people back?” Ralph asked. He was shocked.

“Why should I call them? If they are anxious, they will keep calling. If not, why should I care?” Feng Yu asked.

Ralph was dumbfounded. “But boss, these are big companies and all of them are our Microsoft’s partners.”

“Ralph, there is one thing you must be clear about. I am the one who hired you and not Microsoft. You are working here is because I am Microsoft’s director. If I am no longer Microsoft’s director, will you submit your resume to Microsoft or leave with me?” Feng Yu looked at Ralph in his eyes. He had to make this clear with Ralph.

Ralph was stunned. He decided to work for Feng Yu was because Feng Yu was Microsoft’s director. But it seems that he had misunderstood. He was only Feng Yu’s assistant, and his working location was in Microsoft. That’s all.

Ralph thought for a while. If he leaves Feng Yu, he will never be able to enter Microsoft’s management level. But if he followed Feng Yu and based on his understanding of Feng Yu, he will definitely have advantages.

“Boss, I will follow you.” Ralph bow slightly forward.

Feng Yu was satisfied with Ralph’s reply. “To be a good assistant, you must know what and when to say or ask. When I asked you to do something, it is because I am paying you. You, on the other hand, cannot decide what I must do. Do you understand?”

“Yes, boss. The information you want is in that file on your desk. I have organized it for you.” Ralph replied. Although Feng Yu was younger than him, Feng Yu’s accomplishments were beyond his reach.

Feng Yu opened the file and start reading the list. He understands English, but some technical terms were too hard for him to understand. There were lots of companies on the list which were unknown to Feng Yu.

But these companies were not highlighted by Ralph, and it should not be some big companies or have any famous products. The risk was too high to invest in these companies.

Feng Yu scanned through the list of companies, looking for some companies he knew. He wants to look for startup companies which were registered recently. No matter if it was poaching the talents from these companies of investing in them, it will be a good deal.

Ring, ring, ring.

Feng Yu took a look at the phone and then signaled to Ralph to answer it.

“Hello, this is Microsoft Director Mr. Feng’s office.”

“Mr. Ralph? I am Toshiba’s Saburo Hiratani. I had called before. Why hasn’t Mr. Feng called me?” Saburo Hiratani was asking anxiously over the phone.

Ralph saw his boss had no intention of answering this call and immediately made his decision. “Saburo Hiratani. I told you yesterday that if my boss is free, he will decide if he wants to call you back. If there is nothing else, please stop bothering me!”

Bang! The line was cut.

Saburo Hiratani was stunned. A Director’s assistant from Microsoft had slammed his call?! This is too much!

Saburo Hiratani immediately went to report to the President. This was too fishy!

Feng Yu said without even lifting his head. “Just ignore all these small fries in the future.”

“Yes, boss.”

If Saburo Hiratani knew Feng Yu had called him a small fry, he would vomit blood. He was also one of Toshiba’s shareholders. Top management of a world-class MNC! How can anyone look down on him?!

Ralph had some understanding of his boss. First, his boss does not like Japanese companies. Maybe this was because he is Chinese. His boss might look humble and modest on the outside, but he is very arrogant on the inside. He looks down on those top management of big companies.

Ralph could understand why Feng Yu looks down on those top management people. This was because all of them were not as rich or successful as Feng Yu. Ralph would also be pissed if someone not as successful as him, start to order him around.

Most importantly, Ralph knew his boss does not like to management anything. Feng Yu had asked Ralph to do all his work at Microsoft and just signed his name when the work is complete. This way, Ralph had more authority, but also had more work.

Ralph understood that if he listened to his boss’s orders and completed all the tasks given to him, he will get lots of benefits. His boss was very generous when he is in a good mood.

The second call came in, and Ralph answered. After the caller identified himself, Ralph immediately categorized the caller as small fries!

Feng Yu was still going through the names of the companies at his desk. Suddenly, he saw a familiar name! Amazon!

This company was set up last year? Do they need money now? I knew it! I knew I can find surprises!

Chapter 771 – Ballmer’s request

“Ralph, I want this company’s information.” Feng Yu pointed to the PC and said. “Also, print out the information about these companies next time.”

Go to hell with the paperless company concept? My eyes are more important! This monitor is too small. It is more comfortable reading it from a piece of paper.

“Sorry, Boss. I will take note of it. I will go and gather information about this company now.”

Although Ralph was young, he was still quite capable. He had worked as a mid-level manager in other companies before and had no problems to be Feng Yu’s assistant. Feng Yu was still quite satisfied with his performance.

However, one thing bad about Ralph was…… He is not a pretty young girl!

When Feng Yu was reading <Fortune> magazine, Ballmer entered his office.

“Steve, why are you here?”

“Feng, many PC companies had called me to ask about the selling prices of our products in China.” Ballmer had received the call from Toshiba’s President again. But Ballmer’s reply to him was Feng Yu will be settling this.

“Oh.”

Ballmer was going nuts. What does ‘Oh’ means? You should at least let me know how you are going to settle this!

“Feng, how are you going to settle this? This will affect Microsoft’s reputation. If they know the selling prices of our products in China is 10 times cheaper, there will be an uproar!” Ballmer asked.

“Who will know? Just tell them that there are some differences in the prices and the differences are not big. They will also not get their hands on our contracts. Even if they are suspicious, what can they do? Most importantly, Microsoft’s products will be monopolizing the Chinese market. This is an important market in the future.” Feng Yu replied casually.

Yes. Microsoft’s success in China will eventually be eroded by Lenovo. Microsoft’s Office will be the first step!

Ballmer thought for a while and felt this was true. Even if those companies do not believe their words, what can they do? They will also not be able to see Microsoft and Lenovo’s contract. Also, Microsoft was the world’s top software company. All PC manufacturers cannot do without Microsoft.

On the other hand, Microsoft was able to stop their cooperation with any of these PC manufacturers anytime they want! This was the benefit of being the leader in the industry. Those PC companies can only bow down to them!

It was just like hardware manufacturer, Intel, and AMD. Those PC companies had to listen to them.

“I heard that Lenovo had started a PC price war in China?” Ballmer asked.

“That’s right. What’s wrong?” Feng Yu asked him back.

Since the start of the price war, Lenovo had achieved excellent results. With just slightly over a week, Lenovo had controlled the whole Chinese market. The other brands had no way to compete with them.

But this was a war between PC companies and had nothing to do with Microsoft.

“Don’t you have shares in Lenovo? Congratulations. Lenovo’s PC will be taking over the Chinese market. What’s Lenovo’s next step? Venturing out of China?” Ballmer smiled and asked.

“Thank you. I am not sure about the future plans for Lenovo. Actually, I don’t really care about what the company is doing. I had only invested some money in it. You should also know that I have too many businesses and don’t have enough energy to handle all of them. At my age, I should be enjoying my life.” Feng Yu showed the expression of those useless wealthy second-generation.

Ballmer was speechless. That’s right. Feng Yu was still very young. Young men like him do not have patience. Even if Feng Yu did not do anything, he would always be able to be listed on the world’s richest list. He could not even finish spending his money in this lifetime. Why should he work hard?

Feng Yu should be enjoying life at his age. Ballmer did not know how to continue this conversation.

“Feng, what I meant is when is Lenovo venturing out of China? I think there is still room for cooperation between Microsoft and Lenovo. I think Lenovo has the potential to be Asia’s top PC manufacturer!” Ballmer said.

“Hahaha, I think so too. But Lenovo will not enter the international market this year. At most, it will enter Hong Kong and Taiwan’s market. If Lenovo were to enter the international market, Microsoft would definitely be their best partner.” Feng Yu laughed and replied.

Ballmer had already thought of Lenovo’s future plans? Why was he feeling so highly of Lenovo? Asia’s top PC manufacturers were Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, etc. These companies were also in the top 10 PC brands of the world. There is no reason for him to think so highly of Lenovo because once Lenovo stepped out of China, they will face competition from all those PC brands.

“Feng, are you worried about those Japanese brands? Japan’s economy is in recession. By right, they should be able to enter the Chinese market easily. But for some unknown reasons, they suffered a huge setback in China some time ago. Their companies’ shares had plunged. This happened earlier this year. Some people even used that opportunity to make some money. Do you know about this incident?” Ballmer said and was staring into Feng Yu’s eyes.

“I know. I had also made some money from that incident.” Feng Yu admitted honestly. But he only mentioned he had made some money and did not say how much he made. Of course, he did not say he was the one who masterminded the whole incident.

“During that period, you had sold some of your Microsoft’s shares. Is it because you needed money to buy those companies’ shares?” Ballmer asked.

“That’s right. I only invest in those companies that give me high returns. If it wasn’t for those companies, I will also not be able to increase my shares in Microsoft.” Feng Yu smiling replied.

“Feng, since you are so confident in your investments and had invested in Lenovo, that means you think Lenovo has great potential? How far do you think Lenovo will go in the future?” Ballmer asked.

“Why are you asking this? I also wish for Lenovo to grow big. But as long as Lenovo is the industry in China, I will be able to make money.”

Feng Yu wonders why Ballmer was asking him all these questions. Was he asking all these for Microsoft or…… he was thinking of something else?

“Then will Lenovo be listed in the US? Like NYSE or NASDAQ?”

“You want to buy Lenovo’s shares?” Feng Yu realized what Ballmer wanted.

“Of course. This is a company with high potential. Who does not want their shares? If Lenovo is going to be listed in the US, can you help me buy some Lenovo’s shares?”

People always say it is easy for rich people to make money. Actually, it is not only because these rich people have more capital than others. They also have connections to get insider information.

For example, Ballmer knew that if Lenovo were to get listed, the share prices would surely shoot up. But it is not easy for him to buy Lenovo’s shares. If Feng Yu could help him, he would be able to make a hefty sum.

Ballmer did not want to invest all his money into Microsoft. He also wants to diversify his investment.

“Lenovo will not be listed in the next 2 to 3 years. If they are going to be listed, they should choose Hong Kong or China’s stock exchange. If you are still interested in buying their shares, then, I can introduce you to Lenovo’s Chairman. I think you should be able to convince him to sell you some shares.”

This was only a verbal promise, and Feng Yu had nothing to lose. Furthermore, he also wants to be closer to Ballmer.

Chapter 772 – Jeff

Ralph frowned as he looked at the information in his hand. Why did Feng Yu want the information about this small company selling books on the internet? This company cannot be considered a tech company just because it uses the internet to sell books. What potential does this company have?

But his boss’s instructions are absolute. Although Ralph does not understand the reasons, he still gathered and organized the information for Feng Yu.

Feng Yu looked at the information. Amazon was registered in Washington last year. In July this year, it changed its name and become an online bookstore.

This company’s scale is not significant. Since it was set up last year, it did not make any profit!

Feng Yu was overjoyed. No profits! Then it should not be a problem for him to invest in this company or buy over the shares from the shareholders.

Amazon’s model was simple. But this was the lowest point for the company. Any wrong move will cause the demise of the company during the Dot Com bubble burst. In Feng Yu’s previous life, lots of tech companies became bankrupt after year 2000. Even a top company like Yahoo had shrunk by over 90%.

“Ralph, fix an appointment with Mr. Jeff. I want to meet him.” Feng Yu said excitedly.

Ralph was puzzled but still went ahead to make the arrangements. He had investigated on this Jeff Bezos. He had worked in the banking industry before. Could it be that Feng Yu wanted to recruit this man?

But Feng Yu seems to be more interested in this online bookstore. He wants to invest in this company? Who would buy books over the internet? People can just buy them at bookstores! Ralph could not see how this company could make money.

……

Jeff Bezos was arguing with an investor. The investor felt Jeff was too conservative and will not be able to make money for the company. He thought they should make use of the current craze about internet and try to get the company listed. After the company’s shares had raised, they will sell the company away.

But Jeff refused. This was a company he set up. How can he just sell the company away like this? Furthermore, he wanted to develop this company. What’s wrong with having a conservative and safe development plan for this company?

The current craze over internet companies might increase the value of those companies temporary, but it was only a farce. The shares of those companies will plummet sooner or later. Jeff prefers to have slower growth in return for lower risk. This was his long term strategy.

These evil investors only want money. They don’t understand what dreams are! Even if they were only after money, they should not look at the short term profits. Don’t they have long-term visions?

Why did I get these people to invest in the first place? These people do not know anything about the internet and management, yet they want to interfere with the company’s operations! They think they are better than me in investing? I am also from the financial industry!

“Mr. Jeff. It’s your call. A man who claimed to be the assistant of a Microsoft’s director is looking for you.” Jeff’s secretary entered his office.

What? The assistant of a Microsoft’s director is calling? Jeff was overjoyed. If he could convince Microsoft’s director to invest in him, he will kick all those investors away!

Jeff immediately picks up the phone. “Hi. I’m Jeff Bezos. May I know whose calling?”

“I am Microsoft Director Feng’s assistant. My boss would like to meet you.”

“Sure. When is Mr. Feng free? I can go over anytime.” Jeff replied.

“No. My boss wants to visit you and at the same time, visit your company. Do you understand what I mean?”

Jeff was overjoyed. He understood what Ralph said. That Mr. Feng from Microsoft was interested in his company!

“I welcome Mr. Feng to visit my company. I am free anytime.”

“How about tomorrow morning?” Ralph asked.

“Sure. I will be waiting for Mr. Feng at my company tomorrow.”

Jeff hanged up the phone and looked at the shareholder who was arguing with him. “You want to sell off your shares? Fine. I will buy over the shares from you!”

If a Microsoft Director was going to invest in this company, then this company will surely have a bright future. Jeff Bezos can even sell off his house and shares to raise money to invest in Amazon. He believed that Amazon will be one of the top companies in the future!

That shareholder was stunned. Jeff had really received a call from a Microsoft Director? Microsoft was going to invest in Amazon? If not, Jeff will offer to buy over his shares. But since a director from Microsoft was going to invest in the company, why should he sell off the shares now?

……

“Boss, I had contacted them. Jeff will be waiting for you at Amazon tomorrow.”

“Ok. We will go over in the morning. You have also seen this company’s information. Do you think this company is worth investing in?” Feng Yu asked.

“Boss, I can’t tell what’s so special about this company. It’s only an online bookstore. Bookstores can be found anywhere on the streets. Customers are still able to flip through the books before they decide whether to buy them. Customers can only see the cover of the books on this online bookstore. I think there is not much potential in this company. Also, the company’s storage cost of the books will be high. The delivery time is around one week. Which customer would want to buy a book and wait for one week?”

“Of course, if you invested in this company and made some amendments to the accounts, it should not be a problem to get it listed on NASDAQ. With the current craze on Tech shares, you should be able to get high returns. But the duration is too long. You might as well purchase a tech company that is already listed. Errr…… these are only my views from my perspective.”

Feng Yu nodded. “No. You are very right. These weaknesses do exist. This company will not be able to generate profits in the short-term. But can you see the strengths of this company?”

“Strengths? Other than being an online company, the only strength I can see is it is an online bookstore. They will be able to sell a wider variety of books than a retail bookstore. But it will be hard to look through all the various titles unless they can come up with a good search engine.” Ralph replied after some thoughts.

“That’s right. If they have a good search engine, then the customers can find the books they wanted. No matter if the customers are searching the author’s name, country, publisher or title, they will be able to find the books they wanted. They should be able to see the year of publishing too. This can be one of the search engine criteria. This is the strength of this online bookstore. They will be able to offer more books to customers. Maybe in the short-term, this company will not be able to develop, but once it is developed, it will grow into a big company.” Feng Yu laughed.

“That’s the reason why you want to invest in this company?”

“Of course. If possible, I want to be the biggest shareholder of this company.” If Feng Yu were able to hold the controlling shares of Amazon, it would be great! But this still has to wait until the meeting tomorrow……

Chapter 773 – Investing in dreams

The next morning, Feng Yu went out for a jog and brought his dog out for a walk. He had met a few people, who might be his neighbors, in the neighborhood. But all of them stayed away from Feng Yu because Feng Yu was jogging with two bodyguards!

Everyone in the neighborhood knew that a tycoon, who was also Microsoft’s shareholder and director, had moved in recently. Even if you are rich, you also do not need to bring 2 bodyguards with you when you go for a run. If you are so rich, you should just move into a villa with a large plot of land. Why did you move here?

All the neighbors felt this tycoon was mysterious. Furthermore, he was a very young Asian. Little did Feng Yu know; he was already targeted by several young girls living in the neighborhood.

These girls do not want much from Feng Yu. All they wanted was to be closer to Feng Yu and made use of his status and connections to be famous. How can a rumored girlfriend of a Microsoft Director be not famous?

When those girls saw Feng Yu running with his dog, they felt this was an excellent opportunity to get to know him.

…….

After breakfast, Ralph arrived. He told the driver an address and asked the driver to drive them there.

After alighting from the vehicle, Feng Yu shook his head. This was the world’s number two tech company, Amazon? This place was too old and torn down.

Feng Yu was very curious. The company’s offices can be small. But what able their warehouse? Amazon was an online bookstore, and it should need a warehouse to house their books. Customers can get to choose a wide variety of books on their website, then Amazon should have a warehouse that can store a few million books. Where were their books?

Ralph could sense what Feng Yu was thinking and explained softly. “Boss, there is a warehouse over there. Amazon had rented those warehouses, and their books are all stored there. They will send out their books twice daily.”

“Ok. Let’s go in.”

The one walking in front was Feng Yu’s bodyguard, dressed in a black suit. All of Amazon’s staff were surprised to see these people entering their company. Who are these people? What are they here for?

“How can I help you?” The receptionist at the counter asked.

“Go and inform your boss Jeff that the person he is waiting for is here.”

Before the receptionist could call Jeff, Jeff walked out quickly from the office: “Are you, Mr. Feng?”

Feng Yu slowly extended his hand for a handshake when Jeff was nearer. “Hi, I am Feng.”

“Mr. Feng, please come in. Katie, prepare coffee.”

When Jeff saw Feng Yu, he was shocked. But luckily, he was a distance away from Feng Yu, and Feng Yu did not notice it.

There were rumors that Microsoft had a new young Chinese director. But no one really thought much about the talks. But when Jeff met Feng Yu, he realized that the rumors were true!

The East is a mysterious place. How can someone so young have so many assets?

“Mr. Feng, I heard from your assistant that you are interested in my company?” Jeff asked.

Feng Yu smiled at Jeff. “It’s not entirely true. I am not only interested in your company, but I am also interested in you too. How did you come up with this idea of selling books online?”

“I love reading. I realized no matter how many books a bookstore has, it is still limited. Also, those staff at the bookstore will not be able to help their customers find the books they want. I want to set up a website to let customers find the books they wanted fast, and offer them a wider variety of books compared to a brick and mortar bookstore.”

Ralph looked at Jeff in surprise. He then turned to look at Feng Yu. What Jeff said was precisely the same as what Feng Yu said yesterday.

“Good. Your thinking is right. Then based on your estimation, how long do you need before Amazon starts to profit, and how much are the profits?”

“5 years is required to build up our customer base and reputation. The profits will come in after 5 years, and it will not be lesser than 10 million USD annually!” Jeff replied confidently.

Ralph showed some displeasure on his face. 5 years before there are profits? 5 years is too long, and the profit is only 10 million USD per year? Even an old man is able to get such returns when he invests in low-risk investments. Boss will surely be disappointed.

“Jeff, have you considered that your management style is too conservative? 5 years before, there are profits, and you claim it will be 10 million USD. This 10 million USD should be the peak, right? What if there are no profits after 5 years, or the profits are only a few million?” Feng Yu asked.

Jeff was not afraid of being questioned. He was worried Feng Yu did not ask him any questions. The more Feng Yu asked the more interested he is.

“I am confident that we will see the profits after 5 years. I can’t guarantee the profits. But when our customers matured, we can start selling other book-related products like bookmarks, pens, notebooks, stationaries, etc.”

“That means your ultimate goal is to set up an online department store? Do you know how much you have to invest? Have you considered the risk involved?” Feng Yu crossed his legs. This was the strategy used by Amazon in his previous life.

“No. We will only be focusing on book-related products. Of course, once we have enough customers, we can venture into other products.” Jeff replied.

Feng Yu raised his brows. Jeff Bezos does not want to set up an online department store? That means he still has not thought of this yet. Those e-commerce sites in Feng Yu’s previous life also did not start out with setting up an online department store.

“How much is your company worth? How many shareholders are there? Is there a board of directors?” Feng Yu asked.

“This company is registered with capital of 30 million, and there are 16 shareholders. We do have a board of directors, and there are 7 directors on board. I am the Chairman of the board.”

Only 30 million USD? This was not a high investment. Feng Yu had made up his mind to invest in Amazon. He knows he will not make any losses from this investment.

“I am very interested in your company and wish to invest. But don’t be too excited. I am not an venture capitalist. I want shares with voting rights. You can call for a board meeting to discuss with the rest of the directors to see if they accept my investment.”

“Mr. Feng, can I ask how much you are going to invest?” Jeff asked.

“30 to 50 million USD is not a problem for me. I had said that I am interested in your company, but I am more interested in you. I am here to invest in your dreams!” Feng Yu start his recruitment script.

Jeff was moved by Feng Yu’s words. His tears almost roll down his cheeks. Those greedy investors should learn from Mr. Feng. Not everything is about profits!

“Mr. Feng, I will convince the board and will give you a favorable reply. 3 days! I will get back to you within 3 days!”

Chapter 774 – Change in attitude

“……so Mr. Feng is interested in invest in Amazon. Do you all have any objects?” Jeff looked at the rest of the directors.

Although the shareholders held the most power in a company, these directors on the board of directors held more than 75% of the company’s shares. If they agree to let Feng Yu invest, that means the majority of the shareholders had agreed.

“Jeff, you still have not mentioned how much is Mr. Feng investing and how many shares he wants. Also, is this a venture investment or a normal investment?”

Venture investment is different from regular investments. Venture investment will typically not interfere with the company’s operations, and most of the shares involved do not have voting rights. This type of investment is only waiting for the company to be listed to get its returns. It also has priority over the dividends.

Ordinary investment meant Feng Yu would hold the shares permanently and have the intention to interfere with the management of the company. He will have authority like other shareholders.

“Mr. Feng told him that he has no problem with the investment amount. He is not a venture capitalist. He wants some rights in the company.” Jeff explained.

“He has no problem with the amount? I don’t get it. Will you agree to let him invest 100 million and dilute our shares by more than 90%?” A director asked.

“That’s the reason why I called for this meeting. I want to discuss with all of you on how much Mr. Feng can invest and the proportion of shares. We must settle this as soon as possible. The earlier we can settle this, the earlier we can get the funds, and Amazon will be able to grow faster.” Jeff took a glance at that shareholder. He was trying to create trouble.

After Jeff asked this question, all the directors did not say anything. No one wants to be the first to state their views.

“Robert, didn’t you want to sell your shares the last time we met? Have you changed your mind because you know someone is going to invest in the company?” Jeff called out to one director.

“I invest is for profits and not for your dreams. I did not see any hope of getting profits previously. But now, I saw it, and that’s why I will not sell off my shares.” Robert replied slowly.

Only a fool like you talks about dreams. I invest is for money. Although you do not agree to get this company listed, with someone investing in the company, the company will have higher potential and returns.

Once the company has profits, then the share prices will shoot up when it is listed. I will sell off my shares then, and my returns will be much higher. If you want to buy my shares now, fine. You have to buy my shares at a premium price. Do you have the money?

“Robert, you should at least let us know how much you allow Mr. Feng to invest. You are one of the directors, and you have to share your views. If you do not have any views, then I think our company’s board of directors can do with one less director.”

Jeff had purposely targeted Robert. If Robert starts to express his views and state a share proportion that is not accepted by other shareholders, the other shareholders might kick him out of the board. If Robert does not say his views, Jeff could make use of this as an excuse to kick him out too.

Robert stared at Jeff angrily. He was forced to say something. “The company requires at least tens of millions to grow. But I think we should not let one person invest so much into the company. If we allow one person to invest so much, he will hold more than 50% shares of the company and will have more power over us. So, I suggest that his investment should be above 10 million, but not more than 30 million. This way, we still have control over the company’s future.”

Robert had given a safe answer. But he revealed his intention of wanting to get this company listed.

The rest of the directors nodded. They agreed with Robert. Getting listed was the fastest way for them to get their returns. They also agreed with the proportion suggested by him. They do not want an outsider to be the biggest shareholder, as they will face the risk of getting kick out by Feng Yu.

Jeff frowned. He regretted letting Mr. Feng coming over to the company. Mr. Feng was Microsoft’s director and was interested in investing in Amazon. Those small shareholders got news of this, and all of them decided not to sell off their shares. A few days ago, all of them were still arguing and wanting to withdraw from the company!

Jeff also did not want to let Mr. Feng become Amazon’s biggest shareholder. This was a company he set up, and if he loses the company because of getting more investments, he might as well remain status quo.

“What about the rest? We need to finalize a figure. The sooner we come to a decision, the earlier we can get the funds, and the company will grow faster. Our website, increasing customer base, suppliers, etc. all need money.” Jeff said.

“Jeff, although the registered capital for our company is 30 million, after developing for so long, the value of the company should increase. I think we can ask Mr. Feng to invest 25 million and give him 35% shares.” A director suggested.

Jeff looked at that director and sneered: “If it is you, will you agree?” Jeff also wants the value of Amazon to increase. But the company has been losing money all this while.

“If you don’t try, how do you know he will not agree? I heard that you two could click. Maybe he will accept this proposal? Don’t forget, if he agreed to this, all of our shares would increase in value. You also stand to gain from this.”

Robert immediately said: “I agree.”

“I also agree.”

All the directors agreed and looked at Jeff. The rest of the directors had agreed, and Jeff had no other choice but to go along with it.

“Since all of you agree, then you all can speak to Mr. Feng. I can tell all of you are more confident than me.” Jeff angrily said.

The company had zero profits and have been making losses. But all of you insist that the value of the company had increased. I also want the company’s value to increase. But do you all think other people are fools? If the company’s value had increased, why did all of you want to sell your shares a few days ago?

Since all of you think so highly of yourselves, then you all should go and speak to him!

“Jeff, you are the Chairman of the board and the company’s representative. You should be the one negotiating with him. We are all thinking about the interest of the shareholders. This shouldn’t be a problem, right? How do you know he will not agree if you don’t try?” Robert said while holding his cigar.

“What Robert said is correct. Jeff, when we invested in your company, you promised to place our interest as the top priority. Now, you should do as we request.” Another director added.

The rest of the directors nodded. Jeff was furious but had no other choice!

“Fine. I will speak to Mr. Feng. Don’t blame me if the negotiation fails and the company doesn’t get this investment. All of us will suffer losses together!” Jeff said and stormed out of the meeting room.

……

“Mr. Ralph, I’m Jeff Bezos. I would like to meet with Mr. Feng. There is something I need to discuss with him.”

Ralph covered the receiver of the phone and told Feng Yu that Jeff was calling. Feng Yu took the phone from him: “Jeff? Is there any good news for me?”

“Mr. Feng, I would like to meet you. Things are not proceeding as I thought.”

Feng Yu frowned. “Ok. Come over to my house this evening. I will treat you to a Chinese dinner. My address is……”

Chapter 775 – Jeff decision

Feng Yu’s home was not as luxurious as Jeff imagined. Many wealthy people prefer to stay in a bustling city, but also own a villa in the city’s outskirts.

Although Seattle’s climate was suitable for living and had lovely surroundings, but other than Bill Gates, there were not many famous tycoons.

Mr. Feng was a Microsoft Director, and if the rumors were true, then he should be holding on to more than 10% of Microsoft’s shares. His net worth should be at least a few billion. Bill Gates had spent 5 years to construct America’s first Smart villa, and the construction was still ongoing. To stay in this type of house, Mr. Feng was considered very humble.

“Hello, Mr. Feng.”

Jeff looked around. There were no women around. Mr. Feng was very young, how come there were no women around, other than a cook in her forties?

“Have a seat. Dinner will be served soon. Do you know how to use chopsticks?”

Jeff replied embarrassedly: “I can try.”

Feng Yu turned and shouted to the kitchen: “Sister Zhao, prepare a set of western utensils.”

“Thank you.” Jeff bowed slightly and thanked Feng Yu.

When the dinner was ready, Feng Yu sat at the main seat, and Jeff was sitting on his left. On his right were Ralph and Wilson.

Sister Zhao had cooked a few simple dishes and helped to separate the dishes into portions for them. After that, she went out to the garden to help her husband. She knew that they have something important to discuss and should not remain there.

In the US, people were used to separating their food into individual portions. Feng Yu respected their culture. But he really wanted to tell them that other than soup, only kids in China will eat this way.

After putting a spoonful of potato into his mouth, Jeff said excitedly: “Mr. Feng, this is really delicious. I didn’t know beef and potato go so well together.”

“I’m glad you like it. Come over often in the future. Sister Zhao knows how to cook lots of dishes from different provinces.” Feng Yu smiled and replied. He was in an excellent mood to know his guest enjoyed the food.

“Sure. Mr. Feng, I need to tell you something. Those directors in the company are not willing to let you invest in the company.” Jeff said. He felt embarrassed as he claimed he will be able to convince the directors within 3 days.

“Really? What did they say?” Feng Yu laughed and asked.

“They said they are only willing to give you 35% of the shares for 25 million USD.” Only a handful of directors supported Jeff. But it was not enough for Jeff to override the rest of the directors.

Before Feng Yu could reply, Ralph retorted: “Mr. Jeff, I remember the registered capital of your company is only 30 million, right? My boss is going to invest 25 million, and the value of the company should be 55 million USD. He should be getting 45.45% of the shares. How did you all come up with 35%?”

Feng Yu smiled and did not say anything. He also wants to hear Jeff’s explanation. Amazon had been making losses all this while, how can the company’s value increase by so much?

Could it be…… Jeff also does not want him to be the company’s biggest shareholder?

Jeff put down his fork and spoon and started explaining. “Mr. Feng, Mr. Ralph. I also know this will be selling the company’s shares at a premium price. Although I am the biggest shareholder of the company, I do not have the controlling shares. I can’t override the decisions made by them.”

Jeff only owns about 1/3 of Amazon’s total shares. This was the most he could afford. He still has some stocks of other companies and a few properties. But the total value of all these was only about 5 million USD. He does not have much money.

Ralph still wanted to say something, but Feng Yu raised his hand to stop him. “I don’t mind paying extra for the shares. But this price is ridiculous. You had said before that the company’s profitability is not high. I want 40% of the shares for 25 million USD. You go back and tell those directors. If they agree, we will sign the contract, and the money will be wired in on that day. If they do not agree, then ask them to look for other investors. Maybe they can find an investor who is more generous than me.”

Ralph kept quiet. He knew Feng Yu was insistent on investing in Amazon. He will not try to persuade him. In the future, he might be handling Amazon’s shares on Feng Yu’s behalf. After all, Feng Yu only have one assistant, and he does not like to do work.

Jeff was overjoyed. “Rest assured, Mr. Feng. If I am unable to convince the rest of the shareholders with this offer, I will be too ashamed to face you again.”

Feng Yu swallowed his food and asked: “Your relationship with the rest of the directors is not good?”

“They had invested in my company because it is an internet company and they will make money when the company is listed. But my company is different from those internet and technology companies. Amazon is only a website selling books. Of course, this is only a trial. It’s just like what Mr. Feng said. An online shopping mall. If selling books can make profits, then other products should also be profitable.”

“Can I say that if those shareholders have the opportunity to sell off their Amazon’s shares, they will sell it away?” Feng Yu asked.

Jeff was stunned: “Mr. Feng, are you thinking of buying the shares from them?” Damn! If Mr. Feng bought the shares from those shareholders, then he will own more than 50% of the company.

“Why not? This company is your dream. But I am also very interested in it. Those shareholders only want to make money because this is an internet company. They are not fit to own Amazon’s shares. Tell me, which of those directors have thought of selling their shares? I will let Ralph speak to them and buy all their shares. Those people should go to hell.”

This was an excellent opportunity to become Amazon’s biggest shareholder. Feng Yu could also pull Jeff Bezos over to his side. How could Feng Yu let this chance slip away?

Jeff was quiet. With Feng Yu’s investment, his shares of Amazon will be diluted. Now, if Feng Yu acquired the shares from the other shareholders, then Feng Yu would have the controlling stake of the company.

That means Feng Yu will have the final say in the company.

Feng Yu could sense Jeff’s worries and laugh. “You will still be the overall in-charge of the company. I will not interfere with the company’s operations. You will also be the one to set up the board of directors. Ralph will be assisting me in monitoring the company. When the company is listed in the future, the top management will get some shares as rewards.”

Jeff smiled after hearing what Feng Yu said. “Since Mr. Feng says so, then I will have no more worries. I promise I will manage Amazon well and let you see the returns of your investment.”

Feng Yu raised his glass: “Let’s have a toast for our success!”

Ralph, who will become Feng Yu’s representative overseeing Amazon, also raised his glass excitedly: “All the best for Amazon!”

Chapter 776 – “Chance meeting.”

Susan Mitchell was someone living in the same neighborhood as Feng Yu. But the difference between them was Feng Yu had bought the biggest house, while Mitchell was living in the smallest house there. The house she was staying was still rented together with her housemates.

Susan’s biggest dream was to become a famous actress. But she had never learned acting before. She had only registered herself with the Screen Actors Guild and had only acted as passerby twice.

She had thought of giving up her dreams and go back to her hometown to find an administrative job. But she heard an actress had become the talk of the town because of her having a scandal with a basketball star. She became famous overnight and successfully entered the movie industry and became a millionaire subsequently.

Susan also wishes for the same thing to happen to her. That’s why she moved into this neighborhood. There were two NBA stars, Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, from Seattle Supersonics living here.

If Susan could get into a scandal with these two stars, then she will be able to replicate that actress’s road to success. She did successfully seduced Shawn Kemp once. But she never expects Shawn Kemp had a habit of not going to bed with the same woman twice!

Susan did not get what she wanted and was told to get lost. She realized that being featured in the tabloids with such a person will also be negative news, and she will not be able to get famous.

So, Susan went to seduce Gary Payton. But Payton knew about her and Kemp and immediately distanced away from her. Susan knew she had no more chance to be together with these sports stars.

Just when Susan felt like giving up her dreams, she heard a super tycoon had moved into the neighborhood. This tycoon was Microsoft’s shareholder and director. He was also very young.

Susan felt she could also get high exposure if she were to get involved with a tycoon like Feng Yu. Furthermore, it will do not have any negative impact on her. Also, if she becomes a tycoon’s girlfriend, the tycoon could make her famous anytime.

If she could get married, or have a child with this tycoon, why would she still want to become an actress? She will not be able to finish spending her money in this lifetime.

Susan Mitchell secretly monitored this tycoon for several days, looking for a chance to strike a conversation with him. She finally found the perfect opportunity. This tycoon will go for a run with his dog every morning. She immediately went out to buy a dog. If both dogs could become friends, she could strike up a conversation with him.

……

Morning. Feng Yu went out for his run with Tu Hao. Two bodyguards followed closely behind him. Feng Yu was the only person in the neighborhood to bring bodyguards for runs every morning.

“Ah……” A woman fell not far away from Feng Yu. She was holding on to her ankles in pain and looked pleadingly at Feng Yu.

The bodyguards stopped and looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu pretended to not see anything and continued his run with Tu Hao. The bodyguards paused for a while and quickly catch up with Feng Yu.

Damn! Although Seattle was close to the coast, the weather had become cold. Even Feng Yu wore long sleeves and track pants for his run. This woman had worn so little and still had stockings and high heels. Who will dress this way for a walk so early in the morning? Moreover, the pathway was flat and how could someone just fall down like this?

Susan was waiting nearby. She saw that woman fell down, not far away from that tycoon. She was surprised. Someone else had the same idea as her!

But when Susan saw that tycoon ignoring that woman, she laughed in her heart. Look at yourself in the mirror first. With your looks, you also dare to try and seduce this Microsoft’s shareholder? He will only look at someone young and pretty like me!

What should I say when we meet later? Hi, I’m Susan Mitchell. Nice to meet you.

No. This would be too formal. That tycoon might think I want to talk business with him.

Hi, have I seen you before somewhere?

No. This is too stupid. We are all staying in the same neighborhood, and what’s so special if we have met before?

Just when Susan Mitchell was still thinking of an opener, she heard barking behind her. A woman, about the same age as her, was being pulled by her dog towards her!

Susan was shocked. Where did this dog come from?

Before Susan could react, that dog ran over and…… mounted her dog from the back and start humping!

Dogs have a sensitive nose and could smell the scent of their opposite sex. They will become sexually excited. Girls seldom have the strength to pull a grown golden retrieval back.

WTF!

Where did this dog come from, and who is this woman? Is she here to create trouble?

“Hey, bitch! Keep your dog away!” Susan scolded.

That woman was also shocked. She even did not know why this was happening. She had planned to bring this dog out for a run this morning, and not bring her dog out to mate. She only wants to run with that tycoon and see if she could progress further with him.

But now, this damn woman and her bitch spoilt her plans.

“I should be the one telling you this. Your bitch is in heat, and why did you bring her out? If your dog wants to breed, you should bring her to the pet center. Why did you bring her here?!”

It was uncommon to see two women quarreling and a pair of dogs mating by the side at the same time. Feng Yu was stunned to see a golden retriever humping a pug and the two women.

It was already rare to see two women quarreling in the neighborhood, let alone two dogs of different breed and size mating.

Feng Yu shook his head and was about to leave with Tu Hao. But those two women saw him and immediately ran over with their dogs.

But before they could get any closer to Feng Yu, Feng Yu’s bodyguard moved forward to stop them.

“Hey, ladies. My boss does not know you all. Please don’t get any closer.”

Susan and that “Bitch” looked at each other and said at the same time. “Hi, you are also bringing your dog for a run?”

Feng Yu: “…….” Your motives were too obvious. Feng Yu was not interested in these two women. He does not like women who were so direct.

“I am only passing by with my dog. I think your dogs will need more time. I shall leave first. Bye.”

“Sir, sir……” Susan shouted, but she was blocked by the bodyguards, and Feng Yu had already left with his dog.

“Stop harassing my boss, or we will call the cops. Do you all understand?” The bodyguard threatened.

Susan wanted to cry. It was all because of this damn woman and her dog. If not, everything will be going according to her plans!

The two dogs were still mating, and the two women continued quarreling……

Chapter 777 – Brother Ki comes to America

Feng Yu unleashed Tu Hao when he reached home. He felt he had become the target of the women here in the neighborhood. He had been approached dozens of times!

Feng Yu felt that he must let those people know that he is not single. The simplest way was to get a woman to live with him.

But Li Na was still in school, and she will not skip school to come over to the US.

Feng Yu was still thinking of a solution when he received a call from Kirilenko.

“What? You are coming to the US?”

Feng Yu was surprised. To the Russians, the US was the main culprit that caused the Soviet Union to disintegrate, and they hate Americans. It was just like the South Koreans hate Japanese.

Kirilenko had scolded the US more than once in front of Feng Yu. Why did he come over to the US?

“That’s right. I will arrive in New York tomorrow. You are in America, right? I will go and find you when I reach. It’s been a while since we drank.” Kirilenko replied.

“What are you here for? Politics or your personal trip?” Could it be that Kirilenko had joined Russia’s Foreign Affairs and came over some political reasons? But the relationship between Russia and the US was not that good.

“It’s my personal trip. I am here for business. Make money.”

“What profitable business do you have in mind?” Feng Yu was surprised. Brother Ki knows about business opportunities in the US? He could get the latest news about the US in Russia?

“I am not sure. That’s why I came over to look for you.” Kirilenko replied.

Feng Yu: “……” You didn’t know anything and came over just because I am here?

“Oh, Elena has a few days off, and I brought her over to see you.” Kirilenko laughed.

Am I so desperate for women?

“Fine. I will be waiting for you in Seattle.” Feng Yu replied.

“Ok. I will give you a call when I reach New York. I had brought a large amount of money with me.”

Kirilenko had made some money from those Japanese companies earlier from Feng Yu’s information. His mines still cannot start mining, and the trade between Russia and China had not much growth. He also could not find anything worth investing in Russia.

A few US companies had entered Russia. During the dissolution of the Soviet Union, these companies had bought lots of factories and mineral mines in Russia and made lots of money.

Kirilenko was pissed when he found out. Why did these Americans come to Russia to make money? He decided to come over to the US to earn money from the Americans as revenge!

Kirilenko remembered Feng Yu was in the US now. Why would Feng Yu go to the US? It must be for money. They were good friends, and if Feng Yu have any good ventures, he will not mind sharing with Kirilenko.

So, Kirilenko called Feng Yu immediately to inform him that he will be going over to the US to look for him.

Elena was also coming over? Feng Yu felt she will be the solution to stop those women outside from approaching him. Anyone, no one in the US knew Elena. He could still bring Elena out anytime he wants.

Feng Yu did not stop Kirilenko from bringing Elena over.

No. Feng Yu does not miss Elena’s perfect body…… No, he absolutely does not lose her!

……

Hmph! The private plane can only land in New York. A transfer was needed to fly to Seattle. Kirilenko was pissed.

When Kirilenko was in Russia, Kirilenko could fly to anywhere from any of the former Soviet Union countries. He could fly to any city he wants, even if the city does not have airports.

But Kirilenko could not do this in the US, and he was furious.

Private jets are not allowed to fly? Fine. I will park my plane here and charter a flight to Seattle! I will not fly with those stupid Americans!

What made Kirilenko more furious was the immigration checks. It took too long, and he and his staff were questioned by the immigration officers. He felt like he was a suspect and had come to the US to commit crimes.

That’s right. I am here to do bad things. I will earn all the money in the US. I shall see if you all still dare to come to Russia and make our Russians money!

Why is it so troublesome to charter a flight? I don’t have money? Am I paying you lesser? Why is there so much paperwork?

These Americans must be discriminating against us Russians!

Kirilenko had not thought about the treatment of the Americans when they visit Russia. Although both countries were not at war, they were wary of each other. The US and Russia never had a close relationship.

Finally. Kirilenko had landed at Seattle airport, and when he walked out of the gates, he saw Feng Yu and his staff waiting for him.

As usual, Kirilenko went over to give Feng Yu a bear hug and slap him a few times on his back.

“Feng, long time no see. How come you have not grown any taller?” Kirilenko laughed.

Feng Yu: “……” although I am 1.78m, with my shoes, I look like 1.8m. How can I be considered short at this height? Also, I am in my twenties. How is it possible that I can grow any taller?

Don’t you know how to say beautiful things? But Feng Yu knew Kirilenko well, and he meant no harm.

“Feng, why did you choose this city? It’s not very prosperous.” Kirilenko asked curiously. This City does have lovely environment and climate. But didn’t Feng Yu come over to the US to invest and make money?

US east coast was more prosperous. Why did Feng Yu choose to remain on the West Coast?

“Although this city is not very prosperous, it is not bad. The headquarters of Boeing, Microsoft, AT&T, Starbucks, etc. are in this city.” Feng Yu explained.

The last two companies mentioned by Feng Yu were also big, but Kirilenko had never paid any attention to them. But he was surprised to learn that Boeing and Microsoft’s headquarters were here.

Kirilenko remembered that Feng Yu had bought the shares of one software company with his spare cash. Could that company be Microsoft?

“Let’s not talk about other things. Is alcohol ready?” Kirilenko patted Feng Yu’s shoulder and laughed.

“You are not tired from the flight? Don’t you need to rest first?” Feng Yu asked.

“I can rest after I drink. I love drinking with you!” What’s there to rest? Drinking is considered resting.

“Ok. I had asked my men to make the preparations. I have bought a house here. You can stay at my place tonight. Your staff can stay in the hotel. I had reserved the rooms for them.”

Feng Yu had an evil grin on his face. Love drinking with me? You are just asking for it!

Chapter 778 – Meeting Elena again

“Here, Brother Ki, try this liquor. I had bought more than a dozen types of alcohol. You must try all of them and see which you like best.” Feng Yu poured a glass of liquor for Kirilenko. All the liquor Feng Yu bought had high alcohol content. This was what Kirilenko likes.

Kirilenko downed the glass in one gulp: “This does not taste good.”

“Not good? Never mind. There is still a lot more. Here, try this.”

“How is it? Not nice? I will throw this bottle away later. Here, how about this?”

Although they were using small glasses, after one round, Kirilenko had drunk more than half a liter. Feng Yu place those alcohol Kirilenko like by one side. He secretly wishes Kirilenko would finish all these bottles!

“Feng, you are the best! You specially bought so many alcohols for me! You are my best friend!” Kirilenko gave Feng Yu a thumbs up.

“As long as you like it. I will ask my people to buy a few more bottles tomorrow.” Feng Yu smiled.

Drink! I want to see you get wasted!

Feng Yu kept pouring into Kirilenko’s glass and did not even touch his glass. Hmm……. I must get some low alcohol content liquor, which is about the same color as all these bottles. This way, I can drink with Brother Ki more!

“Come, Brother Ki, let’s have a toast.” Feng Yu knocked Kirilenko’s glass and took a small sip, but Kirilenko finishes his drink. Feng Yu continued to help Kirilenko top up his glass.

They continued to drink.

Of course, it was Kirilenko who got drunk first. Feng Yu did not even finish 2 glasses by the end of the session.

In less than half an hour, Kirilenko could not even hold his glass.

Feng Yu patted Kirilenko’s shoulders: “Brother Ki, let’s continue tomorrow.”

“Alright! Let’s have another toast.” Kirilenko’s tongue was almost numb.

Feng Yu called over two of his bodyguards to carry Kirilenko to his guest room. Before Kirilenko was carried away, he was already snoring.

Luckily, during the renovations of the house, Feng Yu had soundproofed the rooms. If not, no one in the house could sleep with Kirilenko’s snoring!

The purpose of soundproofing the rooms was not because of Kirilenko. It was because Feng Yu does not want other people to hear him when he was doing his things.

After the bodyguard left, only 3 people remained in the house. One was sleeping, and the other was waiting for Feng Yu in his room.

……

Elena was sitting silently in Feng Yu’s room. She had been practicing her dance every day without fail. Even when she fell sick, she did not stop dancing.

Elena’s mother had told her to rest when she was sick. But she does not want to stop. She wanted to show the best dance to the whole world and…… that man.

That man loves to see her dance.

That man had captured her heart. She knew that man could not give her any promises, but she would think of him whenever she was not dancing. She misses him a lot.

Elena’s mother could tell what she was thinking, but she did not ask any questions. She knew Elena would also not tell her anything even when she asked.

Compared to her friends, who were just toys for the army officers, Elena felt she was fortunate to meet him. After meeting him, her family and her lives had changed for the better.

Elena’s life was filled with hope now.

It had been a long time since she met Feng Yu. She really misses him a lot, but she dares not call him.

Elena was afraid of bothering him if she called. She did not want to disrupt his life and was worried that he would leave her.

So, Elena focuses on dancing. She wanted to be the world’s best ballerina and show him her best dance moves.

Maybe Elena’s prayers were heard, and during her dance practice, she received a call, telling her that Kirilenko will be going to the US to visit Feng Yu. He will be bringing her along.

When Elena heard the news, she ran into the bathroom immediately and burst out in tears.

After arriving in the US, she finally saw him after so long. But his features were still the same. He looked the same as her dreams.

His hair still moves the same when there was a breeze. His face was still the same as before, but his eyes had become sharper than before.

Elena was trembling with excitement when she saw him.

Feng Yu smiled at her but did not say anything to her. Elena knew her status was too low compared to Mr. Kirilenko.

After arriving at Feng Yu’s house, she ate her dinner quietly and went upstairs. She was overjoyed when Feng Yu arranged for her to stay in the master bedroom. This was Feng Yu’s room.

Elena waited patiently for Feng Yu. She wonders if Feng Yu would be drunk when he enters the room. But no matter how long Feng Yu takes, she will still wait for him.

Elena was exhausted from flying, but she forced herself to stay alert and wait for him.

The room’s door opened, and he appeared. Elena immediately stood up and wanted to go over to help him.

“Elena, why are you not sleeping? You should take a rest after sitting in the place for so long.” Feng Yu asked when he saw Elena still awake.

“I…… I am waiting for you.” Elena replied softly. “Do you have a headache after all the drinking? Let me brew a cup of tea.”

Feng Yu pulled Elena by her slim arm. “I’m fine. I did not drink a lot. I will freshen up after a shower.”

Elena quickly replied: “I will help you fill the tub.”

Feng Yu smiled and released Elena’s arm. Elena quickly opens the tap to fill the bathtub with hot water. After that, she ran back into the room: “Let me help you undress.”

Feng Yu did not stop her. Elena was overjoyed to be able to help Feng Yu do these trivial things.

After Feng Yu was undressed, Elena also took off her bathrobe and entered the bathroom with him.

Elena checked the water temperature with her hand before letting Feng Yu enter the bathtub. She kneeled beside the tub to massage Feng Yu’s shoulders.

Soaking in the hot bath and after the massage, Feng Yu sober up. He pulled Elena by her hand into the bathtub.

Elena shouted in, surprised, and laid against Feng Yu’s chest quietly. Her face had turned red and did not know what to do.

Feng Yu could not hold back any longer with Elena in his arms. He finally could unleash all his pent-up desires. He carried Elena up roughly, positioned himself at the entrance, and pushed up hard……

Chapter 779 – The proud Kirilenko

The next morning, Feng Yu brought Elena along with him for his jog. Elena was elated. This was her first time going out with Feng Yu alone. She was overjoyed even when it was only a jog around the neighborhood.

Susan and the other women were hiding in ‘ambush’ nearby. They wanted to have a ‘chance encounter’ with Feng Yu. But today, all of them were shocked.

Who was that woman? She was young, pretty, fair, and had the perfect figure. Where did this woman come from?

Susan and the rest had confidence in their looks, but compared to Elena, they were miles apart. No wonder this tycoon did not even look at them. He had a young and pretty girlfriend.

Some of these women did not give up. They felt they have bigger boobs. Maybe that tycoon would notice them.

However, they were ignored. They still could not get the chance to speak to Feng Yu. They were stopped by Feng Yu’s bodyguards and were warned not to get any closer.

Although Elena was not very smart and does not know English, she could tell what those women were up to. Did Mr. Feng tell them that I am his girlfriend?

Elena knew Feng Yu might be treating her as a shield to ward off those women. But she was still ecstatic. Even if she could only be Mr. Feng’s girlfriend for a brief moment, she was satisfied.

“Elena, how long will you be staying here?” Feng Yu asked.

Elena shook her head. “I also don’t know. I am satisfied to be able to meet you again. I will go back tomorrow.”

Feng Yu rubbed Elena’s head: “I am not asking you to go back. You can stay here longer if you want. I will be going back to China after the New Year. Can you return to Moscow then? It might affect your performance. Do you mind?”

Elena’s eyes brightened up and nodded her head. “I will listen to Mr. Feng’s arrangement.”

“Call me Feng or Feng Yu in the future. Stop calling me, Mr. Feng. It felt too distanced.”

“Ok.” Elena had a broad smile on her face.”

“Feng, you all started before me,” Kirilenko said behind Feng Yu.

Elena was about to stand up, but Feng Yu pressed her down on her shoulders. Kirilenko did not mind and sat down. He grabbed one Chinese pie and finished it in a few bites.

“This is delicious, but it’s too small.” Kirilenko was stuffing his face as he said this.

Kirilenko had treated this place as his own home. He really treated Feng Yu as his best friend, and Feng Yu was glad to see him feeling so comfortable in his house. Kirilenko was not a scheming person, and Feng Yu felt relax being with him.

“Sister Zhao, can you make more pies? Brother Ki has a huge appetite.” Feng Yu shouted to the kitchen.

“Ok. It will be ready soon.” Sister Zhao brought fried and hard-boiled eggs to the table and returned to the kitchen to bake more Chinese pies.

Elena peeled a hard-boiled egg and place it on Feng Yu’s plate. She ate very little to maintain her slim figure.

Kirilenko was glad to see Feng Yu and Elena so close. He felt like he is the ‘old man under the moon’ from Chinese mythology.

“Feng, did you come to the US to invest in Microsoft?” Kirilenko asked while drinking the congee.

“The main reason is to invest in Microsoft. But I still want to invest in something else. Now, basically, no one will sell their Microsoft shares. Even if anyone is willing to sell, the volume is too little. But you can still get some other related shares. This type of shares has high potential.” Feng Yu said.

Kirilenko replied with disdain. “What’s so special about Microsoft. It’s only a software company. These Americans are so ignorant. Our Russian software is the best in the world. We have the world’s best mathematicians and engineers. My market analysts are all the best in their fields.”

Feng Yu frowned. The former Soviet Union had researched into PC. They were one of the best in the world. Russia had taken over most of the former Soviet Union’s assets, and there was nothing wrong for Kirilenko to claim that Russia is one of the best in the world. But aren’t those talents working for the Government and military?

Why was Kirilenko saying that he had employed those top mathematicians and engineers? Those people can work for private companies now? Did Kirilenko used his father’s connection to hire them?”

“Brother Ki, those analysts you hired are those software engineers?”

“No. They should be considered mathematicians and engineers. They were formerly with the military, and their jobs are calculating the trajectory of missiles. They have to know how to build a program to calculate the trajectory. But as you know, the Soviet Union was disintegrated, and we slow down our research into missiles. The military does not need so many people anymore. Many of them had lost their jobs, and my assistant suggests to hire them to build a program to analyze the NYSE. My assistant noticed that the market graphs are similar to the missile’s trajectory.”

Feng Yu’s jaws dropped. Those missile engineers and mathematicians can still be used to analyze the stock market? He had heard of rumors in his previous life that Russia’s software engineers were formerly mathematicians and engineers from the Government and military. But he did not know that these people were formally researching and developing missiles.

Are there any connections between missiles and the stock market?

“Can you show me the market trend and graphs they make?” Feng Yu asked. These belong to Kirilenko, and even if Kirilenko refused, Feng Yu would not say anything.

Kirilenko agreed readily. “No problem. I will call them to email the information you want to you. Those people still have not arrived yet. I am sure you will be impressed with them when you meet them.”

Feng Yu realized that Kirilenko did not come to the US unprepared. Kirilenko had seen the analysis of those engineers on the stock market and had come to the US to make a killing.

“Brother Ki, can your people make other software?” Feng Yu’s impression of Russian software in his previous life was Kaspersky. It’s antivirus software.”

Kaspersky had owned a fair share of the market share and was popular in China. But later, most of the antivirus software in China was free, and it was hard to profit from antivirus software. Kaspersky slowly changed direction and move into cybersecurity for corporate.

“Other software? What do you mean? Office software? Antivirus? Or some other professional software? Let me tell you this, there is no software they cannot develop!” Kirilenko proudly replied.

The Russian software industry is so powerful now? It’s a pity that the Russia government in Feng Yu’s life did not offer support for them. If not, Russia might become the world’s top software development country. But this will not be good for the development of China’s software industry.

It’s just like Canada’s software industry could not develop well because of the US. The software industry in the US is too strong and had overshadowed them.

“Can they develop operating systems?”

Chapter 780 – Cooperation

Kirilenko paused for a while and said: “You are talking about the operating system for PC? Why not? Our country’s PC operating system is built by us.”

Feng Yu knew about this. But in his previous life, Russia’s software industry was taken over by US companies in the end. The Russian companies were taken over by those companies.

But Feng Yu forgot that the Russia software was still on par with the US in this era.

The former Soviet Union had been competing with the US in terms of weapons. The technologies developed by the Soviet Union were related to PC and telecommunications. That’s why Russia, which had inherited most of the Soviet Union’s assets, was very powerful now.

Mathematics and engineering were essential components in the development of software. Russia was famous for its strength in these two components. They were one of the most advanced in the world and much stronger than China.

After the Cold War ended, Russia’s software engineers no longer work for their government. Some of the top engineers were hired by big companies, and some went to work in Europe. Some had even started their own company.

Kirilenko was able to find these people in large numbers. They could develop the most advanced software for missiles, and operating system for PC should be a piece of cake for them.

“What about application software? This should not be a problem for your people, right?” Feng Yu felt he had almost missed this golden opportunity. This was the opportunity for China’s software to overtake western countries.

“Software is never a problem. Why? You thought of a new business venture?” Kirilenko saw Feng Yu’s expression and knew he would be able to make money again.

“Brother Ki, how about we set up a software company together? But I must take the lead in this venture. My side had already started the research and have some progress.” Feng Yu asked as he rubbed his chin.

“No problem. Just tell me what to do.” Feng Yu had become the biggest shareholder in their mineral venture, and Kirilenko did not mind, let alone this small software company.

“I have some shares in Lenovo company back in China. Lenovo is China’s leading PC manufacturer and has good results in software development. They also owned a good software company and had been researching software developments. But I think it is not enough. I want to become the world’s number one.”

Kirilenko replied excitedly. “Of course. If we are going to do it, we must be the best. Furthermore, if we cooperate, we have ready funds, technology, and creativity. We will surely be the best!”

Feng Yu glanced at Kirilenko. You seem to be more confident than me.

Kirilenko’s confidence was not from his country’s engineers. It was because this was suggested by Feng Yu. All the businesses suggested by Feng Yu were profitable!

Kirilenko had cooperated with Feng Yu in many businesses, and he had never made any losses.

“I am thinking of setting up a software company together with you, Lenovo and me. We will develop our own operating system, application software, and antivirus. We will only focus on software.”

Although just focusing on software might put them at the mercy of those hardware manufacturers, but Microsoft in Feng Yu’s previous life also enters the laptop and PC industry later on. This was because, without their own brand of PC, they would lose their number one seat. But temporary, focusing on just developing software was the best strategy. Anyway, Feng Yu still have Lenovo, a PC manufacturer.

Kirilenko frowned. “Why can’t you just buy over Lenovo? With both of us, we should be able to afford it.”

Feng Yu’s sweat rolled down his forehead. You are too ambitious. Lenovo belongs to the Chinese Government. I can’t even get the controlling shares, let alone letting a Russian owning share of this company.

“It is not about money. The company is controlled by the government. It’s the government’s asset. Do you understand?” Feng Yu explained.

Kirilenko thought for a while: “Government’s investment? Then who should we bribe?”

Feng Yu: “……” That is not Russia. It’s not about who you bribe, and you can buy over the company. Feng Yu suspects Kirilenko had used this method for his investments in Russia.

“It’s not about looking for who. Don’t even think about it. I can let Lenovo’s subsidiary software company separate from its parent company and cooperate with us to set up a new software company. This is the best I can do. Also, the market is critical. The Chinese market is as big as the US market. Do you understand?”

Feng Yu wants to let Kirilenko understand that this company can only be set up in China, and he is the only one who can lead the company. He does not want Kirilenko to bring this company to Russia.”

“I know China has a higher population. I agree with this. What then? How much should I come up with, and how many shares will I get?” Kirilenko trusted Feng Yu blindly.

“This would depend on how many engineers you can find. Also, your engineers do not understand Chinese, and our engineers do not speak Russian. There will be lots of problems with their communication.” Although the primary programming language used in this ear was C and JAVA, the engineers still need to speak to each other.

“This is not a problem. Your people will lead, and we will support them. We can just hire some translators. I can get you as many software engineers as you want. It’s just software engineers, and we have lots of them in Russia. Money can easily solve this issue.” Kirilenko waved his hand casually.

“Fine. We will discuss the investment among later. But I have to factor in the value of creativity. I hope you can understand.” Feng Yu said.

“We will invest the same amount, including the number of engineers. But you will get 10% more shares than me, is this alright for you?” Kirilenko replied.

Feng Yu did not have any more requests. Kirilenko was too direct and straightforward. Actually, in terms of capabilities, Russian software engineers were much better than the Chinese. Kirilenko had given in a lot to Feng Yu.

“Brother Ki, you are too kind. Don’t worry. The profits of this company will not disappoint you.” Feng Yu patted his chest.

Microsoft’s operating system will evolve from Wins 95, 98, 2000 to XP. But Feng Yu will want his software company to start developing WIN 7 operating system immediately. He might not be able to overthrow the operating systems in the market now, but his operating system will be very different.

The development of Feng Yu’s operating system will take a long time. But even if he were able to introduce his operating system 1 or 2 years ahead of Microsoft, it would also be a massive blow to them.

Of course. Feng Yu still want to develop Android. This was also very important. The earlier he launches his application software and antivirus software into the market, the more profits their company could make!

Kirilenko laughed. “I trust you!”

Chapter 781 – Set up a museum?

After breakfast, Feng Yu decided to bring Elena out. He had never brought Elena out before. When he told her about this, she was excited.

Kirilenko flew back to New York. He was going there to set up an investment firm. He said he wants to invest in the companies which the Americans were proud of. He wants to bring Russia’s honor to the American grounds!

Feng Yu did not stop him. In fact, Feng Yu also thought this was a good idea. The US claims to be the best in technologies. He wanted to suppress the US in this field!

Technology increases productivity. This was the truth. No matter what machinery or computers, it will significantly increase efficiency and reduces manual labor. If you can produce one item in an hour and I can produce 100 of the same things in an hour, you will definitely be replaced.

Computers were one of the most hi-tech industries. If one could control the computer industry, then he would be able to control the future!

Kirilenko still has to contact his Russian staff to start recruiting software and hardware engineers.

The hardware engineers can join Lenovo or let them develop a new CPU. These Russians could even build a space station, what’s a CPU to them?

Feng Yu realized that there are still a lot of hidden gems in Russia. Those people which he felt he could not recruit, was not a problem for Kirilenko. He could solve anything in Russia with money.

Feng Yu felt he was too conservative before. He intends to research what sort of talents he could recruit from Russia on his next trip.

……

“Where do you want to go? The weather here is warmer than in Russia. Although this is not the sailing season, we can still go sailing if you want.” Feng Yu held Elena’s hand as he asks her.

“I am fine with anything. You can decide.” Elena replied.

Feng Yu suddenly realize that he only knows Elena loves dancing. He does not know anything else about her. He did not know where to bring her.

“Museum?” Feng Yu asked.

“Ok.” Elena nodded. She does not mind any places as long as she was with Feng Yu.

“Ralph, have you bought the Seattle’s tourist map?” Feng Yu called Ralph. He was pissed, but he did not bear to vent his frustration on a cute girl like Elena. So, he could only vent it on Ralph!

“Yes, Boss. I will bring it over to you now.”

Ralph sighed. Although he was getting a high salary and had lots of authority, he had a lot of work to do. He felt he was like Feng Yu’s personal butler.

After a while, Ralph arrived at Feng Yu’s house.

Feng Yu took the tourist’s handbook from Ralph and immediately scolded Ralph: “Why is this in English?!”

Ralph was confused. Feng Yu’s English was excellent and should be able to read it. Furthermore, this is the US. If it’s not in English, what language should it be?

Ralph noticed Elena who was sitting beside Feng Yu and realized why Feng Yu was so angry. “Boss, it’s hard to get a Russian language tourist guide here.”

Feng Yu waved him away. “Never mind. You can’t even complete a simple task like this.”

Ralph nearly cried. Those who speak Russian seldom visit the US for holidays. Even if they came, they would all go to Los Angeles or the big cities.

Feng Yu pointed to the tourist handbook and explained to Elena in Russian. “This is Henry Art Gallery. Washington’s first art museum. This is Klondike gold rush museum. This is the Museum of History & Industry. This is the Museum of Flight……”

Ralph was impressed. No wonder Feng Yu could be so successful at his age. He could speak two foreign languages so fluently!

Looking at Feng Yu explaining the places of interest to Elena so earnestly, Ralph felt a bit guilty for thinking Feng Yu was gay in the past. He had been working for Feng Yu for quite some time but had never seen any women around Feng Yu.

By right, with Feng Yu’s status and wealth, he could get any women he wants, including those pretty movie stars. But Feng Yu had rejected all women who tried to approach him. Ralph felt many of those women were beautiful.

But when Ralph saw the woman who was sitting beside his boss now, he understood why his boss rejected all those women. None of those women could be compared to Elena. If he has a girlfriend like Elena, he would also lose interest in those women.

Elena had a smile on her face as she listened to Feng Yu explaining all the different tourist attractions in Seattle. When Feng Yu asked her again where she want to visit, she replied softly: “Can I go to the art museum?”

“Sure, why not? Ralph, call the driver to prepare the car. We are going to the Henry Art Gallery. Call them and tell them that I want to book the whole gallery today!”

Elena quickly pulled Feng Yu’s arm: “It would be better if we can admire the paintings with others.”

“Ok. As long as you like it. Ralph, go and get the tickets. I want to enter the gallery when we reach.”

“Yes, Boss. I will make the arrangements.” Ralph quickly ran out and start calling the museum.

Feng Yu does not like to visit art galleries. He felt those art pieces were overpriced and were inflated by speculators. Art pieces should not be valued by their prices. To the ones who like an art piece, it would be priceless. But to others, it’s just an ordinary object.

To a businessman, art pieces are products. They aim to raise the value of the art pieces and make profits from them.

You hang a painting from the Renaissance period in your house means you are artistic or elegant? It’s not like this. More than 99% of the people used those paintings as a front to show off!

Feng Yu also wanted to do this. But he does not want to buy oil paintings. He wants Chinese paintings and pottery. He decided to buy some of these Chinese paintings or National level grade Chinese art pieces in the US and donate them to the museums back in China. These art pieces need professional care, and Feng Yu does not know how to maintain these.

Maybe I can build my own museum?

That’s right. Why can’t I set up my own museum and hire professionals to maintain and repair those art pieces?

Wind and Rain Museum. Just the thought of this will make people excited. Feng Yu decided to get people to look for Chinese art pieces in the US. He does not mind the prices as Chinese art pieces in this era were still not expensive!

Henry Art Gallery

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

Museum of History & Industry

Museum of Flight

Chapter 782 – Liu Chuanzhi’s decision

Lenovo’s Beijing Headquarters. It was tense in a small meeting room. All the directors were present to discuss an important matter.

“Yuanqing, what do you think?” Liu Chuanzhi asked.

Yang Yuanqing was the head of the PC department. He was also one of Lenovo’s director. Liu Chuanzhi has high hopes for him and even wants to groom him as his successor.

Of course. This was only a thought. Liu Chuanzhi could still work for many years before his retirement.

“I personally support this proposal. Also, Manager Feng had said before. This company will be called Lenovo Software. Lenovo and his shares will be enough to have the controlling stake of the company.”

Yang Yuanqing was from the PC department and definitely support this proposal to give the software department away. This way, Lenovo will focus all its resources on PC manufacturing.

“I object.” Zhu Linan shouted.

Zhu Linan was one of the first few engineers who joined Lenovo. He was in charge of software developments. Lenovo’s Han card was due to his credit. Lenovo had started from software, and he had opposed to Lenovo manufacturing PC from the start. He was glad that the company’s PC sales were doing well, but the company should not kick the software department out for this reason.

Look at Microsoft, and you would know the potential of software. No PC can do without software and operating systems. This includes smart household appliances. The software has a better prospect than hardware.

Also, Lenovo was already the top software company in China. Kingsoft, which Lenovo have a stake in it, had started many projects together. This was the time for Lenovo to take over the Chinese software market and venture overseas. But now, you are telling me that you want to separate the software department from the company to set up another company with others?

“Lenovo started developing software. Our Han card has been generating high profits for our company. Also, we will be launching our supermarket system. This will bring high profits for us. Our Lenovo Server system is also selling well. All these show the potential of our software. Why should we separate them and have to cooperate with others?”

“I also object to setting up a joint venture with others. Lenovo belongs to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. We have advantages in terms of technology. We do not need other people. Also, although the software company is called Lenovo software company, Feng Yu and that Russian owns more than 50% shares. If they join forces, then they will have a bigger say in the company.” Director Zheng said.

Director Zheng was the one who supported Liu Chuanzhi to start this company. He was the one who got the Chinese Academy of Sciences issue funds to Liu Chuanzhi to set up Lenovo. Of course, he was also promoted to the Deputy Director of the Academy because of Lenovo’s success. He was also the head of the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Director Zheng was the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ representative in Lenovo. His words have a considerable influence on Liu Chuanzhi.

“I agree to separate the software division from the company. We must know where Lenovo’s future profits will come from. Without a doubt, this is the PC era. Our market share in China will be the biggest this year. Next year, we will secure our position as number one in China. We are also going export our PCs to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries in Southeast Asia. Our profits will increase. Our laptops are also very popular. Just the fact that we have the most advanced optical drive, we will not lose to any other company.” Deputy General Manager Sun Hongbin, who oversees the sales of Han Card, servers, PCs, and other products said.

Song Hongbin was one of Lenovo’s longest-serving higher management. He was in charge of their product sales and knew more about the company’s profits than others.

In China, Lenovo’s PC would become the market leader. After their cooperation with Kingsoft, Han Card will also be China’s top Chinese software. The sales of their servers and other products were also increasing. Since the PCs were Lenovo’s most profitable product, they should focus on it.

As for software, Song Hongbin was not very familiar. The profits of the software were also significant. There is only one Microsoft in this world, and it had a monopoly in its industry. But on the other hand, there are countless PC manufacturers and all of them could make profits.

Also, this proposal was not asking Lenovo to give up on their software development. This was a collaboration with the Russians. They might even have the chance to acquire Kingsoft. Why oppose this proposal? The Russians are strong in software developments too. This will be a boost to the company’s developments.

Song Hongbin was also not very happy with Director Zheng and those old directors. He felt their thinking was too conservative and could not catch up with the current market trend. If it were not for him, Lenovo’s sales would not increase so fast.

Liu Chuanzhi had trusted and supported Song Hongbin. If Liu Chuanzhi had not promised to give Song Hongbin shares of the company, he would have left to start his own company. The distribution channels he has was enough for him to set up a trading company dealing in electronics products.

All the directors expressed their views, and all of them have their own reasons.

Liu Chuanzhi also supported to separate the software development from Lenovo. It was only separating from the main company and not giving it up. The new company will also be Lenovo’s subsidiary. This move will also let him have total control over Kingsoft. There were lots of good software engineers in Kingsoft. Russia’s software developers were much better than them. If Lenovo were to reject this proposal, Feng Yu would surely work with that Russian by himself. They will set up their own software company, and Lenovo would have to face a strong competitor.

There were only two options. Cooperate and make money together. The other option was not to cooperate and face a strong competitor. This competitor might even take away the software market from Lenovo. Liu Chuanzhi would choose the first option.

Furthermore, Feng Yu had told him that the new company can still be call Lenovo Software. The Directors of this company will be decided by Liu Chuanzhi and Feng Yu would not interfere.

There was no reason for Liu Chuanzhi to reject this proposal with such good conditions. Although those directors who objected had given good reasons, Liu Chuanzhi had already made up his mind. The meeting today was only for him to see if he got any supporters.

“Ok. I suggest that we should separate the software department to set up Lenovo Software. Also, Feng Yu is a patriotic Chinese businessman. He will not collaborate with that Russian man to con us. All of you can rest assure. Zhu Linan, you go and speak to Kingsoft. We will merge Kingsoft with Lenovo Software Company and you will be the Chairman of this new company.”

Liu Chuanzhi confidently announce his decision and ignored all those who oppose this proposal. He even let Zhu Linan who opposed this plan to be the new company’s Chairman. All the directors kept quiet…….

Chapter 783 – Lenovo Kingsoft

Feng Yu, who was having a meal with Elena at home, received a call from Liu Chuanzhi. Liu Chuanzhi told him that Lenovo will separate their software department from the company to set up a new company with Kingsoft and Russian Bear Software company (The software company set up by Kirilenko). All Lenovo’s directors had agreed.

Feng Yu confidently told Liu Chuanzhi. “Old Liu, you will not regret your decision today. I dare to say this new software company will be the pride of China, Asia, and even the whole world!”

Feng Yu insisted this collaboration must include Kingsoft. It was because he felt Kingsoft had good software developing abilities, and they have the WPS office software!

Feng Yu had used WPS software in his previous life. Microsoft Office had slightly more functions than WPS, but the difference was not significant. WPS software was the best Chinese developed office software in China.

With Feng Yu’s “creativity,” WPS would be upgraded from its original form and could catch up or overtake Microsoft Office in no time.

Kingsoft had also started its development of antivirus software and had been doing well in its Han Card. They had help Lenovo significantly with these software and technologies.

Of course, Kingsoft still has one person who interests Feng Yu. Lei Dajun. He was always very young and was the General Manager of Kingsoft.

Feng Yu likes to use people around the age of 30 or younger for the top management of his companies. He does not want to employ people who were too old. Firstly, it was because after he groomed these older staff, they will retire after a few years. Secondly, older people were rigid and not flexible. Not everyone is like Li Mingde.

Lei Dajun was someone with strong personal beliefs and ambition. This was also one of the reasons why Feng Yu wants to recruit him. Another person Feng Yu wants to hire was Qiu Bojun. In Feng Yu’s previous life, he was known as China’s top software developer.

“Kingsoft agrees to this proposal? How many shares do they want?” Feng Yu asked.

The market value of Kingsoft was not high, and the company does not have many assets. But their products and technologies worth a lot. If they want a high proportion of shares, then poaching their people will be more worthwhile.

“We are still negotiating with Kingsoft, and it is not finalized yet. Manager Feng, you really think that with the Russian software developers joining us, we will be able to compete with the US?” Liu Chuanzhi was not very confident. They should be able to get some market share, but he felt it was impossible to compete with US companies.

“We should be able to beat them in some areas, like office software, antivirus, etc. As for the operating system, it has to depend on our developers.” Feng Yu also does not know if his developers could deliver what he wants.

Feng Yu want this company to develop two operating systems. One was Win 7, and the other was Android. Microsoft and Google had more software engineers than Lenovo in his previous life.

But even if one of the two operating systems were successfully developed, Feng Yu would be rich.

“Manager Feng, this is an important matter. Why didn’t you come back?” Liu Chuanzhi asked.

“I will be back when the company is set up. I still have some unfinished work here.” Feng Yu still have not acquired Amazon and have not met Kirilenko’s market analysts. He got to wait until all these were settled before he returns to China.

Feng Yu had successfully bought a stake in Amazon. What’s left was the paperwork. He had seen Amazon’s current website and was not satisfied with it.

Feng Yu decided to wait until he becomes Amazon’s biggest shareholder before asking Jeff Bezos to make all those changes.

If China’s internet was not so backward and the purchasing power of its people was not high, Feng Yu would set up a similar website in China.

“Ok. I will wait for you to return.”

Feng Yu turned to Elena after he hangs up. “Where do you want to go today? There will be a Broadway performance in a few days. We can go and watch it.”

Elena smiled happily: “I will listen to your arrangements.”

……

Qiu Bojun and the higher management of Kingsoft were sitting together to discuss whether if they should merge with Lenovo Software Company. Lenovo owns some of their company’s shares, and if they merge with the new company, it will be good for them. But Kingsoft will no longer exist.

“I think we should join Lenovo Software. Russian engineers will also be joining this company. We will be able to achieve our dream earlier.” Lei Dajun said.

“Our dream? Our dream is to set up the best software company in the world! If we merge with Lenovo Software, there will be no more Kingsoft!” A co-founder of Kingsoft said.

“Then what if we can keep the Kingsoft brand? Including our WPS brand?” Lei Dajun asked.

“What do you mean by keeping our brand? They are the biggest shareholders. Why would they use our brand? All the software produced by this company in the future will be using Lenovo brand!”

Lei Dajun laughed and shook his head. “Our WPS is China’s top Chinese Office software. Lenovo does not have such products and can only use ours. Also, we have been taking the lead in the joint research and development of new software. We are also experts in Han Card. We can use these to negotiate with them to let us keep our WPS brand. We can even request the next new product to be called Kingsoft.”

Qiu Bojun asked excitedly: “You are confident that they will accept these conditions?”

“Not only these. I think this new company should be named Lenovo Kingsoft Software Company. We must let people know that this is a merger. We are not being acquired by Lenovo!” Lei Dajun replied confidently. Lei Dajun was more suitable than Qiu Bojun as the leader of the company.

After Lei Dajun said these, the rest of the people at the meeting brighten up. If the new company is called Lenovo Kingsoft Software Company, then they don’t mind this merger. They will be shifting to a bigger office and will have access to more resources. This will help them achieve their dreams and make more money.

“Lei Dahun, can you persuade Zhu Linan? What about Liu Chuanzhi? Are you confident of persuading them?”

“I can tell that they really want us to join the percentage of shares they offered. They will surely agree to our request. We are Kingsoft and not some unknown brand!” Lei Dajun said.

Zhu Linan was sitting in a small meeting room in Kingsoft Beijing office. Qiu Bojun was still discussing with the rest of the management, and Zhu Linan was waiting for the outcome. He did not leave as he knew that Kingsoft will not reject his high offer.

Of course, Zhu Linan had offered lucrative terms to Qiu Bojun was because he wants Kingsoft people to stand on his side. This way, he will have higher control over this software company! When this company is listed in the future, he will gain more benefits.

Someone knocked on the door and entered. Zhu Linan frowned. It was not Qiu Bojun, but Lei Dajun?

“Manager Zhu, we have discussed your offer, but there are still some minor issues, and I hope Lenovo will agree to this.” Lei Dajun smiled.

“What is it?”

“This new company we are setting up cannot be called Lenovo Software Company. It should be called the Lenovo Kingsoft Software Company. Do you all agree to this?”

Translator’s note

Lei Jun (Author changed his name to Lei Dajun in this novel) Co-founder of Xiaomi

WPS Office

Qiu Bojun, aka Kau Pak Kwan, was the Chief Software Architect who developed WPS 97 in Kingsoft.

Chapter 784 – The Irresponsible Director

It was Microsoft’s director meeting. Bill Gates and the often-absent Paul Allen were present today. But one director did not show up. This director had asked his assistant to call up to say that he had some important work.

“Hmph! Someone is not executing his duties. He does not fit to be a director!” Paul Allen grumbled and looked at the empty seat.

The rest of the directors were unhappy too. They felt this Director Feng was too arrogant. Even if he was the third biggest shareholder of Microsoft, he should not disrespect the rest of them.

Bill Gates was also not very happy with Feng Yu. Although Microsoft’s product sales had increased for the Chinese market and Feng Yu had achieved what he promised, but the company had not made any profits. The selling price of their products to Lenovo was too low.

Feng Yu had completed his duties and had even achieved more than required. But he did not show up in the company on most days. Although Feng Yu was a shareholder and the director of the company, he should not do this!

If Feng Yu were only an ordinary shareholder and had invested in Microsoft for money, it would be fine for him to not come into the office. But Feng Yu was one of the company’s directors. He was one of the higher management of the company!

“I heard Director Feng had been bringing a woman around the City every day. Two days ago, they went to Boeing and wanted to buy a helicopter.” One of the directors said.

“I also heard that Director Feng had gone to Amazon. He wants to invest in that small company. What’s there to invest in that company?” Another director said.

The rest of the directors started to grumble about Feng Yu for being irresponsible. This meeting had become a grumbling session about him. However, only Ballmer did not say anything.

The rest of the directors did not notice it, but Bill Gates and Paul Allen saw it.

Paul Allen asked: “Steve, Feng is the Deputy Asia-pacific President under you. I would like to hear about your plans for the Asia-pacific.”

Ballmer replied confidently: “The market share for the Asia-pacific region has been increasing. Except for Japan, India, and some small areas, we hold the biggest market share for operating systems, office software, and Internet Explorer. The increase in China’s market is the highest. Director Feng had already completed his task.”

Paul Allen was pissed. You don’t know what I want you to say? Did I ask you to praise that brat?!

“As the President of the Asia-pacific Region, shouldn’t you reprimand him for not coming to work?” Paul Allen continued.

Ballmer replied with a puzzled look. “Paul, Feng is not getting any salary. Even his assistant is not paid by us. He is paying everything from his own pocket. He said that the company is not giving him any salary and he can don’t show up in his office. I can’t rebut him. Can you tell me what I should say to him?”

Paul Allen was furious. He had said that Feng Yu’s salary cannot be too high because Feng Yu does not have much work. Feng Yu’s reply to him was that he will not take a single cent from the company. He only wanted the company’s shares. His assistant was also paid by him. Paul Allen thought he had embarrassed Feng Yu then. But who knows, this was Feng Yu’s plan.

There’s nothing wrong with not coming to work as Feng Yu was not paid. Also, Paul Allen did not appear in the company most of the time. Among the directors, he was the least qualified person to judge Feng Yu’s actions. Even Bill Gates goes to the office at least 3 times a week.

“Fine. I will speak to Feng. Let’s stop the discussion about him. Without Feng, Microsoft will not achieve such good results in China. When the Chinese users get used to our software and operating systems after 3 to 5 years, the rest of the software companies in China should be almost bankrupt. We will increase the price to the same as other countries. Our profits will surely improve!” Bill Gates said confidently.

This was the reason why Bill Gates agreed to Feng Yu’s demands. To be honest, the spending power of the Chinese cannot be compared to Western countries. He needs to wait and occupy the market shares first. Microsoft can increase the prices after they got the monopoly of the Chinese market.

Even the prices were very low now, but Microsoft still has some profits.

The rest of the directors, including Paul Allen, stop talking about Feng Yu after Bill Gates said those words. Microsoft was able to be so successful today was due to the contract signed between them and IBM initially. After that, they signed contracts with various PC manufacturers to increase their market share.

After Microsoft got control of the markets, they also gain control over those PC companies. Their profits were higher than the PC manufacturers. They were using the same strategy in China now. Although it was more extreme, China market is a vast market. When the selling price is increased to be the same as the Western countries, Microsoft’s profits will increase by 50%!

…….

At the same time, as the directors meeting, the ‘irresponsible’ director, Feng Yu was signing the contract with Jeff. This was the official contract of Feng Yu investing in Amazon.

After Feng Yu signed the contract, he will be Amazon’s biggest shareholder. He had also asked Ralph to meet with the rest of the shareholders. All of them had thought of selling their shares for profits.

To Feng Yu, this was not a problem. As long as Jeff and the staffs he trusted were still in Amazon, Amazon will be worth investing.

Feng Yu requested Amazon to keep him out of the limelight for this investment. Amazon can announce his investment to the public, but Feng Yu does not want to appear in front of any cameras. He told Jeff to tell the media that a mysterious tycoon had invested in Amazon. People will be curious to find out more, and this would be an excellent way to gain awareness.

Also, Ralph had told Feng Yu a piece of information. Jeff was selling his bonds and shares to raise funds. He seems to want to buy the company’s shares from other shareholders.

Feng Yu was glad to know about this. Jeff Bezos wants to dump all his assets into Amazon. This way, he will not leave Feng Yu’s side.

After leaving Amazon, Feng Yu received a call from Ballmer.

“Feng, Paul and the rest of the directors were complaining about you not showing up at the office. I think you better speak to Bill.”

Ballmer felt it would be better for Feng Yu to look for Bill Gates to give an explanation, instead of Bill Gates going to him.

“Ok. Thanks for telling me my friend.”

Feng Yu also wanted to speak to Bill Gates. He felt he should get a well-deserved vacation. He needs to go to New York and then return to China. All these will take at least a few months.

If Microsoft needs Feng Yu for anything, they can give him a call or send him an email. There’s no need for him to be in the office every day.

“Hello, Bill? I’m Feng. I am calling you to inform you that I will be taking a long break from work.”

Chapter 785 – You don’t need to make any reservations at this restaurant

Bill Gates answered Feng Yu’s call. He thought Feng Yu was calling him to tell him that he will work hard in Microsoft in the future. But who knows, Feng Yu was calling him to tell him that he will be taking a long break from work!

“Feng, the rest of the people in the company is unhappy with you. It will be hard for me to explain to them.”

“Bill, have I completed what the company wants me to do? Other than me, who else can succeed in completing this task? I had said that I will only be handling the Chinese market and will not interfere with other operations. Why should I attend the Director’s meeting then? Will you all let me interfere with other regions? Did I mentioned in the previous meeting that I will support your decisions?” Feng Yu asked Bill Gates.

Damn. I had given up my rights in other areas and you all should not give me so much work. Furthermore, I had explained to Ballmer about the Chinese market.

Bill Gates frowned. He realized that the authority given to Feng Yu was initially was too small and it was also what Feng Yu wanted. But he was still glad to hear that Feng Yu will support him.

“Fine. Feng, if the company needs you, you must not disappoint us.” With one director interfering in the company’s operations, it will also be good for Bill Gates. He will want to wait for 2 more years for the Chinese market to be stable and he will kick Feng Yu out of the board of directors!

After hanging up, Feng Yu turned to Ralph. “Watch Microsoft closely. If the company have any latest products or technology, let me know immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes, boss. I will monitor them. Do I have to monitor Amazon too?”

“No need. You can let Jeff manage Amazon and you do not need to interfere. You only need to watch the finances closely. Also, get in touch with all the minor shareholders. I want to acquire Amazon’s shares from them. If Jeff had approached them, we will give up.” If Jeff was not grateful to Feng Yu, then Feng Yu would make sure he regret for the rest of his life!

“I understand.”

“Oh, have Boeing reply? Didn’t they say helicopter modifications is fast? It’s been 3 days. Why is there no news yet?” Feng Yu asked unhappily.

Ralph was speechless. It’s helicopter modifications and your demands was also the same as custom building a helicopter. Even if it was modifying a car, 3 days was also too short.

“I will check and ask them to speed up.”

……

“Feng, you are finally here. I have been waiting for you for a long time.” Kirilenko gave Feng Yu a bear hug at New York’s airport. He saw Elena and wondered why Feng Yu brought her along.

Feng had said he wanted to meet my market analysts. Why did he bring her along? Women, to Kirilenko were only playthings. Even if Feng Yu likes that woman, he should just keep her at home. There’s no reason to bring her along.

Kirilenko had only come to the US for a short time, but he had already conquered 3 US movie stars. Although it was expensive, he felt proud to conquer them. It was like having the whole US under him!

“Where are we going now?” Feng Yu asked.

“Let’s eat first. I know a Chinese restaurant selling Beijing roast ducks. You are in the US for quite some time. I’m sure you miss Chinese food. I have asked my men to make a reservation.”

Feng Yu had a weird expression on his face. Was Kirilenko talking about Quanjude in Chinatown?

When they reach the restaurant, it was indeed Quanjude. Feng Yu laughed and shook his head.

“What’s wrong? Feng, you don’t like this restaurant? It is Chinatown in front and there are lots of Chinese restaurants. Let’s go there and see if there’s anything you like.” Kirilenko saw Feng Yu shaking his head and thought he was unhappy with this restaurant.

“Brother Ki, do you still remember that I told you I had invested in a restaurant?”

Kirilenko looked at Quanjude’s signboard and looked at Feng Yu. He asked. “This is the restaurant you invested?”

“Let’s go. In the future, you do not need to make any reservations if you want to dine here. I will pass you a VIP card later.” Feng Yu walked in front with Elena. She had been smiling since she met Feng Yu and had never expect Feng Yu to bring her to New York with him.

“Good evening sir, have you all made any reservations?” The waitress at the door asked in fluent English.

“Is your manager’s name Wang Zhiquan? Tell him Feng Yu is here.” Feng Yu replied in mandarin.

The waitress at the door did not know Feng Yu was one of the bosses of the restaurant. She saw this young man knows her manager by his name and knew he was from China by his accent. She thought he might know her manager personally.

Furthermore, this young man had bodyguards with him and arrived here in a luxury car.

“Mr. Feng, please wait a while. I will inform my floor manager.”

After a while, a plump man came running down the stairs. He extended both his hands towards Feng Yu. “Manager Feng, when did you come? You should have called me and I can receive you.”

When the floor manager informed Wang Zhiquan, he thought nothing about it. Why should he go out and meet a young man? But when he heard the young man’s name was Feng Yu, he jumped up from his seat and ran downstairs.

The rest of the staff in the restaurant does not know about Feng Yu. But all the managers of Quanjude knew Feng Yu was the biggest shareholder!

Manager Feng had come to New York to check on them? Wang Zhiquan had not received any news from the headquarters. His restaurant here was still doing well. Could it be that someone had stabbed him in the back?

“Old Wang, how come I feel you have put on weight again?” Feng Yu laughed. He had met Wang Zhiquan once in Beijing.

“Hahaha, lack of exercise.” Wang Zhiquan laughed.

“I have brought some friends with me to dine here. This is my best friend, Mr. Kirilenko, from Russia. He had tried to make reservations here and he told me that the restaurant is always full.” Feng Yu introduced Kirilenko to Wang Zhiquan.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Kirilenko. If you want to dine here in the future, just drop by. This is our restaurant’s VIP card. If I am not around, just show this card and you don’t need any reservations.” Without Feng Yu saying anything, Wang Zhiquan gave Kirilenko a VIP card.

Kirilenko took the card and passed it to his assistant. Wang Zhiquan had spoke too fast and Kirilenko does not understand at all.

After Kirilenko’s translator explained to him, he laughed. “I did not know Feng is a shareholder of this restaurant. I had made the right choice.”

Wang Zhiquan served the dishes personally. He even explained the various dishes and drank two glasses of alcohol before leaving the private room.

After leaving the room, Wang Zhiquan wiped his sweat off his forehead. The service today should be flawless. Manager Feng should be just passing by and was not here purposely to check on him.

As the restaurant manager of an overseas branch, Wang Zhiquan was getting higher salary than his counterparts back in China. Their salaries were based on the restaurant’s profits, and Americans were wealthy. This was also New York and this branch’s profit was more than triple of Beijing’s branch!

“Brother Ki, where is your company’s office located at?”

Chapter 786 – Don’t ever buy it.

“It’s located at the world’s best commercial building. World Trade Center, Twin Towers. I had only rented one floor, and I am thinking of ways to buy the whole floor.” Kirilenko replied proudly.

The busiest place in New York was Manhattan. Kirilenko’s office must also be located there. World Trade Center, Twin Towers, was also located near to Wall Street.

Feng Yu was shocked. Why did Kirilenko pick this place for his company? He knew that in about 5 years, the Twin Towers will no longer exist.

As a friend, Feng Yu had to persuade Kirilenko to relocate his company. But how does he do it? He can’t tell Kirilenko that the Twin Towers are not safe and will collapse. Kirilenko would think he is crazy.

I got to find another excuse.

“Brother Ki, do you know about our Chinese Fengshui?” Feng Yu asked seriously.

Kirilenko shook his head. “What is that?”

Feng Yu had said Fengshui in Chinese, and the translator standing behind Kirilenko also do know not how to explain Fengshui in Russian.

“It is the invisible forces around us.”

“Oh, Fengshui. I know. I had hired someone to check the Fengshui for my house in Moscow.” Kirilenko replied.

Huh? Russians also know about Fengshui? But Brother Ki said Fengshui in Russian, and it sounded the same as Chinese.

In the early 1980s, Fengshui had spread to Western countries and was common in Russia, which was located just next to China.

Almost every bookshop in Russia have books about Fengshui, and there were even pictures in the books to give detailed explanations.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, there was a weekly Russian TV program about Fengshui. Such programs were not allowed to be aired in China, but the Russians love to watch it.

Currently, there were lots of shops in Russia selling Fengshui items, and those shops were doing better than the shops in China. Fengshui was widely accepted by Russians. This was also because of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Russians went through a tough period, and when they heard that Fengshui could change their life for the better, they became followers of Fengshui.

When Russia’s economy recovered and the standard of living improved for the Russians, they credited all these to Fengshui. If Yeltsin knew about this, he might cry in his sleep. He had done his best to improve his people’s life. But in the end, many people felt it was Fengshui that helped them!

Kirilenko also believes in Fengshui. He even set up a Fengshui association. His Fengshui master was not a Caucasian. He was a Chinese Fengshui Master! Most of Kirilenko’s Chinese was taught by this Master.

Since Kirilenko knows about Fengshui, it would be easier for Feng Yu to explain to him. It’s hard to explain Fengshui to someone else. Even 99% of the Chinese do not know all the terms used in Fengshui.

Feng Yu also do not know. But it did not stop him from using Fengshui to fool Kirilenko. Feng Yu only wanted Kirilenko to avoid tragedy.

“Since you know about Fengshui, then have you ask your Fengshui Master to check the Fengshui at World Trade Center?”

“Of course. The Fengshui master is the best Fengshui Master in Chinatown. I even followed your Chinese culture and paid him in a red packet.” Kirilenko replied proudly.

Hahaha. Feng, you must not have thought that I know about these.

Feng Yu stared at him with opened eyes. Fengshui Masters are also available in the US? Kirilenko must have paid him a significant amount.

“Brother Ki, did that Fengshui Master tell you that the Twin Towers buildings are not auspicious? There will be a disaster.”

“No. He said that Twin Tower can gather the wealth from heavens and earth. I will surely make money if I set up my company there.”

Feng Yu: “……”

Damn. This is New York’s Twin Towers. All the companies in the buildings were all world-class companies. Which one of them did not make money? You believe this bullshit?!

“Brother Ki, how many companies in the World Trade Center do not make money? Also, you can rent a whole floor of office space in the building, which means some companies had let go of their offices. If money could be made so easily in that building, why would those companies vacate their offices? I had come to New York earlier than you. Why do you think I picked Seattle? Because of Microsoft? No. It’s because of Fengshui!” Feng Yu confidently said.

“Ah? You had asked a Master too? Seattle’s Fengshui is better than in New York?” Kirilenko was surprised. New York was supposed to be the US’s financial center. Should I move my company to Seattle?

“Of course. If not, why did Boeing become so successful? Why did Microsoft develop so fast? This Twin tower is not considered bad too. It could accumulate wealth, but it might attract disaster too. It’s fine if you are renting for the short term. However, you will regret if you buy the whole floor!”

“Really? Then I have to tell them to stop buying the offices. We will rent the space. But I still think that buying an office would be more worthwhile.” Kirilenko was easily fooled by Feng Yu because he trusted Feng Yu completely.

“If you really want to buy an office, I think the Empire State Building is a good choice.”

“The Empire State Building is not as grand as the World Trade Center Twin Towers. But I can still consider it. I heard that the building is not expensive too. It cost about 100 million USD. Want to buy the whole building with me?” Kirilenko asked suddenly.

Huh? Brother Ki wants to buy the whole Empire State Building? I was only talking about one floor!

But the Empire State Building was sold to a Japanese a few years ago. What was his name? Hideki Yokoi, a Japanese billionaire.

Feng Yu could not remember how much Hideki Yokoi spent on the building, but 100 million USD for that building was still a good deal. Feng Yu might not be able to make a lot of money from the building, but there will be no losses too. The property prices of New York will rise in the future.

Feng Yu remembered the Empire State Building will be sold to an American at a high price in the future. If he could purchase the building now, he could also make some profits when he sells the building to that American.

The Empire State Building was one of America’s landmark. When the building was sold to a Japanese, many Americans panicked. They thought the was the sign that the Japanese were going to buy up all of the US properties.

But in the end, Japan’s economy collapsed.

“Let’s talk about this another time. If you can persuade the owner, I don’t mind buying that building with you. But you must remember that you can only rent the offices in the World Trade Center and must not purchase them.” Feng Yu reminded him.

“I know. I will introduce you to my team of analysts during dinner. They are all geniuses!” Kirilenko said proudly.

“Sure.  I also want to see how their results in the stock market.”

Chapter 787 – Analytics software

“Want to follow us and see our workplace?” Feng Yu looked at Elena.

Elena shook her head. “I will wait for you at the hotel.” Although Elena was not smart, her mother had taught her not to interfere with men’s work.

Feng Yu called two bodyguards over. “The two of you will accompany her to go shopping. Don’t let anyone disturb her. Do you all understand?”

“Yes, boss.”

“Brother Ki, can I borrow one of your translators?”

Kirilenko picked one of his translators and asked him to follow Elena. He still felt Feng Yu treats Elena too well. But he did not say this to Feng Yu.

After eating, Feng Yu and Kirilenko went to his rented office. Kirilenko had rented the whole floor, and Feng Yu thought he had brought a lot of people over. But when he stepped into the office, he saw all of Kirilenko’s staff occupying one room each. Most of the offices on that floor were empty!

All the staff was occupying big offices, and more than two-thirds of the floor was empty!

Kirilenko explained that he does not like to share a floor with others. He instead leaves most of the space empty than sharing with them. Anyway, Feng Yu does not have an office in New York. He can let Feng Yu use part of his office space.

Feng Yu suspects that Kirilenko was fooled by the Americans to rent the whole floor and was embarrassed to admit it. This was only an excuse.

On the wall of the office was a giant LCD screen. The cost of LCD was ridiculously expensive now. But to Kirilenko, it was peanuts.

All the computers in the office were brand new and in front of every staff were two PCs. Some of the team were typing furiously on their keyboard and seems to be calculating something. Feng Yu thought that he should ask Kirilenko to change all the PCs to Lenovo PC.

Some of the staff stood up when they saw Kirilenko. But the rest were still glued to their monitors.

Feng Yu was satisfied with their performances. As professional brokers, this was what they should be doing. The market might change any seconds, and this was more important than greeting the boss.

If the brokers were able to help their boss make money, it’s okay even when they don’t greet or acknowledge their bosses. When the bosses make money, they will be in a good mood and might give the brokers higher bonuses.

Even if the brokers greeted the bosses every day, when they lose money for their bosses, they will also be in trouble.

“The three of you come over here to these PC. Show Feng our market analysis software works!” Kirilenko said. His tone was very proud.

The three staff sat in front of the PCs and started the analytical software. One of them explained: “Sir, we have discovered that there is pattern in the share price fluctuations during our research. When we look at the points of the share prices at regular intervals, the curve is very similar to rocket trajectory. We saw this pattern in over 1,000 shares from several financial markets, and the similarity is more than 95!”

“This software can calculate the changes in share price and growth. When we were in Moscow, we experiment with it and then we went to London to test it. The accuracy of the share prices and our results is 100%!”

100% accuracy? Unbelievable! Feng Yu does not believe there is any software that can predict the market 100% accurate. If this is true, then what’s the point of having stockbrokers? Everyone can just buy this software and trade through this software.

What is the stock market? The stock market does not have any values by itself. It is for reassigning and transferring of funds. That means money is transferred from one investor to another. The more people buy the shares, the lesser people will sell, and the share prices will rise.

If this software is so accurate, then everyone will buy the same shares at the same time and sell together. What’s there to analyze if this was happening? This would become manipulating the market!

Fluctuations that happens in share prices is because no one is controlling the share prices. If someone or the government-controlled the share prices, then all analysis will be useless. During this time, first-hand information will affect the share prices directly.

Feng Yu always felt that information was the leading cause of influence on share prices. If someone could get first-hand information, he would be able to buy at the lowest point and sell at the highest point. Without information, analytical software like this would not be reliable.

But analysis could still be referred to as a guide. If this software can include the impact of external information, then this would be a powerful software.

“How many shares have you all tested this software on, and what are the types of shares?” Feng Yu asked.

“We have experiments on 23 shares. All the shares are from manufacturing, electronics and telecommunications industry.” Someone answered.

“Only 23 shares, and you all claim that your software has not problems? Do you know how many listed companies are there in this world? Just the NYSE alone, how many listed companies are there? How many component stocks are there in the NYSE? Your sample size is even lesser than component stocks. How can you claim your software is perfect?” Feng Yu said.

“Mr. Feng, we did not claim that our software is perfect. There is no perfect software in this world. Even when we are calculating the trajectory of the rockets, there will also be some errors. We know that Mr. Feng is an expert in financial market, and we hope Mr. Feng would point out what our software lacks. If we can improve the software, then we will be able to help you save some time on analyzing the shares.”

Feng Yu glanced at Kirilenko. Brother Ki was not being honest with him. This software was not fully developed and still needed someone to test it.

“Fine. This is Brother Ki’s software, and I will surely help. We will pick 10 shares randomly, and you all will use your software to predict the short-term increase in the prices.”

“Why can’t the share prices fall?” Kirilenko asked.

“Boss, did you forget? We had calculated and analyzed the market. The US stock market has a large influx of funds now, and almost all shares are rising. But there is still a slight possibility of some shares falling.”

Feng Yu looked at that analyst. He had given an excellent reply to Kirilenko. But Feng Yu wonders if the software’s prediction would be as good as his reply.

Feng Yu took out a shares code list and picked two alphabets. From the alphabets, they found the respective share. He picked out 10 shares.

Feng Yu looked at the companies, and all 10 companies were unknown.

These companies were the best companies to test the accuracy of the software.

Kirilenko had a confident look on his face, but Feng Yu was not confident. He saw the theories of the software, and it was using similarities of graphs coupled with complex calculations to predict the future trends of the shares. Of course. Feng Yu does not understand the calculations and the way the software analyzes the stocks.

Feng Yu’s way was to ask people to gather information about the company and analyze it through his experience. He wants to see if the software was really as good as what Kirilenko claims.

Chapter 788 – Comparison

Feng Yu had to analyze 10 companies’ shares. Although Kirilenko had arranged for many people to help him gather information and materials, there was still too much work. Feng Yu knows nothing about these companies before coming to Kirilenko’s office.

Kirilenko’s staff kept passing information to Feng Yu, one after another. Feng Yu’s eyes were glued to the PC monitor, looking at the share prices. Since Nasdaq started online transactions, NYSE also follows. This year was the year when the whole world started online transactions for their stock markets.

There was still a lack of information about the companies. All Feng Yu had was the past opening and closing prices, today’s opening prices, and total volume of shares traded.

All other indicators were not available, and Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s staff had to calculate additional information manually.

Market trading in this era was much more complicated than the future years. There were not enough resources available, and everything had to be manually calculated. That’s why a team is needed for Feng Yu to forecast future trends.

On the other side of the office, the three staff just have to enter the data into the software and gather more information themselves.

Feng Yu stopped working after the market close. During this period, he did not have a single drop of water and didn’t even take a break. All he did was only staring at the monitor and gave instructions to the staff helping him.

Kirilenko had gone to rest on a sofa since the analysis of the 10 companies started. He was holding on to a cup of tea.

“Feng, how is it? Is your analysis completed?” Kirilenko walked over and asked. He had a proud look on his face. The other 3 analysts had completed their predictions using the software easily.

“If there is no important news these few days, then this is my prediction. This should be the trend of these companies’ shares on the coming Monday.” Feng Yu rubbed his temples. It’s been a while since he was so tired.

Feng Yu could only make a general forecast of the coming trend. He was not confident in predicting whether the share prices would go up or down the next day.

Feng Yu’s forecast was based on the government and companies’ news and the market index. He believed that he would not be wrong.

Feng Yu printed his analysis out and compared it to the analysis by the three staff using the software. These three analysts do not know anything about trading. They had only entered the data into the software and use the software to churn out the result. They had never traded before!

Feng Yu looked at the analysis of the first share. The results were almost exactly the same as his. But Feng Yu had the help of nearly a dozen people to achieve the same results.

The second share was also about the same. The difference between Feng Yu’s analysis and the software was 0.2%. The software might even be more accurate than Feng Yu. It might also be possible that both were wrong. These analyses could only predict the general direction and cannot forecast the exact price.

Feng Yu compared both sets of analysis results carefully and then put them aside. Kirilenko picked up one set, and…… he does not understand. He waved one of his brokers over to explain to him.

“Feng, don’t rush. Take a break and have some tea. This tea is bought from India. I heard England’s Queen drinks this. You want to try some snacks? These snacks are only available to England’s royal family.” Kirilenko said.

To Kirilenko, Feng Yu was a workaholic and does not know how to enjoy life. He had made so much money and donated so much away. Kirilenko does not understand what Feng Yu was thinking.

Feng Yu took the cup of tea and finishes in one gulp. After that, he continues to look at the analysis results.

Kirilenko shook his head and extended his hand. One of his followers quickly passes him a cigar. Actually, Kirilenko also wants to look at the results. He wants to know whether Feng Yu’s prediction was the same as his software.

If Feng Yu approved these analysts, then Kirilenko would be assured. Feng Yu could accurately predict the devaluation of Rubles, oil prices, London Gold, etc. in the past. More importantly, his predictions were the opposite of what others think, and he was right. This shows that Feng Yu was a genius in the financial market.

Kirilenko had brought a large amount of cash with him to New York. But until now, he had only asked his men to analyze the market and did not make any significant investment. He did not even buy any tech-stocks.

Kirilenko only wants to know if his analytical software would work in the US stock market. Feng Yu had said before. The current US stock market is the most prosperous in the world. If Kirilenko wants to play with stocks, US is the best place. All of Kirilenko’s brokers also told him the same thing.

Lennon was a famous stockbroker in New York. He was hired by a big boss from Russia. But after he joined, he was not given a chance to handle large amounts of funds.

Today, Lennon saw his boss entering the office with a young man. That young man had instructed a lot of people to gather information and data for him to analyze.

Lennon was not happy. That young man knows about financial trading? Has he graduated from university? He acted like he was a big shot. Most likely, he should have not traded before.

What was that Russian boss thinking? He does not trust my judgment because I did not graduate from University? That young man is only pretending to analyze the market.

Lennon had tried the software before. It was able to give entirely accurate predictions and could compare to an experienced stockbroker.

But now, this young man was trying to compare the results of that software and his own predictions. He was just trying to embarrass himself!

Lennon took a copy of Feng Yu’s analysis and compared it to his own analysis and the results from the software. He was stunned.

Impossible!

How can the results be the same?!

Although Lennon believed he could also achieve this analysis with so many people helping him, how did this young man do it? Lennon was in his forties and had entered the industry for about 20 years. That young man was only in his early twenties. How did he do it?

Lennon did not believe and continued to look at the second company’s analysis. Feng Yu and the software were also about the same.

Feng Yu finished the last comparison. He was excited. This software was very accurate. It was much more accurate than all the market analysis software he used in his previous life. Most importantly, the results were about the same as his analysis. This software can be a reference.

With this software, Feng Yu and two other staff could beat a team of analysts!

Feng Yu put down the last set of data and noticed someone staring at him. He got a shock. Who the f**k is this man? Why does he look like he is going to snatch my data?

Chapter 789 – You still need to hire people

When Feng Yu was still in shock, the analysis results in his hands were snatched away by a man with a full beard.

Feng Yu was about to flare up, and Kirilenko stood up. “Feng, this is the most famous stockbroker in Wall Street I hired. His name is Lennon. His analysis is about the same as our software. I am thinking of letting him handle all my market investments here. Help me see if he is qualified enough.”

Kirilenko was speaking in Russian and was not worried about letting Lennon hear this. Feng Yu nodded and looked at Lennon. Lennon’s eyes were glued to the data and did not care what was happening around him.

Feng Yu felt he was professional and forgave him for scaring him earlier.

“Hey, did you get all these results by yourself? You have researched these companies’ shares before?” Lennon’s eyes had turned red as he looked at Feng Yu. He wanted to hear from Feng Yu.

“If I am not the one who got these results, then where did these results come from? I did not even know the names of these companies before I come. This was the first time I heard of these companies.” Feng Yu replied with a smile.

“How did you do it in such a short time? You can get such detailed analysis with only a small team like this?” Lennon exclaimed.

Feng Yu could not tell him that many of the methods and techniques he used were from the future years and were not invented now. These were all Feng Yu’s secret weapons.

Feng Yu asked him back. “You are the stockbroker hired by Kirilenko? That means you should be quite well-known on Wall Street. What do you think of my analysis? Is there anything wrong with the results?”

Lennon couldn’t point out Feng Yu’s mistakes in such short time. He looked at Feng Yu embarrassedly. “Who is your teacher?”

Lennon was sure that this young man’s teacher should be someone famous and is an expert in either financial or mathematics.

“I learned all these by myself. Did you try to analyze these stocks just now? How many analyses have you completed?”

“Only 4.”

Lennon felt even more embarrassed when Feng Yu asked him this question. He had also tried to analyze these shares, but most of the staff were helping Feng Yu, and he only has a few helpers. After the whole afternoon, he could only complete the analysis of 4 shares, and the results were the same as Feng Yu.

Although Feng Yu had many people helping him, Lennon knew that he was not able to analyze all 10 shares with the same amount of people in one afternoon. In fact, his results might even be inaccurate due to some many people interfering with his analysis!

Feng Yu looked at the people in the office. He noticed that Lennon did not have many helpers helping him. Although the companies’ information gathered was the same, but Lennon did not have more advanced techniques and software to help him. To be able to analyze 4 shares accurately was already a great result.

Lennon’s standard was on par with Wind and Rain Consulting’s He Zhaoji. But He Zhaoji was more specialized in commodities. In terms of analyzing shares, He Zhaoji was not as good as this big mustache guy.

Feng Yu walked over to Kirilenko and sat on the sofa. The staff immediately serve him warm tea, and Feng Yu finishes it in one gulp. After that, he nodded to Kirilenko.

Kirilenko knew what Feng Yu meant. This stockbroker he hired was excellent and his analysis could be trusted.

“What do you think about the analytical software? Is it accurate?” Kirilenko asked. This was what he was most concerned about. He had paid those data analysts high salaries and still needed them to make money for him.

Feng Yu nodded. “It is more accurate than I expected.”

Kirilenko was overjoyed: “Then I will be able to use this software to make money. What’s the point of me hiring stockbrokers? I can become the god of trading. I heard there is a well-known expert in shares trading in the US. Warren Buffett? I, Kirilenko, will replace him in the future!”

Feng Yu laughed and shook his head. You really think you can take over the financial market with just analytical software? If it’s so simple, why is there a need for stockbrokers?

“Warren Buffett is well respected is because all his investments over the years generated more than 20% annually on average. He also has a large team of market analysts and was well versed in government policies. You have also seen what happened just now. I am also able to get the same results as your software. You can use this software, but you must not rely on it too much.”

“Why? Didn’t you say this software is quite accurate? Your analysis is also about the same as the software. That means I will know when the shares will rise or drop.” Kirilenko was irritated as Feng Yu had said something conflicting.

“Brother Ki, the analysis from the software can only act as a reference. Information is changing everyday, and the data needs to be updated every now and then. You also do not understand these data even if it is presented to you. That’s why you need stockbrokers to help you. Also, I have many ways to manipulate these penny stocks unnoticed.”

“Ah? The results can only be a reference? That means it is useless!” Kirilenko was furious. He had spent a lot of money to develop this software, and the results can only be a reference?

Feng Yu shook his head: “This software can reduce the manpower required and increase their efficiency. I used a long time even when I have so many people helping me just now, and the results are the same as the software. The software is much faster than me. The stock market changes very fast, and there’s the possibility that before I could complete my analysis, the data had changed. That’s why your software is still critical.”

Kirilenko brightens up. “You are saying that my money is well spent?”

Feng Yu showed him a thumbs up. “Of course! This software can still be improved. If it can receive real-time information and become a fully functional analytical software covering all aspects, you will be able to make tons of money when you sell it.”

“Sell the software? That means others will be able to use it. We will lose our advantage.” Kirilenko was unwilling to sell this software.

“I do not know how much you spent on developing this software. But if you sell it at 10,000 USD per copy, you would get at least 100 million USD returns. How confident are you to earn 100 million USD from trading using this software? I had also mentioned that it all depends on the person using this software. Without a good stockbroker, this software is also useless.”

Kirilenko nodded. He looked up and saw Feng Yu looking at him weirdly.

“I have already hired a stockbroker.”

“One stockbroker is insufficient. You need a team of them, and they have to work together to find the best strategy. One of them will make the final approval. Not all stockbrokers are like me who can make an accurate analysis.” Feng Yu patted Kirilenko’s shoulders with a proud look.

Kirilenko: “……” You still think I am not able to make money with this software!

Chapter 790 – Empire State Building

Over the next week, Feng Yu had tested the software several times, and the developers made some minor modifications to match Feng Yu’s results.

The final results showed that this software was excellent. But without an experienced stockbroker operating the software, there will be a significant difference. Those mathematicians and software engineers do not know how to tell the difference between good news and bad news that could affect the companies’ shares.

Feng Yu also want to hire some stockbrokers. But he needs to interview them personally first. His investment focus next year will be in NYSE, and he does not have time to watch the market himself. If he could not find anyone suitable, he had to transfer people from Wind and Rain Consulting over.

Kirilenko listened to Feng Yu’s suggestions and decided to hire a few more stockbrokers. But the people he hired were based on their reputations.

Kirilenko had come to the US to invest because he wants to tell the Americans: “Look, a Russian has come to your country to earn your money.” He will not keep a low profile and wanted to make sure everyone knows about him.

Kirilenko’s office must be located in the most prominent location, and he must rent the whole floor. Although he does not need such a big place, he still insists on doing this.

Kirilenko had been to Feng Yu’s companies in China. He likes Feng Yu’s relaxing and open renovation style. But the World Trade Center does not allow such renovations. That’s why he was looking forward to buying the Empire State Building.

The Empire State Building is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. It was once the pride of the US. It was an iconic landmark in US history and was the tallest building in the world for over 40 years.

The Empire State Building’s name was derived from the nickname of New York, Empire State.

The initial design of the building was not that tall. But the owner, John J. Raskob, at that time, was not satisfied. He wanted to construct the world’s tallest building and do not want his building to be overtaken. The designs changed multiple times, and the building became 381 meters tall in the end.

What was interesting was in 1951, the architect erected a 68m radio antenna on the top of the building to secure its place as the tallest building in the world.

The construction of this build had started in early 1930 and completed in May 1931. This was also the Great Depression. The initial 10 years after the building was completed, most of the offices were empty. Some media even gave the building a nickname, Empty State Building!

This building showed that the Americans were more irrational than the Chinese when it comes to ‘face.’

When the Chinese government officials knew about this building, they also want to compete to have taller buildings. ‘Giant building’ in China was a good example. The government had interfered in the constructions and demanded the building be built as the tallest building in China. The architect had to change the designs of the building several times to please the government officials. But in the end, the building was not completed.

More funds were needed to build a taller skyscraper. The local government had promised to help Shi Dazhu get loans. However, Shi Dazhu encountered cash flow issues, and the local government stopped giving him loans. The local authorities had made empty promises……

The Empire State Building had almost bankrupted the owner during the first decade because of the taxes. The owner kept lowering the building’s value. The cost of construction was reduced from 40 million to 28 million USD. Also, the maintenance of the building was a significant sum.

In the 1980s, US and Japan’s property markets were doing well. But at the end of 1980s, the US property market crashed, and Japan was made to help the US share the losses.

This was also the time when the owners of the Empire State Building decided to sell it. In 1991, Japan’s property magnate, Hideki Yokoi, bought the building.

Hideki Yokoi owned the most luxurious hotel in Japan and have many properties in Europe. He made lots of investments in the US and had built Asia’s biggest bowling center with 240 lanes.

In the early 80s, Hideki Yokoi’s luxurious hotel caught fire, and 33 people died in that accident. There were rumors that Hideki Yokoi had asked people to help him cover up the number of victims. The real figure was much more than 33 people.

This was also Hideki Yokoi’s first appearance in courts. But he managed to escape punishment because of his lawyers. It was until 1993 when he was charged in courts and was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment. But he served his sentence in the hospital. He was already 79 years old at that time.

During the late 80s, Japan’s economy was at its peak. Many Japanese felt that in another 10 years, Japan’s economy would be equivalent to the total of the US, Soviet Union, UK, etc.

But Japan’s economy collapsed suddenly. Many people felt Hideki Yokoi was sentenced to jail in 1993, was because he could not afford his lawyer fees. At that time, Japan’s property market had collapsed, and the insurance companies and banks, who had loan Hideki Yokoi money, start to chase him for payments. His total debt was over 2 billion USD, and the value of his shares and properties was less than 1 billion USD!

Hideki Yokoi had become wealthy through investing in properties. He likes to get loans from banks and financial institutions for his businesses. This was fine when Japan’s economy was doing well, and the property prices were rising every day. The banks were not worried that he was unable to repay them. But when Hideki Yokoi really cannot service his loans, it was too late for the banks and insurance companies.

Hideki Yokoi had bought the Empire State Building at 42 million USD. At that time, the Japanese media praised him to the skies and claimed that this was the start of Japan to buy out the whole America.

But Hideki Yokoi was only in the limelight for a short while, and the property bubble burst and the stock market collapsed. After that, he was also imprisoned.

At this time, Hideki Yokoi was still serving his sentence in the hospital. All his properties were handled over to his daughter, Kiiko Nakahara, to manage for him. But Kiiko Nakahara and her husband used overseas companies to conduct a series of complicated transactions for Hideki Yokoi’s assets. In the end, the Empire State Building was owned by a trust company, and if Hideki Yokoi dies, Kiiko Nakahara was the sole beneficiary of the building!

The Empire State Building was not the only property. More than a dozen properties in the US, UK, France, etc. became the joint-assets of Kiiko Nakahara and Hideki Yokoi. Kiiko Nakahara became sole beneficiary for all the assets, instead of Hideki Yokoi’s sons!

Hideki Yokoi’s two other sons were furious. They started to search for evidence to prove what Kiiko Nakahara did were illegal.

But at this time, Kirilenko’s men found Hideki Yokoi’s son, Kunihiko Yokoi, and the first words that were said to him were: “Our boss wants to buy the Empire State Building!”

Seven Wonders of the Modern

John J. Raskob

Great Depression

Chapter 791 – Change it to China State Building

Hideki Yokoi and his two sons needed money urgently. The banks and insurance companies were forcing them to sell off their properties to pay off their debts. Without money, Hideki Yokoi could not even pay the interests, and the banks might seize all of their assets.

Kunihiko Yokoi and his younger brother had been looking for evidence against Kiiko Nakahara. They wanted to regain control over the Empire State Building. This building was bought by their father. But currently, it does not belong to them.

Kunihiko Yokoi and his younger brother had to face Kiiko Nakahara and a New York property tycoon, Donald Trump.

After the US property market crashed, Trump’s assets had shrunk by two-thirds. But he got a series of loans to keep his company operating. The annual interest for his loans was more than 200 million USD!

At that time, Trump threatens those bankers. If you all make me bankrupt, you all will get nothing. The banks had no choice but to give in and let him pay the interest later.

How did Trump recover from this setback? One reason was he published his books and the recovery of the property market. Another reason was the management rights of the Empire State Building. His contract with Kiiko Nakahara states that if he can get rid of the two most prominent long-term tenants, he will have the full management rights of the building. His 50% shares of the building will increase in value!

The Empire State Building had management issues for years, and the building lack maintenance. Many tenants were unhappy with the management. In fact, many of the tenants in the World Trade Center were formerly from the Empire State Building. This cause the value of the Empire State Building to fall.

Hideki Yokoi and his sons desperately needed money now. That’s why Kirilenko’s men went straight to look for Hideki Yokoi’s son, Kunihiko Yokoi.

Kunihiko Yokoi was overjoyed when he heard that someone approaching him to buy the Empire State Building. But he was also troubled as he needed to regain control over the building before, he can sell it.

……

“Feng, it is hard for us to buy the Empire State Building. The management rights of that building are a mess. This building was bought by Hideki Yokoi, but now, Trump and a French trust company have the ownership rights of it. Those Japanese had nothing to do with the building suddenly.” Kirilenko had a headache. Why was it so difficult to buy the Empire State Building?

Feng Yu did not expect Kirilenko to take him seriously. He only wanted Kirilenko to move out of the World Trade Center. Buying the Empire State Building was only a random suggestion.

“Brother Ki, have you been to the Empire State Building? I heard it is old and run down. Wires are hanging from the ceiling and the windows can’t close properly. During thunderstorms, the building will leak, and it is infested with rats. We need to invest a lot in the renovation if we bought this building!” Feng Yu said.

“So what? This is America’s iconic building, and I want to own it! My people had evaluated the building, and if we renovate the building, the rental will increase. We will not make any losses.” Kirilenko replied stubbornly.

The Americans had made a lot of money from Russia. They had acquired lots of Russian factories and brands. Kirilenko wanted revenge and let the whole world know that Russia also has tycoons! Of course, he had to make sure this investment will not make any losses.

Feng Yu thought for a while: “There is only one solution. We must let all parties give in and agree to sell the building. We must prove that Hideki Yokoi is the rightful owner of the building first.”

Hideki Yokoi was in debt. If Feng Yu and Kirilenko made a good offer for the building, he would surely sell. He had no other choices. Even if he refuses, the banks and insurance companies will force him to sell.

Almost all of Hideki Yokoi’s assets in Japan were taken over by the banks, and he still owes the banks lots of money. Those banks were monitoring Hideki Yokoi’s overseas assets closely.

Feng Yu suspects that the ownership of the Empire State Building was transferred to prevent the banks from repossessing it. Hideki Yokoi should be thinking of transferring this building to his sons. But Kunihiko Yokoi interfered and took over the ownership through underhand means.

Hideki Yokoi’s anger was only a pretense. He can’t be telling others that he was offloading his assets to avoid the banks from possessing it.

After Hideki Yokoi was released from jail, he can apply for bankruptcy. He was already in his 80s when he was released, and it doesn’t make a difference. The Japanese have strong family values. All Japanese tycoons wanted to leave something for their children.

Even when Hideki Yokoi’s business had failed, he still wants to leave an inheritance for his children. This was also for him to stage a comeback. Also, Kiiko Nakahara was his daughter from one of his mistresses.

That’s why Hideki Yokoi must step forward and take back the ownership of the building. This would be the best deal for him. It will not be worthwhile if he let someone manage the building, and he just gets a cut from the rental.

There was also a possibility that Kiiko Nakahara was trying to take over his assets. But no matter what the reason was, Hideki Yokoi was the only person who can solve this problem.

“Hideki Yokoi is still in jail. My men had gotten in touch with his elder son, Kunihiko Yokoi. He is the legal successor of his assets.” Kirilenko said.

Kirilenko also wishes he could speak with Hideki Yokoi.

“I think we can only speak to Hideki Yokoi and see if he wants to leave an inheritance for his family. It’s all up to him. If he is smart, he should know what to do. Brother Ki, leave this to me. I will get someone to speak to him. We will buy this building!”

Jianlibao’s branch office in the US had bought a floor of offices in the Empire State Building in the past. But it was changed to rental later. Just two years ago, Jianlibao bought 26 stories of a building in Fifth Avenue.

Jianlibao had successfully penetrated the US market. During the presidential elections two years ago, they sponsored their drinks to the wives of the candidates, and it appeared in a picture of <New York Times>.

These few years were Jianlibao’s best years in the US. They took advantage of the war between Coca-cola and Pepsi to secure market share. But because of their troubles back in China in the later years, they had to withdraw from the US market.

Feng Yu decided to remove all tenants in the Empire State Building after he bought it. He will pick the new tenants and will make this building as the gathering point of Chinese companies. He will ask Jianlibao to return to this building. He might even be able to make some business deals with Jianlibao. He will also let Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, etc. to set up branch offices in the US. He wants to rename the Empire State Building to the China State Building!

Chapter 792 – Donald’s decision

Donald Trump was Kiiko Nakahara’s partner in the Empire State Building. He finally got the chance to own the building.

Donald really likes the Empire State Building. It was his dream to own this building. He set up a management company, especially for this building, and bought 50% shares of the building from Kiiko Nakahara. Kiiko Nakahara wanted him to kick the two long-term tenants out, and he was thinking of ways to make some profits from it.

“Boss, a man is looking for you. He says he is Feng Yu, a Director of Microsoft.” The secretary reported.

Why is a Microsoft Director looking for me? But Donald did not reject Feng Yu and asked his secretary to let him in.

A young man entered his office, and Donald walked past him. He did not see anyone else. This young man is Microsoft’s Director? When did Microsoft have such a young director?

“Donald, nice to meet you. I am Feng Yu from China. I have some shares in Microsoft and is one of the directors.” Feng Yu waved to Donald but did not offer a handshake.

Feng Yu had heard that Donald does not like to shake hands with strangers. This property tycoon was one of the presidential candidates in the 2000 elections. But he withdrew because he does not want to shake hands with strangers!

This was why Feng Yu did not shake his hand. He does not want to make Donald dislike him.

“Nice to meet you, Feng. I heard Chinese likes to drink tea. I only have English tea here. Is it fine with you?” Donald felt more at ease when Feng Yu did not extend his hand for a handshake.

“I’m fine with anything.”

“Ah, I know. You are from China, and you should like Jianlibao, right? I also love this drink. It keeps me energetic.” Donald asked his secretary to bring two bottles of Jianlibao in.

Feng Yu was surprised. Jianlibao was more successful than he expected in the US. Even Donald knows about this brand.

But Jianlibao’s success had covered up many of their problems. This was a popular Chinese brand, and Feng Yu could not acquire it. He decided to see if there is any way to cooperate with them after he bought the Empire State Building.

After taking a sip of Jianlibao, Donald asked. “Feng, is there anything you need from me?”

Donald was curious about Feng Yu’s visit. He was a successful property tycoon in the past, and he was at his rock-bottom now. Was Feng Yu here to sell Microsoft products? Did Microsoft develop some property management software?

“Donald, I heard that you are managing the Empire State Building now?” Feng Yu smiled.

Kiiko Nakahara had handed over the management rights of the Empire State Building to Donald was because she needed him to help her drive the two long-term property companies out of the building. This way, she will have full control of the building.

Donald narrowed his eyes and looked at Feng Yu: “Feng, Microsoft want to rent office space in the Empire State Building?”

Microsoft’s headquarters had been in Washington. They are moving over to New York? Why are they doing that? They do not need to be near the financial center as it is not beneficial to their business.

“It’s not Microsoft. It’s me. I want to buy the Empire State Building!”

What? He wants to buy the Empire State Building?!

Donald stared at Feng Yu in his eyes, and he realized that Feng Yu was serious.

“Mr. Feng, I think you have mistaken. I do not own the Empire State Building. It belongs to a Japanese, Mr. Hideki Yokoi.” Donald replied calmly.

Feng Yu laughed. “Mr. Donald, since I have come here to look for you, that means I know this building does not belong to Hideki Yokoi. I know you like this building too. But to be honest, don’t you think this building is too old? It is also overpriced. Why don’t you set your sights on other buildings?”

Donald asked Feng Yu back. “Then why do you want to buy the Empire State Building? The Twin Towers is much better.”

You are a Microsoft Director, and you are rich, right? Why don’t you buy something more expensive?

“Because I don’t like the design of the Twin Towers. I think the Empire State Building looks better.”

Donald was speechless. This reason…… was cool!

Donald was someone with character. He knows many businessmen will do the business they like according to their personality. If they do not like something, they will not invest in it even if it will generate high returns. For example, Warren Buffett knows that Microsoft and tech companies will be profitable. But he did not invest in it.

“It’s a pity. I also like this building. Since you already know that I had bought 50% shares of this building, then you should know that I will not sell it.” Donald replied.

Feng Yu shook his head. “To sell or not to sell, depends on the price. The property market now is in bad shape. Property prices have not recovered. You can use the money from selling your share to buy other properties in Manhattan. Like the building on 40 Wall Street. I think that building is quite suitable to be renamed as The Trump Building.”

Feng Yu knows that Donald is currently negotiating on his purchase of that building. He will purchase it and rename it as The Trump Building in the future.

Donald Trump was someone who likes to show off. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Donald Trump made a comeback after 2000. Most of his properties were named after his name. He also ventured into the entertainment industry and bought the rights of some beauty pageants.

Donald had already written two bestseller books and loves to appear on TV.

Feng Yu suspects that he joined the presidential race was for exposure.

Donald was surprised. Although it was not a secret that he wants to buy that building, but it was unusual for Feng Yu to know about this. Feng Yu even mentioned about renaming the building. He did not tell many people about this. Who was the one that leaks this to Feng Yu?

“Donald, your funds should be tight, right? You are still paying the banks’ interests. Any wrong move, you will be bankrupt. But today is your lucky day. I can help you.” Feng Yu smiled.

“How can you help me?” Donald asked with a frowned.

“Sell your shares of the Empire State Building to me, and I will give you the managing rights to you. Also, I can lend you a sum of money. You are still in debt, and you can’t get more loans from the banks.” Feng Yu said.

Donald kept quiet. He knows that the US economy is rising. He could tell from the stock market. Property prices will recover soon. This is the best opportunity to enter the property market.

But he does not have any money!

If Donald sells his shares, he would have enough funds to invest in other properties and make a comeback. On the other hand, owning the Empire State Building was his dream. This was a tough decision.

Chapter 793 – Kameda Masao

Feng Yu was in no hurry. He sipped on his tea slowly and waited for Donald to make his decision. If Feng Yu showed that he was anxious, he would have to offer a higher price.

Donald was a brilliant businessman, and Feng Yu also wanted to learn from him. Even if they can’t be friends now, they might still have the chance to cooperate in the future.

Feng Yu had no experience in managing properties. After he bought the Empire State Building, he must hire someone to manage it too. It’s not a bad idea to let Donald manage the building for him as he is in the property business for many years.

“How much are you offering? I only have 50% shares. How are you going to buy the other 50%?” Donald asked.

Feng Yu laughed. “That is my problem. The management rights will be given to you only. It will be like you own the building too.”

Donald shook his head. “You don’t understand. Most of the Empire State Building is rented out to 2 property companies. They set up a management company to manage the Empire State Building. It will not be easy to get back the management rights from them.”

“I know you have ways to kick them out, right? This way, the value of your shares will rise. Also, after buying the building, I will renovate both the interior and exterior. It will be easier to manage than before. You will be making a lot of money.” Feng Yu laughed.

If the Empire State Building is bind by long-term leases to two companies, it would be useless for Feng Yu to buy it. Feng Yu would not be able to make any money from the building and can’t rename it to China State Building. Feng Yu intends to let Donald manage the day-to-day operations of the building, but Kirilenko and he will have the overall control of the building.

Although this would increase the purchasing price of the Empire State Building, they can make more money in the long-term. The recovery of the US property market will happen in another 1 to 2 years. This investment will not make any losses.

“If it is this problem, I can help you. You mentioned that you will lend me a sum of money?” Donald looked at Feng Yu seriously.

“That’s right. I can also tell you something about me. I am the third-biggest shareholder of Microsoft after Bill and Paul. You can go and find out.”

Feng Yu used his status as Microsoft’s shareholder to persuade Donald.

Donald was shocked. Feng Yu was Microsoft’s third shareholder? That means his net worth is more than 2 billion USD?

This Feng Yu should have no problem buying the Empire State Building.

“How much can you lend me?” Donald was very excited, but his tone was still calm.

“How much do you need?” Feng Yu asked him back.

Donald’s eyes grew wide. Does that mean Feng Yu would lend me as much as I want?

“50 million USD!” Donald said a significant amount. The market price of the Empire State Building was slightly more than 50 million USD. Of course, if those two tenants are not around, the value will be doubled after renovation. Donald was confident that he would increase the value of the Empire State Building to over 100 million after a year.

Feng Yu looked at Donald and saw him frowned. He smiled and replied. “Sure.”

“Really? That’s great!” Donald thought Feng Yu would reject him. He did not expect Feng Yu to agree immediately.

“But this is a big amount. If I charge you the current bank interest, it will be very high. I will offer you an alternative. I will lend you this 50 million USD for 5 years. During these 5 years, your company will help me manage the Empire State Building as interest for the amount I lend you. Do you agree?”

5 years is enough for Feng Yu to train someone in property management. Even if it is a fresh graduate, he will have enough experience.

Donald would be managing the Empire State Building, but in reality, it would be harder for him to own it in the future.

Donald looked at Feng Yu for a while. “I want to keep 5% of the shares of the building.” He does not want to give up on the building. This was his dream. But Feng Yu was willing to lend him 50 million, and he does not need to sell off all his shares in the building to raise funds.

“No problem. But you need to pay your share for the renovation of the building.” You want to keep some of the shares, then you have to pay the price. Feng Yu does not mind letting him own 5%. Anyway, it’s only 5%, and Feng Yu could buy back those shares by force in the future.

“Ok. That’s settled then. I will make sure the two troublemakers move out within 3 months. But I hope we can sign a confidential agreement.”

“That’s what I wanted too. I will buy your shares and transfer the 50 million USD into your account 3 months later.

……

Kameda Masao was at a prison in Tokyo today. He was not there to visit any friend. He was there to pass a message from Feng Yu to someone in the Prison’s hospital.

Hideki Yokoi was in the hospital’s bed. Although he was serving his sentence, he does not need to live in the cell with others. But his movements were confined to the compound of this hospital. He still got to serve slightly more than 1 year in prison.

“Hideki Yokoi, someone is here to see you.” A warden entered Hideki Yokoi’s ward.

Hideki Yokoi frowned. He thought it was his family member visiting him, and there were problems with his company.

Hideki Yokoi nodded, and Kameda Masao entered with the warden. Hideki Yokoi was well-taken care of in prison as his family had used their connections. He had never thought of escaping. Even if he wants to escape, he was too old. That’s why he had more freedom.

Hideki Yokoi frowned as he looked at the man who entered. He had never met him before. Was he new stuff hired by his son? Bastard! The company is on the verge of closing, and we owe so much money. He should be retrenching staff and not hiring new staff!

“Mr. Hideki Yokoi. My name is Kameda Masao.  I am representing Mr. Feng Yu to offer you a business deal.”

Hideki Yokoi was puzzled. Who is Kameda Masao and Feng Yu? Also, what business deal is he talking about? Who would want to do business with him in his current state?

“Mr. Hideki Yokoi, it will be beneficial to your family if you do business with us. Your body will not last any longer. If you pass away before your plan succeeds, then your family will have no chance to return to its former glory. Your two sons will definitely have no chance.” Kameda Masao said casually.

Hideki Yokoi’s eyes brighten up. What does this man mean? Does he know something?

“I would like to speak with this gentleman in private.” Hideki Yokoi said.

The warden thought for a while and went out. Hideki Yokoi is a tycoon, and even he is hospitalized in the prison hospital, he had special privileges.

“Mr. Kameda, what do you mean?”

Chapter 794 – For your sons

“Mr. Yokoi, you are once Japan’s greatest property magnate and have the best properties all over the world. Your family was once in the limelight too. But a few years ago, Japan’s economy collapsed. The stock and property market is greatly affected, and prices plunged. The prices dropped more than 100%. The wealthier you are, the more losses you incurred.” Kameda Masao said with a smile.

Hideki Yokoi had once stood on the top of the pyramid and was out of reach from Kameda Masao. But now, he was an old man lying in the hospital bed. Although he was not bankrupted, his family’s assets had shrunk. On the other hand, Kameda Masao had become a multi-millionaire and is the leader of his industry.

“Are you here to mock me?!” Hideki Yokoi asked.

“No. To be honest, I look up to you. You can own properties all over the world, and I must learn from you. But currently, all your assets in Japan are seized by the bank, and all the profits from your company are taken away by your creditors. Yokoi family might not have collapsed, but your sons do not have the chance to be the head of the family.”

This was the fate of a family where only one person is supporting the rest of the family. To make the family powerful, Hideki Yokoi roped in all his relatives. But in the end, the control over the family might fall into someone else hands.

“Since you know my family is not doing well, why do you still want to do business with me? Even if I can profit from it, the banks will still take it away. What can I leave for my sons?”

“Kiiko Nakahara is your daughter? It’s a pity that she does not follow your surname, Yokoi. You had handed over all your overseas assets to her, but have you considered your sons’ feelings? I think you also want to leave some assets for your sons for them to make a comeback. But what if Kiiko Nakahara does not want to return the money to your sons?”

Hideki Yokoi’s skinny hands were clenching the white bedsheets tightly. This was his greatest worry. But he is not dead yet. No one can take his money away from him!

“That means you have a way to help me leave my assets for my sons?”

“Of course. Based on your mortgage agreement with the banks, your properties, companies, and personal assets are seized by the banks. The banks will find out that some of your assets have been transferred away illegally soon. I have ways to leave a sum of money to your two sons legally. But I need to you persuade Kiiko Nakahara to sell the Empire State Building to us and stop all illegal transferring of assets.” Kameda Masao said.

“Oh? How are you going to do that?”

“The person asked me to speak to you, is my partner. We have a company called Sixth Sense. Currently, the company is listed on Nasdaq, and the market value of our company yesterday is more than 2 billion USD!”

Kameda Masao also did not expect Sixth Sense’s shares to rise so much. The growth is even more than those internet and tech shares. He finally understands why Feng Yu said they had made losses from the listing. If they had issued lesser shares during the launch and issue the shares in batches, the company would have raised more funds.

Hideki Yokoi was surprised. He had never heard of Sixth Sense company before. The market value of this company is more than 2 billion USD?!

“Mr. Feng said he can let the company hire both your sons as one of the top management staff. One of them will oversee the Europe market, and the other will oversee the US market. Since they are one of the top management, we will reward them with some shares. The value of shares is enough for your sons to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. They might not reach the same level as you during your peak, but it is not a problem for them to be a small tycoon.”

Kameda Masao said these words proudly. He felt he was doing some charity to the former number one property magnate. This was a great feeling!

Hideki Yokoi closed his eyes and did not say a word. Kameda Masao waited patiently on the chair. He knew that Hideki Yokoi still cares for his sons and grandsons. He will accept this condition.

After a while, Hideki Yokoi opened his eyes. “How many shares can you all give my sons? I want to know the exact figure.”

“Each of them will receive 10 million USD worth of shares!” Kameda Masao showed one finger. “We will also buy the Empire State Building shares based on the market value.”

Kameda Masao was telling Hideki Yokoi that other than buying your shares of the Empire State Building, we will be giving you additional benefits.

“If I am can let Mr. Feng spend less money to buy the Empire State Building, can he give my sons more shares?”

Kiiko Nakahara and her husband had made us of many loopholes to transfer Hideki Yokoi’s properties to their names. But Hideki Yokoi did not take protective measures against them? Although Kiiko Nakahara was his daughter, she does not share his surname. He also dislikes his son-in-law. How was it possible that he did not guard against them?

Kameda Masao did not expect Hideki Yokoi to ask him this question. Giving the Sixth Sense shares to Hideki Yokoi’s sons was suggested by him. When Feng Yu called him the day before, Feng Yu had planned to provide Hideki Yokoi’s sons a sum of money through a Swiss bank account.

But Kameda Masao rejected this as he felt it will not be safe. It would be better to recruit Hideki Yokoi’s sons into the Sixth Sense Company. Hideki Yokoi’s sons had management experiences and connections. This would be more attractive than giving them a sum of money. They could also make use of the Yokoi family to help the Sixth Sense company.

Of course, Kameda Masao did not tell Feng Yu about another benefit. In the future, if his family wants to enter politics, he would be able to make use of Yokoi’s people in the government.

Feng Yu agreed to Kameda Masao’s suggestion and praised him. If Kameda Masao were able to help Feng Yu save more money when purchasing the Empire State Building, Feng Yu would reward him.

“Mr. Yokoi, if you can do it, Mr. Feng will surely agree. You should also ask around about the Sixth Sense Company in the meantime. This is my name card. I will be waiting for your call.”

After leaving the prison, Kameda Masao called Feng Yu immediately. Feng Yu was overjoyed. He promised Kameda Masao that if he successfully acquires the Empire State Building, he will rename the Sixth Sense Japan headquarters’ building to Kameda Building!

Kameda Masao was ecstatic. Naming a building with his family’s surname was a great honor. He will be doing his ancestors proud!

Kameda Masao had hinted to Feng Yu that he wanted to rename the building’s name in the past. Feng Yu also know what he was thinking about. But Feng Yu does not want to give in to him easily. He tried to use the naming of the building as a reward for Kameda Masao, and this is an excellent opportunity. After all, this building belongs to the Sixth Sense Company, and Feng Yu can change the name of the building anytime he wants.

Chapter 795 – Wolf of Wall Street

“Feng, do you know a very famous stockbroking company had come to me seeking for cooperation?” Kirilenko told Feng Yu excitedly.

“Which company is that?” Feng Yu had heard of most financial institutions and companies. He was also curious about this company that approached Kirilenko.

“Stratton Oakmont. Their boss had appeared on <Forbes> magazine.” Kirilenko replied proudly. Did you see it? This American knows I got money, and purposely want to work with me.

Stratton Oakmont? Feng Yu was confused. He had not heard of this company in his previous life. That means this is not a significant company currently, and will not grow big in the future. Could this company be one of those small unknown companies that made big bucks silently?

“Who is their boss?” Since the boss of the company had appeared on <Forbes> magazine before, he should be famous.

“Jordan,” Kirilenko said in English.

“Who? Jordan? That basketball player?” The most expensive basketball player should be featured in <Forbes> magazine before. But when did Jordan run a stockbroking firm? Even if he set up a stockbroking firm, it will undoubtedly close down.

“No. I heard of that basketball player before. This Jordan is Jordan Belfort. The <Forbes> magazine gave him a nickname. ‘Wolf of Wallstreet.’ Lennon also says this person is competent. He had made 12 million USD within 3 minutes!”

Kirilenko felt proud to know that someone like Jordan Belfort wants to work with him. He decided to recruit him or at least make him his partner. He hoped that <Forbes> magazine will feature him as ‘Polar Bear of Wall Street’ in the future!

Feng Yu was shocked. Wolf of Wall Street!

This person was notorious. His life had even been made into a movie in Feng Yu’s previous life.

But this person was a conman! He got all his money through illegal means.

His company will recommend unknown and cheap shares, and then make use of fraudulent ways to trick people into buying those shares.

But what Jordan Belfort did was against the law. Those who were tricked by him reported to the police. Even when he was being investigated, he still used fraudulent means to get a shoe company listed and gained more than 2 billion USD in profits.

Jordan Belfort was also a drug addict and indulged in women. Hookers had been seen going in and out of his office during work hours.

In the end, Jordan Belfort was caught up by the law and was charged with money laundering, fraud, and stock market manipulation. He still needs to pay back all the money he conned.

Jordan Belfort was brilliant, but he used his talents in the wrong way.

He can be considered a capable man, and Feng Yu believes that Kirilenko would be able to gain high profits if he worked with Jordan Belfort. But the gains will all be from illegal means.

Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko and said earnestly: “Brother Ki, if you trust me, don’t even have any dealings with this person. Don’t listen to him. He might be able to earn money fast, but the method he used is illegal. You will not know when you will be dragged down by him. We can make money through legal ways and don’t need him.”

Kirilenko replied unhappily: “Did the Americans use legal ways to invest in Russia?”

“Brother Ki, if someone gives you a punch, do you have to return a punch to him?”

“Of course not.”

Feng Yu was relieved to hear Kirilenko’s answer.

“I will beat him up until he begs for forgiveness!” Kirilenko replied proudly.

Feng Yu: “……” Damn. I forgot he is Russian!

“Brother Ki, do you want to be someone that you despised? You despise those Americans who used illegal ways to earn money from Russia. But if you are the same as them, what will you tell your children if they ask you in the future? We can also take over the US financial market through normal means. Why do you want to create trouble for yourself?”

Feng Yu wanted to tell Kirilenko that he will not stop him from using illegal means to earn money in Russia. His father’s connections will be able to protect him. But he will be in trouble if he does it in the US. He might be able to escape this time, but in the future, he might not be able to enter the US.

Kirilenko asked: “If I cannot hire Jordan Belfort, then can I work with him?”

“Absolutely not! If you insist, I will not stop you. But why do you want to work with a conman?”

Kirilenko sighed. “Alright. I will listen to you. I also do not want to be known as Conman of Wall Street. It is not easy to hire good brokers.”

“You can just hire specialized stockbrokers. You will also not be investing in commodities, foreign exchange, or gold.” It was not easy to hire an all-rounder broker. But it should not be a problem to hire brokers that specialized in stock market.

“Ok. Oh, how is the Empire State Building? You told me that you will settle it.” Kirilenko asked.

“Things are proceeding smoothly. Just wait for the good news. We should be able to acquire the Empire State Building within 3 months. We will need to renovate the building and make it into New York’s prominent landmark.” This was America’s iconic building, and it will be owned by a Chinese and a Russian. Feng Yu wonders how the US media will report it. A Chinese businessman is invading the US, or Russia is starting an economic war with the US?

“How much do I need to pay?”

Feng Yu frowned when he saw the worried look on Kirilenko’s face. “You do not have enough funds?”

“I only bring a few hundred million USD with me. But I intend to invest all my money into the stock market. I wonder if I should set aside a sum of money for this building.”

“I will pay for you first, and you can return the money after you sold your shares.” Feng Yu replied.

Kirilenko laughed: “Feng, you are my best friend. I decided to invest this stock market analysis software into our software company in China. We will earn money together.”

Feng Yu laughed. You had sent most of your software engineers to China, and your current staff is unable to carry on working on this software. Nevertheless, this software is a profitable business.

“Fine. I will give you a reasonable valuation of this software and not take advantage of you. Eh, where are you going?”

“Huh? That conman Jordan tried to con me. I will not let him off so easily. I will get people to teach him a lesson!” Kirilenko stormed out of the office. Feng Yu had a feeling that Jordan Belfort will not have a good ending.

Chapter 796 – No dividends

“Hello? Steve? I am Feng. I will be returning to China for about 3 months to conduct market research.”

Ballmer was dumbfounded. You think I don’t know you want to return to China? Market research? You think we are idiots!

“Ok. I will email you if we need you.”

It was almost the end of December, and Christmas is around the corner. Christmas is an important festival in the US. But Feng Yu was not interested. He just wanted to spend the New Year Day back in China.

The Empire State Building’s ownership was still not settled. But Hideki Yokoi had used his measures to take back control over the building. In another one to two months, the building will be ready to be transacted. Donald had also sued those two long-term tenants, and he told Feng Yu that he was confident that will win the lawsuit. Those tenants will be forced to stop the lease agreement.

Feng Yu will not interfere in all these. He was only interested in acquiring the building. He even leaves the renovations to Donald.

Kirilenko also needed to return to Moscow to settle some businesses. He also needs to prepare the funds for the new software company. Elena also returned to Moscow with Kirilenko. On the other hand, Feng Yu flew back to Hong Kong.

“Brother Feng, you finally come back. Do you enjoy your time in the US?” Li Zekai gave Feng Yu a hug.

“It’s so boring there. But I had to go there to survey first. I intend to set up branch companies and factories there in the future.”

Feng Yu was not lying when he said this. He felt this was an excellent time to enter the US market. AIWA had a factory in the US, and Wind and Rain Electronics, home appliances, should also set up factories there. Feng Yu also want to take back control over the distribution channels in the US.

It was dangerous for Feng Yu to let the Fu family have full control over the sales of his products. If there were any problems with the Fu family’s distribution networks, he would have no way to rectify the problem.

Of course, Feng Yu will still work with the Fu Family now. But he needs to separate the Europe, US and Asia markets.

Setting up factories in the US might be expensive, but Feng Yu would save on transportation and importation taxes.

Feng Yu had discussed this with Fu Guangzheng about this, and Fu Guangzheng understood his decision. Anyway, Fu Guangzheng still has shares in these companies and could still make money.

“Brother Feng, have you tried any blondes in the US?” Li Zekai asked with a lewd smile.

Feng Yu glanced at Li Zekai. This idiot was the same as the rumors. He just likes to try women of different nationalities all over the world. Feng Yu heard from Fu Guangzheng that Li Zekai had changed girlfriend again.

But Fu Guangzheng had no right to laugh at Li Zekai. He was also the same as him. He said this was the benefit of having an older brother. Their fathers are strict with the oldest son and do not really restrict them.

“Brother Feng, you really do not know how to enjoy life. What’s the use of making so much money if you don’t know how to enjoy it?” Li Zekai shook his head. Feng Yu was different from everyone he knew.

Li Zekai thought about this. This might because they were all wealthy second-generation and Feng Yu was a wealthy first generation.

“My target is to exceed your father.” Feng Yu said this, and Li Zekai kept quiet.

Hmph, you dare to make fun of me?! How can I exceed your father if I just focus on enjoying life?

“Oh, Tai Hua Supermarket opened a few more hypermarkets. Some places are not suitable to set up hypermarkets. So, we only open supermarkets there.” Li Zekai changed the topic.

Li Zekai was not very happy with what Feng Yu said. Who was his father? Superman Li! Asia’s richest man. Feng Yu wants to exceed his father? Although Feng Yu’s assets had been growing, his father’s assets are also increasing.

“How many hypermarkets and supermarkets do we have now?” Feng Yu asked.

“36 hypermarkets and 14 supermarkets. There will be 2 more supermarkets opening next month.”

Feng Yu frowned. The rate of expansion was faster than he expected. At this rate, they will have more than 100 hypermarkets and supermarkets in 2 years.

“Are there any dividends this year?” Feng Yu asked.

Li Zekai shook his head. “We had invested all our profits back into the business, and we still owe the banks. We will also not get any dividends next year or the next 3 to 5 years.”

Feng Yu nodded. He knew this would happen during the initial stage of expansion. Some of their supermarkets might not be profitable, let alone the hypermarkets. If they did not get any bank loans, they had to slow down their expansions.

But after the initial few years, Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation will bring in high profits.

“Have Carrefour and Walmart set up branches in China?” These two companies had massive funds, and if they enter the Chinese market, they will slow Tai Hua Supermarket’s expansion plans.

“Carrefour had opened a branch, and Walmart is preparing to open one branch in a few months. These two companies had gotten the locations the branches from us. But the prices they bid were much higher than us.” Li Zekai and Fu Guangzheng had been monitoring these two companies closely.

“What are we going to do? Let them set up more branches or……”

“Of course not. We decided to surround them and suppress them. We will increase our promotional efforts in the branches of the same cities. We will market our brand as China’s homegrown brand. We will also make use of the media to attack their reputation and brands. Don’t worry. We will not make up stories. We will only report the truth.”

This idea was from Fu Guangzheng. His family’s supermarket was attacked the same way in Southeast Asia and suffered massive losses. Luckily, his father was able to react fast and pull out of the Southeast Asia market in time to stop the losses.

“What about the other supermarkets in China? Are they a threat to us?”

“No! They might be doing well in their local regions, but they are only limited to 3rd, or 4th tier cites. No other supermarkets can compete with us in the 1st and 2nd tier cities. No local supermarket companies dare to stand against us!” Li Zekai replied proudly.

All the companies that stood in front of Tai Hua Supermarket in the past suffered massive losses. Now, Tai Hua Supermarket had firmly secured the top tier cities, like Beijing and Shanghai, and 2nd tier cities markets.

No other supermarket companies can compare to even a tenth of Tai Hua Supermarket’s funds and scale. How are they supposed to go against Tai Hua Supermarket?

Feng Yu had a smile on his face. Tai Hua Supermarket will be taking over the whole Chinese market……

Chapter 797 – Lenovo Kingsoft is set up

Feng Yu flew back to Beijing from Hong Kong after 3 days. He was in Hong Kong to visit the Fu family, Li family, and Wind and Rain consulting. Other than visiting these places, he had no other businesses in Hong Kong.

Feng Yu was in a rush back to Beijing because he was needed to set up the Lenovo Kingsoft Software Company. He needs to confirm his investment.

Lenovo, Kingsoft, and Kirilenko’s software company will be setting up a company together. These companies will pool together their software engineers, products and funds in this new company. Feng Yu will only be providing some funds and ideas.

Feng Yu was able to provide the most funds for this new company, and no one disagreed with his proportion of shares.

“Manager Feng. Let me introduce Qiu Bojun. He is the founder of Kingsoft and is an expert in coding. He is the best software engineer in China. This is Lei Dajun. He is the General Manager of Beijing Kingsoft. This is……” Liu Chuanzhi introduced a few people to Feng Yu.

“Hello, everyone. We will be one big family in the future.” Feng Yu laughed as he greeted.

“You are Manager Feng? You are the one who proposed the improvements to WPS? Who is the one that taught you about this? Which school did you graduate from?” Qiu Bojun asked.

“I did not study programming or software. I made those suggestions based on the user’s point of view. Don’t you all think that our office software will be improved once the problems I suggested had been solved? The functions of our software will be much better than Microsoft Office.”

Liu Chuanzhi added. “All you might not know, but Manager Feng is also Microsoft’s director.”

Lei Dajun shouted in, shocked. “Which company? Microsoft? That software company in the US?”

Feng Yu laughed and did not say anything.

“How many Microsoft are there in this world?” Liu Chuanzhi was full of respect for Feng Yu. He also did not understand how Feng Yu could become Microsoft’s director suddenly. He knew Feng Yu owns quite a lot of Microsoft shares. But owning the company’s shares is very different from being a director.

Everyone in the room was looking at Feng Yu with admiration. Even those that look down on Feng Yu were looking at him with respect.

No wonder this young man was able to propose improvements to their software. He is Microsoft’s director. Everyone in the room had to admit that Microsoft was on another level if they compared their technological capabilities, growth, and company scale.

“I am only an investor. All of you will be the one who can make this software a success.” Feng Yu replied.

“Manager Feng is too modest. We will work hard together to bring honor to the Chinese software industry. Mr. Kirilenko is unable to join us today. But I had spoken to him over the phone. Our joint-venture company will be named as Lenovo Kingsoft Software, a subsidiary under Lenovo Corporation. A branch company will be set up in Moscow, and it will be named as Lenovo Kingsoft Moscow branch Company. It will be part of Lenovo Kingsoft Software. Most of the Russian engineers will be working in this branch company.”

“Now, let’s assign our tasks. The development of WPS and other office software will be conducted in Beijing. Moscow will be focusing on the Stock Market Analysis Software. Both sides will develop the operating system and antivirus together. We will discuss it again when we have new ideas.”

Feng Yu nodded. WPS and the Stock Market Analysis Software will be able to generate profits fast, followed by antivirus software. PC operating system was the hardest to succeed. But if they were successful, Lenovo Kingsoft will be Microsoft’s main competitor.

“This is 4-way cooperation, and we will proportion the shares based on our individual investments. The products, technologies, etc. had been evaluated and will be used as investments in the company. This company will have a start-up capital of 100 million USD. Lenovo Corporation will invest 20 million USD worth of technology and products. Their shares of the company will be 24%. Moscow Bear Software company will invest with its technologies, products, and 20 million USD. They will get 27% of the company’s share. Feng Yu will be investing 55 million USD and 3 floors of office space in the Wind and Rain building. He will be holding 38% of the company’s shares.” Liu Chuanzhi continued.

Feng Yu’s invested amount was more than 50% of the capital. But his proportion of the shares is only 38%. This was because Feng Yu does not have engineers and products. But Feng Yu does not mind.

To be able to gather so many top software engineers, the potential of this company will be great, and the returns will be much higher than what Feng Yu invested.

Feng Yu’s office building still has 3 floors of empty office space and could make full use of it.

The proportion of shares was still not in detail. For instance, Kingsoft’s shares of the company do not belong to Qiu Bojun alone. The percentage will still have to be split according to Kingsoft’s shareholders. All of Kingsoft’s shareholders will set up a Kingsoft Management company to manage the new company’s shares. Qiu Bojun is the biggest shareholder of this management company, and Lei Dajun, the other shareholders, and the engineers will also own some shares. The welfare of Qiu Bojun’s software engineers is much better than Lenovo.

“We have discussed and set the proportion of shares of this new software company. Is there anyone who disagrees with this arrangement? No? Alright. We shall be discussing the candidates for the top management of Lenovo Kingsoft now. I will be the Chairman of this company. It is decided by Manager Feng and Mr. Kirilenko. The board of directors will consist of Kirilenko, Mozgov, Feng Yu, Qiu Bojun, Lei Dajun, Zhu Linan, and me. There will be a total of 7 members on the board of directors. There will be 5 members in the monitoring committee. They are…… Does everyone agree to this?” Liu Chuanzhi asked.

This arrangement was as discussed. All 3 parties will have 2 people on the board of directors, and the Chairman is Liu Chuanzhi. The monitoring committee members are appointed by Feng Yu. Feng Yu was also the head of this monitoring committee.

3 days later, Kirilenko, Mozgov, and the rest arrived in Beijing and signed the contract. Lenovo Kingsoft Software Company was officially set up.

The board of directors had decided on the key appointments of the company. Liu Chuanzhi will be the Chairman of the company. Zhu Linan was appointed to be the company’s CEO. Qiu Bojun, Lei Dajun, and Mozgov will be the Deputy Chairman. Mozgov will also be heading the Moscow branch.

The middle management staff were also decided. As for the lower level staff, the heads of the respective departments will decide. Qiu Bojun and the rest were curious about why Feng Yu was only a director when he had invested so much money into this company. His duty was only overseeing the finances.

This Manager Feng was different from everyone else. Maybe wealthy people are weird, and no one can understand them.

Chapter 798 – Forever

“Nana, someone is looking for you outside. He is quite good-looking.” A roommate of the Postgraduate hostel said. Throughout the semester, there were lots of guys waiting for Li Na outside their hostel.

“I still need to write my thesis.” Li Na replied without looking up. She was not interested in those people.

“He told me to pass you this and say you will go downstairs to meet him.” Li Na’s roommate said and passed a packet of White Rabbit Sweets to Li Na. “That handsome guy is quite interesting. Does he think our Nana is still a kid? White Rabbit Sweets? Nana…… Eh, where are you going?”

Li Na ran out of her room before her roommate could finish talking. She did not even wear her coat and ran downstairs in her slippers.

“Eh, who is that handsome guy waiting for?” A girl whispered to her friend outside the hostel.

“Why don’t you go and ask?” Her friend joked.

“No. Why don’t you go and ask?”

“Fine. I will go. Eh, eh, eh…… The person he is waiting for is here.” That girl said disappointedly.

Feng Yu was standing at the entrance of Li Na’s hostel. When he saw Li Na coming out of her hostel, he ran over and hugged her.

Li Na hit Feng Yu’s chest lightly. “Why didn’t you call me when you are back?” When Li Na saw the packet of White Rabbit Sweets, she knew it must be Feng Yu.

“I have been swamped for the past two days. I settled all my work and came here to see you. I tried calling you, but your phone is off.” Feng Yu looked at Li Na.

“Ah, I had been preparing for my exams and writing my thesis and forgotten that I had switched my phone off. Why didn’t you call my hostel?” Li Na retorted.

“How come you are not wearing your coat? It is freezing out here. Wear this.” Feng Yu immediately took off his coat and helped Li Na wear it. He could not remember her hostel’s phone number and quickly gave Li Na a kiss to her forehead to distract her.

Li Na looked around and said softly. “What are you doing? There are so many people around.”

“You mean I can do this when there is no one around?” Feng Yu joked. “What do you want to eat later?”

“I feel like eating Sichuan Boiled Fish. Wait here. I will go and change.” Li Na returned the coat to Feng Yu.

“Eh, Li Na, why are you back again?” Li Na’s roommate asked. Did Li Na reject that guy?

“I am here to get my coat.” Li Na replied and start brushing her hair before tying it up into a ponytail.

After tying her hair, Li Na put on her coat and shoes and ran downstairs.

Li Na’s roommate was still in shock. This was the first time she saw Li Na so anxious.

Huh? Could that handsome guy downstairs Li Na’s boyfriend? The one that went to the US?

They were postgraduate students and were not from the same faculty. Li Na’s roommate does not know her before, and she had not met Feng Yu before. She was jealous of Li Na for having such a handsome boyfriend. Her boyfriend is still working in the US. He must be rich! How come I can’t meet any guys like him?!

Li Na had worn her coat and a hat when she reappears before Feng Yu. Feng Yu held her hand, and it was cold.

“Why are you not wearing gloves?” Feng Yu held her hands tightly.

“I forgot.” Li Na laughed. She had purposely did not wear her gloves. She wanted to feel the warmth of Feng Yu’s hands.

“How can you forget your gloves? Let’s go for lunch.” Feng Yu pinched Li Na’s nose lightly.

Li Na was smiling blissfully as Feng Yu held her hand and walked to the carpark.

……

“Our Professor is very strict. One of my seniors had already amended his thesis thrice, and the professor is still not satisfied.”

“Really? What about your thesis? How many times do you have to amend?”

“Only once. Also, he said that my results will be good.” Li Na replied proudly.

“Wow…… My Nana is the best.” Feng Yu laughed.

“The last time when I went to make snowmen with my friends, we forgot to bring a carrot as the snowman’s nose. They used a branch. It’s too ugly.”

“That day, an assistant professor sneezed, and his wig fell off. That was when everyone found out he had been wearing a wig. From that day onwards, everyone kept staring at his hair.”

……

On the way, Li Na shared all the interesting things with Feng Yu.

Feng Yu just listened and laughed along with her. He felt at ease when Li Na was with him.

“It’s been a while since I watch movies.” Li Na grumbled.

“Let’s catch a movie after dinner. Are there any good films?”

After dinner, Feng Yu brought Li Na to the cinema. Only two movies were showing. One was Jackie Chan’s <Rumble in the Bronx>, and the other was a comedy <Trouble Maker> staring Taiwanese child actor Steven Hao Shao Wen.

“I want to watch that little fatty movie.”

At that time, Hao Shao Wen was very cute. Feng Yu also miss watching this movie. He bought the tickets and some snacks and went in to watch the film.

There were not many people in the cinema despite being a weekend. This period was the down period for the movie industry. Very few people will go to the cinema to watch movies. It was not because there were no good films. It was because of VCDs.

Feng Yu had fought against piracy and lowered the prices of original VCDs. The majority of people could accept the prices, and many movies became popular. But their ticket sales were not very good.

“Hahaha, that fat kid is really a troublemaker. He keeps pranking others.”

“Ah…… That blind girl and that old man are so pitiful. If it is you, will you help them?” Li Na leaned against Feng Yu’s shoulders and asked.

“I will help if I meet someone like them.” Feng Yu said. In his heart, he added one more sentence. But I will not be like that old man. Doing good deeds and not letting others know. After that blind girl regained her vision, she went into someone else arms.

At almost the end of the movie, the old man donated 500,000 medical expenses for that blind girl. But he did not tell her, he was the one that donated that sum of money. In the end, the girl got a boyfriend, and the old man becomes a vagabond after giving away all his money.

“If I am that girl, I will not accept another man until I heard that old man’s voice.” Li Na replied firmly.

“It is only a movie.”

“Feng Yu, will we have such sad endings?”

“Don’t worry. I will treat you well for the rest of my life. This type of sad endings will never happen to us.” Feng Yu hugged Li Na.

Feng Yu thought to himself. Whoever that tries to snatch Li Na away from him must be prepared for his crazy revenge!!!

Chapter 799 – Must have an open mind

“Manager Feng, you are back? Why didn’t you call me? I can pick you from the airport.” Jiang Wanmeng laughed.

“Stop your nonsense. I am glad that you can increase the company’s sales.” Feng Yu rolled his eyes at Jiang Wanmeng. All the people from state-owned enterprises were good at smooth-talking.

Li Na was having exams these few days, and Feng Yu got the time to visit Wind and Rain Home Appliances. Although Feng Yu had let Jiang Wanmeng take charge of the company, Feng Yu was still concern with the company. He will visit the company occasionally.

Jiang Wanmeng laughed. “We are still researching new products. Our DVD research had gotten some success. If we are lucky, we will be able to increase our production in one year.” Sometimes, product’s R&D had to depend on luck.

“What will be the production cost after the increase in production?”

“We will be able to control the cost to less than 500 RMB!” Jiang Wanmeng replied proudly.

Huh? The cost can be lowered by so much? Feng Yu remembered that before he left for the US, the cost of VCD players was still above 500 RMB.

“Which part do you all have a breakthrough?”

“It is mainly the decrease in the components’ pricing. The exterior casing’s materials had become cheaper. We found cheaper replacements for the more expensive components. We learned this from those foreign companies.”

Jiang Wanmeng got to admit that they still cannot be compared to those foreign established home appliances companies, even though he got more advanced technologies.

When Wind and Rain Home Appliances lowered the VCD players’ prices and sold the patent authorization to other companies, those foreign companies could not make any profits. But after some time, those companies found ways to cut costs. One way was to use cheaper materials.

Those foreign companies were able to find cheaper components that were as good as the expensive ones. Although the durability of the parts will be shortened from 10-20 years to 7-8 years, DVD players would have replaced VCD players. VCD players will be obsolete in about 3 to 5 years and why should they use durable components?

Jiang Wanmeng regretted not knowing about this. He had insisted on using the best components in their VCD players. If he had used cheaper alternatives for their VCD players, the cost of one VCD player would be less than 300 RMB, and their profits would be much higher.

Luckily, Jiang Wanmeng found out about this cost-saving measure, and his Super VCD player’s cost could be lowered. The future DVD player production cost will also be much lower than expected. This would be helpful to market the DVD players.

Feng Yu finally understood why VCD players in his previous life could be sold at 300 RMB. Those VCD players were made from inferior materials and could not last more than a year.

“You still have to take note of our product’s quality. I don’t want to see our products breaking down months after it is sold. Have you all developed any new functions?”

“We will not compromise on the quality. Our VCD players will last at least a few years. Currently, we developed two new functions, and it will be included in our latest model of players. One is memory function. This function will allow the user to continue playing from where he last stops. But it can only record one timestamp. The other function will allow the user to jump to the exact timestamp of the VCD, using the remote control. The VCD will start playing from the timestamp entered by the user.”

Feng Yu was happy to know that these two functions were developed successfully. These two functions will allow them to be one more step ahead of their competitors.

“Good. This way, our Super VCD players will continue to be ahead of the industry. But this is not enough. You all should think of new functions or inventions.”

Jiang Wanmeng looked at Feng Yu. “What new invention?” They were still researching and developing the DVD player. How can they find the time to research new products?

“What are the best-selling home appliances in the market now?” Feng Yu reminded him.

“Computers? We do not have experience in PCs. However, we can buy components from other people and assemble ourselves. But don’t you have shares in Lenovo?” Jiang Wanmeng was puzzled about why Manager Feng wants him to compete with Lenovo.

“I am not asking you to manufacture PCs. Do you know how to manufacture a simple Learning Machine?”

“I thought the Little Tyrant is producing the Learning Machine. Our Wind and Rain Brand are not selling this product.” The Learning Machine’s sales had been dropping. Most people had switched to PCs, and lesser people buy Learning Machines nowadays.

PCs were more powerful than Learning Machines and had more functions. Also, Lenovo’s PC was more advanced and cheaper than before. It only cost 8,000 RMB now!

“I am asking you to use incorporate the functions of the Learning Machine into our Super VCD. Do you understand?” Feng Yu gave Jiang Wanmeng a ‘you are so stupid’ look.

“Incorporate the functions of the Learning Machine into Super VCD players? How do we do that? Add a new motherboard inside?” Jiang Wanmeng mumbled.

“Why can’t we do that? If the Super VCD players can also let children learn to type and play games, do you think the sales will improve?”

“It should improve. It will be more worthwhile to buy one product with two products’ functions. It will also save space. But no one has ever done this before.”

“When we sold our VCD players, no one had also thought of that before. We have what others do not have, and ours are better in quality than others. Even the people in the olden days knows this.” Feng Yu shook his head with a disappointed look.

“What about the games? Create a slot in our players for game cartridges?”

“Do you know about PC games? How do PC games work on PCs?”

“Optic drive. I understand now. You are saying that we can store the games into CDs! This way, we only need to create a port for their joysticks, and the player will not increase in size by too much. There will also not be many changes to the exterior designs. Manager Feng, you are a genius!”

Feng Yu glanced at Jiang Wanmeng from the corner of his eyes. Of course, I am a genius. Jiang Wanmeng was good with his technical skills. But his thinking was not flexible enough. Zhong Qingxian was much better than him in this aspect.

Look at Zhong Qingxian. After acquiring Guangdong Strong Group, he continued to develop fruit jellies products. He always has new products for the market, and most of his products were well received by the consumers.

The latest product was a jelly called AD Calcium Jelly!

This product was only adding vitamin A and D into the Jelly. There were no changes to the taste and texture of the jelly, but the jelly had become more nutritious.

When parents buy food products for their children, they will look out for nutritious products. Why parents do not like their children to eat snacks? It is because snacks are not nutritious and will affect their children’s growth. Now, with AD Calcium Jelly, the parents were willing to buy this snack for their children. The sales of this product overtook all other jelly products in the market.

Someone once said that if two unrelated items were to be combined, it would be an invention. This was why Lehaha could have so many different products.

Lehaha’s tea beverage is developed by combining tea and sweet beverages. AD Calcium milk is created by adding vitamins and calcium into yogurt drinks. The Refreshing series of carbonated drinks are a combination of carbonated water with fruit flavoring.

All these “creations” had brought high profits for Lehaha. Now, Lehaha had grown to become China’s top beverage company. Their sales and profits had caught up to Jianlibao. Zhong Qingxian’s next target was to overtake Jianlibao!

“Manager Feng, this game VCD player still needs the help of Aiwa Little Tyrant. Can you let them know about this?” Jiang Wanmeng asked.

“Alright. Someone from that side will contact you. Remember, you must have an open mind!”

Chapter 800 – Sponsors

“Feng Yu, why are you here?” Wen Dongjun was surprised to see Feng Yu. This was the General Administration of Sport of China office. What business does Feng Yu have here?

“I am here to meet your leaders. Oh, what are you doing now?” Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun. He had spoken to Wen Dongjun several times over the phone, but Wen Dongjun does not want to reveal what his position was. He only told Feng Yu that he was working in the General Administration of Sport office.

Wen Dongjun’s face changed when Feng Yu asked this question. “You are the big boss that the leaders are waiting for?”

“What’s wrong? I am not a boss?”

“You are. Come. I will bring you over.” Wen Dongjun said with a dejected look.

“Secretary Wen, this document needs Chief Lu’s signature.” A girl saw Wen Dongjun and passed a document over.

Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun in shocked. Secretary Wen? Hahaha. No wonder this idiot does not want to tell Feng Yu what he was doing in the General Administration of Sport office. This idiot hated the position of secretary the most.

Wen Dongjun also never expected that he would become a secretary after he entered the General Administration of Sport office!

“Eh, eh, eh. Zhang Han’s father arranged this secretary position for you?”

“Stop talking about it. I was with the basketball division. But when Chief Lu knows about my relationship with Zhang Han, he transferred me to be one of the secretaries in the office. I am much happier at the basketball division. All I need to do is to look after the basketball gymnasium.” Wen Dongjun was pissed when mentioned about this. It was all the fault of his connections.

“Hahaha, Chief Lu did this is also because of your future father-in-law. You will move up the ranks faster as the leader’s secretary. If you are really not interested in this position, I can help you.”

“How?”

“You will know later.” Feng Yu replied mysteriously.

“Chief, Feng Yu is here.” Wen Dongjun knocked on the door and said.

Chief Lu frowned. This Xiao Wen does not have any manners. This big boss is here to talk about sponsorship. Even if he is about the same age as you, you also can’t address him by his name.

“Manager Feng, I finally get to meet you.” Feng Yu had hired many athletes in the past for his advertisements, and Chief Lu knew about his. But at that time, he thought nothing about it.

But later, Chief Lu found out that those athletes and Shenyang’s General Administration of Sport made lots of money from the endorsements, he regretted. He should have transferred those athletes to the National General Administration of Sport Office. This way, all the money will go into his department. Because of this incident, he even scolded those people at Shenyang.

One of Chief Lu’s men at Shenyang told him that a big boss wants to make some sponsorship, and Chief Lu immediately invited Feng Yu to his office.

“Chief Lu, you are modest. Under your leadership, our athletes’ performance had been improving.” Feng Yu replied.

“Hahaha, thank you for your praises. It is due to everyone’s credit.” Chief Lu replied humbly.

“Chief Lu, can I know why you want to meet me?” Feng Yu asked.

“Manager Feng, I will be straightforward with you. I had invited you over is to talk about money. This year is the Olympic games. It is also the 100th anniversary. We have many more participants compared to the last Olympic Games, and our General Administration of Sport is short of funds. There are many events which we can’t afford to register for our athletes.”

Feng Yu immediately said: “Ah, Chief Lu. Actually, I also want to speak to you about this. How much is the shortage? I will sponsor it!”

Chief Lu was shocked to see Feng Yu agreeing. He had prepared lots of scripts to persuade Feng Yu. But before he could use any of those scripts, Feng Yu had already decided to sponsor them.

Chief Lu looked at Feng Yu and thought to himself. Should I ask for more funds?

“Manager Feng, how much are you willing to sponsor?” Chief Lu asked.

“I will sponsor whatever shortages you all have. Also, I will prepare cash rewards for all medalists.”

Feng Yu remembered that in this 1996 Olympic Games, China had won a lot more medals than before. But the total number of medals was about 50.

“Manager Feng, Mr. Fok from Hong Kong, will be sponsoring our medalists. But the rest of the athletes had also contributed a lot to us. Can you provide some assistance to them?” Chief Lu asked.

Hong Kong’s Mr. Fok? Feng Yu suddenly remembered Fok Ying Tung Foundation. The foundation rewards Chinese gold medalists with a 1,000 grams gold medal and 80,000 USD cash prize. The silver medalists will get a 250 grams gold medal and 40,000 USD. The bronze medalists will get 150 grams and 20,000 USD.

This Fok Ying Tung Foundation was set up in 1984. Mr. Fok had donated 100 million HKD to set up this foundation. Over the years, the foundation had made a lot of money from its investments, and Chinese athletes did not perform well in the past few Olympic games. Feng Yu heard that the foundation’s money had increased by quite a lot.

The gold prices at the moment were worth 120 RMB for 1 gram. The USD exchange rates with RMB was 1:8.4. That means the gold medal, given to the gold medalists, was worth almost 800,000 RMB. The silver medalists and bronze medalists will get 360,000 RMB and 180,000 RMB worth of gold medals, respectively!

Fok Ying Tung Foundation will be giving out more than 20 million RMB for this year’s Olympic games!

Feng Yu had a headache. This damn Fok family was too generous. They should not expect the Chinese athletes to improve so suddenly.

“Chief Lu, do you have any suggestions on how we are going to reward the rest of the athletes?” Feng Yu asked. He does not have any ideas on how to reward those athletes fairly.

“Give each athlete some sponsorships will do. How about 10,000 RMB per athlete?” Chief Lu was confident that the Chinese Athletes would win more medals than before in the upcoming Olympic Games, and he felt Feng Yu would change his mind if he knew that the Fok Ying Tung Foundation will be sponsoring the rewards for the medalists. That’s why he suggested Feng Yu sponsor the rest of the athletes.

Chief Lu thought that Feng Yu might be a successful businessman, but he still can’t be compared to Hong Kong’s Mr. Fok. It will not be a small amount for Feng Yu if he can donate 1 million RMB.

Feng Yu: “……” This is not called reward or sponsorships. You might as well tell me to pay for their travel expenses!

But this is also not a bad idea. It’s only a few hundred athletes. But Feng Yu does not want to give away a few million RMB without any returns.

“This is not a problem. How many athletes are there in total?”

“We estimated that we will have around 480 people in this contingent. Among them, there will be about 300 athletes, and the rest are coaches and team doctors.” The contingent was set at 450 people at first. But with Feng Yu’s sponsorship, they can increase the number slightly.

Feng Yu thought to himself. There must be those government officials tagging along. I am asking about the athletes, and you include everyone in? Never mind. I will sponsor everyone.

“Ok. I will round off the athletes’ sponsorship to 5 million RMB!

Chapter 801 – Child of Wealth

5 million!

Chief Lu was overjoyed. He did not expect to get 5 million RMB of sponsorship so quickly. Manager Feng was too generous. But how much of this 5 million would be given to the athletes was still not decided. All sponsorships would be consolidated by the General Administration of Sport office before given out.

Chief Lu wanted to say something when Wen Dongjun knocked and entered the room with a cup of tea. After passing the tea to Feng Yu, he walked out with his head bowed. This Xiao Wen does not even greet Manager Feng. If it weren’t for Minister Zhang, he would have transferred Wen Dongjun to an unknown village. University graduate? He does not even know how to serve a cup of tea properly.

Chief Lu wanted to continue, but Feng Yu interrupted him. “What else does our contingent lacks?”

“Our food and equipment are sponsored. Your Bing City Pharmaceutical Cooperation is sponsoring our medical supplies.” Chief Lu thought for a while. Feng Yu was obviously interested in giving more sponsorships, but he does not know what he lacks.

If Chief Lu had known earlier, he would have asked for cash rewards for the medalists. This Manager Feng was so generous and might give more than Mr. Fok.

“Are there any sponsors for transportation?” Feng Yu asked.

“Transportation? We are flying over there and will be staying at the Olympic village nearby. If we are going to some venues further away, the organizers will send us.” Chief Lu replied. Manager Feng wants to sponsor the air tickets? But the air tickets were all included in his department’s budget.

“Oh, ok. I will send 100 Songjiang vehicles Atlanta Olympics Village. When our athletes arrive there, they can use the vehicles. Don’t worry about the drivers. I will settle it.” Feng Yu said.

Songjiang vehicles were selling well in Russia and the former Soviet Union countries. Feng Yu was also thinking of bringing his cars to the US and see how the Americans would react.

The US is a country where its people would prefer their own brands of vehicles. In Feng Yu’s previous life, there were all sorts of brands in the US. Even their domestic brands were not selling as well as imported brands.

The 100 cars that were sent to the US can also be used by Feng Yu’s companies in the US after the Games. Also, the Olympic Games will be telecast all over the world, and this was an excellent opportunity to market the Songjiang brand.

If the Americans were interested, Feng Yu might consider setting up a branch factory in the US.

Chief Lu does not understand the purpose of this sponsorship. You are sending 100 cars to the US for us to use? You might as well rent the vehicles there or give us a sum of money. We can take the taxi ourselves.

But Chief Lu did not say all his thoughts out. This was better than nothing.

“Thank you.”

Feng Yu thought for a while and asked. “Does your contingent have caps?”

“No. The Games are in Summer. It is sweltering. Who would want to wear caps?”

“What if it rains? We must prepare caps for them. I will get someone to make a batch of caps for them.”

“Ah…… Sorry to trouble you then.”

“It’s not troublesome. What other areas do you all need money?” The caps will be printed with “China” and Wind and Rain Logo.

Chief Lu was stunned. How come this person is so willing to spend money? There are still many areas that lack money.

“Manager Feng, we still lack funds in many areas. For example, the athletes’ training and preparations, etc. All of this needs lots of money.”

Chief Lu looked at Feng Yu eagerly after saying this.

“No problem. I will donate 5 million more for the athletes’ training.”

Feng Yu was thinking about how to fully utilize this Olympic Games to promote his products and brands. Hmmm…… Maybe I can sponsor more items.

“Will our athletes get nervous before their competition?” Feng Yu asked.

“Errr……. It is normal for them to get nervous.” Chief Lu does not understand why Feng Yu was asking this.

“I will donate 500 Aiwa CD players to them. This way, they can listen to their favorite music to relax.”

“Manager Feng, you are so thoughtful. I thank you on behalf of all our athletes.” Chief Lu could tell that Manager Feng was here to spend money.

Before Chief Lu could continue, Feng Yu said. “I will give everyone from the contingent a Songjiang Motorcycle. The medalists will get be rewarded with a Songjiang – Olympic vehicle. This model has 3 versions and can match the gold, silver, and bronze medals.”

Let’s see how the other automobile companies compete with Songjiang. I will organize a grand prize-giving ceremony and make it into a Gala night. It will be excellent marketing.

This was too generous. Chief Lu was smiling but was not satisfied in his heart. You are giving away cars, and the General Administration of Sport will not be able to get a share. At least, a portion of Mr. Fok’s gold and cash prizes to the athletes will be deducted by them as coaching fees and grooming fees. What can we get from these vehicles? We can’t be taking those vehicles away from the athletes. If words spread, the reputation of the General Administration of Sport will be tarnished!

Oh yes, we can deduct more cash from the athletes from their cash prizes.

“Oh, Chief Lu, I heard that the number of participants in the contingent is 490 people. Why is it not 500 people?” Feng Yu prefers whole numbers.

“Ah? We do not have enough funds.” Chief Lu was confused. What sort of question is this? Wait! Could it be that Manager Feng wants to sponsor some people? There is no need for so many people to go. In fact, 480 people were enough, and it includes many leaders. They were using this as an excuse to go on an all-expense-paid holiday. The remaining 10 names were reserves and will be given out as favors.

“I will donate 1 more million as expenses to increase our contingent to 500 people. Oh, I think we should let some young people go along with the contingent to gain experience.” Feng Yu replied.

Young people? What does he mean?

“Chief Lu, it’s a pleasure talking to you. I will get my people to send the items and cheques over.” This sum of money was not given to Chief Lu for free. After the General Administration of Sports had planned how to use the funds, Feng yu will come and discuss how they would market his brands.

“Manager Feng, let me walk you out.” Chief Lu stood up. This person was the god of wealth and cannot be offended. He might still need Feng Yu’s help in the future.

“No need. Dongjun can send me.”

Wen Dongjun? He knew Manager Feng?

When Wen Dongjun walks Feng Yu out, Feng Yu told him that he will receive some good news later.

Wen Dongjun did not think much about this, and after he returned to his office, someone told him to go to Chief Lu’s office.

“Chief, are you looking for me?”

“Xiao Wen, have a sit. You know Manager Feng?” Chief Lu asked. When speaking to Wen Dongjun, he must not be standing up. If not, Chief Lu’s neck will ache from looking up at him.

“I know him. We grew up together.”

“Ok. That’s all. Go back to work. Oh, practice your English when you are free. You will join the Olympic Contingent to gain experience. Young men like you must work harder.”

Wen Dongjun walked out of the room, confused. I will join the contingent? Zhang Han’s father had told him to forget about joining the contingent. Why did Chief Lu say that?

He suddenly remembered what Feng Yu told him earlier. This must be the good news Feng Yu was telling him.

Chapter 802 – Journey to Olympics

Station Chief Jia’s career had been smooth sailing. He had become CCTV’s Station Chief and had successfully increased the TV station’s revenue. All the programs on the channel were well received by the viewers. He was praised by the higher-ups more than once.

But recently, Chief Jia was troubled. The Olympic Games will be held this year, and CCTV had to produce many Olympics related programs, and he had to raise the production funds by himself.

Although the income from advertisements had increased a lot, CCTV’s cost had also increased. The salary of the workers was much higher than the previous few years, and the station still had to give them bonuses and subsidies.

Just when Chief Jia was thinking of a solution, he received a call. He looked at the number and got an idea.

“Oh, Station Chief Jia. Thank you for treating me to dinner here. Donglaishun is expensive.”

“Ah…… you had treated me several times, and I must treat you back this time.”

“Right. You are promoted and got an increment. You must give me a treat.” Station Chief Jia had not only become CCTV Station Chief, but he was also the Central Publicity Department Minister’s assistant.

After eating some lamb, Feng Yu and Chief Jia had a toast. This hotpot was really delicious.

“How come I did not see you at this year’s Advertisement Slot bidding?” Chief Jia asked with a smile.

“I am busy overseas. My men had participated in the bidding, and I heard that this year’s highest bid is 66.66 million RMB. It is much higher than last year. You used this as a benchmark and increased the prices of other time slots. Your station’s advertising revenue should increase by at least 50 million?”

You still want me to go and raise the bids for you? I will not fight for the highest bidder. Those people are crazy. They think that having a primetime slot is enough? The amount they paid is enough to get many slots in other timings.

But all these years, it was the alcohol factories that were bidding the slots at ridiculous pricing. Two years ago, it was Kongfu brand, followed by Qin Chi. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Lehaha had also gone crazy. But in this life, Lehaha does not need to fight for the primetime slots. Feng Yu prefers to use multiple time slots for advertising Lehaha’s products.

Feng Yu’s products only needed some TV advertisements and do not need to air it on primetime. Most of his products do not have competitors.

“The advertising revenue had increased, but our expenditure had also increased. The Olympic Games will be held this year. Do you know about this? We need to send people to the US for interviews and still need to produce all sorts of related programs. All these require a lot of funds.” Chief Jia sighed.

Mei Zhigao looked at Station Chief Jia curiously. This was the Chief of CCTV. How come he does not behave like a top government official, and he still seems to be very close to Manager Feng?

“Chief Jia, we have known each other for quite some time. Just tell me what you need.”

“Manager Feng, you have many ideas on TV programs. Can you give us some suggestions?”

Mei Zhigao’s jaws dropped. A TV station’s leader asking someone who is not in the industry for advice? Manager Feng…… knows about TV production?

This was troubling Chief Jia? Feng Yu thought Chief Jia was asking him for some sponsorships. But Chief Jia should know that if Feng Yu were to sponsor some programs, he would ask for something in return.

“TV production? Last November, CCTV 5 had been converted to the satellite channel. You can just show live telecast of all the events. What’s so difficult?” Live telecast of sporting events is very different from Gala nights. It is much easier.

“This is not a problem for us, and we had planned for this. But the higher-ups want us to promote the Olympic Games. The Sports Administration said this year will be our best performing year for our athletes. We will get good results. I heard that they had gotten lots of sponsorships. That Old Lu from the Sports Administration now speaks much louder because of this!” Chief Jia replied jealously.

Feng Yu could tell what Chief Jia wanted from him. Suggestions for programs? You just me to sponsor your programs!

“Chief Jia, I had made some sponsorships at the Sports Administration. Are you asking me to sponsor some programs for CCTV too?”

Chief Jia replied. “You also mentioned that CCTV 5 is a satellite channel now. Why is the advertising fees for this channel still so low?”

Huh? CCTV 5 advertisement fees are low? This year is the Olympic year. Advertising on CCTV 5 will have greater outreach.

“There are still unsold advertising slots? I will go back and look. If the price is right, I will buy some of the slots.” Feng Yu replied casually. “Oh, I have a suggestion for Olympic related programs. You can do a special Olympic program.”

“What special program?” Chief Jia asked.

“Wind and Rain – Journey to Olympics!”

Chief Jia: “……” There is no problem with this program. But how can you decide on the name sponsorship?

“Tell me about this idea.”

“The concept of this program is simple. You just need to set a timing like in the afternoon or evening primetime and air some Olympics events. You don’t need to air the competitions all the time. You can get some commentators to explain the games. You can also feature some of the athletes that have high chances of winning medals. The Sports Administration should be happy to help you.”

“Will this add stress to the athletes?”

“Stress can also motivate them. Just look at Deng Yaping. She is under immense stress, but who can win her? Liu Guoliang’s results last year are also unbeatable. Wang Junxia’s nickname “Oriental Deer” is also given to her by others. There are also many sports like Gymnastic, diving, weightlifting, etc. where our athletes have high hopes of winning. Some events, our athletes might still break the world records. We must let everyone know about this.”

“Only this?”

“Of course not. We can also introduce our former Olympic medalists and the coaches. They are the ones that helped our athletes and had made significant contributions to the nation.”

“This is a must. The honor belongs to the team.” Chief Jia nodded.

“The reporting of athletes must also have a clear distinction. There is no point focusing the report on table tennis. We are already the best in the world for this event. We can report on tack and fields, badminton, etc. At the same time, we can advocate a national healthy lifestyle movement. ‘We might not be able to compete in the Olympic Games, but we can also take part and exercise.’ This is a good slogan. Jogging is one of the sports that everyone can participate in.”

A national healthy lifestyle movement? This is a good idea. The higher-ups will also be happy with the slogan. But Chief Jia did not realize that the star of China’s running arena was Wang Junxia. This movement will increase her value further. Feng Yu, who had a long-term contract with her, will benefit from it.

Hmmm……. Should I sign more star athletes now? Fu Mingxia will be winning two gold medals this year and became famous.

Yes. I must get someone to sign those good-looking athletes.”

Chapter 803 – With an excuse, there will be a Gala night

“Manager Feng, this program still needs some planning to sort out the details, but it seems to be a good program. How much do you intend to sponsor?” Chief Jia asked.

“The earliest this program can be air will also be after Lunar New Year. It will only last for about 4 months at most. Is this program a weekly or daily program?”

“It should be weekly. We will not have so many contents daily.” Olympic Games only have so few events, and CCTV still has to pick the more popular sports to be featured. There were not much content for them to film.

“We will stick to the old rules. There is no need to talk about the name of the program. That is decided. The stage must have our Wind and Rain logo and products. The host of the program must say our advertising slogans and our logo must be printed on the host’s attire…….”

“Wait. Manager Feng, I don’t remember you have a clothing brand, and Wind and Rain do not produce clothes too.” Chief Jia interrupted Feng Yu unhappily.

“You don’t want to include wardrobe sponsorship? I am fine with this. Also, at the end of every episode, there can be a quiz about Olympics and the athletes. I will sponsor the prizes. This way, we can attract more viewers and interact with them.”

Chief Jia’s eyes brighten up. This quiz will increase the program’s ratings and will get good reviews. This will be good for CCTV 5 channel.

“I want the advertising slots before and after this program.”

“Wait a minute. Manager Feng, the slots before and after the program should not be included.”

“Why not? If you advertise someone else’s commercial before the start of this program, it will have an impact on my advertisement. I think you should be able to settle this, right?” Feng Yu smiled.

“Manager Feng, you have too many conditions.”

“That’s why I will be giving you more money. Other than the prizes, I will give you 200,000 RMB per episode for the name. If you have 16 episodes, I will give you 3.2 million RMB.”

“Manager Feng, why are you getting stingier now? You have so many requirements, and your sponsorship is much lower than <Happy Dictionary>.” Chief Jia replied.

“The rating for <Happy Dictionary> is the highest among the variety shows? The rating for this new program might not be high. Also, there are still many areas in China where people cannot receive CCTV 5.”

“But it is still too little. It must be 300,000 RMB, at least.”

“Alright. 300,000 RMB. That’s settled. Let’s talk about the other sponsorships.” Feng Yu said immediately. He did not give Station Chief Jia any time to regret it.

Chief Jia: “……” 300,000 RMB must be lower than expected for Feng Yu! But there are still other sponsorships.

“What else do you want to sponsor?”

“You all will be sending reporters to the Olympic Games venues, right? It will be the same. The reporters’ attire must have Wind and Rain Logo. I will sponsor all of their expenses. Of course, the reporters must mention my company every time they end their interviews. For example, the above interview is sponsored by Wind and Rain Home Appliances.”

“Impossible!” Chief Jia was going crazy. This Feng Yu wants to advertise at every opportunity. How can they advertise during interviews?!

“Why are you so agitated? It’s fine if you don’t allow it. I will give in on this. Just the attire with my logo will do.” Feng Yu replied slowly.

“That is also not allowed!”

“Ok. I will give in to you further. If you still don’t agree, then there is no point we carry on discussing this sponsorship.”

Chief Jia’s eyes were all red. He stared at Feng Yu: “This is CCTV, and we are broadcasting the Olympic Games. Don’t be too much!”

“I promise you I will not be too much. I had sponsored a lot of money for our Sports Administration. You should also know that. Many of my products will be appearing beside those athletes. I only have a request. During the interviews with the athletes, my products must be shown clearly on TV. There cannot be any similar products from other brands. Only my brands can appear.”

“What products did you sponsor?”

“Not a lot. The medical supplies are all from Bing City Pharmaceutical Corporation. If the athlete is using any medication, you must give a close up on the medicine. Even if you can’t do a close up on the medications, you must at least show the logo on the medicine box. All athletes and coaches will be wearing a cap, and China and Wind and Rain will be printed on it. You must make sure the words must be captured clearly. Also, all the athletes will have an Aiwa CD player each. The CD players must also appear during the interview. I will also be providing the Songjiang brand of vehicles, and the athletes will be given Songjiang Motorcycles after they return. All these must also be captured in the interviews. As for the rest of products, as long as it is from my companies, it must be captured on camera. We can talk about this in detail later.”

Chief Jia’s jaws dropped. He did not know that Feng Yu can turn a simple interview into something so complicated. But what Feng Yu requested was not against the regulations. Only no one had done this before.

“Manager Feng, how many products are you sponsoring?”

“Not a lot. After the Olympic Games ended, we can have a Celebration Gala Night.” Feng Yu was getting excited.

“Celebration Gala night?”

“That’s right. The athletes will be returning in triumph. We must have a Gala Night to celebrate. We shall stick to the old rules. You all will be the main organizers, and I will settle the funds. The name of this special program will be called Wind and Rain – Olympic Games Celebration Night! During the program, we can give out all sorts of prizes for our medalists. I guarantee that the ratings for this show will be high. The viewers love to watch such programs.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, there were all sorts of such special programs. As long as there is a reason, there will be a Gala Night. Although Gala night programs were expensive to produce, the TV stations can still make lots of money from the sponsors. Such programs are good for companies to market their brands and products. If Feng Yu could give out Songjiang Cars to the athletes during the program, the results would be better.

Although people’s lives had become much better now, cars were still luxury items. Giving out cars were unheard of in this era, and it will be the talk of the town for a long time. How many people know that the Fok family from Hong Kong was sponsoring the Chinese Athletes? The TV stations did not help him promote his sponsorships.

Feng Yu remembered a famous saying by Chen Guangbiao, China’s tycoon and top philanthropist, from his previous life. “Low-key life, high-profile work.”

Feng Yu believed that this marketing will stimulate the sales of Songjiang, Wind and Rain, Aiwa and all his other brands. Maybe he will add in Lehaha, Tai Hua, and other related brands. Anyway, Feng Yu will not let other brands to be featured in this special program.

Station Chief Jia was excited to hold a Gala Night. A grand Gala Night program will invite lots of leaders to attend, and this will all be his credit.

Chief Jia was now the Minister’s Assistant. If he performs well, he might be promoted to Vice Minister. In the past, he only thought about being promoted to be the Station Chief. But after he became the Station Chief, he became more ambitious.

Didn’t Feng Yu say that CCTV will not have to fork out a single cent for this special program? Who in their right mind would reject this offer?

“Manager Feng, let’s discuss in detail in the office. I think this idea is not a problem!”

Chapter 804 – You have been conned again

After signing the contracts with the Sports Administration and CCTV, Li Na started her school holidays, and Feng Yu went back to Bing City with her.

But Li Na was shy and only stayed in Bing City for a day before going back to the village. Zhang Ruiqiang heard that Feng Yu had returned and asked him over for a chat.

“Oh, Brother Liu. Here…… this is something I bought for you from the US.”

Secretary Liu’s eyes twitched. Manager Feng, how can you give me a carton of cigarettes in from of my leader? Are you doing this on purpose?!

Zhang Ruiqiang rolled his eyes at Feng Yu and asked: “How much does that cost?”

“Don’t talk about money. This is only a gift. Brother Liu, you must treat me to dinner some other time.”

Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head and looked at Secretary Liu. “Take it. It’s rare to see Feng Yu giving out gifts. You can give it to your father-in-law.”

Secretary Liu took the carton of cigarettes. His leader had spoken, and he does not need to worry. Feng Yu was pissed by what Zhang Ruiqiang said. What do you mean by it’s rare for me to give gifts? You dare to accept my gifts?

“Ah, leader. You have more white hair. You must take care of your health.” Feng Yu joked.

“Manager Feng, the leader, has lots of things on his mind recently and does not have time to rest.”

“What is troubling you? Tell me.” Feng Yu become interested.

Zhang Ruiqiang gave his secretary a stare. But his secretary also gave him an excuse to ask Feng Yu for advice.

“Real estate issues. What are your views?”

Real estates? Bing City wants to develop the real estate industry? But this is not a good sign. The property prices will be pushed up, and the commoners will suffer.

“What’s wrong? Is this suggested by the City Government or the Provincial Government?”

“What City Government or the Provincial Government? I am not talking about developing the real estate industry. I am talking about how we are going to regulate this industry.”

“Regulate? The property prices in Bing City had risen by a lot?” Feng Yu sat upright. Was it because of him that revived the Bing City industries and caused a spike in the population and caused property prices to rise?

The university graduates had to look for jobs by themselves now, and the companies have to pay security insurance. Most workplaces do not give out properties to their employees and only provide some subsidies. It is usual for the property prices to increase. But if the increase is too high, there must be some problems.

This would be like some places in China, where the property market crash and that area become a ghost town. It will take several decades for that area to recover.

“There are no problems with people’s lodging. The city had planned a long time ago. We are also introducing quarters for state-owned enterprise employees. But recently, a businessman came to our Bing City and wanted to build a technology building. He asked the City government to approve a plot of land. There are two voices in the City now. One side felt we should give him the plot of land, and that building will become a landmark in the future and will attract more investors. As more people got to know about this, many companies also approach us to buy land to build buildings. Another group of people in the City Government felt this was only a vanity project and does no help to the people.”

Technology building? In another few years, this will be a popular concept. Li Zekai’s company made use of this concept and made a hefty sum. In the past, someone had also thought of this, and the most prominent case was the Giant Building.

Technology sounds like something high-end, but it is only scientific techniques. All production needs technologies. But currently, people’s impression of technology is high tech and needed lots of money and scientists. Once the technology becomes a product, everyone will make money.

“What is this technology building? What does it mean? A factory building or a research facility? Or is it just an office building with a fancy name?”

“All of them.”

“All of them? What does Zhang Ruiqiang mean?

Zhang Ruiqiang saw the confused look on Feng Yu’s face and explained: “This Technology building can be considered a Science and Technology Industrial Park. It includes a research facility, factory, offices, etc. and all of these will be housed in a 100 meters tall building.”

Huh? Was this a joke? If this is true, it will cost more than a billion RMB. Which businessman in China have so much money?

“Who is the other party? What do they do? How are they going to recover their investment in this building, and what is their core business?”

Feng Yu had invested in an industrial park before. It was his Songjiang motorcycles and car factories as the core and attracted smaller factories producing parts to be built around it. All the companies and small factories were revolving around Songjiang factories.

Feng Yu wants to know the core industry of this industrial park.

“Polysilicon technologies.”

Polysilicon industry? From Taiwan?

Polysilicon is a material used in semiconductor chips. This material can be found in small radio receivers to PCs.

China does have this technology, but it’s outdated. Most of the factories dealing in Polysilicon had shut down due to pollution. The investment required for this industry was high and needed at least 2 billion. If not, it will not reach a profitable scale. Small scale factories producing Polysilicon will not make any money. If someone really wants to go into this industry, his initial investment will not be lesser than 1 billion.

If this company was successful, then Lenovo, Wind, and Rain Electronics product cost will be lowered.

“What company is this? How many tons can they produce annually?” Feng Yu asked excitedly.

“Future Technology Group. It is a big company in the US. The boss of the company is an American Chinese. I heard that his company’s annual production is more than 10,000 tons!”

Future Technology Group? Feng Yu thought hard. He had never heard of this company in his previous life. Not many companies can afford to deal with Polysilicon. All the companies that produce Polysilicon were big.

Feng Yu felt something was off. There must be a problem. In the current era, the total production of Polysilicon in the world is far from 10,000 tons! This is bullshit!

“What is the name of their boss?”

“His Chinese name is Zhou Shuai. He said Microsoft had invested in his company.”

“Which company again?” Microsoft? How come I am not aware of this?

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Bing City also tried to build a High-tech industrial park and was conned. It seems to have happened around 1996. Could this person be that conman?

“Microsoft. The world’s biggest software company. You have never heard of this company?” Zhang Ruiqiang was surprised. This was a famous company, and Feng Yu had not heard of it?

“Leader, software production does not need Polysilicon. Do you know?” Feng Yu asked. Since when software companies need to invest in Polysilicon? Microsoft wants to build their own PCs?

If Microsoft dares to do this, they will be going against all the PC manufacturers. Those manufacturers will join forces against Microsoft and stop its monopoly.

“Microsoft is not a PC company? PCs also need this material.”

Feng Yu pointed to himself and said: “Do you know why I went to the US? Investments. I am now a shareholder and a director of the company you are talking about!”

“You are a shareholder of Microsoft?!” Zhang Ruiqiang was shocked. Feng Yu already have so much money?

“That’s why I can confidently tell you that you have been conned again!”

Chapter 805 – Want Respect?

Zhang Ruiqiang opened his eyes wide. I have been conned again?! Wait! What does he mean by again?!

This brat must be doing this on purpose!

“You sure?”

“I am very sure. Let me guess. Did he tell you that he has new technology and had surveyed many areas? In the end, he chooses Bing City?”

“Yes. He also mentioned that Bing City has a good water treatment system. This will help to control pollution.”

“But did he show you all his assets? I dare to say that once he got the approval papers from you, he will use it to get a loan from the bank. The money he got from the loan will be used to buy the plot of land. What happens if his money is not enough to pay for the plot of land? He will ask the City Government for an extension of the payments to 3 years later, and he will use the land parcel to get another loan for the construction of the building. He will buy a pile of useless construction materials and dump it at the plot of land before disappearing.”

“You can get loans with the approval papers?”

“If his loan is not approved, he will ask the City Government for help. This is a huge project and will be the world’s biggest Polysilicon production facility. It will be a national level company. You all will not report to the higher-ups? After you all reported, the other party tells you that his funds from Microsoft are not in yet, and he needs the city government to be his guarantor for a loan from the bank. Will you all reject him?”

Zhang Ruiqiang kept quiet. Feng Yu was right. This is a grand project and must be reported to the higher-ups. If the project failed after it was reported, they would have to bear the responsibility. Bing City Government got no choice but to be his guarantor and wait for Microsoft’s funds to be given. The government would have fallen into the trap. In the end, the conman disappears with all the funds. What can the government do?

Bang!

Zhang Ruiqiang hit his desk hard. If he did not delay the approval to this year as he is not familiar with this industry, the Mayor would have given permission last year. Luckily, Feng Yu had returned, and Zhang Ruiqiang asked him. If not, he would have to bear the responsibility!

“Have you all reported to the higher-ups?”

“We have only reported to the Provincial Government. There is still time to stop it.”

“That American Chinese must be a conman. Repatriate him back. Give me a photocopy of his passport. I will take care of him when I return to the US after Lunar New Year.”

Feng Yu hates conmen. They cheat money from others for their own greed. They will not care about their victims. What’s worse is this man is Chinese, and he returned to China to cheat the Chinese!

“No. We cannot repatriate him yet.” Zhang Ruiqiang lowered his head and lit a cigarette.

“Why? He already got the loan?”

“He had registered a company in Bing City and sold the initial stocks. Many people in Bing City had bought it, and the transacted amount is quite big.”

Damn! That’s illegal! What initial stocks? There will be no dividends, and the shares are all worthless paper!

“The amount is quite big? How big? Are you able to arrest him now? If he runs away now, we will never get back that money!” Feng Yu said.

Zhang Ruiqiang immediately stood up and grabbed the phone on his desk. He called the Provincial government office’s Director. “Hello, Old Ma? I am Zhang Ruiqiang…… That Zhou Shuai might be a conman. I need your men to arrest him now!”

Zhang Ruiqiang made another call. “Old Xiao, come to my office now.”

“Mayor Xiao, you are here. The leader is waiting for you inside.”

Secretary Liu’s voice could be heard in the room, and Feng Yu saw Mayor Xiao entering the office.

“Manager Feng, you are also here?”

“I drop by for a chat.” Feng Yu smiled.

“Old Xiao, I need to inform you something. That Zhou Shuai is a conman!” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

“What? Who told you that?” Mayor Xiao sat upright. He was the one who snatched this project from another province. This was supposed to his credit, and now it turns out to be a scam?

“Feng Yu, you explain to him.” Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head. He also does not want to believe. But he knew that Feng Yu would not lie to him.

“Mayor Xiao. I will only say two points. First, I am Microsoft’s director. I know all of Microsoft’s plans, and Microsoft had never invested in Polysilicon. They never did in the past and will never do it in the future. Secondly, if I were to invest in Polysilicon, I will never pick Bing City. The labor and transportation cost here is high compared to other provinces. I will have no advantage.”

Most of China’s electronics factories were located along the Southeastern region. The polysilicon factory must be located somewhere near that area, and Shanghai is the best location. If labor cost was a concern, then it should be in the western region. The land and labor are cheap there. Bing City will never be the choice. The location is out of the way, and the labor cost is one of the highest in China.

Many of the old factories in Bing City had been revived due to Feng Yu interferences, but all their branch factories and expansions were not in Bing City.

Because of its location, Bing City had never attracted many investors. If Feng Yu was not from Bing City, he will also not invest so much money here.

“You are Microsoft’s director?” Mayor Xiao asked in disbelief.

“I am Microsoft’s third-biggest shareholder.” Feng Yu added. “I am also in charge of all Microsoft’s businesses in China.”

“Even if Microsoft did not invest in that company, there might be other companies who invest in it. Furthermore, Zhou Shuai is a big boss and is a multi-millionaire.”

Feng Yu laughed when Mayor Xiao still tried to argue. “As a businessman, why will I let unrelated parties participate in a profitable business? Why don’t I keep all the profits for myself?”

“This is to diversify the risk. Isn’t this the same as shareholding companies?”

“Risk diversification? This is a good reason. He will tell those that bought his initial shares that investments have risks, and their money was all gone.” Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders.

Even if it is a venture investment, background checks and proper evaluation are required. You all did not even know about his background, and you believe him? He is also allowed to issue initial shares? This is stupid!

Shareholding companies are not only to diversify risks. More importantly, the shareholding company is to let the shareholders take charge of what they do best and make money together. How can it be the same as Zhou Shuai’s company?

“Manager Feng. How can you say this?” Mayor Xiao was pissed.

Feng Yu sneered. “The whole world’s annual production of Polysilicon is less than 10,000 tons. Did you all even go and find out about this? 10,000 tons? When it comes to business, you are not my match! You might not even know how to set up a company. Do you know how many companies I had set up?”

Feng Yu seldom speaks so arrogantly. But he is angry when he sees Mayor Xiao refusing to believe him and still tried to argue. This was why Zhou Shuai was able to run away with the money in Feng Yu’s previous life.

Respect is given by others. You don’t even want to admit your mistake and still want connection? Respect my foot!

Chapter 806 – Old Brands are treasures

It was an awkward situation in the office. Mayor Xiao leans back into the sofa suddenly. If that Zhou Shuai were really a conman, he would have to bear the full responsibility as he was the one who started this project. If he is unable to recover all the funds, his career will be gone.

Mayor Xiao was desperate for success!

It was not wrong to try and gain credit. All government officials want to do things that will bring them credits. If not, they are just lazing around!

But the officer must be capable of getting that credit. He cannot forget the duty of a government official in exchange for political achievements. He must improve the lives of the people he is governing first. Mayor Xiao did not do enough checks and resulted in many people getting conned. This was failure on his part.

You should at least conduct and understand the project before bringing it in.  10,000 tons? That conman says there are 10,000 tons, and you believe it without any verifications?

The phone on the desk rang, and Zhang Ruiqiang quickly picks it up. He hangs up after saying 2 sentences.

“He is in our custody now. Old Xiao, make a trip to the Provincial government office. You must get back all the money. If there is any shortfall, the City Government will make up the numbers. We must not let out people lose their hard-earned money.”

Feng Yu wanted to interrupt. Why should the City spend money to make up the shortfall? Those are taxpayers’ money.

After Mayor Xiao left, Zhang Ruiqiang saw Feng Yu looking unhappy. He frowned and asked: “What’s wrong? You think that the City Government should not use its money to cover this up? Then tell me, how should we solve this problem?”

Deduct the loss amount from Mayor Xiao’s salary? A government official’s salary will not be enough to recover the amount spent by the conman. The City Government had to take responsibility. If not, it will lower the public trust in the City Government.

Seeing Feng Yu keeping quiet, Zhang Ruiqiang continued: “Old Xiao is still very capable. Look at our Bing City. It is much cleaner than before. He is also good at city planning. This is only a minor mistake, and we discovered it early before it got worse.”

“I am not interested in how government officials do things.” Feng Yu waved his hand.

Zhang Ruiqiang was speechless. You are treating me as one of them?

“Oh, do you think we can do this Polysilicon manufacturing business?” Since the world’s production of Polysilicon is less than 10,000 tons, that means the competition is not significant. Bing City had found out that the global demand for Polysilicon is very high and this should be a profitable business.

“I already said earlier. Bing City’s location is not suitable, and the demand is not as big as you think. Also, we do not have the required technology. How are you going to enter this business?”

“Can we start small? We can focus on meeting China’s demands first? It should not be a problem if we ship the Polysilicon to Beijing. As for the technologies, I think the Institute of Technology University has the solution.”

Wait, you say the Institute of Technology University has this technology?” Feng Yu was shocked. This technology might not be complicated, but there were different levels of technology. It is like screwing a screw with a screwdriver and an electric screwdriver.

“They should have the required technology. When Zhou Shuai approached us, we asked the Institute of Technology University. They were the ones who told us that there is a huge demand for Polysilicon, and the demand will increase further. That is also one of the reasons we decided to partake in this project.”

“Don’t tell me, ‘should.’ Do they really have the technology? Is their technology at international standard?”

“You are interested?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“I have so many factories and have to import large amounts of Polysilicon. I will not be interested? If the Institute of Technology University really has state of the art technology, I am willing to buy it from them. Don’t look at me this way. I will not set up a Polysilicon in Bing City.” Feng Yu stopped Zhang Ruiqiang before he even says anything.

“Why not? Bing City is very accessible, and the location is not an issue. Furthermore, you can export the Polysilicon to Russia. We are much closer.”

“Export to Russia? Most of the Polysilicon is produced in Europe. You think the Russians will not import from Europe and will get it from us? Moreover, even if our scale is smaller, do you know how much money is needed? At least a few hundred million, and it will take at least a few years to recover the investment. Unless we have a very efficient technique of extracting the Polysilicon.”

Feng Yu remembers that Siemens’s technology in Polysilicon is the leader in the industry. They have the most efficient technology in Polysilicon production.

Institute of Technology University have this industry? Or their technology is those obsolete technologies?

“You are willing to set up this production plant in Bing City if the Institute of Technology University’s technology is more efficient?”

“No! Do you know that I had joined the Guangcai program?”

“What Guangcai program?” Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu. This was a weird name.

“It is an initiative to help the poorer Western provinces. This is set up by a group of entrepreneurs. We will invest in those provinces by setting up factories there. The Western provinces have rich resources, and if my factory is set up there, I will save transportation costs. If the resources I needed had to be imported, then I should set up my factories in the coastal regions.”

Zhang Ruiqiang sighed. “Bing City’s development had hit a bottleneck.”

“How is this possible? Bing City still has many undiscovered resources. If you can manage these resources well, there is still high potential.”

“Many resources? What are you referring to?” Zhang Ruiqiang was curious. He did not notice any new resources and potential in Bing City.

“For example, our Donglin food products, Red Sausage, Kvass, etc. All these can be sold to other provinces. People are always curious about new things. This Kvass drink is from Russia. Sausages are also very popular now. Why can’t you vacuum seal the Red Sausages and sell it elsewhere?”

“This will work?”

“Absolutely no problem. Donglin food products are almost a hundred years old brand. I have the distribution channels and can let Donglin food products enter Tai Hua Supermarkets. But you all must pay the necessary charges.”

This was killing two birds with one stone. Feng Yu could help his hometown’s brand and also increase the variety of goods in Tai Hua Supermarket.

“Other than this?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“Bing City Beer. This is the oldest beer brand in China. It is established about the same time as Dong Lin Food products, right? It is an old established brand. Why can’t you all make use of it?” Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Bing City was a treasure cove. What’s the point of looking at others?

“There are beers from other provinces too. Is this something about the brand?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked. He felt there was nothing special about Bing City’s beer.

“There is some beer that sells for 15 RMB a bottle, and some are selling for 1.5 RMB per bottle. What is the difference? Just look at our province. There are many too many beer brands. Why can’t you just have one beer brand? You can take over the 3 Northeast Provinces first and slowly expand towards the south. Do you know how much overseas beer companies make in a year? A few billion USD!”

“You can earn so much from selling beer?”

Feng Yu gave Zhang Ruiqiang a look. Selling soda can make much more than beer. Don’t talk about Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Just look at Jian Li Bao.

“That’s why our Bing City and even Longjiang province still have many resources for you to discover. You don’t need to get exterior funds. The City only needs to export these old brands out of the province, and you all will make big bucks.”

Zhang Ruiqiang nodded. From what Feng Yu said, Bing City and Longjiang Province really have lots of potentials……

Chapter 807 – Grain storage

“Feng Yu, Beidacang had won two advertising slots in CCTV. Although it is expensive, the timing of the slots is quite good. We are going to market our Beidacang brand. What about our brand cooperation?” Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu.

“You started working at Beidacang? Shouldn’t Niu Kun speak to me about this? I told him to discuss it with Zhang Ming. What’s the problem? Zhang Ming did not agree?” Feng Yu asked while trying to hold back his laughter.

Feng Yu had told Zhang Ming to delay their cooperation until Beidacang bought the advertisement slots from CCTV. Without Feng Yu’s approval, Zhang Ming will never agree to their collaboration.

Zhang Ming also wanted to wait and see. This Beidacang Group was too ambitious and does not have sufficient funds. He needs to see if the Provincial Government will pump in money into the company this year. If the Provincial Government provided some funds into Beidacang, then it will be worth cooperating. If the Provincial Government only wants to get the funds from the higher-ups and does not care about Beidacang, Zhang Ming will not work with them.

Tai Hua Food Products company is now famous throughout China. Although the investments and scale are not as significant as Beidacang, its worth had reached a few hundred million RMB. Its annual sales are more than 1 billion.

Zhang Ming wanted to wait until Beidacang fails, and he will persuade Feng Yu to acquire it or let Tai Hua Food Products get listed and use the funds to buy out Beidacang.

This way, Tai Hua Food Products will become Asia’s most prominent agricultural food products company. Zhang Ming will also stand to gain from it.

But Feng Yu stopped him. Feng Yu does not want to do this as this concerns all the farms in Longjiang Province. The farmers’ income will be affected if he did this. Feng Yu does not want to take advantage of those farmers. The Central and Provincial governments’ relationship with Feng Yu will sour, and Tai Hua Food Products company’s development will be affected.

That’s why even if Zhang Ruiqiang did not bring up this subject, Zhang Ming would also sign the cooperation agreement before Lunar New Year.

“I have lots of work in the City Government and the Provincial Government. I do not have time to manage Beidacang. Old Niu is still waiting for Zhang Ming’s reply. He had no choice but to ask me for help. You don’t tell me that Zhang Ming or your father is the decisionmaker. I know you are the one who makes all these decisions.”

Zhang Ruiqiang knew Feng Yu when he was starting out. He had seen Feng Yu’s business expanded step by step. All the crucial decisions in Feng Yu’s companies were decided by him!

“This Zhang Ming…… I have told him that we must work with our hometown companies. Don’t worry. I will call him later to scold him.” Feng Yu ‘angrily’ replied.

Zhang Ruiqiang rolled his eyes.

“Since we will be cooperating, will you help us with our grain products exportation? Russia’s demand had fallen a lot this year.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was frustrated when he mentioned this. Russia had been buying grains from China, especially from Longjiang Province.

But these few years, Russia’s farming industry had recovered faster than expected. This was not because of the Russians, but Longjiang farmers.

Because of Feng Yu’s suggestion to export farmers, many Longjiang farmers went to Russia to rent their land. The City provided loans to the farmers and helped them to rent Russia farmlands and machinery.

The farmers’ income had increased several folds!

But this created another problem. Russia’s demand for Longjiang food supplies fell because its own food supply had increased.

Russia’s eastern regions had similar climate as Longjing. When Longjiang farmers went over to Russia, they could cultivate the wastelands there. This increases Russia’s domestic food supply, and Longjiang’s farm produce could not be sold to them!

Soybeans, corn, wheat, and beetroots. These were the 4 main farms produce. The demand from Russia had fallen more than half. Of course, Longjiang province was not the only affected party. Other food exportation countries were also affected.

Beidacang was newly established and their first year’s produce was unsold. This was a failure!

Zhang Ruiqiang knew Feng Yu had connections in Russia. His Songjiang Motor vehicles could be exported to Russia and even sold to the Russian government and military. It should not be a problem for him to sell Longjiang’s crops to Russia.

Feng Yu had heard about this from his father. His father told him that the crop prices had fallen this year. But luckily the Provincial Government had controlled the crop prices, and they did not make any losses. Their profits were much lower compared to last year.

Feng Yu had only wanted to help the Longjiang farmers increase their incomes and help Uncle Wen to get some credit. He did not expect his suggestion to affect Longjiang province’s economy.

Feng Yu thought back. No wonder Russia agreed readily then. Although they had given up some of their lands, they got the rental and cheap grains in return. Russia’s grain prices were slightly lower than the Longjiang. Overall, Russia had gained more than Longjiang province!

Feng Yu scratched his head. With Kirilenko’s help, it should not be a problem to export Longjiang’s crops to Russia. Even if Russia does not need these crops, the other former Soviet Union countries still have high demand. Should I ask Brother Ki for help?

Eh? Wait. Why should we sell off those crops? We should start storing up the crops this year!

“We do not need to sell those crops. We can store the wheat, corn, soybeans, etc. in our grain depot for emergency. If the grain prices increase next year, our value will increase too.”

There will be a few natural disasters and flooding in two years. If they store part of their harvest these two years, it will be enough for them to tide over the difficult times in 1998. If not, food production in 1998 will decrease, and Beidacang’s cost will increase a lot. They will no longer be competitive.

“Why would the grain prices increase suddenly? Furthermore, our exportation to Russia is affected, and the grain prices should drop.” Zhang Ruiqiang could not understand what Feng Yu said this. Feng Yu should be able to understand this simple logic.

“What if our crops supply drop? Our Longjiang province has 3 rivers. If there is a sudden flood, those farms in the lowlands will be gone.”

“What are you talking about? Do you wish for there to be natural disasters?!” Zhang Ruiqiang retorted.

Feng Yu was feeling helpless. He could not explain how he knows that there will be severe flooding in the future. People will see him as a conman!

“I am saying what if. What’s wrong with preparing for the worst? We never know when disaster will strike.”

Feng Yu was trying to persuade Zhang Ruiqiang to store their crops, and Zhang Ruiqiang felt something was off……

Chapter 808 – Grain depots become Warehouses

Feng Yu knew that Zhang Ruiqiang might have thought of something from his expression.

“Our Tai Hua Trading’s newly rented warehouse was formerly grain depot. It was used to store soybean oil.” Feng Yu smiled.

Grain depots were used to store grains and cooking oil. Tai Hua Trading had rented a warehouse that was formerly used to store soybean oil.

“You are saying telling me to let you rent the whole grain storage?” Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu.

“You want to let us rent half of it?” Feng Yu rolled his eyes.

Zhang Ruiqiang knew that the grain depot in the city was not full. When the State Administration of Grain was still around, this grain depot had never been full. During that time, the country was poor, and people do not have enough to eat. There was no way for them to store grains for emergency.

But the depot was at least half full. Zhang Ruiqiang does not know that the depot had been rented out. Government subsidies for grain storage were given to the provincial government in advance.

The higher-up’s requirement for Longjiang province to have a backup of 60 million KG of grains and 10,000 tons of cooking oil. This requirement had been lowered. In the past, the requirements for the Longjiang province was 85 million KG. But due the bountiful harvest in the past few years, the requirements were lowered.

The reserve grains were used to regulate the grain prices. Once the prices of the grains in the market fall below the minimum price, the Provincial Government will buy the grains and keep as a reserve. If the market prices rise too high, the government will sell off their reserve to lower the prices.

The subsidies for this grain depot include interest subsidies, transportation subsidies, price difference subsidies, etc. All these subsidies were given out by the Provincial Government. The government will not care if there is a surplus. But if there is a shortfall, the provincial government will interfere.

Feng Yu was telling Zhang Ruiqiang to increase the grains reserve? No. Feng Yu was hinting that the grain reserve is insufficient!

Feng Yu saw Zhang Ruiqiang’s face turned black and asked. “You don’t know about this?”

“I do not know about this in the past. But now, I know. It seems like I need to conduct a thorough investigation!”

Feng Yu immediately say. “You all can go and investigate all you want. We have paid the rental and signed the lease agreement. If we are not allowed to rent those warehouses, you all must compensate us 3 times the rental!”

“I will use other warehouses to exchange with you!” Zhang Ruiqiang retorted. 3 times the rental? You might as well go rob the bank!

Feng Yu nodded. “That’s more like it. I will provide you a list. You can investigate based on the list.”

Zhang Ruiqiang stares at Feng Yu. “How many grain depots did you all rent as warehouses?”

“Not a lot. You should also know that our Tai Hua Food products are also selling animal feeds. We need warehouses that are damp-proof and fire-proof. Grain depots are the most suitable. We have basically rented most of the grain depots in the province. You can check it base on the list, and it will save you a lot of trouble! Also, don’t try to confiscate my animal feeds in those depots. I will also promise you that I will not use our grains to pretend to be those depot’s reserve.”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s eyes were twitching. “Pretend to be reserve? I know how to inspect those depots. This is not a small problem!”

During the depot inspection last year, there were no issues. So, the people there can make use of other people’s grains to pretend as reserves. After the check is over, the grains will be ship away. This is a severe breach!

“That’s right. All the rental contracts for the various depots are the same. The Government must settle this for us. We are taxpayers and victims.” Feng Yu said.

“I will settle your warehouse issues. Give me the list immediately!” Zhang Ruiqiang gritted his teeth.

“Why are you shouting at me? I am not the one who lied to you.”

“You dare to say your rental of those depots is not lower than the market price? You dare to say that you don’t know that the depots are all empty? You will make up for the difference in the warehouse rental!” Zhang Ruiqiang shouted furiously.

Feng Yu knew about the grain storage, and how can he not know that there are problems with the Provincial grain’s reserves?

“Fine, fine, fine……. I will make up the difference. Do I look like I lack money? You talk like I am purposely taking advantage of the government. If I don’t tell you about this, will you know?”

Feng Yu also did not know about this in the first place. He only found out about the warehouses after Zhang Ming and Wu Zhigang rented those warehouses. Were the rentals much lower than regular rates? Not really. They only rented those warehouses because they were damp-proof and fire-proof. Feng Yu will not do anything illegal just to save some money.

Secretary Liu heard Feng Yu and Zhang Ruiqiang shouting in the office and quickly ran in. What happened? How come they are arguing suddenly?

“Manager Feng, I will get you a new cup of tea.” Secretary Liu looked at his boss and wonders what had happened.

“Brother Liu, your leader is too much. I am helping him, and he turns around and blame me for it.” Feng Yu took a big gulp of tea.

“Fine. I have wronged you. Happy?” Although Zhang Ruiqiang was frustrated, he still apologized to Feng Yu.

“Eh… Alright. I forgive you. Brother Liu, this tea taste nice. Help me pack some. I want to bring it back to my father.” Feng Yu replied.

“Manager Feng, this is only ordinary tea leaves. You can afford all the tea leaves in the world. Stop joking with me.” Secretary Liu said. Why does this Manager Feng always want to bring something back whenever he comes?

“It is different. My father does not like the tea leaves I bought. But he will love it if I tell him that I got the tea leaves from our leader.” Actually, Feng Xingtai was the same as Feng Yu. They do not know anything about tea. Their impression of tea was ‘the tea drank by the leaders must be a good tea.’

“Let him bring back that tin of tea leaves. Pack up and prepare the car.” Zhang Ruiqiang said.

Secretary Liu was not surprising that the leader was willing to give Feng Yu his best tea leaves. But why does the leader need the car? This is not in today’s schedule. From Zhang Ruiqang’s expression, something terrible must have happened.

That conman was arrested, and someone had gone over there to settle it. Why is the Leader going there too?

5 minutes later, Feng Yu walked out of Zhang Ruiqiang’s office with a tin of tea leaves. Many people saw him and greeted him. Feng Yu returned their greeting with a smile. He feels like he is a Leader in the City Government now.

Many people in the City Government were discussing Feng Yu. Zhang Ruiqiang and Feng Yu were very close. Every time Feng Yu walks out of Zhang Ruiqiang’s office, he will be bringing some of Zhang Ruiqiang’s personal collection out. But this was also because he is Manager Feng. No one else can do this.

After boarding his car, Feng Yu immediately call Zhang Ming and Wu Zhigang to tell them to prepare the list of their rented warehouses. They must also be prepared to move out of those warehouses.

Feng Yu had done what he was supposed to. He had already reminded Zhang Ruiqiang, and that’s all he can say.

Author’s PS: There are somethings which cannot be written. I had deleted a lot of contents even when all the information was released by the government. That’s why you all might feel this chapter ended abruptly.

Chapter 809 – Little Nephew

“Uncle, Uncle, tell me a story.”

Feng Yu’s nephew, Li Zhixing, was already 5 years old. It was currently his kindergarten’s school break, and he was at home every day. He was at the age where he got boundless energy and curiosity. Li Shiqiang’s parents were reluctant to discipline him, and as a result, this little kid was very mischievous and…… irritating!

After Feng Yu returned home, this little brat had been pestering him. He kept asking Feng Yu to bring him out or tell him stories. It was fine for Feng Yu to tell him stories. But he does not listen to Feng Yu’s stories without asking a ton of questions!

“You want me to bring you out to build a snowman?”

“Building snowman is so boring. The snowman you build will collapse with one kick. It is not sturdy at all!” Little nephew replied.

Alright… To this brat, snowmen are for kicking!

“Want to play video games?”

“Feng Yu, he is not allowed to play video games!” Feng Yu’s sister, who was cooking in the kitchen, shouted.

“Fine. Let me read you a story. But you must not interrupt me.” Feng Yu let his little nephew sit beside him while thinking of what story to tell him.

“You must not lie to me. I have heard of a lot of stories. I want to hear something different.” Little Nephew replied.

“No problem. I will tell you a new story which you have never heard before. Let me tell you a story about Calabash Vs Ultraman.”

Feng Yu was not interested in telling his nephew a long story. If not, this little brat will pester him over the next few days for the rest of stories. If Feng Yu still refuses to finish his story, Li Zhixing would complain to Feng Yu’s parents!

This little brat knew how to fake cry! Feng Yu did not know about this in the past until he was almost beaten up by his father.

That’s why Feng Yu chose to make up some short stories to entertain his nephew!

“Uncle, why did Calabash fight with Ultraman? Calabash is from China, and Ultraman is not.”

“They are staying not far away from each other. They can take a plane and fly over. Also, Ultraman can fly.”

“But Calabash is from the olden days. They still do not have airplanes!”

“Calabash lived from the olden days until now. You should have no more questions now.”

“Then who is the good guy?”

Feng Yu was at a loss of words. Why does this brat have so many questions?!

“Do you want to listen to the story or not? If you don’t want to listen, I will not tell you!”

“Fine. Just tell me the story since I have nothing to do now.”

Feng Yu was speechless. This little brat was making use of him to waste time!

“… … Then Ultraman used his laser beam. Pi… Pi… Pi… and Calabash dodged the beam and spewed out a magic fire that burned Ultraman to death. Alright. This is the end of the story.” Feng Yu was pleased with his story.

“No. That’s not right. Ultraman is from outer space. How can he be afraid of fire?”

“It is because Calabash’s magic fire is special and is hotter than normal fire.”

“What is magic fire make of?”

How the hell do I know what it is made of? I have only heard of magic fire. No one ever says what it is make from! Why do you have so many questions? Just listen to the goddamn story and stop picking on it!

Feng Yu had finally met his match. He can handle politicians, businessmen, scientists, engineers, etc. But why can’t he handle this little brat?

“Ah, dinner is ready. Let’s go and wash our hands for dinner.”

Li Zhixing stood on a stool and washed his hands. He turned around and asked: “Uncle, you still have not told me what magic fire is make of, and why can the fire kill Ultraman.”

Feng Yu heard the door opening and was overjoyed. “Quick, your father is back. Let’s go out to receive him.

Feng Yu sighed in relieved when he saw his nephew run out. He wonders if this little brat also has so many questions at school. His kindergarten teacher should go crazy from his endless questions.

“Xiao Feng, don’t you think children are cute? Hurry up and get married to Li Na and have a kid.” Li Shiqiang was carrying Li Zhixing as he said this.

“Haha……”

Cute? I don’t see any cuteness in them.

Feng Yu tried to play Lego with Li Zhixing, but he threw the Lego blocks all over the place. Feng Yu brought him out to build a snowman, but he kicked it over. Tell him a story, and he will have endless questions!

But Feng Yu noticed that this little brat was well behaved most of the time. Could it be that he only acts this way when he is with Feng Yu?

Feng Yu has no experience with kids.

During dinner, Li Zhixing was very quiet. He finishes all his food, leaving not a single grain of rice.

Feng Yu felt what he saw in the morning was an illusion. But very soon, Feng Yu was dragged back to reality.

“Uncle, I have finish eating. Can you tell me another story?”

“Ah? I still have not finished. You go and take a nap first.”

“My mum said I cannot take naps after food. Tell me a story.”

“Go and play by yourself first. I will tell you a story after I finish eating.”

“But there is no more food in your bowl. You even put down your chopsticks.”

Kids are so smart nowadays?!

“Alright. I will tell you a story about Ultraman vs Transformer.” This time, both characters are from outer space. This should not be a problem.

“Uncle, you still have not finished the previous story. What is magic fire make of?”

Why is this kid still asking about magic fire?!

“How about I bring you out to buy some toys? I will bring you to the Hypermarket. There are lots of toys there. You can pick whatever you want!”

“Can I have a toy car?”

“No problem. What sort of cars do you want?”

Feng Yu regretted after he asked this question. This little brat immediately gave Feng Yu a headache.

“I want a car, exactly the same as my dad’s.” Li Zhixing replied excitedly.

“That is not a toy. You cannot drive that type of car.”

“You can build it smaller. Cannot? I knew it. Grandma is lying to me. Uncle does not know anything.”

Huh? Damn! This kid also knows how to say these things? You think I will fall for it? You are right!

“You just wait. I will give you a toy car that you like before Lunar New Year.”

“A car that can be driven?”

“You can surely drive it!” Feng Yu does not believe that his vast automobile factory cannot build a toy car.

Asking the engineers to build a toy car is an abuse of power. But who dares to say anything?

“Uncle will get someone to build a car for you.”

“Wait. I have a drawing with me. You must build it according to my drawing.”

Feng Yu looked at the crayon drawing of a car and was speechless. This brat had even prepared the design of the car. He had planned for this to happen? No wonder he seems so impatient today. He did this on purpose!

Fine… I will not disappoint you! But after you got your toy car and continue to pester me, I will not let you off!

Chapter 810 – Repairing the Dam

“Son, you are back? Is your little nephew cute?” Feng Xingtai laughed and asked.

Feng Yu: “……” Hehe, you all had created a monster and are still unaware.

“Dad, where is Grandpa?”

“He went downstairs to play chess with your Grandpa Li. Let me tell you… kids are adorable. When you are small……”

Feng Yu immediately knew what his father was up to. He wants Feng Yu to get married earlier and have a child. Luckily Feng Yu was good at changing the subject.

“Errr…… Dad, I heard that road repairs in our village have reached Xingtai Street 8?”

When mentioned about this, Feng Xingtai immediately smiles: “Hahaha, we spent so much money on the road repairs. They must work fast. But the village is too small, and there are not a lot of people. We cannot continue to build roads.”

“Dad, people will move to the village in the future. The Government is building small towns. We will continue to build more roads. Maybe we can even erect a statue of you in the village.”

“Nonsense! What statue? Your father is still not dead!”

“We can build a monument instead. A monument with writings. You can write it yourself. This monument will last for hundreds of years.”

“Eh… this is a good idea! Good idea! You should start building it now. No. You cannot do it now. I need to practice my calligraphy first.” Feng Xingtai was excited. But he remembered that he is not good at calligraphy.

“I will help you get paper and brushes tomorrow. I will also hire someone from our Provincial calligraphy association to guide you.”

Feng Yu turned and walk away with a sly smile. His father will be too busy practicing his calligraphy and will not have time to bother him.

……

“Manager Feng, have you finish building your village’s roads? Are you going to repair the road leading to the town? It is a long road, and it will be costly.” Manager Li from Provincial Construction heard that Feng Yu was looking for a construction team and was overjoyed.

They do not need to cut corners when they worked for Feng Yu. Feng Yu paid them handsomely, and if their work meets his requirements, he would still give out bonuses. He was different from other clients, where they were not willing to pay more and wanted high standard work. Those other clients do not understand the meaning of you get what you pay. If all clients were like Feng Yu, they would not have any headaches.

“Your Provincial Construction have any experience in repairing and building a dam?”

“Repair what? Dam? You want to build a dam for your village? That can be easily done. You can just dig up the soil along the river to build it. But you need more heavy machinery. I will get my people to do up a quotation for you.” Manager Li said. He thought to himself. Why Manager Feng is not from my hometown? My hometown is a county, and the streets are not as wide as Feng Yu’s village.

“I want a dam that can prevent flooding.”

“I guarantee it can prevent floods.”

“It must be able to withstand severe flooding which happens once in a hundred years. It must be wide enough for cars to drive on it. Can you do it?”

“Manager Feng, is there a need for this? It will be costly if we go according to your requirements. We will need a stone or concrete dam. A meter of such dam will cost much more than a meter of road.” Manager Li knew Feng Yu was wealthy, but building a dam is not a small amount.

“You prepare a quotation for me and prepare several options for me to choose from. It must include those ordinary dams. I will take a look and will pick the best option. You should know my requirements. I don’t mind the cost, but the quality of work must be there. If you are not able to meet my demand, don’t blame me.”

“Don’t worry, Manager Feng. Although we are not good at designing dams, we are located just next to Water Resources Planning Institute. We will ask them to design, and we will construct.” Manager Li was thinking in his heart. It would be best if this dam is built using concrete and stones. This way, his company will be able to earn much more. Water Resources Planning Institute will surely take away part of his profits.

“I will let you handle this. If there are any problems, I will look for you.”

“Rest assured. This is also not the first time we are working together. Since when did we give you any problems?” Hmmm…… We did not face any problems with Manager Feng’s projects.

……

“Secretary Xu, what is the Province’s budget on the waterworks this year?”

Xu Changyou looked at Feng Yu, shocked. “What do you want?”

“I just want to know how much budget is set aside to improve the waterworks. I will donate Yuan to Yuan. I hope our province will improve the river dams this year. Our province has 3 rivers, and every few years, there will be a sudden increase in rainfall. We will have floods easily, and I wish to do something about it.” Feng Yu said.

“Yuan for Yuan donation? Repair our river dam? Manager Feng, can you change your donations to repairing our roads? Our dams in the province are well built, and we do conduct regular inspections and repairs annually. It will be able to withstand flood.” Xu Changyou replied. How much does it cost to repair the dams? If Feng Yu was willing to donate a sum of money to the Province, it should be used to improve the roads.

Feng Yu was feeling helpless. If Longjiang province is not one of the worst flooded regions in the country, he would also not donate money to rebuild the dams.

I only want to do my part to reduce the damages of the flood. The two lakes regions in Hubei and Hunan also need donations. All my profits for this year will be gone. How can I still help you repair the roads?

“Secretary Xu, I have a condition in exchange for my donations to repair the dams. My condition is to rename the dams as Wind and Rain Dams. This is related to my company’s promotion. Also, the Province must promote all our products for us free of charge. This is not a big request, and I am not interested in repairing the roads.”

Who will believe Feng Yu if he says the whole Longjiang province will be flooded in two years? Grains reserve and repairing of the dams were to prepare for the floods that will be happening in 1998.

If there were no floods, Feng Yu would never spend money to repair the dams. He would rather donate more school buildings. He will be overtaking Sir Shaw as the number one philanthropist in education. Tai Hua Buildings will take up a special place in every student’s heart.

In the future, everyone will feel proud and will look forward to work for the Tai Hua brand of companies. Of course. Feng Yu’s parents will also be happy.

“All the dams have to be called Wind and Rain Dams? This is not right. We had already repaired most of the dams.” Xu Changyou was not very happy with this proposal. He had heard that Feng Yu likes to have a good reputation, but this is too much.

“Wind and Rain Dams. Unbeatable against Wind and Rain. This is a good slogan. Furthermore, I am making a huge donation. Why can’t the Provincial Government give me the naming rights of the dams? Those dams which were repaired do not need any more maintenance? If the Province’s budget for waterworks this year is 100 million RMB, I will donate 100 million RMB. If the Provincial Government can set aside 1 billion RMB, I will match it even if I have to sell my woks and pans to raise money!”

Sell woks and pans? Do you really need to sell them? But Xu Changyou understands how determine Feng Yu was. It would be good for the whole province if they were able to upgrade and repair all the dams. Hmmm… This must be discussed with the Waterworks Department.

“Manager Feng, how about we add ‘Wind and Rain’ in front of the dam names and erect a stone sign at the dam, stating that you donated money to repair the dam?”

“That will do too. But you don’t need to put my name. You can use Wind and Rain Electronics or Wind, Rain Home Appliances, etc. Contact me again once this is decided. I will be going overseas again after Lunar New Year.”

“How can we let you wait? I will give you an answer before Lunar New Year.”

After Feng Yu left, Xu Changyou immediately called his secretary in. “Ask Yang Liwen to come to my office now.”

Chapter 811 – No one can understand him

“Zhigang, how much money can our company take out?” Feng Yu sat on the sofa and asked.

“We should have around 60 million RMB. Didn’t you ask us to set up our own distribution channels in the various provinces?” Wu Zhigang was curious. The company had taken out most of its profits earlier this year to set up its own distribution channel. Why is Manager Feng asking about money?

“We cannot stop building our distribution channels. If there is not enough money, get a loan. Prepare 50 million RMB to be transferred to our Province’s Waterworks Department. You have to monitor how the Waterworks Department uses this money. If any other departments dare to touch this money, or they cut corners in the construction, call me immediately!” Feng Yu instructed.

Government Officials were all very daring. They even dare to misuse the funds given by the Central Government, let alone the donations from a private company.

Government Officials will always use all sorts of reasons to misuse the funds. They will use the funds to increase the number of public buses, office equipment, build new office buildings, etc. Feng Yu will not allow these to happen!

“Waterworks Department? Manager Feng, what are you planning to do?” Wu Zhigang asked curiously.

“Repair the river dams.”

“Repair the dams? Manager Feng, why are you repairing the dams? That should be the government’s job. You might as well donate to Tai Hua Education Trust.” Wu Zhigang does not understand why Feng Yu wanted to repair the dams. No one will care about the dams, and it will not increase his reputation.

“We have 3 rivers in our province. If there is a flood, the damage will be severe. All the farmlands will be flooded. If the dams broke, the houses would be destroyed, and lives will be gone.”

“Is it that serious? In 1991, Longjiang also had flooded. But we are all fine. The higher-ups had also issued funds to reinforce the dams and made many flood prevention measures. What can happen? Furthermore, we will not always have floods.” Wu Zhigang replied.

What Feng Yu worried most was this. In his previous life, everyone disregarded the dangers of floods. Although the dams in Longjiang did not collapse, the designs of the dams and the flood prevention measures were insufficient to handle the flood in 1998.

Also, the economy during that time does not allow the province to build better dams. If Feng Yu were not reborn into this life, he would not take notice of this. No one in the world will expect the flooding to be so severe.

No one will think that the whole province will be flooded. Whenever there is a flood in China, Longjiang province will be affected. This was because Longjiang province has many rivers. It will be too late to strengthen the dams when the flood happened.

Actually, if Feng Yu does not know about the floods, he will also not care about it. Bing City was safe from the floods.

But Feng Yu remembered how severely affected Longjiang province was in his previous life. The images of the people suffering were still in his mind. He hopes he could change history this time.

“There are no floods this year or next. What happens if there is a flood the year after that? It will be too late for us to do anything. Prevention is better than cure. Go and make the necessary preparations. This is settled.” Feng Yu waved his hand and did not want to explain further.

Wu Zhigang could not say anything. Feng Yu gave them pay rise every year, and their bonuses had increased annually. Now, the ones that had joined Feng Yu since he started this company were assigned with a Songjiang car each. All of them have 6 digits savings. None of them had imagined they would be able to live so comfortably in the past.

Just follow and do what Manager Feng tells you. Nothing will go wrong if you listen to Manager Feng. This was their belief. Although Wu Zhigang was puzzled over Feng Yu’s decision today, he still followed his orders.

After all, funds were transferred out from the company, Tai Hua Trading had to get a loan from ICBC bank. Tai Hua Trading has a good relationship with ICBC bank, and they could get a low-interest loan easily.

Before this, Feng Yu had used up almost all the funds to invest in Microsoft. Although all of Feng Yu’s companies were doing well, Tai Hua Supermarket stills owe the banks a large sum of money. There were still no dividends. Lehaha was also expanding, and the dividends paid out were very little. Bing City Machinery Company was also expanding and needs to upgrade its machinery. Bing City Pharmaceutical Corporation was also the same. They had just bought two factories.

Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain Home appliances, Aiwa Electronics, Aiwa Home Appliances were the same as Tai Hua Trading. Last year, Feng Yu had withdrawn out a large sum of money from these companies to invest in the US stock markets. He also made massive sponsorship to CCTV and the Sports Administration. He does not have much money left.

Feng Yu was still thinking of raising a sum of money to invest in the rapidly rising stock market.

“Zhang Ming, how much profits are left in the company?”

“We can take out about 100 million. Manager Feng, you need the money? But didn’t you say we are going to expand out pork products production line?”

“Get a loan for that and give me the money first.”

Feng Yu also took out a sum of money from the AIWA company. He has about 300 million RMB with him now.

“Brother-in-law, how much money does your company have? I need to borrow some.”

Li Shiqiang was stunned. Feng Yu wants to borrow money from him? All of Feng Yu’s companies were making more profits than his Wind and Rain Logistics.

“How much do you need?” Li Shiqiang had also decided to expand his business towards the south. He needed to expand his fleet and does not have a lot of funds.

“How much do you have?” Feng Yu asked.

“Xiao Yu, your companies have a problem?” Li Shiqiang was curious. He knew nothing had happened with Feng Yu’s companies in China. Could it be Feng Yu’s businesses overseas?

“There is no problem with my businesses. All my money had been invested in the stock markets, and I do not want to sell the shares as the share prices are still rising. I am thinking of donating money to repair the dams.”

Li Shiqiang does not understand what Feng Yu was thinking. You do not have money, and why are you still donating to repair the dams? Even if you want to donate, you can wait until you sold your shares.

“I can lend you 10 million RMB. Is it enough? I think I might be able to raise 20 million at most.” Li Shiqiang was no longer the boss of a small logistics company. Wind and Rain Logistics’ market value is more than 100 million now. But the profits from the logistics business is not high.

10 to 20 million RMB? It’s too little.

“Never mind. I will look for other people.”

“Wait. Why are you donating to repair the dams?”

“To prevent floods.”

Li Shiqiang: “……” He does not understand what Feng Yu was thinking. Feng Yu would rather borrow money to donate for the repairs of the dams? What’s the purpose of doing this? Who would care if you donated money to repair the dams? Where are the floods?

“Why can’t you repair the dams next year?”

“There is no time.” Feng Yu mumbled.

“What do you mean by there’s no time?”

“Ah, nothing. You should know that I do not have much patience. I will ask someone else for help. Don’t tell anyone at home about this. I am not squandering my money.”

Li Shiqiang thought to himself. This is not called squandering money, then what is this called?

What is going on in Feng Yu’s head?

Chapter 812 – Province is going all out

Longjiang Waterworks Department’s head, Yang Liwen, had been smiling since yesterday. There were rumors that he will be promoted after he had a meeting with the leader!

But no one had heard of any leaders in the provincial government will be transferring out. A leader will be transferred to the Central Government? All the people in the government were asking around. If any leaders were to move up, there would be a vacancy, and the leaders at every level will have a chance to move up too.

Today, Yang Liwen called for a meeting with middle management suddenly. This was a restructuring meeting. Everyone in the provincial government was shocked.

It is usual for the department to have a restructuring after Lunar New Year. But this is before Lunar New Year. Longjiang Province is still covered in snow. The Waterworks Department have a new project? Digging ice holes?

“I received a piece of good news during the meeting with the leaders yesterday. Our province will be upgrading all the dams. We are going to receive a significant amount of funds!”

Everyone at the meeting was excited. With sufficient funds, they can start a lot of projects, and their bonuses and welfare will increase. Of course, there were still unspoken benefits like the cities receiving the funding will have to give something in return.

You are not willing to return the favor? Fine. I will issue the fund to another city. Your city will be left out.

“You all are thrilled? But this also means that we will have lots of projects next year. We will be overwhelmed with work, and it will be tough. Now, there is a task for all of you. Notify all the waterworks department heads in the various cities to raise funds for waterworks. All the funds have to be credited into our Provincial Waterworks department’s account. After we had tabulated the account, we will double whatever they raise and return back to them!

Everyone at the meeting was confused. What does this mean? The Provincial Government is not going to issue funds? We still have to raise funds and transfer to the Provincial Government?

The Provincial Government will double and return the funds back to the cities? The amount of tax received by the Provincial Government is limited. What if a city manage to raise 100 million RMB of funds?

You dare to double it and issue back to them? The Provincial Government will kill you!

“What are you all keeping quiet? Old Liu, you are in-charge of Qi City. How many funds can you raise?” Yang Liwen starts to ask individually.

“Leader, what do you mean by this? Our department is not a powerful department. What if the cities’ leaders do not want to cooperate?”

“You don’t need to worry about this. All the cities had already received the notification from the province. They will cooperate with us. If any city government refuses to cooperate, let me know. I will speak to the Provincial Government leaders!” Yang Liwen firmly replied.

Yang Liwen was not the head of the traffic enforcement or finance department. Usually, those city mayors or their deputies do not care about him. You are not the one issuing funds to the cities, what’s there to talk?

But this time it is different. The Leader had promised him. If he could raise 1 billion RMB, the Provincial Government will top up the same amount, and the total will be 2 billion. The whole province’s waterworks will improve by leaps and bounds. This will be his credit.

Xu Changyou made this promise because the Provincial Government does not have enough funds. All their surplus had been invested into Beidacang Group, and the company still has not generated any returns yet. There might also be no profits in the coming year. If the Provincial Government were to invest a sum of money into the waterworks, there would delay in their other projects.

But now, Feng Yu is going to donate 1 for 1. If Xu Changyou still does not grab this opportunity, he will be an idiot! But the Provincial Government does not have money. He can only ask the cities to raise funds themselves.

Upgrading of the dams is a good project, and the leaders will be able to gain brownie points. When all the City Mayors heard about him, they start to think of ways to raise funds for the Waterworks Department.

After the funds were doubled and returned to them, they will take out the amount they put in. The remaining funds will be enough for them to build and repair the dams.

Feng Yu does not know about this. He is currently raising funds for the donations. Xu Changyou had agreed, and Feng Yu will not go back on his words.

Feng Yu managed to raise 500 million from his companies and felt it should be enough. He knew the Provincial Government does not have a lot of money. He estimates the province will be about to raise 300 million RMB at most, but he will still donate 500 million. He will donate another sum next year. This amount should be enough to strengthen the province’s waterworks.

The dams will not collapse during the floods in 1998, and the people will be able to keep their houses. Feng Yu will think of other solutions for the flooding of the fields. Maybe he can ask the farmers to switch to corn. This will be better than losing all of their harvests.

Today, Xu Changyou called Feng Yu personally to invite him over for a meeting. The Provincial Government had completed the budget for next year. They had set aside more budget for the waterworks.

“1 Billion RMB?! Leader, you are telling me that the Provincial Government had set aside 1 billion RMB budget for Waterworks?!” Feng Yu could not believe his ears. Where did the province get so much money? It’s 1 billion and not 10,000 RMB. How can they get so much?

Beidacang Group had been losing money. Although Longjiang Province had revived its industrial industry, not a lot of the taxes collected is handed over to the Provincial Government. The sub-provincial cities have high control over the collected taxes. Based on Feng Yu’s estimation, the province will not invest more than 100 million into waterworks.

After Feng Yu promised to donate to the waterworks, the provincial government will increase its budget. But it should be 200 to 300 million RMB at most. It will not be more than 500 million RMB. Where did this 1 billion come from?

Xu Changyou had raised slightly over 800 million from all the cities, and the Provincial Government topped up the rest to make it 1 billion!

Xu Changyou asked Zhang Ruiqiang how much money Feng Yu has. Zhang Ruiqiang only tells him that Feng Yu is the wealthiest person in China. Just his assets in Bing City is enough to make him one of the top tycoons in China. Moreover, Feng Yu still have investments in other provinces and overseas. He told Xu Changyou that Feng Yu’s total assets might be more than 10 billion RMB!

When Xu Changyou heard this, he was overjoyed. 10 billion RMB? How much is that? Longjiang province’s taxes are not even a fraction of it!

But Xu Changyou could not say anything. Feng Yu got his money from legitimate businesses, and he even donated lots of money to build school buildings in the province. His donations had helped the province save a lot on education.

After hearing Zhang Ruiqiang’s analysis, Xu Changyou decided. You say if the province is about to invest 1 billion RMB, you will donate the same amount? Now I have 1 billion. Let’s see what you are going to do!

Zhang Ruiqiang had said that Feng Yu had never go back on his words when it comes to donations. Xu Changyou will not let go of this opportunity.

If this goes according to plan, Xu Changyou’s retirement might be delayed. He will not miss this opportunity to get political credits. Even if his retirement is not delayed, the people in the province will benefit from it. Anyway, he is not going to pocket the money, and it’s the province that gains from it.

“Manager Feng, you are the one who told me that if the province can raise 1 billion, you will donate 1 billion. Now, the province is going to invest 1 billion into the waterworks.”

Xu Changyou looked at Feng Yu, smiling like a cunning fox……

Chapter 813 – Exposed

Feng Yu had tried hard to raise 500 million RMB. He even had to borrow 50 million RMB from Fu Guangzheng. But he never expects the provincial government to raise 1 billion RMB.

The Central Government had issued funds to the province to repair the dams in 1992. The amount raised should not be from the Central Government. The province is can really raise this amount?

“Secretary Xu, the provincial government is really to invest 1 billion? What about the other departments? You all will not have enough funds to operate.” Feng Yu will never believe this. He felt Xu Changyou is lying to him. After he donated 1 billion, the province will invest 100 million RMB.

“You can get someone to check our Provincial Waterworks Department’s account now. 1 billion RMB has been credited. I promise you the Provincial Government will not take a single cent, and everything will be issued out to the various cities.” Xu Changyou thought to himself. I can’t promise if the leaders in the different regions will use it for other purposes.

Xu Changyou’s instructions to the various cities were not to touch Feng Yu’s donations. It must be used to upgrade the waterworks. As for the amount they raise, he will not care.

“Secretary Xu, I will really send someone to check the accounts.” Feng Yu said.

“You will be donating so much money, and you should check it.” Xu Changyou smiled.

Feng Yu saw Xu Changyou was very calm when he said this. He knew that the Waterworks Department’s account should have 1 billion RMB. But Longjiang Province can’t raise 1 billion RMB from the meager taxes they collected. Was there anything I had missed out?

“Secretary Xu, did you get funding from the higher-ups?” This should not be possible too. The Central Government had just given Longjiang Province a sum of money last year. Although the money was for agriculture, they should not be giving so much money to Longjiang Province this year. The other provinces will surely jump.

“The higher-ups did issue some funds. But most of it is raised by province. To be honest, this is because of your generosity.” Xu Changyou replied.

Feng Yu narrowed his eyes and looked at Xu Changyou for a while. Suddenly, he laughed. “Secretary Xu, I am going to donate a large sum of money. I want the right to supervise the usage. This should not be a problem, right?”

Feng Yu saw Xu Changyou’s face changed. He knew it. The provincial government is going to use the fund for other areas. Impossible!

“Manager Feng, don’t worry. No one will dare to touch your donations. If whoever dares to misuse it, I will punish him severely! Even if he is a Director level official, I will demote him to a staff member. I dare to make this promise to you in front of the whole province. The Provincial Government will not touch the funds too.” Xu Changyou righteously said.

Feng Yu laughed. “I still want to let my men supervise.”

“Manager Feng, you don’t trust me?” Xu Changyou pretended to be angry.

No matter if it was in Feng Yu’s previous life or this life, Xu Changyou had good reputation. He was not corrupted and was a man of his words. He had never gone back on his promises. But Feng Yu noticed what Xu Changyou said was a trap.

The money I donated will not be touched? Then the fund raised by the province can be used in other areas? That means the repair of the dams will all be using the money I donated?

The amount raised by the province should be from other projects. Once I made the donations, they will transfer back the money ‘ borrowed’ from other projects.

Fat hope!

“Secretary Xu, what I want to monitor is the usage of the 2 billion RMB fund. It is not 1 billion.” Feng Yu said.

“Manager Feng, the Province will monitor the fund closely.”

“With all due respect, I trust you. But I don’t know the leaders in the other cities. If the cities’ leaders want to use the funds, the head of the waterworks dare to not give them the money? You can only promise my donations will not be used in other areas. What about the amount the province raised? You will not care about how it is used?” Feng Yu sneered.

You want to play these little tricks with me?

Xu Changyou knew Feng Yu had seen through his petty tricks. But he still wants to get the donation. After all, the donation is vital to the province.

“Manager Feng, I will be honest with you. The province does not have so much money to upgrade the waterworks. The dams in our province are still in good condition and do not need much upgrading or repairs.”

“That means the province only want to use my money to upgrade the dams? What’s the use of the Waterworks Department? Do you know how much I can make with 1 billion RMB? What can I get in return by donating this amount to you all? Don’t tell me about my reputation. I am not interested.” Feng Yu said coldly.

“Manager Feng, didn’t we agree about this?”

“Yes. We did agree about this. But the provincial government’s attitude really disappoints me. You all are trying to cheat my donations. Even if I don’t mention the contributions I made to the province, you should also know. Now, I am telling you this. I will donate 1 billion RMB. But my men will monitor the 2 billion RMB fund. No one is allowed to use it without my men’s approval!”

Xu Changyou’s face changed. “Manager Feng, this is too much. Since when did you hear the Government’s money is managed by a private entity?”

Feng Yu asked him back. “Since when did you hear anyone that donates 1 billion RMB?”

What? I have the money, and I am the boss. If you are capable, tell me you don’t need my money, and I will leave immediately!

Both went quiet. Feng Yu was very disappointed with Xu Changyou over this incident.

“Manager Feng, how about the province invest this amount over two years? We will invest 500 million RMB this year and another 500 million next year!” Xu Changyou did a mental calculation and knew 500 million RMB was still possible. As for the opposing voices from the various cities, he can only shut them up forcefully with his authority.

“If the Provincial Government is going to split the budget over two years, then my donations will also be over two years. The condition is still the same. I will donate the same amount as the government’s budget. The usage of this fund must be monitored by my people. I am donating to build and repair dams. I am not donating to the cities to use it in other areas.”

This was better for Feng Yu. He had barely managed to scrape together 500 million RMB now. But it should not be a problem next year. He should have sold his shares by then and will get back his capital. His companies’ profits should also be enough. Feng Yu also does not want to take out 1 billion RMB at once.

“Fine. Manager Feng, the Provincial Government, will raise 500 million and you will donate 500 million RMB. We will jointly monitor the usage of this fund. Any usage of the fund needs the signature of both parties. Is this alright?”

“No problems. Also, the dams I want must be able to withstand severe flooding. I do not want to see any shabby work. The plan proposed by the Provincial Construction Company and Institute of Waterworks is excellent. I don’t want to see any of the dams are built using compact soil.

It is hard to notice when insects like ants or bugs build nests in compact soil. This will loosen the soil and might cause the dam to collapse.

“This is not a problem as long as the Waterworks Department gives approval!” Xu Changyou agreed.

“Secretary Xu. I guarantee that repairing and upgrading the dams is beneficial to the people of Longjiang province. Preparing for the future is better than doing something after disaster strikes. The people will remember you.”

Xu Changyou sighed. “You are right. Prevention is better than cure. I will put a stop to those unnecessary projects in the various cities. The province will only focus on agriculture and waterworks these two years!”

Yes. The donation is secured. Although upgrading the waterworks might not help the economy, but this is something that will benefit the people. As for economic developments, let’s think of other ways.

Chapter 814 – Master Lu’s danger

The provincial government will set aside 500 million, and Feng Yu will donate the same amount. This 1 billion will be used on Longjing Province’s waterworks. The cities realized that they had been tricked by the Provincial Government. But they were powerless to do anything. They could only delay the start of some useless projects.

Xu Changyou decided to make a trip to Beijing after Lunar New Year. He needs the higher-ups to issue some money. Even if the money is not issued to them this year, he can still wait for next year. Feng Yu had agreed to donate the same amount next year too.

The Central Government will not mind issuing some funds to Longjiang. If they can put in 500 million RMB for the waterworks, they can get 1 billion RMB worth of work done. This is also a credit for the higher-ups.

After Lunar New Year, Feng Yu returned to Beijing. Master Lu will be transferred to the grassroots level to gain experience. Before he left, he wants to have a meal with Feng Yu.

Master Lu had helped Feng Yu a lot. Although Feng Yu will give something back in return for his favors, he still wants to have a close relationship with Master Lu. Master Lu is from a family of top-ranking government officials.

With Master Lu’s family background, Master Lu will most likely be in the governing body. He might even be posting to the Central Government. Feng Yu likes Master Lu’s character. He is willing to go all out for his friends.

“Master Lu, I wish you a belated happy new year.” Feng Yu laughed.

“Brother Feng, happy new year to you too. Let me introduce you to a friend. This is Niu Meng. He is from the military. His father is Major General, who is a hot favorite to move up. Brother Niu is now working in the logistics department.”

Feng Yu shook hands with Niu Meng. He was feeling troubled. He had thought he had changed Master Lu’s life. But it seems that nothing had changed. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Master Lu was implicated because he tried to help Niu Meng.

Will this happen again in this life?

“Brother Feng, I heard a lot about you from Brother Lu. I finally get to meet you in person. We must drink at least 3 glasses later.”

Feng Yu could tell Niu Meng was lying from what he said. If Master Lu really mentions him to Niu Meng, then Niu Meng will know Feng Yu does not like to drink.

Master Lu laughed. “Brother Niu, Brother Feng is not good at drinking. I will drink with you later.”

“How can a man don’t know how to drink?” Niu Meng said and glanced at Feng Yu. This made Feng Yu more uncomfortable.

Did I offend you?

If it was not because of Master Lu, Feng Yu would have walked away. Feng Yu was not interested to know this person. He is just someone who relies on his father. Why? I cannot hold my liquor well, and I am not a man? Since when men are judged by the amount of alcohol they can drink? Are you some mountain bandits?

No wonder people are saying Chinese soldiers are getting worse. These second-generation are the ones who tarnished the reputation of the Chinese army.

“Niu Meng! Apologize now!” Master Lu scolded.

“Brother Lu, why should I apologize?” Niu Meng did not think he has said anything wrong.

“Niu Meng, if you still want to be friends with me, apologize immediately. If not, you can go back now.” Master Lu said firmly.

Niu Meng looked at Master Lu, confused and look at Feng Yu. He does not understand why Master Lu is helping Feng Yu. Feng Yu is only a businessman.

But Niu Meng dare not to go against Master Lu. He looked at Feng Yu and apologize unwillingly. “I’m sorry. I will punish myself by drinking one glass later.”

When Niu Meng said this, he has a smirk on his face. He knew Feng Yu does not drink, and purposely said he will apologize by drinking. Is he sincere with his apology?

Master Lu patted Feng Yu on his arm. “Brother Feng, don’t mind him. This is the way he speaks, but he means no harm.”

Feng Yu laughed in his heart. Don’t be so sure. You will never imagine that his whole family is traitors!

During dinner, Feng Yu was very quiet. Master Lu felt embarrassed and kept trying to chat with Feng Yu. Niu Meng was pleased as he looked at Feng Yu.

After dinner, Niu Meng suggests going to sing karaoke. He said that there is a new lounge and have private rooms. Feng Yu was unsure if he was going there to sing or to experience other things.

“You all can go ahead. I am not interested.” Feng Yu stood up and was about to leave.

“What’s wrong? You are not giving me face?” Niu Meng was pissed.

“Who are you?! Do I need to give you face?!” Feng Yu stared at Niu Meng.

Niu Meng’s face changed: “F**k! Feng Yu! You are asking for a beating?”

Feng Yu does not need to say a word, and Mei Zhigao rushed in and stood beside Feng Yu. “Boss, is someone creating trouble here? I will call our men up.” He still has two other colleagues in another car downstairs. Outside of Bing City, Feng Yu have the habit of bringing a few bodyguards with him.

Niu Meng looked at Mei Zhigao. “Soldier?”

“I am only a driver.” Mei Zhigao replied coldly.

“Brother Feng, Niu Meng, do you all still treat me as a friend? Sit down.” Master Lu’s face was dark. He knew Niu Meng is rash and impulsive. But what happened to Feng Yu today. He had known Feng Yu for almost two years now. He does not behave this way.

If Feng Yu’s bodyguards came up and beat up Niu Meng at a dinner Master Lu hosted, it will be difficult for him to face his friends in the future.

“Brother Lu, I am inviting him to go to karaoke. Am I wrong?” Niu Meng looked at Master Lu.

“Niu Meng. You go back first. I will treat you to drinks another day.”

Niu Meng was shocked. What do you mean? You are asking me to go back because of a businessman?

Niu Meng saw Master Lu have no intentions of going to the Karaoke with him, he grabbed his coat and stormed out of the restaurant. When he walked past Feng Yu, he stared at Feng Yu with hatred. Feng Yu also noticed it.

After Niu Meng left, Mei Zhigao went out and close the door.

“Brother Feng, you know him from before? You two have any grudges?”

“No.” Feng Yu replied calmly. If it is not because I want to save you, I can’t be bothered with him. Feng Yu was satisfied to see Master Lu helping him and had a minor conflict with Niu Meng.

If Master Lu ignored Feng Yu and go out with Niu Meng, Feng Yu would not be bothered with him. There are many second generations around. Feng Yu can always befriend another Second-generation. Furthermore, Feng Yu does not need the help of these Second generations now.

Master Lu knew Feng Yu had met the Chief Architect and Iron-fist Zhu before. Niu Meng cannot be compared to Feng Yu.

Niu Meng’s father was only a Major General. Outside of the military, he is only a Director level officer. Master Lu will be going to the grassroots level to be the Party Secretary of a County. He will also be a Director Level Official in less than 10 years!

Master Lu was friends with Niu Meng because Niu Meng was discerning. But no matter what, he cannot be compared with Feng Yu.

“Alright. I will not ask him along in the future. I just happen to meet him today and had not intended to invite him. He has a foul temper. Don’t mind him.” Master Lu said.

“Master Lu, as your good friend, I have a piece of advice for you. Stop mixing with him. He will get you in trouble.” Feng Yu replied seriously.

“Hahaha, Brother Feng, I will be going to the Southeast to work. Even if he wants to drink with me, I also don’t have the time. The Grassroots level is not as relaxing as Beijing.” Master Lu replied. He felt Feng Yu said this was because he does not like Niu Meng.

Feng Yu thought to himself. What if Niu Meng is transferred to the military base in the Southeast?

But Feng Yu cannot tell Master Lu that Niu Meng’s father is a traitor. It will be easier to explain himself.

Chapter 815 – Secret

“Brother Feng, will you be able to help me after I am posted to the Southeast?” This was the purpose why Master Lu invited Feng Yu for dinner. He needs Feng Yu to help him get political credits.

Why did all the Officials Second generations get promoted so fast? When they are posted to the grassroots level, they have brought along their connections and investments. They can get people to help them get credits. Of course, another reason is no one dares to snatch the credits from them or cover-up.

These second-generations had learned from their elders on how to be an official since young. But there are still a lot of them failing at the grassroots level.

Master Lu will be posted to the Southeast, and he will be bringing some projects and investments with him. But he still feels his preparation is not enough. Those projects and investments are only enough for him to be promoted to Deputy Mayor within 5 years. He felt this was too slow.

These Second-generation are very proud and think highly of themselves. They feel they are about to take on a higher position and does not want to be promoted slowly.

“Master Lu, which part of the Southeast will you be posted to?”

“Fujian Province, Putian county. I am going to be No. 1 there.” Master Lu had a proud look on his face as he said this. It was rare for someone at his age to be holding this position.

“Congratulations.” Feng Yu raised his brows. Fujian? That’s the headquarters of Nanfu Battery.

Feng Yu had been eyeing Nanfu Battery for a long time. In his previous life, the company was taken over by foreign investors. This company was formerly a state-owned enterprise, and it ended up in the hands of foreigners.

Of course, this was also because of politics. The company had listened to the local government to bring in foreign investors. When the Nanfu Battery merged with foreign investors, the company does not lack any funds. Even if they wanted to expand their operations, the banks are all willing to offer loans. But the local government wanted to attract foreign investments and forced Nanfu Battery to sell their shares. In the end, Morgan Stanley acquired the company’s shares from other shareholders and sells them to Nanfu Battery’s competitor.

Since Master Lu is going to Fujian Province, Feng Yu was determined to acquire Nanfu Battery. It’s better for this company to be owned by him than to fall into the hands of those foreigners.

First, Feng Yu have to push Master Lu up. Master Lu must be at least the Deputy of Fujian Province for him to have some say. If he remains in Putian County, he will not be able to help with the acquisition.”

“Master Lu, I will get Bing City Machinery Company to set up a motorcycle factory in Putian.”

Fujian’s location is in the center of 3 provinces. Setting up a factory there can serve the nearby regions. That was one of the locations planned by the Machinery Company to set up their new branch factories.

Master Lu was overjoyed. “Is it Songjiang Motorcycles? Thank you, Brother Feng. You are a great help.”

Master Lu thought for a while and asked. “Brother Feng, you are only going to set up a motorcycle factory? What about Songjiang cars? Can you set up a branch factory there?”

“Master Lu, automobile factory requires high investment. Money is not a problem. But the automobile market in China is just starting and lacks demand. FAW is holding on to the biggest market share in the southeast region. We are still slowly trying to increase our market share. But the market has limitations. How long do you plan to stay in Fujian? If you are going to stay there for more than 10 years, I will build a branch factory there, even if I have to lose money for the next 3 to 5 years!” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu knew these second generations will be transferred to and fro the grassroots level to get their promotions. Master Lu, had reached the rank of division chief in the ministries. He will then be posted to the grassroots level and after he got his Deputy Bureau Director rank, he will be reposted back to the departments. The next time he is posted to the grassroots level, he will be the Bureau Director level.

Other people have to move up the ranks slowly. These second-generations have lots of ways to get promoted, and their promotions are much faster than others.

“Brother Feng, motorcycle factory is good enough.” Master Lu laughed embarrassedly. He does not dare to make any promises. If there is a vacancy in the higher-ups, he will try his best to get it.

Only the ones who are a step ahead of others will get to the top 9 positions!

“Master Lu, as your good friend, I need to remind you. Firstly, you are someone who does not lack money. You must never pocket any money.”

“Of course. Although you gave me some shares in the past and I had transferred it to my brother-in-law. But if I need money, he will give it to me.”

“Secondly, indulging in lust is like hanging a knife upon your head. You have fooled around for so many years, and you are married now. It’s time for you to tone down. I can understand if you play around occasionally. But never put in your real feelings and never do anything that will harm your family.”

“I know about this. I am the one who requested this transfer. I also want to have a career. I had stopped fooling around.” Master Lu replied.

“Thirdly, I know you well. You like to make friends and stand up for them. This is a good thing. But in the future, this is not good for you. You have a lot of friends, and there are all sorts of people among them. If you try to help them whenever they are in trouble, you might also be implicated.”

Master Lu frowned. “You are exaggerating. If I don’t help my friends, how will others see me?”

“If it is some minor matters, it is not a problem. But the problem with you is you never reject any of your friends when they come to you for help. You will always give them a second chance regardless of what they did. But have you ever thought that some mistakes cannot never be forgiven!”

“No one is perfect. Who dares to say they have never committed any mistakes in their life? As a friend, I must help them. If I don’t extend a helping hand when they are in trouble, how can I still be their friend?” Master Lu retorted.

Master Lu’s character is worthy of being a friend. But his character is not suitable to be in the government.

“Master Lu, don’t forget your status. If you want to have a career in the government, these friends will only drag you down. You can take care of them, but there is a limit. You must put the country before anything else!”

“I know about this. Of course, I will place the country before anything else. I am also a Party member.” Master Lu laughed.

Feng Yu said in his heart. If you can think like this in my previous life, you will not be a failure. Please do not make the same mistake this time.

“I’m glad you understand. Also, some people are not worthy of being friends. When you are in the Southeast, don’t mix with very popular friends. Since ancient times, people like them do not have good endings.”

“Ok. What’s wrong with you today? I am only going to work in Fujian. It is not some dangerous place.” Master Lu laughed.

Feng Yu sighed and did not continue.

Some things cannot be said. Niu Meng’s family and that businessman in the Southeast region will implicate a lot of people in the future.

It’s tough to keep these secrets to himself!

Nanfu Battery

Chapter 816 – Acquisition for the Empire State Building completed

Early March. Master Lu had gone over to Fujian, and Feng Yu returned to New York from Hong Kong. It was one week earlier than planned. This was because Feng Yu received news that the Empire State Building is ready for transaction.

Feng Yu does not know Hideki Yokoi did to make Kiiko Nakahara agree to sell her shares of the building to Feng Yu. But Kameda Masao said that Hideki Yokoi had given up many of his assets in the US and Europe in exchange for this. After this transaction, Hideki Yokoi will sever all ties with Kiiko Nakahara.

From now onwards, Kiiko Nakahara will have nothing to do with the Yokoi family. Kiiko Nakahara will get most of Hideki Yokoi’s assets. She will sell off all the assets in the US and move to France. Her assets in Europe will be sufficient for her and her husband for the rest of their lives.

Donald Trump also managed to get rid of those two long term tenants from the Empire State Building. He regained control over the building.

Although Trump had used some underhand methods, like cooperating with the other tenants to force those tenants out, spread rumors about them, etc., Kiiko Nakahara still paid those tenants for them to cancel their lease.

The Empire State Building is no longer the tallest in the US. It is not as significant as before. Kiiko Nakahara, Trump and the rest of the tenants requested for a major renovation of the building. But according to their contracts, they have to share the cost. The property market at this time was not doing well and they refused to pay for it.

Feng Yu was satisfied with the final decision. He will take over all the rights of The Empire State Building. Even the renovated the building, he will not lose money.

The price for the building was 100 million USD. Because Trump wanted 5% shares of it, Feng Yu paid him 45 million USD and lend him 50 million USD. Feng Yu also paid Kiiko Nakahara and Hideki Yokoi 40 million USD for their 50% shares.

Feng Yu sold some of his shares to raise 200 million USD. If he had sold the shares before Lunar New Year, his profits would be 20 million USD lesser. He returned Fu Guangzheng the money he borrowed and transfer the rest into his personal account. He decided to buy a house in New York.

The former management company of the Empire State Building was Trump’s company, and it was renamed as Wind and Rain Empire State Building Management Company. Feng Yu is the owner of the company and he owns 60% shares of it. Kirilenko paid Feng Yu some money and got 35% shares. Trump’s share is 5%.

Based on their agreement, Trump will have to manage the building for free over the next 5 years. This will save a lot of trouble for Feng Yu. Feng Yu first decision after he acquired the building was to pool a sum of money to renovate the building. His only requirement was to make the Empire State Building the most comfortable office building.

Trump used the money he got from selling his shares in the Empire State Building, and whatever he borrowed from Feng Yu, to buy a building he had been eyeing. He also bought a hotel. The hotel will be renamed as Trump Hotel.

Of course, Feng Yu also gave some of the Sixth Sense Company’s shares to Hideki Yokoi’s sons. He increased the number of shares from 10 million USD to 13 million USD. Even after he gave Hideki Yokoi’s sons more shares, he did not make any losses as he had saved 10 million USD when he bought the shares from Hideki Yokoi and Kiiko Nakahara.

Furthermore, this was a small price to pay for the building. Feng Yu will also get two management staff for his Sixth Sense Company.

“Cheers! Feng, we really bought the Empire State Building!” Kirilenko said excitedly.

“Hahaha, although it is slightly expensive, Trump said that the rents will increase after the building is renovated. We will recover the renovation cost within 2 years.” Feng Yu took a small sip of his wine and placed his glass down.

Rents in the US cannot be increased as and when the landlord wants. There are regulations and there is an upper limit. Luckily the valuation of the building had increased and let them have a higher upper limit.

In the past, the Empire State Building has lots of empty office spaces. After the Empire State Building confirmed that they will be renovating the building, many companies contacted Trump to express interest in renting office spaces there.

The US economy is improving and New York, the US financial hub, is a popular spot for many companies. The rental at the Twin Towers is too expensive. The other office buildings were not well maintained. Only the Empire State Building’s rent was reasonable, and it will be renovated. This made the Empire State Building the top choice for the companies.

Even some of the tenants at the Twin Towers wanted to shift to the Empire State Building after the renovation. It was cheaper to rent office spaces there.

“We can see many of New York’s landmark when we stand at the rooftop of the Empire State building. This feeling is great!” Kirilenko had a satisfied look on his face.

Feng Yu looked at him from the corner of his eyes. Damn! Feel great? Try going up on a windy day!

Feng Yu had gone up the rooftop before. But it was a windy day. It was not that cold on the ground floor, but at the roof, the wind was so strong until he cannot open his eyes!

“Fine. The top floor will be reserved for your company. You can go up to the rooftop when you have nothing to do.”

If you are not afraid of the cold winds, you can go up there every day.

“Eh, what did you do to make them sell you the building?” Kirilenko was curious. His men had approached Kiiko Nakahara and Hideki Yokoi before, but they refused to sell their shares of the building.

Feng Yu told Kirilenko about Hideki Yokoi’s family feud. He only gave them some of his company’s shares and got the right to buy the building.

Feng Yu really admire Hideki Yokoi. He is a cunning fox and has lots of tricks up his sleeves. Maybe this was what Hideki Yokoi wanted from the start. If not, how is it possible for him to make Kiiko Nakahara sell her shares to Feng Yu in such a short time? The selling price is even 10 million USD cheaper than the market price.

Hideki Yokoi transferred his assets to his two sons and daughter. He took a sum of money to ensure his company can operate smoothly. The rest is used to “pay” the prison in exchange for a better life during his time there.

“Feng, you are so smart. Why didn’t I think of this? After the top floor is renovated, I will move out of the Twin Towers. Having our offices in our own turf is more comfortable.” Kirilenko swirled his wine glass and said. Successfully acquisition of the Empire State Building is a joyous occasion that calls for a celebration.

“Boss, look at these newspapers!” When Kirilenko and Feng Yu were celebrating, Wilson rushed in with a newspaper.

Chapter 817 – Conspiracy theories

Wilson had set up a law firm in New York because Feng Yu will be staying in the US for the next two years. Other than helping Feng Yu with the legal documents, he also becomes Kirilenko’s personal lawyer in the US. Just the fees from these two were enough to cover his costs. Furthermore, his firm can take on other jobs.

Yesterday, Wilson had completed the Empire State Building’s paperwork for Feng Yu. This morning, he was reading the papers in his office when he saw an article about the sales of the Empire State Building.

The Empire State Building was now the headlines. But this was not a piece of good news.

A mysterious Chinese businessman had acquired the Empire State Building.

The Empire State Building changed owners again. Why is our iconic historical building owned by an outsider?

The Chinese Capitalist is invading the US.

The headlines of more than a dozen papers were about the sales of the Empire State Building. The reports also mentioned about the identity of Feng Yu as a shareholder of Microsoft. They did not say about the rest of his companies. Maybe the reporters were still unaware of his other businesses.

Feng Yu frowned. This is the conspiracy theory that the Americans love, but the Americans were a bunch of selfish people. They only want to enjoy the perks of being in a powerful country, but they refuse to give up their own benefits for the country.

That’s why these theories will not have any impact on Feng Yu’s investments in the US. Companies will still rent office spaces in the Empire State Building, and they cannot force Feng Yu to sell his Microsoft shares.

But Feng Yu could sense these reports had political influences in it. The stories kept emphasizing his nationality as a Chinese. This was in line with the Chinese-threat theories that the US believed.

Feng Yu wanted to ask Kirilenko about his views on the reports, but he noticed he was more furious. What’s wrong with these reporters? Why they didn’t mention about Russian-threat theories?

Kirilenko was furious that Russia was left out. I am also a shareholder of the Empire State Building, and I had spent a lot of money. How can they only mention Feng Yu and not talk about me? Why are they only concern about China and not Russia?!

This is too much!

“Feng, we must retaliate!” Kirilenko shouted.

Feng Yu wanted to say that he should be the one to refute those reports. Kirilenko was not mentioned in these reports at all!

But since Brother Ki wants to be under the spotlight, go ahead. Anyway, Feng Yu does not want to be in the limelight.

“Ok. How should we retaliate?” Feng Yu was curious about what ideas Kirilenko have.

This was the US, after all. These papers were mainly catered to the Americans. Even if you have an article, the media might not publish it. Even if they published it, the Americans will also not read it, unless the article is full of praises for the US. But Feng Yu will never do that, let alone Kirilenko.

Kirilenko can’t wait for the US economy to collapse like Japan. Feng Yu suspects Kirilenko’s face will cramp from smiling if the US economy collapses tomorrow!

“We should tell the Americans that we are going to buy out all of their pride! We have bought the Empire State Building today, and we will buy the Statue of Liberty tomorrow!”

Puuuu……

Feng Yu’s spat out a mouthful of tea. What are you thinking? You want to buy the Statue of Liberty? Why don’t you say you will buy the White House?

That’s the US national monument and symbolized freedom. It is like the Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower in France, and the Pyramids in Egypt. The US will never sell it unless the country is gone. It’s impossible.

“Cough… Brother Ki, are you joking? What will you think if someone tells you that he wants to buy the Moscow Kremlin?” Feng Yu asked.

“I will think it is a joke and will pay no attention about it,” Kirilenko replied.

Damn! You want us to pretend to be idiots and let this incident pass?

You can go ahead of yourself! I will not do it!

What a stupid idea!

Feng Yu knew that if the Empire State Building is sold to another Japanese or even a Tribal Chief from Africa, there will be no reports about it. But because of some of China’s military actions, the US becomes very concern.

China had conducted a military exercise last year and planned another military exercise this year. The budget set aside for the exercise this year was more than 4 billion RMB. Was this really a military exercise?

Even Feng Yu believed that the ‘Old Man’ wanted to take over Taiwan by force. The plans for this military exercise were leaked. If not, China might really succeed!

Mid of last year, the US intervened with the Taiwanese government and caused the relationship between China and the US to sour. President Clinton had been testing China’s limits and made us of this to gain support for another term.

During President Clinton’s term, the US economy was developing well. The US had opened the gap from Japan and the Soviet Union in terms of military power and economy.

But at this time, the Chinese threat was brought up again, and the people will take note of it. After that, the US will show off its power to make its citizens feel proud again. This way, Clinton will regain the confidence of the voters.

China’s military power is currently the strongest in Asia. This was mainly because the ‘Old Man’ is still around and was able to unite all the leaders.

Also, the ‘Old Man’ wanted to take back Taiwan. China had already taken back to Hong Kong and Macao. Taiwan is the only place left before China becomes whole again. This is not any secret and the entire world knows about it.

Last year, the US had sent an aircraft carrier to support Taiwan, and this year, they sent another aircraft carrier over. This was to warn China not to take over Taiwan by force. If not, there will be a war!

China’s economic development had just started and cannot afford to be involved in any wars. Russia’s attitude was also unknown. Russia does not want China to take back Taiwan as no country wants its neighbors to be too strong.

China had been at war since the olden times. Russia was still recovering from the impact of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and will not allow China to become too powerful.

If China takes back Taiwan, its economy will grow rapidly and will overtake Russia in no time. With enough money, China’s military will become stronger and Russia will be worried as they had occupied parts of China in the past.

That’s why when the US sent its aircraft carriers to threaten China, Russia did not do anything.

The two aircraft carriers were enough to threaten China’s coastal cities. These cities were the pillars of China’s economic growth. If these cities were damaged by war, the Chinese economy would be severely affected, and when China was able to take back Taiwan in the end, their economy will take a beating. This was something China does not want to see.

Feng Yu knew that China will give in after threatening Taiwan. In his previous life, there were rumors that the ‘Old Man’ fell sick because of this and did not manage to live until Hong Kong’s return.

But Feng Yu does not care about all these. The US wants to report on the Chinese threats, go ahead. You all keep saying that China will rise up again and its economy will overtake the US?

Fine. I will make this happen in the future!

Chapter 818 – Invitation for cooperation

To make this dream come true, Feng Yu had to increase his brands’ awareness. He needs a powerful brand to control the industry.

Currently, there are only two famous Chinese brands in the US. Wind and Rain, and Jianlibao!

Wind and Rain brands have many popular products. Bladeless fans, humidifiers, VCD, DVD patents, etc. The brand is known for its home appliances, and some of its products are already the market leaders.

Jianlibao is currently the leader of the Chinese beverage industry. Their total sales last year were more than 4 billion RMB and their profits were more than 400 million RMB. They have branches in more than a dozen countries and are selling in more than 30 countries.

Although Lehaha is catching up with Jianlibao in the Chinese market, it was only limited to China. Lehaha’s products are only selling in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. They had tried to enter Japan but withdrawn due to poor sales. The Japanese do not want to buy their products after they found out it is a Chinese brand. Zhong Qingxian was upset and even lost weight over this.

Jianlibao is the leader in China, followed by Lehaha, Le Baishi, Coconut Tree, Zhen Zhen, Rising Sun Group, and many other brands. The total sales of these companies were more than 3 billion USD. What was the US beverage companies’ total sales last year? 10 billion USD!

China has a population of 1.2 billion, and the US has only 200 million. The differences in consumer spending in the two countries are too significant.

Feng Yu has always wanted to bring Lehaha out of China. In his previous life, Le Bashi had tried to do this but failed. During Le Bashi’s peak, its sales are not more than 25 million USD. They were doing worse than Jianlibao now. Even the Coconut Tree is doing better than them.

The US FDA is the strictest in the world. If any beverage can pass the FDA test, the drink will not have a problem to pass the checks in other countries.

Jianlibao was able to pass the FDA checks and managed to secure a footing in the US.

But Jianlibao’s development in the US had hit a bottleneck. This was mainly because Jianlibao only have one drink, and the US still has two beverage giants.

Jianlibao had an opportunity to work with Pepsi. They had planned to compete with Coca-Cola together, but during the negotiations, Jianlibao’s head, Li Jingwei, said something which was very arrogant. “Pepsi is a leader in the international beverage industry. I represent Jianlibao to welcome you to join us and manufacture our products!”

Li Jingwei wanted Pepsi to become one of its contractors!

There were rumors that Pepsi’s representative’s face changed. Pepsi had offered lucrative terms for this cooperation. Jianlibao will help Pepsi to market its drinks in China and suppress Coca-Cola. On the other hand, Pepsi will help Jianlibao market their drinks in the US.

This was an exchange of their market, and it’s a win-win situation for both companies. But Li Jingwen was too arrogant and belittled the two beverage giants. It was also because their products targeted different consumer segments.

Jianlibao’s product is a sports drink, targeting sportsmen. It is a healthier drink and Pepsi, and Coca-Cola is only soft drinks to Li Jingwen. He felt that these soft drinks will not be able to stop Jianlibao in the US.

At the start, Jianlibao’s introduction to the US market is going on smoothly. China’s top beverage company had entered the US market and succeeded in expanding its market share in the US.

But when the two coke companies realized that they were unable to penetrate the Chinese market and their home ground had been invaded by Jianlibao, they started to suppress Jianlibao.

It was not only in the US. The two companies suppressed Jianlibao in many other countries. After the two beverage giants worked together against Jianlibao, Jianlibao overseas development become limited.

Just when Jianlibao needed help, Feng Yu contacted the head of Jianlibao’s US operations, Lin Qishu.

Jianlibao had bought one whole level of a building as its US headquarters. Their office is not far from the Empire State Building. Feng Yu was now very famous in the US because of the newspaper reports. When Lin Qishu received Feng Yu’s call, he agreed to meet him immediately.

Feng Yu met Li Qishu in a meeting room on the top floor of the Empire State Building.

“You are Mr. Feng?” The newspapers did not publish Feng Yu’s photograph, and Lin Qishu does not know Feng Yu. But there is only one person in the meeting room and he asked. Lin Qishu felt the person in front of him was not Feng Yu as he is too young.

“Manager Lin, nice to meet you. I am Feng Yu.”

Lin Qishu recognized Feng Yu’s voice, and he shook his hand. He still could not believe that this young man is Feng Yu.

“Mr. Feng. Nice to meet you.”

“Manager Lin, are you curious why I invited you over today? I will not beat around the bush. I want to help Jianlibao.” Feng Yu said with a smile.

Lin Qishu frowned. “What do you mean by this? Jianlibao does not need any help.”

Lin Qishu thought Feng Yu wants to buy a stake in Jianlibao, and he will not agree. Jianlibao is a successful state-owned enterprise, and no outsiders can buy a stake in it.

“Really? How come I heard that Jianlibao is rejected from selling your products in the major supermarket chains?” Feng Yu had heard about this.

Entering the major supermarket chains will increase the sales and profits of the company. If Jianlibao is not able to enter the supermarkets, they will never be able to compete with the two cola companies in the US market.

Lin Qishu looked at Feng Yu. Although this was not a secret, no one will know if they did not do research about Jianlibao. Mr. Feng had gathered information about Jianlibao?

“Mr. Feng, you can help us? I need to be clear with you. It is not that Jianlibao is refused entry to the supermarkets in the US. We are still negotiating and haven’t agreed on the terms.”

Jianlibao wanted the same terms as the two cola companies. They wanted a shelf reserved for them in the best location with eye-catching signages. But the supermarkets do not agree. Although Jianlibao had some brand awareness in the US, to the supermarket, it is still not on the same level as the two cola companies.

There is another important reason. Jianlibao only has one type of drink. How can one drink occupy one whole shelf?

“What if I can help you all get more attractive conditions?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

Chapter 819 – BML

Lin Qishu opened his eyes wide. Mr. Feng can help Jianlibao get more attractive terms? How is he going to do it, and why?

“Mr. Feng, what do you want in return?” Lin Qishu asked.

“I am also Chinese, and Jianlibao is a Chinese brand. This is my reason.”

It was not as simple as what Feng Yu said. But this is the reason why Feng Yu chose to work with Jianlibao. He will want something in return from this cooperation.

“Mr. Feng, there is no free lunch in this world. Even if Jianlibao is a Chinese brand, you must want something in return for helping us.” Lin Qishu said.

“Since Manager Lin says this, I will tell me what I want. But after hearing my request, you will realize that Jianlibao will be the one who stands to gain.”

Lin Qishu did not say anything. He was waiting for Feng Yu to tell him his conditions. If Feng Yu’s conditions are reasonable, he will consider this proposal. But if the conditions are harsh, he will reject it! As for buying a stake of Jianlibao, it is out of the question. The City Government will never agree!

“I want to gather all of China’s top beverage companies to form a league. Beverage Major League BML. We will cooperate and enter the overseas market together. In the overseas market, Jianlibao had achieved the best results. That’s why I need Jianlibao to share the distribution channels.”

“Impossible!” Before Feng Yu could finish, Lin Qiishu rejected.

Jianlibao had built its distribution channels from scratch. How can they share it with others for free?

“Don’t forget that the other brands also have their own distribution channels. We will combine all our channels together, and Jianlibao will also have access to other brands’ channels. For example, Coconut Tree, Lehaha, etc. These companies owned some channels which are better than Jianlibao.”

“But even when these companies combined, they still cannot be compared with Jianlibao. If it is only some of our distribution channels, there is still room for discussion.”

“What a joke. Other than China and the US, which Jianlibao’s distribution channel is consider good? Even in China, Lehaha has better sales channels than you all. Those sales reports for the overseas market are all to show your leaders. How come I heard many of Jianlibao’s branches are making losses?” Feng Yu sneered.

That’s right. Jianlibao is currently sold in over 30 regions and countries. But how many of these places are profitable? Jianlibao is expanding aggressively, but they cannot use their undeveloped distribution channels as capital. They will please their leaders when they submit their reports, but for other businessmen, this is a joke.

“Only when we combine the strength of all these brands to form a powerful alliance, we will have what it takes to compete with Pepsi and Coca-Cola.” Feng Yu continued.

“We can compete with them now.”

“Stop fooling yourself. How much is those two companies’ revenue from just the US market alone? How much is Jianlibao’s global revenue? Without Lehaha and the other brand stopping these two companies in China, I’m afraid these two companies will already have established control over the Chinese beverage industry.”

“Wait. Mr. Feng, I only know that you are the owner of the Empire State Building, and I heard you are Microsoft’s shareholder and director. Even if these are true, you are also not in the beverage business.” Lin Qishu interrupted Feng Yu again.

Even if you are wealthy and are influential, you want me to agree to your conditions just by saying a few words? From what I see, it is Jianlibao who is at the losing end in this cooperation.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you that I am also the main shareholder of Lehaha.” Feng Yu smiled as he introduced himself.

“What?! You are the main shareholder of Lehaha? Isn’t Zhong Qingxian the main shareholder of Lehaha?” Lin Qishu was surprised. You are the main shareholder, and you let a minor shareholder run the company?

“Do I need to lie to you over such trivial matter?” Feng Yu replied casually.

Trivial matter? We are talking about Lehaha. The fastest-growing beverage company in recent years. If you are the main shareholder, you should own more than 30% of the shares. This is considered trivial to Feng Yu?

But Feng Yu can acquire the Empire State Building and is also a shareholder of Microsoft. This is indeed a trivial matter to him.

“I think you should discuss with Li Jingwei and let him make the decision. I have already asked Zhong Qingxian to contact the other beverage companies in China. We will join forces to increase our competitiveness against those two beverage giants. Just Jianlibao alone is not enough. Jianlibao only has one product and this is your disadvantage!”

Lin Qishu also knows about this. Li Jingwei had instructed him to let the US branch develop new products. But whenever his R&D has some ideas, some other company will be a step ahead of them.

Jianlibao had wanted to introduce tea beverages in the US. But since Lehaha, China’s top tea beverage company had approached them to cooperate, it will be troublesome for them to introduce tea beverages. What if Lehaha decided to compete with them and let the American brands take advantage of their in-fighting?

Lin Qishu thought for a while and said. “Mr. Feng, I will speak to Manager Li first. We will discuss after Manager Li makes his decision. How can you be so sure that Jianlibao can get attractive terms when we enter the major supermarket chains?”

“You all wanted to enter the supermarket chains, but you only have one product. The supermarkets will not be bothered with you. But if we sell Chinese food and beverages, we will have more variety than Pepsi and Coca-Cola. We will be able to occupy the whole shelf. This way, we will have more advantages when we negotiate with the supermarkets.”

“Also, I have some connections with the major supermarket chains. I can get better terms than you all. I dare to guarantee that the terms offered to us will be equivalent or even better than those two cola companies.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

Feng Yu was not boasting. Wind and Rain, Aiwa products are all selling in the major supermarket chains. His products are also selling well there.

Feng Yu only need to reveal that he is the owner of these two brands, and the boss of supermarket chains will be more than willing to speak to him.

Feng Yu will use Jianlibao as the main product and the rest of the Chinese food and beverages as support to negotiate with the bosses.

Feng Yu felt that some Chinese products might be successful in the US. For instance, sausage ham. This should be a popular product with the Americans.

Lin Qishu was excited when he heard Feng Yu’s promise. If Feng Yu can get attractive terms from the supermarkets, Jianlibao’s sales will reach a new peak!

Li Jingwen will also be impressed with Lin Qishu’s performance. When Jianlibao is listed, Lin Qishu might get more shares of the company!

This BML must go through!

Chapter 820 – Li Jingwei’s troubles

While Feng Yu was patiently waiting for news, Lin Qishu had flown back to China to meet with Li Jingwei. He needs to report to him about Feng Yu’s alliance.

After Li Jingwei heard the report from Lin Qishu, he started to make other plans.

Li Jingwei had built Jianlibao from scratch, but he got nothing to do with this company. He is only a worker in the company!

But Li Jingwei is not an ordinary worker. Without him, there will not be a successful Jianlibao. In his local area, he was a hero!

Li Jingwei does not want to be known as a hero. He wanted ownership of the company. Everyone knew that without him, there will not be Jianlibao. But as he got more authority in the company, he became unsatisfied with the limitations imposed on him by the government.

The government forcefully imposed a regulation that Jianlibao must employ at least 40% of locals, and the middle management is people related to government officials. These had affected the development of Jianlibao severely.

Li Jingwei felt that without these people, Jianlibao would be more successful! He had kept on emphasizing on developing their overseas and domestic sales distribution channels. Their internal distribution channels cannot even be compared to Lehaha and Lebashi!

The company had spent a lot to develop their distribution channels. Why are the channels still not developed? They still must depend on distributors. If anything goes wrong with the distributors, Jianlibao’s sales will plummet. If Jianlibao’s distribution channels are developed like Lehaha, they can prevent other beverages from developing.

The government also takes away most of Jianlibao’s profits. This caused Jianlibao to have insufficient funds. Li Jingwei had always wanted to develop new products. They should have invested their profits into their R&D in the first place.

Li Jingwei’s dream is to be like Coca-Cola. Jianlibao will be the main product of the company, and the other drinks will supplement them. This way, the company will be more competitive.

But now, Jiaolibao only has one product. Those officials in the government say they do not need other products. Only one product is sufficient and took away the company’s product development fund. Several years ago, Jiaolibao had planned to develop tea beverages. But because of the government, Lehaha got ahead of them!

Li Jingwei can only let the branch company in the US to develop new products to prevent the government from taking the funds away.

Since the start of the 1980s, the Chinese government had allowed private individuals to invest or acquire state-owned enterprises. This policy gave Li Jingwei hope.

Li Jingwei thought that he had made significant contributions to Jianlibao, and the government will support his proposal to have a clear definition of the ownership rights of the company. After all, many state-owned companies were doing this. They gave the people who contributed the most to the companies some shares! His local government only gave him some awards and increase his salary slightly.

Under the harsh circumstances, Li Jingwei controlled Jianlibao’s growth. He knew that if Jianlibao were to become more successful, the possibility of him and his team getting shares of the company would be slimmer.

Li Jingwei had wanted to build a skyscraper in Shenzhen and move Jianlibao headquarters there. He wanted to move the company out of the small county. The county they are located in is out of the place and had limited the company’s growth.

As for how to buy the company’s shares, Li Jingwei had a plan. Get Jianlibao listed!

The government officials love to see companies under their charge get listed. Once Jianlibao got listed, the market value will increase, and it will be their credits.

Li Jingwei felt he will be able to persuade the government to let the top management team become the shareholders of the company!

But the reality is far from what Li Jingwei expected.

Before New Year, Li Jingwei had proposed Jianlibao to be listed and was rejected. The local government leaders even reprimanded him for diverting away from socialism and does not want to make contributions to the country.

Contribution my ass! What I did over the past few years is not considered contributions?

Li Jingwei was furious. He had put in so many efforts and did not get anything in return. His “Listing and skyscraper” plans did not get the approvals. There was no way for him to become a shareholder of the company. He was utterly disappointed.

At this period, a series of news reports made Li Jingwei even more furious!

TCL’s founder, Li Dongsheng, had signed an agreement with the local government. Li Dongsheng’s team will guarantee the company will grow by 10% annually, and the government will allow the management team to purchase the company’s shares proportionally.

In a city not far from Jianlibao, an electronic appliances manufacturing company was sold to the founder and its team.

There were many similar news reports. The management team of many state-owned companies was given shares of the company. Some teams got lots of shares and some got lesser. But Li Jingwei could not get a single share in Jianlibao!

The local government’s income was mainly from Jianlibao, and Li Jingwei was the one who helped the leaders get their promotions!

But now, the government officials had crashed Li Jingwei’s final hope. What made Li Jingwei more furious was the interference from the government officials a few years ago during the rise of health supplement products. Those officials wanted Jianlibao to do the same.

The officials wanted to Jianlibao to promote as a health supplement product. They wanted Jianlibao to be marketed as a drink that ‘cures’ all illnesses and ailments.

But Li Jingwei firmly opposed to this idea at that time despite those health supplements’ revenue increased several folds and become companies worth more than 2 billion RMB within one year. He did not give in to these temptations and still have his conscience.

After CCTV exposed those health supplement products and caused the downfall of that industry, those government officials realized Li Jingwei was right in the first place.

Li Jingwei felt if he let those people manage Jianlibao, the company would have been gone years ago!

Only two health supplement companies, Lebashi and Lehaha, survived since the collapsed of the industry, and these companies converted to manufacture beverages. Among the two, Lehaha had grown to become a threat to Jianlibao!

At this time, Lehaha’s main shareholder wanted cooperation to open up the overseas market. Li Jingwei did not wish to agree initially as both companies were competitors.

But Li Jingwei was considering. He felt he should meet with Mr. Feng to discuss this. If he can get financial support from Mr. Feng, then…….

Chapter 821 – New investment’s direction

“Boss, the company has many bad rumors about you now. Don’t you think you should do something?” Ralph said. If Feng Yu’s position in Microsoft was removed, it would affect him much.

“What do I need to do? What can the rumors do to me? I am still the one controlling the Chinese market and still the director and shareholder of Microsoft.” Feng Yu replied calmly.

Feng Yu also want to do something about those rumors. But what can he do? Give those gossipmongers a warning and fire them? If it is only one or two staff spreading rumors, he could still do that as a director. Bill Gates will also support him. But now, it is the media and all the engineers discussing him. Can Feng Yu fire all of them?

Feng Yu’s influence on Microsoft was still too small. Microsoft is still Bill Gates’s and he is the only one who has the final say.

“Boss, did you really acquire the Empire State Building?” Ralph asked curiously.

“I bought it with a partner. I am only the main shareholder of it.” Feng Yu casually said. When he was not in the US, Ralph’s job was to send emails about the latest happenings in the company to him. His emails are very detailed, and Feng Yu was satisfied with his work.

“Boss, will I have the chance to work in the Empire State Building?” Ralph asked. He was looking forward to it.

“I had kept an office for you. I will send you the renovation plans later. If you are not happy about it, you can ask them to change it.” Feng Yu patted Ralph on his shoulders.

Ralph was overjoyed. “Thank you, boss. I finally get the chance to work in the Empire State Building!”

Ralph’s father was a successful businessman in the past and had rented an office in the Empire State Building. But in the late 1980s, his investments failed and committed suicide. This was Ralph’s biggest regret in his life.

Ralph swore that he must return back to the Empire State Building in his life. This was his greatest wish and did not expect his dream to come true so fast!

“How is Amazon’s progress? How many shareholders are willing to sell their shares to us?” Feng Yu asked while he read a Microsoft document.

“Jeff sold his house and his bonds to raise a sum of money. He increased his shares in Amazon to 21% and I had contacted all the shareholders. All of them wanted a premium price for their shares. If not, they will not sell it. Only 2 minor shareholders rejected us directly. They are the earliest investors of the company. Maybe Jeff had told them something.”

“Ok.” Feng Yu nodded. “How much more do those shareholders want?”

Premium prices are a must. After all, when Feng Yu decided to invest in Amazon, he was already paying a premium for his shares. Even if the shareholders wanted double the amount of the market price, it was not a lot to Feng Yu. What matters most was the shares and this E-commerce operating model.

“The shareholders seem to have discussed and all of them wanted 30% more. I think we can speak to each of them, and a 15% increase should be sufficient to reach a settlement. But I think it is impossible to get their shares at the market rate.” Ralph replied embarrassedly. He felt he had not done an excellent job.

“What about the settling up of a team?” The other bosses have teams of secretaries and assistants to assist them. But Feng Yu only hired Ralph, and Ralph was not able to handle the workload.

“I had reached out to two of my buddies and hired two helpers from other companies. Our team has 4 people now.”

Feng Yu had told Ralph to set up his team, and Feng Yu will pay for their salaries. Why would Ralph reject this? Although having more people will share his credit, but it will be more efficient.

If Ralph insisted that he can handle the workload by himself and he will have to bear the full responsibility when there are any screwups.

“Your workload will be increased in the future. The team is too small. Continue to hire more people and tell Amazon’s shareholders that premium pricing for their shares is not a problem. But limit it to less than 15%. You will get 30% of whatever you save for me.”

Ralph’s eyes brighten up. Boss is too generous to give me a big bonus.

“Boss, don’t worry. I will try my best to lower the prices and will not disappoint you.” Ralph said.

“Are there any rules in Microsoft restricting the directors from using their shares as collaterals for loans?” Feng Yu asked.

“There are no such rules in Microsoft. Even if this rule exists in other companies, it is only limited to the voting shares. Boss, most of your shares are non-voting shares.”

Ralph was curious. Why was Feng Yu asking about getting loans? He does not have enough to acquire Amazon?

But this should not be a problem. Microsoft had forecasted its shares to rise by more than 60% this year. That means Feng Yu’s assets will increase by at least 60%, excluding dividends. In another 2 years, Feng Yu’s assets might be more than 10 billion USD!

If Feng Yu made some successful investments, he would surely give Ralph some rewards.

Feng Yu had to get a loan now. Not only he had made a significant donation, but he had also bought the Empire State Building. He still wanted to buy a mansion in New York. He does not have much cash on hand.

Furthermore, getting loans is worthwhile now. Feng Yu can invest his money in some popular shares, and his returns will definitely be more than the banks’ interest. Using the banks’ capital to make money is the best investment.

Feng Yu knew that now and the next few years will be bullish in the US stock market. Most of the shares will be rising, and if Feng Yu could pick one or two performing shares, he might double his investments within a month!

Although in his previous life, Feng Yu had not noticed the performing shares in this era, he saw a report in the papers a few days ago. It was an interview with a Chinese programmer, Yang Zhiyuan. He is one of the co-founders of Yahoo!

Early this month, Yahoo got listed, and Feng Yu regretted not remembering about this company. He should have invested in this top internet company earlier.

If Feng Yu had remembered about this company earlier, he would have made a substantial amount and might even become one of the directors.

But Feng Yu still have time. Yahoo’s shares are still less than 40 USD now and the company is suffering losses. Although this is a technology share and sought after by many people, the share prices did not shoot up as rapidly as other tech shares.

Even if Feng Yu could not enter the board of directors, he will still acquire as many Yahoo circulating shares as possible. He will sit on the shares to wait for the prices to reach its peak in 1997.

Feng Yu can still use these shares to get loans then. He needs a large sum of money to fight against those speculators at that time!

“Hi, Myers. I’m Feng. I want to use my Microsoft shares to get a loan.” Feng Yu called Vice President of Citibank. He had worked with Citibank on the listing of the Sixth Sense Company in the past.

Translator Notes:

Yang Zhiyuan

Chapter 822 – Mortgage Loan

A Microsoft shareholder wants to use his shares as collateral for a loan? Citibank will surely welcome it. Loan interest is one of the banks’ primary source of income.

Of course, the banks must consider the repayment ability of the other party, the value of the collaterals, etc.

Shares are something that has risks. In the late 1980s, other than Japan, the US was one of the first countries that have a property crisis. During that time, the US avoided the crisis because of the rise in its technology and war. But Japan was not so lucky. Japan’s economic crisis will need at least 10 years to recover.

During that period, all banks suffered losses from shares and property mortgage loans. Donald Trump was one of the people who owed banks a large amount and threatened the banks to lower their interests.

Some people just declared bankrupted. Their shares had become worthless, and the banks could not recover a single cent.

After that period, the banks imposed harsher regulations on their risk assessments. Therefore, Feng Yu’s shares can only get a loan lower than the share’s current market value.

Feng Yu also knows that the loan amount will be lower than his shares’ market value. But when Myers told Feng Yu about the loan amount, Feng Yu was not very happy.

“Myers, I am using Microsoft shares as collateral for the loan. Don’t you all know the profitability of Microsoft? The value of the shares will surely rise this year. Why is there a risk of depreciation? The contracts signed between Microsoft and those PC manufacturers is worth how much? Moreover, Microsoft’s office software and servers’ sales are doing so well now. The shares’ value will surely go up!” Feng Yu frowned.

Damn! How many Microsoft shares am I using to get this loan? The market value of these shares is worth at least 1.5 billion USD, and even 1.2 billion loan is considered too little. You are telling me that you can only give me a 700 million USD loan?

You are telling me that Microsoft’s shares have the risk of depreciating 50% within 3 years? What bullshit?!

“Mr. Feng, please calm down. Share prices are volatile and have fluctuations. Our risk assessment might be harsher, but I hope you can understand.” Myers replied.

“I don’t understand. I only want a loan of 1.2 billion USD with these shares. Is it a lot? The value of these shares is at least 1.5 million USD! You all will also be charging interest for this. Is the loan amount huge? Next year, the value of these shares might double. Your risk assessment team cannot even see it?”

1.5 billion worth of shares can only get a 700 million USD loan? This is too ridiculous! If Citibank insists on this amount, Feng Yu will get a loan from other banks. But he is Chinese and could not enjoy the super low-interest rates given out in Japan. If not, he will get a loan from the Japanese banks!

“I’m sorry, Mr. Feng. These are the regulations in our bank now. If you want to increase the loan amount, the value of your collaterals must also increase.” Myers also want to issue a higher amount of loan to Feng Yu. But Feng Yu was only using a portion of his Microsoft shares as collaterals for the loan. If he can make Feng Yu use all of his shares to get the loan, the proportion of the loan amount will not be so low!

Myers’s performance is gauged by the loan amount issued out. The more loans he gave out, the higher his bonuses were.

Myers thought by giving such a low amount, and after much persuasions, Feng Yu will surely increase the number of Microsoft shares, and he will increase the loan amount slightly higher.

But what Myers did not expect was Feng Yu stood up suddenly and walk off.

“Mr. Feng, our Citibank’s loan conditions are the same as other banks. You will not get better offers in any New York banks.” Myers shouted. “If you are willing to increase the number of shares, I will increase the loan amount.”

Feng Yu did not say a word and walked out of Myers’s office.

Myers panicked. Feng Yu had left without hesitation!

What Myers said was partially true. All the banks in New York have a strict evaluation of shares used in loans. The proportion of loans and shares is very low.

But Feng Yu was not using any company’s shares. He is using Microsoft shares, the fastest-growing software company’s shares sought after by all investors. The proportion will not be so low!

Myers watched Feng Yu left and immediately called a few banks’ top management staff, who were close to him. Although they were competitors, sometimes they will work together.

For example, now. Myers successfully convinced the other banks to cooperate to lower Feng Yu’s personal loan amount. He wants to teach this Chinese man a lesson. Of course, the condition he offered to the other banks was to give Feng Yu the loan together if he agrees to the amount.

Those bankers agreed, but Myers was not sure if they would keep to their words. Those bankers were secretly hoping Feng Yu will contact them, but to their surprise, Feng Yu did not contact anyone of them.

All the banks panicked. They quickly contact Feng Yu and their roles switched. The bankers are willing to increase the loan proportion, and they know the higher-ups will agree. No one believes that Microsoft shares will depreciate!

But when the bankers contacted Feng Yu, they were rejected even though the loan amount was increased.

Myers also could not sit still. He called Feng Yu and told him that he had seen the amount wrongly. The loan amount Feng Yu can get from using his Microsoft shares is not that low. The higher-ups in Citibank had agreed to increase the loan amount to 1.2 billion USD.

Feng Yu sneered. “They agree to the amount? But I do not want to get the loan from your bank now. Also, Mr. Myers, I will speak to your bank’s Chairman about this. I think you will be in trouble.”

Myers was shocked. He realized that it was a mistake to treat Feng Yu like any other person. If the Chairman knows about this, the board of directors will surely fire him. He will not be able to get such a high-paying job elsewhere.

Myers is the only one in the top management that did not receive any incentive shares. He had wanted to use Feng Yu’s loan to increase his performance and get some incentive shares at the end of the year. But now, not only he will not get any incentive shares, he might even lose his job!

“Mr. Feng, I think there are some misunderstandings between us. I would like to explain to you personally.”

“No need. I am not free for your explanations.” Feng Yu had a smile on his face.

This Myers really thought Citibank is powerful? There are so many banks in this world. If Citibank refuses to give me a loan, you think the other banks will do the same too?

Feng Yu had already gotten a loan from HSBC. It is a low-interest loan of 1 billion USD. The Microsoft shares used as loan collateral is only worth 1.1 billion USD. This was a vast difference from what Citibank offered.

Of course, the loan got approved was also not because of Microsoft shares. It was also because Li Zekai and Fu Guangzheng were Feng Yu’s guarantors. Feng Yu will continue to use all his Microsoft shares to get loans and invest everything in the US stock market.

As for Myers, that’s a lesson he will never forget for the rest of his life!

Chapter 823 – Gift from heaven

Feng Yu told Citibank’s Chairman about Myers, and he was forced to resign. The resignation was better than getting fired. At least he could get a job in another bank.

But Myers was full of hatred and swore revenge on Feng Yu!

After getting the loan, Feng Yu invested most of it into the stock market, mainly the shares of 2 companies, Yahoo and Microsoft. He also bought some shares of internet and technology companies. He had hired some brokers to look after these shares for him, and the brokers have to notify him once there is any negative news about these companies.

Kirilenko also invested in these technology companies under Feng Yu’s advice. At the same time, he asked his men to look out for potential companies in the US. He wants to follow Feng Yu’s footsteps and get control of a few companies. If possible, he wants to enter the board of directors and openly earn money from the Americans! He wants the Americans to work for him!

……

“Mr. Feng, our Manager Li is in New York. He would like to meet you to discuss the cooperation.” Lin Qishu called Feng Yu.

Manager Li, Li Jingwei? He is in New York?

“Okay. I will wait for him in the Empire State Building.”

“Manager Li, Feng Yu says he will wait for you in the Empire State Building.” Lin Qishu looked at Li Jingwei cautiously.

Lin Qishu knew Li Jingwei is an arrogant person. He did not even think much of Pepsi in the past, and now, he must go and visit the other party. He will be in a weaker position, and Lin Qishu was afraid he would get mad.

But Li Jingwei did not get angry and even laughed: “Ok. I also want to revisit the Empire State Building. When our US branch started operations, our office is located there.”

A Chinese man in his 50s was sitting opposite Feng Yu. Both were looking at each other. Feng Yu wondered what sort of person he is. This man had built China’s top beverage, Jianlibao, from scratch. Li Jingwei wanted to know how this young man become Microsoft’s director.

In front of them, there were a few beverages. These were all Chinese beverages, and Jianlibao and Lehaha products were among them.

“Manager Li, what would you like? Pick yourself.

Li Jingwei picked up Jianlibao without hesitation. As the General Manager of Jianlibao, how can he pick up another company’s drink during negotiations?

Feng Yu opened a can of Zhenzhen drink and made Li Jingwei frown. This Feng Yu is Lehaha’s main shareholder. Why did he pick up another company’s drink?

“Manager Li, you must understand your opponents to beat them. If you don’t drink other company’s products, how can you win in terms of taste?” Feng Yu said after burping loudly.

“These should be done by the R&D staff and not by me. Manager Feng, you prepared so many Chinese beverages here. What are you trying to tell me?” Li Jingwei looked at Feng Yu, but he already could guess the answer.

“What? Manager Lin did not tell you I want to set up a beverage major league?” Feng Yu purposely ask.

“These are the beverages you picked?” Li Jingwei looked at the beverages on the table. There are too many varieties.

Li Jingwei does not mind setting up this beverage alliance, but Jianlibao must be the star. Even if Feng Yu has more money than Jianlibao, the beverages must be ranked according to their brand influence. Jianlibao is the top of all these beverages.

“These are what I can find. All these beverages have a certain amount of scale. Although I call it a beverage major league, not any brand can enter. We must also pick the members, right?”

Feng Yu had already instructed Zhong Qingxian to check out those smaller brands. If he can buy out those smaller brands, just acquire them. If not, forget it. It is also not easy to promote those smaller brands and they might not even recover the marketing fees.

Feng Yu had placed so many beverages on the table was to show Li Jianwei that he had made a thorough research of the Chinese drinks.

“Manager Feng, I also know Zhong Qingxian. But I do not know the biggest shareholder of Lehaha is another person.” Li Jingwei stared at Feng Yu as he said this.

Feng Yu thought to himself. You are still unaware of lots of things. I am not only the biggest shareholder, but I also own more than 50% of the company!

Last year, Zhong Qingxian decided to stop the production of Lehaha children supplement drinks, and he falls out with another two shareholders over this. It was because Lehaha Children supplement had survived the health supplement crisis and can still bring in lots of profits.

Lehaha’s new products, Eight treasures porridge and Qili Energy Drink, were not selling well and did not even have profits. The two shareholders were unhappy over the decision to stop the production of a profit-making product for these loss-making products. They quarreled with Zhong Qingxian over this.

In the end, those two shareholders decided to sell off their shares to set up their own businesses. Upon hearing this, Zhong Qingxian immediately notify Feng Yu and both of them increased their shares of the company.

Feng Yu was not only the biggest shareholder of Lehaha, he increased his shares to 53%. Zhong Qingxian also increased his shares to 38%, but he owes the bank lots of money. Those two shareholders did not sell off all their shares and kept a small amount.

Those two shareholders are conservative people. It’s good to set up their own businesses, but there are risks. These two kept some of Lehaha’s shares as an insurance.

Lehaha’s top management were also issued with some shares to bond them together.

“Manager Li, you also know Old Zhong? If I know I should have ask Old Zhong to speak to you. Are you curious why Zhong Qingxian is still the one managing Lehaha? Very simple. I am lazy to run the company.”

Lazy to run?

Li Jingwei’s eyes opened wide. What sort of reason is this? Just because you are lazy, you gave away your authority? But he remembered that Zhong Qingxian is one of the founders of Lehaha. Maybe they have some sort of agreement.

If that’s the case, I should be able to still keep my authority in Jianlibao after he invest in it.

Li Jingwei put down the can of Jianlibao and looked at Feng Yu. “Manager Feng, are you interested in investing in Jianlibao?”

Huh? Invest in Jianlibao?!

Feng Yu was shocked. Li Jingwei is asking me to invest in Jianlibao? Jianlibao should not lack money… What is he up to?

But no matter what Li Jingwei was thinking, Feng Yu will surely agree. In the future, Jianlibao will fail because Li Jingwei fallout with the government. But currently, Jianlibao is still very successful in penetrating the US market. It is worth to invest.

This is a gift from heaven!

Chapter 824 – Li Jingwei’s plan

“Manager Li, what do you mean?” Feng Yu quickly asked.

There are lots of ways to invest. Feng Yu wants to know what sort of investment Li Jingwei is talking about. If Li Jingwei is willing to help, Feng Yu will have no problem getting a stake in Jianlibao. He might even get the controlling shares in the company.

“Manager Feng, as the biggest shareholder of Lehaha, you can let Zhong Qingxian continue to manage the company, will you let me and my team continue to run Jianlibao after you become Jianlibao’s shareholder?” Li Jingwei was looking at Feng Yu. If Feng Yu shows any hesitation, he will change his mind.

“You might not believe that I say. Since a few years ago, I had let other people manage my companies. Even the Chairman of my listed company is someone else. You might think there are some agreements between them and me. But there are no agreements. I am really lazy to manage those companies. Look at me now. As one of the directors in Microsoft, I am not working in the Seattle headquarters, but in New York.”

Feng Yu had never thought of replacing Li Jingwei even if he had fully acquired Jianlibao. Instead, he will use some of the company’s shares to hire Li Jingwei. Li Jingwei can develop Jianlibao to this scale within 10 years. This proves a lot about his capability.

Feng Yu knew he is not as good as Li Jingwei. Since he is so capable and the management team is set up by him, then it should be like what happened at Bing City Machinery Company. After Li Jingwei retires, Feng Yu will still hire him to train a successor.

Feng Yu’s reply was very straight forward, and Li Jingwei was overjoyed. “That means you agree with my condition?”

“Why not? But I have a condition. The management team must consist of elites and lean. I don’t want to see those staff who got in using their connections. Also, the headquarters of Jianlibao is too rural. I think it should be moved to somewhere like Shenzhen or Guangzhou Cities. The higher-ups should support this, right?”

If Feng Yu did not have any request, Li Jingwei would be suspicious. But after listening to Feng Yu’s demands, Li Jingwei firmly believes that Feng Yu will let him hold the reins of the company.

Li Jingwei was pleased that the two conditions set by Feng Yu were what he wanted too. But because he does not own any shares of the company, he could not do anything about it.

If Jianlibao could be restructured, then he will be able to change the company. These two problems are the biggest challenge faced by the company!

“Manager Feng, I promise you that I will settle these two problems, and you must keep to your words!” Li Jingwei said.

“Manager Li, what we discussed is not important now. I am very curious about how you are going to let me invest in Jianlibao? From what I know, Jianlibao is a 100% state-owned enterprise. You don’t even own a single share, right?” Feng Yu asked.

Li Jingwei felt his blood boiling when he heard what Feng Yu said. That’s right. Li Jingwei does not own any shares of the company, but without him, Jianlibao will not exist. Is this fair?

“Manager Feng, let me tell you a story.”

Feng Yu picked up his drink and relaxed on the sofa with an interested look.

“Jianlibao is marketed as a sports drink, and all promotions are related to sports. In 1990, Jianlibao, a Singapore company, and an Olympic gold medalist, Li Ning, set up Jianlibao Sports Apparel company. Jianlibao owns the controlling stake of this company and the brand of the sports apparel is Li Ning!”

Feng Yu raised his brows. In his previous life, he had heard Li Ning brand was formerly one of Jianlibao’s subsidiary brands. But he was not sure how Li Ning got separated from the parent company. It seems like he will get the answer today.

Feng Yu opened up a cigar box on the side table and took out 2 cigars. After roasting one cigar, he passes it to Li Jingwei. “Try this. The taste is different from cigarettes.”

Li Jingwei took the cigar, and Feng Yu start roasting the other one, before returning to the sofa.  “Manager Li, continue with your story ah…”

Li Jingwei was stunned and felt Feng Yu was like a judge of a storytelling competition. He even lit a cigarette… no… a cigar.

“Li Ning’s development is quite good, and after he got famous during Guangzhou’s Asian Games, the sales grew by several folds. The potential of this company is enormous. Two years ago, Li Ning met Beijing’s restructuring expert Liu Jipeng and he told Li Ning that if the company’s ownership is not clear, it will limit the company’s growth severely. He encouraged Li Ning to cut ties with Jianlibao.

Feng Yu raised his brows. So, this is the reason for Li Ning’s separation with Jianlibao. He still though Li Ning was not only good at gymnastics, he was also good at business. It was because Li Ning had consulted an expert.

“During the 1988 Olympic Games, Li Ning had made a mistake and lost the gold medal. This mistake made Li Ning fall from grace, but I gave him a helping hand at that time, and he is very grateful to me. He was afraid that others will see him as someone ungrateful and came to look for me. He even promises to give me some of Li Ning company’s shares.”

“Jianlibao Sports Apparel Company is a subsidiary of Jianlibao after all. As the General Manager, I still have lots of authority over the company. I supported Li Ning’s decision and represented the company to sign an agreement with Li Ning. Li Ning will return 16 million RMB which Jianlibao corporation invested over 3 installments, and nothing was mentioned about the growth of the shares’ value.”

Feng Yu’s jaws dropped. This is like using Jianlibao’s money to buy out Jianlibao’s shares!

“After that, Jianlibao Sports Apparel was officially renamed as Li Ning Sports Apparel. Last month, this company moved from Guangzhou to Beijing and even got to sponsor some apparel for this year’s Olympic team. I think Li Ning’s growth will be tremendous after this year.”

Feng Yu thought to himself. You are right. Before 2008, Li Ning Brand’s sales and profits have been rising annually. 2008 was the down period for Li Ning Brand and it recovered after that. The assets of Li Ning, the person himself, kept increasing. This will not happen if the Li Ning brand was still under Jianlibao.

Wait. Li Jingwei’s story is telling me that he still has control over Jianlibao? But even if this is so, selling away a subsidiary and selling the shares of the company are two different things. Will the local government agree?

“Manager Feng, you mentioned that I had build up Jianlibao by myself. Can I say that I made the most contribution to Jianlibao?”

“Of course. Without you, there will be no Jianlibao.” Feng Yu replied.

“Then why am I not allowed to restructure Jianlibao into a shareholding company and buy the shares as one of the management staff? I had borrowed money from Li Ning. But now, I have an idea. The government is currently trying to attract foreign investors, and Jianlibao, one of China’s most prominent state-owned enterprises must follow suit.” Li Jingwei said with a sparkle in his eyes.

Foreign investor? I am considered a foreign investor? That’s right. My identity is now a Hong Konger. Why can’t I be a foreign investor? I can also use my US company to invest in it. It is also considered a foreign investment. But how come this method seems so familiar?

Chapter 825 – Strategy and conditions

“Manager Li, you are saying that you will let foreign investors invest in Jianlibao and then restructure it to a shareholding? Are you sure you can do it?” Feng Yu also hope this would happen, but it should not be easy.

Li Jingwei put up 3 fingers and said. “First, I am the General Manager of Jianlibao. Although the company belongs to the country, I still have some say in the company. At least I can make most of the employees and management team to stay on my side. Secondly, this will be a political credit and the local government leaders will be very interested. It is almost time for the leadership transition and the leaders need some results to get their promotion. Sanshui is a place where no foreign investors will be interested in. Lastly, Lehaha has to get involved in this plan as Jianlibao wants to buy Lehaha’s tea beverage formula. Don’t worry. We will be producing carbonated tea beverages. It will be different from Lehaha’s products.”

“Tell me the details.” Feng Yu was excited. Li Jingwei had got everything planned.

“First, I will tell the leaders Jianlibao must cooperate with Lehaha because the US market loves tea beverages. If Jianlibao can introduce a tea beverage product in the US, the company will get enormous profits. But the leaders might not agree, and Jianlibao and Lehaha might have to exchange some shares. But the number of shares cannot be a lot.

Feng Yu frowned. Lehaha and Jianlibao exchanging shares? He got to discuss with Zhong Qingxian about this, as Zhong Qingxian might not agree. But if Feng Yu told Zhong Qingxian that Lehaha can use Jianlibao’s distribution channels to sell its products to the US, Zhong Qingxian might agree. Although Feng Yu does not interfere with Lehaha’s management, he still Lehaha’s biggest shareholder and Zhong Qingxian should listen to him. If Zhong Qingxian still does not agree, Feng Yu will use his own Lehaha shares for this deal.

“The first step of the plan is exchanging shares, Lehaha selling tea beverage formula to Jianlibao and Jianlibao will help Lehaha enter the overseas markets?”

“That’s right. The second step will need at least 3 foreign companies to invest in a joint venture with Jianlibao. This joint venture will be Chinese Beverages Enterprise, and Jianlibao will use some of its shares to invest in this venture for 51% of the company shares.”

Feng Yu almost burst out laughing. Chinese Beverages Enterprise sounds majestic, and those government officials will be interested. Furthermore, this venture will attract foreign funds and will give them political credits.

“After that, it will be straightforward. Those foreign companies will merge and bought over by you. Lehaha will sell its Jianlibao’s shares to you, and you will have the controlling stake of Jianlibao. With the controlling stake, we can move Jianlibao out of Sanshui to Guangzhou and will have the final say in the company.”

Li Jingwei paused and took a big puff of his cigar. He blew out a cloud of smoke and continued. “In this plan, only I can persuade the leaders to agree. If I don’t agree, I will lead all the employees on strike and stop the company’s operation. That’s why I want to sign a confidential agreement with you. You must promise that after getting the controlling stake of Jianlibao, you will sell a portion of the company’s shares to my team, and it must not be less than 10%!”

Li Jingwei is telling Feng Yu that without me, this plan will not succeed. Even if you can persuade the government leaders, I can also stop it. I will help you gain control of Jianlibao, but you must let me run the company and also sell a portion of the shares to me.

But 10% of the company’s shares is a lot. Li Jingwei is greedy, and Feng Yu knew his team cannot afford it. Even if Li Jingwei got a loan from Li Ning and the banks, he would not raise enough. Is he going to borrow from Venture Capital?

“Manager Li, after I get the controlling state, you will buy 10% of the company’s shares. I will not talk about where you are getting your money. This 10% of shares should not be coming from me alone. Are you able to convince the local government to sell you their portion of shares?”

If all 10% of the shares are from Feng Yu, Li Jingwei and the local government will have the controlling stake of Jianlibao when they combined their shares. Since Feng Yu will have the controlling stake, why should he give it up? After all, Feng Yu and Li Jingwei do not know each other well. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Li Jingwei went to jail because he misused the state-owned enterprise’s funds. Feng Yu had to take precautions against someone like him.

“Manager Feng, you can rest assured that I will make sure the local government sells off a portion of their shares. I will even let all of Jianlibao’s staff get some shares!” Li Jingwei said with a ferocious look in his eyes.

Give all the employees shares? Li Jingwei should be going to gather all the company’s staff to go against the local government. But that’s his problem as long as my shares will not be lessened.

Also, Li Jingwei is old and will be hospitalized in the future. Feng Yu believes that Li Jingwei will handover his authority after he fell sick, as he will not let the company, he built from scratch to be gone.

Furthermore, Jianlibao’s asset value is not high. Only its brand is worth something and if Li Jingwei can let the local government overlook the brand value, Feng Yu will recover his investment. Keeping a factory in Sanshui and donate a bit of money to the local government will be enough as repayment.

Feng Yu still have a trick up his sleeve to ensure Li Jingwei will listen to him.

“Manager Li, Jianlibao’s fixed assets are currently worth more than 300 million RMB? Even if all the profits are handed over to the local government, after the joint venture, Jianlibao’s assets will increase by several folds. You and your team might need to pay at least 60 million RMB for the 10% shares. I am curious where are you going to get the money?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

Li Jingwei’s face changed. “Don’t worry. I am confident I can get a loan. If I really can’t get the loan, I hope you will agree to let us pay back in installments. I will not touch Jianlibao’s money!”

Li Jingwei wants to persuade the government to increase the salaries of the management and then get a loan for the remaining amount. This should be enough to purchase the 10% shares. If all else fails, he will pay back in installments.

“Installments are also using Jianlibao’s funds to buy Jianlibao’s shares?” Feng Yu asked. In his previous life, many of the state-owned enterprises got privatized using this method. It might be legal, but this method is still questionable.

“Manager Feng, you do not agree to my terms?” Li Jingwei was slightly mad. He had made it clear that he will help Feng Yu gain control of Jianlibao and will give up the controlling stake of the company he built. Yet, Feng Yu was still not satisfied?!

“No, no, no… Manager Li, you misunderstood me. Actually, I feel that you should be rewarded with some shares, and I am willing to lend you the money to purchase the shares. The interest will not be higher than the banks, and you all are also not able to get such a big loan from the banks.” Feng Yu said.

Li Jingwei was stunned. What Feng Yu said was totally different from what he expected. Feng Yu’s offer sounds more attractive than his proposal.

“Manager Feng, what are the conditions?”

Feng Yu smiled. Dealing with smart people is so easy.

“Manager Li, you are not young. If your children are good at management, they can enter the board of directors or by the General Managers in the future. But if they are not good, then you must give up the position of director and General Manager after you retire. I hope you will understand. Zhong Qianxian and I also have this agreement.” Feng Yu smiled.

Feng Yu’s condition is not harsh at all. He is only worried that Li Jingwei will have too much influence on the company and will create problems after he retires. It’s better to make things clear to prevent Li Jingwei from refusing to give up his authority in the future.

Li Jingwei thought for a while and nodded. “Alright. I agree!”

Chapter 826 – Crisis

Feng Yu registered an investment company in New York and had an agreement with Kirilenko. He will let Kirilenko be the partner of the company to form a US-Russia joint-venture company, but Kirilenko has to sell all of his shares to Tai Hua Trading a year later.

This is a small favor, and Kirilenko agreed immediately. Anyway, he does not need to spend a cent.

Feng Yu also contacted Li Zekai and Fu Guangzheng. Li Zekai will use the Li Family’s connection to register a trading company in Canada, and Fu Guangzheng will set up a company in Singapore.

Just like Kirilenko, Li Zekai, and Fu Guangzheng are registering the companies on behalf of Feng Yu, and all the companies’ shares will be sold to Tai Hua Trading one year later.

At the same time, Li Jingwei invested more than half of Jianlibao’s fund into the plot of land in Guangzhou to start the construction of Jianlibao’s building.

After that, Li Jingwei used the excuse of opening up the US market to transfer most of the remaining funds into the Jianlibao US branch’s account. This move caused Jianlibao to drag their distributors’ payment.

But this was only Li Jingwei’s first step in his plan, and his second part of his plan is starting.

Li Jingwei told the City government’s leaders that the US branch company conducted market research and found tea beverages have a high demand in the US. But Jianlibao does not have tea beverages formula, and the best tea beverage manufacturer in China is Lehaha Group.

So, Jianlibao should negotiate with Lehaha to purchase their tea beverage recipe. They will modify the recipe to produce a new type of tea beverage that will suit the Americans’ taste buds. This will surely increase the Jianlibao’s profits.

When the City government leaders heard that Jianlibao’s profits will increase, they gave approval. Anyway, it’s only a beverage formula.

But Li Jingwei told the leaders that Jianlibao does not have money and needs the City Government to make arrangements for Jianlibao to get a bank loan.

The leaders were shocked. How come Jianlibao does not have money? Didn’t we approve a sum of the fund at the start of the year? The leaders soon found out that Jianlibao does not have any funds and still owe the distributors.

If it was not because of the fact the distributors had worked with Jianlibao for several years, they would have caused trouble for Jianlibao! If the distributors stop their distribution of Jianlibao, Jianlibao’s sales will come to a halt, and the company will be finished!

The Government leaders start to investigate where did Jianlibao spend the money on.

Soon after, the leaders found out about the plot of land in Guangzhou bought by Jianlibao. There is nothing wrong with the purchase of the land parcel, but why did you make the full payments for the project and materials when the construction just started? Shouldn’t the full payments be made after the project is completed?

But the money had been paid, and there was no way to get it back. The US branch office had also taken away most of the remaining funds to open up the US market. Although the US market will bring in a lot of profits, no one knows when the profits will be coming in!

The leaders were upset over this and called Li Jingwei in for a scolding. You still want Jianlibao’s shares with what you did? Hmph! This Li Jingwei must be kicked out of Jianlibao!

Li Jingwei starts to push for the purchase of Lehaha’s tea beverage formula. If not, Jianlibao will not make it for the Summer peak period. But during the negotiations with the banks for the loan, Li Jingwei purposely “accidentally” reveals that Jianlibao still owes all their distributors.

Upon hearing this, the banks refuse to approve the loan, especially Li Jingwei asked for a loan of 500 million RMB!

Jianlibao is now in a dire situation, and the city government leaders were troubled. Jianlibao had done well last year and the company suddenly have insufficient funds. But what Jianlibao said was right. With a new product, the company can get high profits from its sales in the US and Jianlibao will recover from to its peak.

At this time, Lehaha’s Zhong Qingxian made a new proposal. Exchanging of shares.

Lehaha and Jianlibao will exchange some of their shares and will sell the formula to Jianlibao first. Jianlibao can extend the payment for one year.

The City Leaders hesitated as this will be selling Jianlibao’s shares away.

Li Jingwei persuaded the leader by analyzing the situation to them. Lehaha has lots of factories in China and has established distribution channels. After they exchange shares, Jianlibao will have the chance to take over Lehaha’s distribution networks.

Even if Jianlibao cannot take over the distribution channels, the city has nothing to lose. After some discussion, the City leaders agreed to this proposal.

Jianlibao used 8% shares to exchange for Lehaha’s 6% shares. This is based on the valuation of both companies. Jianlibao’s market value is lesser than Lehaha, as Lehaha has more factories.

The City leaders also did not notice the valuation of Jianlibao’s new building was valued very low.

After getting the formula, Jianlibao’s product development team start to develop their new product. All they need to do was to turn the tea beverage into a carbonated tea drink and pass the US authorities’ checks.

But another problem surfaced. Jianlibao does not have money, and they were still in debt. They can owe money in China, but not in the US.

The City leaders questioned Li Jingwei. The company had transferred a sum of money to the US branch and why they do not have money?

Li Jingwei’s reply was the money is for advertising. You all had complained that Jianlibao is not as big as other brands, and we decided to increase our marketing budget to expand our brand awareness.

Simply put, we have spent all the money!

The City leaders contacted a few banks for loans but were rejected. If the loan amount is too high, the banks will not approve, and if they lower the loan amount, it will not be enough as the company still owes their distributors.

Around this time, Li Jingwei did something alarming. He stopped the salaries of Jianlibao’s employees to use the money for the operating cost.

The workers, including the R&D staff, went on strike, and Li Jingwei personally went to meet the workers to pacify them.

But even the influential Li Jingwei could not convince the staff to call off the strike. The City leaders had no choice but to show up and promise the workers they will settle this.

But how can the city leaders settle this crisis? Although the City Government has money, the money had been allocated to the various departments and projects. If they use the money for Jianlibao, it will create problems in other areas.

Troubles came one after another. The distributors gathered at Sanshui to demand payments from Jianlibao by blocking the factory and government’s entrance.

Owe money, pay money!

This is written on a big banner which is hanged on the government building’s main entrance. The city leaders were too ashamed to show their faces, and even the police could not chase the distributors away!

What the city leaders did not expect was this incident was even reported in the papers!

When Feng Yu heard what happened at Jianlibao from Fu Guangzheng, he was stunned. He did not expect Li Jingwei to blow things up to this extent!

Chapter 827 – Foreign Business Group

“Old Zhou, how are you going to solve this problem? Everyone outside is saying Jianlibao is finished and will be bankrupt. Do you know how bad this is for our reputation? Didn’t I tell you to suppress the rumors and not let it spread?” Sanshui Government’s No. 1, Xu Sicheng said.

“We can control the local media, and it is the media from other regions that reported this. The only solution we have now is to get the banks to give Jianlibao loans!” Sanshui Government’s No. 2, Zhou Dawei said.

Just as both were still discussing the solution, Xu Sicheng’s secretary entered the room to tell him that the Investment Promotion Agency’s head, Chief Wang Liang, have a piece of good news.

Good news? Xu Sicheng and Zhou Dawei looked at each other and asked Chief Wang Liang to enter.

“Leaders, I had just received a piece of good news. Two days ago, I went to Guangzhou and invited a few wealthy businessmen over to our city!” Wang Liang excitedly said.

“Wealthy businessmen? Old Wang, I know you are working hard, but which businessman will want to invest in a place like Sanshui? You brought those businessmen from Guangzhou, and their purpose should be making use of us to negotiate with the Guangzhou’s government.” Zhou Dawei replied and shook his head.

Last year, a few businessmen also visited Sanshui, but in the end, they chose to invest in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, despite the Sanshui Government offered lucrative terms.

“This time is different. The businessmen are thinking of investing in beverage businesses. They had contacted Le Bashi not long ago!” Wang Liang said.

Invest in beverage businesses? Then there will be room for negotiations. Jianlibao is China’s beverage industry leader. That’s right. If they can get foreign investments, it will solve Jianlibao’s financial issues and will answer to the higher-ups of attracting foreign investors. This is also considered a political credit.

“Where are the foreign businessmen? Prepare a banquet tonight. Old Zhou and I will receive them personally. We must get them to invest in Sanshui!” Xu Sicheng decisively said.

Wang Liang asked. “Leader, should we call Manager Li along?”

In Sanshui, only Li Jingwei is called Manager Li. During the City’s annual meeting, Li Jingwei will sit together with the City’s leaders and is seen as the City Government’s No. 3 man.

Most of the Sanshui Government’s income is from Jianlibao. Without Jianlibao, Sanshui will not become a County Level city.

Xu Sicheng and Zhou Dawei looked at each other and said. “Don’t tell him. Let the city speak to the businessmen first!”

Wang Liang was shocked. This matter concerns Jianlibao, and the leaders do not want Li Jingwei to get involved? Did the leaders really fall out with Li Jingwei?

It’s not a secret that Li Jingwei wanted Jianlibao to be listed and get a management buyout. A lot of people in the city know about this, but the City leaders rejected this request. All the leaders know about this despite sitting in the office all the time.

“Leaders let me introduce them to you. This is Mr. Kirilenko from Russia and Mr. Feng from the US. They run a company in New York and this is Mr. Li. He owns a company in Canada. This is Mr. Fu. He has an investment company in Singapore. This is our Sanshui Mayor Zhou and Party Secretary Xu.”

Xu Sicheng already knows that Mr. Li is Superman Li’s youngest son, and Mr. Fu is the Hong Kong businessman who owns several factories in Dongguan. Mr. Feng is also from Hong Kong, but he does business in the US. These are all wealthy foreign businessmen.

Feng Yu and the rest gave out their name cards. Other than Kirilenko, the rest of the name cards are in English.

Feng Yu knew Xu Sicheng does not know English, but he purposely prepared name cards in English. In this era, English name cards are more prestigious than Chinese name cards!

Xu Sicheng pretended to look at the name card, but he does not know a single word. He laughed and said: “Welcome to Sanshui. I will make sure you all will get the best government subsidies if you all invest here!”

“Secretary Xu, we are only here to inspect the surroundings. Thanks for dinner.” Fu Guangzheng purposely said.

Xu Sicheng and Zhou Dawei’s face changed. They were panicking, and Zhou Dawei said: “Mr. Fu, I heard that you all are going to invest in the beverage industry? Our Sanshui’s Jianlibao is China’s top beverage brand. No other brands can compete with us.”

“Of course. We will not come here if Jianlibao is not located here. After all, we are about to start negotiations with Lebaishi.” Fu Guangzheng replied calmly.

Fu Guangzheng had met Lebaishi once, but Lebaishi has no intention of letting them invest.

“That means you all have some interest in Jianlibao, right? What sort of cooperation do you all have in mind?” Zhou Dawei asked.

“We have distribution channels in many regions. Mr. Feng have connections with several supermarket chains in the US, Mr. Kirilenko have sales offices in many European countries and Mr. Li have partners in Canada and the UK. I am familiar with the business environment in Southeast Asia and Australia. We are thinking of setting up a joint venture company with Jianlibao with our funds and distribution channels.” Fu Guangzheng explained.

Among them, Fu Guangzheng’s Cantonese is the best, and he is the one heading the negotiations. Feng Yu and the rest pretended that Fu Guangzheng is the leader of the group.

“How much are you all going to invest and how many shares are you all asking for?” Zhou Dawei asked.

This was the most crucial question. If Fu Guangzheng wanted a lot of shares, Sanshui Government would never agree!

“We are planning to invest 40 million USD with our sales distribution channels in exchange for 60% shares.” Fu Guangzhen replied.

“This is not possible. We must have control over Jianlibao. We can only give you all 40% at most.” Zhou Dawei said.

How can Zhou Dawei let Jianlibao falls into some outsiders’ hands? The government will not be able to plant people in and withdraw the funds as and when they want.

“Everyone, let’s not make the decision now, we can talk about the details later. I will bring all of you to Jianlibao tomorrow and you all can make the decision then.” Xu Sicheng said.

The government officials were good at playing good cops bad cops. 40 million USD is more than enough to move them. With this money, Jianlibao can solve all its financial woes and help them get credit.

The new fund can also help the US branch to develop new products, and this year’s sales will reach a new peak.

The city will be able to solve Jianlibao’s troubles, and the leaders can score brownie points with their higher-ups. The leaders do not mind selling away part of the company’s shares as this was encouraged by the central government!

Feng Yu looked at the expressions of the two leaders and knew 40 million USD had convinced them!

Chapter 828 – Capable person

Li Jingwei rushed into Zhou Dawei’s office angrily. Even the secretary outside could not stop him.

“Mayor Zhou, is the city going to sell Jianlibao? How am I not aware of this?” Li Jingwei was the one who plotted this, but he is here to question the Mayor.

“Old Li, where did you hear this? Who is going to sell Jianlibao? We are just going to set up a joint venture with foreign direct investors. This will increase Jianlibao’s scale, and furthermore, Jianlibao has a shortage of funds now and you wanted the city to help. Now, I am helping you settle this problem.” Zhou Dawei calmly replied and pulled Li Jingwei to the sofa.

“Joint venture? Even if it is a joint venture, you should inform me first. After the joint venture, will it be those foreign investors making the final calls? What about me? I had made significant contributions to Jianlibao over the years. What will I get in return?” Li Jingwei asked.

“Old Li, who says after the joint venture is set up, the foreign investors will have the final say? You will still be Jianlibao’s General Manager, and nothing will change.” Zhou Dawei said.

“Mayor Zhou, we don’t need foreign investors to invest. The management team and I can raise a sum of money. Sell some of the shares to us, and I promise we will bring Jianlibao to greater heights.” Li Jingwei said.

However, Li Jingwei knew the City Government will not agree to his request.

Zhou Dawei replied. “Old Li, where will you all get the money? We cannot do let you repay the amount over 3 years, as you proposed. This will be using Jianlibao’s money to purchase Jianlibao’s shares. Do you think the City will agree? Furthermore, what did the 4 deputies you hired do? They are the ones who caused the cashflow problems in the company. Didn’t you say that if no new fund is injected into the company, Jianlibao will be bankrupt? What will happen to the workers if this happens?”

“Mayor Zhou, you think I am the one who caused this crisis for the company? I had told you all not to withdraw so much money from the company, but you all never listen to me. If the City returns the money to the company, Jianlibao will solve all its financial problems.”

Li Jingwei knew the funds had already been distributed to all the departments and were spent. The government departments had spent over their budget last year, and the funds they received were used to pay their debts.

Li Jingwei knew the City Government does not have money and deliberately said this.

“Old Li, what’s the meaning of this? Are you saying I caused Jianlibao to be in this situation? Who are you to speak to me this way?!” Zhou Dawei was furious.

Zhou Dawei looked at Li Jingwei angrily and said: “You will still be the General Manager of the company, and we will increase your salary and benefits after we got the investment.”

Li Jingwei took a deep breath. This was why he wanted to move Jianlibao out of Sanshui Government. Increase salaries and benefits? I want the company’s shares!!!

“What is the city going to do?”

“We will let the foreign investors invest 40 million USD in exchange for 40% shares.” Zhou Dawei replied confidently.

“No way! We will be making a loss!”

“Huh? Loss?” Zhou Dawei asked.

“Our Jianlibao’s fixed assets are worth more than 400 million RMB. Although we have some debts, we should also be worth 350 million RMB. We may look like we had gotten a good deal from them, but Jianlibao is set to make high profits in the future. They can recover their investment in 3 to 4 years. How can we let them have their way?”

“What should we do then?” Zhou Dawei asked. “We just sell them the shares? The outcome will also be the same. The money will still be invested in Jianlibao. Also, we are not able to get much from selling the shares. What if they want to move Jianlibao out of Sanshui?”

“Mayor Zhou, I have a suggestion. We can use Jianlibao’s shares to set up a new joint venture company with them. This new company can be located elsewhere, but Jianlibao will remain in Sanshui. This way, we will get more funds for Jianlibao’s growth!” Li Jingwei said after a short pause.

“Use the company’s shares to set up a new joint venture company? What do you mean? I have never heard of this before.” Zhou Dawei was confused.

“That means we will use 90% of Jianlibao’s shares as capital to set up the joint venture with them. They will have to increase their investment to match the value of our shares, and we will own 51% of this new company, and they will own 49%. This way, we will get more than 300 million RMB of funds. We can even adjust our accounts, like hide our debts to the distributors and our outstanding salaries to the workers. I am confident we will get 500 million RMB from those investors.”

“How much? 500 million RMB?” Zhou Dawei’s eyes opened wide.

“That’s right. 500 million RMB. The company will have sufficient funds to develop and our sales, profits, and tax will increase.” Li Jingwei was slowly persuading Zhou Dawei into his trap.

“Old Li, you are really our Sanshui’s hero.” Zhou Dawei patted Li Jingwei’s shoulders.

Sanshui’s hero? This is how you treat a hero? Look at how the other local governments treat the people who had made contributions to their state-owned enterprises.

“This new company will be a joint venture, and we will be the majority shareholder. I want to be the Chairman and the General Manager of the company.” Li Jingwei said his condition.

“No problem. Other than you, no one is capable enough for these two positions! Old Li, the city is right to choose you. You are indeed someone capable. Prepare a proposal for us. I will speak with Secretary Xu first.”

Li Jingwei stepped out of the office and sighed. He was utterly disappointed with these government officials and does not regret what he did!

……

“We have made a decision. We will use 90% of Jianlibao’s shares, and you all will use 500 million RMB to set up a joint venture company, Chinese Beverage Group. We will own 51% of the shares and you all will own 49%.” Li Jingwei said.

“Manager Li, where did you get these figures? A few days ago, we can get 40% shares with 40 million USD. 500 million RMB is equivalent to more than 60 million USD. How can it be 49%?” Fu Guangzheng pretended to ask angrily.

“This is because the city’s leaders are not familiar with Jianlibao’s assets and made the wrong evaluation. This is the latest Jianlibao’s valuation report, and it is worth more than 500 million RMB.”

Xu Sicheng and Zhou Dawei were pleased. The invested amount is more than they expected. Old Li really has his ways.

“But why is it only 90% of the company’s shares? Base on this valuation report, you all should be investing 100% of the company’s shares.” Feng Yu tapped on the table and asked in English.

The translator explained to Xu Sicheng and Zhou Dawei, and they turn to look at Li Jingwei. How should they explain this?

“Our brand has value, and have you all taken this into consideration? This is our bottom line, and if you do not agree, this cooperation is over!” Li Jingwei firmly said.

Xu Sicheng and Zhou Dawei panicked. Why is Old Li so firm? Will the negotiations be called off? Those businessmen had met Le Baishi, and what if Le Bashi offers better conditions?

Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu and the rest. Feng Yu picked up the glass of water and put it back on the table without drinking. Fu Guangzheng immediately understood him.

“We need to consider this before we give you a reply.”

“Of course, but please hurry up. Maybe in another few days, Jianlibao’s value will increase.” Li Jingwei thundered.

In Feng Yu’s heart, he had agreed to this proposal, but he got to put up his pretenses. He will be attacking the US beverage industry with the Chinese beverage alliance!

Chapter 829 – Beverage industry association

In the end, under the “brilliant leadership” of Li Jingwei, the few foreign businessmen agreed to Sanshui City’s conditions. Jianlibao will use all its shares to invest in this new joint venture and will own 51% shares. The foreign businessmen will invest a total of 70 million USD for 49% shares.

After signing the contract and the money credited, the Sanshui City Government’s leaders were overjoyed. They felt Jianlibao’s woes is over and had successfully attracted foreign investment. They were in a rush to claim credit from their higher-ups.

On the other hand, Li Jingwei is with Feng Yu and Zhong Qingxian. They contacted Le Bashi’s He Boquan, Hui Yuan Company’s Zhu Xinli, Coconut Tree’s Wang Guangxing, and the head of the Chinese beverage industry association to form the beverage alliance.

The aim of this beverage alliance is to promote Chinese beverages to the world, unite the different brands, increase competitiveness, and share the risk.

This alliance does not only include these few companies. They also invited Taiwanese brands, Tong Yi and Kang Shifu. These two companies were instant noodles manufacturer which entered the beverage industry this year.

The companies like Rising Sun, Zhen Zhen, etc. were invited to join the alliance. These were all big brands, but many people were surprised to see a company being invited.

This company is an herbal tea manufacturer. Why is this company allowed to enter this alliance? This scale of this company is too small, and it is an unknown brand. The drinks they produced is limited to a specific region, and no one knows this brand outside of Guangdong! Let alone the western countries.

This herbal tea drink brand is called Wang Laoji and the company, JDB group, still has to rent the brand from someone else. How can this company survive if it even got to rent its brand from others?

Everyone sat down and tasted each other products. Most of them had tasted the products of the major brands, but there are still some brands which they heard before and never tasted. For instance, Wang Laoji. Most of the people there have not even heard of it.

Some people do not even want to try, but Zhong Qingxian opens a can of Wang Laoji and took a sip. He immediately frowns as the drink taste like the herbal tea, he had in Guangdong streets. This is a popular drink in Guangdong and maybe it can be sold in Southeast Asia. But who in the western countries will want to drink this? They will find it weird!

But Zhong Qingxian knew JDB Group is specially invited by Feng Yu. Feng Yu thinks this herbal tea will be popular?

The Americans might think this drink is medicine. Why would they drink this? This drink is supposed to be ‘cooling’ and will induce diarrhea after two cans. Can this drink even pass the US FDA?

“Secretary Lu, what is the purpose of asking all of us here?” He Boquan asked.

While asking, He Boquan looked around. These were all familiar faces and only one young man stood out. He noticed that young man is chatting with Zhong Qingxian and Li Jingwei. That young man is also the boss of a beverage company? Maybe he is the son of some big bosses.

“I had gathered all of you here to discuss the setting up of a beverage alliance.”

“What? Beverage alliance?” Zhu Xinli frowned. Is the government going to force them to merge?

But among the companies, there are private companies, state-owned enterprises, joint ventures, etc. It is not practical to merge these companies.

“Let Manager Feng explain this alliance to you all. Manager Feng.” Secretary Lu nodded to Feng Yu.

Two days ago, Feng Yu managed to meet Secretary Lu over dinner through Zhang Han’s father’s introduction. He explained to Secretary Lu and told him the benefits of forming the alliance.

If this alliance is formed and really entered the overseas market, the brands will be more competitive. Secretary Lu will get the credit and might even get a promotion over this.

This beverage industry association does not have much authority, and it is considered a semi-government organization. Other than the association’s secretary is assigned by the government, the rest of the committee members are voted among the members.

For example, Li Jingwei and Zhong Qingxian are the deputy heads of the association. They are voted by the rest of the members. He Boquan, Wang Guangxing, Zhu Xinli,  etc. are also members of the association committee. The rest of the members are all in the beverage industry.

This is a semi-government association and has the backing of the government. Which beverage company dares to not register in it? The companies that did not join this association are the small companies in rural areas lower than counties.

For a company to join this association, the company must be recommended by a committee member.

Secretary Lu is also the deputy director of the Central State Administration for Industry and Commerce. He feels that the director is old and should retire. This is an excellent opportunity for him to replace him.

“Everyone here should not know me, right? Let me introduce myself. I am Feng Yu, a shareholder of Lehaha Group and Jianlibao enterprise. I am also one of the committee members of the Beverage Industry Association. I am the one who suggested forming this alliance. When I am in the US, there is not even one Chinese beverage in the supermarket chains there. But in China’s supermarkets, there are all sorts of oversea brands. This really upset me.”

“Manager Feng, why don’t you go and tell Tai Hua Supermarket to stop selling overseas drinks? Ask them to sell only Chinese brands.” Someone shouted.

“Err… I forgot to mention that I am also the shareholder of Tai Hua Supermarket.” Feng Yu said.

Everyone in the room stirred. This is like when they are studying and their teacher telling them there is a scholar in their school who scored full marks in every subject. They felt shocked, surprised, jealous, etc.

This Feng Yu is not only Jianlibao and Lehaha’s shareholder, but he is also even Tai Hua Supermarket shareholder. His business is too big.

Many people start to wonder who Feng Yu’s father is.

“The question asked is very interesting. Let Tai Hua Supermarkets stop selling overseas brands of drinks and only sell Chinese brands. Let me ask you all, how is this different from having a closed-door policy? The correct way of doing this is to let our Chinese beverages step out of China and enter the overseas markets. We will sell our drinks to the US, Europe and all other developed countries. The markets in those countries are 10 times or even 100 times bigger than China, based on their consumers’ habits!”

After Feng Yu said this, the rest start to discuss among themselves.

These people own their beverage manufacturing business and are very independent. Chinese Beverage Industry Association is also a non-compulsory association, and they were used to discuss among themselves during meetings.

“Please quiet down and let Manager Feng finish.” Secretary Lu knocked on the microphone.

Feng Yu got to say something shocking to get them to listen to him.

“I have a way to let our beverages enter the overseas supermarket chain and will increase the sales of our products!”

Everyone immediately shut up and looked at Feng yu.

Chapter 830 – Conditions

The room quieted down for about 3 seconds, and the next moment, there was a bigger commotion. Everyone was shouting questions and Feng Yu could not even hear them clearly.

Feng Yu exploded and banged the table hard. “Shut up!”

“I gathered everyone here is to discuss this alliance. There must be rules in every alliance. How can you all be so rowdy?!” Feng Yu was furious.

Everyone got a shock, and most of the people there kept quiet. Only a handful were not pleased. Among these people, it is the General Manager of the Rising Sun group.

“Manager Feng, from what you say, this alliance must follow your rules?”

Feng Yu looked at that man and sneered. “So what if I am the one setting the rules? My rules will bring benefit to everyone here. If you have the same capability as me, you can set the rules.”

Feng Yu hated people who are incompetent and still want to stir up trouble. You think you are working for the government, and you are one level above others?

Feng Yu does not care about these low-ranking officials! Even if your City Mayor or Province Governor is here, I will still say what I want to say!

Feng Yu continued after everyone quiets down. “I know the higher management staff of most of the supermarket chains in western countries. I can convince them to give us a specialized counter in their supermarkets. The westerners are used to shop in supermarkets and is a critical sales distribution point. We can also increase our brand awareness there. The beverages that can’t enter the supermarket chains there is doom to fail!”

Some leaders of large companies in the audience were deep in thoughts. They had exported their drinks overseas, but the furthest is only Southeast Asia. Even if they had exported their products to Europe, it is also in tiny quantities. Most of the time was a one-time transaction. These were loss-making deals, but they did it for marketing.

Our products are exported to Europe, and this is proof of our quality. Many products emphasize how many countries they exported to in their advertisements to attract Chinese consumers.

Even foreigners buy this product, and this means this is a good product!

The Chinese beverage companies, including Jianlibao, are unable to replicate their sales techniques in other countries. When companies started selling their drinks in China, they did aggressive advertisings during the festive season and packaged their beverages as gifts!

Once the companies have enough customers, they start to market their drinks as an exclusive beverage and slowly expand their market share. Their main form of advertising is CCTV advertisements.

But in the western countries, there were more TV channels, and the viewers were spread over several channels, unlike China, where there is only one CCTV. Advertising in CCTV was much more effective, and all the sales of the products advertised will hit greater heights.

“Manager Feng, you are going to help us sell our products overseas?” Someone asked.

“We need to invest a sum of money in advertising in the US, Europe and other regions. This sum of money will be much more than advertisement fees in China. But consumer spending in developed countries is much higher than in China and if we work together, we can get better rates. This way, we can lower our products’ marketing costs.”

“Manager Feng, are you telling us to pay for this? What will be the main product that will be advertised, and what is the proportion for us?”

“Let me make this clear. Not everyone here can pay for the marketing cost. Only the selected products have the qualification to pay for it.” Feng Yu emphasized.

The people in the crowd looks at each other. What does this mean? There is a selection process? Since not everyone is qualified, why are we invited? To look at the big companies showing off their financial strength?

Zhong Qingxian, who was arranged to ask questions beforehand, asked loudly. “Manager Feng, how are we going to select the brands?”

“Very simple. First, the product must pass the US, Europe, and other countries’ food safety standards. If the product cannot even pass the standard checks, everything will be useless. Next, the company must be of a certain scale. What do I mean by the scale? The company must be able to supply enough products for all the supermarkets. I made a rough estimation and just North America has over 1,000 supermarkets and Europe has a few thousand supermarkets. Let’s round it off to 5,000 and every supermarket needs at least 100 bottles or cans. That means you all must have the ability to supply 500,000 bottles or cans every time. This is the lowest requirement. If your product is popular, your factories have to increase production to meet the demand.”

Feng Yu’s requirement is not based on the manufacturing cost, but it is to guarantee the supply. He does not want to market some products and the factories cannot meet the demand. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Jianlibao had made this mistake in the future years. It happened after 2,000, and Jianlibao could not meet the demand of their distributors after aggressive marketing!

That was wasting money on advertising and killing themselves!

Of course, the people who were here for this meeting can meet Feng Yu’s standards. But if the companies were to export so many goods, their China market will be affected. It is not wise for them to give up their domestic market for other markets.

After Feng Yu announced his requirements, many companies decided to give up. But the companies Feng Yu wanted, were still looking at him attentively. These companies were confident of meeting the expectations and will pass the food safety checks of the various countries.

“Next, the companies must have enough funds for advertisements. We have to advertise on the TV stations, the printed media and have promotions in the supermarkets. This is not a small amount, but the benefits are once your product is accepted by the consumers, your sales will shoot up. I am sure all of you know this.”

“Ok. Let’s talk about positioning in the supermarkets. Our product will be separated into different categories, and the marketing for different categories will be different. Similar products will be group together for the consumers to choose from. For example, dairy products will be placed together with diary products and carbonated drinks will be placed together with carbonated drinks. Tea beverages will be placed together, and sports drinks will be grouped together. All of your products must be sold at different pricing, even if it is different by 1 cent.”

“Manager Feng, many of our products are selling at the same price in China, and why must we have different pricing in other countries?”

“Our products are new and unfamiliar to the consumers there. Of course, the retail price of your products will be discussed further, but this price must meet the requirements. Don’t think all the products can be sold at high prices overseas. Even Coca-Cola is selling at different prices in different countries.”

“There are a lot more details which I will not go into today. Those who meet the requirements and are interested in venturing overseas with us, coming over to get the registration form. I will send a batch of products overseas for food safety checks. Once your products pass the checks, we will continue the discussion.”

Most of the people went forward to get a registration form, but Feng Yu knew less than a tenth of the forms will be returned. For the Chinese beverages to compete with the overseas beverage giants, they have to join forces. No Chinese companies can beat them alone!

Chapter 831 – Fu Guangzheng’s decision

Feng Yu was right. Only 9 companies submitted the registration forms. Of course, the companies do not include those, like Lehaha, Jianlibao, etc. who had agreed to participate beforehand.

These 9 companies include juice, carbonated, tea, and mineral water products. Among them, 2 companies manufacture mineral water. One of them, Wu Dalian Spring, is a subsidiary of Beidacang Group, and the other is Yangsheng Tang’s Farmer Springwater. These two companies were famous in Feng Yu’s previous life.

Wu Dalian Spring was established much earlier, but its sales were average. After all, the Chinese were not interested in spring water, and the furthest the company could sell their products was Beijing. Farmer Spring Water was newly established, and it is a new brand. Its products were not even sold in China.

Yangsheng Tang saw Le Bashi and Lehaha’s distilled water were selling well and decided to set up a new brand of mineral water to compete.

“Everyone, please sit down. Each of us must provide a reason why the company should be selected or not selected. After all, this will affect everyone’s benefits.” Feng Yu passed the registration forms to everyone and let Zhu Xinli, Wang Guangxing, and the rest make the selection.

“Tongyi and Kang Shifu should be selected. Although they were instant noodles manufacturers, their red tea and green tea beverages taste good. Furthermore, this will improve China’s relationship with Taiwan. They might even get some subsidies from the higher-ups.” Wang Guangxing said.

Anyway, Wang Guangxing’s Coconut Tree Company does not produce tea beverage. He doesn’t mind letting these two companies competing with Lehaha, Le Baishi, Jianlibao, etc.

“This Wudalian Spring water is fine too. Their spring water is clean and is beneficial to health. The foreigners are health conscious, and they should like this brand.” Zhu Xinli said.

“Since Wudalian can enter, that means Farmer’s Spring Water should also be selected. If not, we will only have a mineral water brand.” Zhong Qingxian said.

No one in the meeting mentioned Wang Laoji and Feng Yu sighed. Never mind. Since Wang Laoji still has not established a foothold in China and the scale is pathetically small, he will have to wait a little longer.

After these drinks are successfully marketed out, they can talk to other brands. If not, everything will be useless.

The eliminated companies were because their brands were unknown or their products were the same as Lehaha and the rest. For example, that Yili Company which produces dairy products and Rising Sun Group. Zhong Qingxian, He Boquan, and the rest strongly oppose these companies to join the alliance and eliminated them.

“These are the companies selected by us to join the beverage alliance. Next, we will be talking about the variety of products under all of you. Some of your companies have more than one brand, and we need to choose the brands and products carefully.” Feng Yu looked at everyone. This elimination process will affect each member’s benefits and he does not know how they will choose.

“Lehaha’s Qili, Vitamin train, ice tea beverage, and refreshing series must be in this alliance.” Zhong Qingxian said.

“Jianlibao’s sports drinks and tea beverages must also be in.” Li Jingwei immediately says.

“Le Bashi’s dairy drinks, peppermint water, and tea beverages must be in.”

“Our Coconut Tree brand will use our coconut water to participate.” Wang Guanxing said directly. He wanted to see if what Feng Yu said is real.

“Our Huiyuen will use our Concentrated Fruit Juice series. But I hope our future new products can participate in the future.” The shelf life of regular fruit juice is not long, and Zhu Xinli can only use its fruit concentrate products. Furthermore, their fruit concentrate was sold in Europe in the past, but their sales were pathetic.

“Alright. That’s settled. Qingxian, you go and notify these few selected companies and tell them about our regulations. If they can’t afford the marketing fees or cannot catch up with the production, tell them to withdraw. Also, there is a 1-month credit for the payment of their goods. The companies who were tight on their finances can forget it.”

“Ok. Leave this to me.” Zhong Qingxian nodded. He was the first to know about this alliance and Lehaha had expanded their production and have sufficient funds. They were the first company to be ready for this alliance, and this is why they can use so many products to participate.

……

Fu Guangzheng is deep in his thoughts in his study. He had helped Feng Yu contact the sales distribution channels in the US when Feng Yu wanted to enter the US retail market. This was to establish a closer relationship with him.

But it is different now. Once Feng Yu opens up the retail market of Europe, Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, etc. will no longer be handed over to Fu Guangzheng’s company to sell, and this is a significant loss for him.

Although the profits of Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances will increase and Fu Guangzheng could get more dividends from his shares in these companies, but the increase in profits is nothing compared to his losses.

Fu Guangzheng had used his family’s distribution channels to cooperate with Feng Yu, and his trading company made lots of money. Feng Yu’s products also reached many countries in Western countries.

But once Feng Yu established his own distribution channels, Fu Guangzheng will no longer be relevant to him.

Fu Guangzheng is in a dilemma now. If he rejects Feng Yu, they might fall out. He can get to where he is now is mainly because of Feng Yu. Because of his cooperation with Feng Yu, his status in his family and his assets increased. If not for Feng Yu, he might still be buying and selling antiques and will be one of those useless second generations in Hong Kong.

If Fu Guangzheng agreed to help Feng Yu, his trading company would be severely affected. Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances products were the primary sources of income for his company.

Fu Guangzheng knew Feng Yu very well. Feng Yu might seem to be joking all the time, but once he set his mind on something, nothing will change him.

“Guangzheng, why are you sitting here for so long? You didn’t even hear me calling you.” Fu Rongjin entered the study room and patted his son’s shoulder.

“Dad, I am thinking about something.”

“Is it about your trading company? Is Feng Yu going to take back the distribution rights?”

Fu Guangzheng looked at his father in shock. “How do you know?” He had never told anyone about this, and this was only between him and Feng Yu.

“Only this matter will trouble you. If it is you, will you set up your own distribution channels? This will happen sooner or later, and you should have thought of this earlier. Since he wants the distribution channels, give it to him. You should also help him by introducing the distributors there.” Fu Rongjing said.

“I still have to help him? Shouldn’t I make things difficult for him and then take back the distribution rights from him? The profits from this is not a small amount.” Fu Guangzheng was unwilling to give up the profits.

“Without Feng Yu’s products, your company cannot sell other company’s products? You can use Wind and Rain’s sales results in the overseas market as your company’s achievement and show it to the companies who wanted to expand overseas. I believe Feng Yu will not reject you, and you can be the overseas distributor for various companies. Furthermore, Feng Yu wants to set up his own distribution channels and will need someone to handle it. You can help him take charge of the sales and can’t you ask for some shares in return? Your company might suffer some losses, but you will gain more in return. Think about it.”

Fu Rongjing patted his son’s shoulder again and left the study room. Making this decision might cause Fu Rongjing’s brothers some losses, but his son will gain in the long term.

Fu Guangzheng brightened up and knew what he should do.

Chapter 832 – I want a specialized counter

“Brother Fu, you are here?” Feng Yu smiled and looked at Fu Guangzheng and knew he had made his decision.

“Brother Feng needs my help, and there is no way I will reject.” Although Fu Guangzheng said this, he still has qualms in his heart. How is he going to ask Feng Yu for shares later?

“Brother Fu, you also have shares in Wind and Rain Electronic and Wind and Rain Home Appliances. After we, the distribution channels are set up, you still have to help out. I still need to depend on you to take charge of our sales and I will sell you 2% of the shares of each company. What do you think?”

Fu Guangzheng did not expect Feng Yu to bring up this subject himself, and 2% was what he wanted.

“Brother Feng, why will I reject this offer? Leave Wind and Rain brand’s overseas sales to me. I promise we will set up the distribution channels within a year, and we need to set up branch offices in Europe and the US.”

Before Fu Guangzheng could finish, Feng Yu interrupted. “You can take charge of the setting up of the branches and decide on the management staff there. I will not interfere.”

“Brother Feng, this is not right. We must decide on the head of the branches together. Oh, didn’t you want to let Lehaha, Jianlibao and some other beverage brands to enter the supermarket chains overseas? I will introduce their higher management to you, and it might be easier for you.”

Fu Guangzheng was returning the favor because of Feng Yu’s generosity.

“Thank you. But I will not let you help us for free. I will persuade those companies to give you 20% of this year’s overseas profits.”

Anyway, 20% of the overseas profits were not from Feng Yu’s pocket, and Feng Yu does not mind using it to repay Fu Guangzheng.

“20% is too high. You don’t need to give me so much.”

“Brother Fu, the profits for this year will not be high, and 20% is not a lot of money. Furthermore, this is what you deserved.” Feng Yu wants to give Fu Guangzheng some profits is to ensure he does his best to help him.

Those companies were the same. Feng Yu had made many promises to them and did not ask for anything in return. This will make those companies uneasy. Now, the companies will have to give away 20% of their profits, and it will make them feel more secure.

Feng Yu really have nothing to gain from this? Of course not.

If these products were successful in western countries, Feng Yu will quickly acquire some bottling factories and manufacture them on behalf of those companies. At the same time, the companies’ pricing, etc. had to follow according to the alliance agreements, and the sales channels were all controlled by Feng Yu. No brands can leave the alliance on their own, as their competitiveness will be lowered, and costs will increase. Feng Yu was confident those companies know how to choose.

Even in China, no beverage brands can overtake Lehaha and Jianlibao, and beverage companies can’t use money to buy the market share like what happened in Feng Yu’s previous life.

If Feng Yu wants to revamp the Chinese beverage industry, he must be able to compete and suppress with Coco-Cola and Pepsi in China, before attacking the overseas market.

Currently, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are entering the Chinese market and are suppressing Jianlibao in the US. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Coca-Cola and Pepsi might become the best-selling beverage brand in China, if it wasn’t for Jianlibao. Even Lehaha cannot compete with them.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi had taken over the Chinese carbonated drinks market and also entered the fruit juice, tea, mineral water, markets.

But in this life, Feng Yu will not let them succeed. The beverage alliance is not only penetrating the overseas market, but it is also formed to suppress the two beverage giants in China.

Feng Yu will let Zhong Qingxian and the rest handle the Chinese market and believe they will succeed. After all, Lehaha’s refreshing series is more popular than Coca-Cola and Pepsi in China currently.

If they still fail, Feng Yu would be disappointed with Zhong Qingxian.

New York. Empire State Building, level 87. Feng Yu’s office.

A few people were sitting on the sofa. They were the higher management of various US supermarket chains and controlled the whole US market.

Feng Yu thought he will be meeting these management staff one by one, but Fu Guangzheng invited all of them over together.

Of course, they had come over to Feng Yu’s office is not because of Fu Guangzheng. They had come because of the Fu family. The Fu family built their empire from retail and had worked with the US retailers before.

“I had invited all of you here is to introduce a friend of mine. I believe all of you had heard of his name, Feng Yu. He is the owner of the Empire State Building.” Fu Guangzheng said.

They thought Fu Guangzheng was introducing one of Hong Kong’s wealthy second generation to them. To their surprise, he is introducing the mysterious Microsoft’s director who had bought the Empire State Building to them!

“Oh, you are Mr. Feng. You invited us here for business?” Someone asked.

“Mr. Malfoy, my friend, is also the owner of Wind and Rain brand!”

“Wind and Rain brand? That humidifier, bladeless fans, and VCD player brand?!” everyone was shocked. This young man is the one who started these products?

The media had gauged the wealth of this Microsoft Director too conservatively. Just Wind and Rain brands are worth a lot!

“Mr. Feng, is there any issue with our cooperation? We have given Wind and Rain brand a specialized counter, and this is the best treatment we can give.” Someone said.

Wind and Rain products are selling well, and every time a new product is launched, the supermarkets will make high profits. All the supermarkets love to work with brands like this.

“There is nothing wrong with our cooperation, and I am delighted with the special care you all have given to Wind and Rain. I had invested in a few beverage brands. Have you all heard of Jianlibao?” Feng Yu asked.

“The Chinese Magic Water? Mr. Feng has shares in this company?”

Jianlibao had contacted their supermarkets, but they did not take much notice of this company and offered harsh terms. If they knew Jianlibao is related to the owner of Wind and Rain, they would relax the conditions.

“I have some shares, and I also represent a few other Chinese beverage brands. All of these products have passed the FDA and would like to enter your supermarkets.”

“This is not a problem. How many types of drinks are you representing, and what are the brands?” Someone said. They also want to increase the variety of goods in their supermarkets.

“This is a list of products. Also, I want a specialized counter in your supermarkets to display them!”

Chapter 833 – Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s shock

Specialized counters are only a row of shelves selling only Chinese beverages.

Only Coca-Cola and Pepsi had such treatments in the past. Even Budweiser, a world-renowned beer, does not have this treatment.

Now, what Feng Yu wanted was the same as what Coca-Cola and Pepsi had, and this made them frown.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi were beverage giants, and Coca-Cola owns more than 40% of the world’s beverage market share. Their market share is still increasing because of their growth in Asia markets. Pepsi is close behind, with about 35% of the global market share and was also entering the Asia market.

In the North America market, Coca-Cola’s market share is about 45%, and Pepsi owns about 40%. Both cola companies own 85% of the whole market.

This is the reason why supermarket chains are willing to give them specialized counters. How can Feng Yu ask the same for his Chinese beverages? The drinks on the list were mostly unheard of and the only brand the supermarket chain’s higher management heard of is Jianlibao. However, Jianlibao owns only a few percentages of the market share!

“Mr. Feng, Mr. Fu, only Coca-Cola and Pepsi have specialized counters and no other brands can have their own shelves. At least this is for our supermarkets, and I am not sure about the rest.” Someone said.

The rest of the people there starts saying their supermarket also cannot give such treatments to Chinese beverages. Walmart is the biggest supermarket chain in North America, in some regions or areas, some of the local supermarkets are more popular than them.

The higher management felt Feng Yu should not ask for too much just because they had worked together before. Their supermarkets’ sales will not be affected if they were to pull out one or two brands. But without the supermarkets, all beverage brands’ sales will be affected. This includes Coca-Cola and Pepsi!

Powerful retail chains can suppress the earnings of their suppliers!

“Please consider this. We do not have only one product, but several Chinese products, like carbonated drinks, tea beverages, dairy products, mineral water and sports drinks. These products are all from the mysterious east! Think about this. Having a shelf full of products from the mysterious east, why can’t this work? We had conducted market research, and there are more people in North America drinking tea beverages now.” Fu Guangzheng said.

“Mr. Fu, there might be more people drinking tea, but that does not mean there are more people drinking tea beverages. All of your products are unknown brands and need our supermarkets to help market them. Other than tea beverages, what’s so special about the other drinks? Can your soft drinks compete with Coca-Cola and Pepsi? Dairy products can be found everywhere, and there is nothing special. We are also selling tea beverages from Japan and the sales are quite good too. The Sports drinks you are talking about are Jianlibao and Qili? How many people will buy them, and who is your target audience?”

“Everyone, I had mentioned that we are not selling on the taste or brands. We are selling the location. I only all of you to give us a chance and give us a specialized shelf to place our products. Our marketing campaign will be starting soon, and advertisements will be placed in various newspapers, TV stations and other media. Just look at Jianlibao. If we can increase Jianlibao’s brand awareness within 3 years, we will be able to increase the brand awareness of the other brands.”

Jianlibao could establish itself in the US within 3 years is considered a miracle! With the same marketing team and sufficient funds, the other Chinese brands will have no problem increasing their brand awareness.

The supermarket chains’ higher management looks at each other, but no one wants to say anything. ‘Products from China’ might be a selling point, but no one knows whether if it will be successful.

Another consideration is the charges for the specialized counters. How much should they charge Feng Yu? Base on the same rates as Coca-Cola or increase it slightly?

Fu Guangzheng and Feng Yu did not say anything about the rates, and the supermarket chains’ representatives did not ask too.

After talking for about 30 minutes, nothing had been agreed on, and the representatives left. Fu Guangzheng said excitedly to Feng Yu. “Success! They will come back to us to discuss the details before tomorrow night.”

“Why?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

“Because of what you said. Our beverages are from China, and it is the same as overseas beverage brands getting popular in Hong Kong and China. In the initial phase, many consumers will purchase those beverages out of curiosity, and they don’t even need to do much marketing. It is the same for the US and Americans are more open to new things. After our Chinese beverages are introduced into the market, there will be a surge in the supermarkets’ sales. But one thing to note. The supermarket chains will definitely add in some conditions like they have the right to pull our products off the shelves if the sales fall below a certain percentage.” Fu Guangzheng is much better than Feng Yu when it comes to retail sales.

“Pull off the shelves anytime? We will be at their mercy.” Feng Yu frowned. The supermarket chains will have the final say over the Chinese beverages fate!

“This is where we need to negotiate. Even if the sales are not good, we must ask for a buffer period. If not, we will be too passive.” Fu Guangzheng had thought of how to handle these supermarket chains. After all, the Fu family owns the biggest supermarket chain in Hong Kong.

“How long should the buffer period be?” Feng Yu asked.

“It will depend on our negotiations with them. But what I have in mind is at least a season. They will not agree if we ask for a longer period, but if the buffer period is too short, it will be disadvantageous to us. One season should be possible. My family has long term cooperation agreements with these few supermarket chains, and since these products are giving me 20% of their profits, I will do my best to help them.” Fu Guangzheng replied confidently.

“Thank you. I will leave everything to you.”

That evening, the supermarket chains’ higher management staff contacted Fu Guangzheng and expressed interest. The supermarket chains in the US were trying to increase the variety of their products, and if another supermarket chain has some products they do not have, they will lose out.

Also, all of them felt this is worth a try. If the sales are not good and they cannot make any profits, they can just pull the products off the shelves. They had done this to other products before.

After the first supermarket chain signed the cooperation contract, the rest of the supermarket chains quickly reached an agreement and signed the contract. Everyone does not want their rivals to get an advantage over them.

One week later, all the products from the Chinese Beverage Alliance entered more than 1,000 supermarket chains in North America and had their own specialized counters.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi got wind of it and were shocked!

Chapter 834 – Lucky draw promotion

Coca-Cola and Pepsi did not expect Jianlibao, which they had suppressed in the North American market, could enter the supermarkets, and it was all major supermarket chains!

Coca-Cola and Pepsi were global beverage giants, and while they were attacking the Chinese market, a Chinese brand had hit them in their own backyards.

The beverage giants’ progress in the Chinese market was slow, and they thought the Chinese do not like carbonated drinks. But why did Jianlibao, Refreshing, Rising Sun Group soft drinks were selling better than them?

Lehaha’s Refreshing series were copying their drinks and had better sales!

Coca-Cola and Pepsi tried Lehaha’s Refreshing series of drinks, and the taste was nowhere close to them.

The main reason is Lehaha’s sales distribution channels are better than Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Lehaha can deliver their goods to any town in China within 3 days. This was not what Coca-Cola and Pepsi could do. Currently, they can only sell their products in major cities.

Their sales in the cities were not as good as they expected because many of the distributors were not willing to bring in their products. Even Tai Hua Supermarkets took their products off their shelves. Many Chinese consumers thought something was wrong with Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s products. This made them regret to place their products in Tai Hua Supermarkets in the first place!

These were because of Feng Yu. Tai Hua Supermarkets were not affected by removing some products from their shelves, and Feng Yu told all the distributors related to Tai Hua Trading to forbid them from distributing Coca-Cola and Pepsi products. Those distributors chose to follow Tai Hua Trading’s instructions as they were making more profits with Tai Hua Trading.

In a competitive environment, companies will make such requests to their distributors, and the distributors could relate with Tai Hua Trading. Furthermore, Tai Hua Trading gave them 1% more profits on Songjiang, Wind and Rain, Aiwa, etc. products. The distributors will surely stand by Tai Hua Trading forever because of this benefit.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi had failed to expand their presence in the Chinese market, and Chinese brands had entered their primary market. This made them furious.

But Coca-Cola and Pepsi did not think these Chinese brands can do much harm to them as other than Jianlibao, the rest of the brands were unknown in the US. Although those Chinese brands had successfully entered the supermarket chains, they felt it was just a gimmick and will not affect their sales.

But very soon, Coca-Cola and Pepsi realized they had belittled these Chinese brands.

……

“Another bottle! Another Can! Chinese Beverages sales promotion! If initials are found in the bottle caps or can ring, you can exchange for the same product from where you buy it!”

All the major US newspapers published full-page advertisements for a week.

This sales promotion had caught Coca-Cola and Pepsi off guard!

This was forgoing profits in exchange for market share. Usually, this strategy is used by stronger companies who had the upper hand.

The cost of this marketing tactic is higher than advertising and needs the cooperation of the retailers and distributors. The company behind this tactic also has to pay the retailers and distributors a sum of money.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi had not expected these Chinese beverages to use this marketing strategy! Where did they get so much money?

But Coca-Cola and Pepsi were still confident as their products taste better and have loyal consumers. They will not be affected by these Chinese brands.

After that, the newspapers published new advertisements announcing that the Chinese beverage sales promotion will be upgraded!

Jianlibao, Qili, and several canned drinks increased the value of their prizes. Other than another can, could win Aiwa CD players, Wind and Rain Super fans, Wind and Rain Super VCD players, etc.

These prizes were provided by Feng Yu for free and he also benefited from it. Wind and Rain and Aiwa products also appeared in the advertisements, and consumers will take note of them.

What Coca-Cola and Pepsi could not accept was the grand prize in the lucky draw. Other than the electronics products, the grand prize is a Songjiang car!

Drinking a beverage can win a car. The prize is too grand, and all the consumers were excited!

Within a few days, Jianlibao, Qili, Refreshing, etc. products were selling like hotcakes. These few products also help increase the sales of other Chinese beverages.

The supermarket chains also helped with the promotions by putting up giant posters. Anyway, the supermarkets do not need to pay for this promotion, and this promotion can increase their customer traffic.

Feng Yu used Songjiang – Offroad, as the grand prize. Through market research, only this model’s exterior design and specifications are most suitable for the North America market. Songjiang Redstar and Olympic models were not as popular in the US as the Americans felt the designs were not beautiful and the performance is just average.

Just like Wind and Rain and Aiwa products, Songjiang Motors can increase their brand awareness in the US through this lucky draw.

To support China’s Olympic team, Feng Yu had shipped a few hundred Songjiang vehicles over to the US. Some of these vehicles will be used by the Olympic team and the rest will be used as advertisements.

Feng Yu did not expect Songjiang to become popular in the US overnight. He just wants to increase the Songjiang’s brand awareness.

Feng Yu also contacted one auto-distributor in every state and left 3 models of Songjiang vehicles with them. These vehicles were for display and test drives by customers. Feng Yu had no use for the remaining cars and decided to use them to advertise.

Feng Yu also want to know how the Americans will react to Chinese manufactured cars. Even if the profit for each vehicle is 1,000 USD, he will get 10 million USD in profits when 10,000 vehicles were sold!

One week after the lucky draw promotion prizes were announced, there is an article in the newspaper saying this lucky draw is a scam. No one had won any cars from it!

Some customers had won CD players, Super Fans, Super VCD players and were reported in the papers. But no winners of the anticipated grand prize are announced.

Feng Yu was also frustrated. He had placed the winning can on the shelves, but no one had come forward to redeem the grand prize? In the end, Feng Yu had no choice but to arrange a winner!

A winning bottle of beverage was arranged to be bought by a customer!

That customer opened the bottle and jumped up in surprise! People started to crowd around him and saw he had won the 30,000 USD Songjiang Offroad!

The newspapers immediately report on this winner and announce that there are 19 more vehicles to be won. This increases Chinese beverages’ sales further.

Although the US’s economy is better than China, not everyone can afford to buy cars. Also, African Americans like this Songjiang Offroad model. This vehicle looks majestic, has excellent performance, and most importantly, they might get it with only 59 cents!

After the newspaper reports, the sales of these beverages increased by 800%!

China beverages had established a foothold in North America!

Chapter 835 – Fire in the backyard

How do you make two beverage manufacturing giants join hands? Only when they have a strong common competitor that threatened their positions. The enemy of my enemy is my friend!

Coca-Cola’s North America Sales Director, Bren, and Pepsi’s North America Sales Director, Okafor, were sitting together today. If the reporters saw them, there might be reporters that both cola companies are merging.

“I received news that the contracts signed between the Chinese beverages and the supermarket chains are the same as us!”

Bren was frustrated. He does not understand what the supermarket chains were thinking. How can those Chinese beverages compete with them? Why are the supermarket chains giving Chinese beverage companies such as lucrative terms?

“Based on the data I received, those Chinese beverages’ sales had hit 8% of non-alcoholic beverages in the supermarkets!” Okafor said. He did not expect those Chinese beverages to rise up so fast.

8% might not be a lot compared to them, but that is only the first month!

Both cola companies own 85% of the market share and it had dropped to 81%. It is only one month since the Chinese beverages entered the supermarket, and their market share dropped by 4%. Although this is only the figures from the supermarket chains, supermarket sales make up a significant proportion of their overall sales.

They also discover that other than supermarkets, some smaller retail shops also start selling Chinese beverages, and this will have an impact on their profits!

The cake is only so big, and if someone took a slice, they would receive smaller slices. Both beverage giants were still planning to join hands in China to compete with Chinese beverages. But before they can do anything, the Chinese drinks had entered their domestic markets!

“Have you all found out the reason for those Chinese beverages to grow rapidly?” Bren asked.

Both sales directors had tried those Chinese beverages and felt they taste nothing special compared to their products. Of course, there are some exceptional whom they can learn from.

But even if some of those beverages taste good, their sales should not increase so fast! Just because of that lucky draw promotion? Just because of the Another Can promotion? Or is it because of the grand prize?

“Other than their lucky draw promotion, I cannot think of any other reason. Errr… there seems to be another reason. Some reporters saw Bill Gates buying China’s Qili in the supermarket. There are rumors that Microsoft software engineers love to drink Qili. This drink can boost their energy and is more effective than coffee. These were reported in the papers.”

Okafor did not believe these reports at first, but there were pictures of Bill Gates placing a few cans of Qili into his shopping cart in the supermarket. When the reporters interviewed Microsoft Deputy CEO, Ballmer, there were a few cans of Qili on his desk.

This Chinese energy drink is said to reduce fatigue and increase energy levels. Those people who work late or overnight needs to drink such beverages.

These were all Feng Yu’s tricks. He recommended Chinese beverages, especially Qili, to Microsoft and ‘generously’ sponsored some for the engineers to try. Bill Gates had gone to the supermarket to buy Qili because of Feng Yu’s recommendations. But at that time, Feng Yu still have not sponsor Qili to Microsoft yet. The reporters could get the picture of Bill Gates buying Chinese beverages was also arranged by Feng Yu.

Bill Gates was tricked into becoming the endorser of Qili.

Microsoft had also become the endorser of this product.

The newspaper reports this beverage is another magical beverage like Jianlibao. For software engineers, Qili is like Jianlibao to sportsmen. Both had magical effects.

When Feng Yu gave Qili to Microsoft engineers, Paul Alan was full of disdain for him. A Microsoft director selling soft drinks? He felt this was a disgrace.

The proud Paul Allen had looked down on Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other beverage companies. He felt only technology companies like Microsoft is the future of mankind

Microsoft’s profits and share prices had been rising, and it enforced this belief.

In Paul Allen’s eyes, if the CEO of Pepsi join Microsoft, he can only be one of the managers in the middle management. But Feng Yu, one of the directors of Microsoft, is selling soft drinks! This is a disgrace to Microsoft! He still wants to use his drinks to bribe Microsoft engineers? What a joke!

But Paul Allen had never thought why Pepsi and Coca-Cola’s profits were so high. No matter how fast technology companies grow, people still need to eat and drink. There are definitely more people buying Coca-Cola than PCs!

Of course, Paul Allen also did not know Feng Yu was not bribing the engineers by giving them his beverages. He is only making use of the engineers to market his products.

Feng Yu was making use of Microsoft to increase Qili’s brand awareness!

“I heard the person behind these Chinese Beverages is that Chinese Director of Microsoft.” Bren had heard about this but did not believe it. Software and beverages were totally different industries!

“It is that mysterious Chinese tycoon. If not, why will there be news of Microsoft engineers drinking Chinese beverages? Also, their lucky draw prizes are too good. Other than electronic products, they are giving out cars. Now, a total of 8 cars are given out, and the papers have been reporting about this.”

“What are you all going to do?” Bren looked at Okafor. By right, Coca-Cola and Pepsi do not need to have promotions on their products as they have a significant customer base.

Even if both beverage giants were to start a sales promotion, they would not copy those Chinese beverages. At most, they will give out one free drink and will not give out electronic devices and cars.

Both companies were waiting for each other to start some sales promotions to compete with Chinese beverages. Actually, both companies can lower their retail prices to force those Chinese beverages out of the US. But this is considered monopolizing the market and they might be fine by the authorities. It will also be bad for their reputation and might be barred from entering China.

Both men discussed and concluded…… Wait! They will wait for the craze over the Chinese beverage’s lucky draw to be over. These Chinese beverage companies were not strong and cannot afford to do sales promotions for extended periods. Also, both cola companies will be investing a significant sum on advertising during the Olympic Games.

But they received a piece of bad news. The Chinese beverages had entered many European countries’ markets through the supermarket chains there.

Both beverage giants start to feel the pressure from Chinese beverages. That Microsoft Director should not have any influence in Europe and yet, he can bring his Chinese drinks into those European supermarket chains. This is too scary.

Both cola companies knew they must retaliate now!

Chapter 836 – The ones holding them back

“Guangzheng, thanks for your hard work. We had successfully entered the European markets.” Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng were smoking cigars and drinking champagne.

All the Chinese beverage sales in the US and Europe were handed over to a company, Beverage Major League, and Feng Yu is the owner of this company.

This company is not a company that focuses on making profits. It is set up to market the Chinese beverages into the overseas markets, and this is the reason why Feng Yu did not ask Fu Guangzheng to invest.

But Feng Yu had acquired 5 bottling factories in the US and Canada, and Fu Guangzheng bought a few bottling factories in Europe. Fu Guangzheng also felt Chinese beverages can establish a foothold in Europe.

If the Chinese dairy products were able to secure a place in the overseas market, Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng would continue to acquire dairy product factories in the western countries.

“This is nothing. But can those Chinese beverage companies afford the losses? They will surely suffer massive losses this year, and they might not see any profits next year.” Fu Guangzheng reminded.

Opening new markets require huge capital. Not only the companies had to incur the marketing fees, but they also have to pay the supermarket chains, high transportation, and storage costs.

There is a heavy price to pay for introducing new products into the market, and not everyone can see the returns. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Coca-Cola had failed in introducing their tea beverages in China after investing a significant amount in marketing. Coca-Cola had strong distribution channels and used aggressive advertising, but they were no match for Kang Shifu and other Chinese Tea Beverage manufacturers.

“This BML company is not earning a single cent from them. If they are not willing to take the losses, I will also not force them. At least, Jianlibao, Qili, and some tea beverages are doing well. Just these brands alone are worth what I am doing.”

Problems arise in alliance easily. Those companies were given advantages, but they will feel that they had lost out.

“The problem is you are not making money from them. The more you are not making money from them, the more they are asking. They do not care what you are thinking. After all, you are a shareholder of Lehaha and Jianlibao. You say you are doing this to introduce Chinese beverage brands to other countries, but they will think you are making use of their brands to increase the competitiveness of Jianlibao and Lehaha. If not, why the promotions for their brands are not giving out electronic products and cars as prizes?” Fu Guangzheng shook his head.

“Those prizes are sponsored by me, and they are not paying for them. It is my choice which brand I want to sponsor, and this has nothing to do with them. Why should I help them?”

Feng Yu finally understood why people say businessmen are greedy and ungrateful. Although he was using those brands to increase the Chinese beverages’ competitiveness, those brands also stand to gain from this.

Those companies do not care about opening the Western countries’ markets. They thought they would make high profits if they could export their products.

But now, they were making losses despite having high sales. Their brand awareness had increased, but what’s the use of high brand awareness without profits?!

Feng Yu was frustrated with these short-sighted people. Luckily, Zhong Qingxian and Li Jingwei supported Feng Yu as they understand the importance of market share and branding.

It’s fine to suffer losses in the initial phase. Zhong Qingxian and Li Jingwei were prepared to see losses for the first 2 to 3 years. But once they were established in the western countries’ markets, they can recover all their losses in the future.

Lehaha and Jianlibao’s profits from their domestic market can ensure they will not have cashflow problems. Among the companies in the alliance, Taiwanese brands, Kang Shifu and Tongyi, created the most noise. They felt their tea beverages were not marketed well enough, and Feng Yu was discriminating against them for being Taiwanese brands.

Discriminating them? If Feng Yu was discriminating them, they would not even qualify to enter this alliance.

Kang Shifu and Tongyi might be successful with their instant noodles, and Tongyi is currently one of the world’s top instant noodles company. But these two companies’ beverages were not doing well.

Both companies only have tea beverages, but its taste cannot be compared to Lehaha, Le Bashi and Jianlibao’s products. They did not spend much money and they should be glad that the supermarket chains were willing to sell their products. They still demand the advertisements to feature them? We asked you to participate in the Another Bottle campaign, why did you all refuse?

These two companies felt since they were not participating in these promotions, Lehaha, Le Bashi, and the rest of the companies should not do these promotions, as it will cause infighting.

At this time, these two companies increased their productions and start to fight for market share in China. They started selling their products to the various villages, counties around the cities and priced their products 50 cents cheaper than Lehaha, Le Bashi, etc. tea beverages. Your products are selling at 2 RMB? We will sell ours at 1.50 RMB!

Feng Yu cannot stop them from doing this, but the problem is these two companies start to lower their supply of goods to the US!

Their excuse was they had to supply goods to the Europe supermarket chains, and the demand in China had increased. Their production cannot keep up but promises their supplies will resume the following month.

These two companies could not make money in the US, and even though they were selling their products cheaper in the Chinese market, they could still see profits as the transportation and storage costs were much lower.

Even idiots know which side to choose. They had also gotten what they wanted. They had entered the US and Europe market and had an increase in their sales.

These two companies want to wait out in the US market. If they can still get the same sales figures without advertising, they will see the profits.

It would be great if their sales can increase.

What these two companies are doing is to drag things out. They want to enjoy their brand exposure and refuses to pay the advertising cost and lower their supply to minimize losses. This way, they will increase their brand awareness in the overseas market.

By placing their products besides the famous brands, their brand awareness will surely increase.

Based on the alliance agreement signed, any companies that cannot keep up with the supply will have to withdraw from the US and Europe markets. But Kang Shifu and Tongyi did not follow the rules and refuses to withdraw from the alliance.

Feng Yu was furious with these two companies. He felt these two companies should be given a warning. There are many tea beverages in the market, and since you two don’t follow what was agreed upon, then don’t blame me for attacking your products in China!

Feng Yu called Zhong Qingxian and Li Jingwei. He asked them to warn Kang Shifu and Tongyi. They must provide the required volume of goods, or they will be pulled out of the Western countries’ market and have to pay compensations.

But before Feng Yu could act against these two Taiwanese brands, the two Cola giants start to retaliate.

Chapter 837 – Spokesperson

“Coca-Cola will be sponsoring the US Olympic Games. Since 1928, Coca-Cola has been sponsoring the Olympic Games!”

“Pepsi had signed my footballers and basketball stars as their spokesmen.”

“Drink Coca-Cola and win Olympic Games tickets.”

“Drink Pepsi and win Olympic Games’ souvenirs.”

……

Coca-Cola and Pepsi start to advertise aggressively using the Atlanta Olympic Games as the theme.

This year, the whole world will be focusing on Atlanta. If the cola companies could do enough advertising in the Olympic Games, the whole will notice them.

North America’s advertising fees had increased this year and the two beverage giants made use of this to give the first blow to the Chinese beverages. You dare to come and create trouble in our turf? We will teach you an unforgettable lesson!

“Manager Feng, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi had increased their advertisements and signed a lot of famous sports personalities. After the Olympic Games, their products’ sales will increase base on the performance of those athletes. Should we also do something to deal with them?” Lin Qishu asked.

“Of course. We must also sign some sportsmen. The value of sportsmen will increase because of this year’s Olympic Games. Go and contact some famous athletes like the US sprinter Michael Johnson, basketball player Grant Hill, etc. and ask for their prices.”

In China, no one noticed the commercial value of athletes, but in the US, athletes were doing very well. A world-renowned athlete’s market value is very high.

There were many athletes to choose, but only a handful had influence all over the world. Currently, football is the most popular sport in the world, but Lin Qishu told Feng Yu that Pepsi had signed lots of football stars. Almost all the famous footballers were signed by Pepsi.

Athletes also have to take care of their appearances. Those better-looking athletes have higher commercial value than those who were not good looking. Ronaldinho did not get as many endorsements and Owen. Was it because of their skills? No. Ronaldinho’s club manager said not many fans want to buy his jersey because of his looks.

It is difficult for black sportsmen to get huge endorsement contracts. Black sportsmen have lower influence compared to white sportsmen. White sportsmen must also be good looking, or they will have lower commercial value.

A day later, Lin Qishu returned to Feng Yu with a piece of bad news. US sprinter Michael Johnson and basketball player Grant Hill had been signed by Coca-Cola.

The other sportsmen who were targeted by Feng Yu were also ridiculously expensive. When they heard this endorsement is for Chinese products, they were unwilling to accept it. These sportsmen were the best in the world and only want to endorse for the best products.

If Coca-Cola wants to sign these sportsmen, their fees might only be a few hundred thousand USD per year. But they demand at least 1 million USD if they were going to endorse Chinese beverages.

These sportsmen felt their image and commercial value will be affected if they were to endorse for Chinese products.

In other words, these sportsmen look down on China products. Although the papers were reporting about China’s threat and China’s fast-rising economy, the papers also emphasize Chinese products were inferior to US products.

“All those sportsmen refuse to lower their prices?” Feng Yu frowned.

Although Feng Yu had signed a few Chinese sportsmen, like Wang Junxia, Fu Mingxia, Teng Yaping, etc. who will win the gold medals in this year’s Olympic Games, female athletes were not as influential as male athletes. He had only signed 3 Chinese male athletes, Li Xiaoshuang, Liu Guoliang and Kong Lingjun.

These athletes endorsed a wide range of products, and they were all from Feng Yu’s companies.

There are other Chinese gold medalists in this year’s Games, but Feng Yu could not remember who. Feng Yu offered Fu Mingxia and Kong Lingjun long-term endorsement contracts because they have good image and will win the gold medals again in the next Olympic games.

But Chinese athletes’ commercial value in the overseas market cannot be compared to sportsmen from the western countries.

Sports like basketball, football, short distance track, and field events have the most influence and the athletes from these sports have the highest value.

Feng Yu knew the endorsement fees for these top athletes were expensive and had asked for their charges beforehand. But he did not expect these athletes to raise their prices when they heard the product is from China.

“Those two companies signed which athletes from football and basketball category? Do you have the prices of the remaining sportsmen?” Feng Yu asked. He had no choice but to pick some of the lesser-known sportsmen.

Lin Qishu took out a list, and the athletes signed by Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other beverage companies were highlighted.

The remaining unsigned sportsmen seem to have discussed their rates. All of them charges 1 million USD!

Are they kidding? The annual wages of basketball stars and football stars in this era are still meager. Also, these beverages were not sports drinks, and why are they asking for such high rates?

“Basketball players are considered cheap, and football stars charge much higher. Those athletes cannot drink Coca-Cola or Pepsi as cola beverages will lower bone mineral density! Athletes are forbidden to drink it!” Lin Shuqi said angrily.

Jianlibao is a sports drink, and Qili is also suitable for athletes. Those athletes would rather endorse some beverages they cannot drink. Feng Yu wonders what their fans were thinking!

Football athletes? That’s right. How can I forget this team?!

“You said most of the players in the Brazil football team are signed by Pepsi?” Feng Yu asked.

“That’s right. Only some reserves and unknown players were not signed. After the Brazilian team won the gold medal in the Games, they should become famous.” Lin Qishu said.

“No… We are not signing anyone from the Brazilian team. We are going to sign the Nigerian team.” Feng Yu laughed.

“Which team? Nigeria? Is that an African team?” Lin Qishu asked. Even if they cannot sign the players from the Brazilian team, there is still Portugal, Argentina and other teams. Those players might charge higher, but they are famous football stars. What does Nigeria have?

“They are from Africa, and you might not know they are the last Africa Cup Champions. They are also one of the top 16 football teams in the world. Go and contact this team. I want to sign all the top players on this team!”

Pepsi had signed players from the Brazilian team? This will be interesting. Nigeria will win Brazil in this year’s Olympic Games.

Feng Yu laughed as he imagines how the facial expression of those people at Pepsi when Nigeria wins Brazil!

Chapter 838 – Combination punches

“Manager Wei, I have said all I have to say, and it is up to you whether if you want to listen. Based on our agreement, you are breaching the contract. Don’t think you have special privileges just because you are from Taiwan!” Zhong Qingxian sat on the sofa, looking at the slightly shaken Wei Yingchuan.

Initially, no one wants Kang Shifu and Tongyi to join the alliance, but the Chairman of the Beverage Industry Association wanted to establish a good relationship with both straits and allowed these two companies to participate.

After joining the alliance, the rest of the companies also took care of these two Taiwanese companies, but these two companies disappointed everyone in the end.

Did they think they are Taiwanese companies, and they can do whatever they want? The Chinese government might be giving in to Taiwan to try to reconcile with them. But that does not mean the Taiwanese companies can ignore the agreement signed during the formation of the alliance.

“Mr. Zhong, we had met with some difficulties.”

“You don’t need to explain. I had already finished what I have to say, and this is the alliance’s decision. I will give you 3 days to consider.” Zhong Qingxian can’t be bothered to say anything more and left.

Back at the hotel, Li Jingwei entered Zhong Qingxian’s room.

“I had told Manager Luo, and he looks like he does not believe we can do anything to them.” Li Jingwei sneered.

“Kang Shifu is also the same. They thought we will tolerate their nonsense. I think we should act according to the contract and stop their payment for this month’s goods.” Zhong Qingxian replied coldly. Kang Shifu and Tongyi were selling tea beverages like Lehaha, and Lehaha is still China’s biggest tea beverage manufacturer. What they are doing will affect Lehaha’s profits.

“They are Taiwanese companies, and if we fall out with them, can we handle the aftermath? The Chairman still have not say anything.” Li Jingwei asked worryingly.

The relationship between China and Taiwan had been tense, and if this incident becomes an international dispute, it will be out of the alliance’s control.

“Manager Feng says he will handle this, and we don’t need to worry about all these. Manager Feng might be young, but he has relationships with the top brass of the government.” Zhong Qingxian was calm as he knows Feng Yu can handle all these troubles.

……

“Manager Feng, those two companies’ replies are the same. They claim their production had met with some difficulties, and everything will be fine after two months.”

Two months? They want to drag until we have opened up the markets and take advantage of it? Their replies after two months will surely be the same, and after the Chinese beverage brands had successfully established a foothold in the US next year, they will resume their supply to the overseas market. Meanwhile, they will increase their market share and profits in the Chinese market.

Fat hope!

“Ok. I will handle this!”

These two Taiwanese companies are trying to be funny? Fine. I don’t mind teaching them a lesson!

Now, it is all up to Feng Yu’s BML company. These beverage companies do not have any branch offices overseas and had to depend on BML company for payments of their goods. Feng Yu immediately call BML to hold the payments for these two companies.

……

“What? BML still has not settle last month’s payment? It’s been 3 days, why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Director, I thought it is because of the time difference between the US and China. When I called them, they told me our payments were being held by them. I tried to speak to the person-in-charge, but he is very firm. I have no choice but to call you.” Luo Zhixian called Gao Qinghui to report.

“They dare to hold our payments? Fine! I will contact Chairman Zhu now. I will make sure they regret this!”

“Director, they also held back the payments for Tongyi. I think we can work with them to pressure BML to release our payments. After all, we are all Taiwanese.” Luo Zhixian said.

“Alright, we will blow up this matter!”

Before Kang Shifu and Tongyi can blow things up, they realized they were reported.

CCTV’s <Oriental Horizon> reports about the beverage alliance in their latest episode. The program emphasized that the Chinese beverages formed this alliance to compete in the overseas market and mentioned Taiwanese companies and Hong Kong companies are also in this alliance.

But during the interview with one of the founders of this alliance, Lehaha Group’s Zhong Qingxian, he said something shocking.

“We chose the companies in the alliance based on their companies’ financial strength, scale, and brand awareness. This is to enter the overseas market together. During that time, a few Taiwanese companies wanted to participate in this alliance. After some consideration, we picked the strongest two Taiwanese companies. Actually, these two companies are not strong at all, and we are just helping them. This is also to improve its relationship with Taiwan.”

“But what happened in the end? After all the companies signed the agreement, we paid all the fees accordingly and tried our best to penetrate the overseas market. Some companies are just sitting there trying to reap the benefits without putting in the effort like the rest of us and even tried to hinder us. When our overseas Sales Representative Company asked them to deliver their goods, they could not deliver it. What they did had greatly tarnish our alliance’s reputation and our customers will lose their trust in us. They are tarnishing the reputation of China!” Zhong Qingxian got agitated.

“Chairman Zhong, sorry for interrupting. Can I ask which company is this? Or is there more than one company?” The reporter asked.

“They are all Taiwanese companies. One is Kang Shifu, and the other is Tongyi,” Zhong Qingxian replied.

“These two companies are selling instant noodles, right?”

“That’s right. They were selling instant noodles, and when they see our tea beverages selling well, they follow suit. I don’t mind them imitating our products, packaging and taste. But when doing business, we should abide by the rules. What are the rules? The rules are written in the contract signed by them!”

“You are saying they breach the contract?”

“It’s more serious than breaching the contract. They think they are Taiwanese companies and can take advantage of us. More than one month ago, they had already breached the contract, and when we approached them, they gave us all sorts of excuses. This beverage alliance is a non-profit organization and even our overseas sales company, BML, did not earn a single cent from us and even had to pump in some money. But these two companies were too much and we tried to speak to them again. But they still have the same attitude, which is to ignore the terms of the contract!”

“Chairman Zhong, how are you all going to settle this?”

“How are we going to settle this? We will go according to the terms of the contract. This contract is already beneficial to them, and they still chose to breach the terms. We will not take this lying down! We don’t care where they come from, they must abide by the contract and respect the laws!” Zhong Qingxian shouted.

……

“Damn! Zhong Qingxian, Lehaha, you all are trying to force us? Get the legal department to issue them a letter! We will fight them in courts!”

“Director, we cannot do this. According to the contract, we had breached the terms of the contract. Look at this term. The compensation for breaching the contract terms is 10 times the original amount. If we go to courts, we might have to pay them more!”

“Then tell me what we should do? Admit we are at fault?” Gao Qingyuan asked furiously.

“Actually, I think this is a good opportunity for us to enter the western countries’ markets. When Tongyi was first set up, we are also losing money for the first 6 years. After that, we used 2 years to recover the losses from the 6 years. Why don’t we just supply the goods according to the contract, and I believe they will release our payments after we give in as we are a Taiwanese company after all.” Luo Zhixian said.

“What is Kang Shifu going to do?”

“I heard they are going to their connections for help. How about we join them and use some of our connections? I believe Chairman Zhu should be able to help.”

“Alright. You must settle this matter properly! The Chinese market is too significant to us, and we cannot afford to lose it. You must turn our reputation around and if necessary, push all the blame to Kang Shifu. Understand?” Guo Qingyuan’s thinking was simple. If I am in trouble, my competitors must also be in trouble!

“Yes. I know what to do!”

Chapter 839 – Endless troubles

“Old Jia, don’t you know how tense is our relationship with Taiwan now? Who told you to air this episode?” The Publicity Department’s head banged the table and asked.

“Leader, even if we don’t report about this matter, will our relationship improve? Everyone knows how arrogant Taiwan is. They had surrendered themselves to the US and have already betrayed us!” Station Chief Jia argued.

“You also don’t need to strain our relationships further.”

“I am not straining our relationships. We had reported the truth. Are you saying that we should allow those Taiwanese companies to do whatever they want?” Station Chief Jia said agitatedly.

“Old Jia, even if this is the truth, but you can portray it from another angle. You should know what to do.”

“Leader, I know we can report this matter from another angle, but will they be grateful to us if we did that? They are earning money from us to buy weapons from the US. I think we should suppress them economically and stop them from creating problems for us!” Station Chief Jia said furiously.

What Chief Jia said was taught to him by Feng Yu. In Feng Yu’s previous life, how did Russia expand its territory? They made their surrounding countries’ economies collapse and force them to have no choice but to integrate with Russia. But everyone knows Russia is the one behind everything.

How should China deal with Taiwan? They can do the same as Russia. Currently, what is Taiwan’s primary economy support? Manufacturing, trading, followed by electronics and entertainment. Their microchip industry is also one of Taiwan’s main source of income.

The Taiwanese entertainment scene is going downhill. Although it did not collapse, they will be overtaken by Chinese entertainers. The Chinese entertainment scene will exceed all of Asia in the future, and maybe only Korea can compete with them.

Taiwan’s trade is also on the decline, and Taiwanese manufacturers are slowly shifting to China. Taiwan is too small, and China’s labor and the land is much cheaper. The Chinese government also offers lots of subsidies to Taiwanese manufacturers.

Next is the Electronics and microchips industry. Feng Yu is already in the electronics industry, and he will not give Taiwanese companies any chance to grow. As for microchips, Feng Yu plans to invest in microchip factories after 1997. He wants to make Taiwan’s economy decline!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Taiwan can be successful was because the average income in Taiwan is higher than China, and their economy is better too. But in this life, Feng Yu will not give them any chance!

Therefore, Feng Yu said these things to Chief Jia and want his support. If CCTV does not air Taiwanese companies’ advertisements, then Taiwanese companies will not be able to grow in China. This will affect the economy significantly.

How is Feng Yu going to do this? Very simple. CCTV’s advertisement slots are closed bidding, and Feng Yu will buy out all the slots where Taiwanese companies bid for. He will still pay CCTV higher for those slots. Feng Yu have lots of companies and products and needed those advertisement slots to advertise.

This way, it will be hard for Taiwanese companies to market their products in China. Feng Yu will also use other economic means to force Taiwan to lean towards China.

“Never mind. Old Jia, don’t get too agitated. You want to suppress Taiwan’s economy? You think it is so easy? How are we going to suppress them? I will let this slide now. but you must remember to avoid airing such sensitive news in the future.”

Station Chief Jia sighed after he walks out of the office. If siding with Taiwan will make them return to China willingly, he will also not air this report. But now… never mind. Let nature take its course.

……

“Old Zhong, how can you say those things on CCTV’s program?” The Chairman of the Beverage industry association, Zhu Shuangyin, asked.

“Chairman Zhu, did I say anything wrong?” Zhong Qingxian retorted.

“Old Zhong, this is a matter of principles. They are our Taiwanese fellow Chinese men!”

“If they think of themselves as Chinese, they will not breach the contract.” Zhong Qingxian replied.

Zhong Qingxian could tell this Chairman Zhu is standing on the two Taiwanese companies’ side. He was the one who insists on the alliance to take in these two companies. If not, just brand awareness alone, these two companies will never be qualified.

“Alright. Old Zhong, I will not harp on this. I heard that you all are holding back the payments for those two companies. What is happening?” Zhu Shuangyin asked.

“They had breached the contract, and we are doing this based on the contract terms. Is there a problem? If they want to bring this matter to the courts, they might have to compensate us more.”

Those two companies had only paid 1 million each. 1 million is not even enough for them to enter the supermarket chains! They still dare to make lots of complaints, like their products are not placed in the best positions, the newspaper did not advertise about their products, etc. They did not pay for the marketing fees and still want to be featured in the advertisements?!

“Old Zhong, we are all in the beverage industry association, and they are our fellowmen from Taiwan. You should be more generous towards them. They might really have difficulties with their productions.” Chairman Zhu said.

“Problems? What problem? One of them is the biggest food manufacturer in Taiwan, and the other is the top-selling instant noodles company in China. We don’t know how much they are earning? They have financial issues? They are just trying to take advantage of us!” Zhong Qingxian said.

The rest of the companies felt these two Taiwanese companies have the ability to fulfill the orders and allowed them to join the alliance. But now, they are just taking advantage of them and still trying to play victims!

“You all should try to resolve this over a discussion. How can you all hold back their payments?”

Zhong Qingxian was about to retort when his mobile phone rang. He took out the most trendy Nokia phone and walked aside to answer it.

“Manager Feng, you are back?” The caller display is Feng Yu’s China phone number.

“Yes. I am in Beijing. Are you struggling to handle the pressure?”

If those two companies were not Taiwanese companies, Feng Yu would not worry. But now, he is the one who made this decision and he should not let Zhong Qingxian face the pressure for him.

“That’s right. Those two companies have lots of connections. Lots of people had been calling me to pressure me. The interview you asked me to do at CCTV had become a big issue.” Zhong Qingxian said and took a glance at Zhu Shuangyin. This person was the most troublesome, and he had caused Lehaha to lose an important deal.

“Hahaha, this is also a good promotion for Lehaha. The viewers will surely support you.” Feng Yu laughed.

“That’s right. I am with Chairman Zhu now, and he is trying to help those two companies. Also, our Qili sponsorship deal with the Sports Administration had been called off because of him.” Lehaha wanted to make use of the Olympic Games to promote its products, but it was stopped because of Chairman Zhu.

“Just push everything to me will do. I am back, and I will handle this! Chairman Zhu is only a Divisional level official. Even if he is a Bureau Director level or a Ministerial level official, I will still do this!”

Chapter 840 – Who’s backing is stronger?

“Chairman Zhu, Feng Yu, is the one in charge of the beverage alliance. He is back in China now and you should look for him. I still have something on, and I will make a move now.” Zhong Qingxian said and walked away, ignoring Zhu Shuangyin’s calls.

Feng Yu was right. Zhu Shuangyin was only a Divisional level officer, and he thought he is a high-ranking leader! In Zhejiang, Zhong Qingxian is well respected even by the Provincial Governor!

Zhu Shuangyin was furious. Zhong Qingxian dares to ignore him! He is only a businessman, and how dare he go against a government official?! He doesn’t know his contract with the Sports Administration had been stopped? Also, who does Feng Yu thinks he is?

Zhu Shuangyin had received some ‘benefits’ from the two Taiwanese companies and had to help them. Once this matter is resolved, he will receive more from the companies.

Let me settle this issue first, and I will settle the score later!

“Hello, Feng Yu? I am Zhuang Zhuangyin. Where are you now?”

“Oh, Chairman Zhu? I am busy right not. Is there anything?” Feng Yu asked.

Zhu Shuangyin cursed in his heart. You don’t know why I am looking for you?

“Come to my office immediately!”

Feng Yu sneered when he heard Zhu Shuangyin’s tone. He really thinks he is somebody?! Interfering with the industry? Who gave him permission to do this?

“I’m sorry. I got no time. I am very busy now. If you are really urgent, you can come and look for me.” Feng Yu calmly replied.

Zhu Shuangyin took a few deep breaths: “Fine! I will go and look for you now! Where are you?”

Feng Yu told Zhu Shuangyin the address and hang up. After hanging up, Zhu Shuangyin had a sinister expression on his face. Feng Yu, after I get back the money for the Taiwanese companies, I will take care of you!

……

“Manager Feng, sorry to let you wait.”

“I have just arrived not long ago. Director Fang, have a seat. Try this Hongguan Yuanli drink. This is specially designed for athletes and can replenish their Electrolytes and water.” Feng Yu passed a can of Hongguan Yuanli to Director Fang.

This beverage is designed for sportsmen, and it means it is a healthy drink for long term consumption. This drink is better than Jianlibao as some athlete feedback that they felt bloated after drinking Jianlibao.

Director Fang took a sip, and the taste is similar to Jianlibao. Both drinks were orange favored, but Hongguan Yuanli is not carbonated and not very sweet.

“You called me over just for this beverage?” Director Fang put down the can and asked.

“This is only one of the reasons. The components of this Hongguan Yuanli drink are exactly the same as overseas sports drinks and I think this can be our Olympic Games team beverage. Of course, I know our National team had already signed a contract with Jianlibao, but we can still offer them both beverages. Jianlibao can be given to the coaches, team doctors, etc. and this drink can be given to the athletes.”

“You should speak to the Sports Administration. I am not in charge of these.” Director Fang was curious about why Feng Yu asked him out to talk about these.

“I know I should not bother you over these trivial matters. What I wanted to say is the Sports Administration Community had agreed to let us sponsor this drink, but the leader of the Beverage Industry Association stopped this contract.” Feng Yu said.

“They have the authority to interfere with this matter?” Director Fang frowned. That Beverage Industry Association is only to coordinate matters involving the industry. How can they interfere with companies’ contracts?”

“Who knows? But the leaders at the Sports Administration asked us to sort out ourselves. Jianlibao had agreed to Lehaha sponsoring Hongguan Yuanli, and Lehaha had compensated Jianlibao. The Sports Administration does not need to pay a single cent and everything will be sponsored by Lehaha. This should be an ordinary business transaction, but now, the authorities are interfering. I have no choice but to seek help from you.” Feng Yu said.

“I will help you ask around to find out what is going on. This should not be the only reason why you asked me out, right?” Director Fang asked.

“There is one more matter which involves Taiwanese companies and the Chairman of the Beverage Industry Association. This is supposed to be business-related as the Taiwanese Companies had breached the contract and we held the payments to them as compensations. CCTV’s <Oriental Horizon> had reported on this two days ago but those two Taiwanese companies are not giving up.”

Tongyi and Kang Shifu had used their connections to get the leaders to pressure the alliance to release their payments. Let’s see who’s backing is stronger! If you want to settle this commercially, I welcome it. You want to make use of politics? I can also win!

Director Fang frowned. This matter involved Taiwanese companies and got to take caution.  Anything related to Taiwan is very sensitive. If an American or Russian company is involved, there will be no problems, but Taiwanese companies will have complications.

“Can’t you all settle this amicably? We are all fellow Chinese and should not strain our relationship.”

“Director Fang, we treated them as our fellow Chinese, but did they see us as the same? We are venturing overseas to create wealth for our country and increasing our people’s income. But what about them? They had surrendered to the US! We must be reasonable, and we are in the right. Why should we give in to them?” Feng Yu said.

Director Fang frowned. China’s relationship with Taiwan is on the verge of falling out, and this matter can be used to test Taiwan’s attitude towards China.

“You said the leader of the beverage industry association is interfering in this matter?”

Before Feng Yu could answer, their private dining room’s door was pushed open. Zhu Shuangyin entered without knocking.

“Feng Yu, I can’t even call you over to see me? I am ordering you to return the payments with interests to the Taiwanese companies immediately!”

Zhu Shuangyin entered the room and saw Feng Yu with another man whose back was facing him. He did not think much and thought that man was just another businessman. Which businessman dares to go against him?

“Chairman Zhu, they had breached the contract, and we are just acting based on what was agreed upon in the first place. I am also a committee member of the Association. The association does not have the right to interfere in this matter.” Feng Yu replied.

“The association cannot interfere, but I can! Let me tell you, don’t think Lehaha and Jianlibao are doing well now and you all can ignore my orders. I am the one who stopped the sponsorship contract between Yuanli beverage and the Sports Administration! If you still insist on going against my orders, I will force Lehaha to stop production for their tea beverage! I am not afraid to let you know that I am giving those Taiwanese companies special treatment!” Zhu Shuangyin said arrogantly.

Feng Yu did not say anything and smiled at Zhu Shuangyin.

Zhu Shuangyin was furious. Since you want to go against me, then don’t blame me for being ruthless!

“Feng Yu, you are asking for it! You will receive a 1 million fine from the association!” Zhu Shuangyin said.

“What is this fine for, and which unit will be issuing the fine?” A man asked.

“We are talking here and why the f**k are you interrupting…… Fang… Director Fang?!” Zhu Shuangyin was about to scold that man when his knees suddenly go weak. He nearly kneels down in front of Director Fang.

Why is Director Fang here? He is supposed to be Iron-fist Zhu’s assistant. Why is he sitting together with Feng Yu? Director Fang had heard everything earlier, and I even scolded him!

Zhu Shuangyin felt the world was collapsing around him. He knew his career and life were over!

Chapter 841 – Sudden invitation

“Answer my question!” Director Fang shouted.

Zhu Shuangyin was shaking and could not say a word. Director Fang waved his hand impatiently. The government has lots of civil servants and black sheep exist among them.

“Go back and wait for our punishment!”

This was Zhu Shuangyin’s verdict, and Zhu Shuangyin quickly leaves the room. He had to cut all ties with those two companies and erase evidence that he had received bribes from them.

“Director Fang, there is one more important matter I think I should discuss with you.” Feng Yu knew Zhu Shuangyin is finished. That old man should not be clean, and lots of dirt will be dug up. He wonders who the next Association’s Chairman will be.

“What is it?” Director Fang heard Feng Yu’s tone and felt it must be something important.

“Currently, our country has a trend of thinking that imported products are superior products and domestically produced products are inferior. Such a mindset is very dangerous, and we must encourage our people to support Chinese products. The quality of many domestically produced products is on the international level and those imported goods are ridiculously expensive.”

“You are telling me our manufacturing standards had caught up with international standards?”

“For certain products, we had caught up and even exceeded international standards. However, some products are below average. But if we continue to let overseas products enter China in large volumes, our manufacturing sector will be affected. These factories will not sell their products and how can they increase their technology and invent new products?” Feng Yu said.

Director Fang frowned and replied worryingly. “You want to have a close-door policy? We will be shut off from the rest of the world!”

“No, I am not saying we should cut off ties with the rest of the world. This is a form of protectionist policy. Trading must still continue, but we must encourage people to support local products and increase spending. This way, our local companies can have enough funds to grow.” Feng Yu said.

“You are asking me to protect your companies?” Director Fang looked at Feng Yu with suspicion.

Feng Yu laughed and shook his head. He replied proudly. “Director Fang, all my companies are exporting their products overseas. Do you think I need protectionism policies from the government?”

Even Feng Yu’s weakest products, beverages, were exported overseas now, let alone his other products. His humidifiers, bladeless fans, VCD players, were holding the biggest market share in the world!

Director Fang still does not believe Feng Yu was doing this for other companies. Although Feng Yu had been donating money, that’s because he made lots of money and the donations will not affect his companies’ growth and his life. If his profits were not that high, will he still donate so much money?

Also, Feng Yu’s companies were doing very well in China. His companies might not monopolize the market, but they were the best in their respective industries. What was most surprising was Feng Yu’s investments were well diversified. Director Fang wonders if Feng Yu had invested in some new industry and needed some help from the government.

“Manager Feng, did you invest in a new company? A kind-hearted entrepreneur like you should be taken care of by the government.”

Feng Yu: “……” You think I am asking the government for some favors?

Fine. Protectionism policies will help Feng Yu’s companies to develop faster. For example, his cordless phones and handphones will grow faster, and currently, these two products are still not the most advanced in the world.

Protectionism policies will benefit the country and its people. In Feng Yu’s previous life, China had implemented these policies, but the results were not good. For example, the automobile manufacturing industry had been taken over by foreign brands, and the electronics, apparels, etc. sectors were also lagging behind overseas brands.

“Director Fang, you misunderstood my words. I know our country had been deprived by the developed countries of the latest technologies and we want to catch up with them badly. Therefore, to gain some technology from those countries, we had given up lots of profits. But have you ever thought that giving up most of the profits to those foreign companies, the gap between China and those countries will widen further? Now, the whole world knows that Asia is the upcoming market and China is one of the major markets in the world. Almost every country in the world is eyeing the Chinese market. They treat us like a piece of meat, and everyone wants a bite of us. Why don’t we make use of this against them?”

“Make use of this against them? What do you mean?”

“For example, Japan. Their economy is in recession, and if they did not sign the trade agreement with us, their economy would be worse. The last time when the Japanese companies polluted our country, we got lots of benefits from the Japanese government, right? They were forced to give in to us because they cannot afford to lose us. That’s why we should start selecting the companies entering our country and implement protectionist policies, like increasing importation taxes, and removing tax subsidies for foreign companies, in selected industries.

Feng Yu had been opposing foreign investors’ tax subsidies. Why do foreign companies get to enjoy 3 years of tax exemption and 2 years of tax subsidies? Even joint ventures have subsidies. But why Chinese companies don’t get to enjoy these benefits?

That’s right. Attracting foreign direct investments might be necessary, but there should be a limit. China should not be the world’s factory, as it will suppress Chinese salaries, and most of the profits were taken away by foreign companies. At the same time, it will restrict the development of their domestic companies.

“It will be starting a trade war if we increase the importation taxes.” Director Fang was worried that once a trade war is started, the losses will be significant, and China is still developing. They cannot afford such wars.

“We can just target some countries and help some countries. Anyway, our country is not exporting lots of products. In a trade war, the other country will have more to lose compared to us. We must protect our core industries, leading industries, and young industries. The steel, automobile manufacturing, electronics, agriculture, culture and communications, tourism, etc. industries must be protected. The importation tax must be increased for products from these industries and some products must even be restricted. At the same time, we got to promote to our people that many of our products are already the best in the world. If even our own people doubt our domestic products’ quality, how are we going to compete internationally?”

What Feng Yu said was the same as what the government is discussing now. Some people feel China should join the WTO as soon as possible as this will break the western countries’ monopoly of the major trade. However, some people think that China should continue its protectionist policies of their trade. Once China enters the WTO, many domestic products will face stiff competition from overseas brands.

But without protectionist measures, can China still enter the WTO? In fact, after implementing more protectionist policies, it will be easier for China to join WTO as other countries will give in to gain access to the Chinese market. China and many countries want China to enter the WTO for lower importation taxes.

Director Fang thought for a while. “We are also discussing this. What is said is interesting, and during our next meeting, you will represent the business sector to participate. For discussion on such topics, we will invite people from various industries to participate. Are you interested in becoming a member of the National Committee of CPPCC?”

Chapter 842 – Sudden invitation

Feng Yu hesitated. There are many benefits for being a member of the National Committee of CPPCC, and he felt if he was not this young, he might be treated as the next Superman Li, and become one of the leaders of the CPPCC.

But Feng Yu was too young, and if he becomes a member of the CPPCC, many people will take note of him. He still wants to stay low for the next couple of years. He does not want to be followed by reporters everywhere he goes. After all, Feng Yu’s achievements are more interesting than Superman Li and other top tycoons in the world.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Feng Yu only knows a billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, that is around his current age. Feng Yu was someone who built his wealth from physical businesses, and the whole world will surely take note of him.

It will be irritating when everyone is looking at him everywhere!

“Director Fang, thank you for the offer. But I am too young. Maybe I will join in a few more years. But if the country needs me, I will be around. I can even give up all my money for the country!”

With Feng Yu’s connections, even if he gave up all his money, he could easily get a loan to make a comeback.

Director Fang nodded. “Ok. I respect your decision. It is getting late now, and I need to go back. I will give you an answer to the beverage industry association. We will not let the people who made contributions to the nation down!”

After sending Director Fang back, Feng Yu returned to Wind and Rain building. He returned to China is to settle the beverage industry association issues. He does not want to see people dragging them back in their home ground when they were fighting with the big brands overseas.

Feng Yu will use political and commercial means to deal with those two Taiwanese companies.

Tongyi is one of Feng Yu’s major competitors. Tongyi have retail stores which they cooperate with Carrefour to start Tongyi Carrefour supermarkets, and Tongyi owns 40% shares of this joint venture. They stopped Tai Hua Supermarket from entering the Taiwanese market and Carrefour is making use of this company to target the Chinese market.

Tongyi is also producing milk tea in Taiwan. Most of the milk powder used in milk tea shops in Taiwan are provided by Tongyi. They also produce jelly, dairy products and sausage ham. They are the leading food manufacturer in Taiwan and are stronger than the Wangwang group.

Zhong Qingxian also wants to enter the instant noodles industry, and Beidacang is also thinking of producing instant noodles. Suppressing these two Taiwanese companies will give Chinese companies an advantage.

At first, Feng Yu told Zhong Qingxian to pick one of the two Taiwanese companies to cooperate against the other company. But now, they had fallen out with these two companies and they might as well suppress both and develop China’s domestic brand.

For instant noodles, there are two crucial aspects, the noodle’s texture and seasoning. Currently, there are not a lot of flavors in China’s instant noodles. Feng Yu suggested Zhong Qingxian produce a wide variety of flavors, like seafood, or focus on the noodle texture. Japan and Korea have the best instant noodles technologies, followed by Thailand and Vietnam. China’s instant noodles had been lagging behind these countries because of the noodle texture.

Other than instant noodles, there are instant starch noodles. Lehaha has many choices to make money easily.

In Feng Yu’s precious life, there are more than a dozen popular brands of instant noodles products, and all these brands were profitable. But Kang Shifu and Tongyi brands of instant noodles were selling the best and made the most profits.

One of the reasons why the other instant noodle brands were not doing as well as those two Taiwanese companies were because of their branding and distribution channels. But to Lehaha, these are not a problem as Lehaha’s brand awareness is higher than Tongyi and Kang Shifu in China.

……

After Zhu Shuangyin returns to his office, he called Tongyi immediately. But before he could notify Kang Shifu, his unit’s Commission for Discipline Inspection officers entered his office. “Zhu Shuangyin, we need you to come with us for an investigation now.”

Zhu Shuangyin dropped the phone’s receiver on the floor. I am arrested for bribery?!

Tongyi group acted immediately after receiving Zhu Shuangyin’s call. They contacted the Beverage Alliance to plead guilty and claimed Kang Shifu was the one behind everything. They were willing to pay the compensation and wanted to remain in the alliance.

Of course, Tongyi is not willing to pay the full compensations. They still tried to use their connections to offset the settlements and promised to change. They hope they don’t have to pay the compensations and vowed to double their compensations if they did this again.

Kang Shifu was shocked to know Tongyi had stabbed them in their backs. Damn! We had agreed to cooperate against the alliance, and you back out without telling us! You still push all the blame to me? What are you trying to do?

At this time, both companies received a notification, demanding their person in charge to give their account on Zhu Shuangyin’s bribery case.

The two companies’ person in charge were shocked. Chairman Zhu is arrested for bribery? No wonder they could not contact him for the past two days.

The other government officials who wanted to speak up for these two companies immediately chose to keep quiet. It is not a secret to why Zhu Shuangyin was arrested. These two Taiwanese companies are too dangerous to get involved with them!

There was no way these two companies can explain themselves. Zhu Shuangyin, an idiot, had kept evidence of the bribery, and those two companies could not deny it. So, both companies received a hefty fine, and this incident was even reported on CCTV news.

The brand image of these two companies was tarnished. All the distributors wanted to return their goods, and the Taiwanese companies had to pay them a large sum of money to calm them. But they realized the orders for the following month had dropped drastically.

Articles against Taiwanese companies started to appear in the papers and caused a more significant impact on their profits.

Feng Yu was the one behind all these and was the one who gets those distributors to refund their goods. After all, most of these distributors are also long-time partners of Tai Hua trading.

Feng Yu did not ask the distributors to stop selling these two brands. He only asked them to create some trouble for them. This had caused the sales of these two Taiwanese brands to drop, but the distributors were not affected much. The two Taiwanese companies were the ones suffering losses.

These two Taiwanese companies finally saw Feng Yu’s overbearing tactics. This was a combination attack, and there was no way for them to retaliate. They had made a wrong decision and the outcome was too severe for them to handle! The companies tried to ask the Taiwanese government for help, but they were wrong in the first place. There was no way for their government to help them.

Feng Yu showed everyone his power. Work with me, and we will make money together. If you try to play these petty tricks behind my back, you will be dead first!

The cohesion in the alliance became better after this incident, and it is easier for Feng Yu to work with the rest of the companies. The empty shelves after those two companies were kicked out, were shared equally with the other brands.

Time passes quickly, and the Olympic Games are about to start!

Chapter 843 – The disgraceful opening ceremony

“Team leader Ma, welcome. Let me know if you need anything in Atlanta.” Feng Yu shook the leader of the Chinese Olympic Games team.

“Manager Feng, just call me Old Ma. You have taken good care of us, and we don’t have any other requests. It is not good if our athletes are too comfortable.” Ma Tao shook Feng Yu’s hand warmly.

Before they arrive in the US, Ma Tao’s higher-ups had instructed him to look for Feng Yu if they encounter any problems and are told not to offend Manager Feng under all circumstances!

“Let me know which event has the highest chance to win medals. I will organize a group of Chinese students and workers to support them!”

Chinese overseas students as supporters are suggested by Jianlibao, and the Chinese workers are from Feng Yu’s companies. Tickets to these events are given to his staff as benefits.

Of course, all the supporters must wear the sponsored short sleeves shirt and cap. Logos of Wind and Rain, Lehaha, Songjiang, Jianlibao, etc. brands were printed on them. There is also the word ‘China’ written in large fonts.

This will let the Chinese athletes spot their supporters easily and promote these brands at the same time. The supporters were also excited to see their athletes win Olympic medals in front of them. They might not get this opportunity for the rest of their lives. Beijing had tried to bid for the 2000 Olympic Games but failed. Who knows when China will get to host the Olympic Games again?

“Thank you so much. I think our athletes will perform better when they know their fellow countrymen are supporting them from the sidelines. This year’s Olympic Games will be memorable as it is also the Centennial Olympic Games. The opening ceremony must be spectacular.”

Feng Yu had a weird expression. He wished he could tell Ma Tao not to get his hopes too high for the opening ceremony. The opening ceremony is much worse than the 2012 London Games.

“Hahaha. Maybe… but I believe if China hosts the Olympic Games in the future, the opening ceremony will be more spectacular.”

“Manager Feng, I got to go and settle the lodging for our people. Thank you once again for receiving us.”

“Alright. I will give you my secretary and my number. Just call us if you need anything.”

A few days later, it was the opening ceremony for Atlanta Olympic Games.

Feng Yu did not attend as this year’s opening ceremony is a failure. He heard that it was Atlanta state that organized the opening ceremony, and the country did not help much. This was different from Beijing, Athens, Seoul, etc. where it was the country that organizes it.

In the future years, the Beijing Games’ opening ceremony received the most praise online, followed by Athens and Seoul. Not a lot of people talk about the 3 other countries between Athens and Seoul Olympic Games. Atlanta Games got the worst ratings.

When Feng Yu was watching the live telecast of the opening ceremony, he got furious. One of the US TV commentators said: “Look, a team of doping athletes is walking towards us!”

Feng Yu said to Ralph. “Give me his information and get him to apologize live on TV tomorrow!”

Feng Yu wanted to swear in front of that TV commentator!

The US is the top country with the most athletes using stimulants, followed by Japan. Although some Chinese athletes use stimulants, the figures cannot be compared to the US and Japan!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Victor Conte claims that since 1988, Seoul Games, athletes have been using a new sports stimulant developed by Balco to get better results in athletics, swimming, Judo, weightlifting, etc.

Conte even said that the stimulant developed by his laboratory had been upgraded to the 3rd generation and could not be detected. Most of the athletes in the world use stimulants and if you don’t use it, you can never beat them.

In 2003 World Championships in Athletics, the 100m timing is 10.07 seconds and no one could win the world championships outside of 10 seconds for the past 20 years. At that time, the athletes got to undergo a blood test for stimulants. It was hard for stimulants at that time to be undetected with a blood test, and lots of athletes made up all sorts of excuses to withdraw from the games.

The athletes claimed they had food poisoning, cramps, etc. and did not participate. They rather skip this race than to be caught for doping and be banned for future competitions.

In many past Olympic Games and world championships, the US got the highest number of athletes getting disqualified, and the main reason is doping. Even US legend Lewis admitted he had taken stimulants!

This country dares to mock China? That commentator even dares to say this on live TV? This is discrimination!

“Boss, I am afraid that use legal ways to deal with him within a day.” Ralph said.

“Did I say you must go through legal procedures? I don’t need to teach you what to do, right?”

The Chinese team members who were watching the live telecast on TV were also furious. They immediately complain to the organizers. But the organizers were a joke. They don’t know how to contact that TV commentator because that is a private TV station! What was more ridiculous was this year’s Olympic Games were outsourced to private companies, including Coca-Cola.

As the Chinese staff was trying to contact the TV station, the ceremony was still ongoing. The performances at the ceremony were also a joke.

The ceremony is held in a large stadium, and the organizers get a few B-Boys to perform? Who the hell can see them dance from the stands? Everyone was watching the big screens and they might as well watch it on TV at home!

What was funnier were the balloons. What’s so special about balloons?!

In the end, it was the fire lighting ceremony, and the organizers got Boxing Champ Mohammad Ali to do the honor. He is a patient and lit the fire with trembling hands. He was also praised for being the best athlete in history. But how many people watch boxing or likes boxing? Or maybe he was chosen because he is an American?

Also, why are there 30 pick-ups in the performance venue? Is this a motor race event? To get advertising revenue, the organizers did everything they could!

There was nothing unusual in this year’s opening ceremony and even the live audiences were falling asleep. Everyone was disappointed.

After the ceremony ended, Feng Yu received a call from Ma Tao. “Manager Feng, am I disturbing you?”

“It’s fine. Are you telling me about that TV commentator during the opening ceremony?”

“Yes. How can they say that? I want to make a complaint against him, but the organizing committee is in a mess. The organizer doesn’t even know who is in charge!” Ma Tao said.

“Old Ma, don’t worry about this. Tomorrow, you all will see that TV commentator apologizing!” Feng Yu said.

“Manager Feng, I am only grumbling. I had contacted the embassy, and they will help us.” Ma Tao felt this matter should be too big for Feng Yu to settle.

Feng Yu also did not explain himself, and after hanging up, he called Ralph…

Chapter 844 – This will not end

Ralph got back to Feng Yu with the information of the TV commentator. He works for a private TV station, and one of the shareholders of this station is Paul Allen!

Paul has shares in this TV station? That means this TV station is quite influential. But even if Bill Gates has shares in this station, Feng Yu will still pursue this matter! Feng Yu believes that they will not fall out with him over this matter!

“Boss, we have that guy under custody, and he had agreed to apologize on-air tomorrow. Are we still going after the TV station?”

In the US, there are no restrictions on firearms ownership, and it is easy to threaten someone. Ralph only needs to tell that TV commentator that if he does not apologize for his comments tomorrow, there will be severe consequents. This was enough to scare him!

But an apology is not enough for Feng Yu. Feng Yu wants the top management of the TV station to make a public apology!

“Is that TV station a listed company?”

“No, but they are applying for listing.”

Applying to be listed? Ok. This will be easy. I will make sure you will not be listed and make all the shareholders lose money! Let’s see if you all still dare to let your staff say anything he wants!

“Go and tell the head of that TV station. I want to see him apologizing on TV tomorrow, or else, their TV station can stop thinking about getting listed!”

The next morning, Feng Yu received a call.

“Hello, Paul. Are you apologizing for your TV station?” Feng Yu asked, stopping Paul from saying other things.

“Feng, this incident is an accident. I guarantee that it is not the company who asked that TV commentator say that. I will get that commentator to apologize today, fire him and even send him to jail. Can we settle this incident like this?” Paul asked.

Paul had sold his stake in another media group to invest in this TV station last year, and this station had planned to get listed this year. After getting listed, Paul will get high returns for his shares in the station.

But when Paul learns about the station’s TV commentator had said something inappropriate, and Feng Yu wanted to blow up this matter, he panicked. If the station gets into a lawsuit, it will not get listed and he will suffer losses from this investment!

Feng Yu was not pleased when he heard what Paul said. This matter will be resolved with an apology from the commentator and firing him? Fat hope!

Not only the TV station has to apologize, but the organizer also must make a public apology as they are the ones who get this TV station!

There is an organizing committee for this year’s Olympic Games in the US. It is a non-government committee consisting of all the co-organizers and sub-contractors.

Why was the Olympic Games handed over to private operators to organize? It must be for money!

This year’s Olympic Games are too commercialized and other than the lodging and food for the staff and athletes at the Olympic village, everything else needs to be paid!

Damn! Even the London Games provides free condoms. This committee is too stingy!

Also, the events were planned to give the American athletes an advantage. The events where their athletes do not have hopes to win medals, like the marathon, were scheduled at noon.

Who can get good results in marathons under the scorching sun?!

Anyway, their own athletes and the interest of the contractors were placed first! They don’t care whether if this is fair to the other countries!

The organizing committee includes media moguls, land developers, sports moguls, food manufacturers, Auction companies, lottery companies, etc. All of them treats this as an investment to reap high returns!

This should be the most significant sporting event in the world and it was turned into a commercial event. Everything had changed. But these businessmen really made high returns from this event and even 10 years later, they were still reaping the rewards of this investment!

One could learn a lot from this event, but there are areas where others must not follow. For example, defaming other countries to boost the TV ratings. This is digging their own graves!

“Paul, the person in charge of the TV station, must make a public apology, or else, this station will never get listed! They must pay for their mistake!” Feng Yu replied.

“Feng, can’t you just do me this small favor?”

“If I am you, I will sell off this TV station’s shares as soon as possible. I will make this TV station bankrupt!” Feng Yu retorted.

Paul did not expect Feng Yu to be so angry and even want to bankrupt this company! But why did Feng Yu think he can to do this? You are rich, we are richer than you! But from Feng Yu’s tone, he knew Feng Yu was serious.

“Feng, we shall wait and see!” Paul hung up the phone and shook his head at a few people beside him. “He is not willing to let it go. I had said before that we are not on good terms in Microsoft.”

Paul did not say that Feng Yu wants to bankrupt the TV station. If he said that, no one will take over his shares. Now, the TV station owns the live telecast rights to many events and is very profitable. He must think of a reasonable excuse to sell off his shares in the station.

Paul does not care whether if Feng Yu have the means to bankrupt the TV station, but the reputation of the station is damaged. Although he knows with the shareholders’ support, the station can’t be bankrupted by Feng Yu. But fighting with Feng Yu is a lose-lose situation.

Paul had heard that Feng Yu had bought the Empire State Building in New York and is close to a Russian Tycoon. He heard that Russian is a trading and minerals tycoon, and if he helps Feng Yu, the damage to the station will be severe!

Yes, maybe I can get Bill to be the mediator. After I sold my shares of the TV station, I will deal with him!

Feng Yu had purposely said that to Paul to make him sell his stake in the station. This way, he can make use of Paul’s sales of his shares to speed up the TV station’s death!

In the afternoon, the TV commentator made an apology for his comments on live TV, and the station announced they will fire him. This incident seems to be settled.

“Manager Feng, you are really efficient. That commentator had apologized. I want to thank you on behalf of the Chinese Olympic team.” Ma Tao was overjoyed. At first, he thought it was the embassy, which made that commentator apologize. But when he called the Chinese embassy, he was told that they had not contacted the TV station!

“Old Ma, I said before you can come to me for any problems in Atlanta. This incident might seem to be settled, but this is not the end!”

Ma Tao was satisfied with that apology, but Feng Yu was not. China’s reputation had been damaged by that comment, and how can this be settled with an apology from that commentator? Even if that commentator is sued, Feng Yu will not be satisfied.

The TV station still has not apologized? The organizing committee still has not apologized?

Fine… This matter will not end!!!

Chapter 845 – Changing history

“Go! Go! Go!”

In the spectator stands, there is a sea of red clothes surrounded by westerners. They stood out as they were wearing the same uniform, cheering in unison.

Today is the 5,000m women’s race finals. Oriental Deer, Wang Junxia, had the lowest payout with the sports betting companies. That means the betting companies also think she has the highest probability of winning.

This was an important race, and all the Chinese supporters turned up. Feng Yu also asked his men to reserve the tickets and provided the Chinese flags for the supporters.

Wang Junxia did not disappoint everyone. After a few rounds along the track, she kept her lead until the finish line. No other athletes can threaten her lead.

As Wang Junxia crosses the finishing line, the stands broke out in cheers, and the second place was far behind her.

Some supporters from other countries were also cheering, and some sighed as their athletes lost.

Wang Junxia took a Chinese flag from her coach and ran around the tracks, holding it up. When she stopped when she reached the Chinese supporters and wave to them.

“Did you see that? This is our Oriental Deer, the best female long-distance runner in the world! She broke the Olympics Games records!” A staff from Wind and Rain Electronics shouted to a western spectator nearby in Chinese. Although that westerner doesn’t understand what he was saying, he recognizes the Chinese flag and gave him a thumbs-up, congratulating them. This made that Wind and Rain Electronics’ staff proud!

Everyone felt Wang Junxia can still win the 10,000m race, but Feng Yu remembers in his previous life, the 5,000m and 10,000m race events were too close, and Wang Junxia could not recover her stamina in time. Coupled with the athletes from other countries blocking her, she could only get second place.

But in this life, Wang Junxia does not need to face the other athletes blocking her. Feng Yu had contacted the athletes in the finals, who had no chance of winning any medals, to get them to help Wang Junxia. They will protect her from being block by other runners and Feng Yu will pay them some money.

Wang Junxia is Feng Yu’s top Chinese athlete, and she is also the spokesperson for Songjiang Motors. If she could win another medal, more people will notice Songjiang Motors’ advertisements. Moreover, the Americans were the ones who organized athletes from other countries to stop Wang Junxia from winning first. Feng Yu will not let them succeed.

Who doesn’t know how to play these petty tricks?! History will be changed today!

……

The 10,000m race starts, and there is a sea of red supporters in the stands. But this time, it is different. Some of the supporters were wearing yellow tops and caps. From far, the Chinese supporters formed the Chinese flag!

Of course, the supporters cannot be compared to what Feng Yu saw in his previous life, but it was enough to capture the whole world’s attention. Ma Tao saw the supporters from far excitedly and felt Manager Feng was too creative. The entire world will notice the Chinese supporters in the stands and the Chinese athletes. As the team leader of the Chinese team, this credit will fall on him!

From the start, an unknown athlete sprint in the first 100m and took the lead position. Everyone was shocked. Is this athlete crazy? You dare to lead the runners? At her speed, she will be dead after 3,000m!

Before the race, Feng Yu told Wang Junxia that someone will be in the leading position and other athletes will group up to block her. He asked Wang Junxia to preserve her stamina and don’t panic.

After the 3,000m mark, the athlete in the leading position ran out of the tracks. She decided to give up, but she caused an accident. As she slowed down, the runner behind her crashed into her. Although the second position runner did not fall, the runners behind slowed down, and Wang Junxia took the opportunity to overtake many runners.

At this time, another runner starts to increase her speed and took over the lead position.

Despite some runners blocking Wang Junxia, preventing her from overtaking, but the front runners were too fast and disrupted the momentum of all runners.

After the 8,000m mark, that leading position runner slowed down and blocked many other runners behind her. Wang Junxia finally got the chance to take over the leading position.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Wang Junxia had to run an additional 200m to get to the leading position. But this time, she manages to get to this position easily.

The athletes behind became anxious and start to use dirty tricks. The runners behind Wang Junxia begin to follow her closely and secretly used their knuckles to hit her waist.

Wang Junxia had met these situations countless times, and she starts to swing her arms further to the back to prevent the other runners from getting too close.

“Wang Junxia is going to win!!!” Her coach shouted excitedly.

In the final two rounds, Wang Junxia is 20m in front of the second position runner. With her speed and stamina, she will surely win this event!

“Manager Feng, how do you know the other countries’ athletes will gang up against Wang Junxia?” The coach asked. When Feng Yu told him that the other runners will be trying to stop Wang Junxia during the race, he doesn’t believe him.

Feng Yu replied confidently. “Even the newspaper reports claim Wang Junxia is the strongest female long-distance runner. If the athletes from other countries want to win the gold medal, they must beat Wang Junxia, and it is normal for them to team up under this scenario. But they will never expect that we have our own alliance.”

“Based on the current speed, Wang Junxia should cross the finishing line under 31 minutes. This will be breaking the game’s record!”

“Coach Li, you will be famous. Wang Junxia had gotten 2 gold medals and broke records.” Someone joked.

“Hahaha, it is all her effort. If her stamina had recovered from the 5,000m race, she could easily win the 10,000m race under 30 minutes!”

Wang Junxia is the world record holder for this even, and her average timing during training is less than 30 minutes!

The supporters in the stands were waving the Chinese flags wildly and cheering loudly.

When the camera turns to the Chinese supporters, all the supporters raised placards together. “Unbeatable Oriental Deer”

There is also a picture of a snowflake.

Feng Yu smiled. Its time to release the Songjiang Motors’ Oriental Deer advertisement!

Chapter 846 – Sued for Discrimination

“The Oriental Deer had dominated the female long-distance race! Wang Junxia had won both the 5,000m and 10,000m races and broke the game’s records for both events……”

All the media were reporting about Wang Junxia. Gold medalists for other events were worth reporting, but compared to Wang Junxia, who had broke records for two events, they were not newsworthy.

Wang Junxia’s pictures in the papers were not the part when she crosses the finishing line or her running around the tracks with the Chinese flag. It was a picture of her being interviewed after the race. She was standing beside a vehicle during the interview.

Wang Junxia was leaning against an Off-road vehicle with two gold medals.

Many people noticed the logo of that vehicle was very familiar.

As the readers flipped the newspaper, they saw an article with pictures about the Chinese supporters. One of the pictures made the readers flipped back to the previous page.

The logo on the Chinese supporters was exactly the same as the car which Wang Junxia was leaning on!

……

The following day, there was a full-page advertisement in the papers. This advertisement is in the middle of the Olympic section, and it was prominent.

“Songjiang Motors – Oriental Deer, is coming your way. Unbeatable Oriental Deer!”

A picture, a simple slogan, and a full-page advertisement spark the interest of many readers. They called the number provided to enquire about this vehicle.

Songjiang Motors had invested a lot in this advertising campaign. Most of the money was spent on advertisements in the papers, bus stations, TV, etc. Feng Yu was also prepared to lose money this year. But more importantly, he wants to enter the US automobile market!

Feng Yu had contacted the dealers, but because Songjiang is an unknown brand in the US, he got to pay the dealers more. The dealers also suggested having an outstanding name for this off-road vehicle.

Feng Yu thought for a day and finally decided to use Oriental Deer as the name of this model, and it symbolizes the outstanding off-road abilities of this car. At the same time, he can get Wang Junxia, whose nickname is Oriental Deer, to be the spokesperson.

The dealers had offered another suggestion. They asked Feng Yu to make a comparison between his car and other brands in the same category. This will show the superior specs of this vehicle, and such an advertisement is legal in the US.

For example, Coca-Cola has an advertisement where a kid bought two cans of Pepsi and stepped on them to reach a vending machine to buy a can of Coke. This advertisement is to show the superiority of Coca-Cola against Pepsi! Pepsi immediately retaliates with an ad where a truck carrying Pepsi knocked over another truck carrying Coca-Cola.

The dealers made some comparisons with similar vehicles of other brands. One was the US Hummer, and the other was Toyota 4500. These two models were chosen to make comparisons for comfort and fuel efficiency. After that, the Jeep Cherokee was picked to compare the off-road abilities.

Everything was going according to plan and there were many queries on the car with the dealers. Some people were interested in and wanted to purchase. If the advertising campaign carries on, the sales will increase, and brand awareness will increase.

But at this time, a different opinion appeared.

“China can also produce good cars? The Chinese Automobile industry is too backward, and this Songjiang Oriental Deer is definitely not as good as advertised. The specifications might look good on paper, but who knows if you need to overhaul the engine after 500km!”

This was said in a TV program, and the TV station is the one Feng Yu wants to bankrupt!

……

“Boss, I got the list of this TV station’s shareholders. It is obvious that they did this on purpose.” Ralph passed a file to Feng Yu. He also knew that Feng Yu was furious and will go after this TV station!

Before this program, Feng Yu said there is no hurry to deal with them. They will collect information and find a way to deal with this station. But now, after this program, Feng Yu will not wait anymore.

This program was not the only program that criticizes Songjiang – Oriental Deer. Many of this TV station’s programs exaggerated on the flaws of Feng Yu’s car and even made a video that was repeated several times! They were intentional provoking Feng Yu!

“Wilson, have you prepared the things I asked for?” The corner of Feng Yu’s eyes is twitching and could not hold back his anger!

“I am prepared. We can sue them anytime, and I guarantee that we can escalate this matter to racial discrimination! They are in deep trouble!”

In the US, racial discrimination is very sensitive and will be taken seriously.

Wilson will sue the TV station for discrimination against the Chinese. How can they say the Chinese athletes had to depend on stimulants to achieve results? That’s discriminating against the Chinese!

Wang Junxia had broken two Olympic Games record and passed the doping test. This proves that the Chinese are capable of winning medals!

“You must make sure the bosses of this TV station know some things cannot be said or do!” Feng Yu ordered. These people are just asking for it. He was already pissed over the last incident, and now, they are provoking him!

Yes, boss. I promise that during the lawsuit, their programs will be stopped and they will have to compensate the advertisers and their audiences for their paid services. Even if we are not successful in getting compensations from the, they will also be in trouble!” Wilson replied, confidently.

It’s hard to get compensation from the TV station as Wilson is suing the station on behalf of an individual, and not China’s Olympic team.

China’s Olympic team is satisfied after that TV commentator apologized and was fired. They don’t want to blow up this matter and affect the relationships between both nations.

Feng Yu could not change Ma Tao’s mind as this involves politics. He does not want to get involved.

“Ok. Go ahead. I want to see the results as soon as possible.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu hoped that Paul will also suffer losses along with the TV station. He is too arrogant!

……

3 days later, a lawsuit is reported and shook the whole nation. A Chinese national is suing XXX TV station for a discrimination comment against Chinese. He demands an apology from all the shareholders and 1 million USD compensations!

Racial discrimination and 1 million USD compensation are easily remembered by people. Even US President Clinton took note of this lawsuit. After all, he had attended the opening ceremony.

President Clinton did not expect this incident to be blown out of proportion and if the Chinese won the lawsuit, he would be affected as he had announced he wants to eliminate racial discrimination!

What is in the brains of the people in this TV station? Shit?!

Feng Yu got his men to spread the news of this case, and the whole nation is focusing on this case…

Chapter 847 – Broadcasting stopped

Paul Allen was currently negotiating with businessman on the sales of his shares in the TV station. This TV station had the Olympics Games broadcasting rights and some other live telecast rights and the share prices had increased. If Paul Allen managed to sell his shares, he would be getting a profit.

The negotiations were going well and had settled on the price. During the signing of the contract, that businessman’s assistant entered the room with a copy of the newspaper.

After reading the papers, that businessman stood up and looked at Paul Allen unhappily: “Mr. Allen, I respected you as a shareholder of Microsoft, but you tried to trick me?! This TV station is in big trouble, why didn’t you tell me?! The negotiations are off! I will never buy this station’s shares!”

Paul Allen was shocked. “The station is in trouble? What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? Read this yourself!” The other party threw a copy of the papers on the desk and left.

Paul Allen picked up the paper and saw the headlines. He was stunned to learn that the station is being sued for racial discrimination. Why is this happening?!

Chinese businessman? It must be Feng Yu!

F**k!!! Feng Yu is really trying to bankrupt this TV station! Paul thought he had spoken to Feng Yu, and why is Feng Yu relentless in going after this TV station? Also, how can this incident be escalated to racial discrimination?

In the US, any corporation that got involved in racial discrimination, their business will plummet. There will be all sorts of trouble even after this issue is settled.

No! I must not get involved in this! Wait… maybe this is an opportunity.

……

“Heh, have you read the papers? Microsoft’s Paul Allen told the reporters that he is utterly disappointed with XXX TV station and wants to sell his shares in the station. He strongly opposes racial discrimination!”

“Ah? Paul Allen also has shares in that TV station? But that station is too much. Doping can affect an athlete’s career and to make such claims is too irresponsible. That Oriental Deer had passed the doping test and she is the world record holder. She does not need to depend on stimulants or other drugs.”

“I heard all these are started by the major shareholder of the TV station and had said something which discriminates the Blacks and Asians. But his lawyers had settled that incident for him. This time, he might not getaway. The Chinese businessman, who is suing him, is the one who bought the Empire State Building! He is wealthier than that shareholder!”

……

“This bastard. Because of what he said, media from all over the world are questioning the US and the organizing committee. This will bring a negative impact on us. Overseas media even claimed that this year’s games are the worst in history!” A member of the organizing committee said.

“This TV station is Atlanta’s local TV station and a satellite station. We must do something about them.”

“What can we do? The verdict for this case is still not out, and they are not proven guilty. Furthermore, the one who said those things is that TV commentator and he is fired by the station.” Someone said.

“This is different. Who would believe that a TV commentator dares to say such things? Even if this is true, we must also do something. I heard from the State Governor that he will be addressing this issue yesterday, as he needs to calm the people. Those protests are causing massive losses to us!”

These organizers are discussing how to eliminate the negative influence on the games. Of course, they are not doing this for justice. All they are thinking about is the profits! They had not expected this incident had sparked protests and tarnished the image of their state.

……

Feng Yu was surprised as he read the papers. He turned to Wilson. “This station is ordered to stop broadcasting so quickly? You are so resourceful?”

Wilson nodded and then shook his head. “Boss, although I want to say it is all my credit, it is not. After the news of the lawsuit came out, Paul Allen’s announcement had indirectly admitted this station did discriminate against Asians. After that, the station’s advertisers stopped their contracts with them, and the station suffered massive losses. The advertisers pulling out hit the station’s reputation further and their ratings fell…… Anyway, this station was ordered to stop broadcasting is not because of my credit.”

Paul Allen’s announcement might be the real cause. But why did Paul Allen do this? Isn’t this helping me?

Feng Yu suddenly remembers that Paul Allen always wanted to own a TV station. This is not a secret among the top management of Microsoft. Now, after his announcement, the TV station’s value had dropped significantly, and those shareholders are rushing to sell off their shares.

If the TV station wins the lawsuit, or there is no outcome, the station’s reputation can recover in the future. Also, with Paul Allen’s connections, he can resume the broadcasting of the station easily.

That means Paul Allen can stand on the higher moral grounds and use this opportunity to buyout this station at a lower price. Even if the reputation of this station is gone, all the staff are still there. He can just change the name of the Station and continue to make money.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin. Kameda Masao had mentioned he wants to buy a TV station for his Adult Toys and products. This TV station is also a satellite station and should be suitable.

Anyway, after this station is bought, everything will have to be changed. The former reputation of the station does not matter. It will be interesting if Kameda Masao changes it to an adult channel.

In the future, the papers will report that the Sixth Sense Adult TV station is formerly XXX TV station, and because of a statement by their TV commentator during the Olympic Games broadcast, the TV station was bankrupted. In the end, it was acquired by Kameda Masao, a Japanese porn mogul.

Feng Yu would be overjoyed to see this.

Feng Yu immediately gave Kameda Masao a call and tell him about this TV station.

Kameda Masao was interested. This TV station has all the equipment and it is still a satellite channel. The value of this station is dropping, but it does not matter to the Sixth Sense Company. In fact, the Sixth Sense Company can save lots of money.

News of this TV station being forced to stop the broadcasting spreads and the Olympic Games teams knew about it. Ma Tao immediately called Feng Yu to thank him. He did not expect Feng Yu to be so powerful to make this TV station pay such a hefty price!

Ma Tao was overjoyed. Let’s see if any other TV stations still dare to make these baseless claims and look down on Chinese Athletes!

The shareholders of this TV station were damn unlucky. It is all because of that stupid TV commentator, they suffered massive losses. Also, how can Paul Allen, as a shareholder of the station, support outsiders?!

Those stupid protestors too. What has this got to do with you all? Why are you all getting involved?!

A few shareholders panicked and start to look for buyers to take over their shares. They are willing to suffer losses to prevent being labeled as a racist!

Chapter 848 – Anywhere except for that place!

The Olympic Games are still ongoing, and Feng Yu asked Kameda Masao to handle the TV station matters.

Today, Feng Yu had gone to Atlanta Airport to fetch Li Na. He had asked Li Na to come over to the US as she had always wanted to visit the US. She wants to experience first-hand what heaven and hell feel like.

<A Native of Beijing in New York> had mentioned: If you love someone, send her to the US because it is heaven there. If you hate someone, send her to the US because it is hell there!

This TV series is a hit in China and made many Chinese looks forward to visiting the US as they want to experience what Heaven feels like.

At the airport, Li Na was dragging a big suitcase and wore sunglasses. She was wearing branded clothes, bought by Feng Yu, from top to bottom.

Li Na saw Feng Yu and immediately ran into his arms, and Feng Yu’s bodyguards quickly walked over to carry the luggage. They were thinking of themselves. Being wealthy can change girlfriends so often.

The bodyguards had met the Russian blond last year, and this year it is a Chinese beauty. When can I experience this?

“Let’s go. Go to my place for a rest first. The table tennis match you wanted to watch is tomorrow.”

Li Na loves to watch table tennis matches. Maybe it is because most Chinese loves to play table tennis.

“Your place? You bought a house here?” The Olympic Games duration is less than a month, and is there a need to buy a house here?

“That’s right. Since you are coming, it is not convenient to stay in a hotel. We still have drivers, bodyguards, etc. with us. I can always sell the house away in the future.” Feng Yu replied.

The hotel prices in Atlanta are too high because of the Olympic Games. Staying in the hotel for 2 weeks is more expensive than paying one year’s property tax. It is cheaper to buy a house there as the property prices are not costly compared to Seattle.

Back at home, Feng Yu brought Li Na upstairs. After a round of ‘bed wrestling,’ Li Na curled up in Feng Yu’s arms.

“Why did you hire so many bodyguards? Is the US so dangerous?” Li Na asked worryingly. “You are already so rich, and you said you cannot finish spending your money even in two lifetimes. Why don’t you return to China?”

“This is because of the Olympic Games. There are more people around, and that’s why I arranged for more bodyguards. Normally, I only have 2 bodyguards with me. The gap between the rich and poor in the US is too big. As long as we don’t go to those poor and dangerous districts of the city, nothing will happen.”

Feng Yu knew Li Na was shocked to see 8 bodyguards following them. But if Feng Yu was not fetching her from the Airport today, he will also not arrange for so many bodyguards. What Li Na is experiencing is the same as Feng Yu when he just comes to the US. Countries with no fire-arms restrictions are perilous.

“There are poor districts in the US?” Li Na’s eyes opened wide in surprise.

“Of course. Some people cannot afford their meals and education. Just treat those Americans who claim the US is the best place on earth as bullshitting. Anyway, those poor districts are dangerous places and you must never go anywhere near. However, there are some places in the US worth visiting. I will bring you around after the table tennis match tomorrow.”

In the evening, Feng Yu hired a Michelin Star Chef to prepare a traditional French dinner for Li Na. But Li Na’s rating about the dinner made Feng Yu laugh and cry.

“It is delicious, but the portion for every dish is too little, and it is too troublesome. I only took a bite of that dish, and they took it away. Also, I dislike soup. So, this is the best western cuisine?”

“Huh? This is French cuisine. If you don’t like it, I will get an Italian chef tomorrow. Just see what dishes you like, and I will get them to prepare it for you. We will do away all those table etiquettes.”

Feng Yu felt the western table etiquette are just showing off. He dislikes the idea of serving the starters, main course, etc. one by one. I am here to eat dinner, and I will eat whatever I want. I don’t need to follow your rules and sequences.

That chef failed and had made Li Na unhappy. I will not hire him again!

“Boss, Ralph is here.”

“Let him in.” Feng Yu frowned. Why is Ralph here during dinner time? Did something happen?

“Boss, you asked me to help Mr. Kameda acquire that TV station’s shares in secret, but Mr. Allen is also doing the same. Today, I met him by accident.” Ralph was panicking as he thought he had screwed up this matter.

But Feng Yu did not mind and waved his hand. “It’s fine. If he can try to acquire this Station, we can also do the same. Furthermore, these shares will be sold to the Sixth Sense Company. Oh, did he say anything?”

Feng Yu does not mind about Paul Allen finding out he is also acquiring the TV station’s shares. Anyway, they were not friends or on good terms.

Ralph was relieved to see Feng Yu not getting angry. He had seen his office, given to him by Feng Yu, in the Empire State Building, and it was better than he imagined. His boss had treated him so well and he cannot disappoint him.

“Mr. Allen did not say anything, but he is surprised to see me. However, his expression showed he is not happy.”

“It’s alright. Who cares whether if he is angry or what? Have you eaten? Get the Chef to prepare something for you.” Feng Yu asked casually.

Ralph looked at the table, and Feng Yu had desserts. It is obvious Feng Yu had finished his dinner and he rejected Feng Yu’s offer politely. He also noticed a woman with Feng Yu.

That woman and Feng Yu were very close and were exchanging loving looks. Ralph was confused. He had not heard Feng Yu had broken up with that Russian girl… Where did this Chinese girl come from?

Boss is dating both women at the same time?

Ralph had seen such things before.

But under this circumstance, Ralph is not suitable to remain there. He quickly finishes what he has to say and return back to Seattle, Microsoft. Although he had arranged for his men to take care of the matters in Microsoft, he is more assured when he is around.

After Ralph left, Li Na asked cautiously. “Am I bothering your work?”

“It is only a small matter, and it’s fine. Are there any places you want to visit?” Feng Yu asked. Helping the Sixth Sense Company buying a TV station is really a small matter to him.

“I heard the Olympic Park is very famous. Let’s go there tomorrow.” Li Na was looking forward to visiting there.

Feng Yu heard her and exclaimed. “No. You can visit anyway except for that place!”

Chapter 849 – Olympic Games bombing

Many people remembered this year’s Olympic Games is not because it is the Centennial games, or many world records are broken. It is because of a tragedy that happened!

The US claimed that they had invested over 220 million USD for this year’s games, and over 10,000 police officers were deployed. But there was still an incident which left 2 people dead and over 100 people injured.

The irony of this tragedy was the bomb had been discovered, and the no officers, who were at the scene, knew how to defuse the bomb and the bomb exploded. It was a pipe bomb and the nails and shards in the pipe caused massive damage.

The bomb had been discovered, and the staff and officers at the Olympic Park could not evacuate the people there on time. By right, 5 minutes is more than enough to evacuate the people and there should be 0 casualties.

To appease the public, the Police had a blunder. They arrested the park’s staff, who called the police, as the bombing suspect, and released him one month later.

The real suspect is arrested after 7 to 8 years because of another crime. Feng Yu and many people felt that the suspect who was arrested might be a scapegoat.

How can Feng Yu let Li Na go to such a dangerous place? He could not remember the exact time and date of the bombing, but he knows it is during the games. That’s why he will not allow Li Na to visit that area.

Li Na looked at the nervous Feng Yu and asked. “Why can’t I go? If I did not visit the Olympic Park when I am here, it would be a waste.”

“There are too many people and it is not safe. Everybody will have the same thinking as you and all the tourists will be there. We can go when the Olympic Games end. You can stay there for as long as you want.” Feng Yu made up an excuse.

“But after the games ended, I have to return to school.” Li Na was disappointed. She did not think that Feng Yu was lying to her. To her, Feng Yu will never lie.

“Listen to me. I will bring you to other places of interest, and I promise you it will be fun. There is nothing at the park, except for some statues. You are interested in those?” Feng Yu starts to fool her. “Remember when we visit the Great Wall of China for the first time? Before climbing it, we are very excited, but after a while, it got boring.”

“That’s true. Let’s talk about this another time. I heard you can pick up gold in the parks here!” Li Na said excitedly.

“Those are all exaggerated claims by the media to attract tourists. Even if you can find gold, how much can it worth? I can buy gold for you and melt them into nuggets and scatter it on the ground for you to pick.” Feng Yu joked.

The gold found in the gold mines at tourist attractions had too many impurities, and it is only a form of promoting. It is just like China’s Great Wall’s slogan. You are not a hero if you have not been to the Great Wall. But are you really a hero after you been to the Great Wall? There is nothing interesting there. You might as well go to the ancient cities.

Li Na rolled her eyes. “What’s the point of picking up the gold nuggets you threw in front of me?! Furthermore, I will not pick them!”

“That’s right. We will not pick up the gold others threw. We got to make them give us the gold willingly!”

Feng Yu successfully made Li Na forget about visiting the Olympic Park, and they returned to the bedroom.

……

“What did you say? Fine. I know… Yes, go ahead. I don’t care how much I got to spend. All I want is the result!”

Li Na saw Feng Yu not looking well and asked. “What’s wrong? Did something happen at your company? Do you need to go back? We have been out for quite long.”

“It is not my company’s matters. There is an incident at the Olympic Park… luckily we did not visit there.” Feng Yu told Li Na about the incident.

“You are right. It is dangerous in crowded places. What is that bomber thinking? What can he gain by doing such things!” Li Na was impressed with Feng Yu’s ‘great foresight.’

To be honest, Feng Yu also don’t know what that bomber is thinking. Maybe he is only trying to disgrace the US government. If this is his goal, he had succeeded.

Also, this bomber had helped Feng Yu indirectly. He had embarrassed the organizing committee, and Feng Yu can make use of this incident to criticize them openly.

…….

Outsourcing the Olympic Games to contractors is not right!

The US had snatched the hosting of the 100th Olympic Games from Athens but failed to make it a success!

The US government must give an explanation of the bombing incident during the games!

If the US government cannot even provide security, how can they host the Olympic Games?

……

All sorts of negative news appeared on the headlines of the papers all over the world. During the Olympic Games period, people’s focus is on the games, let alone this tragedy.

The European countries, especially Russia and Greece, reported this incident the most.

Whenever there is an opportunity to attack the US reputation, Russia will be the first to start. Of course, the US is also the first to attack Russia when they have the chance.

Greece had lost the bid to host this year’s Olympic Games to the US and were unhappy. The first Olympic Games are held in Greece and this year is the 100th game. Yet, they lost to the US.

You all want to host the games, but you had messed it up!

Many other nations remained neutral and did not laugh at the US. They only express their condolences.

Feng Yu also felt the organizing committee is a joke. How can security allow such an incident to happen? They had 5 minutes to disperse the crowd and there are still so many casualties. The person-in-charge should step forward and take full responsibility for this!

What’s the use of mourning? You all should arrest the culprit! No matter what you do after the incident, you can never bring back the lives of those two deceases.

At this time, a news article blew up this incident.

Feng Yu had arranged his men to write a letter to the Atlanta Government, reminding them to increase the security during the Olympic Games. But they ignored this letter and resulted in this bombing.

Now, the contents of the letter are exposed, and the Atlanta Government, the US Olympics Committee, the US government, etc. becomes the target of the public’s anger!

Someone had reminded you all to increase the security, and you all choose to ignore it? You all are asking for trouble!

But what happened next was the same as Feng Yu’s previous life. That staff who called the police was arrested as the bombing suspect. The US government wants to use him as a scapegoat to appease the public.

Wilson, who was tasked to blow up this matter, got the media to report that the arrested staff is not the culprit. No suspect would be so stupid to call the cops themselves unless he had gone mad. If he is the suspect, he keeps quiet for the bomb to create the maximum damage. If he regretted at the last minute, he could stop the bomb from going off and there will be no casualties. Moreover, he did not have any motive.

This year’s Olympic Games being handed over to private operators to host was discussed by the public again. The US had not given enough respect to the Olympic Games and why should they get the right to host the games?

Is there anything behind the curtains the public is unaware of?

Chapter 850 – Disappointment

After the bombing incident, the President of the International Olympic Committee, Mr. Samaranch, went to visit the victims at the hospital. No matter how much he wanted to arrest the bombing suspect, there was nothing he can do. As the President of the International Olympic Committee, he does have some powers, but he does not have investigation powers!

All Mr. Samaranch could do was to visit the victims and nothing else.

At this time, something unexpected happens. Mr. Samaranch’s secretary told him a Chinese businessman wants to donate a sum of money for the victims.

Actually, this was not necessary. Other than the two victims who passed away, the rest of the injured were covered by insurance when they bought the tickets. The insurance payouts were enough to cover their hospital bills.

Even if there is a shortfall, the Atlanta Government will make up the difference.

But the Atlanta Government and the US government did not mention anything about compensations to the victims as they felt this was an accident.

Now, an outsider, who was not involved, is willing to donate to the victims, and this made Mr. Samaranch very grateful.

No matter how much the donation was, it is goodwill and Mr. Samaranch immediately make arrangements to meet this person to express his thanks.

……

“Mr. Samaranch, I’m Feng Yu, from China.” Feng Yu smiled and extended his hand.

“Thank you, Mr. Feng, for your generosity.” Samaranch shook Feng Yu’s hand.

Is Feng Yu representing the Chinese Government? China was bidding for the 2008 Olympic Games and had lost in its bid to host the 2000 Olympics Games by one vote.

Samaranch felt Feng Yu was too young and thought he should be the son of some Chinese government officials. In many countries, there are politician’s families, and he had met several young men from those families.

“I am just doing my part. I would like to donate 10 million USD to the victims. I hope they will get well soon.

Samaranch was shocked. 10 million USD?!

800,000 to 1 million USD is considered a significant donation to Samaranch. The victims’ medical expenses were covered by insurance and the US government, and he thought this Chinese young man will only make a small donation.

But Samaranch never thought this young man wanted to donate 10 million USD!

“Mr. Feng, I represent the International Olympic Committee to thank you.” Samaranch shook Feng Yu’s hand again. He was at a loss of words.

“Don’t mention it. But this donation will not be made under my name. It will be under the BML company, and this is the check for 10 million USD. Please give me a receipt.”

Donating as an individual is different from giving under a company. Using a company can create publicity and increase brand awareness. Samaranch doesn’t mind and will not reject it.

Samaranch asked his secretary to prepare the receipt and was curious about this BML company. He had never heard of this company before. Is it a Chinese company?

“China must be proud to have a philanthropist like you.” Samaranch thought for a while and said.

He thought since Feng Yu might be the son of a government official, he should be happy to hear this compliment.

Although Samaranch had misunderstood Feng Yu’s identity, Feng Yu was still happy to hear that. “No… I am proud to be Chinese.”

At this moment, Samaranch could almost confirm Feng Yu is representing the Chinese government.

During China’s next bid to host the games, Samaranch will try to help China get more votes.

Both chatted for a while, and Feng Yu led the conversation to this year’s games.

“Sigh… I wonder if this incident will affect the athletes’ performances in the upcoming events. Never mind. This is also not something I should be worried about.” Feng Yu purposely said.

Samaranch replied with a troubled look. “The athletes will surely be affected. Athletes from some countries had returned without competing. During yesterday’s events, lots of athletes could not concentrate and made mistakes.”

“That’s so unfortunate. I thought this year’s games will be the most successful in history.”

During the closing ceremony of every Olympic Games, Samaranch will always say ‘This is the best Olympic Games in history’ during his closing speech.

But this tragic incident and the mess the US Olympic Games Committee created, had disappointed Samaranch.

“Most successful? I think this is the worst Olympic Games in history!” Samaranch replied angrily.

Feng Yu had achieved what he wanted. He had successfully made Samaranch angry. But this was not enough. Feng Yu wants to blow up this matter and shame the Organizing Committee!

“I heard the arrested suspect is innocent. The Americans are trying to cover up for their failure in protecting the visitors at the park. They lacked sportsmanship and is only using this event to make money. The Olympic Games had become a commercial activity.”

Samaranch was about to say something, but his secretary returns with the donation receipt, and Feng Yu left without giving Samaranch a chance to explain.

Not long after Feng Yu left, some reporters came to interview Samaranch. They want to hear what the International Olympic Committee has to say about the bombing incident and the arrested suspect.

Samaranch’s anger immediately explodes! He had lots to say earlier, but Feng Yu had left. Now, he could no longer hold back!

“My views? You are talking about that person who is arrested? Everyone can tell that person is not the suspect! How can such a thing happen during the Olympic Games? I am very disappointed with Atlanta’s security! This is my view!”

Samaranch’s reply was considered mild as he did not bash the US government and only mentioned Atlanta.

The reporter was shocked to hear Samaranch’s reply. Samaranch said the arrested person is not the actual bomber?

“This year’s games had broken many records. Are you satisfied with this year’s Olympic Games?” The reporter quickly changes the subject.

“Satisfied? After the bombing incident, you want to know if I am satisfied? If you are in my position, are you satisfied? If you really want me to answer, then my answer can only be utterly disappointed! I am not in the mood for interviews now. A philanthropist had just donated 10 million USD to the victims of the bombing, and I have lots of work to do.” Samaranch stood up and left. He does not want to speak a single word with this reporter!

The reporter was shocked by Samaranch’s outburst. Utterly disappointment?!

This is definitely tomorrow’s headlines!!!

Chapter 851 – Clinton apologized

“The International Olympics Committee’s President, Mr. Samaranch said he is utterly disappointed with this year’s Olympics Games!”

“The International Olympics Committee’s President claimed the arrested suspect is not the real suspect!”

“The FBI had arrested the wrong person, and everyone knows about it!”

“The media is questioning: How can the US, such a dangerous country, host the Olympic Games?”

“President Clinton believes the FBI will provide answers soon!”

……

Feng Yu looked at the newspapers in front of him, and the LCD TV on the wall is reporting the news. All the news was related to the Olympic Games and most of it was about the bombing incident at the Olympic Park.

Samaranch should be furious to say those things. This was like a slap to the US government!

If you all had taken that TV commentator to task immediately after he said those things, I might forgive you all.

Who asked you all choose to ignore that comment and just focus on making money? Feng Yu had done a lot because of this incident. He got Wilson to get people to create rumors, and Kirilenko also helped in tarnishing the US government’s reputation.

Kirilenko had volunteered to do this as he did not want to miss this opportunity to shame the US internationally. This was better than giving him 2 bottles of Vodka and women!

Kirilenko even contacted his friends in Europe to help blow up this matter. All of his friends were influential in their respective countries and were anti-US government!

Some people felt what they did was not significant enough and wanted the International Olympic Committee to ban the US from hosting future Olympic Games!

Of course, everyone knew this will not happen as the Olympic games emphasize on mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play! The International Committee will not ban any countries from participating.

The purpose of the Olympic Games is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind!

Feng Yu used this to attack the US and claimed the US is discriminating against others, and that TV commentator is an example!

Is the US sincere in upholding the Olympic Games’ values and spirit? They just arrested someone and claimed that person is the bombing suspect. This was obviously trying to cover up. The US is an advocate for peace? They start wars and had multiple aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons, and had been invading countries.

How can the US host the Olympic Games?!

To be honest, this year’s Olympic Games was really a failure. The organizers were a mess, lack of security, too commercialized, etc……

Clinton threw the remote control at the TV. All the media were criticizing the US government and the organizing committee! This is an accident and the US is the victim!

Also, the Olympic Games are still ongoing, and many records had been broken. Many countries had won medals, and why can’t the media report on those?

These small countries dare to criticize the US? Who gave them the guts to do this?

This year was President Clinton’s final year in his term, and he is looking forward to another term. He must let the Americans have confidence in his leadership. During his term, the US economy had progressed well, but it was not enough to make up for this blemish!

But Clinton was helpless in this incident as this had happened in the US. Many people were questioning and demanding answers from the FBI for arresting that ‘suspect.’

If even the Americans felt this was a wrongful arrest, and he still doesn’t step forward to face them, how can he renew his term?

Now, Clinton’s approval ratings had fallen below 50% for the first time and this is not a good sign for him.

Clinton’s advisor told him that he must step forward to apologize and gave the public and the world an answer. Of course, he had to push the blame to others and must not take full responsibility!

Clinton’s advisors quickly found someone to be the scapegoat. His political rival, a presidential candidate, Bob, had close ties to one of the Olympic Games Organizers, Pepsi, and had appeared on a talk show of that TV station.

He was the perfect scapegoat!

……

Feng Yu was shocked to see President Clinton apologizing on behalf of the US government on TV! Also, he apologized for the comments made by that TV commentator against China.

Damn! In Feng Yu’s previous life, it was the Governor of Atlanta State who apologized. In this life, this incident had been become out of proportion.

“Feng Yu, is that the US President? He is apologizing to our country?!” Li Na asked in shock.

“Yes. He is apologizing for the bombing incident and for the comments made by the commentator. Wait… he is pushing the blame to someone else!” Feng Yu realized what was happening as he watches on. What apology? Clinton is using this incident to attack his rival!

Clinton had pushed the blame to Bob. Although this is not a good move, it is useful.

Many countries stopped their criticism against the US after Clinton’s apology, and in the US, the Americans start to point their fingers at Bob, as if he was the one who planned the incident.

Feng Yu sighed. Clinton’s move had destroyed Bob’s reputation. He is very unlucky as this is his 4th time participating in the presidential race. He lost in his previous 3 attempts and he will lose again this time!

If Clinton had not reacted fast enough and pushed the blame to Bob, he might lose the upcoming elections and history will be changed.

Feng Yu was relieved and disappointed at the same time. He was relieved that the world events will not be changed, and he can still use his memories from his previous life. But he is disappointed to be unable to get the experience of stopping someone from being a president!

With Feng Yu’s current wealth, even if the world is not moving according to history, he can still become the world’s richest man, as he still has better foresight than the rest!

Feng Yu had spent more than 20 million USD for this incident, but he could shame the US, and he felt it was… it was worthwhile!

Chapter 852 – Who is the best?

“I thought you prefer basketball. Why are we watching football today?” Li Na was dragged along by Feng Yu to a football match.

“This match is interesting. Many of the players are signed by my companies to be our spokesmen.” Feng Yu smiled.

“Is that Brazil team? That is Ronaldo? I had heard of him. Did you sign him?” Li Na pointed at Carlos and asked.

“That is Roberto Carlos, and that is Sávio. That player beside him is Juninho and that bald player is Ronaldo.” Feng Yu explained to Li Na.

“You signed all of them?”

“Those 4 players are superstars in football. But I did not sign any one of them!”

“Ah? Why didn’t you sign them? Who did you sign then?” Li Na was curious. Those 4 Brazilian are the top players in the sport, and Feng Yu did not sign them?

“I signed some black players from the other team. There… that player is Kanu, and that is Rashidi Yekini. That player’s nickname is ‘Jay-jay,’ and his name is Okocha. That player over there juggling the ball is Victor Ikpeba, and that is Sunday Oliseh. That player there is Amokachi.” Feng Yu pointed to the few Nigerian players and introduced them to Li Na.

Other than Okocha and Yekini, Feng Yu did not have any impression of the other players. But these players will be in the limelight during this year’s Olympic Games. More importantly, they are not expensive.

Feng Yu even offered Okocha a long-term endorsement contract, because he will become the best African football player in the future and is famous throughout Europe.

Yes. He is also the most good-looking African player in the team.

“All Africans? You are going to sell your products to African?” Li Na asked.

“Hahaha… there are many Africans in Europe too, and these players will be many people’s idols. Although the Brazilian team is strong, all of them are famous football stars and they will have problems with their teamwork!” Feng Yu laughed.

After the match starts, Brazil took the lead. Li Na looked at Feng Yu and said. “The players you signed are losing.” She felt the Brazilian team are playing better than the Nigerian team.

“The match is not over yet.” Feng Yu was slightly worried. What if history was changed and Brazil wins this match?

If Nigeria lost this match, all of Feng Yu’s investment would be meaningless. Except for Okocha, all other players did not become superstars in the future. They were only ordinary players.

……

“Hahaha, Brazil is leading 1-0. Brazil should be winning this year’s Olympic Games. They had fielded the best players in history and Nigeria had lost to Brazil in the preliminaries. They should be losing this match and I heard MBL company had signed several Nigerian players to endorse their Chinese beverages.” Pepsi’s Vice-President of Sales was watching the match and speaking to the people beside him.

“Yes. What football stars can they hire with their assets? Among the basketball players, they had only signed Supersonic’s Payton. I heard they used all their connections and spent 1.2 million USD per year for 2 years. In football, they had only signed a few Nigerian players. Did they really think Nigeria will enter the finals? I think Nigeria might not even get bronze!” Pepsi’s person-in-charge for North America market, Okafor, said.

“Oh, Conceição scored again!”

……

Li Na saw Feng Yu’s face changed and she was also worried. The first half ended, and the score was 3-1. Although she doesn’t understand football, she knew the Brazilian team is more aggressive and skillful.

Feng Yu composed himself and told himself in his heart. “Nigeria will win. They will win in the second half.”

Feng Yu’s experience in market trading is useless at football games. Once history was changed, he will lose, and there is no way he can change the results. He can’t be entering the game and play for Nigeria after all. That way, Nigeria will lose even faster!

“Eh? Isn’t that a Brazilian player? Why did he score against his own team?” Li Na held Feng Yu’s arm and asked.

Carlos had just scored an own goal!

Carlos’s own goal had appeared, and history was not changed! Feng Yu regained his confidence and explained to Li Na. “That is called an own goal. Nigeria is going to win!”

Li Na doesn’t understand. Nigeria was still losing and why Feng Yu was so sure about them winning?

When the match was almost up, Nigeria scored another goal, and the score was 3-3!

The referee blew the full-time whistle, and Li Na asked. “Does this consider a draw? Will they be kicking in front of the goalpost now?”

Feng Yu slapped his forehead. “That is called a penalty shootout. But there are still 30 minutes of extra-time first. Penalty shootout will happen if the game ends in a draw after extra-time.”

……

The few top management staff of Pepsi were gloomy. What’s wrong with the Brazilian team? They were playing well in the first half and got caught up by the Nigerians in the second half. Also, what is that idiot Carlos thinking?

Luckily, there is still extra-time, and Brazil might still win. If the game ended in a penalty shootout, no one could predict the final score!

But the match did not go according to Pepsi’s top management expectation. Minutes after the extra-time started, Okocha intercepted a Brazilian’s pass at midfield and sent a long ball forward. Kanu picked up the ball and kicked it into the Brazilian goal!

Nigeria is leading 4-3, and they defended this score until the end of the match.

Before the match, no one expects this African team to beat the strongest team in this year’s Olympic Games. How is this possible?!

Crash!

Pepsi’s Vice-President threw a bottle of Pepsi on the floor. He had invited a lot of people to watch this match with him and was expecting Brazil to win. Pepsi had signed many Brazilian players to endorse their drinks and he expects them to increase Pepsi’s sales. Many Asians love to watch football and these players will help Pepsi strengthen its foothold in Asia and try to penetrate the Chinese market.

But all these will not happen now.

Pepsi’s Vice-President of sales had not expected the almighty Brazilian team to lose to an unknown Nigeria team!

What made him more furious was the spokesmen signed by the BML company were all from this winning team!

All he can do now is to pray Brazil will win the bronze medal, and Nigeria loses in the finals. Nigeria must not get first place in this tournament as Pepsi can still depend on the Argentinians players they signed to help them promote their products.

If Nigeria wins the gold medal, the Chinese beverages’ sales will increase! But this is absolutely impossible! Nigeria might be lucky to win Brazil, but they can never beat Argentina!

How can the Brazilian team lose to Nigeria? What happened?

Feng Yu held Li Na’s hand and left the stadium with 8 bodyguards surrounding them.

I will let you Pepsi know who’s spokesmen are better at football in the next match!!!

Chapter 853 – They really won the gold medal

“That African team really won? How come so many spectators are cursing?” Li Na asked softly.

“These people should have placed bets on Brazil, and Nigeria won. Now, their betting tickets are all worthless. How can they be happy?” Feng Yu explained.

“Did you also bet?” Li Na asked curiously.

“A little. If I did not place any bets, Nigeria’s payout would be several times higher.” It’s a pity that there is a limit to how much bets Feng Yu can place. If not, the returns will be higher than trading futures.

Feng Yu had also placed bets on Nigeria, winning the gold medal. In the US, many lottery companies allow people to place separate bets. Dong Xuebing had placed some bets and if he won, he would get a few hundred million USD. These lottery companies should be making a loss this time.

Feng Yu had never thought of making money from betting and had bought those tickets for fun. He had told many people that Nigeria will win the finals, and no one believed him. Even Kameda Masao, who treated Feng Yu like his god, did not believe him. The only person that trusted Feng Yu was Kirilenko.

Kirilenko had placed massive bets on Nigeria winning the tournament with the lottery companies in Europe and his friends all laughed at him.

How can an African team win the first place?

But now, many people were not that confident. Nigeria had performed much better than expected!

There were lesser spectators during the third-place match and some of them were there to jeer the Brazilian team. Although Brazil won Portugal 5-0 in that match, they were still labeled as the losers.

Before the Olympic Games started, the Brazilian team boasted that they will get the gold medal. But now, they had become a laughingstock.

……

The final match started, and Feng Yu did not go to the stadium. It was too crowded there, and the weather was too hot. Watching live telecast in the comforts of his home was better. Feng Yu had a projector at home and his house was fully air-conditioned.

“Mr. Kirilenko, have some fruits.” Li Na placed some fruits she washed on the table for Kirilenko, who had come over to watch the match with Feng Yu.

“Feng, you are so lucky to have a beautiful girl by your side.” Kirilenko laughed.

Li Na blushed and sat beside Feng Yu and fed him with oranges.

“You… Why are you not getting married? You are in your 30s already.” Feng Yu glanced at Kirilenko.

“Soon. My father had issued the final warning, and I must get married latest by next year.” Kirilenko grumbled.

“Political marriage?” Feng Yu asked. Kirilenko’s family will most likely choose someone from a similar background to him.

Kirilenko nodded. “Yes. Let’s not talk about this. The match had started. I had listened to you this time and placed heavy bets on Nigeria. If they emerge as champions, I will get a huge payout!”

Kirilenko was fine even if Nigeria loses as he had placed bets on Nigeria, reaching the top 4 and had made profits!

“Let’s watch the match.” Feng Yu replied. It’s been a while since he felt excited and nervous, and he likes this feeling.

……

“Lopez had got through the defense and scored! I knew it. Nigeria will not win. That Chinese beverage alliance will never win us. The final winner will be us, Pepsi!” Pepsi’s Deputy CEO, Cruise, clenched his fist.

The rest of Pepsi’s top management, especially the person in charge of signing spokesmen, were cheering. That goal will increase the commercial value of Lopez, and their contract with him is worth it!

But after a while, Nigeria’s Babayaro scored an equalizer. Cruise snubbed his cigar and had a bad feeling. Will the Argentina team also lose to these Africans?

Before halftime, Argentina’s Crespo scored with a header. 2-1 and Argentina got the lead again.

Cruise was relieved as Argentina is still a stronger team. Pepsi’s upcoming marketing campaign will be focusing on the Olympic Games Football team. All the scorers will be featured in their posters!

Football can be claimed as the most popular sports in the world and using football stars to endorse their products, Pepsi’s sales will inevitably increase. They will have no problem suppressing Chinese beverages and might even win Coca-Cola in some regions!

Coca-Cola had signed sprinters and basketball players. But those athletes were not as influential as these football stars. The matches they played were telecast all over the world and had high ratings!

……

“Ahh… What the hell are these N***ers doing? How can they allow the Argentinians to get the lead again?!” Kirilenko was furious.

Luckily there are only 3 of them in the house, and if Feng Yu’s bodyguards heard him, there might be trouble. After all, most of Feng Yu’s bodyguards are blacks.

“Don’t worry. Nigeria will make a comeback. Look at their previous few matches.” Feng Yu replied slowly.

“I did not watch their previous matches. Will they get a draw?” Kirilenko was excited. Since Feng Yu said this, then it will not go wrong.

Feng Yu kept quiet and watched the match silently. Kirilenko sat beside him and took a big gulp of Vodka. Most people drink beer while watching football matches, but Kirilenko drank Vodka!

After a while, Kirilenko jumps up. “Feng! Did you see that? They scored!!! It’s a draw!”

“I saw it. Sit down. Why are you so excited?” Feng Yu was also very excited. Amokachi must also be on the promotional poster!

After a while, Argentina scored, but Nigeria equalizes within 5 minutes.

The score was 3-3 until the final minute, and Kirilenko was restless. Is this match going into extra-time again?

“Eh… that guy had gone past the defence, and he scored! We won!! Feng! We won!!!” Kirilenko roared and jumps up and down like a kid.

The match ended, and Nigeria won the gold medal!

……

Bang!

“What is wrong with that referee? How can that be not offside?! Who can this goal be counted?!” Cruise banged the table as he cursed. The rest of Pepsi’s staff dare not make a noise.

Lost. Argentina loses to that African team. Before the competition start, who would expect Nigeria to emerge the Champions? Even the Nigerians did not expect this result.

Not only Argentina lost the match. All of Pepsi’s spokesmen had lost to some African athletes whom no one had ever thought of signing them.

Pepsi had wasted their endorsement fees!

……

Feng Yu was relieved. Nigeria really won! MBL company had signed the whole Nigeria team, and the Chinese beverage alliance had won big time!

Chapter 854 – Aggressive advertising

“Drink Qili, increase your stamina like a champ! Hong Guan Qili! Designed for athletes!”

“Jianlibao increases your energy!”

“Refreshing! The champion’s choice!”

“Lehaha Tea beverage. Quench your thirst!”

“Jianlibao’s Tea beverage. Let’s create miracles together!”

……

The advertisements for Chinese beverages appeared on TV, newspapers, billboards, etc. in Europe, the US, Africa, Asia and many other countries. The number of advertisements had surprised the two beverage giants.

How much will the advertisement fee cost? Chinese beverages have to sell how many bottles or cans to recover this cost? They even advertise in Africa? How many people in Africa can afford to drink these beverages?”

Yes. This advertising campaign cost more than 100 million USD and will last for 1 year. Lehaha, Jianlibao, and other companies in the alliance will not make profits from the overseas market for the next two years.

Jianlibao’s situation is slightly better as it has some brand awareness in the US and Southeast Asia. But Lehaha is a newcomer to the overseas market. Although Feng Yu had successfully place Lehaha’s products in the supermarkets, they were still making losses at that time.

At that time, the profits of these two companies were not more than 1 million USD, and the money invested in marketing was more than the profits. As for Hui Yuen, Le Bashi, Coconut Tree, etc. were all in the red.

But the sales of Chinese beverages were climbing, and everyone believes next year will be better as their brand awareness will be higher and will have a group of loyal customers.

At this time, all the companies were not optimistic, and they felt the overseas’ profits will not exceed 20 million USD.

But now, Feng Yu invested 100 million USD in advertising for his two companies suddenly, and the heads of both companies still agreed to it.

Each company will have to bear 50 million USD and this is an astronomical amount for an ordinary company. But the top management of both companies was still smiling.

The bottling factories acquired by Feng Yu and Fu Guangzeng had started operations and is currently producing for Lehaha and Jianlibao. These factories charge a basic fee and a percentage of the profits. That means if these two companies do not have profits, the factories will only receive the basic fee.

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng are not fools and after analyzing the market, they found that the miraculous win of the Nigerian team will help push sales if there is enough advertising.

The beverage is not a necessity, and once the consumers love a particular brand of drink, they seldom change to other brands.

For example, if someone is used to drinking Coca-Cola, they will not drink Pepsi, despite both Colas taste quite similar.

The most important thing right now is to let the consumers try and build up a customer base. After the consumers got used to their products, the Chinese beverages will then increase its market share.

Jianlibao and Lehaha are not on the top 10 beverage brands in the world currently, but after a year of aggressive marketing, they should be in the top 5.

Once consumers got uses to a beverage, they will stick to the brand they are familiar with when they want to buy a bottle of drink at the stores.

What Feng Yu wants now is to increase the brand awareness of these two companies’ beverages and get the market share. Once they got the market share, their sales will increase and will recover their investments.

It’s only 100 million USD, and if both companies’ drinks manage to increase their market share to 1%, they will recover the advertisement fees in the future.

But they will definitely not see any returns this or next year. But the profits will be in by the third year!

Beverages are not some hi-tech products, and the two beverage giants own more than 50% of the global market share. If Feng Yu stick to traditional sales strategies, it will be nearly impossible for him to increase his companies’ brand awareness and sales.

This is an extreme strategy, but it is useful. Other companies will not use this as this strategy need good brand ambassadors.

The success of an advertisement depends a lot on the spokesperson and brand slogan. Increasing the number of ads alone might not be successful.

……

“What did you say? The whole Nigerian football team, including the coach, had signed contracts with the Chinese Beverage? What are you all thinking when I asked you all to pick some athletes to be our spokesmen? Why did you all choose these losers?” Cruise roared.

His subordinates kept quiet and grumbled in their hearts. You are the one who wanted these players, and who would expect them to lose this championship?

Even the lottery companies did not expect Nigeria to win. Many of them suffered heavy losses as someone placed big bets on Nigeria, winning the gold medal!

Even those professional companies did not expect Nigeria’s win, let alone us.

“We can advertise using those players’ other credentials. For example, their result in Euro.”

“This year is the Olympic Games, and no matter how to market, they are still one of the players in the games! They only need to advertise their spokesmen as Olympic Champions and they will outshine us! Don’t focus on our football players and use the gold medalists from other sports!”

“Mr. Cruise, I need to report another matter to you. Those Chinese beverages had increased their advertisements using the Olympic Games Champions. I heard some major supermarkets increased their orders, and many ordinary stores also started selling their products!”

Cruise was shocked. The Chinese beverages’ sales had increased because of the supermarkets, and if their products start appearing in retail stores, that means most consumers had accepted them.

But how is this possible? Those beverages had only entered the Western market not long ago. How can they open the retail stores? Even if the advertisements are effective, the results will not be shown so fast, as the aggressive advertising campaign had just started.

“They had contacted those small retailers in the past and still have attractive promotions like lucky draws. Now, their lucky draw prizes include the Nigerian Football team’s posters, autographs, etc. and many football fans are willing to buy their products to try to win these prizes.”

“How come I am not aware they had contacted those retailers? What the hell are you all doing?! Get lost! Get out of my sight!”

After Cruise calmed down, he picks up the phone. It seems like he has to join forces with Coca-Cola again!

Chapter 855 – Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao

The Olympics Games ended, and for the first time in history, Samaranch did not say, “This year’s game is successful” during the closing ceremony. His speech was short and showed his displeasure over what happened.

This year, China’s Olympic Games team had won 17 gold medals, 21 silver medals, and 12 bronze medals. Other than Wang Junxia’s 10,000m result was different from Feng Yu’s previous life, there were no changes. The total medal tally is still 50 and China is ranked 4th, behind the US, Russia and Germany. This was their best result in history and all the Chinese athletes were overjoyed.

“Manager Feng, you must give me a call when you return. We must have some drinks together.” The team leader, Ma Tao, shook Feng Yu’s hand firmly.

The Chinese athletes had boarded a chartered plane over and will be taking the same flight back.

“Hahaha… I will.” Feng Yu had gone to send the athletes because Li Na is taking the same flight back with them.

Some of the Chinese athletes had gone back first, and the remaining athletes’ events were later. Many of the female athletes were looking at Li Na enviously.

Li Na is beautiful and has a wealthy boyfriend. Look at her clothing and her handbag costs more than their annual salary.

This year’s Olympic Games, the Americans, especially the organizers, made huge profits. Feng Yu had also gained much from the Olympic Games. Other than the winnings from the lottery companies, he had managed to promote all his brands.

The rest of the Chinese beverage brands also gained from Lehaha and Jianlibao’s aggressive advertising. After all, their products were placed on the same shelf as them.

Also, Songjiang Motors vehicles had started to enter the US market. Feng Yu handed the sales to Kirilenko.

The sales of Wind and Rain brand, Aiwa, and Feng Yu’s other brands, had increased because of this year’s games. More importantly, all brand awareness had risen.

Even the Sixth Sense Company had successfully acquired that TV station. When Paul Allen heard that the TV station will be converted to an adult channel, he quickly sold his shares to the Sixth Sense, as he does not want to tarnish his reputation.

Paul Allen is the boss of a Tech Company and does not want to be known as the boss of a porn channel. His pride will not allow this to happen. Luckily, he bought the station’s shares at low prices and after selling to the Sixth Sense, he did not suffer any losses.

Because of this incident, Paul Allen’s hatred for Feng Yu increased. But Feng Yu can’t be bothered with him, as they were not friends in the first place.

Feng Yu returned to New York to monitor the sales of Songjiang Motors. He had hired Wang Junxia to endorse his vehicles and shot a commercial. The director here is very skillful. Wang Junxia does not know how to drive, and the director made Wang Junxia race the Songjiang’s Oriental Deer on foot and filmed it like ‘Fast and Furious.’

The orders for Songjiang Oriental Deer are increasing, and Feng Yu was satisfied. Although most of the profits were given to the distributors, more people were aware of this brand. In another one or two years, he will ditch the distributors after the brand awareness had reached a certain point.

After working busily for a few days, Feng Yu finally had time to rest, and he received a call from Zhong Qingxian, informing him that the two Cola giants had started aggressive advertising in China.

The two beverage giants could not advertise on CCTV, and they targeted the Provincial TV stations, bus stops, malls, and crowded places. More interestingly, the advertisements for both companies were almost identical, and they seemed to have discussed this beforehand.

Also, this is a massive marketing campaign and their advertisements are everywhere.

Feng Yu frowned. These two cola companies were serious in entering the Chinese market to attack the Chinese beverage alliance’s home ground. Now, Lehaha and the other companies had to turn their focus to defend their turf, and Lehaha’s Refreshing series is affected the most.

Lehaha will suffer the most substantial losses if the two cola companies manage to capture the Chinese market share.

“Manager Feng, we decide to increase the frequency of our advertisements in China, and with we establish sales channels, I am confident to suppress them. However, I need Jianlibao and the rest of the companies to help.” Zhong Qingxian said.

“Suppressing them is not enough! I want to beat them! We are entering the US market, and they are attacking our turf? What’s the meaning of this? A warning to us?”

Feng Yu knew if they shift their focus to the Chinese market and transfer their funds back to China, their plans to enter the international market will be affected. This is the ‘Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao’ strategy!

But the two Cola companies had belittled the beverage alliance. Don’t forget, Feng Yu and the rest of the companies are members of the Beverage Industry Association, and they can use other means to let these US companies know who the boss in China is!

I want the overseas market, and you all are not allowed to touch my China market!

……

“What did you say? Our distributors are not selling our Pepsi drinks now? Why?” The person-in-charge in China, Manager Zhao, was shocked.

“I also don’t know. The contract we signed with them is very flexible because we wanted to set up our distribution channels as soon as possible. Now, there is nothing we can do if they are not going to order more goods.” The Deputy Manager replied.

“Then why are you not looking for more distributors? Our advertising campaign is so aggressive, and no distributors want to sell our products?”

“I tried, but those distributors are asking for too much. If we follow their conditions, we will make losses!”

“What’s happening? How many distributors are unwilling to sell our products?”

“All of them.”

“What? All of them?!” Manager Zhao jumped up. How is this possible? Why are all the distributors not selling their products? They must have colluded against us.

“It’s true. They should have discussed before and this is to force us to increase their benefits. There is nothing I can do.” He is also puzzled why these distributors are doing this to them.

“Are those distributors selling other drinks?” Manager Zhao asked.

“Ah… They are selling Jianlibao, Lehaha, Coca-Cola, etc. but those will not agree to their conditions!”

Manager Zhao understood what was happening. Those brands had join forces against them.

“Coca-Cola? The distributors are still selling Coca-Cola’s products? Did the distributors demand the same conditions with Coca-cola?”

“I am not sure. I will get my men to go find out.”

Manager Zhao rubbed the center of his brows and regrets accepting this job. Opening a new market is too difficult, especially when there is more than one well-known brand there.

Got to find a solution or all the advertisement fees will be wasted. Manager Zhao might also lose his job!

Chapter 856 – Everyone wants to cooperate

“Mr. Zhong, nice to meet you.” Pepsi’s Manager Zhao greeted Zhong Qingxian. He had extended his hand for a handshake, but Zhong Qingxian pretended not to see it.

Zhong Qingxian did not stand up and asked. “Manager Zhao? Why are you so free to visit me?”

“Mr. Zhong, I am also from Hang Zhou like you. We are both from the same hometown, and I need your help.” Manager Zhao said.

Zhong Qingxian frowned. From Hang Zhou? How long had it been since your return to Hang Zhou? Your accent had changed. Need my help? The difficulties you are facing now are caused by me!

In China, there are only so few beverage distributors in every province and Zhong Qingxian, Li Jingwei and the bosses of other beverage companies know all of them.

Among the companies in the alliance, Lehaha’s sales channels are the most comprehensive and have distributors in every province. Their goods will be delivered immediately to the distributors for the first moment whenever they need it.

This time, Lehaha, Jianlibao, and other companies added a new term in their contracts with the distributors. They were willing to offer some benefits to the distributors, but the distributors have to charge those non-China beverages higher prices, making sure those foreign brands will not get any profits.

For example, Pepsi and Coca-Cola were American brands, and they can’t join the Chinese Beverage Industry Association. This is discriminating them indirectly and it is legal.

Even if the two beverage giants agree to the harsh conditions set by the distributors, Lehaha can sue them for dumping. You are selling your product at a loss, and this is consider dumping.

The distributors thought about this and realized cooperating with Lehaha and the alliance will bring more profits as Lehaha’s products were selling much better. If the two cola companies want to work with them, they must agree to the harsh conditions, and the distributors will make more money. Even if the two cola companies do not agree, their losses will not be high as the sales of their products were not very good.

Also, Lehaha told the distributors that the Refreshing series of beverages will be introducing small glass bottle packaging and will let the distributors sell it. Smaller packaging will increase sales, and the distributors’ earnings will be higher.

With so many lucrative terms, the distributors start to make things difficult for the two cola companies. Either you pay us more, or you look for another distributor.

“Manager Zhao, since we are both from the same hometown, let me know what difficulties you are facing, and I will help if it is within my means.” Zhong Qingxian said.

Manager Zhao was overjoyed. There is a saying that Zhejiang’s businessmen are the most united, and coming from the same hometown seems to be effective.

“Mr. Zhong, we have a few bottling factories, and your company needs it. We can cooperate and we will help you all product your products, in return, you can help us contact the distributors in your sales channels.” Manager Zhao said.

Zhong Qingxian rubbed his temples with a troubled look. “Ah… I can’t make the decision on this… Manager Zhao, do you have anything else?”

Manager Zhao’s face changed. Damn! You just said you will help me and you are rejecting me now?!

“Mr. Zhong, why can’t you make the decision on this? Lehaha’s sales channels are the best in China.”

“Sigh… You cannot say this. We are also using distributors to sell our products. How about this? I will give you a list of distributors, and you can contact them yourself.”

Manager Zhao cursed in his heart. What’s the use of giving me a list of distributors? I also have their contacts! What I want are reasonable terms!

“Mr. Zhong, our Pepsi, is very familiar with Coca-Cola sales strategies. We can cooperate against Coca-Cola and in the future, we can control the carbonated drinks market. You all can take the bigger share and we don’t mind having a smaller market share. As for Coca-cola, we will force them out of the Chinese market.” Manager Zhao said.

Pepsi and Coca-Cola were long-time rivals, and Coca-Cola had been trying to suppress Pepsi in every market.

Coca-Cola had entered the Chinese market earlier than Pepsi, but its sales were not doing well and their brand awareness was not high. But after Pepsi enters the Chinese market, Coca-Cola increased its promotion to try to take over this massive market.

But the Chinese still prefer Jianlibao when it comes to fizzy drinks, and they felt Cola tastes weird. After a few years of hard work, the cola companies successfully groomed a group of consumers who likes their products, but Lehaha also introduced Cola flavor drinks.

The two beverage giants were speechless when they realized Lehaha, a newcomer, caught up with them, and their products were selling better than them!

No matter what the two cola companies did, they could not control the Chinese market, and their production cost, transportation cost, sales channels, brand awareness, marketing, etc. had lost to Lehaha.

In terms of scale, Lehaha cannot be compared with the cola companies. But the cola companies’ headquarters were not willing to provide funds to their China offices. Without funds, how are they going to market their products? Finally, their headquarters issued a sum of money for their marketing budget, and they thought their days will change for the better. However, the distributors start to join forces to make things difficult for them!

Manager Zhao thought about the situation and knew it is useless to cooperate with Coca-Cola. They must work with a domestic company to penetrate the market. Pepsi had used this strategy when they enter Europe.

It is difficult for an overseas power to deal with the local forces, and it is wiser to cooperate with the local forces.

Zhong Qingxian hesitated for a moment after he heard what Manager Zhao said. “Hmmm… I need to discuss with the rest before I can give you an answer.”

“Mr. Zhong, we, Pepsi, is very sincere in this cooperation. I will be waiting for your good news.”

Within half an hour after Manager Zhao left, Coca-Cola’s China person-in-charge arrived at Lehaha. What he said was the same as Manager Zhao. Coca-Cola is willing to cooperate with Lehaha against Pepsi.

But the representative from Coca-Cola is very arrogant, unlike Manager Zhao. He refuses to recognize Lehaha as China’s beverage industry leader and only say they will share the Chinese market.

Zhong Qingxian had made up his mind. If Lehaha is going to cooperate with either of them, he will choose Pepsi. Share the market? This is China, and no matter how strong Coca-Cola is in the rest of the world, Lehaha is still the market leader here!

Of course, Zhong Qingxian wanted the Chinese market all to himself, and it would be best if the two cola companies pull out of the Chinese market. But he knows this is impossible. China’s market is too big, and there will still be distributors who are willing to work with them. They can also help some small distributors to grow.

But it is costly and will take a long time before the cola companies can establish their own distribution channels. Base on their current sales volume, the cola companies, will suffer massive losses if they did this.

Zhong Qingxian could not decide whether if they should cooperate with either of the companies, and in the end, he picks up the phone to call Feng Yu.

Chapter 857 – The markets must be based on population

Feng Yu received Li Jingwei’s call after he finishes his phone call with Zhong Qingxian. Li Jingwei told him that Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s China market’s representatives had called him, requesting cooperation with Jianlibao.

Feng Yu immediately knew the conditions given to Jianlibao will be the same as what they had given to Lehaha. They just want to make use of Jianlibao’s sales distribution channels, and in return, they will offer their bottling factories or some promotions.

That means the two Cola factories are not only looking for one company to cooperate. Since they can look for Lehaha and Jianlibao, they will also look for other companies like Le Bashi, Zhenzhen, Rising Sun Group, etc. If they are successful, Feng Yu’s strategy of using the distribution channels will fail.

Luckily, Feng Yu had spoken to the other companies in the beverage alliance, and they should know what to do.

In another two months, it will be autumn and will be the off-peak season for beverages, especially carbonated drinks. By that time, no matter what promotion those two companies do or whatever sales channels they set up, it will be ineffective.

Feng Yu called Zhong Qingxian and Li Jingwei, telling them to delay those two companies and, at the same time, inform the rest of the big brands not to collaborate with them.

……

Manager Zhao was overjoyed when Zhong Qingxian told him to discuss the details of their cooperation. If Pepsi can cooperate with Lehaha, then they will have a strong distribution network and will win Coca-Cola in the Chinese market. After that, Pepsi can invest more funds into their marketing to increase their market share. China is a massive market for them!

Pepsi is not afraid of competing with other Chinese brands, except for Coca-Cola, as the Chinese beverage companies’ scale is far from Pepsi and Coca-Cola. If their headquarters are willing to invest in this market, they can penetrate the market easily.

But Pepsi’s headquarters felt the Chinese consumers’ spending power is too low, and China’s economy is still not strong enough. Even if they invest a large sum of money into advertising there, they might not see the returns.

Chinese consumers’ spending power is much lower than in a small country with a lower population like Japan.

Manager Zhao rushed down to Wind and Rain Building in Beijing but was informed that Zhong Qingxian had returned to Hang Zhou the day before.

Manager Zhao was furious because Zhong Qingxian had lied to him.

He immediately called Zhong Qingxian and was told Lehaha’s headquarters is in Hang Zhou. Beijing’s office is only a branch, and Zhong Qingxian had forgotten to say to him.

Manager Zhao heard this and felt this might be his fault for not clarifying the location properly and immediately book the next flight to Hang Zhou.

After he arrived in Hang Zhou, Lehaha, he was told that Zhong Qingxian had left to sign a contract in Jilin for a bottling factory Lehaha acquired and will not be back today.

Manager Zhao waited a few days for Zhong Qingxian in Hang Zhou. But on the 3rd day, Zhong Qingxian called him to tell him there were some problems with the contract and there will be a delay for 2 more days. If Manager Zhao needs to meet him urgently, he can look for him in Jilin.

How can Manager Zhao not be anxious? This was the first time Pepsi invested in aggressive advertising in China, but they do not have sufficient distribution channels and their sales remained low. He is under immense pressure to show results.

But when Manager Zhao arrives at Jilin, Zhong Qingxian had returned to Hang Zhou, and he had missed him at the airport. Zhong Qingxian claims that his phone’s battery was flat and could not notify him.

Just like this, Zhong Qianxian delayed Pepsi for 10 days, and Jianlibao also used various reasons to delay Coca-Cola’s representative for about the same number of days.

The Chinese representatives for both companies felt something was off. They were purposely wasting their time and the time wasted could be used to meet other beverage companies. Now, they had offended other companies and still haven’t got the chance to meet Zhong Qingxian and Li Jingwei!

When the representatives went to look for Le Bashi and the other companies, they were rejected. They had promised to start their cooperation as soon as possible, but they let these companies wait for them for more than 10 days!

The two cola companies might be powerful in other countries, but in China, they were no match for these Chinese companies.

You want to cooperate now? Sure. But it will not be limited to China market. We want cooperation in the international market too. We will share our distribution channels in China, but you all must also share your channels overseas with us.

The representatives did not agree as Pepsi, and Coca-Cola’s scale is 100 times bigger than these Chinese companies. Furthermore, the Chinese market might be big and got high potential, but it is not open up yet. How can it be compared to the developed overseas market?

Actually, these few companies have no intention of working with them. They were riding on Lehaha and Jianlibao now and were enjoying the benefits of being in the alliance without having to pay much to have their products exported!

Feng Yu told these companies that if they work with the two cola companies, the alliance will stop exporting their products overseas.

Now, Lehaha and Jianlibao’s brands’ awareness is increasing because of their aggressive marketing. Even without the rest of the companies, they can also occupy a full supermarket shelf with their variety of products.

Le Bashi, Zhenzhen, and the rest of the companies thought for a while and offered this condition to the cola companies. If they were to cooperate, the two cola companies must share their overseas channels.

Beverages taste quite similar, and the one who controls the sales channel will control the market and get the highest profits!

The two companies had failed to cooperate with the Chinese companies and were about to suggest to their higher-ups to set up their own distribution channels and groom some smaller distributors, when Lehaha contacted Coca-Cola and Jianlibao contacted Pepsi.

The two cola companies were overjoyed to hear this. This time, they should be able to work out some deals.

That’s right. Lehaha and Jianlibao are willing to negotiate with them and offered harsh conditions. Pepsi and Jianlibao had worked together before, and Manager Zhao thought they could cooperate again. But Li Jingwei’s first sentence almost made him vomit blood.

“We will exchange market. What market are you offering to exchange for our Chinese market?”

Manager Zhao thought for a while and decided to use the US market for exchange. Anyway, Pepsi will be increasing its advertisements in the Us, and Jianlibao’s products were already sold in the retail stores. Even if they were to share their channels, Jianlibao will also not increase their sales too much.

Also, Jianlibao’s sales channels in China will increase Pepsi’s sales.

“The market is not calculated base on land area. We are selling beverages to people, and it should be based on the population. You all should offer a market with the same population as China for us to have a deal.” Li Jingwei replied.

Manager Zhao almost fainted. He had never heard that the market is based on the population. China has more than 1 billion people, and they must offer its sales channels in the whole American continent in exchange! Do you want the African market as well?!

There is no point in negotiating anymore. These Chinese bosses were just taking them for a ride!

Chapter 858 – It’s the opposite

Zhong Qingxian and Li Jingwei informed Feng Yu about the progress of delaying the two cola companies, and the companies in the alliance did not betray the.

Actually, the companies in the alliance also want to stop these two companies from entering the Chinese market. The cake is only so big and there are already many beverage companies competing. If these two beverage giants enter the competition, they might lose their market share.

These two beverage giants had used this tactic to acquire domestic beverage companies in several countries.

The other Chinese companies have the same thoughts as Lehaha and Jianlibao. Everyone wants to keep the market for themselves and open up new markets!

Successful beverage companies like these two cola companies generate high profits annually, and the population in China is high. If the Chinese companies can maintain their market share, their profits will keep increasing.

Feng Yu felt they had missed out on something as the two cola companies should not be beaten so quickly using this simple tactic. China is a massive market and they will not give up so quickly.

Soon, Feng Yu knew what countermeasures the two cola companies used.

Products from the two cola companies start appearing in small towns and villages. These small retail stores are the blind spots of Lehaha, Jianlibao, and the rest of the companies.

When Feng Yu received this piece of news, he felt unbelievable. This is the opposite of what it should be. Shouldn’t it be the two cola companies forcing other brands to sell their products outside of major cities?!

Feng Yu frowned. Only the lowest tier distributors will supply goods to the towns and villages. The spending power of several towns and villages cannot even be compared to a major city, and the transportation and storage cost is much higher. This should not be what the two cola companies be doing!

This is the classic strategy of using the villages and towns to surround a city. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Lehaha and Fen Huang Cola used this strategy. Their products appeared in large quantities in the villages and used a lower pricing strategy to grab market share, and their marketing strategy is using TV commercials and putting up posters everywhere in the villages.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the two cola giants had built up their reputation and secured the sales channels in major cities. No one could pull them off the throne, and the rest of the companies had to use other ways to compete with them. Although Lehaha and Fen Huang Cola supplied their products only to villages and towns, they also made a few hundred million annually.

But this strategy is used by smaller companies against more prominent companies. Why are the two beverage giants using this strategy? This will lower their brand’s position, putting their products on a level lower than the Chinese beverages.

Even if the cola companies decided to do this, how did they sell their products to the villages in such a short time? Feng Yu does not believe they had established their own distribution channels. No companies can set up their own network of distribution channels so fast!

Such things can be investigated easily, and the findings made Feng Yu frowned.

Pepsi is cooperating with Kang Shifu, and Coca-Cola is working with Tong Yi. These two Taiwanese companies had been focusing on the village and town markets this year because they can’t win against Lehaha in the cities.

But setting up these distribution channels requires high investment, and the spending power in the villages are not high. Until now, the Taiwanese companies are still making losses.

At this time, the two beverage giants approached them, seeking cooperation. These two Taiwanese companies were kicked out of the beverage alliance and were on bad terms with the companies in the alliance. All 4 companies have common enemies, and cooperation is not a problem.

Also, the two Taiwanese companies were slapped with hefty fines by the local authorities recently and they hate the Chinese beverage companies!

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that Pepsi and Kang Shifu had worked together in his previous life. In Feng Yu’s past life, Pepsi had sold their bottling factories to Kang Shifu and even sold a new Cola flavor formula to them, in exchange for Kang Shifu producing and selling Pepsi’s products for them.

Of course, Kang Shifu paid an astronomical amount to Pepsi in this deal.

After they cooperated, Pepsi managed to suppress Coca-Cola in China and Southeast Asia. Their products’ sales overtake Coca-Cola, and the Chinese market becomes the most profitable market for Pepsi.

Feng Yu never expect Pepsi to do the same in this life. But this time, Pepsi’s cooperation with Kang Shifu is different. Kang Shifu had not become the leader of the tea beverage industry and do not have a comprehensive distribution network. Their brand also did not become popular in China.

Kang Shifu had invested a lot into their own distribution channels and getting the distributing Pepsi’s products for them can help them lower their cost. More importantly, Pepsi will let Kang Shifu use their bottling factories to increase their production capacity and reduce its transportation cost.

This is a win-win situation for both companies.

Coca-Cola also noticed this and chose to work with Tong Yi. Their cooperation with Tong Yi is the same as Pepsi and Kang Shifu.

In conclusion, all of them have the common enemy, the Chinese beverage alliance, and this alliance controls the pricing of beverages in China market.

The products of the companies in the alliance are selling at similar prices and don’t engage in price wars against each other. All the companies in the partnerships are united against the two beverage giants and want to get them out of the Chinese market. At the same time, they also want to suppress the two Taiwanese companies and force them to pull out from the beverage industry.

The two beverage giants had no other choices but to do this. The villages will get wealthy in the future, and their spending power will increase eventually. Also, they are not giving up on the cities, as the two Taiwanese companies have connections there.

Although the two Taiwanese companies do not have beverage distributors in the cities, they are selling instant noodles. Their network of distributors might not be as strong as Lehaha, but they are on the same level as Jianlibao.

The cola companies want to make use of their connections to get back the cities’ market and at the same time, control the market of the surrounding villages. This way, they will maintain their brand awareness and will make a comeback to the cities within 2 years. By that time, they will have set up their own distribution networks.

So, the US cola companies formed an alliance with the two Taiwanese companies and solved their sales distribution channels woes.

This incident reminded Feng Yu and the other Chinese companies not to look down on other companies. They will always find a way around the barriers.

Zhong Qingxian and Li Jingwei were furious. It’s these two Taiwanese companies again. Without them, Pepsi and Coca-Cola’s losses this year will be much higher.

Hmph! You two started by selling instant noodles? Then Lehaha will also start selling instant noodles! In the past, Zhong Qingxian still has some hesitation about whether if they should sell instant noodles. But now, he is set on going against these Taiwanese companies.

You all are the ones who stick your hands into my pot. Don’t blame me for snatching everything from your plates!

Chapter 859 – Weird Japanese

Feng Yu had mentioned to Zhong Qingxian before. Although there are many instant noodle companies in China, all the companies made the same mistake, which is the flavor. All the instant noodles in China taste the same. Whatever flavor you are selling, I will also introduce the same flavor.

To be better than the rest, Lehaha must not be a follower because being a follower of other brands will not make money. Initially, Zhong Qingxian felt it is troublesome to develop new flavors and texture of instant noodles, and Lehaha does not have any experience in fried food products.

But now, Zhong Qingxian is determined to produce instant noodles and get a slice of the cake from the two instant noodles companies!

At this time, Feng Yu returned to China with two Japanese.

Chinese brands of instant noodles taste awful and cannot be compared to instant noodles from other countries. Asia is the biggest producer of instant noodles and China consumed the most, but the Chinese brands of instant noodles suck.

In Feng Yu’s past life, someone made a ranking of the instant noodles produced. Tong Yi is the biggest instant noodle producer in the world, and Kang Shifu is also on the list. But when it comes to taste, none of the noodles from these two companies made it into the list.

Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam have the best noodle texture and flavoring.

But instant noodles from these countries are more expensive, and in China, people eat instant noodles is to save money and consumers will buy the cheapest brand.

I have to eat instant noodles to survive now. Who cares about the taste or nutrients?

“Old Zhong, let me introduce. This is Japan’s Sixth Sense Company’s Chairman, Kameda Masao. The Sixth Sense Company is listed on Nasdaq and is the leader in its industry. This is Japan’s Qianqian Ramen’s President and General Manager, Mugawa Jiro. Their company had just developed a new flavor of instant noodles, and the texture of the noodle is better and the flavoring is better. But the production cost is slightly higher. You mentioned that Lehaha’s instant noodle must be better than those two Taiwanese companies. So, I think we can buy the formula from this company.”

Zhong Qingxian frowned and whispered to Feng Yu. “Manager Feng, why did you bring two Japanese devils here?”

Kameda Masao’s mouth twitched. Fuck! I understand Chinese! If you want to talk bad about others, at least do it behind their backs! My ancestors are all against the war and had never stepped into China during WW2!

Furthermore, since ancient times, it is the Chinese who bullied Japan. You all had conquered us longer! Why didn’t you bring this up?!

“Cough…” Feng Yu looked embarrassed. “Old Zhong, Mr. Kameda, had lived in China for several years and can speak Chinese.”

Zhong Qingxian’s face turned black and was slightly embarrassed. Why didn’t you tell me earlier? How are we going to negotiate now?

Kameda Masao speaks fluent mandarin. “Mr. Zhong, my family have also been against the war. I am the only person from my family to enter China and we should not treat each other as enemies. We are all peace-loving people, right?”

Zhong Qingxian was stunned. What’s wrong with this Japanese? I had just scolded them, and they did not stomp off or lose their temper?

I thought all Japanese are arrogant in China. Could it be the last time our Chinese Government reprimanded Japan, and these Japanese devils are scare?

“That’s right. We are all peace lovers. Did Mr. Mugawa Jiro bring a sample of his new instant noodle?” Zhong Qingxian was puzzled. Even if Lehaha were to buy the instant noodle’s formula from Qianqian Ramen, what has it got to do with the Sixth Sense Company?

Also, why does this Sixth Sense Company sound so familiar? It should be a big company since I find the name sounds familiar. Manager Feng also said the Sixth Sense Company is the best in its industry…

But why is the Chairman of a listed company coming here as a translator? Is it because of Manager Feng?

Kameda Masao was really here as a translator and guarantor. This Qianqian Ramen Company had some problems with its cash flow because they had overspent their development funds and require a sum of money to tide them over. As they still owe the banks money, they could not get loans anymore. So, they had to sell their instant noodle formula to raise funds.

Just happen, Feng Yu called Kameda Masao to help him source for an instant noodle company to buy some recipes, and Kameda Masao saw Qianqian Ramen, which is located near his office.

Kameda Masao sent his men to contact them and found out that Qianqian Ramen is looking for a buyer for their new flavor instant noodle’s recipe. Mugawa Jiro found out that the buyer is from China and is overjoyed, as the buyer will not compete with them in Japan.

Kameda Masao also felt this Qianqian Ramen’s new instant noodle is delicious and should be profitable. So, he invested in this company and gave the shares of this company to his children. He knows if this instant noodle is accepted by the Chinese consumers, there will be high profits, and he doesn’t need to worry about the other Chinese companies imitating this flavor.

Japanese emphasizes a lot of seniority and status. Kameda Masao’s Sixth Sense Company is much bigger than Qianqian Ramen and Mugawa Jiro believes Kameda Masao is not cheating his money. Moreover, Kameda had invested a sum of money into this company.

After the two cup noodles are cooked, Zhong Qingxian’s secretary brought over a few small bowls and served a small portion to everyone at the meeting.

Everyone had tasted instant noodles before. Even now, with Zhong Qingxian’s wealth, he will still eat instant noodles in his office when he is too busy to go out for lunch.

Zhong Qingxian tasted this new flavor instant noodles and found that it is more delicious than Kang Shifu!

Mugawa Jiro said something in Japanese and Zhong Qingxian turned to Kameda Masao.

“Mugawa Jiro says this is seafood flavor and this is beef broth noodles. These are newly developed flavors by their company, and even the noodles are made using the most advanced technology. Have you all tasted instant noodles with this texture?” Kameda Masao said.

Zhong Qingxian looked at the rest and everyone shook their heads. This instant noodle’s taste and texture are the best! If they buy this recipe and introduce it to the market, it will surely be popular.

“The taste is good, but how much does the production cost? Also, how much do you all want for these recipes?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

Kameda Masao took a look at Feng Yu and said to Zhong Qingxian. “The cost can be controlled at around 2 RMB if you are producing it at large volume. Lehaha is the leader in the Chinese beverage industry, and I think you will give us a reasonable price.”

Zhong Qingxian was shocked. Is this really a business negotiation? You will agree if I say I want to buy the recipes at 1 RMB?!

Why is this Japanese so weird, and how come he keeps looking at Manager Feng? They know each other?

Chapter 860 – Curiosity kills the cat

Before Zhong Qingxian reply, someone by his side asked. “Chairman, this price is too high. Even without adding the cost of the recipe, the production cost of each instant noodle is 2 RMB. How much should we set the retail price? At least 5 RMB? Currently, the retail prices of instant noodles in China is between 0.60 to 2 RMB. Our cost is higher than other brands’ retail prices. How are we going to make money?”

Zhong Qingxian kept quiet. He had thought about the pricing of their instant noodles before and felt if Lehaha is to selling instant noodles, it must be more expensive than Kang Shifu!

Furthermore, the noodles in this packet of instant noodles and flavoring powder packages are bigger. All these can be reduced, and the cost can be lowered to below 2 RMB.

Lehaha already has existing distribution networks. Those beverage distributors can also help them sell instant noodles and there is Tai Hua Supermarkets. These are all Lehaha’s advantage.

The problem now is the price of this recipe. How much should he offer, and what’s the relationship between those two Japanese and Feng Yu?

Feng Yu did not say a word and sipped on his tea slowly. He acted like he was here to introduce both parties, but Zhong Qingxian doesn’t think so.

Feng Yu had brought these two Japanese over personally, and this tells a lot about his attitude. Although the final decision maker in Lehaha is Zhong Qingxian, Feng Yu is the major shareholder. Feng Yu’s assets are several times more than him and it is not a wise idea to offend Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, how much do you think this instant noodle recipe is worth?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

“Just offer what you think is a reasonable price. I am only introducing them to you, and I won’t interfere with your decision. I got nothing to do with this Qianqian Ramen.” Feng Yu laughed and shook his head.

Zhong Qingxian was relieved. Since Feng Yu is not related to Qianqian Ramen, then it will be easier for him to negotiate.

Zhong Qingxian stood up and walked aside to discuss with the rest of the higher management staff. After 5 minutes, he returned.

“Mr. Mugawa Jiro, Lehaha is willing to buy out these two recipes. We will offer 4 million for your noodle’s recipe and 2 million for each of the flavoring. The total is 8 million RMB.”

“Mr. Zhong, we need to inform you that we are willing to sell these recipes, but we also want the right to use it. However, we will not sell these recipes to anyone or any companies. Our products will also not be exported to China.” Kameda Masao explained.

“Ok.” Zhong Qingxian does not intend to sell his instant noodles overseas and even if he decided to do so in the future, this small instant noodle company is also no match for Lehaha.

“This pricing is lower than what we expected, but Mr. Mugawa Jiro is willing to accept it.” Kameda Masao said to Zhong Qingxian after he discussed it with Mugawa Jiro.

Zhong Qingxian was surprised again. He thought the Japanese will bargain with him, and the offer price in his heart was much higher. Just the noodles technology is worth at least 8 million RMB.

Zhong Qingxian looked at Feng Yu, and Feng Yu smiled.

After both parties finalized the deal, Kameda Masao and Mugawa Jiro returned to their hotel to prepare the documents, and Zhong Qingxian asked his men to prepare the contract. After everyone left, Zhong Qingxian looked at Feng Yu. “Manager Feng, you are close with those two Japanese?”

“I had dealt with Kameda Masao several times, but I just got to know Mugawa Jiro. Their instant noodles taste quite nice, especially their noodle’s texture. That’s why I introduce them to Lehaha.”

“But, I feel that we got the upper hand in this negotiation.” Zhong Qingxian replied.

Feng Yu: “……” What are you thinking? Isn’t it good to have the upper hand in the negotiation?

“No one in Japan is interested in their instant noodles recipes, and they can’t sell it at high prices. But in China, their recipes are valuable. Qianqian Ramen is a small company and they needed money to solve their financial issues. You think you had gotten a good deal, they also don’t think they had suffered any losses.”

Based on Kameda Masao’s description, Qianqian Ramen’s scale is equivalent to a county-level small factory. This 8 million RMB deal and Kameda’s investment is enough to revive this small factory.

After this, Lehaha can develop their own flavors, imitate the other brands, or continue to purchase recipes from other instant noodles company.

Zhong Qingxian nodded. Qianqian Ramen is only a small company, and he thought it is a big Japanese company. But their noodles taste good and should be popular in the Chinese market.

“Manager Feng, what is Kameda’s company dealing with?” Zhong Qingxian asked curiously. He is interested to know more about this Sixth Sense Company, which is also the market leader in its industry.

“Err… this Sixth Sense Company… is mainly dealing with rubber and silicon products and apparel.” Feng Yu rubbed his nose and replied.

“Rubber products?”

“Alright. Let’s not talk about him. How are Lehaha’s developments recently? Are there any problems?” Feng Yu quickly changed the subject as he does not want to tell Zhong Qingxian that Sixth Sense Company is selling sex dolls, and he will ask how Feng Yu get to know him. Zhong Qingxian might even suspect he had bought sex dolls from Kameda before.

“No problem. Our products are very popular, and we should maintain our market share and profits.”

“We are going to spend a lot of new factories, advertising, and introducing new products. We also need to develop new products. The company’s finance should be tight.”

“Yes. Our finances are under a bit of pressure, but it is not a big problem. Furthermore, we can get loans and next year, our overseas sales should increase, and the overseas profits should solve our problem!” Zhong Qingxian replied confidently. Although Lehaha does not have a lot of cash now, their profits from their domestic sales are enough to cover its operational cost.

Zhong Qingxian emphasizes a lot on his products’ sales distribution channels. The local distribution channels are established and had started setting up their overseas distribution channels. The next step is to expand their influence to the counties, townships, and villages.

Those beverage companies are surrounding the cities through the villages? I will expand from the cities outwards and start promoting our products in the villages. Let’s see who the consumers prefer!

Feng Yu chatted with Zhong Qingxian for a while before leaving. It’s been a while since he returns to China, and he still has to visit his other companies.

Kameda Masao and Mugawa Jiro returned and signed the contract with Zhong Qingxian. Once Lehaha had verified the recipe, they will wire the money over.

After the deal was signed, Zhong Qingxian asked after they shook hands. “Mr. Kameda, what is your company selling?”

Kameda Masao looked at Zhong Qingxian. “Manager Feng did not tell you? You can find our products besides the cashiers of most supermarkets.”

After Kameda Masao left, Zhong Qingxian called his secretary over. “Are there any products besides the supermarket’s cashiers under the brand, Sixth Sense?”

Zhong Qingxian’s secretary looked at his boss weirdly. “Boss, you want it? I had bought some yesterday, and it is still in my bag. Should I pass you one box?”

“Bring it over!” Zhong Qingxing was mad. What’s with that expression? You think I will not pay you for that product?

When Zhong Qingxing saw his secretary passed a box of condoms to him, his face turns black. This Sixth Sense company is selling condoms?!

Zhong Qingxian felt embarrassed by the way his secretary look at him…

Chapter 861 – Mobile phone

“Old Xu, Old Duan, what sort of good news you all want to tell me?” Feng Yu picked up his teacup and took a sip.

Duan Yongping looked at Xu Lihua. “Old Xu, you should be the one saying this.”

Xu Lihua nodded. He had contributed the most to the team and was also the leader.

“Manager Feng, we had successfully developed a mobile phone!”

Feng Yu put down his teacup immediately and asked: “It is developed?! That’s great! Is it the flip phone I suggested?”

“This is the prototype.” Xu Lihua opened a small box and took out a mobile phone carefully.

This is Aiwa Electronics’ first successful developed mobile phone prototype and it’s valuable. If it wasn’t for Feng Yu, he would never take it out.

Feng Yu switch on the phone and the screen is small, and it is black and white. The buttons are also tiny, and the phone is only about 10 cm long and 5 cm wide. But the thickness is more than 3 cm.

But this is a flip phone, and it is understandable for it to be slightly thicker.

Feng Yu frowned as he checked the menu and go through the functions. There are only two functions in the phone. Making calls and SMS. There should have some simple games!

Feng Yu was even more unpleased when he heard the ringtone. This is not 40-polyphonic Ring Tone?

Xu Lihua and Duan Yongping saw Feng Yu’s expression, and the joy and excitement on their faces disappeared.

Manager Feng is not satisfied with this mobile phone? But they felt this phone is already the best.

“You all must improve on the following. First, when the phone is not flipped open, you can’t see the number. There are incoming caller ID services now, and you also should know, right? Although this service is expensive, more people will start using it in the future, and the call will be answered when I flip open the phone. What happens if I do not want to answer calls from this number? So, you all should add a small LCD screen on the cover to display the incoming call’s number and a button to hang up the call on the side. If I don’t want to answer the call, I can hang up.”

Xu Lihua immediately takes out his notebook to record it. Manager Feng’s suggestions are priceless…

“Secondly, the cover is so big, and the screen is too small. Didn’t I say you all can cooperate with Wind and Rain Electronics on the screen? Their LCD technology research is quite advance and why is it in Black and White? Overseas mobile phones are already using colored screens and we must do the same.”

“Third, the ringtone is too awful, and there is only the most traditional ringtone inside. You all should improve on the ringtone’s quality and then increase the varieties of ringtones. Also, we must have our own unique ringtone and when people hear this ringtone, they will know this is our phone. Never mind. I will prepare this ringtone myself.” Feng Yu needs time to decide which music to be used as Aiwa’s mobile phone’s ringtone and opening tone.

“Fourth, the functions of this phone are too little. Other than making calls and sending SMS, you all can add in some simple games, like Tetris, Snake, etc.”

Xu Lihua was shocked and asked. “Manager Feng, this phone is not cheap and is not those handheld games. Who is willing to use this phone for games? What if the buttons are damaged when playing games?”

“That’s why you all must make the buttons sturdier and make sure our phones are durable. What’s the point of getting something so expensive and not pressing the button?” Feng Yu rolled his eyes.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Nokia phones were the best and can be used to break walnuts. But the later generations of phones did not focus on durability, as no one will drop their phone purposely. In the end, it was the phone’s protective covers that become popular. Furthermore, if the phone’s buttons were damaged when playing games, the consumers will get a new one.

“Lastly, it is the phone’s operating system’s functions. You must tell Kingsoft to increase the functionalities. Alright. I will speak to them about this. You all just try to make this phone thinner and studier. The exterior designs must be improved and offer more color varieties like our pagers. Oh, how long can this phone’s battery last?”

“The batteries are custom-made by Wind and Rain Batteries, and it can last longer than the phones in the market. The talk time is 50% longer, but the cost is much higher.”

“Expensive is not a problem. This will also be one of our selling points. The people who buy mobile phones are mostly businessmen and they will not want their phones to go dead during crucial times. When we introduce our phones, we must include a spare battery for our customers to change battery when their phones go dead.”

“Give out a free battery? Our cost will increase further.”

“Can’t you include the spare battery’s cost into the retail price? This is like we are selling one more phone battery!” Feng Yu gave Xu Lihua a stare. These engineers are so stupid!

Look at Duan Yongping. He is also a researcher, but he is flexible! Aiwa’s cordless phones and Wind and Rain cordless phones are selling so well, and the advertisement he chose left a deep impression with the viewers.

Products must be developed based on the user’s requirements and must emphasize the user experience. The product must not be designed based on the researcher or engineer’s preference. Also, products are developed to be sold and not for show. It must be profitable!

Xu Lihua suddenly realized this. That’s right. We can tell the consumers that the phone comes with a spare battery, and the cost of the battery can be included in the selling price. Manager Feng is so smart. Why didn’t I think of this before?

“What’s the cost of this phone now?” Feng Yu played with this heavy phone in his hands and asked.

“If we are mass-producing this phone, the cost can be lowered to below 2,000 RMB.” Xu Lihua replied proudly.

The mobile phones in the market cost at least 6,000, and some better brands cost more than 12,000 RMB. Not all of these phones are imported and one of these brands is a Chinese brand, Panda!

Panda started producing mobile phones in 1993 and is China’s first domestic company to get a network access license. But their technologies are average, and their products’ designs are ugly.

When Feng Yu suggested producing mobile phones, Xu Lihua said they will exceed Panda phones within 3 years. Feng Yu was furious when he heard this. This idiot lacks ambition. What’s the point of exceeding Panda? If they were to exceed some companies, it should also be Motorola.

If the target is not set higher, the engineers will not be motivated. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Nokia had beat Motorola. Why can’t Aiwa Electronics do the same?

Aiwa has sufficient funds and futuristic designs. If Xu Lihua and the rest still cannot meet Feng Yu’s expectations, Feng Yu will be utterly disappointed!

“This should be enough to guarantee our profitability and competitiveness. Our next step is to prepare the mass production of mobile phones, and our pager production must be stopped within 3 years. In the future, people from all over the world will be using our phones!”

Chapter 862 – Obsolete within 5 years

“Director Fang, everything is so simple. I just need your help to expedite the approval before the foreigners earn all the money.” Feng Yu joked. The ministries’ efficiency is too slow, and Feng Yu can only look for Director Fang to get the network access license.

“Your mobile phone had reached international standards?” Director Fang was skeptical about this. The Panda Company had been selling mobile phones for years and dare not claim their phones are as good as overseas brands.

“Oh, I forgot I had brought a few phones for you to test it. You can try it first. If my products are not as good as overseas brands, I will tear the network access license even if it is approved!” Feng Yu exclaimed.

Director Fang played with the mobile phone for a while. There are no problems with making calls and sending and receiving SMS. The words on the screen are clear and the voice quality is crystal clear. Even the ringtones are better.

“This is a good phone, and the designs and colors are nice. How much are you all selling this phone?” Director Fang was pleased.

If China’s domestic phones can compete with overseas brands, that means China’s electronics industry is developing fast and catching up with the rest of the world!

“Director Fang, how much are you willing to pay for this phone?” Feng Yu throw the question back at him.

“There are a lot of functions and is beautifully designed. If this is an imported product, it should cost about 10,000 RMB. You produced this phone under the Aiwa brand, and it should be at least 8,000 RMB, right?”

Feng Yu was not pleased. What do you mean by there are a lot of functions and beautifully designed? Just because ours is not an imported phone, it is worth lesser?

But you are wrong. I have no intention of selling my phones so expensive. Although the mobile phone is still a luxury product, it is not as luxurious as before.

Also, most of the mobile phones in the market are overseas brands, and even if Aiwa is China’s top Pager manufacturer, it is still a newcomer to the mobile phone market. If Aiwa were to sell at about the same prices as the rest of the mobile phones in the market, there would not be an advantage.

“Director Fang, the retail price for this phone is below 7,000 RMB. 6,666 RMB! Isn’t it auspicious?”

Director Fang rolled his eyes. “Are all businessmen superstitious?”

“We are not the ones superstitious. It is those who can afford mobile phones that are superstitious. ‘Liu Liu Da Shun’ sounds good…”

“You all are businessmen, and even if you are selling at 6,666 RMB, your profits should also be high, right?” Director Fang laughed.

“I did not say I am not earning from these phones. Furthermore, I am paying my workers’ high salaries. I am just following what our government says. Paying according to their contributions.” Feng Yu starts to bootlick.

“According to contributions? What did you do?” Director Fang purposely asked.

“I am the one who comes up with this idea and the exterior designs’ patents belong to me, and I suggested most of the functions on this phone. Most importantly, I paid for the development. My money does not drop from the sky and I donated a lot of money. Name me someone who donated more than me.”

Feng Yu complained.

When mentioned about donations, Director Fang asked curiously. “I heard you made a lot of donations this year in Longjiang province and the areas near inland lakes. All the donations are for building dams and strengthening the riverbanks. What’s wrong? You want the people to erect a statue to worship you?”

“Director Fang, I am doing charity, and what’s wrong with that? The government doesn’t allow it? At most, I will not donate any more money.” Feng Yu ‘threatens’ Director Fang.

“Hahaha, you are threatening me? The leaders don’t understand why you are doing this. You behave like you love to make money, but you made more donations than others. You are doing legitimate businesses and don’t need any ‘protection’ from the government. Can you tell me what you are after?” Director Fang asked.

All the leaders in the Central Government are curious about the motives behind Feng Yu’s donations.

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. “It’s simple… I can’t finish spending my money!”

Director Fang: “……”

Director Fang doesn’t know how to react to this arrogant and straightforward reason. The Central Government already knows Feng Yu is the wealthiest person in China, and his personal assets are more than many state-owned enterprises. He does have more money than he can spend.

This is a good thing for China. But is this really the reason why Feng Yu made all those donations?

Never mind. As long as what Feng Yu does benefit the country, who cares about what he thinks.

“Feng Yu, what do you think of our country’s telecommunication developments? Your Aiwa Electronics is considered the leading telecommunication company in China, and you all even developed your own mobile phones. Don’t forget to help your fellow Chinese.”

Feng Yu looked at Director Fang. What’s the meaning of this? When I manufacture pagers, the ministries organized a visit to my factories, and the state-owned enterprises started to produce pagers after the visit.

Now I am manufacturing mobile phones, and you all want to take advantage of me again?

I can give you all the outdated patents after we have developed more advanced technologies for our mobile phones. But you all want our technologies now? Impossible!

“Help our Chinese? Director Fang, are you joking with me? Our country’s technological research is more advanced than Aiwa Electronics. You all have so many scientists, and all of them are getting high salaries and benefits. They need our help? The state-owned telecommunication products manufacturers are lucky to meet the telecommunication boom. But with their foresight, I dare to say those companies will decline within 5 years!” Feng Yu sneered.

Director Fang asked. “Why? These companies are doing well with their pagers and will make more profits if they produce mobile phones. Even if they just follow your footsteps, they should not be on the decline.”

Damn! Follow our footsteps? Shameless! You all are just shamelessly following trends and imitating others!

We manufacture pagers, and it’s okay for you to do the same. I did not say anything about you all imitating the exterior and internal circuit designs of our pagers as we need to get the market share from Motorola. But those state-owned enterprises’ leaders think they can manufacture pagers for another 20 years!

Within 3 years, pagers will do downhill, and 5 years later, pagers will be obsoleted. Technology is developing faster than those old leaders can imagine.

Feng Yu knows it will be too late when those leaders realized it. The mobile phone is different from the pager and just copying blindly is doom to fail.

Those companies’ have 100 times more salespeople than researchers, and they dare to enter the electronics industry? Hmmm… maybe they got nowhere to spend their money.

“Pagers will be obsolete within 5 years! Mobile phones will be the common mobile telecommunication device in the future. These are my predictions and it is up to you whether to believe me or not. If the Government continues to grant Network Access License to those pager manufacturers, the government will have to take responsibility when they go bust!”

Chapter 863 – They will be doomed if they don’t invest in technological developments

Bankrupt?!

Director Fang was shocked to hear this from Feng Yu.

Also, what did Feng Yu say? Pagers will be obsolete after 5 years? How is that possible?

The pager industry is on the rise now, and last year, there are more than 16 million new sign-ups in China, and paging centers were set up all over China. How is it possible that pagers will be obsolete in 5 years?

“Feng Yu, you are saying that pagers might be replaced by mobile phones?” Director Fang saw Feng Yu looking at his mobile phones on the table and asked.

“This is reality. Why do people use pagers? People use pagers to be contactable when they are outside, and mobile phones can solve this problem. You think mobile phone charges are high? But SMS is very cheap, and people will rather send SMS than calling the paging centers to send messages.”

“No… the price of pagers had dropped to below 2,000 RMB, and the cheapest mobile phone in the market is around 6,000 RMB.”

“Director Fang, when pagers cost 4 to 5 thousand, the average annual salary of our people is around 1,000 RMB. That means an ordinary worker got to save all his salary for 4 years to afford a pager. But how come so many people can afford pagers now? Is it because the price of pagers had dropped, or the average salary of the people had increased? Our country’s economy is improving rapidly, and we have more middle-income families. If there is a better telecommunication device, they will not get it? Also, how do you know that mobile phones’ prices will not fall below 2,000 RMB like pagers in the future?”

“What? Mobile phone prices will drop below 2,000 RMB?!” Director Fang’s eyes grew wide. How much is the production cost of a mobile phone? The returns from the mobile phone are very high!

“I am talking about the future. Just look at pagers. When we developed the pagers, the production cost is around 2,000 to 3,000 RMB. But now, the production cost is not even 1,000 RMB. Only the production cost of our latest product, high-speed Han characters pager, is more than 2,000 RMB. The production cost of pagers can be reduced so much within 2 to 3 years, why can’t mobile phones’ production cost be lowered?”

“But a few days ago, Minister Zhao of the Ministry of Telecommunications reported that our country’s pager users will increase by more than 15 million or more annual in the coming two years.”

“I believe there will be so many new sign-ups. But don’t forget about the ones canceling their pager services.” Feng Yu smiled and looked at Director Fang.

Director Fang was stunned and remembered that he is also one of the people who had canceled his pager services. The figure reported by the Ministry of Telecommunications is not accurate. This is like giving a report on the population. There might be a lot of newborns, but there might be more people who passed away.

People who canceled their pager services should be switching to mobile phones. That means the mobile phone industry’s potential is higher than the pagers!

Yes. The government must not grant any more Pager’s Network Access License and encourage more companies to take up to Mobile phones’ Network Access License. If most of the pager users switched to mobile phones, it would be a considerable market. Feng Yu cannot swallow the whole pie by himself and the government should not let those overseas companies take advantage of this.

“What’s wrong? Are you thinking of developing the mobile phone industry?” Feng Yu laughed and asked.

“That’s right. Your company’s production should not be high enough to meet our domestic demands, right?” Director Fang said this shamelessly. After all, he is doing this for the country and not his personal gains.

“Of course. It is a good thing if there are more mobile phone companies and it will open the market faster. However, if it is still those pager companies switching to mobile phones, they might make some money in the initial phase, but after that, they will close down.” Feng Yu replied.

Director Fang was not pleased to hear this. “You are saying only your company can survive and others can’t? I admit your companies are doing very well, but you should not look down on others.”

Those companies are all state-owned enterprises and have the support of the local government. How can they fail? Close down after the initial phase? I don’t believe it!

“Director Fang, have you notice what’s common in all my companies?” Feng Yu asked.

“What’s common? The management of the brands?” Director Fang guessed.

“That’s right. But branding is not the most important. My companies emphasized on R&D to keep improving our technologies. Our researchers and engineers are paid more than middle management staff. You should still remember what the ‘Great One’ said. Technology is the best productivity! Did those companies who follow the trend blindly look into developing their technologies?” Feng Yu asked.

“Why not? They also hire experts to develop their technologies.” Director Fang retorted. You think only your company has experts?

“I know they have experts, and some of their experts are more skilled than our researchers. But how many experts do those companies have? How many people are there in their development team? A professor and a few of his students? Do you know how many researchers and engineers are there in Aiwa Electronics? Just in China alone, there is more than 100 technical staff. We still have staff from the former Soviet Union and Japan. When we developed this mobile phone, we still seek help from my other companies and there is a few hundred staff in the R&D departments of those companies. More than 1,000 researchers and engineers participate in the development of this mobile phone.”

“It is only a mobile phone. You can just buy one from the market and bring it back to reverse engineer it. Why do you need so many people?” Director Fang doesn’t believe what Feng Yu said.

This is only a small device and should not require so much manpower to develop it. Feng Yu must be lying.

Feng Yu had lied, but what he said was not wrong either. Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, Aiwa Home Appliances, etc. have more than 2,000 R&D staff in total, but only a few hundred of them are involved in the development of this mobile phone. Most of them are working on improving their existing technologies to compete and exceed overseas companies.

“Those companies have the same thinking like you, and this is the reason why those companies can only get leftovers. My companies will get the meat, and they can only get soup. When we switch to another piece of meat, they are still drinking from the previous bowl of soup. Even if the soup turns bad, they still must drink it because they don’t have anything else to eat. I am rearing pigs and selling the pigs for money. Whenever I want to eat pork, I can just slaughter one of my pigs. Those companies can only wait for my leftovers.”

Seeing Director Fang about to say something, Feng Yu waved his hand and continued. “There is a saying when doing business. ‘Owning what others don’t; If others have it, mine must be better; if others are better, I will switch.’ Did those companies achieve this? If they are not Chinese companies, I will wage a price war and make them vomit blood. Those companies don’t have any technologies or capital. All they know is to use salespeople to push their products. What do you think they can achieve? I can don’t suppress them, but what about those overseas companies? If the foreign companies decided to suppress them, what do you think will happen to them?”

Why did Feng Yu allow those companies to exist? It is because the market is significant, and he does not need to suppress anyone to sell his products. At the same time, he also makes use of them to increase his product’s status. Of course, he also needs these companies’ products to lower the impact of imported products.

But Feng Yu cannot tell Director Fang this. He got to put it in a way to show how generous he is to those companies!

Director Fang kept quiet. Feng Yu had been giving in to those companies, and it’s a good thing. Those companies might seem to be doing well now, but these are all false.

Chapter 864 – Aiwa is here again

With Director Fang’s help, two Network Access Licenses are granted to Aiwa and Wind and Rain.

The mobile phone’s distribution channels are the same as pagers. The channels include small retailers, exclusive stores, Tai Hua Supermarkets, and Post Offices.

The most reliable sales channel is still the Post Office. The Post Office had set up a subsidiary, Post Office Pu Tai, to sell telecommunication devices and had achieved excellent results.

Feng Yu had reached an agreement with Post Office Pu Tai to let them sell Aiwa and Wind, and Rain brands of mobile phones and the distribution fee is 8%.

With such high distribution fees, Post Office Pu Tai’s staff will recommend these two brands of mobile phones to their customers first.

Last year, Aiwa pagers’ sales were comparable with Motorola and had become the market leader for the Chinese characters pagers. Their profits had exceeded Motorola and own more than 40% market share in China.

Aiwa introducing their own mobile phones can be easily accepted by the consumers. Just like Motorola, when consumers hear the brand, their impression of their mobile phones will be of good quality as it is a big brand.

Although Wind and Rain had introduced pagers, Wind and Rain brand is more well-known for their home appliances and electronic devices. Now, they are introducing mobile phones, their loyal customers will also buy them.

Aiwa Electronics also helped AIWA to produce smaller batches of mobile phone to be exported to Japan. Aiwa will not ship their mobile phones to the overseas market as those markets will be using the Wind and Rain brand.

One month later, the first batch of Aiwa mobile phones and Wind and Rain mobile phones was officially launched in China!

Feng Yu called CCTV, and Station Chief Jia immediately help him change the TV commercials. In China, only Feng Yu gets to enjoy this special treatment. Others can’t change their ads as and when they like!

This is because Feng Yu bought the most advertising slots and paid the most to CCTV. He also did not reject CCTV’s requests whenever they need help. Also, Station Chief Jia had already treat Feng Yu as his good friend.

“Aiwa Mobile Phones, the mobile phone for Chinese! Aiwa Electronics, I love China!”

It is the same classic brand message, and the commercial only shows a mobile phone and a person’s hand.

“Wind and Rain Mobile Phones, been through Wind and Rain. Aiwa Electronics, Master of Core Technologies!”

When these two commercials appeared on CCTV 1, many Chinese viewers noticed it immediately. Most of the viewers could already memorize the slogans of these two companies.

The people who wanted to buy mobile phones have new choices now. All of them want to see the quality of these domestic produced phones.

If these are other Chinese brands of phones, most consumers will doubt its quality. But Aiwa and Wind and Rain had been China’s top brand. Their products are considered branded products.

When the consumers went to Post Office Pu Tai, they noticed that mobile phones are about the same as those imported brands and are much cheaper. They also heard rumors that the government leaders were using mobile phones from these two brands and were almost sold out the moment it was placed on the shelves.

Feng Yu had taken advantage of the Government’s policy on procurement. Since Feng Yu suggested to Director Fang on protectionism, the Central Government issued an internal order on the government agencies’ purchase. They must consider China’s domestic brands before others.

Although the order from the Central is for the various local governments and agencies to consider local brands, it is not a must to use local brands. But the leaders on the ground obediently choose domestic brands over overseas brands. Many of the leaders’ mobile phones were bought last year and the quality is too poor. After one year, problems like batteries cannot last, they can’t hear the other party clearly, the buttons are not sensitive enough and the phone cannot receive signal well, start appearing.

The repair cost of these mobile phones is a few hundred, but how many leaders are willing to use a repaired phone? They will replace their whole office furniture when a bit of paint is peeled from their office cabinet, let alone an old phone.

In the past, China only has one domestic phone manufacturer, Panda, and its production output is too low. Many people cannot buy them and the quality is inferior. But now, Aiwa and Wind and Rain phones are launched, and this is a good excuse for people to change phones.

We got to use Aiwa or Wind and Rain phones because of the Central Government’s instructions. What about our old phones? We can give them to our subordinates or family members. There will be no wastage!

Feng Yu did not expect the protectionist measures he suggested to Director Fang in the past had helped him.

The mobile phone sales spiked once it was launched. After the New Year, the sales will increase further. Also, the ones who bought the phone now will spread the words of their phones and more people will buy it.

……

“Mr. Schnepp, Mr. Schnepp, That Aiwa is here to snatch our market share again!”

Motorola’s China’s President Schnepp is in his office reading the previous month’s sales report. Their sales had increased slightly last month, but their pager sales had dropped. However, the profits from mobile phones are higher, and it is the company’s focus on the future.

Schnepp had a smile on his face when his assistant barged into his office without knocking. How rude?!

Wait, what did he say?

“What did you say? Who is snatching our market share again?” Schnepp thought his mandarin is not good enough and heard wrongly.

“That Aiwa brand, our main competitor in China’s pager market! They just launched their mobile phones!”

“What?! Aiwa is producing mobile phones? Where did you hear this from?”

“They had already advertised on TV! Wind and Rain also introduced their brand of mobile phones. Should we have some counter-measures against these two brands?” The assistant asked.

“Of course! Every additional competitor means we will have a smaller slice of the pie. Get someone to buy all their phones model and check their phone’s specs.” Schnepp ordered.

Schnepp was not very worried as mobile phones are different from pagers. The technologies involved are more sophisticated and the operating system is complicated. Aiwa pagers might be selling well in China and Wind and Rain pagers had been exported to Russia, but those are pagers. Only 10% of the pager companies worldwide manufactures mobile phone concurrently. This is the difference between pager and mobile phone technologies!

Furthermore, Schnepp is from Motorola. The leader in mobile devices. No matter pagers or mobile phones, they own most of the market share. In a protectionist country like Japan, their sales might not be good, but in China, they still have not met any formidable competitors. Motorola still holds the most significant market share, over 60%, in China!

So what if these two brands introduce mobile phones? There’s nothing to be alarmed off.

Chapter 865 – The wolf is here

Schnepp arrived at work the next morning and is having his usual morning coffee as he checks his emails. Emails are his main communication tools with Motorola’s headquarters. He seldom calls the headquarters on the phone unless it is something urgent.

Motorola’s headquarter is pleased with their last month’s China’s mobile phone sales and wanted Schnepp to keep an eye on it. Motorola pagers have a disadvantage in China and the importation taxes for electronic devices are very high. Although Motorola uses efficient assembly lines to lower their production costs, when the pagers are shipped to China, the cost becomes higher than Aiwa Pagers.

Also, many pager manufacturers appeared in China last year and their pagers were much cheaper than Motorola. Although Motorola pagers were still doing well, that’s after they had a price cut. Also, lesser people are buying numeric pagers and Motorola would be overtaken by Aiwa Pagers this year.

The profit from pagers is not high, and Motorola rather uses the marketing fees for pagers on their mobile phones. This will increase their profits. But this only applies to China. In Europe and other developed countries, mobile phones had already started to replace pagers.

Schnepp had prepared in advance and got consent from the headquarter to build a factory in China. This is the reason why their mobile phones can get high profits. If the Chinese factory, which manufactures Motorola pagers for them, renewed their contract with Motorola, Motorola pagers will also be profitable.

Although the headquarters did not pin the blame on Schnepp, Schnepp felt this was all Aiwa Electronic’s fault. If Aiwa Electronic had not entered the pager market, they could continue to profit from their pagers for at least 5 more years!

You all manufacture mobile phones now? This time I will teach you all a lesson. I will let you know how powerful Motorola is!

Until now, Schnepp is still confident that Motorola phones are the best in the world, and Aiwa phones and Wind and Rain phones are at least 3 years behind them!

Schnepp was confident that he will be promoted to Asia-Pacific Regional President if everything goes smoothly in China. He might even get the opportunity to enter the board of directors.

Knock, knock…

“Come in.”

“Mr. Schnepp, this is the report on Aiwa phones, and Wind and Rain phones’ specs from our technology department. Please have a look.” The person-in-charge of the China branch technology department passed a file to Schnepp.

Schnepp looked at the facial expression of the other party and suddenly got a bad feeling.

He quickly opens up the file and starts reading it. The more he reads, the more shock he was.

How is this possible? How can China’s electronic factory produce such phones? These phones are even better than Motorola’s phones, and it is also installed with Lenovo’s Pin Yin method of typing, which is more user-friendly than what they are using.

Their phones’ screens are bigger and brighter. The casing is metallic, buttons are sensitive, the signal is strong, and the battery’s capacity is bigger. Their phones even come with an original spare battery!

The exterior design is beautiful, and there are a variety of colors to choose from. The specs of these phones had won Motorola!

Other than the exterior designs, Wind and Rain’s phones and Aiwa Phones had the same specs and used the same technology.

That’s right. There are rumors that Wind and Rain Electronic and Aiwa Electronic have the same shareholder, and both companies often cooperate.

“Mr. Schnepp, Mr. Schnepp?”

“What?” Schnepp replied impatiently.

“Should we ask the HQ to allow us to sell the latest model of phones in China?”

In the past, the phones sold in China’s market were older models and were at least 6 months behind other developed countries. This was because China is backward. Outdated phones are already the best phones in China, and Chinese manufacturers use old technologies. Only Nokia phones from Europe can compete with Motorola. But Nokia had entered the Chinese market much later and is no match for Motorola in this market.

It can be said that the Chinese market is a place for these overseas companies to clear their leftover stocks. But this is the past. With Aiwa and Wind and Rain introducing their mobile phones, these companies will be courting death if they continue to do this!

The changes to the market will affect these overseas companies’ strategies. They could no longer produce phones in large numbers as they have no markets to clear their old stocks.

If these mobile phones have to sell their latest products in China, then they must find another market to clear their old stocks. But where can Motorola find another market as big as China?!

……

“President Watanabe, these are the figures from our tests on Aiwa and Wind and Rain phones. Their phones are better than ours, and our market share will shrink further. After the distribution and marketing cost, we will not have any profits!”

Panasonic China’s person-in-charge, Junji Watanabe, heard the report from his subordinate. Why is it Aiwa and Wind and Rain again? Why are they always against us?!

These two companies had never developed mobile phones before, and their first phones are outstanding. How is this possible?!

……

China’s person-in-charge for Nokia was also staring at the findings. Nokia had prepared to enter the Chinese market with their mobile phones and thought they only have to watch out for their main rival, Motorola.

But Aiwa and Wind and Rain suddenly appeared from nowhere, and their phones’ specs are better than all the phones sold by Nokia in China. The exterior designs are more beautiful and are domestic brands. With their brand awareness in China, these two companies will surely hold significant market shares. How can Nokia outperform the rest?

On this day, companies like, Ericsson, Sony, NEC, Siemens, etc. who were selling their mobile phones in China, knew their biggest rival is no longer Motorola or Nokia. It should be Aiwa and Wind and Rain.

Aiwa Pagers had only appeared in the market for 3 years, and they caught up with Motorola. This showed how strong Aiwa Electronic’s R&D is.

If they did not strategize well and allow Aiwa and Wind and Rain to develop their mobile phone business, they would have no chance in the future!

The wolf is here!

First, these companies must cooperate. The Japanese companies had just returned to China after the Japanese and Chinese Governments signed some treaties.

Japanese companies no longer have advantages in the industries now. Their main products were mobile phones and digital cameras. But now, Aiwa and Wind and Rain had launched their own phones!

The Japanese companies know the strategies for these two companies well. They are good at snatching market shares, especially in China. Once these two companies held the majority of the market share, the Japanese companies will be kicked out of the Chinese market!

This must now happen again!

Chapter 866 – Brother Ki, this phone is for you

“Feng, why did you ask me to come to China? You have some new business ideas?”

Every time Feng Yu ask Kirilenko to come to China, Kirilenko will return with lots of money. That’s why he flew over immediately after receiving Feng Yu’s call.

“Brother Ki, I have prepared a small gift for you. See if you like it.” Feng Yu gave Kirilenko a box.

Kirilenko opens the box curiously. This… this is a mobile phone?

What’s so special about this mobile phone? It cost at most 2 to 3 thousand USD. This phone also doesn’t have anything special. Feng Yu’s gifts are these worthless items?

This is the latest mobile phone model, which Wind and Rain and Aiwa will be introducing after the New Year.

The phone has a 40-tone polyphonic ringtone and a 2-inch screen. There is another LCD screen on the cover, and the user can see the incoming caller ID without flipping open the phone.

Some of the technologies used in this phone still cannot be produced in large volumes and cannot be introduced to the market. But it can be used as a technology preview.

“Feng, this is a beautiful phone, and it is the first time I saw a phone with 2 screens. The size of this phone also fits perfectly in my hand. I like this gift.” Kirilenko played with the phone for a while and said to Feng Yu.

This mobile phone is better than the ones he used before and much better than the Motorola phone he is using now!

But Kirilenko is still curious about why Feng Yu called him over. It shouldn’t be just asking him to come to China to pass him this mobile phone. He flew from Moscow to Beijing in a chartered flight and cost tens of thousands USD!

“Brother Ki, I remember Russia doesn’t have any mobile phone manufacturers, right?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

Russia’s electronic industry might be strong, but their consumer products cannot be compared to China. Most of their engineers who specialized in electronics were used for military purposes.

Kirilenko nodded. “That’s right. Our country is about the same as China, and most of our products are imported by Europe and the US. For example, Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, Philips, etc. We do have mobile phone factories in the past, but they were taken over by those companies.”

“That means your country’s mobile phone industry had been taken over by those foreign companies? Are you interested in working with me and make money from this industry?” Feng Yu points to himself and Kirilenko.

Kirilenko’s eyes brighten up. “You are saying this phone is produced by your company?!”

Kirilenko picked up the mobile phone again and saw Wind and Rain’s logo, which he had not noticed it earlier.

“What do you think? If we cooperate and manufacture Wind and Rain mobile phones, can we get some market share in Russia?” Feng Yu asked.

“Not only Russia! I still can sell it to Western Europe if the price is competitive!” Kirilenko replied excitedly.

Feng Yu shook his head. “Brother Ki, we already have a partner in Western Europe, and he is one of our shareholders. I can’t let you have that market. But I can give you the former Soviet Union’s countries’ market. What do you think?”

Kirilenko could only nod his head. He knew he can’t force Feng Yu to ditch his partner to work with him. Also, Feng Yu’s partner should be Fu Guangzheng, and they are also friends.

“Brother Ki, don’t be disappointed. Are there any suitable electronic factories in Russia to acquire? The criteria are the factories must have skilled workers, accessible and is a large-scale factory.” Feng Yu asked.

Kirilenko scratched his head. “I have not to look into this in the past, but there should be some factories that match your requirements around. You want to acquire some factories? I will help you ask around.”

“No, no, no…” Feng Yu shook his head. “It is not me who wants to acquire those factories. It is us!”

Feng Yu need Kirilenko’s influence in the former Soviet Union’s countries and is willing to give him a portion of his profits. This way, no one will dare to touch those factories as Brother Ki will protect them!

“Us?! You are saying you want me to get a stake in those factories?” Kirilenko’s mood immediately becomes better. This phone is well designed, and once the factories start production, it will be profitable.

Kirilenko is confident that this phone will be popular in Russia, and he has partners in all the former Soviet Union’s countries. Once the factories start production, the profits will be higher than being the distributor!

“Brother Ki, how can I leave you out on this profitable business? But I need to set the rules first. I will provide the technologies, the Russian operating system will be developed by Kingsoft’s Moscow branch, and you will handle the sales and management. I will invest more capital and own the majority of shares.” Feng Yu said.

“This is not a problem. How many shares are you giving me?” Kirilenko asked eagerly.

“Russia needs 2 factories, Belarus and Ukraine need one factory each. The annual production must be more than 1 million phones, and there must be room for expansion. I will provide 70% of the cost and you will cover the remainder. Is it alright if I give you 20% shares?”

This is a lucrative deal as the mobile phone technology developed by Aiwa Electronics is worth a lot.

Kirilenko did not hesitate for a moment and immediately nodded. “Sure. I can settle the two factories in Russia, but can you sell me an additional 1% shares for the factories in Belarus and Ukraine? I need to give my friends there some benefits. Don’t worry, I am willing to pay double for this 1% shares.”

Feng Yu felt bad as he knows the price Kirilenko has to pay in Belarus and Ukraine should be more than 1% shares.

“What do you mean by selling you 1% shares? I know you need to take care of your friends there for our company. I will own 79% shares in those two factories, and if they want more shares, let me know.” Feng Yu agreed.

Eastern Europe’s market is not small and will bring high returns if they can control it. 1% of shares might be a lot, but to Feng Yu, it is nothing.

Kirilenko is overjoyed to see Feng Yu agreeing to his request. They had cooperated so many times, and it is impossible to fall out over some shares.

“Feng! You are a real friend! Rest assured, I will buy out these 4 factories as soon as possible and will not disappoint you. I also promise you that I will get all the equipment and facilities at the lowest price!” Kirilenko beat his chest and said.

Feng Yu laughed. “I trust your abilities. Oh, some of the former Soviet Union engineers will be going back with you, and they will work from your side. I still have some work in Japan, or else, I will surely visit you in Russia.”

This is a considerable investment and is not suitable to discuss over the phone. That’s why Feng Yu invited Kirilenko to Beijing.

Some of the former Soviet Union engineers are old and wished to return home. Despite Feng Yu offering them high salaries, but many of them still want to leave as they know the economy of those former Soviet Union’s counties, especially Russia, had improved.

This is an excellent opportunity to let them return home and… continue to work for Feng Yu!

Chapter 867 – Futuristic product

This morning, Heitaro Nakajima left home early for Tokyo Airport. Along the way, he kept looking at his watch and after he arrived at the airport, he checked the arrivals, and he still has an hour to spare.

Heitaro Nakajima’s driver was curious to know who Heitaro Nakajima was fetching. From Heitaro Nakajima’s attitude, the person he is receiving should be someone of a higher status than him.

The arrival flight Heitaro Nakajima checked is a flight from China. Is the person he is receiving from China?

The driver suddenly remembers who Heitaro Nakajima is receiving. For Heitaro Nakajima to receive personally, it must be that mysterious Chinese main shareholder of AIWA.

The driver looked at the rear mirror and tidied his hair and shirt as he wants to leave a good impression.

After Feng Yu landed, he saw Heitaro Nakajima walking quickly towards him. “Manager Feng, please board the car. Someone will bring your luggage to your hotel room.”

After getting into the car, Heitaro Nakajima eagerly reported to him. “Manager Feng, your suggestions are terrific. I didn’t expect your suggestions will create a futuristic product!”

Feng Yu smiled. “After this product is launched, Walkman and CD players’ markets will shrink, and the Record labels will be affected greatly.”

Heitaro Nakajima had a sinister smile. “That’s good. Anyway, we don’t have any record labels. Sony will suffer a major loss, and their latest MD players will be replaced by us!”

Every time Sony suffered losses or fail, Heitaro Nakajima will be overjoyed. This satisfaction is even better than visiting those brothels!

Maybe Heitaro Nakajima was still bothered by Sony ditching AIWA in the past and still have hatred for Norio Ohga. Now, AIWA had made a comeback, and AIWA’s Walkman and CD players were selling better than Sony.

This time, AIWA had successfully developed a new product, and Sony’s record label will be severely impacted. In the future, there will be lesser people buying cassette tapes and CDs!

“Have you set up the website I told you to?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes, and we are buying the rights now. But Manager Feng, paying for every download, will not work. We might lose money as those people can download once and then share with others through their PCs.” Heitaro Nakajima said.

Feng Yu patted Heitaro Nakajima’s shoulders. “Just lower the download charges and create some bundle packages. For example, set the price of downloading 12 songs in a package as downloading 8 songs separately. Or you can set up a monthly subscription for unlimited downloads. For the initial phase, not a lot of users will share their songs, and more importantly, how much can the losses be from this website? Can it be comparable to the profits of our latest product?”

The only worry they faced is those people who downloaded the songs and then upload onto some forums or websites for others to download free.

“I had applied for the patents. Once the patent is issued, we will launch it in the market. The retail price of this futuristic product must be set higher, and our profits will be more than 100%. This time, we will be rich!” Heitaro Nakajima was so excited that his face turns red.

Feng Yu was worried that Heitaro Nakajima might get a heart attack or stroke from his excitement. Currently, AIWA still cannot do without Heitaro Nakajima, and Feng Yu is delighted with Heitaro Nakajima’s management of the company. He has never thought of replacing him.

Of course, Feng Yu is also monitoring the rest of the higher management. If Heitaro Nakajima decided to retire or made any major mistake, Feng Yu will have candidates to take over him.

“Ok. Don’t get so excited. You must prepare a wide variety of songs in digital copies before this product is launched. In the past, you still want to enter the PC market. Which PC can make more money than this product? AIWA should just focus on one area. Music is a necessity in people’s life. Even earphones alone can bring years of high profits for AIWA.”

The directions set by Feng Yu for AIWA is to focus on music-related products. From Walkman to CD players and then from VCD karaoke technologies to the latest product – MP3!

From Feng Yu’s experiences in his previous life, MP3 players will bring in high profits for AIWA in at least the next 5 years. After that, it will be MP4, and they still can profit for another 5 years.

AIWA also has to focus on developing better earphones and music quality. These can be used for speakers, mobile phones, PCs, etc. and the profits will not be low too.

MP3 is a music file used in PCs.

Feng Yu had told Heitaro Nakajima to think of a way to develop a portable player for MP3. This will be the next ‘Walkman.’

Laptops had become common now, and this new portable music player will surely replace Walkman, portable CD players, and Sony’s latest MD players.

MD players are equivalent to a combination of CDs and Cassette tapes. It has the sound quality of CDs and the recordable function of cassette tapes.

If Sony does not have this product, it will lose most of its market share in the portable music player market.

AIWA also has this MD product, but after Wind and Rain developed the VCD players, Heitaro Nakajima gave up on it. At that time, AIWA does not have the capital and scale to manufacture so many products at the same time.

After AIWA got a loan from the bank to expand their factories, they started to produce MD players and caught up with Sony. At this time, Feng Yu told Heitaro Nakajima that his direction is wrong.

MD player is a good product, but MP3 players also have all the functions of MD players. MP3 players are also much smaller in size and consumers will prefer it.

Just like the Walkman, which is moving towards slimmer designs, people would prefer smaller and lighter music players. No one wants to put something heavy in their pockets.

AIWA followed Feng Yu’s suggestion and used expensive flash memory, LCD screen, and the storage is up to 128 M. This device can store about 20 MP3 songs, but the cost is more than 100 USD.

However, Heitaro Nakajima believes that this product can be sold for more than 200 USD, and his target audience is the high net worth.

This is a futuristic product and is also AIWA’s weapon to beat Sony in the portable music player industry. In the future, AIWA will be focusing on this product and is confident this product will replace all music players in the market.

After reaching AIWA’s headquarters, Heitaro Nakajima carefully places an MP3 player in front of Feng Yu.

But Feng Yu was speechless. In his heart, he was screaming: What the hell is this thing? You call this thing is an MP3 player? This is the product you claimed to have developed successfully?

Chapter 868 – Heitaro Nakajima wants to be listed

The thing which Heitaro Nakajima claims to be an MP3 Player is about the size of a floppy disk, and the thickness is about 2 cm. The only plus point about this thing is its weight.

Feng Yu held it in his hands and it felt it is less than 100 grams. This MP3 player is much lighter than Walkman, CD players and MD players, and the LCD screen is bright and shows the playtime. The user can also arrange the songs to their preference and there is a battery indicator.

Heitaro Nakajima said that the player can play songs for 8 hours with two higher quality AA-size batteries. Feng Yu listened to the sound quality and is quite satisfied with it.

This thing gives Feng Yu the feeling of the oldest version of iPod Touch, except it can’t play videos.

An MP3 player should be something small and portable. This size is too big!

“Heitaro Nakajima, this product is very different from what I imagined.” Feng Yu said helplessly.

Although the exterior design is very different, the basic functions are all according to Feng Yu’s request. Most importantly, this is the world’s first MP3 player. After the patent is approved, it will limit the development progress of other companies.

Feng Yu remembered the world’s first MP3 player is developed by a subsidiary of Samsung. But this company does not have the funds to introduce it into the market, and they shelf this product in the end.

Other Korean and Japanese companies also started to research and develop this product. But it was an American company that made MP3 popular.

After MP3 becomes popular, electronic companies all over the world start to introduce their MP3 players and cause the demises of Walkman, CD players, MD players, etc.!

Heitaro Nakajima had not expected this product which is perfect in his eyes will get criticized by Feng Yu. Very different from what you imagined? What do you have in mind?

Feng Yu looked at Heitaro Nakajima’s puzzled face, and he gestured with his hands. “I said that MP3 players should be small and portable. This prototype is about the size of CD and MD players, and much bigger than a Walkman. How can you call this small and portable? If we are going to compete with others, you must reduce the size by half!”

Reduce the size by half?! It will be the size of a mobile phone. How much do we need to invest in R&D to achieve this?

“What’s wrong? You cannot do it?” Feng Yu frowned and asked.

“We definitely can achieve it, but we will need to invest a large sum into the R&D.” Heitaro Nakajima replied.

“The research on MD players can be stopped. If the MP3 player’s size is reduced by half, how many people will still buy MD? This product will bring in high profits for the company in the future, and the amount invested now is nothing.”

Feng Yu is sure that even if the development funds increased by two times, it is still worth it. This new product will not only bring high profits for AIWA and can also improve AIWA’s status. AIWA will be positioned on a level above Sony and become the leader in portable music players!

Heitaro Nakajima thought for a moment and agreed. He had not thought of this before.

“Ok. I will ask my men to reduce the size of this MP3 player to half.”

“Half of this prototype is not the limit. It will be better if you can reduce it to a quarter.” Feng Yu made another harsh demand.

Heitaro Nakajima was troubled. A quarter? Can it really be done? But this is what the boss wants, and without the boss’s investment in the past, AIWA might not exist now.

Heitaro Nakajima had something in mind but never had the chance to speak to Feng Yu. Today, he wants to discuss it with him.

“Manager Feng, I heard the share prices of Sixth Sense Company shot up after it was listed in the US.”

Feng Yu looked at Heitaro Nakajima. “You also want to get AIWA listed?”

Heitaro Nakajima nodded. “After our MP3 players are launched in the market, our Walkman and CD player production lines will have to be replaced. We also need to continue to develop earphones, speakers, etc. and need to build and expand factories. We need a large sum of money.”

Feng Yu asked curiously. “The company had taken some loans, right?”

Feng Yu had borrowed some of AIWA’s funds from their loans in the past, but he had returned the money with interest. Getting listed might accumulate a large sum rapidly, but at the same time, they must give out dividends.

AIWA is different from the Sixth Sense Company. AIWA specializes in music-related electronic devices and appliances and is different from Kameda Masao, who wants to have his own magazines, TV channel, and still need to produce a wide variety of products.

“The company does not have enough money. We are developing a few products at the same time and are using a lot of funds. We still can operate with our existing funds, but after we are listed, our company’s share prices will increase, and our value will increase.” Heitaro Nakajima said.

Feng Yu finally understood the real reason why Heitaro Nakajima wants to get the company listed. After the share prices increase, Heitaro Nakajima’s wealth will also increase. Is he going to sell his shares?

Never mind. Who cares what he wants to do with the money? Anyway, AIWA must be listed sooner or later. Using money from other people to develop this company is also not a bad idea.

“After the MP3 is developed successfully and launched, we will get AIWA listed. This way, we will make more money. If the company gets listed now, the share prices will not increase much.” Feng Yu reminded Heitaro Nakajima.

“I know. This is what I am thinking too. Once this product is introduced to the market successfully, that will be the best time to get listed. We can also use the funds raised to market our MP3 and get more profits.” Heitaro Nakajima replied happily.

Heitaro Nakajima was also not in a rush to get the company listed. But if the company does not get listed, his wealth will not increase, and it will affect his and his family’s status.

Heitaro Nakajima had no intention of selling the company’s shares. He only wants to increase his status so he can help his family.

A tycoon with 100 million USD assets and someone with 500 million USD assets has speaks differently. This is the same for the Chairman of a company that worth several hundred million and the Chairman of a billion USD company. The status of the Chairmen is different!

“Alright. Remember to give China’s Aiwa Electronics the flash memory technology and get them to assist you all in the research.” These are all Feng Yu’s companies and all their patented technologies are shared.

Feng Yu asked Heitaro Nakajima to provide this technology to Aiwa Electronics is to get Aiwa Electronics to develop another successful product of the future. USB flash drive!

Chapter 869 – Looking at the future

USB or USB flash drive is a type of digital storage device which is widely popular in the future, and it doesn’t require any power source to hold the data. The storage is also bigger, and the user just needs to plug it into the PC or laptop.

The USB is only one of the uses of a flash drive and currently, the primary uses of the flash drive are for memory cards used in Digital cameras.

Dong Xuebing had informed Lenovo to install at least a USB port in all their future PCs. USB ports will be commonly used for USB drives, portable hard disk, mouse, keyboards, speakers, etc.

But now, only a few PCs have a USB port, and Liu Chuanzhi was puzzled why Dong Xuebing gave this instruction. He felt this technology is not mature and there are few uses for it now. Adding USB ports in their PCs will also not be a selling point, and their cost will be increased.

Feng Yu told Liu Chuanzhi about his idea of a USB flash drive, and this flash drive will be invented soon. In the future, Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics will be pushing USB drives and USB ports in PCs will be a necessity.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, USB ports appeared on PCs after 1998, but it was not a standard feature. It was only after 2 years, it becomes a stand feature of all PCs, but the port was located at the back of the CPU. It was until after 2005, USB ports were installed at the front of the CPU, and laptops start to have more than 1 USB port.

It was about the same time when PS/2 port mouse and PS/2 port keyboards start to become obsolete. A few more years later, PS/2 port totally disappears and all mouse and keyboards switch to USB ports.

The USB ports also upgrade from 1.0 to 3.0, and the speed kept increasing. USB drive and USB ports were both upgraded over the years.

Heitaro Nakajima did not know about Feng Yu’s plans and got his men to organize and send all the related documents to Feng Yu.

Heitaro Nakajima was still dreaming about his portable MP3 player, and he even participates in the development and testing. This is AIWA’s opportunity to stand on top of the world and he does not want to miss it.

Manager Feng had said if this big MP3 player’s size can be reduced by half, he will use his connections to start a global marketing campaign and let AIWA become the top electronics manufacturer in the world!

AIWA will be ahead of all its competitors, and Heitaro Nakajima might even be rewarded with shares after the company is listed!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the market reacted poorly when MP3 and USB drive are newly launched. But within a year, these two products quickly become popular.

Small companies were no match to the big boys in these two industries, and the technologies involved are not complicated, and others can imitate it easily. Even when the technologies were patented, they can be easily replaced.

But the first company to produce these products will be written in history, and it is beneficial to the company’s reputation.

It is crucial to stay in the lead in the technological sector, and in the future, the company can claim that they were the ones who started this industry, and the other companies were just following the trend!

At night, Feng Yu was having seafood with Heitaro Nakajima when he received a call from Kameda Masao. Kameda Masao was in Europe to supervise the construction of a new factory and an acquisition of a magazine. But when he heard Feng Yu was in Japan, he immediately flew back.

Kameda Masao rushed over to meet Feng Yu the moment he landed.

Heitaro Nakajima and Kameda Masao are different, and their companies were in two different sectors. But in terms of personal abilities, Feng Yu felt Kameda Masao is better than Heitaro Nakajima.

AIWA could get a share of the Chinese market and the European market, beat Sony, and become the leader in the Walkman industry, was mainly because of Feng Yu’s help in their new products. Fu Guangzheng’s distribution channels also played a part.

But Kameda Masao is different. Feng Yu only gave him a few suggestions, and Kameda Masao did the rest. He came up with new inventions with his creativity and increased the Sixth Sense Company’s sales. He was also the one who set up the sales distribution channels without any help. After the company was listed, the company become the first company in its industry to be listed.

Oh… This is remarkable!

Kameda Masao entered the private dining room and start eating.

Heitaro Nakajima was slightly pissed with Kameda Masao. He also could not explain his feelings as both companies are totally different and do not have any dealings with each other. But Heitaro Nakajima felt Manager Feng seems to be closer to Kameda Masao and felt unhappy.

Heitaro Nakajima felt Feng Yu was biased towards Kameda Masao as he allowed the Sixth Sense Company to be listed, and asked AIWA to wait. Kameda Masao was a nobody in the past, and he is on the same level as him. Maybe in another two years, Kameda Masao might be above him!

“Kameda Masao, you have never eaten in your life?” Heitaro Nakajima said sarcastically. This person does not have any etiquette at all!

Kameda Masao looked at Feng Yu and put down his chopsticks, before turning to Heitaro Nakajima. “Heitaro Nakajima, this is the dinner you prepare for Boss? It’s too ordinary!”

Kameda Masao always addresses Feng Yu as Boss, and Heitaro Nakajima calls Feng Yu as Manager Feng. Also, since the day Kameda Masao met Feng Yu, he had been bootlicking him, and Heitaro Nakajima had never done this. Maybe this was why Feng Yu felt Kameda Masao is more capable.

“This is Tokyo’s best seafood restaurant. What’s the problem?!” Heitaro Nakajima retorted.

“Seafood restaurant? What’s so special about this? Look at how the food is served here!” Kameda Masao turns to Feng Yu. “Boss, I know a ‘special’ restaurant that is different from all other restaurants!”

Special restaurant? Feng Yu was curious. What’s better than seafood in Japan? The rest of the food here is nothing special.

Wait! The plates? Kameda Masao had a lewd expression on his face. Could it be that legendary way of serving food?

Gulped…

Feng Yu swallowed his saliva. This suggestion is really tempting, and it is good to experience. But Feng Yu will not dare to eat the food presented.

Such places are more suitable for Kirilenko, Fu Guangzheng, and Li Zekai. They would love to experience it.

“Kameda, I am going back tomorrow. Why did you rush back so urgently?”

“No. I know Boss is coming to Japan, and I rushed back, as I am afraid some people are not good hosts.” Kameda Masao said.

“Thank you. When I bring some friends over on my next visit, you can bring us around.” Feng Yu does not want to see Kameda Masao and Heitaro Nakajima fighting for his attention.

“Ok. Oh, I had bought a magazine in Europe, and we plan to set up a branch in the US.”

The magazine bought by the Sixth Sense Company should be that kind of magazine. It seems like there’s no return for Kameda Masao’s path to be the King of the Porn industry!

“Remember what I told you. Don’t look at the short-term profits. If you want the company to progress, you must look at the future.”

“Thank you for your wise words.”

Heitaro Nakajima frowned. Kameda Masao, you are also one of the shareholders of the Sixth Sense Company. Do you really need to stoop so low? But Heitaro Nakajima suddenly realized that maybe this is the reason why Manager Feng thinks more highly of Kameda Masao.

Look at the way Kameda Masao bootlicks! He has no backbone at all!

Heitaro Nakajima thought for a while and said with a brownnoser expression. “Boss, if you are interested in those place, I do have some good recommendation.|

Chapter 870 – Different types of handphone flip cover

After passing the documents to Aiwa Electronics, Feng Yu ordered them to start researching on the USB drive. Of course, Feng Yu also set his requirements. The size of the USB drive must be about the size of a plastic lighter and cannot be as big as a portable hard disk.

Feng Yu was mentally prepared for the newly developed USB drive’s storage to be not higher than 128M. From the MP3 player, he estimates the storage size to be 32M and it is enough. This storage size is at least bigger than a floppy disk and the data is not easily corrupted.

Feng Yu could not remember when the USB drive appears in his previous life, but he knew it was after WIN98 was launched.

There is already USB port technology, and Feng Yu must be careful. If he remembered wrongly or history had changed, USB drive might be introduced by another company.

After Aiwa Electronics got the MP3 player’s technology and knew they had to develop this USB drive, they knew their engineers were not enough. They need software engineers, and Feng Yu transferred a few software engineers from Lenovo over to help them.

Liu Chuanzhi and the rest knew the potential of USB drives is high, but it will take a while before it is developed. Once this device is launched and become popular, their technologies will become the most advanced in the world.

Aiwa Electronics’ engineers might be a specialist in wireless technologies, but they can’t develop a PC component without the help of Lenovo.

After settling all these, Feng Yu went to check on the progress of Aiwa Electronic’s latest model of mobile phones. All his suggestions had been implemented, and the phone had bigger screens and 40 polyphonic tones. But the two LCD screens and game functions are not developed yet.

However, Feng Yu was still satisfied with their progress. He gave Aiwa Electronics new suggestions. All mobile phone manufacturers can manufacture flip phones. Have you all ever thought of being creative with the flip covers?

Xu Lihua was stunned. The flip phone already has 2 LCD screens now. Isn’t it creative enough?

To Xu Lihua, increasing the size of the LCD screens in the flip phone and changing from black and white LCD screen to colored screen. Wind and Rain Electronic have these technologies, but the cost is high.

If they are going to have a colored mobile phone, the production cost will double, and how much are they going to sell the phone for? Also, the factories in China do not have the facilities to manufacture these colored LCD screens and they must find overseas partners or Philips for help.

But Xu Lihua did not order the colored LCD screens as all the mobile phones in the market are still using grey screens. Having a blue or orange LCD screen is already very advanced, and colored screen is like taking a giant leap forward. All mobile phone manufacturers will start to use colored LCD screens and mobile phone prices will rise sharply and prevent mobile phones from becoming widespread.

Also, if Wind and Rain Electronic’s colored LCD screen technology is used in the mobile Phone, the flip cover will be very thick. Also, the flip covers got to have two LCD screens, and the thickness of the phone will have to increase by at least 1 cm. The phone will become bulky and… ugly!

Manager Feng had mentioned that the exterior phone designs must be fashionable, beautiful and it must be light and small. The size should fit nicely in the palm.

Feng Yu picked up scissors on Xu Lihua’s desk and start to open and close it a few times, before asking Xu Lihua if he gets it or not.

Xu Lihua had a blank look on his face. You are just playing with the scissors, what should I understand from this action? Use the scissors to cut a part of the phone away and make it into a cube?

Feng Yu got mad as he saw Xu Lihua’s blank look. His power of understanding is really low. Xu Lihua is skilled in technologies and competent in managing, but why is his understanding so poor? How did he make breakthroughs with his level of understanding?

“Look carefully. This part is the LCD screen, and the buttons are here. If you turn it from here, the screen will light up and the screen will be off when you turn it back. This way, you can use one LCD screen to achieve what 2 LCD screens can do.” Feng Yu points to the scissors.

Why are flip phones the mainstream mobile phones instead of candy bar phones? It is not because flip phones are the trend now. It is because the production cost for the flip phone is lower than candy bar phones, and the screens are bigger.

The maximum LCD screen size in the candy bar phone is about 1 inch and the phone is thick and long, like the old fashion handphones.

People are producing smaller phones, and you are going in the opposite direction? Consumers will not want bigger phones. It will also be too ugly if the size of the phone increase, and the LCD screen’s size remains the same!

Feng Yu was showing Xu Lihua the swivel phone, the earliest big-screen mobile phone.

“Manager Feng, the LCD will be exposed on the outside if it is a swivel cover, and it might get damaged easily.” Xu Lihua replied with a frown.

“Don’t you know how to add a protective layer over the screen? The screen will be much bigger, and the user can look at the screen clearer. Also, don’t you think it will be more eye-catching?”

One of the uses of a luxury product is to flaunt.

When everyone is using flip phones, and you are using the latest swivel phone, you will be the center of attraction.

Xu Lihua’s eyes become wider as he remembers someone telling him about people who love to clip their pagers on their waist now. It is not because of convenience, but to show others that he owns a pager!

Also, many people love to speak loudly on their mobile phones in crowded places. They know they are disturbing others, but they want others to see them using mobile phones!

People who own mobile phones love to flaunt and this swivel phone looks more fashionable than flip phones.

Feng Yu knew Xu Lihua is not a creative person and continue to remind him. “Other than flip phones and swivel phones, you still can product sliding phone, where the screen can slide upwards or towards the right, showing the buttons.”

“Manager Feng, it is not a problem to slide the screen upwards. But what’s the purpose of sliding the screen to the side? The user will find it uncomfortable to hold it.”

Feng Yu nodded. He was satisfied with Xu Lihua’s answer, as he had pointed out the shortcoming of this design. But in his previous life, some of the sliding phones had horizontal number pads, keyboards, or game controller.

Feng Yu was thinking of adding Email functions to his phone like Blackberry, and they will undoubtedly take over the Professionals’ segment.

“You can make a keyboard like laptops. This way, it will be easier and faster for the user to type messages. You can also make a gaming mobile phone. If the screen is raised up like this and don’t you think it will look like a video game console? Of course, this is only an idea, and I don’t expect you to develop it now.”

Feng Yu said and gestures with his hands to help Xu Lihua understand what he was talking about. Feng Yu was trying to give some inspiration to him and helping him to break his limits.

After giving Xu Lihua a few other suggestions, someone knocked on the door, telling them that Duan Yongping is here.

Feng Yu was curious about why is Old Duan looking for him. The Little Tyrant is developing their CD-based video game console and he should be at Shenzhen.

Did the Little Tyrant successfully developed their CD-based video game console?

Chapter 871 – Voice recorder

In the past, AIWA used some dirty tricks to make Nintendo fall out with Sony, and Sony starts to develop its own PlayStation console. Nintendo on the other hand, cooperate with AIWA for a while.

Although the cooperation between Nintendo and AIWA was short, AIWA got some critical information about the video game console. After the partnership ended, the engineers and developers involved in the cooperation joined Aiwa The Little Tyrant, with the information and continued their research there.

But there was still a huge gap in the technologies. Nintendo and Sony had already introduced their latest video game consoles, and another video game manufacturer, Sega, also developed their own LCD video game player. Aiwa’s Little Tyrant was still a step behind them.

Now, Aiwa’s Little Tyrant Company’s gaming console and learning machine’s sales had dropped drastically and their profits are getting lesser and lesser. In the end, they become a factory that manufactures games’ VCDs for other companies.

Under the leadership of Duan Yongping, the company start to manufacture cordless phones and start making profits again.

Duan Yongping’s foresight and ability are outstanding. Everytime when Aiwa Little Tyrant is on the decline, he will think of ways to bring it back to life.

……

“Old Duan, come and have a seat. Are you here about the CD-based gaming console? Is it developed?”

After helping other companies manufacture games’ VCD, the company understands this technology inside out. If not for patents, the Little Tyrant would have re-engineered Sega or Nintendo’s gaming console and launched their own consoles.

“Not yet. There are still two technologies which we can’t get over. We are considering buying the authorization of the patents or continue to develop our own technology to overcome them.” Duan Yongping said.

Actually, Duan Yongping also have another idea, which is to develop arcade game machines’ circuit boards and cartridges. But if they buy the rights of the game, they will not make profits, and if they don’t buy the rights, they will become counterfeits. Manager Feng will never allow him to do this.

Feng Yu had emphasized more than once. In the past, they were poor and there were many loopholes with the legal systems. But now, China had started to look into copyrights and patent protection. The government will no longer protect Duan Yongping, and the company’s reputation will be gone if they were sued for copyright issues.

“Just see which way is more worthwhile. You can decide on this yourself. But our technology must keep up with the rest of the world as we cannot keep buying patent authorization from other companies. All our profits will go to their pockets.” Feng Yu was curious. Since the video game console is not developed yet, why are you here?

“I know. If we still have no breakthroughs before the New Year, we will buy Nintendo’s technology, which is the cheapest, and our video games console should be out in the market before Lunar New Year. Our target is not only a video game console but also arcade centers.”

Feng Yu heard what Duan Yongping said and gave him a thumbs-up.

Game arcade centers had become popular in all major cities after all the illegal gambling game centers were shut down by the authorities.

The biggest challenges faced by arcade centers were the lack of interesting games and faulty machines. They need to keep changing their games and most of their arcade machines were rented.

Also, the benefits of a CD-based video game console is many games can be stored in one CD.

CD-based video game consoles can come with its own LCD screen or connect to the TV or the arcade machine’s screen. This will meet the demand of consumers. Nintendo’s latest console can even be used as a CD player. That is also because of market demands.

In China, there are 3 CD-based video game consoles for sale. Nintendo, Sega and Sony. All of them are 32 bits 2D game and uses the most ordinary CD.

The console Duan Yongping is developing uses DVDs and is a 64 bits console. The storage is bigger and can handle 3D games. He is thinking of developing a new console which will beat all 3 companies.

The consoles from those 3 companies were for families, and Duan Yongping is targeting another massive market, the arcade centers. With this CD-based console, the arcade centers can save on renting the arcade machines and give their customers more choices.

If all the arcade machines in the arcade centers are replaced by the Little Tyrant’s consoles, there will be a wide variety of games, and there will even be 3D games. The bosses of the arcade centers will surely welcome this.

Even if the Little Tyrant can only sell 1,000 units in a city, there are 500 to 600 cities in China, and if the profits for one unit is about 1,000 RMB, that will be 500 to 600 million!

This is only in China. If these machines are exported, they will make more profits.

“Old Duan, Aiwa Little Tyrant is lucky to have you around.” Feng Yu said.

“I am lucky to have met you. You had never turned down any of my requests and the salary and dividends you gave me are much more than what I got when I was working for the government. I was assigned a small car by the government at that time, but now, I can afford to buy the top model, Olympic, Songjiang Motor’s cars!” Duan Yongping said proudly.

“Hahaha… Old Duan, why are you back in Beijing?” Feng Yu asked.

Duan Yongping slapped his forehead. “Ah… I almost forgot about this. Manager Feng, I was chatting with Old Xu a few days ago, and he mentioned about Walkman’s sales dropping recently. There are many small factories in China producing Walkman now. Despite their poor sound quality, many of them are still doing well because they are selling cheap. Their sales are even better than Aiwa. The Walkman market is shrinking, and Old Xu is prepared to lower the Walkman’s production. I have an idea for Aiwa Walkman factories to manufacture a new product.”

Feng Yu’s eyes brightened up and asked. “Is the new product voice recorder?”

Duan Yongping was shocked. “Boss, you saw this before? This product is already available overseas?”

Feng Yu almost bit his tongue from his shock. It’s really the voice recorder!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China’s most popular brand of voice recorder, BBK Electronics, is set up by Old Duan after he left the Little Tyrant. When this product was introduced into the market, there were many other companies following the trend. But BBK electronics’ voice recorders had better quality sounds and quickly become the market leader.

How well can this voice recorder sell? The voice recorder’s annual sales volume was more than 1.5 million units in 2000!

“I had only heard of this. How did you come up with this idea?” Feng Yu asked.

“I saw some Hong Kong reporters using a small pen-like device, recording pen, during their interviews here. It can store a short voice recording and can be played back later. Our Aiwa Walkman first advertisement had claimed to be used to learning foreign languages. It is useless to learn a language if you don’t use it. So, I got this idea. A Walkman with the recording function of a recording pen. This is the creativity you are always talking about.”

Feng Yu gave him a thumbs-up. “This is a terrific idea. Discuss with Xu Lihua about the details. I will support you with this product!”

Chapter 872 – Impenetrable new market

“Brother Fu, how is the progress?” It’s been a week since Feng Yu returned to Seattle, US. During this week, he drops by Microsoft once and watched 2 NBA matches. Shawn Kemp is really a great player!

It’s not that Feng Yu had nothing to do. He was waiting for Fu Guangzheng’s news of launching Wind and Rain mobile phones in the US, as he had engaged the services of Fu Guangzheng’s trading company to introduce his mobile phones in the US market.

A mobile phone is an electronic device, but it’s different from VCD players. The target customers of mobile phones are individuals and not families.

The Fu family’s sales distribution channels in the US are the local distributors, and some of them are dealing with telecommunication devices.

Also, the US is Motorola’s home ground, and during the peak of the mobile phone era, 9 out of 10 mobile phones sold are Motorola phones. Even with the emergence of European and Japanese mobile phone brands, Motorola still holds the position of the number one mobile phone brand in the US.

The local distributors had worked with the Fu Family for years, but they still imposed harsh conditions if they were to bring in Wind and Rain Mobile phones.

The distributors felt that there were too many mobile phone brands in the market, and there’s still Motorola at the top. On the other hand, Wind and Rain Mobile phones are still an unknown brand and there’s still no aggressive marketing campaign to bring up brand awareness. Thus, it will not sell well.

Although the distributors felt the exterior designs of Wind and Rain phones are attractive, the functions are not outstanding. Furthermore, Wind and Rain phones are imported products and coupled with the tax, the phones will have no advantages in the prices.

In the telecommunication sector, there is still a significant gap between Wind and Rain and Motorola. The functions of the phones from both companies were about the same, but Wind and Rain phones will lose out when it comes to the pricing.

This product will not sell well in the US, and the distributors had to put in the same effort as the rest of the brands to promote it. Therefore, they had to set harsher conditions.

Fu Guangzheng, who was sitting opposite Feng Yu, shook his head and sighed. “It’s not going well. We are unable to fulfill the conditions set by any of the distributors unless we sell them at a loss. But it’s useless too. If Motorola got mad, they might start a price war, and our phones will be left on the shelves!”

Motorola is the world’s leading telecommunication company, and it’s easy for them to attack any new mobile phone brand. Even Europe’s top mobile phone company, Nokia, cannot be compared to Motorola in the US.

This is different from Feng Yu attacking Motorola in China. In China’s telecommunication market, Motorola is also the leader, and Feng Yu had to use his connections and economic advantages to sell his phones at lower prices for the market share. In the US, Wind and Rain do not have these advantages!

“What did the distributors say about our phones?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

“Lack of varieties, brand awareness, supply, advertising, prices, etc.” Fu Guangzheng was feeling helpless. He had used Wind and Rain phones and knew it is a good phone. Also, the size is small, and the exterior is attractive. But the disadvantages pointed out by the distributors are facts.

It’s not easy to market a new brand, let alone a new product in a new market. Wind and Rain’s brand awareness is useless in this new market.

If Wind and Rain introduce home appliances, it’s the brand will play an important role. But consumers will not pick Wind and Rain mobile phones and without advertising and marketing, it will not sell well.

Wind and Rain mobile phone’s production is low because they must supply to the Chinese market, and only a small number of phones are exported to the US. Advertisements might increase sales, but in the end, Feng Yu will still suffer losses.

Feng Yu kept quiet and thought hard on what he should do. He had to think of a solution.

Fu Guangzheng said softly. “If we have a factory in the US, all these problems will be solved. We can make slight changes to the exterior designs and come up with different models of phones, and our production cost can be lowered. After that, we can increase our marketing, and those distributors will not ask for such harsh conditions. They might even take the initiative to contact us.”

Feng Yu thought to himself. Set up a factory in the US?

Feng Yu had thought of this before but had hesitations, as the wages in the US is much higher than Russia and China.

Feng Yu had just spoken to Kirilenko and had spent a lot on setting up 4 factories in East Europe. The mobile phone market is still not developed yet. This market will bloom at around the year 2000 and mobile phone sales will rise rapidly for the next 10 years, before going into the smartphone era.

Is it too early to set up a factory now?

Fu Guangzheng saw Feng Yu hesitating and was curious. Setting up a factory in the US or Canada is the best solution. Although the wages are higher, the tax, transportation cost, etc. are lower. Also, this is a significant market, and China’s production cannot meet the supply.

The Chinese factories can only cover the Asia market, and it’s more worthwhile to set up factories in the West.

Fu Guangzheng does not believe Feng Yu is short of funds. Feng Yu can easily get an astronomical amount of loan from the bank with just his Microsoft shares.

Fu Guangzheng is thinking of getting a share if Feng Yu were to set up a new factory in the West.

“Brother Fu, do you have any connections in Brazil?” Feng Yu asked.

It’s more worthwhile to set up factories in developing countries because of the low labor cost. Labor cost is a significant factor in the production cost.

Fu Guangzheng shook his head. “You want to set up the factory in Brazil? I don’t suggest this. Although the labor cost in Brazil is lower, Brazilian workers are not efficient and the public security there is too poor. Without the help of an authoritative figure there, you will suffer massive losses. You can also forget about making use of China’s diplomatic relationships. China and Brazil are not on good terms.”

That means I need to pick a place where public security is good and can influence the US market. Then I can only set up the factory in the US? Wait… I can also set up a factory in Canada. Superman Li and his family have a significant influence on Canada.

“Brother Fu, wait a while. I will call Brother Kai now. He should have connections in Canada.”

Feng Yu had decided to set up a factory in North America. One or two factories have no impact on his funds, and more importantly, this will let Wind and Rain Mobile phones penetrate the US market.

In China, Feng Yu is not afraid of any world-renowned companies. Even in the US, Feng Yu was determined to be number one!

Fu Guangzheng was disappointed. If Feng Yu were to cooperate with Li Zekai, he would be out of the picture.

Chapter 873 – Finding another way

Norio Ohga was sitting in his office, smoking a cigar. Sony had gone through a rough patch but had recovered now. It is the same as Norio Ohga. He had been suspended for a while but was rehired by Sony as the President.

Who else can do a better job than Norio Ohga? During Norio Ohga’s suspension, some shareholders and higher management fought over the position of President, and Chairman Akio Morita stopped the infighting by getting Norio Ohga back.

Sony’s PS game consoles are selling well, and although the Walkman and CD players are on the decline, Sony had found another way to make money. Sony is currently pushing their MD players and had made some progress. Also, this product had won AIWA!

Sony’s PCs, digital camera, mobile phones, and other electronic products were doing better and Columbia Pictures’ debt was almost cleared. Next year, Sony has hopes to see high profits and who would dare to criticize Norio Ohga again?

The progress of all these products made Norio Ohga happy, but what made him happier was hearing no US local distributors are willing to sell Wind and Rain mobile phones in the US!

Norio Ohga was overjoyed when he heard this information.

Hahaha… Serve you, right!

Sony had many competitors, and some of its competitors used underhand methods against them. But there are only a few people whom Sony and Norio Ohga hates. One of them is China’s Feng Yu!

If not for this person, AIWA will still be under Sony, and Sony will always be the leader in the portable music player market. Sony’s profits will not drop if AIWA had not competed with them, causing their sales and profits to fall.

Also, Feng Yu had made Sony suffer massive losses in the DVD player competition, and China’s Lenovo, which Feng Yu had shares in it, caused Sony’s PC sales to come to a halt.

Sony’s development over the past two years was slow and the main reason is Feng Yu!

Now, Feng Yu wants to enter the mobile phone market and had hit a wall. You really think your Wind and Rain brand is invincible? When it comes to branding, how can you all compete with Sony?

Furthermore, we have been manufacturing mobile phones for years and look at the number of phone models. You all only have one model of phone, and you dare to launch it in the market?

You all can sell your phones in China is because the Chinese are ignorant and protective of their own domestic companies! Try selling your phones in Japan. If you can sell more than 10,000 units, I will immediately resign!

You all still want to enter the US market? You all can’t even walk out of China!

We, Sony, have factories all over the world, and not only we have the most advanced technology and branding, but we can also still control our production cost. These are what Wind and Rain Electronics lack.

We will not only get back the top position of the portable music player market, but we will also suppress your mobile phones!

……

“Mr. Silva, nice to meet you.” Feng Yu smiled and extended his hand for a handshake. This old man, with white hair, is Philips CEO for the North America Region.

“Mr. Feng, nice to meet you too. I always wanted to meet you, but I was overwhelmed with work.”

Silva had wanted to meet Feng Yu because Philips and Wind and Rain Electronics are partners, and Feng Yu is a Microsoft director, who is also a super tycoon that controls the whole Chinese market. But Silva didn’t have an excuse to meet Feng Yu.

Now, it’s different as Feng Yu was the one who invited him over.

“Mr. Silva, I had invited you over is to ask a favor from Philips.”

“We will do our best to help you.” Before coming here, Silva had received instructions from his headquarters to establish a good relationship with Feng Yu. Feng Yu is an important partner, and Wind and Rain’s patented technologies had helped Philips much.

“I heard that Philips have some factories in North America.”

“We have two big production plants and 3 small factories,” Silva replied. This is not a secret, and anyone can find out if they want.

“Can your factories spare some assembly lines to help us manufacture some electronic products?” Feng Yu asked.

Philips had helped Wind and Rain manufacture Super VCD players in the past, and currently, their factories in Europe are still doing it.

“Manufacturing products for you? Although our factories have lots of orders, we should be able to squeeze out some resources to help you. What are you going to manufacture?” Silva was hinting Feng Yu that Philips will be sacrificing a lot to help him.

“Mobile phones. We hope your factories can help us manufacture a batch of Wind and Rain brand of mobile phones. The quantity should be around 100,000 units. How much are you all charging?” Feng Yu asked.

“I need to discuss with the factories before I can tell you the cost. But I’m afraid our charges will not be cheap.” Silva replied.

“I understand. All I want is high-quality products and I have confidence in Philips factories. If possible, please help me pass a message to your headquarters that I would like Philips to help me manufacture a batch of phones in Europe.”

This was the most straightforward and cheapest solution Feng Yu can come up with. He had thought of getting some small electronic factories or less expensive options, but he was worried about the quality.

Also, some technologies in the mobile phone cannot be leaked to small factories. Although these technologies were not patented or the core technology of the phone, small factories do not have access to them, and it was not worthwhile to pass these technologies to them.

Don’t think there are no imitations in the US. The US is one of the countries that have the most imitations. How is it possible that all counterfeits are imported? In Feng Yu’s previous life, many of the counterfeit factories flourished because of orders from the US.

The country that has the most copyright and patent infringements is also the country that claims to have the most protection of copyright and patents. Every year, more than one company had been sued over patent issues in the US.

Due to these considerations, Feng Yu finally decided to get Philips to help him manufacture a batch of phones for the time being, while he acquires a factory in Canada. It will take a few months before the factory is ready for production.

Feng Yu had wanted to use the current model of mobile phone to set up the distribution channels in the US. He will not ask for a specialized counter, and being able to sell his phone in the mobile phone shops is sufficient.

Feng Yu is waiting for Wind and Rain to introduce new phone models as the new phones will have better technologies and designs than all the existing phones in the market. The production cost will also be lowered, and that’s the time to start an aggressive marketing campaign.

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng had looked into the mobile phone market and knew there will be no profits next year. But before the end of 1998, there will inevitably be returns and with new models, Wind and Rain phones will be accepted by the consumers.

Feng Yu had lunch with Silva before Silva left. He will get back to Feng Yu after he consulted his headquarters.

Feng Yu stood in front of his office windows. He wants to create an Electronic empire and make all the big companies in his previous life, bow before him!

“President! Look at this report. Wind and Rain Electronics had signed an agreement with Philips. Philips factories will help Wind and Rain Electronics manufacture a batch of mobile phones, and Wind and Rain phones will be entering the Western countries’ markets!”

“What? Why is a big company like Philips helping others to manufacture phones? Also, how are they going to distribute their phones? Are they using Philips’ distribution channels?!”

Norio Ohga frowned. Philips might not be good in the telecommunication industry, but with their help, Wind and Rain Mobile phones might quickly develop in the overseas market!

Chapter 874 – The letter

The morning sun shines onto Feng Yu through the window. Feng Yu was standing by the windows looking at the clouds in the skies and the traffic on the roads. His expression looks like he is waiting for something.

Knock, knock, knock…

“Come in.”

Ralph entered the room and pretended to wipe his sweat from his forehead.

“Boss, this is your letter. I had brought it over.”

Feng Yu smiles when he saw the familiar handwriting on the envelope. “Ok. Just leave the letter here. Good job.”

It’s vital to give subordinates praises when they do something for you.

“It’s my duty. Boss, I will go back to work.” Ralph poured a cup of tea and placed it on Feng Yu’s desk before going out.

Feng Yu tore open the envelope and took out the letter carefully. The paper had a sweet scent of flowers.

The handwriting is so familiar to Feng Yu, and he took a sip of hot tea while reading the letter from Shanghai.

This letter had arrived in Seattle a few days ago, but Feng Yu had been in New York. Just happen, Ralph had to come to New York, and Feng Yu asked him to bring this letter from his home to him.

“Are you doing well in America? Is your work busy? You mentioned that you are working at a world-renowned company there and you must have not time to rest… I had joined a student handicraft society in school. By the time you read this letter, maybe I have already made a masterpiece…”

Zhou Kexin had only written about her daily life and trivial matters in the letter.

The relationship between Feng Yu and Zhou Kexin was no longer ordinary penpals. Although they did not mention anything about their feelings for each other, Feng Yu could sense the changes from the way she writes the letter.

Feng Yu does not know whether if this is a good thing or not. He thought that since he is with Li Na in this life, Zhou Kexin should seek her own happiness. But when Feng Yu think about Zhou Kexin in another man’s embrace, he felt uncomfortable.

Not many things can make Feng Yu feel troubled. Although many people said money is not everything but having lots of money can do a lot of things.

At least, the problems that others will feel troubled will not happen to Feng Yu. Feng Yu can easily solve his troubles with money. But when it comes to relationships, money can’t do anything. At least Feng Yu does not want to use money to settle this.

In front of Kirilenko, Fu Guangzheng, and the rest, Feng Yu acts like a relationship expert and often gives them advice. But he realized he was a joke when he was faced with relationship problems.

In the letter, Zhou Kexin mentioned that a senior at school was wooing her, and she hasn’t decided whether to accept him. Feng Yu suddenly got scared and was worried Zhou Kexin would accept that senior.

But Feng Yu thought about what he can give Zhou Kexin. Half of his heart or a material life which everyone envies?

Feng Yu was not willing to give up on Zhou Kexin and knew it’s impossible to give up Li Na. At this moment, Feng Yu envied the ancient days where a man can have multiple wives.

Even now, many countries still accept polygamy, and in Asia, some countries legalized it. Why did China abolish this practice?

What made Feng Yu more frustrated was Hong Kong also stopped this practice. If not, Feng Yu’s Hong Kong passport can be put to good use.

Wait… I have two passports!

Feng Yu suddenly burst out laughing. Two passports mean he has two identities, and does it mean he can get married twice?

All Feng Yu needs to do is to persuade Zhou Kexin and Li Na. But this should be difficult.

Feng Yu came up with lots of ideas, but in the end, he laughed at himself. Maybe Zhou Kexin does not even like him. If she has no interest, he will not pester him and just be friends with her.

……

Zhou Kexin was sitting by the windows with both hands under her chin. The last letter she received was when school started. Now, it’s almost school holidays, and she still has not received any replies.

Should I save up my money and send an express letter like him?

“Kexin, what are you doing? Thinking of your boyfriend?” A cheerful girl suddenly appears behind Zhou Kexin.

Zhou Kexin got a fright and patted her chest. “You gave me a scare.”

“Writing letters every day is not the solution. Do you know about email? Just send him an email and he can receive it when he is online. It will be faster, and you don’t need to buy stamps.”

Zhou Kexin brightens up. That’s right. Why didn’t I think of this before? There are computers in school, and I can send and receive emails there. It will be much faster than regular letters.

Although I will not see his handwriting, I don’t need to wait so long for his reply.

Waiting for letters was once Zhou Kexin’s joy. But now, it had become a torture.

Zhou Kexin had asked herself before. It’s only a penpal and why was she so eager for the other party to reply? They were only chatting about their daily lives.

Zhou Kexin’s roommates and close friends were mocking her, saying her penpal is her boyfriend, and it’s weird that she had never thought of denying it.

But the other party is a graduate of Beijing University and is working at Microsoft currently. How can someone so capable does not have a girlfriend?

Even if he does not have a girlfriend in China, he should have a girlfriend in the US. The women there are more open.

“Eh, Kexin, I am talking to you. What are you thinking?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Why are you staying in the dormitory on the weekend? Let’s go to the supermarket. Tai Hua Supermarket in front of our school is having a promotion and I had won a 10 RMB voucher!”

“Ah, really? You are so lucky. Let me tie my hair first.”

When they reached the first level of their dormitory, Zhou Kexin looked into the dormitory office as usual. She was disappointed when she did not saw the letter she was waiting for.

“Eh… Stop looking. Are you not tired of staring at the office window? The staff inside knows you. If they have your letter, they will let you know.” Zhou Kexin’s roommate looked at her.

“I am just taking a look. Let’s go to the supermarket.”

“don’t be so excited. The promotion is still ongoing, and you can participate in it too. If you won a 100 RMB voucher, we could buy lots of tidbits.”

……

Zhou Kexin and her roommate returned from the supermarket, carrying a big bag each. They had bought all the cheap tidbits they could find and some hairclips.

On the way back to their room, Zhou Kexin glanced at the dormitory’s office window as usual. Suddenly, she pushed the bag of tidbits she was holding to her friend and ran to the office.

“Aunty Zhao! That letter! That is my letter!”

Chapter 875 – Not winning a single bid

“Oh, Manager Feng… It’s been a while since you drop by my office.” Station Chief Jia laughed.

“Stop joking. After you become the TV Station Chief, you are always not in your office. Here… Cuban cigar. I bought it for you. You can smoke it for fun when you are free.” Feng Yu placed a cigar on Station Chief Jia’s desk in front of his secretary.

This cigar is not gold or cash, and it’s hard to gauge the value of it. Even if the government wants to investigate, there is no evidence. This is just a small gift between friends. Of course, the gifts given out by Feng Yu are the best and the most expensive!

Station Chief Jia laughed and did not reject the cigar. “It’s an honor to smoke a cigar given by you.”

Tomorrow will be the advertisement time slots auction for next year. There’s no need to ask. Feng Yu must be here to talk about his purchase of the time slots. This time Feng Yu had come over personally, and he should be targeting the best timings.

Feng Yu said. “Chief Jia. I will not beat about the bush. I need more advertisement slots this year, and I will buy whatever slots Tongyi, Kang Shifu, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson and all other Japanese companies bid!”

Station Chief Jia’s hand, which was holding his teacup, trembled. “You want to buy all the slots these companies bid? Did I hear this correctly?”

Feng Yu had mentioned many companies, and all of them are from different industries. Some of the companies are international companies and they have a high advertising budget. How much is Feng Yu going to spend this year?!

“You think I will joke about this? I don’t care how much they bid. But if they are the highest bidder, I will add 5%. Chief Jia, this year’s advertisement fees will surely hit a record high.” Feng Yu laughed.

Last year, Tai Chi was the top bidder with 66.66 million RMB, and their annual profit was more than 900 million RMB. China is an alcohol loving country and people are used to having a few bottles of expensive alcohol on their dining tables during business meetings.

It doesn’t matter whether if the alcohol tastes good or not. The expensive bottles of alcohol are there to impress their clients.

Based on Feng Yu’s previous life, Tai Chi Alcohol will become the top bidder this year again, and the total advertising fees collected will be 5 times more than last year! All businessmen believe that becoming the top bidder in CCTV’s advertising slots auction will bring them high profits.

The bids by the companies should be based on the company’s own assessment. For example, Wind and Rain humidifiers and super fans will not be advertising this year. Even if they were to advertise and become the top bidder, the profits could not cover the amount spent on the advertisement slot.

Anyway, there are only two brands of humidifiers and super fans in China. Wind and Rain and Ya Du. Ya Du also has no intention of buying advertising slots, and there’s no need for Wind and Rain to do so.

Moreover, the main share of profits from humidifiers and superfans are from western countries now.

But this year, many of Feng Yu’s products, like cordless phones, Songjiang Motors’ motorcycles, and cars, Bing City Pharmaceutical’s newest medicine, need to be advertised. Lehaha, Jianlibao, and the rest also will have new products introduced. That’s why Feng Yu requires more advertising slots.

If the MP3 player is successful, the new DVD player is developed, or the voice recorder is going to be launched this year, the advertisements can be switched to promote these products.

Although China has lots of satellite channels, within the next few years, advertising on CCTV is the most efficient.

……

“Manager Feng, don’t you think your bid is a bit low?” Li Jingwei asked. The advertisement slots auction is about to start, and it’s the same close bidding systems as the previous years. But Li Jingwei was puzzled. Manager Feng had said this year’s advertising fees will be much higher and why is the amount he wrote the same as last year?

Zhong Qingxian poked Li Jingwei, signaling to him to stop asking. Zhong Qingxian knew Feng Yu and Station Chief Jia are very close, and Feng Yu could change the advertisements as and when he likes. If another company had violated the regulations and got their ads removed, CCTV would approach Feng Yu to ask if he wants to take over that slot first. The price offered is also a discounted price.

Lehaha had benefited from this in the past.

This time, Manager Feng is here to bid personally, and Zhong Qingxian believes that Manager Feng will be the highest bidder.

Zhong Qingxian could feel some people looking at him, and he turned towards that direction. Hmph! You all think that you all can get the market just by grouping up? Manager Feng had said that you all will not win any bids at CCTV!

“Jianlibao Group is the winner for this slot, and the winning bid is 10.05 million RMB.”

Li Jingwei’s eyes opened wide. What was going on? He saw Manager Feng writing 8.88 million RMB with his own eyes. How come the bid becomes 10.05 million?

Kang Shifu’s Deputy CEO waved his fist in anger. He thought his bid of 10.01 million will be good enough to win the slot and did not expect Jianlibao to bid less than 5% more than him!

5 minutes later, the result of another slot is announced. The winning company is Lehaha Group, and the bid amount is also more than what Feng Yu had written.

Tong Yi’s representative beat his chest in anger. He saw Kang Shifu losing their bid earlier and increased his bids. But why did he lose?

The companies that won the slots they bid for are their competitors, and this was what made them most frustrated.

The slots Pepsi and Coca-Cola bid were also won by Lehaha.

Kang Shifu made another bid for a different slot, and this time the winning company is not Lehaha or Jianlibao. It’s Bing City Pharmaceutical.

The representatives of these 4 companies turned and stared towards Zhong Qingxian’s direction and saw Zhong Qingxian, Feng Yu, and the rest smiling happily. These are not coincidences!

The Japanese companies’ representatives were also frustrated as not a single Japanese company had won a single slot.

This is discrimination. We must make an official complaint through our Ministry of Foreign Affairs! Both our countries had signed a mutual aid agreement, and this is against the terms of the agreement!

The telecommunication companies from Europe and North America did not win any slots either. They had noticed the telecommunication market is on the rise and want to increase their advertisements for the market share and branding. But why can’t they win a single advertisement slot in this auction?

Also, why are the winning companies of the slots we bid, Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, Aiwa Home Appliances, etc.?

Are these really all coincidences?

Before the morning auction ended, the slot before the evening news was sold for 330 million RMB, and the auction will continue after the lunch break.

As Feng Yu and the rest were leaving, they walked past the representatives of Kang Shifu and the other companies, Li Jingwei said sarcastically. “Some companies are so pitiful. They can’t even win a single slot!”

Kang Shifu and the other companies’ representatives were furious. They looked at Li Jingwei’s expression and knew this auction was rigged. They must complain to the authorities and let CCTV give them an answer!!

Chapter 876 – Complain

Lunch was at a Quanjude brunch near to CCTV. Li Jingwei frowned and asked. “Manager Feng, are we too obvious? They did not win a single bid, and they might suspect.”

Wu Zhiganng laughed. “Manager Li, it’s alright. This is an auction, and our bids are higher. You two have won enough slots. I must win a few slots later in the afternoon.” Wu Zhigang was representing Bing City Pharmaceutical to participate in the auction. But actually, he is here to enjoy himself.

“Our Bing City Machinery Factory has enough slots. Our commercials now are enough to keep our brand position and our target this year is to set up sales points in every province.” The Bing City Machinery had already won several slots and it’s enough to promote their new vehicles model.

“We still need 4 or more slots.” Jiang Wanmeng said. The ‘we’ was referring to Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics, Wind and Rain Home appliances, Aiwa Home Appliances, Aiwa Little Tyrant, etc. These few companies had been developing new products together, and when they have a new product, it will be sold under these two brands.

“Lehaha needs at least 2 more for our latest product. We don’t mind even if it’s more than 2 slots.” Zhong Qingxian said.

“Don’t be so anxious. Having too many advertising slots is also useless. I still need to prepare two slots for Lenovo. You all might not get more than what you all have. Anyway, this time I must let them know who is in charge here!” Feng Yu sneered. This is China, my home ground!

The auction continued in the afternoon. Because of the high bids in the morning, the bids in the afternoon increased.

Feng Yu and his men continued to bid like crazy and bid in almost all time slots. They look like there were there to buy out everything.

When the auction was over, Motorola, Sony, Nokia, Tongyi, Kang Shifu, Pepsi, etc. had not won a single advertisement slot.

The representatives from these companies had changed their strategies and increased their bids by 10%. But they still return home empty-handed. It’s not all the slots had increased in prices. Some slots were sold at prices lower than last year. But all the slots these companies bid increased by a lot. It’s too weird!

…….

“Station Chief, the representatives of some companies, refuse to leave. They insist on meeting you and Deputy Station Chief Wu cannot stop him.” Station Chief Jia’s Secretary rushed into the office.

Station Chief Jia slowly replied. “Did they do anything aggressive?”

“They say they will complain to their embassy about us discriminating against them.” The Secretary replied.

“Complain? Go ahead. Hmph! We are auctioning the advertisement slots, and their bids are lower than others, they still want to win the slots? What? They are foreigners and they think they will get special treatments? They have not attended auctions before? Don’t they know the highest bidder will in the slots? They don’t have money to bid and they still want to complain?” Chief Jia said.

The Secretary was speechless. Those companies are all multinational companies, and none of them are poor. How am I supposed to convey your message?”

“Go. Just repeat what I had just said to them!” Chief Jia was waiting for the detail report of the auction and was not interested in speaking to those troublemakers.

trying his best to calm those representatives, but they just refuse to leave. They demand an explanation from the Station Chief on why they did not win a single slot.

“Secretary Sun, where’s Chief?” Deputy Station Chief Wu looked around and did not see Station Chief. Station Chief Jia wants him to handle these people?

But he can’t handle them!

“The Station Chief is busy right now and had asked me to pass a message to these representatives.” Secretary Sun said and walked to the stage. The microphone is still not removed, and he knocked on it twice.

Everyone heard the knocking and looked onto the stage. Who is this person? Where is the Station Chief? CCTV wants to appease us by sending someone else? It seems like they are not taking us seriously. If we don’t complain about our embassies, you all will not learn this lesson!

“Quiet! What’s the problem now?”

“Who are you to speak to us this way? We want to complain about the auction. This auction is rigged. Call your Station Chief here!” Someone shouted.

“Who says this auction is rigged? Where’s the evidence?” Secretary Sun retorted.

“All of us here had participated in the auction, and we did not win a single slot! You are telling me this auction is not rigged?”

Secretary Sun replied with disdain. “What a joke! This is a closed bidding auction. You all had underestimated the price of the slots and put in lower bids. Of course, you all will not win. In your country, Japan, is it the lowest bidder win the auction? The documents sent to you all had stated the rules of the auction clearly. The highest bidder wins!”

Sony’s representative was furious. Since when did I say the lowest bidder should win the slot? But it can’t be that our bids are always 5% lesser than the winning bid. We had bid 50% more than our intended price for some slots, and we still lost to Aiwa or Wind and Rain by 5%? How can this be possible?

“Then give us an explanation of why it is always those few companies who had the highest bids and no Japanese won a single slot? This is not fair!” Someone asked.

“What do you mean by those few companies? More than 900 companies are participating in this auction and only about 200 companies had won advertising slots. Some companies had won more slots than the rest and there are a lot of companies who did not win any slots like you all. Did those companies create trouble like you all? You all had bid for more than 120 slots and 86 companies won those slots. The companies are from the private sector and some are even joint ventures. They are from different industries like food manufacturing, apparel, electronics, furniture, cosmetics, etc. and some of those companies are from Europe, America, Africa, Asia. Which part is unfair?”

To prevent unsold slots, CCTV had invited some companies which are close to them to participate. If there are no bidders for any slots, these companies will bid for them and then sell it back to CCTV. This year’s advertising slots were selling well, and these invited companies did not need to bid anything.

Aiwa Electronic is also considered one of the Joint venture companies. They do have shareholders from Hong Kong, and AIWA also owns some of its shares. How can you say no Japanese companies win any bids?”

“We had made high bids, why we did not win any slots?”

“Someone had made higher bids than you all. You all had misjudged your bids, who can you blame?” Secretary Sun said.

Deputy Station Chief Wu added. “That’s right. Our slots are more expensive than last year. Just look at the most expensive slot. This year is 330 million compared to last year’s 67 million.”

Secretary Sun purposely grumbled loudly. “You all don’t have the money and still want the slots? How did they get to their positions?”

The representatives were furious, but they could not retort.

When the representatives were leaving, Secretary Sun said sarcastically. “These people don’t even know the rules of an auction and still dare to participate? Remember to tell these companies to send smarter representatives next year!”

Sony’s representative turned back and gave Secretary Sun a stare. He sighed and continued his way out, thinking about how he is going to report to his superiors!

Chapter 877 – The Old Man wants to meet you

“Director Fang, why are you calling?” Feng Yu was curious as Director Fang should not be calling to have a chat with him. Could it be that Iron-Fist Zhu wants to meet him?

“You are in Beijing now?”

“That’s right. I had returned 2 days ago. What’s wrong?”

“Come to Zhongnanhai tomorrow morning at 10 am. The Old Man wants to meet you.”

Ah~~~

The Old Man wants to meet me?

Feng Yu thought for a while. Could it be the advertisement slots auction had triggered him? But there is nothing wrong with it, and I had spent more money on the slots. Is it because of me targeting those Taiwanese companies?

“Ok. I will be there on time.”

The next morning, Dong Xuebing appeared at the entrance of Zhongnanhai at 9.50 am. Someone came out to bring Dong Xuebing in, and Dong Xuebing looked at his watch when he was seated. There’s still 5 minutes to 10 am.

The door opened suddenly, and an old man, with a walking stick, walked in slowly.

The old man seemed to be struggling, but no one was helping him and did not use a wheelchair. Feng Yu quickly stood up and went over to help him, but was stopped by the doctor and nurses.

The old man was a soldier all his life and did not want others to look at his state now. He will never accept any help from others when he can walk.

“Xiao Feng, sit down.” The old man’s eyes were cloudy, and his voice was no longer as powerful as before. But Feng Yu could tell he was not suffering from any illness.

“Thank you, Chairman.” Feng Yu sat down with complicated feelings.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, this old man will no longer be around after this coming Lunar New Year and could not fulfill his greatest wish to see the unification of China.

During the return of Hong Kong, the old man did not appear in public. Many people said that the military exercise was too exciting for him, and there were also rumors that his health was failing and knew his time was almost up. That’s why he thought of using military force to take back to China.

But all these plans were foiled by spies! Of course, the US also played a part.

“Xiao Feng, I heard you went to the US in the past two years. Why? Your business in China is not good?”

“Of course not. I have a dream. I want to earn money from overseas to strengthen our economy. Our economy is doing well now, and there are plenty of opportunities. I will still continue my businesses here.” Feng Yu bowed slightly and replied.

“I heard you started to manufacture mobile phones now. Is our domestic produced mobile phone better than overseas ones?” The Old Man asked another question. Maybe he was pleased with Feng Yu’s answer and did not continue on that topic.

“I dare not say China’s phones are better than overseas’ phones. But I am confident that our phone’s sales and profits will be one of the top 3 in the world in 3 years and become the world’s number one in another 3 years!”

Feng Yu had thought about this. It’s easy to beat other mobile phone companies except for Nokia and Motorola. But 6 years should be enough for him to win these two companies.

“You are confident. Young men have more spirit than us.” The old man nodded.

“My confidence is from my ability. I am Chinese, and I have the support of the country and my engineers. If I still can’t achieve this goal, I might as well don’t start this business.” Feng Yu puffed out his chest and said proudly.

“Hahaha… well said! You are Chinese, and the whole country will be your backing!” The old man said loudly.

But the old man might be too excited and started coughing badly. The doctors and nurses panicked and start to massage his back while staring at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu felt helpless. What’s wrong with saying something to cheer the old man up? But the old man’s health is too weak.

Feng Yu’s grandfather is also old, but maybe he was always in a good mood, and he is very healthy. In his precious life, Feng Yu’s grandfather should have passed away now. But now, the doctors at his sister’s hospital told him that his grandfather can easily live for another 10 years!

Feng Yu knew it is because his grandfather is carefree and without worries. One of his grandchildren is a government servant and the other a successful businessman. His grandson-in-law is also a successful businessman and he has a great-grandson.

But the Old Man is different. Although he had retired for many years, he still has lots of matters to worry about. He had fought in the war and suffered many injuries before. Without this group of doctors and nurses around, he might have passed away a long time ago.

The Old Man caught his breath and pushed the doctor’s hand away. He continued his questions. “Xiao Feng, I heard you are good in economics and business. That Beidacang Group is your idea?”

Feng Yu quickly waved his hand. “No. It’s Party Secretary Xu and Party Secretary Zhang’s idea. I only offer some suggestions as a businessman.”

Feng Yu had given out this credit, and he will not admit it. But he can’t deny it altogether.

“Then give some suggestions on our country’s economy from a businessman’s point of view.” The Old Man laughed.

Feng Yu was troubled. “Chairman, you think too highly of me. I am only a small-time businessman and can offer some suggestions when it comes to business or companies. I don’t know anything about the country’s development.”

Actually, Feng Yu can offer some ideas. But he is not suitable to say anything as he is only a commoner. He will offend a lot of people if he really gives suggestions or ideas.

“You brat! I am around. Just speak your mind.” The Old Man laughed.

“Ok.” Feng Yu looked at the rest of the people in the room and saw no one stopping him. He continued. “Being an industrialized country is the most traditional route. Our country’s industrial development is fast, but there are lots of hidden dangers. Many companies had reached the state where they must change themselves. It might be painful, but there are more benefits than flaws. The changes must be implemented fast! Also, we can learn from Japan and South Korea’s developments, which is to consolidate the companies’ resources and merge them to increase their competitiveness internationally…”

Feng Yu spoke for almost half an hour, and the Old Man asked about many details. The staff nearby used a pen voice recorder to record their conversation.

The Old Man was in a good mood and wants to smoke. But the staff stopped him.

He laughed and said. “I have no freedom at all. I can’t even have a smoke!”

Feng Yu quickly said. “Chairman, you should try to relax and enjoy life. You had contributed your whole life to the nation, and you should take a break. After Hong Kong’s return, I will invite you to visit my company there.”

“Hahaha, I know my body well. I don’t think I can last until then.”

“Chairman, you will surely see Hong Kong’s return to China!” Feng Yu said.

Chapter 878 – Try this

After chatting for a while, the Old Man’s doctors told him to go back and rest. Director Fang entered the room again and sat beside Feng Yu.

“I can tell the Chairman enjoys chatting with you. It’s been a while since I saw him smiling so happy.” Director Fang said.

Feng Yu asked. “The Chairman’s body should not last long, right?”

Director Fang looked at Feng Yu sharply. “Don’t ask about the things you are not supposed to!”

The Old Man’s health condition is the nation’s top secret. With him around, China is a nation where no other country dares to belittle. But the Old Man’s health is deteriorating, and other countries must not know about this!

Feng Yu thought to himself. Even if you refuse to reveal anything, I also know the Old Man is in the late stages of Parkinson’s disease and is suffering from Pneumonia. His respiration organs are weakening, and he passed away because of it.

Feng Yu suddenly had an idea that might let the Old Man live a while longer.

“My sister runs a hospital and I know about Parkinson’s disease. This condition can trigger Pneumonia easily.” Feng Yu said.

Director Fang looked at Feng Yu curiously. You are thinking of recommending your Sister’s hospital? China’s best doctors are all here and they do not have high hopes.

“The Chairman’s immune system is too weak, and the doctors are afraid he might catch a flu. If he had flu, it might evolve into Pneumonia, gastritis and might even cause his respiration organs to stop functioning. That’s why the doctors stopped him from smoking and even prevent smokers to go near him.” Since Feng Yu knows about the Old Man’s condition, Director Fang had nothing to hide.

Maybe Director Fang believe that Feng Yu will not harm the Old Man. To Director Fang, it’s harder to bribe Feng Yu than bribing the Old Man’s messengers!

Feng Yu gritted his teeth and said suddenly. “Bing City Pharmaceutical had developed a new drug and the main component is PDE5 inhibitor. This drug is effective in treating pneumonia, respiration problems, fevers, coughs, blood pressure, etc. I think you can let the Chairman’s doctors test it.”

The drug Feng Yu was talking about had just finished the clinical trial and is currently undergoing the drug evaluation. This drug is Viagra and Wu Zhigang had tested it at home!

The initial purpose for developing PDE5 inhibitor is to treat high blood pressure, heart diseases and prevent the formation of blood clots. But it was not very effective and the value of this drug increases after the side effect changed the usage.

“What? Bing City Pharmaceutical has a new drug? Are you sure this drug is as effective against the illness you mentioned? Feng Yu, it’s better if you don’t interfere in this. If you are only trying to promote your medicine, it will become a big issue!” Director Fang replied coldly.

Feng Yu was pissed. Damn! Do you all think that I only care about making money?

Feng Yu really want to do his part. He is also not sure if his drug will be effective or not. But in his previous life, Sildenafil, is a prescribed drug and does have these effect. But Feng Yu does not know if this medicine will be effective in treating the Old Man. China and even the whole world does not have this drug during this period in his previous life. What if it’s effective?

Winter is the peak season for pneumonia and the Old Man passed away because of this condition in Feng Yu’s past life. In this life, Feng Yu really hope the Old Man can see Hong Kong’s return personally and go without regrets.

“Director Fang, it’s the doctors who can determine whether if this drug is effective. You are not a doctor and promoting my medicine? You are belittling me!”

Director Fang and Feng Yu stared at each other for a while and he could see anger and worries in Feng Yu’s eyes.

“I apologize. I will call the doctors over.” Director Fang said to Feng Yu and walked out hurriedly. A new drug that can treat the Old Man is what he and everyone in China wish for.

Feng Yu had just picked up his teacup when the doors opened suddenly and 5 doctors in their white gowns rushed in. The person in front was the doctor who stood beside the Old Man earlier.

“You are the one who claims to have an effective drug against pneumonia, respiration problems and blood pressure?” The old doctor grabbed Feng Yu’s arm and asked.

Feng Yu’s hands shook, and the tea spilled onto his pants. He quickly stands up and wipe his pants. “What are you doing? Stop grabbing me!”

“I am asking you a question!” The old doctor shouted.

“Is this the way you ask people? Don’t you have any manners?!” Feng Yu brushed the old doctor’s hand away and sat down.

“You…. Fine! Young man… No… Manager Feng, is what you said to Xiao Fang earlier true?” The old doctor controlled his anger and asked politely.

Xiao Fang? Oh… It’s Director Fang. Hahaha… Director Fang is in his fifties and he is still being called Xiao Fang.

“Of course. This drug is called Viagra and is produced by Bing City Pharmaceutical and had just passed the clinical trial. It had been submitted for drug evaluation. You all can test it and see if it’s effective or not.” Feng Yu replied confidently, but he still has jitters. What if the drug can’t treat those conditions and only have ‘that’ effect?

The old doctor turned and ordered. “Xiao Liu, go to the Drug Evaluation department and bring a few boxes of this medicine over. We will arrange for people to undergo trial immediately.”

Xiao Liu, a doctor in his fifties, quickly run out. Feng Yu was surprised to see this group of old man are so agile!

“Manager Feng, if this drug is effective, the nation will reward you handsomely. But if you lie to us, you will bear the consequences!” The Old Doctor stared at Feng Yu.

Damn! What’s wrong with these people? Even a doctor is so arrogant!

“Reward me? What reward? Just give me money will do. My income is only about 1 billion USD annually. How much do you think you can reward me?” Feng Yu laughed.

“You are asking for too much! 1 billion USD annually? Why don’t you say you are earning 10 billion USD?!” A doctor roared.

The old doctor did not say a word. He was beside the Chairman earlier and knew this young man is not ordinary. For the Chairman to meet him personally and even asked him for suggestion, this young man is on the same level as Hong Kong’s Superman Li. Even if this young man had exaggerated his income, this amount should not be inflated by too much.

Director Fang cleared his throat and interrupted. “Senior Ma, Manager Feng’s last year income is more than 1 billion USD!”

That doctor who questioned Feng Yu was shocked. This young man’s income is so high? His income is even more than a province’s income!

“You all think I am doing this to get some benefits? Don’t think everyone is like you all. I only wish to do my part in helping the Old Man. You all can test the drug on someone with the same conditions and see if it is effective. Director Fang, I want to go back now. Please arrange for someone to send me out.” Feng Yu stood up and walked off.

I can understand that you all are concern about the Old Man’s health. But you all should not judge others!

No matter what, Feng Yu had tried his best and hope the Old Man will not pass away so early.

Chapter 879 – KTV

“The small river flows towards the south,

Flowed to Hong Kong to take a look.

Pearl of the Orient, my lover,

Is the romance still around?”

Wen Dongjun was screaming his lungs out in a KTV. This song should be a smoothing ballet, but he made it into a rock song. Other than he got the beat, everything else was out of tune!

This was an old song from a few years ago. During these few years, many singers had sung it, and the original singer had performed during Spring Gala night. It was because Hong Kong will be returning to China this year.

The VCD player was introduced much earlier than before, and most of the nightclubs had been converted to KTVs. KTVs can be found everywhere along the streets and their décor was much classier than before.

Although KTV had appeared, customers still can’t play the songs they wanted through computers. Currently, it is only a VCD player, a TV, and a whole stack of VCDs. The customers have to search for their favorite songs in the discs and play them themselves. This is better than the earliest version, where there are no lyrics and only have background music.

Today is a classmate gathering. But this time, it’s not Feng Yu who was paying. It’s Wen Dongjun, and the gathering was held in Beijing’s most expensive KTV.

This moron might seem to be lazing around in the government sector, but he is going to be promoted to Deputy Section Chief after the Lunar New Year, and his superiors had confirmed this.

“Liu Kun, cheers!” Wen Dongjun raised his beer mug and drank with Liu Kun.

Liu Kun was happy for Wen Dongjun. Although Wen Dongjun is not smart and sometimes do stupid things, he treated his friends and classmates well.

Liu Kun was also doing well. Although he was still studying for his Masters, his professor had told him he will be selected for his Doctorate, and the University will hire him as an Associate Professor.

This was in line with Liu Kun’s character as he loves doing research. During this gathering, Liu Kun had brought his girlfriend along. His girlfriend is his junior in school.

This junior is from Shanghai, and her parents are doing business. Although the company is not considered big, her family is also a millionaire. Liu Kun’s family are vegetable farmers but his girlfriend and her parents did not look down on him. They felt their future son-in-law will be at least an Associate Professor in the future and it’s better than getting a businessman son-in-law.

Time files and everyone had changed. But their friendship remains the same.

Feng Yu was singing happily, and Wen Dongjun tried to join in. Feng Yu had no choice but to stop.

This moron’s voice was too loud and can’t sing at all!

You don’t know how to sing why are you snatching the microphone from others? You don’t need to sing-along with everyone else! You invited us here is to sing and not to listen to your screams!

Wen Dongjun happily ‘sings’ finish this song and looked at the rest proudly.

“I have something to announce. Listen carefully. Zhang Han and I will be getting married on 2nd July!”

Ah? These two are going to get married? Feng Yu congratulated him and gave Liu Kun a signal.

Liu Kun immediately raises a bottle of beer. “Dongjun, congratulations. You must finish this bottle!”

“Thank you. Cheers!” Wen Dongjun finished the bottle of beer and went to the toilet.

Feng Yu quickly picks up the microphone. Damn! I can finally sing a song in peace.

Li Na held Zhang Han’s hand and asked excitedly. “When did you two decided on this? Tell us!”

“We had decided about this yesterday.” Zhang Han said blissfully.

Zhang Han’s father is a high-ranking government official, and she knew her father will help Wen Dongjun move up the ranks before he retires. She, on the other hand, has no ambitions to move upwards and was satisfied with being a clerk. Anyway, her job is simple and not dangerous.

Before Feng Yu could finish his song, Wen Dongjun returned and snatched the microphone from him, before passing it to Liu Kun.

Feng Yu gave Wen Dongjun a stare. Can’t you pee slower? I had just started singing!

“Xiao Yu, Uncle Zhang told me that although the government did not forbid government servants to trade shares, the regulations might change anytime. What should I do with my family’s money? Keep it in the bank?” Wen Dongjun asked.

If Wen Dongjun is going to pursue a career in the government, Feng Yu shouldn’t help him invest his money. Over the past few years, Feng Yu had helped him invest and Wen Dongjun’s assets are already over a million RMB, and it does not include his house and car.

Wen Dongjun remembered Feng Yu had told him about keeping money in the bank. Although there is interest, the value of his money might drop with inflation.

“Buy properties.”

Feng Yu thought for a while and said. In a few years, Beijing’s property prices will shoot up because of the high demand. As the population increases and the government stops giving out houses, there is a lack of homes in Beijing and the property prices surged. Investing in properties is definitely better than keeping it with the banks.

“What’s the use of properties? My parents and her parents all have their own houses. The house we are living in now has 3 rooms and my parents have their own place. If I buy another house, my mother might think that I do not want to live with them after my father retires.” Wen Dongjun said.

“Who told you to ask Uncle Wen to live there? You can rent out the house, and you can collect rents while the property value increases. If you need money in the future, you can just sell one of your properties. You have lots of money now and even if you buy 3 rooms apartment, you can buy at least 3 units. If you buy 2 rooms apartments, you have no problem buying 5 units!”

“5 units? Who can I rent it to?” Wen Dongjun had doubts about renting apartments out to others.

“You know where Wind and Rain building is? Go and buy the properties there. That place has lots of offices or Beijing companies. Do you think all their employees are from Beijing? Foreigners all stay in hotels?”

Feng Yu shook his head. Wen Dongjun does not have any talents in making money. Even a pig will know how to do business after staying by my side for so long. But he got to admit that no one else is as carefree as Wen Dongjun.

Wen Dongjun’s wife is pretty and loves him. His job is also smooth sailing, and he never needs to worry about money or career. Everything seems to be going well.

Wen Dongjun suddenly realized this. “You are telling me to buy apartments in the newest Tai Hua estate? The estate developed by Bing City Pharmaceutical’s real estate subsidiary?”

“You can also buy apartments near the universities. Many couples will go to hotels, but some prefer to rent an apartment near to their schools. They will claim they need a quiet place to study, but you should know what’s the real reason. With demand, there will be a market!” Feng Yu patted Wen Dongjun’s shoulders. You and Zhang Han had tasted the forbidden fruit when you two are still in university. You should know about this.

“Ok. I will go and buy properties later. In the future, I can still spend all my salary since I still have additional income from the rentals. This is a good idea, and it’s better than saving my money in the banks.” Wen Dongjun said excitedly.

Feng Yu shook his head. Your future father-in-law can help you with your career, and what are you thinking? If it’s someone else, he or she will be thinking how to climb up the ranks. You are the other only one who thinks of enjoying life every day!

After a while, Wen Dongjun grabbed the mic from the table and started screaming. Feng Yu just picked up his beer, and the door suddenly opens…

Chapter 880 – Southeast Li Jiaxing

A man in a suit entered Feng Yu’s KTV room with a waiter following behind him. The waiter was holding a tray with a bottle of Remy Martin and two glasses.

Feng Yu looked at Wen Dongjun and the rest. Everyone had a puzzled look on their face, and Feng Yu was sure no one knew this person.

Mei Zhigang saw his boss’s expression and knew he was tricked. This person is not his boss’s friend! He was about to grab that man’s shoulder from his back when someone grabbed his arm.

“Mr. Feng? I am Dong Fang Logistic Company’s General Manager, Li Jiaxing. I am here to offer you a toast and befriend you.” That young man had a smile on his face, but his expression was arrogant.

Feng Yu waved towards the entrance, and Mei Zhigang and Li Jiaxing’s bodyguard stepped outside. Mei Zhigang frowned as he realized this person’s bodyguard was like him. He can sense this bodyguard had killed someone before. It will not be easy to deal with him. But Mei Zhigang still has men outside of the KTV and if this person were to create trouble, he is confident that he can stop him.

Feng Yu felt this person was familiar. In his previous life, he had seen this person in the papers. This person’s uncle incident had implicated a lot of people, but more people are interested in his movie star mistress.

Feng Yu had warned Master Lu to be careful and stop befriending this person. But he never expects this person to come and find him.

Feng Yu’s friends saw this person who was here to look for him and offered him a seat beside Feng Yu.

“Mr. Feng, I am here with my friends and just happened to see you. Let me offer you a toast.”

Li Jiaxing finished a glass of Remy Martin immediately.

Feng Yu had a smile on his face and took a sip before putting his glass on the table.

“Manager Li, we have drunk, and now you can tell me what you want from me.”

“Nothing. I am just here to drink and hope to be friends with you.”

Li Jiaxing does not mind Feng Yu just took a sip while he finishes a glass, and he still has a smile on his face. But Feng Yu was wary of him. This person is a smiling tiger. The more he smiles, the more dangerous he is.

It’s uncommon for someone at Li Jiaxing’s age to be this shrew, and he won’t drop by without any reason. This person must be up to something.

This person must have some evil intentions!

“It’s a pity. I do not want to be your friend.” Feng Yu looked at Li Jiaxing calmly.

Li Jiaxing’s face changed slightly. He felt he was courteous enough and positioned himself well. He is friends with lots of high-ranking officials’ children, but this person in front of him did not give him any face.

“Mr. Feng, it’s good to have more friends. With more friends, you will have more options.” Li Jiaxing replied coldly.

“There are many types of friends. I don’t mind having a lot of close friends, but I do not want to have friends with ulterior motives! Even if I don’t have options, I am confident I can still survive!” Feng Yu had a disdain look in his eyes. This person is only a smuggler. Does he really think he is someone powerful?

“Mr. Feng, are you really not going to give me face?” Li Jiaxing put the bottle of alcohol on the table loudly.

Wen Dongjun stood up immediately and stared at Li Jiaxing. “Hey, you are here to create trouble?!”

Li Jiaxing’s eyes twitched. He remembered this is Beijing and not the Southeast. This KTV is also not his turf.

Feng Yu patted Wen Dongjun’s leg. “Let him go. It’s not worth getting angry over such people.”

“Get out!” Wen Dongjun roared.

Li Jiaxing controlled his anger and was about to walk out.

“Take back your alcohol!” Wen Dongjun shouted.

Li Jiaxing turned back to take the bottle before leaving. Wen Dongjun also pours away the two glasses of liquor in front of Li Jiaxing.

After Li Jiaxing left the KTV room, Wen Dongjun asked Feng Yu curiously. “Is there something wrong with that person’s head?”

“Just ignore him. I think he just wants to do business with me.” Feng Yu said.

“You don’t even listen to what he has to say and you chase him away?” Zhang Han asked with her eyes opened wide.

“He should know who that person is and does not want to do business with him.” Wen Dongjun said.

“Let’s stop talking about him. There are dices here. Let’s play liar dice.”

After a while, Wen Dongjun refused to play with Feng Yu. He had finished 6 bottles of beer, and Feng Yu only had one. This game is too difficult to win.

Feng Yu had a cunning smile on his face. Wen Dongjun is too simple-minded and does not know how to trick others. He lost after two bids in every game.

Zhang Han knew Wen Dongjun well and asked Liu Kun to play with Feng Yu. Feng Yu was confident. So what if you are a top student? This game is not taught in school.

But within minutes, Feng Yu’s face changed.

Feng Yu could feel what Wen Dongjun had gone through minutes ago. Liu Kun seems to know what his dices are.

Li Na laughed and patted Feng Yu. “Forget it. You will never beat him. He got full marks in math, probability, and statistics.”

Feng Yu can only admit his defeat. Damn! This nerd even uses math in this simple drinking game? Feng Yu remembered the time when he taught Liu Kun how to play mahjong. At first, Feng Yu kept winning, but after a few rounds, he was no match for Liu Kun!

Luckily Wen Dongjun was around, and Feng Yu asked him to play with Liu Kun as he excused himself to go to the bathroom.

When Feng Yu returns from the bathroom, he saw Wen Dongjun drinking.

……

After Li Jiaxing left Feng Yu’s KTV room, he entered another room. There is only one man inside, and there are no hostesses.

“Mr. Song, that Mr. Feng is too arrogant!” Li Jiaxing sat down and grumbled.

Mr. Song replied in broken Cantonese. “I only mentioned that this Mr. Feng’s business is successful, and you really go over to over him a toast? He is too arrogant and will not be interested in our businesses.”

Mr. Song smiled cunningly when he heard what Li Jiaxing. Li Jiaxing might look mature, but he is too revengeful.

Earlier, it was Mr. Song who purposely lured Li Jiaxing to approach Feng Yu. Li Jiaxing had never suffered any setbacks in his life. This time, Feng Yu did not give him any face, and this grudge was formed.

With Li Jiaxing’s uncle’s connection, Feng Yu will face a lot of troubles, and Li Jiaxing might even do something despicable!

“Hmph! I had met many arrogant people before. But we are in Beijing now, and I will let him off this time. Let’s see if he dares to go to Fu City!” Li Jiaxing said.

“Mr. Li, forget it. Don’t get mad over such matters.” Mr. Song said.

“Mr. Song, let’s get 2 hostesses to accompany us. Xiao Ma, go and get some pretty girls over.”

Mr. Song’s face changed slightly and then smiles and nodded. Pretty girls? Even if they strip naked in front of me, I also can’t do anything!

Rémy Martin

Liar’s dice

Chapter 881 – Invitation

“Boss, Mr. Soros, wish to have a meeting with you.” Ralph called.

“Who? Which Soros?” Feng Yu was surprised. Could it be the Soros he knew?

“Mr. George Soros, from Soros Fund Management. The boss of Quantum Fund.”

Huh? It’s really him!

Why is this financial speculator looking for me?

This person is a super tycoon and is scarier than other tycoons. In Feng Yu’s previous life, he is the one who spearheaded the Asian Financial Crisis, and he is also the person Feng Yu had been preparing to deal with.

Since Soros wants to meet Feng Yu, Feng Yu is also interested to see what he has to say.

“Ok. I will return to New York tomorrow. Help me fix an appointment with him.”

Feng Yu stood up from the sofa and walked towards the dining table. After dinner, Feng Yu apologized to Li Na. “I need to return to New York and can’t accompany you home.”

Li Na showed some disappointment, but she still smiled. “It’s alright. Your work is more important. I can go back myself.”

“I will ask Mei Zhigang to send you back. I will return once I finish my work.” Feng Yu gave Li Na a kiss on her forehead.

……

Feng Yu walked out of New York Airport, and his driver was already waiting for him there. After getting into the car, he asked Ralph, who was in the front passenger seat. “What time is the appointment?”

“It’s a dinner appointment. You still have 2 hours to rest.” Ralph replied.

“Ok.” Feng Yu closed his eyes and thought about his appointment with Soros.

This person can be said to be the world’s best fund manager, and his wealth is still a mystery.

On the surface, Soros’s asset is only about a few billion USD. But he only had around 1 billion USD, he successfully did something that surprises the world. That’s 1992, Britain’s Black Wednesday.

Soros had successfully made Pounds withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, and his Quantum fund made as estimated 2 billion USD. Some said that he made at least 600 to 700 million, and some said he profited more than 1 billion USD. After all, he charges commissions to manage other people’s investments.

No one really knows how much he made during that incident.

With leveraging, hedge funds can use a few hundred million to make a few billion USD worth of trades. At this time, Soros’s Quantum Fund had more than 6 billion USD, and therefore he can control the financial market.

Of course, a few billion USD might seems a lot, but it will not cause any impact on any country. But Soros’s hedge fund includes other people’s investments, and he can get loans from his investors. There are also other speculators following his investments. With many financial institutions and fund managers grouping together, they become a force to be reckoned with.

But what is interesting is other than being known as a financial speculator, he is also the world’s top donator to the charities. He had donated more money than Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, etc.

Soros owns dozens of charity foundations all over the world. Some people said he used his foundations to get information from that country’s government. Whenever there are changes in the government of that country, he will seize the opportunity to make money.

No matter what other people said about Soros, he is still the most successful fund manager in the world!

At about 7 pm, Feng Yu entered a restaurant. This restaurant is not open to the public as Soros had booked the entire restaurant!

Soros’s conversation with Feng Yu cannot be heard by others.

“Mr. Feng, nice to meet you.” Soros stood up and offered a handshake.

“Nice to meet you too.” Feng Yu shook Soros’s hand and sat down. He waved to his bodyguards to move further away.

Soros is in his 60s or 70s now. His hair is all white, but his eyes are sharp and confident.

Maybe this trait is the trait of all Jewish businessmen.

“Feng, can I address you this? You can call me Soros.”

“Sure. I am curious. Why are you treating me to dinner?” Feng Yu crossed his arms and rested on the table. It’s considered rude, but Soros did not mind.

“Feng, I think I don’t need to introduce myself. Of course, you also don’t need to tell me about yourself. You are the third-biggest shareholder of Microsoft, the owner of the Empire State Building, Wind and Rain’s boss, and have many investments in China. I want to befriend you regardless of each of the many identities you have. Especially, you like to invest in stocks and other financial products. This is also something I like.” Soros laughed.

Feng Yu frowned. He wants me to invest with him? It’s 1997 now, and Feng Yu knew what Soros was going to invest.

“From what you said, you must have some good investment opportunities and wants to rope me in, right?” Feng Yu asked.

“Feng, do you trade currencies?”

“I traded some Yen, Rubles in the past, and also trade Pounds that year!” Feng Yu looked at Soros.

Soros smiled. He knew the person in front of him also love to speculate, and they have a common topic now.

At this time, the waiter served the food.

“Try the food here. We can talk while eating.”

Feng Yu tasted the food, and it was delicious. But Feng Yu is not used to using knives and forks. Also, Feng Yu was here to meet Soros and not for dinner.

“Feng, I am curious, or should I say, everyone on Wallstreet is curious about you. When did a tycoon like you appear? What was more surprising was you are not only good at financial investments, you are also a successful entrepreneur. I am not trying to look into your secrets, but looking at you made me feel old.”

You feel old? Even before I come back into this life, you are still the world’s top fund manager. Your personal asset might only be around 1 billion USD, but the hedge fund you controlled is scary. This man will bring chaos to the whole of Southeast Asia. Will such people feel old?

“Soros, people must be blind if they think you are old. Your hedge fund’s annual returns are more than the entire financial industry. Just this alone, no one will dare to think you are old.” Feng Yu seriously replied.

Feng Yu was not afraid to face Soros. But if Soros brought a group of speculators with him, Feng Yu will surely lose.

Facing this old man in his 60s had given Feng Yu lots of stress. Although Soros’s personal asset is not more than Feng Yu and Bill Gates, Feng Yu had to take precautions against him.

Soros looked at Feng Yu. He did not expect Feng Yu to think so highly of him. Last year, many people in Wallstreet said Soros is old. But this young man had a different view.

Soros was more confident that he can get Feng Yu to join him in making money from Asia now!

Chapter 882 – Some places cannot be touched

“Feng, are you from Hong Kong?”

“I am Chinese. Hong Kong is part of China!” Feng Yu said.

“Of course. I agree with you on this. What do you think of the economies of the countries in Southeast Asia?” Soros asked.

“I am not very sure about other countries’ economies. But in Asia, there are 4 Asian Tigers and Tiger Cubs. Their economies are developing very fast.”

“Do you think there are loopholes in those countries’ economies?” Soros put down his knife and fork.

“Why are you asking? Are you thinking of making money from those countries?” Feng Yu asked.

Soros, which was holding on to his wine glass, shook. He did not expect Feng Yu to be so direct. But he thought back, and when he was at Feng Yu’s age, he was also so straightforward.

“That’s right. There are no reasons to give up on this opportunity to make money. Feng, are you interested in joining us?” Soros smiles and asked.

Feng Yu narrowed his eyes. Us? Soros does not only have Quantum Fund as his backing. He had already roped other speculators in. No wonder he can bring the whole Southeast Asia economies into chaos.

“Oh? How do I join?” Feng Yu pretended to be interested. Feng Yu does have an interest. If Soros is willing to give up attacking Hong Kong, Feng Yu will not mind being friends with him.

“The requirements for joining us is not harsh. First, you must have at least 1 billion USD as capital. You should not have a problem with this. Secondly, you must have guts. I believe you can meet this requirement too, right?” Soros asked and smiled.

“I don’t have 1 billion USD cash. But I can raise this amount if I get some loans. As for guts, I think you don’t need to doubt me. Timid people will not invest in commodities or currencies.” Feng Yu laughed.

“Then it’s simple. I would like to hear your analysis of the Southeast Asia countries’ economies.”

The Four Asian Tigers and Tiger Cubs Feng Yu mentioned earlier are to start this conversation. There are lots of loopholes in the economies of those countries.

Feng Yu thought for a while and said. “There are many countries in Asia, and most of them rely heavily on exports. Their economies might seem to be doing well, but they are heavily in debt. Also, many of those countries’ currencies are using Fixed Exchange Rate system and they don’t have enough reserves! Those countries’ financial system will collapse if we attack them!”

Clap… Clap… Clap…

Soros clapped. What Feng Yu had said was brief and straightforward. But he mentioned all the crucial points. Those countries might seem prosperous, but they have high debts and don’t have enough reserves. This is their weak point!

“Feng, you don’t need to say anything more. I invite you to join us now. Let’s go to Asia and make money!” Soros said excitedly.

Feng Yu raised his hand, and one of his bodyguards ran over and place a box of cigars on the table.

“Do you want one?” Feng Yu asked.

Soros was stunned. He had met people who discuss over dinner. But this is the first time he met someone who smokes cigars in the middle of a meal.

But Soros still accepted Feng Yu’s offer and thanked him.

Cigars are not like cigarettes, and the smoke is thicker. Both of them took a few puffs and the restaurant was filled with the cigar smoke smell.

“Can I ask how many people are participating in this operation, and how much capital do you all have? Also, what are the chances of succeeding, and how high are the returns?” Feng Yu asked.

“Feng, I cannot tell you how many people are with me, but I can only tell you a lot of people are participating in this. We have enough capital to attack not only one country’s economy. I am 80% confident that we will succeed, and the returns will be at least double!” Soros replied confidently.

Doubled? If this operation is executed properly, the returns will be more than this. Of course, there might be some hiccups along the way, and they might need to hedge against the risk.

“I can join you all, but I have a few requests.” Feng Yu looked at Soros.

“Everyone has their own requests.” If Feng Yu did not have any requests, Soros would find him suspicious!

“You all must not touch China.” Feng Yu said.

“China’s financial system is too conservative, and the Chinese government might step in anytime. Also, China has high Foreign exchange reserves. We have no intention of attacking China’s economy. After all, you are our partner now and you are Chinese.”

Feng Yu looked at Soros. Bullshit! It’s because China’s debts are low, and it’s economy doesn’t depend on exportation, and the currency cannot be controlled easily. If you all have the opportunity, you all will care how I feel?

Soros had attacked the Pounds in 1992, attacked Asia in 1993 and Malaysia suffered some losses. In 1994, he struck Mexico and then rested for about 2 years. All these while he was monitoring Asia economies. Asia economies are rising rapidly and Soros and his gang felt their opportunity is here!

Soros’s success in the past showed how powerful he and his gang are. Also, because they succeeded in the past, they had become stronger!

“Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are part of China. You all must also not touch these places!” Feng Yu said.

Soros’s face changed. “You are from Hong Kong, and I can understand you don’t want us to attack Hong Kong. We can also accept your condition of not attacking China. But Macau and Taiwan have nothing to do with you. We have a lot of partners and I can’t give up the profits because of you.”

Actually, Soros had been eyeing Hong Kong for a long time. As for Macau, he is not interested. That is a gambling capital and have high cash reserves. Their financial system is also not developed, and they do not have any debts.

More importantly, the currency commonly used in Macau in Hong Kong Dollars. Attacking Hong Kong is enough.

Feng Yu thought for a while and said. “I can ignore Taiwan and Macau. But you must not attack Hong Kong and its currencies!”

Soros hesitated for a while and nodded. “Fine. I can promise you that the Quantum Fund will not attack Hong Kong Dollars. But you must help us in other countries’ markets!”

Feng Yu raised his glass. “No problem. Here’s to our success!”

Half an hour later, Feng Yu left with his bodyguards. Soros looked at Feng Yu’s back view and thought to himself. This Chinese man is not easy to control as he is too sharp.

Feng Yu closed his eyes after he boarded the car. Soros had said Quantum Funds will give up on attacking Hong Kong Dollars, but that does not mean others will not attack Hong Kong. Other than Quantum Funds, Soros also controls several hedge funds.

This old man is trying to fool me? But I also want to fool you too. Let’s see who will be tricked!

Translator Notes:

Four Asian Tigers

Tiger Cub Economies

Fixed exchange rate system

Foreign exchange reserves

Chapter 883 – So, that’s the reason

Back in his office, Feng Yu rested his chin on his hand and was tapping the desk with his other hand. Soros’s invitation seems to be too simple. Although getting more people will accumulate more funds and they will get more profits, but Feng Yu does not know them before this meeting.

If Feng Yu is to go against these international speculators in Hong Kong, he will contact the Fu family and the Li family because he is close to them. As for contacting other tycoons, he will leave it to these two families. Feng Yu will not give out invitations to people he is not close to.

But Soros had invited him personally, and it’s odd. Especially Feng Yu is an Asian and is holding to a Hong Kong passport.

If Soros and his gang are going to invite everyone that has financial power, they will inevitably invite Fu Rongqi. But Feng Yu asked Fu Rongqi, and he does not know anything about this.

“Feng, why are you in New York again? I had bought two factories in Russia, and I don’t have enough funds.” Kirilenko entered Feng Yu’s office.

Feng Yu’s assistant looked at Feng Yu embarrassedly. He had tried to stop Kirilenko, but Kirilenko is too strong for him. The assistant also dare not stop him as he knew Kirilenko is his boss’s close friend, and the Empire State Building is owned by both of them.

Kirilenko walked over to the liquor cabinet in Feng Yu’s office and poured a glass of vodka for himself. He finished the glass in one gulp. Many people prefer to drink cold beer during a hot day to cool off. But Kirilenko drank vodka to quench his thirst.

“Go out. I had told you not to stop Brother Ki when he comes.” Feng Yu waved to his assistant to leave. “Brother Ki, why didn’t you tell me when you acquire the factories? I will transfer the money to you now. How much is it?”

“It’s not a lot. If converted to USD, it should be around 40 million. It is more expensive because of the equipment.”

“One factory for 40 million USD?” Feng Yu frowned. It’s way more costly than he expected.

“It’s for both factories. How can one factory be so expensive? Some of their equipment is old. If all the equipment is new, it might be worth around 40 million for one. We still need to change some of the equipment, hire workers, etc. I also got someone to clear the factories’ debts, but the factories do not have money now. If the factories want to start operation now, we need to invest a sum of money.”

The main headache is settled, and the rest of the problems, like replacing new equipment, start-up capital, etc. are all minor problems.  Most importantly, Russia has skilled workers and some of the top technologies in the world. The only country that is better than Russia is Germany.

“Alright. I will transfer 100 million USD first. If it’s not enough, let me know.”

“It should be enough. Even if it’s not enough, the gap will not be too big.” Kirilenko said. After all, Feng Yu only need to provide 70% of the capital, and the factories do not need so many funds.

“You come all the way here to New York for this?” Feng Yu was curious. With their relationship, a phone is enough to settle this issue.

“Not really. I had come over two days ago to meet a tycoon, and got to know you are back in New York.” Kirilenko casually replied.

Kirilenko had settled the factories in Russia, and his friends are still helping him to buy the factories in Belarus and Ukraine. It should be settled in a few days. What’s troublesome is to wipe off the factories’ debts. The factories’ accounts can be empty, but it must not have debts or other problems.

Feng Yu asked curiously. “Tycoon? American? New York?”

“That’s right. He is famous on Wall Street. I also mentioned about you. Did he look for you?” Kirilenko asked.

“Are you talking about George Soros?” Feng Yu asked.

“I think that’s his name. He owns a hedge fund, Quantum fund. He also has a fund named after him. Hehe… Why didn’t I think of using my name to name my companies?!” Kirilenko replied.

Damn! So, this is the reason. Soros had looked for Kirilenko before he meets Feng Yu!

“Brother Ki, do you remember that I told you that there is an opportunity to make money from the financial markets this year?” Feng Yu frowned.

“I remember. They are also the same. Didn’t you say you will get a group of friends to invest? I thought the more people we have, the more funds we can accumulate, and it will increase our profits. What’s wrong? You didn’t agree with that old man? I also have not given him my reply. If you don’t agree to join him, I will also reject his invitation immediately.”

Feng Yu slapped his forehead. This moron!

I had asked you to team up with me against Soros! Now, you want to work with them? If Soros is sincere and agrees to not attack Hong Kong, cooperating with him is a good option.

But that Jewish man is too greedy, and he can’t keep his words.

“Brother Ki, I agreed to join him.”

“Huh? You agreed? I knew you will agree. I will give him a call later to tell him I will participate too, and we will make money together. I heard that the old man is famous on Wall Street.” Kirilenko replied excitedly. He had finally helped Feng Yu once in the financial market.

“I thought you hate Americans. Why are you cooperating with them?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

“Eh? American? He is not Jewish?” Kirilenko was surprised.

“He is a Jewish American. Don’t be anxious. We will cooperate with them at first, but we will surely face them at the end. At that time, we will work together to deceive them. Are you interested?” Kirilenko hated Americans the most, and won’t cooperate with them.

“Deceive them? I’m interested!” Kirilenko asked excitedly. “But how are we going to trick them?”

“We will join them when they attack Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Japan, and the other countries and make money with them. They will surely attack Hong Kong after that. At that time, we will work with Hong Kong’s government and Hong Kong tycoons to fight against them. Even the Chinese government will join in the fight. With so many people and two governments on our side, we still cannot make them suffer major losses?”

“Good… This is a good idea. We can make money and also make them suffer losses! How much money should we prepare? I need to think of a way to raise funds.” Kirilenko asked.

“Hmmm… we can mortgage our mining company’s shares to get loans. I will also use my shares in the US to get loans from the banks. This time, I guarantee we will make high profits!”

“I don’t care how much we make. I only want to see those dumb Americans suffer! He is an American, how dare he tell me he is Jewish? I want to see him suffer!” Kirilenko snarled.

Feng Yu shook his head. Kirilenko should be the only one in Wall Street that does not know Soros is an American.

But this is not easy to succeed. Feng Yu is taking precautions against Soros, and Soros is also doing the same.

Chapter 884 – Fundraising

Kirilenko returned to Moscow, and Feng Yu remained in New York to raise funds.

Feng Yu started selling some unimportant shares he owned and used Microsoft, Yahoo, and other technology shares to get loans.

Although getting loans will let Feng Yu raise lesser funds, but the Asian Financial Crisis will last more than a year. During this one year, the technology share prices will continue to rise and might even be doubled.

This is the best solution for Feng Yu to get the most profits.

If Feng Yu is to sell off all his Microsoft shares, it will affect Microsoft share prices, and Feng Yu might be kicked out of the board of directors.

Although Feng Yu does not have any say in Microsoft, Lenovo Kingsoft is still developing. Lenovo Kingsoft is still far from Microsoft, and even some software companies in China dares to challenge them with specific software.

Feng Yu needs the identity of Microsoft’s Director to protect Lenovo Kingsoft and China’s software market. He does not want China’s software industry to be like what happened in his past life, where the most profitable software is produced by overseas companies.

Yahoo’s shares cannot be sold as Yahoo’s share prices will shoot up this year. It will be a loss if Feng Yu sells his shares.

This time, Feng Yu did not look for a single bank to get a loan. One bank might not lend him the amount he needed. Also, Feng Yu needs to divert attention away from him.

Among the shareholders of the banks, there might be Soros’s friends. Feng Yu does not want Soros to know how much money he has.

Hiding Feng Yu’s wealth from Soros will make him wary and increases the chances of winning.

On the first day, Feng Yu managed to raise 1 billion USD. The following few days, Feng Yu contacted the higher executives of all the banks in New York and used his shares as collateral to get loans. Over a week, Feng Yu used all his available shares as collaterals for loans and transferred all the money to his UBS account. The fund raised is ready to be transferred to any Asian financial market.

…….

“Boss, that Chinese man is raising funds now. I heard he had used all his Microsoft shares to get loans.”

Soros put down his wine glass. “That means he manages to raise about 5 billion USD?”

“I don’t think he can get so much, and it should be less than 4 billion. He had already used some of his shares to get a loan in the past. The money he got was invested in the stock market, and he also transferred a portion back to China. Maybe his companies in China needed money urgently.”

Soros nodded. 4 billion USD… This Feng Yu is bolder than he expected. Soros’s assets are around 6 billion USD. Of course, the amount he controls is more than that.

But Soros can confirm that the newspapers were not exaggerating when they estimate Feng Yu’s wealth. He is indeed a super tycoon.

Even if Feng Yu had doubled his 4 billion USD in other countries, 8 billion USD is not enough to stop their attacks.

Soros does not want this young investing expert to affect his status. Winning this genius tycoon is also something to celebrate.

“Alright. I know about this. Get ready and bring your men to Chiangmai first. Our plan will start before March.”

After Soros’s subordinate left, he finished the alcohol in his glass. Soros is a greedy man and is a control freak. All the financial institutions and tycoons he contacted must listen to his orders.

But this Feng Yu and that Russian, Kirilenko, are not the type who listen to orders. Since you all refuse to listen to me, don’t blame me if I set you all up after we cooperate!

……

“Uncle, Feng Yu starts to raise funds. Should we get ready too?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

Fu Rongqi waved his hand. “Before Hong Kong’s return to China, those international speculators will not target Hong Kong and HKD. There’s no hurry to raise funds. We can wait until after July 1st.”

“Feng Yu said Soros and his gang will start their operations before July and might start their preparations around March or April. Their first target is Thailand. If we are late, we might not get a share of the profits.” Fu Guangzheng said.

“Guangzheng, I know you want to get a share of the profits. But you must remember that the amount we are using is more than 70% of our total assets. If we fail, the Fu family will suffer a significant blow! Yes, we still have our businesses, supermarkets, land, and companies. But how much can these companies earn? Without enough financial support, our supermarkets can keep those retailers away? Our trading companies’ distribution channels can continue to grow? Our real estate firm can get so many land parcels?”

Fu Rongqi is the head of the Fu Family. Although this time, he will be providing most of the funds, his 3 other brothers, including Fu Guangzheng, had also invested their money.

Everyone in the Fu Family had made money when they followed Feng Yu to attack Japanese companies. This time, they want to follow Feng Yu to make money again. But Fu Rongqi is more cautious as this time they will be dealing with international hot money, and Soros, the most famous hedge fund manager on Wall Street, will be heading the operation himself. Fu Rongqi, who had been making investments for years, does not have 100% confidence that they will surely win.

The younger generations of the Fu family are eager to join in as even if they lose their money, they can still rely on their parents. But Fu Rongqi cannot be rash. Once this investment fails, the consequences are no longer financial losses. The Fu Family’s status in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia will be affected.

A family with several billion HKD and a family with only 1 billion HKD is not the same. Although to many people, they are all wealthy families, their influences are wide apart.

“But Uncle, we are not fighting alone. Superman Li and his family, Feng Yu, that Russian tycoon, Kirilenko, and many other Hong Kong tycoons are participating. We will not lose!”

Hong Kong is one of the places with the most tycoons, and Fu Guangzheng firmly believes that they will win for sure.

Fu Rongqi shook his head. “Do you know why those international speculators need to set up a hedge fund? Hedging will affect their returns, and they are using it to lower their risk. Even they are so cautious, how can we just rush in like this? Just follow our original plan and raise funds slowly. We just have to be ready before July.”

Fu Guangzheng still wanted to say something, but his first uncle waved him away. Although he felt unhappy about this, he knew his uncle is more experienced and talented in investing compared to him.

But what Fu Rongqi does not know is Fu Guangzheng had used all his companies’ shares as collateral for bank loans and invested everything into his Wind and Rain Consulting investment account. His uncle wants to be safe… but he wants to get the most profits!

Chapter 885 – The higher-up’s attention

February 1st. In a few more days, it will be Lunar New Year. Feng Yu still have not returned home and is currently in Shanghai, meeting the bankers from foreign banks about loans.

Actually, Feng Yu had raised more than 5 billion USD in the US. But Feng Yu knew 5 billion USD is not enough, and it’s nothing compared to Soros’s Quantum Fund.

Although Quantum Fund is less than 1 billion USD now, several billion will be injected into it once Soros started his plan. The amount Feng Yu has is no match against him.

But Feng Yu still has the backing of the Hong Kong tycoons, the Hong Kong Government, and the Chinese Government. China might not be as wealthy as the US, but the Chinese government is strong enough to deal with a portion of the US tycoons.

There are lots of tycoons in the US, but not all of them like to invest in hedge funds. For example, Feng Yu knew Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Warren Buffet, and a few others don’t invest in hedge funds.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen are the new generations of tycoons, and Bill Gates is the world’s richest man. However, both of them do not have experience in investing in funds. Warren Buffet has his own fund, but it is not a hedge fund.

In the future, Bill Gates will set up his own charity fund, and Warren Buffet will invest his assets into Bill Gates’s charity fund.

Feng Yu does not know how many tycoons will be joining Soros, but he knew it will be different from his previous life because of Kirilenko and him. Soros will sure take precautions against them and rope in more tycoons to raise more funds.

If Kirilenko did not recommend Feng Yu to Soros, it would not be so complicated. Brother Ki is only trying to help Feng Yu. Working with Soros to attack the other countries in Asia will increase their profits.

Financial war is always cruel. Feng Yu only want to do his best to protect China. As for the other countries, it is not of his concern. Feng Yu even secretly wish Taiwan will suffer more losses than his previous life.

This way, Taiwan’s economy will be in a worse state than Feng Yu’s previous life, and they might be more obedient. Feng Yu might even see Taiwan returning back to China in this life!

Feng Yu is also happy to see South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the other countries’ economies going into recession as these countries had joined hands to seal off China’s trade in his precious life. These countries also had territorial disputes with China.

Feng Yu does not care whether China is right or wrong. As a Chinese, China must be right! His thinking is just narrow and unreasonable!

……

“Manager Feng, what happened? I heard my men in the company say you are using the company’s shares as collateral for loans.” Zhong Qingxian asked anxiously when he met Feng Yu.

“That’s right. What’s wrong? Don’t worry. I am only getting a loan and not selling the shares.” Feng Yu laughed.

If Feng Yu were to sell off his Lehaha’s shares, Zhong Qingxian’s position as the Chairman might be gone.

“Manager Feng, you also need to get loans?” Zhong Qingxian asked curiously. Since the day he met Feng Yu, he had never heard that Feng Yu lacks money!

“I need to raise funds. A group of western capitalists is preparing to attack Hong Kong’s financial system after Hong Kong’s return. I am raising funds to retaliate.” Feng Yu explained.

Zhong Qingxian calmed down. He is better than Feng Yu in organization management but is only a novice in the financial market.

“Manager Feng, do you need my contribution?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

“No need. If I need your help, I will speak to you all.” Feng Yu smiled and thanked him. There are differences between managing a company and investing. Zhong Qingxian might not be able to take the excitement.

“Then why did you get loans from foreign banks?” Zhong Qingxian asked curiously.

It’s easier to get loans from China’s domestic banks, and the interest is lower. Feng Yu might even get more substantial amounts. Furthermore, it’s better to let China’s banks to earn interest. Why is Feng Yu letting those foreign banks earn his interest?

“I need USD. China banks might not help me with this. Alright, don’t worry about this. I will repay the loans in 2 years. Maybe it will not take that long.”

It’s not easy to get loans in USD from China’s banks, and Feng Yu’s loan amount is too high.

……

“Leader, I discovered something, and I think I need to report to you.” Director Fang stood in front of Iron Fist Zhu.

“What is it?” Iron Fist Zhu put down his pen and rubbed his forehead. He had been writing for more than 4 hours without a break.

“Feng Yu had used all his companies’ shares as collateral for loans.” Director Fang replied.

“Huh? He should be going to make some investments. What’s the problem? He used his connections to get illegal loans?” Iron Fist Zhu asked.

If it’s nothing serious, Iron Fist Zhu will just close one eye. Just Feng Yu’s donations are enough for him to pretend not to see Feng Yu getting higher loans illegally. Although, as China’s Bank Governor, it is his responsibility to stop all these illegal activities.

“But Feng Yu had gotten loans from foreign banks and used all his companies’ shares, including Bing City Machinery Company, Bing City Pharmaceutical Group, Lehaha Group, Wind and Rain, Aiwa, etc.!”

If it’s getting higher loans, Director Fang will not mind. But those banks are not China banks. Is Feng Yu transferring his assets out of China?

Iron Fist Zhu frowned. “What did you say? All the loans he got are from foreign banks and used most of his assets as collaterals? Do you know where did the money from the loans flow to?”

“I got my men to investigate. All his money went to his Swiss Bank account. We can’t get any details from the Swiss Bank.”

The Chinese authorities can’t check Swiss bank accounts. If Feng Yu is really transferring his assets away from China, he had succeeded!

Feng Yu is still holding on to Hong Kong’s passport, and it’s easy for him to travel out of China!

“You really think he is transferring his assets away?” Iron Fist Zhu looked at Director Fang.

“I don’t believe he will do this, but he did. It’s also bizarre. If Feng Yu is getting loans for investment, it’s normal. But he is not investing but keeping it in a bank. This is not what he will do. The interest from the bank is much lower than the loan interest. He is losing money every day!”

Iron Fist Zhu picked up his teacup and took a sip. “Although I can’t see through Feng Yu, I know he is very patriotic. Patriotism cannot be faked, and maybe he has other uses for this money, which we don’t know. Alright. Call him and ask him to drop by Beijing when he has the time. I would like to speak to him.”

……

“Huh? Director Fang? Premier Zhu wants to meet me? But today is Lunar New Year Eve! Oh, I can go after Lunar New Year? Ok. I will go to Beijing on the 5th day of Lunar New Year and will call you when I reach. Alright. Happy New Year.” After hanging up, Feng Yu wonders…

Why is Iron Fist Zhu meeting me again? Is it because of the Old Man?

Chapter 886 – Dad is going to be a government official

“Son, why are you so busy during Lunar New Year?!” Feng Yu’s mother grumbled. Feng Yu’s phone had been ringing nonstop during Lunar New Eve.

“Nothing. They are calling to wish me a happy new year.” Feng Yu replied casually.

“Oh, your employees from other provinces?”

Feng Yu looked at his mother weakly and did not reply. An employee from another Province? If I tell you who was the one calling, your jaws will drop to the floor.

“Mum, let me help you with the dumplings.” Feng Yu rolled up his sleeves.

“Go away. You will create a mess. Go outside and see if your Eldest Uncle and the rest have reached. Your drivers are too slow!”

It was snowing yesterday, and cars go fast. Feng Yu had sent his Off-road cars to fetch his Uncle. If he had sent the Olympic model, they might reach tomorrow.

As Feng Yu was talking to his mother, he heard the sounds of someone pressing the horn outside. He quickly ran out to open the gates and saw his Eldest Uncle and his family alighting from the vehicle.

“Uncle, are you tired?”

“No. This car is very comfortable.”

“I will bring you to the factory and let you pick a brand new one.”

“Thank you, Xiao Yu. But I seldom drive and having a car is useless to me. Where’s your grandfather?”

“He is sleeping upstairs. He says he wants to stay up all night.”

They chatted as they walked back to the house. After sending his Uncle and his family into the house, Feng Yu took out two red packets and gave it to the two drivers, telling them it’s for their children. One of the drivers is a young man and is not married. He hesitated and don’t know whether if he should accept it. The other driver is used to this and wished Feng Yu happy new year, before dragging that young man away with the red packets.

After Feng Yu entered the house, his grandfather also came down from upstairs. They sat in the living room to watch TV.

The Philips TV in the living room is sharp, and with the sound system, the living room feels like a cinema.

“When are you getting married? Stop wasting time and get a girlfriend soon!” Eldest Uncle starts lecturing his son.

Feng Yu’s elder cousin replied embarrassedly. “Dad, getting married is for life. It’s not easy to get a partner.”

“Bullshit! You think I don’t know what you are thinking? Let me warn you. If you have a girlfriend, treat her well. I will beat you up if you play around with women!”

Feng Yu finally understood. Father beating up sons is his family’s tradition.

After a while, dinner is ready, and Feng Yu and his elder cousin helped to bring out the dishes from the kitchen. The round table in the dining room is full of dishes.

Feng Yu’s grandfather raised his glass. “It’s New Year, and I am glad to see everyone here. Cheers!”

Feng Yu took a sip and was about to put down his glass when he saw his father staring at him.

“You think you are at your unit?! Finish it!” Feng Xingtai scolded. You dare to play tricks at home? When you are young, I don’t let you drink, but you secretly drink behind my back!

“Dad, it’s a company and not a unit.” Feng Yu argued and finished his glass of alcohol.

After everyone finished their first glass, Feng Yu looked at his elder cousin, and they took out a red packet each from their pockets.

“Grandpa, this is for you.”

Feng Yu’s grandfather was surprised. “You brats are giving me red packets?”

“That’s right. We wish you will live a long life and see us get married and see your great-grandchildren go to school and get married.” Feng Yu’s cousin laughed.

“Hahaha… I am satisfied if I get to see my great-grandchildren. If I live long enough to see them get married, I will be a monster.” Feng Yu’s grandfather laughed. From his laughter, everyone can tell he is very healthy.

“Dad, this is a token from the kids. Just accept it.”

“Alright! I will keep it. It’s been years since I received red packets.” Feng Yu’s grandfather said as tears start to well up in his eyes.

After dinner, there is still some time before the Spring Festive Gala Night starts, and everyone went outside to set off fireworks. Feng Yu’s grandfather even lit one himself.

Feng Yu was feeling great to see all his relatives around. His mood would be better if his mother did not nag about Li Na not coming over.

After the fireworks, everyone sat in the living room to watch the Gala night and chatted.

Feng Yu’s elder cousin asked softly. “Brother, my leader asked me if I am interested in being transferred to the State Own enterprise restructuring office. Should I accept it?”

“Why not? You will be promoted to a Deputy Section Chief after you are transferred, right?” If Old Zhang is not taking care of you, you think you will get this offer? Do you still need to ask me?

“You are right. But this transfer is from the Party Committee to the Government.”

“What’s the problem? Old Zhang is still in Bing City. Furthermore, the restructuring office is under the Deputy City Mayor, and he is Xu Changyou’s former secretary. This is a position where you can shine. If you work hard, you should be a Section Chief in another 2 years.”

“I heard there will be major changes to the State Own Enterprises this year. Many people will be out of a job. Will this offend many people?”

“Those that are kicked out are those who do not have any skills and laze around. Those with skills and capabilities will be assigned to jobs. The city is also providing training for those unskilled employees. They will be happy to get skilled workers’ salaries.”

“You are right. Their basic salary is only about 200 to 300 RMB monthly. They might as well get a new job. Ok. I will accept the transfer.” Feng Yu’s cousin was excited. He hopes Feng Yu is right, and he will be promoted in two years.

With a younger cousin like Feng Yu, who has connections with the Provincial and City Governments, he doesn’t need to worry about getting credits or losing out to others. Even without any noticeable results, he will also get promoted.

“Second Uncle is going to be a member of the Province’s National People’s Congress, and he will be going to the Provincial Government to attend meetings in the future. I didn’t know doing business can also be a government official.” Feng Yu’s cousin said.

Huh? My dad is going to be a government official? How come I am not aware?

“I don’t know about this. Who told you this?”

“Ah? You don’t know? Even the official appointment letter is issued. You are not the one who asks the leaders to appoint Second Uncle?” Feng Yu’s cousin asked.

“It’s not me. I think it should be Old Zhang’s idea.”

In the future, Feng Yu’s father will attend government meetings, and if there are problems, he will surely ask Feng Yu. Damn! I will become the Province’s free consultant!

No! I must speak to Old Zhang tomorrow. You tricked my dad into becoming a government official without asking me first? Even if my dad agrees, you should let me know first!

……

“Hahaha….” Feng Yu’s mother laughed loudly.

“Hahaha… this skit is so funny!”

The Gala night ended, and everyone went to bed. Feng Yu laid in his bed and looked at the ceiling. He is thinking about the first night when he was reborn.

Chapter 887 – Problems with State-Owned Enterprise reforms

“Oh, Leader. I’m here to wish you a Happy New Year. Why do you look so unhappy?” Feng Yu carried his gifts into Zhang Ruiqiang’s house, but Zhang Ruiqiang showed him a gloomy face.

“Just ignore him. I told him to think of a way to transfer our son to a more relaxed position. See… he can’t even come back for New Year and still dare to tell us this is dedication. What year is it now? Who talks about dedications?!” Zhang Ruiqiang gave Old Zhang a stare. You have authority and don’t know how to make use of it. That is your own flesh and blood!

“Aunty Li, you might not know this. Not anyone can enter Tao Zi’s unit, and he can achieve results faster there. In the future, he might even exceed the leader’s position. If he is transferred, his prospect might be affected.” Feng Yu laughed.

“Really? Why don’t you tell me earlier? Xiao Feng, have a seat and eat some fruits. I will prepare tea for you.” Aunty Li grumbled and went to brew tea.

“Long hair, short-sighted.” Zhang Ruiqiang grumbled under his breath.

Feng Yu controlled his laughter. If you dare, say it out loud!

After Aunty Li brings a cup of tea to Feng Yu, she went to her bedroom to watch TV, leaving them alone.

Feng Yu saw Aunty Li left, and his face immediately changed. He looked at Zhang Ruiqiang from the corner of his eyes. “Leader, how come my father suddenly become a member of the Province’s National People’s Congress?”

“That’s what he deserves. What’s wrong? You want him to enter the National People’s Congress? This is not impossible. The Province will put his name up this year.”

“Hold it! You all might think this is an honor, but my father got to work for you all. He got to attend meetings and still have to report to work.”

Feng Yu was not pleased. You all might think this is something good, but not everyone feels like you. You should at least consult me first.

“Who says he needs to go to work? He can choose not to report to the office or attend meetings. He only needs to attend the annual general meeting once every year. Lots of people are begging for this position, and you are still unhappy?”

Feng Yu is satisfied with this answer and nodded. “That’s more like it. Thank you.”

“If you really want to thank me, help me settle a small problem.” Zhang Ruiqiang replied cunningly.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. He knew this title is not given to his father for free.

“Tell me. Which department needs money? I need to be clear with you first. I am going to continue my donations to rebuild the dams, and I don’t have too much money.” Feng Yu had donated 500 million RMB last year and will be giving another 500 million this year.

“Stop talking about money. It sounds too crude. I want to ask you if you can take over our Province’s home appliances factory, semi-conductor factory, etc.”

Feng Yu put down the teacup immediately. “I had wished you a Happy New Year. I still have something on and need to go now.”

“Eh… what’s the hurry? Just lend us a helping hand. If we don’t settle our Province’s state-owned enterprises after the New Year, we can only retrench the workers.” Zhang Ruiqiang grabbed Feng Yu.

The Chinese government had given out orders. All the state-owned enterprises must adapt to the market economy, have clear property rights, clear responsibilities, and scientific management, and most importantly, there must be a clear line between the government and the enterprise.

Clear property rights and separating from the government is the hardest. In the past, the reforms had achieved good results by bringing in foreign investors and private funds. But because of the interferences from the local governments, all these state-owned enterprises start to go downhill. Those that did not were all converted to private companies.

It’s still okay in Bing City. Zhang Ruiqiang’s reforms had achieved good results when he was there. But in Longjiang Province, outside of Bing City, this problem is severe.

Zhang Ruiqiang is now a leader in the Province and cannot just look after Bing City alone.

“Just retrench those people. Bing City’s enterprises are doing well, and furthermore, if the reformed state-owned enterprises are going to be independent and self-sufficient, can’t you outsource those companies to someone else?”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many governments did this. Although this is not according to the regulations, it is the transition period, and the local governments have no choice. At least, after they outsourced these enterprises, they will not end up bankrupt.”

“You think the local governments did not do this? The outsourcing works at first and made some profits. But the company denied and refuse to pay the local government. They even threaten to return the state-owned enterprise to the City Government and let the government pay the workers’ wages!” Zhang Ruiqiang replied angrily.

Feng Yu laughed. The leaders also have difficulties, and the biggest irony is these leaders know nothing about managing a company! They don’t even know how to hire a professional manager to manage their enterprises. They are just too weak!

“It’s simple. Just sell the enterprises to them. They don’t have money? Ask the banks to give them loans. They know whether if the enterprises can make money or not, and if no one really wants to take over the enterprise, just liquidate it and sell the land parcel. Just assign the workers to other factories, and those that you can’t assign just let them off.” Feng Yu said.

“This is your solution? Sell the factories and land? What about the workers? Where are we going to find the money to pay their retrenchment fees? What if they still come back to seek help from the government?” Zhang Ruiqiang roared.

“The government can provide training to those retrenched workers and help them get reemployment, or you all can also encourage them to start their own businesses. Even if they sell vegetables or set up a small eatery, they will not starve to death. As for their start-up capital, the government can help. Also, those enterprises are really not profitable. After these few years of reforms, most of them had started making profits. But because those enterprises had lots of debts, just the interest alone is a significant amount, and this will cause their losses to increase. The country has a policy that lets the creditors change their debts to shares? This way, enterprises will save a lot of interest.”

“You think we haven’t thought of this? The creditors don’t want shares and only want money! The banks do agree to this, but they are too slow and will take at least 2 to 3 years.”

“Ah… Just tell them that the enterprises are going bankrupt and can’t pay their debts. The creditors have two choices. They can get the shares and enjoy dividends, or sell the shares away, or wait and see how much the enterprise is worth after it’s bankrupted.” Feng Yu replied lazily. You all are the government, and you all can’t deal with those people?

“Can’t you help us this time?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“Help? I had not helped you all? Last year, Bing City has a few bottling factories set up, right? I am the one who brings in this investment. I am the one who helps those unemployed workers get reemployment. Tai Hua Trading, Tai Hua Supermarket Enterprise, had hired how many workers and security? My brother-in-law’s Wind and Rain Logistic had also hired a lot of workers.”

“Those are all in Bing City. What about the other cities? You are refusing to help them?”

“Our reforms of the state-owned enterprises also state that we should combine our resources to increase competitiveness. What’s the point of merging those small companies?  Even if I acquire some of these enterprises, I can only breakeven. It’s meaningless. More importantly, those enterprises have to depend on themselves. The small alcohol factories can be merged with Beidacang Group to produce Beidacang Baijiu and sell them in the southern provinces. You can also do the same for soft drinks, food products, etc. If I acquire all of these enterprises, we might have to compete with Beidacang Group in the future. You are sure you don’t mind?” Feng Yu smiles and asked.

Zhang Ruiqiang sighed. He is afraid of competing with Feng Yu. A province might be influential in China, but they are nothing compared to Feng Yu.

It seems like this time, the provincial government will have to suffer!

Translator’s note:

Market economy

Chapter 888 – Get listed

Feng Yu rubbed his chin and thought for a while. “Actually, there is still a solution that might be against the regulations. However, it is definitely useful.

Against the regulations? Zhang Ruiqiang hesitated. At his age, he still can move upwards. If he violates any laws, his career might end even if he had achieved results.

But Zhang Ruiqiang thinks again. He might not be the one who violates the regulations. Why did the province appoint an almost retired Deputy Provincial Governor to head the state-owned enterprise reforms? The leaders must be worried about this.

If necessary, use extreme measures to solve this problem, and if anything goes wrong, someone else will be the scapegoat.

“What’s the solution? Tell me.”

“Two words, get listed!” Feng Yu smiled and replied.

“Get listed? You are saying we get listed on the stock market?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked puzzledly. What solution is this?

This brat mentioned about violating the regulations. Does he mean that getting those enterprises listed illegally?

“That’s right. The companies can get financing after getting listed. Why so many of the state-owned enterprises cannot be reformed? It’s because they don’t have money. Why can’t they develop and grow? It’s because they don’t have good equipment. In conclusion, they have no money. After getting listed, they will raise enough funds to get new equipment, technology, and repay their debt. They will also have enough money to get enough resources. The price they have to pay is only giving out some dividends to the shareholders and lesser authority.”

The capital market is the companies’ financing platform, and it’s beneficial for the companies’ growth and protects the country’s interest.

State-owned companies’ reforms cannot be separated from the capital market. The funding, reformation and loan model is not wrong, but it’s too limited.

The higher-ups are still very conservative towards this reform. Especially on the privatization of state-owned enterprises.

To Feng Yu, rather than letting these state-owned enterprises depending on the government for funding every year, they should sell them to private entities. This way, the government can recover some money and still get taxes every year, instead of spending money to feed them. What’s the point of keeping these money-losing state own enterprises?

These are not essential enterprises, and there’s no difference between state-owned and private. For instance, a handkerchief factory. Why can’t the government sell it to a private entity? Convert it to a shareholding and then let the state-owned officials interfere with the factory’s operation? It will still be the same as before. If there is someone in the state-owned enterprise who can bring the factory out of their current situation, this factory will not be in this pathetic state.

Those useless leaders in the state-owned enterprises should be transferred away, demoted, and get salary cuts. Whoever that is unhappy, investigate them. None of them are clean in the first place.

But now, the government is still stuck with these state-owned enterprises. They did sell some state-owned enterprises in the past, but the civilians and workers felt the state-owned enterprise’s leaders are selling away the government’s assets and have taken benefits from the buyer illegally.

Did the leaders really get benefits from the buyer? Of course, but not all leaders will get any under table deals. Some leaders sold the state-owned enterprises to solve this problem.

Feng Yu also have to bear some responsibility for what’s happening right now. All the leaders in the province said. Look at Bing City’s reformations. Bing City Machinery Company, Bing City Pharmaceutical, etc. After their restructuring, its profits, taxes, and value increased, and the city government did not spend much.

Even the big enterprises in Bing City can do this, why can’t these small enterprises be successful?

Sometimes, reforming a large enterprise is easier than changing a small enterprise. Large enterprises are more competitive, and small enterprises might not even export their products out of the city, let alone the province or overseas.

Zhang Ruiqiang was deep in thoughts after hearing what Feng Yu said.

Getting listed is a good solution. After the enterprise is listed, it will still be under the government’s control. This will stop those people from objecting, and there will be funds to clear the debts. Most importantly, the government doesn’t need to spend money!

“Tell me the details. How are we going to do this?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“Simple. Just merge companies in the same industry, fulfill the listing conditions, and then apply to be listed!”

“Fulfil the listing’s conditions? Zhang Ruiqiang was confused.

“Merge the quality assets, remove those non-performing assets, and apply for bankruptcy.”

“Wait. Why are you talking about bankruptcy again?” Zhang Ruiqiang interrupted.

“Fine. We can also do without applying for bankruptcy. We need to create something that will attract people to invest in. For example, those electronic factories and semi-conductor factories, you mentioned earlier. If their technology fits the criteria, I can give them some orders to produce parts for Aiwa’s Mobile Phone. This way, there will be investors who think this enterprise is profitable and invest in it.”

“After they invested, the investors will not be satisfied with the enterprise’s profits, and they will hope this enterprise will get listed. This is where you need to make some changes to the account, like stating the enterprise does not need to repay their debts in the next 3 years, etc. This way, the enterprises will need the requirements to be listed.” What Feng Yu said is getting venture capital.

“What?” Zhang Ruiqiang is shocked. “You are asking us to forge our accounts?!”

“It does not necessary to be fake. You all can just don’t include some of the enterprise’s debt in the account. There are lots of loopholes you can make use to get listed.”

Feng Yu sighed. China still does not have the Growth Enterprise Market. In his previous life, the Growth Enterprise Market was introduced next year and only targeted high-tech enterprises. But the Growth Enterprise Market had started in Hong Kong. The companies that can’t be listed in China can choose to get listed in Hong Kong.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many companies that did not meet the listing requirements managed to get listed, and this is because the government had interfered. If others cannot do this, we can, as long as we can answer to the shareholders.

“Are there other options?” Zhang Ruiqiang frowned and asked.

“Yes. You can buy a shell company or get listed through the backdoor. That means you can acquire a listed company’s shares and use your assets to merge that that listed company. After that, you reissue shares and use the fund collected to develop those enterprises.”

Zhang Ruiqiang was getting giddy from Feng Yu’s suggestions. “Alright, alright… do you have anything simpler?”

“If there is a simple solution, the government would have thought of it. But there is still one more solution which might work. Change the hiring procedures of the managers and replace all current management staff. Let the new professional manager have full control over the enterprise and offer him high salaries and shares, in exchange for him to come up with strategies to turn the company over. There are lots of people like this, and it is up to you all to find them.”

Feng Yu said and saw Zhang Ruiqiang looking at him. Feng Yu laughed. “Which enterprise can afford to hire me? Even if they can afford, do you think I will work for them?”

Actually, Feng Yu has no confidence in managing a company. He knew himself well, and managing a small company is fine. But he can’t handle a large enterprise.

“I am not talking about you. Your companies have such managers, right? Lend us some of them.”

“Don’t even think of this! Those useless enterprises want to poach my people? My men, who are capable, have my companies’ shares. Those that do not have company shares and still holding management roles are young managers, and we are grooming them. You can poach people, but don’t even think about poaching my people! If not, the province can forget about getting my donations in the future!” Feng Yu almost jumped up from his from the sofa.

Damn! I am offering you suggestions, and you want to use my ideas on me?!

Chapter 889 – I am patriotic

“It’s not even the 15th day of the Lunar New Year, and you are leaving?” Feng Yu’s mother grumbled. “What are you busy with every day? What’s the use of having so much money, and you can’t even get a wife?”

“Mum… I am doing my part for society. Your son is noble, and there’s no hurry to get married.”

“Stop your bullshit. You think I don’t know what you are thinking? Be careful when you are outside. You must take care of yourself…”

“Enough… He still needs to be careful? He has so many bodyguards with him, and we should be glad if he doesn’t create trouble outside.” Feng Xingtai said and grabbed his briefcase to go to the Provincial Government for work. He is newly appointed and is passionate about his job. Yes, he also has a personal driver/bodyguard.

Feng Yu managed to escape while his mother argued with his father.

In Beijing, Feng Yu called Director Fang to arrange his meeting with Iron-Fist Zhu.

The next day’s afternoon, Feng Yu arrived at Zhongnanhai again. Feng Yu had been here several times, and he is envied by lots of people!

When Feng Yu entered the meeting room, he was surprised to see Iron Fist Zhu waiting for him inside. Feng Yu looked at his watch, and he is not late. It’s the leader who is early. Why did the leader arrive early for their meeting? Did anything significant happen?

Is it about the medicine he recommended to the Old Man? If there is anything wrong with the medication, he will be in trouble!

“Premier, Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year to you too. Have a seat.” Iron Fist Zhu replied nicely. “Why do you look so nervous?”

“Ah? I am excited to meet you.”

Iron Fist Zhu laughed and shook his head. “You are not as honest as before. Alright. I called you over is because I am curious about why did you get so many loans from foreign banks with your companies’ shares? Don’t panic. We are watching your every movement. We know about this is because the government monitors Foreign companies in China, and your loan amount is too big for us to not notice it.”

“It’s very simple. China cannot let me get loans in USD.” Feng Yu replied.

“USD? Why do you need so much USD? Invest in overseas?”

“Yes. Some of it is for investing overseas, and the rest is for emergency uses.” Feng Yu nodded and replied.

“You used all of your assets in China to borrow money. It should not be for emergency uses. Are you facing some problems with your overseas investments? If necessary, the country can help.”

Huh? The country wants to help me?

Feng Yu is shocked. But he thought again and felt this should be normal. Feng Yu is Chinese, and most of his taxes are paid to China, and he had donated a significant amount every year. China also wants to support other people, but who else is as successful as Feng Yu?

“Leader, I will be honest with you. I might need the country’s help.”

Iron Fist Zhu sat upright. Feng Yu is asking the country for help? That means the problem he is facing is quite severe.

“Our country’s financial market started very late, but do you agree that a country’s financial market will affect that country’s economy?” Feng Yu asked.

“Although our financial market is not the main pillar of our country, it is crucial for us. In the future, we will focus on and develop our financial industry. In other countries, there are examples of the country’s economy collapsing due to their financial market.” Iron Fist Zhu understands the economy better than the rest of the leaders in this era.

“Currency exchange. Our country is using floating exchange rates, and the fluctuations depend on market demands and supply. The official exchange rates are only a reference. But no matter the exchange rate rise or falls, it will have an impact on the country’s economy, especially export-oriented economies.”

“We are not an export-oriented economy country, and the government will interfere to limit the fluctuations. Also, we have a strong foreign reserve, especially USD.” Iron Fist Zhu frowned as he replied.

“I know. Our country is weak in import and export, and this might seem to be a disadvantage. But it will prevent our currency from depreciating and stopping excess inflation. For example, in 1994, there are major changes between our exchange rates and the USD suddenly. The impact on our country’s economy is minimal, and we even gain from it. But what about Hong Kong?”

Iron Fist Zhu was shocked. “Hong Kong? What’s wrong with Hong Kong? Someone is targeting HKD?”

Feng Yu nodded and then shook his head.

“Not only HKD. The whole of Southeast Asia’s currency will be attacked. They are a group of greedy Jewish businessmen, and they specialize in speculations.”

Iron Fist Zhu looked at Feng Yu seriously. “How do you know about this?”

Feng Yu smiled and pointed to himself. “Because they invited me, and I agreed.”

“You are also going to attack Hong Kong?” Iron Fist Zhu was getting mad! You are Chinese, and Hong Kong is going to return to us. They are part of China. How can you help outsiders to attack us?

“No. I want to stabilize the HKD rates. But I alone am not powerful enough. I had contacted Hong Kong’s Superman Li, Fu Rongqi, and other Hong Kong tycoons, and they will act to keep Hong Kong’s stability. But our funds might not be sufficient, and when the times come, we might need the government’s assistance.”

Iron Fist Zhu cools down after he heard what Feng Yu said. “How do you want the country to help?”

“Money. We need USD and hope the country can use the foreign reserves to counterattack those international predators! We will teach them a painful lesson!”

“That should be no problem, but we still need to look into it. Are you sure this will happen?”

“I am sure. Next month, we will start this operation, and our first stop is Thailand.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

“Since you had joined them, that means you are going to participate in speculating those currencies?”

Feng Yu felt embarrassed, but he still nodded. “That’s right. I need to increase my funds to stop them. Also, I will understand how they operate. Furthermore, if those countries’ economies collapse, we will become the strongest in Asia.”

“Are you telling me that you are patriotic by earning this money?”

“Of course. Attacking the economies of Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, and Taiwan will increase China’s influence in Asia.”

“Wait. Why is Taiwan included? Taiwan is also part of China. You are not helping them?”

“I don’t intend to help them. In fact, I will add fuel to the fire and make Taiwan’s economy worse. This way, they will not have money to buy arms from the US and will be obedient to us.” Feng Yu replied with a proud expression on his face.

Iron Fist Zhu: “……” What logic is this?!

Translator’s note: Here’s more information about 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.

Floating exchange rate

Foreign exchange reserves

Chapter 890 – Lots of problems

After talking about Soros, Feng Yu thought Iron Fist Zhu will ask him to leave. But Iron Fist Zhu start to talk about other matters.

“Manager Feng, what’s your opinion of our country’s development? Are there any problems?”

Feng Yu frowned. I am not a civil servant, and I am not the best person to talk about this. Which country in this world does not have problems with their government? There’s no correct way to govern a country. Even if any decision made seems to be correct at first, but loopholes will be found later.

“I don’t have any opinions, and I think everything is going well.” Feng Yu rubbed his nose.

“Brat. You must have discovered some problems but refuse to tell me. Do you know China has a policy research office, and lots of the members are businessmen? I had always wanted you to join in.”

“Then I will talk a little about this. If I am incorrect, please don’t blame me.”

“What’s there to blame? Maybe what you said is right, and our decisions are wrong.” Iron Fist Zhu replied. He is not perfect, and there must be issues he missed out.

“I will start with the slogans I saw first. Look, from the villages to the cities, there are lots of government slogans about family planning, economic developments, laws, and regulations, etc. In the cities, the slogans are more Gao Da Shang …”

“What do you mean by more Gao Da Shang?” Iron Fist Zhu interrupted.

“Huh? It’s more high-end, elegant, and classy. In short, it is Gao Da Shang. This is a term used on internet forums.” Feng Yu explained. He had to be careful not to use the internet jargon used in his previous life. This term still is not used current, and Feng Yu just push it to the internet.

“Hahaha… This is a good description.” Iron Fist Zhu laughed and points at Feng Yu.

“What’s the purpose of these slogans? To strengthen China’s Socialist ideologies, anti-corruptions, our economies, honor the workers who had been laid off, etc. But these slogans reflected all the problems we are facing.”

Iron Fist Zhu looked at Feng Yu curiously. These slogans are in line with the government’s policies. What’s wrong with that?”

“Promoting family planning shows that our government’s family planning is not successful. Promoting economic growth reflected most of our villages are still in poverty. Promoting education means lots of our countrymen are still illiterate. Promoting anti-corruption reflects that our country still has lots of corrupt officials. Promoting the market economy means our market economy is still not developed. Honoring the workers who were laid off shows that our government could not provide enough employment for the workers.”

Iron Fist Zhu thought for a while and felt this is true. Before meeting Feng Yu, no one had to view these problems from this perspective.

“These slogans reflected the problems in our country’s development. When people lack material culture, they will not think about spiritual culture. In layman terms, it means problems will arise when people are poor, and they will be easily influenced by the outside world. In ancient times, dynasties changed because of wars arising from poverty. The US is rich, and that’s why their ideologies and values can influence other countries.”

Iron Fist Zhu’s face turned serious. Hmph! Those Americans had been trying to impose their values on China! What’s so good about capitalism? Their crime rates are so high. Socialism can also make our people wealthy!

“Then what do you think we should do?” Iron Fist Zhu asked.

“Ah… Premier… I really don’t know. I am only a businessman. I don’t know about government policies and will not interfere with the country’s decision. I just want to earn money and contribute to our country.”

“How can a businessman like you not interfere with politics? Didn’t you just say you are going to attack other countries’ economies with that Jewish man? This is not considered interfering with politics?”

“That’s other countries and not China.” Feng Yu argued. He knew when businessmen reached a certain level, they will influence the country’s decision because every policy issued will affect their profits.

For example, if China sets real estate as its core industry, the businessmen in the real estate business will earn high profits. It’s the same as the US. Why many businessmen provide funding for political parties during Presidential Elections? They did this because they need the President to implement policies that will benefit them. Their returns might be 10 times, 100 times, of their donations!

Every time the US goes to war, those firearm dealers get high profits.

“I think you are very suitable to be in politics, and you should consider this.”

Feng Yu had a troubled look on his face and replied. “Maybe in a few more years after I complete all the things I want to do. Look, I’m still single, and someone else should sacrifice individual interests for the public good instead of me.”

Iron Fist Zhu smiled and shook his head.

“Continue.”

“Let’s just look at our country’s state-owned enterprises’ reforms. Since early this year, most of our state-owned enterprises are losing money. If this carries on, only a handful of enterprises are not in the red next year. The leaders in these state-owned enterprises are rigid and conservative. They still talk about equal distribution and equal pay for equal work. They are moving backward instead of moving with the times. It’s the government’s role to distribute according to demands, and the enterprise’s role is to compensate according to contributions. Look at those foreign and private companies. Why are they producing the same products and can make profits, but our state-owned enterprises can’t?”

“There are too many employees in State-owned enterprises, and the policy of letting children take over their parent’s position in the enterprise had caused many enterprises to go bust. Some of the workers retired in their 40s for their retirement pensions, and then let their inexperience children enter the factory they are working at. No one cares whether if their children are suitable for the job, and not only will this affect the factory’s efficiency, it will increase the manpower cost. Also, what’s the point of having so many people in the office? I had seen a small factory with slightly more than 100 employees, and more than 30 employees are at the management level. Among the 30 employees in the management, more than a dozen of them are Party Members, and this factory has more than 30 Party members. If the enterprises are going to lay off workers, these management staff must be the first to go!”

“Management staff? Why?”

“I had just mentioned. Many of these management staff are not contributing to the enterprise and are still getting high salaries. Another reason is these management staffs are more educated and should be more capable than ordinary workers. So, they should be able to find a new job or start their own businesses easier. There is a saying. “Everyone knows how to be a leader and management staff, but not everyone can be a worker!”

Iron Fist Zhu’s face changed. When did the image of government staff become like this? It seems like it’s time to investigate this seriously. Those holding on to a job and not doing what they are supposed to must be removed. Regardless of their past contributions, they must not waste precious resources when they are not retired!

“What I am saying is only what I saw. Overall, I think our country is still developing well, and our international status is increasing. It’s a good thing.” Feng Yu starts to bootlick in the end as Iron Fist Zhu looks terrible. Feng Yu had pointed out the flaws of the government and got to say something that the leaders like to hear.

Iron Fist Zhu was about to say something when Director Fang entered the room without knocking. He walked over to Iron Fist Zhu and whispered into his ears.

Iron Fist Zhu’s face changed and said. “Manager Feng, I still have something on. Let’s end our conversation now. Xiao Fang, help me send him out.”

Feng Yu’s eyes opened wide. What happened? Could it be…

Chapter 891 – Representing the Country to thank you

“Manager Feng, I will walk you out.”

“Wait a minute. Director Fang, is it about the Old Man’s health?” Feng Yu grabbed Director Fang and asked.

Director Fang turned and stared at Feng Yu. How did Feng Yu know about this?

But Director Fang thinks back. Feng Yu had met the Old Man before Lunar New Year, and he knew about the Old Man’s condition. Maybe it was Feng Yu’s guess. Also, Feng Yu had recommended a new drug to the Old Man’s doctor, and the doctor did not say whether if the medicine is effective or now.

“Don’t try to find out about the things you are not supposed to know. I will walk you out. Remember, don’t tell anyone about what happened today.”

Feng Yu was escorted out of Zhongnanshan. After boarding his car, he did not say a word. The driver looked at Feng Yu and dare not ask anything and sent him back to Beijing’s lodging.

……

“Doctor Ma, how is Senior Chairman’s condition?” Iron Fist Zhu asked.

“Premier, Old Xu is inside, and it’s not looking good.” Doctor Ma replied gloomily.

The Old Man is showing symptoms of Pneumonia, breathing difficulties, and high blood pressure. If his conditions cannot be stabilized, his breathing might stop and…

“Can’t you all do anything?” Iron Fist Zhu asked anxiously.

“How is it? How’s the Senior Chairman’s condition?” President Jiang rushed into the room.

Outside of the ward, all the top officials had arrived. The Old Man’s health is critical and everyone hopes he will live until that day.

Inside of the ward, the Old Man’s leading doctor, Doctor Xu, is trying his best to think of a solution. All ordinary medications are not effective in treating the Old Man. Suddenly, he remembered the medicine Manager Feng recommended. The drug called Viagra.

Doctor Xu had read the clinical test reports, but they need more time for tests. Doctor Xu had tried medicine on patients with Pulmonary hypertension, and it’s quite useful.

But this drug has a side effect. It will cause an erection. Maybe this is the drug’s primary purpose, and treating Pulmonary hypertension is the side effects.

During the tests, Doctor Ma almost called the cops to arrest Feng Yu. Doctor Xu was also furious. But after they saw the patient getting better and recovered with the help of other drugs, they were not so mad.

The doctors realized that this is a really effective medicine.

But until now, the Doctor Xu had only tested on a few patients personally, and he is not sure if there are other side effects.

“Old Xu, should we try using that drug?” One of the doctors asked.

“No. We are still not clear about the side effects. The clinical trial’s duration is too short. How can we use it on Senior Chairman?” Another doctor said.

“What other options do we have? We tried everything we know, and Western and Chinese medicines are not effective. If we delay any longer, I’m afraid the Senior Chairman will be in danger! Old Xu, what’s your decision?!”

Doctor Xu is covered in sweat. He is not young, and his body almost collapsed earlier.

Doctor Xu looked at Senior Chairman breathing difficultly, and he made the most critical decision in his life. “Bring two tablets of Viagra over. Crush them, mix it in water and feed Senior Chairman through a syringe!”

“Old Xu, have you considered this? If anything happens, you will have to bear full responsibility. You should know what that drug is used for.” Someone pulled Doctor Xu.

“This is the final solution I can think of. Do you all have other suggestions? If that medication is not effective or caused other problems, I will bear the responsibility!” Doctor Xu gritted his teeth and said.

Doctor Liu quickly grind two tablets of Viagra and mixed it in water before feeding it to the Old Man with a syringe.

The Old Man’s face was turning purplish, and it’s a sign of lack of breath. Other than the standard life-saving procedures, the doctors can’t do anything else.

Time passes, and Doctor Xu and the rest were monitoring the Old Man’s vitals and the equipment.

“It dropped! The pressure is dropping!” Doctor Liu cried excitedly.

“The oxygen intake in increasing!” Another Doctor shouted.

Doctor Xu immediately walked over to the Old Man and saw his face turning back to normal, and he no longer has a painful expression.

“He can breathe normally!” After a while, Doctor Liu shouted again.

The rest of the doctors looked at each other. Everyone is exhausted and excited. They had saved the Old Man!

Doctor Xu arranged for the follow-up treatments and sighed in relief. After sighing, he almost fainted. If Doctor Liu is not standing beside him, Doctor Xu might have fallen on the floor.

After being so tense for so long, Doctor Xu can finally relax for a while.

After opening the door, Doctor Xu walked out of the ward. President Jiang and Iron Fist Zhu went up to him to ask about the Old Man’s condition.

Doctor Xu nodded. “He is saved, and his condition is stabilized!”

Terrific! Everyone was overjoyed. The Old Man is China’s pillar, and no one wants anything to happen to him.

“Earlier Doctor Ma said no medication can help with the treatment. What method did you all use?” Iron Fist Zhu asked.

“We used a new medicine. This drug still has not passed the Drug Evaluation. We need to thank that young man. If he did not recommend this drug, we are not confident to save Senior Chairman today.” Doctor Xu replied.

President Jiang asked. “Young man? Which hospital is he from?”

“He is a businessman, not a doctor. President should have heard of him. Director Fang had brought him to meet the Old Man before New Year.” Doctor Xu replied.

The rest of the top leaders turned and looked at Iron Fist Zhu.

Iron Fist Zhu suddenly realized. “You are talking about Manager Feng? Feng Yu?!”

“It’s him. Director Fang said this new medicine is developed by his company, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise. I also heard he is a successful businessman and is wealthy.” Doctor Xu explained.

Iron Fist Zhu explained to the rest of the leaders. “Feng Yu is the shareholder of Bing City Machinery Company. When Senior Chairman and I went there for an inspection, we got to know this young man. Aiwa Pager, Aiwa mobile phones, Wind and Rain VCD players, are all his businesses. I didn’t know he had invested in Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise and developed this new medicine. This time, the credit is his.”

President Jiang replied cheerfully. “You are right. This is his credit. Oh, what’s the name of this medicine, and what’s the main effect of it?”

Doctor Xu and the rest of the doctors looked at each other, not knowing how to reply to this question. Tell the President that this medicine is to cure Erectile Dysfunction? If they really tell the truth, they will be fired immediately!

In the end, Doctor Liu, who was smarter and quick-witted, replied. “This medicine has a lot of effects, and one of them is treating Pulmonary hypertension.”

President Jiang nodded. “I will not go in to visit him now. Let me know when Senior Chairman wakes up. I will visit him then. Iron Fist, help me thank that Feng Yu.”

Iron Fist Zhu asked his men to call Director Fang, and he took the phone. “Xiao Fang, Senior Chairman, is saved with Feng Yu’s medicine. Inform him that I represent the country to thank him!”

Chapter 892 – Green lights all the way

Feng Yu’s heart was racing when he received Director Fang’s call. He was worried Director Fang is calling him to scold him, and it will mean that they had failed to save the Old Man.

Feng Yu is not afraid of getting scold but is scare the Old Man passes away before he gets to see the return of Hong Kong.

Of course, Feng Yu hope this call is to tell him some good news!

“Hello? Director Fang? Is it a piece of good news?” Feng Yu asked.

“Feng Yu, I am calling to pass you a message from our Chairman. He says he represents the country to thank you! The medicine you recommended had stabilized the Old Man’s condition!” Director Fang said.

Feng Yu was overjoyed. “Terrific!”

Director Fang was pleased to know that Feng Yu is not excited because the Chairman had thanked him. He is excited because the Old Man’s condition had stabilized.

“I think you will be rewarded next, but you don’t lack anything, and you are not interested in becoming a government official. This is quite difficult for us.” Director Fang is thinking for the Chairman, and he can’t let Chairman handle everything by himself.

“I don’t need any reward. Just like what you said. I don’t need anything, and it’s my honor to do something for the Old Man.”

After hanging up, Feng Yu waved his fist. He finally did it! The Old Man might really live past July 1st!

At night, Li Na returned home and saw Feng Yu cooked dinner for the first time.

“You cooked these?”

“That’s right. Try it and tell me if you like it. I am in a good mood today, so I decided to show off my cooking skills!” Feng Yu replied proudly. He knew how to cook in his previous life but did not cook anything in this life.

“You clinch another business deal?”

“You can say so. But I need to go to the US in a few days.”

“Ok. I will need to be a substitute teacher soon. My professor had appointed me to be his assistant as his former assistant had graduated.” Li Na cheerfully replied.

Feng Yu moved his head closer. “Let’s have a drink to celebrate?”

Li Na nodded, and Feng Yu opened a bottle of cider for her and a bottle of beer for himself.

“Huh? The food tastes good. You know how to cook in the past?” Li Na tried the food, and her eyes opened wide.

“I learned from my mother. But the food you cook tastes better.” Feng Yu replied modestly.

“I will also now ask you to cook in the future. Why are you so worried?” Li Na laughed.

After dinner, Li Na was clearing the dishes when Feng Yu carried her up. “Leave it. I will clear it tomorrow. I am still hungry, and I want to eat you!”

……

When Feng Yu opened his eyes, the sun was already up. Li Na had left for work and had cleared all the dishes and prepared breakfast for him.

Feng Yu sat down and ate his breakfast slowly.

“Hello? Zhigang? Are you in Beijing? What did you say?”

After hanging up, Feng Yu felt puzzled. The medicine is approved, and the official approval letter is going to be issued. Before New Year, the approval had been stuck at the Drug Evaluation stage. Why is it approved suddenly now?

Feng Yu slapped his forehead. It must be those doctors who did not approve before. They still need to conduct tests, and who dares to approve it? What if there are some problems with medicine? Who will be responsible?

Now, someone must have given the green light.

…….

Wu Zhigang represented Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise to get the approval papers. Other than him, no one else in Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise is more suitable to do this job. The leaders and researchers at Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise are good at politics and research, but Wu Zhigang is much better at interacting with others!

“Director Wang! Come and try this. Our leader had bought this cigar from overseas.”

“Manager Wu, thank you, but I don’t smoke. I had gone through your application papers, and there is no problem. I had signed and given the approvals. Bring this with you to see Director Zhao. His office is the first office round the corner.”

Wu Zhigang took the documents and left. He was puzzled why these people treated him so well suddenly. These documents are your internal documents. Why are you asking me to bring it along with me?

Wu Zhigang went over to Director Zhao with the documents, and Director Zhao’s secretary led him into the office. “You are Manager Wu from Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise? Our Director Zhao is waiting for you. Please come in. Did Director Wang give you the documents?”

“Ah. Here are the documents.” Wu Zhigang turned and looked at the people waiting outside the office. They should be here to get their approval papers.

Director Zhao did not say anything and signed his name on the document. After that, he told Wu Zhigang to look for Chief Li.

Within a few minutes, two directors had signed on the documents. The efficiency is impressive.

Wu Zhigang went upstarts and met a few other Chiefs and Directors. 10 minutes later, he had gotten all the approval papers for Viagra. This medicine can be launched in the market!

Wu Zhigang stood at the entrance. He couldn’t believe what had happened. It must be Manager Feng who asked these government officials to help. If not, these people will not be so efficient and signed without even reading the papers.

Actually, those officials had already read the documents and discovered some problems, like the clinical trial duration. But in the end, they followed their higher-up’s instructions and gave their approvals.

After Feng Yu finished his breakfast, he received Wu Zhigang’s call when he is washing the dishes.

“What did you say? It didn’t take more than 15 minutes, and all the officials signed the approval? Ok. I know… Huh? The Patent Office called you to go there? Then you better go over now.”

Feng Yu dried his hands and was surprised at the government’s office speed today. Someone must have given them instructions. Is it that doctor? He held a position in the Ministry of Health, or is it Iron Fist Zhu? Is this to express his gratitude?

But no matter who is the one, it’s good for Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was overjoyed when the Patent Office notified Wu Zhigang to go over. He had heard that Pfizer’s clinical trial is not completed yet, and they should get the approvals next year. Once the Viagra is registered in the US, Pfizer will have to amend their formulas, and Bing City Pharmaceutical can get the first bite of the cake!

Wu Zhigang stood in front of the Patent Office and called Feng Yu. The Leader at the Patent Office told him to return in one week to get the patent!

Feng Yu immediately told Wu Zhigang to send a copy of the patent application and all the related documents to Fu Guangzheng. He needs to apply for the patent in the US, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Feng Yu just wanted to hinter Pfizer’s development.

At this moment, Director Fang called Feng Yu. “Your medicine’s evaluation is approved. Don’t worry about the patent. As long as this medicine is not available overseas, it will be green light all the way. This is considered a small favor.”

“Thank you, Director Fang. Your small favor had helped Bing City Pharmaceutical a lot!”

Chapter 893 – How do we sell?

“Brother Fu. This is the patent application for the new medicine. You must get the patent approved as soon as possible. Especially the US patent.” Feng Yu passed a stack of documents to Fu Guangzheng. This new drug will bring in hundreds of million USD to Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Pfizer’s profits exceed 1 billion USD with this drug. Even if Bing City Pharmaceutical is not well known, it should get at a few hundred million at least. It might also open up the Chinese market for this drug earlier.

“This Aphrodisiac drug is the miracle drug you are talking about?” Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu. What did Feng Yu think when he asked Bing City Pharmaceutical to develop this drug?

“It’s not an aphrodisiac drug. It is a type of medicine that gives you an erection, and more importantly, there are no side effects to your kidneys. It is used to treat Erectile dysfunction.” Feng Yu explained.

“Huh? Is there a difference?”

“The difference is other countries don’t have the concept of boosting male sex drive, and this medicine is western medicine. The traditional Aphrodisiac medicine is harmful to our body, and this medicine doesn’t have other side effects.”

No side effects? Fu Guangzheng’s eyes brighten up. “Is it really that effective?”

Feng Yu raised his brows. “You can test it yourself. But you are healthy, and a 50mg tablet or half a tablet is enough. Don’t overdose yourself.”

“Ok. I will try it, and let’s continue chatting tomorrow. Do you need a partner? I can introduce two pretty women.”

“Get lost!” Feng Yu laughed. You think everyone is as horny as you?!

The next afternoon, Fu Guangzheng called. “Brother Feng, where are you?”

“At home. Why? Did you just wake up?”

“Wait for me. I will go over now.”

Half an hour later, Fu Guangzheng appeared at Feng Yu’s doorsteps with some food. He insisted Feng Yu to have a drink with him.

“What’s wrong with you? You must have tried that medicine and experienced the effectiveness of it.” Feng Yu took a sip of beer and joked.

“Hahaha… It’s good stuff. Last night, I made those 3 surrendered to me!” Fu Guangzheng showed 3 fingers and said.

Feng Yu: “……” Damn! You must have enjoyed yourself!

“Brother Fu, this is a medication for Erectile dysfunction, and it is not advisable to take it when you are healthy. Although there are no side effects, it will not be good for your health. Do you understand?”

“I know. I don’t intend to take it regularly. But why is this medicine a prescription drug?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

A prescription from a doctor is needed if anyone wants to buy it. How are they going to sell it? Furthermore, how are they going to promote this medicine?

“Brother Fu, are there pharmacies in Hong Kong? Do you think all pharmacies will follow the regulations? The customers can’t buy it without a prescription? Furthermore, this is not sleeping pills, and it’s easy to get the prescription. Why is there a need for a prescription? This is a medicine which is used for treating illness. Of course, we need a prescription.”

“That’s right. Many pharmacists in the pharmacy can issue prescription the drug to patients and register their names. But what about the advertisements?”

“We can promote this medicine through the pharmacy and hospital secretly. Let the doctors sell these medicines. We can also get those hooligans to promote it, and I have an important channel to distribute it.” Feng Yu smiled secretively.

“Important channel? What is it?”

“A Japanese movie company which produces adult artistic films!”

The Sixth Sense Company had not only acquired a TV station. They had also set up a movie production company in the US, and it’s legal in that state.

“Adult film?” Fu Guangzheng asked. “You mean those porn movies?”

“Crude! What porn movies? It’s artistic films, or you can call it adult action movies!” Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng. “What do you think of the male actors’ ‘power’ in the movies?”

“They seem to be able to last, but isn’t it all editing?”

“What if I tell you it’s not edited, and they had taken Viagra?” Feng Yu smiled cunningly.

“Then many people will want to be as ‘powerful’ like them and will buy the medicine! You are a genius!” Fu Guangzheng laughed.

Using adult films to promote this medicine! This is a splendid idea!

“In Hong Kong, we also have lots of Category 3 movies each year. Can’t we do product placement? There are many such movie production companies all over the world. We only need to advertise through them, and it will be effective. In fact, Erectile dysfunction is more common in western countries than in Asia.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, how did Pfizer promote Sildenafil? They used the methods mentioned by Feng Yu. Product placements in adult movies, advertisements on adult channels, through word of mouth, and doctor’s recommendation in hospitals.

In the US, it’s more common for people to seek medical help for men’s health. This is an issue faced by many men and women worldwide. In fact, a lot of women buy this medicine for their partners secretly.

In the US, there are strict regulations on medicine, but when you think of cannabis abuse there, you will know there are still lots of illegal activities. It’s not an issue for them to sell Viagra without prescription, as there are countless clinics and private doctors.

As long as there are profits, the doctors will sell it. Even if you are well, the doctors will say you are sick.

After trying the medicine, they will know the effects, and no one will complain. Many people will even go to the doctor to get a prescription.

This condition will affect men’s confidence, and most men will do anything to change it. This will give them a sense of power and pleasure!

“Alright. I know what to do. I will get my people to apply for patents in each region. Oh, when will you launch your medicine?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“Around April. We are increasing our production now.”

Since New Year, Feng Yu had asked Bing City Pharmaceutical to start the production of this medicine. It will be launched worldwide on the same day. The only problem is the manual in the packaging. It needs to be in multi-languages. Feng Yu felt that in 1 or 2 more years, he have to set up pharmaceutical factories around the world.

Even if the factories are only producing this medicine, it will also be profitable.

“Alright. I will contact the medicine distributors worldwide, and I guarantee this medicine will reach all corners of the world. I know… focus on the US first. You had said many times.”

Feng Yu did not say anything, and Fu Guangzheng knew what he was about to say. Feng Yu had mentioned Pfizer is developing a similar drug, and they will lose the market if they launch the medicine later than Pfizer.

After Fu Guangzheng left, Feng Yu called Kameda Masao as he needed his help to promote this medicine.

Chapter 894 – Internet Advertising

Feng Yu was speechless. After Kameda Masao heard about this medicine, his first reaction was the same as Fu Guangzheng. He wants to test the drug himself! He said that he needs to experience the effects of the medicine personally to know how effective it is. This is his responsibility to the consumers, and it’s the Sixth Sense Company’s tradition.

Feng Yu suspect these are all excuses given by Kameda Masao for him to fool around. Responsibility to the consumers? How come I never hear you testing all the sex dolls the company produce?! In Japan, successful men must fool around. If they return home straight after work, they will be looked down!

Kameda Masao’s ‘testing’ of medicine is more overboard than Fu Guangzheng. He did not only test it on himself. He even asked his men to use it, and the feedback he got from his men are all positive!

“Boss, did you develop this medicine for our company?”

Feng Yu’s eyes twitched. What the hell are you taking about? You think I am like you? I am not interested to be the king of the porn industry! This is a prescription drug!

Prescription drug is use for treating medical conditions! Alright. Feng Yu also knows that majority of the men who bought this medicine will not get prescription from the doctors.

Not only the Chinese likes self-medication, the western countries also do this. Most of the families will have medicine boxes at home for self-medications. This is because the medical expenses are several time higher than China if the patient does not have insurance. Compared to the hospitals overseas, China’s medical expenses is nothing!

“This is a medicine developed by a pharmaceutical factory. It’s a prescription drug and not some sex drug! Of course, the purpose of this drug is to treat ED. I will let the Sixth Sense Company be the main distributor in Japan. My requirement is to let every pharmacy in Japan to sell this medicine. Is there any problem?”

“Of course not. One week! I promise each and every pharmacy in Japan will be selling this medicine within one week! This medicine is so much more effective than Indian divine oil and will surely be popular. Boss, our Sixth Sense Company had acquired a TV station and a movie production company, and both are registered in the US. We can let our make actors take this medicine and do product placement. I believe you have thought about this, right?”

Kameda Masao’s suggestion was what Feng Yu had in mind, and he is good with his words!

“This is a good suggestion, and someone is following up on this. Not only we will be using the medicine in our company’s movies. We will be doing product placement in other companies’ movies. Also, we have to advertise this medicine on our TV station. Remember, we must follow the regulations and emphasize this is a prescription drug and needs doctor advice!”

Feng Yu had emphasized on prescription drug to prevent Pfizer from using this to attack Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise.

“Boss, I can guarantee high sales volume in Japan, but in Europe and the US, it might not be as effective. The medical distributors there will surely ask for high commission to distribute this medicine.” Kameda Masao reminded Feng Yu.

“We have no choice. Currently, we are not expecting high sales and only want to let everyone know about the existence of this drug within 3 years! After that, we will set up factories all over the world to produce this drug!”

There are too many restrictions with prescription drugs. Most importantly, prescription drugs are not allowed to be advertise on mainstream media in most countries.

But Fu Guangzheng had thought of a way to promote this medicine yesterday. Advertise in Medical magazines and journals. This way, hospital and clinics will know about this miracle drug and patients will welcome it. Yes… this drug will be loved by patients all over the world.

This sort of advertising will not be very effective, but the cost will be low. However, this suggestion reminded Feng Yu how to promote his vitamins, Gluconic acid and other health related medicine. Experts’ recommendations!

If medical experts say this medicine is effective on TV and recommend patients with this condition to seek doctor advice before taking this drug, it will increase the sales and awareness to a certain extend.

But such programs are too professional and have limited viewers. It’s hard to make this drug to be known by everyone within 3 years through this method.

When Feng Yu was deep in thoughts about how to promote this medicine, Kameda Masao asked softly. “Boss, have you thought about advertising on the internet?”

Internet advertising? Feng Yu was surprised. In this era, internet advertising had started?

“How are we going to advertise on the internet? Through forums or inserting advertise on medical related websites? Also, is this legal?” There should not be online video sites and the most popular are the online forums and emails. Email advertising will not work and it’s only the online forums left.

“There are no strict regulations for online advertising, and we can set up a Secondary page link ad and viewers who clicked on our site will get a pop-up advertisement about our medicine. This way, we will not break any laws and still promote to the right group of people.”

Click on the site, pop-up advertisements, targeting the right group of people? These sounds familiar. Is Kameda Masao talking about those sites?

“You are talking about… adult sites?” Feng Yu asked.

“That’s right. Our company’s products main advertising channel is through these sites. It’s not expensive, but it’s very effective. Those viewers who surf these sites are also our target customers for our products.”

Feng Yu’s eyes opened wide. This theory… seems to be correct!

Most of the people who surf those sites are the ones who does not have partners. Those who have girlfriends and can do it, will they still surf these sites? There will be some who likes such sites. The Sixth Sense Company’s sex dolls might not fulfill the role of a girlfriend, but it does have some of the functions that will attract these customers.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he also surfed such sites and the pop-up advertise are mainly these related products. He really did not know such advertising had developed so fast in his current life.

Actually, pop-up advertisements and Secondary page link ad first appear on adult sites. There were studies that adult sites developed much faster than other websites, and adult sites take up 32% of all internet sites!

This is a scary proportion and it’s not wrong to say the rise of internet is due to adult websites.

“What about the procedures and paperwork? Will there be any problem?”

“Absolutely no. Our company is working with all major adult websites. There are more than 1 billion internet users worldwide, and if 1% of them buy our medicine each week, it will be 100,000 tablets. How much will the profits be?” Kameda Masao said.

How much will be the profits? Feng Yu had set the retail price for a 50mg tablet at 18 USD, and the production cost is only 3 USD!

After deducting the rest of the charges, the profit for one tablet is at least 10 USD, and it will be 1 million USD pure profits each week. There are 52 weeks in a year and that’s over 50 million USD of profits!

“Kameda… I am right about you. This year, I will give you an extra 1% shares of the Sixth Sense Company!”

Kameda Masao was overjoyed. “Thank you, Boss. I will contact those sites now and let our product appear in front of the viewers as early as possible!”

Chapter 895 – Meeting Professor Liang again

Hong Kong University, School of Business. Professor Liang had finished his lecture and was walking out of the lecture hall. He was disappointed with his current students. None of them were serious in their studies and couldn’t apply what they learned. He still misses that exchange student from China. That student is his favorite student.

But it’s a pity. Professor Liang had taught for years and only met a student like Feng Yu.

After walking out of the hall, Professor Liang saw a young man standing outside. This young man had a box beside him and was carrying two books in his hands. The books are related to the subject he was teaching earlier.

“Since you are here, why didn’t you join the class?” Professor Liang laughed and asked.

“I was late, and your class had started. I don’t want to disturb your class and the other students.” Feng Yu laughed and replied.

“Let’s go to my office. I don’t have lessons in the afternoon, and we can have a good chat.” Professor Liang patted Feng Yu’s shoulder and walked towards his office.

“Professor Liang, these cigars and coffee are for you.” Feng Yu place the box on Professor Liang’s desk.

“Thank you. You still remember what I like.” Professor Liang accepted Feng Yu’s gifts. Although he is a professor, he doesn’t lack money.

“Professor Liang, I had read your article review you published recently. It’s interesting.”

“Hahaha… that essay is controversial, and many scholars had attacked me for what I wrote.” Professor Liang said this with a proud look. He seems to enjoy what others say about his article.

“The ones who attacked you will regret.” Feng Yu said.

Professor Liang’s article is about export-oriented economies’ flaws and had mentioned the risk of inflation caused by.

Many people disagree with Professor Liang’s article. Firstly, the export-oriented economy had many successful examples in history. Even now, many Asian countries’ economies grew rapidly because of exportation. For example, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, etc. Their economies now are much better than 5 or 10 years ago.

As for currency devaluation, the scholars felt it’s impossible. There is an economic crisis, and USD will not shoot up suddenly. How will those countries’ currency devaluate suddenly? Furthermore, the countries that focus on trade will have sufficient foreign reserves.

But Feng Yu agreed with Professor Liang’s opinion. In his previous life, many people also thought these will not happen, but it did. All the countries were not prepared and suffered significant losses.

Professor Liang was one of the few who could foresee the danger behind these ‘successful’ economies.

“You had come to see me today because that group of people is going to start?” Professor Liang stopped smiling and asked.

Feng Yu nodded. “That’s right. They are going to pick a weaker country, Thailand, as their first stop. Thailand has high debts, an export-oriented economy, and does not have enough USD in its foreign reserve.”

Professor Liang looked at Feng Yu in shock. “How do you know so many details? You even know where they are attacking?”

“It’s because those Jewish businessmen had invited me!”

“They invited you? Why?”

Those Jewish businessmen seldom allow outsiders to join them. Furthermore, Feng  Yu is an Asian, and they are attacking Asia this time!

Feng Yu told Professor Liang about how he was recommended to Soros by Kirilenko, and maybe Soros felt Feng Yu is someone stupid and easily controlled.

Soros’s initial plan is to let Kirilenko and Feng Yu invest their funds into Quantum Fund. This way, he will have control over a more significant amount, and his chances of winning are higher.

But after Soros met Feng Yu, he realized Feng Yu is not someone he can control. Also, Feng Yu had shown him that he is much smarter than Kirilenko. That’s why Soros had no choice but to cooperate with Feng Yu instead of asking him to invest.

“Hahaha… that means they will work with you and then point their guns towards Hong Kong?” Professor Liang laughed and asked.

Feng Yu rubbed his nose. “If it’s me, I will also test the strength of my opponents first before I decide on my next move. If possible, I will set them up once. After all, weakening the opponent is equivalent to strengthening me. If I did not say those things, they might not target me. But now, they should be targeting me as well.”

“You are honest. When do you think they will start?” Professor Liang likes Feng Yu’s honesty.

“They will test the market first, and the real attack will be after the return of Hong Kong.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

“Why?”

“Because England had suffered a defeat by Soros and his men, and they are prepared. They have the experience and countermeasures in place. Also, these few years, England had been increasing its foreign reserves. That’s why Soros will wait until Hong Kong is returned to China before they will carry out a tentative attack. But they will not target Hong Kong at first. They will attack China and me to see our reactions.

Feng Yu had positioned himself last, and Professor Liang suddenly remembered something. “How much funds do you have?”

“A lot. Also, didn’t you notice Hong Kong’s wealthy families had started to accumulate USD?” Feng Yu replied proudly.

“Which family have you persuaded to help you?”

“Superman Li, Fu Rongqi. They had also contacted the other tycoons. Once Hong Kong is attacked, everyone will stand up against them!”

“Stand up against them?” Professor Liang shook his head. “Many of them are enemies with each other, how can they cooperate against the enemy? In fact, I feel the more people participating in this, the more it will fail!”

Feng Yu gave Professor Liang a thumbs up in his heart. In his previous life, the Hong Kong tycoons could have won easily. But in the end, they were divided and fighting against Soros by themselves. Some of them even tried to take advantage of the situation. If the Hong Kong Governor had not asked China for help at that time, Hong Kong’s economic crisis might be worse.

“But it’s different this time. I am here to invite you to lead us. Superman Li, Fu Rongqi, and the rest’s funds will be handled by you. This way, we will be on the same page, and we can counterattack them!”

“I will be leading? They will listen to me?” Professor Liang was shocked. He is confident that he is one of the top financial experts in Hong Kong. But he is not confident enough to let Superman Li, Fu Rongqi and the rest of the tycoons to listen to his orders and let him control their funds.

“There will be an attack soon. But I am around, the attack will not be too severe. They will lose precious time if we delay them. That’s why the fund we are handing over to you is not much, and we don’t expect high profits, and no loss is good enough.”

“You are going to profit from the other countries?”

“Why not? Anyway, they are not our country, and I am not the one who lead the attack. I am just a follower. To be honest, I’m happy to see those countries suffer!”

Professor Liang points at Feng Yu for a while and doesn’t know what to say. This student is still his pride, and he also likes Feng Yu’s narrow-minded nationalism.

Chapter 896 – Operation Starts

Feng Yu chatted with Professor Liang for a long time until it’s time to report off. He invited Professor Liang to dinner, but Professor Liang prefers to eat with his family at home.

The next day, Feng Yu arrived at Wind and Rain Consultancy. This time, not only Wind and Rain Consultancy will participate, many staff will join in too.

“Old He, who are the ones that are good in forex in the company?” Feng Yu asked while reading a report.

He Zhaoji lists out all the names and their achievements. Among the people, he included himself.

“Is the office I asked you to prepare ready?”

“It’s ready. I hacked the wall of your current office and my office, and it’s enough for about 30 dealers to work in there.”

“Good. In the coming months, you all will be exhausted. But after everything is over, I promise you all will not regret it!”

“Don’t worry, Boss. We are in this trade, and we are prepared. We had fought in battles lasting more than 1 month before.” He Zhaoji replied. He knew this is an important battle, and they must not let Feng Yu down.

“This time, it’s not only one month. Can you last if it’s one or two years? In the initial stage, we will not make any money, but the ones dealing with US shares and Gold will make a lot of money.” These people will be used to defend Hong Kong and attack other countries’ currency. The funds used cannot be under Wind and Rain Consultancy, as it will attract troubles.

“We will complete the tasks according to your requirements!”

“Hahaha… don’t disappoint me.”

…….

Feng Yu had returned to New York in early March. He sat in his Empire State Building’s office and in the room next to his were a group of highly paid financial brokers. In another office is Kirilenko’s team of financial brokers.

These two teams are under Feng Yu’s command.

“Feng, Soros’s man, had notified us. It’s time to enter!” Kirilenko shouted excitedly.

Feng Yu was still eating seeds at his desk. He does not look nervous at all.

“Feng, did you hear what I said?” Kirilenko sat beside Feng Yu. It’s time to make money. Why are you still so chilled?

Feng Yu put down the seeds and wiped his hands. “Brother Ki, don’t be anxious. We will let them attack first, and we will enter the battleground 2 days later.”

“Why? Isn’t it the earlier we enter, the more profits we get? If we are later than them, they will snatch away all the money!” Kirilenko panicked.

“Do you know what will happen if we enter the market first? We will suffer significant losses!” Feng Yu replied.

You don’t know anything about the financial market, and you want to enter first? No wonder Soros likes you so much. You have the qualities of an excellent cannon fodder!

“Ah? Why will we lose money?” Kirilenko asked.

“Do you know why Soros notify us to enter the market now? It’s because they did not prepare a lot of funds and had belittled the Thai government. Look at this news. The Thai Central Bank had just announced 9 financial institutions, and one mortgage company have low assets quality and cashflows issue. What can you tell from this piece of news?” Feng Yu asked.

Kirilenko blinked his eyes and asked. “What should I know from this?”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. It’s a waste of time to discuss the financial market with Kirilenko.

“This piece of news had told us that Thailand’s financial system is chaotic and has poor management. This means there are loopholes to exploit.” Feng Yu explained.

“That’s right. Without loopholes, how can we make money?” Kirilenko argued.

“You are right. There are loopholes in Thailand’s financial system, and this is a good opportunity for us to act. But did you forget how much losses we are incurring every day with the funds we raised?”

They had opportunity losses, and just the interest alone is not a small amount. The losses Feng Yu and Kirilenko suffered every day are enough for ordinary folks to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.

“You are saying that Soros and his men still have not liquidated their assets to raise funds? Damn! They are planning to use our funds to make money for them!” Kirilenko was furious.

Our money is ready in our accounts, and we are suffering losses each day. You all are still making money? This is too shameless!

“Don’t worry. We will enter the market in a week and exit immediately after we make some profits.” Feng Yu consoled Kirilenko.

“How much will the profits be?” Kirilenko’s eyes sparkled. He is the happiest when talking about making money.

“We should be able to cover our interests.”

“So little?” Kirilenko was mad. He had invested a lot and can only cover the interest. It’s a waste of time.

“We can cover our interests, and they will suffer losses. You still think we lost?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

“Ah? That means we did not lose anything. But didn’t you say they will surely make money?” Kirilenko scratched his head, as he was confused by Feng Yu.

“If they have enough funds, their strategy will surely make money. But their initial funds entering the market is insufficient. Just think about it. If Soros really has enough funds, why will he invite us, strangers, to join him? That piece of news tells us about the existence of loopholes in Thailand’s financial system, but at the same time, the Thai authorities are also aware of it.”

“We should help the Thai Government to attack Soros!” Kirilenko said.

“What you mentioned is what I am preparing in Hong Kong. But before that, why should I help the Thai Government? I have no relationships with them. Isn’t it better for us to make money from them and then use the profits against Soros? I am a narrow-minded person, and I don’t like other countries in Asia!”

“Hahaha… Everyone wishes their country will become stronger and I know how you feel. Alright. I will listen to you and wait for a week. We will enter the market one week later. But will there be problems with Soros if we did not participate this week?”

Kirilenko does not want to see the rest of the countries in Europe to rise. He still wants to see Russia taking over Europe and the world. That’s why he understood what Feng Yu was thinking. Anyway, he got nothing to lose and still might make money.

“The reasons we will be giving is simple. Just tell them we are having issues with the transferring of our funds, and we will enter the market latest by one week. I believe they will understand.”

This excuse is also telling Soros that Feng Yu and Kirilenko do not trust him. They were not friends in the first place and don’t even know each other personally. That’s why it’s reasonable to test each other first.

You, Soros, is the leader, and you should be the one entering the market first. We will just follow you. Is there anything wrong?

Soros received Kirilenko’s reply and did not say anything. If he is in Feng Yu’s position, he will also do the same. But he believes that once he enters the market and showed Feng Yu his determination, Feng Yu and Kirilenko will surely participate. In the end, his side will come out triumph!

Chapter 897 – Preach to Deaf Ears

Druckenmiller is one of the fund managers in Quantum Funds, and also one of Soros’s four deputies. He rushed into Soros’s office without knocking. In Quantum Funds, only the four deputies can enter Soros’s office without knocking.

“What is it, Miller?”

“Mr. Soros, Thailand’s XX commercial bank, lent out a large sum of Thai Baht on a forward contract, and it’s not our people.”

Soros laughed. Had they started to act? Soros is very impressed with Feng Yu’s skills in the financial market. He felt Feng Yu might even be better than his four assistants.

But it’s a pity that Feng Yu is a Hong Konger and is wealthy. He will never work for Soros. But to say Feng Yu is on the same level as Soros, the latter will never agree.

Feng Yu is only lucky to buy so many of Microsoft’s shares. If not, how can Feng Yu compete with Soros?

“Observe them close and monitor if they operate the same as us.” Soros wants to see to what extent Feng Yu can do without his orders.

In the afternoon, Soros received information that a large amount of funds had entered the market and bought some of Thailand’s banks’ shares.

Soros knew how Feng Yu operates. What Feng Yu was doing is the same as Soros. The next step should be using various methods to increase Thailand’s debts.

……

Feng Yu used the money he borrowed to buy shares, bonds, futures, etc. He maximized his loans and bought as many shares and bonds as possible. After that, he will use his bonds as a mortgage to get more loans. He will repeat this cycle over and over again.

This way, 10,000 USD can purchase a few hundred thousand USD worths of bonds. Where did the extra money come from? From Thailand’s banks and commercial institutions.

“Feng, what is going on? How come we are in so much debt?” Kirilenko is panicking as they are slow in debt.

“It’s a good thing to be heavily in debt. What do you think will happen if we sell off all the bonds in our hands?” Feng Yu smiled and asked.

“Ah? Sell everything? Won’t we lose money this way?” Kirilenko was stunned. They will lose money if they sell everything! We are here to make money and not lose money!

Kirilenko’s investment team head, Lennon, can’t stand it any longer. He reminded Kirilenko. “Mr. Kirilenko, did you forget we had bought a lot of futures contract earlier? All the contracts are Short contracts.”

“Short? We have a lot of short contracts?” Kirilenko asked excitedly and turn to Feng Yu. “What is a short contract?”

Feng Yu and Lennon raised their heads and looked at the ceiling. You don’t know anything, and why are you so excited when you heard about the short contracts?

“Shorting means we buy some futures contract and we must buy back the instruments to sell to the other party within a period stated in the contracts. We only need to pay 10% of the value, or you can understand it as 10-times leverage. That means we used 1 USD to complete a 10 USD deal.”

Kirilenko had a blank look on his face. “And then?”

“And then it’s like what you mentioned just now. Once we start dumping our shares and bonds, the share prices will plummet, and even the market index will drop.”

“Of course, I know about this!” Kirilenko rolled his eyes at Feng Yu.

“The market index drops and will trigger all the share prices to fall. There will be panic, and all investors will start dumping their shares. Overseas investors will lose confidence in the Thailand stock market and also dump Thailand’s stocks. We must sell these commodities at 10 USD when the time comes. But we do not have the commodities in hand now. We can buy them when the prices fall to 8 USD. This way, we will profit from the difference, which is 2 USD. With the 10-times leverage, we will earn 20 USD. This is how you profit through a Short Futures contract.”

“But we had lost money before. Can the profits cover our losses?” Kirilenko still remembered what Feng Yu said. The initial two months will have no profits.

“We might not cover our losses, but the amount will be negligible. This is because our debt ratio is too high, and this will cause us to incur losses from the bonds and shares. But don’t forget we still have a weapon, which is the Forex contract.”

Kirilenko blinked his eyes and saw Feng Yu’s angry stare. He stopped asking and wait for Feng Yu to explain.

“When share prices fall, the stock index will also fall, which will lead to many investors losing confidence in Thailand’s economy and currency. Do you still remember what we did when Rubles depreciate?” Feng Yu asked.

“I know. We exchanged Rubles for USD!” Kirilenko replied excitedly.

Feng Yu nodded and gave Kirilenko a thumbs up. “That’s right. Investors will exchange their Thai Baht to the safer USD. Although I am not willing to admit, the USD is one of the most circulated and important currencies in the world.”

Kirilenko’s face changed and kept quiet after he heard how powerful USD is. But he could not refute this as Rubles is not as strong.

“The Forex is similar to the stock market. When a certain currency is dumped in large amounts, what do you think will happen to the exchange rates?” Feng Yu asked.

Kirilenko replied cautiously. “That currency’s exchange rate will drop?”

Feng Yu gave Kirilenko an encouragement look. “Yes. The exchange rate will fall. It will drop from 24:1 to over 30:1. Since the value of the USD will not change, and Thai Baht will depreciate.”

“When this happens, our Thai Baht contract will make money, right?”

“Of course. Our Forex contracts will make a sum of money for us, and Baht’s depreciation will cause inflation in Thailand, and Thailand’s economy will go into recession. Thailand’s stock market will crash, and share prices will plummet further. What we can profit is from shorting the stock index and Forex.”

“Wait. From what you mentioned, we should make high profits. But why did you say we will not make money.” Kirilenko was confused. They were using 10-times leverage, and how can they still not make money?

Lennon continued with the explanations. “We will lose money when we sell our Thai Baht.”

Kirilenko felt giddy after all the explanations. They will lose money at the start and then make money? He still doesn’t understand how it works. Never mind. The financial market is too complicated, and not everyone is like Feng Yu, who is good at everything. I only want to make some money. I will just follow what Feng says.

Feng Yu saw the confused look on Kirilenko’s face and can’t be bothered to explain to him. He had tried his best to explain in layman’s terms, but it is too complicated. Of course, Feng Yu is also influenced by his job as a financial broker in his previous life. He did not explain all the details to his clients too.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he only explained the essential terms of the investments to his clients and left out the details. This way, his clients will agree to let him handle the investment. If Feng Yu made it sounds so easy, who will want to hire brokers?

“Brother Ki, you just need to know that we will lose money these few days, and you must remain calm.”

Kirilenko replied angrily. “When am I not calm? I said I would let you all handle everything. Feng, I trust you and won’t mind even if I lose money!”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Calm? If you are calm, you will not be drinking with women now, instead of sitting in the office looking at the financial reports. Never mind. Just let him do whatever he likes.

Chapter 898 – Starting to lose money

Feng Yu had explained to Kirilenko on how their investment work, but Kirilenko still does not understand. He only remembered Feng Yu’s last sentence. From tomorrow onwards, we will lose money!

The next morning, Kirilenko arrived at the office and saw many people packing up to go home.

Kirilenko panicked. What’s going on? The salary I offered is not high enough? Why is everyone leaving?

Kirilenko stopped one of the brokers. “Where are you all going? Why are you all leaving? I am asking you! Answer me!”

Kirilenko saw the broker don’t understand Russian, and he shouted at his translator. “Translate for him!”

The translator looked at Kirilenko helplessly. “Boss, we are in New York, and there is a time difference with Thailand. It is night time in Thailand now, and the stock market there is closed. They had finished their work and are reporting off. You cannot expect them to remain in the office for 24 hours, and it is pointless.”

Kirilenko’s face turned red and roared to the translator. “You think I don’t know about this? I am only asking why didn’t he switch off the PC when he is leaving? You think electricity is free?”

The translator translated what Kirilenko said to that broker unwillingly. The reply from that broker was the PCs cannot be switch off. They are collecting data and need to maintain an open connection with Thailand.

Kirilenko waved his hand. “Why doesn’t he leave when it’s time to report off? He still wants to enjoy the air conditioner in the office?!”

Feng Yu is not around and had gone home? Damn! Does that mean everyone will be working at night and resting in the day?

No wonder Feng Yu said this office is only temporary, and he will select a few elites to bring to Hong Kong with him.

When everyone in the office was almost gone, Kirilenko stopped the last person. “How much did we lose yesterday?”

“Only 12 million USD.” The broker replied.

Kirilenko tightens his grip on the 1.7m broker’s hand and almost broke it. He only released his grip when he heard the broker shouting in pain.

What this broker said was too much! Only 12 million USD? It’s 12 million USD! Do you think you can make so much money in your lifetime?!

It’s only the first day, and they lost 12 million USD? If this carries on for ten days, how much will they lose? What about one month? Feng Yu had said this might last more than a year!

“Oh, Brother Ki? Why are you here so early?” Feng Yu walked out of his office. He was preparing to go home to rest. But actually, he had rested for a few hours in his office. How can his office don’t have space for him to rest?

“Nothing. I woke up early and came here to take a look.” Kirilenko replied.

“Really? That’s great. Let’s have breakfast together, and I also have something to discuss with you.”

……

“You want me to help you sell medicine?” Kirilenko was speechless. He thought Feng Yu wanted to tell him when the losses will stop and start profiting.

“This is a miraculous medicine which will increase your ‘power’ in that area. We have already gotten the patent in Europe, the US, Japan, and China. Basically, this medicine is patent protected all over the world.”

Europe’s patent will follow a standard requirement, and the US has its own set of requirements for patents. Japan is the standard for the whole of Asia. There are some countries whose patent’s rights are not related to the rest of the world. For example, China, North Korea, and some countries in Africa.

But this does not mean everything will be fine after registering the patent in the US and don’t need to register in the other countries in the American continent. However, after successfully registering in the US, there will be no problems getting the patent registered in the rest of the countries in that region.

“This is the medicine developed by your pharmaceutical company? Is it that effective?” Kirilenko’s eyes were sparkling. Although Kirilenko looks fit, he indulged in heavy drinking, and sometimes, he will have problems in that area.

Feng Yu held his laughter and replied seriously. “The ones who tried it say it is very effective!”

“If it is that effective, I can help you sell it to the hospitals in a lot of countries.”

Feng Yu was relieved when Kirilenko left. With this medicine, he should be too busy to come to the office.

Even when Kirilenko did not say anything, he will give the brokers tremendous pressure just by standing there looking at them. This will affect the brokers’ concentration and judgment. The invested amount is too huge, and if the brokers made any mistakes, the losses would be significant.

They had only incurred losses of around 12 million USD, and Kirilenko’s expression had changed. If Kirilenko knew the losses would be higher tomorrow, how will he react?

Incurring losses in the initial stage is Feng Yu’s strategy. Selling Baht non-stop will incur significant losses. But after the Baht depreciated, they will recover their losses from their Forex Futures Contracts and might even profit from it.

The more Thai Baht depreciates, the more they will make, as the Futures Contracts are all utilizing leverage.

When Thailand’s financial market crashes, it will receive high returns.

Of course, not any financial institute can handle the initial stage losses. If the value of Thai Baht did not fall, they would incur losses from the Futures Contract and from dumping Thai Baht.

……

Druckenmiller was at Soros’s office again to report on their progress. They suffered significant losses, and Thai Baht prices had dropped slightly. Thailand’s financial market starts to show signs of collapse.

“Continue to dump our Thai Baht, bonds, and shares,” Soros ordered.

“Yes. Oh, Feng’s company and our allies are all doing the same. I believe we will gain control of Thailand’s financial system very soon. The result of decades of development will soon be in our hands.” Druckenmiller laughed.

“Don’t be complacent and act according to plan. You must take note of any changes and must react immediately if the changes are not in favor of us. Also, watch that Feng Yu and that Russian guy closely. Their combined funds is not a small amount!”

Soros felt Feng Yu would play a critical role in his plans. If Feng Yu switch sides suddenly, he will have to face the Thai Government and Feng Yu heads-on. They will no longer have the advantage and will suffer significant losses!

“I know. Ken is monitoring their funds.”

Ken is also one of Soros’s four fund managers and is tasked to monitor Feng Yu. The other two aides are also tasked with monitoring the rest of Soros’s allies.

Currently, Thai Baht still has not depreciated significantly, and the fluctuations are still within the acceptable range. But Soros was not worried, because this is only the start. When he and his allies start dumping Thai Baht in large amounts, Thailand’s financial market will inevitably collapse!

Chapter 899 – The future Head of the family

“Uncle, are we still going to do nothing? Thai Baht is starting to depreciate, and the Thai economy is starting to crumble. Their financial system is going to be in chaos!
Fu Guangzheng said.

Fu Rongqi continued to smoke his cigar and did not say a word. He just looked at Fu Guangzheng silently.

Fu Guangzheng, who was panicking, slowly quiet down and sat there.

“Guangzheng, you had performed the best among your generation. By right, the next head of our family should be you. Don’t interrupt me and let me finish. Which of your older cousins is suitable to head the family? Guangcheng, who had been learning about financial trading from me, or Guangyao? They had performed well, but they are just following my footsteps. You are different. You had walked a different path from us.”

“I had mentioned before. China will be the next up and coming market. Regardless of their financial market, or industrial, investors from all over the world will be fighting to invest in it. You are the first in our family to enter the Chinese market and found the best partner for us. All of us can see your asset increasing at a rapid rate.”

“Our family’s next generation, or should I say among the top Hong Kong families’ next generation, no one is more successful than you. Maybe only Li Zekai and a few others are on par with you. As for Guangcheng and Guangyao, they are nowhere near you. But do you know why I did not confirm you as the successor to the head of our family? Do you think I can’t bear to hand over our family’s assets to you?”

“Just think about it. Although money is good, how much can I spend? How much can Guangcheng, Guangyao, and the rest spend? What our family need is to use the money to increase our status in society. You are better than me in this area. In China, many provincial government leaders see you as their top guest.”

“You and Feng Yu invested in machinery, electronics, retail, etc. and made lots of money. But when compared to Feng Yu, what do you think is the difference between you and him?”

Fu Guangzheng was stunned. He had never expected his Eldest Uncle to say these things to him today. These words are about the next head of the family.

The next head of the family will not be Fu Rongqi’s two sons, not his second Uncle and third Uncle’s children. Fu Guangzheng is going to be the next leader of their family? He was formerly looked down upon by his own family, and even many Hong Kong’s second generations looked down on him!

But Fu Rongqi still felt Fu Guangzheng is not good enough and does not want to hand over the family’s business to him. Fu Guangzheng admits that Feng Yu is much better than him when it comes to investments and in many other fields. But he is confident that he will be one of Hong Kong’s top billionaire with his investments in Feng Yu’s companies.

However, Fu Rongqi seemed to be not pleased with Fu Guangzheng’s achievements and want to test him. The difference between Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng? What is Fu Rongqi referring to?

Fu Guangzheng knew that if he could give his Eldest Uncle a satisfying answer, his status among the Fu family’s second generation will increase. But if he could not answer his Uncle, then he might not be the next successor.

But even if Fu Guangzheng did not become the next head of the Fu Family, he will also live a good life. If he does become the next head, then his influence will no longer be limited to Hong Kong and China. He would be one of the top wealthiest men in the world!

Who doesn’t want to be the leader?

Fu Guangzheng thought for a while and said. “Is it my foresight in investing?”

Fu Rongqi puffed out his cigar’s smoke. “In which area?”

Fu Guangzheng was about to reply to electronics when he suddenly remembered what his Uncle’s company is dealing with. Financial trading. Is this the answer his Uncle is looking for?

Fu Guangzheng replied cautiously. “Electronics and financial?”

Fu Rongqi remained expressionless, and Fu Guangzheng could not tell if his Uncle is angry or disappointed.

“I know you like the electronics industry. But which industry gives higher returns? Have you ever thought where Feng Yu got his first pot of gold?”

Feng Yu’s first pot of gold? Fu Guangzheng tried to recall. It seems to be the Soviet Union trade. But this should not be the answer his Uncle is looking for.

Wait, is Uncle referring to the first pot of gold after Feng Yu come to Hong Kong? That was the time when his Uncle confirmed the Fu Family needs Feng Yu’s assistance, and they must maintain a good relationship with him.

“It’s financial trading. Feng Yu had taken loans in the Former Soviet Union and exchanged his Rubles to USD. Then he used the USD to trade in oil futures, gold futures, Forex futures, and then used his profits to invest in the US stock market!” Fu Guangzheng understood that the majority of Feng Yu’s assets come from the financial market!

“You finally see it. Compared to physical assets, the returns from the financial market is much faster. Of course, the real business is a must to have, and it acts as a form of insurance. Among all of your investments in China, Tai Hua Supermarket is the best investment. The retail sector’s potential is high, and the profits from it in the future will be the most stable. As long as you manage the supermarkets and your supply chain well, you don’t need to worry about losses. Automobile and Electronics industries might be performing well now, but there’s the risk of failing to keep up with the technologies and being overtaken by other brands.”

“Our Fu Family had not entered the automobile and electronics industries, and you should know better. But I want you to remember that China will be one of the pillars in the Financial market in the future. If you can become a financial mogul, you will be one of the most influential people in China and the world!” Fu Rongqi said.

“Most influential?”

“That’s right. You will be influential. When the money you have, exceeded a certain amount, you can influence politics. It is the same for China. If you invest in a certain region of China, the leader there will be promoted, and in return, he will give you better government benefits. This way, you can make more money.”

Fu Guangzheng nodded. “Uncle, you want me to learn to invest in the financial market?”

“You are not willing?” Fu Rongqi looked at Fu Guangzheng.

“Uncle, to be honest, I am interested in financial trading, but I know I do not have any talent in this field. For retail business management, I believe I am much better than Brother Guangcheng and them. But when it comes to financial investing, I am nowhere near them. I think Brother Guangcheng and I complement each other, and if we work together, our Fu Family will not collapse.” Fu Guangzheng replied.

Fu Guangzheng knows that if he enters the financial market, he will be the next head of the family if he succeeds. But if he fails, his current status in the family will drop. He might as well do what he is doing now and even if he did not become the successor, he will still have power and influence in the family!

Fu Rongqi smiled. He is satisfied with Fu Guangzheng’s answer. It’s essential to know one self’s weakness and not to be blinded by greed.

“Ok. I respect your decision. Remember, you will always be a part of the Fu family, and the Fu family will always be your strongest backing.”

Fu Guangzheng smiled and then asked. “Uncle, when are you entering the market? Feng Yu had already started!”

Fu Rongqi sighed. This brat still does not understand!

Chapter 900 – Thailand’s economic situation

“We should wait first, and it’s not time for us to enter yet.” Fu Rongqi replied.

“Why?” Fu Guangzheng was puzzled.

“It’s because the Thai government still has not entered the picture. When the Thai government intervenes, it will be a tough fight. A country’s government will have ways to stabilize the economy.” Fu Rongqi starts to impart his experiences to Fu Guangzheng.

“Then, we can only wait now?”

“That’s right. We will wait.”

So, the Fu Family waited, and over a month passed. During this period, the Thai government had interfered and pulled up the depreciating Baht slightly. It’s already May, and Feng Yu had returned to Hong Kong. Kirilenko also followed him.

“Feng, how long more must we wait?” Kirilenko’s patient is running low. It’s more than a month, and they had lost several hundred million USD. The current exchange rate for Baht is only 25:1, and the money they earned is not enough to cover their losses. Luckily, Thailand’s stock prices are slowly dropping, and if they activate their futures contracts, they can recover most of their losses.

“We must wait until Soros, and his men contact us. Thai Baht will only depreciate suddenly when both of us dump the currency at the same time.” Feng Yu was very calm. Forex trading is very complicated and not as simple as what Kirilenko thought.

“Then why did you start to short Malaysia’s Ringgit?” Kirilenko doesn’t understand why Feng Yu did this. They had not even brought down one country’s currency, and Feng Yu is starting to target another county? Will they have enough funds to handle it?

“You should not know that Malaysia is Thailand’s biggest trading partner, and both countries’ have complicated and high debts. When Thailand’s economy is hit severely, Malaysia’s economy will also be affected.”

Why is this crisis known as the Asian Financial Crisis? It is because the economies of the countries in Southeast Asia are intertwined. They depend on trade between the countries forming tight bonds.

When one of the countries is hit, the rest will be affected, and it will be easier to attack the economies of the rest of the countries in the region.

Kirilenko nodded. These few days, he could only see they are losing money every day. If it weren’t for the Future contracts being able to recoup his losses, he would have withdrawn from this operation. Without Feng Yu, Kirilenko will never attack Thailand’s economy even with Soros’s invitation.

How rich is Thailand? The real GDP per capita is over 3,000 USD and is several times higher than China. This is almost equivalent to a developed country.

But the weird thing is the average debt per person in Thailand is over 1,500 USD. That means the overall debt of Thailand is more than 50%.

Thailand’s economic development depends heavily on foreign investors and their export. Their exportation makes up about 42% of their GDP, and this is a significantly high proportion.

This proportion is common in many coastal countries in Southeast Asia, as sea trade is mainstream trading transportation.

Secondly, the real estate sector in Thailand is very popular, and it is also Thailand’s other core industry. Foreign investors made up a significant portion of Thailand’s real estate industry. Luxurious hotels, resorts, office buildings, golf courses, etc. were being built in large numbers.

Just Bangkok alone, there are two international exhibition centers and four more under construction. The hospitals there had three times more beds than required. Speculation in properties had become the shortcut to riches.

But there is a hidden danger in Thailand’s property market. More than 20% of the properties were vacant. The buildings and houses were built for speculators.

What was happening in Thailand is very similar to the US at the end of the 1980s and Japan. Using properties and exportation as their core industries, will form a false sense of prosperity for Thailand, and create a housing bubble at the same time.

When the US property crashed, they shifted the crisis to Japan. After that, the US used its advanced technologies to recover from the crisis rapidly. Their property market also recovered, but Japan’s real estate industry is still in a bad situation. The smart Japanese businessmen thought of a good solution, which is to recreate a housing bubble in the rest of the countries in Southeast Asia and make money from there.

This time, the Japanese businessmen are smarter. They will quickly withdraw from the market when the property prices reached the peak and let the countries’ governments take care of the mess. This way, they will earn money, affect the countries’ economy, and maintaining Japan’s position as the most powerful economy in Asia.

Thailand had used a free market economy. To develop faster, they had removed the taxes for bond trading, lowered the taxes for companies’ shares, and even provide financial support for the Bonds companies.

Removing the limits on interest and using interests to stimulate the market will increase the country’s growth in a short period. Thailand had also opened up the Foreign exchange, allowing overseas speculators to trade up to 500,000 USD. This caused the Thai government to have low foreign reserves.

Maybe Thailand had seen the benefits of having a thriving financial market in other countries, and they imposed lesser restrictions on their financial institutions. Offshore trading companies were allowed to set up, and Thailand’s 50 banks, including 35 overseas banks, were allowed to accept savings and issued loans to foreigners.

This is the reason why Soros, Feng Yu, and the rest could get loans in Baht easily.

Of course, there is another important point. Thailand allowed non-residents to set up accounts in Thailand’s commercial banks and allowed them to deposit, get loans, and exchange currencies freely. Thailand’s economy is free.

Having such policies will allow a high volume of overseas funds entering the country, and the country’s economy will develop faster. But this will also cause the downfall of Thailand in this financial crisis.

Thailand does not have tight regulations on its financial sector, and there’s a lack of supervision by the authorities. The country’s bonds and shares were opened to the outside and allowed international speculators to disrupt Thailand’s financial system.

There are also no limits to overseas investment, and the Thai government even welcomes foreign investors, as they thought it would be good for their economy.

Companies can get loans easily, and the country’s debt snowballed. The national debt percentage had exceeded more than 50% of the country’s GDP, and this is a huge problem. On the surface, the companies in Thailand were developing well, but no one considered that after adding in the debts, the companies were all making losses!

The biggest creditor in Thailand is Japan. Japan had set up the most number of banks in Southeast Asia countries, compared to other countries. They issued massive amounts of loans, and their investments in Thailand is worth more than 1 billion USD.

Even if Soros did not attach Thailand, Thailand’s economy will also not last after year 2,000. When Japan withdraw from Thailand’s property and financial market, Thailand’s economy will also collapse.

Chapter 901 – Many reasons

A country is similar to a company. When the country has limited products, it’s easy to make losses when the economy is not doing well. The Government had to inject funds into the economy to make up for the losses.

This method is not wrong, but there are two crucial factors. First, can the injected fund be sustainable? Secondly, the fund is injected into the economy must increase the country’s exportation abilities and lowered its future losses.

But the Thai Government can only achieve the first point. They could get investments from Japan, but their exportation got lowered.

Thailand’s main exported products are electronics. Most of the electronic components imported by China were from Thailand and other Southeast Asia countries.

But from the start of last year, the global demand for electronic products had dropped significantly. Thailand’s electronics exportation could not maintain even with the increased trade with China. Thailand’s trade dropped from 8.2% to 3%.

That means Thailand’s exports might seem to be doing well, but they are losing money.

Also, most of Thailand’s electronic factories were set up by Japanese companies. The labor cost and land are very cheap in Thailand, and it creates a false impression that Thailand is a world-class electronic component manufacturing country. But these factories are all Japanese electronic companies’ subcontractors.

Even with such high investments, the Thai Government is still making losses every year. The GDP might be high, but the country did not make any money. Most of the money is taken away by foreign investors, especially Japanese companies.

Sony, Panasonic, AIWA, and even the Sixth Sense Company have factories in Thailand. Not only the cost of setting up a factory is low, but the operational cost is also meager, and the Government also offered attractive subsidies.

With more factories, the demand for manpower will increase, and the workers’ salaries will increase. Thailand’s workers’ salaries had increased by more than ten times over the past ten years. When the workers’ salaries increase, companies that require massive manpower will lose its competitiveness.

Shoes, clothing, etc. were formerly Thailand’s main exportation products. But as most of these factories closed down, the export also drops.

This information and data were gathered by Feng Yu’s men, and Feng Yu understand why Thailand’s financial system can collapse so fast.

Thailand’s Government is operating under losses, and the average debt per person is more than 1,500 USD. But the Thais are still spending their money lavishly. European perfume, expensive wine, cars, watches, etc. were imported into Thailand.

Thailand, being the world’s third importer of Mercedes Benz, showed how the Thais spend their money. Fu Guangzheng had thought of selling Songjiang Motors vehicles to Thailand, but the dealers in Thailand were not interested. Only luxury brands can sell well in Thailand. The mid-range segment is taken up by Japanese brands.

The Thais were satisfied with their lives and felt their country is developing fast. They even look down on China, because their average income is higher than the Chinese.

After the Thais become wealthy, they start to spend on luxury items and also invest in the stock market. Most people in Thailand invested in shares. Regardless of teachers, workers, drivers, and even full-time housewives start buying shares. The stock market is rising, and everyone thought they could earn big bucks when they enter the stock market.

The deposits in banks got lesser, and everyone took out their savings to invest in the stock market. Even people even got loans to buy shares, as they felt the returns from the stock market is more than the interest rates.

Thailand’s financial institutes also got loans in large amounts from the banks. The amount they invested in the stock market was so significant that they could manipulate the shares to profit from it.

The banks gave out more and more loans, and people deposited lesser and lesser with the banks. As a result, banks can only increase their loan interest rates. But despite the higher interest rates, it did not stop people from getting loans. Annual interest of 17%? Never mind! I will get that loan!

The returns from investing in properties and shares can cover the interest within a few months! This is no longer investing. It had become speculation!

The interest rates for loans had increased, and some companies could not afford the interest. As a result, their productions were affected and could not export their products overseas, thus, lowering Thailand’s total exportation.

When other countries got wealthy, they will invest in their country’s basic structure, like education. But Thailand’s prosperity is only on the surface. The Government is making losses every year and does not have money for education.

Thailand’s education system and technology are way below the rest of the countries in Southeast Asia. Thailand is in the last position in Asia.

Without technology and a sound education system, the country will not have engineers. The critical high tech industries in Thailand cannot be developed. No country can become dominant if it does not have advance technology. That’s why Thailand’s economy might be doing well, but it is never a stable country.

Simply put it. Thailand is neither here nor there. They do not have hi-tech industries, and their traditional industries are losing competitiveness. It’s unavoidable for their economy to collapse.

The Thai Government is not aware of these problems?

Of course not. The Thai Government is aware of these problems, but they don’t have a solution. Their exportation is getting worse and Thai Baht is facing depreciation. If Thai Baht depreciates, Thailand’s losses will be even greater.

The Thai Government had no choice but to intervene in its financial market. They must stabilize their currency. However, when the Government of a country interferes with its financial market, it means that the country’s financial market has a severe issue. The country’s economy might collapse.

Soros and his gang also noticed this. They still had not to go all out, and the Thai Government had stepped in to interfere. If they attack Thailand’s financial market with their full power, can the Thai Government stop them?

Thailand’s banks do not have money to help the economy as they have too many bad debts.

Most of these bad debts are issued by the bank’s staff to their friends and relatives. These bank staff all felt that investing in shares and properties with the money from loans can get high profits.

Even the commoners on the streets are doing this to make money. How can the staff let their friends and relatives down? Don’t they have anything to mortgage? Never mind. The market is doing well now, how can they fail to repay the loan?

A family of three had to pay the mortgage of 2 houses? Anyway, the houses are not for them to live in. They are investments, and after 1 or 2 years, they can sell it for profits.

Another important reason is that Thai Baht is over valuated. If it weren’t for the fixed exchange rate, Thai Baht would have depreciated a long time ago.

Several reasons resulted in Thailand’s financial crisis. Even if Soros and his gang did not attack Thailand, this financial crisis will also happen. But after Soros and Feng Yu attacked Thailand’s financial market, they will bring forward this crisis!

Chapter 902 – Full-fledged Attack

“Get ready, everyone. We will start today!” Feng Yu clapped his hand to get the attention of all the brokers.

All the brokers were excited. They knew the time had come for them to launch a full-fledged attack. Although they had dumped Thai Baht before, the amount is not significant. Feng Yu and Soros were hoping the other party will lose more money and gain higher profits.

But yesterday, Soros called Feng Yu, and they discussed over the phone. They agreed on building a portfolio of short and long-term future contracts and dump Thai Baht in large amounts. They decided to crash the Thai Baht in one go!

Before they start, Feng Yu had gotten 1 billion USD worth of Thai Baht futures contract.

Feng Yu continued to borrow money and dump shares in Thailand’s stock market in an attempt to disrupt Thailand’s financial market. Although Feng Yu is incurring massive losses, as the stock market index dropped, he would earn from shorting the shares.

Stock index futures are the same as commodities futures, where only a 10% deposit is required. Some financial institutes even accept 5% deposits.

With this leverage, the returns are significant if Feng Yu wins. But his risk is also very high.

Thailand has 15 local banks and offshore financial institutes, and Feng Yu starts to arrange his men to get massive loans in Baht from them. Feng Yu’s short and long-term future contracts are through overseas banks.

The Forex market is similar to the stock market. If there are more sellers than buyers, the price will drop. Feng Yu and Soros start to dump Thai Baht at the same time, and the price of Baht starts to dive.

Kirilenko looked at the monitor excitedly. “Feng, are we making money when the value of Baht falls?”

“Of course. But the current amount is nothing. We started building our portfolio when the rate is 24:1, and it is only 25.3:1 now. This amount is too low.”

“Didn’t we used leverage?”

“Yes. We can earn 1.3 Baht for every 1 USD. Even if its 10-times leverage, our return is only 13 Baht. Our profits are only around 50%. Do you know how much losses we incurred when we dumped Thai Baht?”

“That means Thai Baht must continue to fall for us to make money?”

“Yes. Don’t be anxious. I estimate Thai Baht will fall to 27:1 latest by the day after tomorrow. We will stop when it reaches this amount.” Feng Yu smiled.

“Stop? Why must we stop? Shouldn’t we continue to dump Thai Baht and make it drop further? How are we going to make money if Thai Baht stops depreciating?”

“You think the Thai Government is stupid? They will surely intervene, or else, Thailand will go into super inflation.

There are already signs of inflation in Thailand now, and the Thai Government had imposed some measures to stop it. The government had issued 10 billion Thai Bhai bonds, hoping to support their financial market. The property reserves were also increased from 100% to 120%. The financial institutions also prepared 5 billion Baht as reserves.

That means there will be more Thai Baht circulating, and the supply will outweigh the demand. When a country injected a large amount of their currency into the market, it will cause inflation.

“How is the government going to interfere?” Kirilenko asked.

“They will do the opposite. Prices will increase when they started buying. The Thai government still have a large amount of foreign reserve. Last month, they had done this once. Based on our analysis, the Thai Government had used 2 billion USD of the foreign reserve to interfere with the exchange rates.”

“Ok. It’s hard to explain to you how the whole operation works. Some of the jargon is hard to explain in Russian. Guangwei, bring Brother Ki to have fun in Macau. Remember, don’t gamble too much.”

Fu Guangwei had wanted to bring Feng Yu to Macau to have fun. In Hong Kong, many people love to go to Macau for a short holiday. Sometime, Hong Kongers will spend their weekends in Macau. There are lots of pretty women from all over the world in Macau, and it is most suitable for people like Kirilenko.

“You are not going? Don’t you have people to oversee the operation here?” Kirilenko asked.

“If I don’t monitor the market, they will now know when to stop. When the Thai Government steps in, Soros will surely withdraw, leaving us to face the Thai Government head-on as the main force.”

Feng Yu knew clearly that in his previous life, the Thai Government and Malaysia’s Government joined hands against Soros and made Soros suffered losses of over 300 million USD. He could not even recover his losses with his futures contracts.

In this life, although many things had changed, like Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s involvement, Feng Yu still hopes for the same thing to happen. He wants to see how much money Soros prepared to gauge the strength of Soros and his gang!

Now, Soros is waiting for Feng Yu to dump more Thai Baht, and Feng Yu is also waiting for Soros to do the same. The more they dump, the more losses they will incur for now. But in the end, both of them will make money.

Feng Yu is taking a gamble. He is betting his money on Soros will not hold back. After all, not all of Soros’s money belongs to him alone. A portion of it is from the investors. Even if Soros can hold on, his investors might not be that patient.

Not every investor is like Kirilenko, who trusted Feng Yu unconditionally.

Although Kirilenko comes to the office every day to ask about the situation, he never objects to what Feng Yu did.

This is because Kirilenko trusted Feng Yu.

“Ok! All of you can report off after you all finish recording your daily trades. Remember, each of you must email me your analysis of the market.”

Feng Yu stretched himself. It’s been a while since he sat in front of a monitor for so long. Although it’s tiring, he is still very excited.

Feng Yu seldom get this excited. Having an annual income of 1 billion or 800 million USD is ordinary for Feng Yu. Just his Microsoft and Yahoo shares can generate this amount if he sells it.

But this time, it is Feng Yu’s opportunity to find out how Soros and the Quantum Fund operates. It is also the opportunity for Feng Yu to make money.

The effects of them dumping Thai Baht in large amounts only lowered the value by a little today.

The next day, Feng Yu saw Soros’s card. He got his men to spread rumors of the Thai Government going bankrupt internationally. The Thai Government had lots of external debt, which is almost due, and Baht is depreciating. He urges everyone to exchange Thai Baht for USD.

This rumor spread to Thailand quickly, and Baht’s exchange rate start to drop again. This time, the value of Baht dropped more than before and exceeded Thailand’s Central Bank’s limit. The market starts to panic!

Chapter 903 – Sudden closure of Futures Contracts

In the office, many people were walking up and down. Some of them were talking loudly, exchanging information, and Feng Yu is seated in front of his PC, with a stack of documents in front of him.

Inside the noisy office, there is another man who is not moving about. It is Kirilenko. He is reading a magazine seriously. Yes. It’s Hong Kong’s most popular porn magazine, <Lung Hu Bao>. This copy is a special anniversary edition given to him by Fu Guangwei.

Suddenly, Feng Yu received an email. He opened it up and started reading it.

Oh, Thailand’s foreign banks also start to dump Thai Baht for USD. This will be a significant blow to the Thai Government.

At this time, Soros and his gang continued to dump Thai Baht in large amounts. By right, Feng Yu should be doing the same, and it will cause Baht’s value to depreciate further.

But Feng Yu is not doing anything. He acts as if he is not involved in this operation.

Now, only Soros and his men were selling Thai Baht, and luckily for them, some companies in Thailand panicked. The companies also followed the trend and started dumping their Thai Baht in exchange for USD. Thailand’s financial market is starting to crumble.

Share prices continued to fall, and Baht’s depreciation becomes faster. Although the value of Baht did not fall to the stage where is stop trading, it is still falling steadily.

“Boss, are we not going to continue selling Thai Baht?” He Zhaoji asked.

Feng Yu leaned back on his chair and shook his finger. “Get ready. When the exchange rate of Baht against USD reaches 27:1, we will cancel out a portion of our futures contracts.”

“If we close our futures contracts now, then we will not make many profits.”

“If the price of Baht increases, we might lose all of our money. How many losses have we incurred now? Over 200 million?”

Even if the short position futures contracts, Feng Yu and Kirilenko will still suffer massive losses. Their losses will increase if they continued to dump Thai Baht now.

If Feng Yu closed some of his futures contracts, he could build up a significant portfolio of Short position futures contracts when Thai Baht’s value recovers. He can even close out all of his futures contracts temporarily, but at this moment, he cannot make this decision.

“Alright, Boss. I understand.” He Zhaoji went out to inform the other brokers to monitor the exchange rates of Thai Baht. Once the rates reached 27:1, they will cancel out the contracts.

……

“Miller, how much has the Baht fallen?” Soros was holding a Cigar in his right hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

“It had reached 26.7:1.” Drucken Miller replied.

“What? It dropped by so little?” Soros frowned. Something is wrong. His Quantum Fund had dumped a large amount of Thai Baht, and Feng Yu had also borrowed a significant amount of Baht. If they dumped the Baht together, the rates should be more than 27:1 now.

Could it be that the rumors still have not reached those banks and companies in Thailand? They still have not gone into panic selling mode?

Soros also has people in Thailand’s banks. They are the ones who start to dump Thai Baht and buy-in USD. With the banks doing this, many people will believe Soros’s fake news.

Now, the supply of Thai Baht is increasing, and the demand for USD is getting larger. A large amount of Thai Baht is released into the market, and it is starting to depreciate.

But this is not enough. Soros had expected Thai Baht to depreciate to more than 35:1. He will continue to dump Thai Baht until he reaches this exchange rate.

But it’s a pity that Soros does not have sufficient funds in Thailand. He had used a large portion of his funds to build up massive portfolios of Forex contracts in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore.

Soros knows these countries’ economies are interlinked, and once Thailand’s financial system collapsed, there will be chaos. It will cause a chain reaction, and these countries’ financial markets will start to crumble!

At this time, Soros and his men are also building up their portfolios in Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and other countries in the region. They have a huge appetite, and since they had started to act, they must maximize their returns.

Did you say Soros had promised Feng Yu not to attack Hong Kong? He had only promised Feng Yu that Quantum Fund would not attack Hong Kong. Soros is still in control of other hedge funds.

“Boss, there is one more thing I need to report. That Feng Yu did not continue to dump Thai Baht. Instead, he closed off a portion of his short position futures contracts to stop losses.”

Soros was shocked. Why is he canceling the futures contracts at this time? Why is Feng Yu closing his contracts so early? If he stops at this time, he will not recoup his losses, and might even incur more losses. What is he thinking?

“Have you found out how much he had close?” Soros asked.

“Based on our estimation, he should have closed off more than half of his Short position futures contracts!”

More than half? Is Feng Yu going to withdraw? Impossible. He had spoken to Feng Yu before. Feng Yu is very confident they will win this battle. Withdrawing now might not recover the losses he incurred. Even if he manages to recover his losses, he will have wasted the past two months!

Soros immediately called Feng Yu. He needs to know what Feng Yu is thinking. If Feng Yu is going to withdraw, he should at least notify Soros first! What Feng Yu did is not right!

But Feng Yu had switched off his phone!

Soros called again. The phone is still off!

What is happening? Why is Feng Yu’s phone off? Didn’t they agree to keep their lines open? Soros called the office number given by Feng Yu and was told that Feng Yu is not around.

Soros thought for a while. He still remembers Kirilenko’s Hong Kong mobile phone number. After he found the number, he called. This time, the line got through.

……

“Feng, Soros is calling me.” Kirilenko looked at his phone on the table. He doesn’t know if he should answer it.

“Brother Ki, you are drunk now. Remember, no matter what he says, just agree.” Feng Yu said.

Ah? Do I have to agree to him? What if he questions me later?”

“Didn’t I say you are drunk? You will forget what he told you when you sober up.” Feng Yu replied.

Kirilenko: “……”

“Hello? Is this Mr. Kirilenko? I am Mr. Soros’s translator.”

“Ah? It’s me. What is it? He wants to have a drink with me?” Kirilenko pretends to be drunk and mumbled into the phone. The translator, on the other line, does not even know how to translate.

“Mr. Kirilenko, Mr. Soros, is asking if you can contact Mr. Feng? Can you get Mr. Feng to call Mr. Soros now?”

“Ok. I will call him now.”

Before the translator can continue, he realized the other party had hung up! The translator could only tell Soros that Kirilenko seems to be drunk.

Soros is furious. What’s going on? They must be doing this on purpose! These people cannot be trusted. We have agreed to work together, and you all withdraw so suddenly. What about us?!

Soros could only hope that this is an accident, and Feng Yu will call him immediately. But until the market closes, he still has not received Feng Yu’s call. He tried calling again, but Feng Yu’s phone is still off. Kirilenko’s phone is also switched off.

“Feng, are we going to fall out with Soros so early?” Kirilenko is slightly worried.

“It’s fine. I will just find an excuse, and everything will be fine.” Feng Yu casually replied. At this critical moment, as long as he doesn’t fall out with Soros, Soros will not dare to do anything to him!

Chapter 904 – Ah… My phone is out of battery again

“Boss, the rates had dropped to 27:1. Are we closing our futures contract?” He Zhaoji asked.

“Cancel all of our futures contracts! Don’t keep anything!”

Although He Zhaoji was shocked by Feng Yu’s decision, he immediately gave out the orders to the rest to close all their Short position futures contracts. They had bought the futures contracts at 24:1. With their leverages, their returns had doubled.

They could get a Short position futures contract worth 10 Billion USD with only 1 billion USD, and their returns from this contract are more than 1 billion USD.

Of course, they had been losing money from dumping Thai Baht and shares. The money they raised is mainly from loans, and the monthly interest is not a small amount.

……

Kirilenko is now learning something new from Fu Guangwei. Mahjong. When his subordinate came over to inform him of the latest news, he got excited and pushed his tiles down. “I win!”

Fu Guangwei looked over. “Brother Ki, your hand is not a winning hand. You have three sets of triple tiles and a single tile. This is considered a fake win, and you need to pay us to double.”

“I will pay. How much is it?” Kirilenko asked.

Half of their shares’ short position futures contracts were canceled, and all of their Forex futures contracts were closed. This time, he had made almost 1 billion USD, and he does not mind losing this game of Mahjong.

“Brother Ki, what happened? Why are you so happy?” Fu Guangwei asked.

“Nothing. Let’s go drinking at noon. I will treat!” Kirilenko was overjoyed.

Feng Yu was impressed with Fu Guangwei. There is a language barrier between both, and Kirilenko’s broken Chinese is impossible to understand. But Fu Guangwei and Kirilenko can still become close friends and can even teach the latter how to play Mahjong.

……

“Boss, that side had not only canceled their shares futures contracts. They had even canceled all of their Forex futures contracts!” Drucken Miller entered Soros’s office.

“What? They had canceled their Forex futures contracts?!” Soros was shocked. Why is Feng Yu doing this? Is he going to withdraw?

Soros had been waiting for Feng Yu’s call last night. But after more than 10 hours, Feng Yu still have not called.

Even if Feng Yu’s phone ran out of battery yesterday, his phone should be fully charged by now. Even if his phone is not charged, he can also use someone’s phone to call.

Could it be that Kirilenko did not pass the message to Feng Yu, or did something happens to him?

No. I must call Feng Yu now to ask him what he is doing.

“Boss, someone is building a Forex futures portfolio in Malaysia, Singapore, and many other countries.” Someone came into the office to inform Soros.

Huh? Does this mean Feng Yu not withdrawing from these operations? If not, why will he build portfolios in other countries? But Feng Yu had sold off all his Thai Baht.

Wait. Is Feng Yu thinking of taking advantage by following behind us?

We are dumping Southeast Asia’s currencies in large amount to suppress the exchange rates. The price we paid is significant. This Feng Yu is going to dump a small amount of currency to minimize his losses, and after we succeed in lowering the exchange rates, he will make profits from there?! In the end, his profits might be more than us!

All of us had agreed to work together, and what you did is not right!

This is like both of us are going to fish together. In the end, I bought the bait, boat, and wasted my energy to row the boat, and you just cast a big net and catch all the fishes for yourself!

After all the futures contracts are closed, Feng Yu’s phone rang when he is relaxing with a cup of tea.

Oh, it’s Soros calling. Feng Yu knew why Soros is calling even without answering the phone. But he had thought of an excuse.

“Hi, George. Have you eaten?”

Soros: “……” Do all Chinese greet each other by asking if they had eaten?!

“Feng, I think you should know the reason why I am calling you. I had called you yesterday, but the people in your office says you are not around and your phone is switched off. I asked Mr. Kirilenko to contact you, but why have you not call me?” Soros’s tone was pissed.

“Ah… My phone died yesterday, and I did not bring my spare battery. Kirilenko had told me later, but it’s too late to call you.” Feng Yu was full of excuses.

Soros knew Feng Yu was not telling the truth. Too late to call me? This is not a joking matter, and I will answer your call even if it’s after midnight! This matter involves more than a few billion USD!

Even if it was too late yesterday, why didn’t you call me this morning? Soros doesn’t even need to question Feng Yu and could guess his reply. ‘Too busy and forgot about it.’

Busy? Busy getting your men to cancel off all the futures contracts?

“Feng, why did you cancel off all your shares and Forex futures contracts?” Soros asked directly.

“I met some problems and needed money. You should know that I still have lots of other businesses. I am not like you, where you only make investments.”

“What problems are you facing to let you cancel off all your futures contracts?” Soros suppressed his anger and asked.

This was a lie. Even if you need money, do you have to close all of your futures contracts? Physical businesses and financial investments are different. One billion USD might be nothing in financial investments, but a 1 billion USD physical business will be a mega MNC in any country!

“All my contracts? Who told you this? I had only closed a small portion of it now.” Feng Yu feigned ignorance.

Huh?! Only a small portion? Does that mean our information is wrong? It shouldn’t be. Other than Feng Yu and Kirilenko, who else will deal in such a significant amount?

Wait. Feng Yu said he had only closed a small portion. What about Kirilenko’s fund, which Feng Yu is managing? Also, Feng Yu said he had only closed a small portion of his contracts now. He should have closed everything before today’s trading ends!

This Feng Yu is playing with words!

Soros is furious and felt Feng Yu is taking him for a ride.

“Feng, you had closed all of Kirilenko’s futures contracts, right? Feng, we had agreed to cooperate. How are we going to work together in the future with what you had done?”

Feng Yu raised his brows. What now? Do you want to fall out with me?

“You still dare to talk about our agreement?” Feng Yu sneered. “We had an agreement that you all cannot attack Hong Kong. But I found out that someone had built a Hong Kong currency’s Future contracts portfolio.”

If it weren’t for Professor Liang, Feng Yu would still be in the dark. Feng Yu thought that Soros and his men would only act after Hong Kong’s return. But who knows that they had started to make preparations now!

Soros thought no one would find out what he did. But with Superman Li and Fu Rongqi around, nothing can escape their eyes in Hong Kong. Although Soros had split his fund to build his portfolio slowly, the total amount can be easily traced.

“Feng, trust me. That is not me.”

Not you? Who will believe your lies?!

“Ah… Sorry, my phone’s battery had run out again!” Feng Yu hangs up his phone. He firmly believes that Soros will contact him again after he suffered defeat. Soros will not want Feng Yu to interfere with his plans!

Chapter 905 – Thailand’s retaliation

“Brother Ki, I heard that you had learned how to play Mahjong.” Feng Yu laughed.

“Hahaha. Yes. The Chinese national game is entertaining.” Kirilenko laughed.

Yesterday, Kirilenko’s luck was excellent and had won in a game of Mahjong. After canceling his future contracts, he had recovered his losses, the interests incurred, and even made a small profit.

“Are you interested in playing a few rounds of Mahjong today?” Feng Yu finally has some free time and wants to relax for a while.

“Sure. But you must be careful. The Fu family brothers had called my God of Gamblers yesterday!” Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu. His eyes were full of confidence.

“Hahaha… God of Gamblers? I would like to play with a god.”

……

“Feng, how long is our break?” Kirilenko asked during the game.

“We will wait until Thai Baht returns to 25:1, and we will enter the market again. Now, we will build up our Forex Short position Futures Contracts in other countries. Why are you asking? You are busy?”

“Yes. The new equipment is fully installed in our electronic factories, and I need to return to oversee it.” Kirilenko knew he couldn’t do anything here as he does not know about financial trading.

Rather than worrying and being helpless here, Kirilenko prefers to do other things back in Russia. The earlier their electronic factories open, the earlier their mobile phones can enter the market.

Feng Yu had told Kirilenko that the newest model of the mobile phone had been developed successfully. What they need to do is to start production and launch it.

“Ok. I promise that after July, you will see high profits every month.”

“Hahaha… Then I don’t need to do anything for the rest of my life and still won’t finish spending my money?” Kirilenko laughed.

Feng Yu thought for a while and said. “Yes. If you can sell off all the shares from your investments, the mining company’s shares, the factories’ shares, your trading company, and your shares in the software company, you can spend the rest of your life spending money.”

Even if Kirilenko’s profits during this financial crisis are not as high as Feng Yu, but Feng Yu can guarantee that Kirilenko’s profits will be at least more than 2 billion USD during the coming one year. If Kirilenko sells off all his assets, he should have more than 6 billion USD. Even if he does nothing and keeps all his money in the banks, the annual interest from the banks will be more than what many people will earn in their lifetimes. It is enough for Kirilenko to spend for the rest of his life.

Even if Kirilenko start to take drugs, the money he had can buy more drugs than he can consume.

Unless Kirilenko got addicted to gambling, he would not finish his money.

They chatted while playing Mahjong, and Feng Yu became the translator for Kirilenko at the table.

In the Northeast of China, there is a saying. The ones who initiated the bets are always the ones losing. After a few rounds, Feng Yu was the only player to lose.

But Feng Yu was still cheerful. The money he lost at the Mahjong table is nothing to him. He only wanted to pass the time and relax and will not be as serious as his father. His father treated Mahjong seriously even when the bets are 1 to 2 RMB!

At night, it is another drinking session. This time Feng Yu did not run away. He accompanied Brother Ki to drink and got drunk. Of course, Kirilenko still drank much more than Feng Yu.

……

“The Central Bank had announced that certain Fund companies would be restricted from getting loans in Baht.”

“The Government will be taking out 5 billion USD of the foreign reserve to stabilize Thai Baht. The Thai Government is determined to let those international speculators lose all their money!”

“The Central Bank had introduced new measures. The overnight rates for offshore loans will be increased from 10% to 100%.”

Feng Yu was reading about Thailand news on Hong Kong media and had a smile on his face. The Thai Government had finally retaliated.

The exchange rates for Thai Baht had fallen to 27:1. If the rate continues to fall, the Thailand economy will crumble, starting from the financial market. Their stock market and property market will also crash.

Restricting some fund companies from taking loans in Baht, is stopping the banks from lending Baht to Soros. But the Thai Government can only restrict their local banks and not the overseas banks.

There are more than 50 offshore banks, and only 15 of them are directly under Thailand’s Central Bank. Although this will affect Soros and his men, the impact is not too severe.

It is the other two measures that will affect Soros.

Five billion USD of Foreign Reserve will pull up the Thai Baht exchange rate, and Soros and his gang are set to lose money. If they want to continue to suppress Thai Baht, they will need to use more funds. The money they have now is not enough to disrupt the market.

At the start of the operations, the Thai Government had taken out 2 billion USD from their Foreign reserve. If Feng Yu had not entered at that time, Soros and his men would suffer significant losses.

Even after Feng Yu joined them, Soros and his men had suffered some losses, but the losses are still within their acceptance range.

The last measure imposed by the Central Bank had increased the offshore overnight interest rates by ten times. This is not an ordinary move, and it is explicitly imposed to target Soros’s Quantum Fund. This will prevent him from dumping Thai Baht immediately after getting a loan.

The interest rate of 10% had increased to 100%. This will increase Soros’s cost of suppressing the Baht.

But Feng Yu felt this is insufficient. A 100% rate is not enough. If he is the Thai Government, he will increase the overnight rate to 1,000%, or even 2,000%! This will prevent Soros from borrowing Thai Baht to dump. Even if he can borrow, he will also not afford the interest!

Feng Yu remembered that in his previous life, the overnight rates had increased to more than 1,000%. But he could not remember exactly how much it had increased. How come it is only 100% now? This will not stop Soros.

The Thai Government does not know about Soros’s greed. Soros had built a 15 Billion USD worth of long-term Forex Future Contract much earlier and had made use of a financial institute to increase his leverage. He had used most of his funds to suppress the Thai currency.

……

“Boss, Thailand had imposed a series of measures, and all of them are targeting us!” Drucken Miller reported.

“Hmph! I had been waiting for them to act. Earlier, when we suppressed the Baht, the Thai Government used its foreign reserves to pull it back. At that time, we did not receive the information in time. Now, they are using more of their reserves. But this time, the rumors we spread will increase the number of speculators. The Thai Government will be powerless against us.” Soros replied confidently.

“But this time, without Feng Yu and his men taking part, will our funds be sufficient?” Drucken Miller was slightly worried. After all, their funds were diversified to build up future contract portfolios in many other Southeast Asia Countries. Although they are using leverage and the deposit proportion is not high, but the total amount used is very high.

They had built portfolios worth more than 1 billion USD in each of the countries Soros targeted, and the funds used are more than 500 million USD!

“Our original plan did not include Feng Yu, and it doesn’t matter whether if he took part in it. Tell the rest that since the overnight rates had increased, then we will increase the duration of the loans and continue to dump Thai Baht!”

Chapter 906 – Professor Liang’s worries

“From what I see, those Western speculators are useless. Even the Thai Government can think of ways to stop them. What’s there to worry about in Hong Kong?” A Hong Kong tycoon, whose surname is Zhou, said.

“That’s right. The previous time, the Thai Government had used 2 billion USD from their foreign reserve to stop it. This time, they are using 5 billion USD and other measures. This should stop Soros!” Another tycoon added.

“Superman Li and Fu Rongqi are worrying too much. Soros and his gang had tried to test Hong Kong’s financial market and were chased away by us within a few days. They even canceled their future contracts.”

A few tycoons were discussing what happened, and every one of them was optimistic. All of them felt Soros is nothing to be afraid of. Only Professor Liang, who was watching them, felt worried.

These people do not know how powerful Soros is. If Soros is only capable of these, how can he create havoc in England and Mexico?

Hong Kong’s economy is doing well, but there are many similarities to Thailand. For example, many people are speculating in properties and shares blindly, and many people are heavily in debt.

Even if Hong Kong’s economy is doing well, can it even be compared to England and Mexico?

Also, Soros and his men are experienced in the financial market. Which of these tycoons dare to call themselves financial experts? How many of them are willing to use their money to defend against Soros?

Professor Liang remembered during a chat with Fu Rongqi a few days ago, Fu Rongqi had said. Don’t place your bets on these people. They are only willing to enjoy riches with you but will never endure hardship together. They will only participate when they see an opportunity to make money. Just like that time when they attacked the Japanese companies’ share prices.

But when they are unsure or did not see any money-making opportunities, they will escape faster than a rabbit. Before the return of Hong Kong, the British had been contacting these tycoons, asking them to migrate.

The British had been secretly spreading conspiracy theories about the Communist Party. They claimed that once Hong Kong is returned to China, Hong Kong will return to China olden days. The wealth of the people will be confiscated by the Chinese Government.

The Chinese Government will also settle the scores with Hong Kongers, and many people will be punished. Last year, China had imposed a crackdown and had severely punished a lot of people. Many people were executed!

These rumors had let many millionaires choose British nationality. Currently, Hong Kong is still a British Colony, and it’s easy for Hong Kongers to get a British nationality in a few days. Furthermore, these tycoons will be bringing their money to the UK and will get approvals immediately!

Of course, some can’t bear to leave Hong Kong. For example, Superman Li, Fu Rongqi, etc. The Chinese Government had promised them that Hong Kong will still be ruled by Hong Kongers, and their status will be increased. Tycoons like Superman Li and Fu Rongqi were even invited to hold a critical position in the Government. The ranks given to them are Sub-National Leader!

Some of the Hong Kong tycoons had chosen to migrate to Australia, Canada, and other countries related to England.

Of course, some chose to move to the US, but there are not a lot of them. Some also chose to migrate to Southeast Asian countries, like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. The Chinese population in these countries are higher, and many of the tycoons have investments there!

Professor Liang thought the tycoons who remained should at least love Hong Kong, even if they don’t like China. But every one of them disappoints him.

Many of the tycoons depended on their fathers to get to where they are today. But all of them behaved like they are the ones who started their businesses from scratch. Those that started successful businesses from scratch will never behave like this!

Do they still dare to belittle Soros? Any of Soros’s subordinates can sweep them aside easily. If no one discovers that Soros had built up a Short position future contract portfolio in Hong Kong, Hong Kong’s financial market would already be in chaos.

Look at what these people are saying. They thought they know the financial market well after making some money from their shares? Many of them are speculating on properties, and they make it sound like they are real estate developers.

“Professor Liang, why do you look so gloomy?” Fu Guangzheng moved closer to Professor Liang and ask.

Professor Liang is someone respected by Feng Yu and Fu Rongqi. Both tried to recruit him and had offered lucrative terms, but failed.

Among the second generations, some just want to enjoy life, but some are smarter. Fu Guangzheng felt that if he can recruit Professor Liang to work for him, then he will surely be the future head of the Fu family!

Feng Yu’s business is huge, and he had handled everything to the General Managers to manage them. What else does Fu Guangzheng have to worry about? Furthermore, he will be the one who makes the final decision, and even if Professor Liang is working for him, he doesn’t follow everything he says. Fu Guangzheng can set up a team to manage his company.

Fu Guangzheng can also consult his Eldest Uncle and Feng Yu when he encounters problems.

Professor Liang turned his head and saw Fu Guangzheng. This young man from the Fu Family had been asking him a lot of questions recently. He has a good impression of this young man and felt he is very humble. This young man is also Feng Yu’s good friend.

“All of them are too optimistic. Soros is not so easily defeated. His previous attempt to attack Hong Kong is only to test the market. Since he knows we are prepared, the next attack will be much harder and faster!” Professor Laing sighed. Luckily, there are still people like Feng Yu, Fu Rongqi, and Superman Li, who are not blinded by the initial success.

The small-time tycoons are very proud. But for the real tycoons like Superman Li and the rest, are modest. Maybe it’s because of the modest character they got to where they are now.

If Professor Liang has to choose to work for one of the tycoons, he will surely pick the modest ones, even if the salary is lower.

“Professor Liang, don’t worry too much. My Uncle, Uncle Li, and Feng Yu are all prepared. I had also contacted some friends to prepare a sum of money. We will not let Hong Kong be destroyed by those speculators.” Fu Guangzheng consoled.

“I believe you all are prepared, and will also not lose money. But what about the rest? What about those normal citizens? Even if you lose 100 million, you will still be a tycoon, and your life will not change. But if the ordinary citizens lose 1 million, they might jump off the building!”

“Professor Liang, we can think of a way to do something for the citizens. Can we remind them and ask them to be cautious?” Fu Guangzheng suggested.

“We can remind them, but it will be useless. We will be chaotic even before Soros, and his men still had not launched their attack. Also, Hong Kong’s return to China is in one month. What do you think will happen to your Fu family if Hong Kong is in chaos because of your warnings?” Professor Liang patted Fu Guangzheng’s shoulder.

This young man is kind, but he did not think far when facing problems.

Fu Guangzheng thought for a while and asked. “How about we combine the funds of those citizens and let you manage it? If you are managing this fund, can you guarantee that you will not suffer losses?”

Combining everyone’s fund and let me manage it? Professor Liang looked at Fu Guangzheng and wondered how he is going to get the citizens to hand over their money.

Chapter 907 – Shocking news

A terrible financial crisis is looming, and every hardworking family will suffer heavy losses! Your income, investments, savings might be wiped out in this crisis. You and your family’s living conditions will be greatly affected.

You might even lose everything!

This article is published on the front page of all Hong Kong’s newspaper. The author of this article is Fu Guangzheng. This article had been verified and edited by Professor Liang.

The content of this article is scary. Every sentence is like a doctor telling a terminal patient about his condition. By right, such articles are not allowed to be published, let alone on the front page.

To get this article published on the front page, Fu Guangzheng had used his connections and lots of money. The Chief editors of the newspapers all thought this wealthy second generation did this to get a reputation. In the past, many tycoons had bought the front page of newspapers, and this is not the first time. Anyway, the author’s name is stated in the article, and the newspaper agency will not get into trouble.

“Dear, look at this. The newspaper says there will be a financial crisis. Your family’s wealth will shrink, your purchasing power will be lowered, and your income, savings, investments, retirement funds might be gone!” A housewife woke her husband up and showed him the newspaper.

The husband took the newspaper and started reading.

Will this happen? We are living in a peaceful era, and Hong Kong is developing well.

But didn’t you notice our Hong Kong’s property prices had been rising, and most of the properties are empty? Many families can only afford to rent an apartment, and cannot afford even a small apartment in their lifetime. The former powerful Japan economy also collapsed at its peak.

I will explain why this financial crisis is unavoidable. But more importantly, before the crisis started, what should we do.

Are you prepared to face this crisis?

“What is this article about? It did not state what crisis it is. This should be bullshit.” The husband puts down the newspaper and picks up the sandwich on the dining table. After a while, he picks up the newspaper and read the article again. The article had mentioned Hong Kong’s property market, and it’s right.

The same scenario had happened all over Hong Kong. Every Hong Konger who read the article starts to have questions in their minds and got worried.

The readers were attracted to the article from the header. But when they read the article, they start to think about what’s happening around them.

The whole day, almost the whole of Hong Kong is discussing the article. Everyone is guessing what crisis the article is talking about, and will the Government impose measures to stop property speculations?

In the following few days, similar articles were published. The articles used negative words like disaster, crisis, serious, destructive, etc., and it made people worried.

Feng Yu had also seen the articles. He doesn’t understand what is Fu Guangzheng up to.

Is Fu Guangzheng talking about the financial crisis? Is he talking about the depreciation of HKD, or is he talking about the stock market crash? If Soros got to know about this, then Hong Kong’s economic crisis might be brought forward.

Of course, Feng Yu had withdrawn his funds out of the Thai market and is sufficient to defend Hong Kong. Even if he fails to do so, there is still the Chinese Government. But if this happens, Feng Yu will not be able to make money from the other country’s financial markets!

Fu Guangzheng is not someone rash and will do such things. Could it be Fu Rongqi who had asked him to publish these articles? But what’s the purpose of doing this? Warn the people? Or, is he trying to bring chaos to Hong Kong first?

Is Fu Rongqi thinking of dealing with Soros now, and then drag the British Government into it? But this should be impossible. The British Government will not interfere in it and will leave this problem to the Chinese Government. They might even spread rumors that the crisis is caused by the Chinese Government for forcibly taking back Hong Kong.

No matter how Feng Yu sees, this is a bad move!

Feng Yu can’t figure it out and called Fu Guangzheng to ask what he is trying to do!

“Hahaha, Brother Feng… I am waiting for you to call. Are you thinking I am trying to create panic or is these are my Eldest Uncle’s instructions? If I tell you that this is an advertisement, will you be shocked?” Fu Guangzheng laughed.

“Advertisement?” Feng Yu was surprised. This is soft advertising? Isn’t this the trick I used every time?

But what products are these articles promoting? Investment products? Investment courses?

“That’s right. I had learned this from you. Didn’t I register an investment fund some time ago? This is an advertisement for my investment fund. I want to raise capital.” Fu Guangzheng replied.

Fu Guangzheng’s solution to lessen the impact of the financial crisis on ordinary people is to hand over their money to him. He will then let Professor Liang manage his fund to minimize their losses.

Although this solution might not help a lot of people, at least Fu Guangzheng tried. At the same time, he can also raise funds and increased Professor Liang’s chips. Of course, he will also make some money.

Feng Yu: “……” It’s really about financial planning. But it should be hard to compete with the other financial institutions and brokerages. After all, the returns announced by those companies are quite high, and Fu Guangzheng should not be able to match it. Could it be that he had hired an expert in financial trading?

“Are you sure you can raise funds and get more clients?”

“Of course. We are preparing to use personal charm to make money.” Fu Guagnzheng replied proudly.

Personal charm? Does that mean he is going to Personal branding? But isn’t that used by celebrities and sportsmen? These second generations should not be considered celebrities.

“You are saying you will endorse for your own company?”

“Yes, what’s wrong? We will also hire pretty models. My fund manager has also been decided. It’s Professor Liang.”

“Who? Professor Liang?”

Feng Yu was shocked. Professor Liang is willing to work for Fu Guangzheng? Fu Rongqi cannot even hire Professor Liang. What did Fu Guangzheng feed Professor Liang?

“Alright. Let’s stop chatting for now. I still need to look at the upcoming articles and still need to prepare the promotional materials.”

After hanging up, Feng Yu shook his head. The world had gone crazy. Fu Guangzheng could even find a solution at this time.

Oh, since Fu Guangzheng’s investment fund can attract investors, then Hong Kong’s current top investment consultancy, Wind and Rain Consulting firm, should also do the same. He only needs to lower the entry barrier, and they will attract many investors. After all, Wind and Rain Consulting Firm had never lost money for their clients.

Also, not only Feng Yu can attract funds, but he can also increase Wind and Rain Consulting Firm’s reputation.

Feng Yu called He Zhaoji. “Old He, go and contact the media to advertise for Wind and Rain Consulting Firm. We will promote a new form of investment product that allows multiple people to share an account. Once they meet our lowest requirement, their funds will be invested in Wind and Rain Consulting Firm. We need to raise funds!”

Chapter 908 – Irritating Soros

The method used by Fu Guangzheng is similar to what the private investment funds used in Feng Yu’s previous life. But Wind and Rain Consultancy does not need to do so. They are already well known in Hong Kong. In the past, someone had suggested lowering the entry barrier but was rejected by Feng Yu. At that time, he wanted the company to serve the high net worth clients.

As He Zhaoji is busy getting new investors, Feng Yu also found something to do. He is going to irritate Soros.

The Thailand Government’s retaliation is quite powerful, but it’s still within Soros’s acceptable range. But since the government had already adjusted their rates, they can continue to increase the rates to stop Soros!

This still had not happened, but Feng Yu knew it would be happening soon. When the Thai Government noticed that after the adjustment of rates is not effective, the official who made this decision will have to bear the responsibility.

When the adjustment of rates is introduced, there was an outcry in Thailand. Even the foreign investors were unhappy with it. But the solution to this was simple. Just ignore them.

After the Thai Baht exchange rates return to normal, all these complaints will die off. However, if the Baht exchange rates continue to fall, it will be an indication that this policy had failed. The Prime Minister or a Senior Government official will have to step forward to take the blame.

The introduction of government policy is not decided by the Prime Minister alone. But the people will not think this way. The Prime Minister is the head of the country and must be responsible for everything!

“Hello, George! How have you been?” Feng Yu asked in a lighthearted tone, showing his happiness for withdrawing from the market early.

“Feng, are your problems solved?” Soros had a bad headache these few days. His cost of suppressing Thai Baht had increased, but the exchange rates of Thai Baht had risen back to 26.7:1. That means when Feng Yu canceled his future contracts, it was at Thai Baht’s lowest rate.

Feng Yu had escaped and must have made profits. But Soros could not estimate how much Feng Yu made. From Feng Yu’s tone, he should be quite satisfied with his earnings.

The recent exchange rates of Baht had increased, and some of Soros’s futures contracts were due, and he made some losses. This made his cost of dumping Thai Baht much higher.

Soros is hoping Feng Yu to enter the market again. Feng Yu had a few billion USD, and they will not be afraid of the Thai Government’s 5 billion USD foreign reserve.

“Ah… not so soon. You should know that all governments in the world are not efficient. Lots of paperwork and procedures are required to build a factory. We still need to purchase the equipment, installation, etc. It’s not so fast.”

Soros wants to ask Feng Yu, what factory is the building that requires a few billion USD? Are you building a nuclear bomb?

Even if you are building a nuclear bomb, the investments should be in phases. The initial investment should be buying the land parcel. How much does the land cost? Is China’s land that expensive? Are you building a factory or a city?!

This is an excuse! It is an excuse!

Soros felt Feng Yu was calling him to mock him, or he is taking revenge on them for testing the Hong Kong’s market.

“Feng, if you are still angry over Hong Kong, I apologize. Those people were not under me and will not listen to my orders initially. They had entered Hong Kong market on their own. I had already ordered them to withdraw, and you should have noticed it.” Soros was not telling the truth.

When Soros and his men targeted Hong Kong, they were only testing the market. Also, their portfolios were too scattered and had withdrawn from the market early. Although they did not make any profits, they did not suffer any losses either.

From the test, Soros and his men knew Hong Kong is prepared to defend themselves. They were well prepared and had reacted very fast.

If Soros and his men had not reacted fast enough, they might have lost all their deposits when building their portfolios.

Soros is not sure if it was Feng Yu who headed Hong Kong’s defense against him, or an expert is watching the market closely. It would be best if it were Feng Yu. If it is the latter, then they will face a lot of trouble.

“No… no… no… that incident is over and I trust you. I have some cash flow problems now. Give me one month. I promise I will get back all my fund within one month. After I got my funds back, we will teach the Thai Government a lesson together!”

Apologize? Your men did not follow your orders and entered the Hong Kong market on their own? You are the one who ordered them to withdraw? Bullshit! What’s the use of apologizing? When dealing with such a person, making him lose money, reputation, and trust is the best punishment.

Soros felt helpless when he heard what Feng Yu said.

Wait for one month? This is the financial market, and every hour, minutes count. Changes might take place anytime, and you are asking me to wait for a month?

Wait… Feng Yu is asking us to hold the Thai Government off for a month?

Impossible! Can the Thai Government last for a month? We are not the only ones dumping Thai Baht. Many other companies and banks are doing it too.

If the Thai Government can last for one month, the Quantum Fund will suffer significant losses. They are dumping Baht every day, and how much will they lose?

If within a week and there’s still no hope of winning, Soros and his men must stop temporary, and raise more funds to give the Thai Government a final blow! They must end it with one deadly strike!

If the battle dragged any longer, even if Soros won in the end, they will also not make any money.

“George, why are you not saying anything? I know one month is too long. How about this? You can withdraw from the market first and wait until my funds are ready, before entering the market again. I can guarantee that the Thai Government will not have time to retaliate!” Feng Yu purposely suggested this.

Withdraw first? Goddamn! The best time to withdraw is already over. If I withdraw now, I will suffer some losses.

What you said is easy. How would my clients see me after the losses? If my clients withdraw from the Quantum Fund, I will lose my capital!

Hmph! We had started planning last year. At that time, we did not include you. Even without you, we can still win!

“Feng, thanks for your suggestion. But I think it is not necessary. The Thai Government’s new measures might be effective, but if they think they can defeat me with these measures, they are looking down on me!” Soros replied proudly.

“Really? Then I will congratulate you in advance.” Feng Yu said he was congratulating him, but in his heart, he was laughing.

Feng Yu could estimate Soros had used a significant amount of funds from Quantum Fund, but he does not have an overwhelming advantage. If the Thai Government implement more extreme policies, Soros and his men will lose!

Unless Soros can bring in an additional large amount of funds.

Feng Yu also believe that Soros will have other tricks up his sleeves. But it will take time for him to implement his backup plans. Soros funds are mainly invested in low-risk financial products, unlike Feng Yu, who had cash. That’s why Soros requires time to transfer his funds.

Changes might happen anytime in the financial market. If Soros does not have sufficient funds, he will suffer losses just like what happened in Feng Yu’s previous life!

Chapter 909 – Extreme Policies

“Manager Feng, how come you have the time to visit Shenzhen?” Duan Yongping saw Feng Yu appearing at Aiwa Little Tyrant and was curious.

A few days ago, Duan Yongping had called Feng Yu to tell him that the voice recorder is developed and wanted to invite him over to take a look. But Feng Yu said he didn’t have time and will be quite busy recently.

“Hahaha… not matter how busy I am, I got to take time off for a break. Furthermore, I am in Hong Kong. It is very convenient to take a ferry.”

Feng Yu was also interested to see the newly developed voice recorder.

When Feng Yu saw the voice recorder, he frowned. This 20 x 15 x 5 cm thing is a voice recorder?

Feng Yu held it in his hand, and it was too heavy. This device can only be used at home.

But Feng Yu thought for a while. No one will bring their voice recorder to school also. This device is designed as a learning tool for students at home.”

“Old Duan, this product is too big. Can you make it smaller?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes. It’s not that we don’t have the technologies. But if we shrink the size by a third, maintain the clarity of the sound, and still include the LCD screen, our cost will double. The prototype you are holding now costs only around 100 RMB. If we start mass production, the cost will be lowered further. I had conducted market research. If there are no other competitors, we can set the retail price over 200 RMB. After deducting all the costs, we will have at least 50 RMB profits.” Duan Yongping replied.

Profits of over 50%?

This is good news, but Feng Yu shook his head. “Old Duan, the profits are too high, and there will be lots of companies copying us. This thing does not require any advanced technologies and does not have any patent protection. It can be easily imitated. Look at Aiwa Walkman. Even after lowering our retail prices, we are still affected by the low-end products produced by other domestic factories.”

If the profit is around 10%, there might not be competitors, and they might have the whole market for themselves. 50% of profits will attract a group of competitors. If the profit is more than 300%, then… they will be known as evil merchants!

Sometimes, people only want a Walkman and do not mind the sound quality. Parents will tell their children. You are using it to learn a foreign language, right? Can you hear it? If you can hear it, who cares about the sound quality? Even when I count 1, 2,3, in a hoarse voice, you can also hear it.

The voice recorder is the same as Walkman. Aiwa Little Tyrant is using Aiwa’s technologies, and the sound quality is better. The lifespan of the product is longer, and the product quality is better.

But how long can this product last? After the novelty pass, no one will use it. Those that had learned a new language, they will also stop using it. They will either give it to someone else or use it as a normal recorder at home.

That means this product does not need to be lasting. Some components can use cheaper options.

“I understand. I plan to introduce this product first, and after making a sum of money, we will lower the retail price. This way, we will always have an advantage in terms of branding, quality, and pricing.

Duan Yongping had considered this problem. When he started producing video game consoles, he also chose the low pricing strategy and made his first pot of gold.

“Ok. Based on your estimation, how many units can be sold in a year?” Feng Yu asked.

“200,000 to 300,000 units should not be a problem in the first year. After that, the number will increase gradually, and after three years, it should stabilize at around 1 million.” Duan Yongping replied.

Feng Yu knew that Duan Yongping’s estimation is not wrong. But the reality will surely make Duan Yongping’s jaw drop. In another two years, the Ministry of Education will announce China schools will focus on listening and speaking.

This change in the syllabus will increase the popularity of voice recorders, and its sales will increase by folds. In Feng Yu’s previous life, the voice recorder had sold over 10 million units before year 2,000. That was the prized product developed by Old Duan.

Of course, many other brands of voice recorder appeared, and one of the more famous brands is Wen Qu Xing. But now, Wen Qu Xing is still manufacturing an electronic dictionary.

“Ok. Remember what I said. Try to make it lighter, more eye-pleasing, and save on the materials used.” In another two years, the Chinese income will increase, and people will not mind buying 100 to 200 RMB products.

“Ok. I will tell the engineers. Oh, we also developed a recording device. If we change it to normal audio quality, we can record up to 30 minutes.”

Duan Yongping took out another product about the size of a cigarette box. The box has an LCD screen and a few buttons.

Feng Yu shook his head. “Old Duan, how much smaller is this device compared to Aiwa slim series Walkman? I said before that his product is called a recording pen. That means it should be the size of a pen. Have you seen the overseas product? Your product is so big who will want to buy it?”

Some of the people who buy recording pens are for recording audio secretly. Some of them are reporters, and some will buy it for other purposes. But no matter what the reason was, they will choose the smallest and lightest recording device. This thing is so big. Are you thinking of putting a plastic cover over it and make it look like a cigarette packet?

Even your ‘recording pen’ is so big, no wonder your voice recorder is so big.

“We had only assembled the parts based on how a recording pen works. Of course, we can also make it small, like those overseas recording pens. But the cost is too high. If we are going to make it to the size of a lighter, the cost will increase by ten times!”

Damn! This thing is so expensive? Does that mean that a small recording pen’s cost will be more than 1,000 RMB? Then the retail price will be more than 2,000 RMB?

No wonder only Hong Kong reporters use recording pens, and it’s very rare in China. China does not have any entertain tabloids, and the reporters do not need to do secret recordings. The newspaper agencies are all government units, and they will not spend money on such expensive devices. During interviews, a small recorder is enough. How much can a cassette tape cost? A small recorder only cost a few dozen RMB.

“Then that’s no point for us to continue developing this product, as there is no market for it in China. But you can work on this technology. If you all can lower the cost to 100 to 200 RMB, we can introduce it to the masses in China.”

Feng Yu was about to say something to Duan Yongping when Mei Zhigang ran into the room to pass a mobile phone to Feng Yu.

“Boss, the Thai Government had adjusted its policy again. The overnight rates had increased to 1,000%!” He Zhaoji shouted over the phone.

Hahaha… the Thai government is using the same tactics. Soros is in trouble now!

Chapter 910 – Boss, we are at our limits

How extreme is this policy of increasing the overnight rates to 1,000%? It is the abolishment of overnight lending, and no one can afford this interest. Even drug dealers do not have such high profits!

When this policy is announced, it means the Thai Government’s 5 billion USD reserve fund is insufficient to deal with Soros.

Of course, Soros can also no longer continue to dump Baht after this policy is introduced.

The strategy of dumping Thai Baht had failed.

“Boss, has the Thai Government gone crazy? This policy will have a significant impact on its financial market!” Drucken Miller exclaimed. He is panicking. Without Thai Baht to dump, how are they going to lower the exchange rates?

Depending on those companies and foreign banks to dump Thai Baht is ineffective.

Soros calmly replied. “Stop panicking. You also said that this strategy would be a lose-lose situation for both parties. But this means the Thai Government does not have enough foreign reserves now!”

Thailand’s financial market will be greatly affected by the huge increase in overnight rates. Those financial institutions will need to prepare more funds to maintain their businesses.

Other than overnight lending, there are still one day, seven days, one month, lending. The Thai government will not dare to increase those rates to above 1,000%!

“But even if they do not have enough foreign reserves, our USD is also running low. Now, we can only borrow using the seven days and above system. The interest rate is also 1,000% per day, and the weekly interest is not a small amount. Our cost is increasing too fast!” Drucken Miller said.

Soros supported his head with one hand, and the other was holding a cigar. He needs to think carefully about how to handle this situation. Should he continue or admit his failure and withdraw from the market temporarily to raise enough funds to make a comeback!

“Miller, get the other three back. We need to discuss our next course of action.”

Although Soros is someone decisive, he still has lots of trust in his four top fund managers. He will discuss all the important decisions with them. For example, this operation to attack the Southeast Asia currencies is decided after getting everyone’s agreement.

……

“Soros is finished now. They don’t have Thai Baht anymore to dump and are going to suffer losses.” Fu Guangzheng laughed.

Feng Yu and Professor Liang exchanged looks and shook their heads.

“Guangzheng, the overnight rates, and one-day rates had increased by a lot, but there are no changes to the seven-day rates. Soros and his men can borrow using the seven-day lending system and continue to dump Baht.” Professor Liang explained.

“Use the seven-day lending? Their cost will increase too much, and their risk will be much higher.”

“But have you thought about how much they had put in? If they pull out now, how much losses will they incur? Furthermore, their future contracts were bought when the rate was at 24:1. If they cancel their contracts now, their losses will not be high. But if the Baht continue to depreciate, they will make high profits!” Feng Yu reminded Fu Guangzheng.

Soros and his men had built at least 15 billion USD worth of future contracts. Even if the Baht returned to 25:1, they would still make 600 million USD. As long as they had not lost more than 600 million USD in dumping Thai Baht, they will not suffer losses.

But based on Feng Yu’s calculations, Soros and his men had dumped Thai Baht like crazy earlier, and their loss is at least more than 800 million USD. The main losses come from the interest and depreciation.

That means even if the Baht recovered to 25:1, Soros and his men had still failed!

Although Soros and his men had successfully disrupted the Thai economy, they had suffered losses. This time, Soros had embarrassed himself.

Soros had prepared enough funds, and even if Feng Yu had not participated, it would still be sufficient. But Soros was too greedy. He firmly believes that once a county’s currency had depreciated, it will cause a chain reaction. That’s why he started building future contract portfolios in many Southeast Asian countries.

Although Soros had used leverage, he had bought all future long-term contracts and needs to place a deposit to prevent force cancellation of his contracts when the country’s currency increases in value.

Soros and his men had also built a huge portfolio. Despite using leverage, they still must invest a large amount. They had thought with Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s funds entering the market, and it will be sufficient to win the Thai Government. But who knows Feng Yu pull out suddenly!

To be honest, Soros’s current plight has got something to do with Feng Yu.

“That means you think Soros and his men will emerge victory?” Fu Guangzheng frowned and asked.

“No. It’s the opposite. I think Soros will suffer a defeat and will withdraw temporarily.” Feng Yu laughed and took a sip of coffee.

“Why?”

“The main reason is Soros does not have enough funds to support him. They had thought with me joining them, and they will win the Thai Government easily. But now, I had to pull out suddenly, leaving him to face the Thai Government alone. He does have funds, but needs time to transfer it over!”

“But didn’t you say the Thai Government had almost used up all their foreign reserves?” This was what Feng Yu said a few minutes ago.

“That’s right. The Thai government does not have sufficient funds. They had used most of their foreign reserves this year. This is also a big mistake on their part. Think about this. If your business met some problems and needs money to tide it over, what would you do?” Feng Yu asked.

“I will borrow. You are saying the Thai Government will get loans?” Fu Guangzheng understood what Feng Yu is trying to tell him. With additional funds, the Thai Government will inject the funds into their currency to pull up the rates.

Thailand is already heavily in debt and does not mind increasing their debt. The countries that are willing to lend money also do not want to see Thailand falls into a crisis.

Once Thailand’s economy collapsed, they will not get back the money they lent in the past! That means some countries must lend money to Thailand, or assist Thailand to increase the value of Baht. They must stabilize Thailand’s economy and stabilize its financial market!

Professor Liang looked at Feng Yu with approving looks. This student of his will do much better than him.

The economy is closely related to politics, and many people could not see this. But Feng Yu knew this. Furthermore, Feng Yu is still very young. He will exceed Professor Liang!

“Guangzheng, you still have much to learn.” Professor Liang smiled.

“Professor Liang, I will not disappoint you.” Fu Guangzheng said.

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng and Professor Liang. How come Fu Guangzheng suddenly become Professor Liang’s student?

……

Drucken Miller rushed into Soros’s office, shouting. “Boss, we are at our limits!”

Chapter 911 – The Proud Thai Central Bank

It was what Feng Yu had expected. The Thai government does not have enough foreign reserves, and they still must keep a portion for other purposes. So, the Thai Government went to the Singapore Government to get a loan of 5 billion USD.

Coupled with the Thai Government’s 5 billion and the 2 billion USD earlier, they had used 12 billion USD to stop their currency from depreciating. The sudden additional 5 billion USD from the Singapore Government helped Thai Baht’s exchange rates increase rapidly.

Two days ago, the rates were 26.3:1, and it will reach 26:1 soon.

There is a sudden increase in demand for Thai Baht, but Soros and his men do not have enough Baht to dump.

Soros was panicking. Why did this happen? Why did Singapore suddenly get involved?

Thailand is an important trading partner in Singapore, and both countries’ governments have good relationships.

There is another important reason. The Singapore government had found out that Soros had secretly built a Short position futures contract portfolio in Singapore.

The Singapore Government knew after Soros attacked Thailand, he will target Singapore next. If Soros had only targeted one country at a time, we might not win. But he had attacked one country and plotted against another at once.

Singapore and Thailand governments want to hit Soros and let him know that it is different now. It is not easy to manipulate a country’s currency now.

If Soros failed to take down the Thai Government, his reputation would be affected, and no one will follow his lead to attack another country’s currency.

Thailand and Singapore wanted to stop Soros and were confident that they would succeed.

……

The Governor of Thailand’s Central Bank was holding a press conference. “We are fighting to protect Thai Baht, and we will make those currency speculators pay!”

Who are the speculators? Everyone knew the answer.

The Governor of Thailand’s Central Bank immediately became the hero of all Thai. With 7 billion USD from their reserves, and Singapore’s 5 billion USD. Thai Baht will return to normal.

At the same time, Thailand’s stock market also started to recover. Everything seemed to be developing, according to Thailand’s Government wishes.

But Feng Yu firmly believes that Thailand will lose this war!

First, the Thai Government has insufficient foreign reserves now. They have only around 20 billion USD in total, and Singapore had interfered to help them. Also, Soros was not prepared. He still has lots of funds not used in this war.

Another reason is Feng Yu had not participated. If Feng Yu had joined in, the Thai Government had to utilize all their foreign reserves to stabilize their currency.

Lastly, Feng Yu found out that the Thai Government had no more tricks up their sleeves. They had to spend a large amount of money to stabilize their property market too.

The financial crisis is happening, and the stock market had almost crashed. But Thailand’s property prices are still rising!

The Thai Government will not allow its property market to crash. Once their property market crash, it will be a repeat of Japan’s downfall.

That’s why the Thai Government will do all it takes to stop its stock market from crashing and, at the same time, stabilize its currency and property market. They still must stop foreign investors from pulling out their investments from Thailand.

If it was only one or two problems, the Thai Government could solve it easily. But with all these problems happening at the same time, there is no way the Thai Government can handle it.

Also, Feng Yu could tell that the Thai Government is more concerned about their property market than Baht depreciating. That’s why they will use more of their funds in the property market.

Currently, the Thai Government had won, and the Thai Baht is rising steadily. It’s only a few days, and the rates had recovered to 25.7:1. It should recover back to 25:1 tomorrow.

To get to 25:1, Thailand and Singapore Government should have used up all their funds. This should be the best they can do, and Feng Yu felt the rates couldn’t return to 24:1!

……

Soros looks at the Thai Baht rising, but he did not feel any stress.

Soros had lost this time. If Thai Baht returns to 25:1, his losses will be at least 400 million USD when he cancels his future contracts. The stock market is also slowly recovering, and the stock index is rising. His returns from his stocks futures are getting lesser.

Making use of the stock market and Forex is Soros’s tactics. If everything goes according to his plan, he will make money from both. But now, Soros could not take care of both markets and have suffered losses from the dumping of shares and currencies. He could not recover all his losses from the futures contracts!

The Thai Government had done well this time, and had made Soros suffered more than 600 million USD losses! Soros was furious when he remembered Feng Yu withdrawing after making some profits!

Soros’s anger towards Feng Yu was more than the Thai Government and Thailand’s Central Bank Head.

The retaliation from the Thai Government and their Central Bank is normal, and Soros had expected it.

But Feng Yu’s sudden withdrawal was out of Soros’s expectation. If it weren’t for Feng Yu’s participation, Soros would have prepared more funds to deal with the Thai Government and might have won.

Soros would not be losing money if Feng Yu had not participated!

Soros had not thought that he also did not have any trust in Feng Yu. All this while, he had asked his men to monitor Feng Yu’s funds.

Both sides did not have trust in each other. How can they cooperate well?

“Boss, what should we do now? Are we continuing to borrow Baht to fight back, or…?” Drucken Miller asked.

Soros had discussed with his fund managers and agreed to continue to suppress Thai Baht while transferring funds from else while. At the same time, they will persuade Feng Yu to participate and continue to spread rumors.

But now, with Singapore entering the picture, Soros and his men could not carry on. The interest from borrowing Baht had increased their costs a lot, and they could not use the most convenient short-term lending as that will be like giving the Thai Government money.

Soros made a difficult decision. “Let’s stop. Cancel all the stocks future contracts first to stop lost and withdraw temporarily. Once all our funds are in, we will come back!”

Soros’s decision is admitting he had lost this war.

Drucken Miller wants to tell Soros that this loss will have a significant impact on their reputation. But he doesn’t know how to tell Soros. If they don’t admit defeat, their losses will increase!

……

The Governor of Thailand’s Central Bank was surrounded by reporters again. Thai Baht had returned to 25:1, and it was still climbing. Reaching 25:1 should not be a problem.

With Singapore’s help, they had won against Soros, and Soros had retreated!

“I had said that we would make those speculators lose all their money. Now, we had done it! No one can manipulate Thai Baht! No one can win mighty, Thailand!”

Soros threw the remote controller at the TV angrily. Crash! The expensive LCD TV’s screen cracked, and smoke came out of it.

Want to let me lose all my money? Fine! Let’s wait and see who will have the final laugh!

Chapter 912 – Chris Patten

“Hello, is this Mr. Feng Yu?”

Feng Yu was curious. Not many people know his Hong Kong’s phone number, and he doesn’t give out this number. This is an unfamiliar number, and from his accent, his mandarin is very poor.

“Speaking. Who’s that?”

“I’m Patten. I would like to meet you. When is it convenient for us to meet?”

Huh? Patten? Why is this name so familiar? He sounds like a foreigner with a strong Cantonese accent. Wait… the Hong Kong governor’s name is Patten.

Feng Yu thought for a while. All of his investments in Hong Kong are legal and had not stepped on anyone’s toes. He had also not done anything that harmed Hong Kong.

Is the Governor looking for trouble, or is this meeting a good thing?

“How about tomorrow afternoon? Quanjude at XXX road, private room no. 3. I will treat you to an authentic Chinese lunch.”

“Alright. I will be there at 11.30 am. I am looking forward to meeting you.”

After hanging up, Feng Yu called Li Zekai. “Brother Kai, I need to ask you something. Do you know Patten?”

Li Zekai was stunned. Chris Patten, Hong Kong’s Governor. How can he not know him? But why is Feng Yu asking about him? Do Feng Yu want to meet Patten?

Why does Feng Yu want to meet him? Hong Kong will be handed over to China soon, and there will be a new governor. This Patten will be returning to the UK.

Furthermore, although the new Governor of Hong Kong will be elected, the Chinese Government is the one who appointed the Governor. Feng Yu should know about this, right?

“You are talking about our current Governor? Why? You want to know him?”

“No. He is the one who wanted to meet me.” Feng Yu told Li Zekai about Patten’s phone call.

“Brother Feng, are you holding on to Hong Kong’s passport?” Li Zekai asked.

“That’s right. It’s more convenient to travel overseas with the Hong Kong passport.”

“I think I can guess why Patten wants to meet you. He should be thinking of inviting you to take up British nationality.” Li Zekai said.

Huh? Invite me to become a British?

Feng Yu thought about it and felt it was possible. Just his Wind and Rain Consulting Firm’s assets is not a small amount. If he becomes British, UK will get a large investment.

Although Feng Yu is holding a Hong Kong passport, he had never thought of himself as a Hong Konger and had never thought of migrating.

“Thank you. I thought he wanted to see me for something important.”

“Although he is currently the head of Hong Kong’s Government, his powers are limited. You don’t need to treat him as if he is some bigshot.” Li Zekai replied.

To Li Zekai and the Li Family, Hong Kong’s Governor is nothing. If the Governor were to fall out with the Li Family, it would be the Governor getting replaced, and nothing will happen to them.

“Ok. Brother Kai, are you free to accompany me to meet him tomorrow?” Feng Yu had never met any Hong Kong Government Officials before and knew nothing about them. It would be better if Li Zekai is around.

Fu Guangzheng had gone to China again, and Fu Guangwei is not reliable. Thus, Feng Yu can only invite Li Zekai.

“Sure. I have nothing on tomorrow also. Let’s meet for lunch.”

……

The private room’s door was pushed open, and a Caucasian with white hair entered. He was dressed casually and looked nothing like the Governor, and more like an old man from the neighborhood.

Patten’s assistant put down his briefcase and left the room.

“Mr. Feng, I’m Patten. Nice to meet you, and I hope we can be friends.” Patten noticed Li Zekai was sitting beside Feng Yu. What is the second son of the Li Family doing here?

Patten was appointed the Governor in 1992 and is very popular among Hong Kong residents. But Li Zekai said Patten is a politician and is better at acting compared to all the previous governors.

This Governor is anti-China and had secretly spread conspiracy theories about mainland China. He had approved some of the news reported on TV, which was biased and focused on the negative news on China.

Since China and the UK signed an agreement on Hong Kong’s return, both governments had a good relationship. But after Patten started democracy reforms in Hong Kong, relationships between China and UK deteriorate.

Why didn’t Hong Kong have democracy reforms when it was under British rule? Why must it be implemented when Hong Kong is about to be returned to China?

The British wanted to weaken the Chinese Government’s control over Hong Kong and secretly appoint a group of people to take over control of Hong Kong’s Government. This way, the British will still have control over Hong Kong.

Democracy and representing the Hong Kongers are all bullshit. Li Zekai said the additional representatives in the Hong Kong’s council are either from the influential families or people supported by the British Government.

Are you representing the people? That’s what the residents of Hong Kong believed! Of course, the representatives must do something to satisfy the residents, but it’s more for their benefits.

Li Zekai had explained to Feng Yu a lot about Hong Kong’s Government and Patten. He also mentioned about Patten’s affairs.

Feng Yu’s impression of Patten had declined after what Li Zekai said.

Feng Yu stood up and shook Patten’s hand. “I had wanted to meet a long time ago.”

“Mr. Feng, just call me Patten will do. Mr. Li Zekai. I didn’t expect to see you here today.” Patten greeted Li Zekai.

“I am going to have lunch with Brother Feng, and he said he has a friend joining. I also did not expect his friend to be you.” Li Zekai’s tone was casual.

Superman Li is someone well-received by the Chief Architect and the Queen. When the Queen met Superman Li, she had mentioned that if Superman Li wants, he will be the next Hong Kong’s Governor, or he can appoint someone to be the Governor.

That’s why the Governor of Hong Kong is nothing to Li Zekai.

Patten is a politician and is not from any noble family. He smiled at Li Zekai, ignoring his casual tone.

“It’s my pleasure to dine with Mr. Li and Mr. Feng.”

Li Zekai gave Feng Yu a proud look. Did you hear that? This old man places my name before yours! This shows that Patten has no foresight!

Although Li Zekai is proud, he knew his assets are nowhere near Feng Yu. But before Patten arrived, he told Feng Yu that this Governor would have more respect for him than Feng Yu.

It was exactly what Li Zekai said.

Feng Yu pressed a button on the wall, and the waitress entered. Feng Yu nodded to her, and the food was served.

Chapter 913 – Rejection

Feng Yu greeted Patten with lots of dishes and kept asking him to try all of them. But Feng Yu just refuse to ask what’s the purpose of this meeting.

After a while, Patten could not stand it. Even when Li Zekai is around, he still asked Feng Yu.

“Mr. Feng, you have become Hong Kong’s citizen not long ago?” Patten put down his chopsticks and asked.

Patten suspects Feng Yu had purposely ordered these dishes today. It was hard to pick up the food with chopsticks today. He knew how to use chopsticks, but he is not very good at it and had almost embarrassed himself a few times.

That’s right. Feng Yu had done it on purpose.

“Why? Are you investigating me?” Feng Yu asked in an annoyed tone.

Feng Yu’s Hong Kong identity is given to him by Iron Fist Zhu, and Patten should not know about this, and the two passports Feng Yu is holding.

“Mr. Feng, don’t misunderstand me. I am saying that if you had become a Hong Konger earlier, I would have known you much earlier.” Patten explained.

“Oh…”

Patten was going crazy as Feng Yu is not playing the game according to the rules. How can I carry on with the conversation if you are giving me a single word reply?!

But Patten had no choice. If he can get a group of tycoons to take up British nationality, it will be good for his political career.

After Hong Kong’s return, Patten will be doing diplomatic work on UK and HK relationships. But if he can increase his portfolio to China, or even Southeast Asia, it will be better.

“Mr. Feng, what do you think of Hong Kong joining China?” Patten asked.

Feng Yu frowned. “It’s Hong Kong’s return to China. Hong Kong has always been a part of China, and it is only rented to England. Both countries had agreed to this.”

Damn! This moron makes it sound like Hong Kong had always been part of the UK. F**king shameless! No wonder he is a politician!

Patten decided to skip this question to avoid angering Feng Yu. If he made Feng Yu angry, it would be hard for him to persuade him to take up British citizenship.

Patten’s strategy to persuade other tycoons to take up British citizenship was to talk bad about the Communist Party, by exaggerating the negative news!

Feng Yu is from China and had taken up Hong Kong Citizenship. One of the reasons might be Hong Kong is more developed, and Feng Yu might not be happy in China.

“Mr. Feng, the business environment in China is not very good, right? From what I know, many of the Chinese officials are corrupted and had too much authority. Furthermore, there is only one party in China, which is the Communist Party, and there are no oppositions. This way, the country might move in the wrong direction.” Patten used his usual method. Once Feng Yu agreed with him, he can continue with the topic.

“Mr. Patten, have you been to China? I think the furthest you had been in Guangzhou, or many Shenzhen or Guangdong. Your understanding of China is lacking.” Feng Yu replied calmly and then… keep quiet!

This is the most frustrating part of an argument or disagreement. The other party is saying what you said is wrong but refuse to tell you which part is wrong.

“Mr. Feng, although I have not been to China, I had followed Chinese news. Almost every day, there will be government officials getting arrested for corruption or violating the laws. These show the character of those officials!” Patten continued.

“What sort of news are you watching? Internal publications? I admit that there are many corrupted officials in China, and many of them were arrested. But that shows that the Party is cleaning up their Officials and stopping corruption. I disagree with your comment on their character. Those Chinese officials are much better than the commoners in China!”

In the past, most of the highly educated graduates had joined the government service, and what Feng Yu said is not wrong.

“Stopping corruption? That is all fake. How can the Officials decide the punishment for their fellow officials? This is wrong, and which official can guarantee that they will not make any mistake?”

Patten was feeling glad that Feng Yu is starting to interact with him on this topic. This way, he can slowly convince Feng Yu of the dangers after Hong Kong’s return.

“Then can I ask how does the UK handle the cases involving their Civil servants? Are the ones handling their cases, not Civil servants themselves?” Feng Yu asked.

You all are doing the same thing, yet you want to criticize us?

“It’s different. For example, there are many district representatives in the Legislative Council Commission of Hong Kong. We represent the interest of the people.” Patten explained.

“Really? How about we compare the proportion of corrupted officers from both sides? I think the British have a higher proportion. The government servants are getting high salaries, but they are still corrupted. This shows that your policies had failed!” Feng Yu sneered.

There are many politicians in the UK, and what do politicians do? Play with politics and impose policies that are popular with the people to gain support. After that, they will find ways to benefit from their powers. Just this alone, the Chinese officials are much better.

“That is because the Party had covered up most of the cases.”

“Are you saying that the UK did not cover-up? You all have lots of parties, and your policies are always changing. I think this is a joke. I am holding on to Hong Kong’s passport because I need it for my businesses, and it’s not that I dislike China! My parents are still in China!”

Patten was embarrassed and had not expected this.

“Mr. Feng, let’s talk about the business environment. China’s economy is far behind the UK. Hong Kong had developed well under British rule and who knows what would happen after China takes over. Think about this. How many tycoons are there in China? All the business there are restricted by the Chinese government and had to split their profits with the corrupted officials!” Patten starts to talk bad about China again.

“Who told you about these? These are all decades-old information. There are a lot of tycoons in China now. Some of them are even wealthier than the Hong Kong tycoons. Also, China’s development is much faster than in the UK. Just the Chinese market is comparable to several European countries’ markets combined.”

Feng Yu saw Patten is about to say something and he interrupt him. “Mr. Patten, I understand what you want to say. You want me to migrate to the UK, right? I’m sorry, I am not interested!”

After chatting for a while, Feng Yu was irritated by Patten. If he knew this person is so irritating, he would not meet him.

Patten was surprised. After saying so much, Feng Yu was not affected?!

But Patten dare not to get angry with Feng Yu. Although Feng Yu’s status in Hong Kong is not high, Li Zekai is sitting beside him. If the Li Family got angry, he would be in trouble.

Li Zekai started to chat with Feng Yu, ignoring Patten.  Patten tried to join their conversation but did not have the opportunity. When he stood up and prepared to leave, Feng Yu and Li Zekai stop chatting.

“Goodbye, Mr. Patten!”

Hmph! It’s your loss not to become a British citizen! You all will regret it!

Chapter 914 – Start from the daughter

“… This is the solution I had come up with for all of you. Let your money multiply!” Fu Guangzheng was standing on the stage, giving a speech.

The crowd cheered and applauded.

This period, Fu Guangzheng had made use of advertising and word-of-mouth to promote his investment fund, and his fund had accumulated a few hundred million HKD. The majority of the funds come from ordinary citizens.

You invested a few hundred thousand, and he invested a few hundred thousand. Without anyone noticing, Fu Guangzheng had accumulated a few hundred million. But he is not satisfied. In Hong Kong, ordinary citizens still have a lot of savings. Just look at Wind and Rain Consulting Firm. They had accumulated much more funds within a few days.

Fu Guangzheng had worked hard to raise this amount, and Wind and Rain Consulting Firm had gotten more than him with a few advertisements.

But Professor Liang was satisfied with this result. The duration is one year, and after one year, he guarantees he uses the fund to make more profits. At least, his returns will be better than other Hong Kong financial institutions!

Fu Guangzheng and Professor Liang are trying to help ordinary citizens. As for those who don’t believe them and want to invest with other companies, they could not do much.

“Brother Feng, why are you here?” Fu Guangzheng got off the stage and saw Feng Yu sitting at the backstage.

Feng Yu had a weird expression on his face. Did Fu Guangzheng and his men run some pyramid scheme before? Where did Fu Guangzheng learn those ‘motivational’ speech?

“I’m here to listen to your talk. I didn’t realize you are such a good actor. Did you go for any auditions at the Shaw Brothers?”

“Stop teasing me. I tried my best, but the results are not as good as your Wind and Rain Consulting Firm. To be honest, branding for investment funds is still very important. If I did not use my company as collateral, no one would invest with me.” Fu Guangzheng smiled.

“This is already very good. Other than you, who else can raise funds so fast? Are you thinking of helping your family to raise their status, or are you interested in setting up an investment fund?” Feng Yu is curious. What is Fu Guangzheng trying to do? Did he want to help those ordinary citizens to avoid the crisis?

“A bit of both. I also want the Hong Kong Government to impose cooling measures on the property market.” Fu Guangzheng replied.

But the current Government is not doing anything about the property market. Maybe they are trying to create a false impression of a strong economy. The Government knew a property bubble is brewing, but before the bubble burst, Hong Kong will return to China. They don’t care about Hong Kong citizens!

Feng Yu was curious. Since when did Fu Guangzheng care so much for the country? Although Fu Guangzheng is not a despicable businessman, he is also not a philanthropist either. He seldom makes donations in Hong Kong, let alone in China.

Even if Hong Kong is caught up in the financial crisis, most of Fu Guangzheng’s investments are in China. What’s there to worry about?

“Brother Fu, what’s wrong with you?”

After Feng Yu asked this question, he noticed Fu Guangzheng was looking at Professor Liang. Could he be doing all these for Professor Liang? Is this what Professor Liang wanted him to do?

Wait… Fu Guangzheng is not looking at Professor Liang and is looking at the woman beside him. The woman seems to be close to Professor Liang and should be related.

Fu Guangzheng is interested in that woman?

“Eh, eh, eh… stop staring at her. What’s wrong? Do you like her? Who is she? A relative of Professor Liang?”

“Liang Yin. She is Professor Liang’s daughter and had just returned from overseas!” Fu Guangzheng replied without taking his eyes off her.

If it weren’t for Liang Yin, Fu Guangzheng would not put in so much effect. He had started this investment fund for Professor Liang to try to recruit him at first.

But after meeting Professor Liang’s daughter, Fu Guangzheng changed his mind. He wants to do something to attract Liang Yin’s attention.

Fu Guangzheng is not worrying about the nation. It is Liang Yin who wanted to help the ordinary citizens, and he is doing all these to increase Liang Yin’s affection towards him. If he managed to let Liang Yin like him, he would be more excited than making money!

Liang Yin is not only pretty, but she is also highly educated and caring.

Professor Liang is one of the top economists in Hong Kong’s financial sector. He is also a Professor and is highly respectable. Many of Hong Kong’s wealthy second generations are Professor Liang’s students.

It will not be a disgrace if Fu Guangzheng got married to Liang Yin, and he will still gain something. He will be known as Professor Liang’s son-in-law, and will receive free pointers from Professor Liang on financial investments!

This way, Fu Guangzheng can hold his ground in the financial sector and has a higher chance to be the Fu Family’s next head!

“Are you interested in her, or are you interested in her because she is Professor Liang’s daughter? Let me warn you… Professor Liang is my respected teacher. If you are thinking of toying with her feelings, you better stop now.” Feng Yu said.

“I want her to be my wife!” Fu Guangzheng looked at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu’s eyes opened wide in shock. Wife?

Feng Yu got to admit that Liang Yin is very pretty, but there are many pretty girls around. Every one of Fu Guangzheng’s girlfriends is pretty too.

Studious types, sultry types, girl-next-door types, etc. Fu Guangzheng had tried it all, and Liang Yin is not considered special.

Is it because she is Professor Liang’s daughter?

Feng Yu thought for a while, and this might be the reason. This is also considered a connection by marriage.

In Hong Kong, it is common for wealthy people to have mistresses. Although polygamy is against the law, many tycoons are still living with their wives and mistresses together.

Even when Fu Guangzheng got married, it does not mean he will stop fooling around outside. Feng Yu dares to bet that Fu Guangzheng will not stop continuing his old ways!

“Brother Fu, I wish you success!”

To recruit a financial market expert, Fu Guangzheng starts with his daughter. No one else will do such things.

After Feng Yu finished saying this, Fu Guangzheng grabbed two bottles of water and ran over to Liang Yin.

Fu Guangzheng is considered good-looking, and even though he is in his 30s, he is not that old.

With Fu Guangzheng’s wealth, he can easily get the woman he wants. But this time, Fu Guangzheng had met his match. Liang Yin did not show any interest in him!

Professor Liang could tell Fu Guangzheng is interested in his daughter. He had heard about Fu Guangzheng being a playboy, but after interacting with him, he realizes Fu Guangzheng is not as bad as the rumors. He can still accept him as his son-in-law. Of course, his daughter must like him first!

From Liang Yin’s expression, she is not interested in Fu Guangzheng.

Feng Yu smiled and shook his head when he saw Liang Yin giving Fu Guangzheng cold shoulders. The revolution is still ongoing! Comrade, you must work hard!

Feng Yu looked at the date. Soros should be ready to make a comeback!

Chapter 915 – Comeback

“You all must trust me. The Thai Government only has these tricks. We will surely win!” Soros was speaking to a few main investors.

“Why can’t you start from other countries? Why must you target Thailand?” Someone asked.

“The other countries will use the same strategies as Thailand. Only when we win against Thailand, the rest of the countries will be afraid of us! We must let them know that all their tricks are useless against us!” Soros replied firmly.

“But we don’t have enough funds. Furthermore, we had suffered losses. If Thai Baht rates return to 24:1, our losses will be higher!”

“No. We suffered some losses now, but compared to our future profits, these losses are nothing. Thailand might seem fine for the time being, but that is because we have insufficient funds. But I know all of you here still have US bonds. If we utilize our bonds, we can easily defeat the Thai Government!”

“What if we fail? Our losses will increase. We can increase our funds, so can the Thai Government. I still think we should use the hit-and-run tactic. We will suppress the currencies of the other countries and withdraw immediately after we make profits. We must not give them time to retaliate.

“We will surely have enough funds this time. I still can get a large amount of funds to join us. This fund is not lesser than 5 billion USD!” Soros said.

“Which hedge fund? Who is the investor?”

“Feng Yu. Microsoft’s third shareholder and the person who bought the Empire State Building. He still has a Russian friend who will join us.”

Soros had planned and waited for this opportunity for three years. He must win at all costs!

A temporary setback will not stop Soros. He will not be defeated and is confident of sweeping through Southeast Asia!

Soros was stopped in March, defeated in May, and this is the third time. He will not fail again!

“If that’s the case, we will believe you one more time. Alright. We will go and raise funds now.” After a short discussion, the few investors decided to continue believing Soros. After all, Soros had helped them make high profits in the past.

……

“Boss, there is a high volume of US bonds being sold in the market. The volume is massive.” Ralph called to inform Feng Yu.

“Do you know how much they can raise from the bonds?”

“Err… I can’t find out the exact figure, but it is more than 2 billion USD!” Ralph was excited.

2 billion USD? This amount was what Feng Yu expected. But Feng Yu suspects the actual figure might be more. If this sum of money is added to the pot, and with Feng Yu’s few billion, the Thai Government will lose, and Thai Baht will plunge!

“Alright. I know. Continue to monitor them and report to me immediately when anything happens. Oh, are there any issues at Microsoft?”

“Nothing, except Mr. Allen complained about you missing the monthly meeting.”

Feng Yu was used to it, and he doesn’t care. As long as it’s not Bill Gates who complained about him, he will still keep his seat on the board.

In another two to three years, Lenovo Kingsoft will be ready. At that time, Feng Yu will not care whether if he is one of the directors of Microsoft. He might even sell away all his Microsoft shares.

“What about Amazon? How is their development?”

“They are still trying to build their customer base. Their website’s visitors and member registrations had increased a lot, but their sales did not increase. They are still losing money.”

Ralph could not understand why his Boss is so concerned about this online bookstore.

“Watch and learn from this website’s operation model. It will be useful to me in the future. If there is nothing else, I will hand up.”

Ralph will report to Feng Yu via emails every day, and Feng Yu is aware of everything. These are long-term investments, and he does not need to monitor closely. Even if there are slight fluctuations with Microsoft share prices, he will not mind, as Microsoft share prices are increasing every week.

The moment Feng Yu hangs up, a call came in. It’s Soros. The current phone lines still do not have a call waiting for services. If Feng Yu is using the phone, other people’s calls will not get through.

“George, why are you free to call me today?” Feng Yu asked.

“Feng, is your funds ready?” Soros asked.

“Almost. My funds will be ready in one week. Why? Are you going to attack Thai Baht again?”

“Yes. I had raised another sum of money. If you can join us, we will succeed!”

The short-term interest rates are very high now. But if they use the short to mid-term lending rates, like one week, one month, etc. they can still crush the Thai Government at lightning speed.

This time, they will use a bigger fund to borrow and dump Thai Baht, and before the Thai Government can react, Thai Baht will be depreciated.

Even if the Thai Government can react in time, they can only use their reserves to stop them. If this happens, the winner will be the side that has more funds.

This time Soros will not allow any countries to interfere. He must spread some rumors in Singapore and other markets to stop them from assisting Thailand.

Once the Thai Baht crash, there will be a chain reaction, and the rest of Southeast Asia will be affected!

“Ok. When are we starting?” Feng Yu laughed and asked. He knew Soros would not tolerate defeat.

“Late June and the winner will be decided within ten days at most!” Soros was very confident. If he still cannot defeat a small country like Thailand with the funds he has, he can forget about sweeping through the rest of the countries in Southeast Asia, and he is not fit to manage Quantum Fund!

“Alright. We will enter the market together. I think we will win this time!” Feng Yu believes the Thai Government will be powerless to stop them. The Thai Government should have less than 20 billion USD in their reserves, and Soros and Feng Yu’s funds can almost match that amount. There are still other speculators from financial institutions and businessmen joining in to take advantage.

Thai Baht will plummet!

After hanging up, Soros was more confident. The Thai Government and their Central Bank love to boast. You all claim to be victorious? I can still accept those losses, and it’s nothing to me!

It’s only a small victory, and you all are celebrating. That’s only the appetizer! This time, I want to see how you all are going to stop me!

Feng Yu called He Zhaoji. “Old He. Get ready for our funds. We are going to all-in soon!”

Chapter 916 – Defending the backyard

“Old He, how many times of leverage can we use for 2 billion USD Thai Baht futures contract?” Feng Yu stood in front of his PC in his office and gave orders to He Zhaoji.

He Zhaoji was shocked. 2 billion USD worth of contract requires a lot of their funds, and Feng Yu still want to use leverage? Once Thai Baht rates increase, they will be forced to cancel their contracts!

To prevent force closure of their futures contract, they must prepare more funds. If Feng Yu is very confident that Thai Baht will depreciate and will not rise, then they will not need to prepare funds.

Could it be that Boss is confident that the Thai Government will not retaliate?

“We should not be able to get 20 times leverage with our funds. But 15 times leverage should not be a problem. Boss, will it be too risky?” He Zhaoji hesitated.

“Then let’s just use 15 times leverage. Start building our portfolio. Remember to spread them out. This time, we will win for sure!”

Feng Yu’s confidence had affected He Zhaoji and lessen his hesitations. Every time Feng Yu shows this expression, the company will make high profits.

Although this time, more funds are used, and the risks are higher, He Zhaoji got more confident and felt he could follow his Boss’s footsteps and make some money!

Other than Thai Baht futures, Feng Yu also asked He Zhaoji to buy Thailand’s Stock index futures. This period, Thailand’s stock index had recovered to more than 1,000 points.

But this time, Feng Yu will cooperate with Soros to attack Thailand’s economy. The stock index will surely fall more than 50%!

However, Feng Yu had almost used up all his funds on the futures contracts.

Professor Liang is standing next to Feng Yu. He is curious about what Feng Yu is going to do. When he heard Feng Yu would be using most of his funds to buy futures contracts, he frowned.

Feng Yu does not have much money left. If Soros is lying and suddenly attack Hong Kong, Feng Yu will not have enough funds for defense.

Soros might also try to push Thai Baht rates up, and Feng Yu will be forced to cancel his futures contract and suffer massive losses.

But it’s quite impossible for Soros to push Thai Baht rates up. Feng Yu will suffer losses if he does that, but Soros will also suffer losses. The Quantum Fund had bought lots of Short-position futures on Thai Baht. This will be a lose-lose situation for both. The investors backing Soros will not allow him to do this.

“Feng Yu, don’t you think the risk is too high?” Professor Liang asked. This young man is too daring.

“Professor Liang, you think I only have 6 billion USD?” Feng Yu smiled.

Professor Liang’s eyes opened wide. “You still have funds hidden?”

If Feng Yu still have funds, he can still escape without suffering massive losses.

They are using some losses to gamble for greater profits, and this is right. Investments are not 100% safe. There will always have risks, and the greater the risk, the higher the returns.

Feng Yu smiled and did not reply to him.

“This time, Soros is making a comeback. How long do you think the Thai Government can last?”

“Ten days!” Feng Yu estimation is the same as Soros. Ten days is sufficient for them to do a lot of things. The Thai government does not have enough reserves, and their restriction on the lending rates had already limited their Forex development.

The Thai government does not have any financial trading experts. Their measures implemented to stop Soros was what Indonesia used against Soros several years back. That time, Soros had retreated, but it was not because he is afraid. It is because Soros felt the time is not ripe.

Now… it is time to reap the profits!

“Have you considered the possibility of Soros suddenly turn around and attack Hong Kong?” Professor Liang asked.

“Impossible. But if he did that, you are still around. He will also not make many profits if he attacks Hong Kong now. Furthermore, he will fall out with me. I might suffer losses, but his losses will be higher. This time, Soros’s funds are massive, and the majority of the funds do not belong to him. If he suffers significant losses this time, his reputation will be gone and will be in deep trouble!”

Feng Yu was sure that Soros only thinks of profits first.

Soros is a typical greedy Jew. There were rumors that during his second marriage, the Priest asked if he is willing to share everything he owns with his wife. Soros stood there without saying a word until his lawyer went up to him to tell him that wedding vows are inadmissible in courts. At that time, the Priest and bride were utterly embarrassed by him!

This time, Soros had asked his investors to sell off their US Bonds to raise a massive amount of funds. That means he is going to finish off the Thai Government with one deadly blow and get the highest return. He will never attack Hong Kong during this time.

But after the Thai Government is defeated, Soros might try to attack Hong Kong to test the defense, or he might wait until the rest of the markets are defeated before attacking Hong Kong.

Soros will not let Hong Kong off.

Soros had once said that right or wrong judgments are that important. What’s important is making the best use of all your powers when you are right.

What Soros said is exactly what Feng Yu is feeling right now. What he is doing now is making the correct investment and wants to get the most out of it!

Furthermore, Fu Rongqi and Superman Li’s funds are ready. They had also promised the Chinese Government that they would protect Hong Kong’s stability before Hong Kong’s return.

The last time when Soros tested Hong Kong’s defense, had alarmed Fu Rongqi and Superman Li. But with Feng Yu around, Fu Rongqi and Professor Liang could not predict when Soros will attack. But no matter what, Soros will never let Hong Kong off.

The Southeast Asian countries’ economies are interlinked. The moment one country’s currency depreciates, there will be a chain reaction, and the currencies of the other countries will be affected. Many of these countries’ foreign investors are the same. The moment they withdraw their investments, the currency rates will plunge for all the countries.

Soros is going all out this time, and no one is willing to go against him. This will let Soros win easier. Hong Kong is not like Thailand, which has the backing of China. Even now, with just Superman Li and Fu Rongqi around, Hong Kong will not be defeated easily.

Fu Rongqi had said that once Soros attacked Hong Kong currency, the funds from the rest of the tycoons will enter the market and make Soros lose all his money!

Now, the situation is Feng Yu going out to make money and… the rest are watching over his backyard!

Chapter 917 – Leading them on

“Feng, are you ready? We will start today. Let’s work together to make some money!”

“Sure. We will defeat the Thai Government within ten days!”

Soros had split his invests into three areas. He will be shorting stocks, interest rates, and currency, where he is good at.

If Soros had only shorted the currency, his cost would be higher and harder to control. The strategy he is using is speculating based on the relationship between all three areas. Once the market crash, the other areas will plunge too.

That means if the stock market crash, the currency rates will also fall. If the Thai Baht rates plunged, the stock market would also crash. After that, the Thai Government will have no choice but to raise the saving rates, and it will expedite the financial crisis!

Feng Yu’s operating model is the same as Soros. He is also using a three-pronged attack as all the financial markets are inter-related.

This time, they will start by dumping Thai Baht again!

……

Thailand Central Bank’s person in charge, Basong, was reading some documents and thinking of ways to clear the bank’s bad debts when his subordinate barged into his office.

“Governor, a large volume of Baht is being dumped in the Forex market now. Thai Baht’s value is starting to depreciate!”

“What? Why is this happening again?” Basong was shocked. What’s going on? Soros and his men are back? Is he not afraid after his defeat the last time?

“I am not sure. But we had investigated, and it seems that the Quantum Fund is behind this!” The subordinate replied.

Quantum Fund. Soros and his men are back.

The last time when the Thai Government increased the lending rates, they had affected their whole financial market and received lots of complaints. But in the end, they managed to chase Soros and the other international speculators away.

They thought everything was over and could slowly adjust their policies to save Thailand’s economy. But Soros and his men are back!

But if we can win against you all once, we can do it again!

“Don’t panic. Tell the rest that they are not allowed to lend them Thai Baht. Also, notify the higher-ups… never mind. I will report to the higher-ups myself.” Basong waved his hand and left his office.

This had caused some delays for Basong, and it’s a problem with having too many levels in the government. If it was Feng Yu’s company, He Zhaoji could call Feng Yu anytime when there are any emergencies. The fire had started burning, and you still want to report to the higher-ups personally? What are you thinking?

It was also because Basong had won against Soros and was overconfident now. He still does not know how much funds Soros has this time. This time, Soros will use more extreme tactics and will not give the Thai Government any chance to retaliate!

“General, Basong has something to report.”

“Ok. Let him in.” Chavalit was not only the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, but he is also the Prime Minister. Although Thailand had a monarchy, the King does not have any real power. What the royal family did was to mediate the differences between the various political parties and appoint Prime Ministers. But the King of Thailand is loved and well respected by all Thais.

“Basong, what is it?” Chavalit thought Basong had thought of some new policies to improve the economy.

“General, that Jewish man is here again. I just received news that someone is dumping Thai Baht in a large volume. I am requesting your permission to use our foreign reserves to teach him a lesson!” Basong bows and said.

Chavalit was the same as Basong. He was furious, but did not panic or is afraid. Thailand had won against Soros twice, and those international speculators are nothing to be afraid of!

“Ok. I will permit you. This time, we must make these speculators pay a heavy price!”

Badong left with Chavalit’s orders. He had wasted almost an hour to get this permission.

When Basong returns to his office, he noticed everyone was busy, and some of his staff were shouting at each other.

“What’s wrong? Why is everyone in a mess?!” Basong was furious.

“Governor, Thai Baht had plummeted. It is now 26.1:1, and it is still dropping!” Someone shouted.

What? How long has it been, and Thai Baht had depreciated so much?

“What is going on? How did the rates fall by so much? Didn’t you all retaliate?” Basong roared.

The rest of the staff were quiet and didn’t know how to reply. Retaliate? How are we going to retaliate? We have no authority to use the foreign reserve, and you left to meet the Prime Minister. We have no way to contact you.

“What are you all waiting for? Use the foreign reserve to buy in Thai Baht and push the rates up!”

The staff starts to move.

……

“Boss, there is a large sum of money entering the market, buying up all the Thai Baht. Thai Baht rates are starting to rise!” He Zhaoji reported.

“Don’t worry. Just follow my orders and continue to dump Baht at the frequency I set. Soros had borrowed more Baht than us. He is purposely leading the Thai Government to utilize their foreign reserve.”

Feng Yu had discussed with Soros about this. They will pretend to go all out at the start to trick the Thai Government to use their foreign reserves and let them implement measures to bring their financial market into chaos.

Feng Yu and Soros already had a large amount of Baht. They still have not started to dump all their Baht. The policies implemented now will have no effects on them.

Feng Yu can even short 2 billion USD worth of Thai Baht, and Soros has more funds than Feng Yu. He will surely short more than Feng Yu.

What Feng Yu and Soros are doing, is to drag the Thai Government into the mud. When the Thai Government wants to retaliate, they will realize that there is nothing they can do!

This is to create a false impression for the Thai Government. They want to trick the Thai Government to believe they are locked in a stalemate, and if the Thai Government uses a bit more of their foreign reserves, they will win.

When Thailand used up all their foreign reserves, Feng Yu and Soros will give them the final blow!

At that time, the Thai Government can only get loans from other Southeast Asian countries, and Feng Yu and Soros will continue to attack whichever countries that lend Thailand money.

After the second country’s currency got attacked, the whole Southeast Asian currencies will go into crisis, especially the countries that are close to Thailand.

A country’s Forex market will not satisfy Feng Yu, Soros, and his men. They had used billions of USD, and if they can only get returns of a few hundred million, it will be a waste of their efforts.

Feng Yu continued to dump Baht at a steady pace, and Soros is doing the same. Thai Baht’s rates are fluctuating non-stop.

Soros saw the Thai Government’s had entered the market and had a victorious smile on his face.

Chapter 918 – Nibble

That night, the rates for Baht returned to 25.4:1, and Basong was feeling proud. He will pull Thai Baht back to 25:1 tomorrow. The current rate is within the acceptable fluctuation range, but he still thinks it is not enough. The current rate will not let Soros and his men suffer many losses. He must increase the rates higher to increase Soros’s losses.

Feng Yu had a smile on his face as he looked at the rates. This little fluctuation will not make the Thai Government wary and will make them fall into the trap.

This is called cutting the meat with a blunt knife. The Thai Government will never expect it.

“Everyone had worked hard today. Other than the ones on duty, go back, and have a good rest. I want to emphasize it again. In the following two weeks, no one is allowed to drink alcohol, or take leave unless it’s an emergency. Also, no one is allowed to tell others about our investments.”

Feng Yu looked at everyone when he said these. He had spent a lot of effort to send one of his men to Soros’s side as his spy last year.

Feng Yu suspects that one of these brokers might be bribed by Soros. He had to be careful and must not fall for any traps set up by Soros. That’s why even the brokers in the company do not know about his hidden funds. Only Professor Liang knew Feng Yu still have a significant amount of money hidden somewhere, but he will not tell other people.

Kirilenko also knew about this. But it is a significant amount, and he is more careful than Feng Yu.

Feng Yu is not good at observing people’s expression, and he might be wrong. It could also be that the spy is good at hiding and had not made Feng Yu suspicious.

Feng Yu was most worried about the brokers from New York. Their families are not in Hong Kong, and in the US, Soros can offer them protection. They are not afraid of Feng Yu taking revenge on them. He was more assured with the Hong Kong brokers. Their families are all in Hong Kong, and there are triads in Hong Kong.

Which influential family in Hong Kong dares to say they don’t have any dealings with the local triads? These brokers are greedy, but they don’t dare to touch Feng Yu’s money.

The next day, Feng Yu told He Zhaoji and the rest to start dumping Thailand’s shares. The stock market had dropped slightly yesterday, and a large volume of shares was dumped when trading starts. Within an hour, the stock index fell by 3%.

Feng Yu had bought a significant amount of stock index futures and will make 5 million USD for every point dropped. If Thailand’s stock index fell by 100 points, he will make 500 million USD.

Although the returns might seem to be high, Feng Yu had put in a lot more funds. The loss from dumping the stocks is a large amount.

Feng Yu had dumped a large volume of stocks within a short time. But the Thai Government reacted fast, and announced a series of good news, boasting of high profits, to attract small-time investors. They are trying to pull up the stock prices, especially the blue chips.

At this moment, Soros and his men used their usual methods to spread negative news about the Thai Government. They said the Thai Government only has slightly more than a few billion USD left in their reserves, and Thai Baht will depreciate by more than 50%. The stock market index will fall below 500 points!

These rumors were shocking, and many people thought it was fake. How can the Thai Government’s foreign reserves be so low? Also, how can the stock market index fall below 500 points? It is currently still at 1,000 points.

The stock prices had fallen slightly, but it had recovered now. The rumors are too childish.

But some people believed in the rumors and started to sell their stocks. The stock index started to fall again.

As the stock index falls, more people start to believe the rumors.

All foreign investors start to withdraw their investments from Thailand’s financial market. Some companies start to sell off their factories and offices at low prices in exchange for USD. They felt that Thai Baht would depreciate, and Thailand’s economy will crash!

Some people, like Basong, still insist those rumors are fake, and only idiots will believe them.

The Thai Government felt it’s easy to crush these rumors. Basong will appear in front of the whole nation to clarify it. Let’s see if the people will believe the rumors, or will they believe the “expert” who had won against those international speculators?

But Basong does not know this was what Feng Yu and Soros wanted. They do not want everyone to leave Thailand’s financial market overnight, or else, the Thai Government will impose some extreme measures.

Also, if the Thai Government lost within two to three days, the rest of the countries in Southeast Asia will not be deeply affected. If the rest of the countries did not get involved, how can Feng Yu and Soros make profits?

Basong is now on Thailand’s news. He still has his confident and arrogant look on his face.

Overconfidence will lead to mistakes.

Thai Baht rates are still fluctuating aggressively, but the stock index is falling slowly.

“Old He, dump 5% more stocks today. Let’s give them some excitement.” Feng Yu ordered.

He Zhaoji nodded and went out to instruct the rest.

Feng Yu took out a can of Qi Li and drank half of it in one gulp. Everything was according to plan.

Feng Yu and Soros were not afraid even if some hiccups happened along the way. They are prepared for all possible scenarios and can react in time.

Maybe Feng Yu and Soros had thought too highly of the Thai Government. The scenarios they had prepared for did not appear. The Thai Government also did not push up Thai Baht rates like crazy.

The previous time, Soros is afraid of getting into a stalemate with the Thai Government because he does not have enough funds. But now, they have enough funds to fight against the Thai Government.

Unknowingly, the Thai Government had used more than 10 billion USD from its reserves to push up their rates. Basong knew Soros had lost the previous time, and this time, he should have prepared more funds.

Basong felt this was normal and even thinks that the longer the stalemate, the more losses Soros will suffer.

Both sides seem to have an agreement not to go all out and want to prolong the stalemate.

But there is a problem with Basong’s strategy. Feng Yu and Soros knew the Thai Government’s strength, but the Thai Government does not know how much funds Feng Yu and Soros have.

Basong thought the strategies he used previously were effective, and he can give Soros a deadly blow any time. But he did not realize that the Thai Foreign reserves are slowly being nibbled away.

When all the foreign reserves are used up, that will be the doom of the Thai Government and the start of the Asian Financial Crisis!

Chapter 919 – Haha, we still have money

“Governor, what should we do? There are rumors about us having not enough funds.”

Basong was worried as this time, the rumors are true. They don’t now have enough funds.

Last year, the Thai Government still had 30 billion USD in its foreign reserves. But since the start of this year, Thailand’s trade had dropped, and they only have around 20 billion USD. Earlier this year, they had also used a portion of it against the Soros. Now, their foreign reserves are running low.

Basong realized he had underestimated Soros and the international speculators. This time, he is not only facing Soros’s Quantum Fund, and there must be another group of people involved in this.

Basong had thought he could hold those international speculators in a stalemate and then crush them in one go. But now, it seems that it will be the Thai Government who will be crushed.

Basong suddenly has an idea. I can also spread rumors against you all.

……

Huh? Is this possible?

Feng Yu was watching Thailand’s news and saw Basong standing in front of the reporters telling them the Thai Government had changed their Yen and Germany’s Mark to USD. With their USD in their foreign reserves, they still have 30 billion, and they will win!

“Brother Feng, Thailand still has Yen and Mark in their reserves?” Fu Guangzheng asked worryingly.

“Yes. In their reserves, they have three types of foreign currencies. But their foreign currencies policy will not allow them to have more than 50% of Yen in their reserves. Their Mark will not be over 10%, and these figures are the maximum.”

“That means they are lying?” Fu Guangzheng was relieved.

“It’s all fake news. They should have finished spending their Yen and Mark a long time ago. Yesterday, they should have used their Yen to pull Thai Baht rates up and used their Mark this morning. They had changed all their foreign currencies to USD to buy Thai Baht. I wonder how did this Basong become the Governor of Thailand’s Central Bank.”

Any currency can be used to buy Thai Baht to push the rates up. It does not have to be USD or Yen. The person who wrote this speech for Basong must be an idiot who is clueless about financial trading!

“Based on your estimations, how much do you think they have in their foreign reserves now?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“It will not be more than 5 billion USD. By tomorrow, they will use up all their money!” After today’s wave of attacks, Thailand will be using their last resort tomorrow.

“That means the winner will emerge tomorrow?” Fu Guangzheng was overjoyed. This is an easy victory, and does that mean his investments in Wind and Rain Consulting Firm will generate returns?

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. “Didn’t I mention this to you before? What will you do if your business has cash flow issues?”

“You are saying that Thailand will get help or borrow money? Do you know which countries they will approach?” Fu Guangzheng remembered Feng Yu had mentioned about this before.

“Most likely it will be Singapore, followed by Japan and Indonesia. After that, they will approach Malaysia and Taiwan. But regardless of the countries, the amount they lend to Thailand will not be significant. Ten billion USD should be their maximum, as these countries also do not have enough foreign reserves themselves. Whichever country that lends Thailand, the money will be our next target!”

The foreign reserves of those countries are not high, and they still dare to lend money to Thailand? This is like seeking death. Lending money to Thailand will not change anything and will increase their country’s risk. The countries that lend Thailand money must be an idiot!

Anyway, Feng Yu had spoken to Iron-fist Zhu about this, and China will not lend a single cent to any Southeast Asian countries these two years.

“Can Soros predict these to happen?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

Feng Yu slapped his forehead. Please… That Soros is the world’s best hedge fund manager. How can he miss something this obvious?

Even if Soros is drunk or had gone senile, the four fund managers under him will also know about this. The rest of the brokers under Soros are also elites.

With your knowledge in financial trading, you still dare to doubt Soros?!

“Don’t think other people are at your level, ok? Do you think Professor Liang does not know about this? Do you think your eldest uncle cannot tell what is going on? You can ask any of the brokers in the main office. Which one of them does not know about this? If you discover any one of them who couldn’t tell the Thai Government is lying, let me know. I will fire him immediately.” Feng Yu replied.

Fu Guangzheng smiled embarrassedly. “I am only asking casually. Err… I shall not bother you. I still have worked at the trading company.”

……

Basong knew the Thai Government does not have enough funds and had wanted to scare Soros away with the fake news. But he realized that it is ineffective. It could only slow down the rate of their stock market falling.

The stock market falling slower is not enough to save their economy. Many foreign investors are still withdrawing their investments, and those international speculators are not stopping at all. They are still dumping Baht. If Thailand still does not find new funds within two days, they are finished.

Basong had no choice but to request the Prime Minister for help. He hopes the Prime Minister will get the rest of the countries in the region to help pull up Baht’s rates or lend a sum of money to Thailand.

Chavalit was still feeling confident after watching the news, and it was only after Basong met him, he realized Thailand is broke!

Chavalit is an Army General and is not good in politics, let alone economics. The news report on TV had fool almost the whole nation, including Chavalit.

“You are saying that if we still cannot borrow a sum of money tomorrow, we will be finished?”

“Yes.”

Chavalit almost took out his gun to execute this damn Basong on the spot! Damn! This situation is so bad, and you are only informing me now? With only one day, even if I can get a loan from other countries, we must pay a heavy price for it.

But Thailand’s losses will be significantly higher if Thailand did not borrow money. Basong told Chavalit that if Baht’s rates plunged, Thailand’s economy would crash, and there will be severe inflation. Just Thailand’s external debt can bankrupt the nation!

“You must hold them off at all costs while I borrow money. If you tell me that it is too late before I can borrow money, I will execute you!” Chavalit was furious.

Basong returned to his office and immediately called for a meeting with economists and financial trading experts. They must find a solution as soon as possible.

Strategies are useful if both sides are on the same level. But if one side is overpowered, strategies can only slow down their defeat.

Soros was holding a glass of champagne. The Thai government does not have money?

Haha… we still have money!

Chapter 920 – Rekindling hope

Thailand’s Prime Minister immediately flew to Singapore. He still must visit Indonesia, Malaysia, and other countries.

Feng Yu saw this news report and knew Thailand’s foreign reserve is empty. Chavalit is visiting the other countries to borrow money. He wonders how much can Chavalit borrow this time.

From the number of countries Chavalit is visiting, he should be going to borrow a large amount.

Feng Yu’s phone rang, and it was Soros.

“George, what is it?”

“Have you watched Thailand’s news? Chavalit is visiting Singapore, followed by a few other countries.” Soros asked.

“Yes. He should be going there to borrow money. Why? You are worried we do not have sufficient funds if Thailand got loans from those countries?”

“I do not have enough funds. Can you raise more funds? If Thailand manages to raise more than 10 billion USD, we will be in danger.” Soros sounded worried.

Huh? Does Soros not have enough funds? Impossible!

Soros was making a comeback and had raised a significant sum of money this time. With Feng Yu’s funds entering the market, it will be enough. Did Soros start to build large portfolios in the other countries?

Feng Yu suddenly felt Soros is lying and want to know if he had hidden any money elsewhere. Maybe he is trying to get Feng Yu to transfer Hong Kong’s funds away, and he can take the opportunity to attack Hong Kong?

It’s possible!

Soros is a cunning old fox, and this is the third time he is attacking Thailand. How can he not be prepared? Feng Yu felt that even if he had not participated this time, Soros and his men would still win.

With Feng Yu participating in the war this time, Soros can short more Thai Baht. He should still have money left!

“I got no more money. I had used all my companies’ shares to get loans, and the interest is very high. If you do not have enough funds, I will cancel all my future contracts tomorrow to stop loose!”

Feng Yu starts to be unreasonable. If you don’t take out more money to win the Thai Government, I will leave. Although I might suffer some losses, you will suffer more!

Feng Yu had nothing to lose. Let’s see who has the upper hand!

Soros backed off. “Feng, don’t be anxious. We might not lose yet, and the Thai Government might not borrow enough money to win us. Although we do not have any funds left, we must stand firm. The Thai Government will use the floating rates to stop losses. This is their last trick, and we will give them a deadly blow when it happens! We will recover all our losses within a day!”

“I hope so. Anyway, I will withdraw immediately if Baht rise above my acceptable range.” Feng Yu did not say what his acceptable range is, but is saying this to threaten Soros.

After hanging up, Soros was troubled. Feng Yu was right about Soros still has sufficient fund, but Soros wanted to build bigger portfolios in the other countries. That’s why he thought of making use of Feng Yu to put in more money.

Now, the more Baht they sold, the more their losses will be. Soros also does not want to lose so much of his own money.

Soros is only testing if Feng Yu still has funds hidden. He felt Feng Yu should have more funds hidden somewhere.

Furthermore, Feng Yu is from Hong Kong, and there are many tycoons like Fu Rongqi there. Feng Yu can easily raise a few billion USD from them.

Soros had found out that Feng Yu is close to the Fu Family and Superman Li. If Feng Yu can rope in these two families, they can win the Thai Government easily.

But Feng Yu did not fall for it, or he is not as close to those two families as the rumors. After all, there is a big age difference between Feng Yu and the heads of those two families. They will not listen to a young brat.

After this phone call, Soros felt Feng Yu is nothing to be afraid of. After sweeping the Asian Countries clean, he will attack Hong Kong, and make Feng Yu lose all his profits from Thailand!

If you refuse to join us, you are my enemy. Weakening my enemy is something I like to do!

Feng Yu and Soros might be cooperating now, but they are wary of each other and might fall out anytime.

They will not fall out anytime soon, as they still have not made any profits yet. But once both have made money, it will be different.

Feng Yu does not like the rest of the countries in Southeast Asia, because once China’s economy grows, China will be a threat to them, and they will surely find ways to stop China.

Feng Yu is a patriotic Chinese, and China’s economy has a direct impact on his businesses. If China is poor, there will be very few Chinese tycoons.

After those countries’ economies had crashed, China’s growth will be faster. Don’t tell me that the US Government is not supporting Soros from the shadows.

These few countries in Southeast Asia are developing rapidly and have many wealthy citizens. This will weaken the US influence on these countries’ citizens.

Only when these countries are undeveloped, the US will be seen as more powerful. This way, the US can keep its seat as the ‘Big Brother’ of the world.

Even the Soviet Union had been disintegrated because of the US. How can the US allow other countries to develop? During this Asian Financial Crisis, the US will also want to suppress China’s economic growth.

To the US, the threat from China is much higher than in Russia. That ‘man’ is still around and will increase the threat against the US. Once China grew stronger, Taiwan will be taken back by force.

Soros is good at using politics to speculate. Feng Yu will never believe that Soros is not related to the US government.

Both the US and China have to benefit from this Asian Financial Crisis. China’s trade with those countries is not high in the first place. Once the international investors noticed China’s economy is developing fast, they will bring their investments to China.

The Chinese Government doesn’t even need to offer subsidies or offer special treatments to them.

……

The next day, Basong appeared in front of the reporters again and started his victory speech. “We had borrowed 7 billion USD from Singapore! Those international speculators will not be a match for us!”

Once this news is reported, the Thais rekindled hope for Thailand’s economy. Some foreign investors who had wanted to leave changed their minds.

Chapter 921 – Resignation

Thailand had asked the Chinese Government for help. Still, China’s reply to Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was: “We will help you contact the International Monetary Fund and will provide aid under their lead. We will donate food, medical, etc. supplies, and export credit to assist you all.”

This reply is perfect. China will assist, but it will not be in time to save Thailand.

Just help us directly. Why do you need to contact the International Monetary Fund? That organization is set up to foster global monetary cooperation and financial aid to countries in poverty. We are also a member of the IMF, and we can contact them ourselves.

If the IMF can assist us, why will we still approach you? Chavalit was furious, but he had no other solutions. He had already borrowed 15 billion USD from some countries in Asia, but this amount will be given to Thailand over some time.

Now, which countries in Southeast Asia have enough foreign reserves to lend Thailand? China, Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong. Japan had rejected Thailand, and Taiwan still has not replied to Chavalit. Hong Kong said they needed time to consider, and only China is the only country that agreed.

Also, China has a representative in the IMF executive board and can help Thailand get help much faster.

Soros started to get worried. If China intervened in this war, he must retreat immediately. China and Hong Kong have more than 100 billion USD each in their foreign reserves. If Taiwan also joins in to assist Thailand, Soros might lose all the money he had used in this war.

Luckily, Feng Yu called Soros and told him that he had convinced the Chinese Government and the Hong Kong Government not to interfere. Both Governments will provide minimal assistance to Thailand, and Soros can go-ahead to increase the amount of Baht dumped.

Of course, this is also a threat from Feng Yu. He is hinting to Soros that he can switch sides anytime and make Soros suffer massive losses.

If Soros wants to get profits, he must increase his investment to suppress Baht’s rates. He can no longer feign ignorance and wait for Feng Yu to dump Baht. Now, Feng Yu can just sit back and watch his profits grow.

“Boss, can Feng be trusted?” Drucken Miller asked.

“It is better to believe him. Tell the rest to watch Feng fund’s movement closely. If he tries to scam us, we will drag him down with us!” Soros replied.

Soros is a proud man and had never been threatened by anyone in the financial market.

Although deep in his heart, Soros felt Feng Yu is not influential enough to convince China and Hong Kong’s Governments. But if China and Taiwan got involved, they can affect the economies of the region. However, both countries are not close to Thailand.

Also, once China and Hong Kong got involved, other countries might take the opportunity to attack Soros, and the international financial organizations will criticize and disrupt his plans.

But even if the possibility is 1%, Soros is not willing to gamble. Furthermore, he can reap the profits even without Feng Yu’s help now.

Now, Feng Yu can stop dumping Baht and can continue to make profits from short position future contracts. This time, Soros will be investing three to four times more than Feng Yu, and his profits are only one time more.

All this while, Soros had always been getting the bigger slice of cake in investment.

Hmph! I will let you win this time. After Thailand’s economy had collapsed, the rest of the countries will be affected, and he will start his attack on Hong Kong!

“Boss, are we going to dump our Baht in Tokyo now?”

“Yes. This is the final battle with Thailand!” Soros snubbed his cigar in anger!

……

“General, a large amount of Baht, is dumped in Tokyo Market. It is too sudden, and we are not prepared for it.” The Finance Minister of Thailand said.

Chavalit smashed his teacup on the floor. “You all are not prepared? What have you all been doing? You are the Finance Minister, and you are not prepared for it? You are no better than Basong!”

The Finance Minister was mad. Am I not better than that idiot, Basong? We had warded off Soros twice using my strategy, and I had been telling you that the banking regulations are too lax. You are the one who chose to believe Basong and refuse my suggestions.

Now, you are trying to push the blame on me?

“What’s wrong? Are you not satisfied? I will give you a chance to resign now. Don’t force me to fire you!” Chavalit roared.

The Finance Minister almost fainted. You want me to resign now? Does that mean I have to bear the full responsibility for this? I also do not want this to happen, and I admit I am partially responsible for it. But you can’t push everything to me!

But the Finance Minister remembered Chavalit is not only the Prime Minister. He is also a General, and his gun is always by his side. More than one government official had been shot for angering him.

The Finance Minister nodded angrily and agreed to shoulder the full responsibility.

“I am very sorry. The Ministry of Finance does not have any money to help our country in this financial crisis. As the Minister of Finance, I will bear full responsibility for what had happened. Our Prime Minister Chavalit had borrowed a large sum of USD, and we will surely win those international speculators. Our country’s economy and financial markets will be back on track! With this, I announce my resignation…”

The Finance Minister looked at the camera listlessly and read his script. He must bear the full responsibility and still suck up to Chavalit.

Actually, what had Chavalit been doing? Since the start of his term, Thailand’s economy had been going downhill, and the Government had been in red!

If the cabinet had noticed this crisis earlier and thought of measures to stop it, will today still be the same?

Finance Minister wept and walked off.

When Feng Yu and Soros saw this news, they were overjoyed. This is a stupid move by the Thai Government.

The country’s Finance Minister’s resignation will not regain the people’s confidence in the Government. Instead, it will be another blow to the economy. Not only will the people lose confidence with the Government, but the remaining foreign investors will also start buying in USD to hedge losses.

Some of those foreign investors will start to short Baht and try to make profits.

Chavalit thought he had borrowed 15 billion USD, and it’s enough for Thailand to last until China’s help arrives. He thought after Hong Kong’s return to China, China’s assistance to Thailand will be arriving through Hong Kong. But now, it seems… Thailand can’t last so long.

Chapter 922 – Family comes to Hong Kong

“Hello, Brother Feng, why are you so anxious? I had picked them up. Don’t worry. It’s a chartered flight flying directly to Hong Kong. I guarantee we will reach in the afternoon.” Fu Guangzheng chatted with Feng Yu for a while more before hanging up. He turned to Feng Xingtai. “Uncle Feng, Xiao Yu is too busy. That’s why I had come to pick all of you.”

Feng Xiantai was unhappy. Feng Yu said he would fetch them to Hong Kong to watch the handing over ceremony. But in the end, he did not return and asked his business partner to go on his behalf.

If it weren’t for the other relatives and friends, Feng Xingtai would have snatched the phone and gave this brat a scolding. Stop thinking of money every day.

“Uncle Feng, I have a secret to tell you, and you must keep it to yourself. Xiao Yu is helping the Country to make money now.” Fu Guangzheng said secretively.

Yes. Feng Yu had said he would invest all his profits from this crisis in China. This is considered making money for the Country, right? Of course, he is also helping Fu Guangzheng make money. If not, he will not travel to Bing City to fetch Feng Yu’s family.

This is a big family. Luckily Fu Guangzheng had chartered a bigger plane, or it will not be enough. Relatives are fine, but why are the neighbors included?!

Feng Yu’s grandfather is still healthy and can fly. But even when he is healthy, Feng Yu still arranged for two accompanying doctors. These two doctors were thrilled. They get to travel to Hong Kong to watch the handover and flag-raising ceremony. This is a once in the lifetime opportunity. It’s even better than going to Tiananmen in Beijing to watch the flag rising!

Feng Xingtai heard this and immediately felt proud. My son is helping the country, and it’s fine to work hard!

“Uncle Feng, I had postponed my wedding with Han Han to accompany you to watch Hong Kong’s return.” Wen Dongjun said. Wen Dongjun had returned to Bing City from Beijing for this flight.

Feng Xingtai laughed and slapped Wen Dongjun’s back. “Get lost. You should consider yourself lucky. But your father is too unlucky. What’s so good about being a civil servant? He couldn’t even get the approval to travel overseas.”

Wen Deguang is now a high ranking official, and it’s not easy for him to travel overseas. It’s the same for Zhang Han’s father. They can only watch the live telecast.

“Enough. The whole plane can hear from you. It’s taking off soon. Hurry and buckle your seatbelt.” Zhang Muhua said.

“It’s alright. Xiao Fu and said this is a chartered flight. We can fly whenever we want.” Feng Xingtai retorted.

“That’s right. It doesn’t matter if there is a slight delay.” Feng Yu had called to arrange for this flight, and Fu Guangzheng was there only to accompany them.

But the takeoff time is fixed, and it’s not like they can fly whenever they want. Fu Guangzheng said this was to go along with Feng Xingtai.

If it were two months ago, Fu Guangzheng would not humor old people like this. In the past, his relationship with his father was bad. If he had not known Feng Yu, he will not be successful and will still be a bad example for all Hong Kong’s influential family second generation.

But after Fu Guangzheng got to know Professor Liang and met Liang Yin, he learned how to humor old people. To Feng Yu’s surprise, Fu Guangzheng stops fooling around with other women in Hong Kong.

However, Feng Yu does not know if Fu Guangzheng had behaved himself in China and will not comment. He knows Fu Guangzheng will fly to China every week and looks ‘fresh’ after he returned. He must have several women in China.

Fu Guangzheng had properties in almost all major cities in China, and Feng Yu will never believe his reason for ‘not used to stay in hotels.’

But at least Fu Guangzheng acts like an upright and righteous man in front of Liang Yin and Professor Liang. However, he still has not made any progress with Liang Yin.

“Uncle Dongjun, tell me a story!” Li Chixing grabbed Wen Dongjun’s arm.

The excitement on Wen Dongjun’s face disappear. “Chixing… can you ask your father to tell you the story?”

“No. Dad’s stories are not interesting.” Li Chixing shook his head and grabbed onto Wen Dongjun’s arm tightly.

Wen Dongjun turned to Feng Danying for help. “Sister Ying…”

Feng Danying laughed. “You are a university graduate, and you don’t even know how to tell stories?”

Wen Dongjun: “……” Which school will teach storytelling? Also, why does everyone thinks university graduate knows everything?! What’s wrong with graduates?!

Zhang Han held back her laughter and carried Li Chixing onto her lap. “Don’t worry. After takeoff, your Uncle Dongjun will tell you a story.”

Wen Dongjun looked at Zhang Han angrily. Why are you not helping your husband? We had registered our marriage, and you cannot treat me this way!

“What story do you want to hear?” Wen Dongjun asked. He needs time to make up a story.

“Anything!”

Wen Dongjun sulked. He is afraid of getting this answer when he asked questions. Luckily, he had worked as a secretary for a leader before and is good at writing. If not, it will be hard to make up a story in a short time.

But ‘anything’ is too general. What if Li Chixing does not want to hear the story?

Zhang Han is good with kids and asked. “Have you heard the story, Havoc in Heaven?”

“Yes. I had also watched the cartoon.” Li Chixing said unhappily. His father had always told him this story, and he can even memorize it!

“What about Zhu Bajie creating havoc in heaven?”

Wen Dongjun’s eyes opened wide in shock. Huh? Zhu Bajie creating havoc in heaven?! What the hell is that?

Li Chixing brightened up and said excitedly. “Zhu Bajie creating havoc in heaven? I had not heard of this story. I want to listen to this story!”

Zhang Han smiled and looked at Wen Dongjun. It’s up to you to make up the story. You had worked as a secretary before and don’t tell me you don’t know how to make up stories. You had always bragged in front of me!

The rest of the people looked at Wen Dongjun’s helpless look, laughed.

This young boy had got up very early today, but he doesn’t seem tired. Wen Dongjun had no choice but to try his best to make up a story for him. About half an hour later, the flight stewardess came to his rescue by serving food.

……

Feng Yu was standing at the airport and looking at his watch. A few luxurious buses were parked beside him, and there are a few custom-made Songjiang – Red Star too. His grandfather is too old and is not suitable for traveling on buses.

The flight landed, and Feng Xingtai was the walk to the cabin door with Feng Yu’s grandfather. The rest followed behind.

Feng Xingtai and Feng Yu’s grandfather looked out of the cabin door and saw the city lights in the distance. We will be watching Hong Kong’s return to China!

Chapter 923 – Hong Kong’s Return

Warning: Extreme Chinese propaganda. This chapter is the author sucking up to his Government with his fantasy. You can skip this if you want, as this chapter has nothing to do with the main storyline.

“What is wrong with you? We have so many relatives and friends here, and you had only arranged for these few seats?” Feng Xingtai scolded.

“Dad, this is a meeting room, and have limited seats. Reporters from all over the world are here, and there are representatives and leaders from many countries. Even the representatives from the US don’t have so many seats! Our meeting room has the best view.”

More than 8,000 reporters are in Hong Kong to cover this story. The number of reporters is almost the same as the Olympic Games, and there are limited seats. Even Feng Yu and the rest of the younger generations had to stand behind.

Feng Xingtai felt better when he heard the US representatives don’t have as many seats as him. Anyway, it’s fine for his friends and relatives to stand outside to watch the ceremony. My son is so capable of getting these seats.

Feng Yu was here to attend the ceremony, but he still arranged his brokers from New York to watch the market closely. After all, they are not interested in the handover and are more concerned about making money.

This time, Feng Yu was not only using his money to invest, and nothing must go wrong!

……

June 30th, 2342 hrs. The handover ceremony started!

2356 hrs. Flag carriers from both countries appeared, and all the spectators stood up to watch the flagpoles.

2359 hrs. The British and Hong Kong flags were lowered. Many spectators were excited as they look at the flags being lowered. Some British were weeping as it will be a great loss of income for them!

At exactly 0000 hrs., the Chinese National Anthem started, and all the Chinese, including the Leaders from the Chinese Government, sang it proudly. Along with the anthem, the Chinese and Hong Kong flags rise slowly.

Feng Yu and the rest looked at their National flag and sang the anthem at the top of their voice. He could even hear his grandfather singing in his hoarse voice.

When the anthem ends, the crowd cheered. Feng Yu’s parents were clapping like crazy.

Although China still has not recovered all its lost territory, this is the first step to victory. Feng Yu thought he would not be so excited as he had gone through this once in his previous life. But at this moment, his tears still welled up in his eyes.

Li Na’s tears were flowing down. Chinese patriotism is embedded in every Chinese, and it’s like a religion.

Wen Dongjun, who was standing beside, was crying loudly, and Zhang Han still had to wipe his tear with a handkerchief.

Feng Yu’s grandfather was also crying, as he had finally lived to see this happening before his eyes, and is an important occasion for him!

Cameras flashed non-stop, and Feng Yu passed his handkerchief to his grandfather as his grandfather’s handkerchief was already soaked.

Feng Yu noticed many Hong Kongers are also crying. They had not forgotten Hong Kong is part of China.

Today, Hong Kong had finally returned to China, and everyone is excited. If it weren’t for many reporters around, everyone would be celebrating like crazy.

President Jiang walked up the podium, and everyone can tell from his expression that he is very excited. He is representing China to announce Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.

In his speech, President Jiang said this is an important occasion for all Chinese and will be recorded in history!

Of course, in his speech, President Jiang also mentioned the Chief Architect. The Chief Architect is the one who comes up with the ‘one country two systems’ model and had participated in the negotiations.

At this moment, the ‘Old Man’ is sitting in front of the TV like the other Chinese, watching the live ceremony telecast.

This national event is more significant than the Lunar New Year. Young and Old are sitting in front of their TV to watch it.

There are no skits and no celebrities singing pop songs, but this live telecast had record-breaking viewership!

Fireworks started on the coast of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, everywhere in China, people start to set off fireworks.

Along the streets in China, people start to celebrate, and Hong Kong’s return to China is the only topic they are talking about.

All the workers and their family members in Bing City Machinery Company, Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics Factory, etc. are watching the ceremony in their factory’s main hall.

When the National Anthem started earlier, all of them sang along loudly.

Li Mingde stood on the stage and announced. “Other than giving you all a day off tomorrow, every worker will receive a 500 RMB Tai Hua Supermarket, Shopping Card.”

Now, Tai Hua Supermarket has branches in many cities. Some cities only have a supermarket instead of a Hyper-mart, but the sales are still outstanding.

The workers had just received last month’s bonus, and now, they are receiving a shopping card! They are overjoyed!

All of Feng Yu’s companies are the same, and even Lehaha and Jianlibao also gave out benefits to their workers.

Many overseas Chinese, who watched the ceremony, thought of returning to China.

China is strong now, and the overseas Chinese start to miss their hometown.

Hong Kong’s return is a calling to the overseas Chinese.

Today, it is a sleepless night for many people.

Chapter 924 – Floating Rates

“This is your company? Why are there so many people cramped in this small office, and it’s still so messy?” Feng Xingtai criticized when he visits Wind and Rain Consulting Firm.

“Dad, I am trying to save space. Do you know how expensive is the rents in Hong Kong?”

“How expensive is it? Can it be more expensive than Beijing?”

“It’s eight times of Beijing!” Feng Yu said.

“Huh?! This run-down place and building cost eight times more than Beijing? This is daylight robbery! You this good for nothing, son! Why did you get such an expensive office?!” Feng Xingtai almost jumped on Feng Yu.

“That’s why I had bought this building two years ago and had rented out most of the offices.”

Feng Xingtai immediately smiles. “Ah… Does this building belong to us? High rentals are understandable, as Hong Kong is a small place after all!”

Feng Yu smiled and shook his head at his father’s sudden change of attitude.

“Dad, I will be busy these few days, and Guangzheng will accompany you all around Hong Kong. I can only visit you all at night.”

Thailand’s Government cannot last any longer and will adopt that ‘apparently correct’ measure anytime. After that, Thai Baht will plunge.

Now, Thai Baht rates against the USD had dropped to 28:1. Tonight, it might plunge further as the Thai Government had already used up all the money they had borrowed. But they were still no match for Soros and his men.

Feng Yu must monitor the market closely before the Thai Government implemented new measures.

“Ok. I can understand you are doing this for the country.” Feng Xingtai moved closer and said softly.

Feng Yu was puzzled. For the country? I am making money for myself. Feng Yu noticed Fu Guangzheng winking at him and did not say anything.

All offices look the same, and there’s nothing interested. Feng Xingtai stayed in the office for a while and was brought away by Fu Guangzheng. The rest were waiting for him, and they had come to Hong Kong as a tour group.

Li Na’s parents were with them, but they did not go to the office. They remained in the vehicles with Li Na.

Feng Yu had impressed Li Na’s father this time. Li Na and Li Shiqiang had given up their seats for them during the ceremony.

Li Na’s father had approved Feng Yu now. He felt Feng Yu is a good man and took care of good them.

Feng Yu asked Li Na’s parents to stop working and move to Beijing. But Li Na’s father refused. It’s not that he does not want to leave his job or go to Beijing. He did not want to live with his son-in-law and to be seen as someone taking advantage of Feng Yu. How will others look at him, especially Feng Yu and Li Na are not married yet?!

If Li Na’s father is retired now, and Feng Yu and Li Na have children, he doesn’t mind moving to Beijing to take care of his grandchildren.

“Boss, you are so lucky. My parents are not around when I become successful.” He Zhaoji sighed.

“Then you must work harder for your wife and children. After this round, you will have enough money to retire immediately!” Feng Yu patted He Zhaoji on his shoulder and said.

“I still do not want to retire so early. If you don’t fire me, I can still work for a few years.” He Zhaoji laughed.

“No problem. Work hard, and I will take care of all of you. Get ready, all our Thai Baht. Once the Thai Government announced, they will switch to floating exchange rates, quickly dump them with Soros. We must break the people’s confidence in the Thai Government!”

“We are already prepared and are waiting for the announcement.”

Yesterday, all of them were watching the handover ceremony, and everyone’s eyes are still red from lack of sleep.

Their office is different from other offices. Most offices have coffee machines or tea, but their office uses blue canned Qili drinks. This beverage is an energy booster.

……

“General, we can only use this method now. We can’t borrow any more money, and Thai Baht will continue to drop. Our Fixed Exchange rate can’t work anymore.” Basong suggested.

Fixed Exchange Rates had failed, and they had used up all the money they had borrowed. If the money they borrowed was transferred to them at once, they could still struggle for a while more. But the funds they borrowed had come in batches.

Now, the Thai Government can only give up on Fixed exchange rates for Floating exchange rates to attract more investors to buy Baht, and it’s the only way to deal with Soros.

This method is digging their graves. Although it seems to be a good solution, it is useless.

This is the Thai Government’s last resort. They felt that because of supply and demand, there should be a shortage of Baht in the market as they had bought a significant amount of Baht.

This way, Soros will be facing not only the Thai Government, and the Thai Government will not be restricted within the confines of Fixed exchange rates.

Most importantly, Thailand had an agreement with many countries in Southeast Asia. Those countries have a large amount of Baht in their reserves, and if they don’t want to lose money, they must help to pull up Baht’s value.

Basong felt this method would force the other countries to join them against Soros. Although this will not let Baht’s rates return immediately, at least it will stop it from dropping further.

If Baht’s rates fall below 30:1, then Thailand will go into hyperinflation!

“Are you sure this will stop Baht from depreciating?” Chavalit asked suspiciously.

“This is our last resort. Floating exchange rates will adjust itself based on market events, and it is useful to control large scale financial crisis. It is suitable for a situation like ours.”

What Basong said are the theoretical advantages of the Floating exchange rates. But given his level of expertise, floating rates will cause more damage to their economy and exposed all the problems within Thailand’s economy!

But luckily for Basong, Chavalit knows nothing about these. The newly appointed Finance Minister knew about the consequences of using Floating rates, but he does not have any other solutions. As such, he chose to keep quiet, and he does not want to be a scapegoat like his predecessor.

If this measure works, the newly appointed Finance Minister can get some credit. But if it fails, Basong will be responsible!

“Alright. If Thai Baht continues to fall tomorrow, announce that we will be adopting the Floating rates system. The Thai Government will no longer regulate the rates!” Chavalit made his decision. Although he does not know about finance, he knows that without regulations, it will be more dangerous.

But in the current situation, Chavalit had no other choices.

Floating exchange rate

Chapter 925 – Thai Baht dives

Thai Baht will be switching to Floating rates!

Feng Yu and Soros burst out in laughter when they heard about this.

That’s right. Although this measure can hold off Feng Yu and Soros for the time being. But Basong had not considered that even if Feng Yu and Soros stop dumping Baht, not a lot of people will buy Baht. How can the Baht’s rates rise when no one is buying them?

This method can only slow down the collapse of Thailand’s economy. At least, Thailand’s property prices will be stabilized.

These two months, Thailand’s property prices had been fluctuating. The fluctuation is not as bad as the stock market and Baht, but it had an impact on Thailand’s economy.

Once Thailand’s property market collapse, Thailand will follow Japan’s footsteps. All the wealth accumulated over the years will vanish before their eyes.

“Boss, Thai Baht is starting to fall. There are no large quantity orders, but multiple orders are dumping Baht. It should be those foreign banks in Thailand.” He Zhaoji reported.

“Guess how much will Baht fall today.” Feng Yu smiled while asking.

Yesterday, Thai Baht was pulled up for the last time to 26.4:1. But today, the Thai Government announced they would be switching to Floating rates as they do not have any money to prevent Baht from depreciating. They will let the market determine the rates of Baht.

“It should be around 10%.” He Zhaoji gave a conservative answer.

“You don’t need to be so conservative. How much do you think it will plunge?” Feng Yu was in a good mood and wanted to share his happiness with someone.”

“I think it will be over 15%!” He Zhaoji replied.

15% plunge, and the rates will be nearing 30:1!

“I think it might be around 30% or even more.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, it was a single drop of 17% in a single day. This time, with his participation and Soros, had prepared more money, Thai Baht will plummet even more!

He Zhaoji was shocked. Does Boss think that it will be over 30:1?! If the rates reach 30:1, they will recover their capital if they cancel all their futures contracts. If Baht falls lower than this, their profits will be higher.

In the future, they will be looking at profits every day, and it’s up to them when they cancel their contracts.

“You don’t believe me? It’s fine. Just continue to dump stocks today and ignore Baht. You will know if I am right at night!”

Boss’s confidence had convinced everyone. He Zhaoji had seen this confident look on his Boss’s face several times. Every time Feng Yu shows this expression, his prediction will come true in the end.

He Zhaoji had joined Wind and Rain Consulting firm because the salary package is much better than what he was getting when he was a broker. Also, he wanted to learn from Feng Yu. At first, he was not convinced that Feng Yu was better than him, as Feng Yu was very young. But after several times, he was convinced Feng Yu is a genius in financial trading!

He Zhaoji had still wanted to say something, Fu Guangzheng knocked on the door and ran in.

Feng Yu stood up immediately. Fu Guangzheng was supposed to be bringing his parents around Hong Kong. Why did he return?

“Brother Feng, Thai Baht is now Floating rates?” Fu Guangzheng panted and asked.

“Did something happen to my parents?” Feng Yu asked at the same time.

“Your parents are fine. They had returned for a nap. I heard about the changes to Thai Baht and rushed here to ask you.” Fu Guangzheng knew the reason why Feng Yu stood up suddenly. He had thought Feng Yu stood up to share the good news with him.

Feng Yu sat down again.

“That’s right. Thai Baht is now on the Floating rates system. This change will bring along significant side effects. If Thailand’s economy is in good condition, it will not be a problem. But now, Thailand’s economy is under attack, and changing this policy will not be effective. You don’t need to worry as Thai Baht will plunge to more than 40:1 next month!” Feng Yu leaned back on his chair and said.

“How much? 40:1? Will it depreciate that low? How much will we make?” Fu Guangzheng was overjoyed. It was better than he imagined.

“We bought those future contracts when Baht is at 25:1. After that, we continue to buy in more future contracts, and the average is around 27:1. The leverage is at 12 times. How much do you think we will make?” Feng Yu asked Fu Guangzheng back.

Feng Yu did not say how much they had spent and only wanted to tease Fu Guangzheng.

Fu Guangzheng’s math is good. “That means we can earn more than 150 Baht for every USD? This is around 34 USD! Our profits are so high?!”

Feng Yu knew Fu Guangzheng would only look at the profits without considering their capital. He wonders why Fu Guangzheng is still so ignorant even when he has an uncle named Fu Rongqi. He is also sticking by Professor Liang’s side every day now and should be better.

“You did not consider how much we had put in. The money we had used to create this, are all from loans, and have you thought about our daily interest? Have you taken the losses from dumping stocks into consideration?” Feng Yu smiled.

Fu Guangzheng was stunned and asked weakly. “We had spent so much? Then do we still have profits?”

“If Thai Baht plunged to 40:1, our profits will be more than 100%. It might even reach 120%. But our profits will mainly depend on our stock index futures. After all, we had been focusing on the stock market.

100%? Will we double our money? After deducting the 30% commission to Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng’s returns will still be a lot.

Fu Guangzheng had told his eldest uncle to join the war, but his uncle refused. He wonders if his uncle will regret his decision.

“What is Thai Baht’s rate now?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

Feng Yu looked at his monitor. “It’s 27.4:1, and it is still falling.”

“Does that mean we will be making money every day from now onwards?” Fu Guangzheng asked excitedly.

“How long will it take for Thai Baht to fall to 40:1? It should drop to 30:1 today or tomorrow, but I am sure there will be a rebound. After that, we don’t need to do anything as Soros will settle it for us. But we must still work on the stock market, and within this week, we will focus on the Singapore market.”

“Ah? We are still not done with Thailand, and we are going to attack Singapore?”

“These countries are interrelated, and you can see it from Singapore’s currency fluctuations. When we suppress Singapore currency, it will also set off a chain reaction. At that time, we can profit from both markets.”

“We will be fighting both sides at the same time. Do we have enough funds?”

“Hahaha… Don’t worry about this. Do you know what large-scale panic? Have you heard of the bandwagon effect? We don’t need to invest a lot when we try to pull down SGD, and we can settle some of our future contracts earlier to raise funds.”

That night, Thai Baht plunged to 31.6:1, and then rebound slightly. No one thinks that Baht can recover from this, and it will plummet!

Chapter 926 – Abnormal Hang Seng Index

Feng Yu was walking along a corridor of a hotel discreetly at night.

Room 806. This is the room.

Feng Yu knocked three long and two short knocks on the door lightly.

Click. The door opened, and Feng Yu quickly enter before anyone can see him, and close the door behind him.

“I’m here. Did you miss me?” Feng Yu pressed Li Na against the wall.

“You dare to come? My parents are just next door.” Li Na softly said.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of. They should be tired after a long day and should be sleep now. Wait for me. I will take a shower first.” Feng Yu pinched Li Na’s chin lightly and kissed her.

In the day, Feng Yu can only hold Li Na’s hands, and if he wants to do anything else, Li Na’s father will purposely cough loudly. He had wanted to come over last night but failed. During dinner today, he whispered to Li Na about the ‘door knock code’ and left.

An hour later, Li Na gave Feng Yu a push. “You better go back now. What if other people see us together in the room?”

“Just let them say whatever they want. Everyone knows our relationship in any way.” Feng Yu said and continue hugging Li Na.

“No. You must leave now. We have so many of our friends and relatives here. Hurry up.” Li Na dragged Feng Yu up.

“Alright… I will return to my room. You must let me wear my clothes first.” Feng Yu was speechless. Although China had opened up, many Chinese are still very conservative, and Relatives and friends will gossip behind their backs.

Li Na opened the door softly and stick her head out. After she was sure there are no one around, she pushed Feng Yu out and quickly shut her door. Feng Yu walked back to his room slowly, regretting his decision to arrange Li Na’s room to be on the same floor with the rest of relatives.

In the morning, Li Na, her parents, and the rest continued with their tour of Hong Kong, while Feng Yu returned to his office to check on Thai Baht.

Yes. Thai Baht fell slightly again. Although it did not fall much, Feng Yu and his men do not need to dump Thai Baht now. Baht will depreciate by itself, as the market can no longer help with the rates!

Many international investors noticed after Thailand switched to Floating rates, the artificially inflated economy was exposed, and they start to short Thai Baht!

In the end, these international investors start to attack Thai Baht. Feng Yu and Soros had stopped dumping Baht now, but Thai Baht was still falling. Even though the fall is not a lot, but there are no signs of Baht rebounding.

“Feng, we don’t need to do anything to Thai Baht now. I will be attacking Singapore currency next. Are you with us?”

“Sure. I am thinking about this too.”

Singapore had used their foreign reserves to help Thailand pull up Baht’s rates one and had lent Thailand a sum of money. They thought Thailand would win Soros and the international speculators, but Soros won in the end, and Thai Baht is depreciating. With Thailand losing this war, Soros and his men are starting to make money!

Now, a new problem arises. Singapore does not have a high foreign reserve in the first place, and after helping Thailand and lending them money, their reserve is running low. There is a bigger problem. The countries in the region are unable to lend Singapore money, and no countries are willing to help them. It’s every country for themselves!

Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand have strong economic ties, and this is the reason why this region’s economy developed rapidly in the past decade.

But the consequences of having strong economic ties is the domino effect. When one country becomes successful, its allies will benefit from it. For example, real estate and finance sectors. However, when one country’s economy in the region deteriorates, the rest will be affected.

Thailand’s finance and real estate sector had developed at high speed, and the rest of the countries in Southeast Asia are the same.

But now, Thailand’s finance sector had collapsed suddenly, and Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, etc. are impacted. The first area affected is the currencies. Their currencies’ rates will plunge like Baht.

These countries had developed quickly together, and with Thailand’s economy collapsing, all these countries will be dragged into recession.

“Boss, something is not right.” He Zhaoji reported.

Huh? What is wrong? Feng Yu looks at He Zhaoji.

“What is it?”

“Boss, Hong Kong’s economy has close ties with those countries, but the Hang Seng index is rising. This is abnormal!”

Hong Kong is using the Linked exchange rate system, and it is linked to USD. When the USD rate increases, HKD will increase. The exchange rate is now 7.5 HKD: 1 USD and HKD circulation in the region is second to Yen.

But under normal circumstances, HKD should also be affected. Although Hong Kong has measures in place, it should only stabilize the rates. Why are the stock prices rising?

Feng Yu frowned. Hong Kong stocks are rising, and it is abnormal. Even if the stock prices did not fall because of Thailand, it should not have many fluctuations. After Hong Kong’s return to China, it should be normal for the stock prices to fall slightly, as China’s financial sector is not as developed as Hong Kong and Britain. Some investors should be dumping their shares. Why are people buying in the shares at this time?

Do the investors think that Hong Kong will prosper after its return to China? Or do they think that Thailand’s economy will have no impact on Hong Kong?

Wait. Someone is purposely pushing up the stock prices!

“Do you know how much foreign funds had entered Hong Kong’s market?” Feng Yu asked.

“We cannot get this information, but the Fu Family should know about this.”

“Ok. Monitor SGD now. Starting from tomorrow, we will start to buy in short position SGD future contracts, and start dumping SGD.”

He Zhaoji left, and Feng Yu called Fu Rongqi.

“Nephew Feng, why are you calling me at this hour? What is it?”

“Uncle, have you notice Hong Kong shares are rising recently?” Feng Yu asked.

“You are saying someone is inflating the share prices? I noticed this too, and we suspect some speculators are purposely pushing up the stock prices and shorting on Hang Seng index!” Fu Rongqi had noticed this in the morning and is discussing it with Professor Liang and the rest now.

“It must be Soros and not other speculators! He is insistent on attacking Hong Kong!” Feng Yu coldly said.

“Don’t worry. We are around and are about to act. This is a good time to liquidate some of our shares as the prices are high. The Quantum Fund is trying to attack so many Southeast Asian countries at once. Soros is looking down on us!”

Chapter 927 – Invest rationally

Fu Rongqi had noticed about the abnormalities in the Hang Seng Stock market. Because of his relationship with the Head of the Hong Kong financial market, he managed to get accurate statics.

Fur Rongqi and Superman Li suggest to Hong Kong’s financial regulatory body to prepare for Thailand’s financial crisis and implement measures to protect Hong Kong.

Feng Yu knows that for the next two to three months, Soros will not have funds to attack Hong Kong. If he attacks Hong Kong, his funds will be stuck in the Hong Kong market and will miss the opportunity to make money from the other countries’ currencies.

Soros is someone who sees money as the top priority. If he can make a lot of money easily, he will not miss it. He will only point his guns in Hong Kong after he had suppressed the Southeast Asian currencies.

To win so many countries, it will take at least two to three months. What Feng Yu needs to do now is to analyze which country’s currency will plunge the most and fastest. He will short that currency in large amounts and try to make the most out of it.

When Feng Yu was attacking Thai Baht, he had used his hidden funds to buy in a large volume of future forex contracts in several countries. But he did not build a big short position future contract portfolio on SGD.

SGD is a strong currency like HKD. Before Thailand’s economic crisis this time, Singapore had undergone adjustments to its financial markets, and Singapore’s banks do not have as many bad debts as Thailand.

Feng Yu had ranked the countries in Southeast Asia. Macau, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan are the hardest to attack. Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and South Korea are the easiest. China and North Korea, their financial systems had developed much later and have closed-door policies, and it is the hardest to attack. Yes. North Korea’s economy is the most stable because they don’t even have a stock market!

Feng Yu and Soros start to move. They quickly build up short position future contracts on SGD and sell off the SGD they borrowed for USD.

After that, they used their USD to buy in SGD and repeat the process again and again. This had a strong impact on SGD rates.

Singapore is using a Managed floating rate system, and this system makes the SGD more resistant to external factors. The SGD will adjust its rates quarterly and will adjust its foreign reserve proportion. When SGD is adjusting their rates, they will use the Crawling Peg system to lower risk.

This arrangement will protect the rates, lower the impact from external factors, and prevent inflation.

If Singapore had not buy-in several billion USD worths of Baht and cause SGD rates to fall, Soros would not pick SGD to attack.

Thailand had dragged Singapore down with them and gave Soros and Feng Yu this opportunity.

Soros told Feng Yu that SGD would be affected, and he forecast SGD will fall more than 20% in the coming days.

Feng Yu laughed it off. With Singapore’s Forex policies, I can still believe SGD will plunge by 20% at the end of the year. But to fall more than 20% in the coming days? You must be trying to trick me again!

Soros told Feng Yu this was to trick Feng Yu get his funds stuck in SGD, while he makes money in the other countries. If Feng Yu bet heavily on shorting SGD, he will suffer losses, and this is what Soros wanted.

The Asian Financial Crisis cannot be prevented now, and Soros does not need Feng Yu’s help anymore. Many international speculators are following the trend, and his Quantum Fund will lead them to attack those countries’ currencies.

Of course, Soros is not confident that Feng Yu will fall for his lies. After all, during their attack on Thai Baht, he had noticed Feng Yu and his team are elites. They had made many accurate decisions.

Feng Yu might also have the support of Hong Kong’s tycoons and can easily escape with their help.

But if Feng Yu sought help from those tycoons, Soros will be happier. This way, the threat in Hong Kong will be lowered, and it will be easier to attack.

Many Hong Kongers are unaware that Soros had started his attack on Hong Kong. But he did not suppress HKD or the stock market. He had pushed up Hong Kong’s stocks.

By the time Soros pushed the stock market to a historical high, he should have reaped the profits from Malaysia, the Philippines, and the other countries. It’s just in time to use the profits from those countries to attack Hong Kong’s financial market.

When that happens, The Hang Seng index will crash. Even when the HKD maintained its rates, but Soros will still make a killing from the stock market. It will even be better if he can drag China down with Hong Kong.

China’s financial market started very late and have few financial experts. If Soros can enter the Chinese financial market, he can make at least a few billion USD.

Soros can even make China’s economic collapse, and no other country can threaten the US’s status as the world’s leader.

Every few years, Soros can pick and choose a country to attack its financial system and increase his wealth. He will forever be a legend in the finance industry!

Oh, Feng Yu had started to build his future contracts against SGD. But the amount is not too big. Is he testing the market?

Fine. I will trick him into thinking that I will be going all out against SGD and will be shorting SGD in large amounts. After I successfully withdraw from the Singapore market, Feng Yu’s funds will be stuck there.

“Boss, the Quantum Fund is increasing its portfolio. Should we follow them?” He Zhaoji asked.

“What’s your opinion?” Feng Yu asked him back.

“I think we should not follow him. Singapore is using the Managed Float system, and we can make a profit from it, but the profit is not high. I think the Indonesia market is more vulnerable, and this is what we had discussed.” He Zhaoji replied.

“Hahaha. That’s right. You all have the same idea as me. But we must still increase our funds for the Singapore market slightly, as Soros will increase his investment into the Singapore market. Use 10% more of our funds to short SGD, and see if Soros will follow.”

Soros is trying to make Feng Yu increase the amount he short for SGD. But Feng Yu is trying to do the same to Soros too. By continuing to issue orders, the profits will get lower, and risk will increase. To minimize the risk, more funds must be used to hedge against it.

Soros can see this, but does he thinks I don’t know about it? Do you want to trick me? I also want to trick you.

Although Feng Yu knows that both he and Soros will not suffer any losses by doing this, but using so many funds on SGD will lower their profits in the other markets. This is also considered a loss.

After Feng Yu increases 10% of his funds, Soros continued to increase his future contracts. He is determined to lead Feng Yu into this trap.

But Feng Yu smiled and instructed He Zhaoji. That’s everything we will be using on SGD. We must be rational when it comes to investment!

Chapter 928 – Fu Rongqi can’t wait

“Professor Liang, I think it’s time to dump our stocks and stop the abnormalities in the stock market.” Fu Rongqi took a sip of coffee and said.

“Oh? Mr. Fu is unable to tolerate any longer?” Professor Liang had noticed the problems in Hong Kong’s stock market and felt it would be better to dump their shares when the price is higher. It will be fine if they do it before Soros.

“I am afraid there will be a huge dive if the price increases further. International speculators had entered Hong Kong’s financial market now, and they can cushion the fall.”

Fu Rongqi had been unhappy with these international speculators. Do they dare to create trouble in Hong Kong?! We will trap their money here and make them pay!

“I agree with Mr. Fu. What about the rest?” Professor Liang nodded and looked at the rest of the tycoons.

Li Zekai, who is representing Superman Li, said. “My father says we will follow Uncle Fu and Professor Liang’s lead. Since this is what you all suggested, we will do as you say. But can we don’t dump all our stocks at once to prevent the market from crashing?”

“Of course. We still want to lure those international speculators in. What about the rest? Does anyone object to this decision?” Fu Rongqi looked at the rest.

No one objected, and everyone agreed.

Fu Rongqi nodded. Now, he had become the leader of the Hong Kong tycoons, and it was a terrific feeling!

Don’t think these top tycoons do not have any goals. Even at Fu Rongqi’s age, hee still have a target. Superman Li’s family is not as wealthy as the Fu Family, but he is crowned at Hong Kong’s top richest man, and Fu Rongqi felt sore about this.

The next day, Fu Rongqi and the rest of the tycoons start to sell their Hong Kong shares, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index starts to fall.

Feng Yu looked at the market charts and knew Fu Rongqi, and the rest are starting to sell stocks for cash. Are they not willing to wait anymore and want to join the war?

The Hang Seng index had risen to almost 14,000 over the past few days. During this time, when all the other economies in the region are not doing well, Hong Kong really stood out.

This had attracted a lot of ‘Hot money,’ and many investors felt the Hong Kong stock market would not dive anytime soon. They will bet on the index rising further to make some profits.

But to everyone’s surprise, the Hang Seng index started to fall. Until trading close, it did not recover.

……

“Boss, something is wrong with the Hong Kong stock market. We had tried to push Hang Seng index up, but it fell today!” Drucken Miller reported.

“How many points did it fall?”

“56 points. But I feel something is off. At this time, the index should not fall.”

“Your suspicion is correct. We are trying to push up Hong Kong’s stock index, and with so many funds entering Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index should not fall. Is there a large volume of stocks being dump?”

“This is where the problem lies. There are no large scale selling of stocks, but from our calculations, more than 1 billion HKD worth of stocks are sold to make Hang Seng index fall by 56 points.”

“Have you check if any companies are issuing shares to raise money?” Soros asked.

Drucken Miller left, and Soros was deep in thoughts. What went wrong? Has Hong Kong Monetary Authority discovered they are pushing up the Hang Seng index secretly? Drucken Miller is not confident about this, or are these normal fluctuations?

Compared to the Hang Seng index’s 14,000 points, dropping 56 points is normal and should be normal.

Soros is not in a good mood today. It is not because of the Hang Seng index, but because Feng Yu had not fallen for his bait.

Soros had built a large amount worth of future contracts on SGD and thought Feng Yu would follow him. But to his surprise, Feng Yu had only bought some futures contracts and stopped suddenly.

There are many possibilities, like Feng Yu does not have enough funds, he does not think SGD will dive, he is sitting on the fence, he had used his funds to buy future contracts in other countries, etc.

Soros hopes the reason is Feng Yu does not have enough funds, but this possibility is low. Most probably, Feng Yu is sitting on the fence, and Soros is worried that Feng Yu had built portfolios in the other countries in the region.

Attacking the weakest country is the right thing to do. Among the countries in the region, Singapore is not easy to deal with, even after Thai Baht depreciated.

Many speculators are looking at Quantum Funds. When Soros short on a country’s currency, many people will follow.

Soros is like a flag, and any moves he made will cause fluctuations in the market.

After the rest of the countries’ currencies are in chaos, there will be a massive chain reaction, and all their currencies will plummet.

When that happens, Soros will transfer all his funds to attack Singapore.

Soros had thought of tricking Feng Yu to attack Singapore first, but Feng Yu did not take the bait.

Feng Yu is young but very cunning. However, Soros does not believe that Feng Yu is making all the decisions himself, and it must be his team who is giving him advice. Someone in Feng Yu’s team must be an elite, and Feng Yu is only an investor.

Soros had planted a mole in Feng Yu’s team, and the information he got from his undercover was that after the team discussed the strategies, He Zhaoji will report to Feng Yu and Feng Yu will make the decision.

But Soros’s mole is too junior to affect Feng Yu’s decisions. If Soros’s man can use Feng Yu’s funds, it will be great.

Soros can make use of his undercover to scam Feng Yu and let him take the blame for disrupting Southeast Asia’s economies.

Soros did not expect that someone in his team had been bribed by Feng Yu and had been giving Feng Yu insider information!

Chapter 929 – Hang Seng Index dives

“Dump 5% more SGD today.” Feng Yu instructed.

He Zhaoji and his men continued to dump SGD slowly. Feng Yu’s strategy was to let Soros’s Quantum Fund take the lead in this operation, and he will just follow behind like the rest of the speculators.

The Singapore Government reacted very fast, and they start to adjust slowly. Although SGD rates had fallen slightly, it did not drop below their permitted range.

But there is still a piece of good news. Singapore starts to dump their Baht to buy SGD. This way, SGD will be stabilized, but Baht will plunge again.

After adopting floating rates, Thai Baht’s rate had depreciated to over 30:1 and had started to stabilize. However, to protect their currency, Singapore had to dump the Baht they bought, and Baht starts to dive again.

Singapore, which was supposed to help Thailand, had now helped Quantum Fund to make Thai Baht rate fall again.

When it comes to a country’s interest, strategic cooperation between countries, are nothing. All countries will think for themselves first, and who cares if another country’s economy is going to collapse? What matters most is their interest.

Feng Yu switched on the TV and watched Hong Kong’s financial news.

When trading starts today, the Hang Send index rises a little before falling. The commentator on TV felt Hong Kong’s stock market is overrated.

“The figures we are looking at right now are abnormalities in the Hong Kong Stock market. The stock markets of all Asia countries are falling, but the Hong Kong stock index had been increasing over the past few days. Now, the Hang Seng index is falling, and many shares had fallen more than 5%. This means many investors are withdrawing their funds…”

The commentator on TV is cursing Hong Kong’s market, but what Feng Yu doesn’t know is that this commentator is famous for his inaccuracies. When he says the stocks will rise, it will fall the next moment. If he says a stock price will fall, it will rise immediately! Many Hong Kongers are skeptical of his predictions.

But such programs are popular, and many people are betting the opposite of what that commentator said.

However, what that commentator said today was right. Fu Rongqi and the rest had started to dump their stocks, and it includes blue chips. Hang Seng index will not rise today.

……

“Eh, that commentator says Hang Seng index will continue to fall today. Should we sell our stocks away? Anyway, we have already made some money, and if we sell them now, we can still get some profits.” A waiter at a tea house said.

“You already say it’s that commentator who said this. Since when did his predictions come true?” His co-worker said.

In Hong Kong, many people are playing shares. Waiters at tea houses, people on the streets, etc. are all investing heavily in shares. Some even gave up their jobs to do trading full time.

“But this time, the commentator did not make any prediction on any shares. He is predicting the Hang Seng index. Did you forget how he became famous? He had predicted the Hang Seng index rising accurately in the past.”

The co-worker starts to hesitate. That’s right. The commentator had not to name any specific share today and had only predicted the index.

The stock index had fallen slightly yesterday and today. The commentator said for the next few days, the index will continue to fall, and if this is true, they must sell their shares before their money got stuck in the market!

“Do you want me to ask Fortune God Liu next door?”

Fortune God Liu is the boss of the shop next to their tea house. He was formerly a waiter like them, but he made a fortune from trading and is running a fruit stall now.

Many people had followed Fortune God Liu’s advice on the stock market and made money. But Fortune God Liu has a foul temper and seldom gives out advice for free.

The two waiters discussed and pretended to go out to clear the trash while there are not many customers. They ran over to Fortune God Liu’s stall and saw Fortune God Liu watching the news and using a PC.

“Fortune God Liu, you are checking on the stock market?”

“Why are you two here? It is not your mealtime, and your boss should not let you two go out.”

“Fortune God Liu, we are here to seek your advice. Do you think the stock market will continue to fall?”

Fortune God Liu looked at the two waiters. If these two had not been helping him clear his trash, he would not be bothered to give out advice.

“Sell all your shares. My advice to you is not to buy any shares this year. Southeast Asia’s economy is collapsing, and this year’s stock market will be very exciting. With your standards, you all will suffer losses easily.”

“Ah… Thank you. We will help you clear your garbage outside.”

The two waiters left and immediately called their brokers to sell their shares. Anyway, they had made some money from their shares.

These two waiters are lucky. Some people still think the stock index will rise and continued to increase their investments.

But the fall of the Hang Seng index will stop financial brokerages from raising funds. These institutes will not dare to raise funds for investments from the public.

If the stock index falls, many people will lose their money if they had invested.

……

Soros watched Hong Kong news, and the Hang Seng index is still falling. Some commenters even predict the Hang Seng index will fall below 13,000 points. This is not a piece of good news for him.

The more Hang Seng index falls, it will be harder for Soros to make any money. When Soros was pushing the stock index up, he had used a lot of money, but now, he is starting to suffer losses.

Seems like there is a financial market expert in Hong Kong. The stock index falling slowly will have no impact on Hong Kong’s economy and will not cause panic.

The Hang Seng index can fall below 13,000 points in two to three months, but Soros will not make any money.

Soros is considering if he should start to build a short position future contract portfolio now since the stock index is falling.

But if Soros is discovered and his opponents start to push up the stock index, his contracts might be forced to cancel, unless he tops up with more money. It will trap his funds in Hong Kong.

Should Soros give up the Hong Kong market for the time being and wait for two months?

Soros thought about this for a while and called his fund managers over for a meeting.

Three out of Soros’s four assistants felt they should wait and see. They should focus on the Forex market of the other countries and leave Hong Kong alone.

But Drucken Miller has a different view. He felt this is an opportunity to short the Hang Seng index. This way, they will be about to hold those tycoons in a stalemate.

Drucken Miller suspects that the ones selling the stocks are the tycoons, and they are raising funds to invest in the Forex market.

If these tycoons joined in, Quantum Fund would make profits from those Southeast Countries easily, but it will be harder for them to attack the Hong Kong market!

Soros could not decide, but he suddenly realizes that he should not provoke Hong Kong now.

Chapter 930 – Joint venture automobile manufacturing

“Feng, I heard that we had made money?” Kirilenko appeared in Feng Yu’s office, shouting.

“That’s right. If we settle our Thai Baht future contracts, we will make money. But this is not the right time now, and we still got to wait for a few more days.”

Feng Yu does not need so many funds, and it’s not worth canceling the future contracts now as Thai Baht is still falling. When the other Southeast Asian countries’ currencies are hit, Thai Baht will fall even more. That will be the best time to cancel the contract, and they will get the highest profits.

“It’s alright. I am just asking. Oh, our four factories’ testing is completed, and the new mobile phones have started production. I had let some people test it, and everyone felt it is a good mobile phone!”

This mobile phone will be launch on the 1st of next month, and it will be extremely popular. The external designs and specs are much better than the phones in the market and are priced competitively. With Kirilenko’s friends help, this phone will be selling like hotcakes, and Kirilenko will make quite a sum.

“That’s good to hear. But when the phones are launched, we must watch our competitors closely. Those companies might have phones that are better than ours.”

Feng Yu is from the future and had helped Aiwa from moving in the wrong direction and develop new products.

But Nokia and Motorola are still the giants in the telecommunication industry. They have strong technologies and cannot be overtaken easily within these few years.

Those big companies will always keep their best technologies and their products in the market are normally not their best products. But after the factories in Russia are set up, the Wind and Rain mobile phone will have an advantage because of the lower production costs.

“I know. But if those companies are going to challenge us on sales distribution channels, they will lose! Oh, we have an automobile factory looking for buyers. How about we buy it?”

Songjiang Motors is now a branded product in Russia. Although it is not a luxurious vehicle, it is suitable for the commoners and is durable.

Kirilenko can also acquire that automobile factory by himself, but he felt having a joint venture with Feng Yu to produce Songjiang vehicles can make money easier.

Of course, if Feng Yu is willing to authorize Songjiang Motors’s technologies to Kirilenko, it will not be a problem. But this should be impossible.

Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko. The latter had tasted the benefits of joint ventures, and having a factory in Russia is a good idea. Songjiang Motors vehicles are selling well, and China’s factories are unable to keep up with the demand. It’s time to increase to expand its production.

If Songjiang Motors can set up a factory in Russia, Feng Yu can save on taxes, and he does not need to expand his factories in China. Also, a factory in Russia will make exports to Europe easier.

Last year, Songjiang Motors had become known worldwide, but the popularity quickly dies down, especially in Europe. In Europe, there are many automobile brands, and Songjiang Motors does not have an advantage there.

If the advertising fees are taken into consideration, Songjiang Motors had suffered losses after it was launched in Europe. In the US, it had only broken even.

Some people in Bing City Machinery Company felt they had entered the European market too early, and they should have gone for the low-cost strategy to increase the market share first. But Feng Yu does not agree on this.

Once Songjiang Motors positioned itself as budget vehicles, this label will be stuck with the brand, and consumers will not accept any increase in pricing when Songjiang Motors produces better vehicles.

But if Songjiang Motors continues to sell their vehicles, they will suffer losses, and if they stop selling, their advertisements will be wasted. Feng Yu has some hesitations and wonder if he had taken a step too far. Maybe he should start from Southeast Asia and enter the European market later.

Now, building a factory in Russia will solve all these problems and increase brand awareness in Europe. Songjiang Motors might gain a foothold in Europe within five years.

Bing City Machinery Company will utilize fewer funds if this is a joint venture. Using the brand name and technologies as capital for the joint venture are formerly used by foreign companies when they get into joint ventures in China. Now, it’s China’s turn!

“Sure. I will give Li Mingde a call and ask him to come over for a discussion.”

“Feng, automobile manufacturing is considered a heavy industry, and we can’t let you all own a higher percentage of shares. I will increase my capital for additional shares.” Kirilenko said.

Russia’s heavy industry is one of the best in the world, but they focus too much on the military. Their automobile industry was strong, but China had overtaken them.

Even when this is the situation in Russia, they still do not allow other countries to own controlling shares of heavy industry factories there. Without Kirilenko’s help, it will be hard for Feng Yu to set up this factory in Russia.

“How many shares can we get? Money is not a problem for me, and our technology and brand are worth a lot too.”

If the proportion given to Feng Yu is too low, he will not agree. Even if Feng Yu agrees to Kirilenko’s proposal, the management of Bing City Machinery Company will also object. Feng Yu might be the major shareholder, but he can’t decide on everything.

“If you all are willing to provide us with the manufacturing technologies and brand, I can give you all 20% of the shares. If you all want more shares, you all must use some cash. However, I cannot give you all more than 49% shares of the factory.”

Kirilenko is telling Feng Yu that he must have the controlling shares of the factory. Feng Yu is not sure if the valuation on the technologies and brand is right, as he still has not seen the new factory.

“Let’s wait until Li Mingde comes over. You can have the controlling share of the factory, but the brand cannot be changed. It must be Songjiang!” Feng Yu said.

“Of course. I will also not accept a new brand.” Having a new brand will mean they have to market it all over again and need at least one to two years to create brand awareness.

“Ok. We can discuss the details later. Have you fix a wedding date for your wedding?” Feng Yu asked.

Kirilenko’s arranged managed marriage should be nearing.

“It should be in December, but we have not decided on the exact date. I will let you know once it is confirmed.”

“Congratulations. You are going to have a family.”

Kirilenko gave a wryly smile.

“When are you going to get married? My advice to you is not to get married too early.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes and did not say anything.

Chapter 931 – Volunteering to be the scapegoat

“Boss, Thai Baht had fallen 5% today.” He Zhaoji reported.

Feng Yu was surprised. Why did Baht fall by so much? Soros’s funds should still be in the SGD market.

“Where did the funds come from?” Feng Yu asked.

He Zhaoji looks around and seems to be afraid to let other people hear what he is going to say. But he is in Feng Yu’s office, and they are the only two people inside.

“Boss, I think it’s from the Fu Family. Fu Rongqi had short Thai Baht in a large amount.” He Zhaoji said softly.

The Fu Family had joined in so early, and it was Fu Rongqi? Feng Yu does not know about this.

Fu Rongqi participating in the attacks on Asia’s currencies, will aid Feng Yu and the rest. With more funds shorting Thai Baht, the Baht will start falling again, and Feng Yu can cancel their future contracts early. The profits from Baht can be used in other markets.

However, Feng Yu is worried that with Fu Rongqi joining in the attacks on the other markets, Hong Kong will be left defenseless.

Initially, when Feng Yu attacked Thai Baht, he had invited Fu Rongqi, but Fu Rongqi rejected it. It’s not a problem for Fu Rongqi to attach Thai Baht now, but he should inform Feng Yu beforehand.

Feng Yu still thought if he should give Fu Rongqi a call when his phone rang.

“Nephew Feng, have you notice the changes on Thai Baht’s rates?” Fu Rongqi asked.

“Are you the one? The drop is significant. You should have used a large amount, right?”

“Hahaha… it’s not a lot. I am calling to inform you that I had decided to join you to earn money. That old man, Superman Li, does not want to participate, and he will be defending Hong Kong. In return, let’s give in to him on our business ventures in the future. Professor Liang will help monitor Hong Kong’s financial market, and with them around, we won’t need to worry.”

Feng Yu was relieved. Fu Rongqi had thought about all these, and it’s reasonable to give in to Superman Li on their ventures in the future.

“Uncle Fu, where will you be targeting next?”

“Not SGD for sure. Hahaha. I am not senile yet. Are you all going to attack Indonesia, the Philippines, or Malaysia?”

Feng Yu was surprised that Fu Rongqi was not tricked by the market conditions.

“It should be the Philippines or Malaysia first, and Indonesia will be later.”

“Alright. With our funds, we can be more daring.” Fu Rongqi hinted.

With more funds, it will be more effective, and Fu Rongqi is hinting that they can use lesser funds to hedge against the risk.

This way, Feng Yu and Fu Rongqi’s profits will be much higher. The effects of using 1 billion USD and 2 billion USD are very different, and the profits will not be doubled. It will be much more.

“Uncle Fu, I suggest that you should hide behind the shadows. We are going to stir up a hornet’s nest and must not take this blame.” Feng Yu said.

“Hahaha… Of course. We are only following the trend, and it’s considered financial investments. It’s Quantum Fund who is speculating and disrupting the economy!”

Feng Yu cannot stand this old man. He is too shameless. Feng Yu had only thought of pushing the blame to someone else, but Fu Rongqi named Quantum Fund as the main culprit.

You are investing, and they are speculating? Everyone is speculating now, as investing should not harm other people’s interests. Just look at Thailand’s economy now!

It’s only been a while, and dozens of factories in Thailand had close down. Many of the factory owners were speculating in shares and had their funds stuck in the stock market. Some had invested with the financial institutions there and ended up losing everything.

No one had expected a thriving economy to collapse suddenly. The stock index had fallen from 1,300 points to 600 points now.

This is not the end of it yet. The stock index is still falling, and no shares are rising.

The bosses are going bankrupt and could not pay their workers, and their workers’ money is stuck in their properties.

So, the workers start to sue their bosses, and the bosses can go on the run with all available funds.

Factories start to bankrupt and speed up Thailand’s economy collapse.

After the main industry collapse, there is no way to save Thailand’s economy. The Thai Government is broke and is heavily in debt. No other country in the region can help them.

China had agreed to help Thailand and had only donated 1 billion USD. The reason given to Thailand is simple. China is poor, and Thailand’s economy had been doing better than China. Look at the average salary of Thai and Chinese. The Chinese are earning a tenth of your people. Furthermore, 1 billion USD is a donation, and Thailand does not need to repay China. This is the best China can help.

What? Do you want to borrow money from us? We are a poor country and do not have money to help you. Don’t worry. We had helped you seek financial assistance from the IMF. Just hang on, and someone will help you.

So, Thailand has got nothing to lose. Their economy is in tatters, and the other Asian countries with close ties to them are affected.

Thailand had thought that their losses were severe and were at the max. At least they had protected their real estate industry. The property industry in Thailand had not crashed and there’s still slight hope for their economy.

But a significant fund appeared from nowhere and started to press down Thai Baht rates. This must be Quantum Fund attacking Thailand again. Where did they get so many funds?

SGD rates are still not suppressed, and Quantum Fund is attacking Baht again?!

Fine… Thailand’s financial system is weak, and everyone trading in Forex knows Thai Baht will continue to fall.

Currently, more and more people are shorting Thai Baht internationally, and even the Floating rate system cannot help Thai Baht.

At this time, Basong suddenly made an announcement. “Soros and Quantum Fund are cunning, evil, and despicable speculators. They had attacked other countries’ financial systems for their greed. These people should be condemned!”

Soros still did not know what happened. When I attacked Thai Baht, you claimed you would make me lose all my money. Now, I switched to other countries, and why are you scolding me?

Soros looked at Thai Baht’s rates. Eh? Thai Baht rate is falling again and is falling much faster than he expects. What is going on? Someone with significant funds had joined?

Soros understood why Basong had scolded him. He is the scapegoat, and he still does not know who the culprit was!

However, Soros is not afraid of Thailand, and he asked his men to announce on financial news that what they had done is legal investing.

Feng Yu is curious about why Soros is stepping up to take the blame? What is he trying to do?

Chapter 932 – Launching of the New mobile phone

Soon, Feng Yu know what was going on. Soros wants to show everyone that he is invincible and make the other countries to lose confidence in resisting his attack. At the same time, he can position himself as the leader of international speculators. This way, he can form a bigger fund to gain higher profits!

Soros had calculated his every move, and although he is taking the blame for everything, this might be what he had wished for.

Fear. This is what some countries’ governments feel about Soros and his Quantum Fund.

Worship. More investors and speculators had started to have blind faith in Soros. As long as they follow Soros’s investment, they will surely make money.

How did Soros use a few billion USD to win Thailand, with tens of billion USD in their Foreign reserves? It is because Soros can convince other investors that he can win and can get high returns.

Another reason is Soros managed to raise a few billion USD as capital, and Feng Yu and the other trend followers had joined in.

Feng Yu is wondering which country will Soros attack next. He wants to let Soros suppress that country’s currency, and he hides behind him to earn money.

This way, Feng Yu’s percentage of profits will be higher than Soros. Although the actual amount will not be more than what Soros made, it will close the gap between them.

……

“Manager Feng, are we going to host a product launch?” Xu Lihua asked.

“Of course. We must have a grand product launch and ensure all electronic factories and consumers all over the world to know that we had developed a high-performance phone. We are ahead of all mobile phone manufacturers!”

This is not the first time they are hosting a product launch. But in the past, they had only launched VCD players. This time, it is a mobile phone, and this product had been monopolized by foreign brands!

“Are we doing the product launch in Beijing?”

“Sure. We can do it at our Beijing Wind and Rain Building. Remember, this time, it is two brands doing product launches at the same time, and you must invite all the top mobile phone brands to participate. We will take videos and photographs of their shocked expressions and use it for our marketing!”

If the newspapers publish a photograph of Motorola, or Nokia’s Chief Designer or Engineer’s shocked expression, the consumers will think that Wind and Rain Mobile phone and Aiwa Mobile are better than their company’s products!

“Ok. I understand. Will you be attending the product launch?” Xu Lihua asked. When Feng Yu around, he will feel more confident.

“I might not be able to attend, as I still have some work here. But Fu Guangzheng, Kirilenko, and the rest will be there.” Feng Yu might not be able to leave Hong Kong. After all, the profits and risks in the Forex market are much higher.

If the mobile phone fails, he can still use new phone models to make a comeback next year. But for the Forex market, there are no second chances. Feng Yu only have one chance!

“Ok. I will prepare a proposal and send it to you.”

“Sure. That’s all. Remember, you must increase the speed of new products. If you can introduce a new phone every month, even if the specs are only slightly better, the consumers will think that our technologies are the most advanced. They will think our R&D is the fastest, and we had invested more funds in our technologies.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Nokia had used this strategy. At its peak, Nokia is launching a new phone every three weeks, and the new phones did not have many improvements over their old ones. Some had only changed the casing colors.

But the benefit of doing this is to let consumers have more choices, and they will not be using the same phone as their friends.

“Don’t worry, Manager Feng. We know what to do. In another two months, we will introduce a new model, and during the New Year period, we will launch another model. I am confident about this!” Xu Lihua said proudly.

“Very good. You must maintain this pace. Also, when will you be launching the color screen mobile phones?” In Europe and the US, colored screen mobile phones had appeared in the market. The colored screens are lousy, but the phones are ridiculously high, and the consumers are not willing to buy these phones. However, these phones can showcase the technologies of the company!

“The model we are planning to launch during the New Year period is the colored screen phone. We will use a metallic casing and will be marketed as a high-end product. We want the phone prices to return to the 20,000 RMB mark!”

The phones now have more functions, but the prices are going down. Xu Lihua felt they had missed the golden era of mobile phones, and he wished phone prices will continue to be high.

This year, Aiwa had lowered their pager productions and had sold some of their facilities at low prices. The ones who bought this equipment from them are Chinese factories.

At this time, Xu Lihua realized how powerful was Feng Yu’s foresight. The pager prices are dropping, and profits are getting lesser. If Aiwa continues to produce pagers at large volume, they will face a situation where they have high sales, but lower profits.

When those low-cost pagers flood the market, pager prices will plummet, and Aiwa might even suffer losses.

After all, Aiwa’s workers are getting better benefits and salaries than those small factories. This means Aiwa’s costs are higher even when they have better technologies and efficiencies!

Now, Xu Lihua is a firm believer of Feng Yu. When Feng Yu told him that colored screen phones would become the mainstream feature in phones within three years, he and his team start to work in this direction.

Feng Yu is also hesitating. In his previous life, colored screen phones had appeared in the Chinese market next year and become a trend around the year 2000. It is only after 2002, and the colored screen becomes the mainstream phones.

Now, Aiwa Electronics is way ahead of the time, and overseas colored screen phones are not selling well.

The mobile phone features do not require colored screens as MMS is not developed yet! Most phones cannot view pictures and do not have camera functions, let alone video calls. The colored screen is currently useless.

“You can decide on this, but you must plan the marketing strategies carefully.” Xu Lihua is treating the colored screens as a luxurious feature of the phones, and it’s fine even if this strategy fails.

“How’s your research on the digital camera function? Can it be used on mobile phones? I heard that Sony had introduced a phone which can take photos. If your new mobile phone can take pictures, the colored screen will be much useful. People tend to like colored pictures rather than black and white pictures.” Feng Yu said.

“We are researching it, and the technologies are easy to understand. But the camera’s function involves other companies’ patents. Philips has similar technologies, and we had used some of our reserve technologies to exchange with them. It will be our first time using these technologies on the colored screen phone!”

Feng Yu is satisfied with Xu Lihua’s answer. Xu Lihua’s management skills had improved, and, in the future, Aiwa Electronics might become like Bing City Machinery Company, where Feng Yu can let him handle everything.

Feng Yu is one step closer to his retirement dreams…

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)

Chapter 933 – Strong Competitor

“I represent the board of directors of Aiwa Electronics, to host this product launch with Wind and Rain Electronics. Many people had been asking about the relationship between Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics. Some people say both companies are the same. But this is not true. Aiwa Electronics is a joint venture between China and a foreign company, while Wind and Rain Electronics is a Chinese private company. However, we have strong cooperation in many areas, and Wind and Rain Electronics’ Manager Jiang is my good friend…”

Many people are curious why Xu Lihua is hosting this product launch, and it was for two mobile phone brands.

But Xu Lihua said that both companies had developed this mobile phone together, and this explains why both companies are launching their mobile phones together.

Such cooperation is common in the electronics industry. For example, Philips’s latest LCD TV is developed with Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa Electronics.

This time, Xu Lihua had invited Philips to participate in the development of mobile phones, but Philips felt bar phones would sell better than flip phones and rejected him.

Although Philips does not agree with Xu Lihua, Philips China’s representative had still come to the product launch to give his support.

“The mobile phone we are launching will have some leading features. The ringtone is 40-polyphonic and has a bigger screen. It is also a dual-screen phone, and we had added two games, Tetris and Snake in it. The batteries used in this phone have been upgraded with Tai Hua Battery’s latest technology and will last longer. We had also lowered the phone’s weight and made it palm-sized. Thus, we named our latest phone as ‘Palm Treasure’!”

As Xu Lihua explains the features phone, it was shown on the big screen, and all the representatives from other mobile phone manufacturers, distributors, and reporters can see it.

Xu Lihua is wearing a white shirt without a tie. This is different from the representatives from other companies, and many of them are wearing suits. In Feng Yu’s company, there are no rules on wearing ties, and it is up to the employees to decide if they want to wear one.

Feng Yu felt there’s no problem with wearing round neck T-shirts for those working in offices, as office shirts are not as comfortable as T-shirts. Only Government workers and Insurance Agents will wear a shirt all the time!

Cameras are flashing non-stop, and the reporters can bring their recording devices.

Even some factories’ representatives were letting out gasps of surprises. Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics have strong technological research, and it was proven in their VCD players.

But the representatives did not expect Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics to be so strong in mobile phone technologies. Their previous phones are not too advanced and had not shown their technological capabilities.

The representatives could feel the threat from this Palm Treasure phone, especially after Xu Lihua announced that this phone would be launched worldwide at the same time.

Wind and Rain Mobile phones will be focusing on the overseas market, while Aiwa Mobile phones will be targeting the domestic market. These two phones are using the same technologies and are specially designed for the consumers’ needs.

The mobile phone manufacturers could feel the threat from Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics. In the past, Wind and Rain Mobile phones’ production is lower and was not very popular in Europe and the US. Its China’s sales are doing well, but it was still not as good as Motorola.

The other mobile phone manufacturers did not notice Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics in the past. They felt no matter how well Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics develop, they will never be a threat.

Sony, Panasonic, and many other electronics companies are producing mobile phones, but it was not their core business. They are only using their brand advantage to profit from it.

Only a few manufacturers, like Sony and Motorola, know Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics will become a strong competitor.

But these few manufacturers got to admit that they had still belittled Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics, as these two companies should be focusing on their DVD player’s development. Only loyal fans of these two companies will buy their phones, and other than the Chinese market, it will not be popular elsewhere.

Now, after looking at the latest model of mobile phones, everyone can sense the threat. Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics are not following the trend. They are way ahead with advanced technologies.

The exterior casing is well-designed, fits perfectly in hand, and the wide variety of colors will attract the female consumers!

Male consumers will also be attracted to better specs and functions. All the mobile phone manufacturers must retaliate and hit back at Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics. Or else, Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics mobile phones will be known as the top tier phones in the eyes of the consumers, and it will be too late.

Top-tier phones rely on the technologies and the popularity among the consumers. From this area, Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics mobile phones are leading the pack!

Philips’s representative was also frowning. They had seen Aiwa Electronics’ mobile phone technologies and felt it was nothing to shout about. But he never expects the finished product to be so outstanding!

Luckily, the mobile phone is not Philips’s core business, and they are more focused on developing technologies and patents. Profits from patent fees is a lot more than selling products.

Now, Philips has its VCD player, TV, and other home appliances, and these are their focus. Mobile phones are not important to them. Of course, Philips is willing to exchange Aiwa Electronics’ advanced mobile phone technologies with their technologies.

The representatives from Nokia and Motorola were sitting away from each other and were surprised by this new mobile phone’s features. They had been competing against each other, and now, a third party is going to overtake them.

From today onwards, Nokia and Motorola will view this Chinese company as a strong competitor at their level!

Chapter 934 – Choices

Feng Yu thought the Quantum Fund would attack Malaysia next as Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand are the closest in the region. But Soros had picked the Philippines.

It was the same modus operandi where Soros will suppress the stock market and Forex market at the same time. But this time, Fu Rongqi had joined in, and the Philippines’ currency plummets in no time.

SGD had fallen slightly, but the drop was not a lot. Many experts claim that Soros’s strategy will fail in Southeast Asia.

But the experts were wrong!

Within ten days, the Philippines Pesos had plummeted, and the Philippines followed Thailand’s footsteps by switching to Floating rates.

Three days later, Pesos fell by 30%!

……

“Nephew Feng, Malaysia will be the next target, right?” Fu Rongqi raised his champagne glass with a smile.

“I think so. Uncle Fu, did you make high profits this time?”

“It’s more than I expected, but my profits should not be as high as you.” Fu Rongqi does not know how much funds Feng Yu had used to attack Southeast Asia. But he estimates the total amount used by Feng Yu should be more than him.

Fu Rongqi also noticed that when he was shorting Pesos, there are already many large amount short position orders. These orders should be from Soros and Feng Yu. He suspects those high leverage orders are from Feng Yu.

During the Gulf Wars, Fu Rongqi noticed once Feng Yu decided on something, he will go all out.

Although Feng Yu had hedged against his futures contracts, the amount used is very little.

The difference between Feng Yu and the rest is Feng Yu did not buy in Short-position future contracts when they are suppressing the currency. That means the price stated in Feng Yu’s futures contracts are much higher than everyone else.

Fu Rongqi did not know that Feng Yu had used his hidden funds to build up a significant amount of Forex Future contracts earlier, and his returns are much higher than he expected!

Fu Guangzheng is grinning from ear to ear. He had used all his companies’ shares to get loans and handed all the money to Feng Yu for him to invest. His money in Hong Kong is handed over to Fu Rongqi.

That means Fu Guangzheng had made money from both sides and is making more money than the rest of the Fu Family members.

Most importantly, Professor Liang is getting closer to him, and Liang Yin is friendlier to him. Fu Guangzheng felt he stands a chance to be with Liang Yin now, and his father and Eldest Uncle supported him.

The Fu Family does not need to have political marriages with other businessmen. In Hong Kong, or even China and Asia, the Fu Family is one of the top families. What’s important to them is talents!

Professor Liang is a talented financial expert and is a respectable professor. Although his wealth is not more than 100 million, his reputation is worth more than that.

Furthermore, the Fu Family likes Liang Yin. Liang Yin is not like the unreasonable women from influential families and is very pretty, educated, and graceful.

Most importantly, Fu Guangzheng had changed a lot for Liang Yin.

“Brother Guangzheng, how is your Guangzheng Fund doing? It should be making quite a lot, right?” Fu Guangwei asked.

Fu Guangwei regrets not coming up with this strategy. Giving investors a guaranteed return and raising funds from them. After that, he can just sit back and collect commissions from the investors.

But Fu Guangwei heard that Wind and Rain Consulting Firm charges higher commissions, but more people prefer to put their money with them.

Fu Guangzheng smiled. “Because the fund is managed by Professor Liang and he had to protect our Hong Kong financial market, that’s why the profits are not a lot.”

Even if the profits are not a lot, there are still profits, and the profits are from using other people’s money to invest.

“Nephew Feng, how much do you think Pesos will fall?” Fu Rongqi asked.

“It should be around 35% to 40%. It might plummet by more than 40%, but that can’t happen this year.”

All of Feng Yu’s future contracts had to be settled this year, and most of them are due in October.

Based on Feng Yu’s past life memories, Soros will attack the Hong Kong financial market in October. This is the reason why Feng Yu must prepare sufficient funds in October.

Although Feng Yu’s profits will be lower, he can still buy future contracts later. Once Soros becomes arrogant and thinks he can attack any country in Asia he wants, it will be the time when Feng Yu gives him a heavy blow!

Feng Yu’s forecast is about the same as Fu Rongqi’s team. Fu Rongqi felt Pesos should fall by 35%, as it had fallen by 30% yesterday. Although Pesos had recovered slightly today, he firmly believes that it will reach 35% within this week.

SGD rate continues to fall because of Pesos.

……

The next day, Soros called Feng Yu to inform him to attack Singapore and Ringgit tomorrow. They will be doing the same thing, where Feng Yu will focus on suppressing the Stock markets, while Soros will attack the Forex markets with his men.

No matter which side fell, there will be a chain reaction, and they will have high returns.

Feng Yu immediately inform Fu Rongqi to get ready, and he settled some of his Pesos and Baht contracts.

Singapore had implemented a series of measures to protect their financial market. But Soros and his men are prepared, and it’s useless.

Of course. These measures are useless because of Pesos crashing. These countries had close economic ties and will affect each other’s economy.

These countries have lesser allies now, and the amount they had to face is getting larger.

“Feng, why is Ringgit not crashing? How many days has it been?” Kirilenko complained.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. It’s only a few days, and you expect a country’s currency to plummet? It’s not so simple! Although more funds are attacking Ringgit, it will not happen within a few days!

“Wait a few days more. Malaysia’s foreign reserve should be empty.” Feng Yu replied calmly.

Kirilenko smiles. “I know you will settle this. Where are we attacking next? Taiwan or Indonesia?”

“I would prefer Taiwan. But Soros will surely pick Indonesia as the next target.”

“I am fine as long as we make money.” Kirilenko laughed.

“Brother Ki, can you remember what I had told you? If Soros scored a huge victory in Asia, he would surely attack Russia. Can you still remember the choices I told you?”

Chapter 935 – We are friends

Feng Yu had told Kirilenko that the Russian economy is also export-oriented, and its financial system is weak. That means Russia is vulnerable to attacks like those of Southeast Asian countries.

Kirilenko and Feng Yu still have a large amount of debt in Rubles. Although Rubles had depreciated, and if it depreciated further, they would make more money.

But Rubles are still Russia’s currency, and Feng Yu wants to know what Kirilenko wants. Kirilenko can choose to make money for himself and ignore his country or protect his country and might even lose money in the process.

Kirilenko had not given Feng Yu an answer previously, and Feng Yu brought up this subject again.

Kirilenko put down his wineglass, took out two cigars, and gave Feng Yu one.

“Feng, you are willing to protect your country’s HKD, why can’t I do the same for Rubles? Although I will get higher returns when Rubles continued to depreciate, my assets will increase by five times, and I will become one of the richest men in the world, but didn’t you said before that we could reach that in ten years? Without a country, there will not be a home for me!”

Feng Yu took a puff of the cigar. He knew what’s Kirienko’s decision. Although Kirilenko’s decision will let Feng Yu make lesser money, Feng Yu is glad that Kirilenko made this choice.

“Brother Ki! I will support you! Don’t worry. If Soros and his men attack Rubles, I will allocate my funds to help you, and if you trust me, I can manage your funds for you.”

Kirilenko laughed. “Feng, I know you will support me. I trust you, and it’s terrific that you are willing to help me.”

“Brother Ki, although we will make lesser profits, we can still make a sum from those Americans.” Feng Yu said.

“We can still make money from those Americans?”

“Of course. Do you know which country in the world has the best banking system?”

“The US? No? Is it Switzerland?”

“No. It’s Japan. Almost all Asian countries had taken loans from Japanese banks. Many European and American countries and many American companies had taken loans from Japanese banks.”

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu, confused. What does Feng Yu mean by this? Is he going to make money from the banks? But this way, he will be earning money from Japanese. What has it got to do with the Americans?

“What if some countries cannot repay their loans to the Japanese banks? Will the Japanese banks chase them for payments?”

“Of course. If I need money now, and someone owes me money, I will find ways to get my money back. Even if it is against the contracts or agreements, I can forgo the interests.” Kirilenko nodded.

“That’s right. But what if you are willing to strike off the interest, and I still can’t repay you? Look at Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, etc. Many of their companies had gone bankrupt and are not able to service their loans. Without interest income and suffered heavy losses, Japan’s banking industry will collapse, and some of its financial institutions and brokerage will be bankrupt. Japan’s stock market will crash, and will Yen depreciate?”

“It will!” Kirilenko’s eyes lit up, as he does not like Japan too.

“Do you still remember the last time when Japan’s economy collapsed? The US and Europe stock markets were affected, and this time, not only will Japan be affected. The whole of Asia, and even Russia, will be affected by the financial crisis. Although we can prevent Russia’s stock market from crashing and chase Soros away, we cannot prevent Russia not to be affected.”

“You mean the US stocks will be affected and will drop? Are we going to short the US stock index?”

Snapped!

Feng Yu snapped his finger. “Brother Ki, I am thinking of doing this. Are you in?”

Kirilenko had a proud expression on his face. “Hahaha. I am interested in earning money from the Americans! Soros and his men want to earn money from my country? I will do the same for him!”

Feng Yu is prepared to suffer losses in Hong Kong and Russia. But this loss will be covered by other markets, and the US stock market is a good option.

This Asian Financial Crisis will affect the global economy. If the US had not made use of its technology and real estate stocks to stabilize its stock market, its stock market would crash too.

But the US stock market’s bull run is only for the time being. In 2000, after the dot.com bubble burst, the world economy will be in a mess again.

That will be the time when Feng Yu will step forward to show the world who is the real wealthiest man in the world!

“Feng, can I inform my government about this? If they are prepared, will it disrupt your plans?” Kirilenko asked.

If Feng Yu had not said all those, Kirilenko would have warned his government. He does not want to let his country suffer, and at the same time, he does not want his friend to be at the losing end.

“Of course. With your government support, we can fight off Soros easier. If you can get some government policies that can assist us, we can make Soros and his men lose and lower our losses.”

Even if Kirilenko did not ask Feng Yu, the latter would also speak to him about this. Russia is a big country, and even if they do not have any financial trading experts, the Russian government can also use extreme measures to give Soros a heavy blow!

Feng Yu can also hide behind the shadows and make Soros suffer heavier losses!

Kirilenko, who owns lots of Russia listed companies’ shares, will surely agree to this.

“Ok. I will contact the Russian government. I cannot guarantee that I can get all the information you want, but I can get something useful. Feng, you are a friend of Russia!” Kirilenko said.

“It is because you are my friend.” Feng Yu laughed.

Chatting with Kirilenko is always easy. He may seem to be simple and stupid, but he is very smart!

Chapter 936 – Switching of position

Early August, Malaysia had given up on protecting Ringgit, and Ringgit had fallen by 30% within a few days. This time, the stronger SGD is also affected and drop by 5%!

Soros and his men grew confident after the SGD rate dropped. Even the regulated exchange rate system currency can be beaten by them, and they have no more worries.

Soros’s new target is Indonesia, and Indonesian Rupiah was hit immediately.

The Indonesian government was prepared and had implemented increased overnight rates, etc. However, these measures are useless against those international speculators.

“Old He, you can cancel all our Thai Baht contracts.” Feng Yu laughed.

Now, Thai Baht’s rate against USD had fallen to 40:1, and Feng Yu bought his future contracts at 25:1. Along the way, he bought more short position contracts, and the leverages used ranged from 10 times to 15 times.

Feng Yu had already canceled Thailand’s stock index futures contracts. Thailand stock index had fallen to 500 points from 1,300 points six months ago!

He Zhaoji immediately orders his men to settle Thai Baht contracts, and their returns this time is more than two times!

Having returns of more than twice of their invested amount within three months is crazy!

Feng Yu had used more than 6 billion USD on Thailand. 4 billion is from his fund, and two billion is from Kirilenko. Three hundred million USD out of the 6 billion USD is from Fu Guangzheng.

Feng Yu’s 4 billion USD had become 12 billion USD, and Kirilenko and Fu Guangzheng’s 2.3 billion USD had also made high profits. But they had to pay high commission to Feng Yu, and the commission amounted to more than 1 billion USD.

Feng Yu’s profits from Thai Baht alone is almost 10 billion USD!

Feng Yu is sure that Soros’s returns are not as high as him! Although Soros’s funds are much more than Feng Yu, the commission Soros charges should be around 10%. His funds should be around 6 billion USD, and he had used it on several countries’ financial markets. His profits from Thailand should be around 2 billion USD, and this amount had to be used to cover up the losses he incurred previously. That means Soros’s had only made a few hundred million USD from Thailand!

The gap between both parties is closer, and Feng Yu was feeling terrific.

“Tell everyone that I will be giving them 1 million USD each from my fund.”

After a while, cheers could be heard in the main office.

These brokers had not gotten commissions in the past few months, and it’s impossible for them not to grumble about this. But all of them are waiting for their promised bonus from their Boss.

Today, the bonus is issued to them, and the amount had surprised them.

The team consists of a few dozen people, and every one of them will be getting 1 million USD each. How much did their Boss make for him to be so generous?

This is only the profits from the Thailand market, and in another few days, they will be canceling Philippines’ Pesos, SGD, and Ringgit contracts.

Based on their understanding of their Boss, there should be a bigger bonus at that time. Even if the bonus is not 1 million USD, it should be at least 5 million HKD.

It was tough over the past few months, and the brokers have rest days. But their retirement can be brought forward by twenty years if they worked like this for one year.

With tens of million assets and the brokers’ skills, they can get at least 10% annual returns if they invested their money in low-risk instruments. That will be a few million HKD and is enough for them to retire comfortably.

The brokers are feeling lucky to be recruited and made it into Boss’s team.

If the brokers are had not to join Feng Yu, they might only be earning a few million HKD a year at most. They can never get to earn more than 10 million HKD and get the opportunity to manage such a huge fund. Even if they get to manage such a large amount of funds, they will not dare to invest so recklessly. Investing for those tycoons is risky. If the losses are high, the tycoons might get triads to chop their limps and might even kill them!

With more funds, the currencies of the other countries fell faster.

Now, there are talks that the financial crisis from these countries will affect the whole of Asia and even the global market.

These talks speed up the fall of Ringgit and the other currencies. Feng Yu suspects that Soros is the one spreading this information and used it to stop those who want to pull up those currencies’ rates.

This financial crisis will surely affect Southeast Asia, but to say it will affect the whole of Asia and the world, is exaggerated. For example, North Korea’s economy will not be affected.

Some countries’ economies, which were not attacked by Feng Yu and Soros, were also affected by the crisis.

……

“Boss, there is a high volume of Thai Baht’s futures contracts being settled, and Baht’s rate is starting to rise. Should we also settle our future contracts?” Drucken Miller asked.

Soros cursed Feng Yu in his heart. It must be Feng Yu, and he did not inform us beforehand!

“Settle all out contracts and use all our available funds on the Indonesia market!”

Soros does not want to be the vanguard when attacking Indonesia’s financial system. The party who starts first will use the most funds, but the returns will be much lower.

Everyone is working together to make money, and I cannot be the one investing the most to help you make money.

Soros called Feng Yu. “Feng, a few of my investors want to withdraw their funds. Let’s switch positions, and I will suppress Indonesia’s stock market, and you will attack Indonesia Rupiah?”

Feng Yu immediately agrees. “Sure. But my fund is lesser than yours. If I can’t lower the rates, you must help me.”

Feng Yu knew Soros would not tolerate his earnings to be lesser, and Feng Yu is waiting for his call.

Feng Yu wants to try and see what will happen if he leads the attack in the Forex market. If he fails, he can still ask Fu Rongqi for help. Furthermore, he can lead Soros to think he is someone complacent.

Soros heard Feng Yu had agreed to his request and smiled cunningly. Hmph! Young men are always rash.

Why do you think that I can short those currencies so easily? It is because I have Quantum Fund and a group of loyal speculators following me.

I had only used a few billion USD, but I can achieve the results of over 10 billion USD!

Now, with you attacking the currency, I can easily estimate the total amount of funds at your disposal. I will not give up on attacking the Hong Kong market. It will be perfect if I can earn a sum from China at the same time!

……

“Old He, this time, we will be attacking Indonesia Rupiah. You all discuss and prepare a proposal for me.” Feng Yu is not alone. He also has a team of brokers working with him.

Although He Zhaoji felt Feng Yu’s decision is weird, he still followed his orders. Being the vanguard is different from assisting from the sidelines. They cannot afford to make any mistakes.

Chapter 937 – Harvesting Chives

One week later, Feng Yu felt SGD had fallen to its limits. SGD is not like Thai Baht and will not plummet too low, and Feng Yu settled his future contracts, earning over 2 billion.

Once again, Soros reacted later than Feng Yu, and his percentage of earnings is lower. But the actual profits he got is still higher.

When Feng Yu settled the future contracts for Ringgit, he noticed Soros is also doing it at the same time. Feng Yu can confirm that one of the brokers in his team is working for Soros.

Feng Yu told He Zhaoji privately and asked him to monitor the brokers from New York. Someone must be acting as an informer for Soros.

When He Zhaoji knew about this, he was furious.

Feng Yu had treated everyone well, and they are using his money to invest based on his instructions. Furthermore, Feng Yu is paying them commissions and giving out high bonuses.

The one who betrays Feng Yu is an ungrateful bastard!

If He Zhaoji finds out who the betrayer is, he will not let him off lightly.

Philippines Pesos had fallen to Feng Yu’s expected value, but this time, Soros settled the future contracts earlier than Feng Yu.

Feng Yu frowned as Soros had settled his contracts before the profits from the Philippines Pesos had reached the peak. Is he preparing to attack a new market? Is it Indonesia Rupiah or another country?

Very soon, Feng Yu got the answer. Soros is preparing to attack Taiwan.

Huh? Soros did not inform Feng Yu and went to attack Taiwan himself? Something is not right.

By right, it will be easier to suppress the currency with more funds.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin and thought hard about Soros’s actions. What is he trying to do?

Wait. It is not easy to suppress Taiwan’s currency, as Taiwan has strong foreign reserves and gold reserves. The rate should be like SGD and will not plummet too severely. If Taiwan is determined, it can even prevent its currency rate from falling.

If Feng Yu followed Soros and start to build a massive portfolio against Taiwan’s currency, his funds will be stuck in the Taiwanese market, and Soros can happily settle his future contracts in the other markets.

Damn! This is another setup!

Soros is a cunning old fox, and every step he takes might be a trap. Feng Yu has no intention to attack Taiwan. Although he wants Taiwan’s economy to crash, the returns from attacking Taiwan is too low and risky. If he can make money easily from other markets, why should he take the risk?

Feng Yu had planned to let Soros attack Taiwan, and he will pretend to follow, and at the same time, entice Soros to attack Hong Kong. Feng Yu is prepared to give Soros a heavy blow in Hong Kong!

Since Soros had set the bait, Feng Yu will pretend to bite it.

“Old He, short 5 billion USD on TWD, with five times leverage.” Feng Yu said.

“Boss, TWD is the same as SGD. Both are strong currencies, and Taiwan has a strong foreign reserve. Although their currency rate will be affected, it will not be easy to suppress it. Once Taiwan adjusts its policy, we might suffer losses.” Zhaoji said.

Also, five times leverage will mean that they will need to use 1 billion USD for a 5 billion contract. If this amount is used in Indonesia Rupiah, their returns will be much higher.

Five times leverage is also the lowest leverage used by Feng Yu during this period. Why does Feng Yu become so conservative suddenly?

“I know. I am looking forward to Taiwan to adjust its policies.” Feng Yu smiled. “Don’t forget that it’s the Quantum Fund who attacked first. Even if there are losses, their losses will be much higher than us.”

He Zhaoji finally understood what was going on. This is a setup!

Previously, Boss had set up Soros on SGD and trapped a significant portion of his funds in the Singapore market. Is Boss going to do the same thing again?

He Zhaoji immediately went out to inform the rest. But this time, Feng Yu was tricked. Soros did not continue to short TWD and used all his funds on Indonesia Rupiah.

He Zhaoji was in the office, looking at the gloomy Feng Yu, not knowing what to say.

TWD rate did not fall but even rise. Luckily, Feng Yu had only used five times leverage. If they had used 15 times leverage, they would be forced to cancel their contracts now!

Feng Yu did not expect Soros to be so cunning, and he had been tricked by him.

“Old He, cancel our TWD contracts.”

“Boss, we will suffer losses if we settle the contracts now. It’s not normal for the TWD rate to rise at this time, and the rise is not high.”

He Zhaoji is advising Feng Yu to wait a while more. It must be the Taiwanese government pushing up the TWD rate now to prevent speculators from shorting. Also, Feng Yu had used five times leverage, and TWD can’t rise more than 20%. So, they don’t need to worry about being forced to settle their futures contract.

“It’s fine to suffer some losses. We can earn back our losses from other markets. Withdraw our funds from the Taiwanese market and use it on Indonesian Rupiah. We will recover our losses very soon.”

Since they can make money within a short period, why should they wait for something longer? Feng Yu also felt what He Zhaoji said was right about TWD returning to normal and had a high possibility that it might even drop lower.

But investing in Rupiah will make money faster. Furthermore, Feng Yu does not believe that Soros will give up on TWD. After the TWD rate returned to normal, he will continue to short it and try to recover his losses. He might even use high leverage to make more money.

In investments, humans are the critical factor as their decisions cannot be forecast based on data.

……

“Brother Feng, did we earn a lot from Pesos and Ringgit?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“Of course. I am sure you will be satisfied with your earnings. We will also be settling the Rupiah in a few days, and continue after that.”

“Huh? This is not over yet?” Fu Guangzheng thought everything would be over after they settled the Rupiah contracts. “Which country will we be attacked next? South Korea?”

“We will attack South Korea for sure, but we got to wait for around one month. We will be attacking Thai Baht next.”

“Thai Baht again? Baht had fallen a lot and is slowly recovering now!”

“That’s right. It is recovering because we did not continue to suppress Baht. If we continue to suppress Baht’s rate, Baht will continue to depreciate. I don’t dare to exaggerate, but depreciating another 10% is not a problem.”

Feng Yu plans to return to those few countries again and get one more round of profits. Now, these few countries’ currencies in Southeast Asia are falling, and Feng Yu only need to use Soros’s name to attack them, and the international speculators will follow. It will be easy to make Baht depreciate again.

This is like harvesting chives. Cutting them again and again when new sprouts grow out!

Chapter 938 – Soros’s motives

“Boss, are we going to attack Hong Kong? I think we should attack South Korea, Japan, or even Taiwan now. Hong Kong is prepared, and we might lose.” Drucken Miller said.

“What about the rest? Are you all thinking of the same thing?” Soros looked at the rest.

“I feel we should target Japan next. Lots of brokerages and financial institutions in Japan had bankrupted, and it’s easy to crash the stock market. Also, the Yen rate had been rising these few years, and it should not be a problem to depreciate it to 150:1.”

“I think we should target South Korea first. South Korea has a lower foreign reserve compared to Japan, and we can win easier. Our relationship with Feng Yu is not as close as before, and our funds might not be enough to take down Japan. Our risk will be higher, whereas it will be easier for us to succeed if we attack South Korea.”

“I also think we should pick South Korea, and object to attacking Hong Kong now. There are lots of Tycoons in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong is the financial center of Asia. It might be a small place, but its economy is much stronger than in many countries. It is too risky to attack Hong Kong now, and don’t forget, Hong Kong does not only have a financial expert, but it also has enough funds.”

None of Soros’s four fund managers supported him, and three of them suggest attacking South Korea next. This made Soros hesitates.

Soros wants to attack Hong Kong, and he knows he cannot make money from Hong Kong’s currency. HKD is using the Linked Exchange Rate System and is linked to USD. Hong Kong also has a strong foreign reserve, and with so many tycoons there, Soros’s funds will not profit from shorting HKD.

“I had never said we would be seeking profits from the Forex market. What do you all think of Hong Kong’s stock market? Can we win against them in their stock market?”

Profiting only from the stock market? The four fund managers looked at each other and were deep in thoughts.

……

“Uncle Fu, after we settled the contracts, get ready the funds to stabilize Hong Kong’s financial market.”

“Manager Feng, I am in the financial industry for many years, and how come I can’t see the signs that HKD will fall? Unless they can make USD depreciate, HKD will not be in danger. But if USD depreciates, they will also lose money.” Fu Rongqu said proudly.

Fu Rongqi looked at his second brother. “You can only see this point, and you dare to say it out? Didn’t you notice how Soros attacked those countries? He is an expert in using leverage and can use the least capital to achieve what you can do with a large fund. Also, he is attacking the interest, stocks, and currency at the same time, and will profit as long as he wins in one of the three areas!”

With your investment experience, you dare to claim you are in the industry for many years? Do you still want to teach Feng Yu what to do?!

Fu Guangzheng asked. “Uncle, you are saying that Soros had never targeted making money from the currency? Is he making use of the currency to push the interest rates up and cause the stock market to crash? They are seeking profits from the stock markets?”

Fu Rongqi looked at his nephew. He was surprised Fu Guangzheng knows about this. But he thought for a while and felt it must be Feng Yu or Professor Liang that told him this.”

“How much funds do Soros have? Hong Kong has a strong reserve, and we don’t need to worry about him. Superman Li had promised to stabilize the stock market, and with him around, it should be sufficient.” Fu Rongqu retorted.

“How much money do you think Superman Li is willing to fork out? Do you think Soros only has a Quantum fund? Let me ask you. If Wind and Rain Consulting Firm had guaranteed 10% returns and only charges 10% commissions, will you let them invest for you?”

Fu Rongqu kept quiet. If Wind and Rain Consulting gave him this option, he would surely let them manage his funds. But since when did Wind and Rain Consulting charges low commissions? Wind and Rain Consulting had been the most expensive brokerage in Hong Kong.

That means Soros’s funds are not limited to tens of billion USD. If he used all funds to attack Hong Kong, he might crash Hong Kong’s stock market!

“Uncle Fu, our main focus is the Hang Seng index and the blue chips. If they dare to short HKD, we will buy in blue chips shares to push up the stock index.”

“But if we do this, we will not make any money and might even suffer losses.” Fu Rongqu argued.

Feng Yu did not say anything. Fu Rongqu is right. It will be a lose-lose situation for both parties, and Feng Yu has no right to ask the rest to do this. Feng Yu looked at Fu Rongqi and wondered if he had asked Fu Rongqu to say those things purposely.

“Not necessarily. We might not suffer losses if we managed our funds well. Also, we are only making a stance to scare Soros, and might not need to go all out against him.”

Fu Rongqi also does not want to face Soros heads on. It is not that he is not confident, but in the end, it will be a lose-lose situation for both parties. It’s not easy for the Fu Family to build up their wealth, and he does not want to lose it.

If they can continue to attack South Korea and Japan, the Fu family’s assets might surpass Superman Li. Fu Rongqi will also return to the second position of the top Hong Kong tycoon’s list!

Feng Yu nodded. That’s right. If they managed the funds well, they might not lose money and can make Soros suffer massive losses. This will prevent him from eyeing Hong Kong all the time.

Of course, this will be beneficial for Feng Yu as after beating Quantum Fund, more people will invest with their company, and they can make more commission.

……

Early October, Feng Yu had completed his settlements for his Forex future contracts, and he purposely asked Soros which country or region to attack next.

Soros told Feng Yu without hesitation that Taiwan is a good choice.

Feng Yu cursed in his heart. Bullshit! You tried to trick me with Taiwan previously, and you are doing it again?!

Taiwan is similar to Hong Kong, and it’s not easy to attack its currency. Taiwan’s foreign reserve is stronger than Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, and still have high gold reserves. If they had to go head-on with their funds, Soros’s Quantum Fund would lose.

But Soros has other tricks up his sleeves. For example, he can make use of the media to spread fake news to scare foreign investors out of Taiwan.

Can Taiwan save their financial market? Yes, but at this time, Taiwan’s Central Bank announced that they would stop supporting TWD. This is because they believe that even if TWD depreciates, it will not fall by a lot, and Taiwan’s economy will not be affected. At the same time, they can also control inflation.

This announcement gave Soros an opportunity!

Chapter 939 – Hang Seng Index Battle

“These Taiwanese idiots are allowing Soros to penetrate their defense!” Fu Rongqi scolded.

“Old Fu, if you stand from Taiwan’s viewpoint, their losses will not be high. They might win against Soros if they were to go head-on, but it will be a narrow victory. At least Taiwan’s losses from their economy are much lesser compared to the losses from the Forex market. However, what they did will have an impact on us.” Professor Liang sighed.

“Wait a minute. Hong Kong does not have many trades with Taiwan, and our economies are not closely tied. Even if TWD depreciates, what has it got to do with us?” Fu Rongbing asked.

“SGD had depreciated, and what’s, has it got to do with Ringgit? But after SGD depreciated, Ringgit rates fell even faster. This is a type of herd effect, and Soros is making use of this fear. Taiwan’s foreign reserve is the strongest in Southeast Asia, and if TWD depreciates, it will increase Soros’s momentum!” Professor Liang was utterly disappointed with Taiwan’s decision. They had planned to assist Taiwan against Soros in their financial market initially.

With Taiwan’s strong foreign reserve and the Hong Kong tycoons behind the curtains, a victory against Soros is not a problem. Even if they cannot let Soros suffer massive losses, they can at least make Soros lose his profits from two or three countries he attacked!

But Taiwan refused to face Soros, and this will cause lots of problems. Soros will not continue to attack TWD as this will anger the Taiwanese Government, and if Taiwan implemented some extreme policies in their financial market, Soros would surely lose.

Soros stopped while he is ahead and immediately settled all his TWD future contracts to get a small profit.

With such a significant fund in hand, Soros will not let it idle around. He must either attack another country or choose to attack Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, etc. again!

Soros felt this is not the right time to attack those countries the second time. Feng Yu had gone to attack those countries, and this is an opportunity for Soros to attack Hong Kong.

The Hang Seng index is currently 12,800 points. Soros had pushed the index up earlier, but Fu Rongqi and the rest pulled it back again, and at the same time, they made those blind speculators cool down. The financial crisis in Asia is about to explode, and this is not the time for anyone to invest in the market.

Some foreign investors started dumping their stocks, making the Hang Seng Index fall slowly. Soros and his men had wanted to build a portfolio of futures contracts but were afraid this might be a trap. If the Hang Seng Index rises suddenly, they will be in danger.

Now, Soros had recovered all his funds and did not need to worry about all these, and he starts to short Hang Seng Index!

……

“Someone is building a portfolio to short the Hang Seng Index. Soros’s attack had started!” He Zhaoji shouted.

Feng Yu stood up and ordered. “Start to buy in Hang Seng Index Futures! Remember to control our funds.”

At the same time, Fu Rongqi, Professor Liang, and Li Zeju gave out the same orders as Feng Yu. They are fighting to defense Hong Kong!

Ren Zhigang, Hong Kong’s head of Hong Kong Monetary Authority, remembered his meeting with Fu Rongqi and the rest a few days ago.

Fu Rongqi told Ren Zhigang that Soros is targeting Hong Kong and will be attacking HKD like what he did with the other countries.

Ren Zhigang thought nothing about Fu Rongqi’s warning as Soros was still attacking Taiwan. How can he come to Hong Kong?

But two days ago, Taiwan suddenly announced that they would stop supporting TWD, and this announcement made Ren Zhigang panic. How did Taiwan lose? If Taiwan can lose to Soros, what will happen to Hong Kong?

Ren Zhigang’s subordinate ran into his office to report on the situation and asked if they should increase their interest rates to increase Soros’s cost, and prevent him from shorting HKD.

If it were before, Ren Zhigang would choose this option. But after Fu Rongqi’s warning, Ren Zhigang chose another solution.

“No. Keep the interest rates and inform the banks to tighten their short-term loans. Get ready to use our foreign reserves. We will buy in whatever HKD they sell, and deposit into the banks!”

“We will need to use a lot of our reserves. What if our reserve runs out?” Ren Zhigang’s subordinate asked.

“Don’t worry. There will be people buying in HKD with us.” Ren Zhigang remembered Fu Rongqi and Superman Li’s promises. Both of them will keep to their words, and they said they would use their funds to buy in HKD.

Also, Fu Rongqi had told him that Hong Kong’s Linked Exchange Rate System is linked to USD, and Soros can’t suppress USD.

7.75:1 is the basic rate and will never change. Even if there are slight fluctuations, it will not affect the economy.

……

Soros is sitting on his sofa with a glass of champagne, preparing to celebrate Hong Kong falling into his trap. He can’t make money from HKD, but if Hong Kong increases its interest rates, the stock market will fall. When the Hang Seng Index falls, he will spread rumors to make it plummet, and he can make money from it.

Suppressing HKD is only a decoy, and this strategy is agreed by Soros’s four top fund managers!

“Boss, Hong Kong is implementing new measures, but it is different from what we expected!” Drucken Miller entered Soros’s office to report.

“Huh? What is the new measure?” Soros suddenly has a bad feeling.

“Hong Kong was imposing a limit on short-term loans and did not adjust their interest rates!”

Soros sat upright. “What did you say?! They did not adjust their interest rates?”

“No. It’s more troublesome for us to get loans in HKD, and the amount is limited. The Hong Kong government used its foreign reserve to buy in all our HKD and then deposited them into the banks, making us suffer losses on the interest.”

Soros put down his champagne glass and tapped on the table slowly. There must be an expert in Hong Kong who saw through his trap. Now, it will become a battle in which the party with more funds will win.

“Has the Hang Seng Index start to fall?”

“It fell a little, and we can recover our interest losses from there. But we might not recover our losses from selling Hong Kong shares at low prices.”

“Don’t worry. As long as the Hang Seng Index falls, we will not lose. Don’t forget that we had secretly built a portfolio in London!”

HKD is one of the more popular currencies on the London Foreign Exchange Market. If they can’t borrow HKD from Hong Kong, they can do so in London. They can continue to dump HKD.

“But this battle will become a race to see who has more funds. What should we do if someone pushes up the Hang Seng Index?” Drucken Miller asked worryingly.

Before Soros can answer Drucken Miller, Thomas, one of the four top fund managers, ran into the office. “Boss, the Hang Seng Index is rising. A huge fund had entered the market to push up the Hang Seng Index!”

Chapter 940 – First win against Soros

“HKD cannot hold on any longer and will be unlinked from USD. It is estimated to be depreciating by at least 30%!”

“The Hang Seng Index will plummet below 8,000 points. Run before it’s too late!”

“Many listed companies are suspected of falsifying their financial reports, and will be ordered to halt trading!”

“The financial crisis is going to affect Hong Kong! It will be safer to change all your money to USD!”

“Hong Kong Monetary Authority must increase the interest rate to stop those speculators from shorting HKD!”

……

The next day, such articles start to appear in many Hong Kong media and news programs. All these reports are painting a bad picture of Hong Kong and are implying that Hong Kong is not a match against Soros.

Ren Zhigang immediately calls for a press conference to refute these rumors. He also contacted Hong Kong’s Chief Executive to penalize those media which spread these rumors!

“Hong Kong is using the Linked Exchange Rate System for its currency and is stabilized by an exchange mechanism automatically. Also, Hong Kong has enough foreign reserve to deal with the Quantum Fund, and those speculators will be beaten!”

“Chief Ren, even TWD, was beaten by Quantum Fund. Why do you think Hong Kong will not lose? Taiwan has a stronger foreign reserve than in Hong Kong.” A reporter asked.

“That is because Taiwan needs its currency to depreciate, so they can lower their inflation rate as they need to import some products. Furthermore, Taiwan had not suffered many losses. TWD might have depreciated, but it did not affect Taiwan’s economy. Our Linked Exchange Rate System is linked to USD, and will not be unlinked. Do you think Quantum Fund will want USD to be depreciated?”

“But why are we not increasing the interest rates? This way, we can prevent them from dumping HKD.” Another reporter asked.

“Just let them dump HKD, and they still have to pay the interest, right? We can just buy the HKD from them, and Hong Kong has enough funds to do that.”

“Someone said that the Hang Seng Index would plummet. The index had fallen over 1,000 points in the last two months.”

“The Hang Seng Index is around 12,000 points now, and two months ago, it is at 14,000 points. Did the index plunge? The whole of Asia’s economy is not doing well, and such fluctuation is normal. When you all buy stocks, did your stocks fall more than 10% before? But to say the index will fall below 8,000 points is rubbish. Today’s index had risen, and many stocks had increased. Can’t you all see that? We are not the ones who are pushing the stock index up. It is the investors who had invested in our Hong

Kong’s stock market.”

Ren Zhigang was addressing the reporters proudly. Superman Li and the other tycoons had started to buy in Hong Kong shares sold by Soros at lower prices.

Superman Li had even released some news to increase his company’s share prices. Many Hong Kong tycoons had also release news like their companies had signed contracts and agreements with Chinese companies, and their profits in the next few years will be high. This news motivated many investors to start buying in Hong Kong shares, especially blue chips shares.

Superman Li prefers real estate and starts to buy many real estate companies’ shares. Fu Rongqi prefers trading, and many trading companies’ shares were bought out by him. Some of the tycoons, like technology, share and started buying in such shares in large volumes. This is the same for other industries like manufacturing, etc.

Instead of plunging, the Hang Seng Index starts to rise and is about to exceed 13,000 points.

Feng Yu also used a large portion of his funds and USD to buy in the cheap HKD, and then use the HKD to acquire Hong Kong shares.

……

“Boss, the rumors we released are not effective. Many tycoons are media moguls in Hong Kong, and we can’t make use of the mainstream media.” Drucken Miller said.

Soros’s men had released lots of fake news, hoping to incite panic selling. But the news they released were buried under the good news released by the top tycoons in Hong Kong.

Soros never expects Hong Kong’s top tycoons will cooperate against him, as the tycoons will not make any money by doing this!

But it’s worth mentioning that even if the tycoons are not making money, Soros will suffer losses!

The Hang Seng Index rising will make Soros and his men lose money from their future contracts, and dumping HKD is another loss to them. They still got to pay the interest, and HKD is too stable. They cannot suppress it!

Soros’s strategy had failed, and this is the first time he felt anxious. He starts to reflect on his actions. Did his constant victory against the Southeast Asian countries cloud his mind? Maybe he should not attack Hong Kong in the first place.

“Boss, what should we do now? The Hang Seng Index is rising. Are we going to continue to short the index?”

“Or should we buy in the index futures to stop loss? We can pretend that we are continuing with our attacks and lure them into pushing the index up. Maybe we can cover our losses and even make money.” Thomas suggested.

“No. I think we should cancel those future contracts and admit our losses. We can move on and attack South Korea, and I have found a loophole in their financial system. I am confident that we can destroy South Korea’s exchange rate system within one month. We can recover our losses here and still make significant profits.”

“I think we shout attack Japan. Many countries in Southeast Asia had borrowed money from Japanese banks, and are unable to repay their debts. Japan’s bad debt had increased, and this is our opportunity to hit them. Also, Japan’s economy had recovered these few years slightly, and Japan’s economy will affect Hong Kong!”

The four fund managers have different views and started to argue among themselves. Soros closed his eyes and looked tired. At his age, he does not have the energy to think about a problem for too long.

This defeat is a blow to Soros. When someone is in a good mood, their energy levels will go up and will not get tired so fast.

But when someone suffered a setback, they will feel tired!

The four managers argued and suddenly realized that Soros had not said a word. All of them stopped and looked at Soros, waiting for him to make the final decision.

Soros opens his eyes and said. “Cancel the contracts and attack South Korea first!”

“Boss!”

Drucken Miller wants to persuade Soros, but Soros waved his hand. “I know. This will affect our reputation slightly, but if we continue, our losses will increase. We must think of a way to stop those Hong Kong tycoons from going against us. If our opponent is the Hong Kong Government alone, it will be much easier!”

……

Soros had retreated! Hong Kong is celebrating!

The almighty Quantum Fund was beaten in Hong Kong. Even after leaving Britain, Hong Kong is still the financial center of Asia. More importantly, China had not interfered!

Feng Yu and the tycoons were celebrating together with champagne. They had won against Soros and had not suffered any losses. Some of them even make some profits.

Feng Yu looked out of the windows. This is the first time Soros is attacking Hong Kong seriously, and he was defeated. But Soros is ambitious and will surely make a comeback! Should I try fighting against him in South Korea?

Chapter 941 – Hidden worries

Soros was defeated in Hong Kong and start to attack South Korea’s financial market. But this time, he did not inform Feng Yu. Soros had broken his agreement with Feng Yu when he attacked Hong Kong, and both cannot work together again.

Feng Yu also start to prepare his funds to attack South Korea. He hopes he can acquire some of South Korea’s companies shares at low prices.

Initially, Feng Yu had wanted to continue to make money, and at the same time, he can get to know how Soros operates and see if he has any weakness. If Feng Yu knows Soros’s operation style, he can give the latter a lethal blow.

But at this time, something happened in Hong Kong’s market.

“Uncle Fu, you say those people had started to dump their shares to raise funds? What are they trying to do? Can’t they wait until the end of the year?” Feng Yu frowned. Is Hong Kong’s stock market is going to fall?

“They know Soros is going to attack South Korea, and want to go there to make money. I don’t know who is the one that spread rumors that you had made over 10 billion USD from this crisis with only less than 5 billion USD! After they know about this, they are jealous.” Fu Rongqi looked at Feng Yu, waiting for his answer.

Profits of over 200% within a few months… Who will not be jealous?

Some people thought if they invest all their fortune, they can double it. The returns will be faster and higher than their traditional business.

“Do they think by following behind Soros, they can make so many profits?” Feng Yu laughed. Even if they want to follow the trend, they must have foresight. If they are too greedy, do not understand the market well enough, or missed the timing, it will be too late for them to make profits. If Soros canceled their future contracts before them, and the Korean Won rate recovers, they will suffer losses.

Judgment is critical, and without good judgments, these people will not succeed. Most of the time, only a handful of people will make profits in the financial market, and most people will lose their money. If everyone can make money from the financial market easily, it is a dangerous signal!

Also, Soros had just attacked Hong Kong, and they want to follow him to attack Korea. Are they not afraid of Soros setting them up?!

“I tried to persuade them to invest with me. But they think I am too conservative, and the returns are too low.” Fu Rongqi shook his head. Over the past two months, his returns are over 50%. How can this return rate be considered low?

These people might not even get profits of 50% in a year!

“Just let them be and let them dump their Hong Kong stocks to let Hang Seng Index plummet. The more Hang Seng Index falls, the easier it is for us to stabilize it.”

“But Soros might set them up in South Korea’s financial market, like short the market for a while and then buy in suddenly. If they are not careful, they might suffer massive losses.” Fu Rongqi was worried.

“They don’t trust you, and you are still worried about them? Furthermore, we are also entering the South Korea market, and if Soros tries anything funny, we can fight it out with him there!”

Feng Yu was excited. The battlefield had moved to South Korea, and Feng Yu will not have many people helping him. But Soros’s Quantum Fund had just lost in Hong Kong and had lost some followers. Not many people will join Soros in South Korean, and Feng Yu can make use of his victory to gather more investors to attack Soros.

At the same time, Feng Yu can also teach those tycoons a lesson. Those tycoons must know that without enough experience to analyze the market, and just following behind someone, will not succeed!

……

“Ah… the stock market had dropped again. I thought Soros was defeated and had left Hong Kong’s market?” A Hong Kong investor grumbled.

“It is always the big players controlling the financial market. They are the ones pushing up the stock market, and now, they are the ones making the market plunge. Small-time investors like us should run before its too late.” Someone sighed.

“But if I sell the stocks now, I will lose money.”

“It’s better to lose some than to lose all. Anyway, I had sold all my stocks and used the money to invest in properties!”

Many Hong Kong investors are discussing this, and many of them started to dump their stocks. They would rather keep their money in the banks or hand it to investment funds, like Wind and Rain Consulting and Guangzheng Fund, to manage for them.

Some of these investors turned to real estate as they realize the property market is more stable than stocks. When Soros attacked Hong Kong’s financial market, there were volatile fluctuations in the stock market, but the property market was not affected.

Look at Thailand. Their stock market and financial system had collapsed, but their properties’ price is still climbing. That means investing in properties is the safest!

A strange phenomenon appeared in Hong Kong. The Hang Seng Index is falling every day, and only a handful of stocks’ prices are rising. The majority of stocks are dropping.

Most of the money started to flow into the property market, and property prices start to rise.

Some people even borrowed money from finance companies to buy a few apartments. Even if the apartments cannot be rented out and are in bad locations, the prices are still rising.

These investors felt they could make money from selling these properties sometime later.

……

“Brother Feng, my Second Uncle, is asking me to invest in properties. I am thinking of withdrawing my investments from Wind and Rain Consulting.” Fu Guangzheng said.

“What? Invest in properties? Where?”

“Hong Kong’s properties. The property market is rising and is doing better than the stock market. I am not withdrawing all my money, and I only need 100 million USD.” Fu Guangzheng put up his index finger.

“Brother Fu, your Guangzheng Fund had made quite a lot of money, right? You had also invested with your Eldest Uncle’s company. The returns from my side are the highest, and it doesn’t make sense to withdraw funds here. Don’t tell me that you had withdrawn all your money from other places?” Feng Yu asked.

“No.”

Feng Yu raised his brows. No? This is fishy!

Brother Fu, are you asking me about my opinions about Hong Kong’s property market? I can tell you honestly that the property market bubble will burst within a year, just look at Japan. When houses are empty, and the prices of properties everywhere are rising, it is an indication of a serious problem. If the banks increased their interest rates, many property speculators will be bankrupt and will be stuck with their properties!”

Feng Yu shook his head. Fu Guangzheng had become more cunning now.

“You also think the property market will collapse?” Fu Guangzheng’s eyes opened wide. What Feng Yu said was the same as his Eldest Uncle and Professor Liang, and it seems that he had to follow what his Second Uncle said. He should wait until the property market collapse before entering!

“It will surely collapse, and even if Hong Kong’s Government cannot do anything about it.”

Feng Yu realized that Hong Kong’s economic crisis is still around. The Forex and stock market can be stabilized, but it’s hard to control the property market!

Chapter 942 – Be a hero

Although the Fu Family will not be affected much if the Hong Kong economy collapsed, it is not something Fu Guangzheng wants to see. Other than a few unscrupulous speculators, no one will want to see their country’s economic collapse.

“What’s wrong?” Feng Yu looked at the gloomy Fu Guangzheng. This is not his character.

“Should the government implement some measures to cool the property market?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

Huh? What is wrong with Fu Guangzheng? Does he want to interfere with this, and he can influence the Government?

Oh, Fu Rongqi can persuade the Government. That means Hong Kong’s property market might still be saved.

“Are you going to suggest this to the government?”

“You can go instead of me. You are quite influential in China, and should have some say about Hong Kong, right?”

Feng Yu: “……” Damn! It’s been a while since I get involved with politics!

“I will not get involved in this. If you want, you can suggest it yourself. Just increase the property taxes for the second and above properties, and it will curb these speculations. You can also suggest increasing the property transaction taxes and limit property loans, especially for second and above properties, and checks for vacancies, etc. This will cool down the property market.” Feng Yu casually replied.

Anyway, Feng Yu will not step forward and be the hero. Since Fu Guangzheng wants to be one, go ahead! Even if Feng Yu had to be a hero, he would be a hero behind the curtains!

“Wait… slow down. Let me write it down.” Fu Guangzheng said.

“You are going to suggest this to the Government? Are you from the housing committee?” Feng Yu never expect Fu Guangzheng to take his words so seriously.

“No, but my Second Uncle is. The majority of my Second Uncle’s investments are in properties. My Eldest Uncle had advised him to offload his overseas properties, but he still keeps lots of properties in Hong Kong. If the property market collapse, his losses will be massive. You might not know about the culture here in Hong Kong. If anything happens, the residents might go on the streets to protest and affect Hong Kong’s economy.” Fu Guangzheng explained.

“Alright. I will repeat what I said, and you must remember it. Tell your Second Uncle first, and it is up to him whether if he wants to suggest these to the Government. I don’t want to get involve…” Feng Yu repeated what he said, and Fu Guangzheng wrote it down.

Fu Rongqu will only be slightly affected if Hong Kong’s property market collapsed because he did not take loans for his properties. Fu Rongqi had told them not to take loans unless necessary. Cash is king!

That is why even if property prices fell, Fu Rongqu will not suffer any losses for the time being. Most of his properties were commercial properties like office buildings and shops.

Fu Guangzheng left to meet his Second Uncle. He thought about what Feng Yu said, and felt it should be effective, but it is not easy to implement it.

Many people, especially those speculators, will object to these cooling measures. But the majority of the residents in Hong Kong will welcome it, as most of them cannot afford to buy properties.

Fu Rongqu listened to Fu Guangzheng and thought hard about it. He knew the Hong Kong property market has a serious problem, and he had experienced Japan’s property bubble before. If he had not left the market in time, he would have lost all his money!

Fu Rongqu thought the Hong Kong property market can last for another two years, as Thailand’s property market is still doing well after their economy collapsed.

But during this period, when the Hong Kong stock market plunged, a large number of funds entered the property market, and it includes foreign funds. Many people do not know how to trade futures and felt futures are risky instruments. But all of them felt investing in properties is simple. It’s just bought low sell high, and even when there are risks involved, their property will still be around!

How popular is Hong Kong’s property market now? Units were sold out even before construction starts, and it is normal to see people buying 5 to 10 units at once. These people are not buying these properties to live. They are hoarding the units, waiting for prices to go up! Most of them do not have so much money to buy these properties and had to rely on bank loans.

Property prices are rising every day and made more people join the bandwagon to speculate properties. Furthermore, Soros’s defeat in Hong Kong made people believe Hong Kong’s economy is strong, and many investors from other Southeast Asian countries channeled their funds into Hong Kong!

The property market is too hot, and problems will surface. If the Government made any changes, those who speculated in properties would lose their money.

Feng Yu’s suggestions might be good, but it will be hard to implement, as it will affect the interest of many people.

“Guangzheng, what do you think of these measures? Do you think these can be implemented?” Fu Rongqu asked.

“Uncle, I think these measures are not bad. We can modify the measures slightly to make it more lenient. For example, transactions between family members can be exempted from additional taxes and increased down payment and taxes for third properties instead of the second property. It should be easier to get these measures implemented.”

“Suggesting these to the Government by myself is not enough. I need to contact some friends, and with their support, it will be easier. But if they refuse to help, it will be impossible.”

Fu Rongqu’s friends are all top businessmen in Hong Kong’s property market, and two of them are Hong Kong’s top ten wealthiest men. Of course, he had included Superman Li too.

If all of them agreed to the cooling measures, Hong Kong’s Government would approve it, but if they refused, it would be impossible to get these measures implemented. After all, these measures will harm their interest.

When the property market collapsed, it is the speculators who will suffer, and the developers had sold all their units and are counting their profits.

Limiting the property market is equivalent to limiting the property developers’ profits. But if the market crashed, their real estate companies will also suffer losses in the future.

Now, the decision lies with the developers. Do they want to make some fast cash, or make long-term profits?

“Guangzheng, you are the one who came up with these measures. Since Feng Yu does not want to get involved, we should not mention his name.” Fu Rongqu said.

“But if these measures got implemented, the one who suggested these will be popular with the ordinary folks.”

“You also said, ‘if it got implemented.’ What if it didn’t get implemented? Many people will be offended, and your relationship with Feng Yu might be soured. Since you are the one who asked Feng Yu, you should take up the responsibility.”

Fu Guangzheng nodded. “Ok.”

Fu Guangzheng does not mind taking the blame, because he knows Feng Yu cherished his reputation. Also, he doesn’t think Feng Yu is afraid of any Hong Kong tycoons. Even if Feng Yu had to go against Superman Li, Fu Guangzheng would put his money on Feng Yu winning. To Fu Guangzheng, Feng Yu had never lost before!

I will take responsibility, regardless if it is a hero or villain!

Chapter 943 – Copying Song

Feng Yu woke up in the morning and checked his emails. This account is his work mailbox and is used to receive reports from his various companies.

Feng Yu read all his emails, and all his companies were growing well. Among the companies, Wind and Rain Electronics and Lehaha are doing the best.

Wind and Rain Mobile phones’ sales are rising steadily, especially Russia and the former Soviet Union countries’ market. Feng Yu wondered what Kirilenko did to have such good sales. The phones had increased Wind and Rain’s brand awareness further, and in Europe, their sales are also growing. In less than two years, the Wind and Rain Mobile phone will be the world’s third mobile phone manufacturer behind Nokia and Motorola!

Feng Yu is satisfied with this result and believed that they could take over China and East Europe markets if they continue to develop their technologies. It will have the highest mobile phone sales in the world soon!

Lehaha’s beverages are also selling well in western countries, and their energy drinks are the most popular. Last month, Lehaha introduced bigger bottled tea beverages, and the sales report showed that even though it is off-season, the big bottle beverages had still achieved high sales.

In the Chinese market, Lehaha is catching up with Jianlibao, and Zhong Qingxian announced that the future Chinese beverage market would belong to Lehaha and Jianlibao. He had purposely said Lehaha before Jianlibao!

Zhong Qingxian is not concerned about companies like Le Bashi and the rest. The two Cola giants were being suppressed in the Chinese market, and their sales are declining.

Lehaha made use of nationalism and monopolized the schools’ beverage market to control the major markets. The two Cola giants and the Taiwanese companies can only operate on the outskirts.

The market had responded positively to Lehaha’s instant noodles. Tong Yi and Kang Shifu instant noodles are much cheaper than Lehaha’s instant noodles, but Lehaha won with better tasting noodles, branding, and distribution channels.

Lehaha’s instant noodles are selling well is also because of their advertisements on CCTV. Kang Shifu and Tongyi had not won any advertising slots on CCTV and can only advertise with the local TV stations.

The local TV channels’ ratings cannot be compared to CCTV. Feng Yu and his companies had bought many advertisement slots at CCTV, but the results can be seen clearly. The sales of their products had increased, and brand awareness improved.

After reading all the work emails, Feng Yu log into another email account. Every week, he will receive an email in this account.

Feng Yu smiled as he clicked on the new mail.

“Yesterday is raining, and we found a kitten outside our school. We secretly brought it back to our hostel and was almost caught by the caretaker. What should we feed the kitten? Do we have to catch mice for the kitten? But we are scare of mice…”

Feng Yu laughed as he read the email.

Do cats eat mice? Even if you don’t have cat food, you can also prepare milk for it.

The kitten might be cute, but after it got bigger, they will know it’s a mistake to bring it back to the hostel. Cats can cause more damages than dogs, especially on bedsheets, etc.!

During mating season, the cries by cats can drive people nuts. No one will be able to sleep at night.

Eh? She had registered for her school’s New Year Eve function, and is wondering what to perform? Should I write a skit for her?

Feng Yu thought for a while. It’s hard for a girl to act in the skits he remembered from his previous life. Oh yes. The song Feng Yu wrote for Na Ying had recorded, and she had sent him a sample in a cassette tape. Should he send the cassette tape over?

Anyway, this song will be performed on New Year Eve Gala Night, and no one should notice someone else had performed the same song in the university. Yes… I should inform Na Ying first. I am the one who ‘wrote’ this song and had asked Na Ying to donate all my royalties to charity. She should not object.

But this song is a duet and need a partner.

Feng Yu smiled. This should be Zhou Kexin’s problem, and she can find a suitable partner to perform this song.

Feng Yu took out a cassette tape from his drawer and listened to it on his Walkman. That’s right. This is the song, and it is still so beautiful.

But after the song, Na Ying had recorded herself thanking Feng Yu. This part must be deleted.

“Hello, Guangwei? Where are you? I need your help.”

……

“Brother Feng, you called me over so urgently to help you copy a cassette tape?” Fu Guangwei was speechless. He is the second generation of one of the most influential families in Hong Kong, but he had to run errands for Feng Yu now.

“I don’t have a tape recorder at home, and the sound quality from a tape recorder is not good. Help me get professionals to make a copy of this cassette tape and remove the part after the song. I need it urgently.”

“Alright. It’s a small matter and should be completed tomorrow.” Fu Guangwei replied.

“You must be careful. This song belongs to someone else, and if it is leaked, it will have dire consequences.” Feng Yu reminded.

“Ok… I will bring it to a recording label personally and get the professionals there to make a copy of it, alright? Eh, what do you need this song for?” Fu Guangwei asked curiously. He is planning to see if he can date any young singers at the record label, and if everything goes on smoothly, he will be busy tonight.

“One of my friends wants to learn this song, and I am just helping.”

Fu Guangwei: “……” Your friend wants to learn this song, and I got to run errands for you?!

Also, who is this friend? A female friend?

Feng Yu ignored Fu Guangwei’s questioning look.

“Alright. I will bring the cassette tape over to your company tomorrow. Is there anything else?”

“What else do you think I should ask you to do?” Feng Yu glanced at Fu Guangwei. You must also be able to complete the task in the first place. Do you think you can help me with other more complicated tasks?

If I am not busy, I would have gone to Polygram myself. This recording label is owned by Philips.

The next day, an exhausted-looking Fu Guangwei passed two cassette tapes and two CDs to Feng Yu. “I had prepared cassette tapes and CDs for you. I am going back to sleep.”

Last night, Fu Guangwei and a young singer had ‘fought’ several rounds. If not for Feng Yu’s wonder pill, Fu Guangwei might not last so many rounds. He had gone for so many rounds because it was that girl’s first time, and he was too excited.

Feng Yu listened to every cassette tapes and CDs. The song and melody are recorded separately, and the quality is good. Fu Guangwei is still quite reliable.

Wait… Where is the master copy?

Damn! This guy is unreliable at all!

Chapter 944 – Requesting for Song

Feng Yu posted the cassette tapes and CDs through urgent mail to Shanghai, before going to Wind and Rain Consulting Firm.

Feng Yu instructed He Zhaoji to continue suppressing Korean Won, and Won should not last any longer. If Korea does not have strong foreign reserves, they can only increase their interest rates and limit the borrowings to curb speculators from dumping Won.

But such measures are unable to stop Soros. Soros is an expert in multi-pronged attacks, and South Korea is no match for him.

Korean’s defense will break within a week, and the Won rate will plunge.

Feng Yu was watching the news on TV about South Korea when his phone rang. Did he remember that he had forgotten to return me the master copy and want to ask me where I am?

“I am at Wind and Rain Consulting Firm. You can bring it over.” Feng Yu answered and said.

“Ah? Bring what over?”

“The master copy of that song. Don’t tell me that you had misplaced it?”

“Ah… No… It is with me. Err… Brother Feng, can I invite you to lunch this afternoon? I know an Italian Chef, who happens to visit Hong Kong, and had made a reservation.” Fu Guangwei asked.

Fu Guangwei wants to treat me lunch? Had he helped me make a copy of that song and still want to treat me?

There is no free lunch, and Fu Guangwei must be up to something!

“Alright.”

At noon, Feng Yu’s driver drove him to the restaurant, and Fu Guangwei is waiting at the main entrance.

“Guangwei.”

“Brother Feng, come… I heard this Chef is good, and I know you like to experience good food from different regions.” Fu Guangwei said, and Feng Yu grew more suspicious.

Feng Yu knew Fu Guangwei for quite some time and knew he would not behave like this for no reason. He did not even treat his father like this!

Indeed. Not long after they started eating, Fu Guangwei tried to speak to Feng Yu, but Feng Yu did not look at him.

Finally, when they are drinking wine, Fu Guangwei got the opportunity to ask Feng Yu. “Brother Feng, I need your help.”

“You had already addressed me as Brother, and you can speak your mind.” Feng Yu knew Fu Guangwei needed something from him. But with the Fu Family’s status in Hong Kong, the problem Fu Guangwei is facing should not be in Hong Kong. It should be something in China.

As long as Fu Guangwei’s request does not involve politics or is against the law, Feng Yu will help.

“Brother Feng, I heard from Guangzheng that you know how to write songs. Did you write the song you passed to me yesterday? Did Na Ying and Faye Wong sang that song?” Fu Guangwei looked at Feng Yu.

Damn! This idiot wants me to write a song for him? I am not a professional songwriter. At most, I can play some simple songs on the guitar.

Furthermore, I am busy with the futures market, and every minute costs a few million. You want me to write a song for you? How much can I earn from a popular song?

But Feng Yu does not want to turn down Fu Guangwei’s request, as he had just helped him.

“You want me to write a song? Who is it for?” Feng Yu asked.

Fu Guangwei is overjoyed. “Can you write a duet?” Feng Yu had agreed. That’s great!

“Tell me who the singer is, and I need to hear her vocals.” Feng Yu might not be a professional, but he knows that a good song must suit the vocal of the singer.

Fu Guangwei suddenly smiled shyly. “Brother Feng, what do you think of my vocals?”

Feng Yu’s jaws dropped. What? Does this idiot want to be a singer?!

Fu Guangwei wants me to write him a song? A duet? This must be for some woman! You want me to write a song for you to go after another woman?!

Fu Guangwei saw Feng Yu’s face turned black and quickly explained. “Yesterday, after recording that song for you, I went drinking and got drunk. Then I made a promise to someone. Brother Feng, please help me, or I will be someone who couldn’t keep my promise!”

Feng Yu could guess what happened. Fu Guangwei must have bedded a singer and promised her a song. But why does he want a duet?!

“Let’s go and listen to the woman’s voice after lunch.” Feng Yu shook his head. “Don’t ask me to do this again!”

In Hong Kong, there are many award-winning songwriters, and with Fu Guangwei’s background, he can hire anyone of them.

When they reached the recording studio, Feng Yu was stunned when he saw the woman. How come it’s her? But why are her eyes swollen and looked like she had cried before? Was she forced last night?

“Joey, can you sing a few lines for my Brother Feng? He had agreed to write a song for you.” Fu Guangwei said proudly. “He is the one who wrote the song yesterday and does not write a song for anyone. Na Ying and Sun Nan became famous because of the songs he wrote.”

Feng Yu got a headache when he heard Joey sang. Her voice is beautiful, but in Feng Yu’s previous life, he is not familiar with her songs.

Feng Yu’s impression of this girl’s song is a Chinese song.

“Alright. You have a beautiful voice and should have been trained professionally. Can you speak Chinese? Hong Kong had returned to China, and you should know how significant the Chinese market is. I will write a Chinese song for you, and if you don’t like it, I will give it to someone else.”

Joey looked at Fu Guangwei timidly. This is not what you promised me last night. You said you would find a top producer to groom me and help me release an album. It’s been two years since I won the singing competition, and I don’t even have my song!

“Brother Feng, she can’t speak Chinese.” Fu Guangwei said.

“Then go and learn it. Do you think I know how to write Cantonese lyrics? But I dare to say this Chinese song will make her famous throughout China and even the whole of Southeast Asia!” Feng Yu has another solution, which is to translate the song into English.

Feng Yu can speak and read in English, but he can’t write lyrics in English.

Fu Guangwei held Joey’s hand and said. “Hurry and thank Brother Feng, and brush up your Chinese. This song can make you famous like Na Ying and Sun Nan.”

Joey nodded and replied. “I will learn Chinese.”

Fu Guangwei looked at Feng Yu and asked. “Brother Feng, what about the duet?”

“No! Only one song! Take it or leave it!” Feng Yu was mad. Do you dare to sing with your lousy voice?!

“We want it! We will make it a hit single, and buy a few more Chinese songs from Taiwan and help her release an album.”

“Bring me a guitar and get a composer here to write the score.”

“Eh! You… That’s right. It’s you. Come over and write the notes for Brother Feng. I will take care of you if you get any notes wrong!” Fu Guangwei’s attitude towards others is very different.

Feng Yu sighed as he walked aside. The singer he likes in his previous life was bedded by Fu Guangwei!

Joey Yung

Chapter 945 – Fu Rongqu’s mistake

When that professional composer walked out of the room, he had an unbelievable look on his face. Was this song wrote on the spot? How can someone write such a beautiful song like this, and it’s tailored for Joey’s voice.

Feng Yu left, as he does not want to be bothered by Fu Guangwei.

Feng Yu doesn’t know that Fu Guangwei had made the girl drunk and brought her back. He even took her virginity. After Joey woke up, Fu Guangwei refused to marry her. How can someone from the Fu Family marry a small-time singer? So, he promised to release an album for her to please her.

After that, Fu Guangwei took the opportunity to go for a few more rounds with her. He has a fetish for inexperienced girls and even ate the ‘magic’ pill for this!

Now, Fu Guangwei can finally fulfill his promise. He had invested so much effect on Joey, and before he got bored, she can be considered his girlfriend!

Fu Guangwei was still thinking about spending another night with her, when he received his father’s phone call, asking him to go to his Eldest Uncle at night. There is a family discussion today night.

Fu Guangwei was overjoyed. He can finally participate in his family’s discussion!

Fu Guangwei arrived at his Eldest Uncle’s house earlier, but he noticed the tension in the air, and everyone looked worried.

“Brother Guangxian, what’s going on?” Fu Guangwei asked softly.

“It’s about your Second Uncle and Guangzheng. They are thinking of asking the Hong Kong government to curb property speculation in Hong Kong.”

“Ah? Second Uncle’s biggest investment is in real estate, and it’s normal for him to get worried about Hong Kong’s property market. But Brother Guangzheng’s investments are mainly in a physical business. Why is he getting involved in this?” Fu Guangwei was confused.

Do they want to change the property market? Many of Hong Kong’s top property developers are influential, and many of the top 10 tycoons in Hong Kong are into the property market. Although they might not be as powerful as the Fu Family, they are formidable opponents.

Second Uncle wants to implement cooling measures for the property market, and this will affect their interest, and the Fu Family will have to face many influential families! How can he succeed?!

“Guangzheng wants to do something to impress Professor Liang’s daughter. I got to admit Professor Liang’s daughter is not bad, but he does not need to get into trouble because of her.” Fu Guangxian replied angrily.

When Fu Guangzheng was a playboy, his brother, Fu Guangxian, was worried. But after Fu Guangzheng started to work hard, he could feel the pressure. However, after Fu Guangzheng’s assets overtake his father, he was relieved.

Fu Guangzheng might become the next head of the Fu Family, and Fu Guangxian’s status in the family will also rise. But now, Fu Guangzheng and his Second Uncle had gone crazy and contacted those influential families, asking them to reform Hong Kong’s property market. This is asking for trouble!

Even if Fu Rongqi went to look for them, they might not agree. The Fu Family is not powerful enough to suppress others. If any two of those families cooperates, they can easily suppress the Fu Family!

Fu Guangwei’s cousins from his Eldest and Second Uncles’ families, joined them. They are about the same age and were very close.

Fu Guangwei could feel his cousins from his Eldest Uncle seems… to be gloating!

That’s right. These few years, Guangzheng had become outstanding and achieved good results in China. Fu Guangwei heard Fu Guangzheng’s business had expanded to Europe and had made a few billion HKD from this financial crisis.

With Professor Liang’s help, Brother Guangzheng might become the successor. But now, Brother Guangzheng had created a mess and offended many influential families in Hong Kong. This means he will not be suitable to become the next head, and Fu Guangwei’s other two cousins will stand a higher chance.

After a while, everyone arrived, and the helpers in the house are ordered to leave.

“Guangzheng, tell everyone about this incident.” Fu Rongqi looked at Fu Guangzheng and nodded.

Fu Guangzheng explained the whole situation and told everyone that he had asked a few of his friends to help implement this cooling measure.

Fu Rongqu added that he had gotten his friends to spread words. He also felt if Hong Kong’s property market is not reformed, the bubble will burst like Japan.

“Why didn’t you two discuss with me first?” Fu Rongqi asked.

This matter is not about one family’s interest. It involves the interest of many families and will make the Fu Family will have to face the rest of the influential families. It will not be good for the Fu Family’s development.

Superman Li has a lot of investments in Canada, but most of his investments are not his alone and are joint ventures with two other top tycoons. This is to lower risks, capital, and increase competitiveness.

Hong Kong’s influential families had been competing with each other, but are also partners. But after what happened this time, which influential family is willing to work with the Fu Family again?

Your Fu Family’s main business is in the retail and financial market, and we are in the real estate business. Now you want to cool the property market and lower our profits? What are you trying to do?

When they are defending Hong Kong against Soros, Fu Rongqi had become the leader, and many tycoons are unhappy with this arrangement. They felt many things must be discussed first, and not Fu Rongqi deciding on everything.

After Soros is defeated, this temporary alliance ended.

Now, everyone is fighting for themselves and had started selling their shares when the index is high. They want to make profits and resulted in many ordinary investors losing money.

The tycoons started to invest in South Korea’s financial market themselves and do not want to work with the Fu Family. They felt their profits made by Fu Rongqi were too low. These tycoons were unhappy with the Fu Family, and now, this incident happened, and the Fu Family might be isolated.

Fu Rongqu lowered his head. “I had not expected this reaction from them. They should know about the danger in our property market, and the market will not collapse for the next few years if the cooling measures are implemented. If the market collapse, they will also suffer losses.”

“Foolish! Don’t you remember what happens when Hong Kong’s property market crash previously? Many of them made use of the opportunity to buy properties at low prices and made lots of money. Do you think they are wrong not to help you get the cooling measures implemented? All of them are waiting for the property market to crash to acquire properties at low prices!”

It is those small-time property speculators who will suffer losses when the property market crash. These developers had already sold their apartments, and what losses will they incur? Recently, many of those tycoons had not bought any land parcels and had rented out most of their properties at lower prices.

Once the property market crash, they will move in. Cooling measures? This will prevent them from making money.

“Brother, what should we do now?” Fu Rongqu was feeling helpless and had not thought about the consequences. No wonder their father let Fu Rongqi be the head of the family and had never considered him. This incident showed the difference in capability between them.

Chapter 946 – New battleground

In the end, the Fu Family had not concluded how to resolve this incident and can only take a step at a time. Fu Rongqi said he would think of ways to improve their relationship with the rest of the families, and they must not bring up these suggestions again.

After the meeting ended, Fu Rongqi called Fu Guangzheng to his study to ask him about those cooling measures. He does not believe Fu Guangzheng had thought of these suggestions himself. He might come up with one of the measures, but he can’t come up with so many effective measures.

“I had asked Feng Yu, and he also advises me not to do it. But I feel that even though we can make a lot of money when Hong Kong’s property market crash, but the impact on Hong Kong’s economy will be severe.” Fu Guangzheng explained.

“The ones who will lose money when the property market crash are those greedy speculators. The ones who bought properties to live in will not suffer much loss. Even when Hong Kong’s property market crash, Hong Kong’s economy will not be like Japan.”

……

“Feng, when can we get back our funds?” Kirilenko asked.

“We can withdraw part of our funds now. You need money, urgently?” Even if Kirilenko needs money, he can easily raise money with his connections, unless the amount he needed is too much.

“No. I want to plan when to build my mansion!” Kirilenko replied proudly. “I had hired our best architect, and my mansion will be the best in the world!”

Feng Yu was surprised. Does Kirilenko want to live in a mansion? The mansions in Russia are beautiful, but Feng Yu does not like the climate there. Going there once in a while to escape the summer heat is fine. But to live there for a year, he will go crazy!

“The design for your mansion is completed?”

“Not yet. I still have not bought the land. How big do you think my mansion should be? If it is too big, will it affect my father?”

Looking at Kirilenko’s expression, Feng Yu knew he is not asking him for advice. He is flaunting to him!

“Up to you. Your money is enough for you to build the world’s best mansion. I will help you withdraw some money out in a few days. Is 100 million USD enough?” Feng Yu said 100 million USD as if it was like 1 USD.

“Should be enough for the land, design, and building materials. I can use the rest for renovation when the time comes.”

Feng Yu gave Kirilenko a stare. One hundred million USD can only buy the land, design, and materials? Damn! Is he going to build the world’s top mansion?

But is the land in Russia so expensive?

How much is Kirilenko going to spend on this mansion? If the construction cost more than 100 million USD, what about the renovation? The proud Kirilenko will surely buy famous oil paintings and antique porcelain to decorate his house.

Damn! After his mansion is completed, I must go there to enjoy it for a few days. Maybe his mansion is even better than Bill Gates’s mansion. At least, the construction cost is much higher.

“Are you going to build a smart home like Bill Gates? No. You should build one better than his. You can let Lenovo Kingsoft help you develop the software.” Feng Yu suggested.

“We can talk about this later. I only have two requirements. Big and beautiful. Oh, Songjiang Offroad’s second generation is going to be launched, right? When is it?”

“It should be early next year. The newer version is more powerful and is based on your requirements.”

When Songjiang Offroad is sold to Russia, it becomes popular quickly. But very soon, Kirilenko complained that the engine is not powerful enough, and it’s hard to go up a steep slope with a heavy load.

Now, Bing City Machinery Company had developed a new eight-cylinder engine, and the CC was increased to 3.0L. Of course, the price is higher, but Kirilenko said this is not a problem. Once this car is launched, he will order 5,000 units!

With Kirilenko’s promise, Bing City Machinery Company has nothing to be afraid of. The sales in China will be good, and they still have Europe and the US market.

“Oh, can you get your men to design a limousine for me? I want the best technologies and materials to be used on this Limousine.” Kirilenko is someone who speaks whatever comes to his mind.

“Limousine? Who is it for?”

“For me.”

Feng Yu is curious. Kirilenko does not like Limousine.

“Do you prefer off-road model chassis or saloon cars chassis?” Kirilenko is Songjiang Motors’ biggest distributor, and not mentioning his relationship with Feng Yu, Songjiang Motors should fulfill his request and not make any money from him.

“Use the Offroad chassis. It will feel more comfortable on a higher chassis. Oh, help me engrave two people on the bonnet.”

Feng Yu finally understood why Kirilenko asked for this Limousine.

“You are using it as your wedding car?”

“Of course. If not, why would I want a slow limousine? The mansion is also for my wedding.” Kirilenko replied proudly. It will take at least two years to build a mansion, and his wedding will be push back!

To be honest, Kirilenko felt his fiancée would be a good wife, with her education, background, looks, etc.

But because this is an arranged marriage, Kirilenko does not feel comfortable. Also, after his marriage, he will lose some of his freedom. His fiancée kept asking him to drink lesser. What’s the point of living if he does not drink?

His fiancée still forbids him to get drunk. What’s the point of drinking if he is not allowed to get drunk? That’s why he tried to delay his marriage and enjoy it while he can.

“Hahaha…. No problem. I will make sure you will be please with it. Send me a picture of you and your fiancée later. Do you have any more requirements? I will write it down and send it to my designers, and they will send you a draft.” Feng Yu laughed.

Wen Dongjun and Zhang Han had gotten married, and Feng Yu had flown back to attend his wedding.

Feng Yu’s family had been asking him to get married. Luckily for him, Li Na still has one year before graduating, and he can use this as an excuse. He is still unsure if he should give up Zhou Kexin, his wife, in his previous life. Before Feng Yu meet her, he will not consider marriage.

The phone in the room rang suddenly.

“Hello?”

“Boss, I am He Zhaoji. Soros had started his move. Korean Won rate shot up suddenly! If the rate rises by 8%, most of the people’s contracts will be forced to cancel!”

Feng Yu brightens up. Soros had finally made his move. Good. Let’s fight it out in South Korea!

Chapter 947 – If we had known

Feng Yu rushed to his office and saw everyone was busy. When they saw Feng Yu, all of them stood up, waiting for his orders.

“We will not do anything today. Old He, I had told you to cancel all our future contracts once you notice any abnormalities. Have you done it?”

“Yes, but our profit is only 8%.” He Zhaoji reported. They had too many contracts. Although the transactions are all electronic, there were still some delays. If not, they would have gotten at least 20%.

“Ok. It’s not bad. Don’t feel bad about it.” Soros had acted too suddenly, and 8% profit is considered good results. Many people had suffered losses.

“Boss, are we only going to monitor the market today?” Someone asked.

“That’s right. All of you will monitor the market and analyze when did Soros cancel his contracts and buy-in Korean Won. Also, you all have to analyze the mistakes made by those Hong Kong tycoons, and discuss among yourselves.”

Soros switched position suddenly and start to push up Korean Won’s rate might also be a trap, and Feng Yu will not enter the market recklessly. He had not suffered any losses and had also reminded the Fu Family in advance.

Feng Yu and the Fu Family had hedged against their investments, and regardless of the rate rise or fall, their losses will not be high. Of course, their profits will not be high either. If not, Feng Yu’s profits will not be so low from the way the Korean Won rate fall yesterday.

But what they did are considered making real investments. Those that only bet on the rate rising or falling are speculators. They might get returns up to several times their capital, and might also lose everything in an instant!

The Hong Kong tycoons, who had shorted Korean Won, are speculators, and not only they had short Korean Won, they even used high leverages.

All of them had not expected the Korean Won rate to rise suddenly/

Because of the high leverage, they might be forced to cancel their contracts anytime. They must top up their accounts and lower the leverage.

What happened was totally different from what they imagined. Didn’t the rumors say that following Soros will surely make money? Aside from Hong Kong, didn’t Soros win whenever he attacks another country’s currency?

……

“Old Liu, how is your side doing? Can you lend me 10 million? I am having some cash flow issues. Ah?? Your money is also trapped in the market?”

“Old Zhao, my money is all trapped in the market. Can you lend me some? You only have 1 million left, and it’s HKD?! Nevermind.”

“Old Ma, what did you say? Do you want to borrow money from me? I am still calling people to borrow money. If I still can’t top up my account, all my future contracts will be forced to be canceled. You also had a short Korean Won?”

Hong Kong Tycoon, Niu Deming was pacing up and down in his office. He had invested 100 million USD and used 15 times leverage to short Korean Won. He was overjoyed when Korean Won rates fell at the start. If the Korean Won fell by 10%, and his 100 million USD will get a profit of 150 million USD!

Yesterday, the Korean Won dropped by 3%, and many people said Won will not last any longer and will plummet today. Niu Deming also thinks so, as he heard Soros had accumulated another significant fund to attack Won!

Taiwan is not a match for Soros, and how can South Korea be a match for him? South Korea’s foreign reserves are lesser than in Hong Kong.

Furthermore, with some many Hong Kong tycoons joining in the attacks on Korean Won, Won rate should crash.

But the Won suddenly increased today. Not only the Won had recovered from their fall yesterday, it even increases by 2%.

The Hong Kong tycoons had placed too much faith in Soros and increased their stakes, resulting in them having financial difficulties.

If one or two tycoons encountered financial issues, they could easily borrow money from their friends.

But when the majority of the tycoons are facing the same problems, who is going to help them?

At this time, all the tycoons thought of Fu Rongqi. When Fu Rongqi invited them to invest with him, all of them refused. They felt Fu Rongqi is too conservative, but now it is proven that being conservative will lower risks.

If the Tycoons can reverse time, they will surely choose to listen to Fu Rongqi’s advice, and they will not suffer this massive loss!

Niu Deming hesitated for a while before calling Fu Rongqi.

“Manager Niu, why are you calling me?” Fu Rongqi knew the Won had risen suddenly, and Niu Deming is asking people to borrow money.

When Niu Deming called, Fu Rongqi knew he must be calling to borrow money. But he still purposely asks why he is calling.

“Mr. Fu, I had encountered some problems and hoped to borrow money from you.” Niu Deming said.

When all the Hong Kong tycoons disagreed with Fu Rongqi’s investment strategies, Niu Deming was one of them.

“You want to borrow money? No problem. We are all friends, and I will surely help you when you have difficulties.” Fu Rongqi replied.

Niu Deming was overjoyed. He had not expected Fu Rongqi to agree so easily. If he knew it was so easy to get a loan from Fu Rongqi, he would have called earlier.

“Thank you, Mr. Fu. How much interest are you looking at, and when can you lend me the money?”

“How much money do you need?”

“Can I borrow 50 million USD?”

“Only 50 million USD? No problem. You can decide on how much interest you want to give me. I am curious, what are you going to do with this sum of money?”

What am I doing with this sum of money? Of course, I will be using it to top up my account and lower the leverage. What else can I do?

“What do you mean?” Niu Deming asked.

“Why don’t you hand your portfolio to me and let me manage for you? I don’t dare to claim I can help you make a lot of money, but at least I will not let you lose money.”

Niu Deming understood why Fu Rongqi agreed so readily. He wants to gain control over their funds.

But to be honest, this is a good solution, and Niu Deming does not need to borrow money. From what Fu Rongqi said, he will be bearing all the risk for him.

After this incident, Niu Deming realized the difference between Fu Rongqi and him when it comes to financial trading.

“Mr. Fu, did the others also handover their portfolios to let you manage?”

“What do you think?” Fu Rongqi did not answer Niu Deming’s question directly.

That’s right. Most of the tycoons had their money trapped in the market, and only Fu Rongqi still have sufficient funds. If Fu Rongqi is willing to help, he might even make the Korean Won rate fall. All of them will not have to top up their accounts and might still be able to make some profits if they are lucky.

“Mr. Fu, I will go over to your office later. I will let you handle my investment.”

When Niu Deming arrived at Fu Rongqi’s company, he saw many familiar faces. All of them are Hong Kong’s top tycoons, and from their expressions, they should be the same as Niu Deming. They had approached Fu Rongqi to borrow money but end up handling over their investment portfolios to him.

Everyone looked at each other and smiled awkwardly. If they had known this would happen, they would not choose to ignore Fu Rongqi’s advice in the first place.

Chapter 948 – Why must it be here?

“Uncle Fu, how many people had agreed to let you handle their funds?” Feng Yu laughed and asked.

“Many. I didn’t expect them to be so crazy. They are all gambling with their wealth.” Fu Rongqi shook his head. These people are daring.

Betting all their assets in an industry is normal, even if they had to lose all their money. But they were blinded by their greed.

There may be profits for them, but there are risks. Fu Rongqi did not expect all of the Hong Kong tycoons to be so reckless when it comes to investing. This is a joke!

The total funds invested by those tycoons amounted to over 1 billion USD. But what they had done had also allowed Feng Yu and Fu Rongqi to gather everyone’s funds together. Fu Rongqi only needs to give those tycoons 10% of the profits according to the agreement signed between them. The rest of the profits will belong to Fu Rongqi!

Fu Rongqi had also signed an agreement with Feng Yu. They will cooperate, and the profits will be split based on proportions. Superman Li also join them and invested a few billion USD in Fu Rongqi’s fund, letting him manage it.

“We should start preparing. From tomorrow onwards, we will start to attack Korean Won.”

Those tycoons had all shorted Korean Won, and the futures contracts are all transferred to Fu Rongqi’s private equity company. Most of the profits will go to Fu Rongqi and Feng Yu, and Korean Won depreciating will benefit them.

Korean Won had shot up suddenly should be the works of Soros, and he must have bought lots of long position future contracts. The only way to make Soros suffer losses is to make the Korean Won rate drop.

Also, by attacking Korean Won, South Korea’s economy will suffer and will stop those powerful Korean enterprises in their tracks.

……

“Boss, our guess is correct. Those Hong Kong tycoons are trapped in the market. They had all short Korean Won, and very few of them do hedging.” Drucken Miller excitedly said.

“Hmph! Those short-sighted people only thought about profits and had not considered whether if they can save themselves. Did anyone step forward to help them?” Soros asked.

“We had been monitoring Feng and Fu’s funds. They should be preparing to attack the Korean Won. Should we continue to push Won rates up, or should we settle those contracts now and start to short it?” Drucken Miller asked.

“We should let them use more of their funds to attack Won first, and we must start to short Korean Won. This way, when Korean Won rate drops, we will get more profits.”

Soros swirled the wine glass he is holding. The previous two times, when all of them shorted the Forex market, Soros had been the one leading the attacks and Feng Yu following behind him to reap the profits. This time, he must make Feng Yu put in more effort, and he will hide behind to earn money. He can also withdraw from the market suddenly, trapping Feng Yu’s funds there to fight against the South Korean Government!

Until now, Soros still does not know how much funds Feng Yu has. He only has a rough estimation of those Hong Kong tycoons’ funds.

Soros had used up all his cards and will not have any more new funds coming in. But still, have his reputation. For example, he is not the only person pushing the Korean Won rate up. He had contacted a few international speculators for cooperation.

This time, Soros is pretending to be pushing Korean Won up, and make Feng Yu and his allies to invest more to depreciate Won. After that, he will switch when Won reached a high position, and he will make more profits than Feng Yu!

Soros can also cancel his short position contracts earlier and push up Korean Won’s rate. This will make Feng Yu and his allies suffer massive losses!

……

“President Park, our Won rate had dropped suddenly. Someone is dumping Won in large amounts!” Someone rushed into the office.

“Why is this happening? I thought Soros and those people had left?” Park Yooshin was shocked. He was still thinking of ways to stabilize Korean Won’s rate. Why did the rate fluctuate again?

“We are not sure, and we had been monitoring Soros. It must be someone else, or Soros is using some accounts unaware to us.”

“Has Soros canceled their contracts?”

“Not yet. Their long position contracts are still effective.”

Park Yooshin was relieved. This way, Soros will have no choice but to push up Korean Won.

Park Yooshin had not considered what if Soros switch position and start to short Korean won.

The following few days, Park Yooshin’s mood is like a costal roller ride. Korean Won rate is fluctuating violently. The rate will rise by several percentages, and the next day, it will fall by a few percentages. The Korean Government no longer have control over their currency.

Now, the Korean Government knows that two opposing funds are at war, using Korean Won as their weapons.

Park Yooshin almost cried. All you international speculators have nothing better else to do? Why must you pick Forex as your battleground? Even if you all must use Forex to fight it out, why can’t you all go and play with another country’s currency? Why must it be Korean Won?

Do you know how difficult it has been for us? We had called out to all our citizens to donate their gold and use the gold to stabilize our currency. All our TV stars do not have gold jewelry to wear now!

What are you all trying to do?

This is the first time Park Yooshin experiencing a financial war. Even when Thailand was attacked, such a situation did not happen. Korean Won is now like a basketball, being snatched by two opposing teams.

……

“Nephew Feng, have you figure out Soros’s tricks?” Fu Rongqi frowned and asked.

The past few days, Fu Rongqi and Feng Yu had invested a lot of their funds. Soros is a formidable opponent and always manages to gasp the best timing to build a portfolio and make money.

Fu Rongqi managed to settle the Hong Kong tycoons’ short position contracts with no losses or profits in the midst of the battle. But the tycoons were unhappy as they had used so many funds and can only get back their capital.

“Soon. I am thinking that if we carry on like this, Soros will have no choice but to compete with us using funds!” Feng Yu looked at Fu Rongqi. “We will make use of rumors to back us. Spread the news that Soros is going to make Korean Won fall, and we will pretend to be going all out too. Remember to spread the news that we are the ones who defeated Soros and his team previously!”

Soros doesn’t want to face Feng Yu heads on? Then Feng Yu will force Soros to battle it out. Soros can control so many funds is because he has the title of the world’s top fund manager.

If Soros refuses to accept Feng Yu’s challenge, he will lose his reputation and will affect his Quantum Fund.

Without the other speculators following him and losing their trust, Soros’s Quantum Fund will just be another ordinary investment fund. Soros will no longer command the international speculators!

The next day, the news reported that many Hong Kong businessmen are grouping up to help South Korea protect their currency. If Soros wants to attack Korean Won, he will have to face this group of businessmen first!

Although pushing up Korean Won rates will bring lower Feng Yu’s profits, but he will gain in many other areas. For example, he will be standing on the righteous side, gain the support of the Korean Government, and at the same time, make many people lose confidence with Soros.

Soros saw the news reports and was furious. Fine! You all are asking for it! Do you think you can step all over me?!

I will let you all know this is a major mistake for going against me!

……

Korea’s Central Bank President Park Yooshin cried this time. Damn! Both of you want to wage war, go ahead… why must you all pick Korea as your battleground? Why????

Chapter 949 – Fight

The South Korean Government had also received advice from an ‘expert’ to adopt the same strategies used by the Hong Kong Government to adjust the currency rate back to normal. The Korean Government is going to sit on the sidelines and watch the two sides fight it out!

This way, someone will buy-in the Won dumped by Soros, and the South Korean Government can intercept anytime!

Soros felt disgusted by this strategy. This strategy is stupid but very effective, and the winner will be the side with more funds and is no longer a battle of wits.

Doesn’t Soros understand why everyone can’t make money peacefully together? Why do you care about South Korea’s economy? All it matters are the profits. But Soros forget that he also tried to set up Feng Yu initially.

When both parties were cooperating, no one will suffer any losses, and later on, they had some conflicts, but Soros felt it could be overlooked.

Now, Feng Yu, Fu Rongqi, and the Hong Kong tycoons are preparing to fight it out with Soros in South Korea. This made Soros very unhappy. Do we have so much hatred against each other? How can you make any money if you wage war against me?

Soros must retain his title as the World’s No. 1 Hedge Fund Manager, and cannot back away from Feng Yu’s challenge. But he is not worried that he will lose, as he firmly believes Feng Yu and his allies do not have more funds than him!

……

“Soros’s side is starting to dump Korean Won. Are we going to buy-in?” He Zhaoji asked.

“Yes. We will buy-in whatever they dump. As long as our funds have not reached the bottom line, we will continue buying.” The cigar in Feng Yu’s hand was almost crushed, and it showed that Feng Yu is not feeling as relaxed as he looks.

He Zhaoji hesitated for a while and returned to work.

He Zhaoji does not understand why Feng Yu is doing this. They can’t push up the Korean Won rate with their funds now, and can only stabilize it. But if there are no fluctuations in the rate, how are they going to make money?

Don’t forget that a portion of Feng Yu’s funds is incurring interest, and the daily interest is not a small amount.

South Korea is not Hong Kong, and why should they help them?

Maybe it is like what Feng Yu says. Defeating Soros here will stop him from attacking Hong Kong again.

“Nephew Feng, those short-sighted people are thinking of withdrawing their funds, and if not for the agreements, they would have done so already.” Fu Rongqi knew Feng Yu does not like South Korea. After the volatile fluctuation of the Korean Won, their economy is already impacted.

Also, Feng Yu and his allies can still make profits from this war. They can let Soros have a small victory and let the Korean Won rate drop slightly, and they will buy long positions future contracts. When the Korean Won rate is pull back to its normal range, it will make profits.

Although the profits are not as much as cooperating with Soros to suppress Korean Won, it’s better than nothing.

They can attack their opponents and still make some profits at the same time. This is not easily done. Furthermore, by doing this will bring the Fu Family closer to Feng Yu, and if Feng Yu has any new ventures or businesses in the future, Fu Rongqi might get a stake in it.

Superman Li had agreed to let Fu Rongqi manage his funds is also because of Feng Yu. Superman Li is paving a path for his next generation, and he felt Feng Yu is someone who can help his sons in the future. Of course, Superman Li can let Wind and Rain Consulting Firm handle his fund, but the commission is too high. Wind and Rain Consulting Firm charges three times more than Fu Rongqi’s company!

Anyway, Feng Yu and Fu Rongqi will be investing together and will have the same profits. Investing with Fu Rongqi is equivalent to supporting Feng Yu, and Feng Yu will not mind.

Fu Rongqi has some regrets now. If he had noticed Feng Yu’s abilities earlier, the Fu Family might be Hong Kong’s No. 1 influential family and will exceed Superman Li now!

But the current situation is not bad, either. Fu Guangzheng and Feng Yu are very close, and the Fu Family had supported Feng Yu in the recent few years.

“If their foresight is as good as you, their wealth would be several times more than what they have now.” Feng Yu laughed.

“That’s right. If they have your foresight, they would have exceeded me a long time ago.” Fu Rongqi replied.

Fu Rongqi felt Feng Yu’s assets is more than it seems, and maybe the latter had already overtaken him. However, he cannot ask Feng Yu directly.

If Feng Yu had hidden part of his wealth, that means he does not want others to know about this.

“Hahaha… Uncle Fu is flattering me. Not many influential families in Hong Kong can compete with the Fu Family in terms of wealth. This time, many people had started to support you, right? Maybe Second Uncle Fu’s property market cooling measures will be implemented.” Feng Yu said.

“It’s not so easy. If those influential families refused to give in, it would be hard to implement. But after news about the cooling measures were leaked, Hong Kong’s property market had slowed down. For the time being, property prices are not rising so fast, and the prices for some areas had even dropped. This is a good thing.” Fu Rongqi replied proudly. The Fu Family’s influence is getting bigger.

“Congratulations. Guangzheng had achieved what he wanted.” Feng Yu laughed.

“That brat… Let nature take its course.” Fu Rongqi laughed and shook his head. The elders in his family are pleased with Professor Liang’s daughter. They might not be of the same status, but at least Professor Liang’s daughter had made Guangzheng tone down a lot. It’s been a while since Fu Guangzheng appears in Hong Kong’s tabloid magazines!

“Oh, is everyone in your team, ok? After all, many of them are from the US.” Fu Rongqi asked.

“I know which one of my team is a spy, and this is an opportunity to set Soros up.” Feng Yu already know who is the one who had been feeding Soros information of their operations. At the same time, Feng Yu also have someone working in Soros’s team.

But Feng Yu does not trust the information he got from his spy in Soros’s team. Who knows if the information is purposely revealed by Soros?

Feng Yu is not willing to take any risk. It’s good if he can win against Soros, but if he can’t win, he will also not go all out.

Feng Yu still have many ideas that require a large number of funds to realize and cannot use all his bullets on Soros!

Feng Yu can accept lower damages in exchange for higher damages on Soros, but he will not do anything if he is going to suffer more losses than Soros.

Feng Yu believes that Soros also does not want to continue fighting. Feng Yu is only pretending to go all out against Soros and wants to let him know his determination.

This way, Soros will consider the consequences if he is going to attack Hong Kong again. Maybe Hong Kong’s economic recession that happened in Feng Yu’s previous life will not occur in this life.

……

“Boss, what are Feng and his friends thinking? They bought all the Won we dumped, and the Won rate remained unchanged. We are suffering losses, and they are not making any profits. What is their motive?” Drucken Miller asked.

“That’s right. This is Korea and not Hong Kong. What’s the point of them doing this?” Someone asked.

Soros looked at his four top fund managers and said. “He is warning us not to touch the Hong Kong market. We will continue. I want to see how much funds do they have!”

Chapter 950 – He will ask for a truce

“Boss, we had sold 3 billion USD worth of Korean Won, and they bought everything.”

“I know. Increase the volume tomorrow.” Soros instructed.

“Boss…”

“Just do as I say!”

The following few days, Feng Yu bought all the Korean Won dumped by Soros, to stabilize the Korean Won rate. Of course, the South Korea Government also contributed. They used their gold, borrowings, etc. to raise a sum of money and is prepared to enter the market anytime.

Park Yooshin was very grateful to Feng Yu and his allies. If Feng Yu and his allies had not to step in to stop Soros, Korean Won would not last so long, and now, South Korea might even defeat Soros!

If Feng Yu knows what Park Yooshin was thinking, he will surely laugh his ass off the chair. The South Korea Government is not suspicious of him buying so much Korean Won?

If Feng Yu were to dump all of his Korean Won, can the South Korea Government stabilize the rate with their funds?

Is Feng Yu going to dump all of his Korean Won? Of course!

Feng Yu has no use for Korean Won. Won is not common international currency, and even Yen and HKD are more commonly used for trades compared to Won.

Of course, Feng Yu will not exchange his Won for Yen, as the Yen rate is starting to get unstable, and might depreciate anytime.

Feng Yu needs USD because it is commonly used internationally, and his loans from the banks were in USD.

The following few days, Soros had dumped around 30 billion USD worth of Korean Won, and Feng Yu and his allies bought them effortlessly.

Soros is getting worried as he did not expect Feng Yu to have so many funds.

Soros had borrowed the Korean Won and need to pay interest. He is also dumping the Won at lower prices and is incurring losses. From what happened over the past few days, Soros could tell that Feng Yu is not acting alone. He had grouped up with those tycoons from Hong Kong!

……

“Feng, what you are doing is putting a lot of stress on our funds. We do not have much money left, and even if we included those people’s money, we could not last any longer. This is not worth it.” Kirilenko persuaded.

“Don’t worry and trust me. The money Soros can borrow is getting lesser, and he is still suffering losses. Although we had suffered some losses, the losses are minimal compared to him. He can’t afford to lose and will contact me soon.” Feng Yu confidently replied.

If Soros can agree not to attack Hong Kong or China’s financial systems, Feng Yu can still cooperate with him to make money from other countries. Feng Yu is not a noble person who will help other people unconditionally.

Before, Soros had spent some money to suppress Korean Won and to push up the Korean Won rate. Although Feng Yu knew before he entered the Korean market, Soros had already made some profits, but the profits are not a lot.

In the Hong Kong market, Soros had suffered some losses, and when he is attacking Korean Won, he should not have built his portfolio against Yen secretly.

Soros is too greedy and thought he would defeat South Korea within a short period. After Korea is defeated, he will switch to Yen. But Soros also wanted to set up those Hong Kong tycoons, and want them to suffer massive losses. This way, the tycoons cannot stop him when he attacks Hong Kong again.

In the end, Soros’s plan had only completed half of his plans. Those Hong Kong tycoons had their money trapped in the Korean market but managed to escape when Feng Yu and Fu Rongqi entered. They had also strengthened Feng Yu and Fu Rongqi’s funds.

Kirilenko blinked his eyes several times. “Why is he going to contact us? Ask for a truce?”

“That’s right. We are all businessmen. If we can cooperate, we will seldom choose to attack. Soros is Jewish and is a typical greedy Jewish. He will not want to be in a lose-lose situation with us.” Feng Yu might look confident, but in his heart, he is very worried.

This is also why Feng Yu had hidden a sum of money. When his side cannot hold back Soros, he will immediately short Korean Won and dump all his Won to crash the rate.

Also, Feng Yu is not facing Soros alone. The South Korea Government had raised a sum of money, and Feng Yu must make them spend it.

Even if Soros is continuing his attacks, Feng Yu and the South Korea Government can form two lines of defense.

“Alright. Feng, I hope you are right. Oh, I want to share a piece of good news with you. I was informed that Viagra is selling very well. Almost all the hospitals, pharmacies in East Europe are selling it, and I promise the sales from the East European market will be more than 100 million USD.”

The profit from 100 million USD sales is around 50 million USD, and there are still West Europe, America, Asia, etc. markets. Feng Yu estimates that sales in the other markets should be around the same or even higher than in East Europe. After all, the male population in East Europe is very low.

Also, the sex industry in some regions of East Europe is not developed, and the people there are more conservative.

“Hahaha… did you go there and try out the medicine?” Feng Yu joked.

“Do I need to eat that medicine? I had only given out some samples for them to try.” Kirilenko forgot he had tried and praised the medicine in front of Feng Yu before.

“That’s right. I believe you will never need it.” Feng Yu is holding back his laughter.

Kirilenko quickly escapes. “I got to go now. Guangwei is waiting for me to play Mahjong.”

Feng Yu gave Kirilenko a sideward glance. You are addicted to Mahjong now. The pronunciation of Mahjong is very accurate, and Guangwei had done a good job teaching you.

“Go on. I still have lots of work. Maybe, I can only get some rest during Lunar New Year.”

During Lunar New Year, the initial phase of the financial crisis will be over, and Feng Yu will not need to cooperate with Soros anymore. Anyone of them can return to Thailand, Philippines, etc. to harvest money as and when they like!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Asian Financial Crisis will enter its second phase in August next year. The Southeast Asian countries will be looted by Soros one more time, and Hong Kong’s economy collapsed during that period.

HKD was not affected, but Hong Kong’s stock market crashed. Although Soros was not reported to have made profits from the crash, later on, he claimed to have shorted the Hang Seng Index and made a hefty sum.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Soros’s wealth increases exponentially during that period. Within 18 months, Soros’s assets increased to over 20 billion from a few billion USD.

Of course, those are only rumors. Soros’s assets had always been a mystery.

In the past few months, Soros had been trying to find out how much is Feng Yu’s funds, and Feng Yu is doing the same.

Both parties did not find out the amount in each other’s funds and felt each other had more then what they expected.

Feng Yu’s phone rang suddenly. He looked at the number and smiled.

It is Soros’s call!

Chapter 951 – Fame and Profits

Feng Yu answered his phone after a few rings. “Hello, George.”

“Feng, I think we need to talk.”

“I think so too. Where should we start?” Feng Yu replied with a grin on his face.

“Feng, are you all the ones who had been stabilizing Korean Won recently? The Korean Government’s strategies are also taught by you all, right?”

Initially, South Korea’s practice is to flag out any trades of more than 1000 lots. But Feng Yu and his allies suggested to them to watch out for any transactions of more than 100 lots, and to state the name of the person who transacted!

Although this will increase the workload of the government workers, they can easily find out about the latest move by Soros and can adjust their strategies according to his actions. Also, Soros will be exposed, and everyone knows he is dumping Korean Won in large volumes.

Also, the Korean Government had adjusted back the interest rates and restricted short-term borrowings. This is one of their most effective measures against Soros.

“How can it be me? I also don’t know who suggested those measures to the Korean Government.” Feng Yu will never admit, and Soros does not have anything to prove he is the one.

Soros was stunned. He did not expect Feng Yu to deny. You think you don’t admit you are the one, I will believe you? Other than you all, who else can come up with these measures?

“Fine. Feng, I will not ask you about these. I only want to know if you are interested in cooperating again?” Soros believes Feng Yu has no reason to continue fighting against him if Feng Yu will get high returns.

When Soros made this call, he is already losing, and the reason he is lowering his head in front of Feng Yu is because of money. Of course, if he makes enough profits, he will think of ways to attack Feng Yu again.

“Cooperate again? How?” Soros had called to ask for a truce.

“We will suppress Korean Won together. The strategies used by the South Korean Government is effective, but there is a deadly loophole. They need high foreign reserves to support their strategies, and their foreign reserves are running low. Although they had raised a sum of money, it is less than 1 billion USD. If we work together, we can crush Korean Won easily, and they can only switch to floating rates to save themselves. If not, it will cause severe inflation in their country!”

The damage caused by hyperinflation to an economy is more severe than a financial crisis, and it’s extremely difficult for a country to recover from it.

Once Korean Won depreciated to a certain extent, the South Korean Government will be left with only one choice, which is the lesser of two evils. Soros had already predicted the choice they will make.

If that happens, no one can stop Soros from making profits from them.

Of course, the earlier this happens, the more returns Soros will get. After all, he is suffering losses every day.

Now, Feng Yu has a large amount of Korean Won in his hands, and if Feng Yu agrees to dump Korean Won, it will catch the Korean Government off guard.

“But they still have around 1 billion USD now. Why don’t you make them use up their USD first?” Feng Yu suggested with a laugh.

Soros kept quiet. He knew Feng Yu is going to make this request.

That means Soros must dump an extra 1 billion USD worth of Won to make the South Korean Government spend their remaining funds.

This will also mean that Soros will have to suffer more losses and has lesser funds at his disposal.

Soros’s risk will increase by a lot and must hedge against Korean Won rising, to prevent forced cancellation of his short position contracts.

This will further decrease the Soros’s profits.

Who will be willing to put in so much effort and see others getting more profits than him?

Feng Yu did not say anything and was waiting for Soros to consider his proposal. Since Soros is the one calling, that means his funds are running low.

“Feng, we are all in this together and should be on equal footing.”

“George, don’t you want your Quantum Fund to be famous? The reputation of those Hong Kong tycoons will be affected if I ask them to back off. To many people, you will be the victor! You had gotten your revenge!”

Soros’s defeat in Hong Kong had affected his reputation, and lesser speculators are following behind him.

This time, Feng Yu had let the Fu Family’s private equity company take the lead. This Hong Kong private equity company is the one that won against Soros. If they retreat from the South Korea market, Soros will recover his fame, and this is an important factor for an investment fund.

Feng Yu is telling Soros that he will not get both fame and profits.

You can get both, but if you choose fame, naturally your profits will be lower. If you want higher profits, you must admit defeat.

Soros will never admit defeat as it will have a severe impact on his Quantum Fund. Many investors will withdraw their investments, and it will affect their profits and prospect.

Soros is hesitating. He must maintain the Quantum Fund’s reputation and his title of being the world’s no. 1 hedge fund manager. With just his reputation, he can get higher returns in the future.

But like what Feng Yu said. Soros must continue to invest money, and Feng Yu and his allies will get higher profits from the South Korean market. It will be harder for him to attack Hong Kong in the future!

Is Soros going to suffer another defeat and has no chance to take his revenge? Or is he win in front of everyone, but suffered a lost quietly?

Fame and profits. Which is more important?

After a long pause, Soros said. “Feng, I will do as you said. I will continue to dump 1 billion USD worth of Won, and then we will move in together. This time, it is the Quantum Fund winning this battle, right?”

“That’s right. The Quantum Fund had won against the Hong Kong tycoons this time.” Feng Yu laughed.

I will let you win on the surface, since most of the profits will be going into our pockets. Soros is after fame, and Feng Yu and the Hong Kong tycoons are after profits.

Feng Yu believe that after this, Soros will not continue to attack Hong Kong, unless he can raise more funds. But that is quite impossible.

“Alright. Wait for my call.”

“Wait a minute. I noticed there are still some future contracts in Hong Kong. Can you ask them to cancel it?”

Soros did not expect Feng Yu to discover his hidden cards.

“Sure. I will speak to them.”

After hanging up, Feng Yu had a victorious smile on his face. Although he did not manage to make Soros suffer massive losses this time, Soros will not get high returns from South Korea. After all, Soros had invested a lot of his funds.

On the other hand, Feng Yu still has his hidden stash and will be using it to short Korean Won. Most of the profits from the Korean market will be taken by Feng Yu and his allies!

Chapter 952 – Dividing the loot

When Feng Yu and his allies cooperated with Soros again, the South Korean government cannot hold them back. Feng Yu released news that their funds are running low and need to raise funds. He cannot continue to buy the Won dumped by Soros, and the South Korean Government will have to buy it themselves.

One billion USD worth of Won was bought by the South Korean Government, but the next day, 2 billion USD worth of Won is dumped into the market!

Where did Soros borrow such a big amount of Won? Which bank had issued this loan to Soros, despite government orders?

Closely after the appearance of the 2 billion USD worth of Won, the South Korean Government noticed many short positions future contracts on Won appearing in the market. These contracts did not belong to Soros and were scattered among many accounts, including one Hong Kong fund company, which had been helping them defense against Soros.

The Hong Kong tycoons are working with Soros?

At this time, Soros also threw his trump card, and start to dump Korean Won he borrowed from other markets. Korean Won fell by 5% that day!

The South Korean government immediately asked the International Monetary Fund for assistance. But it will take some time before help arrives.

The South Korean government does not have time to wait!

Korean Won was forced to switch to the Floating Rate system, and the market will decide its value. At least, this will lower the inflation rates in South Korea.

After the switching of the currency rate system was announced, Korean Won dropped another 8%. Feng Yu and Soros had a landslide victory!

This time, Feng Yu and his allies had used high leverage and increased the amount they shorted. Naturally, their returns will be higher and gotten high profits even after including their losses previously.

Soros had also recovered his losses and made a small profit. But his profit is nothing when compared to Feng Yu.

Before Christmas, Feng Yu and his allies settled their remaining future contracts and gotten back all their funds.

…….

“Let’s have a toast. We had made a killing this time!” Fu Rongqi laughed. Not only he and the Fu Family had made high profits, but he had also still earned from those tycoons’ commission.

“Hahaha… Soros is getting all the blame in front, but no one will know that we are the ones who had gotten the most profits.” Fu Guangzheng laughed. His assets had increased a lot, and is now the second wealthiest in the family, behind his eldest uncle.

Fu Guangwei doesn’t dare to think of exceeding his Eldest Uncle in terms of personal wealth, but he is proud to have exceeded his other uncles.

Among Hong Kong’s second generations, maybe only Superman Li’s eldest son, Li Zeju can be Fu Guangzheng’s equivalent. But Li Zeju’s assets are inherited from Superman Li, and not earned by him.

No one knows who the next Hong Kong wealthiest man among the Second Generations will be.

“Thanks to everyone’s help, we can achieve this victory, especially Professor Liang. Without your help, we will not achieve this result.” Feng Yu raised his glass towards Professor Liang.

“I had only made some suggestions, and you all are the ones deciding whether if you all want to use it.” Professor Liang is in a good mood. He hates those incapable people who ignored advice from others. But in this room, he felt highly respected and is pleased with it.

Kirilenko said a lot in Russian, and everyone looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu had a helpless look on his face. Damn! I still got to be a translator!

“Brother Ki said you all are all his friends and all of you must give him a call if anyone of you goes to Russia. If not, he will be pissed!”

“Hahaha… Kirilenko is so straight forward with his words. Don’t worry. I will be going to Russia for a short holiday soon, and I believe he will be a good host.” Fu Guangwei said with a mischievous smile. He should be looking forward to Kirilenko hosting him.

“Alright. There will be a celebration at the Peninsula Hotel tomorrow.” Fu Rongqi announced.

“Uncle, let’s talk about the celebration tomorrow. We should split our loot first. I promised to buy a sapphire necklace for my mother.” Fu Guangwei shouted.

Fu Rongbing laughed as he looked at his son. His son had grown up and knew how to buy gifts for his parents. Someone said that surrounded by good friends will make one grow up faster. Seems like Feng Yu is a good friend, and you can see it through the changes in Guangwei and Guangzheng.

Fu Rongqi laughed and shook his head. “You should learn how to invest from Nephew Feng if you got the money, and not be spending unnecessarily. These are the documents. Come and take a look. After you all sign it, I will transfer the profits.”

“So much?!” Fu Guangwei exclaimed. He did not expect his investments to be doubled.

Fu Guangzheng raised his brows. Do you call that much? I had made much more than you.

Fu Guangzheng was grinning from ear to ear and did not say anything, as he signs the document. But he. He had invested with his Eldest Uncle and Feng Yu.

“How come I am included?” Professor Liang looked at the document in front of him and asked.

“You had helped us a lot, and this is what you deserved. If you think it is too little, just tell me how much you want. We are going to be one big family, anyway.” Fu Rongqi laughed.

“If I still think this amount is too little, I will be too greedy. As for other matters, just let the children resolve it themselves.” Professor Liang said and looked at Fu Guangzheng.

Fu Guangzheng smiled and did not say anything. Liang Yin had agreed to dine with him, and Fu Guangzheng knows that she will agree to be his girlfriend sooner or later!

Feng Yu also signed a document. The agreement between them includes profit sharing, and Feng Yu must also split his profits with Fu Rongqi. Feng Yu also took out a stack of documents for Kirilenko, Fu Rongqi, and the rest.

Kirilenko saw the numbers in the document and quickly signs it.

Fu Guangwei looked over Fu Guangzheng’s shoulders to looked at the document he was signing. How come it’s so much? He was about to exclaim, but Fu Guangzheng gave him a stare.

Feng Yu had also given Professor Liang a share of his profits, and he did not reject it. Compared to the rest, Professor Liang’s returns are the highest in terms of percentage. He had invested 10 billion HKD in Guangzheng Fund. But he had helped Fu Rongqi and Feng Yu and had gotten four shares of the total profits. Each share is higher than what he had invested.

With the money he has gotten, Professor Liang can officially retire. But he will most likely continue to teach or manage Guangzheng Fund. A retirement life does not suit him.

“Brother Feng, are you going to invest your money again? What are you going to invest in? Can you bring me along?” Fu Guangwei asked.

Look at Brother Guangzheng. He had invested with Brother Feng, and his assets had increased by several folds.

“Sure. I need some time to think about what to invest next. If you are interested, you can join me.”

Chapter 953 – How much did he make?

Feng Yu, Kirilenko, Fu Guangzheng, Fu Guangwei, and Li Zekai were sitting together. All of them had made high profits, and when they heard Feng Yu is going to invest in other areas, all of them expressed interest in participating.

“Since all of you want to enter a business with me, it’s fine. We are all friends, and I will not leave you all out. Do you all have any ideas about where to invest?”

Everyone’s energy level has a limit, and Feng Yu enjoys working with them and does not mind to entering into a business venture with them.

“I feel that electronics products have high potential, but our factories are too small. We should increase our scale.” Fu Guangzheng said.

“I had just opened up four factories in East Europe with Feng, and didn’t you say we are going to set up a factory in Canada and the US? Although the factories are meant for producing mobile phones, we can use it to produce other electronics products.” Kirilenko knows electronics products have high potential, but they should not expand recklessly.

“I think what Guangzheng said is correct. At least we must expand the production for Asia. With the economies of the Southeast Asian countries in decline, this is an opportunity for us to acquire factories in Malaysia, Thailand, etc. India is also a good choice as labor cost is low there. But we need to find local partners.” Li Zekai said.

“I feel that Tai Hua Supermarket’s growth is too slow. We should speed up our supermarket chain expansion. From China’s increasing spending power, 300 hypermarkets are not a problem, and we can still form a monopoly!” Fu Guangwei felt the supermarket expansion is too conservative and slow. When will they take over all the cities in China?

In China, there are more than 300 prefecture-level divisions. Excluding some out of reach places, there are at least 200 regions that are worth setting up Tai Hua Supermarkets.

Some of the provincial cities, etc. require at least five supermarkets, and at least ten in direct-controlled cities. With 300 Tai Hua Supermarkets in China, Walmart and Carrefour will be forced to leave the Chinese market.

Li Zekai’s face changed. If Tai Hua Supermarket is going to expand, his family might make some money. But his family’s Watson retail stores will be affected. This is not something he wants.

Although Li Zekai had expressed that he will not inherit his father’s fortune and wanted to set up his empire, but he will not want Tai Hua Supermarket to affect his family’s business.

“Investment in Hypermarkets is high, and many competitors had appeared. We are not the only supermarket chain, and might not continue to maintain our popularity.” Li Zekai retorted.

To set up 200 hypermarkets, they will need to invest at least 2 billion USD in total. Each of them will have to invest a few hundred million USD.

Li Zekai does not have so much money, and he knows Fu Guangwei also does not have so much. They must seek assistance from their family. But this amount is nothing for Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng.

Fu Guangzheng added. “Guangwei, setting up more supermarkets is a must, but we cannot do it this way. The funds might not be a problem, but we don’t have enough management staff. If one of our Hypermarkets mess up and has negative news, our whole chain will be affected.”

“We will set up 50 more stores this year and will invest 500 million USD based on our proportions. The extra funds will be used to repay our loans. For manpower, we will hire and pouch some from outside other malls, and the promote from our existing staff. As for the minor issues, we can settle it later. Even if cannot accomplish this target this year, we must also buy the land parcels. What do you all think?” Feng Yu decided.

Feng Yu knows what Fu Guangwei’s concerns were. Walmart and Carrefour might only have two to three hypermarkets in China, but they are doing quite well. Once they decided to enter the Chinese market at full force, they might be more popular as they are considered foreign supermarkets.

The cost will be higher for Tai Hua Supermarkets to expand at that time. They might as well start the expansion plans now to prevent Walmart and Carrefour from gaining a stronger foothold now.

Also, the land parcels at this time are cheap, and they get to reserve the best locations. They don’t need their stores to start operations now, but this will prevent other supermarket chains from competing with them in that city.

Tai Hua Supermarket had emphasized on the fact they are a Chinese brand and had slowly positioned itself in the hearts of many Chinese. Tai Hua Supermarket had also donated a lot of money in China and had increased its affinity with the Chinese.

Fu Guangwei and the rest exchanged looks and nodded. Every party only needs to invest tens of million USD, and they can easily afford it.

“Electronic products are also part of my plans, and one of the more important industries in the future. That’s why it is a must to increase production. We already have factories in East Europe and America. But we need at least three factories in West Europe and three to four factories in Southeast Asia. I am going to implement both plans at the same time. Are you all interested?”

Within two years, the mobile phone industry will be growing like crazy, and there are still MP3, USB drives, DVD players, LCD products, etc. The current production levels will not be enough to keep up with the demands.

Even the factories in China will not cope with the increased demands. In Feng Yu’s previous life, China still has to import all sorts of electronic products, and the volume is much higher than Wind and Rain and Aiwa’s current production.

Li Zekai and Fu Guangwei looked at each other and did not say a word. After investing in Tai Hua Supermarket, they don’t have much money left. After all, their profits from this crisis, not a lot compared to the rest.

“I can still invest some money into this venture. How much can I invest, and what’s the percentage of the shares?”

Every time Feng Yu invites Fu Guangzheng to invest. He will give him at least 10% of the shares. Fu Guangzheng does not want to get anything lower than 10%, and even if he does not have the money, he will get a bank loan, or ask his father or uncle for help.

Li Zekai gritted and said. “If Brother Feng agrees, I would also want to buy a stake in these new factories.”

Superman Li had raised a few billion USD to invest in South Korea, and although his returns are not by several folds, he made at least a few billion. He should not reject Li Zekai if the latter asked for a loan. After all, his father also agrees on the potential of electronics products. If Li Zekai did not participate in this venture, it would be difficult for him to get a stake in the future.

Feng Yu asked Kirilenko for his opinions. Kirilenko had no intention to invest, but seeing the rest agreeing to invest means the prospect of the electronics industry is good.

“Feng, count me in. I will just take 10% of the shares and will not participate in the management. I don’t mind paying higher.”

Feng Yu laughed. “Of course. Brother Fu, we will pick out the locations in West Europe and Asia and set up our factories, or we can acquire existing ones. I will leave this to you, and I will take care of the factories’ expansions in China.”

Fu Guangwei saw the rest of them deciding on setting up so many new factories, and Feng Yu is still the one owning the biggest share. How much does he need to invest in this venture? How much did Feng Yu make from this crisis?

Chapter 954 – Crystalline silicon industry

“I said before that I am preparing to invest in a few Crystalline silicon factories, and the production of each factory will be over 5,000 tons.” Feng Yu showed five fingers.

“Brother Feng, you are going to set up more than one factory?” Fu Guangwei’s eyes opened wide. Can crystalline silicon earn money? This industry is worth investing so much money?

“I am planning to set up five or six factories, and each factory will have two production lines that can produce 3,000 tons each annually. It will be expanded later.” Feng Yu replied.

“Brother Feng, do you know how much it will cost for a production line that can produce 3,000 tons of Crystalline silicon? The land, wages, management, production, etc. will cost a lot. How much can you earn from it?” Li Zekai doesn’t understand. Feng Yu is going to set up 30,000 tons of Crystalline silicon production, and the investment will be over 5 billion USD. Also, Feng Yu mentioned that he would expand the factories in the future.

“Yes. Oh, each factory will also have a production line for Monocrystalline silicon, and the production lines will increase as demand rises.” Feng Yu said.

Li Zekai and Fu Guangzheng exchanged looks. Did you even hear what we said? Who are you going to sell your products? The demand for Crystalline silicon is currently not high.

“Feng, I can invest around 1 billion USD. Can I join?” Kirilenko suddenly asked.

“Sure. I estimate the total investment will be over 10 billion USD. Once I got the figures, I will calculate your percentage of shares. This 10 billion USD will be split into three phases.” Feng Yu does not plan to be the world’s biggest Crystalline silicon producer at once. Five thousand tons is considered one of the top producers in the world now.

Before Feng Yu comes into this life, the demand for Crystalline silicon is over 300,000 tons, and currently, the demand is about 10% of that.

According to Feng Yu’s plan, his factories will be producing one-sixth of the global demand and can meet China’s demand.

As China’s demand increases, Feng Yu will increase his production and will export in the future. Japan’s production of Crystalline silicon might be high, but the demand there is very high. The electronic sector is one of the core industries in Japan, and South Korean, Taiwan, etc. also have high demands.”

“Brother Feng, what did Kirilenko say?” Fu Guangzheng curiously asked.

“He says he wants to invest 1 billion USD.” Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng. Look, Brother Ki has good foresight and doesn’t even hesitate to invest 1 billion USD.

Fu Guangzheng and the rest were shocked. Kirilenko also thinks highly of the Crystalline silicon industry? An investment of 1 billion USD is not a joke!

“Brother Feng, what if you the Crystalline silicon produced is not sold?”

“Who says I must sell Crystalline silicon? Can’t I use them for myself? A portion of the Crystalline silicon will be used to produce Monocrystalline silicon, and then use the Monocrystalline silicon to manufacture semiconductor components. A portion will be used to manufacture Polycrystalline semiconductor components, and a portion can be used to produce solar panels, and the rest will be sold.”

Feng Yu is not entering this industry just to sell Crystalline silicon as materials. If not, he will not invest so much money. He can invest in other industries and can make more money from selling Crystalline silicon.

The profit for this industry is very low and requires high investments. That’s why it is hard for this industry to develop in China. But the Semiconductor component is different, and the profit is much higher.

Also, Feng Yu is not worried that the Crystalline silicon produced will not be sold. The companies in China that has the highest demand for Crystalline silicon are Wind and Rain, Aiwa, and Lenovo, and Feng Yu has shares in them. Many other electronic product factories are also working with Feng Yu’s companies, and he is not worried that his Crystalline silicon will be left on the shelves.

Also, Feng Yu still has a trump card. DVD forum. All the participants of this forum are the world’s top electronics manufacturers. If any of them places an order, it will be in large volumes. Feng Yu believes that if he gives up a bit of profit on DVD players, he will get lots of orders in return. This is enough for his Crystalline silicon company to develop.

If Feng Yu received lots of orders, he would speed up his expansion plans. In his previous life, China is one of the world’s biggest producers of Crystalline silicon in the later years. The production is over 180,000 tons and what Feng Yu is going to produce only a small fraction of it. He is not worried that no one will buy his Crystalline silicon.

Fu Guangzheng starts to think of the pros and cons. The investment amount for this venture is very high, and he cannot see how he can get returns anytime soon. But from the way Feng Yu is investing, there is no way this venture will fail.

The Fu Family and Superman Li had discussed and will be entering China’s property market. They felt that the property market would become China’s core industry, and property prices will shoot up soon.

Of course, the electronic industry will also be doing well. But the electronic industry’s downstream, no one can guarantee that the semiconductor industry will be doing well. At least compared to the property market, the profits should be much lower.

“Brother Feng, how much is required for the first phase of investment, and how long is the duration? What will be the total investment?” Li Zekai asked.

“The investment duration is set as ten years, and the total investment will be over 10 billion USD. The first phase should be around 1.5 billion USD. I will be investing 1 billion USD first and might increase depending on the situation.”

Fu Guangzheng thought that he had made a lot of money from the crisis and is enough to invest in many areas. But all of Feng Yu’s ventures require high investment, and his few hundred million USD is not enough.

Fu Guangwei doesn’t even dare to say a word. Feng Yu’s plans had scared the wits out of him. Didn’t Brother Guangzheng say that most of Brother Feng’s money is from bank loans? After repaying his loans and interests, he still has so much money?

“Brother Feng, I need to discuss with my family before deciding. Is this alright?”

“Sure. Oh, I will also be acquiring more bottling factories in Europe and the US, for our Chinese beverages brands.”

Feng Yu looked at the rest, and none of them say anything. Seems like they don’t have enough money. Kirilenko had said that other than alcoholic beverages, he is not interested in other beverages.

To be honest, beverage sales in Russia are not doing well, as there are not many hot summer days each year.

“That means you all are also not interested in setting up automobile production lines and pharmaceutical factories in Europe and the US? Never mind. I will think about these myself.”

Fu Guangwei could hold back any longer. “Brother Feng, how much did you make from the crisis? How come you seem like you can’t finish spending your money?”

Fu Guangzheng scolded Fu Guangwei. How can you ask such questions? But after scolding, he also looked at Feng Yu. He is also curious about how much Feng Yu had made from the crisis.

“Not a lot. It’s only around 20 billion USD.”

When they heard Feng Yu said it’s not a lot, Fu Guangzheng and the rest felt better. But when they heard the second sentence, all their brains stop working.

20 billion USD?! Does that mean Feng Yu is going to be the world’s wealthiest man?!

Crystalline silicon

Monocrystalline silicon

Chapter 955 – I am in the retail business

“Brother Feng, that means you are the world’s richest man now?” Fu Guangwei asked. The richest man I the World is sitting in front of him, having tea and chatting with him! He will also be entering a business venture with the World’s richest man too.

Feng Yu laughed and shook his head. “World’s richest man? Maybe. But Bill Gates will be overtaking me very soon.”

Microsoft shares will continue to rise this year, and Bill Gates’s asset is already over 30 billion USD now. This does not include his wife’s funds.

Feng Yu’s asset worth had just reached 30 billion USD. Although he had made a lot of money from the crisis, and his Microsoft shares had risen, but he had incurred high interest from his loans. Some of his investments, like Lenovo Kingsoft, etc. are still not making money.

Microsoft shares will be rising for the next two years until the dot com bubble burst. Bill Gates’s net worth will reach 80 billion USD, and if you include his donations, it is over 100 billion USD!

But Feng Yu’s asset is increasing too. Not considering his Microsoft shares, he had been acquiring Yahoo’s shares all this while. Yahoo’s market value will reach over 100 billion USD around the year 2000!

Most of Feng Yu’s companies are not listed yet. Once all of his companies were listed, Feng Yu will become the World’s wealthiest man.

Also, Feng Yu’s companies are more resilient. The dot com bubble will burst before 2000, and tech companies will reach their peak before it.

During that time, Microsoft market value had reached over 600 billion USD, and just before Feng Yu died in his previous life, Microsoft market value is only less than 400 billion USD. Also, Microsoft’s value had dropped below 300 billion USD during the dot com bubble.

Before Feng Yu transmigrated, the company with the highest value is Apple, and is worth more than 700 billion USD! Apple does not only produce electronic products. They had achieved something which Microsoft couldn’t. Their PCs, software, online services, etc. creating a closed loop.

Now, Feng Yu is trying to use Apple’s strategy on Lenovo. Does Lenovo only have PC and software? No problems. Feng Yu still have other electronic brands like Wind and Rain, etc. Online services? Feng Yu can set up an e-commerce website and might even be better than Apple.

“Brother Feng, how come you don’t like to be on the news? World’s richest man… even if you are the World’s richest man for one day or even one minute, it is an honor.” Fu Guangwei was very excited. If Feng Yu can mention his name on the news, it would be better.

Feng Yu laughed. “My net worth is about the same as Bill Gates, and the World’s richest man is only a title. Within three years, I will secure this title, and no one can pull me off my throne.”

According to Feng Yu’s plan, some of his companies will start to profit three years later, and his asset will shoot up.

During that time, Bill Gates’s net worth will drop, and the rest are no match for Feng Yu.

Fu Guangwei looked at Feng Yu speechlessly. You said this is only a title, why are speaking so excitedly that no one can take that title away from you?

“Brother Feng, you can secure your position as the World’s wealthiest man now. Lehaha is doing quite well now, and if it is listed, the share prices will shoot up. Also, if Bing City Machinery Company, Wind and Rain Electronic, etc. got listed, their value will double or even increase by several folds.” Li Zekai is curious about why Feng Yu refuses to let his companies get listed?

Feng Yu did not reply, and it was Fu Guangzheng who explained to him. “If the companies got listed, the company would have to answer to the shareholders, and all the profits must be given out as dividends. Furthermore, what is the purpose of a company getting listed? It is to raise funds and reputation. Brother Feng’s companies do not need funds or reputation. Why should he share his profits with others?”

Fu Guangzheng had asked Feng Yu this question in the past, and this is how Feng Yu answered him. Fu Guangzheng also felt what Feng Yu said is right. Getting listed is the fastest way for a company to raise funds.

But does Feng Yu lack money?

Since Feng Yu does not lack money, then his companies will not lack money. Then why must he get listed and help others earn money? Although the company’s value will rise as the share prices rise after getting listed, at the same time, the company’s finances must be transparent, and it will be harder to manage the company.

Why should I let everyone know how much money I have?

There is one thing that frustrated Feng Yu recently. It is his investment in Yahoo. When he invested in Yahoo, Japan’s Softbank had invested 100 million USD into the company and acquired one-third of its shares. They also helped Yahoo got listed.

Feng Yu can only buy circulating shares from the market, and the profit is nowhere near to Softbank. If not, Feng Yu would have secured the title of the World’s wealthiest man now. Yahoo’s shares had increased by twenty times and are still rising now.

Of course, Feng Yu had instructed Ralph to acquire all available Yahoo’s shares from the open market, and he will sell everything before the dot com bubble burst. He will get a profit of at least twice his investments!

Feng Yu spoke to the rest in Chinese, and Kirilenko does not understand most of it.

“Feng, what are you all talking about? Are you all planning some new investments?” Since Kirilenko cooperated with Feng Yu, he had never suffered any losses. Most of his assets now, are from his businesses with Feng Yu.

Feng Yu slapped his forehead. He had forgotten to translate their conversation for Kirilenko. If he had known, he would ask Kirilenko to bring his translator.

“Brother Ki, congratulations. You have become the wealthiest man in Russia!” Feng Yu laughed.

Kirilenko burst out laughing. “Hahahaha! My asset is nothing compared to you. Also, my asset is only slightly more than the rest, and they are catching up quickly.”

Kirilenko’s net worth is over 8 billion USD and is Russia’s richest man. Of course, behind him are the tycoons who got rich when the Soviet Union dissolved. These people’s net worth is about the same as Kirilenko.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, most of the Russian tycoons who made it onto the top tycoon list were mostly in the mining business. They are the same as Kirilenk and had acquired mines and mineral companies, etc. during the turmoil. The tycoons’ mines had started to make profits, and only Kirilenko’s mining company is different. His company is only mining enough to cover their cost, and everyone is laughing at Kirilenko. They think Kirilenko does not know how to manage his mining business, and some even tried to takeover Kirilenko’s company.

“Don’t worry. Our mining company will start to make high profits in two years. At that time, their mines will be empty, and your net worth will shoot up. Oh, are there any famous retailers in Russia? Do you all have e-commerce sites?”

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that Russia is a treasure trove. If he can manage the Russian market well, he can open up the East Europe market, and the potential of this market is not in any way inferior to the US market.

Kirilenko points to himself helplessly. “I am in the retail business!”

Chapter 956 – Celebration dinner

Feng Yu remembered that Kirilenko had been in the retail business, and they can start a new business venture again.

“Brother Ki, let’s have a discussion sometime later. I had thought of new business for us, and I promise we will make money. As for the Crystalline silicon industry, I will invest myself first. We will cooperate when I set up a Crystalline silicon factory in Russia.”

Kirilenko paused for a while and nodded. “Alright. I will wait for your call.”

Kirilenko could tell that Feng Yu is going to cooperate with him on retail business. He had thought of setting up supermarkets after seeing how popular the supermarkets are in China. In Russia, there are supermarkets, but they are not as popular as China. Also, all the good locations are taken up, and it’s hard for him to enter this industry.

But Feng Yu is not thinking about supermarkets.

……

“Brother Feng, you sure you do not want my sister to be your partner?” Fu Guangwei asked.

Feng Yu gave him a stare. “No! I will be going myself!”

When Feng Yu reached the location, he saw Fu Guangzheng and Liang Yin alighting from his car. She is holding onto Fu Guangzheng’s arm, and their relationship seems to be progressing well.

After entering the hotel, Feng Yu saw Fu Rongqu and other members of the Fu Family standing outside receiving guests, and Fu Rongqi is in the ballroom preparing his opening speech. In Hong Kong, only a handful of people can be received by Fu Rongqi personally.

When Feng Yu stepped into the ballroom, Fu Rongqi appeared beside him.

“Nephew Feng, go in and chat with your friends first. The dinner will be starting soon.”

“Alright. Uncle Fu, you look several years younger today.”

“Hahaha… I am old and will be retiring in a few years. You, youngsters, will be taking charge now.”

“You are modest. Even if you are retired, Hong Kong will shake when you stomp your feet.”

“Stop flattering this old man. I got to speak to other guests. Let’s talk later.”

Feng Yu and Kirilenko walked in together and noticed everyone watching and discussing them. Feng Yu and Kirilenko are not bothered and sat down in a corner.

Kirilenko is holding on to two glasses of wine, and Feng Yu took a plate of fruits.

Feng Yu is not willing to come to such events. The food does not taste good, and the portions are small. Most of the food is prepared in advance, and how can it be fresh when the guests arrive?

Feng Yu had just finished two pieces of fruits when Kirilenko stood up to get more wine. He finished his two glasses of wine so fast?!

“Brother Ki, slow down.”

Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu curiously. “Isn’t this a celebration dinner? Why are we here if we are not going to drink? Why are you not drinking?”

“You also know that I am not good at drinking. I will accompany you to drink later. Just carry on drinking.” Feng Yu decided not to stop Kirilenko from drinking.

Kirilenko can hold his liquor much better now. He can finish two bottles of concentrated Baijiu and don’t get drunk!

Fu Guangzheng and Fu Guangwei had challenged Kirilenko to drink and were knocked out by him. What made Feng Yu speechless is Kirilenko always want to play Mahjong when he gets high!

Why is a Russian so addicted to Mahjong?!

It’s all Fu Guangwei’s fault. Why must he teach Kirilenko Mahjong?!

After a while, many people are standing around. Almost all the top businessmen in Hong Kong were invited, and all their net worth is more than 100 million HKD.

Feng Yu looked around, and there are at least a few hundred people in the ballroom.

A random thought came into Feng Yu’s mind. If something happens in this ballroom, Hong Kong’s economy will crash. Of course, with so many bigshots here, there are several patrol cars parked outside, and the security in the vicinity is tightened.

The lights suddenly dimmed, and a spotlight is shined on Fu Rongqi, standing in the middle of the ballroom.

“Thank you for attending this celebration dinner… as long as we are united, Hong Kong will become better!”

Everyone clapped and cheered. Feng Yu noticed Superman Li is around too.

After this crisis, Fu Rongqi has closed the gap with Superman Li on their assets and is now Hong Kong’s second wealthiest man.

The Fu Family’s total assets had already exceeded Superman Li’s family. Will Superman Li feel threaten? He is used to be no. 1 in Hong Kong. How can he settle for no. 2?

Feng Yu was thinking about these when the two brothers from the Li family walked over with wine glasses.

“Brother Li! Cheers!” Kirilenko said with his broken Chinese, and bottoms up.

Li Zekai was stunned. When did I agree to drink?

Li Zeju secretly stepped aside. This Russian is a drunkard. He was drinking the strongest drink in the ballroom and drank everything in one gulp?!

Li Zekai bottoms up unwillingly, and quickly stopped Kirilenko from rising his glass in his other hand!

“Brother Feng, we have a friend over there. Let’s chat again later.”

Li Zekai and Li Zeju quickly ran away, and Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko helplessly. Finally, two friends had come over for a chat, and you scare them away with your drinking!

Fu Guangzheng and his cousins had wanted to come over, but when they saw the few empty glasses in front of Kirilenko, they quickly walk away.

Feng Yu was frustrated. He turned to Kirilenko and raised his glass. “Brother Ki, this is to celebrate you becoming Russia’s top tycoon! Cheers!”

Kirilenko finishes his drink, and Feng Yu took a sip of his low alcohol cocktail. He passed another glass of alcohol to Kirilenko and said. “Brother Ki here’s to our mobile phone success! Bottoms up!”

“Brother Ki here’s to celebrate your mansion! Cheers!”

“Brother Ki, our cars are selling well! Cheers!”

“Brother Ki bottoms up!”

“Brother Ki…”

Kirilenko did not say anything and finished his glass again.

Kirilenko is in a good mood, as Feng Yu is drinking with him. It felt better than drinking alone, despite Feng Yu taking small sips. Nevertheless, he enjoys Feng Yu’s company.

“Mr. Feng, can I offer you a toast?” A woman walked up to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu looked at the woman. He does not know her, and she is not a celebrity. Which family is she from? Although this woman is beautiful, Feng Yu is not interested in her.

“Sorry I don’t like to drink. If you want to drink, drink with him!” Feng Yu points to Kirilenko. Who cares about how they are going to communicate?

When Brother Ki met Feng Yu’s brother-in-law, they couldn’t understand each other, but they can still drink happily together.

Damn! That woman sat down beside Kirilenko. What the hell is happening? Is she interested in the tall and big-sized Kirilenko? Or she knows that Kirilenko is a super tycoon?

Who cares… I will just check on Kirilenko when it’s time to leave. Feng Yu quickly make use of this opportunity to walk away and chat with other people.

Chapter 957 – Internet + Physical business

That day, after the dinner was over, Feng Yu saw that woman holding on to Kirilenko’s arms and left the ballroom with him!

Is that woman not the daughter of some bigshots? But Feng Yu does not want to interfere, and Kirilenko had brought his bodyguards with him. Nothing will happen.

The next day, a refreshed Kirilenko went to look for Feng Yu to discuss their new business. His asset had increased by four times suddenly, and he doesn’t know what to invest in.

Kirilenko felt it’s still safer to cooperate with Feng Yu, as he does not need to worry about anything and can still make high profits.

“Brother Ki, I remember you telling me that you are in the retail business?” Feng Yu took a sip of coffee and asked.

“That’s right. But I am selling imported goods from China, West Europe, and America. I don’t sell our domestic products.”

Only do imported goods retail sales? This should be evolved from Kirilenko’s trading company. The demand for China products in Russia had dropped, and Kirilenko started to bring in goods from other countries.

“Brother Ki, do you have your physical shops?”

“Yes. But not a lot, as I am mainly into wholesale businesses. But many retailers are working with me. If you have any good products, I can guarantee it will be selling all over Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, etc. in the shortest time.” Kirilenko patted his chest.

Kirilenko thought Feng Yu has some wonderful products to sell, but he hopes it’s not beverages.

“Brother Ki, are there big supermarkets in Russia?”

“Yes. Two supermarket chains are currently doing well, but they cannot compare to Tai Hua Supermarket. They are only selling daily necessities. Are you asking me to open supermarkets? No…, this will not work. Those two supermarket chains had taken up all the good locations in the cities, and it will be difficult to compete with them.” Kirilenko waved his hand.

Last year, when Tai Hua Supermarket Group started, Kirilenko ordered his men to look into this business for Russia. But all the good locations for supermarkets were taken up. It is hard for him to enter this business unless he is going to open supermarkets in second-tier cities. But what’s the point of doing that?

There might be profits from the second-tier cities, but it does not suit Kirilenko’s character. He is Russia’s top importer and wholesaler. How can he go to second-tier cities?”

“Brother Ki, you had not found the right position for your supermarkets. They are selling daily necessities, and you can set up an imported goods supermarket.”

“Imported goods supermarket? You are saying that I will only sell imported goods in my supermarkets?”

“That’s right. You can only sell imported goods. Don’t worry. I know some of your Russian products are popular, but those products are not produced in Ukraine and Belarus, right? If you sell the Russian products there, isn’t it considered imported goods? The taxes between Russia and those countries are low, and your cost will not be high. Furthermore, those products are only to supplement your supermarkets, and will not be the main products you are selling.”

“What will be our main product?”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. “It’s the imported products from Asia and the western countries, of course! Electronic products, food items, clothing, books, daily necessities, etc. Just these items alone are enough for you to set up a hypermarket!”

“There is money to be earned from these?” Kirilenko hesitated.

“Did you make money from being a whole seller? Did the retail stores that bought your goods make money? Many imported products are very popular in your country. You can take reference from our Tai Hua Supermarket’s imported section, and you will know how much will the profits be.”

“How much must I invest?”

“I suggest buying the land first. We can rent it, but if anything happens, our supermarket will be affected. If we are forced to move, we will lose lots of customers. We also need to prepare funds to import goods, renovations, and fittings, etc. It will be better if we have our own logistics company. If you want everything to be in place, it should be around 3 billion USD.”

“3 billion USD? So much?! It’s just a retail business, how much can the profits be? Even if we are selling imported goods, we still need to compete with two other competitors.” Kirilenko is shocked. This investment is ridiculously high.

“Listen to me first. This 3 billion USD includes 100 supermarkets and a gigantic logistic team. If possible, I suggest buying cargo planes to ensure your goods will arrive in every city in your country. Of course, this includes other major cities in East Europe.”

“Wait… you are saying that we will be opening supermarkets in every major city? 100 stores? Is it too many? How many Tai Hua Supermarkets do you all have after so many years?”

“Tai Hua Supermarket group is planning to set up 50 hypermarkets next year, and we estimate we will have 300 stores within five years, forming a monopoly. Furthermore, I am not asking you to invest everything at once. You can split it into a few phases.”

“Supermarkets are so profitable?”

“We can surely make money, and there is another advantage. Supermarkets can use monthly, quarterly, or even annual credits. This way, the supermarkets will have a high volume of cash, lowering your investment risks in other areas, and you don’t have to worry about cash flow issues.”

Other than casinos, the supermarket has the highest cash compared to other industries. Some supermarket chains have more cash than casinos.

When have you heard of supermarkets having cashflow problems?!

“Then why do we need to have a massive logistic team? Do we still need cargo planes? Even if I can afford the transportation cost, but how much money can I make from them?”

“That is because you don’t have enough orders. What if you have lots of orders? Have you heard of online shopping?” Feng Yu is speaking like those multi-level marketing company’s salesmen.

“Online shopping? What is that?” Kirilenko is confused.

“It is ordering items off the internet. Do you know about telephone orders? It is the same, except you are using the internet now. There will be pictures of the product on the internet, and it can showcase the product better than those catalogs.”

“How are the customers going to pay?”

“They can pay upon receiving the goods or use online banking. This model had just started in the US, but it is still not available in Europe. If we can pull it off, we can control the whole European market!”

Feng Yu is exaggerating, but he felt it is not impossible. This business model can be easily copied by others, but Feng Yu believes that it is not a problem to take over the Russian speaking countries in East Europe.

“Will customers believe in online shopping?” Kirilenko is skeptical.

“That’s why we must allow the customers to pay when they received their products.”

“What if the customers refuse to pay after they received their goods?”

Feng Yu raised his brows. Brother Ki is not as stupid as he looks and can still think of this.

Chapter 958 – Expanding the mining industry

“We can only rely on the customer on paying. When the customer made an order, they must leave their contact details and must leave their phone numbers for us to call them. At the start, there will surely be refunds, and we have to absorb the losses.”

“If that’s the case, it will be a strain on our finances, and we must also take precautions on our deliverymen from running away with the payments.”

“Yes, there will be a strain on our finances, but we have physical shops, and the cashflow is massive in Supermarkets.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, physical shops and online shops had been discussed several times. No one dares to say which model is more successful, but the best operation model is to combine both.”

“Can this work?”

Feng Yu replied honestly. “Brother Ki, I am also trying to see if this would work, and I cannot guarantee it will be a 100% success. But I am at least 80% confident. If this operation model works, you will become Russia, or even East Europe’s biggest retailer and online shop. Your business will no longer be restricted to importation and wholesales.”

Kirilenko got excited from the word ‘biggest.’ No matter what industry, the biggest and no. 1, the profits will not be low, and he loves being no. 1.

“You are going to cooperate with me? How much are you going to invest?”

“The total investment is estimated to be over 3 billion USD. I will invest according to how many shares you are giving me.” Feng Yu felt this operating model has potential and does not mind suffering losses for the first two years. In the future, he will have endless profits from this business.

“I want the controlling share, and I will let you have 30% of the shares. I also need to get other partners for us to control the whole East Europe market!”

Feng Yu laughed. Kirilenko is also an ambitious man. Kirilenko thinks that he still has a mining company, and even if this investment fails, the losses are also from his profits in this crisis. He believed with Feng Yu will help him recoup his losses in other areas if this fails.

“Alright. I will prepare the funds and will get my men to write a detailed proposal for you. You can let your men go through it.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Russia’s biggest online shopping platform is set up in February next year. But that company started small and tried to imitate Amazon by selling books. Feng Yu believes that the company is no match for Kirilenko.

“After repaying my loans and this investment, I still have lots of funds. What do you think of my suggestion of setting up an Automobile factory I mentioned to you previously?”

Kirilenko felt that importing cars into Russia might be profitable, but if he can set up an automobile factory in China, it will be better. Most importantly, he will get a share in the factory.

In the past few years, Russia had been trying to attract foreign investors, and have implemented some subsidies.

“Brother Ki, I need to discuss this with the others about this. Although I am the biggest shareholder, I don’t have the final say in this. I will get back to you as soon as possible, as I also hope we can cooperate in this venture.”

The Chinese automobile industry is undergoing a boom now, and Songjiang Motors production will not meet the demand soon. Feng Yu does not want to be in a situation where demands exceed supply. If that happens, it will mean that he is not prepared!

Also, the motorcycle market is increasing. The demand for motorcycles had slowed down in the cities, but there was an increase in the villages. In China, there are many more villages than cities, and the demand for motorcycles will still be growing for many more years.

The sales of Songjiang 100, Songjiang 125, or Songjiang scooters had been increasing steadily and had secured the no. 1 spot. Songjiang Motors’ brand awareness is also no. 1 in China. Even the newest models Songjiang 150 and Songjiang Golden Bull (three-wheeled motorcycle), are extremely popular in the market.

Bing City Machinery Company has plans to expand their motorcycle production in the next two years, but have no intentions of expanding their automobile production lines. Their agriculture machinery production is also expanding, and Bing City Machinery Company does not have enough funds to expand all three productions at the same time. After all, the company’s profits over the years were reinvested into R&D, and they still need to give their shareholders dividends.

It might not be a bad choice if Bing City Machinery Company can use its brand value to invest in a new factory.

Feng Yu had wanted to set up a factory in Europe or the US and cooperate with Kirilenko to secure the Russian market. They had finally established a customer base in Russia and did not want European cars to snatch away their market share. Recently, there are rumors that Germany automobile brands will be entering the Russian market.

“What else should I invest? Continue to buy mines? Is the mining and mineral industry going to have a boom two years later?”

“The value of the mines you bought had increased a lot, right? In another two years, I promise the value will shoot up further, and we will increase our mining scale then. Buying mines is a good choice. Just use our mining company to acquire more mines, and I will inject a sum of money into the company. But there is no rush. We can slowly negotiate first, and it’s more worthwhile to buy them in the second half of next year.”

Soros will surely attack Russia next year and will suffer massive losses. The Russian Government is ruthless and doesn’t care about the International Economic Law.

Of course, Russia will also be affected, and Rubles will depreciate further. Russia’s economy will decline, and some mines will be let go at low prices.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s mining company acquiring those mines are better than those Americans. After all, they are a Russian company.

Feng Yu will help Russia to defend against Soros behind the curtains. If Feng Yu is going to oppose Soros openly, he will surely lose, as Russia’s foreign reserves are not as high as Hong Kong.

“Sure. We will both increase our investments into the company, and I will keep a lookout for mines, based on our previous requirements.”

“If you still have money, you can invest in the US stock market temporarily.”

“Alright. But when Soros attack Russia, you must help us, and not help him.”

“Don’t worry. Do you think I will attack Russia with our relationship? This time, we will teach Soros a lesson!”

During this period, Soros had been quiet, but he will not stop. The rest of the Southeast Asian countries still have not set up effective measures to protect their economies. Although the IMF had stepped in, it is still not enough. In another two months, Soros will return to ‘harvest’ those countries again.

Of course, Feng Yu will also do the same, but he will keep low. He does not want to be blacklisted by so many countries.

Feng Yu will wait for Soros in Russia and will let him suffer greater loss compared to Feng Yu’s previous life!

Feng Yu might have to pay more for his previous loans, but he doesn’t care. Anyway, Rubles had depreciated by several hundred times since he got those loans, and even if the outstanding loan amount is increased by ten times, it is nothing!

Three-wheeled motorcycle

International Economic Law

Chapter 959 – Meet in 1998

“Come, come, meet in ’98… come, come, meet in 1998…”

Na Ying and Faye Wong were performing this classic song on the stage, and Feng Yu is enjoying himself. Only these two singers can perform this song perfectly.

Li Na was beside Feng Yu and looked at him speechlessly. I know you had written this song, but do you have to be so engrossed in it?

The 1998 New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner is still telecast live, but there are more regulations now. The live spectators are not allowed to shout slogans or bring placards. But CCTV cannot regulate the spectators’ attire. What’s wrong with wearing their company’s uniform

The award ceremony had become fair, and Feng Yu stopped using this ceremony to promote his companies. He allowed those companies that are outstanding to win awards, and this award had become China’s most prestigious business awards.

Maybe this is also because Feng Yu’s companies do not need to use this method for promotion. All the companies Feng Yu invested, are now the leaders in their respective industries. Some are even top-tier companies globally.

But Feng Yu’s companies are still far from being the best in the world.

In the past few years, Feng Yu had been developing the automobile, electronics, beverages, pharmaceutical, and internet technology industries. Other than the internet technology, Feng Yu’s companies in these industries are based in China, and they are considered the market leaders.

Regardless of whether if Feng Yu has the controlling shares or just a stake in the companies, all his decisions will surely be approved. But Feng Yu is lazy to manage the companies, as he will still get profits even if it is someone managing the companies. Feng Yu will prefer to let his men run his companies, or else, why is he paying them high salaries, bonuses, and shares?

Although Feng Yu’s companies will not be listed anytime soon, the companies are still giving out dividends yearly. Some of the higher management staff, who had made significant contributions, were rewards with some shares, and their bonuses are several times their salary.

Feng Yu’s companies’ higher management staff are already getting the highest pay in China, and even 99.9% of foreign companies’ staff are getter lesser than them. This is not including the shares they own.

Many people from other companies wish to enter Feng Yu’s companies. They are all working for others, and of course, they want to get higher salaries. Furthermore, they might also be rewarded with the companies’ shares, and they can be one of the shareholders!

Feng Yu’s companies are attracting a lot of talents. Managers, developers, researchers, and even marketing elites had joined, and his companies have a good reserve of talented staff.

This is one of Feng Yu’s requirements for his companies. An elite staff can give him returns several times of his salary. It’s not a problem to give them higher salaries, shares, etc.

After the song ended, everyone cheered.

The host started his speech, and a man dressed in a suit stood up and waved to the audience.

“Thank you, motherland… thank you, the judging committee… I would like to thank every employee of the company. Without you all, I will not get the chance to stand here. This honor belongs to every one of you and me…”

Dong Xuebing looked at the man on the stage. “Who had written this thank you speech for him? Why is he speaking like those celebrities? Thank you for this, thank you for that… thank you, leaders, parents, etc. where did he learn this from?”

Li Na whispered into Feng Yu’s ears. “Your people had said similar things when they were on the stage previous. Did they learn from you?”

Feng Yu’s widen his eyes. Had they all learned from him? That’s right. I was the one who vetted their thank you speech initially.

“I am trying to say that he is very sincere. Without his parents, he will not exist. Without the leaders taking care of him, his company will not grow. Without his employees’ support, how can his company develop? His speech is too good! We must clap louder!”

Li Na: “……” Your attitude changed too fast!

“Whatever!”

“Let’s watch the performance.” Feng Yu smiles.

“How come your companies did not win any award?”

“I am giving the others a chance. If my companies participate, these companies can only watch from the spectators stand.” Feng Yu replied proudly.

“Are you feeling embarrassed for fixing the results in the past?” Li Na could guess what Feng Yu is thinking from one look at him.

“Nonsense. This award is fair. When we started this award, who say my companies are not qualified? Now, without us participating, the rest of the companies are about the same standard. Those that did not win anything are pissed.”

Feng Yu is not boasting. The nominated companies and the winners are about the same standard in terms of scale, growth, and contributions to society. Each one of them can be the winner and those that had not won raised complaints.

The winners of this year’s award ceremony are not fixed. They were chosen by a panel of judges, and many companies had lost by one vote. Some categories even have to go through the second round of voting as there are no clear winners in the first round!

Fairness is always relative. But if the companies were to take turns to win the awards, it will be unfair to them. The winners are better in certain areas, and they deserve the award.

Most of the winners this year are Feng Yu’s friends. Liu Yong is one of them. His Guangcai Program is developing very well.

Feng Yu is also planning to set up his first Crystalline silicon factory in the Western Qing He province.

To set up a factory there, Feng Yu still must build roads and increased his cost.

But once the roads are built, Feng Yu can build a gigantic industrial park there. The labor cost there is also cheaper, and he can still improve the economy there.

“Didn’t you write this song for them to perform on Spring Festival Gala night? What will they be singing then?”

“They can still sing this song. Didn’t you notice that the audience love it? I dare to say that even if they sang the same song again, the audience would still love it. This song suits this occasion.”

Feng Yu does not remember so many songs that fit different occasions. This song is the only song he can remember. Furthermore, he had written this song for his own enjoyment.

“Just continue boasting. Sing the same song twice?! Who will sing the same song again at a function?”

“That is because I did not say anything. If I want, they will sing it again!”

“Fine… fine… fine… Alright. I believe you.” Li Na tried to hold back her laughter.

Feng Yu: “……” You don’t believe what I said! Seems like I will need to teach you a lesson tonight. Two times… no! Three times!

Chapter 960 – Wind and Rain Design

Two days later, Feng Yu flew to Shanghai. Kirilenko had sent Feng Yu photographs, and Feng Yu had passed it to Liu Michael. Now, Feng Yu is going over to Liu Michael’s office to look at the custom limousine design.

Feng Yu had only visited this company twice, and he is visiting Shanghai for another reason. He wants to pick a location to build an office building. Shanghai is an important financial hub of China, and it is worth investing in.

Even if Feng Yu did not build anything on a plot of land in Shanghai, he could get high returns in a few years.

Liu Michael’s design firm had changed its name to Wind and Rain Design and is currently Shanghai’s biggest, and China’s top three design firm.

This company does not only do graphic designs, but they also do product designs, logos, space and environmental designs, advertisements, fashion, structural, etc. Now, they had started a new business, which is website design.

Liu Michael was standing at the main entrance of a tall office building, waiting for Feng Yu.

When Feng Yu’s car stopped, Liu Michael ran over to open the door for him.

Many people were looking curiously. Isn’t that Liu Michael? He is the Boss of Wind and Rain Design, and his company is one of the top design firms in the industry. Why is he opening the door for someone else?

That is a beautiful car, and it’s the Songjiang brand. It should be a new model as no one had seen this model on the road before. But the person inside should not be a leader because of the number plate.

When the crowd saw a young man alighted from the car, they were shocked. That young man is younger than Liu Michael!

“Our company had rented the fifth, sixth, and seventh floor of this building. We have more business now, and designers need more space and a quiet environment. That’s why…”

“It’s alright. You are the one in charge of running the company, and you can make all the decisions. I don’t care about profits.” Feng Yu waved his hand and stopped Liu Michael’s explanation.

Anyway, the finance people are on a rotating basis, and Feng Yu does not care what Liu Michael does, as long as he doesn’t fake the company’s accounts.

Over the past few years, Songjiang Motors’ vehicles, motorcycles, tractors, etc. exterior designs have gotten more beautiful, and some of the electronic products’ designs are well received by the consumers. Feng Yu is very please with Liu Michael and his team’s performance.

A beautifully designed product can increase its sales by more than 20%.

Furthermore, Liu Michael charges a low price for Feng Yu’s companies. Of course, in return, he uses those products to promote Wind and Rain Design and get many new clients.

Do you think Songjiang Motors’ vehicles are well designed? Our company is the one who designs it!

“Boss, this is the customized limousine design. We had also increased the height of the car based on Mr. Kirilenko’s height, and he will feel more comfortable sitting in it. The chassis will be using… our technologies can fulfill the requirements, and the bonnet is designed this way. We will be using Mr. Kirilenko and his fiancée caricature as the logo, and here, here, and here, will be handcrafted…”

Liu Michael gave a detailed explanation of his design, and Feng Yu listened attentively.

Feng Yu got to admit that the drawings of this limousine are very beautiful, and he likes it very much. But he is unsure whether Kirilenko likes it or not.

In the limousine, there is a long wine cabinet requested by Kirilenko. He doesn’t care about other features in the interior, but there must be a wine cabinet!

By pressing a button, the driver and the passengers will be separated, and there is an LCD TV, DVD player, and surround sound systems in the car. When sitting inside, you will feel like you are in a cinema.

The whole limousine uses bulletproof glass, and the exterior is using a bulletproof steel plate. Kirilenko had ordered this material from the Russian Army, but it made the car very heavy.

The engine of this car is using a 12-cylinder 4.8L engine! This vehicle is using all of Bing City Machinery Company’s latest technology, and it cost over 20 million USD to build!

After explaining all the features, Liu Michael looked at Feng Yu worryingly. “Boss, this design is based on the requirements given to us. Will it be too expensive?”

The cost of the car is over 20 million USD, and it does not include manpower. What will be the retail price? Who will buy such an expensive car?!

After the design of this car is out, Liu Michael and his team were worried. When they saw their Boss’s emotionless expression, they got more worried.

“This design is good enough, and I think it will work. Prepare a softcopy of the drawings and give me a copy of the design. I need to show the client.”

Even if it is 30 million USD, Kirilenko will also want it. The most expensive Aston Martin customized model also costs around 30 million USD.

Liu Michael looked at Feng Yu in surprise. What did Boss say? He said the design is good enough and will show it to the client? Did he miss out on the cost? Twenty million USD is only a rough estimation, and Bing City Machinery Company might exceed this amount when building it. Is this not a problem?

Feng Yu explained after seeing Liu Michael’s shocked expression. “The client is Russia’s top tycoon and does not mind about the price. What he wants is a unique limousine, and if you all are designing limousines in the future, you must not use this design. Understand?”

Russia’s top tycoon? No wonder this limousine must be custom made. Since Boss says the price is not a problem, Liu Michael is relieved.

“Oh, what is your feedback after you all used Lenovo Kingsoft’s drawing software?”

“We still hand drawing some complicated designs, but it is easy to use it for drawing lines. Some older designers are still trying to learn it, and most of our designers who use it are the young designers.”

Feng Yu immediately knows that this software is not user friendly!

It must be improved. Anyway, this software is still not launched into the market, and Liu Michael and his team are testing the prototype.

“Ok. Don’t worry. This software will be improved. I had mentioned before that Wind, and Rain Design should set up branches in Beijing and Shenzhen. Have you all discussed this?”

“No problems. We had planned about this too and can pass some of our projects to these two branches temporarily. But the office buildings is a problem. We still have not found any suitable locations.”

“Beijing branch can be in Wind and Rain building. A tenant’s lease had just ended, and one floor should be enough for the time being. As for Shenzhen, you can use the Jianlibao building. It is newly renovated, and it is also one floor. There are many companies in that building, which are our potential customers.” Since Feng Yu had asked them to set up branches, he had thought about all these problems.

“Thank you, Boss. The three of us will manage one branch each, and we promise Wind and Rain Design will be China’s biggest and best design firm within three years!” Liu Michael is thrilled.

“Yes. I wish you success. Someone will contact you regarding the offices, and I will not care about the manpower transfer and hiring. But I have one condition. I would rather earn less money than having our company’s brand image and reputation tarnished!”

Chapter 961 – New Joint venture vehicles

There is another reason why Feng Yu had come to Shanghai. Li Mingde is attending a meeting here. China’s Automobile industry’s development forum.

Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) had become the host of this forum, and this made Li Mingde mad.

How can SAIC compete with Bing City Machinery Company? Our branding, sales, profits are all higher than SAIC, and just because we are also manufacturing agricultural machinery and motorcycles, we are overlooked?

Another reason for not letting Bing City Machinery Company host this forum is because of fierce competition with First Automobile Works (FAW).

At night, Li Mingde and Feng Yu are in Feng Yu’s hotel suite drinking.

“Hmph! Does SAIC dare to say us?! They are also joint ventures too. Although we are a joint venture company, we are using Hong Kong’s funds, and our management and employees own the company’s shares. We should be the ones that represent a collective enterprise!” Li Mingde grumbled.

During the meeting, SAIC’s Chairman said Bing City Machinery Company’s structure is a serious problem. The state is not the main shareholder, and he used this reason to make fun of Li Mingde.

SAIC’s Chairman even said that it is a mistake to let Li Mingde owns the company’s share.

What’s wrong with me holding on to the company’s shares? The shares are a reward from the company for my contributions. Bing City Machinery Company had grown from a small local factory to a country-wide renowned factory, and I had made significant contributions. If not, why would the board of directors reward me with the company’s shares?

SAIC’s Chairman, Manager Niu, is being jealous!

“Old Li, why are you angry with them? They had surpassed us in terms of sales because they lowered the prices of Volkswagen Santana last year. What’s there to be proud of? If we include our overseas sales, we are still number one.”

There are seven automobile manufacturers in China, and Bing City Machinery Company is still the strongest. The production sales for the smaller cars category last year is more than 100,000 units, and SAIC is only around 80,000 units.

Also, you can ask the people on the streets, which automobile brand they prefer, Songjiang Motors or SAIC?

“This year, the other automobile manufacturer will be bringing new models and had gotten better terms from their overseas partners. How cant they get such lucrative terms if we did not exceed them with our technologies?”

Because of the appearance of Songjiang Motors, China’s automobile industry had grown bigger, and the other automobile manufacturers started developing their technologies, making breakthroughs.

But China’s overall automobile technology is still behind overseas companies, Bing City Machinery Company is also the same. There is still a gap compared to the manufacturers in Japan and the Western countries.

For example, the engine, chassis, etc. technologies newly developed by Bing City Machinery Companies are equivalent to overseas manufacturers’ old technologies.

The gap between both sides is closing, and this is because of the rise of Bing City Machinery Company.

Initially, when those overseas automobile companies got into a joint venture with China’s state-owned automobile companies, the overseas company did not share most of their advanced technologies with China.

In a way, the overseas companies’ are holding back China’s development and controlling their growth. These joint venture companies ended up as spare parts manufacturers for them.

But it is different now. The overseas automobile companies’ brands are being threatened in China. They thought they had controlled the Chinese automobile market, but the most popular automobile brand now is China’s domestic brand, Songjiang Motors!

All automobile manufacturers in China are developing much faster than expected. Their progress is already one year ahead of the overseas manufacturers’ expectations.

China had set the automobile manufacturing industry as one of its core industries and will invest money to build it. At the same time, the government will impose high tariffs and limitations on the importation of cars.

The overseas automobile manufacturers can only continue to work with China’s manufacturers and share their newer models and technologies to secure the market.

But during the negotiations, the overseas manufacturers noticed the Chinese companies’ change of attitude.

In the past, the overseas companies will have the upper hand during the negotiations, and the other party will agree to their harsh terms for their technologies.

But now, the Chinese companies rejected all their conditions for cooperation!

The Chinese companies had agreed to enter into a joint venture with overseas manufacturers is because they needed new technologies. But since then, Chinese companies had gotten the technologies and developed their own. Although the newer technologies from overseas are better than Songjiang Motors, they are only slightly better.

Songjiang Motors will also be introducing a newer model of cars, and what if their technologies are better than the technologies given by overseas manufacturers?

Paying the overseas companies a large amount of money for new models, but the new cars are not better than Songjiang Motors? They will suffer massive losses. Even the State-owned manufacturers will not agree, let alone the leaders above them.

So, the Chinese automobile companies changed their attitude towards their overseas partners. We had given you 49% of the company’s shares previously. But now, we will only let you own 30% at most, and you all must pay a premium for the shares.

That’s right. Your technologies might worth a lot, but those are not the most advanced technologies. If you all don’t agree, we will work with Songjiang Motors. After all, they are also Chinese, and we can get better deals from them.

This is the Chinese companies’ trump card. We have technologies slightly behind you all in China now. But who knows if Songjiang Motors have developed more advanced technologies?

Those overseas companies realized that the Chinese automobile industry had changed, and it was not the same as before. SAIC told their overseas partners. Look, this A6 model is similar to Songjiang Olympics model. Although the specs of A6 are slightly better than Songjiang Olympics, others might think we are imitating them.

Audi had not expected to hear such comments about a two-year-old model, and they panicked when they saw SAIC speaking to other overseas automobile companies. Audi immediately lowers their requirement. In the end, they can only get 25% of the new model’s profits and had to pay double what they expected.

Initially, Audi had wanted 49% shares and even tried to get 50%. But in the end, they were forced to lower it to 25%!

After Audi signed the contract with SAIC, the rest of the Chinese manufacturers used this deal as the benchmark against their partners.

The highest percentage gotten by overseas companies for new joint-ventured vehicles is only 30%. This is a vast difference, and it symbolized China’s automobile industry had reached another phase!

Chapter 962 – Building low-cost cars

Feng Yu threw some peanuts into his mouth and washed it down with beer.

“Old Li, we don’t need to argue or be mad at them under such circumstances. They had started automobile manufacturing earlier than us, but how many years have you been working? They received lots of assistance from the government but still lose to us. In terms of individual abilities, they are nowhere close to you. How many businesses is SAIC doing? Our Bing City Machinery Company is dealing with three businesses at the same time. Which other company is as good as us?”

Li Mingde felt better after Feng Yu’s consolation. That’s right. Why should I be angry? It’s only a meeting venue and just some criticisms. It’s the results that matter.

“I was feeling angry because, without us, SAIC will not get the deal for Audi’s new model! Without us, our China Automobile industry will not develop so fast! We are already exporting our vehicles. What about them?”

“That’s right. You should be facing them like a winner. You should be the one looking down on them, no matter what they say. No one is stupid, and everyone can tell he is trying to make himself look good. That is what weaklings do.”

“Hmph! He is only thinking of getting promoted. If I am ten years younger, he will not stand a chance! Even Manager Sun from FAW is better than him!” Li Mingde replied. You can step on others to climb up, but you want to step on me?! Dream on!

Li Mingde’s words are a bit extreme. SAIC is not only producing small cars. They are also producing other vehicles like agricultural trucks, buses, etc. Their total sales are more than Bing City Machinery. Bing City Machinery Company is only producing three models of saloon cars and a van.

“Old Li, if we don’t export our vehicles, can you guarantee we can sell all our cars in China?” In the past, Feng Yu was the one settling all the sales channels. But now, he had handled these to Li Mingde and his team.

“Our production for Songjiang Olympics is above 60,000 units, and it is the same for Off-road and Oriental Deer models. The production for Red Star is around 30,000 units. China’s total automobile sales last year were over 400,000 units, and we estimate this year will be around 500,000 units. Our total production for last year is 120,000 units, and 80,000 of them were sold in China, and this is about 20% of the market share. The rest is exported to East Europe, Hong Kong, and other regions. I am confident that our China sales can reach 100,000 units this year.”

Li Mingde starts to think if Songjiang Motors’ sales had stimulated those automobile companies to develop so quickly and get better terms from their overseas partners. If those joint-ventured companies had not gotten the contracts for new models, Songjiang Motors would get at least 25% of the market share this year!

But why is Manager Feng asking about this? Does he want to stop exporting our cars? It cannot be… Could it be Manager Feng who had fallen out with that Russian businessman?

Since Songjiang Motors can only sell 100,000 units in China, then it will be hard to implement the proposal to build a joint-venture factory in Russia. Unless, Songjiang Motors can open up new markets in the Southeast Asian countries, or let Bing City Machinery Company produce a new model.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered that Li Dafu had mentioned starting a new brand for low-cost vehicles. This brand of low-cost cars will cater to the lower-income segment. This brand of car will be used as transport instead of a luxury item!

“Old Li, Li Dafu had suggested about producing low-cost vehicles last year. What is the outcome? Have we looked into it?”

“The low-cost car proposal is approved, and we will be using a new brand for it. We are still working on the brand. As for the car’s model, theoretically, it will work, and the cost can be lowered to around 20,000 RMB, and sold for less than 30,000 RMB. Li Dafu felt that the retail price should not be over 25,000 RMB. The most suitable price should be below 20,000 RMB! How can a car be sold at that price?!

Low-cost vehicles have been around in China. Bing City Aviation Factory’s mini-vans and Tianjin’s Xiali are low-cost vehicles, but they cost at least 40,000 RMB. Do you want to sell a car below 20,000?! Even an imported motorcycle costs more than that!

“Old Li, what is the purpose of a car? It is for transportation. Didn’t you notice that more people are buying cars now? In the past, it is the companies or government agencies that are buying cars. But now, people’s lives are improving. Didn’t you buy a car for yourself, and you also bought one for your son and nephew? Your son is living near his workplace, and it’s only two bus stops away. You explain that having a car is more convenient. You can afford a 120,000 RMB car, but what about the rest? Can they afford it? Don’t they want convenience too?”

For someone who is driving a 120,000 RMB car, a 20,000 to 30,000 car is a joke. But for someone riding a bicycle or motorcycle to work, a 20,000 to 30,000 car is a considerable upgrade. After all, a vehicle can shelter them from the sun and rain.

No matter what, a small car is still more convenient than a bicycle or motorcycles. It is more comfortable and easier to ferry people.

“But it still cannot be sold at such low prices. Li Dafu wants to lower the selling price below 20,000 RMB!” Li Mingde retorts.

Feng Yu remembered that Chery had sold their cars below 20,000 RMB in his previous life, and World-renowned Tata Motors had produced a car, costing less than 2,000 USD.

To be honest, these cars’ bodies are thinner, lighter, but the cheap price tag is at the expense of safety. Nevertheless, these cars are still safer than motorcycles, as the driver still has a seatbelt, and is moving on four wheels. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Chery’s sales of their budget cars had shocked everyone.

“I feel that Li Dafu is not joking. Cars can be manufactured below 20,000 RMB. But the price you all set now is still alright. When can we start production?” The sales should be good if a car is being sold below 30,000 RMB.

“Manager Feng, are we going to produce this type of low-cost cars? We will not earn much and might as well focus on motorcycles.”

“Are our profits from other cars higher than motorcycles now? Even after lowering our motorcycles’ prices, our earnings are still very high, right? What is essential is the market share. We can open a new customer segment, the low-end customer segment. No… we should target young adults with these low-cost cars. They are the ones who want to own a car but had just started working and do not have savings.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, most of the owners of these low-cost cars are young adults, and the sales of these cars are excellent. These cars are small, and women would prefer to drive them, as it is easier to park.

“Then we must buy new production lines. Our factories will also need to be expanded.”

“No. We will use our current production lines and lower our Songjiang Off-road production.”

“Ah?! That is our main model for exportation to East Europe. If we lower this model’s production, how are we going to export them? Did something happen to our overseas business?” Li Mingde panicked.

Chapter 963 – Technology export to Russia?

“No. we will be setting up a factory in Russia to produce our Off-roads, and will use our ‘Oriental Deer’ brand for our overseas market.” ‘Oriental Deer’ had become Bing City Machinery Company sub-brand, and this year onwards, China’s Songjiang – Off-roads, will be renamed as Oriental Deer.

“Setting up a factory in Russia? I thought we planned to set up a factory in the US this year.” Li Mingde was confused, as Feng Yu had not said anything about this. They still have exportation subsidies for this year.

“The factory in Russia will be a joint-venture with Moscow’s Polar Bear Automobile to produce our Oriental Deer. This cooperation is similar to Audi and SAIC’s joint-venture in the early years. I had discussed with the other party, and we will provide with the technologies, part of the capital and some experts, for 49% of the company’s shares.”

Li Mingde’s jaw drops. What the hell is happening? We are the ones providing technologies and experts?

Although ‘Oriental Deer’ is selling well in Russia and East Europe, that is Russia. Russia has some of the most advanced technologies in the world. How is it possible that we are the ones sending people to teach them?

Li Mingde does not know that Volga cars went into a decline and only starts to pick up in the years before Feng Yu’s rebirth. Before Volga’s sales begin to pick up, they were still producing decades-old models. All along, Volga had never looked into small passenger cars. Russia might be one of the most influential industrial countries. Still, along the streets, most of the vehicles are overseas brands. Their domestic automobile brands own only slightly more than 5% of the market share!

The Volga could revive because Putin came into power and changed the policies. But their growth is only limited to Russia. During the Soviet Union era, Russia’s cars are world-renowned, and are famous for its durability!

“Manager Feng, are you joking with me? Can’t they develop the technologies themselves? With their industrial capabilities, it should be effortless.” Li Mingde was stuttering.

“Yes, Russia can develop these technologies easily, but they are more inclined to heavy industry, and had never changed. If not, why would they import cars from us? Of course, the value of the technologies used in Oriental Deer will not be high. However, it is still China’s first automobile technology export!”

Li Mingde’s face turned red with excitement. Bing City Machinery Company’s Oriental Deer will be China’s first technology export!

This is an honor. Compared to those automobile manufacturers, who are importing technologies from overseas companies, this is several levels higher! Let’s see who dares to be arrogant in front of me in the future!

If you all are capable, develop a good vehicle, and export the technologies out! What’s there to be proud of you all can’t achieve these?!

No wonder Manager Feng says he wants to produce new car models and lower Oriental Deer’s production. This plan will work!

Li Mingde and his team always felt that exporting to East Europe has lots of restrictions. Other than taxes, they had to rely on that Russian boss.

Russia’s automobile market is big and has lots of brands. Li Mingde and his men were worried that their cars might be squeezed out of the market suddenly, as Russia’s automobile market has lots of other brands.

But it is different now. Getting into a joint-venture with that Russian will increase Oriental Deer’s sales. Although their profits for each vehicle will be lowered, the total profits will increase significantly. It will also increase Songjiang Motors’ brand awareness.

“Manager Feng, I will report this to the City Government.” But after saying this, Li Mingde looked at Feng Yu embarrassedly, as Feng Yu is the company’s biggest shareholder and holds the right to make all the decisions.

“It’s alright. Go and report this. This joint-venture will benefit Bing City Machinery Company and should have not a problem getting their approval. If the City does not agree, tell them that Fu Guangzheng and I had agreed.”

Huh? What can the City Government do? If they opposed to this proposal, Feng Yu will call for a shareholders meeting and see who calls the shot in the company!

But Feng Yu knows that the City Government will not object to this. This joint-venture is political points for them, and they will undoubtedly support it!

“I will inform them now.”

Li Mingde ran out of the room. He must be very excited, as it is rare to see someone at his age running so fast.

……

Bing City Machinery Company’s Deputy General Manager, Li Dafu, held a meeting with the top management to discuss technologies exportation to Russia.

When all of them heard about the news from Li Mingde yesterday, they were shocked. Bing City Machinery Company can export their technologies to Russia! This is something they had never expected!

The representative from the City Government is overjoyed. Yesterday, he had received instructions from his higher-ups to support this proposal fully.

The representative from the City Government should be getting a promotion soon!

Everyone in the company was thrilled when they heard this news, and no one opposed it. Although they will lose some profits temporarily, but there are more benefits in the long term.

Most importantly, this is something honorable!

“Everyone! I had notified everyone about this matter last night and asked all of you to think about it. Although Mr. Kirilenko had worked with us for a long time, this is our first major cooperation, and also the first in China’s history!” Li Dafu exclaimed proudly.

“Now, we have come up with a few cooperation proposals. The first proposal is to sell the technologies in exchange for shares. After that, we will not interfere with their operations. The second proposal is to supply our technologies continuously. We will oversee the R&D and will share any future Oriental Deer technologies with them. This way, we can save some money. The third proposal is to share all our automobile models with them. We might even not spend a single cent in the venture. All of you should know about these proposals yesterday, and let’s pick the most suitable proposal now.”

These three proposals are suggested by Kirilenko. Feng Yu does not like the third proposal and prefer the first and second proposals. The initial proposal is the same as the cooperation between overseas companies and the local automobile manufacturers.

“I think the first proposal is the best. The second proposal requires us to supply our technologies continuously, and it will lower the value of our technology. As for the third proposal, I feel we don’t need to cooperate with them for all our models.” The Deputy General Manager in charge of Motorcycles said.

“I prefer the third proposal. We only have a few models, and it is only limited to the existing models. We got nothing to lose if we give them, as we are introducing newer models later this year.” The head of operations said.

“I think the second proposal is the best for our benefit. We can always introduce new brands, like Northeast Tiger, Eastern Leopards, etc. and don’t need to share those technologies with them.” The Deputy General Manager from SASAC said.

People are supporting and opposing each proposal, and not a single proposal had gotten more than 50% votes. Li Dafu frowned and didn’t know which proposal to use.

Chapter 964 – Watching from afar

Li Mingde continued with his meeting in the forum. This type of meeting will not end in one hour and will need at least three days. In this meeting, they will exchange views and opinions of the industry, and it is quite relaxing. This is like a paid vacation.

Feng Yu also asked Li Mingde to take two days off. Having a break once in a while is good, especially for people at Li Mingde’s age. He had been working for long hours every day, and if he falls sick suddenly, it is not a joking matter.

The Deputy General Managers at Bing City Machinery Company were unhappy with Li Dafu. They felt he is an outsider, and the moment he entered the company, he is appointed to oversee the automobile operations.

But none of the other Deputy General Managers never think why Li Mingde agreed to let Li Dafu oversee automobile operations. The company had invested the most in their automobile technologies this year. The investment in automobile technologies is much higher than the Agricultural machine and motorcycles.

Feng Yu had been watching the Deputy General Managers overseeing these three operations. All three of them are capable, and Feng Yu prefers Li Dafu at first. But now, he felt that anyone of them could take over the position of General Manager on the condition that he has the support from the rest, like Li Mingde.

Luckily, Li Mingde is only 60 years old this year and can work for another ten years. Feng Yu still has time to find his successor.

When Feng Yu checked his emails, he saw a familiar mail. He suddenly had the urge to visit one of the universities in Shanghai. He wants to see Zhou Kexin from afar.

Feng Yu entered a foreign university and realized there are not a lot of people on the campus.

Feng Yu strolled along the corridors and asked for directions to no. 6 hostels from a few students. But the students he approached looked at him as if he is a pervert. No. 6 hostel is the female hostel!

Feng Yu only wants to sit outside the hostel and see if he can meet Zhou Kexin. He wants to know if they still have fate to meet.

“Eh, what’s your answer for the third question? I chose A.”

“No. It should be B.”

The two female students walked past, and Feng Yu realized that it is the end semester examinations now. No wonder there are so few students around.

Feng Yu looked at his watch, and the examinations should be ending soon. But he wonders if Zhou Kexin will return to her hostel to rest, or she will remain in the classroom for revision.

There is a small garden in front of the female hostel, and beside it, there are two long benches. Feng Yu buttoned up his coat and sat on one of the long benches.

Many girls walked past and looked at Feng Yu curiously. He did not shave today and looks mature with the stubbles, and his dressing is different from students. Even the Master’s students do not dress up as him.

Feng Yu is not considered good looking, but compared to the students, he is more mature. Furthermore, with a thriving business empire, he had become more confident, and his confidence can attract these young girls easily.

The girls, who walked past Feng Yu, were discussing who he is, and which girl is he waiting for?

Some girls even start fantasizing if Feng Yu would approach them or he is waiting for them!

Feng Yu looked at the main entrance of the hostel, hoping to see the person he had been waiting for. But he is also at a loss if she appears. Is he going to approach her?

What will Feng Yu say? I am your husband in my previous life, or should I say I am the Second most handsome person on earth?

Or should I approach her usually? “Hi, I am Feng Yu. Can I know you?”

Feng Yu thought of different scenarios and can’t decide what to do.

In this life, Feng Yu is very successful in his businesses, and it’s been a long time when he does not know what to do. This feeling is different from the time when he was fighting against Soros. He didn’t even bat an eyelid when he made several million within minutes or lose millions at that time.

Feng Yu had never been an indecisive person. All this while, he felt he is a decisive person, and this characteristic is shown when he is negotiating contracts.

But relationships are different from business. Furthermore, Feng Yu felt apologetic towards Zhou Kexin. He had thought of giving Zhou Kexin a better life in the past. He can still do it now, but he cannot give her his 100% devotion.

From the emails and letters sent by Zhou Kexin, Feng Yu can tell that her feelings for him are increasing, despite not sending pictures to each other.

Feng Yu dares to say that if he tells Zhou Kexin that he is single and wants to date her, she will not reject him.

……

Zhou Kexin finished her exams and went to have lunch with her classmate. After that, they walked back to the hostel together.

“Kexin, why your boyfriend never visits you in school? Is he still in the US?”

“I said before, and he is not my boyfriend. He is only a pen-pal, and maybe he already has a girlfriend.” Zhou Kexin replied shyly.

“Have you ever asked him? What if he is single?” Zhou Kexin’s roommate asked.

“How can I ask such a question?” Zhou Kexin blushed.

“I am not asking you to ask in front of him, and you all are communicating through emails. You can send him a mail to ask him. If he has a girlfriend, you can give up and treat him like a normal pen-pal. Also, you two are not considered pen pals now. He must be an idiot if he still can’t sense your feelings.”

“We still have an exam in the afternoon. Can you focus on our studies first?” Zhou Kexin replied helplessly.

“I am saying these for your good!” Zhou Kexin’s roommate gave her the classic reply.

“Fine… fine… fine… I know you are saying these because you care about me. But we still have an exam in the afternoon. We must take a nap when we get back, or else, we might feel sleepy during the exams, and affect our performance.”

“Eh… Kexin, look over there. A good-looking guy is sitting at the bench looking at us!” Zhou Kexin’s roommate pushed Zhou Kexin lightly.

Zhou Kexin looked towards the bench, and her eyes met with that man. She got a feeling that this man seems to know her, and she feels he is someone familiar.

This person is exactly how Zhou Kexin imagined the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ in her heart!

Zhou Kexin laughed at herself in her heart. What are you thinking? If ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ is coming to visit her, he should inform her. It must be what her roommate said that had affected her.

Feng Yu looked at the woman, who had appeared in his dreams countless times, entering the hostel, and sighed.

Chapter 965 – Hesitation

The moment Feng Yu saw Zhou Kexin, he felt his heart skipped a beat. He had finally met her again.

Zhou Kexin is not pretty enough to stop people in their tracks. But to Feng Yu, Zhou Kexin is extraordinary.

Feng Yu thought of walking over to greet her, but he does not know what to say. This is the only time he is scared in this life.

When Zhou Kexin turns, and their eyes met, Feng Yu quickly looks away. He is afraid that he will walk over if he looks at her any longer.

Zhou Kexin did not stop and continued her way with her roommate into the hostel. She did not even turn and take a second look at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu sat there, looking at Zhou Kexin’s back. He hopes Zhou Kexin would turn and look at him again.

Maybe if their eyes met again, Feng Yu would find the courage to approach her. Even if he is rejected, he does not mind.

Feng Yu continued sitting at the bench after Zhou Kexin enters the hostel building. He can’t bear to leave the place and wants to wait for Zhou Kexin to come out from the hostel later.

After meeting with Feng Yu’s eyes, Zhou Kexin was confused. She felt that man is trying to say something to her with his eyes.

After entering the hostel, Zhou Kexin turned and looked at that man again. She noticed that man is still looking towards the main entrance and seems to be waiting to see her. Although at their current distance, they can’t see each other.

Is that man looking at me?

“Kexin, what are you looking at?” Zhou Kexin’s roommate waved her hands in front of her. “You are looking at that handsome guy? Do you want me to accompany you to walk out and see if he will approach you?”

“Stop talking nonsense and get some rest. We are taking the Higher Mathematics exam later!”

Zhou Kexin’s roommate kept quiet. Higher Mathematics exam is torture for her.

Back in their room, Zhou Kexin laid on her bed, but she cannot sleep. Is she nervous about the exam in the afternoon? No. She is thinking about that man’s eyes.

“Kexin, where are you going?”

“I’m going to the bathroom.”

In the corridors, Zhou Kexin can see the garden from the windows. That man is still sitting there. Is he not cold?

Who is he waiting for? Did he pass by and is sitting there to take a rest? His dressing is not a student and looks more like a successful businessman.

Zhou Kexin shook her head to force herself to stop thinking about him and return to her room.

Zhou Kexin has the habit of taking afternoon naps. She had exams yesterday and can still take a short rest before it. But today, no matter how hard she tried, she just can’t fall asleep.

When the alarm in the room sounded, Zhou Kexin sat up on her bed.

“Eh, Kexin… you did not sleep?” One of Zhou Kexin’s roommate asked. They could tell Zhou Kexin had not slept from her eyes. But all of them knew Zhou Kexin’s habit. Did she study instead of taking a nap?

Shouldn’t be. Zhou Kexin’s results for Higher Mathematics had been good all this while, and her products are good enough to get scholarships.

“I drank too much water earlier and went to the toilet twice. That’s why I did not sleep.” Zhou Kexin made up an excuse.

“Let’s go and wash our faces. Kexin, you should wash your face too. If not, you might feel sleepy during the exams. Oh, you can also get a can of Qili. That drink can give you energy and get rid of fatigue.”

“I know.”

When Zhou Kexin and her roommates went downstairs and walked past the garden, that man is no longer on that bench.

Zhou Kexin suddenly felt disappointed. But she laughed at herself in her heart. Who would remain outside in the middle of winter for two hours?

Maybe that man had left a long time ago and had just sat there for a few minutes.

“Kexin, what are you looking at? Are you still thinking about that good-looking man?”

“What good-looking man? Where?”

“When Kexin and I returned from lunch, a handsome guy is sitting on that long bench, and he was looking at Kexin. I can tell that he wants to know our Kexin.”

“Wow! Why did I submit my papers earlier? If I waited for you all, I would catch a glimpse of him!”

The few girls chatted and teased each other. Zhou Kexin laughed and hit her friends lightly.

But when the girls turned into a corner, they saw a man standing at the roadside, looking at Zhou Kexin. Their eyes met again.

“Eh… eh… eh… That is the good-looking guy! See! He is looking at our Kexin!”

“Let’s walk past him and see if he dares to approach Kexin.” Someone in the group suggested.

“Stop it. We need to get to the examination venue on time. Do you all want to fail?” The leader of the dormitory said.

“Kexin, if you miss this opportunity, you might not get it again!” Someone joked.

But they suddenly realized that Zhou Kexin did not retort them, and is looking at that man in a daze.

Does Kexin really like that man?

Feng Yu took one last look at Zhou Kexin and walked away.

Feng Yu knew that he could not give Zhou Kexin the happiness she wants, but he can find a way to cure her sickness. He will let Zhou Kexin not have any regrets in this life.

Of course, if Zhou Kexin is willing to be with him, it would be great. The greedy Feng Yu also want to have two women in this life, but he does not know if this is possible.

Feng Yu does not know how to tell Zhou Kexin. He can’t walk up to her and say, “Hi, you should go and get a checkup in the hospital. You have infertility issues and must undergo treatment as early as possible.

I will be mistaken as a hooligan and be arrested!

But Feng Yu cannot make up any excuses to make Zhou Kexin go for checks and treatments for this medical condition. In this era, very few girls will go for such checks.

Furthermore, Feng Yu’s identity is Zhou Kexin’s pen pal. How can a pen pal know about her medical condition and persuade her for such checks?

If anyone can help Feng Yu come up with an idea, he is willing to give that person 1 million, 10 million, and even 100 million!

Feng Yu had already contacted two famous female doctors in the US and knew he could pay and bring them to Shanghai to treat Zhou Kexin.

Feng Yu had prepared everything but had not to tell Zhou Kexin about her condition.

“Kexin, he is leaving.”

“What does it have to do with me? Hurry up, or we will be late.” Zhou Kexin suddenly felt disappointed.

Zhou Kexin’s roommates looked at each other and kept quiet. They decided they must question Zhou Kexin after the exam. These two must have something going on!

Chapter 966 – Joint-venture

Feng Yu returned to his hotel after leaving university. He needs to think of a foolproof plan to get Zhou Kexin to go for her checkup. If all else fails, he can only trick her!

After eating something, Li Mingde entered.

“Manager Feng, the meeting is over, and there is a flight to Bing City this evening. Do you want to return together?”

“Didn’t I tell you to take a break here for a few days? You seldom take vacations and breaks.”

“Never mind. I am worried about the company. Furthermore, I don’t like those people. Other than drinking and playing Mahjong, there is nothing to do here during winter. It’s too cold here!” Li Mingde is not used to the climate in Shanghai and felt more comfortable in Bing City.

“You should take a break this year. The company had given you days off annually, but you had never used them. If you don’t take breaks, your men will not dare to go on vacation. Once this joint-venture proposal is over, you will go on a vacation with your wife. Go and have a holiday at some island resort for at least two weeks, and I will remain in Bing City. With me around, everything will be fine in the company!”

What’s the point of giving the staff days off if everyone doesn’t take days off because of Li Mingde? Yes, the days off can be exchanged for cash, but the staff in Bing City Machinery Company does not lack money. They will not care about this small amount of reimbursement.

“Alright. I had always wanted to visit the Southern Provinces. I heard this is the best season to visit there. When everything is over, I will bring my family out for a vacation.” Li Mingde laughed.

They packed their luggage and boarded the evening flight back to Bing City.

After touch down, Feng Yu and Li Mingde did not return home. Instead, they went to Bing City Machinery Company, as all the top management are waiting for Li Mingde.

They are still discussing the Joint-venture proposals can couldn’t decide which to use. Every proposal has its pros and cons.

“Manager Feng, Manager Li.” Li Dafu was the first to see Feng Yu and Li Mingde and stood up to greet them. The rest of the staff also stood up to greet them, but all of them greeted Li Mingde first.

Everyone in the meeting room knows Feng Yu is the company’s main shareholder. However, Li Mingde still commands more respect in the company.

There are two seats left in the room, and Li Mingde sat on the seat beside the head of the table.

Feng Yu sat at the head of the table and knocked on the table. “Let’s start the meeting. Li Dafu, tell me about the current situation.”

Li Dafu explained their current progress and the three proposals. “We cannot decide which proposal to use and couldn’t get any conclusions even through voting. That’s why we need you all to make the decision.”

“Old Li, what’re your views on this?” Feng Yu looked at Li Mingde.

“Manager Feng, you are the one who set up this joint-venture and should have a proposal in mind. You are better when it comes to joint-venture, and you are the company’s main shareholder. You should be the one deciding.” Li Mingde laughed as he replied. At the same time, he is telling the rest that it is Feng Yu, who gotten this deal and reminded them that he is the major shareholder. They must not offend him!

Li Mingde looked at the Deputy General Manager overseeing Agricultural Machinery and thought. “You must learn from Li Dafu. He was formerly a boss, and look at his attitude towards Feng Yu. If Manager Feng decided to support him in the future, you would remain in your current position until you retire.”

“I had only suggested this joint-venture, and still need all of you to come up with a proposal. Old Hu, does the City Government have anything to say about this?”

“The City supports this joint-venture and can accept all three proposals. The company can decide on the proposal.”

Feng Yu nodded. If the City Government can accept any of the three proposals, it will be easier to make a decision.

“Old Li, tell us your views. You are the company’s General Manager and is familiar with the company’s operations. You should make a decision.” Feng Yu looked at Li Mingde again.

Li Mingde can tell Feng Yu is interested to hear his views and smiled. “I think we can have a fourth proposal.”

Everyone in the room was stunned. We can’t even decide with three proposals, and you are proposing a fourth one?!

Feng Yu looked at Li Mingde. “Fourth proposal? Tell us about it.”

“The previous three proposals have pros and cons. Why don’t we combine the pros of those three proposals? Firstly, the other party is interested in our Oriental Deer model most, and we can sell this model to them for shares. After that, we can authorize them to use our latest technologies for a fee. It is the same for the rest of the car models. If we use this proposal, we can get more than 50% of this joint venture company!”

Feng Yu raised his brows. This is a good proposal, but it will not be easy to persuade the other party.

Kirilenko is not a fool. This proposal will lower his profits, and he might not agree with it.

Kirilenko is interested in all Songjiang Motors car models and is willing to compensate Bing City Machinery Company more money. It would be better if he can get the free upgrade of the technologies.

Kirilenko might not be willing to accept this proposal if he must pay authorization fees to use the upgraded technologies in the future.

Li Dafu frowned and said. “Manager Li, your suggestion is good, but will the other party accept these terms?”

“We must negotiate with them first. We will benefit if they accept it, but even if we are rejected, we will also know what they want, and adjust our terms accordingly.” Li Mingde said cunningly.

The rest of the top management staff looked at each other and nodded. They will use this proposal to negotiate with the other party first and see where their limit is. It will be terrific if this proposal gets through!

“Manager Feng, you are familiar with that Russian… Ki… Kirilenko, right? Do you think he will accept this proposal?” Li Mingde looked at Feng Yu.

“I don’t know. But I will not participate in this negotiation. Tai Hua Trading has lots of cooperation with Kirilenko, and there is a conflict of interest. I will wish all of you success in this negotiation!”

The top management staff is not worried Feng Yu would be bribed by Kirilenko and leaked the company’s proposal to him. After all, Feng Yu is the main shareholder of the company. If this negotiation fails, he will suffer the most losses.

Li Mingde appointed three Deputy General Managers to be part of his negotiation team. Over the years, Li Mingde had experienced many business negotiations. With Li Dafu in the team, they stand a good chance.

The company’s success will have to depend on the result of this negation!

Chapter 967 – Small cars’ performance

Fu Guangzheng knew Feng Yu was not participating in the negotiation and decided not to join. Kirilenko also did not join and sent his men instead. His men are better in negotiations compared to him.

When the negotiation started, Feng Yu went to R&D to look at the specs of the low-cost car.

A prototype that looks like Suzuki Alto is parked in the R&D center. It is not ugly, but Feng Yu prefers Chery QQ or Fiat Panda’s designs. With this design, no wonder the top management is not confident in a small car.

“What is this car’s CC?” Feng Yu opened the door and sat in the driver’s seat. It’s not too cramped, and people below 1.8m can still drive it, and those around 1.7m will be comfortable in it.

“1L, and uses a 3-cylinder engine. It is similar to our Motorized tricycle’s engine and uses some technologies from our tractors. The power is on the low side and has a high requirement on the roads.” The Chief Engineer explained.

A 1L motorcycle or even a 300CC motorcycle can move on all sorts of road surfaces. But when converted to a car, it is not enough.

The Chief Engineer added that this car’s performance is lower than Bing City’s Aviation Factory’s minivans and Daihatsu’s Charade.

Of course, the production cost of this car is also lower.

“What is the top speed of this car?” Feng Yu asked. This is an essential factor.

“125mph, but we don’t suggest driving more than 80mph. The body is too light, and the handling will be poor if it goes too fast. This car is suitable only to be driven in the cities as the roads in the cities are quite short.”

Feng Yu nodded, and this is similar to what he imagines. He can even push the car himself. This car is too light.

Although the petrol price now is still low, fuel consumption is still an essential factor. The ones buying this car are also not government leaders, and they cannot claim petrol expenses. The capacity is small and is fuel-efficient, can be a selling point for this car.

The car is only fitted with a radio and does not have a CD or DVD player, but it should be enough.

“Old Ma, who designed this air conditioner? Why is the cold air removed?” Feng Yu frowned and asked.

“We had wanted to take away the air conditioner to lower the cost. But we think that it will be too cold during winters to drive with windows down. So, we added a heater. If the weather is too hot, the driver can wind down the windows.”

“No. This is the basic feature and needs it. How much can the cost increase if we added cold air?” Only with air conditioning, people will think of it as a car. This is a must for all vehicles.

“The production cost will increase by 1,000 RMB. Since you think we must add in this feature, we will alter the designs later.” The Chief Engineer replied.

Feng Yu looked at the car’s interior, and all the windows are not automatic. It must be winded manually, but Feng Yu does not mind. Winding down the windows is not something troublesome.

This car is manual transmission and has five gears.

The car seat is regular and not comfortable. The material looks cheap, but Feng Yu does not have anything to say about this. No one will think of using real leather seats for these small cars.

As for air-bags, it is not necessary, as no one will drive more than 40 mph in the cities. Most accidents in the cities are just side-to-side collisions.

No matter what, this car is still safer than motorcycles, and this must be mentioned in their marketing.

Feng Yu adjust the seat, and felt it’s still acceptable, despite inclining the seat to the back will block the back seat.

Feng Yu alighted and opened up the boot. The boot is small and cannot even fit a piece of small luggage.

Another reason for buying a car is to carry things. This boot is so small that it can only be used to carry groceries from the market.

“This boot must be bigger. Tell Liu Michael to redesign it, and the rear passenger seat must be removable. If it cannot be done, convert it into a two-seater.”

“Two-seater? Will people want to buy a two-seater car? All cars have two rows of seats, and our Oriental Deer have three rows.” The Chief Engineer felt Feng Yu’s idea would not work, but he doesn’t know how to tell him.

“Most of the time, how many people is in your car?” Feng Yu asked.

“Most of the time, I am driving alone or with my wife. My son is studying in another province.”

“That’s right. A single row seat is enough for you. Furthermore, this car is designed for young adults in the cities. They are mostly working away from their families. Also, a two-seater will allow them to bring their girlfriends around and not worry about anyone else disturbing them.”

Most sports cars are two-seaters too. Who cares about others when you can bring a girl out for a spin?

The main reason is this car is too small and light. If the car’s height had to be increased for a bigger boot, it would be ugly. The balance will be off and will be dangerous during corners.

“This… I will speak to the designers and see what they say.” The Chief Engineer agreed unwillingly. He still does not like this idea.

“Is this a four-wheel-drive or a two-wheel drive?”

“It is a front two-wheel drive. The performance is not bad, except the pick-up is slightly slower. But this car is not suitable for high speed anyway.”

“We have the turbo technology, right? Why is it not used on this car? If you add in turbo, will it increase the power and fuel efficiency?”

“Use that technology on this low-cost car? We can do that, but the cost will increase.”

The Chief Engineer is feeling frustrated. You are the one who wants us to build a low-cost car, and we tried to lower the cost to our best ability. Why are you adding more things to it?

“Can the manual transmission change to an automatic transmission? Will it be cheaper?” Feng Yu remembers that automatic transmission had been developed last year.

“But automatic transmission car’s handling is not as good as a manual transmission.”

“I said this car is for transportation. Why do you need good handling? It is also easier to drive with automatic transmission, and female drivers will like it! Also, don’t you think that automatic transmission will make the car look stylish?”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many women’s first cars are small cars with automatic transmission. Since Songjiang Motors have the automatic transmission technologies, why don’t they use it?

The Chief Engineer thought for a while. That’s right. Most people that buy cars do not know a lot about cars and will think Automatic transmission is more advanced. If we introduce an Automatic transmission car, it will be more popular! Which domestic brand of cars has Automatic transmission now? The automobile manufacturers in China do not have this technology and is only available in imported vehicles!

“Manager Feng, since Automatic transmission is better, why are we not using on our high-end cars?” The Chief Engineers asked.

“Huh? Use on our high-end cars? Feng Yu rubbed his chin. This is a good idea.

Chapter 968 – Genie

Feng Yu had only wanted to look at the low-cost car. Still, the Chief Engineer in the R&D center suggested introducing an automatic transmission high-end car. Feng Yu wanted to tell him that in the future, the mainstream transmission is a combination of manual and automatic.

You will need marketing to promote the more advanced automatic transmission. Those that can drive are not used to an automatic transmission. In Chine, only a few imported automobile models are using automatic, and many people don’t even know that cars can move without a clutch.

Those few imported models are high-end, and people associate automatic transmission with high-end cars. But the manual transmission is still the mainstream currently.

The driving license in China currently includes both manual and automatic cars. In Feng Yu’s previous life, China will introduce separate driving licenses for manual and automatic cars, ten years later. This is because the automatic transmission technologies in China is still too backward.

Just happen that Bing City Machinery Company is good at these technologies, and engineers from Bing City Aviation Company will share their technologies with them. Can an aircraft engine manufacturer’s technology be backward?

Bing City Machinery Company has the most advanced automobile technologies in China now. However, compared to overseas manufacturers, there is still a gap. For example, Bing city Machinery Company still cannot produce Manumatic transmission. Some top automobile manufacturers like Porsche, Volkswagen, BMW, etc. had introduced Manumatic transmission around 1990.

From the Manumatic transmission technology, Bing City Machinery Company is still behind the top automobile manufacturers by at least ten years. But compared to the rest of China’s manufacturers, who are behind them by over twenty years, Bing City Machinery Company is much better.

“This low-cost model will start mass production after Lunar New Year and will be introduced all over China in April. You can prepare a proposal about the high-end automatic transmission cars and discuss them with the rest. If possible, we will launch the automatic transmission mid to high range of cars next year.” Feng Yu said.

“Are we still using automatic transmission for this small car?”

“We had invested a lot in developing the automatic transmission, and we can price these automatic transmission cars 10,000 RMB higher. What do you think?”

“The cost for the automatic transmission is around 20,000 RMB. The retail price for the Manual transmission model can be set at 29,900 RMB and an automatic transmission model at 49,900 RMB!”

Does the automatic transmission have high potential? Feng Yu thought for a while. Currently, Bing City Machinery Company is the only automobile manufacturer in China that has this technology, and it is fine if it is priced higher. Maybe the sales for the automatic transmission model will be better than the manual ones. This way, Bing City Machinery Company will make more money and invest their money back into R&D.

“If you think this can work, and the rest agrees with you, go ahead. You all are more familiar with the market compared to me. The exterior design for this low-cost car must be redesigned. It must look more youthful and uses vibrant colors. Don’t use black color, and use bright colors like blue, red, green, yellow, etc. The headlights must be changed to something nicer and make it more streamline and curvier.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, why was Chery’s small cars so popular and can even be exported to so many countries? It is because it is cheap and the exterior is cute and fashionable. Compared to other small cars, it is more spacious.

If anyone needs a car for short distance traveling, this car is the best option.

Feng Yu believes that if the exterior is beautifully designed, he can also export it, and exceed over 1 million units of sales!

“Manager Feng, what should we name this model? We will not be using Songjiang Brand and will be setting up a new brand like Oriental Deer.”

“This… let everyone brainstorm for a proper name. Do you have any suggestions?”

Old Ma still has not set up Tencent QQ yet, and no one knows about this name ‘QQ.’ Maybe they can borrow the name of the small car from Li Dafu’s company, Panda, in Feng Yu’s previous life. But the car must look like Panda to use that name.

Because of Feng Yu’s appearance, Li Dafu’s business empire will not happen, and Li Dafu was even recruited by Feng Yu as the Deputy General Manager.

“How about Little Horse? We can use a horse as the logo.” Chief Engineer Ma said excitedly.

Huh?! Just because your surname is Ma, you want to name it Little Horse? There is a department head whose surname is Niu. Are we going to name our next car, Little Bull?

“Old Ma, an overseas company, had already used a horse as its logo. Have you heard of Ferrari? If we do this, we will look like we are copying them. How about we use another name?”

Chief Engineer Ma was disappointed. He had been enthusiastic in designing and building this car is because this model will be using a new brand and does not have a name.

Now, it seems that Manager Feng is not supporting his idea. Little Horse is such a nice name. That company is using a stallion, and we are using a baby horse as a logo. It’s different.

Feng Yu continued. “How about Genie? Little Genie?”

“Little Genie? It’s a nice name, but will it be too westernized? What about the logo?” Chief Engineer Ma asked.

Feng Yu thought for a while and said. “We will use a simple logo with the alphabets ‘JL.’ Get Wind and Rain Design to come up with a simple and nice logo.”

“Ok. We will speak to Wind and Rain Design and see what logo they can come up with. We will be naming this model as ‘Genie’?”

“You can discuss it with the other management staff. If they have no objections, we will use this name. This name sounds fun and should help with our sales.”

Feng Yu thought of this name because of a handphone model in his previous life.

Feng Yu had wanted Liu Michael to redesign this model, and the front of the car must look like a smiling face. The big round headlights will be the eyes and suits this name well.

……

The name ‘Genie’ had been approved by the company’s top management. Maybe they know this name is suggested by Feng Yu, and they did not raise any objections.

The production for Genie had been brought forward, and two of the factory’s production lines are being adjusted to manufacture this model. Everyone is confident in this model because there are no competitors in this price range. The nearest competitor is Alto, but the production for this model is only a few thousand a year, and the cost is over 50,000 RMB. FAW’s Xiali looks like a Taxi, and Genie will capture this market segment easily!

At this time, Li Mingde called to inform that Bing City Machinery Company had officially signed a partnership agreement.

Chapter 969 – Li Mingde’s retaliation

The negotiations for this cooperation ended very fast. After all, both parties had many partnerships before and were eager to cooperate. They only have some differences on some minor details of the contract.

The City Government was also pressuring Li Mingde to complete this negotiation before Lunar New Year, as they want to show some results to their higher-ups. They even used their connections to get CCTV to telecast the contract signing in Bing City!

Kirilenko also wants to start the cooperation earlier. The earlier they sign the contract, the earlier they can begin production.

Both sides want to sign the contract earlier, and the negotiation went on smoothly.

Bing City Machinery Company will use Oriental Deer and all related technologies to exchange for shares in this partnership, and Polar Bear Automobile will get authorization to use the Oriental Deer brand and logo. Songjiang Olympic and its related technologies will be included in this partnership. But in Russia, it will be renamed as China Star, but the logo will remain the same.

Polar Bear Automobile does not want other models. Still, in their contract, there is a clause that states that Polar Bear Automobile will get the authorization to produce those models if they fulfill some requirements.

Other than these two models, Kirilenko is not interested in the other models, unless Bing City Machinery Company introduces better models. They are not stupid and are preparing to learn these technologies to develop their models in the future.

The Polar Bear Automobile’s market value is estimated to be slightly above 300 million USD, and most of their production lines are new. They have four production lines, and their annual production is above 30,000 units. Kirilenko is an ambitious man. If he managed to sell all these cars, he would become the biggest automobile manufacturer in all former Soviet Union countries. No manufacturer in the former Soviet Union countries’ automobile industry produces more than 10,000 cars annually.

Bing City Machinery Company valued these two models and their related technologies as 160 million USD. It paid an additional 140 million USD for 49% of the shares.

The Polar Bear Automobile had wanted Songjiang’s high-end car, Rongyao, technologies and is willing to value it at 400 million USD. But Li Mingde refused.

Songjiang Rongyao is the newest model with the most advanced technologies introduced last year. Which company is willing to sell their best technologies to other companies?

Nevertheless, the negotiation went on smoothly, and both sides got what they wanted.

……

“Today, Bing City Machinery Company will be signing a partnership contract with Polar Bear Automobile. I represent…” Zhang Ruiqiang stood in front of the reporters proudly.

Li Mingde was standing beside Zhang Ruiqiang and looked ten years younger. He couldn’t stop smiling, especially when he looked at the rest of the General Managers from other automobile companies!

The Ministry for Industry had sent out invitations to high-rank government officials and other automobile manufacturers to attend the contract signing ceremony.

Li Mingde even called SAIC himself to invite them. Although he speaks nicely, every word stabbed Manager Niu’s heart.

At first, Li Mingde told Manager Niu that Songjiang Motors would be lowering their exportation this year, and the latter was laughing at him in his heart. What’s wrong? I thought your cars are very popular? Is no one interested in them now?

You all want to export to Europe and the western countries? Their automobile industries are more advanced than China by several years. The Bing City Machinery Company must have been reporting false figures on their export profits, and have been found out.

Manager Niu pretended to console Li Mingde, telling him not to be discouraged. Not exporting your cars will only result in lower profits. You all can concentrate on building motorcycles instead.

Li Mingde immediately retorted. “When did I say that our profits from cars will be lowered? Although we are not exporting to East Europe, we will be going into a joint venture and set up a factory in Moscow. It will be a huge automobile factory and will be using the most advanced equipment.”

Manager Niu was stunned. Bing City Machinery Company will be setting up a factory overseas?

Li Mingde added that Bing City Machinery Company would be using technologies and brands to invest in this joint venture factory. They had only used around 100 million RMB for this venture.

Manager Niu was more surprised. Using technologies to enter this venture? Bing City Machinery Company will be using its technology to enter a joint venture with a Russian automobile company? We are talking about Russia. Russia had inherited most of the Soviet Union’s assets and technologies. It is one of the top industrial countries in the world. Why would they agree to let Bing City Machinery Company use their technologies for this venture?

But no one knows that Russia’s automobile industry had been stagnant for years. They might be good in trucks, but for cars, they are below the global average.

After that, Li Mingde told Manager Niu that he wants to invite him for the contract signing ceremony. He added that the General Managers from other manufacturers and government leaders would be attending too. He purposely told Manager Niu to arrive one day earlier, as he wants to bring Manager Niu for a tour in Bing City Machinery Company.

Manager Niu does not feel like going, but his higher-ups ordered that all major automobile manufacturers’ General Managers must attend this ceremony to learn from Bing City Machinery Company.

Manager Niu looks at the proud Li Mingde on the stage, and he feels like killing him!

Both parties will be signing the contract on the stage, and Li Mingde still purposely put up the flags of both countries behind them. It looks like two countries signing a treaty and bring up the status of this venture.

The leaders on the stage did not object to the flags. After all, Bing City Machinery Company had made China proud. They will be first China’s automobile manufacturers to use their technologies to enter into a venture with an overseas company! This is an honor!

Li Mingdde started his speech and thanked the Provincial and City Governments’ leaders, etc.

If Li Mingde had not retired, he would definitely be promoted by the government.

Manager Niu noticed the expression on Li Mingde seems to be mocking him and will look at him occasionally.

“Eh, Old Niu, don’t leave first. Let’s take a picture together. Come… Stand beside me!”

During their last meeting, Manager Niu is the one standing beside the leaders, and this time, he had to stand in a corner! This is too humiliating!

But Manager Niu dares not to say anything. There are too many high ranking leaders there, and Li Mingde is still the host. There is nothing he can do anyway.

This is Li Mingde’s revenge. Just because Li Mingde is not arranged to stand in the center during their last meeting, he made me stand in the corner now!

“Old Niu, what are you thinking? Hurry up. Don’t let the leaders wait.” Li Mingde shouted!

Manager Niu cursed in his heart. The leaders are not in their positions yet, and you are speaking as if they are waiting for me. You are too evil!

“Ok… Ok…” Manager Niu ran over and in the position arranged by Li Mingde.

During the photo taking, the photographer told everyone to smile, and Manager Niu forced himself to smile.

Feng Yu stood by the side and waved his hand when they asked him to take photos together, as he does not like to be in the limelight.

Feng Yu only joined the rest of Bing City Machinery Company’s leaders for photo takings. He stood in the center, and the rest of the automobile manufacturers’ General Managers wondered who that person is. Why does it seem that his status is higher than Li Mingde and that Hong Kong businessman?

After a while, Feng Yu went up to the CCTV reporters to speak to them. Zhang Ruiqiang was feeling frustrated. He was the one who invited those reporters, but are they closer to Feng Yu instead?

The only ones in CCTV who does not know who Feng Yu is, are only the new joiners. All the older staff knows Manager Feng is good friends with their Station Chief!

CCTV’s main advertisement income is also from Feng Yu’s companies, and Feng Yu has the habit of giving reporters red packets.

“Everyone doesn’t leave first. We have prepared dinner at our company’s cafeteria. Old Niu, you are seated at table 4.”

Manager Niu is numbed. Whenever there is lunch or dinner with the rest of the industry’s General Managers, he is also seated at Table 1. But this time, he is arranged to be seated at Table 4.

Li Mingde! Please stop talking to me!

Chapter 970 – Old Zhang will be promoted

During the dinner, Li Mingde mingled with every guest at the tables and is happier than his son’s wedding banquet.

Most of the people congratulated Li Mingde, and some of them, like Manager Niu, was feeling frustrated. They had the support of the government, but their factories had lost to a tractor factory!

The General Managers of other factories were pissed as they look at Li Mingde. But they can’t do anything about it.

They were determined to make their factories as successful as Bing City Machinery Company. They will invest at least 20 to 30% of their funds in R&D and invite Li Mingde over when they have some technological breakthroughs as revenge!

Feng Yu, Li Mingde, Fu Guangzheng, and a few government leaders were seated at Table 1. Some of the leaders left when Li Mingde went to offer a toast at the other tables. Feng Yu was also about to leave when Zhang Ruiqiang called him.

“Do you want to have tea at my place?”

Feng Yu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang. Zhang Ruiqiang must have something important to discuss with him. He also noticed Xu Changyou looked at Zhang Ruiqiang differently when he left.

……

“Xiao Feng, have some tea. There are fruits here. I will go out to watch TV.” Zhang Ruiqiang’s wife said.

“Thank you.”

After Zhang Ruiqiang’s wife left, Zhang Ruiqiang took out a box of cigars from his drawer. The cigars were given to him by Feng Yu. He knew Feng Yu does not smoke cigarettes and only smoke cigars occasionally.

Both lit their cigars, and Feng Yu took a sip of tea.

“What is it? Just speak your mind. My parents do not like me coming home late.”

Zhang Ruiqiang: “……” You don’t live at home most of the time, and you are saying that your parents are worried about you? Do you think I don’t know that you have two bodyguards waiting for you in the car?!

Zhang Ruiqiang shook his head. “Do you think that Beidacang will be Asia’s biggest agricultural products company in the future?”

Feng Yu glanced at Zhang Ruiqiang. “It is already Asia’s top company. What’s wrong? You didn’t hit the target last year? Didn’t you sign contracts with the distributors?”

“We had achieved our targets last year, and the target for this year is not high. Our worst period should be over now. I have two choices now, and I am hesitating.

Two choices? What happened? Is Old Zhang going to be promoted?

But even if he is going to be promoted, why is he asking me? I am not from government service, and I don’t know anything about it.

“What choices?”

“The first choice is to enter the Provincial Government as the No. 3, and at the same time take over Beidacang. Xu Changyou wants to let me handle Beidacang’s operations. The other choice is to be transferred to a Ministry. My superiors had let me choose the department I want and will be the No. 2 or No. 3 man in the department.

Feng Yu’s jaw dropped. Old Zhang’s connection is too powerful. Other people will be overjoyed to get promoted, but Old Zhang can still get to pick and choose the department he wants.

“Why are you telling me this? You want to seek my opinions?”

“These few career paths are the same from my perspective. Xu Changyou wants me to remain in the province to help him manage Beidacang, as he doesn’t feel confident to hand it over to someone else. But the higher-ups felt that I would be more useful if I enter a Ministry. I just want to know if Beidacang can be grown to become a world-renowned company.”

Feng Yu understood why Zhang Ruiqiang is hesitating. If Beidacang can achieve results, he can continue to get promotions.

But if Beidacang cannot achieve any results, Zhang Ruiqiang’s career will end there.

“Beidacang Group will be the Leader in Asia within three years. But it will be hard for this company to be the best in the world. The US, Canada, Australia, etc. are also strong in agriculture, and their agriculture industry is more advanced than us.”

Within Asia, China is the strongest agricultural country. Although China’s agriculture industry is not as modernized, it has lots of farms and farmers.

China’s vast farmlands are the biggest in Asia and are not an issue to become Asia’s market leader.

From what Zhang Ruiqiang says, he is satisfied with being the best in Asia. This can be easily achieved, and Feng Yu felt that three years is too long. If Beidacang merges with Tai Hua Agriculture Company, they can become Asia’s market leader this year!

But it is too challenging to become the world’s market leader unless Beidacang’s share prices shot up after they got listed. But this is not possible, as most investors are not interested in such companies.

Feng Yu does not want Zhang Ruiqiang to enter the ministries, as he has lots of investments in Longjiang Province and Bing City. He needs someone in the government to take care of his companies.

If Zhang Ruiqiang left, Feng Yu need to build relationships with the leaders again.

Zhang Ruiqiang was relieved. If Beidacang Group can become Asia’s market leader within three years, he doesn’t need to worry about not achieving results.

“Alright. One more thing. Will Bing City Machinery Company be listed this year?”

“Why should Bing City Machinery Company get listed? If the company needs money, I can invest and don’t need to be listed. Bing City Pharmaceutical Company will also not be listed within two years. These companies will be listed when I think the time is right.”

Zhang Ruiqiang is speechless. Many people are trying their best to get their companies to be listed, but Feng Yu’s companies are not going to be listed.

Never mind. Everything is alright now. The employment rates and taxes in the province are high, and with more funds, the government can do a lot more for the people.

Most importantly, if these companies were forced to be listed, the government will fall out with Feng Yu.

Zhang Ruiqiang had helped Feng Yu a lot, but Feng Yu had returned the favor too. Without Feng Yu, Zhang Ruiqiang might not get promoted so fast, and might even encounter setbacks, for example, the eye massager!

“Fine. These are your companies, and you can have the final say.”

“Is that all? If you have nothing else, I will be going back. It’s been a while since I return home, and my parents are angry. After Lunar New Year, I will be returning to the US.”

Zhang Ruiqiang smiled and shook his head. He had never seen Feng Yu busy with work before. Since Feng Yu started his businesses, he had only been giving ideas and let other people do the job.

After Feng Yu left, Zhang Ruiqiang called Xu Changyou. “Leader, I have considered carefully. I will remain in the province.”

Chapter 971 – Marketing

After Lunar New Year, Liu Michael sent the amended design for Genie over personally to Feng Yu. When Feng Yu saw the new designs, he gave Liu Michael a thumbs up.

Liu Michael’s design team is capable. The design for this car is beautiful, and the boot size had been increased. The rear passenger seats can also be removed according to the owner’s preference.

Everyone in the meeting was satisfied with the design. They did not know that cars can be designed this way, and their confidence in this model increased. Their target of 150,0000 units this year should not be a problem!

“Wang Taiwei. Get ready to start our marketing!” Feng Yu said to the Chief of the Automobile marketing division.

……

When most people return to work after the New Year holidays, they are still in a festive mood, and not very efficient.

Most of the workers were drinking tea and reading papers at their workplaces. They noticed an advertisement, which only has a few sentences.

“Many people own cars. Do you want to own one?

“If your monthly salary is over 2,000 and can buy a car, will you buy one?”

“Do you believe that a car cost under 30,000?”

These few sentences sparked the curiosity of the readers. They quickly flip to the other pages of the papers but could not find anything else. What are these three questions? What do they mean?

A car that costs under 30,000? Only second-hand cars, which are several years old, will cost that price. You can own a car with a monthly salary of 2,000?! What a joke! Only people whose salaries are over 5,000 RMB can afford to own cars, and it’s the bosses or leaders that can afford it.

Government servants that are earning 2,000 RMB and above are at least a team leader. They are considered doing well if they can afford a motorcycle, let alone a car.

For one week, this ‘3 questions’ advertisement appeared in several major papers, and some readers called up the newspaper agencies to ask about it.

The agencies replied that the answer would be revealed in two days. Please wait for it.

After two days, the advertisement changed. It is a full-page advertisement, showing a picture of a car. This car is cute, beautiful, youthful, and vibrant, unlike the rest of the cars in the market.

On the first day, the picture is showing the front of the car. On the second day, it showed the side of the car. On the third day, it showed the back of the car, and from the fourth day onwards, the advertisement showed the interior.

The readers realized that it is a car advertisement. But which automobile company is so stupid? Why don’t they put all the pictures together in one advertisement? A picture a day is a waste of advertisement fees.

But the readers did not notice that they had been looking forward to looking at a new picture of the car every day. If the advertisement is showing the same picture every day, they will get bored after three days.

The readers found out that this car model is called “Genie,” and the logo is using its initials, ‘JL.’ It is not a beautiful logo but can be easily remembered.

After two more days, the readers knew this model is manufactured by Bing City Machinery Company. It is the company that produces Songjiang Motors’ cars. Before Lunar New Year, the news reported that they are the first Chinese automobile company to export their technologies to Russia.

This new model is produced by this company? No wonder it is so well-designed, and Only a company like Bing City Machinery Company can design this car. The rest of the automobile manufacturers’ cars look so dull.

Many readers start to go through their old newspapers. What did the first advertisement say? A car that costs under 30,000 RMB? Impossible!

The automobile companies also noticed this model. Competition is stiff in the automobile industry, and they must monitor their competitors closely.

At first, the other automobile companies thought nothing about the first advertisement. They felt it is only a marketing tactic to attract readers. They had to admit that the advertisement is quite successful in attracting the reader. Still, a car can’t cost less than 30,000!

Soon, the advertisement showed the retail price for Genie. 29,900 RMB!

The price is less than 30,000, and everyone was shocked!

If this car is produced by a small factory in the countryside, it might still be possible. But this car is produced by Bing City Machinery Company, and Bing City Machinery Company is famous for its quality. They will not produce any inferior cars that will affect their reputation.

Is this car really being sold for 29,900 RMB?

How can a car cost so cheap, and how can the dealers make money? Bing City Machinery Company does not want to make money from this model? Is the cost of this car around 20,000 RMB?

Can a small car be produced with 20,000 RMB? The performance of this car must be lousy!

But when the specs of this car are revealed, the other automobile companies were stunned.

This model uses 1.0 Turbo engine, and the power is equivalent to a 1.3L car. It might be small, but the interior is spacious, and the top speed of this car is 125 mph. It uses a 5-gear Manual transmission, and it is fitted with an air conditioner!

The full specifications of Genie are on par or even better than FAW’s Xiali!

At this time, the TV stations start to show Genie’s advertisements. A young man and a young woman met at a parking space and exchanged looks, hinting at the start of a love story.

The advertisement’s message: Songjiang – Genie. The first choice for young adults. The first car in my life!

The sentence ‘The first car in my life’ hit the hearts of many people, especially the youngsters. Many of them wish to own a car, but the cheapest car in the market cost around 100,000 RMB. Most of them cannot afford it.

But this car cost less than 30,000 RMB. If they get a car loan, they can drive the car away immediately, and the monthly installments are less than 1,000 and can be repaid in two years. A monthly salary of 2,000 RMB is enough to buy this car.

Many young adults become interested and felt they would be popular with girls in this car!

This car might be cheap, but it is made by a reputable manufacturer. This is a brand under the Bing City Machinery Company and produced from Songjiang Motors’ factory.

Have you heard of Songjiang Rongyao? The retail price of this model is 1.8 million, and you must book in advance!

Furthermore, this company was exporting its cars and had set up a joint-venture factory in Russia. This is the top automobile manufacturer in China, and this Genie should not have any problems.

The advertisement had stated that this model could be sent to all Songjiang Motors dealers for after-sales services. That means the quality of this car is guaranteed.

Why did Feng Yu make this marketing campaign? First, it is because the factories are still calibrating their production lines for Genie. Another reason, he wants to create a hype, and let more people notice this car.

Feng Yu succeeded!

The 4S shops are receiving countless calls to make bookings to test drive Genie every day. On the first day of launch, the dealers sold a few dozen units. This model’s sales should surprise everyone this year!

Chapter 972 – Differences

Advertising is not enough. Feng Yu also arranged some people to drive Songjiang Genie along the main roads during the morning and evening peak hours.

When most people were going back from work on buses or motorcycles, they saw a Genie zooming past them. This car is very beautiful, and people start to think of getting one.

When posters of Songjiang – Genie were put up at bus stops, there was an increase of customers at the 4S store.

Before the appearance of Genie, 30,000 RMB can only buy an old second-hand car. This car is brand new and is manufactured by Bing City Machinery Company!

This model changed people’s perception of private cars. Private cars are used for transport and convenience. The selling points of Genie is the appearance, color, fuel efficiency, and price. These selling points also affected other Chinese Automobile Manufacturers.

China does not have small cars before? Yes. Alto. This model started production during the early 1990s. But Alto’s sales are very bad, because of their backward technologies and ugly designs. The quality is too bad, and there is a lack of marketing. Despite these flaws, many manufacturers in China are still producing them.

When the manufacturers were contemplating giving up on small cars, they saw Genie’s success. Both are small cars, why is Genie so popular?

The four General Managers of factories that are producing Alto had a meeting to talk about their future developments.

“Their small cars are so many years after us, why are they selling so well?”

“It should be the prices. Our cars are selling for more than 60,000 RMB, and they are selling below 30,000 RMB.”

“What’s the difference between 29,900 and 30,000 RMB? Do you think their customers will mind spending 100 RMB more? This is their gimmicks!”

When the four General Managers were about to give up the small car market, they saw Songjiang – Genie selling well. They sent people to go to visit the sales points in Beijing, Shanghai, and other major cities. Many people were checking out and buying Genie. Even when the craze is over, there will be lots of Genie around. It will be another form of marketing, and more people will buy it.

Genie’s sales should be over 40,000 units this year! What about their Alto? They can’t even hit 4,000 units!

This are the differences between them!

“Old Wu, stop talking about all these. We need to learn from them and see how we can improve our Alto. We are not here to grumble. Other than prices, are there any other reasons?”

“The appearance. Look at them. Their advertisements in the newspaper had gone on for a month, and you can see their advertisements on TV, radio, printed media, posters, etc. everywhere. They should have spent 20 million. If their profits for one car is 1,000 RMB, how long can they get back their capital?”

“Anything else?”

“Of course. Look at their sales channels. Songjiang Motors has more than 100 4S shops across China. We only have a few sales points, and they are located in secluded corners. Who will notice us?”

“I feel the main difference between us is the specs. Their engine is much better than us. The car’s performance is even better than Xiali, and might be as good as Citroen.”

Xiali and Citroen are common cars on the streets because they are used by Taxi companies.

After some discussion, all of them kept quiet. Technology is their major flaw. If they have good technologies, the gap will be closed.

The few leaders thought for a while and decided to start from the appearances. It would be better if they can lower their production cost. If they still can’t make improvements, two or three out of the four factories will be closed.

……

“What the hell is the technological department doing?! Look at Bing City Machinery Company! They can introduce new models every year, and you all can’t even design a new car? What’s the point of telling me that we had learned overseas technologies? Are we going to buy technologies from others in the future? Why are we paying you?” SAIC’s General Manager Niu shouted at his Chief Engineer.

“We can also introduce a new model, but we will not have the competitiveness. A new model requires marketing, and we need to recalibrate our production lines. At the minimum, the outer appearances must be different. We had designed a new car last year, but that project is axed!” The Chief Engineer replied.

Our breakthrough on the engines is not considered results? We had also made breakthroughs in other areas. How can you say we are not improving?

Stop comparing us with Bing City Machinery Company. They invested lots of money in their R&D every year, and have three research centers working together. What about us? We only have one R&D center, which is much smaller than them, and we lack funds! How do you want us to develop new technologies without money? We can’t even afford to conduct experiments!

“You are full of excuses! Have you all reversed engineered their Genie? Are we able to manufacture it? How much is the production cost?”

“We cannot build the three cylinders engine and turbo technologies. If we are going to produce small cars, our production cost will be at least 40,000 and the performance will be worse than them. There is no way for us to compete with them.”

How did Bing City Machinery Company lower the cost to around 20,000? The difference is almost 30%.

“Never mind. We will be introducing the Audi A6 this year. Your technology department must buck up. We will double the development funds this year. If we still can’t introduce our model, I will fire you!” Manager Niu waved his hand impatiently.

Damn! Li Mingde will be in the limelight again!

Just when the automobile manufacturers thought Genie only has this cheap model, they introduce a new version that cost 49,900 RMB. This new version’s interior is more beautiful, and more importantly, this model is using Automatic Transmission!

This model is China’s first own automatic transmission car, and it is a devastating blow to the other Chinese manufacturers. They have no way of catching up with Bing City Machinery Company. This was when the other manufacturers realized their differences in technologies.

The other automobile manufacturers were puzzled why Bing City Machinery Company used such advanced technology on a budget car.

This pricing is also one of Feng Yu and his men’s tactics. Using automatic transmission will increase the Genie’s status and can test out this technology at the same time. These were to prepare for their Songjiang Olympic Automatic Transmission model.

After the automatic version of Genie is launched, more people took note of them. In the future, this model of the car will also be known as ‘Mistress cars.’

Chapter 973 – Another invitation

“Old Li, the sales of Genie had been doing well, and you must remember to maintain a good image of our cars. Also, the development of new models must be faster. We need to provide more models for consumers.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, all the top automobile manufacturers have dozens of models for sales at the same time. Of course, they will focus on a few models to target the different segments of the market. Few companies can survive if they only focus on the high-end or low-end cars.

“Manager Feng, should we speed up the development of our sports car too? Based on our current progression, it should be developed around 2,000. If we speed up the development, it will be ready around next year. But if we are going to focus on the sports car, the city off-road model’s development will be delayed.”

“Focus on the sports car first. It will be the same old rules, even for sports cars. There must be at least a high-end and a cheaper version. Also, the appearance is very important.”

“Yes. You will not be disappointed. Are you going to the US this time to set up a factory there?”

Feng Yu is going to the US again, and Li Mingde is fantasizing that Bing City Machinery Company will be setting up a branch factory there and will start selling their cars there like Russia.

“Don’t be so anxious. We will look into setting up factories after our sports car is developed. I am going there for other business. I will handover Bing City Machinery Company to you. Remember, agricultural machinery development is very important too. You must not neglect it, as we are an agricultural country.”

Feng Yu had wanted to return to the US later. He Zhaoji and his team were still speculating the Southeast Asian countries’ currencies.

But now, He Zhaoji and his team were more conservative, and the profits were lower than before. At the same time, they are monitoring Soros’s funds. This is to guard him against attacking Hong Kong again.

But two days ago, Feng Yu received a call from Bill Gates. Bill Gates is helping Steve Forbes to get an interview with Feng Yu again, as Steve Forbes wished Feng Yu would appear on his Forbes Billionaires list this year.

Feng Yu thought for a while and agreed. This time, Steve Forbes estimates Feng Yu’s wealth to be over 20 billion USD. No matter if Feng Yu agrees to be interviewed by him, he will still announce it in his magazine.

Since this is the case, Feng Yu decided to take the initiative by letting him interview. At least he can say something to his benefit.

Feng Yu realized that if his name appears on the billionaire list, and his position is higher than George Soros, it will be easier for him to rally support to defend Hong Kong or Russia against the latter.

It should be more effective if Feng Yu’s name is positioned higher on the list.

Also, Feng Yu needs this ranking to suppress the opposition voices within Microsoft. He needs to let them know that his wealth is about the same as Bill Gates and let them think if it is worth standing on Paul Allen’s side, and stop them from finding trouble with him now and then.

Of course, Feng Yu will also be making use of this opportunity to announce that he will be entering the venture capital industry. He will be welcoming young people to look for him for investments. But actually, Feng Yu had set his sights on a target.

It is different if Feng Yu approaches someone to invest in their company. If it is the other party that approaches Feng Yu, Feng Yu’s share of profits will be higher.

The second day after Feng Yu returned to New York, he met two important guests in his Empire State Building office.

Bill Gates and Steve Forbes were close friends, and Bill Gates had accompanied Steve Forbes to meet Feng Yu.

“Hi, do you want to try Chinese tea?”

“Sure. Chinese tea has a longer history than coffee.” Bill Gates replied with a laugh.

Feng Yu poured two cups of tea for them. It was Pu’er and not the English tea they were used to.

From their expressions, Feng Yu could tell that they do not like this tea, and he prepared English Tea for them.

“Feng, I’m glad that you had finally agreed to be interviewed by <Forbes>. Can I use a recording pen? When we entered your office, I had handed over my recording pen to your bodyguards.” Steve Forbes was excited. He believes that after this interview is published, that issue will reach another peak. <Fortune> magazine still had not noticed this super tycoon.

“Mr. Forbes. Let’s do away with the recording pen. Bill told me that we are only going to have a chat, and I agreed to let you publish what we said in your magazine. I don’t like this session to be too formal.”

Without recordings, Feng Yu can get away even if he said the wrong things. But with recordings, people might twist his words, or what if this recording pen goes missing?

“Alright.” Forbes shrugged his shoulders and was slightly disappointed.

“Feng, can I ask any questions?” Steve does not even have a pen and paper with him. Even his first interview with Bill Gates is not like this.

Feng Yu gestured for him to start and took a sip of Pu-er. These two foreigners do not know how to appreciate the heavenly taste of Chinese tea.

“Mr. Feng, many people are saying that Soros’s Quantum Fund had caused the Asian Financial Crisis. But we received news that you are also involved. Is it true that you own an investment firm in Hong Kong?”

“I don’t want to commend on who started this crisis. My company did make some investments, is there any problem?”

“Can you reveal how much profits you had made during this period?”

Feng Yu smiles. “A lot.”

Steve took a glance at Bill Gates. Bill Gates is also interested in Feng Yu’s answer. Although Bill Gates had mentioned to the media several times that he does not mind about the rankings, but when he knew that he might lose his position of the number one spot, he grew concerned.

“Based on our findings, this Wind and Rain Consulting Firm manages funds of over 30 billion USD. How much of these are your profits?”

If Feng Yu had not registered another fund company to hide some of his profits, people would know Wind and Rain Consulting Firm manages more than 40 billion USD!

Feng Yu looked at Steve and took a glance at Bill Gates. “About half.”

Bill Gates’ eyes opened wide. Half? Does that mean Feng Yu had made around 15 billion USD? With Feng Yu’s Microsoft shares and his other investments, his assets will be much around Steve Forbes’ initial estimation.

Although there is still a gap between Bill Gates’ and Feng Yu’s assets, who knows if Feng Yu has other sources of income. The figures published in <Forbes> will not be very accurate, as it’s hard for them to verify the news in China.

If Feng Yu’s companies got listed, he might catch up with Bill Gates and even overtake him!

Bill Gates starts to consider if he should invest in funds to make more money.

Chapter 974 – Forbes evaluation

“Feng, can I take it as you had made more than 15 billion USD from the Asia Financial Crisis?” Steve asked.

Feng Yu nodded. “Yes.”

“So, you had cooperated with Quantum Fund to start this crisis?” Steve asked sharply.

“It’s the opposite. I had opposed the Quantum Fund. Together with a few Hong Kong investment funds, we join forces to try to stop Soros. If not, the economic destruction in Southeast Asia will be much worse. This is not a secret, and how did I make so much money? It is a trade secret.”

Steve does not believe Feng Yu. Other than futures trading, how can Feng Yu get such high returns? He must have short the Forex and Index market like Soros.

But the news Steve received states that Feng Yu had openly retaliated against Soros. He does not want to continue to dwell on this question, as <Forbes> only focus on business. From his perspective, Soros is also successful.

“Feng, you own around 15% of Microsoft shares, right?” Steve asked.

“I think it is less than 15%. I had received lesser shares last year when the company gave out shares.” Feng Yu looked towards Bill Gates. Last year, Microsoft had given out shares to reward the higher management, and Feng Yu received much lesser than the rest of the directors.

“Feng, this is decided by the board. After all, you had only appeared in Microsoft for a short time and had not attended meetings. These had upset many people. Although you had gotten lesser shares as a management staff, you had gotten the shares given out to the shareholders.”

“It’s fine. I can understand this. Am I still one of the directors in Microsoft?” Paul Allen was the one to suggest giving Feng Yu lesser shares, and the rest of the directors supported this suggestion. Bill Gates did not stand on Feng Yu’s side this time. Still, he insisted on keeping Feng Yu’s position as one of the directors and his position as the Vice President of Asia operations.

“Of course, your position will not be changed.” Bill Gates was relieved. He had promised Feng Yu high bonuses in the past and was worried Feng Yu would fall out with him. Falling out with Feng Yu will slow down Microsoft’s expansion in China. This year, Microsoft will be introducing a new operating system and cannot afford to give up the Chinese market.

“Feng, although your percentage of shares had dropped, the number of your shares had increased, right? The value of Microsoft shares had increased a lot, and the market value of your shares should be over 1 billion USD, right?”

“Really? The share prices had increased by so much? Seems like I had made the right investment.” Feng Yu had a surprised look on his face, but he was not surprised at all.

“Oh, I heard you also have shares in China’s biggest PC manufacturer, Lenovo? Can you reveal how many shares you own in this company?”

“Not a lot. It cannot be compared to the number of shares I own in Microsoft.”

“Can I estimate the value of your shares in Lenovo as 300 million USD?” Lenovo is the top PC manufacturer in China and owns the majority of China’s market share. Steve’s actual evaluation of Lenovo is worth over 1 billion USD because of its potential.

300 million USD? Feng Yu thought to himself. Even if someone offers 1 billion USD, he will also not sell his Lenovo shares. The market, brand, and technologies were severely undervalued. Three hundred million USD is the amount of loan Feng Yu got from using his Lenovo shares as collateral.

“It’s fine.”

“Wind and Rain brand is the fastest-growing electronics brand in recent years. You are also the major controlling shareholder, right? Can we talk about what products this brand is involved in?” Steve had bought a Wind and Rain Super VCD player for his home.

“Humidifier, bladeless fans, VCD and DVD players, and mobile phones are our main products. We also own some patents and are collecting authorization fees. Soon, we will be entering the TV and PC monitor market.”

“We understand that Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, and Aiwa Electronics have close cooperation. What is the relationship between these companies?”

“Partners. It is just like our partnership with Philips on R&D and sales.” Feng Yu raised his brows. Steve Forbes does not know he is the main shareholder of Aiwa yet, and he decided not to disclose anything.

“We know that you are one of the shareholders of China’s biggest automobile manufacturer, Bing City Machinery Company. Are you the major shareholder?” Steve looked at Feng Yu and asked.

“My father and I own some of this company’s shares. The General Manager of that company is someone else, and I am not involved in their management.” Feng Yu is interested to know how much Steve knows about him.

China is unlike the US, and news and information are not readily available. Furthermore, these companies are not listed companies. Most of Steve’s information should be based on guesses.

Steve did not continue to ask about Bing Machinery Company and start asking about Lehaha.

“China and Asia’s biggest beverage company, Lehaha Group, had suppressed the two Cola Giants in China. Do you also have shares in this company?”

“That’s right. I do have some shares in this company, and I am holding on to a consultant position in the company. I do not get any salary from them.” Feng Yu replied.

“Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation is China’s and Asia’s biggest retail chain. Do you also own shares in it?”

“A little. But until now, I still have not received any dividends from this company, and is unsure when this company will be profitable.”

“What about that pharmaceutical company? I heard that company is producing medicated health supplements, and its scale is one of the biggest in China.”

“The scale is quite significant, as it is from the merger of many smaller factories. Currently, it is still in the growing phase. Oh, we had developed a new drug, Bigman, and this drugged can be bought from many hospitals in the US since last year.”

Bigman is the name of ‘Viagra’ and was given by Feng Yu casually. Bing City Pharmaceutical has not outstanding products except for this drug. This drug’s patent had even stopped Pfizer from registering a patent for their ‘Viagra.’ They had to change their formula before they can launch their version of the drug.

Bill Gates starts to frown. Feng Yu owns a lot of businesses, and all his business is either the biggest in China, and some are the biggest in Asia. How did he do it?

To Bill Gates, Feng Yu is someone that has the foresight and has his ideals. But now, Feng Yu cannot be considered as someone with investment foresight. He is an investment genius!

Each of Feng Yu’s investment will give him high profits, and all these companies have something in common. All of them are not listed companies.

Once these companies got listed, Feng Yu’s assets will be doubled, tripled, or even more!

Steve starts to calculate Feng Yu’s net worth. “Hong Kong’s Wind and Rain Consulting Firm’s profit is 15 billion, Microsoft Shares are worth 1 billion USD, Lenovo’s shares are estimated to be worth 300 USD, Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances are estimated to be worth 1 billion. The Bing City Machinery Company’s shares are estimated to be around 500 million USD. Lehaha’s shares are estimated to be valued at 500 million USD. Tai Hua Supermarket corporation’s shares are around 200 million USD, and I estimate the rest of Mr. Feng’s investments, like the Empire State Building, etc. to be around 200 USD. This time, I will place you on the second position of the billionaire list, with a net worth of 28 billion USD. Is this alright with you?”

Sometimes, people will get angry if their net worth is overvalued, and sometimes they will be unhappy if their assets are undervalued. Many tycoons treated this ranking as a form of honor.

Steve Forbes had to seek Feng Yu’s permission, as most of his evaluation is based on estimation.

Feng Yu smiled and thought to himself. You had not to include my investments in Russia, Japans, and other investments. If you knew about those investments, I should be the first position on the list!

But being second is fine with Feng Yu. He only wants some promotion for his companies, and two years later, he will show his true colors!

Chapter 975 – Allen’s rage

Bill Gates and Steve Forbes left together, and Bill Gates asked when they are in the car. “Steve, I did not expect Feng to be so rich. It seems like investing in funds is more profitable. What do you think if I sell away some of my Microsoft shares and invest in funds?”

Steve looked at Bill Gates and said. “Bill, I need to tell you something. My estimation of Feng Yu’s companies in China is based on the loans gotten by Feng Yu early last year. The market value of your company had risen so much over one year, why can’t his companies do the same? Also, the loan amount will be much lesser than the actual value of his companies’ shares. I estimate his assets in China is worth more than 5 billion USD!”

Bill Gates was shocked. “You are saying his wealth is around 30 billion USD?”

“Bill, you still don’t understand. Do you think his profits from his investment company in Hong Kong is only 15 billion? What about his capital? Did he use only the money he got from loans? Don’t forget that company is an investment company and charges commission when people invest with them. Feng Yu had said that his profits are over 15 billion USD, and we do not know how much he made if we include the commission. Just think about it. His initial asset might not reach 1 billion USD, and what is his rate of returns? Do you think the commission he charges will be cheap?”

Steve shook his head. Bill Gates is a genius when it comes to software development. But when it comes to investment, he is average. He does not even know Feng Yu’s assets are more than what was revealed.

“That means his actual wealth is more than me?”

Bill Gates’ net worth is around 30 to 40 billion USD, and most of it is in the form of Microsoft shares, and some other investments like shares, fixed assets, planes, antiques, arts, etc.

“I don’t know. But his actual net worth should not be far from you. Don’t forget that Feng Yu is an important trading partner to Russia. Do you think he does not have investments in Russia? We had only tabulated his investments in China. What about other countries? Maybe in another two years, you might not be the World’s top billionaire.”

Bill Gates cannot accept that he has to hand over the title of The World’s top billionaire to Feng Yu! Steve does not know that the new operating system will increase Microsoft’s profits to a higher level, and the stock prices rose further. Bill Gates’ wealth will increase again.

Bill Gates is determined to keep the title of The World’s top billionaire! He will not hand it over to Feng Yu!

……

Feng Yu ordered his brokers to invest in some shares, and then he flew to his home in Washington State.

Tu Hao saw Feng Yu and ran over to him. It’s been months since Feng Yu met his pet. A dog is very loyal, and even when Tu Hao had not to meet Feng Yu for months, he can still recognize him.

“Mr. Feng, you are back. I will prepare for lunch now.” The gardener Old Tian had just washed the pool.

“Ok. I will bring Tu Hao for a walk.”

“Tu Hao had learned a new trick. With a hand gesture, he will roll over.”

Huh? A new trick? Feng Yu is happy, and he ordered Tu Hao to sit. Then he drew a circle with his hand, and Tu Hao rolls over!

Hah… This is so fun. Feng Yu was excited and keep drawing circles with his hand. Tu Hao kept rolling and rolling… until he fell into the pool!

Feng Yu quickly pull Tu Hao out and let Old Tian blow-dry his fur. When Tu Hao was led away by Old Tian, there was unhappiness in his eyes.

After lunch, Feng Yu took a short rest before getting the driver to send him to Microsoft Headquarters. If he still does not appear in Microsoft, he will put Bill Gates in a difficult position.

……

Paul Allen sat in his office in Microsoft reading the latest issue of <Forbes> magazine. The new Billionaire list is announced in this issue.

The first position is still Bill Gates. This is not a surprise, but Paul Allen is shocked and angry by the person in the second position!

Feng Yu, China, 28 billion USD net worth!

How is this possible?! How can that Feng Yu have so much money? Steve Forbes must have made a mistake!

Paul Allen read at the short introduction about Feng Yu. Finance, software, electronics, retail, food, PC, real estate, etc. He is involved in so many industries?!

Wait a minute… Finance is mentioned before the software. Did Steve count Microsoft shares as financial investments?

Paul Allen knows Feng Yu have businesses in the PC, electronics, real estate sector. Still, the retail and food industries were placed before PC. That means Feng Yu’s retail and food businesses are worth more than his PC business.

Wasn’t Feng Yu a shareholder of Lenovo in China? Isn’t that company is China’s biggest PC manufacturer and had taken the top spot of PC’s sales in China for three years. The market value of Lenovo should be high. What are Feng Yu’s food and retail businesses?

Is the food business referring to the beverage recommended by Feng Yu in the past?

Paul Allen starts to flip the magazine to look for his name. He was positioned in the thirties, and his net worth is not even half of Feng Yu!

The fury Paul Allen flipped to the article after the billionaire list, and he got angrier!

The youngest billionaire in history – Feng Yu!

This article is written by Steve Forbes, and it describes Feng Yu’s achievements and businesses and commented on the potential of the industries Feng Yu is in. Most importantly, it states Feng Yu’s Wind and Rain Consulting Firm had made at least 15 billion USD in different financial instruments and products.

The article did not state how Feng Yu created his wealth but states Feng Yu’s main investments as financial investments during last year’s Asian Financial Crisis, and Microsoft.

These two investments had brought high profits for Feng Yu.

The article is full of praises for Feng Yu. It claims Feng Yu has more potential than Warren Buffet to overtake Bill Gates as the World’s top billionaire, and listed Feng Yu’s contribution to Microsoft, etc.

Paul Allen tore the <Forbes> magazine in anger. Feng Yu’s contribution to Microsoft is second to Bill Gates! Bullshit!

Feng Yu had only opened up the Chinese market, and their products are selling dirt cheap there! What about my contributions to Microsoft?! I am the one who introduced computing to Bill Gates! Without me, there will be no Microsoft!

Knock… knock… knock…

“Mr. Allen, Director Feng’s assistant, Ralph, is informing you that he is using his executive director’s power, and had gotten the permission of the Chairman, to call for a Directors’ meeting.”

Paul Allen was even more furious. Feng Yu had come back, and is calling for a directors’ meeting?! What is he trying to do? Is he trying to flaunt his position as the World’s second billionaire?!

“I am not attending! Tell him that I am not free!”

Chapter 976 – Buying a basketball team for fun

Very soon, Paul Allen regrets not attending the Directors’ meeting because Feng Yu criticized him for not attending the meeting even though he is in his office.

The rest of the directors knew Feng Yu is currently the World’s Second Billionaire, and Feng Yu and Allen dislike each other. This is an open secret, and even the new developers knew on their first day of work.

Last year, Allen was the one who suggests cutting Feng Yu’s Director bonus, and they can understand why Feng Yu is purposely targeting him.

On the board of directors, not everyone supported Allen. One of them who dislikes Allen is Steve Ballmer.

Last year, Ballmer had tried to speak up for Feng Yu, but he is the minority, and Bill Gates had supported Allen’s suggestion. What else can he do?

“Some people are not doing anything, yet they always think others are doing less work than them. The company’s policy is every director has the power to call for a board meeting, as long as the chairman agrees, right? Today, Bill Gates had agreed to this meeting. Why is someone not here? I can understand if he is overseas for work or personal reasons. But he is in our headquarters, right?” Feng Yu said while tapping on the table.

“Last year, he suggested cutting my bonus because I seldom attend the board meetings. I believe all of you know how much those shares are worth. Today, he is purposely not attending this meeting, can I also suggest cutting his bonus this year? He is disrespecting the board and every one of us here.”

Bill Gates knew he had to step in, or else Feng Yu might put up this suggestion, and it will be hard to appease both sides.

“Feng, let’s talk about your agenda today.”

Feng Yu took a glance at Bill Gates and continued. “Fine. Let’s talk about something more important. I feel that Microsoft should also start producing PC. We are currently working closely with many hardware manufacturers. Why don’t we introduce our brand of PC?”

Feng Yu knows Bill Gates does not want to go into the PC manufacturing sector. Microsoft is currently working with those hardware manufacturers and had forced them to develop components that suit Microsoft operating system and still charged them. Even when they are not using Microsoft operating system, they also must pay, or they will be blacklisted forever!

If Microsoft enters the PC manufacturing sector, the hardware manufacturers will joint forces to go against Microsoft. When that happens, Microsoft might be outcast by them.

Microsoft is currently facing multiple antitrust lawsuits, and Bill Gates will never agree to this proposal.

Feng Yu had purposely put up this suggestion to see the reactions of the other Directors. If this proposal goes through, Microsoft will be in deep shit, and Lenovo Kingsoft will have the chance to catch up. If the proposal does not go through, Feng Yu also wants to see who agrees and who disagrees.

Those that agreed to Feng Yu’s suggestion must be an idiot. In the future, when Feng Yu is going to poach people from Microsoft, he will avoid these idiots!

One of the directors opposed but did not state his reasons. The rest of the directors, including Bill Gates, kept quiet.

“Hmph! Are you trying to make Microsoft the enemy of all hardware manufacturers with your suggestion?” Allen’s voice suddenly appears.

Feng Yu turns around and saw Paul Allen entering the meeting room. He also noticed Bill Gates taking out his hand from under the table with his handphone and place it on the table.

It should be Bill Gates who had sent Allen an SMS to ask him to attend the meeting.

“Are you saying that we are currently not the enemy of all hardware manufacturers?” Feng Yu asked.

“Of course not. At least we have good relationships with some hardware manufacturers now. Once we start building our brand of PC, not only the hardware manufacturers, even the PC retailers, will be our enemies.” Paul Allen retorts.

“But, we are Microsoft.” Feng Yu purposely said.

Allen could not refute this statement. He cannot say that Microsoft is not powerful, but Microsoft also cannot make the whole world their enemy.

“We cannot do this. As for a reason, go and figure it out yourself!”

“Fine, since someone opposed to this suggestion, let’s forget about it.” Bill Gates said.

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders and did not mind. Anyway, even if Microsoft did not start manufacturing PC, they will be sued for antitrust next year, and the share prices will be affected.

The rest of the directors left, and Allen said sarcastically. “Some people do not attend meetings and give ridiculous suggestions. He should be kicked out of the board!”

Feng Yu turns and smiles at Allen. “Your professional basketball team lose again this year? I had said before. The champions are either the bulls or rockets, and you have no chance of winning it. See… I was correct.”

Who doesn’t know how to be sarcastic?

“What do you know? My team will win the championship next year!” Allen retorted loudly.

“You are saying that I don’t know about basketball? Do you want to have a 1-on-1? We can play a five baskets game, and I can give you a three or four baskets advantage.”

Allen’s hair is all white. How can he play basketball with Feng Yu? He will be seeking death.

“I am not a basketball player. If you think you are so good, you can play against my players. They can let you have a 10-points advantage out of an 11 points game!” Allen continued. “Do you know what a professional game is? You want to mock my team?! Do you even have a team? Even if you have a team, your results will be worse!”

“Oh? I don’t think so. Since you mention this, I will buy a basketball team to play against your team. Let’s see who’s team will win the championships first!” Feng Yu raised his brows.

“What did you say? Do you say you want to buy an NBA team? Which team are you buying?” Allen was shocked. If Feng Yu buys the Bulls, Allen’s team will have no chance of winning.

“If I buy a top team, you will claim that I am bullying you. I will buy one of the bottom team, Los Angeles Clippers!”

Paul Allen is relieved. If Feng Yu is buying the Los Angeles Lakers team, he will still be worried, as Shaq is in that team. But if it will be a joke if you think the Clippers will win the championships!

“LA Clippers? If you don’t dump money on new players, this team might not even get a 30%-win rate. If you can get this team into the playoffs, I will consider it as your win! This team’s tickets cannot even fetch 10 USD. My advice to you is to get a better team, or you might claim that I am bullying you!”

Allen was laughing in his heart. This time, he can finally stand above Feng Yu.

“No. I will pick this team. Playoffs? It is too easy, but my target is still the champion!”

“Let’s wait and see. Are you going to change the name of the team after you bought them? You can change its name to LA losers!”

“I will change it if Portland Trail Blazers changes its name to Portland Prison team. Your problematic players should all be locked up behind bars!”

“Hmph! Let’s wait and see!”

Chapter 977 – Another Donald

Feng Yu loves sports and felt sports is a good investment, but in China, the sporting sector is not developed. The only sports Feng Yu watches in the US is only basketball.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, after Yao Ming joins the NBA, many Chinese starts to watch NBA games, and at that time, basketball is more popular than ping-pong and soccer (football). Feng Yu also start to watch the NBA during that period, but he only recognized a few famous basketball stars.

Feng Yu still remembers later this year, the NBA will be lockout because of the players’ salaries dispute, and he had heard the news of it now. LA is a big city, and if there are good players around, they will be getting high salaries. Feng Yu can also let the players endorse for his brands.

“Ralph, help me find out who is the owner of the LA Clippers, and what is the share proportions of this team. Let me know how much this team cost.”

“Boss, are you serious about buying Clippers? That team is one of the worst teams. In LA, most people watch the Lakers, and no one watches Clippers.” Ralph is also a basketball fan, but he prefers NCAA over the NBA.

“Boss, I know about your bet with Mr. Allen. You are too rash.”

“A good player can change the whole team. Go and get the information I want, and settle this as soon as possible.”

Clippers are a lousy team and will have a higher draft pick. Feng Yu will go through the draft players and see if there are any future basketball stars. He will try his best to get good players or trade with other teams for the players he wants.

An hour later, Ralph entered Feng Yu’s office and placed a report on his desk.”

“Boss, this Donald Sterling is the owner of Clippers and owns all of the team’s share. He is a businessman in real estate and was partners with Lakers’ boss, Jerry Buss. But the difference between both teams is great.”

Another Donald? He is also in real estate?”

Feng Yu thought for a while and made a call. “Hello, Donald. Are you busy?”

“Not really. What is it?” Donald Trump was surprised. He had met Feng Yu a few days ago in New York before Feng Yu left for Seattle. Why is he calling me now?

“Do you know Donald Sterling? The boss of LA Clippers and he is also in real estate business.”

“Oh… I know him. Why are you looking for him?”

Trump’s real estate investments are mainly around New York, while Sterling’s investments are mainly in LA. But they had met on several occasions before.

“I would like to buy the LA Clippers from him. Can you help to introduce me to him?”

Trump was confused. Invest in a basketball team? NBA is the less popular association out of the four main sports association in the US. Why is Feng Yu investing in a basketball team?

This is a small favor from Feng Yu, and Trump did not reject him.

“No problem. I will give him a call, and I will be going over to LA a few days later. I can accompany you to meet him.”

Before Feng Yu finishes his cup of tea, Trump called him back. “Feng, I had called him, and we will be having lunch the day after tomorrow.”

After thanking Trump, Feng Yu hangs up and starts reading the information given to him by Ralph.

The market value of the LA Clippers is only 55 million USD! Over a decade ago, Sterling bought the team at 12.5 million USD!

If inflation is included, the team’s value had depreciated!

Damn! Was I too boastful? This team sucks! The attendance is the second-lowest among the teams, and this team is based in LA!

In the past ten years, this team had only entered the playoffs thrice and were eliminated in the first round. The current season is not over, and the Clippers will not win more than twenty matches. Their win rate is less than 25%!

Since Allen bought Blazers nine years ago, they had entered the playoffs from the second year onwards. Even when the team is not doing well in recent years, and was knocked out of the playoffs in the first rounds, they are still much stronger than Clippers.

After comparing with Blazers, Feng Yu felt the Clippers is worse than he expected!

No wonder Allen is so confident. The gap between the teams is too wide.

In the documents, there is a list of players participating in the drafts. Feng Yu go through every player and suddenly notice an NBA star from his previous life. This player is one of his favorite players in his previous life. Vince Carter!

Damn! This player is skillful and is a crowd puller. Dirk Nowitzki and Paul Pierce are also on the list. Any one of these three players can become one of the main players of Clippers. But Dirk Nowitzki is quite young and will become successful in a few more years. Vince Carter and Paul Pierce are better choices.

Feng Yu compared both players and felt Vince Carter is the best among the three. Of course, it will be best if Feng Yu can get both!

Feng Yu suddenly felt confident. Maybe this team can get into the playoffs within two years.

……

Feng Yu and Ralph arrived at LA and met Trump at a hotel.

They boarded Trump’s car and went to a restaurant.

“Feng, Sterling is quite arrogant and stingy. If you are going to buy Clippers, be prepared to pay a higher price.” Trump said. He knew Sterling does not like blacks and dislike most of the NBA teams that have black players.

“Then, I will need your help. I had made a bet with someone, and I will buy the worst team to beat his team. If I cannot buy the Clippers, then I will buy another team.” Feng Yu did not show that he must buy Clippers, as he does not know about Trump’s relationship with Sterling.

Trump was stunned. You are buying a basketball team because of a bet? Do you have to be so extreme? Using the worst team to beat another team? From your tone, that team should be quite strong.

“No problem. I will try my best.”

Feng Yu and Trump waited for almost half an hour at the restaurant, and a white man walked in slowly. Trump stood up and extended his hand. “Sterling, it’s been a while.”

“Hi, Trump.”

“Let me introduce. This is Feng, the new World’s Second Billionaire that is announced on <Forbes> recently. He is also a Microsoft shareholder and one of the directors. Feng, this is Donald Sterling. The boss of Clippers.” Donald Trump introduces both.

After hearing the introductions, Sterling’s eyes brighten up. Clippers should be able to fetch a good price.

Yao Ming

1998–99 NBA season

National Collegiate Athletic Association

NBA draft lottery

Donald Sterling

Vince Carter

Dirk Nowitzki

Paul Pierce

Chapter 978 – Buying Clippers

Sterling had bought this team because of his excellent friend Buss. Buss is the owner of Lakers, and he had helped to bring Clippers to LA.

But their teams were of different standards. Many LA basketball fans had never watched Clippers, and Sterling had become frustrated with this team a long time ago.

This year, the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement on players’ salaries cap had ended, and there will be a lockout. This means the owners will be losing money this year, and Sterling had been waiting for a buyer for his team.

Today, Sterling felt he might be successful in selling his team.

This person is the world’s second wealthiest man. With so much money, he should not mind spending a bit more.

Many years ago, Sterling had spent 12.5 million for this team, and most teams are not worth anything, other than the Bulls, which is worth over 100 million USD. His team does not have good results, and the attendance is poor. It is difficult for this team to fetch a high price, but he hopes to get around 70 million USD. No matter what, this team is also based in LA.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Feng. It’s my honor to dine with you.”

Trump was surprised at Sterling’s attitude. Since when did this guy become so polite?

“Hi. I believe Donald had told you why I am here. Are you selling Clippers?” Feng Yu asked.

“Of course, or I will not be here. To be honest, I can’t bear to sell this team. After all, in LA, we still have many fans.”

Feng Yu smacked his lips. Bullshit. There are many basketball fans in LA, but all of them are Lakers fans. Lakers have a more extended history, and until now, it is a strong team. What history do Clippers have? This team is at the bottom this year again, and what fans are you talking about?

“Good to know that you are interested in selling. I know you are the sole owner of this team. How much do you want for this team?”

“How about 90 million USD?” Sterling asked.

Before Feng Yu says anything, Trump laughed. “Sterling, stop joking. Last year, the Knicks sold 30% of their shares for only 30 million USD. How many people will be interested in your team even if you are selling it for 50 million?”

“Trump, you cannot say this. I had bought this team for 12.5 million years ago, and it is reasonable to increase it by a few folds, right? The ticket prices had increased by a lot, and we have more fans now.” Sterling argued.

“If we are talking about Lakers, 90 million or 100 million is still reasonable. But we are talking about the Clippers, and I think 50 million is a reasonable price. This team does not have good results in the past, star players, or loyal fans. Furthermore, you cannot use the initial price to evaluate the value. Feng is also the owner of the Empire State Building. Empire State Building has a long history, and its value had dropped lower than it’s construction cost. It should be normal for the value of a team to depreciate, right? Fifty million USD is also a lot of money.”

“No… that is a building, and more investments are required to maintain the building. Of course, the value will depreciate. But after renovation, the value will increase, right? A basketball team is different. Our team is trying to become better, and if not for injuries this year, our results will not be so poor.”

“Really? But even when you all entered the playoffs in the past, your ticket sales are also not doing well. You all do not have the results nor stars. How can you all attract fans?”

“But we might be getting the best odds for the first draft pick, and if we get a future basketball star, everything will be different. I had my eyes on one black player.” Sterling argued.

Feng Yu’s eyes opened wide. This is a joke that happens in Feng Yu’s previous life. Clipper will pick a player by the name of Michael Olowokandi and was proved to be a mistake.

Sterling had thought Olowokandi’s size is an advantage, and maybe he is as good as Hakeem Olajuwon!

“First, you have not signed the top draftee. Secondly, even if you had won the draft lottery and signed the top draftee, your team might not win. You are using an uncertain future to raise the price of your team. Don’t you think this is a joke?” Trump said.

Feng Yu loves Trump. This man is interesting and must have read up about Clippers before he comes. His negotiation skills are excellent, and had made Sterling speechless!

Sterling realized that Trump is here to help Feng Yu bargain with him. Trump had said is true. Even if the Clippers are put up for sales at 50 million, no one will be interested. The new owner will inevitably lose money if they buy this team. Who will be interested in a money-losing business?

“Then how much do you think is reasonable” Sterling asked.

“I think 50 million is reasonable. You can use the money to invest in real estate, and the returns will be much higher.”

“Are you kidding me? I had spent 12.5 million for this team, and a few years ago, Rockets was sold for 85 million. You want me to sell it at a loss? Impossible! 75 million! This is a reasonable price, as this is LA! Also, I can guarantee that we will get the first overall draft picks!”

NBA might seem to be a fair association, but there are still rigging going on. Furthermore, if the lousy team does not have a star player, when can that team become stronger? It will affect the whole association’s image!

“The Rockets is about to fetch that price is because of Hakeem Olajuwon, who is pulling in the crowds. Can the Clippers’ attendance be compared with them? What if the NBA gets into a lockout next year? We will be losing money. A lot of money! Stop your nonsense. We will not pay such a high price. 55 million USD. This is our highest offer. Don’t ask for too much.”

On the way to the restaurant, Trump asked Feng Yu about his ideal price and was surprised to know that Feng Yu is willing to pay up to 100 million USD.

If Trump can help him clinched the deal below 100 million USD, he can get 10% of the difference. That’s why he is trying his best to suppress the price.

Both Donalds argued for a long time, and Feng Yu interrupted them. “70 million USD. This is my final offer. If you agree, we will have a deal. If not, I will look for another team. Maybe I can buy a team at a lower price.”

Sterling pretended to have some hesitation, but he was overjoyed. Seventy million USD can buy a good team. If the Clippers are not located in LA, he might not even sell it at 50 million USD.

“Alright. Feng, I will accept your price. We can since an agreement first, and I will report it to the association. Once I got the approval, we will complete the transaction.”

Feng Yu reached out, and Ralph passes an agreement to him. Feng Yu signed on it and gave it to Sterling. “Give it back after you sign it.”

Chapter 979 – Building a team

“Feng, why are you giving him 70 million? Sixty million is more than enough. If you spent 70 million USD on this team, you would lose money.” Trump does not understand Feng Yu.

“Maybe not. If the team has a star player, it will still attract fans even if their results are lousy.”

“But this team does not have any.”

“We can sign players from other teams. No players are indispensable as long as the price is right. I am more interested in this year’s draftees. Although the team is in a mess because of Sterling’s management, the contract states that we will not assume the team’s liability. Their management team’s salaries are also very cheap. This is your cheque. Thanks for your help.”

Trump shook his head. Feng Yu could not tell that Sterling was asking for too much, and Clippers is a lousy team? But when he saw the 3.5 million USD cheque, he was happy. Feng Yu had given him an additional 500,000 USD. He had spent two days preparing himself for the negotiation, and the negotiations were less than an hour! This is a good deal.

Feng Yu did not tell Trump about one of the terms in the contract. Sterling must make the NBA agree the name change of LA Clippers to LA Wind and Rain after Feng Yu takes over the team. This is not an easy task.

It is not easy for Sterling to get this 70 million.

A good team requires good players and a head coach. This year, a famous coach’s contract with his team had expired, and he is not going to renew it.

“Mr. Karl, I had watched some of Sonics’ games and is impressed with your coaching. I had reached a deal with Sterling, and he will sell the LA Clippers to me in a month. I would like to invite you to be the new head coach of this team!”

Feng Yu is inviting the head coach of Seattle SuperSonics, George Karl, and he emphasizes on offense-defense balance in his games.

Karl frowned. He had two choices. First, he can renew his contract with Seattle Supersonics, but the Boss of Sonics will not give him a lucrative contract. This is because he had not led the Sonics to greater heights. His second option is to sign with Milwaukee Bucks, but the Boss of Milwaukee Bucks is not a generous person. Now, a third option is laid in from of him.

“Mr. Feng, what are your hopes for this team, and what is your offer?”

Feng Yu knew Karl has some interest in this question. This would be easy. At most, he can just spend a bit more money. Coaches’ salaries are not generally high.

“To be honest, I do not like any of the current players in the team. I want to hoard this year’s draftees or sign players from other teams to build a new team. A young team. I don’t have any requirements for results next year, but I want you to focus on offense. I want an offensive team to attract NBA fans. As for the Draft lottery, I want to pick a North Carolina player, Vince Carter. He is a good player and is a spectacular showman. My offer to you is 16 million USD for a five-year contract. What do you think?”

Feng Yu’s offer is higher than the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Boss of Bucks has higher requirements from Karl. In Karl’s heart, he had already decided to sign the contract with the Clippers. But he still has a few questions to clarify.

“Can I ask the team manager to get the players I want? Also, can I pick my assistant coaches?”

“Of course. I feel that the Head coach should have more say than the team manager on the trading of players. You will also have the final say on the coaching team. I don’t mind spending money if you can bring Scottie Pippen to our team.”

Karl stood up and extended a handshake to Feng Yu. “Mr. Feng, I am willing to coach your team.”

……

“What did you say? Feng Yu had met Sterling and completed the deal?! Hahaha… That fool! Did he think because that team is located in LA, he will surely make money? That lousy team will not even get into the playoffs within the next five years!”

Allen was speaking to the Manager of the Blazers about the future of the team. He wants to let the team be champions and does not mind paying the luxury tax. His team must not lose to Feng Yu!

The fastest solution is to bring all the basketball stars to his team. But this is quite hard, and the contracts of the players he wants are still not up.

Luckily, the Blazers are still much better than the Clippers, and Allen is not worried he will be overtaken. He can still flaunt and boast about his team’s results in front of Feng Yu.

“Boss, I heard George Karl had met them, and he might be the head coach of the Clippers in the next season.”

“That team does not have good players, and even Phil Jackson cannot bring that team to the playoffs, let alone Karl. But you are right. We must monitor them closely. If you notice their team is going to buy star players, try to intercept them and bring the players to our team!” Allen said with a cold smile. You want to rebuild your team?! You must see if you agree or not!

“Should I contact the other teams? I know a few team managers, and we are quite close.”

“Ok. Don’t worry. I will not forget what you did for me.” Allen is in a good mood. His team manager has lots of connections, and Feng Yu will lose the bet for sure.

……

“Boss, are we going to let go of everyone on the team? Our team still has a few good players, but they are injured. They can play better in the next season.” The Clippers’ team manager, Elgin Baylor, asked.

“We will only keep one or two experienced players and will try to use new players. Your task now is to hoard the draftees. We must get at least two draftees from the first and second rounds.”

Feng Yu saw another familiar name on the draftees’ list. Rashard Lewis. He felt this player should be included in the first round of the lottery draft.

Elgin Baylor wanted to tell Feng Yu. Boss, if you don’t know about managing a basketball team, stop interfering. Even if you want to use new players, the players must sign with us first. Now, we can only trade for two expensive old players and then get the other players from the drafts.

Chapter 980 – Staples

Feng Yu has an affection for athletes, especially the star athletes. Sometimes, star athletes are more influential than entertainment celebrities.

Feng Yu had hired some famous athletes to endorse his products and had better results than entertainment celebrities. Sports are broadcast all over the world, and there are different types of sports. Languages are not a barrier in sports.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the NBA is very popular in China, and around the world. Some claim that the NBA has the best basketball players in the world.

There is a rumor in Feng Yu’s previous life about Houston Rockets. The wealth of the Rockets’ Boss increased tremendously after the team signed Yao Ming. He made lots of money from the live telecast and advertisements.

Houston Rockets played their home games in Toyota Center, and this had increases Toyota’s branding worldwide. Toyota held the most market share in China once, and its sales in the US also increases a lot.

Feng Yu is wondering if he can change the name of LA’s indoor arena to Wind and Rain Center. It will be a long-term advertisement for his company.

The indoor arena does not only hold NBA games. Concerts and other sports are held there too, and the media exposure is very high. As the TV stations telecast matches, the brand will also be telecasted to the TV viewers.

Feng Yu wants to make his Wind and Rain brand the most famous brand in the world. Naming a popular indoor arena is a good choice.

Feng Yu found out that LA is building a new modern indoor arena. The construction cost is almost 375 million USD, and the construction is over 18 months.

This new arena will be the Lakers and the Wind and Rain (Clippers) new home. It is also the only arena in the US to house two NBA teams. Of course, the arena will also cater to other sports and will host other commercial activities like concerts, etc.

Two companies had invested in this new arena. LA Arena Company and Anschutz Entertainment Group had set up a management company to manage the arena. Still, the company is split into sports and entertainment events.

Feng Yu wants to be the third shareholder, as he wants the naming rights of the arena.

The arena is supposed to be named STAPLES Center, as it was sponsored by Staples Inc.

Feng Yu felt this name is ridiculous. Why is an arena named after a stationary? It’s too weird.

Ralph suggested Feng Yu contact Staples Inc. to buy the naming rights from them, before speaking to the arena management company.

Feng Yu felt Ralph is right. He wants the naming rights first, followed by the advertisement spaces in the arena. After all, he can use his team for advertising his brand.

Currently, Stables Inc. had still not entered the Fortune top 500 companies. Still, they are top North America’s stationary suppliers and retailers. They have lots of stores and distribution channels. If not, they will also not sponsor the arena for the naming rights.

Feng Yu felt he might get Stables Inc. to give him the naming rights of the arena for free, and at the same time, make money from them.

……

“This is my Boss, Mr. Feng Yu. He is a shareholder of Microsoft and is a director there. His surname is Feng. Boss, Mr. Carlos Smith, is the President of Staples Inc.

Feng Yu smiled and shook hands with Smith. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Smith. I am impressed with Staples Inc. Many of the stationaries in Microsoft are from your company.”

“Hahaha…. Mr. Feng, Microsoft, is more impressive. Of course, you are more remarkable. I thought <Forbes> is using an old photograph, and didn’t expect you to be so young.”

When Smith knew Ralph is Feng Yu’s assistant, he was surprised. He does not know why Feng Yu is looking for him, and though it must be business-related. It will be good for Staples Inc. if he can do business with Feng Yu.

Staples Inc.’s development had slowed in recent years and need to open a new market. They had to pick either Europe or Asia, as they do not have the capabilities to develop both markets at the same time.

If Stables Inc. can work with Asia’s top billionaire, it will be easier for them to enter the Asian markets. Even if they can only enter the Chinese market, there will be high profits for the company.

“Smith, your company, is going to enter the Asian markets?” Feng Yu laughed and asked.

Smith was surprised. This young tycoon is going to cooperate with Staples Inc.!

“Of course. We have plans to enter the Asia markets, especially the Chinese market. May I know why Mr. Feng is asking?

Feng Yu looks at Ralph, and Ralph explains. “My Boss is thinking of investing in stationaries and office supplies. Staples Inc. will be a good partner.”

“Of course. Staples Inc. is the biggest office supplies supplier and distributor in North America. We have many stores and distribution channels. Mr. Feng, are you thinking of partnering with Staples Inc. to set up a new company in Asia?”

“That’s right. My boss is also the biggest retailer in China and one of the biggest in Asia. We are also working with many retailers. If Staples Inc. is willing to partner us, Staples can open up the Asian markets in a short time.”

Feng Yu does not think that Staples will do well if they enter the Chinese market now. Staples Inc. can do so well in North America is because they have lots of retail stores, and had worked with many supermarket chains. Also, North America’s economy is doing well in recent years, and many new companies are located there. The demand for stationaries is high.”

Although there are more companies in China, now, Chinese companies are not picky about their office supplies. Most Chinese companies are focusing on cost savings and will use office supplies from small local factories.

But if the local office supplies can merge under a brand, and get the exclusive distribution rights, it will be profitable.

“What cooperation is Mr. Feng interested in? we are in office supplies and had been in this industry for over a decade.” Smith replied.

“We can set up a joint venture and owns 50% of the shares each, and I will own the brand. You all will run the company, and I will provide the best distribution channels.”

“Mr. Feng, I think we should use Staples Inc. as the brand. After all, we are an established brand, and we want to be a major shareholder. At least 51% shares.”

Feng Yu purposely put on a puzzled look. “It will be hard to cooperate with your request.”

……

Chapter 981 – Naming Rights

Feng Yu has no intention to enter a joint venture with Staples Inc. and is not interested in the office supplies sales. It might be profitable, but the profits will not be high. When his online shopping platform is up, stationery stores will be affected the most.

Feng Yu is only throwing a bait. When Smith is interested, he will mention his conditions and buy the naming rights.

Ralph pretended to be mad. “Smith, do take note of who you are going to work with. Your company might be doing well, but to my Boss, it is not worth mentioning. I am not rude, but if my Boss wants, he can stop your company from entering the Chinese market and even the rest of the Asian markets and the East Europe markets!”

“Mr. Ralph, our company’s brand, is well-established and is well known. We can make money if we work together.”

Smith is anxious. He had mentioned how well his company did in the North American market. But his company is not making much money in South American countries. Some of the South American countries are poorer than the countries in Asia.

If the company loses the Asian and East European markets, they can only focus on North America and West Europe. It will limit Staples Inc.’s growth, and there are many competitors in West Europe.

Staples Inc.’s target is to enter Fortune Top 500, and it will be hard for them if they only have two markets.

“Your company is well known? Stop kidding. It might be well known in North America, but do you dare to claim it is well known in Asia? I dare to say most people have not heard of your company in Asia. This will be starting from scratch, and do you think my Boss is going to handover the brand and management rights to you all and just invest money? What happens if there are losses? However, this is not impossible. You can let us invest in Staples Inc.”

“This… we are preparing to be listed and is currently not accepting investments.” Staples Inc. is trying to raise funds from the stock market for their expansion plans into the overseas markets. It will increase the company’s value and still not lower the shareholders’ power. If the company is allowing investments, an outsider might become the major shareholder.

Feng Yu crossed his leg and said. “Smith, I see that you have no intention to cooperate with us. Never mind then. I can don’t do office supplies business.”

“Boss, we can set up our own company. With your funds and connections in China, East Europe, and Asia, we can be established within three years.” Ralph said.

Smith is panicking. Not only the cooperation deal is off, he had indirectly created a formidable competitor for the company! He is also a shareholder of Staples Inc. If the company suffers losses, that means he will also suffer losses.

“Alright. Since the deal is off, contact LA Arena Company to talk about our intention of investing in the new arena.” Feng Yu said.

Smith overheard it. LA Arena Company and a new arena? Isn’t that Staples Arena? The arena where his company has the naming rights? Mr. Feng is going to invest in that arena?! I can help!

“Mr. Feng, are you going to invest in Staples Arena?”

“I think it is this name, right?” Feng Yu looks at Ralph.

Ralph nodded. “Yes. Staples sounds like a stapler and is easy to remember. What’s wrong?”

“Our company has the naming rights of that arena, and I know the owners well. If you all are going to invest, I can recommend you to them.” Smith said.

“Your company has naming rights? No wonder it is called Staples. This name is not nice. Are you all going to sell the naming rights?” Feng Yu asked casually.

Naming rights is only a form of long-term advertisement, and advertisements are to increase profits. If there is a better way of getting higher profits, they don’t mind selling the naming rights.

“Mr. Feng, you want to buy the naming rights of that arena? We have no intention of selling it.”

Feng Yu pretended to be impatient. “What do you mean you have no intention? Just sell it to me, and I will help you distribute your company’s products in China. Is this condition alright with you?”

“This… Mr. Feng, can you guarantee the sales of our products?”

“Smith, are you joking? Who can guarantee the sales of your products? If you all supplied some inferior products, you think consumers will buy?” Ralph interrupted.

“Huh… Can I consider this? I need to discuss with the rest of the shareholders.”

“You are so troublesome. Get back to me as soon as possible. If it takes too long, forget it. I heard there are plans to build a new indoor arena in Houston.”

After Smith left, Feng Yu asked Ralph. “Do you think they will agree? If they agree, what are their conditions?”

“They will agree. They are using the naming rights to exchange for a ticket to enter the Chinese market, and they can use the Chinese market as a stepping stone to enter the rest of Asia. More importantly, your status will help them a lot.”

Feng Yu noticed that the title of the World’s Second Billionaire is very useful.

At least, more people know who Feng Yu is, and his title can intimate the other party during negotiations.

“They might raise conditions like asking us to guarantee their products’ distribution in China or helping them to set up their retail stores. I think these conditions are not a problem for you, and can even earn some money.”

Feng Yu nodded. “That’s right. It will be a win-win situation for us.”

Feng Yu can just let them rent a space and set up retail stores in Tai Hua Hypermarkets. They can open more than 100 stores if they can afford it.

……

On the third day’s afternoon, Ralph received a call from Smith saying that their company had decided to sell the naming rights to Feng Yu, in exchange for Feng Yu’s support in China. They will send a representative over to negotiate the details.

Feng Yu smiled when Ralph told him about this. He has successfully gotten the naming rights.

In the future, this indoor Arena in LA will be called Wind and Rain Center. Everyone that goes there will notice it, and Wind and Rain brand will have a foothold in LA like Wind and Rain Empire State Building in New York!

Ralph will handle the remaining negotiations, and Feng Yu brought two men with him to San Francisco. Those two geniuses should have developed that search engine.

Chapter 982 – Page and Sergey

Stanford University is located in the San Francisco area and is near to Silicon Valley. It is one of the world’s top ten Universities, and many Noble prize winners and successful businessmen had graduated from him.

The elites from this University include the founders of HP, Yahoo, Nike, Logitech, Firefox, Cisco Systems, eBay, etc. and many MNC top management comes from this University too.

Today, Feng Yu had come to San Francisco to meet two software genius, whom he admired in his previous life.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In Feng Yu’s previous life, these two geniuses had founded the world’s biggest search engine, Google.

Larry Page still has not realized the value of their search engine and had discussed with Sergey to sell this technology to Yahoo for 1 million USD. After all, the founder of Yahoo is their schoolmate.

However, Sergey is still hesitating, as he felt this is an opportunity to start his own company. Although Larry and Sergey do not have even 10,000 USD now, they can look for investors.

Feng Yu had asked his men to give out leaflets at Stanford University, indicating that he is willing to consider investing in any company as long as he is convinced.

When Sergey knew about this, he persuaded Larry to give up the idea of selling this technology and called the number on the leaflet.

Feng Yu had told Ralph to take note of these two names a long time ago. When he knew Sergey had called, he asked Ralph to tell Sergey that he will go over to look at their technology. If he is interested, he will invest or buyout their technology.

Today, Larry and Sergey will be meeting Feng Yu at a restaurant near to their school. They are very nervous, as they will be meeting one of the world’s top tycoons, and are afraid Feng Yu is not interested in their search engine.

Feng Yu arrived at the restaurant with eight bodyguards and attracted everyone’s attention. Everyone is curious. Who is that man? Why is he surrounded by bodyguards? Is he a superstar? He looks Asian. Could he be the next Bruce Li?

Feng Yu had accepted the interview by <Forbes> but refused to let them publish his pictures. Although some newspapers had published Feng Yu’s photographs before, not many people noticed it. That is why most people still do not know how Feng Yu looks like.

In the corner of the restaurant, two young men, with messy hair and bushy beard, panic when they saw the tall and big bodyguards standing in front of them.

“Larry Page and Sergey Brin?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes. You are?”

The bodyguard pulled out the chair for Feng Yu. “I am Feng and might be the person who will invest in your research. Shhh… don’t be too excited.”

Feng Yu looks at the two geniuses in front of him. They look so different from what he imagined. They had long curly hair and beard. Although they are in suits, they still look sloppy!

Never mind. What Feng Yu wants are their brains and technology, and their appearances do not matter.

When the two young men met Feng Yu, they were excited and had wanted to stand up, but Feng Yu stopped them.

“Mr. Feng, our technology is a type of search engine, using an algorithm we developed. It will rank and differentiate the webpages…” Larry Page started explaining their technology excitedly.

To be honest, Feng Yu has no clue what Larry Page is talking about. It was too technical, but Feng Yu does not need to understand the technology behind the search engine, as he is here to invest.

“Wait a minute. Larry, Sergey, I am not a scientist or an engineer. I don’t understand what you all are talking about.” Feng Yu had to interrupt Larry, as he is afraid Larry and Sergey will continue for the next hour.

Larry and Sergey were embarrassed and started to panic. Does this mean that Feng Yu is not going to invest in their search engine?

Larry was still fine, as he has the intention of selling this technology. If Feng Yu is not going to invest in them, he will sell this technology to Yahoo. But Sergey is more interested in perfecting their search engine and start their own business.

“Mr. Feng, our search engine has potential and can let users find the sites they want. It is convenient and can greatly increase the visitors to the sites…”

Feng Yu waved his hand. “Larry, stop panicking. Although I don’t understand the mechanics behind this technology, this investment is nothing to me. I only want to know what your plans are. Are you all going to sell this technology, or do you all want me to invest? Can you all perfect this technology?”

Larry wants to complete his studies and hopes to sell this technology, while Sergey is looking forward to someone investing.

Larry asked. “Mr. Feng, how much are you offering if we are going to sell it? If you are going to invest, how are we going to split the profits?”

“I will offer 1 million USD to buy this search engine. I think I am the only person that will offer this price.”

Feng Yu still have not finished, and Larry wants to agree. 1 million USD… if he split with Sergey, both will be rich and can complete their studies before setting up a company in the future.

But Larry knows Sergey is more interested in setting up a business now and is looking forward to listening to the investment proposal.

“If it’s an investment, I will invest 10 million USD in setting up a company and give each of you 5% shares. You all will head the development team to perfect this search engine, and if more funds are required, I will settle it. If you all can show me the prospect of this search engine, I will increase my investment by 100 million USD, without diluting your shares. However, whatever related technology developed in the future will belong to the company!”

Larry’s jaw dropped. Even an idiot knows which proposal to choose. Although they had to put in more hard work, they will each get 500,000 USD in the form of company shares.

More importantly, Feng Yu will provide funds and will not dilute their shares. This means that if they can produce results that satisfy Feng Yu, their share value will increase by ten times!

As for the condition of ‘any related technology developed in the future, it will belong to the company’ is not a problem. After all, they are also the shareholders of the company.

This time, before Larry can reply, Sergey shouted. “We will pick the second proposal!”

Feng Yu knew every sane person would pick the second proposal. It’s hard to recruit genius like them, and 10% of shares are worth it.

“Ok. This is the contract. After signing it, you two will be the founders of Google Inc. Google is derived from the word Googol, and it signifies our search engine is searching through massive data. I believe we will create an incredible company together!”

Chapter 983 – Brother Ki loves to imitate

“Why did you buy a mansion in LA? Are you buying it because of some female celebrity here?” Kirilenko asked.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Do you think everyone is like you? Feng Yu is not interested in those women. Many people dream of being together with those celebrities, but not Feng Yu.

“I have some investments here, and I need a place to stay. But it’s hard to hire helpers here.” Feng Yu needs people to maintain the garden, pool, and cook. But the Chinese Chef here does not suit Feng Yu’s taste. Their cooking taste like restaurant food.

Since this is a house, Feng Yu prefers to eat home-cook food.

“If you are not happy, just change the staff. You can also spend some money to bring people from China over. The helpers at my house are all from Moscow.”

Feng Yu’s eyes brighten up. Why didn’t I think of this?

“Oh, you still have not told me what you are investing in LA. Movies?” Hollywood is in LA, and Kirilenko’s first guess is movies or movie-related businesses.

“Invest in movies? I might consider it in the future, but not now. I had bought a basketball team.” Feng Yu was also thinking of investing in movies like Cameron’s films in the future, as his films are worth investing in.

But Cameron’s next blockbuster should be in 2005. The technologies now are not so advanced to make that film.

“You bought LA Lakers?!” Kirilenko jumps up.

Feng Yu forgot that Kirilenko loves to watch basketball too.

“Err… I bought the LA Clippers.”

“Clippers? Is there such a team in the NBA?” Kirilenko asked puzzledly.

Feng Yu: “……” Damn! Is the Clipper such an unknown team? Paul Allen should be laughing his ass off when he heard I had reached a deal with Sterling.

“Yes. This team is based in LA like Lakers, and I am going to change the name of this team to LA Wind and Rain. In the future, it will replace the Lakers as the most popular basketball team in LA!”

Kirilenko blinked. “After buying a basketball team, we can change its name?! Hahaha. I also want to buy a team and name it, Kirilenko Team!”

Feng Yu almost threw the teacup he was holding at Kirilenko. I am trying to promote my brand, and you want to buy an NBA team to promote yourself?! Unless you buyout NBA, if not, the association will never agree to that name.

“Brother Ki, the team I bought, does not have any results in the past, and that’s why I can change the name easily. This is to promote my brand and has commercial value. I don’t think it is possible to name any team after your name.”

Kirilenko replied with a disappointed look. “It cannot be done? Then I will also buy a team. Yes. I will buy a team from a big city. What do you think of the New York Knicks? Do you think the owner of Chicago Bulls is willing to sell his team?”

Feng Yu saw Kirilenko being so serious. “Are you serious about this?”

“Of course! I will bring our Russian players over and dominate their basketball leagues!” Kirilenko said proudly.

Feng Yu: “……” Damn! What has Kirilenko been thinking every day? The former Soviet Union’s basketball is strong, and now, Russia had inherited their legacy.

But what Kirilenko said might still be possible. Feng Yu can bring players from China over to the US for training and let them experience the intense competition here. This will increase their skills and might be useful in the future.

Brother Ki is a genius!

“Forget about the Bulls. I heard that Jordan is going to retire soon, and the Bulls will not be Champions again. New York Knicks is a good team and has good players. They have lots of fans and is from a prosperous city. But last year, an American company just bought the majority of the team’s shares, and they should not be selling the team.”

“They will not sell the shares? I remember there is another team near to New York, and it is just across a river. I think the name is the Nets or something. What do you think about that team? I will buy it and move them to New York Brooklyn area.”

Feng Yu’s jaw dropped. In his previous life, the Nets were bought over by a Russian tycoon and was moved to Brooklyn. This event was brought forward by so many years?

“But you need your indoor arena if you are moving the team to Brooklyn.”

“Tsk… then the team will remain where they are until I build a new indoor arena. My team will be the Champions of the Eastern division, and your team will be the Western division, and we will see whose team is better in the finals!” Kirilenko said excitedly.

“Huh?! Alright…”

“Oh, you bought that team is to promote Wind and Rain brand?” Kirilenko asked curiously.

“It is because of a bet with Paul Allen. Although we have not to say what we are betting, if I win him, he cannot be arrogant in front of me in the future!”

This time, it is Kirilenko that frowns. “You bought the team because of a bet, and not because you love basketball?”

Kirilenko’s tone sounds like he is very disappointed.

“I like basketball, and there are no conflicts. Allen also owns a baseball team, a football team, etc. Don’t mind the details.”

Yes. The main reason is that Feng Yu does not watch baseball and football, and the influence of those two sports is not a high as basketball worldwide.

“Ok. I will let my men go and buy that team. Ah… yesterday you said you are in San Francisco. Are there any good investments there?”

Feng Yu smiled and shook his head. Kirilenko seems to be desperate to make money. You are already the top billionaire in Russia now!

“Yes. I had invested a little. The initial investment is only 10 million USD, and I estimate I will increase my investments next year. The total investment should be around 100 million USD. It is an internet search engine. That means when you type in a keyword, it will show you the related web sites, and make it easier for you to find the things you want on the internet.” Feng Yu briefly explained, and he has no intention of asking Kirilenko to join the business.

Kirilenko heard that the invested amount is so little and did not ask to participate.

“This thing that you mention… can it make money?”

“Yes. In the future, we can use online advertising to make money.”

“Oh… Then I will create one in Russia. What is this thing called again? An Internet search engine?”

Feng Yu almost cursed out. Damn! Why is Kirilenko keep thinking of creating imitations in Russia? But Russia is one of the four countries in the world to own core search engine technologies. The other three countries are the US, China, and South Korea.

This might also be good, and they will have a chance to cooperate in the future.

Brooklyn Nets

Chapter 984 – Yen starts to fall

“Oh, how is that website, eBay, you invested doing?” Feng Yu asked.

Feng Yu was a bit frustrated when mentioned about this. He had asked Kirilenko to invest in internet-related companies, and Kirilenko invested in a group of companies, and eBay is one of them.

Feng Yu had forgotten about this company, and when he remembers it, the company does not need investments. Even Kirilenko had bought out most of the available shares, including the smaller shareholders. He is currently the second-biggest shareholder of eBay, and the rest of the shareholders are the management staff of the company.

Luckily Feng Yu knows Amazon will also do well. eBay is a shopping website for businesses and people to sell their goods, and Amazon is different from them.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, eBay had been doing well until Alibaba appear. eBay’s operational model can be easily copied and is currently the biggest platform in North America temporary.

“eBay? It is doing well, but they have just changed their CEO, and the CEO is a woman! I don’t know what that Pierre is thinking. What can a woman do?” Kirilenko grumbled.

Feng Yu thought to himself. If it was not for this woman, eBay might not be successful. In his previous life, this woman is a talent and had been the CEO of several Fortune 500 companies. She will move on to HP as the CEO after eBay.

Some people even said that without her, eBay will not exist, and might have been acquired by some other companies, or even bankrupted.

“If I am you, I will trust her. She is someone extremely capable. This is also good as you can leave everything to her. My suggestion to you is not to sell your eBay shares, and eight to ten years later, your shares will be worth much more than you can imagine.” Feng Yu reminded Kirilenko.

Feng Yu is afraid Kirilenko will listen to others and sell away his shares.

“I know, and I will not be selling those shares. You told me to sell the technology shares of the listed company before the year 2000, and hold on to the shares of the companies that are going to be listed after the year 2000. I don’t lack money so that I will hold on to it.” Kirilenko replied.

Huh? Seems like I am over worrying about him.

“What about your Amazon? Didn’t you ask me to set up a website like Amazon? I looked at that website, and it seems that Amazon is not making money at all.” Kirilenko is puzzled. That site does not have high visitors and transactions and is only a site selling books.

“Have you decided on the locations of the supermarkets?” Feng Yu asked excitedly.

“Not yet. But we can start on the website first. All we need is an office and a few tech staff.”

“Amazon lacked fund and was thinking of getting listed to raise funds. But I refused. Luckily I won, and Amazon will grow slowly according to my plans, and their product variety is increasing. Not long ago, Amazon had acquired Internet Movie Database and is currently in acquisition talks with a few other companies. Those companies are social media, database, and search engine companies.”

Feng Yu will provide the funds if Amazon needs it and does not have the need to get listed. However, he does not want the core staff of Amazon to leave, and he managed to persuade the rest of the shareholders to split the shares into two types. New investments will not get shares with voting rights, and this is similar to raising funds from the public listing.

All these will make Amazon developing about the same pace as Feng Yu’s previous life, and Feng Yu did not interfere or give any suggestions. Currently, internet shopping is still at its infant stage, and Feng Yu can’t use the things he knows about e-commerce from his previous life now, as there are not enough customers.

The PC and internet are not popularized yet, and how can an e-commerce site be popular?

“You are not going to be listed, and is allowing this company to lose money like this?” Kirilenko does not understand want Feng Yu is thinking.

“After the year 2000, Amazon will start to make lots of money, and the profits will grow. I asked you to learn this type of operating model is to let you grow a customer base first. When your customer base reaches a certain scale, you will make money. It is the same as physical retail stores.” Feng Yu explained.

“Really? That means our online shopping will lose money for a few years?” Kirilenko was unhappy. If this venture has to lose money for the first few years, the duration will be too long to recover his capital.

“Around two to three years. But I promise your returns will be more than ten times five years later. It might be even higher!” Amazon is predicted to lose money for the first five years. Still, Kirilenko’s website can learn from Amazon’s mistakes and will develop much faster. Getting the returns earlier is not impossible!

Huh? The return is so high? Kirilenko cheered up immediately.

“Our importation supermarket is registered, and we are scouting for locations. I estimate that it will start operations in the second half of this year.”

“Ok. You must take note of the placement and the categorizing of goods on the shelves. All these can attract customers, and we must grab every customer that enters our supermarkets.” Feng Yu said.

“Don’t worry. I had hired professionals for the layouts, and our supermarkets will be much better than your Tai Hua Supermarkets.”

Feng Yu laughed and shook his head. Kirilenko is too competitive, but he is still assured of him handling the supermarkets. After all, Kirilenko had been making retail sales for a long time and will have lots of men that are good at this. Feng Yu even felt his reminders are unnecessary.

“Ok. I will ask my men to transfer the first investment over to your account tomorrow.”

“There is no rush. Just transfer it before the end of the month. You said that Soros would attack Russia and Rubbles. Why is he so quiet recently?” Kirilenko asked curiously.

“It is because Rubbles is Soros last resort, or he is planning to attack Hong Kong again. After attacking Hong Kong, he will surely attack Russia. From what I know, he should be setting up plans to attack Japan now. Once he starts attacking Japan, we will enter the Japanese market quietly and should get at least 20% profits.”

Feng Yu’s men had been monitoring Soros closely. Soros had attacked Indonesia again and let the Indonesian Government suffer massive losses. This time, the IMF stepped in as the rest of the Southeast Asia countries did not interfere.

Soros had become the most hated man in Southeast Asia, while Feng Yu and his allies made a large amount of money from there and did not get scolded.

Feng Yu is determined to participate in the attacks against Japan. He wants to create a more devastating blow to the Japanese economy and slow down their economic recovery.

Of course, Feng Yu wants to make money at the same time. Even if the profit is only 20%, the returns will be a lot, as the amount used by Feng Yu is significant.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko chatted when Feng Yu’s satellite phone rang.

“Hello? What? Alright. Get ready. It’s time for us to enter!”

Kirilenko looks at Feng Yu curiously. “What is it?”

Feng Yu turns to Kirilenko. “Yen is starting to fall!”

Chapter 985 – Japan’s tragedy

Soros should not have succeeded because of Japan’s economic power. But because of the financial crisis in Southeast Asia, Japan was affected.

Japan’s banking industry is very developed and had used its excess currency to invest in the finance and real estate industry of Southeast Asia. Many Southeast Asian countries’ finance and real estate industry become their core industry are because of Japan.

This investment model had once brought Japan to become one of the top economic powers of the world.

However, because of the US, Japan fell into recession, and Japan decided that it should use this investment model in other countries. If anything happens, it will be that country that suffers. This is what Japan learned from the US. At the same time, Japan can continue to be the economic superpower of Asia.

But Japan had never expected that someone had acted before them, and those countries’ economies crashed before they could exit!

The Japanese banks have operations in those countries and had invested and gave out loans in large amounts.

These investments will help those countries economically and can yield significant returns. So, Japan increases its investments every year, and the invested amount becomes bigger and bigger.

In the end, Feng Yu and Soros attacked the countries in Southeast Asia last year, crashing their economies, and caused the depreciation of their currencies.

Those countries suffered massive losses, but every country that was hit by the crisis had implicated Japan.

Since the middle of last year, Japan starts to have banks and brokerages going bankrupt. Within a few months, the number of banks and brokerages going bankrupted increased. This is due to the increasing number of bankrupted companies in those countries.

The Japanese banks cannot recover their loans and investments, how can they still stay afloat?

Japanese banks and brokerages bankrupting and recovering their investments and loans caused bigger miseries to the affected countries.

At this time, Yen started to fall slowly. At the start of this year, the rates of Yen against USD had fallen to 120:1. Around the middle of last year, the exchange rates are 115:1, and it is still within an acceptable range.

But today, Yen fell to 124:1 suddenly. This is the biggest single-day drop for a long time.

Japan was alerted and knew someone is attacking Yen. The only possible suspect is Soros!

Japan was right. Soros and his men had started to attack Yen. Even if they don’t attack Yen, Yen will also depreciate because of their bad debts.

Yen depreciating caused panic for investors in Japan. No one expects the Asian Financial Crisis to affect Japan.

Soros started to spread rumors on mainstream media that Japan’s economy is going to collapse again and persuaded all investors to dump their Yen for USD quickly.

Some people believed Soros, and with Soros’ attacks, Yen starts to fall.

After Feng Yu receiving this news from He Zhaoji, he took a look at Yen and Japan’s stock index graphs. He is sure that it was Soros behind the fall!

“Old He, follow our plan to short Yen. Remember to hedge against the short position. Any fluctuations will cause massive losses for us.

Futures trading has high returns, but at the same time, the losses are high.

“Don’t worry, Boss. We will be careful.”

After hanging up He Zhaoji’s call, Fu Rongqi called and discussed with Feng Yu about their strategy to invest in Yen.

Feng Yu and Fu Rongqi agreed to use low leverage to short Yen and, at the same time, hedged against their position to prevent any sudden increase of Yen.

After getting high returns in their previous investments, Feng Yu and Fu Rongqi became risk-averse now!

……

“President Norio, our share prices fell again.”

“I know. Stop reminding me!” Norio Ohga snapped at his subordinate.

This damn financial crisis had caused the collapse of several Southeast Asia economies, and Sony’s investments in those countries, especially their factories and branches, suffered massive losses.

Sony’s production and sales fell. Some factories even go bankrupt, and they still owe Sony their deposits and material fees!

Norio Ohga was frustrated, as even their shares on the Tokyo Stock exchange, start to fall.

Of course. Sony is not the only Japanese company that is hit by the Asian Financial crisis. Many other Japanese MNC were affected, and Japan’s stock market is falling.

Everyone had thought that Japan’s economic recovery had been doing well, and should withstand the impact of the financial crisis.

But as the Japanese banks and brokerages are bankrupted, the situation in Thailand and many other countries worsen, their economies crashed.

All these formed a vicious cycle, and there is no way for Japan not to be affected.

Although many Japanese MNCs and financial institutions join-hands to try to stabilize the stock market and Yen’s exchange rates, they failed.

No Japanese MNCs and financial institutions dare to invest too much in stabilizing the stock market and Yen. If they fail, their companies will be in a worse situation.

Those organizations that own banking shares suffered the most. Japanese banks’ shares plummet, and their assets shrink. The banks have more than 35% of bad debts, and many of their outstanding loans had requested extensions. The amount the banks can recover is too little.

The loans in other currencies caused the banks to suffer more losses. The Japanese banks did not know that those countries’ currencies will crash so fast.

This month, many of those countries’ property bubble crashed. Thailand, Singapore, and those affected countries’ property prices plummet and can no longer be stabilized.

The property market crashing in those countries caused increased losses in Japan.

Japan had thought that Japan’s economy would improve when those countries developed, and they can cause those countries’ economies to crash when they withdraw their investments suddenly.

But Soros acted faster than the Japanese, and Japan was implicated in it!

……

“Feng, you said that once Yen falls, Soros will start to target Hong Kong or Russia. Should we start preparing?” Kirilenko asked.

“No. We will wait. When the stock market or currency starts to rise abnormally, that means Soros and his men are starting to attack. At that time, we will retaliate and give them a deadly blow!”

Chapter 986 – Feign attack on Hong Kong

“Boss, Hang Seng Index is increasing abnormally!” He Zhaoji called Feng Yu to report.

“You are saying that someone is pushing Hang Seng Index up?” Feng Yu frowned. Is Soros going to attack Hong Kong again?

Feng Yu has accepted the interview from <Forbes> to let everyone know he is one of the world’s top Billionaires. He thought this could serve as a warning to Soros not to try his luck in Hong Kong. Is Soros still trying to attack Hong Kong? Did he think that after Feng Yu pay off his debts and made some investments, he does not have any cash in hand?

“It must be someone doing this on purpose. Although we cannot find out all the owners of those trading accounts, some of them are from the Quantum Fund!” He Zhaoji replied.

“Calm down. Check with Professor Liang and the rest first. Never mind. I will call them. Prepare to cancel our Yen future contracts.”

After hanging up, Feng Yu called Professor Liang.

“I had just found out about this matter and had discussed with the Fu family. All of us need to be prepared, but it’s hard to get the other families to support us. All of them do not have so much cash in hand.” Professor Liang felt helpless. He knows they can win against Soros, but it will not be an easy victory.

“Ok. I will return to Hong Kong tomorrow, and we can discuss it together. If we can win against Soros once, we can win the second time!” Feng Yu is not very confident this time, as the victory will depend on the international speculators’ support.

Even if Hong Kong won in the end, it would also be a narrow victory. It will be a lose-lose situation for Hong Kong and Soros!

But when facing Professor Liang and the rest, Feng Yu must put up a brave front.

The next day, Feng Yu went to Fu Rongqi’s company immediately after he landed. Fu Rongqi and Professor Liang were waiting for him.

“Uncle Fu, Professor Liang, have you all contacted the rest of the families? Are they willing to support us?” Feng Yu asked.

Fu Rongqi shook his head. “Those families did not give us a confirmed answer. The Fu Family had helped them previously, but Fu Guangzheng’s property reforms had hurt their interests. This is considered they had returned the favor. Also, many of them are scare of futures trading now.”

“How much cash can we raise?”

“My side can raise around 8 billion USD, and Guangzheng and the rest have about 200 million. What about you?” Fu Rongqi does not have so much cash.

“After Kirilenko and I repaid our loans and invested some of our money, we have less than 13 billion USD.” If Feng Yu canceled his Yen contracts now, they would not get any profits.

“That means we only have around 20 billion USD at our disposal. This is not enough to stop the Quantum Fund, but we still have the Hong Kong Government. When Soros attack Hong Kong, the Government will not sit around and do nothing!” Professor Liang is more confident now. He had studied about Soros’ tactics and had prepared measures to defend against him!

“Soros is not that scary. Nephew Feng is now the world’s second Billionaire. If he steps forward and declares war on Soros, I believe many people will support him.” Fu Rongqi said.

International speculators have around 70 billion USD of funds, and they will rush forward if there are profits to be made. These people do not care about the life and death of others, and they had played an important role in creating the Asian Financial Crisis.

These speculators only believe in making money and will exploit any loopholes in the financial systems, as it is not illegal. Without them, Soros will not bring down a government by himself. Soros can attack several countries at once because he had the support of these speculators!

Feng Yu starts preparation. They are not worried about HKD and is only worried Soros will mess up Hong Kong’s stock market and create problems in the financial systems.

If Hong Kong’s banks have credit issues, the whole economy might collapse.

……

“Boss, Feng Yu had returned to Hong Kong. I think they had found out what we did. But it also means that they might have fallen into our trap!” Drucken Miller proudly said as he was the one who came up with this plot.

Feinting an attack on Hong Kong, and hold Feng Yu and his allies there, while they attack Russia.

Because of the interference of IMF, Soros and his men can no longer make any money from the Southeast Asia countries. So, they had a new target. Russia.

Russia’s financial system has loopholes, and Soros has more funds now. They firmly believe that they can make lots of money from Russia, and the Quantum Fund will become the strongest fund in the world. Soros will also become the top Billionaire on <Forbes> list!

Bill Gates? Feng Yu? Warren Buffett? They will all be ranked behind me!

Other people might be afraid of Feng Yu’s title as the World’s Second Billionaire, but not Soros. This time, he might even cause a fallout between Feng Yu and that Russian tycoon!

“Hahaha… Without them messing up our plans, we will get a big victory in Russia!” Soros laughed.

“When they realized what was happening, it will be too late, and they can only watch Ruble depreciate. I am interested to know what Feng Yu will do. Will he join us to short Rubles, or try to push up the rates? What will his Russian partner, Russia’s top Billionaire, do?”

“If Feng Yu is smart, he will join us. Although it is a bit too late, he can still get some profits. If he still insists on his ways, he might be kicked out of the <Forbes> list!”

“Hmph! Feng Yu had made so much money from the crisis, and he pushed all the blame to us. This time, we will teach him a painful lesson! If he tries to stop us, his assets will shrink by at least a zero!”

Quantum Fund’s four top managers thought nothing of Feng Yu. They had forgotten they had suffered defeat by Feng Yu before!

“Spread rumors that Hong Kong’s stock market is on a bull run.” Soros smiles. If people believe the rumors, the stock market will rise, and Feng Yu will be more worried that it was Soros doings.

Soros and his men are not going to attack Hong Kong. Their target is Russia. Once they defeated Russia, they might turn their guns in Hong Kong.

Chapter 987 – Pot calling the Kettle black

“boss, rumors of high dividends are appearing in the market. But these rumors are fake, and many people are entering the market. Today’s stock market will continue to rise!”

He Zhaoji panics. Where did these idiots come from? How can they believe these rumors?!

You all are following the market blindly, and once someone suppresses the market, every one of you will have your money trapped! Just Feng Yu, Fu Rongqi, and Superman Li can suppress the market.

If the top Hong Kong tycoons start to dump their shares, and Hong Kong investors will lose the confidence of the market.

Fu Rongqi and Feng Yu had discussed if they should dump some shares to cool the market. But many people think it is a bull market now. Unless all the top tycoons start to dump shares together, the market will not be affected.

Furthermore, many people are trying their luck. They knew someone us pushing up the stock index on purpose and is going to crash it. But they want to make some money when the prices are high, and they can sell away their shares when the market crash.

However, when the market crash, not many of them are willing to stop losses and sell their shares! Many people will be trapped in the market.

“We cannot do anything to stop those people. Since they want to die, how are we going to stop them?” Feng Yu shook his head. If he comes out and says the stock market will crash, he will be the bad guy and will be a laughingstock if Soros did not attack Hong Kong.

“Are we going to leave our money in the account?” He Zhaoji felt his heartache. Although their money is in the bank, the interest is too low. For a trader, putting money in the bank, earning pathetic interest, is equivalent to suffering losses!

“Just leave it there. If we invest the money and Soros attack Hong Kong suddenly, we might not withdraw our fund in time.”

“But the Fu Family and the Government are around.” He Zhaoji replied.

What He Zhaoji said was right. Feng Yu does not need to suffer losses just to protect Hong Kong’s financial market. This should be the Government’s job!

“We will continue to invest in Yen, but be prepared to cancel our contracts anytime.” Feng Yu thought for a while and said.

He Zhaoji nodded and went out. Feng Yu looks out of the window. He knew no one would appreciate what he is doing, but he will still do it.

……

“Brother Feng, why are you staying at home every day and not going out?” Fu Guangzheng asked. His name is on <Forbes> Asia’s Billionaire list for the first time. It is the only Hong Kong second generation to get onto the list. Even Li Zekai does not qualify.

“Go out? Where? Macau with you all? You should know that I am not interested in those activities. You should also control yourself. It’s fine if you are doing it for pleasure, but if you get addicted, all your money will be gone.”

In Hong Kong, the number one rule in all influential families is not to gamble! The older generation knows that gambling will lose the family’s fortune in a blink of an eye. Drugs might be expensive, but it will only harm individuals.

“I know. Players are always the losers when it comes to gambling, and the most profitable business is the casino. But I had told you before that He Laosan (Laosan = number 3 or third among the siblings) is planning to start a floating casino and is inviting me as a partner. Are you interested?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“Huh? Which He Laosan?”

“The He Laosan from Macau’s He family. He is the son of a mistress and does not have the right to inherit the family business. He is trying to make use of his family’s connections to get high rollers.”

“I am not familiar with this trade. Maybe you can ask your uncles for advice.”

“They don’t agree but did not object. After all, this venture will increase our relationships with the He family. My eldest uncle is quite close to Mr. He, and had invested in some assets together before.”

Feng Yu snubbed out his cigar. “Alright. I am not interested. Playing mahjong once in a while is fine, but forget about asking me to go to the casinos.”

“Eh, what do you think if I get some models to work as waitress onboard the floating casino? The prettier ones can be croupiers or escorts. I can even get a group of pretty young celebrities on board. They should be able to attract many rich people.”

“Yes. I can also name the cruise an outstanding name and will sail once a month and will last two weeks. It can be like a vacation, and if you market it well, it can become a high-class cruise. I believe many people will be attracted.”

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng differently. What he said might work. But why did these tactics sound so familiar?

“Eh, what do you think if I get some hot male celebrities on board to attract the rich women? Many wealthy women like celebrities and those celebrities also want to be with a rich woman!” Fu Guangzheng said excitedly.

Feng Yu took a glance at Fu Guangzheng. “You dare to let Liang Yin know about these?”

The smile on Fu Guangzheng’s face froze. He cannot let Liang Yin and even his family members know about these, as it does not fit his status!

“You dare to mock me? You asked me to help you think of a way to bring that Shanghai girl for a body checkup. You dare to let Li Na know about this?” Fu Guangzheng rebutted.

Feng Yu immediately shut up. Fu Guangzheng is the only person he trusts and can help him.

“Hmph! Let’s stop making fun of each other. But you are also quite interested. If you are interested in that girl, just send her to Hong Kong or the US. Is there a need to be so secretive?”

Fu Guangzheng is curious to know why Feng Yu wants that girl to undergo a thorough body checkup, especially GYN checkups.

Fu Guangzheng even suspects that Li Na might be infertile, and Feng Yu wants that girl to bear a child for him.

But what Feng Yu is doing is too troublesome. He can just throw money at that girl until that girl falls in love with him.

“Stop asking so many questions. Didn’t you say you can settle this within these few days?”

“I need to make some preparations first. You think it is so easy to help you to trick a girl? Be patient, and there should be results in around three days!”

Chapter 988 – Weird interview

“Kexin, Kexin, where are you going?”

Zhou Kexin turns and saw her roommate running towards her.

“I heard there is recruitment for reporters, and I am going for the internship interview. During the summer holidays, I can get some experiences and earn pocket money.”

“Ah? Which agency is it? Is it a state-owned or a private own media company? The TV station, newspaper agency, magazine or radio?” The roommate asked excitedly. “How many people are they hiring? Can I go with you?”

“I don’t know how many people they are hiring. If you want, you can come along. If we get hired, we can work together. But this is a professional medical magazine. Are you interested?”

When Zhou Kexin heard about this media company, she was not very keen. She is studying journalism, and a medical magazine is different from what she had learned.

But after Zhou Kexin researched this company, she realized that it is a Hong Kong company, and their medical magazine is circulating the whole of Southeast Asia. This year, the company is setting up a branch in China and is hiring Chinese staff. This is the reason why she decided to try her luck.

Of course, Zhou Kexin was also attracted by the high remuneration. The salary for interns is higher than many reporters in many media companies!

Zhou Kexin knew since the company is offering such a high salary, the requirements for this job must be high. She did not expect to be hired, but what if… furthermore, she wanted some interview experiences. She will be graduating soon and will be going for interviews.

The roommate was excited when Zhou Kexin agrees to bring her along. They boarded a bus and arrived at the interview venue.

Zhou Kexin arrived at the office and noticed there are more than 100 people in the queue at the entrance.

“Kexin, are we going to queue? Did you see those people? They are the final year students from our school. That guy over there is wearing Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s crest, and that guy holding on to a file. He is obviously from the medical college. My results might allow me to graduate but are not good. Are you still going to try?” The roommate asked.

“Since we are here, let’s go.” Zhou Kexin comforted her roommate, and she also needs her friend to accompany her.

Zhou Kexin is very nervous. Everyone in front of her in the queue looks confident, and some are wearing suits. She and her friend are wearing too sloppy.

But it’s good to get some interview experience, and it is the weekend, and they had nothing to do.

The two girls arrived at the office at around 1 pm and waiting until 4 pm for their turn.

“Zhou Kexin. Get ready. You are next.” A secretary shouted.

After a while, the interviewee walked out of the interview room, and Zhou Kexin entered.

“Your name is Zhou Kexin? Are you applying for an internship or a full-time reporter? Are you this year’s graduating student?” The interviewer in the center asked. Hmmm… this person is the Zhou Kexin we are looking for.

“Although I am not graduating this year, I had been working as the University’s reporter and has some experience.” Zhou Kexin quickly said.

“Ok. Tell me about your experiences at your university.”

Zhou Kexin thought for a while and started telling the interviewers her experiences. But she realized that her experiences are nothing to shout about.

The three interviewers discussed among themselves. Zhou Kexin’s experience is insufficient for them to hire, and she is not studying medicine. They prefer someone who knows about medicine than from someone studying journalism. If not, the reporter might not understand the medical jargon during interviews.

The main interviewer frowned. Zhou Kexin did not fit their criteria and cannot be compared to the other interviewees.

But they must hire this girl. Someone had ordered that this girl must be hired if she comes for the interview.

The interviewer must obey the orders, or else, they will be out of a job!

“Ok. What other skills do you have?” If we hired her just like this, she might think we have some ulterior motives.

“I… I am trained in fountain pen calligraphy. Is this considered a skill?” Zhou Kexin asked weakly.

“Yes. Our magazine agency likes people with good handwriting! Ok. Based on our rules, you will be under probation for a month, but you will be paid. The salary will not be high, and there is no contract. Do you agree?” The main interviewer slapped his thigh excitedly and looks like he is looking for someone trained in fountain pen calligraphy.

Zhou Kexin was stunned. All of your faces were emotionless when I talked about my experiences. Still, you immediately want to hire me when I mentioned I know fountain pen calligraphy?! I thought all magazines are using PC for typesetting? Could this magazine’s reporters are still handed writing their articles?

But who cares? Zhou Kexin will not reject this offer since they are willing to hire her.

“I am still studying and can only work as a part-time reporter. But during my holidays, I can work full-time, and I am willing to accept lower salaries.”

“During your probation, you don’t need to work full-time. Do you know how to use computers? After you start work, you can email your articles to the agency.”

Zhou Kexin was surprised. Email the articles, and she doesn’t need to write the articles by hand? Then why are they hiring me because I am trained in calligraphy?

“I know how to use email. What will I be in-charged of?” Zhou Kexin asked.

“You will start by interviewing the medical equipment manufacturers. But you are not medically trained, and it will be a bit troublesome. You might not understand how the machine work. Alright. Our magazine will be interviewing a hospital director. You can write an article about the workflow of a body checkup and how the equipment works. At the same time, you can treat it as a free checkup.”

The main interviewer said the script he prepared. In his heart, he prayed. Please accept it… you must accept this job….

Zhou Kexin was puzzled. Experience the medical equipment herself and have a free checkup? This is a good deal.

“Will the duration of the checks belong? Can it be arranged on the weekends?”

The other two interviewers were about to explode. They will never consider Zhou Kexin if they are the main interviewer. But the main interviewer had agreed to hire her. This young lady is too much. After getting hired, she is still so picky? Does she know how many people are fighting over this position?!

“Sure!” The main interviewer agreed.

“Thank you. I do not have any questions.”

“Do you have a mobile phone or a pager?”

“No.”

“The company will provide a pager for you.” The main interviewer gave another privilege, which others do not have.

After stepping out of the interview room, Zhou Kexin was still in a daze. Her roommate asked her about the interview, and she replied after a long pause. “I passed the interview and is hired as an intern reporter!”

Chapter 989 – This is not right

“Brother Feng, the plan is proceeding smoothly, and we will get the results soon. Are the two US doctors you hired reliable?” Fu Guangzheng leaned against the back of the sofa and said.

“Don’t worry. These two are the top gynecologists in the US. The US First Lady and wives of many tycoons had gone to them for checks and treatments.

These two doctors were carefully selected by Feng Yu, and they have vast experiences. Of course, Feng Yu paid a large amount to hire them.

“Alright. Because of you, I got the TVB’s top producers to come up with this plan. This plan will not go wrong.”

To Fu Guangzheng, a TV producer is good at bullshitting the viewers and will make a good conman.

Before the results are out, who can guarantee nothing will go wrong? Those two gynecologists might be the top in their field. Still, the current medical standards might not be advanced to treat Zhou Kexin’s condition.

……

Zhou Kexin arrived at a newly built private hospital with the address given to her. She heard that this hospital has the world’s most advanced facilities, and the doctors are the best in the world. But this hospital is built by an electronics company as benefits for their employees.

Using such a good hospital to provide checkups for employees?! Zhou Kexin heard that even Beijing does not have such an advanced hospital.

When Zhou Kexin arrived at the department she was supposed to interview, she blushed. Gynecology Department. But as a university student, she can still accept it, as it is a body checkup, and the doctor conducting the checks is a female doctor.

But why are these two doctors Caucasians?

A questionnaire was passed to Zhou Kexin for her to fill up.

Zhou Kexin finished filling up the questionnaire and gave it back to the doctors. The two doctors went through the questionnaire and discussed it among themselves.

Although Zhou Kexin had learned English, she could not understand what the doctors are talking about. They had used too many medical jargons and even if Feng Yu is around, he will also be confused.

Even if the doctors are speaking in Chinese, Feng Yu will also not understand some medical terms.

The two doctors were troubled. Zhou Kexin is still a virgin, and some checks cannot be conducted. What is wrong with the person who hired them? This girl is a virgin, and how does he know that she cannot conceive? Did he found out about her condition using the mysterious TCM?

Could it be that the person who hired them wants to prevent this from happening and wanted to conduct checks beforehand? No one can understand how the rich are thinking.

The two doctors discussed. In this situation, they can only rely on their experiences to make the judgement.

Zhou Kexin started her checkups. After the checks, she asked the doctor about her health checkup if everything is in order.

With the help of a translator, the doctors asked a few more questions. After that, they told Zhou Kexin that she might have some problems with her body. But because she is still a virgin, some checks cannot be conducted. They suggested her discuss with her family first.

Zhou Kexin was stunned. She was supposed to be here to conduct an interview and experience the checkup. Why was she diagnosed to have some problems with her body? When she enrolled in University, she had undergone a body checkup, and she was fine.

Zhou Kexin asked the doctors for more details and was told that she might have a rare condition that will affect her ability to have children and does not affect her health. That’s why it is hard to discover during checkups.

But the doctors told Zhou Kexin that they had treated many patients like her and asked her not to worry.

Affect the ability to have children? That means she cannot bear children in the future! Zhou Kexin was devastated. How is she going to get married in the future?!

Zhou Kexin made an appointment next week and returned to her University.

……

“Brother Feng, the results are out. I hope you are prepared.” Fu Guangzheng passed a fax letter to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu start reading it. Yes, the results are the same as his previous life. In his previous life, he heard there were successful treatments for Zhou Kexin’s condition. But they could not afford to send her to the US.

But in this life, the treatment cost is nothing to Feng Yu.

The two doctors said that they had treated many patients with similar conditions. Although the full recovery rate is not high, there is still hope. They cannot confirm Zhou Kexin is suffering from this condition. Still, there is a high possibility from the results of her checks.

Fu Guangzheng saw Feng Yu frowning. “Feng, the doctor said that there is still hope for a full recovery. If you are worried, you can ask Li Na to go for another check. If not, you can look for another girl to be the surrogate mother.”

Surrogate mother? Who is looking for a surrogate mother?!

Feng Yu gave Fu Guangzheng a stare. “What are you talking about? There is nothing wrong with Li Na.”

There is nothing wrong with Li Na? Then why is Feng Yu giving that girl a checkup? Could it be that Feng Yu is interested in that girl?

But that girl’s look is not outstanding, and with Feng Yu’s wealth, he can get whatever women he wants. Why is he interested in this girl?

Wait a minute… Is Feng Yu interested in her because she cannot bear children?

Feng Yu was speechless when he saw the weird looks in Fu Guangzheng’s eyes. But he cannot explain himself, and his concern for Zhou Kexin is more than a friend.

“She is my penpal. Do you know what a penpal is? Never mind. You won’t understand it. I found out about her condition by chance and wanted to help her.” Feng Yu gave an excuse.

Fu Guangzheng looks at Feng Yu with disdain. Penpal? Do you think I don’t know about the penpal? It’s just exchanging letters with strangers without meeting them. We have that in Hong Kong too.

But which penpal will talk to you about this problem? No woman will bring up this subject without feeling embarrassed. Something is off!

Also, Feng Yu is too concerned about this matter. If it’s like what Feng Yu claims, he will not hire two top specialists from the US and buys all the most advanced medical equipment for that hospital. Fu Guangzheng realized that the equipment bought were mainly for Gynecology checks.

Spending so much money and effort to help a friend? Bullshit!

“Brother Feng, are you interested in her? Just admit it. We are all men, and I can understand. Alright. I will ask the doctors to speak to you directly in the future.”

Since that girl might become Feng Yu’s woman, Fu Guangzheng does not want to interfere.

Feng Yu thought for a while and did not give any explanations.

Knock… knock… knock…

He Zhaoji entered the office. “Boss, there is a sudden increase in funds investing in Russia’s stocks and Rubles!”

Feng Yu narrowed his eyes. Soros is going to attack Russia, and Hong Kong is a smokescreen?

Chapter 990 – Trap

“Feng, why did you call me over so urgently? I was still speaking to Brother Guangzheng about investing in their floating casino venture.”

Feng Yu is not interested in that business, but Kirilenko is very interested. He felt that even if he did not make any money in that venture and treated it as a holiday destination.

“Brother Ki, Ruble, and Russia’s stock market are starting to rise.” Feng Yu reminded.

“Great. How much can Ruble rise? Our outstanding loans to be repaid next year is not a lot.” Kirilenko thought Feng Yu was talking about the loans they took before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since that time, Rubles had depreciated by over a few hundred times. The few hundred million USD loans are now worth only a few million USD, and this amount is including interest.

Now, even if Feng Yu and Kirilenko have to return a few hundred million USD, they will not mind. Without the loans they borrowed, they will not have their wealth now.

Rubles rising by one time, ten times, are no different to them now.

Feng Yu looks at Kirilenko helplessly. He knows that he had to explain everything in detail, or he will not understand.

“Brother Ki, I am not talking about our loans. Do you remember before those Southeast Asian countries’ financial market crash, Soros will push the currency rates and stock index up?” Feng Yu reminded.

Kirilenko paused for a second. “You are saying that Soros is going to start attacking Russia?”

“I am not sure, as we cannot check those trading accounts. I need you to get your men to verify this.”

Kirilenko shouted angrily. “Soros is too arrogant. Does he think Russia is the same as those small countries?! Feng, don’t worry. I will make a few calls and will know where the money came from.”

Kirilenko starts to make phone calls, while Feng Yu sat beside to eating snacks. Even if Soros had started attacking Russia, Feng Yu and Kirilenko do not need to panic.

After a while, Kirilenko puts down his phone with an angry look. “You are right. The Quantum Fund is behind those accounts, and they are pushing up the stock index.”

Feng Yu nodded. “That’s right. That means Soros is going to skip Hong Kong and attack Russia. The abnormal fluctuations in the Hong Kong stock market are just to trap us here!”

“What should we do now? Ruble and the stock markets are rising, and are we going to stop it?” Kirilenko was feeling helpless. If he is going to suppress the market, then his reputation as Russia’s top tycoon will be tarnished. His father will also be affected!

“Who says we are going to suppress the market? You are Russian, and I am your best friend. We must help to push up the stock index.” Feng Yu replied.

“Wait. Didn’t you say Soros is going to set up future contracts when the prices are high to reap the most profits? If we help to push up the stock index, Soros will earn more money!” Kirilenko was confused. He does not understand what Feng Yu is going to do.

“Your country’s Ruble is using the Managed Floating Rate System, right? All the currency fluctuations will be within a range, and the government will interfere if the fluctuations get out of the range.”

“That’s right. What’s wrong?”

“What if the fluctuation range is increased? The risk will increase dramatically, and Soros will suffer losses.”

“The fluctuation range can be increased?” Kirilenko opened a bottle of Baijiu and drank straight from the bottle.

“We do not have the authority to adjust it, but Yeltsin has. Soros’s Quantum Fund is only a hedge fund. He is pushing up the currency rates and stock index, and to do this, he must buy in large amounts of Rubles, shares, and many future contracts. He will make money if the stock index rises and will use the money he earned to borrow Ruble and start suppressing the stock index and currency to make more profits.”

“If Russia’s economy is doing well, it will be hard to suppress the stock market and currency, and Soros will still make money. You just need to know that Soros is betting on Rubles and Russia’s stock index to rise. If we make Ruble and the stock market crash, Soros and his men will suffer massive losses!” Feng Yu explained.

“You are telling me to let the higher-ups know about this plan, and use this strategy to teach Soros a lesson? But won’t Russia be suffering losses in this plan?” Kirilenko was not willing to accept this tactic. Feng Yu is not willing to let Hong Kong suffer any losses, and now is asking Russia to suffer losses to deal with Soros?

“You all will not be the ones suffering losses. It will be Soros and those greedy international speculators that will be suffering losses. Just think about this. They are pushing up the stock market and Ruble’s rates, and need to buy the stocks and currency in a large amount. The Russians can make money if they sell their stocks now, and when Rubles and stock market crash, Soros and those greedy international speculators start dumping their shares and Ruble at low prices, and your people can buy back their shares and Rubles. Isn’t it better for your people to own your country’s company shares? Those people will be the ones suffering losses instead of Russia.”

Is this the case? Kirilenko scratched his head, and what Feng Yu said seems to make sense. But he does not know whether if this is right or wrong. Nevertheless, he still trusts Feng Yu and knows that Feng Yu will not lie to him. They have many business ventures together and shared the same interest. Furthermore, he knows Feng Yu is not the type who will con his friends.

Feng Yu is not lying to Kirilenko, and this tactic was used by Russia in his previous life, making Soros and those international speculators suffered massive losses.

Of course, this strategy will let many countries criticize Russia, but does Russia care? You all can only criticize us, but do you all dare to attack us? What? Do we owe money to these countries?! We will drag out the payment to a few months later.

Which country dares to do anything when one of the world’s superpower refuses to repay their debts?

Russia is not afraid of wars, and if wars broke out, they can win and gained some benefits. Even the US does not dare to go to war with Russia, let alone other countries. Of course, a few countries governed by a few madmen, who are willing to go against humanity, will dare to attack Russia!

“Feng, you are saying that we will dig a hole into trapping them?”

“That’s right. They will help you all fill up the hole, and when everything is over, you can acquire the shares of Russian companies.” Russia is Kirilenko’s foundation. The stronger his foundations are, the better he will be.

This is just like Feng Yu. Regardless of his overseas investments, his top priority will still be his business in China. He can get higher returns and strengthen China at the same time. The stronger his country is, the more respect he will get when he is overseas!

“How are we going to do that?”

Feng Yu starts to tell Kirilenko about his plan. This time, he will give Soros a painful lesson!

Chapter 991 – The Proud Soros

“Drucken, is there anything abnormal in Russia? Are the people we contacted following our orders?” Soros swirled his wine and asked.

“There are no abnormalities in Russia. I think those stupid Russians still thought that their country’s economy is growing.” Drucken, Miller replied. When the Russians know what is going on, it will be too late!

The Russian military might be strong, but their economy is not doing well. Countries that depend on export are the most vulnerable.

This time, Russia will follow the Southeast Asian countries’ footsteps. The US is now the strongest in their military power and economy, and Russia will never catch up.

“Ok. We must buy more future contracts and let others follow us. When Ruble’s rates had increased by 10%, their stock index must increase by at least 20%.” Soros instructed.

“We will be using high leverage this time for higher returns.” Drucken Miller suggested.

“Sure. We have to increase our profits, and it will be easier for us to suppress Rubles and Russia stock index.” Soros agrees to Drucken Miller’s suggestion.

This time, Soros is confident that he will not fail as Feng Yu is not around to disrupt his plans. With so many international speculators participating, Soros can afford to take on more risks.

When Soros and Feng Yu were speculating on Southeast Asian currencies, Feng Yu’s profits are much higher than Soros. Soros is still feeling sore over this.

This time, Soros is determined to get the highest profit possible. If his plan goes on smoothly, he will get more than three times of profits, and can become the newest World’s top billionaire with 50 billion USD worth of assets!

Bill Gates, Feng Yu, Warren Buffett can only look up to him!

This status will increase the reputation of the Quantum Fund and will increase the number of people investing with the Quantum Fund. Soros’s Quantum Fund will be the biggest and strongest investment fun in the world, and Soros will be the world’s top fund manager.

Maybe Soros can also build up a prominence family-like Rothschild family and Rockefeller’s family. His wealth can be passed down generations after generations!

<Forbes> does not only have a billionaire list. They also have a wealthiest families list. Soros is listed on the billionaire list, but his family could not make it on the family list. Yes. Superman Li is Asia’s second wealthiest man behind Feng Yu, but both of them did not make it on the wealthiest families’ list too. Instead, it was the Fu Family that is ranked first on Asia’s wealthiest families list.

Based on the rules, the wealth must be passed down through three generations before it can be considered as a wealthy family. But the Fu Family is different. Fu Guangzheng’s grandfather is a successful businessman in Hong Kong. Fu Rongqi’s generation is also doing very well, and among the third generation, Fu Guangzheng stands out among his peers. The Fu Family’s third generation still have a few others that are outstanding, and the Fu Family is Hong Kong’s number one family!

Soros’s sons are working in his company, and he believes that he can pass down his inheritance before he dies.

Many people are in the finance trade, but less than one percent of them are considered good at it, and only a handful out of this one percent is considered a genius.

Soros felt Feng Yu is outstanding and can be considered on par with him. Fu Rongqi’s standard is around his subordinates.

Soros had thought that if he can make Feng Yu fall into his trap and made him suffer a massive loss, he might be able to recruit Feng Yu as his subordinate.

If the Quantum Fund has such a talented young fund manager, the fund will last much longer. Even after Soros’s retirement, the fund will still be managed by someone capable.

Of course, Soros is willing to give Feng Yu some shares if the latter is willing to work for him. But the majority of the profits must go to the Soros family!

……

“Brother Ki, how is it? Have you inform the higher-ups about our plan?”

Kirilenko suppressed his excitement. “Yes. The higher-ups had agreed, but they still need to discuss the details.

“Terrific! This time, Soros will pay a heavy price, and those international speculators will know better than to mess with Russia!” Feng Yu said.

“Hahaha… That right. Russia is not like those small countries in Southeast Asia. They are seeking death by coming here to mess around! All the money they made from those countries will go to us!”

Feng Yu laughed and shook his head. Brother Ki seems to forget that they had also made high profits from those countries.

“Brother Ki, you have to make sure that news of this plan is not leaked. I will spread some fake news to make Soros think that I am still defending Hong Kong.”

“Don’t worry. Nothing will be leaked. Soros will be suffering significant losses this time!” Kirilenko does not like Soros for a long time ago.

Feng Yu said that if everything goes according to their plan, Soros will lose all his profits from Southeast Asia and might even make him and the Quantum Fund suffer massive losses.

When that happens, Soros’s wealth will shrink significantly and will no longer be known as a legend in finance! He will lose all his fame and reputation!

After hanging up, Feng Yu called He Zhaoji into his office. “Old He, we can make our next move. Are you all ready?”

“We are prepared a long time ago.” He Zhaoji was excited. If they make this move, Soros will suffer high losses!

In the finance sector, receiving false information can result in massive losses. Sometimes, a piece of wrong information can let someone lose all their investments!

“Since you all are prepared, go ahead. Remember, you must make the other party believe!” Feng Yu reminded.

“Don’t worry. Soros will surely fall for this trap!” He Zhaoji replied.

After Feng Yu and his allies leave the Asian Financial Crisis, Soros had attacked those Southeast Asian Countries again, and become more arrogant.

An arrogant and proud person will let their current results and success get into their head and can’t think clearly.

This is why Soros might not see through Feng Yu’s simple trap, and Feng Yu will win him again!

Translator’s note:

Rothschild family

John D. Rockefeller

List of wealthiest families

Chapter 992 – How did this happen?

“Dad, Feng says to wait for a while. Our returns will be higher if Soros dumps in more money.” Kirilenko said.

“Are you sure? Do you know our country’s debt is more than 130 billion USD, and our foreign reserves are only 13 billion USD? Our negative assets are worth less than 30 billion USD. We are unable to defend against Soros!” Senchenko said.

Although Senchenko is with the military, in Russia, military personnel has a say in politics. He was praised by his higher-ups for passing Kirilenko’s message to them.

“That’s why we are using Feng’s strategy. Our short-term bonds and external debts are too high, and our economy might collapse anytime. The demand for crude oil, natural gas, minerals, etc. had decreased, and the prices are dropping. This year, our country’s income will drop drastically!” Kirilenko replied. “Using Feng’s strategy will let us make money from the international speculators to make up our country’s shortfall and stop inflation!”

Senchenko looks at Kirilenko and then turns to his eldest son. “What do you think?”

“Dad, I think what Brother says is right. Also, when it comes to business, he is much better than me, and he is Russian. He will not harm Russia’s interest in his benefits!”

Senchenko is glad not because his eldest son is doing well in the military, and his youngest son is Russia’s top tycoon. He is glad that both his sons are close to each other.

Since Kirilenko is announced as Russia’s wealthiest man, there is a rumor that Kirilenko becomes wealthy because Senchenko had abused his power to help him.

Of course, the higher-ups had investigated and knew this had not happened. Most of Kirilenko’s wealth comes from his businesses overseas, and he had contributed to Russia’s economic growth. For example, he had set up electronics factories, automobile factories, etc. His mining company is the only mining company in the country that does not have accidents.

This is evidence that Kirilenko is different from other Russian tycoons. The other tycoons had acquired the country’s mines and mined aggressively for profits.

The higher-ups knew the people would not think this way. Luckily, over the past few years, Kirilenko had learned from Feng Yu. He had made large donations in Russia, and it had softened the impact of these rumors.

“Since your brothers say so, I will report this to the higher-ups.”

The Russian government had spoken to a few economic experts on Feng Yu’s strategy, and everyone felt it could work. This strategy will stop the international speculators from making money from Russia and prevent severe inflation. Russia’s economy had just become better last year, and nothing must happen to it this year!

This year, Russia’s unemployment rate had increased, and GDP per capita had decreased. Many investors are preparing to dump their Russian assets, including mineral mines, and withdraw from Russia.

At this time, Kirilenko also acted. He signed contracts with a few American companies to take over their oil fields and mineral mines. But he insisted that he does not have USD and want to pay using Rubles.

The payment period will start at the end of August. Any delays, Kirilenko will have to compensate them 1% a week. If the delay is one month, the compensation will be 10%.

Kirilenko signed on the contract without hesitation, because he knows Ruble will depreciate greatly at the end of August.

These American companies thought Russia will be like those Southeast Asia countries and will have a standoff with Soros lasting a few months.

Some investors, who had reacted faster, had withdrawn their investments late last year. But after Russia implemented fiscal policies to stimulate its economy, many investors returned, and some took the opportunity to get some bargains.

Now, Russia’s stock index and Ruble’s rates are rising.

Russia had issued short-term bonds to improve its economy, and this is the sign of its economy improving. But the amount of bonds issued by Russia is over 70 billion USD!

Russia’s national debt and external debts are over 200 billion USD. After repaying the interests of their debts, Russia only has less than 40% of their annual income! How is Russia going to repay all her debts?!

Now, Soros and his men bringing large amounts of cash into the Russian market, and had stopped those bargain hunters. Russia’s stock market and Ruble’s exchange rate had risen because of them.

Many foreign funds that had left Russia returned, and Russia’s economy is improving.

Soros had invested tens of billion USD into Russia’s financial market. Part of the money is his, and some are from Quantum Fund. This amount is invested into stocks and futures, as he believes he will get high returns.

But at this moment, Russia announced a series of measures. No one had expected Russia to implement these measures!

Sovereign default!

Russia is going to default its external debts by 90 days, and their short-term bonds will be extended to three years.

This will lower Russia’s international credit ratings. Still, it will stabilize their internal problems and pass their problems to their creditors, like Germany.

Those countries’ banks had a large number of bad debts overnight, but these are not Russia’s problems.

At the same time, Russia announced they would lower Ruble’s exchange rate against USD by 50%! It will be adjusted from 1:6.2 to 1:9.5!

This means Ruble will depreciate by 50%. No one had expected this to happen.

Other countries had been trying to prevent the depreciation of their currencies. Still, Russia purposely lowered its exchange rate by 50% suddenly!

No one can react in time by these measures.

The ones, who bet Rubles will rise and had bought them, are crying now.

Especially those who used more than two times leverage will have margin call triggered. All their future contracts had become worthless papers!

Soros was pacing up and down in his office, mumbling to himself. “How did this happen? Why did things turn out this way?!”

Sovereign default

Chapter 993 – Western countries are implicated

Soros’ four fund managers are standing in a row in front of Soros. All of them are looking down, keeping quiet. Russia’s measures had caused them to suffer massive losses!

Simply put, they had bought long-position contracts on Rubles, and these contracts are all worthless now. Most of their long-position contracts on Russia stock index are also worthless, as Russia’s stock index plunged by more than 30%!

Of course, these drops will not happen suddenly. When Russia announced they would be lowering Ruble’s rates, they had to adjust according to the floating rates, but the Ruble exchange rates plummet suddenly. Soros’ men had no time to react and stop-loss, let alone short the rates.

Russia’s stock market and the bond market crashed. Soros and his men had bought lots of Russian bonds as they are planning to make money from them.

The series of measures implemented by Russia has stunned all the international speculators, but Soros’ losses are the highest!

“How much funds do we have left?” Soros asked.

“We still have around 6 billion USD, and some bonds and shares. If we sell our bonds and shares, we should raise around 10 billion.” Drucken Miller replied.

If the bond and share prices continue to fall, their fund will shrink.

“Boss, what should we do now? Short Rubles? It’s too late. Those brokerage had stop Ruble futures trading.”

The four fund managers had admitted defeat. They do not even have the capital to make a comeback.

Soros banged the table hard. “Who says we are finished?! We still have almost 10 billion USD! We still have not lost! Ruble’s depreciation will affect the whole European and US stock markets. There will be a chain reaction.”

Drucken Miller and the other three fund managers looked at each other. “Boss, you are saying that we should short the other countries’ financial markets?”

“That’s right. Not only will we short their markets, but we will also use higher leverage too. This way, we will help our clients recover their losses. If not, the Quantum Fund will be finished. All of us will be bankrupted!” Soros replied.

He is Soros! He will not lose! As long he has some money left, he can make a comeback!

Over the years as a fund manager, Soros has a habit of putting some of his money aside for emergencies. Without this emergency fund, he might be bankrupt now!

“Boss, Mr. Malfoy is calling.” Soros’ secretary entered the office.

“I will speak to him.” Soros picks up the phone on the table. “Malfoy, don’t worry. Your investment is safe. Yes… My promise of you getting at least 10% of profits will not change… that’s right. We had suffered some losses now, but we still stand a chance to make profits. Trust me and wait for about two weeks. I will return your money within two weeks. If you force me to return you your money now, you will not get back a single cent!”

After pacifying Malfoy, another call came in.

Soros continued to explain to his clients and wants them to trust him. Of course, his clients have no other choices except to trust him. If not, they can only get back less than half of their investments with Quantum Fund.

After hanging up, Soros ordered Drucken Miller and his men. “Sell away all our bonds and shares tomorrow, and transfer our funds to Germany and Belarus financial market. This is our only chance to recover our losses!”

……

“Brother Feng, Russia’s measures are too extreme.” Fu Guangzheng was stunned. The measures will cause Russia to lose their credit ratings, and lesser people will do business with them.

“Although these measures are extreme, they are very effective. At least, this is the best solution for Russia now.” Feng Yu replied.

Currently, Russia has a bank run, and people are hoarding all sorts of daily necessities. The wealthy people are trying to exchange USD with their Rubles, causing Rubles to plummet further.

Russia’s unemployment rate also increased, and everyone’s income will fall.

Russia’s default on its bonds had a significant impact. Feng Yu is sure that Russia will not repay their sovereign debts even after three months. They need to use their funds to stabilize the country first.

“Since you know about this, why did you ask everyone to short other countries’ market conservatively? If we use high leverages, our returns will be many times more!” Fu Guangzheng asked.

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng and asked. “What if Russia did not adopt this method?”

“Huh? Didn’t you say they will surely use this method? You also mentioned that this is the best solution.” Fu Guangzheng asked weakly.

“I said that if it’s me, I will use this method. But I am not the policymaker for Russia. If they don’t use this tactic, and other countries decided to support Russia by giving them loans and assistance, we will suffer high losses when we short the other countries’ market with high leverages!”

Feng Yu is also not sure whether Russia will implement this extreme policy. After all, Russia is a superpower and not those small country. They will be condemned by the rest of the nations for defaulting their debts!

That’s why Feng Yu notify Professor Liang and Fu Rongqi to ask them to build a small portfolio in other countries’ financial markets and be prepared to increase their investments anytime. But all of them didn’t dare to use high leverages and had hedged against their positions.

This will lower their returns, but it will lower their risks too. Also, their invested amount is high, and they will still get good profits.

“Then why are we not going into Belarus or Ukraine market? Those markets should be greatly affected by Russia’s measures.” Fu Guangzheng asked curiously. Because of Kirilenko, they are not attacking Russia, but those two countries should be fine.

“Brother Ki and I have lots of investments in these two countries, and many of Brother Ki’s partners are from there. More importantly, these two countries are close to Russia, and they might use extreme methods to wipe out our investments.”

Fu Guangzheng thought for a while and nodded. That’s right. These two countries are former Soviet Union allies and are very close to Russia. It is not wise to touch them.

What Russia did had caused a significant impact on those two countries. Their relationship will be soured in the future.

Making profits from these western countries is considered a good deal. Although Feng Yu had also informed Li Zekai about this, the Li family’s investment is much lesser than the Fu family. After this round, Fu Rongqi’s wealth will catch up with Superman Li, and the Fu family’s total wealth will increase further. They will further secure their status as Asia’s wealthiest family!

Chapter 994 – Plans to buy at low prices

The Asian Financial Crisis had affected the whole world, and Ruble’s depreciation caused Europe and the US stock markets to crash.

Some investors immediately withdraw their investments to avoid the risks, while some become bankrupted.

Even expert investors like Soros suffered massive losses, let alone other investors. Those investors might not have tried to make money from the Russian markets, but they also suffered losses when their countries’ stock markets crashed. Those countries’ stock markets had been doing well before this crash.

Most of the investors were gloomy, but Feng Yu, who is having dinner at Fu Rongqi’s house, and the Fu Family were all smiles.

Although their profits are not very high this time when everyone is losing money, and they are going to be the only winners.

“Nephew Feng, we will be earning another sum of money again, and Soros will suffer massive losses. We don’t have to worry about Hong Kong anymore.” Fu Rongqu laughed.

“Second Uncle Fu, Hong Kong might not be safe too. Hong Kong’s economy is also affected, and the stock market had plummeted. Although Soros is not involved, it is not looking good.”

Fu Rongqi scolded. “Why are you so optimistic every time, and how do you know that Soros had suffered massive losses?”

Fu Rongqu asked curiously. “You all are the ones who said Soros had entered the Russia market to hunt for bargains. Now, Russia’s financial market had collapsed, how can Soros not suffer any losses? I think Soros might be almost bankrupt, right?”

Fu Rongbing added. “Even if Soros did not lose all his money, but he still must answer to his Quantum Fund’s clients. He had guaranteed his investors their capital, and I’m afraid he had to use all his assets to compensate his clients.”

Fu Rongqi looked at everyone and asked Fu Guangzheng. “Guangzheng, what do you think?”

“Uncle, Soros is a world-renowned hedge fund manager and was said to be the world’s best fund manager before. He will surely hedge against his investment. Although Ruble had depreciated and Russia’s stock market crashed, he should not have lost all his money. We can predict the other countries’ stock market will be affected, so can he.”

Fu Rongqi nodded. Under Professor Liang’s guidance, Fu Guangzheng had been improving and had matured a lot. He looks more like Fu Rongqi’s successor now.

Fu Rongqi looks at his two younger brothers. “Did you all hear that? How can Soros not know about this? Whenever we invest, we will also keep some of our money for an emergency or to make a comeback. Do you all think Soros will not do that? If he can build up a short-position portfolio in other countries, he should recover his losses. Maybe he can still make some profits if he has the guts.”

At this time, it does not matter whether Soros has the guts to take risks. He has no choice, or he cannot recover his losses.

This is like gambling, but Soros must make this bet, and he stands a high chance of winning!

Fu Rongqu and Fu Rongbing look at each other and smile. Fu Rongjing did not say anything and just sat there smiling. If Guangzheng had not told him about this, he would also have the same thoughts as his second and third brothers.

Money can be earned quickly in the financial market, and this made Fu Rongjing more determined to let Fu Guangzheng marry Liang Yin. With Professor Liang’s help, all of them will earn more money in the future, and he does not need to worry about Guangzheng. His elder son Guangxian is not doing as well as Guangzheng, and he wishes to leave more money for him.

Fu Rongqi had hinted that the next head of the family, will be Fu Guangzheng.

Fu Rongjing was full of respect for his eldest brother. If he is the current head of the family, his successor will be one of his sons and not his nephews!

This decision will become the criteria of the family. Future heads of the family will be pick base on their talent and success. This criterion will guarantee the Fu family will have the most suitable leader to lead them in the future.

The stronger the family, the more benefits they will get. Their social status will also increase!

Fu Rongjing turned and took a glance at Feng Yu. If Fu Rongqi had not represented the Fu family to make peace with Feng Yu, the Fu Family might not become the wealthiest family in Asia, and Guangzheng will not become the next successor.

When the media reported about Fu Guangzheng, they will also mention Fu Rongjing. This made him proud!

“Nephew Feng, what are you going to invest next after this? Are you still going to invest in futures, or are you investing in the stock markets?” Fu Rongqi asked and laughed.

Feng Yu wiped his mouth and smiled at Fu Rongqi. “Uncle Fu, you already know the answer, why are you asking me?” The future market is too volatile recently. It is tiring to monitor it, and the profits will not be high.”

“Hahaha… seems like we are on the same page again. I am going to invest in the South Korea stock market. Of course, if there are some good companies, I will consider buying them. I am also looking at Malaysia, Singapore, and a few other countries. Are you interested?”

The Fu family has many investments in Southeast Asia like Singapore and Malaysia. With sufficient funds, it’s normal to increase their investments there. But Feng Yu did not expect the Fu Family to consider South Korea first.

South Korea is also Feng Yu’s target.

South Korea’s internet technology is one of the best in the world. In Feng Yu’s previous life, South Korea has the best internet infrastructure in the world. They are better than the US, Japan, and many other countries. Their software, PCs, PC games, home appliances, etc. are among the best in the world.

As PCs and the internet develops, the video games market, etc. will have high potential, and Feng Yu had a plan in his mind. He wants to acquire WeMade and Actoz Soft, the companies that developed the PC game, Legend of Mir.

In the future, Feng Yu wants to build his gaming empire, and develop all the popular titles from his previous life himself. Also, he can send his people over to these two companies for training. After they master all the techniques, the Chinese can develop all the popular online games!

“I am also considering investing in South Korean companies. I love to play PC games and is thinking of acquiring one or two companies to develop the games I like. Also, I will be investing in electronics or buying some technologies from these companies. Of course, I will also invest in some European and US companies.”

You like to play PC games, and you want to buy a PC game company? Fu Rongqi thought about Feng Yu’s age and felt he might still want to have fun. Developing PC games can make some money, but he does not believe that it will be extremely profitable.

“Hahaha… alright. Let me know if we picked the same companies. We will withdraw and will not fight with you!” Fu Rongqi laughed.

“Thank you.” Feng Yu smiled. He knows Fu Rongqi will never know how high the profits from PC games will be in the future.

Chapter 995 – Quantum Fund Crisis

When Feng Yu and the rest are laughing, someone is despair.

Soros thought he still has a chance to stage a comeback. Although the fund he has is not a lot, if he managed it well, he should recover his capital.

But at this time, an internal problem arises in Quantum Fund!

It was unsure when this has started. A rumor appeared within Quantum Fund that Soros had lost all their clients’ money, and will be bankrupt soon.

The promised payments Soros gave to those brokers will not be fulfilled. The brokers were getting annual salaries and not monthly salaries. They were not paid monthly, and they are not looking forward to any bonuses. They want their salaries and commission based on their contracts.

These few days, many Quantum Fund brokers had requested to get an advanced salary, and most of them asked for a year’s salary.

In the past, this will not be a problem. Even if all the brokers asked for advanced salaries, Quantum Fund would pay them. After all, Quantum Fund is rich.

But now, it is different. All of Quantum Fund’s money had been invested into the Futures market to recoup their losses. They can’t even afford to let their brokers get an advanced salary of one month, let alone one year!

The office’s operational funds for this month had also shrunk. Soros even used his properties, cars as collateral for loans to invest in Quantum Fund.

Using Quantum Fund’s reserve cash, Soros can only recover his capital at most. He had promised his investors at least 10% in profits.

If Soros cannot make profits for his investors, he must use his own money to make up the shortfall. Quantum Fund will shrink significantly, and Soros will drop out from the <Forbes> Wealthiest list.

Quantum Fund had encountered a crisis in the past. At that time, many investors had withdrawn their investments, and Soros bought out Quantum Fund. He was overjoyed as he had gained full control of this fund.

But this time, it is different. Soros had suffered significant losses, and might even be bankrupted. It is too hard for him to make a comeback!

Soros does not know why this is happening. His company’s brokers had trusted and look up to him. All of them had been obedient in the past, but this time, all of them seems like they are trying to revolt against him!

“Boss, what should we do? If we don’t give them their salaries, our operations will be in trouble.” Drucken Miller is panicking. If all the brokers left, how are they going to manage so many contracts? Furthermore, all these contracts are from many accounts.

The Futures market is volatile, and they might suffer losses if the trades are not entered in time.

Ruble’s sudden depreciation is a good example. The fund managers and brokers cannot react in time and caused massive losses.

“Pacify them! You must calm them. Tell them that in another two weeks, our cash flow issues will be settled. Not only will we release their salaries, but we will also even give them a bonus!” Soros lit his second cigar to calm himself.

“Boss, I think you should speak to them. Only you can calm those brokers. Miller and I had spoken to them, but they refused to listen.”

“That’s right. Boss, we trust you, and the brokers also trust you. They might not trust what we said.”

“Boss, should we fire one or two of them as a warning to others?”

The four fund managers gave Soros suggestions. Their interests are in line with Soros, and most of their money had been invested in Quantum Fund.

“Hmph! When we made money last year, we had given them high bonuses and commission. Their bonuses are higher than their salaries. How can they do this now?! We should teach them a lesson!” Drucken Miller scolded.

Soros had regretted giving those brokers high bonuses last Christmas. If not, the company will still have some money to tide them over these tough times. He should have kept some of his investor’s profits in the company, and they will have more funds now.

But maybe if Soros did those things, his losses will be higher this time. He might not even have the chance to recover.

Now, it is not time for them to regret it. They must think of a solution to get past this crisis. If Quantum Fund can get a large investment now, Soros can recover his losses and make some profits.

“Boss, you all should watch the program on XX TV station now!” Soros’ secretary entered the room, shouting.

Soros quickly switched on the TV and changed to that channel. It is a TV program on finance, and Soros’ eyes twitched when he saw a broker on the program!

Soros looks at Miller. Miller was also shocked. This broker is the spy they sent to Feng Yu’s side. Why is this person on TV, and they are unaware?

“I said I understand more about Quantum Funds than you all. I had worked in a subsidiary of Quantum Fund before and is familiar with their operations. This time, I am sure that Quantum Fund had lost all their clients’ money.”

“That’s right. Quantum Fund will have reserves, but you all can check those trading accounts. The reserves are Quantum Fund’s accounts and not their clients. This means that they had lost all their clients’ money, but their own money is still around. Their clients can sue them, but before the case is over, the Boss of Quantum fund and the managers can still live luxuriously. Those investors will be the ones suffering the losses. Even if Quantum Fund returns its investments in the future, will those investors not suffer any losses? What about the interest and opportunity cost?”

“Miller! What is going on?!” Soros shouted angrily.

“Boss, I don’t know about this. But I am sure this guy had betrayed us!”

Drucken Miller is furious. He had paid this man a large amount, but in the end, this man betrayed them! He suddenly realized that even the person they sent over to Feng Yu’s side could betray them, what about the people in their company? Will they also betray the company?

“Boss, there must be a spy in our company!” Drucken Miller shouted. The person who planted the spy or had bribed someone in the company must be Feng Yu.

The other three fund managers were stunned. Soros snubbed his cigar with all his strength.

“Investigate! Find out who is the spy immediately! I will calm those brokers. You all must do whatever you can to lead the rest to follow our plans. These two weeks are critical!”

Soros stormed out of the office. Drucken Miller and the rest looked at each other, before following him.

Chapter 996 – The Happy Brother Ki

When Soros and his men are trying to solve their internal issues, Kirilenko is enjoying his life.

Russia had adjusted their policies on some industries, and the proportions of shares foreign investors can own in their companies. As foreign investors withdraw from Russia, the market value of many Russian companies starts to fall.

At this time, Feng Yu flew to Russia. Kirilenko and Feng Yu are going to invest in a few mines.

“Feng, did you see it? This mountain will be ours in the future. Do you know how much we spent?” Kirilenko asked proudly.

“If we calculate its base on the mines’ productions, it should cost at least 1 billion USD.”

“No… we are using Rubles to calculate. I had spent 1.1 billion USD worth of Rubles, but now, it is only slightly more than 700 million USD.”

Feng Yu raised his brows as Brother Ki had gotten a good deal. He wonders how he convinced the other party to agree to use Rubles in this transaction.

This is a mountain full of minerals, and it will belong to their mining company in the future. Today, Kirilenko had brought Feng Yu along is not only to tell him that he had bought a mountain.

Kirilenko points to a map on the table. “Some of our mines are too far away from here, and I will not bring you there. Look here. This oil field is ours. This area is full of coals, and they are ours too. This area produces natural gas, and it also belongs to us. Also, this area has special metals. Lastly, this mine is the most ordinary iron mine, but there are high iron deposits in there!”

Kirilenko drew circles on the map as he explains to Feng Yu.

“How much did we spend on all these mines?”

“Around 5 billion USD. All the contracts are signed. What’s left is for you to transfer the money.” Kirilenko said excitedly.

“Ok. I will make a call later to get my men to wire the money over.” Feng Yu nodded. The value of these mines will shoot up in one or two years later, and these mines will worth several times what they paid.

The only regret Feng Yu has is Russia had limited foreigners from owning more than 50% shares of important resources. Certain minerals have a cap of 25%. Their mining company has the approval to mine special minerals, which is used for making weapons, falls under this new regulation. That’s why Feng Yu had to give out 2% of his shares to his Russian management staff.

Of course, Kirilenko had compensated Feng Yu. This 2 % of shares are considered bonuses from them.

The management of the mining company is overjoyed. This mining company is worth almost a billion USD, and 2% is around 200 million USD.

Although this amount is split among dozens of staff, each of them will get at least 1 million USD worth of shares. Some even get over 20 million USD worth of shares!

The staff was touched and expressed loyalty to the company.

“Leo, our mining company, is not making profits these few years, and you all can only get basic salaries. These are what you all deserve. After all, you all had made great contributions to the company. Of course, you all must also thank Feng. Without him, our company will not exist!”

Leo and the rest of the company’s management expressed their gratitude to Feng Yu, but Feng Yu’s face changed.

F**k! Why are all of you raising your glasses? You all are drinking Vodka, and I don’t like to drink!

But Feng Yu had to accept their toast. He drank a small glass of Vodka and said he prefers to drink beer.

After Feng Yu said that, he regretted it. Damn! Can’t you all use normal glasses? Why are you all bring out beer mugs?!

These beer mugs are not normal beer mugs. These are 1-liter beer mugs!

Feng Yu forced himself to finish one mug of beer and went hiding in the bathroom. He wonders if this drinking culture is only in Kirilenko’s companies, or all Russian companies have this culture?!

I am only here to take a look. Why did it become a drinking session?!

After a while, Kirilenko entered the bathroom. He should have drunk lots of beer too.

“Feng, why are you still here? Many people are waiting for you to drink.”

Feng Yu panicked. “Errr… My stomach is not feeling well and cannot drink.”

“Such a pity. I had asked my men to bring ten barrels of beer over. Are you all alright? Do you want to visit the Company’s doctor?” Kirilenko asked.

“No need… I will be fine after some rest.”

“Alright. Wait for me. I will have a toast with them and will send you back.”

Feng Yu is happy with this arrangement. He always felt that drinking in moderation is fine and does not need to get drunk every time. But Brother Ki argues that if one is not going to get drunk, what’s the point of drinking?

After a while, Kirilenko returned to Feng Yu with a few men behind him. All of them are holding on to a few bottles of Vodka.

“Feng, everyone is so happy today. In the future, we will be Russia’s biggest private mining company! Maybe we will become the world’s biggest mining company too!”

“Brother Ki, did you remember I asked you to buy insurance for everyone and to look out for their safety? All lives are precious!” Feng Yu reminded Kirilenko, as he is afraid Kirilenko will ignore his reminders.

“Don’t worry. I had instructed Leo and his men to do it. Our mining company is currently the role model for safety in the mining industry, and I will not save on insurance. Everyone in the company is our fellow Russians! I will not let anything happen to them!”

Feng Yu nodded. The company can get high profits and does not need to save money on the safety features of their mines.

“Oh, I have a piece of good news for you. Our supermarkets have started operations!”

“So fast? Didn’t you tell me that you were still sourcing for locations last month?” Feng Yu was puzzled. Even if you found suitable locations so fast, but what about the renovations? Promotions and marketing? One month is not enough to do all these.

“Hahaha… I had reached a deal with Russia’s second-biggest supermarket chain boss. We will invest in this chain, and you and he will own 30% shares each, while I will own 40%. Isn’t this easier?”

This idea is suggested by one of Kirilenko’s men. Although they will have to spend slightly more money, Russia’s economy is not doing well now. That boss had suffered losses, and can’t get any loans from the banks, due to his outstanding loans. The Russian banks had started strict measures on their loans now.

This allowed Kirilenko to invest into this supermarket chain. The supermarket chain immediately set up twenty more outlets at the locations they scouted, and they are now Russia’s biggest supermarket chain.

“Feng, I am very happy today! Drink with me tonight!”

Feng Yu gave Kirilenko a stare. Damn! You want me to drink with you again?! Can I drink tea instead?

Chapter 997 – Business planning in Russia

Feng Yu used the excuse of not feeling well not to drink. Kirilenko can only drink by himself, while Feng Yu drinks tea.

Tea taste so much better than alcohol, why doesn’t everyone drink tea? It will make your body warm and feels better.

“Brother Ki, we had invested so much money into our supermarket chain, why you are you saying we are going to open 20 more supermarkets?” Feng Yu is puzzled. Kirilenko and Feng Yu’s investment is enough to open up 40 more supermarkets, and Russia’s property prices are not as high as China.

“That supermarket chain had high debt, and they used bank loans to develop. Part of our investments is used to repay loans. This year’s economy is not doing well, and they had to set aside a sum of money to settle the payments for their goods.” Kirilenko bottomed up a glass of Vodka and said.

Feng Yu made a rough estimation of this supermarket chain’s scale against his investment and felt this is a good investment. Most importantly, this supermarket chain will become Russia’s biggest supermarket chain, and this status will help with its development.

“Brother Ki, do you still remember what we discussed? This supermarket chain will not only focus on Russia. We must also set up branches in other East European countries. This chain will become the world’s biggest retail corporation.

If they can set up branches in those countries, the scale will bigger and will have a wider variety of goods. Brand awareness will also be increased.

“I know. I am still negotiating with two supermarket chains in Ukraine and Belarus to acquire them. But we must work with people over there. Don’t worry. We will still be using our supermarket chain’s brand.”

Kirilenko had wanted to set up his branches initially. But after surveying those regions, he realized it is not easy. Someone else had set up supermarket chains earlier than him, and most of the good locations were taken up. But luckily, those two supermarket chains are quite small and not expensive.

Also, the depreciation of Rubles had affected Ukraine and Belarus. These two countries’ currencies had depreciated by 35% and 70%, respectively. All the countries in the region were affected, as most of their currencies were pegged to Russia’s Rubles.

The economic impact on these countries also allowed Kirilenko to become East Europe’s biggest retailer!

Other than Ukraine and Belarus, supermarkets had just started in the rest of the countries. Kirilenko is confident he can beat these companies or acquire them easily.

Feng Yu is pleased. Kirilenko still has many capable subordinates, and they might be better at managing companies than Feng Yu. Their only flaw is they do not have the foresight like Feng Yu.

“Bother Ki, which industry is the Russian Government promoting now? I am talking about preferential policies for investors.”

“Construction, construction materials, wood processing, food products, textile, etc. which are mostly light industries. The only industry for heavy industry is Automobile manufacturing. I think the telecommunication industry also has some subsidies. What’s wrong? Did you think of some good investments?” Kirilenko puts down his glass and looks at Feng Yu excitedly.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko had cooperated in the automobile manufacturing and telecommunications industries, and only the light industries were left. Feng Yu had already invested in the minerals and precious metal resources and does not have anything good to invest now.

Feng Yu thought for a while. Even if there are no preferential policies for investors, he still wants to invest in some industries.

“Brother Ki, are you interested in food processing? The returns might not be high, but it will be stable.”

“Food processing? Never mind. My men had looked into this industry before, and the return is too low. Russia is different from China. Our food is not as delicious as China.”

If the Russian do not have demands for high-quality foodstuff, the profits will not be high.

Since Brother Ki is not interested, Feng Yu gave up on this idea. After all, this will allow Beidacang to enter the Russian market.

“What about the furniture industry?”

“Furniture? Wood processing industry? It will not work. In Russia, there are still many small local furniture factories. Although you are good at building brands, the sales might not be good. Some big furniture factories from West Europe did not do well in the East European markets. Only a few high-end brands are doing not bad, and the segment is too small for us to enter.” Kirilenko shook his head. He had looked into this industry too.

“What about building materials?? We have so many mines, and if only extract precious metals, it will be too wasteful. We can set up a metal processing company to process our raw materials, and we also have the permits to do it.”

“You want to increase our scale? But base on this scale, our production will exceed the demand in Russia, and we must export it.”

“I think this industry has high potential. After all, our automobile factory needs lots of metal, and my companies in China will take up a significant portion of our production.” Feng Yu said. He can also sell his metals to some Chinese companies at lower rates as contributions to the nation.

“Ok. I will listen to you. I will get my men to work on this and start production next year!”

“We can also set up a chemical plant. Not only can we use it to refine our crude oil, but we can also produce daily necessities and cosmetics. You should know how much it cost for a set of branded cosmetics in the US and West Europe. The profit in cosmetics is very high. All we need is to build up a brand, and we can get a share of the market.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, cosmetics product sales in Asia is the highest. Just China alone, cosmetics sales are increasing every year, and China is the biggest market for cosmetics in the world!

The Chinese prefer imported goods, especially from Europe. Russia is also a European country. Once this cosmetics company occupies East Europe and China’s market, it will be one of the biggest cosmetics manufacturers in the world!

The investment for oil refinery is high. Without Feng Yu’s investment, Kirilenko will not afford to set up an oil refinery. Now, they are going to invest in daily products, and the investment will increase further.

Luckily, Russia still has lots of people trained in the chemical industry.

“Ok. I will listen to you on this too. This chemical plant must also be the biggest! But Feng, I might not have enough money to invest in this.”

“You can get a loan first. The profits from our mines, supermarkets, electronic factories, automobile, will be in after two years.” Feng Yu knew Kirilenko wants more shares, but Feng Yu does not want to lose out in the venture too.

“Alright. That’s all? Do you still have other new investments you are interested in?”

“That’s all for now. I believe once these companies are developed, you will become Europe’s wealthiest man!

Kirilenko’s eyes brighten up. Europe’s wealthiest man! This title sounds terrific!

Chapter 998 – Brother Ki also has his troubles

After the two of them discussed their cooperation, Feng Yu realized that his investments in Russia this time is quite high.

Just the mining company, each of them will increase their investments by over 2 billion USD. The investments in the supermarkets, chemical plant, metal processing is quite high too. Other businessmen might not even afford one of these investments.

Before these investments, they had invested in electronic factories, an internet company, etc. Now, even the wealthiest man in Russia is planning to get loans.

“Feng, I need to confirm something with you. It is about that guy, Putin, you mentioned before. Are you sure he can reach that position?”

This information is critical for Kirilenko’s father and his family. If they stood on the wrong side, his father would lose the opportunity to move up.

“What’s wrong? That guy had just become the First Deputy Prime Minister. You can see how fast he moved up the ranks. Isn’t this enough to prove it?” Feng Yu replied confidently.

“But that there are three First Deputy Prime Ministers, and he has the least power.”

“Look at his resume. He is one of Yeltsin’s most trusted aides. At this time next year, the word ‘Deputy’ will be removed from his title.”

Kirilenko had doubts. Can someone get promoted so fast? But he had to admit that Putin’s promotion is very fast. Such promotion speed can only happen during war times.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Putin is famous for being a tough guy and had been on <Forbes> World’s Most Powerful People list for many years.

Since Putin comes into power, he had never been left out from the list.

Kirilenko trusted Feng Yu. Although he does not know how Feng Yu analyzes the Russian politicians, all his previous predictions were accurate. Feng Yu is also accurate about the events in the US.

Major historical events had not diverted from Feng Yu’s previous life. Feng Yu can still make use of these events to develop his businesses.

“Alright. Feng, I will tell my father to support Putin!”

Kirilenko and his family had analyzed the situation before. Even if they had placed their bets on the wrong person, Putin would also be the second-in-command. After all, Putin is from Yeltsin’s faction.

Senchenko’s age had determined his career progression. He can only get promoted one more time, but Kirilenko’s older brother is different. He is still young, and if he can move up the ranks further, it will be beneficial to Kirilenko and his family.

Not only Kirilenko and his family were puzzled. Many high-ranking officials were also puzzled by Putin. How did a KGB intelligence officer move up the ranks so fast? He is still so young!

“Brother Ki, you all will not regret this decision.” Feng Yu replied with a mysterious smile.

The better Kirilenko is in Russia, the higher returns Feng Yu will get from his investments there. Feng Yu will also stand to gain when Brother Ki’s family status increases. If not, Feng Yu will not tell Kirilenko and his family about all these.

Feng Yu is not used to seeing Kirilenko speaking seriously with him. He still prefers the jovial Kirilenko.

“Brother Ki, how is the construction of your mansion?” Feng Yu tried to lighten the mood by talking about other things.

“Everything is going smoothly, but the progression is not fast.” Because of Russia’s geographical location, construction can only be ongoing for a few months every year.

“Isn’t this what you wanted? You also don’t want to get married so early, right?” Feng Yu laughed.

“Marriage will not tie me down. I am also not in Russia all the time. I can go to Hong Kong, the US, etc.” Kirilenko raised his brows and said proudly.

Feng Yu shook his head. Hong Kong had become Kirilenko’s second home. Feng Yu decided that he should not introduce his friends to Fu Guangwei in the future!

Kirilenko took a big gulp from his glass and said with a sad face. “Feng, I noticed that recently, I am not as happy as before.”

“What’s wrong? Did you encounter some troubles recently?” Feng Yu wanted to tell him. ‘What is bothering you? Hurry up and tell me so that I can laugh at you.’

“In the past, I do not have a lot of money, but I feel I do not lack anything. I can go hunting, fishing, play cards with my friends every day. Wherever I go out, there will be a car sending me. I get to eat delicious food every day, and I can buy anything I want.”

“You can still go hunting, fishing now. Is there anything you want to buy, but can’t afford now?”

“But now, I feel that my money is never enough. Not only I need to invest in businesses, and I still need to make profitless investments for my family. I even face restrictions when I want to have fun with other girls.”

Huh? It must be the last point that makes you unhappy, right?

“Brother Ki, if you think your money is not enough, we can hold back on some investments. Making money is for enjoying life. You can learn from me, and let your men run your companies. This way, you will have more time for yourself to do the things you like.”

Although Kirilenko had hired many professional managers, he still holds on to most of the authority. Most of the matters still need to get his approvals. He doesn’t seem to trust his men a lot.

“What do you do most of your time? I seldom see you play Mahjong.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Who told you that all Chinese like to play Mahjong? Feng Yu only play Mahjong once in a while to past time and does not play it every day.

“You can take up some sports like swimming, basketball, etc. or play chess, or do some reading. You can start a new hobby instead. Don’t you find it bored to drink every day?”

“Drinking is not boring.” To Kirilenko, drinking is the most interesting past time. “But it’s been a while since I exercise. Yes. After I bought the basketball team, I will play with them. I was the best player in my school’s basketball team.”

Feng Yu still wanted to persuade Kirilenko, but he suddenly heard Kirilenko’s loud snoring from the sofa.

WTF?! This is my room, and why are you sleeping here? Hurry and wake up! How am I going to sleep with your snoring?!

Kirilenko was fast asleep and wouldn’t wake up!

Feng Yu can only take Kirilenko’s room keys from his pocket and sleep in his room!

Feng Yu made a mental note to himself to not let Kirilenko drink in his room and chat with him at night in the future!

Vladimir Putin

Chapter 999 –Technology firms

The impact of the Asian Financial Crisis had weakened, as all the countries were working together towards recovery, and had the support of international organizations.

But those countries’ incomes had plummet compared to previous years. Countries, like Thailand and Indonesia, were seriously impacted by the crisis, had their income dropped by over 40%!

This year is also not a good year for those countries. China is one of the few economies that were not seriously affected by the crisis.

Hong Kong was also affected by the crisis. Still, the Fu Family, Li Family, and the other tycoon families’ wealth had increased. Overall, Hong Kong’s economy is still stable.

In this life, Hong Kong’s property market and stock market did not crash. Hong Kong is still the financial hub of Asia and had overtaken Tokyo.

The impact of Russia’s extreme measures had also weakened. European stock markets also start to improve, and Feng Yu starts to settle his future contracts to withdraw his capital.

……

“Feng Yu, are you not going to invest in Hong Kong’s stock market? Hong Kong stock index will recover to over 13,000 points, and we had looked into a few companies’ stocks. These stocks should double in value by next year!” Professor Liang persuaded.

“Professor Liang, I trust your analysis, but I still think the US stock market will do better. Also, most of my money was invested in physical businesses, and I am planning to acquire some companies.”

“I also think the US market will rise, but the US is focusing too much on internet technologies, and an economic bubble is forming. Once this bubble burst, the market will crash!”

Professor Liang is indeed an extraordinary guy. He can already predict the dot.com bubble now. Feng Yu knows better than Professor Liang about the US market, and he knows the bubble will not burst these two years. This period is enough for him to make lots of money.

“Professor Liang, I understand what you are talking about, but trust me. I can offload my stocks in time, and I will be selling away my Microsoft shares slowly next year. The internet technology has high potential, but this is not the right time to pull in the net.”

Ten years from now, technological firms will be taking over the world, and almost half of the Fortune 500 companies will be technology-related firms. At that time, the internet will become part of everyone’s life.

Now? PC is not widespread yet, let alone the internet. Many of the tech firms out there are only painting a beautiful picture to lure investors. When the investors realized what is happening, these tech firms will be bankrupted!

“I know you will have no problems.” Professor Liang patted Feng Yu’s shoulder. This young man has more drive than him.

“Brother Feng, I heard you had set up a new investment firm, specializing in venture capital investments, in China.” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“That’s right. I want to invest in some potential companies and hope they can earn money for me in the future.” Feng Yu smiled.

It’s too tiring to work. If Feng Yu invested in the right company, his returns would be more than a hundred times in ten years! When that happens, the money will be going into his bank account even when he is not doing anything.

“How come you are interested in all sorts of industries? Don’t you have any industry that you are focusing on?” Feng Yu’s new investment company is called Tai Hua Consultancy. If you think you have a great proposal, you can ask for an investment from this company.

Even if it is a VC, there must be a focus industry. You can’t be investing in companies in all industries because you think they have potential. This is impossible!

History had proven that all industries have their up and downtimes. All industries can’t be doing well at the same time.

“Yes. Tech firms.”

Fu Guangzheng: “……”

You had just agreed with Professor Liang that an economic bubble is forming for tech stocks, and it will burst in two years.

Since you know a bubble is forming, why are you still investing in it? Two years is not enough for the companies you invested in getting listed. How are you going to recover your capital, let alone getting returns?

“You think tech firms are not worth investing? Do you know what is going on with Pacific Century Group recently?” Feng Yu asked.

“Li Zekai’s Pacific Century Group? What happened?” Fu Guangzheng had invested in this company too.

Feng Yu shook his head. You had invested in this company, and you are not concerned with it?!

“Pacific Century Group had just acquired a plot of land to build a Cyberport. He used this project to get a full loan from the bank without collateral.”

“That is because his father is Superman Li. If not, how can he get such a big loan?” Fu Guangzheng replied. Li Zekai is depending on his family’s status and cannot be compared to him.

“I don’t deny that he can get this loan because of Superman Li. But why did Superman Li decided to help him get this loan? This means that Superman Li thinks this project has potential and will be a win-win situation with the Hong Kong Government!”

Fu Guangzheng kept quiet. It must be Superman Li who had helped Li Zekai get this loan. Those banks know that Superman Li will not see his son bankrupt. Even if Li Zekai cannot repay the loan, Superman Li will step in to help him.

But why did Superman Li choose to help Li Zekai? The only reason is that Superman Li thinks that this project has high potential. Superman Li had never made a failed investment and especially high investment like this.

But this is also a good thing. Fu Guangzheng and Feng Yu had some shares in Pacific Century Group. If Pacific Century Group makes money, they will also get a share.

“That means you think tech firms will be the future?”

“I always believe that technologies will bring in high profits. China’s internet technological development is lagging and had just started recently. When it reaches to the next growth stage, the returns will be high. I estimate the returns to be at least 20 times my initial investment. As long as one out of twenty companies I invested can reach the next stage, I will not suffer any losses. There will surely be some companies that do not reach my expectations, but it should not be a lot.”

This is the charm of VC. 5% success is enough to recover the capital and is different from trading. Feng Yu does not need to monitor it closely.

Fu Guangzheng nodded and decided to visit Li Zekai tomorrow. All his money had been invested, but his father still has money to invest.

“Brother Guangzheng, Brother Fu, what are you all talking about? Are you all talking about Soros’ bad luck?” Fu Guangwei came over excitedly.

Chapter 1000 – Nothing to worry

Soros’s bad luck?

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng looked at each other and laughed. They had heard that Soros is in trouble now.

Feng Yu is one of the causes of Soros’s defeat in Russia. In Feng Yu’s past life, Soros had lost a lot of money because of Russia’s policies. But his losses cannot be compared to his life, as Feng Yu had made these policies implemented at the right time, and Soros cannot react in time.

However, Soros still has a chance to make a comeback with the funds he put aside.

But Feng Yu got his spy in Soros’s camp to rally Soros’s brokers to demand their salaries, exposing Quantum Fund’s financial shortage. This incident cause Quantum Fund’s new investors to hold back their investments.

Soros’s spy, who was working under Feng Yu, had deflected and exposed negative news about Quantum Fund. This also causes the Quantum Fund’s reputation to drop.

At the same time, Feng Yu and his allies started to spread rumors that Quantum Fund had lost all their investors’ money, and Soros is old and senile.

Many brokers in Quantum Fund had resigned after getting their salaries, and lots of investors are demanding to withdraw their investments. Those investors had forgotten that Soros had helped them made high profits just months ago.

Profit is a must when we invest, but we will not accept any losses!

Soros tried his best to defuse the situation, but many of his brokers had left, and his operation is affected.

Also, Soros’s fund had shrunk, and the profits he can get are affected.

When Soros invested 50 billion USD in Russia, his capital, which consists of his investors’ money and Quantum Fund’s one-year profits, make up over 40 billion USD.

Now, Soros’s losses amounted to over 80%. All of his profits were gone, and his investors suffered significant losses.

Soros is still one of the best fund managers in the world, and he managed to reverse the situation by shorting European and US stock markets.

Although the fund Soros has now cannot be compared to what he had before, he managed to recover his investors’ capital.

But recovering the capital for the investors is not enough. Soros had promised his investors of at least 10% returns in the contracts between them, and he must fork out over 2 billion USD from his pocket. However, investors are not satisfied. Our returns are over 30% previously, and our returns will be higher if you had not invested recklessly!

Also, to calm his brokers, Soros had promised high bonuses. This is not a small amount if Soros’s four top fund managers’ bonuses are included.

The interest from Soros’s loans and the losses from the sales of his assets increased his losses.

Last year, Soros’s net worth was over 6 billion USD, and the majority of his assets are in cash. But now, Soros’s assets are not even worth 3 billion USD!

Soros had made high profits during his sweep throughout Asia, and he only suffered a minor setback in Hong Kong.

This year, Soros did not make a single cent of profit and even lost all his profits from the previous year. But at least he kept Quantum Fund’s reputation by fulfilling his promises to his investors.

Quantum Fund was knocked off its pedestal now. Soros had made a critical mistake in his investments, and who dares to trust him again? Although you had made a comeback in the last minute, who knows if you will repeat this mistake in the future?

Fu Guangwei started telling Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng about Quantum Fund’s crisis, etc. Even three of Soros’s four top fund managers had resigned.

The three resigned fund managers did not set up their investing firms. Instead, they are hired by some tycoons as consultants. These tycoons were formerly Quantum Fund’s biggest clients, and they were the ones handling their accounts.

Other than Drucken Miller, three out of the four fund managers had left Soros. Without them in the Quantum Fund, many people felt the Quantum Fund will not reach its former glory.

Soros failure in Russia is proof that he is getting old and cannot keep up with the market changes!

Drucken Miller alone cannot manage Quantum Fund. Most people in the industry felt that the Quantum Fund is no longer the top hedge fund, and Soros is no longer the best fund manager.

“Brother Feng, do you know someone tried to poach He Zhaoji?” Fu Guangwei asked.

“I know. He told me about it, and I believe that he will not leave. Firstly, I can give him what others offer, and secondly, I was the one who had given him this opportunity. Lastly, he is a nostalgic person and likes working with his colleagues in Hong Kong. He will not get used to working in a new environment.”

After <Forbes> reported Wind and Rain Consulting Firm had made high profits from the Asian Financial Crisis, more people started to notice them.

Many people even claim that Wind and Rain Consulting Firm is the best investment company. Since it started operation, their clients have never lost a single cent. Other than the commission is higher and high investment threshold, and they have no flaws.

He Zhaoji is the front of Wind and Rain Consulting Firm, and many people think that he is the reason for the company’s profits. No one believes that Feng Yu is the decision-maker behind the curtains!

How old is Feng Yu, and how old is He Zhaoji? The number of years He Zhaoji worked as a broker, is more than Feng Yu, even when the latter includes his years in school!

He Zhaoji also knows that Feng Yu is the one who made all the decisions, and he is only executing Feng Yu’s orders. That’s why when other companies offered company shares to poach him, he refused. Feng Yu had also given him Wind and Rain Consulting’s shares.

He Zhaoji also does not want to leave Hong Kong.

“Brother Guangzheng, Soros is so old. Will he get a heart attack from this devastating blow?”

Fu Guangzheng rolled his eyes at his cousin. “Do you think someone who trades for a living will get a heart attack from this? I had not heard about his health issues when he was almost bankrupted. Now, he had only lost a few billion, and it’s nothing for him.”

“That means he can continue to do trading? Will he attack Hong Kong or China again?”

Fu Guangzheng did not answer him and looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu replied firmly. “Soros will not dare to come again!”

If it were the Soros from his previous life, Soros would surely return. But in this life, Soros will not dare to step into China’s territory!

Soros can no longer raise so many funds or return to his former glory. Soros does not have any money left, and he can only invest prudently to get some profits. He can no longer attack another country’s financial system!

Now, Feng Yu is no longer worried about Soros and his Quantum Fund!

Chapter 1001 – Tai Hua Consultancy

Feng Yu’s investment company, Tai Hua Consultancy, is the first investment company to advertise in China.

Tai Hua Consultancy’s General Manager is Sun Lijie, a shareholder of Aiwa Electronics. He was the distributor who had helped Feng Yu acquire the Ningbo Bird development team.

The small investment made by Sun Lijie back then is worth more than a hundred times now. Of course, he is still running his trading company. His net worth had exceeded that Fatty Huang and is now the leader of the distributors.

When Feng Yu is setting up Tai Hua Consultancy and looking for a General Manager, he couldn’t think of anyone. He only remembers about Sun Lijie later on. Sun Lijie is running his own successful trading company well, and he oversees the finance department of Aiwa Electronics.

Also, Feng Yu noticed Sun Lijie is good at negotiation. He does not use underhand tricks and only uses facts about the company to get the other party to agree to his terms.

So, Feng Yu spoke to Sun Lijie, and he agreed to run this investment company for him. This is the trust Feng Yu had in him, and this investment company is not doing financial trading. It is investing in other companies.

Feng Yu did mention that it’s alright to take some risk. As long as you think there is a 10% chance of earning back the capital, it will be fine. With such a low requirement, Sun Lijie is not worried about anything.

However, he rejected Feng Yu’s offer of a high salary, and only requested for a 1% bonus. That means if this company does not make profits, he will not get a single cent. In a way, this is showing his determination to run the company well.

Of course, Sun Lijie was also given a list of names from Feng Yu. Feng Yu told him that if anyone of these people goes to him to ask for investments, he must invest at all costs. Even if the shares are non-voting shares, he must also invest in it.

Although Sun Lijie does not understand why Feng Yu said this, he knew Feng Yu must have his reasons. Feng Yu is a legend in investing, and Sun Lijie’s friends are still talking about this.

Sun Lijie can get to where he is now, is because of Feng Yu. His small trading company will also not grow to its current scale, and his assets might be only one-tenth of what he has now.

After the investment company is set up, they immediately start an aggressive advertising campaign. This is a first for a Venture Capital company.

No other Venture Capital companies will advertise like Feng Yu. Advertisements for this company are everywhere and cost more than 10 million RMB a month!

Ten million a month is equivalent to more than 100 million a year! But Feng Yu told Sun Lijie not to worry about the advertisement fees. The more startups that approach them for investments, the higher the returns will be! Years later, the returns might be more than ten times their investments!

Sun Lijie said to himself. Only the world’s top tycoons, like Feng Yu, will not mind spending 100 million RMB like this.

Many people might not even finish spending 100 million RMB in their lifetime!

But the advertising campaign is effective. The company received more than 100 inquiry calls every day, and dozens of entrepreneurs visited their office directly.

However, Sun Lijie is troubled by these people. Some of these people asking for investments are ridiculous.

……

“This project of mine is a futuristic product. After this medicine is produced, it can cure all sorts of cancer, and I will apply for a patent and will become the world’s wealthiest man!” A man, dressed up like a doctor, waved a small glass bottle in front of him. The bottle has a label, “Medicine” on it, and the liquid inside is black.

This ‘doctor’ had only graduated from junior school and did not even attend medical school. None of his family members had been a doctor or even a vet!

The head of the evaluation team just said one sentence, and he shut this ‘doctor’ up. “Since your medicine is so miraculous, why are you coughing non-stop? If your cough is gone after you drank your medicine now, we will continue to talk.”

Damn! Do you think I have never seen a cough mixture? Do you think everyone in the company is idiots?! Even if you want to con us, you should put up a more professional performance.

……

“I am researching the answer to the world’s toughest math question, and I need research funds and assistants. I am willing to share the results of my research with your company when I am successful!”

“Where are you working now? Feng Xian Third Boilers Factory and you are a security guard there?! Even if your brother-in-law is the deputy director at the factory, it is also useless. What is your highest education level, and who is your teacher? Do you have any recommendations from your teacher?”

“Junior High graduate? Fine. Bring all your research back with you. Our company will not invest in your project.”

How can someone who had never heard of Calculus solve the world’s hardest math question?! Who are you trying to fool?!

……

“This is an automatic missile launcher.”

“Wait! Our company is not qualified to invest in your project. If you think your project is good, please go to the military. Next!”

Do you all think our company will invest in everything?!

……

“This is a multi-functional chair and can turn 360 degrees. The backrest can be lowered to 180 degrees, and the height of the chair can be adjusted. It also comes with a vibrating massager and can relieve fatigue…” A middle-aged man is showing a set of design drawings in his hands.

“What is the difference between this chair and the other multi-functional chairs in the market? What is the selling point of your product?” The team had finally met someone serious.

That middle-aged man continued to introduce the selling points of his product. He emphasized that he owns the patent to this design, and the production cost can be lowered, etc.

The evaluation team discussed among themselves and said. “Mr. Liu. Your project fits our company’s investment criteria. Let’s talk about your terms.”

After Mr. Liu said his conditions and terms, the evaluation team exchanged views and voted. Three vs. two. They agreed to invest in this project.

“We will report to the company leaders and will get back to you in one week.”

Mr. Liu left, and the evaluation team members looked at their watches. It’s half an hour more before they end their day.

“This is the only project that is worth investing today. All those people before him are just trying their luck and trying to con us. We must train the receptionists not to let everyone enter.” Someone grumbled.

“Alright. At least we are better than Team Two. It’s been a week, and they do not even have an investment. During yesterday’s meeting, they were embarrassed to speak out. We have finalized three investments, worth a total of 12 million, and we are still following up on four cases.”

There is four evaluation team, and this team is not the best. But they are not considered the lousiest. It seems that the people in Team Two can only get their basic salary this month.

At this moment, a man entered the meeting room.

“Hi, my name is Wang Zhixi. I am the General Manager of Ba Da Li Fang Company.

Chapter 1002 – Tai Hua Consultancy

“Hi, please introduce your company and tell us about its direction.” The evaluators replied with their standard lines. They had said the same thing dozens of times a day.

“We are an IT company dealing with digital information and are running our website. We are currently transiting to network technology…” Wang Zhixi replied with his head held high. He seems confident that he will get Tai Hua Consultancy’s venture capital investments.

The few evaluators looked at each other, and the team leader looked at the confidential name list given to him by the General Manager. Wang Zhixi’s name is included in the list.

They must invest in this person’s business!

“Alright, Mr. Wang, we are interested in your company. How many investments are you looking at, and how many shares can you give us? Also, what is your company’s shareholders’ structure like now? What is your position in the company?”

“I am the General Manager of this company, and my company still has a shareholder, Ba Da Cooperation, which is a state-owned enterprise. We are asking for 30 million USD in exchange for one-third of the company’s shares. This investment will be used to acquire a Silicon Valley-based Chinese portal website and set up our Sina website!”

“Mr. Wang,  you mentioned earlier that Ba Da Li Fang Company’s total assets are less than 2 billion RMB, and the company still has some debts. What product from your company can let you increase your company’s value by more than ten times?”

A small company that is not worth more than 3 million USD wants to get a 30 million USD investment. Tai Hua Consultancy does allow such investments, but you cannot give us only one-third of the company’s shares.

“Many companies are interested in investing in our company now. We have a team of talented engineers, have operational experiences, and the coding for some websites. These are all priceless assets…”

“Mr. Wang.” Before Wang Zhixi can finish, an evaluator interrupted him. “You only need to explain why you value your company as 60 million USD will do.”

Wang Zhixi was speechless. He is nervous when he comes to Tai Hua Consultancy to ask for investment today. His company had opportunities to get venture capital investments. Three VCs had wanted to invest 7 million USD into his company, but Ba Da Cooperation stopped it.

At that time, no Chinese IT company had received investments from international VCs, and Ba Da Cooperation does not want to be the first. This decision hindered Ba Da Li Fang’s development, especially their website Ba Da Online’s development.

Now, the Chinese have its first Venture Capital investment company, and Ba Da Cooperation asked Wang Zhixi to apply for investments. Ba Da Cooperation is not increasing its investment in Wang Zhixi’s company. They still have not recovered the 5 million HKD they invested initially.

During the talks with those three international VCs, Wang Zhixi is also not satisfied with the terms. Those three companies had wanted a high percentage of shares and also wanted to interfere with the company’s operations. They wanted a restructuring of the company to international management standards, etc.! They are implying that Wang Zhixi is not good at running the company!

Wang Zhixi’s dream is to get 50 million USD to acquire that Silicon Valley-based Chinese portal website, and become the first Chinese international tech firm! Even with a 30 million USD investment, he will gain the upper hand during the negotiations with that Chinese portal website.

Of course, those three VCs are also that Chinese portal’s shareholders. They knew what Wang Zhixi wanted, and that’s why they dare offer harsh conditions.

If Wang Zhixi agreed to their terms, the company’s biggest shareholder would be these foreign investors!

“How many shares does your company wants?” Wang Zhixi asked.

Wang Zhixi is a famous software developer in China. Liu Chuanzhi and Qiu Bojun had tried to recruit him because the Chinese operating system Wang Zhixi developed is as popular as Win 95.

But Wang Zhixi had already started his own company and refused to be recruited. Now, he is going into network technologies and felt it is different from Kingsoft’s direction.

Nevertheless, Feng Yu had been waiting for him, and Wang Zhixi had finally reached out to him.

It is the same as recruiting when Wang Zhixi approaches Feng Yu’s company for investment! He will still be making money for Feng Yu!

“If we use the market value of your company, we can ask for at least 90% shares of the company. But your technologies are quite good and does have some value. How about this? We will send a team over to evaluate your company before we make any decision.”

“I will not let you all hold the controlling shares!” Wang Zhixi is not willing to let others have control over his company, and Ba Da Cooperation will not allow it too.

“Then, we will have to lower the invested amount. Let’s talk about we evaluated your company.”

After Wang Zhixi left, the team leader immediately calls Sun Lijie to inform him that Wang Zhixi had come. Still, the amount he is asking is too high.

Sun Lijie heard this and knew he must tell Feng Yu immediately.

“You all go for the site visit first. Remember, I am very interested in investing in this company. You all must not let others get this investment, and not let them know our eagerness.”

……

“What? Wang Zhixi was here and wanted 30 million USD?! Just agree!” Feng Yu replied without hesitation.

“Boss, his company, is not even worth 2 billion RMB, and he is only willing to give us one-third of the company’s shares for 30 million USD. How can we agree to that?”

Huh?!

Feng Yu was speechless. This Wang Zhixi is asking for too much! Although Feng Yu knows that after Wang Zhixi acquires that Chinese portal site, and got listed, he will get high profits. But now, he must not shortchange himself.

If Feng Yu made this as an exception, how is he going to continue with other investments? Everyone will think Tai Hua Consultancy are idiots and is giving out money for free.

“Can we get the controlling shares in his company?”

“No. He said he would not let us hold the controlling stake in his company. That means the most shares we can get is 49%. But our people had told him that 30 million USD is too high, and we need to lower it.”

Tai Hua Consulting had advertised that they have 1 billion USD of funds and got the attention of many startups or companies that are looking for investors. But at the same time, these people started to increase their demands!

“Ok. You all continue to negotiate with him first. I will go over and speak to him two days later.”

Feng Yu is very curious about this person. In his previous life, after the dot.com bubble burst, Wang Zhixi became the scapegoat and was fired from his position. Although he owns less than 10% of the company’s shares, he was still a famous tycoon in China!

Maybe in this life, Wang Zhixi’s fortune will change.

Chapter 1003 – That’s him?

The evaluation team conducted a site visit at Wang Zhixi’s company for three days and told him that the Company’s boss would speak to him. Wang Zhixi is overjoyed.

This means Tai Hua Consulting is interested in investing in his company. His web portal dream is going to come true!

Feng Yu was surprised when he met Wang Zhixi. The young Wang Zhixi is quite handsome, and he is in his early thirties. This meeting is different from the meetings Feng Yu is used to. Compared to those old people where Feng Yu always meet, Wang Zhixi looks more energetic and does not have the iconic IT guys’ dark eye rings.

“Manager Wang, nice to meet you. I am Feng Yu, the boss of Tai Hua Consulting.” Feng Yu extends his hand for a handshake.

Wang Zhixi shook Feng Yu’s hand and was very surprised. The boss of this company is too young. Does this company have 1 billion USD?

But why is the name Feng Yu so familiar? Wang Zhixi seems to have heard this name before.

“Manager Feng, are you all interested in investing with our company?” Wang Zhixi asked eagerly.

“I am interested in the proposal you showed us, but I think no one will accept your conditions. You said after the company is listed, the share prices will skyrocket. However, all these had not happened yet. Also, what makes you think that your company will get listed?”

“After we acquire that Chinese portal or merge with them, we will become the world’s biggest Chinese online portal. This has high commercial value, and the company’s finances had been doing well. We can surely get listed on Nasdaq.” Wang Zhixi replied confidently.

“It is not so easy to get listed on Nasdaq, and I am more experienced than you. Not every company’s share prices will skyrocket after they got listed. I have seen many shares tumbling on their first day, and some could not even sell their shares.” Feng Yu poured a bucket of cold water on Wang Zhixi.

In China, many companies and people were obsessed with getting listed and felt once a company got listed, they will make money, or raise a large sum of money for the company.

But many people do not know some companies had failed to raise funds, and even if they had raised a sum of money, the company might not do well.

“But we are doing network technologies. Network technologies are extremely popular in the US, and the company share prices will shoot up after it got listed!” Wang Zhixi argued.

“Do you know what is the percentage of PC users now? Do you know how many internet users there in the world are now? Also, how many of the internet users will visit your site regularly? What is your portal’s source of revenue? Through advertisements? How many companies are willing to advertise on your site?”

Feng Yu had asked sharp questions, and Wang Zhixi had no way to avoid them. Although Feng Yu knew this web portal would become successful, how long must it take before it becomes profitable?

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Sina’s profit model is through advertisements and Wireless services. The most popular Sina’s services are their Blogs and Weibo, a microblogging site. These two services increased their users and traffic and are doing better than their news website.

To Feng Yu, a successful web portal’s revenue source should come from advertisements, online games, streaming, wireless services, etc. Also, there must be instant messaging. Instant messaging will attract more users than Weibo. In Feng Yu’s previous life, the most successful tech company is Tencent.

Just the membership fees alone will put them way ahead of other tech companies. That’s why Tencent, as a latecomer, managed to catch up and overtake all other tech companies before them.

“But we are the earliest and biggest now. There might be losses in the initial phase, but once we got over it, the profits will be endless.”

“What if a competitor appears now? How are you going to guarantee your website’s visitor numbers? When the number of visitors drops, your advertisement revenue will also drop. Also, online advertising is still a new concept. How confident are you to get companies to advertise with you?”

Feng Yu smiled when he saw Wang Zhixi gone quiet. He had given him enough wet blankets and should give him some encouraging words. One thing that Feng Yu agreed with Wang Zhixi is Sina will become the biggest Chinese web portal if his plans succeed. This title will bring visitors and profits for Sina.

Regardless of nationality, people are always curious about the biggest, just like how people are curious about Bill Gates’s road to success. Having the title of the biggest Chinese web portal will increase the number of visitors.

Also, after acquiring that Silicon Valley’s Chinese portal, there will be a news website. Just this alone will increase the page views of this website, and it is an advantage over other companies. Of course, Feng Yu will not say these now.

“Despite all these, I am still interested in your idea of a web portal. Tell me the real figure that you need, and if possible, I will still invest in your company.”

“20 million USD for 40% shares. I guarantee that the returns will be several folds.” Wang Zhixi told Feng Yu the actual amount he is asking for, and this amount cannot be lowered. Seems like this investment company is not easily tricked.

Feng Yu felt that 20 million USD for 40% shares of the company is still a good deal. Especially, Wang Zhixi will be under him. But Feng Yu is not satisfied.

“Manager Wang, have you ever considered ditching Ba Da Cooperation?” Feng Yu asked suddenly.

“Ditch Ba Da Cooperation? What do you mean?”

“It’s just like want you heard. You can speak to Ba Da Cooperation and persuade them to sell their Ba Da Li Fang shares to me. After that, I will continue to inject funds into this company.”

Wang Zhixi frowned. “Manager Feng, I remembered I made it clear that I will not allow others to have the controlling shares of this company!”

Feng Yu smiles as he looked at Wang Zhixi. “Manager Wang, don’t reject me so quickly. Although I will be holding the majority of the shares in this company, I will fully support your ideals. There is another option. I will acquire that US Chinese web portal and merge with your company, and you can still be the company’s CEO or Chairman of the board of directors!”

I can be the Chairman?! Wang Zhixi was stunned. Is this Manager Feng joking? After becoming the major shareholder, he is willing to give up the position of the Chairman?

“What’s wrong? You don’t believe me?! I had never taken back my words. You should know Qiu Bojun, right? You can ask him about me.”

Of course, Wang Zhixi knows who Qiu Bojun is. He is the top software developer in China now. But Wang Zhixi felt his skills are on par with Qiu Bojun, and now, he is focusing on creating a web portal. They are dealing in different fields.

Wait… how did Manager Feng know Qiu Bojun?

Wang Zhixi suddenly remembered one person. Many people in China business circles knows about him, but very few of them had met him in person. This person is very young, and his name is also Feng Yu.

This Manager Feng in front of me… is that person?!

Chapter 1004 – Entrepreneurship Support Program

“You are that Manager Feng, the shareholder of Lenovo, and the founder of Rain and Wind brand?” Wang Zhixi asked respectfully.

“Do you think anyone else can set up such a big investment company?”

“Manager Feng, I think we should have a more detailed discussion.” After knowing Feng Yu’s identity, Wang Zhixi’s attitude changed.

For the rest of the meeting, everything goes according to Feng Yu’s plan. Wang Zhixi accepted Feng Yu’s conditions despite he will become a small shareholder, and Feng Yu has the controlling shares. Feng Yu had promised him that the company would continue to develop according to his plans, and this is better than finding other venture capital!

……

“Old Sun, you will follow up on the companies within China, and I will get someone to acquire that US company.” Feng Yu told Sun Lijie.

“Ok. Boss, I will acquire Ba Da Group’s shares at the best price, and I guaranteed that we would not suffer any losses.”

Feng Yu had given Sun Lijie 1% shares of the company, and it’s worth 100 million USD now. Of course, Sun Lijie can only get dividends now, and the shares will be transferred under his name three years later. But Sun Lijie does not mind. He believes that this company’s value will never drop because this is Feng Yu’s company!

Feng Yu had thought about this. Currently, many of the future Chinese internet entrepreneurs might still not have started their own business because they lack startup funds.

These entrepreneurs might be raising funds themselves to start their businesses now. If they did not approach Tai Hui Consulting for investments, Feng Yu would miss out on these businesses.

Feng Yu does not want foreign funds to invest in these companies. If he let these foreign investors take advantage of these companies again, he would have wasted his second chance in life!

“Old Sun, how can I let those capable people think of asking investments from us when they are going to set up their businesses?” Feng Yu asked.

“Look for us for investments to start their business? Many companies are doing it now.”

“No. I am talking about those who have some money, but not a lot. They might not consider us.”

“Can we approach them proactively?” Sun Lijie asked.

“This is also a solution, but it will not be effective.” If they go to them, they might not agree. The best solution is to let them approach Tai Hua Consulting. Even 1% more shares of the company, is also considered high profits in the future.

“Err… In my hometown, there is a government policy, the Entrepreneurship Support Program. The government will help the entrepreneurs get loans and approvals from the government agencies. Of course, their businesses must be within the local government’s jurisdiction and sign an agreement that they will not move to other areas. We can also provide such programs or loans.”

Feng Yu was interested. “How does this work? Tell me the details.”

Sun Lijie saw Feng Yu is interested in his suggestion, and he continued. “This is only an idea, but I need your inputs to make it work. We can let others know that we will be providing low-interest loans, with lower requirements and checks than the banks. I believe the people on your name list will be interested. But the loan amount they can get from our company will not be high. The amount must be enough for them to start their business, but not enough for them to develop. When they get loans from us, there must be an additional clause in the contract. If the company is unable to repay the loans, the company’s shares will be used to repay the loan. When the company requires more funds from investors, we will be the priority if we will match the conditions of other investors.”

Eh? This is a good idea. At least, Tai Hua Consulting will get some advantage. This is similar to startup funding, and China still does not have such investment plans. But just like what Sun Lijie said, this solution still has some loopholes.

For example, how are they going to gauge the loan amount? If the loan amount is too lower, the other party will not be happy, and Tai Hua Consulting will leave a bad impression with them. If the other party knows Tai Hua Consulting is only after their company’s shares, they might not get loans from them. Also, when the company is raising funds, the other party might get someone to impersonate as an investor to trick them.

Nevertheless, this is a good solution, and Feng Yu will get an opportunity to get in touch with these future successful entrepreneurs earlier. It will be terrific if they are willing to sell their company’s shares to Feng Yu, like Wang Zhixi!

“This idea might work, but we need to think about the details. Discuss this idea with the rest of the people in the company and give me a detailed proposal. We must place restrictions on these companies, but at the same time, they must not feel that we are imposing too many restrictions on them. Also, monitor those foreign investors closely, especially the people on the name list. I don’t care what you do. They must not accept any investments from foreign investors!”

“I will prepare the proposal and show it to you.”

“Old Sun, don’t tire yourself out. I know the company is short-handed now, and everyone is overworked. I don’t mind you all making minor mistakes, but I do not want to see your all making any major mistakes. Also, I do not want others to know about the name list except for those few management staff.”

“Those people were carefully selected based on their characters. When we hire them, we had followed your instructions and checked their character first before their ability.”

Someone capable might bring high profits for the company, but at the same time, this person might bring problems for the company.

Feng Yu felt a person’s character is more important. Everything else can be trained, but a person’s character cannot be changed easily.

Many companies do not like to hire people who job hops often. Such people must have a problem with their character!

Most of these people do not have patient, loves to complain, unable to work in a team, etc. if they hire such people, the whole company will be affected.

Two days later, Sun Lijie returned with a proposal.

This proposal is over ten pages and is very detailed.

Feng Yu could tell Sun Lijie, and his team had put in lots of effect on this proposal. He read it and felt it is very similar to seed funding.

“Old Sun, this is a good proposal, and all the terms are clear and concise. I think this can work.”

Sun Lijie sighed with relief when he heard what Feng Yu said. The past two days, he had been thinking about this proposal even after work hours.

Sun Lijie wants to prove himself in front of Feng Yu!

Of course, Sun Lijie also want to have some achievements, because Feng Yu is very generous when he is satisfied.

“Then, I will issue the memo and notify the advertising department to change our advertisements?”

“Ok. If our advertising budget is not enough, you can increase it. We must not miss out on some good investments because we want to save on advertising.”

Feng Yu’s investments are increasing, and in the future, he will acquire more companies. If he continues to run his companies this way, it will be too troublesome. It’s time for him to set up a holding company!

Chapter 1005 – Tai Hua Holding Corporation

Feng Yu had planned to set up a holding company a long time ago. He had invested in too many companies and had become difficult to manage. It will be easier to manage if he consolidates all the shares under one company. The holding company will set the directions and have control over the subsidiaries and do not need to get involved in the operations.

Most of the top companies in the world are holding companies. For example, ExxonMobil has lots of subsidiaries under them.

With a holding company, the companies’ finances can be consolidated and strengthen the bonds between the companies.

There is another benefit of having a holding company is the lower taxes.

But Feng Yu thought about this and felt having a holding company is not enough. He has too many assets and should set up a holding company in China, and another one for his overseas assets. This way, he can also diversify his risks.

“Old Zhong, are you in Hangzhou? I need to discuss something with you.” Feng Yu called Zhong Qingxian before flying over to Hangzhou.

……

“Manager Feng, why did you come over so urgently? Did anything happen? Is it about our overseas sales?”

“No. I am here to discuss two things with you. We had agreed that Lehaha would sell Jianlibao’s shares to me, and I will sell Jianlibao’s Lehaha shares back to you.”

“No problem. We can complete sales anytime.” Zhong Qingxian has money now, but he did not spend it lavishly. He had been saving up to buy back Lehaha’s shares.

“Secondly, I want to invite you to join Tai Hua Holding Corporation!”

Tai Hua Holding Corporation? Zhong Qingxian frowned. He knew this must be Feng Yu’s company from its name, but what is this company dealing with? Why is Feng Yu inviting me to join?

“Manager Feng, I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I had decided to consolidate all my companies’ shares in China under one holding company. But I don’t have time to manage it and would like to invite you to be the Chairman of this company.”

“You are talking about all the companies’ shares you own in China?!”

“Yes. I will transfer all the shares I own in China, including some overseas investments, to Tai Hua Holding Corporation. I can even set up the headquarters in Hangzhou to make it easier for you. If you are willing, you can also use your company’s shares to exchange for shares in this holding company.”

Feng Yu had thought about this. In China, only two people, Liu Chuanzhi and Zhong Qingxian are suitable to run this holding company. However, Lenovo is in its development stage, and Liu Chuanzhi is required to oversee everything. Lehaha is different, and Zhong Qingxian can let his men handle its daily operations.

“What are the companies?” Zhong Qingxian is tempted. If he can help Feng Yu manage all his companies, it will be good for Lehaha’s development, and at the same time, get a share of profits from the other companies.

“Lenovo Group, Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, Aiwa Electronics, Aiwa Home Appliances, Aiwa Little Tyrant, Lehaha, Chinese Beverage Enterprise (Jianlibao), Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation, Bing City Machinery Company, Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, Quanjude Group, Tai Hua Trading, Tai Hua Processed Food Company, Tai Hua Battery Company, Wind and Rain Design, Wind and Rain Security, Tai Hua Consulting, etc., my father’s assets, and also the overseas beverage alliance, joint venture electronic factories, etc.”

Zhong Qingxian was stunned. These companies’ shares will all be managed by this holding company?! This means that Tai Hua Holding Corporation will become a super conglomerate. It will be China’s first privately-owned holding company!

Zhong Qingxian calculated the value of his Lehaha’s shares. If he used his Lehaha’s shares to exchange for Tai Hua Holding’s shares, it would be too little.

The profits of some companies are higher than Lehaha, but some make lesser than Lehaha. Overall, Zhong Qingxian will not suffer any losses if you exchanged his shares.

Also, Zhong Qingxian will get to manage a huge company, and his status will reach another level.

“How is it? Old Zhong, join me. You can use your Lehaha shares to join this company, and I will give you some management shares of this company. You will own 2% of this holding company’s shares!”

2% shares?!

Based on Zhong Qingxian’s estimation, his Lehaha’s shares are only worth slightly more than 1% of this holding company, and Feng Yu is now doubling it!

“Manager Feng, don’t you think 2% is too much?”

“It’s not a lot. Your talent is worth this price! But you will be very tired in the future, as your workload will increase tremendously. Ten years. Just help me for ten years, and I will get someone to take over this position. At that time, you can decide if you want to retire.”

“Why me? I know that your Brother-in-law is also good at managing his company, and you should have lots of talented managers in your companies.”

“Because I think you are one of the most suitable candidates. Your ability, experience, character, connections, status, etc. are most suitable for this role.”

One of the most suitable candidates? Zhong Qingxian asked curiously. “If I don’t agree, who will you look for?”

“If you don’t agree, I will ask Liu Chuanzhi to leave Lenovo to help me. But now, I am inviting you.” If Liu Chuanzhi also rejects Feng Yu, Feng Yu can only ask Duan Yongping.

“Manager Feng, how much power does the Chairman of this company has?”

“You will have full decision-making powers, except changing the subsidiaries’ share proportions. As usual, I will not interfere with the company’s operations, and you can appoint the management team. I will only appoint the Chief Financial Officer.”

The authority Feng Yu given Zhong Qingxian was out of his expectations. This is different from Lehaha. Zhong Qingxian had founded Lehaha, and Feng Yu is only the investor. But this Tai Hua Holding belongs to Feng Yu, and Feng Yu is the overall main shareholder!

Feng Yu sat opposite Zhong Qingxian and waited patiently for his decision. He is confident that his offer is enough to move Zhong Qingxian.

“Manager Feng, Tai Hua Holding Corporation is not suitable to be set up in Hang Zhou. Beijing or Shanghai is more suitable.” Zhong Qingxian said.

Feng Yu was overjoyed. “Old Zhong, you accepted my offer?”

“How can I reject such a good offer? Seems like my workload will increase tremendously in the future.” Zhong Qingxian laughed.

“Hahaha…. You can hire a team of deputies or assistants. The company can afford to hire them, and if they perform well, I will give them a high year-end bonus!”

Chapter 1006 – Restructuring starts

Shanghai. More than a dozen men were in the top floor’s meeting room of a newly renovated building, Tai Hua Building. The people in the meeting room are all prominent businessmen in China and were from different industries.

But all of them have one thing in common. Feng Yu owns some shares or the majority of shares in their companies. But regardless of whether Feng Yu owns some shares or the controlling shares, his decision will affect the companies. That’s why all of them came to this meeting with just a phone call.

Feng Yu sat on the podium with three other men, Zhong Qingxian, Wilson, and Wu Zhigang.

“I had called everyone here to announce a decision. I will transfer all the shares I own in various companies to a new holding company. This company will be called Tai Hua Holding Corporation. Zhong Qingxian will be the Chairman, Wu Zhigang will be the Deputy Chairman, and Wilson will be the legal consultant. In the future, if you all face any problems with your company’s operation, you all can discuss it with Zhong Qingxian. Of course, you all can still look for me…”

Feng Yu announced his decision, and it’s been decided.

Compared to Zhong Qingxian, Feng Yu still trust Wu Zhigang more. That’s why he transferred Wu Zhigang over. This is to groom him to be the next Chairman of Tai Hua Holding Corporation, and to remind Zhong Qingxian that this company belongs to Feng Yu!

As for Tai Hua Trading, Feng Yu had handed over to one of Feng Yu’s earliest staff. Feng Yu had placed his earliest staff in management roles to train them. It’s up to them to see if they can move on to higher positions.

Everyone was shocked to hear this decision, but at the same time, felt Feng Yu had made the right decision. Feng Yu had talked about advanced and comprehensive management model, and everyone knew he would be setting up a holding company. However, they did not expect Feng Yu to set up this holding company so early.

Many people were envious of Zhong Qingxian and Wu Zhigang. Some of them were even jealous of them. Zhong Qingxian was still fine, as he had set up the Lehaha group from scratch and grew it to become the top beverage company in Asia. Lehaha had even exceeded Jianlibao.

Zhong Qingxian had used his Lehaha’s shares to exchange for Tai Hua Holding Corporation, and everyone can accept him being the Chairman.

But who is that Wu Zhigang? He had only joined Feng Yu when the latter first started his business, and now, he is the Deputy Chairman of Tai Hua Holding Corporation. Many people are not happy with Wu Zhigang holding a high position.

“Manager Feng, is Tai Hua Holding Corporation going to handle the coordination between our company and Aiwa Electronics in the future?”

“Yes. The companies under Tai Hua Holding Corporation and the companies which we owned partially will share all their resources. The resources include our supply chains, sales distribution channels, new technologies, patents, etc. Tai Hua Holding Corporation will also plan the rotation of the finance executives in each company.”

Regardless of the company Feng Yu has the majority shares or partial shares, he will control the finance department. He will appoint at least one finance executive to be station there, to prevent the companies from doing false accounting or cover-ups. Even his first company, Tai Hua Trading, and state-owned majority, Bing City Pharmaceutical, are the same.

“Then, who will be doing the coordination?”

“Manager Zhao, it will be me.” Wu Zhigang replied. Manager Zhao is the General Manager of Aiwa Home appliances, but he is hired by Fu Guangzheng from overseas.

“Manager Feng, I feel that Wu Zhigang is not qualified for this position.” Manager Zhao said.

“Oh? Then who do you think should be in this position? You?” Feng Yu asked.

Manager Zhao replied without holding back. “That’s right. I think I am more suitable for this position as I was the one who coordinated the cooperation between Tai Hua Electronics, Tai Hua Home Appliances, Aiwa Electronics, Aiwa Home Appliances, and Aiwa Little Tyrant. I am more experienced than him!”

Feng Yu points to Li Mingde. “Manager Zhao, do you know this man?”

Manager Zhao was surprised by Feng Yu’s question. “No.”

“What about this person?” Feng Yu pointed to Li Jingwei and asked.

“No.”

Feng Yu looks at Wu Zhigang. “Zhigang, is there anyone here you do not know?”

Wu Zhigang immediately knew why Feng Yu was asking him this. “I know everyone in this room. Not only I know them, but I also know when they had joined this company and their previous work experiences, including Manager Zhao.”

Feng Yu admires Wu Zhigang’s character. He is hardworking, does his work seriously, and did his best in whatever position he is in. He had met all these people before with Feng Yu, and after Feng Yu gave him this important position, he took the time to memorize these people’s resumes.

Feng Yu looks at Manager Zhao. “Do you understand now? You don’t even know the people here. How are you going to coordinate the cooperation between them? It’s good to be ambitious, but I do not want to see anyone climbing up by stepping on others. I will forgive you this time. If you repeat this mistake, you can go back to England.”

Feng Yu said in a calm tone, but Manager Zhao can feel the shivers. He realized that he had become conceited. Feng Yu had praised his management skills before, but he is not one of Feng Yu’s trusted aides. If he wants to climb up, he must show Feng Yu better results.

“Anyone else has questions?”

Duan Yongping raised his hand. “Manager Feng, can we work in Tai Hua Holding?”

Duan Yongping is very ambitious. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Duan Yongping was forced to leave his company, and he moved on to set up a successful company himself. In this life, he was not forced to leave his company and also got the shares he wanted. But Aiwa Little Tyrant is the smallest electronic companies under Feng Yu.

“Of course. The management of Tai Hua Holding will be selected from you all. If you are interested, you can speak to Old Zhong. I also encourage all of you to use your company’s shares to exchange for Tai Hua Holding’s shares.”

Duan Yongping is decisive and is good in management, and he is suitable to be a Deputy Chairman.

After Feng Yu said this, a few people start to consider this offer. A holding company and subsidiary have both pros and cons. Jiang Wanmeng still prefers to be the top man in Wind and Rain Electronics. But Manager Wan from Tai Hua Batteries is thinking the same as Duan Yongping. He wants to try working in this holding company, as Tai Hua Batteries is quite small.

“We will start the restructuring process, and I will hire a few audit firms to audit all your companies. I hope I will not discover any problems!”

Chapter 1007 – Stop hiding

Feng Yu thought he was low profile when he set up of Tai Hua Holding. All his companies are not listed companies, and the restructuring is ongoing silently. But today, a piece of news caught Feng Yu off guarded.

The newspaper had republished <Forbes> this year’s World’s Wealthiest man list, and the top tycoons from China, Hong Kong, and Macau, were featured in this article. Feng Yu’s name is also included, and he is holding the top position!

Feng Yu thought not many people in China will know about <Forbes>, as this magazine is not circulating in China. But after this report, his status as an invisible tycoon is exposed!

This is the first time the Chinese know about Feng Yu’s total assets. They suddenly realized that a Chinese national is a super tycoon! 28 billion USD! Most of the people had not even seen 28 billion RMB!

The World’s second richest man, and also the youngest billionaire with more than 20 billion USD. Feng Yu will also become the youngest billionaire with more than 30 billion USD and has a high chance to become the World’s richest man in the future!

……

Liu Yong had read this article and realized Feng Yu is so rich!

Liu Yong and Feng Yu are highly respected investors, and they had chatted before. Feng Yu is also very supportive of his Guangcai Program.

Liu Yong knew Feng Yu is rich and should be the top tycoon in China. But he did not expect Feng Yu to be the richest man in Asia, the World’s second richest man, and his assets are almost 30 billion USD!

Liu Yong’s family is China’s biggest feed producer, and his products are exported to many countries in Southeast Asia. But China’s second-biggest feed producer is Tai Hua Process Food Company. He heard this company belongs to Feng Yu’s father, and Feng Yu’s father is also very secretive.

From the way Feng Yu’s nonchalant attitude towards Tai Hua Process Food Company, Liu Yong knows this is not his biggest company.

Liu Yong had discussed with his brothers, and they thought Wind and Rain Electronics, and Wind and Rain Home Appliances, are Feng Yu’s biggest assets. However, they finally found out that Feng Yu’s biggest two assets are in the US, and the other is in Hong Kong.

Feng Yu’s asset in the US is his Microsoft shares, and his asset in Hong Kong is Wind and Rain Consulting. In the newspaper article, many overseas media had reported that Wind and Rain Consulting is the best investment company in the World!

The article also mentioned that Feng Yu had bought his Microsoft shares through Wind and Rain Consulting under his name.

This investing company was started not long ago but had achieved an outstanding result. Not only its assets increased exponentially every year, and they had never suffered any losses! All their clients had not suffered any losses!

This result is no longer considered outstanding. It is considered a miracle!

Liu Yong and his brothers had bought the most popular Changhong shares. But Changhong share prices plummet suddenly, and they lost some money.

Last year, Hong Kong’s stock market was not doing well, and they wondered how Feng Yu make so much money!

Liu Yong decided to meet Feng Yu and try to learn from him. Their animal feed companies can also cooperate to move out of Asia to the rest of the World!

Charge out of Asia into the World!

This is the most popular slogan in China now. Many Chinese companies are shouting this slogan, but not many of them had made it happen.

Feng Yu was one of the earliest to achieve this target. His Wind and Rain brand is well known around the World, and even Bing City Pharmaceutical’s medicines are very popular worldwide.

……

Shi Dazhu was also reading the papers. In 1995, he had also made it on <Forbes> list, and at that time, he is in the eighth position for China’s tycoons.

Because of the construction of his building, his health supplement company faced cash flow issues, and he is in financial difficulties now. However, he is still holding on and did not file for bankruptcy.

Many people had persuaded him to file for bankruptcy to avoid paying back his debts, and his girlfriend is the only person that is still supporting him.

Shi Dazhu used the money he borrowed to develop a new type of health supplement product, and he believed that his product would let him make a comeback.

What Shi Dazhu lacks is funds to market and start production.

Shi Dazhu had seen Tai Hua Consultancy’s advertisement that claims to have 1 billion USD to invest in companies from various sectors.

But Shi Dazhu did not contact Tai Hua Consultancy as he does not want to let others reap the benefits of his hard work. But at this time, Tai Hua Consultancy changed their advertisement. They introduced an Entrepreneurship Support Program.

Shi Dazhu had been hesitating as he does not know if this company can be trusted. But now, he felt he should try. Tai Hua Consultancy seems to be one of Feng Yu’s company. They had met once at CCTV, and that young man is now China and Asia’s richest man, and the World’s second wealthiest man!

Shi Dazhu decided. If Tai Hua Consultancy is related to Feng Yu, then he should try to apply for their Entrepreneurship Support Program. He wants to be listed on <Forbes> list again! He is Shi Dazhu and will not be defeated so easily!

……

Zhang Ruiqiang is also reading the papers, and he is shocked by Feng Yu’s wealth!

Zhang Ruiqiang is one of the few people who know Feng Yu is wealthy, and he had treated Feng Yu as the richest man in China a long time ago. Feng Yu’s companies in China are doing well. Still, Zhang Ruiqiang had never seen any other companies that can grow so fast.

Zhang Ruiqiang even thinks that if Feng Yu is left with just one company now, he can quickly make a comeback within a few years.

But Zhang Ruiqiang did not expect Feng Yu had already reached the pinnacle of the World!

Zhang Ruiqiang had watched Feng Yu started his business from scratch and knew most of Feng Yu’s investments in electronics, electrical appliances, medicine, machinery, food, etc.

Almost all the new companies with the names ‘Wind and Rain’ or ‘Tai Hua’ belongs to Feng Yu, and they will develop fast.

Just Feng Yu’s investments in Bing City alone is enough for him to be the wealthiest man in China.

No wonder this kid can donate so much money. He should not finish spending all his money in his lifetime.

Zhang Ruiqiang suddenly remembered Feng Yu’s suggestion to let Beidacang Group exchange shares with Tai Hua Processed Food Company. When this suggestion was put up, many people opposed and felt Feng Yu is trying to take advantage of the nation.

But now, no one should oppose this suggestion. Beidacang Group might be a large company to many people, but it is nothing to Feng Yu!

This suggestion must be revisited at tomorrow’s meeting.

Chapter 1008 – What’s your name again?

Many people felt it was unbelievable after reading the newspaper article, and those few tycoons, who were formerly listed on <Forbes> list of Chinese billionaires, felt embarrassed.

In the past, they thought they own the world with 3 to 4 billion USD, or at least they are one of the top wealthiest men in China.

But now, they realized they are just embarrassing themselves. Even when all of them add up their wealth, they cannot compare to Feng Yu! The difference is too big!

Many of these people had got on the list because of their family’s wealth. For example, Liu Yong and his family are in second position with a total asset of 700 million USD. The family in the first position has around 800 million USD, and the rest of the families that got listed on <Forbes> wealthiest Chinese families have assets less than 500 million USD.

Feng Yu knows many of these people, like Zhong Qingxian, Li Jingwei, Jiang Wanmeng, Li Mingde, Liu Chuanzhi, etc. His father, Feng Xingtai, was not listed because Feng Yu had told Steve Forbes not to include his father. If not, his father will surely top the list.

Many people in China want to meet Feng Yu, the legendary tycoon. If they can get into some business deals with Feng Yu, they will benefit from it.

When Feng Yu arrived at Tai Hua Holding this morning, Zhong Qingxian told him that he could not hide his wealth anymore. The Chinese media had share <Forbes> article, and everyone that read the article will know about him.

Feng Yu did not expect his wealth to be exposed so early, but he does not mind. Since he accepted <Forbes> interview, he knew this would happen. This is also a good thing for his family, as no criminals will dare to target the family members of a super tycoon.

A wealthy person is an easier target than a super tycoon.

“You are also listed on the Chinese list of wealthiest people. You are in 37th position, but I think it is too low.”

Of course, Zhong Qingxian is not the Chairman of Tai Hua Holding when <Forbes> estimated his wealth. Also, many of Zhong Qingxian’s assets are under his wife and daughter’s name, and Lehaha is not listed yet. When Lehaha got listed, the company’s value will increase at least 4 to 5 times.

“Hahaha… I don’t mind it as I had never wanted to be listed.” Zhong Qingxian laughed.

Zhong Qingxian does not care about his position as he is not in the top ten.

“This is also a promotion for our company, and there are some benefits to getting listed. Oh, how is the financial audit coming along? Wind and Rain Design should have ended, right?”

Wind and Rain Design had set up two branch offices, and they have been audited not long ago. They should be the first company to complete this audit.

“Yes. The auditing firm had just called, and they will be sending a representative to report their findings.”

Feng Yu had nothing to do and decided to wait for the report with Zhong Qingxian. They will be settling the minor problems internally and not affect the restructuring.

“Manager Feng, Chairman, Andersen’s representative had arrived.” Zhong Qingxian’s secretary entered his office to report.

“Let him in.”

After a while, the secretary brought a man into the office, and Feng Yu is surprised to see a Caucasian young man.

Now, more foreigners had come to work in China. This is a new market and has plenty of opportunities. Feng Yu got to admit that some foreigners are better than the Chinese. Still, he suspects the main reason why companies hired foreigners is because of the misconception that they are better than the Chinese!

The companies can charge higher if they hire foreigners, and some of the companies are just overseas companies’ branches in China.

“Good morning, Mr. Chairman.”

Eh, this foreigner can speak Mandarin? Although he still has a strong accent, they could still understand him.

The Caucasian looks at Feng Yu, and his eyes widen. Isn’t this the richest man in Asia?! This Tai Hua Holding Corporation is his company?!

Feng Yu was shocked too. Why is this Caucasian staring at me like this? I am not a pretty girl! F**k! There must be some problem with this guy, and we must change the audit firm!

Feng Yu does not discriminate against gays, but he felt extremely uncomfortable to be stared like this!

“Ahem!” Feng Yu cleared his throat to remind that guy to stop looking at him!

The Caucasian asked politely. “Are you Mr. Feng Yu?”

Huh? Does this guy know me?! But the newspaper article did not publish my picture.

“Yes. Do you know me?”

The Caucasian had a surprised look on his face. Although Feng Yu seldom take photos publicly, his photos can still be found circulating.

The Caucasian had only felt Feng Yu looks familiar at first and made a guess.

From Feng Yu’s looks, he should be younger than me. My target is only to work in China for 8 to 10 years before returning to England with some money. But compared to this person in front of me, my achievements are nothing!

“I had seen your graduation picture from Beijing University. I am only curious about you.”

Feng Yu waved his hand. “Let’s talk about your company’s audit result first.”

So, the look in this Caucasian’s eyes is the type of look when someone met his idol.

“Our audit has found Wind and Rain Design’s finances to be in order and does not have any problems. There are only two areas we would like to point out. Their reimbursement limit is quite high, and not only the executives are reimbursing for their meals, lodging, transportation, and mobile phones, they are still reimbursing for birthday gifts for their designers’ family members.”

Zhong Qingxian and Feng Yu exchanged looks and smiled. Feng Yu is the one who set this regulation.

Giving the designers’ family members birthday gifts will let the designers have a sense of belonging to the company, and stop other companies from poaching them. This is also why none of Wind and Rain Design’s staff had left even when other companies offered higher salaries.

The salary for a top designer is very high, but most of them prefer to work in a comfortable environment. Wind and Rain Design is like their second home, and their colleagues are like family.

“Those expenses are part of the company’s welfare, and other companies do not have it. Are there any other problems?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

“No.”

“Ok. Thanks for your hard work. You can get this report sign off.”

“Wait a minute. Mr. Feng, can I chat with you for a while?” The Caucasian turned to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu raised his brows. “Sure. Have a seat. Oh… what’s your name?”

Andersen’s representative must be an elite auditor, and Feng Yu is wondering if he can get him to join Tai Hua Holding.

“Thank you, Mr. Feng. My Chinese name is Hu Ran!”

“Hu Run.” Feng Yu nodded and immediately stared at him with his eyes opened wide. “What is your name again?!”

Chapter 1009 – Setting up a business magazine agency

The young Caucasian man got nervous. “My name is Hu Run, and I gave myself this name when I was studying in China. Is there anything wrong?”

“No, no, no… there are no problems! This is a good name!”

This guy is Hu Run! In Feng Yu’s previous life, this guy had worked with <Forbes>, and he went on to start his Hurun Rich List, a ranking of the wealthiest individuals in China!

Feng Yu suddenly had an idea of setting up his Rich List. <Forbes> had still not entered China, and he felt the ranking of the Chinese tycoons are not accurate.

In China, there are many hidden tycoons, and they are not willing to announce their wealth. For example, Feng Yu’s brother-in-law, Li Shiqiang, had not made it on the <Forbes> list, but Feng Yu felt his brother-in-law is qualified. His business had expanded to the whole of China!

Li Shiqiang’s logistics company is now the top private-owned logistics company is evidence of his wealth! Once his company got listed, his wealth will increase by at least five times!

In China, there are not many listed companies, and many companies are not transparent with their finances. This is very different from the West, and <Forbes> will not get an accurate estimation of these companies’ value.

If Feng Yu starts his Rich List, he can change people’s perception of the wealthy got rich because of their connections, and there are many talented entrepreneurs in China!

This list can also help many entrepreneurs look for business partners and export their products overseas.

Zhong Qingxian looks at Feng Yu and Hu Run curiously. He knew that whenever Feng Yu has this look on his face, it means he is interested in this person and is going to recruit or invest in him.

This Caucasian young man is good at auditing. Is Feng Yu going to recruit him for Tai Hua Holding’s finance department? But this young man is too young. Will he have enough experience?

Zhong Qingxian did not say anything as Feng Yu is much younger than Hu Run.

“Xiao Ma, get a cup of coffee for Mr. Hu Run.” Zhong Qingxian shouted.

Hu Run was surprised and felt Zhong Qingxian is treating him like a friend.

“Mr. Feng, you had been interviewed by <Forbes>. What do you think of <Forbes>?” Hu Run asked excitedly.

Feng Yu thought to himself. This young man has passionate, excitement, his views… no wonder he becomes so successful in Feng Yu’s previous life.

“Ranking all the tycoons in the world can stimulate the economy of the region to some extent, and it is a successful business magazine. This made it different from <Fortune> magazine, where it focuses on individuals than business.”

“That’s right. I am also thinking the same thing! Have you notice that although <Forbes> has placed Chinese businessmen on the list, their estimation of their wealth is all wrong. They did not even send their men over to China to evaluate these people’s assets, and many of their figures were taken from other magazines!” Hu Run was agitated when he spoke about this.

“Yes. What ideas do you have?” Feng Yu smiled.

“I think China should have their own <Forbes>!” Hu Run replied and looked at Feng Yu excitedly.

“No. I don’t think so.” Feng Yu shook his head.

Hu Run becomes anxious and is about to persuade Feng Yu when he saw Feng Yu waved his hand. “China should have its professional business magazine, and not only <Forbes>!”

Hu Run was stunned. ‘Not only <Forbes>?’ What does Feng Yu mean?

Feng Yu continued when he saw Hu Run didn’t get what he meant. “How many business magazines do you know?”

“<Bloomberg>, <Fortune>, <Forbes>, <The Economist>, <Times>, <Money>, etc.” Hu Run replied.

“Good. Seems like you know a lot about business magazines. Which magazine do you like the most?”

“<Forbes>. This magazine talks about the economy through individuals, and many of their readers are not businessmen!”

“Then why is <Bloomberg> selling better?” Feng Yu asked.

“This… because <Bloomberg> is more professional, and it’s biweekly.”

“Do you agree that every magazine has its pros and cons?”

“Of course. All these magazines have their supporters, and many of the readers read more than one magazine.”

Snap!

Feng Yu snapped his fingers. “That’s right. Many readers are reading more than one magazine, and they will subscribe to multiple magazines. These readers are the ones who are interested in business and economy! You are only thinking about starting a Chinese version of <Forbes>. But have you thought of starting a business magazine that comprises of all those magazines’ strengths?”

“That will need lots of reporters and data. It is too difficult.” Hu Run’s eyes opened wide. Feng Yu is too ambitious.

“Difficult does not mean impossible! If we need a lot of reporters, we can hire or groom. Data can be collected ourselves, or we can buy from other magazines and newspapers. Also, this will not only be a magazine. We will also set up a website publishing all business-related news.”

“Website? You want to publish the articles on a website? How will the magazine going to make profits?”

“Subscriptions! Registration fees, browsing fees, downloading fees, and even if you don’t read it, you must also pay for the monthly subscription! We will focus on high-end businessmen. Those businessmen will not mind paying for these fees, and we can also make money through advertising. For example, advertisements by companies or individuals looking for partners, etc.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many business magazines had gone electronic, and traditional paperback magazines lost popularity. Some of them were even forced to shut down.

Zhong Qingxian, who was listening to the conversation, was speechless. What is Feng Yu talking about? He had never heard of those magazines, and he sounds like he is going to start a business magazine that is better than those magazines. But why is there a need for a website?

Charges? How are they going to do that?

China’s banks have not started online banking at this time and will only start in 2000. It took the banks years of trying before the Chinese accepted online banking.

But Feng Yu can set up a bank account for this website and let the backend staff handle it. Furthermore, Feng Yu doesn’t think that many people will subscribe to the online magazine, and he can accept losses for the first few years.

“Mr. Feng, why are you telling me these?” Hu Run felt something is off. Why is Feng Yu telling him about his ideas?

“I am thinking of starting a business, economy-related magazine, and this website. Are you interested in being the Chief Researcher in this company?”

Feng Yu is trying to recruit me? Asia’s Richest man and the world’s second wealthiest man is trying to recruit me?

Chapter 1010 – Wind and Rain Business Magazine

“I am interested, but my job now…”

“Just quit. How much are you getting now? I will double it!” Feng Yu announced overbearingly.

“When can I start work?”

“You can start on the day you resign from the audit firm.”

“Tomorrow. I will submit my resignation tomorrow!” Hu Run could not control his excitement. He is going to do the things he likes, and at the same time, he is getting a higher salary!

Hu Run left, and Zhong Qingxian asked curiously. “Why do you want to start a magazine suddenly, and it’s still a business magazine? Also, why do you need a website? Can it be profitable?”

“At the start, it will not be profitable. But if you manage it well, it will be. Don’t forget about China’s population and the number of businessmen in the cities. This magazine only needs to sell over 100,000 copies every issue, there will be no losses, and we can make some money if more than 500,000 copies are sold. If every issue reaches more than 1 million copies, the losses from the website can be recovered. We will be profitable when the website subscribers, and the magazine’s sales increases in the future.”

Feng Yu did not expect to make money from this magazine. Even if more than 1 million copies are sold for its first issue, the profits will not be a lot. What he is interested in is to influence China’s economy through this magazine. When the nation and its people are rich, his profits from his businesses will increase.

This magazine can also encourage people to venture overseas to earn those westerners’ money and stop them from taking advantage of China. In the future, those foreigners can only come to China to work for Chinese companies!

“Where are you going to get the editors, reporters, etc. for this magazine?”

“Recruit from other magazines, newspaper agencies, etc. I remember <Business Weekly> have a lot of staff in China, and I think they are suitable for my magazine. Also, <Fortune> and <Forbes> also have reporters stationed in Asia and China. We can poach them over.”

“Then, when will the first issue be out?”

“The first issue will be out on New Year’s Day next year, and the headline will be China’s top 50 business leaders. Next year is also the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In the year 2000, we can introduce China’s top 100 wealthiest list.”

Many tycoons in China have the same thinking as Feng Yu. They do not like to flaunt their wealth. If Feng Yu introduced this Rich List immediately, he would offend many people.

But the ‘top 50 business leaders’ list is different. This is giving honor to these people, as they will be listed as the leaders of their respective industries.

How are these people convince others of their status as business leaders? From their net worth. These people’s success will be based on how much money they have.

This is another form of a ‘wealthiest men list’ and will pave the way for the following year’s top 100 wealthiest list.

Maybe many businessmen will even approach the magazine, asking to be listed on the list. After all, some people might think it’s honorable and prestigious to be listed.

“But no one knows about your magazine. How are you going to get people to buy it?”

“Old Zhong, you sound like you have a solution to this problem.” Feng Yu replied.

Zhong Qingxian did not say anything and look at Feng Yu with a smile.

“Me?”

“That’s right. The first issue should feature you and your story. You are Asia’s wealthiest man, and many people will be interested in you and your story.”

Huh? This is endorsing my own magazine?

This is a good idea, but Feng Yu does not want to do it. Other people might want to be in the limelight, but Feng Yu does not want many people to know who he is. He does not want to be surrounded wherever he goes. That’s why he prefers not to show his face.

“No. It will be inconvenient even if I am going out for a meal.” Feng Yu shook his head.

“Then you can use another person like Liu Chuanzhi, Liu Yong, Li Mingde, Li Jingwei or Jiang Wanmeng.”

Feng Yu looks at Zhong Qingxian curiously. “Why didn’t you mention yourself?”

“Me? I also do not like to be interviewed.”

“Then I will get Liu Yong to be featured on the first issue. He and his brothers’ animal feed company is the biggest in China, and the rest will be featured in other issues. Every one of them will get their turn.”

“Liu Yong’s company is indeed very strong, and I think his company will grow to become the biggest animal feed producer in Asia within two years. But he is not famous enough. If possible, you should work with other well-known magazines.”

“Work with other magazines? What do you mean?”

“For example, <Forbes> do not have a Chinese version. You can name this magazine as a Chinese version <Forbes>, and at the same time, make use of <Forbes> popularity to increase your sales.”

Eh? Isn’t this the strategy used by Hu Run in my previous life? Zhong Qingxian is really an expert in sales.

But Feng Yu is not willing to use this idea, as he felt he would let <Forbes> take advantage of him!

Feng Yu can still work with others to get this magazine going. For example, he can ask Steve Forbes, Bill Gates, and Superman Li to write prefaces.

“We cannot name our magazine as the Chinese version of <Forbes> as there will be legal issues. But we can still work with them by publishing their articles with their permission.”

Not only <Forbes>, Feng Yu can also buy articles from <Fortune> and other magazines. But this magazine will be in Chinese, and the articles must be related to Chinese or China. Maybe, he can include the surrounding countries, but he will avoid articles about western countries.

Feng Yu thought for a while. Steve Forbes and he are considered acquaintances, and they had exchanged numbers. Feng Yu can buy articles from <Forbes> first before contacting the rest of the magazines and newspaper agencies.

Feng Yu must also groom his editors and reporters and does not want them to worship the west.

A few days ago, Feng Yu read a magazine that boasts how great other countries are compared to China. He does not know what these reporters and editors are thinking. Why do they look up to the western countries so much?

“What you say is right, and I believe your magazine will be interesting. Oh, what is the name of this magazine?”

“What do you think of the name, <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>?”

Zhong Qingxian wanted to tell Feng Yu that this name sounds like the magazine will have to go through hardships. But all of Feng Yu’s companies are either Wind and Rain or Tai Hua. He had never considered using other names.

“Hmmm… sounds nice.” Zhong Qingxian replied.

Chapter 1011 – Three prominent tech firms

“Boss, the Chinese portal had been acquired, and is fully owned by us,” Ralph called to report.

“Good job. Have you contacted those two professors to buy their Sohu’s shares? How is progress?”

Feng Yu is satisfied. After acquiring that US Chinese web portal, Wang Zhixi’s web portal will merge with that portal to form Sina, and they will overtake Sohu and Netease to be the biggest Chinese web portal.

Sohu and Netease had started before Sina and Sohu depended entirely on venture capital funding. Zhang Chaoyang had gotten the funding from his former Professors to start Sohu, and the shares of the company were shared equally between the three of them.

Ding Lei had set up Netease himself, and he owns 53% of the company’s shares.

But both companies had reached a bottleneck now, and the main reason is the shortage of funds. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Ding Lei had gotten venture capital funding from Sun Zhengyi (Masayoshi Son) to let Netease develop quickly.

Sina had also gotten funding from Sun Zhengyi, as he likes investing in such tech firms.

But in this life, Sun Zhengyi will not have the chance to profit from China because Zhang Chaoyang and Ding Lei had approached Tai Hua Consultancy.

Since Zhang Chaoyang and Ding Lei had approached Tai Hua Consultancy, Feng Yu will not let them go to that Japanese company. These three companies are the top three Chinese web portals in the future and will bring in profits for Feng Yu within five years.

If these companies got listed, Feng Yu might double his profits within two to three years.

Look at Sun Zhengyi. He had invested 100 million into Yahoo two years ago for a third of the company’s shares, and he sold 2% of the company’s shares for 400 million USD! The return is more than ten times, and Yahoo shares are still rising.

Although Sina, Sohu, and Netease shares will not shoot up like Yahoo, their shares increased by several folds after they got listed.

“Boss, one of those two professors are willing to sell his shares to us, but his asking price is higher than the highest offer you set. The other professor is not willing to sell, and his asking price is doubled on your highest offer!”

Huh?

Feng Yu had got a headache. His highest offer is set at double the market value. Those old professors wanted double of my highest offer?! Does that mean Feng Yu has to buy their shares at four times the market value?!

But when Feng Yu thought about Sohu’s future development, it’s worth it! Most importantly, Zhang Chaoyang and his team cannot be valued in monetary terms.

“Continue to negotiate with them, and you must acquire their shares at all costs!”

Ralph knew Feng Yu is set to acquire those shares and is willing to pay more than four times the market value. Of course, Ralph will not buy the shares at four times the market value. If he is going to do that, Feng Yu will not need him anymore.

“Yes.”

Now, Feng Yu is going to gain control of Sohu and Sina.

Only Netease is not possible for Feng Yu to get the majority shares of the company, as Ding Lei is determined to be the Boss of the company.

But to Feng Yu, it’s alright. Anyway, these companies will have to work together in the future because of him. If Sina started the email first, Netease would not be as successful as his previous life.

Feng Yu had planned the directions of these three companies in his heart. Sina will focus on news, especially international news, and in the future, they will set up the blog and microblogging sites.

Sohu’s direction will be online video platform and continue to be the leader in Chinese online forums

Netease will focus on email services and game distribution. In the future, they will start developing their games.

Of course, these three companies can also have the same services, but their main focuses will be different. Feng Yu wants healthy competition among them for them to grow faster.

Feng Yu had thought of merging these three websites, but he changed his mind. This will not be good for their development. Separating them will speed up their developments and form a barrier for other tech firms to enter.

…….

Wang Zhixi had come to Tai Hua Consultancy again. He had reached an agreement with Ba Da Company for them to sell their shares. But they will not be selling all their shares, and there will be some restrictions.

Sun Lijie listened to Wang Zhixi’s conditions and nodded at Feng Yu. “I think we can accept this condition.”

After the Chinese Web portal in the US is acquired and merged, Tai Hua Consultancy has the majority shares of Sina. It does not matter if they can own more shares or now.

Acquiring Ba Da Company’s shares will be better for Sina’s development.

“Wang Zhixi, have you decided on the company’s direction after our chat previously?”

News. I think people are most interested in the news. Many people have the habit of reading newspapers in the morning. Still, with the internet, they can go onto our website. They can even set our website as their homepage, and our website will appear the moment they switch on their PC. This will bring more visitors to our site, and more companies will advertise with us.”

“Our news site will have an advantage over the traditional newspaper. We can consolidate news all over the world, and other news sites cannot do this. We can also sell other services like setting up a communication platform for companies.”

“Good. This will increase this company’s advantage. Let me tell you some of my ideas. First, news articles must be timely. Second, regionalized of the news, and lastly, the news must be interesting.”

Wang Zhixi understood the importance of real-time news, but what does regionalized news mean? Also, why must the news be interesting? Shouldn’t news be reporting on the truth?

“Real-time news means we will publish the reports of major events for the first time. We must let our visitors know that our site will also show the latest and fastest news.”

“Regional news means the site will show news based on the user’s IP addresses, or registration location. This is just like when people read the newspaper, they would prefer to read their cities’ newspapers.”

“Interesting news does not mean that we will not only focus on major events worldwide. We will also report news that interest our readers, like entertainment news, bizarre news, etc. Many people read the newspaper to pass the time, and interesting news will capture these readers.”

Wang Zhixi looks at Feng Yu with admiration. “Thank you for the guidance, Manager Feng. I know what to do now.”

Wang Zhixi’s tone sounds like he had received wise teachings from a guru.

Feng Yu had a ‘this is just a casual remark’ look on his face. But all these ideas are from his previous life’s news websites like Sina. All he did was to tell Wang Zhixi about what he will be doing in the future and impress him.

Giving guidance and getting admired by one of the bigshots of the industry in Feng Yu’s previous life is fantastic!

Chapter 1012 – Receiving treatment

Wang Zhixi got the investment he wants and left for the US to talk about the merger. The earlier both portals merge, the earlier his web portal can be launched.

Sohu and Netease also started the talks for venture capital investments. Everything is going according to Feng Yu’s plan, and he should be happy. But Feng Yu is not in a good mood at this time.

Those two gynecologists Feng Yu hired from the US told him that they couldn’t treat Zhou Kexin’s condition for the time being!

Feng Yu was furious when he heard this news. Didn’t you all tell me that you all had treated similar conditions before? Why are you all telling me that you all cannot treat Zhou Kexin now?

The two doctors explained the reason, and Feng Yu understood it.

It’s not that this condition cannot be treated. It is because they can’t treat Zhou Kexin now, as she is still a virgin! This treatment will tear her hymen.

Zhou Kexin rejected the “free treatment” as she does not want her hymen to break. In this era, most people are very conservative, and Zhou Kexin is one of them.

Feng Yu can’t do anything. But the doctors said that the chances of treating Zhou Kexin’s condition are higher if treated earlier.

Feng Yu opened his mailbox and saw Zhou Kexin’s email.

In her email, Zhou Kexin had asked Feng Yu’s advice without getting into the details. She said she had to make an important decision but does not know if she should inform her family.

Feng Yu thought for a while and started typing a reply. He hopes he can persuade Zhou Kexin to receive treatment as a friend.

“You should seriously consider other people’s suggestions before making an important decision. For example, if a doctor asks you to do surgery, and you know that after the surgery, you will be healthy. However, you are afraid of entering the operating theater. In such circumstances, you should speak to your family, and they give you support and encouragement. I don’t know what decision you are making, but regardless of the decision, you will have gains and losses. Just ask yourself if you will regret in the future if you make this decision now.”

Zhou Kexin looks at the email in a daze.

Why did the example “Second most handsome person on earth” used is so similar to what she had gone through? Is it coincident?

Zhou Kexin laughed as she shook her head and felt it must be coincident. She did not even tell her family about this. How can “Second most handsome person on earth” knows about this?

Which choice will make her regret more? Zhou Kexin thought about what the doctors say. If she goes for the surgery now, they can operate on her for free when they are here for exchange, and the chances of success are very high. No other doctors in China are as experience as them.

If Zhou Kexin does not accept treatment, she will have to pay high medical fees in the future, and her family cannot afford the charges for this operation.

That means Zhou Kexin might be inconceivable in the future, and it will be her greatest regret in her life.

Zhou Kexin loves children, and if she is inconceivable, she might not even get married.

Zhou Kexin is in a dilemma, but she wants to have children in the future.

Zhou Kexin returned home, and her mother saw her wanting to say something but hesitated several times. “What’s wrong? Do you have something to tell me? Is it you are dating someone in school? It’s alright, but you must take care of yourself.”

“Mum… what are you talking about?! I am not dating anyone.” Zhou Kexin retorted.

“Then what is it?” Zhou Kexin’s mother was relieved to know her daughter is not dating anyone now.

Zhou Kexin told her mother everything and looks at her.

Zhou Kexin’s mother asked. “Are they trying to scam you?”

“Mum, they are not charging me anything. How can they be scammers? Also, they are experts from the US, and are invited to come here by Tai Hua Hospital to conduct lessons.”

“Let’s wait until your father comes back first. I will bring you to other hospitals for a checkup tomorrow.” Zhou Kexin’s mother is very concerned about her daughter’s condition, as this will affect her daughter’s future happiness.

After visiting three hospitals in the City, the doctors cannot confirm if Zhou Kexin has this condition. This made Zhou Kexin’s parents more worried.

At this time, Tai Hua Hospital called up Zhou Kexin’s home to ask if she had decided. Those two doctors will be returning to the US soon, and she will miss this opportunity if she still has not made her decision.

Also, the hospital told Zhou Kexin something important. Although her hymen will be torn during the surgery, the doctors can repair the torn hymen after the operation. This way, no one will know if she doesn’t say anything.

This idea is thought up by Feng Yu. Those two doctors do not know hymen repair surgery, and they couldn’t understand why Chinese women are more concerned about hymen than treatment.

Luckily, Feng Yu hired an expert in hymen repair surgery from Japan to solve this problem.

Zhou Kexin’s mother finally decided for Zhou Kexin. Go for the surgery!

When Feng Yu heard Zhou Kexin is going for the surgery, he is overjoyed. He went to speak to the two doctors and told them that if the surgery is successful, he will pay them a large sum of money, and sponsor the construction of a hospital for them!

The two doctors were thrilled by Feng Yu’s generosity, but at the same time, they are under immense pressure. This operation must succeed, no matter what!

The two doctors exchanged experiences and discussed the operation.

After Zhou Kexin arrived at the hospital, the doctors put her in an intensive care ward. They told her that they need to give her a thorough check before deciding when they will operate on her.

When Zhou Kexin’s mother went out of the ward to get fruits for her daughter, she noticed a young man looking at her daughter’s ward and ran off when he saw her.

“Kexin, are you not dating anyone in school?”

“No.”

“Then why is there a young man looking at your ward outside, and he seems to know me. Have you show anyone our photographs?” Zhou Kexin’s mother asked suspiciously.

“Other than my roommates, I have not shown anyone else.” Zhou Kexin looks out of her ward but did not see anyone.

After meeting his previous life’s mother-in-law, Feng Yu recalled a lot of memories. His mother-in-law’s hair now is still black.

Feng Yu had wanted to look at  Zhou Kexin from a distance, but after meeting her mother, he dare not go near again.

The next day, the two doctors gave Zhou Kexin a thorough check and confirmed that she is inconceivable. But the good news is there is an 80% chance of her recovering after the surgery.

When Zhou Kexin was pushed into the operating theater, her mother, who was waiting outside, saw the young man again. Her daughter was the only patient there, and this young man must have something to do with her daughter.

“Young man. Let’s talk.”

Feng Yu was stunned. Why is Zhou Kexin’s mother calling him over for a chat? Should he go?

Chapter 1013 – Is it him?

“Hi, Madam. Are you talking to me?”

“Yes. There is no one else here. Young man, where are you from?”

“Bing City.”

“Bing City?” Zhou Kexin’s mother frowned. Bing City is too far away. If her daughter is going to get married, it will be hard for her to see her daughter in the future.

“Then, are you studying in Shanghai?”

“Oh, I had graduated. I was from Beijing University.”

Zhou Kexin’s mother’s eyes brighten up. Beijing University is only of the best university in China! This young man will have good prospects!

Graduated? That means this young man is older than Kexin. But he does not look like he is much older than her.

“Which company are you working in Shanghai?”

Feng Yu felt weird to be asked these questions by Zhou Kexin’s mother. He was asked the same questions when he met Zhou Kexin’s mother in his previous life.

“I’m not working for anyone. I am running my own business.”

Zhou Kexin’s mother was pleased. A business started by a graduate from Beijing University should be a good company, and doing business will make more money than working for others!

“What are your parents doing?”

“Huh? My father is also a businessman.”

His parents are also doing business, which means his family must be rich! Zhou Kexin’s mother is even more pleased with Feng Yu.

Feng Yu starts to think about how to get out of his current situation.

“How did you and Kexin know each other?”

This is the question Feng Yu was waiting for. He pretended to be confused. “Kexin? Who is Kexin? I don’t know her.”

Zhou Kexin’s mother was stunned. “You don’t know her? If you don’t know her, what are you doing here?” This young man is not Kexin’s boyfriend?

“I heard there is a famous overseas doctor here in this hospital, and I want to make an appointment with the doctor for my second sister.”

Yes. Feng Yu does not have a second sister, and he only has one elder sister.

Zhou Kexin’s mother was disappointed. This is a good young man, and why is he not Kexin’s boyfriend?

“Young man, how old are you? Do you have a girlfriend?”

“I am 25 and have a girlfriend. I think the doctor will not be coming out anytime soon. I will go back and think of other ways to book an appointment with her.” Feng Yu quickly left.

Zhou Kexin’s mother looked at Feng Yu as he left. She felt it’s a pity. This young man is of a suitable age, good looking, well educated, and is from a wealthy family.

Feng Yu had finally escaped. Why did he walk over to Zhou Kexin’s mother earlier?

Feng Yu sat in the Hospital Director’s office to wait. After a while, a nurse ran over to tell him that the surgery had ended!

Feng Yu want to rush to the operating theater, but he stopped himself. How is he going to explain to Zhou Kexin and her mother?

Zhou Kexin’s mother grabbed onto the doctor and asked. “How is my daughter’s condition? Is surgery successful?”

“The surgery is a success, and we have to wait until she recovers. The repair surgery is also a success.”

Zhou Kexin’s mother was relieved, and she went over to look at her daughter.

Feng Yu was also relieved when he heard the news. Zhou Kexin is finally treated!

……

“Mum.”

“Kexin, you are awake? Is your wound painful?”

“No. I’m still under the effects of the anesthetic.” Zhou Kexin shook her head.

“Kexin, why are they doing this surgery on you for free? What do they want from us?” Zhou Kexin’s mother asked worryingly.

If they were not informed of Zhou Kexin’s condition now and the cost of the surgery, they might not agree to it so fast.

“They say this surgery is to showcase their skills and promote the hospital.”

“Ah?! Then are they going to feature you in the newspapers? No! Everyone will know that you had undergone such surgery, and how are you going to get married in the future?!” Zhou Kexin’s mother thinks that since the surgery is over, and they did not sign any agreements, they can go back on their words.

“Mum, it will be featured on a professional medical magazine and not in the newspaper. Furthermore, the article will not show my face. They had helped me so much, and I should do something for them in return.” Zhou Kexin explained.

“Fine. You are more educated and know more than me. Oh, are you not dating in school?”

“Mum… no. Why are you asking again?” Zhou Kexin replied helplessly.

“After you enter the operating theater, I saw a young man outside looking at the operating theater, and I chatted with him. Oh, he is 25 years old.” Zhou Kexin’s mother looks at her daughter in her eyes. She got a feeling that the young man is not telling her the truth.

“Mum, what 25 years old? Are you trying to matchmake me? I am still studying!”

“I wanted to, but he has a girlfriend.” Zhou Kexin’s mother was still looking at her daughter’s eyes. Eh? She is not lying to me?!

Zhou Kexin had been troubled over her condition and not because she likes someone?

Sigh… it’s a pity. That young man seems to have good character, and more importantly, he is rich!

“Mum, don’t think so much. Alright. The nurses will take care of me here. You should go back tomorrow. Dad does not know how to cook.”

“I will take care of you for a few days. Your dad can eat out. He is a grown-up, and you don’t need to worry about him.” Zhou Kexin’s mother is more concerned about her daughter. “Wait here. I will ask the nurse if you can eat now.”

Zhou Kexin’s mother left the ward and saw the young man again.

When Zhou Kexin’s mother return, she saw that young man looking towards her daughter’s ward, and left quickly when he spotted her.

“Kexin, did anyone visited you just now?”

“The nurse was here. Why are you asking?”

“Did any young man visited you?”

“Mum… I am not dating anyone.”

“I believe you, but who knows if anyone is admiring you?” Zhou Kexin’s mother told Zhou Kexin what she saw outside the ward.

Zhou Kexin was curious too. Twenty-five years old should not be her classmates or her schoolmates who had confessed to her in the past.

“Mum, how does that man looks like?” Zhou Kexin asked curiously.

“He is about this tall, medium built, big eyes, short hair, thick brows, and has white teeth…” Zhou Kexin’s mother described Feng Yu to her.

Zhou Kexin did not expect her mother to remember that man’s appearance. Seems like her mother is serious about matchmaking her.

“Oh, that young man says he and his family are doing businesses, and he is a graduate of Beijing University!”

“What university?”

“Beijing University. The best university in China.”

Beijing University, 25 years old, doing business… Zhou Kexin mumbled to herself. Is it him?

Chapter 1014 – Is it you?

Zhou Kexin suddenly has a feeling that the man her mother is talking about is “Second most handsome person on earth!”

Zhou Kexin had been thinking and had even read through all their letters in the past. The “Second most handsome person on earth” knew the school and class she was in and her name.

But Zhou Kexin does not know much about the “Second most handsome person on earth.” She only knows he was studying at Beijing University and went to Hong Kong University as an exchange student. After graduation, he left to work in the US. She does not even know what was “Second most handsome person on earth” real name!

Now, Zhou Kexin suddenly remembered why this hospital was willing to operate on her for free. She had asked around, and this surgery is very expensive. No other doctors in China are confident in treating her condition.

Could it be someone who is paying the treatment fees for her? That person must be him!

If Zhou Kexin can get off the bed now, she would have run outside to look for that man. She wants to see how he looks like and what his name is.

But Zhou Kexin’s mother said that man told her he has a girlfriend. Did he treat her as a pen pal?

But who will spend so much money on a pen pal?

Zhou Kexin had already decided in her heart that it was “Second most handsome person on earth” who had paid for her medical expenses. That means he must know who she was!

Zhou Kexin suddenly remembered that man she saw in her school. That man’s age and appearance fitted her mother’s description of that man.

Is that man “Second most handsome person on earth?”

Zhou Kexin felt confused, and Feng Yu is also feeling the same.

Feng Yu had wanted to visit Zhou Kexin. Although the doctors told him that the surgery was a success, she will be in pain during the recovery period.

However, Feng Yu cannot visit Zhou Kexin. He does not know what he will do when he saw her so weak.

Feng Yu can only hope Zhou Kexin can recover well.

……

“Zhou Kexin, are you feeling better? This is the food prepared for you. You can only eat this much per meal for the time being.” The nurse entered the ward.

Zhou Kexin’s mother thanked the nurse and took the food from her when she realized there are two sets.

“Aunty, the other set is for you, and it is free.”

“Oh, thank you.” Zhou Kexin’s mother took the food from the nurse. Hmph! She had heard rumors of hospitals using patients as guinea pigs, and maybe her daughter is one of them!

Luckily, the surgery is successful, and if it failed, I would not let the hospital and the doctors off! Taking care of our meals is what they should do to treat my daughter as a guinea pig!

Zhou Kexin frowned. Which hospital will provide food for free? The surgery is free, hospitalization is free, and even the meals are free! This is not normal!

Also, this ward is like an apartment, and the home appliances here are better than her home. This must be the rumored private ward for high ranking officials. Why did the hospital arrange for her to stay in this ward? Also, a nurse is always stationed outside the ward.

“Mum, go back tomorrow. The nurses will take care of me here. If you are not around, Dad will surely go drinking every day.”

Zhou Kexin’s mother hesitated for a while and replied. “Ok. I will go back and visit you a few days later.”

“Mum, you don’t need to come again. It is too expensive for you to travel up and down. I will be fine in a few days, and you don’t need to worry about me.” Zhou Kexin’s mother agreed when Zhou Kexin mentioned about money.

……

After persuading her mum to return home, Zhou Kexin is finally alone in the ward.

Zhou Kexin called the nurse. “Sister Liu, how long have you been working in this hospital?” Zhou Kexin chatted with the nurse.

“I was transferred here for less than three months. I joined this hospital after it reopened. This hospital was formerly an old rundown hospital, but a wealthy man bought it and brought in advanced equipment. I heard this hospital is his company’s hospital. Other than the employees from a few companies, I had not seen this hospital open to the public since I joined!”

It’s been three months, and the hospital is not open to the public? Zhou Kexin is puzzled. Who will spend so much money and does not want to earn money?

Zhou Kexin was not so confident again. “Second most handsome person on earth” is very young, and should not be so rich. Maybe she is overthinking about this.

“Oh, what about my doctors? When did they come to the hospital?”

“They had joined around three months ago. But that Japanese doctor had only arrived one week ago and had left after performing your surgery.”

That doctor was here just to perform a surgery for Zhou Kexin?

“Do you know who was the one who bought the hospital?”

“How do I know this?” The nurse shook her head.

“Oh, have you seen a young man, around 25 years old, in the hospital? His height is about this tall, short hair and medium build.” Zhou Kexin asked.

“Yes. I had seen someone that fits your description before. That man is weird, and he seems to know the Hospital Director and your doctors. I don’t know what they are talking about as they always speak in English.”

“Is he still around?” Zhou Kexin asked anxiously. English?! The ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ had been working in the US.

“I think so. I saw him walking pass your ward last evening. What’s wrong? You two know each other?”

“If you met him again, can you bring him over? Just tell him that I want to see him.”

Nurse Liu smiled. “Is he your boyfriend? Did you two fight, or is it because your families object to this relationship?”

Zhou Kexin did not explain herself and kept quiet.

“Ok. I will not ask anymore. If I see him again, I will grab him and bring him over.”

“Thank you, Sister Liu.”

Nurse Liu was instructed by the Hospital Director to take good care of Zhou Kexin. At first, she thought Zhou Kexin’s father was some bigshot. But after chatting with Zhou Kexin, she found out she is from an ordinary family.

The Hospital Director had told Nurse Liu to take care of Zhou Kexin, and she will get a big red packet after she recovered. Taking care of one patient is not tiring at all. She spends her whole day chatting with Zhou Kexin and can watch TV with her. This was her first time seeing such a thin and big TV.

There is still a Super VCD player and lots of VCDs.

……

Today, Feng Yu passed by Zhou Kexin’s ward as usual but was caught by the nurse.

“Don’t go first. If you want to visit her, just go in. You don’t need to walk past her ward every day purposely. Go in. She is asleep.” Nurse Liu laughed.

“No… I…”

“Alright. Don’t think of leaving if you don’t go in. Kexin says she wants to see you.”

Kexin wants to see me?! She realized who am I?!

Feng Yu knew Fu Guangzheng’s plan would let him hire experts to treat Zhou Kexin’s condition successfully. But this plan has lots of loopholes, especially after Feng Yu changed parts of the plan.

Maybe Zhou Kexin knew something was wrong from the start.

Feng Yu walked into the ward, but Zhou Kexin was not sleeping. She was looking at Feng Yu with her big eyes.

“Is it you?”

…….

Chapter 1015 – It is hard to meet, but hard to part too

Is it you? A simple sentence comprises of all her feelings.

Feng Yu moved his lips but did not know what to say.

From Feng Yu’s expression, Zhou Kexin knew the answer.

“Have a seat. We have known each other for a few years now, and this is the first time we met. Our meeting at my school cannot be considered a meeting.”

Feng Yu got nervous when he saw Zhou Kexin being so calm. It’s like getting caught by his teacher for being naughty when he was young.

Feng Yu sat down in a daze and did not know what to say.

Zhou Kexin laughed. “Thank you. I am very curious. Did you arrange everything? It should be costly for arranging all these, right?”

“I am willing to spend all my money to get you treated.” Feng Yu said this unknowingly.

Zhou Kexin blushed. “You have a girlfriend, right?”

Feng Yu lowered his head and nodded quietly. Zhou Kexin’s face turns pale suddenly. ‘He has a girlfriend!’

What about me? Why is he doing all these for me?

“You are rich, but that’s your money. I will repay the treatment fees after I started working.”

“I don’t mind.”

“But, I mind!” Zhou Kexin looked at Feng Yu stubbornly.

“Your family is not well off, and your mother is currently considered half retired. Your father is also not making a lot of money. After you start working in the future, you should spend your money on your parents.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Feng Yu had treated his in-laws as his own family. In this life, he had sent his men to hire Zhou Kexin’s father. But the offer is too good, and Zhou Kexin’s father thought it is a scam!

Also, Zhou Kexin’s father is one of those who refuses to leave his current workplace. Feng Yu is planning to takeover that factory even if the factory is not making money. But Feng Yu will never let that factory suffer losses. Even if it is a glass factory, he will have ways to make it profitable!

“How do you know about my parents’ job? How do you know my name?” Zhou Kexin stares at Feng Yu. She wants to ask this question as she thought Feng Yu only knows who she was. But Feng Yu knows about her family’s conditions!

Feng Yu had thought of different excuses, but he decided to tell Zhou Kexin the truth, although the truth sounded ridiculous!

“Will you believe me if I tell you that we knew each other in our previous life?”

Zhou Kexin thought Feng Yu would tell her that they were former schoolmates in junior school, and he was transferred away. She never expects Feng Yu to give such a ridiculous excuse.

“Are you trying to tell me that I was still your wife in your previous life?”

Feng Yu nodded vigorously. “That’s right.”

“Shameless! I don’t know what your rich people are thinking. Since you have a girlfriend, you should stop bothering me!” Zhou Kexin was furious.

“I am telling the truth.” Feng Yu turned and saw the nurse had closed the door. “You have a mole on your left butt cheek!”

Zhou Kexin blushed and grabbed the pillow and threw it at Feng Yu. “You pervert! How dare you peep at me?!”

“I did not peep at you.” Feng Yu wanted to tell Zhou Kexin that he does not need to peep, as she was his wife!

“When you are in Junior School, you fell into a river and was saved by an old man who was passing by. You like sour food since young and do not like spicy food. When you are thinking, you will tilt your head and support your chin with your left hand. Your uncle told you that you would grow taller if you throw your first baby tooth onto the roof. But you accidentally drop your baby tooth on the floor, and a black dog ate it. You even cried. Also…”

“Enough! Who are you? How do you know about all these?!” There was fear in Zhou Kexin’s eyes. Even her best friend does not know about all these secrets, and maybe only her parents know.

But Zhou Kexin’s parents do now know this person.

“I am your husband in your previous life, and you are my wife!” Feng Yu replied seriously.

“If you still don’t tell me the truth, I will ask Sister Liu to throw you out!”

“I am telling the truth. I still know a lot of things about you. You can ask me anything about you, and I can answer you.” Feng Yu retorted.

Since Feng Yu had told Zhou Kexin the truth, he decided to make things clear. He realized that he could never forget Zhou Kexin. He does care even if he is labeled as a scumbag for having two wives!

“What is my favorite novel?”

Feng Yu smiled. “Romance of the three kingdoms!”

Even if a girl likes to read classic novels, she should prefer <Dream of the Red Chamber>. But Zhou Kexin’s favorite is Romance of the three kingdoms, and maybe even her parents do not know about this.

“What is my favorite color?!”

“Light green. Your mood gets better when you see this color.”

“What animal do I hate the most?”

“Dogs, because a dog ate your tooth.”

“My favorite animal.”

“Cats, because you think cats are gentle.”

No matter what Zhou Kexin asks, Feng Yu can answer easily. Zhou Kexin was getting more shocked, while Feng Yu became prouder.

“Impossible. There are no ghosts in this world, let alone reincarnation!” Zhou Kexin shouted in disbelief!

“You have not seen it, and it does not mean reincarnation does not exist. Why do you think I will know about your inconceivable condition? In our previous life, we could not have children, and this is your greatest regret.”

Zhou Kexin’s mind is in a total mess. Her logical thinking tells her that reincarnation does not exist in this world. But with all the facts presented to her, she was forced to believe it.

Was Zhou Kexin Feng Yu’s wife in their previous life? If not, how did Feng Yu know everything about her?

Suddenly, Zhou Kexin felt anger rising from the bottom of her heart. Since I am your wife from your previous life, why did you find another girlfriend in this life?!

“You say I am your wife in our previous life. That means you are still thinking about me, right?”

Feng Yu was overjoyed. “Of course.”

“Then why do you have a girlfriend now?” Zhou Kexin questioned Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was tongue-tied and did not know how to answer this question.

“Alright. Our past lives are different from our current lives. In this life, we are not fated to be together. Please leave.” Zhou Kexin turned her head away from Feng Yu.

Feng Yu did not expect Zhou Kexin to chase him away.

Feng Yu had finally mustered up his courage to tell Zhou Kexin all his secrets, and he will not allow it to end this way.

“Why are you not leaving? Could it be that you want to have the best of both worlds? I don’t want to see you! Leave me alone!”

“Alright. Rest well. I will visit you tomorrow.”

“Don’t come tomorrow! If you come tomorrow, I will get discharged!”

Feng Yu sighed as he looks at Zhou Kexin one last time before leaving the ward slowly.

After Feng Yu left, Zhou Kexin could not hold back her tears.

Why?! Why?! He already has a girlfriend, and why is he still pestering me?

When Zhou Kexin met Feng Yu, she was overjoyed, before becoming sad. But after Feng Yu left, she felt hurt. She felt like she was about to lose the most important person in her life.

Fate… why do I have to go through all these?!

Chapter 1016 – Shi Dazhu

Zhong Qingxian noticed Feng Yu was behaving weirdly these few days because Feng Yu had been working very hard tirelessly.

Feng Yu might not be lazy, but he has never been hardworking. He would rather spend money to hire people than manage his companies himself.

What happened? Did Feng Yu suffer from some blow? What had changed him?

“Manager Feng, are you feeling down these few days?”

Feng Yu paused for a second. “No. I am just helping you with your work.”

“Manager Feng, I had seen many people becoming workaholics when they are feeling down. Never mind. You should know the reason, and I shall not talk about it anymore.” Zhong Qingxian shook his head. “Oh, an old friend of mine had called me. He hopes you can help him.”

“Who is it? What help does he want?” Feng Yu asked.

“I think he wants to borrow money from you. Shi Dazhu, from Giant Group. His health supplements had been selling well in the past. Do you know him?”

Who? Shi Dazhu?

This guy is a legend from Feng Yu’s previous life!

Shi Dazhu was one of the top guys, but he fell from his throne and was almost bankrupted. After that, he picked himself up and climbed back to the top and become one of the top guys in the health supplement industry. He also secured his position on the billionaire list!

“I think I had met him once. Where is he now? I have time to meet him.” Feng Yu is curious. Why didn’t Shi Dazhu seek investment from Tai Hua Consultancy and want to borrow money from him?

“He is in Shanghai now. Do you want me to call him over now?”

“Sure. Ask him to come over.”

Shi Dazhu had thought of seeking investment from Tai Hua Consultancy. Still, after he knows about the conditions, he felt it was too restrictive, and Tai Hua Consultancy wanted too many shares.

Shi Dazhu hopes he can get a loan from Feng Yu and is willing to pay high interest for it. He firmly believes that he will succeed this time and will make a comeback!

The previous time Feng Yu met with Shi Dazhu was at CCTV, and it was just a few years ago. But now, Shi Dazhu looks haggard and old.

“Manager Feng, it’s been a while since we met.” Shi Dazhu shook Feng Yu’s hand.

“Hahaha… Manager Shi, it’s been a few years since we met. You are still looking good.”

“Manager Feng, let’s leave these pleasantries for later. Did Manager Zhong told you the reason why I want to meet you?”

Zhong Qingxian and Shi Dazhu were selling health supplements in the past. Lehaha’s earliest product is a children’s health supplement, and they were friends at that time. Their products were selling well, but Shi Dazhu was more successful than Zhong Qingxian. His annual profit is more than ten million, while Zhong Qingxian’s annual sales barely reach that amount.

But now, both men’s status is exchanged. But luckily for Shi Dazhu, Zhong Qingxian still treated him as a friend and helped to set up this meeting with Feng Yu.

“He did mention briefly, but I do not know the details. Since you need money, why didn’t you approach Tai Hua Consultancy? In China, Tai Hua Consultancy is offering the best deal for the investment.”

“Is Tai Hua Consultancy also your company? Although their offers and conditions are good, the amount I needed is too high. If I get Tai Hua Consultancy to invest that amount, the whole company will belong to you.”

“Oh? How much money do you need?”

“I need around 50 million USD!” Shi Dazhu put up five fingers.

Zhong Qianxian took in a deep breath. 50 million USD?! Shi Dazhu’s company is currently no different from bankruptcy and might not even have 500,000 USD. If he seeks investment from Tai Hua Consultancy, he will have to give up his company.

“You want to borrow money from me, and not seeking investment from me. How much interest can you give me? How can you prove that your company can repay this loan? You do not even have anything decent to use as collateral, or else, you would have approached the bank. Although the banks have tightened their regulations on loans, it is still not too strict.” Feng Yu smiled.

“That’s right. I don’t have anything that can be used as collateral, and that’s why I am seeking help from you. Please believe me. Once this product is launched into the market, I will get high profits, and I will return 100 million USD in five years!”

This interest is extremely high.

But Feng Yu shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, or I don’t want to earn the interest. Is your company still going to produce health supplements?”

“Yes. I had developed a new health supplement that is good for elderlies’ health. I believe this product will sell well in China, and I had thought of a marketing plan.”

Feng Yu smiled and said. “I also believe that your health supplement can sell well. Are you thinking of using aggressive advertising to push your product sales? How about this? I will forgo the interest and lend you 50 million USD. But I want 49% of your company’s shares.”

Zhong Qingxian is puzzled. Did Feng Yu believe Shi Dazhu’s product will be popular, and his company can make over 100 million USD within a few years?

Zhong Qingxian had also started his business by selling health supplements. Still, he cannot see the health supplement industry can make a comeback.

Feng Yu wanted 49% of the company’s shares, and this means Feng Yu does not want control over this company. Shi Dazhu will still have the final say in this company.

Shi Dazhu knows Zhong Qingxian, and he knew Feng Yu has shares in the latter’s company. Feng Yu is still the major shareholder but had given all his authority to Zhong Qingxiang.

“Manager Feng, do you have other conditions?”

“No. I will not interfere with the company’s operations and will even recommend my sales channels to you. You will return 50 million USD after five years without interest.”

“Why?” Shi Dazhu asked.

“Because I trust you. I believe this investment will bring me returns, and it’s worth exchanging the high interest for half of your company’s shares. But I have one suggestion. I don’t recommend you continue building your skyscraper after you got this sum of money. You can rebuild that building when you have enough funds in the future.”

“I know. If I didn’t…… never mind. Let’s not talk about this. Manager Feng, don’t you want to see my latest product?”

“No need.”

What else can this product be? It must be the famous Nao Bai Jin! This health supplement is sold as gifts, and the whole of China was crazy over it in Feng Yu’s previous life. Even until the day before Feng Yu’s rebirth, people were still giving each other Nao Bai Jin as gifts.

“Manager Feng, why do you have so much trust in me?”

“You don’t like to be trusted by others?” Feng Yu asked Shi Dazhu.

“Alright. I promise you that I will not let you suffer any losses, and I might not need five years to return 50 million USD.”

“I will wait for your good news then. Call this number, and someone will prepare a contract based on what we agreed, and the funds will be wired to you.” Feng Yu gave Sun Lijie’s number to Shi Dazhu.

In the future, this 50 million USD will become 500 million or even more!

Chapter 1017 – The rise and fall of an industry

After Shi Dazhu left, Zhong Qingxian asked. “Manager Feng, you think his health product company can make money?”

“Why not?”

“If it was five years ago, I will be confident that his company can make money. He is an expert on the sales of health products, and I had learned a lot from him in the past. But at that time, the health products industry is on the rise, and almost everyone who sells health supplements can make money. But it also resulted in many fake products entering the market!”

“It is different now. After the crackdown, most health supplements companies are bankrupted. Lehaha had given up on health supplements and focused on beverages. How many of those health products from that era are still in the market now?”

Feng Yu nodded. “You are right. Most of the health products cannot be found now. But didn’t you notice that new health products are appearing in the market?”

“Yes. This is a legal industry, but the golden era is over. Many of these new products are not selling!”

“That is because they can’t find the right positioning!” Feng Yu thought to himself. Only a genius can come up with the idea of giving health products and gifts!

Zhong Qingxian is confused. Positioning? What positioning can a health product be? It is just a fast-moving consumer good.

“Every industry has its rise and fall, and many factors are causing this. One of the main reasons is the industrial policy! The health product industry had diverged from its course, and the market is filled with fake products. Of course, there will be a crackdown to clean up the industry. After all the fake products are gone, the ones remaining are all authentic.”

“Have you realized that people are starting to focus on their health again? If you can find the right opening, the health product industry will rise again!” Feng Yu replied firmly.

“Really?”

“All industries will have to go through the introduction phase, growth phase, maturity phase, and decline phase. The health products industry has stopped suddenly during its growth phase at that time, and this industry is not eliminated from the market!”

Zhong Qingxian thought about what Feng Yu said and nodded.

The health products industry had not reached the decline stage naturally because of the crackdown. Now, the regulations on this industry had relaxed, and this industry can rise again.

But Zhong Qingxiang still felt it is too risky to lend Shi Dazhu 50 million USD.

Many people do not understand many of Feng Yu’s investments. But in the end, Feng Yu prove everyone that he had made the right investments.

“Manager Feng, when do you think the beverage industry will reach the decline phase?”

“It’s still too early to talk about that. Our Chinese beverage industry is still in the introduction phase and has not even reached the growth phase. Just look at our Lehaha’s products. Our sales are still increasing every year, right? Jianlibao’s sales had also increased this year. In the market, many new brands had appeared, and all of them are doing well. You can compare the industry now and five years ago.”

“Then, when will the industry reach the maturity phase?” Feng Yu was right. Many new beverages have appeared in the market, and all of them are selling well.

“It will take at least ten years. By that time, the potential of all cities would have dried up, and the villages’ market will be opened up. The sales will still increase, but it will be at a slower pace. There will also be no new players in the industry.”

Even before Feng Yu’s rebirth, there are still new beverage brands entering the market every year. But at the same time, many brands are eliminated because of management issues or cash flow issues.

At that time, there are countless brands and beverages in the market, and only a few brands are selling well. The two Cola giants, Kang Shifu, Tong Yi, Lehaha, Hui Yuen, Jia Duo Bao, Red Bull, etc.

Among all the brands, Feng Yu admired Jia Duo Bao the most. This company had become one of the industry leaders with just one product.

But in this life, Jia Duo Bao had been suppressed by the two Cola giants first. Followed by Jianlibao did not decline, and Lehaha is doing better than Feng Yu’s previous life. Tong Yi and Kang Shifu will also not succeed too.

Le Bashi was still around, but they had given up on the northern China market and is focusing on the southern provinces. The sales channels are not as comprehensive as Lehaha. They have high transportation costs, as they do not have many branch factories around China.

Huiyuan had done well with their fruit juice. Because they had joined the Beverage Alliance, they are growing faster compared to themselves in Feng Yu’s previous life.

Zhong Qingxian had told Feng Yu before that if he knew fruit juice could sell so well, he would have acquired Huiyuan and merge them into Lehaha. Now, they are not selling no matter what.

Zhong Qingxian does not know that in Feng Yu’s previous life, his energy drink, Yuanli, was suppressed by Red Bull, and he suffered massive losses. In this life, Yuanli was developed earlier and had used athletes’ endorsements to increase its sales.

Zhong Qingxian’s Yuanli energy drink had confined Red Bull to Guangdong province. It did not give them any chance to become popular in China. Lehaha’s carbonated drinks had not done well in Feng Yu’s previous life, but they are successful in this life.

Zhong Qianxiang does agree with Feng Yu that it’s hard for food and drink products to enter the decline phase, as people need food and drinks.

Maybe some beverages might decline, but the industry will not decline. It’s just like tea. After a few thousand years, many people are still drinking tea.

“Manager Feng, does that mean the companies you invested in are the companies you think will enter the growth phase?”

“Yes, but some of them will be in the maturity phase. But all these companies will not enter the decline phase anytime soon.”

Supermarkets are in the Introduction stage now and will enter the growth phase in a few years. Maybe, in another twenty years, this industry will enter the maturity phase. But it’s too early to talk about the decline phase.

Online shopping will suppress traditional retailers, but can never replace them. This is because online retail needs time for delivery, while customers can just grab and go to traditional retail shops.

Motorcycle industries are now in the growth phase but will enter the maturity phase in a few years. But at that time, Songjiang Motors can switch too electric scooters, and the electric scooter can extend the growth phase by at least ten years.

Actually, many of Feng Yu’s investments still have not entered the highspeed growth phase. For example, his minerals. He had invested in this industry very early because mines were cheap then.

In another two years, the value of minerals like precious metals will increase, and that’s the time Feng Yu reap the profits.

Zhong Qingxian looks at Feng Yu in a daze. Could this be Feng Yu’s secret to his wealth? Select an industry and invest. But how does he pick the industry?

Chapter 1018 – The frustrated Sun Zhengyi

Feng Yu knew which industry to invest in is not because he is good at investing. It is because of his memories from his previous life.

Even when during business negotiations, many people in Feng Yu’s companies are better than him. But if the investment is successful, Feng Yu will get extremely high profits.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Japanese Softbank’s Sun Zhengyi is a famous Venture Capital investor. His investments in tech firms helped him get returns up to hundreds of folds, and also let him become Asia’s wealthiest man.

But that was in Feng Yu’s previous life. In this life, Sun Zhengyi’s investments will not be so successful.

Two years ago, Sun Zhengyi started to invest in network technology firms. He had invested 100 million USD in Yahoo, and this is his most successful investment these few years. The return of this investment is more than 70 times and is worth almost 8 billion USD now!

Sun Zhengyi’s investment in Yahoo showed him the benefits of investing in such firms, and he started looking around for new network technology firms to invest.

Sun Zhengyi’s venture capital investing’s strategy is the same as other venture capital. After investing in a company, he will push for the company to get listed and then make money from selling the company’s shares.

Of course. If Sun Zhengyi had invested in a company like Yahoo, he would continue to hold the shares and collect dividends. As a venture investor, he is not afraid of failed investments. Even if his investments failed fifty times, and he found a company like Yahoo, he will recover his losses and get high returns.

After some research, Sun Zhengyi felt the Chinese and South Korean technology markets would be the next up and coming markets. He started to look for firms to invest in these two countries.

In South Korea, Sun Zhengyi encountered some problems. Hong Kong’s Fu Family had entered South Korea’s market. They acquired, merged, and invested in many companies. The companies he targeted were all invested by the Fu Family before he could act.

Sun Zhengyi was fine with it, as the South Korean market is much smaller compared to the Chinese market. Network technology companies still needed the support of users.

The Chinese market is massive because of the population. Although China’s economy is not as developed, the economic growth in the past few years is very fast. The PC industry in China is also developing very fast. Lenovo Group’s sales had been increasing every year and are much higher than many Japanese PC brands!

The more PCs are sold, the more internet users there will be, and network technology firms will rise!

Sun Zhengyi noticed China likes to copy other countries’ development strategies. The US’s tech firms had created high returns from network technologies, and this year, China started to speed up internet development.

Sun Zhengyi felt many network tech firms would appear in China, and these firms will lack funds. This is the best opportunity for him, as a venture investor, to invest in these companies and make profits from them.

So, Sun Zhengyi come to China with a team of negotiators confidently. Softbank will invest at least a few hundred million USD in China. If one of the companies can reach half or even a third of Yahoo’s success, he will have made profits.

But after Sun Zhengyi arrived in China and started some promotions, no one approached him for investment.

Sun Zhengyi sends his men out to investigate. He wonders if the Chinese companies knew what venture capital is.

When Sun Zhengyi’s men came back to him with news of a venture capital investment firm in China, this company had used aggressive marketing, and the companies, Sun Zhengyi targeted, were all invested by this investment firm. None of them went to Softbank.

An investment company that focuses solely on venture capital investment and spending a large amount on advertising is ridiculous!

Also, this company claims that they have 1 billion USD to invest. Sun Zhengyi wonders which tycoon owns this company.

Sun Zhengyi thought hard about it and felt this company must be owned by that Chinese super tycoon, Feng Yu.

This is because Sun Zhengyi felt other than Feng Yu, no one in China can fork out 1 billion USD to invest!

Sun Zhengyi realized that he met a formidable opponent. This man has more money than Softbank. Softbank’s current market value is over 20 billion USD, but it is still lesser than Feng Yu.

All venture capital investment companies will have an industry they will focus on, and Sun Zhengyi thought Feng Yu is only targeting network tech firms. He can invest in other technology companies.

But Sun Zhengyi was frustrated to know that Feng Yu’s Tai Hua Consultancy is investing in everything. All the companies Sun Zhengyi targeted were all invested by Tai Hua consultancy.

Sun Zhengyi had even approached some of these companies and offered lucrative terms. Still, those companies used his offers to negotiate with Tai Hua Consultancy.

Sun Zhengyi does not know many Chinese dislike Japanese. Although this is a business transaction, most Chinese companies would prefer to work with another Chinese company compared to a Japanese company.

Sun Zhengyi had been in talks with Netease for a long time, and he thought Netease would accept his investment. But he was informed Netease had accepted Tai Hua Consultancy’s investment.

This is another company Sun Zhengyi loses to Tai Hua Consultancy. Sun Zhengyi had made a great offer to Netease, and even the other directors complain about it. Why did Netease pick Tai Hua Consultancy instead of him?

Tai Hua Consultancy’s offer is better than them? No other venture capital investment companies should be offering a better deal than Sun Zhengyi!

But Sun Zhengyi does not know Tai Hua Consultancy is not like other investment companies. Feng Yu had a list of ‘must invest’ companies, and Tai Hua Consultancy had been monitoring Softbank. Most of the companies Softbank target and want to invest had gone to Tai Hua Consultancy!

Sun Lijie rejected the few remaining companies because they were asking for too much, and Softbank also did not accept those companies’ harsh demands. Sun Zhengyi might be a venture capital investor, but he will not accept any risky investments.

Softbank’s trip to China had failed. Sun Zhengyi had no choice but to leave China with his team for Europe.

Sun Zhengyi has money, but nowhere to invest. This is the first time he felt so frustrating after he becomes a billionaire!

Chapter 1019 – South Korea trip

Feng Yu had contacted the South Korean companies he is interested in, and he had come to South Korea to negotiate the takeover and, at the same time, for a short vacation.

After touchdown, Kameda Masao appeared. Feng Yu’s overseas holding company is registered in the Virgin Islands, and the Chairman is Kameda Masao.

To be honest, Kameda Masao is talented. He is loyal to Feng Yu and is good at management. More importantly, among Feng Yu’s subordinates, he is the best at kissing his ass.

Wind and Rain Holding Corporation controls Feng Yu’s investments in Hong Kong, Japan, Russia, and Europe, and the overall assets are higher than Tai Hua Holding.

After Kameda Masao knows Feng Yu appointed him to be this company’s Chairman, his loyalty towards Feng Yu increased. All these while, Kameda Masao knows Feng Yu dislike Japanese, and he did not expect to be put in charge of this company. Maybe it is because his family had opposed the war, or maybe it is because he had treated Feng Yu with respect.

Kameda Masao swore he would not betray Feng Yu. Without Feng Yu, he will still be a nobody, and his family will not enjoy the current status.

“Kameda, do you think the South Koreans will hate us?” Feng Yu joked.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many people joked about the relationships of Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese. When it comes to scolding Japanese, South Koreans and Chinese will be friends. When it comes to scolding South Koreans, the Chinese and Japanese will be friends. When it comes to scolding Chinese, South Korean and Japanese will be friends.

“Boss, in South Korea and even the whole world, no one dares to hate you.”

Feng Yu felt good after hearing this reply. Just this reply alone is worth putting Kameda Masao as the Chairman.

“Hahaha… Some people also hate Bill Gates. No one can let everyone like him. Oh, have you hire a translator?” Although the bosses of most companies can speak English, a translator is needed, especially they will be visiting places of interest there.

A man behind Kameda Masao stepped forwards. “Good morning, Boss. My name is Weng Zhijian, from Shanghai. After my studies here, I remained in Korea for work.”

“Is the salary in South Korean high?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

“When I finished my studies, the salary here is higher than in Shanghai. But I think China’s future economic growth will be better than South Korea. I intent on getting some experience here before starting my business in China!” Weng Zhijiang replied seriously.

Feng Yu likes ambitious young men. This Weng Zhijian is about his age and is doing better than him in his previous life.

“Oh? Then what are you doing now?”

“I am working in an artist management agency. When I return to China in the future, I will start my agency and groom new artistes systematically. China’s entertainment scene will be much better than in South Korea and Japan in the future.” Weng Zhijian replied excitedly.

Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong’s entertainment scene is more developed than China. The Chinese market is massive, but the entertainment industry in China is not developed. Just look at the Chinese movies. The box office of Chinese movies cannot be compared to Hong Kong movies, and most Chinese movies are losing money.

Many people said that this is caused by Wind and Rain Electronics for developing the VCD player. The Chinese are used to buying VCDs, and pirated VCDs in the market affected the ticket sales.

Feng Yu despised these comments. When you are constipating, can you blame the gravity for being so weak?!

If the movie is good, people will go to the cinema. There are no iconic movies in China now. Most of the movie directors are filming art films, and how many people can appreciate art films?

Art films are boring from the start until the end. Who will like to watch something like this?

Also, the cinemas in China are very dirty!

The screens and sound systems of the cinemas are not clear, and some cinemas still have weird smells. No moviegoers will enjoy themselves in the cinemas. Also, the media kept promoting movies that had won awards in movie festivals. How many of those award-winning movies are watchable?

If these are not changed, the movie industry will not develop. It is the same as the entertainment scene in China. All the artists’ managers do not know how to unleash the commercial value of their artists!

“Oh? When you want to start your own company in China and do not have enough funds, you can contact Tai Hua Consultancy. They will invest in your company.”

The Chinese entertainment industry will only start developing in a few years, and many of this young man might be successful in the future.

“Thank you, Boss.” Weng Zhijian is overjoyed. He had come over as a translator for some extra cash and had not expected this.

“You are lucky. None of Boss’s investments had lost money. You will surely be earning big bucks in the future.” Kameda Masao laughed.

Feng Yu glanced at Kameda Masao. This guy is more confident than me, but this sounds pleasant to my ears. Also, Kameda Masao is right. Feng Yu will never let his companies lose money.

If the entertainment company is managed well, he can let his artists endorse his products. Just the endorsement alone will help the company earn money and increase the popularity of the artists.

Feng Yu turns to Kameda Masao. “What is the plan for today?”

“We will visit some attractions today. Boss, why didn’t you bring Ms. Li with you?”

“We had wanted to come together, but she is busy with work.”

Li Na should be graduating this year, and Feng Yu had planned for her. She will teach in her current school, but to Feng Yu’s surprise, Li Na was selected by her University to go for her Doctorate, and Feng Yu got nothing to do with it.

Li Na accepted the offer!

Other than Feng Yu supported her decision, Feng Yu and Li Na’s family objected to this decision. They felt a woman does not need high education. She should graduate and be a lecturer at the university and get married.

Feng Yu still have other ideas. He supported Li Na’s decision, and what can their family members say? They can only wait for a few more years before they see their grandchildren.

So, Li Na has to continue to be an Assistant Lecturer and also do her Doctorate.

Kameda Masao paused for a second and said. “Boss, the entertainment companies here provide escort services.”

Escorts? Do they escort at night too? But Feng Yu is not interested.

“If you like, you can get an escort. I am not interested.”

Kameda Masao smiled and did not say anything. His Boss is not interested, how can he go ahead?

“Boss, our first stop is Gyeongbokgung Palace.”

Chapter 1020 – Legend of Mir’s company

After touring around South Korea for two days, Feng Yu felt bored.

The attractions in Korea were not interesting to him, and he was also troubled with his relationship problems with two women.

How can the palaces in Korea compare to China’s Forbidden City? Even some Chinese old capitals are more majestic than Korean palaces. Feng Yu is also not interested in theme parks or beaches with beautiful women.

Weng Zhijian, on the other hand, is excited to be at the beaches. But the beautiful women there are not willing to talk to him, as they can tell he is only a follower.

Kameda Masao noticed Feng Yu is not interested in these places of interest and asked his men to arrange Feng Yu’s visit to the companies he is interested in.

Kameda Masao had contacted this company, and they are demanded a high price. Kameda’s team was prepared to negotiate this takeover bid, and bringing Feng Yu around Korea in the past two days are part of the negotiating strategy. He does not want to show they are too eager to buy out the company.

Actoz soft is the company that developed Legend of Mir in Feng Yu’s previous left. But this company was managed badly. After handing the distribution rights to Shanda, they were taken over by Shanda. Taken over by their distributor is proof that the company’s management sucks!

Also, Actoz soft had invested in WeMade Entertainment, and WeMade had surpassed them. WeMade went on to become a world-renowned online and mobile games developer.

But Actoz soft do have good technical skills, and the game they are developing now is one of the reasons for the rise of PCs and online games in Feng Yu’s previous life. Many internet cafes in China became popular because of this game. This is the first MMO that made people forget their meals and developed the Game card industry.

Feng Yu is targeting this industry as he can make money from the games and PCs.

In the future, the company can develop more games like LOL and Dungeons.

Profits from the gaming industry are higher than expectations, especially with games related products.

“Boss, this company, Actoz soft, startup capital is less than 5 billion Won, and Won had depreciated a lot now. It is only worth around 2.5 billion RMB, which is around 3 million USD. However, they are asking for 6 million USD and want us to promise not to fire anyone.” Kameda Masao reported to Feng Yu in the car.

Feng Yu is pleased with the company’s game development because they had developed Legend of Mir. The leveling system and characters of this game are considered sophisticated in this era. Also, the gameplay is simple and fun.

But Feng Yu is not happy with the condition of not firing any of the staff. The managers of this company are not qualified, and they must be replaced with Feng Yu’s men. Also, the finance department, game designers, etc. will also be replaced.

Feng Yu does not mind about their asking price as he can make at least 30 million USD from the Chinese market alone.

“Although 6 million USD might be high, it is still acceptable. But the management team of this company must be controlled by us. We cannot accept their condition of keeping all the staff. We can set a criterion, and we decide whether if we want to fire those that cannot fulfill the criteria. They cannot interfere with our decisions!”

How can we don’t have a say in the manpower after we bought the company? Those people are too arrogant!

“Boss, I am confident to buy this company at around 4.5 million USD. The current management team of this company is not good at management.”

“No. What I lack is time now. I want this company’s game to be launched worldwide on New Year’s Day! That’s why we must acquire this company as soon as possible and then increase the number of developers and start the Alpha testing.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Legend of Mir had done very well in Asia, especially China. But their sales in other parts of the world are not high. After all, South Korea’s culture is very similar to China.

“Ah… if we have more time, maybe we can find some bugs in the game and suppress the price.” Kameda Masao is troubled. Feng Yu wants everything to be fast, and he does not have enough time.

But luckily, Kameda Masao had contacted Actoz soft, and this company pushed back the launch of their game, as they are afraid the company’s value will drop if the launch fails.

Feng Yu suddenly rubbed his chin. “You are saying that if we can find bugs in the game, we can lower the price? If that’s the case, I think I have a solution.”

When the Legend of Mir was launched in Feng Yu’s previous life, there were lots of bugs, and Shanda helped to patch up the bugs. This led to Shanda improving their development skills and started developing their games in the future.

Kameda Masao’s eyes widen. “Boss, you also know about game development?”

“No, but I know how to play PC games. Later after we reach the company, let me play with their game for a while. I will point out some problems with the game and see how they are going to solve it!”

This type of game needs massive servers, and at the start of the game, the characters will appear naked. Only in China, the characters will appear in their underwear.

The game also has issues with picking items, maps, data, equipment and gold drop rates, etc.

Feng Yu still remembered some of the hidden in-game missions. He will tell the developers that the missions are too easy, even for kids, and see how they are going to answer!

Although Kameda Masao does not know about games or looking for bugs, he believed what Feng Yu said.

Even if they cannot find any bugs, they will just pay more to take over the company.

……

“Boss, this is the CEO of Actoz soft, Choi Woong. Mr. Choi, this is my boss, Mr. Feng Yu. World’s Second wealthiest man, Asia’s number one tycoon!”

Choi Woong was shocked. He knew Kameda Masao is the President of a listed company, Sixth Sense, and thought he was the one who wants to acquire Actoz Soft. Choi Woong did not expect Kameda Masao to have a boss still and his boss is the super tycoon Feng Yu!

But this is a piece of good news to Choi Woong. Tycoons are mostly generous and will surely pay a good price for the company!

“Mr. Feng, nice to meet you. I represent Actoz Soft to welcome you.”

Feng Yu shook Choi Woong’s hand arrogantly and asked. “I heard from Kameda that your company had developed a good game. Can you let me try it for a while?”

“Of course!” Choi Woong was overjoyed. He felt Feng Yu is too arrogant and how can he discover the bugs in the game himself. He thought that if Feng Yu enjoys the game, the company might fetch a higher price. Maybe 6 million USD is too low. Should I ask for 8 million USD?

Shanda Group

WeMade Entertainment

Massively multiplayer online game

League of Legends

Chapter 1021 The game is full of bugs!

Feng Yu registered an account, and once he logged on, he saw his character naked on the screen. The player can see the outlines of the character, but the private parts were blurred.

Feng Yu points to the monitor. “Are you all going to let this game be age-restricted? Male or female characters must wear something!”

Choi Woong smacked his lips. This is only a video game, and why would kids play this game? This is purposely designed to attract more players. But this is not a problem. His developers can solve it within a day.

“Do you have GMs? Increase the level for my character to the max.”

Choi Woong waved his hand, and one developer switched on another PC and gave Feng Yu an in-game item. After Feng Yu equipped it and killed a chicken, his level increased by ten levels, and 10 million gold appeared in his backpack.

“You… register a new account. This game can do trading between players, right?”

The developer paused for a second. Did anyone tell this super tycoon about the game features? How does he know that trading is allowed in the game?

But the developer immediately registered a new account and stood in front of Feng Yu.

Feng Yu threw his gold on the floor, and the developer shouted. “Trading must take place when the players are facing each other. You cannot throw the gold on the floor. Other players can pick them up.”

Weng Zhijiang translated to Feng Yu, and Feng Yu rolled his eyes at the developer. He knows how to trade, but what he is doing now is to let the gold in his backpack become 1,000,001. This is a magical number…

Feng Yu move his character to the developer’s character and open the trade panel.

‘Throwing blood on your face’ wants to trade with you. Do you accept it?’

The developer accepted. For the demonstration, he placed a ring into the trade window. He had not noticed Feng Yu’s character name during Feng Yu’s character creation, but the rest noticed. All of them controlled and held back their laughter and did not say anything.

Feng Yu placed 1 million gold into the trade window and adjusted the amount to 1,000,001 into the gold trade bracket, before clicking confirm.

A message window pops up, saying the gold in the backpack cannot be 0. The developer’s screen showed 1 million gold. After the developer clicked complete trade, the ring in the trade window appeared in Feng Yu’s backpack. But because of the bug, Feng Yu’s gold returned into his backpack. He had not spent a single gold and got the item!

Feng Yu banged the table. “Your developers did not even discover this simple bug? Players can cheat each other for items! Who else is willing to spend money to buy in-game items?”

Choi Woong’s face changed and started scolding the head developer. He wants this bug fix immediately!

Feng Yu waved his hand. “This game has a few maps. How are you separating the maps? Your servers for the different maps are separated, right? What will happen if my character stands right in between the maps?”

Choi Woong’s eyes widen and look at another developer. That developer suddenly felt the temperature rising, and he started sweating.

“Have you all tested? It’s fine for your game to have poor workmanship, but you all don’t even conduct these basic tests? How are you going to launch it? Kameda, record these bugs.”

Kameda Masao immediately asks his men to record all the bugs, before looking at Choi Woong. Didn’t you all claim to have developed a well-designed game? It’s only minutes since my Boss started playing and he found so many bugs!

“Maybe there will not be any problems.” Another developer said.

“Really? Then let’s try trading again.”

Two different maps are under two different servers, and this time, another famous bug appeared. Cross-server trade!

Moving the character back and forth Beach Province and Venomous snakes valley, and trading all the equipped items and items in the backpack with another player standing opposite, before logging off immediately, will result in items duplication. When the player logged on again, some of the items in his backpack he traded earlier will appear again, and the other player gets to keep everything! This means players can duplicate in-game items countless times!

Feng Yu pointed to the monitor and shook his head. “This is the trading feature of this game? An in-game item can be duplicated. That means once a good item drops in the game, all the players can get it immediately. What is the point of setting the item’s drop rates? How are you going to justify the value of the in-game items?”

“Err… this…” That developer stuttered and could not answer Feng Yu.

Choi Woong wanted to strangle his developers. If you have not tested the game, just say so. Why must you tell me that you all had conducted the tests? Now, the other party had found so many bugs, and this is making us look bad!

Feng Yu shook his head and looked at Kameda. “Take note of this. Their developers are not professional and like to tell lies.”

After that, Feng Yu moved his character to White Sun Gate, and the gold in his backpack is exactly 1,002,000. When his character reaches the White Sun Gate’s player stash, he deposited a gold bar into the stash, and then withdrew it. The gold in his backpack did not change! Within a minute, his backpack is full of gold, and he threw all the gold on the floor, before continuing again.

Feng Yu turns and looks at Choi Woong. “Are you all giving out gold bars for free? The players do not need to fight monsters for gold anymore! They can just come here and get in-game currency for free!”

Choi Woong turned and grabbed another developer. “Fix this bug immediately! If you cannot fix it, you will be fired!”

Feng Yu looks up, and this time, Kameda did not wait for Feng Yu to say anything. He immediately shouted to his men. “Note this down. There are too many bugs in this game, and the developers’ skills cannot be trusted.”

When the translator translated what Kameda Masao said, Choi Woong’s face turns black!

What is going on? The developers had tested this game and all of them did not discover these bugs. How did Feng Yu discover all these bugs within this short period?

Could it be that a developer had discovered these bugs and did not report it? But this is impossible. The developer will get a large sum of money reward for detecting so many bugs!

“Your servers have a fixed time for backups, right? Get ready. I will trade during the backup time and see what will happen.” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

After Feng Yu complete the in-game trade, the same items appeared in both players’ backpacks.

“Impossible! One of the players’ items in the backpack must be fake and cannot be used.”

Feng Yu nodded. “Ok. You all are identifying the items through a code, right? What if I don’t use the duplicated item and upgrade it? The two items’ code will be different now. This way, both items will be usable, right?”

The developers were dumbfounded. None of them had ever thought of this before.

Feng Yu stood up. “It’s only a short while, and I can find so many bugs. Kameda, didn’t you say this is a good game?! This is too shitty!”

Shitty…

Choi Woong opens his mouth and wanted to retort Feng Yu, but he can’t find the words. Even he will find this game shitty if he can find so many bugs within a short period.

Choi Woong starts to wonder if he can still sell his company now.

Chapter 1022 – You have gotten yourself a bargain

“Kameda, if you are buying something, you must check carefully. You cannot decide based on what you see. Apples also rot from the inside. How much do they want for this company?” Feng Yu purposely asked.

“6 million USD.”

“This company had only developed this shitty game, and we still don’t know when the bugs will be fixed. Also, there might be more bugs in the game which we have not detected. Don’t tell me that this game will be launch next month. I think this game will not be ready next year! How can this company be worth 6 million USD? We should not waste our money like this!”

“Yes. It’s all my fault. I had not done enough research on this company. But I was also deceived by them, and I will report this in the papers to warn others of this company. They tried to cheat us with this game and still demanded a high price for the company. This is a fraud! I will make an official complaint to the embassy.”

Choi Woong was stunned. How can this be considered fraud? These are all bugs that we did not detect. If we know about these bugs, we would have fixed it.

Also, is there a need to complain to the embassy? This is just a business deal, and the transaction is not completed yet. How can you all accuse us of fraud?!

The Asian Financial Crisis badly hit South Korea. This company should be worth 4 million USD, but because of Won’s depreciation, it is worth only 3 million USD now.

But what’s wrong with asking for a higher price as the company has a developed game? Although 6 million USD is slightly higher, this is not a fraud.

“Mr. Feng, Mr. Kameda, please don’t leave. I think there must be a misunderstanding, and we should talk.” Choi Woong quickly stepped in front of Feng Yu and bowed.

If this incident is reported, not only will this company disgrace South Korea, his company’s reputation will also be tarnished. South Korea needs foreign investments badly and foreign markets, especially the Chinese market.

Feng Yu is the second wealthiest man in the world and is also the top tycoon of Asia. With his status, he is very influential in China, and if this incident is reported, Actoz Soft will be finished!

Kameda Masao scolded. “Misunderstanding? I don’t see any misunderstanding. You all had caused me to get scolding from my Boss! This is the first time my Boss scolded me so harshly! You all must pay for this!”

Kameda Masao’s spit landed on Choi Woong’s face, but Choi Woong did not move from where he was standing.

“Mr. Kameda, we might have overlooked those bugs, but we had never tried to deceive you. I guarantee we will fix all these bugs, and this game will be profitable.”

“You guarantee? How are you going to do that? This is just a simple game, and you all cannot even do a good job. How are you all going to develop other games? Do you know who my Boss is? How can he be disgraced this way?” Kameda Masao interrupted before Choi Woong can finish.

Choi Woong can speak English, and he had no problems communicating with Kameda Masao. But at this moment, Choi Woong regretted learning English. It would be much better if a translator is standing in between them.

“Mr. Kameda, please calm down. Our company has a group of experienced developers, and we have high potential.”

“Enough. I don’t see the need for us to continue with the negotiations. There are many game development companies out there, and my Boss has money. Now, we are very disappointed with your company and the game you developed! Very disappointed! If it weren’t my Boss wants to build a gaming empire, I would not have considered you all!” Kameda Masao replied.

From what Kameda Masao said, Choi Woong understood that Feng Yu has the intention of buying multiple game developers and merger them together. This means his company still stands a chance. After all, Actoz Soft is still one of the top game developers in South Korea. Also, his company already has a finished product, except there are lots of bugs.

“Mr. Feng, our company is good at game development. I admit that this game is not perfect, but I promise we will fix all the bugs as soon as possible. We had worked on this game for more than a year. If you are going to develop a new game, you will be wasting another year.”

Feng Yu pretended to hesitate. “Kameda, what do you think?”

“Boss, this company is not worth 6 million USD. With 6 million USD, we can buy better companies.” Kameda Masao replied.

“Mr. Feng, 6 million USD might be slightly high, but we can negotiate on the price.” Choi Woong had thought that even if this deal did not go through, he could get a distributor to sell this game.

But now, if he launches this game with the bugs into the market, no players will play it, and it will even affect the company’s reputation.

Furthermore, Choi Woong had offended Feng Yu and Kameda Masao, and he might not even launch this game.

“Negotiate? How much do you want?” Feng Yu asked.

“5 million USD?” Choi Woong asked. He had lowered the asking price by 1 million USD.

Feng Yu did not say anything and turns and walks away. Choi Woong tried to stop Feng Yu, but Feng Yu’s bodyguards stepped forward and pinned him against the wall. “Don’t try to have body contact with our Boss!”

“Mr. Feng… Mr. Feng… 4.5 million. What do you think about 4.5 million USD? This is a reasonable price.” Choi Woong shouted despite being pinned against the wall.

Feng Yu turns to Kameda Masao, and Kameda Masao stopped. “3.5 million USD!”

“3.5 million? This is too low, and the company will be suffering a loss. I am also unable to answer the rest of the staff.”

“You don’t need to answer to your staff. They will be working for my Boss in the future, and we will adjust their salaries according to their capabilities. Some of them will get a raise, and some will get lower salaries. Some will be promoted, and some will be fired!”

“But 3.5 million is really too low. Mr. Feng, Mr. Kameda, this company does not belong to me alone. I can’t answer to the rest of the shareholders with this price.”

“That is your problem!” Kameda Masao firmly replied. In business, there is no such thing as pity.

Feng Yu suddenly interrupted with an empathetic look. “Never mind, Kameda. Everyone is suffering because of the Asian Financial Crisis and Soros. 4 million USD, and it should be enough to cover your losses and still give you a small profit. Although your company only has a game, this game is not ready to be launched. I still need to get people to fix the bugs and re-evaluate it. If you agree with my offer, we will sign the contract now. Your company is only worth this price!”

Choi Woong clenched his fist. He had no other choice now.

“Alright. I agree.”

Kameda Masao grumbled. “You have gotten yourself a bargain!”

Chapter 1023 – Guidance on game development

“Get someone to conduct Alpha testing and then get ready for free Beta testing. After that, start the advertising campaign to let people understand and like this game.” Feng Yu instructed Kameda Masao privately.

“Boss, will it be too rush if we are doing a worldwide launch? We do not have much time until next year’s New Year’s Day, and the game still has so many bugs!” Kameda Masao is worried. Feng Yu can detect so many bugs easily, what about the players? They will discover more bugs.

“That’s why we must conduct Beta tests to let players find the bugs for us. You must advertise that we will reward players who detect bugs during the Beta test. The reward will be 100,000 USD!”

“How much?” Kameda Masao is shocked. “100,000 USD is too high. We had bought this company for only 4 million USD. How can a bug worth so much?”

“100,000 USD. In China, there is an old saying, ‘one word is worth one thousand gold,’ and it is rumored to be first recorded in Lü Buwei’s <Lüshi Chunqiu>. Lü Buwei recorded all his customers’ suggestions and put it up on the City’s gates with a notice. He will reward 1000 gold pieces to whoever that can increase or reduce one word in this book. From then, his book, <Lüshi Chunqiu> become famous throughout China.” Feng Yu laughed, and he knows of many similar stories in history.

Kameda Masao nodded. “Boss, you are saying that this is also a marketing tactic for this game? Many people will start playing this game for the 100,000 USD reward, and they will slowly enjoy this game. Even after they cannot find any bugs, they will continue to play and increase our profits. In Japan, we also have such stories, but I have not thought of using it on our products. You are so smart!”

When Feng Yu said he would be giving out 100,000 USD for discovering an in-game bug, Kameda Masao knew what Feng Yu wanted. But he purposely did not say anything and pretended to have learned something from Feng Yu, and at the same time, he can kiss Feng Yu’s ass.

Feng Yu also know Kameda Masao is feigning ignorance. When it comes to management and operations, Kameda Masao is much better than him. But even knowing this is flattery, he still likes to hear it.

“Also, in different countries, the stats for the three classes must have slight differences.”

“Why?” This time, Kameda Masao is really puzzled.

“Mage, Taoist Priest, and Warrior are the three classes in the game. In Southeast Asia, Taoist Priest will be very popular as this class had appeared in many countries’ folktales and stories. Taoist Priest is almost non-existence in the West. They would call them Shaman, but Shaman is very different from Taoist Priest. Also, Mage is recorded in the European folktales and legends. They can use all sorts of mysterious magic, and most of the westerners will prefer to play this class. Warriors are best suited for Americans. They have a shorter history and like heroism. So, this class that wields swords and axes should be popular with them.”

“That means this game will have different versions in different regions?”

“Only slight differences. Increase some of the character’s stats is easy. In Southeast Asia, Taoist Priest should be slightly stronger, but the game’s lore, NPC, maps, etc. should remain the same. Even the end boss’s name and stats must be the same. We will use this game to spread our Eastern culture to the West. The names and stats of other mini bosses can have slight differences. I will write down some suggestions, and you get the developers to start developing the expansion based on my suggestions.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Legend of Mir had been upgraded several times. This includes the modifications in private servers. People had created all sorts of mini-bosses in the private servers, and it was enjoyable for the players. Feng Yu decided to consolidate everything and incorporates them into the game now. This way, Legend of Mir will be more popular than his previous life!

“Also, a good MMO must have a good storyline. If not, this game will be meaningless, and the players do not know the reason for killing monsters.”

“Aren’t video games all about killing monsters? You had said that leveling, finding equipment, skill books, to strengthen the character and even killing other players, are the attractiveness of this game?”

“Yes. But don’t you find it more interesting if you know about the back story of this game? Where did the NPCs come from, the reasons for giving out quests, the history behind the cities and locations, where the monsters come from, and why did the final Boss want to take over human cities, etc. After knowing all this, the game will be more interesting.”

Kameda Masao thought about what Feng Yu said and felt he is right. But it will be too troublesome. All the NPCs in the game must have a back story, and all the quests had to be linked up. Also, there must be the main storyline. This is only a game. Is there a need to make it so complicated?

“The console and arcade games you played before have storylines. Those stories will attract people, and we can also make money from it.”

“Ah? Those stories can also make money?”

“That’s right. We can write the stories into a novel and publish them in our magazine. Of course, in this magazine, we can publish walk-throughs and gameplay strategies for bosses and quests. New items and equipment will be shown in the magazine, motivating players to level up.”

“Also, other than novels, we can also publish manga, and the main character does not need to be the game’s NPC. We can use the players’ characters as characters in the manga, and let the players feel they are part of it. In the future, we can also make it into a movie.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, manga and video games go hand-in-hand. Games like Pokémon, King of Fighters, started with games, followed by manga and anime. All these will bring in high profits.

“Then, are we going to hire writers and mangakas? In Japan, there are many talented mangakas, but we don’t have any famous novelists.”

Kameda Masao felt this novel based on a storyline for a game is very difficult to write. But to Feng Yu, it is easy. All he needs to do is to provide a general storyline, set the main characters, and let the netizens decide the rest.

Of course, the netizens can only help to give inputs, and Feng Yu will still need a professional writer to write it. Feng Yu prefer writers that specialized in historical stories as he wants to let the game have an authentic feel and create a game universe!

In this era, there is still no online novels, unlike the time before Feng Yu’s rebirth.

“I will get someone to write the novel. You just contact the mangaka. There is no rush with the manga. Let him design the characters first, and we can showcase the game equipment to the players. Remember, the women characters must be pretty and sexy, and men must be handsome and masculine. You don’t need to worry about the Chinese market. But for the rest of the countries, you must find local partners, or acquire some game distribution companies. As for the advertisements, you can get some models or celebrities to film it. After all, celebrities can also endorse video games.”

Kameda Masao felt he had learned a lot from this short chat with Feng Yu. Feng Yu is really a genius when it comes to making money!

Chapter 1024 – Recreating the classics from his previous life

After Kameda Masao left, Feng Yu locked himself in the room to start writing the main storyline for Legend of Mir and its expansion. He had played these games in his previous life and read similar novels. He might not be good at writing novels but has no problem writing the main storyline and characters’ backgrounds.

Feng Yu does not need to care about the details or the character developments, as he is not good at doing that. Reading novels and writing a novel is different!

Feng Yu is satisfied with what he wrote and felt he would shock everyone with this storyline. He will be known as a genius game writer!

Feng Yu also list out some of the known bugs in Legend of Mir. Mods and hacks will throw the balance off in the game and affect the gameplay. What’s worse is these mods and hacks are expensive.

For example, if you manufactured a TV, and someone else produced and sold the remote control to your TV. Furthermore, the remote control is selling well, and you do not get a cent from it! This is like being taken advantage of, and this pissed Feng Yu off!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the developers of Legend of Mir had been fighting a war with these mod developers. But this is not the worst thing that happens to Legend of Mir. At the peak of its popularity, its Source Code was leaked, and the company’s profits drop drastically. In fact, many Legend of Mir players started playing through private servers!

Without these private servers, Legend of Mir’s popularity will last for another three to five years. Now, Feng Yu decide to develop the mods himself as long as it will not make a player overpowered and disrupt the game’s balance.

Feng Yu suddenly remember another game’s source code was also leaked around the same time as Legend of Mir in his previous life. It is also a game developed by a Korean company. This game is called MU online.

MU Online is a 3d MMORPG game and is quite popular because of its graphics. Although the game is not 3d, it can be considered 2.5d and have the best graphics at that time. Also, the classes and character designs of this game are more inclined to the West, and it is more popular with the Western players compared to Legend of Mir.

However, the company that developed this game is set up after the year 2000. That means this game or even the concept is not developed now.

If this is the case, why not I develop this game myself?

There are many game developers in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Europe, and America now. Still, they are mainly focusing on single-player or LAN games.

The profits from these games are not as high as the future online games because online games charged players through Prepaid Time Cards. The game servers, data storage, massive multiplayer experience, etc. are different from single-player games.

Single-player games can only profit by selling the original game. But piracy exists not only in China. In Europe and the US, many people are also in this trade, and they are the ones who started selling the Cracked version of the games.

Of course, the cost of MMOs is much higher than single-player games.

Feng Yu starts to recall MU online and started writing the background story of the game, characters’ designs, quests, etc. and he even lists out some of the equipment he remembers.

After that, Feng Yu start to think about the popular MMOs and other games in his previous life, which were considered classics.

Legend of Mir, MU online, Westward Journey Online, World of Warcraft, Dungeon Fighter Online, Zhengtu, Fantasy Westward Journey, Perfect World, Crazyracing Kartrider, Crazy Arcade, O2Jam, Audition Online, CrossFire, Swordsman Online, Heroes of Jin Yong Online, Lineage, Jade Dynasty, Jade Dynasty, etc.

Feng Yu had played some of these games and heard of the rest. Of course, he can’t develop all the popular games, and not all players will like the same game.

Every game has a targeted group of players, and Feng Yu just need to highlight the key feature of the games. Although the games will not be popular forever, it should last five to eight years.

……

“Mr. Kameda, is there anything wrong with Mr. Feng? He had been inside his room for a few days and had requested a lot of notebooks and pens. Is he writing something?” Weng Zhijian asked.

Kameda Masao is also not sure what his Boss is doing. Feng Yu is good with PC, and why is he not using the PC to type? Why must he write on paper?

Also, what is he writing? It’s been three days, and he is still not finished?

Could it be the management rules and regulations of Wind and Rain Holdings? But Kameda Masao had asked Feng Yu about the company’s regulations before, and Feng Yu said there is no need for so many rules and regulations.

Also, from Kameda Masao’s understanding of Feng Yu, he knows Feng Yu is not bothered by these details. As long as the employee did not betray the company, Feng Yu is fine even if the employee’s mistake cost the company to suffer some losses.

But Kameda Masao is not sure what Feng Yu is doing and will never ask. He turns to Weng Zhijian. “Don’t ask about Boss’s matters, understand?”

Weng Zhifeng smiled embarrassedly. He doesn’t mind, as he is paid daily. Even when he is not doing anything, he will still be paid.

If you all are not using my services, I will just watch TV and drink tea here and get 500 USD per day. I don’t think I can find another job like this in my life.

But everyone is curious about what Feng Yu is writing.

Feng Yu is still writing about the ideas, structure, designs, gameplay, etc. of those games. He also wrote the target audiences of each game and how they are going to charge the players. These are something which is nonexistence now.

Some games will charge players through game-time cards, and some are from selling in-game items, memberships… regardless of the charging model, the company will make high profits, and many players will accept them.

Feng Yu did not use his laptop to write all these because he does not know how to use the Wubi input method, and the Pinyin input method is not so convenient now. Another reason is internet security. Feng Yu is worried about hackers, and there are lots of hackers in Korea.

These ideas are for Feng Yu to build his gaming empire. He does not want anyone to steal it from him, as these ideas will create a strong competitor.

One week later, Feng Yu puts down his pen, closed his notebook, and stretched himself.

Feng Yu went to the bathroom and saw himself in the mirror. He looks pale and unshaven. It’s been a long time since he worked so hard and is not used to it. Seems like he needs some training.

After tidying up himself, Feng Yu walked out of his room and saw Kameda Masao outside.

“Boss, you are done?”

Feng Yu smiled and nodded. “I had written ideas for new games. You can distribute them to our other companies and ask them to develop it. Remember, you must not let outsiders see the contents in these notebooks!”

“Rest assured, Boss. If the contents of the notebooks are leaded, I will perform Seppuku!” Kameda Masao swear.

Chapter 1025 – If we cannot buy them, poach their staff

“Seppuku is for the cowards. If you failed at something, you should be thinking of how to pick yourself up. Death is just a form of escape. I do not want to hear you saying this again.” Feng Yu patted Kameda Masao’s back.

If you kill yourself, who is going to recover my losses? I trusted and groomed you is for you to help me make more money. I don’t care about your ‘samurai spirit’!

“Yes, Boss. I will no say this again.” Kameda Masao is not a Samurai. In front of Feng Yu, he is a subordinate, but in Japan, he is also an influential businessman.

The Sixth Sense company is currently the number one in its industry and owns most of the market share. Their brand is now famous around the world.

Kameda Masao is only kissing Feng Yu’s ass but had got it wrong this time.

However, Kameda Masao immediately tells Feng Yu a piece of good news. “Boss, we had acquired Nexon now, but their company had set up an independent subsidiary in the US.”

Does this mean this company is targeting the US market? It is normal for the company to set up an independent subsidiary. The shareholders of this company might have wanted to focus on developing games, but how can the South Korean market compare to the US market? Now, the shareholders had gotten a large sum of money, and they can start their plans for the US market.

But Feng Yu felt they would fail. Although the games developed by Nexon are not bad, they are not the top.

Although the internet is more developed in South Korea, compared to China, its population is low. Even in the year 2000, more than 100,000 Koreans were online at the same time, which is considered a successful game.

South Korean online games only require a few servers, but in China, the number of servers must be multiplied by ten!

Nexon only reaches their peak after they had developed Crazy Arcade, Crazyracing Kartrider, Dungeon Fighter Online, and Counter-Strike Online.

At that time, Nexon has more than a dozen subsidiaries all over the world and is working with lots of companies. They might not be the best in the industry but is consider worthy competitor by other major game developers.

This company is only mediocre, but its development team is still quite good.

“What about their game developers? Did they send them to the US?” If Feng Yu had bought an empty shell, his losses would be great. To Feng Yu, talented staff is more important than the brand. It is easy to build a brand with a good product. Still, it is hard to find talented staff with experience, technical knowledge, and ideas.

“Other than the ones that were sent to the US before our acquisition, most of them are still around. But some of the management staff had resigned. They are the pioneers and shareholders of the company and had gone to that company in the US. Only one of them, who is in charge of games’ operations, remained. I intend to appoint him as the company’s CEO.”

Feng Yu is satisfied to hear this.

“Good. What about that NC Software?”  This is the company that developed Lineage, JX online, etc. and is quite strong.

“We are still negotiating with them, but they are greedier than Choi Woong. Their startup capital is less than 1 billion Won, and they are asking for 50 million USD!”

50 million USD?! These people are asking for too much. Do they think that they can make lots of money when they developed a successful game? Or did they thought their company’s value would be multiplied several times after they got listed? Or did they know Kameda Masao is representing Feng Yu and felt Feng Yu, as a super tycoon, will not mind this amount?

“We will not acquire this company anymore. But I feel their staff is quite capable, and our company’s salary and benefits are more attractive. We should open our doors to welcome these capable people.”

Feng Yu sneered. If you all had already developed the popular classic games in my previous life, we could still negotiate. But the games you developed now is not worth it.

Even if I don’t acquire your company, I can acquire your men! After I had poached all your developers, I shall see how you are going to develop new games!

Feng Yu is striking at the root of the problem and making all talented staff join the two companies he acquired. Even if some of these people start their own game company, but they will not be as successful as Feng Yu’s previous life.

A tree sapling might be able to grow in between trees, but it can’t grow as tall as the other trees!

Feng Yu wants to buy these companies, but he values their developers more.

Kameda Masao immediately put on the ‘you are so smart’ expression. “Boss, you are so smart. This way, NC Software will not be a threat to us!”

“Oh, how you registered the games holding company in Hong Kong?”

“Yes. I had registered Wind and Rain Games Holdings.  Actoz Soft and Nexon will be subsidiaries of this holding company.”

Feng Yu nodded. “What is the progress with CUC International? Are they willing to sell their Blizzard Entertainment’s shares?”

“We are still negotiating with them, and we stand a high chance.”

“Ok. You must acquire this company as I like their technologies. Also, have you contacted the rest of Blizzard’s shareholders? Are they willing to sell their shares?”

“Other than some founders, the rest are willing to sell. If we manage to buy the shares from CUC International and some shareholders, we should own more then two-thirds of the shares. We will have the super-majority of the shares!”

“Very good. We will get high profits from this company, and they will be our stepping stone to enter the US and European markets!” The ones who refused to sell their Blizzard’s shares are the ones who love the company, and the company needs these people.

Blizzard is strong in its technologies, branding, and distribution channels.

But Kameda Masao is curious. This company is developing single-player games, and Feng Yu had said they must focus on online games. Is Feng Yu thinking of making Diablo or Warcraft into an online game?

Boss must have his reason for acquiring this company, and Kameda Masao only needs to carry out his orders.

“Boss, I also have a game development company in Japan. Can I merge it with Wind and Rain Games Holdings?” Kameda Masao asked.

“Eh? You also own a game development company?”

Feng Yu remembers that Japan is good at the arcade and console games. They are also good at RPG games, but they don’t have any good titles in online games. Maybe they do have good online games, but these games are no popular in China.

“ELF Corporation.”

Chapter 1026 – Kameda’s dream

What company is this? Feng Yu had not heard of this company before.

“What game have this company produce?” Feng Yu asked. If Feng Yu had heard of what games this company had produced, he would know how this company will perform in the future.

“Dragon Knight, Dōkyūsei, Elf-ban Kakyūsei, etc.”

Damn! It’s those erotic games. Although Feng Yu had not played these games before, he had heard about it. Also, this company had launched its games with anime and manga. This is a company that specialized in this genre.

But this company is in line with Kameda Masao’s industry. But it is not a good idea to let it join Wind and Rain Game Holdings.

“Kameda, this is a good company and more suitable for the Sixth Sense company. You can launch a series of Sixth Sense’s products based on this company’s games. But the company is not suitable to be placed under Wind and Rain Games Holding. If you want to grow this company, you can set up a Black Dragon Games, or a Sixth Sense Games company. You can also introduce manga, anime series based on the games, and even launch movies based on these titles. You can work together with overseas Adult companies.”

The Adult industry is legal in many countries like Japan, Italy, the US, and Korea. Actoz Soft also has plans to develop such games but was stopped by Feng Yu.

Feng Yu does not oppose to this industry as people are curious about his subject. But these must be regulated. Some crimes had happened in Japan, the US, and many other countries, by people imitating what happened in games, anime, and manga. If people do not have proper knowledge of this subject, they might copy what they saw in games, anime or manga, and become a pervert!

If something like this happens, it will affect the company’s brand reputation.

Kameda Masao was slightly disappointed when he heard Feng Yu is not willing to let his game company join Wind and Rain Games Holding. But he brightens up when Feng Yu did not stop him from doing this and still encouraged him.

Kamada Masao had his eyes on one game development company, Illusion, and this company is famous in Japan for its Adult video games. They had developed lots of classic games, and their games had been adapted into Manga, Anime, and movies. Their game-related products are also selling well.

But this company’s games are only in Japanese and are not allowed to be sold outside of Japan. This regulation had restricted its development, and even if Kameda Masao buyout this company, this company will insist on including this restriction in its company’s policy and cannot be changed!

Without this restriction, this company will be one of the top, or even the best in the world, an adult games developer. The profits it brings in to the Sixth Sense will be a lot.

Kameda Masao can tell that Feng Yu is not willing to interfere in this, just like how Feng Yu had never asked about the Sixth Sense Company or Japan’s AIWA company.

But Kameda Masao can understand that this industry is not allowed in China, and Feng Yu is trying to draw a line between him and this industry. But Feng does not discriminate or oppose this industry, or else, he would not invest so much money into the Sixth Sense Company.

“Then, can I let the Sixth Sense Company acquire such companies?”

“Sure. If you think it’s worth it, go ahead. Even if these companies fail, the Sixth Sense Company will not be affected. But if they succeed, it will be a new revenue source for the Sixth Sense Company.”

“Boss, if a company’s product is not allowed to be sold outside of Japan, and because of this restriction, we will not get high profits after we acquire this company. How should we solve it?” Kameda Masao asked.

“If a company’s product is outstanding, even if it does not sell overseas, there will be imitations or counterfeits. I also don’t have a solution for this. you can either persuade the company’s owners to abolish this regulation or use another company to buy this company’s rights and make minor changes to make it into another game.”

Kameda Masao’s eyes widen. That’s right! Why didn’t I thought of getting the rights, and make changes to the original idea?

The games are not allowed to be sold overseas. Still, Kameda Masao can buy the game’s concept and ideas and changed it into another game for the overseas markets. It will surely be popular and bring in high profits.

But Kameda Masao must plan this carefully as different countries have different regulations from Japan. Some countries are more open than Japan, while others are stricter.

Kameda Masao has a goal. He wants to be the number one person in the Adult industry. Although he is far from achieving this goal, he firmly believes that he can reach it in his lifetime.

Kameda Masao also wants to make the Sixth Sense and Black Dragon to be the top brands in the industry forever. Whenever someone is looking for an adult toy, they will think of these two brands first!

By that time, the Sixth Sense will be more well-known than Sony, Panasonic, etc. as these products should be more popular.

Kameda Masao had already entered African countries’ markets. These markets are the markets that other brands dare not venture into. Once the Sixth Sense established themselves in these areas, no other companies can enter!

Kameda Masao believes that lives will be better for everyone. No one knows if there will be developed nations in Africa ten years later. After all, Africa is rich in resources and minerals.

Kameda Masao had set a target of 10 billion Yen for this company and had achieved it. His target now is an annual profit of over 1 billion USD!

This is an achievable target, and Kameda Masao firmly believes he can achieve it within a few years. The company’s annual profits are over 500 million USD now and are still growing.

Once the company’s annual profit is over 1 billion USD, Kameda Masao will be the top businessman in Japan, and his family will be one of Japan’s wealthiest families.

“Kameda, all legal businesses are worth your time, and you love this industry. I am not familiar with this industry, and I cannot help you much. You are on your own, but although this industry is legal, many people tend to look down on it. I am sure you don’t want people to look down on your family, right? I hope you can focus on Wind and Rain Holdings, and the profits you get from here will higher than the Sixth Sense Company. You should get a successor for the Sixth Sense Company earlier.”

Feng Yu’s knowledge of the adult industry cannot be compared to Kameda Masao or even a salesman from the Sixth Sense. He can no longer advise Kameda Masao in this industry.

Feng Yu also does not want Kameda Masao to spend his life selling adult toys. Apple poached Pepsi’s CEO because of something Steve Jobs said. “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?”

Now, Feng Yu also want to persuade Kameda Masao. Kameda Masao is a talent and should not be limited to industry. Even though this industry has potential, but it is not a proud industry to be in.

“Boss, I understand. I will manage Wind and Rain Holding Corporation well and not disappoint you!” Kameda Masao promised.

Chapter 1027 – Wind and Rain Games start operation

Three days later, Feng Yu attended the opening ceremony of Wind and Rain Games Holding in Hong Kong. Many Hong Kong tycoons attended the ceremony.

Many people were confused. From the company’s name, it should be a game company, and why are all the tycoons attending the opening ceremony?

The tycoons were there personally, and this is different from sending congratulatory flower stands.

Hong Kong’s reporters and reporters for foreign media immediately rushed there to cover the story. It’s rare for so many tycoons to gather in one place.

Many people are asking around about who is the owner of this company.

They found out this Wind and Rain Games belongs to Wind and Rain Holdings Corporation and has three subsidiaries. Two subsidiaries are in South Korean, and one is in Beijing. They also heard that this company is trying to acquire a US game company, Blizzard.

Someone guessed this Wind and Rain Holdings belongs to Feng Yu, or Feng Yu has a stake in it because Wind and Rain Consultancy is one of the subsidiaries of Wind and Rain Holdings.

Some foreign media reporters found out that Feng Yu had set up two holding companies and had restructured all his assets.

The reporters found out all of Feng Yu’s assets in China had been transferred to a company called Tai Hua Holding Corporation, and his overseas assets were all transferred to this Wind and Rain Holding Corporation.

Any of these two holding companies is worth more than 10 billion USD and can be considered a significant conglomerate. More importantly, these two companies belong to the same person.

……

“Nephew Feng, you are entering the gaming industry?! The gaming industry is on a decline now, and gaming console’s sales are dropping.” Fu Rongqi had come to congratulate Feng Yu.

Superman Li is in Canada, but he asked his two sons to represent him. This had shocked the media, as sending his sons over for this ceremony is showing high respect for Feng Yu.

Although Feng Yu is Asia’s Wealthiest man, when it comes to status and influence, many people still think Superman Li is ranked higher than Feng Yu. In Asia, there is another person who is ranked higher than Feng Yu, and he is the head of Samsung Group.

Superman Li owns a lot of ports around the world and has lots of investments. He is also one of the leaders in China and has political backings.

The head of Samsung is the same. Not only is he rich, but he also has the authority and can influence South Korea’s politics.

Compared to them, Feng Yu is only wealthy. Even Bill Gates is not considered influential as he did not even make it into <Times> 100 most influential people in the world. He is only ranked 11th!

Superman Li is ranked 9th on this year’s <Times> 100 most influential people in the world!

“Uncle Fu, I think the gaming industry has high potential. The traditional arcade and console games are declining, but PC games will rise and will replace these games in the future.”

Fu Rongqi laughed and did not continue. He patted Feng Yu on his shoulders before walking away. It’s been years since he played video games, and he does not know much about this industry.

Many reporters had taken pictures of Fu Rongqi chatting with Feng Yu at the entrance. The rumors of Feng Yu being close with the Fu Family are true. Not only the head of the Fu Family is here, the leader of the Fu Family’s second generation, Fu Guangzheng, is here.

“Brother Feng, you are so influential. This is just a game company, and almost half of Hong Kong’s tycoons are here to congratulate you.” Fu Guangzheng said.

“Just a game company?! Seems like you also don’t believe the gaming industry has potential.”

“I believe games are profitable. But it should not be easy for it to make high profits. You will have to compete with Nintendo, Sony, Sega, etc. Even without these world-renowned companies, you still have to compete with thousands of arcade games companies. It will be hard to stand out among them and need high investments.”

Feng Yu’s businesses were mostly in China and had used the strategy of introducing new and better products.

But the game industry is currently on the decline, and there are many competitors around domestically and overseas. Even Fu Guangzheng thinks Feng Yu’s success will not be great.

Fu Guangzheng believes Feng Yu will not fail because Feng Yu had never failed before. But the profits of some Feng Yu’s businesses are not high.

That’s why Fu Guangzheng did not tell Feng Yu he wants to invest in this business when Feng Yu did not invite him.

“Hahaha… our positions and future developments are different, and I will step all over them in the future!” Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu has the ideas and concepts for his games, funds to develop and market them, and a strong team of developers. With all these advantages and he still fails, it will be a waste of his rebirth!

Even if Feng Yu is not someone from the future, his high investment in the video game industry will also do well.

What others do not know is that Feng Yu has a strong partner for his gaming business.

“Ballmer, you are here.”

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Asia’s President, and also Microsoft’s future CEO, is representing Microsoft to congratulate the opening of Wind and Rain Games.

The reporters start snapping pictures of them like crazy. There were rumors that Feng Yu is on bad terms with Microsoft’s management team and was almost kicked out of the board several times. Also, Feng Yu’s relationship with Paul Allen is not a secret.

So, is Steve Ballmer representing himself or Microsoft today? If he is representing Microsoft, there means all those rumors are fake.

Steve Ballmer is representing Microsoft because Microsoft is working with Wind and Rain electronics to develop their second-generation video game console, Xbox. They will buy the rights of some games under Wind and Rain Games and also ask Wind and Rain Games to develop games suitable for Xbox.

Although Paul Allen tried to object to this cooperation, this game console requires the DVD technologies to run the games.

Wind and Rain Electronics has the highest standard of DVD technologies, and Feng Yu can help to bring Xbox into the Chinese market. This will greatly increase Xbox’s sales. Furthermore, Feng Yu also owns lots of games related technologies.

Feng Yu stood outside to receive the guests for a while longer before going inside. Most of the guest there does not require him to receive outside of the venue. Even Kameda Masao did not receive the guests himself. Instead, he asked Wind and Rain Games CEO Lin Tianming to receive them. Lin Tianming is a professional manager from Hong Kong.

After all the guests entered the venue, Kameda Masao walks up the stage…

Chapter 1028 – Gbox

Feng Yu’s lazy nature prevented him from going up the stage to give a speech. Although the opening ceremony of Wind and Rain Games is grand and had invited many tycoons, Feng Yu wants to introduce Kameda Masao and Lin Tianming to them.

Most of the tycoons and representatives from various companies are there to congratulate Feng Yu. Still, there are some with looks of disdain and hatred.

One of the people who is showing disdain is Sony’s representative. He is also Norio Ohga’s assistant, Jun’ichi Inoue.

To Sony, Wind and Rain Games are their competitors in game development, and many of Feng Yu’s businesses are direct competitors with Sony.

Sony had lost to Aiwa in the music player industry. However, Sony still has PlayStation to bring in profits for them.

But now, Microsoft is entering the video game console industry. Microsoft felt they should upgrade themselves from being an office necessity to a lifestyle necessity. After all, the lifestyle product market is bigger.

Microsoft had wanted to support Sega, but Sega’s console is a failure, and there are too few game titles. They are not a match for Sony’s PlayStation.

If the consoles are not selling well, Microsoft, which is developing the operating systems for the consoles will not make profits.

So, Microsoft went to speak to Sony. Use our Microsoft operating system for your consoles, and we promise to develop the best operating system for your products.

But Sony felt Microsoft does not know about video games. Microsoft had helped Sega developed an operating system for their console, claiming to enable the console to go online. But what happened in the end? That console failed. The pre-sales had been ongoing for so long, and yet not many people ordered. Even if it is launched, it will also be a failed product. Maybe, they will not even recover their cost.

Sony does not want to work with Microsoft as they blamed Sega’s failure on Microsoft.

Thus, Sony rejected Microsoft and chose to work with Microsoft’s rival, Linux.

Linux system is free and is supported by many hardware and PC manufacturers. Once Linux developed to be as good as Microsoft’s systems, Microsoft sales will be affected.

What Sony did was considered a provocation to Microsoft!

Bill Gates is pissed and decided to develop his own console to rival Sony! He wants to teach Sony a lesson!

The easiest way to enter a new industry is to acquire a strong company in that industry. At this time, the only video game console that can rival Sony is Nintendo. Nintendo owns around 40% of the market share, Sony owns more than 50%, and Sega and the rest makes up for the remaining.

Bill Gates drops Sega as he felt Sega could not compete with Sony and Nintendo, and he set his sights on Nintendo.

But Nintendo refused to be bought over by Microsoft as they are still making profits. Their cash on hand is more than 6 billion USD.

A company that is at its peak and has sufficient funds will not be acquired by another company.

Bill Gates is furious.

At around this time, Feng Yu went to look for Bill Gates and told him that about his intention of entering the video game console industry. He asked Bill Gates if he is interested in working with him.

Feng Yu had asked Aiwa Little Tyrant to develop a video game console. Still, he underestimated the technical difficulties of developing a game console and had invested too little money. As a result, Aiwa Little Tyrant’s technologies are about the same level as Sega Saturn.

Sega Saturn’s sales are less than 10 million units, losing to Sony and Nintendo. Even if Aiwa Little Tyrant developed their own console, the sales would not be good too. In China, video games are not as popular as the western countries and Japan.

After all, Microsoft had worked with Sega before on their new console and has more experience than Aiwa Little Tyrant. Also, Microsoft can get the rights of many games. One of the reasons why Sega had failed is because they have too little games.

Bill Gates becomes interested after Feng Yu approached him. He sent Ballmer over for a site visit and realized Aiwa Little Tyrant do have good technologies. More importantly, video game consoles require DVD or CD technologies.

When it comes to DVD technologies, Wind and Rain Electronics is stronger than Sony. Microsoft felt Sega had failed because they had used outdated CD-Rom technologies!

Feng Yu is also a Microsoft shareholder, and it’s easier for them to work together.

Ballmer also knew Sony and Feng Yu are on bad terms. Feng Yu had bought Aiwa’s shares from Sony, and Aiwa had replaced Sony as the leader in the portable music player industry!

Sony also hated Feng Yu to the core! Now, Bill Gates is also looking at Sony the same way as Sony looks at Feng Yu. He can’t wait to see Sony’s video game console fails!

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Furthermore, Feng Yu is someone who is on the same level as Bill Gates.

Feng Yu and Bill Gates have funds, technologies, and connections. These are their advantages, and if they developed a gaming console, it would surely replace Sony as the market leader!

Of course, Bill Gates hopes to teach Nintendo a lesson as well. After all, Nintendo had announced they would be working with IBM, and IBM is Microsoft’s rival in operating systems.

Ballmer had represented Microsoft to congratulate the opening of Wind and Rain Games and, at the same time, discuss the details of their cooperation on Gbox.

Bill Gates wants to name this console as Microsoft Video Console, and Feng Yu wants to call it Wind and Rain Console. Both sides gave in and decided to name the console as Gbox (Game Box).

But both sides still have not decided on the investment proportions, shares, etc. This will not be an easy negotiation as both parties have money, and both want to have the controlling shares!

Chapter 1029 – Overbearing

“Congratulations, Feng. Wind and Rain Games’ opening ceremony is a success.” Not only many of Hong Kong’s tycoon was there to congratulate Feng Yu, many representatives of world-renowned electronics, online technologies, and software firms were also invited.

Those people who weren’t invited tried their means to enter the venue. To them, this gathering is a testimonial of their status.

“We are only making ourselves known. Our first game is still undergoing testing, and the Beta testing will start next year.”

“I heard that you all are trying to acquire Blizzard?” Blizzard is a world-renowned North America game developer firm, and its mission statement is “Dedicated to creating the most epic entertainment experiences.”

But Blizzard does not lack funds, and it will not be easy to acquire them unless Feng Yu is willing to pay a high price. After all, Blizzard’s games are popular and had racked in hundreds of millions of profits.

“That’s right. We had spoken to Blizzard’s parent company, and after our Gbox is launched, we can download their games.”

Feng Yu likes Blizzard’s brand, technologies, and products, and he is confident he can make it more popular compared to his previous life.

“Then I will congratulate you first. Our Gbox will be more successful in the future.”

Ballmer did not mention about the terms of their cooperation as the first party who mentioned it, will be at a disadvantage.

“Thank you.”

The room suddenly becomes quiet. Ballmer was getting anxious. With just a simple “Thank you,” Feng Yu stopped the conversation.

“Feng, will you be attending next month’s director’s meeting?” Ballmer asked.

“I will if I am free.” Feng Yu replied nonchalantly. He acted as if he had entered the board for the status and is not interested in the company’s management.

“Feng, Bill said that our operating system sales in China are doing well and will give you more shares at the end of the year as your bonus.”

“Oh…”

Ballmer is going nuts. What does “Oh” means? Can we have a proper conversation? Microsoft is giving you more shares, and even when you don’t lack money, you should not show this attitude.

Didn’t you argue with Paul last year for getting lesser shares?

“Feng, you are also one of the directors in Microsoft and also one of the major shareholders. When Microsoft makes money, you will also make money.” Ballmer decided to start the negotiation, or else Feng Yu will not say anything.

“Feng, Microsoft is the biggest company in the world and has a brand advantage.” Ballmer said.

“I don’t think so. Microsoft is only the highest value company in the world now. The staff and scale cannot be considered the world’s biggest. As for brand advantage, I cannot see it.”

“We have the experience of developing operating systems.”

“But no one is buying Sega’s latest console that is using Microsoft’s system. If not, why would Bill want to find a new partner? It is because he knows Sega will fail.”

Both men did not mention Gbox, but they are talking about the terms of their cooperation.

“By comparison, you all don’t have much advantage either.”

“No. Although we do not have the latest technology, we are not far from the top companies, and this is something you all don’t have. We also own some of the best technology in the world, and we are the ones who set the standards. These technologies have a significant impact on the product. Our electronic products’ brands are also more popular with consumers and are stronger than Microsoft. I remember Bill Gates also likes our Wind and Rain Super VCD player, right?”

Bill Gates always has this problem. He likes the latest electronic products because of the conveniences and experiences.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, after Microsoft fallout with Apple, both companies started attacking each other. Some media reported Bill Gates uses Apple MP3 at home. This report increases Apple’s sales greatly.

This is equivalent to Bill Gates advertising for Apple. Even the World’s Richest man is using this product. It must be the best available product on the market!

Now, Feng Yu is using the same tactic. Bill Gates also likes our Wind and Rain products!

Ballmer is speechless. Why did Bill Gates buy Wind and Rain Super VCD players?

Feng Yu continued. “When you buy a PC, will you focus on the hardware or the operating system? How much does a PC cost, and how much does an operating system cost?”

Feng Yu is trying to tell Ballmer the value and cost of hardware is higher than software. Thus, Microsoft is not that important.

If Feng Yu wants, he can get Lenovo Kingsoft to develop the operating system. Still, he cannot use the free Linux system. Microsoft will not allow one of their directors and shareholders to do that.

“Feng, just tell me what you have in mind.”

“I had given in on the product’s name, but I will not give in on the control of the product. I want the majority share of this Gbox!”

The majority share is not 51%, but two-thirds of the shares. That means Feng Yu wants at least 67% of the shares.

Ballmer’s heart skipped a beat. What do you mean by you have given in on the naming of the product? This Gbox is also not using our Microsoft name.

Also, we might not agree to let you own 51% of the shares, and you are asking for the majority share? Since when have you heard Microsoft’s partners owning the majority shares?

We had acquired many small software development companies, and they can only become one of our departments.

“Feng, you should know our bottom line is each party getting 50% of the shares, and we will discuss all major decisions.”

“Impossible. If that’s the case, we should split and develop our own consoles. I want to see, even if Microsoft acquire Sega, what console can you all develop. We are the ones who set the standards for DVD related technologies, and Sony and their allies are setting another set of standards. I don’t think you all can get the DVD patents without paying a heavy price. If you all are not afraid of losing money, go ahead. Even if my consoles are lousy, I still have the Chinese market.”

Ballmer suddenly realized that Feng Yu is too overbearing. From his attitude, Ballmer knows Feng Yu will not give in. But Feng Yu also mentioned something important. Microsoft cannot develop their own console without Feng Yu. If their console is still using CD-Rom technology like Sega, they will lose to Sony, Nintendo, and even Feng Yu.

Working with Feng Yu seems to be the only solution for Microsoft.

Chapter 1030 – Feng Yu’s advantage

Ballmer cannot make the decision and knew there would be no outcome. He decided to return to the US, and let the board or Bill Gates decide whether if they should agree to Feng Yu’s harsh condition.

All of Microsoft’s directors, except for Feng Yu, were present at the monthly director meeting.

“Hmph! Someone is disregarding the company’s policy again! I think we should not offer him any shares this year!” Paul Allen looks at the empty seat.

Everyone on the board knows Paul Allen dislikes Feng Yu. His hatred towards Feng Yu worsens after Feng Yu becomes the World’s Second Richest man. If Paul Allen did not sell off some of his Microsoft shares to invest in other companies, his net worth would be over 20 billion USD, and the gap will not be so big.

But now, Paul can’t catch up with Feng Yu. The rest of the directors pretended not to hear what Paul Allen said, as they do not want to be caught in between them.

“Alright, Paul. Let’s start the meeting. We need to discuss a few matters today. First, our Win98 operating system is selling well, but there are a few bugs we need to fix urgently. We must not let our customers think our system has security issues… The last issue to be discussed is the Gbox partnership issue.”

“What’s there to look for another partner? If we are going to develop a gaming console, we, Microsoft, will do it ourselves!” Paul Allen shouted.

Cooperate with Feng Yu?! What a joke! Feng Yu is not qualified to be Microsoft’s partner!

“Paul, I don’t think developing the console ourselves is a good idea. First, we do not have experience in developing hardware. I think I don’t need to mention the reason why. Secondly, Feng Yu owns advanced technologies that are critical to this product…”

“Wait. You say we don’t have experience in hardware development, then do Feng Yu has the experience? Furthermore, we can acquire a company with experience as we have sufficient funds. I think Nintendo is a good company.” Paul interrupted Ballmer.

This Ballmer is always siding with Feng Yu. I must be blind to agree to give him so many shares in the past.

“Paul, don’t forget that Feng Yu owns a few consumer electronic companies. He also has a stake in Lenovo group. Compare to us, and he is much stronger in hardware than Microsoft. Also, we are unable to acquire Nintendo as they demanded an astronomical price.” Ballmer explained.

“Paul let Steve finish first.” Bill Gates is slightly pissed.

Paul Allen mumbled something and kept quiet. He lowered his head to get a drink, but realized all the drinks on the table are Yuan Li energy drinks. When he sees the drinks, he got more mad. Even if there is no coffee, you can serve tea, Coke, or other beverages. Why must you bring this Yuan Li energy drink into the meeting?!

If the programmers love this drink, just give it to them. Why must you all serve this drink at the director’s meeting?! Even if I have to die of thirst, I will also not drink this!

Ballmer continued. “The situation now is we are unable to acquire any good game console company. Sega has already shown us that they are not a match for Sony and Nintendo. Also, Sony’s game console is using the Linux system, and Nintendo had chosen to work with IBM.”

“We only have two choices now. We can set up a subsidiary or department to develop our own console like what Allen said, or we can choose to work with Feng Yu.”

“But our weakness is very obvious. We do not have experience in developing hardware, and it will take a long time if we want to catch up with Sony and Nintendo. If it is one or two years, it is still fine. But if it takes eight to ten years, our losses will be much higher.”

“But if we partner with Feng, it will be different. Feng has a game development company and is China’s biggest game distributor. His company is also well known around Southeast Asia. Also, Feng’s companies have the experience of developing hardware, and their consumer electronic products are very popular. I think I don’t need to provide the data to you all, right?”

“Feng’s game development company had acquired two South Korean companies, one Hong Kong company, one Taiwanese company, one Japanese company, one Chinese company, and our North America’s Blizzard. After these companies are merged, it will become the world’s biggest game company. They have over 1,000 game developers and many experienced development teams. I am sure all of you know why Sega Saturn failed. They have limited games, and consumers do not like it. Do note that their technology is not far behind Sony and Nintendo at that time.”

“Feng can not only provide us with the rights to many game titles, but he can also stop issuing game rights to Sony and Nintendo. The games they produced will only be suitable for our system, and more importantly, DVD technology patents are owned by two groups. One of the groups is the DVD forum, and they use Wind and Rain – Philips standards. This standard is used by most electronic appliance factories and owns more than 70% of the market share. The other group is the DVD alliance, and they use the DVD + RAM standard. This standard only owns around 20% of the market share.”

“That means the best solution for us is to work with Feng Yu?”

“Why can’t we use VCD technology?” Someone asked.

“Most of the VCD technologies and patents, around 95%, are owned by Feng. Also, we want to develop a better product than Sony and Nintendo, and we cannot use outdated technology.” Ballmer explained.

“If it is like this, then we can only work with Feng. I agree with this partnership.” One director said.

Another more cautious director asked. “Steve, have you discussed with Feng on the conditions for this partnership?”

Ballmer looked at Bill Gates and the rest of the directors and said. “Feng’s condition is he wants the absolute majority of the joint partnership company.”

Paul Allen almost jumped up and roared. “Impossible!”

Bullshit! This Feng Yu is too arrogant. You are partnering Microsoft, and you still want to majority of the shares? Who do you think you are?!

Chapter 1031 – Microsoft’s internal conflicts

Bill Gates frowned as he looks at Paul. This is their director’s meeting. A place for discussion and not a place for you to shout and throw tantrums.

Why is Paul always losing his cool whenever they mention Feng Yu? Is it because Feng Yu said his basketball team would not win the NBA Championships?

As a grown man, he should not be so childish. Everyone should be working together to make Microsoft bigger and better!

“Paul, you must keep your cool. This matter concerns everyone here, and you must not let your anger affect your decision.” Bill Gates said.

“Fine. I object to this partnership with Feng Yu. He wants the absolute majority of the shares, and which one of you can allow this to happen?!” Paul sneered. “Who does he think he is? If we did not support his DVD forum in the past, can he get to where he is now? What did we get in return?”

Microsoft is doing software and has nothing to do with the DVD standard competition. All they need is to write a code to read the DVD drives.

To Paul, Feng Yu can set up the DVD forum is because of Microsoft’s support. If not for Microsoft’s support, how can he get so many PC manufacturers to support his DVD format?

But Paul did not realize that Microsoft’s support is only the icing on the cake. At that time, Feng Yu’s company had already started working with Philips, and Philips had recommended many major European corporations to support Feng Yu. Feng Yu, on the other hand, has his connections supporting him.

Microsoft is the leader among the major corporations now. Still, when it comes to hardware and other electronic products, they are not that influential. If not, Sony will not reject Microsoft’s proposal to use its system for its next-generation PS.

Being the number one in an industry might be advantageous. Still, at the same time, all other companies in the industry will view them as the target. Those hardware manufacturers had been held hostage by Microsoft, and all of them are thinking of ways to get back at Microsoft.

“Paul, it is meaningless to mention the past now. The situation now is Feng can develop the gaming console himself, and we can do it ourselves too. But Feng has a higher chance of succeeding, and his costs will be lower. If we develop the console ourselves, the costs will be higher, and the chances of succeeding will be lower. I don’t deny that if we are willing to invest more funds, we can sell a few billion units, but can we make money?” Ballmer asked.

Because of the hardware manufacturers, Microsoft did not produce their PCs. Once Microsoft starts manufacturing its PCs, all hardware manufacturers will stop using Microsoft operating system. This will be a severe blow to Microsoft because Microsoft had crossed the line. If the other companies did not stop Microsoft, they would be obsolete.

This Gbox is considered Microsoft entering the hardware sector. But luckily, the other hardware companies are not into gaming consoles, and this venture will not affect them. However, this move will still be considered Microsoft’s move into the hardware sector.

All hardware companies will spread rumors that Microsoft product sucks and will not offer any assistance to them. In fact, many of these companies will provide support to Sony and Nintendo to develop new gaming consoles to suppress Microsoft.

Partnering Feng Yu will not only increase the chances of success and also diversify their risks. Although Microsoft can afford losses of a few hundred million, or even a few billions, but who is willing to suffer losses if they can make profits?

Bill Gates tapped on the table and said. “Do you all still remember our target? We want to become a lifestyle necessity! Our initial product is a TV box. In the future, satellite channels will no longer meet people’s demands, and they can use the TV box to watch online programs or surf the internet. This Gbox will use many similar technologies like the TV box. Manufacturing this product will prepare us for our TV box in the future.”

TV box is what Bill Gates wanted. This is a product that is considered an electronic product and a home appliance. It will also not affect the major companies’ profits. If they can get half of the market share, Microsoft will get significant profits!

Of course. Microsoft also does not have the technologies for the TV box, and there is no strong TV box manufacturer in the market. That’s why Microsoft cannot acquire other companies to manufacture this product and has to develop the technologies themselves.

After Microsoft perfected this technology, they can acquire a TV box manufacturer and ditched Feng Yu away to produce their own gaming console.

“Bill, I understand what you say and know about our plans. But if we were to partner Feng, we must at least own 51% of this company. This is what Microsoft should do!” Paul said.

Paul had said what many directors are thinking. We are Microsoft, and we are the world’s most valuable company. All this while we have been acquiring other companies, and partnering with another company is already an exception. How can we still not own the majority of the shares?

Even if they must let the other party own more shares, they cannot allow the other party to have absolute control. This means Microsoft will have no say in the company, and Microsoft will be a laughing stock to other companies.

Ballmer said. “Paul, we also know this. Microsoft should own the majority of shares, but we are not good at everything. Although I believe that if we are willing to invest, we can also develop the best console, why should we spend more money when we can spend less? Also, this will lower our risk. What’s wrong with this?”

“Ballmer, I know you are close to Feng, but you should stand on our side and not help him!” Paul Allen shouted.

Ballmer is pissed as he is also a shareholder and director of Microsoft. Although he does not own as many shares as Paul Allen, Paul Allen is not Bill Gates. Who is he to criticize him?

“I am speaking from Microsoft’s point of view, unlike someone who is trying to affect the company’s decision because of a personal feud!”

The company’s number two and three had started arguing, and the rest of the directors dare not speak up. All of them turn and look at Bill Gates, as Bill Gates is the only person that can stop this fight.

“You two! I will repeat this! This is a meeting, and you all can argue your points, but you all are not allowed to attack each other! We are all doing this for Microsoft and ourselves! Let’s vote to decide this matter. I agree to let Feng owns the majority shares of this joint venture!”

Paul Allen is shocked to hear Bill Gates agree to this condition. Ballmer immediately raises his hand to show his support, and the other directors also raise their hands. Everyone, except for Paul Allen, agreed to this proposal.

Paul Allen immediately stood up and left the meeting room. As he is leaving, he heard Bill Gates say. “This motion is passed!”

Chapter 1032 – Given an inch, want a mile

The proposal was passed, but the details of the cooperation must still be discussed, and Feng Yu traveled to the US to discuss it with Bill Gates.

“Feng, do you know the directors have agreed with your cooperation proposal?”

“Of course.” Although Feng Yu did not attend the director’s meeting, Ralph had informed him about the meeting.

“How much money are you going to invest for 67% of the shares, and how much must Microsoft invest?”

“I will invest 200 million, and Microsoft also must invest 200 million USD.”

Bill Gates frowned. If both parties were to invest the same amount, the shares could not be 2:1. This Feng Yu is too much.

Bill Gates admits that the technologies Feng Yu owns are critical to this product, but the difference should not be so big.

“Oh, I need to tell you that it will not be Wind and Rain Electronics that will be working with Microsoft. It will be Aiwa Little Tyrant.”

Wind and Rain Electronics is now a world-renowned consumer electronic brand because of VCD, DVD players, and Wind and Rain Mobile. But Bill Gates had not heard of Aiwa Little Tyrant.

Feng Yu is going to use an unknown company to work with Microsoft, and not what was agreed upon previously. Bill Gates felt cheated.

No one can cheat Bill Gates! No one!

“Feng, this is not what we agreed. I think you had mentioned the wrong company.”

“No. It will be Aiwa Little Tyrant. Ballmer had visited this company, and this is the company that can develop the gaming console. DVD-related technologies are also included.”

“Oh, the development team must also be stationed in China. We will set up a product development center, and Microsoft staff will work there. Of course, if you want to let the staff work in the US, I am fine with it. But I will not provide the office.”

“Feng! I had given in to you by letting you own the absolute majority of this company. This is too much!” Bill Gates shouted.

“Bill, if Microsoft is holding the majority of the shares, where will you station the development team? Also, the hardware is critical for gaming console development, and my people are the best in the world when it comes to hardware development. As for software, all you need is a PC, right?”

Since Feng Yu has the absolute majority of the company, he has the final say over everything.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Microsoft’s first Xbox had received many negative reviews, and their sales are about the same as Sega’s game console. Xbox’s retail price is also very low.

This means that no one is willing to buy Xbox even when they are selling at a discount rate. Xbox was selling at 299 USD, and the production cost is 430 USD at that time!

Microsoft’s production cost was the highest among all video console manufacturers, and their product is the lousiest. This does not include Sega, which left the video game console industry.

Xbox had sold over 20 million units worldwide, and Microsoft’s losses amounted to over 3 billion USD!

This is Bill Gates’ ambition. This is the product which he thinks he can teach Sony and Nintendo a lesson.

Many years later, Microsoft learned from this experience and knew the importance of their customers’ feedback. They improved their technologies and developed a better console. However, they are still no match for Sony and Nintendo, but at least they have better reviews and made some profits.

But how did this second-generation console turn their losses into profits? Microsoft had cooperated with IBM, a company they hated, to develop the processor.

Microsoft’s second-generation console sold over 80 million units. Still, the profits could not cover their losses from their first-generation console.

Microsoft’s development cost, servers, etc. had incurred a few billions of losses!

Of course, a few billion of losses is nothing to a company like Microsoft. But this is the first time Microsoft suffered losses from their investment.

Many years later, Microsoft claimed to have the best motion sensor gaming console in the market, but lesser people are buying gaming console.

Bill Gates wanted to retort, but Feng Yu continued. “Bill, labor cost in the US is much higher than in China. If we produce consoles in China, we can lower our cost and increase our competitiveness.”

Bill Gates becomes quiet. He knew setting up the production plant in China is the best choice, as there are existing factories, cheap labor, and an experienced development team.

But Bill Gates is not happy with Feng Yu’s attitude. Why is Feng Yu setting all the conditions, and Feng Yu did not agree to any of his requests?

“What you said might be true, but we must get involve in the management, product development, production, sales, etc.”

“Bill, do you know anything about electronic product sales? I am more experienced than Microsoft in this field. I had set up my brands and products from scratch and faced many MNC competitors, to bring my companies to where they are now. My sales teams had played a major role, and you should let me handle the sales. If you want, Microsoft can handle North America’s sales.”

“Microsoft also does not have experience in manufacturing products and had never run a production plant except for producing CDs for operating systems. My teams are better than your men, and we should be the one managing it. If we set up a production plant in North America, I can let Microsoft manage the US plant.”

“We don’t need to discuss the development. The development teams are all my men, and software and hardware development can be separated. Microsoft can develop the software, and my teams can develop the hardware. As for the games’ development, we can discuss it later.”

“We can manage the finance and logistics department together and discuss if there are any important decisions to be made. Also, I have the right to appoint the CEO of this company, right?”

Bill Gates looks at Feng Yu speechlessly. Most of the management rights of this company were all taken away by Feng Yu, and the remaining departments will be run jointly with Feng Yu. What if there are disputes over some decisions? It will still be Feng Yu’s appointed CEO making the final decision. This means Feng Yu will have the final say in this company.

“Bill, trust me. We will create a better future together. This will be a revolution in the video game console industry, and we will change the way people look at video games. Sony and Nintendo will not be a match for us, and this honor will belong to us!”

Maybe Bill Gates was persuaded by what Feng Yu said about Sony and Nintendo, and he agreed in the end. “Fine. If the first product fails, I will get to appoint the next CEO, and both parties will get the priority to buy the other party’s shares. Also, Microsoft’s logo must be printed on the console.”

“No problem. I look forward to smooth cooperation.”

Chapter 1033– Jensen Huang

After finalizing the details of Gbox’s cooperation with Bill Gates, Microsoft sent a team to evaluate Aiwa Little Tyrant’s asset. At the same time, Feng Yu returns to San Francisco.

Feng Yu is not going to San Francisco to meet Sergey. Instead, he is going to meet a Chinese man, Jensen Huang.

Santa Clara is a small city along with the San Francisco Bay Area. It is located in the center of Silicon Valley.

There is a small company in this city, and its small office is located not far from Google. Today, someone important will be visiting this company.

“Mr. Feng, nice to meet you.” Huang Jensen said in mandarin. But his mandarin has a weird accent as he is a Taiwanese and had migrated to the US before he was ten.

“Nice to meet you too. Who are these two?” Feng Yu looks at the two Caucasians beside Huang Jensen.

“This is Chris, and this is Cutis. They are my partners.”

“Hi.” Feng Yu smiles as he shook their hands. These are all elites, and Feng Yu still need them to make money for him.

The two partners were surprised. They had never expected the World’s Second Richest man had visited their company and even shook hands with them.

When they worked with other companies in the past, those companies will normally send their number 3 or number 4 men to negotiate with them. All those companies had never thought highly of them.

But Jensen Huang told Chris and Cutis that this person in front of them was visiting them to tell them a piece of good news.

“Jensen, I am impressed with the three of you for setting up such a potential company. It is not easy.”

“What we had achieved is nothing compared to you.” Jensen Huang is not modest. Although he is not even 40 years old and is the co-founder and CEO of this company, compared to Feng Yu, he is indeed nothing.

“Hahaha… let’s not talk about all these. My assistant had mentioned it to you. Have you discussed it with your partners?” Feng Yu is glad to speak Mandarin overseas.

“Mr. Feng, your conditions are very attractive, and we are willing to accept. But we are unable to persuade those two Venture Capital companies, and they are pushing us to be listed.” Jensen Huang replied.

When Jensen Huang and his other co-founders started this company, they accepted investments from two Venture Capital companies.

But now, Feng Yu wants to acquire his company and had promised to invest a significant amount of funds into the company. Jensen Huang and his co-founders will continue to manage the company, and Feng Yu will still reward them with the company’s shares based on their performance. This is a better deal than the Venture Capital Companies.

Also, Feng Yu is a Microsoft Director, and also the Chairman of Lenovo Group. Their company will have better development if they can work with either of these companies.

The three founders of this company discussed and felt they should accept Feng Yu’s offer. But when they speak to the two venture capital companies, they were rejected.

Those two venture capital companies knew all the businesses Feng Yu invested are all profitable. Since Feng Yu wants to acquire this company, they will get much higher returns if this company is listed.

The venture capital companies do not want to accept Feng Yu’s investment as their shares will be diluted, and none of Feng Yu’s companies are listed. If the company is not going to get listed, they can’t recover their initial investments.

Feng Yu frowned. Companies that had accepted investments from venture capital companies will have a clause in their contracts to get the company listed within a timeframe.

Of course, these venture capital companies included this clause in their contracts to protect themselves.

Feng Yu understands why these two venture capital companies are doing this, but that does not mean he can accept it.

“Are those venture capital companies big companies?”

“Huh? No…, these two are small investment companies with assets less than 100 million USD.” This is in comparison to Feng Yu’s company.

Feng Yu turns to Ralph, and Ralph immediately says. “Boss, I will contact them to buy the shares from them, and if necessary, we will acquire them. Huang, can you give me the contacts of these two companies?”

Feng Yu nodded. Ralph had worked for him for quite some time and knew what to do even when he did not say anything.

Jensen Huang and his partners were shocked. Is this how the World’s Second Richest man does things? To acquire their company, he is willing to take over those two venture capital companies who own their company’s shares.”

But Jensen Huang and his partners were overjoyed, as this shows the confidence Feng Yu has in their company.

If Feng Yu cannot acquire their company, he will most likely acquire 3dfx or Canada’s ATI Technologies. This will limit their company’s development, and their shares will plunge after they got listed.

“Mr. Feng, you will not be disappointed with us. Our 3D graphics processors will catch up with 3dfx and overtake Canada’s ATI Technologies!”

Currently, 3dfx is the best in the graphics card industry, followed by ATI Technologies. Both companies are about the same standard, and Jensen’s company is lagging behind them.

In terms of scale and strength, ATI Technologies had sold over 10 million graphics cards, and Jensen’s company had only sold slightly over 1 million.

“I trust you all, or else, I will not visit your company. The market value of your company is less than 100 million, and you all are trying to raise 300 million USD from the market to develop your new product. But 300 million USD is not enough. I will invest 500 million USD into the company and do not need to get listed. I believe you all will not disappoint me.”

Jensen Huang and his partners are overjoyed. When Feng Yu’s assistant contacted them, they had not talked about the investment amount. But now, Feng Yu told them that he would invest 500 million USD for them to develop their new product.

Jensen Huang and his partners are confident that they can win those two companies and be the industry leader!

“Good. After Ralph settled the shares issues with those two venture capital companies, the money will be transferred to the company. I still have something on, and you all can carry on with your work.”

Jensen Huang and his partners walked Feng Yu out.

Feng Yu got into his car and looks at the signboard outside of the company. Nvidia!

Chapter 1034– Hardware

Feng Yu had come to the US to buy a lot of companies. He has enough funds and wants to start his strategic plans for his businesses.

The PC industry will develop rapidly, and the profits will be high in the coming few years. Feng Yu owns Lenovo Group’s shares now, but he is not satisfied with their current progress.

Lenovo Group is currently ordering components from hardware manufacturers, and they are producing some unimportant components like cooling fans. How much can they earn?

Lenovo Group’s PCs are selling fast, and after they had controlled the Chinese market, they set their sights on the overseas market. Their first target is Southeast Asia and a few developed countries in Asia.

Lenovo’s PC business was growing fast and had made some profits. However, a company’s profitability can be seen from the company’s market value.

Intel is currently worth over 400 billion USD and is the leader in the hardware industry. Lenovo’s market value is nowhere close to them.

This also means that the more PCs are sold, the more Intel earns. Intel controlled the processor, the most expensive component of a PC.

Why does Feng Yu want to acquire Nvidia? It is because he wants to have control over the critical hardware components of a PC. This will lower Lenovo’s cost and increase their competitiveness.

Feng Yu’s original plan is to acquire a company that produces Processing Units. But the market is controlled by the top two processors producers, Intel and AMD. Intel’s market value is over 400 billion, and AMD is worth over 50 billion.

Feng Yu cannot afford to buy out or buy the majority stake in any of these two companies. But Feng Yu will start acquiring AMD’s shares after he sells away his Microsoft shares next year.

Also, Feng Yu had invested and built his Crystalline silicon factory, and this factory can cooperate with AMD. He has plans to set up the world’s biggest Crystalline silicon factory and control the price of semiconductors. This way, he can suppress Intel.

Feng Yu’s next target is a hard disk, and he had contacted a company. This is a Fortune 500 company, and he is not going to acquire this company or buy a stake in it. This company is doing well now, and no shareholders will sell their shares.

But this company is planning to develop and enter the tape technology industry. Thus, they are selling their hard drive business.

Feng Yu had sent his men to talk to them before he comes to the US, and his original plan is to buy this company’s hard drive’s technologies, including the related patents.

But the company wants to sell its hard drive division to Feng Yu. This includes the production, development, sales, etc. and all related technologies and patents as a package. Or else, they will not sell it!

This company is Quantum and will be very successful in the future.

Their hard drive technologies are quite advanced, and they wanted a reasonable price of 120 million USD for their hard drive division. Ralph had evaluated Quantum’s hard drive division, and it is worth around 100 million USD.

Quantum’s hard drive technologies are not as good as Western Digital, Seagate Technology, Maxtor, and Samsung. Still, they are on the same level as Hitachi and Toshiba.

Feng Yu is satisfied with the price as he wanted the technologies. He will bring these technologies back to China and set up factories to produce hard drives.

Feng Yu will not suffer any losses as Lenovo require hard drives for their PC, and he can also use the technologies from this company for his USB drive.

Lenovo had bought the mouse and keyboard technologies, and Feng Yu does not need to worry about that.

Wind and Rain electronics and Philips LCD technology are currently one of the world’s most advanced technology, and only a few companies like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, can compete with them.

But Feng Yu is confident that these few companies will fail as he has a plan to lead these companies down the wrong path.

One week later, Feng Yu bought all the companies he wanted. Although he had spent a lot, he felt his money are well spent!

Feng Yu decided to start a PC revolution with Lenovo Group. They will lower the prices of the desktop by 20%, and PC manufacturers without enough funds will be in trouble.

If PC manufacturers continue to manufacture PCs, they might not make money or even suffer losses. But if they stop production, all their efforts over the past few years will be in vain.

When the PC manufacturers are in a dilemma, Lenovo will seize the opportunity to become the world’s top-selling PC manufacturer.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Lenovo will become the world’s largest PC vendor by unit sales many years later. But in this life, Feng Yu will shorten the time. As long as Lenovo’s PC has better specs, their sales will increase. His target is to make Lenovo the number one PC manufacturer within eight years!

Of course, to achieve this target, Feng Yu must ensure all his hardware companies have the most advanced technologies in the world with the least cost.

Feng Yu’s next step is to set up a few large production plants in China to produce these hardware products. This will also bring in income for China, and China’s labor cost is still lower.

There are other countries with lower labor costs, like Brazil, India, etc. but the security there is quite bad. Feng Yu still feels his country is the better option.

Of course, Feng Yu will keep the factories in the US. Once the production costs had been lowered to a certain extent, labor cost might be lower than the transportation costs. This is the reason why AIWA had set up more than a dozen factories all over the world to save on transportation costs. Also, some products will be damaged during transportation.

PCs are more expensive than Walkman and are more fragile. Feng Yu must have factories in Europe and the US.

Other than the CPU, the monitor is the next most important hardware of a PC. Feng Yu has plans to start production for monitors. In the past, Wind and Rain LCD monitors were contracted out to Philips. It is fine if the volume is little, but if Feng Yu is going to produce in high volume, it will be cheaper to set up a factory himself.

But at this moment, Feng Yu encountered a problem.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD)

Quantum Corporation

Western Digital

Seagate Technology

Maxtor

Chapter 1035 – Problem

Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips’ technologies for LCD are one of the most advanced in the world. But all these while, Wind and Rain Electronics did not manufacture themselves. They had only let Philips’ factories help them produce.

Feng Yu has plans to set up a factory to produce LCDs. When his men are searching for a suitable factory to take over, someone from the higher-ups contacted him.

Sichuan’s Changhong Group is a listed company and China’s leader in TV manufacturing. They had owned over 60% of China’s market share, and their 21-inch TVs were exported to more than a dozen countries.

But now, Changhong had encountered a problem. They were too fixated on 21-inch color TV, as this was formerly their best-selling products, and kept increasing their production by buying more 21-inch color TV production lines.

However, the demand for color TVs had changed. Families are no longer interested in 21-inch color TV. Most families prefer bigger TVs, like 29-inch, 34-inch, etc. Changhong’s 21-inch color TVs are all obsolete!

This problem caused Changhong’s share prices to plunge. Their share prices had hit rock bottom, and those smaller factories that manufacture 19-inch, 17-inch color TV, immediately switch to producing PC monitors, and 17-inch monitors are the mainstream.

Changhong’s products are not selling and faced difficulties in switching to other products. They urgently need a solution.

The higher-ups are very concerned with these ‘market leader’ State-owned Enterprises. Furthermore, Changhong is listed on the China stock exchange. Someone from Changhong suggested to the higher-ups to let Wind and Rain electronics or Wind and Rain Home Appliances to enter a joint venture. Both companies can exchange shares or even merge.

When Jiang Wanmeng told Feng Yu about this, Feng Yu immediately frown.

If it were two years ago, Feng Yu would be happy to enter a joint venture with Changhong. At that time, Changhong’s workers, production lines, technical skills are all top-notched. Their company’s finances are also in good condition, and the Central Government is offering support to them.

But now, Changhong had hit rock bottom, and they are facing massive losses this year. Feng Yu is not willing to let Wind and Rain Electronics or Wind and Rain Home Appliances to enter any venture with Changhong. Still, he can consider exchanging some shares with them.

This company can be changed to manufacture LCD TVs and displays, but Zhong Qingxian returned with a piece of bad news. The other party is too greedy.

Changhong’s Chairman did not make any unreasonable requests. He only wants to work with Wind and Rain Home Appliances, to receive help with their technologies and sales channels. Changhong is confident that with Wind and Rain Home Appliances help, they can turn their losses to profits. If Changhong can get a sum of money to modify their production line, they can start production for 29-inch or 34-inch TVs. They can even start producing 17-inch monitors.

Changhong is requesting an exchange of shares and cooperation on an equal basis. But the government leaders among the higher-ups do not think so. Feng Yu had suddenly become Asia’s top tycoon, and his rise is too fast.

The leaders felt Tai Hua Holdings should belong to the Government. How can a socialist country have a capitalist like Feng Yu?! Although the ‘Great man’ had allowed some people to become rich, no one should become as wealthy as Feng Yu! Feng Yu is wealthier than some smaller countries!

Also, Feng Yu had parked more of his assets in an overseas registered, Wind and Rain Holdings. He is siphoning money out of the country. If Feng Yu decides to migrate in the future, it will be a serious capital outflow!

Even if the Government cannot control Tai Hua Holding, the Government should get a stake in it! We can offer some guidance to them and also send some of our men to manage them.

But the leaders are afraid Feng Yu will retaliate if they just invest in Tai Hua Holdings. None of them wants to bear this responsibility.

Some of the leaders suggested that if they cannot touch Tai Hua Holdings, they can start by buying stakes in Tai Hua Holdings’ subsidiaries.

If this succeeds, they can slowly swallow up Tai Hua Holdings from inside, and they might even get full control of Tai Hua Holdings in the future. If everything goes as plan, they might even control Wind and Rain Holdings!

So, this leader from the higher-ups said that Wind and Rain Home Appliances’ scale is too small, and Wind and Rain Electronics should be included in this merger. Yes. Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances should be merged into Changhong, and Changhong will own 60% shares of this new company. Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home appliances will co-own 40%.

Zhong Qingxian and Jiang Wanmeng immediately reject this proposal. Are you kidding me? Even if we are to merge, we should be the ones with the bigger stake. Our companies’ assets might not be a lot, but it is because we are not listed.

Furthermore, do we lack money? Our parent company can just inject funds anything to increase our companies’ value, and if you all want cooperation, no problem. But we must be in control!

……

“Old Zhong, Old Jiang, Old Guan, did the other party ask us to give them our reply anytime soon?”

Zhong Qingxian shook his head. “Not only they want us to give them a favorable reply as soon as possible, but they also hinted that if we reject this proposal, but Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances will also be in trouble.”

If Aiwa Electronics and Aiwa Home Appliances did not own Japan’s AIWA shares, these government leaders would also want to include them.

The government leaders knew a Hong Kong businessman owns shares of Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances, but they are not bothered. Hong Kong has already returned to China, and Hong Kongers no longer have any special status.

If this merger only involves Wind and Rain Home Appliances, Changhong should become the major shareholder based on their market value. But Feng Yu will not agree.

Now, the other party wants to include Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances into this merger and even threaten them. This pissed Feng Yu off. You all think that I am a pushover?

If Wind and Rain Electronics is included, it will no longer be the Wind and Rain brand issue. It will include VCD, DVD, Optical Drive, mobile phone, LCD, telecommunications, Smart home, etc. technologies, and international patents. Just the patents alone, they are worth at least 500 million USD!

Changhong is not worth much now, and how did those government officials valuate this company? How can they demand 60% shares of the company?

Send their management talents to help us with the management? They are just going to send their government officials over. Maybe it is these government officials who caused Changhong’s current situation.

“Who is the leader that demanded these demands? Which department is he from?”

“He is a leader from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and is not from Changhong Group. We did not have any contacts with him in the past. We are also one of the key enterprises in the Province. Still, when we look for the leaders in the Province Government, they avoided us. They should have received instructions from the higher-ups!” Jiang Wanmeng replied angrily.

That’s right. Their companies had made money, but they had also made significant contributions to the Province. If they had invested their money elsewhere, or even overseas, the Province and the State will not receive any taxes from them!

They can convert their companies to overseas companies and return to China to invest. This will be more profitable as most Chinese still thinks overseas products are better.

Could it be the Government feels Feng Yu is earning too much money and wants to touch him? This should be impossible, as it will be more beneficial to the State to support him.

Feng Yu decides to find out what is going on with the top officials.

Chapter 1036 – Demon and monsters

Feng Yu called Director Fang, and this is the first time Director Fang heard about this. He only told Feng Yu: “I know.”

Although Director Fang did not make any promises, Feng Yu knew he doesn’t need to worry about this problem.

China also wants to show the world the success of its economic reforms. They want to tell the world that China also has a super tycoon and make use of this to attract investors and improve the Chinese economy.

Feng Yu is currently a celebrity in China and is a living example of the success of the Chinese economy. If Feng Yu falls, there will be a severe impact on China’s plan to attract investors.

Your government can cheat your own fellow countrymen’s money, let alone us. Who dares to make any investments in China?!

Feng Yu was relieved after hanging up. Since this order is not from the top brass of the government, it should be from someone at a lower level.

Someone had said that once you are rich, all sorts of demons and monsters will appear to demand a share of your earnings. Feng Yu did not believe this in the past, but now, he knew this is true.

“Don’t worry. Someone will settle this for us.”

“Manager Feng, what about our cooperation with Changhong?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

“We should continue to negotiate with them. It will be beneficial to us if we can cooperate, but we will only accept exchanging shares and not a merger. They have lots of experienced workers, technology developers, and they are China’s number one TV manufacture. You can tell them that I can help them sell off all their 21-inch color TVs as part of the negotiations.”

“Manager Feng, that is a large amount!” Changhong’s had produced a large amount of 21-inch TVs when they own the majority of the market share. But 21-inch TVs suddenly lose their popularity, and they have a stockpile of goods left in their warehouses.

“It’s fine. It can be sold. Although there will be no profits, there will be no losses either. At least they can recover their cost.”

How did Changhong clear this batch of 21-inch colored TVs in Feng Yu’s previous life? They exported and donated them. In this life, Feng Yu will use the same method, and he can get better results.

Feng Yu will export these TVs to Eastern Europe. In Feng Yu’s previous life, many Russian families were still using black and white TVs in 2005.

In Russia, most of the products in the market are from China, Japan, and Europe, and China sold 21-inch colored TV at low prices.

In this life, the situation remains the same. Russia’s TV manufacturing industry had declined, and Feng Yu believes that he can sell off all the 21-inch TVs if he sells them at cost price.

Also, Feng Yu can buy a portion of TVs for donations. This will serve as a promotion for his companies and help the poor. At the same time, it will increase his reputation.

……

Feng Yu and his men did not wait long, and that leader called to ask Zhong Qingxian when the merger can start.

If this leader can let Changhong acquire Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances, it will be a great credit, and he can use it to get a promotion.

The leader even has plans to park this new company under his department, and he will appoint himself as the Director and General Manager. It will be a better position compared to his position as a Committee member in his department.

The leader will be the head of this company, and he can continue to get promoted within his ministry.

“We have considered your proposal and will continue to discuss with Changhong on our cooperation. But our cooperation will not be what you proposed.” Zhong Qingxian replied.

“Zhong Qingxian! I am not discussing it with you! I am ordering you!” The leader is furious. You are just a soft-drink seller, and you think you can negotiate with me after you have become the Chairman of Tai Hua Holdings?!

Don’t you understand that you are not supposed to oppose government officials? I can destroy Lehaha Group anytime I want!

“Order? Fine. I will wait for your official government orders. Remember to affix the order with a red seal.”

The line was cut, and the leader was stunned. Zhong Qingxian had slammed the phone and is not afraid of him.

How dare Zhong Qingxian oppose him?

The leader thought for a while and concluded that Feng Yu must have returned. He heard that Feng Yu has powerful connections.

The leader had purposely waited when Feng Yu is overseas before he approached Zhong Qingxian, and he had heard that Feng Yu does not interfere with the company’s operations.

The leader thought he could settle this before Feng Yu return. But this matter took longer than he expected. He even hinted to Zhong Qingxian that he could give him some benefits if he agrees, but Zhong Qingxian still refused.

Now, the leader cannot back off. If he doesn’t deal with Zhong Qingxian, his promise to his leaders will become a joke, and he will be a laughingstock among his colleagues. He might even be transferred to a useless department.

Because of the leader’s current position, he doesn’t care what the local authorities and leaders think. Also, the local authorities and leaders thought this is a decision made by the higher-ups, and dare not question anything.

The leader ordered his secretary. “Go and issue a memo to Tai Hua Holdings. Tell them to think of the big picture and must respect the collective decision of the leaders. They must carry out the instructions of the leaders and start their merger with Changhong.”

After the secretary left, the leader received a phone call from his superior, telling him to go to his superior’s office.

When the leader stepped into the office, he noticed a man inside. It’s Director Fang! Why is Director Fang here?

“I heard our department is setting up the merger between Changhong with Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances?” The head of the department asked.

“Huh… that’s right. This is for the economic reform in the industry, and by pooling our resources, we can move out of Asia and expand around the world.”

Before the Department head can say anything, Director Fang asked. “This is a good idea. But did the other party agree?”

“They had agreed.”

“Really?” Director Fang smiled coldly. “If they agreed, why will they raise a complaint with me? Do you know Changhong still has orders from the military? Changhong’s problems cannot be settled so easily. Also, those companies fall under the Provincial Government’s jurisdiction. Who are you to interfere? Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances are shareholdings, and who are you to send people to guide them? Do you know the consequences of lying to your superiors?”

“Hmph! Who told you to do this? Why didn’t you report to me about this? You had tarnished our department’s reputation by doing this! Luckily, we found out in time, and there is no negative impact yet.” The Department Head scolded.

The Department Head does not want to be embarrassed in front of Director Fang, and he will discipline his men himself.

Director Fang stood up. “The Leader said. If they are no committing crimes and are managing their business properly, we should offer support and let these people help the rest of the people prosper. You all should not do whatever you want for credits for your promotions! That’s all I have to say. You all will clear up the mess yourself!”

The Department Head asked after Director Fang left. “Did you issue any orders under the department’s name?”

After a while, the Department Head shouted angrily. “From now onwards, you are suspended! Get out!”

Chapter 1037 – Reality

Without the leader creating problems, the negotiation with Changhong went on smoothly.

Wind and Rain Home Appliances will exchange shares with Changhong. Wind and Rain Home Appliances will use 35% of their shares and 50 million USD to exchange for 49% of Changhong’s shares. The original management teams will be unchanged, but each party will send two finance officers to the other company.

Both parties will cooperate on developing TVs, LCDs, etc. They will also be helping each other with Infrared sensors, digital cameras, etc.

It is a surprise for Feng Yu to know Changhong had been working on digital camera technologies for a few years. This technology can be used on Wind and Rain mobile phone.

Also, Wind and Rain Home Appliances’ infrared sensor technologies are useful in military equipment. In the past, Wind and Rain Home Appliances had developed this technology for their robot vacuum.

Feng Yu knew many of his technologies are suitable to be used by the military and civilians. Many MNCs in Japan and Korea are working with their military to develop sophisticated equipment and weaponry.

Although after the Soviet Union dissolution, the arms race is not as intense as before, countries are still fighting to have the most advanced weaponry.

If the military were to develop their equipment, the cost would be high, and it’s hard for them to recover the cost. After all, China’s military products are not popular in the international market. This is also because of the Western countries’ technology blockade in China.

A few years ago, many of China’s military factories were converted to civilian factories, as the Chinese government cannot support so many military factories.

After the conversion, many of these factories gone bankrupt merged, and some were even sold to private entities.

These military factories, who were producing military uniforms, had to produce to making uniforms for factories.

But some of the state-owned enterprises also started working with the military.

The factories started producing products for civilians to fund military product production and development. Of course, these factories will request for funds when their funds run low.

Changhong is a company that has a military background, and Feng Yu does not know about this. Changhong even has a research center to develop new products for them and the military.

After Feng Yu knows about this, he felt this is an opportunity for him.

If this research center can develop new technologies for the military, it can increase China’s military standards and also use the technology for civilian products.

But after this incident with the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, Feng Yu learned that being too successful will be a target for many greedy officials.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, most of the tycoons have government backings and titles. But in this life, Feng Yu is too young and does not have any affiliations with the government.

Feng Yu starts to consider if he should get a government title or backing as his talisman. But his title cannot be too high as he will be restricted from traveling overseas, and if his title is too low, it won’t be very meaningful.

Feng Yu prefers to get the title of being a representative of some government agency or a committee member of some government departments. This is just what the tycoons from his previous life did.

With a government title, Feng Yu can help China achieve some political intentions and make money at the same time.

There is a saying, ‘wealth will not last after three generations.’

This is not because the family does not have any successors to carry on with the family’s business. It is because it’s hard for the earlier generations to pass down their connections. If you are close to the higher-ups of the government, you can enjoy your wealth for the rest of your life.

But your offspring might not have such connections and cannot enjoy the protection from the higher-ups. It will be too difficult for them to carry on with the family business.

Another reason is the rise and fall of industry.

When you started a business, and it is the rise of this industry, you will make lots of money. But if your children or grandchildren take over the business and the industry starts to decline, there is no way for them to prosper.

The business must switch to another industry, but most wealthy families failed during the transition.

Of course, another reason is the changing of powers at the top. Allies of the former government leader will be dealt with by the new leader and have their wealth confiscated. But this seldom happens unless you betrayed the country.

Most people will not be so stupid to betray their country.

Why are so many Americans so arrogant? It is because the US is the strongest country in the world. Whenever something happens, Americans will shout: “I am American!”

China used to be a superpower in ancient times, like the Yuen Dynasty.

However, China’s development in the later years cost it to be in its present state. As the new China rise, China’s status in the world also rose. But the Chinese military is still weak compared to many other countries.

China claims to have the strongest ground forces in the world. Disregarding if this claim is true, ground forces are mainly used for defense.

Land, sea, and air forces. China’s navy is weak, and because of its weak navy, it resulted in the tragedy that happened in the past. After many years of development, China’s Airforce is catching up with other developed nations, and its aviation industry had become world-class. This is also due to Feng Yu’s credit.

China is still lagging behind other developed nations on the production of a precision instrument. An example is the tip of the ballpoint pen. China is unable to produce the tip and had to import from Japan and Germany.

China’s optical instrument is also lagging behind many nations. This can be seen from the camera equipment production.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, most of the digital cameras in the market are from Japan, South Korea, and the Western countries.

China’s domestic brands of digital cameras give consumers the impression of poor quality, short battery duration, and small storage.

Feng Yu knows China does have high-end domestic manufactured products. But the technologies used are not developed locally. Even the optical equipment used by the Chinese military is bought from overseas!

Feng Yu hopes everything will change in his present life. Although Changhong’s technologies are not the most advanced, all the basics are there. He believes that with money, he can increase the standards of these technologies.

When Feng Yu mentioned that he wants to research optical technologies, Changhong immediately agrees and offered their support. This support is actually from the military.

But when Feng Yu arrives at Changhong and saw the research center’s research reports, he realized that he had been too optimistic.

Chapter 1038 – Buying technology

“Manager Feng, have you thought of some new ideas and need us to tackle the technical aspect together?” Jiang Wanmeng laughed and asked.

Whenever Feng Yu has new ideas on electronic products, he will gather all of them together. The company that is most familiar with the technology Feng Yu has in mind will head this project, and the rest will provide support.

When all the companies work together, they can develop new technologies faster and train new research staff.

But this time is different. Japan’s AIWA and Aiwa Little Tyrant are not participating. Instead, it was Changhong’s Chief Engineer that came.

Changhong’s Chief Engineer used to be very proud and arrogant. After all, Changhong is China’s market leader in the TV manufacturing industry. They are still holding the most market share in China, while another company manufactures wind and Rain brand of TVs.

The Chief Engineer felt Wind and Rain’s Super fan, Super VCD, etc. are because they are lucky and own the patents, or else, many companies will overtake them.

But after the Chief Engineer visited Wind and Rain Electronics’ smart showhouse and research center, he was humbled. Wind and Rain Electronics’ showhouse is too miraculous. He had never seen such a high-tech house and felt he had traveled to the future.

Have Wind and Rain Electronics perfected these technologies? Even though many of the technologies used in the showhouse are still in the experimental stage, it’s still amazing. Also, Wind and Rain Electronics owns lots of patents, and many of the patents are the most advanced technology in the world!

“Chief Engineer Yang, Changhong owned some optical related technologies and had used it on some electronic products. How many times are your optical zoom, and what is the maximum pixel your cameras can capture?”

“We can produce 300k pixels digital camera with two-times optical zoom!” Chief Engineer Yang replied proudly, but when he remembered the achievements of the people at this meeting, he lowered his volume.

After Chief Engineer Yang replied Feng Yu, he saw Feng Yu frowning and doesn’t look happy.

“Chief Engineer Yang, I am talking about the results from your research center.”

“I am referring to our latest technology from our research center.”

Feng Yu: “……” Their research center’s technologies can only reach this standard? Seems like he was too optimistic with Changhong’s technologies.

If this technology is used on Wind and Rain’s mobile phone, the phone will be gigantic.

The trend for mobile phones now is small and thin. It will be a joke if the Wind and Rain mobile introduces a phone that resembles a brick!

Chief Engineer Yang saw Feng Yu is not happy and immediately say. “We still have a digital focus technology that can increase the focus by three times!”

Digital focus?! Haha… this is a stupid technology and can only enlarge a portion of the picture at the expense of the pixels.

This technology will be useful in the future when the cameras reached a few million pixels. But now, the pictures are only 300k pixels, and it will be blurred.

“How long have you all been working on these technologies?”

“Five years.”

Feng Yu almost choked. You all had spent five years working on this, and this is the result? Even when you all have started from scratch, the progress should not be so slow. It should be the top management are not willing to invest money into this research.

“What about you all? Any one of you is confident to succeed in developing digital camera technologies?” Feng Yu looks at the rest.

Everyone, especially Chief Engineer Yang, kept quiet.

“What if I say we spare no expense at developing this technology?” Feng Yu continued.

“Manager Feng, even so, it will still be impossible. The overseas digital camera technologies are more advanced, and lots of patented technologies are involved. Even when we spend money to develop this technology, we will not be able to use it because of the patents.” Jiang Wanmeng reminded me.

Jiang Wanmeng had bought a digital camera some time ago, and he thought of letting Wind and Rain Electronics to research into the technologies used. But later, he realized the components are too complicated as it involves optical technologies, mechanical, engineering, data transfer, storage, etc.

Wind and Rain Electronics do have image information-related technologies. They had researched this technology when they are developing the VCD and DVD players. Still, they do not have any experience with optical technologies.

It will be extremely difficult to venture into a new area with many patented technologies in their paths.

Feng Yu is troubled, as he had not thought about this problem brought up by Jiang Wanmeng. This is the same situation faced by other companies for the VCD and DVD technologies. This is no longer a matter of the difficulty of the technology, but the patents. Other companies are unable to produce their own VCD and DVD players because Wind and Rain own the patents.

Many companies in Japan, Korea, the US, and Europe, are manufacturing digital cameras. Almost all of the related technologies have been patented.

Even if Feng Yu is willing to spend money to develop this technology, the technology cannot be used on his products, and it will infringe the patent. He will have to pay damages to other companies, and his brand reputation will be affected.

“Manager Feng, how about we buy the related technologies from those digital camera producers?” Chief Engineer Yang suggested.

Buy technologies? Feng Yu brightens up as he suddenly remembers a company. This company had developed the world’s first digital camera. In 1991, this company had developed a 1.3-megapixel camera, and they are the pioneers of the digital camera industry.

But this company is the global leader in traditional film cameras, and they are not focused on the digital camera market. They only started to focus on the digital camera after film cameras are obsolete. But it was too late as they are lagging behind other digital camera companies. In Feng Yu’s previous life, this company ends up in bankruptcy.

Feng Yu does not know how good this company’s digital camera technology is, but it should still be one of the most advanced in the world. The only problem is this company’s annual profit is almost 1 billion USD and is also the global leader in the camera industry. They will be demanding an astronomical amount for their patents and technologies!

Maybe we can speak to this company and see if they are willing to authorize their patents to us? This will be much cheaper, but our future developments will have to depend on this company, and they might control us.

Feng Yu thought for a while and felt he should send someone to contact this company first. If the patented technologies are not expensive, he will buy it. After all, this company’s main focus is not a digital camera, and maybe they are willing to sell.

“Alright. I will contact an overseas company and see if we can buy their patented technologies. Our next focus is to combine digital camera technologies with our mobile phones. We will produce a mobile phone with a camera function!”

Chapter 1039 – Mobile phone’s development

Manufacture a mobile phone with camera functions?!

Everyone is shocked. This is absurd!

China’s digital camera technologies are way behind other countries, and their mobile phone technologies had just reached world standards. The technologies are not even the most advanced in the world. Is Manager Feng trying to find another way to stand out among their competitors?

Last year, the ‘Palm Treasure’ series of mobile phones they introduced were popular in China and overseas. Shouldn’t we be focusing on introducing the 256 colors LCD mobile phone?

In Feng Yu’s previous life, almost all mobile phones are using 24-bit color depth. The screens are crystal clear and have bright colors. But the phones now are still stuck in the limited colors era.

The phone screens are either grey, blue, green or orange. These are the four primary colors, and an overseas company had developed a purple screen. But the purple screen is not as bright as grey screens. Feng Yu wonders if the engineer, who spent money to develop this screen, had been sack from his company.

Now, Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips had successfully developed the 256 color LCD in their labs and are confident of mass-producing it.

Everyone felt that introducing a color display mobile phone is enough for this year. But Feng Yu wants them to develop a phone with camera functions. That means the phone must be equipped with a camera lens.

They do not have digital camera technologies unless they are using Changhong’s technology. But can the pictures were taken with their technology be clear?

“Manager Feng, you are saying that our color display phones should come with camera functions?” Xu Lihua asked in shock.

“If it wasn’t for digital cameras, these colored display technologies will not develop so fast. Since we will be introducing colored display phones, the phones should have camera functions. If not, what’s the point of having a color display? Do you need colors to make phone calls or read texts? Or are you telling me that Snake and Tetris is more fun with more colors?” Feng Yu asked.

The mobile phone’s LCD was developed for camera phones followed by MMS, pictures, short videos, etc. If not, a monocolored display is good enough for making calls and reading text. The classic Nokia 1110 phone only has a torchlight function and 20 polyphonic Ring Tone. Yet, it becomes the best-selling phone at that time!

This is also the model that popularized mobile phone. The selling price for Nokia 1110 is around 30 to 40 USD, and most people can afford it.

“But if we are adding camera functions to the mobile phone, our phone’s operating software needs to be reprogrammed, and picture gallery, storage, data transfer must be added. We must increase the phone’s core, and the cost will increase. The colored screen, camera lens, etc. will also increase our production cost. These costs will be passed to the consumers by increasing the retail price, right?”

“But if we increase the retail price, it will affect our product’s sales. We are still unable to compete with Motorola and Nokia. Still, we are on par with Sony, Ericsson, Panasonic, Samsung, etc. We must also look into the durability of this phone because of its price, and the casing must be changed to a studier material.

“The battery requirements will also be increased because of the camera function. Taking pictures requires lots of power, let alone looking at the pictures in the phone’s album.”

“Manager Feng, the production cost of this phone will increase by several folds! Is the mobile phone going to return to the era where it cost more than 10,000 RMB?” Xu Lihua is getting agitated, as he felt Feng Yu is taking a considerable risk.

The idea of combining a digital camera and mobile phone together is terrific, and Xu Lihua agrees with it. Still, they should not try to do everything at once.

“You don’t need to worry about the battery. Tai Hua Battery can produce mobile phone batteries with higher capacity. They have 800 mAH and 1000 mAH batteries, and their mobile phone batteries will be in the form of a small rectangle. It will not be attached to the back cover of the phone. As for the phone casing’s material, we can still use plastic covers and just increase the protection for the screen and camera lens.”

“Our mobile phone’s operating system had been moving towards this direction from the start, and the load on the core processor will increase, but the increase should be minimal. I estimate the cost will increase by 200 USD at most. Don’t forget what I told you all. Mobile phone technologies will be obsolete every six months. If we don’t start preparing now, we will be lagging behind Nokia and Motorola forever. When can we exceed them?”

How did Nokia overtake Motorola? By introducing new phones constantly and increasing the durability of their phones. However, Nokia failed in the future because they overly focus on their phones’ durability. It was only after they failed, they realized technological advances is the most critical factor.

Now, mobile phone prices had started to drop. Although the drop is gradual, most phones cost around 4,000 RMB. This is due to an increase in mobile phone factories and lower production costs.

“I will be setting a target for you all to develop this phone. The production cost must be within 500 USD, and the retail price will be ranging from 600 to 700 USD. We will start the mobile phone revolution and become an industry leader. Don’t worry about durability. How many people will be careless with a 600 to 700 USD phone? Those people who do not mind dropping a 600 to 700 USD phone will not mind spending another 600 to 700 USD to get a new one!”

Eh? Xu Lihua, Jiang Wanmeng, and the rest look at each other, as they felt what Feng Yu said was true.

It is the same for the cameras they bought. Expensive and fragile. Sometimes, even when the camera is dropped on the bed, it might also be damaged. That’s why the people who bought expensive cameras will take special care to prevent damages.

“Mobile phone prices are dropping, and the phone we are introducing will be a high-end product. We will be targeting the high-end market segment, and being expensive will be our selling point! You all must understand what those rich people are thinking. When mobile phones are newly introduced and look like a brick, those rich businessmen will still buy one to flaunt their wealth. If your phone can take pictures, you can also take it out to show off.”

Showing off. Not only in China, many people in other countries like to flaunt their wealth. In fact, many people in Feng Yu’s previous life had bought Apple phones not because of the phone’s functions. It is because they see it as a symbol of their status!

“Then, are we still going to develop cheaper phones?” Xu Lihua thought for a while and ask.

“Yes. We will target both markets. One will be the high-end market, and we will be introducing expensive phones with more functions. The other will be a cheap, simple, and durable phone! You all must find ways to lower the production costs and improve our phone’s functions. If we are better than other companies in these two aspects, we will become the world’s number one mobile phone manufacturer in the future!”

Chapter 1040 – Too expansive

Feng Yu asked Kameda Masao to visit that camera company to buy their digital camera technologies. Oh, this camera company is Kodak!

Kameda Masao promised Feng Yu that he will buy the technologies at the lowest price as soon as possible.

Feng Yu has asked Kameda Masao and not Ralph is because Kameda Masao is Japanese, and he will be representing a Japanese company to buy the technologies. Japan’s digital camera technologies are the most advanced in the world, and Kameda Masao can use this excuse to bargain and not let Kodak get suspicious.

Kodak had not placed much focus on the digital camera as they are afraid the rise of digital cameras will affect their core business of film development. This is also why Kodak had been suppressing the development of the digital camera industry’s development.

Although Kodak’s digital imaging technologies are one of the most advanced in the world, their digital imaging related profit is only slightly more than 15%. Their investment in digital imaging technologies and traditional film technologies are almost the same!

Many shareholders are unhappy with Kodak’s CEO and felt his decision to develop digital cameras had lowered the company’s profit. If the company concentrates on traditional film companies, their profits will increase by another 30%!

Kodak’s shareholders welcome Kameda Masao’s visit, and many shareholders felt the company should sell all their digital imaging-related patents and businesses as selling only the patents will let people think that Kodak is facing cash flow issues.

But some shareholders felt selling the patent technologies is enough. After all, their developers can continue to develop new technologies for sales or authorization. This will be another source of income for the company.

After selling these technologies, Kodak will be making money from their digital operations. Since this division can make money, we should continue in this direction. If the company can develop more advanced technologies, their company will not lose out to their competitors.

A few shareholders opposed to the sales of their technologies and patents. The company had invested many resources and had just set its strategy to focus on both digital and traditional camera technologies. They need at least three years to see the result.

Digital camera technology has been improving rapidly in the past few years. In a few more years, digital cameras will be good enough to challenge traditional cameras.

But all shareholders felt digital cameras will not replace traditional film cameras anytime soon!

Kameda Masao asked Feng Yu if Kodak is selling their digital image operations, should he accept it? The cost of acquiring Kodak’s digital image will be higher than buying their patents.

Kodak owns the most digital camera technology patents. This is a company with more than 100 years of history, and its brand is worth an astronomical value.

Without the Kodak brand, the digital camera business value will be lower. Simply put it. If a camera is printed with a Kodak logo, it will be worth at least 200 USD more than the same camera with an unknown brand! Kodak’s brand can add value to a camera.

This is also the reason why Kodak’s digital cameras are not selling well. Samsung, Sony, Nikon are also big brands, but they are selling their products at lower prices.

Furthermore, other companies had been promoting their digital cameras, and only Kodak is still promoting their traditional cameras. This is because they have film processing shops all over the world, and this is the company’s main revenue source.

Kodak film sales are also the world’s number one.

Feng Yu thought for a while. It’s not a bad idea to acquire Kodak’s digital imaging business, but it will depend on the price. If the price is low, he will acquire it to develop his own cameras. At least he will not suffer any losses with the Chinese market.

If it is expensive, then forget it. It is not worth competing with overseas brands as a digital camera will only last for about ten years. Ten years later, the smartphone will be the trend, and there will be all sorts of photography APPs that are more fun than digital cameras.

Only professional and enthusiastic photographers will continue to use digital cameras. But how many professional and enthusiastic photographers can there be?

If digital cameras can be developed into digital video cameras, the prospect will be better. But digital video camera technologies are different from the digital camera, and Kodak does not have it.

Traditional video cameras will be obsolete in 6 to 7 years, and movies will be filmed using digital video cameras. Digital video cameras are lighter, have higher storage, can be edited using software, and is much cheaper than using films.

Digital videos only require some storage space, and this can save lots of production costs. The small size camcorders will become very popular with people to record their own videos for leisure.

The digital camera’s trend is also because of the development of PCs. Many people like to take pictures but are unwilling to spend money to develop films.

But with digital photos, people can delete the pictures they don’t like and print only a few better pictures.

But when Kameda Masao told Feng Yu about Kodak’s asking price, Feng Yu is dumbstruck.

“What did you say?! They are asking 4.6 billion USD for their digital camera business?!”

This amount had exceeded Feng Yu’s budget by more than ten times!

Feng Yu’s budget is 500 million USD for advanced digital imaging and camera technologies and patents. If possible, he will only buy the technologies and patents he needs.

“Boss, their technologies are very advance and owns many exclusive patents. I am confident that we can buy out their digital imaging business within 4 billion USD.”

Kameda Masao knew Feng Yu can afford 4 billion USD, and Feng Yu had been willing to spend on the industries he targeted.

“No! It is too expensive! You just pick some imaging and electronics technologies will do. As for the rest of their technologies, we can just buy the authorization or develop ourselves.”

Feng Yu only wants to integrate digital cameras into his mobile phone. 4 billion USD is a huge investment, and Feng Yu still need funds to acquire AMD’s shares.

Kameda Masao realized he had misunderstood Feng Yu, and quickly say. “Boss, don’t worry. If we are only buying a few technologies and patents, or getting the authorization, it will not even cost 500 million USD. I can even get them to sign an agreement to let us have the priority to buy any new technologies they developed in the future.”

“Ok. Just go and negotiate with them based on what you said. Try your best to lower the prices.”

After hanging up, Feng Yu shook his head. Even as a super tycoon, he still does not have enough to spend!

Kodak

Chapter 1041 – Legend of Mir’s Public Beta

“Eh, why are you all running in that direction?” A spectacled student stopped someone running past him.

“Stop pulling me. There is an Internet café there having a promotion for a game’s public beta. They are letting us play the game for free, and whoever discover any bugs in the game, the game company will give up to 100,000 USD as a reward!”

The spectacled student had wanted to go to the library to prepare for his exams. But after he heard from this fellow student, he changed his mind.

Damn! Revision can wait, and even if I fail, I can retake the exams. How can I miss out on playing games for free at the internet café?

Furthermore, if I happen to discover any bugs, I will get 100,000 USD! Who cares about graduation with so much money? I can return home and enjoy my life!

Oh… what is a bug?

In this era, internet café is a new trend, and it was formerly known as the Computer Services Center.

Most university students are willing to spend and accept new things.

That’s why most of the internet cafes in China at this time are located near the universities. Some internet café bosses even open up near high schools.

Some high school students have more spending money than university students.

Feng Yu stood in front of an internet café in Beijing, looking at the crowd. The majority of the crowd are university students, followed by high school students and some office workers. These are all his potential customers. But why are there a few middle-aged women mixed in the crowd? Did they think the internet café is giving out free eggs?

The students are all eager to log into the game. This internet café is having a promotion. The players who reached level 7 in the game will get Lehaha beverages for free. What happens if those students knocked into the middle-aged women?

The internet café boss managed to ask those middle-aged women to leave. He still wants to sell beverages in his café. Someone is paying him for letting the students play online games for free, but he will still get profits from selling drinks.

This café has 30 PCs, and the boss can hardly manage the sudden crowd!

Feng Yu looks at this internet café. In this era, 30 PCs can be considered a big internet café. Still, compared to the internet café with a few hundred PCs in his previous life, it is nothing.

Currently, there is no internet café operating system. The boss of the café must register the time his customer enters and calculate the charges when the customer leaves.

This might be the reason why internet cafes only have less than 50 PCs. It might also because of the internet speed at this time. If someone is using one of the PC to download something, everyone else in the café cannot play online games.

Feng Yu remembered the time when he was playing Legend of Mir at an internet café in his previous life. His character lagged suddenly, and someone in the café will shout. “Hey Boss is someone downloading something?! We cannot play!”

The boss will make his rounds in the café and ask the person who is downloading to stop. The internet café has allocated hours for customers to download stuff from the internet. But other than those hours, no one can download anything.

If any of the customers download anything, it will use up the internet bandwidth and also use up all the storage in the PC. The PCs in internet cafes are mainly using 40G hard disk. 80G hard disk is considered high-end PCs, and it is impossible to find a PC with 160G there. The PCs with 160G are mostly bought by individuals at high prices.

Many internet cafes in major cities are booked out by Feng Yu for the day and are open to the public for free. After that, the café staff will inform their customers that they can win soft drinks, cigarettes, and up to 100,000 USD if they play Legend of Mir!

Of course. This is only a marketing gimmick. The 100,000 USD will be given out eventually, but the one who will win it will be one of Feng Yu’s staff.

But if anyone can find a bug which the programmers cannot find or Feng Yu did not know, Feng Yu will not mind giving this person 100,000 USD. This person must either be very lucky or is an expert in programming!

Nevertheless, this marketing gimmick had made everyone who plays PC games to notice Legend of Mir. Even the ones who don’t play games will join in.

……

“Welcome. Our internet café is having a promotion today, and all our PCs are open to the public. We also have some ongoing contests. The fastest player to level up in Legend of Mir, or find a specific in-game item, will get prizes like soft drinks, cigarettes, etc. If you discover an in-game bug, let me know. If it is verified to be a bug, there will be attractive cash prizes. The highest cash prize is 100,000 USD!”

The ones standing outside of the internet cafes promoting Legend of Mir are female university students. They are paid 50 RMB for the day, and food is provided. All of them are pretty, and many people went to the cafes for them.

Feng Yu saw all the PCs are taken up and he sat at the PC he reserved earlier. He clicked on the Legend of Mir and registered a Taoist Priest.

In China and Southeast Asia, Taoist Priest had been enhanced and is more powerful.

Also, Taoist Priest is more suitable for solo play and has easy controls. Magicians and warriors are harder to play and can’t solo the bosses in the game.

The quests start from killing chickens to killing deer, scarecrows, cats, etc.

At the start, there are not many players, and Feng Yu can easily kill a chicken or deer. But after an hour, more players logged on, and the starting town is full of players.

“Boss, boss, I found a black wood sword!” Someone shouted.

A pretty female staff walks over and looks at that player’s monitor. She shouted. “Congratulations to PC 13 player for finding a black wood sword. He won a packet of Hong Ta Shan cigarette!”

The player stood up and waved to the rest of the players proudly.

Feng Yu, who was sitting beside that player, had found the black wood sword a long time ago. These people do not even know how to accept quests or make in-game currency, and Feng Yu had overtaken them easily.

Someone moved closer. “Hey, where did you find the black wood sword?”

“Why should I tell you? This is a secret.”

“Here, this bottle of green tea is for you. Tell me… I will not tell others.”

The PC 13 player took a few sips of the green tea and said. “I got it from killing those scarecrows.”

This player immediately returns to his seat and starts chasing after the scarecrows. Blackwood sword has better specs than the beginner sword he is using.

For this open beta, the drop rates had been increased. If not, the black wood sword will never drop from the low-level scarecrows. Players must kill orcs or man-eating flowers for that item to drop.

This black wood sword is the best weapon for beginners and can be used up to level ten. This weapon is very rare, and people will envy you if you found one.

But the in-game store still has a more powerful dagger, but no one can afford it yet.

Another player shouted. “I am level seven!”

Everyone in the café looks at that player jealously, and Feng Yu logged out from his account. Playing games is really a good pastime.

Seeing the rest of the players have no intention of logging off, Feng Yu believes that his Legend of Mir will be successful despite being launch much earlier! It might be more successful than in his previous life!

Chapter 1042 – Industry Leader

“Manager Ding, how is it? What is the number of online players?” Feng Yu crossed his legs and look at Ding Lei.

Based on Feng Yu’s initial plan, NetEase will change its direction toward online games. But Ding Lei wanted more. He wants the players to register a NetEase account, which allows access to all of NetEase’s products like forums, email, games, etc.

“Manager Feng, within three days, we had exceeded 300,000 players!” Ding Lei excitedly replied.

300,000 players are the number of players online at the same time. Registered accounts had exceeded 500,000, and it is still growing.

Feng Yu had told Ding Lei that the number of players online can easily exceed 1 million, and Ding Lei thought Feng Yu had said wrongly. He should mean the number of people registering accounts, as he did not expect this game to be so popular.

“Yes. The public Beta is one month, and you must submit the players’ feedbacks to Wind and Rain Games for them to make rectifications. One month later, Legend of Mir will be officially online. Have you found a company to manufacture Game Time Cards?”

“Yes. The cards will have 16-digit codes, and there will be four types of cards. 100 hours, 200 hours, 300 hours, and unlimited monthly cards. But Manager Feng, will the unlimited monthly cards be popular? 300 hours of game time is more than enough for the players. Who can play more than 10 hours a day?” Ding Lei is puzzled.

All the cards have a validity of 30 days, and to Ding Lei, the 300 hours Game Time Card might not be sellable, and the 100 hours card should be the most popular. The players can play for a while after school or work. Who will have so much time to play games?

200 hours Game Time Cards should be more than enough for those hardcore players, and the unlimited monthly cards are unnecessary.

But Ding Lei does not know that there is a type of player in Legend of Mir. They will switch players and not switch accounts. That means two to three players will be using the same account, and their account will never log off. These players make a living by selling in-game items, currency, power leveling, helping other players to clear quests, etc. in exchange for RMB.

Once this game becomes popular, these ‘professional’ players will appear. They will not only sell equipment, but they will also level up other characters for a fee.

In Legend of Mir, once the character reaches level 7, players will have to pay for the in-game time. Everyone needs a Game Time Card for them to log in.

The Public Beta is now a way to attract players. This is a trial for the players to try this new game out.

“Manager Ding, you don’t need to worry about this. Anyway, the cost of the Game Time Cards are not expensive, and I believe the Unlimited Monthly card’s sales will be higher than the 300 hours card and 200 hours card.”

Feng Yu did not explain further. Ding Lei is only a distributor, and all the promotion fees are paid for by Wind and Rain Games. Wind and Rain Games will be getting a bigger proportion of the profits, and if the Game Time Cards are not selling well, Wind and Rain Games will suffer more losses.

“Manager Feng, are we really going to expand the servers?” Ding Lei asked.

Feng Yu wants the server to have the capacity to let 1 million players go online without lagging and had prepared 4 large servers for this Public Beta. These servers are bought and not rented, and each of them is costly.

“You still can’t see how popular this game is? The Beta had only started for a few days, and how many players do you think we will have one month later? Our 4 servers might not even handle the number of players during the Beta. Call Lenovo to push them. There will be more players after the game is officially online, and we must prepare at least 10 large servers. New players will be attracted to the game through word of mouth or watching other players play. At that time, we must divide the players.”

“Are you talking about the different you mentioned?”

“Yes. We will open up two servers each time, and once the number of players for each server reached 500,000, new servers will be opened.”

“We can host 1 million online players and even more. Will it be too early to open up new servers when there are 500,000 players? Once we open up new servers, older players will create new accounts there, and the number of players in the old servers will drop.”

“First, there are not enough monsters and the safety zones for so many players. Let me ask you a question. If you are looking for a job, and you got two offers of the same job scope. You must start from the bottom and do everything by yourself for one of the jobs, and your older cousin is a leader in the other job. Which will you pick?” Feng Yu smiled as he looks at Ding Lei.

“I will choose to work hard by myself!” Ding Lei replied without hesitation.

Feng Yu: “……” Damn! This is a failed example!

“You chose to work hard by yourself, but what about an average person?”

Ding Lei hesitated for a while. “They should pick the company where their cousin is the leader there.”

“That’s right. Most people want to be taken care of, and it is the same in the game. The ones who choose the new servers have the same thinking as you. But there will be players who will be thinking that the high-level players in the older servers can help them to level up faster. They can even get items or in-game currency from the high-level players, and it might be more fun.”

“But will it be too early to open up new servers at 500,000 players? I still think that there will be more new accounts registering at the new servers, and the number of players in the older servers will drop. This game is fun when many players are playing at the same time. If a server has no more players, it will have to be shut down.”

“The scenario you mentioned will happen, but not so soon. It will take at least two to three years before this happens, and we can merge the servers then.”

“Merge the servers?”

“It is combining two or more servers into one. This will increase the population of that server, and there will be many world events like Conquering Shobak, city sieges, world bosses, etc. to bring the old players back. Oh… Shobak is a city in the game, and it will be added into the game later.”

“But if we merge the servers, the players will have experience and can level up faster than the players in the new servers.”

“But the players in the new servers will be playing on their characters for a longer period and will be higher level. Both players from the old and new servers have advantages and disadvantages. Each server will have top players, and after we merged the servers, all the top players in the merged servers will be fighting for the top spot and items. Regardless of what happens, all those players must buy Game Time Cards.”

Feng Yu smiles. This strategy had been used by many private servers in his previous life. Merge the servers, open up new servers, and merge them again… this will cause fights between players from different servers and will make the players top up their Game Time Cards.

Although Legend of Mir does not allow using money to buy items now, this might change in the future. But for now, Feng Yu does not want this game to become a game for the wealthy. A balanced and fair game can attract more players.

Online games are fun when more players are playing together.

“Manager Ding, trust me. We will set the direction of China’s online game and let more people take note of this industry. We will become industry leaders!”

Chapter 1043 – We can also assemble

“Manager Feng, it’s been a while since we sat down for a chat.” Liu Chuanzhi laughed.

Both men had been very busy over the past two years. Liu Chuanzhi was busy with expanding Lenovo towards the rest of the world. At the same time, Feng Yu had been busy with the financial crisis and investments after that.

“That’s right. It’s been a while since we chatted. I am impressed with Lenovo’s progress these two years. Lenovo is now China’s leader in the PC market. Your desktop and laptop had won those overseas brands. This is more successful than I expected.”

Feng Yu is not sure if it was his influence or whatever reasons, Lenovo is growing much faster than his previous life.

Of course, Liu Chuanzhi and the management of Lenovo play a big part in their success.

“This is all because of you. Our cost for the optical drive is the lowest in the world and can get the Microsoft operating system at such a low price. All the expectations set by you had been achieved, and our sales this year might increase by 30%!”

More people are using PCs, and some companies and government agencies are starting to switch to PCs for work. In China, the first choice is Lenovo’s PCs.

“This is terrific.” Feng Yu’s eyes sparkled. Lenovo’s success means the other PCs brands are suffering. But why is Liu Chuanzhi so confident? Is Lenovo going to introduce a more powerful model, or did he get a large order?

“Our sales should increase by more than 30%.” Liu Chuanzhi said and took a glance at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was surprised as he felt Liu Chuanzhi seems to be blaming him.

“Huh? What happened?” Feng Yu asked.

“Did your company develop that new online game that is launched a few days ago?”

“Yes. It’s developed by my company. NetEase is in charge of this games’ China operations, and they had bought the servers from Lenovo.”

“I heard this game is fun, and many people are queuing up at the Internet cafes to play. But the internet cafes are packed, and some cafes started expanding. Some even open up new internet cafes as they felt the investment is low and can get fast returns.”

“This is good. These people will need more PCs, and it can increase our product sales.” Feng Yu smiled. Why is Liu Chuanzhi unhappy over this?

“We thought so at first. But a few Computer malls opened in various parts of China, and they focused on selling computer accessories, software, office equipment, etc. We supported these malls initially as these malls can boost our sales and provide a location for our after-sales services. But within these malls, there are a few shops that specialized in selling hardware, and they had become our biggest competitor!”

Feng Yu immediately understood what Liu Chuanzhi is talking about. He is facing competition from self-assembled PCs!

Self-assembled PC is referring to a customized PC. The customer will tell the shop owner the specs he wants for his PC, and the shop will calculate based on the parts.

Self-assembled PC is much cheaper because it does not include the brand value, and the parts are assembled based on user requirements.

The branded manufacturer’s biggest advantage is the after-sales services. Still, these shops provided their own warranty for the PCs they assembled.

Those internet cafes require dozens of PCs, and if they can save 500 RMB per PC, their total savings will be tens of thousands.

The amount saved is more than enough to pay for the café’s rent.

“I had told you before that self-assembled PCs will appear in the future. Now, you should know that branding can be both advantageous and disadvantageous.” Feng Yu laughed. “But who says Lenovo cannot do customized PCs?”

“Ah? Lenovo is going to sell customized PCs? Will this lower our brand value?” Liu Chuanzhi frowned.

“Absolutely not. In fact, we can even snatch the self-assembled PC businesses from those small shops. But we will only be doing bigger orders, and not assembling one or two units. Understand?”

Liu Chuanzhi understood what Feng Yu is talking about. Lenovo can use this strategy to get internet café businesses. Lenovo is currently Asia’s biggest PC manufacturer. Because of its scale, it can get hardware components from its supplier at the lowest rate. This will be their advantage over those small shops.

Also, Lenovo has retail shops in most counties in China, and have the advantage of their distribution channels. With their brand, Lenovo can snatch the orders from those small shops easily.

Lenovo is the leading wholesaler of PCs in China. Those governments and corporates had been buying PCs from them. But those companies they sold to do not have any requirements on the specs, and Lenovo overlooked this.

All Lenovo needs to do is to set its sights on the gaming industry, and change the CPU, Ram, graphic card, etc. to better ones, and they can sell to the internet cafes.

Lenovo can also start selling customized PCs, or they are already China’s biggest self-assembled PC manufacturers. They can also use Lenovo’s casing and monitors for these customized PCs and promote their brand at the same time.

Those players who couldn’t get enough of playing at Internet cafes will start thinking of buying a PC. At that time, the first brand that comes to their minds will be Lenovo.

Yes. We can introduce a series of a gaming desktop, and it should be popular.

“But those small shops will still take away some of our business.”

“Manager Liu, you are already getting the bigger slice of the cake, and you should leave some for others. If you really let them sell only PCs parts, how are they going to survive?” Feng Yu shook his head. If Lenovo even takes in the customized PC orders for a single PC, they will monopolize the whole of China’s PC market.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, once a company is about to monopolize the market, a competitor will appear out of nowhere, and this second company will get support from the government.

The Chinese government will not allow anyone to monopolize the market. Even the state-controlled industries like energy, finance, insurance, etc. have more than one state-owned enterprise.

“Alright. Then our desktop sales for this year might reach 40% if you can help.”

“What help do you need from me?” Feng Yu asked.

“For example, in your Legend of Mir game, can you add ‘Recommended to run on Lenovo PCs.’”

When did Old Liu learn about built-in ads?! Feng Yu also owns Lenovo’s shares, and it’s not a problem to give them a hand.

“Alright. Ask your Lenovo’s marketing team to contact Wind and Rain games and just give a token sum for the advertising fee. I will tell them to help you all include this built-in advertisement. Oh, what is the progress of our software?”

Chapter 1044 – Lenovo wants to be listed

Other than PCs, Lenovo still has an essential business division, which is Lenovo Kingsoft Company’s software development.

The company is developing its own operating system and other programs like office software.

“The progress for the operating software is still ongoing, but the features you want for the operating system will make the files too big. It will be over 10G, and it is much higher than Win98.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just think of the PCs development speed these few years. Two years ago, 40G hard disk is the mainstream, and now, it is 80G, and the high-end PCs are all fitted with 160G. When our operating system is developed, the commonly used hard disk will be 160G or even 320G. So, it doesn’t matter for the file size to be slightly bigger, or it requires higher RAM and graphics. Most importantly, it must be easy to use.”

These next few years, hard disk technologies will be advancing fast, and even if the operating system has a high requirement for the PC specs, it does not matter. They can even market it as a high-end product in the future.

“The progress of those simplified operating systems is even slower, and we estimate it will take another five years before we can succeed.”

Five years to develop the Android system is sufficient. The concept for smartphone only comes up during that period, and it’s development have not started. The first iPhone will hit the market after 2007, and the smartphone’s development will increase rapidly from then. Smartphones will become the mainstream phones in 2010 and brought along the rise of phone Apps.

“What about the rest of the software? What is the progress of our WPS office software?”

“We estimate we can release a new version with your requirements next year. Most of the functions you requested had been completed, and some of the functions are more advanced than Microsoft. Also, all the PC manufacturers in China had started to pre-install this software on their PCs last year.

Pre-installation is equivalent to packaging the software together with the PCs. This is just like the Windows operating system. After Win98 was launched, Microsoft and Lenovo had signed an agreement which includes only the operating software, and not Microsoft Office.

Microsoft thought this will increase their profits as most PC users are used to their Office software. Even if they start charging in the future, the users will be willing to pay for them. From this year onwards, Microsoft will no longer provide free upgrades to the older versions.

But Microsoft did not expect their decision will give Lenovo Kingsoft this opportunity to pre-install their WPS office software on the PCs, letting the users get used to this new office software.

The current version is not as good as Microsoft office, but it is ‘free’ for the users. What the users did not know is that the cost of this software had been added to the PC when they purchase them.

From next year onwards, after the new and better office software is launch, Lenovo will have to charge the users. But the selling price of this software is much lower than Microsoft Office.

Despite the low prices for their Office software, Lenovo Kingsoft will still get high profits.

“Remember, the most important thing is compatibility! Regardless of the operating systems, or application software, we must be compatible with Microsoft products. If Microsoft refuses to allow this, then they will lose the whole Chinese and East Europe markets!”

“Manager Feng, you are a shareholder and Director of Microsoft. This…”

Feng Yu waved his hand. “I will dump all my Microsoft shares at the end of this year and leave Microsoft. I believe our Lenovo group have a better prospect than Microsoft, because we are doing both hardware and software, and Microsoft only has the software.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Microsoft market value and share prices will reach its peak at the end of the year. Feng Yu had been watching the stock market closely, and the market is showing signs of dot.com bubble bursting.

The share prices of many tech companies, which do not have any good products, had been rising several folds. How can these companies have such a high rate of returns?

These companies had used high-tech concepts to package themselves, and speculators pushed their share prices up. Once there are changes to the policies, or a big player pulls out, the share value will plunge.

Once the share prices plummet, it will create a tsunami, and the total industry share prices will be affected.

You might ask, what if there are no big players that dump their tech shares?

Feng Yu is a big player!

Feng Yu’s Microsoft shares are worth over 10 billion USD. If he dumps all his shares at once, other investors will think Feng Yu had lost confidence with Microsoft. Don’t forget, Feng Yu is also a Director at Microsoft.

This is a sign that Microsoft is in trouble.

Once Microsoft share prices plunge, it will trigger a devastating effect on all related stocks, and all technology stocks will plummet, bursting the dot.com bubble.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the share prices of China’s internet companies, like Sina, Sohu, NetEase, etc. shot up after they got listed. For a short time, these people become China’s top tycoons.

But very soon, these companies’ value shrunk after the dot.com bubble burst. But most Chinese investors did not suffer losses, and the ones that suffered losses are the ones who speculated in the US stock exchange.

These three companies were listed in the US and used the funds raised on their development in China. Even if their share prices dropped lower than their public offering price, the companies are not affected.

Their shares, which is supposed to be worth 5 USD, was sold at 8 USD. Now, the share prices fell to 4 USD, and the companies can buy back all their shares.

This is like borrowing money with zero-interest for the company’s development, and the companies had still make some profits from it. The overseas investors are the ones who lose money and not them.

That’s why Feng Yu had told Sina, Sohu and NetEase to get listed on NASDAQ before the end of the year. They must take advantage of the rise of tech stocks to raise funds.

After the bubble burst, they will buy back their issued shares and get delisted. The companies will not suffer any losses, and the only problem they will face is, it will be hard for them to get listed again. The checks will be more stringent, and the public will not respond well to their public offering.

“Oh, Manager Feng, Lenovo is planning to get listed. Do you think we can get listed in the US?” Liu Chuanzhi asked.

“What’s wrong? Is the company running low on funds? Why do you want to be listed?” Lenovo had planned to be listed in Hong Kong last year but was stopped by Feng Yu.

“It’s not that. We are thinking of entering the US, and European markets and people know that we are a large company! If our company’s value is high, the consumers will have confidence in our brand and products.”

Feng Yu heard it and felt he should not stop Lenovo from getting listed.

“Then you should get listed in the US NASDAQ or NYSE. With Lenovo dominating Asia’s PC market, the share prices should shoot up. I can introduce a few investment banks to you.”

Lenovo will also make a huge profit from this upcoming dot.com bubble burst, and Feng Yu has no reason to stop them.

After getting listed, Lenovo will have more funds for its expansion into the overseas market. Those that look down on China’s PC and IT industry in the past will be regretting now!

Chapter 1045 – Public Beta ended

The public beta for Legend of Mir had ended, and the game will be undergoing three days of maintenance before going live. During these three days, internet cafes noticed a significant drop in business. Some internet café bosses even close their shops for three days.

Some of the internet cafés used this window to expand their operations, while some renovated and clean up their shops. Some cafes eve put up posters of Legend of Mir characters as decorations without getting paid by Wind and Rain Games. They hope they can attract more customers with posters.

It is not easy to get a license to operate an internet café. Some businessmen want to set up internet cafes but could not get the license. So, they rented a less conspicuous storefront and operate without a license. They will get their friends to get customers, and their charges are cheaper than those licensed internet cafes by 50 cents per hour!

It might only be 50 cents cheaper, but it will be 5 RMB for ten hours. These shops attracted lots of students as the money they saved can be used to buy Game Time Cards. All the players knew after the Legend of Mir is officially live, there will be charges. Some internet cafes had already thought of packages for their customers. They come up with overnight packages for their customers at a package price, as they have fewer customers at night. This way, they can still make some profits.

The internet café bosses used all their tricks to attract customers.

Along the streets, one can often overhear young men discussing Legend of Mir. “Eh, is that Wind Ring any good?”

“Of course. I heard it is a set with Wind Necklace, and your attack speed will increase tremendously. You can hit the enemy three times, and they can only hit you twice!”

“Ah… It’s so powerful? But I think my skills bar is moving too slowly. How can I make it faster?”

“Stupid. Didn’t you hear of an item called Skills Necklace? If you wear that while training, your skills will level up fast.” Someone said.

“Ah… you are an expert. How did you know about all these?”

“Hmph! Do you know about the newsstand outside my house?”

“Yes. What’s wrong?”

“There is a new magazine <Wind and Rain – Game Strategy> on sale today! The magazine explains strategies for various games, and their main focus is Legend of Mir! The magazine also discusses the skills for Diablo. If the newsstand is not located outside my house, I might not even get one copy. This is a monthly magazine.”

“Ah? You bought such a wonderful book, and you didn’t share it with me? I was still wondering why you become an expert suddenly? Let’s go to your place now. I want to read that magazine.”

“I can lend it to you, but you must buy me a can of Lehaha’s Cola!”

“Fine… fine… fine… Let’s go now.”

……

“Eh,  what is the game company doing? They are just doing some upgrading and patching to their systems. Why do they need three days? What am I supposed to do for these three days?”

“Be content. If some players know about the loopholes or bugs of this game and not you, do you think it is fair? Three days will be over very fast. Furthermore, this shows that this game company is very concerned about the balance of the game. How about we go and play Starcraft?”

“Starcraft is so boring. Never mind… since we got nothing to play now. Let’s find more people to play together. Legend of Mir is more interesting, as we can kill other players for fun. I got to know a girl from Hang Zhou, and when the servers open, I will use the same name, and she will join my party to play together. Hahaha…”

“F**k! You can get to know girls in the game?! How come I didn’t get to know any? My character is also at a high level.”

“My warrior is very powerful and is tanking the monsters in front. That girl is playing magician, and she fires lightning at the back. You are also a magician. How are you going to tank those monsters?”

“Damn! When the servers are opened, I will switch to a warrior. No… I will switch to Priest. This way, I can bring a dog with me and let my dog tank those monsters while I chat with the girls. Hahaha…”

……

Feng Yu is currently in Wen Dongjun’s house, and Wen Dongjun is questioning him.

“Is that Legend of Mir yours? Wind and Rain Games. Don’t tell me it is not your company.”

“It’s my company. What’s wrong?” Feng Yu asked.

“What’s wrong?! After the servers are online, get your game administrator to raise my level to the max, and I want the best in-game items! I want to be the best player in the game!” Wen Dongjun clenched his fist.

“Stop dreaming! I can raise your level by making some adjustments to the program, but it will disrupt the balance of the game, and who will want to play such games?” Feng Yu rolled his eyes. If this is the private servers in his previous life, Wen Dongjun will be the type of player who pays to buy leveling and items!

“Then give me an in-game currency. I will not tell anyone.”

“No. If other players found out that you have more gold than them, how are you going to answer? I know you too well. You will be bragging to other players that you know the Game Masters of the game!”

“Skill books. You can give me the skill books, right? During the beta, the Summon Beast skill book had not dropped! Other priests have dogs, and I can only bring a small skeleton!”

“The drop rates and experience during the beta had been increased, and the highest level is only 35. When the official server is open, the drop rate and experience will be adjusted. Players might not even get to level 30 within a month, let alone level 35. Also, after the drop rate is adjusted, all high-level skill books will be rare, and priests with the skeleton are considered very powerful. Let me tell you a secret. When skeletons reach level 7, they will be as powerful as dogs!”

“Are you still, my brother?! All I am asking is a small favor, and you don’t want to help! Fine. I know you won’t have time to play. Give me your account, and I will help you play.” Wen Dongjun said.

“My account is not special, and who says I don’t have time to play? Alright. I will tell you some insider information like the best leveling area for your level, the possible items that will drop from individual monsters, strategies for leveling up fast, how to do the quests, etc. Yes. I will teach you one more strategy. You can use RMB to buy items from other players.”

“Spend money to buy those items? But those are in-game items.”

“Do you want to be the best player in the game? Do you want all the best skills when you level up? Do you want better equipment? Do you want to set up a guild? I will tell you another secret. The Guild leader will get additional benefits in the future.”

“Yes! I want!” Wen Dongjun replied.

“That’s right. You don’t lack money and don’t need to surrender your salary, right? With your bonus and rewards, it is more than enough for you to spend on this game. Furthermore, you don’t need to work. The rental from your apartments and stores is enough to let you retire now.”

“Hahaha… you are right. But you must keep this a secret from Zhang Han. If you don’t keep this secret for me, I will tell Li Na that you have a woman outside!”

Feng Yu was stunned. Damn! How did Wen Dongjun find out about his women?!

Chapter 1046 – One Million online players

“You… What did you say?” Feng Yu looks at Wen Dongjun in shocked.

Wen Dongjun was also surprised. “Damn! Don’t tell me that you really have another woman outside?!”

Wen Dongjun was only joking, but from Feng Yu’s reaction, he knew he had guessed correctly.

Feng Yu: “……” Feng Yu felt he was tricked by Wen Dongjun.

“No… how is it possible? Stop talking nonsense!” Feng Yu denied.

“Sigh… people always say when men will become worse when they have money, and I don’t believe. But now… I changed my mind.” Wen Dongjun said and patted Feng Yu’s shoulder.

“Do you believe in past lives?” Feng Yu asked.

“Past lives? Why don’t you tell me that you are just flirting around because of your business? Never mind. As your brother, I don’t want to criticize you. Anyway, Zhang Han is pregnant now, and other than playing basketball and video games, I seldom drink or stay out late. You… you should know what is right or wrong. Sigh…”

Flirting my ass! I am telling the truth, and why can’t you believe me?

“Sigh… I was still wondering why you and Li Na are still not married. Is it because of the other woman?” Wen Dongjun asked.

“No. Li Na is still schooling. Stop making random guesses.”

“Don’t worry, I will keep this to myself.”

After a while, Wen Dongjun asks again. “Is it because you are afraid you might accidentally reveal anything accidentally, and you seldom drink alcohol?”

Feng Yu: “……” That is because I don’t like the feeling of being drunk! Go away! I don’t want to talk to you anymore!

……

Three days later. The Legend of Mir is officially live. Server 1 and server 2 went live at 12 am. Players start registering, and some players named themselves some gibberish alphabets to be the first player in the game.

This is because there is a contest. The first player, the first ten players, and the first 100 players to go online, will get prizes. The prizes include in-game currencies, experience points, and newbie dagger, and these items will help the players level faster.

This is Feng Yu’s suggestion. In his previous life, many online games will start such promotions to attract players. Some games even have daily contests or promotions at a specific time to get players online. Even when the players are at work, they will secretly log in.

This promotion made Legend of Mir becomes very popular when it goes live. Many players waited by the PCs to be the first to get online.

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun also registered their accounts the moment the servers go live. But when they logged on and ran to the NPC, they realized the contest had ended. This is because they had wasted time to give their characters awesome names.

Feng Yu’s character is a male Taoist Priest, called “Second most handsome person on earth,” and Wen Dongjun named his character “The most handsome person on earth.” That’s why they wasted some time even despite using high-end PCs and high-speed internet.

The top 100 players were laughing, and some even jumped out of their seats in the Internet Cafés. The players beside them were surprised and looked at their screen enviously. “Hey, can you help me level?”

Feng Yu brought Wen Dongjun to two players, named “UnluckyGod1” and UnluckyGod2,” and traded with them.

After that, Feng Yu gave Wen Dongjun a gift pack, and the gift pack contains the same prizes as the first online player.

Wen Dongjun looks at Feng Yu with disdain. “Didn’t you say we should not break the game’s balance? What are you doing now?”

“Do you want it? Didn’t you see the list? They are the first two players to get online! Your gift pack contains an item with a hidden attribute, luck. You will get more critical attacks and higher drop rates. With this advantage and you still cannot become the top player, that means you suck. Don’t tell others that you know me!”

Feng Yu had arranged two of his men to log in one minute before the server goes live, and they become the first and two players.

Furthermore, these prizes did not make Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun’s characters overpowered. Other than the hidden attribute, the rest of the items are trash. Other players can overcome their disadvantage within three days. Of course, if an expert player gets these items, they will be ahead of other players by at least one month.

Today, NetEase staff did not sleep, and all of them are looking at the game’s backend stats.

“Manager Ding, Server 1 has exceeded 500,000 players!”

Ding Lei looks at his watch. 12.28 am. 28 minutes and more than 500,000 players had registered. This is unbelievable. During the Public Beta, the players’ count did not increase so fast.

“How many players are online now?”

“There are about 300,000 players online now.”

Ding Lei nodded. Feng Yu had told him that many players will try to be the first 100 players to log on, and many will log off when they realized they are not the first 100 players. But at least 60% of the players will stay login to play.

NetEase’s next target is to let that 40% of the players that did continue to play after registering, to get addicted to this game.

“What about Server 2?”

“More than 300,000 players had registered in Server 2, and there are almost 200,000 players online now.”

Another staff asked. “Manager Ding, there will be lag when the number of online players reaches more than 1 million, and you said to open new servers when the number of online players reaches 500,000. Server 1 had reached this target now.”

Ding Lei laughed. “We are prepared for this. Make an announcement to congratulate Server 1 for exceeding 500,000 online players. Tomorrow, Server 3 will go live at the same time!”

“Manager Ding, the number of online players still have not reached 500,000.” A technical staff reminded him.

“We can reach 500,000 players today, right?”

The technical staff thought about this for a second. It is midnight, and some players might be sleeping now. They will be logging in tomorrow morning or afternoon.

All the players saw the announcement and were surprised to know so many players are playing now. The servers had only gone live for less than an hour, and the number of online players had exceeded more than 500,000!

This is only server 1 and does not include the online players in server 2. Some players are planning to try their luck in Server 3 tomorrow. They hope they can be the top 100 players to be online in the server. Who knows, they might be the top player of the server!

10 minutes later, a second announcement was released. “Server 2 had exceeded 500,000 online players. Server 3 and Server 4 will go live at 12 am tomorrow!”

In half an hour, the total number of online players had exceeded 1 million! Legend of Mir is a success!

Chapter 1047 – Reported on the news

Morning. Feng Yu felt his whole body was aching as he stretches himself.

It’s been a while since Feng Yu sat down in front of a PC for six to seven hours. He turns to Wen Dongjun and saw his eyes are all red.

“Eh, Dongjun, are you hungry?”

“Yes. Go and get breakfast and help me buy a portion. I need to kill these few monsters!”

Feng Yu: “……” Do you need to be so hardworking?

It’s the school holidays, and Li Na had returned to the village. Only Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun remained in the apartment. Feng Yu is not good at cooking, and Wen Dongjun… does not even know how to cook porridge!

More than 1.33 million players were online at the same time yesterday, and this is above Feng Yu’s expectation. Today, the number of players online should exceed 2 million.

The high number of players will put tremendous stress on the servers, and luckily Feng Yu had reminded Ding Lei to prepare for this.

Some players from the older servers will be transferred to the new server to balance the number of players in each server.

There are more players than monsters outside of the starting zone. The moment the chickens, deer, etc. spawn, they will be killed immediately!

But Feng Yu knows the number of players online will drop after the players have to buy game-time. Some players will stop playing as they are not willing to spend money.

But most of the players are not willing to give up playing Legend of Mir. This game is the most popular online game, and the game’s soundtrack, a variety of skills, different maps, interesting quests, etc. is different from other games.

In the internet cafes, nine out of ten people are playing Legend of Mir.

Of course, there are still people who play other games like Starcraft, Diablo, Red Alert, etc.

The players realized that the games they played in the past were no longer interesting or fun. Most of their friends had switched to Legend of Mir, and only a handful are still playing the old games.

At noon, the number of online players reached 1.76 million, and Feng Yu was relieved. If the servers crash on the first day, the players will lose confidence in this game.

This period is for Legend of Mir to attract more players.

……

“Boss, the online players in South Korea had reach 160,000. This is the best result for online games! In Japan, the online players exceeded 410,000, and more than 970,000 players are online in the US. The registered players in the US had exceeded 1 million! Also, in England…” Kameda Masao called Feng Yu to report on the number of players around the world.

Feng Yu smiled. Aggressive marketing is still useful, and this result is better than Feng Yu’s previous life.

Wind and Rain Games had found more distributors in this life, and with the advertising, one-month Public Beta and global servers going live at the same time attracted lots of players.

Legend of Mir is also more fun than the Legend of Mir in Feng Yu’s previous life. There are almost no bugs in this version, and this is one of the reasons why people love this game.

Many people had played online games before, but none of those games are as fun as Legend of Mir. The map is vast, a wide variety of skills, more monsters, weapons, items, etc. and this game have interesting background stories for the characters. The soundtracks of the game are also nice, and celebrities were hired to endorse this game.

“Oh Boss, what is the stats in China? How many players are online at the same time, and how many players had registered?”

“At the peak, we have 1.92 million players, and there are 2.37 million registered players.” Feng Yu knows this figure will increase slowly after the initial phase.

Kameda Masao was surprised. Why did the Chinese love this game so much? The number of Chinese players is two-thirds of the whole of Asia!

This is normal because of China’s high population. Many people said the Chinese are poor, and there are not many PC users in China. But this because of the number of people in China. If you look at PC sales for China, China is the biggest spender on PCs in the world!

“Boss, we succeed! We are going to have more than 10 million players worldwide at the same time. We are going to create history!” Kameda Masao exclaimed.

10 million players worldwide playing at the same time? This target is too low…

In Feng Yu’s previous life, more than 30 million players are playing Legend of Mir at the same time in China during the game’s peak.

At that time, nine out of ten customers in internet cafés are playing Legend of Mir, and the remaining one customer will be playing Counterstrike or chatting online. Basically, no one is playing other games.

At that time, an in-game weapon of Legend of Mir can be sold for almost 100,000 RMB, and the account of a top player was sold for 1 million RMB to a tycoon!

These are all rumors, and Feng Yu does not know if the 1 million RMB account is real. But Feng Yu knows some in-game items are being sold for more than 10,000 RMB.

Most of the internet cafes at that time made money because of this game. Feng Yu also heard stories of people finding girlfriends in the game, and some players even fought because of what happened in the game!

However, Legend of Mir is not very popular outside of China, and only a few million overseas players played.

In this life, this game is more popular than Feng Yu’s previous life. Feng Yu’s goal is to have more than 50 million players worldwide online at the same time!

……

That night, Ding Lei called Feng Yu. “Manager Feng, your connections are too powerful, and our game is going to be more popular now!”

“Hahaha… you must take note not to let the number of players exceed the maximum load of the servers. If the players discovered they cannot log in to the game, they would lose interest. Also, you must monitor the game’s data closely and inform Wind and Rain Games immediately if anything goes wrong. We must not allow anyone to a mod or use external programs to alter the game.”

They chatted for a while before Feng Yu hangs up. He was watching the news on TV when Ding Lei called. The evening news had reported about Legend of Mir.

The news reported that this game is developed by a Game company in China and is popular around the world. More than 2 million players in China had registered accounts in this game, and over 1.9 million Chinese players were online at the same time. This showed that China’s internet is one of the best in the world, and Chinese companies are venturing out of China.

After this news was reported, Feng Yu knows more people will be curious about this game. He decided to use another 100,000 USD on promotion, and Legend of Mir will be the most popular game in history!

Chapter 1048 – Making it on the list

“Brother Feng, are you in China?”

“Yes. I’m in Beijing.”

“There is a famous reporter who wants to interview you. They want to feature you on their magazine’s cover page. Are you interested?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“You should know that I don’t like to be in the limelight.” Many reporters in the US and Europe had contacted Ralph to interview Feng Yu but was rejected.

These are all top media companies, and many people might not even get featured in these media in their lifetime. Some of these media companies had even interviewed the US President and other top countries’ leaders.

“Brother Feng, it is <Time> magazine, one of the top magazines in the world, who wants to interview. The people they interviewed in the past are powerful leaders. Also, if you agree to appear on their cover page, they will feature me on their Asian version’s cover!”

Feng Yu thought to himself. This is what you really want, right? Although Fu Guangzheng is very successful, it is not enough for him to be featured on the cover of <Time> magazine. Only people like Superman Li and Fu Rongqi are qualified to be featured on the cover for their <Time> Asia version.

“Brother Fu, are you sure that you are talking about the <Time> magazine I know? They are going to feature you on their Asian Version cover?”

Fu Guangzheng embarrassedly replied. “They said that they will be writing an article on Asia’s future top leaders, and I am one of the representatives. If you don’t agree, then they will postpone this article, and I will not be featured. Brother Feng, do you know how many people might not even get featured on their cover in their lifetime?!”

Fu Guangzheng had made lots of money last year, but his assets are not a lot. The land parcel which Li Zekai bought recently is worth more than Fu Guangzheng’s assets.

Furthermore, there are other tycoons in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. who are wealthier than Fu Guangzheng. Even Mr. Ho’s assets from Macao is several times more than him.

“Brother Fu, it’s just a magazine. Why are you making it sound like it is so prestigious to be featured there? You should know that this magazine is only an ordinary magazine that is catering to the Western countries. I am also setting up a business magazine, which is in Chinese and will be circulating in Chine, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. I will feature you on the cover page once it is ready, alright?”

Other people might think it is an honor to be featured on <Time> magazine. But to Feng Yu, this is only a form of marketing to increase an individual’s personal brand value and that individual’s company’s value. Of course, the magazine’s sales will also increase because of the people they featured on their cover.

But that is only a magazine that features articles on politics and business. However, <Time> magazine is quite successful in their branding and circulation.

Fu Guangzheng’s shares in China are transferred to Tai Hua Holdings, and he is now one of the directors and CEO of Tai Hua Holdings. As for his own business, he is definitely one of the world’s top ten among his generation.

<Time> magazine is going to group Fu Guangzheng and Feng Yu together, and this alone made Feng Yu mad. If <Time> magazine had featured Fu Guangzheng on their Asian version cover page and then approach Feng Yu, maybe Feng Yu might agree.

<Forbes> magazine had been rejected by Feng Yu more than once and had to get Bill Gates to help them to persuade Feng Yu before Feng Yu agreed to reveal his wealth and get listed on <Forbes> Richest billionaires. That is Feng Yu’s first media interview.

<Time> magazine had been rejected by Ralph and approached Fu Guangzheng to persuade Feng Yu in exchange for benefits.

“Brother Feng, didn’t you say your magazine will be launch early this year? Why is it not ready?” Fu Guangzheng asked. He remembered Feng Yu had told him that he will issue a magazine this year, and will introduce China’s top 50 business leaders in different industries.

Although Fu Guangzheng is from Hong Kong, most of his investments are in China. Now, Hong Kong had been returned to China, and no one will say anything if he gets listed as one of China’s top business leaders.

Many people are curious about Fu Guangzheng and want to know more about him. If the magazine can interview him, it will attract a lot of readers.

“There are some problems with the interviews with those tycoons. Some of them are not willing to expose their wealth, and I think some of the data we collected is not accurate. The launch should be delayed until Lunar New Year.”

Feng Yu had not expected this to happen. He thought those tycoons will be interested in a prestigious title. Still, he underestimated how the Chinese likes to hide their wealth.

Many tycoons which Feng Yu felt are qualified to be on the list, rejected their interviews.

These people are not interested in a private business magazine. If the magazine is a national level state-run magazine, they might be interested.

Furthermore, this magazine is going to expose their net worth. What a joke! Why should I let others know how much money I have?!

What did you say? Letting others know how successful I am will impress them and give me a bigger advantage in business activities?

I don’t need all these. I want to keep my assets private!

After Zhong Qingxian knows about this, he spoke to Feng Yu. Many of these tycoons had rejected them is because they do not want to reveal the details of how they become successful.

These people might have crossed the line, done something illegal, got involved with some government officials, or some other reasons, in their early days of starting their business.

Although these people had paid back their ‘debts’ to the government, the habit of hiding their wealth still remains.

For example, many people are not willing to donate to charity. I made all this money by myself. Why should I donate my money to others? When I was poor in the past, why didn’t anyone help me?! Local governments are also forcing the successful businessmen to donate money with their authority.

Even if the local authorities are not forcing the businessmen to donate, they will also force the businessmen to increase the scale of their projects. This is the reason why Shi Dazhu become bankrupt. When he was building his skyscraper, the local authorities kept forcing him to change the designs of the building and made me spent unnecessarily.

In the end, Shi Dazhu became bankrupt.

Feng Yu had asked the top management from Tai Hua Holdings and subsidiaries to speak to those businessmen. He needs to let them understand that people’s perception of wealthy businessmen will change, and making their assets public will have more benefits. Look at Manager Feng. After he made public his assets, his business becomes more successful.

It is not easy to introduce something new and will face all sorts of difficulties. But this magazine has potential, and Feng Yu will persist.

Wind and Rain Business magazine is under Tai Hua Charity Fund, and all profits will be used for charity. This is one of the reasons why many people are willing to be featured on this list in the future.

“Brother Feng, you are not willing to be interviewed?” Fu Guangzheng asked again.

“Brother Fu, stop trying to persuade me. I can’t help you.”

“Never mind. Getting a featured interview in the magazine is also not bad. But you must let me be on the cover page of your magazine.”

“Hahaha… sure! I promise you will be famous throughout China, and your popularity will supersede Superman Li’s two sons!”

Translator notes:

Stanley Ho

Chapter 1049 – Getting belittled

It’s almost Lunar New Year, and Feng Yu returned to Bing City to be with his family. No matter how busy Feng Yu is, he will spend Lunar New Year with his family. Furthermore, other than some important decisions, he is not busy at all.

Feng Yu had always been the mysterious major shareholder behind the scenes of his companies. Many of the staff do not even know how Feng Yu looks like. Feng Yu also seldom gets involved with his companies’ operations, but all his staff has high respect for him. They heard that five-day workweek, public holidays off, welfare benefits, reimbursements, year-end bonuses, etc. are all implemented by Manager Feng. In terms of staff benefits, Feng Yu’s companies had always been the best in China!

No matter how glamorous Feng Yu is outside, everything changed when he returned home.

“Why are you sitting here and playing games again? Can’t you bring Zhixing out to play?” Feng Yu’s mother saw him playing Legend of Mir in front of his PC and got mad.

Of course, to Feng Yu’s mother, his son is the best in the world, and no one else can be compared to him. But Feng Yu had been away from home for so long, and he locked himself in his room to play games after he returns. Why can’t he do something else?!

Zhang Muhua is also mad with Feng Yu for supporting her future daughter-in-law, Li Na, to continue with her Doctorate. Even if you say, it is good for the family to have someone highly educated. Still, Zhang Muhua had found out that Universities do not restrict their postgraduate students from getting married!

Li Na’s studies and getting married have no conflicts. Even if she got pregnant, she can defer her studies and continue later.

Furthermore, Li Na doesn’t need to work. Feng Yu’s money is more than enough for his whole family and relatives to spend for a few lifetimes!

“Mum, I had only started playing. Let me play for an hour. I will bring Zhixing out later.”

Feng Yu enjoys playing Legend of Mir as it brings back lots of memories from his younger days in his previous life.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he got to know Zhou Kexin in Legend of Mir, and they found out that they are working in the same city. After that, they met up and slowly got together.

Other than having no children, Feng Yu and Zhou Kexin did not have any regrets after they got together.

Feng Yu had played with his nephew a few times, and his fantasy of having children are gone. This Li Zhixing is a typical brat who only knows how to piss him off.

In front of Li Zhixing’s grandparents and parents, he pretended to be a good boy. But when he is alone with Feng Yu, he can make Feng Yu go crazy!

For example, Feng Yu had brought Li Zhixing out to build a snowman, and Li Zhixing demanded to build an upside-down snowman!

Li Zhixing also destroyed all the snowmen Feng Yu built by stomping all over them.

Another time, Feng Yu brought Li Zhixing out to catch fish during summer. The brat felt using the net is not fun and saw other people using an electrofisher backpack for fishing. He insisted Feng Yu to give him one, and Feng Yu had to get his engineers from Bing City Machinery Company to build one. But Li Zhixing only played with it twice and gave it away. That is an electrofisher backpack that was customized and cost Feng Yu more than 10,000 RMB.

Li Zhixing is not generous. He didn’t understand the value of money and was spoilt by his grandparents. Maybe it is also because of what Li Na always repeated Feng Yu’s words in front of Li Zhixing.

Li Na told Li Zhixing that “Other than money, your Uncle does not have anything else.” “Your Uncle said those who don’t know how to spend money will never make money…”

Maybe it was because of what Li Na said, Li Zhixing become very interested in Feng Yu. He sticks with Feng Yu whenever he comes back. Feng Yu is helpless against Li Zhixing as he cannot scold or hit him. Feng Yu’s mother will scold him if he gets angry with Li Zhixing.

“No! You are just playing games every day. Can you make money from playing games?!”

“Alright… alright… don’t pull the plug. I will shut down the PC now.” Feng Yu shouted. His character is still in the wilderness, and if his mother pulls the plug, all his equipment might be gone.

……

“Where do you want to go?” Feng Yu held Li Zhixing’s tiny hand and asked impatiently.

“What do you recommend?”

“I recommend you to stay at home and play by yourself.”

“Grandma!!!” Li Zhixing shouted.

“Huh? What is it?”

Feng Yu quickly interrupts Li Zhixing. “Nothing! Zhixing wants to say goodbye to you.”

Damn! This rascal is too cunning!

“The weather is good today. Do you want to go ice skating?”

“No. It’s painful when I fall.”

“How about making snowmen?”

“The snowmen you built are ugly!”

“Spinning ice tops?”

“That is for kids!”

Feng Yu: “……” You are a kid! Stop pretending to be an adult!

“Then what do you want to do?” Feng Yu asked.

“I don’t know, and that’s why I am asking you.” Li Zhixing replied.

Feng Yu had made a lot of suggestions, but Li Zhixing was not interested. When Feng Yu was at his age, these are all the things he played. Maybe the kids nowadays have too many things to play with and are not interested in all these activities.

“Have you been to an arcade center?” Feng Yu asked.

“Arcade center? Is it a place to play arcade games? Is it fun?”

“Yes… it’s fun. Let’s go. I will show you how an arcade center looks like.

When they reached the arcade center, Feng Yu realized it was filled with cigarette smoke. It’s winter, and the arcade center’s ventilation is poor. The stench of cigarette smoke almost made him vomit.

Li Zhixing refused to even go near the arcade center. How can such a dirty and disgusting place be fun? His Uncle must be lying to him again!

Li Zhixing stares at Feng Yu angrily. This place is not fun!

“See, I told you that there is nothing to play outside. Why don’t we go home or go to your father’s company to play? There are big trucks in your father’s company!” Feng Yu suggested.

“No. My father’s company is very busy, and the trucks are dangerous. You are an adult, how can you bring a child to such a dangerous place?” Li Zhixing scolded Feng Yu.

Damn! Do you still remember you are a child now? Don’t you know that children should listen to adults?!

Feng Yu decided to use the last resort. “Oh, how are your exam results? What position are you in your class?”

“I am first in my level. Grandma said I am much smarter than you when you are at my age.” Li Zhixing proudly replied.

Feng Yu felt like slapping himself. He remembered his results when he was young are not good. He only started studying seriously when he started middle school.

“What about your holiday homework?”

“I am doing my homework every day. I had finished my homework this morning.”

“Did your teacher ask you to write holiday diaries?” Most teachers will ask junior school students to write diaries during their term breaks. However, most of the kids’ diary entries are one or two sentences.

“Yes. That’s why I asked you to bring me out. But look at where you brought me to? How am I suppose to write this place into my diary? Sigh… Uncle… you are unreliable.” Li Zhixing shook his head and sighed.

Feng Yu: “……”

Am I belittled by this rascal?!

Chapter 1050 – Scapegoat

Lunar New Year Eve and the whole family are having their reunion dinner while watching Spring Gala night on TV. This is what most families in China do in that era.

Feng Yu’s grandfather raised his glass. “It’s the New Year again. Cheers!”

Feng Yu also poured a glass of Baijiu for himself. Anyway, they are using small glasses at home, and none of his relatives are alcohol addicts like Kirilenko.

After eating a few mouthfuls, Feng Xingtai looks at Feng Yu. “Are you enjoying dinner?”

Feng Yu looks at his father. “Yes. The dishes are delicious.”

“Don’t you think someone is missing at the table?” Feng Xingtai gave Feng Yu a side glance.

“Are you talking about Sis? She is married to the Li family, and it’s normal for her to have a reunion dinner with her husband. They always visit on the second day of Lunar New Year.” What’s wrong with a woman celebrating Lunar New Year with her husband’s family?

“Stop changing the subject. Am I talking about your sister?”

Feng Yu thought. It’s not about Sis? He realized his father is talking about Li Na.

But Feng Yu and Li Na are not married. How can Li Na spend her Lunar New Year eve at his place? But Feng Yu cannot retort or else he will be scolded for not getting married early.

Luckily, Feng Yu is prepared for this. Use his elder cousin as a scapegoat!

“Brother Danhua, when are you bringing your girlfriend back for dinner?”

Feng Danhhua, who was eating quietly, almost choked.

Feng Yu! How can you use me as a shield when your parents are scolding you?!

After Feng Yu asked this question, everyone looks at Feng Danhua, who is a few years older than Feng Yu. Feng Yu and Li Na’s families did not object to them being together.

But after Feng Danhua become a civil servant, he becomes picky. Many people had introduced women to her, but he did not date them for more than three months. His shortest relationship is less than a week, as he claims he does not have feelings for that girl!

What do you mean by no feelings? Both of you had only met a few times. If this carries on, when are you going to get married?

Feng Yu’s eldest Uncle, Feng Xingguo, scolded. “Danhua, your younger brother, is asking you a question. Why are you keeping quiet?!”

Feng Yu lowered his head and looks at the glass in front of him.

“Dad… I still have not to find a suitable girl for me.”

“What do you mean there is no suitable girl?! How many girlfriends did you have over the past few years? Do you know what people are saying behind your back?! Ah?! Also, that Deputy Mayor’s daughter is a university graduate and is a civil servant like you. She is tall and pretty. Are you saying she is not good enough for you?” Feng Danhua’s mother scolded.

“Mum… I am looking for a wife and not their families. We should not judge a girl based on their family background. Yes… She is pretty, but she got a foul temper, and if we get married, she will get into fights with you every day.” Feng Danhua replied.

Feng Danhua is hinting that girl will not know how to please her in-laws, and if his parents can tolerate such behavior, he does not mind going back to her.

“What about that Kindergarten teacher? She should have a good temper as she is taking care of kids.”

“She also cannot make it. She does not even know how to cook like me. How are we going to live together in the future? We can’t be asking you all to cook for us every day, right?” Feng Danhua replied.

“What about that nurse from Danying’s hospital?”

“Her?! You all can ask Danying about her. She had an abortion when she was still in school!”

“Ah?! Girls are so shameless nowadays? How can a girl be sleeping around when she is still schooling?!” Feng Xingguo replied angrily.

Feng Xingtai and Zhang Muhua suddenly turned and look at Feng Yu.

“Err… Xiao Yu. I am not talking about you.” Feng Yu’s eldest Uncle said, making Feng Yu more embarrassed.

“It’s alright, Uncle.”

“Danhua, Xiao Yu, if you two are not going to get married soon, when can I carry my great-grandchild.” Feng Yu’s grandfather said.

“Grandpa, you are so healthy, you can wait at least another twenty years.” Feng Yu said.

Feng Danhua added. “That’s right. Grandpa, you don’t need to worry. Even if I didn’t get married anytime soon, there is still Xiao Yu. You had also met Li Na, and they can register their marriage anytime now. Right?”

“Errr… Brother Danhua, you are older than me, and how can I get married before you? This is our family’s tradition, and we must follow it. Right, Grandpa?” Hehe… you want to use me as your shield?!

“Yes. That’s right. Rules are rules. Danhua, you are holding your younger cousin back!” Feng Yu’s grandfather scolded.

Feng Danhua felt like crying. If Feng Yu wants to get married, who else in the family will care about their family’s tradition? Why are you all making it sound like I am the one who is stopping from Feng Yu’s marriage? This is ridiculous!

But Feng Danhua could not retort as he had lots of girlfriends and could not settle down.

This is not Feng Danhua’s fault. He was serious in every relationship, but the girls he dated are not suitable for marriage. He is now a Section Chief with the government, and with Feng Yu’s help, his family is quite well-off.

Feng Danhua has a good job, a house, a nice car, and slightly above average looks. But he just couldn’t find the right woman to settle down with. Many leaders who had introduced women to him were just because he is from Zhang Ruiqiang’s faction, and he has a wealthy family. Some even want to in touch with Feng Yu through him.

Did these women want to date him seriously?

Feng Danhua does not like the women introduced by the leaders, as all of them are spoiled, and he needs to give in to them.

Feng Danhua does not expect his future wife to listen to him on everything. Still, he is not willing to be a submissive husband!

Never mind. Feng Danhua felt he can still look around. He felt some of the average looking girls introduced to him, are still quite suitable for him.

“Grandpa, I know. I will get a girlfriend this year and will bring her back to meet you.” Feng Danhua promised.

“Yes. That’s right. Xiao Yu can get married after you are married. Come, let’s have a toast for my two grandsons to get married earlier!”

Feng Yu raised his glass and bottoms up. He is relieved and is ignoring his older cousin’s deadly stare. Yes… this will be a good year for him!

Chapter 1051 – LA Wind and Rain

After Lunar New Year, Feng Yu returned to LA because of an NBA match between LA Wind and Rain and Portland Trail Blazers. Paul Allen had called Feng Yu to tell him that his team will beat Wind and Rain easily, just like the previous time in Portland.

Feng Yu snorted. Although Blazers is a stronger team than Wind and Rain, the Blazers had only won by 8 points in their previous meeting.

In basketball matches, single-digit score differences mean both teams are on the same level. If one player is on-form that day or the team is on a winning streak, the team might win.

Today, Paul Allen will be watching the match on the sidelines, and he said he will be in a good mood when he sees his team beating their opponents easily.

Feng Yu really hated Paul Allen. Elgin Baylor had told Feng Yu that if the Blazers had not created problems, their plan of reconstructing the team would be more successful.

LA Wind and Rain had gotten the draft pick, and signed the player recommended by Feng Yu and Coach George Karl. However, Wind and Rain had to take on two bad contracts to do that. This had increased the team’s salary stress, and they cannot sign any big names from the free market in the next three years!

Team Manager Elgin Baylor is very respectful to Feng Yu. When he was under Donald Sterling, his salary was only 300,000 USD, the lowest among all the team managers. He was getting an even lower salary than the managers from small cities like Milwaukee, Toronto, etc.

LA Lakers’ manager is getting 2 million USD annually, and the average salary of NBA team managers is around 70,000 to 80,000 USD. Furthermore, the LA Clippers are from a big city in the US!

But the attendance of Clippers’ matches is too low, and the team owner’s refusal to spend money on better players is one of the reasons. Elgin Baylor had suggested reconstructing the team, but the boss does not agree.

After Feng Yu had taken over the team, Elgin Baylor’s salary was increased to 800,000 USD, and he was promised incentives if the attendance reaches a certain percentage. This is almost three times of Elgin Baylor’s previous year’s income!

Although George Karl is a coach that focuses on defensive play, he is also good at attacks. LA Wind and Rain’s core players are all rookies, like Vince Carter. Many people had said Wind and Rain will regret it when they signed him.

But now, Carter’s had proved those critics wrong. Within two months, Carter quickly became a fan favorite with his impressive dunks. This increases the attendance, and the team gained lots of fans, despite them not qualifying for the playoffs.

Another player, Paul Pierce, is also good at offensive plays and is well-liked by Coach Karl. Rashard Lewis, who was the last player remaining in the “Green Room,” can even shoot three-pointers. Although he is still weak in some areas, he can create openings for Carter and Pierce.

The only player, the Coach, does not like is Point Guard Rafer Alston. If his first choice Point Guard is not injured, he will never use Rafer Alston.

The first choice Point Guard was supposed to be the NBA first overall pick two years ago but was rejected because of injuries. Wind and Rain had used multi transfers to sign him. Coach Karl said that if this Chauncey Billups is recovered, he will become a very good Point Guard.

The sixth player is called Mobley, and he will be partnered with Cassell.

The rest of the players are former Clippers’ players and a few ‘bad contacts’ players. These players are experienced, and some even have playoff experiences. They can help in developing the rookies.

Elgin Baylor had warned the senior players that the rookies will be the core of this team. If anyone of them dares to bully them, they will be suspended!

The star player Feng Yu wanted to recruit initially was Scottie Pippen, but he is happy with his current team now. If possible, he would want to recruit Jordan, but Jordan had retired, and he will not be enticed by money.

After Jordan, the Bulls had lost another member of their Championship team. Pippen had wanted a bigger contract, but the Bulls’ boss refused.

Wind and Rain made an offer of a 5-year contract worth 90 million USD for Pippen, but he signed by Portland Trail Blazers with a 5-year contract worth 80 million. The Blazers told him that he can continue to win the championship if he joins them and will be bigger than Jordan in the future!

So, Pippen signed the deal, and he was traded for a few players.

But Wind and Rain still managed to sign one of the players from the Bulls’ championship team. They signed Dennis Rodman for a 3-year contract worth 5 million USD. This is a good bargain, as Dennis Rodman cannot get along well with his teammates at the Bulls. Elgin Baylor was afraid no one in the team can control Dennis Rodman’s foul temper.

But Feng Yu told Coach Karl that it’s fine. If the Coach and team manager cannot keep Rodman under control, he will deal with him! Furthermore, Coach Karl had promised that he can control Rodman.

Dennis Rodman is a good player, and he averaged 12 rebounds per game. His defense had helped the team and can stop those senior players from creating trouble.

Wind and Rain had not only got the draft picks rights for this year. They had gotten some of the drafts picks rights for next year. The future of this team is bright.

Feng Yu is very satisfied with Elgin Baylor’s performance. This team might not qualify for the playoffs, but the team is doing much better. Everyone believes that if the team can get two better players next year, they can surely enter the playoffs!

Carter and Pierce are outstanding, and both had gotten the NBA Rookie of the month award. This is the first in NBA history for a team to have two top rookies.

The team’s offensive style had let fans remembered LA Showtime. Although LA Showtime is from the Lakers, the basketball fans in LA does not care. This team is also a LA team.

Today, Elgin Baylor had purposely spread the news that the Boss of LA Wind and Rain will be watching the match on the sidelines, and their tickets were sold out.

Feng Yu suspects that these people are not here to watch the match. They are here to watch Paul Allen, and he argues. After all, both teams had argued on the media more than once.

Many people also know that these two Microsoft shareholders dislike each other!

Many fans like to watch fights on the court, but if they can see two teams’ bosses fight, it will be perfect. They don’t even mind if they had to pay ten times the ticket price!

Chapter 1052 – Start Running

“Elgin, you had contacted so many media. Are you so confident of us winning?” Feng Yu had come to LA Wind and Rain Arena to watch the match, and this match is against Paul Allen’s team. It will be too embarrassing if they lose.

“Boss, I asked Coach Karl. He said he had found the Blazers’ weakness, and we will win. Also, The Blazers’ main Point Guard and Center Forward are injured. They will be sending their reserve players, and we have the advantage. Pippen is also not in his best form compared to the time he was in the Bulls.”

Feng Yu nodded. It doesn’t matter if his team can make it into the playoffs, but they must win against the Blazers.

When Feng Yu appeared at Wind and Rain Arena, the crowd cheered. Many fans lifted placards thanking him for changing the team and bringing a new arena to the city.

Feng Yu is a shareholder of Wind and Rain Arena. Although he is the smallest out of the three shareholders, he is still the Boss.

It is quite embarrassing for the Lakers when they play in Wind and Rain Arena. Their results are better but had to play in LA Wind and Rain’s home ground. Why didn’t Buss build a sports arena for the Lakers?

The big screen is showing a close up of Paul Allen’s arrogant face. The match had not started, and he is behaving like he had already won.

Many basketball fans were surprised that the arena did not give Feng Yu any close-up shots, despite him being one of the shareholders.

Of course, other TV stations’ reporters had given Feng Yu long airtime. But Feng Yu had covered his face with a baseball cap and big sunglasses. Basketball fans are curious if Feng Yu has an ugly scar on his face or else, why did he hide his face?

Some fans speculate Feng Yu knows his team will lose and is not willing to show his face. This time, Paul Allen had brought 2,000 Blazers fans to support his team. His fans also contributed the ticket sales.

Beep, beep… Feng Yu took out his mobile phone and saw Paul Allen had sent him an SMS.

“Feng, if you beg me now, I will tell my team to win by less than 10 points.”

Damn! This bastard is too arrogant!

Feng Yu showed the SMS to Coach Karl and said. “You said we will definitely win. If we lose, I will be humiliated.”

Karl replied proudly. “The team had familiarized a few sets of strategies, and those rookies had accustomed to the pace of the matches. This year, because of the lockout, the matches are closely scheduled. Many of the old players are injured, and their fitness levels cannot keep up. Our young players might not be as skillful, but they can run. Those senior players will not catch up with them!”

The referee started the match with his whistle, but Wind and Rain lost the jump ball. The Blazers had started their offense.

Paul Allen turns and looks at Feng Yu proudly. This is the gap between both teams. He had instructed his team to thrash the Wind and Rain team from the start. He wants to humiliate Feng Yu!

The Blazers scored the first points, and when the players were still celebrating their good start, they saw Wind and Rain players started running.

Wind and Rain team is going for a quick counter-attack. After three long passes, the ball is passed to Carter. No players from the opposing team are near him, and he jumped and executed a 360 dunk! The crowds roared!

Feng Yu clapped. This is the type of game he and the fans enjoy.

The Blazers had started their offense from the mid courts. They prefer to attack slow and steady and scored their first three balls.

But Wind and Rain team also managed to score their first three balls. Their offenses lasted less than 10 seconds, and the shortest is only 6 seconds. Every time the Blazers scored, Wind and Rain players will retaliate with dunks successfully.

Carter and Pierce wanted to be the top player in the team. Carter is one of the top five overall picks, and Pierce is the 8th overall pick. Both of them are young and talented. Carter is good at dunks, and Pierce is good at jump shots. Both are good in their own ways.

Both players were pushing themselves hard, and they are always the players running in front during their counter attacks.

Blazers missed their fourth ball, and Rodman got the rebound. This time, the Blazers’ players returned to their court very fast, and Carter and Pierce did not get to score. But Carter managed to pass the ball to Lewis, who is standing outside the three-point line.

Just like during training, Lewis jumps and shoots. Three points!

Beep~~~

The Blazers called for a time-out.

Paul Allen is furious. He thought the team to call for a time-out first will be Wind and Rain Team.

It’s only two minutes since the match started, and the Blazers are losing by 3 points. How is this possible?! Wind and Rain team cannot even qualify for Play-offs. Why are they leading?

Feng Yu stood up and gave all the players high-fives. “Good job! We will win today!”

Karl gathered the players around. “Rafer Alston, you started out from street basketball, and your ballhandling skill is outstanding. I need you to show off your dribbles to attract the opponents to go one-on-one with you. But remember, you are a point guard, and your first priority is to pass the ball. Carter, Pierce, you two need to exploit their weaknesses and score as many points as possible. Lewis, you have to help Alston to block off their players. Rodman, I will leave the rebounds to you. Run! All of you must run to wear them out!”

Karl had deployed these tactics, and the tactics did not involve the Center Forward. Rodman is the Center Forward, but his job is only to grab the rebounds.

After the time-out, the Blazers scored another ball and managed to defend well to prevent Wind and Rain from making a fast counter-attack.

But Wind and Rain’s Point Guard is too irritating. He demonstrates many spectacular dribbles. Even when he has the chance to break through the defense, he will just dribble around. He even gestured to the Blazers’ Point Guard to provoke him.

The Blazers’ Point Guard rushed forward, but Wind and Rain’s Point Guard threw the ball towards the hoop, and Carter jumped up and performed an alley-oop.

Carter hangs on the hoop for a while before returning to his half for defense. While running, he gestured the action of riding a motorcycle arrogantly!

After three exchanges, the Blazers’ Point Guard start to ignore his team tactics and start to have one-on-ones with Alston. He is bigger and stronger than Alston and is advantageous.

Thus, the rest of Blazers’ players, including Pippen, could not get any passes. They can only run back and forth in court.

Coach Karl is smiling. The Blazers had fallen into his trap, and this is the Wind and Rain Team’s pace. At this pace, those old players from Blazers will be out of stamina soon!

Chapter 1053 – We can win the Blazers

“Are you all weaklings? You all still dare to claim that you all can win the Championships this year? You all cannot even beat a lousy team like Wind and Rain?! How are you all going to win the championship?!” Paul Allen stood up and shouted at his players! This is their second time-out within five minutes.

The Blazers’ coach is red with embarrassment. He had wanted to show George Karl, who is a better coach. But now, Karl had shown he is the better one and had used tactics to overcome Wind and Rain’s weaknesses of having in-experience players.

Paul Allen’s scolding of his players was shown on the arena’s big screen. Many LA basketball fans are cheering. Even the mighty Blazers are being suppressed by Wind and Rain.

Many basketball fans are there to watch Wind and Rain Team’s up-tempo offense, Carter’s dunks, Pierce’s splendid skills, Alston’s extreme dribbling skills, Rodman’s crazy hairstyles, and also to see Feng Yu argue with Paul Allen.

However, most of the basketball fans did not think the Wind and Rain team will win.

But now, no one is sure who will win this match. Although the match had just started, the Wind and Rain team is leading by 9 points.

The time-out ended, and both teams substituted their reserve players into the match. But Wind and Rain team’s Pierce is still on the court, and he will be partnering three rookies and one senior player. The Blazers had substituted all the players except for Pippen.

But Pippen is not in his best form this year. In the past, he is an expert in defense, but today, he failed to block three of Pierce’s shots.

Feng Yu is thrilled. Among the rookies in 1998, Pierce is one of the best offensive players. Another rookie, Antawn Jamison, is also another good player, despite the fact that he is not showing any of his talents yet.

Other players, including Carter, are not as good as Pierce. For example, Carter does not know to step back jump shots, and his three-pointers are not as accurate as Pierce.

The spectators got excited when they saw Pierce winning Pippen in all aspects. This is the top rookie this year, and Wind and Rain team had gotten a treasure. The fans can see this team entering the playoffs next year, and they will be the champions within 3 to 5 years. Wind and Rain team might even win the championships before Lakers. Yes. If Shaq joins Wind and Rain team, then LA will surely win the championships next year!

Feng Yu does not care what the fans are thinking. He is only here to watch the match and enjoy the feeling of winning against Paul Allen.

During half time, the Wind and Rain team is leading by 13 points. The difference is not big, but Karl told Feng Yu that they had won!

Look, the Blazers’ players are panting like dogs. Although Wind and Rain’s players are also tired, they are not as tired as the Blazer’s players. Karl had let Carter, Pierce, and other main players rest on the match before. From their light training yesterday, the main players showed they have enough stamina.

Young, good stamina, fast recovery, and the match is following’s Wind and Rain’s pace. If Wind and Rain still cannot win against the Blazers, then Coach Karl can give up his status as one of the best coaches in the NBA.

“Rodman, I think you can get more then 20 points in the match, and you might even break your personal points record if you are willing to go on the offense. Show those managers and coaches, who belittled you and said you cannot score your abilities. They are the ones who don’t appreciate your talents.” Karl said to the rainbow-colored hair Rodman in the dressing room.

Rodman had once gotten more than 30 points in a game. Although most of his points are scored below the basket, that shows that he can score.

Rodman might not make a lot of money on the courts, but outside of the courts, he is a celebrity. When he was with the Bulls, he is the second player behind Jordan in terms of earnings.

Karl is telling Rodman that he can increase his commercial value as a player as long as he plays well, and the team does not care what he does outside in his free time.

Rodman’s goal as a player is to be in the limelight and make money to enjoy life. Since Coach Karl is giving him this opportunity, he will not miss it.

The second half started. The Blazers increased their defense and used man-to-man markings on Carter and Pierce. They do not want to let them touch the ball, but Rodman is on fire!

Rodman got defensive and offensive rebounds and scored with dunks, layups, etc. He even managed to get points from the free-throw lines. At this moment, many of the fans felt Rodman might win against Shaq.

In the final five minutes of the match, the Blazers had substituted all their main players off the courts as they are losing by 20 points! Wind and Rain had taken the lead since the second minute of the match!

The match ended, and Feng Yu purposely block Paul Allen from leaving.

“Hi, Paul. This is an exciting match, right? Why didn’t you beg me? If you had begged me, I would ask my team to win by five points.”

Paul Allen is furious. F**k! My team was trashed by a lousy team!

“Eh? Why are you not saying anything? Sigh… the star player, Pippen, you all signed had played well today. 20 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists. Let me look at my team’s rookie Pierce’s stats. 27 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. Oh, this rookie’s salary is quite high. It’s more than 2 million USD. How much is your star player’s salary?”

Although this year’s season is shorter, Pippen’s salary is more than 11 million USD. How can such a player lose to a rookie?!

“Hmph! Feng, your team, cannot even qualify for the Playoffs!”

“Yes. I am also troubled by this. Do you think the NBA is against my team or something? My team is so strong and cannot qualify. Eh, did you spend money to get your opposing team to let you win? Please share it with me. If it is not too expensive, I can buy a package and let my team win all the remaining matches.”

Who had spent money to fix the matches? What package are you talking about?!

Paul Allen stared at Feng Yu angrily. My team had qualified because of their capabilities!

But Paul Allen cannot retort Feng Yu because his team was trashed by Feng Yu’s team!

20 points difference shows that both teams are on different levels. It’s like the top teams playing against the bottom tables.

“Hmph! If you are capable, we will meet in the Playoffs!”

“We will qualify next year, but I am not sure if your team will qualify.”

Hmph! Even if your team can qualify, your team will also be kicked out.”

“Yes. We might be kicked out if we don’t meet the Blazers. We are a lousy team, and the Blazers is the only team we can win!” Feng Yu replied with a smile.

Chapter 1054 – All the teams are thrashing the Blazers

“Feng, this is unbelievable. You all had won against the Blazer by so many points!” The had just ended, and Feng Yu received a call from Kirilenko when the players are being interviewed.

Kirilenko was more excited to see Feng Yu’s team winning than his own team winning.

“Hahaha. In professional matches, there are no teams that can be undefeatable. I said before. If we got the right coach, players, and the right strategies, we could also be a strong team.”

Feng Yu had told George Karl to use offensive play style to attract fans. But George Karl had given him a surprise. Look at the fans cheering by the stands.

Paul Allen had spent money to buy tickets, provided transport and lodging for the Blazers fans to come to LA. His purpose is to let the fans see how the Blazers are going to trash Wind and Rain.

But in the end, the Blazers got trashed, and their 2,000 fans were disappointed.

After mocking Paul Allen, Feng Yu wanted to share his joy with someone else when Kirilenko called to congratulate him.

Kirilenko had also bought a team, New Jersey Nets. Although it is also a weak team, it is still his team. New Jersey Nets also had a match today, and Kirilenko still paid attention to Wind and Rain’s match. He is really a good friend!

“Brother Ki, how was your team’s performance today?”

“We lost again, but it is fine. Anyway, the players are still settling in. In another two years, after those ‘bad contracts’ will expired, the team will be much stronger. I can afford to wait.” Kirilenko casually replied. Yes. He has just vented his anger at his team manager earlier and is feeling better now.

“Have you traded for that Point Guard I told you?”

“Yes. He is in our team now and had scored triple double-digit stats earlier. Feng, you didn’t follow my team?” Kirilenko replied angrily.

“Ah… Hahaha… Our match timings are so close, and I did not notice. You should build your team around that player, and you all should do well.”

Jason Kidd is the Point Guard Feng Yu wanted the most, but he is too expensive, and Phoenix Suns ignored Wind and Rain’s request to trade for him.

New Jersey Nets succeeded in getting Kidd because they traded Marbury for him. Marbury’s playstyle is more offensive, and both players are great in their own ways.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, it was until the year 2000, after New Jersey Nets signed Martin and Jefferson, they become a strong team. But they still lost to LA Lakers for two consecutive years.

But in this life, with Feng Yu’s interference, history had changed, and the Lakers might not win the championships.

“I also think so. He is a great player, and my coach is full of praise for him. Oh, I decided to reconstruct the team to change their playing style. I want to get fast players who can score, for offensive playstyle. Next year, my team will be different.”

Huh? The Nets’ offensive playstyle is inspired by me? Seems like no matter what I do, history will still stay on its course.

“Ok. I have high hopes for your team.:

“It will be great if both our teams can be the champions for the East and West coasts. We can play against each other until the 7th match in the finals, and just the profits from the ticket sales alone will be a lot.” Kirilenko laughed.

Feng Yu is speechless. Their teams are still bottom, and Kirilenko is thinking of the finals. Also, fixing the matches to make money?! This idea is… very interesting!

“Brother Ki, stop daydreaming. Shaq from the Lakers will reach his peak soon, and both our teams might not get past him.”

“Individual skills do not matter much in a match. Furthermore, we can think of ways to trade for Shaq. In professional leagues, anything can happen.” Kirilenko replied confidently.

“Will you sell the best player in your team?”

“If someone can make an offer that I can’t reject, I will. Furthermore, Shaq cannot run fast. Our playstyle is Fastbreak, and who says we cannot win? Oh, we will be facing the Blazers in another two days. I will get my team ready to trash the Blazers again.”

Trashing the Blazers? No teams are confident of doing that. Wind and Rain team can win today is because their three-pointers are more accurate today. If not, they might not even win.

After today, the Blazers will find ways to tackle this strategy, and the same strategy will not be effective the next time they meet.

“I wish you success.” Feng Yu said.

……

Paul Allen returned to Portland with his team on a chartered flight. He is furious, and all the players dare not make a single sound. This is a stark contrast when they are flying to LA. On their way to LA, the players were playing cards and joking around.

Yesterday, the players had promised their boss that they will thrash the Wind and Rain team for him. But in the end, they lost the game.

During the press conference after the match, Wind and Rain’s players boasted about their win, and the Blazers’ players also received a piece of information from the reporters.

New Jersey Nets, who had just lost their match by 20 points, claimed they will trash the Blazers in their upcoming match two days later.

Since when did the Blazers become a weak team? They had been a strong team who qualifies for Playoffs every year! Also, with Pippen joining the team this year, they should be stronger.

Paul Allen knew the reason. Feng Yu and that Russian are very close and are partners in many business ventures. They even bought the Empire State Building together.

Needless to say, that Russian had spread this news to help Feng Yu in making Paul Allen embarrassed!

New Jersey Nets is a weaker team than Wind and Rain. Other than Kidd, they have no other star players. How dare a team like this claim they will win?”

Three days later, Paul Allen left New Jersey quietly. He never expected the Blazers will lose to the Nets.

Kidd was in his best form, and the rest of the Nets’ players are on fire. They used fast breaks and three-pointers tactics against the Blazers, resulting in the Blazers’ defeat.

Just before the final whistle, Kidd’s three-pointer from the half-court sealed the match. Although Kidd had scored his final three-pointer by luck, it can’t change the fact that the Blazers lost this match!

The media started reporting about the Blazers’ consecutive defeats. They wrote that Blazers’ players are old, and the team should be reconstructed. If not, they can only qualify for playoffs and will never win the championships! Since the start of the season, when Blazers signed Pippen, many fans felt the Blazers has a chance to reach the finals.

Paul Allen is reported by the media as the most disappointing NBA team owner. He was suppressed by Feng Yu in Microsoft and lost to Feng Yu’s team on the courts. Even Feng Yu’s best friend’s team had won against his team.

Feng Yu also did not expect New Jersey Nets to win. He roared with laughter when he saw Paul Allen’s face on the TV.

Chapter 1055 – Allen’s plan

Paul Allen had been searching for an opportunity to bring down Feng Yu. His wish is to kick Feng Yu out of Microsoft’s Board of Directors.

But Feng Yu has absolute control over the Chinese market. This is his advantage, and Bill Gates trusted Feng Yu. That’s why Paul Allen’s plan cannot be implemented.

Paul Allen knows Bill Gates will not cooperate with Feng Yu for long. Microsoft announced that they will not be providing Microsoft Office for free during the Win98 launch.

Win98 is already selling at a low price, and Microsoft will not continue to give up a portion of their profits. More than 60% of China’s PCs are using the original Microsoft operating system, and this is considered a victory for Microsoft.

When Microsoft has gotten a monopoly on China’s operating system, other software companies in China will be affected, and Microsoft will raise the price of its system.

After knowing Bill Gates’ plan, Paul Allen, no long object Microsoft’s cooperation with Feng Yu. He believed in Bill Gates, and after Microsoft gained control over the Chinese market, he will kick Feng Yu out of the board!

Paul Allen had been waiting patiently to get the opportunity to kick Feng Yu out and humiliate him.

But now, Paul Allen cannot wait any longer!

Feng Yu’s team had criticized and embarrassed Paul Allen on the media several times.

When Paul Allen’s men were promoting him for getting on the cover page of <Time> magazine, Feng Yu’s team revealed something surprising to the media.

The <Time> magazine had contacted Feng Yu first, and Feng Yu rejected had their interview three times. That means Feng Yu is the first-choice, and Paul Allen is only a replacement.

Paul Allen is furious!

I am just a replacement?! I am the second-biggest shareholder of Microsoft and a regular on the World’s Richest man list! How can I be Feng Yu’s replacement? I am one of the co-founders of Microsoft! Without me, Microsoft will not exist! My IQ is one of the top ten in the history of mankind! How much is Feng Yu’s IQ?

That Feng Yu is only an outsider and had invested in Microsoft after making some money from the stock markets. If it was not for Bill Gates, how can Feng Yu enter the board?

Look what happens after Feng Yu entered the board? He had missed most of the board meetings without any valid reasons, and had asked his assistant to do all his work! Did he think Microsoft is his home?!

Bill Gates is also unhappy with Feng Yu because of the video game console. Paul Allen believes that if he can find a valid reason, Feng Yu will definitely be kicked out!

Other than Ballmer, all other directors are unhappy with Feng Yu.

Paul Allen had been searching for this opportunity. Today, someone had told him an important piece of information about Feng Yu, and this might make Bill Gates agree to kick Feng Yu out of the board.

……

“Paul, I know you and Feng dislike each other. This is an open secret, and everyone in the company knows about this. But Feng is very important to the company’s strategy. Two years. We only need two more years, and we will gain control over the Chinese market. At that time, we will not need Feng’s help.” Bill Gates persuaded.

This is the 9th time Paul Allen asked Bill Gates to kick Feng Yu out of the board this year, and it is only March.

That means Paul Allen had brought this up to Bill Gates almost every week.

“Bill, if we allow Feng to be our company’s director, Microsoft’s reputation might be tarnished.”

“What happened? Paul, just forget about the NBA match. That is only a game, and you cannot make any money out from it.” Bill Gates thought Paul Allen is upset that his team had lost to Feng Yu and is trying to find an excuse.

“I am not talking about basketball!” Paul Allen is going crazy. Why does everyone think that he is upset over his team’s defeat?

Although Paul Allen is upset but compared to Microsoft’s profits, his team is nothing. Just like what Bill Gates said. His team cannot make any money for him.

Paul Allen wants to kick Feng Yu out of the board, and without Feng Yu’s bonus shares at the end of the year, he can get more shares. The shares are worth more than his team.

Also, kicking Feng Yu out of the board will affect Feng Yu more, and Paul Allen can humiliate him.

“Bill, I am talking about Microsoft’s matters. We have an agreement with the hardware manufacturers that we will not produce PCs and its components, right?”

“Yes. The game console is not considered PC or PC components.” Bill Gates is puzzled why Paul Allen is asking him this.

“That means all our directors are not allowed to manufacture PC components, right?”

“Are you talking about Feng Yu’s shares in Lenovo? His stake in Lenovo has nothing to do with us. Also, the PCs he produced are not under Microsoft’s brand, and Lenovo’s primary market is in China. The Chinese government also has a stake in that company.”

“No. I am not talking about Lenovo. I am talking about a graphic card company, Nvidia.”

“I had heard of Nvidia before. But what does it have to do with Feng Yu and Microsoft? All hardware components have to be compatible with our software. Isn’t this normal?”

“But what if Feng owns the majority stake of this company? This company is specialized in graphic cards, and Feng is one of Microsoft’s directors and a member of the board. Will other hardware manufacturers think that we are using Feng Yu to enter the hardware market?” Paul Allen said.

“This… Nvidia has nothing to do with Microsoft, and Microsoft does not have any shares in that company. The other hardware manufacturer should not say anything.”

Bill Gates has a headache. Microsoft had been found guilty for Anti-trust last year because they had bundled and sold their products. Microsoft is also being sued for monopolizing the market in many countries.

If Microsoft is misunderstood for entering the hardware manufacturing sector now, the company will face more problems.

“Bill, stop hesitating. Feng is very ambitious. He wants to enter both the hardware and software industry and be the market leader in the IT sector. Last year, he was announced as the World’s Second Richest Billionaire, and he becomes arrogant. You might still win him this year, but what about next year? If Feng controls both the hardware and software, his net worth will shoot up and suppress you!”

Paul Allen knows how important the title of the World’s Richest Billionaire is to Bill Gates, despite the latter always showed he is not bothered by it.

Bill Gates paused for a second and said. “I think it’s time for me to have a talk with Feng.”

Chapter 1056 – On what grounds?

“Bill, you said you have something urgent to discuss with me?” Feng Yu entered Bill Gates’s office and sat on the sofa.

“Feng, I need to confirm something with you. I heard that you had acquired a graphic card manufacturer, Nvidia.”

“That’s right. It was quite troublesome to take over that company. Because of this company, I acquired two small Venture investment companies. But I only own the majority shares. What’s wrong? You want to invest too?” Feng Yu looks at Bill Gates with a smile. This is a hardware company. Do you dare to invest?

“Feng, you should know because of Microsoft dominance in the software industry, I cannot enter the hardware sector. Microsoft is now being sued for monopoly, but luckily the hardware manufacturers are supporting us. If we lose their support, then it will be a lose-lose situation for both parties.”

“Oh, that’s a pity.” Feng Yu replied. This person is the Richest billionaire in the world, but he is being restricted in so many areas. He cannot even invest as he wants.

Bill Gates is mad. What do you mean by it’s a pity? I am Bill Gates! The World’s Richest Man for several years! Do you think I need to be pitied?!

“Feng, I think you didn’t get what I mean. I am saying Microsoft cannot enter the hardware manufacturing industry or produce our own brand of PCs.” Bill Gates said.

“I know, and that’s why I said it’s a pity.”

“Feng, you are also from Microsoft!”

“I am from Microsoft? Who told you that? When people mention Microsoft, they will think of you, Paul, and Steve. Since when have I become Microsoft’s representative? Are you going to hand over the position of CEO to me?” Feng Yu asked.

Bill Gates almost exploded with anger by what Feng Yu said. What do you mean by I want to hand over my position to you?!

How many days have you spent in your office here in a year?! You want to be the CEO? Even if I have to leave my position, I will also pick Paul or Steve to be my successor. Why would I hand it to you?!

If you want to be Microsoft’s CEO, you must love and treat the company as your home first. You must treat it as your lifelong career!

Did you fulfill any of these requirements? You had failed in all aspects!

“Feng, no matter how you deny, you are one of Microsoft’s directors. Whatever you do, people will associate it with Microsoft.”

“Not really. Maybe you had thought too highly of Microsoft.” Feng Yu gave Bill Gates a side glance. Whatever I do, people will associate it with Microsoft?! What about Wind and Rain Holdings and Tai Hua Holdings? Microsoft might be the most valuable company in the world now, but it’s not as powerful as you think. You all might feel proud to be working for Microsoft, but to me, it is only another company.

This is not a company set up by Feng Yu, and Feng Yu also don’t own the majority shares. Even the brand has nothing to do with Feng Yu, and why should he feel proud of Microsoft?

Feng Yu had only made use of his status as Microsoft director for him to invest in the US. Now, he is the World’s Second Richest Billionaire, and he does not need Microsoft’s status anymore.

Feng Yu is still ranked second on this year’s <Forbes> list, but his net worth is estimated to be 30 billion USD. This is far from Bill Gates’s net worth of 45 billion, but many people believed Feng Yu will be the person who will exceed him in the future!

In fact, many people felt Feng Yu will overtake Bill Gates before he is 40 years old! This is because Feng Yu’s investments are diversified, and most of his companies are not listed.

Once the Feng Yu listed his companies, his net worth might exceed Bill Gates. Some people even estimate that Feng Yu’s net worth might be over Bill Gates if half of his companies are listed!

After all, when a company is listed, the share prices might shoot up, and the company’s value might multiply by several times.

Of course, Feng Yu’s proportion of shares will be diluted, but the value of his shares will increase, and his wealth can exceed Bill Gates.

After all, Feng Yu is an investment genius. He had never made any failed investments!

Feng Yu respected and disdained Bill Gates. He respected Bill Gates for setting up a successful company like Microsoft in a few years but disdain him for his arrogance. Did he really think that no one can take his position as the World’s Richest Billionaire title away from him?

“Feng, if those hardware manufacturers know that you own the majority stake in Nvidia, it will bring lots of problems to the company. They might think this is Microsoft’s action…”

“Who will think this is Microsoft’s action? I also own Lenovo’s shares. Did anyone say

Microsoft is controlling Lenovo through me?” Feng Yu interrupted Bill Gates.

“Yes! How did Lenovo grow so fast? How did Lenovo become Asia’s leading PC manufacturer within a few years, and why are they the distributors for Microsoft in China? They are also getting a subsidized rate for Microsoft operating systems.” Bill Gates replied.

Damn! These people thought Microsoft had helped Lenovo grow.

Lenovo can succeed is because they understand the Chinese market better and has the support of the Chinese government. Feng Yu had also given Lenovo some pointers, and their success has got nothing to do with Microsoft!

What you said had denied many people’s hard work, and do you think that without Microsoft, Lenovo will fail?

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Lenovo had become the world’s biggest PC manufacturer without Feng Yu’s future knowledge!

“Bill, you must understand that I am the biggest shareholder of Lenovo, and in Microsoft, I had lesser shares than Steve. Do you think I will agree to give up higher profits for less?”

Before Bill Gates could say anything, Feng Yu continued. “You are making it sound like I had taken advantage of Microsoft. But without my help, do you think Microsoft can be so successful in Asia? Do you think your market share can increase by so fast? You are hinting to tell me to give up my shares in Nvidia to prevent Microsoft from getting affected. I want to ask you. On what grounds?”

Chapter 1057 – Going separate ways

Bill Gates had not expected Feng Yu to speak to him in this firm tone.

Even when Bill Gates met the President of the United States, he held his head high. He suddenly realized that he seems to be weaker than Feng Yu.

Bill Gates is the World’s Richest Billionaire, and his assets are 1.5 times more than Feng Yu. This is a huge gap, and he does not think Feng Yu’s assets will exceed him when Feng Yu listed his companies.

After Win98 is launched, Microsoft’s profits had increased, and their share prices had skyrocketed. Microsoft share prices are estimated to double by year-end. At that time, Bill Gates’s assets can reach more than 90 billion USD.

Feng Yu’s shares in Microsoft are only worth 26 billion. How can Feng Yu be compared to Bill Gates? No matter how profitable Feng Yu’s other companies are, those companies will not reach 50 billion USD. He can increase their gap further!

The difference between Bill Gates and Feng Yu will increase, and how dare Feng Yu speak to Bill Gates in this manner?!

Bill Gates knows kicking Feng Yu out of Microsoft’s board of directors will not affect Feng Yu’s assets, as many of his companies are not related to IT.

But now, Bill Gates really felt like kicking Feng Yu out! Feng Yu only owns some voting shares, and he can only nominate the CEO. But he cannot determine who will be the CEO!

If Bill Gates really kick Feng Yu out of the board of directors, they will fall out. The video game console cooperation, which had just started, might be affected. More importantly, Microsoft’s sales in China will be in jeopardy.

Bill Gates decided to test Feng Yu first. If Feng Yu is willing to increase Microsoft software prices in China, he can overlook this matter.

Bill Gates is confident that those hardware manufacturers will not fallout with Microsoft over a small graphic card factory, which has nothing to do with Microsoft.

“Feng, I say this from Microsoft and your perspective. No matter how much you invested in other companies, Microsoft’s profits will be the highest. It will surpass your investment company. You should know how well our software is selling and our share prices will double by the end of this year! The company will be worth over 600 billion USD at that time, and do you know how much your Microsoft shares are worth?”

“Yes, so what?” Feng Yu asked.

That’s right. So what?

Feng Yu owns Microsoft’s shares, and Bill Gates can’t force him to sell his shares. That’s why if Microsoft makes money, Feng Yu will also make money. But when Feng Yu’s other companies make money, Microsoft will not get a cut.

Feng Yu can really ignore what Bill Gates says, and regardless if he is a director or not, he will still receive the dividends.

“Feng, if you invested in that hardware company, and outsiders assumed this is Microsoft’s plan, we will face more lawsuits, and our share prices will be affected! You will also suffer massive losses!”

“I don’t really care.” Feng Yu casually replied.

Even without Microsoft shares, Feng Yu is confident of surpassing Bill Gates in five to eight years. Microsoft had reached its peak, and after the year 2000, its share prices fall by more than 40% within five years!

All of Feng Yu’s investments will continue to do well, and some will even skyrocket. In terms of rate of return, Microsoft is not fantastic.

This will be the last year for Microsoft to shine, and Feng Yu had plans to sell off his Microsoft shares before early next year. If he can continue to be the director, he does not mind keeping those voting shares.

Bill Gates looks at Feng Yu in shock. What did he say? He doesn’t care?!

How can he doesn’t care? Who would not care about the growth of over 10 billion USD? Even as the World’s Richest Man, he is also very concerned with 10 billion USD.

We are talking about 10 billion USD and not 100 USD!

“Feng, we share a common interest, and I had given in to you for our video game console cooperation. It’s not too much for me to ask you to give in now, right?” Bill Gates replied.

“That is a joint venture, and the chances of success are higher if I own the majority stake. Without Microsoft, I can also develop my own game console. My companies had developed many technologies for this gaming console. But without me, Microsoft will fail! The ‘giving in’ you mentioned is just making the right business decision.”

“I had already asked earlier. On what grounds must I give in to you? Microsoft will gain the most profits if I give in, but what do I get in return? Also, this is my own company, and why should I give it up for Microsoft? If you are willing to increase my voting shares to 10%, I might consider.” Feng Yu smiled and said.

“Impossible!” Bill Gates rejected Feng Yu without hesitation.

If Bill Gates agreed to increase Feng Yu’s voting shares to 10%, who is going to give up their shares? Paul and Ballmer will not give up their shares, and the other shareholders do not have so many shares. He is the only one who had to give Feng Yu the voting shares.

But if Bill Gates gave Feng Yu the voting shares, he will own less than 50% of Microsoft. He will no longer have absolute control over the company.

Also, who knows if Feng Yu will demand other things if Bill Gates gives in to this request.

Paul is right! Feng Yu is too ambitious!

IBM is the only company that is strong in hardware and software. Is Feng Yu going to set up a second IBM?

Absolutely not!

“Feng, you are a director with Microsoft, and you must put Microsoft interests before yourself!”

“I am the biggest shareholder of Nvidia. Shouldn’t I consider Nvidia’s interest first? Feng Yu retorts.

The director or even the CEO is only a position. The shareholder is the investor and is also the boss!

“Feng, if that’s the case, then I think you are not suitable to be Microsoft’s director.” Bill Gates raises his voice.

Feng Yu knew Bill Gates will fall out with him sooner or later. But this is much earlier than he expected.

But… so what?

It’s only a director position. The privilege of being a director is only getting first-hand information. Even without this director’s status, he is also a shareholder of Microsoft and can attend the shareholders’ meeting. But it is only slightly more troublesome as shareholders meeting are not as frequent as board meetings.

“Bill, is this your decision? Fine. From now onwards, I am no longer a director with Microsoft. Microsoft can no longer interfere with my investments, right? Bill, you will regret today’s decision in the future!

Chapter 1058 – The excited Allen

Feng Yu walked out of Bill Gates’s office and called Ralph on the phone to pack up his office. They will not be using their office in Microsoft.

Bill Gates looks at Feng Yu’s back and suddenly regretted his decision. He shook his head to remove this thought.

Removing Feng Yu from the board of directors is the right decision for Microsoft and Bill Gates’s interest.

Feng Yu must be bluffing. How can he make Bill Gates regret? Is it because of his influence in China?

Microsoft’s distribution contract with Lenovo will end next year. Even if the contract is ending this year, Microsoft had sold lots of its software in China, and its market share is increasing steadily.

Without Lenovo, Bill Gates is confident that there will be other companies that are willing to be their distributors. They can also do without distributors, as they have a branch office in China.

Will Microsoft go downhill without Feng Yu’s help? No one had helped Microsoft in Europe, and they still managed to penetrate the European market.

…….

“Boss, all our stuff is packed, and the car is downstairs. Are we leaving just like that?” Ralph stood beside Feng Yu outside their office.

“Yes. Get someone to carry our things out. We have an office in Amazon, and we will leave some of our men here. You will move to your office in the Wind and Rain Empire State Building in a few days.” Feng Yu patted Ralph’s shoulder. Ralph did not say a word or ask anything when Feng Yu asked him to pack their stuff, and this is the attitude Feng Yu likes.

Ralph is quite capable and had completed most of the tasks given to him by Feng Yu.

Ralph is very excited. He can finally work at his New York office in Wind and Rain Empire State Building! He is sick of working in Microsoft.

Ralph had to withstand Paul Allen’s insults and sarcastic remarks, and Microsoft is located in a small city, unlike New York.

New York is Ralph’s hometown, and his wife and children will be glad to move there.

Among Feng Yu’s team of assistants, there is one staff who is a local in Washington. So, Ralph will let him remain in Washington to relay Amazon and Microsoft news to him.

Many Microsoft staff noticed Feng Yu and his men packing and leaving. Within five minutes, all Microsoft employees know about this.

An internal memo was issued by the Administrative department. “Due to personal reasons, Deputy Asia President, Feng Yu, had resigned as Director and Deputy Asia President. From now onwards, Feng Yu will no longer hold any position in Microsoft!”

This news shocked all the Microsoft employees.

What?! Feng Yu had resigned as Microsoft Director and Deputy Asia President?!

How is this possible? Who will give up these positions? Even when Feng Yu is the World’s second richest man, there is no reason for him to give up his authority in Microsoft. Furthermore, the top management staff will get bonus shares from the company.

Many staff speculates that Feng Yu had not resigned on his own accord. He should be fired by Microsoft or Bill Gates!

Didn’t Bill Gates invite Feng Yu to be Microsoft’s director? To get Feng Yu into the board of directors, Bill Gates had traded some voting shares with him. What happened today?

Is it because Feng Yu is a threat to Bill Gates’s status as the World’s Richest Man? If not, why did Feng Yu leave Microsoft?

But many employees noticed Feng Yu does not seem to be upset over his departure from Microsoft. In fact, he seems… happy?

That’s right. Many people saw Feng Yu smiling.

But why is Feng Yu smiling?

Feng Yu is happy because he is no longer a director of Microsoft and can dump Microsoft’s shares at the end of the year without needing to give an explanation.

Initially, Feng Yu felt sorry for Bill Gates if he dumps Microsoft’s shares and triggers the Dot.com bubble burst. After all, Bill Gates had helped him in the past.

But now, Feng Yu does not feel any pressure, and even look forward to that day. Wind and Rain Consulting had invested most of its funds into the US tech stocks, including Microsoft.

When Feng Yu announced that he sold all his Microsoft shares at the end of the year, it will be a severe blow to all the US tech firms. All their shares will plunge!

This will create a financial crisis.

But Feng Yu is not an American and should have sold all his US shares.

When all the Microsoft employees are guessing the reason why Feng Yu had left, one person is celebrating. This person is Paul Allen.

Success! Paul Allen had finally succeeded!

With Feng Yu kicked out of the board, Paul Allen will no longer need to look at Feng Yu’s irritating face. Even if he met Feng Yu at other places, he could look down on Feng Yu.

Paul Allen is still a Microsoft Director and the second-biggest shareholder, and Feng Yu no longer has any say in Microsoft!

“Mark! Notify our men to come to my house tomorrow. We will have a party. Oh… give each of them 10,000 USD as a bonus!”

Paul Allen’s assistant, Mark, immediately inform Paul Allen’s direct subordinates. As Paul Allen’s trusted aide, he knows why Paul Allen is in such a good mood.

Director Feng, the enemy of Paul Allen, was kicked out of Microsoft!

Chapter 1059 – The excited Allen

News of Feng Yu leaving Microsoft was passed to the media. This is not targeting Feng Yu. Microsoft is a listed company, and any movements of the top management must be reported.

After Feng Yu’s departure was announced, news media went to Microsoft to find out the reasons. The media was curious if Feng Yu was forced to resign.

The media found out that Feng Yu had left Microsoft yesterday, and Paul Allen represented Microsoft to make a statement. Feng Yu had resigned because he felt he is not suitable to take on the higher management role in Microsoft.

Paul Allen did not state why Feng Yu felt he is not suitable and only gave the reporters a mysterious smile, affirming the suspicions of Feng Yu was fired.

The reporters rushed to Feng Yu’s house but noticed there was a row of bodyguards outside. Feng Yu’s house is his private property, and no one dares to trespass. If anyone enters the premises without permission, the owner can open fire!

That’s why the reporters can only wait outside and don’t dare to enter. Even without the bodyguards, they are also worried that Feng Yu will shoot them.

“Boss, there are many reporters outside waiting to interview you. Should we ask them to leave?” Ralph had stayed in Feng Yu’s house yesterday and was shocked to see so many people outside.

“You can go and meet them and ask them to leave. You should know what to say.” Feng Yu continued eating his breakfast. Although it’s 10 am now, but he had stayed up late last night to play Legend of Mir. Hah! The American servers are all noobs!

Ralph walked out of the door, and Feng Yu received a call from Kirilenko.

“Feng, what happened? I received the news once I woke up. Did you really resign from Microsoft?” Kirilenko’s loud voice almost broke Feng Yu’s eardrums.

“Yes. I am no longer working in Microsoft, and I will just be one of the shareholders, without any responsibilities.” Feng Yu replied casually.

“Why? Is it because of Paul?” Kirilenko asked angrily.

“He is one of the reasons, but just him alone cannot decide whether if I can continue to stay in Microsoft. I had fallen out with Bill Gates, as he tried to interfere with my businesses.”

“Hmph! Who does he think he is? He dares to interfere with your business? Why don’t you dump your Microsoft shares? Anyway, our software company will be Microsoft’s competitor in the future.

“I intend to do so.” Feng Yu laughed.

“What did you say? You are really going to sell your Microsoft shares?! Microsoft shares are rising. Although it is not skyrocketing, it had never dropped. What are you thinking?!”

Kirilenko was very surprised. Feng Yu loves to invest in Microsoft, and in the past, his biggest investment is buying Microsoft shares. Why did he decide to sell off his Microsoft shares now? Just because he had fallen out with Bill Gates!?

But this should be impossible. Even if Feng Yu had a fallout with Bill Gates, those Microsoft shares still belong to Feng Yu, and he doesn’t have to sell. Furthermore, Feng Yu believes in letting others make money for him.

Kirilenko was joking earlier. Could Feng Yu be joking with him too?

“Who says Microsoft shares will not plunge? If I sell my Microsoft shares, the share prices will plummet. Alright. Don’t worry about me. I am fine, and I am just switching my investments to another company. There are no companies in this world that can remain at the top forever.”

“Feng, I had also bought some Microsoft shares. You must remember to inform me when you are going to dump their shares.”

“Hahaha… Don’t worry. Why will I not inform you?”

“Feng, are you really alright? Do you want me to visit you in Seattle for a drink?”

“No need. I will be going to New York in a few days. Let’s chat when I arrive.” Drink with me? You are just trying to make me drink with you!

After hanging up with Kirilenko, Fu Guangzheng called. “Brother Feng, I saw the news of your resignation from Microsoft.”

“Yes. Does everyone know about this now? It’s no big deal, and I also do not like being a director in the first place. You should know about this.”

“I understand. But I feel Microsoft is ungrateful, as you had helped them expand into China! This is killing the donkey the moment it leaves the millstone!”

Feng Yu: “……” You are a donkey! Who console others like this?!

“I am really alright, and I had wanted to quit in the first place. I will also sell off my Microsoft shares later and concentrate on growing Lenovo Kingsoft.”

“Are you really fine? Are you not disappointed?”

“What’s there to be disappointed? Not being a director will not stop me from making money. Do you think that others can step all over me just because I am no longer a director with Microsoft?” Feng Yu proudly replied.

Microsoft Director is only something additional. Even without this title, Feng Yu can still shine!

“Ok. I will be flying to the US in a few days. Lat’s catch up then.”

Feng Yu knows Fu Guangzheng is representing the Fu family in the call.

After a while, Li Zekai called to console Feng Yu. He is almost certain that Feng Yu was kicked out of Microsoft because when Feng Yu was still a director, he had never been to work. Although Feng Yu is not getting paid, he will get bonus shares at the end of the year.

Feng Yu had no reason to quit as being a director, or not will stop him from doing the things he wants.

Kameda Masao, Liu Chuanzhi, Heitaro Nakajima, etc. had called to console Feng Yu.

Feng Yu was speechless. Do I look like someone who cannot accept some setbacks in life? Furthermore, how does this consider a setback?

Feng Yu kept explaining to them… I am fine and don’t need any consolation. I am very happy… and had almost let off fireworks to celebrate…

So… Feng Yu went out to buy a lot of fireworks and set them off at his house!

The neighbors were talking about Feng Yu. Did you see that house there? Yes… the most beautiful house with a helicopter parked on the roof. That house belongs to the former Microsoft Director Feng Yu, and he was kicked out of Microsoft.

Look… he had gone crazy. If he is not crazy, why is he letting off fireworks?

You say Feng Yu is the World’s Second Richest man, and do not need the money? You are wrong. Feng Yu is someone who aims to overtake Bill Gates. After getting kicked out of Microsoft, he might not have the chance in his lifetime!

If Feng Yu knows what others are saying behind his back, he will… he will still set off the fireworks.

Feng Yu does not care about these speculations and gossips. At this time next year, everyone will know why he is celebrating!

Translator’s note: ‘Killing the donkey the moment it leaves the millstone’ is a Chinese idiom, which implies getting rid of somebody as soon as he finishes his job.

Chapter 1060 – Aiwa is being sued

“Kameda, Heitaro, why are both of you here?” Feng Yu was surprised to see Kameda Masao and Heitaro Nakajima in his Wind and Rain Empire State Building’s office.

Kameda Masao should be liaising with Tai Hua Holdings on its hard disk technologies as they had spent a lot of money to buy technologies. They should set up factories and a research center to continue developing it.

As for Heitaro Nakajima, AIWA had introduced a new earphone, and he should be focusing on its sales now.

“Boss, AIWA is being sued!” Heitaro Nakajima said.

“Huh? Being sued?! Why? By whom?” Feng Yu first thought to his mind is Sony is finding trouble with AIWA again.

“We are being sued by a company called, Recording Industry Association of America, for intellectual property rights infringements because we are allowing free downloads of MP3 songs.” Heitaro Nakajima explained.

Feng Yu frowned. “Didn’t I ask you all to set up a website that charges users when they download MP3, and you told me that it had been done?”

“Yes. The website is up, and our customers who bought our MP3 players will get a free account that allows them to have unlimited downloads for a month. We had also gotten the property rights to the songs. But many of the users are unhappy with the variety of songs on our websites, and some websites started providing free downloads of songs. This had nothing to do with us.”

Heitaro Nakajima is frustrated. He felt like he is a knife seller, and someone had bought and used the knife to kill someone. How can he be responsible for that crime? Furthermore, he had reminded this customer that the knife he sold is supposed to be used in the kitchen and not for killing others!

That Recording Industry Association must be jealous of the rising sales of AIWA’s MP3 players!

We are not selling counterfeits, and why are we being sued?

Kameda Masao added. “The courts in the US had accepted this case and want us to attend courts. I had hired the best lawyer on the East Coast, and we will win this case!”

“Yes. You are right. They are jealous of our product. Since we had done nothing wrong, we will fight this case to the end. Not only must we win this case, but we also have to drag it out by one or two months and let the media report about this.”

Heitaro Nakajima does not understand the purpose of doing this, but Kameda Masao replied with an ‘impressed’ expression. “Boss, you want to use this court case to promote our MP3 players? This will surely attract the attention of many people, and it is equivalent to advertising all over the US and the world. Our MP3 player sales will surely skyrocket!”

It’s easy to speak to a smart person. Heitaro Nakajima might be talented in developing music-related electronic products and management. Still, in terms of sales, Kameda Masao is much better.

Also, Heitaro Nakajima is getting older, and his mind is not as sharp as before. He is not as motivated in the past two years, compared to before. Seems like it’s time to get a successor for AIWA.

Heitaro Nakajima’s deputy is a good candidate. He is below 40 years old and had been working for Heitaro Nakajima for almost 20 years. He had experienced AIWA’s ups and downs with Heitaro Nakajima, and most importantly, he is ambitious and good at flattery like Kameda Masao.

Feng Yu does not like people without ambition. He is not afraid of his subordinates being ambitious, as none of his subordinates can escape his clutches!

“Heitaro Nakajima, our second generation of MP3 players, had been released. When are we introducing the third generation?” Feng Yu asked.

“We will release the third generation of MP3 players after we won the court case. This new MP3 player will have bigger storage of 512mb, and it’s only the size of two fingers. It will be using two No.7 batteries and can last for 8 hours. There will be an LCD display, and the customer can set up a playlist…”

Feng Yu nodded with satisfaction as he listened to Heitaro Nakajima’s introduction of their latest product.

That’s right. MP3 players must be small and compact, and this is the selling point of it.

Sony’s MD player is quite good, except for its size. Since it is a portable music player, it must be small.

The MP3 player is still using flash drive technology, and flash drives are very expensive now. But the good thing is you can add or remove the songs in the MP3 player with a PC.

The best part about the MP3 player is for the user to download the songs they want. Most CDs in the market are albums, and customers might not like all the songs in the album.

If CD does not have this flaw, cassette player Walkman would have been obsoleted a long time ago.

“Did anyone in the market notice our MP3 players, and start imitation?” This very important. The amount of energy and funds put into the development is very different when one is one step ahead, and the other is half a step ahead.

“Yes. Samsung had started their research on MP3 players and had introduced a model. But their player’s size and functions are the same as our first generation players. When their player is launched, other than South Korea, no customers are buying. Some other companies in South Korea had also looked into MP3 players but still have not produced any products. In the US, a company called Diamond had introduced an MP3 player that is similar to our second-generation players and is selling in North America.”

Heitaro Nakajima is very proud. Samsung had become a follower, and it’s hard for a follower to overtake him.

AIWA’s technologies, sales channels, factories, branding, etc. are stronger and is ahead of its competitors. The total sales of other brands MP3 players cannot be compared to AIWA.

“So companies are producing MP3 players. Are they sued?”

“No. We are the only ones who are sued. That’s why I am sure they are targeting us! Out of all the companies, only our companies are providing licensed MP3 songs to download on our website!”

When mentioned this, Heitaro Nakajima is furious. Why are you not suing the ones who are supposed to be sued?!

Feng Yu heard this and is mad. Do you think you can step all over us?! Is it AIWA is growing rapidly, and you all want to stop us?

If AIWA is the only company that was sued, the other companies might take this opportunity to overtake them. Since you all want to fight, then we will fight!

Feng Yu will use this opportunity to target the other company’s products. The Recording Industry Association claims that downloading pirated MP3 songs is illegal. We are providing MP3 songs with copyrights, and those companies are not. You all should sue them.

“Alright. We will fight them in courts, and our development must continue. Don’t be afraid of spending too much research funds, as this product will bring in lots of profit in the future. If you all encounter any problem with the lawsuit, inform me. I will think of a solution.”

Chapter 1061 – MP3 players

“Chairman, congratulations!” Norio Ohga’s assistant ran into Norio Ohga’s office excitedly.

“Huh? What happened?”

“Aiwa is being sued in the US, and it is reported in the newspaper. This will be a devastating blow to Aiwa’s brand!”

Norio Ohga’s eyes brighten up. “Where’s the newspaper? Let me see!”

“Aiwa’s newest product, MP3 player, is alleged to have infringed intellectual property rights and is being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America. The lawsuit will start on 19th March in the US…”

The smile on Norio Ohga’s face disappears slowly. Is the reporter an idiot? Why is the article not mentioning about the wrongdoings of Aiwa, and keep mentioning about the MP3 player? Is this a newspaper article about an advertisement?

This article had introduced the MP3 player’s features more detailed than Aiwa’s product launch! How can this be considered good news?!

“Our research department is also researching on this MP3, right? What can they develop a finished product? I am referring a better product than Aiwa!” Norio Ohga asked.

When Aiwa had introduced their first MP3 player, Sony had noticed this product and got together a development team to develop their own MP3 players.

Sony is also a leader in portable music players, and their electronic product-related technologies are also one of the most advanced in the world. Their team immediately analyzed the benefits of MP3 players and knows how to improve it.

Sony is looking at improving music quality, playtime, storage, size, etc.

Sony’s technology in music quality is lagging Aiwa now. Still, their storage, size, continuous playtime, etc. are on par with Aiwa.

No matter which aspects Sony is stronger than Aiwa, they will stand a chance to win against Aiwa’s MP3 players. The IT technologies are developing fast now, and electronic products will become smaller. In the future, Walkman, CD players, and MD players will be obsolete!

This is an opportunity for Sony to retake the top sport for portable music players and suppress Aiwa!

“Chairman, our research is from reverse engineering Aiwa’s MP3 players and had started much later. Currently, our technologies are only on par with Aiwa’s Second-generation of MP3 players. Our storage, battery life, and music quality are about the same as them, and we need a bit more time before we can develop better products. After all, most of our engineers are focusing on PlayStation’s development.”

When mentioned this, Norio Ohga is pissed.

Why is that Feng Yu always competing with Sony? When we are producing music players when Feng Yu entered the music player industry and took away most of our market share.

When we started manufacturing PCs, Feng Yu invested in Lenovo and made Sony’s PCs and laptops unsellable in China.

When we go into the video game console, Feng Yu started a joint venture with Microsoft to develop Gbox!

Why can’t you do something else and stop copying us?!

But Sony is not afraid of anyone when it comes to the video game console. They had come from behind and overtaken Nintendo, and are confident to suppress Feng Yu’s Gbox.

Don’t think you all started a game development company, and you all can win against Sony. Your companies are mostly developing online games and are different from our PlayStation and 3D games.

Regardless of video game console or handheld gaming devices, you all are doomed to fail!

“Tell the research department to increase manpower and fund on the MP3 project. After this lawsuit ends, we must launch Sony’s MP3 players into the market!”

“Chairman, this product will infringe intellectual property rights. Will our brand image be affected if we sell this product?” Norio Ohga’s assistant asked.

“Who says Aiwa will lose this lawsuit? Who says Aiwa will be found guilty for infringing intellectual property rights? That Recording Industry Association of America is stupid, and Aiwa will win this lawsuit for sure. They will also use this opportunity to promote their MP3 players, and increase this player’s popularity.” Norio Ohga shook his head as his assistant is too short-sighted.

“Why?”

“Let me ask you. How much does an original cassette tape, CD, VCD, and DVD cost? This is telling the consumers that they do not have to pay to listen to songs if they use this product in the future. All the consumer needs to do is to download songs from the internet. This is equivalent to not needing to spend money on cassette tapes, CDs, etc. forever. Even if there are charges, it will be much cheaper. Do you think the consumers will be interested?”

The assistant was stunned. This product will be extremely popular.

Once a product becomes popular, it will have a significant impact on Sony. After all, Sony’s record label is one of its main revenue sources. This product will cut off one of Sony’s revenue sources.

“Chairman, then why are we still developing this product? Shouldn’t we be suppressing it instead? This will hurt our revenue, as we own lots of song copyrights.

“No. This will be our advantage. We must encourage the growth of this product and encourage people to spend money to download songs from our website. This way, our music copyrights and value will increase.”

Norio Ohga is very disappointed with his assistant. He can’t even comprehend such a simple thing and is not worth grooming him as a successor. At most, he can only be a good executioner of orders!

“Oh, get our men to acquire a few websites that provide MP3 downloads, and put our songs up for downloads. Remember, we must collect fees for the downloads, and let the Music copyrights management department to decide on the charges. It must be cheaper than cassette tapes.”

At the same time, Samsung knows about Aiwa’s lawsuit. The head of Samsung is regretting his decision of not developing this product two years ago when his subordinate suggested.”

But at that time, Samsung was undergoing restructuring and had no time to focus on this product. Thus, they had missed the opportunity and let Aiwa developed the first MP3 player.

However, Samsung is not discouraged, as they are much bigger than Aiwa. They have more research engineers and will overtake Aiwa sooner or later. Samsung’s MP3 player will be the most advanced in the world!

Many companies noticed the prospect of this MP3 player after news of Aiwa’s lawsuit spread, and they started to develop this product.

Almost all consumer electronic products felt this type of music player will replace Walkman, CD players, MD players, etc. and will be the only music player left!

This cake is too big for Aiwa to eat, and the other companies will have a chance to grab a slice!

Chapter 1062 – High Compensation

Aiwa and the Recording Industry Association of America’s first court appearance had ended. Both sides had produced evidence backing up their case, and the jury cannot decide on the judgment.

In the end, the judge ordered a deferment and a second session.

When Heitaro Nakajima walks out of the court, he was surrounded by the reporters arranged by Kameda Masao.

“Mr. Heitaro Nakajima, do you all admit that you all had infringed the intellectual property rights of those songs?”

“Mr. Heitaro Nakajima, what do you have to say about this lawsuit?”

“Mr. Heitaro Nakajima, I heard that you did not say much during the trial. Is it that you had admitted to the charges?”

……

The reporters jostled for space and pushed their microphones in Heitaro Nakajima’s face. Heitaro Nakajima stood on the steps and smiled to those reporters. He took a glance at another group of reporters interviewing the representative from the Recording Industry Association of America. As for the reporters’ question, he had prepared all the answers.

“Let me reply to all your questions. Our product had not infringed any intellectual property rights. I don’t have anything to say is because the evidence provided by the other party is a joke. I am afraid I burst out laughing in court, and the judge will charge me for contempt of court…”

On the other side, the representative from the Recording Industry Association of America is speaking to the reporters. He claimed that they have evidence and the importance of intellectual property rights. He also claims that Heitaro Nakajima’s lawyer is twisting the facts.

The next day, all major newspapers and some TV stations in the US reported about this lawsuit. On the internet, news about this lawsuit spread faster.

Usually, such cases will not spread so fast, as many lawsuits are ongoing every day.

This had something to do with Kameda Masao. Kameda Masao had arranged for people to spread about this lawsuit.

In the West, the jury will vote and decide on the outcome of the lawsuits. They felt the jury members were randomly selected from different walks of life, and it will be fair to both parties.

But the jury members were often influenced by the media, and this system is not really fair.

The wealthy will have an advantage over the poor, as the wealthy can hire a team of lawyers, while the poor might not even afford a lawyer. With money, one can make use of the media and people to influence the jury.

Even if the rich lose the lawsuit, he can afford to appeal against the judgment.

Now, both parties had gone to the media to influence the jury. The Recording Industry Association of America is demanding compensation. They want 20 USD for every MP3 player sold to compensate for their losses.

This is daylight robbery!

I bought a fishing rod, and I must pay for your losses in your fish pond!? Just because you suspect I used my fishing rod for fishing at your pond, and you want me to compensate you?! What rubbish?!

Aiwa’s legal team insists Aiwa is innocent and wants to sue the Recording Industry Association of America for slander. Not only the Recording Industry Association of America must make a public apology, but they must also compensate for the damages to Aiwa’s brand image, reputation, and monetary losses. Aiwa is demanding 100 million USD damages!

Of course, Aiwa knows that they can never get 100 million USD. Basically, Aiwa had suffered no losses, as their MP3 player sales shot up.

As for brand image and reputation, no one thinks Aiwa is in the wrong. Furthermore, a public apology is a big deal in the US.

In the US, people felt that God will forgive you if you repent sincerely. That’s why if Aiwa won the lawsuit, they could get a public apology, but it’s hard to get the damages.

When Feng Yu arrived in the US, someone asked about his religion. Don’t tell me that the Chinese do not have religions?!

People make it sound like it is a sin, and he will go to hell for not having any religions!

Many people in the US tried to get Feng Yu into their religion. They claimed that their almighty God will take care of him, etc.

Damn! If God is really so powerful, why are there so many crimes in this world? Why didn’t God stop them? You all said that if you repent to God, God will forgive you. Does that mean nothing will happen to me if I beat you up now and repent later?

Then, what’s the point of having law and police?

It’s God that forgives you after you repent, and not me. Also, an apology is towards the other party does not mean the other party must forgive you.

Feng Yu told Heitaro Nakajima to get his lawyers to think of reasons to demand 1 billion USD compensation from the Recording Industry Association of America. This is to blow up this lawsuit and make sure everyone knows about this.

1 billion USD compensation is higher than the compensation in Microsoft’s antitrust lawsuit!

Even without Kameda Masao getting his men to spread the news of this lawsuit, the media will pick it up.

When this happens, Aiwa’s MP3 player will be mentioned countless times by the news media and will give the viewers the impression that only AIWA is selling MP3 players.

Aiwa’s MP3 player will be positioned in the consumer’s mind, and Aiwa will be their first choice if they decided to buy an MP3 player in the future.

……

“Feng, Aiwa is your company, right? What happened? Why are you all being sued? Hurry and hire some good lawyers to win this lawsuit.” Kirilenko said worryingly.

“What’s the hurry? The new product had just started production. We will wait until our retail shops and sales point receive the new products.” Feng Yu replied casually.

Kirilenko is confused. Do you think you can choose when to win the lawsuit? Are lawsuits so easy to win in the US?

“Feng, are you joking with me?”

“I am not joking. There is no hurry to win this lawsuit and that the Recording Industry Association of America is a joke. I had never heard of companies restricting customers on how they use a product. They are just jealous of the profits of MP3 players. But honestly, we still have not made any profit from our MP3 players.”

Although the retail price of the MP3 player is quite high, the development fund is even higher. However, Feng Yu, Heitaro Nakajima, and the rest are confident that when the third-generation of MP3 player is launched into the market, their MP3 player will start making profits for the company!

As this product gains popularity, Aiwa will lower their production of Walkman and CD players. The company’s focus will be switched to MP3 players, earphones, etc.

“Alright. If you need any help, just let me know. I have some friends here who can help.” Kirilenko said.

“Ok. If I really need help, I will let you know.”

In the next court session, Aiwa will defeat the Recording Industry Association of America, and also drag Sony, who is going to imitate them, into the picture!

Chapter 1063 – Sony was sued

Sony had acquired several MP3 music downloads sites and merged them together under Sony Music. They are prepared to charge users of this website after they introduced their MP3 players.

But Sony had forgotten something important. The websites they acquired had been doing illegal downloads!

“Heitaro Nakajima, do you know that the consumers, who had bought your MP3 players, had been downloading music illegally?”

Heitaro Nakajima’s lawyer stood up and replied slowly. “Plaintiff lawyer, I have a question for you. Have you thrown away a glass bottle of soft drink or a wine bottle before?”

“Of course. Why are you asking? I had thrown it into the rubbish bin!” The plaintiff lawyer replied carefully.

“This report states that someone had used a thrown soft drink bottle as a weapon for murder. Can I assume that you have the intention of providing weapons to criminals?”

“You are talking rubbish. How would I know that the glass bottle will be used as a weapon by criminals?”

“Then, how do we know the people who bought our MP3 players will use it to download songs illegally?” Heitaro Nakajima’s lawyer retorted.

“Your honor, members of the jury, I admit websites are providing illegal downloads of MP3 music online, but I had already reported all of them. Aiwa has a website that provides one-month legal music downloads for our customers who had bought our MP3 players. We had bought and own the rights of all the songs on our website.”

“We had done our best on intellectual property protection. On the contrary, the Recording Industry Association of America was exposed to have sold the works of another music company without authorization. Please take note of this.”

The Recording Industry Association of America’s lawyers were dumbfounded. They quickly reorganized their rebuttal and start attacking again.

But their rebuttals are useless, as the jury is more inclined towards Aiwa. The lawsuit was far-fetched in the first place, and Aiwa’s lawyer had pointed out the ones responsible for the illegal downloads. If the Recording Industry Association of America still insisted on their case, it will show they have other motives!

“What’s wrong? You all cannot find the people behind those illegal downloads’ websites?! As a responsible company that supports intellectual property rights protection, we will provide some assistance to you. These websites had previously offered illegal downloads of music and were acquired by a company recently. We are also trying to fight piracy.”

Aiwa’s lawyer submitted a document to the court, and the judge looks at the jury.

The judge called for an adjournment, and the jury entered a room to discuss the verdict.

Half an hour later, the jury decided.

“The jury finds Aiwa not guilty of the charges made by the Recording Industry Association of America!”

Heitaro Nakajima and his lawyers sat there calmly and did not celebrate. They had known this outcome a long time ago and had never thought they would lose.

……

“Mr. Heitaro, what do you have to say about the verdict?”

“Mr. Heitaro, you had said that you will sue the Recording Industry Association of America for damages of 100 million USD. Is it true?”

“Mr. Heitaro, why I don’t see any happiness on your face after you all had won?”

Reporters had surrounded Heitaro Nakajima again outside of the courts. This time, the reporters are not arranged by Kameda Masao.

Many people are watching this lawsuit closely, and naturally, the media will want to report on this.

“The jury had found us not guilty as what we expected. We are not guilty in the first place, and what’s there to feel happy? As for suing the Recording Industry Association of America… I had discussed with my lawyers, and they felt asking 100 million USD is not suitable.” Heitaro Nakajima replied calmly.

“How much damages are you all going to ask for? 1 million USD? 10 million USD?” A reporter thought to himself. ‘You all realized that the compensation you all are asking for is too high?’

“No… We are suing them for 1 billion USD damages!”

Huh?!

The reporters gasped in shock. 1 billion USD will be the highest lawsuit this year, and one of the top ten lawsuits in history.

On the other side, the representative of the Recording Industry Association of America overheard the amount Aiwa was suing them for and thought he had heard wrongly. Is Aiwa crazy? On what grounds can they sue for such high compensations? The court will not entertain them.

But at this moment, the representative of the Recording Industry Association of America must divert the media’s attention.

“We, the Recording Industry Association of America, will sue those websites that provide illegal MP3 music downloads. We have a list of these websites, and we will sue them based on the downloads. We estimate the damages will not be lesser than 100 million USD!”

Wow….

The reporters were stunned by what the representative said. Those websites are going to be in trouble.

……

“Chairman, we are being sued!”

Norio Ohga was reading a document when his assistant barged into his office. He looked at his assistant angrily. “What’s wrong?! Why are you panicking?! I had told you many times not to behave this way!”

Norio Ohga had not heard what his assistant shouted earlier.

“Chairman, we are being sued!”

“Huh? Who is suing us, and why?” Norio Ohga frowned. Every year, many people tried to sue Sony, and most of them are trying to con money from them. That’s why Norio Ohga is not surprised.

Everything will be fine as long as the plaintiff is not backed by a country, like last time.

“It’s that Recording Industry Association of America.” This company is fighting a lawsuit with Aiwa. Why are they suing Sony?

“Why?”

“Do you still remember those websites we acquired? The websites that provided MP3 music download. The Recording Industry Association of America is claiming our website is providing illegal downloads of music and had infringed intellectual property rights. They are demanding 100 million USD!” Norio Ohga’s assistant exclaimed.

“What?! 100 million USD?!”

Norio Ohga stood up and accidentally knocks over his teacup. He had just told his assistant not to panic, but now, he is the same.

Norio Ohga had not expected this to happen. All they did was to acquire some websites. Why are they being sued? Is the Recording Industry Association of America stupid? What those websites did in the past has nothing to do with Sony.

Didn’t they know those websites stopped providing illegal downloads of music after Sony acquired them?

Norio Ohga was waiting to laugh at Aiwa, but now, Sony will be a laughingstock to Aiwa.

Sony is now in the center of the illegal downloads’ saga!

Chapter 1064 – Product launch

Media from the US, Japan, UK, etc. had been reporting on the lawsuits between Aiwa, Sony, and the Recording Industry Association of America.

After Sony was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America, they found out the list of websites is provided by Aiwa’s lawyers. So, Sony sued Aiwa for accusing them of providing illegal downloads of MP3 music.

These three companies started suing each other with their team of lawyers in New York. That’s why these three companies were on the headlines in the past few days.

Every report from the media will mention the MP3 player, and the MP3 player had become famous.

When the lawsuits were still ongoing, Aiwa received news that Samsung is introducing their second-generation MP3 players, and Sony, Panasonic, Diamond, etc. companies will be launching their players. All these companies are trying to make use of the media’s attention on the MP3 player.

Heitaro Nakajima discussed with Feng Yu and decided to bring forward the launch of their third-generation of MP3 players. This is to let those companies know the difference in their technologies between them and Aiwa!

The product launch is held in New York, as all the lawsuits are happening there too.

……

“I would like to thank the media and representatives of the various company for attending Aiwa’s product launch. Although some companies did not receive our invitation, we still welcome you all.”

Heitaro Nakajima stood on the stage proudly. Look… our product launch is so successful that many companies who were not invited had come to attend. All of them want to look at our latest product and learn from us!

“Everyone… this is our AIP3. Aiwa’s third-generation MP3 player.”

Heitaro Nakajima stood in front of a big screen and points to the product on the screen.

“In my hand, this is the actual product. 13 cm long, 2.8 cm wide, and 3.2 cm thick. It is using two No. 7 batteries and can last 10 hours of continuous playtime.”

Wow…

The audience gasped. They could not tell how small the MP3 player is from the picture on the screen. Still, when the camera zooms in to Heitaro Nakajima’s hand, they realize how tiny this player is.

“This product is small and portable, and it will come in a variety of colors. The colors will be using our company’s usual color series. If you use our latest Magical eight-generation earphones with AIP3, you will get the best music quality.”

“The storage of AIP3 is 512 MB, and every generation of our MP3 players’ storage will double in size. The first-generation is 128 MB, the second-generation is 256 MB, and this third-generation is 512 MB! We had incorporated the most advanced flash drive technologies into AIP3 and increased its durability.”

“Look at this small port over here. This is to connect AIP3 with the PCs through the USB port. We can download MP3 music into our PCs and transfer them into AIP3, or download MP3 music directly into AIP3.”

“Because the storage of AIP3 is 512 MB, there is an additional feature. AIP3 can be used as a portable drive. You can save your documents into AIP3 and transfer the files into another PC. For example, you can save all your work into AIP3 and show your boss. This will prevent your boss from asking you to bring different documents every now and then.”

The reporters and company representatives laughed.

“Look at the LCD display on AIP3. It will display battery life, time, and song’s title. Do you think that’s all to it? No! This display can also display the lyrics of the song you are playing in real-time. Everyone can look at the display and sing along to the song you are listening to. We no longer need to hold a piece of paper with the lyrics.”

Wow…

The audience was amazed. It’s nothing special to display the song’s title as many portable music players like CD players have this function.

But displaying the song’s lyrics at the same time with the song playing is something unique.

The representatives of many consumer electronic companies were impressed. No wonder Aiwa dares to claim they are the leading company in the industry.

“Look at this button. If you press once, AIP3 will play the next song, and if you press this button, it will switch to the previous song. This button is the pause and start button. The button here is the on/off switch, and these two buttons are volume control. If you have Aiwa’s mini speakers at home, you can connect AIP3 to it and play all your favorite music from the speakers!”

Clap… clap… clap…

The audience claps, and most of them were amazed by this small device. But some are dejected and frustrated.

Damn! Aiwa had launched the 512 MB MP3 player into the market. The representative from Diamond is dejected. Can they catch up with Aiwa? Aiwa is one of the world’s leading portable music player company and specialized in music-related consumer electronic products.

Samsung Group’s representative is also frustrated. His company had invested a lot into his subsidiary for them to develop this technology. But now, he realized after spending so much on the development, they are still far away from Aiwa. Just the size alone, Samsung’s MP3 player is several times bigger and is not convenient for their customers to bring it out.

Sigh… if Samsung Group had not restructured, and South Korea was not hit by the Asian Financial Crisis, they might have developed this MP3 player a long time ago. Even if they cannot overtake Aiwa’s product, but they should be about the same.

Samsung Group’s representative is still very impressed with Aiwa’s product designers. How did they come up with these functions? Also, how did they make these functions work?

Sony’s representative and Panasonic’s representative looked at each other bitterly. When Aiwa launched their first MP3 player, they had started to research and develop their MP3 player. They thought with their technologies, they can catch up and overtake Aiwa in a short time. After all, this product is different from Walkman and CD players. It’s more inclined towards electronic products than home appliances products.

But Aiwa is too far ahead from Sony and Panasonic.

“Mr. Heitaro, how much is AIP3 selling for? What’s the retail price?”

“The box will include an MP3 player, a pair of our Magical Eighth-generation earphones, two No. 7 Tai Hua alkaline batteries, a data cable, and a one-month unlimited music downloads from our Aiwa’s music website. The retail price is 199 USD!”

Sony and other companies’ representatives felt even more bitter. 199 USD for so many things. Their products cannot even compete with Aiwa’s pricing. Are they destined to fail?

Chapter 1065 – Hunger marketing

“It’s my turn… It’s my turn. Give me the white color model, and four batteries with my change of 1 USD.” A blonde young man waved two 100 USD bills and shouted.

“Sir, these are the items you wanted, and here’s the receipt. We provide three months warranty as long as the damage is not caused by an external force. You can do a full refund within one week and get a brand-new replacement within one month if it is faulty.” The store assistant passed a box to that young man and repeated the same line emotionlessly.

The people at the back of the line shouted. “Leave after you are done. We are still waiting!”

Feng Yu is pleased to see the long line outside one of Aiwa’s sales points. Everyone knows about the MP3 player now and knows how useful this little device is.

Many people felt an MP3 player will change the world and replace all other portable music players. This will be the mainstream music player in the future.

Also, it had become a trend to use an MP3 player. Why are you still using a Walkman, CD player, MD, etc.? It is already outdated!

Don’t think the kids from western countries will not compare among themselves. In fact, the comparison among them is more severe than the kids in China, and they are more brand conscious.

Aiwa is one of the leaders in the portable music player industry, and its brand is well-known.

Furthermore, Aiwa had used the most advanced technologies, and the music quality, designs, etc. are unique!

On the day the third-generation MP3 player goes on sale, long queues formed up outside the retail stores. Luckily, Heitaro Nakajima had ordered his factories to increase production, and they did not run out of stocks on the first day.

“Boss, not only our retail stores have long queues, our distributors are calling us to make additional orders. We are making more than 50 USD in profits at the retail price of 199 USD. We estimate the sales of this MP3 player will hit more than 1 million units!”

Only one million units? Feng Yu is not satisfied with this figure. Popular models of Walkman and CD player can easily reach 1 million units of sales. This is an MP3 player, and it is more high-tech. How can it be only 1 million units?

Feng Yu tapped on his temple as he tried to recall how those businessmen sell their products and sales tactics in his previous life.

Feng Yu suddenly slapped his forehead. He got an idea. Hunger marketing!

“Heitaro Nakajima, have you consider taking in pre-orders?” Feng Yu asked.

“Pre-orders? Why should we let the customers pre-order when we have ready stocks?” Heitaro Nakajima asked.

“No. Our product is too popular, and we had run out of stocks!” Feng Yu firmly replied.

“No. I had increased the production lines of our factories since our first-generation of the MP3 player. We had also reduced the production lines for Walkman, CD players, etc. and converted them to MP3 player production lines. Our monthly production is over 150,000 units. Moreover, we had started production for more than one month before.” Heitaro Nakajima replied.

Heitaro Nakajima does not want to let Feng Yu has the impression that he is incapable. He might be old now, and maybe Feng Yu will pick his successor in another two years. But he still wants to prove to Feng Yu that he is a qualified leader and hope to work longer in Aiwa.

“Heitaro Nakajima, you did not get what I said. I am asking you to announce that we are running low on stocks. If the consumers have the impression that if they don’t buy our MP3 player now, they will not get it anytime soon. What do you think will happen?” Feng Yu hinted.

“There will be two possibilities. First, some consumers will pick the cheaper and inferior products from other brands. After all, there are more than 10 brands of MP3 players in the market now. Although those MP3 players cannot be compared to us, it’s like our Walkman. We are selling at 22 USD, and other brands are selling at 6 USD. People will still pick the cheaper option.”

“The second possibility is more people will be queuing up outside our stores to grab our products. Our sales will skyrocket in a short period, and our products might really be out of stock!”

“That’s right. You had analyzed the consumer behavior very accurately. Other companies’ MP3 players might be cheaper than ours, but they cost at least 150 USD. Those MP3 players might not have as many functions, but their technologies are not as good as us, and their production cost will not be lower than us. That’s why these companies do not have a pricing advantage, and consumers who are willing to spend 150 USD on an MP3 player, will not mind spending 200 USD for a better one. They will never get an inferior product just to save 50 USD!”

“Secondly, more people will buy our products after we announced we are running low on our stocks. So what if we are really out of stocks? All our stocks are sold, and those consumers who did not manage to get one can pre-order. We can give a discount of 10 USD for pre-orders. This way, we can use their deposits to convert our Walkman and other portable music players’ production lines. I had mentioned before that only a few years is left for the portable music player market, and the CD player market will shrink drastically. That’s why we must stop the production of CD players immediately.”

Heitaro Nakajima is impressed. Use the customers’ deposits to produce our products is something he had never thought about.

Cash is critical to every company, especially the companies in the manufacturing industry. If a company’s cash flow is disrupted, the company might be bankrupted anytime.

Although Aiwa has enough funds, after giving out dividends, increased development funds, and converting the production lines, the company’s fund is running low.

Aiwa had also increased their spending on advertising, and they still have ongoing lawsuits. The amount spent on lawyers is significant.

If Aiwa can use other people’s money to purchase raw materials and manufacture products, it can relieve the pressure on their finances. More importantly, this will stimulate the product’s sales.

The MP3 player is the trend now. All youngsters with money will want to own one, and there are millions of wealthy young people out there.

If one of their friends own one MP3 player and they don’t have, they will be envious of others.

At this time, even if there are no stocks, they will also try to pre-order one. They will not mind waiting two weeks, or even up to one month for the MP3 players.

This is a real portable music player that can fit into pockets. It is more convenient and portable than other products, and consumers can even use it when they are engaging in outdoor sports.

“Boss, you are too creative. Although it will lower our profits, it will also lower our risks and pressure on our cash flow. Our sales will also increase. I am confident this model of MP3 player will reach 2 million units!”

Feng Yu patted Heitaro Nakajima’s shoulder. “That’s right. This should be the attitude! We will bring the best music quality to our users and crush all our competitors!”

“Boss, don’t worry. I promise no other companies can compete with us with their MP3 players!”

Chapter 1066 – Sony’s defective products

Nobuyuki Idei, Sony’s President, is speaking to Norio Ohga.

“Norio, you have been working in Sony for quite some time, right?”

Norio Ohga’s heart skipped a beat. It sounded like he is going to be asked to leave.

“President, I had been with Sony since I started working.”

“Yes. All of us can see your contribution to Sony. During Sony’s tough times, you took over the role of President, and turned Columbia Pictures, a loss-making entity, around. You had done more than what we had expected of you.” Nobuyuki Idei said.

“That’s because you had guided us in the right direction. All I did was to execute your orders.” Norio Ohga modestly replied. Columbia Pictures can be profitable is because the value of their copyrights had increased.

Why did the value of the copyrights increase? That’s because of the appearance of VCDs and DVDs, and Sony had sold tons of movie discs.

Norio Ohga had to thank Feng Yu, the person he hated the most, for inventing the VCD player. If not, all these VCDs will not be sold.

“You had ordered the portable music player department to develop MP3 players. Does that mean you also think MP3 player will replace all other music players?”

“That’s right. Other than MD players, our Walkman and CD player’s sales are lagging behind Aiwa. Even Panasonic, which was once suppressed by us, had taken away some of our market shares. All these products cannot be compared to the MP3 player. The only flaw with the MP3 player is the music quality. Other than that, it is more advance in all aspects.”

“Oh? More advanced in all aspects? I don’t think so… Can MP3 record? Don’t forget our MD player’s advantage of recording music and sounds.”

Norio Ohga’s eyes lit up. He knows how to get Sony out of its sticky situation now.

“Thank you, President, for your guidance. I know what to do now. Sony’s MP3 players will definitely exceed Aiwa in the future! We will be the leader in portable music player again!”

……

“Chairman, we had received a piece of good news. There are some problems with Aiwa’s MP3 player’s sales!” Norio Ohga’s assistant rushed into his office excitedly.

“Oh? What happened?” Norio Ohga got excited too. It will be Sony’s opportunity if something happened to their competitors. His biggest wish is there are problems with Aiwa’s MP3 player’s quality!

“They had run out of stocks!”

Norio Ohga’s face changed. “They had sold out their MP3 players, and you are saying this is a piece of good news?!”

“But after they run out of stocks, the demand for MP3 players is still increasing. Do you think the consumers will buy our products if they cannot get Aiwa’s MP3 players?” Norio Ohga’s assistant asked excitedly. This time, Sony’s MP3 player’s sales will shoot up.

Norio Ohga is furious. Since when Sony must pick up the leftovers from Aiwa? We have always been Aiwa’s main competitor, and we will defeat them.

Just like the video game console, when Nintendo ditched us aside, we developed our own console, and our market share had overtaken Nintendo now.

Now, instead of thinking about how to improve our products to beat Aiwa, you are celebrating because they had sold out all their stocks?!

Norio Ohgo is sick of this assistant. He decided to look for his replacement and send him to a subsidiary for retraining.

“Alright. I know about this. Inform our factories to increase production and lower the cost. We will seize this opportunity to get the market share.” Norio Ohga waved his hand impatiently.

Although Norio Ohga dislikes using this method, he had to admit this is a good opportunity for Sony to increase its MP3 player’s sales.

When a company’s product sales and market share increases, it can be used as a form of marketing. They can inform their potential customers that many people had bought our products, and there must be a reason for that. It’s up to the consumers to guess the reason.

Anyway, Sony will never admit that their sales went up because their competitor had run out of stocks to sell.

…….

“Chairman, Sony had suddenly increased their MP3 player’s advertisements, and started to stock up their MP3 players in the cities.” Heitaro Nakajima’s assistant reported.

“Really? What are our pre-order figures now?” Heitaro Nakajima calmly asked.

“At 9 am this morning, there are 86,123 pre-orders.”

“Ok. There is nothing to worry about. Inform the marketing department to start.”

Heitaro Nakajima knew once Aiwa runs out of stocks, Sony will increase their marketing to snatch the market share.

But Heitaro Nakajima will never let Sony succeed. Even if Aiwa does not have MP3 players to sell, we can also stop you all!

…….

Sony’s retail stores are very crowded today. Many people had rushed into their stores with Sony’s MP3 players for refunds.

“I want a refund! What rubbish is this?! How can you all sell this trash at such high prices?!”

“That’s right! This player’s functions and quality cannot be compared to Aiwa, and the design is too ugly!”

“High-quality audio?! You all dare to claim this is high-quality audio?! I had bought this player to listen to music. Listen to this! This is torture!”

“Refund! Refund!”

Sony’s retail store’s manager is panicking. What’s wrong? Why did so many customers demanding refunds once they open their doors? If this carries on, which customer will buy their products?!

If these customers report to the media, it will be a severe blow to Sony’s brand reputation, and he will be kicked out of the store.

The manager felt his soul had left him when the reporters arrived with cameras to film the chaotic scene. He immediately gets his staff to stop the reporters, but it’s too late.

…….

Norio Ohga is in his office watching the news when he suddenly saw a live segment where a reporter is conducting an interview. The interview is in Sony’s retail store.

Yes… the store is packed with people. Is this arranged by the Public Relations department? Good job. Now, consumers will think Sony’s products are still popular.

But soon, Norio Ohga realized something was off. Why is the store manager running out of the store with his staff to block the reporter? Why are the customers holding up Sony’s MP3 player’s box and demanding refunds?!

What is going on? What is the Public Relations department doing? How can such things be reported on live TV?!

Before Norio Ohga can call the person in charge of Public Relations into his office, he heard the shouting from the TV. “Sony had sold us defective goods! We want our money back! Refund us!”

Norio Ohga felt his blood pressure rising. Who says our products are defective?!

The quality checks at Sony’s factories must be punished! This is destroying Sony’s brand!

Akio Morita

Chapter 1067 – MP3 and Data storage technologies

Steve Jobs looks at the small device in front of him. This small device can play music, and he got to admit that the product development engineers at Aiwa are genius.

But Steve Jobs noticed some flaws in the MP3 players. For example, the LCD screen is too small, and can only display two rows of lyrics, and there are no internal batteries. The power consumption is quite high, and there are too many buttons, making the device looks complicated, etc.

If Steve Jobs were to design this MP3 player, he would make the screen bigger, smaller about the size of half a palm, and flatter. The controls will be in a circle, and everything else will be simplified. He will also increase the storage, and the player must be very light.

Steve Jobs called his men over and told them his ideas.

Apple is also going to manufacture its own MP3 players. Still, they will not name it as an MP3 player, as they will be seen as copying others. Steve Jobs wants everyone to know this is Apple’s product when they hear the product’s name. Yes, this music player can be called iPod, just like the way we call our PCs, iMac.

If they were to increase the internal storage, then it’s not worth using flash drive technologies. The cost will be too high, and they should use hard disks for storage, and it will increase the storage size several times. They can also sell it at higher prices, making more profits.

Also, the iPod can be used as a portable hard drive, and it should be more popular.

Currently, there is a high demand for a portable storage device in the market, and the traditional floppy disks are slowly being obsoleted. Almost all PCs manufacturers in the market stopped including floppy drives in their PCs. They had switched to optic drives like DVD.

This DVD optic drive is mainly according to Wind and Rain – Philips standards, as most manufacturers had gotten the paten authorizations from these two companies. Among both companies, Wind and Rain Electronics has got more patents.

So, CDs had become the mainstream portable data storage tool now, and basically, no one uses floppy disks anymore. But there is a flaw with using CDs, which is CDs are easily scratched.

CDs are more fragile than floppy disks, and once the CDs are damaged, the data cannot be retrieved. Although the technology had been improved, there are still data losses when the CDs are damaged.

Thus, the demand for portable data storage tools increased. A portable hard disk becomes popular. All it needs is a USB cable to connect to a PC, and the user can retrieve the data inside the hard disk.

But portable hard disk is extremely fragile. If it dropped or the power supply is cut off halfway when a user is saving his data halfway, all the data might be corrupted. Sometimes, a portable hard disk is damaged and cannot be used again after a light knock on it.

Around this period, flash drive technology comes into the picture. Flash drive is durable and is much cheaper than a portable hard disk. Of course, the storage space in the flash drive is much smaller.

At this time, a new portable data storage product, USB drive, appeared in the market. This thumb-sized device is small and compact, and it’s convenient for users to bring it along with them.

But the USB drive’s storage is only 128 MB and 256 MB. Because of the small storage size, not many people are willing to buy it. But when the consumers noticed Aiwa’s MP3 player is also using flash drive technology, and the storage is increased to 512 MB, they started to notice the USB drive.

Many companies in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the US, etc. started researching and developing similar products. All of them want to increase the storage and let this USB drive replace all other portable data storage devices.

As the number of PC users increases, more companies become computerized and start storing their documents and records electronically. With a smaller portable data storage device it will make their work easier.

CDs can also do the job, but CDs can only be written once, and portable hard disks are too expensive. This USB drive is the most suitable device.

Apple had wanted to develop this technology but released this technology had been patented by a company called Aiwa Electronics.

If Apple were to continue to research into USB drives, they had to pay Aiwa Electronics patent fees. They sent their men to speak to Aiwa, but the outcome is not satisfactory.

Aiwa Electronics is demanding 20 million USD for lifetime authorization. This is daylight robbery, as the development fees for this technology might not even cost 2 million USD.

Many other companies had also developed this technology successfully but realized it was already registered. Most of them cannot afford to pay for the patent fees and gave up.

Some companies insisted their technology is different from Aiwa Electronics’ patent. For example, Toshiba invented memory card technology, SanDisk invented the CF cards, Sony invented the memory stick, etc. Sony also introduced a flash drive, which is similar to the USB drive. After all, the name USB drive had been registered.

At first, some companies felt flash drives are useless, as the production cost is high, and the technology is complicated. Even when the USB drive is launched into the market, many consumers felt this product will disappear after a while.

But as MP3 players gained popularity with the consumers, these companies realized how useful this technology is.

The smaller companies are unable to go around the USB drive patents and had the same idea as Apple. They will develop an MP3 player using a hard disk as internal storage. They will focus on bigger storage space as the selling point of their products.

Around the same time, Feng Yu ordered Aiwa to stop researching on hard disk MP3 players and focus on flash drive MP3 players. After all, Aiwa Electronics had successfully developed the 1 GB USB drive, and they should use it on their MP3 players. At the same time, the MP3 player’s screen must be bigger. Feng Yu even get Wind and Rain Design to draw out the iPod from his previous life and gave it to Heitaro Nakajima.

The idea of controlling the MP3 player with one hand is a selling point for the iPod. Even when the iPod was expensive and had poor music quality when newly launched, many people still bought it. iPod is one of Apple’s successful products and brought high profits for the company.

Feng Yu also asked Aiwa to develop the recording technology. This technology will allow users to convert the songs from CDs into MP3 with a cable. This will help those people who are lazy to download MP3 music from their PCs.

But this feature made Heitaro Nakajima frowned. If they introduced this feature, they would be sued by the Recording Industry Association of America again. The Recording Industry Association of America will insist this is an infringement of their copyrights.

But who cares about the Recording Industry Association of America. This is only an added function, and it’s up to the user to use it. Aiwa can choose to ignore it. The consumers had bought original CDs, and why can’t they convert them into MP3 format? As long as the user is not sharing these songs, it’s not considered an infringement of copyrights.

When the development of MP3 players reached a certain stage, the next trend will be MP4. At that time, the color screen technology should be matured, and Aiwa will continue to lead the industry with their technologies.

“Often imitated, but NEVER exceeded!”

Chapter 1068 – Let them sell

“Manager Feng, I am Old Zhong. Is the Aiwa’s lawsuit over?”

Feng Yu raised his brows. Why is Zhong Qianxian concern about the lawsuit?

“It’s almost over. What is it?”

“A company in the US is manufacturing USB drives and are using our Aiwa Electronics patented technologies without authorization. I had confirmed this with our engineers, and the circuit boards are the same as ours.”

“So, you want to sue them?” Feng Yu is pleased to hear this. Using the law to protect the company’s interest is a good thing. In his previous life, many Chinese companies have patents. Still, they are only using it within China and do not care if overseas companies infringed on their patents.

Some patents are restricted within regions, some are too far away for the companies to care. Some companies felt they can never win against foreign companies!

“Yes. I discussed it with Xu Lihua and the rest. We must teach this company a lesson. I heard a few other companies in Singapore, and other countries had also used our patents illegally. We intend to sue all of them!”

“Hahaha… Old Zhong, I also know about this, but I think we should not sue them now.” Feng Yu laughed.

“Manager Feng, we owned the patent, why can’t we sue them? Although the patent application in the US is not approved yet, it will be approved this year.” Zhong Qingxian is anxious. Feng Yu had never been afraid of trouble. Why is he so timid today?

Zhong Qingxian had found out that patents must be applied in different countries. Still, if any countries in the world had approved the patent, no one else could apply for the same patent in other countries. The other countries are not allowed to grant approval unless that country is not abiding by the international intellectual property rights law.

Why can’t we sue them?!

“Old Zhong, I am not saying we should not sue them. I am asking you not to sue them now. Let me ask you. How many products have they produced now? If we sue and win the case against them, they can just stop production and will suffer little losses. How much compensation can we get from them? If we wait until they produce a high volume of products, or even expanded their production before we sue them for patent infringement, how much compensation will we get?” Feng Yu laughed.

“You are asking us to feign ignorance and let them be before we give them a deadly blow?” Zhong Qingxian thought to himself. Manager Feng is too evil. If they really do this, these companies will have to make high compensations.

Feng Yu knew several companies had tried to apply for the USB drive patents but were rejected. These companies saw it was a Chinese company that had applied for this patent and felt how someone from China can know about patent infringement?

In the past, China had never abided by international patent protection laws. Many products in China are from reverse-engineering overseas products by factories, and these factories will sell them within China.

Anyway, these companies were not exporting the products overseas and were only selling within their city. This was fine at first until those overseas companies found out. Hmph! No wonder no in China is buying our products. We had been imitated!

These foreign companies want to protect their interests, but China doesn’t accept these lawsuits. The thinking of the Chinese at that time is… You can sell chairs, why can’t I sell chairs too?! So what if the exterior looks the same, and the internal circuit boards are the same? We did not steal your design!

Reverse-engineering is so much easier than developing their own products. It is until Liu Chuanzhi’s father when China starts to look into patent protection. At that time, many Chinese inventions patents were registered by foreign companies overseas. When the Chinese companies tried to export their products overseas, they realized other countries rejected them.

For example, the VCD player’s patent had been registered by a Japanese company in Feng Yu’s previous life. This Japanese company had bought Jiang Wanmeng’s product and stole the technology through reverse-engineering it.

After that, this company raised complaints about their foreign affairs against the Chinese government. At that time, both nations were trying to improve their diplomatic relationships, and the Chinese government ordered Jiang Wanmeng to settle this with the Japanese company privately.

How did they settle this issue? Compensate that Japanese company a sum of money and pay them to patent fees. This Japanese company authorized the patent to many other companies and made high profits for every VCD player manufactured.

These companies had made money and also stopped the development of this industry in China. The VCD player technologies had evolved into DVD technologies, optical drives, etc. and the profits from it are significant. This is the reason why Jiang Wanmeng and the company he set up disappeared.

Although China had implemented copyrights law, many people from other countries still have the impression, or discrimination, that the Chinese do not know about intellectual property rights and are afraid of a foreigner!

So, many companies start to manufacture USB drives and even imported them to China. They marketed their products as an imported product and are selling more expensive than Wind and Rain, Aiwa, and Lenovo.

Feng Yu does not want to say anything about the Chinese fascination with imported products. It’s not easy to change the mindset of the people.

But Feng Yu believes that the Chinese will be convinced that Chinese products are the best in the world one day!

“Should we attack these companies in China first? For example, we can lower the prices and force them to lower their retail prices?” Zhong Qingxian thought of this idea. If they are going to set a trap for these companies, they might as well be more ruthless.

“No… no… no… why should we lower our prices? We had just introduced our 1 GB USB drive into the market and will be introducing the 2 GB model sometime later. We just need to maintain our lead in technologies, and our profits will be high. It is not easy for them to overtake us. Just let them grow, and we can make more patent fees from them in the future. I don’t want to sue them until they go bankrupt. Our target is to develop our flash drive technology’s usage. Didn’t you say the SD card I suggested is almost developed? Hurry up and apply for the patents before other companies.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Panasonic, Toshiba, and Sony had launched the SD card together, and they co-owned the patents. At that time, the SD cards they produced are for digital cameras.

Feng Yu had developed this SD card is for mobile phones. Of course, it can also be used for digital cameras.

Any technologies that are more advanced and sophisticated will bring in significant profits. Furthermore, this technology can limit Japan’s digital camera’s development.

Kameda Masao had spent quite a significant sum of money on buying the patent from Kodak, and Feng Yu has plans to introduce Wind and Rain, and Aiwa brands of digital cameras.

Wind and Rain and Aiwa brands should capture the majority of the market share in China because of their brand influence.

When SD cards are officially used, Feng Yu might be able to export it overseas.

……

“Hello, Feng. I am representing Microsoft to inspect Aiwa’s Little Tyrant development of our gaming console. Are you going to receive me personally?”

Chapter 1069 – Being a good host

Although Aiwa’s Little Tyrant is in charge of the Gbox project, it will be under a new brand. Also, Microsoft owns some shares of Aiwa’s Little Tyrant now and is considered one of the bosses.

Paul Allen is representing Microsoft to conduct an inspection, and there is nothing wrong with it. But why did he call Feng Yu asking him to host him in China? This should be on purpose.

“Paul, I’m in New York, and not in China.”

“Feng, what’s wrong? You might not be a director in Microsoft, but you are still one of our shareholders. We are also partners, right? This is my first trip to China, and shouldn’t you host me personally?”

Paul Allen is in high spirits after Feng Yu was removed from Microsoft. By representing Microsoft to inspect the progress of their joint development of the gaming console, Paul Allen will remind Feng Yu of this unpleasant memory, making Feng Yu frustrated.

Paul Allen thinks that if he can find fault with Feng Yu’s men, Microsoft might have the chance to take over the management rights of this project.

Feng Yu heard what Paul Allen said. Fine… since you want me to accompany you to China, then I will be a good host!

“Ok. When are you leaving for Shenzhen?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Alright. I will return to Shenzhen today to make arrangements for you. I will make you feel at home.”

After hanging up, the smile on Feng Yu’s face disappears. China is my territory, and you want to find trouble with me there? I wonder what you are thinking. How can you claim to be one of the smartest people in history?

“Ralph! Book a flight to Shenzhen today.”

……

“Feng, are you returning to China? Are you going to Hong Kong?” Brother Ki asked after his assistant told him that he saw Ralph booking the air tickets for Feng Yu.

“I am going to Shenzhen. Paul Allen is going to Aiwa’s Little Tyrant for an inspection. I am going there to take a look too, as I don’t want that fellow to behave like a boss there.”

“It’s that fellow again? I am thinking of visiting Hong Kong to look for Little Brother Fu since I got nothing to do. Let’s fly back together.”

“Sure. I will get Ralph to book your tickets, and we will fly to Hong Kong before taking a boat ride to Shenzhen.”

“I can accompany you to Shenzhen too. Little Brother Fu told me that there are many fun places in Shenzhen.” Kirilenko’s eyes are sparkling.

Feng Yu: “…….” What did Fu Guangwei tell Brother Ki?! But Kirilenko should be around as he can make Paul drunk!

That evening, Feng Yu and Kirilenko flew back to Hong Kong and took a boat to Shenzhen. The Fu brothers also joined them.

“Brother Fu, are you really going to host that Paul?” Fu Guangwei asked angrily.

Paul Allen is not someone that can be friends with them, and Fu Guangwei felt they should just ignore him. If Paul Allen dares to interfere with Aiwa’s Little Tyrant, he will teach him a lesson!

“I must play host to him no matter what. After all, China has always been known as a state of etiquette, and we must think of ways on how to be a good host to him.” Feng Yu said with a cold laugh.

Fu Guangwei moved closer. “Brother Feng, you sounded like you have a plan in mind.”

Feng Yu smiles and asked. “Guangwei, have you eaten insects?”

Fu Guangwei paused for a second. “Insects? Brother Feng, I heard some people eat insects, but it feels gross to me. I had only eaten silkworm pupae before.”

Fu Guangzheng added. “Guangwei, insects are high in proteins and are very crunchy. It’s the perfect snack when drinking.”

Kirilenko’s eyes brighten up. “Snack for drinking?”

Feng Yu took a glance at Kirilenko. This guy’s Chinese had improved a lot. How can he understand such profound words? Could it be the word only understands is the word ‘drinking’ and thought Fu Guangzheng had mentioned a type of alcohol?

“Brother Ki, when Paul Allen arrives tomorrow, I will treat him to a feast with the best alcohol. I promise you will also experience something you had never experienced before.”

“The food is not important. What’s most important is alcohol!” Kirilenko nodded.

Duan Yongping had been waiting for Feng Yu outside of Aiwa’s Little Tyrant. He was surprised to see so many people with Feng Yu.

Although Feng Yu did not tell Duan Yongping beforehand, these few people are Manager Feng’s close friends. Maybe they are here to accompany Manager Feng. Duan Yongping still does not know Feng Yu is no longer a director with Microsoft.

“Manager Feng, should we had booked the nearest Quanjude restaurant for tomorrow’s banquet. Roast duck should be one of China’s most iconic dishes, and there will be other famous dishes.” Duan Yongping suggested.

“No… no… no… Quanjude cannot represent our Chinese cuisine. Their signature dishes are also not good enough. I heard the people in Shenzhen dares to eat anything. Is it true?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

“Huh?! That’s not really true. But we eat everything that you can find elsewhere in China, and there is some food which only we dare to eat. For example, there is a dish called San Jiao (Three cries). It’s live baby mice and eaten live after dipping it in the sauce. The baby mice, which the eyes are still closed, will cry once when picked up with chopsticks, cry one more time when dipped into the sauce and cry the final time when we bite into it.”

Fu Guangwei covered his mouth and rushed out of the room to vomit after hearing it.

Fu Guangzheng’s face also changed. How can you eat a baby mouse alive?!”

Only Kirilenko is unfazed as he doesn’t understand what Duan Yongping said. When he is with Feng Yu, he never brings his translator along. Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko and explained this dish to him, wanting to look at his grossed out expression.

Actually, Feng Yu had pinched himself secretly to stop himself from vomiting.

But after Feng Yu explained to Kirilenko, Kirilenko got excited and wants to try this dish tomorrow.

“Old Duan, do you have anything which people normally eat? For example, stinky tofu, insects, or something which foreigners had never tried before?” Feng Yu asked. He can accept eating insects, but cannot accept eating something alive.

“Insects? Now you mentioned it, I remember there is a restaurant that specializes in insect cuisine that is located on the outskirts. All their dishes are made from insects!”

Fu Guangzheng asked cautiously. “What sort of insects are they using?”

“I heard their hundred insect banquet include crabs, mudskipper, snakes, silkworm pupae, bee pupae, spiders, centipedes, scorpion…”

“*Gagged…” Fu Guangzheng covered his mouth and ran out of the room to vomit with his cousin.

Feng Yu’s face also turns pale as he has goosebumps after hearing snakes, mudskippers, centipedes, etc.

Kirilenko looked at them excitedly and asked Feng Yu. “Feng, what did he say? Did he mention more interesting food?”

Feng Yu nodded and forced a smile.

Chapter 1070 – Black sesame wine

Paul Allen arrived at Shenzhen. Although he did not have a good rest on board the flight, he went straight to Aiwa’s Little Tyrant after touchdown. He is eager to look at Feng Yu’s disappointed face, and also wants to humiliate him.

“Dear Feng, it’s been a while since we met.” Paul Allen greeted Feng Yu enthusiastically.

It’s been a while? We had met in Microsoft not long ago. Am I very familiar with you?! Why are you acting so close to me?!

Feng Yu shook Paul Allen’s hand and introduced the rest of the people there. “Kirilenko, the wealthiest man in Russia. Oh… He is also the Boss of an NBA team. I think you two should get to know each other.”

Kirilenko is big-sized, and he towered over Paul Allen. Without saying anything, he stared down at Paul Allen with a disdain look in his eyes, which made Paul mad.

I am wealthier than you, and my team is stronger! Your team had only won once, and what’s there to be proud of?!

“This is Fu Guangzheng, a shareholder of Aiwa’s Little Tyrant.”

Paul Allen looks at Fu Guangzheng from head to toe. Before coming, he had done his homework. Fu Guangzheng is said to be very close to Feng Yu and is the successor of a Hong Kong’s influential family. He is very capable, but compared to Paul Allen, he is nothing.

“Hi, Mr. Allen.”

“This is Fu Guangwei. Mr. Fu Guangzheng’s younger cousin and is also my friend and business partner.”

Paul Allen took a glance at Fu Guangwei. He had not heard of this person and should be someone unimportant.

“This is Duan Yongping. The founder of Aiwa’s Little Tyrant, and is also the CEO of the company.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Duan.” Paul Allen is polite to Duan Yongping, as he wants to pull him over to Microsoft’s side, for them to gain control over the company.

“Old Duan, bring Paul around the factory.”

Paul Allen looks at Kirilenko and Fu Guangwei before turning to Feng Yu. “Feng, why are they allowed inside the factory?”

“Kirilenko will be in charge of our Gbox’s sales in Europe, and Fu Guangwei is in charge of Southeast Asia’s sales. They are our partners, and there are no problems with them entering the factory.”

Paul Allen kept quiet and did not say anything else. Since they are partners, he can’t stop them. But these partners must be arranged by Feng Yu, as he had not heard about them previously. Hmph! Feng Yu is making all the decisions without consulting Microsoft!

During the tour around the factory, Paul Allen made a few suggestions and keeps finding fault. But Duan Yongping replied before Feng Yu can say anything.

Not only Duan Yongping explained why the factory is operating this way, but he also complained to Paul Allen that the developers from Microsoft are unprofessional. They had been skiving during work, or else, the product would have been developed earlier.

Paul Allen could not retort, as he knows how Microsoft staff well. They cannot be compared to the hardworking Chinese.

The tour ended around noon, and Duan Yongping suggests. “It’s time for lunch. I had arranged the most iconic local Chinese cuisine, and I guarantee Mr. Allen has never tried before.”

Paul Allen held his head high and said proudly. “I had tried Chinese food in the US. Many Chinese had come to the US to open restaurants. Maybe the Chinese only know how to open restaurants, and I have been there countless times. The food is not terrific.”

What iconic dishes can China have? Other than the cooking methods used when cooking vegetables, fish, meat, etc. what else can they do?

Why are the expressions on these few people so weird? Paul Allen turns to his translator, and his translator also does not understand what Duan Yongping meant by iconic local cuisine.

All of them boarded two Songjiang latest Red Star vehicles and drove towards the outskirts of Shenzhen.

The translator frowned, as he knows there is no famous restaurant in the outskirts. Could it be some local restaurant?

When they arrived at the restaurant, the translator’s face changed.

Paul Allen did not notice anything amiss. He had a disdainful expression on his face as he looks at the dirt road.

Look how backward China is. They don’t even have proper roads.

After entering the restaurant’s private dining room, Paul Allen is still pleased with the cleanliness and air conditioner.

Duan Yongping looked at the female Boss of the restaurant and said. “Everyone is here. You can serve the dishes.”

Paul Allen looked at the utensils on the table and was slightly embarrassed. There were no fork and knives, and only chopsticks. He does not know how to use chopsticks, but at least there are spoons.

Four waiters entered with a big glass jar each. The jars contained different alcohol and were placed on a shelf by the wall.

Paul Allen looks at the glass jar, and his face changed.

There is a snake in that jar!!!

What’s are those things in the jar next to it?! It looks like some sort of bugs with many legs!

In another jar, Paul Allen couldn’t even tell what was inside. The jars looked like some specimen in formalin containers. What are they going to do with these jars? Are these for drinking?

The last jar looks like there is black sesame inside. Yes. I will drink that jar later.

“Paul, these are medical wine. I didn’t manage to collect more, or else I can let you have more choice.” Feng Yu smiles. “Oh, which do you prefer? These wines have different medical effects.”

Paul Allen points to that “Black Sesame” jar. “I will drink this.”

“Don’t you want to try the others?” Feng Yu saw Paul Allen shaking his head and said disappointingly. “Such a pity. These wine have very strong medical properties.”

Duan Yongping pointed to the centipede wine and said. “Give me a glass of that.”

Fu Guangzheng and Fu Guangwei thought for a second and chose the snake wine. Kirilenko picks that ‘three penises’ wine, and the three penises are the dog penis, deer penis, and donkey penis. Feng Yu chose the same ‘black sesame’ wine like Paul Allen.

Paul Allen’s translator thought for a while and chose the three penises wine. This is a good tonic for men, and it’s rare!

After the wine is poured, Paul Allen looks at the glass in front of him and don’t feel like picking it up.

Those black dots are not black sesame! Those are black ants!

“Feng, can this wine safe to drink?” Paul Allen felt Feng Yu was pulling a prank on him.

Feng Yu picked up his glass and took a sip before chewing on the black ants.

“It’s drinkable, and there are many expensive Chinese medicines added in it. This is a good tonic for men’s vigor and dispels rheumatism. Try it.”

The corner of Paul Allen’s lips twitched. Feng Yu really drank it, and even chewed on the ants!

“I will drink it after the dishes are served.”

Wait for the dishes? Feng Yu smiles. Fine. Let’s see if you still dare to drink after the food is served!

Chapter 1071 – Try the dishes

Because Duan Yongping had made the reservation one day in advance, all the ingredients were ready, and the dishes were served within five minutes.

When the first dish was served, Paul Allen was dumbfounded. What is this? Are you sure these are not insects? Can these things be eaten?

Paul Allen felt he is on the verge of breaking down after seeing all the dishes. He could recognize some of the ingredients, and these are all insects! Don’t think I cannot recognize it after they are deep-fried!

What is Feng Yu doing? Does he want to see me embarrass myself? I don’t believe you all dare to eat these insects!

The banquet table is full of dishes, and Paul Allen did not see any dishes that are edible to him. But he noticed Feng Yu and the rest are looking normal. Could it be these things can be eaten?

“Paul, we cannot fit any more dishes on the table. Let’s eat first, and they will continue serving the rest after we finish the food here.” Feng Yu said warmly.

Paul Allen controlled his urge to run outside to vomit and said. “Ah… I am not very hungry. You all should go ahead.”

“Our Chinese custom is to have a toast before starting our meals. I think it’s the same in the US, right? Here, let’s have a toast to welcome Paul to Shenzhen!”

Paul Allen’s hand is shaking as he held his wine glass. He felt like he would rather die than to drink this glass of insect wine!

“Wait a minute. Feng, I think that jar seems better. Can you change that wine for me?” Paul Allen points to the Three Penises wine.

“You prefer that wine? Sure. That is the Three Penises wine, and deer penis, dog penis, and donkey penis are soaked in it. It is a great tonic for men’s vigor. Did you bring a female companion with you on this trip?” Feng Yu purposely asked.

After Paul’s translator explained to him, Paul decide… to stick with the Ants wine! What are the Chinese thinking?! How did they come up with the idea of soaking animals’ reproductive organs in wine?!

Paul Allen greeted his teeth and took a small sip. After that, he wiped away the ants on his lips with his hand.

Luckily, the wine does not have any weird taste, or Paul Allen will puke. At this moment, he no longer has any appetite.

“Paul, let me introduce the dishes. This dish is called Water Hen, but it is not chicken. It is a type of insect and is high in protein. The Chef had used the stir fry method to cook it. Try it.”

Feng Yu said and picked a piece into Paul’s plate. “I have not used this pair of chopsticks.”

Paul looks at the insect sitting in his plate, and the insect seems to be staring back at him, giving him goosebumps.

But Feng Yu and the rest did not hesitate and ate it. It was crunchy, and Kirilenko even ate three pieces. He really loves this dish.

“You don’t like this? It’s fine. You should try this. This is called Bamboo worm. It is a type of worm that lives on bamboos. It is deep-fried and delicious!”

Once again, Feng Yu picks up four to five worms and placed them on Paul’s plate.

Paul Allen looks at the golden-brown worms and felt like puking. He hesitated and looks at the rest, eating it. But he still doesn’t dare to put the worm into his mouth.

“This dish is called Longhorn beetle. It is also deep-fried and extremely crispy. Try it.”

“This is the locust. A type of insect that can jump very high. It is very tasty.”

“Try this too. This is earthworm stew.”

“How about this? The main ingredient is a type of flightless cockroach. Try it. It is very tasty.”

“You don’t like that? How about deep-fried centipedes? You also don’t like it? Deep-fried spiders? You don’t dare to eat it? Then you must try this deep-fried scorpion.”

Feng Yu kept asking Paul Allen to eat. Feng Yu also do not dare to eat some of the dishes like deep-fried spiders, etc. but Kirilenko and Duan Yongping are eating everything.

Paul Allen is white, but his face is as pale as a white sheet now. Feng Yu also noticed his hand is shaking uncontrollably.

“Oh… I forgot you are not used to using chopsticks. Waiter! Give this gentleman a long spoon.”

When the spoon was brought to the table, Feng Yu used it to scoop a spoonful of dragonflies and placed it onto Paul Allen’s place with the spoon. His plate is full of ‘food’ now.

Paul Allen did not even dare to touch the spoon, let alone eat the bugs and insects.

“Since you don’t feel like eating, try some soup. Waiter, serve a bowl of Sour Ants soup to this gentleman first. Paul, try this. You must be tired from all the traveling, and this soup will cure your fatigue and dispel the heat.”

A bowl of black sticky soup is placed in front of Paul Allen, and he saw it was full of ants.

Paul Allen did not even dare to take another sip of the Ants Wine, let alone this bowl of Ants soup. He will never drink it even when he is starving to death!

Kirilenko looked at Paul Allen and said sarcastically. “The Americans keep saying they are brave and are heroes… Hmph!”

Kirilenko said and took a big bite of the deep-fried centipede and wash it down with a glass of Three Penises wine.

Although Paul Allen does not understand what Kirilenko is saying, and his translator does not understand Russian, he knows Kirilenko is not saying anything nice from his expression.

But Paul Allen could not retort as this barbarian from Russia is stuffing his face with insects.

Paul Allen is afraid to speak to Kirilenko as who knows if he might spit out a bug from his mouth.

“Paul, why are you not eating anything? Here, this is the most nutritious food. You can check with your nutritionist. Oh, it’s called maggots, which is the larva of flies.”

Paul Allen stood up and rushed out of the private room. The bodyguards outside were stunned and did not know what happened. They looked into the private dining room and saw the rest are having their meals.

The translator also ran after Paul Allen. He had only eaten the food he ate before, like silkworm pupae and bamboo worms, and did not dare to touch those poisonous bugs like spiders, centipedes, etc.

Feng Yu sneered after Paul Allen ran out. You want me to host you?! Fine. I will be a good host!

Kirilenko took a disdainful glance at Paul Allen as he ran out of the room. He is a coward and doesn’t even dare to eat anything. Also, these dishes are delicious.

Kirilenko had only tried slightly over 30 dishes and had not tried the rest of the dishes in the Hundred Insects Banquet.

Kirilenko had never tried such interesting food in his life and is considering if he should hire a Chinese chef at home in the future.

“Feng, why are you not eating?” Kirilenko picks a deep-fried spider and placed it on Feng Yu’s plate.

Feng Yu’s face changed immediately. “I am full. Brother Ki, you should eat more!”

Chapter 1072 – I promise there are no bugs this time

After Paul left, Feng Yu asked the waiter to replace all the dishes with slightly more typical dishes, like bullfrogs, snake stew, eels, crabs, prawns, etc. It’s only after the insect dishes are removed, Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng, and Fu Guangwei start to eat something. They were all pretending to eat the insects earlier.

But Kirilenko stopped eating as he is full, and these dishes are nothing special.

After Feng Yu and the rest finish eating, Paul Allen still did not return. Feng Yu asked his men to check on him and was told he is waiting for them in the car.

When Feng Yu and the rest walk out of the restaurant, all of them are holding on to a skewer of BBQ silkworm pupae each.

Paul Allen saw them munching on the bugs and vomited again!

Feng Yu asked: “Paul, are you ok? Are you not feeling well? I will ask them to prepare a bowl of Chinese medicine for your stomach. It tastes good and only has five types of insects in it.”

*Vomit

Paul Allen vomited out the water he drank and waved Feng Yu away.

“Sigh… I think Paul is not well to continue the inspection at the factory. Send him back to the hotel, and we will continue tomorrow.”

After Paul Allen had left, Feng Yu and the rest burst out laughing.

But is this the end? Of course not!

Paul Allen returned to his hotel room and laid on the bed weakly. He had not eaten anything during lunch and had even vomited out the water he drank. He felt sick and have no appetite.

In the evening, Paul Allen finally got better and ordered some bread and vegetables to be sent to his room.

Paul Allen stood by the windows eating his bread angrily, and as he lowered his head, he saw a longhorn beetle outside of his window.

*Vomit

Damn! Paul Allen had lost his appetite for dinner now.

This night, Kirilenko, who had drunk lots of Three Penises Wine, went out to have fun with Fu Guangwei. Feng Yu remained in his room to discuss what to feed Paul Allen tomorrow. They want to make him scared to come to China for the rest of his life.

The next morning, Feng Yu and the rest saw the dark rings around Paul Allen’s eyes, and his face was still pale.

Surprisingly, Paul Allen did not find fault with them at the factory. It might because he is too weak or is afraid of doing so.

At about noon, Duan Yongping smiled and said. “Mr. Allen, why didn’t you tell us that you can’t eat insects yesterday? We will bring you to eat anything else today. I promise there will be no insects!”

Paul Allen blinked and suddenly felt like slapping himself. That’s right. Why didn’t I tell them that I didn’t eat bugs yesterday? Why?!

Paul Allen had asked his translator yesterday and found out many Chinese in China do eat insects, and insects are nutritious. Feng Yu is not lying to him, and all of them were really eating it.

Paul Allen also found out from his translator that Hundred Insects Banquet do include crabs, prawns, eels, etc. and not all the dishes are insects. If he had known about this, he would ask for the crabs and prawns. Even snakes are fine, as he had tried eating snake meat before.

There will be no bugs today, and it should not be a problem, right?

“Errr… let’s not drink during lunch, ok?”

Duan Yongping replied with a disappointed expression. “I had asked my men to buy some good wines. Are you sure you don’t want to try it?”

Paul Allen shook his head vigorously. No! I am not trying!

“How about we drink some normal Baijiu with the food? This should be fine, right?”

Paul Allen had a bad feeling as they went to the outskirts of the city again. But Duan Yongping had promised him they will not be eating insects, and he is slightly relaxed.

This time, there will be no bugs, but it will still leave a deep impression with Paul Allen!

“Paul, try this dish. It is a stir-fry Chinese bamboo rat. It’s a type of rat living in the bamboo forest. The meat is very tender.”

Paul Allen’s eyes almost popped out of his sockets. What?! Rats can be eaten?!

Are the Chinese crazy?! Why are they eating everything? Why can’t they just stick to beef or chicken?! Even pork is fine!

“You don’t like this?”

This time, Paul Allen immediately says he is not eating rats and asks for chicken.

“Chicken? Sure. Waiter, is the chicken soup ready? If it is ready, serve it immediately.”

An earthen jar was brought to the table, and Paul Allen is relieved. He knows Chinese chicken soup is delicious.

But when the lid of the earthen jar is removed, Paul Allen almost vomited.

What smell is this?!

“Paul, have some soup and try the chicken. This chicken meat is very good.” Feng Yu passed a bowl of Stinky Tofu Stew Chicken soup to Paul Allen.

Paul Allen can see the chicken bones in the soup. Has the soup gone bad?

Kirilenko, who had tried stinky tofu before, popped a piece of chicken meat into his mouth. Stinky tofu might smell bad, but it’s very delicious!

“Do you have fish?”

“Fish? Sure. We know Americans are not used to freshwater fishes, and I asked them to prepare some seafood. Do you eat cuttlefish?”

Paul Allen nodded. Although cuttlefish are not fish, he can still eat it.

When the cuttlefish is served, Paul Allen almost goes crazy. The tentacles of the cuttlefish are still moving. It’s fine if it’s raw, but this cuttlefish is still alive!

“Paul, this is prepared specially for you. Chef, can you demonstrate how to eat this dish?”

The Chef picked up a live cuttlefish and dipped it in some sauce before putting it into his mouth.

Feng Yu will not eat it, as he prefers cooked cuttlefish. But he still asks Paul Allen to try it.

“Feng, my stomach is not well today. Do they have any vegetarian food or fruits?” Nothing should go wrong with vegetables and fruits, right?!

“Sure. Waiter, have you heard him? Serve vegetarian food and fruits.”

A plate of green hairy tofu was served. Paul Allen did not eat it, while Feng Yu and the rest dug into it. Sichuan tofu is delicious!

There is another plate of harmless green vegetables on the table, and Paul thought it should be fine. But when he used his fork to pick up a piece and place it into his mouth, he almost spits it out! It’s too bitter!

Feng Yu is overjoyed, as he didn’t expect to find Dandelion in Shenzhen.

Paul Allen looks at the black stuff on another plate, which Feng Yu and the rest said those are made from eggs, but doesn’t dare to try it. He decided to wait for the fruits, as fruits should be safe.

But when the waiter entered the private dining room with a plate of durian, Paul Allen rushed out immediately. He could not stand the smell of the durian!

Feng Yu pointed at the durian. “Here, let’s have some each, and we will chat with Paul in the afternoon.”

Chinese bamboo rat

Stinky tofu

Chapter 1073 – I will not eat anything even if I starve to death

Today, Paul Allen did not eat anything again. In the afternoon, the smell of durian lingers in Feng Yu and the rest’s mouth. He could not stand the smell and ended his inspection early. Luckily, today is only smell, and he is hungry in the evenings.

But this time, Paul Allen did not call for room service. He told his Translator to buy a bowl of instant noodles and some biscuits for him. He would rather eat instant noodles and biscuits than eat with Feng Yu!

The Translator thought to himself. There are no problems with today’s lunch, other than the stinky tofu chicken stew. The rest of the dishes are delicious, especially the bamboo rats. The texture is about the same as chicken and is tasty.

Also, the century eggs are terrific with some vinegar and green peppers.

The durian at the end of the meal is the best. Durian is the king of fruits and is nutritious. Although the smell is not very pleasant, it tastes great.

The wine they drank during lunch does not have any snakes or insects soaked in it. It’s all Chinese herbs, and the Translator only managed to drink a few sips.

You don’t know how to enjoy the delicacies and prefer to eat instant noodles?!

It’s so hard to understand wealthy people.

But Paul Allen had given the translator 100 USD, and the Translator still went to buy instant noodles for him.

What instant noodles should I buy? I should get the best instant noodles in China, which is Lehaha’s instant noodle. Anyway, it’s only slightly more expensive than Kang Shifu.

……

“Feng, there must be some more special dishes in China. We should let Paul try some tomorrow.” Kirilenko said.

Kirilenko is overjoyed when he saw Paul Allen rushing out to puke during the previous two days.

“There is a type of snack in Fujian called Dried Rats. Do you dare to try?”

“What meat is it made from? Bamboo rats? Is it delicious?” Kirilenko asked excitedly.

“I had not tried it before and do not know if it is nice. Dried Rats are made from rat meat. It’s the grey rats you find in the sewers.” Feng Yu replied with an evil smile.

This time, even the greedy Kirilenko’s face changed. How can sewer rats be eaten? He had tried the ‘Three cries’ once and decided never to eat any rats or mice in the future.

Kirilenko looks at the rest and everyone, including Duan Yongping, shook their heads. Indicating that they will not eat this snack.

Kirilenko laughed. “Err… I can’t help you with this, as I will also not eat it.”

Kirilenko said he will not eat it, and not he is scared to eat it. But to Feng Yu, Kirilenko is scared.

“There is a special dish which is pufferfish. It is extremely poisonous, and if you accidentally ate the poison, you would die for sure. But It’s hard to get a chef in China to prepare it. Do you want to try?”

Kirilenko shook his head. This concerns his life, and he is not willing to take any risks. He still wants to enjoy his life, and why should he risk it for some food. There are tons of good food out there, and he can skip this one.

Fu Guangzheng interrupted Feng Yu. The hair on his back is standing from the food Feng Yu mentioned.

“Brother Feng, will Allen leave tomorrow?”

Feng Yu shook his head. “I don’t know, but I think he will not accept our invitation to lunch or dinner anymore. If he does not leave tomorrow, we will think of other ways.”

Feng Yu felt good after pranking Paul Allen.

“I think he will not dare to create any problems for us. This is China, and we have ways to deal with him. Just because he is rich, he thinks he can look down on us?! Hmph!” Fu Guangwei shouted.

“I had thought of drinking with him, but I can tell he cannot hold his liquor. We have so many different types of liquor today, and he doesn’t even want to try it. Such a waste!” Kirilenko said.

To Kirilenko, one must try all the liquor in the world when there is a chance. Life will be meaningless if there is no alcohol!

Of course, it will be perfect if there are women after drinking!

Kirilenko asked. “What are we eating tonight? I’m hungry.”

Feng Yu: “……” You had eaten the most in the afternoon, and you are hungry now?!

The few of them went out for dinner, and Paul Allen’s Translator returned to the hotel with a bowl of instant noodles.

“Mr. Allen, this is ham. A type of canned meat made from beef. You should try it.”

Paul Allen took a few bites and felt it taste good. Maybe it was because of his hunger, and everything tastes good to him.

“Where is it produce? I would want to buy some of these back as gifts.” Paul Allen said.

The Translator was surprised and asked. “This is produced by Manager Feng’s father’s company. Don’t you know it?”

“Who? Feng’s father’s company? What trash is this?! It tastes awful! Don’t ever buy this thing again!” Paul Allen threw the remaining cans of ham into the bin.

Hmph! This is produced by Feng’s family. Who knows if he added rat’s meat or insects in it?

The Translator looks at Paul Allen speechlessly. You were eating it just fine and still want to buy some back as gifts.

This instant noodle is produced by Lehaha, and Manager Feng is one of the shareholders. Should I tell Mr. Allen about it?

Paul Allen ate a few mouthfuls of noodles and felt its tasty. But he also noticed the weird expression on his Translator’s face.

Paul Allen looks down on the packaging of the noodle. All the wordings are in Chinese, which he doesn’t understand.

But the cartoon figure printed on the packaging seems very familiar to Paul Allen. He felt he had seen this cartoon figure somewhere.

Paul Allen took another mouthful and coughed suddenly. He recalled where he saw this cartoon figure. It’s on the energy drink can. Microsoft engineers love this energy drink, called Qi Li.

Paul remembered that the beverage is also produced by Feng Yu’s company. That means this instant noodle is also produced by Feng Yu’s company.

“Is this instant noodle produced by Feng’s company?”

The Translator nodded. I did not say anything, and you are the one who guessed it correctly.

Thum!

Paul Allen threw the bowl of instant noodles into the bin.

Paul had seen some black colored stuff in the seasoning package of the instant noodles earlier. Maybe those are made from bugs!

Paul quickly opened a bottle a distilled water and noticed that cartoon figure after taking a few sips!

This water cannot be drunk!

How can there be no other companies producing food in China?

Paul Allen saw some beverages on the table. He was about to drink it when he saw that irritating cartoon figure printed on it!

The Translator looks at Paul Allen, throwing that packet of Lehaha’s milk tea into the bin and doesn’t know what to do. The best food product brand in China is Lehaha. If you want to eat or drink anything from Lehaha, you should have told me earlier.

After throwing everything into the bin, Paul Allen realized no food is left on the table. But… he is still hungry.

Paul gritted his teeth as he would rather starve to death than to eat these things!

Chapter 1074 – Investing in Xiao Ma

Paul Allen left the next day with an excuse of not feeling well. Microsoft will send someone over in the future, and Paul swore he will never set foot into China in his life.

There were rumors that Paul Allen ate three people’s portion of breakfast and attracted stares from many people. This is too disgraceful for a super tycoon. Maybe the Americans had never tried dough sticks and rice congee.

Kirilenko and the Fu brothers went to Macau, while Feng Yu flew to Beijing. Sun Lijie told Feng Yu that one of the names on the watchlist had approached him for investment. But they could not agree on the shares proportion and investment amount.

If Feng Yu had not given Sun Lijie the name list, the latter would surely try to lower the price. But now, Sun Lijie is afraid that he will push the other party to other venture investors.

Feng Yu asked who this person is, and after he heard the name, he immediately tells Sun Lijie to wait for him in Beijing. He wants to speak to this Xiao Ma in person.

This Xiao Ma is another legend, with the same surname as the founder Alibaba. But this Xiao Ma is also a lot older than Feng Yu.

Feng Yu had seen the product from Xiao Ma’s company at the internet café. It’s a type of instant messaging software, and Feng Yu had registered an account. At this time, his account number is still 6-digits.

The account number is 6-digits is because the number of people using this software still has not reached over a million. In the future, the number of users will exceed 10 million.

Upon arrival in Beijing, Feng Yu asked Sun Lijie about the other party’s demands. To be honest, Xiao Ma had wanted for high investment, but the shares he offered is too little. He also does not want Tai Hua Investment to interfere with his company’s operation.

On the same afternoon, Xiao Ma arrived at Tai Hua Investment again. He heard that the legendary tycoon, Feng Yu, is going to speak to him.

When both men met, they were impressed by the other party’s age. Xiao Ma is in his late twenties and is much younger than the pictures Feng Yu saw on the internet in his previous life.

“Manager Ma, I am Feng Yu.”

“Nice to meet you, Manager Feng.” Although Xiao Ma’s tone is respectful towards Feng Yu, he also showed his self-confidence.

“Manager Ma, I heard your company is doing an internet paging platform, right?”

“Not only that. We are also doing short information messages broadcast, IP phones, and online instant messaging software.” Xiao Ma added.

“What do you think about the pager business? How many more years can it carry on?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

“Your companies had stopped their pager production and switched to mobile phones. Do you still need to ask?”

“Oh? You seem to know a lot about my companies.”

“Not really, but I am in this industry, and I need to monitor and understand the trend by watching the top companies closely.” Xiao Ma replied proudly.

“Then, are you going to develop the pager business after you get the investment?”

“Of course not. We will be focusing on instant messaging software and mobile phone’s SMS. We think the online instant messaging software has high potential because the PCs are developing very fast, and there are more and more PC users. An online game, Legend of Mir, was launched this year and made more people buy PCs. As the number of PC users increases and the internet becomes more developed, the internet will become an essential part of our lives.”

Feng Yu raised his brows. Xiao Ma’s prediction of the future is very accurate. No wonder he can be so successful in Feng Yu’s previous life. In Feng Yu’s precious life, Tencent had been expanding and had never suffered any setbacks.

Of course, the core of Tencent is still this instant messaging software.

“Then how are you going to make profits from your company’s products?” Feng Yu asked.

“We cannot make any profits current, as we are still in the expanding phase. We need to increase the users and need a lot of investments for advertising in the Internet Café, PC shopping malls, etc. We still need to compete with ICQ and other software. So, we are not charging the users now. Still, we will introduce some upgraded services for a fee in the future, and we will get back several times of our investment.”

Feng Yu knew Xiao Ma and his team still have not thought of how to make profits out of this software. But they could tell the potential and knew they need to gain more users now.

With so many users, what’s there to worry about making profits?

“What are your upgraded services?” Feng Yu asked in detail.

“For example, advertisements, searches, etc. All these can bring profits for the company. Most importantly, we will have a significant group of users, and the value of this is priceless.”

“Have you thought about your company’s future direction?”

“Now, we will focus on this messaging software, QQ, and try all other possibilities. As long as we have enough users, we will surely make money. So, we must develop QQ first and increase the users.”

Feng Yu smiles. “I am interested in your company. But advertising in Internet cafés and PC shopping malls are not enough. I have a way to increase the number of users by folds. But if your software is not good enough, then all the users will disappear very soon.”

“Manager Feng, what is this idea?”

“I am also a shareholder of Lenovo Group, and I can ask them to pre-install QQ into their PCs. This way, everyone that bought Lenovo’s PCs will be a potential new user of your software. They might be curious and registered an account, and it is up to you all on how to retain them.”

“That’s terrific. This way, the number of users will increase rapidly, and we currently have over 460,000 users. We might exceed over 1 million users this year!”

“Do you know about Legend of Mir?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes. Many people, including me, from my company, are playing this game. I heard you are the one who had invested and developed this game.” Xiao Ma replied.

“There are over 9 million registered players in China now, and it is still increasing. What if I advertise about QQ on the login page of the game?”

“That’s great. These online players are the ones who use the internet more and are our targeted segment.”

“We also have shares in Sina, NetEase, Sohu, etc. and we can advertise for your company’s product, or even provide a download link.”

“Look, it is much easier for me to market your product for you and have a higher chance of succeeding. I can even get NetEase or my other companies to develop a similar instant messaging software with my funds and people. Even if your product was launched one year earlier than mine, I could overtake you easily.”

Xiao Ma’s face turns pale. If Feng Yu gets his three internet companies to develop an instant messaging software, Feng Yu will be in a more advantageous position.

“However, I would still want to invest in your company. But we need to negotiate on the terms. I will inject funds into your company in exchange for voting shares. But I will not interfere with how you manage the company, and even provide lots of assistance to your company. No one else in China can do this except for me.”

Xiao Ma was deep in thoughts. He had founded this company, and now, he has to let someone else be the major shareholder?!

Chapter 1075 – Bundle Sales

Xiao Ma did not accept Feng Yu’s offer and said he had to discuss it with the rest of his company. Although Xiao Ma is the major shareholder of the company, there are two founders, and three more friends had joined, and he must give each of them shares.

If Xiao Ma gave Feng Yu too many shares, how is he going to split the remaining shares among the other partners?

After Xiao Ma left, Sun Lijie asked Feng Yu. “Manager Feng. Did he still reject us?”

“No. He will accept our offer.”

What Feng Yu told Xiao Ma consists of threats and gratitude, and he will invest higher than the company’s market value, but only wants 49% shares.

Although Tai Hua Consulting will become the biggest shareholder, Xiao Ma and the other four founders will own a total of 51% shares. They will still have an overall say in the company if they are united.

But if any one of them supports Feng Yu, then Feng Yu will gain control over the company.

Xiao Ma returned and discussed it with his partners. They decided to accept Feng Yu’s terms, it is to their benefit. Also, they are afraid Feng Yu will get his men to develop an instant messaging program. With Feng Yu’s wealth, he can easily squeeze them out of the market!

Under such circumstances, Xiao Ma and his partners have no other choices.

200 million RMB for 49% Tencent shares is a great deal for Feng Yu. Although Feng Yu can develop an instant messaging program himself, it will take some time.

Until Feng Yu’s rebirth, QQ is still very popular, and there are over 1 billion users.

Xiao Ma and his team had managed to increase their profits year after year. If Feng Yu were to develop his own messaging program, he might not replicate this result, and it will be too troublesome.

Feng Yu only owns 49% of the company’s shares. Still, he believes that Xiao Ma and his partners will not oppose him if he decides to make any changes or decisions.

Furthermore, it’s tiring to be the Chairman of a company. Feng Yu prefers not to work and just be the major shareholder of the company.

After successfully investing in Tencent, Feng Yu kept his promise to promote QQ messaging software.

“Old Liu, I need to discuss something with you. Can you include this instant messaging program, QQ, into all your new PCs? Just let me know how much are you charging, and I will get Tencent to prepare the payment.”

“What’s wrong? Did you become the controlling shareholder of this company?” Liu Chuanzhi laughed and asked.

“I had only invested in this company. I think this is a good product, and it might be used by all netizens in the future.”

“Huh? Used by all netizens? You really think this software has such great potential? I had gotten my men to look into this program, and it’s something like a faster version of an Email. But there is a limit on the data that is being sent, and it can never replace emails.”

“You are right. But who knows what will happen in the future? What if one day, you can also send files, audio files, video chat, etc. with this program? Are you willing to use it?”

“They can do this?!” Liu Chuanzhi was shocked. How many years will it take for them to develop such features?

“Who knows if they can do it or not? Help me inform Lenovo Kingsoft to bundle this software together with their Antivirus and Office software for free.”

If the user is charged for the software in the bundle, then it will be like Microsoft’s Explorer and will be sued for monopoly. But if the software is free, they will be fine, and at most, this software is treated as rogue software.

Of course, the people now do not hate rogue software so much. Some people even think that bundled software is a great deal.

For example, this QQ is free to download, and some people might think this is a good bargain. However, they did not know they had become one of the users.

“Alright. Since it is free for the users, we will not charge too high. How about 1 RMB for every bundle package? This amount will be used as a commission for our salesmen.”

“Thanks. When QQ becomes popular in the future, they will return this favor.”

……

“Hello, Manager Ding. I’m Feng Yu. I want you to bundle QQ software with our Legend of Mir. When our users download Legend of Mir, QQ software will be included, and advertise this software and include the download link on the login page. Let me know the charges.”

“Since you are the one asking, I will give you a good price. How about 1 RMB for every download? Many people had approached me to advertise on Legend of Mir’s login page, but I rejected them.”

Actually, Feng Yu does not know if this price is considered cheap or expensive. But he made a rough estimation and felt it is worthwhile. Just Legend of Mir alone will increase QQ downloads by more than 10 million. This is much faster than advertising in internet cafes.

Feng Yu also called Sina, Sohu, and NetEase. All of them agreed on 1 RMB for every download.

Feng Yu knew this year’s marketing cost for Tencent will be very high, but the downloads for QQ will be higher than his previous life.

Very soon, the users will increase to over 10 million, or even 100 million.

Feng Yu also told his men to use this QQ software in his companies’ offices for their internal communications.

With QQ, the supervisor will not need to call or get their secretary to call others. All they need to do is just to open the QQ window, and if there are any important announcements, the heads do not need to print documents and can just make the announcement on QQ.

To push this software, Feng Yu had done everything he could. Xiao Ma and his partners were touched and glad when they knew about this.

Luckily, Xiao Ma and his partners had agreed to Feng Yu’s terms and get to use Feng Yu’s connections to promote this software.

If Xiao Ma and his partners had not agreed to Feng Yu’s terms, Feng Yu could get his men to develop instant messaging software. With these strategies, Feng Yu can easily kick QQ out of the market.

Feng Yu has resources like funds and connections.

This period, those who had bought Lenovo’s PCs will get an instant messaging software, QQ, installed on it. Those that bought Kingsoft Antivirus or WPS Office software also have this software included as a bundle. Even downloading Legend of Mir will get this software for free.

This software is also advertised on the three main Chinese websites, and there are download links on it. Articles on the benefits of using this software are everywhere. In the articles, it mentioned that Tai Hua Holdings and all its subsidiaries are also using this software for their internal communications.

Just like this, QQ users increases exponentially.

Chapter 1076 – Meeting in the game again

Zhou Kexin had recovered but had also resigned from her internship job with that medical magazine. This is because this job was created just to hire her and to get her to go for a medical checkup and to get treatment.

Although Zhou Kexin has got nothing to lose, she hated this job.

After the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ left, Zhou Kexin kept thinking of what he told her. She does not believe in ghosts or gods and is someone who dares to watch horror movies alone at night.

But Zhou Kexin still cannot figure out how the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ knows so much about her, even her personal secrets, which no one else knows.

Zhou Kexin does not believe that the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ had investigated her to find out about her secrets. If the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ had lied that he is single and wants to be with her, she might agree.

But the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ did not lie to her and told her honestly that he has a girlfriend.

Zhou Kexin does not know if when the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ is lying or telling the truth. Maybe, everything he says is all lies.

Zhou Kexin even dreamt that she confronted the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ and asked him why didn’t he continue to lie to her? She doesn’t want to know the truth!

Since you said I am your wife, why did you get a girlfriend? Since you have a girlfriend, why are you still coming to me?

Zhou Kexin realized that the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ had entered into her life. She had been waiting for his letter every month, and after she learned how to use emails, she will visit her school’s computer room to send emails weekly. Sometimes, she even sends emails every day.

To read the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ email replies, Zhou Kexin would check her emails every day.

Zhou Kexin had fantasized, ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ would appear beside her one day, like prince charming, and hold her hands, asking her if she is willing to spend the rest of her life with him.

Zhou Kexin also imagined one day she would receive the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ wedding invitation, or even not meet once in their lives.

But Zhou Kexin never expects the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ would appear suddenly in that situation.

‘Second most handsome person on earth’ is a tycoon! For someone to set up the best hospital in Shanghai, he must be very wealthy. But this tycoon does not belong to her.

Zhou Kexin was once jealous of ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ girlfriend, but who is she to be jealous? Just because the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ said they were married in their previous life?

Who would believe such words?!

Zhou Kexin continued to go to the computer room at her school every week to check her mailbox. Still, she no longer replies to ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ emails. Feng Yu still continue to email her every week without fail, and it is as if nothing had happened.

Zhou Kexin’s roommates noticed the changes in Zhou Kexin. The joyful Zhou Kexin had become quiet, and they got worried.

One of Zhou Kexin’s roommates guessed that something might have happened to Zhou Kexin’s penpal, but she is still going to the computer room every week. Another of her roommate said that Zhou Kexin was hospitalized for some time, and she might have contracted a terminal illness.

But when Zhou Kexin’s roommates asked her, Zhou Kexin told them that she had recovered, and her family is doing well. Her father’s factory was acquired by an overseas businessman, and he was promoted to oversee a workshop. His salary was doubled.

Since there are no problems with Zhou Kexin’s family and studies, that means it must be her job at the Medical magazine. But Zhou Kexin had resigned from that job. What could have happened to her?

Zhou Kexin’s roommates do not know how to cheer her up. At this time, one of their dormitory friends had started playing an online game, Legend of Mir, with her boyfriend.

This friend said this game can pass the time easily, and she asked Zhou Kexin to play it.

Zhou Kexin had rejected her offer at first, as she felt this is a waste of time. She could spend the time reading, and reading can be a good pastime too.

But under her roommates’ persuasion, Zhou Kexin joined them to play Legend of Mir, and she felt it is quite fun.

There are lots of mysterious characters, magic, spells, and unknown monsters in the game, making Zhou Kexin like it. She is not addicted to this game like some of the boys in her school, but she will play with her roommates whenever they have time.

When Zhou Kexin started playing, she did not register for a new server like everyone else. Instead, she chose to play in the oldest server, as she does not want others to disturb her when she is killing monsters at the starting town. She is only playing this game to pastime and not for getting powerful items.

But during one of the quests in Poisonous Snake Valley, Zhou Kexin met a male Taoist Priest named ‘Second most handsome person on earth.’ She does not know if this is a coincidence, but when she saw this Priest, she forgot to control her character.

Luckily, the Taoist Priest healed her character several times, or else, Zhou Kexin’s female Magician would be killed.

Zhou Kexin quickly types to ask the Taoist Priest. “Is that you?”

The other party only replied: “?”

Zhou Kexin laughed to herself. How can there be such a coincidence? Furthermore, it’s common to have the same name on the internet. She is not using her former name, “Emerged from The Cocoon,” and even if this Priest is really ‘Second most handsome person on earth,’ he will not know who she is.

Because of this chance meeting, the higher-level Priest starts to play with Zhou Kexin. With a high-level player helping Zhou Kexin, Zhou Kexin leveled up fast and easily obtained powerful items and spellbooks.

So, every time they got online, they will message each other in the game. If the other party is online, they will play together. On several occasions, that male Priest’s friends even grumbled about him playing with her.

When Zhou Kexin’s roommates found out about this male Priest, they say he must like her. But Zhou Kexin shook her head. How can this be possible? That male Priest had never asked her gender or anything outside of the game.

Their relationship is only in-game friends. Maybe that Priest thought it is a guy who is playing behind the PC.

But Zhou Kexin asked herself more than once. Why did she want to play with this male Priest? Is it because of his character’s name?

Is Zhou Kexin treating this Priest as a replacement?

Chapter 1077 – Destiny

“Hey, are you mad? What’s so fun playing with that little magician? Let’s go to the Swine Cave together.” Wen Dongjun shouted over the phone.

“You can go by yourself or find someone else to go with you. Didn’t I tell you the coordinates of the Swine Cave? You know how to get there, and you will be fine if you don’t go too deep in.”

“Eh, are you interested in that little girl? For goodness sake… this is an online game, and maybe it is a guy behind the screen. What are you after by giving her equipment, gold, skill books, and helping her to level up?” Wen Dongjun asked unhappily.

“This is a game, and it’s a great feeling to have a follower. If you become my follower, I will stop playing with her.” Feng Yu purposely replied.

“Don’t even think about it. I am now the top 100 players in Server 1 and have some of the best gear in the game. How can I be your follower?”

“Top 100?! You are just ranked 100th. You had wasted my efforts of getting people to help you get that gift pack!” Feng Yu replied with disdain. If there are no hidden ‘luck’ stats in the gift pack, Wen Dongjun will not get his powerful gear.

“Ranked 100th is also top 100! You are not even within the top 100.” Wen, Dongjun replied proudly.

“Alright. Just find someone else to accompany you to the Swine Cave. I am going to Beach Province now.”

When Feng Yu met this little magician the first time, ‘Emerged from the Cocoon,’ he was stunned. This nick was used by Zhou Kexin in his previous life and is used to commemorate leaving school and entering the next phase of her life.

Of course, Feng Yu did not use ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ as his character’s name in his previous life.

At first, Feng Yu thought it is a coincidence. Many people online will name their character all sorts of names. But when the female magician asked, “Is it you?” Feng Yu knew who she is. This is like heaven playing a joke on him.

Feng Yu and Zhou Kexin are fated to meet, and history did not change.

Feng Yu tested Zhou Kexin a few times through chatting, and he can confirm her identity through the words and phrases she used.

Playing with Zhou Kexin or Wen Dongjun… even an idiot knows which to choose!

But Zhou Kexin is seldom online, and only play on the weekends for two to three hours each time. She will be online occasionally at night but will inform Feng Yu beforehand.

Feng Yu even canceled a trip to the US, just to play games with Zhou Kexin. He remained in China, Shanghai, just to wait for her to be online.

One can never finish earning all the money. If Feng Yu misses any opportunity, he can just wait for the next opportunity. But if he missed this person, he might not get another chance.

Feng Yu got back the feeling of waiting for someone to be online and looking forward to playing games with Zhou Kexin. When Zhou Kexin is not online, Feng Yu will lose interest in this game.

To continue to help Zhou Kexin level up and get better items, Feng Yu hired a professional player to help him level up at night.

If Feng Yu needs better equipment, he will get it from Wen Dongjun. That rascal had horde lots of good items in his warehouse.

Feng Yu controlled his character and flew to Beach Province. When he arrived, he saw ‘Emerged From the Cocoon’ almost pushed out of the safety zone. Some players discovered that if they log in and out continuously, they can push other players out. Many players were pushed out of the safety zones when they are not at their PCs and were killed by other players.

Some players are not killing other players for their items. It’s just for fun.

Even if their character’s name turns red, and will be attacked by NPCs, they will still continue to attack other players.

Some players prefer to kill monsters to level up, and some prefer PK. The players that love to PK had looked into the tactics, gears, etc. to counter other players’ skills.

Feng Yu immediately wrote a message to Zhou Kexin to ask her to get the second quest from an old man NPC and to be careful not to leave the safety zone.

Zhou Kexin saw ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ and quickly got the quest.

After both of them got the quest, they went to a mine to complete it. The quest requires them to mine lots of minerals, and while mining, they had to fight off zombies.

Zhou Kexin and Feng Yu’s characters started mining, and there is a skeleton named, ‘Second most handsome person on earth’s baby’ patrolling around them.

“What are you working as?” Zhou Kexin suddenly typed a message.

Zhou Kexin had always wanted to ask this question. She is curious to know why Feng Yu is always online whenever she is playing? Does he no need to work or go to school?

“I’m doing business, and my timing is more flexible.

Zhou Kexin got more curious. Most people she met will ask her the same question. Is this guy not curious about her?

Maybe this guy treats this as only a game and does not want to reveal more things about himself.

“I am still a student.” Zhou Kexin told Feng Yu.

“Oh, no wonder you are seldom online.”

After typing this message, Feng Yu continued to mine and stopped chatting.

“You seem to be very quiet.” Zhou Kexin asked curiously.

“I have something on my mind, and playing games is to let me forget about these things.”

“Is it about your business?”

“No. My business is very good. It’s about my relationship.” Feng Yu purposely replied.

“Relationship? You and your wife?”

“I am still single. Oh, do you believe that people have past lives and present lives?”

Zhou Kexin’s hand shook. Past lives and present lives? Why is he talking about this? Is this guy him?

Impossible. It’s a coincidence that they met online!

“I don’t know. Can you tell me more about it? We don’t know each other anyway, and I will not tell others.”

“Alright. I will tell you about this…”

Feng Yu told Zhou Kexin a story. In this story, the main character has a girlfriend, but one day, he suddenly remembered his past life and knew he has a wife.

The main character of the story wrote a letter based on his new memories, and there is really a person there!

Zhou Kexin’s eyes really popped out. How is this possible? It’s really him!

The main character of the story is him, and the story is about them!

Is this destiny?

Chapter 1078 – Zhou Kexin’s new job

Zhou Kexin suddenly interrupts Feng Yu’s story, telling him that she got offline and logged off. Feng Yu was disappointed, as he had not finished his story.

The frustrated Feng Yu passed his account to the person he hired to level his character and logged off.

Feng Yu left his apartment and went to Zhou Kexin’s university again. He wants to enter but hesitated.

What should Feng Yu say if they meet?

Zhou Kexin is an assertive person, and if Feng Yu appears in front of her again, it might make the situation worse.

But Feng Yu did not notice he was seen by a girl as he leaves the campus.

“Kexin, Kexin, guess who I saw when I return?” Zhou Kexin’s roommate, Xiao Wen, asked excitedly.

Although Zhou Kexin is feeling down, she still forces herself to joke with Xiao Wen. “Who? Andy Lau?”

“Not Andy Lau. It’s that handsome guy who keeps looking at you. Can you remember that guy who sat on the bench outside of our dormitory?”

Zhou Kexin stood up immediately and asked. “Where is he?”

Zhou Kexin regretted asking this question and sat down again. What will she do if she knows where he is? Go and meet him?

“You want to see him? It’s too late. When I entered the school gates, I saw him leaving. That handsome guy had a depress-look on his face, like Tony Leung Chiu-wai.” Xiao Wen replied excitedly.

He came and left again?!

Zhou Kexin had complicated feelings after she heard what Xiao Wen said. She is happy, disappointed, confused, and dejected. Maybe it’s good for him to leave and not meet again. This might be the best ending for them.

“Kexin, Kexin, what happened? Are you listening?”

“Ah? I’m listening.”

“Then let’s go. What are you waiting for?” Xiao Wen dragged Zhou Kexin out.

“Where are we going?” Zhou Kexin asked. She was not paying attention to Xiao Wen earlier.

“Look at the time! We are going to have our dinner!”

The next day, a few people entered the university to give out flyers for intern reporters. Those that have internship experiences will have an advantage.

Xiao Wen heard about this and immediately inform Zhou Kexin. She felt with something to occupy Zhou Kexin’s mind, she might return to her old self.

“Xiao Wen, what is this company? Is it reliable? I heard Miaoyu had gone for an internship interview and was cheated 200 RMB. That company also disappear shortly after that.” Zhou Kexin asked suspiciously.

Zhou Kexin had never heard of this company before. Is this a fraud?

“Ah… didn’t you see the head of the recruiters was standing beside our school’s director? Furthermore, we can choose not to pay for anything. Look at what they wrote on the flyer. They are looking for someone who can take hardships, professional, and interview skills. It is the same as what our teachers said.”

“But we don’t have any internship experiences.”

“I don’t have, but you have. Didn’t you work as an intern for that Hong Kong Medical Magazine? Although you took a long leave from work because of your medical condition, you did an internship there. If you succeed, you might get a job there after you graduate. Look here… if you are sent overseas, lodging and meals will be provided, and you will get an extra allowance!”

Zhou Kexin was also interested. More importantly, she is afraid she might meet the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ again when she plays games. Maybe getting a job can make her forget about him.

“Alright. Let’s go and try.”

……

“You are Zhou Kexin? I saw you had worked as an intern with a medical magazine before. But you are not a medical student, right?”

“Yes, but I am a reporter. I was also lucky to get hired.” Zhou Kexin sat nervously at the interview.

“Alright. Can you tell me more about your experience at that magazine agency?”

Zhou Kexin paused for a few seconds and said. “I fell sick after I conducted my first interview, and had only written three articles. After I recovered, I resigned.

The interviewer was stunned. That means this work experience is as good as nothing.

But the higher-ups had instructed the interviewer that this girl must be hired. The interviewer nodded. “I admire your honesty. As reporters, honesty is a virtue, and news must be according to facts. You had surprised me with your answer.”

Zhou Kexin brightens up. The interviewer sounds like he is going to hire her.

You mentioned that you resigned from the Medical Magazine agency due to your medical condition. Will your condition affect your work in the future?”

“No. I had fully recovered and will not have any relapse.” Zhou Kexin firmly replied.

“I saw that you are applying for the role of a part-time intern, and can only work during the weekends and school holidays. That means you cannot travel on job assignments, right?” This intern only wants to work on weekends. What are the higher-ups thinking by hiring her? What can she do if she is hired?

“If necessary, I can apply for leave from my university, and my school is very supportive.” Most universities are supportive of their students’ practical training.

“What do you think about the benefits and salary of this job?”

“It’s fine. I am only looking for an opportunity to gain experience. Hopefully, I can remain in the company after I graduate.” This reply is what the teachers at the university taught them.

“Our company is a magazine agency, and we produce both hardcopies and softcopies of our magazine. Do you know how to use a PC? How good are your PC skills?”

“I knew the basics and had learned Office software. But I am not very good at it.” Zhou Kexin replied.

Hiss….

The interviewer is speechless. This girl has nothing special at all.

“What about your English standards? I am not referring to what you learned in school. Can you read and understand English documents, and converse with others?”

“I can read English newspapers and books, and knows basic conversation. But I might not understand certain professional words.”

The interviewer nodded. At least, no other interviewees dare to say they can speak English other than this little girl.”

“What other skills do you have?”

“I can type fast and is trained in calligraphy.

“Alright. Go back and wait for our call. Is this number your dormitory’s phone number? We can also reach you with this pager number, right?”

“The phone number is my dormitory’s number, and this pager number belongs to my roommate. You can reach me through these two numbers.”

Three days later, Zhou Kexin’s roommate gave Zhou Kexin a number to return call. After hanging up, Zhou Kexin jumps up excitedly. “I pass the interview! I am going to be Wind and Rain Media’s intern reporter!”

At the same time, Hu Ran reported to Feng Yu. “Boss, the person you mentioned is now our company’s internship reporter!”

Tony Leung Chiu-wai

Chapter 1079 – Microsoft Office is not selling

All the Directors were gathered in a small meeting room for their monthly meeting. But this time, there is one chair missing, and no Qi Li energy drinks on the table.

After Feng Yu was kicked out of the board of directors, Paul Allen had been in a good mood, other than his trip to China. For almost one month after returning from China, he doesn’t have any appetite and even felt like puking when he saw the ants on the sidewalks.

“This meeting today is to discuss our software sales issues. Our sales for the second quarter had increased, but cannot be compared to last year’s increase, especially for our Office software…”

The Directors looked at each other and did not say anything. Paul Allen sneered. “Steve, the Asian market is affected the most. You are the President of the Asia market, shouldn’t you say something?”

Ballmer gave Paul Allen a side glance. “What do you want me to say? I had suggested to carry on our cooperation with Feng Yu, or Lenovo Group, and you are the one who wanted to separate our Office software and operating system. Now, our Office software’s sales are not doing well, and you are saying this is my problem?”

Steve Ballmer does not like Paul Allen. He knows he is not as good as Paul Allen in software development. Still, even Bill Gates seeks his advice on the company’s operation. He is so much better at management than Paul Allen, who had been suffering losses for all his investments.

“You are the President for the Asia market, and also the company’s Vice President for product sales. Our sales are going down, and it’s your responsibility. Even if I had suggested to spilled up the sales of our Office software and operating system, it’s your responsibility to improve the sales. It’s your problem!” Paul Allen raised his voice.

“Since you think I am not good at sales, how about you take over me? I remember when you are in charge of sales, we had negative growth.” Ballmer retorted.

After Feng Yu was kicked out of the board, Paul Allen starts to target Ballmer. But Ballmer is not a pushover!

Furthermore, Ballmer knows Bill Gates is supportive of him.

Bill Gates is now regretting his rash decision. He should have waited until Microsoft set up their sales distribution channels in China before falling out with Feng Yu.

Because of Bill Gate’s decision, Microsoft had suffered, and Bill Gates was surprised that Feng Yu is not concerned about Microsoft’s profits.

Ballmer had told Bill Gates the reason for the lower sales in China.

Lenovo Group has a subsidiary, Lenovo Kingsoft, which is also a software company. This company’s main product is antivirus and office software.

Microsoft was caught off guard when Lenovo Kingsoft introduced WPS97. This software is fully compatible with its Office software and Windows. But the price for WPS97 is only a fifth of Microsoft Office.

More importantly, WPS97 has more functions, and the Chinese version is much better than Microsoft Office from the users’ feedbacks.

This software had the support of Lenovo had made no one in China ask about Microsoft Office.

With something better and cheaper, who would spend money on something more expensive and inferior.

Also, Lenovo Kingsoft’s software is sold in a package. For example, Kingsoft Dictionary, Kingsoft Anti-Virus, and WPS97 are sold together.

Not only are the Chinese interested in these bundle sales. Even the Americans will also be interested.

It’s just like when Microsoft had bundled their Operating System and Office together, their sales are doing well. This is because the consumers will feel they had gotten a good deal when they purchase the bundle.

At first, Bill Gates had the same thinking as Paul Allen. He thought they had gained a foothold in China, as their operating systems are selling well. The Chinese should have gotten used to Microsoft Windows, and it should be the same as their Office software.

But Microsoft did not expect WPS97 is much better and cheaper than their Office.

WPS97 also provides free upgrades and have good aftersales service. All the cities and most counties in China have Lenovo aftersales offices. With such a strong network, Lenovo becomes the market leader in China, and no other brands can compete with them.

Lenovo had become the market leader for PC and software in China now.

Other than WPS97, Lenovo Kingsoft also developed a drawing software, supermarket system, internet café system, Office OA system, etc.

Bill Gates wondered if Ballmer is right. After Feng Yu left, Microsoft will fail in the Chinese market.

Paul Allen was still arguing with Ballmer, and the other Directors remained quiet. It’s not that they don’t want to stop the fight, but other than Bill Gates, no one in Microsoft can stop Paul Allen.

“Enough. Paul, Steve, stop arguing. We must think of a solution to improve our sales and regain our market share.” Bill Gates said with a frown.

“Since Paul thinks he is better, let him tell us what we should do. I would like to learn from someone who did not get anything after going to China to check on our Gbox product. Hmph!” Ballmer snickered.

“Advertise! We will advertise in China to let more people know our products are the best!” Paul Allen said.

“Where are you going to get the advertising budget? We do not have a budget set aside for this, and we had made a comparison with Lenovo Kingsoft. WPS97 has more features than our Office and is much cheaper than us. If you are the consumer, will you use our products?” Ballmer retorted.

What stupid idea is this? They might as well lower their Office’s retail price than spending money on advertising. It might be more effective.

Microsoft is a big brand, but in China, Lenovo Kingsoft is also a big brand. Also, Lenovo Kingsoft’s products are exported to East Europe, and Microsoft does not have any market.

Bill Gates looked at the rest of the Directors. “Do you all have any suggestions?”

Everyone kept quiet, and Ballmer slowly says. “The only solution is to speed up our Office software development and make our product better than them. This way, we can be competitive. Even if we lower our prices now, it is useless.”

Paul Allen did not say anything. He had never expected Microsoft’s products to be lagging behind a Chinese product. How can Microsoft lag others in their strongest field?

Chapter 1080 – Lenovo is getting listed

Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Steve Ballmer were in Bill Gates’s office, looking at an invitation card on the desk.

This invitation is from Feng Yu and Liu Chuanzhi. They are inviting the three of them to attend Lenovo’s bell-ringing ceremony in New York.

The higher-ups had been asking Lenovo Group to get listed but were stopped by Feng Yu. It was because Feng Yu felt there is no need for the company to get listed as the company has enough funds, and the company will not raise a lot of funds when they get listed at that time.

But if Lenovo Group got listed now, it’s value will increase by at least two folds. Feng Yu is confident that the share prices will shoot up on the first day as Lenovo Group had become the biggest PC manufacturer in Asia.

This listing does not include Lenovo’s software division. That means Lenovo Kingsoft is not included, and Feng Yu plans to let Lenovo Kingsoft to get listed on its own. This way, they can raise more funds and increase their international presence.

A lot of people had arrived in New York to attend this bell-ringing ceremony. Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng, Kirilenko, Zhong Qingxian, Kameda Masao, and the leaders from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

If Lenovo is listed in Hong Kong, the Chinese Government will send more officials to attend. Still, Feng Yu had insisted on getting listed in the US.

The reason is very simple. Technology stocks are extremely popular in the US now, and the PC industry is also considered a tech stock.

Issuing the same number of shares will raise more funds. Lenovo will be entering the Western countries’ market, and they need more funds to do it. Some people had complained that if the company is listed in the US, the Chinese will not get to buy the shares, and all the money will go to the Americans. But all these complaints were being ignored by Feng Yu.

Currently, listing in the US might seem to be letting the American investors make money. Still, it will also push up Lenovo’s share prices. Another reason is the US stock market is going to crash soon.

When the stock index plunge, the tech stocks will be the first to crash. Lenovo’s share prices will also plunge and might even drop below its IPO price.

When this happens, Feng Yu and his men can acquire back their shares, and if they have enough funds, they can even get delisted. This is equivalent to borrowing money from the investors to develop the company and not paying interest.

At the end of this year and the start of next year, Lenovo Kingsoft and the three internet companies will be listed in the US. They might not qualify to be listed on NYSE, but they can get listed on NASDAQ.

The listing of Lenovo Group will increase Feng Yu’s wealth tremendously.

Next year, Bill Gates’s net worth will drop because of Microsoft’s share prices, and that will be when Feng Yu overtakes Bill Gates to become the World’s Wealthiest man!

Lenovo Group’s listed had also invited many international companies like Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung Group, and other hardware manufacturers and software companies.

If the invitation is only from Lenovo Group, not many heavyweight guests will attend. But it’s different if the invitation is from Feng Yu and Liu Chuanzhi.

Feng Yu is the World’s Second Richest man, and most people will look up to him. Furthermore, Lenovo Group has the backing of the Chinese Government, and these companies are currently cooperating with Lenovo.

Some companies had wanted to send a normal representative to attend the event. Still, now, they are sending their shareholders and directors to attend. Many companies’ CEO and Chairmen attended the ceremony themselves.

Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Steve Ballmer discussed this ceremony, and Paul Allen refused to attend. Why should I go and congratulate Feng Yu?! My NBA team is currently in the playoffs, and I am busy with the matches.

Bill Gates thought for a while and excused himself from attending this event. In the end, Steve Ballmer represented Microsoft to attend.

Bill Gates had decided to let Ballmer become the company’s CEO or President this year. He does not have the energy to do so many things by himself, and it’s time to get someone to help him.

Anyway, Bill Gates is still the Chairman, and even if Ballmer becomes the President, he can replace him.

……

Most media in the US had gathered in New York Stock Exchange today. Of course, many Chinese and Asia media were also there to report on Lenovo Group’s listing.

The media knew that Lenovo Group had invited lots of Big shots in the industry to attend their bell-ringing ceremony. It is like a gathering of the Fortune Global 500!

“Donald, thanks for the help.” Feng Yu thanked Donald Trump.

“Hahaha… don’t mention it.” Donald knew that even if he doesn’t help Feng Yu, Feng Yu can also get someone else. But if he helps, he can improve his relationship with Feng Yu further.

Liu Chuanzhi is giving a speech on the stage. He might be old and fat now, but under the spotlights, he is still charismatic.

The Government leaders waiting by the side are getting impatient. What is Liu Chuanzhi doing?! Are you done? This is an important event, and you should not waste time.

Finally, it’s time to ring the bell. The leaders got up the stage.

Initially, Feng Yu had wanted Liu Chuanzhi to ring the bell by himself. Still, the leaders insisted they want to ring the bell too. In the end, the Government leaders, Liu Chuanzhi, Zhong Qingxian, and Fu Guangzheng, went up the stage to ring the bell.

As for Feng Yu, he remained in a corner with his champagne. He does not like to be under the limelight.

“Feng, it is an honor to ring the bell. Why are you not going onto the stage?” Kirilenko asked.

“Honor? It would be an embarrassment if Lenovo got delisted one day.”

Kirilenko’s eyes nearly pop out. “What? Delist? Why would Lenovo get delisted? Is the company facing some problems?”

“No. There is no problem with the company, but who knows what will happen in the future?” Feng Yu replied with a mysterious smile.

Kirilenko shrugged his shoulders as he does not understand what Feng Yu said. Kirilenko had wanted to buy Lenovo’s shares. Still, Feng Yu told him to buy other companies’ shares as Lenovo’s shares are not suitable to hold for the long term.

This is the first time Kirilenko heard someone that is not confident about their own company. But he still chose to believe Feng Yu.

When the market opens, Lenovo’s share prices increased by 39%, and Feng Yu smiles.

Chapter 1081 – Getting listed one after another

Most American investors are very interested in tech stocks now. This made Feng Yu confident that his Chinese web portal companies’ share prices will skyrocket after they got listed.

Feng Yu remembers in his previous life, the share prices for the three major Chinese Web portals shot up, and the three founders made it on the Chinese Top Billionaires. They even made it on <Forbes> billionaire list for a while, before dropping out.

Although the three founders are still on the Chinese Billionaire list, they did not make it onto <Forbes> for the next few years.

The internet boom had created many billionaires, but at the same time, many of them only lasted for a while. The ones who knew how to stop in time had made tons of money. For example, the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, amassed more than 2 billion USD by investing in the tech stocks.

After that, Mark Cuban sold his company for cash and shares of other companies before buying the Dallas Mavericks.

In the future, Mark Cuban’s asset did not grow so fast again and only grew slowly and steadily. He has enough money and is managing his favorite basketball team.

Yahoo’s shares are also skyrocketing, and Feng Yu realized if he sells all these companies’ shares at the highest point at the end of this year and early next year, he can raise enough funds to acquire Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Just Feng Yu’s Microsoft and Yahoo’s ordinary shares will worth 40 billion USD.

This sum of money is enough to acquire more than 50% of AMD’s shares and Feng Yu to become the biggest shareholders, and he will have the final say in the company.

If this amount is not enough, Feng Yu can also let his other companies, like Aiwa, etc. to get listed.

……

“Bill, Feng’s asset is increasing exponentially recently. The companies he invested are getting listed one after another, and their share prices are climbing sharply.” Paul Allen took a puff of his cigar as he looks at Bill Gates.

“His asset did increase a lot compared to last year. But our assets are also raising, and he can’t overtake us!” Bill Gates replied confidently.

Microsoft’s share prices are rising rapidly, and Bill Gates’s assets are over 70 billion USD. He is way ahead from the pack, and it’s hard for the rest to catch up with him.

Only Feng Yu’s asset is growing rapidly. <Forbes> and many other financial magazines see Feng Yu as the only person who might exceed Bill Gates.

But a few magazines had the same thinking as Bill Gates. Feng Yu can only look at Bill Gates’s back and will never catch up with him.

The most interesting part is the netizens. They had started a discussion on the internet, and some of them felt Bill Gates will be the World’s Wealthiest Man forever. Feng Yu and Warren Buffett will never catch up with him.

Some netizens felt Feng Yu will catch up with Bill Gates very soon because Feng Yu’s company’s subsidiaries are getting listed now. It is the bull market now, and their share prices will shoot up. The share prices of these subsidiaries will increase by a few folds, and Feng Yu’s assets will be doubled.

Feng Yu and Bill Gates did not mention anything about this, but the netizens had started arguing over this.

“Bill, should we speak to Feng? I remembered when you exchange 2% of voting shares with him, the contract states that if Feng Yu leaves Microsoft, the original shareholders of Microsoft will get the priority to trade with him.” Paul Allen said.

Bill Gates looks at Paul Allen. “If you want those shares, you can speak to Feng. Feng is still Microsoft’s shareholder and has no intention of selling his shares. We have not a reason to force him to sell those shares to you.”

Since Microsoft was founded, Paul Allen had been unhappy with the proportion of his shares. But at that time, Bill Gates had a stronger backing than him. Don’t think that Bill Gates had really set up Microsoft from nothing. He, including Warren Buffett, etc. has strong backings.

Li Zekai, had also claimed to have built his fortune by himself. But Superman Li had helped him a lot in his career.

Most of Paul Allen’s investments in the past were making losses, and only a handful had made some money. He regretted selling some of his Microsoft shares in the past and wants to increase his shares now, especially voting shares.

But no one is willing to sell their voting shares.

Paul Allen smiled and did not say anything. He heard rumors that Bill Gates will be transferring his assets to a foundation to avoid estate tax. The US’s estate tax is very high and could reach up to 55%!

This tax includes inheritance, transfer, etc. and forces one to spend their money while they are alive.

But having a charity foundation is a good way to avoid taxes. Not only donations can lower the taxes, and it can avoid certain taxes, like the estate tax, etc.

If Bill Gates sells his shares, then Paul Allen will become the biggest shareholder, and he will have the most voting rights.

But from what Bill Gates said today, he seems he has no intention of selling his shares now.

“Bill, how is your charity foundation? I heard Buffett had donated a sum of money into your fund.”

“Yes. Buffett had given me a lot of suggestions.” Although Bill Gates is conceited, he is not a fool. He is no doubt the leader in software development in the world now, but when it comes to investment, Warren Buffett is much better than him.

The media had given Warren Buffett the nickname of God of investment. Still, they had never given Bill Gates the nickname of God of Software!

If Bill Gates did not say anything else. He is thinking about Feng Yu’s companies getting listed. Lenovo Kingsoft, Sina, Sohu, and NetEase’s share prices had shot up after they got listed. Are all these companies have the potential? Yes. But Bill Gates did not expect these companies’ shares to be so popular.

Is it because these companies are Chinese companies?

Many investors felt China is following the US’s footsteps and is focusing on internet technology.

Bill Gates wondered why Feng Yu had not let his companies get listed in the past, and rushed to get them all listed suddenly now?

Chapter 1082 – Get ready to dump your shares

“Brother Ki, inform your men to get ready to dump your technology shares.” Feng Yu called Kirilenko.

“So early? Didn’t you say early next year?” Kirilenko asked in surprise.

“If we dump now, we can raise funds to speculate on US stock index futures. Although we will not make a lot of money, it will be more than what we will get from the shares.”

Selling off their shares will take place over some time, especially for shares from companies like Microsoft. If they dump the shares in large volumes, the share prices will crash.

Feng Yu’s plan is to sell off all his Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. shares over three to five months, and then short the US market.

This year, the US stock markets are still bullish, but it will crash next year, and in 2001, the tragic incident will happen, and the global stock markets will crash.

Even now, not everyone is bullish about internet and technology stocks. The ‘God of Investment’ Warren Buffett, insisted not to invest in tech stocks. Another economist, Robert Shiller, published a book, <Irrational Exuberance>, predicting the US stock market bubble will burst. The markets will crash like 1987.

But not a lot of people believe what Shiller said. Many people felt they will not be so unlucky and can exit the market before the bubble burst.

Although many people advocate rational investing, how many can do that? After the Asian Financial Crisis two years ago, more and more investors chose to invest in the US markets.

In 1997, there were only 3.7 million trades over the internet. But now, it had increased to over 9.5 million trades, and it is still increasing. It is estimated the trades will be over 10 million this year, and almost every family in the US had invested in some financial instruments.

The rise of the internet was one of the reasons for this boom.

Anyone with a PC that can go online can sit in their living room to check the share prices. They can trade whenever they want without affecting their work. Furthermore, the US stock markets had been doing very well in the past two years.

The US stock index is almost 10,000 points and might even reach 11,000 points this year.

After calling Kirilenko, Feng Yu called the Fu Family to inform them. The Fu Family had invested a significant amount in the US stock market.

When the Fu family knew Feng Yu is bringing forward his plans, they were shocked. But they also know that Feng Yu is targeting a US company worth almost 70 billion USD. Is Feng Yu selling off his shares to take over this company?

Feng Yu told the Fu Family that he will sell his shares, and don’t blame him if they are going to lose money.

After receiving Feng Yu’s call, Kirilenko immediately ordered his broker team to prepare.

Kirilenko’s brokers felt this is not a good idea, as the US stocks are still making money. If he wants to invest in something else, he should raise funds from another source.

But Kirilenko has the final say, and the brokers can only do as they were told. Behind Kirilenko’s back, they grumbled about Kirilenko seeking Feng Yu’s advice instead of them, for all these important decisions.

That’s right. Feng Yu is a genius in financial trading and had a proven track record. But who will not make a mistake? Since you hired us, you should hear us out first.

If the boss doesn’t ask them for advice, how are they going to prove themselves and get a raise?

But the brokers only dare to grumble behind Kirilenko’s back. Some of them had raised objections to this decision and were fired. After that, no one dares to oppose to Kirilenko.

When Feng Yu tells He Zhaoji to think of ways to dump Microsoft shares, he received Fu Rongqi’s call.

“Nephew Feng, is it too early to dump the shares, and is there really a need to dump everything?” Fu Rongqi felt Feng Yu was too extreme. Even if a bubble is formed and might burst anytime, but not all shares will crash.

“Uncle Fu, what shares do you want to keep? Blue chips? Don’t forget that Microsoft shares are also a blue-chip share. What if I tell you that blue chips will plunge the most in the next one to two years?”

“What? Plunge the most? You are saying blue chips will fall more than the average? Did you get any insider information from the US government about their new policies?”

Only the government’s policy changes can cost such incidents to happen.

Clinton had supported the Tech Firms, which was why tech stocks had been pushing the stock markets up. His terms will be up soon, and the new President will be introducing new policies, which might cause the market to crash.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the US blue chips, like Microsoft, Intel, AT&T, General Motors, HP, Coca-Cola, IBM, etc. are all world-class companies.

But the share prices of these companies had fallen more than the market. Many people claim that it was these companies that caused the US market crash.

Buffett had said. “What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.”

The ‘wise’ are the people that are standing on the top, and the fools are those investors and speculators, who only knows how to follow the trends. They are also the ones at the bottom of the food chain.

“Uncle Fu, I don’t know about the policy changes, but this is my analysis of the market. It was also the blue chips that were severely affected during the financial crisis in the late 80s. This time, it will be the same!”

Fu Rongqi thought for a while and nodded. That means once the market becomes bearish, the blue-chip shares will plunge. After all, the blue-chip shares are currently overvalued.

Blue chips companies can push the stock markets up, but when the market crashes, they will always be the first to get affected.

“Alright. I understand now. We will start to sell our shares from tomorrow onwards!”

Chapter 1083 – He sold his Microsoft shares

Bill Gates is sitting together with his good friend, Steve Forbes. Bill Gates knew many of the companies Feng Yu invested in had listed, and he wants to know about the increase of Feng Yu’s assets.

The title, ‘World’s Wealthiest Billionaire,’ had hindered Microsoft’s development. For example, many people felt Microsoft products are overpriced and still monopolized the market. If not, how did Bill Gates get rich so fast?

But this title is beneficial to Bill Gates’s investment. For example, if he reveals that he will invest in a certain company, that company’s shares will shoot up. His name itself can push a company’s share prices up.

Of course, Bill Gates cannot be compared to Warren Buffett. Buffett is an expert in investment, and he will only invest in companies after serious consideration.

After Warren Buffett invested in some companies, he will replace the top management staff and improve its performance. The share prices and dividends will increase because of his actions.

Feng Yu’s investments are different from them. He had only invested in companies that are not listed and had never interfered with the companies’ operations. At most, he gave some suggestions, and his actions seem what a venture capitalist will do.

Venture capital investing is very risky, but all of Feng Yu’s investments did not suffer any losses!

Steve Forbes passed the latest data to Bill Gates, and Bill Gates was shocked to see the figures.

This is because Feng Yu’s asset is over 50 billion USD now!

Forbes and Bill Gates had discussed about Feng Yu’s assets before, and they concluded Feng Yu’s asset will not exceed 45 billion this year. The reason is because Feng Yu had invested in many traditional industries, like retail, food manufacturing, etc.

Also, there must be a reason why Feng Yu’s companies are not getting listed. Although they don’t know what the reason was, they guess it must be the company’s finances.

Both Forbes and Bill Gates felt Feng Yu’s highest income this year is from Microsoft’s shares. That’s why they did not expect Feng Yu’s assets to be anywhere close to 50 billion USD, let alone exceed it!

But after Lenovo got listed, Feng Yu’s companies started to get listed one after another. During the IPO launch, Feng Yu had not appeared on stage.

Feng Yu was not even the Chairmen of these companies, but Steve Forbes had found out that Feng Yu owns a large proportion of these companies’ shares and has the final say in them.

The shares of these companies shot up after they got listed, and Forbes knew a secret. Lenovo Group had almost become one of the constituent stocks. But for some unknown reason, this was not mentioned again.

It’s an achievement for a company to almost become a constituent stock immediately after it got listed. Many investors felt Lenovo Group is a blue-chip company and is worth holding on to their shares.

Many big companies in the US cannot get this honor!

“Steve, is this set of data accurate?” Bill Gates asked.

“What’s wrong? Did you think I had overvalued his assets” Forbes asked him.

“No, I think you had undervalued his assets!” Bill Gates replied slowly.

Bill Gates suddenly realized that he had underestimated Feng Yu all this while. This young man had always been very mysterious.

Feng Yu does not have strong backgrounds, but he managed to build up a business empire from scratch. He had never made any wrong moves, and it’s unbelievable.

How can anyone not make any mistake? Even Microsoft had suffered some setbacks with failed products. But Feng Yu’s companies can make money regardless of what they make.

Many of these companies are not related. The only common similarity of these companies is they are invested by Feng Yu.

Bill Gates will never believe that Feng Yu had not interfered in these companies’ operations. These companies’ success must have something to do with Feng Yu.

These companies’ value had increased after they got listed. This means Feng Yu’s other companies that are not listed should be undervalued.

Forbes looks at Bill Gates. “Did you feel threatened? My valuation of Feng Yu’s assets is conservative. If not, I think Feng’s assets will exceed 60 billion this year. If his Wind and Rain Electronics, etc. got listed this year, he can easily exceed 70 billion USD!!”

Bill Gates is starting to get worried. Microsoft’s value is very high, and there will not be any sudden increase in the future. That means, if he is going to depend on Microsoft’s shares, his assets will not increase by a lot suddenly.

But Feng Yu is different. He has lots of companies, and his assets had increased by a lot after a few of his companies got listed. What if all of his companies got listed?

Feng Yu’s assets will catch up with Bill Gates and might even overtake him.

At first, Bill Gates thought he can be friends with Feng Yu. Even if their relationship cannot be like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, they can be like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

But Bill Gates had fallen out with Feng Yu. Although they still have some business cooperation, they can no longer be friends.

“Do you know about the growth of Wind and Rain Consulting Firm’s assets?”

“I am not sure. That is not a listed company, and I can only find out that this company had acquired Microsoft’s shares. Also, they have an increase in clients’ investments this year. Their assets should have increased by a lot.”

Companies that are not listed do not need to disclose their finances, and it is almost impossible to find out the actual company’s value accurately.

This is also why <Forbes> used the word “Estimated” in Feng Yu’s net worth. This is because Feng Yu’s has too many assets that cannot be evaluated.

Bill Gates sighed. Don’t overthink it. At least Feng Yu is still Microsoft’s shareholder.

Suddenly, Bill Gates’s and Steve Forbes’s phones rang. They answered and got the news at the same time. “Feng Yu had sold his Microsoft shares!”

Chapter 1084 – The Furious Allen

Bill Gates was stunned. He did not expect Feng Yu to sell his Microsoft shares. Microsoft shares are doing very well now and have been rising steadily.

After the Win98 operating system was launched, the company is set to get high profits. Why did Feng Yu sell his shares?

Forbes looks at Bill Gates. He felt there must be something wrong within Microsoft, or else, why did Feng Yu will sell off his Microsoft shares he acquired over the years suddenly?

“Bill, did you receive the news?”

“Yes. But I don’t understand why he is doing this. Microsoft share prices are rising, and why did he announce to the public that he selling away his shares?”

Feng Yu had started selling his Microsoft shares publicly because he is worried about the Prisoner’s dilemma. If everyone follows him and dump their Microsoft shares, it will cause the share prices to crash, and there will be no buyers.

But announcing the sales publicly is different. Wind and Rain Consulting had contacted a few financial institutions and sold Feng Yu’s shares in large volumes. This way, the share prices will not be affected, and it might even rise slightly.

After Feng Yu’s men spread the news that he wants to sell his Microsoft shares, many financial institutions contacted Wind and Rain Consulting.

Microsoft shares are highly sought after, as no one is willing to sell their Microsoft shares.

Feng Yu is selling his shares at the market rate. The financial institutions do not need to pay a premium price or undertake additional risks.

The reason given by Wind and Rain Consulting is there are shifting their investment direction from overseas to China.

Many financial institutions felt Feng Yu must have some government background. He had made enough money overseas and is going to invest in China.

This is a valid reason, despite many people felt this is a stupid move. Microsoft is going to announce its dividends at the end of the year.

But the financial institutions did not mention the dividends, as they want to buy more shares from Feng Yu.

This period, Feng Yu had met the higher management of some financial institutions secretly. Some financial institutions even felt Feng Yu is selling his Microsoft shares because he was kicked out from the board of directors.

The Chinese have a saying. ‘It is better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.’ Even if Feng Yu is not holding on to Microsoft’s shares, he is still the World’s Second Richest man and the richest man in Asia.

The Asia markets are emerging, especially the Chinese market. There is nothing wrong with Feng Yu focusing his investments in China.

Bill Gates was even more shocked by Feng Yu’s determination to draw the line between him and Microsoft!

Feng Yu had sold all of his Microsoft shares, including the voting shares. Yes. He sold the voting shares to Ballmer, and Bill Gates had no idea when this had happened. Feng Yu must have met Ballmer in secret and complete the deal.

Ballmer was just promoted to President, while Bill Gates is the Chairman and CEO. This is giving a large part of his authority to Ballmer, but Ballmer had traded with Feng Yu without informing him.

……

“Mr. Allen, there are rumors that Mr. Feng had sold his Microsoft shares because of you. Do you have any comments?”

“Mr. Allen, did you kick Mr. Feng out of the board of directors, and caused Mr. Feng to sell his Microsoft shares?”

“Mr. Allen, why did Mr. Gates choose Mr. Ballmer as the President of Microsoft and not you?” A reporter asked.

“Mr. Allen…..”

Paul Allen is speechless. How would I know why Feng Yu had sold his Microsoft shares?!

Even if I had forced Feng Yu out of the board, what’s wrong? Feng Yu had not been doing his job, and why should the company reward him with a bonus at the end of the year?!

Also, I had mentioned that I don’t have the time to be Microsoft President. How can you imply that I am not as good as Ballmer?!

But Paul Allen also did not expect Feng Yu to sell away all his Microsoft shares so publicly. What made him more furious is Ballmer knows this and did not mention this during the directors’ meeting.

“Ballmer, I want your explanation on this matter.” Paul Allen looks at Ballmer coldly.

Ballmer sighed. He does not know Feng Yu will sell away all his Microsoft shares. If he knows Feng Yu will do this, he will not buy those voting shares. He even had to take a loan for those shares.

“Feng had looked for me. Based on his agreement with Bill, he must sell his voting shares to the existing voting shareholders. So, he came and look for me. I am increasing my stake in the company, is there anything wrong?” Ballmer said.

What Ballmer said was not wrong. He had become the company’s President, and buying the company’s shares shows his confidence in improving the company’s profits. It would be more surprising if he sold the company’s shares after becoming the company’s President.

“When did Feng look for you? How come we are not informed?” Paul Allen questioned.

“About two weeks ago. We had met a few times to negotiate the price of the shares. This is a normal trade, and why should I inform you? Did I break any law or violate the company’s policy?” Ballmer asked.

Did you think I am stupid? If I inform you, will I get the chance to buy those shares? Everyone knows you are looking for the opportunity to increase your shares.

“Hmph! Everyone is saying Microsoft had discriminated against Feng Yu and is racist against Chinese. What are we going to do about it?” Paul Allen asked.

How can a company’s decision to be escalated to racism? Microsoft also has many Asian employees, and they are trying to open the Chinese market. It is the Chinese companies that are offering low prices for their software. It is the Chinese that is discriminating against Microsoft!

“We will not do anything. This is just a normal trade. Feng is selling his Microsoft shares, and the financial institutions are buying the shares from him. What’s there to worry about?”

“Idiot! Do you think the media will think this way? Our share prices will surely be affected tomorrow!” Paul Allen shouted.

“Those are all rumors, and it will not affect our status. We will be inviting more rumors if we try to explain ourselves. Furthermore, our profits this year are not affected, and even if our share prices have dropped slightly, but it is not a problem.” Ballmer replied confidently.

But will it be as optimistic as what Ballmer says?

Chapter 1085 – Microsoft’s share prices fell

Bill Gates and the rest thought Feng Yu’s Microsoft shares are led than 15%, but thy did not know that Feng Yu had increased his stakes through Wind and Rain Consulting.

When the market opens today, Feng Yu ordered his men to dump the rest of their Microsoft shares.

Suddenly, rumors about Microsoft not doing well surfaced online. Feng Yu was not the one who spread this rumor, and it might be a prank by some netizens, or someone who purposely spread fake news to push Microsoft share prices down.

When Feng Yu sold his shares, Microsoft’s share prices immediately fell. Although the drop is not a lot, they can’t recover today.

Paul Allen is cussing and scolding Feng Yu in his office. Since you had found financial institutions to buy your shares, why don’t you sell everything to them?

Did you not suffer any losses when you sell those shares? You are detrimental to everyone!

But Paul Allen is not very concerned about this, as fluctuations in share prices are normal. Microsoft is the strongest company in the world, and the share prices will not continue to fall.

The next day, an unknown trading account suddenly made many selling Microsoft shares, causing the share prices to continue to fall.

Paul Allen and the rest are still confident of Microsoft. On the third day, Microsoft shares continue to fall. They immediately investigate and found out that someone else is dumping Microsoft shares in high volume.

For three consecutive days, Microsoft share prices have been falling. Although the drop is not a lot, it made people worry. Some investors start to dump their Microsoft shares as they felt Microsoft shares are no longer going strong.

The next week, Microsoft’s share prices continue to fall. The fall is not a lot each day, but it had fallen by more than 5% at the end of the week.

Bill Gates’s net worth had shrunk by a few billion USD!

Feng Yu, Kirilenko, and Fu Rongqi are selling their Microsoft shares in batches and successfully pulls down the share prices.

One week later, Microsoft’s share prices start to recover, but the recovery is very slow and volatile.

During this period, Feng Yu and the rest sell the rest of their stocks, especially Yahoo and other tech stocks. Currently, it is a bull market for tech stocks, and they can sell a small number of shares within seconds easily.

……

“Damn! It’s all Feng’s fault. If it’s not for him, will our share prices drop?” Paul Allen paced around in frustration.

A Director who was kicked out of Microsoft is giving them trouble! This is unforgivable!

Are those investors stupid? We are Microsoft, and shouldn’t they grab the opportunity to own our shares? They are even selling their shares. Which other company share is as strong as us, Microsoft?!

Investing in our Microsoft shares is better than investing in other companies!

Bill Gates is also feeling frustrated. He had suffered the most losses when Microsoft share prices fall. Every percentage drop is worth a few hundred thousand USD to him, let alone more than 5%.

Bill Gates had thought his net worth will exceed 90 billion USD this year and will become the wealthiest man in history. But now, he might not even reach 80 billion USD.

The weird part is that even Yahoo share prices are falling. Yahoo is the world’s biggest website, and it should be doing well this year.

eBay, Intel, and many other strong stocks also started to fall.

If it was one or two companies, it is fine. But many blue-chip share prices are dropping at the same time, and this is abnormal.

A few ‘experts’ appeared and said the US market bull run is coming to an end, and it will be the bear market soon.

The ‘experts’ showed some data to prove their analysis is correct.

Theories of economic bubbles start appearing. Many people are speculating the US stock market will crash soon, and it will affect the whole world.

Of course, some optimistic people do not believe these theories. The US economy is doing well, and the Asian Financial Crisis had just happened not long ago. There should not be another financial crisis so soon.

Those economic bubbles theories are just to scare investors away, so the so-call experts can make money by buying the shares at low prices.

All sorts of rumors surfaced, and no one knows which are real or false.

Despite the rumors, NetEase, Sina, etc. share prices continue to rise. It is as if those theories will not affect Chinese companies.

Feng Yu also did not expect this to happen. It seems a lot of people are still obsessed with tech stocks.

These irrational investments will bring tragedy to investors. Once the companies announce negative news, there will be panic selling. They might get stuck with the shares, and the share prices will crash.

NetEase, Sina, etc. had just got listed, and the original shareholders still cannot sell their shares. If not, Feng Yu will sell off his shares now and buy them back when the share prices reach the lowest point.

Now, Microsoft shareholders are anxious. They couldn’t understand why Feng Yu is so determined to draw a line with Microsoft. Is he not interested in the year-end dividends?

Feng Yu will also suffer high losses by doing this. What is he after?

Is Feng Yu trying to get back at Microsoft for kicking him out of the board of directors?

Feng Yu is pulling everyone down with him!

Did Feng and Microsoft’s relationship reach the point of no return?

The Microsoft shareholders must think of ways to stop Microsoft’s share prices from dropping and regain the investors’ confidence.

Microsoft share prices are supposed to rise, but it did not happen. Bill Gates had thought Microsoft’s value will exceed 600 billion this year.

But now, it is impossible!

……

It’s Christmas, but Bill Gates does not have the mood to celebrate it, as he had suffered a heavy blow.

The media is reporting that this is Feng Yu’s revenge on Microsoft.

Are the media stupid? How much money does Feng Yu has compared to Microsoft’s value? How is it possible for Feng Yu to take down Microsoft alone? Also, Feng Yu had sold all his shares a long time ago.

The easiest solution to increase Microsoft share prices now is to invite Feng Yu back onto the board to curb those rumors.

But this will be an embarrassment to Microsoft and Bill Gates. It will be implying that without Feng Yu, Microsoft will not survive. That’s why Bill Gates will never do this!

Bill Gates thought of another solution, which is to introduce a new product as soon as possible. For example, new software or operating system can increase Microsoft’s profits and increases the investors’ confidence!

Chapter 1086 – Everything is ready

On New Year’s Day of the Millennium, Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips held a grand product launch. They are introducing their latest model of mobile phone with a camera function!

This phone is almost twice the size of Wind and Rain’s last phone, Palm Treasure, and uses a 300,000 pixels camera with three times digital zoom, 256 colors on a 2.1-inch screen.

These designs showcased the difference between Wind and Rain mobile phones with other phones. No one had to expect a mobile phone can take pictures.

This is the best Wind and Rain Electronics can do. In their research lab, they do have a better color screen, larger display, higher camera pixels, etc.

But those features cannot be mass-produced yet, and cannot be introduced to the market.

If Feng Yu had not bought some patented technologies from Kodak, this phone might have to wait for another year. The engineers in Wind and Rain Electronics will have a tough time figuring out the digital camera technologies.

This phone is the first mobile phone with a camera function in the world. In the future, when mobile phones with cameras become popular, Wind and Rain’s phone will be recorded in history!

This is very important for Wind and Rain. They can add a slogan to all their future advertisements. “The inventor and producer of the world’s first camera phone.” This will mean all other mobile phone brands are imitating Wind and Rain!

Of course, Feng Yu had tried using this phone, and he felt the quality is too poor. It is good for capturing pictures in short distances, but if the object is further away or in poor lightings, the quality is very poor. All the photos taken are only suitable for the user’s own viewing.

But if the user is using this feature to show off, it is enough. Even when the picture quality is poor, but this is the first camera phone in the world. Feng Yu did not expect the sales of this phone to be good, and all he wants is to capture the attention of the consumers.

The later models will have upgrades to the display, camera, operating system, etc. In another two years, camera phones will become mainstream phones.

After this phone is launched, Wind and Rain Electronics grabbed all consumer electronics manufacturers and digital camera manufacturers’ attention.

These two products can be combined, and from the consumers’ reaction, they love it.

So, all mobile phone manufacturers start looking into producing camera phones.

……

Wind and Rain Electronics is doing well, but Microsoft and other companies are in trouble.

Microsoft and other companies’ share prices start to fall and are showing no signs of recovery. Even when Microsoft announces they will be introducing a new operating system, its share prices still could not recover.

Microsoft’s antitrust lawsuit is still ongoing, and it is not looking good for them. The ones suing Microsoft wants the company to be split to lower their influence, and this is what Bill Gates does not want to see.

Microsoft currently has four main product categories, operating systems, media players, web browsers, and office software. Each product is bringing in high profits for Microsoft. Oh, they still have one more instant messaging software now.

Among the products, the office software that is not sold in a package, but the operating system, media player, web browser, and instant messenger are all suspected of selling in a bundle.

Selling these products in a bundle is considered monopolizing the market because it prevents competition.

When Microsoft share prices are falling, and the antitrust lawsuit under the spotlight, the media reported that Feng Yu sold his shares because he thinks Microsoft will lose the lawsuit.

Those investors who are holding on to Microsoft shares start to worry. If Microsoft had to split up, then their share prices will plunge!

Although the share prices might recover in the future, it might also not recover.

The investors would suffer heavy losses if Microsoft shares did not recover.

Some media praised Feng Yu for being a wise and rational investor and is one step ahead of others.

Many software companies and some hardware companies criticize Microsoft for forcing them to use Microsoft operating systems.

Other than the US, companies from Europe, Japan, and many other countries, start to sue Microsoft for antitrust.

However, Microsoft is not sued in China. No one seems to care if Microsoft is monopolizing the market because Microsoft had not monopolized the Chinese market. Microsoft’s operating system is not bundled with other products in China. They are selling their system at a very low price.

Lenovo is also prepared to introduce a new type of operating system within the next two years. It will be compatible with Microsoft operating system and will have free upgrades. This new operating system will push Microsoft out of the Chinese market.

Even when Microsoft’s operating system retail price is the lowest in China compared to the rest of the world, but there are still many Chinese using counterfeit versions.

Microsoft is not afraid of paying hefty fines, but they are afraid the courts ordering the stop of their bundle sales model. Microsoft had already monopolized the operating system and almost monopolize the office software. Now, Microsoft wants to monopolize the media player, internet browsers, and instant messaging software to profit from advertisements on them.

Once a product got a monopoly on the market, it will bring high profits. If four or five products can monopolize the market, Microsoft’s profits will be several folds higher.

When the house is leaking, it keeps raining the whole night. This is how Microsoft feels now.

Although other companies’ share prices had not recovered to the peak, they had stopped falling. Only Microsoft share prices continue to drop.

The latest <Forbes> billionaires list is out. Bill Gates is still sitting in the first position with 79 billion USD. This is a far cry from what 90 billion USD he expects.

Feng Yu is still in second place, with 53 billion USD. Oh, this is based on estimations.

Feng Yu had also created a miracle. Everyone else on the list owns large amounts of listed companies’ shares and got on the list based on their shares’ value. But Feng Yu’s most profitable companies are not listed, and he can still get second place.

Many people speculate if Feng Yu’s most profitable company got listed, how much will be his actual wealth?

As everyone discussed this, Feng Yu had secretly dumped all of his Yahoo shares and caused Yahoo to share prices to tumble. What’s left is for the courts to fine Microsoft, and it will cause all the share prices of the tech companies to plunge!

Chapter 1087 – Meeting Allen again

Feng Yu is not concerned about Microsoft’s plight, and he appeared in public again in the US. Once again, Feng Yu appeared in LA Wind and Rain Arena to watch his team’s game.

This year, the Wind and Rain team had gotten two draftees. One of them is Wang Zhizhi, from China, and the other is Manu Ginóbili, from Argentina. Feng Yu had used his connection to get Wang Zhizhi from his current team. He will be the substitute for Rodman, and Manu Ginóbili will remain in Europe for training.

In the first round of drafts, the Wind and Rain team got a player named Metta Sandiford-Artest, and a player named Andrei Kirilenko. Kirilenko immediately asked Andrei Kirilenko from Feng Yu, as he says this player is his countrymen, and he will groom him.

Metta Sandiford-Artest and another player, whose contract is almost up, are traded for Hakeem Olajuwon from the Rockets.

Hakeem Olajuwon is no longer at his peak and is plagued with injuries. Or else, Rockets will not release him.

But Feng Yu had still insisted on completing this trade, as there is no better center forwards in the market. The players Feng Yu targeted are either not for sales, or the teams want to trade the player for Carter or Pierce. These two players can attract fans and will be the pillars of the team. Feng Yu will never trade them for other players.

Just happen, the Rockets will rebuild their team, and both parties agreed to the trade. Although Wind and Rain team’s salary had increased, Feng Yu does not mind. He only wants his team to improve and play exciting matches.

After Hakeem Olajuwon joins the Wind and Rain team, he immediately becomes the big brother of the dressing room and can keep Rodman in check. He has lots of experience and can impart to the rest of the youngsters.

The Wind and Rain team is currently using two main strategies. The players for the first team are Olajuwon, Rodman, Pierce, Carter, and Billups. They are the main players for the team.

Pierce and Carter are explosive players, while Olajuwon is the support. Billups is strong in defense, and with him around, this strategy’s defense will be better.

The substitutes, Mobley, Lewis, Alston, are also fast offensive players and can easily partner with Pierce, Carter, or Wang Zhizhi.

Before this year’s all-star game, LA Wind and Rain team are in the sixth position of the western division. Their ranking had shocked many experts. This team was rebuilt last year, and they managed to enter the playoffs in their second year!

Many teams belittled Wind and Rain Team. They felt this is a team full of youngsters and old and injured players. Even when they qualify for the playoffs, they will also be out in the first round.

The two most outspoken teams against the Wind and Rain team are LA Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers.

Lakers are unhappy with Wind and Rain because they are from the same city and share the same arena. Even their fans are the same. That’s why they have fierce competition. This year, the Lakers had performed very well because of Shaq. They are currently first in the western division, and their target is the overall champions.

Portland Trail Blazers is against Wind and Rain is because of Paul Allen. His enmity with Feng Yu had reached another level after the latter sold his Microsoft shares.

The media describe the relationship between Feng Yu and Paul Allen as fire and water. Some media even exposed that Feng Yu had bought a basketball team because of a bet with Paul Allen. Feng Yu will buy the lousiest team in the NBA and rebuilt it to beat the Blazers!

In the previous meeting, Wind and Rain had won against the Blazers, and this time, Paul Allen announces that they are back for revenge!

After Feng Yu asked Coach Karl, he told the media. “Wind and Rain will defeat the Blazers again.

During this match, Olajuwon, which always plays for around 20 minutes, played for 35 minutes.

In the end, Wind and Rain won 107:91. During the after-match conference, Olajuwon added salt to the Blazers’ wounds. “Don’t let us meet in the playoffs, or else, you all might not even get through the first round!” Olajuwon is also unhappy with the Rockets for trading him away. He wants to prove he can still dominate the courts!

Paul Allen is furious when he saw the smiling Feng Yu. If Feng Yu had not sold his Microsoft shares, the share prices would not plunge.

After the match, Feng Yu went over to stop Paull Allen from leaving. “Paul! It’s been a while. How are you doing?”

Paul Allen felt like strangling Feng Yu and shouting at him. “Microsoft share prices have been falling, and you are asking me this question?! My team had just lost to your team. What do you think?!”

This is like cutting someone with a knife and sprinkling salt over it!

Paul Allen let out a loud “Hmph!” and tried to walk away. He does not want to speak to Feng Yu!

“Eh… eh… eh… Paul… we have known each other for so long, and I must host you when you come to LA. Let me treat you to dinner, ok?”

Paul Allen snapped. “I will not dine with you!”

Paul Allen remembered the unpleasant experiences in China when Feng Yu mentioned dinner.

“How about coffee then? We can talk about Microsoft over coffee.”

Paul Allen is furious. “You have nothing to do with Microsoft anymore, and we have nothing to talk about!”

Feng Yu is trying to humiliate me! I will never give him this opportunity!

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. “That means Microsoft is going to lose the lawsuit… Oh, when is Microsoft going to launch the new operating system?”

“What has it got to do with you?”

“Of course. I am Lenovo Group’s shareholder, and Lenovo’s contract with Microsoft still has one year.” Feng Yu smiles.

“Then it should also be Liu Chuanzhi to ask! Also, Microsoft will not lose the lawsuit!”

“Paul… we are partners before, and here’s a piece of advice for you. Quickly sell away your Microsoft shares and invest in something else. Microsoft share prices will not rise.” Feng Yu advises, ‘sincerely.’

“What a joke! Who are you to give me advice?! Do you think I need you to teach me when to hold or sell my shares?! I am leaving! I have nothing to say with you!”

After Paul Allen left, Feng Yu smiles. Regardless of whether Paul Allen sells or holds Microsoft shares, the share prices will still plummet.

If Paul Allen sells his shares, it will speed up Microsoft shares’ crash, and his assets will shrink. But if he doesn’t sell his shares, his assets will still shrink.

No matter what Paul Allen does, he will suffer massive losses.

The US market crash had started… Hmmm… Maybe I can speed it up!

Chapter 1088 – The bubble burst

The judge had found Microsoft had committed monopolization, and this means Microsoft will be slapped with hefty fines and risked a breakup.

On the same day, many financial institutions noticed the Nasdaq Composite had exceeded 5,000 points. It had increased more than one time in one year!

The financial institutions saw Microsoft is going to lose the trial. The companies that have dealings with Microsoft will be affected. So, they decided to sell away those shares.

At the same time, some shareholders of the tech firms also started selling their shares, and it resulted in the Nasdaq Composite fell by 5% that day.

Of course, the fall also has something to do with Feng Yu. Feng Yu, Kirilenko, and Fu Rongqi dumped their remaining shares together on this day.

Feng Yu, Kirilenko, and Fu Rongqi were surprised to find out that someone else is manipulating the market. When they short the Nasdaq Composite, they noticed someone had built a short position portfolio before them.

Yesterday, when the Nasdaq Composite reaches a new peak, someone had started to build a short position portfolio. How can they be so sure that the Nasdaq Composite will plunge?

Unless this person has insider information from the financial institutions will be dumping their Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, etc. shares together.

How influential is this person to have connections with so many financial institutions?

Feng Yu thought for a while and felt only one person can do this. Soros from Quantum Fund!

Only Soros dares to do such things and have access to insider information from the financial institutions. Also, shorting the market is his modus operandi.

Feng Yu cannot confirm this, but he doesn’t care. He and his friends had started building their portfolio when Nasdaq Composite reach 5,000 points. Although they are not using high leverage, from today’s market performance, there will be panic selling tomorrow, and the stock index will plunge further.

Microsoft’s trial is the spark that ignites the fire. After Feng Yu sold his Microsoft shares, Microsoft share prices stop rising. However, the share prices of other companies are still shooting up like crazy.

Most of the companies, whose share prices are shooting up like crazy are still not making profits. Their expenses are greater than their income, and their share prices are increasing faster than Microsoft. This company is making high profits.

Those companies are only selling their ‘creativity’ and ‘concepts,’ and no one knows their concepts will be materialized. This is like gambling. If the investors won the bet, they would get high returns. As for losing the bets, those investors had never thought they would lose.

For continuously two years, venture capital investment companies had invested heavily in tech firms. Their reviews of these tech firms had become lax, and everyone wants to profit by getting these companies listed.

Someone said that those companies are have nothing to do with Microsoft’s trial because those listed companies’ financial reports showed most companies are making losses.

This is an alarm bell for many investors. Not all companies that are listed will be profitable. Those tech firms’ assets might increase, but they are spending the money they raised from the stock market.

The beautiful picture painted by those tech firms are too far away, and many of these tech firms had finish spending the money they got from the stock market and venture capital investments. But they are still making losses!

The companies used the money from investors to acquire and merge with their competitors, introduce new services, and promoting their brand

The actions of these tech companies formed a bubble, and the bosses had never considered why and how can their companies be worth so much? How can Yahoo be worth more than 100 billion with its products? How much are Yahoo’s annual profits?

This is a bottomless pit. Who will still dare to invest their money into it?

Many people felt the release of these companies’ financial reports had triggered the bursting of the bubble.

Another rumor is the Millennium bug will cause chaos with the tech firms, and the firms had to spend their funds to fix this problem. Thus, increasing the financial pressure of those firms.

There are supporters of all sorts of theories. Still, regardless of the reason, Nasdaq Composite plunged, and the technology-related companies are most badly hit.

Feng Yu has another calculation method to calculate the actual rate of returns of those Nasdaq shares.

From the start of 1998, the actual rate of return in Nasdaq is less than 3%. The returns are lower than Bonds and lower than the expected 6.5%.

Some researchers felt all the shares were at least 7% higher than its reasonable value.

That means the Nasdaq shares are overvalued, regardless it is Microsoft, IBM, or Dell, etc. are all irrational exuberance.

But now, the internet bubble had burst, and these overvalued companies’ share prices had plunged and will be most badly hit.

……

Nasdaq shares start to plunge like crazy and start to affect NYSE shares to fall. Many unrelated companies were also implicated.

A rumor started, saying the stock market will crash again. Even Microsoft, IBM, and other blue-chip companies cannot stop it!

Hence, more people start to panic and tries to dump their shares, forming a vicious cycle.

The more people sell their shares, the faster the share prices fall. The faster the share prices fall, the more people will sell.

Within a week, Nasdaq Composite fell by almost 10%. It is the biggest fall in more than a decade.

The impact of this stock market crash spreads worldwide, and all major stock markets are affected.

Paul Allen is now regretting. If he knew Microsoft share prices will continue to fall, he would also sell some of his shares in the first place. He still has many non-voting shares, and even if he sells them, it will not affect his status in the company.

Paul Allen felt he should have invested his money elsewhere. No matter what the returns are, it will be better than seeing his assets shrinking every day.

But the fall is not showing any signs of stopping.

Other than Microsoft, IBM, Dell, and other MNCs are holding director meetings every day to think of ways to save their companies. Everyone is trying to stop their share prices from falling.

Although the share prices had plunged, it does not affect the companies’ operations. However, it will affect the company’s branding, reputation, shareholders, etc. When the share prices fall, the shareholders’ assets will also shrink.

Everyone is puzzled, how did the internet bubble burst so suddenly?

Chapter 1089 – Share prices are inflated

“Boss, these are the invitations from the media. Are you going to reject them?” Ralph place a stack of document neatly on Feng Yu’s desk.

“I am not interested. If you are interested, you can attend on my behalf.” Feng Yu laughed.

“My investment foresight is not good enough to attend the interviews. Everything I have now is given by you.” Ralph replied modestly.

“Alright. Everyone knows you are the Deputy CEO of Wind and Rain Holdings. It’s fine if you want to be in the limelight. Which young man does not want to be under the spotlight?” Feng Yu patted Ralph’s shoulder.

The corner of Ralph’s lips twitched. Young man?! Boss, you are much younger than me.

Ralph had set Feng Yu as his role model and is determined to learn from him. Although he knows he can never be better than Feng Yu, everything he learns will benefit him in the future.

“Boss, a few of the interviews are telephone interviews, and you don’t need to show your face. Are you interested? They are from respectable media.” Ralph asked.

Telephone interviews? Feng Yu is slightly interested.

“What media are they?”

“New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Times, and some TV stations like CNN…”

“Alright. I will accept the interview from CNN. Help me contact them, and I will spare ten minutes for their interview in an hour.”

Feng Yu suddenly thought that if he gives Microsoft another blow now, it will make things worse.

Since Feng Yu had fallen out with Microsoft, he doesn’t mind being slightly more ruthless. As for that Gbox cooperation with Microsoft, Feng Yu had heard that Paul Allen had proposed to sell away their shares.

Luckily for Feng Yu, his agreement with Microsoft states that he will have the priority to buy the shares from Microsoft. The right to stop Microsoft from selling the shares of Gbox to a company he does not want.

Of course, this agreement is both sided. It also applies to Aiwa Little Tyrant.

An hour later, the excited CNN reporter called the number Ralph gave. “Hi, are you Mr. Feng Yu?”

“Yes. Are you the reporter from CNN?”

“Mr. Feng, I am Jack. A reporter with CNN. It is an honor to interview you over the phone.” Feng Yu could tell Jack is very excited over the phone.

“Hi, Jack.”

“Mr. Feng, many reporters are curious why did you pick our station for the interview?”

Not only Jack, the higher management staff of the TV station are listening attentively to the interview. They are also curious why Feng Yu accepted the invitation from their station.

“Because I remember that your TV station had bought the broadcasting rights of LA Wind and Rain Team.”

Huh?

Jack and the higher management of the TV station thought Feng Yu will mention about their TV station’s long history, reputation, ratings, etc.

But in the end, the reason is just that they had bought the broadcasting rights of Feng Yu’s basketball team. Luckily, this is a recorded interview, and they can cut out this part in the future.

“Mr. Feng, there are rumors that you had sold all your Microsoft shares after you left Microsoft. Is this true?” Jack asked the questions he prepared.

“That’s right. This is true. My company had sold all their Microsoft shares.”

“Can I ask if this is related to you leaving Microsoft?” This is a pointed question, hinting that Feng Yu had sold Microsoft shares in a fit of anger.

“If I say it is unrelated, will you all believe me? But the truth is… it is not related. No matter if I am still with Microsoft or not, I will still sell Microsoft shares for other investments.”

“Can I ask why? That is Microsoft. What other investment can yield better returns than Microsoft?” Jack asked, exaggeratedly.

“I think you should have heard that Mr. Buffett is very close to Bill Gates. But Mr. Buffett had never bought Microsoft or any other tech-related stocks. This is because he knows the prices of these stocks are overvalued.”

Jack is overjoyed. Feng Yu is implying that Microsoft share prices are inflated!?

Microsoft’s former shareholder, Director, and the World’s Second Richest man, Feng Yu, says Microsoft shares are overvalued! This is definitely tomorrow’s headlines!

Jack is the one who interviewed Feng Yu, and he will be famous! Even if Feng Yu does not mean that he can also use that part from the recording.

“Mr. Feng, can take it that you are saying Microsoft shares are overvalued?”

“Yes!”

This time, not only Jack is overjoyed. All the higher management are cheering in their heart.

Terrific! This is an earth-shattering headline! Feng Yu had admitted that he felt Microsoft shares are overvalued!

“Mr. Feng, can you explain why you thought so?”

“I think all tech-related share prices are all inflated. Have you all read the financial reports from those companies listed last year? Even their first-quarter financial reports are showing the companies are seriously in debt. Only a handful are making profits. For example, Yahoo. Why are the shares of this company worth so much? It is the result of speculators inflating the prices for their own benefits.”

Jack and his colleagues got more excited. Feng Yu had just attacked the leader of the tech stocks, Microsoft, and is not attacking Yahoo. Will he be attacking the hardware companies or PC manufacturers next?

“Do you think those hardware manufacturers’ share prices are also overvalued?” Jack asked.

“That’s right. I also think so.” Feng Yu gave a firm reply.

“Then, can you give an example?”

“Do I still need to give any examples? Just look at Nasdaq. Which company’s shares are being dumped the most now, and which share prices fall the most? Why are the financial institutions and brokerages dumping these companies’ shares? Those tech companies, and even some blue-chip companies, had indicated high profits in their financial reports. But one look, you will know there are some problems with the figures. The experienced financial experts should know what companies I am talking about.”

Feng Yu exposed some companies are fabricating their financial reports. Enron and MCI Communications are the prominent cases of accounting fraud. Of course, many other smaller companies are doing the same, but they are not worth mentioning.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, these two companies will be bankrupt within the next two years. They are the representatives of companies’ accounting fraud and are the first victims of the bursting of the internet bubble.

“Alright. I will stop here as I still have something on.” Feng Yu did not let Jack continue with the interview and hang up.

After this news is reported, Microsoft, Yahoo, and many other companies’ share prices plunged.

Enron

Chapter 1090 – Financial Fraud

“Microsoft’s former shareholder, Director, and the World’s Second Richest man, Feng Yu, states that Microsoft’s shares are overvalued!”

“Feng Yu questioned Yahoo. “Why are you all worth so much?!”

“Feng Yu states that the hardware manufacturers’ share prices are inflated!”

“Feng Yu states some blue-chip companies are fabricating their financial reports!”

…….

The headlines of major newspapers had gotten first-hand news from CNN. CNN had made high profits by selling this information, and their exclusive interview with Feng Yu made their ratings skyrocketed!

But after the interview, Ralph’s phone had been ringing non-stop.

“Boss, did you really say all those things?” Ralph asked.

“Yes, and I will take responsibility for what I said.” Feng Yu replied calmly.

“It is not a problem if you said those share prices are overvalued. But you mentioned that a blue-chip company is involved in accounting fraud… what should we do?” Ralph panics.

“I am not wrong. A blue-chip company had fabricated their financial report.” Feng Yu replied.

“What? Boss, how is this possible? That is a blue-chip company!” Ralph looks at Feng Yu. Only strong and powerful companies can be labeled as blue-chip companies.

“Why is it impossible? I had let my men investigate secretly. Although I don’t have concrete evidence, once those two people step forward, Enron will be bankrupt!”

“What? Enron? Really? Enron had just started their broadband services last year, and their share prices had been rising. It is worth over 60 USD per share now, and their shares are sought after by investors.”

Feng Yu looks at Ralph. “So what? Even if their shares are highly sought after by investors, can it prove that they had not fabricated their financial reports? If you look into this company, you will know that they had set up many off-shore companies to escape taxes and increase the company’s profits. Another reason is to move their funds to cover up their losses.”

“Move their funds? You are saying that they are using their own money to cover up their losses and inflate their profits?”

“That’s right. When the audit is on one of their subsidiaries, they will transfer their funds into that company to show high profits on their accounts. When the auditors leave, they will transfer the funds away. This way, their subsidiaries will always be profitable, but actually, they are only an empty shell.”

“Boss, should we short Enron shares now? When this is exposed, we can make high profits!” Ralph said excitedly.

“You should be focusing on the negotiations with AMD to acquire their shares. I will not forget your hard work if we acquire this company. But remember, you must not use any illegal means to acquire their shares.” Feng Yu emphasized.

If they can acquire AMD legally and not use any underhand methods, no one has penalized them in the future!

“Boss, I understand. But AMD is not interested in negotiating with us. They kept dragging us, and it is affecting our cash flow.”

“The funds we got from selling Microsoft and Yahoo shares are for acquiring AMD. Their share prices are also overvalued, and there will not be serious fluctuations these two days. You can also drag it out until next year. After their share prices crash, they will beg us to acquire them. You don’t have to worry about other investments.”

Acquiring AMD is very important to Feng Yu. This is the only CPU company that can rival Intel in the future. Although AMD cannot win Intel, after they turn their focus on graphic cards, they are better than Nvidia.

Another reason for AMD’s failure is they had made a few wrong moves in their research. If not, their market share will not be so low.

In the future, one of intel’s shareholder also become AMD’s shareholder. Many people speculate that AMD can still exist is because Intel allows them to. This is to prevent Intel from being sue for monopolizing the market.

But that shareholder does not have any voting rights, and AMD had poached people from Intel.

If Feng Yu has enough funds, he will acquire Intel directly.

But Intel’s share prices are overpriced now. All the Intel shareholders are making lots of money now, and none of them are willing to sell their shares to Feng Yu.

It’s almost impossible to buy the shares from others when they are making money. Feng Yu must offer premium rates if he wants to buy the shares, but he cannot afford even half the current price, let alone premium rates.

Even AMD is worth over 70 billion USD now. Of course, there are not many voting shares around, and Feng Yu’s target is these shares.

But it is not easy to acquire those shares. The shareholders had blind faith that AMD will catch up and even exceed Intel. Feng Yu also will not pay premium prices for those shares as the share prices will plunge soon.

“Go back to work, and don’t let anyone else know that we had contacted AMD.”

“Yes, Boss.”

Once this information is leaked, AMD’s share prices will rise, which is not beneficial for Feng Yu’s takeover bid. The market value of AMD is overvalued, and why would Feng Yu help them increase their share prices and increase their cost?

Now, Feng Yu is waiting for AMD’s share prices to crash and then contact those investors.

Feng Yu asked Ralph to contact AMD’s shareholders is to let them know that he is interested in their shares. He knows the shareholders will not sell their shares to him now.

But when the shareholders want to sell their shares, they will think of Feng Yu first.

When Feng Yu is relaxing and drinking his tea in his office, New York is in chaos. Countless media are trying to contact Feng Yu but were blocked by Ralph.

Lots of reporters are waiting outside of the Empire State Building for Feng Yu. They want to interview him and verified what he said to CNN.

Feng Yu regrated coming to his office and should have returned to China now.

……

Bam!

Paul Allen punched the desk in Bill Gates’s office. “This is too much! How can Feng announce to the public that our Microsoft shares are overvalued?!”

Bill Gates is also looking terrible. He also did not expect Feng Yu to say those things. Seems like they had fallen out for real, and Feng Yu is not holding back.

“Steve, call for a press conference. Tell the reporters that Microsoft is making high profits, and the share prices will continue to rise. Also, Paul, Steve, both of you, will take out a sum of money each with me to push our share prices up to stabilize the market!” Bill Gates ordered.

After Ballmer left, Bill Gates looks at Paul Allen. “Do you think what Feng said about the blue-chip company fabricating their financial report is real?”

Chapter 1091 – This is the evidence

After Feng Yu’s statements, Nasdaq shares plunged. Many people start to investigate which blue-chip company Feng Yu is talking about.

At the same time, Enron’s higher management start to panic. Others might not know which company Feng Yu is referring to, but they know.

These higher management staff had received insider information to speculate their company’s shares and profit from it. Some of them even took loans to speculate on their shares because the return is very high.

Enron’s Chief Financial Officer even set up an investment company with his friends and used over 100 million USD they got from investors to speculate Enron’s shares. Anyway, this is a sure-win investment.

Those investors that had bought Enron’s shares are going to pay for their mistakes.

Enron’s executive thought no one will know about what is going on in the company. How did Feng Yu know about this?

Enron was voted the most innovative company for several years by <Fortune>. It was even awarded as one of the top 100 companies to work for. Their offices are well renovated, and many people envied them.

No one expected Enron had fabricated their financial report under the beautiful packaging. Even <Fortune> magazine did not notice anything, how did Feng Yu find out?

Feng Yu must not be talking about Enron. Maybe he is referring to Microsoft, as he was previously a Director and shareholder there. Maybe he was kicked out of the board because he discovered Microsoft had fabricated their accounts?!

Yes! Feng Yu must be talking about Microsoft!

…….

When the reporters cannot reach Feng Yu, Jack called and asked for an exclusive interview again.

To Jack’s surprise, Feng Yu agreed!

The TV station immediately announced they had scored an exclusive interview again and will release the phone interview recording for other media to download for a fee.

“Mr. Feng, I’m Jack. Do you still remember me?”

“Of course. It’s only a few days after our previous conversation.” Feng Yu laughed.

“It’s an honor for one of the top tycoons and the most genius investor to remember me. Mr. Feng, the main purpose of this interview is to talk about the blue-chip company you mentioned previously. Is it true that one of the blue-chip companies had fabricated their financial reports?”

Jack is screaming in his heart. Hurry up and answer me!

“That’s right.”

Jack controlled his excitement and asked. “Can I ask which company are you referring to?”

“Sure. It’s Enron.” Feng Yu replied.

Feng Yu had ordered his men to short Enron’s shares, and he will profit if Enron’s share prices crash now. Enron’s accounting scandal will trigger a tsunami in the US stock market. Even a blue-chip company can have such a serious problem, let alone other smaller companies.

Once the investors do not trust the market, there will be no way to stop the crisis.

The higher management of the TV station was stunned. Which company did Feng Yu say? Enron?! How is this possible?!

Enron had just announced that their share prices will double yesterday, and their shares will give their investors high returns. But Feng Yu is saying that Enron is the company that had fabricated their financial reports.

“Mr. Feng, do you have any proof to back up your claim?” Jack’s voice is trembling.

“Do you all know about finance? Do you all know about Benford’s law? From a set of data, the probability of numbers starting with 1 is 30%, and the probability of numbers starting with 2 is 17.6%… The numbers starting with 3 is 12.5%… Based on Enron’s financial report, the figures are not in line with this law. So, their financial report must be fake!”

Jack and the rest of the higher management of the TV station exchanged looks. What is Feng talking about? Benford’s law? What probability is he talking about?

The TV Station’s Chief immediately get his men to call the station’s CFO over to get him to explain Benford’s law, and if it is reliable. He does not want to be a laughing stock when they release this report.

“Alright. I still have some work. Let’s end the interview now.”

After Feng Yu hangs up, everyone in the TV station gathered around their station’s CFO. The CFO had heard about Benford’s law, but this cannot be used as evidence.

So, the TV station asked a few professionals and an auditing firm. They learned that Benford’s law is not commonly used in audits, but it is an effective way to check if anyone had changed the figures during the audit.

After the interview is over, the TV station contacted other media to sell broadcasting rights. They will prepare to make a show with this telephone interview and earn from the advertisements.

……

“Feng Yu claims Enron is the company that had fabricated their financial reports!”

“Enron is suspected of financial fraud, and Feng Yu claims he has evidence!”

“Enron’s financial report is not in line with Benford’s law. This is the evidence!”

……

Feng Yu hogged the headlines of several major newspapers, and his telephone interview had been played by several media.

Some people believed what Feng Yu said, but the majority does not believe him, as most people had not heard of Benford’s law. Can numeric data really have frequency probability?

If Feng Yu is the only one who says this, he will not convince everyone, as he is not a professional auditor. But Feng Yu hired two professors from Harvard to back up his claims on what he said about Enron’s financial reports!

After these two professors’ articles are published, they were immediately picked up by the media. The professors swore that what they said are true, and Enron had indeed fabricated their financial reports!

This immediately causes an uproar.

Enron’s shares start to plummet. All investors, including Enron’s higher executives, start to dump their Enron’s shares.

The Enron’s higher management knew this news is true, and once an investigation started, everything will be exposed.

Citibank, which has lots of financial dealings with Enron, also start to panics. They knew about Enron’s financial issues well.

Chapter 1092 – Fall, fall, fall…

Afternoon, the boss of an investment company in Wall Street sat in his office and switch on the TV to watch the news.

Suddenly, the boss’s face changed and quickly grabbed his phone. “Dump all our Enron shares now! You all don’t need to care about the losses. Just dump everything! This is an order! If you cannot dump all our Enron shares within half an hour, you can pack your bags and get lost!”

Not only this boss. The bosses of many investment firms and brokerages ordered their men to dump Enron’s shares after seeing the news and reports on the news.

Those who had not been following the news were shocked. What is going on? Why is everyone dumping Enron’s shares? Enron had just announced high profits yesterday, and their share prices should be rising.

Someone guessed it might be a market adjustment.

The big players are dumping Enron shares, and this is the opportunity to get buy the shares.

So, when many people are dumping Enron shares, some companies start to buy in the shares. They are the ones who had not been following the news.

In the financial industry, it is not surprising for those who had not to keep themselves up to date with the news to lose money.

Enron immediately calls for an emergency board meeting. Not only all the directors are attending, even all the top management staff had to attend.

“Everyone, our share prices are falling like crazy. Can anyone tell me what we should do?” Enron’s Chairman asked.

“I think we should get someone to refute Feng’s claims through the media. He is not a professionally trained auditor, and what he said cannot be trusted!” Someone suggested.

“What about those two professors from Harvard? They are renowned experts in this field.”

“We can get them to amend their statements. I believe everyone has a price.” Other than this solution, this person could not think of anything better.

After watching the news today, this person had asked his broker to sell away all his Enron shares. Although dumping the shares now will result in heavy losses, his losses will be greater if he waits until tomorrow.

At this moment, the ones, who had not been following the news, found out that Enron is suspected of fabricating their financial reports online.

They immediately tried to sell away their Enron shares but found out no one is buying, and the share prices are tumbling.

The shares they are holding is now worthless!

Those brokerages and investment companies’ bosses, who had bought Enron shares in the afternoon, are crying. They thought they had gotten a good bargain, but it turns out to be a trap!

Now, the shares are to rot in their hands, and when the market opens tomorrow, the share prices will continue to fall.

The ones who managed to dump Enron shares early were relieved. Although they had suffered heavy losses, it’s better than losing everything.

……

“Fall, fall, fall! Hahaha… Feng… You are amazing! Enron’s share prices had really started to plunge! Why is such a big company issuing so little shares? If not, we will be getting higher returns!” Kirilenko replied.

“This is considered good enough. You had told me that you want to invest in this company in the past.” Feng Yu rolled his eyes at Kirilenko. If Kirilenko had invested in Enron, he would have lost all his investments.

Yes… maybe the courts will order Citibank and other companies to make compensations. But the compensations will not be enough to cover the losses.

“I had fired that broker! He only knows how to follow the trend and nothing else. Why should I give him a high commission?” Kirilenko replied angrily. The brokers he hired are nowhere near Feng Yu’s staff!

This time, Feng Yu and Kirilenko had used short Enron shares through a brokerage, and they only had to pay minimum charges.

It’s a pity that Feng Yu and Kirilenko can only short a limited number of shares. Although the return is high in percentage, the actual profits are not a lot. But it is enough to cover the losses they got from dumping their technology shares.

As Feng Yu is chatting with Kirilenko, Ralph knocks on the door and enters. “Boss, Enron had made an official statement that you are tarnishing their reputation, and they had never fabricated their financial reports. They had hired lawyers to sue you and CNN, and are demanding a public apology and compensations.”

After Enron released this statement, its share prices did stop falling. The investors had split into two camps. One side is continuing to dump Enron’s shares, and the other side is buying in the shares at low prices.

Kirilenko frowned. “They are shameless. Did they say anything about Benford’s law?”

Feng Yu laughed and waved his hand. “It’s fine. I think the audit firm that audited Enron will be giving us an answer soon.”

That day, a top audit firm fired two senior auditors.

Feng Yu had just said Enron had fabricated their financial report, the audit firm fired two senior auditors. Who will believe that these two incidents are unrelated?!

After the sacking of two senior auditors was exposed, Enron’s shares start to fall again.

“Feng, should we buy in the shares for our short positions?” Kirilenko asked.

Feng Yu shook his fingers. “Don’t be anxious. The share prices had only dropped a little today. It will continue to fall tomorrow, and might even fall below 1 USD.”

“What? 1 USD? Their share price is over 60 USD this morning!” Kirilenko’s eyes almost popped out.

“Everything is possible. This company is involved in accounting fraud, and they will be charged in courts. Their credit ratings will also drop, and it will be a deadly blow to Enron. Furthermore, think about why did we short Citibank’s shares?”

“You are saying that Citibank will be implicated by Enron?!” If Citibank is implicated, their share prices will also tumble.

“Of course. Citibank is one of the most famous financial institutes on Wall Streets. They are also one of the culprits that created the internet bubble and had invested in many tech companies. Although there is no evidence pointing towards Citibank for Enron’s accounting fraud, they had lots of financial dealings. Do you think Citibank is not aware of it?”

Feng Yu is confident that Citibank will also pay a heavy price for this Enron scandal!

Chapter 1093 – <Fortune> is a joke

Although Enron had released an official statement, all the evidence is against them. Feng Yu and those two professors were not lying.

The professors also revealed that a higher management staff from Enron had wanted to bribe them but were rejected.

The professors also did not address the rumors that they will be Wind and Rain Consulting consultants in the future.

Enron’s share prices continue to fall. No one can sell their Enron shares after the market opens, as no one dares to buy them.

The higher management staff of Enron had turned pale. Still, at the same time, another magazine agency was surrounded by reporters.

“Mr. Marshall, <Fortune> had awarded Enron as one of the 100 best companies to work for. What do you all have to say about the Enron executives manipulating their company’s shares?”

“Mr. Marshall, <Fortune> had listed Enron as one of the top innovation firms for many years. Are you all referring to their innovative ways to commit accounting fraud?”

“Is <Fortune> magazine accepting fees from companies in exchange for high ratings and to mislead investors?”

“Mr. Marshall…”

Marshall, the Chief Editor of <Fortune> magazine, was bombarded with questions by the reporters. What are all these questions? Our magazine had our own ways of evaluating those companies. How would I know Enron had fabricated their financial reports?

Those people who had bought Enron’s shares also do not know anything about this.

We can only interview Enron’s executives and evaluate their financial reports before we rank them.

All these reporters also did not know anything about the fraud before Feng Yu exposed them.

Who dares to say that <Fortune> magazine is only serving the rich? Our magazine is targeting the businessmen and middle- and higher-income segments and had evaluated those companies objectively. We have been fair and impartial when we ranked those companies. Why would we tarnish our own reputation?

Among the reports, <Forbes> reporters had asked the most pointed questions. Everyone knows that <Forbes> also wants to create their own Top 500 companies globally, but everyone only recognizes Fortune 500!

“Chief, some media want us to organize a press conference.”

Marshall waved his hand. “Tell them that we will hold a press conference tomorrow morning at 10 am. I will address their concerns during the press conference, and inform all the editors and head of departments to come in for a meeting in ten minutes!”

<Fortune> is a private company, but companies in Feng Yu’s previous life were dying to be listed on Fortune 500.

But to Feng Yu, <Fortune> evaluation criteria has a serious problem. They used the company’s value, influence, brand recognition, etc. to evaluate the company. But they did not take the company’s rate of returns, debt ratio, etc. into consideration.

The market survey conducted by <Fortune> is bullshit. How many reporters do <Fortune> have? Even if they had hired external companies to conduct this survey, the data collected are also not accurate.

Feng Yu felt that a company’s potential profits etc. must be considered when evaluating the company. If a company’s debt ratio is too high, the company might have issues anytime.

Look at last year’s Fortune 500 companies. In the last 3 years, many of these Fortune 500 companies will be acquired and bankrupt.

How can a company that ended up being acquired or bankrupt within three years be one of the World’s top 500 companies? Is those companies’ management stupid? Of course not. Those companies’ potential is exaggerated by <Fortune>.

Many of these companies are empty shells. If these companies cannot raise funds from the stock market, they will be in the red. These companies’ value is based on their share prices and bank loans to support. But the executives of these companies have nothing to lose. When the company’s share price rises, the executives’ assets will increase, earning a fortune if they sell their shares.

The executives will not care if the company closes, or the investors lose money!

Feng Yu always felt that why should I let others rank the company I set up?

This is what the US has always been doing. They also felt they are the most powerful in the world and can rank others.

But Feng Yu dislike this. It might also be because Wind and Rain Holdings and Tai Hua Holdings were ranked outside of the top 100 on Fortune 500!

If you ranked me as the first, Feng Yu would not mind. But you ranked so many lousy companies before me! How dare you?!

Feng Yu also had something to do behind <Fortune> magazine’s saga. He wants to let everyone know not to trust <Fortune> or other similar magazines blindly. Financial reports and data can be fabricated!

When <Fortune> magazine is handling their PR crisis, Feng Yu is watching a basketball match. He did not expect the Wind and Rain team to perform so well this year. They had qualified for the playoffs.

More importantly, their opponent is the Blazers!

“Good!” Feng Yu claps and cheers. Pierce had just scored.

“Wooo…!” Carter performed his trademark 360 Windmill Dunk. Immediately, the crowd…… booed because this match is played in the Blazers home ground.

Paul Allen stared at Feng Yu angrily. He is furious with Feng Yu for chartering a flight for 100 lucky fans to come to Portland.

But Paul Allen had forgotten that he had brought 2,000 fans over to LA.

Feng Yu’s phone rang, and he walks aside to answer.

“Ralph, what is it?”

“Boss, <Fortune> Chief Editor Marshall claimed there are no problems with their selection of the companies, and the reporters were instigated by someone. One reporter asked if he is referring to you, and Marshall did not admit or deny it.”

Huh? They found out about me? But what can they do? I am telling the truth.

“Release a statement on my behalf. <Fortune> magazine evaluation criteria have serious problems. If not, why would Enron be listed on their lists!? Their lists are a joke!” Feng Yu sneered.

“Boss, do you really want to issue this statement?” Ralph is shocked. This would mean falling out with <Fortune>, and <Fortune> magazine might retaliate by tarnishing their companies.

“Just do it.” Feng Yu replied.

So, Feng Yu’s name appeared on the headlines again. Feng Yu states that <Fortune> rankings and lists are jokes! This issue of <Fortune> had become the lowest in their history.

Chapter 1094 – Winners and losers

Clean sweep. The Wind and Rain team had won against the Blazers. At the start of the season, the Blazers are still the hot favorite to win!

This last year’s bottom table teams had only added a former all-star player, Olajuwon, and a Chinese player. They managed to get past the first round of the playoffs.

Three days later, Paul Allen is still sore over Feng Yu’s call to invite him to the latter’s celebration dinner.

Paul Allen is furious. He had not expected his team, which consists of more stars, higher wages, etc. to lose! He must fire that useless team manager and coach!

Paul Allen also cursed Feng Yu to lose in the second round!

But to Paul Allen’s surprise, the Wind and Rain team won the second round. This time, the MVP is not Olajuwon. It was Carter and Pierce who had put up an outstanding performance. They had scored more than 25 points each against San Antonio Spurs, and their accuracies are over 50%!

Feng Yu was also surprised by his team performance. He did not expect his young players to be outstanding, and Rodman had improved a lot after entering the playoffs.

In the next round, the Wind and Rain team will be facing LA Lakers.

Wind and Rain VS. Lakers!

Many people are betting on the Lakers to win at first. During the playoffs, the Lakers are one of the hot favorites to win the championship.

But the Wind and Rain team’s performance had shocked everyone. Furthermore, Shaq might win against Olajuwon as he had lost to him before!

Feng Yu also did not think his team will win against the Lakers, as Shaq is at this peak now. It is hard for any of his players to stop him, luckily for Feng Yu, Kobe and other Lakers players are not at their best.

“Everyone, are you all confident of winning against the Lakers? This arena is called Wind and Rain Arena. If the Lakers win, it will be a disgrace to us!” Feng Yu clapped and said.

All the players went quiet. Coach Karl said. “Boss, I have a way to stop Shaq. We will use the same strategy used by the San Antonio Spurs. Don’t forget, we will have a few good reserve players.”

Hack-a-Shaq!

Shaq is not good at free throws!

“We will be focusing on the fast offensive play from outside courts for our matches. Shaq will not have the stamina to keep up with us.” George Karl is good at counteroffensive play, and his players are now suitable for this strategy.

“Good. If you all can become the champion this year, I will not hold back during recontract! I don’t care about the luxury tax! I want is to see us win!”

Carter, Pierce, and the players were overjoyed. They were worried that only one of them can remain in the team when their contracts are up. If they can remain on the team and get a higher salary, it will be terrific!

Lewis, Billups, Alston, and the rest, were determined to get the big contracts… to win the championship!

“Wang Zhizhi, you had not played much in the past few games. Do you have anything to say?” Feng Yu asked.

Wang Zhizhi replied. “No… I will focus on my defense and speed.”

Wang Zhizhi’s defense is below average compared to other players. If not for his accuracy, Coach Karl will not even substitute him in.

When Feng Yu encourages his team, Paul Allen had placed a heavy bet on the Lakers winning the championship with a bookmaker. He called Feng Yu to tell him about his bet.

Kirilenko was with Feng Yu when Paul Allen called. He asked how much did Paul Allen bet. One million USD?! Fine! I will bet two million USD on the Wind and Rain team to win the championship!

Feng Yu thought for a while, and bet two million on his team. The team owner cannot place any bets, but Feng Yu can place his bets under someone else’s name. For example, Ralph.

When Paul Allen found out Feng Yu and Kirilenko had bet on Wind and Rain to win, he laughed.

Do you all think your players can stop Shaq?! Shaq averages more than 30 points and 10 rebounds. He will destroy your team’s defense. I will have bought him over to my team if the Lakers are willing to let him go. If Olajuwon is five years younger, he might still stand a chance. But now, he is no match for Shaq!

After Feng Yu sold his Microsoft shares, Microsoft’s share price had been falling. Although the fall is not a lot and recovered slightly after they announced the launch of their new operating system, the share prices are still far from its peak.

Feng Yu had exposed Enron to fabricate their finances and caused many related companies’ share prices to plunge.

Overall, all tech-related shares are falling, and Microsoft’s market value was affected by it.

Everything is all Feng Yu’s fault!

That’s why Paul Allen will not miss any chance to humiliate Feng Yu!

…….

Shaq is staring at Wind and Rain’s Center Forward. The match had just started, and you had fouled four times. Can you play properly? Why are you always pulling me back?!

That Center Forward stared at Shaq without backing off. He mumbled. “I dare you to hit me! Coward!”

This is Coach Karl’s strategy. Provoke Shaq and mess up his momentum.

Shaq is not rash and impulsive. He held back his anger… and missed both free throws. After Rodman got the rebound, he passed the ball to Billups. Billups made a long pass to Carter, and Carter performed a Tomahawk dunk!

When Carter runs pass Kobe, he said. “Hee… how does it feel to be someone’s lackey?”

Kobe became furious and started acting on his own, disrupting the Lakers’ strategy. But Carter is on form now, and Kobe is not his match today. The Wind and Rain team immediately increases its lead.

Lakers’ coach, who looks like KFC’s Colonel Sanders, was frustrated. This year, he had lost to San Antonio Spurs last year and lost to the Wind and Rain team. Why can’t Shaq train his free throws?! Also, didn’t I tell you not to commit any fouls against Olajuwon?! Why can’t you follow simple instructions?!

That Kobe is not as skillful as Jordan but is as prideful as him! Why did he keep on playing one-on-one? Don’t you know when Jordan played solo, he had never entered the finals?

When the final whistle is blown, Feng Yu laughed. They had won against the Lakers!

In the next match, the Wind and Rain won against the Pacers. Olajuwon had outperformed his opponents again. Although he did not score a lot of points, he destroyed the Pacers’ defense!

4:2. LA Wind and Rain had won the NBA championships!

Coach Karl and the players cried with joy. This is their first time becoming the champions. Feng Yu was laughing loudly as this was out of his expectation.

Kirilenko laughed excitedly. “Feng, we won! We won the bet!”

Kirilenko does not care about the winnings from the bookmaker. He is excited to win the bet against Paul Allen!

Paul Allen was in a daze in front of the TV. The TV is showing the Wind and Rain team’s celebration. This is the first time this team won the championship, and it is only the second year after Feng Yu took over this team! Feng Yu is wearing a pair of sunglasses, but Paul Allen could clearly see the wide grin on Feng Yu’s face.

Boom! Paul Allen’s TV broke as he threw the remote control at the screen!

Am I really a loser compared to Feng Yu?

Chapter 1095 – A bubble had formed in China

Feng Yu discovered that once he became famous, whatever he does will appear on the headlines. He had tried to keep a low profile recently, but after LA Wind and Rain won the NBA championship, Feng Yu’s name appeared on the headlines again.

Feng Yu is also helpless about this. His team had played well, and it should be the Coach, team manager, and players’ credit.

Feng Yu does not want to appear on the headlines at all.

Some sports media even want to interview Feng Yu. They want to know if Feng Yu has the intention to buy other teams, like the football team, female basketball team, baseball team, etc.

But Feng Yu rejected all interviews. He had bought this basketball team for fun and is not looking at making profits from it. As for other teams, he is not interested.

Feng Yu was relieved to have signed three years of endorsement contracts with his players before winning the championship. If not, the endorsement fees will be several times higher.

For example, Pierce had become this year’s MPV. His finals’ performance had impressed everyone, and Carter, who had lost this year’s MPV to Pierce, was also worth much more.

Feng Yu had won 1.2 million USD from his bet, and he used his winnings as a reward for his team.

After winning the championship this year, the broadcasting rights sales will be higher next year. Some TV stations had bought the broadcasting rights for the next three years, and the team’s jersey, tickets, arena’s advertisements, etc. had increased a lot.

Elgin promised Feng Yu that the team will be profitable from next year onwards. Actually, the team had become profitable after they entered the playoffs. No one expects a bottom team to become profitable within two years.

Feng Yu is not concerned about all these. Even if the team is not giving him any returns, he had not made any losses for this investment as the team’s value had increased by a lot.

Kirilenko is thinking of setting up a Russian basketball team in the NBA, and Feng Yu also wants to try setting up a team full of Chinese players. Even if he cannot do that, he wants to send Chinese players over to train the NBA players.

The Chinese basketball team had been stationed in the US for training, and Feng Yu asked his scouts to look out for good players that suit his team.

The basketball league in China is not as established as the US. It’s hard for professional Chinese basketball players to make a living. Feng Yu’s decision to recruit Chinese players is well received by the players and the Chinese General Administration of Sport. At the same time, Feng Yu had indirectly helped Wen Dongjun in his career. He was promoted from the head of a small section to the head of a department.

A few days ago, Feng Yu had cleared his short position on Enron’s shares. Feng Yu, Kirilenko, and Fu Rongqi had made a few hundred million USD from this transaction. They had suffered some losses when they dumped Microsoft and other tech-related shares earlier. Still, the returns from Enron’s shares are much higher than the losses.

Citibank etc. were also sued by the courts because of their dealings with Enron.

During this period, Enron’s share prices had fallen below 5 USD. No one had expected this to happen.

Those who believed what Enron’s top executives said suffered massive losses. They did not expect Enron to have really fabricated their financial reports.

Enron’s share prices continue to plunge, and Enron’s top executives and directors were all sued. But all of them had transferred their assets away before they were caught.

Some of them had transferred their wealth to their parents, spouses, children, etc.

Because of Enron’s implication, Citibank’s share prices also fell. There were rumors that Citibank will have to compensate up to 2 billion USD!

But at this time, the stock market also started recovering. Some blue-chip companies start to pull up the market, but tech-related stocks continue to decline.

Especially Nasdaq. The majority of internet and tech-related stocks are listed on Nasdaq.

Nasdaq index had increased slightly before it starts fluctuating.

The stock markets entered a dormant period, and investors no longer invest in internet and tech-related stocks. At this time, AT&T announced massive losses.

This announcement speeds up the bursting of the internet bubble.

These few years, AT&T had been laying fiber optic cables to increase the internet transmission capacity by more than ten times.

But the demand had only increased by less than three times.

AT&T had issued shares to raise funds, and this increases their debts. However, its profit is not enough to cover their debts.

Some telecommunication companies were forced to be acquired, and some declared bankrupt.

There are about 10 million internet users currently in China, and this figure was so high due to the online game, Legend of Mir. When Sohu, Sina, NetEase, etc. companies got listed on Nasdaq, many companies noticed the internet’s potential!

Thus, people in China also started to invest in internet shares. They invested in internet companies blindly.

Feng Yu knew some internet companies’ share prices will shoot up after they got listed on China stock markets. Still, when he heard about those companies or the owners’ names, he realized he had not heard of them in his previous life.

The myth of becoming a millionaire through the internet is too enticing for investors.

Many Chinese internet companies start to poach employees with high salaries. They even managed to poach Microsoft staff from their China office. The salary offered was even higher than what Microsoft is paying them.

Some internet companies advertise aggressively on billboards, TV, etc. but no one knows what these companies are doing. These companies are only trying to increase their exposure to raise funds through the stock market.

These companies are flaunting their wealth to tell other investors that the company is rich. All investors will get high returns if they buy the company’s shares.

What if the company runs out of money? Issue more shares, and the company will have money to spend again.

This is a vicious cycle, and once this bubble burst, the investors will lose their money. To the company’s major shareholders, they don’t care as they can’t dump their shares anytime soon.

During this period, a lot of companies approached Tai Hua Consultancy for funding. But they were all rejected by Sun Lijie.  Feng Yu had instructed them not to invest in these companies.

So, Sun Lijie rejected lots of people until a man named Li Yanhong appeared.

Chapter 1096 – Qiandu

Li Yanhong?! A returnee from the US, and had worked at Infoseek, the biggest internet search engine at this moment. He was also the one who developed an algorithm using hyperlinks. He even got the US patent for this algorithm.

Li Yanhong had always wanted to start a Chinese search engine company and not work for others. With this goal in mind, he returned to China to survey the situation every year.

Last year, Li Yanhong felt it was the right time. When Sina, Sohu, etc. companies got listed on Nasdaq, he knew China’s internet boom is about to start. This is the right time for him to start his business.

Li Yanhong quit his job and returned to China with his partner, Xu Yong. He hired a few Postgraduates from renowned Chinese universities and even hired an Associate professor to join him.

The company Li Yanhong founded is called Qiandu.

But Li Yanhong and Xu Yong do not have enough funds. After buying the PCs and settling their lodging, they do not have enough to pay their workers. Beijing University’s professor is even poorer than them. If Li Yanhong is unable to pay him, the professor might change his mind about joining them.

Thus, Li Yanhong and Xu Yong need a new partner.

Xu Yong had suggested approaching Sina, NetEase, or Sohu. These three companies were just listed and have enough funds.

When Qiandu’s search engine is ready, they can let these websites use them.

But Li Yanhong objected to this suggestion. He felt Qiandu might be acquired by these websites easily if the websites become their partners. They had seen lots of companies that were bought out when they are working in Silicon Valley. This is not what he wants.

Furthermore, Li Yanhong still owns the patent for the RankDex site-scoring algorithm. With this patent, he has the chips to bargain with many venture investors.

Li Yanhong saw Tai Hua Consultancy’s advertisements and heard that the three major Chinese websites had accepted this company’s investments.

……

“Is this your proposal? Is your name Li Yanhong?” Sun Lijie looked at the proposal on the table and asked.

“Yes.”

“In your proposal, you mentioned that your company will not be making profits within the next three years. Is this a typo error?” Sun Lijie asked curiously. When other companies approach Tai Hua Consultancy, they will claim that the company will profit once the fund is injected into the company.

But this guy is different. No profits within the next three years? Also, Li Yanhong is one of the names Manager Feng asked Sun Lijie to look out for.

Li Yanhong replied cautiously. “This is not an error. Based on our forecast, it’s hard for us to make any profit within the first three years. We need to invest in the development of search engines and marketing. But three years later, I dare to promise that we can recover our investments and make profits.”

“You stated that you want 100 million RMB of investment, and you are only willing to offer 49% shares of the company.” Sun Lijie smiles.

If excluding the algorithm patent Li Yanhong owns, this company is worth less than 2 million RMB. How can this patent be worth so much?

“Manager Dun, I had invented this algorithm, and this is critical for search engine. In the US, there is a company named Google. I am not sure if you had heard of this company before. Still, this company is providing search engine services for websites like Yahoo, etc. They had already started their own search engine website, and many investors are waiting for this company to be listed. If this company got listed, the value would exceed over a billion USD!”

“Are you saying that your Qiandu is the same as Google?” Sun Lijie asked.

“We are not on par with Google currently, but I am confident that Google is not our match when it comes to the Chinese search engine. This is because only the Chinese know the Chinese language better!”

“How many people are there in your company?”

“Ten, including myself.” Sun Lijie replied.

“Your scale is too small. I heard Google will be entering the Chinese market, and how are you going to compete with Google if all the websites are using Google search engines?”

“Most of Google’s engineers are Americans, and they are not familiar with our language. There will bound to have lots of errors, and we had hired all Chinese software engineers. This is our advantage. Most importantly, we are a Chinese company, and we will have the support of most Chinese.

“I can decide on this 100 million RMB investment, but the shares you are offering is too little. I dare to say other than our company, no one is willing to give you this amount. We want 70% of the company’s voting shares, and you can discuss it with your partners.”

“Manager Sun, will you give the company you founded to someone else?” Li Yanhong asked.

“That depends. If the price is right, I would not mind selling it. I think you might have heard about this. We own the shares of the three main Chinese websites, and if you accept our conditions, we can let Qiandu handle the search engine services of these websites.” Sun Lijie replied.

Those three Chinese websites will agree, but Qiandu’s search engine must be good enough in the first place.

“Manager Sun, the offer is very attractive, but I cannot accept it. I will not handover the company I set up to someone else. I heard that the major shareholder of NetEase is still Ding Lei.” Sun Lijie rejected.

“Don’t be in a rush to reject us. Maybe you do not know about the details. You can ask Sina, Sohu, etc. if we had interfered in their companies’ operations. We had never interfered with their operations and even helped them. Didn’t you notice that our company is the main shareholder of Sina and many companies, but the Chairman is someone else?”

“Sorry, unless you all indicate in the contract that the majority of the shares are none voting shares.” Li Yanhong insisted.

“What proportion are you suggesting?”

“30% voting shares, and the rest are non-voting shares.” Li Yanhong said.

“49% of the voting shares and the rest are non-voting shares. You all will still be holding on to most voting shares, and I need to remind you that the longer you drag, the harder for Qiandu to succeed. Google is developing very fast in the US, and my Boss had also invested in Google. If we want, we can use Google and set up a Chinese search engine company. Do you think your company can still survive then?”

Li Yanhong’s eyes nearly popped out of its sockets. What did Sun Lijie say? His Boss, Feng Yu, is a shareholder of Google?

This means that Li Yanhong’s patent is useless in this negotiation.

Li Yanhong clenched his teeth. “Fine. You all will get 49% of the voting shares, and the total will be 70% shares. When can the fund be in?”

Sun Lijie laughed. “The fund will be in your company’s account the same day when the contract is signed!”

Chapter 1097 – Shi Dazhu returning to his peak again

After receiving Sun Lijie’s call, Feng Yu flew back to Beijing immediately.

“Old Sun, show me the contract now.”

Sun Lijie had prepared the contract for Feng Yu. “Manager Feng, 100 million RMB for 70% of the company’s shares. We only own 49% of the voting shares, but if they need more funds, we will have the priority.”

These terms are better than what Feng Yu wanted. Feng Yu had told Sun Lijie to buy 49% of Li Yanhong’s company for 20 million USD.

Feng Yu patted Sun Lijie’s shoulder. “Good job! This Qiandu will bring in extremely high profits for us in the future!”

The returns will be more than 100 times their investment when Qiandu got listed.

“It is because we had invested in many internet companies, and these companies are good platforms for Qiandu. If not, Li Yanhong might not agree. He had only wanted to give us 49% of his company’s non-voting shares.”

“Old Sun, the value of these shares will be double within five years!” Even if this company is not listed, the value will still be doubled. If the company got listed, no one would know how much these shares will be worth.

Sun Lijie’s eyes nearly popped out. The value will be doubled within five years? He felt blessed to be the CEO of Tai Hua Consultancy. Feng Yu had been creating miracles!

Sun Lijie thought back to the time when they invested in those three Chinese internet companies. He felt they had wasted their money at that time, but after those three companies got listed on Nasdaq, the share prices shot up.

The share prices of those three companies continued to rise until Manager Feng sold his Microsoft shares before dropping slowly.

Tai Hua Consultancy will make several folds from their investments when they sell away the non-voting shares of those three companies in one year.

Feng Yu will never sell away the voting shares of those three Chinese internet companies!

Sun Lijie had to admit that Feng Yu has good foresight. In the past one to two years, not only internet companies had risen. Another industry also became popular. Health supplements!

After Lebashi’s fake health supplement product saga, the health supplement industry is showing signs of recovery.

The most popular health supplement product is Nao Bai Jin, which started advertising last year!

Nao Bai Jin’s advertisements are everywhere, and they used catchy slogans and funny advertisements. But it did not state the benefits this product offers, and it is marketed as a fashionable gift.

The purpose of this product is marketed as a gift for elders, parents, etc. When the elderlies received Nao Bai Jin, they know it is an expensive gift. This is different from the past when the elderly received gifts, but they don’t know its value.

What are the benefits of this health supplement, Nao Bai Jin? It can only improve sleeping and help with digestion!

The retail price of a box of Nao Bai Jin is 168 RMB, and the cost is less than a third of it. The main part of the production cost is for marketing, packaging, transportation, etc.

Nao Bai Jin also uses soft advertising on the internet, newspaper, magazine, etc. Although the advertisement did not exaggerate this product’s benefits, it states the ingredients can improve the user’s digestive system and help with sleeping.

These vague descriptions created the impression that this product had used expensive ingredients. There are rumors that Nao Bai Jin has anti-aging and can increase one’s immunity. As the rumor spreads, the benefits were exaggerated to improve skin conditions and helps with men’s fertility!

Is it possible that Shi Dazhu does not know about these rumors? But he did not get his men to clarify it and allowed the rumors to spread.

What was more surprising is this product was marketed as gifts, and it was accepted by the consumers!

In China, people send gifts during festivals. Health products advertised on TV are popular gifts, as it is seen as “branded” items.

What if you buy other gifts, and it is useless for the recipients? This is a health supplement, and even if the recipient does not use it, the recipient can also give it to their parents.

Moreover, this product is healthier than giving cigarettes and alcohol.

Starting from last year, Nao Bai Jin became the best-selling health supplement in China, with almost 1 billion RMB sales!

Nao Bai Jin kickstarts the revival of the health supplement product industry in China. All sorts of health supplement products appeared in the market.

These products claimed to have all sorts of health benefits like anti-aging, improving memory, immunity, etc.

That’s right. Most of these products cannot advertise on CCTV, but they can advertise on local TV stations.

Other than local TV stations, these companies also advertised on posters and billboards. They used telemarketing, door-to-door sales, flyers, recommendations from pharmacies, etc.

Anyway, the consumers who had bought these products will have a placebo effect and thinks the product is effective.

In the market, lots of counterfeit Nao Bai Jin products appeared. The production cost is only 2 RMB, and they are selling at high prices. These products’ packaging is very similar to the real Nao Bai Jin and was sold through door-to-door sales.

These products did not state what benefits it has, and it might even be poisonous!

This year, Nao Bai Jin’s sales continued to rise, and Shi Dazhu claims that his company’s profits will exceed 1 billion RMB!

Shi Dazhu acquired a shell company to prepare to get his Nao Bai Jin’s company listed!

The company is still under review. Once it got listed successfully, Shi Dazhu will have funds to increase his scale, advertising, lower costs, etc.

Currently, the demand for this product had exceeded the supply!

Of course, Shi Dazhu is also developing new products. He does not believe this product can be popular for decades. Even if it does, he needs insurance. In the past, Shi Dazhu had also produced a Chinese language card, which is also considered a tech-related company.

The internet industry is flourishing now, and Shi Dazhu also wants to get a share of this gigantic pie. It is hard to enter the industry through other products, but the online game is easier. Look at Legend of Mir. Just the Chinese players had exceeded 10 million.

Shi Dazhu intends to use the money he earned from Nao Bai Jin to enter the internet industry. He is determined to become one of the top ten billionaires in China again!

Chinese language card

Chapter 1098 – Frustrated Sun Zhengyi

Feng Yu is satisfied after hearing Sun Lijie’s report on the company’s current and future profits. About half of the company’s investments had generated high returns, and the remaining half is still ongoing.

Tai Hua Consultancy had stringent checks on the companies asking them for investments. Not all internet companies had received funding from Tai Hua Consultancy, especially the field where Tai Hua Consultancy had invested in.

This is because Tai Hua Consultancy firmly believes that the companies they invested in will reach greater heights. Other companies in the same field will have no chance to compete with them.

What if Tai Hua Consultancy had invested in companies that had overlapping businesses in the same field? How is Tai Hua Consultancy going to help those companies?

If Tai Hua Consultancy supported both companies, it would be competing among themselves. But if Tai Hua Consultancy does not support them, the companies might be obsolete.

At this time, Softbank’s Sun Zhengyi started to invest in those companies. He wants to replicate the internet boom like the US.

Although Sun Zhengyi had not managed to invest in the companies he wanted, he had invested in several smaller companies. He will help them get listed.

It’s hard for these smaller companies to get listed on Nasdaq or Tokyo Stock Exchange. Still, it should not be a problem for them to get listed on China stock exchange. China still has not implemented strict requirements to get listed, and there are many loopholes to exploit.

After the companies get listed, the companies can push up their companies’ share prices by selling their internet concepts and future plans. After one year, they will slowly sell off their shares and profit from there.

Everything had been going smoothly. At the end of last year, Softbank managed to get two companies listed, and the share prices shot up immediately.

But after the Nasdaq crash at the start of this year, China’s internet stocks also start to fall. The main reason is that the investors had heard what Feng Yu said. “How can these companies be worth so much?! They must be overvalued!”

The companies that Softbank is pushing to get listed were ordered to stop. Those two companies listed last year were investigated. They were found to have manipulated their share prices and were suspended. When trading resumes, their share prices will plunge.

Sun Zhengyi will not be able to cash out his investments. It’s the investors who had bought the companies’ shares earlier that had made some money. Those that invested later also had their money trapped.

The companies Sun Zhengyi wanted to invest, were snatched away by Feng Yu’s company. The companies he invested in were disrupted by what Feng Yu said. Sun Zhengyi is furious with Feng Yu.

You earn your money, and I earn mine. We are not interfering with each other.

You had already snatched away my prospective customers, what else do you want?!

Sun Zhengyi had wanted to use the competition between the three Chinese web portals and get a bargain from it.

But the Bosses of those three web portals know each other and have a healthy competition. All of them are focusing on getting users and are reporting the news. But Sina is now focusing on their Micro-blogging feature and overseas news. NetEase is focusing on mailbox and game distribution. Just the game distribution business, NetEase managed to break even this year, while Sohu is focusing on online forums and videos. Almost all netizens in China will have a Sohu account!

Almost everything is discussed on the online forums.

The staff in companies with internet connections will check the latest news on Sina before logging in to NetEase mailbox for their emails. After that, they will log into Sohu’s online forum secretly while working.

Everyone will check the forums every once in a while. There might be some discussions that interest them appearing anytime.

What if someone is looking for you? It’s fine. They will contact you through QQ. Like Wind and Rain Electronics, almost all big companies in China are encouraging paperless offices to save costs!

Feng Yu had only told his companies to use QQ to pass messages within the company and stop paper wastage. But he did not expect his companies to implement it to this extend.

Some important documents like drawings, contracts, etc. must still be printed.

But the few internet companies Feng Yu invested in had entered all netizens’ life in China. It’s impossible for any Chinese who goes online to not know about these three companies.

The internet is developing rapidly, and PCs are getting common in China.

But Sun Zhengyi’s investment losses are increasing.

Many of the companies Sun Zhengyi invested in finished spending their funds even before they got listed. These companies contacted Sun Zhengyi for more investments in exchange for shares.

Sun Zhengyi realized these companies had spent their funds recklessly.

I had invested a sum of money in your company. The first thing you do is renovate your office, buy cars for all the company’s executives, increase the salaries of all developers, etc.

But where are the results you promised me?! You all had not fulfilled your claims and had not accomplished anything. All you did was to paint a beautiful picture to get me to invest!

You all had not achieved anything and used the invested money on yourselves. Are you treating me like an idiot?!

Sun Zhengyi scolded his subordinate, who had negotiated with those companies, to vent his anger.

But that subordinate felt wronged. We would have invested in Sina successfully if you had not demanded more shares back then.

I had rejected some of these companies, but you are the one who asked me to take the risk. You said that the internet is booming in China, and we can make high profits through these companies. That’s why these companies passed the selection criteria, and now you are blaming me for these losses?!

But there is nothing this subordinate can do, as Sun Zhengyi is his Boss.

“Go! Think of a way to stabilize those two stocks and get these two companies listed. If not, our investments in China will be gone.” Sun Zhengyi threw a document file on the floor.

The subordinate quickly picks up the file and left Sun Zhengyi’s office.

Sun Zhengyi had been in a bad mood after he failed to invest in those Chinese internet companies. Maybe it is also because Yahoo’s share prices had crashed recently.

But based on the agreements, Sun Zhengyi cannot sell their internet companies’ shares within the next few years. If not, the company will not suffer so many losses.

Sun Zhengyi is facilitating Yahoo to enter China. With Yahoo’s experience in the US, they will surely be successful after they enter China.

Those three Chinese web portals will be defeated by Yahoo! They will be defeated by Softbank!

Chapter 1099 – The forums must be regulated

Weekends. Feng Yu logged into his Legend of Mir’s account. He noticed Zhou Kexin is not online and asked his two substitute players. Zhou Kexin does log in once in a while but had never replied to their messages.

Feng Yu sighed. Seems like he must think of other ways to get close to her.

Feng Yu was bored and went to look at Sohu’s forums. He wants to see how the online forums look like now.

It is currently easy to register an account and does not require emails, mobile numbers, names, etc. Feng Yu entered some numbers and registered an account successfully.

Feng Yu made a mental note to tell Zhang Chaoyang that he can advertise on the account registration page. For example, during registration, the user must enter an email account. A verification code will be sent to the email, and this will be promoting the NetEase mailbox. This way, NetEase will have to pay Sohu advertising fees.

Also, the user must provide their contact information. Mobile phones are still not common yet, but the user can apply for a QQ account. Registering QQ is very easy, and Sohu can earn some advertising fees from Tencent. Why didn’t Zhang Chaoyang think of such simple ways to make money?

There are many areas for these companies to cooperate. Why are they not using their brains?!

Feng Yu sighed as he browsed through the forums.

Culture, History, Military, Entertainment, Sports, Finance, Cars, Women, Relationships, Stories…

Huh? There are too many sub-forums. If there are two to three moderators for each forum, they will need to hire many people. But this is also a good thing, as there is something of interest for all sorts of people.

Experts will appear in forums!

Feng Yu entered the forum on cars. The first post is talking about Songjiang’s latest model of Oriental Deer. The review of this model is very good, and Feng Yu nodded satisfyingly.

The second post is about Songjiang’s sports car that is launched this year. S1. But only a few owners are discussing this car in the thread. Their reviews of this car are mostly positive and praise it for the beautiful exterior and easy maintenance. The rest of this thread’s posts envy those few owners, as this car cost over 1 million RMB!

The ones who can afford this car are all tycoons!

The third thread is also talking about Songjiang’s cars. Di Hao. This is Songjiang’s latest high-end model of customized cars. It cost from 1 million to 3 million RMB, and it must be pre-booked before production. Someone mentioned that they had seen a Di Hao at XX location.

The rest of the threads are about other brands of cars. But Songjiang’s cars had occupied almost a third of all the threads. Three out of the top five threads are about Songjiang cars, and the remaining two are joint ventured cars.

Li Mingde is quite smart to use these forums to advertise Songjiang’s cars.

In the sports section, most of the posts are on the upcoming Sydney Olympics. Feng Yu is not interested as he had already signed those top athletes. After they won the medals, the advertisements will be released. This year, Feng Yu had increased his advertising slots on CCTV 5 because of the Olympic games.

There is one thread that interests Feng Yu under the sports section. It is to congratulate LA Wind and Rain for winning the NBA championship. The poster claims that this is a giant step forward for the Chinese.

Feng Yu was speechless. All my main players are Americans, and even if Wang Zhizhi is in the team, he is only a reserve player.

That’s right. China’s Men Basketball team is currently undergoing training in the US, and Feng Yu arranged for them to play some friendly matches with his team.

Feng Yu entered the History forum, and it was full of nonsense. People posted made-up stories of history and even posted the history of Goddess of Mercy! What a genius! The guy even managed to convince others to believe his made-up story!

Feng Yu entered the Finance section next. Some ‘experts’ are talking about the boom of internet shares. They claimed that the recent crash is only a technical adjustment, and the market will recover soon.

These people are either morons or paid to post these comments. Everyone can see that the internet shares had crashed. Although not all the companies will be wiped out, internet companies’ shares are no longer popular.

Feng Yu posted his views in the thread, advising others to take precautions with buying shares, but he doesn’t care if anyone will heed his advice.

Feng Yu entered all the different forums until he entered the Relationship section. He realized something was off. Why are there so many threads under this section, and there are so many replies? Do people like to discuss their relationship problems online now? Online dating?! Errr… this is a forum…

Feng Yu clicked on one of the threads. Damn! It’s those types of “love” stories!

Feng Yu scrolled through the replies of the thread. “Thank you, OP! Thanks for your hard work!”

Damn! This is supposed to be a forum on relationships, but it’s full of erotic stories!

Who the hell is the moderator for this forum?! What has he been doing?! Does Zhang Chaoyang know about this, or did he allowed this to happen?!

Feng Yu grabbed his phone and called Zhang Chaoyang. “Hello, Manager Zhang! I’m Feng Yu.”

“Manager Feng? Is there anything?”

“Manager Zhang, our forums had attracted lots of views. Congratulations.”

“This is the credit of everyone in the company.” Zhang Chaoyang replied modestly.

“I am curious. Do you visit the online forums?”

“Yes. I will enter the Finance forum every day.” Zhang Chaoyang replied with a laugh.

“The forums allow users to view their opinions, but they cannot say anything they want. Do you all check the contents of a post before it was published?”

Zhang Chaoyang sensed something is wrong with Feng Yu’s tone. He cautiously replied. “Manager Feng, is there any problem with one of the postings in the forum?”

“Not only one. It’s a lot! Almost the whole forum has problems! Don’t you have moderators to check on the postings?!”

“Yes. We have a Chief moderator and a deputy moderator to manage the forums. You should know that there are lots of postings every day, and this is a boring job. They might have missed out on some of the threads.” Zhang Chaoyang explained.

“If it is one or two postings, you can say it is human error, and I can understand it. Go visit the Relationship forum now. Eight out of ten threads have problems. You will know what the problem is after you visited the forum!”

Zhao Chaoyang held his phone in a daze after Feng Yu slams down the phone. He immediately logs in and enters the Relationship forum. He was stunned.

Zhao Chaoyang’s face turns red with anger, and grabbed the phone on his desk. “Get the technology and content management head to my office now! Also, get the moderators for the Relationship to my office, and ask the finance department to prepare their salary!”

Guanyin

Chapter 1100 – Multi parties’ cooperation (Part one of two)

That evening, Feng Yu saw some of Sohu’s forums were temporarily taken offline for maintenance. The other forums were also cleansed.

The tech department thought of an idea to manage their forums. They could engage Qiandu to develop a keyword search program highlighting the moderators if some keywords appeared. These posts or threads will be moderated manually.

The moderator will be responsible for the forum under his care. If there are problems with the forum, the moderators for that forum will be penalized. Of course, with penalties, there will be rewards. If the advertisements for that forum exceeded their target, the moderators would get bonuses.

All forums will have “sticky” posts reminding users that it is illegal to post explicit content in China. The company will trace the IP address and hand they over to the Police.

In 1994, China had already set up their internet police department. From 1995 onwards, every city’s police force will have an officer in charge of online crimes. But at that time, not many officers know about PCs, and this is a powerless department.

But from this year onwards, Feng Yu knew Lenovo had received orders for several large servers and high-performance PCs. The Chinese Police force also hired several Computer Major professionals as officers. This is mainly because a group of hackers had appeared recently. These hackers called themselves Red Hacker Alliance and specialized in attacking other countries’ government websites for fun.

Some of these hackers joined the Internet Police. They used the Chinese government funds to set up cybersecurity for the government. After all, the Chinese government is also afraid of hackers.

The Red Hacker Alliance even recruited their members openly online.

If Liu Chuanzhi did not tell Feng Yu about the hackers, Feng Yu did not know about them. Those so-call “Hackers” might be skilled, but they cannot penetrate the defenses of high-performance cybersecurity equipment.

It is just like online games. Your level might be high, but your enemy is wearing extremely good gear. No matter how you hit your enemy, you cannot damage them. How are you going to win?

After doing all these, Sohu was even awarded a certificate of appreciation by the Chinese government.

After Zhang Chaoyang implemented all these measures, Feng Yu is satisfied. He is called Zhang Chaoyang. “Eh, do you know about the Red Hacker Alliance?”

Zhang Chaoyang was surprised by Feng Yu’s question. “Manager Feng, why are you asking me this? I am not a member of this alliance. Furthermore, this alliance specialized in exploiting internet loopholes to attack. This is not something I am good at.”

“I am not talking about you. If our website is under attack, can you all handle it?”

“That will depend on how many hackers are attacking us. If it is only one or two hackers, our equipment is enough to handle it. But if there are seven to eight hackers, our websites might have to be taken down for a while.” Zhang Chaoyang replied.

Those Red Hackers are so powerful, and they should be working for me. They are the best people to take charge of our internet security.

In the casinos, many of the managers are formerly gambling experts or cheats. They are the best people to catch cheats.

“Are you sure if you don’t know anyone of them? Manager Zhang, it’s fine to tell me, and I will not tell others. I hope to hire them to take charge of our online security.”

“Why would hackers attack our websites? Hackers will not attack websites randomly and will only hack other websites for a reason. If not, they will be arrested easily.”

“Who knows what will happen in the future? What if some hackers develop a virus that goes out of control?” Feng Yu suddenly remembered the “Grey Pigeon” virus. This is one of the top ten viruses for three consecutive years.

After that, some people changed the virus into a trojan and made many different types of variations.

Zhang Chaoyang replied. “Maybe Qiu Bojun or Lei Dajun might know those hackers. You can try asking them.”

“Are you saying that they had tried recruiting the hackers?”

“I am only guessing, and I don’t know anything about this.” Zhang Chaoyang replied.

“Alright. I will ask them later. Oh, I have something to discuss with you. I think Sohu, Sina, NetEase, Qiandu, Tencent, etc. can cooperate to promote each other’s products and share your technologies. This will be good for all parties.”

“We are cooperating in many areas. Our search engine uses Qiandu, and we are also advertising for Tencent’s QQ, NetEase’s Legend of Mir, and Sina’s microblogs. Isn’t this considered cooperation?” Zhang Chaoyang asked curiously.

“This cooperation is only on the surface. I registered an account in our forum yesterday, and I only need to provide an account number, password, and nick.”

“That’s right. No one likes to use their real identity online, and they prefer to use all sorts of interesting nicks.”

“What if they forgot their password?”

“They can register a new account or used their password recovery option.”

Huh? Password recovery option? Feng Yu did not notice about this yesterday.

“Then you should make it compulsory for the users. You don’t need to set complicated questions, or the user might forget after a few days. You can also use other options to recover the user’s password. For example, the mobile phone number. You can work with a telecommunication company to send a verification code to the users. Another option is to use email. You can work with NetEase and get them to send a verification email to the users. The user can use the verification code to change their password. Lastly, you ask the user for their QQ to send verification codes to the users.”

“Don’t think that you will suffer losses by doing these. You can ask for a commission from the telecommunication company. Their cost for doing this is not high, and we will be increasing their profits. As for emails and QQ, you can also charge them advertising fees.”

Zhang Chaoyang was impressed. “Manager Feng, you are so smart. This way, Sohu’s profits will increase a lot!”

Chapter 1101 – Multi parties’ cooperation (Part two of two)

Feng Yu shook his head. Does Zhang Chaoyang think that Sohu will be the only party that will benefit from this cooperation?

“Manager Zhang, you all should also work with Sina to provide links to each other. You all are also publishing news, but Sina is better at news reporting than you all.”

Zhang Chaoyang had to admit that Sina is doing better than Sohu when it comes to online news. Sina still owns an overseas company. If Sohu can acquire that overseas company, our news will be the fastest!

“Sina can share their news reports with you all, but you all must pay them for the articles. I know you all and NetEase are also publishing online news, right?”

“Err…. I need to consider this.”

If we use another company’s news articles, it will mean Sohu is not as good as Sina.

“Up to you. Sina will be setting up branch offices in every province. It will hire a group of online reporters to collect news all over China. The users will be shown the top local news from their log in IP addresses. The news articles will be narrowed down to individual cities in the future, and Sina will be China’s top online news media!”

Feng Yu had discussed it with Wang Zhixi. Sina will be focusing on online news. This way, their views will increase, and can charge more for their advertisements.

Sina can also work with local media to exchange news articles and occupy the Chinese online news media’s top seat. After all, they are currently the top online news media in China.

After that, they can focus on developing Weibo, and they had already invited several celebrities and stars onto this platform. The celebrities also include sportsmen and women, entrepreneurs, etc.

Since Weibo had started, Weibo’s charges users for using their real names and photos. This is to prevent impersonation. For this purpose, Sina also worked with the Public Security to verify the users’ identification for a fee.

Weibo will not charge their users for the basic functions, but additional features are only available for VIP users.

Since those celebrities started their Weibo, many people also registered Weibo accounts to follow their favorite celebrities. Those celebrities who were hired by Sina must post some updates at least once a day.

Feng Yu also registered his own Weibo account with his real name. But Feng Yu used a picture of a dragon as his portrait. This is to symbolize he is a Chinese descendant.

Feng Yu had wanted to use the Wind and Rain logo as his display pic but changed his mind.

Since Feng Yu had started his Weibo account, the rest of the higher executives in Wind and Rain Holdings, Tai Hua Holdings, also registered accounts to follow Feng Yu.

That means they will be notified of Feng Yu’s updates once he posted something. But at this time, there is no blacklist, and it is very frustrating for Feng Yu. There are too many people following him, and almost everyone in his companies is following him. Feng Yu hopes that he can stop certain people from following him.

So, Feng Yu told Wang Zhixi to improve on the features of his Weibo. He can engage Qiandu to add in filter features on the Weibo and limit the people who follow Feng Yu. Feng Yu does not want anyone to follow him, and a blacklist feature is a must.

Also, Weibo users do not need to post lengthy messages on Weibo. The users should be able to post even one word.

I told you to invite those celebrities onto Weibo is not for them to attract fans. You can also advertise on the celebrities’ Weibo page and share the advertising fees with the celebrities.

Also, didn’t you notice Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, etc. had registered their Weibo accounts? I had told you that companies can make use of Weibo for their advertising and public relations. This can be considered as another website for the companies.

Have you visited my Weibo account? This is considered as the company’s top executives’ Weibo account, and is good for personal branding and promoting their company. Simultaneously, the executive can use his influence to get their followers to do some charity acts.

But all these executive accounts, company accounts, or brand accounts must be registered with their real names, and users must pay for it. Especially companies’ accounts. Companies will be using this platform to advertise for their products, and we must charge them. Without us, this platform will not exist, and we had spent so much money to build this platform.

Wang Zhixi was stunned by what Manager Feng said. How did Manager Feng think of so many ways to earn money? What are those people in the company doing?! Why didn’t they come up with these ideas?! No wonder Manager Feng can become Asia’s top billionaire!

Feng Yu told Wang Zhixi to cooperate with other companies. Since Feng Yu had helped Sina think of ways to make money, cooperating with other companies will benefit everyone. Why should Wang Zhixi reject this cooperation? After all, Sina also wants to promote their blogs.

Zhang Chaoyang agreed reluctantly after he knows Wang Zhixi had agreed. “Alright. I will participate in this cooperation.”

“Good. Sina’s bloggers will help you all promote your products, and you must pay them a fee. Suppose Sina, Sohu, NetEase, Tencent, Qiandu can work together, you all will become very powerful, and you all should set your sights out of China!”

“Out of China?! What do you mean?”

“I know all of you want to be the biggest Chinese website. But you all are only thinking about being the biggest in China. Have you ever consider stepping out of China one day?” Feng Yu asked.

“Are you referring to Sina, acquiring an overseas website?”

“You can do that, or set up an overseas branch. Think about this. Sina’s overseas website is providing China news now. Why can’t you all also expand your websites overseas? Although the profits from forums are lesser, you all had started pay-per-download for many movies and TV series? Many of these movies and TV series are overseas, right? Have you ever thought that foreigners might like China’s movies and dramas?”

“Err… there might be a language barrier. Can this work?”

“How will you know if you don’t try? But let me remind you. You must monitor this Sohu video and make sure no illegal videos are uploaded. If the website is ordered to shut down, don’t blame me for making you pay for the consequences!”

Damn! Sohu must not become another adult website! Feng Yu still have important plans for Sohu in the future!

Chapter 1102 – China’s internet Summit

Feng Yu continued to chat with Zhang Chaoyang for a while. Zhang Chaoyang told him that China’s first internet summit will be held in Beijing three days later.

Huh?! This is the event in which Xiao Ma, Li Yanhong, Ding Lei, Qiu Bojun, Lei Dajun, etc. attended in Feng Yu’s past life?

“Who is the organizer?”

“The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. They had sent out invitations to companies like us, and we must attend. Do you need the invitation card to attend?”

Feng Yu’s face changed. Damn! These minor shareholders were all invited, and they did not invite me? I am the major shareholder of these companies! Are the organizers blind?!

Feng Yu is always overseas. His only position in China is the Chairman of Tai Hua Holdings. Tai Hua Holdings is not considered an internet company.

Many internet companies were invited, and some provinces had also sent their leaders to attend.

“I am not interested!” Feng Yu stubbornly replied.

Feng Yu wants to attend badly, as he wants to see if he had missed any companies.

Suppose Feng Yu manages to invest in some of the companies which will be successful in the future. In that case, he can become the leader of China’s and global internet!

In the future, the internet will enter everyone’s lives, and Feng Yu knew this better than anyone else. Everyone living in the cities cannot live without the internet. Internet TV, mobile phones, shopping, reservations, taxi, registrations, appointments, etc. are all going online.

Feng Yu wants the majority share of this big pie.

Everyone else can only get Feng Yu’s leftovers!

Zhang Chaoyang was surprised to see Feng Yu leaving angrily. They were chatting, and Feng Yu suddenly got mad.

Manager Feng had not received the invitation?

Sohu can send five people to attend this event, and their CFO and CTO must attend this event.

But Zhang Chaoyang did not tell Feng Yu that he can reserve a place for him. The other companies can also do the same.

Feng Yu returned home and waited for one of his companies to call him, telling him that his invitation is with them.

But Feng Yu waiting until the next day, and no one called to tell him about this.

Damn! I might not be holding any position in the companies, but shouldn’t you all show me some respect?!

Feng Yu called Fan Tianming. He was the Chief Fan but is promoted to Deputy Director now.

“Director Fan, I’m Feng Yu. Are you busy?” Feng Yu asked with a laugh.

“Manager Feng?! You had not called me for a while. Your Wind and Rain mobile phones and Aiwa mobile phones are selling very well.”

Fan Tianming grumbled in his heart. Feng Yu had stopped his pager production for more than a year and had let his department lose some profits. But his post offices are still making money from mobile phones.

But the post offices’ income is much lower than before. Many mobile phone shops had popped up everywhere, and Tai Hua Supermarket has specialized counters for Wind and Rain, Aiwa mobile phones.

Feng Yu wants to set up an exclusive retail store for his phones, but he does not have enough models.

“Hahaha… it’s all because of your help. Your post offices are also making high commissions from Philips and us.”

Feng Yu had introduced Philips to the Post Office to sell its products there. Philips will have to give the Post Office a cut of their profits.

The more phones the Post Office sells, the more money they will get, which will suppress other mobile phone brands like Nokia and Motorola. Nokia and Motorola phones are not selling as well as Aiwa and Wind and Rain phones. Ericsson, Sony, and other brands are doing much worse.

This strategy used by Feng Yu is another form of local protectionism.

Anyway, Philips’ mobile phone is not their main product. Their best-selling product is their shavers, and the Post Office had started selling shavers because of them. Feng Yu had not expected the Post Office to do this.

Moreover, Director Fan was promoted because of Feng Yu’s help. If Master Lu had gotten someone else to help Feng Yu, Director Fan would never get his promotion.

“We are helping each other… Manager Feng, are you going to recommend new products to me?” Fan Tianming laughed.

“No… I am calling to ask you for a favor.”

“Manager Feng, your problem is my problem. I will do my best to help and will not disappoint you!”

Fan Tianming had seen Feng Yu having meals with Ironfist Zhu’s secretary. It’s an honor for Feng Yu to approach him for help. If he rejects Feng Yu, Feng Yu can easily look for someone else.

Furthermore, Feng Yu had approached Fan Tianming, which means that this favor is within Fan Tianming’s authority. Feng Yu had approached Fan Tianming for help several times, starting from getting the Web Access permit approval. All these are not difficult tasks and are all in line with the government’s policy.

Although Feng Yu knows Fan Tianming is saying these casually, it’s still nice to his ears.

“It’s not a big problem. I heard that there will be a China Internet Summit soon.”

“Yes. I am the one who organized this. Telecommunication is under my jurisdiction.”

Feng Yu was overjoyed, as he had found the right person.

“Director Fan, which companies are invited?” You had sent invitations to so many companies but did not invite me.

“Quite a lot of companies. Almost every province will send a representative to attend this event, and some bigger internet companies are also invited. We had also invited a few smaller companies with the potential to attend. But only the representatives from the bigger companies are allowed to speak at this event. There will be a day reserve for free discussion. This event is to increase our internet development to catch up with South Korea and the US.”

Feng Yu is speechless. Catch up with South Korea? In Feng Yu’s previous life, South Korea has the best internet infrastructure in the world. Their internet speed and coverage are the best in the world.

This is also because South Korea is small, and its government had treated the internet as one of its core industries.

“Huh… I wish you success. Oh, can you give some invitation cards to this event?”

Fan Tianming laughed. “I thought you are facing some major problems. How many invitation cards do you need? Is ten enough?  These are all red invitation cards, and each card can allow five people to enter. If it is not enough, I will bring your men in when you reach the entrance. If you are attending this event, this event will surely be successful!”

“Director Fan, two invitation cards are enough. Please don’t tell anyone else, as I am only going there to take a look. How about I treat you to dinner this evening? There is a Quanjude nearby your workplace. Bring your family along as this is considered a private gathering.” Damn! You want to use my name to promote this event?! Did you pay me to promote this event?! Can you all even afford to hire me?

“Hahaha… I will go over after work.”

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

Chapter 1103 – Where are the awesome people?!

The Summit started, and Feng Yu entered the venue with Sun Lijie. Feng Yu and Sun Lijie were dressed down, and they sat on some empty seats in a corner.

There is a corridor in the middle, and more than 100 reporters and photographers sat on the rows beside the corridor.

Hmmm… This is the grand hall of Wind and Rain Building. Feng Yu had instructed to build a grand hall within his building. This hall is the top venue for industry summits, dialogues, etc.

Feng Yu had built this hall for his own use, but now, he can still make money. At the same time, he was also frustrated. If he knows this event is held in the Wind and Rain building, he does not need any invitation cards. He can just get the venue manager or security guards to let him in.

Feng Yu looks around and saw some familiar faces. But the majority of the people there are strangers.

Where is Ma Yun? Based on Feng Yu’s memories from his previous life, Ma Yun should have started his business. Did Softbank invest in Ma Yun’s company already?! It shouldn’t be. Tai Hua Consultancy was advertised aggressively all over China and is the first choice for companies that require funding.

Should I go and approach Ma Yun? I might make lesser money, but it’s better than letting Softbank get the profits.

Also, where are the awesome people from the internet industry? How come they are not around? Errr… Could it be that they still have not set up their companies?

Fan Tianming went up the stage and knocked on the microphone lightly. “Leaders and guests… on behalf of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, I welcome you all to China’s first internet summit!”

The crowd clapped.

After that, Fan Tianming made a long speech until Feng Yu almost fell asleep. It was those boring speeches by government leaders, praising the government, etc.

The speech finally ended.

Eh, why is Old Liu going up on to the stage?

Liu Chuanzhi was the first representative to speak on the stage.

No other companies in China can challenge Lenovo Group’s status.

“Leaders, guests, and friends from the media…. I am honored to be invited to give a speech at this Summit… three years ago. Our internet is considered narrowband to other countries. Narrowband is the opposite of the broadband we are talking about now. It means our internet speed is far behind other developed countries. Their internet speed is over 256KB/S, and ours can only reach 64 KB/S. This is like when others are riding motorcycles, we are still riding our bicycles. This is the difference.”

“Now, we are starting to ride motorcycles, but other countries had started to drive cars. Although the gap is still wide, we can catch up. Broadband is the revolution of the internet!”

“Now, the internet market is very popular and is the trend. Many companies added the word, ‘internet’ to their companies’ names to follow this trend and then get venture capitalists to invest in them. After these companies got listed, their share prices shot up like crazy. Is adding the word ‘internet’ to a company’s name make them internet companies? Will removing the word ‘internet’ makes the company’s name makes them no longer an internet company? Lenovo Group does not have the word ‘Internet’ in its name. But are we unrelated to the internet?”

Liu Chuanzhi continued with his speech and had gone off tracked.

Old Liu is attacking the internet bubble forming in China. He is really daring to say all these. Fan Tianming and other government leaders should be unhappy now.

But to the higher-ups, Liu Chuanzhi is an important figure to China. He is the one who brought China’s PCs to the rest of the world.

Some of the audience start to discuss among themselves. These people should be the ones whose companies had nothing to do with the internet industry. Maybe they had set up a company’s website and claims to be an internet company.

Oh… Wang Zhixi is also going up the stage to give a talk. He talked about Sina’s development in online news media. No other companies can compete with Sina because of its unique news channel.

Ding Lei also went up on the stage to talk about email and online games. There are many online games out there, but none of them can compete with Legend of Mir. The number of registered players in those games is lesser than the number of online players in Legend of Mir.

Zhang Chaoyang talks about the prospect of online forums and the future of internet videos.

No one among the audience thinks the online TV channels can be successful. Watching videos through the internet? Bullshit! It will be too laggy to watch anything. It might be possible if you download the movie, but buying the movie DVD is more convenient.

Zhang Chaoyang walks down the stage, looking terrible. Why did you all think watching videos online is not possible? There are such websites overseas, like South Korea. If they can do it, so can we!

Who says our internet infrastructure cannot catch up with South Korea? Even if we cannot catch up with them in one year, we will catch up with them in three to five years!

But Zhang Chaoyang is not giving up. Manager Feng had promised him that he will be investing a sum of money in setting up a new department.

Even Manager Feng thinks this will succeed. I am looking forward to looking at everyone’s expression when we succeed!

The representatives went up the stage to give talks, and Feng Yu carefully looked at each of them. But he realized he doesn’t know any of them. Damn! There are so many successful internet entrepreneurs in his previous life. Where did they go?!

Ok. Feng Yu had only noticed those successful internet entrepreneurs’ pictures on the papers and did not purposely remember their looks. After all, not all bosses are as unique looking like Ma Yun.

Also, many of these internet entrepreneurs are like Feng Yu. They do not like to be featured on the news or like to be disturbed. That’s why there are very few pictures of them online or on the papers. Feng Yu can only remember their names and companies.

Feng Yu got bored. He had come here to look for those awesome internet entrepreneurs but ended up listening to talks. Even those government leaders are talking on the stage. What nonsense are they talking about? What caring, encouragement, etc.? Didn’t Fan Tianming said all these earlier?

Don’t you all know that you all are saying the same things in different sequences?

Chapter 1104 – Who do you want to interview?

Zhou Kexin ran out anxiously. She saw one of the people her Chief Editor asked her to interview. But she is petite and could not squeeze her way through the crowd.

By the time Zhou Kexin ran out of the grand hall, that person is no longer to be found.

“Hi, do you know where the participants of this Internet Summit are having their lunch?” Zhou Kexin asked the staff.

“They will be having lunch in the dining hall on the eighth floor. Taking the stairs from here will be faster.”

Zhou Kexin did not wait until the other party finish and started running towards the stairwell. Although there are eight elevators in the building, there are too many people.

After climbing up five stairs, Zhou Kexin calmed down her breathing and entered the dining hall.

“Hi, can I see your invitation card?”

Zhou Kexin was stunned. She does not have any invitation card, as the invitation card is with her Chief Editor. But at this moment, how can she get her Chief Editor? She does not have a mobile phone.

“I am a reporter for this Internet Summit. Look at my badge. I am going in to look for someone and will be out within a minute.” Zhou Kexin points to her reporter badge on her chest.

“Sorry. The reporters’ dining area is on the seventh floor. We need to ensure the leaders are not disturbed during their meals. If you wish to interview any one of them, please wait until they finish their meals.”

When the leaders finish their meals, all the mainstream media’s reporters will be interviewing them. Zhou Kexin will have no chance to interview. TV stations and newspapers are currently the mainstream media, and Zhou Kexin is working for a new magazine. Moreover, she is only an intern and a nobody.

Zhou Kexin thought conducting interviews at this event will be a good exposure during her holidays. But she did not expect this task to be so difficult.

Zhou Kexin had been standing the whole morning and did not even have the chance to take a sip of water. Now, she was even stopped at the entrance when she wants to interview.

Feng Yu stepped out of the elevator and walked towards the dining hall when he saw a familiar figure. She seems to be arguing with the staff at the entrance.

Why is she here? Is she here as the reporter for <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>? What is Hu Ran doing? Why didn’t he inform me of such an important matter?

Feng Yu pulled Sun Lijie’s arm. “Old Sun, go and ask that female reporter who she wants to interview and help her out. After that, come to my office. We will have lunch there.”

Sun Lijie was puzzled. Didn’t Manager Feng say he wants to look around in the dining hall? Why did he change his mind suddenly?

Sun Lijie looks at the female reporter. Does Manager Feng know her? But if Manager Feng knows her, he should be walking over to speak to her. Furthermore, if that female reporter knows Manager Feng, does she even need to argue with the staff? This is Wind and Rain Building. Manager Feng’s friend can go anywhere she wants!

But Sun Lijie is smart. He did not ask anything and agreed. After Feng Yu enters the elevator, he walks over to that female reporter.

“Hi, are there any problems?”

“Good afternoon, Manager Sun. I am Zhou Kexin. A reporter with <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>.” Zhou Kexin heard the staff greeting Sun Lijie as Manager Sun.

Sun Lijie was even more confused. <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> is the magazine agency Feng Yu invested in. They are our own media company, and this reporter is unaware of it?

Sun Lijie looks at Zhou Kexin’s badge. Oh… She is an intern and should be new to the company and does not know its background.

Sun Lijie remembered Feng Yu’s instructions and smiles. “Reporter Zhou, who do you want to interview? I know some people inside. Go and grab your lunch first, and I will make arrangements for you to interview the people you want.”

Zhou Kexin is overjoyed. “Really? Thank you, Manager Sun… Thank you…”

“Hahaha…. No need to thank me. Tell me, who do you want to interview?” Sun Lijie thought to himself. If Manager Feng did not ask me to do this, I would never do it. If my wife knows that I am helping a pretty young girl, I will be in trouble!

Zhou Kexin took out a notebook and read out the names. “I would like to interview Liu Chuanzhi, Ding Lei, Zhang Chaoyang, Wang Zhixi, Qiu Bojun…”

Sun Lijie’s eyes nearly popped out, and quickly interrupt Zhou Kexin. “Reporter Zhou, are you sure you want to interview so many people?”

You mentioned more than a dozen names. Can you finish interviewing them by yourself today?

Even though I am helping you. But you cannot be so greedy!

Zhou Kexin smiled embarrassedly. “Manager Sun, I meant I wish to interview anyone of them. They are all the elites of China’s internet industry. Our magazine is going to write up on our country’s IT elites in our next issue.”

Sun Lijie frowned. IT includes hardware, software, and transmission, and the people Zhou Kexin wants to interview are all elites of this field.

“Do you have anyone that you really want to interview?” Sun Lijie has a headache. He cannot help Zhou Kexin get all the people she wants and ask them to queue up for her interview. Maybe only Manager Feng can do this.

Zhou Kexin frowned. All the names she mentioned are important, and she doesn’t know who she should interview. Maybe her editor had interviewed some of them. If she interviewed the same person as her editor, she would waste this opportunity.

The staff beside them rolled her eyes. What is this reporter thinking? Manager Sun had offered to help you, and yet you can’t make up your mind? All the names you mentioned are big bosses of this industry. Any one of them is considered elites.

“Can I interview Mr. Ding Lei?” Zhou Kexin suddenly wants to interview Ding Lei. Maybe it is because Ding Lei manages the online game Legend of Mir, and this game had left her many good memories.

Because of Zhou Kexin’s work and she wants to avoid Feng Yu, she had not gone online for quite something. She wonders if ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ is still playing this game.

Sun Lijie nodded. “Sure. I am friends with Manager Ding. This is my card. Call me in an hour, and I will let you know where to interview him.”

Sun Lijie gave Zhou Kexin his name card and was relieved. This girl had finally made up her mind… Manager Feng’s tasks are not easy.

Zhou Kexin bowed gratefully and left. Sun Lijie shook his head and walks towards the elevator. That staff looked at Zhou Kexin enviously, thinking to himself that this female reporter is so lucky for Manager Sun to help her.

Feng Yu stood in his office, looking out of the window. When he heard Sun Lijie knocking on the door, he quickly asks him to come in.

“Manager Feng, I had given Reporter Zhou my name card and helped her arranged an interview with Ding Lei in an hour. I called Ding Lei, and he agreed.”

Feng Yu nodded. “Old Sun, thank you. Let’s eat.”

Sensing Feng Yu does not want to explain himself, Sun Lijie kept quiet and did not ask anything.

Chapter 1105 – Old Sun, Stop him!

Half an hour later, Ding Lei had finished his lunch. He was about to chat with his friends when he received Feng Yu’s call. Feng Yu wants to meet him in his office.

“What’s wrong? Manager Feng, why are you looking for me so urgently?” Ding Lei is different from others. He is the major shareholder of NetEase with 51% of voting shares and is quite relaxed in front of Feng Yu.

“Manager Ding, have a seat. Old Sun had called you earlier, right?” Feng Yu poured a cup of tea for Ding Lei.

“Yes. He told me one of his relatives is a reporter and wish to interview me. I agreed to the interview.” Ding Lei is curious. It’s not normal for Feng Yu to pour a cup of tea for him.

Although Feng Yu had treated Ding Lei with respect, Feng Yu had let them pour tea themselves all their past meetings. What happened today?

“That is what I asked Old Sun to say. She is not Old Sun’s relative and is just a magazine reporter. The magazine is called <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>. Do you get what I mean?” Feng Yu hinted.

“This is your magazine? The magazine you setup to rank our billionaires in China?! Just ask the reporter to contact me directly will do. Why is there a need to make it so complicated?” Ding Lei replied.

“Hahaha… I had just mentioned this to Old Sun, and I think he had misunderstood me. Oh, how is Legend of Mir now?” Feng Yu changed the topic.

“The registered player is over ten million now, but the number of online players had gone down recently. I think many of those low-level accounts are registered to keep items. Maybe this has something to do with the school holidays. Some students do not have the freedom to do whatever they want when they return home.”

“Yes. It’s normal. What about our time-cards?”

“It’s selling very well. The unlimited monthly time-card is selling very well.” Ding Lei replied excitedly. Initially, he did not believe the unlimited monthly card will sell well. Manager Feng’s foresight is outstanding.

Ding Lei also plays Legend of Mir, and the quests in the game are interesting. Even the monsters and bosses are out of his expectations.

“Hmm… I think it’s time to release the Stone Graveyard map. Also, we have to release a new map every six months to attract the players.”

“We had planned everything. There will be an update in September, and we will be checking on the data to see if there are any hacking programs. The students will be returning to school, and there will be lesser complaints. I had not expected so many students to be playing this game.”

Ding Lei had gotten the new maps of the game and had conducted the Alpha test. There will be new gear and items in the new map to attract the players.

With the new items, many players will spend more time in the game and buy more time-cards.

“Ok. You all can decide on this. Are the new features to the email completed?”

“We have added one new feature, and the rest is still not stable yet. We are still trying to solve the issues now.” Ding Lei is very impressed with Feng Yu.

Feng Yu can always come up with ideas to make money. Ding Lei’s company has so many staff, but none can come up with ideas like Feng Yu.

“I heard you all had also developed a new game. How is it? Are there any registered players?” Feng Yu asked with a laugh.

“Huh?! Not a lot. It is a type of online fighting game like Street Fighter. If I had known, I should just sell this game’s CD. At least I can get back our capital.” Ding Lei is very disappointed. This game he developed is interesting, and many people love playing arcade games now. He had brought the arcade game online, but why no one wants to play?

Do arcade games have a market in the future? Yes, but not now. Arcade centers are everywhere, and who would go online to play these games? There are no joysticks, and it’s very expensive.

“Don’t give up. It will be better. How is the progress on the online single-player platform?”

“We had hired someone to develop it. But it is quite difficult as it requires high internet speed. The internet speed now will cause high lag.”

“It’s alright. The internet speed will improve in two years.” The internet speed is slow now, but the Government is investing heavily in the internet infrastructure. China’s internet speed will be faster.

Ding Lei and Feng Yu chatted for a while, and Feng Yu looks at his watch. It’s time.

“Manager Ding, it’s time for your interview, and I shall not disturb you anymore.”

Ding Lei left Feng Yu’s office and walk towards a small meeting room arranged by Old Sun. At the time, Zhou Kexin walks out of the elevator.

“Manager Ding. Nice to meet you. I am Zhou Kexin, an intern reporter with <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>.”

“Nice to meet you. Have a seat.” Ding Lei smiles. <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> might not be a prominent magazine now. However, the China Billionaires list is still quite influential in China.

“Can I record this interview?” Zhou Kexin took out a recording pen. This recording pen is given to her by the company.

“Of course.”

“Manager Ding, how did you come up with the idea of NetEase?”

“I had wanted to set up a platform for others to interact online. When I was in school, I became interested in this field. Actually, I majored in Physics, and I wondered if I had entered the wrong course last time.”

Zhou Kexin quickly wrote it down in her notebook. Ding Lei had studied Physics, and many people should not know about this.

“Why did NetEase switch focus from forums to web portals? NetEase’s forum had been overtaken by Sohu now.”

“This is because forums are not making money at that time, and the company cannot carry on losing money like this. That’s why we changed our direction to the web portal and introduced our email services. We also started to manage games to increase the company’s profits.”

Ding Lei is telling the truth. The Bulletin board system at that time is not making money. If Manager Feng had not invested in Sohu, Sohu might close down. Sohu is currently still losing money, while NetEase had breakeven because they are managing Legend of Mir. Next year, NetEase should be making profits.

Because of this reason, NetEase’s share prices are rising higher than Sohu, and Ding Lei’s net worth is higher than Zhang Chaoyang and Wang Zhixi. Out of the three juggernauts of the Chinese internet, he is ranked first.

……

When Zhou Kexin is interviewing Ding Lei, Feng Yu and Sun Lijie walk slowly towards the dining hall. Feng Yu wants to see if there are still participants inside.

Suddenly, Feng Yu saw a skinny looking man walking out of the dining hall. He was shocked and pointed to that man. “Old Sun, stop him!”

Chapter 1106 – The stunned Alibaba!

Feng Yu had shouted suddenly, and Sun Lijie’s first reaction is that person might be a criminal. He immediately rushed over, and two security guards nearby also ran over to pin that skinny guy against the wall.

“What are you doing? What are you all doing?!” That skinny man struggled and shouted.

“What have you done in Wind and Rain Building? How dare you come here to create trouble?!” A security guard shouted.

Someone who can order Manager Sun around should be at least a Deputy General Manager in Tai Hua Holdings. The security guard felt this is an opportunity to stand out in front of its higher executives. Who knows, he might be promoted!

This person does not look like a good person. He must either be a thief or a conman!

Feng Yu ran over. “Release him! Release him now!”

The security guard replied. “Boss, if we let him go, he might escape. Let’s bring him to the security office first.”

“No… It’s a misunderstanding.” Feng Yu was speechless and thought to himself. If I tell him that I had only wanted to invest in him, will he believe me?

Sun Lijie could tell something is not right. “Let him go first. He will not escape with us around.”

The security guards released that man, and a crowd started to form. Feng Yu helped that skinny man up and said. “Manager Ma, I’m so sorry. It’s a misunderstanding… Come to my office. I need to speak to you.”

“Who the hell are you?! No! I am here to attend the summit, and I have something later.” Ma Yun shouted.

“Manager Ma, I am really sorry. Old Sun, help me persuade him.”

Sun Lijie took out his name card. “Manager Ma, I am Sun Lijie. The Chairman of Tai Hua Consultancy. This is my name card, and my office is in this building. Let’s have a chat in my office.”

Ma Yun took the name card from Sun Lijie. “You are Manager Sun?! Who is this guy?”

Sun Lijie moved closer to Ma Yun and whispered. “He is the Boss of this company and owner of this building. Manager Feng.”

Ma Yun looks at Feng Yu. This person is legendary Asia’s top billionaire, Feng Yu?!

“Manager Ma, I had been looking for you, and that’s why I got excited when I saw you. Let’s go to Old Sun’s office for a chat. You will not be disappointed.”

Feng Yu and Sun Lijie dragged Ma Yun into the elevator and into Sun Lijie’s office.

Ma Yun only believes them when Sun Lijie entered the Chairman’s office. He heard that Wind and Rain have their own security company, and no one can impersonate the leaders here.

Ma Yun was still confused as he sat on the sofa and was surprised to see Sun Lijie pouring tea for him.

“You are Feng Yu?! Manager Feng?” Ma Yun asked curiously.

“That’s right. I am Feng Yu.” Feng Yu laughed.

“You said you are looking for me? Stop joking. If you are really Feng Yu, why are you looking for me?” Ma Yun replied.

“Manager Ma, I would like to ask you a question first. Where are you working now?” Feng Yu asked.

Ma Yun is confused. You addressed me as Manager Ma, and I thought you know me. But you don’t even know where I work?!

“I had set up an internet company with my friends. Or else, I will not be invited to attend this summit.” Ma Yun replied.

Feng Yu is overjoyed. Ma Yun had started his own company!

“What is your company’s name?”

“Alibaba. It is the name of a character from a folktale and means we will create wealth for ourselves. This name also means we have a lot of us.” Ma Yun explained.

Feng Yu swing his fist. That’s right. This person is China’s top tycoon in Feng Yu’s previous life.

This person’s company is a miracle. His company is one of the top internet companies globally.

Ma Yun was shocked by Feng Yu’s sudden movement and thought Feng Yu was about to hit him. He was still wondering if he had offended this super tycoon before. What is Feng Yu up to?

Sun Lijie was still wondering who this person is. When he heard the name Alibaba, he remembered this name is on the list of ‘must invest’ companies given to him by Feng Yu.

No wonder Manager Feng got so excited when he saw Ma Yun. But Ma Yun is still an unknown now. How did Manager Feng know him? Manager Feng can recognize Ma Yun at first glance, but Ma Yun does not know Manager Feng.

Sun Lijie is very confused as he looks at Feng Yu and Ma Yun.

“Manager Ma, how is your company doing now?” Feng Yu asked excitedly.

“Huh?! It’s doing fine… Wait… Manager Feng, what do you want from me?” Ma Yun looks at Feng Yu with a confused look.

If a child or a young lady have this expression, they will look cute. But if Ma Yun makes this expression… sigh…

“Manager Ma, does your company need funding for development? Internet companies require lots of funds. Tell me how much money does your company need, and I will invest.” Feng Yu said.

Ma Yun’s jaw dropped. Is Manager Feng out of his mind? You have not even asked me about my company, and you want to invest? Moreover, when did I say my company requires investments?

“Manager Feng, I think you are mistaken. My company does not need investment.” Ma Yun replied.

It’s not an investment. Financing… Yes… financing. How much do you need? Just let me know. I can accept lesser shares in return.” Feng Yu replied. Financing means he will be getting lesser voting shares.

“I also don’t need financing. Manager Feng, I had made myself very clear. My company does not lack money.” Ma Yun is speechless. What is Manager Feng’s thinking? I don’t need you to invest in my company.

This time, it was Feng Yu that is speechless. Ma Yun does not require funding? In Feng Yu’s previous life, Ma Yun mentioned that his company only has 500,000 RMB start-up capital, and this money is raised by him and his friends. After that, Softbank injected 25 million USD into his company for 30% shares.

Does this mean Ma Yun’s company had been invested by Softbank?!

Damn! I am late! If I have known earlier, I should have approached him. Softbank had gotten a good bargain. No! This bargain must not be given to outsiders!

“Manager Ma… why don’t you declare your company bankrupt? I will pay you double the compensation you need to pay. After that, I will provide the funds for you and your team to set up a new website. I will give you all 30% of the shares of this company.” Feng Yu said as he showed three fingers.

Ma Yun looks at Feng Yu in a daze. He is stunned.

Chapter 1107 – Got the wrong script?!

Sun Lijie took a deep breath. Manager Feng thinks highly of Ma Yun and his team. His offer to Ma Yun and his team is too attractive, and Sun Lijie wonders what’s so special is Manager Ma’s company?

Ma Yun shook his head. “Sorry, Manager Feng. I cannot agree with your offer!”

“50%! I will give you 50% of the company shares and will invest 50 million USD!” Feng Yu increased his offer.

“Manager Feng, my company is doing well now, and does not need any investments.” Ma Yun replied.

“Manager Ma, can I ask how much your company is worth?”

“It should be around 100 million RMB, and less than 200 million.”

Huh? 100 million and less than 200 million RMB? This is not the same as what happened in Feng Yu’s previous life. In his previous life, Alibaba had gotten their first funding of 5 million USD and got 20 million USD on its second funding. This is equivalent to more than 200 million RMB. If Ma Yun had gotten his first funding, his company should be worth only around 40 million RMB.

Did I get the wrong script?

“Manager Ma, did anyone invested in your company, or is it raised by you and your team?” Feng Yu asked.

“Someone had invested in our company. But we had also taken loans from the banks.”

Loans? Ma Yun had taken bank loans?

Damn! How come I am not aware Ma Yun had taken bank loans in my previous life? Which bank is so bold to lend his company money? At this time, this company should be an empty shell.

“Which institution had invested in you all?”

“Manager Feng, I am not supposed to reveal all these to you.” Ma Yun is getting pissed. Even if you are Asia’s top billionaire, I have no obligations to answer your questions. This is my company’s internal affairs. Why should I tell you?

“Manager Ma, I am very interested in your company. Are you doing global wholesale?”

“Yes.” Ma Yun nodded. This is not a secret. Since Feng Yu knows about this, that means he had seen his website before.

“That right. You are also doing domestic wholesale, right?”

“Yes.”

“I like your idea, and I wish to invest in your company. But since your company does not lack funding now and doesn’t want me to invest, I would like to buy the shares from your investors. Don’t worry. I have no intention of interfering with your company’s operation or acquire it. I only want to invest in your dreams!”

Feng Yu looks at Ma Yun sincerely, hoping Ma Yun will change his mind.

“Manager Feng. Actually, I don’t mind telling you who my investor is. I heard that you are close to that person. My investor is not any financial institution. It is two people, Zhong Qingxian and Liu Chuanzhi.”

Huh?!

Feng Yu’s jaw almost dropped to the ground. How come it’s them?

These two people had seen the prospect of this company?!

Ma Yun continued. “When I started my business, I lack funds. My team and I raised slightly more than two million and borrowed from friends and relatives. We also mortgage my previous company and my house to get a loan of around 2 million RMB.”

“We used the five million raised and started writing the codes for our website. At this time, some companies heard of us and wish to invest in us. We negotiated for a few days, and a representative from the investor company resigned and joined us with some investment.”

Feng Yu and Sun Lijie looked at Ma Yun with respect. He had managed to convince the other party’s representative to join and invest in him!

Alibaba’s founder is no joke!

“After our website goes online, not a lot of people signed up, and we are getting very low views. This is because we have no money to promote our company. So, we decided to get someone to help us. I am from Zhejiang, and the company is registered in Hangzhou. In Hangzhou, the most famous tycoon is Zhong Qingxian.”

“I went to look for Mr. Zhong, hoping he will help us. After all, Mr. Zhong is the Head of Zhejiang’s Chamber of Commerce. I met Mr. Zhong a few times, and he agreed to help us promote our website. At the same time, he is willing to invest some money in us.”

“Our company’s fund is running low, and we need to buy servers. So, Mr. Zhong introduced Manager Liu to us. I spoke to Manager Liu, and he agreed to invest a sum of money into my company. I took another loan from the bank to expand our scale.”

“Now, our website’s registered users are over 500,000, and the transactions are increasing. With Mr. Zhong and Manager Liu’s help, the number of users is still increasing, and we will reach 1 million by next year. At that time, we should see some profits…”

Feng Yu is speechless. Alibaba’s founder is extraordinary. Whoever that speaks to him will want to invest in him. He is like the main character of novels… Yes… Feng Yu had also heard Sun Zhengyi is also someone like Ma Yun in his previous life.

Last year’s <Forbes> billionaire list, Sun Zhengyi is ranked fourth globally, and second in Asia. He is behind Bill Gates, Feng Yu, and Warren Buffett, and is ranked higher than Superman Li. This is because Sun Zhengyi owns 30% of Yahoo’s shares, and Softbank had invested in many internet companies. After those internet companies got listed, their share prices had shot up.

Luckily, Softbank had not invested in Alibaba and had only invested in other Chinese internet and technology companies. If not, Sun Zhengyi’s net worth would have exceeded Bill Gates. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Sun Zhengyi’s net worth had overtaken Bill Gates once for a short period.

Because of Feng Yu’s rebirth, history had changed. The main events of the world remained the same, but some minor details had changed. Alibaba no longer needs Feng Yu to invest now.

Damn! The investors are Zhong Qingxian and Liu Chuanzhi. How is Feng Yu going to make them sell him Alibaba’s shares?!

But this is not an issue for Feng Yu. He still has a way to invest in Alibaba!

“Manager Ma, have you heard about eBay and Amazon? I am talking about the two US internet eCommerce companies.” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes. eBay is doing the C2C business, and Amazon is doing B2C. Their operating model is very new, but our company is different. We are doing B2B business, and are targeting companies and not individuals.”

Feng Yu is overjoyed and is confident he can convince Ma Yun.

“Out of these three models, which do you think has the best advantage?”

“There are pros and cons for each model, and you cannot compare them like this.” Ma Yun frowned.

“Are you interested in trying B2C or C2C? I can get the operation plan and the codes of such websites. I can also help you get experienced developers to join you all.”

“Manager Feng, what do you mean?”

“I had invested in Amazon, and my friend had invested in eBay. If you want to enter the B2C or C2C market, we can cooperate, preventing unnecessary competition! Manager Ma, consider this.”

Ma Yun was stunned. He thought he is the first person in China to enter the eCommerce trade. But Feng Yu and his friend had already been in this trade for several years overseas!

Ma Yun starts to hesitate.

Chapter 1108 – Using people to decide

Feng Yu’s offer is very attractive, but Ma Yun is worried he might lose his control over the company in the future. Feng Yu has money and is close to Zhong Qingxian and Liu Chuanzhi. If Feng Yu bought a stake in the company, the three would have more than 51% shares.

This company is painstakingly set up by Ma Yun and his close friends and has high prospects. He does not want to give up his authority to someone else.

No one is willing to let someone take over their company even when the other party is giving high offers. The founders of those companies that were acquired will use the money to set up new companies. Ma Yun is used to having the company’s final say and will not like being someone’s subordinate. At the minimum, he wants to be on par.

Just like Zhong Qingxian. Although Zhong Qingxian might have more authority than Feng Yu in Lehaha, Feng Yu is still the company’s major shareholder. That’s why Zhong Qingxian is still actively investing in other companies, like Alibaba. Everyone has their own thinking, and no one likes being a subordinate forever, especially for someone capable.

“Manager Feng, how will the cooperation be like?” Ma Yun thought for a while and asked.

Feng Yu was relieved when Ma Yun asked this question. If not, he can only let Amazon enter the Chinese market and compete directly with Ma Yun. But that is not what Feng Yu wants.

“How do you want to cooperate? Merge is not possible, as no one will agree. I will get Amazon and eBay to send a team each to help Alibaba. They will help you set up the eCommerce site, and they will use a sum of money to exchange Alibaba’s shares.”

Ma Yun frowned. Feng Yu’s ultimate motive is still the shares.

Zhong Qingxian is currently holding on to Alibaba’s 30% shares, Liu Chuanzhi owns 10%. Ma Yun and his team of 18 people owns 55%, and his CFO, who had joined later, owns 5%.

If Feng Yu is going to invest, he will be investing more than Liu Chuanzhi, and might even be more than Zhong Qingxian. How many shares should Feng Yu hold? It should be at least 10%.

The share proportion is not very important. What’s most critical is who will have the final say!

Feng Yu saw Ma Yun deep in thoughts and suddenly remembered what Ma Yun did in his previous life.

Feng Yu continued. “Manager Ma, the Alibaba group, should be a shareholding company, right? I can promise you that you will be the company’s Chairman in the future, and will support you. I only need two seats on the board of directors. My friend, the shareholder of eBay, and I will send a representative each on the board. The number of people on the board of directors can set as nine people, and as the Chairman, you will have two votes. We will not make decisions based on the share proportion, and it will be based on votes. What do you think?”

Ma Yun looks at Feng Yu in shock. It is not a surprise for Feng Yu to support him as the Chairman, as Zhong Qingxiang and Liu Chuanzhi support him. He had also heard rumors that Manager Feng does not like to be directors. Other than the two holding companies, Feng Yu is not holding on to any other positions in other companies.

Feng Yu even suggest making decisions through voting and not based on the proportion of shares. The Chairman is entitled to two votes, which means he will still be in control of the board.

“Manager Feng, are you joking with me?” Ma Yun asked seriously.

“You can ask Old Sun, Zhong Qingxian, Liu Chuanzhi, or even Zhang Chaoyang and Wang Zhixi. When have I gone back on my words? Just think about it. I have lots of investments in different industries. Will I have time to monitor my every investment? I am a lazy person, and my favorite pastime is to do nothing. Since you can think of such an interesting business idea, I believe you will succeed. If you need my help, I will always be there for you. The better the company is, the more I earn. I am just a businessman, and my purpose is only to make money.”

Sun Lijie added. “Manager Ma, you can trust Manager Feng. He is not lying. Even those two security guards do not know who Manager Feng is. This shows how often Manager Feng comes to the office.”

Feng Yu thought to himself. I didn’t know that even the people from my own company does not know me!

It will be a joke if I am stopped from entering my own company one day.

Ma Yun thought for a long time and looks at Feng Yu. “Manager Feng. I cannot decide on my own. I need to discuss with the rest and will give you my answer sometime later.”

Feng Yu smiles. “No problem. I can wait. I believe our cooperation will be successful. Our Chinese companies will step out of China and make money from all those foreigners!”

Ma Yun looks at Feng Yu. This is the first time he heard something like this. Is this want Manager Feng’s true purpose?

Ma Yun left to attend the Internet Summit, and Feng Yu immediately shouted. “Old Sun, do you have alcohol? We need to celebrate!”

Sun Lijie immediately gets his men to bring some beers over. Feng Yu and Sun Lijie opened a can of beer each and drank a few gulps.

“Ahhhh…! Old Sun, we had successfully invested in the most important few people on the list! The rest should not be appearing anytime soon. Just look out for them and try to invest in their companies before other foreign institutions. If their investors are Zhong Qingxian, Liu Chuanzhi, or someone we know, then let them be.”

Sun Lijie asked. “Manager Feng. Is that person’s company really worth it?”

Feng Yu had suggested to Ma Yun to bankrupt his company, and he will provide funds for him to set up a new one. He will also give Ma Yun 30% to 50% shares of the new company.

“Old Sun. Five years ago, pagers were rare in China, and even lesser people own a mobile phone. Just look at PCs. At that time, only a few of the government departments have PCs. Now, pagers are almost obsolete, and many paging companies had closed down. The mobile phone is the main form of mobile communication devices, and PCs are very common. Technology is changing very fast, and we are getting more reliance on technology and the internet.”

“Manager Feng, I don’t think so. Even without all these devices, we can still live.” Sun Lijie retorted.

“That’s right. Even without these devices, many people’s lives can still carry on. But you must admit that with these devices, our lives will become better. After you have a mobile phone, is it easier for you to call someone? With the internet, is it more convenient for you to communicate with other parties? In the future, business negotiations can even be conducted over the internet, and we don’t have to travel all the time. We can just fly over to the other party to sign the contract after the negotiations are completed. If I tell you that we can even buy toothpicks over the internet and someone will deliver it to your house in the future, will you believe me?”

Sun Lijie was stunned. This… is this possible?

Chapter 1109 – Ma Yun asking for advice

Ma Yun returned to the Summit to continue to listen to the discussion on the Internet’s future. But he realized he could not concentrate like the morning. He kept thinking about what Feng Yu said.

Feng Yu’s offer is too attractive, and Ma Yun is tempted.

Ma Yun took out his Aiwa mobile phone and sent two SMS to Zhong Qingxian and Liu Chuanzhi. He wants to meet them to discuss the future of Alibaba after the event.

Zhong Qingxian and Liu Chuanzhi were puzzled after receiving Ma Yun’s SMS. Did something happen at Alibaba? Zhong Qingxian was only able to take a look and walk out of the hall after receiving the SMS. On his way out, he saw Ma Yun, and they walked out together.

“Old Ma, what do you want to discuss?” Zhong Qingxian asked curiously.

“Chairman Zhong, are you close with Feng Yu, Manager Feng?”

Zhong Qingxing frowned. “Yes. Lehaha can grow to today’s scale is all because of Manager Feng. You want to know Manager Feng?”

“I guess I have already known him in Sun Lijie, Manager Sun’s office.”

“Sun Lijie? He is the Chairman of Tai Hua Consulting, a company set up by Manager Feng to invest in Chinese companies. When did you meet Manager Feng?” Zhong Qingxian nodded.

“Just now.”

“Just now? Manager Feng is also here at this Summit? Wait… you said you met Manager Feng in Sun Lijie’s office earlier? Did Alibaba run out of funds again?” Zhong Qingxian frowned.

Internet companies are spending money too fast. Old Liu had just invested tens of millions, and Alibaba had finished spending everything? Old Ma had promised Zhong Qingxian that the company will breakeven next year.

“No. It’s not we have run out of funds. It’s Manager Feng who approached me and wants to invest in Alibaba.” Ma Yun recalls how he was pinned down by the security guards earlier.

Zhong Qingxian relaxed after hearing what Ma Yun said. “Really?! That’s terrific! Now, I am confident that Alibaba will be making high profits in the future.”

Ma Yun almost rolled his eyes. You had invested so much money with us, and you still don’t believe Alibaba can make money?!

But Ma Yun figured out Zhong Qingxian’s underlying statement. Feng Yu wants to invest in Alibaba, and Zhong Qingxian immediately believes the company will make high profits in the future?! This shows how much trust Zhong Qingxian has in Feng Yu.

“Chairman Zhong, what do you mean?”

“I don’t know if you believe what the newspaper, magazines, internet, etc. wrote. Manager Feng had never lost a single cent in his investments. But I believe it. I have known Manager Feng for many years, and I had never seen him lose money in his investments. Sometimes, when I see that his investment is about to lose money, but he will end up making high profits in the end.” Zhong Qingxian replied with a respectful expression.

It’s hard for Ma Yun to believe this. Even Zhong Qingxian is impressed with Manager Feng. Are all these rumors about Manager Feng true?

“Oh, did Manager Feng mention how is he going to invest? I believe his offer will be too attractive for you to reject, right?”

Ma Yun looks at Zhong Qingxian in shock. How did he know about Feng Yu’s offer?

“Hahaha… don’t give me this surprised look. This is because Manager Feng will always make offers that are too attractive for others to resist. Let me guess. He will not interfere with the company’s operations and decisions and let you continue to be the company’s Chairman. If anyone opposes, he will support you. Am I right?”

“Is he always like this?” Ma Yun asked.

“Most of the time, he is like this. He seldom manages his companies himself and would rather give away some of his shares for someone else to manage. He had graduated from Beijing University in Management. He had even spent one year at Hong Kong University as an exchange student. His management skills should not be bad, but he always says he is lazy and has no time. But he spends most of his time traveling overseas to invest. He is more energetic than us.” Zhong Qingxian laughed.

“Did he really never interfere in his companies before?” Ma Yun asked. This is very important to him.

“He occasionally does. For example, Feng Yu has more shares in Lehaha than me, and other than a finance staff, the rest of the management staff are appointed by me. But he is the one who makes the final call when Lehaha went into the overseas market. He is also the one who made that possible. In fact, I wish he would interfere with my company’s operations. Every time he gave me suggestions, my company will take a giant step forward.”

Ma Yun is speechless. Zhong Qingxian is the CEO of Tai Hua Holdings, and he has to speak up for Feng Yu.

Hmmm… I will ask Liu Chuanzhi later and see if both men are saying the same thing.

After a while, Liu Chuanzhi walks out of the hall. He saw Zhong Qingxian leaving, and he waited for a while until no one notices him before leaving through a side door.

“Old Zhong, Old Ma, why are you two standing here?” Liu Chuanzhi walks over.

Zhong Qingxian laughed and said. “You should ask Old Ma. Anyway, I think this is not a bad thing.”

Liu Chuanzhi looks at Ma Yun, and Ma Yun told him that Feng Yu wants to invest in Alibaba. He needs to seek his opinion.

Liu Chuanzhi looks at Zhong Qingxian and then tells Ma Yun. “Old Zhong should have told you about Manager Feng, right? If Manager Feng wants to invest in your company, that means he thinks highly of it. Also, Manager Feng’s investment will never lose money. What’s wrong? Are you hesitating if you should agree to Manager Feng?”

Ma Yun heard what Liu Chuanzhi said and is convinced.

Lehaha’s decision-maker is Zhong Qingxian, and Liu Chuanzhi is Lenovo’s group decision-maker. If Feng Yu’s assets were not exposed two years ago, he still does not know Feng Yu owns these enterprises’ shares.

But why is Feng Yu so secretive? Isn’t it better for him to be open about his assets?

“Old Zhong, let’s go to your office to discuss.” Liu Chuanzhi laughed and said.

This is the Wind and Rain building and is under Tai Hua Holdings. As the CEO of Tai Hua Holdings, how can he doesn’t have an office in this building?

But Zhong Qingxian is similar to Feng Yu. He does have an office here, but it is not big. Most of the time, he is not in his office and is always in Lehaha’s Beijing branch office.

The three discussed in Zhong Qingxian’s office for a long time, and they agreed to let Feng Yu invest. But they still have to settle on the details.

When the three of them are discussing, Zhou Kexin is listening to Ma Huateng speaking on the stage. His company’s QQ will change the way people communicate.

Zhou Kexin listened to this person talk about the features of QQ and is very interested. She decides to register for a QQ account, and maybe she can get to speak to some random strangers and forget about her penpal.

Chapter 1110 – the Lucky Zhou Kexin

After the Summit ended in the after, Zhou Kexin stopped another internet company’s Boss. When she identifies herself as Wind and Rain Business Magazine’s intern reporter, the other party agreed to be interviewed.

In the evenings, when Zhou Kexin is writing her article, someone knocks on her room’s door.

Zhou Kexin looks out of the peephole, and it’s her Chief Editor and a female reporter.

Hu Ran had lived in China for some time and knows Chinese girls are very concerned about being together with another man alone in a room. That’s why he brought another female reporter with him to avoid any misunderstandings.

“Chief, Sister Zhao.” Sister Zhao is Zhou Kexin’s mentor. When Zhou Kexin starts work in the magazine agency, it was Sister Zhao who guided her.

“Xiao Zhou, who have you interviewed today?” Sister Zhao smiled and asked.

“I managed to interview Mr. Ding Lei and Mr. Lei Dajun. I am organizing my materials and is not ready yet.” Zhou Kexin felt she is inefficient and is embarrassed.

Sister Zhao placed a bag on Zhou Kexin’s desk. “Here, this is given to you by the agency for your work.”

Zhou Kexin’s eyes nearly popped out. She saw the logo on the bag and immediately knows what that is. The agency is giving her a laptop?!

The cheapest laptop in the market is at least 10,000 RMB, and the more expensive ones can go up to 50,000 to 80,000!

Zhou Kexin is only an intern, and many of the full-time reporters do not have laptops yet.

Zhou Kexin opens the back, and it was a light green laptop. She had never seen a laptop in this color.

Of course. This laptop is customized specially for Zhou Kexin by Feng Yu. Feng Yu had asked Liu Chuanzhi to customize this laptop with the most advanced specs, and it cost more than 100,000 RMB!

“Chief, this… this is for me?” Zhou Kexin was surprised and excited.

Hu Ran nodded. “Your previous interview is quite good, and everyone in the agency will be assigned a laptop. Although you are an intern, we hope you will continue to work here after you graduate. That’s why we decided to assign this laptop to you. But I have to be honest with you. This laptop is not supposed to be given to you, and yours should be arriving next month. But no one likes this color, so we decided to give it to you. I hope you do not mind.”

“It’s fine. I like it.” Zhou Kexin does not mind, as this is her favorite color.

Hu Ran was relieved. The things he said are instructed by someone and is only an excuse to give this laptop to Zhou Kexin without suspicions.

Hu Ran wanted to give Zhou Kexin the laptop after conducting an interview by herself. But that person had made all these arrangements, and Hu Ran still needs to think of another opportunity to give Zhou Kexin a mobile phone.

Hu Ran looks at the light green colored laptop and felt weird. Why did that person ask him to deliver this weird colored laptop to Zhou Kexin? White, red, or black colored laptops look much better. This is also the first time he saw a laptop in this color. Could this be the latest model from Lenovo?

“The laptop is installed with some software, and let the office know your QQ number later. We have a chat group on QQ for convenience.” Sister Zhao said.

“Ok. I will let you know after I registered a QQ account.” Zhou Kexin replied sweetly.

“Let’s go for dinner. The rest are waiting downstairs.” Sister Zhou dragged Zhou Kexin out of her room.

“But… my article is not done yet…”

“You can continue after dinner. How can you skip your meals? Hurry up. Don’t let the rest wait for you.” Sister Zhao pulled Zhou Kexin along with her.

All of them went out for dinner, and after they returned to the hotel, Zhou Kexin switched on her new laptop excitedly.

Zhou Kexin felt she is very lucky!

Zhou Kexin managed to get hired as an intern and was brought along to this major event to conduct interviews during her summer break.

In her workplace, Zhou Kexin was assigned a good mentor who is willing to teach her. Sister Zhao had been working as a reporter for more than a decade.

Zhou Kexin was not confident of getting exclusive interviews with these internet companies’ bosses.

But to her surprise, Zhou Kexin met someone helpful. This person helped her contact Ding Lei, and Ding Lei was willing to be interviewed.

The interview went on smoothly, and Ding Lei offered lots of information to Zhou Kexin.

In the afternoon, Zhou Kexin interviewed Lenovo Kingsoft’s Lei Dajun. Lei Dajun agreed to her interview readily and did not put on any airs. The interview was conducted in the corner of the lobby.

Lei Dajun even gave Zhou Kexin his name card. He told her that if she wants to interview him again, just give him a call. He will not reject it if he has the time.

The Magazine Agency had sent three males and three females staff to attend this Summit. The Chief Editor stayed in one room, and the other two male staff stayed in one room. Sister Zhao and another female reporter shared a room and let her, an intern, have a room.

Zhou Kexin tried to reject, but Sister Zhao said it’s fine. She and the other reporter have kids, and they want to talk about their children at night.

It was not supposed to be Zhou Kexin’s turn to get a laptop, but no one likes this color and just happens. This is her favorite color. She felt her luck had gone off the charts!

Zhou Kexin sat at the desk and switched on the laptop. She noticed there is a Lenovo USB drive in the bag. Is this a free gift? That’s great. She was still thinking of buying one after she gets paid.

Zhou Kexin clicks on the WPS word document and starts to write her interview article. It’s easier for her to send to the Chief Editor with this laptop.

Zhou Kexin finally managed to finish her article late at night. She saved the file and made a copy on the USB drive for her Chief Editor.

Eh? There’s the software inside this USB drive. The software’s name is “Using science to calculate fate.”

Fate? Fate can be calculated using computers now?! Is this real?

Zhou Kexin had always wanted to get her fortune read. She wants to know if ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ and she is fated.

But Zhou Kexin was too embarrassed to visit those fortune tellers under bridges. She also doesn’t believe what they say.

Zhou Kexin couldn’t believe her luck today. This USB drive even comes along with fortune-telling software.

Should I try it?

Chapter 1111 – Fate

“Boss, I had handed the items to her. Are you sure you do not want to let her know those items are from you?” Hu Ran is called Feng Yu.

“No need. Just do what I said.”

Feng Yu had gotten Kirilenko’s staff to develop a software program and got Lei Dajun’s staff to translate it into Chinese. This Fate Calculation software is the same software used by the matchmaking websites in Feng Yu’s previous life. Its purpose is to help others find a match based on a questionnaire.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, such software is very popular in many countries. Some dating sites are also the same.

Feng Yu told others that this will be the new software that is compatible with QQ. People can use this software to filter out strangers who share the same interests and add them.

Feng Yu claimed software will replace penpal and help people make more friends. This will increase QQ users and get more people to use the internet.

After trying out the software, everyone felt this software will work. But the people at QQ are not sure how many of their users will try this out. But Ma Huateng is impressed with Feng Yu’s suggestion. This is one of QQ’s features. Letting strangers chat on the internet.

Of course, the software given to Zhou Kexin is a special version.

Zhou Kexin thought for a while and did not enter her real name. She used a former nickname, ‘Third ugliest person on earth.’

Confirm.

A text box popped up. Please select your age range.

Zhou Kexin followed the instructions and entered all the details before pressing the start to run the test.

Within a minute, a text box popped up.

“Based on your data, your future husband should have the following conditions. His education level must be high, preferable from a prestigious University or from an overseas University. The height should be ranging from 1.75 to 1.8 meters. His age is between 24 to 28.”

“His looks will not be outstanding and not ugly. But he will stand out among a crowd. He is from a good family…”

“He must be humorous and knowledgeable. He is not someone who likes to flaunt and understands and respect you…”

“Based on our analysis, the fated partner you have been waiting for had appeared in your life!”

Zhou Kexin was stunned.

How can this software be so accurate?

Zhou Kexin had not entered any of her future husband’s requirements, and how did this software know about this? Is PC technology so advance now?!

The result mentioned this person had appeared in Zhou Kexin’s life before. Is it referring to him?

All these conditions fit Feng Yu perfectly.

The height, looks, character, education level, job, etc. are exactly the same as ‘Second most handsome person on earth.’ Is this coincident?

That’s right, it must be a coincidence. I will change my name and details and let the computer recalculate.

Zhou Kexin quickly closes the text box and re-enter a new name. ‘Emerged from the Cocoon’

Zhou Kexin re-entered her details, but the results are very similar.

Could all the results be the same?

Zhou Kexin thought for a while and entered her mother’s name and details. She was stunned.

The result is fitting Zhou Kexin’s father. The computer even knows they were classmates! This is unbelievable!

Of course, it’s unbelievable. All these data were entered by Feng Yu.

Regardless Zhou Kexin uses her real name, Third ugliest person on earth or Emerged from the Cocoon, the results will be fitting Feng Yu’s description.

Feng Yu felt this is not enough. He added his parent-in-law’s data. After being their son-in-law for so many years, he knew about them.

But what if Zhou Kexin entered her classmates’ details? It alright. Feng Yu had thought about this before.

When Zhou Kexin tried to enter her classmate’s detail, a text box pops up. “Sorry. The secret cannot be revealed as I can only calculate three times a day!”

Zhou Kexin laughed. This program is quite interesting.

But Zhou Kexin got to admit that this program is very accurate. At least, she had never seen her parents quarreling before.

This program can only be used three times a day, but it’s fine. It will be past midnight soon. Zhou Kexin decided to sleep later tonight and try using the program again later.

It will be considered the next day after midnight, and Zhou Kexin will have three chances again.

Zhou Kexin went to take a shower, and it’s exactly midnight when she is done.

Zhou Kexin clicks on the program again, and an error message pops up. “An error had occurred. Please check if any of the files are corrupted.”

Zhou Kexin was puzzled. The program was working fine earlier. Why is it corrupted now?

Zhou Kexin pulled out the USB drive and insert it again. She tried clicking on the program, but the same error message pops up again.

Zhou Kexin tried opening other files in her USB drive, and they are working fine. That means the USB is not faulty.

Zhou Kexin tried copying the program onto her laptop, but she still cannot open it.

Feng Yu had asked the developer to include a self-destruction code. The program will self-destruct at midnight or after it’s been close and turned on again. Of course, the program must run for at least half an hour before this self-destruction happens.

This way, it will prevent Zhou Kexin from reading other people’s fortune and making her believe Feng Yu is fated to be with her.

This is a program created by Feng Yu to let Zhou Kexin know they are fated to be together.

After switching off the lights, Zhou Kexin laid on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

Is the Second most handsome person on earth really her fated partner?

Chapter 1112 – Everyone is smart

Two days later, China’s first Internet Summit ended. Some participants left, and some managed to negotiate cooperation. Some companies even merged or got acquired.

Some participants left with a smile, while some fall out with other participants. A few of them even quarreled there.

Feng Yu remained in the Wind and Rain building to wait for Ma Yun’s reply.

Finally, Ma Yun called Feng Yu. He discussed with his other shareholders and wants to meet Feng Yu to talk about the contract details.

Feng Yu welcomed them and invited them to his office.

Zhong Qingxian, Liu Chuanzhi, Ma Yun, and the company’s CFO. The CFO was the representative of the company that wanted to invest in Ma Yun. But Ma Yun persuaded him to resign and join him.

This person had given up a seven-figure USD annual salary to join Ma Yun. His current salary is only 500 RMB now. This is because Ma Yun’s salary is also 500 RMB now.

Ma Yun had no choice. The company might have a lot of funds, but they have high expenses too. That’s why they had to save every cent they have, and the company can only afford to send only Ma Yun and his CFO to this Summit by train.

Ma Yun’s company only has a Songjiang Olympic and IVECO, and both are second-hand. Most of the time, Ma Yun and his staff had to ride bicycles in Hangzhou, as they cannot afford even a scooter.

“Have a seat.” Feng Yu sat on the sofa.

Zhong Qingxian and Liu Chuanzhi sat down casually. In contrast, Ma Yun and his CFO sat down cautiously, with half of their butt touching the sofa.

Zhong Qingxian reached over to open a small cabinet beside him. It is a small refrigerator and took out some drinks.

“Old Ma, relax. Manager Feng is not particular about formalities.” Zhong Qingxian laughed.

Ma Yun picked up a can of Refreshing Cola and took a sip. “Manager Feng, this is my company’s CFO, Cai Zhongxin. He had helped the company a lot.”

Feng Yu looks at Cai Zhongxin. This is the investment manager Ma Yun recruited?! How come he looks familiar? Feng Yu felt he had seen this person’s picture on the internet in his previous life. Still, they could not remember many details about him.

“Hi.”

“Good afternoon, Manager Feng.”

“Old Zhong, Old Liu, why didn’t you inform me that you all had invested in such a good company?” Feng Yu pretended to be angry.

“Manager Feng, you are not in China most of the time. How do we know that you are still interested in investing in China companies?” Liu Chuanzhi laughed.

“I will not miss any opportunity to make money.” Feng Yu jokingly replied.

Zhong Qingxian laughed and shook his head. The amount of donation made by Feng Yu every year is more than what many people can spend in a few lifetimes. Yet, Feng Yu sounds like every cent is important to him.

“Stop kidding with us. Manager Feng, do you know Old Liu, and I wanted to increase our stakes in this company after we know you want to invest. But Old Ma said that cooperating with you will make the company more successful.” Zhong Qingxian replied.

Feng Yu almost vomited blood after hearing what Zhong Qingxian said.

If you all did not invest in Alibaba, I would get more shares!

But this is not a big problem, as long as Feng Yu can get a share. Furthermore, Zhong Qingxian and Liu Chuanzhi are his friends, and it is better than letting Sun Zhengyi invest in Alibaba.

“Indeed. It will be hard for you all to succeed if I am not involved. Our cooperation will be a win-win situation for all parties.” Feng Yu replied confidently. “Manager Ma, what is your condition for our cooperation?”

“Firstly, we want to be an eCommerce website. But we need the support of the traditional businesses, especially your Tai Hua Supermarket. I hope Tai Hua Supermarket can exchange some shares with Alibaba. Some shares will be fine.”

Ma Yun wanted to exchange more shares, but Tai Hua Supermarket had grown too big. They have over 200 hypermarkets and almost 300 supermarkets now. They are the top retailer in Asia.

It is an honor for the companies to sell their products in Tai Hua Supermarkets, as it represents their products’ success and quality.

Tai Hua Supermarket Group’s market value is over 2 billion RMB, and some people said it should be worth over 1 billion USD. If Tai Hua Supermarket wants to sell themselves, many overseas supermarket chains will be waving their checks to acquire them.

Some people claim that the Chinese market is worth half of Europe. Although this is a bit exaggerated, it also shows the importance of the Chinese market.

Feng Yu thought for a while and replied. “No problem. I can agree to this condition. You all can discuss with Li Family’s second master. Old Zhong, have you thought of how to exchange the shares?”

“Yes. But we need to discuss with the Li and Fu families.”

“Let’s continue. I want to know what other conditions you all have.”

“We also want to exchange shares with eBay and Amazon.” Ma Yun continued.

“eBay’s market value is worth more than 1 billion USD. Although Amazon is not listed, it’s potential is not lower than eBay. If you exchange your shares with them, I will become the controlling shareholder of Alibaba.”

Those companies are worth more than a few hundred times compared to your company. They can use less than 1% of their shares to exchange for more than half of your company’s share. How are you going to exchange it?

Ma Yun and Zhong Qingxian exchanged looks and asked. “I remembered you do not have shares in eBay. It’s your friend that owns eBay shares, right?”

“That’s right. It’s my close friend from Russia. Kirilenko. Old Zhong and Old Liu also know him.”

Zhong Qingxian and Liu Chuanzhi exchanged looks. It’s really Russia’s top billionaire.

“Then I hope we can exchange shares with these two companies after Alibaba is developed. But it will be safer if you can own some of eBay’s shares now.”

“No problem. Exchanging shares in the future is also part of my plan. As for the eBay shares, you all don’t need to worry. Most of Brother Ki’s investments are my suggestion. If I want to exchange shares with him, he will not refuse!” Feng Yu is very confident about this.

“Alright. Manager Feng, you will invest a sum of money for some of the company’s shares. I hope you can invest 10 million USD for 25% of the shares.”

Feng Yu made a mental calculation. This price is slightly high, but it’s fine. 10 million USD investment will get him a few billion USD in the future. This is still a great deal.

“No problem! I agree.”

Chapter 1113 – Going to Moscow again

After settling all his work in China, Feng Yu flew to Moscow. He needs to speak to Kirilenko about exchanging shares.

“Hahaha… Feng! My friend! You are finally here! Quick… I want to show you around my mansion! A part of it is completed.” Kirilenko’s hug is still so strong.

Kirilenko had used a helicopter to fetch Feng Yu, as it’s much faster this way.

This helicopter is a converted military cargo helicopter. It is very spacious and renovated like a bar.

“Feng, try this. This is a fruit wine, and you will not get drunk.” Kirilenko said after seeing Feng Yu taking a small sip.

Feng is good in all aspects, except for drinking. Even his Brother-in-law, Li, is better at drinking than him!

Feng Yu took a few more sips and felt the wine’s alcohol content is about the same as red wine. It should be around 10%. Kirilenko should have prepared this wine for him.

“Brother Ki, let’s have a toast!”

Since this wine has a low alcohol content, Feng Yu is not scared. He decided to drink with Brother Ki, as Kirilenko is drinking hard liquor.

“Hahaha… Cheers!” Kirilenko laughed.

Feng Yu refilled his glass himself, as he does not want Kirilenko to pour hard liquor by mistake.

“Congratulations, Brother Ki. You had dragged out one more year.” Feng Yu laughed.

Kirilenko’s mansion should have been completed this year, but he made some changes to the design and delayed it. The construction can only be completed next year.

Kirilenko had purposely made these changes and claims he wants to have a better mansion than Bill Gates’.

Kirilenko had an unhappy look when he heard Feng Yu mention this. “I also thought I can delay my wedding. But my father insisted me to get married this year, as it will be good for my elder brother’s career in the military. Anyway, I must get married sooner or later. I decided not to drag this out anymore. Remember to attend my wedding on November 7 this year.”

November 7 is the former Soviet Union’s national day. Russia had kept this date as a holiday. The government that topples the former Soviet Union Government is still keeping this date. It’s too weird.

“Of course. I will surely be there!” Feng Yu rubbed his chin as he thinks of what gift to get for Brother Ki.

Money? Company’s shares? Brother Ki does not really care about these, as he is already one of the world’s top billionaires.

Feng Yu must give Brother Ki something special. Hmmm… Brother Ki had mentioned that his fiancée likes oil paintings. I should get one or two paintings for Kirilenko as his wedding gift.

“Oh, Feng. When are you going to get married?” Kirilenko asked.

“Err… I have not decided yet. I will tell you once I decided.” Feng Yu replied.

“Ok… It’s still the same advice for you. Try to get married as late as possible and enjoy your single life more. My older brother had changed drastically after he got married and has children. Sigh…” Kirilenko sighed.

Feng Yu thought to himself. Your brother had changed because he is responsible for his family. Why are you making it sound like a bad thing?

“Don’t you want to have children?”

Kirilenko went quiet for a few seconds and said. “Yes. Who doesn’t want to have their own children? One child is not enough. Never mind. Let’s not talk about this. I heard the prices for metal minerals had increased by a lot. Our production is the same as last year, but the profits are much higher.”

After the year 2000, precious metal minerals’ prices started to rise, and Kirilenko is excited.

But the prices of coal and iron are not increasing by a lot. Compared to the prices during the time they bought the mines, it is still higher. Because of inflation, workers’ salaries had increased, and they are not making any profits.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko must wait until after 2002 before the prices of metal shoot up. Gold and other precious metal prices will increase suddenly after the incident in the US. It will continue to rise for a few years, and that is the time when it is the most profitable.

Currently, even crude oil prices are starting to rise.

Last year, oil prices had dropped to 10 USD per barrel, which is historically low. Many oil fields had lost money.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko took out a sum of money each and continued to acquire these mines and oil fields. A few days before, oil prices had increased to 30 USD per barrel.

Although the prices had fallen again, the mining company’s profits this year should not be low. The profits should be enough to fund 50% of the new purchase mines and oil fields’ upgrading.

By next year, all the newly purchase mines and oil fields should have completed the upgrading works. The mines and oil fields’ production will be much higher when the minerals’ price increase in 2002. That’s the time when Feng Yu and Kirilenko reap the profits.

“Use these profits on the upgrading of the mines. In less than two years, the prices of all of our minerals will increase like crazy. Oh, if possible, try to acquire some gold mines. It’s about time for the gold prices to rise.”

Many people laugh at Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s company for their low production, as their mines have strict restrictions on the production levels.

But those people do not know that Feng Yu and Kirilenko had upgraded their equipment. Once the mineral prices go up, they can increase their production more efficiently than those old mines.

When that happens, their annual production three to five times their current production. Even when Feng Yu and Kirilenko are not mining, their mines’ value is still increasing, and they are not suffering any losses.

“Ok. I know there are two gold mines for sales now. I will settle the paperwork, and we will have the rights to mine for at least twenty years.”

Other people can only get six to ten years of mining rights. Still, Kirilenko can easily get longer durations for their mines. This is also the reason why Feng Yu is not in a rush to start mining. Kirilenko is also not in a hurry as they still have a long time before their contracts expire.

“When can that chemical plant start production?”

“It should be fully operational latest by the first quarter next year. Part of the plant has started production, and I had acquired a few chemical factories and merged them. Also, our steel factory, coal factory, etc. have started partial production and should be fully operational before the end of next year.”

These plants are newly built and cannot be fully operational within a short time.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko chatted, and the pilot told them they had arrived at Kirilenko’s mansion.

Chapter 1114 – Fengshui

Feng Yu looked out of the helicopter and was shocked.

This is the world-renowned Russian Mansion?

Feng Yu is astonished by the size of it!

Looking down from the top, the round roofs of the mansion are glittering gold color and look like golden onions.

The mansion is next to the Moscow river, and there is a man-made lake! The land area is enough to build a housing estate for more than 100,000 people in China!

Feng Yu knew Russia is famous for its luxurious mansions. Still, he did not know their mansions can be so magnificent.

Feng Yu understand that it is common for nobles to build mansions of such scales during the Feudal period. After all, the world’s most grand palace is in China, followed by Russia.

It is almost the 21st century, yet Russia still allows its people to build such mansions.

This is only in Russia, and it is not possible in the US. Even Bill Gates can only build his mansion in a small city.

Kirilenko’s mansion is in Moscow, next to the Grand Kremlin Palace.

“Fly around my estate first. I want to show Feng. Feng, what do you think? Don’t you think my mansion looks grand-looking down from the top?” Kirilenko asked proudly. Feng Yu’s estates in China and the US are nothing compared to his.

Even Bill Gates’s mansion cannot be compared to his!

“Brother Ki, did you use gold paint to paint your roof?”

Kirilenko looks at Feng Yu in disdain. “Those are real purple gold!”

Purple gold is an alloy of gold and metal. It is harder and shinier than gold. Also, it does not need much maintenance.

In Europe, especially in East Europe, purple gold symbolized the wealth and status of the nobles. Russia is the world’s biggest Purple gold producer, and Feng Yu remembers their mining company owns one Purple gold mine.

Don’t think that Purple gold is an alloy, and it is cheap. Compared to gold, the prices are about the same.

The ‘onions’ roofs are all covered in Purple gold. No wonder the construction cost of this mansion is outrageously high.

Wait a minute. Why is the shape of this mansion so familiar?

Feng Yu looked carefully at the estate and realized what it is.

Some parts of the estate are not completed, and once those buildings are completed, the estate is built according to the Eight Trigrams!

“Brother Ki, didn’t you get the most famous architect in Russia to design your estate?” Feng Yu wondered if this is what they call an East-West fusion design.

“That’s right. I also hired the most famous ancient castle restoration designer from France, the most famous Mansion architect from the US, and a Fengshui Master from China. How is it? What do you think of my Mansion’s Fengshui?” Kirilenko asked proudly. All the designers and architects he hired are world-renowned.

Huh??? Fengshui Master?

Feng Yu wants to tell Kirilenko that even he does not know how many of the Fengshui masters in China are real masters.

But this Eight Trigram design looks like the real thing.

“Brother Ki, I don’t know much about Fengshui. But since the Master says it’s good, then it must be good.” Feng Yu replied.

“You cannot tell what this formation is?” Kirilenko asked. “This is impossible. That Master told me that this is China’s most famous Fengshui formation. He said that all Chinese can tell what this formation is.”

Feng Yu thought for a while and replied. “Maybe it is because the construction is not completed. If you let me guess, I think it is China’s most ancient and famous Taichi Bagua formation!”

“Hahaha… That’s right. Taichi Bagua formation! This formation will help me gather wealth, fortune, and longevity.” Kirilenko repeated the name with his lousy Mandarin.

Feng Yu start to recall. What sort of Fengshui Formation is this Taichi Bagua formation? Even if this is a Fengshui formation, are you sure if this is not used for selecting graves?

There is a Bagua village in China, and Feng Yu can’t remember if the village is set up by Liu Bowen or Zhuge Liang. But that village doesn’t seem to be prosperous.

Maybe it does increase longevity, but Feng Yu is not sure. Since Brother Ki felt this is true, then it should be.

“Did you see the mountain and the river by the mansion? This is the best Fengshui spot. The exterior is built according to Bagua formation, and the interior has a Taichi formation. That man-made lake will have two pavilions, and it is built according to your traditional Chinese pavilion.” Kirilenko replied excitedly.

Feng Yu wanted to ask Kirilenko. There is a river beside, why do you still need a lake? Don’t you think it is unnecessary? Having more water in your estate means better Fengshui?

“After this is completed, there will be 108 rooms, and it is according to that… celestial stars formation. That Master had asked me to build 365 rooms, but we can only build 108 rooms with 360 windows due to a lack of space.”

Feng Yu thought for a while before he understands what Kirilenko is talking about. Your father is not staying with you. What’s the point of building sure a big mansion?

108 rooms… even if change a room every day, and after deducting the days you are in the US or China, one year will have pass before you can sleep in every room.

Russians also like to live in big houses?

Ancient Chinese houses are big, with many rooms. They have many children, and wealthy families have more than a dozen children and many more grandchildren.

But what’s the point of having so many rooms when you don’t want to have many children? In ancient times, Russians have slaves, servants, etc. But all you have now is some helpers and bodyguards. Is there a need to build this massive mansion?

Your mansion is so big, and you need to hire lots of helpers and bodyguards. Never mind. With Brother Ki’s fortune, he can easily afford this.

“Lev, land the helicopter,” Kirilenko instructed. “Feng, let me show you the rooms of the mansion. You will surely like it and can use it as a reference for your own mansion in the future. Maybe I can get my architects to help you design one.”

Feng Yu forced a smile. “Haha… Let’s talk about this some other time.”

Feng Yu is not interested in an empty mansion. Even if he is interested, he will also not build such a massive mansion.

“Feng, come over here. This is an Opera House. Although it is not big, it can fit up to 100 people. It can also be used as a cinema.”

“Feng, look at this room. This is a ballroom. My guests can sing, dance, and dine here. I will host a ball soon, and you must attend.”

“Feng, this is my favorite room. There is a beautiful bar over there, and in those rooms, there is a cellar. I keep the best liquor from all over the world inside.”

“This is a bakery and is used for baking bread for everyone in the mansion. That room over there in the kitchen. It is bigger than those five-star hotels’ kitchens.”

“You should know what this room is for. This is a basketball gymnasium. I will invite our country’s best basketball players over to have a match with my NBA team.”

“This is the bathhouse. It is a replica of your country’s ancient emperor’s bathroom. It is beautiful.”

……

Feng Yu was dizzy after touring the mansion. Not all the rooms in the mansion are bedrooms. The rooms include gyms, cellars, opera house, dining hall, etc.

Feng Yu did not even expect Kirilenko to have a bakery and such a big bathhouse.

After the tour, Feng Yu starts to wonder if he should also build a mansion like this. He can spend his vacation in the mansion once in a while.

Chapter 1115 – Elena loves to sing

Feng Yu chatted with Brother Ki while drinking the fruit wine. Although the alcohol content of the wine is low, Feng Yu also got tipsy.

“Feng, have a rest first. I need to check on the construction of my vault first.”

The bodyguards helped Feng Yu to his room. Although Kirilenko and Feng Yu are close, Feng Yu is not right to visit his vault.

Knock… knock… knock…

Feng Yu is puzzled. What are the bodyguards knocking on the door? Isn’t this Kirilenko’s mansion? Don’t they have the keys to the rooms? Is there someone in the room?

There are sounds of footsteps from inside the room, and the door is opened. A woman appeared at the door.

Although Feng Yu could not see clearly who that was, he knows it must be Elena.

“Mr. Feng, why are you so drunk? Have a seat. I will get you some water.” Elena helped Feng Yu to the sofa and took off his shoes before running over to pour a glass of water for him.

Feng Yu gulped down the water. It tastes like honey water with mint. After drinking the water, he felt better.

It’s been a while since Dong Xuebing met Elena. Elena had not changed at all. She is still beautiful and still love Feng Yu.

Elena stood beside Feng Yu and massage his head softly. Her strength is just right, and it is very relaxing.

“Elena, sing a song for me.” Feng Yu said.

Elena is overjoyed. How did Mr. Feng know she had been learning singing? This means Mr. Feng had been monitoring her all this while.

Elena started singing a sentimental Russian song. She has a sweet voice, and the song is about a lonely girl missing her lover.

Feng Yu had never heard this song before but felt it’s nice.

“Elena, have you thought of releasing an album? A song album?” Feng Yu held Elena’s hand on his forehead.

Elena asked excitedly. “Mr. Feng, are you saying that I can release my own album?”

“Of course. Your voice is vocal. If you release an album, it will surely sell.” Feng Yu replied firmly.

Elena’s voice is very similar to a Chinese singer, Zhang Jingying, which Feng Yu likes in his previous life. Feng Yu felt if he can translate Zhang Jingying’s hits to Russian, or give her the melody and get a Russian lyrics writer to fill in the lyrics, and get Kirilenko to promote her, she will definitely be a famous singer in East Europe.

Elena can also sing some old songs which become popular again in the future. Many divas had sung long songs, and it is very normal.

“Thank you, Mr. Feng.”

“I said many times there’s no need to thank me. I cannot give you my love, and since you are willing to be with me, I will help you fulfill your dreams.”

Feng Yu realized that he is not willing to let go of Elena. He does not know if he is possessive or had a change in his mentality, but he will never let Elena leave him!

Although they had not met for some time, Elena’s feelings for Feng Yu had not changed.

Feng Yu had thought before. Elena said she wants to dance for the rest of her life. But as she gets older, she will not be able to make some dance moves.

Ballet is very taxing on the dancer’s body, especially the feet. Feng Yu does not want Elena to dance for too long. With Kirilenko’s help, Elena had become the lead dancer of her dance troupe. She doesn’t have many performances now, but she continues to train hard.

Elena might be young and beautiful, but Feng Yu felt her life should not only revolve around ballet.

Feng Yu does not know how to persuade Elena to switch careers, but Kirilenko suggested to let Elena learn Mandarin.

Learning a new language is not easy. Some languages are similar, and it’s easier to learn. But the difference between Russian and Mandarin is too big.

Kirilenko told Elena that Feng is Chinese. If you want to be with Feng, you must learn Mandarin and understands Chinese culture.

So, Elena started to learn Mandarin seriously. To learn a new language, practice, listening, and writing are very important. Elena started watching Chinese movies, listening to Chinese songs, and slowly started to like singing.

Feng Yu is glad that Elena had picked up a new hobby. He felt one person should not only focus on one thing in life.

Elena started to like singing, and Feng Yu wants to groom her interest. A singing career can last much longer than a dancing career. Many singers sing until they are in their seventies and eighties, but no dancers can dance until that age.

Dancing is more taxing on the body than singing.

“Mr. Feng, the water is ready. Do you want to take a bath?” Elena asked softly.

Feng Yu stood up and held Elena’s hand. “Come and help me wash my back.”

…….

When Feng Yu woke up in the morning, Elena is still curled up in his arms. They had three rounds of fun last night, and Elena is exhausted.

Elena immediately wakes up when Feng Yu sits up. Mr. Feng is awake, and how can she continue to sleep?

When Elena tried to sit up, her blanket slipped. She quickly pulls it up to cover her chest.

“Mr. Feng, are you hungry? I will get breakfast for you.”

“No need. Let’s have breakfast together. Didn’t I say that when we are alone, you don’t need to serve me like this?” Feng Yu tucked Elena’s long hair behind her ears and kissed her forehead.

How can anyone not dote on such a lovely girl?

Feng Yu wonders if it is a good thing for Elena to meet him. Without Feng Yu, Elena might be married to a Russian Military Officer or a plaything for some politicians. At least, Feng Yu treated Elena well and gave her a good life.

But Elena might also meet someone she is destined to be with and live happily ever after.

However, Feng Yu thought to himself. Who says I am not her destined man?

Maybe, Elena is fated to be mine!

Jane Zhang

Chapter 1116 – Genius

“Feng, what did you say? You want me to help you get a composer who can help you write scores?” Kirilenko is puzzled. If Feng wants to get a few songs for Elena, he can hire someone to compose it. But Feng Yu sounds like he wants to write the songs himself.

But even if Feng Yu wants to write the songs, why can’t he write it himself? Why must he get a composer to write the sheet music?

“I have a few melodies in my mind, and I want someone to record it while I hum it.” Although Feng Yu knows how to play the guitar, he doesn’t know how to write it. It will be too troublesome for him to try out note by note on the guitar.

“You need it now?”

“Yes. I am afraid I might forget the melodies later. Oh, help me get a translator too. I will be writing Chinese songs and need someone to translate it into Russian. What else do you think I need?”

“Alright. Wait a while. I will make a call.”

An hour later, an old man with white hair walked out of the helicopter and went straight to the opera house. Kirilenko has translators in his mansion.

“Feng, this is Mr. Pudovkin, a famous musician in Moscow. You just need to sing the song, and he will write out the whole song.”

Feng Yu started whistling part of the song. Pudovkin was unfazed at first, but after listening to more of the song, his eyes brighten up.

This melody is beautiful, and it is their Russian style of music. How did this Chinese man write such a beautiful melody?

After Feng Yu finishes whistling the song, Pudovkin sat down at the piano and started playing the song. Feng Yu closes his eyes and listened. Pudovkin had played the whole song after listening to his whistling!

Feng Yu continues to whistle another song, and Pudovkin memorized the song again! He can memorize two songs without mistakes.

After recording the third melody, Feng Yu stopped. He can only remember four Chinese songs in Russian style.

<The White Birch Forest>, <Lake Baikal>, <Ten minutes of a lifetime>, and <Moscow at dusk>. One of the songs is by Pu Shu, two by Li Jian, and the last one is by Shui Mu Nian Hua. All these songs are in the Russian style.

Feng Yu had sung <The White Birch Forest> before, and the other three have not appeared yet.

Because of Elena, Feng Yu had to become a composer again.

After a while, the translator had translated Feng Yu’s Chinese lyrics and gave the Russian version to Feng Yu. Feng Yu took a look and noticed some parts are different from his own translation. But Feng Yu is not a professional translator, and some words used cannot express the meaning he wanted.

When Feng Yu sang <Lake Baikal> in Russian, Pudovkin started playing the piano.

After the song finished, Pudovkin claps and asked. “Mr. Feng, this is a beautiful song, but your vocals are not suitable for it. Do you mind me letting someone else sing this song?”

Damn! I am belittled!

Alright. Feng Yu admits that his voice is not suitable to be a singer, and furthermore, this song is written for Elena. Her voice is much better than his.

“Mr. Pudovkin, this song is written for someone else. Sorry.”

Pudovkin got anxious. “Mr. Feng, such a good song must be performed by someone suitable. If not, it will not sound nice!”

Feng Yu waved to Elena, who was sitting by the side.

“Elena, sing a few lines for Mr. Pudovkin.”

Elena could not remember the whole song but managed to sing a few lines. Pudovkin’s eyes brighten up. This voice is perfect for this song. Is this song written for her? She can sing so well after listening to it once. Genius!

Pudovkin finished listening to Feng Yu singing all three songs and took the lyrics. He made some amendments and sang it once himself.

Although the translator is professional, he is not music trained. Some words might represent the meaning, but the sound is not suitable for the song. After Pudovkin changed some of the words, the song sounded nicer.

“Thank you, Mr. Pudovkin, for your help. Can you help me write the score sheet? After we collected enough songs, I will let her release an album.”

Singers no longer release their albums in records, or cassette tapes, now. Their albums are either on CDs or DVDs. Of course, not every song in the album will have music videos, or else the cost will be too high.

“No problem. Leave the rest of the songs to me. I will compose a few songs or get my friends to write some for her. Young lady, are you interested in joining my company?” Pudovkin asked.

Kirilenko frowned. “Mr. Pudovkin. Don’t you find her familiar? Let me give you a reminder. She is a dancer.”

Dancer? A dancer can sing so well? Stop kidding… Wait… Is it her?

“Is she the ballet dancer, Elena?!”

Pudovkin is disappointed. Elena is already one of the lead dancers for the world’s best ballet troupe. She is at the peak of her career, and why will she join his company as a new singer?

Elena grabbed Feng Yu’s arm lightly and is looking at Pudovkin eagerly. Pudovkin is one of the top musicians in Russian and East Europe.

Feng Yu said. “Mr. Pudovkin. Although Elena cannot join your company, she can be your student if you are willing to teach.”

Pudovkin is overjoyed. “Of course! I am willing to impart everything I know to her. She has the most beautiful voice I had ever hear. Sir, are you willing to provide songs of this quality for the long term?”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Do I look like someone who needs to sell songs for a living?

Pudovkin saw Feng Yu’s attitude and knew his answer. He sighed and asked. “There are many geniuses in China. I heard a beautiful song, <The White Birch Forest>, and I heard it was written by a Chinese Highschool student. Do you know him?”

Feng Yu felt proud to be praised by a renowned musician.

Before Feng Yu replies, Elena said. “Teacher, that song is written by Mr. Feng too.” Elena looks at Feng Yu with admiration, making Feng Yu feel prouder.

Pudovkin’s eyes opened wide. The person in front of him is that genius? He is so talented in music, but he doesn’t seem to be interested in this industry. What a waste!

“I promise I will train Elena to the next level within three months, and she can start recording her album at that time!”

Feng Yu laughed. “Thank you, Mr. Pudovkin.”

The White Birch Forest

Lake Baikal

Ten minutes of a lifetime

Moscow at dusk

Chapter 1117 – Meeting Brother Ke again

Elena left with Pudovkin to learn singing, and Feng Yu is glad that she can enjoy a normal lifestyle.

After lunch, Feng Yu took a short nap before hearing the sounds of a helicopter.

Kirilenko brought someone in. It is Brother Ke from Ukraine. Brother Ke had helped them get bank loans before the former Soviet Union got dissolved.

“Feng, it’s been a while since we met.” Brother Ke went up to Feng Yu and gave him a hug.

“Nice to see you again, Brother Ke.”

Feng Yu had come to Moscow is not to visit Kirilenko’s mansion. He had come to check on his businesses here. Brother Ke is involved in most of Kirilenko’s businesses in East Europe.

Brother Ke is amazed. When he met Feng Yu, he thought Feng Yu is only an ordinary Kirilenko friend and has some power in China.

But now, Feng Yu is the top Billionaire of Asia and the World’s Second Richest man. Kirilenko, who is very close with Feng Yu, had also become East Europe’s top Billionaire, and <Forbes> estimated Kirilenko’s net worth is over 10 billion USD!

Brother Ke might seem to be doing well these few years, but his assets are only worth a few hundred million. He is nothing compared to Kirilenko, let alone Feng Yu.

Whenever Brother Ke thought about this, he regrets.

“Let’s go and have a drink.” Kirilenko dragged everyone to his bar in his mansion.

Feng Yu chose to drink beer, while Kirilenko and Brother Ke drank Baijiu.

“Feng, your business is getting bigger and had expanded to the US. But I am still stuck in Ukraine. Sigh…” Brother Ke sighed.

Brother Ke regretted the most for not getting bank loans when he becomes Kirilenko and Feng Yu’s guarantor in the past. If he knew Rubles will depreciate like crazy, he would find ways to get loans too, and everything will not be the same now.

But that’s no point regretting. At that time, Brother Ke was scared when he saw the interest rates incurred by Kirilenko and Feng Yu.

Feng Yu looked at Kirilenko and did not reply to him. After all, he is not close to Brother Ke.

“Hahaha… Brother Ke, when I went to the US, I had asked you along. You are the one who doesn’t want to go. Are you regretting now?” Kirilenko laughed.

“When you go to the US, I was preparing for my marriage. How can I leave? You should also know about my family. Although my father’s position in Ukraine is higher than your father’s in Russia, how can you compare Ukraine with Russia? My father is always busy, and I am being watched. That’s why I cannot go to the US.”

Brother Ke is upset. He gets to where he is now because of his father. But it is also because of his father, he is restricted in many areas.

“It’s alright. After we cooperate, your wealth will increase very fast. Your father is also going to retire, and he can push your younger brother up. Once your younger brother moves up the rank, you will be free.”

Feng Yu thought to himself. These former Soviet Union influential families are all the same, and they must have a son that is in the military. Brother Ke’s family is the younger brother in the military, while the older brother does business. They are the opposite of Brother Ki’s family.

“Feng, I think your supermarket chain and your mines will succeed, but the eCommerce website… can this really make money?” Brother Ke asked.

“Brother Ke, do you know where most of Brother Ki’s wealth comes from? eBay shares. Those rumors about Brother Ki’s net worth are false. Brother Ki’s real assets are worth much more. eBay is also an eCommerce website, and this is the future. It has high potential.”

Brother Ke turned and looks at Kirilenko. Kirilenko nodded proudly. He had sold most of his eBay shares, but those are non-voting shares. Feng Yu had told him not to sell any of his voting shares. The value of his voting shares might have dropped, by it will go up in the future. Anyway, he has already made high profits by selling his other shares.

“But I heard eBay share prices had been falling, and eBay is not making money.”

“That’s right. eBay is not making money now, but eBay will start making money within two years, and their share prices will rise again. All investments into new businesses will not see any returns initially. An online eCommerce website can save rental from physical shops and let consumers shop easily. They just search for what they want, and it saves them lots of time from going to the mall. All they need is an internet connection and a PC.”

“Furthermore, if everyone can tell this business is profitable, everyone will be doing it. How are we going to make high profits from this? There are many smart people and wealthy people out there. But in the future, they will be looking up at us because they lack the foresight we have.”

Kirilenko needs the help of Brother Ke and people like him if he wants to launch his eCommerce website in every Russian-speaking countries.

Even if Brother Ke is not willing to participate, it’s fine. They had invited Brother Ke, and he will not stop their website from entering Ukraine.

Feng Yu’s words are persuasive, and Brother Ke seems to be indecisive. He wants to make more money, but Kirilenko told him that the first three years of this eCommerce website will not be making any profits.

Kirilenko and Feng do not mind losing 300 to 500 million USD.

But Brother Ke cannot afford the losses. After setting up the supermarket chain with Kirilenko, he does not have much spare cash. He cannot afford to lose another 200 to 300 million USD.

Furthermore, investing in this internet company will use up all his funds, preventing him from making other investments. Also, investing with Kirilenko makes him feel like a follower. In the past, Brother Ke is the leader of this group of Military Second-generations.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko did not say anything and continued to smoke their cigars. They are waiting for Brother Ke to make his decision.

Brother Ke looked up and asked. “Kirilenko, what about the rest? Did they agree?”

Kirilenko nodded. “All of them are in except for you.”

Brother Ke gritted his teeth and said. “Alright. I will invest 200 million USD.” He does not dare to invest all his remaining funds.

But what Brother Ke doesn’t know that he will regret today’s decision. If he knew eCommerce can be so profitable, he should have used all his money and take loans to invest.

Chapter 1118 – Throw him out!

Kirilenko had contacted all his friends in East Europe, and Brother Ke is the last one. He is also the most important one. Brother Ke’s status might not be as high as Kirilenko now, but many Kirilenko’s friends are closer to Brother Ke. If Brother Ke decided not to participate in this investment, those that agreed might change their minds.

Now, Brother Ke had agreed to participate in this venture.

At night, Brother Ki invited a big group of friends over to his mansion for a party.

Elena dragged Feng Yu to the dancefloor to dance. It’s not any difficult dance, and they are just swaying to the rhythm.

“How is your singing lesson today? Is Mr. Pudovkin very strict?” Feng Yu asked.

“Mr. Pudovkin treats me very well. Although he is strict, compared to my former dancing instructor, he is much better.” When Elena mentioned her former teacher, her eyes still show signs of fear.

Feng Yu hugged Elena tightly. He had watched <Farewell My Concubine> and knew it is tough for kids training to be dancers or opera actors. The teacher will scold and whack the kids for any wrong movements and not feed them.

“It’s fine now. Those are in the past. Now, it is not the teacher who chooses you. It’s you who chooses the teacher. If you are not happy with this teacher, we will replace him.”

“No… Mr. Pudovkin is really good for me.” This is the first time Elena refutes Feng Yu.

“Ok. Then we will not change him.”

“I had learned some breathing techniques today, and my breath can last longer when I sing. Can I sing for you later?” Elena is eager to show Feng Yu what she learned.

Feng Yu noticed there is a small stage in the ballroom and can be used for singing.

“If you want to sing, just sing a song later.” Feng Yu patted Elena’s head lovingly.

After the music end, Feng Yu and Elena sat down by the side. A girl walked up the stage and signaled to the band before started singing.

That girl’s voice is lovely and should be a professional singer. Elena looks at that girl, enviously.

Since young, Elena grew up in a dance troupe, and her biggest wish is to be the center of focus on a stage.

After that girl finished her song, many people applause. Elena got up and ran over to the band. She wants to sing next.

Brother Ki is drinking with his friends, and Feng Yu did not join them. He sat there, enjoying the singing and dances while eating some fruits.

When the band started playing the music, Feng Yu clapped lightly and gave Elena an encouraging look.

Elena swayed lightly to the rhythm.

When Elena started singing, the ballroom went quiet. Everyone was immersed in Elena’s sweet voice.

This is entirely different from yesterday when Elena sings. Elena belongs to the stage and can only show her full potential there.

The men and women on the dancefloor swayed to Elena’s song. Elena had chosen a classic Russian song, and the rhythm is slightly faster.

Many people in the ballroom, including Feng Yu, started clapping along with the rhythm.

After the song ended, Elena bowed and walks back to Feng Yu.

The audience cheered, and someone shouted to Elena to sing another song.

But Elena ignored them and sat beside Feng Yu. She started peeling a grape and feed Feng Yu.

“Your voice is lovely. You will definitely be Russia’s next superstar.” Feng Yu said.

“Yes. I will do my best.” Elena replied confidently.

Before Feng Yu could say anything, he suddenly frowns. Two men had walked up to them and are looking down at them.

“Are you the ballet dancer Elena? I didn’t know you can sing too. It’s been a while since I watch you dance. Go onto the stage and dance for us. Also, sing another two songs.” A young man wearing a hat ordered arrogantly.

When Elena stood out from her Ballet Dance Troupe, many people started to notice her. But at that time, there are rumors that she belongs to Kirilenko.

So, some people backed off. But later, they realized that Kirilenko does have a mistress in the troupe, but that girl is not Elena.

Some people started to target Elena again. However, Elena and Kirilenko are close, and they cannot force themselves on Elena.

Today is different. This man had become business partners with Kirilenko and felt since Kirilenko is getting married and is not interested in Elena, Kirilenko will not stop him from getting Elena.

This man saw Elena on the stage earlier, but he never expects Elena to be sitting with an Asian.

So what if that guy is an Asian? Russia is the strongest country in the world! Who is afraid of an Asian guy? Even if this guy is Chinese or Japanese, he is nothing in Russia!

“I am not dancing today.” Elena rejected. “I had also sung earlier, and I don’t feel like singing anymore.”

“I want you to sing, and you must sing! I want to see you dance, you must dance for me! Don’t think this Asian guy can protect you! This is Moscow!” The young man wearing a hat shouted.

Feng Yu took a glance at this young man. He does not know this person, and Kirilenko had not introduced him. This means he is someone unimportant.

If Elena wants to sing, Feng Yu will support her. If she feels like dancing, Feng Yu will also support her. But if she doesn’t want to do anything, no one can force her!

“Get lost!” Feng Yu shouted.

Feng Yu had shouted in Russian, and the other party could understand it. That young man is furious to be scolded by an Asian!

“You had asked for it!” The young man reached out for Feng Yu’s collar.

Suddenly, two men rushed out from behind and start beating up that young man. Even the other young man who was with him got beaten up.

Feng Yu waved his hand. “Throw him out!”

Feng Yu turned to Elena and asked. “Where did we stop earlier?”

The commotion attracted the stares of other people, and the music stopped. Kirilenko rushed over angrily.

Chapter 1119 – He is more important than anyone else!

The young man wearing a hat struggled back up on his feet and shouted to Kirilenko. “Kirilenko! Give me a gun! I will f**king kill this Asian!”

The other young man added. “I can kill him with my bare hands!”

Kirilenko rushed over and gave the first young man a punch and kicked the other young man.

“Do you two want to die?!”

The two young men were stunned. They thought Kirilenko had rushed over to stand up for him. But who knows, the first thing Kirilenko did was to hit them!

Feng Yu waved his hand, and the two bodyguards stood behind him. From the start to the end, Feng Yu’s bodyguards had not said a word.

Oh… these two bodyguards are Americans and don’t understand Russian. Even if they said something, no one in the ballroom can understand them too.

“Kirilenko, what are you going? Why did you hit us?! That Asian… Ahh…”

The young man with a hat wanted to say something, but Kirilenko kicked him in his face. “Shut up! Who do you think you are to order me?!”

Kirilenko is furious. Feng Yu had never seen Brother Ki with this expression before. If Brother Ki is not on his side, he will get worried.

Kirilenko turned to Feng Yu. “Feng, how do you want me to deal with these two?! I promise I will fulfill whatever you want, even if you want them to disappear forever!”

Feng Yu did not make any expression, but those two young men got frightened. “Brother Kirilenko… we are sorry… we will apologize.”

But Kirilenko did not even look at them. To Kirilenko, Feng Yu is more than everybody in this ballroom. These two useless Second generations dare to create trouble with Feng Yu and even wanted to kill him. Just this alone, Kirilenko will strike their names off the list of business partners.

As for how these two young men will be dealt with, it is up to Feng Yu.

Kirilenko might sound overbearing, but he has no intention to kill them. After all, Kirilenko had never made anyone disappear forever.

Kirilenko knew Feng Yu will also not want to kill these two men, and that’s why he said it. Kirilenko might look rash and impulsive, but he is also very cunning.

“Never mind. They had disrupted your party. Just chase them out will do.” This is Kirilenko’s mansion, and Feng Yu must show some respect for the host.

Furthermore, Kirilenko had shown Feng Yu respect by teaching those two young men a lesson.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko are friends, and Feng Yu will not ask Kirilenko to kill his friends.

Kirilenko waved his hand, and a few bodyguards ran over to carry restrained those two young men. “Don’t ever let me see you two in Moscow again! Also, the automobile business will have nothing to do with you two!”

The two young men wanted to say something but were carried away by Kirilenko’s bodyguards.

Kirilenko looked towards the stage and nodded. The band started playing music again, and the party continued.

Some people kept looking towards Feng Yu. They want to know who this Asian guy is for Kirilenko to stand up for him.

Only Brother Ke knows Feng Yu’s identity and felt Kirilenko had done nothing wrong. Those two young men are stupid for not finding out who that man is before being so arrogant. If this happens in Ukraine, he will break their legs!

Those two men’s family might have some influence, but compared to the help and profits given by Feng Yu, everyone knows which side to stand. Furthermore, Kirilenko knew Feng Yu for many years and had known those two young men for a short while.

“Feng, what happened?” Kirilenko sat beside Feng Yu and asked.

“Nothing. Those two men are targeting Elena.” Feng Yu calmly replied.

“Sorry, Feng. I had not thought about this. I will warn the rest that none of them can touch Elena.” Kirilenko replied apologetically.

Kirilenko had promised Feng Yu to take care of Elena. But now, some men are targeting her. This means he had not fulfilled his promise. At the same time, he felt he had let those two off too lightly. If any guy dares to target his women, he will break at least one of their legs!

“It’s fine. There are idiots everywhere, but I hope this will not happen again.”

“This will definitely not happen again!”

Feng Yu raised his cocktail for a toast with Kirilenko.

The rest are discussing Feng Yu not far away. They wondered who this Asian guy is for Kirilenko to treat him with so much respect. This is Moscow. Even if Bill Gates comes here, Kirilenko will also not be so polite.

Some, who are close with Brother Ke, went to ask him about Feng Yu.

Brother Ke smiled and said. “Kirilenko has a good friend from China… No… It’s his brother from China. Do you all know about it?”

Some were puzzled, and one man immediately exclaimed. “Brother Ke… you are saying that Asian guy is China’s Feng?!”

“Other than him, who else can make Kirilenko so anxious? To Kirilenko, all of us are not as important as Feng. He can get to where he is today is mostly because of Feng’s help.”

“Err… should we go over and give him a toast?”

Brother Ke shook his head. “Didn’t you all notice that Feng does not like to drink? The woman beside her is Feng’s. No wonder Kirilenko had been taking care of her but never touch her.”

Some of the men there who had been eyeing Elena broke out in cold sweat. Luckily it was those two idiots who had approached Elena. If they had been rash, they would have been kicked out of this social circle.

Some women who were from Elena’s dance troupe were overjoyed. They were originally playthings for these second generations, but now, they found a new purpose. They must get closer to Elena now.

These women want to know Feng through Elena. Feng is Asia’s top Billionaire and had helped Kirilenko to become East Europe’s top billionaire. They are not greedy. Just one of the top hundred wealthiest people in Russia is enough.

Feng Yu believes that after this incident, no one will dare to hit on Elena again.

Since Feng Yu announced Elena is his woman, he does not want any men to be close.

Chapter 1120 – The fish swallowed the bait

Brother Ke and other guests left the next day.

Brother Ki and Feng Yu sat in a pavilion by the man-made lake fishing. But both sucked at fishing and didn’t get a fish after half a day.

“Feng, I heard you want to acquire that Advanced Micro Devices Semiconductor company (AMD). It’s been a while, and how come you still have not bought it?” Kirilenko asked.

“There’s no hurry. In another one or two years, this company’s value will drop further, and I will decide if I am going to acquire AMD or invest in Intel.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, AMD was once Intel’s rival. But they were quickly defeated by Intel. Intel’s technology is more advanced than AMD, and Feng Yu is unsure if AMD can overtake Intel after he acquires them. AMD might win against Intel if Feng Yu invest unlimited funds in their product development. But this will not be profitable.

Since the AMD shareholders are not willing to sell their shares, Feng Yu can afford to wait. He will grow his Nvidia first, and it might be easier for Nvidia to acquire AMD.

“Feng, I remembered you mention Microsoft cannot enter the hardware industry because they are the strongest in the software industry. If they enter the hardware industry, they will be attacked by all the hardware companies, and Microsoft might be dragged down by them. Even if Microsoft succeeded by chance, they would be forced to be split. Why are you getting involved in so many industries? Are you not afraid of being targeted by other companies?” Kirilenko asked curiously.

“That’s why all my companies are separated, and not under a single brand. This way, it is not considered a monopoly and forced to split. The companies I acquired are the weaker companies in the industry, and no one will think I am trying to monopolize the market. But in the future, I want to go against all other companies in the same industry alone.”

Kirilenko was stunned by Feng Yu’s ambition. Facing all other companies in the same industry by himself?! Is it possible?

“Feng, Microsoft, and Intel are the giants in their respective industries. They are worth over 50 billion USD now.”

Although Feng Yu is rich, he is not rich enough to go against these enterprises. His total assets cannot even be compared to either one of these two companies.

“Ten years ago, Microsoft is also a small company, and I don’t have any money. Microsoft used ten years to become the highest valued company in the world. In comparison, I used ten years to become the World’s Second Billionaire. My assets had grown more than 10,000 times. Why can’t I achieve this goal in another 10 years?”

“Even if I cannot achieve it in ten years, I will use twenty or thirty years. Anyway, I am still young, right? Even at Buffet and Soros’s age, they are still working hard. I am only in my twenties. If I set my goal to be the World’s Richest Man, then I will have no goals to pursue before I am thirty. It will be too boring.”

Kirilenko is speechless by what Feng Yu said. He is confident that Feng Yu will be the World’s Richest man before he is thirty.

Bill Gates’s investment is too focused, and his assets’ growth rate cannot be compared to Feng Yu. Furthermore, Feng Yu’s net worth is still increasing now, while Microsoft share prices are dropping. Bill Gates’s net worth is dropping every day.

But still, Feng Yu’s dream is too hard to succeed.

To build such a company, Feng Yu must have lots of funds and owns a few companies worth more than 50 billion USD. Which companies can grow to this level?

Lenovo Group might be possible, but Feng Yu is not the ultimate decision there. Tai Hua Supermarket Group can grow as big as Walmart. But the shareholding is split among too many parties, and Feng Yu is not the main decision-maker.

Is it possible for Feng Yu’s other companies? Internet companies can grow rapidly, but if another internet bubble burst, their value will plunge.

Just look at the US stock market. Many internet companies had been delisted, and more were bankrupted this year. This number of such internet companies are still increasing.

Where did Feng Yu get his confidence to say these things?

Feng Yu got his confidence from knowing which the future of these technologies. He knows Amazon and the companies he invested in will be worth at least a few billion USD in the future.

Feng Yu might succeed in what others cannot accomplish. If he doesn’t try, he will feel uncomfortable. So what if he failed. Even if half of his companies went bust, he would still be the World’s Richest Man.

Even if Feng Yu is no longer the World’s Richest Man, he can still start from scratch again.

After knowing Feng Yu’s dreams, Kirilenko felt he is too unambitious. He had dreamed of being one of the world’s top billionaire, and he had achieved it.

Kirilenko also wants to be ranked above Bill Gates and the rest and becomes the top billionaire after Feng Yu. He still had not achieved this goal.

But Feng Yu told Kirilenko that he is not far from accomplishing this goal. He will get there within five to ten years.

Like what Feng Yu said, without a long-term goal, it will be very boring. Kirilenko starts to ponder if he should set a long-term goal. Even if he cannot achieve it, but he must work in that direction.

For example, acquiring the world-renowned winery? The most famous Château Lafite Rothschild belongs to Europe’s oldest wealthy family, the Rothschild family.

Kirilenko can set up a liquor brand and make this brand the best alcohol brand in the world.

Maybe Kirilenko can work with Feng to accomplish his dreams. To be at the top of the world.

Kirilenko was deep in thoughts.

Feng Yu’s dreams cannot be achieved alone. He needs a group of people who thinks alike to work with him to accomplish this dream.

For example, Zhong Qingxian, Liu Chuanzhi, Kameda Masao, and Fu Guangzheng.

Kirilenko is also someone suitable. Feng Yu did not persuade Kirilenko to help him. Still, he believes that after hearing about his dreams, Kirilenko will come to a decision.

Feng Yu hopes Kirilenko will help him, as it will make things easier.

After a long paused, Kirilenko tugged his fishing rod suddenly and quickly reel in the line. “Hahaha… I finally got a fish. Let’s eat it for dinner tonight.”

After throwing the fish into the bucket, Kirilenko looked at Feng Yu and asked. “Feng, you have an ambitious dream. Can you take me along?”

Feng Yu smiles. “Of course. We are brothers, right?!”

Feng Yu’s fish had also swallowed his bait.

Chapter 1121 – Logistics Development

Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s eCommerce website had been finalized. It will be using the B2C model, and it’s quite similar to amazon. The companies will sell their products to the consumers directly.

But this website had just started, and it’s still losing money currently. Their target is to increase users and registered customers. This is to let the consumers get used to online shopping.

In Russia and Eastern Europe, the economy is not doing well now. If the prices of precious metal had not gone up, Russia’s economy would be worse.

Luckily, Russia had been developing its agriculture in the past two years, and their reliance on food importation had dropped.

But Russia still facing an issue. The cities’ population is increasing, and the population of the farmlands is decreasing. Some small towns in rural areas are almost empty.

No one wants to live in a place with a low population. The US, Australia, and Canada’s family and small scale farms model do not work in Russia. So, this benefited many Chinese, especially the ones from Longjiang province. They leased the farmlands in Russia for farming.

This is also a win-win situation for both parties. Russia’s land is not wasted, and the farmers from China can make some money.

Feng Yu felt he had made a mistake by bringing forward the eCommerce by several years. Currently, the most suitable model for eCommerce should be the B2B model, as very few consumers will go online shopping. At most, they will just buy a book or some small items.

It is no like the time just before Feng Yu’s rebirth. During that time, consumers are even buying luxurious items online, let alone daily necessities.

There’s one more thing that made Feng Yu helpless. The logistics industry is not yet developed. For example, there are only three large logistics companies in China. First, it is the Government’s post offices, followed by Wind and Rain Logistics and SF Express.

When Wang Wei set up SF Express, Feng Yu had gotten his men to lend Wang Wei 100,000 RMB and had not recovered this debt. He wonders if Wang Wei still remembers this.

Feng Yu has no intention of acquiring SF Express. Although logistics is profitable, he can just cooperate with Wang Wei in the future. Sometimes, Feng Yu wonders how Wang Wei will repay him if he appears and told Wang Wei that he had lent him money to set up his company.

Will Wang Wei return Feng Yu ten times, a hundred times the loan amount, or will he offer shares? But no matter how Wang Wei is going to repay him, his expression must be priceless.

Will Wang Wei give Feng Yu everything he owns? If it’s Feng Yu, he will never do that. At most, he will offer the other party half of his wealth. But if the other party wants more, he will not agree.

Feng Yu does not want to use this favor to force Wang Wei to repay his debt, but Feng Yu will still want something. Wang Wei is a secretive person in Feng Yu’s previous life. He does not accept interviews, and there is very little news about him on the internet. His company does not accept any investments and is not listed.

Although many people told Wang Wei that if SF Express is listed, he will become one of China’s top billionaires or even Asia.

But Wang Wei asked those people. Why should I let SF Express get listed? SF Express is doing well and does not lack funds for development. Why should I let the company get listed and share the profits with others? Isn’t it better for me to share some of the profits with my employees?

Feng Yu likes Wang Wei’s attitude and would love to befriend him.

Wind and Rain Logistics had fully covered the three provinces in the Northeast region to Beijing, including all the Counties there. But from Beijing to the southern region, they can only cover some major Provinces and Cities. Even the Government’s post offices are better than them.

But Wind and Rain Logistics has better customer services and is faster. At least, most customers would choose them for inter-provinces deliveries as they are slightly cheaper. If the customers chose to have long-term cooperation with Wind and Rain Logistics, they would have some discounts.

The coastal provinces and south from Changjian are SF Express’s territory. They covered all the cities, Counties, and even Hong Kong and Macau. As for the rest of China, they can only deliver to the Provinces’ main cities.

Like this, both logistics companies had covered China’s whole and is only slightly behind the Government’s Post Offices. Compared to the time before Feng Yu’s rebirth, they are much stronger than many logistics companies.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, other than the Government’s Post Offices and SF Express, there are Yunda Express, Kuayue Express, Tiantian Express, Beijing ZJS Express, and Tongzi Express, the four main logistics companies in China. There are also foreign logistics companies operating in China, like FedEx, DHL, etc.

These logistics companies had helped increase the development of eCommerce. Many of these companies even guaranteed the customers they will receive the item the next day after purchasing.

The logistics companies created a new popular occupation, courier deliverymen. Just SF Express alone, they hired over 300,000 deliverymen. There should be several million deliverymen working for logistics companies in China.

Now, SF Express only owns slightly more than 1,000 delivery trucks and employed about 20,000 employees. Wind and Rain Logistics owns slightly more than 2,000 trucks and has only around 30,000 employees. Compared to Feng Yu’s previous life, SF Express has cargo planes.

But Wind and Rain Logistics and SF Express can still maintain their profits. Although their scale is not as big as the logistics companies in Feng Yu’s previous life, they are still doing well.

Russia is much worse than in China. Their logistics company is newly set up. If Kirilenko and Feng Yu did not use their services, their profits would have dropped by more than 90%!

Feng Yu realized that he had been overly anxious. He does not get any advantage by being the first into the industry. Instead, he will suffer losses when he starts the eCommerce business now.

Suppose Feng Yu had started the logistics company and eCommerce website two years later. In that case, he can still occupy the Eastern European market, and his investments will be much lower.

It was until now Feng Yu realized that he had made such a major mistake unknowingly.

Feng Yu decided to ask others, like Zhong Qingxian, Kameda Masao, Fu Rongqi, etc. for their opinions before deciding. At least, they are much better than Feng Yu in many areas.

Feng Yu must also conduct market surveys before any decision. The world had changed slightly because of his rebirth. Although the major events had not changed, the timing had changed.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin and wondered if he should set up a team of advisors? But it seems unnecessary.

Feng Yu knew he would not listen to every advice he received, and the advisors’ team is not very useful for him.

Never mind. I can just think through every decision carefully in the future. Luckily, the profits in the future are much more than the losses now.

Chapter 1122 – Exchanging shares

“Feng, you mentioned that you will be giving me some Amazon shares yesterday. When are you giving me?”

Feng Yu was stunned. Damn! I had drunk fruit wine last night, and did I got wasted?

Feng Yu recalled what happened yesterday. He did mention something like this, but it’s not like what Kirilenko said. Kirilenko had only mention half of it.

Last night, when Feng Yu and Kirilenko were chatting, Feng Yu told Kirilenko about Alibaba.

Kirilenko heard Feng Yu had invested in an eCommerce company in China. He is more confident in this industry.

Kirilenko thought Feng Yu is trying to do what eBay did. Sell the concept, get listed, and dump the shares for profits after the share prices rose.

Since Feng Yu said that Amazon will be listed in another two years and invested in a similar company in China, he is serious about it. This industry will be profitable in the future.

Feng Yu told Kirilenko to wait for Alibaba to grow for two years and exchange eBay shares with Alibaba. This will maintain cooperation between both companies and lower their risk.

Kirilenko will not reject Feng Yu, as this is a good thing.

Kirilenko does not know the difference between B2B, B2C, etc. and only knows Alibaba, eBay and Amazon are all eCommerce companies.

Feng Yu told Kirilenko that although all three companies are eCommerce companies, the operating models are different.

Alibaba is currently a platform between companies and is serving suppliers. The trades are all in large volume.

eBay targets individuals, where individuals sell their items to another individual, and eBay charges a nominal fee.

Amazon is selling its products to individuals, as Amazon will buy books and then sell them online to consumers.

Alibaba and eBay are more advantageous than Amazon as their cost is lower. They don’t own any goods and are only providing a platform.

But Amazon is different. Amazon’s books are all purchased and resold, and their capital usage is much higher.

You can see Alibaba and eBay as a shopping mall. They rent out the shop spaces to retailers and earns from the rental. These two companies only need to manage those companies and do not need any more capital.

Amazon can be seen as a supermarket. They need to bring in the goods before selling them to their customers. Their cost might seem to be higher, but in the long-run, their cost will be lowered.

For example, Tai Hua Supermarket. Their suppliers are providing them the goods first, and Tai Hua Supermarket will settle the credit monthly or quarterly.

The similarities between all the eCommerce websites are their funds must go through the internet companies, and Amazon has a higher advantage over the other two companies.

This is because Amazon will hold on to the funds for a longer period and has better cash flow. This is like the supermarket, where there will always be funds in the accounts.

Feng Yu had told Kirilenko that he will give him Amazon’s shares and wants eBay shares in return.

The shares they are exchanging are voting shares, as those non-voting shares are meaningless.

Feng Yu nodded and said. “We can do that anytime. I will be going to the US in a few days. If you are going, we can do the exchange there. But if you have no time, we can wait until after your wedding.”

“I cannot leave Russia during this period. My father had scolded me for being away most of the time. Why is he scolding me? I am going to the US for work! I am going there to earn their money, yet he is still unhappy with me.” Kirilenko grumbled.

“It’s fine. There’s no hurry. You can rest at home as you are getting married soon. But if you want to have children, I suggest you should cut down on drinking. Didn’t you notice that you had slept with so many women, yet none of them got pregnant?”

Kirilenko’s face changed. “Feng, don’t curse me… Are you saying that I have potency problems?”

Feng Yu waved his hand and spoke like an expert. “I am not sure, but I know heavy drinking will have affect potency. For example, I can do it several times a night and don’t need the help of Viagra. Can you?”

Feng Yu had said these proudly. Although Viagra is produced by his company, he does not need to use it. That medicine is for losers!

Kirilenko laughed suddenly. “I have potency issues?! I think you are the one who has issues! I already have a child in the US. Don’t need to look at me like this. I had confirmed it. It’s you who should be worried. Your Chinese girlfriend, and Elena, are not pregnant, right?”

After Kirilenko finished saying that, he looks at Feng Yu proudly.

Feng Yu did not expect Kirilenko to have a child in the US. No wonder his father does not allow him to go to the US. Kirilenko has a political marriage here, and it is very important for his family. But his first child is not by this wife.

Kirilenko will have a big problem in the future.

“Tsk… tsk… tsk…” Feng Yu made this sound and look at Kirilenko without saying a word.

Kirilenko got mad. What do you mean by tsk… tsk… tsk…? You don’t believe me?

Feng Yu saw Kirilenko is going to explode and laughed. “How are you going to leave your fortune? Which child will you give it to? In China, there is a saying. Both the palm and the back of the hand are made of meat. An illegitimate child is still your child!”

Kirilenko rolled his eyes. “I had not finished earlier. My child in the US is a daughter. When she got married, I will prepare a large dowry, and my fortune will be left for my son.”

Feng Yu’s laughter stopped, and almost choked. Damn! I had made the wrong assumption again. That illegitimate child is a daughter.

That means Kirilenko will have no problem. Unless he is living in a feminist country. If not, most daughters will be married off, and prominent families like Kirilenko’s family will not mind.

This is very common in China. The illegitimate sons will be harmed because of the family’s fortunes. But most illegitimate daughters will be unharmed and even well taken care of. This is to use them for political marriages and help the first wife’s son.

Feng Yu decided to change the topic. He cannot win against this Russian bear on this topic!

“Brother Ki, I had forgotten to tell you something. We need to develop payment software, and this will bring us the highest profits in the future!”

Chapter 1123 – Third-Party payment software

Payment software? Kirilenko is puzzled. Don’t we have online banking now? Why should we develop payment software? Sell it to the banks?

Feng Yu saw the confusion on Kirilenko’s face and explained it. “Brother Ki, our eCommerce website has two forms of payment, right? One type is payment first before the supplier ships out the item, and the other is paid upon receiving the goods, right?”

“That’s right. One is through bank transfer, and the other is cash. What have these got to do with the payment software?”

“This payment software is called a third-party payment platform, which is also called a credit intermediary. Look at our current mode of payments. The customer can reject the goods if they select cash upon receiving the goods. We will incur losses on transportation. It will also create a stockpile of goods. We have no choice but to use this mode to attract and build trust with the customers.”

“If the customer is using bank transfer, and the product they received is different from what they bought, they cannot reject the item. The other party had received the money, and what can you do? It will be too troublesome to request for refunds, and the customer will feel cheated.”

“At this time, there must be a third-party payment platform, which is the software we are going to develop. The buyer will pay us first, and we will notify the seller to ship out the product. When the buyer received the product and confirmed it, we will release the seller’s payment. This way, we will form protection for both parties.”

“If the buyer thinks the product has a problem, they can raise a complaint, and the website will verify it. The payment has not been released to the seller, and it’s easier for the buyer to get refunds. There will not be issues where the seller refuses to make refunds. The buyer will be protected and increases our website’s creditability. Also, it can replace the cash payment upon receiving the goods. This will prevent the wastage of transportation costs. The buyer must return the goods before they can get a refund. This will prevent unnecessary losses for the seller.”

Kirilenko understood what Feng Yu was talking about and asked. “Why will others believe you? Being the credit intermediary needs to provide guarantee and must have a good credit track record for people to trust you.”

Feng Yu points to Kirilenko and himself. “We are the trust. We will be the guarantor for our third-party payment software. With our assets, the customers will trust us as we will not cheat their money. Also, even if their money were cheated, we can afford to compensate them.”

“We will become the guarantor?” Kirilenko had not thought about this. But what Feng Yu said is true. No one will think that Feng and he will cheat the customers of that small amount. The current number of users is still low. Even if there are a million transactions a day, and each transaction is worth 1,000 USD, that is only 1 billion. Either one of them can easily afford that.

“Wait… Feng, will those banks agree?” Kirilenko asked.

“We have to discuss with the banks. We are providing a guarantee for the customers and not taking a cent of profits. Also, this will increase transactions. Why will they reject?”

“Wait… we are not taking any profits from that? If we are going to be the guarantor, we must put in a sum of money. The development of the software and the running cost is not a small amount. If we are not getting any profits from it, we are wasting our money!” Kirilenko looks at Feng Yu as if Feng Yu is an idiot.

“No… no… no… we will not suffer any losses. Instead, we can use this software to make more money. Once this software is developed, the profits from it might even be higher than our eCommerce website.”

“Let me give you a simple example. Look at the banks. When you open a savings account with the bank, the bank will keep your money safe and give periodic interests. Of course, the bank will not suffer any losses, as they will use your money to give out loans, investments, etc.”

“But the most important factor of all these is the transactions. No matter if you deposit or make any withdrawals, there will be transactions. These transactions are where all the profits come from.”

Kirilenko is confused. His financial knowledge is too limited compared to Feng Yu. He understood what Feng Yu said initially, but when Feng Yu said the profits come from the transactions, he got confused.

How can there be profits from the transaction records? That is only a record. Is that so valuable? If it is a fake accounting transaction, it might be valuable for some people. Still, the majority of people are not doing any fake accounting. What profit is Feng Yu talking about?

“Do you know about the Credit Score in the US? How do they determine one’s credit score? Through the person’s bank transactions! Your savings, outflows, debts, inflows, repayment of debts, etc. Do you understand this?”

Kirilenko nodded and then shook his head. He knew about Credit Score, but he still doesn’t understand how they will make money from the transaction information?

Feng Yu patiently explained. “From your monthly inflows, I can determine your income, and from your monthly outflows, I can predict your consumer attitude. Your transactions will also tell me what you are working on and what sort of items you like to buy. All these require Big Data Analysis, and what we want from the analysis is the consumer’s habits.”

“Through your transactions, I will know your spending habits, and I will have an advantage when it comes to advertising for you. I can show you the advertisements that you will be interested in. Right?”

Kirilenko nodded. What Feng Yu said is true. He loves to drink, and the businessmen who seek his cooperation will treat him to a drink and offer him alcohol, which he had not tasted before.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many people will notice the advertisements on Tabao are related to their previous purchases. Even the advertisements on other online shopping websites are the same. This is because these websites are using the same third-party payment software.

The data collected from the third-party payment software is valuable for both buyers and sellers.

“Also, we can know which product is more popular through these transactions, and we can increase the production of those products and lower our costs.”

This is why there are so many popular products on the internet in Feng Yu’s previous life. Without the support of Big Data, who will know which product will be popular and who dares to produce them in large volumes? With the third-party payment software, one will know which product will be popular.

Kirilenko said excitedly. “This means we can increase the customer’s spending on our website, right? This is a good thing!”

Feng Yu: “……”

You can only think of increasing customers’ spending? Don’t you consider working with those production factories on producing those popular products? You can also profit by selling this information to them!

Chapter 1124 – Internet Bank

“Brother Ki, this payment software is what makes me confident in competing with other MNCs. You know about the finance industry, but do you know what Internet Bank is?”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Ma Yun’s Alipay is the world’s third-biggest Third-party payment platform. Its scale and number of users are the highest, and at the same time, they had many competitors. That means many people can see the high profits from third-party platforms.

In this life, Third-party payment platforms will appear earlier. They will be used on eBay, Amazon, Alibaba, and Polar Bear Internet companies. Feng Yu will have the opportunity to gain control over three major markets, North America, China, and Eastern Europe. His payment software will be much better than the payment platforms in his previous life.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Yahoo, Softbank, and Ma Yun’s team jointly developed Alipay’s technology. When Ma Yun was the CEO, he separated this Alipay and transferred to his own company. This decision was controversial and caused a dispute between the three parties.

Yahoo’s share prices fell, but Alibaba’s share prices continued to rise because of Alipay. Alipay’s estimated worth is much higher than Alibaba’s group of websites and became its most valuable asset.

Kirilenko thought to himself after hearing Feng Yu mentioned Internet Bank. What’s so difficult to understand about it? It’s just online banking.

“Feng, I know about this. It is just like Nasdaq, where all the transactions take place electronically. Stocks are also financial instruments. Then the stocks on Nasdaq are all Internet Bank, right?”

Feng Yu took out two cigars and passed one to Kirilenko. He took a puff and said. “What is said is also considered Internet Bank. But the Internet Bank I am talking about is very different. Internet Bank is not only using internet technology on traditional financial instruments. Our Internet Bank will take place online. Regardless of the market, services, products, regulations, etc. will all be online. There will not be any physical counters, and everything will be online. There will be no face to face interaction, and even if you hire a broker, all communications will be conducted online.”

“Feng, this is not right. If I hired a broker and the communications are online, how will I sign the contract? How am I going to pay for his salary, and how can I trust him?” Kirilenko retorted.

“This is the time where our Third-party Payment Platform comes in. We will provide a credit guarantee and conduct credit ratings. The contracts can be downloaded from the internet, and both parties can verify through videos. Of course, both parties will need to print out the contract during the initial stage and signs it. But they will not need to do that in the future.”

When the real-name system is implemented, many agreements and contracts no longer require signatures. They only need to click the confirm button, and it will be completed. For example, a stock trading mobile app only requires the user to take a video of themselves and upload a picture of their identification card. No signatures are required, and it is legally binding.

“Using videos to confirm?! The video quality is not good.” Currently, online video quality is not good because of internet speed. Some ordinary users have no access to this technology.

“The internet is developing very fast, and you cannot use the technology now to judge the products three years later. Mobile phones can take pictures now. Have you thought about what mobile phones can do three years later?” Feng Yu waved his Wind and Rain Phone and said.

“You are right. Does that mean online videos will become common three years later?”

“In developed countries, it will not be a problem. Even the countries without good internet can allow the majority of their people to go online. Also, after this Internet Bank is introduced, internet development will speed up. It might be faster than what we expected.”

“Then what do this Internet Bank services comprise of? What products are there?” Kirilenko asked.

“We will offer whatever traditional financial institutions offer. For example, investing and financial planning, savings, withdrawals, loans, currency exchanges, etc. We can also provide services that traditional financial institutions cannot offer. For example, crowdfunding.”

Crowdfunding? What is that? Asking everyone to provide funds to one person? What’s so special about this? The traditional financial institutions do have this service.” Kirilenko replied with a ‘don’t think I don’t know about this’ expression.

“You are right. The traditional financial institutions do have this service. But let me ask you. Can a traditional financial institution raise 1 million from 1 million people?”

“What? 1 million USD from 1 million people? That means each person has to contribute 1 USD? Who is so free to travel to donate 1 USD?”

“That’s right. No one in their right mind will travel to the bank to invest 1 USD for a company. But what if it is online now? All you need to do is to click on your mouse and enter the third-party payment code. Everything will be completed within a minute.”

Feng Yu is not making up this ‘1 million shares to raise 1 million USD.’ In his previous life, a writer wants to publish a book. But no publisher is willing to publish it as the contents are too sensitive, not appealing, etc. But at that time, the writer started crowdfunding. The writer’s fans contributed 1 RMB each and funded this writer to publish this book.

To the fans, 1 RMB is nothing, but with all the fans giving 1 RMB each, that is a big amount. Some authors even used this method to turn their novels into video games and TV series.

It is too troublesome to go to the bank to donate 1 dollar. But if this transaction is conducted over the internet, it will be much easier.

Some small-time singers want to release their albums, new directors asking for funding for their new movies, and even roadside stalls asking for funds to set up a shop. Many failed, but many others succeeded.

This proves that Internet Bank can do what traditional financial institutions cannot.

These are only the tip of an iceberg. There are too many ways of making money through this Third-party payment platform. Just look at those bankers from traditional financial institutions. Which one of them had lost money?

The MNCs from China and all the major banks in the world are on the top of the list. But this Third-party payment platform will be an institution that can rival and even exceed them!

“Brother Ki, Internet Bank is more convenient than what you can imagine. For example, if you want to get a loan and have good credit ratings on our platform. Our platform can issue the loan immediately. We can even introduce Internet Bank instruments for the ones who like to invest and profit from there…”

As Feng Yu describes what Internet Bank can do, Kirilenko’s eyes got brighter. This Internet Bank is like a treasure cove. This Third-party payment software must be developed immediately!

Chapter 1125 – Art pieces which are hard to appreciate

A few days later, Feng Yu, who had finished touring the mansion, fell to New York. He had not come to New York for investment. He had come to attend an auction. Sotheby’s auction.

Sotheby’s is a world-renowned art and book auction company and has branches in over 40 countries. Their main auctions are located in New York and London.

Almost half of the many art pieces and books sold at sky-high prices worldwide are from Sotheby’s.

This time, Feng Yu had come to Sotheby’s auction as he heard there will be many art pieces, books, and paintings for auction. The global economy is not doing well, and many of those former internet tycoons were almost bankrupt. That’s why they had to sell their art collection.

Feng Yu’s target is oil painting. He wants to buy it for Kirilenko as his wedding gift.

Feng Yu has asked Ralph to find out more about this auction. There will be a few western oil paintings up for auction and some world-famous paintings by Gogh and Picasso.

There are many famous painters in history, but Gogh and Picasso’s paintings are the most popular. Even Feng Yu, who doesn’t know anything about art, had heard of their names. They can be considered the top two painters in modern history.

Feng Yu’s mentality is that if he is going to give someone a gift, it must be something the other party likes and appreciates. If he gives a Chinese or a Chinese art collector a National-level Chinese painting, it will be priceless. But to Kirilenko, painting is no different from those 3 for 10 RMB paintings along the streets.

……

“Boss, this is the booklet for this auction. There are pictures, descriptions, Appraisal organization information, bidding prices, etc. I had written down the pages of the oil paintings on this paper.”

Ralph passed a booklet and a piece of paper to Feng Yu. Feng Yu is not worried about the art pieces sold at Sotheby’s will be fake, as Sotheby’s reputation is worth at least a billion USD. If the painting is fake, they will not dare to put it up for auction. Of course, some of the items do state that they cannot determine its authenticity, and it is up to the buyer to decide if they want to bid for it.

Feng Yu flipped to the pages of the more expensive oil paintings. The first painting <Massacre of the Innocents> is by a Netherlands artist, Peter Paul Rubens. It depicted the killings of innocents and captured the emotions of the victims.

The starting bid is 40 million USD, and Feng Yu immediately strikes it off.

It is not about the price. Feng Yu does not mind buying a 100 million USD painting for Kirilenko as they are good friends for many years. Without Kirilenko’s help, Feng Yu will not accumulate his first pot of gold so easily.

This painting is about killing and showing negative emotions. How can he give it as a wedding gift?! Also, Feng Yu had not heard of this artist.

The second painting is a self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. Although photography is available during his era, and there are three well-preserved photographs of him, he still drew over forty self-portraits. Each one of his self-portraits is very popular with collectors.

Feng Yu looks at this self-portrait painting on the booklet. It’s blurry and is in weird colors. Oh… the Appraisal organization had written a note. “This self-portrait is not expressed by the vivid colors of a photograph. It shows the artistic value through the use of colors.

The artistic value of the art piece through the use of the colors?! Feng Yu could not see its value and doesn’t know how those people who know ‘art’ can see the value.

The starting bid for this painting is 50 million USD. Feng Yu drew a tick on it. Vincent van Gogh is a famous painter. Although he doesn’t know how to appreciate this painting, maybe Kirilenko’s fiancée will like it.

The third paint is called <Still Life> by Paul Cézanne, a French artist. Feng Yu looks at the painting. It’s only a table with apples, onions, oranges, a bottle of wine, plates, tablecloths, wine glass, etc. He couldn’t see what’s so special about it, but the starting bid is 42 million USD.

Are you sure this is not drawn by those art students in schools? What’s the difference?

The description for this painting is: “This apple has no politics, no ideologies, no ambition, no emotions! The apple is fresh and tasty. It is true to its natural state. Peaceful and quiet. This is a special piece of art with special meaning.

Feng Yu is impressed with the person who wrote this description. This is just a f**king apple which every beginner art student must draw. Of course, the apple cannot think about politics, ambitions, etc. Do you think this apple can run for the US President?!

Special meaning? What’s the meaning? There is an onion beside the apple. Are you sure it is tasty?

Fine. Feng Yu had also heard of this artist’s name, and he drew a tick beside it. Based on his understanding of Kirilenko, he will definitely hang this painting in his dining room. Hmmm… Feng Yu also thinks this painting should be hung there.

Eh? There is a Picasso’s painting. Feng Yu is overjoyed when he saw the title. <Woman with Folded Arms>. Kirilenko will surely love a painting with a woman.

Feng Yu immediately flipped the booklet to that page, and his face changed. This is a masterpiece by a famous artist?! Is this the same painting that everyone praised?!

Feng Yu felt the woman in the painting is more abstract than the alien he imagines. Even a kid can draw better with crayons. He starts to wonder if this painting is drawn by Picasso with his feet.

Feng Yu will have nightmares if this painting is hung in his bedroom!

But Feng Yu remembered Picasso is known for his abstract art pieces, and he still drew a tick beside it.

Feng Yu is not pleased with the following few art pieces. The artists are either not famous enough, or the painting is not suitable. For example, <The beating of babies> by Peter Paul Rubens.

How can Feng Yu give this painting to Kirilenko at his wedding? Should he tell Kirilenko, “Brother Ki, Spare the rod spoil the child” after giving this painting?

Kirilenko is Russian. Even if he is Chinese and comes from the Northeast and Northwest region, where it is common for Chinese families to beat their children, he will also chase Feng Yu to give him this painting!

Feng Yu does not know about the manuscripts, books, etc. and Kirilenko and his fiancée should not like it. Furthermore, those are not expensive.

Feng Yu starts to wonder. Could he not know how to appreciate arts, or are these paintings overvalued by speculators and businessmen for profits?

If money is involved, everything will change. Feng Yu is not worried as he is rich, but he wants a painting that suits the occasion.

From all the paintings, <Still-life> is the most suitable gift for Kirilenko’s wedding. But do Feng Yu really want to give Kirilenko an ‘art student’ piece of work to be hung in his dining room?

Sotheby’s

Vincent van Gogh

Massacre of the Innocents

Paul Cézanne

Femme aux Bras Croisés

Chapter 1126 – Chance Encounter

The next day, Feng Yu and Ralph went to Sotheby’s Auction.

Ralph had helped Feng Yu pay a deposit and get an invitation card to enter the venue.

Ralph moved closer to Feng Yu at the carpark and told him he saw two familiar car plates. If these two cars were not sold, then it should be Bill Gates and Paul Allen’s.

Feng Yu is slightly surprised to know those two had come. He knew Bill Gates had bought many art pieces to decorate his mansion and owns the most expensive manuscript, Da Vinci’s <Codex Leicester>. He had bought it for more than 30 million USD in 1994!

As for Paul Allen, he does own some art collection. But Feng Yu guessed that he doesn’t know how to appreciate arts like Bill Gates. His collection is only for decorative purposes. It’s just like when you go to a tycoon’s office, you will always see a bookshelf full of books. But most of the books are new and had never been read before.

Many people do not read, but love to pretend to be cultured. Those that don’t know how to appreciate art also like to pretend.

When Feng Yu entered the venue, he saw Bill Gates and Paul Allen. They were sitting in the first row, and beside them are two men who look like consultants.

Ralph brought Feng Yu to his front-row seat on the center corridor’s right, and Paul Allen is seated on the left side of the central corridor.

When Paul Allen saw Feng Yu, he let out an arrogant ‘Hmphed!’ and his expression immediately changed.

Bill Gates also saw Feng Yu, but he did not show any emotions on his face. It’s just like meeting an acquaintance.

Feng Yu pretended to just notice them and walks over with a smile. “Ah… Bill and Paul. What are you all doing here? Are you buying to buy some art pieces to decorate your offices like me?”

When Bill Gates saw Feng Yu walking over to say hi to them, he forced a smile. But when he heard what Feng Yu said, the smile on his face disappears.

What do you mean by buying art pieces to decorate our offices? I know how to appreciate the arts! Are you saying that I am only pretending?

The corner of Paul Allen’s lips twitched. He does not want to speak to a country bumpkin like Feng Yu!

Feng Yu saw Bill Gates and Paul Allen refusing to answer him and assumed he is right. He pushed the consultant beside Bill Gates aside and sat down. “Bill, Paul, which art pieces are you all bidding? Let me know as I don’t want to be going against my friends.”

“You are not our friends!” Paul Allen retorted.

Didn’t you sell off all your Microsoft shares? How dare you claim to be our friends?! It’s fine if you sell some of your shares, but you shouldn’t sell everything. Microsoft’s share prices had been falling since you sold your shares!

You had made high profits by selling your Microsoft shares at its peak. We… our net worth has been shrinking! It’s all because of you, and you dare to say we are friends?!

If you treated us as friends, why didn’t you inform us before you sell your shares? If you let us know earlier, we will not be in this state!

Feng Yu continued with a smile. “We are still friends, right? Oh, do you all have enough cash? Let me know if you need help. I can lend money to you all with no interest.”

Bill Gates and Paul Allen’s assets are mostly in the form of Microsoft shares. During this period, they had sold some of their shares with the excuse of raising cash for other investments. Actually, they knew Microsoft share prices will continue to fall and are trying to cut losses.

Anyway, the shares they sold are all non-voting shares and will not affect their status. Everyone who owns Microsoft shares had sold some. Even Bill Gates had sold his shares, and that Feng had sold all of his Microsoft shares. The market is also not doing well, and selling the shares is the best way to stop losses.

Although Bill Gates and Paull Allen had sold some of their shares, the total number of shares sold by them is nothing compared to Feng Yu. Other than the banks, no one owns more cash than Feng Yu, including Feng Yu’s recent investments.

This time, even Bill Gates cannot tolerate it. He is the World’s Top Billionaire! How can he borrow money from others?! What Feng Yu said is too much!

Seeing Bill Gates and Paul Allen ignoring him, Feng Yu returned to his seat.

Paul Allen sneered as he looks at Feng Yu. How can someone who doesn’t know about art appreciation come here to buy art pieces? He didn’t even bring a consultant with him. I bet he doesn’t even know about the history behind those paintings!

Ralph saw Feng Yu going over to provoke those two and knew today’s auction winning bids will be incredibly high.

After waiting for a while, the auction started.

The auctioneer walks up the stage, and there is a big screen behind him, showing the first item. It’s a manuscript by a famous author. But Feng Yu had not heard of his name before.

Bill Gates started bidding without hesitation. He had bought many art pieces but did not display them at home. Instead, he displayed them in Microsoft for the employees to have a nice working environment.

But Bill Gates is not as noble as he claimed. The <Codex Leicester> he bought was made into a VCD and sold at 50 USD a copy. He sold a few million copies and let the whole world knows that he owns the most expensive original manuscript.

To Feng Yu, this is only a marketing gimmick. It’s just Bill Gates trying to build his reputation. During the time he sold <Codex Leicester> VCDs, Microsoft share prices rose. Everyone starts to notice Bill Gates’s purchasing power and saw the potential profits in Microsoft.

These art pieces are a form of investment that many wealthy westerners like. The prices of the art pieces will appreciate steadily and can let others envy them.

Others might not know, but Feng Yu, who had worked with Bill Gates for some time, knew Bill Gates is someone who likes to show off.

After a few bids, Bill Gates won the manuscript.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen looked at Feng Yu curiously. They thought Feng Yu will purposely raise the prices, but it seems Feng Yu has no intention to do that.

Codex Leicester

Chapter 1127 – Ah… I made the wrong bid

“The next item is Self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh… the starting bid is 50 million USD… Start!”

The moment the Auctioneer finished, and Bill Gates was about to raise his hand, someone shouted. “60 million!”

Wow…

Everyone was shocked and wonders who raised the bid by 10 million. This person must be determined to get this painting.

Bill Gates lowered his hand. He doesn’t want to compete with Feng Yu, but someone thinks otherwise. For example, Paul Allen.

“61 million!”

After Paul Allen shouted his bid, and before the Auctioneer said anything, Feng Yu raised his hand. “70 million. Paul, you also like this painting?”

Paul Allen saw Feng Yu’s expression and doesn’t dare to raise the bid. He is afraid Feng Yu is tricking him into raising the bid.

The Auctioneer shouted the price three times, and Feng Yu won this painting by Vincent van Gogh. 70 million is much higher than what art collectors estimate. But all the art pieces will appreciate annually.

The participants clapped for the highest bidder today. Feng Yu remained seated with crossed legs and had a smile on his face. He had only spent a few million higher and does not mind it.

Unknown to others, Feng Yu had cursed Paul Allen several times in his heart. If Paul Allen had not interfered, Feng Yu wound have scared the rest of the participants off with 60 million bid. If someone else bided 61 million instead of Paul Allen, Feng Yu would have a high chance to win it with 65 million. But 5 million USD is not enough to scare Paul Allen off.

“The next painting is <Massacre of the Innocents> by Peter Paul Rubens…”

The moment the auctioneer finishes, Paul Allen, interested in this painting, raised his hand. “45 million!”

This price is not high enough to stop others to bid. The price was slowly raised to 53 million USD. No one else is making higher bids, and when Paul Allen is about to win the painting, Feng Yu raised his hand. “60 million!”

It’s the same voice again. The people sitting at the back stood up to see who dares to outbid Paul Allen.

Paul Allen stared at Feng Yu. Feng Yu is trying to create problems for him again. But Paul Allen had selectively forgotten he had purpose raised the bid against Feng Yu earlier.

“63 million.”

“65 million.”

“70 million.”

“You win.” Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders and said.

Paul Allen almost vomited blood. He thought Feng Yu will continue to increase the bid, and he will stop. But now, he was the one who paid more than 10 million higher!

Although 10 million is nothing compared to Paul Allen’s net worth, most of his assets are shares. 10 million USD is not a small amount to him.

Paul Allen is furious, especially when Feng Yu said, “you win.” Did I win? I am the one who suffered a loss!

The clapping of the participants made Paul Allen angrier. It’s like everyone there is mocking him.

The following items up for bids are normal, and then it’s an intermission.

“Heh… Paul, this year’s highest bidder, is me. Although you had bided the same amount, I won it before you.” Feng Yu said purposely.

“It’s too early for you to say.” Paul Allen gave Feng Yu an angry stare.

“Then, just wait and see.” Feng Yu turns and walks away. This made Paul Allen more furious.

Paul Allen might not be a magnanimous person, but he will not get angry easily. However, whenever he met Feng Yu, he will lose control.

I am Paul Allen! How can I lose to someone like you?!

After the intermission, the auction started again. Bill Gates won two manuscripts, and other participants won some items.

When an oil painting is up for auction, Feng Yu started bidding. “50 million!”

Paul Allen immediately raises the bid. “60 million.”

Feng Yu continued. “70 million.”

Paul Allen wanted to raise the bid but was stopped by Bill Gates.

Bill Gates shook his head. “Paul, there is no need to vie with him. This amount is way higher than the value of this <Still life>. If you raise the bid, he will surely stop, and you will be the sucker.”

Paul Allen took a few deep breaths and stared at Feng Yu. He did not continue to bid for this painting.

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. When the Auctioneer announced Feng Yu had won the painting, he said “pauper” softly at Paul Allen.

Pauper?! You are calling me a pauper?!

Paul Allen almost exploded. He had never been humiliated like this in his life!

It’s just a painting. Paul Allen is determined to go against Feng Yu today. Let’s see who the sucker is today!

The Auctioneer on the stage almost burst out laughing. Today is too surprising. He thought with Paul Allen and Bill Gates attending this auction, they will be winning most of the bids. But now, it seems that the Chinese man is the biggest winner. Although he does not know Feng Yu, he can guess his identity. Someone bidding recklessly and is at loggerheads with Paul Allen must be Asia’s Top Billionaire, Feng Yu.

The sales of these few paintings will make this auction the best auction this year. It might even be 30% more than the forecasted transaction amount.

“This painting is <Femme aux Bras Croisés> by Picasso…”

When the Auctioneer finishes, Feng Yu raised his hand. “70 million!”

Wow…

The other participants gasped in shock. This is the first time they saw someone bidding like this. The starting bid for this painting is only 48 million USD.

Did this tycoon only know 70 million? He had bid this figure for all the paintings.

Paul Allen turns and looks at Feng Yu, chatting with Ralph. He overheard Feng Yu saying he wants to buy this painting and hang it in his bedroom.

You want to buy this painting?! Sure… But 70 million is not enough!

“80 million!”

The Auctioneer is overjoyed. This is the highest bid today… no, it’s the highest bid for an oil painting in the last ten years. Who knows when this record will be broken in the future?!

Paul Allen looks at Feng Yu provocatively. Up the bid! I will stop immediately if you up the bid! I will make you pay at least twenty million more for this painting!

But Feng Yu did not continue to bid for the painting.

Paul Allen started to panic. Although Picasso’s paintings are famous, it is not worth 80 million USD. Especially during this economic downturn period.

When everyone clapped and congratulate Paul Allen for being the highest bidder at this auction, Paul Allen overheard Feng Yu saying.

“This painting is so ugly. I had made the wrong bid and was still wondering if I can cancel it. Luckily, Paul Allen save me.”

Paul Allen couldn’t believe what he heard. What did Feng Yu say? He made the wrong bid?! How can he bid wrongly?! How is it possible?!

Here is a video of me bring my puppy out for a stroller ride. Will be posting videos of my dog’s outings. Please support me by subscribing and sharing her channel. Thank you.

Instagram:
Youtube:
Facebook:

Chapter 1128 – I am helping you

Bill Gates looked at Paul Allen with pity. He had told Paul Allen not to fight with Feng Yu, but he refused to listen. See… now you had suffered losses.

Some people sitting behind Feng Yu overheard him and swore not to raise the bid after Feng Yu made any bids. How can someone shout 70 million wrongly?

Everyone looked at Paul Allen, one of Microsoft’s Co-founder, and thought to themselves. He is damn unlucky today. Spending tens of millions more is nothing to Paul Allen, but he will be the laughing stock after this auction.

Paul Allen sensed people were looking at him and turned to look behind him. Everyone behind him was looking at him with weird expressions. Some of them seem to be holding back their laughter, and some were looking at him pitifully.

Paul Allen turned to look at Feng Yu angrily but saw him chatting with Ralph happily. They seemed to be sharing a joke, and if they are not in this auction, they should be laughing out loud.

The smile on Feng Yu and Ralph’s faces seemed to be mocking Paul Allen. He refused to believe that he cannot trick Feng Yu once!

This time, Paul Allen will make the bid first, and if Feng Yu raise the bid, he will stop immediately.

The next item is another oil painting. This painting’s starting bid is only 10 million, and Paul Allen shouted 20 million without hesitation before looking at Feng Yu.

Feng Yu closed his eyes and did not make any bids.

Feng Yu had come to this auction to buy a few paintings for Kirilenko as his wedding gift. He is not interested in the painting is too cheap. Now, he had won two paintings, and that <Still Life> is a suitable gift.

The remaining paintings were either too cheap or were drawn by some artists Feng Yu have not heard of.

Without Feng Yu bidding and Paul Allen raising the bid too high, no one else bid for this painting. Paul Allen ended up buying another painting at higher prices.

Bill Gates persuaded. “Paul, I think Feng is not going against you on purpose. You should bid normally. If you carry on like this, you will suffer more losses.”

“I don’t believe Feng is only buying two paintings. All the items he bid are oil paintings, and there is one more painting up for bid. I am sure he will bid for that painting.”

Bill Gates shook his head. Those that were blinded with rage will not listen to advise. If he was the one who had to suffer this loss, he would also try to retaliate against Feng Yu.

But Bill Gates knew Feng Yu is very cunning. If he is not careful, he will fall into Feng Yu’s trap.

Although Feng Yu had sold his Microsoft shares, Bill Gates felt they still have opportunities to cooperate in the future. It’s like his relationship with Steve Jobs. They had gone on separate ways in the past but got into cooperation again later.

Furthermore, Microsoft’s cooperation with Feng Yu on Gbox is going to be launch, and it’s not a good idea to worsen their relationship. Gbox is their product to compete with Sony, and it must not fail.

When the final oil painting is up for bidding, Paul Allen stared at Feng Yu. Both did not make any bids, but the other participants start to raise the price slowly.

Suddenly, Paul Allen saw Feng Yu’s hand move slightly, and he immediately shouts. “16 million!”

This time, Paul Allen only raise the bid by 1 million and is not as impulsive as before. But Feng Yu did not make any bids. Instead, it was a man sitting behind Feng Yu to raise the bid by 500,000 USD.

What is going on? Why is Feng Yu not bidding? Did he give up? Impossible!

Paul Allen suddenly noticed Feng Yu turning to the guy behind him and said something to him with a smile.

Ah!!! Paul Allen knew what is going on. The guy sitting behind Feng Yu is helping Feng Yu to bid for this painting. Damn! He had nearly let Feng Yu win this painting at a low price.

“18 million!”

Feng Yu did not make any bids, but that guy behind him continued to raise the bids.

Paul Allen sneered. Do you think I will not know that you are asking someone else to bid for you? I will raise the bids. How much can I lose by increasing the bids by a few hundred thousand?

When the bids reached 23.6 million, the guy Feng Yu did not continue, and Paul Allen saw Feng Yu turned back and said something.

Paul Allen had won this painting again, but he frowned. This should be impossible. Why did Feng Yu give up on this painting?

There are no other paintings up for auction, and Feng Yu did not participate in the biddings.

“Hey, Paul. Congratulations. Today… no. You had made the highest bid for an art piece this year.” Feng Yu showed Paul Allen a thumbs up.

“Hmph! I told you I will be the highest bidder. Do you think I don’t know that you had asked that guy behind you to bid for you?! I won the last painting too!”

“Ask the guy behind me to bid for me?! Are you talking about Roddy? I just got to know him. He is the one who put that painting, <Still Life> up for auction, and he just thanked me. Oh, I advised him not to fight with you for that last painting. Shouldn’t you thank me for helping you save money?”

Paul Allen stared at Feng Yu. What did Feng Yu say? That guy is the seller of <Still Life>, and Feng Yu does not know him?

That means the final painting should also be his! Damn! I have been fooled!

“Then why are you chatting with Roddy so happily?”

“Ah? I heard he has an Internet Company for sales, and we made an appointment to see if it is worth it for me to acquire. You should know that I have too much spare cash and don’t know what to invest. This is not a good year for internet companies. Many of them went bust, and that Roddy’s company is not doing well. Or else, he will also not sell his private art collection.”

Paul Allen’s expression looks like he had just swallowed a dead fly. He had made the wrong assumption. He had not created any problems for Feng Yu but made a fool out of himself instead!

“Why did you make such high bids for those paintings?! You all Chinese should prefer those Chinese paintings or porcelain vase!” Paul Allen questioned.

“Didn’t I say earlier? I am buying those paintings to act cultured. Yes. I want to pretend that I know a lot about Westerners’ art. The paintings I bid are all famous painters’ works. What’s wrong? Aren’t you the same?” Feng Yu looks at Paul Allen innocently.

The corner of Paul Allen’s lips twitched. This Feng Yu is only trying to pretend he knows a lot about oil paintings?

You are willing to spend so much money just for showing off?! Then why didn’t you bid for that Picasso’s painting?!

Paul Allen took a few deep breaths and stormed out of the auction hall.

Paul Allen swore that he will never buy another oil painting in his life!

Chapter 1129 – The marriage of Pierrette

The art pieces’ transaction prices in this auction are ridiculously high, and it was reported on the news. The two paintings won by Feng Yu was briefly mentioned at the end of the report, and Paul Allen hogged the headlines. He had bought a painting for 80 million USD! Of course, the report also mentioned that he had spent more than 200 million USD at the auction. This made many people unhappy and called him an art flipping speculator.

Some artists criticize Paul Allen for bringing shame to art, and none of them mentioned anything about Feng Yu.

While Paul Allen is in a bad mood, Feng Yu’s mood suddenly changed for the better. This is because he had received a piece of good news.

“Kameda, are you sure you can buy that painting?”

“Yes, and the price will not be more than 70 million USD. I might even get it for less than 50 million USD. More importantly, this painting is what you want, right?” Kameda Masao replied.

Feng Yu patted Kameda Masao’s shoulder. “Hahaha… Well done! Oh, do you like these oil paintings? If you like, you can pick one of these two. I will give it to you!”

Kameda Masao’s eyes opened wide. Feng Yu had bought these paintings for 70 million USD each. 70 million is the third-highest transaction for an art piece in the last ten years. It is also one of the top ten transactions in modern art history, and Feng Yu is giving him one of these paintings!

“Boss, the painting is too valuable. I cannot accept it.” Kameda Masao was surprised.

“You had worked so hard, and you deserved it. Just pick one of it.”

Kameda Masao is very important to Feng Yu, and giving him some perks occasionally will make him work harder. Kameda Masao is a talent and had helped Feng Yu a lot. The amount of profits Kameda Masao earned for Feng Yu is more than 70 million USD.

“This… thank you, Boss. I will help you get that painting at the lowest price.” Kameda Masao patted his chest and promised.

After Kameda Masao knows Feng Yu had bought two paintings at the auction, he told Feng Yu that Japan has many Western paintings.

A few years ago, when the art market is not doing well, prices for art pieces had plunged. The market is supposed to recover this year, but the internet bubble burst.

It is only at this auction, where Feng Yu and Paul Allen made ridiculous bids. Otherwise, this auction’s transactions will not be so high.

Feng Yu asked Kameda Masao about the paintings in Japan. Kameda Masao told Feng Yu that during the end of the 1980s, many Japanese businessmen started collecting art pieces. That’s why many famous art pieces from the West and East fell into their hands. During that period, Japan is very rich.

After that, Japan’s economy collapsed, and many of these art pieces fell into bankers’ hands. Those paintings were used as loan repayments. But doing this will make the value of these paintings drop further. Even when these paintings were put up for auctions with low bidding prices, no one is interested.

Kameda Masao told Feng Yu that Picasso’s painting, <The marriage of Pierrette>, was transacted for more than 50 million USD in the past, making it one of the most expensive paintings at that time.

But now, this painting is evaluated as not worth more than 20 million USD.

Actually, this painting is not worth so little. Many art collectors are still willing to spend 20 million USD on this painting. The bank is not willing to sell it, as they had bought the painting for over 30 million. Furthermore, this painting is worth more than 50 million USD in those bankers’ hearts and will not sell it at 20 million USD.

Feng Yu heard the name of this painting. <The marriage of Pierrette> This is the perfect gift for Kirilenko’s wedding. It is painted by one of the most famous painters, Picasso! He must get it!

Kameda Masao returned to Japan and got his men to negotiate about the purchase of this painting.

Kameda Masao thought this painting remained unsold in Japan, and the price had dropped. Even if those bankers valued this painting highly, it would not be more than 50 million USD.

But the bankers demanded 60 million USD!

A few years ago, no one was interested in this painting even when the price was 40 million USD.

Why are those bankers demanding such high prices?! This is because of the recent art auction in New York! The market for art pieces had recovered!

Kameda Masao felt helpless. He knew why the transactions at that auction had broken records. It was his Boss who made high bids to buy a wedding gift for Mr. Kirilenko.

This is shooting himself in his foot. Feng Yu had pushed up the prices of artworks, and this painting was revalued.

Kameda Masao tried his best to lower the prices, but those bankers refused. This painter’s original owner is Nippon Tri-Trust and switched owners twice before falling into those bankers’ hands.

The recent financial crisis had caused most of the internet companies’ share prices to fall. The bankers had suffered massive losses, and they want to use this painting to recoup some losses.

After waiting for two days, Feng Yu grew impatient and called Kameda Masao to ask about the painting.

“Boss, there are some problems.”

“What? Did they refuse to sell?” Feng Yu grew anxious. How can they refuse to sell this painting?! He is determined to buy it.

“It’s not they are refusing to sell it. They are demanding a high price as they said the recent Sotheby’s auction is proof that oil paintings’ value is going to rise.” Kameda Masao explained.

“How high is their asking price? Is it more than 100 million USD?”

“Huh?! It’s not that high. They ask for 60 million USD, but I managed to lower it to 55 million USD now. Give me some time, and I will surely suppress it lower.”

“It’s fine. Just buy it now.” Feng Yu replied. He doesn’t mind paying a few million more, as this is a gift for Kirilenko. Most importantly, it must be unique.

“Boss, are you only going to give Mr. Kirilenko one painting?”

“That’s right. Why are you asking?”

“Then can I propose another solution? Use the painting you had bought to exchange for <The marriage of Pierrette> and ask them to add in a couple more art pieces. I saw one Chinese antique vase among their collection.”

A Chinese antique vase? Feng Yu is interested in getting that too.

“Alright. You will make the decision. If necessary, you can add in some cash as well. You had made a wonderful suggestion.”

Les Noces de Pierrette

Chapter 1130 – National Treasure?

“Uncle Zhang, are you retiring soon?” Feng Yu met Zhang Han’s father again and noticed he looks much older.

“I will be retiring next year. But it is not considered a full retirement, as I still need to guide the young ones. Why have you come to visit me today? Did anything happen?”

“Uncle Zhang, I had bought a few pieces of antiques from Japan a few days ago. All of them are our China antiques. I felt it’s not right for me to hold on to them, and I want to donate it to the Museum.”

“Hahaha… good. Many people who had bought national treasures will keep them at home. Very few people will donate them to the Museum like you. Oh, what antiques have you bought?”

Feng Yu passed a small booklet to Zhang Han’s father. There are seven antiques, which include paintings, porcelain items, and bronze artifacts.

Paintings and porcelain items are common and very popular among collectors internationally. But bronze artifact is rare.

Zhang Han’s father did not know a lot about antiques and nodded after flipping through the booklet. “Alright. I will help you contact the Museum. Are you donating them with your name, or under your company?”

“Use my company, Tai Hua Holdings.”

Feng Yu has no intention to keep these antiques for himself, as he heard it’s hard to maintain them. Furthermore, he also does not know how to appreciate them.

These antiques should be displayed in the Museum. Feng Yu can see it whenever he wants and help his company gain publicity. Everyone in China will know that Tai Hua Holdings is a patriotic company.

Being patriotic can lower people’s resentment of the rich mentality and establish good relationships with the higher-ups.

……

“Ah… I have always heard of your name, and I finally get to meet you today.” Deputy Museum Director Liu greeted warmly.

Feng Yu thought to himself. Why do you want to meet me? You must have heard I had been donating money and items and wants my donation.

“Deputy Director Liu, nice to meet you.”

After exchanging some pleasantries, they sat on the sofa, and Feng Yu passed a picture booklet to Deputy Director Liu.

Deputy Director Liu smiles as he flipped open the booklet, and his face changed. “Ah…. National treasure! This is a national treasure!”

Feng Yu was shocked by Deputy Director Liu’s shouting. National Treasure? It cannot be. Feng Yu had asked people about these antiques. These antiques are valuable, but they should not be considered a national treasure. Is Deputy Director Liu referring to that bronze artifact? But that is a bronze artifact from the Song Dynasty.

Song Dynasty’s bronze artifacts are not very valuable.

“Manager Feng, this painting, porcelain and bronze artifact, are all National Treasures. We don’t have them in our Museum.” Deputy Director Liu exclaimed.

These antiques are only worth a few million USD. How can the Museum don’t have such pieces? Is Deputy Director Liu joking?

Feng Yu would look at Zhang Han’s father and wonder if this Deputy Director Liu had gone mad.

Zhang Han’s father said. “Oh, I might have forgotten to tell you that Deputy Director Liu is from Poly Art Museum. Our country’s state-owned enterprise set up Poly Art Museum to preserve and recover lost National Treasures from overseas.

Huh? This is the Poly Art Museum?! When has it started?

Feng Yu had heard of this Museum in his previous life because of the Bronze Zodiac Heads from the Old Summer Palace, Yuanmingyuan. But he heard this Museum is mainly collecting stone carving and bronze artifacts.

Donating the bronze artifact to this Museum is fine, but paintings and porcelain items are not suitable for this Museum.

Deputy Director Liu added. “Although we are a State-owned enterprise’s Museum, we are not different from the National Museums. We had bought lots of lost antiques from overseas, and the most famous artifacts are the Yuanmingyuan’s Ox, Monkey, and Tiger Bronze Zodiac Heads.”

Feng Yu is speechless. Can those bronze animal heads be considered antiques?

Those zodiac heads are not from too long again, and it’s part of the building. How can it be considered antiques?

Feng Yu always felt Poly Art Museum had fallen into a trap by bidding for these bronze heads. It’s the auction house that purposely exaggerated these items’ value and increased the public’s attention.

Isn’t this considered being scammed by others?

If Poly Art Museum had not participated in that auction, the prices of those Zodiac Heads would not exceed more than 500,000 USD. They can contact the buyers after the auction to buy them. Why must the Museum compete with others at the Auction?

Feng Yu even suspected those foreigners that bid for the Zodiac Heads at the auction were arranged by the Auction house to push up the prices.

The auction house and the seller will try their best to increase the antiques’ value by claiming the item to have historical value, cultural value, etc. If not, how can an item be worth 1,000 USD fifteen years ago, appreciate in value to 20,000 USD, and become more than a million USD this year?

Feng Yu remembered in his previous life, the value of these Zodiac Heads will increase to over 10 million USD in a few more years. It’s crazy.

The more people liking an antique or a cultural relic, the value will increase further. Those businessmen pushed the value of the items to the national level. China’s reputation is at stake, and they must get the artifact back, or the price will be more ridiculous.

Before the sellers marketed those Zodiac Heads, who knows about them? Cultural relics? It’s just a bronze statue that can spout water from its mouth. How did it become a national treasure suddenly?

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many people are laughing at Chinese online for buying those Zodiac Heads. Those are just broken off pieces from a building, and it’s not worth that price.

These Zodiac Heads can be easily replicated and are not like oil paintings or literature items that cannot be imitated. There is no historical value in these items as they are only slightly more than 100 years old.

These bronze heads are just like the stone lions outside Chinese homes in ancient times to Feng Yu. It doesn’t have any cultural value. But to the Chinese, those heads represented the humiliating era of China. China is stronger now, and they must recover their wounded pride.

But Feng Yu felt this is meaningless. The US does not have a long history, but which nation dares to go against them?

Increasing the country’s national capabilities should be the right move. When China is strong enough to not let others belittle, all these artifacts will be returned to China.

Feng Yu ignored the excited Deputy Director Liu and left after making the arrangement.

When can China be strong enough to be standing on top of the world?

China must be economically strong. With money, the government can build a strong army, and when the military is the strongest in the world, then China can stand on the top of the world.

Feng Yu cannot do anything about this, but he can help China becomes economically stronger!

Chapter 1131 – Master Lu returns to Beijing

“Hahaha… Master Lu, it’s been a long time since we met. You look like you had been living well.” Feng Yu gave Master Lu a hug. They had not met for a while.

“I am finally transferred back. It was not easy. I thought my job at the grassroots level will be easy, but… Without your help, it’s almost impossible to get any results.” Master Lu sighed.

Master Lu had assistance from Feng Yu and his family, letting him move up the ranks slow and steadily. His family helped to arrange for his transfer back to Beijing’s Party School. After he graduates, he will be promoted to the Bureau Director level.

It’s very rare for someone in their thirties to be promoted to Bureau Director Level. Master Lu will have opportunities to move up further. Most importantly, he will be the leader of his generation in his family. All eyes are on him.

Feng Yu laughed. “You had helped me a lot too. We are just helping each other out.”

“Yes… Oh, something happened to Meng Zhi’s family. Do you know about that? Luckily, I had stopped contacting him and did not get into trouble. Thanks for your advice in the past.” Master Lu sighed.

Feng Yu waved his hand. “Master Lu, stop talking about this. I am only a businessman.” Feng Yu knew that moron and his family will get into trouble a long time ago.

“Hahaha… you sound like some small-time businessman. You are the top businessman in China and the whole world. You can even meet the Kings of small countries easily if you want.” Master Lu laughed.

Master Lu will not treat Feng Yu like an ordinary businessman. Which businessman is as influential as Feng Yu? Furthermore, they knew each other for some time, and he knew if he wants to move up the ranks, he needs Feng Yu’s help.

Master Lu dares not to make Feng Yu his subordinate, but they can be friends. He needs to sincerely treat Feng Yu, and based on his understanding of Feng Yu’s character, he knew Feng Yu would return the favor.

Businessmen at Feng Yu’s level is very influential. If it is not because of Feng Yu’s age, his status will be the same as Superman Li.

“Master Lu, stop poking fun at me. So, have you decided which department you will be going in the future?”

These people from political families will be transferred from the Central Government and to the grassroots level frequently. Master Lu had just returned from the grassroots level. He should be transferred to some government agency as one of the committee members. Feng Yu wonders which department Master Lu will be transferred to.

When mentioned this, Master Lu is troubled. “My family offered me two choices. Enter a government ministry, or work in a State-owned enterprise. Working in a ministry is stable, and it’s hard for me to make any mistakes. But it is also hard to achieve outstanding results. Working at a state-owned enterprise can show results easily, but any mistakes might delay my promotion by a term. Personally, I would prefer to go to the State-owned enterprise, as it’s hard to work in the Ministry.”

Master Lu is worried. Suppose his promotion is delayed by a term, which is five years. In that case, he might lose the opportunity to move up to the future’s top position. That’s why he asked Feng Yu out today. He wants to hear Feng Yu’s opinions.

Although Feng Yu is not in the government, onlookers will have a calmer and more objective view of what is going on.

“What choices do you have if you are going to work in a State-owned enterprise?” Feng Yu asked.

“I have three choices. The first is to go to a newly set up State-owned enterprise, China Mobile. This company had just separated from China Telecommunications Corporation. Because China is negotiating to join WTO, they cannot have a telecommunications monopoly.”

“The second option is to join China Petroleum. Two years ago, China Hua Xia Petroleum Natural Gas Group and China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation underwent restructuring and exchanged some of their businesses. They separated their businesses by north and south regions.

“My last choice is China Railway Engineering Corporation Headquarters. They will be separated from the Ministry of Railways soon and will be operating independently.”

Feng Yu’s jaws dropped. Damn! These three enterprises might not be powerful now, but they will become giants in their respective industries.

These three companies will become one of the World’s Top 500 companies.

Everyone will break their necks to get into one of these companies, but Master Lu has the option of pick any one of them.

Having a strong family background is different!

“Master Lu, any of these three companies will yield fantastic results. The first is telecommunications, which is a core sector supported by the government. The second is the energy sector, which is also one of our country’s foundation. The last option is the infrastructure and transportation sector. This is also a sector with high potential. If I have to pick, I will not choose China Petroleum, as it had been set up for some time. All the good positions had been taken up. All you can do is routine work, which is similar to working in the government ministry.”

“The telecommunication sector, especially the mobile signal, will develop very fast. Mobile phones will be the main form of telecommunication in the future, and you can achieve results fast. More importantly, my company is also in this sector and can offer some help to you. The people in this company are those who are disliked and kicked out by their former leaders. However, you can use this opportunity to pull them over to your side.”

“China Railway Engineering Corporation… other than infrastructure is the core foundation of our country, just the investment in the traffic network by the government is an astronomical amount. Although it had been separated from the Ministry, there will not be any problems with their operations. But the cons of this company are its internal is already united. If you enter, you might not get any outstanding results.”

Feng Yu had hinted where Master Lu should go. If Master Lu can control China Mobile, then Aiwa mobile phones and Wind and Rain mobile phones will own the market share’s top two spots.

Although the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s leader is helping Feng Yu, it is still lacking compared to someone from China Mobile helping him.

China Mobile branches are the best location to sell mobile phones. Feng Yu and Master Lu can cooperate by buying an Aiwa mobile phone and getting a SIM card discount. The fees for SIM cards are very expensive now.

Also, there are no international auto roaming services. If you want this service, you must submit applications, and it is very troublesome. That’s why Feng Yu owns several phones with different numbers.

Feng Yu can at least introduce China Mobile to the US and East European Countries to sign agreements on auto roaming services.

In the next few years, it will be the boom of China’s mobile phone users, and China Mobile will become the market leader of mobile services in China.

If Master Lu enters China Mobile now, he can easily get outstanding results within the next five years. He can easily move up the ranks.

At that time, Master Lu can choose to continue in China Mobile or switch to any ministries, as he had gotten his promotion.

Feng Yu’s hint is very obvious, and Master Lu got it.

“Brother Feng, I will discuss it with my family. If possible, I will join China Mobile. Hope you can lend me a hand in the future.”

Feng Yu laughed. “Of course.”

Chapter 1132 – Mobile Phone’s new feature

Wind and Rain Mobile had launched a new product and started a new marketing campaign. This new product is revolutionary and will lead to the development of mobile phones.

Many mobile phone manufacturers sneered. You are just boasting. Who are you to claim to be leading the industry’s development?

But the manufacturers still sent their representatives to attend the product launch. Wind and Rain mobile phones had been developing rapidly and are considered a formidable competitor to them.

Wind and Rain mobile phones had started the latest among the big mobile phone brands but developed the fastest. This is mainly because Wind and Rain kept introducing new features on their phone. All the new features are surprising to the consumers. As such, their market share kept increasing.

Wind and Rain Mobile had shown their innovation by launching the dual-screen phones first, followed by sliding phones, rotating phones, palm-sized phones, etc.

After that, mobile phone screens become bigger, and the pixels kept increasing. The earliest is a black and white screen, followed by single-colored screens and then 256 colored screens.

Wind and Rain Mobile is also the most advance on their mobile phone’s internal capabilities. The earliest phone comes with simple games like Snake and Tetris. Now, the games had upgraded to more complicated games like racing games and Sokoban. These games are not hard to develop, but they are fun.

Now, Wind and Rain Mobile had incorporated mobile phones with digital cameras. They had invented the first camera phone, and the user can still zoom in or zoom out on the pictures. But this combination taught other mobile phone manufacturers that mobile phones can be developed in this direction.

So, all mobile phone manufacturers started to use digital camera technologies on their phones. Those top mobile phone manufacturers quickly introduced their brand of camera phones. Still, the title of the World’s first camera phone is also owned by Wind and Rain. The rest are all imitators.

What’s most frustrating for other phone manufacturers is Wind and Rain Mobile Phone’s advertising slogan. Often imitated, but NEVER exceeded!

Even if your Wind and Rain mobile phones are good, you are only in the third position when it comes to global sales. Motorola and Nokia are still above you.

Even Sony and Ericsson are close behind you. Where did you get the courage to use this slogan?

But this slogan had captured consumers’ attention because many people noticed Wind and Rain Mobile phones are setting the trend for the industry. Most of the new features and designs are started by Wind and Rain Mobile phones and then copied by other brands.

On the internet, someone started a poll on the favorite brand of mobile phones. Wind and Rain Mobile Phone comes out top, winning over Nokia and Motorola!

This time, Wind and Rain Mobile is launching a new phone. This product launch is very grand, and it means Wind and Rain Mobile might have to make a significant technology breakthrough.

Or else, Wind and Rain Mobile, which had been introducing new phones quarterly, will not call for a product launch event.

This product launch is different from other product launches by other manufacturers in China. Even the reporters from CCTV had come to cover this product launch. No other mobile phone companies in China had this treatment.

This is because Wind and Rain Mobile is the most powerful mobile phone brand in China, and Feng Yu is close to CCTV.

Furthermore, since CCTV allowed businesses to advertise, Feng Yu had been the biggest spender on advertisement slots. Although the highest bidder had been other brands each year, the total spending is always Feng Yu, as Feng Yu owns too many businesses.

Now, CCTV’s advertising slots are all bought under Tai Hua Holdings and then issue to its subsidiaries. This is to prevent the subsidiaries from competing and pushing up the advertising fees.

CCTV is not happy about this but did not say anything as most of their programs are sponsored by Tai Hua Holdings.

……

“Welcome to our Wind and Rain Mobile product launch. This phone had used the latest technology from Wind and Rain Electronics, Philips Group, and Aiwa Electronics. The specification of this phone had exceeded all other phones in the market, and the exterior design is still the best…”

The other manufacturers could not help but grumble in their hearts. Your phones are the best in all aspects?! Who says your phone designs are always the best?!

Although many people are unhappy, some representatives did not mind. They are here to learn. As long as they can keep up with the trend and exceed Wind and Rain Mobile in some areas, they can still outshine many other brands.

For example, Wind and Rain Mobile phones have a weakness. Their phones cannot reach the three important standards. Water-resistant, anti-shock, and anti-dust.

When other phone manufacturers were focusing on these three aspects, Wind and Rain Mobile totally ignore it. Wind and Rain Mobile phone’s anti-dust is still fine but does not have any water-resistant or anti-shock.

However, these weaknesses have no impact on Wind and Rain Mobile phones. Their sales continued to increase and are catching up with Nokia and Motorola.

“Please look at the screen. This phone’s screen uses the 65k color screen, and the phone’s camera was upgraded to 350,000 pixels and double optical zoom. These pictures are taken with this phone.:

The big screen on the stage showed the pictures taken at the venue with the phone. Its clarity and vibrant colors made the audience gasped.

Phone cameras are already so advanced to take such pictures!?

“All of you should know that Aiwa Electronics owns many MP3 patented technologies and is the most advanced in the world. I want to share this piece of good news with everyone here. This model includes MP3 player technology!”

Wow!!!!

The audience starts to discuss among themselves. This phone is also an MP3 player?! But how many songs can this tiny phone store? A few songs will exceed the internal storage.

“Everyone must be thinking this feature is useless because the phone cannot store many songs. But I want to tell you that this phone comes with the latest generation of Mini data card reader, TF cards. This is the TF card I am talking about. The size is about my fingernails, and this card will increase the phone’s storage. Currently, this card’s storage size is 128 MB and is enough to store more than 20 songs. Also, the development of higher storage TF cards is ongoing. In the future, everyone can buy the latest TF cards for this phone to increase the storage capacity…”

The representative from Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, etc. were stunned. They had just developed SD cards last year and are mainly used on digital cameras. They are still thinking of using this technology on mobile phones. Still, Wind and Rain Mobile had introduced a smaller data storage card with the same storage as SD cards. Are their SD cards going to be obsolete?

No! This must be reported to the head office. Their SD cards’ storage research must be expedited, or SD cards will be replaced by TF cards!

Chapter 1133 – They are not our match even if they join forces

The person on the stage continued to introduce the features of this new phone. For example, battery storage increased again, and users can listen to their songs without worries. The phone also has an earphone jack, and the music quality is better when used with earphones.

This is saying the speakers of this phone are not good. Still, the earphone jack uses Aiwa’s latest technology, and the music will sound better with earphones.

The battery in this phone is also using the latest technology from Tai Hua Battery. Currently, this phone’s battery is the best in the world.

Also, with a TF card, this phone can store more phone numbers and messages. Most phones’ internal storage is small and is insufficient. But now, users can move the numbers and messages to the external TF card.

The TF card is more shocking to the manufacturers than the MP3 function and colored screen upgrades.

This is setting the standard. All phones in the future must have external storage card readers. The manufacturers can catch up with other technologies. Still, the patent for this TF card reader must be owned by Wind and Rain Mobile. If the manufacturers had to work around the patent and developed their own, they must invest in high development funds. Even so, they might also not succeed.

After all, Wind and Rain Mobile’s development team is also developing newer technologies when other manufacturers are working on their own external storage cards. Wind and Rain Mobile had walked this path earlier than the rest and have advantages over them.

There are many uses for the flash drive, and Feng Yu instructed his development team to focus on three areas. MP3, USB drive, and TF cards. Although there are more uses, Feng Yu felt these three areas are enough. USB drive technologies will be developed into the portable hard disk, and Feng Yu does not know what comes after that.

Feng Yu can only remember these things. MP3 storage is similar to a USB drive, and the idea of a portable hard disk comes from this.

Since flash drive can develop a product like MP3, why can’t it be used on the more complicated PC storage?

MP3 will become MP4 in the future, and Feng Yu does not want to develop MP5. At that time, he will concentrate on making Tablets.

Feng Yu is pleased to see the shocked expressions on the audience’s faces. He must admit this development team is terrific. He had only told them what he wanted, provided them with funds, and developed the product.

Last year, when Sony introduced their SD cards, Feng Yu was not worried. This because when the TF card is launched, they had also introduced an SD card adapter. Inserting the TF card into the adapter, it can be used on SD card slots.

TF cards can be used on those products with SD card slots. This will make TF cards more versatile.

TF cards can replace SD cards, but SD cards cannot replace TF cards. TF card is much smaller but has the same storage like SD cards. Everyone will know which is the better product at first glance!

SD card is a joint development product by several companies, Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, and Sandisk. They thought they could maintain their lead with this little storage card.

But after seeing the tiny TF card on Wind and Rain Mobile’s product launch, they lost confidence.

Those four companies are the big players in the electronics industry, but they were defeated.

They had started developing flash drive technologies much earlier and thought they can be leading the world. But they were shocked by the appearances of MP3 and USB drive.

A Chinese company had developed this product earlier than them, and this product is selling well. Just the patent authorization fees had let this company make tons of money.

The representatives from these four companies were even more shocked by this tiny TF card.

When the person on the stage is still introducing the phone, the representatives from these companies had already informed their headquarters about this information.

The earlier the company knows about this, the earlier they can make preparations. If the companies were to continue their research on SD cards, they would lose out to Wind and Rain’s TF cards.

That night, the representatives, who had bought Wind and Rain Mobile’s latest phone, flew back immediately. They need to bring the phone back for research.

The phone manufacturers can also include those new features into their phones like Wind and Rain Mobile. They can find alternative technologies to replace those patented technologies as no technologies are irreplaceable.

When Aiwa introduced their Flash Drive MP3 player, those companies started to work their way around the registered patents. They developed hard disk MP3 players that have higher storage.

But these MP3 players have a weakness. It is like a CD player, and it is not convenient for consumers to bring them out.

Those companies though consumers, can accept portable CD players’ sizes and accept their MP3 player. This player’s storage is several times higher than Aiwa’s MP3 player.

If this player cannot fit into your pocket, you can keep it in your bag or even use it at home as a home music player.

That night, when Feng Yu and his men were celebrating this product launch’s success, the mobile phone manufacturers around the world had received news of this mobile phone revolution. At least, the storage aspect is revolutionary.

Some manufacturers immediately give up the idea of developing their own technology and contact Wind and Rain Electronics to purchase the authorization rights to this technology. But Wind and Rain Mobile rejected them.

Since TF cards are produced by several brands, including Wind and Rain, Aiwa, AIWA, Philips, and Lenovo, they don’t need any more competitors.

But Wind and Rain Mobile still released the standards for TF card slots for other phone manufacturers to produce phones with TF card slots. But the manufacturers must use the Wind and Rain brand of TF cards. Wind and Rain Mobile will wait until their technology is at least one year ahead of other manufacturers before giving out the authorization rights.

Tai Hua Holdings had discussed it with Philips on the market. Western Europe, including Africa, will belong to Philips, while Eastern Europe, China, and the American markets will be Feng Yu. As for Japan and other Southeast Asia, they will be using the Aiwa brand.

Sony and the other companies looked into Wind and Rain’s TF cards. They knew they cannot make any breakthrough in this technology within a short period. They will need at least a year before they can produce their own TF cards. Luckily for them, they still have SD cards.

But these companies soon realized the TF cards sold in the market come in a set. It includes a USB card reader and an SD card adapter!

The few companies were furious! This is too much!

You all had already eaten half the pie, and you all are trying to take away our pathetic slice of the pie?!

Hmph! We don’t believe we will still lose after we combine forces. It’s just a TF card. We will put in more resources on developing this TF card!

We will not let you have the whole pie!

Chapter 1134 – Apple had launched its MP3 players

When Tai Hua holdings are still celebrating, Kameda Masao and Heitaro Nakajima discuss their new competitor strategies.

Apple had entered the portable music player industry and had just launched its music player, iPod, today.

This music player is using a new music format. It is not using the traditional MP3 format for songs and can convert CD to this format.

Apple had not developed this technology. Two software engineers developed this technology but were acquired by Apple and use it on their PCs.

Heitaro Nakajima and the rest were not concerned about them initially, as this new music format is nothing special. This format is not different from other audio formats. All companies are working towards improving their audio format technologies to minimize the storage space.

But Heitaro Nakajima did not expect Apple to produce a new music player, which is beautifully designed.

Also, the Apple brand is one of the big players in the electronics sector. Although they are not specialized in music players, they similar to Sony, where they have lots of loyal fans.

What was more surprising is this Apple iPod’s internal storage is 5gb, much higher than Aiwa’s player. Even the LCD screen is bigger than Aiwa’s products.

Heitaro Nakajima and Kameda Masao realized that hard disk MP3 players had developed very fast. The products they saw last year were bigger than their palm, but now, it is only half their palms’ size.

Apple iPod is definitely considered a portable music player.

The selling point of the iPod is the higher internal storage. Their new website, iTunes, had received the Recording Industry Association of America’s support, and their songs are priced lower than Aiwa’s.

Heitaro Nakajima cursed those Americans. This is a form of protectionism! We are also a downloading website that offers licensed songs for downloads. But you all sued us, and now, you all go and support Apple’s website. Anyone can tell this is discriminating against us.

The price of an MP3 song download on Aiwa’s English website is 0.99 USD. This price is slightly lower than an actual CD selling at around 20 USD.

But Apple is offering 0.79 USD per download on their website. Are they not trying to make money? The average price of a download is less than 0.50 USD for their unlimited monthly download. They must pay the recording label more than 0.30 USD per download.

Also, what about the cost of running the website? It is not a small amount.

Aiwa’s website barely makes any profits, and how can Apple make any profits through this pricing? Can they accept the losses?! Impossible!

The only explanation is those record labels had sold the copyrights to Apple at lower rates!

“Hmph! We must sue those recording labels. How can they charge us higher rates?!” Heitaro Nakajima shouted angrily.

Kameda Masao is also feeling frustrated but still persuaded Heitaro Nakajima. “Sue?! How are we going to sue? It’s their choice to sell the copyrights at this price, and no matter how much they sell, they are still making money. This is not against the law as long as they are not selling below their cost. When we signed a contract with them, we had not thought about this. Apple’s music format is just a form of MP3, but with a different name. We cannot use the law to restrict them.”

When Aiwa signed the contract with those recording labels, one of the conditions is the recording label cannot sell their MP3 songs’ copyrights to other companies at lower prices.

But Apple’s music format is not called MP3, and Aiwa cannot do anything to them!

“Find out iPod’s weakness, and we will use this weakness as our main marketing campaign against them. I don’t believe that their product is as good as ours when they entered the music player industry. Even Sony’s products are not as good as us!” Heitaro Nakajima said.

Apple had never produced any portable music players, and their expertise is not in this field. This is their first portable music player, and they can’t overtake Aiwa.

For example, the background noise, battery life, internal storage, etc. will surely have a weakness.

Aiwa’s branch office in the US quickly sent over the report on iPod. Heitaro Nakajima read it and was relieved.

Although iPod’s internal storage is 5gb, the static noise is louder than Aiwa’s MP3 players. That means the audio quality is very lousy.

Apple’s earphones’ technology is also not as good as Aiwa, and Aiwa can focus on their marketing’s music quality. During the Walkman era, Aiwa’s Walkman had won against Sony with its better sound quality for its customers.

Apple’s iPod is using the hard disk as its internal storage and has a bigger screen. As such, the battery can only last 5 hours, while Aiwa’s MP3 player can last more than 8 hours.

Aiwa is also developing the current internal battery technology, and a full charge battery can last more than 10 hours!

Another important point to note is this iPod is not compatible with the Windows operating system. This means lots of PC users cannot use it. After all, there are more Windows users than iMac users.

Aiwa’s engineers also found out that the iPod is missing a very popular feature among consumers, shuffle playback.

Apple iPod can only play the songs according to the playlist, and many users will get bored very fast.

After Feng Yu received the report, he called Heitaro Nakajima.

“Boss, don’t worry. Aiwa will suppress the iPod, and our sales will surely exceed them.” Heitaro Nakajima said.

Feng Yu laughed. “Actually, you all don’t need to worry about the iPod. Although the iPod has some advantages over us, these advantages are nothing compared to their weakness. Rest assured. We will just continue as planned. Their selling price is 100 USD more than us. This will limit its sales.”

iPod’s retail price is set at 299 USD, while Aiwa’s MP3 latest model is only selling 199 USD. But the pricing is not Aiwa’s biggest advantage. Aiwa’s biggest advantage is using the traditional MP3 format.

Although Aiwa had provided a website to download original songs and encouraged their users to download from legal sources, many websites provided illegal downloads. These websites had cracked Aiwa’s technology protection measures on the MP3.

Many consumers bought MP3 players is because they can download free MP3 songs. This is Aiwa’s biggest advantage.

Chapter 1135 – Conquest of the Three Formats

Feng Yu thought he has only one competitor, Apple, who is no match for him. But soon, another formidable competitor, a joint venture by two companies, appeared.

Samsun and Microsoft had cooperated to develop a WMA format music player. The strength of this music player is its WMA format.

WMA format’s songs take up very little storage space, and a song’s size is only half of the MP3 format. The quality of the songs is also not bad.

A music player can store more songs in WMA format compared to MP3.

Samsung’s music player, YP, has the features of the MP3 and iPod. The battery life is long and can store more songs.

Also, the LCD display of this YP player is bigger, like the iPod, and the buttons are all on the right. Users can operate it with their right thumb, and it is very convenient.

Microsoft is also very supportive of this format. They include the WMP player in their Windows operating system, making it popular.

WMA format is getting popular, and many people felt WMA will replace MP3 very soon.

When this YP music player was launched, Microsoft’s CEO was also present. This is very rare.

Aiwa was also invited to the product launch. Heitaro Nakajima is looking terrible because of this new competitor’s appearance.

Compared to Aiwa’s competitors, Aiwa’s website technology is the worst. Apple’s download site is much nicer and better than them.

Microsoft and Samsung’s music download sites are also simpler and more well-designed than Aiwa’s website.

However, Kameda Masao told Heitaro Nakajima not to worry. Their website will be revamped, and a new search engine will be added to the site.

Kameda Masao had contacted Google to design a search engine for Aiwa’s music download website after consulting Feng Yu. The users can search songs using the song’s title, singers’ name, album’s name, sort the songs by genre, and even lyrics.

Users don’t even need to know the title of the songs or the name of the singer. All they need is just some of the song’s lyrics, and they can find the song they are looking for.

This feature will increase the site’s visitors and downloads and win against the other two formats’ music download sites.

Luckily, the MP3 format is still the most common format used by the users. Apple and Microsoft’s formats’ users are still lesser than MP3. But these two companies are influential and pose a great threat to MP3.

Heitaro Nakajima is very anxious, but Feng Yu is very calm.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, these three formats had gone against each other, but WMA did not succeed in replacing MP3.

Instead, it is Apple that continued to use its format in their products.

Aiwa is still the strongest compared to the other two companies when it comes to the music player industry.

Apple and Microsoft can compete with Aiwa if they work together, but is that possible? Apple’s Steve Jobs’ pride is greater than Bill Gates, and he prides himself as someone who will change the world.

Microsoft will also not bow down to Apple. Two years ago, if Microsoft had not helped Apple by investing 100 million USD and went into some cooperation with them, Apple might have gone bust.

That’s why both companies will not work together when it comes to audio format. Both companies could not win against Aiwa if they were to go solo. Aiwa still supports lots of other music player manufacturers, and MP3 still maintains the lead.

MP4 will be launched when more music formats appear in the market. At that time, everyone will switch their focus to developing video players, and music format development will slow down.

Also, at that time, music players can play different formats, and the battle of the formats will end.

Feng Yu is very confident that MP3 players will maintain the lead despite another major competitor’s appearance.

But Feng Yu is still surprised by the Samsung YP music player’s exterior design. Even when he knows the future, but he cannot use all the designs he knows on his products.

Feng Yu must introduce a new MP3 player model every three weeks like Nokia mobile phones if he wants to use all the designs he knows from his previous life. But if he does this, there will be a major flaw. Aiwa cannot focus their marketing on a single product.

Aiwa is the top brand of music player globally, and their marketing is always focused on their products and not their brand.

Since there is a new competitor, Aiwa has to add some innovations to their products.

…….

“Boss, you are saying that our MP3 players can support external storage?” Heitaro Nakajima was surprised. External storage means the player can insert the TF cards!

“That’s right. It will be similar to mobile phones. There will be a card slot, and users can insert a TF card. This way, the player’s storage will be increase and extend the lifespan of the product.”

“Boss, the TF card has only 128MB of storage, and the 256MB is still in the testing phase. Our MP3 player’s 1GB internal storage is ready, and the 2GB model is already in the testing stage. This external storage cannot increase the storage by a lot.”

Heitaro Nakajima thought nothing about this. 256MB increase from 2GB is nothing. What’s the point of that? If the storage is 256MB and can be increased by 2 GB through TF cards, it will be very popular.

If Feng Yu does not know how fast the TF card’s development is, he will think like Heitaro Nakajima. But TF card will soon exceed the USB drive’s storage. In the future, many MP3 players will have 2GB internal storage and can be expanded with a 4GB or 8 GB TF card.

Feng Yu did not say anything, and Kameda Masao started lecturing Heitaro Nakajima. “Just follow what Boss says. He doesn’t need your suggestions!”

Heitaro Nakajima looked at Kameda Masao angrily. Aiwa was much bigger than Kameda Masao’s company in the past. Still, now, Kameda Masao had become his superior and can even lecture him!

However, Heitaro Nakajima must admit that Kameda Masao is young and capable. If Heitaro Nakajima is in Feng Yu’s position, he will also choose to groom Kameda Masao instead.

Feng Yu had only passed this instruction through phone and did not fly to Tokyo. He needs to go to Moscow to attend Kirilenko’s wedding.

Chapter 1136 – Isn’t this Little Med?

Feng Yu and his friends had all come to Moscow to attend Kirilenko’s wedding. Fu Guangzheng, Fu Guangwei, Li Zekai, and even Macao’s King of Gambling’s youngest son had come. Zhong Qingxian, Liu Chuanzhi, Kameda Masao, etc., had all arrived.

Most of this wedding’s guests are top tycoons and wealthy second-generation, and many of the guests are from Eastern Europe. Luckily, Kirilenko’s Mansion is huge and can host so many people.

Now, Feng Yu finally know why the Mansion needs such a huge bakery and kitchen. It is not easy to host such a grand banquet.

Other than the people from the business world, many political and military leaders came or sent representatives to congratulate Kirilenko.

For example, Russia’s President Putin had sent a representative.

When Feng Yu saw Putin’s representative, he was stunned for a second. Isn’t that Little Med?!

Putin’s representative in Russia’s future President, Dmitry Medvedev. Putin and Dmitry Medvedev were from the same Party and played the game of taking turns to be the President.

“Feng, you must drink more today. The painting you gave me is beautiful. I don’t know about oil paintings, but my wife is very happy to receive it. She asked me to thank you on her behalf.” Kirilenko patted Feng Yu’s shoulder.

Luckily, Kirilenko was still not drunk yet and knows how to control his strength. If not, his bear’s paw might dislocate Feng Yu’s shoulder.

Kirilenko is very impressed with Feng Yu. What Feng Yu told him about Russia’s politics is very useful to his father.

Although Kirilenko’s father is about to retire, he had supported Yeltsin and then Putin. These allowed him to continue to move up the ranks.

If not for Kirilenko’s father’s health, he might carry on working. But luckily, Kirilenko’s elder brother is in the military and will takeover or even exceed their father’s achievement in the future.

Without Feng Yu’s pointers, none of them would have expected someone from the KGB to hold Russia’s top position.

Many people had supported Yeltsin, like Kirilenko’s father. But after that, they supported the wrong person. None of them believe a young man like Putin will become Russia’s most powerful man!

Kirilenko and his father felt Feng Yu must have receive information from the Chinese top government officials. Feng Yu is brilliant when it comes to business, but he was never involved in politics.

Feng Yu smiled and congratulate Kirilenko again before walking around with a plate to look for food.

Compared to the Western buffet-style banquet, Feng Yu still prefers the Chinese banquet-style, where dishes can be stacked up to three layers.

But the buffet style is also not bad. Feng Yu can pick what he likes as the food is constantly changed. But it’s a pity that no specialty dish is served. However, Kirilenko had prepared a wide variety of alcohol. Feng Yu heard there are exactly 100 different types of alcohol served.

“Brother Feng, your gift is too generous. But I heard the paintings you bought from the auction is not this painting. Where are those two paintings?” Fu Guangwei asked.

Fu Guangwei is used to this type of banquets as such banquets were also held in Hong Kong.

“I had used them to exchange for this painting.”

“Hehe… you are a big spender. I heard from Brother Guangzheng that this painting is not worth as much as those two paintings.” Fu Guangwei replied.

“It’s alright. Oh, where is Brother Guangwei?” Feng Yu had spent a few hundred million and doesn’t mind spending more for the perfect gift.

“There… He is dancing with my Sister-in-law.”

The banquet is similar to a ball, and there is a band performing, and guests can dance on the dancefloor.

Fu Guangzheng had won Liang Ying’s heart and brought her along to Moscow to attend Kirilenko’s wedding.

Fu Guangwei had also started to address Liang Ying as Sister-in-law.

“What about you?” Feng Yu joked.

“There is no hurry. I am still young and want to enjoy my life. Eh, Brother Feng, when Kirilenko comes to Hong Kong, I had made arrangements for him. Shouldn’t he arrange something for me in Moscow? I don’t need any woman from aristocratic families. I saw a young woman from a dance troupe that is very pretty. I heard women in Russia can get married when they are 14.” Fu Guangwei laughed.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Why are you asking me about this?

“Go and ask him yourself. I am going over there.”

Fu Guangwei moved on to look for someone else to chat with.

After a while, Kirilenko returned to Feng Yu and offered a toast to him. “Feng, what do you think of today’s wedding?”

“It’s quite successful as I can see everyone is enjoying themselves.”

Kirilenko replied grumpily. “Feng, do you think the President is unhappy with my family? Why did he only send a representative?”

Kirilenko thought that Putin should be attending his wedding or sending a representative with a higher status than his father. But the representative for Putin is only a Deputy Director in Putin’s office.

Feng Yu almost burst out laughing. Although this person is only holding a Deputy Director position, he is the first Deputy Director. He will be Putin’s partner in the future. You and your family must not look down on this person, or else he will give you a hard time in the future.

“Brother Ki, I can tell this person is trusted by Mr. Putin. You should keep a good relationship with him.”

“Really? Does that mean he can move to a higher position?” Kirilenko turned and looked at Dmitry Medvedev.

Feng Yu thought for a while and said. “I remembered your President can nominate the Prime Minister?”

Kirilenko’s eyes opened wide. “Feng, you are saying he will become the Prime Minister?”

Feng Yu smiled and did not say anything else. His expression had given him away.

“Thank you, brother. I know how to treat him now.” Since this person will be Mr. Putin’s successor, then Kirilenko must treat him differently.

Kirilenko walked over with his wine glass and had a toast with Medvedev. Feng Yu continued eating a sausage with his fork.

After seeing Kirilenko’s grand wedding, Feng Yu was envious. He wonders when he can hold such a grand wedding.

Elena does not want anything from Feng Yu, and her only request is for Feng Yu to visit her when he is free. Feng Yu had wanted to bring Elena along, but Elena refused. She knows she will bring trouble to Feng Yu if she goes to the wedding with him.

But Li Na and Zhou Kexin are giving Feng Yu a headache. He still does not know how to handle them.

Dmitry Medvedev

Chapter 1137 – Launch of Gbox

Gbox, a joint venture between Microsoft and Feng Yu, is finally launched into the market. The initial plan is to launch it nearer to the end of the year, around Christmas, but Sony had launched their PS one last month.

This is an upgraded version of Sony’s PS console. It is smaller and about a third of the original PS and can be fitted with an LCD monitor. Also, it can even be fitted in a car by plugging the adaptor in the main socket. Now, users can play games in their cars.

There are rumors that Sony will be introducing a portable power source for PSOne that has about 2 hours of battery life.

Sony had no choice but to release this model. They had invested a lot into MP3 players but failed. Many people considered their MP3 players as defective products and affected Sony’s profits.

With the CD player and Walkman sales on the decline, Sony needs a new product to push up their profits, shareholders’ confidence, and share prices.

Although the share prices will not affect Sony’s operations, it impacts the brand. For example, Sony had relied on their positions in the Fortune 500, World’s top consumer electronics brand, etc., for their marketing. They don’t want their position to drop.

Another reason is Sega Saturn had launched their latest console. Although they don’t have many games, they still managed to get some of the market shares.

Nintendo is also going to launch its 4th generation of console. Gbox does not want to clash with Nintendo and chose to launch during this period.

……

“Ladies and gentlemen. Gbox-1 is a gaming console jointly developed by Aiwa Little Tyrant, Microsoft, Wind and Rain Electronics, and many other companies. This is the first generation gaming console using Intel processor, Microsoft’s brand new operating system, and Wind and Rain Electronics’ latest DVD technologies. This console can also be connected to the internet. We will be releasing a Gbox-live soon, and users can play games over the internet…”

This launch is held in New York. After all, the gaming console market is bigger in the US compared to China.

Microsoft had sent its CEO, Ballmer, to host the launch, and Aiwa Little Tyrant sent Duan Yongping as their representative. Of course, Zhong Qingxian was also there as the representative for Tai Hua Holdings.

Feng Yu was also in New York, but he did not attend. It’s too tiring to listen to Ballmer speak for an hour.

Feng Yu sat in his office and watch the launch live through his PC monitor. Although the US’s internet is not that great, Feng Yu’s office has a dedicated line for him, and the live telecast is only for him. There is no lag, and Bill Gates is sitting beside Feng Yu watching the telecast.

Bill Gates wants to use Gbox to retaliate against Sony and use it to enter the gaming console market in the future.

“The Gbox will come in a package, and it includes a console, two controllers, and ten games. Among the games, five are exclusively available for Gbox-1 and not available for other consoles now. This is because these games are from Wind and Rain Games. They include…”

Why did Sega fail? It is not because their console’s specifications are poor. It is because they don’t have good games. They were set up by Sony. The gaming company that was working with Sega had betrayed them and broke their contract.

The gaming company had released new games that are compatible with PSone and not on Sega’s console. Sega can no longer provide their customers with new games and only play older games on their console.

Although Sega had quickly signed contracts with a few gaming companies, many of these companies were acquired by Wind and Rain Games, and some were taken over by Microsoft.

Due to the ownership changes, some of the gaming companies’ plans were delayed, and Sega can no longer get back their market share.

Sega was only watching Sony and Nintendo but had not to notice Gbox. That’s why in their contracts with the gaming companies, they had not included any restrictions against Gbox.

This time, other than Sega, Sony, and Nintendo were also affected. Game companies will normally try to sell as many of their games as possible for profits.

But this time, some game companies had released games exclusively for Gbox and not for other consoles! Sony and Nintendo had to negotiate to purchase the rights or developed their own games.

But the game companies refused to sell. If Sony and Nintendo really want to purchase the games’ rights, they must wait until next year.

Feng Yu and Microsoft do not lack money and do mind earning less from the games. This made some games exclusive to Gbox, and many customers had to buy their consoles for these games.

Sony had walked this path when they launched their console, and Nintendo also has its own exclusive games.

At the initial stage, Kameda Masao had approached Feng Yu to discuss the possibility of making his games available for Gbox, but was rejected!

Are you kidding me? The PC games from your company should remain a PC version. Anyway, the USB controllers are already available for PCs. Isn’t it better for your customers to play your games with a mouse? Err… it is more convenient for your customers to play your games with one hand.

Sega still had a major flaw that caused their failure. Sega allowed such games to be used on their console, and many parents refused to buy their console for their children.

Although Sega felt this is not wrong, as games should be catered to all ages, most of their customers are young adults. These cartoonish games are also popular with kids.

However, Feng Yu will never let Gbox walk the wrong path. This console is for ordinary families, and 2D and 3D games are enough.

“Our Gbox-1 package will be selling at 399 USD…”

Nintendo and Sony’s consoles are selling at 289 and 299 USD, respectively, and Gbox-1 is selling almost 25%.

But the additional controller and games that come along with the console are worth more than the price increase, making Gbox-1 cheaper than Sony and Nintendo. The price of a game is less than 10 USD!

This is the result of Duan Yongping’s development team. They had worked hard to lower the cost, and at this price, there is basically no profits. But at least this product is better than Microsoft’s product in Feng Yu’s previous life. Microsoft suffered about 100 USD losses per unit sold, and their console still comes along with lots of problems.

When Ballmer handed the first Gbox-1 to a lucky audience, Gbox is officially on sales!

Sega Saturn

Dreamcast

Chapter 1138 – Sony’s cooperation intention

The sales of Gbox-1 started. With the help of Microsoft and Wind and Rain Electronics brands’ influences and Wind and Rain Games, it is selling well despite it is slightly more expensive.

Although Sony claimed their gaming console can be fitted with an LCD display and can be played in the car, the price of that LCD display is very high. The console and the display are more expensive than the Gbox set.

Also, Sony’s PSone is not perfect. The console still has many weaknesses like, if an external battery is used, the battery life is very short. It cannot last longer than Nintendo’s handheld devices. Wind and Rain Games had acquired many game development companies. They resulted in a sudden decrease in game titles for PSone.

Sony had called for a Directors’ Meeting to discuss how to maintain its market share with PSone. Wind and Rain Electronics and Microsoft are too powerful, and they heard Gbox-1 will be entering the Japanese market soon. Japan is the highest spender on a gaming console globally, and the home ground of Sony!

“Chairman, President, I think we should enter into a cooperation with Wind and Rain Electronics. We can use our PSone technologies to exchange for their mobile phone technologies. The profit from mobile phones will be much higher than gaming consoles!” A Director suggested.

Norio Ohga rolled his eyes at that Director. “Put yourself in their shoes. If we have the mobile phone technologies, will you exchange them for gaming console technologies? Furthermore, have you look at Gbox-1 specifications? They had made it like a PC, and users can save the games from a DVD in the console. This means a game DVD can be exchanged between users and all of them can play at the same time.”

What a stupid suggestion. Although Gbox-1 is slightly inferior to Sony’s console, it still has some unique selling points. This console was also just introduced to the market, and no one knows how the market will respond. Yet, you want to use this opportunity to take advantage of them and try to get their mobile phone technologies?! How is this possible?

Moreover, the shareholder of Gbox is not Wind and Rain Electronics. Although Gbox and Wind and Rain Electronics are subsidiaries of Tai Hua Holdings, the shareholdings are different. Also, Microsoft is one of the shareholders.

Do you think Feng Yu is an idiot who will let you take advantage of?

“President Norio Ohga, I think you misunderstood me. I am not talking about exchanging all of Wind and Rain Mobile phone’s technologies. We just need the patented technology of the TF card. With our experience in flash drive technologies, we can exceed Wind and Rain Electronics if we get the basic patent of TF card technology to develop. This technology can bring in high profits for Sony in the future!”

Norio Ohga sighed. If this Director is not the Chairman’s son, Norio Ohga would have to kick him out. “You said that if we get the basic patent of this technology, we can develop it and exceed them. If you are Wind and Rain Electronics, will you sell your patent to your competitor?”

If someone wants to kill you, will you give him a knife?

Norio Ohga ignored that moron and looked at the rest of the directors. The Chairman of the board seldom speaks at the Director meeting and let Norio Ohga handles everything. After all, Norio Ohga had turned Sony Pictures from a loss-making entity to a profit-making entity.

“I think what Director Ichiro suggested is right. We should try it.” Another Director said.

Norio Ohga rolled his eyes. This Director is just kissing Director Ichiro’s ass. Ichiro is inexperienced, but you are not. If I agree to this suggestion, are you going to negotiate with Tai Hua Holdings?

“I think we can work in this direction. If we cannot get mobile phone technologies, we can try to get MP3 technologies instead. Isn’t Feng Yu the biggest shareholder of Aiwa? If Feng Yu is willing to exchange his MP3 technologies with us, it will also be beneficial to us.” Another Director added.

This Director was formally the Acting President when Norio Ohga left Sony. But the Chairman still supported Norio Ohga in the end, and this Director is feeling sore.

Who doesn’t want to be in power?!

“Maybe we can package our DVD patent technologies with our gaming console technologies to negotiate with Wind and Rain Electronics. Our market share of the gaming console market is number one.”

Norio Ohga looked at that Director and thought to himself. Nintendo’s market share is not far away from us, and their market share for a handheld gaming device is higher than us.

Why do these Directors think that Feng Yu will be interested in Sony’s gaming console technologies? Norio Ohga is Sony’s Chairman and is confident of Sony’s gaming console.

But don’t forget who the other party is. Feng Yu and Bill Gates are prideful, and how did this Gbox come about? It is because Sony had refused to cooperate with Microsoft.

Also, Sony’s relationship with Feng Yu had soured a long time, and they are competitors for many of their products. Since Aiwa had separated from Sony, they had not worked together again!

Norio Ohga suddenly felt exhausted. He would have quit a long time ago if it wasn’t for his ambition to be the Chairman of the Board.

These Directors only know how to suck up to the Chairman and play politics. None of them knows how to manage the company.

Sony might still be powerful now, but don’t forget that Feng Yu’s personal assets are almost on par with Sony, let alone his companies.

Because of Feng Yu’s dispute with Paul Allen, Feng Yu sold all of his Microsoft shares in anger. Microsoft shares plunged, causing the internet bubble to burst.

Do you all think it will be easy to deal with someone like Feng Yu? Do you all think Sony is still at the peak like ten years ago?! After ten years, Sony had just recovered, and these people started to become arrogant again.

Norio Ohga decided to speak to the Chairman after this meeting. Some of these Directors must retire. If these morons are still around, he is not confident to bring Sony to the next level.

These few years, Norio Ohga had led Sony to enter the movie industry and produce several electronic products. Sony’s electronic products, including their MP3 players, are still profitable.

The Chairman saw Norio Ohga’s hard work, and Norio Ohga believes the Chairman will support him.

The Chairman finally spoke. “All of your suggestions are good, and you all should represent Sony to negotiate with Feng Yu. Whoever that succeeds will be rewarded by the company.”

Norio Ohga sneered. Hurry up and volunteer. I want to see which one of you can clinch this deal.

Norio Ohga thought none of the Directors will agree, but the Chairman’s son said suddenly. “Since no one is confident, I would like to try.”

Norio Ohga is surprised. He looked at Ichigo and then at the Chairman. Is this arranged by the Chairman?

The rest of the Directors immediately voiced their support, and Norio Ohga had to agree. He suddenly felt this might be the Chairman’s idea, and the Chairman is trying to groom Ichigo to be his successor.

Chapter 1139 – Not interested

“What did you say? A Sony Director asked you to contact me and wants to meet me? Huh?! That Director is the Chairman’s son?! Do you know what he wants from me?” Feng Yu was surprised. Sony had always treated him as their enemy, and they can never be friends. Why is this Director asking for a meeting?

“Boss, I think that Ichigo wants to cooperate with us. Some of Sony’s technologies are still the most advanced in the world. I think we should meet him first.”

Feng Yu thought for a while and wanted to reject this meeting. But Sony is quite strong in some areas, and he does not mind working with them if they are willing to be his follower.

“Then, you represent me to speak to him first. Anyway, I will be visiting AIWA in a few days, and you can let me know the progress then.”

Two days later, Feng Yu arrived in Tokyo and saw Kameda Masao.

“What happened?”

“Boss, I think it is impossible to cooperate with Sony. That Ichigo is too full of himself and still thought Sony is the number one consumer electronics company globally. The terms he offered are ridiculous.”

After all, Kameda Masao is Japanese and looks forward to seeing Japan’s companies returning to their peaks. Sony was once the pride of Japan, and he secretly hopes Sony can return to their glory days.

But Kameda Masao is currently the CEO of Wind and Rain Holdings and needs to place Wind and Rain Holdings’ interest first. Wind and Rain Holdings’ subsidiaries, AIWA and Wind and Rain Games are competitors of Sony.

Of course, if cooperation between competitors can benefit both parties, Kameda Masao will not mind cooperating with Sony. There are many strong consumer electronics companies in this sector, and the market is growing. Cooperation can kill off other competitors.

But Kameda Masao did not expect Ichigo to be so arrogant. The terms he offered were too ridiculous and made it sound like he is helping them out of pity.

Kameda Masao couldn’t understand why Sony had sent a young brat to negotiate with them. Are there no other capable Directors in Sony? Is it because his father is Sony’s Chairman, Ken Kutaragi?

“Oh? What terms had he offered?”

“Sony wants to cooperate with our Wind and Rain Holdings’ subsidiaries. He said Sony will use their gaming console technology, DVD technology, flash drive technology, digital camera technology, mobile phone technology, LCD display technology, etc., to exchange for our technologies.”

“How is this exchange going to work?”

“Using one of their technology to exchange for one of our technology.” Kameda Masao replied.

Feng Yu almost burst out laughing. Wind and Rain Electronics owns the most advanced DVD technologies in the world. The DVD forum’s technologies are more advanced than the DVD alliances’ technologies. More than 80% of DVD players in the world are using the DVD forum’s standards and technologies. Why should they exchange with Sony?

Which idiot will use 100 USD to exchange for 100 Yen?!

Most MP3 manufacturers are still imitating AIWA’s MP3 technologies. Although Sony does not want to imitate AIWA, AIWA’s designs, technologies, and concepts have been in the lead.

Even Samsung’s YP player or Apple’s iPod is not good enough to exchange their AIWA technologies, let alone Sony.

Flash drive technologies between both companies are on par. Sony had caught up in USB technologies and had applied their SD card technologies on their MP3 players.

There is no need to exchange Flash drive technologies, and both sides have their strengths. But Feng Yu’s TF cards are half the size of SD cards, which is his advantage.

Although the SD card’s maximum storage is 256 MB, and the 512 MB will be developed soon, Feng Yu had increased the TF card’s development funds. The TF card’s storage can catch up with the SD card within two years, and the TF card can replace the SD card, but the SD card cannot replace the TF card.

That’s why Feng Yu will never agree to this exchange. When the 512 MB TF card is ready, he will give out the patent authorization for his 128 MB TF cards to other companies. This will allow more manufacturers to join the TF card family. Many companies from the DVD forum had approached Aiwa Electronics to buy or get authorization for this patent.

Sony is leading in digital camera technologies. Even after Feng Yu bought the technologies from Kodak, his digital camera technologies are still lagging behind Sony.

After Feng Yu bought the technologies from Kodak, he sold them to another two camera companies in China. He managed to recover some of his costs, and he can still continue to use the technologies based on their contracts.

If Sony had made this offer earlier, Feng Yu might agree to cooperate with them. However, he has Kodak’s technologies, and it is enough. Both companies’ development directions are not the same, and two more camera companies in China are developing these technologies. With the Chinese government’s funding, their technologies can catch up with Sony. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Sony’s digital camera was overtaken by other Japanese companies.

Feng Yu will never use his mobile phone technologies for exchange. Still, he will consider if it was Nokia who offered. Feng Yu was never interested in Sony’s mobile phone technologies!

If Sony had not cooperated with Ericsson in the future, its mobile phone business would be gone. Even after they join forces with Ericsson, their mobile phone division is not doing well. Even the HTC phones are selling better than them.

But Feng Yu does have some interest in Sony’s LCD technology. Still, he is more interested in Sony’s Plasma display technologies.

If Sony is willing to use its Plasma technologies for exchange, there is still room for negotiation.

“Go and tell Sony that we can negotiate if they are willing to use their plasma technologies for exchange. As for their other technologies, I am not interested!”

Currently, plasma technology is split between two camps. Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, JVC, etc., control the Japanese camp, and the Korean camp is controlled by Samsung and LG. Chang Hong, a Chinese TV manufacturer, and a few Taiwanese companies are also researching this technology. In Europe and western countries, Thomson and Philips are also trying to develop this technology, but they are not making any progress.

Suppose Feng Yu can get this technology through an exchange. In that case, he can sell it to Chang Hong and increase Chang Hong’s competitiveness in the global market.

Kameda Masao passed Feng Yu’s message to Ichigo, and Ichigo is furious. You all are not interested in Sony’s technologies except for our Plasma technology? Are you implying that only our Plasma technology is better than you all?!

Do you all have plasma technologies in the first place?! You want to use your LCD technologies to exchange for our LCD and Plasma display technologies?! Dream on!

We, Sony, are also not interested in your technologies!

Do you think Sony will not return to its former glory if we don’t cooperate with you all?!

Chapter 1140 – Price War

When Feng Yu was still inspecting AIWA, he received a call from Duan Yongping, informing him that PSone had dropped their selling price!

“What did you say? They lowered their retail price to 259 USD and started giving out games with their console?! The reason they gave is rebranding?! What is its new brand concept?”

After hanging up, Feng Yu felt speechless. Sony’s former brand concept was ‘Digital, dreams, and kids,” which is also their targeted customers.

But now, Sony changed it to “the ever-present value.”

Sony’s former brand concept is considered reasonable, and it is in line with their main products. Portable music players, gaming consoles, digital cameras, mobile phones all fall under digital products.

But the message now is the ever-present value network. Does it mean that they are making everything?

That’s right. Sony had made many investments. For example, Sony is still manufacturing rice cookers, and they are the ones who invested in rice cookers. Still, they did not focus on home appliances.

After that, Sony invested in rice, ramen, and other food products cooked with the rice cooker. But Sony stopped these businesses in the end.

When Japan still do not have heating, Sony started producing heating blankets and heaters. It brought some profits for them, but they quickly become obsolete because their products are selling too expensive.

Sony is also the inventor of the world’s the first transistor radio, and they quickly were overtaken by others. After that, Sony started producing TV and Cathode-ray tube TV.

With these technologies, Sony produced Walkman and swept the world with it. But now, they were overtaken by AIWA.

Sony has many brilliant ideas, but none of them are sustainable.

During this period, Sony had also invested in many failed products. Like Toshiba, Panasonic, Nintendo, etc., many Japanese companies are the same as Sony, where they invested in everything.

Sony’s investments include coffee, creamier, toilet paper, hospitals… and they might not be as strong as Samsung. Still, Sony’s investments are more diverse than Samsung’s.

Are all these investments not related to each other? Some are related, but the majority are unrelated.

This “the ever-present value” is more applicable for Samsung, as most of Samsung’s businesses are profitable.

But most of Sony’s investments had failed.

Sony must have felt their investments are successful after their movie production company had finally become profitable and want to use their brand to promote their products.

If this is the case, it’s fine. Weird company will make weird investments. Tai Hua Consultancy had also invested in some weird products and suffered losses. Still, not all venture capital investments are profitable.

Now, Sony is lowering its console’s price and is giving out games. They are entering a price war with Gbox!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Bill Gates had continued to sell game consoles despite suffering over 1 billion USD losses annually. It is much later when Microsoft’s gaming console started becoming profitable.

More importantly, this gaming console business had pushed up Microsoft’s share prices. Many people felt this will be a profitable business for Microsoft. Bill Gates took this opportunity to sell off some of his shares.

Although Microsoft had lost money, Bill Gates and his fellow shareholders did not suffer any losses.

For this to happen, one must be able to accept the initial losses.

Feng Yu did not want to do this because Aiwa Little Tyrant was not listed, and he will not make any money by doing this.

Also, Gbox uses Aiwa Little Tyrant’s technologies, and most of the production is in China.  Feng Yu and Microsoft don’t need to sell their consoles at a loss with lower production costs.

Now, Sony had made the first move, but Feng Yu is not afraid.

Who is afraid of price war? Will Microsoft and Feng Yu be scare of entering into a price war with Sony?

Feng Yu called Bill Gates and told him that Sony is starting a price war. Bill Gates immediately agree that Gbox should also lower its price. He felt the initial pricing is quite high, as this is a new product.

Although Gbox had the support of Microsoft and Wind and Rain Electronics, their gaming console is still no match for Nintendo and Sony. Bill Gates had wanted to use low pricing to get the market share, but Feng Yu disagreed.

Now, Bill Gates has found an excuse to persuade Feng Yu. The losses will not be high for Microsoft, but this will push up their share prices. Microsoft will still be benefiting in the end.

Since Bill Gates agrees, Feng Yu informed Zhong Qingxian and Duan Yongping to prepare a proposal for Gbox’s price drop. They cannot lower the price suddenly like Sony, and the people who had bought their consoles before the price drop will feel cheated. They should come up with some conditions or remove the free games from the package.

Duan Yongping thought for a while and felt it will be easier to remove the free games from the package and let the console be preinstalled with a game. For example, the very popular Diablo. This game is only available on Gbox now. By removing the free games from the package, they can lower their product’s price.

Sony had dropped their prices to 259 USD?! We will sell our console at 229 USD. Duan Yongping had analyzed Sony’s selling price and concluded that Sony is also selling its product at a loss.

Now, Gbox is gaining popularity, and many people start loving the exclusive games available on Gbox. Gbox can also lower their games’ prices to entice customers to buy their consoles for the games.

Sony owned about 50% of the market share, while Nintendo took up 40%, and the remaining is shared by Sega and Gbox. Sony wanted to get rid of Gbox by lowering their retail prices.

But to everyone’s surprise, Gbox started selling their consoles at losses.

Sony is still as fine as they were prepared. But Nintendo and Sega were shocked. What are these two companies doing?! The profits from gaming consoles are not high in the first place, and yet you all still want to engage in price war?! Do you all still want to make money or not?!

Sega was deeply affected by Sony and Gbox. Their sales figures plunged, and the sales of Nintendo consoles also started to decline.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, there was a joke. When two top brands go into war, the third and fourth brands will be eliminated.

For example, when Jia Duo Bao and Wang Laoji started to go against each other, He Qizheng suddenly disappear. Just a year ago, He Qizheng’s sales were ranked second in China.

Sega immediately admits defeat, but Nintendo refused to bow down. They have sufficient funds and are not afraid of a price war.

So, Nintendo entered the war and slashed their console’s price to 199 USD!

The media were shocked. Is the gaming console war starting again?!

Chapter 1141 – The Little Tyrant is getting listed

The biggest three gaming consoles manufacturers had slashed their consoles’ and games prices simultaneously, making it a disaster for Sega.

Microsoft had supported Sega in the past, but Microsoft stopped supporting them later. Now, Sega’s sales are dropping, and their brand awareness is getting worse.

Sega cannot afford to slash their selling price as they are already not making profits now. If they slash their price, they will suffer losses. Sony, Nintendo, and Gbox can afford the losses but not Sega.

Within a month, Sega gave up because their console had sold less than 100 units globally!

Sega shareholders were in despair. When Microsoft wanted to acquire them, they felt the price was too low. Now, Microsoft is not interested even if they are willing to sell their shares at losses.

Although Gbox’s sales are lower than Nintendo and Sony’s, it is much more than Saga. It’s not easy for a new gaming console brand to clinch third place in terms of sales.

Also, Gbox’s advertisements are everywhere and had received positive reviews. Of course, many of the reviews were paid reviews, but one has to admit that Gbox’s games are very popular. Gbox is built like a PC, and its specifications are very powerful.

Gbox will be introducing the highly anticipated Gbox-live soon, and it is more advanced than Sony and Nintendo.

But Sony and Nintendo have more supporters, as they are in the industry for much longer and had launched sequels for their classic games.

Duan Yongping also noticed a common characteristic for both companies’ consoles. Their console’s average lifespan is around five to seven years. That means their previous generation of consoles is about to break down.

This is the best time to sell new gaming consoles, and the companies have stopped servicing old machines. Duan Yongping quickly learned this strategy.

This strategy was used on most electronics products in the future. MP3 players, mobile phones, laptops, PCs, etc., seldom will last more than five years without repairs.

Five years later, even if the device is still working, it will be much slower than before. Thus, you will be forced to upgrade it. This way, consumers will have to constantly buy new products.

If all devices are as durable as the miraculous Nokia phone, which can last at least ten years, new products will be unsellable.

Feng Yu also noticed it. Companies did not introduce newer models because the previous model is outdated. It is because the lifespan of the previous model is almost up.

Many users had gotten used to gaming consoles, and even men in their thirties will buy one for their homes.

“Manager Feng, although our sales are increasing, our losses are also increasing. Microsoft share prices had risen a little because of this console, but we are not a listed company.” Duan Yongping is feeling pissed. They are the ones suffering loss from this loss-making promotion.

“Do you want to get Aiwa Little Tyrant listed?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

Aiwa Little Tyrant is located not far away from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and Duan Yongping passes by there every day.

To develop Gbox, Aiwa Little Tyrant had passed its Reading Machine, cordless phone, electronic dictionary businesses to Aiwa Electronic. These were all suggested by Duan Yongping.

Duan Yongping had thought Gbox can bring in higher profits, but they are suffering losses now. This year, the shareholders will not get any dividends. The company might not even have enough money to give to their employees as bonuses.

Duan Yongping personally does not suffer any losses. He received some Aiwa Electronics shares for giving up his profit-making businesses, and he could tell Manager Feng is satisfied with his performance. He might even try to get the position of Deputy CEO of Tai Hua Holdings in the future.

Zhong Qingxian is very supportive of Duan Yongping. In Tai Hua Holdings, Duan Yongping might have a shorter duration of service. Still, he feels no one is as good as him in terms of capability, other than Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, Aiwa Little Tyrant is running short of funds. We need to develop better consoles. For the company to operate smoothly, the shareholders must either inject more funds, or the company must get listed.” Duan Yongping explained.

The company should raise funds through the stock market. Even if the company fails, the losses will be minimized. Anyway, this Gbox is a long-term project, and it is confirmed the first generation will not make any profits. The second-generation console will need at least another three to five years.

Will Tai Hua Holdings continue to inject funds into Aiwa Little Tyrant for the next three to five years? This will not be a good investment decision.

Feng Yu looked at Zhong Qingxian. “Old Zhong, what do you think?”

“I think what Old Duan said is right. Everyone is selling their products at a loss. Nintendo and Sony have listed companies, and their share prices will rise if their products are selling well. This way, they can recover their losses through their share prices. But we are not the same. We must keep injecting funds into the company to keep it running, and it will use up lots of our cash reserve.”

“Have you all discussed with Microsoft’s representative? Do they agree to let Aiwa Little Tyrant get listed?”

“They agreed.” Duan Yongping replied.

Feng Yu thought for a while. “Don’t get listed in China. The support for the gaming console is not high in China, and we will not raise any funds. Ok. Get listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It is not far from here, and we can raise more funds. Old Zhong, get someone to write up a listing proposal, and we will get Aiwa Little Tyrant listed early next year!”

Feng Yu does not mind injecting more funds into the company, but like what Zhong Qingxian said, it’s not worthwhile to do so. Anyway, they will still have the final say after the company is listed, and there’s nothing wrong with raising funds now. If those investors can hold on to the company’s shares for five years, they can still get high returns.

If Microsoft dumps their shares after the share prices went up, it will be better for Feng Yu. Feng Yu can produce this gaming console by himself, but he knows Microsoft will never sell off their shares. This investment is nothing to Microsoft, and it is an important strategy for Microsoft. If it’s Feng Yu, he will also not sell the shares, but will further increase his shares.

Sony and Nintendo want to compete with us to see who will last longer with all these losses?! We will raise a few hundred million, or even over a billion HKD, through this listing. Let’s see who will have the final laugh.

Chapter 1142 – Mobile Power Bank

As Feng Yu was speaking to the Fu Family to help with Aiwa Little Tyrant’s listing in Hong Kong, he received a piece of good news.

Tai Hua Batteries had finally completed a project assigned to them by Feng Yu. The Portable Power Bank. Before Tai Hua Batteries succeeded, it was only a concept which many companies claimed to be researching on it. But none of these companies had introduced this product.

There are rumors that the first Mobile Power Bank is developed by an overseas student in the US. He used several dry cells in a small electronic device and turned it into a mobile phone charger. This product had first appeared in a US consumer electronics fair.

But now, the electronics fair had not started, and that Mobile Power Bank should not be developed yet. Although Sony claims to be introducing its Mobile Power Bank product several months ago. But to date, it still had not to launch anything.

The Chief Engineer of Tai Hua Batteries brought the prototype to Feng Yu’s office in Beijing Wind and Rain Building.

“We are using high power lithium batteries in this Power Bank, and it is designed in a cylinder shape. A battery can hold up to 800mAH, and we are using four batteries in this device. The total amount of power in this Power Bank is 3,200mAH, 3.7V with 1A output.”

Everyone, except for Feng Yu, was stunned. Feng Yu asked expressionlessly. “What is the conversion efficiency?”

The Chief Engineer looked at Feng Yu with respect. “Manager Feng is an expert. Because of our technological limitations, this Mobile Power Bank’s conversion efficiency is not very high. It is only around 65%.”

Feng Yu calculated in his heart and asked. “That means this Mobile Power Bank is only around 2,000 mAH?”

But this amount of power is enough for the time being. The battery capacity in mobile phones is only around 800 to 1,000 mAH, as there are few functions. But after MP3 players are included in mobile phones, the battery capacity is not enough. That’s why Mobile Power Bank needs to appear in the market earlier than Feng Yu’s previous life.

“We had calculated, and 2,000mAH is enough to fully charge two mobile phone batteries. This is enough to meet the users’ needs. For example, when the user is traveling on the train, during their vacations.” The Chief Engineer explained.

“What is the cost of this Mobile Power Bank?” Feng Yu thought to himself. If your Mobile Power Bank is more expensive than a mobile phone’s batteries, this product will be useless. People can just buy a few more batteries.

“The direct cost is around 80 RMB.”

80?! It is only 80 RMB?! Feng Yu is overjoyed. This is much cheaper than the 200 RMB mobile phone’s batteries!

Huh… We still need to include transportation, storage, advertisements, sales, etc., costs, and the retail price must be at least 150 RMB or 20 USD overseas.

But that Is also cheaper than buying a battery. Furthermore, the power capacity of this Mobile Power Bank is equivalent to two batteries.

“You all can only include four batteries in this Mobile Power Bank? Can you all add more?” Feng Yu asked.

“More batteries?! Manager Feng, this Mobile Power Bank is already quite big. If we add more batteries to it, it will be bigger.” The Chief Engineer replied.

This Mobile Power Bank is already palm-sized, and if they add more batteries to it, it will be the size of a brick!

Feng Yu sighed and explained. “Chief Engineer Xiao, think about this. Users will surely keep this Mobile Power Bank in their bags, right? They will not be holding it in their hands, and it’s fine for it to be bigger. The battery capacity is more important. Of course, I am not saying this prototype is not good. I just want to offer our users more variety. Ok. You need to develop different models of this Mobile Power Bank after you go back.”

“Manager Feng, are you saying that this Mobile Power Bank can be launched into the market?” Chief Engineer Xiao is overjoyed. It’s an achievement to let everyone use a product he developed and make profits for the company.

Feng Yu looks at the excited Chief Engineer Xiao. Chief Engineer Xiao’s hair is almost all white, but he is as excited as a little child.

“Chief Engineer Xiao, you are getting closer to your retirement, right? When are you retiring?” Chief Engineer Xiao was the expert sent over by the Battery Factory when Tai Hua Batteries cooperated with them.

“That’s right. I will be retiring next year. I really can’t bear to leave.” Chief Engineer Xiao had spent his whole life working at this place, and just when he had gotten some results, he had to leave.

“Chief Engineer Xiao, is your family with you?”

“My son and daughter are also working in Tai Hua Batteries, but they work at different branch factories. My wife had retired, and she is staying with me.”

“Chief Engineer Xiao, are you interested in being re-hired after your retirement? You can come back to lead this Mobile Power Bank development team.” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

There might be better experts on batteries in China. Still, none is as familiar with Mobile Power Banks as Chief Engineer Xiao. Furthermore, Chief Engineer Xiao had been working with these engineers all this while.

Also, Chief Engineer Xiao is an employee of the State-owned Battery Factory and is only getting a four-figure monthly salary, despite holding a high rank. In Tai Hua Batteries, the newly hired graduates are getting almost the same amount as Chief Engineer Xiao after three years. Of course, the annual bonuses given out by Feng Yu to these State-owned employees are quite high, and this is a form of compensation for them.

Chief Engineer Xiao is overjoyed. “Yes! I don’t need to be a team leader. Just a research engineer will do.”

“No… you must be the one overseeing the technology development. Of course, after you are re-hired, your salary will be equivalent to our company’s Deputy General Manager. Still, your annual bonuses will not be as high as in previous years.”

“I can give up my bonuses!” Although the bonuses are high, Chief Engineer Xiao got bonuses of around 70,000 to 80,000 RMB annually. He will be getting a Deputy General Manager salary, which is around 300,000 RMB annually. Why would he still care about the bonus?

“Chief Engineer Xiao, your next research should focus on increasing the conversion efficiency and batteries’ capacity. Also, the output must be increased to 2A or more. Oh, it will be better if the voltage can be increased to 19V.”

19V?! Chief Engineer Xiao immediately understood what Feng Yu wants. That is the voltage of laptop batteries.

“Manager Feng, are you saying that this Mobile Power Bank will be used on laptops in the future?”

“It might not be a Power Bank. It can also be an external battery for laptops. The laptop batteries cannot last long, and what if the battery dies when the user needs to use it outside? Those that can afford laptops and uses them often will surely be willing to buy our external laptop batteries!”

“Ok. Manager Feng, I know what to do. Increasing the Power Bank capacity and output is not difficult. It is just increasing the size of the Power Bank. We will think of a solution to increase the batteries’ capacity and lower the size and weight of it.”

Feng Yu nodded and turns to Liu Chuanzhi. “Old Liu, can you help to get the patent for this Mobile Power Bank as soon as possible?”

The inventor of Mobile Power Bank is Tai Hua Batteries! A Chinese company!

Chapter 1143 – Battery Pack and Car Battery

Tai Hua Batteries quickly got the patent from the Patent Office. Liu Chuanzhi’s father was the one who helped to set up the China National Intellectual Property Administration. With his help, the process was sped up several times.

There are no similar patents in this world. Although there are many battery patents, patents for power conversion and usage still have not appeared.

After Tai Hua Batteries got the patent approval, and started their production, Sony announced their portable power source. It will be used on their PSone.

Feng Yu was shocked. He did not expect Sony’s battery technology to be so advanced. It seems that Tai Hua Batteries will not be occupying the majority of the market share now.

But when Feng Yu saw Sony’s portable power source, he almost burst out laughing.

Tai Hua Batteries’ Mobile Power Bank can be considered a battery pack. Still, Sony’s portable power source looks more like a car battery!

The size of Sony’s portable power source is bigger than a brick!

Feng Yu was relieved as Tai Hua Batteries will have no more competition.

Sony’s portable power source’s uses are too limited. It can only be used on their gaming console. Anyway, the portable PSone is designed to be used in cars, and users do not need to bring it around.

With the portable power source, this gaming console can only last around two hours if the user plays a 3D game and three hours if the user plays a 2D game. To Feng Yu, this is a useless product.

Suppose someone really wants to play video games outside. In that case, Nintendo’s handheld game devices are more suitable, and the battery life can last longer.

Sony’s gaming console sales did increase slightly after this portable power source is launched. Overall, this product is considered a success for Sony.

……

Norio Ohga is in a good mood. Ichigo had volunteered to negotiate with Feng Yu during their previous meeting. Still, he did not even get to meet Feng Yu.

After this incident, Ichigo becomes quieter. Norio Ohga went to look for the Chairman to ask him if he could become the Chairman in the future. The Chairman did not reject him directly but also did not give him an answer.

This means Norio Ohga still stands a chance.

Sony Chairman’s health is not good, and he cannot hold on to this position for too long. If he suddenly falls sick, Sony’s share prices will be affected.

During this period, the Chairman must groom a successor to make sure his family will still control the company.

The Nobuyuki Family is still the biggest shareholder of Sony. What’s wrong with letting Norio Ohga become the Chairman for the time being? In the future, the Nobuyuki Family will still be holding the top position of Sony.

Norio Ohga had supported this portable power source and had increased their gaming console and the LCD display addon. His reputation within Sony had increased a lot.

Just when Norio Ohga is feeling satisfied with the events, something happened. Someone wrote an article in the newspaper laughing at Sony. The article criticized Sony’s portable power source for its limited uses and performance. It said it is just a car battery!

Norio Ohga is furious. How can someone criticize his idea and Sony?! Who is this person, and why did he say these things?

After some investigations, Norio Ohga found out why advertisements for a new product, Power Bank, appeared!

This Power Bank is also a mobile power source, and charging only requires a cable.

This Power Bank has several models, 1,600mAh, 3,200mAH, and 4,800mAH.

This is a battery pack for mobile phones?! Which company does it belong to?

Sony has been developing this product but is unsuccessful. How can this company be faster than Sony?

When Norio Ohga saw the brand of the company, he knows who is having trouble with Sony.

Tai Hua brand. It is that Feng Yu!

Norio Ohga’s mood immediately changed for the worse.

Why is that Feng Yu always doing whatever Sony is Dong? Feng Yu’s companies are in so many different industries, how can he manage them? But Norio Ohga had forgotten Sony had invested in more industries than Feng Yu.

This product reminded Sony that a portable battery pack can be used on mobile phones. Since others can develop this, so can Sony.

Norio Ohga immediately ordered his men to buy a few Tai Hua Power Banks for research. Sony had also researched batteries, and it’s only a matter of time for them to produce their own power bank.

……

Other electronic manufacturers also noticed Tai Hua Power Bank. They thought this product can only be developed after a few years and never expect it to appear now.

After the product is launched, some companies placed large orders for the power banks. Their salespeople are worried their mobile phones run out of battery when traveling.

Although the salespeople will always bring a spare battery with them, sometimes two batteries are not enough if they are busy.

The salespeople had no choice but to buy a fully charged mobile phone battery on the trains. Although the batteries are also Tai Hua brand, it is selling more expensive than other places.

Many people start to think about how wonderful a place is for them to charge their phones. But the staff on the trains don’t allow anyone to use the power sockets on the train.

The staff is selling batteries to make money. Why would they let the passengers use the train’s electricity to charge their phones?! Oh, Feng Yu was the one who suggested Tai Hua Batteries introduce their batteries to the railway company.

The railway company purchased a large number of Power Banks for two purposes, sell and rent.

The selling price for the Power Banks is slightly higher than outside as everything is expensive on the trains.

Renting is much cheaper, but the passenger can only use it for a short period. The railway company uses the government’s electricity to charge the power banks and don’t need to pay for the electrical bills. In other words, the railway staff is selling electricity.

Feng Yu asked his men to aggressively promote this Power Bank and continue to attack Sony’s portable power source for the inconvenience, safety issues, capacity, etc.

Tai Hua Batteries is now a world-class battery manufacturer. Only Ji Li Battery is better than Tai Hua Batteries in China. Feng Yu is not sure if he had changed history, as Nanfu Battery was not acquired by foreign companies. Although Nanfu Battery had entered into a joint venture with a foreign company, they did not allow the foreign company to own the company’s controlling stake.

Currently, Tai Hua Battery and Nanfu Battery are competing in China and Asia. But Tai Hua Battery had entered the US and the European market and might become the industry leader in the future!

Chapter 1144 – Amazon is making profits

It is almost 2001, and Feng Yu had come to Seattle. Jeff Bezos had called Feng Yu over to announce a piece of good news.

“Everyone, I want to share a piece of good news. With the increase in profits during the fourth quarter, Amazon had finally made profits since it is set up!!”

All the directors and top executives cheered and clapped. Amazon is finally making money after so many years.

Amazon is eligible to be listed a long time ago, but the main shareholder opposed it. That’s why Amazon was not listed during the internet boom.

All the shareholders and directors were scolding Feng Yu behind his back. If Amazon got listed in 1997, the shareholders could dump their shares in 1999, and the returns will be at least ten times of their investments!

Look at eBay. The company’s value increased by 100 times after it was listed. Even if Amazon is not as good as eBay, the gap should not be too far apart. The shareholders think that Amazon’s shares might even be more popular than eBay, as the main shareholder is Feng Yu. Feng Yu’s name will give investors confidence that this company will do well!

Feng Yu is the World’s youngest billionaire and is currently the Second Richest Person in the World. He also won against Soros and is famous for his wins in the financial market.

But Feng Yu just refused to let the company get listed. He will continue to inject funds into the company when necessary. Jeff Bezos also supported Feng Yu’s decision, and the other minor shareholders cannot do anything.

Feng Yu’s assistant, Ralph, had told the minor shareholders that they can sell off their shares if they are unhappy with Feng Yu’s decision. Feng Yu will acquire their shares at 10% above the market rate.

The minor shareholders will never sell!

Initially, the shareholders had wanted to dump their shares for profits after the company got listed. But later, they realized Amazon’s potential.

The eCommerce store is more advantageous and can allow customers more variety of choices easily.

In the US, many middle-income families live in the suburbs, where the environment is nicer, and houses are bigger.

Most families will go grocery shopping once a week, and it’s too tiring to buy one week supply. Sometimes, they also have to search for the whole supermarket for one product.

But with Amazon, everything becomes simpler. With just a few clicks, customers can find what they want and just wait for the items to be delivered after placing the order.

During the initial phase, Amazon practices cash on delivery. But some customers find it troublesome as they need to prepare small change.

But later, Amazon changed its payment system to internet banking. More customers started to trust Amazon, and the number of customers increases.

Amazon also increased the variety of its products. All legal products started appearing on Amazon. Customers can buy small items like toothpicks to big items like refrigerators and washing machines on Amazon.

Those shareholders noticed the number of registered users and sales increasing, and Amazon’s losses started to decrease.

Although these shareholders hold on to very few shares, they firmly believe the shares they own will bring them high returns very soon.

Amazon has plans to enter South America, and with a bigger market, the profits will be higher.

One year ago, Amazon had set up a music store, selling all sorts of music-related products, like CD, MD, DVD, amplifiers, earphones, etc. It also provides MP3 downloads.

At that time, many shareholders, including some Directors, opposed this idea. The concept of music download is good, but who will buy it?

But very soon, the shareholders know what this website is for. AIWA was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America, and MP3 players become popular throughout the US, North America, Asia, and Europe. Their MP3 downloads shot up.

Because Amazon has more customers, Amazon became one of AIWA’s distributors. Many people chose to download from Amazon’s music store, and their downloads are higher than AIWA’s website.

Now, Amazon’s Music Store has more than a million downloads every month. After AIWA launched their latest MP3 player, the downloads shot up again. This music store and the books category brought in most of Amazon’s profits.

Last month, Amazon’s music store merged with AIWA’s music website, and the number of downloads increased further.

Those shareholders and top executives of Amazon were impressed with Bezos’s foresight. But Jeff Bezos knew in his heart that he had opposed this idea initially.

Feng Yu’s representative, Ralph, had asked him to set up this music store. As the major shareholder, Feng Yu has never interfered with Amazon’s operations. He had only told Jeff Bezos not to enter the Chinese and East Europe market.

But Feng Yu is asking Jeff Bezos to set up this music store. This means Feng Yu takes MP3 downloads seriously, and Jeff Bezos had to carry out this order.

So, Jeff Bezos got the credit for doing this.

Amazon is no longer the biggest online book store now. It is also the biggest online music store and online retail store.

Amazon’s current slogan is “Earth’s biggest bookstore,” which sounded very arrogant.

But no one can say anything, as Amazon has the widest variety of products and number of users.

Of course, from its value, Amazon is lagging behind other online companies as they are not listed yet.

Now, Amazon is preparing to change its slogan to “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Many companies focus on their customer service, but Amazon had added the words, ‘Earth’s most,’ in front, resulting in many companies attacking Amazon.

But those attacks did not affect Amazon’s development and helped Amazon becomes more popular.

If Jeff Bezos had not invested 30% of its revenue into marketing, many Amazon would be profitable a few months ago.

But it is still not too late, and Feng Yu is pleased with the company’s performance.

It is a success when other internet companies are losing money, and Amazon is making profits!

Feng Yu crossed his legs and started reading the financial report. He wants to see what surprises Amazon has in store for him.

But when Feng Yu saw the profits, he rolled his eyes.

The profit is slightly over 30,000 USD.

Damn! The world’s biggest eCommerce company had only made 30,000 USD a year, and still want to announce this as good news?!

Chapter 1145 – Direct funding

Jeff Bezos looked at Feng Yu. Feng Yu was still smiling when he announced, but Feng Yu’s face changed after reading the financial report.

There are no problems with the report, and Feng Yu had sent his men to oversee the Finance Department. No one dares to meddle with the financial report.

Jeff Bezos saw Feng Yu staring at the profit figure and realized Feng Yu must be unhappy with the profit.

“Manager Feng, please look over here. In the first half of the year, we are still making losses, and we only started making profits in the second half of the year. Our profits for the last quarter had reached over 3 million USD!”

Feng Yu looked at the report carefully. Amazon had suffered losses earlier this year. They managed to recover the losses in the second half of the year. The profits for the second half of the year is almost 5 million USD, and Feng Yu is quite pleased with this result.

After all, eCommerce is still very new, and the internet bubble had burst this year, making many people bankrupt. Jeff Bezos had done well to achieve this result in an economic crisis.

Because of the internet bubble, many internet companies had shut down. Over 100 companies in North America had shut down, and more than half of these companies were listed companies.

The number of internet companies shutting down is still growing.

The companies in other sectors, whose share prices had plunged because of the internet bubble, started recovering. But the tech-related and internet companies are still not doing well.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the internet companies started recovering in the second half of next year. Still, because of that tragic incident, their share prices plunged again.

It is only after 2004 that tech companies started to make a comeback.

Feng Yu nodded. “Good. The company is doing well. You had done a good job to grow Amazon to this extend with so little funds.”

Amazon is not listed and had not received much funding like the Amazon in Feng Yu’s previous life. The amount of fund Amazon has now is much lesser than Feng Yu’s previous life, but it does have more start-up funds initially, which is their advantage.

“Manager Feng, are we really not going to be listed next year? Suppose we are really not going to be listed. In that case, we will not be able to set up our logistic bases in South America and Europe.”

Amazon had taken loans to set up their logistics base in Canada.

Feng Yu thought for a while. Amazon is a US company. If they got listed and then delist, it will affect its brand reputation.

Amazon is different from Sina and the rest of the internet companies. Those are Chinese websites, and their users are mainly Chinese. After they got delisted from Nasdaq, they can be listed in Hong Kong.

But if Amazon got delisted from Nasdaq, it will be hard for them to get listed again. In terms of financial development, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and London are not as developed as New York.

Amazon needs to be listed sooner or later, as internet companies require more funds than brick and mortar companies.

Feng Yu can afford to invest, but that will dilute other shareholders’ shares, and Feng Yu had promised Jeff Bezos that he will let him own a certain percentage of the company’s shares. Unless the company requires funding, Jeff Bezos’s shares will never be diluted. Doing this will be Feng Yu’s loss.

Although Feng Yu can break his promise, he does not want to do that. A good reputation can help him make more money, and it will be costly to build up his reputation once it is tarnished.

Furthermore, Jeff Bezos is the best person to run Amazon, and Feng Yu doesn’t want to lose him. It’s hard to find someone as capable as him, and with him around, he can help Feng Yu make more money.

“Let me consider this.”

At night, Feng Yu called Fu Rongqi to seek his advice.

“Nephew Feng, you should not have made this promise to him in the first place. Since you are the major shareholder of the company, you should have the final say. He should either invest proportionally or let his shares be diluted.” Fu Rongqi sighed. “You should hold on to the authority over the company and not give it up.”

“But I will have to make the decisions over the company’s matters. It’s too tiring.”

Fu Rongqi: “……”

You don’t want to be tired and still want to make money?!

But Feng Yu had really given up all his power over his companies, letting others to manage them and make money for him.

“If that’s the case, you can only raise funds by yourself.” Amazon had taken a loan, and the banks will not lend Amazon a large amount this time. But Feng Yu wants Amazon to occupy most of the American and European markets.

Amazon must enter these markets now, as there are more eCommerce companies now. If other companies took over these markets, it would be harder to gain market share.

Of course, there is another solution, which is to buy out those companies.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Amazon had used this strategy for its expansion. For example, Amazon had acquired a Chinese online shopping website, Joyo.com, and renamed it to Joyo Amazon.

The money used for this acquisition comes from funding.

Listed companies always use other people’s money for expansion. Once the company manages to increase its scale to form a monopoly, high profits will be guaranteed.

“But the company might not raise many funds if it gets listed now.” It is much harder for internet companies to get listed now. Even if a company can get listed, it will not raise many funds. A few companies tried to get listed but failed as no investors are interested in their shares. Two of them went bankrupt within a month after their failed attempt to get listed.

This is the problem with Nasdaq’s regulatory system. How can they approve a company that went bankrupt within a month after failing to get listed to be listed in the first place?

“Funding does not mean the company must be listed.” Fu Rongqi laughed.

Funding without getting listed!? Is Fu Rongqi referring to direct funding?

“Uncle Fu, are you saying that you are interested in buying Amazon’s shares?” It is currently still in the midst of the internet bubble financial crisis, and very few people will dare to invest in internet companies.

“What’s wrong?” Fu Rongqi asked.

The markets are not doing well, and the Gold, Oil, and Forex markets are quiet. There is nothing worth investing in for Fu Rongqi.

Fu Rongqi has spare cash and doesn’t know where to put his money. He can tell Feng Yu has high hopes for Amazon, and he might as well invest his money in this company.

Fu Rongqi trusts Feng Yu to give him a reasonable price and will not take advantage of him. Furthermore, this will tighten their bond.

Fu Rongqi wants to maintain his relationship with Feng Yu. Feng Yu is Asia’s top Billionaire, and his net worth had surpassed Superman Li and is catching up with Bill Gates. Fu Rongqi does not feel secure to depend on Fu Guangzheng and Fu Guangwei. He decides to let his son have some ties with Feng Yu to increase Feng Yu and the Fu Family’s relationship.

“Uncle Fu, how much are you going to invest?” Feng Yu asked.

“Any amount within 1 billion USD.”

“Alright. I will give you a reasonable price.”

Chapter 1146 – Something Fishy

Feng Yu told Jeff Bezos about his direct funding decision, and Jeff Bezos knew Feng Yu is just informing him and not discussing him. Although direct funding requires the Board of Directors’ consent and Feng Yu is not a board member, Ralph is Feng Yu’s representative on the board.

Feng Yu is still the major shareholder of Amazon, and if Jeff Bezos disagrees, Feng Yu can replace him anytime. Their initial agreement is Feng Yu will support Jeff Bezos to be the company’s Chairman. Still, it also stated that he will be replaced if he made a severe mistake or harmed the shareholders’ interest.

Furthermore, Feng Yu can inject funds into the company and dilute Jeff Bezos’s shares, but Feng Yu did not do that. If Jeff still opposes this proposal, he will be asking for trouble.

Jeff Bezos immediately called for a Directors’ meeting and announced the company is running low on the fund. The company needs additional funding, but this is not the right time to get listed. All internet companies are not doing well on the stock market now.

So, the company decided to receive direct funding and issue some non-voting shares to repay its debts and expansions.

Those few minor shareholders, though, the company is going to get listed. They don’t know whether they should support the company’s decision to get listed now, as the market is not in favor of tech and internet companies now.

But when the shareholders heard this will be direct funding, they did not oppose it. Jeff Bezos must have found an investor to invest in Amazon, but they also have other ideas. As the current shareholders, they should have the priority to invest if the company requires direct funding.

The shareholders knew it was the major shareholder Feng Yu who had opposed the company to get listed. This is because Feng Yu felt this company can make high profits in the future, and he doesn’t want to share the earnings with others.

All the shareholders trust Feng Yu because of his reputation. The company is doing well, and it is only a matter of time before they get high returns.

Those shareholders who had sold their Amazon shares in the past might have made lots of money these few years. They even laughed at the current shareholders for holding on to their shares. But they will regret it in the future!

……

“What did you say? Those minor shareholders also want to buy non-voting shares?! Didn’t you tell them that these shares are priced much higher?” Feng Yu was surprised by what Ralph told him.

Although this direct funding is for the Fu Family, and Feng Yu had given them some discounts, but the share prices are still very high. It might not be as high as eBay’s shares, but it is much higher than its market value.

Those minor shareholders are still willing to buy these shares?! They had been grumbling about the company not getting listed all this while.

“Boss, this is because you had sold all your Microsoft shares but never sell any of Amazon’s shares. This gave them high confidence in this company.” Ralph explained.

Feng Yu has a good track record in investment, and all the companies he invested in have been making high profits.

Ah……

Feng Yu had not thought about this. Seems like he can only sell lesser shares to the Fu Family now. But those minor shareholders, including Jeff Bezos, do not have much money. Jeff Bezos even have to sell his house, bonds, etc., to raise money to buy Amazon’s shares in the past.

Although Jeff Bezos is highly paid these few years, he will not have much savings after buying back his house and car. The other minor shareholders are not as extreme as Jeff Bezos. None of them has net assets of over 1 billion USD without taking their Amazon shares into consideration.

“Alright. The existing shareholders should have priority for direct funding, and this is a reasonable request.”

“Boss, can I also buy the shares?” Ralph looks at Feng Yu eagerly.

“Of course. Do note that Amazon will not be listed in the next two to three years, and you will not be able to sell them off. But don’t worry, if you need money, you can sell your shares to me.”

“If you don’t sell the shares, I will also not sell.” Ralph replied cunningly.

“Hahaha… you ah… Go and tabulate the total number of shares they want to buy and let me know. I need to get the total figure before I inform the Fu Family.”

The next day, Ralph was looking terrible when he reports to Feng Yu.

“What’s wrong?”

“Boss, something is wrong. This is too fishy! Look at the number of shares they want to buy. It is more than 50% of the shares we are issuing.” Ralph showed a chart to Feng Yu.

More than 50% of the shares?! This is impossible.

Those minor shareholders do not have net assets of more than 100 million USD together. The total value of the shares that will be issued is more than 1 billion USD, 25% of the company’s total value.

How did they raise over 500 million USD? Feng Yu don’t even believe they can raise 50 million USD.

Feng Yu looked at the chart, and it is indeed fishy. These shareholders’ total assets are less than 10 million USD each, but they want to invest more than 100 million USD. Even if they had gotten loans from the banks, they would not get so much money.

“Do you know what is happening?” Feng Yu frowned.

“Boss, I still don’t know the reason, but there are only two possibilities in this scenario. First, they manage to raise a large sum of money, but this is quite impossible. The second possibility is someone is buying our Amazon shares through them!” Ralph replied.

Feng Yu also ruled out the first possibility. It might be possible if one of them raise a large sum of money, but it’s not possible for all of them to raise fund at the same time.

The second possibility that someone is trying to acquire Amazon shares is more convincing. This person must be quite daring to invest in internet companies during this time. Still, this person should also know Amazon is going well and is getting profitable.

Even if Amazon did not get listed, one can get high returns from the dividends or sell off the shares after it got listed. If Amazon really got listed, they will get higher returns.

Acquiring Amazon shares through minor shareholders is very simple. For example, a person can sign a loan contract and give them money to buy Amazon shares. But there will be a clause stating the repayment deadline.

The shareholders will not repay this loan, and they must use their Amazon shares to repay this debt. This way, Amazon shares will be legally transferred to someone or a financial institute who wants to buy Amazon shares but cannot get them.

These financial institutes will surely give these minor shareholders some benefits for helping them buy Amazon shares.

You all are trying to use this underhand method on me?!

Feng Yu has a ferocious look in his eye. “Ralph, go and find out who is behind all these. The direct funding of Amazon will be suspended temporarily as there is no hurry. We are still negotiating to acquire those companies. Suppose those shareholders try to use their status as shareholders of Amazon to threaten you. In that case, we will not let them off lightly!”

Chapter 1147 – One man’s meat is another man’s poison

Feng Yu called Fu Rongqi to apologize for the delay.

But Fu Rongqi advised Feng Yu to take note of those investment institutes, especially those who like to invest in internet companies.

Feng Yu remembered many financial institutes and bankers were involved in creating the internet bubble after hanging up.

For example, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, and several banks are the ones behind the Enron scandal. Of course, the banks involved were punished with heft fines ranging from 500 million to 2 billion USD.

But compared to the banks’ profits, the fines are nothing. For example, these banks are the issuing banks for eBay, and they also bought some of them.

When eBay share prices shot up, the banks dumped their shares, and the returns were several folds. These banks did not only handle one internet company. They handled a few hundred internet companies.

Feng Yu immediately told Ralph to look into this.

Very soon, Ralph told Feng Yu that one of the minor shareholders is a relative of a Citibank top executive. During this period, they have been in close contact with each other.

That top executive had flown from New York to Seattle to meet that shareholder.

After Feng Yu knows about this shareholder, he told Ralph to stop the investigation and fix a meeting with them. Feng Yu told them to bring the person behind them along or not get a single share from this direct funding.

Ralph passed Feng Yu’s message to those minor shareholders. Those shareholders deny at first, but when Ralph mentioned that shareholder and Citibank’s top executive’s relationship, they admitted they were promised by some bankers a sum of money to help them acquire Amazon shares.

These shareholders had only received some shares and salaries in Amazon. They were tempted by the offer from those bankers.

Ralph told the shareholders that Feng Yu wants to meet those bankers. Although Amazon is a shareholding, Feng Yu is the main shareholder and has the controlling stake! He can easily kick those minor shareholders out of Amazon.

Whoever tries to do such things again in the future, Feng Yu will not let them off!

Those minor shareholders had only wanted to make some money but did not want to sell their shares. They immediately apologized and promised to inform the bankers behind them.

Anyway, these shareholders will get commissions if those banks manage to acquire Amazon shares even without through them.

……

Feng Yu looked at the four middle-aged men in suits sitting in front of him. They are all well dressed, but the expression on their faces made Feng Yu feel like punching them.

Citibank, JPMorgan, American Express, and Wells Fargo are the four financial institutions behind those minor shareholders. They are also the top ten banks in the US during this period and claim to own over a trillion assets.

This shows the fines imposed on these banks for involving in the Enron scandal are nothing to them.

Someone said that the US economy is controlled by these banks. Although this claim is exaggerated, these banks do have an influence over the US economy.

Feng Yu sat in his chair, enjoying his tea with a smile, and did not say a word. The representative from Citibank finally cannot stand the silence and said.

“Mr. Feng, I know what we did is abrupt, but we do have an interest in investing in Amazon. We will not interfere with the company’s operations and can assist the company if it need help. We had contacted Mr. Bezos before, but he rejected our offer. That’s why we had to use this method.”

The rest of the banks’ representatives agreed.

Feng Yu knew what is going on. These banks can see Amazon’s online transactions.

From the transactions, the banks know the potential earning power of Amazon. They know Amazon’s transactions and profits had been increasing in the past few months.

Amazon will not be inferior to eBay in the future, and might even be better than eBay because Amazon’s major shareholder is Feng Yu.

Other companies had to raise funds for their development, but Feng Yu does not need Amazon to do that. He can afford the investments, and the reason Amazon is not listed is that Feng Yu believes Amazon will bring in high returns in the future.

These banks can tell the expected earning of Amazon and want to invest in it. However, Amazon does not need their investments.

Finally, the banks got an opportunity when Feng Yu agreed to direct funding. They immediately contact the minor shareholders of Amazon to acquire Amazon’s shares through them.

The bankers knew Amazon will eventually be listed. They will see Amazon’s performance at that time to decide if they will sell their shares or hold on to it for the dividends.

“I understand what you all are talking about. You all want to invest in Amazon but have no way to do so, right? What do you all think if I use such underhand methods to invest in your banks?”

Feng Yu has never wanted to sell these shares openly. Even if he has to sell these shares to the public, he will also not sell to these banks. He is sure these banks will find ways to force Amazon to be listed early if they own Amazon’s shares.

Getting listed will guarantee these banks’ profits. These greedy bankers will not care if the company will suffer any losses. After this company closes down, there will be other companies for them to invest in.

These banks will know the companies’ performances through their transactions. They can even find out which company is fabricating their accounts if they want to find out.

If not, how can these banks survive so many financial crises and grow their assets?

“Mr. Feng, there are many benefits to cooperate with us. You should know how powerful we are, and we, Citibank, can also give you a Director position as an exchange.”

Feng Yu took a glance at Citibank’s representative. Are you an idiot? I don’t even want to manage my own companies, and you are asking me to be a Director at Citibank?

This offer might be very attractive to others, including Warren Buffet, but not to Feng Yu. One man’s meat is another man’s poison!

Chapter 1148 – Probing

The Citibank’s executive looked at Feng Yu confidently. He felt no one will resist the offer to be Citibank’s Director. Even Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are the same.

But after a few seconds, the Citibank’s executive noticed Feng Yu is looking at him as an idiot.

Feng Yu had not shown any excitement or happiness. Instead, Feng Yu looks at him coldly and doesn’t show any interest.

“Are you all also thinking of the same thing?” Feng Yu turned to the rest.

“Mr. Feng, all of us can also give you the same offer as Citibank.” The rest of the top bank executives replied at the same time.

Although these banks are competitors, they still cooperated sometimes. For example, all of them joined forces against HSBC because HSBC is from the UK.

Feng Yu smiled coldly. “Did I say I am interested in the Director position of your banks?”

Feng Yu really wants to ask them. “You think I will be easily tempted?”

These bank executives had been arrogant all this while, as they can control the US economy and affect the global economy indirectly.

But so what?

These bankers thought that Amazon will need internet banking for transactions, and they have a hold over Feng Yu. They felt Feng Yu will surely give in. But the banks will get high profits from the transactions, and why should Amazon give in?

If Jeff Bezos is Amazon’s major shareholder, these bankers might succeed in pressuring him to bow down. But Amazon’s major shareholder is Feng Yu, and Feng Yu will never let his companies be controlled by outsiders.

You can take something if I give it to you. But if I don’t want to give it to you, no one can snatch it away from me!

The banks’ executives were stunned by Feng Yu’s attitude.

This is different from what they imagined. This is the first time they made such an offer. If Feng Yu is not the World’s Second Richest Billionaire, the banks will never offer this condition for Amazon’s shares.

But Feng Yu rejected their offer!

This is the Director position of a bank with assets worth over a trillion USD. Feng Yu will have access to other companies’ transactions. The transaction information will bring in high profits.

Feng Yu is not interested in this opportunity?!

“Mr. Feng, you are an outstanding investor and should know what benefits you will get if you cooperate with the banks. With our help, you can easily become the World’s Richest Man! Although you might be unhappy with what we had done, we had already apologized. You don’t need to give up this opportunity to make more money because of a small incident like this.”

“Give up this opportunity? You all are trying to make money through my company, and I am not the one who wants to make money through your banks. Although you all are the top ten banks in the US and one of the top banks globally, so what? Which of your banks’ shareholders has more assets than me? If it is like what you all said, then why are they not the World’s Richest Man?”

Feng Yu looked at them with disdain. They made it sound like you can easily be the World’s Richest Man after getting the transaction information. All the banks have access to their clients’ transactions, and the bankers do make a lot. But it is too slow for Feng Yu.

Feng Yu would rather trust Soros than these bankers. They might have access to the transactions, but they don’t know how to use it.

Rumors are saying Soros has a close relationship with these bankers. But rumors are rumors, and Feng Yu doesn’t really believe it. If the rumors are true, Soros can easily make a comeback after his heavy losses. He is still an expert in financial trading, after all.

With funds and information, one can easily make money.

But no one had heard of these bankers making a large amount of money.

The banks want to make money but don’t want to get a bad reputation. These people are worse than Soros!

The top banks’ executives looked embarrassed. None of their banks’ shareholders can even make it into the World’s Top Ten Billionaires.

“Mr. Feng, although none of our shareholders can make it into the World’s Top Billionaires, our banks’ assets are growing steadily. If you are not interested in being our banks’ Director, you can tell us your condition. We can discuss it.”

“Condition? I still have not thought about it. Let’s discuss some other days.” Feng Yu waved his hand, and Ralph walks over to send the bankers off.

The few banks’ executives were stunned. They thought Feng Yu will mention some conditions, but Feng Yu sent them off without saying anything.

The bankers can still answer their Board of Directors if Feng Yu made some harsh demands that they cannot agree with.

But Feng Yu did not even mention anything. This will make the banks’ executives look useless.

Feng Yu did not allow them to speak anymore, and the banks’ executives left.

After they left, Feng Yu called Fu Rongqi to tell him about this matter. Actually, Feng Yu does not mind letting these banks own some Amazon shares, as Amazon is still under his control. He can also add in a clause that he can buy back those shares at the market rate anytime in his contracts with the banks.

The mobile payment Feng Yu is going to introduce still needs to work with these banks. If the banks do not support this payment platform, it will be hard to communize this payment system.

Luckily, only four banks had come to meet Feng Yu and not all the top ten banks in the US. Feng Yu still has room to negotiate. Even if these four banks refused to cooperate, he could still look for other banks. At that time, these four banks will lose the opportunity to work with Amazon.

Fu Rongqi listened to what Feng Yu said and told him that he should work with these banks. Feng Yu told Fu Rongqi that Amazon’s profits are nothing compared to the Mobile Payment Platform’s profits. It will be a good deal if these banks are willing to support Feng Yu’s Mobile Payment Platform in exchange for Amazon’s shares.

Fu Rongqi is willing to give up some of Amazon’s shares from this direct funding shares issuance. But he needs Feng Yu to probe the banks and see what’s their decision.

“Boss, the share prices we are offering to the banks are doubled of what we are selling to Mr. Fu Rongqi. Will they agree?” Ralph was shocked. This is a harsh offer and is targeting those banks.

“Just try it. It will be great if they agree, and it doesn’t matter even if they reject it. What I want to see is their attitude!”

Chapter 1149 – Paypal is also mine

“Feng Yu is too much. He allowed his friend to invest 800 million USD for 20 million shares. Still, we need to invest 400 million USD for 5 million shares. Does he think we are idiots?”

Citibank’s Director is discussing with the Directors from JPMorgan and the other two banks about this. They are interested in investing in Amazon but are not willing to be treated like fools!

But Ralph told them this. Is eBay stronger than Amazon? Their share price is over 100 USD per share, and what’s wrong with selling you Amazon’s shares at 80 USD per share? Is it expensive?

Didn’t you all say you all can see the potential in Amazon? We have no intentions to sell Amazon’s shares to you all in the first place, and my Boss is now offering you all an opportunity to invest. If you all are not interested, it’s fine. My Boss can invest himself. Do you think my Boss cannot afford to invest a few hundred million?

“That Mr. Fu is the head of a top Hong Kong prominent family. The Fu Family’s asset is worth over 1 billion USD. I heard the Fu Family had supported Feng during the Asian Financial Crisis. That’s why Feng is giving them a discount.”

“Which side are you on? Are you telling me that American Express is willing to accept this pricing?”

“I did not say this. Based on what Ralph said, the share price difference should not be so big. They are not a listed company, and how can they double the share prices within weeks? I think we can negotiate on the share price. Since Ralph refuses to lower the price, we can speak to Feng directly.”

“How are we going to negotiate? Didn’t you all see Feng’s attitude? Although we don’t know how much he has in his bank, it will not be less than a billion USD. Even if he doesn’t do anything, he will not finish spending his money in his lifetime! Furthermore, Feng’s companies are all making high profits for him.”

“No. Feng’s pricing is targeting us. If he doesn’t want to sell the shares to us, he can reject us directly. I am guessing that he wants something from us and is waiting for us to approach him.”

“Wants something from us? What does he want? If he needs loans, it is not a problem. We had worked with Feng before, and we can approve his loan immediately. But does Feng need a loan? He has more cash than those casino owners!”

“I don’t know, but I decided to speak with him than guessing here.”

One of the Directors left, and the rest followed. All of them had thought of joining forces against Amazon and stop their support for Amazon’s online transactions.

But doing this will push Amazon into the arms of other banks. Although they are four of the top ten banks in the US, many other banks in the US. Feng is also close to HSBC, and if all other banks supported Feng, these four banks would be in an awkward position.

Amazon signed the investment contract with Fu Rongqi when Ralph sent Feng Yu’s message to those representatives. The share prices offered to Fu Rongqi is a discounted price, and he is pleased with it.

Feng Yu had let Fu Rongqi invest because he wants someone from the Fu Family to be a Director on the Board of Directors. The Fu Family is experienced in the retail business, and with them helping Amazon, Amazon’s development will be faster.

Amazon’s scale had already exceeded eBay, but not by a lot. More importantly, eBay had started to venture out of the US.

Although eBay’s biggest shareholder is Kirilenko, Feng Yu is happy for him. Still, Feng Yu does not want to lose to Kirilenko. Jeff Bezos also don’t want to lose to that eBay’s female CEO, Meg Whitman.

Amazon had not expanded overseas because of the shortage of funds. Amazon has experience in setting up eCommerce websites. Still, Amazon’s model is B2C, and they need a distribution center and a logistics base.

At the end of the day, Amazon had not expanded overseas because they don’t have money.

Now, with Fu Rongqi’s investment of 800 million USD, Amazon’s expansion plans in South America can start immediately. Their expansion might even be faster than eBay.

Amazon still doesn’t have sufficient funds to expand to Europe. Still, Manager Feng said there will be a second direct investment soon. The company will have sufficient funds to carry out all expansion plans.

The four banks did not expect Amazon completed the investment from Fu Rongqi when they are still considering. Amazon immediately announced they will be starting the second round of direct investment.

The banks’ representatives panicked. They knew if they still don’t agree to Feng Yu’s offer, they will lose the opportunity to invest in Amazon forever.

People will invest if a company lacks funds. But when the company doesn’t lack funds, they will not accept investment.

So, the representatives came to Feng Yu’s office again to negotiate with him. They want to know what other conditions Feng Yu want.

“I had started a company with a friend and had developed payment software. It is a third-party payment platform, and we need support from the banks…”

Feng Yu told the representatives about mobile and online payment platforms.

Citibank’s representative frowned. He is familiar with third party payment software because Citibank had signed an agreement with another payment platform. A large enterprise had started using this payment platform.

The usage rate for payment platforms is very low now, and most users prefer to use online banking.

Now, Feng is going to start a payment platform and wants to work with them. Is he going to snatch the customers of that third-party payment platform, Paypal?

That means Amazon is going against eBay now.

The banks’ representatives felt Amazon and eBay should maintain a good relationship as their banks own many of eBay’s shares. If either Amazon or eBay loses money, they will suffer losses. The best scenario for the banks is both companies do well.

“Mr. Feng, the mobile payment platform you are talking about is not unique. I know eBay is using a payment software called Paypal, and it is doing well.” Citibank’s representative said.

Seems like Feng is also not outstanding. He did not even do any market research. This mobile payment platform might seem to be a good idea, but with a competitor like Paypal, how far can it develop?

The other three banks’ representatives nodded and had a smug look on their faces. But they quickly stop as they are here to seek cooperation from Feng Yu, not here to mock him. Feng Yu has a bad temper, and they don’t want to offend Feng Yu over such a small matter.

Just when they thought Feng Yu will be surprised about Paypal, Feng Yu replied calmly. “Paypal? That is also my company!”

Chapter 1150 – Mobile Payments and Paypal

The four banks’ representatives were shocked. Paypal is also Feng’s company?!

Paypal is not developed by eBay. It is developed by another company, but their first big client is eBay. eBay had thought of acquiring Paypal but was stopped by Kirilenko.

This is because Paypal was acquired by Feng Yu.

eBay had planned to spend 300 million USD to acquire Paypal. Still, the shareholders of Paypal felt Paypal is worth at least 600 million. Although Paypal is not listed, the estimated value of the company is about 100 million USD.

eBay’s acquisition bid failed because of the price differences. Feng Yu immediately ask Ralph to negotiate with Paypal and to acquire it at all cost.

In the end, Feng Yu bought out Paypal with 600 million USD. He gave the two founders of Paypal 4% shares and let them continue to manage Paypal. Feng Yu also gave the development team 2% shares of the company and got them to continue to support Paypal.

With Paypal, why does Feng Yu still want to develop a mobile payment platform?

There are two reasons for this. First, the mobile payment platform is different from Paypal. The second reason is to avoid being targeted by the whole industry. When a company grew into a monopoly, it will be targeted. For example, Microsoft was almost forced to be split, and Yahoo had to be split into Yahoo US, Yahoo Asia, etc.

Rather than being forced to split, Feng Yu might as well create a competitor for himself. This way, his company will not be charged for monopolizing the market. Both companies can better take over the whole third-party payment platform market.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Paypal and eBay’s direction is different from the mobile payment platform. Paypal is equivalent to an internet credit card, while a mobile payment platform is like an internet ATM card.

Paypal had started as an internet bank and slowly developed into a virtue credit card. Mobile payment platform is designed to act as guarantor initially and slowly developed into a virtue ATM.

Paypal charges high transaction fees, and it is their main source of profits. The mobile payment platform focused on transaction history and big data. This is more important than charging transaction fees, but it will encroach these banks’ profits.

That’s why in Feng Yu’s previous life, Paypal had developed faster than the mobile Payment platform overseas because of the suppression from the banks. The banks knew the importance of transaction data and will not let any other companies get it easily.

Paypay is more inclined to the buyers and allows buyers to stop transactions during disputes. Mobile payment platform sides with the seller. Amazon is using the B2C model, and it is Feng Yu’s company. He needs to protect the seller’s interest and prevent instances where the buyer refuses to pay after purchase.

Paypal is more suitable for the Westerns who like to spend their future money. Simultaneously, a mobile payment platform is more suitable for Asians who prefer not to spend on credit. Even before Feng Yu’s rebirth, many Chinese do not own any credit cards in their lifetimes. Many people in Europe and the US will apply for credit cards once they reach the legal age to apply for one.

Credit cards can stimulate consumer spending, but it can also easily form a debt crisis. One person doesn’t need to have an income to get a credit from Bank A, get Bank B’s credit card to repay his credit card debts in Bank A, and then get Bank C’s credit card to repay Bank B’s debts.

Borrow and repayment on time can increase an individual’s credit rating, and the person’s credit limit can be increased. Thus, this person can don’t need to work and have money to spend.

But if any problems occur in any part of this cycle, this person will be bankrupt. Once this person becomes bankrupt, his debt will become a bad debt, and if one or two people do this, it’s fine. But once more than one or two million people do this, it will form a financial crisis.

That’s why Paypal and mobile payment platforms are very different, and both companies can enter into cooperation in the future but will never merge.

Of course, in Feng Yu’s previous life, mobile payment platforms are limited to China. The transacted currency is RMB, and Paypal is primarily using USD. That’s why Paypal is more successful than mobile payment platforms.

But after mobile payment platforms entered the US, it becomes successful. The biggest advantage of mobile payment platforms is its low transaction fees. The mobile payment platforms bear part of the charges, and the banks waived a portion.

With the transaction data in hand, the mobile payment platforms are not worried they have no chance to make money. Moreover, the mobile payment platform has a seven-day clearance, which allows the platform to have enough cash flow. This is like using their customers’ money to invest and make money.

With Feng Yu around, and the mobile payment platform cannot get investment returns of more than the transaction fees, they should just close down!

Another big difference between a mobile payment platform and Paypal is Paypal sellers can withdraw cash immediately. In contrast, a mobile payment platform requires the buyer’s confirmation. If not, the seller has to wait for seven days, and buyers can also delay their payments.

These two types of third party payment platform still have some other differences. Of course, both have similarities, like they are both online payment services and are targeting similar customer groups.

Feng Yu will not explain the details to these banks’ representatives. These banks are willing to accept Paypal as they will get high returns, but mobile payment platform will be taking away a huge chunk of their profits.

“Mr. Feng, we can help Paypal to develop faster, but we feel the mobile payment platform is not suitable.” The representative from American Express said.

“Not suitable? Why is it not suitable? I will still pay you all the transaction fees. We will have lots of users, and it’s beneficial to your banks’ developments too. That’s why you all should give us a discount on the transaction fees.”

“Mr. Feng, this mobile payment platform will infringe the users’ privacy. We think this is not right.”

Infringe the users’ privacy?! Bullshit! You all are talking as if your banks did not make use of your customers’ data.

These banks just want to keep all the transactions to themselves and not let others know about it.

“What if I allow you all to invest in this mobile payment platform in the future?” Feng Yu will allow them to own a minor stake in this platform in the future for their support.

“It’s too early to talk about that. If we can invest in it now, we might consider.” Citibank’s representative replied.

The Citibank’s representative wants the company’s shares and become one of the bosses of this platform.

“Who do you all think you are?! All of you can leave now! There are other banks in the US!”

Chapter 1151 – Sharing their cakes

Feng Yu’s reply had shocked the four banks’ representatives.

The banks’ representatives had wanted to negotiate with Feng Yu, and they never expect Feng Yu to ask them to leave suddenly.

The banks’ representatives were mad. Feng Yu is too arrogant. What Feng Yu said is implying he will not use their banks.

But at the same time, the representatives were worried. Did Feng Yu reach a deal with other banks? How come they are not aware?

If Feng Yu had really made a deal with other banks, it would greatly impact their four banks.

Suppose other banks are working with this third-party payment platform except for their banks. In that case, it will affect their customers’ experiences.

Feng Yu must be lying. Those banks will never agree to this ridiculous cooperation, like sharing their cakes with Feng Yu.

No bank will have a shareholder that owns the banks’ controlling stake. Any major decisions must be made by the Board of Directors and top executives through discussion. If Feng Yu agrees to let the banks invest in his mobile payment platform, it will be equivalent to setting up a new internet bank.

But Feng Yu wants the whole cake for himself. How can they agree to this? He mentioned he will give them a stake in the future platform, but who knows how long it will take? What if Feng Yu goes back on his words or give them very little shares?

“Mr. Feng, your mobile payment platform will still need the support of our banks. I am confident that all companies cannot do well without support from the banks. You are putting us in a difficult position.”

Feng Yu glanced at that JPMorgan representative. “I agree that all companies cannot do without banks. But can you all represent all the banks? There are thousands of banks globally, and I can do without the support from your four banks. Also, this mobile payment platform will be the biggest in the world. Without us, your banks will have lesser and lesser clients! Since you think you all are in a difficult position, then forget it.”

Just like in Feng Yu’s previous life. Any banks in China that do not work with mobile payment platforms will lose customers. Alipay had done well despite so many competitors. In this life, the mobile payment platform only has Paypal as its competitor. It will surely be more successful.

The tide is in Feng Yu’s favor.

The four banks’ representatives left again, and Ralph asked worryingly. “Boss, didn’t you say we will expand our mobile payment platform from East Europe and China to the West? Why are you starting the expansion from the US now?”

“I am only giving the Americans an additional option. Of course, our main target is still China and the region around them. Paypal and mobile payment platforms serve consumers who had different spending patterns.

But if a mobile payment platform can enter the US market now, it will expand to the rest of the world.

The mobile payment platform is more valuable than Paypal. How valuable is big data? Just look at how fast Oracle’s value is rising.

Feng Yu had also invested in banks. For example, he had invested in Minsheng bank in China.

But Minsheng bank is struggling because of the suppression from other state-owned banks. If it wasn’t for these entrepreneurs’ companies’ support, it would have closed down a long time ago.

Even now, Minsheng bank is not making money. This is because of the different treatments from the Government. For example, the Government implements policies to help the state-owned banks first, and Minsheng Bank will get it much later. This applies to trust funds, insurance companies, etc.

If not for all these restrictions, Minsheng bank would have become successful a long time ago.

Just by attracting people to deposit money with them and investing, Feng Yu can help Minsheng bank be more successful than those state-owned banks, even when Minsheng bank is not allowed to invest overseas.

The state-owned financial institutes had already started investing overseas. These institutes are huge and control a large fund. But to Feng Yu, these institutes had invested blindly.

For instance, many of these institutes had lost money in this internet bubble. They didn’t dare to invest at the start and started to invest when the market is nearing the peak. They had missed the golden period.

This is still fine, as the institutes can still make some profits. But when it is time for them to withdraw from the market, they felt the market will recover. This resulted in their profits getting lesser and lesser, and in the end, all of them suffered massive losses.

Iron-fist Zhu had invited Feng Yu to be the consultant for these state-owned financial institutes but was rejected. It is not because Feng Yu doesn’t want to help China make money. The power given to Feng Yu is too little, and the responsibility is too big.

If those financial institutes are willing to listen to Feng Yu, Feng Yu will have access to a large fund. It will be easy for him to get high returns.

With a huge amount of funds, Feng Yu can easily get returns even when investing conservatively. The people overseeing the state-owned financial institutes are still just not up to standard.

After Feng Yu rejected Iron-fist Zhu, he recommended Professor Liang and Fu Rongqi. But because they are from Hong Kong, they still need to be monitored.

Although Hong Kong had already returned to China, Hong Kong’s policies differed from China’s. The Chinese Government still doesn’t understand Hong Kongers. More importantly, they are not familiar with Fu Rongqi and Professor Liang.

Feng Yu understands the banks better through Minsheng Bank. Although Minsheng bank is not making money yet, the bank’s shareholders had made use of the bank’s transactions to make high returns.

Even a bottom-ranked bank in China can make money through analyzing their customers’ transactions, let alone these top banks in the US.

Transaction data is the foundation of the banks. Just look at the Swiss banks. They will not disclose their clients’ data, and that’s why they are popular worldwide.

Security is all slogans by the banks. If you deposit 1 billion USD in any major bank, your money will surely be protected. All banks will do their best to keep a big client.

Your money will never be lost!

The Swiss banks can guarantee your money will be inherited by the person you want, and not affected by politics, etc. This is not the case for other banks.

Also, Switzerland is a neutral country and is not involved in any conflicts.

However, this is also a gimmick. Switzerland had also sold their firearms to war-torn regions. You claimed to be neutral. Why are you developing firearms? You all are just trying to protect your cake.

Feng Yu will snatch this cake away from the banks, and he wants to see how the banks are going to choose.

Oracle Corporation

Chapter 1152 – Payment software

“We must not agree with Feng Yu’s terms. Once we allow their payment software to link to our banks, we will not know the users’ transactions. All we can see is what the mobile payment platform gives us!”

“You are saying we don’t agree to Feng Yu?! What if other banks agree to work with him?”

“We can gather the other banks and demand all of us to invest in this mobile payment platform!”

“Let’s not talk about if other banks will agree or not. Do you think Feng will be easily threatened?”

“Then tell me what should we do?! Are we going to give up this profit to Feng Yu?! All of you should know the value of these data. Are you all willing to let Feng take advantage of us?”

“Let me ask you. Even Paypal is owned by Feng. What if this mobile payment platform doesn’t want to work with us?”

“Isn’t that better? Their online transactions must go through our payment software.”

……

The four banks’ representatives argued over this matter, and no one can convince each other. Some of them want to agree to Feng Yu’s condition, as they will have an opportunity to invest in his mobile payment platform in the future. Some disagree unless Feng Yu agrees to their terms.

But all of them know many of their customers own more than one bank account. If these banks go on separate ways, they will become competitors with each other.

Although these four banks had maintained the same transaction fees, no one can guarantee them to lower their charges to snatch customers.

Most consumers will not switch to another bank once they are used to a bank’s payment software.

More importantly, the banks must approach all the major eCommerce companies to use their payment software. It will become a battle of payment software.

Wait. The banks’ representatives suddenly had an idea. Why don’t they develop payment software themselves?

If Feng Yu can develop third-party payment software, these four banks can also develop one too. Furthermore, they have cooperation with all the companies, and they can easily promote their software.

The representatives believe they can get the support of other banks, but doing this will tie the interests of all the banks together. They still need to discuss how to split the profits.

……

“What did you say? They agree?! They are willing to work with our Paypal and mobile payment platform?!” Feng Yu is surprised to hear those banks agreed to his demands.

Feng Yu had approached a few other banks, including HSBC and a few other top banks, and Feng Yu had not expected those four banks to agree to him so quickly.

“What do they want in return?” Feng Yu thought for a while and knew these banks must want something in return.

“They say they want to invest directly in Amazon and wants the same conditions as the Fu Family.”

Feng Yu nodded. “Ok. This is worth considering. What else?”

“They also want to be allowed to invest in our mobile payment platform and Paypal in the future. But the timeline cannot be too long. They felt ten years is just nice.” Ralph continued.

Ten years? The mobile payment platform and Paypal will be stable in ten years. These banks are quite smart.

In ten years, everyone will know how profitable Feng Yu’s mobile payment platform and Paypal are, and people will be queuing up from Seattle to New York to invest in it.

But this is only a promise, and Feng Yu can agree to it. Feng Yu will never go back on his words, but he promised to let those banks invest and did not say how many shares he will sell to them. 1% is a lot. Hmmm… the maximum is 2%, and it is to be shared by the four banks.

“What else?”

“That’s all.”

Feng Yu was stunned. This is impossible. They had rejected us outright, and now they are demanding so few conditions?

“Boss, they had only wanted these conditions and nothing else.” Ralph quickly said when he saw the puzzled look on Feng Yu’s face.

Ralph also finds it weird as those four banks had been firm when rejecting Feng Yu. But now, their attitude changed suddenly. This is too weird.

The bankers do not need to do this if their reasons are to get Amazon’s shares at lower prices. They already knew the mobile payment platform’s threat to them, yet they still agree to Feng Yu’s terms? Are they willing to let Feng Yu’s mobile payment platform to become more powerful?

Feng Yu lowered his head, thinking of the reasons why those four big banks are willing to bow down to him. Feng Yu and Kirilenko had approached and negotiated with several other banks on their cooperation. They promised those banks they will keep at least a certain amount in their banks if they cooperate.

But this reason is not enough to make those four big banks to give in. There must be some unknown reasons for them to agree!

Feng Yu asked Ralph to find out the real reason behind those banks’ decisions and let Ralph test those banks again by telling them that Amazon’s share prices will remain the same and see if those banks are willing to agree to it.

Although it might seem fine without these four banks, these four banks have lots of clients. Cooperating with them can increase the mobile payment platform’s users. It will be beneficial to Feng Yu if the deal goes through.

If these four banks rejected Feng Yu’s mobile payment platform, other banks might also refuse to cooperate with Feng Yu. This will affect the mobile payment platform’s development.

If the four banks cooperate with Feng Yu, it will be a win-win situation for both parties. But Feng Yu stands to gain more. But if they refuse to cooperate, both parties will lose!

The four banks chose to cooperate now, and everything seems fine. However, Feng Yu is suspicious of their decision, as to how can they agree so easily?

Two days later, Ralph called and told Feng Yu. Those banks had entered a joint venture and had engaged Microsoft to develop a payment software for them. This software will allow all banks to have access.

Feng Yu is shocked. This is equivalent to setting up a bank alliance. That means all the banks’ clients will be using this software to make online transactions, and they don’t need to download payment software from different banks.

But Feng Yu noticed a major flaw in this software. This bank alliance is different from China’s banks’ alliance. China banks are managed by the government, and this bank alliance is managed by corporations. It will be extremely hard for them to reach a balance when it comes to profits. All these corporations will fight for more profits.

This software will be supporting so many banks, and there will surely be charges.

The popularity of payment software or a mobile payment platform is not only about customer service. Another important factor is the number of companies using the software. Let us show these banks who can get more users for the software!

Chapter 1153 – Email marketing

In Feng Yu’s previous life, there is more than 1,000 online payment software in China. But in the end, only a few survived.

There are pros and cons to online payment software, and these are consolidated by someone. Feng Yu doesn’t dare to claim he knows everything, but at least he knows more than those who had never developed such software.

Just the different ways of marketing the payment software are enough to stun those banks!

How is Paypal marketing itself now? They are currently using online advertising, and when a user enters eBay’s website, they will see Paypal advertisements. Of course, Paypal needs to pay eBay for advertising on their site.

Another marketing method is Paypal’s email marketing, which is the main form of advertising.

Paypal’s transactions require the user to enter their email. When the buyer made payments, the seller will receive an email.

When the seller wants to withdraw the money, the seller also needs to register a Paypal account. The account registration is less than a minute, and the seller will not mind.

This method increases Paypal users rapidly.

eBay does have their own payment services, but after they allowed Paypal to provide their services on their site, their own payment service users dropped.

Now, eBay’s payment service had split from eBay and merged with Paypal, and Paypal becomes the only payment mode on eBay.

Paypal’s profits are tied to eBay, but the Boss of Paypal is Feng Yu, and eBay’s Boss is Kirilenko.

When Paypal used email advertising to promote its services, Feng Yu noticed their emails are not good enough. Email advertisements must attract users, and the words used must be concise.

In the past, the sellers were forced to use Paypal to sell their items, and Paypal used it to increase their users. But this method lacks initiative.

Luckily, eBay is an auction site. The buyer and sellers’ identities are constantly changing, and this let Paypal increase its users steadily.

But now, eBay had entered the countries near the US and started to acquire other auction sites for expansion. Thus, Paypal, as eBay’s official payment mode, must also enter those countries.

To expand into other countries, Paypal must increase the use of different currencies.

You cannot tell the users that because Paypal is a US company, all users must use USD for transactions. Most of Paypal’s overseas users do not have USD in their accounts.

Luckily, Feng Yu had reminded Paypal about this problem before Paypal enters Canada. He had instructed Paypal to prepare for various currencies and let the users have the option to own different types of currencies in their accounts. To convert the currencies, Paypal must work with the banks.

Of course, currency exchange requires transaction fees, and Paypal will get some profits from these transactions.

Paypal cannot set the transaction fees too high, or the users will feel it is not worth it. But the charges cannot be too low, too, as it will lower Paypal’s profits. This balance is hard to grasp, and the charges for different countries will be different in the future. But the differences will not be more than 1%, as it depends mainly on contracts with the local banks in different countries.

This feature of Paypal is more convenient than online banks. At the same time, eBay can allow transactions between countries. But this had made using traditional email marketing difficult.

Email marketing is most suitable for Paypal because all their accounts are tied to an email address. So, Feng Yu set some requirements for Paypal’s marketing department.

Email marketing must meet some requirements. For example, the emails must let the reader feel excited and click on the link. Fund withdrawal, which was used previously, is a way to entice the email recipients to click on the link, but this is not enough for non-eBay’s users. Paypal needs to find a new way to entice readers through their emails.

Another important point for email marketing is to set the mood. It must let the recipient feel the things mentioned in the email is the best opportunity they had received.

The emails must be eye-catching, and using bright colors and pictures will attract the recipient’s attention. It will be better if the email can include GIF pictures. Although the GIF format had appeared for around ten years now, the pictures are not very clear because of the internet speed. The colors in the GIF are mostly 256 and look fake. But it is still better than still images and can attract more attention.

In the future, when internet development is better, the email can include a video link where the reader can click on the link and watch the video.

Also, Paypal and eBay’s email marketing will be tied together to form a bundle. When users register an eBay account, they will receive a prompt to register for Paypal. This is the same for users who registered for Paypal. The users who registered for Paypal will see eBay’s promotion advertisements, and they can see the discounted items for sales.

Paypal had also signed online payment system agreements with several internet companies. This will let users feel that with Paypal, they can use it on different websites and create the impression that they can use Paypal for transactions on all online sites.

Of course, this is one of Paypal’s target, and it is almost impossible. No online payment software could monopolize the market unless Paypal dropped its charges. But that will let Paypal lose their main source of revenue.

……

AliPay appeared as one of the payment options on Amazon’s website, and it is the first option on the list. Alipay is also using email marketing to promote its services. It got an email list from Paypal and started sending emails to everyone on the list.

One important point to note is the emails must stimulate the recipient with incentives with a time limit. When the recipient sees the countdown clock, they will think they will miss this offer if they don’t buy it.

When the recipient clicks on the link in the advertisement emails, they will enter Amazon’s site. There will be a pop-up on the right which will ‘shake,’ attracting the user to click on it. It is the link to Alipay’s registration site.

The advertisement is about Alipay’s advantages, credit guarantee, and Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s joint statement. The advertising is ‘You shop, I guarantee, Safe, Simple and fast.’

There is also a picture of Feng Yu and Kirilenko shaking hands. But Kirilenko is facing the camera, and Feng Yu had only shown his back.

Many people received this email and started noticing Alipay. With the World’s Second Richest Man and East Europe’s Richest Man guarantee this payment platform, this platform must be safe. Alipay’s registered users increased at an astonishing rate.

Alipay

Chapter 1154 – Everyone wants to invest

When Alipay and Paypal were getting popular, Feng Yu received a call from Ralph telling him that those four banks insist on the share prices to be the same as the Fu Family. They are willing to spend 800 million USD, but they must get the same shares as the Fu Family.

Ralph is slightly ashamed for not completing the task given to him.

“It’s alright. Ralph, it’s very simple to raise funds. Just spread the word that Amazon is raising funds without getting listed, and many people will contact us. There is a major change in the company before and after Fu Rongqi’s direct investment. The company’s scale had increased and has a bigger market and more users. How can the share prices remain the same?”

What Feng Yu said is true. No one will feel they suffered losses when Amazon’s share prices doubled within two weeks after Fu Rongqi invested.

Fu Rongqi is also very grateful towards Feng Yu. He had made the right choice for choosing Feng Yu as the Fu Family’s long-term partner.

The Fu Family has been doing business for many years. When contracts are not commonly used, the Fu Family does business by trusting the other party.

Slowly, trust becomes a favor. When someone helped them, they will return the favor during their next cooperation by giving the other party more benefits.

When they gave the other party more benefits, the other party will return the favor in their next deal. This process will repeat repeatedly, and the relationship between the Fu Family and the other party becomes closer.

For example, many influential families in Hong Kong are working together because of this reason. All of them are old friends, and many deals take place over a phone call. I need your help, but I will not let you suffer any losses. Of course, when you need my help, just give me a call.

Don’t think such ‘interpersonal favors’ only exist among the Chinese. Many countries in the world also have this practice. When LA Wind and Rain team was still Clippers, their Boss, Donald, is very close to the Buss, and Donald lends Buss money to buy Lakers at that time.

When Donald faced cash flow problems with his real estate business in LA, Buss prepared funds to help Donald with only a phone call. Many people will think that Americans only believe in contracts, but they also trust old friends.

Fu Rongqi felt Feng Yu is generous, and Feng Yu also thinks the Fu Family had treated him well. The Fu Family had helped him when he needed help and will support him with just a phone call. Even without Feng Yu, the Fu Family can still remain one of the top Hong Kong families with Fu Rongqi’s experience.

Of course, Feng Yu trust the Fu Family is also because Fu Guangzheng is his friend. Kirilenko and Fu Guangzheng can be considered as Feng Yu’s best friends. Their status might even exceed his childhood friend, Wen Dongjun.

Kirilenko and Fu Guangzheng are friends who can go into a business venture over a phone call. They trusted each other and knows the other party will never cheat him. But Feng Yu needs to go into details when going into business ventures with Li Zekai and the rest.

……

Ralph followed Feng Yu’s instructions to spread the news of Amazon is seeking another round of direct investment. Many people, including many famous financial institutes, are interested.

To Feng Yu’s surprised, Li Zekai called and told him the Li Family wants to buy Amazon’s shares.

Feng Yu is troubled.

Although Feng Yu and Li Zekai are not best friends, they are close and have many business ventures together.

Feng Yu hopes to raise more funds from this round of direct investment. But if Feng Yu sells the shares at prices doubled of what he sold to the Fu Family, he will be offending them.

It’s fine if it is Li Zekai, but Feng Yu still wants to maintain his relationship with Superman Li.

Superman Li’s nickname as the King of the World’s port is true. Sea freight is still the main form of cargo transportation in the world. Controlling the ports is equivalent to controlling the enormous profits behind it!

When Feng Yu and the rest were targeting those Japanese companies, Superman Li had ordered his ports to forbid Japanese firms’ goods to enter his ports, resulting in massive losses to those companies.

Superman Li has a high political status in China, and Feng Yu is wary of this.

Donald Trump had also approach Feng Yu. The real estate value in New York kept increasing, and he had almost cleared his debts. Of course, he still has some bank loans to repay, but the banks are not in a hurry to recover the debts because Trumps still has lots of properties in New York.

Although Trump seldom invests in internet companies, this company is different. The main shareholder of this company is Feng Yu. When all other internet companies are losing money in this financial crisis, Amazon can maintain their profits. Just this reason alone showed the potential of this company!

Feng Yu also cannot reject Kameda Masao, Heitaro Nakajima, Zhong Qingxian, etc.

Feng Yu is surprised that so many people are interested despite setting such a high price. Kameda Masao and the rest had never expressed interest in Amazon before. Kameda Masao knew the share prices of the first round of direct investment, but he still wants to invest in the second round when the price had doubled.

Since everyone is interested, Feng Yu might as well limit the direct investment to his friends. Just nice that many people are involved, and he is not worried about the Li Family misunderstood him. The price of the second round must be different from the first round.

When Feng Yu announced the direct shares offering to Tai Hua Holdings and Wind and Rain Holdings, he realized everyone wants to purchase more shares than what Amazon planned to release.

Feng Yu does not want to issue so many shares, as this amount of fund is enough for Amazon’s expansion. The next time Amazon requires funds, it should be about time for Amazon to get listed.

So, Feng Yu told them that the direct share offering this round is limited and discussed to reduce the number of shares they wanted by half.

Everyone agreed to Feng Yu’s pricing of the shares, and Feng Yu asked Kameda Masao why he didn’t buy the shares earlier?

Kameda Masao told Feng Yu that he thought Feng Yu uses this direct offering to cooperate with those US banks. After knowing that Feng Yu will not cooperate with those banks, he will not let the opportunity off.

This reason made Feng Yu felt sorry. Why didn’t he thought about offering this money-making opportunity to his friends earlier? These people are all tycoons now.

Feng Yu decides to inform his friends first in the future and let them know that everyone will make money if they follow him..

Chapter 1155 – Sa Wukong

“Boss, are you busy?” Ralph knocks and entered. Feng Yu is sitting behind his PC and is typing on the keyboard. He doesn’t look like he is playing games because Feng Yu plays games with the speaker. Feng Yu says, the louder the sound, the more fun it is.

For example, after acquiring that FPS game developer, Feng Yu played, Half-life the whole day and even got Ralph to play with him. This is a fun game and is also selling well.

“What is it?” Feng Yu asked without looking up.

“The stock market is showing signs of recovery. Are we still continuing to short the market?” When the stock market crashed last year because of the internet bubble, they had made a killing from shorting the market.

But at the end of last year, the share prices of some major companies stopped dropping, and the stock index started to rise. Although there are some fluctuations, the returns from shorting the market are not high.

Feng Yu still insist them to continue to short the market. They even made some losses last month. If this carries on, their profits might all be gone.

“It’s fine. I said before that the funds we have in Wind and Rain Consulting will be used to short Nasdaq and try to buy long gold positions in the second half of the year. The losses now are nothing. We can win back everything at the end of the year.”

Suffering some losses now is part of Feng Yu’s plan. If Feng Yu stops now and start shorting the market in the second half of the year, he will be investigated.

But even now, Feng Yu has a way to make the market crash again.

Ralph still wanted to say something but chose to shut up after seeing Feng Yu’s attitude. If Feng Yu wants Ralph’s opinions, Ralph is free to speak his mind and will not be blamed. If Ralph’s opinions can help Feng Yu, Ralph might even get a bonus.

But when Feng Yu did not ask Ralph for his opinions, Ralph would not dare say anything. He knows his place and will not do anything he is not supposed to.

After thinking for a while, Feng Yu added. “In another two months, the Nasdaq will crash again because the true colors of a big internet company will be revealed!”

Although Ralph does not know which internet company his Boss is referring to. Still, a big internet company should be worth at least a few billion USD. If this company’s share prices plunge like Enron, it will cause panic selling among the investors.

After Ralph left, Feng Yu turned his attention back to his monitor. There is only a window open on his PC, which is a QQ chat window.

The chat window is very simple and does not have any advertisements, features, etc., like Feng Yu’s previous life. This window is purely for chatting.

The chat window showed the other party’s nick. Reporter Xinxin.

Feng Yu’s nick is called Sa Wukong.

……

Zhou Kexin sits in front of her PC. It is her school break now, and she will be graduating next year. After graduation, she will be working for Wind and Rain Business Magazine. The Chief Editor, Mr. Huran, had promised her this job.

Although it is almost New Year, Zhou Kexin did not return home. She is still working in the company, but as it is nearing Lunar New Year, most of the staff do not have much work, and many of them are skiving.

Zhou Kexin is waiting for the Chief Editor’s review of her article. If her article passed, she could go on leave earlier. If not, she has to amend her article until the Chief Editor is satisfied.

While waiting, Zhou Kexin will secretly surf the net, online forums, and chat on QQ, like everyone else.

After using QQ, Zhou Kexin fell in love with this software. She can chat with her classmates, friends, and even strangers, over the internet.

As an intern, Zhou Kexin had made some mistakes, but the Chief Editor is very lenient. As a result, rumors started to spread.

Someone says Zhou Kexin is having an affair with the Chief Editor. Others say she can enter the agency because of connections. If the rumors do not involve Zhou Kexin, she might even believe it.

Although Zhou Kexin knows the truth will speak for itself. Her relationship with the Chief Editor is strictly professional, and her family is not influential. How can she have the connections to enter the agency?

But all these rumors are making Zhou Kexin uncomfortable. She wants to find someone to pour her frustrations.

Zhou Kexin’s classmates are either in class or undergoing internships. They don’t have time to listen to her complaints. Most interns also don’t have access to PCs, let alone having a mobile phone like her.

One day, the QQ icon started jumping suddenly. Zhou Kexin thought someone was looking for her and opened it. It is a friend request by someone named Sa Wukong.

Zhou Kexin had only heard of Sun Wukong and Sa Wujing. Who is this Sa Wukong?

Out of curiosity, Zhou Kexin accepted the request.

Zhou Kexin asked the other party who he is, and the other party said he is bored and wants to chat with a stranger. Sa Wukong says he wants to tell someone his sorrows and not worry about someone he knows hear it.

Sa Wukong told Zhou Kexin that he is currently working in the US, and no one can speak mandarin. He felt very uncomfortable speaking English every day.

Sa Wukong’s problems reminded Zhou Kexin of the time she went to other provinces for interviews. The dialect used in other provinces troubled her. Usually, she can finish writing an article for about two hours. Still, that day, she cannot finish writing that article because she couldn’t understand the dialects.

So, both started to listen to each other problems and consoled each other.

Chatting with Sa Wukong made Zhou Kexin realized her problems are nothing compared to him.

Zhou Kexin felt her luck started to get better as the gossipmonger in her agency was fired. Although the fired woman had performed well in her job, the Chief Editor fired her without hesitation.

Everyone else felt the Chief Editor cannot stand the rumors and fired that woman. Zhou Kexin did not know that the Chief Editor had not heard about those rumors, or else, that woman would have been fired much earlier!

After chatting several times, Zhou Kexin and Sa Wukong become friends and chat whenever they are free.

This feels like the time when Zhou Kexin was chatting with the Second most handsome person on earth.

Today, Zhou Kexin started to chat with Sa Wukong again while waiting for the Chief Editor’s reply.

Chapter 1156 – Know-It-All

“Sa Wukong. Our Chief Editor asked me to write an article about a tycoon’s private life. But I had never written asked about such questions in my interviews before. So, my Chief Editor gave me some materials collected by other reporters to help me. But I feel my article will not pass his review.”

Zhou Kexin felt troubled. This is supposed to be a business magazine, and shouldn’t it focus on these tycoons’ businesses? Why should they write about the tycoon’s personal life?

But Sister Zhao told Zhou Kexin that many people idolize tycoons and are interested in their private life.

It’s just like the superstars. Their fans are interested in their private lives and gossips.

Zhou Kexin felt what Sister Zhao said made sense, and reporting on a tycoon’s personal life will push up the magazine’s sales.

Sa Wukong asked Zhou Kexin who did she wrote about?

“Shi Dazhu. He is a noteworthy figure. He was formerly one of the top ten tycoons in China and was almost bankrupt. A few years later, he made a comeback. I think his story is more interesting than other tycoons.”

Zhou Kexin felt proud for writing an article about Shi Dazhu, but she did not know that Sister Zhao had hinted to her. She still thought she was the one who thought about this.

“I know about Shi Dazhu. I had worked in his company before. What did you write about him?”

Zhou Kexin never felt so lucky before. This Sa Wukong knows Shi Dazhu?!

This is terrific. No matter how many past interview record Zhou Kexin has, it is not better than someone who had worked in Shi Dazhu’s company.

“When did you start working in Shi Dazhu’s company? How much do you know about him?”

“Although I had not worked long in Shi Dazhu’s company, I know a lot about him…” Feng Yu told Zhou Kexin what he knows about Shi Dazhu. Of course, these were all prepared in advance.

Zhou Kexin is shocked. Shi Dazhu is a heavy smoker? But no reporters had ever seen him smoking during interviews.

Shi Dazhu has a high alcohol tolerance and can finish drinking two bottles of Baijiu?!

Shi Dazhu loves his wife deeply. When Shi Dazhu was down-and-out, his wife, his girlfriend, remained by his side.

Shi Dazhu is very proud.

Shi Dazhu is thinking of setting up an internet company.

Shi Dazhu…

Feng Yu told Zhou Kexin a lot about Shi Dazhu, which was unknown from his past interviews.

Zhou Kexin immediately amends her article and sent it to her Chief Editor again.

The Chief Editor read the article and is surprised. He asked Zhou Kexin where did she get all these details?

Zhou Kexin told him that it was Shi Dazhu’s former staff who told her all this information. She felt this might be true and wants to ask the Chief Editor if she can add all these details.

The Chief Editor agreed because he had interviewed Shi Dazhu before. He had wanted to help Zhou Kexin amend her article but realized he does not need to do that now. Zhou Kexin’s new article is better than her previous article.

The Chief Editor is speechless. Boss is a genius on how to take care of someone!

After receiving the Chief Editor’s praises, Zhou Kexin is overjoyed. She can buy the tickets to return home tomorrow!

Zhou Kexin got nothing to do in the afternoon and continued to chat with Sa Wukong. She wants to thank Sa Wukong for giving her so much insider information about Shi Dazhu.

Zhou Kexin told Sa Wukong that she had come to Shanghai for studies and work for some time but had never visited the attractions because she didn’t know Shanghai well.

Sa Wukong immediately recommends some attractions in Shanghai to Zhou Kexin and even helped her plan an itinerary.

When Zhou Kexin told Sa Wukong what she wanted to eat, Sa Wukong immediately tells her which part of Shanghai has good food that is cheap and good.

Zhou Kexin mentioned she wanted to buy something but cannot find it in Shanghai. Sa Wukong recommended Tai Hua Supermarket. He told her to ask the shop assistant in the supermarket, and she will find what she wants.

Whatever Zhou Kexin asks, Sa Wukong will have the answers. He really knows everything!

Feng Yu sips his coffee in front of his PC. Whenever Zhou Kexin asks a question, he will ask another person through another QQ window. That person will get his subordinates to find the answer.

Although Baidu has been set up, Baidu Baike is not available now. Feng Yu cannot use the internet to search for some answers now.

But Feng Yu has lots of subordinates. If the internet cannot provide an answer, he will use his men to answer!

Although Zhou Kexin asked lots of questions, one of Feng Yu’s subordinates will answer. Even if the answer is not detailed, it is good enough.

Feng Yu got to know Zhou Kexin’s QQ number through Huran. Huran is puzzled why his Boss doesn’t want to call Zhou Kexin for her QQ number as he had given Feng Yu Zhou Kexin’s phone number before.

Zhou Kexin had changed slightly compared to Feng Yu’s previous life, but Feng Yu still knows her well as they had been chatting for years.

QQ is different from penpals, but Feng Yu can still control their chat’s momentum and slowly lead Zhou Kexin on.

Controlling the momentum of the chat is an important factor in business negotiations. When Feng Yu was in Hong Kong University as an exchange student, he had learned this. Now, he gets to applied what he learned.

Zhou Kexin slowly fell into the trap set by Feng Yu.

Zhou Kexin never expects this ‘random’ stranger she met on the internet is the Second most handsome person on earth.

Zhou Kexin had stopped contacting the Second most handsome person on earth for a long time, but she still receives an email from him every week. She will read the letters but never reply.

Zhou Kexin doesn’t know how to reply to the Second most handsome person on earth. She is afraid she will sink deeper if she replies.

But Zhou Kexin still checks her emails every week to read them and even logged on to Legend of Mir. But she no longer contacts Feng Yu.

Zhou Kexin still plays Legend of Mir, but she plays on a new account. She chose Taoist priest as her new character instead of Magician.

But Zhou Kexin cannot find the feeling of excitement when she first played this game. She wonders if it is because she is busy with work and studies, or no one is playing with her.

Now, Zhou Kexin found something to pass her time through QQ. But she doesn’t know that the person chatting with her is still the same person.

Zhou Kexin finds Sa Wukong is interesting, and maybe this person can replace the Second most handsome person on earth in her heart. To her, the Second most handsome person on earth does not belong.

“I will be returning to China after the Lunar New Year. Shall we meet? You can decide on the location.”

Zhou Kexin suddenly panics when she saw Sa Wukong’s message. She quickly closes the chat window.

Should I meet him?

Chapter 1157 – Break up

Feng Yu sighed as he did not get any replies from Zhou Kexin, and she immediately logs off.

Am I too anxious?

Although QQ has been around for some time, online dating is not common yet. It only becomes common after the movie <The First Intimate Contact> comes out.

Online dating is rare now, as people are conservative and shy. But after the movie was released, many people felt online dating is very romantic.

Before Feng Yu’s rebirth, it is common for people to find one night stands and flings on the internet, let alone online dating.

Asking an online friend out now is way too advanced in this era.

However, Feng Yu is confident he can ask Zhou Kexin out as the New Year is still several days away.

Even if Feng Yu cannot ask her out, he still has other ways. He will not let Zhou Kexin escape!

……

It is Lunar New Year again. Feng Yu sat on the sofa with his family to watch the Spring Festival Gala Night. Zhixing watched for a while and ran out of the house to play with firecrackers.

During Lunar New Year, Feng Yu visited his old friends like Zhang Ruiqiang, etc.

Xu Changyou will retire, and Zhang Ruiqiang had secured his position as the number 3 of the Longjiang Province. There are rumors that Xu Changyou has the opportunity to get promoted, but he rejected this offer. He wants to remain in Longjiang Province to assist Zhang Ruiqiang and let him succeed after he retires. Zhang Ruiqiang is going to be the Province’s number two!

When Feng Yu first met Zhang Ruiqiang, he was still young. Now, his hair is slowly turning grey.

These few years, Longjiang Province’s economy has improved, and Beidacang Group started making profits this year. Tai Hua Food Processing Company had merged with Beidacang in exchange for Beidacang’s shares. Zhang Mingcheng becomes Beidacang’s Director and First Vice-President. Although his title is the Vice-President, he is doing the President’s job, as the current President is about to retire. Basically, Zhang Mingcheng oversees all the important decisions of the company.

Zhang Ruiqiang is still Beidacang’s Chairman, and he is similar to Feng Yu. He only controlled the finance department and delegated the rest of his powers to others.

Beidacang’s brand has become famous in the past two years and is on par with Tai Hua Brand.

Beidacang’s main products are ecological farming products, and it is well received overseas. Their products are exported to South Korea, Japan, and many other Southeast Asia Countries.

Beidacang doesn’t have any competitors in China. With the help of Tai Hua Processed Food’s distribution channels, Tai Hua Supermarkets, and their own channels, their products are sold all over China.

Last year, many of Beidacang’s products got the State Banquet Special Supply’s logo and became more popular among the people. Many people felt that if these products are good enough to be served in the State Banquets, it must be the best!

Beidacang’s good results helped Zhang Ruiqiang secure his position and promotion one year later.

Zhang Ruiqiang’s achievements consist of more than Bing City’s development and Beidacang.

Just look at the results from revitalizing the industrial Provinces in the Northeast. The other two provinces in the Northeast asked for high investments from the Central Government. Longjiang Province received the least investments from the Central Government but is the most well-developed province.

Bing City Machinery Company is China’s best agricultural machinery, automobile, motorcycles, three-wheeled motorcycles manufacturer in China. Their products are selling all over China, and their automobiles are even exported overseas. They even built branch factories overseas! They had set the milestone for China!

Bing City Aviation’s helicopter research had caught up with many developed countries. Although their technologies are not the most advanced globally, they had closed the gap between China and other countries.

Many Bing City Aviation’s engine research comes from their joint research center with Bing City Machinery Company. This research center had successfully solved many automobile engine problems and even a popular model aircraft. The higher-ups did not expect this model aircraft to be so detailed. This toy is very expensive, yet lots of people are willing to buy it, and it was also exported overseas!

This model aircraft is suggested by Feng Yu to Bing City Aviation. The imported model aircraft in the market ranges from one thousand to several thousand.

Yet, the quality of these model aircraft is poor. Bing City Aviation’s aircraft models have scaled-down models of overseas’ helicopters.

Besides the obsolete helicopters in China, Bing City Aviation is not allowed to produce models to prevent other people from estimating China’s helicopter specifications.

Although Feng Yu finds this reason ridiculous, he did not say anything. This suggestion is only to help Bing City Aviation increase their revenue. Feng Yu would rather a Chinese company earn these profits from the aircraft model industry than let a foreign company get it.

Feng Yu also suggested drones to Bing City Aviation, and the first prototype is developed. But the production cost is too high, and they only accept custom build now.

Digital camera technology is still not well-developed yet, and cannot be used on drones. So, Feng Yu told Bing City Aviation there’s no rush. They can conduct their research slowly and try other materials to reduce the production cost.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, these ‘toys’ cost a few hundred RMB to a few million RMB. Most TV stations are using drones that cost over ten thousand to a few hundred thousand. It is slightly more expensive than the cameras and even cheaper than some high-end cameras.

Of course, the profits from these ‘toys’ are high.

As for the Generator Factory, their research on electricity generators is one of the most advanced in the world. This also has something to do with Feng Yu. The Generator Factory worked closely with Feng Yu’s Tai Hua Batteries, the best-selling batteries in China. Tai Hua Batteries’ annual profits is not a small amount.

Like the tire factory, plastic factory, glass factory, steel factory, etc., are doing well because they depend on the three major industrial factories of Bing City.

Some other state-owned enterprises were also revived. They don’t need the Central Government’s funding as the Province has enough funds to support them. A while ago, a National State-owned Investment Company wanted to invest in Bing City Machinery Company, but Xu Changyou.

Why didn’t you invest in the Machinery Company in the past? Now, we are making money, and you all want to invest? Do you think we lack your funding?

Even if the company lacks funding, we can just get listed. You all want to invest is because you all want to manage it. Xu Changyou will retire soon, and the Chairman of that Investment Company had no choice but to return to Beijing.

Many of Bing City’s companies had received investments from other places. But Zhang Ruiqiang learned from Feng Yu. Bing City must have the controlling stake, but he hired professional managers to manage the companies. Feng Yu told him that a good manager can help the companies bring in more profits.

Those who are good at technologies might not know how to manage a company. Those who can manage companies might not know about finances and those that know about finances do not know about technologies.

Getting the right person for the right position is very important. For example, Li Dafu, from Bing City Machinery Company, is good at management. The motorcycle and car divisions under him helped the company make high profits over the years.

The Central Government had given the Northeastern Provinces a lot of money in the past two years. But Longjiang Province had received less than 10% of the total fund.

This shows how well Longjiang Province is doing. Its development is better than what the higher-ups expected, and many Longjiang Province leaders got promoted.

Many people don’t know that Feng Yu played a major role in Longjiang Province’s success.

“Feng Yu, I need to get your opinions on a matter.” Zhang Ruiqiang looks at Feng Yu.

“Do you think we should break up Bing City Machinery Company?”

Puuuu….

Feng Yu spat out his tea. What did Old Zhang say? Bing City Machinery Company is going to be split? Whose idea is this?

The First Intimate Contact (Novel)

Flyin’ Dance (Movie)

Chapter 1158 – Conditions

“The higher-ups want to split up Bing City Machinery Company? Why?” Feng Yu asked.

Bing City Machinery Company is China’s top machinery manufacturer and is famous throughout Asia. Japan, Korea, and many other countries’ companies are jealous of their market share in China. Bing City Machinery Company had successfully stopped Japanese cars from dominating the Chinese market.

Zhang Ruiqiang patted Feng Yu’s shoulders to calm him.

“The higher-ups are considering this, but this is not mandatory, and they are asking for our views. Bing City Machinery Company is a shareholding, and you are the major shareholder. You will have the final say over this matter.”

Zhang Ruiqiang does not know if breaking up Bing City Machinery Company is good or bad. But if this is good for the company, Feng Yu will surely agree. But if it is bad, Feng Yu will never agree to it.

Feng Yu is relieved to hear that it is not mandatory. He thought the higher-ups are going to interfere in the company.

Seems like Old Zhang still has some influence to stop the higher-ups from interfering with the company.

“What is the Province Government’s position? Do you all want to split the company or not?” Feng Yu purposely ask.

Since Zhang Ruiqiang asked this question, that means he is also thinking of splitting the company. Feng Yu wants to know what is Zhang Ruiqiang’s decision. He knows Zhang Ruiqiang is not someone who will snatch the fruits of one’s labor.

Furthermore, Feng Yu donated large sums of money to Bing City and Longjiang Province every year. The leaders in Longjiang Province should not be so short-sighted.

Without Feng Yu, can Longjiang Province become successful? Just their trade with Russia had helped Longjiang Province make lots of money. These trades are all because of Kirilenko’s help.

“Feng Yu, Bing City Machinery has several products. Agriculture machinery, automobile, motorcycles, and just the motorcycles are still split into two wheels and three wheels motorcycles. Of course, there is the special purpose of four wheels motorcycles.”

“Our business is expanding very fast, and our brand, scale, and profits are making others envious. I heard from Li Mingde that we will be implementing the electric bikes soon. He says this is your idea, and this electric bike can reduce carbon emissions and save energy. Although I don’t know what it means, the company needs to expand again, right?”

Feng Yu nodded. “Electric bike is running on electricity, and will not pollute the environment. Also, electric bikes are lighter and do not need petrol. The users can charge the batteries at home, and if the electric bike runs out of battery, the user can ride it like a normal bicycle. This is our company’s solution to motorcycle restrictions in the future.”

Zhang Ruiqiang looks at Feng Yu curiously. “Motorcycle restrictions? I had heard about this, but can it really be implemented? Motorcycles are currently one of the main forms of transport. If it is implemented, are people going back to take public buses or ride bicycles?”

“Didn’t you realize that our automobile sales had been increasing over the past few years? Our roads are just this wide, and if there are more cars on the road, those motorcycles will be weaving in between the cars. Also, the exhaust fumes from motorcycles are worse than cars. It will be ban sooner or later. At least, it will be restricted on the city’s roads.

“But that’s not right. You mentioned the electric bike will be replacing motorcycles. Still, other than the exhaust fumes, it can also weave in and out of the traffic.”

“How fast is the speed of a motorcycle? We can limit the electric bike’s speed to 60 mph/h or 40 mph /h. Most of the time, people will not go over 20 mph /h. Motorcycles can go up to 100 mph /h. You can always see motorcycles going above 60 mph /h in the busy streets. Traffic police might not even catch them at this speed, and motorcycle accident rates are much higher than cars.”

“Then why don’t you limit the motorcycle’s speed?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked and suddenly felt this is a stupid question. If the motorcycle’s speed is restricted to 60 mph /h, who will want to buy it? Furthermore, motorcycles are the main form of transport in villages where there are lesser cars.

“Alright. Let’s not talk about the speeding issue. Bing City Machinery Company is going to start the electric bicycle production soon, right?”

“It’s an electric bike, and it includes electric bicycles and electric motorcycles. An electric bicycle can be used as a bicycle, and an electric motorcycle will look like a scooter. The speeds for both are different. Electric motorcycles can go up to 60 mph/h, but electric bicycles cannot.” Feng Yu explained.

“Alright. Don’t tell me about these anymore. The company will be increasing its productions and scale, right? How many branch factories does this company have? How many employees do the company employ?”

“Leader, this company is expanding, and hiring more employees helps the cities solve their unemployment issues. Why are you sounding that I am not doing the right thing?” Feng Yu grumbled.

“Stop trying to change the subject. You should know what I am talking about. The bigger the company is, the harder it is to manage. I see your Tai Hua Holdings management model is quite good. The holding company only needs to manage the subsidiaries’ human resources and finance, and the subsidiary can operate independently. If the subsidiary encounters any issue, the holding company can step in to assist it. This way, it is easy to manage all the companies.” Zhang Ruiqiang rolled his eyes.

“You can say so. We can split the research center and the different divisions into many subsidiaries. It will be easier to manage them, and I plan to do this in the future. But since the City also think so, fine. I will get my men from Tai Hua Holdings to evaluate Bing City Machinery Company and start the restructuring.”

Breaking up Bing City Machinery Company is fine as the subsidiaries will still be under a holding company. They can continue to share the brand and distribution channels. This will also make the accounts clearer, and the subsidiaries can get listed on their own.

“Then, after the restructuring, can the company takeover with the tire factory, glass factory, etc.?”

Feng Yu looks at Zhang Ruiqiang from the corner of his eyes. This is your real motive, right? Those small factories acquired by Bing City Machinery to produce spare parts in the past are all doing well. Now, the Provincial Government wants to merge the tire and glass factory? The tire factory is fine, but is there a need to include that glass factory?

“Is this what you want, or is it an order from the higher-ups?”

“Both. Our tire factory is not bad, and although our glass factory is ordinary, it is not a loss-making entity.”

“Haha… if the tire factory can sell its products under the Songjiang brand, it will make a lot of money. This applies to the glass factory too. The City Government wants to make use of our brand to help you all make money. I can agree to take over that glass factory if you include Bing City Aviation’s bulletproof glass factory in it.”

Feng Yu crossed his legs and started shaking.

Zhang Ruiqiang gritted his teeth. This is all for the City’s benefit. Even if Bing City Aviation has a military background, he must also try.

“Alright. I will try it!”

Chapter 1159 – Fighting for power

Songjiang Motors has been manufacturing vehicles for the military and naturally produce modified vehicles like bulletproof vehicles. The steel plate is still fine as it is not complicated. The technology is simple, and at most, they can just use thick steel plates to build the vehicles.

But Bing City Machinery Company has never researched glass, which is due to the regulations from the higher-ups. All companies are not allowed to research this technology, and Bing City Machinery Company had to order the bulletproof glass from Bing City Aviation.

Feng Yu had wondered if it is these restrictions that cause China’s technologies to be lagging behind other countries.

The military had given this technology to Bing City Aviation. It helped Bing City Machinery Company get the bulletproof glass they needed. Feng Yu had wanted this technology for a long time. This is a good technology, but it is a waste if Bing City Aviation doesn’t know how to use it!

Installing bulletproof glass on helicopters might be fine, but how many helicopters can Bing City Aviation sell in a year? How can it be compared to cars? Although not many people are willing to buy bulletproof cars, it can be used as a gimmick for marketing. Bing City Machinery Company can also simplify this technology to make better windshields for their higher-end cars.

Feng Yu does not know how Zhang Ruiqiang did it, but he received a call from Zhang Ruiqiang three days later. The higher-ups agreed to allow Bing City Aviation to merge some of their businesses with Bing City Machinery Company to set up Bing City Glass Company. Bing City Machinery Company must also come up with a sum of money in this venture.

Now, Songjiang Motors vehicles can use higher quality glasses, and Feng Yu is satisfied with it.

Bing City Machinery Company went under restructuring and become Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group. Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group will be the headquarters, and all the former divisions were converted into subsidiaries. It includes Bing City Automobile Company, Bing City First Motorcycle Company, Bing City Second Motorcycle Company (Three-wheel motorcycle company), Bing City Electric Bike Company, Bing City Agriculture Machinery Company, Bing city Machinery Engineering Research Center, Bing City Spare Parts Company, and Bing City Glass Company.

Without a doubt, Li Mingde is appointed as the Chairman of this holding company. His three deputies remained as his deputies, and there is no change to the directors representing the different shareholders. But there is an additional director from Bing City Aviation, as other than the Glass Company, Bing City Aviation has shares in the research center.

But many people are fighting to be the head of the various subsidiaries’ positions. These are not temporary power, and the heads will have opportunities to move up. The top executives and directors all want to let their men become the heads.

Everyone knows who the future Chairman will be, and everyone had to listen to Feng Yu. Still, Li Mingde had been covering the position of President. He will have to hand over this position to someone. Everyone is capable, and even if there are some differences in their capability, the gap is not wide. If they have many supporters from the ground, they will have a higher chance of being the President.

But when those middle management went to look for Li Mingde and even the City Government for help, Li Dafu is the only one who did not do anything.

When Feng Yu first invited Li Dafu to join him, Li Dafu rejected. But later, he changed his mind and sold all his assets to buy Bing City Machinery Company’s shares. Yes, he had only bought the motorcycle branch factory’s shares. He exchanged his shares for the holding company’s shares later.

Li Dafu built up his wealth alone in the past, and he is very proud. Also, after he joined Bing City Machinery Company, he moved up from the head of the motorcycle branch factory to the Li Mingde’s deputy at the head office. He had worked his way up through his hard work and not through connections with Feng Yu.

Li Mingde is getting old, and he will be retiring in a few years. It is not a good thing for the Chairman to be old. If anything happens to him, the whole company will be affected.

Li Dafu’s target is not only the President of the holding company. He knows Feng Yu has no time and is lazy to manage the company, and the next President will be picked from these directors.

Li Dafu will stand a chance to take over Li Mingde as the Chairman if he becomes the President! The current board of directors is just for show, and the Chairman is the company’s real decision maker!

Furthermore, the various subsidiaries’ heads are not finalized yet, and the directors want to cover these positions.

Li Dafu also wanted this, but he wants to become the President more. He is smart not to look for Li Mingde when everyone else approached the latter. When everyone did not look for Li Mingde, Li Dafu will go and look for him. Doing the opposite of others will stand out and let Li Mingde notice him, and Feng Yu might also notice him.

When everyone tried to find connections, it doesn’t matter if Li Dafu goes or doesn’t go to Li Mingde.

Anyway, Li Mingde is one of the Directors and Deputy President now. Even if his strategy failed, he would not be disappointed. What he is doing now is a gamble.

……

“Old Li, you mentioned many people had come to you to report their work progress and ask for your advice. Only Li Dafu continued working as normal?” Feng Yu asked.

Li Mingde sighed. “That’s right. They know that after restructuring, managing the company will be easier. Still, the heads of the subsidiaries will have more authority than before. Also, I am getting older, and the directors ask if I have the intention of handing over the President’s position.”

“What do you think? Do you want to get someone to share your workload?” Feng Yu smiled and ask.

Li Mingde should start to groom a successor now. If not, the company will be affected when he retires five to six years later. Although the next Chairman can be picked from the existing Directors, the process must be like the ancient days where the Emperor picks a Crown Prince to make the power transition smooth.

Suppose Li Mingde retires suddenly and the rest of the directors are not willing to work with the new successor. In that case, it will have a devastating impact on the company’s development.

Li Mingde nodded. “I think the company should pick a new President, and I don’t want to cover this position anymore.”

Although giving up this position will means getting a lesser salary, but it means nothing to Li Mingde. He was given shares of the company, and the dividends he received is much more than his salary. Anyway, he is still the Chairman of the company and has full control of the company.

If Li Mingde showed Feng Yu, he refuses to give up his power and made Feng Yu mad, he might have to retire much earlier.

“Who do you prefer to take on the President’s role?”

“Li Dafu. He is very strong in management and can analyze the market well. I am also impressed with his charisma. If he becomes the President, nothing can go wrong when I am around. Even if he leads the company in the future, the company can still do well.”

Li Dafu, as an outsider, can get support from so many people. This shows his charisma is high.

“Alright. Call Li Dafu over tomorrow for a chat.”

Chapter 1160 – I have the final say here!

Li Dafu is very excited today. Li Mingde had asked him to go over to his house. This is an invitation by Li Mingde, and he knows what it means.

Li Dafu has always wanted to do something to make the Chinese proud. For example, to produce the world’s best car, and let those foreigners know that they are not the only ones who can produce good cars.

Li Dafu cannot fulfill this dream in the past. He thought of achieving this goal by manufacturing motorcycles first. Still, He realized there are lots of motorcycle brands in the market. The best-selling motorcycle brand in Songjiang.

Li Dafu joined Bing City Machinery Company to fulfill his dream, career progression, and make more money to give his family a better life.

Li Dafu made a lot of money, but it might not be more than his former factory. His former factory is worth around 10 million, and it has clients and technologies. If he did not sell his factory, his income might be more now.

But Li Dafu did not regret his decision to join Bing City Machinery. Oh, it should be called Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group now.

Li Dafu knows he can progress up to after joining this company. Li Mingde can get the company’s shares as a bonus, and he believes he can also get more in the future.

Everyone that followed Feng Yu from the start got high returns.

When Li Dafu arrived at Li Mingde’s house, he realizes Manager Feng is around too. He got more excited and knows this meeting is about his promotion.

“Manager Feng, Chairman.”

“Dafu, have a sit. Manager Feng wants to speak to you, and that’s why I invited you over to my place for a meal.” Li Mingde smiled.

Feng Yu saw the excitement in Li Dafu’s eyes, but he did not go into the topic straight away. He points to the dishes on the table. “Director Li, let’s start eating.”

The more Feng Yu avoided the topic, the more anxious Li Dafu is. Feng Yu wants to see how well Li Dafu can tolerate. He is impressed by Li Dafu’s tolerance when he did not approach Li Mingde.

Feng Yu is not looking down on the people who approach the leaders for promotions and pay raises. He is impressed with Li Dafu’s self-confidence. There are two reasons why Li Dafu did not look for Li Mingde. He is very confident that he is the best person for the President role, and he knows it is useless to look for Li Mingde.

At least, Li Dafu has better foresight than others. Directors and Deputies know Feng Yu is in Bing City, but none went to look for him. They can also approach Feng Yu’s father.

Did they forget who has the company’s final say after Feng Yu had not appeared for some time?

Li Dafu sat down and ate calmly. He even takes sips of beer while eating. They are eating with Feng Yu and will take note of his habit of not drinking strong alcohol.

For half an hour, they chatted about their lives, families, etc., and did not mention a word about the company. After eating, Feng Yu nods at Li Mingde.

Li Mingde turned to Li Dafu and ask. “Dafu, if you are the President of the company, how are you going to develop it?”

Li Dafu straightens his back. “If I am the company’s President, I will focus on a few areas. First, we must continue to build up our brand and let our brand overshadow those foreign brands, imported cars, imported agriculture machinery, etc.”

“Second, we will continue to open up new overseas sale distribution channels. Although our profits from overseas sales are low, as we have more models and our brand awareness increases, it will get better. By selling our cars overseas will prevent their cars from entering China, and this is beneficial to our brand image too.”

“Third, we must maintain our investments in our technological research. Technological research is the most important factor in our company’s development. Our technologies might be the most advanced in China, but we are still lagging compared to the big brands overseas. The same product only needs 10,000 USD to produce it, and we need 20,000 USD. This will lower our competitiveness globally. When one of our technology becomes the best in the world, we will gain a foothold in the international market.”

“Lastly, we must continue to expand our businesses. Other than the electric bike project, we must continue to expand our other projects. For example, we must introduce bigger CC motorcycles. We have the technologies and must not let the overseas brands takeover the big bikes market. Our automobile production is the same too. We should introduce a high-end SUV that can suit all types of road conditions and current our corn harvester machine must be dragged by a tractor. We should introduce our latest corn harvester to the market now.”

Li Dafu gave a detailed answer, and it showed that he had considered this question before. This also showed his ambition to get the President position.

Feng Yu has never been worried about his subordinates being ambitious. Being ambitious is a form of motivation. To achieve what they want, they must put in the effort. Using underhand methods might work, but it will not be sustainable in the long run.

All of Feng Yu’s subordinates are doing well, and only fools will try to use underhand methods to make their lives better. At least, none of the top executives in Feng Yu’s companies are fools.

If Feng Yu cannot even control these people, he will not give them the authority to run his companies in the first place. Moreover, Feng Yu’s title of the World’s Second Richest Man is enough to put them in place.

Feng Yu and Li Mingde exchanged looks. They are pleased with Li Dafu’s reply.

“Li Dafu, you will be the company’s President.” Feng Yu said.

……

“What? Chairman, you are not going to be the company’s President, and you are appointing Li Dafu to be the President?” Another Vice-President, Niu Jinguo, asked agitatedly.

“Old Niu, this decision is made after careful considerations.” Li Mingde replied. Niu Jinguo is the Director appointed by the City’s Party Committee, and he is also the Vice-President. He wants to be the President for a long time, but he knows he cannot snatch the position from Li Mingde.

Now, Li Mingde is no longer going to hog this position. He is going to appoint someone else to be the company’s President.

“Shouldn’t the President’s appointment be decided by the board of directors?” Niu Jinguo replied unhappily, hinting to Li Mingde that he cannot decide this decision even if he is the Chairman.

Niu Jinguo had spoken to his leader in the City Government. The leader promised him that he will persuade Li Mingde to let Niu Jinguo be the President.

The meeting room’s door opened suddenly, and Feng Yu walked in. “The shareholders have the right to decide the appointment of the President and even the Chairman. Li Dafu will be the company’s President from today onwards. I say so! I don’t care who you all look for but let me remind you all of you. I am the biggest shareholder of the company, and I have the final say!”

Chapter 1161 – Northern Construction

Niu Jinguo is speechless. He did not expect Feng Yu to appear suddenly.

Obviously, Li Dafu had gotten the support of Feng Yu, and Niu Jinguo’s leader’s promise to him is like a joke now.

Feng Yu dares to go against the City Government in the past, and he was not so rich. Now, Feng Yu has become Asia’s top billionaire, and all the top leaders can’t wait to receive him. Even if Feng Yu is not Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s biggest shareholder, Li Dafu, will still become the President if Feng Yu supports him.

Feng Yu had donated a large amount of money to Bing City. Many people joked that Feng Yu owns half of Bing City as half of the infrastructures related to him.

Why is Feng Yu supporting Li Dafu? How am I not better than him?

The other Directors were glad that they had not spoken earlier, or they will be in trouble now.

“You are Niu Jinguo, right? If you are willing to continue to work here, just focus on your job and not think of other things. I think it’s time for the City Government should change their representative!”

Niu Jinguo quickly took a step back and did not say anything. Manager Feng had let him off this time, and he is grateful. This is a good position, and he does not want to be replaced. The previous representative from the City Government is now the head of the City’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

With Feng Yu supporting Li Dafu openly, no one dares to question his appointment. Li Mingde shook his head in his heart. He had prepared many things to say to justify this decision, but Feng Yu only needed to say two sentences.

Feng Yu left quickly as he is not interested in discussing the subsidiaries’ heads’ appointments. He can find out later and can replace them anytime he wants.

Feng Yu still need to visit Bing City Pharmaceutical Group. One of its subsidiaries needs to be restructured.

Feng Yu can tell that the City Government is addicted to restructuring. Feng Yu had advised Zhang Ruiqiang to increase Bing City beer’s scale, and Zhang Ruiqiang let Beidacang acquire it. The beer company expanded and acquired all other beer factories in Longjiang Province to increase its production.

Bing City Beer started expanding southwards. They avoided clashing with strong competitors and slowly acquire some smaller beer factories to expand their brand influence.

This strategy increases Bing City Beer’s market share in China, and they monopolized the northeast region of China.

Feng Yu suspects this is why the City wants to break up Bing City Machinery Company, and they are targeting Bing City Pharmaceutical now.

Bing City Pharmaceutical was set up based on a holding company’s model and doesn’t need to split. If the company split again, it will affect its future development.

But this time, the City wants a subsidiary, which has nothing to do with medicine production, to be separated from Bing City Pharmaceutical. This subsidiary is a real estate company, and it will be merging with a City-owned developer.

The Central Government had made real estate a core industry. Since it is a core industry, there will be many government policies and subsidies in the future.

Zhang Ruiqiang remembered Feng Yu’s words. When a company reaches a certain scale, it will be easier to build its brand, gather resources, and raise funds.

Anyway, the real estate company under Bing City Pharmaceutical focused on building hostels and accommodations for Bing City Pharmaceutical’s factories. There are no profits, and they should merge with the City-owned real estate company. This will help with its growth too.

Feng Yu does not object to this decision. The real estate industry will develop rapidly in the coming decade. In Feng Yu’s previous life, property prices skyrocketed after 2000.

The property prices in the commercial district had started to increase now. For example, Wind and Rain Building’s rental had increased, but many companies are still queuing up to rent offices there.

Being a real estate developer now has good prospects, and Feng Yu has an abundance of funds. He can afford more land plots than others and can even hold them for profits in the future.

This is the strategy used by Superman Li. He bought lots of land parcels in China and sold them when the development deadline is almost up for profits. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Superman Li rather pay the penalty than develop some land parcels. He gave all sorts of excuses to avoid developing the land. He is just waiting for the value of his land to appreciate. In fact, land parcels’ value rises faster than property prices.

The city’s developer’s scale is not big, and Longjiang Province still has its provincial developer, much bigger.

The real estate company under Bing City Pharmaceutical is quite small. It’s not worth merging it with the Provincial developer company. They will not get many shares from the merger. But it is different if it merged with the City’s developer, as both are on the same scale.

Of course, Bing City Pharmaceutical’s controlling shareholder is the City Government. They don’t need Feng Yu’s approval for this decision. But the City Government, especially Bing City’s Executive Deputy Mayor, is smart. He was Xu Changyou’s former secretary and will never offend Feng Yu.

Zhang Ruiqiang can get promoted so fast is because he got Feng Yu’s support. The Executive Deputy Mayor wants to follow Zhang Ruiqiang’s footsteps and gain Feng Yu’s support. He might not get promoted, but his position will be secure.

Who is better than Feng Yu when it comes to the economy? If you claim you are better than him, why are you not Asia’s Top Billionaire? Why didn’t you set up a company that can enter Fortune 500? Many of Feng Yu’s companies are in the Fortune 500!

If Feng Yu says they should not merge, then the City Government will not mention the merger. All the City Government leaders, including the Provincial Government leaders, trusted Feng Yu blindly.

Everyone in the City Government is overjoyed when Feng Yu agrees to this merger. This means Feng Yu supports the development of the real estate industry.

Feng Yu did not object to the merger conditions. Although the City’s development company has debts, they also have lots of fix-assets and technologies. The subsidiary under Bing City Pharmaceutical does own several factories, hostels, buildings, etc. but had handed most of them to Bing City Pharmaceutical before the merger.

Most importantly, this subsidiary has the experience and qualifications which the City-owned development company needed. Feng Yu is not pleased with the new company’s name after the merger. The City still wants to use the word City in its name. But at least it is better than Bing City Pharmaceutical Real Estate Developer.

But Feng Yu felt the name will restrain the company’s scale. He wants it to be changed from Bing City Construction Group to something bigger.

The company cannot be named China Construction, but it can be called Northern Construction Group. When people see this name, they will think that this company’s business is all over the northern region.

So, the Northern Construction Group, which will be working with Tai Hua Supermarket Group to develop commercial real estate in the future, is formed!

Chapter 1162 – It’s you?!

After the 15th day of Lunar New Year, Feng Yu left Bing City for Shanghai. He continued to contact Zhou Kexin through QQ, but Zhou Kexin did not reply.

Today, Zhou Kexin returned to Shanghai and received Sa Wukong’s messages again, asking her to set a time and location for their meeting. Sa Wukong will be leaving for work in the US soon.

Zhou Kexin hesitated, and she felt it’s fine to meet this person. After all, she will be the one setting the location and time, and it should be safe.

Zhou Kexin does not know since when she started looking forward to meeting Sa Wukong. She wants to know how Sa Wukong looks like. Does he look like a monk… or look like Sun Wukong.

Everyone has curiosity, and not everyone can stop being curious, especially a girl of Zhou Kexin’s age.

Feng Yu sat in front of his PC, looking at the QQ chat window. Finally, the other party replied.

Feng Yu almost jumped up with joy from his chair. She agrees! She finally agrees to meet him!

Feng Yu rushed into his wardrobe to look at himself in the mirror and pick his clothes. But after a while, he threw all the nice clothing back and chose to dress normally.

Feng Yu looks at himself in the mirror and is satisfied with what he sees. It is not outstanding, and he doesn’t look like a country bumpkin.

This time, Feng Yu did not bring along his driver and bodyguards. He drove the cheapest Songjiang car, Songjiang Olympics, to the meeting location. A café.

Feng Yu guess Zhou Kexin had picked this location is because it has high human traffic and is located in the middle of the city. It will be safe for her. Is the coffee at the café nice? How good can Starbucks coffee be? This café is only providing a comfortable location for its customers and is not really selling high-quality coffee.

Zhou Kexin sat by the windows of the café and is looking outside. She wonders when Sa Wukong will appear. She is ten minutes early, and being early had become a habit because of her work.

Zhou Kexin doesn’t know why she agrees to meet Sa Wukong. Did she just want to meet him, or did she want to let him replace that person in her dreams?

After so long, Zhou Kexin still cannot forget the Second most handsome person on earth. She will still dream of him occasionally.

Zhou Kexin thought she can forget him after a while, but she found that she misses him more as time passes.

Nothing had happened between Zhou Kexin and the Second most handsome person on earth. They even did not hold hands, but why she just cannot forget about him?

Maybe it is because the Second most handsome person on earth appeared in Zhou Kexin’s life for too long and is used to having him around her. Or it could be the Second most handsome person on earth who had done a lot for her, and she is moved. It might also because of the ‘fate’ Second most handsome person on earth mentioned to her.

Or… it might be all these reasons.

Maybe Zhou Kexin had already fallen in love with the Second most handsome person on earth?

Which girl doesn’t dream of meeting the guy of their dreams? But knowing the Second most handsome person on earth has a girlfriend, Zhou Kexin felt she might have to wait for a long time before she can meet another man who can capture her heart.

But despite Zhou Kexin stopped contacting the Second most handsome person on earth, the latter keeps appearing in her life.

Zhou Kexin even met the Second most handsome person on earth in an online game. But the Second most handsome person on earth should not know it is her.

When playing with the marriage software, Zhou Kexin’s future partner’s description fits the Second most handsome person on earth. It is unbelievable.

Zhou Kexin wondered if she got into a relationship, she might forget the Second most handsome person on earth. No matter which guy she meets, she will unconsciously compare the guy with the Second most handsome person on earth. She found that she can never forget the Second most handsome person on earth and is not interested in other guys.

Soon, Zhou Kexin gave up. She tried to make herself busy with work and school to stop thinking about the Second most handsome person on earth.

At this moment, Sa Wukong appeared in Zhou Kexin’s life.

Zhou Kexin had not expected to start a relationship with Sa Wukong and only hope she can use his image to replace the person in her heart.

This might be selfish, but Sa Wukong should not mind.

Cars are passing by the window, and people are walking up and down the walkway. A few people had entered the café, but none of them are carrying a Wind and Rain Business Magazine. This is what Zhou Kexin told Sa Wukong to do for her to identify him.

Feng Yu is now sitting in his car, cursing and swearing like a madman. How is it possible for Shanghai to have traffic jams in this era?!

Two men involved in a traffic accident in front are standing in the middle of the road arguing. The traffic police tried to mediate but to no avail. Don’t they know how to claim from the insurance company?! Never mind. Many people still had not to buy any motor insurance in this era.

There’s no more time, and Feng Yu is still two streets away.

Feng Yu grabbed the Wind and Rain Business Magazine from the front passenger seat and got off his car to run to the meeting location.

The driver behind Feng Yu was stunned. What’s the hurry? He doesn’t even want his car?!

Is he a fugitive?

Feng Yu doesn’t know that he is seen as a fugitive because of his hurry to meet Zhou Kexin!

Luckily, Feng Yu had been working out all this while. Two streets might be far, but Feng Yu still manage to run there easily.

Feng Yu looks at his watch. He is right on time and will be late if he arrives one minute later.

Feng Yu took a few deep breaths to calm his breathing and walks into the café with the magazine.

Zhou Kexin had been looking out of the window, and she saw a man running past the window. She suddenly realizes this figure looks familiar.

That back had appeared in Zhou Kexin’s dreams several times. He is the Second most handsome person on earth. But when she wants to see carefully, that person had already run out of her sight.

Zhou Kexin smiled and shook her head. How is this possible? It should not be him as to how can there be such coincidence?

Looks like I must find a way to forget about the Second most handsome person on earth. Zhou Kexin can even hallucinate in broad daylight and felt a passerby’s back looks like him.

Zhou Kexin took out her mobile phone to look at the time. It’s time, but why is Sa Wukong not here yet? This person is not punctual.

But suddenly, Zhou Kexin saw a pair of leather shoes, and someone stopped beside her.

Sa Wukong is here!?

Zhou Kexin lifts her head up and saw this person holding a Wind and Rain Magazine in his hand. That’s right, it must be him. He must have seen the magazine on the table.

Zhou Kexin stood up to greet Sa Wukong. But when she saw Sa Wukong’s face, she froze.

How is it possible?!

How can it be him?!

Both parties gasped in shock. “It’s you?!”

Chapter 1163 – Complicated feelings

Feng Yu showed a surprised expression but could not cover up his joy. To Zhou Kexin, Feng Yu’s expression looked like shock and overjoyed.

Zhou Kexin panicked. She had never expected Sa Wukong is the Second most handsome person on earth!

How can there be such coincidences in this world? Zhou Kexin had randomly accepted a friend request on QQ, and it turns out to be him?! Many people had tried to add her as a friend, but she had never accepted the invitation. Why did she add him that day?

“Ke… Kexin?” Feng Yu is very excited to be standing in front of Zhou Kexin again.

“You are Sa Wukong?” Zhou Kexin asked.

“That’s right. You are Reporter Xinxin? I didn’t expect you are here.” Feng Yu replied.

Zhou Kexin fell back into her chair. She felt her mind had gone blank. She had imagined the scenario after meeting Sa Wukong and even thought about what they will be chatting about. She also imagined that if they had nothing in common to chat, they would go on separate ways.

But Zhou Kexin had never expected Sa Wukong to be the Second most handsome person on earth!

“Good afternoon, Sir. Can I have your order, please?” A waitress walked over and interrupted them.

“Latte. Thank you.” Feng Yu said without turning his head.

“Sir, we have lots of desserts. Would you like to try them?”

Damn! Why is this waitress so irritating?!

Feng Yu took out a 100 RMB note and gave it to the waiter. “Tips! Don’t bother us!”

The waitress is overjoyed. This is the first time she received 100 RMB as tips. She looks at the young man, enviously. But a very beautiful woman is sitting opposite this man, and the waitress knew she has no chance.

“Kexin, we met again. I think it’s fate.” Feng Yu purposely said.

Zhou Kexin is still in a daze. Is this really fate?

Are they really fated to be together? If not, why did Sa Wukong turns out to be the Second most handsome person on earth?

“Kexin, you are working at a magazine agency, right? Is it Wind and Rain Business Magazine? You should not have graduated. Are you an intern now?”

Zhou Kexin kept quiet. She really wants to leave, but for some reason, she did not stand up.

Zhou Kexin continued to stir her coffee to distract herself and hide her confused feelings.

The Second most handsome person on earth continued talking, but Zhou Kexin did not hear a single thing.

“Kexin? Say something.” Feng Yu starts to panic. What’s wrong? Why is Kexin keeping quiet?

“Why is it you?” Zhou Kexin finally spoke. But at the same time, her tears roll down her face. She had tried to hold back her tears but failed.

Feng Yu panicked when he saw Kexin crying. “Why are you crying? Who bullied you? Tell me! I will deal with him!”

Zhou Kexin did not reply and continued sobbing. Other patrons at the surrounding tables turned to look at them. A girl is sobbing, and the guy is panicking let their imagination run wild.

For example, this couple is in love, but the girl’s family forbids them from being together.

The waitress earlier had been paying attention to Feng Yu’s table. She saw the guy sat down and the girl started crying.

Opportunity!

The waitress walked over quickly and took out a packet of tissue paper for Feng Yu. “Sir, do you need this?”

Feng Yu grabbed it and took out a piece of tissue for Zhou Kexin. “Kexin, wipe your tears.”

After that, Feng Yu took out a 100 RMB note and gave it to the waitress. “Thank you.”

The waitress walks back to her counter with a wide grin. She felt she is smart, and these wealthy people are too generous.

After a while, Zhou Kexin stopped crying and felt better. She noticed Feng Yu was panicking and doesn’t look like he is pretending to care for her.

Why does he still care about me? He has a girlfriend!

That’s right. He is rich and had tipped that waitress generously.

Everyone says rich people are playboys. This Second most handsome person on earth must be a playboy too!

He doesn’t want to leave his girlfriend, why is he still pestering me?!

He even asked an online friend out! He must have ulterior motives!

If you have the time to chat with an online friend, why didn’t you spend time with your girlfriend?

Zhou Kexin did not know why she got mad suddenly. She also doesn’t know that she looks like a girlfriend getting mad with her boyfriend.

“Kexin, say something.”

Zhou Kexin stood up and took out her wallet.

Feng Yu knew Kexin would leave and quickly took out 200 RMB and placed it on the table. “Kexin, where are you going? I will give you a lift.”

“I can pay myself!” Zhou Kexin replied angrily. “Do you think you are very rich?!”

“Fine… fine… fine… We will split the bill. Don’t be angry.”

Zhou Kexin took out a 50 RMB note and threw it on the table before storming out of the café. At the same time, she felt her heart aching. It’s a 50 RMB note, and her coffee only cost 18 RMB.

But Zhou Kexin will never stand there to wait for the change and will not let Feng Yu pay for her.

The waitress who had been watching them quickly ran over to collect the money. But she was shocked to see 250 RMB on the table.

Once out of the café, Zhou Kexin walks quickly, and Feng Yu followed behind. “Kexin, I remember you mentioning that you want to eat Glutinous Chicken Rice. I know a place that sells delicious Glutinous Chicken Rice. Let’s go and try.”

“Kexin, didn’t you say you want to see peacocks? Let’s go to the Zoo.”

“Kexin…”

Feng Yu continued to speak to Zhou Kexin, but she continued walking forward.

At a junction, Zhou Kexin stopped. “Stop following me!”

“Kexin, we are destined to be together.”

“Stop it! I don’t want to hear this!” Zhou Kexin covered her ears and continued walking forward.

One is walking quickly while covering her ears, and the other is chasing after her while talking nonstop.

Zhou Kexin was feeling confused and did not notice the red lights when crossing a road.

A car was driving past, and Feng Yu quickly pulled Zhou Kexin back.

“Watch where you are going!” The driver scolded.

Zhou Kexin was shocked as she fell into Feng Yu’s arms. Their first physical contact is a hug?

Zhou Kexin wanted to push Feng Yu away, but Feng Yu hugged her tightly. Only an idiot will let go at this moment. He was shocked when Zhou Kexin was almost knocked down by the car.

“Kexin, you scared me to death.”

Zhou Kexin pinched Feng Yu’s waist and struggled out of his hug. She had wanted to slap Feng Yu but couldn’t bear to do it.

At this moment, Zhou Kexin’s feelings are a mess!

Chapter 1164 – Impersonating Feng Yu?!

“Eh… eh… eh… wait… Don’t tow my car. It’s my car.” Feng Yu suddenly jumped up and shouted.

Feng Yu noticed a tow truck is about to tow his car away.

After shouting, Feng Yu pulled Zhou Kexin’s hand and ran towards that tow truck. Surprisingly, Zhou Kexin did not brush his hand away. Maybe she also does not want to see Feng Yu’s car being towed away.

Feng Yu quickly apologized and secretly pushed two 100 RMB notes into the tow crew. After that, he pulled Zhou Kexin into the car and drove away.

“Kexin, where are we going?”

“You dragged me into your car, and you are asking where are we going?”

Feng Yu asked. “It’s almost noon. Shall we get some food now? I had not eaten my breakfast this morning.”

“Is there a need? Stop the car. We need to talk.” Zhou Kexin replied calmly.

Feng Yu parked the car by the roadside and looks at Zhou Kexin happily. “Kexin, what do you want to talk about?”

“You know my name and even know a lot about me. But I don’t even know your name and your occupation.”

“I know about you is because you are destined to be my wife. Alright… Let’s not talk about that. My name is Feng Yu. I am a businessman.”

“Your name is Feng Yu?” Zhou Kexin frowned. Why is this name so familiar?

But Zhou Kexin thought for a while, and none of her classmates have this name. Could it be she had come across this at work?

Work? That’s right. Feng Yu is Asia’s Top Billionaire.

But Zhou Kexin immediately finds it funny. That person is Asia’s Top Billionaire, and although this Feng Yu beside her is driving a Songjiang car, it is the cheapest model, Olympic. If he is really a billionaire, he will be surrounded by bodyguards, assistants, etc. How can he be driving this cheap Songjiang car?

Earlier, this car was almost towed away by the traffic police. If he is really Asia’s Top Billionaire, no traffic police will dare to tow his car.

When wealth is amassed to a certain scale, there will be special privileges. Even the Government leaders had to welcome a businessman, with net assets of tens of millions, in Zhou Kexin’s hometown personally. If Asia’s Top Billionaire really appears here, the government leaders will have to bow down to him.

“What business are you doing?”

Zhou Kexin is a reporter from Wind and Rain Business Magazine, and she knows a lot about businesses. She dare not claim to know everything, but she knows most of it.

If Feng Yu dares to lie to her, she will expose him immediately!

“I have a lot of businesses. Machinery, food products, retail, electronics, internet, etc. But my main focus is an investment.” Feng Yu replied seriously.

Zhou Kexin pouted. Bullshit. Machinery, electronics, internet, and the main focus is the investment? Do you think I am so naïve to believe your words? She had met someone who claims to be doing the timber and steel material business. But in the end, this person is selling toothpicks and earpicks!

“Oh? What is the most famous company you own? I might have heard about it.”

Feng Yu patted on the steering wheel. “This Songjiang Motors. I had invested in it, and I am the main shareholder.”

Psstt…

Zhou Kexin could not help it. This Feng Yu can really boast. The main shareholder of Songjiang Motors? Does he know that Songjiang Motors is the best-selling automobile manufacturer in China? The brand is also the number one automobile brand.

“You don’t believe me? I am not lying. See… Wind and Rain Mobile phone is also mine. Wind and Rain Brand, Feng Yu… I used my name to create this brand.” Feng Yu continued.

Zhou Kexin could not stand it. She finally found a flaw with Feng Yu, and it is a flaw that she cannot stand. Boasting.

You own Wind and Rain Brand? Zhou Kexin finally found a way to forget this person.

“There… did you see that restaurant? That is Quanjude. I am also a major shareholder.”

“I am also the biggest shareholder of Tai Hua Supermarket.”

Feng Yu wanted to continue, but Zhou Kexin interrupted him. “Enough! I don’t want to know your real name anymore. Are you trying to impersonate Asia’s Top Billionaire? If Bill Gates is not an American, are you going to tell me that you are Bill Gates?! Alright. We have chatted, and I am not interested in speaking with people like you. You had gotten someone to investigate me to get my information, right? If you dare to harass me again, I will get the Police to arrest you.”

“Wait a minute.” Feng Yu pulled Zhou Kexin’s hand as she was about to alight.

Slap!

Zhou Kexin turned and gave Feng Yu a slap. After slapping, both were stunned.

Zhou Kexin froze because Feng Yu did not try to dodge. Maybe he did not expect her to slap him.

“Why didn’t you dodge my hand?”

“I deserved to be slapped by you. I should have a look for you earlier.”

Zhou Kexin went into a daze momentarily after hearing what Feng Yu said, but she quickly regained her senses. “Can you stop your lies?”

“Why am I not telling the truth? How do you know I am not Feng Yu? Just think about it. When you are undergoing treatment, which hospital did you stay in? Is it Shanghai Wind and Rain Hospital? I had built that hospital for you!”

Zhou Kexin suddenly paused. That’s right. She had received medical treatment in Wind and Rain hospital, and she read up about that hospital afterward. It is a general hospital but had high investments in their gynecology department.

Also, her treatment’s medical fees are not a small sum, and ordinary people cannot afford it.

“You are really Feng Yu? Asia’s Top Billionaire, Feng Yu?”

“That’s right!” Feng Yu held up his chin, waiting for Zhou Kexin to be surprised.

But Zhou Kexin scolded angrily. “You still want to lie?! If you are Feng Yu, why are you driving a cheap car?!”

Feng Yu is speechless. He had driven this car to be low-key, but now, the car becomes Zhou Kexin’s evidence of him lying.

“This is my bodyguard’s car. You don’t believe me? Come with me to Quanjude. I will get their manager to prove my identity. Or you can come with me to Tai Hua Supermarket. The manager there knows me. Oh, you can also get the top tycoons you interviewed before. I can call them now!”

Feng Yu grabbed his phone and is about to call.

“You are just getting someone to help with your lies. How do I know if it is true? You said you had worked in Shi Dazu’s company before. Will Asia’s Top Billionaire work for someone?”

Feng Yu is frustrated. Damn! He had stayed too low profile and had never shown his face on media. Now, Kexin doesn’t believe he is Feng Yu!

“Who says I had worked for him? I had invested in his company! Investment! The work I was referring to is managing his company!” Feng Yu is going mad.

“I will not believe whatever you say.” Zhou Kexin replied firmly.

“I will let you believe me. Where are you going now? I will send you. Watch tonight’s Shanghai News!” Feng Yu replied.

“You are saying you will appear on Shanghai News?”

“I can even appear on CCTV News anytime I want! You keep saying I am not Feng Yu. What if I am really that Asia’s Top Billionaire Feng Yu?”

“Fine. If you are really Asia’s Top Billionaire Feng Yu, I will believe whatever you said previously.”

“I also want you to promise you will be with me!”

“What if you are not?”

“You can name anything you want!”

Chapter 1165 – Rock paper scissors

“What did you say? You want to donate 100 million to Shanghai? Why?” Zhong Qingxian received a call from Feng Yu and got a shock.

“Don’t ask why. Just make the donation immediately and contact the Mayor of Shanghai. Also, this must be on this evening’s Shanghai News.” Feng Yu continued.

Feng Yu wants to be on the News? This is not right. Feng Yu doesn’t like to show his face on the media as he says it will affect his life. What’s wrong with him today?

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Five minutes later, Zhong Qingxian called back. “I had made the arrangements. Please go to the City Government Office in an hour. There will be a press conference.”

After hanging up, Feng Yu called Zhou Kexin. “Kexin, I’m Feng Yu.”

“You… how did you get my number?”

“Do you think it is difficult for me to get your number? I will appear on Shanghai News this evening. But I don’t want to show my face. You can get me to wear whatever you want or make any specific gestures to prove that person is me.”

“Any gestures?”

“Yes!”

“Fine. I want to make the rock paper scissors gestures with your hand, and just wear what you are wearing today.”

Rock paper scissors?! Feng Yu is speechless. Why did Zhou Kexin make such a weird request? She is still peculiar, like in his previous life. But since Feng Yu had said it, he will do it.

“Fine.”

……

“Ah… Manager Feng, I had always wanted to meet you.” Shanghai’s Mayor Qiu Hangjian shook Feng Yu’s hand hard.

Feng Yu had been making large donations, and it will benefit the City if the Mayor can befriend him. Many leaders had wanted to meet Feng Yu but never got the chance.

“Mayor Qiu, I had also wanted to meet you, but I was too busy.”

After exchanging some pleasantries, Qiu Hangjian asked. “I heard from Mr. Zhong that you are going to donate 100 million RMB to Shanghai?”

“That’s right. Our company is in Shanghai, and we should do a part in the City. I would have donated more if I can withdraw more funds.”

“Hahaha… Thank you, Manager Feng. Oh, how do you want your donations to be used for?” Qiu Hangjian is overjoyed. What Feng Yu said is implying he will continue to donate in the future. Suppose Feng Yu’s donation is as much as his donation in Bing City. In that case, the Shanghai City Government’s finances will not be so tight.

“No. It is up to your government to decide. Oh, Mayor Qiu, have you all contacted the TV station?”

Feng Yu had not stated any specific areas for his donations to be used on. This means the City can decide how to use this donation.

“The TV station crew is waiting outside and can come in to film at any time.”

“Mayor Qiu, I have a request. I don’t like to appear in the media. It will be inconvenient for me to go out if everyone knows me. I still prefer to live like everyone else. I hope you can grant this request.”

“Ah… this is a small matter. It is not a problem. What you said is right. Sometimes, I cannot even go out for a walk with my wife.

Qiu Hangjian is confused. Didn’t you ask Zhong Qingxian to get the TV Station over?  Now you are saying you don’t want to appear on the News? Do you want me to appear on the News alone? People might think I am someone who likes to take credit.

Oh… the person who donated is not showing himself, and I, as the recipient, is standing in front of the camera? This is wrong!

“I can still appear in front of the camera as long as my face is not showed. For example, they can film my back.”

Qiu Hangjian is relieved. This way, the wrong message will not be passed down. Since Manager Feng is willing to show his back, Qiu Hangjian can appear for one or two seconds.

“Manager Feng, what other requests do you have?” Qiu Hangjian looked at Feng Yu and asked.

……

“Today, the Chairman of Tai Hua Holdings, Asia’s Top Billionaire, China’s top philanthropist, Mr. Feng Yu, had come to our city to meet with Mayor Qiu Hangjian. Mr. Feng expressed his intention to contribute his part to Shanghai by donating 100 million RMB. Mr. Feng, accompanied by Mayor Qiu had visited XX Junior School, and even took some pictures with the students…”

Zhou Kexin saw Feng Yu’s back on the News. He had squat down to play with a young student and showed the scissors hand gesture over his shoulders.

“… Mr. Feng also represented Tai Hua Holdings to read out the Firemen responsibilities…”

The camera showed Feng Yu’s back, and he is holding a piece of paper. His right fist is raised high up as if he is taking a vow.

“… Mr. Feng had met the representatives of the Shanghai Business Association…”

The camera showed Feng Yu’s back again, and this time, he had raised his palms as if he is greeting someone.

After the News is reported, many people frowned. The cameraman should be fired today. Even the editor of the video should also leave. Why is the camera always showing the interviewee’s back all the time?

The TV station’s Chief phone had been ringing nonstop after the News was aired. Many Government Leaders called to scold him. Feng Yu is their God of Wealth. How can his interview on the News be edited this way?!

The TV Station Chief felt helpless. This is what Manager Feng wanted. He doesn’t want to show his face, and even Mayor Qiu agreed to his requests. What can we do?

You all are not at the scene. Those few images are all posed, and even Mayor Qiu was embarrassed by it.

A few days later, the TV Station Chief almost vomited blood when he read the comments online about that News. A netizen pointed out that the TV station had purposely edited Feng Yu showing the Rock paper scissors gestures. If you don’t believe me, watch the footage again.

The TV Station Chief had not noticed anything amiss previously, watched the footage again. It true, but those poses are all by Manager Feng. He even picks the filming locations. No one notices this during filming, but now, it has become Rock paper scissors!

……

Zhou Kexin saw the familiar back on the News and knew the person on the News is the same person she met in the afternoon. He is Sa Wukong, and also the Second most handsome person on earth!

When Feng Yu showed the Rock paper scissors hand gestures, Zhou Kexin panicked.

Zhou Kexin remembered their bet during the day. If Feng Yu can prove himself to be the Feng Yu she knew, she must agree to be together with him.

The News also mentioned Feng Yu had donated 100 million RMB. Feng Yu had purposely donated 100 million just to be with Zhou Kexin?

Zhou Kexin felt Feng Yu had gone mad, and this madness is because of her!

When the image of the Second most handsome person on earth, Sa Wukong, and Feng Yu, combined in Zhou Kexin’s mind, she realized she can never forget about him anymore.

Whenever Zhou Kexin closes her eyes, she can see Feng Yu.

Ring… ring… ring…

The phone beside Zhou Kexin’s bed rang, and she got a fright. She picks up her phone, and it is Feng Yu’s number.

Feng Yu had called about their bet during the day?!

Zhou Kexin dares not to answer the call.

If Zhou Kexin answered, it means she agrees to be with Feng Yu!

Chapter 1166 – Change

Feng Yu thought after doing whatever Zhou Kexin demanded, she will call him. But it’s been half an hour after the news ended, and his phone did not ring. Seems like he is overconfident.

Feng Yu called Zhou Kexin without hesitations, but the phone rang for very long, and Zhou Kexin did not answer.

Feng Yu is speechless. She is… going back on her words?!

It cannot be! Feng Yu knew Zhou Kexin well from his previous life. She is someone who will honor any promises or bets. But Feng Yu had forgotten what they had bet.

Zhou Kexin’s mind is in a mess, and so is Feng Yu.

Both laid on their beds and could not sleep. Feng Yu got up and switched on his PC to log into his QQ account and saw Reporter Xinxin online.

Feng Yu immediately send her a message. “I had done it. I won the bet.”

There’s nothing else to say now, and Feng Yu used a confident tone in his message.

Zhou Kexin is in her single apartment provided by her company and saw the QQ’s little penguin flashing. Sa Wukong had sent her a message.

Zhou Kexin clicked on the icon. As expected, Feng Yu is talking about their bet.

Zhou Kexin is afraid Feng Yu bringing up their bet.

Zhou Kexin did not reply as she doesn’t know what to say.

But Feng Yu kept sending her messages, and Zhou Kexin could not hide it. She can switch off her PC, but this will not solve this problem.

“Can you marry me?”

Zhou Kexin finally replied, and Feng Yu immediately typed. “Yes, I can!”

“What about your girlfriend? Both of you had been together for so long. Are you going to dump her? If you can dump her for me, you will also dump me for other women in the future!”

“No. I will not leave her. I will marry both of you!”

“Both? Are you thinking of marrying one of us first and then divorce to marry the other? Or are you thinking of migrating to a country that allows polygamy and gets more wives?”

“No. I will marry both of you without the need to divorce or migrate.”

Feng Yu is relieved that he had asked Iron-fist Zhu to help him get a Hong Kong passport for his frequent travels. He is still holding on to his Chinese passport.

This means Feng Yu has two identities and can use his two passports to register his marriage.

“Are you saying that you can marry many women because you are Asia’s Top Billionaire?”

“No. I will only both of you.”

“Greedy!”

If Feng Yu told Zhou Kexin that he will only marry her, Zhou Kexin might be upset with his current girlfriend. She thought Feng Yu will tell her that he will not get married soon.

But Feng Yu said he wants to marry both. Does he thinks this is the olden days?!

You think you can have many wives and mistresses just because you are rich?!

Feng Yu explained about his dual nationality to Zhou Kexin, and they can register their marriage overseas.

Zhou Kexin listened to Feng Yu and asked a question that made him speechless.

“Even if I agree, will your current girlfriend agree?”

That’s right. What should I do if Li Na knows about her?

Feng Yu had wanted to hide this from Li Na, but he knows that it is impossible to hide it.

Feng Yu even felt Li Na might have sensed something but had never talked to him about it.

People always inadvertently become the kind of person they hated most. Feng Yu had unconsciously become someone like this.

Feng Yu thought back, and if he had not gone after Li Na, he would not have these troubles now. Or, if he had not contacted Zhou Kexin and only helped her secretly to give her a good life, he will not be in this difficult situation.

Feng Yu could tell Zhou Kexin wants to go back on her words by saying all these!

Even if Zhou Kexin doesn’t want to honor the bet, Feng Yu is still confident. He can even face Soros and Paul Allen head-on, let alone a little girl like Zhou Kexin.

Someone says it is easy to hook up a young lady as long as you are willing to splurge on her. But the ones who say this are the ones who don’t have money.

Feng Yu has many ways to bed Zhou Kexin, but he wants to spend the rest of his life with her.

Luckily, Feng Yu still has a trick up his sleeve.

“Kexin, fate is mysterious. We cannot see or feel it, but we cannot deny the fate it exists. Do you agree?”

“Stop talking to me. My mind is in a mess. I need some time to calm down.”

“Ok. I will wait for you to change your mind!”

……

Zhou Kexin knows she likes Feng Yu. To be precise, she likes the Second most handsome person on earth and Sa Wukong.

When these two people turn out to be the same person, Zhou Kexin should like Feng Yu more, but she is worried.

If Zhou Kexin knew Sa Wukong is the Second most handsome person on earth, she might not meet him.

If Zhou Kexin knew the Feng Yu she met in the day is the legendary Feng Yu, she might not have made that bet.

Zhou Kexin tossed and turned on the bed and slowly drifted to sleep.

Zhou Kexin suddenly saw Feng Yu coming to her side and said he wants to marry her. After that, she agreed.

In Zhou Kexin’s dream, she met Feng Yu’s girlfriend, and they became friends. It is like a fairy tale, and all three of them lived happily ever after.

When Zhou Kexin woke up in the morning, she thought back about her dream.

Zhou Kexin suddenly realized that she really wants to marry Feng Yu and doesn’t care if Feng Yu has other women. Maybe, she knows she appeared in his life later.

But Zhou Kexin thought for a while. No. Feng Yu said that they were together in their previous life and that women should be the third-party. She doesn’t need to feel guilty for entering into a relationship with Feng Yu.

Zhou Kexin doesn’t know that she is trying to convince herself. She cannot forget Feng Yu, the person who keeps appearing in her dreams.

Zhou Kexin felt dejected. Even if she can accept Feng Yu, what about her parents? Can they accept their daughter becoming the second wife?

Zhou Kexin did not notice that she had already accepted Feng Yu in her heart.

Feng Yu said they will register their marriage, which means there will be no wedding ceremony. How is Zhou Kexin going to explain to her parents?

Zhou Kexin swore that she must try her best to forget Feng Yu.

If she cannot forget about him… then she will just have to honor the bet.

Chapter 1167 – Yue Lai Inn

Feng Yu decides to return to the US these few days to monitor the stock markets there. But Zhong Qingxian told Feng Yu that he has an idea and wants to discuss it.

“You say we should set up a budget hotel chain?” Feng Yu rubbed his chin. This business is still at its infant stage in China, and although a few hotel chain brands from his previous life had appeared, they are still small.

For example, the Jinjiang Hotel chain is mainly in Shanghai, and the Rujia Hotel chain is mainly located in Beijing. The rest still have not appeared.

“Manager Feng, our subsidiaries’ staff often need to travel for work. Although they are staying in other subsidiaries’ guest houses, why don’t we merge all our guest houses together to form a hotel chain brand? This way, we will own dozens of hotels all over China, and it will create the impression that our company is the most powerful. Our guests will also feel assured to stay there.”

“Also, many of our staff need to travel. It will be too expensive for them to stay in five-stars hotels, and the company might not reimburse them. If they stay in the motels, it will affect their performance the next day, as most motels are dirty. In the past, our guest houses do not have any brand, and we just call them XX factory guest house. Although it is also open to the public, the occupancy rates are not high.

“Once we form a hotel chain, we can sign agreements to offer discounts to the staff of some companies if they stay with us. We can also accept phone reservations. With our own staff and visiting customers, our average occupancy rates will not be lower than 80%!”

Feng Yu blinked and asked. “If the occupancy rate is 80%, is there any profit?”

“Yes. The profits will not be lower than 20%.”

“Just do it. What are you waiting for?” What’s there to consider if the profit is 20%? The hotel industry might not give them high profits, but it is very stable.

Accommodation is one of the basic necessities of life.

“You also think we should do it?” Zhong Qingxian is excited. From Feng Yu’s attitude, their business should not be bad. Although Zhong Qingxian had gotten his men to conduct market research and prepared a proposal, he still feels uneasy. After all, he had never been in the hospitality industry.

“Of course. But our hotel chain needs a name. What are you going to name it?”

A few names suddenly pop up in Feng Yu’s mind. For example, You Jian Inn, Tong Fu Inn, etc.

Zhong Qianxiang is curious. Feng Yu has always named his companies as Wind and Rain XXX or Tai Hua XXX, and he says this is for branding. Why is he decided to think of a new name today?

If the hotel chain uses a new name, Zhong Qingxian will not get to take advantage of the Wind and Rain or Tai Hua brands.

“Manager Feng, what are your suggestions?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

“How about Yue Lai Inn? Our consumers will enter our hotel happily and leave happily.” Feng Yu replied excitedly.

“Yue Lai Inn? This name sounds ancient, and it seems it is taken out from a Wuxia novel.”

“You think it sounded familiar? That’s right. If you give it a new name, people might not know. But if you give it a name that sounds familiar to everyone, it will be for people to locate it. When you board a taxi, and the driver asks you where are you going? You say Yue Lai Inn! It will sound so much better.”

“It will sound better?” Zhong Qingxian is confused. He felt Feng Yu is joking with him.

But this name is fine as long as people know it is a hotel. An Inn might sound different, but anyone who watches TV will know what an Inn is.

“Should we add restaurants in our hotels like those five-stars hotels?”

Feng Yu shook his head. “No need. Just include a small kitchen is enough. We will provide only breakfast. What we are doing should be a budget hotel chain. Why is it call a budget hotel chain? It is because it is convenient for people to stay here and it is cheap and clean. The traditional hotels have restaurants, entertainments, shopping, etc. We will not do all these. Our targeted customers will be traveling businessmen and ordinary folks. Oh… University students too.”

“University students? Why will the students stay in hotels?” Zhong Qingxian asked. All university students should be staying in their hostels.

Feng Yu looks at Zhong Qingxian. “Eh… Old Zhong… you must keep up with the trend. Let me ask you. Are there more university students dating now? When they are deeply in love and couldn’t control themselves, where should they go? The university hostel has strict regulations, and they are not allowed to visit each other in their rooms. So, they can only look for a hotel!”

Zhong Qingxian purposely says. “You sound quite experience.”

*cough… “I had only heard about it. We will forgo the service in other areas and focus on the core, which is the lodging. We must do our best in this area. People stay in hotels is for lodging, and if they need other services, they can go elsewhere. I remember there are restaurants opposite our guest houses, and some of them are quite big. But breakfast is a must, and providing breakfast can attract customers.”

“Is there anything else to take note of?”

Feng Yu thought back to the budget hotels he stayed in before in his previous life. He thought about the differences in the set up of the rooms and the guesthouses’ rooms.

“Many of our rooms have two beds, and some even have three beds, right? Covert the rooms with three beds into two beds, and name it Executive Standard Room. Change the beds in some rooms to a double bed. It will be for couples and people who are used to sleeping in bigger beds. Other than a coffee table and a few chairs, add in a sofa set for some rooms. All rooms must have a TV, and some rooms should install internet cables…”

“Wait a minute. Can you slow down? I need to record it.” Zhong Qingxian took out a recording pen and place it on the table.

Damn! How come I feel I am working for you now?

“Manager Feng, I have some questions about what you said. You mentioned the rooms with three beds will be converted to two beds and then add in a sofa set. What if there are not enough beds for our guests?”

Feng Yu gave Zhong Qingxian a stare. “Isn’t it better? They must book two rooms instead of one!”

“The internet cable you mentioned is very expensive.”

“The rooms with internet will be called Executive Business Suite, and the internet will be provided free for the guest. But they must bring their own laptop. We will earn back the internet fees from their room charges.”

Do you think there is free stuff in hotels? Even the free toiletries are included in the room rates!

Jinjiang Hotel

Chapter 1168 – Industry Standard

“Manager Feng, where did you get all these ideas from? From what you said, this hotel seems to be not bad. It might not be as good as those five-stars hotels, but it is not too far away compared to them.”

“You had also stayed in those five-stars hotels before. Other than having bigger rooms and suites, what else do they have? This hotel is only a place for travelers to sleep. We only need to maintain our customer service will do.”

“After this hotel chain reaches a bigger scale, the running cost and hotel supplies will be lowered, and it will be more profitable than our guest houses.” Zhong Qingxian laughed.

“That’s right. But in the room, we should place some additional items. Hmmm… give Kameda Masao a call later, and he will tell you to want items you should place in the rooms. Remember, these additional items are chargeable, and it will be more expensive than buying outside. It is just like buying food on the trains.”

Feng Yu thought for a while and felt the rooms must be equipped with condoms. In this area, Japan’s hotel industry is more developed than in the US.

“Oh, although the hotel doesn’t have restaurants, what should we do if the guest is hungry at night?”

“Our front desk will have instant noodles.” Zhong Qingxian replied. You are the one who doesn’t want to have restaurants in the hotel.

Feng Yu shook his head. “Do you want to let our guests walk downstairs to the front desk to buy instant noodles? Even if we have elevators, the guests will also feel it is inconvenient. They might become hungry after a shower. That’s why our rooms must have some food, like Lehaha instant noodles, Tai Hua Ham, preserved vegetables, etc. We can also place our Lehaha’s distilled water, beverages, beer, etc., in the room. All these must have their prices stated clearly to let the guest know that they must pay for it.

The guest houses under the holding company do have such services, but most of them don’t. It is mostly the guest house’s managers who do it. Zhong Qingxian thought for a while and felt this is a good idea, as this will be another sales channel for Lehaha products.

“There must be an electric kettle in every room, and the kettles must be our Wind and Rain’s auto electricity power cut-off kettles. All rooms must have air conditioners…”

“Wait. All rooms must have air conditioners?! We will need a lot of air conditioners. Is this necessary?”

“No. This is to differentiate our hotels from others. It is just like TV. If our rooms are not equipped with a TV, it will look like those dirty motels. We can equip our rooms with those ordinary small air conditioners and upgrade to a centralized air conditioning unit when we build new hotels in the future. 24-hours hot water access, cleanliness of the room, bedsheets, etc.… are very important, and you must also take note of it.”

“Alright. I will consolidate whatever you said and make it our Yue Lai Inn’s standard.”

“Not only will it be Yue Lai Inn’s standard. We will become the budget hotel industry standard!”

Zhong Qingxian is speechless. The budget hotel also requires a standard? Industry-standard?!

Feng Yu saw the look on Zhong Qingxian’s face and decided to give him a lesson.

“Old Zhong… How do you differentiate the levels of companies?”

“By their scale or market value?”

Feng Yu shook his head. “Wrong. The best company will set industry standards. For example, Wind and Rain Electronic’s DVD industry standards. Anyone that manufactures DVD players must follow our standards. Our retail prices had become the cost standard for other manufacturers. The manufacturers whose production cost is higher than our retail prices will be eliminated. That’s why we are the biggest.”

“The second-tier companies will focus on brands. Songjiang Motors and Lehaha are brands everyone knows. But we must still follow other people’s standards, and our competitors can introduce new brands. For example, Lenovo, Jianlibao, etc.”

The third-tier companies are selling products and services. For example, XX TV is providing good after-sales services and repairs. What does this mean? It means their TV break down easily. Some products don’t have brands and are still selling well. Companies in this tier have a low resistance to the market forces.”

“The fourth-tier companies, which is also the lowest tier, is selling based on prices. That means they are using cheap products to enter the market. It requires low-cost labor, and the products they produce have no technological elements or need any after-sales services. These companies have worse resistance to the market forces. Any one of its raw material prices increases, their products will not be competitive anymore, and the company might have to close down.”

“Simply put it. Setting the standards is equivalent to a leader or the head of a company. Companies that focus on brands is equivalent to a department head and must follow the standards. Once the leader is changed, the standards will be changed, and they must readapt to the new changes. Those producing products and services are like the workers at the lower levels. They must always follow the instructions from the higher-ups. The ones selling base on prices are like machines. They are controlled by the workers and can only make money if they move fast. But if one day they cannot move fast enough, they will be eliminated from the market!”

“Now, do you think our hotels should set the standards? We must set the service standards, pricing standards, room amenities standards, etc. We must let others copy from us, and this is the only way to maintain our advantages. We can even use these standards as barriers to other competitors. There might be some people out there who want to set up a budget hotel chain like us. But they will not have enough funds to set up one. Just having TV and air conditioners in every room is enough to stop many people from entering this industry!”

Zhong Qingxian is deep in thoughts. Seems like there are standards in every industry. If that’s the case, they must be the ones who set the standard and not the ones who follow them.

“Alright. You can ask Kameda Masao for his opinions on these standards. Japan’s hotel industry is more developed than us, especially the budget hotels. You must take note of the customer service and cleanliness of our hotel… oh… you can also prepare some hourly rate rooms for guests to rest.”

“Hourly rate rooms?”

Feng Yu sighed. Why is Zhong Qingxian so slow?

“Think about the hotels located near the schools. Students will not dare to stay overnights outside of their hostels, right?”

Zhong Qingxian finally understood what Feng Yu meant. He sighed. The kids nowadays… During his time, no students will be this bold.

Suddenly Zhong Qingxian remembered his daughter, and his face changed. He took out his phone and said to Feng Yu. “Sorry, I need to make a call.”

Zhong Qingxian walks out while talking on the phone.

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders and had a wicked smile on his face. See… these are the cons of having a daughter. You will worry about her all the time. Having a son is so much better as the parents will not worry about him being taken advantage of!

Chapter 1169 – Members

Feng Yu crossed his legs and finished a can of Qi Li Energy Drink before Zhong Qingxian returned. He had forgotten that his daughter is staying with his wife.

“Manager Feng, I will get my men to start restructuring our guesthouses. After that, we will use our available funds to acquire the guesthouses from our subsidiaries. Can you help me inform Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group?”

“Eh… eh… eh… I haven’t finished.” Feng Yu stopped Zhong Qingxian from leaving. “How many guesthouses do we have?”

“Bing City, Shenyang, Beijing, Tianjin, Xianyang, Shanghai, Jinlin, Sichuan, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hefei, Ningbo… a total of 24 guesthouses. This is quite a lot, right?”

Feng Yu shook his head. “The scale of this hotel chain should be bigger. Firstly, every Province city and the bigger cities must have our branches. Cities like Beijing and Shanghai should have more than one branch. We must also advertise for Yue Lai Inn. This way, it will be faster for us to set the standards.”

“Can we cope with setting up so many branches at once? We still need to look for suitable locations to set up new hotels. Are you saying that we acquire existing hotels?”

“Acquire and renovate. This will be faster, and these hotels have existing customers. Remember, we must pick the best locations. This way, the occupancy rate will be higher.” Feng Yu reminded.

“This is easy. We will just pick the hotels near our Tai Hua Hypermarkets. There are many small hotels around our Hypermarkets, and it’s not too troublesome. But our investment will be much higher.”

“Don’t worry about this. We can surely get high returns from this investment. Our pricing must be lower. How much are our guesthouses charging for a standard room?”

“Around 60 to 100 RMB. The rates in different cities vary as the standard of living are different.”

Is this cheap? Feng Yu remembers he had stayed in an hourly rated hotel with his wife in his previous life, and it cost around 80 RMB.

The small motels in some cities only charge 20 to 25 RMB for a room now. The rooms do have hot water and a TV. But the TV is not clear, and the hot water is only for specific timing. The rooms are also very small, and some don’t even have windows.

The rates for bigger guesthouses range from 50 RMB to a few hundred RMB, as it is based on the rooms’ facilities.

Some bigger five-stars hotels charges from a few hundred RMB to a few thousand RMB per night. These five-stars hotels are targeting the high-end segment and are very expensive.

“How much do you think we should charge for our rooms based on all the facilities I mentioned earlier? Do you think we can raise the prices slightly?”

“Raise prices? Didn’t you say this budget hotel must be cheap?” Zhong Qingxian is confused.

“But our services and rooms are better. Our rooms might even be better than some hotels with star ratings. If other hotels want to have the same standards as our rooms, their management and other costs will be higher than ours. This way, our profits will be higher than them provided their rates are the same as ours.”

“Alright. Conduct market research and see how much do those normal hotels, guesthouses charge. Also, compare the prices of those three-stars hotels. Oh, conduct a survey for those salespeople to see how much they are willing to pay for a hotel room. As for our prices, I think it should be fine if we raise the prices by 50%.”

“What? We are going to raise the prices by so much?”

“Is it a lot? 60 RMB will be increased to 90 RMB, but our services will be different. We want to be different from those cheap motels. We can’t be charging the same rates as those motels after so many investments, right? Although we will not lose to them when it comes to a price war, it will lower our standards.”

“They might not want to stay with us if we charge high rates. Some existing customers might choose other hotels.”

“Old Zhong, I had used Tai Hua Supermarket as an example earlier. Why are you so slow? Tai Hua Supermarkets have a tactic to attract and maintain their customers. Membership cards!” Feng Yu reminded.

“You are saying this hotel chain can also implement membership cards?”

“Why not?” Feng Yu asked Zhong Qingxian. “The benefits of the members is they can get discounted room rates based on their membership level, make advanced bookings, and get priority for the rooms.”

“Discounted room rates?”

“Of course. It’s fine to charge higher prices during peak season. But during the off-peak season, we must have some promotions, especially for our members. We must let them feel it’s worth being a member of our hotel chain, and they will think of our hotels in the future when they are looking for a place to stay. Also, they will bring their friends to stay with us. Although not everyone will want to become a member, retaining existing customers will be beneficial to our sales.”

“How much discount should we give?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

“The discount will be based on the different membership levels. We can give 5%, 8%, 12%, 15% and even 20% discounts off their room rates. This way, we will only be increasing our room rates by 20 to 30%. With our better rooms, I believe more people will choose to stay with us. Regardless of the membership levels, we will provide breakfast vouchers, and it will be limited to two people per room.”

“Oh… the breakfast menu should not only consist of meat buns, congee, etc. We must give our guests more variety. It will be like those buffets, and the guest can pick what they want. This will make them feel the breakfast is worthwhile, and ordinary guests can buy breakfast vouchers if they want. But the vouchers will cost at least 10 RMB!”

“Breakfast will cost 10 RMB? Is it too expensive?”

“Get them to become a member. Members will enjoy breakfast for free and still get discounted room rates.” Feng Yu replied.

Zhong Qingxian laughed. “You can still think of promoting our memberships through breakfast. Then, how much should we charge for the membership?”

“It should be around our losses from three-room rates. After that, we can introduce some incentive schemes for the members. For example, a free upgrade of membership level after the member had stayed with us for a certain number of nights. Cigarettes and drinks will have discounts, etc. You all can go figure out the rest.” Feng Yu is lazy to think anymore.

Feng Yu only know these and nothing more.

Zhong Qingxian is deeply impressed. Manager Feng is good at any business. I had only made a suggestion, and he can state so many great ideas on improving the business. He is such a genius.

Chapter 1170 – Nvidia

After finishing his business in China, Feng Yu returned to the US. Other than Ralph, Kameda Masao is in the US with him. This time, everyone had gathered at Nvidia to congratulate them for becoming the World’s biggest supplier for Graphics Processing Unit.

After Feng Yu had gotten the controlling stake of Nvidia, Nvidia did not lack funds and stopped their plans to get listed.

Nvidia also merged with 3DFX company and had gotten this company’s graphics technology. This merger had made Nvidia stronger.

Nvidia’s development after the merger is about the same as Feng Yu’s previous life. Their graphics card is already the best in the industry.

ATI Technologies and IBM graphics card are all lagging behind Nvidia now.

Feng Yu told Huang Jianshen that what Nvidia needs to do now is to maintain their lead in their technologies and focus on their graphics card. In the future, whenever anyone mentions graphics cards, the first brand that comes to their mind will be Nvidia.

For the time being, Nvidia is doing well. Their technologies are the most advanced in the industry. They will maintain this lead over their competitors in the future.

To promote this brand, Feng Yu offered a suggestion to Nvidia. Buying an award.

Only a handful of the awards organized by various media, magazines, professional bodies are fair. Just look at the Oscar. The top awards are monopolized by the big companies. The films by small companies can only get nominated at most.

This time, Nvidia will be the World’s Best Semiconductor company through <Business Weekly>.

It will be a good promotion effort if <Business Weekly> picks Nvidia as the best company. Although <Business Weekly> is not a professional electronics magazine, no one can doubt its influence.

Last year, Nvidia had the opportunity to clinch first place. But in the end, Nvidia got third place. At that time, many of Nvidia’s technologies are the most advanced in the industry.

Nvidia had only gotten third place because <Business Weekly> knows Wind and Rain Holdings is the major shareholder, and the biggest shareholder of Wind and Rain Holdings is Feng Yu.

Feng Yu had mocked <Business Weekly>, <Fortune>, etc. magazines previously. Why will <Business Weekly> give this award to Nvidia?

Anyway, this award has nothing to do with the company’s capabilities. Nvidia has the most advanced technologies in the industry. Still, it’s scale cannot be compared to other semiconductor companies. After all, Nvidia had only become successful for two years, and its brand awareness is not high enough.

Oscar awards are the same. Many box-office failures can get awards, but those box-office hits can only get some consolation awards. Is this rigged? Who can prove that it is fixed?

Whether Nvidia can get this award depends on <Business Weekly>. Suppose <Business Weekly> is unwilling to give this award to Nvidia. In that case, it can come up with some random excuses to say Nvidia is not good enough to be the industry first.

The best company in the industry and the second place is as different as heaven and earth. It’s just like the gold medalist and silver medalist. People will remember the gold medalist, and it will be recorded in history. Many who do not watch hurdles will also know Liu Fei won the Gold medal and held the World Record. Other than the ones who watch hurdles, who will remember the silver medalist?

It’s time for the judging for this year’s award, and Huang Jiansheng is anxious.

That’s why Huang Jiansheng contacted Kameda Masao, hoping Kameda Masao can help him. If it’s those technologies related magazines, Huang Jiansheng can handle them easily.

Kameda Masao is also helpless, as <Business Weekly> does not care what he says. But <Business Weekly> hopes to establish a good relationship with Feng Yu. They felt Feng Yu does not have any hatred against business magazines, or else, he will not accept <Forbes> interview.

“<Business Weekly> wants to interview me?”

“It does not necessarily be you. They say a representative from Wind and Rain Holdings is also fine.” Huang Jiansheng said and looked at Kameda Masao.

Kameda Masao laughed embarrassedly. “Boss, I will be overjoyed if they can interview me. This will bring up me and my family’s status. But they want to interview a representative from Wind and Rain Holdings, which I dare not accept.”

Feng Yu does not like to be interviewed. Kameda Masao tried to avoid interviews other than interviews about his Sixth Sense Company. Deep in his heart, Kameda Masao wished he can represent Wind and Rain Holdings to be interviewed once. Especially getting interviewed by a top business magazine like <Business Weekly>.

Feng Yu thought for a while. He does not accept interviews, but it will be too much if he forbids others to accept interviews. Many people had followed Feng Yu because of money, and some are because of fame.

Kameda Masao does not lack money. Even when the Nasdaq crash, the Sixth Sense Company’s share prices had only dropped slightly, and it is one of the first companies that recovered from the crash. The share prices are still climbing up.

With his Sixth Sense Company’s shares and Wind and Rain Holding shares, Kameda Masao has net assets of over 1 billion USD!

1 billion USD is enough for many people to spend a few lives. Furthermore, the Sixth Sense Company is still creating high profits.

Kameda Masao wants to build up his career and bring up his family’s status. Fame is very important to a family.

Feng Yu patted Kameda Masao’s shoulder. “Go and contact <Business Weekly>. We will sell a piece of breaking news to them. It is about a multi-billion company forging their accounts. This is exclusive. I believe they will know what to do.”

Kameda Masao is shocked. “Boss, you are saying a company that is worth billions are fabricating their accounts?! They still have not learned their lesson after what happened to Enron?”

“When a company will go bust if they don’t fabricate their accounts, what do you think those capitalists will do? Nvidia and the Sixth Sense Company requires some promotion. If possible, bring along AIWA.” Feng Yu said after some thought.

Kameda Masao is excited when he heard this. Boss wants him to promote the Sixth Sense Company as well.

“Don’t worry, Boss. I will place the company’s benefits first. Nvidia graphic card is the best. I think we can promote our Wind and Rain Games too.”

Feng Yu smiled and patted Kameda Masao’s shoulder. “I believe in you. Just call them now. I will tell you about that company after you called them. I had already gathered evidence of that company fabricating their accounts.”

Nvidia

3dfx Interactive

ATI Technologies

IBM

Jensen Huang

Liu Xiang (hurdler)

Chapter 1171 – WorldCom’s downfall

Kameda Masao returned after a while. <Business Weekly> is satisfied to interview Kameda Masao, but it will be better to interview Feng Yu.

Although Feng Yu did not accept the <Business Weekly> interview, Kameda Masao revealed a piece of exclusive groundbreaking news. This news reminded <Business Weekly> about the bankrupt Enron.

Many shareholders of <Business Weekly> are wealthy and know how much money they can make from this news piece.

<Business Weekly> immediately send their reporters to San Francisco to interview Kameda Masao. If Kameda Masao had not told them that he is busy today, they would have flown over today.

Huang Jiansheng left after knowing that Nvidia’s issue had been settled. He is very busy as Nvidia is still in its developing stage.

Only Feng Yu, Ralph, and Kameda Masao are the only ones remaining in the office. Ralph brewed three cups of tea and brought them over. He had worked for Feng Yu for some time and got used to drinking this bitter green tea.

Kameda Masao is Japanese and loves to drink green tea.

Feng Yu took a sip and nodded. This tea… can quench his thirst!

Kameda Masao is anxious to know which company was involved in accounting fraud. Still, he can only wait for Feng Yu patiently now.

Feng Yu puts down his teacup and asks. “Kameda, do you know about WorldCom?”

“WorldCom? I know about this company. It is the second telecommunication company in the US. It is only behind AT&T. At its peak last year, WorldCom is worth more than 180 billion USD. But after the internet bubble burst, it is worth around 70 billion USD now. Boss, are you saying WorldCom is fabricating its accounts?”

Kameda Masao felt this is impossible. WorldCom is a bigger company than Enron, and it is the World’s biggest internet service provider. If it is involved in an accounting scandal, its share prices will plunge like Enron. If no one acquires their shares, their only choice is to go bankrupt.

“That’s right. The company is WorldCom. WorldCom’s development is very interesting. If you look carefully at WorldCom’s financial report, you will discover they had expanded quickly during the Dotcom crisis. They expanded by acquiring other companies, and the money used is not from their profits. It is by issuing shares. That means WorldCom is using their investors’ money to expand…”

WorldCom had not to pay a large amount of cash to acquire each company. They exchanged shares to get the controlling stake, issuing new shares for the exchanges or used their existing shares. Even the cash they used is mainly from the funds raised by issuing new shares.

The benefit of doing this is easy management and using the lowest cost for their expansion. Such behavior is a tactic to raise cash and will not bring many benefits to the company. But if the merger is big enough to form a monopoly, the company will benefit from it.

Under normal circumstances, additional shares issuance is like adding water to wine. Most investors will dump their shares to avoid this risk. But WorldCom had been achieving ‘good results’ since they got listed. Many banks are backing them, and instead of dumping their shares, investors continued to buy them, pushing WorldCom share prices up.

In the end, WorldCom grew from a company that’s worth slightly more than 1 billion to 180 billion within a few years. Feng Yu remembers WorldCom’s shares is worth almost 200 billion in his previous life. But in this life, Feng Yu had dumped Microsoft shares early, and Nasdaq did not reach the peak. This resulted in WorldCom’s market value, not reaching as high as Feng Yu’s previous life.

But the good thing is WorldCom’s share prices did not plunge as fast as Feng Yu’s previous life.

Although the dot com crisis is very serious, WorldCom’s CEO gave its investors confidence with what he said earlier.

Our target is not to gain market share or globalization. Our target is to become Wall Street’s No. 1 share!

This statement made many investors invest in their shares.

But the turning point is at the end of last year.

At the end of last year, WorldCom tried to merge with Sprint Corporation, the third biggest telecommunication company in the US. The merger is worth almost 130 billion USD!

This is the most expensive merger in history. If it succeeds, WorldCom will overtake AT&T as the world’s biggest telecommunication company.

But the merger was called off because of antitrust issues in Europe and the US. They felt this merger will become a monopoly, and any companies that created monopolies must be broken up.

After the merger was called off, WorldCom was badly affected. As mentioned earlier, WorldCom had used acquisitions and mergers to maintain their share prices. If the merger with Sprint Corporation had succeeded, their share prices would shoot up.

During the merger, WorldCom was heavily in debt. Over 50 banks had issued more than 100 million USD loans to WorldCom each, and WorldCom continued to get loans from other banks. They discussed with some banks and will get an additional loan of over 2.5 billion USD from 25 banks.

Without additional loans, WorldCom cannot operate. Its debt ratio is very high, but those banks were forced to issue additional loans to them, or else WorldCom cannot repay their previous loans.

To maintain their share prices and to attract investors, WorldCom had to take risks. They used some accounting ‘tricks’ to inflate their earnings and give a false impression that they are making profits.

But the difference between WorldCom and Enron is the figure inflated. WorldCom had inflated its profits much higher. This figure is several times higher than what Enron did over the years.

After Feng Yu told Kameda Masao all these, he passed him the results from Ralph’s investigations.

“Here is the evidence.”

Kameda Masao looks at Feng Yu disbelievingly. “Boss, how did you know WorldCom might be involved in accounting fraud?”

Feng Yu pointed to WorldCom’s financial report. “Look carefully. The audit firm WorldCom hired is the same as Enron!”

Chapter 1172 – Another scandal

Feng Yu called Kirilenko and Fu Rongqi to tell them to short WorldCom shares.

After Ralph exposed this accounting scandal through <Business Weekly>, WorldCom will be finished.

Three days later, the latest issue of <Business Weekly> is released.

The boss of a financial institute in Wall Street started reading the latest issue of <Business Weekly> and other business magazines at work.

The boss suddenly saw an Asian face on the cover of <Business Weekly>.

This sparks the boss’s interest, and he started reading <Business Weekly> first. This decision had prevented him from suffering massive losses.

Oh, this person is Kameda Masao, the President of Wind and Rain Holdings. This is the legendary Feng’s company. Eh? This Kameda Masao is still the Chairman of the first adult industry company that got listed. He is really a genius.

Wait… what did Kameda Masao say in the interview?! WorldCom is involved in accounting fraud?!

The boss quickly flipped to the next few pages. It is an article with evidence of WorldCom fabricating their accounts. The figures stated in the article showed at least 4 billion USD unaccounted for in their financial report. It’s 4 billion USD!

The boss immediately picks up his phone. “Dump all our WorldCom shares! Don’t care about the losses. Just do it immediately!”

At the same time, many people also started to dump their WorldCom shares. Look at Enron. You want to hold on to WorldCom’s shares and wait for its rebound? Go ahead. Your shares will be a worthless piece of paper by then!

The US Securities and Exchange Commission had noticed WorldCom a while ago, as its debt ratio is too high. WorldCom had been using loans and issuing new shares to acquire companies that are bigger than them.

Today, the officials at SEC noticed the article published in <Business Weekly>. It states that WorldCom had issued a loan of 366 million USD to its CEO Ebbers without collateral. He is lining his pockets with the company’s fund.

At the end of last year and early this year, WorldCom had not included its expansion expenses into their active accounts but include them into their capital expenses. This little trick had brought in almost 3 billion USD profits for WorldCom on paper.

The profits of almost 1 billion USD last year and 300 million USD from this year’s first quarter are fabricated. In fact, WorldCom had suffered massive losses.

Just the interest for their loans is a huge amount, and WorldCom’s operations had been average. How can they get any profits?

If WorldCom is profitable, why would they still apply for over 250 million USD from 25 banks?

If this scandal is exposed by other magazines, people might still doubt it. But it is <Business Weekly> that had exposed this fraud.

Moreover, the article pointed out that WorldCom had used the same audit firm as Enron. Arthur Andersen.

These two scandals are enough to bring down Arthur Andersen. Arthur Andersen is one of the top audit firms in the world. But now, who dares to hire them?

People would suspect the company’s account is fabricated if they engaged Arthur Andersen for audits. Even if the company is innocent, others might not believe it.

The day after <Business Weekly> exposed this scandal, the SEC started their investigations on WorldCom and its 366 million USD loan to Ebbers.

They immediately put up charges against WorldCom for fraud.

Bush, who was visiting other countries, was furious. This is the biggest internet service provider globally and the second biggest telecommunication company in the US. How can they get involved in accounting fraud?! This is a disgrace to the US.

After Bush had become the President, the US economy suffered because of the dot com bubble. During the former President’s term, the US economy has been doing well, but it was just a false front.

If it wasn’t for companies like Enron and WorldCom, will the internet bubble form? Bush will not be in such a difficult situation now. He had to seek cooperation with other countries to improve the US economy.

WorldCom’s credit rating was immediately adjusted to the lowest. With this credit rating, this company is doomed to fail.

Simultaneously, the 25 banks that WorldCom had wanted to get loans from sued WorldCom for fraud. Even those banks that had not recovered their debts joined in to sue WorldCom for inflating their profits to secure loans.

WorldCom’s share prices plunged faster than Enron’s. This also proves that the investors are wary of such frauds.

But a few days later, a few audit firms discovered another two accounting frauds. The fraud Kameda Masao exposed was verified to be true, and the fraud amount is nearly 8 billion USD!

WorldCom’s share prices dived. A while ago, it was worth 7 billion USD, and it had shrunk to 2 billion USD. This amount is still dropping.

Everyone started to dump WorldCom’s shares, but many are stuck with the shares. As a result, WorldCom’s share prices continue to fall.

WorldCom immediately replaces its CEO, but it was too late. Although this new CEO claims that they had gotten 2 billion USD of investments through negotiations and can continue to provide their customers with high-quality services, no one believed him.

Even before WorldCom’s penalty was out, their share prices had fallen below their IPO pricing.

WorldCom is now valued lower than its actual value. After all, WorldCom still has many fixed assets. The value of these fixed assets is more than 2 billion USD. But these fixed assets are not enough to repay its debts.

So, WorldCom applied for bankruptcy much earlier compared to Enron.

Feng Yu and the rest managed to settle their short positions and made a small profit from it.

This time, Kameda Masao, Ralph, and the rest had participated in shorting WorldCom’s shares. The shareholders at <Business Weekly> had also joined in, and it was because of them, Feng Yu did not manage to short more WorldCom shares.

But it doesn’t matter. <Business Weekly> sent Feng Yu an invitation to invite him to be an independent Director and even agreed to sell some shares.

Those shareholders want to pull Feng Yu to their side and hope Feng Yu will bring them along to make money in the future!

What Feng Yu did not expect is the impact of this accounting fraud scandal.

Chapter 1173 – Arthur Andersen

After the WorldCom scandal was exposed, no one trusted Arthur Andersen. Arthur Andersen claimed their auditors had audited the company based on what the higher management of the company told them, and they are honest and upfront with them.

Suppose auditors audit a company based on what the higher management of that company says. Why do we still need auditors? This obvious accounting fraud will be discovered immediately if another audit firm does the audit. Arthur Andersen claims to be one of the world’s top audit firms, yet they did not discover the fraud!?

Many people believed that Arthur Andersen knew what was going on. They are in cahoots with the higher management of Enron and many other companies. Although there is no evidence pointing to this, Arthur Andersen was slapped with a penalty of 500,000 USD.

500,000 USD is nothing to a firm like Arthur Andersen. They charge more than this figure for an audit. After all, they are one of the world’s top auditors and have many regular customers in the US.

The heaviest penalty is Arthur Andersen is not allowed to operate in the US for five years. Arthur Andersen had no choice but to accept the judgment, and they surrendered their licenses in the US. What’s the point of keeping the license if they are not allowed to operate?

Arthur Andersen started to cut their employees in their offices all over the US. Their staff was cut from almost 30,000 to less than 3,000. They had nearly 1,300 regular customers formerly, and all of them canceled their contracts with Arthur Andersen.

After Enron’s scandal was exposed, people became skeptical of Arthur Andersen. Now, WorldCom was committing accounting fraud, and who dares to use Arthur Andersen again?

Even if Arthur Andersen was not forced to stop its auditing practice, their reputation is already gone. But now, it is only slightly worse, as people all over the world know about this.

To cover up their malpractice, Arthur Andersen had destroyed the documents and PC files of their audit on Enron and WorldCom. All these documents are critical, and this is an obstruction of justice. They only can blame themselves for all these.

WorldCom is finished. The stock market had shown signs of recovery this year, but it started to dive again. WorldCom is going to be bankrupt, and the companies that have dealings with them are also affected.

Nasdaq, Time Warner, and many Government departments are WorldCom clients.

WorldCom’s debtors cannot recover their money anymore.

This resulted in all the banks’ and financial institutions’ share prices falling and caused a chain reaction.

Of course, other than the investors, Bush is also feeling unfortunate.

Damn! Bush had just signed many trade agreements with many countries to improve the US economy. The stock market was finally stabilized. But when he was visiting other countries, another scandal surfaced!

Regardless it is Enron or WorldCom, they are loyal supporters of Clinton. Why should I clean up this mess for you all?

Many states had used the pension funds to invest in Enron and WorldCom. Even if they had not invested in these two companies and invested in other companies, they are also affected by the market crash.

The highest losses for the state’s pension funds are a few hundred million USD, and it has a big impact on Bush.

Bush is determined to deal with WorldCom, but there’s nothing he can do as WorldCom is as good as dead. So, Bush targeted the other clients of Arthur Andersen.

If Bush can prove the economic boom previously are all fake and based on lies, he will gain more supporters.

Bush ordered the SEC to investigate Arthur Andersen’s clients, and they found several problems.

Of course, the problems are all relating to accounting. Several companies in Fortune 500, like General Electric, etc., were among the companies that have problems. To Feng Yu’s surprise, Microsoft was also included!

There are many more companies outside of Fortune Global 500 that have accounting issues.

After this news was reported, Microsoft and those companies’ share prices tumble and caused the US, Asia, and Europe stock markets to crash.

The US stock market plunges the most, followed by Europe and Asia. Asia markets fell by an average of 3%, Europe by 5%, and the US stock markets fell more than 8%/

This only for one day, and the downward trend will last for some time.

Bush is speechless. He felt he had shot himself in his foot. He had only wanted to push the blame to the former President, Clinton, for the economic downturn. But now, he had exposed more scandals involving banks, financial institutions, market analysts, etc.

The US needs something to stimulate its economic recovery. But the series of accounting scandals gave it’s economy a heavy blow.

The investors had lost confidence in the US market. Without the investors’ investments, how can the stock market recover? The US economy will not recover if this carries on. People are even dumping US bonds.

The US market had entered its most serious bear market!

The European and Asia stock markets fell for a few days. They stabilized, as investors had used their funds withdrawn from the US markets to invest in the European and Asia stock markets.

Bush’s orders had caused the US markets to crash!

People say the US companies’ CEO, audit firms, and Securities analysts cannot be trusted.

Most of the CEOs of those companies with accounting issues also have problems. Many of these companies were doing well, but they still want to fabricate their accounts. For example, Microsoft.

To save the market, Bush’s administration implemented a new policy. The CEO and CFO of companies worth more than 1 billion USD must issue a written guarantee that the company’s latest financial report is accurate. If irregularities are found in the reports, the CEO and CFO will be charged with fraud!

Wall Street supported this policy, and after it was implemented, the Dow Jones index raised by over 300 points on the same day.

Feng Yu is not concerned about all these as he is meeting the Chairman of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Chapter 1174 – The proud Jerry Sanders

An American, with white hair and beard and neatly dressed, is sitting opposite Feng Yu. This man has a confident look despite the fact that he is facing the World’s Second Richest Man.

Ralph said. “Mr. Sanders, my Boss, is interested in your company. This is not the first time I had contacted you, and we had met several times. Previously, your company’s market value is around 70 billion USD. But now, I think it is worth only around 20 billion USD, right?”

Ralph is asking Jerry Sanders if he had regretted his decision. We had only wanted 51% of the company’s shares with our previous offer. But now, we can buy out AMD with less than the amount we offered!

Sanders smiled. “Feng, I had never doubted your intention to acquire AMD. I believe you will make a reasonable offer, but I had founded AMD, and it is very important to me. Will you sell the company you founded to someone else? Although the company’s value had shrunk, the company is still making profits.”

This old man is not easy to deal with. That’s right. Although AMD’s value had shrunk more than many other companies, what Sanders said is true. AMD is still making profits. Their last year’s profit is more than 1 billion. The expected profit this year is more than 3 billion USD, despite the global economic downturn.

My company is making money, and I will not sell it even if the share prices plunged. Anyway, I am not suffering any losses. It is the ones who had bought the shares that are losing. When the share prices rise, I can sell away the non-voting shares to make money or keep them for dividends.

AMD is different from those internet companies. AMD has physical products and is doing well. Although Intel had suppressed AMD in CPU and Intel owns almost 90% of the market share, but so what? Intel does not dare to let AMD close down, or else a monopoly is formed. Intel will face heavy fines and might even be forced to split!

“Sanders, AMD had only started to make profits last year. If it’s not for the internet bubble, your company would have been bankrupted a long time ago. I am not afraid to tell you that we had secretly acquired your company’s shares. Although the transaction is not completed, we had signed the contract. With these shares, we will be the biggest shareholder of AMD other than you.” Ralph smiled.

Yes, you had founded the company, but you don’t have the fund to develop and had to accept a few rounds of investments and venture investments to prevent the company from going bankrupt.

You don’t want to sell the company’s shares, but you cannot stop others from selling. Especially those banks and financial institutions. The stock market had crashed, and many financial institutes had suffered massive losses. They needed cash urgently to minimize their losses.

Feng Yu took this opportunity to get Ralph to sign contracts with several investment companies for the shares of those interested companies. The price will be 120% of the share price on the transaction date.

When the US stock market started its recovery, AMD’s share prices had recovered slightly. Those financial institutions thought they had gained an advantage. But as more companies got implicated after WorldCom and Arthur Anderson scandals, the US market crashed again. AMD’s share prices plunged again.

Intel’s value fell from over 500 billion in 1999 to slightly more than 300 billion USD!

The shareholders that thought they had taken advantage of Feng Yu were now suffering losses. 120% of the transaction date’s share price is at least 10% lower than the share prices previously!

But the contracts were signed, and the transaction must be completed by the end of the month. The financial institutions were in a rush to complete the transactions, but Ralph is taking his time. The financial institutions were the ones who insisted on this flexibility. Now, the longer Ralph drags, the more Wind and Rain Holdings will benefit.

It’s a pity that some shareholders refused to sell their shares like Sanders. If Feng Yu managed to acquire all the shares, he would own 49% of the company. Sanders might own 51% of the company, but Feng Yu can still stand up against him.

Of course, other than some non-voting shares which were part of the agreement with the shareholders, Ralph had not bought a single share from the market. AMD’s share prices are still dropping, and if it wasn’t for the voting shares, AMD’s ordinary shares are not worth buying!

Ralph thought Sanders will be shocked to hear they will be the company’s second-biggest shareholder. But Sanders doesn’t seem to care.

“Oh? So what? I am still the biggest shareholder, with a 51% share of the company. You had also said that our company had been making losses until last year. I had not sold my shares when the share price is high. Do you think I will sell the shares at this price now? In fact, I am preparing to buy more of the company’s shares. Maybe in a few days, I will own more than 51% of the company.”

Ralph’s face changed. Sanders must have persuaded that shareholder, which Ralph could not convince, to sell him the shares. But Ralph had made a high offer. Did Sanders make a higher offer?

Ralph thought for a while. It should be this shareholder is wary or even unhappy with Ralph. After all, the other shareholders were indirectly tricked by Ralph, but it was due to their greed.

If Sanders becomes the biggest shareholder, it will not be easy to deal with him. After all, Ralph had only acquired almost 30% of the voting shares.

Feng Yu laughed suddenly. “Sanders, you are old.”

Sanders’s face changed. “Feng, what is the meaning of this?! Are you mocking me?”

“No. I am saying you had lost your ambition. Under your leadership, AMD will remain in Intel’s shadows forever. Yes. AMD’s profits will be high this year, and your latest processor will be selling well. But have you thought about the difference between AMD and Intel? The gap is more than ten times in sales, profits, and the company’s value. Are you satisfied with 10% of the market share?”

“I had just cooperated with Bill Gates to develop a gaming console not long ago. A company named Sega had owned 10% of the gaming console market share. I believe you had heard of this company. At the end of last month, Sega announced they had sold their gaming business to Nintendo because they could no longer afford the operations. This is what happens when you own 10% of the market share!”

Jerry Sanders (businessman)

Chapter 1175 – Exchange

Sanders looked at Feng Yu speechlessly. What are you trying to say? Owning 10% of the market share means it must be acquired? Even Intel doesn’t dare and cannot acquire AMD due to the Anti-trust laws.

AMD is not the same as that game console company!

“Feng, I had made myself very clear. You are free to invest in AMD, but I will never sell my shares. Although the share prices had fallen, and my net worth had shrunk a lot, I don’t care. I am still in charge of AMD!” Sanders replied firmly.

Feng Yu shook his head. “Is this really the case? Have you realized that AMD had been following Intel’s footsteps? Have you ever thought of going around the industry standards set by Intel? Have you ever thought of letting Intel be a follower behind AMD?”

Sanders laughed. “Of course, but do you think it is possible? Intel’s fund is several times more than ours, and their partners and clients will make them stronger. Intel is just like Microsoft in the software industry. No one can remove them from the throne!”

Feng Yu shook his head again. “No. IBM was the industry leader several years ago, but Microsoft had overtaken them. Within five years, Microsoft’s operating system, office software, etc., will be challenged. My plan is to double AMD’s market share within five years and double it again within the next five years. With 15 years, AMD can compete or even exceed Intel!”

Sanders looked at Feng Yu as if he is an idiot. “I believe you can double AMD’s market share within five years. But do you think AMD can double its market share again within the next five years?”

Sanders doesn’t believe AMD can stand up against Intel. If AMD is Intel, he will also not give AMD any opportunity to do so.

Also, what did Feng Yu say? Within five years, Microsoft operating system and software will be challenged? What a joke! Which company is capable of challenging Microsoft? IBM or Apple? Could it be a European company?

Sanders felt no companies can challenge Microsoft!

“Lenovo, a Chinese PC manufacturer, was once thought to be the worst PC brand. It was ranked the lowest even in China. But within five years, Lenovo had grown to be the number one PC brand in Asia and fifth globally. Five years later, it will become the best in the world!”

Sanders frowned. He knows Lenovo, as this company is one of AMD’s customers. He had to admit that Lenovo had grown rapidly, but isn’t this company could do so well because it had the Chinese Government’s support?

AMD only has the support of the State Government. Is Feng Yu trying to say that he can let Lenovo use AMD’s CPU in the future?

If this is true, it will be good news for AMD. But even so, Sanders will still maintain 51% shares of the company. At most, he will not purchase the voting shares from that shareholder!

“Sanders, let me ask you a simple question. What are the components of a PC?”

Sanders looked at Feng Yu puzzledly. What sort of question is this? Although AMD does not produce PC, how can he not know the answer to this question?

Feng Yu laughed and did not wait for Sanders to answer. He counted with his fingers. “Monitor. Wind and Rain Electronic and Philips had developed the LCD display, and it is selling very well. We own around 18% of the market share. Although the market share is not high, we are holding the biggest market share in the world.”

“Optical drive. Wind and Rain Electronics is also the founder of the DVD forum and owns the most DVD patents. We are setting the mainstream DVD standards. Hard disk. I had bought the hard disk drive business of a company and had transferred it to China. We can start the production of 160G hard disk and portable hard disk anytime.”

“GPU (graphics card). I am the biggest shareholder of Nvidia, and Nvidia’s graphics card owns the world’s biggest market share. Also, Nvidia’s APU technology is the most advanced in the world.”

“Sound card. Aiwa and Lenovo’s jointly developed sound card is currently second in terms of market share. We are not far away from taking the first position. Earphones. Aiwa has the biggest market share for earphones at around 29%.”

“Lenovo is also producing mouse and keyboards. Although they are third in the market share, it’s fine. What other important components are there? CPU and RAM memory.”

“Let me share a piece of news. We had just acquired the shares from one of Kingston’s shareholders and used Nvidia’s shares to exchange Kingston’s John Tu and David Sun’s shares. Now, I am the biggest shareholder in Kingston.”

“What I lack is CPU. Other than Intel and AMD, many companies in India, Taiwan, Japan, and Samsung, can produce CPU. But they are not as advanced as Intel and AMD. But if I can grow so many companies to catch up with the best in their respective industry, do you think I can lead another company that produces CPU to overtake AMD? If 100 million investment is not enough, how about 1 billion? 10 billion?”

Sanders is shocked. He did not expect Feng Yu to own companies that can manufacture all the PC components except for the operating system and CPU. But the operating system and CPU are the critical core of a PC.

But what Feng Yu said is true. It’s not only Intel and AMD that knows how to produce CPU.

After hearing about Kingston and Nvidia exchanging shares, Sanders got an idea. He had always wanted to enter the graphics card and RAM market, but the company cannot raise enough funds. It is tough for tech companies to raise funds during this crisis.

Sanders had thought of acquiring a graphics card company but felt it’s not worth it. The company’s value will depreciate immediately after it was acquired. He had been eyeing ATI Technologies for some time.

Since Nvidia can exchange shares with Kingston, why can’t AMD exchange shares with Kingston and Nvidia?

Ralph could tell what Sanders was thinking and took out a document. “Sanders, this is the latest offer from my Boss. Other than us, no one else can make this offer. If you still reject us… I know two or three Intel’s shareholders are thinking of selling their shares.”

This is implying that if you still don’t accept our offer, we will work with Intel. Although we will be a minor shareholder, Intel’s profitability is much higher than AMD.

Sanders read the document carefully. It stated the shares exchange details, and the shares used in this exchange include Nvidia and Kingston. Nvidia proportion is slightly higher than Kingston.

If this deal went through, Feng Yu would own more than 51% of these three companies’ shares. But the document also states that Sanders will still remain as the Chairman and CEO of AMD!

Sanders put down the document and looks up. “Feng, when can we sign the contract?”

Chapter 1176 – Allen’s resentment

To buy AMD’s shares, Feng Yu had no choice but to buy the non-voting shares from those shareholders. All the shareholders want to sell their non-voting shares and want to keep their voting shares. After all, like what Sanders said, AMD is making profits, and the share prices will rise sooner or later.

After a series of complicated transactions, Wind and Rain Holdings owns more than 30% of AMD shares and 50% voting shares. Of course, Sanders’s shares had dropped to 40%. The remaining 10% is shared by Kingston and Nvidia.

Wind and Rain Holdings is the controlling shareholder of Kingston and Nvidia. This means the remaining 10% voting shares are controlled by them.

AMD’s board of directors remained and only added one more director from Wind and Rain Holdings.

Although Sanders had given up his power over AMD, he had gotten Kingston and Nvidia shares, including their voting shares. Although it’s a small amount, it will tie all three companies together. At the same time, he became a director of these two companies and still retain his position as AMD’s Chairman.

These were all suggested by Ralph, and Feng Yu is very satisfied with this arrangement. Now, other than the operating system, Feng Yu can manufacture all the components of a PC.

Lenovo had followed Feng Yu’s instruction to develop an operating system that is similar to Win 7. Feng Yu wanted to develop the best operating system, but he forgotten Win 7 files is too big. Many Lenovo developers are not confident of this new operating system as it will take up the most hard disk space. The commonly used hard disk is only 80G, and only the latest and high-end PCs are using 160G.

Feng Yu had also wanted this operating system to be compatible with the Windows system, which resulted in the slow development of the operating system.

Luckily, Microsoft was sued for monopolization and was forced to release their source codes. They claimed this is to help other companies to develop operating systems. But this is bullshit. How can other companies develop operating systems based on so few source codes?

At most, some companies can develop modifications and improvements to the codes. Still, in the end, these will be sold to Microsoft. This is equivalent to Microsoft, giving out some of their codes and getting a group of software developers to work for them without paying them salaries.

To other companies, there are not many areas for improvements in these codes. But to Lenovo, many areas can be improved. Lenovo Kingsoft had been decoding Microsoft’s operating systems all this while.

Feng Yu wants his products to be the best and unique. He does not want his latest product to be compatible with others. But if a product is developed by others fast, he must think of ways to make his product compatible with them. This way, he can snatch away other companies’ customers.

Feng Yu wants to change the PC industry in five years. His Crystalline silicon factory had started production and had control over the supply chain’s up and down streams. If he still cannot succeed, he will be a failure.

Some companies produce both hardware and software like Feng Yu. IBM is such a company, but they are not as crazy as Feng Yu.

……

Feng Yu is in a good mood these few days as his investments are finalized. He came to his sports arena to watch the first round of the playoffs. Although the Wind and Rain Team had not performed well this year, its attendance is high, and the team is entertaining.

Olajuwon’s injury is the only issue the Wind and Rain Team is facing now. His injury is quite serious, and he cannot play in the playoffs.

It seems like it is hard for the Wind and Rain Team to defend their title, but the team is not worried. Coach Carl had come up with lots of tactics and strategies for the team to play without Olajuwon. Their defense will be focusing on the outside marking. When the game got into a stalemate, and the opposing team’s center forward is scoring, they will use foul tactics.

Using this set of tactics and outside marking, Wind and Rain Team got the fourth position. Coincidentally, the Blazers are in fifth place.

Paul Allen saw Wind and Rain Team’s lineups and laughed. Wind and Rain Team does not even have a good Center forward and had to use a lousy defensive player. He cannot even outrun other players and will be retiring next year. The Blazers can thrash such a team easily!

Wind and Rain Team has good perimeter players? Hah! The Blazers have the best perimeter defense in the NBA. More importantly, Pippen is back on form this season. Pierce had been very arrogant last year, and we will let him know who the real all-star player is!

So, Paul Allen had come to the Wind and Rain Team’s arena to watch the game. He wants to watch the Wind and Rain Team getting trashed by his team. But this time, he did not bring along Blazers’ fans.

This is not only the Blazers’ revenge. Paul Allen is aiming for the league champion and had paid high luxury tax this year.

The Blazers are not afraid of the other strong teams from the Western Conference, other than the Lakers. But Wind and Rain Team can beat the Lakers. Why can’t the Blazer win against them? It’s just a Hack-a-Shaq strategy. The Blazers have six inside players, and one person can commit six fouls and a total of 36 fouls. The outside players can also commit fouls. This is enough to put Shaq out of the game.

As for the Eastern Conference, Paul Allen felt none of the teams is good enough to beat the Blazers.

“Paul, how are you?” Feng Yu saw Paul Allen and went over to greet him with a smile. But Paul Allen hated the smile on Feng Yu’s face.

“Hmph! I am doing well. If my team can win your team by more than twenty points, my mood will be better!”

How can Paul Allen be in a good mood? He had lost quite a lot in the stock market, especially since Microsoft’s account was exposed to have issues. This made Microsoft shares to fall again.

Paul Allen is furious. You had left Microsoft and had stepped on us once. Now, you are stepping on us again!

Paul Allen realized that after knowing Feng Yu, he had been down on luck! He suffered losses in all his investments, and when he finally made some money from Microsoft shares, Feng Yu stirred up problems and caused him to lose money.

Paul Allen had never thought that he is not a good businessman, and never listen to his subordinates’ advice. He always wants to do things his way, but having high intelligence does not mean he is suitable for investments.

Bill Gates’ net worth had shrunk a lot too. In this year’s <Forbes> list, Bill Gates’ net worth is only 10 billion more than Feng Yu, and he might be overtaken by the latter anytime. After all, Feng Yu has lots of businesses.

Most of the billionaires’ net worth on <Forbes> list had shrunk, except for Feng Yu. Feng Yu’s net worth had increased. Although the increase is not a lot, it made Paul Allen jealous. His net worth had fallen below 10 billion USD and was even overtaken by two Hong Kong tycoons.

How can I, Paul Allen, lose out to Asians?!

All these had added to Paul Allen’s hatred against Feng Yu. However, he has no way to get back at Feng Yu. Luckily, he still has a basketball team. His team must help him vent his frustrations today!

Chapter 1177 – Ah… we won again

“Paul, do you want to have a bet again? I bet this match… no… I bet Wind and Rain Team will win this series again.” Kirilenko, who is sitting beside Feng Yu, said.

This year, Brooklyn Nets had performed badly again and got the second last place in the league. But Kirilenko is not disappointed. The Nets might not be good enough to enter the playoffs, but it should not get the second last place.

Kirilenko had heard that there are good rookies this year, and he wants to get another first overall pick. Last year’s rookies are not good, and if he can get two good players to support Kidd, it should not be a problem for the Nets to enter the playoffs.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Kidd was affected by his knee injury, but it did not happen in this life, and he is still in his best form. The Nets had stopped him from playing in many games using excuses like injuries and rest.

If the Nets can get one or two top rookies this year, they will definitely soar!

Kirilenko loves basketball, and he had come to support Feng Yu’s team instead of watching his own team.

“You are betting on Wind and Rain Team to win? Sure. How about a bigger bet?” Paul Allen is confident his team will not lose again. If his team still loses again, he will fire his coach and team manager!

“10 million USD on Wind and Rain Team to win!” Kirilenko took out a check and signed it.

Paul Allen will not allow Kirilenko to look down on him. He immediately signed a 10 million USD check and gave it to Kirilenko because he is sure his team will win. Since someone is giving him money, why not?

Feng Yu also signed a 10 million USD check and gave it to Paul Allen. “Do you dare to accept my bet? Losing 20 million USD might be too much for you.”

Paul Allen is furious. 20 million USD is not a small amount for him. Although he has a high net worth, his personal account has only slightly more than 10 million USD in cash. If he loses this bet, he has to sell his shares. But how can he be humiliated by Feng Yu? How can I, Paul Allen, be troubled over 20 million USD?

“Alright. I will accept your bet. I am happy that you all are giving me money.”

They exchanged checks, and the winner will bank it in, and the loser will destroy the checks he is holding. At their level, they will not go back on their words.

Feng Yu walks over to his team. “I must win this round. Do your best, and it doesn’t matter if you all lose in the next round. If you all win this round, I will double the playoffs bonus with my own money!”

Carter and Pierce exchanged looks and were determined to win this round to make Boss happy. Boss had given them many advertising sponsorships and helped them make money. They will compete to be the best player on the team and do their best in this match.

Rodman, Lewis, Billups, Mobley, Alston, and Da Zhi set their minds to win this round. Since they had lost the chance to win the championships this year, they might as well earn more money. Furthermore, if they can make Boss happy, they will get better contracts when they renew it.

The match started. Rodman was playing Center Forward and won the jump ball. Before the Blazers’ players can react, Billups got the ball and made a long pass to Carter, who made a tomahawk dunk!

This is the playoffs, and Wind and Rain Team still dare to play like this? The Blazers’ coach glanced at George Karl. This old man is indeed formidable. No wonder he can get the Coach of the year award last year.

Steal. Pierce risked committing a foul when he stole the ball from the careless Pippen and made a high pass. Carter caught the ball and performed an alley-oop.

This is the playoffs. Why are they playing a fast game? Also, why are the players not afraid of committing fouls with that steal earlier. The Blazers’ coach suddenly has a bad omen.

The first quarter ended, and the Blazers maintained their usual pace. Getting 25 points in the first quarter for a playoff game might not be outstanding. Still, it is considered good results if you don’t take the Wind and Rain Team’s 37 points into consideration.

The opponent had gotten 12 points lead in the first quarter. Da Zhi had scored a buzzer-beater three-pointer, and Lewis scored two three-pointers. Why is that big size player not scoring from the inside court? Why does he keep running around outside? Who thought him to play like this?

Why is the Wind and Rain Team so weird?!

Feng Yu and Kirilenko chatted and laughed. Kirilenko said. “Feng, your team is very successful. You don’t even need to pay additional tax and still won a championship.”

“Don’t be anxious. You had accumulated three overall picks this year, and you will definitely get at least a good player. The inside players this year are quite outstanding. I think you should pick two inside players.”

“Actually, I like Shaq from the Lakers, but that damn Buss refused to let him go. I had told him that other than Kidd, he can pick any players he wants, and I can even give him a sum of money privately. But he still rejected me!” Kirilenko grumbled.

I will also not trade if Shaq is on my team! Feng Yu rolled his eyes at Kirilenko. “Then you should groom two inside players yourself. Shaq might be good, but the Lakers still lost last year.”

“That’s right. Even the ‘greatest basketball player of all time’ Jordan, did not do well at the start of his career. It is until the Bulls gathered all the star players before they got the championship… Nice!” Kirilenko was watching the game as he chatted with Feng Yu.

Many people say Jordan is a scoring machine, and Feng Yu agrees with them. But Jordan has a major weakness. His three-pointer is not good, and he… cannot dissipate heat well. His tongue is outside most of the time!

The Blazers did not catch up with Wind and Rain at halftime, and the gap widens to 18 points. Seems like the Wind and Rain Team is very aggressive today.

The first match ended, and Wind and Rain Team won by 21 points. Paul Allen left without saying anything. He will be giving his coach a lashing when they are back. The coach had claimed they can win by 20 points. But they ended up losing by more than 20 points!

The Wind and Rain Team won the second match through outside play. Carter and Pierce scored 30 points each, and Billups, Mobley, Lewis, and even Da Zhi, had scored more than 10 points each. This is rare in playoff games.

Finally, the game is played at the Blazers’ home ground. Paul Allen appeared again, as he thought he can get his revenge. In the end, the Blazers lost again!

The Blazers had lost because of the same strategies used in the previous games. All Wind and Rain Team’s players can score from outside, and it’s hard for the Blazers to stop them.

Paul Allen doesn’t believe that after spending so much money to build his team, they lost in the first round again!

Feng Yu and Kirilenko walks over to Paul Allen. “Ah… Paul, we won again.”

Chapter 1178 – Let the Nets win next year

Paul Allen stared at Feng Yu and Kirilenko. Although 20 million USD is a large amount, what made him angry is their facial expressions.

“Hmph! You are lucky to win this time. You! Your team, Brooklyn Nets, is the worst in the league. I will make sure your team will not win a single game next season!” Paul Allen vented his anger on Kirilenko. He will make sure his team will trash the Nets in the coming season.

“Do you want to bet? Let’s see who will win next year.” Kirilenko is furious. Microsoft share prices had plunged, and my net worth is much more than you. What’s there to be arrogant about?

“Sure. Let’s bet. This time we will not bet money. The loser will have to announce that his team is no match for the other party’s team on live TV. Do you dare to accept it?” Paul Allen does not mind winning or losing money. What he wants is ‘face.’

“I will accept it. The loser must also bow!” Kirilenko raised the bet.

Paul Allen tore the checks given to him by Feng Yu and Kirilenko in front of them before leaving. He is going to fire his team’s coach and manager today!

After Paul Allen left, Kirilenko’s overbearing aura disappeared. He turned to Feng Yu with a bitter expression. “Can my team win against the Blazers with the two draftees you mentioned?”

“It’s only two matches, and there are lots of variables, but it is not impossible. There are a Spanish inside player and an agile black player among this year’s rookies. If you can get them, your team can win even against Shaq.”

“But we don’t have a good shooting guard, and my small forward is not good enough.” Kirilenko said and looked at Carter, who is being interviewed by the media. The look in his eyes told Feng Yu what he wanted.

Feng Yu clicked his tongue. *Tsk

Feng Yu is feeling helpless. Without Carter, his team’s outside play will be weakened. But even with Carter, the Wind and Rain Team will win against the Lakers. He might as well let his buddy win.

“You want Carter?”

“Pierce is also fine.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes at Kirilenko. You really know how to pick. These two players are about the same standards, and Pierce is better at maintaining his form. If one is to rebuild a team, Pierce will be more suitable. He can still get the MVP despite being injured.

Pierce is good at footwork, and his playing style prevents him from getting injuries easily.

“Ok. After this season ends, we will trade. If you can get those two inside players, let me have Martin.”

Kirilenko hugged Feng Yu. “Feng, you are my brother! Kidd mentioned that with Carter and a good inside player, he is confident we will emerge the winner for the East Coast!”

So, it’s Kidd’s idea. Feng Yu still thought it was because Kirilenko likes to watch Carter’s play.

“It will be best if you can win the Championships next year. In the future, we two will take turns to win the championships. Other teams can sit by the sidelines and watch us win.” Feng Yu replied.

Kirilenko’s plan is to dump a large amount of money to build an all-star team and win the championships next year.

To Kirilenko, basketball is only a game. He can afford to bring all the star players to his team and let those Americans know that a Russian can takeover their professional basketball league.

…….

The playoffs ended, and the Lakers won the championship. Shaq got the MVP and announced he will build a dynasty in this city.

It’s the day for the NBA draft. But despite the Nets’ poor results, they can only get second place in the lottery.

But the Wizards followed Jordan’s suggestion and picked the first overall pick, Kwame Brown. The Nets picked Pau Gasol, the player suggested by Feng Yu. Gasol is also one of the top four overall picks. Many people saw his potential in the Olympic Games recently.

When Kirilenko heard Pau Gasol’s name, he got excited. This player is also called Paul? Paul is playing for my team?! He can’t wait to see Paul Allen’s expression. It will be interesting.

Just Pau Gasol’s name alone is worth getting him!

The Nets got Zach Randolph on the 18th pick. He is a good offensive forward but is not good at defense. Nevertheless, he will be a good substitute.

On the 27th pick, the Nets picked Tony Parker, another non-American player. He will be Kidd’s substitute, and he is a fast player.

With Andrei Kirilenko joining the NBA this year after his contract ended in the Russian league, the Nets have a strong team. Furthermore, the Nets have a few potential players, and they had purposely performed badly last season.

The Wind and Rain Team only has a lottery ticket for the second round and got a player, Gilbert Arenas. After Carter left, Mobley will be promoted to a starting player. Arenas is a combo guard who can lead the second team. Coach Karl also likes him as he is good at shooting and breakthroughs.

Most importantly, this player was picked by the Boss. Coach Karl had wanted to pick a center forward, but there is no good center forwards around.

The Warriors are furious. All the players they wanted were taken away! Especially Arenas!

……

“Boss, what did you say? You want to trade Carter for Martin? How can you do this? Although we lack inside players, Carter is worth more than 2 Martins. Furthermore, Carter’s jersey sales are the highest in the league.” Coach Karl is shocked. Could it be that Boss dislike Carter?

But it’s impossible. Carter is still endorsing many of Boss’s products, including cars, mobile phones, DVD players, etc.

“Karl, I know I should not interfere with the team and should be discussed with you and Elgin first. Carter and Pierce are vying to be the team’s best player, and one of them must go. Pierce is better than Carter at scoring, and his playing style is not injury prone.”

“I also hope next year’s NBA champion is the Nets.”

Karl kept quiet as Boss had made it clear. This is decided, and everyone who watches the NBA knows he is close with the Nets’ Russian Boss. That Russian tycoon always had mock Paul Allen with Boss, and he is Eastern Europe’s top billionaire!

Boss had treated Karl well. Although the team could not defend their championship and lost in the second round, Boss did not blame him and even gave out a high bonus.

Karl is hoping that he can extend his contract for another five years after his current contract ends. So, he had to go along with what his Boss says. Maybe the team can try out more strategies after Martin and Arenas joined the team.

“Alright, Boss. I understand.”

The trade between Martin and Carter was completed, and it shocked everyone. Everyone said the Wind and Rain Team had made a bad decision. Carter, who learned about his trade earlier, was not dejected. He knows he will get to play more, and the Russian Boss of the Nets is also very generous.

But it’s a pity that Carter can no longer be the ‘big brother’ in his new team, as the Nets’ star player is Kidd! In the Wind and Rain Team, Pierce and Carter were only ‘big brothers’ for a short while before Olajuwon joined.

Kirilenko stood in front of the TV proudly and announced. “Our target next year is to be the overall champions!”

The second-last team of the league wants to be the overall champions?! Paul Allen was the first to mock them publicly.

But Kirilenko only retorted Paul Allen with one sentence. “I refuse to speak to the owners who paid high luxury tax but cannot even get past the first round of the playoffs.”

Feng Yu also made a statement. “If you paid as much luxury tax as the Lakers, your team should be the overall champions like them, and not become ‘Jail Blazers’! Is your team trying to win the championship through fights and cannabis? Your team’s off-court news is more exciting than their play!”

Paul Allen is furious. He had fired his head coach and team manager. If he is going to fire anyone else, he can only fire his players.

These two are too much!

Fine! You all say the Nets will be the overall champions this season?! I will make sure the Blazers will beat your team! I want you to bow and admit your defeat on live TV!

Chapter 1179 – Cooperation with IBM

“boss, the stock index had started to rise again. Should we settle some of our futures contracts?” He Zhaoji asked over the phone.

“No. Continue to short it. Remember, don’t use high leverage, and you must use hedging.” Feng Yu instructed.

After hearing Feng Yu’s orders, He Zhaoji got more confident. Although many big US corporations were involved in financial scandals and the stock index plunged, it started to recover after a series of market adjustments.

The stock market is still very volatile, and there are many transactions. It is very difficult and tiring to trade during this period. Wind and Rain Consulting had invested a large amount in the stock market, and He Zhaoji is worried.

He Zhaoji is not afraid of losses but is afraid of losing all their profits. Even when the stock index rises by 10%, Wind and Rain Consulting is still making profits.

Feng Yu looked at the calendar on his desk. It is getting near, and he wonders if that disaster will still happen or not.

Feng Yu and Liu Chuanzhi had gone to meet IBM’s Chairman and CEO, Louis Gerstner, to discuss cooperation.

Lenovo wants to enter the US market and faced heavy resistance from other companies, including IBM. IBM has many dealings with the US governments and major corporations.

Liu Chuanzhi thought of a solution, which is to cooperate with IBM. Although IBM is more advanced than Lenovo, the gap is not that big. They are no longer innovative, while Lenovo is the market leader of Asia’s market.

Lenovo is also the one who forced IBM out of the Chinese market and cost their profits to drop. IBM had invested a lot to develop their technologies, and their recent two years’ profits were negative. These two years are their worst years since 1992.

In 1992, IBM had suffered the most losses in the world. Their losses are almost 5 billion USD, and they are the market leaders in the PC industry at that time.

After that, IBM announced they will be entering the software industry, and it will be the core focus of the company. They will be transiting from hardware to hardware, software, and servers. They became the world’s biggest software corporation.

In 1999, Microsoft overtook IBM as the biggest software company, and IBM had to settle for second place.

Currently, Lenovo Kingsoft is in the fifth position globally for software corporations, and it is still rising. Lenovo announced that they will become the fourth biggest software company within two years, and will overtake Germany’s SAP within five years and become the third-largest software company.

That means Lenovo had followed in IBM’s footsteps to produce hardware, software, and servers simultaneously. Also, Lenovo has the competitive advantage of the vast Asia market and cheap labor cost.

When Liu Chuanzhi told IBM that Lenovo wants to start a cooperation with them, Gerstner agreed immediately.

There are four people in the room. Feng Yu, Liu Chuanzhi, Gerstner, and Palmisano. Samuel Palmisano is Gerstner’s successor and is currently the President of IBM.

Gerstner’s contract will end next year, and he is also the boss of the biggest tobacco company in the US. He does not want to remain in IBM and wants to continue with his own business.

Gerstner used less than two years to turn IBM from losses of 5 billion USD to 3 billion USD in profits. After that, IBM maintained its profitability. Last year, IBM’s profits exceeded 6 billion USD and might be getting more profits this year.

Gerstner wants to give IBM one last push before he leaves. This way, he can make more money from the IBM shares he owns. He was awarded over 3 million IBM shares during his ten years span. His shares were worth over 300 million USD a few months ago, but it recently dropped to 200 million USD. Despite IBM’s higher profits, their share prices were also affected by the market crash recently.

IBM needs some news to push up their share prices, for example,… re-entering the Chinese market.

This cooperation does not include only their technologies. They will also be exchanging markets.

IBM will be Lenovo’s distributor in North America. Lenovo Group will be their distributor in China and the rest of Asia.

Of course, their cooperation is only limited to PC and does not include software. Lenovo’s software is still not on the same level as IBM.

Just look at SAP. SAP is set up by 4 former IBM software engineers, proving how strong their engineers are.

“Feng, Liu, glad you all can come to IBM. We will have good cooperation, and it will be a win-win situation for us.” Gerstner laughed.

“Of course. I can foresee IBM’s PC sales will return to the second place again.” Liu Chuanzhi replied with a laugh.

As for who is getting first in PC sales, it is all written on Liu Chuanzhi’s face.

“Liu, our PC’s quality is very good and can last…” Gerstner continued to talk about IBM’s PC advantages. PCs, or personal computer, is named by IBM and they are the pioneers in this industry.

But being the pioneers does not mean they will have the last laugh. It’s like a long-distance race. The ones who ran fast at the start might not retain their lead until the ending point. They might be overtaken at the beginning or halfway in the race.

Liu Chuanzhi and Feng Yu exchanged looks. IBM had taken a wrong step. Extending the lifespan of a PC is a wrong move@

PC’s technologies change very fast. Your IBM’s PC, especially laptops, the major weakness is its durability. The consumer will not change to a new one as the old PC is still working. But if he doesn’t change, the old PC will be too slow.

Also, IBM priced its PC very high. Their laptops are the most expensive among other brands.

IBM’s laptop is doubled as Lenovo’s laptop with the same specs. Who will buy their laptops in China?

Lenovo has always wanted to build the cheapest PC and let more people afford to own one. PCs should not be a high-end product, and it should be a device used by everyone. It will become a necessity like mobile phones in the future!

“No. If IBM still retains this mindset, you all will not succeed in the Chinese and Asia markets. These are the data on PC sales and prices. I think you will understand why IBM is no longer competitive.” Liu Chuanzhi gave Gerstner two documents.

Gerstner and Palmisano looked at each other and started reading the documents with a frown.

Chapter 1180 – Lenovo’s competitiveness

Gerstner and Palmisano had not noticed these figures. After reading the data, they realized IBM has no competitiveness against Lenovo. If they were to tender for jobs together, IBM would not win!

Lenovo is selling its laptop at 8,800, and IBM is selling its laptop with the same specs at 23,000. They are two times more expensive than Lenovo. Who will buy their laptops?

Of course, this is the comparison in the Chinese market. After all, China had imposed high import tariffs, and IBM was forced to raise its retail prices.

But in the US, IBM’s laptop is selling at 2,000 USD. Lenovo’s laptop with the same specs is only selling for 1,499 USD. The price difference is almost 25%. Due to the reason that Lenovo laptops are imported and have high taxes and transportation costs.

Gerstner and Palmisano calculated in their hearts. A Lenovo laptop’s production cost should be less than 1,000 USD, while IBM’s cost is over 1,200 USD. The difference between IBM and Lenovo’s production cost is quite wide.

Since Gerstner becomes the Chairman of IBM, he had lowered their production costs and even retrenched a lot of employees. In the end, they, as pioneers, lost to a latecomer from China!

No wonder <Forbes> named Lenovo Group as the fastest-growing PC manufacturer. Just cost control is the best in the world.

If it’s only because of lower labor costs, the production cost will not be so low. There must be other reasons why they can keep their cost so low. For example, the cost of the different components.

China had built the world’s biggest Crystalline silicon factory. There are plans to produce more than 50% of the world’s Crystalline silicon!

Many people laughed when they read this news. China’s Crystalline silicon technologies are below average, and this plant’s investment is not a small amount. Do they know how much Crystalline silicon they must produce to meet 50% of the world’s production?

Just nearby Japan and Taiwan can teach them a lesson.

But when many people learned that Feng Yu, Philips, and Kirilenko had invested in this plant, they realized that this might be possible.

Feng Yu had sold his Microsoft shares and has the cash to invest in this plant. Philips and Kirilenko can fund this plant too.

Philips had provided advanced Siemens technology, while Kirilenko provided Russia’s confidential technologies. Feng Yu did not ask Kirilenko how he got the technologies.

Now, the plant has no problems with its technologies.

Japanese and Taiwanese firms tried to stop Feng Yu, but it is impossible. Just China alone is a protective layer for Feng Yu’s plant and can stop those firms from entering. Who will believe that Feng Yu has no connections with China’s top government leaders?

What Feng Yu needs to worry about is to lower its cost and how to increase its efficiency. Wind and Rain Crystalline silicon factory will definitely overtake other Crystalline silicon factories with lower cost and increased efficiency.

Gerstner and Palmisano felt it might be this Crystalline silicon factory that had lowered China’s electronics components cost.

“Feng, how is the production of your Crystalline silicon factory in China?” Gerstner asked.

“It’s alright. It’s only phase one, and the factory is not completed yet.” The Crystalline silicon factory and production speed is following Feng Yu’s orders.

At its current speed, the factory can easily take over half of the global market share. When it happens, Feng Yu can control the price. If they increase its scale now, it will be a waste of money. Furthermore, it will be overproduction, and no one will buy their products.

Feng Yu must wait for a few more years for the Photovoltaic industry to rise. Solar panels will be a good product to focus on then. Feng Yu had already informed Tai Hua Battery to set up a solar panel development team and aim to grab the biggest slice of the cake!

“Feng, Liu, I have read this document. I am curious, how did you all lower your production cost? I mean, how did you all lower it to this extend?” Gerstner asked.

Liu Chuanzhi looked at Feng Yu and saw him nodding. He replied. “It’s simple. We are producing all the major components of the PC. We have agreements with all the hardware manufacturers.”

“What do you mean by producing all the major components of the PC yourself?”

“I don’t need to explain about the optical drive. IBM is also using our Wind and Rain optical technology and uses Wind and Rain – Philips standards. We are using Nvidia’s graphics card, and they have a factory in China. The price we are getting is the lowest in the industry. We are also producing the mouse and keyboard ourselves. Wind and Rain Electronics is also the industry leader for LCD monitors. They also gave us the lowest price in the industry.”

“The batteries are from Tai Hua Battery, and it is the cheapest in the industry. The hard-disk drive is jointly produced by us, Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics, etc., and of course, we got it at the cost price. The sound card jointly produced with Aiwa, and the sound quality is very good. It is also very cheap. The RAM is from Kingston, and they have a factory in China…”

Gerstner is speechless. All the components of Lenovo’s PC are the cheapest in the industry. Other than the motherboard, they got all other parts at the lowest price. Also, they are working with Intel and AMD to produce a cheaper High-performance notebook.

“Feng, Liu, I am very curious. Why did those hardware companies give Lenovo such good prices?” Gerstner frowned. Even IBM doesn’t get these prices.

“It’s simple. Our sales are good, and we can help them expand their market share.” Liu Chuanzhi replied.

Liu Chuanzhi knows the real reason, which is Feng Yu owns the controlling stake of those companies. With Feng Yu’s help, those companies set up factories in China, which lowered their cost and helped Lenovo Group increase their competitiveness internationally.

The higher-ups are also happy with what Feng Yu did. They praise him for not forgetting his motherland.

Feng Yu wants Lenovo Group to overtake IBM in PCs, software, and services. He wants Lenovo to be the IT industry leader. Those companies producing the parts will also be the leaders in their respective sectors!

Liu Chuanzhi knows about this plan, but he did not expect Feng Yu to act so fast and invested in all PC related companies.

As a result, Lenovo becomes so competitive in the international market. Lenovo’s PC design has been the most advanced globally, and with its current pricing advantage, its brand awareness also increases.

The difference between Lenovo and large corporations like IBM is the patented technologies. IBM and other large corporations profit a lot from their patent authorizations. This is what Lenovo is working on.

Liu Chuanzhi’s explanation did not really answer Gerstner. But this is considered the company’s secret, and it’s normal for Liu Chuanzhi not to answer.

Gerstner must negotiate the terms of this cooperation. Lenovo wants to control the PC prices?! How is this possible?!

We are IBM, and we are always the ones in charge!

Chapter 1181 – Who is in charge?

“Feng, Liu, I think you all should face reality. When it comes to PC, we, IBM, are the best.” Gerstner emphasized.

Yes, IBM was definitely the best 10 years ago. But after they shifted their focus to software, they had lost their status as the industry leader and is even lagging behind HP and Lenovo now. If it wasn’t for the long-term contracts with major corporations in the US, IBM might be kicked out of the top five PC companies.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Lenovo had acquired IBM’s PC business, and IBM’s PC sales had dropped drastically. The US government switched to other vendors as they are afraid of Lenovo creating a ‘backdoor’ in their PCs! This is also the reason why the Chinese Government insisted on developing their own PCs.

“I don’t know how you define the best. Other than the IBM brand, IBM PCs’ specs, designs, and sales are not the best. You all have to admit that even HP and Dell are better than you all in the North American market. You all are also lagging behind other companies in Europe. Asia, a market with great potential, is now controlled by us, Lenovo.”

“Some of IBM’s technologies are still the most advanced in the world, but a PC does not depend on one or two advanced technologies. If someone is to buy a PC, they will consider all aspects of the PC. IBM had positioned itself as a high-end PC, but I don’t see which part of the specs is considered high-end. Increasing the price of the PC based on the brand is a stupid move.”

Liu Chuanzhi told Gerstner directly. He had pointed out that IBM is making use of brand loyalty to sell their PC. Although IBM is an established brand, as its product’s quality declines, the sales will also drop.

These are the truth. Many people complained that IBM’s products lacked innovation and expensive in the past two years. The real high-end PC should have better specs than other PCs. But IBM Laptops’ specs are worse than other laptops!

“But in North America, Lenovo cannot be compared to IBM. That’s why I feel that IBM should be in charge of North America. Lenovo can oversee sales in China and other parts of Asia. This way, we can share our resources better.”

Feng Yu interrupts. “Do you think that without IBM’s help, Lenovo cannot survive in the North American market? Many large corporations in North America, like eBay and Amazon, are using Lenovo PCs. Of course, companies with high potential like Nvidia, Kingston, and Google are also using Lenovo PCs. If we market our products well, just the pricing advantage, we can snatch a big portion of the market share.”

“In Europe, we have strong partners like Philips and Thomson. They are world-class consumer electronics brands, and Lenovo sales in Europe is climbing steadily. We are also the market leaders in the East European market.”

“Feng, I think you had belittled our brand effect. This is North America and not Asia or Europe. We, IBM, have lots of loyal customers.” Gerstner replied. “Also, we have lots of retail shops, and these are what you all lack.”

Feng Yu smiled and asked Gerstner. “What do you think will happen if I endorse and advertise for Lenovo?”

Feng Yu is not serious about this as he is not interested in being a spokesperson personally.

Gerstner is dumbfounded. Feng Yu is going to endorse for Lenovo PC?! But he doesn’t like to be in the limelight.

If Feng Yu endorsed and advertised for Lenovo, the consumers might really switch to Lenovo. They are businessmen, but in the eyes of ordinary folks, they are more outstanding than celebrities. They know how much sales can a top-rated celebrity increase through endorsement. IBM had hired some celebrities to endorse their products before.

Liu Chuanzhi added. “I think if we were to cooperate, Lenovo should be overseeing the sales, and I guarantee that IBM’s profits will rise. I will market IBM’s PC like Lenovo without bias.”

Gerstner and Palmisano exchanged looks. They realized that they are the underdogs in this negotiation. Since when has IBM been the underdog in business negotiations?!

Liu Chuanzhi is telling them to hand over IBM PCs’ sales to Lenovo, including sales in the North American market. This also includes all of IBM’s distribution channels.

All these might not be considered priceless, but it is highly valuable.

More importantly, IBM’s PC sales have to depend on Lenovo. Although IBM had shifted their focus to software development, their PCs are still making money. This is equivalent to giving up their PC business to Lenovo.

Liu Chuanzhi’s promise of treating IBM the same as Lenovo is impossible. If the same marketing effort is put in for both brands, Lenovo will have a pricing advantage, and IBM’s PC will not increase.

Gerstner suddenly has a feeling that Lenovo is trying to acquire IBM’s PC business!

Gerstner immediately throws out this thought from his mind, as this is impossible. Which company dares to acquire IBM’s PC business? IBM is the founder of PC!

Handing over the PC sales rights to Lenovo Group is equivalent to handing over half of IBM PC’s lifeline.

No other companies are better than Lenovo in PC designs and developments. Lenovo had demonstrated their competitiveness in their desktops or laptops. Their pricing, designs, specs, and branding had standout among their competitors!

Gerstner looked at Liu Chuanzhi in his eyes, and he can see the desire to acquire IBM’s PC business.

Suppose IBM sells its PC business to Lenovo Group… no. In that case, it should be merged with Lenovo Group, IBM will get Lenovo Group’s shares in return. At the same time, they can focus on software and server development and new technologies development. This might also be a good thing for them.

Microsoft can get to where they are now is because of IBM’s support in the past. Many people said that if IBM had acquired Microsoft, they would retain their position as the industry leader. Now, Microsoft had exceeded IBM, and it might be easier for IBM to get back its leader position if they put all their focus on one area.

“Make your decision. You all should know how this cooperation will benefit IBM.” Feng Yu said.

“Feng, I think no other companies will make such an important decision hastily. Handing over an important product’s sales to another company is a big decision. We need to discuss it with the board of directors. But we will give you an answer soon.” Gerstner replied.

Feng Yu also did not expect IBM to agree in this meeting. But he can tell Gerstner and Palmisano are hesitating, and that’s enough.

Feng Yu will let Liu Chuanzhi handle the rest.

“I will wait for your good news.”

Chapter 1182 – Conspiracy theory resurfaced

Within 10 days, Liu Chuanzhi represented Lenovo Group to sign a cooperation agreement with IBM. The terms of the agreement are not announced to the public, but they made it clear both parties will cooperate on their PC business.

Outsiders don’t know about the cooperation details. Still, they realized IBM had placed a new section in their North American retail stores selling Lenovo Kingsoft PC. Lenovo also started displaying IBM pcs in their stores in Chian.

IBM had agreed to let Lenovo handle their PC sales, they added many conditions. Although the conditions are harsh, it’s not unacceptable. Most importantly, Lenovo has gotten IBM’s sales distribution channels.

All these will increase Lenovo’s PC, especially their laptop sales. IBM’s sales in Asia and East Europe will also improve. Overall, Lenovo stands to benefit more from this cooperation.

Of course, Lenovo Group and IBM have other cooperation. For example, authorized the other party for their patents. IBM benefited more in this area as they have more valuable patents than Lenovo.

Feng Yu is very satisfied with Liu Chuanzhi’s performance in this negotiation. It’s only a matter of time when Lenovo Group acquires IBM’s PC business.

At the same time, Lenovo started advertising aggressively in North America. They hired young movie stars, singers, sportsmen, etc., to endorse their products. This gave Lenovo’s brand a young and energetic image, and it represented Lenovo’s target demographic.

Most importantly, <Business Weekly>, <Forbes> and other business magazines ranked Lenovo Group as the world’s top PC manufacturer and distributor. This title increased Lenovo’s brand value tremendously.

Gerstner also represented IBM to admit that Lenovo’s PC is better than IBM in certain areas.

Other companies had never expected IBM to acknowledge Lenovo is better.

Everyone felt IBM is inviting trouble for themselves. Lenovo had already taken over the Asian Markets for nearly five years and recently gained control of the East Europe market.

Only in America, especially North America, Lenovo is not doing well and seemed to have suffered losses in the last two years.

IBM is helping Lenovo entering the North American market, and they might take over the whole American continent. When that happens, Lenovo Group will be the biggest PC manufacturer in the world.

What IBM did is a mistake. They had allowed their enemies to enter their turf in exchange for the Asian markets!

But the outsiders do not know that IBM did not suffer any losses as their focuses are no longer on their PC business. They are more concerned with developing advanced technologies and planned to invest more than 2 billion USD annually for the next five years in this area.

This plan requires a large fund, and IBM doesn’t have enough money now. Their share prices had been falling, and issuing new shares is not the best option. Therefore, authorizing Lenovo some of its patented technologies and selling their PC business are possible solutions.

Lenovo is announcing to everyone. “North America, Here I come!”

Around the same time, <Fortune> and some other magazines started a new round of conspiracy theories.

Lenovo is threatening the US PC manufacturers, but other Chinese products are also threatening US companies.

“Chinese products are everywhere in our lives now. Automobiles to buttons are all manufactured in China. The clothes we wear are from China, and even many of the chefs in restaurants are Chinese. Many of the construction workers who built our houses are from China, and most of the parts in our cars are made in China. China brand cars are also selling in the US.”

“We had thought that China is not a threat to the US. All they have is cheap labor because of their high population and unemployment rate. That’s why Chinese products are all low-value-added products. But look carefully around us now. China Wind and Rain’s mobile phone is the most advanced globally and will be overtaking Motorola in sales to get the second position in the world. The DVD players in our households are also Wind and Rain brand, and they are made in China. Even the PC we use is Lenovo, which is also from China. China is catching up with the US in the electronics sector!”

…….

Feng Yu had read all these conspiracy theories, but he did not panic like the others. Instead, he laughed at them.

“Boss, are you not worried that Chinese products will be boycott after these conspiracy theories surface?” Kameda Masao asked curiously.

“Kameda, Americans are different from Japanese. They are not united and do not believe in nationalism. Their basic education had taught them to look after themselves first. So what if these media says that Chinese products are catching up and even overtaking the US?”

“Are they going to forbid us from selling our products? This is impossible. The Americans’ lives will be affected if the US cut ties with China, and they will be impacted more than the Chinese. After all, China still has a close trading partner in East Europe, and we can continue to open up new markets in West Europe.”

“If they don’t cut ties with China, then they can only get the Americans to boycott us. Boycotting is an even smaller problem for us. Chinese products’ prices are their advantage. With better quality and lower prices, which will you pick if you are the consumer? Our brand awareness might not be high in the past, but people know our brand after so many rounds of aggressive marketing. Are you still afraid that no one will buy?”

“They claimed we are a threat. Alright. This is also free marketing for us. Their own domestic products are not good enough and want to boycott other country’s product?! This is what weaklings will choose. Your country is much better in this area. Lenovo had entered many Asian countries’ markets except for Japan and South Korea. The Japanese consumer electronics corporations had joined forces. They offered discounts on their own products to stop Lenovo PC from entering the Japanese market. I had not expected Sony and the rest to do this.”

Kameda Masao felt proud to hear Feng Yu praising his country. But at the same time, he felt ashamed of what those Japanese firms did. They sold their PCs at losses to stop Lenovo from entering their market. This is what losers will do.

When did these Japanese consumer electronics giants become losers?

“Boss, should we take some measures?”

“Ok. Go ahead.”

Feng Yu stood up and looked out of the windows onto the streets of New York.

Chinese threat conspiracy theory? Electronics products threat? I will let you all know that these are not rumors and it’s real. Chinese electronic products can really put all your American companies out of business!

Chapter 1183 – E-cigarette

Gerstner went to meet Feng Yu again. But this time, he had come to Feng Yu’s office and is not representing IBM. He is here on behalf of his tobacco company.

Gerstner is a tobacco mogul, and Feng Yu needs his help for something.

Like… promoting E-cigarette.

Feng Yu had thought of E-cigarettes when he started producing humidifiers. Both are using an atomizer to vaporize liquid but are used for different purposes. At that time, the atomizer device is too big to be made into E-cigarettes.

The first generation of E-cigarette was launched last year. Of course, it was launched in China first, and the response is not very good, as it is hard to position it.

You are telling me this is tobacco? But there is no fire. This is a medical device?! But it is harmful to our body. You had removed the tar, but there is still nicotine. This is also not a consumer electronic product. Even the humidifier is considered a home appliance.

This product is not regulated by the authorities, and there are no authority bodies for safety standards. That’s why Feng Yu can set his own standards.

Bing City Pharmaceutical had developed the E-liquid, and Wind and Rain Home Appliances had developed the E-cigarette. The E-cigarette will be under Tai Hua Brand.

After its launch in the Chinese market, Feng Yu discover that this product will not become popular first, but it’s not a problem to get profits. The production cost of this product is very low. Still, the atomizer technology is patented, and other people cannot imitate it.

Feng Yu is going to launch this E-cigarette in America. America is one of the regions with lots of tobacco users. Gerstner is in the tobacco business and is a good partner.

Feng Yu passed a Disposable E-cigarette to Gerstner, asking him to try it.

Although Gerstner is a tobacco mogul, he smokes more cigars than cigarettes. He had not tried smoking this device before, and he looked at how Feng Yu uses it. He took a puff and blew out a mouthful of smoke.

Gerstner did not taste anything in his first puff, and he took a few more puffs. After that, he gave one to his staff behind him. That man is a smoker.

Feng Yu signaled to his staff beside him to take out an E-cigarette to show Gerstner.

“This is the mouthpiece, and it is using the same color as the cigarette filters. This piece is the atomizer, and it holds the e-liquid inside. It can last around 500 puffs. The white part is the battery and some electronic parts…”

“Why don’t you make it detachable? This way, the top part can be discarded.” Gerstner asked.

Feng Yu gave him a thumbs up. No wonder Gerstner is a tobacco mogul. He can point out the flaws of this device with one look. Feng Yu waved his hand, and his staff opened the second box. This E-cigarette is longer and thicker than cigarettes. It looks similar to a cigar with an on/off switch.

“This is a refillable e-cigarette. But the parts inside cannot last long and needs to be replaced after a while. Also, topping up the e-liquid might spill onto the user’s hand. It’s smelly.”

“This is quite small. How long can a full bottle last? Can you increase the size of the e-liquid holder and the atomizer capacity? Many smokers like to take deep puffs when smoking.”

Feng Yu understood what Gerstner meant. He had met many smokers who dislike expensive cigarettes for cheaper ones as the tobacco level is higher.

Feng Yu’s staff placed another box on the table. There is an E-Cigarette inside, which is bigger than a packet of cigarettes. This E-cigarette can last more than a week without topping up the e-liquid.

Gerstner knew Feng Yu is prepared. The different E-cigarettes showed to him caters to different segments of consumers. The first type is for people to try. The second type is for normal users, and the last type is for the people who love smoking e-cigarette.

“We had spent lots of resources and energy to develop this E-cigarette. We own the patents of this E-cigarette, which means we have the exclusivity.”

“This E-cigarette has many advantages. For example, no fire is used when smoking, and it will not be a fire hazard. It also doesn’t have tar and other harmful chemicals in it and is supposedly healthier. Second-hand smoke is also less harmful to family and friends. There are several types of e-liquid, and we can adjust the nicotine levels, and consumers can use it to quit smoking.”

“Quit?” Gerstner frowned. He is a tobacco mogul, and if no one smokes, how is he going to earn money?

Feng Yu laughed. “Don’t be anxious. Quitting is only one of the benefits. The ones who really want to quit smoking can quit with just sheer determination. Those that don’t want to quit will never quit.”

“Most importantly, the profits of this e-cigarette is not lower than traditional cigarettes, and it does not contain tar. Fire is not required, and it will let people feel it is healthier and safer. It will make it easier for us to market it, and I think it is easier to advertise it than cigarettes.”

Many countries don’t allow cigarette advertisements, but tobacco companies will think of other ways to promote their products. For example, they will produce other products and market them under their company’s or brand names. This is promoting its cigarettes indirectly.

“This is the product you want me to distribute for you in the North American market?” Gerstner can see the profits in this product, and it will become a new revenue source for his tobacco company.

“Not only the North American market. Suppose you have the ability and dare to sign an undertaking to guarantee a certain amount of sales. In that case, I can let you have the whole American market.”

“How much will you be paying if you let me handle the whole American market?”

“10% of the total sales, but the sales must not be lower than 100 million USD. You should know that cigarettes’ profits are not a lot, and 10% is the highest we can offer. We will handle the marketing ourselves.”

“Can I get 15% of the total sales if I take over the marketing?” Gerstner is not worried about the 100 million USD target.

“Do you think our marketing fees will reach 5% of the total sales?” Feng Yu asked Gerstner back.

“I can tell the E-cigarette’s profits is higher than ordinary cigarettes. Give me 14%, and I will make this E-cigarette popular throughout the whole of America.”

“How about 12%?” Feng Yu bargained.

“13%. No company is more suitable than us to distribute this product. I can make the e-cigarette appear in front of smokers in the shortest time.”

Feng Yu pretends to hesitate. In his heart, he is jumping with joy, as 15% was what he expected. E-cigarette profits are much higher than ordinary cigarettes. The production cost is much lower and is selling higher prices.

“Alright! Deal!”

Chapter 1184 – National Debate

“Tai Hua E-Cigarette is not a cigarette, but you can still smoke.”

“Groundbreaking new technology. Tai Hua E-cigarette has no tar.”

“The top choice of billions. You should own one.”

Advertisements like this appeared on media all over the US. Many people are curious about E-Cigarette. What is it?

Electronic cigarette means it should be using electricity. But cigarette is something that you put in your mouth. Many people’s first reaction is smoking E-Cigarette is equivalent to eating batteries!

Feng Yu saw the advertisements in the newspapers. Gerstner had started advertising on the newspapers, and TV stations, online, magazines, etc., should follow.

But the next day, Feng Yu noticed something is amiss. Why are there articles criticizing E-cigarettes appearing in the newspaper? The article states that electronics and cigarettes cannot be merged. The E-cigarette is a fraud.

What’s going on? Is Gerstner hated by so many people? He had only introduced a product, and people started to criticize him. Gerstner is still the Chairman and CEO of IBM. Why do these people hate him?

Immediately after those articles, Gerstner’s tobacco company issued a statement to retort those articles. It states that this product is a replacement for cigarettes, reducing the health risks of smoking.

At the same time, the article also listed the composition of cigarette and E-liquid to compare. It also stated that e-liquid is invented by a pharmaceutical company and is used to help smokers quit.

The company that invented e-liquid is the same company that invented Viagra. China’s Bing City Pharmaceutical Group.

Viagra’s sales in the US this year had reached another peak. Although Pfizer had changed the formula and developed a drug similar to Viagra, those with health conditions felt it took too long to take effect. The healthy ones felt that the drug effect lasted too long and affected their daily lives.

That’s why Bing City Pharmaceutical Group’s Viagra is still the top choice for most people. A German company has also developed a drug similar to Viagra. But that added some other components. Their drug’s effect is between Viagra and Pfizer, and they are Viagra’s main competitor.

Nevertheless, Viagra is the forerunner and is the most famous. When people want to buy such drugs, their first choice will be Viagra.

Viagra is supposed to be a prescription drug and is regulated in many countries. But those are only for show. Sleeping pills are also a prescription drug, and people can still get them without prescriptions. Pharmacies want to make profits from selling Viagra, and they will prepare fake prescriptions to show the authorities.

This is more common in the US than in China.

The popularity of Viagra has made Bing City Pharmaceutical Group famous, and it helped with their health supplement products’ sales too.

Bing City Pharmaceutical Group had taken over a pharmaceutical factory in Canada to manufacture health supplement related drugs and Viagra for the North American market.

Feng Yu knew this article published by Gerstner is according to their contract. He must promote Bing City Pharmaceutical Group when he is marketing the E-cigarettes.

Tai Hua brand is unknown in the US. Still, the article had mentioned Tai Hua E-cigarette is a subsidiary of Tai Hua Holdings.

Although <Fortune> does not want it to happen, Tai Hua Holdings entered the Fortune 500. Many people felt that many of Tai Hua Holdings’ subsidiaries are not listed. If they got listed, Tai Hai Holdings would be ranked much higher.

Of course, if <Fortune> knows Tai Hua Holding is the major shareholder of Sina and Sohu, Tai Hua Holdings will not be ranked in the bottom 50.

Feng Yu felt Tai Hua Holdings can easily enter the top 50 of Fortune 500. Those top companies are worth over 10 billion USD, but those are overvalued.

For example, Enron was also once listed as one of the top companies in Fortune 500, and it showed the problems with this ranking. <Fortune> had ranked companies based on what they see without checks.

If the Chairman of Tai Hua Holdings is not Feng Yu, they might not even get into rankings.

Bing City Pharmaceutical Group and Tai Hua Holdings had made many people curious about Tai Hua E-cigarettes. But they also felt electronics and cigarettes cannot be combined. Have you ever heard of E-yogurt?

The following few days, a debate started in the newspaper. One side says E-cigarette is a scam, and the other side is a new technology that perfectly combines technology and tobacco.

……

“Boss, what is Gerstner doing? Why did he let a debate over E-cigarette stared?” Ralph is unhappy and felt Feng Yu had chosen the wrong distributor.

Gerstner is old now and is not as vigorous as before.

Feng Yu replied with a smile. “Didn’t you notice that this debate over E-cigarette is increasing our Tai Hua E-cigarette’s popularity? Although there are different views over E-cigarette, our sales are still increasing.

Ralph is confused and asked. “Boss, are you saying Gerstner had purposely allowed this debate to happen?”

“Not only that. I suspect the first article and those articles criticizing E-cigarette are written by Gerstner. Have you realized that many people had joined the debate? Even online news, online forums, and even TV shows are all talking about E-cigarette. More and more people have noticed this new product.”

The internet has an advantage. News will spread faster on the internet. The more people are discussing E-cigarette, the more popular E-cigarette will be.

Even Feng Yu is impressed with this marketing strategy. Gerstner is terrific!

Ralph is no longer angry with Gerstner. These are all of Gerstner’s marketing strategies.

“Boss, should we give him a hand?”

Feng Yu shook his head. “No need. Gerstner had done well now, and he is in control. If we interfere, we might mess up his plans. Oh, has Gerstner released that piece of news?”

“Yes. We will know about the reaction tomorrow morning. Boss, will this really let other people imitate?”

“Everybody will be curious. Also, have you noticed that the youths here like ‘freedom’ and do whatever they want? That’s why the percentage of young smokers is much higher than in China. We must make them interested in our E-cigarette. After all, the e-cigarette is better than a cigarette.”

Feng Yu thought to himself. I will try out this marketing strategy here.

Chapter 1185 – Smoke rings competition

Gerstner listened to his assistant reporting the E-cigarette sales over the past few days.

It’s hard for consumers to accept new products, especially products that had never appeared before.

Gerstner had made use of the media to debate about E-cigarette and let everyone participate in it. This will increase the product’s exposure. This strategy had increased E-cigarette sales, and many of the consumers had bought it out of curiosity.

But this strategy will not last long as it will also expose E-cigarette flaws. All products have flaws.

This marketing strategy implemented by Gerstner is considered peculiar. Still, Feng Yu suggested another strange marketing strategy, which he had never heard before.

Smoke Rings competition!

The name of this competition is self-explanatory. It is a competition to see who can blow the most smoke rings, the biggest smoke ring, the smallest smoke ring, the most creative smoke ring, etc.

This competition had been held in small bars before, but it had never been held on such a big scale with high prize money.

The person who can blow out the most smoke rings will be recorded in the Guinness Book of Records.

The Guinness Book of Records is not a serious organization and have all sort of weird records.

For example, Cancan dancers’ most high kicks in one minute, the biggest mouth in the world, the longest tongue, the biggest tooth, biggest face, etc.

These records might not be anything extraordinary, but many people like to watch them. However, Feng Yu is not interested in the biggest shoe, the biggest earwax, etc., and its record holder.

But Feng Yu had to admit that many people in the world are interested in the Guinness Book of Records. Some people think that it is something very cool, and more are trying to get fame by being the record holder.

Of course, not everyone will notice the record holder’s name.

The Guinness Book of Records is not a government organization. It is privately owned, and it’s something like the <Forbes> lists. They are book publishers who did this for profits.

To maintain their sales, the Guinness Book of Records kept introducing all sorts of weird records. The record-holder will only get a token of appreciation from the Guinness Book of Records. Their name will appear in the book.

This means that no matter how much you risked your life to break records, all you get is a small sum of money from the Guinness Book of Records. Most of the profits are taken away by the company.

These few years, the Guinness Book of Records organized all sorts of competition to earn money, and Guinness had become a super brand.

Feng Yu does not think much about these records. The world’s biggest shoe is only a gimmick. Shoes are for people to wear, and who can wear a shoe bigger than a car?

Also, the world’s biggest pizza, biggest cake, etc., are all wasting food. These record holders had made it just to market their companies.

Of course, some people do make a lot of money through the Guinness Book of Records. For example, the world’s slimmest mobile phone had an increase in sales. The world’s thinnest condom, the world’s biggest theme park, etc., had brought high profits for the record holder.

This time, Feng Yu planned to use this smoke ring competition to attract more people to notice E-cigarette. After all, E-cigarette produces more smoke than ordinary cigarettes.

E-cigarettes and ordinary cigarettes are allowed in this competition as long as they are legal tobacco. Of course, if you use a marijuana joint to participate, you will be arrested on the spot.

This smoke ring competition is divided into several categories. The first place in each category will get a 100,000 USD cash prize. The attractive cash prize attracted many people to register online. They don’t mind flying over to participate. If they win the competition, the prize money is more than enough to cover their travel and lodging expenses.

More importantly, anyone above the legal smoking age can participate, and there are many categories. To many people, this is better than buying the lottery.

It is costly to hold this competition. It cost at least a few million USD, excluding the prize money, and just the venue and security cost alone is a large amount. Luckily, when this type of competition reached a certain scale, the TV stations are willing to buy the broadcasting rights. That’s why this competition can even make money for Gerstner.

One week later, the competition started. Feng Yu watched the live telecast in front of the TV. The venue is in a sports arena, and it was crowded. Many of the participants are there just for the fun of it.

Feng Yu did not realize so many people like to blow smoke rings in this era. It’s almost the same as the competition he watched in his previous life.

A man took a big puff, opened his mouth into an O shape, and used a finger to tap his cheeks. Rings of smoke started flying out of his mouth

Another participant even managed to blow out smoke in the shape of a man!

A participant blew out smoke rings to form the Olympics logo!

The participants’ techniques are breathtaking.

After watching a while, Feng Yu switch off the TV. He doesn’t need to watch it as he knows this marketing strategy is a success. All those top participants are using E-cigarettes, and they had been hired to participate. These participants are all smoke rings performers.

They also realized that it is easier to perform using E-cigarettes than normal cigarettes.

The top participants in the competitions were using E-cigarettes and made many people feel that E-cigarettes are better. Some non-smokers even want to try E-cigarettes to make smoke rings for fun.

After the competition ended, many people noticed most of the winners are using E-cigarettes during the prize presentation. Only one winner had won with an ordinary cigarette and another using a Bong. Tai Hua E-cigarette kept appearing on the screen and made more people notice it.

Gerstner is deeply impressed with Feng Yu for coming up with such a novelty way to market E-cigarette!

Chapter 1186 – Suspicion

While Kameda Masao, Ralph, and the rest are busy, Feng Yu is anxiously waiting at the arrival hall. He is there to pick up Li Na.

Li Na had finally graduated, and Feng Yu managed to persuade her to take a break.

So, Li Na was persuaded to come to New York for a vacation.

The flight landed, and the door open. Feng Yu finally saw Li Na walking out of the plane with two female bodyguards. Feng Yu had arranged those bodyguards for Li Na, and they acted as her driver and helped her with shopping bags most of the time.

Li Na is overjoyed to see Feng Yu and ran into his arms. The last time they met was around two months ago.

In the car, Feng Yu held Li Na’s hand. “Are you tired? This airline’s first-class seats are too ordinary. When my private jet I ordered from Boeing is ready, it will be more comfortable and convenient.”

“Private jet? I thought only the country’s leaders can own aircraft?”

“Huh? Many tycoons overseas own private jets, and it’s only our country has strict restrictions on air space. But it is slowly opening up, and my helicopter I ordered from Bing City Aviation will be ready soon. We can ride a helicopter to look down at the cities. I have a helicopter here in the US. Let’s go for a ride tomorrow.” Feng Yu has lots of things to tell Li Na.

“Ok. You decide.” Li Na replied.

“Look! This is Wind and Rain Empire Building. It was formerly New York’s iconic landmark building. Now, it’s ours, and Kirilenko has some shares of it.” Feng Yu said on their way to the elevator.

“Is that the tallest twin towers in the US? The World Trade Center?” Li Na points to the two tall buildings outside of the windows.

“It is for now, but it will not be soon.” Feng Yu said and realized he had a slip of the tongue.

“Is someone building a taller building? Is it you?”

“I don’t care about these titles. Furthermore, tall buildings are too outstanding, and a gust of wind might blow it down anytime.”

Li Na rolled her eyes at Feng Yu. How can a gust of wind blow down a building?

“Nana, what would you like to drink? How about I brew tea for you? I had just learned it.” Feng Yu asked proudly.

“You learned how to brew tea? Isn’t that an old man’s hobby?”

Feng Yu: “……” It’s only because more old men like to brew tea, and not everyone who drinks and brew tea is old men. Also, my teacher is a lady!

Feng Yu brewed a pot of tea and sat on the sofa with Li Na to enjoy it.

“Don’t you think your office is too big? Are you the only one using it?” Li Na looked around the office, and it is bigger than his office in China.

“Americans will think I am not influential if my office is small. Furthermore, I am not used to sharing my office with others. Although the office is slightly bigger, it’s not a bad thing. Do you want to take a shower first? I have a bedroom in my office. You can take a rest in there.”

Feng Yu looked at Li Na with a smile, and his hand is stroking her thighs lightly.

Li Na looked at Feng Yu and stood up to enter the bedroom. Before she can close the bathroom door, Feng Yu rushed in. “The weather is too hot today, and I feel sweaty. Let’s bath together.”

“Who wants to bathe with you? Ah~~~.”

Slightly more than an hour later, Li Na laid on Feng Yu’s chest, panting. They missed each other badly.

“When can you stay in China for a longer period?” Li Na asked.

“Soon. The earliest should be around one to two years, and the latest should be five to six years. By that time, my overseas business should all be stable.”

According to Feng Yu’s plan, he will return to China after Sina, Sohu, and other companies are delisted.

Feng Yu will focus on developing his Crystal silicon production and pushed his IT, electronics, automobile, etc., businesses to the next level. His overseas business will be handed to Kameda Masao and Ralph to manage.

Although overseas is more profitable, Feng Yu still prefer to live in China.

Li Na waited for a while and did not hear the things she wanted to hear.

She thought Feng Yu will tell her that they will get married.

But why didn’t Feng Yu mention their marriage?

Feng Yu has been supportive when Li Na was studying for her doctorate. But her parents have been asking her when they are getting married.

Li Na realized that Feng Yu had never mentioned their marriage before.

Feng Yu had treated Li Na well, and she knows he will risk his life to protect her.

But Li Na can sense Feng Yu’s hesitation.

Li Na is puzzled. Why is Feng Yu hesitating to marry her?

Li Na asked her fellow teachers at her university. Some of them told her that her boyfriend most likely is seeing someone else outside.

Those teachers told her to look out for tell-tale signs a man is having an affair outside.

But all most of those signs cannot apply to Feng Yu.

For example, complaining about being tired after work. Feng Yu does not need to go to work and is overseas most of the time. He also did not complain about being tired whenever they are together. Even just now, they had gone for two rounds of s*x.

Using work as an excuse to avoid contact? Feng Yu will call Li Na every day, and she never felt Feng Yu was impatient with her.

Another example is not giving the woman money to spend. Feng Yu can’t wait for Li Na to spend his money!

But one of the signs is correct. Feng Yu is hiding something from her. Feng Yu has never hide anything from her in the past. Although Feng Yu claimed that those are business-related problems, and she is not interested to know.

Sometimes, Li Na wonders if the reason could be she is not interested in Feng Yu’s business and made him not willing to share his problems with her. Or could it be that Feng Yu had fallen for someone else?

If it’s the first reason, it’s still fine as it will not affect their relationship much.

But what if it’s the second reason? What should she do?

Feng Yu saw Li Na keeping quiet and asked. “Na Na, what are you thinking?”

“Ah? Nothing.”

Feng Yu is not an idiot and could tell Li Na has something to tell him.

Chapter 1187 – A story

At noon, Feng Yu brought Li Na to try the western cuisine in the US, and they went shopping after that. Li Na is not interested in branded clothes, handbags, jewelry, etc.

Not all women like to dress up in branded clothes.

After dinner, Feng Yu brought Li Na back to his house in New York. It is also a standalone mansion located in the wealthy district of New York. The security in this area is much better compared to other parts.

Feng Yu and Li Na sat on the sofa to play Gbox games. But both are preoccupied with other issues in their minds and did not enjoy the games.

Feng Yu saw Li Na looking distracted and put down the controller. He asked. “Nana, is there something you want to ask me?”

Li Na looked at Feng Yu and put down her controller. “If you have something to say, go ahead. But if you are not willing to tell me, I will also not ask because I trust you.”

“Nana, let me tell you a story. Even my parents don’t know about this.” Feng Yu sighed. He will have to face this sooner or later.

Feng Yu switched off the console and sat beside Li Na to hug her.

“Do you think a kid can know about the major events in so many countries?”

Li Na looked at Feng Yu curiously. What does he mean?

“Many people had called him as an investment genius, business genius, etc. But do you want to know how the real person behind all these names is like?”

Feng Yu is talking about himself?! The real Feng Yu?! Li Na touched Feng Yu’s face. The person in front of her is fake?! How can she don’t recognize the person she loves?

“He is a graduate from a regular university and got married at 30 years old. He worked as a broker in a brokerage and worked hard to repay his housing and car mortgage. His father dies early, and his mother had brought him up single-handedly. Everything was going well for him, and he made a lot of money when the market was doing well.”

“His wife is sick and couldn’t conceive. They could not afford to seek treatment in the US, and he started to trade aggressively to try to raise money.”

“But things did not go well for him. Maybe he was too greedy and lost his rational thinking. In the end, he lost everything. Not only he lost all his earnings over the years, but he was also in debt.”

“He had lost hope and wanted to die to get insurance payouts to give his family a better life. But in the end, he did not die. When he woke up, he realized he had returned to his Junior School time. Everything he experienced before is like a dream.”

“But how can someone have such a long dream? Everything is too real. Some little things he remembered told him that it was not a dream. His experiences are real, and he had lived a part of his life.”

“So, he picks himself up and tries to change his life. He started to do business by using his father’s name and his teachers as an excuse. To his surprise, his business is successful, and he can predict the world events more accurately than anyone else, ass he had experienced it before.”

“His business grew. It started from a small village, expanded to the city, province, and the whole country. He became the wealthiest in his village, Bing City, Long Jiang Province, and then China’s wealthiest. After that, he set his sights overseas. He wants to do something for his country, and at that time, he has enough money to last him a few lifetimes.”

“So, he entered the international market and made high profits during the financial crisis a few years ago. From then on, he becomes one of the top billionaires in the world. If he wants, he can become the World’s Richest Man anytime.”

Li Na is in a daze after hearing from Feng Yu. What does Feng Yu mean? He is reincarnated?

How is this possible? If people really have souls, then is there heaven and hell?

“During his rebirth, he had studied hard to let his father allow him to do business. After all, during that time, studying is the only way out. His father will allow him to do whatever he wanted when he got good results. So, he asked the prettiest girl in the village for her. This female classmate was also his dream girl in his previous life.”

“Soon, he fell in love with this female classmate. When she’s happy, he will also be in a good mood. When she is upset, he will find ways to cheer her up. He had lived more than 20 years than her and knew lots of jokes she had never heard of.”

“He thought this life will be smooth and successful. But his previous life memories made him curious about his wife. He wants to know how she is living now.”

“So, he wrote a letter to his wife from his previous life and mailed it to the address from his memories. To his surprise, he got a reply from her. This proves that his memories are accurate.”

“He should be spending his new life with the girl he knew from his Junior School and be loyal to her. But he kept dreaming of his wife from his previous life. It’s not right for him to keep think of another woman, but he just can’t forget her.”

“He wants to marry his current girlfriend, but he cannot forget about his wife from his previous life. He is in a dilemma. Do you understand?” Feng Yu looks at Li Na.

Li Na asked after a long pause. “Are you saying you are that man? You are rebirthed?”

Feng Yu: “……” That’s not the point. How come she doesn’t have any reaction after I told her my story? She should at least ask me about my wife from my previous life. I can tell her that I had never stray, and she will share more good feelings.

Since afternoon, Feng Yu had thought of how to tell Li Na this story. But the ending is totally different from what he expected.

Feng Yu nodded. “Yes. If not, how can I suddenly become good at English and Russian from an average student? Those are from my previous life memories.”

Li Na sighed. “So that’s the reason why you suddenly become a genius. That means we have no interactions in our previous life?”

“Huh? We are schoolmates in High School, but we are not in the same class. After that, we went to different universities.”

“Then who did I marry?”

Feng Yu is stunned. What does she mean? Is Li Na going to find her husband from her previous life? He does not know the answer, and even if he knows, he will never tell her.

Feng Yu is not a saint. He is also selfish when it comes to his relationships.

“I don’t know. We are not studying in the same university, and my family moved out of the village later. After we moved, I never returned to the village.”

Li Na tapped Feng Yu’s face. “This is not a good story, and I don’t like it. Why did you tell me this story?”

Feng Yu is speechless. Everything is not what he expected!

Chapter 1188 – Proposal

Feng Yu is surprised to see Li Na so calm. He had forgotten Li Na is a teacher and faced many students every day. She also learned psychology before, and his little tricks are useless against her.

Feng Yu stuttered and did not continue on this topic.

It was a sleepless night for both.

Li Na did not expect her premonition is real. But Feng Yu’s story troubled her more. Feng Yu has a wife in his previous life, and she had become the third party between them?!

Someone had told Li Na that it’s common for men to fool around outside, but she thought nothing about it. But now, this really happened to her.

After so many years, Li Na can’t bear to leave Feng Yu, and she is confident he will not leave her.

Since she can’t leave him, she will let Feng Yu decide and will not ask anything.

Li Na was shocked when Feng Yu told her he was given a second chance in life. After all, this is something that only appears in fantasy stories.

But when Li Na thought back on everything that happens to Feng Yu, she knows he is telling the truth. This is the only explanation why Feng Yu is so extraordinary.

The following few days, Feng Yu accompanied Li Na to visit many parts of the US. He tried his best to please her.

Feng Yu is just greedy and wants both women.

Li Na pretended she had never heard of Feng Yu’s story and enjoyed herself. But under her cheerful appearance, she is troubled.

When Kameda Masao called Feng Yu to update him on its progress, Feng Yu told him to decide himself and hang up.

Feng Yu also hangs up on He Zhaoji when he called to update him on the stock markets. Feng Yu can’t be bothered to care whether if his investments are making profits or losses.

Li Na saw this and told Feng Yu. “I have enough fun. If you are busy with work, go ahead.”

“It’s alright. Work can never be done, and I don’t care whether if I earn or lose money. What’s most important is you are happy.”

Li Na hugged Feng Yu in her arms and whispered. “I don’t want to leave you.”

Feng Yu suddenly got down on one knee and took out a small box. He opened it, and it’s a pink diamond ring. The raw diamond alone is worth over 10 million USD, and it’s custom made into this ring.

“Nana, will you marry me? We will get married next week! Or we can register our marriage here, in the US, today!”

Li Na did not expect Feng Yu to propose to her suddenly. They had been together for so long and doesn’t need any formalities or gifts. Li Na will not hesitate if Feng Yu just tell her ‘let’s get married.’

But now, Li Na asked Feng Yu. “If you marry me, what about her?”

Feng Yu knew who Li Na is referring to. He bit the bullet and said. “I don’t know, but I don’t want you to leave me! I love you! I want you to be the mother of my child and the grandmother of my grandson!”

This is the first time Li Na heard of such a proposal script, and she laughed.

“This ring is beautiful, but it’s not suitable for me.”

Feng Yu panicked. He stood up. “Nana, I cannot live without you…”

Li Na pressed her fingers against Feng Yu’s lips. “I am saying that I am a teacher, and I can’t wear such a big diamond ring when I teach.”

Feng Yu is overjoyed. “Nana, you agree to marry me?! Terrific! I will call my men to custom make another diamond ring. Let’s go and pick a diamond now!”

“Wedding is only a formality, and the ring doesn’t matter if you love me. I know you had always treated me well. Just get a normal ring will do.”

When Li Na was saying all these, her eyes had never left the ring. Feng Yu immediately got the hint and put the ring on her finger.

Li Na smiled sweetly as she looks at the ring on her finger.

“What type of wedding do you want?”

“Just a simple wedding with our family members will do. Let’s hold our wedding in the village and don’t be too lavish.” Li Na doesn’t like to show off.

“Alright. We will hold in our village, and will only invite our old classmates and neighbors, and not inform other people.”

That night, Feng Yu did not use contraceptives, and Li Na did not stop him.

The next day, Feng Yu called his father, excitedly. “Dad, I will be back with Li Na next week to register our marriage!”

Feng Xingtai immediately grinned from ear to ear. “Good… good… good… I will prepare the wedding for you two here!”

“Dad, you don’t need to prepare anything. We don’t want to hold a grand wedding. We will hold our wedding back in the village and just treat our old neighbors to a banquet. There’s no need to be too grand.” Feng Yu said.

“Nana agreed to this?”

“This is her idea.”

“Alright. We will wait for you to come back first. I need to tell your mother about this first. Muhua! Dear! Our son is going to get married to Xiao Na!”

Feng Yu called Li Na’s father next. He addressed him as ‘dad,’ and it shocked him.

“You two are getting married? Next week in the village? Sure!”

Feng Yu also called his close friends, Kirilenko, Fu Guangzheng, and the rest to tell them about his wedding. Of course, his childhood friend, Wen Dongjun, is also one of them. He also informed Liu Kun and other old classmates.

Li Na looked at Feng Yu with a smile. When he finishes calling, she said. “I will not ask you anything about your matter, but don’t let anyone in our family knows about her.”

Feng Yu is stunned and is feeling complicated. He doesn’t know if he should feel happy or ashamed.

“Nana, I…”

“Alright. Can you forget her if I force you?” Li Na is regretting her decision to continue with her studies. If she had not continued with her masters or doctorate, she might not be so troubled now.

But since this had happened, then she will let nature take its course. Li Na can feel that Feng Yu loved her deeply, but he cannot forget her. She might as well accept it, and she is the first wife after all.

Feng Yu hugged Li Na. “Nana, I’m sorry.”

“I hope we will never meet in the future. Also, she is not allowed to have children before our son is born!” Li Na added two conditions.

Li Na sighed in her heart. Do women become stupid after falling in love? How can she accept this?

Feng Yu quickly explain. “We did not even hold hands! It’s the truth! I will never lie to you!”

Li Na felt happier but also regretted it at the same time, after hearing what Feng Yu said. If she insisted earlier, maybe she does not need to share her husband with another woman.

But nevertheless, she will become Mrs. Feng soon.

Chapter 1189 – Unable to keep it simple

Feng Yu had tried to keep things simple, and Li Na also does not want the media to disrupt their daily lives. She still enjoys working as a teacher and does not want to be a full-time homemaker.

But sometimes, things will not go according to plan.

When Kirilenko heard Feng Yu is finally getting married, he brought along an expensive gift to China. A Russian manufactured private jet.

Kirilenko knows Feng Yu always has like private jets and had ordered one in the US. But Feng Yu still do not have a private jet in China.

This private jet is not as expensive as the paintings Feng Yu gave him, and Kirilenko bought a few Chinese antique paintings for him to display in his study room.

When Feng Yu saw the private jet at Bing City’s airport, he fell in love with it. Kirilenko knows more about enjoying life, and the interior design of this jet is customized for him.

Feng Yu found out later that this jet’s design is an imitation of the former Soviet Union President’s private jet, and added with modern electronic devices. It is more comfortable, and it was ordered by a Russian tycoon. But Kirilenko bought it from him at a higher price.

But it’s hard for Feng Yu to accept it. Luckily, Bing City Aviation Factory can help and registered the jet under the factory’s name, making it easier to get approvals.

Feng Yu had notified Fu Guangzheng, and he told Li Zekai and Fu Guangwei about Feng Yu’s wedding. It was too last minute, and the three of them could not prepare a good gift for the wedding. So, they gave three newly acquired buildings in Hong Kong to Feng Yu as his wedding gift.

Although the office buildings are nothing special, they are located in the prime district and charge high rental. Furthermore, it’s three buildings.

When they arrive at Bing City, the Long Jiang Province’s top officials went to receive them. These three are the second-generations of Hong Kong’s top tycoons, and the officials hope they will invest in the province.

Although Long Jiang Province is unlike other provinces, which need to suck up to foreign investors, it is always good to get additional investments.

The leaders reported these three tycoons’ arrival to Xu Changyou, and he thought for a while. He is going to retire but still wanted a good reputation. He does not want people to say he is sucking up to the tycoons. Just happen, Zhang Ruiqiang had gone to Beidacang Group for inspection, and Feng Yu’s hometown is also under Beidacang’s group.

This way, no one will say anything if Zhang Ruiqiang appeared there to attend the wedding.

But Zhang Ruiqiang can’t attend the wedding alone. He is accompanied by a big group of government leaders.

All the leaders arrived at the wedding, and Feng Yu had to make arrangements for them. All this is fine, but these leaders are accompanied by reporters.

Feng Yu’s bodyguards played an important role here. They stopped all the reporters outside the venue, and Zhang Ruiqiang remembered Feng Yu does not like to appear on the media. But he noticed someone with a camera at the wedding. The person holding the camera looks like the son-in-law of the former Public Security Director Zhang.

That’s right. Wen Dongjun is the cameraman, and Zhang Ruiqiang did not see the other camera that belongs to Liu Kun.

Zhang Ruiqiang is here, and the best seat must be reserved for him. A place at the main table is given to him, and the rest of the leaders, even the Provincial’s Directors, had to sit at the third table. The second table is reserved for Zhong Qingxian, Liu Chuanzhi, etc. They held higher status than those Provincial Leaders as they are always invited to meet the country’s top leaders.

Those Officials were unhappy with this arrangement at first. Still, when they saw the ones sitting at the second table, they felt lucky to be seated at the third table. If Feng Yu had informed all his acquaintances, even the country’s top leaders might come, and these officials might have to sit in the corner!

The family member that is accompanying the Provincial Officials at the third table is Li Shiqiang. He is the boss of Wind and Rain Logistics, the biggest private-owned logistics company in China. His net worth had exceeded 1 billion RMB a long time ago, and they don’t even know his exact worth now.

Feng Yu had not informed Zhong Qingxian, Liu Chuanzhi, and the rest. Liu Chuanzhi heard about the wedding from Zhong Qingxian, and the latter heard it from Li Zekai. Li Zekai did not know about China’s wedding customs and asked Zhong Qingxian for suggestions on Feng Yu’s wedding gift.

Word of Feng Yu’s wedding spread, Shi Dazhu, Wang Zhixi, Ma Huateng, Ma Yun, Li Yanhong, Ding Lei, Jiang Wanmeng, Li Jingwei, etc. had all come to the wedding.

Although they are Feng Yu’s business partners, they all know that their success today is Feng Yu.

There are not enough people to host the guests, and even Wu Zhigang had to help out. After all, he is one of Feng Yu’s earliest staff and one of Feng Yu’s most trusted aides.

Of course, Kameda Masao and Heitaro Nakajima had come to attend the wedding. Ralph and the rest also wanted to come, but Kameda Masao stopped them and told them that the Chinese don’t really like foreigners. Kameda Masao and Heitaro Nakajima are Asians, and no one will know they are Japanese if they don’t speak. Furthermore, Kameda Masao can speak fluent Mandarin.

Like Sergey and the rest, the others had dropped Feng Yu an SMS to congratulate him as they know Feng Yu will be too busy to answer their call. Bill Gates also found out about Feng Yu’s wedding and wrote him an email to congratulate him.

Feng Yu had only planned to hold a simple wedding with around eight to ten tables. But lots of guests had come, and he had to increase to more than 30 tables. If the village’s guesthouse and the restaurant had not expanded twice, it might not even fit so many tables. Many leaders from other provinces also want to attend the wedding but were stopped outside the venue.

Feng Yu and Li Na looked at each other and sighed, but their parents were overjoyed. They preferred the wedding to have more guests as their thinking is still very conservative. Even Li Na was forced to wear a traditional red wedding gown.

White?! White is the color for funerals! Red is an auspicious color!

The media reported about Feng Yu’s wedding the next day.

They noticed many top tycoons had gathered in Bing City and thought there is an important event. The reporters rushed to Bing City to cover this story and knew the tycoons had gone there to attend a wedding.

At first, the media were puzzled. Why so many tycoons had gone to attend a wedding in a small village in Bing City?

Who is the groom?!

The media could easily guess who the groom is. Who else can invite so many tycoons and even Hong Kong tycoons to attend his wedding?! Only one person in Bing City is influential enough to invite them.

So, Feng Yu’s wedding got reported.

Feng Yu and Li Na’s plan to hold a simple wedding had failed.

Chapter 1190 – Tragic event

Feng Yu and Li Na’s jaws were aching after smiling the whole day, and they left for their honeymoon the next day, as they do not want to be disturbed.

They visited famous locations worldwide for about a month before returning to China, as school is starting.

Feng Yu told Li Na that they can go on vacations during the summer holidays every year.

It’s a big world out there, and they should travel more.

Feng Yu made a trip to Hong Kong before flying to the US. But he only spends a day in New York before flying to his mansion in Seattle.

Feng Yu is satisfied with Bezos’s performance as Amazon’s market had expanded again. Amazon had also done well in promoting Alipay and Paypal. Although Alipay is still losing money, Feng Yu doesn’t mind.

Alipay does not impose transaction charges on their users like Paypal, and it’s normal for them to suffer losses. What’s most important is the data collected from the transactions. The data will bring higher profits than Paypal in the future.

But Feng Yu had not come to Seattle because of Amazon. It is because he doesn’t want to remain in New York as it is too dangerous there.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, a major tragic event will happen in a few days. He does not know if it will happen again in this life, and he is powerless to stop it. He can only pray that even if it happens again, it will not be so tragic.

Feng Yu do not like those people. Even if the two countries are at war, attacking the civilians is too much. Why was Japan criticized severely during World War Two? It is because of this reason. Why was Italy the first country to be forgiven by Europe? That’s because they had treated the Prisoner of war well and did not attack the civilians.

Feng Yu doesn’t understand why Italy had participated in the war. Italy might have advanced weaponry at that time, but their soldiers are too weak.

Italian soldiers have the highest surrender rate at that time. An invader having a higher surrender rate than the region they invaded? What a joke.

Why did Feng Yu insist on shorting the US stock markets all this while? That is because if this incident happens, the US stock markets will crash.

That’s why Feng Yu insisted Wind and Rain Consulting to continue to short the market even when they had lost all their profits.

If this incident did not happen, Feng Yu would switch his investment’s direction immediately. Anyway, he had been hedging to lower his risks. Even if he suffered some losses here, he could earn back his money from elsewhere. His investment firm’s clients will still have high returns at year-end.

But if the tragic incident really happens, Feng Yu will become the World’s Richest Man even if his companies are not listed!

Shorting the market since last year will not let people suspect Feng Yu has something to do with those people or receiving first-hand and not disclosing the information.

Wind and Rain Consulting had been making profits and losses all this while.

……

“Boss, are we continuing to copy Wind and Rain Consulting? Although the stock index had recovered several times and Feng Yu used the information to suppress it. Still, there should be no more scandals this time. The stock index’s recovery cannot be stopped this time!” Drucken Miller asked. He is the only one out of Soros’ four top fund managers remaining.

Soros is looking terrible as he hesitates. He noticed Feng Yu suddenly shorting the US stock markets, especially Nasdaq, and followed.

Soon, Enron’s scandal was exposed, followed by Microsoft’s sudden dumping, and many other companies’ shares caused the market to crash. Soros had made high profits.

But after that period, Wind and Rain Consulting continued to short the stock market. Soros felt the market will recover, and he stopped shorting and invested in some shares. The market recovered slightly, and he made some profits from his investment.

But very soon, WorldCom’s scandal was exposed.

Luckily, Soros reacted fast and had been hedging to lower his risks. He even made a small profit.

Now, the stock index is starting to rise slowly again. If they continue to short the market, they will surely lose money. But they received news that Wind and Rain Consulting did not settle their short position contracts. It seems that they think the stock index will continue to fall.

Soros also felt that there should not be any reason for the stock market to fall again. But Feng Yu is an investment genius. That’s why he is hesitating.

……

“Mr. Feng, are you going to walk Tu Hao again?”

“Yes. Let me walk him today.” Feng Yu went for a walk with his dog, and after he returned, he did not play games on his PC, Gbox, or read his books. He switches on the TV, which is out of the ordinary.

Feng Yu seldom watch US TV programs. After all, Feng Yu does not find these programs interesting due to cultural differences.

But today, Feng Yu sat in front of the TV to wait and see if the tragic event will happen in this life.

Suddenly, Feng Yu’s house phone rang. He quickly picks it, and it was a market survey call. He hangs up straight away even though the female caller has a nice voice.

After a while, Feng Yu’s mobile phone rang. It is from Ralph.

The moment Feng Yu answered, Ralph’s panicking voice sounded. “Boss, are you in New York?”

“I am still in Seattle. What happened?” Feng Yu has a premonition that the incident had happened again!

“The World Trade Center… many people are trying to escape.”

“Is the Wind and Rain Empire Building alright?”

“We are safe here. But many of our staff are panicking and trying to get out of the building. Some companies are trying to use this opportunity to earn money.”

“Glad to hear that you all are fine. Our staff should be in shock. Give them a few days off from work. Give a sum of money to those that don’t want to rest. Oh, hurry up and call your family to let them know you are safe.”

After hanging up, the TV program was interrupted with a piece of emergency news about this incident.

The host on TV quickly explained what happened, and the footage was switched to two burning buildings. Screams and shouts can be heard from the background.

But Feng Yu knew this is not the end of this disaster.

September 11 attacks

Italian Campaign (World War II)

Chapter 1191 – Stock Markets crash, Gold rises

The disaster in the US is very serious, and it shook the whole world.

Feng Yu is also human and felt terrible to see the tragic event in front of him. Why can’t people live in peace without killing each other?

The US reacted immediately, but economic losses cannot be prevented.

After this incident, the US investors quickly dump their stocks in a panic. The Dow Jones, Nasdaq, and S&P index, dived.

Many people felt the US economy had suffered a major blow, and it’s better to cash out their stocks, as it is more assuring to hold cash instead of shares.

No listed companies can go against the market. All shares, especially the bigger companies, plunged.

The blue-chip shares started to tumble again because everyone felt these bigger companies will receive the biggest impact.

This is true. Many of these companies are located in the World Trade Center. This disaster had destroyed most of these companies’ data and stopped their operations.

The Nasdaq index fell by more than 5%, and it continues falling the next day.

Although the US Government had taken measures and pumped in a large number of funds into the market to stabilize it, it was not effective. Everyone is dumping their shares, and the US government cannot stop them.

The stock markets continue to fall in the following week, and the Nasdaq index had fallen by more than 16%. It fell faster than when Enron and WorldCom account fraud was exposed and during the Dotcom bubble.

The Dow Jones index fell by more than 14%, and the S&P index fell by more than 11%.

This is not the end. The US market crash caused a global financial crisis, and the stock markets in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc., also crash. But it was not as severe as the US markets.

……

“Boss, why are you unhappy when the market crash? Although we are not using high leverage, we had multiplied our profits by several folds.” Drucken Miller asked.

“Drucken, have you ever wonder if Feng might know this disaster will happen?” Soros asked.

Drucken Miller is shocked. “Boss, how is this possible?! If Feng knows about this incident beforehand, he will not invest so little. From the information we received, he had shorted less than 10 billion USD and had also hedged against it. The leverage they used is not as high as us.”

Drucken Miller says that if Feng Yu knows this will happen, he will surely use high leverage to short the stock index. With Feng Yu’s wealth, he can easily invest 20 to 30 billion USD. This way, Feng Yu will make up to 100 billion USD!

Soros shook his head. “No. Even if I know this will happen, I might also not do this. Do you think the US Government will not look into this? Anyone who is involved in this incident will be in deep trouble. Of course, I am only guessing. Maybe it is really coincident.”

“Boss, the US government is trying to stabilize the stock market. When should we settle the contracts?”

“Settle them before the end of next week.”

“Boss, the stock market will definitely not recover before next week, and it should continue to fall.” Drucken Miller frowned and asked.

“We will withdraw our funds to invest in Gold!”

It suddenly dawns on Drucken Miller. During war times, Gold will become the real global currency, and gold prices will surely rise.

Although this incident is not war, gold prices will surely rise!

If the US entered into a war because of this incident, gold prices would surely rise more.

Also, they are Americans, after all, and they should not short the US markets at this time. It will hurt those capitalists’ benefits, and it will sour their relationships. Suppose they continue to short the markets for higher profits. In that case, they will be the common enemy of everyone, and even the US government will target them.

…….

He Zhaoji looks at the numbers on his PC monitor blankly. He doesn’t understand why Feng Yu came to Hong Kong a few days ago and ask him to use all their remaining fund to buy long position gold contracts. Gold prices really started to rise now!

Since last year, Feng Yu asked him to short the US stock markets, and the stock markets suffered a heavy blow and crashed. Although Feng Yu has been saying he feels the US market will crash, He Zhaoji felt his Boss seems to know this will happen.

As the General Manager of Wind and Rain Consulting, He Zhaoji had to carry out Feng Yu’s orders. This made him feel upset as he was a famous stockbroker in Hong Kong formerly.

Although He Zhaoji is more famous now, he felt his fame is all because of Feng Yu. Luckily, Feng Yu is very satisfied with his performance, and he had made lots of money since working for him.

Overall, He Zhaoji did not regret joining Wind and Rain Consulting!

Wind and Rain Consulting had made a killing from the stock markets and gold market. Feng Yu’s foresight is amazingly accurate.

Regardless of what other people think, He Zhaoji and everyone at Wind and Rain Consulting think Feng Yu is the best financial expert in the world!

…….

Fu Rongqi sighed at home. Feng Yu had suggested that he buy some gold recently, but he felt gold prices will decline slightly, and there are no signs of any changes in the short term.

In the end, that tragic event struck, and gold prices shot up.

Although Fu Rongqi reacted quickly and bought Gold, he had missed out on lots of profits. Professor Liang, who is managing Fu Guangzheng’s trust company, also did not buy Gold initially. He only enters the market after the incident happened. Professor Liang and Fu Rongqi had the same thoughts about the market.

If they do not believe in Feng Yu, they might even suspect Feng Yu knows this tragic event beforehand or is even involved in it.

They felt Wind and Rain Consulting is making a mistake to short the US market all this while. But now, Wind and Rain Consulting had made the right call! Luckily, they had withdrawn their funds from the US markets and invested in Hong Kong. Although Hong Kong’s stock market is also affected, the impact is not that serious. It is still within its acceptable range.

When most investors suffered massive losses because of this incident, they kept their losses to the minimum and even made a small profit from Gold.

Chapter 1192 – Making Soros the scapegoat again

Feng Yu’s worries had come true. His company had shorted the US stock markets the most, and after this incident, he made the most profits.

But Feng Yu is Chinese and not an American. He is also influential, and Bush’s administration sent officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate.

“Mr. Feng, this is a routine investigation. I hope you can understand.” Tony Thomas bow slightly.

Feng Yu crossed his legs and leans back on the sofa. “Of course. Just ask whatever you want. Oh, I hope you all can remove all your recording devices.”

Feng Yu’s office is equipped with bugs and recording devices detector. Although it is not state of the art, it can detect most of the recording devices.

The other party smiled and removed his watch before passing to Feng Yu’s bodyguard. He had already been searched once before entering the office.

“Mr. Feng, we are curious why did you short the Nasdaq stock index in large volume this time?”

“What do you mean?” Feng Yu asked unhappily.

“Mr. Feng, the stock market crashed, and even Warren Buffet had suffered massive losses. But your company made…”

Feng Yu interrupted. “Are you saying I must also suffer losses when others lost money? Then why do we need trading brokers? Everyone can just follow the trend and invest. Are you really from the SEC? Are you an imposter?”

The veins on Thomas’s forehead nearly burst. I am an imposter? Your bodyguards had searched me thoroughly and almost checked all my cavities before I can enter your office. We had also made multiple calls before this meeting. How can you not know about my identity?

But Thomas knows he had asked the wrong question. Warren Buffet is known as the God of investing, but Feng Yu is also known as Investment Genius.

During the Asian Financial Crisis, Feng Yu had made the most money, and his net worth shot up to the second spot of the <Forbes> World’s Richest Man.

If Feng Yu had made money from other incidents, the SEC would not be suspicious. But this incident is too sensitive.

“Mr. Feng, I hope you don’t mind. It’s fine if you shorted the market in a small amount. But the amount you shorted is too much.”

“Too much? Didn’t you all notice that I had also hedged against it? Don’t you know that I had sold my Microsoft, Yahoo, and many other companies’ shares two years ago? Are you telling me that I should keep all my money in the bank for interest? Do you know about finance? Do you know what inflation is?”

Smith almost shouted. I might not be a top financial expert, but I am not inferior to most brokers. How can I not know about inflation?!

Fine. The person opposite me is Feng Yu. I will tolerate this as long as he answers our questions!

“You all asked me why I had not invested in other areas, right? Why should I explain my investment directions to you all? My company is not listed and does not need to announce all our decisions. Do you all know what confidentiality of investment information is?” Feng Yu said before Thomas can continue with the questioning.

Smith replied with an angry expression. “We know about all these. But this time is different, and your investment is too special.”

Feng Yu lit a cigar but did not offer Smith. He blew out a mouthful of smoke. “Are you sure you had not offended your supervisors, and they had purposely made things difficult for you? Have you all investigated this thoroughly? Someone else had made more money than me from this incident.”

Smith was stunned, as he doesn’t know about this. If Feng Yu is telling the truth, then that person should be investigated!

“Mr. Feng, someone had made more than you?” Thomas asked.

“Of course, and this person is quite famous too. I am sure you all have heard of him. Suppose he had not made the wrong investment decision previously. In that case, he should be one of the top Billionaires on <Forbes> list.”

“Who is he?” Thomas asked.

“Quantum Fund. Soros!”

It’s him?!

Soros was formerly the top fund manager globally, and his Quantum fund had caused havoc in forex markets around the world. In the end, he made the wrong decision during the Asian Financial Crisis, and Feng Yu emerged as the winner.

These two men should not be cooperating in this, as they have grudges against each other.

“Are you sure about this?”

“You will know if you all look into it.” Feng Yu replied with a smile.

Feng Yu was also surprised when he knows Soros had also shorted Nasdaq and even use leverage to make more profits than him.

This Soros is resilient. Even when the Quantum fund is left with less than 2 billion USD and most of its top fund managers had left, he can still turn things around.

2 billion USD might be a lot to many people, but it is too little for a hedge fund.

Compared to Quantum Fund’s peak, where they managed tens of billions, 2 billion USD is nothing.

But Soros used this 2 billion USD to invest in tech stocks. When Feng Yu dumped Microsoft and other companies’ shares, Soros had also sold his shares at the peak.

After that, Feng Yu starts to short the Nasdaq index, and Soros followed. When the Nasdaq stock index stopped falling, Soros settled his short position contracts decisively. Wind and Rain Consulting had suffered some losses, but the Quantum Fund did not lose a single cent.

If it wasn’t afraid to get implicated in this incident, Feng Yu will also not invest this way. But now, with Soros as the scapegoat in front, Feng Yu can explain himself.

“Also, I am saddened by this incident and had asked my men to donate some money to the victims. As for why had I shorted the market, it is only a normal investment decision. I think you all should know that I had started to short the Nasdaq at the end of 1999. That’s because I noticed the existence of the internet bubble.”

“After the dotcom crash, many companies are found to had fabricated their financial reports and accounts. This incident had caused the market to crash again. During this period, the market had recovered slightly, and I even suffered some losses. I had shorted the stock index, and the deadline to settle my short position contracts is in October. This is coincident. What’s the problem?”

Thomas doesn’t know what to say. Feng Yu seems to be not involved in this incident, and he was also in the US when the incident happens. If he knows about this incident beforehand, he should be somewhere safe like China.

Yes. We must start investigating Soros immediately!

Chapter 1193 – Even making money have worries

“What? The SEC is investigating me?” Soros exclaimed.

“Yes. They had called us and will be coming over in the afternoon.” Drucken Miller replied. “Boss, could it be that the higher-ups are unhappy with us making profits during this period?”

“What has this got to do with them? We had only made some investments and had not to use any strategy to suppress the market. Since short position contracts are a financial instrument, there is nothing wrong with investing in them.”

Although Soros said this, he was still worried. He is no longer the world’s top hedge fund manager, or else, his profits from shorting the stock index will not be so little.

Soros can borrow a large number of funds and investments with just a phone call in the past. But now, everything had changed as he had lost badly during the Asian Financial Crisis.

When you have been making money, many people will want you to invest for them. But when you suffered losses once, many people will stop trusting you. During the Asian Financial Crisis, Soros had made the wrong decisions, and his supporters left.

The current Quantum Fund is no longer the Quantum Fund in the past. But Soros firmly believe Quantum Fund can return to its peak again. The fund will become more than 10 billion, and his name, Soros, will become well-known again!

But now, the Government is watching him, and this is troublesome.

In the afternoon, Tony Thomas and his men arrived at Soros’s office. Soros is not as overbearing as Feng Yu.

“Mr. Soros. I am representing SEC to ask you a few questions about your investments in the stock market recently.”

“Oh? Did I break any rules or regulations? What do you all want to know?”

Soros had not broken any regulations and had not taken advantage of others. In the past, the Quantum Fund had taken advantage of others, and what can the authorities do to him? It’s all within the rules, and no one can do anything to him!

If this is not allowed, why are there no regulations or laws about it?

“Why did you short the Nasdaq index? Did you receive any information beforehand?” Thomas asked.

Soros is shocked. What is the meaning of this? What do I know? I don’t know anything about the attacks!

That’s right. Soros does not know anything. If he knew about the attacks, he would definitely use all his tricks to cover his tracks and maximize his profits. With his current assets, he can make at least more than 10 billion USD and might even more than 20 billion! If this is in the past, he can raise much more funds and earn tens of billions!

Soros will then donate one billion or 800 million USD to the victims to get a good reputation. No one will suspect him.

But this time, Soros was only following Feng Yu. He is taking a gamble by copying Feng Yu. If anyone knows about the attacks, it should be Feng Yu.

“I had analyzed the market and felt the stock index might fall. As for how did we come to this conclusion, it is our Quantum Fund’s secret and cannot be revealed to you.” Soros had thought of this explanation.

“Really?”

“If not, what do you think?” Soros asked Thomas back.

If Thomas dares to say he is involved in this attack, he will sue him for slander. In the US, Soros is innocent unless there is evidence to prove he is guilty.

Thomas laughed and took a sip of his coffee as he looked at Soros’s provoking expression.

Thomas felt better in this meeting, as he felt respected. In his meeting with Feng Yu, Feng Yu had not offered plain water, let alone coffee!

But there’s nothing Thomas can do to Feng Yu. Feng Yu is not an American, and his company is not registered in the US. He had only invested in the US market. If the SEC used extreme methods to deal with Feng Yu, who will dare to invest in the US?

If the US cannot attract investors, it will be hard for the US economy to recover.

After this tragedy happened, the US market lost more than 10 trillion USD.

The current US President has a headache over its economy. If he did not handle this incident well, he would be in deep trouble!

Although the US is a powerful nation, it depends on which country they are facing. China is a rising power, and it’s not easy to deal with Feng Yu. When one’s wealth reaches a certain level, he can influence politics!

It’s much easier to deal with an American like Soros.

“Mr. Soros, it’s hard for me to answer to my boss if you don’t cooperate. If news of you making profits when others are all suffering, what do you think will happen to Quantum Fund’s reputation?” Thomas threatened.

Soros narrowed his eyes. He is being threatened now. If this is in the past, he will not even be bothered with Thomas and let Drucken Miller handle him.

Now, Soros is down and out, and everyone can step all over him.

If Thomas had come to meet Soros one month ago, Soros might still worry about this threat. But now, Quantum Fund had recovered, and he is not the same as before. He has the funds to create havoc in the financial markets again!

“You want to expose me? Go ahead. I believe many more people will invest in our Quantum Fund if people know about this. As a hedge fund, we can make higher profits with bigger funds.” Soros replied.

Thomas saw Soros as not being cooperative, but he is not afraid of being investigated.

Soros is really innocent?!

If Soros is innocent, how is Thomas going to answer to his higher-ups? They are lucky, or they have better foresight?!

There are always some lucky people during major events, and they are the ones who made lots of money. For example, some companies had bet against the oil futures opposite of others during the gulf war. When everyone is betting on oil prices to rise, he will bet against them. In the end, they are the biggest winners.

“Mr. Soros. I hope you will not break any regulations in the future.” Thomas said as he stood up.

Soros remained on the sofa. “You are not even born when I am investing!”

Soros sighed after Thomas left. He had offended the SEC, and this is not a good thing.

Soros did not expect to have so many worries even when making money!

Chapter 1194 – Gold prices will rise during troubled times

A few days later, Feng Yu returned to Beijing. If it wasn’t for that incident, he would have returned home earlier.

Li Na and his families had given orders to have a child. Feng Yu doesn’t mind as he likes children. Of course, he likes the process of making them more.

“You are not busy with your business?”

“Business is not important. I had paid them high salaries and even gave them shares. If I still need to do everything myself, it means I had wasted my money.” Feng Yu replied while hugging Li Na.

Li Na rolled her eyes. Just admit you are lazy and stop giving these excuses.

“Oh, let’s go to Hong Kong with me during the October holidays. We can also go to Singapore for a short vacation.

Li Na hesitated for a minute and nodded.

This time, they flew to Shenzhen on Feng Yu’s private jet, as it is not easy to get approvals for a Chinese registered private jet to go overseas. After that, they went over to Hong Kong by ferry.

Because Li Na is coming with Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng and the rest brought their partners to accompany her.

Fu Guangzheng brought Liang Ying along. They are currently dating, but their marriage is next year. Li Zekai also brought a female companion along.

Fu Guangwei is currently in China, inspecting their Tai Hua Supermarkets, and is not in Hong Kong. As for the rest, Feng Yu did not consider them his friends and did not inform them.

“Brother Feng, I regretted not listening to you. If I had listened, I would make a lot of money too.” Fu Guangzheng sighed.

Li Zekai asked curiously. “What money-making opportunity?” He is not as close to Feng Yu compared to Fu Guangzheng. Feng Yu did not tell him about this opportunity.

“Brother Feng had shorted the Nasdaq index some time ago, and I don’t dare to follow. Who knows, that incident happened, and the US stock market crashed, affecting the global financial markets. If I had taken this gamble and used high leverage to short the market, I would have made a lot of money.”

“Gamble? I don’t even dare to gamble. Who will know that incident will happen? I only feel that the US economy is not good, and the stock market will fall. If your Eldest Uncle knows you are taking such a big risk, your father and he will break your legs.” Feng Yu laughed.

This is the best explanation Feng Yu can come up with. After all, Fu Guangzheng also doesn’t believe Feng Yu knows about that incident beforehand.

Li Zekai thought for a while. Even if Feng Yu told him about this, he would also make the same decision as Fu Guangzheng. When it comes to financial trading, his family is not as good as the Fu Family.

After the dot-com crisis, the stock markets were badly affected. The Li Family’s shares had plunged, especially his Pacific Century Group. This is a technology company, and the share prices had risen because of the internet bubble.

Although the share prices had fallen, Li Zekai did not suffer any losses. He had raised enough funds to develop his Cyberport.

The incident in the US had caused the Hong Kong stock market to crash, and many tycoons’ net worth shrunk. Superman Li, Hong Kong’s top tycoon, was also affected.

But from the conversation between Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng, Li Zekai felt they seem to have other money-making opportunities.

“Brother Feng, Guangzheng, do you all still have any good ventures? Our Pacific Century Group’s share prices had fallen a lot. If you all have any opportunities, let me in.” Li Zekai asked.

Fu Guangzheng can stand out in his family because he is lucky to meet Feng Yu early and become friends. But now, Li Zekai and Feng Yu are friends too.

Li Zekai wants to be like Fu Guangzheng in the future and doesn’t want to depend on his family. He wishes there will be a day when someone goes up to his father and ask him. “Are you Li Zekai’s father?”

Li Zekai’s character of unwilling to lose is very similar to Superman Li. If it wasn’t for his womanizing habit, Superman Li might have named him his successor.

But who knows if all these are Li Zekai’s pretense? He might be doing this to show that he is not interested in fighting with his brother over their father’s inheritance. At least, his elder brother will remember this and give him a hand in the future if he runs into any problem.

Li Zekai and his elder brother are very close. Since young, his elder brother had been giving in to him. This is like the Emperor picking his successor in ancient times.

If the brothers fall out, they might let outsiders an opportunity to take away their empire. Now, Li Zekai’s elder brother will be the successor, and their family will still control all those companies. Li Zekai can become the Chairman of many of their companies, despite not being the major shareholder because of Superman Li.

Li Zekai pretends to be fooling around, and his father is unhappy about it. Still, he had helped his father solve the headache of choosing his successor.

Li Zekai doesn’t care how much inheritance he will be receiving. He knows he will not receive less than 1 billion USD, as Superman Li’s net worth is still over 10 billion USD during this time.

Furthermore, Li Zekai’s company is doing well and did not need to follow in his father’s footsteps. This is in line with his playful character. He doesn’t want to get married early like his elder brother and miss out on all the fun.

Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng own Pacific Century Group’s shares and shared a common interest in the Tai Hua Supermarket Group. Li Zekai believes Feng Yu will let him in if he asks.

Feng Yu smiled and told Li Zekai. “Brother Kai, if you have spare cash, buy some gold. Gold prices will continue to rise during this period.”

“Is it because investors are pulling out their money from the stock market and investing in Gold? But why not oil or something else?” Li Zekai asked.

Li Zekai is not very good with the futures market after all.

“The US is a powerful nation. Do you think they will not seek revenge after this incident? Furthermore, the Bush administration is losing support, and their economy has not been doing well. He needs a major event to gain support and direct his problems overseas.”

Li Zekai’s eyes opened wide. “Brother Feng, you are saying… The US is going to war?!”

“This is for sure! It will be like the Gulf War. They will cooperate with other nations and go to war with Afghanistan. There is a saying, ‘Gold prices will rise during troubled times,’ and that’s why it will definitely rise!” Feng Yu replied confidently

Chapter 1195 – War

Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai don’t dare to believe Feng Yu’s predictions entirely. He had said that the US economy is not doing well and lacks money. How are they going to start a war?

Wars are costly, and military expenses is not a small amount. Currently, the US is still in debt, and just the interest alone is not a small amount. Why would they spend money by starting a war?

Under normal circumstances, the US government should use economic sanctions against their enemies or send a small team to capture Bin Laden.

But gold prices rising is still possible. After all, the investors had withdrawn their money from the stock markets and will invest elsewhere. Gold and oil are the best options.

The three of them continued chatting on other topics, from business to women. Kirilenko and Feng Yu had gotten married and will miss out on lots of fun. Li Zekai tried to persuade Fu Guangzheng not to get married too early.

Fu Guangzheng raised his brows. “Zekai, you are not as good as me when it comes to women. Liang Ying is very obedient and doesn’t dare to defy my orders. She will fill the bathtub with water immediately when I say I want to bath.”

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng. Stop boasting. Professor Liang is Liang Ying’s father, and her character is not those obedient types.

“You all don’t believe me? Brother Feng, I am giving you a small gift today. Just look at your wife’s attitude when you get back tonight.” Fu Guangzheng said proudly. “Zekai, getting married doesn’t mean you cannot fool around outside. You just need to take note not to have children with other women.”

……

Back at Feng Yu’s apartment in Hong Kong, Feng Yu noticed Li Na taking out the slippers for him the moment he enters. When he sat on the sofa, Li Na went behind him and gave him a massage.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered his conversation with Fu Guangzheng in the afternoon. What did Li Na hear?

Feng Yu pulled Li Na onto his lap. “Nana, what’s wrong with you today?”

“You don’t like it?” Li Na asked curiously.

“No. I still prefer the usual you. Did Liang Ying taught you to do this?” Feng Yu asked with a laugh.

“Yes. She told me that women in Hong Kong and many other countries must learn to take care of their husbands and families before they got married. Am I not good enough in the past?” Li Na asked.

“Hahaha… you are tricked. Yes, this might be true in countries, like Japan and Korea, where men have higher status than women. This practice is also found in Hong Kong and Macau, but more than 20 years ago. Also, what they do is their business. I still prefer the usual you, and you don’t need to change anything.”

They chatted, and Feng Yu’s hands started roaming…

After Li Zekai returned home, he told his father and elder brother what Feng Yu said and seek their opinions.

Superman Li paused for a few seconds and asked. “Zeju, what do you think?”

Li Zeju thought for a while. “Dad, I think what Feng Yu said might be true, but what Zekai said is not wrong either. The US will surely retaliate, but starting a war should not be possible.”

Superman Li sighed. “I had always told you all to watch the news. Didn’t you notice the UK is also starting to move?”

Li Zekai and his elder brother looked at each other and asked. “Dad, what happened in the UK?”

“The UK had started to move its troops and funds. This is an indication that the UK will be cooperating with the US to start a war. Don’t forget that the UK is a US ally in Europe, and once the UK moves, the US will surely join in the frenzy because the UK will not win without any help.”

Li Zekai suddenly remembered. “Dad, I remember some of Bush’s supporters are in the weaponry industry. If the US started a war, it would benefit these arms dealers, and it will be like what Feng Yu said. They can turn the focus overseas and use the Americans’ anger against terrorism to gain supporters!”

Superman Li nodded. “Politics and economy are closely related, and that’s why many schools have Political Economy discipline. Remember this. Although war will not benefit most Americans, it will benefit Bush’s supporters. They will pressure Bush to start the war.”

“Are we going to enter the market?”

“Wait. We will buy gold the moment the war starts. Just focus on our investments in China now. If we can get a slice of this vast market, our family’s assets can be doubled or tripled easily. Also, continue to increase our influences in the world ports, as this is the fundamentals of our family.”

…….

Fu Guangzheng is also discussing with Professor Liang and his Eldest Uncle, Fu Rongqi, if they should invest in gold. The global financial market is gloomy, and if they are not careful, they might suffer heavy losses.

Many people are wary of the financial markets now. What if those investors did not invest in gold or those who had invested in gold decide to withdraw from the market? Gold prices will crash.

“I think gold prices will not fall. What Feng Yu said is correct. Gold prices will rise during troubled times. The financial market is not doing well, and economies are gloomy. This is considered troubled times, and gold is an international currency. Many people will invest in gold to protect the value of their assets. When more people invest in gold, gold prices will continue to rise.” Professor Liang said.

Fu Rongqi frowned and nodded. “I also think so. Even if gold prices don’t rise, it will also not fall. There is a high possibility for us to make money, but we might also risk suffering some losses. No investment is guaranteed, but when the odds are in your favor, we will invest!”

The Li Family did not invest, but Li Zekai invested a small amount. Fu Rongqi and Fu Guangzheng invested a lot into gold. They know Wind, and Rain Consulting had invested most of their funds into gold.

When Feng Yu and Li Na returned to Beijing after a short holiday in Southeast Asia, the news reported the US, UK, and many other allies, will be sending their troops to Afghanistan for their war on terrorism. They want to eliminate Bin Laden, the leader of these terrorists!

Feng Yu immediately receive Fu Guangzheng’s call. Fu Guangzheng shouted excitedly. “Brother Feng, your analysis is too accurate! The war had started!”

Feng Yu replied modestly. “This is the analysis from my team, and it’s not my credit. Since the war had started, gold prices will continue to rise!”

Political economy

Chapter 1196 – Sky-high consulting fees

Two days later, Feng Yu received a surprising phone call when he played Legend of Mir in his Wind and Rain Building’s office.

“Director Fang? What is it?” Director Fang had represented Iron Fist Zhu to congratulate him over the phone during his wedding. He must be looking for Feng Yu for something important today.

“Manager Feng, are you in Beijing now?”

“Yes,”

“Alright. Let’s meet up in the afternoon for a chat.”

Feng Yu arrived at a private room in a restaurant and saw Director Fang. Director Fang looks much older and has more grey hair.

“Manager Feng. Please seat.” Director Fang poured a cup of tea for Feng Yu.

“Director Fang, just speak your mind. I will help if it is within my means.” Feng Yu said. Director Fang had helped him a lot in the past.

“The US stock market had fallen quite a bit in the past two years. Our country had invested many of our funds into the US market and suffered massive losses.”

“Director Fang, what do you mean?” Feng Yu asked.

“Manager Feng, the Central Government had thought of letting you manage our State’s investment company, but many higher-ups had objected to his idea because of your age…”

Feng Yu interrupted Director Fang. “Director Fang, I am not interested in entering politics and prefer to be a businessman. Didn’t I recommend Professor Liang to you all?”

Feng Yu is unwilling to get involved, and some of those higher-ups do not want him to manage the state investments.

How much can the state investment company pay Feng Yu? Many people will be complaining about him even if he gets a few hundred thousand annually. The higher management staff in his company and subsidiaries are getting at least 300,000. Like Kameda Masao, Zhong Qingxian, etc., are getting shares and their annual salaries are at least one million USD.

There are no benefits in this, and only fools will take up this job. But Professor Liang is definitely qualified for this role. Why didn’t the central government hire him? Is it because he is from Hong Kong?

“Professor Liang? We had invited him, but he wants too much authority, and the higher-ups did not agree to his conditions. This is not a small amount, and it will be catastrophic if he made any mistakes. The whole nation will be affected if this fund is gone!”

Feng Yu shook his head. You want others to do their job but refuses to pay them well and give them authority. This is like getting a layman to lead the experts.

You all might be good at managing the country, but Professor Liang is an expert in financial trading and economics. He has relevant fund managing experiences, and you want to let those without experiences lead him?!

“Director Fang, you might not like to hear this. If you are afraid of this and that and don’t trust others, how can you succeed?” Feng Yu shook his head. He had never interfered in the way his subordinates manages his companies.

In fact, most of his subordinates had come to seek his advice when they encounter problems. So what if Feng Yu’s subordinates control the human resource? Feng Yu had prevented lots of trouble by rotating the Finance Heads of his companies. Also, they don’t dare to do anything funny because of the annual audits.

Feng Yu had paid the subsidiaries’ heads well, and they don’t need to do anything illegal. If they have any difficulties, they will tell Feng Yu, and Feng Yu will help them. But if they did anything behind his back, he will not let them survive in their industry!

Director Fang also knows some of the higher-ups are too much, but this is not within his control. This is a collective decision made by the leaders. He might trust Feng Yu, but that does not represent other people will trust him!

“I understand what you are saying, but the heads of those companies are also specially selected. Our country’s financial system is set up much later than in other countries, and they are considered the best in China. However, they can only be considered average internationally.”

“Director Fang, what are you trying to say?”

“I heard that your Wind and Rain Consulting also sells information, right?”

Feng Yu laughed. “Of course. We are a consultancy, and selling information is part of our business. But we seldom sell information because it is too expensive and not many people can afford it.”

“Others might not afford it, but our country can. How much does it cost for a piece of information?” Director Fang proudly replied.

Feng Yu put up one finger.

“One million? It’s quite high, but I believe your information can help us make more than that. Ok. I agree with this price.”

Feng Yu shook his head. “One million? I can’t be bothered to even sell a piece of information worth one million.”

“Ten million? This is quite expensive. No wonder you say very few people can afford it. Can we pay after the country make profits?” Director Fang is speechless. Are all consultancy making so much money?

“It’s 100 million USD. Don’t think it is expensive. With this information, you can easily make more than 200 million USD with 1 billion USD fund.”

“100 million USD? Manager Feng, did I hear it correctly?!” Director Fang jumps to his feet in shock.

“Since I dare to sell it at this price, it means the piece of information is worth it. You can ask around. Who had said, I, Feng Yu, had cheated them when they do business with me? Of course. I know the state will not pay, and I will give this piece of information to you all for free!”

Pay up after making money?! What if they deny it? How am I going to get my fees from the government? In Feng Yu’s previous life, many local governments had owed their people money and didn’t pay up. Feng Yu will not trust them even if this is the Central Government. Rather than not receiving his payments, he would rather give them this piece of information as a favor. At least, the higher-ups will have a good impression of him.

Iron Fist Zhu is retiring soon.

“You are giving us this piece of information for free?”

“What’s wrong? You don’t want it?! Fine.” Feng Yu glanced at Director Fang.

“I want it!” Director Fang immediately replied.

“Buy gold prices to rise in the futures market.”

“Buy gold prices to rise in the futures market? Isn’t futures very risky, and we might lose all our money?” Director Fang frowned.

“The bigger the risk, the higher the returns. Most of my money is invested in gold futures. Hong Kong’s Fu Family had invested too, and the Li Family will also be investing in gold. Russia’s Kirilenko had invested all his money into gold too. It’s up to you all to decide. I had given you all the information, and I don’t want to explain it anymore.”

Director Fang does not know much about financial trading and lets alone future trading. It will be a hassle for Feng Yu to explain to him. Just look at Kirilenko. Feng Yu just told him over the phone. He immediately used all his available funds to buy gold futures contracts without asking why. This is also the reason why his assets increase so quickly.

Believe in Feng Yu and make money!

Chapter 1197 – Real color screen

Feng Yu knew Director Fang still needs to discuss with the higher-ups from his expression. But he doesn’t want to care so much. After all, he had given them this opportunity, and who can they blame if they refuse to listen?

If the state really wants to make money, it could have done that a long time ago. Feng Yu had told Director Fang to invest the state funds with Wind and Rain Consulting. Wind and Rain Consulting’s annual returns have always been positive and had never suffered any losses.

But Wind and Rain Consulting charge the highest commission in the industry, and some of the higher-ups are unhappy. They felt that Feng Yu should not be earning their commission, and they can also make high returns without him.

But there are so many financial traders in the world, and how many of them are famous?

When times are good, investing in technology-related and blue-chip shares can make money. But after the Dotcom crash, those state-owned investment firms suffered massive losses.

These state-owned enterprises had lost all their profits and even part of their capital. This is still not taking inflation into consideration.

Since they don’t believe in others and want to do everything themselves, Feng Yu did not stop them. Sometimes people can only learn their lesson after experiencing pain.

Many people want Wind and Rain Consulting to invest for them, and Feng Yu did not even accept their offers.

After lazing at home for a few days, Aiwa Electronics’ head, Xu Lihua, called Feng Yu to give him a piece of good news.

Feng Yu immediately flew to Ningbo after receiving the call. He did not expect this technology has a breakthrough so early. He can still maintain the lead in the small LCD screen industry, and Wind and Rain Mobile phones will shock the world again.

Jiang Wanmeng, Xu Lihua, Zhong Qianxian, and an engineer from Philips sit on the sofa when Feng Yu enters.

“Old Xu, you said you all have a breakthrough in mobile phone’s LCD screen technology?” Feng Yu asked anxiously.

“That’s right. We had successfully developed the 65536 (256 x 256) pixels screen! The colors are more vibrant than 256 colors and are much clearer. You can see it clearly even under bright sunlight.”

Although the 256 color screen is also a color screen, it is not what Feng Yu wants.

The current color screened mobile phones use color optical filters to display red, green, and blue colors. These 256 colored mobile phone displays look unnatural, and it will be blurry under the sun. That’s why people will use one hand over the screen to block the sun when they are on their phones outside.

Now, this new LCD screen will be more colorful, and pictures will look more realistic. That’s why Xu Lihua calls this the real color screen!

Color screen mobile phones are developed because of the camera function. If the phone is only used for answering calls, send SMS, and play simple games, a black and white screen is sufficient. At most, they can add some LED backlights and doesn’t need to develop this technology anymore.

But after mobile phones can take pictures, the requirements for a higher resolution screen are higher. If these phones can only take blurry pictures, what’s the point of adding the camera functions to them?

Feng Yu grabbed the prototype and looked at the pictures inside. The pictures are much clearer. Although it is still slightly blurry when he stood near the windows, he could still see the screen.

“Good. You all had not disappointed me by developing such an advanced LCD color display technology.” Feng Yu praised them.

“Manager Feng, we had spent quite a lot to develop this technology.” Jiang Wanmeng laughed.

“We can earn back whatever we spent immediately. Authorize those two digital camera manufacturers in China to use this technology and become more competitive internationally. We will use this technology on our mobile phones, and we will be leading the industry again. Nokia and Motorola can only look at our backs!”

Big LCD displays had already reached over a million pixels, and those LCD TVs are very clear. But it’s too hard to use this technology on a small display. No one had thought of making smaller LCD displays, and they only want to make bigger displays.

Bigger displays can be used in TVs, PC monitors, and giant screens in stadiums, stages, etc. No one had ever thought of using this technology on mobile phones as no one had thought of mobile phones with camera functions at that time.

But Feng Yu is still not satisfied with this prototype. The screen is too small.

“Can this screen be made bigger?” Feng Yu waved the phone and asked.

“Yes. But the cost will increase by a lot.” Xu Lihua replied.

“If the production cost increases, we will just increase the selling price. Just think about this. Why did we develop this color mobile phone display? It is to promote camera phones. If you had taken pictures with your phone, will you want to look at your pictures on the screen? This screen is so small, how are you going to look at your pictures clearly?” Feng Yu asked.

“You are right. We had almost taken the wrong path again. This way, we can introduce this type of 1.5-inch color screen phone first. Three months later, we can introduce the 2-inch screen phone, and increase our product range through the screen size.” Xu Lihua replied.

“With bigger screens, we can also increase our digital camera’s competitiveness. Our country’s digital camera might not be the most advanced in pixels and optical focus. However, our cameras will still be attractive with better and clearer LCD displays.

Feng Yu had spent quite a lot on the digital camera technologies from Kodak, and he authorized two digital camera companies in China to use them. The two companies will pay a portion of the authorization fees upfront and the rest in installments over three years.

But despite giving these two companies this discounted offer, they still cannot afford it. They can only use their companies’ shares in exchange.

So, Tai Hua Holdings received 30% of those two companies’ share. Although Tai Hua Holdings is a shareholder and is not interfering in the companies’ operations, they got these two companies’ overseas distribution rights.

Both parties had also cooperated in developing new technologies. Old state-owned enterprises still have many talents, and they have the funds for R&D now.

The development team of this small color screen comprises engineers from those two digital camera companies. Their engineers are also part of the digital camera technologies development team. But all the technologies they develop belongs to Tai Hua Holdings, and those two companies will get priority and discounted authorization fees to use them.

This is one way of helping other Chinese companies. Although Feng Yu is at a disadvantage, he doesn’t mind. In his previous life, foreign brands of digital cameras had entered China, and their domestic brands slowly disappear.

But in this life, Feng Yu will not allow this to happen. In the future, all Chinese and even foreigners will be using Chinese digital cameras.

Chapter 1198 – Imitation phone design

Everyone continued the discussion, and Xu Lihua suddenly suggested. “Manager Feng, I think we should not use clamshell designs for this camera phone. Sliding or candy bar designs is more convenient.”

“Old Xu, that will not work. If you use the candy bar design, the screen will take up a lot of space, and the phone will be very big. How are you going to make bigger screen models?” Jiang Wanmeng retorted.

“Then we should go for the sliding design. It will look more like a camera.” Xu Lihua argued.

“The phone will become very thick, and it will look clumsy.”

Feng Yu waved his hand. “Alright. Don’t argue over this. There will be people who like clamshell, sliding, candy bar designs. Why don’t we introduce all these designs? The models will be using the same model number, but the first number must be the same, and it will indicate it as the same series.”

“Produce all three series? How are we going to market them? How are we going to allocate our resources?” Zhong Qingxian frowned.

“Why should we focus on one series? We will market all series at the same time and see how the market responds. After that, we can adjust our marketing efforts to focus on the more popular series. Our target is to be the best-selling mobile phone in the world. Look at the way Nokia introduces their new phones. Their series use the same batteries and covers, and they can reduce many components’ wastage.”

Nokia used this strategy to reduce its cost. Introducing new models quickly helped them take over the European, US, and Asia markets.

Motorola is much slower when it comes to introducing new models and let Nokia takeover them.

“Manager Feng, the pressure on our funds will be bigger if we do this.”

“Get a bank loan. Min Sheng Bank is quite good. I don’t believe there will be banks that refuse to give us a loan.” Feng Yu replied. He had transferred all his funds to Wind and Rain Consulting to invest in gold.

“I am assured now. I guarantee that Wind and Rain Mobile and Aiwa Mobile phones will reach greater heights this year and overtake Motorola within two years. I am confident we can exceed Nokia and become the best in the industry within five years!” Xu Lihua declared.

“Hahaha… Old Xu, I think you had thought about this earlier, right? Are all the designs ready? Show it to us.”

Xu Lihua smiled and took out the phone designs. It is the design of a sliding camera phone and a candy bar camera phone.

The design for the sliding cover is not bad. It slides up and down and is modified from their older model, but Feng Yu is unhappy with the candy bar phone design. It looks too common.

It is just a rectangular block and has no outstanding features.

Feng Yu started drawing on the design and drew another frame with small squares on the outside.

“Just follow this design for the candy bar phone.”

“This big? Boss, will this be too big?” Xu Lihua asked.

“Old Xu, do you remember when we introduced ‘Palm Treasure,’ we targeted women and those with small palms. This model will be targeting the men and the ones with bigger palms.”

Xu Lihua is puzzled. People with bigger hands? Manager Feng’s definition of market demographics and segments is too confusing for him.

“We had gotten female celebrities to endorse our ‘Palm Treasure’ series of phones then, and we can get athletes to endorse this model. Most of the athletes have bigger hands, and this phone will suit them well. The size is not a problem, and we can integrate better digital camera technologies into it.”

“Also, we can increase the LCD screen and battery capacity. The new keypad backlight technology is ready, right? We can use it in this model. You all had said the keypad backlight consumed too much power. But now, we had increased the battery capacity, and this is no longer a problem.”

Without keypad backlights, it is inconvenient to use the mobile phone in the dark. This is just a simple technology.

This technology was used on one of the Aiwa Mobile phone models last year. However, the market response is lackluster. The main reason for this is because of the power consumption. The battery capacity is insufficient to support this technology yet. To increase the battery capacity at the lowest cost is to increase the size of it.

This candy bar model had met all these requirements. The battery can be bigger, and the capacity can be doubled to 3,000 mAH!

Most mobile phone batteries in the market are between 800 to 1,200 mAH! Even if this phone’s battery capacity reaches 2,000 mAH is considered a great improvement.

“Manager Feng, what are the small squares around the frame for? Is it to attract customers with different colors?” Xu Lihhua frowned. There would be nothing special if they were to do checkered colors on the external casing.

“No. These are colorful lights!”

“Colorful lights? Is it like those neon lights? The ones we see on signboards?” Jiang Wanmeng is confused. Why are they adding this light to their phones?

“That’s right. Some places call this ‘flashing lights.’ I want the exterior of this phone to be fitted with these bright lights. It will flash when the phone rings, received an SMS, or, playing MP3 songs.”

What Feng Yu mentioned is the imitation phone designs from his previous life. He remembered these phones appeared after 2005 everywhere.

Don’t belittle these domestically produced imitation phones. They grew rapidly and were even exported to the US and Asia. The plus point for these imitation phones is the bigger battery capacity, louder speakers, multifunctional and cool designs.

When these imitation phones appeared, it was the trend for a while. Wind and Rain Mobile will be introducing this phone earlier, which will definitely attract attention. Everyone will be curious about new things.

Also, the running lights are good for people to show off their phones.

“This is not complicated technology, and I hope you all can develop this phone soon. Also, the camera cannot take clear pictures in darker areas. When can you all add flash to the phone?”

“We can do so now, but the phone will be very big and clumsy… huh… It should not be a problem.” Xu Lihua had wanted to continue, but he saw Feng Yu’s design of this candy bar phone. This phone is big enough to incorporate all these technologies.

Since Manager Feng Yu says it is alright for the phone to be bigger, they will incorporate all the new features into it. This will be the most powerful phone on the market!

“There is one more thing for you all to take note of. Many people will travel for work frequently, but auto-roaming is expensive, and most of them will have two SIM cards. Try to design the phone to fit two SIM cards and let both cards work at the same time.”

This is another important feature of imitation phones. Dual SIM cards.

Chapter 1199 – Leading the trend

Xu Lihua and the rest were stunned. A phone that uses two SIM cards at the same time?!

Since Feng Yu had said so many things today, he decided to tell them more.

“Mobile phone features are changing rapidly, and our phone’s systems must also be improved. When we are on the phone, the line will be engaged if someone else called in, right? Why can’t we invent a call waiting feature? We can tell the other party on the line to wait and answer the incoming call. Who knows if the incoming call is about an emergency? If it is not an emergency, you can continue your call with the first caller.”

Huh? Using one phone to answer two calls at the same time?! This… Is this possible?

All of them looks at Feng Yu’s confident expression and felt it might really be possible. But this should fall under the phone’s operating system, and they can let Lenovo Kingsoft solve it.

“We can also modify the phone’s flashing lights. For example, we can don’t use flashing lights and make them into a high-intensity torchlight. The torchlight can be used when taking pictures in the dark. It should be enough to illuminate one to two meters. Also, it can be used as a torchlight during blackouts or dark places.”

Mobile phone + torchlight?

This is in line with Manager Feng’s creative style, but can it work? Torchlight is a common device, and a mobile phone is a high-tech product.

Can a high-tech product incorporate such a simple device?

“Don’t think this is impossible. This is not as easy as you all think. Also, the power consumption will be high, and it will be a heavy load on the battery. But the good thing is, our battery technologies are the most advanced in the world. This phone will be the same as our MP3 players. We will be the only ones who can do this, and our competitors can only add the keypad backlights at most.”

“Manager Feng, does that mean candy bar phones will become the mainstream phones? The clamshell and sliding phones will be obsolete soon?” Jiang Wanmeng asked.

“Not necessarily. There will be people who still prefer clamshell designs. Also, why can’t we add new features to our sliding phones? For example, we can modify our sliding phones into a handheld game console.”

“Gaming phone? Our phones do have games like Tetris, Snake, etc.” Xu Lihua asked.

“No. I am talking about higher quality games like racing, tank wars, and even some old gaming console games. Many people like to play those old games. After sliding the phone out, the screen can be tilted to 45 degrees up and reveal a game controller keypad. This way, the phone will become a handheld game console.”

“Do you all think this is not possible? Why? The screen is too small? The keypad takes up too much space? But what if the phone has a touch screen? How is our touchscreen technology development?” Feng Yu asked.

Xu Lihua lowered his head embarrassedly. “We still have a long way for this technology to be developed. We cannot get the sensitivity right. Our screens are either too sensitive or not sensitive enough.”

“Ok. Don’t be afraid to spend money on R&D. The earlier we can gasp this technology, the earlier we can become the global leader of the mobile phone industry!”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, touchscreen technologies developed the fastest during the imitation phones’ era. But the touchscreen phones at that time are mainly used for writing messages with a touchscreen pen. Nokia, Motorola, and many other brands, still do not have good screens and can be damaged easily if the messages are written with fingers.

But this is a critical period for the evolution of mobile phones.

Since Wind and Rain Mobile phone is leading the trend, then they should continue to lead. They will not give other mobile phone manufacturers any opportunity to overtake them. They will forever be one step slower and can only copy Wind and Rain Mobile phones’ features!

“We can do lots of modifications to this clamshell design if we have the touchscreen technology. For example, the cover has two screens, right? Why can’t we make both screens the same size? That’s right. The exterior screen does not have any functions now. But with the touchscreen technology, we can do away with the buttons and operate the phone through the external screen.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Samsung had introduced this phone and is very popular. But it’s just novelty and new and does not serve many purposes.

In the future, Russia will introduce a double touch screen mobile phone with hi-tech features.

“We have many ways to develop our mobile phones, and all of them can sell well. For example, low-end phones. If you all can lower the cost to less than 200 RMB, it will become the world’s best-selling phone. Although the profit margin is not high, the sales will enter the history books. Wind and Rain Mobile will be remembered by everyone as the best mobile phone brand.”

“If we want our phones to be used for extended periods, we need better batteries and lower power consumption. Most batteries can last for one to two days. Even three days is considered long-lasting. But suppose we can introduce a phone that can last over seven days, fifteen days, or even one or two months. In that case, it will be more convenient for people in areas without electricity, right?”

“Also, we can make use of the phone’s function. Some phones can have more features and some with lesser features. We can introduce phones that can send emails, or just purely for SMS and calls. With all these phones with different features and selling at reasonable prices, do you think it will not sell?”

“Oh, I had mentioned to you all that I want a phone that can read novels. When will this function be ready?”

Xu Lihua immediately replied. “Manager Feng, we had already developed the feature of reading TXT files on mobile phones.”

Feng Yu nodded. “Good. I had said before. Don’t be afraid of spending money and try to save on R&D. We can only maintain our lead with more advanced technologies. Nokia and Motorola treat us as an eyesore, but they cannot stop us from reaching the peak. Of course, we must thank Philips’ support for our success.”

The representative from Philips smiled. “Thank you for the compliments. We had only assisted in developing the technologies. More importantly, it is the person who comes up with these ideas. Manager Xu had told me that you are the one who had come up with all these creative ideas. I thought he was joking then.”

The representative can also assist Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics to develop these technologies, as Philips will get to use them with lower authorization fees. Although Philips’ main focus is not on mobile phones, their mobile phone business had made high profits with these powerful features and designs. More importantly, Philips doesn’t need to invest too much into it.

Cooperating with Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa Electronics is a win-win for them.

“Oh, Mr. Garth, what is the decision of your company on my suggestion of giving up on Plasma technology research?”

Chapter 1200 – LCD vs. Plasma

Many consumers in the market prefer power and space-saving, a flat-screen TV and PC monitors now. That’s why plasma technology is developing very fast.

But there is another type of flat-screen TV that is clearer than plasma TVs, especially when looking at the screen from an angle. Also, the contrast and grayscale of this TV are much better.

Philips TV manufacturing business is one of their main business, and Feng Yu had entered this industry after exchanging shares with Chang Hong. Chang Hong is focusing on producing PC LCD monitors as the profits are higher.

Chang Hong is China’s first company to start researching plasma technologies. Philips is also working hard to develop it. Currently, the Japanese companies are the strongest in plasma technologies.

For example, Pioneer, Panasonic, Hitachi, etc., followed by Korea’s Samsung, LG, etc., are developing both Plasma and LCD technologies simultaneously. Their technologies are not the best and are around the same standard. Sony, Toshiba, and some Taiwanese companies are on the third tier.

After these companies are Thomson, Philips, Chang Hong, TCL, and other companies. As for the US, they are selling Asia and European models.

The current plasma technologies are better than LCD and are more suitable to be used on TV. Also, plasma TV is more comfortable to the eyes compared to LCD.

But there are several major weaknesses to plasma TVs.

First, plasma TV can only be bigger and not smaller. The smallest is at least 40 inches! This prevents those plasma TV companies from using this technology on PC monitors. Only a handful of people will use such big monitors.

This is because it is too big and it’s uncomfortable for PC users.

Secondly, plasma technology is better at processing moving images. But when it comes to still images, it is not as good as LCD. It is currently around the same standard as LCD in still image resolutions, but LCD will soon overtake Plasma.

If the screen showed a still image for a long time on the plasma TV, it would burn the screen and leave a marking. That means when watching DVDs on plasma TVs, one cannot pause it for long. Plasma is using electricity to power up the gases inside, and it will heat up after long periods. While LCD is using electricity to change the liquid crystal structure, and it is more stable.

That’s why after you had switched off the plasma TV, you will notice the image will remain still on the screen for a while.

LCD display uses stable electricity while plasma TV will adjust the brightness and colors based on surrounding brightness. That means plasma TV is not using the same amount of electricity all the time.

Most importantly, Panasonic and many companies had monopolized the high-end plasma screens to maintain their lead in this technology. This will affect the supply chain, and they did this to get higher profits.

Currently, plasma TVs are more expensive than LCD TVs, and the profits are higher.

Philips and Thompson are Europe’s top TV manufacturers. They are facing the dilemma of focusing on Plasma, LCD, or both.

Philips and Wind and Rain electronics had developed the most advanced LCD technology globally and have several production plants around China and Europe. They will not give up on LCD as this technology is not only used in TV. It can be used in PC monitors too.

But Thompson felt Plasma TVs have more advantages and should be the first choice for flat-screen TVs. This is separating flat-screen TVs into two factions.

South Korean companies are treading on both sides and will not make high profits!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Thompson is one of the supporters of plasma TVs. When the profits of plasma TVs dropped, they suffered losses and finally collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis.

Feng Yu does not want to lose his partner, Philips. Without them, he will lose the advantage in LCD technology. The color display, watchable angles, resolutions, etc., require lots of resources to develop.

Feng Yu had persuaded Philips to give up on Plasma and focus on LCD. For now, LCD might not be as good as Plasma, but LCD will overtake Plasma in the future as PC technologies develop.

TV is divided into CRT TVs and flat-screen TVs, and flat-screen TVs are further divided into Plasma and LCD. They only need to keep their lead on one type, and they will not lose to other competitors.

Furthermore, as LCD production increases, their cost will be lowered. Plasma production’s output is low, and the cost cannot be reduced. Thus, LCD will have a pricing advantage, and as technologies developed, LCD will replace Plasma in the future.

If Philips wants to focus on both technologies, Feng Yu will have to part with them to focus on LCD TVs, even if they must invest a lot more. Anyway, he has the engineers from Chang Hong and can get TCL over to his side if this happens.

Garth heard Feng Yu’s question and replied seriously. “Mr. Feng, I represent Philips to give you a definite answer. We will give up our research on Plasma and focus on LCD.”

“Then, what about your cooperation with Thompson?”

“Thompson will carry on with the research themselves, and if they are successful, we can buy their patent rights. They are one of the companies with the most patents in consumer appliances and make high profits from authorization fees annually.”

Thompson did not change its path, and Feng Yu wonders if they will become bankrupt like his previous life. Nevertheless, he is relieved Philips had taken up his suggestion to focus on LCD technology.

It will be easier to maintain their lead in LCD technologies. Their competitors are only Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, and other Japanese and Korean companies. As for the Taiwanese companies, they are still lagging far behind.

Feng Yu doesn’t know that Thompson will be setting up a plant with TCL in China to form TKK company. This plant will be focusing on plasma TVs, and Chang Hong is focusing on LCD TVs because of Feng Yu. They gave the plasma TV market to TCL as not many people in China buy a plasma TV. In a way, TCL is also preventing Japanese and Korean companies from entering the Chinese markets. Actually, most people cannot tell the differences between plasma and LCD TVs.

Feng Yu told them not to worry. Plasma technology will lose its supporters quickly, and many factories will join the LCD faction soon. When that happens, it will be doomsday for plasma TVs!

TCL Technology

Grayscale

Chapter 1201 – HD DVD

After seeing this digital camera, Feng Yu suddenly remember digital camera will evolve to the digital video camera, which can take pictures and videos.

Currently, digital video cameras do exist. Around 1998, Sony had introduced a type of digital camera, but the storage is still using 3.5 inches floppy disk.

That digital video camera can only take short video clips and does not have storage for longer clips. After that, digital video cameras using VCDs as storage appeared, and currently, DVD is used as storage. A few generations of development had passed.

But Feng Yu knew flash drives or hard disks will be used in video cameras in the future, and DVD video cameras will be obsolete.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, companies like Sony, Toshiba, etc., will set the format standards for digital video cameras and HDVD standards. After that, they made high profits from the patent authorization fees.

The domestic produced digital video cameras at that time are not expensive and use Japanese technologies. In a way, this had stopped Chinese companies from developing this technology and forced them to purchase Sony and those companies’ newest technologies, letting them monopolize this industry.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin. Now, there are only digital video camera standards. Should he set the HDVD format first?

If Feng Yu sets the HDVD standards now, he can hold back Japanese firms’ development for a while. It will also prevent them from monopolizing this technology.

Feng Yu needs to discuss with Philips, Jiang Wanmeng, Xu Lihua, and the rest first. He must do it even if this investment is high, as the future returns will be much higher.

Furthermore, this technology can be used on mobile phones. In the future, most phones can take videos. If Wind and Rain Mobile phones can introduce a phone that can take videos, they will shock the world again!

But Feng Yu must upgrade the current DVD format first.

Wind and Rain Electronics had used its DVD forum to develop HD DVD. This is a form of the clearer DVD format and is a by-product after the HD TV is developed.

With HD TV, naked eyes can tell the difference between HD DVD and normal DVD. If possible, who doesn’t want to watch higher resolution movies on their TV?

HD DVDs are more expensive? That’s not a problem. The ones who can afford HD TVs can easily afford HD DVDs!

Also, Feng Yu knew the DVD Alliance Sony and those Japanese companies set up started developing Blu-rays DVD. This is also a type of high definition DVDs, but the formats are different.

Like Panasonic, JVC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, etc., DVD forums’ Japanese companies switched sides and joined DVD Alliance.

These companies felt the DVD forum is biased against them. After Panasonic got a representative seat, no other Japanese companies got in after that. It was those small Chinese companies that got in. This is too shady!

But these Japanese companies had forgotten that they had shared the DVD forum’s technologies with Sony and other companies and even helped them set up DVD Alliances for benefits.

If it wasn’t for these companies, DVD Forum would have eliminated DVD Alliances with their technologies, funds, and number of members a long time ago.

This Blu-ray DVD Alliance will be setting the format standards for Blu-ray DVDs. Panasonic and the rest of the companies joined without hesitations.

This is backstabbing, but Feng Yu had predicted this will happen a long time ago. Luckily, the companies developing HD DVD, like Philips, Thompson, Tata, Samsung, etc., are still with the forum.

Other than some second and third tier Japanese and European consumer appliances companies, the rest are still with DVD forums.

But Japanese consumer appliances are at the top globally, and their influence cannot be belittled.

Blu-ray DVD and HD DVD have many things in common. For example, both use a 120 mm disk for storage and use a 405 nm “violet” light to read it. (DVD uses 650 nm ‘red’ light, and CD is using 780 nm lights.) But like the format war between DVD and DVD alliances, both sides set different standards for their format.

Feng Yu’s HD DVD has an advantage, which is the production process is the same as traditional DVDs. This means manufacturers do not need to upgrade their machines and only need to change some settings.

As for storage, HD DVD single side storage is 15G, and Sony’s Blu-ray DVD can reach up to 25G on one side. On the surface, Blu-ray DVD has higher storage and should be more popular.

But Sony and those companies do not know this DVD is only a passing phase product because Flash drive is developing rapidly.

That’s right. In theory, DVD can store 16 layers of data, and Feng Yu’s HD DVD maximum capacity is only 180G, while Sony’s Blu-ray can store up to 400G.

Most current equipment can only encode two layers, and very few can encode three layers. Equipment that can encode four layers of data is still not developed!

Sony’s Blu-ray DVD format is different from the traditional encoding. It requires manufacturers to upgrade their production line with new machines. This will increase the production cost.

HD DVD can win at first through pricing. After all, two-hour HD movie in less than 15G and even long movies like Titanic can use two layers of an HD DVD to store it. There’s no need to upgrade the equipment.

But Sony and those Japanese companies felt that their Blu-ray DVD can also store corporates’ data or serve as backups for servers. Most people will store data on a portable hard disk. Still, its major flaw is the portable hard disk is fragile and easily damaged. Blu-ray DVDs are not easily damaged?

In the future, corporate data will be stored in flash drives!

By the time this Blu-ray DVD is developed, the flash drive’s capacity should be more than 128G. With a smaller and more stable flash drive, which will the consumers pick?

Feng Yu had introduced this HD DVD to get fast profits. They dragged those Japanese firms into this high-definition DVD technology race. This will distract them from developing flash drive technologies.

These Japanese companies will regret it in two years!

HD DVD

Chapter 1202 – The fight over members

To set the industry standard, getting recognition is most critical. The more companies using a standard, the faster this standard can be introduced.

This is what happened for DVD standards. DVD Forum has more companies supporting them and let their standard become the industry standard.

Now, both sides are facing off again for the high-definition DVD standards. The Blu-rays DVD Alliance had pulled all the Japanese companies from the DVD forum over to their sides. But at the same time, some DVD Alliance’s members had switched sides to the HD DVD forum.

If those Japanese companies had joined forces because of protectionism, those that left DVD Alliances are because of benefits. Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips had decided to authorize their DVD patents to them. This way, they can produce more popular DVD players, discs, and optical drives.

These companies had to buy the patent authorization rights from those Japanese firms in the DVD Alliance. But with the same price, they will definitely choose the side with a higher value.

Furthermore, DVD Forum has a bigger advantage. BenQ has successfully developed the technology that can play both DVD forum and DVD Alliance’s formats. DVD Alliance’s players can only play their format.

This resulted in DVD Forum getting a big advantage in their DVD players and optical drives. Consumers will not know which format when they buy DVDs. If a player can play all formats, and another player can only play a certain format, what do you think the consumer will choose?

Also, HD DVD Forum had announced that HD DVDs can be produced with the existing DVD production line. This will save costs for those small companies. After all, not every company can afford to invest multi-million to set up new production lines like Sony and Panasonic.

If they do that, how many DVDs must they sell to recover their cost?!

So, many members from both sides switched, and both sides also do their best to attract other electronics companies.

Thompson’s representative represented HD DVD Forum to meet the US movie companies to get their support and asked them not to work with DVD Alliance.

Those Japanese companies immediately responded to this. What’s most important now is those movie companies’ rights. If those movie companies don’t support their format, they will lose out on many movies and affect their profits.

DVD Forum had done this in the past, and the Japanese companies will not allow this to happen again.

Thompson is North America’s top consumer appliance company and had worked with all the movie companies before. This is their biggest advantage.

Of course. Sony has its own movie company, and Toshiba has shares in movie companies. In the end, Sony Pictures and Disney joined the Blu-ray DVD forum, and Japanese firms, like Toei and Toho, had also joined Blu-ray DVD Alliance. Lionsgate, Twentieth Century, MGM, Warner Bros., etc., joined HD DVD Forum. The movie companies in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and some European also joined the HD DVD faction.

All Chinese movie companies started using HD DVD standards too. After all, all Chinese DVD companies had gotten the patent authorization rights from DVD Forum. They dare not go against Wind and Rain Electronics.

The PC manufacturers are also split into two sides, supporting Blu-rays DVD and HD DVD. But to Feng Yu’s surprise, Intel announced they will be using Blu-rays DVD standard.

This is the same as Microsoft announcing its support for DVD Forum previously. It shocked Philips, Thompson, and other companies.

We are introducing DVD standards, and what has it got to do with Intel? You all are not manufacturing DVD players, optical drives and doesn’t own movie or MV rights! Why are you all interfering?

Microsoft is a software company, and its operating system must support optic drives.

The optical drive port had been standardized a long time ago. Are you going to create a different port? That’s why Feng Yu felt Intel is only trying to create problems and doesn’t need to be bothered by them.

More than 80% of the world’s DVD players are manufactured in China, and Chinese brands own more than 60% of the market share. The remaining 20% is owned by other DVD Forum members, and the other 20% is owned by the DVD Alliance members. These are mainly Japanese brands.

Almost 50% of the world’s DVDs are made in China, and the remaining 30% is from the US. The rest are from Japan, Europe, and other countries.

When it comes to DVD players or discs, China is still the leader, and Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa Electronics played a major role.

International electronics firms had acknowledged China is the strongest when it comes to the DVD industry. Only the Japanese companies don’t want to admit it.

This time, DVD Forum is confident of their HD DVD technology is because Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa Electronics had started developing this technology two years ago. Sony and the rest of their alliances had only started developing their Blu-rays DVD not long ago.

HD DVD players and the new format discs will be launched in the market soon, and Sony will need at least another year before they can launch their product.

Although the market will not be full when they enter the market, they had let HD DVD gain the upper hand.

During this period, many electronics companies that had never produce DVDs also started to choose sides. Some chose HD DVD Forum, and some chose to join Blu-rays DVD Alliances.

Overall, HD DVD has more members, and more importantly, they have more DVD player manufacturers and movie companies.

But the Japanese companies’ advantage is their HD TVs. Their HD TV technology is the best in the world. If you buy a high-definition DVD player, you must use it with an HD TV.

What’s the point of using a normal TV where you cannot tell the difference between standard and high-definition?

But the Japanese companies did not expect LCD TV technology to develop so fast and overtake plasma TVs. HD TVs can also be made with LCD.

Japanese firms had created technological barriers for their plasma TV technology and made HD DVD more competitive.

When everyone is trying to get more members, Wind and Rain Electronics announced the first HD DVD player’s launch!

Sony and the other companies were dumbfounded. How did they develop the HD DVD so fast? If they have the player, do they have HD DVD discs?

Immediately after the announcement, some Hong Kong movie companies started selling HD DVD movies! The HD era is here!

Chapter 1203 – Teaching Fatty Huang

In the afternoon, Feng Yu started scrolling through the forums in his office. Tomorrow is New Year’s Day. Many of his employees from other places, including the higher management staff, are on leave. That’s why he, as a ‘local,’ remained. Anyway, he had nothing to do too.

“Boss, there are some people downstairs wanting to meet you. They are the DVD factories’ bosses in China, and had come from Guangdong.” Wu Zhigang reported.

Wu Zhigang is the Deputy General Manager of Tai Hua Holdings now and is stationed in Beijing. He is one of the first few who followed Feng Yu, and many people said he had mastered Feng Yu’s style. His temperament is too similar to his Boss.

When Wu Zhigang is in a good mood, he doesn’t mind giving the other party more profits in cooperation. But when he is in a bad mood, he will ignore you even if you are giving him money!

If this is any other company, Wu Zhigang might not qualify to be in the middle management, let alone the top management. But in Tai Hua Holding, this is not a problem.

Firstly, Wu Zhigang has a good memory like Feng Yu. He can remember the names of everyone he met and takes his work seriously. He is fair to all the staff and is the one who sets high bonuses for them. Feng Yu had instructed him to issue a certain percentage of their annual profits as bonuses to the staff and allocate according to their contributions.

“What do they want?”

“They want to speak to you. Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa Electronics had introduced HD DVD players. They are asking if we can lower the authorization fees for the other DVD patents. I can tell they are struggling and want to seek help.” Wu Zhigang replied.

In Guangdong, there are more than 50 DVD manufacturers. They supply to the Chinese market, but they also export to the rest of Southeast Asia. Feng Yu had set lower authorization fees to the domestic factories, and with the cheap labor cost, their cost is not high. As such, they can set competitive prices.

But as more people started using PCs, most people prefer to buy PCs as it comes with optic drives. They can also watch movies but on a smaller screen. The common monitor is only 17 and 19 inches, and 14 inches had just been obsolete. The 21-inch monitor is just starting to become popular.

There are too many factories in Guangdong, and it is very competitive. This resulted in rising manpower costs. Sony and other Japanese brands had also lowered their DVD players’ prices, causing Wind and Rain, Aiwa, and Philips to lower their prices. Hence, these factories lost their competitiveness.

This might be fine for a short time, but they cannot survive if this carries on. In a year, at least half of the factories will shut down. Their goods cannot be sold, and even if they sell, it will be at a loss. The more they produce, the more losses they suffered.

“Call them up. No matter what, they had helped us introduce DVD in the past. If they are really facing difficulties, we can lower the authorization fees further.”

Feng Yu can let these factories shut down and acquire them to produce HD DVD players. This will be the best for him, but Feng Yu did not do this. They are his fellow countrymen, after all. Of course, it still has to depend on these bosses’ character. If they are driving luxurious cars, living in big bungalows, but is not paying their workers because their factories are not making money, Feng Yu definitely not help them.

Around twenty to thirty people entered Feng Yu’s office. Feng Yu’s office in Beijing is not that big to accommodate them, and he brought them to the meeting room.

Feng Yu took a sip of tea and looked at the bosses with a smile. “You all look familiar. I can remember some of your names. What is it do you all want from me?”

Feng Yu puts down his teacup. Those bosses looked at each other, and no one wants to the first to speak.

“Fatty Huang, we had been doing business for around ten years. Are you the one who brought everyone here?”

Fatty Huang had started dealing with Tai Hua Trading when Feng Yu was selling electric fans, followed by the humidifier, bladeless fans, motorcycles, cars, etc. He is selling almost all of Feng Yu’s products. As the distributor for Guangdong, Hainan, and Guangxi, he had made at least a few billion RMB now.

Furthermore, Fatty Huang had also set up VCD and DVD player factories and had made a lot of money then. The rest might be struggling, but Fatty Huang is definitely not one of them.

Fatty Huang smiled. “Manager Feng, I had only said I want to seek your help, but they insisted on tagging along. You must trust me. I am not here to create problems for you.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. If Fatty Huang is an honest businessman, has a good reputation, and is also his long-time partner, Feng Yu will never believe him.

“Manager Feng… these other countries are no longer producing VCD players, but we car still producing. Can the patent authorization fees be lowered? We really have no choice as we are not making money now.”

“There’s no need to produce VCD players anymore. Alright. I will lower the DVD authorization fees by half for you all. Hmmm…. The Super VCD patent fees will also be lowered by half. Wind and Rain and Aiwa’s Super VCD will stop production tomorrow, and you all can share the market.”

The Super VCD and DVD players can play VCD disc, but VCD players cannot play the higher-grade disc. That’s why there’s no point in producing VCD players anymore. Feng Yu knew these people want to enter the village market, and they should be selling Super VCD players. If not, those villagers might buy the cheapest player but cannot play any discs.

Fatty Huang and the rest are overjoyed. “Thank you, Manager Feng. We are also thinking of stopping VCD players’ production and only produce Super VCD and DVD players. Oh, when can we get the authorization for producing HD DVD players? Also, how much is the patent fees for encoding disc?”

“I can only sell the authorization to you all next year, and the pricing will depend on the market then. But my suggestion to you all is to try to switch to another business. You all had not to build your brands and will not grow big.”

Feng Yu shook his head. These people are third-tier businesses and only depends on pricing, and their risk resistance is too weak. If he did not lower the authorization fees, at least half of them will go bankrupt within a year!

The rest looks at each other and doesn’t know what to do next. At least they can still make money for the next three to five years by selling HD DVD players.

They would accumulate a few millions after three to five years, and it’s not too late for them to switch trades.

Everyone left, but Fatty Huang remained.

“Manager Feng, what do you mean by switching to another business? Can you give me some guidance?”

“Your workers are not bad, but they have no advantages in other areas. You should focus on their forte.”

Increase my workers’ advantage? Fatty Huang looks at Feng Yu blankly. He doesn’t get it.

“OEM (Original equipment manufacturer). Do you understand?”

Original equipment manufacturer

Chapter 1204 – Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) must also set standards

“Manager Feng, this is the suggestion you come up for me after thinking for so long?” Fatty Huang is disappointed. Being an OEM is working for others, and his status will become the lowest.

“Old Huang, what do you think a supermarket is? It’s just a small store that is magnified several times. But why are those small stores little profits, but supermarkets can make profits several times more than them?”

“The supermarkets are bigger and are selling more products.”

“You are partially right. The real reason is the core value of the supermarkets. Supermarkets had set the standards for the cost price of their products. To maintain their profits, they will limit the cost of your products. If your cost is too high, it will be hard to survive. A product’s prices may defer in small stores along the same street, but in Tai Hua Supermarket, the same product will cost the same in all their outlets. This is call standard cost.”

Fatty Huang nodded in a daze. “But what has this got to do with being an OEM?”

“The core of being an OEM is the production capacity and labor. This is the same as supermarkets for setting standard cost. If other people can produce 100 products in eight hours and you can produce 120 products at the same time, you will make money. At the same time, other people will have to follow your standards. This is similar to setting the benchmark in the industry.”

“But how much can I make if I can produce 20 more products than others? We will also lose the chance to establish our brand.” Fatty Huang is hesitating. He knew the value of an established brand.

“Old Huang, is our country’s Lenovo Group powerful?”

“Of course. Their sales are the highest in Asia, and I heard they are also the number one PC manufacturer in the world.” Fatty Huang knew Feng Yu has shares in Lenovo, and Lenovo Group is powerful indeed.

“Lenovo Group’s factories’ production is not high. Most of their parts are from OEMs. Even our Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics’ factories were once OEMs, especially producing LCD monitors for Lenovo. If this is not profitable, do you think I will do? I can produce more DVD players and kick the small factories like you all out. This way, I can make more money. The profits from a DVD player is much higher than those patent authorization fees.”

“This is because Lenovo is paying us well for being their OEM. Also, our machine and equipment are running 24 hours, other than during maintenance. This will increase our factories’ profits and also let our production workers make more money. Guangzhou and Shenzhen have lots of factories and is advantageous when it comes to hiring. If you can consolidate all these factories and increase the scale, improve the efficiency, you can definitely make lots of money.” Feng Yu said.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Foxconn had set the standards for OEMs. They increased their workers’ efficiency and became the industry leader. Their annual profits is not a small amount.

But they encountered some issues later because of their harsh management and rising manpower cost in China. In the end, they shifted most of their production to India and other countries with low labor costs.

Foxconn had entered Fortune Global 500 as an OEM, which is an astonishing achievement.

“Manager Feng, I roughly understand what you are talking about. You are suggesting me to increase my scale and efficiency to lower my cost and profit from there, right?”

Feng Yu nodded. “That’s right, but you missed out on an important point, which is to set the standards. You must make all OEMs follow the standards you set. If they are below your standards, their profits will be much lower, or even not get any orders.”

“I can acquire those factories easily now. Those factories are not big and are not doing well recently. If I tell them I want to acquire them and take over all their workers, they will be glad to sell them. After merging with all those factories, our efficiency is increased and cost lowered, but we don’t have any orders yet.”

No matter how hardworking and skillful you are, it is useless if there’s no job!

“Since I suggested this to you, I will guarantee you will have jobs. Suppose you can really acquire all those factories and reached an economy of scale. In that case, I will let you produce some of our HD DVD players, mobile phones, MP3, Flash drive, and even PC parts or assembling PCs. Once you received our orders, you will have no problems getting other orders.”

Fatty Huang’s eyes brighten up when he heard Feng Yu is going to give him orders. He knew Manager Feng’s orders will be big, and his current small factory will not fulfill the order.

“Manager Feng, can you give me the orders first? I will think of ways to complete it to your requirements.” Fatty Huang suddenly has other ideas.

He wants to be the general contractor and pass the orders to other factories.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. “What do you think?”

Fatty Huang smiled embarrassedly. “Manager Feng, if you had not lowered the patent authorization fees earlier, I will have no problems taking over those factories. But now, I need to spend a lot more money to buy them. Of course, I still can afford it, but I am still not very confident.”

“You want to sign the contract with us first?”

Fatty Huang nodded furiously. “Can I?”

“Of course not!” There are no free lunches in this world! What if I give you the contract, and you cannot fulfill it? It’s easy to pursue your responsibility, but our sales will be affected.

“Then… Manager Feng, how should I set the standards you mentioned?”

“Have you heard of Foxconn? They are Lenovo and Wind and Rain Mobile phones’ biggest OEM. They are setting the OEM standards for 3C (computer, consumer electronics, and communication) products. If you can work with them, you will be successful.”

“Foxconn? It’s them? Their workers’ management is too harsh. Many of our workers are from Foxconn.” Fatty Huang dislikes Foxconn.

Management must also be humane. Those workers are helping them create value, and how can they ill-treat them? That factory will surely be in trouble. As China’s education level increases, it’s getting harder to find low-wage, unskilled, and uneducated workers.

There should be lots of such workers from the Western region. But after Guangcai Program started there, many of the locals returned home as they can find work in their hometowns.

If the workers can find jobs near to their home, why would they travel across the country to look for work?

Since you think Foxconn is too harsh on their workers, can you think of a way to be more effective than them and set your standards? Although your profits will be much lesser than them initially, your corporate culture will let your company last much longer.

Chapter 1205 – Portable DVD

Fatty Huang left excitedly. He wants to settle this matter as early as possible. The earlier he acquires those small factories, the earlier he can receive orders from Feng Yu.

Fatty Huang was never worried when dealing with Feng Yu because Feng Yu will let them get reasonable profits. Feng Yu had mentioned there is no absolute fairness in business, but both parties getting profits is basic. If not, it will be called exploitation!

Feng Yu shook his head as he looks at Fatty Huang leave. Fatty Huang had grown much fatter these few years and looks like a walking meatball!

But this also shows that Fatty Huang is doing well now. If the other bosses had not come to meet Feng Yu, Fatty Huang would not tag along.

Feng Yu had not given Fatty Huang this advice suddenly. Lenovo, Wind and Rain, and his other brands’ products are manufactured from their own factories and OEMs. Among the OEMs, Foxconn is their biggest supplier.

Liu Chuanzhi had discussed with Feng Yu about Foxconn. Foxconn has too many orders, and those Taiwanese are quite arrogant. He wants to get another strong OEM to take away some of Foxconn’s orders.

Furthermore, Feng Yu has a new idea and needs a factory to produce this product. The factories under Tai Hua Holdings are at their full capacity. Although the workers can work overtime to increase their productions, it’s not very effective.

The new product Feng Yu wants to produce is called Portable DVD player.

What’s a Portable DVD player? It is a mini DVD player, without complicated features, and has an LCD display, speakers, and batteries like a laptop.

Many people will want to watch their favorite movies during their travels. Of course, this can also be done with a laptop.

But the cheapest laptop in the market is around 7 to 8 thousand RMB, and not everyone can afford it. Furthermore, not many people know how to use PCs.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the Chinese developed portable DVD players due to this reason and is quite popular. There are two types of portable DVD players. One looks like a laptop, and the other has a detachable LCD display.

When this product first appeared in the market, it sold around three to four thousand RMB and lowered to a few hundred RMB later on. Despite the high selling price, this product is still very popular. Many elderlies will buy it to watch opera and bring it to the parks.

That means the targeted audience of this product had moved from families to elderlies.

When Feng Yu told Jiang Wanmeng about this idea, he also felt it will work.

Their DVD player has more functions now, which can be seen from the increased number of buttons on their remote controller.

But Feng Yu wants to do away with all those complicated functions and return to the basics. He only wants it to play, pause, fast forward, etc.

Feng Yu only wants a few basic buttons on this player.

Jiang Wanmeng made a simple sketch of this player. It only has a screen, a speaker, a battery, an optical drive, and a few buttons, and Feng Yu told him this is what he wants.

But Jiang Wanmeng thought of another idea. This portable DVD player might have an LCD screen, but it should have a connector to connect to external screens. This means it can be used as DVD players at home.

This player can be connected to the TV and still watch it on the LCD screen outside. Although this player has lesser functions than other players in the market, this player’s portability should make it popular.

Feng Yu thought for a while and felt this is a good suggestion. Their factories are unable to manufacture this product, and they have to get OEMs to produce it.

When Chang Hong’s person-in-charge heard Wind and Rain Electronics is going to develop a portable DVD player, they immediately thought of the portable TVs overseas!

This is a portable TV that can only receive Terrestrial television channels with its antenna. The market response to this product is average. Still, Changhong felt there are not many satellite TV channels in China, and the Chinese are used to watching their local channels.

The Americans had invented this portable TV, but the US’s TV channels are mainly cable or satellite. That’s why this product did not do well there.

But a product that is not popular in the US does not mean it will not be popular in China.

Chang Hong hopes to discuss with Wind and Rain Electronics to develop this product and integrate portable DVDs and TV together. This way, consumers can still watch TV without DVD discs.

This product will be more popular with an additional feature.

Feng Yu is surprised to see this Chang Hong leader has good foresight. In his previous life, portable DVD players do have this function later on.

Feng Yu thought no one can think of this, but he thinks too lightly of others. He knew the potential of this product from his previous life’s memories. Still, everyone else sees it through their experiences and foresight.

Feng Yu immediately told Jiang Wanmeng to agree to this cooperation. If they can incorporate both features, their market will be bigger. For example, some people live in rented rooms. The landlord might not provide TVs, and it will be inconvenient for them when moving if they own a TV. If they need to buy another DVD player, it will be more costly and troublesome.

If a product that works as a TV and DVD player, these people will surely consider it. Another group of people who will be interested in this product is those nomads.

It is inconvenient for nomads to bring a big TV with them as they move around often.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the best-selling region for this product is the grasslands. The nomads used to sing and dance around fires or listen to radios in the past.

Most of these nomads are wealthy, and many families own at least a few hundred cows and goats. Their income is way higher than average households, and they don’t need to pay for their houses or cars!

Feng Yu had only wanted a portable DVD. But after taking in Jiang Wanmeng and that Chang Hong leader’s suggestions, it will take at least two months before it is developed.

Even if this product is developed after a year, it will still be in time. Maybe this product will be more profitable than the HD DVD player.

Terrestrial television

Satellite television

Chapter 1206 – The frustrated Li Zekai

After New Year’s Day, Feng Yu flew to Hong Kong to check on Wind and Rain Consulting’s investments.

After that incident, Wind and Rain consulting bought gold at around 275 USD and sold them at around 290 USD. Feng Yu remembers from his previous life that the fluctuations are so big.

In this life, London gold reached 294 USD per ounce, but it is more volatile. Most investors are like Feng Yu and settled their contracts once gold went above 290 USD.

Of course, some gamblers settled their contracts at higher prices. But some of them made a mistake. They thought the gold price will go above 300 USD.

Around this time, Wind and Rain Consulting started to bet on the opposite. They started to short gold. Many people are puzzled. During wars, gold prices should rise. Why is Wind and Rain Consulting betting on gold prices to fall?

When the US announced they are sending their troops to Afghanistan, gold prices start to fall, and it fell below 275 USD. This is because most investors felt the US can win easily, and their economy will recover quickly. More people will invest their money in the US stock markets when it happens.

This is the time when the Fu Family, Li Family, and the rest enter. They had missed the first fluctuation. Although Wind and Rain Consulting had not used high leverage, the invested amount is huge. They made several billion USD of profits within two months.

When gold prices fell back to 275 USD, Wind and Rain Consulting started to buy in gold again. This time, Feng Yu told the rest to speculate on the long-term.

Why? Because the war in Afghanistan is not as swift as the US expected, and the US troops faced fierce resistance.

This time, it becomes a real war, which is the troubled times Feng Yu mentioned.

The gold price was fluctuating and showed no signs of rising now. Since gold fell back to 275 USD in early October, it did not rise above 280 USD. It even fell back to 272 USD several times.

He Zhaoji and the rest executed these transactions easily because they did not use high leverage and had hedged. Even if gold fell below 260 USD, they can settle their contracts in time and prevent losses.

But the Li Family, especially Li Zekai, is frustrated.

Li Zekai had entered the gold market when gold is at the peak, 290 USD.

After that, gold dived. If Feng Yu had not asked his men to notify them to hedge, Li Zekai would have lost all his money. But luckily, he did not suffer any losses, but he did not make any money. Also, Superman Li did not lend him any more money to invest in the gold market.

Feng Yu had reminded him that gold prices will be volatile when the US announces they will be sending their troops. It will either rise by a lot or plunged. But Li Zekai bet gold prices on rising.

If Superman Li had not transferred funds to save him, Li Zekai would have suffered massive losses!

The Fu Family had also invested, but Fu Rongqi is one of Asia’s top financial traders. His main business is financial investments, and he has a big and strong team to support him.

The Fu Family had also believed in Feng Yu that gold will rise in the future. But they also knew about the possibility of diving. That’s why the Fu Family hedged against their investments and used low leverage.

Although the Fu Family’s returns are not as high as Wind and Rain Consulting, they made around 400 to 500 million USD with a few billion USD investments.

The Fu Family also felt gold prices will rise, but they will never place all their eggs in one basket. They still invested in other instruments and reserved some emergency funds.

Superman Li told Li Zekai. It’s fine if you want to do financial trading. But you must learn from Feng Yu and set up a team of professionals.

Feng Yu told you gold will rise when the US sent their troops to Afghanistan, but do you know about the details? You only know that gold will rise, and you placed your bets. If Feng Yu had not told you when to short the market, you might not even have the chance to borrow money from me to recover your losses!

During this period, the gold price is fluctuating but did not rise. The Fu Family can afford to wait as Feng Yu said this will be a long term investment.

But Li Zekai is impatient. Gold had raised to almost 290 USD, but why is Wind and Rain Consulting and the Fu Family not settling their contracts?

So, Li Zekai called Feng Yu to ask when he should settle his future contracts. Feng Yu told him that gold will rise above 300 USD and might reach 350 USD this year. But it might take some time. Unless something drastic happens, do not settle the contracts now.

Li Zekai was shocked. What did Feng Yu say? Gold price will rise to 350 USD?! He totally ignored the word, ‘might.’

When Feng Yu comes to Hong Kong, Li Zekai and Fu Guangzheng rushed to Wind and Rain Consulting to meet him.

“Brother Kai, I’m sorry for not making myself clear and caused you to almost suffer a big loss.” Feng Yu apologized. He did not know Li Zekai is so unprofessional and had only hired one broker to help him.

Li Zekai also felt embarrassed. “Brother Feng, I should be thanking you. If you had not reminded me to short the market, I would have lost all my money. Luckily it is only a scare this time. Although I did not make any money, I also did not suffer any losses. At the same time, you reminded me not everyone can trade futures.”

“Hahaha… stop apologizing and thanking each other. Zekai, I think you should just invest your money into my investment or Wind and Rain Consulting. Although we charge a higher commission, we will not risk your money.” Fu Guangzheng laughed.

“Thanks for your advice. I am trying to learn.”

Li Zekai will never let Fu Guangzheng handle his money. He can also get high returns if he invests in other places. Although the Li Family’s company share prices had fallen, their fixed assets’ value is all appreciating, especially China’s ones.

Li Zekai is prideful and will never let Fu Guangzheng invest for him. That would be admitting he is inferior to Fu Guangzheng! He can consider letting Feng Yu invest his money, but he still prefers to do it himself. After all, he can save on the commission. Wind and Rain Consulting charge at least 20% commission!

“To each his own. I understand you want to invest yourself, but you must be more careful this time.” Feng Yu smiled.

Chapter 1207 – The Zheng family wants to cooperate

In the next year, the gold price will be moving upwards and will even reach 350 USD. This means even if Feng Yu did not use leverage, he would get returns of more than 10 billion USD from the massive fund he invested.

Also, why will Feng Yu not use leverage? He used low leverage and also hedging to lower his risk. Wind and Rain Consulting’s profit for this year will be several folds of what they invested.

Even if Feng Yu’s other companies are not listed, his net worth will be more than Bill Gates. Feng Yu is on track to become the World’s Wealthiest Billionaire!

The US stock market is still on the decline, but the drop is not as bad as before. The stocks, especially blue-chips, are still not doing well, as not many people dare to invest in them. Their share prices did not show any signs of rising, but some smaller companies’ shares had started to rise. From Feng Yu’s observation, he knows someone is manipulating these shares.

Also, many investors are still withdrawing from the stock markets. They invest their money in the Gold market, making gold prices soar.

The US attack on Afghanistan will not end so easily. The war officially ended around two to three years before Feng Yu’s rebirth. Of course, this war had ended because Bin Laden was killed. But the real reason is the US is facing international pressure from other nations and financial pressure from within.

The military expense for this war is very high, especially the US soldiers’ salaries. They are one of the most highly paid soldiers in the world. Of course, their salaries are still lower than Italian soldiers.

Sending troops to Afghanistan might have pacified the US citizens, but it brought immerse financial on the US government. In Feng Yu’s previous life, the US was almost bankrupted. But this is only a way to avoid paying their debts.

If they are bankrupt, they will not need to repay their debts!

But US invasion of Afghanistan had showcased the US and its allies’ military power. Other than Russia, no other countries, including China, can stand up to the US in military strength.

Although China’s military had been growing these few years rapidly, they lack offensive weapons. They might be known as the world’s strongest land forces, but China and the US are separated by sea. That means other people can come to your doorsteps to attack you, but you cannot leave your house to attack them. China is at a disadvantage in a war with the US.

Luckily, China’s economy had developed very fast in the past two years. With money, they can bring forward their plans to buy their own aircraft carrier. China has always claim to be a neutral and peace-loving country. But they still need a strong military for defense if they want to be neutral. Especially China has a strong polar bear as its neighbor.

From the national interest perspective, a strong China will be a threat to the US and Russia. The US is used to be the big brother, and Russia is not afraid of anyone.

Since ancient times, there is a saying, ‘Befriend a distant state and strike a neighboring one.’ China’s relationship with Russia had been rocky. If it was not for the US, the war between both nations might have started a long time ago.

China has no intention to be always under the protection of Russia. Some nations supported by Russia or the former Soviet Union was attacked by the US, and Russia did not do anything. The real reason is they don’t have the money to go to war with the US. Anyway, the US also don’t dare to attack Russia.

Since Russia cannot support this nation, they can support another country. Wars will benefit Russia as the most popular weapon, AK47 is produced by Russia. Most of the countries that oppose the US will buy weapons from Russia!

This war in Afghanistan lasted almost 10 years in Feng Yu’s previous life. It is also the same period where Russia and China’s economies grew the fastest.

Because of this war, the US’s status as the most powerful country was challenged.

Dominating over other nations is not in line with China’s tradition and culture. But China can still accept a tripartite. I will not bully others and will not allow anyone to bully me!

Of course, if whoever dares to bully my friends, I will help them to retaliate!

Feng Yu, Fu Guangzheng, and Li Zekai had a long chat, and Feng Yu told them about his future gold prices prediction. At the same time, he reminded Li Zekai to be careful again.

Although the possibility of Feng Yu making the wrong prediction is slim, he will not take chances. This is also why he did not use all his funds and high leverage to buy gold to rise. He needs to set aside emergency funds and use lower leverages and hedging if his predictions are wrong.

“Brother Feng, Kirilenko, and you have gold mines in Russia?” Fu Guangzheng asked suddenly.

Feng Yu smiled and nodded. “We have invested in lots of minerals in Russia. This is in line with our Chinese custom of loving gold. Russians also love fold.

Li Zekai was in awe. Feng Yu’s net worth will shoot up again. Not only will he make a killing in the Gold Futures market, but his investments in mines will also make high returns.

Li Zekai’s father is right. He is nowhere near to Feng Yu when it comes to investment foresight. Feng Yu had started to invest in minerals many years ago when the former Soviet Union disintegrated and had bought those mines at low prices.

“Brother Feng, I have a friend, who’s family is doing gold business. His family’s brand is one of the top ten jewelry brands in the world. Although they are ranked tenth, their gold accessories are one of the top three in the world. They are looking for a stable supply of gold. Are you interested?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

Feng Yu raised his brows. He seems to know which family Fu Guangzheng is talking about.

“Are you talking about the Zheng family? Didn’t they get their gold from the US, African countries, etc.? I remember they also have some cooperation in China. Why are they interested in working with me?”

“That’s right. It’s the Zheng Family. Their supplier from Africa has some issues, and China has lots of restrictions. Also, they are facing lots of competitors and need to source new suppliers. That’s why they asked me to contact you. I am only asking for them, and it’s up to you to decide.”

Fu Guangzheng implies that this person from the Zheng Family is only an ordinary friend. Feng Yu does not need to agree because of him.

“If he agrees to pay according to international gold prices every month, I can consider cooperating with him. Alright. Help me to ask him out tomorrow. I will speak with him.”

It’s time to sell some of the gold from the mines.

Translator’s note: This chapter is the Author’s fantasy. These Chinese authors always think China is the strongest, most powerful, and all other nations must bow. It’s funny because their media and internet are controlled by the state. They don’t get much access to outside information. How can they determine they are the strongest without comparing themselves with others? From the state-controlled media? Lol.

Chapter 1208 – Big Customer

Zheng Zhigang. When Feng Yu was in Hong Kong, he had met him twice. But at that time, he was still a kid!

Even now, Zheng Zhigang is still a student. A Harvard student, and had returned to Hong Kong for Lunar New Year.

Many might not know about the Zheng Family. Still, most people would have heard of their family’s jewelry business brand, Chow Tai Fook. Many years ago, the Chow family only had a daughter, and she got married to the Zheng family. Thus, this business falls into the hands of the Zheng family.

But the Zheng family’s head is getting old and had passed his authority to his eldest son over the past few years. If it wasn’t for the bad economy and worried about his retirement news will affect the family’s business, he would have retired a long time ago. After all, his eldest son is already fifty-five now.

If the Zheng family’s head is the emperor, the crown prince would have revolted. No crown princes will want to wait for decades for the throne. Of course, the Queen of England is different.

Zheng Zhigang is very lucky to have no brothers and only has two sisters. That means the family business will fall into his hands in the future. He can represent his family to make some decisions despite not owning any of the company’s shares.

“Brother Guangzheng, Brother Feng.” Zheng Zhigang is still in his early twenties, but he is not nervous at all. Most second generations will not be so relaxed in front of Feng Yu, and this left a good impression on Feng Yu.

“Gang Zai. Sit.” Fu Guangzheng said.

The venue of this meeting is a traditional Hong Kong breakfast teahouse. They can chat over food in a private room. There are bodyguards outside, and they are not worried about others eavesdropping.

Zheng Zhigang had ordered some of his favorite dishes and was served within five minutes.

Hong Kong breakfast is special, and Feng Yu likes it. Zheng Zhigang felt more at ease when he saw Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng did not care much about dining etiquette.

After they are done eating, Zheng Zhigang poured tea for Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng, and they lean back on the chair to enjoy it.

“Gang Zai, I had told Brother Feng about you. You two can go ahead to discuss the details. I had left my cigars in my car. I will go and get it.”

Fu Guangzheng made up an excuse to leave the room and left Feng Yu and Zheng Zhigang alone.

“Brother Feng, my family’s Chow Tai Fook is the top jewelry chain stores in Asia. We are also one of the top internationally. But we had recently met with some issues with our suppliers, and I heard from Brother Guangzheng that you own gold mines. We wish to work with you.” Zheng Zhigang sat up straight.

“I know about Chow Tai Fook. You all had invented 99.99% gold product, and it is Asia’s top in diamonds, jade, pearl, precious stones, etc. I will also be happy if we can cooperate. After all, we are Chinese.”

Zheng Zhigang is overjoyed when he heard what Feng Yu said. But he becomes nervous again.

“But… the international gold prices kept rising recently. I estimate the gold price will keep rising this year. We can cooperate, but our gold supply will not be high. Also, I want to settle the payments every month based on international gold prices. That means the prices will keep rising every month. Can you all accept this?”

Gold prices will rise this year, and Feng Yu will not sign a fixed price long-term contract with Chow Tai Fook, which will let them get a good bargain.

Although Feng Yu will still profit from this deal, what will Kirilenko think? After all, Feng Yu likes to take care of his fellow countrymen, which is a Chinese company.

Even if Kirilenko did not voice his displeasure out, he would be feeling unhappy inside. Feng Yu does not want to spoil his friendship with Kirilenko because of Chow Tai Fook.

“Brother Feng, can I ask how much gold your mine can produce each month?” Zheng Zhigang asked. If he can secure a steady supply of gold, he can accept this condition.

Anyway, Chow Tai Fook’s gold accessories are also priced according to international gold prices. They will not absorb the differences because of the rising gold prices.

“How much do you all need?” Feng Yu asked Zheng Zhigang back.

Zheng Zhigang’s eyes brighten up. From Feng Yu’s tone, it seems that he can meet his demand.

“Can we get 300,000 Ounces of 99% and above gold each month?” Zheng Zhigang asked.

This Zheng family wants so much gold? 300,000 Ounce a month is Feng Yu’s gold mine’s maximum production. That means if they cooperate, the Zheng family will be his only customer.

This is also because Chow Tai Fook is also a Tai Hua Supermarket group’s business partner. All of Tai Hua Supermarket’s Hypermart will have a Chow Tak Fook branch. As Tai Hua Supermarket set up more branches, Chow Tai Fook opens up more than 100 new branches.

Currently, Chow Tai Fook is not listed and is not affected by the two financial crises. Their family’s net assets did suffer minimum losses, unlike Superman Li. His net worth had dropped because his shares’ prices had plunged.

Not only Chow Tai Fook is powerful. They had cooperated with other jewelry companies to control the Asia market and uses it to enter the western countries.

That’s why Chow Tai Fook requires a high volume of gold. They used their status to get low priced gold and diamonds from the African companies and supply them to other jewelry companies. That’s why their cooperation with African companies have cracks.

The contract terms differ for different partners.

“300,000 Ounce a month might be a problem. But 200,000 Ounces should not be a problem. When our production increases in the future, we can supply more.” Feng Yu thought for a while and said.

At least 200,000 Ounces a month is equivalent to 2.4 million ounces of gold a year. This amount is sufficient to meet Chow Tai Fook’s demand, as they can still buy back some gold from the market, and they still have other channels.

“No problem. Can we use the average gold price for the month when we settle the payment?”

Feng Yu nodded. “No problem.” If they pick a day in the month to settle the payment, both sides have a chance to be at a disadvantage.

The average price can prevent any side from suffering any losses, and Feng Yu has no problem with this arrangement.

“Can we sign a ten-year contract?” The Zheng Family needs a stable supply of gold, and the longer the contract, the more beneficial it is to them.

Feng Yu nodded. “This is not a problem, but I want to add an additional clause in the contract. Suppose Chow Tai Fook is going to be listed, I hope our Polar Bear Minerals Enterprise will have priority to invest.”

Feng Yu also thinks Chow Tai Fook has potential? Feng Yu is the god of investment, and if he is going to invest in Chow Tai Fook, they will be overjoyed. Furthermore, there’s no reason to reject this clause.”

“This clause can be included in the contract!”

Chow Tai Fook

Chapter 1209 – Buy, buy, buy

Ten years. The next ten years will be the bull run for gold, and no one will expect the gold price to almost reaching 1,900 USD per Ounce.

That’s why Feng Yu wants to control his supply to get the most profits out of it. But since gold prices had started to rise, it’s time to start mining. The mines Kirilenko bought has no problem supplying 300,000 Ounce a month.

But they can make more money in the future and must limit their production now. At the same time, they must bring in newer equipment and technologies to get more profits in the future.

Feng Yu called Kirilenko to discuss with him. Kirilenko agrees without hesitation. If it was not for Feng Yu, he would have started full production to sell their minerals.

Now, Feng Yu has found a big customer for them, and what’s there to hesitate? Furthermore, the terms of this contract are very attractive, and Kirilenko has no reason to reject them.

Kirilenko wakes up with a smile on his face every day, as gold prices keep rising. Everyone is losing money in the stock markets, but they are making money from the gold market.

Although Feng Yu had reminded Kirilenko, there’s no need to use high leverage, but his earnings are still very high. More importantly, he doesn’t need to worry about anything as Feng Yu will inform him if there are any changes.

Kirilenko felt he is blessed to have a good friend like Feng Yu. When people partnered to do business, they will worry the other party will get more authority and power.

But Kirilenko is different. He wishes Feng Yu will interfere with their businesses more often. Every time Feng Yu interferes with their business, he will make more money.

“Feng, what are we going to invest with the money we got from selling our gold?” Kirilenko asked.

“Can you still buy gold mines?” Feng Yu asked.

“Why not? This is not a problem. But gold prices have been rising recently, and those people might not want to sell. Even if they sell, they will demand a high price.” Kirilenko replied worryingly.

“This is not a problem. Gold prices will double within the next four years. Of course, we need to include inflation and our cost, etc. You can decide if it is worth the price. Investing in gold mines will be a profitable business.” Feng Yu explained.

“Gold prices will double within four years?! Alright. Then we should not be focusing on Russia only. We can look at other countries too. I remember there are some gold mines in the US.”

Kirilenko is feeling proud. You, Americans, have always been taking advantage of us Russians. This time I will be the one taking advantage of you all.

“Ok. If the price is reasonable, we can invest our money.”

“No need. We can get loans. If it is still not enough, we will think of other ways.” Kirilenko laughed.

Although the bank interest is high, their returns from the gold futures market are much higher. That’s why getting loans is worthwhile.

“Alright. You can make the decisions.”

……

After hanging up, Kirilenko immediately asks his men to contact those mine owners in the US. He asked his men to tell those owners that Russia’s Polar Bear Mineral Enterprise wants to acquire their mines. The price is negotiable.

The first company they contacted is Freeport. It is a US mining company with a long history and owns several gold mines.

But this company has intentions to expand their business and does not only want to do gold mining alone. They want to enter the copper, iron, and other metal mining businesses.

However, the company does not have sufficient funds, especially since the US economy is not doing well. Their share prices had also dropped, and they were forced to abolish their plans to acquire another company.

This company can issue new shares to raise funds, but their share prices are very low now. How many new shares must they issue to raise sufficient funds? Also, they must invest in some important projects like upgrading their equipment.

At this time, someone told them that Russia’s top Tycoon wants to buy their gold mines. They heard that this Russian Tycoon is very generous and can ask for a good price since he wants to buy their mines.

The mines under this Tycoon’s company are all located in Russia. Are they going to expand overseas? So, Freeport’s management sent their representatives to meet Kirilenko’s men to see if the offer is right.

If the offer is right, Freeport doesn’t mind selling a few of their gold mines. Last year, gold prices had been unpredictable, and rumors are saying it will rise this year. But who knows?

If the war in Afghanistan ends, the US will become the most attractive market for investors. They will channel their funds to the stock markets again. The gold price might fall when this happens.

Simply put, Freeport’s management felt the US will win soon. The US government had just announced Bin Laden has nowhere to hide!

Kirilenko had used his mining company as collateral to get a large loan from Russia, and negotiations with Freeport went smoothly. He quickly signed the contract to buy six mines located in Indonesia, Australia, the US, and Peru.

When everyone thought this is the end of the Polar Bear Mining Enterprise’s expansion, Barrick Gold’s representative came. They also felt gold’s profits will not be high in the coming few years. Since there are fools who want to buy their mines at high prices, they don’t mind selling them for profits now.

Also, they can use the money to buy other gold mines. Most importantly, they must get past their current crisis now.

The shareholders of Barrick Gold had lost quite a lot in the stock markets, and the mining speed of their gold mines is too slow for them to get money to compensate their losses.

Now, someone is offering high prices for their gold mines, they want to sell them immediately.

Kirilenko reached a deal with Barrick Gold to buy eight gold mines in the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia.

After two rounds of buying, some smaller mining companies started to contact Kirilenko. They only own one or two gold mines, but some of them own perpetual mining rights. That means they can mine until the mine is depleted.

Kirilenko continued to buy without hesitation and bought nine more gold mines.

South Africa’s Anglo Company also sold three gold mines to Polar Bear Mineral Enterprise. In the past few years, the gold prices are not high, and Anglo Company did not make much profit. Furthermore, these mining companies often have a high debt ratio.

A company with no debt, like Polar Bear Mineral Enterprise, is rare in the mining industry. But after taking the loan, Polar Bear Mineral Enterprise’s debt ratio becomes 78%. This is way higher than the warning line. But Kirilenko and Feng Yu are not worried. They can easily transfer funds to repay the debt. Also, their mines are still not operating at full capacity. If they increase their mines’ production, the debt ratio will drop quickly.

Polar Bear Mineral Enterprise now owns 32 gold mines and is the biggest gold mine company in the world!

Translator’s note:

Freeport-McMoRan

Barrick Gold

Anglo American plc

Chapter 1210 – Undrafted NBA players

After the 2002 Lunar New Year, Feng Yu flew to the US. But this time, two Chinese basketball players are flying with him in his plane.

Feng Yu is sending these two players to go into NBA. One of them is a tall and big Mongolian man, and he is going to the Nets. The other fellow, who can almost touch the rim without jumping, is going to the Wind and Rain Team.

Players trading will stop four days after the all-star match. Unless there are major injuries, all trading and signing of new players are not allowed. Luckily these two players’ contracts had been settled earlier, and if they pass the medical test, they can join the team. The medical tests are still decided by the teams.

The Nets are in good shape this year. Kidd did not suffer his knee injury like he did in Feng Yu’s previous life and is still in his top form. During the last two seasons, when they purposely played badly to get the draft picks, he practiced his shooting hard and got into the all-star team.

No matter how well Kidd played and how many assists he got, the fans did not give him the recognition he deserves as he cannot score. For a few seasons, he averages less than 1 point. Although he had more than 10 assists and the most rebounds for a guard, fans still like the players who can score.

With Carter, Gasol, Andrei, and Randolph, joining the team, the Nets suddenly become a contender of the East Champions from a bottom team.

Carter averages 24.3 points, 3.6 assists, 438 rebounds. Kidd averages 18.1 points, 10.9 assists, 8.7 rebounds. Gasol has a chance of getting the Rookie of the Year Award, with 16.9 points, 10.4 rebounds, 4.1 assists, and 1.9 blocks.

Andrei, who had joined the Nets after his contract with Russia, got 13.1 points, 4.4 assists, 5.1 rebounds, 2.1 steals, and 1.8 blocks.

Even Randolph, who was belittled by everyone, had gotten 12.6 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 2.3 assists.

This year, the Nets has five players with average points above 10.

3 of the Nets players had entered this year’s all-star team, and they had almost equal Wind and Rain Team’s record of having 4 players selected into the team. They are Gasol, Andrei, and Randolph. Parker had almost made it into the all-star team.

The Nets are confident they can be the Champions of the Eastern Conference. Still, the Lakers might be the Champions of the Western Conference.

No one in the Nets has the physique to stop Shaq. Both their center forwards are no match for Shaq. Gasol and Randolph also cannot stop him. If they cannot stop Shaq, they will have no chance to become the overall champions.

To Feng Yu, it doesn’t matter if he loses the overall championship, as his team had won it once. But to Kirilenko, if his team cannot become the overall champions, how will he mock Paul Allen? It will not be fun anymore.

Kirilenko searched in Russia and even the former Soviet Union countries for a big center forward that can match Shaq to no avail. Feng Yu recommended Bateer.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Bateer was picked by Spurs to stop Shaq. He managed to stop Shaq and helped with the defense.

The Nets’ scouts immediately went to Bateer after Feng Yu’s recommendation. They saw Bateer’s size and are satisfied after testing his strength. Anyway, they are not asking Bateer to score or get rebounds. They only need him to foul and stop Shaq.

So, the Nets offered Bateer a guaranteed contract.

Suddenly, Feng Yu found a way to get Yao Ming. If Yao Ming were to join this year’s drafts, he will either be the No. 1 pick or the No. 2 picks. He had performed too well in the Sydney Olympics and caught the attention of many scouts.

The only way is to ask Yao Ming not to participate in the drafts and join the Wind and Rain Team directly.

However, Yao Ming’s salary will be much lesser because of the salary cap, and lesser people will notice him if he joins the Wind and Rain Team directly. But Feng Yu promised him that he will get much more in return.

It’s just money. Feng Yu can offer him some advertisement contracts, and his earnings will be much higher than the salary he was supposed to get. Also, Feng Yu can pay reporters to write news about him. If he can perform well, everyone will notice him.

So, Yao Ming signed with the Wind and Rain Team and gave up on the drafts.

These few years, Chinese basketball teams had frequently come to the US to train with the Wind and Rain Team. This lets the Chinese teams know the Americans’ style of playing and how wide the gap is.

Although the size differences between Asians and Caucasians are big, it is just an excuse. Look at Pierce. He is considered average size among the NBA players, but he can still enter the all-star team with his skills.

During the few training sessions, Yao Ming can sense Feng Yu’s love for basketball. He trusts Feng Yu will not cheat him. After all, why would a top tycoon cheat him?

Wen Dongjun had helped speak to the General Administration of Sport, and Yao Ming got the green light to join the Wind and Rain Team.

When news of Yao Ming and Bateer signing with the Wind and Rain Team and the Nets spread, many team owners cried foul!

Yao Ming is supposed to be the No. 1 pick in the drafts. How can he join Wind and Rain Team as an undrafted player? As for that Bateer, the owners can’t be bothered with him. All he has is brute strength and can only qualify as the second-round draft.

This year, teams like the Rockets, Bulls, Warriors, Grizzlies, etc., are trying to raise their standings, and they cried foul for what the Wind and Rain Team did. But they cannot do anything.

They had wanted to pick Yao Ming, as this player had proven himself in international competition.

Just like Gasol last year, he had no problems adapting after joining the NBA and might even get into the all-stars within three years. Many people are saying that Yao Ming has a higher potential than Gasol.

Yao Ming has the height, skills and is fast. Even the Rockets announced they will build a team around him. Although they are rebuilding their team now, they are still not good enough.

So what if these teams cried foul over this? These two players had joined the NBA legally. What’s the problem if Yao Ming wants to give up being the No. 1 pick and higher salaries?

Then what about those all-star players who lower their salaries to try to remain in a team that can win the championships? You all might cry foul now, but if these players are on your team, will you still make noise?

Who are you to judge? If you are capable, you can also persuade those rookies to give up on the draft and join your team.

Feng Yu looks at Yao Ming and Bateer. “Train hard after you all join the teams. You two will be the ones who will revitalize China’s basketball!”

Mengke Bateer

Chapter 1211 – Europe’s Top Billionaire

They had arrived in LA. Although Yao Ming is a newcomer and had joined the team as an undrafted player, no one dares to let him carry his luggage or bully him. Olajuwon had also announced that he will impart all his skills and techniques to him.

The rest of the players knew this guy is their boss’s fellow countryman, and whoever dares to bully him, will be barred from playing or even fired from the team.

There are also rumors that Carter was too arrogant during a friendly match with the Chinese team, and that’s why he was transferred out. If not, why would the team exchange him for Martin? Although Martin was also the No. 1 pick, he was the weakest No. 1 pick! Of course, he is no longer the weakest No. 1 pick as the 2001 drafts, No. 1 pick is even weaker than him!

Jordan doesn’t have eyes for good players.

Kirilenko had also come to LA to pick Bateer and also to chat with Feng Yu.

The gold price had raised a little and dropped suddenly. Kirilenko wants to ask Feng Yu if this is normal.

…….

“Brother Ki, you must be tired recently.” Feng Yu smiled.

“Hahaha… it’s not tiring at all. I had only brought my men to acquire some gold mines. What’s more important is the information you gave me. It’s been a while since you come to the US. What’s wrong? Your wife doesn’t allow you to come?” Kirilenko joked.

“I am the one who doesn’t want to leave her. I will return after a few days here, as I have not much to do here. Staying at home is still more comfortable.” Feng Yu replied lazily.

“You must come and watch my team in the finals. I will be moving my team to Brooklyn next year.”

Feng Yu was shocked. In his previous life, that Russian boss had paid a heavy price to move the Nets to Brooklyn a few years later. How did Kirilenko settle this so easily? Did the association and New York agree to this?

New Jersey and Brooklyn might be separated by a river, but the economic conditions are far apart. The Nets had not played well the past few years and do not have many fans in New Jersey. But with Carter this year, this team will be stronger, and their attendance will be much higher.

Even when the Nets playing better now, and their matches are more exciting, their attendance is only slightly above average. Kirilenko had seen the Wind and Rain Team’s attendance in the past, and it was much worse than the Nets. But they can still sell their tickets at high prices. This is because the people here are rich.

That’s why Kirilenko told the association that he must move. For this move, he paid a heavy price, but it’s worth it.

The sports arena in Brooklyn had started construction last year, and Kirilenko had increased the budget to speed it up. It should be ready this September, and the Nets will be a New York team from then on.

What about the Knicks in New York? They are too lousy, and their fans will switch to support the Nets. Why would the fans not support a championship team and support a bottom team?

Kirilenko had thought about this. He will move this team to New York as champions. This way, New Yorkers will not reject his team and can get a bigger market share. The fans here are wealthier, and the Nets will become like the Knicks to earn money for him.

“Alright. I will come back during the finals.” Feng Yu promised.

The finals should be the Nets vs. Lakers. Lakers is from LA, and to Feng Yu, this is like watching the match at home.

After Feng Yu agreed, he noticed Kirilenko looking dejected and is sighing. What’s wrong with him?

“Brother Ki, is there anything wrong?”

“Sigh… Why is Paul’s Blazer getting bad to worse? If his team can get into the finals, I can let my team trash him. It’s such a pity!”

Feng Yu: “……”

Kirilenko is really determined to humiliate Paul Allen.

“But three days later, we will be facing the Blazers. The last time we won by 18 points. This time, we must win by more than 20 points!” Kirilenko said.

Their bet is still on. If the Nets can sweep the Blazers clean, Paul Allen must make a public statement that his team is no match for the Nets and Kirilenko. He must also bow in front of everyone.

Whenever Kirilenko thought about this, he would laugh.

You, Paul Allen, like to boast in front of me. Why are you not boasting now? You don’t know how to do business, and you also don’t know how to manage a basketball team!

Kirilenko had even thought about what he will say after Paul Allen bows to him in front of the international audience. He must humiliate him in front of the world!

So what if you have high intelligence? Many people are more intelligent than me, but how many of them are as rich as me?!

“Alright. I will return after that match.”

“Oh, Feng. The gold prices had fallen again these few days. Should we do something about it?” Kirilenko asked seriously.

Kirilenko’s gold investment is not a small amount, and he needs to be treating it seriously.

“This is normal fluctuation, and you don’t need to worry about it. Continue to focus on the long-term futures contract. Did you use high leverage?”

“No… I had invested conservatively like your Wind and Rain Consulting. Didn’t you say this investment has risk and we need to be careful? Anyway, the profits will still be high even when we invest prudently.” Kirilenko replied.

“Ok. Although the gold price had dropped slightly, it is still higher than our buy-in price. So, there’s no need to worry. We will just wait for it to rise. If the gold price rises for two to three consecutive days, we can increase our investments slightly. But you must set aside enough emergency funds in case anything goes wrong.” Feng Yu reminded.

“Don’t worry. I will not be greedy, and getting returns of 1 or 2 billion USD is enough.”

If other people heard what Kirilenko said, they would be vomiting blood. Making 2 billion USD in less than a year is not considered greedy? Then what is consider greedy in your eyes?

Getting a 10% return with such a big fund is considered good, and 20% is terrific! Although Kirilenko had invested a large fund into gold, it’s only around a few billion USD. He is targeting returns of around 30%.

“This should not be a problem. You should have made a lot last year, right? Although we are investing conservatively this year, the returns will still be high.”

“Hahaha… I think I will become Europe’s Top Billionaire soon!”

Feng Yu laughed and shook his head. “No. You are already Europe’s Top Billionaire now! Ferrero had left his assets to his wife and children. Although their total assets seem to be very high, it’s split between two people. You should be able to exceed their combined asset before the end of the year. But now, you are already Europe’s Top Billionaire.”

Kirilenko looks dazed. I am already Europe’s top Billionaire? How come no one tells me about this?!

Chapter 1212 – The benevolent Brother Ki

Three days later, Feng Yu and Kirilenko flew to Portland. Indeed, the Nets won the Blazers by 24 points!

Kirilenko even danced by the court to celebrate his team’s victory!

But Paul Allen did not appear at the match, and Kirilenko didn’t have the chance to humiliate him.

Paul Allen was there, but he did not go to the courts. He stayed in his office to watch the match. He knew his team is weaker than the Nets, but he didn’t expect the gap is so wide.

The new coach and manager are not good. Paul Allen decides to replace them in the coming season. He had also thought of throwing away matches to get the top lottery pick. But he knew Kirilenko will try all means to mock him if he does that!

Paul Allen couldn’t understand why his team, which he had spent lots of money to build, cannot produce good results. His players’ stats are not bad but cannot produce good results when they play together.

Especially that Pippen. Paul Allen had snatched him from Feng Yu, but he is getting worse. The new contract he signed is not bad. Since Feng Yu took over the Wind and Rain Team, they had never paid luxury tax and still won the overall champion once!

This year, the Nets are looking good to win the championship. Paul Allen can only hope the Lakers can win the finals as this will prevent Kirilenko from being too arrogant!

Kirilenko dares to claim he will shift to Brooklyn as the overall champion, and the association still approved it?! Those officials that approved this move must have received bribes from Kirilenko! I had openly objected to this, but why are they not doing anything about it?

It will be best if the Nets cannot even win the Eastern Conference. I shall see if you dare to move! Even if you move to New York, the New Yorkers will also not accept you!

……

“Eh, eh, eh… Paul Allen had switched off his phone!” Kirilenko is furious. Paul Allen is not keeping his words. They had agreed that the loser will have to bow and apologize to the other party. Where is he?

Kirilenko had contacted lots of media and want to let the world see Paul Allen’s embarrassment. But he is nowhere to be found and even switches off his phone!

Feng Yu smiled and patted Kirilenko’s shoulder. “Brother Ki, I am guessing that he must be hiding in his office and dare not to come out. Let’s go and look for him. I think he will surely apologize to you if we find him.”

“But no one will know about this.” Kirilenko replied angrily. “How about I get a spy camera and secretly record him bowing to me?”

“Yes. We can even make it into a DVD and give it out for free. This will surely help with the HD DVD player’s sale!”

Even Feng Yu is impressed with Kirilenko’s idea.

This might increase his HD DVD player’s sale, but it is illegal.

Feng Yu does not want Kirilenko to get embroiled in a lawsuit, especially if the courts order him to apologize to Paul Allen.

“Brother Ki, let’s forget it. Later, you can put on a front to let him know that you, Russian, are benevolent and is willing to forgive him. This will show how narrow-minded the Americans are. I dare to bet you that Paul Allen will be even more furious if you stop him from bowing to you!”

Feng Yu wants to let Kirilenko give up that ridiculous idea and still make him happy, so he can only make this suggestion.

Kirilenko rubbed his chin and thought for a while. “What you said is right. I can also give him a lecture, and he wouldn’t dare to retort!”

Feng Yu and Kirilenko made their way to Paul Allen’s office, and Paul Allen knew why they are here for.

Paul Allen had only wanted to meet Kirilenko, but Feng Yu had tagged along.

Paul Allen knew he must apologize to Kirilenko. Otherwise, the latter will keep mentioning their bet in front of the media. It will be more embarrassing that way.

“Let Kirilenko enter and stop Feng Yu.”

Paul Allen had not bet with Feng Yu, and why should he let Feng Yu humiliate him?

……

“What? You all want to stop him?! Do you know who he is? This is Feng. He is your boss’s old friend! Go away! Stop blocking us!” Kirilenko shouted. But his English was so bad that the other party couldn’t understand.

Kirilenko looks at his bodyguards, and they went forward to push Paul Allen’s assistant away. After that, Feng Yu and Kirilenko entered Paul’s office.

“Paul, your good friends are here to visit you.” Kirilenko shouted.

Kirilenko had said this sentence clearly, but Paul Allen looks like he had just swallowed a fly.

Who the hell is your good friend?! I have never been friends with you two!

He can hear the commotion outside earlier, but he never expects Kirilenko to barge in like this. This is his turf, Portland!

“Hi, Paul. You don’t even have coffee here? A can of Qi Li is also fine.” Feng Yu smiled.

“I don’t have Qi Li! Our team will never drink that stuff! I also don’t have coffee here! I only got distilled water! Go and pour yourself!” Paul Allen shouted furiously. He waved to his assistants, who had just gotten into the office. What the hell are you all doing earlier?

I had asked you all to stop Feng Yu! Why didn’t you stop him?!

Kirilenko walked over to Paul Allen and looked down at him.

Paul Allen clenched his teeth and got up to apologize to him. But when he was about to bow, Kirilenko stopped him. “Paul, what are you doing? That bet was only a joke!”

Paul Allen was stunned. That was a joke?

Kirilenko’s English is not good, and he turned to Feng Yu. Feng Yu smiled and said. “Paul, Kirilenko is saying that he had treated that bet as a joke and didn’t mind it at all. Russians are all benevolent and forgiving.”

Paul Allen’s face turned red with anger. What are you all talking about? Russians are all benevolent and forgiving? Are you implying that I am narrow-minded?

Although Paul Allen did not bow and apologize, he felt more frustrated now. Especially after seeing the expression on Kirilenko’s face.

Kirilenko and Feng Yu! You two better watch out!

Chapter 1213 – The Current Situation of the Beverage alliance

Feng Yu returned to Shanghai. The Beverage Alliance’s product sales had hit a bottleneck again.

Feng Yu had put in lots of effort to gather all the Chinese beverage manufacturers to form this alliance for exportation of their products and enter the big supermarket chains.

The sales had risen sharply initially, but these companies are not making money. Firstly, their products are produced in China and shipped overseas. Secondly, the marketing cost is too high. The companies had spent a lot on promotions and lucky draws.

As the West’s bottling factories are set up, the transportation cost is lowered, and they also slowed down their advertising. The sales continued to increase slowly, and they started getting profits.

Lehaha, Jianlibao, Huiyuan, Le Bashi, Coconut water, etc., are doing the best. These few companies’ brands are also the most popular.

In Asia, Lehaha, Jianlibao and Coconut Water are the most popular, and in the West, Lehaha, Jianlibao, and Huiyuan, are more accepted by the westerners, and Le Bashi’s sales are the lowest.

Le Bashi had created problems and keep wanting to introduce new products.

When Le Bashi saw Lehaha introduced a soft-drink and suppressed the two Cola giants, they felt they should also produce carbonated drinks.

Le Bashi started to produce their soft-drinks, and it is sweeter than Lehaha’s Refresh drinks. But they made the same mistake as Jianlibao in Feng Yu’s previous life. They started advertising, but their production cannot meet the demand.

The distributors want to order, but Le Bashi cannot fulfill their orders!

The distributors are furious. Why are you all advertising when you all don’t have the goods? Your company has too much money and doesn’t know where to spend?!

So, the distributors in China are angry with Le Bashi. If it wasn’t for Le Bashi to have its own distribution channels in the South, they would have been in the red last year.

When Le Bashi saw Lehaha and Jianlibao introduced tea beverages, they felt it’s just adding tea leaves and water and introducing their own tea beverage.

The last time, Le Bashi had made their drinks too sweet, and this time, they made it too bland. It tastes just like ordinary tea people drink at home.

Your beverage taste like the tea people drink at home. Why would people buy it? Taste is most important for a beverage. People are willing to accept tea beverages, but it must taste like a beverage first!

Le Bashi saw their beverages are not selling well, they started to introduce new dairy product favors.

Le Bashi starts to invent new yogurts. Lehaha had introduced fruit yogurts, so can we. We will introduce high-end yogurt products and sell them higher than Lehaha.

This time, Le Bashi did not make any mistake. But there are several dairy companies in China now. These companies have their own farms, and their dairy products are selling better.

Even Lehaha don’t dare to sell milk, but Le Bashi went ahead and priced it higher than other companies in the market. Without a doubt, they failed again.

After that, Le Bashi decides to go into energy drinks. They worked with Thailand’s Red bull to produce their own sports drink, Mai Dong. Red bull is in cans, and Mai Dong is in a bottle.

Red Bull is very similar to Qi Li Energy drinks, and Mai Dong is selling on its vitamin contents.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Red Bull had entered the Chinese market much earlier. They did not go into any joint venture with a Chinese company, and Lehaha did not introduce Qi Li. That’s why Red Bull quickly gains a foothold in China.

In this life, Qi Li appeared in the market earlier, and its packaging is blue. Although Red Bull’s can is gold in color and has a blue bull logo, the name makes people feel it is imitating Qi Li.

But Red Bull had a longer history, but the Chinese do not know.

Although the concept of including vitamins in sports drinks is good, the taste is ordinary, and many people cannot feel the effects after drinking it. People felt it is not as refreshing as Qi Li.

That’s right. Qi Li contains caffeine, and how can a drink with vitamins make someone alert?

Le Bashi started moving further away in the wrong direction. They were formerly one of the core companies in the Beverage Alliance. Still, they are on the verge of becoming an outsider now.

Le Bashi cannot win against their competitors in China, and their overseas sales are not doing well. They even went into joint ventures with other companies, but it did not yield any result.

Xurisheng Group, Zhenzhen, and a few companies also withdrawn from the overseas market to focus on the domestic market. They realized their cost did not lower much if they get the Alliance’s bottling plants to produce their drinks, and they cannot keep up with the marketing. The Westerners also don’t like the taste of their drinks, and it’s better to give up.

These companies’ products are also not doing well in China and should forget about the overseas market. But these companies did something different from Le Bashi. They went to discuss with Zhong Qingxian first. We will not participate in overseas sales. Still, we will continue to supply some of our products because of the contract. If there’s no problem with the contract, please let us withdraw.

What can Zhong Qingxian say? The other party had approached him with sincerity, and he had been unwilling to let them join in the first place. These products are packaged with Lehaha, Jianlibao, and other companies’ products to enter the overseas supermarket chains. Without them, Lehaha and Jianlibao can display more products.

Zhong Qingxian is not worried about these companies giving up the overseas market to focus on the domestic market. The only beverage company that can compete with Lehaha is Jianlibao. But they are one of their own, and Coconut water is different. This product was served in the State Banquet, and it tastes very good. Le Bashi had also introduced coconut beverage but failed.

Huiyuan is only producing fruit juice, pure fruit juice. Their positioning is different from Lehaha and Jianlibao, and the competition is not big. Also, Lehaha had bought a stake in Huiyuan. Although it’s only a minor stake, they are also considered one big family. More importantly, Huiyuan needs a good sales channel, and Lehaha has the most comprehensive sales distribution channel in China.

Xurisheng’s tea beverage sale is only average and is only good in their province. Out of their province, they are nothing.

Jiaduobao, which Feng Yu felt has high potential, is slowly opening up new markets along the coast. They had also given up on the overseas market as the Westerners don’t have the concept of ‘heatiness,’ which is one of their selling points.

Jianlibao is also in talks with Jiaduobao to invest in them. It will be terrific if they can be successful. But it’s a pity that they are not successful in getting a stake in the Coconut Water company.

The two Cola giants, Tong Yi, Kang Shifu, and other beverage companies are still limited to the villages. Their plan of taking over the villages to surrounding the cities is only half successful.

These companies might have high brand awareness in the village markets, but no one likes them as they are not advertising on TV once they enter the city.

These companies rely only on putting up posters on walls around the cities, and it looks low-class!

Lehaha and Jianlibao also started to open up the village markets. The two Cola giants failed to penetrate the City markets, and their markets were shrunk further. They regretted choosing Tong Yi and Kang Shifu as partners now.

The two Cola giants still had some brand awareness in the Provincial cities then. But after cooperating with Tong Yi and Kang Shifu, their brand awareness got lowered. In another two years, they might be forced to withdraw from the Chinese market!

Feng Yu had come to Shanghai to discuss with Zhong Qingxian how to further open up the overseas market!

Chapter 1214 – Setting sights on their future celebrity endorsers

“Manager Feng, our overseas sales for the last quarter had entered a bottleneck. The first quarter of this year is ending, but our sales are still not improving. I know winter is the off-peak season for beverage sales. Still, the two Cola giants had started an aggressive marketing campaign in Europe and the US. If we don’t take any measures, our beverages, other than tea beverages and energy drinks, might enter negative growth.”

The two Cola giants do not only have carbonated drinks. They have fruit juice beverages too. But these beverages are under the brands they acquired. In the carbonated drinks market, they are still the biggest. With aggressive advertising and their partners’ help and distribution channels, they quickly suppressed the Chinese Beverage Alliance’s products.

Suppose it wasn’t for the contracts with the big supermarket chains and the energy drinks and tea beverages. In that case, the Beverage Alliance might have suffered losses last year.

“What do you suggest we should do first?”

“Increase our brand awareness. We need more advertisements and promotions. Our investment in advertising last year is too low. I think we should continue to advertise aggressively.”

Feng Yu frowned. “Advertisement is a must. The two Cola companies had never stopped advertising. But how are we going to advertise? Which media should we use? This must be considered carefully.

“We will still focus on TV advertisements. Although the internet is developing very fast, internet users are still lagging behind TV viewers. Also, when most people finish work, they will choose to watch TV.” Zhong Qingxian said.

“Ok. Since this is the case, we must advertise with TV stations with channels that are aired all over the country. Their peak-period advertising slots are very expensive and are even higher than our CCTV. But the number of viewers is much lesser than CCTV. Have you calculated if this is worthwhile?”

“But this is our only solution to promote our products. Also, I think we can hire more popular celebrities for endorsements. But this will increase our advertising cost further.”

“Who are you going to hire?”

“Athletes or movie stars. These are the two that are very popular with the consumers. We can also consider singers. What’s most important is that their public image must be good and leave a lasting impression on the consumers. It would be best if we can get both men and women.”

“That means you have someone in mind. Tell me, who are you targeting?”

“For athletes, football (Soccer) has the most fans, followed by basketball and tennis, athletics, etc. I am thinking of signing a football star and a basketball star. Our contracts with the football athletes had ended, and their popularity had declined. That’s why I feel we need to change. We are thinking of signing Beckham, but he is currently endorsing Pepsi.”

Feng Yu broke out in cold sweat. Beckham is currently the football celebrity with the highest commercial value. You really dare to dream!

“Do you have anyone else in mind?”

“Yes. Oliver Kahn, German goalkeeper. But Coca-Cola is in talks with him, and they are making a high offer.”

The No.1 goalkeeper, Kahn? This is a good choice, but Feng Yu remembered Brazil had won the World Cup this year. That’s right. Ronaldinho shot to fame after this World Cup!

“Have you all contacted Ronaldinho? He is from Brazil.”

“Huh? I have not heard of him.” Zhong Qingxian looks puzzled. He had heard of Ronaldo, but who is Ronaldinho? Ronaldo’s son?

“You have not heard of him? That’s great. This means he is still not famous yet. Go and contact his agent and sign a long-term contract with him.”

“For basketball, Carter is still under contract with us. Just continue to use him. Oh, also sign Yao Ming too. He will be a great player in the future and can attract our domestic market.”

“For tennis, there is a player called Roger Federer. See if it is possible to sign him. For women, you can pick a Russian tennis player, Maria Sharapova.”

Zhong Qingxian quickly wrote down these names.

“We should also start planning ahead. Those big sportswear brands start sponsoring young athletes and will sign contracts with them once they turn professional. We can also do the same and offer some athletes long-term contracts for sponsorship. They are not famous now and will not be expensive.”

“Manager Feng, what if they did not do well in the future? Our investments will be wasted.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes at Zhong Qingxian. “Which investment is 100% risk-free? This is similar to venture capital investment. Since those sportswear companies dare to take the risk, why can’t we do the same? More importantly, those well-known athletes had been signed by them. How are you going to bring them over? The penalty of breaking the contract is astronomical!”

Feng Yu had only made this remark casually, but the more he thought, the more he thought it would work. Those top athletes in the future are still unknowns now. If he can sign them now, he can save a lot in the future. This might seem to be a bad decision now, but it will be advantageous in the future.

Also, these athletes are not going to endorse beverage products only. They can also endorse other products for Wind and Rain electronics, Songjiang cars, etc.

Yes. We can sign a package endorsement deal with them!

“Alright. We will look out for outstanding young athletes. Do you have anyone to recommend?”

“There is a Spanish tennis player call Nadal. He is still a newcomer in tennis. For football, go and sign a Portuguese player named Ronaldo. He should be younger than 18 years old now, but he will be a great player in the future. For track and field, look out for a kid named Usain Bolt. He is from Jamaica.”

“Manager Feng, how do you know about these people?” Zhong Qingxian asked curiously.

“Oh, I heard from Mr. Li Ning that they are going to get some foreign athletes to endorse for their products. So, I got my men to help. That’s when I realized most of the young athletes had been signed by Nike, Adidas, etc., at a young age, and this is why I got this idea.”

Zhong Qingxian nodded.

“What about movie stars?”

“We had been working well with Johnny Depp, and we should extend his contract. Also, Matt Damon had just signed an endorsement deal with Wind and Rain Mobile phone. You can contact him. I think he is not endorsing any beverage companies. He had acted in <Saving Private Ryan> and had also won the Oscar.”

Those are all in the past. But <The Bourne Identity> will be screened this year, and Matt Damon’s fame will rise furthermore.

“Alright. I had taken down all the names. I will get my men to contact them and will inform you once we signed them.”

Oliver Kahn

2002 FIFA World Cup Final

Ronaldinho

Roger Federer

Maria Sharapova

Rafael Nadal

Usain Bolt

Matt Damon

The Bourne Identity

Chapter 1215 – Internet TV Station

Feng Yu suddenly remembered some variety shows in his previous life, especially those talent search shows, which had swept across many nations. If they can get the naming sponsorship of these programs, it will be very effective. If they can produce these variety shows now, they can also collect copyright fees.

Feng Yu will not only collect copyright fees. He will impose additional conditions, like product placements for all his products, together with the rights. Like the Japanese Anime sold to China, it must come along with Panasonic home appliances advertisements.

But first, Feng Yu must have a program that is aired. He does not want to continue his cooperation with CCTV anymore. The <Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary> and <Songjiang – Lucky Fifty-Two> rights are all taken away by CCTV.

This time, Feng Yu is planning to export the copyright rights. It doesn’t matter how much money he can make from it. What’s more important is the program must attract lots of viewers and can promote its products.

For example, Got Talent show will appear a few years later and is popular throughout many countries. The franchise was sold to many countries, and the various versions are equally popular.

The production of this program is simple. All you need is to get three celebrities as judges and get some talented performers through auditions. As long as the judges like the performance, the performer can move on to the next stage. Three crosses mean the performer is eliminated.

China has a high population and has all sorts of talents. Feng Yu believed that if this program is produced, it will be popular around the first.

Feng Yu needs a platform to air this program. Although Sohu’s Online Video platform is up and running, it is limited by China’s internet infrastructure. Not a lot of people are watching videos online, and it is still losing money.

The US’s internet is more established, and a few online video platforms had appeared. But they are still in the losing money phase like Sohu.

All these platforms have the same target. They want to attract users to increase their profits in the future.

But Feng Yu had thought of a solution. He will sell the broadcasting rights to CCTV but will hold on to the program’s copyrights.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, most people who use the internet or owns a mobile phone would have heard or watched Internet TV before.

But Feng Yu is going to set up a PC internet TV. That means the user can watch TV programs on their PC. There are lots of internet TVs and online TV set up by major TV stations in China in his previous life,

The TV stations’ advantage is they own the rights of lots of programs. Not only do they telecast live programs, but they also offer video-on-demand services. These features are later used in TV boxes.

After that, internet TV expanded to mobile phones and can be broadcast over the mobile network, making it more convenient. Many working young adults do not have a TV at home, and they watch TV programs on their PC or mobile phones.

TV box’s fees are more expensive than internet fees. If the PC monitor is big, it will feel like you are watching TV. The only disadvantage is if the internet is not stable, it will affect the user experience.

But Feng Yu is going to set up a miniature version of Internet TV. The live broadcast is limited to broadband and is not feasible now. But playing recorded programs is not a problem.

Those that missed the TV shows can go on the internet to watch the program. Not only the TV stations’ can advertise for this online platform, but Feng Yu can also advertise his products on this platform.

But the core issue is how is he going to get the operating rights for internet TV and the approval for setting up an internet TV station?

China still has not separated TV program productions from TV stations, and there are not many production companies around. All the TV programs are produced by the TV stations.

This will be something new, and it will be challenging the TV stations’ status. But Feng Yu believe he will succeed.

…….

“Station Chief Jia, which are the departments I should get the approvals from?” Feng Yu crossed his legs and sip on his tea.

“Manager Feng, what is this Internet TV station? Since when the TV stations in China can be privately operated?” Station Chief Jia is speechless. This Feng Yu is always coming up with lots of new and weird ideas.

“Much earlier, the newspapers in our country are also government-owned. But the government allowed private companies to publish newspapers later on. This includes magazines, publishers, etc. these are all news media. If the newspaper is allowed, why is a TV Station not allowed? Furthermore, our internet TV station can accept CCTV guidance.”

Feng Yu thought to himself. It’s only guidance, and you all cannot direct us in anyways.

“Manager Feng, there is no precedence for this.”

“There is a first for everything. Remember, I told you TV programs can do product placements in the past? You all are doing that for all your TV programs now. I mentioned program name sponsorship, and how many of your programs are doing that now? Even a TV series have name sponsorship.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. It is useless to say all these. Just tell me what you want in exchange. This is not the first time we cooperate. Do you think I don’t know what you are thinking?

“Manager Feng, I know what an Internet TV station is and know it exists overseas. But our country’s internet infrastructure is not good enough, and it will not work here.”

“Station Chief Jia, don’t think you can fool me. Our country has the intention of setting up digital TV, right? My internet TV station is also considered a type of digital TV, and the programs will be digitalized and broadcasted through IP. This can be considered a pilot test for you all. If we succeed, CCTV can also set up its own Internet TV station. This is also consider getting experiences for you all, right?”

The government is discussing entering digital media and is thinking of ways of integrating the traditional media. As China’s top TV station, CCTV must set an example.

“Manager Feng, even if the higher-ups agree to use your Internet TV Station for pilot testing, but do you all have content? I mean TV programs, and how are you all going to operate? How are you all going to generate revenues? Have you consider the broadcasting channels, database, etc.?”

Feng Yu raised his brows. No wonder Station Chief Jia can head CCTV. All these questions are on point. Feng Yu had asked lots of professionals, for example, Kameda Masao, who owns a TV station, and know the importance of all these.

“I can settle all these. What we need now is this platform. Also, we need to work with CCTV temporarily. You all will provide your station’s program and broadcasting rights. Also, we will provide CCTV with more interesting TV shows, and you all don’t need to keep telecasting reruns all the time…”

Feng Yu continued and said a lot, and Station Chief Jia started frowning.

Chapter 1216 – Sohu Channel

Station Chief Jia walks out from his leader’s office with a resigned look. His leader also felt Feng Yu is ridiculous!

It is not because this idea will not work, or such Internet TV stations cannot be privately owned. But it should be CCTV to set it up first before they allow private entities to do it.

All industries in China are started by the Government first before private entities can enter.

What? You said Tai Hua Supermarket is something new? Our country has supply and marketing cooperatives first, right? It’s the same.

Even the Government set up internet companies first before they can be privately owned!

This internet TV is good, and everyone had been discussing it. Let CCTV set up its own internet TV first.

…….

“Station Chief Jia, you are saying you all want to do it yourselves, and we must wait until you all succeed before we are allowed to set up our Internet TV station? It’s not I am belittling you all. Do you know how much investment is needed to set up an Internet TV station for PC?”

“How much?” Station Chief Jia asked.

“Bot a lot. It’s just a few hundred million… USD.” Feng Yu casually replied.

Sohu and Feng Yu have money, but CCTV does not have a few hundred million USD.

Feng Yu might sound exaggerated, as a few hundred million RMB is enough to set up an Internet TV in the future. But for now, it is not enough.

The website, servers, database, programs, movies, and TV series’ broadcasting rights all cost money.

Also, experienced staff is critical. Does CCTV have such talents? Yes, but not a lot compared to Sohu.

Sohu had started its online video platform, and it is the top Chinese video platform. Although most of the videos were downloaded, and very few users are watching them through streaming. However, at least they still have some users watching the videos online.

CCTV has zero experience!

“Manager Feng, are you sure we need to invest so much?” Station Chief Jia’s hand shook. A few hundred million USD? Even if the currency is in RMB, CCTV also cannot afford it.

“You can calculate how much Sohu had invested and the funds they gathered from being listed. If they had not invested most of their advertising revenue into this, they would be profitable like NetEase, a long time ago.”

NetEase is the first to be profitable, followed by Sina. But Sohu, Baidu, and Tencent are still losing money.

But Feng Yu believe these three companies will start making money within the next two years. Also, Alibaba, which Feng Yu had invested, should have made money. But because they started developing a new website, they are still in the red now.

Feng Yu can afford these losses for the next three to five years, as the returns will be ten times or even a hundred times in the future!

“Manager Feng, how about we cooperate?” Station Chief Jia asked.

“Cooperate? Didn’t I have been talking about cooperating? CCTV can sell the broadcasting rights to Sohu, and we can cooperate. Also, if Sohu has any creative program ideas, they can let CCTV produce the program. How else do you want to cooperate?”

“Can CCTV invest in Sohu?”

“No!”

CCTV investing in Sohu?! They will ask for voting shares, and it will dilute Tai Hua Consultancy and Zhang Chaoyang and his team’s shares. Even if Zhang Chaoyang agrees, Feng Yu will not agree.

The most difficult phase is almost over, and how can CCTV just come in to reap the benefits? Even without internet TV, Sohu can also make high profits with its video website!

“Manager Feng, everything will be easier if CCTV can invest in Sohu. If now, the higher-ups will not grant the approvals.” Station Chief Jia replied with a troubled expression.

“Stop it. This is not our first meeting, and we have known each other for some time. If it’s not possible, you will tell me straight.” Feng Yu sneered.

Station Chief Jia smiled. They know each other for a long time, and he knew these little tricks will not work.

“Manager Feng, I had helped you a lot in our CCTV advertising slots bidding and had also helped you to kick out those Japanese, Korean, and American products, right?”

“That’s right. You had helped us, but we did not let CCTV suffer any losses. In fact, you all had gained more.”

“You asked me to help promote your companies, and I had let <Oriental Horizon> and <Focus Report> to report on it. We had also promoted your companies through other TV shows.”

“You all are supposed to promote good enterprises and their representatives. Which one of my companies and its executives are not qualified to be featured on your TV shows?” Feng Yu retorted.

Before Station Chief Jia can say anything, Feng Yu continued. “Also, how many creative TV shows have I suggested to CCTV? How many suggestions had I made to help you all generate revenue? CCTV wants to build a new building, and I had also donated to you all. Who is it that settled the copyrights issue for CCTV? Who had paid for the broadcasting rights for those Hong Kong movies?”

“Alright… alright…. I know you had made significant contributions. Those TV program ideas you suggested must include your products’ advertisements. The revenue-generating ideas are not bad, but we cannot get approval for those beauty pageant programs you suggested. How can we let girls parade in swimsuits on national TV? You had also donated money for our building, but the name of the road in front of the building was changed to Tai Hua Road. You had paid for the broadcasting rights for those Hong Kong movies. Still, we must interrupt the movie with your Aiwa DVD player’s advertisements.”

“Eh… Station Chief Jia, let’s not talk about all these. Just tell me how you are going to settle my Internet TV station for me. If there’s nothing you can do, I will think of other ways.” Feng Yu skipped those topics and continued talking like they are old friends.

Station Chief Jia looks at Feng Yu speechlessly. After so many years, Feng Yu’s business had grown a lot. But why is he still behaving like this?

“You all are not allowed to set up your own Internet TV station, but it is fine for you all to produce Internet TV programs.”

Feng Yu immediately asked. “Then we will not call it Sohu TV Station. It should not be a problem if we call it Sohu Channel, right?”

The smile on Station Chief Jia’s face froze. How come he felt he had let Feng Yu exploit a loophole? Sohu Channel? The viewers will think it is a TV Station.

But if it is called Sohu Channel, it will not be against the regulations, and the higher-ups might approve.

“Fine. Just call it Sohu Channel, but you cannot set up a second or third channel!” Station Chief Jia warned.

Station Chief Jia knew if he did not say this, Feng Yu would exploit this loophole again.

“Don’t worry. The approval for Internet TV station should be out when we decided to set up a second channel. If not, I will buy a TV station in Hong Kong. This is not against the rules, right?”

“Save it. If you do that, it will be hard for me to help you. Alright. Get your men to meet me. I will teach him how to get the approvals. Let me make it clear. If you cannot produce one or two good TV programs, my side will not stop our cooperation!”

“Don’t worry. I guarantee you will not bear to give up this cooperation!”

Chapter 1217 – Talent search

Feng Yu told Zhang Chaoyang about it. The latter immediately sent his deputy over to meet with Station Chief Jia. It is vital to Sohu if they can cooperate with CCTV and get their programs’ broadcasting rights.

“Sohu needs to set up a TV program production center. We will produce our own original TV shows and let CCTV air them. This is separating production and broadcasting!”

“We are going to produce our own shows and let CCTV air it?! Is it possible?!” Zhang Chaoyang’s jaw dropped. They are talking about CCTV, and why would they want their TV shows?

CCTV is a massive entity, and all the top TV producers in China are working for them. Why would they be interested in Sohu’s production?

“Why not? It will not be a problem if we can produce good TV shows. I am not afraid to let you know that <Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary> and <Songjiang – Lucky Fifty-two> are my ideas.”

Zhang Chaoyang is impressed. These two TV shows had been popular for years, and its Manager Feng’s ideas.

Seems like what Manager Feng said might still be possible.

“Manager Feng, we have another issue. We don’t have a recording studio for our programs.”

“Just rent the venue from Beijing TV Station. They will agree if we pay them. Also, we can use our Wind and Rain Building’s Grand hall with some decorations.”

“Ah?! How can we use it? That’s not even a proper stage.”

“It’s only for the audition, and you don’t need a proper stage. You can also rent some small theaters. Just see which is better and more worthwhile.”

“Wait… Manager Feng, what do you mean by auditions?” Zhang Chaoyang is confused.

“Have you watched crosstalks or singing competitions?” Feng Yu asked.

“I had watched Cross-talks before. I like to listen to this.”

“That’s right. For a TV program, how many crosstalk performances do you need? What if there are a lot of people registering for it? We must pick the best performance. The entry-level for our program is lower, and anyone can participate as long as he is not a criminal. We will let these participants go through auditions and pick the better ones to appear on our program. This will make the show better and more exciting!”

“Oh, you are saying that we will pick those that are suitable to appear on our show through auditions, right?”

“That’s right.” Feng Yu replied. Zhang Chaoyang has a good understanding.

“But the scale will be very big. What if there are too many people registering for this program? Also, what should we do if there are a lot of outstanding performances?”

“Split them into four seasons. This program will be aired weekly. The first ten weeks will be used to pick the ones that can enter the next stage, and the last two weeks will be the finals. The talented performers will be split into different seasons, and we can guarantee they can move on to the next stage. This way, every season will be exciting. As for the winner, just give a Songjiang-Oriental Deer and 1 million RMB as the prize. Oh, we can also set up an agency and tell them that all of them have a chance to sign with our agency and will become a celebrity!”

“Manager Feng, is the prize money too high?”

“Too high? But if it’s not high, it will not be exciting. Look at the youth singing competitions. The prize money is so little, and the winner can only get a stupid trophy. What can you do with it? Even if the winner gets to enter the Cultural Arts Troupe, they are only paid pathetically. If they can become a superstar, they can earn a lot more. Just shooting an advertisement might be more than their one year’s salary.”

“But what about the directors and production crew? We don’t have these staff. We need an experienced team to produce this show, right?” Zhang Chaoyang asked.

“Hahaha… I had thought about this. I have someone in mind for the Chief Director. Chen Peisi. The judges will be Zhu Shimao, Na Ying, and Aaron Kwok. This cast must be made up of superstars. As for the lightings, camera crew, etc., Chen Peisi will handle it.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Chen Peisi had fallen out with CCTV due to royalties’ issues and was blacklisted for many years.

In this life, Feng Yu had helped CCTV paid their broadcasting rights. It is not a big amount, but it helped settle the conflict. Chen Peisi had still fallout with CCTV, but it was not as serious. At least, he was not blacklisted.

These two years, Chen Peisi could not write a good script and was staying at home. When Feng Yu told him he wants him to direct a TV program, he becomes interested. He had directed movies, TV series, plays but had never directed variety shows.

Chen Peisi has a crew, and if it is not enough, he can poach from other TV stations. Many people working in TV stations are not used to be working under strict restrictions. But if they can move over to Sohu, they might do better.

Feng Yu chose Ma Xi as the host of this program. He is the son of a famous Cross talker and is humorous. Furthermore, this program doesn’t need a good host. Feng Yu had wanted to get someone from CCTV but was rejected.

“Manager Feng, the production fees for this program will be too high, and you had set such high prize money. Will we lose money?” Zhang Chaoyang asked worryingly.

“Who says? Those judges, directors, and crew might be high, but they will be giving us a discount. After all, they are also trying this out, and they are my friends. As for the car and prize money, it will be sponsored by Bing City Manufacturing Group. The stage will be sponsored by Lehaha, and we will let them do some product placements. Other brands like Aiwa, Wind, and Rain, Lenovo, etc., will also be sponsoring this program, and all we need to do is to show their advertisements in between the show.”

“After this TV program is ready, we will let CCTV air it for free. But they can only air it once and cannot repeat it. Also, they are not allowed to re-edit it or cover any parts of the footage. They must air all the advertisements.”

“This is equivalent to CCTV helping us to advertise, and we are paying them for the adverting slots through this program, right?”

“Yes. Station Chief Jia had agreed, and everything will be fine as long as this program is good. We can also make a viewer voting segment during the finals. We can work with a mobile telecommunication company for viewers to vote for the winner through SMS. We can get some revenue from this.”

What Feng Yu said are what those TV programs from his previous life did. He consolidated all those ideas to form this <Wind and Rain – Got Talent Show>. It will definitely be more popular than other variety shows now.

“Don’t worry about all these. You only need to set up the online platform now. After this program is aired, and CCTV is not doing any reruns, people will have to come to our platform to watch it. Regardless they download it or watch it online, the number of users will increase. We can also buy broadcasting rights of other TV stations’ programs, movies, TV series, etc. In the future, when people want to watch a certain program, they might not know which channel it is on. But they will know it will be available on our Sohu Channel!”

Chen Peisi

Zhu Shimao

Na Ying

Aaron Kwok

Ma Dong

Chapter 1218 – Huayi Brothers

Feng Yu told Zhang Chaoyang that they can package the selected participants like celebrities and make them into superstars in the future. But Zhang Chaoyang doesn’t want to set up a talent agency as he is unfamiliar with this industry. He also doesn’t know how to package them like celebrities.

Since Zhang Chaoyang is unwilling to set up, Feng Yu had to do it.

When Feng Yu went to Korea, he had met Weng Zhijian, who was working for a Korean Entertainment Agency as a leader. His job is to package the celebrities and promote them.

Although Weng Zhijian is familiar with promoting Korean artists, it might be hard for him to set up a talent agency. Feng Yu is also not familiar with this industry as he had not noticed it in his previous life.

At this time, Tai Hua Consultancy’s Sun Lijie told Feng Yu a piece of good news. Tai Hua Consultancy had invested in a company called Huayi Brothers and owned 33% of its shares. They can work with this company.

Feng Yu had not paid attention to Tai Hua Consultancy. They were surprised to know he owns the shares of his previous life’s China’s top Entertainment Company!

Feng Yu made a mental note to see what other companies Tai Hua Consultancy had invested in. Maybe there are some companies with high potential among them.

Sun Lijie contacted Huayi Brothers, and they agreed immediately. They know the people from this TV show will have some fame after it was aired, and they can arrange for them to perform at gala dinners around China.

Another reason is that they want to have more cooperation with Feng Yu. If they can get Feng Yu’s support, it will be great for the company. Also, if the company has a financial issue, Feng Yu can give them a hand.

Also, the Huayi Brothers want to try working with a production company. In the future, they might also start making their own TV shows. Furthermore, this program will be aired on CCTV and can be considered working with them.

Weng Zhijian resigned and joined Huayi Brothers after he resigned and returned. Wang Zhongjun interviewed him and made him a Deputy Director of Promotion.

……

“Manager Feng, you are finally here. It’s an honor to meet you.” Wang Zhongjun greeted Feng Yu warmly.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he had seen this person on TV several times. He always looks serious most of the time, but his younger brother is always smiling.

“Thank you. I had been thinking of entering the entertainment industry. All this while, I felt our Chinese entertainment industry had been developing too slowly. I think the first Chinese movie that made money is directed by your company’s Director Feng, right? I remembered our Wind and Rain Home Appliances had bought its copyrights and made it into VCDs.”

“That’s right. This is something our company is proud of. Manager Feng, let me introduce our company.”

Feng Yu smiled and waved his hand. “No need. I will not understand even if you tell me this. Since you all can get to this scale, that means you all must have something better than others.”

Feng Yu really doesn’t know how a talent agency works. He only knows the agency gets commissions from the jobs assigned to its artists. Still, the things to look out for is different from other industries.

“What about the company’s financial status? I think I should report to you on this.”

“No need. Tai Hua Consultancy had assigned stationed a staff here in the Finance Department, and I believe you all will not disappoint me.”

Feng Yu is very confident. Although Huayi Brothers had grown big now, it is very easy if he wants to destroy it. In Feng Yu’s previous life, one of Huayi’s artists’ contracts ended, and she brought 18 other celebrities to join its competitor.

Feng Yu does not need to poach any of its artists. He can just use his government connections to blacklist its artists. Of course, Feng Yu will not do that. With his status, no one will dare to try anything funny with him.

“Then Manager Feng, why are you here?” Wang Zhongjun was puzzled. Since you are not here to find out more about the company and look at the accounts, why are you here? You want to chat with me?

Wang Zhongjun could never guess the reason why Feng Yu is here. He is just curious about this industry.

“Nothing. Can I take a look around this company?”

“Of course. I will bring you around.” Wang Zhongjun immediately stands up to lead the way.

“Just bring me around for a while will do.”

Feng Yu walks out with Wang Zhongjun, and they passed by a man. Feng Yu recognized him immediately. Chen Daoming. He had watched all his movies and TV series in his previous life.

Another actor walked past. That shiny head… It’s Ge You!

Wang Zhongjun saw Feng Yu’s expression and started introducing his company’s artists and how much profits they had brought in for the company.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, some of the artists had joined Huayi Brothers’ competitors and caused the company to suffer losses. After that, Huayi Brothers become smarter. They let their top-tier artistes buy the company’s original shares, and let them be a shareholder of the company. The artists are also allowed to set up their own workshops.

“Manager Wang, how much do the artists get?”

“It is based on the contracts and ranges from 50% to 10%.”

“What if the artist becomes famous and wants a bigger share?”

“We will go according to the contract. The artiste was groomed by us, and we had used so many resources on him. Furthermore, this is not against the law.” Wang Zhongjun replied.

Feng Yu shook his head. “The contracts must be flexible. If you carry on like this, those artists will not renew their contract with the company once the existing one ended. They will feel being exploited. Although you had signed the contract with the artiste, you can renew it with the artiste earlier. This will let them feel the company is treating them well and will prevent them from leaving. After all, artists are the company’s main revenue source.”

“What do you mean by flexible?”

“That means if an artist becomes popular for one year, it might be by luck. But if the artiste continued to be popular for more than two years, and you think the artist has the potential to carry on this popularity, you can increase their earnings. This way, the artists will want to renew contracts with the company and not join other companies. This includes our artiste managers, etc. Don’t give them a fixed salary and make it flexible. This will motivate them to work harder.”

“If a top-tier artiste wants to leave, encourage them to set up a personal studio and continue to provide them with the company’s resources. This will give them more freedom and not let them feel they are being bounded. When the company is listed in the future, let those artists, including the top managers, an opportunity to buy the company’s original shares. They will treat this company as their home.”

Wang Zhongjun was stunned by what Feng Yu said.

Chapter 1219 – Sending Artistes overseas

Feng Yu smiled happily when he saw the shocked face of Wang Zhongjun. These are what the Huayi Brothers do in the future.

Using Wang Zhongjun’s methods to advise him. This is… wonderful!

Wang Zhongjun thought about what Feng Yu said and felt there’s nothing wrong with it. It might be more troublesome for the management, but like Feng Yu said, the company can keep the artists.

“Manager Wang, do our company’s artists go overseas to develop their career?”

“Manager Feng, please address me by my name. I don’t dare to be called Manager by you. Our company’s artists are expanding overseas now, but they are only focusing on Southeast Asia.” Wang Zhongjun felt uncomfortable when Feng Yu calls him Manager Wang. Who dares to let Feng Yu call him Manager in China?

“Then I will address you as Zhongjun. You mentioned Southeast Asia… are you referring to sending singers over for performances or actors to promote their movies there?”

“Yes.”

“This is not enough. You should think of a way to let them become a superstar overseas. The best solution is to let the artists work on some projects that are popular with overseas audiences.”

Wang Zhongjun smiled wearily. “Manager Feng, it’s too difficult. Our Chinese culture might be easily accepted in Asia, but it is very different from the West. We might think a movie is good, but to the westerners, they are not interested.”

Feng Yu smiled. “Then you should use a simple storyline. We don’t need to make those deep, thought-provoking movies and just focus on commercial movies. The storyline of a movie is important, but the visual effects are equally important. Look at the blockbuster movies in the West. All of them have great visual effects, and why can’t we learn from them? The plot should be simpler and must showcase individual heroism. This is in line with the Westerners’ values, and it is not unacceptable here.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many popcorn movies have simple plots but are a hit. This is because of the exciting visual effects. Many people go to the movies is for leisure, and how many are there to appreciate arts?

Artistic movies are all not doing well. No matter how well you acted in the movie or win various awards, it is useless if no one wants to watch it.

The movie industry can be prosperous is not because of these award-winning movies. Movies need to attract cinemagoers to be a box office hit.

Some time back, Hong Kong is the world’s second-biggest producer of movies, with more than 100 movie companies there.

But due to cost-cutting measures, the quality of Hong Kong movies dropped. Hong Kong’s movie industry went on a decline until <Infernal Affairs> came out. This movie revived the Hong Kong movie industry and managed to enter the western markets again.

“If the plot is too simple, will the story be too direct?” Wang Zhongjun asked worryingly.

“Look at our traditional martial arts films. The plots are very simple. A kills B. B’s son, C, start training hard, and seek revenge with A. In between, A’s daughter, D, falls in love with C. Most people will understand such movies, and what people want to see is the action scenes. You fight me, I fight you, etc. How many people love watching such films at that time? The Americans are simple and can easily understand it.”

“We can reuse the same plot. But we should make it in modern times and not a period costume movie. Fighting plus romance, or maybe add some comedy elements in it. These are the makings of a commercial film. It’s easy.”

“But even after we filmed this movie, no Western companies will buy it.” These two years, Huayi Brothers had tried to export their films. But they failed in the US market, and no one in Europe is interested. Why did they send their films to Venice and Cannes film festivals? They just want to sell their movies.

“You cannot sell your films is because you did not find the right person. Wind and Rain Electronics is working with a few major movie companies in the US. I can help to introduce your films to them. But you all must follow what I said. Simple plot, good visual effects, and the comedy part must be using physical or facial expression. Language and words will not work.”

“Also, there is a big talent agency in the US, which claimed to be the No. 1 in the world. It is called Creative Artists Agency. Try to work with them to market our artists to the US and international markets. In exchange, we can bring their clients to our Chinese market.”

China’s economy is developing rapidly now, and the movie industry is starting to rise. These few years, more movies are making money. Also, Wind and Rain Electronics controlled the discs’ copyrights and helped to curb piracy. This resulted in lesser pirated discs in the market. Some low budget movies can get back their capital from selling VCDs and DVDs.

The west has always been trying to enter the Chinese market. China has a high population, and even if 1% of the population watches their movie, they will get high profits.

“It is easy to bring in overseas artists, but it is hard to send our artists overseas.”

“That’s why I said the artists must have some outstanding works. Regardless of songs or movies, it must be adapted to suit the Westerners for the artiste to gain popularity there. Some Hong Kong singers got famous overseas like this and can even hold concerts there, despite the fact that those Caucasians do not understand what they are singing.”

“One more thing. You should know a lot of celebrities started off from commercials, right? We can use let Chinese celebrities endorse some products and let the Westerners get familiar with them before they act in movies, etc.”

In the West, many movie stars had started out from commercials. Some actors become famous because of the commercials they acted in.

“Manager Feng, I understand. I will write out a detailed plan and export our artistes to the West.” Wang Zhongjun declared.

“That’s right. You must have confidence first. If you don’t even believe this will work, how can it succeed? Go ahead and do it! I got your back!”

Chapter 1220 – Need to tell a story

The audition’s advertisements are out. The top prize of 1 million RMB and an Oriental Deer immediately become the headlines of all major newspapers. No one had ever seen such attractive prizes in any competitions.

This Super Talent Show had become famous before it was even aired.

Before Feng Yu’s rebirth, even 10 million prize money will not get media attention useless you pay the newspaper agencies.

The audition started. For one month, auditions will be conducted in 8 separate venues, and each venue will pick 12 winners for the show. The participants will then attend the recording at the studio. After editing out the boring parts or repetitive performances, it will be aired to the audience.

“Nana, let’s go. I will bring you to watch an interesting program.”

Feng Yu brought Li Na to Beijing TV Station’s recording studio. This studio is not big and can only sit around 500 audiences. The stage is huge, and there is a big screen behind it. On the top of the stage, there are three big crosses. Everyone is curious about what the crosses are for.

“Is that Aaron Kwok?” Li Na asked excitedly.

“Yes. It’s him. If you like his songs and dance, I will get him to perform on Labor Day.”

“Yes… yes… yes… He is Asia’s Dancing King.”

Feng Yu smiled and shook his head. Every year, someone will be called a dancing king, and it does not include those professional dancers. In Feng Yu’s previous life, he knows more than a dozen ‘dancing kings’ from Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and even Thailand.

These dancing kings are not afraid of people criticizing them, as the more people criticize them, the more famous they will get.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, audiences in front of the TVs and PCs, thank you for watching Songjiang – Super Talent Show. This show is sponsored by Songjiang Motors. I am your host, Ma Xi.”

The program started, and the live audiences clapped. The tickets for the live audience had all been sold. Although it is not considered expensive, it is more expensive than a movie ticket. The ticket revenue for an episode can increase the program’s budget slightly.

The screen behind Ma Xi showed a gigantic Songjiang Motors’ logo. An Oriental Deer is parked on one side of the stage, with the words, ‘Oriental Deer’ painted on it clearly.

“Let us welcome our three judges. Our first judge is our No. 1 stage play actor, and the dream man of many women, Zhu Simao…”

“Our second judge is China’s most popular female singer, whose albums are sold in more than a dozen countries. Her songs are all-time favorites…. Na… Ying!”

“The third judge is our Asia’s Dancing King, one of Hong Kong’s Four Heavenly Kings, Aaron Kwok!”

The three judges appeared, and the audience screamed excitedly. The show had arranged for people to sit among the audience to lead the rest to cheer.

If this is a popular program, they don’t need to do this. But this is a new program, and they cannot make any mistakes.

“Songjiang Super Talent Show is sponsored by Wind and Rain Electronics. Wind and Rain – Technology will change your life. This show is also sponsored by Lehaha Group. Lehaha, the world’s leading beverage company. It is also sponsored by Jianlibao Group. Jianlibao, the miracle water from the East…”

After a series of advertising slogans, the live audiences grew impatient, and Ma Xi joked. “I realized the host of this program doesn’t have to do anything other than to read advertisements slogans.”

The live audiences and the judges laughed.

Ma Xi quickly explained this competition’s rules, and everyone understood what those three crosses are for. It is for the judges to show whether they like the performances.

The audiences felt this is something new as the judges tested the lights. Red means stop, and green means the participant can move on to the next stage. This is interesting.

The first participant went up the stage, and the audience was shocked. How come this man looks like a farmer? His dressing is too shabby. How can someone like him appear on TV?

“Good evening, judges and everyone.” This man spoke in Northeastern dialect, and the audiences immediately felt this show will be boring.

After a simple self-introduction, the man nodded towards the side of the stage, and the music started.

“… c’mon… c’mon… let’s meet in 98… c’mon… c’mon… let’s meet in 1998…”

The audience is stunned when the man started singing. Why is this shabbily dressed farmer’s voice sound like a girl?

Na Ying was even more shocked. This voice sounds like Faye Wong, who had sung this song with her!

The song ended, and everyone cheered.

Li Na is also cheering and shouting excitedly beside Feng Yu. “He is terrific! How come he can sing so well?!”

Feng Yu smiled and kept quiet. It was his idea to let this person do the opening performance. This contrast between his appearances and vocals will attract viewers and stop them from switching channels.

Na Ying asked the first question. “How can you sing so well?! Did you attended professional singing classes?”

“I am a farmer and had not learned singing before. My family cannot even afford to send me to school. After I graduate from Junior High, I started working on my family’s farm. My hobby is singing, and I love your songs. Of course, I also like to listen to Teacher Kwok’s songs.”

Aaron Kwok replied with his Hong Kong accented mandarin. “Your vocals are not suitable to sing my song.”

“That’s because I can’t dance like you.”

The audience laughed, and they realized this shabby farmer is quite humorous.

“What other songs can you sing?” Na Ying asked.

“I know all of your songs. I had bought an Aiwa Walkman and listened to your cassette tapes in the past. After my father found out, I got a beating from him because my family was very poor then. The money used to buy the Walkman can be used to buy a lot of flour…”

Many people, including Na Ying, were touched by his story.”

The three judges agreed unanimously to light up the green lights.

Li Na looks at Feng Yu angrily. “He is so pitiful and hardworking. Why are you laughing at him?!”

“I am happy for him.” Feng Yu replied.

Actually, Feng Yu knows this man might sound pitiful. But he did not tell the audience that his family now owns a few agricultural machineries like harvesters, tractors, etc., and rented a big plot of land. His annual family income is at least 300,000 RMB and is much more than average working-class families. Also, they only need to work less than six months a year.

But why did this farmer didn’t say all these? That’s because Feng Yu told the production crew that every participant must have a story about their hardship when the judges ask. But the story must not be fake! When this participant came to the studio, he was in a suit!

But this guy is very smart and is good at telling stories. With his shabby dressing and thick accent, all the audience cheered for him!

The first performance is a success!

Chapter 1221 – High ratings

The next few performances are all very good, and one contestant was eliminated. This eliminated contestant’s story had too many loopholes and was exposed by Zhu Simao. It affected the judges’ impression of him, and they eliminated him.

Despite the contestant was eliminated, the audience cheered. All of them felt the judges had done the right thing. This contestant is not being honest and wanted to cheat them!

After the recording ended, the live audience discussed the performances as they were walking out. All of them felt this show is fantastic and would like to return to watch the next episode’s recording. But they wonder if they can get the tickets.

Someone complained the venue is too small as it can only hold 500 people. It should be held on a grand stage like the Spring Festival Gala Dinner.

On their way home, Li Na is also talking about the performance and contestants.

Li Na asked Feng Yu if this show’s concept is from him, and are all the contestants really selected from auditions?

Feng Yu laughed. “The contestants in this show’s first seasons are from the auditions. But it might change in the future. Also, don’t treat those contestants’ stories seriously. Although they are not lying, they had withheld some information.”

“Are you all going to decide on the winner beforehand or manipulating the contestants?” Li Na asked with a ‘you can’t fool me’ expression.

“We did prepare something as a backup plan, but we did not use it. We will give longer airtime for the contestants with the loudest cheers during the editing or remove the lousy performances. The winner will not be decided by us, and it will be decided by the contestants’ popularity.”

“The contestant’s popularity? What do you mean?” Li Na asked curiously.

“You will find out when the time comes. It will not be a surprise if I let you know now. This is like a magic trick. If you know how it works, will you still be surprised?”

“Alright. When is the next recording?” Li Na asked excitedly.

“The day after tomorrow. Do you want to watch the recording? I will ask them to reserve two seats for us.”

…….

One week later, The Super Talent Show was aired on Saturday evening, CCTV 2. One week ago, CCTV had advertised this show on all its variety programs.

Many viewers are waiting in front of their TVs for the program to start, and most of them are waiting to see the three judges.

Some had heard about this show from their friends who had watched it live at the studio.

But many more are watching because they had received an SMS, informing them to watch Songjiang – Super Talent Show on CCTV 2 on Saturday at 8.10pm!

SMS marketing. This is the first time SMS marketing is used in China.

Everyone is surprised by the SMS, and they are also curious about this show. Is it really that interesting? The winner will get high prize money and a car, and the program even invited Aaron Kwok to be the judge.

The show started, and the first performance shocked all the TV viewers.

This farmer can sing so well in a female voice?! After hearing the ‘touching’ story behind the farmer, they are hooked on this program.

The judges’ different views are another highlight of the show, and Aaron Kwok’s Hong Kong accent Mandarin also drew laughter.

After the first episode ended, this show blew up on the internet forums. No one had expected CCTV to air such a creative and interesting variety show.

Postings about this program are posted on Sina blogs, Sohu Forums, and Baidu. But there are still many people who didn’t catch it on TV.

“I am telling you all… this Super Talent Show is fantastic. There is this male contestant who is a farmer, but his singing is remarkable!”

“No. The acrobat’s performance is better. It was passed down in his family and was not performed on stage before.”

“No! That dancer is more outstanding. She had even broken her leg in her dance practice!”

“All of you are wrong! The most impressive is that guy who was caught lying by Zhu Simao. His performance was good, but he ended up getting three crosses! Serve him right!”

This is the first time a variety show had become the talk of the town. Of course, this is also due to the websites promoting it, and everyone likes this program.

This program quickly become popular, and it was much faster than expected. Of course, Feng Yu was the only one that had expected this.

The online reviews for this show are mostly positive, but there are some criticisms as well.

“What is CCTV thinking? Why are they not repeating such a good show? Fine… CCTV has too many programs, and there isn’t any timeslot for reruns. But I want to watch it again.”

“That’s right. Those variety shows in the past repeated at least three times a week, and yet they are not re-airing such a good show. Are CCTV’s leaders crazy?”

“I heard this program is not produced by CCTV. This program was recorded in the Beijing TV station’s studio. My Brother-in-law is working there!”

“What? This program is not produced by CCTV?! Are you kidding me? CCTV is our Nation’s major TV station. Why will they air someone’s else program?”

“I think it’s true. After the show ended, I saw the credits. The production unit is not CCTV.”

The internet forums exploded again, and many people felt the unit that produced this program is CCTV’s subsidiary.

But more people are interested to know if this program will be aired again on TV.

As the online forums are still discussing this program, someone mentioned that this program is available on Sohu Channel.

That’s when people realized Sohu has an online channel and has the broadcasting rights of this show.

Some people started to download the show on Sohu Channel, and some with faster internet speed watched it online. But they realized the quality is not good if they stream. The downloaded video is much clearer.

……

The day after the show was aired. Station Chief Jia is looking at yesterday’s TV ratings report. The overall top rating program is still the news, and the second place is Super Talent Show. It is also the top ratings among all programs in the same timeslot.

The first episode of a variety show getting the top rating in the timeslot has never happened before.

Station Chief Jia is overjoyed, and he made the right decision to work with Sohu!

He can’t wait to see how high the ratings will go for this program.

Chapter 1222 – Start-up Heroes

“Manager Feng, you want me to participate in a variety show?” Zhong Qingxian looks at Feng Yu in shock. He had wondered why Feng Yu had called him over.

Zhong Qingxian seldom accepts news interviews now. He realized being in the limelight will affect his personal life and finally understand why Feng Yu doesn’t want to appear on the media.

“That’s right. This is not any variety shows. It is a variety program on start-ups and investing. We will let those people who want to get funding to appear on this show and introduce their business. At the same time, we can invest in these new start-ups.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China has more than a dozen of such shows. All the judges are famous angel investors like Zhong Qingxian, Shi Dazhu, Liu Chuanzhi, etc. They are all famous entrepreneurs.

Through these shows, they found start-ups that are worth investing in and also showcase their charisma. Viewers will discover the humorous side, and they are no longer mysterious and out of reach.

Some of them like to appear on TV and be worshipped by the viewers.

“Get those people who are seeking funding to appear on this program, and I will be the judge and investor?”

“That’s right. Don’t you have an investment company? But compared to Tai Hua Consulting, your company doesn’t have many projects to invest in. The main reason is your company is not famous enough. But after this program is aired, your investment company will become famous. If you can invest in some good businesses, you will get high returns.”

Zhong Qingxian is Zhejiang’s Business Association’s Chairman. Still, his investments are focused mainly within Zhejiang Province to help the people from his hometown. Tai Hua Consulting’s investments are all over China.

Although some of Zhong Qingxian’s investments had failed, many more had succeeded. The profits from these successful businesses are several times more than his investments.

Not to mention the investments in internet companies. The returns are tens or even hundreds of times more than the initial investments!

“Other than me, who else did you invite?” Zhong Qingxian knew Feng Yu will definitely not participate in this show.

“Liu Chuanzhi, Sun Lijie, Liu Yonghao, and Shi Dazhu.”

Among these people, Liu Chuanzhi loves helping others the most. In Feng Yu’s previous life, he is the Chairman of many associations and organizations, as he had helped many people. Many successful businessmen have a net worth higher than Liu Chuanzhi. Still, all of them nominated him to be the Chairman. This shows how influential he is.

When Feng Yu called Liu Chuanzhi to invite him, he agreed readily. He also felt this program can help many young Chinese entrepreneurs.

Sun Lijie agreed immediately too. Although he is in charge of a massive fund, he has much lesser experience than the rest.

Liu Yonghao had become an Angel investor two years ago. Feng Yu had supported his Guangcai Program had Feng Yu’s support, and he has high respect for him.

Feng Yu had to persuade Liu Yonghao for some time before he agreed.

As for Shi Dazhu, he agreed without hesitations. Feng Yu had helped him by investing in him and let him make a comeback from the verge of bankruptcy. Although his business is doing well now, he is not satisfied. He still wants to make other investments. Look at how successful Tai Hua Consulting is. He also does not want to put all his eggs in the same basket.

These five judges are the top businessmen in China. Even if other TV stations want to copy this program, they cannot get such ‘superstars’ judges.

Furthermore, this program will be aired on CCTV, and no other TV stations can compete with them. Also, this program is supported by Sohu Channel.

“Can you tell me more about this show? How will it work?” Zhong Qingxian asked.

“The entrepreneurs will have to submit a business proposal first. This is the same as all investments. After that, you all will get some people from your companies each to form a selection panel to select the outstanding proposals.”

“The representatives from the selected proposals will have to go through a round of interviews. The five of you will bring two assistants each to conduct the interviews. One of your assistants will be in charge of selecting promising candidates, and the other to verify. The entrepreneurs that passed the interview and selection process will have to prepare their materials and work with the TV production crew.”

“After that is the recording. You all can decide on the spot if you all want to invest in these entrepreneurs. If you decided to invest, there would be staff to facilitate the paperwork and contracts. Sometime later, the program will update on how the entrepreneurs are doing after getting the funding.”

Zhong Qingxian suddenly asked. “I will not ask how long this will take. But what if the business fails?”

“Then let it fail. After you all invested in these companies, you will surely provide some assistance to them. If the company still cannot succeed, that means you all had made a bad investment. Furthermore, investments have risks. No venture investment can guarantee to be successful.”

“How long will the recording of this program last?”

“The preparation phase should be around one to two months, as we need to get participants, verify their information, and put them through the selection process. The recording will be fast and should be less than two weeks. After that, we will edit the footage into more than ten episodes, which will be aired weekly. When all the episodes are aired, some companies should achieve some results, and that’s when we show their current situation.”

Feng Yu had combined the elements of all the entrepreneurship TV programs he watched in his previous life.

“Or we can separate this show into different phases. The first season will be venture capital investment, and the second season will be assessing the start-ups. That means we will check on the current progress of the start-ups. During the second season, you all will become an individual examiner.”

“Why individual examiner?”

“During the first season, you all will not be investing in the same start-ups. All of you will select different start-ups, and the participants will be split into five teams. This way, the five judges will compete to see who will get the highest return rate. This will become more entertaining and exciting.”

Zhong Qingxian frowned. “We will compete against each other through these start-ups? Is this a good idea?”

“What’s wrong with this? Will win or lose affect your current status? Also, don’t you find it very interesting? Even if some of these entrepreneurs had failed, but they are talented in other areas. You can still recruit them to your company. At the same time, you can point out their faults or even fire them.”

Zhong Qingxian thought for a while. Even if the investment fails, how much money can he lose? Also, this will become interesting.

“Alright. I will agree. I can tell this is only your idea, and the production of this program still has not started, right?”

Feng Yu smiled. “I need you all to agree before I can get them to start production. Don’t worry, the production crew had started promoting, and you should be prepared to start read business proposals.”

Chapter 1223 – Do you dare to watch a movie with me?

After handling the program production to his men, Feng Yu went to <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> agency.

Hu Ran had brought some of his men out for an interview. They will be interviewing a heavyweight tycoon, and Hu Ran had to conduct the interview himself. When Feng Yu appeared, he noticed Zhou Kexin in the main office, and the latter also saw him.

Zhou Kexin felt her heart racing. Although she knows Feng Yu is married, she still cannot forget him. In her heart, she wants to be together with him.

The Deputy Chief Editor received Feng Yu and reported on the agency’s current situation. After some time, the magazine sales had gone up, is currently one of the top business magazines in China, and has loyal readers.

But the electronic magazine’s subscription is still not doing well, as many people are still not used to paying to read on the internet. The electronic magazine had used a few security measures to prevent piracy, like cannot copy and paste, etc. However, that does not stop people from using other forms to copy it.

Hu Ran had asked Feng Yu if they should stop the electronic magazine, as it is losing money and wasting their resources. Focusing on hard copy magazines will bring in more profits.

After all, Hu Ran’s bonus is pegged to the agency’s profits. If the agency is not making money, how can he ask for a high bonus? When he came to China, he had wanted to make some money before going back to his home country.

But after Hu Ran started working at <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>, he felt he did not lose anything. It was his dream to start a business magazine, and his salary is very high. More importantly, before this, he was working at Enron. Look at Enron now.

After the Deputy Chief Editor finishes his report, Feng Yu asked nonchalantly. “How is the company’s grooming of new staff coming along? We cannot keep recruiting reporters and editors from other agencies. We must also groom our staff, especially female reporters. When it comes to interviews, female reporters have an advantage.”

The Deputy Chief Editor thought for a while. The Chief Editor had treated Zhou Kexin well, and she is considered a new staff.

“We have a new staff, Zhou Kexin, who is quite outstanding. She managed to interview some people whom we cannot even get access to. Her articles are also well written, and can always get exclusive news. The agency is had groomed her, and she is independent now.”

Feng Yu nodded. “Call Zhou Kexin over. Let me speak to her.”

Zhou Kexin entered the meeting room with the Deputy Chief Editor, and the latter saw Feng Yu’s eyes and quickly left the room.

Before Feng Yu can speak, Zhou Kexin sat opposite him. “Oh, our big boss is here for inspection.

“Do you think this business is worth my time to come and conduct an inspection? I had come to Shanghai to see you.”

Zhou Kexin saw the wedding band on Feng Yu’s hand and felt her heart aching. “You had gotten married quietly. Seems like you have a good life. What’s wrong? One woman is not enough for you?”

Feng Yu smiled embarrassedly and did not retort. From Zhou Kexin’s tone, he knows she is still thinking about him. If not, she will not be jealous.

In Feng Yu’s heart, he is overjoyed.

“Why are you keeping quiet? Are you not afraid your wife will know you are here?”

“She knows.”

Zhou Kexin is shocked. Although nothing had happened between them, she still felt guilty conscious.

“She knows and is still willing to get married to you?”

“She loves me, and she knows I love her.:

“You are lucky to find a woman that can tolerate this.”

“I had told her about our past lives.”

“She believes you?!” Zhou Kexin is surprised. If Feng Yu had not told her about her innermost secrets, she would never believe him.

“She knows I will never lie to her.”

“That’s how you convince her? She is a fool to believe you.” Although Zhou Kexin said this, she is also scolding herself for being a fool. Why is she still thinking about Feng Yu?

The person she likes should be the ‘Second most handsome person on earth.’ But when she met Feng Yu in person, the ‘Second most handsome person on earth’ and Feng Yu had combined. Could this be fate?

“You want me to be with you? Then do you dare to watch a movie with me?” Zhou Kexin is provoking him and is also looking forward to it.

Feng Yu nodded. “Let’s go. What movie do you want to watch?”

After work, Feng Yu drove an older Songjiang – Olympic model to pick Zhou Kexin from a junction near to the agency to bring her to the cinema.

“Hi, I want two tickets for <Chinese Odyssey 2002>.” Zhou Kexin said at the ticket counter.

Zhou Kexin had wanted to watch this film but doesn’t have anyone to accompany her. This movie is not suitable to watch alone.

“Sorry. The screening of this movie had ended. Please choose another movie.”

The screening had ended?!

Zhou Kexin froze. This is the movie she wants to watch the most, but the screening had ended.

“What’s wrong?” Feng Yu, wearing a pair of sunglasses, walks over.

“The movie screening had ended. Let’s go. I don’t want to watch other movies.” Zhou Kexin is disappointed.

Feng Yu stopped Zhou Kexin. “Wait a minute. Let me make a phone call.”

Feng Yu walked over to the counter and told the ticket seller. “Give me your manager’s phone number. I want to speak to him.”

“Sir, it is useless even if you complain to our manager. The screening for this movie had ended.” The ticket seller replied.

“How do you know your manager is not willing to screen this movie for me? It’s not a big deal to give me his number, right?” Feng Yu smiled.

The ticket seller saw Feng Yu’s confident smile and thought he has some connections. She quickly passes her manager’s name card to Feng Yu.

Feng Yu walks to a corner. “Hi, are you Manager Sun? I want your cinema to screen the movie <Chinese Odyssey 2002> for me. I will book the while cinema… yes… reserve a theater hall for me. I will compensate for all your losses. Alright. I will wait for you.”

“Give me two popcorns and two Refreshing Cola. Thank you.”

The ticket seller looks at Feng Yu in shock. This person is buying popcorns and waiting here?! Did the manager agree to screen this movie? But it was taken off as no one is watching, and the DVD for this movie is out. If they really want to watch it, they can just buy the DVD.

After a while, a man comes running over. Feng Yu walked up to him and brought him aside.

“Are you the one who wants to book the whole theater?”

“That’s right. How much does it cost?”

“It will be slightly more than 25,000 RMB. I can give you a discount. 25,000 RMB.” The cinema tickets at this time are not expensive, and it is also not the peak period.

“Ok. Can I use a credit card?”

Five minutes later, the cinema manager brought Feng Yu and Zhou Kexin to hall 3 and closed the door.

Feng Yu smiled. “The movie is starting. I can let you watch any movies you want.”

Chinese Odyssey 2002

Chapter 1224 – Someday

This is a simple movie about two couples’ love stories with some comedy and songs in it.

Only Feng Yu and Zhou Kexin are in the theater watching this romantic comedy.

Feng Yu can tell Zhou Kexin likes this movie and kept laughing. But Feng Yu’s concentration is not on the movie.

Feng Yu had reached over to hold Zhou Kexin several times but failed to touch her. Finally, their hands touched, and Feng Yu quickly grabbed her hand and did not let go.

This felt like the first time they held hands in Feng Yu’s previous life. It happened when they watched movies too, and he never let go of her hand after the movie ended.

Zhou Kexin was watching the movie when Feng Yu grabbed her hand. She panicked and tried to pull her hand back, but she did not succeed. She suddenly realized it felt good for someone to hold her hand.

The movie ended, and the lights switched on. Feng Yu held Zhou Kexin’s hand as they walk out of the cinema.

As they walk past the lobby, that ticket seller looks at Feng Yu curiously. When she met them earlier, they did not behave like a couple as they kept a distance from each other.

But now, they are holding hands.

Also, this movie had been taken off. Why did the manager screen it again? This guy must have some connections, and he might be the son of some government leaders.

The ticket seller had never thought Feng Yu would book out the theater to screen this movie. Who would be so dumb to book the whole theater for two people to watch a movie? Did his money drop from the sky?

“Let’s go for supper. What would you like to eat?” Feng Yu asked in the car.

“You decide.”

Feng Yu drove Zhou Kexin to a nearby supper street. The whole street is filled with street food, and they ate a lot.

When they boarded the car again, Feng Yu asked. “Where are you staying? I will send you back.”

“I thought you are very powerful. You can even get them to screen a movie that was taken off. How come you don’t know where I am staying?” Zhou Kexin asked.

“I know where you were staying, but you shifted once, and I did not get anyone to investigate.” Feng Yu clarified.

“XX road No. 163.”

“What do you think of the movie?” Feng Yu starts to strike a conversation.

“It’s fine. What about you?”

“I think the actors have acted well.” Feng Yu replied casually.

“Do you think you different from the protagonist?”

Feng Yu: “……”

Feng Yu had shot himself in his foot!

“That’s a movie. How can you compare it to real life? This movie is right. Two people who are in love should be together and ignore what other people say.” Feng Yu replied.

“You are right. But even in the movies, the Emperor only loves Li Fengjie.”

“It’s all makeup. Which Emperor in history only has one wife? Even King Zhou and Emperor Xuanzong have more than one concubine, but they just love one of their concubines the most. Some people will only love one person in his life, but others will love two people at the same time. We are talking about feelings here, and who can explain this clearly?”

“Are you trying to say you are the latter?”

Feng Yu smiled and continued driving.

“I am curious. With your wealth, you can get whatever woman you want. You should have many women like me, right?”

“No!” Feng Yu quickly denied.

“Really? Alright. I take it as you are telling the truth. Other than our marriage in our previous life, which part of me had attracted you?”

“Do you want to hear the truth or lies?”

“Of course, I want to hear the truth!” Zhou Kexin rolled her eyes. Why did you even ask this question in the first place? Will I even listen if I know you are lying?

“The truth is I also don’t know why. I just keep thinking about you. When you are happy, I will also feel happy, and when you are sad, I will also be unhappy. If anyone bullies you, I will go and beat that person up. Maybe this is related to our previous life and our interactions in this life. Falling in love with you, at first sight, might be rash, but I know it’s not.”

Feng Yu had thought about this before. He felt the reason might be he is possessive.

Both males and females can be possessive.

Zhou Kexin frowned after Feng Yu answered her question. But she can feel his sincerity when he answered and seems to be telling the truth.

Zhou Kexin has always idolized Feng Yu. She had interviewed many successful Chinese businessmen but felt none of them can be compared to Feng Yu despite knowing Feng Yu had lived two lives.

Today at the cinema, just one call from Feng Yu can get the cinema’s manager to screen the movie they want for them. This had touched Zhou Kexin.

Zhou Kexin also knows this is not a problem for someone like Feng Yu. He is someone who can appear on Shanghai news whenever he wants.

They finally reached Zhou Kexin’s rented apartment.

“Let me walk you up.”

They climbed up the stairs together despite the building has a lift.

When they reached the sixth story where Zhou Kexin lives, Feng Yu grabbed her arm and pushed her against the wall. “Can I kiss you?”

Without waiting for a reply, Feng Yu lowered his head to kiss her.

Zhou Kexin tried to push Feng Yu away, but she realized she likes this feeling of being kissed by him.

Their lips separated after around one minute, and Zhou Kexin looks down shyly. She doesn’t dare to look at Feng Yu in his eyes and is blushing.

Feng Yu knew Zhou Kexin likes to kiss from their relationship in their previous life.

“You have reached. Are you not going in?”

Zhou Kexin regained her senses and quickly ran to her apartment and search for her keys in her bag.

Zhou Kexin found her keys but accidentally dropped them. Feng Yu walks over and picks it up for her.

Zhou Kexin blurt out. “You cannot stay here tonight!” She immediately regretted saying this as Feng Yu had never said he wants to stay at her place.

Feng Yu laughed. “Don’t worry. I am not that anxious. I believe you will invite me in someday. Good night.”

Chapter 1225 – Imitation Electric bikes

Feng Yu and Li Na returned to Bing City during the Labor Day holidays to visit their relatives and Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group.

The group had grown rapidly in recent years, especially electric vehicles, like electric bicycles and electric motorcycles. However, they still have not started on electric cars.

Electric cars had already appeared in the last century. The earliest recorded electric cars dated back to 1834, but after petroleum was extracted in great volume and breakthrough in combustion engines, electric cars’ development stopped.

Until around 1990, when oil prices started rising, and pollution increased, people started to look into electric cars again.

The earliest electric bicycle is developed by Shanghai Forever. But due to their technological limitations, their electric bicycles did not sell well.

Their sales for electric motorcycles were worse.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group can start producing electric bicycles in 1997. Still, the battery and other related technologies are not advanced. Furthermore, that was the time when motorcycles become popular. That’s why they did not produce.

Now, motorcycle restrictions were implemented in certain areas as trial. Although it was not implemented nationwide, people know the government will start the restrictions soon.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, 2007 was the peak of motorcycles. But because the Olympic games will be held in China, the government restricted the use of motorcycles to curb pollution. All the major cities in China implemented restrictions on motorcycles, and motorcycle sales dropped, resulting in electric bicycles.

China’s application to host the Olympic games is approved. The motorcycle restrictions trial had started in the first-tier cities.

Three years ago, there are around 50,000 electric bicycles, including imported brands, in China. But last year, the number of electric bicycles in China had exceeded 500,000, and it is rising faster this year.

Early last year, Songjiang’s electric vehicles were launched into the market. With aggressive advertising, celebrities’ endorsements, brand effects, etc., they quickly become China’s No. 1 electric vehicle brand. Their electric motorcycles become the industry leader easily.

The factories that produced electric bicycles much earlier can only accept their fate. Their brand, technologies, marketing, and distribution channels are no match for the Songjiang brand.

These factories thought they had been manufacturing electric bicycles longer and should benefit from the sudden bloom. To meet the sudden demand, they expanded their factories, hoping to maintain their market leader status.

However, Songjiang Electric bicycles were launched and quickly replaced those factories as the market leader. They knew Songjiang is stronger in its branding, marketing, distribution channels, etc. Still, they never expect Songjiang’s technologies are more advanced than them.

Suddenly, no one is buying imported electric bicycles. This is because Songjiang electric bicycle was put to a comparison test with an imported electric bicycle on TV. Songjiang electric bicycles won in all aspects.

This is not because there are no better electric bicycles overseas. All the imported electric bicycles that are sold in China are older and obsolete models. When these overseas brands saw Songjiang gaining market share quickly, they started to bring better models into the Chinese market.

But after the comparison on TV, the Chinese consumers no longer think these overseas brands’ electric bicycles are better.

Songjiang, trusted brand, trusted quality.

This advertising slogan was easily remembered by everyone.

Shanghai Forever was speechless. Since when is Songjiang an old brand? We have been around much longer than Songjiang!

Your product quality can be trusted?! Are you implying our quality cannot be trusted?

Shanghai Forever’s technology was still fine, and their cost control is also good. But after Songjiang electric bicycles are launched in the market, Shanghai Forever’s bicycles’ retail prices were forced to increase. This is the main reason why they lost the market share.

What happened? It is because Shanghai Forever is using Tai Hua Batteries. Their three-year battery supply contract had ended last year, and they had to sign a new contract.

This time, Tai Hua Battery suddenly increase its prices!

Thus, Shanghai Forever was forced to pass on the price increase to its customers. This resulted in losing their price competitiveness. They have lesser factories than Songjiang and has to incur higher transportation cost. Now, their electric bicycles are priced 200 RMB higher than Songjiang’s.

200 RMB more is not a lot compared to the price of an electric bicycle. But the ones that buy electric bicycles are not wealthy people. 200 RMB means a lot to them.

This year’s electric bicycle production is forecasted to be over a million, and electric motorcycles will be over 500,000. Songjiang will own more than 70% of the electric bicycle market share and over 80% of the electric motorcycle market share.

As electric bicycles become more popular, many local small factories start to manufacture them. They used Songjiang’s patented technologies and still felt they are only copying.

It’s fine if they want to copy. Li Mingde felt there’s no need to go after them, as they are not a threat to Songjiang electric bicycles. These small factories cannot produce electric motorcycle engines, which is more profitable.

But those small factories went too far. They even printed the Songjiang logo on their electric bicycles. Everything becomes different now.

Copying and imitations are two different concepts. I can let you copy, but I will not allow any imitations.

Those small factories’ electric bicycles are of poorer quality, and some are unsafe.

A few days ago, a consumer bought a Songjiang electric bicycle. After riding for less than a week, the battery was burned. He brought it to Songjiang electric bicycle after-sales center for repairs.

That was when the company discovers there are imitation products in the market!

Li Mingde takes this seriously. If these imitations flooded the market, it would affect Songjiang electric bicycles’ and even Bing City Machinery Manufacturing group’s branding and reputation.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing group had worked hard for its reputation. They must not let these people destroy it.

Li Mingde reported this to Feng Yu and hope he can ask the higher-ups to crack down on these imitations. These evil businessmen must be punished severely.

Chapter 1226 – Two-pronged approach

Feng Yu was in a good mood when he heard about the imitations.

“Old Li, this imitation is discovered in which city?”

“Beijing.”

Feng Yu was shocked. These imitation sellers are too bold to sell in Beijing. They must have targeted Beijing because the market is bigger, and they can reap higher profits!

“What about other cities?”

“We found imitations in several cities, and I had asked our distributors to investigate. Luckily, our distributors are not selling imitations, or else it will become a big issue.

If customers bought imitation products from elsewhere, the company could still explain. But if they bought it from their distributors, it will not be settled easily.

Those distributors can sell imitations, but they are working with Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group to sell electric bicycles, electric motorcycles, motorcycles, and even cars.

They don’t dare to risk getting their distributors’ status removed for some profits. Furthermore, they know Songjiang is created by Feng Yu, China’s wealthiest man. If they offended Feng Yu, it is no longer the issue of getting their contracts canceled and compensating Songjiang. It might be worse.

“Not only the distributors need to check, but we must also take precautions. We must do something which those factories cannot imitate. You don’t need to worry about higher-ups. I will speak to them.”

Feng Yu had created this brand and even exported it overseas. If he got dragged down these imitations in his own backyard, he would be a laughing stock.

“Oh, did you find any imitations in Bing City?” If Feng Yu’s home base also have imitations, that means this problem had become very serious.

“No. Not only in Bing City, but we had also checked the whole Longjiang Province and did not find any. Even Lin Province does not have any imitations. But we are still waiting for news from Liao Province.”

Feng Yu was relieved. At least this problem has not become too serious.

“Are there any electric motorcycle imitations?”

“No. Those factories that can manufacture electric motorcycles have some technical skills. Although they are copying our designs and technologies, they did not use our logo.”

“They used our patented technologies?”

“Yes.” Li Mingde felt embarrassed. He still has the old way of thinking and felt he should let these factories off if they didn’t harm the company’s interest. In the past, he can be ruthless and didn’t let anyone who copies his products off. But he changed as he becomes older.

“Old Li, we had spent lots of money to develop these technologies. If other people want to use it, they must pay for it. It would be our loss if they used it for free. The company is successful now is because everyone worked hard. You might not care about these minor losses. Still, suppose we can collect 1 million patent fees annually, we can give out more bonuses to our workers, or even upgrade the quality of the food at the canteen.”

“Manager Feng. I know what to do. I know some of those people, and it’s not nice for me to go after them. But I will get the department in-charge of this issue to go after them. I will make sure we will get back every cent they owe us!” Li Mingde felt he had let Feng Yu down.

……

A few days later, Feng Yu returned to Beijing and called Liu Chuanzhi. “Manager Liu, are you familiar with the leaders from the Industry and Commerce Bureau?”

“Do you mean the city level or the higher-ups?”

“The higher-ups.”

“I am quite close to a Vice Minister. If you want to know him, I can ask him out for dinner tonight.”

“Ok. Please arrange for the meeting.

When Feng Yu arrives at the restaurant, Liu Chuanzhi and a man walks up to him. “Manager Feng, let me introduce. This is Qian Liang, Minister Qian from the Industry and Commerce Bureau. Minister Qian, this is Manager Feng, Feng Yu.”

“Manager Feng. Nice to meet you.” Qian Liang extended his hand for a handshake.

Everyone who got close to Manager Feng will become successful, as he is influential in China.

“Hi, Minister Qian. Let’s go in.” Feng Yu smiled.

When they are seated in the private dining room, the waitress started serving the dishes. Liu Chuanzhi had ordered the food in advance, as the main reason for this meeting is not for dinner.

“Minister Qian, I will be straight forward. I need a favor from you.”

“What is it? I will definitely help.” Qian Liang agreed without hesitations.

“A lot of Songjiang electric bicycle imitations have appeared in the market recently. I hope your department can investigate and impose a crackdown on these imitations. Of course, I will not let your department work for free. We will donate a few Songjiang vehicles to your bureau.”

Qian Liang smiled immediately. “Ah… Manager Feng, you don’t need to do this. Eliminating imitations is my department’s duty. Have you all investigated this? If you have any information, let me know, and it will be easier for our work. But don’t worry. I will issue the orders to let each province crackdown on these imitations.”

Feng Yu is satisfied with Qian Liang’s attitude.

“Minister Qian, I will publish an article on this issue on the newspaper and internet. Please be prepared.”

“What do you mean?”

Feng Yu took out a document and passed it to Qian Liang.

Qian Liang opened the document and start reading. The more he read, the more he frowned.

“Manager Feng, is there a need to do this?” This article is about the number of imitation products in China and their impact on the market.

If this article is published, it will be a slap to the Industry and Commerce Bureau!

Qian Liang is unhappy. He had agreed to help Feng Yu settle this issue, but Feng Yu still want to blow up this matter.

Feng Yu laughed. “Minister Qian, what if this article is published by your department?”

“Published by my department? Are you saying you want us to report this article?”

Qian Liang kept quiet. Although this will expose their department’s failure and show their determination to crack down on imitations. The higher-ups will also like to see this.

Even the civilians will know they are determined to eliminate these counterfeits and will support them.

In the past, when his men went after those imitation sellers, they will be accused of bullying them, making it hard for them to work.

“Minister Qian, I can let your department publish this article. I can wait three days. If I don’t hear from you within three days, I will get my men to publish it.”

Qian Liang thought for a while. “Ok. I will definitely get back to you within three days!”

Chapter 1227 – Influencing the public opinion

Although Qian Liang asked for three days, he issued orders to all the Provinces to start curb imitations the next day. The reason given is China had just joined the WTO, and its reputation cannot be tarnished by these imitation goods.

With such a good reason, no one dares to oppose. In reality, some of these imitation products were protected by the local government, and some were even produced by State-owned enterprises.

These counterfeit factories just wanted to find work for their workers. As for using Songjiang’s Logo, it’s a production error. Furthermore, Songjiang Motors is rich, and will this small amount make no difference to them.

All of them are formerly state-owned enterprises and should take care of each other.

Some factories have people to cover up for them. The higher-ups want to investigate, right? They are prepared. When the people from the Industry and Commerce come for inspection, they will see a factory that produces their own electric bicycles brand, with all proper approvals.

Those who do not have all the necessary paperwork will suspend their operations before the Industry and Commerce come to inspect them. How can the Industry and Commerce Bureau staff check on their factories if they cannot even enter? If they insisted on checking, leaders from other departments would call to beg for mercy.

Of course, the local Industry and Commerce Bureaus are just going to catch one or two factories to show the higher-ups they are working. Other than imitation Songjiang Electric Bicycles, many factories are producing other counterfeit products. They will just pick one or two factories without backings.

These factories are paying taxes to the local authorities, after all.

The next day, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s distributors feedback that the Industry and Commerce Bureaus in their Provinces had started investigating, and they had whistle-blow anonymously. But only two small factories were ordered to shut down, and they did not do anything to the rest. Among these factories, many are state-owned enterprises.

Li Mingde had made a few calls to some factories’ heads, which he knows. Many of them are his juniors.

These people used their relationships and their past to beg Li Mingde, making him helpless. He is furious but does not want to hurt his old friends’ feelings. If he allows them to carry on, it will harm the company’s interest.

Feng Yu had paid Li Mingde a high salary and benefits. It’s not right for him to use his power to harm the company’s interest by giving his acquaintances privileges.

Li Mingde made up his mind and ordered his company’s higher executives to visit various Provinces with their teams to report on these factories. If the local authorities cannot settle it, he will report up to the Provincial level. Bing City is a shareholder of Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group, and it represented the Province’s interest after all.

Feng Yu is not in a rush and is waiting for Qian Liang’s reply. He believes Qian Liang will make the right decision. Although he was forced to make this decision, he or the Industry and Commerce Bureau should know which choice will benefit them the most.

If Feng Yu exposed this problem, nothing might happen to him. But some leaders in the Industry and Commerce Bureau will be forced to retire. These leaders will never risk their careers.

But suppose it is the Industry and Commerce Bureau who exposed this issue. In that case, it will show their attitude and responsibility towards their duties. Also, they can gain favorable public opinion and let the higher-ups notice them.

The Industry and Commerce Bureau needs to face this issue openly for its leaders to keep their positions.

On the third day, Qian Liang called Feng Yu to inform him that the Bureau felt this article can be a warning after their internal discussion. They will be publishing this article in the internal circulation newsletter and on <People’s Daily> signed off by their office.

Also, Qian Liang will be leading a team of other leaders to conduct inspections on the various Provincial Bureaus. They must let China’s manufacturing sector return to the correct path!

……

“Old Zhao… have you read the papers?”

The boss of a company in Hunan Province, Zhao Tianbao, woke up by a phone call. He pushed the woman in his arms away and reach for his phone. The moment he answered, he heard the other party saying this.

Zhao Tianbao looked at his phone and saw the name of the caller. It’s Manager Hu from Hubei Province.

“Old Hu, what are you talking about? Are you in Hunan now? I will treat you to dinner and drinks tonight. After that, I will bring you to XX nightclub.”

“Old Zhao, wake up! This is not the time to think about drinking! Look at the <People’s Daily> now. The Industry and Commerce Bureau had published an article <The proper development path for the manufacturing sector>. The higher-ups are going to crack down on imitations and counterfeits! You might be arrested tomorrow if you don’t do anything about it!”

Zhao Tianbao becomes awake suddenly. What?! The higher-ups are going to crack down on imitations and counterfeits?! But the provincial Bureau had just inspected his factories.

Zhao Tianbao immediately hung up and got dressed. The woman on the bed reached over to hug him. “Dear, why are you up so early? Where are you going?”

“Let go of me! I have urgent matters to attend to. Hurry and check how much cash we have at home. I need it urgently.”

……

This scenario happened in several Provinces. These factory bosses thought they would be fine after the Provincial Industry and Commerce Bureau conducted inspections at their factories. But it is not over yet.

The higher-ups do not believe the Provincial Bureaus’ reports and will be conducting inspections themselves. This is going to be a big issue. All of their tricks are useless if the higher-ups get involved. Some factory bosses still want to try their luck, thinking that they might escape if they spend some money.

After this article was published, people started to discuss it on the internet. Some netizens, who had nothing to do, started to comment on it like they are from the local authorities.

“I think the Industry and Commerce Bureau is serious this time, and the people at the grassroots levels will be in trouble. They are right to do something after China joined the WTO. We are unsuccessful in several attempts to join this organization in the past is because we don’t have enough protection for IP theft and counterfeit issues.”

“Bullshit. The person above is only making baseless guesses. The reasons you stated might be possible, but the real reason is those western countries wants to limit our nation’s development. They allowed us to join now is because they know they can no longer stop our development.”

“Saying all these are useless. I heard this crackdown is because Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group filed a complaint. Many fake Songjiang Brand electric Bicycles are appearing in the cities and affected its brand and reputation.”

“Nah… who dares to file a complaint with their real names nowadays? They will be offending many Provincial Cities. Furthermore, Songjiang is a big brand. Do you think they will care about these?”

“No matter how small mosquitos’ legs are, they are still meat. Those imitation manufacturers are wrong. Last month, I bought a Songjiang electric bicycle for my Mum, which broke down after ten days. When I send it for repairs at the service center, it was discovered it is an imitation. They are unwilling to repair it, and the shop I bought it from also refuses to admit it. I should not try to save a few hundred RMB in the first place and go to Songjiang’s shop to buy it. At least, I will have no worries now.”

“But I think it’s the Industry and Commerce Bureau fault. If they had treated this issue seriously in the past, there would not be so many imitations around.”

Feng Yu read these comments and understood the Industry and Commerce Bureau’s worries. They are afraid the people will think badly of them. Since this is the case, I will influence the public’s opinion in my favor.

Chapter 1228 – Turning bad things into a good one

“Minister Qian, Sina news had published a commentary article about the news article we published.” One of Qian Liang’s staff reported.

“Oh? What did the article say?”

“The article says we are showing our determination to crack down on counterfeits and imitations and demonstrate our unit’s guts to take up responsibility and face public scrutiny. This is what a responsible government unit should do!” The staff replied excitedly.

All these years, the Industry and Commerce Bureau had been the target of scolding by the people. When they arrest those counterfeits and imitation sellers, people will scold them for bullying the people and confiscating their money. But people do not know they had shut down many illegal workshops and stopped the public from buying inferior counterfeits.

Some people know the products are fake but still buy them to save money. After that, they will complain about the Bureau for not doing their job.

The Bureau has to stop those counterfeits and imitations, and when they overlooked some imitation sellers, they will be scolded by the people and accused of them covering up!

The Bureau’s staff are used to getting scolded. The factories’ bosses will treat them with respect if they need their help. But when they don’t need their help, no one is willing to be their friends.

This is the first time the Bureau was praised openly, and the staff is overjoyed.

Qian Liang knew this must be Feng Yu’s doing to cheer for them.

All the major online news websites started to repost this article, and two factions appear on the forums. One side says the article is correct and the Bureau’s job is not easy. The other side felt these news websites are sucking up to the Bureau, as they are also under the Bureau’s jurisdiction.

“Eh, is this a joke? How can anyone say the Bureau is doing the right thing? This will be implying that the Bureau was not doing their job in the past. If not, why are there so many fake goods around?”

“You cannot say this too. Everyone knows there are many fake products around, but we will still buy them because they are cheap. If everyone doesn’t buy fake products and imitations, they will slowly disappear from the market. The Bureau can’t finish catching all of them.”

“Bullshit. Is one of your family members working in the Bureau? Let me tell you this. Those people in the Bureau are useless and corrupted.”

“Did you see it with your own eyes? Why didn’t you report against them?”

“These officials will cover up for each other, and it is useless even if I reported.”

“Get lost. These are all your guesses. You can come online and can type so fast, you should be someone educated. How can you be so stupid? You are too negative, and I think you should be those people who like to complain at your workplace.”

“F**k! It is none of your business how I act at my workplace!”

“You dare to curse?!  #$$%#%&^@#%@^%$”

Both were debating about the article, and it suddenly becomes a fight. The moderator who was monitoring the forum quickly banned them from posting.

This morning, all the forum moderators received instructions to look out for discussions about this issue and to influence people to believe the higher-ups are serious about this crackdown. They must also prevent those negative people from making this crackdown into something bad.

The internet is on the rise, and many people realized that they can say whatever they want as no one knows who they are. They can just create a nick and post rumors.

It felt good to be noticed by others. But other than feeling satisfied, they have no monetary gains. At least, the internet still has not developed to this stage now.

Of course, these people exist everywhere in this world, and it’s impossible to stop them. Even when the internet requires users to use their real names, they will still be around. They will post rumors and then claimed their accounts were hacked.

The discussion over this topic gained momentum on the forums. The moderators influenced the netizens’ opinions by pushing up those positive posts, pushing down the negative ones, and banning those attacking the Bureau’s crackdown. Things slowly changed, and more people started believing Sina’s article.

This article had not stated the Industry and Commerce Bureau is right. It only pointed out what they are lacking.

It is considered an objective article, which is slightly biased. The next day, < People’s Daily> published Sina’s article, and more people read it.

Why did the higher-ups want to control the media? It is because they want to control the public’s opinions. Many people had said overseas media has the freedom of speech. But look at the number of fake news reported overseas. Today, they will report XXX President is assassinated, and tomorrow there will be news of the YYY Prime Minister coming out of the closet. Just look at Hong Kong’s tabloids. How many of their articles are fake and taken out of context?

Also, China is slowly opening up their media. They started allowing the privatization of magazines and media. The various online forums that appeared recently became another channel for them to spread the news.

Not everyone that goes online is rational. Many of them will believe whatever nonsense they read online and don’t admit it even if they know it’s fake later on.

The higher-ups have a good impression of Sina, as it is on the government’s side.

Many people criticized the government leaders for not doing their job, but they don’t know how much they had done. Also, they will twist the facts on some of the things the leaders had done.

Many people will pass judgments based on speculations and not facts. For example, when they saw an illegal street vendor getting his pushcart confiscated, they will sympathize with him. But they forgot that this street vendor had blocked the walkways and cheated money.

This time, the Industry and Commerce Bureau had become the topic of discussion everywhere. This incident is considered a scandal as they exposed themselves by admitting China has many imitations and counterfeits.

But after the public’s opinion was influenced, everyone accepted it and started to cooperate with the higher-ups on the crackdown. When the Central Industry and Commerce Bureau staff went to the grassroots levels for inspections, the local authorities tried to cover up. But the public quickly reported against them.

Many small factories without approvals and produces poor quality products are exposed.

After all these factories are closed down, many people cheered.

Of course, there are opposing voices. But as more and more articles with pictures showing the Bureau’s crackdown results appeared, these opposing voices quiet down.

Even the higher-ups noticed this and felt the Industry and Commerce Bureau had done a good job!

Chapter 1229 – Electric Skateboard

After around ten days, the imitation Songjiang electric bicycles disappeared from the market. Of course, Feng Yu knows not every fake Songjiang electric bicycle will be gone. There will definitely be some manufacturers that escaped from this crackdown. But they will not dare to do this so openly.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s leaders started to go after the companies that used their patented technologies without authorization by filing lawsuits against them.

Feng Yu walked along the streets and saw some students playing with skateboards. Suddenly, he remembered a transportation tool from his previous life. Electric skateboard.

Electric skateboard originated from the US. Many youngsters in the US like to play with skateboards, which has something to do with their broad walkways.

In the future, some companies invented the Electric skateboard. It has a small motor and is powered by batteries. The user can move without kicking, and it is very popular.

But in China, not many people play skateboard. First, the walkways are not broad enough, and the parks are crowded. In fact, more people are rollerblading.

To beginners, skateboarding is difficult as it’s hard to maintain balance. It’s easy to fall over, and some designers installed a handlebar onto the skateboard, making it easier to operate.

The skateboard will be controlled by both the user’s hands and legs, and they will not fall easily.

But this electric skateboard is still slightly different from the transportation device in Feng Yu’s previous life. There is no seat, and the batteries cannot be detached.

Currently, this product can only be imported and is expensive. The material is costly, and normal material cannot be used as it will be damaged easily. It requires a good battery for it to last longer.

Feng Yu called Li Dafu over and told him about this idea.

“Electric Skateboard? Our company is developing it currently, and we have a prototype ready. We are using a high-performance lithium battery and can reach 30 km on a full charge. Even if it runs out of battery, it can be used as a normal skateboard as it is not very heavy.”

“We have also made some changes to the motor. We discovered that after adding a heat sink, the motor can last longer, but our production cost will be higher.”

“We had modified the suspensions. The overseas electric skateboards only have suspensions on the back. This is fine if the road conditions are good, but most people who buy this like to move on pedestrian walkways and not on the roads. That’s why we are adding suspensions to the front and back.”

“The body is using strengthen the aluminum alloy. It is lighter, stronger, and does not crack or bend easily. It can also last in extremely low temperatures and suitable for Bing City’s winter. The body has a foldable design, and after folding, it is about the size of a briefcase. Users can carry it on board the buses or subways.”

“Many people are staying far from their workplace and have to walk a few hundred meters to work to get on the public transport to work. So, many people will ride bicycles to the bus stops or subway stations. But parking their bikes there will incur charges and is inconvenient. Our electric skateboards can solve this problem as they can bring it up onto the buses and work. They can even charge it in their offices.”

Feng Yu laughed. He believes many people will do this. After all, they can charge it under their desk, and their leaders cannot see it.

Feng Yu thought the company has not thought about this. But the company has already designed a prototype.

There are two sizes of electric skateboards, but Feng Yu frowned when he saw the designs. Why are all these standing types? How come there are no seats?

“Didn’t you say this electric skateboard is a combination of skateboards and electric bicycles? How come there’s no seat?”

“Ah? Seats?” Li Dafu was stunned. This is an electric skateboard. When does a skateboard have a seat?

Feng Yu drew a foldable seat on a piece of the design drawing. “You must make it this way. The seat can be foldable and detachable. You had mentioned this device is for the convenience of people going to and coming back from work, or for short distance travels. But the traveling distance can reach up to 30 km. Have you tried standing up for 10 km?”

Li Dafu turned red as they have not considered this before. They had only copied overseas’ products and added some modifications.

Manager Feng can always point out what they overlook.

“This will add additional weight to the electric skateboard, but it’s not a lot. We can still keep it below 15 kg, and it will not be a problem for adults. But for kids, it will be too heavy.”

“That’s why the seats must be detachable. Kids don’t like to be seated when they play, and they will not fold it to bring it around. Most importantly, the brakes must be good and add a tail light. If our batteries are good enough, add a front light. Many people finish work in the evenings, and the skies have turned dark.”

“We had considered all these and will use low energy lights.”

“Ok. Remember, the electric vehicle is not limited to these products only. You all must not stop researching this technology. In the future, the electric car market will be bigger, and we must not lose out to other companies.”

“Manager Feng, electric cars are around for a long time. Even our country has electric trams. But it uses high electricity and has high requirements for its motor. Most importantly, it has no power. Who will want to buy it?”

“Some people buy cars is for transportation and do not like it to be too fast. You must control the speed of this electric skateboard. Limit it to 10 to 15 miles per hour and must not be higher than electric bicycles. Also, get the relevant approvals and don’t categorize them as toys.”

No one will buy electric cars? In Feng Yu’s previous life, many elderly will buy these small electric cars as transport. It is not expensive, and its handling is easy. Although it is not fast, it’s enough to meet their requirements.

“Alright. We have never stop researching this technology. But currently, we will still be producing these products as toys. Our electric toy cars are selling well. Life is getting better now. When I was young, even motorcycle is rarely seen, let alone these toy cars which can be driven.”

“Hahaha… the world is changing, and there will be more changes to come. It will be common for families to own a small car, and some families will own more than one car. Do you still remember I had told you that our products must be unique, positioned correctly, and have high quality? If you can do all these, and with our branding and marketing, the sales will not be bad!”

Chapter 1230 – Self-balancing personal transporter

Both chatted for a while, and Feng Yu suddenly remembered another popular product in his previous life when Li Dafu was about to leave. But most of the market share in his previous life had been taken up by overseas companies.

This product has many uses. Not only can it be used by civilians, but even the military and police also use it. Self-balancing personal transporter.

Self-balancing personal transporter can be a single wheel or double wheels. This device is also known as the Somatosensory Self-balancing device. It uses dynamic stability and is inspired by spinning tops. It does not have stable supports, but it will not topple over.

Self-balancing personal transporter uses tilt sensors and gyroscopic sensors to move and control it.

This was designed for fun and leisure, but it has become a new type of transportation device in the future. It is also high-tech and uses the center of gravity of the user to control the speed, movements, and direction.

When it was introduced to the market, it was known as ‘black technology.’

These two years, after this technology was introduced into the market, many countries researched on two-wheels Self-balancing personal transporter and it is one of the most researched topics by robotic researchers. The US is leading in this technology, followed by Japan, France, and Switzerland. Even Russia and Germany are lagging behind these countries.

Last year, Segway was formed and quickly become popular. Its product quickly shifted to military uses as it has a turning radius of almost zero. It can be used in tight spaces and used as an unmanned ground vehicle for scouting purposes.

In the future, many bomb-defusing robots will be using this related technology. Of course, there are caterpillar track robots, etc. which are suitable for different types of terrain.

Some scientists even felt this technology can be used in space exploration as it is more useful than those robots with caterpillar tracks.

China has also started researching this technology, and Huaqing University is leading the research and a few other universities.

By right, the standards of these Chinese researchers should not lose to overseas. Still, they did not cooperate and conduct their own research, hoping to get fame for themselves.

If these researchers worked together, it would be faster. Of course, they must have sufficient research fund in the first place.

The more advanced the technology is, the more research fund is required. China’s precision instrument research is second-rated, and just the gyro technology cannot meet international standards.

Many of the made-in-China Self-balancing personal transporters use parts imported from Japan and the US in the future. They had only assembled the parts and sold them under their own brands.

Whoever controls the core technology will have the final say and highest profits. That means the biggest portion of your profits will go to other people, and the risk you are facing will be higher.

Segway had left a deep impression on Feng Yu. It had appeared during Beijing Olympics, and many local authorities bought it in large numbers, resulting in this US company making high profits.

Feng Yu also want to try developing this technology. Still, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group does not have experts in this field.

However, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group can work with the Universities’ professors by sponsoring research funds and sharing its research’s fruits.

Feng Yu wants to use this technology on its products and profit from it. Those Universities wanted fame and money, and some are ordered by the State to develop them.

The state will order them to research this technology but will not provide enough funds. This is because China’s economy is still not developed yet.

Eight to ten years later, the State will increase its investments in this area. The higher-ups don’t know this, but the Government needs to spend its money in other areas.

“Manager Li, help me find out which institution and experts are researching on Self-balancing device. We will sponsor their research funds and get the rights to use this technology.”

“Self-balancing device? Manager Feng, this device is useless and is similar to an electric skateboard but is selling much higher. It is also very heavy and has limited uses.”

“Limited uses? That is because you have not targeted the right crowd. Think about this. When Policemen patrol in crowded areas, they need to be standing higher to get a clear view of the surroundings. Some factories, including inspection in Supermarkets, can also use this. This device can also be used as a personal transport device. With some simple training, people can play with it.”

“But this device does not have handles. Should we add a handlebar?”

“Yes. But even without a handlebar, you can think of other ways. For example, you can use a pole to help the user balance.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he had played with self-balancing devices. He held a rope attached to the front of the device to help him brake. If the user doesn’t dare to lean back, the device will not stop. With a rope attached, it will be easier. After the user is used to it, the rope can be removed.

Adding a handlebar is fine, but it will restrict the user from getting off it. They can only get off from the back and not the front. This might be an issue during emergencies.

Using a rope? Li Dafu imagined someone holding the rope like he is riding a horse…

Li Dafu doesn’t know if it will work and will get his people to test this idea. He needs to get in touch with those researchers and invest in them to speed up their research first.

Yes. Li Dafu can sponsor more research labs and get them to share their findings to speed it up.

If money cannot move these researchers, then Li Dafu will use the overall national interest to pressure them. Our target should not be competing among ourselves. We should be competing with those foreigners and stand above them!

Yes. This is what Manager Feng always says, and it is useful against those researchers.

These old researchers don’t care about profits. They only want fame and stand above others. But against the National interest, they must give in.

“Oh, our electric bicycle should also have a foldable model. We can authorize our folding technology to other bicycle factories. Good products can be expensive. If our product is the best in the world, we can sell it much higher than our competitors, and consumers will still buy them.”

Feng Yu continued to chat with Li Dafu about his ideas when he received Kirilenko’s call.

Chapter 1231 – The Arrogant Brother Ki

Kirilenko had called to remind Feng Yu about the NBA Finals and asked him to watch his team by the sidelines.

When Feng Yu’s team entered the Finals, Kirilenko had gone to support him. Now, it’s the Nets’ turn, and how can Feng Yu not go and support Kirilenko’s team?

The Nets’ players are much better than in their previous life. In Feng Yu’s previous life, the Nets had relied on new players to enter the finals, and none of the players got more than 15 points. But in this life, the Nets have stronger players, and Jason Kidd is playing much better. Feng Yu felt the Nets stands a chance to be the Champions.

This year, the Nets had gotten better results, and their first match is at its home ground. Feng Yu flew to New York and asked his driver to send him to New Jersey, which is only two hours drive away.

“Oh, many Lakers supporters had come to support them.” Feng Yu looked at the stands and saw a group of people in yellow and purple jerseys among the sea of white fans.

Kirilenko is furious. “What are the ticket sellers doing? Why did they sell so many tickets to people from LA?! Feng, I am not talking about you as I had invited you.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. “Don’t forget I have shares in the Lakers’ home ground arena. If you want, I can arrange for your team’s fans to be seated together, making them more outstanding in the stands.”

“Hahaha… Alright! It would be best if I can buy out all the tickets, and I can choose who can watch the match!” Kirilenko laughed.

“That is impossible. Don’t forget that some fans had bought tickets in advance and not many tickets are left. I will call Ralph to make the arrangements.”

The average price of tickets in New York is around 80 USD, and before Carter came to New Jersey, its average ticket price is less than 20 USD. But after Carter joined, the ticket prices doubled, but they are only less than a 2-hour drive from New York. This made Kirilenko mad.

Although the LA ticket prices are not as high as New York, the Lakers and the Wind and Rain Team’s average ticket prices are over 60 USD. Despite its price, the tickets are selling better than New Jersey.

The Nets had changed its starting lineups. Bateer is one of the starting lineups, and his job is to guard Shaq with Gasol. Gasol has long arms and nimble footwork and is the best person to assist Bateer.

The Lakers’ Center is stronger, while the Nets are stronger in the Power Forward position. Their Small Forward and Shooting Guard are around the same standards, but Jason Kidd is the strongest Shooting Guard in the league.

As for the substitutes, there is not a lot of difference between both teams. The Nets’ players are younger and are more energetic, while the Lakers have more experienced players.

Kirilenko is pissed with those commentators and media. Everyone felt the Lakers can defend their title, and no one supported the Nets.

What do these disgusting Americans know? Although I had not spent a lot on my team, I had put in lots of effort. Since you all look down on the Nets, I will make them the Champions this year!

“Feng, do you think we can win the championship this year?” Kirilenko lost his confidence suddenly.

The match started, and Shaq slammed the ball in.

“It’s hard to win if the team depends on one player to score. Even if Shaq gets 50 points, the Nets can still win if the rest of his teammates scored lesser points. Don’t forget Shaq is fat and heavy. His stamina will not last the whole match. He can be at his best for the first 30 minutes, but he will become slower after 40 minutes.”

As they chatted, Kidd scored with a three-pointer. Jason Kidd’s shooting had improved. He had enough of purposely playing badly to get the draft picks lottery. In the past two seasons, he could not even get into the all-star team. He wants to show the fans and those commentators that he can also score despite being the best point guard.

Both teams battled it out on the courts. All five Lakers’ players had scored, but the Nets’ Bateer had not gotten a single point. He had tried once but was blocked by Shaq.

Bateer’s job is to foul. Even the Nets scoring with four players, but their score is around the same as the Lakers. He felt tired after eight minutes into the match, but he believes America’s No. 1 Center, Shaq, is also tired.

Feng Yu looks around, and Kirilenko asked curiously. “Who are you looking for?”

“Paul Allen is not here? He did not bet with you this time?” That old fellow is scared?

“He had a bet with me, but he is scare of embarrassing himself by coming here. He should be watching the live telecast now. When the camera points to us later, let’s wave to him. Hahaha…” Kirilenko laughed arrogantly.

“Brother Ki, the camera is facing you.”

Kirilenko waved to the camera and said in perfect English. “Paul, you will lose.”

Paul Allen, who is watching the live telecast in front of the TV, is mad. This Russian is too arrogant. You just wait! Even if I have to pay 100 million USD of the luxury tax, I will also destroy you all!

Paul Allen still remembered what Kirilenko said when he bet with him. We will win the NBA. The year before last year, Feng had won the championships. This year is my turn, and you can never win it!

Paul Allen loves sports. He had bought teams in the four major leagues in the US. His football and baseball teams are quite successful, and even his ice-hockey team had made tremendous improvement this year. But his basketball team is making him mad.

Paul Allen’s basketball team can be considered doing quite well. When he took over the team, it was a bottom-level team, but he managed to enter the play-offs and even reached the Western Conference’s finals. However, compared to Feng Yu, this achievement is nothing.

That Feng Yu had used two seasons to turn a bottom-level team into the overall champions. He still shamelessly gave the Nets his team’s top player, Carter! What’s worse is the officials still allowed this to happen!

In the end, the Nets became the strongest team in the Eastern Conference and had not lost a single match in the league.

Paul Allen doesn’t believe the Nets can get past the Lakers, as the Lakers are much stronger than last year. Shaq is at his peak, and Kobe is starting to be playing like Jordan. They can surely destroy the Nets!

Their bet this time is hula dance. Even if the dance is not performed in front of the media, dancing in front of Kirilenko will be his greatest insult!

The first match ended, and the Nets won by five points. During the after-match press conference, Kirilenko proudly announced that he is planning the celebration party after the Nets got the Championship now!

Paul Allen is furious. Kirilenko is too arrogant!

Chapter 1232 – Brother Ki’s way of winning

“Brother Ki, how come I feel Shaq is not playing to his full potential today?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

Even if Bateer is strong, Shaq shouldn’t be exhausted after playing for 20 minutes.

Kirilenko smiled. “Feng, this is what I suggested to my team’s manager. The Lakers’ players cannot control themselves in LA. That’s why when they arrived yesterday, I arranged some special programs for them, especially Shaq.”

Feng Yu’s eyes almost popped out. Damn! Is this an off-court strategy?

“Don’t look at me this way. This is the NBA tradition, and who can they blame if they cannot control themselves? Their legs wobble during the match is because they are weak!”

“I had heard fans harassing the opposing team players before the match in the past. But I have never thought of this strategy.” Feng Yu replied.

“The fans harassing them is their problem. I think someone had leaked their hotel locations, and we have nothing to do with those screaming fans there!”

Feng Yu looks at Kirilenko speechlessly.

“Don’t tell me that you had bribed the referee too?”

“How is that possible? Didn’t you notice both teams have about the same number of free throws? But the basket’s tightness can be adjusted. When the ball hits the basket on one side, it will bounce off further, making it easier to get the rebound. The other side is looser, and the rebound will be nearer to the basket. The guard needs to move closer. Don’t tell me you don’t know this tactic?”

Feng Yu shook his head. “I don’t know!”

Damn! Other than bribing the referees, there are so many tricks. In Feng Yu’s past life, he had heard Jordan had encountered such treatments before. However, he still becomes the best player in NBA, and no one can stop him during a one-on-one.

“These are all the tactics?”

“Of course not. I will save other tactics for the next match. Hahaha!”

Feng Yu felt sorry for the Lakers.

…….

During the second match, Feng Yu noticed the Lakers’ players looking tired. Didn’t they learn their lesson from the last match?

Feng Yu asked Kirilenko and almost spit out his drink.

“You are saying their hotel’s fire alarm went off last night?”

“That’s right. Someone had smoked in the room, and the bed caught fire accidentally. The fire brigade arrived late. A crowd, including the reporters, had formed outside of the hotel and delayed the firemen. The fire was only put out after midnight, and the hotel staff went room to room to remind them not to smoke. The staff discovered one person smoking a joint in the room, and the Police came and searched all the hotel rooms. This lasted until early this morning.”

Kirilenko shrugged his shoulders as if all these had nothing to do with him.

Feng Yu showed a thumbs-up. “Brother Ki, I am impressed. I think your team can win this match easily.”

The Nets won the match by 16 points.

Before the Lakers left the arena, Phil Jackson announced they will trash the Nets in LA.

When the Nets arrived at LA, they separated their players and arranged for them to stay in Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s mansions. Their mansions are located in a well-off neighborhood, and no one can create trouble there.

The people living there can’t be bothered to create problems. Many of the Lakers’ fans are prepared to harass the Nets, but they cannot enter the neighborhood. So, the Nets players had a good night’s rest.

Kirilenko told his players personally. Train hard for the matches these few days, and he will treat everyone to Vegas for a vacation after they won!

The Nets’ players were motivated and put in their best during training.

The Lakers saw they cannot do anything to the Nets off-courts and can only use dirty tricks on the courts. But this is the Wind and Rain Arena, and Feng Yu’s men are guarding the courts. They told the arena’s staff that the Lakers should win against the Nets without using these dirty tricks!

The arena staff also felt the Lakers is a stronger team, and they have the best players, Shaq and Kobe!

In the end, the Lakers’ plan to use dirty tricks failed.

But to Feng Yu’s surprise, the Lakers won the match by 4 points. Shaq had played his best and even scored 15 out of 18 free throws!

The Lakers had gotten back at the Nets, and the arena staff also believe they can win against the Nets cleanly.

But in the next match, Shaq’s free throws returned to his usual standards. Out of 18 free throws, he only scored 8, and the Nets won by 7 points.

The final score is now 3:1, and the experts and commentators started switching sides. All of them think the Nets will win this year.

Feng Yu felt the Nets will not use despicable tricks this time. But Kirilenko did not let the Lakers off. This time, it’s not a fire alarm or police searches. The arena’s air-condition broke down and blew out hot air in the visiting team’s changing room.

Before the match started, the Lakers’ players are sweating, and they don’t even want to rest in the changing room during halftime.

Bateer got a pass from Kidd in the third quarter and managed to push Shaq off and scored with a dunk.

After this dunk, the Lakers could not turn the match around. In the fourth quarter, they gave up, and the Nets had the final laugh.

When the match ended, Kirilenko jumped up and hugged Feng Yu. “Feng, did you see it?! My team is now the Champions! We have finally gotten the championships!”

Feng Yu quickly tapped Kirilenko’s arm. Damn! You are too strong and also suffocated me!

Kirilenko quickly let go of Feng Yu but continued to shout beside him. He seems to be shouting something like Paul! Dance! Hula Dance!

Feng Yu saw Kirilenko is shouting towards the camera and understood that he is talking to Paul Allen. Their bet this time is to dance? Paul Allen is going to dance?!

Bam!

Paul Allen threw a glass at a large HD plasma TV and broke it.

What are the Lakers doing!? How can they lose to the Nets? How can Shaq lose to a non-drafted Chinese player? He was even knocked down by him! How can he claim himself to be the best Center in NBA?!

When the Nets’ players are celebrating, Kirilenko told them to carry on with their celebrations today. He will join them in Vegas two days later. He has something important to attend to now.

Kirilenko pulled Feng Yu along. “Feng, let’s go and watch a performance with me!”

Chapter 1233 – Developing World of Warcraft

To be honest, Paul Allen’s dance is awful, but Kirilenko loves it. It’s not the dance he is interested in. It is the dancer, although it is a man.

After watching the dance and rejecting Kirilenko’s invitation to party in Vegas, Feng Yu flew to California to check on Wind and Rain Games’ subsidiary, Blizzard. They had just released <Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos>.

At Blizzard, Feng Yu is satisfied with their performance after looking at their sales report.

These few years, Blizzard had released a series of games, and after being bought over by Wind and Rain Games, they have more funds and can hire more developers.

Last year, Blizzard released <Diablo II: Lord of Destruction> and sold more than 3 million copies. With Wind and Rain Games’ help, they successfully enter the Chinese market.

In the past, the biggest PC games market is not in Japan but in South Korea. Just Starcraft alone, Blizzard sold more than 1 million copies there. This is more than North America, and Korea has the strongest Esports team in Feng Yu’s previous life.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China has lesser PC users and do not have enough copyright protection. Most of the Chinese gamers are playing on pirated versions of the games. That’s why PC games are not selling well in China.

But in this life, Feng Yu had increased the pressure on piracy. He issued high monetary rewards to people reporting factories that produce and sell pirated games and raise awareness that pirated disk often comes with Trojan horses that threaten PC safety.

Also, Feng Yu’s games are often packaged with Lenovo PCs. Although the prices are lower than overseas, there are profits, and people slowly got used to buying genuine products.

Using pirated or original products is only a habit. Many people can afford to buy original products, but their thinking is, ‘Other people are using cheaper pirated products. Why should I spend more on the original version?’

When Half-life was introduced in China, the original disk sells much better than Feng Yu’s previous life. In his past life, China can be considered gaming companies’ nightmare.

The Chinese market is much bigger than the North American market. Still, the original games’ sales are less than 30% of North America’s sales. The Chinese do not play PC games?

Of course not! They are just buying the ‘cracked version’ of the games outside of the PC malls or bridges! China is the best at cracking others’ technical protection.

Many companies had announced that if any software’s technical protection features cannot be crack by the Chinese, it will be the best software in the market. After all, even Microsoft cannot do that.

Feng Yu thought about how to prevent people from cracking his games. Simple. Just prevent those who cracked his software from making any money and letting them know they must face the law!

When people can get profits of ten times their cost, they will dare to take the risk. The cost of a disk is 2 RMB, and they can sell it for 20 RMB.

But if the cost is increased to 5 RMB, and the original version is only selling for 30 RMB, their profits will be lowered significantly. These people will hesitate, especially they will be slapped with hefty fines if they are caught.

Those piracy factories can no longer give their software engineers high bonuses for cracking these games. They will not be motivated. Most of these engineers are highly educated, and they know what they are doing is illegal.

Of course, some of them are still willing to take the risk as high profits are earned. But it is only a small number of them. Some websites that promoted illegal downloads of pirated software are all shut down because of Feng Yu’s intervention.

I don’t care whether you are doing this for profits or not. Promoting piracy is wrong. I will give you a chance. Just delete all the software and pay the fines.

You don’t want to pay the fines? Then your website will be shut down. Why are the authorities helping Feng Yu to do this? It’s because of money.

China’s internet monitoring department equipment is mostly donated by Feng Yu. The department only needs to pay its workers’ salaries, and not the bulk of the cost. More importantly, the higher-ups are happy to have a department like this.

So, piracy development in China has been slowed down compared to Feng Yu’s previous life. The leaders in this life have not encountered the crazy piracy era, but he knows what he did was effective.

As more people choose originals, many of China’s software development companies can survive. Even if they developed good software, they could not sell it as people will buy the pirated version.

But now, at least these companies can make money from selling their software. Also, China’s biggest software distributor is Lenovo Kingsoft, and they are also the biggest software developer in China.

Their anti-virus and office software is the best in China and Asia. They are one of the best in the world, and their other software is also doing well. They had also acquired a few smaller software companies because these companies had developed good software.

Lenovo’s current development strategy is the same as Microsoft’s in the past. If they can develop software, they will do it themselves. If they cannot do it, they will get someone else to do it for them. But if someone else had already developed it, they will acquire that company.

All those smaller companies are overjoyed to be acquired by Lenovo Kingsoft. Running their own companies has uncertainties, and they might as well sell it to get more money now. Furthermore, the owners will also get some of Lenovo Kingsoft shares, and the dividends are very high.

Feng Yu is satisfied with Lenovo Kingsoft’s progress, except for their PC’s operating system development. Currently, they had the first version, and Feng Yu had tested it. It is slightly better than Win XP, but it is a far cry from Win 7.

This operating software’s compatibility is also not good enough. If it is not compatible with other software, how will it snatch Microsoft’s market share? Users will get used to a certain system. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Apple’s PC sales are doing well. Their software and operating systems played a major role in it.

Suppose Feng Yu’s operating system is compatible with the Win system. In that case, this system will be selling well when it is released. That is when Lenovo Kingsoft start to rise to the top.

Qiu Bojun and Lei Jun want to get listed and make money. With more funds, they can invest in their product development. But Feng Yu rejected this idea. He told them that since they can wait for so many years, why not wait for another two years?

The world will be shocked when this operating system is released, and their current products are not good enough.

Feng Yu smiled as he imagined the shock Microsoft will get when his operating system is released. It’s time for a Chinese company to be the best software company in the world!

“Adham, what’s that report at the back?”

“It is the development plan for a new game. We are going to name it as <World of Warcraft>!”

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

Chapter 1234 – PC games era

Feng Yu is overjoyed. “What’s the name of this game again?! World of Warcraft?!”

“That’s right. Didn’t you asked someone to tell us that our Warcraft should be made into a massively multiplayer role-playing online game and even gave us many background designs, missions, etc.?” Blizzard’s Director Adham asked in shock.

“Ah… that’s right. But I did not expect you all to be so fast. Have you all completed Warcraft 3?”

“Not yet. But after releasing Reign of Chaos this year, we will release The Frozen Throne next year.”

“What about World of Warcraft?”

“This type of massive 3D game is hard to develop. Luckily, people from other game companies had helped us by sharing their experiences. We estimate it will take two years to develop it, and after the testing, adjustments, etc., it should be ready to be launched in 2005.”

Feng Yu nodded. It is about the same time as his previous life, and it is around the same time when the Legend of Mir’s craze dies down. This will increase Wind and Rain Game’s reputation further.

This life is different from Feng Yu’s previous life. The Legend of Mir’s code was not leaked, and there are no private servers. Also, Legend of Mir has frequent updates with new maps, missions, skills, monsters, etc., to retain their players.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, even after the private servers appeared, the official servers still have many players. But the private servers still managed to get a portion of the players. After all, private servers are easier to level, and players can learn almost all the skills. Also, there are lesser players around and lesser competitions.

Another reason is private server is free to play. Although the game time card is not expensive, it is considered expensive for students.

Feng Yu estimates the Legend of Mir can still collect fees for the next three years and lose popularity when new games appear. He will lower the price of the game time card to retain the players for another year.

In 2006, game time cards will be abolished and switched to membership systems. Players can pay to upgrade their membership level, and there will be different rewards every day. This system follows mobile phone games’ strategy to make money, and The Legend of Mir had used it in Feng Yu’s previous life.

With the new system, the Legend of Mir should last for another few more years and slowly switch to web browser and mobile phone game. This game can bring at least ten years of profits for Wind and Rain Games.

But the Legend of Mir is a 2D game, and 2.5D games, like MU Online, had started to appear in the market. These games have more realistic characters and take away a portion of the players, especially overseas players.

After all, MU Online is based on western cultures and is more appealing to westerners. But even if the Legend of Mir only has the Chinese market, it can still make history in the gaming world.

3D online game’s profit is too important to be given away. Blizzard’s three most popular games must be further developed to make more profits. Currently, the games’ merchandise like comics, figurines, apparel, etc., are also bringing in high profits.

Games are not only selling the disk or collecting monthly subscription fees. The side merchandise is also very profitable. The US and Japanese companies are experienced in this area, and Feng Yu asked Kameda Masao to handle it. He had done well, and Legend of Mir’s side merchandise is selling well in China.

The World of Warcraft is the most popular MMORPG game in Feng Yu’s previous life, and the craze lasted for more than ten years. Even before his rebirth, many people are still playing it. After this game was released, all sorts of 3D online games appeared.

Excluding China, more than ten million players subscribed to World of Warcraft. Although the Legend of Mir has more than 30 million players at its peak, that is the number of registered accounts. The number of players online is only around 1 million on a server.

In this life, the number of players online in the Legend of Mir is much higher. This is because of its aggressive marketing, servers’ performance, earlier development of China’s PC, and internet development. But the number of players online is dropping slowly.

New servers are released frequently, and the number of registered players is slowly increasing. Most people are still playing Legend of Mir while some are playing Half-life, Diablo, and other games in internet cafes. Oh, some are there to watch movies.

This period is considered the golden period of PC games.

Gaming consoles like the Playstation, Nintendo, and Gbox still have fun games, but as more online games are released, the consoles’ market shrunk.

However, the real killer of video game consoles is mobile phone games.

As smartphones become more common, many people can play games, read novels, watch videos when they are free. They will no longer feel bored and look for things to do.

People tend to bring their phones wherever they go, and game consoles had to switch towards virtual reality and motion sensing.

But the disadvantage of these console games is you need a big space, or the player will get hurt.

You say you can sit on the bed to play the game? But you will know you are sitting on your bed, and how can you feel like you are in the game?

That’s why the video game console can only target high-end customers. Simultaneously, the gaming market is being taken over by PC games and mobile phone games.

Mobile phone games are not available in this era, and most of the market share is still video game consoles. But it is slowly encroached on by PC games.

Feng Yu wants Wind and Rain Games to come into every gamers’ mind when talking about PC game history.

“Just go ahead with the developments. If you have any financial difficulties, just inform Kameda Masao of Ralph.”

“We should have no problem with our finances as our Warcraft 3 is selling well. The profit is enough for us to develop World of Warcraft.”

“Good. Remember to treat the company’s employees well and make them feel they are a part of the company. Don’t be stingy when it comes to their bonuses. The higher executives and outstanding employees that had made significant contributions to the company should be rewarded. You don’t need to seek my permission.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Blizzard had gone through several rounds of their higher executives leaving and seriously affected its operations. In this life, Feng Yu does not want this to happen again.

“Thank you, Mr. Feng. Under your leadership, the company will surely reach another level. Wind and Rain Games will take over the PC game sector in the future. We will write the history of PC games together!”

Chapter 1235 – Football League

Feng Yu returned to China, and the World Cup had ended. Brazil had won it, and Ronaldinho won the Golden Boot, and Kahn won the Golden Ball awards.

When Feng Yu asked Zhong Qingxian to sign Ronaldinho, he is unwilling because he is too ugly.

That’s right. To the westerners and easterners, Ronaldinho is ugly with his buck teeth.

This is also why the other two Cola giants did not sign him and let the Chinese Beverage Alliance get this opportunity. Before the World Cup, Ronaldinho is not popular with the fans despite him playing well. Many other players, who can’t play and him, but are better looking, can get many more sponsorships and endorsements than him. Their income is several times more!

That’s why Ronaldinho agreed to sign a long-term contract of ten years with the Chinese Beverage Alliance.

The endorsement contract is not worth a lot, but it includes many conditions that will reward him for future achievements. This is to motivate him to play at his best in future matches.

Feng Yu knew Ronadinho’s setbacks is not over yet. Next year, Europe’s top football club, Real Madrid, had the chance to sign him, but they chose Beckham in the end.

Many people were puzzled. Ronaldinho is a better player compared to Beckham and had won the 2002 World Cup.

But Real Madrid’s Manager said that Beckham’s commercial value is higher, and no one will buy Ronadinho’s jersey because of his looks. Even after Ronaldinho won the Golden Boot, not many fans had wanted his autography compared to other players.

Beckham is different. He is considered good-looking worldwide and has fans even in Africa. This means Real Madrid will make high profits after signing him. But this also allows Barcelona to get a great deal. In the next few years, Ronaldinho is at the peak of his career.

Ronaldinho had become the main lead in the Chinese Beverage Alliance marketing campaign for the European and South American markets and increased its sales by a lot. The two Cola giants are regretting why didn’t they sign him earlier.

But they had signed Beckham and many other popular football stars, and they believe Ronadinho’s popularity will die down after two years. The Beverage Alliance will not have any football stars to endorse for them. At most, they can only depend on NBA star Carter.

Carter became more popular after winning the NBA championship this year. With his endorsement, the Beverage Alliance sales increased in the North American market.

With Ronaldinho as an example, Zhong Qingxian believes those young athletes which Feng Yu mentioned are all worth signing. He no longer hesitated and asked his men to quickly sign ten-years contracts with them.

Short-term contracts will not work as these people are not famous yet.

Feng Yu and Wen Dongjun are having a meal in a small restaurant. They are having simple dishes and chatting over a beer.

“You are so accurate. How do you know Korea will enter the semi-finals? I felt the Korean team is only slightly better than us.”

“This is the first time Korea is hosting the World Cup. Although Korea is one of the co-hosts, they have many ways to affect their stadiums’ results. For example, in this year’s NBA finals, the Nets used their home ground advantage to teach the Lakers a painful lesson…”

Feng Yu told Wen Dongjun about the dirty tactics used by the Nets to show him the home ground advantages.

“You are saying that the Koreans had harassed other team players?”

“I am not making this up. The media had reported on it, and you should have seen how biased the referees are. The Koreans played very rough but were not penalized. But they only dare to fix the matches before the Semi-finals. If they enter the finals and even get the third position, it will be a disgrace to FIFA!”

“Hmph! We should have applied to host the World Cups too. If it is held in our country, we might also reach the Semi-finals. We had finally entered the World Cup but did not even score a goal. I had high hopes for them and even give up playing my games to watch their matches.” Wen Dongjun replied.

“To host the World Cup, the country must qualify for the World Cup twice. This year is our first time, and we don’t meet the requirements. Furthermore, we had just won the bid to host the Olympics Games, and we should wait until the Olympics Games is over before we can bid for the World Cup. Every international sporting event will bring high profits to the host. We cannot be trying to get everything for ourselves.”

Feng Yu also wants China to host the World Cup. But China’s Football team must be good in the first place. It can’t be a country hosting the World Cup, but its team did not even qualify. It will be too embarrassing.

“Why do you think our National football team cannot improve? Our country has such a high population, and so many people like to play football. But why can’t we get 11 good players to represent us?” Wen Dongjun sighed.

“Let me ask you. If you tell Uncle Wen that you want to be a Football player in the future when you are a child, what will he say?”

“Is there a need to ask? He will surely give me a slap and ask me to stop dreaming. Maybe he will use a cane to cane me.”

“That’s it. Many families are also the same. They think playing football is not a career.”

This is the reality in China. Chinese football is not as popular as table tennis. If you say you want to be a table tennis player when you grow up, the family will support this decision.

In Europe, America, Africa, and even other Asia countries, football athletes are all-stars and are not inferior to movie stars. But in China, many Chinese don’t even know the National Football team players’ names, let alone recognize their faces.

“Then what should we do? Sigh… your basketball team in the US is so successful. Why don’t you form a football team here? Your company is so big, and it will be great if you have a team.” Wen Dongjun said.

Feng Yu thought for a while. Football is still quite popular in China and had entered the World Cup for the first time this year. The football stadiums’ attendance had also improved in the past two years. But it has too many scandals, and even Shanghai was stripped of its title.

“This can be considered. I will get Zhong Qingxian to buy a football team. Oh, you mentioned that the football teams had set up a league. Do you think I can buy out the league?”

Wen Dongjun’s jaw dropped. “What did you say? You want to form a Football League?!”

Translator’s note: I think the author had made some mistakes here. I think he had mixed up Ronaldo with Ronaldinho. It was Ronaldo who had won the Golden Boot in the 2002 World Cup. Hope the pandemic will be over by 2022. I still want to watch the 2022 World Cup.

Chapter 1236 – Setting up a Company

The Chinese Football Association’s Chief Secretary, Ma Bo, looks at Feng Yu in shock. “Manager Feng, what did you say? You want to set up a club league and organize a professional Football League?”

“That’s right. Do you still remember the Club World Cup two years ago? That is an international club league, and it is easier to enter it.” Feng Yu smiled.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the Club World Cup had consoled the Chinese football fans. Although there are many foreigners on the team, it’s the same for all clubs. This competition is based on football clubs, and the players’ nationalities do not matter. After all, the Chinese clubs have their City’s name in it.

“But we currently have our own professional leagues. Chinese Jia-A League and Chinese Jia-B League, etc., and they are doing well.”

Ma Bo did not say that he felt the Chinese Clubs are doing great. The Chinese National Football Team had entered the World Cup for the first time in history, although they did not score a single goal.

“Secretary Ma, I know you don’t like to hear this. Most of the National Team players that entered the World Cup had studied overseas before. But how come I heard that we no longer competing with other clubs?”

“Who says? We played friendly matches every year and had been sending outstanding players overseas!”

“The overseas competitions are split into different levels. World Cup and the Olympics Games are on the same level, and the Euro Cup is on another level. Beneath them are the top leagues of some countries. Our country’s league is nowhere near their standards. I believe you should know this better than me, right?”

Ma Bo smiled embarrassedly as he knows the standards of the Chinese football clubs. He might be able to fool the football fans, but not Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, we have thought about restructuring, and our proposal had been approved. It will be implemented next year.”

“Is it changing the Jia-A League to Super League, and Jia-B League to Jia-A League? You all are only changing the names, and you call this restructuring?” Feng Yu is speechless. If this is considered revamping the leagues, they can revamp it every year.

Chinese football needs to have a talent development scheme, which means they need to spend money to hire top coaches and trainers. The players must experience international standard competitions for them to show the results of their training.

To be honest, the Chinese Women Football Team is doing well and had gotten second place in the World Cup and Silver medals of the Olympic Games.

If the Women Football Team can do it, why can’t the Men’s team do that? There are not many women football fans overseas, and their training schemes are also not as good as the men. But they are at least better than China. However, the Chinese women team still managed to beat most of them.

Feng Yu felt the women have stronger fighting spirits than the men, and it’s not because they are more skillful than overseas players.

The world knows that black athletes have the highest explosive power. In contrast, Asians have better stamina, and white athletes are somewhere in the middle. Look at the sprinters, most of them are blacks, and mid-distance running is dominated by Asians.

But how come the Chinese Men’s football is not as good as their Women’s counterparts? This has nothing to do with their training, but the clubs are rotten!

The football league is corrupted with briberies and gambling. Those players can make money regardless of how they perform on the fields. Why should they do their best?

Just like the NBA. Many players had played well in their high schools and universities. Still, after they entered the NBA, and become a millionaire, their skills deteriorate.

Why is this so? Because after becoming rich, they start to enjoy life and relaxed. Only the players with self-discipline will continue to train hard to reach the next level and make more money.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he saw football and basketball players hiring personal trainers for additional training after their team training.

Each one of them is richer than the Chinese players, but they know what they want now. Every year, the athletes have time off to rest and go on vacations. An athlete’s career span is short, and they can enjoy life after they retired from being a professional athlete!

Ma Bo looks at Feng Yu in shock. These are not announced to the public, and how did he know about it? But when he thinks about Feng Yu’s status, it should be easy for him to get this information if he wants.

“That’s right. Manager Feng, we will be following the European league setups where clubs can be promoted to a higher league. This will improve our players’ overall standards and motivate them to play better.”

Feng Yu shook his head. “I have a question. The teams entering the Super League from the Jia-A league are only picking the best out of a bunch of bad ones. Do you think they can last long in the league? What’s the point of entering this year and exiting the next?”

To Feng Yu, this promotion structure is a joke, unless teams will get high rewards and sign better players after being promoted.

It is always the same few teams at the bottom of the table. What’s the point of it? The other teams don’t worry about being regulated from the league and think of ways to make money. That’s why there is match-fixing!

I will give you the points for money!

“Then what do you think we should do?” Ma Bo is pissed. The European countries are using this format. If they can make it work, why can’t we?

“We should follow the NBA’s format. Teams that are promoted will not be regulated, and the number of matches will increase. Also, we should sign foreign players and let them compete with our players. But we must focus on grooming our local players as overseas players are still overseas players after all. The Jia-A league will be a stepping stone for teams to enter the Super League. Every year, only one team from Jia-A League will be promoted, and any Super League teams that had committed serious violations will be regulated to the Jia-A league…”

Feng Yu said a lot. These are from the proposal of an overseas professional he hired. Many countries’ leagues used this format when they started.

Football in China will become like table tennis, where the number of players will increase like crazy. But there will only be slightly more than 20 clubs in the end and not 30 to 40 clubs because there are not so many good players.

After Feng Yu finished, Ma Bo looks at him angrily. “Manager Feng, you made it sound easy. Do you know how much it will cost? Do you know how much we receive from the government each year? Do you know how many clubs are losing money each year? Our Association is not as rich as you.”

“That’s why I said we should set up a management company. I can provide most of the funds, and all the clubs will be given some shares. The Football Association can also buy some shares. This way, we can commercialize our football faster. What do you think?” Feng Yu smiled.

Translator’s note:

Club World Cup

Chinese Jia-A League

Chapter 1237 – Must start from young

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China had set up a Super League Company. However, the clubs have no authority, and it was the Football Association who had the final say.

What’s the point of setting this company? It’s still the association that is making all the decisions.

“This… I need to discuss this with the rest. Also, if this company is set up, how are the shares going to be split?”

The association doesn’t care about the company. What matters the most is the authority. As long as the association has the final say, everything else is not important. They can still direct how the clubs spend their money. This will be beneficial to the association’s benefit!

“Of course, it depends on who comes up with the most money. For example, if this company needs 1 billion, and I invested 500 million, I will get 50% shares. This is simple, right?”

Ma Bo is furious. “What do you mean? This company will be based on who owns the most shares? What about the association?”

“The association can also put money into the company. If you all invested the most money, you would also own the most shares.”

“What about the rest of the promoted clubs?”

“The rest of the clubs can also invest, and the shares will be based on the invested amount. Don’t tell me you don’t know how shareholding works?”

Ma Bo is speechless. He felt Feng Yu is belittling him, but he dares not do anything to him. If Feng Yu is only an ordinary tycoon, he would have chased him out a long time ago. But Feng Yu is not any ordinary tycoon. His wealth is much higher than Superman Li and is much younger too.

But Feng Yu is not only belittling Ma Bo. He is belittling the association. If this company is set up, what will happen to the leaders in the association? He will be taking away the association’s authority.

The company can only be set up if the association is in charge.

“Manager Feng, I think you might not know how things work here. We are different from the US and European countries. Our association is more familiar with football management, and under our leadership, our national teams had improved a lot. Our Men team had entered the World Cup, and our Women’s team had won second place in two international competitions. These are all our credits.” Ma Bo moved backward slightly.

“I can let the association get the credit, and I will fund the company. If it fails, I will take the blame. I am also a football fan, and as a Chinese, I hope we can compete in international competitions. Secretary Ma, I think you might not know that none of my businesses had failed before!”

Feng Yu has no special solution to improve China’s football standards except for using money! He can provide a more professional training schedule, better coaches, and a platform for the players to showcase their skills. Of course, if the marketing is done well, the ticket attendance will improve. It might not be profitable now, but who knows what will happen in the future?

In Feng Yu’s previous life, some China clubs are profitable. Although their profits are not a lot, they can attract fans to watch their matches.

The Chinese clubs are not doing well now, and they will become worse in the coming years. Many clubs were disbanded, merged, and even volunteered to be regulated.

Chinese football fans would rather watch overseas matches on TV than watch their domestic matches at the stadiums, despite selling at low prices.

This condition is very attractive to Ma Bo. Feng Yu will fund the company, and the association will take the credit. If it fails, he will bear the responsibility.

Furthermore, Feng Yu had said his businesses had never failed. Does that mean he is confident of increasing the ticket attendance and helping the clubs make money?

Once the ticket attendance improves, it will be easy to make money. Pitch Side Advertising Hoardings and other sponsorships can bring in lots of money for the clubs. Feng Yu owns an NBA team and knows some ways to make money.

Furthermore, Feng Yu can hire a professional from overseas with high pay to manage this company.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, CBA can turn from a loss-making entity into a profit-making entity. Why can’t the Super League do the same?

Football fans are not inferior to basketball fans. Someone said that football fans are more willing to spend to support their clubs. Most of them are willing to buy club merchandise outside of the stadium, which is not what basketball fans will do.

Of course, someone mentioned that this is because there are lesser football matches than basketball matches. But who cares? This company must be set up first to prevent gambling activities and other bribery cases. It will stop the Chinese football leagues from going the wrong path.

Feng Yu does care if this company suffers losses as it will be nothing compared to his wealth.

“Errm… Manager Feng, I still need to discuss with the rest first before we can give you our answer. Not only our association needs to discuss it, but we also still need the approval from General Administration of Sports leaders.”

“I know. Oh, I think we should develop our youth football teams. I remember we used to have boarding schools, and we should carry on with that. All other sports athletes had started training from young and football should be the same. Also, football is not learned from watching videos. They still need to go overseas for training. I can make this arrangement too.”

The government once said that education should start from young and said PCs must start from young. In sports, they also made many slogans like XXX sports must start from young. But football and basketball had not developed well.

Most Chinese parents think that these are just games. If their kids want to be athletes, they should train for boring sports like sprinting, gymnastics, etc. To them, these are the real sports and can make the country proud.

The real reason is that football and basketball are fun, and anyone can join a team and play.

But playing is different from being a professional. If the parents do not change this way of thinking, Chinese football will be finished. The easiest method is to give scholarships to youth players and provide additional points for their further studies. This will let the parents see that being good at football is also very useful.

“We have been grooming our youths. Of course, we have limited funds, and it is not very successful. We will welcome if you are willing to help.” Ma Bo cunningly replied.

If Feng Yu can fund the youth players, the association can save some of their funds and spend it elsewhere. They will also get a good reputation.

“No problem. I can take care of the youth players. Football must also start from young. Secretary Ma, I will wait for your good news.”

Chapter 1238 – The Olympics Games lacks funding

The General Administration of Sport’s Chief, Zhao Yan, listened to Ma Bo’s report and felt very lucky. If Ma Bo was not his former secretary, he would have thought this is a joke.

The Football Association does not need to spend a single cent and can get most of the credit. Although they will lose some power, the General Administration of Sport can use its funds in other areas. Don’t forget that China had successfully won the bid to host the 2008 Olympics Games. The General Administration of Sport needs to spend a lot in many areas.

“How do you know Manager Feng?” Zhao Yan asked curiously. How come he doesn’t know Ma Bo knows Feng Yu in the past?

When Feng Yu helped the General Administration of Sport in the past, Zhao Yan was still a Deputy and did not have the chance to interact with him.

“It was Manager Feng who had contacted me. I was surprised at first, but I think this is good for the association after some thought. After all, he owns his own team overseas. Although it is a basketball team, that is the most successful basketball league in the world. I think he is more experienced than us. More importantly, money is not a problem for him.”

The last sentence is the most important.

Zhao Yan is excited. “How much do you think Manager Feng will invest?”

“From what he mentioned, I think it is around 1 billion!”

“How much?! 1 billion?! Ma Bo, you had made a great contribution!”

The General Administration of Sport does not need to issue funds to the football association for the next few years. Even if they still issue funds, it will not be as much as before. If Zhao Yan gets to speak to Feng Yu, the latter might invest a lot more.

“That’s all because of your wonderful leadership.” Ma Bo started to flatter Zhao Yan.

“Ok. Help me ask Manager Feng out. I would like to speak to him and see if he can support our country’s other sports.”

Feng Yu had donated a lot to the past two Olympics Games and should be donating more in the 2008 games as it will be held in Beijing.

…….

“Eh? Why are you here again?” Feng Yu arrived at the General Administration of Sport. They saw Wen Dongjun when he enters Zhao Yan’s office.

Wen Dongjun gave Feng Yu an unhappy glance and served him tea before leaving the office.

Damn! Who wants this promotion?! I was enjoying my time at the Basketball Association and was forced to be transferred back to the office. Why am I being appointed as the secretary again?! I still need to serve tea to others!

“Xiao Wen, sit down and join us.” Zhao Yan said.

“Manager Feng, I heard Xiao Wen is your childhood friend. I had transferred him to be my secretary temporary. I will be appointing him as one of the Olympics Games Committee Member. If he does a good job, he will have a bright future.” Zhao Yan laughed.

Feng Yu did not object. In his previous life, the 2008 Olympics is the first time China tops the medal table. This is a great achievement to all the General Administration of Sport’s staff.

Feng Yu glanced at Wen Dongjun and replied to Zhao Yan. “That’s right. We had grown up together, and he was still my cameraman at my wedding.”

“Manager Feng, I will not beat around the bush. I heard from Ma Bo that you have the intention to set up a company to manage football league and is also willing to invest a large amount to groom our country’s footballers, including the youths.”

Zhao Yan purposely emphasized the words, ‘a large amount’.

Feng Yu nodded. “That’s right.”

Ma Bo, who was sitting beside, sigh with relief. He was afraid Feng Yu would suddenly change his mind.

“I heard it will be at least 1 billion?” Zhao Yan continued to ask.

When Ma Bo reported to Zhao Yan, he said it was 1 billion. But now, it had become at least 1 billion. This is a hint to Feng Yu to invest more.

“That’s right. It will be at least 1 billion. I think this should be enough for the stadiums, training centers, and other facilities.” Feng Yu nodded.

“Manager Feng, just the stadiums’ turf maintenance is not a small amount, and you mentioned the training centers and youth players, etc. 1 Billion is not enough. Some of the clubs are unable to invest much money.”

Zhao Yan is slightly worried. The clubs’ owners might be billionaires, but they are unwilling to spend even 10 million.”

“1 Billion is enough. I am talking about USD!” Feng Yu said casually as he crossed his legs.

Hiss….

Zhao Yan and Ma Bo look at each other in shock.

1 billion USD?!

This is not a small amount!

Only Wen Dongjun remains expressionless because Feng Yu had gotten some information from him. He knows how much money Feng Yu is going to invest. Also, he knows Feng Yu well. Feng Yu can earn lots of money, but he also spends a lot.

“Manager Feng, did I hear wrongly? You are saying it’s 1 billion USD?!”

“That’s right. We need to revamp and rebuild many stadiums and add in some facilities, including training equipment. The league also needs prize money, and I am thinking of offering lucrative prizes for the winner.” Feng Yu replied.

“Manager Feng, what other requirements do you need? Just tell me, and I will settle it for you!”

Zhao Yan becomes decisive suddenly. If any of the clubs reject, he will bar them from competing!

“I will make this company into a shareholding, and all the clubs should contribute a little and own some shares. 50% of their ticket sales must be handed over to the company and distributed to the rest of the clubs based on the proportion of the shares. A portion of the ticket sales will be kept as the winner’s prize. The other 50% will go to the clubs. This will help those loss-making clubs. As for how much each club should contribute… I think 10 million RMB is enough. They might not afford anything more than that, and anything lesser, they might not get any shares.”

“Alright. I will let them know, and they will fork out the 10 million obediently. Our original plan is 12 teams in the Super League. Do you think it is enough?”

“Yes. Also, the company will have the final say in which team will be promoted. I hope the association or other leaders will not interfere. I did not invest so much money for fun.”

“Sure. As long as it did not violate our laws and FIFA regulations, no one in the country will interfere. You can rest assured.”

Zhao Yan does not dare to do anything that will piss this God of Fortune off. If he did anything that chased Feng Yu away, the higher-ups would not let him off.

Although having more money does not mean anything, but it is political credits to the Sports Administration.

“Someone will be here to discuss with you all about the details, and I shall not say anymore.”

“Alright. I will get Xiao Wen to contact your men. All the paperwork and procedures will be approved, and just look for me if there are any problems. Oh, the Olympics Games will be held here in 2008. Err… We also lack funds for the Olympic Games.” Zhao Yan looks at Feng Yu with anticipation.

Chapter 1239 – Increasing the sponsorship’s benchmark

The Olympics Games and the host country have already gotten sponsors and suppliers, like Coca-Cola. Most of the time, the official suppliers are also the sponsors. There is another type called partners, which is about the same as sponsors.

China is a country with a low average income and is considered backward compared to the past host countries. The recent Sydney Games had shown China that hosting the Games will get a good reputation and make money.

The host country’s organizing committee will get businessmen to participate. China is currently planning its budget for the 2008 Games as all the host countries had high budgets to host the Games. China can also afford it, as its economy had been doing well in recent years. But other Provinces will be unhappy if the Central Government increases Beijing’s budget for the Games.

So, the organizing committee thought of a way to solve its budget problem. Getting lots of sponsors.

Basically, all major State-owned enterprises, Hong Kong and Macau tycoons have donated to the committee. Of course, China does give them tax subsidies in exchange for their donations.

As China and Asia’s No. 1 super tycoon, the committee had wanted to get Feng Yu to donate a long time ago. But because Tai Hua Holdings had donated a large amount, they are embarrassed to contact him again.

Zhao Yan finally got the opportunity to meet Feng Yu, and he will not let the opportunity slip.

“Donation? Didn’t Tai Hua Holdings donate?” Feng Yu remembered Zhong Qingxian had told him that Tai Hua Holdings had donated to the committee much earlier.

“Huh? Yes. But we are still short of funds. That’s why I hope Manager Feng can donate a bit more.” Zhao Yan’s face turned red with embarrassment for asking him to donate again.

“Oh… don’t you all have official sponsors? We can donate slightly more if you all can appoint us as the official sponsors.”

“How much is slightly more?” Zhao Yan asked.

Feng Yu laughed. “Chief Zhao, I will discuss with Zhong Qingxian first and give you an answer. But don’t worry. I will contribute to our country’s sports!”

Zhao Yan is overjoyed. “I will represent our organizing committee to thank you.”

…….

“Old Zhong, how much did our Tai Hua Holdings donated to the Olympics Games? Are we the top donator? 1 billion RMB?”

1 billion RMB should be the top organization’s donation for all the past Games. No companies have ever donated more than 100 million USD in the past.

Feng Yu remembered that Hong Kong and Macau Tycoons’ top donation and the sponsor is only around 80 million USD in his previous life. But the total donations by the tycoons are more than a few billion USD.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China had raised close to 50 billion USD for the Beijing Olympics. The government budgeted 42 billion USD but ended up exceeding it by 1 billion. After the games ended, the new stadiums and sports arenas are worth more than 45 billion USD. This means the country had not made any losses.

The basic infrastructures built for the Beijing games include airports, roads, subways, etc., and it cost around 30 billion USD. These are what Beijing and the Central Government are going to build in the future. If they are not hosting the games, it will also be built in the future. But it will not be built at the same time.

Just Wind and Rain Consulting’s investment in gold futures alone had made lots of money for Feng Yu every week. His investments in the US IT-related companies are also doing well. He can basically do nothing and spend the rest of his life counting money, and no one can exceed his wealth.

If China is going to host the Olympics Games, it must be spectacular and demonstrate its strength to the rest of the world. China has risen and has more influence internationally. Another reason is China has always been prideful for being a strong country since ancient times. Past Olympics Games always have many issues, and nothing must go wrong when held in China.

Now, China is going to host the Games, and the organizing committee realized that it is costly to host a perfect Olympics Games. Of course, China can earn back its investments in other areas. It can continue to bring in additional income in the future.

Just the tourism receipts is a lot, let alone other sectors.

“Old Zhong, check with all our subsidiaries and see how much more they can donate. If they cannot donate now, they can do it in annual installments. We must raise the benchmark of sponsorships to the highest in the world!”

Those TOP sponsors did not sponsor more money, but they get the most airtime. This is because they have connections with the International Olympics Committee.

Feng Yu cannot do anything about this as they had signed contracts before the games started. But he can humiliate the International Olympics Committee by showing them their ‘TOP’ sponsors had only donated a small amount and are only ‘spare changes’ compared to his donations.

“Manager Feng, how much are you going to donate?”

“Prepare 100 million USD for each of our brands. If it is not enough, we will increase further. I will donate more under my name and let the International Olympics Committee know that their sponsors are too stingy!”

Zhong Qingxian is speechless. Feng Yu will be pissing the International Olympics Committee off, but it’s also a good thing. Those international committee members will not dare to interfere in the Beijing Games.

Many people are unhappy with the International Olympics Committee as they are paying themselves highly. The members get an average of more than 1 million RMB, and even the ordinary members are getting more than 500,000 RMB annually. Their jobs are also very simple.

The TOP sponsorships and 90% of the broadcasting fees will be given to the host country’s organizing committee. That’s why if the ‘TOP’ sponsors sponsored more money, China would get a bigger share.

Suppose those ‘TOP’ sponsors had sponsored lesser than China’s official sponsors. In that case, the International Olympics Committee will be embarrassed, and China’s organizing committee can raise an issue about this.

“Manager Feng, are you sure you want to do this?”

“What’s wrong with that? I am donating money. Do I need their permission?” Feng Yu hates such ‘traditions’ where you cannot donate more than the leaders. Furthermore, the International Olympics Committee cannot do anything to him!

“Alright. This should not be a problem. But I need to check with the different brands first.” Zhong Qingxian needs to consider the company profits first, as not everyone is as rich as Feng Yu.

“No problem. The more we donate, the more we can save for our country. If those foreigners cannot afford to sponsor so much, they can give up.”

Chapter 1240 – The speechless Coca Cola

China will host the 2008 Olympics Games, and many companies looking to enter the Chinese market felt this is an opportunity. For example, some Japanese electronics companies, the two cola giants, and some other companies.

But the Japanese electronics companies and the two Cola giants are not close with the Chinese government. They felt they should look for the International Olympics Committee instead of the Chinese government. After all, the International Olympics Committee decides the ‘TOP’ sponsors and inserts their advertisements into the broadcast.

Companies like Panasonic, Coca-Cola, and VISA, had sponsored many Olympics Games in the past and felt it’s worthwhile. For example, the 2000 Sydney Games had increased their product sales by a lot.

Panasonic had risen quickly in the past because they had managed to enter the Chinese market. As years passed, their market share in China fell, and they had been kicked out of the Chinese market.

China is a vast market, and it is the biggest emerging market in the world. If Panasonic can penetrate the Chinese market again, their profits will shoot up.

Many people in China have not heard of VISA, and they had been eyeing the Chinese market a long time ago. VISA is a credit card, and it will be more convenient for its customers if more countries adopt them.

Coca-cola has always wanted to enter the Chinese market. Although they were not forced out from China, their sales are not improving. The Chinese Beverage Alliance had been targeting them.

The best media advertisement timeslots had been taken away. All the celebrities they wanted to sign as their endorser had been snatched away. Even the bottling factories they wanted to acquire were acquired by others.

Coca-cola is the beverage market leader in many countries around the world. But they cannot even enter the top five beverage brands in China!

What made them speechless is much Chinese thought Lehaha’s Refreshing Cola is the authentic Cola, and Coca-Cola is copying them. Coca-Cola is the one who invented Cola!

The secret recipe of Coca-Cola is priceless!

This is a good opportunity for Coca-Cola to tell the Chinese that Lehaha is the imposter. They are the authentic ones!

……

“What? Are you sure? How come the TOP sponsor fees increase by so much? Didn’t you say the sponsorship is at least 5 million USD?” Coca-Cola’s Marketing Vice President shouted.

Is this a joke? This is not the first time Coca-Cola is sponsoring the Olympics Games. They had always been the Olympics Games sponsor and are the longest sponsor in history. They want to maintain and continue this record.

No one is clearer about the Olympics Games sponsorship than them. Even the US Olympics Games’ sponsorship is not so expensive. How come a developing country like China’s sponsorship is so high?!

“Jim, don’t get angry. We are not targeting Coca-Cola. Our sponsorship fees for the 2004 games can be based on what was discussed. But this price is not enough for the 2008 games!”

“Why? We know the sponsorship fees will increase every year, and we have included it in our sponsors, which is reasonable. But you all are the ones who increased the sponsorship by a lot. How can you all do that? Are you saying that China will become a developed nation by 2008?! Even if it is a developed nation, the sponsorship should not be so ridiculous!” Jim shouted angrily.

Jim had wanted to discuss with the International Olympics Committee to enter the TOP sponsorship of the 2008 games. This is considered advance payment, but Coca-Cola will not suffer any losses, and the price will increase as it gets near to 2008.

Of course, China will get this sum of money earlier and can use it on the infrastructure. Coca-Cola is familiar with this procedure.

Sponsoring early can save lots of money for them, and they can advertise the Olympics logo earlier. This will help in increasing their sales in the host nation.

Coca-Cola can introduce memorabilia bottles to increase their profits, which will last even after the games have ended.

But this time, the International Olympics Committee is asking for a lot. Is this what the Chinese Organizing Committee wanted?

“Jim. I will show you a list, and you will understand. These are the official sponsors for the 2008 games. Look at how much they sponsored.

Jim’s eyes nearly popped out of his sockets! How is this possible!?

The top ten sponsors had sponsored more than 200 million USD each, and the top sponsor had sponsored 500 million USD! Why are the sponsorships so high?

Coca-Cola had sponsored less than 50 million USD for the 2004 Olympics Games and thought 60 million USD is enough to be one of the TOP sponsors in the 2008 games.

But the International Olympics Committee told them that they need at least 200 million USD.

How can the TOP sponsors’ sponsorship be lower than the organizing committee’s sponsors?

But 200 million USD is too much! The highest amount Coca-Cola is willing to spend is 80 million USD. This is only to be qualified as a TOP sponsor and did not include the advertising costs.

If Coca-Cola needs to sponsor 200 million USD, their total spending for the 2008 Games will be more than 300 million USD. They might not recover this cost.

“Did anyone sign the contract?” Jim asked.

“Not yet. But more than a dozen had come to ask about this, and all of them needs to consider. My suggestion for you is to consider this too. After all, you all had sponsored so many Games, and it will be a pity if you miss out on the 2008 Games.”

Jim cursed in his heart. Of course, you want us to agree, as your income will increase a lot. But this is a huge amount, and he dare not make the decisions.

Damn! Where did those Chinese sponsors come from?!

Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, Aiwa Electronics, Aiwa Home Appliances, Tai Hui Supermarket Group, Aiwa Little Tyrant, Tai Hua Consultancy, Lehaha Group, Wind and Rain Consulting, and Wind and Rain Holdings.

When Jim saw Wind and Rain Holdings and Tai Hua Holdings on the list, he knows what happened. These are all Feng Yu’s companies.

This Feng Yu is creating trouble for everyone. You sponsored so much money for this Game. How are you going to earn it back? Also, why do the rest of your shareholders agree to these sponsorships?

Feng Yu had injected dollar for dollar into the companies for their sponsorships. This will be promoting the companies, and the other shareholders can benefit from it. Of course, they will not reject. After all, this will be written into the Olympics Games’ sponsorship history, and they will be remembered forever.

Also, all of them are Chinese and will spare no effort to contribute to China. These shareholders are all wealthy and don’t mind suffering some losses.

Jim left the International Olympics Committee’s office. How is he going to answer the company? He had guaranteed that Coca-Cola will enter the TOP sponsors before he comes, but everything changed because of Feng Yu! What is he up to?!

Chapter 1241 – Double Happiness

Feng Yu has been very busy these days and had no time to care about what Coca-Cola’s representative thinks.

His huge donation had shocked the higher-ups. This is not a small amount, and the top leaders were very thankful to Feng Yu.

Also, the leaders wanted to give Feng Yu a government title but were rejected by Feng Yu. With this title, he will have obligations.

Feng Yu does not have time, and he felt if he has the time to attend government meetings, he might inspect his factories and companies to see how he can increase his workers’ welfare and benefits.

Feng Yu is also not interested and does not want to interfere with the higher-ups. But if the State needs him, he will do his part.

A top leader had wanted to meet Feng Yu today but was rejected. This is because Feng Yu needs to accompany Li Na to the hospital.

Li Na had suddenly felt sick two days ago and had missed her period by over a week. Feng Yu’s first thought is she might be pregnant.

Feng Yu did not call home to tell his parents about it as he wants to confirm it in the hospital first.

Beijing Tai Hua Hospital’s Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology smiled and congrats Feng Yu.

“Manager Feng, your wife is pregnant. From the ultrasound, I can see she is confirmed pregnant, but there are two black dots: Gestational sacs. I need you two to return one week later for further checks.”

Feng Yu blinked and asked. “What do you mean by two Gestational sacs? Is it dangerous?”

“Two Gestational sacs means it might be twins, but it’s too early to confirm it now. From my years of experiences, there is a high possibility of your wife having twins.”

Feng Yu is overjoyed. “You mean it’s twins?! That’s great! Thank you, Director Sun! Thank you!”

Director Sun smiled. “Manager Feng, why are you thanking me? Also, I mentioned that this is not confirmed, and she needs to come back again one week later.”

Before Director Sun could finish, Feng Yu had run out to hug Li Na.

“Is it confirmed?”

“Yes! You are pregnant, and the doctor says it might be twins! Let me help you up. Slow down.” Feng Yu is smiling happily.

Li Na looks at Feng Yu speechlessly. “I am only 4 weeks into my pregnancy, and you don’t need to hold me. I can walk by myself.”

“No. You must listen to me. The doctor said the first three months of pregnancy are the most dangerous. I will call your school to take time off for you. During this period, you will stay at home. Oh, I will also get two maternity matrons to take care of you. I will ask Zhang Han to see if I had missed out anything.”

“It’s too early for me to apply for maternity leave. Furthermore, it’s only one month into my pregnancy. There’s no need for maternity matrons now.”

“Then I will hire two professional maternity care nurses to let them accompany you. You must not return to school as there are too many electronic devices, chalk dust, students running around… it is too dangerous. Listen to me. We will apply for unpaid sick leave.”

“But it will be boring at home.”

“How can it be boring? I can accompany you. You like reading, right? We can buy some books, and I can read them to you.”

“Nonsense. You are so busy with work, and did you see Mum’s reaction when you told her you made a huge donation a few days ago? If you don’t make money back, Mum is going to nag at you again.”

“It’s alright. I just need to tell her that you are pregnant, and she will be fine even if I donated some more money.”

Feng Yu did not inform anyone but called Zhang Han to ask her for advice.

Less than an hour, Wen Dongjun arrived with Zhang Han. He is also carrying their child.

“Congratulations… when are Uncle and Auntie coming over?” Wen Dongjun asked.

“I still have not told them.”

“Why?” Wen Dongjun asked curiously. Why is Feng Yu not telling their parents?

Feng Yu proudly replied. “Because the doctor says it might be twins and asked us to return in one week to confirm.

“Really?! Congratulations!” Zhang Han is happy for them and looks at them enviously.

Feng Yu looks up proudly. “No choice… having twins depends on innate talents. You can just envy us. Hahaha…”

Wen Dongjun looks at Feng Yu. “Do you think I did not attend school? Who in your family has twins? Hurry up and tell me. Is it that you have some secret formula?”

Feng Yu: “……”

You still dare to claim you have attended school? Secret formula?! Don’t you know that you cannot control natural pregnancy?! If I have such a formula, my Bing City Pharmaceutical Group would have been rich!

“Zhang Han, Dongjun, help me to advise him. He wants me to take time off from work to stay at home. How can he do this? Zhang Han, you are a Police Woman, and you continued working when you are pregnant.”

“How can it be the same? I sent and fetched her from work during that period. It was too tiring.” Wen Dongjun tried to speak up for Feng Yu. “Feng Yu is so lazy. Do you think he will do that? Also, his business is so big, and he might not have the time to send you to work if he has something to attend to?”

“But Feng Yu had hired a driver for me. Don’t think I don’t know. The driver had been following behind my car wherever I go.” Li Na gave Feng Yu an angry stare.

“I am worried for your safety.” Feng Yu smiled.

“What’s there to be afraid when a driver is sending and fetching mee from work? I want to continue to work and don’t want to stay at home!”

“But you cannot carry on teaching. The chalk dust is too dirty. Alright… I will transfer you to the library, and you can read books there too.” Feng Yu gave in.

Feng Yu knows that being overprotective and sudden change of habits is not good for Li Na.

One week later, Feng Yu saw the medical report, and if he is not in the hospital, he would be screaming with joy.

Twins! It’s really twins?!

Although it is too early to tell the sex of the twins, having twins are rare.

“Come… have some sweets.” Feng Yu gave out sweets to everyone he met. People still thought his wife had just given birth.

On the way home, Feng Yu did not stop smiling. He did not have any children in his previous life, and now, he will have two.

Feng Yu immediately call his parents the good news once he reaches home. He behaves like a kid who had just gotten full marks in a test and showed off to everyone.

The next day, Feng Yu and Li Na’s parents came over. This is a special occasion for their families.

Now, Feng Yu cannot interfere in making arrangements to take care of Li Na. He tried to say something but was rebutted by his parents. “Have you given birth before? Have you taken care of pregnant women before? You don’t know anything and should step aside!”

Feng Yu is speechless. It’s my wife who is pregnant. Why must I step aside?

Luckily Feng Yu have something to do at this time. Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group called to inform him of a piece of good news.

Chapter 1242 – Technology breakthrough

“Old Li, you say we can start producing high CC engines? Hahaha… great! That’s terrific!”

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had been developing new engines. It had been working with Bing City Aviation all this while. As the company’s profits increased, their investments into R&D also increases. Their technologies improved faster.

A few years ago, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group can produce high CC engines. Still, the cost is almost double of other major automobile manufacturers. This means they can only be competitive in China and not overseas.

Songjiang Motors have two popular models overseas. One of them is Oriental Deer, and the other is Little Genie. Olympics, which is selling well in China, is not selling well overseas other than East Europe.

Europeans and Americans prefer cars with large displacement, especially SUVs. Toyota 4500 SUV had created history with its strong and cheap engines. Among the big SUV, this model had created a name for itself. Now, Toyota made a new breakthrough by developing a cheaper 4700 CC engine.

But that does not mean other major automobile manufacturers do not have bigger CC engines. Volkswagen, Ford, etc., have the technologies for 4800 CC engines and work on 6000 CC engines. But it is used in luxury and sports cars, unlike Toyota, which uses it on mid to low range cars.

The technology is not perfect, and mass production will increase the cost and loses competitiveness. Toyota is good at controlling their cost, and the retail prices of their vehicles are kept low. This allowed them to gain a big market share of the high CC SUVs market.

With just the 4500 model, Toyota had gained a foothold in China and was not suppressed by Songjiang and Volkswagen.

But FAW had proposed to Toyota to ask them to go into a joint venture with this model since they have the 4700 model. But Toyota rejected. They can get higher profits by selling this model themselves and protect their own technology.

If FAW learned the production technologies of this engine, Toyota must continue with their joint venture forever. Joint ventures are more beneficial to the Chinese manufacturers, and Toyota does not want to see this happening.

If it wasn’t to penetrate the Chinese market, Toyota would never go into a joint venture with Chinese manufacturers. All these are because of the changes brought upon by Songjiang Motors.

Toyota’s current target is to continue increasing its brand awareness in China. They foresee they can take over the Chinese automobile market in the future. When that happens, Toyota will become the World’s No. 1 Automobile manufacturer.

…….

The new engine developed by Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group is copying Volkswagen V series engines, and its inspiration is from aircraft engines.

Early in the twenty century, someone had used a W12 plane’s engine to build a 24 liters engine car, and it shocks the world. That’s right. It’s 24L and not 2.4L.

Bing City Aviation has the W series engine technologies but had never considered using it in an automobile. They are still developing the V series engines.

V6 is successful, but they faced difficulties with the V8 engine. Although they can produce it, the cost is much higher than Volkswagen.

So, Feng Yu suggested combining two V6 engines to create a w12 engine.

This reminded Bing City Aviation’s engineers about the W12 engines in their factory. This engine is an obsolete aircraft engine.

But if they upgraded the technologies and used them in automobiles, it will be great.

First, they need to minimize the engine’s size and lower the output to below 6L. Although higher CC will increase its power, it will be too fuel-consuming.

The engineers even thought about creating a W8 engine with their V4 engines. This will surely be smaller than V8 engines.

If the engine is too big, it cannot be fitted with a 4-wheel drive and can only use it on the rear-drive. But if the engine is smaller, all these problems will be solved.

4-wheel drive cars have better control, and SUVs’ performance will be improved. They had developed this engine for the new model of Oriental Deer.

The breakthrough this time is the W8 engine. It is a 4L engine and is China’s first domestically developed 4L engine.

“Is this engine performance stable? Can it be upgraded?” Feng Yu asked excitedly.

With this engine, the Oriental Deer off-road performance will improve significantly. With their superior branding and price advantages, they can easily defeat Toyota.

Songjiang can also produce a mid-range SUV for the Western markets with this engine. Many people like high CC off-roads vehicles there.

“No problem. Our research center can build W10 and W12 engines now. But we feel there’s no need for W10 engines. We can increase the number of cylinders, and each cylinder output will be 600CC. This way, the W8 engine can reach 4.8L.”

“Very good. How big is our gap with those overseas advance engines?” Feng Yu asked.

“If we use it in ordinary cars and SUV vehicles, we are about ten years behind them. But if we include sportscars and the technologies in their research centers, we are at least thirty years behind them. I heard Ferrari’s V8 engine has reached 8L output now.”

A cylinder with 1L capacity and the engine can be fitted into a small sportscar. This shows how powerful their technologies are. Suppose Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group is to build a V8 engine. In that case, it will be at least double Ferrari’s engine size. How is it going to fit on a car?

The uses of such high CC engines are limited and are mostly used in sportscars. But in China, the road conditions restricted the development of sportscars. Songjiang Motors had introduced a sportscar and have only average sales. Imported sports cars are also not selling well due to the high duties.

There’s someone in Shanghai who had followed Feng Yu’s former footsteps by importing overseas second-hand sportscars and refurbish them before selling them.

But all these are not important. Although the profits of sportscars are high, ordinary cars and SUVs have higher sales. However, Songjiang Motors will also not give up on sportscars.

Songjiang Motors’ SUV is the most popular overseas, and they must maintain it. As for sportscar, they are not exported out of China yet.

“So, our saloon cars and SUVs gap with those major overseas manufacturers is getting smaller. Good. Introduce the higher CC SUVs immediately, and also launch our newest model of high-end saloon cars. For sportscar, you can also introduce a new model, including the rest of the models. We must suppress those foreign brands again!”

Chapter 1243 – Toyota’s anger

“President, something bad had happened!” The person-in-charge of Asia, Junichiro Watanabe, rushed into Toyota’s President, Fujio Cho, office.

Fujio Cho puts down the document he was reading and frowned. “What happened? Did General Motors make any announcements, or is it Volkswagen or BMW? Is it about Tata Motors?”

In Japan, Toyota had successfully overtaken Honda to become No. 1. It had started to reenter the North American market these few years. They can complete with General Motors in their backyard now.

Both companies are doing about the same in Asia. Still, as Toyota slowly opened up the Chinese market, they become more confident of exceeding General Motors. The forecast they can become the World’s biggest automobile manufacturer in five to eight years.

This year, Toyota’s forecasted profits before taxes are over 6.5 billion USD, and it will increase by 15% the following year. Within three years, they will become the World’s Second biggest automobile manufacturer. They firmly believe they can become the best in the world.

“No… it’s not about those major automobile manufacturers. Wait… this company can also be considered a major automobile manufacturer. They had started just made an announcement which will affect us greatly.”

“What do you mean by ‘can be considered a major automobile manufacturer’? Which company are you talking about? Nissan? Hyundai?”

“No. It’s a Chinese manufacturer, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group.”

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group?

Fujio Cho frowned. It’s hard to categorize this company. This company had occupied most of the Chinese market and had quite a significant market share in the East Europe market. Their cars are also exported to the US too.

But this company’s technology is not strong and is only good with its exterior designs and comfort levels. The other technologies like the engine and chassis are only second-rated.

But because this company owns most of the Chinese market, its annual sales exceeded more than 1 million last year. 1 million vehicles’ sales are the benchmark for major automobile manufacturers and ordinary manufacturers. Toyota had only sold less than 6 million vehicles last year.

Although there is still a big difference, when Toyota’s annual sales had just exceeded 4 million, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group was still manufacturing tractors!

This development speed is terrifying!

Fujio Cho is furious. If it was not for this company, they would have gotten better terms in their joint ventures with the Chinese manufacturers. These terms are worth more than 500 million USD!

Toyota can export more cars into China and can increase their profits by a lot more. Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had slowed Toyota’s expansion plans, especially in China.

To Toyota and other automobile brands, the Chinese Government purchasing Songjiang Motors vehicles shows their support for this company! But the real reason is that Songjiang Motors vehicles are cheaper and more comfortable.

There are no Songjiang Motors and Chinese Government purchased mostly Audi cars in Feng Yu’s previous life.

“What happened with this company?” Fujio Cho asked.

“They introduced two new Oriental Deer models. Oriental Deer is their SUV brand, and their new models are 4L and 4.8L versions. They are also introducing a series of new cars and pickups. These are the types of vehicles we are trying to sell in China.”

SUVs and pickups are the main vehicle types Toyota are selling in China. Their saloon cars are not selling well there and cannot compare to those joint ventured cars and Songjiang Olympics.

Toyota was confident they can increase their market share in China with their high CC SUVs and pickups this year. But out of their expectations, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group is increasing their variety of vehicles by introducing the same vehicle types. This is declaring war with them for the market share!

What shocked Fujio Cho the most is Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group can manufacture higher CC engines. This means their technologies had improved a lot.

“How much are they selling these two models?”

“The two Oriental Deer versions, 4.0L model’s overseas retail price is 49,900 USD and 359,900 RMB in China. It is less than 45,000 USD when converted. Their 4.8L model’s overseas retail price is 59,900 USD and 459,900 RMB in China. When converted to USD, it is around 50,000 USD. Their pickups also have 4.0L and 4.8L models and are using the same engines. Their selling prices in China are lower than overseas…”

Toyota 4500’s retail price is more than 600,000 in China. It is much more expensive when compared to Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group.

This Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had really developed low-cost, high CC engines!

Wait. Overseas retail prices? Are they going to export these models overseas?

“Are you referring to East Europe when you mention overseas selling price?”

“No. Not only in East Europe. They had announced in the press conference that they will be entering the US and Europe markets. President, pickups, and SUVs are very popular in North America, Europe, and even Africa markets. If they started producing these low-cost models overseas, it would have a great impact on our sales!”

“Not only in East Europe? How can they sell their vehicles at such prices in the US and Europe? Don’t they need to pay taxes? Are they not trying to make money?” Fujio Cho is puzzled. He knows the cost of manufacturing a car, and what about other additional costs? Advertisements, transportation, etc., are all additional costs.

“President, the importation taxes in the Western Countries are not high for such products. Furthermore, China had joined the WTO and have tax subsidies. Most importantly, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group has joint ventured manufacturing plants in the US and UK!”

“Don’t tell me these. I just want to know if we can lower our cost further.”

“President, our efficiency is higher than them, but the labor costs in China are very low.”

“Other than the Chinese market, can we suppress them in the western markets?” All these are excuses. Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group will not have labor cost advantage in the Western markets.

“This is not a problem. Their retail prices will not bring them many advantages in those markets, and they will not get many profits there. I think we can work with other manufacturers to suppress them!” Junichiro Watanabe replied confidently.

“Work with other manufacturers? Do you think it is possible? Are you confident?”

“How do we know it will not work if we didn’t try? After Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group is destroyed, the Chinese market will be opened to us! I believe all the manufacturers will be eyeing this vast market.”

“Alright. You will be in charge of contacting other manufacturers. If you succeed and we can open up the Chinese market, I will recommend you to be the Vice-President!”

Fujio Cho

Chapter 1244 – Automobile Industry Conference

When Toyota is contacting other automobile manufacturers to suppress Songjiang Motors, China’s automobile manufacturers are rushing to Ji City. This year’s Automobile Industry Conference is organized by FAW.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had tried to bid to host this conference but lost to FAW. Most automobile manufacturers had voted for FAW, and only the Government Officials voted for Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group.

But Li Mingde believes that the conference after next will be held in Harbin. To be fair, the next conference will be held in the South, and the one after that should be in the North again.

FAW had finally stood out from the rest. They are currently in the third position, but had won the bid against the first position’s Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group. They are not far from overtaking SAIC, which is in the second position.

FAW’s General Manager Zhao stood on the stage proudly and reported his company’s progress and developments.

After Manager Zhao finishes his speech, the audience clapped nonchalantly. They are all competitors, and some are jealous and unhappy with FAW. But Li Mingde looks furious.

“Now is the Q&A session. If anyone has any questions on the report I said, I will answer them now.”

Li Mingde immediately raises his hand along with other manufacturers’ representatives. But Manager Zhao pretended not to see him and pointed to a small manufacturer’s representative.

“What do you mean by Benefiting the People’s projects?”

“I will answer your question now. Our FAW’s headquarters is in Ji City, and we had made significant contributions to the City. For example, we had repaired four roads, two gardens, planted 30,000 trees, two schools, a hospital, etc. These are all projects that will benefit our people.”

Manager Zhao is glad that this person asked this question, which gave him a chance to tell everyone what FAW had did.

“This representative. What queries do you have?”

Li Mingde puts down his hand again as Manager Zhao pointed to another person.

“FAW had made some breakthroughs in machinery parts and is exported to Europe. What is the proportion of the exported parts against your total production?”

“That’s right. Some of our manufactured parts have reached international standards, and we had received lots of orders from overseas manufacturers. We have exported the parts to Europe and Japan, and the proportion is around 9.73% of our total production.” Manager Zhao announced proudly as if it is something great.

Li Mingde smacked his lips. It’s just some spare parts, and not many profits can be made. What’s there to be proud of? Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had exported their vehicles a long time ago and has the most advanced technologies in China. Within ten years, their technologies will reach international standards.

What’s there to boast with such small achievements?

What are those representatives asking? Can’t they ask something more meaningful? But they are small manufacturers, and some are only spare parts manufacturers. Maybe they are FAW’s downstream and is trying to make FAW looks good.

At this time, another person Manager Zhao detest raised his hand. It’s SAIC’s Manager Zhou. Manager Zhao does not want to see Manager Zhou and Li Mingde asking questions.

But Manager Zhou did not care whether if Manager Zhao picks him. He just stood up, and everyone else puts down their hand.

“Manager Zhou, what questions do you have?”

“I want to ask about FAW’s last year annual sales figures, and how much is the profit. Also, what is the proportion of joint venture cars?”

This is a pointed question. FAW’s sales are lagging behind Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group and SAIC. Their joint venture car’s sales proportion is much higher and had almost stopped their production of Hongqi.

“Our total production for last year is over 460,000 units, and our sales are 461,000 units. The joint venture cars’ proportion is around 68.3%. As for our profits, it is confidential.” Manager Zhao replied unhappily.

When you hosted the Automobile Industry Conference, you also did not reveal your profits. The profits can be reported to the higher-ups, but not to competitors!

“Then how can you claim FAW had produced 15% of our country’s total production with 460,000 units?”

“Our total automobile production is less than 3 million units, and our production is 460,000 units. Why is it not 15%?” Manager Zhao is unhappy. This is a simple calculation, and he is not wrong!

Manager Zhou replied. “I think you had forgotten to include your neighbor’s figures. Manager Li, do you have something to say?”

Manager Zhou sat down, and Li Mingde stood up. He also has something to ask.

“Manager Zhao, how did you get the figure of 3 million vehicles sold last year? Just last year alone, our Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s automobile sales had exceeded 1 million. The other manufacturers’ total sales are also more than 2.3 million units, and the total should be more than 3.3 million. How come you all calculated it as less than 3 million units? How did you get such simple figures wrong?”

“Manager Li, your figures include overseas joint ventures and export sales. That is different.”

“Why is it different? Our Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group has the majority shares of all our overseas joint ventures. If you insist it is different, then our cars are exporting to create wealth for our country. Other than this,  I cannot see any difference.”

Why are our overseas production not included? Our joint ventured cars are not included, but you all can be included? Li Mingde had wanted to wait until there are lesser people before he asked this question. But since Manager Zhou asked, he doesn’t mind asking this now.

Anyway, Li Mingde had retired and is employed by Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group as their Chairman. Even the government leaders don’t dare to offend him when he is mad!

“What’s wrong? You can’t answer this? Fine. I will take it as you all had miscalculated this figure and will ask again later. You mentioned the Benefiting the People’s projects earlier. I want to ask you, what is the average salary of your FAW workers? What is the highest and lowest salary? How do you allocate your profits?” Li Mingde asked another difficult question.

Benefiting the people… if FAW cannot even raise their workers’ salaries, what’s the point of doing these vanity projects?

Manager Zhao’s facial expressions changed. He knew these two are up to no good and is trying to embarrass him.

Everyone in China knows Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s average salary is the highest in the country. If it was not for the City Government’s salary ceiling, it might be even higher. Their workers’ annual bonuses are higher than their annual salaries. This is going around the government’s regulations. As their neighbor, FAW is under tremendous stress.

We also want to give out high salaries, but we don’t have such high profits!

“Manager Ki, this is also confidential!”

Li Mingde let out a ‘hmph’ and sat down. If it was not for the government’s Industry bureau leader beside him, pulling him back, he would not let Manager Zhao off. You can boast about yourself, but you cannot exclude our figures to make yourself look good!

Chapter 1245 – Not talking about relationships

Because of the questions posted by Manager Zhou and Li Mingde, the Q&A session ended quickly. Manager Zhao no longer has a proud look on his face as he walks off the stage.

“Old Li, I know you are unhappy that this conference is not held in Bing City. But you should not fall out with Manager Zhao openly.” Wang Donghui, a leader in the Industry Bureau and the Chairman of the Automobile Industry Association, said.

“Chairman Wang, I might be mad, but I will not do this because of losing the bid to host the conference. Their figures are clearly wrong, and they refused to admit it. We had given them our figures earlier, and they amended them purposely. How are you going to explain this?” Li Mingde asked.

“This might be a mistake on their part. I will criticize him later.” Wang Donghui tried to be a peacemaker.

Li Mingde sneered and did not say anything. Mistake? Do you really believe this is a mistake?

There are a few dozen automobile manufacturers with their own brands in China, and there are many more spare parts manufacturers.

The automobile industry in China is developing rapidly, and their cooperation with overseas manufacturers helped improve their manufacturing technologies. Some Chinese manufacturers can start producing some precision spare parts now.

But the gap between Chinese and overseas automobile manufacturers is still wide from the figures alone. Just Toyota’s annual production and sales are doubled of all of China’s manufacturers.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group and other Chinese manufacturers had collected information about the overseas brands. But the other Chinese manufacturers are only concerned about their own improvements and did not see their differences between them and overseas manufacturers.

If the Chinese manufacturers celebrate this small success, they will be forever lagging behind those overseas brands.

After lunch, the conference continued. But this conference has another purpose. It is for the smaller spare part factories to mingle with the manufacturers and try to get some orders.

Even Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group does not produce all the parts themselves. They also need to outsource some of them. But not many factories are unhappy doing their orders as the price is low.

Although there are still profits to be made, the profit is much lesser than other companies. No matter what the smaller factories said, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group will not increase the prices.

You all don’t want to take this order? Never mind. Many others are waiting to work with us. This price includes profits, and what else do you want?

If it wasn’t for Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s orders are huge, those factories would have stopped working with them. But big orders are beneficial to small factories, as they will provide a stable income for them. If the raw material prices increase, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group will also increase their prices.

During the conference, some small factories approached Li Mingde but are rejected. Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s spare parts suppliers must also be of a certain scale. These small factories’ productivity levels are too low.

“Manager Li is so imposing and didn’t even care about these small factories.” Manager Zhao walks over and sarcastically said.

“Since you think they are worth cooperating, then why don’t you let FAW give them some orders?” Li Mingde retorted.

Manager Zhao smiled and did not say anything.

These small factories do not have the skills, and their production levels are too low. Furthermore, they are located too far away, and the transportation cost will be too high. It’s not worth giving them orders.

Although the higher-ups had asked the State-owned enterprises to take care of these smaller factories, they could not suffer losses just to take care of them.

“Old Li, I think we can go into cooperation together. For example, we can exchange technologies, sales channels, etc.” Manager Zhao said.

Li Mingde gave Manager Zhao a glance. “Exchange technologies? I don’t think FAW have any technologies that our company lacks.”

“Eh, Old Li. You must admit that we are better than you all in certain areas.”

“For example?”

“Tires and chassis materials’ technologies. Our piston technologies are also better.”

“Oh, then which of our technologies are you interested in?”

“I think your company’s engine technologies are quite good. How about we exchange that?” Manager Zhao smiled.

Li Mingde looks at Manager Zhao with disdain. Use our engine technologies to exchange for your useless technologies? You are asking for too much!

That’s right. You all might have more advanced technologies for those things, but we can buy them at a low cost as those are also not confidential. It is more expensive and harder to develop engine technologies.

“Exchanging is impossible. If you all are interested, we can sell you the authorization rights to use it. But the price will be according to the market price. Don’t forget that you all cannot even buy this technology from other companies.” Li Mingde replied with a smile.

Overseas had imposed technology blockade on China, especially industrial technologies. This is also why China had gone into diplomatic talks with Japan to improve their relationships and asked them for some of the western technologies.

Although the blockade is not that serious now, some of China’s industries, like the automobile industry, are still lagging.

The smile on Manager Zhao’s face disappears after he heard what Li Mingde said. Buy those technologies? Who knows how much it will cost, and what if those technologies are older or even obsolete technologies?

“Old Li, you should not say this. We are brother units and should not keep talking about money. Talking about money will harm our relationship.”

Li Mingde looks at Manger Zhao. “If we talk about relationship, it will harm our company’s interest. I must be responsible to the company, shareholders, and all of our employees. A good manager should never mix personal feelings into their work.”

Manager Zhao almost cursed out loud. It’s fine if you don’t want to exchange, but who are you to lecture me?! You are not my leader, and what’s there to be so arrogant?!

“Old Li, I heard you have some suggestions for this conference. We are the organizer, and with our support, your suggestions will be approved easier. You must think of the bigger picture.”

“I am talking about money with you because I am thinking of the big picture for my company. As for my suggestions, you don’t need to worry about me. I am confident it will be approved!”

Chapter 1246 – Crash Test Laboratory

The Automobile Industry Conference participants will raise some suggestions for everyone to discuss, hoping to improve the overall standards of the industry.

But the suggestions every year are about the same. The smaller manufacturers want the big brands to give in and give them some technologies. The bigger manufacturers want to acquire those smaller manufacturers to increase their scale. Mergers are cheaper than building new factories as they will have a batch of skilled workers.

Those spare parts factories will want more orders and increase the prices. But they have never thought that they have the lowest technologies and have no right to negotiate!

This year, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had made a new suggestion that attracted Wang Donghui. They will invest a large sum of money in setting up a test laboratory and wants the rest of the manufacturers to join. They want to set up China’s New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) like the US, Europe, and Japan.

There are several benefits to this. First, everyone will undergo a crash test at a laboratory, preventing wastage of funds and resources. Secondly, the assessments’ standards will be the same if everyone tested their vehicles at the same laboratory. Thirdly, China’s automobile industry can reach international standards faster. This assessment program is recognized internationally and is useful for China’s domestic cars to be exported.

Although all major automobile manufacturers have their own test laboratories, other than Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group, they are not satisfactory. Most of the vehicle models they manufactured are joint ventured vehicles and had been tested overseas.

The smaller manufacturers conducted sub-standards tests, and some even faked the results to fool the higher-ups. After all, a standard crash test is very expensive.

A top-tier crash dummy cost more than 1 million RMB, and every crash costs at least 100,000 to 200,000 RMB depending on the vehicle.

A new vehicle needs to undergo several crash tests, and the smaller manufacturers cannot afford it.

Songjiang Motors’ vehicles are not selling well overseas is also related to NCAP rating. According to Europe Standard, Songjiang’s Olympics got the best grade, which is only 4 stars. In comparison, the other models could only get 3 stars. Little Genie could only barely reach 2 stars.

Cars are the main form of transportation in the West, and their accident rates are higher. That’s why when they buy cars, they will look at the safety ratings too. After all, no one wants to die in an accident.

In China, not many are concern with a car’s safety rating. It was only last year when Feng Yu first saw child car seats in China. Most people will hold their children in their arms or on their laps when they travel in a car, and many don’t even know how to use the seatbelt.

A child car seat can offer some protection to children in the event of an accident. Feng Yu had asked Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group to produce it, but the market response is bad. Many people don’t feel the need to use one.

Many Chinese think that if they met an accident, a child car seat would be useless. The child will still get injured, and some felt it is safer to hold their children in their arms, as they can shield their child with their bodies if anything happens.

Although human bodies can offer some protection, Feng Yu still thinks a child car seat is safer. Adults might lose concentration sometimes, but a car seat will not. Also, when an accident happens, the adults might not react in time.

If an adult is sitting beside the child’s car seat, it will be much safer for the child.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China set up CNCAP in 2005, and it was headed by a private automobile manufacturer. The person who set it up is Li Dafu. Those people from the State-owned enterprises are only thinking for themselves and couldn’t care less about others.

In this life, China manufactured vehicles are exported overseas much earlier, and Feng Yu felt they should set up this star ratings assessment standards earlier to raise their competitiveness.

In other countries, this standard had been set up not too long ago. The influential Euro NCAP was only set up in 1997. That’s why it is not too late to set up the Chinese NCAP now. If this is delayed a few more years, Chinese automobile manufacturers might not catch up with the rest of the world.

If the C-NCAP is recognized by Euro NCAP, it will mean it will be recognized internationally. For example, Chevrolet cars are rated on an average of 4 stars and above in the US but had only gotten 2 stars in Europe’s test laboratory.

Among all the automobile brands, the brand which has got the highest ratings is Volvo. Volvo was bought over by a Chinese automobile manufacturer, and that’s why China’s assessment ratings got recognized internationally.

“What does everyone think about Manager Li’s suggestion?” Wang Donghui asked.

“I don’t see the need for that. We all have our own laboratory. Why should we bring our cars to conduct tests at someone else’s lab? Old Li, your company is already making high profits. You don’t need to make use of this to earn our money, right?” FAW General Manager Zhao said.

“Since Manager Zhao is asking, then let me explain. Our group has our own laboratory. It includes material, spare parts, power, chassis, exhaust fumes, noise, shock, durability, wind tunnels, etc. Let me ask all of you here. Which one of your companies has a more complete test laboratory than us?”

“We will be investing 200 million USD in setting up this crash test laboratory. Remember, it is 200 million USD! A crash test dummy cost more than 1 million RMB and must be bought from overseas. Our country still cannot produce such precision test dummies yet. Although a crash test is only from the front and side, the dummy must be seated in different positions to get the best result. A new car must undergo this test dozens or even hundreds of times. Other than us, who else can do it?”

“If our cars did not go through these tests, it will be hard for us to be recognized in other countries. All our cars exported to Europe must undergo crash tests in their laboratories and be rated by them. To you all our cars are safe. But compared to European cars, there is still a huge gap. Also, the safety rating is one of the criteria many families consider when buying cars.”

“Are you all just going to remain in China for the rest of your lives? Have you all ever thought of creating wealth for our country? You all are only thinking of joint venture cars. Have you all ever consider creating your own brand of cars? You all have spent your lives buying other people’s technologies. Have you all ever thought of developing more advanced technologies?”

“This new crash test laboratory will be fully funded by Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group, and it will be a national-level laboratory. All of our other laboratories will also be national-level. We will be setting up Asia’s biggest automobile test laboratory. We must convince others to believe in our standards. If all of you want to remain in China and see those foreign brands coming over to earn our money, just forget what I had said. We will do this on our own!”

Chapter 1247 – Test Laboratory Park

Li Mingde’s words are devastating, but he is qualified to say these, and no one can retort. Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had been creating wealth for the Country, while the rest are making money for the overseas brand. There’s no way to compare.

Everyone looks at each other and dares not to say a word.

The bigger automobile manufacturers, like FAW, are waiting for each other to say something, and the smaller ones are sitting on the fence. They had never conducted any crash test before in the first place. As for the spare parts manufacturers, they wonder if they must send their parts to Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group for testing in the future?

Also, what are the wind tunnel and measurement laboratories for?

Wang Donghui saw no one is saying anything, and he said. “I think this is a good idea. Our target is to move out of Asia to the rest of the world. If we cannot even reach international standards, how can we achieve this goal? The Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group has the most experiences, and we should all learn from them.”

“Chairman Wang, I want to know if this laboratory will be owned by their company. If so, how are the tests going to be fair?” SAIC’s General Manager Zhou asked.

Li Mingde replied emotionlessly. “I said that this new laboratory will let everyone participate. All of you will have workers in it, and the tests will be conducted in front of everyone to make sure the results are not bias. This laboratory will also be non-profit. If anyone of you is going to export your vehicles, you all must undergo these tests. All major overseas manufacturers have the laboratories I mentioned.”

“Non-profit? That means you all will not recover your investments? Are you saying your company is going to do charity?” Manager Zhao sarcastically asked.

“We are not a charity organization. Non-profit means we will not collect more than 10% of the costs from you all. In the future, when we have accumulated enough funds, we will use them to build newer laboratories. Even if we collect back our cost, it will still be losses. Don’t forget that even banks pay interests.” Li Mingde replied.

“Does your company need to pay your company to conduct tests on your own vehicles?”

“We will not pay for the time being, but once we recover the cost, we will pay like the rest of you.” Li Mingde replied.

Li Mingde is playing with words. This means the cost of these test centers is paid by the rest of the manufacturers, and he is only coming up with the funds upfront. Just the interest alone will let Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group use the laboratories for free for a long time.

“Manager Li, you all are taking advantage of us.”

“Then you all can invest. A crash test laboratory costs around 200 million USD, and the cost of other laboratories varies. The total investment is only around 1.5 billion USD, and it does not include the land parcel cost. Which one of you is going to invest?” Li Mingde looks at the rest of the representatives, and no one dares to look at him.

1.5 billion USD. None of the companies can afford it except for Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group.

In reality, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group also could not pay 1.5 billion USD all at once. But the test centers’ construction will be in phases, and this amount can also be split into two to three parts over two to three years.

Suppose Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had not invested much of their funds into R&D. In that case, they will have enough to fork out 1.5 billion USD at once. But they know the importance of having better technologies to be competitive.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had plans to build a large test center as all of their small laboratories are outdated. But they felt it is a waste to just test their own vehicles. It was only until Feng Yu suggested this idea and they realized they can rope in the other automobile manufacturers.

The other manufacturers had no choice but to participate in this. In the future, Songjiang Motors will market their vehicles to pass the international safety tests with good rests. How are other manufacturers going to sell their cars if their vehicles had not undergone the tests?

Joint venture cars had undergone these tests before, but people must believe it in the first place.

Also, which manufacturer doesn’t want to export their cars overseas? It will be a great achievement! But if the vehicles have not passed the safety tests, other countries will not recognize them, like what Li Mingde said. It will also be more costly to send their vehicles overseas for tests. Just the transportation cost alone will be too high.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group can afford to conduct tests overseas is because they have joint venture factories overseas, and it’s convenient. But the other Chinese manufacturers cannot afford that.

Wang Donghui interrupted. “I think this is a good suggestion, and I will report this to the higher-ups. We will set up our own NCAP system. Since Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group has more experience in this, I will ask Manager Li to write a proposal, and the rest of you must coordinate with him.”

The other representatives are furious and speechless. The truth is their companies do not have money. If not, they will never allow Li Mingde to succeed! He had announced Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group will be investing in the construction of this test center. The higher-ups will not be issuing funds to the other manufacturers to build their own test centers.

Building the same laboratories will be a waste of resources. Chairman Wang is also present at the conference, and the other manufacturers cannot fool the higher-ups.

Li Mingde suddenly says. “Chairman Wang, we will be building Asia’s biggest automobile test center, but we are facing some difficulties. I hope you can help us solve it.”

“What difficulties are you facing? Just tell me, and the government will surely support you.” Wang Donghui thought to himself. You are going to pay for everything, and what other difficulties can you face? At most, it will be some paperwork and approval issues.

“We need a plot of land around 30 hectares. I hope you can help us solve this. This test center will be non-profit, and I hope we can get some subsidies for the land. If not, we will not have enough money to build it.”

Wang Donghui is stunned. Damn! This is what Li Mingde wanted from him. He thought Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had already started the construction or the construction is already completes and only needs some expansion. But he is asking for a new piece of land now!

30 hectares is not a small plot of land.

“Old Li, why do you need such a big plot of land? 10 hectares should be enough for a test center. Even with the rest of the laboratories you mentioned, 15 hectares should be enough.”

“10 hectare is not enough for the crash test. We need sufficient distance for the vehicles to accelerate. Also, the wind tunnel, material laboratories, etc. requires huge area and to prevent interferences. That’s why I hope you can settle this for us. We are going to build a Test Laboratory Park! Asia’s biggest automobile Test Laboratory Park!”

Li Mingde purposely emphasized the words ‘Asia’s biggest’ to attract Wang Donghui. To government leaders, this will be their political achievements.

Wang Donghui clenched his teeth. “I will report this to the higher-ups and get back to you!”

Chapter 1248 – Shot himself in the foot

The higher-ups acted fast and agreed to build a test laboratory park. But to please everyone, the test laboratory park will be located beside Jin Lin. It is considered a central location, between north and south.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group doesn’t mind, as they have a factory in Jin Lin. If they want to test any vehicles, they can jaust assemble them in that factory.

The construction is divided into three phases. Like the crash test, wind tunnel, etc., the more important laboratories will be built first. The land is flat and was supposed to build a manufacturing park there. Jin Lin had even gotten investors for it.

The state compensated the investors, and Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group gave Jin Lin some money to settle it. Of course, this test center will fall under Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group, as they are the ones paying for it.

After the construction started, Feng Yu thought he can stop worrying about it. But something troublesome happened.

Ralph told Feng Yu that Toyota had contacted Ford and other US companies to suppress Songjiang Motors’ development there.

Toyota had also contacted Volkswagen and other major automobile manufacturers in Europe to stop Songjiang Motors’ development. This will have a significant impact on Songjiang Motors’ overseas sales.

If Songjiang Motors sold their factories’ shares there, they would lose the opportunity to enter the western markets. All their previous efforts will be in vain.

If Songjiang Motors continued, they would not make any profits with those major companies suppressing them. Their joint ventured factories will suffer losses, and it will be a burden for Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group.

When Feng Yu knows about this, he felt this is a sticky situation. He did not expect Toyota to resort to this. Don’t they need to pay the price for those companies’ cooperation?

Luckily, Ralph also told Kameda Masao, and they quickly come up with countermeasures. Since Toyota can work with other automobile manufacturers, we can also do the same.

All the companies Toyota contacted have joint venture factories in China. They can get a share of the profits without doing anything. But they have to share some of their manufacturing techniques with the Chinese automobile manufacturers and helped them with their technological development.

All these don’t matter initially. But with Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group taking the lead, it will be troublesome. If these Chinese manufacturers worked together, they could quickly improve their technologies. In the past, China had done this before. Some small companies merged together to form a large enterprise that can compete internationally.

But the overseas automobile manufacturers know the Chinese manufacturers can’t merge. This is because with they started joint ventures with them, there is a clause in their contract. The Chinese manufacturer must get their approval if they will get additional funds or go into a merger.

The contract is for twenty years, and the Chinese automobile manufacturers can buy out the overseas companies’ shares. But there is still more than ten years before the contract is up. The Chinese manufacturers will not breach their contracts. It will offend many countries, and it is against the WTO regulations.

Compared to Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group and even the rest of Chinese automobile manufacturers, Toyota’s development is much faster.

When someone reaches the third position from the sixth in a race, the five people before him will see him as the biggest threat. Suppose someone in the 30th position reaches the 20th position. In that case, the top five positions will not care because this person still must overtake many people before he can pose a threat.

Now, Toyota is that person who reaches the third position from the sixth, and Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group is the one who climbed to the 20th position from the 30th position. As for the rest of the Chinese automobile manufacturers, they still have a long way to go.

In terms of threat, Toyota’s threat is the greatest.

If all the top automobile manufacturers have to suppress a company, they will surely target the company above them. They can wait for the companies in lower positions than them to climb up before they suppress them.

So, it’s a tragedy for Toyota.

…….

“President! Something happened!” Junichiro Watanabe rushed into Fujio Cho’s office.

Fujio Cho is furious. “How many times have I told you to knock before entering my office?! Go out and knock first!”

Junichiro Watanabe went out of the office. Someone climbed out from under Fujio Cho’s desk and ran into the attached restroom while he zipped his pants.

Knock… knock… knock…

“Come in!” Fujio Cho shouted.

“President, something had gone wrong in our US and Europe sales!” Junichiro Watanabe shouted.

“You are not in charge of that region. How do you know? Just look after your Asia market. You are not the Vice President yet!” Fujio Cho is unhappy and felt Junichiro Watanabe is getting ahead of himself.

“No… the Presidents for Europe and American markets are handling this matter now and had tried to call you. But your phone is off, and your office phone is engaged. That’s why they call me.” Junichiro Watanabe quickly explains.

Fujio Cho had a weird expression and replied. “My phone is out of battery and did not place my office phone properly. What happened?”

“Our sales in America and Europe had dropped suddenly!”

“What? Dropped suddenly? How is that possible? Are there any issues with our products’ quality?”

“No.”

“Then why is this happening?” Fujio Cho asked anxiously. There are no diplomatic issues between Japan and those western countries recently, and they had not offended any of those countries.

Is it because everyone had lost money in the stock markets recently? But even so, the sales will not drop suddenly. During the financial crisis last year, Toyota’s sales had still increased.

Nothing had happened to their sales in the first half of the year. What is going on?

“President, those European and US major automobile manufacturers are targeting us!”

“What? Why are they targeting us?!” Fujio Cho stood up. Didn’t I ask you to contact those manufacturers to target Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group?

“I also don’t know what is going on. Those companies’ higher executives had agreed to work with us to target those Chinese manufacturers. But I don’t know why they targeted us suddenly. All of them started discount promotion simultaneously, and we did not receive any news beforehand.”

“What are you idiots doing?! They can offer a discount on their cars, why can’t we do the same? Are you saying that we, Toyota are afraid of them?! Inform Europe and the US offices to start our discount promotion!”

Chapter 1249 – Internal and External Troubles

Toyota also started to offer discounts for their vehicles. They foresee the rest of the companies’ promotions will not last for long, lowering everyone’s profit. It will be a lose-lose situation for all.

As expected, all major automobile manufacturers stopped their discount promotions. The discounts they offered are for their older models to clear their existing stocks.

Songjiang Motors is also the same. They cleared the earlier batches of the Olympics model by selling them at a cost price. These vehicles are taking up space in their warehouses, and they still need to pay for it. Another reason is Songjiang’s Olympics are not selling well overseas.

Toyota is offering a discount on their latest model. All of their older models had been sold, and this caused a big problem for their sales.

Other companies are clearing their old models, and their newer models are selling higher. The consumers can also understand this, but Toyota is selling their new models at a discount. After they adjusted back the prices, people are no longer interested in their cars.

Last week, the cars were much cheaper, and the prices have suddenly gone up again. People will feel being taken advantage of. Cars are depreciating assets, except for collectors’ antique cars.

So, when the rest of the automobile brands resume normal sales, Toyota’s sales stopped!

Simultaneously, the people who had bought Toyota’s cars a month ago came back to demand an explanation. “How can you all lower the prices of the cars one month later?”

These people who had just bought the cars demanded Toyota to refund them the difference. But Toyota cannot refund them the difference. If they refunded them, all car owners who had bought their cars would be demanding refunds.

Toyota refused to refund, and problems start to arise at their sales outlets, affecting their reputation.

These few years, Toyota had grown fast, and the higher management is very concerned with the current crisis.

Fujio Cho was scolded by his Chairman during their board of directors meeting. How can he make such a stupid decision? Other people offer discounts on their cars, and you copied them without even checking which models they discounted. How can a professional do such things?

The two heads of the US and Europe markets bow their heads low and dare not say anything. Asia market head, Junichiro Watanabe, almost touched the table in front of him. The US and European markets’ heads had questioned this decision. Still, Junichiro Watanabe told them it was the President’s decision and must carry out the orders.

Fujio Chu also knows he was in a rush that day and had not considered this decision carefully. But he did not expect Junichiro Watanabe did not tell him about the other two heads’ questions.

If Junichiro Watanabe had feedback to him, he might not make this mistake.

But it has happened, and they must resolve this immediately.

Fujio Chu had made significant contributions to Toyota, and it was because of him, Toyota can grow so big.

Of course, Toyota had also rewarded with the company’s shares. Many major automobile manufacturers had tried to poach him with high salaries.

But Fujio Cho rejected those offers. This shows his loyalty to the Chairman, or else, it might be worse.

“Now, what should we do? Also, why are those manufacturers targeting us?”

Fujio Chu gave Junichiro Watanabe a stare, and he stood up and bow. “Chairman, it’s my fault. Songjiang Motors had introduced a big CC SUV and Pickup and is a threat to us. I thought we can contact the other manufacturers to suppress this new Chinese automobile manufacturer. Still, I did not expect them to turn around and target us.”

“You thought? You did not expect this? What position are you in?! Is the company paying you a low salary? Is this the way you repay the company? Junichiro Watanabe, I am removing you from your position of Asia Market Head now! You are not suitable for this role, and the company will get someone to replace you! The company will reassign a new role for you!” The Chairman announced.

Junichiro Watanabe is stunned. How come it’s so serious? He immediately looks at Fujio Chu, hoping he can put in a few good words for him. But Fujio Chu looks away.

When one cannot even save himself, he will not care about others.

“Fujio Chu, how are we going to settle this issue? Have you come up with any measures for this?” The Chairman asked.

Fujio Chu immediately reply. “We have thought about it. We will introduce a new model, and continue with the discount on our current cars. As for those who had bought our cars one month before we commenced our promotions, we will offer them free maintenance and some free gifts to appease them.

“Introduce new models? Our current cars are just introduced not long ago, and you want to introduce new cars? Do we have new models now?” The Chairman asked.

“We can change the exterior designs, upgrade the interior fittings, and give it a new name. Then it will become a new model. Although the profits of our older model will drop, we will not suffer any losses. It can also increase this year’s total sales volume, and it will be good marketing for our company.” Fujio Chu quickly thought of a solution.

This is not a good solution, but this is what he can come up with. Also, it can lower the negative impact.

“Ok. Go ahead with this. I don’t want to see any failures again! Or else, you will not get paid a single cent and still have to compensate the company’s losses base on your contract!” The Chairman warned.

Fujio Chu is relieved and quickly bow to acknowledge.

After the meeting is dismissed, Fujio Chu called Junichiro Watanabe to his office and told him not to be anxious. He promised to resume his duties within a year and asked him to stay in another department first.

When Fujio Chu started working seriously, he is very efficient. But before they can settle their problems in the US and European markets, another problem arises in Japan.

Honda, which has been suppressed by Toyota, offers discounts on their cars with other Japanese manufacturers in Japan. Japan is Toyota’s turf, and Toyota will not give up its market share to other companies.

So, Toyota is facing both internal and external troubles. Fujio Chu is furious. Why are all the automobile manufacturers going against Toyota?!

What is going on?!

Chapter 1250 – New car model authorization

Li Mingde reported the piece of good news to Feng Yu, telling him that their sales issues in the US and Europe are solved. Toyota had implemented countermeasures, but they are still badly affected. Their profits this year will be much lower than expected.

But Feng Yu felt things are not so simple.

Feng Yu is not worried about Toyota retaliating against them. He is not worried about facing any companies globally. Still, if all the automobile manufacturers join forces against Songjiang Motors, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group will be badly affected.

Feng Yu was not worried for nothing. The next day, Li Mingde called to inform him of a piece of bad news.

Toyota and FAW have entered another joint venture and authorized them two new models in return for a sum of money.

FAW is not stupid. They insisted on shorter contract duration. These two models can only bring in slightly more than ten years of profits for Toyota. After that, this joint venture company will become a subsidiary of FAW.

This condition is not to Toyota’s advantage. It’s equivalent to them selling automobile manufacturing technologies to this joint venture company and helped FAW to improve their technologies. Although Toyota will get a cut of the produced cars’ profits, it is much lower than their joint ventures in Europe and the US.

Toyota had cooperated with FAW to increase its brand awareness and market share in China.

After that, they will export their cars to China to increase their profits. It would be better if they can increase their shares in the joint venture company. If not, they can go into more joint ventures with other companies.

But at this time, the top leaders of China stopped new joint ventures. China’s automobile industry will not allow any more foreign investors to set up joint ventures.

This is also because of Feng Yu. He told the higher-ups about the pros and cons of such joint ventures with foreign investors. If these joint ventures appear every few years, what’s the point of negotiating those contract terms? When the earlier contract ended, and a new joint venture appears. The market will still be full of foreign brands.

Suppose the manufacturers really want to enter into a joint venture. In that case, the other party must offer their technologies for the Chinese company to develop its own brand of vehicles. If they use those foreign brands, Chinese manufacturers will still be without their own brands. They will still be in the same situation after the contract ends in twenty years.

The higher-ups felt what Feng Yu said made sense, but they still need to discuss and research this. So, they temporarily suspend foreign joint ventures until they have a conclusion.

Nevertheless, Feng Yu had achieved his aim. This will raise the barrier for foreign brands from entering China, although they have already entered.

Feng Yu thought the Chinese automobile manufacturers will start their own brand and cars after getting the higher-ups’ hint. The higher-ups also hinted to them that if their cars’ quality is good, the government will support them by purchasing their cars.

The civilians always have this idea that government official cars are good cars! Just like the domestic produced Hong Qi, jeeps, and Santana. These are all used by the local governments and are considered good cars by the people.

The government procurement of cars will help these Chinese companies and is a form of marketing.

The higher-ups are doing their best to help China’s automobile manufacturers, but they overlooked Toyota’s strategy. Based on their current contract, Toyota needs to provide new car models to the joint venture companies. The original plan is to introduce new models two years later. But now, they are bringing it forward.

To FAW, producing joint venture cars is much easier as the technologies are developed and require lesser funds. FAW will need to invest a large sum in developing their own car, especially for the crash test.

This is not the end of it. Other Chinese manufacturers’ joint venture companies have also gotten new car model authorizations. These new models have all been imported models in the past.

These models are quite popular in China, and after they can be produced domestically, the price will drop slightly. Many people know the cars cost at least three times more with the import duties. Still, after it is produced by joint ventured factories, the profits will be higher without import duties.

The Chinese automobile manufacturers have two paths in front of them. The first is to produce these joint venture cars and get higher profits. Although one-third of the profits will go to foreign investors. The other path is to develop their own brand of vehicles. This requires a large number of funds and needs to give up the high profits from their joint ventures.

The profits are not a small amount. Many cars’ profits can reach up to 100%.

These joint venture manufacturers have newer models now, and it ranges from mid to low range cars. After Li Mingde heard about this, he immediately felt troublesome.

They cannot stop manufacturers from producing joint venture cars as their main shareholder is still the State. Their profit belongs to the country, and the higher-ups will not be pleased if Li Mingde and Feng Yu continue to suggest or talk bad about the joint venture cars.

What’s wrong? Your private company can make money, and you don’t want our State-owned enterprises to make money? Didn’t you claim to have better technologies? What’s there to be afraid of?

Furthermore, the Chinese manufacturers’ technologies will be upgraded with the new model authorization.

The higher up’s reply is they will use the profits from selling joint venture cars to develop their own automobile brands. If not, where are they going to get the research funds?

When Feng Yu knows about this, he also has a headache. This had happened in his previous life. If it was not for Li Dafu’s successful company, China would not have its own automobile brand.

Hong Qi is still around, but no one is interested. Its technologies are outdated, and exterior designs are ugly. Its internal fittings are also not good and have poor performance. Although it is selling at low prices, not many people are willing to buy it. It is also hard to find people to repair this model.

All cars will breakdown due to wear and tear. Even if it did not breakdown, it must still be sent for servicing annually. That’s why after-sales services are very important. Songjiang Motors have lots of servicing centers, and many private car repair shops can service Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc.

But SAIC and Hong Qi repair centers are rare, and there are more van repair shops.

This is a vicious cycle. The domestic brands will be slowly obsoleted. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Hong Qi had introduced a concept car worth 5 million RMB to showcase its latest technologies. But their cars are still not selling well. FAW’s most profitable models are still Toyota and Volkswagen.

“Manager Feng, should we reveal those joint venture cars’ real cost and force them to lower their prices?” Li Mingde asked.

Feng Yu shook his head. This will be too evil, and it will harm the State’s profits. If they do this, Songjiang Motors will be the common enemy of the whole country.

Feng Yu needs to come up with another solution.

Chapter 1251 – These are all weakened versions

After the foreign major automobile manufacturers took care of Toyota, they found out Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had contacted the rest of the Chinese automobile manufacturers to set up Asia’s biggest automobile test center. It includes a comprehensive crash-test laboratory.

They can see Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s ambitions. After Toyota authorized two new models to FAW, they also started to make their moves.

From a short-term perspective, authorizing the Chinese manufacturers will affect their profits and increase their technologies. But in the long run, they can suppress Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group and led the Chinese automobile industry on the wrong path. It will make them more dependent on joint ventures.

Because of the sudden appearance of joint ventured cars in China, Songjiang Motors lose their market shares. If these cars are all developed by Chinese manufacturers, it would be great for China’s automobile industry.

But these are all joint ventured cars. The Chinese manufacturers are all blinded by the profits. Some people know this strategy will affect their future developments, but they are unwilling to give up the profits. They felt they can use the profits to develop their own cars.

If these joint ventured cars are exported, it will not be a problem. But the profits are from the Chinese, and the Chinese manufacturers still have to split with those overseas manufacturers.

Regardless of what others say, Feng Yu felt this is wrong. If China’s automobile manufacturers are still backward and need those foreign manufacturers’ technologies, they must go down this path. But now, China already has Songjiang Motors. Although the technologies are slightly behind those foreign manufacturers, they are much better than those authorized technologies.

None of the Chinese automobile manufacturers had approached Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group to ask for a joint venture. They want newer technologies, but they wanted it for free and take advantage of others. They are willing to work with foreign manufacturers but refused to work with Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group. It is as if working with Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group is an embarrassment to them!

Since this is the case, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group responded with a countermeasure. It’s time for Songjiang Motors to introduce an upgraded version of the Songjiang Olympics!

Using the same strategy used overseas, the old version of Songjiang Olympics started a discount promotion and claim the discount is to welcome National Day! At the same time, the marketing and pre-sales for the new version of Songjiang Olympics started.

The new Songjiang Olympics have upgraded its suspensions, noise reduction, lower petrol consumption, bigger interior space, and have better safety features. It also has three different tiers and is slightly pricier. Compared to the new models of joint ventured cars, it still has a price advantage.

During the promotions, Songjiang Olympics as compared to the joint ventured cars in the same price range. All its specs are better than those joint venture cars and showed everyone that joint ventured cars are not worth its price!

Also, these joint ventured cars are all considered old models. The imported cars of the same model all have better specs. But compared to Feng Yu’s previous life, these models are much better.

The Chinese automobile manufacturers are shocked. Songjiang Motors have just launched their pickups and new Oriental Deer. How come they can introduce a new Olympics?

What made them speechless is Songjiang Motor’s product launch. It’s fine for Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group to hold a grand and lavish product launch ceremony. But why must you all keep using our cars to make comparisons?

Also, you mentioned our cars’ safety ratings are not as high as announced. This is not incorrect. Our models are tested overseas, and it should be your equipment are inaccurate.

The Chinese automobile manufacturers started calling Li Mingde to protest and even complain to Chairman Wang. But Li Mingde took out a report and data to show those models authorized by the foreign brands are weakened versions!

The same models do have those safety ratings. But the models authorized by the Chinese manufacturers are different and cannot reach the same standard. These are the results of Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s tests. If you all don’t believe us, you all can conduct the tests yourselves.

The Chinese automobile manufacturers are furious!

The models you all authorized to us are all weakened versions and have safety risks. This is using defective products to fool us!

Wang Donghui is also furious. He thought these joint ventures can help the country make money, and he still sided with the Chinese manufacturers. But he found out that the Chinese manufacturers are being tricked!

These people all claim to be experienced but are fooled but those foreign brands. If it’s one or two people, it’s still fine. But now, all of them are fooled. This is a national disgrace!

What Li Mingde said next is like slapping all of them in the face.

“Our Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group have donated 240 million USD to our country’s Olympics Games committee. This amount is from our company and shareholders. To be honest, this sum of money can be used for our promotions, and all of you will suffer massive losses! But we did not do this because our shareholders are also Chinese. The money we earned is to help our country. We are making money from overseas and using it to invest and donate back in China. This is to help our country progress, unlike you all! Hmph!”

The automobile manufacturers’ heads’ faces turned red. They know Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group does not want to go against them. Otherwise, they can start a price war, and all of them will suffer massive losses.

Don’t forget that other than cars, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s agricultural machinery, tractors, electric motorcycles, etc., have the biggest market share in China, and the profits are not low.

Wang Donghui stepped forward to mediate. “Old Li, let’s forget about this. They have also realized their mistakes. I will represent all of them to promise that they will start building their brands next year and stop promoting these joint ventured cars. Can you don’t release these figures?”

Li Mingde did not go overboard because of Wang Donghui. “Since Chairman Wang says so, then it shall end here. We are all Chinese, and I will also be glad to see our manufacturers making money. But making money from our fellow countrymen and giving outsiders a cut??! Hmph!”

Although everyone felt humiliated by Li Mingde, no one can refute him. They know that condition stated by Wang Donghui is an order from the higher-ups. Actually, all of them also want to create their own brands. This will be an outstanding achievement. After they retired, they can tell others that they had rebuilt XX automobile and built their brand.

“Everyone… we have been tricked by those foreign brands, and we cannot let them off lightly. I think we should seek compensations or sue them!” Manager Zhao shouted.

Everyone becomes agitated, but Li Mingde shook his head. Feng Yu had told him that those foreign brands should have included clauses in their contracts to protect themselves. These people can only bite the bullet and accept this fact. He can only hope these people can become smarter next time.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group can also stand on higher moral grounds by not suppressing these Chinese manufacturers.

Chapter 1252 – Olympic Games Partner

As expected, the Chinese automobile manufacturers found out they cannot do anything to the foreign brands. Their contracts only state the other party will authorize new vehicles to them. It did not state the details, and there’s nothing wrong with them giving them weakened versions of the car models.

The Chinese automobile manufacturers can only accept it, but they will not take it lying down. They immediately research and learn the new models’ technologies and start to assemble their own cars.

Since you all want to play dirty, then don’t blame us for returning the favor. The Chinese automobile manufacturers start to exchange technologies among themselves and quickly develop a new car different from the authorized models. This new model will be sold under their brand, and it’s the results of their own research!

The Chinese automobile manufacturers will lower the production of the joint ventured cars to prevent the overseas brands from making money. This will also force them to authorize newer and better manufacturing technologies.

Of course, the Chinese automobile manufacturers know the foreign brands might complain or clash with them. But all the factories are in China, and they are the major and controlling shareholders. What’s there to be scare of?

At this time, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group started a new marketing slogan. “Songjiang Motors, Beijing Olympic Games Partner. 1,000 RMB will be donated to the Olympic Games for every car sold.”

Olympic Games Partner is just a sponsor with a different name. This is to make the Olympic Games Committee looks good.

China’s Olympic Games Committee has confirmed many partners. Still, they have not approved the partners from using ‘Olympic Games Partner’ for their marketing.

But Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group is different as they are the biggest sponsor and must be given special privileges. Their advertisements are approved by the higher-ups. If they sold more cars than expected, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group would increase its donations.

After this advertisement is released, everyone starts calling Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group, including its subsidiaries, an ethical company.

Simultaneously, the joint ventured automobile manufacturers stopped their marketing, and Songjiang Motors’ sales increased. Their new model starts to sell fast.

Even the Little Genie, a budget car, is also selling well.

On the internet, many people are discussing the meaning of Olympic Games Partner. Songjiang Motors will donate money for every car sold. How are they going to benefit from that? Is the Olympic Games going to give them a share of its profits?

Actually, no one knows what is going on, and everyone started guessing. All sorts of rumors started. Regardless of whatever rumor, it is good marketing for Songjiang Motors, and all the malicious comments and rumors are deleted.

When the first Olympic Games Partner is revealed, Wind and Rain Electronics started their new advertisement. They also advertised themselves as Olympic Games partners and donated a large sum of money.

One week later, more Olympic Games Partners appeared, and all of them promised to make huge donations.

Actually, they have already donated or sponsored money to the Olympic Games Committee. Also, their sales increased after their product packaging are printed with Olympic Games Partner.

The best example is Lehaha’s drinks. Lehaha promised to donate 1 cent for every drink they sold. It might not seem to be a lot, but their sales volume in China is astronomical.

During this period, people can see all sorts of Olympic Games Partners’ advertisements on TV, along the streets, supermarkets, internet, etc. Even when people go to those small general stores to buy a bottle of soy sauce, they can see such posters.

……

“Why? We have also donated a sum of money. Why can’t we advertise ourselves as Olympic Games Partner?” Pepsi’s person-in-charge of China market was questioned.

“I have said that you all can only start promoting after Athens Games ended. Oh… but it is still not confirmed yet. If your sponsorship is too low, maybe you will have to wait until 2008 before you can start advertising.” The Chinese Olympic Games Committee’s member replied.

“You all are discriminating us! This is discrimination! We might be foreign companies, but we have set up factories in China and hired Chinese workers. We are also paying taxes to your government! How can you all treat us this way?!”

“This is not discrimination. You all have donated some money, but other people have donated more than ten times than you. That’s why their advertisement time is several times longer than you. Isn’t this reasonable?”

“More than ten times? How is it possible their donations are more than ten times ours?! We are planning to donate 100 million RMB!”

To Pepsi’s representative, not many people in China can donate more than 100 million RMB, let alone more than ten times this figure. This person must be lying!

“Is 100 million RMB a lot? There are more than 5 companies that have donated 2 billion RMB each, and there is one that has donated more than 4 billion RMB. Oh, there are also more than five companies that have donated over 150 million RMB. they are now marketing themselves as Beijing Games Partners.”

The Pepsi’s representative jaws dropped. What did this man say? Someone has donated more than 4 billion RMB? That is equivalent to 500 million USD!

Who is this person? The global economy has been affected in the past two years, and almost all the tycoons’ assets have shrunk. Who can be so generous?!

The only possible person is Asia’s top Billionaire, Feng Yu. He is Chinese.

When the stock markets crashed in the past two years, Feng Yu is not holding on to any shares as he has dumped most of his shares, including his Microsoft shares, before the crisis.

That’s the reason why Feng Yu’s assets are not affected by the financial crisis. There are also rumors that most of his companies are not listed and are doing well in the past two years. His assets have increased too.

Of course, these are all rumors. <Forbes> have updated the World’s Richest Man list earlier this year, and Feng Yu is still in second place. But the following year, his net worth should increase further. Other billionaires’ placing on the list has changed, but Bill Gates and Feng Yu’s positions have not changed for many years.

“Do you still have any questions? If not, you can leave now. You will know if your company can start calling yourself an Olympic Games Partner after 2004. We will inform you.”

The Pepsi’s representative left unhappily, and the young representative of China’s Olympic Games Committee laughed.

What Feng Yu said is right. These people want to advertise themselves as Beijing Olympic Games partners, and he informed his higher-ups about it. They will sign the contracts with them and then tell them they cannot advertise as their sponsorship is too low!

Of course, not everyone dares to do this, but this person is Feng Yu’s childhood friend and is very daring. Wen Dongjun is thrilled to fool these foreigners.

Chapter 1253 – Another Forbes Interview

Feng Yu flew to Shanghai to receive a guest. This person can be considered someone familiar, and Zhong Qingxian and Hu Ran accompanied him.

Steve Forbes, the head of <Forbes> magazine, had contacted Feng Yu, asking to interview him again. Feng Yu told him that he is busy, and Steve offered to fly to China for this interview. He will not take up too much of Feng Yu’s time.

The reason is simple. Based on <Forbes> investigation, Feng Yu’s actual assets might have already exceeded Bill Gates.

But Feng Yu’s two companies, Wind and Rain Holdings and Tai Hua Holdings, are not listed yet. Even most of the subsidiaries and the companies he has shares in are not listed. That’s why Steve felt his valuation of Feng Yu’s assets might be inaccurate and wants to interview him again.

It will be great if Steve can get the actual figures from Feng Yu, and <Forbes> magazine’s sales will shoot up if his assets are really more than Bill Gates.

Since 1994, Bill Gates has been the World’s Richest Man. If someone replaced him, it would attract many people’s curiosity.

It’s just like sports. For example, China’s table tennis has always been the champions, and people will lose interest. But if China loses one day and only got second place, the person who won will get all the attention.

<Forbes> had portrayed Bill Gates as a hero, and it will headline when the hero is beaten.

Furthermore, if Feng Yu becomes the World’s Richest Man, he will be the youngest person to hold this title.

……

“Feng, it’s nice to see you again.” Steve shook Feng Yu’s hand excitedly.

“You have met Hu Ran, and this is Zhong Qingxian. You should have heard of him, right?” Feng Yu smiled.

Hu Ran was sent to fetch Steve from the airport, and they have chatted on their way to meet Feng Yu. Steve Forbes was once Hu Ran’s idol.

But now, Hu Ran’s idol is Feng Yu.

“Can I call you Zhong? Nice to meet you, Zhong. I have always wanted to interview you. Can I interview you after I finished my interview with Feng? It will not take too long.” Steve grabbed Zhong Qingxian’s hand warmly.

This person is one of Feng Yu’s two main generals. He manages Tai Hua Holdings and is also the boss of one of the world’s biggest beverage companies.

Hu Ran helped Zhong Qingxian translate, and he laughed. “How about we conduct the interviews tomorrow? In China, we have the custom of holding banquets to welcome our friends.”

Steve nodded. “Sure.”

Steve doesn’t mind waiting until tomorrow for the interview as long as Zhong Qingxian agreed. He can also prepare his questions for Feng Yu and Zhong Qingxian. He doesn’t want to repeat the same questions when he interviews them.

Hu Ran is China’s top magazine Chief Editor and is very famous. But now, he can only act as a follower to help pour tea and be a translator.

But Hu Ran doesn’t mind. On the contrary, he is overjoyed to join them in this conversation. It’s an honor, and he can also learn about interview techniques from Steve.

Steve took a sip of coffee. “Hmm… this coffee is nice. Feng, do you still prefer a tea? If possible, I would like to start interviewing you now.”

Feng Yu nodded. “Ok.”

If you are not interviewing me, why are you here? Chat with me? Feng Yu and Steve can only be considered acquaintances and not friends. What’s there to chat about?

“Feng, based on what we know, you have two major investments currently. Wind and Rain Holdings and Tai Hua Holdings, right?” Steve asked seriously.

Steve is still not used to interviewing Feng Yu. He cannot use a recording pen, notebooks, or even bring anything to the interview. This is a test of his memory. Luckily, he has memorized all the questions he wants to ask.

“That’s right.” Feng Yu nodded. This is not a secret, and many people know about it.

“Are you holding the controlling stake in these two holding companies?” Steve asked.

Steve felt Feng Yu should have absolute control over these two companies, but he wants to hear it from him.

“Yes. I own more than two-thirds of these two companies’ shares.”

Steve is very excited, but he did not ask about the exact number of shares Feng Yu owns. Even if he asked, Feng Yu will not answer and might even chase him out. He had heard rumors about Feng Yu’s foul temper, and maybe only Europe’s Richest Man, Kirilenko’s temper is worse than him.

“We noticed a company called Tai Hua Consulting is a shareholder of a few Chinese internet companies, which are listed on Nasdaq. Is this company one of Tai Hua Holdings’ subsidiaries?”

Tai Hua Holdings is not a listed company, and it’s difficult to get information about it. Feng Yu had not purposely made it complicated when he re-organized his companies to set up Tai Hua Holdings.

Wind and Rain Holdings’ structure is more complicated. Steve doesn’t know how many subsidiaries these two holding companies own or invest in.

“Yes. Tai Hua Consulting is a subsidiary of Tai Hua Holdings. This is an investment company and had made lots of venture capital investments. Many of its investments have failed, and these few internet companies’ share prices had plunged below its IPO price. I had lost quite a sum.”

Although Feng Yu says he had suffered losses, he is still feeling happy in his heart. It would be best if the share prices plunged and he can delist these companies. This is equivalent to making a sum of money.

Selling a rock for 50,000, and use the 50,000 to invest for more profits. After two years, when the rock’s value falls to 30,000, he will buy it back. This is equivalent to increasing the initial 50,000 to 80,000. It’s like using the rock as collateral and getting 50,000 from it. It’s a good deal!

Steve thought about the value of those few internet companies. He increased the estimated value of Tai Hua Holdings in his heart.

“Feng, is Wind and Rain Consultancy holding on to most funds among your subsidiaries?”

“Yes. This is also an investment company, and it focuses on investing in financial markets.”

“Is this company worth more than 50 billion USD?” Steve looks at Feng Yu in his eyes when he asked the question he has wanted to ask.

…….

Chapter 1254 – Becoming the Richest Man

Feng Yu thought for a while. “Wind and Rain Consulting? I have not check on this company for a while. Maybe it’s worth that much.”

Steve is surprised. He did not expect Feng Yu to give him this answer.

What do you mean by maybe?

But from Feng Yu’s tone, even if the company is not worth 50 billion USD, it should be somewhere near this figure. Steve estimates it to be between 40 to 50 billion USD.

Why is Feng Yu not bothered about such a huge investment?

How is this possible? Anyone will check on an investment of this amount. Even if Feng Yu had hired someone to manage this company, he should receive weekly reports on this company.

But Feng Yu doesn’t seem to be lying from his expression. With Feng Yu’s net worth and Steve’s understanding of him, he should not lie about this.

Steve thought for a while and continued. “Feng, someone said Tai Hua Holdings’ asset is more than 20 billion USD. This figure is too low, and I estimate its value to be around 30 billion USD. Am I right?”

Feng Yu smiles as he looks at Steve. Just ask me how many assets I have, but I will not tell you.

Why should I tell you how much money I have?

If it wasn’t for Steve promising Feng Yu that he would help promote some of these companies and brands, Feng Yu would not let him an interview.

“It should be around that amount.”

Steve is getting mad. It’s another unconfirmed answer again!

What do you mean by around that amount? Is it around 20 billion or 30 billion? The difference is 10 billion USD!

10 billion USD is enough for someone to enter the top twenty World’s Richest Man list!

“Can I take it as 30 billion USD?” Steve continued to ask.

“Up to you.” Feng Yu showed a nonchalant attitude.

Steve almost lost his temper. Everyone felt it’s an honor to enter <Forbes> Richest Man list, and can’t wait to disclose all their assets.

If <Forbes> had undervalued someone’s net worth, that person would call them to inform them about their miscalculations.

But Feng Yu and many Chinese don’t like to disclose their wealth. They will try their best to hide their assets.

Could the rumors about China doesn’t allow tycoons to appear? But Feng Yu has become Asia’s top billionaire for a while, and his assets are still growing.

Feng Yu is also not a miser. Although he did not make any donations in the US, his companies had donated a lot of money after its incident. Steve had heard Feng Yu had donated a large amount of money in China every year.

A few days ago, Steve had received news that Feng Yu’s companies had donated more than 2.5 billion USD for China’s 2008 Olympic Games!

How can someone who donates billions be a miser?!

This is a difficult question, and Steve cannot understand what Feng Yu is thinking. Maybe it’s the ancient Chinese customs of hiding their wealth.

“Feng, can I assume both your holding companies are worth more than 60 billion USD?”

This is a conservative estimate, and he felt Feng Yu’s net worth is over 70 billion USD now.

Microsoft share prices had plunged in the past two years, and Bill Gates’ current net worth is estimated to be 59.2 billion USD. If Feng Yu admits his companies are worth more than 60 billion USD, he will become the World’s Richest Man.

There is another benefit to Forbes if Feng Yu becomes the World’s Richest Man. When Microsoft share prices rise in the future, Bill Gates’s net worth can easily exceed 60 billion USD. People will be interested to see Bill Gates getting back his title. If Forbes reports Feng Yu’s net worth had increased to 65 or 70 billion USD, it will stimulate <Forbes> magazine’s sales.

Feng Yu’s net worth has always been a mystery, and no one knows the actual figure. But Steve knows his estimation is much lesser than the actual amount.

Steve believes Feng Yu will agree with his estimation.

Feng Yu thought for a while. “How much are Bill Gates’ assets now?”

“59.2 billion USD and Microsoft share prices are still fluctuating. His net worth might fall if the share prices fall further.” Steve did not hide anything from Feng Yu.

“Does this include his trust fund?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes.” Steve is puzzled. Why is Feng Yu concern about that trust fund? That fund is not worth a lot.

Feng Yu nodded. Bill Gates still has not transferred most of his assets into that trust fund yet.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Bill Gates transferred all his Microsoft shares, etc., in 2008 to his trust fund, and his shares are worth almost 60 billion USD.

But now, Bill Gates’ trust fund is still not worth a lot.

“That means if I agree my two holding companies are worth 60 billion USD, I will become the World’s Richest Man?”

Hu Ran, sitting beside, became very excited, and he quickly translated what was said to Zhong Qingxian.

Zhong Qingxian is also stunned. He manages Tai Hua Holdings and knows how many assets the company has, but he did not expect Wind and Rain Holdings to have such high assets.

Didn’t Feng Yu withdraw a sum of money for donations recently? How come it’s still worth so much?

This means Feng Yu is already the World’s Richest Man? The World’s Richest Man is a Chinese?!

Steve, Zhong Qingxian, and Hu Ran are staring at Feng Yu, waiting for his reply.

Feng Yu suddenly laugh. “Since you think it is worth that amount, then take it as it is. I know even if I don’t admit it, you will still write that figure. You might even be waiting for me to disclose my wealth to refute you.”

The three men are shocked, as they had guessed correctly. Feng Yu has already become the World’s Richest Man.

Someone who wants to hide his wealth will never inflate his wealth.

“Feng, is it fine if I publish your net worth like 60 billion USD in our next issue of <Forbes>?” Steve confirmed again.

“It’s alright. What’s there to fight for the first or second place? Anyway, we cannot finish spending our money.” Feng Yu replied nonchalantly.

Steve is speechless. Feng Yu might not care about his position, but not many people think the same way.

Feng Yu is officially the World’s Richest Man!

Chapter 1255 – The regretting Steve

In the evening, a welcome banquet is held in Shanghai’s Quanjude.

Steve is quite happy to know they will be eating signature Chinese food this evening as he likes Chinese cuisine. But he remembered his interview with Paul Allen. Paul Allen told him not to eat any signature Chinese food if he visits China. If not, it will be a nightmare!

Paul Allen said that he lost 12 pounds within a week when he visited China!

Steve looked at Zhong Qingxian and smiled embarrassedly. “Zhong, I will just eat some ordinary Chinese food. You don’t need to prepare any iconic Chinese cuisine for me.”

Zhong Qianxian thought Steve was being polite and explained. “This is our China’s traditions. When we have friends visiting, we must host them properly. Mr. Steve, many foreigners had tried our food and all of them like it. I believe there will be a dish that will suit you.”

Feng Yu smiled. “Don’t worry, Steve. You can eat today’s food with a knife and fork. You will not feel uncomfortable.”

Feng Yu thought Steve doesn’t know how to eat with chopsticks when he saw them on the table. Furthermore, Beijing Duck can be eaten with a spoon, and many people would just use their hands.

Steve heard it and got more frightened. But he knows it will be impolite to reject, and he can only hope there will not be any weird food later.

Vegetables. Vegetables will be the best.

When the food is served, Steve saw a Chef cutting a duck into thin slices in front of them, and Feng Yu demonstrated how to eat the duck for him.

Steve looks at the ingredients in front of him. Duck, spring onion, pancakes, and a sauce which didn’t smell bad.

Steve copied Feng Yu and rolled a piece of duck in the pancake, and took a bite. His eyes brightened up immediately, and he finished the roll in two bites.

Damn! Paul Allen had tricked him. How can anyone be grossed out with such delicious food?! Luckily he did not continue to reject Feng Yu and Zhong Qingxian’s offers. If not, he would have missed out on this delicious meal.

The following dishes, including the traditional Shanghai dishes, are all delicious. The food here tastes much better than the Chinese restaurants in New York’s Chinatown.

This should be the F&B group under Tai Hua Holdings. No wonder this F&B group can be China’s top F&B brand.

Steve remembered a branch in New York and plans to bring his family there to try it. His three children should love this duck.

Zhong Qingxian had picked a type of special fruit wine for tonight’s dinner, and Steve loves it. Chinese banquet didn’t taste as bad as what Paul Allen claimed.

Steve decides to ask Paul Allen why he lied during their next interview.

Paul might be unhappy because his position is almost out of the top 50. But this is the truth, and the people above him have a higher net worth than him.

…….

The next day, after a traditional Chinese breakfast, Hu Ran fetched Steve to Zhong Qingxian’s office.

“Zhong, thanked you for the wonderful dinner last night. I think I had fallen in love with Chinese food.” Steve said exaggeratedly.

“Hahaha… we have a restaurant in New York, and I will give you a membership card later. You can use it to get priority reservations and discounts.”

“Thank you.” Steve nodded as he is quite happy with this gift.

<Forbes> magazine sales had dropped in China because of <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>. China has a high population, and its economy is developing rapidly. Why are the Chinese not interested in <Forbes> magazine?

Steve had read <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>, and the biggest difference is the contents. <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> mainly focus on China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Asia’s news. There are fewer articles on Europe and the US.

To the Chinese, they prefer to read about Chinese tycoons. Steve hopes he can get in touch with other Chinese tycoons through Zhong Qingxian and help <Forbes> open up the Chinese market.

If that did not work, Steve would use another strategy. Cooperate with <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> to publish each other’s articles and even be the distributor.

<Wind and Rain Business Magazine> had wanted to cooperate with <Forbes> when it was set up but was rejected. Steve felt such a small magazine will not succeed.

Not every magazine can become an international business magazine.

But Steve quickly regretted it. <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> sells very well in China and even snatched away <Forbes> market share in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

This magazine is published in traditional and simplified Mandarin.

It was then when Steve found out the reason why <Forbes> is not doing well. It’s not about their articles. It is because most Chinese businessmen don’t know English!

If <Forbes> is a fashion magazine, people might still buy to look at the pictures. But who will buy a business magazine they can’t read?

Steve knew Feng Yu had invested in this magazine but still belittled it. He had only agreed to sell its articles to <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> initially.

But after that, <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> stopped buying their articles as no one is interested.

Hu Ran, the British sitting beside Zhong Qingxian, is the Chief Editor of <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>. They chatted for a while in the car yesterday. He had wanted to work with <Forbes> and had wanted to name his magazine as <Forbes> Chinese version.

Steve wanted to ask they didn’t continue with that name? That will give him a reason to invest or even acquire this agency.

Steve felt it is difficult to invest in this magazine now, but he still wants to try. After all, <Forbes> is more experienced in the business magazine industry.

Also, Zhong Qingxian is Tai Hua Holding’s CEO, and he can make the decision.

Other than interviewing Zhong Qingxian, Steve also wants to ask if Zhong Qingxian allows <Forbes> to invest in <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>.

“Zhong, shall we start?”

Chapter 1256 – Tai Chi

Zhong Qingxian looks at Steve, who was in a daze, and thought he is thinking of what questions to ask. He smiled and replied. “Sure.”

“As the CEO of Tai Hua Holdings, do you own any shares?”

“Of course.” Zhong Qingxian thought to himself. I had used all my shares in Lehaha to invest in Tai Hua Holdings, and Tai Hua Holdings is the major shareholder of Lehaha!

Zhong Qingxian will never agree in the past. But when Feng Yu invited him sincerely, he realized he had benefited from this merger.

Zhong Qingxian is also not getting a salary as the CEO of Tai Hua Holdings. But he will get paid in shares every year. The shares cannot be bought with money, and the dividends are a large amount.

“We had asked around. Feng was overseas most of the time, and you are the real person in charge of Tai Hua Holdings, right?”

Zhong Qingxian hesitated and shook his head. “You can think of me as a professional manager. Tai Hua Holdings is a shareholding company, and Mr. Feng is the Chairman and also the biggest shareholder.”

Steve is slightly disappointed. If Zhong Qingxian agreed with him, he could deduce there are not many shareholders in Tai Hua Holdings and can estimate Zhong Qingxian and Feng Yu’s assets.

Steve felt his question was too direct, and Zhong Qingxian found out his motive. That’s why he could not get the answer he wanted.

Professional manager. Wind and Rain Holdings’ Kameda Masao had also given this answer. But Kameda Masao’s assets are rumored to be over 1 billion USD.

Can a professional manager earn so much? He must also be a shareholder of Wind and Rain Holdings.

“Zhong, from what we found out, you are the founder of China’s biggest beverage company, Lehaha Group, right?”

“I had set up Lehaha with two friends, and they are still the shareholders and directors of Lehaha Group. They are currently in charge of Lehaha’s production and procurement.”

“Then how did Feng become Lehaha’s shareholder?” Steve smiled.

“We need investment, and Mr. Feng has funded. So, we accepted his investment.”

“Why didn’t Lehaha Group get listed to raise funds or get a venture capitalist to invest? This way, you will not lose control of your company.”

Zhong Qingxian’s eyes narrowed. How come this question is like trying to sow discord between him and Feng Yu?

“At that time, we still have not met the requirements to be listed, and China’s financial market had just started. Also, we don’t have venture capitalists in China during that period. The international venture capitalists are not willing to come to China. As for losing control over the company, I think you are mistaken. Since Lehaha was formed, I have always been the decision-maker.”

Huh? Zhong Qingxian is the decision-maker?

Steve is puzzled. Is the information he collected inaccurate? Feng Yu is the biggest shareholder of Lehaha, but Zhong Qingxian should not lie about this.

Seems like Forbes should increase the number of reporters station in Asia to collect information. There are too many mistakes, and they even got the biggest shareholder of a company wrong.

Steve doesn’t know that Feng Yu and Zhong Qingxian had an agreement. Feng Yu will not interfere with Lehaha’s operations. That’s why Zhong Qingxian has always been the decision-maker for this company.

“I heard that since you become the CEO of Tai Hua Holdings, Lehaha Group becomes China’s biggest beverage company. Before that, it was Jianlibao Group. I had tried their beverages, and it tastes good.”

After hearing Hu Ran’s translation, Zhong Qingxian did not show any expression. It was as if he did not hear the underlying meaning of the question.

“Jianlibao has too few products. Just the product sales alone, Jianlibao is still China’s top-selling beverage. Its top product sales volume is more than a few of Lehaha’s products combined. Lehaha can become China’s top beverage group is because we have a wide variety of products and have more factories. That’s why our total sales volume is higher.”

“It is a coincidence for Lehaha Group to overtake Jianlibao after I become Tai Hua Holdings’ CEO. Jianlibao and Lehaha in China are the equivalents of Pepsi and Coca-Cola in the US. Some people will think both tastes the same, but others prefer one brand to another. But both are still popular, right?”

Zhong Qingxian managed to defuse Steve’s tricky question, and Steve realized it is not easy to trick the Chinese. He had belittled the Chinese. Zhong Qingxian can become the CEO of Tai Hua Holdings means he is capable.

Steve’s tricks might be useful against those new tycoons, but it is useless against a cunning fox like Zhong Qingxian. He decided to stick to his original plan to estimate Tai Hua Holdings’ assets through him.

“Zhong, Tai Hua Holdings’ subsidiary, Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group, is China’s biggest automobile, motorcycle, and electric bicycle, manufacturer. Is this because of Tai Hua Holdings’ leadership?”

“It’s the opposite. Tai Hua Holdings has never interfered with Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group because we are only a shareholder. Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group is a state-owned and private join company. Its Chairman is a retired Government Official.”

Zhong Qingxian is also cunning. He had purposely said this to mislead Steve. Anyway, Steve has no way to find out.

Steve frowned. Damn! This information is wrong again!

“Then what about Bing City Pharmaceutical Group? China’s biggest pharmaceutical company that sells Viagra. Are you all holding the controlling stake?”

“No. We are only a shareholder of that company. It is the State that holds the controlling stake. Also, Bing City Pharmaceutical Group is not China’s biggest pharmaceutical company. China’s biggest pharmaceutical company in Shanghai Pharmaceutical.”

Zhong Qingxian said in his heart. Bing City Pharmaceutical Group had lost to Shanghai Pharmaceutical in terms of sales volume. Still, their profits had exceeded them by a lot last year. Also, Bing City Pharmaceutical Group’s financial status is better than Shanghai Pharmaceutical. Shanghai Pharmaceutical is still in debt. This year, Bing City Pharmaceutical Group should become the top pharmaceutical company in China.

“There is another company called Beidacang Group. It is Asia’s biggest agriculture company. Are you all also a shareholder of it?”

“That’s right. We are a shareholder of that company too. I have to admit I will fail if I am put in charge of that company. I am not familiar with the agriculture industry.” Zhong Qingxian replied.

“You all should be the controlling shareholder of Wind and Rain Electronics, right?”

“That’s right. But Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, and other companies have high outstanding loans. I am troubled with the annual interest. The interest is not a small amount.” Zhong Qingxian replied with a despaired expression.

Steve is puzzled. These few electronics and home appliance companies have high outstanding loans? That means the tangible assets of these companies should be discounted.

Steve continued with his questions but did not get the answers he wanted. Zhong Qingxian is a master with Tai Chi, as he had been dealing with the Government for years.

Chapter 1257 – Undervalued

The next evening, Steve returned to New York. Although he did not find out much about Feng Yu and other Chinese Billionaires, he learned something important. Feng Yu has admitted he has become the World’s Richest Man. The next issue of <Forbes> should be a hit with the readers!

At the same time, Hu Ran is also working hard. This issue of <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> will include <Forbes> billionaire list, and <Forbes> will be publishing the Chinese Billionaires data, including the interview with Zhong Qingxian.

Time passes quickly, and the latest issue of <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> is released. Many people noticed <Forbes> Asia’s Top Billionaire, Feng Yu, finally has a valuation of his assets. His net worth is worth 60 billion USD!

Before that, <Wind and Rain Business Magazine> have either leave out Feng Yu or put question marks on his net worth. This is the first time Feng Yu’s net worth is revealed.

Many people are shocked when they see it. Some media or overseas magazines had investigated Feng Yu’s net worth and they knew Feng Yu is wealthy. But they had never expected his net worth is so high. Even if his net worth is not in USD and RMB, he is still China’s top billionaire!

The ones who do not know about Feng Yu’s actual wealth were stunned by the figure and the words behind his name. ‘World’s Richest Man!’

Feng Yu has become World’s Richest Man? The World’s Richest Man is a Chinese!?

This piece of news was noticed by the top Leaders. Some of them frowned and felt individuals should not have such high wealth, and some felt Feng Yu had made his wealth with his capability. The Government should promote him and let the foreigners know China is no longer the close-up country they know. The Chinese Government will not confiscate individual’s wealth.

China is still trying to attract foreign investors as they need external funds to develop. Feng Yu can be considered a good example. If the Government uses Feng Yu’s title well, it can attract more foreign investors, and China’s economy can develop faster.

The top leaders discussed and decided they will speak to Feng Yu first, hoping he will contribute more to China.

……

<Forbes> latest issue is out with the updated World’s Richest Man’s list. The first place is not Bill Gates anymore, and Feng Yu had replaced him with a net worth of 60 billion USD!

It stated this amount is estimated, and many people are unhappy. Why are Feng Yu’s assets valued so high? He is also not in charge of any major companies.

Bill Gates owns Microsoft and is now in second place. Are the figures accurate?

The readers flip to an article on Feng Yu at the back of the magazine. The article stated Feng Yu’s net worth is mainly from two holding companies. One of them is registered in China, Shanghai, and the other is registered in the Virgin Islands.

Feng Yu is the controlling shareholder of these two companies, and his proportion is not disclosed. One of these two holding companies is estimated to be worth 40 billion USD. The other is valued to be around 30 billion USD. This means <Forbes> had estimated Feng Yu to own 75% shares of these two companies.

These two companies’ values are not as high as the Fortune 500 corporations. Even after the market crash, these companies are worth more than a hundred billion. Even Microsoft’s market value is more than 300 billion USD.

But what was shocking is the proportion of Feng Yu’s shares in these two companies, and only a handful of these two companies’ subsidiaries are listed.

From last year’s evaluation, these two companies’ profits are more than 20%. In the past two years, most major companies are losing money. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc., had all lose money, but Feng Yu continued to make high profits.

The bigger a company, the lower the percentage profits are. But because of the bigger base, the profit is not low. A 100 billion USD company with 5% profits is equivalent to 5 billion USD profits. But a company that’s worth 10 billion with 20% profits is only 2 billion.

Bill Gates is staring at the <Forbes> magazine in his office. He did not subscribe to the magazine, but someone will bring the latest issues to his office. This is one of his special privileges as one of the World’s Top Billionaires.

Paul Allen entered Bill Gates’ office and threw a copy of <Forbes> magazine on the table. “Bill, how can Feng have net assets of more than 60 billion USD?! Steve must have miscalculated!”

Bill Gates placed his <Forbes> magazine on the table and look at Paul Allen. “Which part of his assets do you think is miscalculated?”

Paul Allen is dumbfounded. He does not believe this is true, but he doesn’t know which part is wrong. He had read about Feng Yu’s assets valuation, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

The <Forbes> magazine had gotten this figure by analyzing the taxes and from other sources. Of course, they cannot determine the taxes Feng Yu paid in China, and most of them are only estimations.

Bill Gates looked at Paul Allen in his eyes and said. “I discovered some problems with his net worth.”

Paul Allen is happy. Bill Gates has found problems with this figure.

“What’s the problem? Tell me.”

“I think Steve had undervalued Feng Yu’s net worth!”

The smile on Paul Allen’s face disappeared. What does this mean? Undervalued?! That means Bill thinks Feng Yu’s real net worth should be over 60 billion USD?!

Chapter 1258 – Intentions to delist

Feng Yu returned to New York again to check on his companies’ progress. When Kirilenko found out Feng Yu had come, he quickly rushes over to meet him.

But when Feng Yu saw Kirilenko, he noticed he is unhappy.

“Brother Ki, what’s wrong? Did something happen to your basketball team?”

Feng Yu is curious. The Nets had moved to Brooklyn and had played well this year. They are still the no. 1 in the Eastern Conference.

“There’s nothing wrong with my team. They are playing well. Although they had lost a few matches, that’s because we have rested the main players. The team doctor had wanted our main players to have more rest to prevent injuries.”

“That’s normal. The players are training every day and playing matches, and they need to rest. If it’s not about your team, why are you unhappy?”

Feng Yu got even more curious. Brother Ki’s investments in the US are fine, and they are still making money from the Gold market. Why is he unhappy?

“Feng, have you read the latest issue of <Forbes> magazine?” Kirilenko asked with a frown.

“Yes. <Forbes> had sent me a copy. What’s wrong?”

“Free?” Kirilenko asked.

“It’s free. It’s just a magazine, and it doesn’t cost anything.”

“Why are you all getting the magazine free? Why do I have to pay for it?!” Kirilenko is furious.

Feng Yu: “……”

Do you have to be so angry over such a trivial matter?

“Brother Ki, this is a trivial matter. Do you need to be so angry?” Feng Yu asked.

“A trivial matter? Who says this is a trivial matter? This is a form of privilege! I am the Top Billionaire of Europe! How can they treat me like this? These damn Americans are too much!” Kirilenko shouted.

“Huh? Why didn’t they send a copy to you?” Feng Yu is puzzled. With Kirilenko’s position and net worth, <Forbes> should have given him a copy.

“That’s because they are blind! How can they place me in eleventh place?!”

Does it mean only the top ten will get a copy free?

Then it must be frustrating for Brother Ki for being in the eleventh place.

“Feng, do you think my assets had shrunk? If not, my net worth should be about the same as the eighth position. Also, the eighth position guy’s assets are still dropping, and my assets are growing!”

“Brother Ki, calm down. <Forbes> have their ways to assess everyone’s assets. Furthermore, you are the one who wanted to hide some of your assets like me. Are you thinking of revealing all your assets now?”

Kirilenko hesitated. “Never mind. You had mentioned before that we must keep a trick up our sleeves. Our company is still small now, and need time to be ready. Alright. I will admit my loss this time. Anyway, I am confident I can enter the top ten soon!”

“That’s right. That’s no point chasing after these titles. In another few years, you will be ranked above Bill Gates.” Feng Yu smiled.

Kirilenko looks at Feng Yu unhappily. “You have already overtaken Bill Gates, but I still a long way to go.”

“But you had already overtaken Paul Allen, right?”

When mentioned about Paul Allen, Kirilenko cheered up. “That’s right. Paul Allen’s net worth had fallen a lot. His net worth is less than 10 billion now. Hahaha… I remembered he was still arrogant in front of me. Let’s see if he still dares to be arrogant now.”

“Brother Ki, you don’t need to worry, and what I said was not to console you. It’s the truth.”

“The truth? You mean my wealth will overtake Bill Gates in a few years?” Kirilenko is overjoyed but is also in doubt. He cannot foresee his assets growing so fast.

“Brother Ki, I see eBay’s shares should stop falling soon. If you have funds, get ready to buy eBay’s shares at the lowest point.”

eBay had developed well these two years and expanded very fast. But they are still affected by the dot.com crash and the global financial crisis. If Kirilenko had not dumped eBay’s non-voting shares, he might suffer heavy losses.

Luckily, Kirilenko’s money from selling his eBay shares is invested into the Gold market with Feng Yu. He is making profits every day. If Feng Yu had not warned him not to use high leverage, his net worth might be over 20 billion USD now!

Kirilenko also knows using high leverage for futures is risky. If he has 100 million, he will dare to gamble it for 1 billion. But when he has 10 billion, he dares not to take the risk.

When you have lesser assets, you can take risks. You can only grow faster if you take risks. But when you have higher assets, you will not dare to take risks because the losses will be great. Also, even without taking risks, you can get high returns.

“Then do I need to sell off some of my gold futures?” Kirilenko is unwilling to sell off his gold future contracts.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. “You owned so many companies’ shares. You can just use them to get a loan. eBay is doing well, and once it built up its scale, the share prices will rise sooner or later. When the market recovers, your eBay shares will surely rise.”

Kirilenko’s eyes brighten up. That’s right. Bank loans. Although the interest is high, it’s much lesser than the returns from Gold futures. Also, with his status, he can get higher loans for the same collateral in Russia.

“Is your Chinese websites’ share prices going to rise? I had bought some of its shares. Can I make some money from them?” Kirilenko asked.

“You can forget about that because those few companies’ shares will not drop during this period. After our Chinese New Year, I will delist these companies.”

“Delist?!” Kirilenko is shocked. Those companies’ share prices are not high, and Feng Yu can easily make them rise.

“Yes. Didn’t you realize that these few companies’ share prices had fallen below their IPO prices?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

Kirilenko asked. “Are you requesting to delist them?”

“Of course. It can’t be that they are forced to be delisted, right?” Feng Yu rolled his eyes.

“You frighten me. Are those few companies not going to be listed in the future? Internet companies spent a lot of money.”

“They will be listed, but not in America. It will be in Hong Kong or Shanghai.”

Feng Yu planned to delist these few companies and buy back all the shares with a fixed price.

After that, Feng Yu will own most of these companies’ shares, and when he lists them in Hong Kong or Shanghai, he will reap the returns.

“Feng, we should celebrate. Let’s go for a drink now. I have bought a few new types of alcohol.”

Feng Yu was dragged away by Kirilenko. Brother Ki loves alcohol, especially hard liquor.

Chapter 1259 – Talks

Feng Yu asked Ralph to find ways to suppress Sina and the other companies’ share prices and how he can spend lesser money to buy back all the shares when they are delisted.

After that, Feng Yu flew to Beijing.

Feng Yu had wanted to stay a few more days in the US to visit Google, Amazon, and other companies. But the person who wants to meet Feng Yu is different.

“Director Fang, Premier Huang wants to meet me?”

Premier Huang, Huang Kejian, is the successor of Iron-fist Zhu. Iron-fist Zhu had retired, but he still has a great influence in China. Director Fang can be considered his spokesperson.

“Yes. There’s something he needs to speak to you, Mr. World’s Richest Man.”

Director Fang is hinting to Feng Yu why Huang Kejian is meeting him. Could it be the higher-ups thinks he has too much money and wants a share?

It shouldn’t be. Feng Yu had not heard about the Government targeting any tycoons in his previous life.

But there are many possibilities, and Feng Yu doesn’t want to guess. He will know the reason after they meet. But Director Fang had hinted it is about money.

Feng Yu returned home to accompany Li Na and went to ‘that’ place the next day. This is not the first time he comes here, and he had met more than one leader here.

This is Feng Yu’s first meeting with Huang Kejian, and he is very different from Iron-fist Zhu. He looks studious and feels like a University Professor.

“Manager Feng, have a seat.”

“Good morning, Premier Huang.”

“Manager Feng, I had wanted to meet you but has been too busy. Now, I finally got some free time and invited you over.” Huang Kejian said with a faint smile and sounded like having a casual chat.

“I will always be free if you want to meet me.”

“Manager Feng, I remember you are not so restrained when you meet Comrade Zhu. Don’t worry. It’s not what you imagined.”

Feng Yu is relieved. This means it should not be anything troubling.

Feng Yu felt no one should dare to touch him with his wealth now. If his wealth is confiscated by the Government, it will significantly impact China’s international reputation. Not all countries are like that Fatty, who dares to be a hooligan and do what he wants.

If the worse happens, foreign investors will withdraw their investments, and China’s economy will crash. It will be a repeat of Asia’s Financial Crisis. The Hong Kong and Macau tycoons will migrate with all their wealth. The country will suffer more losses and might even lose the opportunity to reclaim Taiwan peacefully.

“Manager Feng, I read in the papers that you are now the World’s Richest Man.”

“Yes, if we are talking about the disclosed wealth.” Feng Yu replied.

“Disclosed wealth? That means there might be others richer than you? Don’t you have 60 billion USD worth of assets?”

Huang Kejian frowned. Are there so many tycoons around? Or could it be the report about Feng Yu’s wealth is fake?

“Premier Huang, Bill Gates’ assets was over 80 billion USD two years ago. There are large conglomerates in the US, Japan, and Europe. They might not be an individual holding all the shares, but the returns are the same. These people are the most powerful, and many of them did not disclose their assets. I believe many of them might be richer than me.”

Huang Kejian had heard about these rumors, but there’s no way to validate them.

Those large conglomerates’ assets can be comparable to a country. That means they can affect a country’s economy. Feng Yu’s wealth can only be compared to a province, as his assets are less than 5% of China’s annual income.

That’s why the Chinese Government’s attitude towards Feng Yu is still very lenient. But if Feng Yu’s assets are over 1 trillion USD, it will be different!

“From what you say, do you feel those large conglomerates’ models have greater advantages?” Huang Kejian asked.

“Every model has its own advantages. But the countries close to us, like Japan and Korea, are all using conglomerates to strengthen their international competitiveness. If we want to raise internationally faster, a conglomerate is a good model to follow.” Feng Yu explained.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China had tried this model, and that’s the reason why there are many large-scale State-owned enterprises, and many of them are making investments.

Huang Kejian laughed. “Is this why Beidacang appeared in Longjiang Province? I heard it was your suggestion.”

“I had only suggested this, and it was Secretary Xu and Secretary Zhang who decided.” Feng Yu let Xu Changyou and Zhang Ruiqiang get the credit.

One person can be capable, but it’s not good to be too capable. Although Huang Kejian had stated, the Government will not do anything to Feng Yu. Still, Feng Yu does not want to be ordered to work for the Government.

Feng Yu is carefree and doesn’t want to be tied down by rules and regulations.

Huang Kejiang did not say anything when he saw Feng Yu pushing the credit to others. He had heard that Feng Yu is not interested in becoming a Government Official and had let other people managed his companies. This means Feng Yu does not likes to have authority.

But Wang Kejian had to admit that Feng Yu had made significant contributions to the country. Besides his donations, he had helped China’s electronics, machinery, agriculture, etc. sectors improved.

If it is the ancient days, Feng Yu’s credit is enough for him to be conferred a rank of nobility. Even today, Feng Yu’s credit should be on the same level as Superman Li.

The higher-ups had asked Director Fang to test Feng Yu, but Feng Yu is not interested. Luckily, Feng Yu’s father, Feng Xingtai, is very interested in becoming a government official. They can only hope they can change Feng Yu’s mind through his father in the future.

“Manager Feng, do you think our country should restructure and merged Chinese companies to compete internationally?”

Feng Yu thought to himself. It’s finally here. He knows the leaders from State-owned enterprises cannot be compared with those large conglomerates’ managers. In his previous life, the person in charge of investing the state’s assets had suffered heavy losses.

But if these state-owned enterprises are managed well, they will bring in high returns for the nation. When China gets stronger, Feng Yu will also gain from it.

It’s just like the Americans who are always being arrogant overseas. Feng Yu hopes the Chinese can be like them in the future. But it must be when the Chinese are right and not being a hooligan.

“It’s hard for me to answer this question. But I know a good manager can bring in high profits for a company. For example, Fujio chu of Toyota. Under his leadership, Toyota grew rapidly.”

“Manager Feng, are you interested in managing a state-owned investment company? I can decide now and will give you a reasonable salary.” Huang Kejian replied.

Feng Yu is stunned. He had shot himself in his foot. I am telling you all to pick the right person to run the company and did not say I want you to pick me!

Chapter 1260 – Rejection

Feng Yu pretended to consider for a while and seriously replied. “Premier Huang, I am not up for this job and responsibility. Please look for someone else.”

Huang Kejian turned to Director Fang and saw him smiling.

“Old Fang, you really understand him. He really rejected my offer. Money and power are useless against him.”

Feng Yu looks at Director Fang, who had not said a single word. It seems like they have never intended to let Feng Yu head this investment institution. This is just a test.

Feng Yu wants to know that if he agreed, will Huang Kejian go back on his words?

“Heroes are made from young. You have achieved so much at your age, yet you are not proud or arrogant. Moreover, you are patriotic. I cannot be compared to you.” Huang Kejian sighed.

“You think too highly of me. My achievements are nothing in a vast country like China.”

“You are too modest. If you are willing, you can be a top government official anytime. The government can assign a senior official as your mentor for a few years, and you can get significant results. Wait… your results now are significant enough!”

Huang Kejian has a high assessment of Feng Yu, but Feng Yu knows where he stands. In terms of managing a company, he is not as good as Wu Zhigang. Wu Zhigang is only a few years older than him, but he has been managing Feng Yu’s companies for years. He started off as Tai Hua Trading manager and is Tai Hua Holdings’ Deputy CEO now.

Feng Yu is only good at one thing. He knows how to make irresistible offers and pull people to his side by trusting them fully. This will let the other party do their best and create a win-win situation. Of course, Feng Yu’s profits will be much higher than theirs.

These few years, Feng Yu’s subordinates had been grateful to him and worked hard. He knows that he will not be as successful if he had managed his companies himself compared to now.

“Premier Huang, you think too highly of me.” Feng Yu replied sincerely.

But to Huang Kejian, Feng Yu is just making excuses to not become a government official. Never mind. To each his own. Anyway, Feng Yu can benefit the country by being a businessman.

Putting the taxes aside, Feng Yu had made significant contributions to China’s economy. For example, Huang Kejian had chatted with Liu Chuanzhi a few days ago. The latter admitted that without Feng Yu’s help, Lenovo will not be so successful.

In the future, Lenovo will surely become the World’s Top PC manufacturer. This is very important to China. As the world entered the digital age, China cannot keep buying IT products overseas due to cybersecurity.

“Manager Feng, I heard from Old Fang that you had suggested the  State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State invest in Gold Futures.”

“No. it’s my company who sold this information to Director Fang.” Feng Yu replied.

“Sold? Old Fang, didn’t you say it’s too expensive?” Huang Kejian asked.

“That’s right. Manager Feng, I had not paid you anything then and has no intentions of paying you in the future.” Director Fang replied.

“Didn’t you pay for that meal? That means I sold this information for the price of that meal.” Feng Yu smiled and winked.

Director Fang smiled and shook his head. He knew Feng Yu had purposely said this to not embarrass the country and proved he had helped the country before.

“Old Fang, this is a good deal.” Huang Kejian laughed.

Feng Yu suddenly got alarmed. What’s the meaning of this? You all still want to take advantage of me and squeeze me dry?!

Huang Kejian and Director Fang saw Feng Yu’s expression and laughed.

“Oh, I still want to thank you on behalf of the country for your donations to our 2008 Olympic Games.” Huang Kejian said.

“This is what I should do, and I don’t want those foreigners to take advantage of us. This way, they must increase their sponsorships by a lot. I can foresee the TOP sponsorship will be a large amount.”

“Manager Feng, back to the question. If we are going to merge and form a large financial institute, will it succeed?”

Feng Yu thought for a while. “It should not be a problem if this corporation is headed by a good manager. Even if someone mediocre is managing this company, it should not fail if he is prudent. Although our country doesn’t have many outstanding financial talents, we do have lots of people in this trade.”

“Also, I believe you all will surely pick the US market if you all are going to invest overseas. My suggestion to you all is not to buy US Government bonds, large institution bonds, and must not invest in their real estates.”

“Why?” Huang Kejian asked curiously. Why should they avoid US and major corporations’ bonds? Isn’t that the safest investment instrument?

“I will share what I understand. A company investing a large amount into another company’s non-voting shares, hoping to make profits. But you don’t know what is going on with that company or whether the share prices rise or fall. unless you can push up these shares’ share prices, you should spread your investment into a few companies to lower your risk.”

A country’s investment should be prudent, and Huang Kejian and Director Fang understood what Feng Yu is saying.

Feng Yu continued. “In the past two years, two Fortune 500 companies had collapsed in the US, and one of them is already bankrupted. The other is applying for bankruptcy. Most of the people who had bought these two companies’ shares had lost all their money. The lucky ones might have dumped their shares in time, but the ones who bought their bonds are finished.”

“The reason for not investing in the US real estate is simple. Real estate is a core industry, and once it collapses, the financial market’s impact will be great. Just look at Japan. The US has always diverted its internal financial crisis to other countries. It happened to Japan previously when its economy is developing rapidly. Now, our country’s economy is developing rapidly, and if their property market collapse, we will surely be targeted!”

Chapter 1261 – Delist

Huang Kejian and Director Fang frowned after Feng Yu finished. They felt Feng Yu is paranoid, but they know he has good intentions. They nodded and did not say much.

The three of them chatted for a while more before Feng Yu leave.

In the car, Feng Yu sighed. He had told them what he can, and it’s up to them if they are willing to believe him.

Lunar New Year is around the corner, and Feng Yu returned to Bing City. His family had returned before New Year Day because Feng Yu wanted them to avoid crowded places.

From the end of 2002 to early 2003, a pandemic might happen and affect the whole world, especially Southeast Asia.

This virus might not be fatal, but the treatment cost is high. Of course, the treatment course is nothing to Feng Yu, but Li Na is pregnant and doesn’t want to take any risks.

During this period, all sorts of rumors appeared on the internet. For example, vinegar can kill this virus, and isatis root can prevent people from getting this virus.

These are fine as vinegar and isatis roots are cheap items and can be bought with a few RMB.

But some people took advantage of the situation and start to push up the prices of these two items, including face masks and other preventive medical products.

Feng Yu could foresee this happening and asked all of his companies to try their best to stabilize commodities prices. At the same time, he asked Sina, Sohu, Baidu, and other companies to stop the online rumors and helped the authorities to track these people’s IP addresses.

When Feng Yu’s companies got back to him, he is speechless. Only a handful of those who spread rumors is doing it for benefits. The rest are doing it for fun and attention.

This fake news is spread among the people, and the situation becomes worse.

Some people have nothing to do and thought they can say whatever they want on the internet.

Feng Yu dislikes such people.

These people must be dealt with. They did not think of the consequences of their actions, and it’s against the law!

The current laws on online rumors are not comprehensive. This is happening around the world, and it’s not just China alone.

Korea and Japan have the most comprehensive laws regulating the internet. Because their countries are small, their internet had developed earlier. Such incidents happened much earlier, and they had implemented countermeasures.

But China’s internet development is not considered late. At least it is much earlier than Feng Yu’s previous life. No matter how comprehensive the laws are, it still boils down to the nation’s education system.

Governing the nation through law and governing the nation with morals are the same. An ideal society should be using morals to govern the nation. But this target cannot be achieved soon. Many people felt this will not happen even when humans are extinct because humans are selfish. It will not happen even in a communist society.

Feng Yu does not want to interfere in this as it is the Government’s job. He only wants his companies to do their part. At the same time, he asked his companies to issue orders to the staff, asking them not to believe or spread rumors.

This pandemic is not that serious. It’s because of the rumors, people become paranoid. In history, sudden outbreaks had not caused any significant impacts. For example, the AIDS virus is not as deadly as Tuberculosis.

People are afraid of this virus because not much is known about it, and it is contagious.

Scientists around the world will soon find a cure and treatment methods for it.

Very soon, people will regain their senses and know this outbreak is not that scary. Those countries that did not want to see China rising up will secretly start to use dirty tricks.

For example, the <Times> magazine published an article that there’s a cover-up on patients’ numbers.

After that, much international news media spread this article and calls for people to avoid traveling to China for holidays and work. They even call for the foreigners investing in China to withdraw their investments.

Under normal circumstances, the WHO will help and not question when a new virus appeared.

That means they will think of ways to treat and prevent the virus from spreading and not looking for someone to bear responsibility.

One of the rumors claimed that the virus was leaked from China, which is doing biochemical tests. This rumor is started in Japan, which had conducted biochemical tests in the past.

Every country’s media are trying to tarnish China’s reputation, and China had to explain herself while fighting this virus.

Of course, this virus had been contained in Feng Yu’s previous life without significant damages. But Feng Yu is not paying any attention to this as it is about time to delist Sina.

Delisting from the stock market is not a big deal. Around 8% of the companies listed on Nasdaq got delisted every year. The number of delisted companies on NYSE is around 6%. In London, it is as high as 12%.

There are many conditions for companies to get delisted. If a company can fulfill one of the conditions, it can apply to be delisted. Furthermore, Sina’s share prices had fallen below its IPO prices for over a month. Even when it did not apply to be delisted, NASDAQ will also ask Sina and the other companies to be delisted.

Feng Yu wanted this to happen. Although it will tarnish these companies’ reputations, it’s alright. These few companies are Chinese websites, and the US market doesn’t really make a difference.

Feng Yu’s plan is to list these companies in Hong Kong or China, and what’s there to be afraid if he is not going to list the companies in the US stock markets again?

The Americans might be used to companies getting delisted from its stock exchanges, and too many companies had been delisted in the past two to three years. Some had been acquired, and some have financial issues. Some volunteered to buy back their shares and get delisted too.

Buying back the shares and delisting is better than being delisted for financial issues.

Of course, investors love companies that are delisted after being acquired. The acquiring company will buy back the shares at premium prices, and the share prices will rise slightly before the buyout. All the investors will get to make some profits.

Feng Yu made changes to the number of shareholders in the companies to speed up the delisting process. A listed company must have a certain number of shareholders. If the number of shareholders falls below the requirement, the company will be forced to be delisted. Of course, a grace period will be given to the company.

Feng Yu’s target is to be delisted, and he doesn’t care about the grace period. The number of shareholders of these companies had just met the requirements. After some amendments, the number of shareholders falls short, and NASDAQ issued a warning to them.

Warning? Feng Yu and the rest didn’t care about the warnings. The shares are suspended from trading, and the delisting procedures started.

isatis root

Chapter 1262 – Minor issue

“Old Zhong, what is it?” Feng Yu is curious. Why did Zhong Qingxian travel to Bing City to look for him? Why can’t he call him or use QQ?

“Manager Feng, there’s something which I cannot decide.”

“Don’t be anxious. Tell me about it.” Feng Yu frowned, as he must be facing some major issues for him to hesitate.

“Sina and those few companies are about to be delisted from NASDAQ, and our plans are to get the original shareholders to buy back the shares. Anyway, those are all non-voting shares, and Wang Zhixi and the rest did not object to this plan. But now, someone wants to buy the shares.”

“Who is it? If the price is reasonable, we can sell some shares to them provided their investment can help the company grow faster.”

Feng Yu is puzzled. What’s there to hesitate? These are non-voting shares, and they can set conditions like the shares cannot be traded within the next three years, etc. Zhong Qingxian should know about this.

It can’t be someone forcing Tai Hua Holdings to sell the shares, right?

Wait, this seems to be possible. But Huang Kejian had promised the government will not interfere with his companies’ development.

“Old Zhong, are you saying the Government wants to buy the shares?”

Zhong Qingxian nodded. “Yes. It is a state-owned investment company. I don’t know how they got the news that those few companies will be listed in China or Hong Kong after getting delisted from NASDAQ. They should have studied Sina and those companies and felt they can make high profits in the future. That’s why they want a cut.”

“This is not a problem. If the price is reasonable, we can accept it. Anyway, we have control over the companies, and they only want to get some dividends. Just sell some shares to them.”

Feng Yu thought for a while and felt it’s not a big deal. The shares had been sold to those foreigners, and why can’t they sell them to the government? When the companies are making profits in the future, it will not benefit the outsiders.

“The prices they offered is the current share price. This price is too low.”

“Just tell them no. If they insist on this price, just sell them a small amount.” This is trying to take advantage, and Feng Yu dislike such people.

“They do not want a small number of shares. They are asking for all the issued shares on NASDAQ, and it’s not only Sina. They also want Sohu, eBay, etc.”

Feng Yu’s face changed. This is too much.

Buying back those shares should be at premium prices. Although Sina and the other companies will be delisted, that’s their problem. It’s arranged by Tai Hua Holdings, Wang Zhixi, and the rest, and some of these shares will be sold to their employees.

Also, this will lower the share prices, and they will have to pay the price for that. They had planted wheat for a year, and when it’s about time to harvest, someone appeared and take away the fruits of their labor.

Yes, you will be paying us, but you are paying us much lesser. Also, what’s the point of us working so hard for a year?

“What did Ding Lei say?” Feng Yu asked.

NetEase is different from Sina and the other companies. Feng Yu had invested the least in NetEase, and Ding Lei is holding on to 51% of the company’s shares. He is still NetEase’s boss and is different from Wang Zhixi, Zhang Chaoyang, and the rest.

Also, NetEase is starting to make profits. Although the profits are little, that’s because they had invested in many other areas. This let NetEase develop faster than Sina and Sohu.

“Ding Lei said it’s up to us. He is fine with our decision.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. This cunning guy is asking Tai Hua Holdings to handle this problem.

But compared to Ding Lei, Tai Hua Holdings’ losses are much higher. Of course, the losses are referring to the potential profits.

“Have you discussed with the rest? What did they say?” Feng Yu asked.

“They are also hesitating as that’s a state-owned investment company.”

“So what if it is a state-owned company? They must also follow the industry standards! Old Zhong, I remember a Hang Zhou’s state-owned company had wanted to invest in your Lehaha. You had rejected them. Why are you hesitating this time?” Feng Yu ask.

Zhong Qingxian smiled wearily. “How can that City-level company compare to this company?”

“I want to know which state-owned company dares to be so arrogant towards us?!” Feng Yu is mad.

“It’s China Investment Company, and its Chairman is Han Aijun.”

“Han Aijun? Is he that person’s son? So what if he is that person’s son?” Feng Yu narrowed his eyes. How can they force them to sell the shares at lower prices?

Feng Yu called Director Fang to ask if this is a decision from the higher-ups. In his heart, hee knew this should be Han Aijun’s decision.

Indeed. A few minutes later, Director Fang called back and told Feng Yu the higher-ups had not issued this order. He also assures Feng Yu this will not happen again.

The higher-ups want to maintain a good relationship with Feng Yu as he is a genius.

Until now, everything Feng Yu did is to benefit the country. The higher-ups will not be short-sighted and confiscate his assets.

A talented genius can bring in much more profits.

…….

“Who asked you to contact those internet companies to buy their shares?”

Han Aijun looks at Director Fang in shock. “It’s my own decision. I had studied those few companies, and they are currently the top few internet companies in China now. Also, they’re doing much better and will surely be profitable in the future.”

Han Aijun is confused. He is doing this for the company and the country. What’s wrong with it?

“Then why did you demand them to sell you all the issued shares at the current share prices?”

“The shares can make money, and we must buy more of them. What’s wrong with buying those shares at the market prices?” Han Aijun is confused.

Director Fang saw Han Aijun’s attitude and finally understood why Feng Yu says it is a mistake to let someone who doesn’t know about financial markets to manage an investment company.

Han Aijun is not lowering the prices on purpose. He does not know about buying the shares at premium prices. He only wants to get the best for the state-owned company but did not know what he did is taking advantage of others.

Seems like it’s time to reselect the heads of these state-owned enterprises. Director Fang will suggest this to the higher-ups and contact Hong Kong’s Professor Liang and other experts to manage the state assets.

…….

Zhong Qingxian hung up after Wang Zhixi’s call and told Feng Yu. “Manager Feng, that state-owned investment company called up and said they had made a mistake previous. They only want half or even one-third of the issued shares, and we can decide on the price.”

Feng Yu closed his eyes and leans against his chair backrest. “Then sell one-third to them and just charge them 10% higher than the current share prices.”

Chapter 1263 – Corporate Email Account

“Manager Ding, what’s the good news you want to tell me?” Feng Yu looks at Ding Lei with a smile. What good news is so important for Ding Lei to visit him at his office.

Ding Lei exclaimed excitedly. “Manager Feng, we have made a breakthrough for our email account technology. Our email accounts’ storage capacity can reach 1G now!”

Huh? 1G email account? This means China’s email accounts will be entering the G era now?!

1G emails had appeared in the US, Europe, Korea, Japan, and many other countries, and China could not catch up with them. But in Feng Yu’s previous life, China is way backward. The earliest 1G email account is introduced by Yahoo China.

Email technology had developed from fee-charging to free-of-charge, and many additional features were added. But the main purpose of email accounts is still sending and receiving email accounts.

When some companies switched to emails, they realized the email account capacity is too low.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many companies’ internal departments had to use emails, and some also used shared company account.

But all these will not work now, as the email’s storage capacity is too small.

Very often, people cannot receive emails after their mailbox is full. When the technology improved, users can receive new emails when their mailbox is full, but the earliest email will be deleted.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many people had used their email accounts as a storage tool. But this is very troublesome now.

Some people will still do it by creating several email accounts. A few email accounts are for storing important information, and people often forget the passwords and login ID.

The solution these people used is to write the login ID and password in a notebook. But this will defeat the purpose of having a password. Overall, emails are still very restricted and inconvenient now.

Before Feng Yu’s rebirth, the lowest email storage capacity is 3G. It can be increased by binding it to a mobile phone for unlimited storage.

In that era, most companies will have a corporate account for storing and sending important information.

Feng Yu saw Ding Lei’s excited expression and decided to ruin it. “You are so excited over 1G? Other countries have 2G storage mailboxes. You are still too far away from them.”

Ding Lei’s excitement died down. The gap between him and overseas is so wide?! But he believes after achieving 1G, he can narrow the gap and catch up with those overseas companies within a few years!

“Manager Ding, have you consider getting other sources of income other than advertisements?”

“We are not the only email company, and we cannot charge fees for emails. Although our technology is still the best in China, most people will not use high storage accounts. Other than advertisements, what other income can we get?” Ding Lei thought for a while and could not think of other ways to get income.

“Manager Ding, users are registering accounts with all sorts of names. How can we let people know which company the email account belongs to when they see the email address?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

“The suffix. Our company’s and Sina’s suffix are different.”

“Alright. Then this suffix belongs to NetEase, and people can tell it’s your company’s email account. This is also a good way to promote NetEase too. Why can’t corporations have their own corporate email accounts?”

“Ah? Corporate email accounts? Then they must set up their own exchange server and get their own domain names. They also need to have a server. Why would they spend money when there are free services available?”

“Safety! With my own server, it will be safer. Also, the cost of a server is nothing to a big corporation. But the good thing with companies having their own email server is they can monitor all incoming and outgoing mails of the company. They can also set the capacity of each account and delete or shut down your account. This way, after a staff resigns, they can no longer send emails using the company’s name…”

Ding Lei thinks hard at this suggestion. This corporate mailbox seems interesting. Manager Feng is asking him to provide this service to those large corporations.

“Manager Feng, do you think there will be a market for this service?”

“If you can do this, all the companies under Tai Hua Holdings will rent your servers. But the bottom line is this server must be safe and stable. It must also be able to receive overseas emails. That means you need an overseas gateway server.”

In the future, many small companies start to provide email services. Putting the security issues aside, their email accounts cannot send or receive overseas emails. The emails are either cut halfway, or there’s an error message. Some did not even have error messages.

“This should not be a problem. Is there anything I should look out for?”

“System upgrades. The mailbox must provide upgrade services and include after-sales services. You can provide a free period and charge them reasonable fees after that.”

Ding Lei nodded. “This is also not a problem. Our system upgrades are surely the best, and a small corporate account upgrade should not take too long.”

“There’s another important issue to take note of. Your system must differentiate spam mails and have anti-virus features. This will attract more users. Of course, I know this difficult, but the email-borne virus is abundant now. If people discover our emails are spreading viruses, it will affect our reputation.”

“I understand about the anti-virus. But what do you mean by spam mails?”

“It is those useless advertisement emails sent to every account through servers. It will take up a lot of space and let your users cannot find the useful emails.”

Ding Lei looks at Feng Yu weirdly. You are the one who told us we can profit by sending out advertisements through our servers. But you are telling me to stop advertisements. Does this mean our mailbox can only have our advertisements?

But this is a great idea. This way, the company can charge more for email advertisements. Also, they are providing free email services. Why should they let others benefit from it?

“Ok. I know what to do. Oh, I need to inform you another thing. Our online game is entering Beta testing. I heard you are good at game development and design. Can you help us check and see how we can improve our game?”

“Sure. What’s the name of your game?” Feng Yu is excited to play a new game.

“Fantasy Westward Journey.”

Chapter 1264 – Fake Tycoon

NetEase had followed the same path as Feng Yu’s previous life. They had started to develop online games.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, NetEase developed this game, and Chibi or caricature games become popular. The Westward Journey series became NetEase’s masterpiece and captured many female gamers’ hearts.

But Feng Yu had not played this game in his previous life and is not interested in Chibi games.

After Ding Lei left, Feng Yu packed his things and went out. He wore a cap, sunglasses, facemask, and drove an old Songjiang Olympics out.

Zhou Kexin is also fully prepared and waited outside her neighborhood with a mask on. Currently, it is amid a pandemic, and many people are wearing masks, and wearing a mask will not stand out from the crowd.

“Get in.”

Zhou Kexin got into the car and removed her cap. “You are fast.”

“Of course. There are very few people on the streets now.”

“Are you not afraid of getting the virus? Oh, even if you caught the virus, you could afford the treatment.”

“I think this virus is not that serious, and most people will not catch it. Furthermore, Shanghai is quite safe. Just look at Shenzhen and Guangzhou, where it is considered the center of the pandemic. They are still holding concerts and football matches. What’s there to be afraid of when even the Leaders go there. It’s just the rumors that made it sound deadly.”

Zhou Kexin nodded. “Yes. I also think the online rumors are exaggerated. Oh, it’s hard to get the tickets of this play we are watching.”

“It’s easy to get the tickets. I will book out one session as a benefit for my staff.” Feng Yu reveal the traits of a tycoon unconsciously again.

Zhou Kexin rolled her eyes. “You seem to be very busy lately.”

“How can I not be busy? But I will take time off to accompany you to watch this play.” Feng Yu showed he had sacrificed a lot to accompany her.

“Then you must have given up a lot to accompany me.”

“Not a lot. I also want to watch this play.” Feng Yu lied.

Feng Yu had watched this play three times in his previous life and is not very interested. Also, the story of this play is a tragedy.

They reached the theater and parked the car.

The plot and actors of the play are still the same. Feng Yu and Zhou Kexin are seated in a corner and couldn’t see the performance clearly.

The feature of a play is the exaggerated movements, expressions, and voice, of the actors and actresses.

Those who are not used to watching plays will find the performance boring. But a good play is very interesting.

During the tragedy part, many audiences sobbed, and Zhou Kexin’s eyes turned red.

Feng Yu took out a piece of tissue paper wiped Zhou Kexin’s tears. Her body stiffens but lets Feng Yu continued. In her heart, she felt blessed.

Feng Yu saw Zhou Kexin did not reject his moves, and he put his arm around her shoulders to let her lean on his shoulder.

Zhou Kexin’s sobbing suddenly stopped and took the tissue from Feng Yu to wipe her tears. She leans against Feng Yu’s shoulder and felt secure.

Zhou Kexin is a girl, after all, and it’s tiring to work in Shanghai. She felt lonely when she returns to her empty apartment after work.

Zhou Kexin really wants to be with Feng Yu. Although he cannot be by her side most of the time, that is something she looks forward to.

Some people said it’s extremely lonely to watch a movie alone, and it should be the same for plays.

When the play ended, Zhou Kexin suddenly felt disappointed as she could no longer lean on Feng Yu’s shoulder.

“It’s still early for dinner. Do you have any place you want to go?” Feng Yu looked at his watch and asked.

Feng Yu noticed Zhou Kexin looking at a shopping mall across the street and knew she wants to go shopping.

Indeed, Zhou Kexin wants to go shopping.

…….

“Try this on. It looks good on you. Buy it.”

“No, this design doesn’t suit me.”

“This design suits you. Pack this for us.”

“No. This color doesn’t match.”

“This piece’s color and design are nice. Just buy it.”

“No. This piece is overpriced.”

After shopping for more than an hour, Feng Yu did not have the chance to swipe his credit card in his hand. Zhou Kexin only wants to try on the clothes but has no intention of buying them.

“Kexin, is there any piece that you like after trying on so many clothes?”

Zhou Kexin smiled and look at Feng Yu. “I had not wanted to buy those clothes in the first place. Those are not suitable to be worn at work, and I also don’t want you to spend money on me.”

Feng Yu is speechless.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Zhou Kexin had never bought any luxury items as she felt it is a waste of money. In this life, she is still the same even when Feng Yu doesn’t lack money.

After Feng Yu and Zhou Kexin left the shop, the shop assistant grumbled in her heart. Stop pretending you all can afford those clothes. This is a waste of my time. Also, what brand of clothes is that guy wearing? He must be pretending to be rich to impress that girl!

Suddenly, a man carrying a few shopping bags entered the shop. “Pack all the clothes the girl tried earlier.”

“Ah? What did you say?”

“Didn’t I make myself clear? Pack all the clothes that the girl tried earlier. I will buy it.”

The shop assistant is stunned. This man is that couple’s follower? That guy is a rich man who is pretending to be poor?

That guy’s clothes must be some international brand which she has not seen before. Yes, this must be it.

Feng Yu knew Zhou Kexin might not be willing to spend money and had sent his bodyguard an SMS, asking him to buy whatever clothes she tried on. If she is willing to try on the clothes, she must be interested.

After dinner, when Feng Yu sent Zhou Kexin to her apartment, he looks at her. “Wait here for a minute.”

Zhou Kexin saw Feng Yu suddenly running away and wonders what is going on. Se saw a man passing lots of shopping bags to Feng Yu, and he returned with his hands full.

“Let’s go upstairs.”

“You asked your men to buy all the clothes and shoes I tried during the day?”

“Ah… I think you look good in it, and it is a waste if someone else is wearing it. You should know these items are not considered expensive to me.”

Zhou Kexin is speechless but is also feeling sweet.

But it’s a pity she did not invite Feng Yu into her apartment, and he left disappointed.

Chapter 1265 – Tencent games

“Manager Ma, why are you here?”

Tencent’s Pony Ma sat opposite Feng Yu in the latter’s Shanghai Office. Pony Ma is someone Feng Yu respected in his previous life.

“I had come over to do some paperwork and drop by to take a look.” Pony Ma smiles.

“Paperwork? Are there any problems with the company?” Feng Yu frowned as Zhong Qingxian had not told him anything.

“No,… we had just added a new service. Tencent will be entering the gaming industry.”

“You are going to start QQ games?!” Feng Yu asked excitedly. But did QQ games appear so early?

“How do you know I am going to name this service QQ games? Oh, you must have guessed it from QQ. That’s right. It’s QQ games.” Feng Yu did not even need to explain himself as Pony Ma came up with an answer.

“What do your QQ games include?” Feng Yu asked curiously. It would be great if the games he likes are available now.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, QQ games are extremely popular. Every QQ account is also a QQ games account, and there are more than 200 million active players. The most number of online players playing concurrently is more than 8 million.

“Currently, we only have two types of games. One type is chess and card game, and the other is a type of electronic pet rearing game. The chess and card games include poker cards, mahjong, Chinese chess, Chinese checkers, and Land Battle Chess. There are many ways to play poker cards and mahjong games, and the electronic pet game is a virtual pet rearing game. Players can rear an electronic pet and play simple games with the pet. Its target audience is the female players.”

Feng Yu is not interested in QQ pets but loves card games. He played long hours in his previous life, especially Dou di zhu. Dou di zhu is China’s most popular game, and the craze even spreads overseas.

“Not bad. What is the future plan for this? I can tell there will be new games coming out from your tone.”

“Of course. We will be introducing recreational games. These are single-player games converted to online games. For example, Connect it, Tetris, Spot the differences, etc.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he had played Spot the differences on QQ games. But it was later turned into pictures of pretty girls to attract players. Of course, the pictures are fully clothed women.

“Good idea. These classic games are boring when played alone, and it will be more fun if players can challenge each other. But can your server cope with the sudden stress? Do you all have enough engineers to handle it, and have you tested all the games?”

“We intend to introduce a QQ games lobby, which is our gaming platform. In this lobby, players can choose the games they want to play and enter that room. Their accounts and passwords will be the same as their QQ accounts, and we used a simple mirroring technique for this. We have also recruited more engineers and should be sufficient to handle the additional workload. Of course, if Sina, Lenovo Kingsoft, etc., are willing to lend us some of their engineers, it will be great.”

“We have basically tested all the games internally and will be launching the Beta testing now. These games will be available for free.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. You want Lenovo Kingsoft, Sina, etc., to lend you their engineers? Dream on. But he doesn’t mind lending some of his Wind and Rain Games’ engineers to him as they have plans to develop card and chess type of games.

But Feng Yu also have some worries. The games had only gone through internal testing, and there should be many undiscovered bugs. If anyone developed external plug-ins to exploit these bugs, it would have a devastating impact on QQ games.

“You mean there will be plans to charge fees for QQ games in the future? If that’s the case, you must be wary of external plug-ins. If external plug-ins appeared in the market for free, it would affect QQ games.”

For example, Dou di zhu’s members will be given 50,000 points every day. But if someone can use an external plug-in to get 5 million points, who will buy the membership?

Players with membership might lose their points, but others can just get free points to level up. This will cause the game to be imbalanced and collapse.

“We have thought about this, but if we don’t go into public testing, we will not discover the bugs. We will put lots of resources into this area, especially after we introduce Q coins. Q coin is a type of virtual currency used to buy products on our QQ platform. This will also increase our income, and we know we will suffer heavy losses if someone can generate Q coins illegally.”

Q coins are already available? This is the most important virtual currency in Feng Yu’s previous life, and he did not expect it to appear so early. The biggest advantage of Q coins is to raise funds quickly.

Many people will buy Q coins but will not use everything at once. If someone wants to spend 5 RMB on Q coins, he might buy 10 RMB for the discount and save the additional 5 RMB worth of Q coins. To Tencent, they had sold 10 RMB worth of product.

Tencent will use other methods to entice the user to spend the 5 RMB worth of Q coins he saved. For example, if you see a product selling for 10 Q coins is selling for 8 Q coins now, the user will top up to get it. Tencent will profit from it again.

Tencent Group is one of the top companies that made full use of topping up services. They provided lots of free products to the users and let the users feel the gap between them and those paid members to stimulate them to spend.

Of course, the users can choose not to spend money, and Tencent can still profit from them. For example, Tencent can show their users’ volume to the advertisers and charge them higher fees.

Many people had been discussing the best advertising method in Feng Yu’s previous life. It was later agreed that QQ’s pop-up advertisement is the best. The number of QQ users online concurrently had exceeded 400 million, and there are more than 1 billion registered accounts.

Tencent can become one of the top internet technology companies in the world because of its user volume.

“Are there many people buying Q coins now?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

“Not a lot, but it is increasing. I believe the number of paid users will exceed one million within a year.”

One million paid user is too low compared to the resources Tencent poured into it.

“Have you thought about introducing other products to stimulate Q coin’s sales?”

“Yes. I have thought about adding a blogging feature, but this blog will be different from Sina and the other companies.”

Feng Yu raised his brows. Could it be Q Zone?

Chapter 1266 – Stimulating Consumer Spending

Pony Ma did not notice Feng Yu’s weird expression and continued. “This new product is called Q Zone. It will be like an online diary where users can write about their mood, post pictures with dates. It includes the functions of a blog, but it’s more than a blog.”

“We planned to include premium services that allow users to decorate their pages’ background, music, and other small decorations. Users can personalize their pages to their liking. How is it? Is it very attractive?”

Feng Yu looks at Pony Ma coldly. When Q Zone was launched, it did attract lots of users. But as Weibo and Pengyou become popular, many users left Q Zone. But Q Zone has lots of users, and many users remained.

“This is not a bad idea. It sounds more comprehensive than Weibo. Are you going to target QQ users with Q Zone? That means there should be lots of paid features in it, right?”

“That’s right. Users will have to pay for the decorations, backgrounds, and expanded storage spaces. This way, users must become paid members to use it.”

Feng Yu suddenly remembered QQ has different types of memberships for its users. For example, some memberships target QQ users, Q Zone users, QQ Games users, etc. But now, there is only one type of membership.

“Manager Ma, have you thought of introducing different types of memberships?”

“Different types of memberships? What do you mean? Is it about the membership tiers?”

“No. It will be based on the different types of products. Different memberships can enjoy different kinds of benefits. For example, QQ members will get certain benefits from QQ. QQ Games members can benefit from the games, while Q Zone members will get special privileges in Q Zone. You can use different types of precious stones to differentiate the types of members.”

Pony Ma is speechless. He did not know there are so many ways to stimulate his users to spend. Manager Feng is really professional. If he uses this idea, more users will be willing to join the membership. He believes that his QQ Games and Q Zone can attract lots of users.

Feng Yu appears calm, but he is laughing in his heart. All these are what Tencent did in his previous life, and he is telling Pony Ma about it now.

“Manager Feng, you are a genius. Your suggestion really inspires me. I will discuss it with the rest after I go back. This will surely increase the number of paid users.”

“Sigh… I had only offered some suggestions. Even if I had not suggested this, you all would also think of it in the future.” Feng Yu replied ‘modestly.’

“No. Even if we can think of this in the future, we will miss out on many money-making opportunities. The company is lacking funds, and I plan to list it in 2005 to raise funds. if not, we will not have funds to implement our plans.”

“Let’s talk about this when the time comes. What if you suddenly have enough funds?” Feng Yu smiles.

“That’s right. Who knows what will happen in the future? Since you can come up with so many splendid ideas just by listening to my plans, can you give me some suggestions on how to retain QQ Games and Q Zone’s users?”

“It’s very simple for QQ Games. Just organize some competitions for those games and offer prizes for the winners.”

“Setting prizes for competitions? Is this legal?” Pony Ma asked worryingly.

“Who asked you to give cash? You can give out Q coins. These coins are virtual currency from your company. Why can’t you give them out as prizes? Currently, users can only use cash to buy Q coins and cannot convert Q coins into cash, right?”

Pony Ma’s eyes brighten up. He is right to meet Manager Feng. How come he had not thought about this? Many users like to use Q coins to pay for their memberships.

“There is another way to make users spend in games. That is introducing all sorts of in-game items. Some items can be given to all users, but the better items will be given to the paid users. Of course, these items can only assist the user, and you must not introduce an over-powered item.”

Feng Yu saw a joke in his previous life. An online Chinese Chess game allows users to buy chess pieces, and a paid user has eight chariots. Who can beat him? Even a grandmaster will lose against him!

If such a scenario can happen, who will want to play that game?

“In-game items? We intend to introduce points and level system for our games. The winner can get points, and level up can get different titles. Does that mean we can introduce an item to reset negative points?” Pony Ma asked.

“Of course. For example, suppose I meet a player with negative points in a cooperative game. In that case, I will assume that player is a newbie. There is a saying in games. A god-like opponent not scary, but a stupid teammate can kill you!”

“Hahaha… is there such a saying? Who comes up with this? It’s too funny.” Pony Ma laughed.

Feng Yu scratched his head. This saying still has not appeared now?

“I saw it on the internet and don’t know who said it. But I think this saying is true.”

“I know what to do with QQ Games. We will introduce better games to attract new users. What about the Q zone? Are we going to make it the same as blogs?”

“Of course not. Other than the different decorative items and backgrounds, you can introduce other items. For example, users can turn their space into a home and can keep pets.”

“You are saying we can introduce pets in the Q zone?”

“Why not? Also, pets need to be fed and be taken care of. The users will be afraid of their pets dying, and our users are mainly from which group?”

“The white-collars and youngsters in the city?”

“That’s right. You should have heard about many people who will travel to the suburbs farms for holidays on the weekends.”

“Yes. I had gone there once. There is an area where visitors can get to pluck fruits or vegetables.”

“The charges for those farm visits are not cheap, right? Also, not everyone from the city has the time or car to travel to the suburbs. Why can’t we create a virtual farm for these people on Q Zone?” Feng Yu hinted.

“A virtual farm? What’s so fun about it?”

“It’s the same as keeping a virtual pet. Users can grow vegetables, plant fruit trees, rear fishes, to experience village life!”

Feng Yu replied confidently. This QQ farm is Tencent’s most popular game in his previous life. It had attracted many users, but he is unsure if it will be as popular this early.

Pengyou

Chapter 1267 – The invading Tencent

Pony Ma looks troubled as he did not think a virtual farm is interesting. But all of Feng Yu’s suggestions in the past had been a great help to Tencent. Maybe this is also a good idea, and it’s just him who doesn’t understand it.

“Manager Feng, I will look into this after I got back.”

Feng Yu knows Pony Ma doesn’t believe him from his expression. In his previous life, QQ farm is also copying from Happy Farm. With a bigger user base, they quickly overshadowed Happy Farm, and the people from Kaixin001 must be angry.

Virtual ranches and restaurants evolved from the farm and are also popular with the users. This will retain the users and also entice them to become premium members.

“Yes. I believe you all can come up with many ideas to help the company become more profitable.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Tencent had acquired many smaller internet companies. Tencent only focused on these companies’ creativity and didn’t care about their marketing abilities. After all, who else can promote a new game or service better than Tencent.

“Manager Feng, you had asked us not to compete with Sina, NetEase, and other companies for the market share. But with some overseas internet companies entering China and I think we should all enter the competition. Maybe this will speed up the overall industry’s development.”

Healthy competition is good for the industry.

“So?”

“So, I plan to introduce QQ email, QQ forum, QQ music, and other services. All these services will revolve around QQ, and we will create an internet technology empire!”

Pony Ma did not hide his ambition. Someone had said before, ‘All successful people are more ambitious than others.’

Ambition is a motivating factor, and people will work hard to achieve what they want.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered Pony Ma said the company might run out of funds and get listed before 2005. With so many plans in mind, they require lots of funds.

No product can make profits immediately once it is launched into the market. Massive funds are required to develop a new product, and this is why internet companies burn lots of money. An internet company’s initial phase requires massive funds and got to wait for years before they become profitable. But they can generate massive returns if they are successful!

“Manager Ma, I believe your dreams will come true. But the core of the company is QQ, and we must maintain our advantage. All the features of QQ must be the most advanced, and whenever people think of messaging software, they will think of QQ!”

“Of course. NetEase’s Bubbles, and the other chatting software from other companies, are not as good as our QQ. My target is not only becoming the best in China. I will bring QQ out of China and become the world’s best instant messaging software!”

Feng Yu’s raised his brows. This is a great ambition, but QQ is still far away from MSN. There are 400 million registered users on QQ, but active users only amount to 30 million, and it is limited to China.

MSN’s active users are over 100 million, and after them, there is another giant, ICQ. ICQ is modeled after QQ.

The biggest advantage of these two software is the languages. It is based on English, and they introduced multi-languages. QQ is only available in Mandarin.

ICQ had been replaced by QQ in China, but MSN has not entered the Chinese market. Because MSN is bundled with Microsoft’s other software, its users grew rapidly.

MSN has lots of users, and it’s very hard to overtake them. But in Feng Yu’s previous life, MSN was replaced by another Microsoft software, SKYPE. Microsoft had bought SKYPE when SKYPE users are about to overtake MSN. This is what Microsoft does all the time.

If you show signs of becoming better than me, I will acquire you and make you mine.

When MSN had taken over other markets, why did they give up on the vast Chinese market? In Feng Yu’s previous life, he had used MSN. The interface is clean and more secure, which is preferred by many businessmen and white-collars.

After all, there are many instances where QQ accounts are hacked. In terms of cybersecurity, QQ is not as good as MSN.

But after that, MSN becomes worse, and QQ slowly overtake them as the latter got better. But MSN continued to compete with QQ. After MSN was shut down overseas, it continued its services for another year in China.

At its peak, MSN owns more than 60% of the global market share. Although many other countries have their own instant messaging software like QQ, they were all suppressed by MSN.

Pony Ma is very confident as MSN still has not entered China. However, he will know he had belittled his opponents after MSN enters the Chinese market.

After all, MSN has Microsoft users as its base. Microsoft is the world’s no. 1 operating system with the most users.

“Manager Ma, I know you have big dreams. But you must take your competitors into consideration. Although ICQ was beaten, the world’s top instant messaging software is MSN. I heard this software has plans to enter the Chinese market soon.” Feng Yu warned.

“I know. But their base is in English, and Tencent is better in Mandarin and knows Chinese users’ habits better. I also have intentions to create a new pinyin input system. Currently, other than the five-strokes input system, there are no other better Mandarin input systems. Also, this five-strokes input systems need users to know the characters’ strokes, and the Pinyin system is better.”

Feng Yu is speechless. Pony Ma had considered more than him, and in his previous life, there is a QQ Pinyin input system which is the same as Sohu. Baidu’s Pinyin is the same as Microsoft’s and is very popular with users. But Sohu’s input systems have the most users.

“Then you will need a lot more software engineers.” Feng Yu is reminding Pony Ma not to be too greedy.

“Don’t worry. I had thought about this. Currently, we have hired the best engineers in the IT industry and had also hired many overseas graduates and foreign engineers. Of course, their salaries make up a large part of our cost.

Feng Yu nodded. “You must not treat them badly as Baidu, NetEase, and the other companies are also hiring software engineers. Many of them are also hired by smaller companies. To be the best in the IT industry, your technology must be the most advanced.”

Both chatted for a while more, and Pony Ma left. He said he has to attend a school gathering and doesn’t want to be late.

Speaking of school gatherings, Feng Yu remembered he has not met his University classmates for a while.

Kaixin001

Windows Live Messenger

ICQ

Chapter 1267 – An opportunity during a gathering

“Lao Si, you are organizing a gathering? Sure. I will be there. I have the contact numbers of the rest and will contact them.” Tian Lei hung up and reminisced about his life in the university. After he started working, he realized it’s hard to make friends compared to the past.

During his university days, there are no scheming people or work troubles.

Other than his dormitory people, Feng Yu realized he does not have his other classmates’ contact numbers. But this is not a problem as he can easily get someone to go to his school to find out where they are working after graduation.

But some of his classmates had changed jobs and had to spend some effort to contact them. This will not be possible for someone else. Even the class monitor, Tian Lei, will not find them.

…….

“Huh? Is this the clubhouse? I heard only the powerful and wealthy people can enter. I didn’t expect we can enter this place.”

“It’s because Feng Yu is paying for us. Even if we are going to split the bills, which one of us can afford it?”

“I knew Feng Yu’s family is rich, but I had not expected him to be richer now. I heard he is the World’s Richest Man now with 60 billion USD. I have not even seen 6 million RMB!”

“You want to compare yourself with Feng Yu? When he was in High School, he is competent in two foreign languages. Furthermore, he is a genius businessman. We, on the other hand, can only work for others. Just be content with what we have, and I heard you are promoted to Section Chief at your workplace. I am still a Deputy Section Chief!”

Feng Yu’s classmates arrived, and Tian Lei stood at the entrance to receive them. Feng Yu is inside the clubhouse, making arrangements.

“Wang Lei, you had become tanner now.” Feng Yu punched Wang Lei lightly on his chest.

Wang Lei laughed. “I have no choice too. I have to be out under the sun all the time, and how can I still remain fair? Lao Si, this is my wife.”

Feng Yu had asked them to bring their family members to this gathering. As he pays for their transportation, lodging, and food, everyone is willing to bring their families with them.

Most of Feng Yu’s classmates are married, and even those who are not married have partners. But there are still one or two who are still single.

“Feng Yu, where’s Nana? I heard both of you had gotten married without informing us. This is not right.” Tian Lei’s wife, Qingqing, said.

Qingqing is Li Na’s university classmate, and they had been in touch after they graduated.

“Ah… we did not inform anyone about our marriage. She is pregnant now and is resting in Bing City.” Feng Yu explained.

Li Na is not suitable to fly and did not come for this gathering.

Looking at the familiar faces, Feng Yu felt he had returned to his university days.

Everyone arrived, and they split up into smaller groups to chat among themselves. But everyone wants to speak to Feng Yu.

They are not seeking Feng Yu’s favors, as they are all graduates from Beijing University, and all of them have pride. They just want to chat with the World’s Richest Man.

“Lao Si, tell us. How does it feel to be the World’s Richest Man?” Li Yong asked loudly.

“What feeling? It’s just being scared to be recognized by others on the streets, and everyone is asking me for donations. Also, I must bring bodyguards with me whenever I go out. I feel like I have lost my freedom.” Feng Yu laughed.

“Look, Lao Si had been corrupted by the evil capitalism and has become like Tang Feng. He went to the US and did not return after that. I heard he had become a US citizen.” Li Yong shouted.

Tang Feng quickly retorted. “I am still Chinese, ok! All I did was getting a Green card. What can I do if my company wants to send me there? Do you think living in the US is great? It’s hard for me to even eat rice, and even if you can find a Chinese restaurant, the food will taste weird.”

“Feng Yu, are you used to the food in the US?” Someone asked.

“I ate Chinese cuisine most of the time but do eat steaks occasionally.”

“Do you still need to ask? Feng Yu must have hired a Chinese Chef at his mansion there. His helpers might be more than all of us here.” Another classmate joked.

Everyone joked around, and some are enjoying the sumptuous buffet.

“We must thank Feng Yu for bring us together again. If it’s not for him, how can we contact everyone here.” Someone said.

“That’s right. When we graduate, there are pagers. But at that time, how many of us can afford to buy a pager. Now, pagers are replaced by mobile phones, and all of us don’t know each other’s numbers.” Someone added.

“That’s right. After graduation, some of us started working, and some carried on with our studies. Everyone become busy with their own lives, and I thought I must wait for at least twenty years before we can gather together.”

“Feng Yu, how did you contact everyone?”

“I got a friend to help. If it’s me, I will also not find everyone. But now, we know everyone’s number, and it’s easier to contact each other in the future.”

“Eh, I know something more convenient. QQ. It is an instant messaging software. Do you all have QQ accounts?” Tian Lei asked.

“I have.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You can just register one. Most of us are using computers at work, and it’s very convenient for us to contact each other. A new feature, group chat, has been added recently, and we can form a group. That way, we can all chat together.”

“Luckily, we have Feng Yu as our classmate. It should be hard for other classes to hold a gathering, right?” Someone added.

Feng Yu heard this and suddenly remembered he had forgotten about that social software.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, people are using Facebook overseas, and Chinese are using Renren. Renren was formerly known as Xiaonei (on-campus network), and it’s popular among students. It also has some blogging features.

Xiaonei is not considered successful in China, but Facebook made Mark Zuckerberg a billionaire. Also, Facebook has massive users and has high profits.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the Americans are the first to develop such products, followed by many other countries. Other companies are just copying them, and it includes Xiaonei.

In this life, why can’t this product appear in China first?

Why can’t the Chinese start this trend first?

Also, this software can target the students and help people can in touch with former classmates. It should attract many users.

Furthermore, this software can be promoted through other websites like Sina or Sohu. It will be popular much faster.

But Feng Yu must think of a better name for this software. It must not use the same name as his previous life as Xiaonei will limit its users to students.

“Eh, Feng Yu, why are you in a daze?” Tian Lei patted Feng Yu’s back.

“Nothing. I just suddenly remembered some business matters. Never mind. Let’s have a toast!”

“Cheers!”

Social software

Renren

Chapter 1269 – Chinese Web

“Manager Feng, why did you call all of us here?” Ma Yun asked.

Ma Yun, Pony Ma, Wang Zhixi, Ding Lei, Li Yanhong, Zhang Chaoyang, and all the Bosses of internet companies, including Zhong Qingxian, Liu Chuanzhi, Qiu Bojun, Sun Lijie, etc. are in the office.

“I have an idea, but I need to discuss with all of you to see if it will work.”

Everyone’s eyes brighten up when they heard what Feng Yu said. All of his ideas are brilliant, and all of them are at this meeting means they will get a share of it.

“Manager Feng, do we still discuss your ideas? It must be a profitable idea.” Sun Lijie was the first to reply.

The rest did not say anything, but from their facial expression, they also agreed with Sun Lijie.

“All of us have classmates, right? Have you ever wanted to contact one of your former classmates but could not?” Feng Yu smiles as he asked.

“Of course. After graduation, everyone had gone separate ways, and some even changed several jobs and moved away. You should know that we don’t even have pagers at that time, and many of our families don’t even have telephones.” Liu Chuanzhi sighed.

Pony Ma asked. “Manager Feng, are you suggesting setting up a website that can help people to find their former classmates?”

The rest got excited after hearing what Pony Ma said. Finding former classmates is a good idea, but after that, they felt it might not work too.

Many people have telephones at home or mobile phones, and mobile phone technology is developing rapidly and getting more common. It is not that troublesome to find their former classmates compared to before. But many people at Liu Chuanzhi’s age are not using PCs or know how to use one.

That’s why Liu Chuanzhi felt this idea might not be profitable.

But Li Yanhong felt this is a great idea. Most people his age know how to use a PC. Although most people own mobile phones now, they don’t know their friends’ numbers, and if there is such a website, many people will register an account.

Everyone has their own views, and they look at each other without saying a word.

Shi Dazhu said. “If you all think this might not work, then let me do it. My Giant Internet will develop this website.”

Shi Dazhu had produced Chinese language cards and set up an internet technology company. He had made money from selling health supplement products. Still, he invested all his profits into Giant Internet as he felt the internet company is the next big thing.

Shi Dazhu had wanted to develop online games to increase his company’s reputation. But it’s not easy to develop online games. His game must be different from others, fun, and takes time to develop.

When Feng Yu made this suggestion, he immediately felt this will work and help his Giant Internet quickly gain awareness.

Pony Ma immediately voices out. “Manager Shi, I did not say this will not work. I think it will be easier for Tencent Group to do this because we are China’s biggest instant messaging software with the most active users. This is our advantage.”

Feng Yu looked at Pony Ma and remembered that Tencent had developed a QQ Campus in his previous life. It was popular for a period.

Many people said Tencent is a company that focuses on copying others. Whenever a software or site becomes popular, it will develop its own version and overtake the original with its big userbase.

But these people did not notice Tencent’s products are more user-friendly and better. That is the real reason why they can win against those original products.

Tencent’s goal is to create an internet empire, and an empire must have a variety of products. Aiwa might be very popular in the consumer electronics sector. Still, they cannot set up an empire as they are only focusing on music-related products.

That’s why Pony Ma is interested in all sorts of internet products.

“I think we should be the best ones to develop this site. We are the best in blogs and have the biggest advantage.” Wang Zhixi said.

After one person expressed interest, the rest started to speak up. But Liu Chuanzhi and Qiu Bojun remained quiet, and Zhong Qingxian is frowning.

Feng Yu interrupted their argument. “Since all of you are interested, why don’t we all work together to set up this website? We can make use of each companies’ advantage and develop it.”

All of them realized why Feng Yu had asked all of them to this meeting. He wants all of them to work together.

“Manager Feng, how are we going to split this company’s share?” Ding Lei asked.

“Tai Hua Holdings will provide most of the funds, and each of you will provide the necessary technologies to form a new internet company. I will give each of you 5% shares of this company.”

Everyone exchange looks and is not happy with this outcome. Their companies can develop this site easily and didn’t need to work with others.

Shi Dazhu asked. “Manager Feng, if I can invest a sum of money, can I get more shares?”

Feng Yu looks at Shi Dazhu. “Yes. I planned to invest 100 million RMB in the initial phase and will continue to invest in the future. If anyone of you is willing to invest money, I can increase your shares.”

Zhong Qingxian suddenly asks. “Manager Feng, is the proportion of shares for the technology too high?”

There are eight companies there, and it will amount to 40% shares of this new company. If Feng Yu sells additional shares to them, who will be the controlling shareholder of this company?

Zhong Qingxian is Tai Hua Holdings CEO, and he must think for the company.

“I had not made myself clear earlier. The 5% shares I mentioned earlier are for your companies and not individuals.”

Tai Hua Holdings is the main shareholder for most of the companies here. They will still be the controlling shareholder of this new company. Even if everyone’s shares are the same, it will still be Tai Hua Holding calling the shots.

Zhong Qingxian did not continue as Tai Hua Holding will be the biggest shareholder of this company.

“Then if I invest a sum of money, I will own the shares?” Shi Dazhu asked the question everyone wants to know.

“Of course. But each one of you cannot own more than 5%. If anyone of you is going to sell your shares, the original shareholders must get the priority to buy them.”

“No problem.”

Besides Shi Dazhu, Ding Kei can also afford to invest as NetEase is making profits now and has received high dividends over the past two years. The rest cannot afford all 5% of the company’s shares, but they still invested some money. All the top internet companies in China are in this joint venture, and it is impossible to fail!

“Oh, I had come up with this internet company’s name. Chinese Web. The web that connects all Chinese.”

Chapter 1270 – Real-name system

Everyone starts to discuss what features this site should have, how they should attract users, and how they will charge the users when Liu Chuanzhi suddenly asked.

“Have you all thought about the biggest difference between this site and other sites?”

Qiu Bojun looks up suddenly. “Are you saying this site needs to use a real-name system?”

Real-name system?!

Everyone’s face changed. That’s right. If the user wants to find their old friends and classmates accurately, they must use their real names. If users use an online username, how would other people know who are you? But most people use usernames nowadays.

Also, hiding the real name helped with internet development in China. Many people like to use a meaningful username and dare to say anything as no one knows who they are.

Being anonymous also allowed people to start making online friends. This is similar to pen-pals before the internet. Users dare to share their troubles and inner-feelings without worrying others will know their identity. But this also resulted in many people spreading rumors and tarnishing other people’s reputations online.

A Real-name system is good at building trust between people and will increase the credibility of an individual.

Even on the Internet and even traditional media, people should be protected with copyright and intellectual protection. People who publish articles should be using their real names. Since you decided to be a reporter or a writer, you must be responsible to the public. Using a pseudonym is irresponsible!

People had discussed this issue on the internet and other media. But as technology cannot keep up, and there are no written laws, the discussion died down.

This is a habit, and most netizens do not like using a real-name system. They felt it will not as fun as before. Who is willing to reveal his own personal details like their identity cards to others? This is their personal privacy.

“What’s wrong? Are you all scare after hearing the real-name system?” Feng Yu asked.

“That’s right. It’s hard to implement a real-name system, but not all websites need to use this system. Also, some people prefer to use their real names. For example, some movie stars are using their real names to register for their Weibo. This will help them increase their interactions with their fans. That means not everyone will oppose this system.”

“From another perspective, I can use different usernames for my QQ, Weibo, forums, and game accounts. Even if I use my real name for my Weibo, I can still use pseudonyms for the rest. Why can’t both systems exist together?”

“Exist together? That means we can use a real-name system for this site, and it will not clash with other websites?” Pony Ma asked.

“Bingo! Our Chinese web has a different purpose compared to other sites. Why can’t we be different from others? All of you don’t go to internet bars. Do you know that Public Security had ordered internet bars to register its customer’s identification card numbers this year? This is to restrict under-aged users to go on the internet and stop criminals from going to internet bars and other public places.”

“I know about this. Our Lenovo Kingsoft has developed software to use their identity cards to register for a membership card. The membership card is a form of online identification and can surf the internet in internet bars. But many companies are also doing the same thing, and it would be great to standardize all these cards in the future.” Qiu Bojun said

“You all had developed a one-card pass? How is it doing?” Feng Yu is interested.

“It’s doing fine. But it is not considered a one-card pass. This card is originally developed for a school’s cafeteria payment system. Food tickets are often misplaced, and it’s hard to manage cash. Schools with extra funds will set up this card system. The technology is not difficult, and basically, it’s about the system structure. After that, we heard some internet bars use this technology as their membership cards to attract customers. When their customers top up their cards to a certain value, they will get free drinks or discounts. So, we modify our food card system to become an internet bar membership card management system.”

“Does your internet card have that big magnetic strip, similar to the banks’ ATM cards?”

“Yes. It’s those types.”

“Do you know about Hong Kong’s Octopus card? It is a type of plastic card with a microchip inside. Users can just tap the card on the reader, and the reader can read the data inside. Users can also top up the value inside and use it for payments.”

“I know about that. That type of card is used to encourage people to take public transport now.” Qiu Bojun replied.

Huh? Feng Yu doesn’t know the public transport is using this type of stored value cards now. He has not been on public transportation for too long.”

“This type of card is much better than those with magnetic strips. The magnetic strip is easily damaged, and the card might snap when inserting or swiping it too hard. A contactless card is much better. I suggest switching all the internet bars magnetic strip membership cards to this type. Hmm… Tai Hua Supermarket membership cards should also be changed.”

It is worthwhile to develop this new contactless card just for Tai Hua Supermarket. Furthermore, this is a simple technology, and they can figure it out in no time.

“Ok. I will get my men to work on this after I return.” Qiu Bojun nodded.

“Have you all notice the loophole for this internet card? I can use my ID to register for this card and let someone else uses it secretly. That means the real-name system might not face opposition, and some of the registered users might not be real. But without the real-name system, this site will lose its biggest value.”

“We must stop online crimes. If many people claim they are scammed through our website, it will harm our reputation.”

“We can ask the users to use their own photographs on their accounts.” Zhang Chaoyang suggested.

“This can only be suggested but cannot be forced upon the users. How would we know if they use a random picture of a celebrity off the internet? We do not have the technology to detect it, and it’s not practical to get people to verify manually. What if the user really looks like that celebrity?”

“This is why I got all of you here. This site needs to consider a lot of things other than technologies. We must come up with possible problems and thick of solutions together.”

Real-name system

Octopus card

Chapter 1271 – Pilot test

“What did you say? You want Chinese Web’s real-name system to be a pilot test?” Feng Yu is shocked.

The higher-ups intend to implement the real-name system on the internet, but Feng Yu did not expect Shi Dazhu to raise this up in the meeting.

Since the higher-ups want to test this system, they will support and subsidies. This will be advantageous for the Chinese Web to develop.

“Will the higher-ups agree?”

“They don’t need to spend a single cent, and all the work will be done by us. They are only helping us with the relevant approvals and paperwork, and they will know if the real-name system can work in China. Why will they not agree to this pilot testing? Maybe you are not aware that Korea and Japan had started to introduce this real-name system on the internet now.”

Feng Yu is not surprised as Korea was the first developed country to implement the real-name system. In 2005, Japan was the next developed country to enforce this system. Korea has the best internet network infrastructure globally and is the first country to succeed with this system. When it comes to internet development, they are the most advanced in the world.

Of course, this is because of Korea’s size and population. They can succeed with this system is because they made use of a few major corporations to implement it throughout the country.

Korea only has a few major corporations like Samsung, Daewoo, LG, Hyundai, etc. It is easier to implement this system with their support.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China started to implement this system after seeing Korea succeed. China started with Tencent by implementing QQ group chat and administrator of forums to register with their Identification card number.

Of course, many oppose this system, and it was not smooth sailing. Some people used fake IDs. IDs and currencies can be counterfeit, let alone online accounts.

Many people are trying their luck, thinking that no one can notice if they used fake IDs. Furthermore, they are using someone else’s ID and name. Who will know the account is fake?

This is just like registering for new phone numbers. Some people had also used another person’s ID to register.

Feng Yu felt it will be better to implement the real-name system for mobile phone numbers first. Of course, it will also not be easy to implement it. There are high roaming charges across cities now, and many people like to use multiple SIM cards when they travel.

After the mobile phone and roaming charges are lowered, it will be much easier to implement this system.

But it’s just like stock accounts’ real-name system. In Feng Yu’s previous life, many people had opened trading accounts using a few hundred IDs, and he had helped someone do this as a broker then.

Buying a few IDs from rural villages and then opening trading accounts with these IDs allowed people to exploit the loopholes.

“Did they request us to get our users to register with their ID numbers?”

“No. When users register, we can give them options for them to pick like mobile numbers.”

“Good to hear that. Have the package models for each company been finalized?”

“It’s done. Users can integrate their QQ numbers, emails, forum IDs, etc., and none of them had lost out.” Shi Dazhu is slightly disappointed as his Giant Web still does not have any good internet products.

“How about the basic structure? When can it be ready?”

“It is ready now, but we still need some support from the higher-ups. For example, we need detailed information from all the schools and streets. All these need approvals from them.”

Feng Yu knew this is very difficult without support from the higher-ups. They can get the data themselves, but it might not be accurate and take a long time.

But without this detailed information, it is almost impossible to find someone accurately. Searching by names might get too many people with the same name.

The selling point of this website is helping the users to find someone quickly. If this cannot be done, it will be meaningless.

“How long will it take for this website to be ready?”

“Should be around three months. The basic coding is written by Sina, Sohu, and Tencent Group. They have relevant experiences in developing such products, and other companies’ software engineers and programmers are providing backup support and testing.”

“The charging fee codes will be handled by NetEase and Alibaba, and Lenovo Kingsoft will be handling the cybersecurity. Baidu will be handling the search engine, and Giant Web will be in charge of the rest. Each company is responsible for a certain part, and we can set up this site quickly.” Shi Dazhu replied.

Shi Dazhu is handling the hardest part of this project. Collecting data and coordinating with the higher-ups. But he also suggested another solution, which is selling a stake to a State-owned company.

With a National-level State-Owned company involved in this company, it will be easier to get approvals from the relevant authorities. Of course, the State-owned company can only get 5% of its shares and do not have any authority to interfere with its operation.

When the person-in-charge of that State-Owned investment company heard this company is set up by Feng Yu and the rest, he felt it must be profitable. He also felt this will be a great opportunity to build a relationship with Feng Yu and the rest.

The person-in-charge felt that being able to chat with them during Director meetings or shareholders’ meetings can give him many more opportunities.

Feng Yu and the rest did not object to Shi Dazhu’s suggestion. Of course, this investment company is also a minor shareholder without any voting rights of NetEase, Sohu, etc. This is the company that had bought the delisted companies’ shares, but the boss had been replaced.

“Manager Shi, this site might be more popular than other websites after it is launched. Also, it has the potential to develop other uses to create profits.”

“I know. Since everyone picked me as the Chairman, I will be responsible for this company.”

There are too many shareholders, and despite Tai Hua Holdings is the main shareholder. Still, Zhong Qingxian does not have experience in managing an internet company. So, Shi Dazhu volunteered to be the Chairman and CEO of this company, and the rest will be the directors. But he will still be in charge of most of the decisions within the company.

Shi Dazhu might have gotten the highest authority in this company, but he had to put in the most effort. He had always wanted to set up an internet technology company, but he does not have any good products. He will not volunteer to be the Chairman and CEO of this company, as the salary is not high.

“Manager Shi, we are the first to come up with this idea, and many companies will be copying us in the future. I believe no matter which company had copied us, we will be the first to turn this idea into reality!”

Mark Zuckerberg, you will be known as an imitator in the future!

Chapter 1272 – Taobao

“The first snow of 2002 is much later compared to the past…” The phone on the table rang.

“Hello, Manager Ma? What is it? Alright. I know.”

On 10th April 2003, Ma Yun invited Feng Yu, Zhong Qingxian, and the rest to attend the opening ceremony of Taobao.

Taobao is another eCommerce site set up by Alibaba and is using the C2C model. Everyone can become a boss, and everyone can be a consumer.

Alibaba had started as a B2B trading platform and tried the B2C model. It was until this year, they felt it’s time to start the C2C model. They felt the C2C model is more advantageous than B2C as they don’t need to invest too much.

Alibaba had no choice as they are running low on funds. Setting up a website is not a small amount, and they are prepared to suffer losses in the initial phase as they will not be collecting fees from the sellers.

Of course, the fees are not their main source of income. Their main source of income will be from Alipay. Alipay a payment software jointly developed by Feng Yu, Kirilenko, and Alibaba. Although Alibaba has lesser shares in Alipay, they can still get high profits from it.

It takes an average of one week for the seller to receive payment from the buyer. Even if the buyer received the goods earlier, it is also at least four to five days for the seller to receive the payment through their Alipay account. This is deposit capital.

The deposit capital will be used to invest in other instruments to get high returns. Furthermore, many sellers will not withdraw all of their earnings at once and leave them in their Alipay accounts. This allows Alipay more time to invest.

After that, selected advertisements will be sent to the consumers based on their spending records, and this is a form of income model. Sellers can also opt to pay to be ‘personalized recommendation’ to the consumers or a recommended seller.

Most importantly, Aliwangwang is the third most popular instant messaging program after QQ and MSN in China. It has more users than NetEase Bubbles.

When the number of users increased, Alibaba will start its Ecommerce profit model. This is why Alibaba can be so successful in Feng Yu’s previous life and why so many people want to buy their shares.

As the number of users increases, Alibaba can start the B2C model, Taobao mall, in the future. The name is changed to Tmall later on.

Taobao will be split into three parts in the future. Taobao, Taobao mall, and E Tao.

The sellers’ commissions are only a small part of Taobao’s profits than the consumers’ data.

But now, Ma Yun decides to waive off the commissions for three years and will continue to provide good services!

This means within three years, Taobao will not have any profits and had given up the most basic sellers’ commissions.

But Taobao’s top priority is to attract users and sellers.

The current data is still not massive, and Alipay is their only source of profits. However, Ma Yun has to invest several times more into Taobao now.

Setting up and maintaining the website, etc., requires a large number of funds, and all of Alibaba’s profits from other sources must be invest into Taobao’s operations.

But Ma Yun firmly believes Taobao will become China and Asia’s biggest online retail platform. It might even exceed Tai Hua Supermarket Group!

Feng Yu does not agree with Ma Yun on this point.

Tai Hua Supermarkets are located in prime locations and started developing the commercial spaces around them, forming business clusters.

More importantly, the competition between supermarket chains in Feng Yu’s previous had been fierce. But in this life, Tai Hua Supermarket Group is the biggest in China.

The two overseas supermarket chains, Walmart and Carrefour, cannot penetrate the Chinese market successfully. They only have a few outlets in China and are not doing well.

If a supermarket chain cannot reach a certain scale, the membership cards and other profiting models cannot be implemented. Furthermore, with lesser outlets, they will not have economies of scale.

Having lesser outlets also means the supermarket chains have lesser influence and lower reputation. All these reasons will limit their growth in China. China also has other supermarket chains. Although these new supermarket chains cannot be compared to Tai Hua Supermarkets, they are much bigger than Walmart and Carrefour.

The smaller supermarket chains have at least seven to eight supermarkets, and the bigger ones have thirty to forty outlets.

These Chinese supermarket chains are mostly located in the third or fourth-tier cities, as Tai Hua Supermarket has occupied all the first and second-tier cities.

Last year, the total transaction of Tai Hua Supermarket exceeded 30 billion RMB, and Taobao will not exceed this figure within the next three years.

Tai Hua Supermarket is still expanding. The third and fourth-tier cities are not suitable for Hypermarkets, but they can still set up Tai Hua Supermarkets.

Tai Hua Supermarket Group’s transaction will continue to rise in the future and will continue to challenge Taobao to be the top corporation with the highest transaction sales.

Although traditional retailers are affected by the appearances of Taobao and other online shopping platforms, large-scale supermarket chains will still be profitable.

After all, many people still like to see and touch the products, like fresh groceries, etc., before buying.

Tai Hua Supermarket Group’s profit is much higher than Taobao’s. If Feng Yu wants, he can make Tai Hua Supermarket a competitor to Taobao. This will push Taobao to develop much faster!

But Feng Yu will not do this. Both are his businesses, and regardless of who won, the profits will still go to him. Taobao’s success can also prevent other competitors from entering the market.

…….

“Our Taobao welcomes everyone to shop or set up online shops with us. There will be no sellers’ commissions in the first three years, and buyers do not need to pay any fees. We will be using Alipay as payment services, and this is to protect our customers’ interests. Of course, we, the major banks’ online payment services, and Paypal, the world’s top online payment service, support us. In the next five years, we will create one million jobs…”

Ma Yun gave a speech on the stage, and many reporters were invited to attend. If it’s only Ma Yun, there might not be so many people attending this opening ceremony. But when the reporters heard Tai Hua Holdings, Zhong Qingxian, Lenovo Group’s Liu Chuanzhi, Pony Ma, Ding Lei, Wang Zhixi, Zhang Chaoyang, Shi Dazhu, and many other top businessmen would be attending, they rushed over.

There are rumors that the mysterious World’s Richest Man, Feng Yu, might make a sudden appearance during the ceremony. This rumor made all the reporters excited as whoever can get a picture of Feng Yu’s front view, or will be promoted!

Feng Yu had come but is seated in a corner. No one knows this young man is the World’s Richest Man, and even the people seated beside him thought he is one of Alibaba’s staff.

But what made them curious is why is this staff wearing sunglasses? Is he a security guard? But this guy is not fit at all.

Translator’s note:

Taobao

Tmall

Chapter 1273 – One Month

Ma Yun had launched Taobao earlier in this life, and it’s because of Feng Yu’s suggestion. Another reason is that China has a big C2C internet company and is afraid it will lose out.

This C2C internet company is called eBay Yi Qu. It is started by Chinese Harvard graduates and invested by eBay.

Last month, eBay had acquired most of eBay Yi Qu’s shares from the two founders and became the company’s controlling shareholder.

Other than the two founders, who are holding on to some shares, another new shareholder, Sina. Early in 2000, Sina had allied with Yi Qu to promote each other’s products.

But Wang Zhixi is very smart. He invested in Yi Qu but rejected Yi Qu’s suggestion to exchange shares. He does not want his Sina shares to be diluted further as Sina is his main business in the future.

When eBay got the controlling stake in eBay Yi Qu, Ma Yun is afraid he will lose the market share. So, he quickly develops his C2C platform.

Of course, Ma Yun firmly believes his company has better customer service, zero-commissions, and the company’s financial status can defeat eBay Yi Qu.

Ma Yun knows the controlling shareholder of eBay is Feng Yu’s good friend, Kirilenko.

Feng Yu does not know eBay had acquired Yi Qu. But even if he knows, he will not stop this acquisition as eBay belongs to Kirilenko and doesn’t need to snatch with him. another reason is Feng Yu also believes the Taobao model will emerge as the winner in the end. eBay Yi Qu’s operating model is too ordinary.

eBay Yi Qu is charging its sellers’ high fees and their main payment software is Paypal and Alipay. But Paypal also has charged.

Both parties’ business does not have conflicts, as eBay Yi Qu is auction-based, and Taobao is selling products. But in the future, both will test all sorts of operating models.

Many people discussed which operating model is more successful. eBay Yi Qu’s operating model was successful in other countries, but Taobao’s model is still unknown and burns money too fast.

eBay Yi Qu’s biggest advantage is they are connected to overseas eBay. Their users can trade with overseas users, and eBay has more than 100 million registered users overseas.

In China, they have more than 3 million registered users and are leading Taobao by a lot.

This is the reason why Ma Yun decides to waive off the sellers’ charges. Feng Yu remembers that Taobao only starts charging their sellers after Tmall is introduced. This is also because they want to get rid of those sellers selling counterfeit products.

Anyway, Taobao does not need to depend on these charges unless the seller opts to be featured as a Taobao bestseller. This service is not cheap, and other sellers are completely free.

…….

“Manager Ma, you are going all out this time.” Wang Zhixi joked.

“That’s because of eBay Yi Qu. But I will not reveal any more things to you. Sina is a shareholder of eBay Yi Qu, right?” Ma Yun replied.

“Hahaha… how much can I make from that little shares? Also, Sina and Alibaba are alliance now.” Wang Zhixi is not very concerned about all these.

Wang Zhixi had invested in Yi Qu in the past is because he wanted an additional revenue stream. But he did not expect eBay Yi Qu to be successful. If he had agreed to eBay’s acquisition terms, he could make a lot more money.

But after some considerations, Wang Zhixi decided to keep his shares as he allowing users to trade with overseas users who have high potential.

“Manager Ma, you are going to lose money for three years. Are you going to waive all commissions?” Ding Lei asked curiously.

“We will be collecting deposits to prevent the sellers from scamming the consumers, and we will not be collecting all other charges. If the sellers want to advertise their shops or opt-in for the bestselling shop services in the future, they must pay for it. But I guarantee it will be worth their money.

Zhong Qingxian smiled. “This move of yours is giving eBay Yi Qu a warning. I think all those small businesses or individuals who want to sell their products online will choose Taobao in the future.”

Small businesses and individuals did not have much startup capital when they started, or else they would have set up a shop. At Taobao, they only need to pay a deposit, and after they decided to shut down their business, they can get the deposit back. eBay Yi Qu charged the sellers commissions, and the payment system, Paypal, also charges its users.

Taobao had lowered the barriers for the sellers, and this is their biggest advantage.

“You all don’t need to compete with each other. It will be better if both companies can merge. The biggest shareholder of eBay is that Russian Tycoon, right? He is Manager Feng’s good friend, and Alipay is jointly developed with them.” Zhang Chaoyang said.

“Merge? Who will be the one in charge if we merge? eBay is financially stronger, but Alibaba Group has bigger potential than them.” Ma Yun insisted.

“Potential? They already have more than 3 million registered users, and it is still increasing. You all still do not have any users yet. Furthermore, their website had been ready and running much earlier. Your website is just set up and is still undergoing the testing phase.”

“Also, without users, it will be useless for people to sell their products on your platform. You all might have an advantage in attracting sellers, but are you sure you can be better than eBay Yi Qu in attracting buyers?” Pony Ma asked.

“We have considered this problem, and that’s why I invited all of you here. We want to ally with you all and hope you all can help us promote Taobao. I believe with everyone’s help, our Taobao can grow much faster.”

“Also, we are developing an instant messaging software for our website. It is currently named Ali Wang Wang, and it will be more convenient for buyers to communicate with the sellers. This way, the sellers can provide better services.”

Pony Ma frowned when he heard this. “Why can’t Alibaba use our QQ?”

Ding Lei added. “You all can also use our Bubbles too.”

Ma Yun smiled and shook his head. “We need to protect our customers’ privacy, and developing our chat software is better. We are not using this messaging software for people to chat and make friends. This is mainly used for sellers and buyers to communicate. That’s why we are not competing with you two. The ones who use our product can still use your products.”

“Manager Ma, since you are so confident, how long do you foresee Taobao users exceeding eBay Yi Qu?” Ding Lei asked jokingly.

Ma Yun confidently replied. “One month!”

Chapter 1274 – Whitman

After knowing Taobao has been set up, Whitman, the CEO of eBay, immediately flew to Shanghai. China is the market she is targeting after the North American market. If she can get the majority of the market share, it will bring enormous profit.

Although China is still a developing nation, its average income is not high, but most people in the cities have above-average income. More importantly, China has a high population, and a standard middle-class family’s six-month salary is enough for them to spend for a year. The remaining half will be spent on luxury items to improve their lives.

In North America, even if a third of its population are eBay’s registered users, it is only tens of million people. But China has 1 billion people, and even 5% of its population is more than the North American market.

Kirilenko had also come to China with Whitman. He has nothing to do in the US and wants to have a short vacation in China before returning to Moscow.

A plane landed in Shanghai airport, and Kirilenko and Whitman stepped out.

Feng Yu is standing there waiting to receive his best friend.

“Feng, why didn’t you visit me in the US for so long?” Kirilenko gave Feng Yu a hug.

“I told you that my wife is pregnant and I need to remain in China during this period. Furthermore, you can come over to visit me.”

“Mr. Feng, nice to meet you. I am Whitman, President, and CEO of eBay.” Whitman extended her right hand for a handshake.

Feng Yu has always wanted to meet this legendary business executive. If she were not working in eBay, he would have recruited her for Amazon. In his previous life, many people said eBay can be successful is because of her. Even eBay’s shareholders admitted this.

When Whitman resigned, she appointed one of her former colleagues as her successor, and eBay continued to succeed.

Whitman moved on to her new job as HP’s CEO. Her salary at HP is not as high as eBay, but she sees it as a challenge.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Whitman. If you are not working for Kirilenko, I would have recruited you personally to my company.” Feng Yu did not hide his admiration for her.

“Thank you, Mr. Feng. I am quite happy at eBay, and I am confident eBay can become an eCommerce giant!” Whitman replied proudly.

“Feng, she is not someone you can recruit.” Kirilenko gloated.

In the past, Kirilenko had looked down on Whitman as she is a woman. But he soon realizes she is different and is more capable than most men. She is also very good at managing the company, and eBay’s success today is all her credit.

Of course, Kirilenko did not treat Whitman badly. He learned from Feng Yu to treat his subordinates well and gave her shares of the company as bonuses. When it’s time for her to leave, she should own more than 100 million USD worth of eBay shares. This is not something most companies’ CEO will get.

“Hahaha… I also have a good management team and will not snatch with you. But if she gets bored at your place and wants a change of environment, she can come over anytime.”

Whitman thought Feng Yu is joking with Kirilenko and her. But when she saw Feng Yu’s serious expression, she knows he admires her capability.

Being appreciated by the World’s Richest man is an honor.

They exchanged a few words, and Feng Yu invited them into the car. Kirilenko and Whitman boarded a custom-made Songjiang limousine. This is considered a simplified version of Kirilenko’s wedding car, and two Songjiang S class cars escorted them. The S class model is currently the most expensive car from Songjiang.

“Is this building Mr. Feng’s?” Whitman looks at the Wind and Rain Building in Shanghai.

Whitman had heard that the Chinese likes to buy properties but did not expect the World’s Richest Man, Feng Yu, to be one of them.

“This building belongs to Tai Hua Holdings, and most of Tai Hua Holdings’ subsidiaries have offices here. Some overseas companies rented office space here. For example, your eBay Yi Qu’s office is in this building. You should know about this, right?”

Of course, Whitman knew about this. She had come to the office before when eBay invested and acquired most of Yi Qu’s shares. Both transactions are more than 160 million USD, and she must be present to make sure everything is in order.

When they reach Feng Yu’s office, Kirilenko went to the bar and opened a bottle of alcohol.

Whitman looks around curiously. Why does Feng Yu not have a secretary in his office? She does not know Feng Yu does not like to be disturbed in his office, and no one will enter if he did not call for them. If a secretary is stationed in his office and saw him playing online games, his image will be tarnished!

How can the World’s Richest Man behaving like ordinary staff who plays games secretly at work? Kirilenko knows about Feng Yu’s habits and went to pour drinks for himself.

“Ms. Whitman. What would you like to drink? I will get someone to prepare for you.”

Kirilenko poured a glass of alcohol and placed it in front of Whitman. “No need. I believe she will like this bottle of alcohol.”

Another thing about Whitman which Kirilenko likes is she also likes alcohol. Although she cannot drink much, it’s enough to impress him.

Someone who likes to drink must be a nice person!

This is what Kirilenko believes.

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders and brewed a pot of tea for himself. Birds of the same feather flock together.

“Mr. Feng, your office is quite small.” Whitman looks around.

“I am not in this office most of the time, and that’s why it is smaller. It will be too wasteful if I have a big office here.”

Feng Yu’s office is smaller than Zhong Qingxian’s. Zhong Qingxian felt awkward about this in the past, but Feng Yu did not mind as he is not in Shanghai most of the time.

“I did not expect you to be so thrifty even though you are the World’s Richest Man.”

“The World’s Richest Man is only a title. My companies still cannot be compared to Bill Gates’ Microsoft or those top companies. When my companies can exceed them one day, I will be glad to receive this title. At that time, I believe my companies’ shareholders and top executives will also be listed on the Forbes list!”

Chapter 1275 – Persuasion

Whitman’s jaw dropped after hearing what Feng Yu said. But Kirilenko didn’t seem surprised as Feng Yu had told him about his goal before.

A super tycoon cannot prove anything. But if a country has a super tycoon group and is working together, it will speed up the country’s development. At the same time, they can stop outsiders from snatching their businesses.

Kirilenko also felt this goal is interesting. It’s more fulfilling to create a group of super tycoons when he becomes a super tycoon!

“It’s hard for me to reach your ambition, but I believe you will succeed one day.” Whitman mumbled.

“Maybe I don’t need to wait too long. Ten years should be sufficient. Alright. Let’s not talk about this. Are you all here because of eBay Yi Qu?”

To Feng Yu, ten years is sufficient to let Tai Hua Holdings and Wind and Rain Holdings grow to become mega conglomerates worth tens of billions USD. When that happens, the net assets of the subsidiary’s shareholders will be multiplied by several folds. Zhong Qingxian, Ma Yun, Pony Ma, Li Yanhong, etc., can qualify as one of the top 50 billionaires on the Forbes list. The rest also have a chance to enter the list.

These did not include Feng Yu’s friends in Hong Kong. If they are included, the results will be scarier.

When Feng Yu controls a conglomerate worth trillions, no one in the world will dare to belittle him. He can even compete with large institutions like JPMorgan and Rockefeller. His target is to exceed them!

Whitman replied. “That’s right. We are here to check on eBay Yi Qu’s next strategic move. I heard a new C2C eCommerce site had appeared in China, called Taobao, which is a subsidiary of Alibaba and Alibaba is one of Tai Hua Holding’s subsidiaries.”

“We are only a shareholder. Alibaba is also a shareholder of Alipay.” Feng Yu reminded Whitman not to belittle Alibaba. Alipay might not be as successful as Paypal, but it is quite popular in East Europe and China.

When enough data is collected after two years, it will generate more returns.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Alibaba, or the Ant Group, represents Internet finance. No other companies can come close to them when it comes to big data.

Whitman looks at Kirilenko. How come Kirilenko did not tell her about such important information.

Kirilenko saw Whitman looking at him and gulped down a glass of alcohol. “I had not told you about this? Maybe I had forgotten.”

Huh? Brother Ki’s English had improved so much? Can he understand what we are saying just now?

Kirilenko saw Feng Yu’s surprised look and took out an earpiece from his ears. “Real-time translator. My side had developed this, but it’s not very good to use. It can only translate one language, and it’s not very accurate.”

Oh. No wonder Whitman can understand Russian. She should be wearing one of these devices but was covered by her hair. Feng Yu still thought Whitman is good in Russian too.

This small device is quite good, and there is a market for it. But the biggest issue with translators is the accuracy. There are proverbs and idioms in all languages, and it’s hard for translators to translate it, let alone a real-time translating device.

But during negotiations, people can still wear this device even with a translator. It will be more convenient and lower the possibility of the translator being bribed by the other party.

“Do you have the Chinese version?”

“No. Mandarin is too difficult. Lenovo Kingsoft develops this. Don’t you know about it?” Kirilenko asked in shock.

Feng Yu is embarrassed. He had not paid attention to Lenovo Kingsoft’s products, as he had only asked them to develop the operating system for PC and smartphones.

“I had not taken note of it, but this is not important. Alright, where did we stop?”

Kirilenko: “…….”

Whitman maintained her composure. “Mr. Feng, you are good friends with Mr. Kirilenko and are partners in many businesses, right?”

“We are not only business partners. We are also best friends.” Kirilenko added.

“Are you asking me to help eBay to suppress Alibaba?” Feng Yu laughed.

“Seems like you do not agree to this. But do you know that once eBay and Alibaba compete heads-on, it might be a lose-lose situation for both? I know it’s difficult to stop them, but my suggestion is for both companies to cooperate.” Whitman replied.

“Cooperation? Are you saying eBay cooperating with Alibaba, or eBay Yi Qu cooperating with Alibaba?”

“Of course, it’s eBay and Alibaba. We can also merge.”

Feng Yu shook his head and laugh. “eBay’s current value is more than ten times of Alibaba, and it is also a listed company. If both companies merged, eBay would gain the upper hand. What you are doing is acquiring Alibaba.”

“We can exchange shares. This way, you will also become a shareholder of eBay. A large corporation has a higher potential than a smaller company, right?” Whitman’s offer is quite enticing. She believes this condition will move most people in business, but she is not sure whether Feng Yu will be moved. After all, he is the World’s Richest Man.

“It’s good to be confident. But overconfidence will become arrogant. In the US, there are many instances where smaller companies acquiring bigger companies, and a smaller company’s potential might not be worse than bigger companies. Smaller companies might have greater potential. You all might have a lot of registered users now. But who knows which company will have more users next year?” Feng Yu replied with a smile.

Kirilenko interrupted. “I told you this would not work. Also, I will be honest with you. If I had not acquired eBay when it was still a startup, Feng would have acquired it. He is more decisive than me and will acquire the controlling stake faster than me.”

Whitman looks at Feng Yu in shock. Could it be Feng Yu knew eCommerce or online shopping would be successful at that time? But no one thinks this will succeed then.

“Ms. Whitman. I think eBay should maintain a healthy competition with Taobao. The market is too big for two companies. As we are competing, we can also suppress other companies from raising. As for the other countries’ markets, we can work together. Did Kirilenko tell you that I am the controlling shareholder of Amazon too?”

Chapter 1276 – How are we going to market this?

“Manager Shi, are you here to tell me some good news?” Feng Yu pressed the ESC button. He was about to win this game of Warcraft 3.

“Of course. The Chinese Web is about to be upload, and we have uploaded all the schools and streets data. We even got the data of some state-owned enterprises, companies, etc., and we are confident we can complete someone’s details.” Shi Dazhu excitedly said.

“Oh, this is a piece of good news. Are you confident in increasing the number of users quickly? Don’t be like Old Ma. He claimed he would exceed eBay Yi Qu in a month, but he took one month and one week.”

“Haha… one month and one week is also a miracle. After all, Taobao had started with zero users and got more than 3 million users. But I did not expect eBay Yi Qu’s users to increase rapidly too. I have an idea to increase Chinese Web users quickly. We can promote it in universities.”

“Promote it in universities? Does that mean you want the students to use this site to find their middle and high school friends? This is a good idea, but the users will be limited to young people. Our purpose of creating this site is for all demographics.”

Promoting this site in Universities is what this site did in Feng Yu’s previous life. The company had used advertisements and flyers to get university students to sign up, making them the first batch of users.

But the website in Feng Yu’s previous life is called On Campus, and they are selling the idea of connecting your former schoolmates. This is similar to Facebook, but Facebook grew quickly, and its users are not limited to students.

“But most PC users are young people. Many older people are still using two fingers to type and can’t even chat with QQ. Many of them don’t even know how to send SMS messages.” Shi Dazhu frowned.

“Don’t look down on their learning capabilities, and PCs are much easier to use now. Do you still remember how troublesome it was when you used a PC for the first time? Many of the functions can be settled with just a mouse click now. People can learn how to type, and many people know how to use Pinyin. Sohu and Tencent are developing the Pinyin input system, and I heard Baidu is also developing their input system. It will be easier for them to type in the future.”

“But it is still difficult. Although many people know about Pinyin, many people are still using dialects. The words they typed are not the words they want.”

“Lenovo Group had developed an interesting product which is modified from a drawing block. It’s called a writing pad. It has a special pen, and when you write on the board, the words will appear on the PC. Currently, there are two modes. One mode is that the PC will recognize the words based on the strokes, and the other directly reflects whatever you wrote. I believe many people know how to write.” Feng Yu smiled.

“Lenovo had developed such a good product? If this product is available, it will be much easier. After all, most of the illiterate people will not buy PCs.” Shi Dazhu exclaimed. “Should we advertise and give out flyers at some office buildings and factories?”

Feng Yu shook his head. “You can give out flyers at universities, but it’s not a good idea to do that at workplaces. There is another place which is suitable for us to advertise. Internet cafes.”

Internet cafes? Shi Dazhu thought for a while and felt this is a good idea. Internet cafes are very popular now, and most of them are located near schools and highly populated areas.

Many people still cannot afford PCs and go to the internet cafes to play games, send emails, chat on QQ, etc. Most of China’s internet users are gathered at internet cafes!

“Manager Feng, how are we going to capture the rest of the users? Just internet cafes are not enough. I know Sina and the rest will advertise for us, but those advertisements are targeting internet users. There are still many users who don’t go online. How are we going to attract them to register?” Shi Dazhu asked sincerely.

Shi Dazhu knows Feng Yu is a genius in marketing and promoting products.

“Manager Shi, have you forgotten how you had marketed your product?” Feng Yu hinted.

My product? Gold Partner? I had advertised in newspapers, online articles, and TV advertisements. Wait… Is Manager Feng talking about TV advertisements?

Can a website be advertised on TV? No one had ever done that!

Also, TV advertisements are very expensive. Local TV stations’ advertisement slots are still alright, but CCTV’s advertisement slots had increased a lot. Even the satellite TV stations from other provinces are also increasing. This site will not generate any profits in the initial phase, and they had spent a lot to develop it. If they spend so much on advertising, this company will not have any reserve funds.

“Manager Shi, are you thinking it is ridiculous to advertise on TV? If you never try it, how do you know it will not work? It might be costly, but the advertising fees are nothing if we can attract users. Look at QQ. It is free initially, but they can generate profits through other paid services, and their profits will increase in the future. Why did Taobao waive off the seller commissions? They did this to attract customers. When you have a lot of users, you can get profits from other areas. We are providing quality services, and it cannot be free forever.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Shi Dazhu’s internet company had used TV advertising to promote themselves. Many people are laughing at the ridiculous advertisement. A woman is smiling to herself in front of a PC, and no one knows what she is looking.

But it is because of this ridiculous advertisement, people become curious. When they entered the website, they are attracted to the game and bring high profits to Shi Dazhu.

Many internet companies had advertised on TV in Feng Yu’s previous life. For example, Baidu, 58.com, ganji.com, 51job, etc. had advertised on TV, online, on flyers, and on billboards to attract users.

Some of these companies start to use product placements in TV series and movies to promote their products. This is to position themselves in the minds of the consumers. Whenever someone thinks of something, the websites will come to their minds!

Shi Dazhu asked. “How are we going to do this advertisement? What are we going to promote in the advertisement?”

“I had thought about the theme of this advertisement. We will market our website using emotions!”

Chapter 1277 – Emotions

A retiree, Old Cao, is watching TV at home. An advertisement is playing and two animated characters who look like Junior school students. The characters quickly grow up, and the school bags become briefcases, and they started walking in separate ways out of the screen.

A few words appeared on the empty screen. “Chinese Web. Find the people you miss.”

A website address appeared for around five seconds.

This advertisement used the popular animated advertisement style from Feng Yu’s previous life and sent out a powerful message in ten seconds.

Old Cao suddenly remembered his former colleagues in the factory when he was young. After the factory was moved, they had gone separate ways. It’s been 30 years, and they had never seen each other again.

All of them should be retired now, and Old Cao hopes to see them again to reminisce about their time together over drinks. It would be great if he can write them a letter or give them a call.

What is this Chinese Web? Find the people you miss? How am I going to find them? Old Cao also doesn’t understand what the website address means.

“Xiao Liang, Xiao Liang!”

“Grandpa, what is it? I am playing CS now.”

“Stop playing games. I saw an advertisement on TV about something called the Chinese Web. It claims it can help us find the people we want. Do you know about it?”

“I don’t know and have never heard about this before. Grandpa, why are your eyes red?” Cao Liang had never seen his grandfather cried before.

“I remembered some old friends who had lost contact for years and wondered if I can get in touch with them. When I saw the advertisement, I saw hope. Sigh… but how is this possible?” Old Cao sighed.

“Grandpa, what is the name you mentioned earlier? Chinese Web? I will help you search for it on the internet.”

Cao Liang switched off his game and went to Baidu to search for it. A site called Chinese Web and ‘Find the people you miss’ are written on it. This is a bold claim.

After clicking on the site, Cao Liang was prompted to register. It states this website helps you find the people you are looking for, and the more detailed information you enter, the easier it is to find them.

“Grandpa, come over for a while. When is your birthday, and where had you worked previously? Also, which school did you attend?”

“Why are you asking all these?”

“I am helping you register an account. It says all the information you provide can help others find you, and you can also use the information to find the people you are looking for.”

“Really? This is terrific. My first job is at a factor called XX Second Factory…”

…….

“Eh, what is this Chinese Web? Da Ming, do you know about this?” A University student asked his roommate.

“How do I know? The flyer did not write anything?”

“There is only a website address and claims to help us find our former classmates, and we can get to know people from other schools. Eh, do you think I can get to know the prettiest girl from the Arts stream?”

“Get lost. Do you still want to know girls? If this website works, I will treat you to breakfast this week! If not, you will pay for my online charges and a bottle of Refreshing Cola!”

“No problem. I believe it will work!”

“Eh, the internet café is also giving out this website’s flyers. I think it might be possible.”

The university students saw every table with the website flyer, and the roommate wonders what if that prettiest girl adds his friend to the website?

I should also register, and maybe she will add me first.

……

“Professor, what are you looking at?”

“Xiao Feng? Have you completed today’s experiment?” Professor Ma looks at his favorite student.

“It’s completed, and this is the result. I had checked with my senior, and it should be accurate.” Zhou Feng passed a copy of the document to Professor Ma.

“Xiao Feng, do you know about the Chinese Web? I saw the advertisement on TV yesterday, and they are giving out flyers in our school today. Have you registered an account with it?” Professor Ma asked his student.

“Oh, everyone in our dormitory had registered. It is more interesting than Weibo as we know everyone. I even use this website to contact many of my former classmates.”

Professor Ma brightens up. “This website works?”

“Yes. It’s very simple. You only need to enter detailed information about yourself. The website will recommend people you might know to you. Also, you can search through its internal search engine. I noticed many people with the same name, and I even added two people who have the same name as me. If it weren’t for our portraits, I would feel I am chatting to myself. It’s quite interesting.”

Zhou Feng recalled playing on the Chinese Web at the Internet café yesterday. The website really works, and he found his former classmates and friends and even made some new friends.

“I would like to register too. I had lost contact with any of my former classmates.” Professor Ma continued with his studies after graduation and then remained to teach at the University. All of his former classmates had gone separate ways, and he wonders what they are doing now.

“I will help you with the registration. It’s quite simple.”

…….

A young man saw the advertisement on TV and remembered his university times. After graduation, he started work and did not contact his female classmate in High school. He wonders if he can find her again on this website.

He immediately runs to the nearest internet café and registers an account. But after searching for a while, he could not find that female classmate. He lost his temper and banged on the keyboard!

The internet café staff ran over. “Eh, what’s wrong with you? You must pay if the keyboard is damaged!”

“This website is a scam. Your internet café is still promoting it? You all are also lying!” The young man shouted.

“What are you talking about? You had just registered on the Chinese Web and could not find the person you are looking for? Just think about this. You have registered, and she might not have registered yet. Be patient. Many people were like you yesterday, but they found the people they are looking for today. If you don’t believe me, you can ask around. There… that guy over there is one of them. Just wait for a while, and your friends might contact you in one or two days. At least you still have hope to find them with this website. Also, even if you are angry, you should not vent your anger on our property.”

The young man cheered up. Maybe that female classmate still had not registered an account. That means he still has a hope of finding her.

“Sorry… sorry… it’s my fault. The keyboard is still working. I will pay you if it is damaged.”

“That’s right. Just go and surf the internet properly and don’t lose your temper. If you cannot find the person you are looking for, you can try contacting other former friends, and they might have news or information. You don’t look stupid and should use your brains.” The staff taught the young man what to do.

“That’s right. Thank you… Give me a can of Qi Li. I want the Blue can. I must find her today!”

The advertisement moves many people as many of them have sweet memories of the past. Some people registered an account immediately, and some registered a few days later. Slowly, the number of registered users increased, and many users can’t leave this website!

Chapter 1278 – This is called ‘Like.’

As many people start to register on the Chinese Web, Feng Yu also registered an account. He searched and quickly found Wen Dongjun. This guy’s profile pic is too sickening! He wore a lot of gold medals around his neck as if he is a World Champion.

All those medals do not belong to Wen Dongjun! He is too shameless!

Feng Yu added his university’s roommates, high school good friends like Zhang Han and Liu Kun, but not the rest of his classmates, as they are not close.

But Feng Yu also searched for his university roommates from his previous life and found them. He could still recognize them from their pictures.

Feng Yu tried to add them, but they did not accept. It seems like they still do not like to speak to strangers.

But it doesn’t matter. In Feng Yu’s previous life, all of his university roommates are doing well. At least they can afford to get their own houses, and all of them are married.

These people can only remain in Feng Yu’s memories, and it’s better not to disturb their lives. It will depend on fate if they can cross paths in the future.

The Chinese Web interface is very simple, and there are not many functions available. Its main function is to contact the people you might know and had lost contact with. Just this alone is much better than On Campus in Feng Yu’s previous life.

Every user’s page is similar to QQ Zone, where it can be customized. The customization options are much nicer and better. But Feng Yu believes QQ Zone can catch up easily, as Tencent is a powerful company.

Tencent is quite similar to some Japanese companies. Many people had said Japanese companies like to copy other people’s products. Still, they can improve the product and has better services. Many Japanese companies had even won the original producer and even acquire them.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Tencent had received venture investment from Japan. But he is surprised to see Tencent still using the same strategy in this life. Using QQ as its core, and develop different types of products around it. Those products might not bring in high profits each, but when combined, it is quite significant.

Of course, the Chinese Web will also be using this strategy to make money. If the Chinese Web doesn’t find ways to get profits, it will be bankrupt soon.

Feng Yu saw Wen Dongjun sharing an article. It is an article from the Sohu forum about China has approved E-sports as China’s 99th sport.

Huh? E-sports is recognized by the authorities so early?!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he did not take note of this. His gaming standards are too low, and no one at the internet café wants to be on the same team as him.

This is a good article as it will help with video game development. If people only think about working for basic survival, it will be too pathetic. No matter what, people still need some recreation activities.

Gaming is also a form of recreational activity and can help people relieve their work stress. It is a good form of relaxation. Of course, there must be a limit to it, as it is not good to be addicted to it.

Feng Yu immediately shared this article and noticed the ‘Like’ button is missing when he wants to press like.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he will press the ‘Like’ button whenever he shares an article he likes. When he posts any updates on his status, he will feel good if someone press ‘Like.’ He would look too lonely if he did not even receive ‘Like.’

Feng Yu immediately picked up his phone and called Shi Dazhu. “Manager Shi, are you free now?”

“Yes. What is it?”

Shi Dazhu is curious as Feng Yu seldom calls them. Something must be wrong to let Feng Yu call him.

The Chinese Web had just gone online, and Shi Dazhu is worried about it. He had volunteered himself to take charge of this company. It will be too embarrassing if anything happens to it!

“Manager Shi, have you registered on the Chinese Web?”

“Yes. This our won company’s product. How can I not support it? Is there anything wrong with the website?”

Shi Dazhu’s heart skipped a beat. Is there anything wrong with it?

“There’s nothing wrong with it, but I feel we should add some functions to it.”

Shi Dazhu is relieved. If so many software engineers cannot find bugs during the testing, and Feng Yu can find one within such a short time, they will be a joke.

“Manager Feng, what function should we add? Is it adding on to the current interface?” The Chinese Web will add a lot more functions in the future to generate profits. But now, all the basic functions are free.

“It is about sharing, the personal pages’ status, posts, photos, etc. I think we can add a new function to it.”

Shi Dazhu held the phone with his left hand and clicked open his Chinese Web page. What new function can be added to it?

Shi Dazhu took a glance and did not find anything in common.

“Manager Feng, what is this new function you are talking about?”

“Look, when we visit someone’s page, there will be records, right? Most of the time when we visit someone’s page is to look at their status, pictures, and posts, right?”

“That’s right. We can also add them as friends.” Shi Dazhu added. He knows all the available functions by heart.

“Let me ask you this. If you write an article, do you want to show it to others? Or if you posted a photo of yourself, do you want others to like it?” Feng Yu hinted.

“Want others to like my photos? Are you poking fun at me?”

Feng Yu: “……” He had forgotten Shi Dazhu is only slightly better looking than Ronaldo. It’s too difficult for others to like his photos, other than his subordinates who want to kiss his ass.

“What about articles? It can be the ones you wrote or the ones you shared. Don’t you want others to praise it?”

“I might want to seek approvals from others in the past, but at my age now, all these are no longer important.” Shi Dazhu sighed.

Damn! How am I going to carry on with this conversation?

“Manager Shi, even if you don’t mind about these, but you cannot deny many others are want recognition. For example, many of your subordinates hope you can praise or recognize them, right? Those calligraphy masters, artists, etc., also wish people to like their works and not criticize them, right?”

“Yes. But what has it got to do with our website?”

“It has a lot to do with our website. Our site should add a ‘Like’ function! Suppose you post a motivating article or post, and other people felt motivated after reading it. In that case, they can press the ‘like’ button. If you post a nice photo, and other people see it and felt it is beautiful, they can ‘like’ it. If you post a status update like working late at night, and people felt you are hardworking, they can ‘like’ it. This is the ‘Like’ button!”

Chapter 1279 – Oh, Tie Ba

Two days later, Baidu’s Tie Ba goes online.

Baidu saw Sohu and many other companies’ forums are doing well. Baidu’s staff suggested to Li Yanhong that Baidu should also have its forums.

But this suggestion was rejected by Li Yanhong.

Forums are informative and promote interactions among netizens. But there are too many online forums available now. Sohu has the most resources and owns the biggest market share. Xi Ci and Tianya are new popular forum websites that appeared recently, and NetEase and the other companies are also doing forums. The online forum market is currently over-saturated.

There is a saying, “having what others don’t have, being better than what others have, and move on if others are better.”

Now, others already have what we don’t have and are already good at it. How are we going to fight for the market share?

So, Li Yanhong suggested another idea, which is to set up a Tie Ba.

The biggest difference between Tie Ba and forums is users can create their own ‘bar’ with the topic of their interest. Baidu’s powerful search engine will support it, and it can introduce memberships in the future to generate profits.

Tie Ba is a platform for people to interact, and the forums’ administrator will not restrict it. This way, it can develop faster.

Also, Tie Ba is not something other companies can copy because it requires keyword searches for this platform to work. This is in line with its slogan, Born for your interest.

China currently has a few other search engine websites, but they cannot compare to Baidu in terms of scale and functions. Baidu owns the core technologies of the search engine and can quickly take over this market.

Without competitors, its development becomes faster. Even if similar products appeared in the future, people would be used to Baidu’s Tie Ba!

Most importantly, Tie Ba is invented by Baidu. Even Google and other search engine websites overseas do not have such products. This will allow Baidu to become the first in the world!

Once Baidu becomes the first in the world, its brand value will shoot up, and it will be helpful when it gets listed next year.

The more anticipated a company is, the faster its share prices will shoot up after it got listed. Also, the founders who own the original shares will get more profits.

Li Yanhong had promised his fellow founders that all of them would become multi-billionaires in the future.

The easiest way to achieve this goal is to make the company’s share prices rise. All the staff will benefit from it. When the staff’s benefits are tied to the company’s benefits, they will work harder.

Tie Ba had just completed its internal testing and started public testing.

Feng Yu clicked on the website and noticed many problems.

Firstly, Tie Ba is not categorized. Although anyone can create a ‘Ba’ on their interest, it’s hard for people to find the ‘Ba’ they are interested in without categorization.

Although Tie Ba does not need to be like the forums and depends on administrators to moderate it, it is very inconvenient without categorizations. It makes it impossible to attract forum users.

Tie Ba’s login page is also not prominent enough. People can enter as visitors like the forums. Without encouraging them to sign up, how is the website going to make money in the future? If everyone can view the topics and discussions without spending money, and you still need to provide all sorts of services, the losses will be massive.

……..

“Manager Li? I’m Feng Yu. I heard Baidu’s Tie Ba had just gone online for public testing. This product is the first in the world. You are a genius.” Feng Yu praised.

“Thank you. This is an idea from everyone, and I don’t dare to take all the credit. But we are very confident of Tieba, and it will replace online forums as the best site for people to interact online in the future.”

Li Yanhong is a proud man and had given up a high-paying salary in the US to start his own company in China. This is a bumpy journey, but at least he has some results now.

Many people are not supportive of many of Li Yanhong’s ideas in the past. But Feng Yu supported him, which is one reason why Baidu can be so successful now.

Baidu was providing a search engine for other internet companies, which was their only source of revenue. After that, Li Yanhong decided to go independent and start a search engine website with a bid ranking.

Many of the company’s top executives opposed this idea, as bid ranking will result in the company having no profits for some time. Also, without the income from those websites, Baidu will shut down!

But Feng Yu told Li Yanhong to go ahead. If he lacks funding, he can get a bank loan, or Feng Yu can increase his company’s investment.

To make this plan a success, Li Yanhong needs Baidu’s technologies to catch up or even exceed Google within a short time. Luckily, he succeeded.

Although most websites’ search engines in China use Google technology, and some are using Korean and Russian technologies, Baidu got through the worse period. Their technologies are on par with Google now.

Of course, Baidu had spent a lot of money to achieve this. Luckily, Feng Yu had supported this, or else, Baidu might have collapsed.

If Feng Yu had not supported this plan, he would have the opportunity to acquire Baidu completely. Others might not know, but Li Yanhong knew Feng Yu is Google’s biggest shareholder.

Li Yanhong still remembered what Feng Yu told him in the past. China’s search engine technology should reach international standards, and I believe you can do it. He can now proudly tell Feng Yu that I had done it!

Baidu has introduced the world’s first Tie Ba, and Li Yanhong believes Baidu will become better in the future.

“Manager Li, you don’t need to be modest. I had tried Tie Ba earlier and noticed a few minor issues which need to be discussed with you.”

“What is it?” Li Yanhong frowned. How come, Feng Yu, who doesn’t know about IT, can discover issues, and those people doing internal testing did not notice it?

“First, the Tie Ba are not categorized. I know any topics can be made into a Tie Ba for discussions. But what if I want to find a specific topic I am interested in? For example, movie stars. Topics surrounding movie stars are not available on other forums, but we can have that in Baidu Tie Ba. Movie Stars Tie Ba. I believe using the influence of movie stars can attract many of their fans to sign up.”

“Secondly, Tie Ba’s searches must be improved. Some authors, like those authors in online forums, have many supporters. Why can’t we search Tie Ba based on the authors?”

“Thirdly, the login page on Tie Ba is not prominent enough, and there are too many texts on it. I know these are user guides for new users, but it is too complicated. Letting the users discover some of the functions themselves is also fun… of course, these are some of my views for your considerations.”

Li Yanhong thought for a while and replied. “Manager Feng, you are a genius!”

Chapter 1280 – China’s Top Ten IT influential men

“Good evening, Leaders and distinguished guests. Welcome to the Second Aiwa’s Cup, China’s Top Ten IT influential men selection. Currently, we have 50 candidates from all over China…”

How can a company raise in an industry? Not only the company needs to show their earnings, but they must also let others see their names.

Most people, or almost everyone, wants fame and acknowledgment. Some trades are profitable, but not many are willing to do it. Some trades are respectable, but not many are willing to do it.

If a trade can give you fame and money, many people will want to do it, and this industry will quickly become popular.

In the past, many people saw the rise of IT, and it is profitable. PCs, the internet, or software are all making lots of money.

But not many see it as being respectable. If you tell others your son is developing software, others might be confused. What is software?

But this has changed since last year. Many people saw these men on CCTV, and even the country’s top leaders presented awards to them. It was then they know how important this industry is.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China also has such awards. This is to promote the development of certain industries and give recognition to those who made significant contributions. Without these people, this industry might be monopolized by other countries again.

In this life, Feng Yu had suggested this award to gather all the IT companies together. PC manufacturers, software, the internet, etc., are all in the IT industry.

If everyone can be grouped, it will form a business chain and help the industry develop quickly. If the hardware cannot catch up, it will be useless even if the software is the best. If there is good software, but without internet, it can only be used offline. All these companies are related.

Many people, especially the higher-ups, support Feng Yu’s suggestion.

Technology is the number one productivity, and this is what the higher-ups want to see. China’s technological improvements. Since these people had shown results, they must be given recognition. Furthermore, the Government doesn’t need to spend a single cent as Aiwa Electronics is sponsoring everything.

It’s not that easy to set up an award. First, everyone must attend, and their lodging and travel expenses must be reimbursed.

Also, the media must be invited to report about it. It can’t be the award is only given out among a small circle of friends.s.

The trophy must also be custom-made. Even if the trophy is cheap and made from artificial crystals, there must also be a cash prize!

What? These people don’t care about the prize money? The ones who can be named as one of the industry’s influential people will not lack money? This can also be changed. For example, a donation made under their name.

Feng Yu asked Aiwa Electronics and Aiwa Home Appliances to sponsor this China’s Top Ten IT influential men of the year award and got CCTV to broadcast it live.

The higher-ups agreed. How can CCTV don’t broadcast a national award? Furthermore, the leaders also want to show their faces in front of the people.

With CCTV participating, Sina, Sohu, and other major websites also contributed by creating joint online voting pages.

Of course, these companies will get something in return. The voting page on Sina will be promoting their Chairman, Wang Zhixi, and Sohu’s voting page is promoting Zhang Chaoyang.

Some mainstream newspapers and magazines helped promote this award, and some overseas media also reported it.

Of course, the votes are paper votes, and viewers can vote by mailing. The website links guide the viewers on how to vote, etc., but this procedure also resulted in some accidents last year.

Some people voted for someone else instead of one of the top 50 candidates. Should these votes be void, or should they remove some of the candidates?

This year, the rules had changed slightly. There are only 40 candidates, and people can vote for non-candidates.

There are more than 50 candidates, and it’s harder for them to win this award.

But this change doesn’t matter to Feng Yu, as Liu Chuanzhi, Wang Zhixi, Li Yanhong, etc., will be in the top ten.

This year, Ma Yun and Shi Dazhu also have an opportunity to get this award as they had made significant contributions to the industry.

After the opening speech by the host, the Leader went up the stage to give a speech. This is one of China’s top Leaders and gave an encouraging speech to thank all the candidates. This is an honor as this Leader is representing the country to present the awards.

There is an old saying. “If you don’t return to your hometown after you succeed, it is equivalent to being well dressed at night.”

These candidates are also the same. They want everyone in China to know of their achievements as they had made the country proud.

“…… This year, we have received 263,583 votes from all over China, including 27 regions overseas. This means our award is getting more influential and had gained high recognition internationally…”

Feng Yu smacked his lips. This award does have some publicity overseas, but how did they conclude it has high recognition? But never mind. There’s no need to expose them.

The Leader walks up the stage again. “I announce the Second Aiwa Chinese Top Ten IT influential Men is Lei Jun, the CEO of Lenovo Kingsoft, Yang Lan, Chairman of Hong Kong’s Sunshine Internet TV, Shi Dazhu, Chairman and CEO of Giant Internet, Ma Yun, Chairman and President of Alibaba Group, Li Yanhong, Chairman and CEO of Baidu, Li Zekai, Chairman and President of Pacific Century Group…”

Li Zekai looks at Feng Yu curiously. “How come I am included?” No wonder Feng Yu had called him to attend this award presentation. He thought Feng Yu had asked him over to raise the status of this ceremony. After all, he is the elite representative of Hong Kong’s IT industry.

“How come you cannot get this award? You are picked because of everyone’s votes. I swear I had not arranged this. Furthermore, Pacific Century Group is also one of Hong Kong’s top IT companies, and winning this award is normal. Hurry and get on the stage. The Leader is not young, and it’s not good to let him wait.”

Feng Yu said in his heart. Although I had not made arrangements for you to win, the leaders did something to make you win. You represent Hong Kong, and if no one outside of China wins this award, people might think the voting is rigged. Based on the actual votes, you are eleven placed as there are more votes from China. So, the tenth place guy, who is doing anti-virus software, has to step aside for you.

Chapter 1281 – Buying a Satellite for fun

“Manager Feng, you are the most qualified for this award. You are the one who comes up with those creative ideas and helps with our IT industry development. But you rejected it.” Liu Chuanzhi said with a smile.

“Old Liu, you are poking fun at me. My standard cannot even qualify to be an intern in your company. No matter what creative ideas I have, it will not become a reality if no one goes and do it. You are too modest this year. Why did you ask everyone in your company not to vote for you?”

Feng Yu knew his standards. Someone might like to eat, but that does not mean he knows how to cook. Even if he can memorize the recipe, he will still not win against a small restaurant’s chef.

Liu Chuanzhi glanced at Feng Yu. “You still dare to question me? You had gotten the most votes, but you withdraw your name from this award.”

Although Feng Yu is not one of the 40 candidates, many people, especially people from Europe and the US, voted for Feng Yu.

People overseas know Feng Yu is the reason why China’s IT industry can develop so quickly. Although Feng Yu had not stepped forward, he owns many of China’s top IT companies’ shares. Some of them had become successful because of his support.

If Feng Yu cannot qualify for this award, who else can qualify?

Feng Yu had only asked his employees in China not to vote for him, but almost all the overseas votes went to him. Even some netizens had voted for him too.

Luckily, Feng Yu asked the judging committee and managed to remove his name. Many people might think going on the stage to receive the award is an honor, but he felt it is too troublesome as he still needs to prepare a thank you speech. Who should he thank?

Most importantly, Feng Yu felt he had not done anything. Getting this award feels like snatching someone else’s credit.

Everyone on the stage is the top businessmen from Feng Yu’s previous life. But there are also two representatives from State-owned enterprises. These two are not famous, and he did not even hear of their names.

But these two people should have an impressive resume if Feng Yu searched for them on Baidu.

There are still many impressive people in the State-owned enterprises. After all, all the elites will enter state-owned enterprises and government services because of China’s former policy. The non-elites will enter the ordinary factories as workers.

Only a handful will start their own business, and most of them succeeded. These people had started their businesses at the right time. It is easy for them to succeed if they are smart, hardworking, and have some connections.

But it’s not easy for them to reach Lei Jun, Liu Chuanzhi, etc., level. Even Shi Dazhu, who was formerly one of China’s top ten tycoons, failed before.

Among the winners, Feng Yu is surprised to see Yang Lan winning the award.

Yang Lan is formerly a host with CCTV and had gone to the US to further his studies when he is at the peak of his popularity. During that time, the Government policy does not allow their staff to take a long period of leave away from work. So, she quit and went to the US. After her studies, she joined Phoenix Television and started her own company.

Yang Lan juggled between hosting TV programs and managing her company. Within a few years, her net worth rose. When the markets were at their peak two years ago, her net asset is almost 200 million USD.

Even now, Yang Lan’s net worth is more than 100 million USD and is still rising.

Yang Lan’s Sun Media was named one of the World’s top 300 potential small enterprises by <Forbes> twice. Of course, <Forbes> definition of small enterprises is companies worth over 100 million USD.

Feng Yu is very interested in Yang Lan’s Internet TV.

The Chinese authorities heavily regulate online TV, and China’s internet speed is too slow. It is too troublesome for Feng Yu to set up his online TV station in China. But it is much easier to do that in Hong Kong.

Yang Lan is smart, decisive, firm, and has an affinity with TV viewers. All these traits are her signature.

She is most well known as China’s female representative. For example, when China was bidding for the Olympics, she was invited by the Chinese Government as one of the representatives. Many Chinese viewers immediately recognized her as the beautiful former host of <Zheng Da Variety Show>!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Yang Lan’s Charity Trust fund had done well, and she is one of China’s top female representatives.

“Manager Feng, are you thinking of investing in Yang Lan’s company?” Zhong Qingxian noticed Feng Yu kept staring at Yang Lan.

Zhong Qingxian does not believe Feng Yu has ulterior motives on Yang Lan, as their age gap is too big. Moreover, he did not see any desires in Feng Yu’s eyes.

“Tell Zhang Chaoyang that Yang Lan’s company can help Sohu Channel. If both companies can cooperate, it can speed up the developments.”

Zhong Qingxian understood why Feng Yu is interested in Yang Lan’s company. But Yang Lan’s company can complement Sohu, and Sohu is not only cooperating with CCTV. They are also working with other TV stations. If they can enter the Hong Kong market, it is equivalent to them entering the overseas market.

“Manager Feng, Zhang Chaoyang had mentioned to me about Sohu’s development. But I think it’s hard for his plan to succeed.”

“Zhang Chaoyang said if Sohu can acquire a TV station in Hong Kong or Macau, they can become a satellite TV station, and Chinese citizens can watch its channel on TV. With this, the copyright fees, online operations, etc., will become much easier. As for the programs, he believes they can come up with good program concepts.”

“He wants to acquire a TV station?” Feng Yu rubbed his chin and thought about it. This seems to be a good idea.

Also, Li Zekai had managed a TV station before, and he can help. The procedures in getting a satellite are also not a problem, as satellites can be bought overseas.

Wait. Why don’t I buy a satellite?

In the future, Baidu and many other companies will buy their satellites. This is for more secure communications, and there are many other uses for satellites. For example, maps, satellite phones, etc.

Feng Yu can do a lot of things if he owns a satellite.

“Old Zhong, should we buy a satellite?”

Zhong Qingxian was still waiting for Feng Yu’s opinions when he got a shock from his reply.

“Manager Feng, what did you say? Buy a satellite?!”

“That’s right. Didn’t you say he wanted a satellite TV channel?”

“We can just rent a satellite channel. Why do we need to buy one?”

“We can afford to get one. Why should we rent from others? Also, we can rent out some channels to others after getting our satellite. Ok. That’s settled. I will ask Brother Ki or get Ralph to contact the companies. We will buy a satellite for fun!”

Chapter 1282 – The Satellite Market’s Current Situation

Feng Yu had considered buying a satellite in China, but China’s satellite technology is still at Dong Fang Hong 3 now. Compared to international standards, they are still at the early 1990s standards.

How wide is the gap between the Chinese satellites and the more advanced overseas satellites?

From an economic perspective, the lifespan of the Dong Fang Hong 3 satellite is only eight years. In comparison, the most advanced satellite overseas can last for 15 years.

One investment can last for 15 years, and the other is only eight years. Although the more advanced satellite cost doubled of Dong Fang Hong 3, the cost launching cost must also be considered.

Other people only need to launch one time, and you need to launch two times. Also, satellites’ launching cost is very high now, so China is helping other countries launch satellites. The profits from launching satellite are over 20%, and some even reach over 50%!

Other than the US, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France, UK, Japan, India, and many other countries are fighting for this market. The US is still the leader among all the countries.

Russia and Ukraine are in second place. After the Soviet Union is dissolved, Russia and Ukraine inherited many of the former Soviet Union’s Intercontinental ballistic missiles. With some slight modifications, it can be used to launch satellites.

These ballistic missiles are removed because of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the US and Soviet Union and are used to launch satellites.

This allowed the US, Russia, and Ukraine to lower the cost of launching satellites.

As China, India, and other countries become more developed, this market is too small for so many countries. The US felt it’s not worth it to target Russia as Russia is poor and is not afraid of going into a war with them. Their military is also stronger. So, the US starts to restrict the European and Asian countries.

The first country to be targeted is rising China. They bombed a Chinese embassy first and created a report saying China’s rockets are ballistic missiles. At that time, China is using Yi Xin rockets to save costs. China’s economy still has a big gap compared to the US.

This Yi Xin Rocket is an Intercontinental ballistic missile with multiple bursters. All of China’s commercial satellite launches are to cover up their research and developments of ballistic missiles.

So, the US stopped China from launching US satellites to stop them from accepting launch orders. But China still has other orders, and the US imposed stricter regulations. No US satellites or satellites using US satellites’ parts are allowed to be launched from China because they suspect China is stealing US satellite technology!

The US made a list of allegations against China. They claimed China had not only stole their satellite technology. They even stole their nuclear, intercontinental ballistic missile, submarine, etc. technologies.

If these technologies can be stolen easily, then the US defense is too lousy. It’s not easy to steal one of these technologies from another weaker country, let alone so many technologies at once.

The US is just denying China’s capability and Chinese scientists’ achievements in researching these technologies. Of course, many Chinese researchers are returning to China from the US during that period. But what’s wrong with them returning home?

Based on this logic, any country that had made technological advances are stealing from the US. If their technology is better than the US, they had stolen other US technologies to develop it!

Of course, those American representatives who supported this conspiracy are made speechless by China later. But these measures imposed by the US had severely impacted China’s space technology developments.

All these happened because the US felt threatened by China’s military rise and the rapid development of Chinese space technologies.

Also, the US is afraid China will cooperate with Russia, and their status as the World’s leader will be challenged.

This outcome forced China to cooperate with Europe. The US influence over Europe had been weakening, especially after they threatened Europe with sanctions. European countries saw what happened to Japan, which is tied closely to the US. When the US market crash, Japan is also severely impacted.

Now, China buys Europe-produced satellites, including the first and second generations, to upgrade their technologies.

At least they must increase the lifespan of the satellite to 15 years.

A communication satellite has dozens of transponders, and one transponder’s rental is almost 100 million USD annually. The cost of a satellite, including the launch, is only a few hundred million USD. If a satellite can last for 15 years, the returns will be more than ten times!

If the US can monopolize this market, it can get significant returns.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China’s satellite technology kept improving and caught up with the international standards in the future. In some areas, China had surpassed them.

Although the profits still cannot be compared to those major corporations, it is sustainable. It can even sell its satellites to others.

Even now, China’s Long March 2 rockets had received lots of orders from Asia because it is cheap. A rocket launch in western countries costs at least 100 million USD. But China only cost 70 million USD. 30 million US difference is not a small amount.

Currently, China’s satellite technology is still not good. Even Russia’s commercial satellites are much better. Russia’s launch vehicle’s engine is the most advanced and had sold to the US.

The profits from launch vehicle engines are not as high as satellites. They can be considered the lowest in the industry. China saw this and decided to develop its rockets and satellites. They do not want to repeat Russia’s footsteps and become those western corporations’ workers.

In the future, China will compete with western countries in this industry. China provided a one-stop service for the whole satellite system. It includes launch, operating, setting up the base station, training packages, etc., and attracted many Asian and African countries.

This is selling the whole package, and not like those western corporations which only offer rental services. You can have full control over the satellite, and it’s a better deal than renting it.

……

Two days later, Ralph and Kirilenko got back to Feng Yu. Kirilenko told Feng Yu that Russia’s commercial satellites are not as good as China’s and are not cheap. Ralph informed Feng Yu that the few companies he contacted are willing to rent out their satellites but are unwilling to sell them.

Feng Yu thought for a while and decided to seek help from the higher-ups.

Chapter 1283 – Help me get one too

“Manager Feng, why are you so free to have dinner with me?” Director Fang put don his chopsticks and took a sip of tea.

“Director Fang, I heard we are negotiating with SinoSat to purchase a batch of SINOSAT-2 satellites?” Feng Yu moved closer and asked.

“That’s right. The US had imposed a sanction on satellite technologies. We will start producing all the spare parts ourselves in the future. That’s why we are purchasing a batch of more advanced satellites to assist with our research on Dong Fang Hong 4th generation satellite.”

There’s nothing to hide about this. China is only slightly above average in satellite technologies and is far from being the best. But they should catch up with the rest of the world within ten years, and they will become one of the best in the future!

“We have been developing Dong Fang Hong 4for years. When will it be completed?”

Director Fang put down his teacup and gave Feng Yu a stare. “Is this something you can ask?”

“Don’t misunderstand me. I want to buy a satellite, and I heard our Government is negotiating with Sinosat to buy their satellites. Can you help me buy one? Is there any discount as we are buying in batch?”

“You want to buy a communication satellite? Why?” Director Fang is shocked to learn Feng Yu wants to buy a satellite.

“To broadcast. Don’t TV programs, phones, fax, radio stations, etc., uses satellites?”

“You can just rent one. If you want to rent, I can help you get a reasonable price and will give you priority.” Director Fang rolled his eyes. How many transponders can you use? Do you still need to buy a satellite? Do you know how many transponders are there in a satellite? Can you finish using it all?!

Also, it cost a few hundred million USD from the construction to the launch of a satellite to space. Is there a need to spend unnecessarily?

“Director Fang, I will tell you the truth. A satellite cost a few hundred million USD, right? I will get around 100 million USD if I rent it out, right? This means I can recover all my costs in a year and might even profit from it. The remaining years are all profits. You want me to spend over a billion USD for something that can be settled for three to four hundred million USD?”

Director Fang looks at Feng Yu curiously. “You know a lot. What’s wrong? Are you going to go into telecommunications, or are you going to broadcast TV channels? Let me warn you first. This is heavily regulated in China, and there’s no exception.” He glanced at Feng Yu.

“Director Fang, don’t try to fool me. Our country allows the use of satellite phones and fax. Also, I don’t intend to broadcast any channel in China. I decide to start a TV station in Hong Kong or Macao. This is not a problem, right? If our people can receive my channel’s signals, it is also not a problem, right? Our country allows our people to watch overseas channels, let alone channels from our special administrative regions.”

Feng Yu had considered all these before meeting Director Fang. China does not allow him to broadcast any TV channels, but Hong Kong and Macao allow it. Those places are also part of China. Although they are special administrative regions, China will not restrict its TV signals.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, some Chinese companies’ TV boxes allow viewers to watch overseas channels. All these are allowed by the Government.

Of course, some ‘special’ channels are not allowed in China and many other countries.

Feng Yu will let Kameda Masao handle the transponders’ rentals. The Sixth Sense Group owns TV stations in the US, Europe, and Japan. Although these are small TV stations, all of them are satellite channels. He has experience in this industry.

If our own company has a satellite, why do we need to rent it from someone else? This satellite must be bought under Wind and Rain Holdings. When Wind and Rain Holdings make profits, Kameda Masao will also get high dividends.

“You are still trying to set up a TV station? I had heard from Station Chief Jia. He doesn’t allow you to set up a TV station, and you create a Sohu channel.”

“Director Fang, I’m innocent! It is Sohu who start Sohu Channel, and I have nothing to do with it. You know I am lazy… why would I waste time managing an internet company?”

Director Fang gave Feng Yu a side glance. Carry on pretending…

“Fine. Are you buying this satellite for yourself or your company?”

“For my company. Wind and Rain Holdings. Our Wind and Rain Games will be organizing the world’s e-sports championships. E-sports is very popular worldwide, and we decided to set up a gaming channel to broadcast the matches and commentaries of the players and experts.”

“Huh? You are setting up a channel because of a video game?! Who will want to watch such programs?” Director Fang is puzzled. He understands that many people like to play video games, but are there really people who like to watch other people playing?

“Director Fang, do you have video game consoles when you are young? No, right? After the appearance of video game consoles, this industry developed quickly. Have you ever met someone who seldom plays chess but likes to watch others play?”

“Watching other play chess is learning from the experts.” Director Fang argued.

“That’s right. It is to learn from the better players. This is the same for E-sports. Our country had recognized E-sports as the 99th sports. You should know about this. Don’t tell me about video games will distract people from their work or studies.”

“There is a lack of resources when you are young, and that’s why there is a lack of recreational activities during that period. Do you believe that if you are a kid now, you will also love video games? Just take a look at the internet cafes. Many people in their thirties and forties are also playing games. These games do not affect their work as they will still go to work as usual.”

“Also, this channel will not only be aired in China. It will also be aired in Europe and the US. We will show them our programs and earn their money.”

“This… are you sure people would like to watch?” Director Fang still has doubt.

“I am sure.” Feng Yu thought to himself. There are many video game channels in his previous life, and even videos on gaming have high viewership on the internet.

It’s just like those who like to play basketball. They will be excited when they see their favorite basketball star play. They will try to learn from those stars and improve. It is the same for E-sports. Those top players have lots of fans, and even the commentators are getting paid millions!

“I will help you ask about it. I am not sure if this can be approved as I am not in charge of this.” Director Fang replied after a long pause.

“Thank you. I am using it for my business. If our Dong Fang Hong 4 is developed, I will buy two to show my support for domestic goods.”

Director Fang smiled and shook his head. Supporting domestic goods?! You can buy Dong Fang Hong 3 now.

……

Sino Satellite Communications

Chapter 1284 – TV Set-top box

“Manager Feng, you are saying that we should start producing TV boxes now?!” Zhong Qingxian frowned as he looks at Feng Yu.

“That’s right. What’s wrong?” Feng Yu is puzzled. China has started laying TV cables to the villages, etc., in 1998. Although some rural regions still use TV antennas to receive TV signals, most of China can receive cable TV now.

In the cities, satellite TVs and TV set-top box had appeared. Those TV boxes are produced by a subsidiary of a state-owned company and are not selling well. Most people still felt the subscriptions are too expensive.

Many people felt watching cable TV is already a luxury, and there’s no need to have so many channels. Of course, some cable TV can receive more than a dozen channels, but it is much cheaper. A TV box might receive more channels, but the charges are too high!

Another advantage of watching cable TV is using a splitter box to connect to multiple TVs while paying for one subscription. But the TV box cannot do this. Every TV requires a TV box. If you have three TVs, you need three TV boxes and pay three subscriptions!

Many people are not willing to pay for one subscription, let alone three subscriptions.

China Guang Dian Company had picked 49 cities to introduce their TV boxes as pilot testing. From early last year until now, there are more than 100,000 TV box users.

But most of the TV box users are civil servants and top executives of state-owned and private companies, as it’s their companies that are paying for them, and the users will not feel the pinch.

These people’s TV boxes are not bought. They were given free by the cable TV companies and will recover the cost through their subscriptions. Of course, these users participate in the trials, and some will not continue with the service.

But early next year, TV box will become popular suddenly. The higher-ups have plans to introduce digital TV, and the western countries had already started in 1998.

From Feng Yu’s previous life, TV boxes will enter more than a million families’ homes. The popularity spreads from the coastal regions in the southeast and the pilot testing cities. He remembered that his family’s queue was after one million, and it means there are at least 1 million TV box users in 2004.

As the world’s major producer of TV boxes, China exported a large volume. That means the TV box will achieve sales of at least a few million units next year. There’s still enough to enter this market, and it will be too late if they miss this opportunity.

“Manager Feng, are you planning to export this TV box?”

Zhong Qingxian could not see the potential of this TV box in China. Many people might not even know about this device.

In the past, Wind and Rain Home Appliances had always introduced their products in China. They only exported them after they have controlled the Chinese market.

This product is only popular overseas, and it is still starting in China. This means they will have to target the overseas market first this time.

No matter what electronic products Wind and Rain introduced, the Chinese market will make up a large percentage. But they will be doing the opposite this time, and it’s easy to fail.

If this product fails overseas, it will affect the brand greatly. Wind and Rain have established itself internationally because all of their products are successful.

If Wind and Rain have previous failures, it might still be fine. But if this TV box becomes Wind and Rain’s first failed product, it can significantly impact its growth.

“We will enter both the domestic and overseas markets. I know many people in China still have not heard about this device. But within the next three years, TV boxes will become very popular. Maybe there will be more than 10 million users by 2006. Furthermore, TV box is on the rise overseas now. We must not miss this opportunity.”

“Then are we going to produce cable TV box or ground TV box? Don’t tell me that you are thinking of producing a satellite TV box?!” Zhong Qingxian suddenly remembered Feng Yu mentioned he is going to buy a satellite.

“What’s wrong with that? Ground TV box is obsolete. Only Cable TV boxes and Satellite boxes are selling well. The satellite TV box is for exportation and cable TV box is for our domestic market. Of course, we must also develop hybrid, multi-functions, and high definition, TV boxes.”

Besides the basic function of watching TV and digital TV, there should be TV boxes with other functions like high-definition digital broadcast, online connection, software upgrading, video calls, video playbacks, music playbacks, shopping, games, etc.

In the future, the TV boxes have more complicated functions. Bill Gates has wanted Microsoft to enter the TV box market with this type of TV box with multiple functions, especially modem.

Many people should have used a TV box that allows the user to go online.

“The technology for this device should now be easy, and we will be starting from zero. Do we have enough time?” Zhong Qingxian is slightly worried.

“We will be in time. The circuit board for this device should not be difficult. With our company’s expertise, they can easily develop this technology from reverse engineering other companies’ devices. After that, we can improvise on that with our ideas and introduce a multi-functional TV box to capture the high-end market. It’s only the chip and software that might be challenging. Still, I believe Lenovo Kingsoft and the other companies can help us with that.”

“What about the marketing?”

“We can let Chang Hong do the marketing in China. They are selling TVs, and it should not be a problem to sell this TV box. Also, don’t forget that the higher-ups support Chang Hong. Also, this is a branded product and should be selling better than other companies.”

“Our Wind and Rain Brand distributors can help us market this product for the overseas market. If we face difficulties, I will get Bill Gates to help. We can enter into a joint venture with them as they are experienced in developing the software for TV boxes.”

It would be better if Feng Yu does not need to work with Bill Gates to make Wind and Rain Brand look bad.

“I will inform the rest and see which company is willing to accept this project. If no subsidiaries are willing to take on this project, then I can only force them to do it.”

“Oh, the production must be split. I mean, the core microchip, software, and hardware must be separated. We can focus on microchips and software development and outsource the hardware production to other smaller factories. This will lower our cost and can lower the users’ charges.”

Zhong Qingxian’s eyes brighten up. With their brand and cost advantage, it will be difficult for this product to fail!

Set-top box

Chapter 1285 – Name

Feng Yu returned to Bing city and accompanied Li Na to go for her pregnancy check-up at his Sister’s hospital. This time, the doctor confirmed she has boy-girl twins. Everyone in both families is happy for them.

Li Na is the treasure of both families. Feng Yu’s parents and Li Na’s parents, together with the confinement nurses Feng Yu hired, took good care of her. But this also made her uncomfortable.

After Feng Yu returned, he accompanied Li Na to walk and read every day to cheer her up. She is used to be surrounded by her colleagues and students at school.

A sudden change of environment, especially when her pregnancy restricts li Na’s movements, made her very uncomfortable.

“Feng Yu, my weight increased by several KGs again.” Li Na frowned.

“That’s good. This way, our son and daughter can get more nutrients. Thank you, dear.”

“No. When Sis and Zhang Han were pregnant, they did not put on so much weight, and their babies are also over 3.5 Kg.”

“How can you compare yourself to them? They only had one baby, and you are having two.”

“But I gained more than 5 Kg than them. Don’t tell me one of our babies weighs more than 5 Kg.”

“Huh?” Feng Yu starts thinking of other excuses. “I think it’s because of your breast milk. With two babies, you must produce more milk to feed them.”

“Idiot! What nonsense are you talking about?” Li Na grumbled.

“Come over and let me listen to them. I want to know what they are doing.”

“Rubbish. What can you hear?” Although Li Na said this, she still smiles as Feng Yu pressed his ear against her tummy.

“Eh, what names should we give to our son and daughter?” Feng Yu suddenly remembered that they still have not decided on their children’s names.

“Did Grandpa say what names we should give?” Li Na asked.

“Our family’s register had been long gone. My Sister and cousins’ names are all different. If not, my name will be Feng Danyu.”

“But we should still consult Grandpa and let him name one character.”

Feng Yu laughed and pinched Li Na’s nose lightly. “You are so smart. I will ask him after he gets back from the Community Center.”

Anyway, Feng Yu does not believe his parents can give good names, and their parents had named Feng Yu and Li Na. So, they can name their children too.

But Li Na’s suggestion of getting Grandpa to name one character will cheer him up.

…….

“Hmph! That Xiao Liu had played cheat! I had killed his chariot, but he refused to admit it!” Grandpa is still grumbling after the driver sends him back. “I will not play chess with that young punk again.”

The young punk, Xiao Liu, is actually in his sixties. Still, compared to Feng Yu’s grandfather, he is a young kid. Feng Yu’s eldest Uncle is around Xiao Liu’s age.

“Dad, ignore him next time. What’s most important is winning against him.” Feng Xingtai said.

“Get lost! Why can’t I grumble about him for cheating?!”

Li Na walked over and greeted sweetly. “Grandpa.”

Feng Yu shook his head. Grandpa had lost. If he had won, he would be announcing to everyone: ‘That Xiao Liu had cheated and still can’t beat me!’ But Dad did not notice this and got a scolding instead.

Grandpa saw Li Na and immediately smiles. “Ah, I’m back. Na Na, have a seat quick. Be careful. I am still healthy, and you don’t need to help me.”

Feng Yu’s grandfather immediately cheers up when he saw his granddaughter-in-law. She is carrying twins and will be spreading Feng’s family tree. None of his friends at the community center have daughters-in-law or granddaughters-in-law expecting twins!

Hmph! Do they still dare to ask me if I have any secret formula?! She has twins is because of our Feng family’s pure bloodline!

“Grandpa, just ignore that person.” Li Na continued.

“That’s right. I can’t be bothered with that kid. Next time, I will pretend not to see him cheating and still win him!” Grandpa exclaimed.

“Oh, Grandpa… I was discussing with Feng Yu about your great-grandson and granddaughter’s names. What names do you think we should give them?”

“Your Grandpa did not attend many schools, and I got someone to help me name your Uncle and Father-in-law. You are the most highly educated person in our family, and you should name them.” Grandpa smiled.

“No. You are their great grandfather, and you should name them. How about you give one character, and I will discuss with Feng Yu on the other character.”

“Really? Then I must think of a good character.” Grandpa is overjoyed.

Feng Yu secretly showed Li Na a thumbs-up. She can make Grandpa so happy with just a few words. Her  EQ is high.

Feng Xingtai wanted to say something but stopped. He felt Li Na is the most educated person in the family and is a University Lecturer. They should not interfere in the names of his grandson and granddaughter. But he did not know that he can name one character.

But now, Feng Yu’s Grandpa had gotten this opportunity, and Feng Xingtai dare not snatch this opportunity. His father might beat him up with his walking stick if he dares to make any noise.

Feng Yu saw Grandpa walking back to the study and took out a… Xin Hua Dictionary!

Huh? It’s just one character. Is there a need to use a dictionary?

Feng Yu suddenly felt it’s not a good idea to let Grandpa name a character. But it’s just a character. Even if it’s bad, how bad can it be?

Feng Yu might not think of any good names, but Li Na can come up with some.

After around half an hour, Feng Yu’s mother went into the study to tell Grandpa to have his dinner, and Grandpa walks out with a piece of paper. He gave it to Li Na.

“Na Na, I felt these words are not bad. Take a look and see which is suitable.”

Feng Yu looks over, and the paper is full of words!

Are you trying to name the next few generations?!

Feng Yu looks at Li Na. You asked Grandpa to name one character, and he comes up with a few dozen words. What are you going to do?

Li Na looks at the piece of paper and points to a few characters. “Grandpa, look. What do you think of these few characters? Li, De, Wei, Xian, Xiu, Xue, Ke, Ji. When we join these few characters together, Li De Wei Xian, Xiu Xue Ke Ji (To be virtuous, learn and restrain oneself). This is Confucius’s teachings, and we can use these characters as our Feng’s family register.”

“Good… good… good… We will use these few characters for our family’s register!” Grandpa shouted excitedly.

Feng Yu looks at Li Na speechlessly. But picking up eight characters from that paper and relating them to an ancient saying is not easy.

As for the family’s register, it doesn’t matter to Feng Yu. This means his son and daughter will be named Feng Li(xx) in the future!

Genealogy book

Chapter 1286 – Domestic made is also fine

“Here, Dear. Have a piece of apple.”

Li Na looks at the apple. Feng Yu had removed the skin and also removed almost half of the apple with the skin!

“You can have it. I am too full.”

Alright. Feng Yu finished that apple with a few bites.

“I need to go to Russia and the US a few days later.”

“Ok. You had accompanied me for some time, and I also can’t help you with your business.”

“Don’t worry. I will be back soon. It should take around two weeks.”

Feng Yu is going to Russia is because Kirilenko’s son has his full moon celebration. He did not know if Russia has this custom or if Kirilenko’s Fengshui master suggested this. But he doesn’t mind as he can also check on his business there. Russia’s eCommerce shopping website development had started, and he wants to check on its progress.

This situation in every country is different, and Feng Yu’s experiences might not be suitable for Russia. But he can offer some suggestions for Kirilenko and his staff.

Feng Yu will be going to the US after Russia is because of this year’s NBA semi-finals. The Wind and Rain Team is currently leading 2:1 against the Spurs and has a high chance of advancing to the finals. The Nets are also about to win against the Pacers in the Eastern Conference.

Last year’s runner-up, the Lakers, had lost to Spurs, and Feng Yu wonders if they can repeat their feats next year like his previous life.

Kirilenko even mentioned that they would fix the first six matches of the finals, and each of them will win three matches each. The seventh match will be the real match!

This way, they can sell out the tickets for all seven matches, and both of them can make more money. As long as the matches are exciting, no one will complain.

Feng Yu wants to support his team and encourage them to enter the finals. Of course, he needs to instruct them on his arrangement with Kirilenko!

Feng Yu also want to visit Amazon. Amazon is developing well and is already the World’s Biggest B2C eCommerce website. He needs to check on them and make sure there are no accidents.

Amazon is developing much faster than Feng Yu’s previous life. They are not affected by the market crash because they are not listed. Many investors are waiting and looking forward to Amazon getting listed.

Anyway, Amazon will get listed to raise funds for their overseas expansion. The investors are also worried that Amazon will raise funds privately again. But this possibility is not high, as there’s no reason for those investors to hold on to the shares and wait for dividends. How can they recover their investments this way?

Under normal circumstances, almost all investors will sell their non-voting shares to recover their capital.

These investors can get the highest returns when the company is listed, and returns from dividends are too low.

The company is currently using bank loans for its expansions. When it got listed, the company can repay its loans and continue with its expansion.

When the company gains market share, the profits will start coming in. If it starts to go after profits and give up expanding now, it will not be easy for them to expand in the future.

In short, this is giving up short-term gains for higher profits in the future. Those investors will not see any returns, and the returns will be very low in the next one to two years.

Luckily, most of the internet companies’ profits are negative now, and Amazon is doing well for maintaining slight growth in their profits.

Feng Yu is very satisfied with Bezos management. Of course, he has given Bezos enough support, and he gets to make all the decisions. Although Ralph is holding a Director title in Amazon, it is for convenience. Ralph has never interfered with the company’s operations.

When Feng Yu was about to leave for Russia, he received a call from Director Fang.

“Manager Feng, there is an issue with that matter we discussed.”

“What is it? You all cannot get one satellite for me? Never mind. I will contact Sino Satellite myself and launch it in another country.”

Feng Yu is quite unhappy with this. He had helped the higher-ups a lot, but they are refusing to help him on this matter.

“Manager Feng, listen to me first. It’s not the higher-ups who are unwilling to help. It is because Sino Satellite’s orders are full until three years later. They cannot add one more for you, and we have plans for the satellites we booked. But the higher-ups are willing to let you rent two transponders cheaply.”

“Two transponders? It’s not enough. Never mind. I will get someone else to help. Although it might be slightly more costly, I can still accept it.” Feng Yu decided to look for Kirilenko. Although it is not cheaper, he can skip the queue and launch it earlier.

“Manager Feng, there is another solution. Dong Fang Hong 3 has four more transponders than Sino Satellite. Sino Satellite has 14 while we have 18. I know you find eight years of usage is too little, but it is still worthwhile. The higher-up said that if you buy Dong Fang Hong 3, they will allow you to reserve a Dong Fang Hong 4. When Dong Fang Hong 3 time is up, Dong Fang Hong 4 will be ready to be launch. Dong Fang Hong 4 can last 15 years.”

“Also, we will provide all the services if you buy our satellites. This is more worthwhile than buying one from other countries. We also have existing stocks, and if you agree, we will launch them for you next month. The earlier your satellite is launch, the earlier you can make money, right? Our launches are also the cheapest, and your satellite will be launched with two other satellites. It will be a successful launch!”

China is continuing to launch communication satellites and has no problem launching Feng Yu’s satellite together.

An overseas company reserved this satellite, but the company bought a US satellite and gave up their deposit with China.

At around the same time, Feng Yu wants to buy a satellite urgently.

Feng Yu thought for a while. Although this satellite’s duration is much shorter, it has four more transponders. The profits will increase by a lot, and the cost will be much lower.

More importantly, the Government agreed to build a Dong Fang Hong 4 for Feng Yu, which will solve many future problems.

“Alright. I agree with your suggestion. But I am busy this month. I will let Wind and Rain Holdings Kameda Masao sign the contract with you all, and the balance will be paid after it is launched successfully!”

Chapter 1287 – Similarities and differences

“Congratulations, Brother Ki. You have both a son and daughter. In China, son and daughter characters will form a ‘hao’ (Good) character, which is very auspicious.”

“Hahaha… I also think this is good! The Fengshui master who helped me build this mansion had said I would surely have both son and daughter. He is very accurate with his predictions. Should I give him a red packet based on your Chinese customs?” Kirilenko laughed.

“Huh… maybe… I think you should give him.” Feng Yu does not know as he had never hired any Fengshui masters.

“You must drink more today.” Kirilenko gave Feng Yu a hug.

Feng Yu replied. “Alright. I will do my best. Oh, this is called longevity lock. It is our China’s ancient custom charm, and it is to wish for the child to grow up healthy.”

Feng Yu had prepared this gift for Kirilenko’s son.

“Is this a Chinese charm? It’s made from pure gold. Interesting. I believe this child will love it. Is it worn around the neck?”

“Yes. It’s auspicious.” Feng Yu knew Brother Ki still prefers shiny items. He was not this happy when he receives that expensive painting.

At night, Feng Yu got drunk again. He had tried his best to keep sober but failed.

When Feng Yu wakes up the next day, it was almost noon.

“Feng, why are you so late? You had not drunk much yesterday.” Kirilenko grumbled. Feng Yu still cannot hold his alcohol after so many years.

Feng Yu: “……” A bottle of Baijiu is not much? Do you think everyone is like you who can drink alcohol as if it is plain water?!

“Oh, you mentioned that the supermarket online shopping website is online now. How many users do we have now?” Feng Yu asked.

Russian’s online shopping website is different from the US and China and can be considered the real online supermarket.

The Russian shopping website is also using the B2C model. The supermarket will be selling its products to consumers, and the prices are the same as other supermarkets. Even the discounts and promotions are the same as the actual retail stores.

The only difference between this website and the supermarket is customers need to pay for the delivery fees.

The customers can also understand the delivery charges. Even when they drive to supermarkets, their petrol also costs money. Furthermore, they don’t need to leave their home and can get their groceries.

There is a Polar Bear Supermarket branch in almost every big city in Russia. Customers can get their groceries delivered on the same day.

“There are more than 1 million registered users now. We are fast, right?” Kirilenko proudly replied. They have more users than eBay and Amazon.

“Not bad. What about the users’ activity? How many transactions do we have daily, the average spending per transaction and profits?” Feng Yu asked.

“Huh? I don’t know about all these!”

Feng Yu: “…….” Do you have to be so loud when you don’t know?

Alright. Feng Yu also don’t know about Tai Hua Supermarket Chain’s average transactions, etc. Kirilenko and Feng Yu are the same. They are used to letting others run their company.

“Wait a minute. I will get someone over with all the information.”

An hour later, the person in charge of Polar Bear Supermarkets arrived.

Feng Yu looks at the information. The supermarket is growing rapidly and is massive in East Europe. They are stopping the supermarket chains from the US and West Europe from entering their market.

Also, the Polar Bear supermarkets are expanding very fast. They started from the major cities and had expanded to the smaller cities. Their brand awareness had grown, and almost every Russian know about them.

Their expansions do not only include opening new stores. They also acquire other supermarkets, and their scale starts to snowball.

Of course, this Polar Bear Group is in the same situation as Tai Hua Supermarket. They have high transactions and profits, but they don’t have money in their accounts.

They also took loans for their expansions, but their supermarkets will bring high returns within three years.

The online shopping website’s development also requires high investment and will need around two years to recover their cost.

If they are lucky, they can see some returns in the third year. If not, they have to wait until the fourth year. But Feng Yu believes that it should not be a problem for them to see returns in the third year.

Brother Ki also has the help of other former Soviet Union second generations. Having a monopoly over East Europe is not a problem. If they still cannot see profits after controlling such a vast market, they will be failures.

When you own more than 50% of the market share, you can set the industry standards and use them to your company’s advantage. There is no way you will fail.

For example, Polar Bear Supermarket’s biggest advantage is its variety of goods. They will set the benchmark for the industry. Supermarket chains must have at least a certain number of products and have at least a certain number of imported products before they can be considered a major online shopping website. This way, another online shopping website can never win against them.

The supermarket industry is different from the F&B industry, where many people like to go to small restaurants. Most people would prefer to go to big shopping malls as there are more product varieties, and it is more trustworthy. Also, the prices will be slightly lower due to the economy of scale.

Polar Bear Online Shopping website might be using the B2C model, but it is quite different from Amazon. The biggest difference is Polar Bear Supermarket has brick and mortar supermarket chain. All their products are the same as their supermarkets. If customers have issues with the products they bought, they can exchange or refund at the supermarkets.

The Polar Bear Supermarket cashflow is also supporting their current online shopping website.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s online shopping websites use different operating models and discuss finding a more suitable model where both can benefit.

In the future, their internet companies might cooperate. Once they join forces, they can easily win against other internet companies and form a monopoly.

Monopolizing a market in any industry will bring in massive returns. They don’t even need to monopolize the market. When they own more than 50% of the market share, they can easily affect the market.

“Brother Ki, this shopping website is doing better than I expected. But it is having some issues with the funds now, right?”

“It’s not a problem. We are using loans to support it. When the loans can no longer support it, we can inject funds into it. It’s not worthwhile to invest our funds now as the returns from Gold Futures are much higher. I notice gold prices are rising rapidly every month!” Kirilenko is calmer than Feng Yu.

Feng Yu laughed. He can think of these issues, and Brother Ki should also notice them. Even if Brother Ki did not notice these issues, his subordinates should also remind him.

“Oh, Feng. Listen to this.

Lock charm

Chapter 1288 – Being busy is good

Feng Yu looks at the MP3 player in his hands. It is Aiwa’s latest model, and he puts on the earpiece and plays the song.

Eh?

Feng Yu raised his brows. This is Elena’s voice!

Although Elena has a nice voice, she cannot sing well in the past. But she is singing this song perfectly.

Elena had learned singing from a teacher for quite a while, and this is the result.

“Feng, this is the album I released for Elena. Other than those songs you wrote for her, the others are written by her teacher. You might not know about this. This album is the top album in Eastern Europe.”

Kirilenko looks at Feng Yu with a ‘hurry up and thank me’ look.

“Thank you, Brother Ki.” Feng Yu thanked Kirilenko.

“I did not do much. It is Elena who had put in the hard work. She was the most famous ballet dancer here, and her fans had bought her album. I did not expect so many people to like her songs.”

Kirilenko is telling the truth. He had only provided the best platform for Elena, and she can be so popular is due to her talent and hard work.

If Kirilenko wants to groom a singer with bad vocals, the album sales might not reach 10% of Elena’s album sales.

It’s been a while since Feng Yu saw Elena. But they still contact each other through emails and phone calls.

Whenever they contact each other, Elena will say she is training her vocals and dancing. Even after she started singing and released an album, she continues to dance.

Elena said that she is considered old among ballet dancers, and if she doesn’t dance these few years, she might not be able to dance again.

Of course, Elena can continue to dance, but not ballet.

“Oh, where is Elena? Why is she not in Moscow?” Elena knows he is coming to Moscow, but how come she did not come to see him?

“She is in Germany to attend an Award ceremony and will be doing a world tour. I think she will be busy in the coming months. She is the top singer we are promoting now and is also our Russia’s hope of entering the world’s music industry.”

Elena is so popular now?!

Feng Yu thought for a while. There are no famous female singers from Russia, and the only famous male singer is Vitas, in his previous life. Vitas should be starting to become famous now.

“Oh, is this recording label yours? There is an opera singer called Vitas. You should sign him. He will surely become famous and can help you make high profits.” Feng Yu reminded.

“Are you talking about that boy with high pitch vocals? He had signed to my company already, and his album is selling well too. He is more popular than Elena in Europe. His vocals…”

Feng Yu’s eyes nearly popped out of his sockets. Kirilenko had signed Vitas? Damn! What luck does he have? Does he know about music? How come he can sign one of the top singers in the world?

“How do you know he will become famous?” Feng Yu asked curiously.

“Simple. He is also a student of Elena’s teacher. When Elena’s teacher knew I acquired a recording label, he asked me to sign this kid. At first, that kid did not want to sign with me and went to talk to other companies.”

“But Elena’s teacher had highly recommended him, and I listened to his songs. I was shocked by his vocals, and I remembered you had taught me how to retain those former Soviet Union engineers.”

“You doubled your offer?”

Many of the Former Soviet Union engineers are among the best in the world. When the Soviet Union was dissolved, many people are in poverty, and top international companies recruit them with high salaries.

Companies from Europe, the US, etc., started waving their money at those engineers. But the amount they offered at that time is nowhere near these engineers’ value.

If these engineers are from those companies’ countries, the offer will be much higher. Those companies knew these former Soviet Union engineers and scientists are poor. They can recruit them with slightly better benefits.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, most of these engineers and scientists were recruited by European and American companies. Their salaries are not high.

In this life, Kirilenko and Feng Yu recruited most of the former Soviet Union engineers and scientists. Of course, those overseas companies managed to recruit some, but not all of them.

Kirilenko’s company had recruited many of the top engineers and scientists.

Kirilenko had learned from Feng Yu how to recruit them. Do you all want to earn money to provide for your family? Go and speak to other companies first.

Those engineers and scientists were confused. None of them are willing to leave their home country if they can get the same offers. Even if the offer is slightly lesser, they are also willing to accept it.

But Kirilenko told them he wanted to recruit them. But why is he not telling them their salaries?

Those engineers and scientists had no choice but to look for other companies. With their expertise, they are not worried they will not find a job.

After they negotiate with other companies, Kirilenko’s men appeared again.

You have spoken to XX company already?! Good. Join us. We will increase their offers by 50%!

Those engineers and scientists will be getting higher salaries and can still stay in Russia. Of course, they will accept Kirilenko’s offer.

Many of them signed contracts with Kirilenko immediately.

This method is invented by Feng Yu. During that time, Feng Yu needs these scientists and engineers, and many cannot be bought.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group, Wind and Rain Electronics, etc., hires many former Soviet Union engineers and scientists, and they had created high value for the companies.

Feng Yu’s method is to wait until they negotiate with other companies. After they finish their negotiations, he will tell them to join him, and he will double their offers. Going to the US is too far, and his company has many former Soviet Union engineers and scientists.

Doubling the offers for these engineers and scientists is not a lot, as the offers from other companies are not high in the first place. With their expertise, they can easily create higher value for Feng Yu.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, some Chinese companies had also done the same thing to hire a batch of former Soviet Union scientists and engineers cheaply. Those western companies who are not willing to offer high salaries initially are forced to increase their offers.

“Feng, do you think Elena is too busy? Do you want me to let her take a break?”

Feng Yu waved his hand. “No. Being busy is good. She will be happier when she has something to do.”

Feng Yu has no intention of keeping Elena in a cage.

Chapter 1289 – Dumbfounded Donald

Feng Yu remained in Russia for three days. They visited Polar Bear Minerals Enterprise and Polar Bear Supermarket Group, Lenovo Kingsoft Moscow Branch, etc., with Kirilenko.

Feng Yu and Kirilenko’s steel factory, coal factory, etc., had been completed and are in operation.

Polar Bear Minerals Enterprise has zero major accidents, and this is rare in the mining industry. Although there are still minor accidents, they did not cause any heavy losses, deaths, or major injuries. At most, the workers suffered minor injuries and are all recovered.

Feng Yu felt no matter how high the insurance payouts are. They cannot be compared to human life. No matter how poor a man is, there will be hope if he is still alive.

Also, as the mining industry got better in the future, all minerals, including petroleum, coal, natural gas, precious metals, copper, iron, etc., will bring in high returns.

It’s great to be the World’s Richest Man, but it will be too disgusting if people say you made your fortune from other people’s lives.

Even if Feng Yu retires now, he is confident he can hold on to this title for a few decades. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or anyone else, will not be a threat to him.

Not many people in the world have more cash than Feng Yu. Wind and Rain Consulting’s Gold Futures contracts can be settled anytime to cash out tens of billion USD. It is more convenient than stocks.

If anyone’s net worth exceeds Feng Yu, he can just let one of his two main companies get listed.

Any company’s value will multiply by at least three to four times when it got listed. It might even increase by more than ten times. Those people in the top ten of <Forbes> list do not have this option to increase their net worth further.

Currently, Feng Yu is more concerned about Warren Buffett. Buffett had bought Coca-Cola shares in his previous life and many other blue-chip shares in 2003, and his assets almost caught up with Bill Gates within three to four years.

In this life, Buffett’s assets might increase faster because of the stock markets’ recovery. His title of the most successful investor of all time is not from himself. Everyone in the industry gives it.

Of course, some disagree. For example, Soros. Soros has successfully made a comeback. Although he is not as arrogant as Soros in Feng Yu’s previous life, his assets are now more than 10 billion USD.

Most importantly, Soros is close to a few bankers and investors and can raise funds easily. History might repeat itself, and Soros might go and create havoc in Japan and other areas again.

“Feng, do you want to visit my internet technology company? They have successfully developed a search engine which is not inferior to Google or Baidu.”

Kirilenko had heard from Feng Yu that search engines have high potential in the future, and he asked his men to develop one quickly. When he knows a small company had started developing search engines, he quickly acquires them.

Kirilenko has gotten control over the Eastern Europe market as all Eastern European countries are using Russian.

Google had wanted to enter the Eastern Europe market but failed. They switched their focus to Western Europe, while Baidu focuses on Asia.

Kirilenko also ordered his company to enter other countries’ markets to compete with Google, and Feng Yu doesn’t mind healthy competition.

“Congratulations, Brother Ki. You should have seen how profitable this company is, right? I will not visit that company as I don’t know about those coding.”

“Hahaha… I also don’t understand. Most important is they know what they are doing, and we will invest and collect our returns.” Kirilenko laughed.

“Brother Ki, if there is nothing else, we will go to the US. The finals are about to start.”

Feng Yu must drink every day at Kirilenko’s place, hoping he can leave for the US soon. At least, he can hide from Kirilenko in LA.

……

The plane landed in New York, and Feng Yu and Kirilenko went to the Wind and Rain Empire State Building. After that incident, the Wind and Rain Empire State Building’s rental increased again.

Although that incident has some impact on the Wind and Rain Empire State Building, it is not serious. After the twin towers collapsed, Wind and Rain Empire State Building became New York’s most prominent landmark again.

Of course, those two buildings are being rebuilt at their original location. But even after it is completed, many major companies will not rent the office spaces there.

Donald Trump is always smiling during this period. Not only Wind and Rain Empire State Building’s rental had increased, but his Trump Building and the surrounding commercial buildings’ value has also increased too.

Without that two tall buildings, there are not enough office spaces in New York.

Also, Trump had cleared all his debts, and his assets returned to more than 1 billion USD.

Many other real estate tycoons had gone bankrupt like Trump in the past. But Trump survived and made a comeback. He is also one of the owners of the Wind and Rain Empire State Building. Although he owns only 5%, he is considered one of the bosses there.

Now, Trump had invested in a TV station. He realized it is advantageous to his business if he controls the media.

Trump used his TV station to tell everyone that New York has a shortage of office spaces, and those office spaces which he could not rent out previously were quickly taken up.

If Trump tells others that New York real estate prices had reached their peak, he can easily acquire the real estate properties at lower prices.

“Feng, Kirilenko, welcome.”

“Donald, I heard you had bought a TV station recently and said something about the current US President.” Kirilenko grinned. Did you see that? Even the Americans are not supporting that idiot President!

“That’s right. That idiot only knows about going into wars and doesn’t know how to make his citizen wealthy. The war cost money, and other than the arms dealers profiting from it, we still have to spend large amounts! If I am the President, the first thing I will do is to recover the US economy and let the Americans become wealthy again!”

The smile on Kirilenko’s face disappeared, and he stormed away angrily.

Do you Americans want to become wealthy again?! You all got to wait until we Russians are wealthy first!

Donald looks at Feng Yu speechlessly. “Feng, did I say anything wrong earlier?”

Feng Yu patted Donald’s back. “No. Just do what you want. I believe in you!”

Chapter 1290 – Play until the seventh match

Back at his office, Feng Yu called the LA Wind and Rain team’s coach. “George, it’s me.”

“Boss, we had gotten into the finals again!” George Karl shouted excitedly.

“I know. You had done well. I know you will take good care of the team. I am in New York now and will be with the team when the finals start.”

George is ecstatic. With Feng Yu watching the team from the bench, the team will be more motivated.

“Don’t worry, Boss. We can get at least one win in New York and will win another two matches in LA. We have high hopes of winning the Championship this year!”

“George, listen to me first. I had signed a 5-years contract with you previously. But I think you had contributed greatly to the team and I hope to extend the contract by another five years. Name a price.”

George Karl’s contract will be ending this year. Feng Yu had never talked to him about renewing his contract, and he thought Feng Yu is unhappy with the team’s results in the previous two years. If Carter were not traded to the Nets, the Wind and Rain would have gotten the Western Conference Champions last year.

Now, Feng Yu is going to discuss George’s contract, and he is overjoyed. Although he can get a high salary with other teams, he prefers to stay in LA. Also, he felt the Wind and Rain Team’s new line-ups have hope of winning the overall champions within the next three years. He doesn’t want to miss this opportunity.

George Karl thought for a while. “Boss, can I get 5 million USD a year?”

Other teams had offered more than 4 million USD, but Feng Yu is very generous, and George felt he might get slightly more.

“No problem. Then we will sign another 5-years contract.”

“Thank you, Boss!” George Karl is ecstatic. Feng Yu is indeed generous, and his salary is one of the highest among the coaches.

“I am telling you something now, and keep it to yourself. You must not even let the team manager know about this.” Feng Yu’s tone changed.

George Karl was surprised. Is Feng Yu going to make him the Team Manager too? It will be terrific even if his salary remains the same. He will have more authority and can get more bonuses.

George Karl asked everyone to leave his office and said. “Boss, I am alone now. What is it you want to say?”

“I want you to lose the first two matches in New York!”

What?!

George Karl is stunned. What does Feng Yu mean? Is he going to place a huge bet? It will be disastrous if anyone finds out about this!

“Boss, I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Don’t think too much. I am not betting, and I also do not like to gamble. The Nets’ Boss, Kirilenko, is my good friend and everyone knows about it. We have an agreement that we will compete for real on the seventh match, and the home team will win in the previous six matches. Do you understand?”

George Karl’s jaws dropped. How can the finals be decided like this? Are you all deciding the winner through rock-paper-scissors?

But playing to the seventh match in the finals will benefit both teams. They can sell more tickets and get more prize money.

But this will be a strain on the older players like Olajuwon.

Olajuwon had decided to retire after winning the Championship this year. If they compete until the seventh match, he might run out of stamina, and his performance will drop.

Although the team has Yao Ming, he too young, and his stamina is also an issue. He can only be effective for around 30 minutes and have to be substitute by Olajuwon. Olajuwon is the super substitute despite his age.

The Nets’ Gasol is stronger than Yao Ming, and George Karl had planned to let Olajuwon go against him first.

After that, Yao Ming can easily control the inner courts and score at least 30 points!

This way, the chances of winning will increase. But now, it won’t be easy to win. Although the Nets also have an older Center, he is seldom in the starting lineups.

“Boss, it will be disadvantageous to us if we drag to the seventh match. Our reserves are older players.” George Karl replied.

Feng Yu replied in a casual tone. “They are injured, right? Just take them out from the first few matches.”

George Karl suddenly remembered. That’s right. Since they plan to fix the first few matches, he can rest Olajuwon and other older players. This way, they will be well-rested for the seventh match, and their chances of winning will increase!

“Remember, the main players must not be injured, and we cannot be too obvious when we are losing. You can try out a new strategy in our away matches and treat it as you had used the wrong strategy. You are getting a high salary, and you will be responsible for the team’s failure.”

“Don’t worry, Boss. I promise no one can tell we had fixed the matches!”

“Good. I will leave everything to you. I know you are not the coach for the 2008 US Olympic team. But if you win the seventh match, I can let you become the main coach for China’s basketball team. You are also familiar with the Chinese players, and you will be satisfied with your salary!”

Feng Yu made another promise to entice George Karl. China’s current main coach is average. Many Chinese basketball players trained in LA during the Summer and respected Karl a lot.

Training an Olympics basketball team is too attractive for Karl. The US Basketball did not even offer him an assistant coach position. He wants to prove to them it was a mistake for not selecting him!

In the past two years, NBA’s status among the four major leagues had increased a lot. This year, the finals are between two major cities, LA and New York, and both teams are well balanced in terms of attack and defense. The TV ratings will break records!

Before the match starts, the media start to report on both teams.

Last year, the Nets faced the Lakers, and this year, the Nets moved to New York, and getting into the finals made the New Yorkers excited.

The Nets had won against LA, and they are facing LA again. But this time, they are facing a different LA team. Can they win again? Will the Wind and Rain Team emerge the winner?

The NBA officials were furious with Yao Ming had given up his no. 1 draft pick and joined the Wind and Rain Team as a non-draft player previously. But luckily, Yao Ming had proved his worth and did not let those officials down for promoting him then.

Many people realized the two teams’ bosses in the finals are from different nationalities. It becomes another topic to discuss.

Finally, the first match is about to start.

Chapter 1291 – Star-studded New York

Before the match starts, Feng Yu met the Wind and Rain Team at their hotel.

Under normal circumstances, the team’s Boss will encourage and motivate them to do their best to win the match. But what Feng Yu said is different.

“Everyone, I know all of you want to win the Championship badly. But you all should know the Nets is not an easy opponent. Just do your best, and winning or losing doesn’t matter.”

All the players are stunned. What did Boss say? Winning or losing doesn’t matter? Is he telling us to admit defeat?

Pierce has the highest fighting spirit among the players. When Carter was traded off, he became the outside core player. He wants to prove he is stronger than Carter.

Martin is also feeling terrible. He was exchanged for Carter, and the Nets immediately become the overall Champion. He was also the no. 1 draftee. The difference should not be so wide!

Karl added. “What Boss means is winning or losing the first away match doesn’t matter. We can win during the next match. When we win the two matches in LA, we will be in the lead.”

All the players finally understood what Boss meant.

But they still said they would try their best to win the match!

“Please take note not to get injured during the math. Just look at the Lakers’ Kobe. He was injured in the playoffs.”

Kobe had injured his leg when he faced Bowen from the Spurs, resulting in the Lakers losing to the Spurs. But Bowen’s tactic is useless against Pierce as the latter seldom jumps. Even if Bowen stepped on his feet, he would not twist his ankles.

……

The match started, and the players got onto the courts. Kirilenko went up to Feng Yu. “I have arranged a surprise for you during the half-time intermission.”

Feng Yu is confused. It’s not my birthday today, and it is your team’s home ground. Why are you giving me a surprise?

But Kirilenko returned to his team before Feng Yu could ask him.

Gasol won Yao Ming during the jump ball, and the Nets start their attack.

Kidd got the ball and made a long pass. Carter caught it in midair and made a tomahawk dunk. The audiences in the Polar Bear Arena, the Nets Arena in Brooklyn, cheered.

Mobley is frustrated. He had caught up with Carter but could not jump as high as him.

When the Wind and Rain Team restart the game, they started running. Their fans are puzzled. When Yao Ming is playing, the Wind and Rain Team has never played run and gun.

Both teams competed in a fast game and had not called for time-out before the end of the first quarter.

Both teams had scored many points, and Karl’s tactics today should be a fast game.

The commentators said Karl had used the wrong strategy. They have heard Karl still has not renewed his contract, and they guess it must be he is not suitable to coach the Wind and Rain Team.

But what the commentators did not know is Feng Yu had not renewed Karl’s contract is because he had forgotten.

The first quarter ended, and the score is 38:35, with the Nets leading. It’s rare to see such high scores in the finals and the fans are ecstatic!

The second quarters start, and both teams continued with the run and gun strategy. But the fans are puzzled why Karl substituted Pierce when he had played well.

Pierce was also puzzled, but Karl told him that he needs to rest. Or else, he might get fatigued injures easily. What more can Pierce say as the coach is protecting him from injuries.

At the end of the second quarter, the score is 70:62, with the Nets leading by 8 points. Both teams had scored lots of points in the second quarter, which those commentators do not expect.

Why are both teams not defending? This is the finals!

Only the coaches and bosses of both teams knew what was going on.

During the half-time intermission, the players went into the changing room. Kirilenko had asked his team’s fans not to disturb the Wind and Rain Team as they want to beat them fair and square.

So, the Wind and Rain Team did not encounter any disgusting tactics.

The players had gone in to rest, but Feng Yu remained in his seat, waiting for Kirilenko’s surprise.

The lights suddenly dimmed, and a spotlight shone at the center of the court.

Elena?! Why is she here?!

The music started, and Elena started singing. The whole arena suddenly becomes quiet as all the fans are attracted to her beautiful vocals.

Feng Yu looks towards Kirilenko, but it was too dark. This should be the surprise he was talking about.

Isn’t Elena in Europe? Why is she here?

But who cares?! Feng Yu is still happy to see Elena. Especially he can get to hear her sing again.

The audiences were stunned. Half-time performance only happens during an all-star game. They had never seen it happening in the finals. This is only the first match, and it’s not like the Nets had won. Why are they spending money on this performance?

But they listened to the song carefully and realized it was a Russian song. It must be the Russian Boss who had invited her to perform.

This singer’s voice is too beautiful, and the noisy arena becomes dead quiet.

Elena sang two songs and still danced during the second song.

This dance is different from Elena’s usual ballet.

Many audiences decided to buy Elena’s album after the match and look forward to her MV and concerts.

The fans in New York are wealthy and are willing to spend money.

Elena’s performance was also broadcasted in the US. All the viewers at home had seen her performance and heard her voice.

Elena’s popularity quickly increases in the US. The cheers in the arena showed how much the Americans like her songs.

Feng Yu also clapped and cheered. A few Wind and Rain Team staff who had not left were also clapping. They realized their Boss is not very concerned about them losing this match.

Feng Yu likes this surprise arranged by Kirilenko. When Elena ended her performance, Feng Yu also left the court.

Feng Yu saw Elena waiting for him in a resting room arranged by Kirilenko. Earlier, when she was singing, she had been looking around for Feng Yu.

“Dear, do you like the songs I sang earlier?” Elena rushed into Feng Yu’s arms.

Feng Yu strokes Elena’s long hair. “I like it very much. I think no one will think the songs are not nice. I had said before that singing is as interesting as dancing, right?”

“Yes. I still have a few ballet performances this year, and I will retire from dancing officially next year.”

“There is a bigger stage waiting for you. You are going to be an international star!” Feng Yu replied confidently.

Chapter 1292 – Unexpected Ending

The first match ended without any surprises. The Nets won by 8 points. Many people started criticizing George Karl for using the wrong strategies. Why did they complete scoring with the Nets? Did Karl forget his team is better at defense?

The New Yorkers are over the moon. It’s been years since they watched such an exciting match. Did you all see that? Our Brooklyn Nets can win without defense.

It’s rare to see two teams scoring more than 120 points in the finals.

The Wind and Rain team was demoralized after the match, but Feng Yu told them. “You all had played well for this match. But you all are unlucky to lose.”

Punters had not expected the scores, and the bookmakers are overjoyed.

In the second match, both teams concentrated on defense, and their scores are less than 100 points. But the Nets won by 5 points in the end.

Karl did not feel any pressure after losing two matches. Through the previous two matches, he saw lots of the Nets’ tactics. Kidd is a good player.

“Coach Karl. Do you have any comments after losing two away matches?” A reporter from LA asked.

“I have no comments.”

“Who do you think should be responsible for the losses?”

“I am responsible as I am the main coach.”

“The New York papers claimed the Nets would sweep our Wind and Rain Team aside and defend their title. What do you have to say about this?”

“I don’t like to comment about those speculations, and I had found the perfect strategy to win.”

……

Hmph! Feng Yu must be regretting helping that Russian build up his team. Now, he cannot even win the championship!

Paul Allen laughed in his heart when he heard the Wind and Rain Team lost both away matches. It will be terrific if they fall out over the finals.

Paul Allen hopes accidents will happen to both teams. It would be best if the main players will be injured during the finals!

“Elena, are you leaving tomorrow?” Feng Yu hugged Elena.

“Yes. I need to perform in other cities and return to Moscow next week to prepare for my ballet performance. I want a perfect final performance.” Elena snuggles in Feng Yu’s arms.

“Alright. Don’t tire yourself out. Just let Kirilenko know if you need anything.”

“Mr. Kirilenko has been taking care of me, and I know it is because of you.”

Both chatted for a while.

Elena can’t bear to leave, but Feng Yu encouraged her to pursue her dreams. Everyone should have dreams, or else their lives will be too boring.

After sending Elena off, Feng Yu returned to the arena for the third match.

The injured players suddenly revived this time, and the Wind and Rain Team won the match easily.

The next day, the Wind and Rain Team won again, and it is 2:2 now. The commentators are speechless. They had not expected the Wind and Rain team to make a comeback in their home matches.

Of course, the coaches from both teams knew this would happen.

The home teams won the next two matches.

The fans in the two cities are overjoyed. This is the final match of the finals, and no one wants to lose.

“Listen up. We will be going all out for this match. We will focus our attacks from the outside courts, and the inside-court players will focus on getting the rebounds. Outside players must take note when attacking, and defense must not be afraid of fouls…”

When George Karl explains his strategy to his team, the Nets are also discussing their tactics.

At the same time, the owners of both teams are drinking in the office.

“Feng, which team do you think will win?”

“I think my team will win.”

“Why? This is my home ground, and most of the audiences are from New York!” Kirilenko is unhappy with Feng Yu’s reply.

“That’s because our substitutes are stronger and have a stronger fighting spirit. You all must wait until next year to win it.”

Kirilenko wants his Russian player, Andrei, to get the MVP.

It’s not Andrei is not a good player. He is an all-rounder, but his biggest weakness is his accuracy. If he wants to get high scores, he needs more attempts. This request from Kirilenko will disrupt the Nets’ strategy.

Feng Yu also wants Yao Ming to get the MVP. But Yao Ming and Gasol will restraint each other, and both cannot play their best. Feng Yu told the players to follow Karl’s strategies.

“I disagree with you. We will win, and Andrei will get the MVP. A Russian getting the MVP in the US best basketball league should be interesting.” Kirilenko emptied his glass of alcohol.

Feng Yu shook his head. “Maybe.”

The match started, and both teams are playing their best to win.

At half-time, both teams have fouled many times, and their strengths are about the same.

Very soon, the Nets’ coach’s face changed. He realized the Wind and Rain Team is trying to suppress Gasol and control the inside court. Bateer, Ramdolph, and other inside-court players are too slow.

But the Nets’ coach doesn’t understand this strategy. Point guard Billups and Mobley had fouled too many times and will be sent off soon.

Karl remains calm as he is not worried about those two players being send-off. The Wind and Rain Team has two substitutes for point guards, and both can score and pass well. In other teams, they will definitely be in the starting line-ups.

During the third quarter, Gasol has been foul out. At the end of the third quarter, Billups, Mobley, and Yao Ming are foul out.

The Wind and Rain Team’s two substitutes, Gilbert and Ginóbili, came on. They attacked from the outside court, and three minutes into the fourth quarter, they got a ten-point lead.

Gilbert is an outstanding point guard and can score 3-pointers accurately.

Ginóbili’s speed is too fast for Carter to stop.

The final whistle sounded at the end of the match, and the Wind and Rain Team won with 12 points. Everyone is surprised when the MVP was announced. Ginóbili is the MVP, and he is a substitute!

But Ginóbili had the best average score in the seven matches of the finals in the Wind and Rain Team, and he scored 32 points in this match to help his team win.

Am overseas player had won the MVP in the finals.

Feng Yu looks at Kirilenko. “How is it? I said my team could win.”

Kirilenko laughed excitedly. “Hahaha… the MVP is not an American. I can’t wait to see those NBA officials’ faces!”

Feng Yu: “…….” How can you be so happy after losing the match?

Chapter 1293 – smartphone

Feng Yu had planned to return to China after the match but changed his plans and remained in New York.

The Wind and Rain Mobile will introduce a new product that is different from all its previous products. It is a smartphone!

What is a smartphone? It is similar to a PC, with its operating system, stronger hardware capabilities, and compatible third-party programs. Most importantly, it has internet access!

This phone has a touchscreen display. Wind and Rain Electronics had successfully upgraded their touchscreen technologies to world-class standards, and it does not have the issues of being overly sensitive or insensitive.

This smartphone is in bar shape but comes along with a transparent cover. They had no choice as the phone and screen are extremely fragile now.

They need to have a solution to protect the screen. Also, this touchscreen phone has a keypad, and it is big and bulky.

In 1993, IBM developed a smartphone. But it was only a concept phone and is bad.

After that, smartphones entered a rapid development phase. Blackberry, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, HTC, etc., are all developing their smartphones.

But the smartphone operating system developed by Blackberry, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, HTC, etc., is not good. There are not many applications for their phones, and it is mainly used to surf the internet, send and receive emails, and check stocks.

Feng Yu told Xu Lihua and his men about his requirements. It can only be considered a real smartphone if it can meet his requirements. Putting the hardware aside, Lenovo Kingsoft has no problem developing the operating system Feng Yu wanted.

Luckily, they had started developing the operating system based on Feng Yu’s requirements. With the help of the Russians, they quickly developed it.

Lenovo Kingsoft had developed the PC operating system in a year, and they had tested this smartphone operating system. It is very stable, and Wind and Rain Mobile quickly introduce their smartphone to enter the smartphone market.

Wind and Rain Mobile can already compete with Nokia and Motorola in the traditional mobile phone. Currently, Nokia owns the biggest market share, but Wind and Rain Mobile had caught up with Motorola’s market share.

Wind and Rain Mobile’s target this time is to overtake Motorola to become second place in the global market share.

“Old Xu, the functions of this phone are not bad. Are you all going to name this model S1?”

“Yes. S stands for Super and is also a character from Lenovo Kingsoft. This operating system is called HOS. 1 represents the first generation, and we plan to introduce a new generation each year. All the functions will be upgraded in subsequent generations, and we will become the best smartphone within three years!”

“I remember the smartphones’ mainstream operating system is Blackberry, Symbian, Microsoft, etc. Have you all tested our HOS system against them? Is there any prominent advantage?”

“We do not have an obvious advantage, but many of our system’s functions are more advanced. For example, we have PS software, and people can edit their photos on the phone. Our phones can also read our WPS Word documents and Microsoft Word documents. It can also send and receive emails. Our system can also support three types of internet browsers, and users can go onto Sina forums on the phone…”

All these functions are quite useful. Currently, the network is still 2G, and it’s very slow to go online. But this is better than none. Some countries with more developed networks are already using 2.5G.

In the future, network speed will become faster, and Feng Yu reminded Lenovo Kingsoft to work on the online and photo editing functions.

Lei Jun is confused when Feng Yu mentioned photo editing functions. Who will use mobile phones to edit pictures? Feng Yu said in his heart. You will know how popular selfies are in the future.

Regardless of men or women, old or young, they will take at least one selfie in their lives, and many are addicted to taking selfies. Netizens call many pretty girls and handsome boys’ selfies as reference pictures in the future.

Selfies are not only popular in China. Everyone around the world is the same. All of them want their pictures to look prettier.

Lei Jun felt smartphones should have more business or work-related functions. For example, Blackberry, which is the most popular phone for executives. After that incident in the US, the telecommunications are down. Many people used Blackberry’s wireless internet to receive information from the site.

That incident made Blackberry more popular, and most US executives start to use them. Even Ralph and Feng Yu’s staff in the US use a Wind and Rain Mobile phone and a Blackberry, making Feng Yu very unhappy.

But they had no choice. Blackberry’s phones have more functions than Wind and Rain Mobile phones.

It will be different now. When Wind and Rain Mobile phones have smartphone features better than Blackberry phones, many people will switch to Wind and Rain Mobile phones, and they don’t need to carry two phones around.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Blackberry owns more than 30% of the global market share at its peak. In North America, their market share reached over 60%. They can be considered the representative of smartphones.

When mentioned smartphones, many people will think of Blackberry.

But after the Android system appeared, many companies entered the smartphone market. At that time, smartphones are separated by operating systems, and Android owns more than 80% of the market share.

Feng Yu told Lei Jun that smartphones would not be limited to executives. Everyone is a potential smartphone user, and it will be the top priority for people in the future.

Although Lei Jun doesn’t believe this will happen, he still carried out Feng Yu’s orders. Lenovo Kingsoft’s workload increased by a lot. Still, they know if they own 30% of the market share, this operating system will bring in high profits for the company.

Feng Yu only emphasize one thing. Personalization. This is what people like about the Android system in their previous life.

The phone must be user-friendly, accustomed to the user’s habits, and not force users to use whatever they give them. The development of this system must be from the user’s POV. This will make the system more attractive to the users.

Chapter 1294 – The most expensive and the cheapest

This Wind and Rain S1 is currently Wind and Rain Mobile’s most expensive model. Its retail price is 1,499 USD. Among the current few hundred USD phones era, it stood out.

Of course, this model’s functions are very powerful. When Xu Lihua revealed the phone during the product launch, the crowd was awed.

This phone’s functions are better than Blackberry, Nokia, HTC, etc., and most traditional mobile phones.

The phone’s screen is 260,000 pixels, and it is touchscreen. The camera lens is also upgraded. When Xu Lihua demonstrates the PS functions, the crowd went crazy.

Everyone did not know mobile phone technology had become so advance.

Many people still feel this phone is too expensive. Still, it uses the most advanced technologies from Wind and Rain Electronics and other companies. The cost is almost 1,000 USD, and the operating system cost is higher than most operating systems in the market. This is because the operating system is only used by Wind and Rain Mobile and Aiwa Mobile.

But Xu Lihua mentioned that the phone’s retail price would be lowered within six months as the screen and operating system’s costs are lowered.

Xu Lihua felt this phone should be targeting the high-end market, and the retail price should maintain above 1,000 USD. But the most popular Blackberry model is the market is not as expensive.

They had done market research and felt the high-end mobile phone market is quite empty. They want to be the first to occupy them. Feng Yu does not know whether if this will work, but he was the one who suggested lowering the price of the mobile phones. Mobile phones should be targeting ordinary families, and they will become the most common electronic product in the future.

Xu Lihua added. You are the one who said mobile phones should be developed in two different directions. More expensive with more functions and cheaper with basic functions.

Feng Yu is speechless as he did not expect them to be more extreme than him.

“Old Xu. Your mobile phone is selling more expensive than a PC. Just think about this. How much does a PC cost now? A laptop is only selling around 1,000 USD. Do you think the consumers can accept this price?”

“That’s why we will be focusing on developed countries with more wealthy people. The retail price for our next model will be around 1,000 USD, and we should have given consumers the impression we are a high-end mobile phone. That will be our opportunity to expand our smartphone market share.”

Huh? Feng Yu thought for a while. This is also a good idea.

But there is another problem. People will think Wind and Rain Mobile’s profits will be very high, and that’s why they can lower it by so much in the future.

“Err… this can also work. If you all think this strategy will work, then go ahead. But we will not be making any money from our Chinese market.”

“The retail price for China market is around 10,000 RMB. There are still profits, and we will be targeting the high-end market too. This phone is a prototype to attract attention. With our marketing, we plan to become the mainstream smartphone after our third generation.”

If they are going to introduce a new model every year, it will be three years. Feng Yu thought for a second. Smartphone still has not replaced traditional phones three years later.

“Are you all thinking of overtaking Motorola with only this phone?”

The sales for this phone should not be high, and how will they beat Motorola with it? Motorola is currently the market leader for the US market, and even Nokia cannot win them.

Xu Lihua smiles. “Manager Feng, do you still remember what you said? To develop the cheapest phone. This phone is currently under development, and it should be ready to enter the market before the end of the year.”

Feng Yu raised his brows. “Are you talking about that phone with only basic functions? How much is the cost?”

“Around 45 USD, and we plan to set the retail price at 50 USD!”

50 USD is slightly more expensive than that Nokia phone from Feng Yu’s previous life. In the future, cheap phones will become popular for a period in China and many developed countries.

The best-selling mobile phone in the world is Nokia’s 1100. It sold 250 million and claimed this record could never be beaten.

Even if the profit of one phone is 1 USD, the total profits will be 250 million USD.

“The phone can be launched by yearend?”

“It should not be a problem. We are doing the final test for the materials, and we plan to make the phone last for three years.”

“Only three years?” Feng Yu remembers the Nokia phone can last more than five years.

“Manager Feng, isn’t this what you told us? A mobile phone should last around three years, or else consumers will not change new phones, and the market will shrink. Our phone can last around three years, and using it to the fourth year should not be a problem.”

Alright. That makes sense too.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, most students and seniors are using Nokia 1100. After that, a phone with bigger keypads and larger screens appeared. This model targets the low-income segment, and it’s worthwhile even if the phone can last for three years.

“Our Wind and Rain Mobile will make history with this phone! How many units do you think we will sell?”

“10 million units should not be a problem, and we will continue selling it for three years.”

30 million units?

Feng Yu gave Xu Lihua a side glance. “Can you have bigger dreams?”

“Bigger dreams? Are you saying we can sell 50 million units?”

“We can sell around 50 million units in China alone!” Feng Yu replied confidently.

“What? We can sell around 50 million units in China?! That means we can sell over 100 million units worldwide?”

“100 million units is too little. Just think about it. Pagers are obsolete, and the only portable communication device is the mobile phone. Do you remember how fast pager developed in the past, and how fast mobile phones are developing now? Mobile phones are expensive now. But do you think those who cannot afford a mobile phone will want one? When a cheap mobile phone enters the market, I believe many low-wage workers in the cities will rush to get one to call home.”

“Also, do you think the students will want to own mobile phones? School fees are very expensive, and it’s tough for average families to send their children to schools. They also cannot afford electronic products for them. But if this phone costs only 400 RMB, do you think the family will want to buy one for their children? Also, those elderlies are not using mobile phones is because they don’t want to spend money on the phone, and not because they don’t want to use one.”

“That’s why this model will start a trend of low-cost mobile phones. Cheaper phones which cost less than 40 USD might even appear in another two years. We must focus on lowering the production cost, and the basic functions must not go wrong. If we can achieve that, we will take over the low-cost mobile phone market!”

’s development

Nokia 1100

Chapter 1295 – Smartphone race

After Wind and Rain Mobile launched S1, all major mobile phone manufacturers received first-hand news. They even sent their representatives to the product launch.

The attitudes of the major mobile phone manufacturers are different after seeing how powerful the S1 features are.

Nokia CEO is calm about this. Since Wind and Rain Mobile wants to target the high-end market, he will show them what is called a real high-end phone. Nokia had planned to introduce a high-end mobile brand, and it’s the cheapest phone cost more than 2,500 USD. It can also be customized, and a customized phone might cost more than 100,000 USD!

The phone’s casing is using aerospace materials, and the keypad is made from gold. Diamonds and other precious stones are embedded in the casing and have strong signals. It is specially designed for those tycoons.

The high-end market will belong to Nokia!

For smartphones, Nokia must work with other companies, and Symbian must merge with other companies. Currently, the Symbian system is divided into three versions for Nokia, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson. This was agreed upon when they developed Symbian. The core system is the same, but there are minor differences for each company.

The companies that entered the smartphone market later are Samsung, LG, Panasonic, etc. They are using one of the three versions. The three Symbian system versions are developing in different directions, and it limited the overall development.

After everyone saw the features of Wind and Rain Mobile’s operating system, Nokia’s CEO decided to discuss with Motorola and Sony Ericsson. He wants them to give up upgrading their operating system and let Nokia’s Symbian become the mainstream. They will beat Wind and Rain Mobile’s HOS with it!

Motorola is the market leader of the North and South American markets. When Wind and Rain Mobile host their product launch in New York, Motorola was the first to attend and know Wind and Rain Mobile’s advantage.

Smartphones’ hardware and software are equally important. Motorola is not worried about the hardware, but their software, which they are so proud of, could not stop Wind and Rain Mobile’s advancement. Motorola had not expected Wind and Rain Mobile to develop their operating system with more powerful features.

Symbian was developed to monopolize the smartphone market and stop other mobile phone manufacturers from entering. But Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Nokia are too ambitious and want to be mobile phone leaders.

Motorola and Ericsson were the leaders in the mobile phone market, but they are overtaken by Nokia now. Motorola is currently in second place, and Ericsson becomes fourth, and this was after they merged with Sony. Samsung will soon overtake Sony Ericsson’s fourth place.

If Ericsson had not owned lots of telecommunication patents, they would have lost money on their mobile phone business. Even with the patents, they had to merge with Sony, or else, they would have suffered massive losses.

Sony Ericsson had started developing smartphones earlier than Motorola, Nokia, and Blackberry. Blackberry and Nokia control the smartphone market, and Motorola and Sony Ericsson are behind them.

Now, Wind and Rain Mobile had entered the smartphone market suddenly, and Sony Ericsson is furious. Wind and Rain Mobile had overtaken their third place, and they are trying to invade into their smartphone market now!

Once the smartphone market is overtaken by Wind and Rain Mobile, Sony Ericsson’s mobile division must consider if they should continue with this brand or focus on technology development.

Sony and Ericsson are strong and advantageous in technology developments. Selling patents is also profitable, and they will have fewer worries. Also, they can cut any unnecessary spending and increase their profits.

The simplest solution to stop Wind and Rain Mobile from entering the smartphone market is to develop a better smartphone.

Symbian had already suppressed Blackberry, and they thought Symbian would be the most powerful operating system for smartphones. But now, a HOS system, which is better than all three versions of Symbian systems and Blackberry, appeared in the market.

A Smartphone system must be easy to operate with powerful features. This is just like the PC operating system. Most of Microsoft’s operating systems can be operated by a mouse.

Sony Ericsson and Nokia want to upgrade their operating system to overtake Wind and Rain Mobile. With their branding, they can easily suppress Wind and Rain Mobile.

Of course, they also want to make their upgraded Symbian system become the mainstream operating system for smartphones.

Before Nokia and Sony Ericsson CEOs could decide, Motorola’s CEO and President contacted them to talk about Symbian system upgrades.

Both Nokia and Sony Ericsson will not object to this idea. Still, Motorola wants to take the lead, which both disagreed.

These three companies are the first supporters of the Symbian system, and the Symbian system can be considered developed by them.

The first Symbian phone is Ericsson, and the most popular phone is Nokia’s. Both felt Motorola has no right to compete with them.

All three companies felt each other are trying to suppress them, and the negations failed.

But Wind and Rain Mobile are coming to snatch their market share, and they must take some measures. At around the same time, Motorola has a great opportunity.

Microsoft had approached Motorola to persuade them to switch to the Microsoft system. Look at HTC. They are using our Microsoft system and are selling well in Asia.

Samsung and many Korean companies are also using our system, and they are doing well. Also, we are prepared to increase our investments into developing this system, and our system will get better in the future.

When that happens, Blackberry, Symbian, or HOS, will be beaten by us because we are Microsoft!

Maybe Microsoft has a brand advantage, or Motorola believes in Microsoft’s capabilities. Motorola announced they would be switching to Microsoft’s smartphone system!

Blackberry started to panic when they heard Motorola is joining Microsoft. The competition in North America will become stiffer, and they must upgrade their systems to compete.

Suddenly, all mobile phone manufacturers are entering into the smartphone race.

Chapter 1296 – HDV

After Wind and Rain Mobile’s product launch ended, Feng Yu returned to Shanghai. Jiang Wanmeng had called to tell him a piece of good news.

Feng Yu had mentioned to Jiang Wanmeng to develop an HD video camera, which must be small and easy to bring it around. Most importantly, it must be high resolution for the HD TV market.

The digital video camera has been in the market for quite some time, and Sony was the first company to develop it. Sony is one of the top companies in the world in electronic product innovations.

But Sony did not pay much attention to it initially. This is common among most Japanese companies. They like to keep their best technologies in their lab and introduced their sub-standard technologies into the market. This way, they can continue to introduce newer products and get high returns.

The disadvantage of using this strategy is Sony’s product will never have the best technologies, and other companies have the opportunity to challenge them.

Sony firmly believes that other companies seek their deaths to challenge them, as they own better technologies. Also, this can delay their competitors’ development and let them waste their research funds.

If Sony discovers any companies catching up with their technology, they will use another strategy to cooperate. For example, Sony and Panasonic, Sharp, JVC, Pioneer, etc., are competitors, but they cooperate in many areas.

All the Japanese companies are both competitors and partners. Once in a while, two to three companies will target the other companies. Sometimes, they will change partners and start to target their former partners.

Feng Yu remembers Sony, Sharp, and other former competitors. He cooperated in setting the HD digital video camera standards in his previous life. This prevents other companies from entering the industry and lets them make high profits.

Feng Yu had mentioned to Jiang Wanmeng that future mobile phones must also need to have video taking functions. HD digital video cameras and digital cameras must be incorporated into mobile phones. Electronic products must have a variety of features for the consumers to choose from.

Almost everyone in the company knows about Feng Yu’s innovation concepts.

Jiang Wanmeng had been trying to showcase this HD Video camera technology. Philips, Thompson, and other companies are also helping.

Many companies’ support is needed to set an industry standard. Or else, you will need the core patent. For example, the VCD patent.

Even after the VCD evolve to DVD and HD DVD, Wind and Rain still need to form an alliance with other companies to set the standard.

Jiang Wanmeng had suddenly told Feng Yu that they had developed the HD Digital Video camera and has gotten the support of Philips, Thomson, and other companies. This means they can start to introduce their industry standards.

This will limit other companies’ developments. Suppose you all don’t want to follow my standards. In that case, there will be different camps in the HD Digital Video, and products will be non-compatible with each other.

Feng Yu is not afraid of having different standards in the market. He is afraid Sony and the Japanese will set the standard earlier with the support of many other companies.

The more companies are supporting a standard, the more beneficial it is.

……

“Manager Feng, these are the standards we are introducing. This is the HD 1280 X 720P, and the other is UHD 1920 X 1080P. Of course, these two standards are compatible with HD TVs and HD monitors.”

“This standard is using progressive scanning, which means a picture will be scan once. The benefit of this technology is there will be no flickering or lagging. We had also developed another type of interlacing technology. But that technology is not as good as this because it needs to scan the same picture twice. The displayed video or static pictures will have flickering.”

“Of course, we still have other frequencies, which are…”

Feng Yu quickly waves his hand. “Alright. I don’t understand what you are talking about. If you all think this has met the standards, then just implement it. I trust you all.”

Feng Yu only knows what is 720P and 1080P. As for the technologies behind it, he is not interested.

“Then shall we hold a press conference to introduce this standard officially?” Jiang Wangmeng asked.

“What did Philips, Thomson, and the other companies say?”

“They also felt we should introduce this standard earlier, as it will benefit all of us. I heard those Japanese companies are going to introduce their standards soon. If they are faster than us, we will be at a disadvantage. But they also want to get more electronic companies to our side. We are in charge of contacting the TV manufacturers in China, Korea’s Samsung, Taiwanese companies, etc. Thomson will focus on American companies, while Philips will focus on European companies. This way, we will force those Japanese companies to follow our standards!”

Feng Yu nodded. “Ok. Contact those people from our HDVD alliance and get them to join our HDV standards. Also, when can this technology be incorporated into a mobile phone or digital camera?”

“Soon. The new product can be introduced into the market before the end of the year.”

Feng Yu is not satisfied with this reply. “You must settle this as fast as possible. Suppose we can think of combining digital cameras with mobile phones. In that case, they can also think of combining digital video cameras with mobile phones. Those digital camera manufacturers and digital video camera manufacturers will also think of combining both products.”

Why is a digital camera and a digital video camera not combine yet? The digital video camera is using magnetic tape, but it is not those old and big cassette tapes. It is a small cassette tape that is half the size of those Walkman’s cassette tapes.

Digital cameras are using flash drives to store pictures. Both devices are using different forms of storage and cannot be combined.

But if both devices are using flash drives, hard disks, or CDs as storage, then it will be easy to combine both cameras.

“Don’t worry. We will combine both products as soon as possible. Our next product, which we will be launching, is an HD DV camera!”

Chapter 1297 – Different Camps

As Wind and Rain Electronics is getting other companies to join their HDV faction, Sony and other Japanese companies received the news.

Sony and other Japanese companies realized Wind and Rain Electronics’ intentions. They decided to introduce their HD Digital Video Camera standard earlier.

In the past, Sony and other Japanese companies had never seen Chinese companies as their competitors. They even look down on US companies, and even Korea’s Samsung is not a threat to them. They felt only the European companies could challenge them.

But the world changed too fast. Feng Yu suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started developing China’s consumer electronics industry. Chinese brands managed to emerge in front of them.

Sony is not frustrated if this is the only reason. They are frustrated because Feng Yu’s companies’ products seem to be targeting them.

First, it was the Walkman, followed by MP3. Then it was VCD to the optical drive. After that, it was PCs and mobile phones. Almost every product is trying to snatch their market share, and Feng Yu won in the end!

Whenever Japanese companies introduce or introduce a new product, China will introduce that product earlier. They had competed on products initially, and now, they are fighting to set the standards. This is too much.

Sony and other Japanese companies had lost on the DVD standards and suffered massive losses. Not only they had lost on their DVD products, but they also lost their optical drive market.

Sony was formerly the market leader in Asia’s mobile phone market. But after Wind and Rain Mobile appeared, they are forced to merge with Ericsson to form Sony Ericsson. If it weren’t because Sony still has a strong brand influence in Asia, it would be called Ericsson Sony!

But Sony is very confident of winning this HD digital video camera standard this time.

Thomson does have a digital video camera, but not Philips, Wind and Rain, Aiwa, etc. You all don’t even have the product, yet you all want to introduce a standard for this industry?! Bullshit!

Companies in Sony’s faction or the Japanese faction have digital video cameras. Their video cameras are not only limited to handheld DV cameras. They are also producing large cameras used in filmmaking.

Movies no longer need to use films, and it lowered the cost. This allows more funds to be used in other areas of the movie and increases the standards.

Sony, Toshiba, etc., all own movie companies. The more prosperous the movie industry is, the more they can earn.

The development of HD Digital video cameras is critical to Sony and other Japanese companies. This is a strategic development and is not limited to one new product.

Sony and the Japanese companies discussed and sent their men to contact other electronic companies. They must get more companies into their faction. They also approached all the major movie companies, hoping to get them to support their standards.

…….

“Good afternoon, representatives from different companies, media, and everyone. Our Wind and Rain Electronics, Wind and Rain Home Appliances, Philips, Thomson, Samsung, Aiwa Electronics… have decided to introduce HDV standards together. This is the standard for HD digital video camera.”

“This standard is based on… we will bring better picture quality to the consumers and provide a new development direction for other companies. We will not need to be troubled over the development direction and face unnecessary competitions…”

Jiang Wanmeng said on the stage. The companies’ representatives and reporters are all listening attentively and taking notes. Some of them are looking at their phones.

They are looking at their messages, emails and checking for the latest news on the internet.

This is not because this press conference is boring. It is because Sony and the Japanese companies are also holding a press conference in Tokyo at the same time. They are also announcing their HD digital video camera standards now.

These companies’ representatives and reporters are watching this carefully. They want to know what’s the difference between both standards.

They are not naïve to ask why they can’t both factions work together to set a new standard. Both sides will not get any benefit if they do that.

The companies that set the industry standard hope other companies follow them. They will never give in until the final moment.

Feng Yu is also reading the news on the internet and reading Kamesa Masao’s emails.

Feng Yu thought he had introduced the standards earlier and can gain some advantage. But Sony and the Japanese companies reacted fast. This was out of his expectations.

After all, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse. Furthermore, Sony is not starving and is still a giant in the electronics industry. They are also working with other Japanese electronic companies and cannot be belittled.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the Japanese electronics companies had worked together. They challenged the rest of the companies in the world. Although they are not as powerful in this life, they are still strong.

Sony and those companies are world-class in terms of their product developments and company structure.

Feng Yu wants to enter the digital camera market because he knows it will bring in high profits. Other than families using handheld DV, the moviemakers and TV series production are a massive market.

The traditional film video camera will be obsolete in the future because of its high cost. If there is a cheaper option with similar quality, who will use the more expensive option?

Feng Yu looked at the SMS and frowned. He did not expect those Japanese companies to pull so many companies to their faction.

Korea’s LG, some Taiwanese companies, and some Southeast Asia companies had joined Sony’s faction. It seems like they are going to take over the Asia market.

Samsung is in the Wind and Rain Electronics faction, and LG chose to join Sony. These Korean companies are quite interesting.

Korean companies have always picked the safest option. For example, they had produced both Plasma and LCD TVs. No matter which side won, they can switch to the other side. Although they will lose some advantage, they will not put themselves in a dire situation.

Also, Korean companies are united towards outsiders, and both Korean electronics giants seemed to have planned this.

No matter which side won, they can switch factions with the other company’s recommendation.

Among these companies, Feng Yu is unhappy with those Taiwanese companies. Seems like he must increase the suppression on those Taiwanese companies to make them follow China!

Chapter 1298 – Strategic Product

Tai Hua Holdings is holding its regular meeting for the second quarter. As Feng Yu is in Shanghai, he decided to attend. He also has some things to say to the subsidiaries’ representatives.

When they heard Feng Yu is attending this meeting, Liu Chuanzhi, Li Mingde, etc., all rushed over to attend the meeting. In the past, they will send their companies’ General Manager, or President, to attend.

“… that’s all I have to say. Next, let’s welcome our Tai Hua Holding’s Chairman, Feng Yu, to say a few words.”

After Zhong Qingxian finished, everyone started applauding. They respected Feng Yu a lot and felt they could get to where they are today is all because of him. They can learn a lot from Feng Yu every time they spoke.

“I am seldom in the company, and I want to thank Zhong Qingxian, the higher executives, and the heads of each subsidiary for taking care of the company. In terms of managing a company, I am nowhere near each of you here.”

The audience laughed. All of them felt Feng Yu is joking with them. But Feng Yu is telling the truth. He doesn’t know how to manage such a big company.

“Of course, I believe the salary and benefits given to all of you are the highest in the industry. You all had treated me with sincerity, and I will also do the same. Although I am the biggest shareholder of this company, you all are also shareholders. This company belongs to all of us here.”

“I am not going to hold an award presentation for the contributions you all had made to the company today. If I am going to talk about all of your contributions today, this meeting will have to go on for days. Your family members will start scolding me behind my back.”

Everyone laughed and is moved by what Feng Yu said. Feng Yu had always treated them with respect and had never overlooked their contributions to the company.

Tai Hua Holdings is the controlling shareholder of most of the subsidiaries. Still, Feng Yu has never interfered in their hiring or operations. This is very impressive for everyone.

Some of them had thought of starting their own company. But after some considerations, they gave up. After they had become successful, it is hard for them to give up everything they have now.

Also, it’s hard to bring their subordinates away with them. They cannot afford to give them the same salary and benefits. They also don’t dare to try and acquire Tai Hua Holdings’ shares. Feng Yu can easily crush them with his assets. Furthermore, Feng Yu is also close with the higher-ups.

“Alright. Enough with the jokes. I want to talk to you all about strategic products today. The strategic products I am referring are also known as product strategy. Product strategy, brand strategy, and organization strategy are similar but different.”

“For example, I believe all of you understand what strategic product is. Old Li, I will use the automobile industry as an example. You must listen carefully. General Motors is the biggest automobile company in the world. They own more than twenty brands and also have shares in several automobile companies. They are the most powerful automobile company in the industry. They used to own more than 70% of the US market share, but their market share has been dropping in the last ten years. The Japanese cars had overtaken them now, and European brands are also eyeing their market. This shows General Motors have a serious problem with their organization strategy.”

“The Japanese automobile companies’ strategies are using smaller and fuel-efficient cars to compete with General Motors. Most US cars have high fuel consumption, and as oil prices kept rising, car owners faced high financial stress. General Motors saw this issue and took countermeasures. All three major US automobile companies had taken countermeasures to be profitable again.”

“At this time, the Japanese automobile companies did not increase their supply to the US market. Instead, they limit their exports to let those three US companies recover. This might look like a wrong decision, but it is a long-term strategy. When the Japanese automobile companies start to enter the European markets, the US automobile companies, especially General Motors, made the wrong decisions.”

“They thought people still prefer big cars and did not make changes to their cars’ fuel-efficiency to increase their competitiveness. They thought the worse was over, and they can make a comeback. The worst mistake they made was to promote all of their brands, hoping to increase their sales. Their brands are all independent of each other. They have their developments, manufacturing, sales, after-sales services, etc., and are not consolidated. This increased their cost by a lot.”

“Multiple brands strategy is for targeting different market segments. But if you have too many brands, consumers will have a paradox of choice, and there will be self-competition.”

“These problems are the issues arising from using the wrong strategic products. General Motors lack a model that can influence the international automobile market. For example, those sportscar brands have a model that is selling well for around ten years. When you mentioned Honda, you all will think of Honda Accord. When I mention Toyota, Corolla will come to your mind. For Volkswagen, you all will think of Santana. But what about General Motors?”

“General Motors owns many brands, but they don’t have an international top-selling car model. Having a global strategic car model is critical. Look at Accord. It is selling well for more than twenty years and has kept upgrading through different versions. Their new versions are not much different from their previous versions, and their new technologies are not complicated. But every time they release a new version, it will sell well around the world.”

“This flagship product model has a big advantage. It will lower the production cost greatly and increase the profits of a single product. I believe all of you can guess what I will be saying next. That’s right. Flagship product.”

“Everyone knows about economies of scales. With higher production, we can lower the cost easily and increase the profits. Look at Philips. They sold billions of one single shaver model. How many profits do you think they have gotten? If they had sold billions of shavers through dozens of different models, their profits would be much lesser.”

“You all can interpret the strategic product I mentioned as the Flagship product or the star product. If we develop lesser new products in the future, it must be impressive and can sell well. Then we can consider it a success. That’s why we must have a main product and secondary products during our product development. We must have at least one main product.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Audi A6, Camry, Accord, etc., are everywhere because these models are all main products of their companies. These companies have other models, but they did not market them as hard as the main product. A company that can sell the same model for up to twenty years is not weak. It is their strength. With so many new models available, why are the consumers still buying the same model?

“This is the same for the internet. Every internet company must have something that people can remember. For example, Tencent’s QQ, Sina’s news and blogs, Sohu’s forum, and videos, NetEase’s games and email, Baidu’s search engine, Chinese Web, etc.”

“All of you understand organization strategy, as you all had attended the higher management training course by our company. But I want you all to remember about strategic products. Our target is very simple. Make money!”

Chapter 1299 – Every company should have

Feng Yu is very direct. He did not mention doing these for the country, people, etc. The purpose of doing business is to make money!

Those who don’t want to make money will never go into business. Many developers and inventors have good results, but they did not use their results for business or investments. They handed their research to the higher-ups in exchange for promotion or fame. Of course, some used their results to get more funds to do more research.

These people are not doing all these for money. That’s why they cannot be businessmen. You might say Li Yanhong wants to develop the world’s best search engine, and he can just be a developer if he doesn’t want to make money. He is the one who owns and developed the search engine.

Of course, after making money, people will change. Many people will choose to help others or help the country.

But first, you must make more money than your competitors!

“Manager Feng, you want all of us to have our strategic products?” Aiwa Home Appliances person-in-charge asked.

“That’s right. But you all are different. You all are using the same Aiwa brand with Aiwa Electronics. You are sharing the technologies with Wind and Rain Electronics and Wind and Rain Home Appliances. That’s why you all can introduce the same strategic products. Everything will remain the same. Aiwa will target the domestic market, and Wind and Rain brand will target the overseas markets.”

Everyone in the meeting room started thinking. What are their company’s strategic products?

Quanjude’s Manager Jiang immediately knows what Quanjude’s strategic products are. It’s their roast ducks. Regardless of what type of cuisine they are selling, all of their branches will have Quanjude roast ducks. This is also their best-selling dish and is their core product.

Li Mingde thought about what Feng Yu said. Focus on developing a car model and not create multiple models for the same category. They should concentrate on Songjiang Olympic for normal saloon cars and Oriental Deer for SUVs. These two models should be the company’s main products, and other vehicle types are the secondary products. So, these two models should be their strategic products.

The most popular motorcycle model is Songjiang 100. This single product has sold more than other companies, and the production cost is the lowest.

Songjiang Motors should also develop a strategic product for their Electric scooters. Manager Feng had used their company as an example, and Li Mingde must not disgrace himself.

Bing City Pharmaceutical Group’s strategic product is Viagra. Viagra is selling well globally, and their glucose series of health supplement products are also very popular now. Their anti-inflammation medicine is also the no. 1 in the Chinese market.

Fu Guangwei is speechless. What is Tai Hua Supermarket Group’s strategic product? Membership card? Fresh groceries or something else? He decides to speak with Feng Yu later.

Jianlibao’s strategic product is Jianlibao, and Lehaha’s strategic product is their green tea, nutrition express, Qili, and Refreshing Cola. Although their other products are selling well, they are nowhere near the mentioned products.

As everyone is thinking, Feng Yu finished what he wanted to say. All these are the summary of the talks and experiences from his previous life.

Toyota and Honda made high profits globally from their strategic products. Their market shares kept increasing.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many people started to study Toyota’s strategy, management, product development, sales, etc., after becoming the market leader in the automobile industry.

They discover Toyota’s single product strategy. Of course, they also discovered the boiling frog strategy. General Motors lost to Toyota because of these strategies.

After the meeting ended, they remained in the meeting room to discuss how to reach the goal set by Manager Feng.

Making money might seem simple, but making lots of money consistently is not easy.

First, you must make your consumers like your product, and your product must be better than the competitors. After that, you must ensure your technology is ahead of others and your reputation. The product’s positioning must also be clear and structured.

It might sound easy, but it’s extremely hard to implement.

The most difficult part is when your company is leading the market, you must also ensure your competitors can survive. Once a monopoly is formed, the company will be forced to break up.

Regardless of Feng Yu’s previous life, or this life, no company can have the absolute monopoly of a market. When a company is about to monopolize the whole market, it will face many issues.

For example, Microsoft. Their PC operating system has almost monopolized the market, and they face numerous lawsuits.

Feng Yu wants his companies to own the biggest market share and maintain their lead. That way, they can get the biggest share of the pie.

Currently, only a few Feng Yu’s companies are the best in their respective industry globally. For example, Amazon is the biggest eCommerce website, but its profits are pathetic.

Although Amazon is the market leader, it is not much stronger than eBay. They don’t have an absolute advantage, and their profits are lesser than eBay.

Paypal and Alipay are the no.1 and no.2 in the industry for third-party payment platforms. But their profits are not high.

For these industries, the companies, which are not at the top, made more profits than the market leader.

But this is not an issue, as the time for these companies is not ripe yet. In a few years, Amazon, Alipay, Paypal, etc., profits will shoot up.

Just look at the Sixth Sense and Aiwa. After becoming the market leaders, they become more advantages than their competitors.

“Brother Feng, you mentioned every company should have strategic products. What is our Tai Hua Supermarket Group’s strategic product?”

“Just think about which product has the highest sales, highest profit, and lowest cost.” Feng Yu patted Fu Guangwei’s shoulder with a ‘you should understand’ look.

Fu Guangwei is still confused and decided to ask his father or other top executives. Could it be Tian Peng Pigs?

Feng Yu also doesn’t know what a supermarket’s strategic product is. Every variety will have one product that attracts consumers.

For example, Tian Peng Pigs, Beidacang Rice, etc. A strategic product is not limited to one product. Even Toyota has other models aside from Corolla. They also have Camry and other models as their strategic products.

As everyone is searching for their strategic product, Feng Yu sneaks away secretly.

Feng Yu needs to rush home as it is approaching Li Na’s due date.

Chapter 1300 – Bing City Beer’s Development

“Dear, are you tired? Let me massage your legs.” Feng Yu gave Li Na his best service after they returned from a walk.

Feng Yu’s phone suddenly rings. He walks over to his phone and saw it was Zhang Ruiqiang.

“Oh, why are you do free to call me? Don’t tell me that you need my help again?” Feng Yu laughed.

Feng Yu gestured to Li Na, indicating that he needs to take this call. She quietly left the room for the living room to watch TV.

“Can’t I call you without other purposes?” Zhang Ruiqiang replied unhappily.

“You can, but when have you call me if you don’t need me? Just think about the times you called. You only look for me when something bad has happened.”

“This time is different! Our Bing City Beer Festival is starting. It is organized by our Province, Bing City Government, and China Light Industry Council. The higher-ups have given their support, and this will be an international beer festival. We have also invited several international beer brands and companies to participate.” Zhang Ruiqiang replied proudly.

The first Bing City Beer Festival was held in 1988, and it is also an international beer exhibition. But at that time, Bing City is still an unknown city, and China is not so developed. They cannot get big international companies to participate, and even many domestic brands did not attend.

But as China becomes more developed and Bing City becomes more important, all Chinese brewery will surely participate. Some overseas beer brands will also be sending their representatives over.

Bing City had organized all the past beer festivals, and the Provincial Government is not worried. But it is different this time. Not only the Provincial Government is joining, but even the higher-ups are also involved. The higher-ups invite many international breweries and companies.

Feng Yu purposely threw a wet blanket. “Inviting is one thing, and whether if they are coming is another thing. Our Bing City Beer is only in the fifth position in China’s market. Are you sure the major international breweries and related companies will attend?”

“It is impossible for all of them to attend. But the top ten breweries in the world will be sending their representatives. Also, some of the world’s top beer ingredient suppliers and other related suppliers will be coming.”

Zhang Ruiqiang said in his heart. Do you think I have not considered all these? I don’t care whether if those small companies are coming or not. The top ten breweries are coming, and they are much bigger than those smaller companies combined.

Feng Yu sighed. “Have you thought about the reasons why they are attending?”

Zhang Ruiqiang is puzzled. “What other reasons do they have? This is only a beer festival and a trade meeting.”

“Yes. That’s why you all should pay more attention to it. They are attending because they will enter the Chinese market, and they need to understand our beer market and companies. This means our Bing City Beer and other Chinese beer companies are going to be attacked by these international top beer breweries!”

“Are you saying we are wrong to organize this beer festival and invite them?” Zhang Ruiqiang is annoyed.

“It’s not wrong, but you better discuss with our Chinese beer companies how to stop those overseas beer companies. They must also learn from those overseas brands’ experiences, technologies, taste, etc., to upgrade themselves. Before our beer brands enter the international market, we must protect our domestic markets first. If not, those overseas brands would have earned our money and market share before we can make any profits overseas.”

“This… I will discuss this with the higher-ups. But those beer companies might not listen to me.” Although Zhang Ruiqiang is the no. 2 Official in the Province and is holding a high rank, he doesn’t have powers over other breweries. Nobody likes another Government leader to interfere in their business.

“Do you still remember I had mention merging to increase competitiveness?” Feng Yu hinted.

Zhang Ruiqiang sits up. “Are you saying Bing City Beer should merge or acquire other breweries?”

“That’s right. I know Bing City Beer has already controlled Longjiang Province and has entered Shenyang. But what about the southern Province? You all only have a small factory there, right? You should have heard of China Resources Holdings, right? Look at their expansion speed. If you don’t expand, all the market will be taken away by them. I remember Bing City Beer Holdings doesn’t lack funds. After getting listed for two years, the share prices had increased by a lot, and you all are not affected by the financial crisis.”

Beidacang has not gone listed, but its subsidiary, Bing City Beer Holdings, has been listed and is doing well.

Although the shares are not those type that shoots up, it is increasing steadily. The Hong Kong Exchange has awarded them as the best listed company for two years.

“Bing City Beer did not lack money and had given out high dividends the last two years. This means we must quickly expand. Beidacang has made some money in the past two years and should have no problems acquiring two to three Provincial level beer companies easily.” Zhang Ruiqiang immediately decides.

“Two to three? It’s too little. There are only three large breweries in China which we cannot acquire. Qingdao, Beijing Beer, and China Resource Beer. These three breweries are bigger than us, and we need to spend a lot to acquire them. Also, the higher-ups might stop our acquisition. Other than these three breweries, we must find ways to acquire other breweries. Look at China Resources Holdings’ expansion speed and strategy. When China only has four domestic beer brands, it will be easier to control the beer prices, and you all can increase the prices for higher profits.”

“You also don’t need to worry much about those overseas beer brands. They might be much bigger, but their factories in China are small. Also, if you want to bring in new flavors, you can exchange shares with them. To merge with them. With our Chinese Beverage Alliance around, you don’t need to worry about exportation. The alliance has made arrangements with those overseas large-scale supermarket chains to sell our Bing City Beer.”

With such a good distribution channel, Bing City Beer’s sales will increase. But another issue has surfaced. The transportation cost. It is not worthwhile to ship the beers overseas from China. The best solution is to acquire a brewery overseas to produce Bing City Beer. Bing City Beer will have to spend another sum of money.

“Feng Yu, I need to think about what you just said. You are in Bing City, right? Come over to my place for a further discussion at night.”

Feng Yu: “…….” Damn! I had become a free advisor again.

China National Light Industry Council

Harbin Brewery

Beer in China

China Resources Beer

China Resources Holdings

Tsingtao Brewery

Beijing Yanjing Brewery

Chapter 1301 – Smaller Company Acquiring Bigger Companies

“Dear, I will be having dinner at Old Zhang’s place. Tell Mum and Dad not to wait for me.”

“Ok. You are so capable. Even our Provincial Mayor asks you for help.” Li Na proudly said.

Feng Yu kissed Li Na’s forehead and left after changing.

Feng Yu carried a roast duck he bought from Quanjude into Zhang Ruiqiang’s apartment.

“Why did you bring gifts every time you come over?” Zhang Ruiqiang’s wife grumbled with a smile.

“I cannot here empty-handed, and Quanjude is mine too. The duck is packed in a thermal bag, and we can eat it later.”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s wife knew Feng Yu will be coming over and has started preparing dinner.

When Feng Yu entered the apartment, he noticed there is another guest. He remembered this man as Xu Changyou’s former secretary. He is currently Bing City Government’s No. 2 official.

After Xu Changyou retires, all of his subordinates went under Zhang Ruiqiang. Zhang Ruiqiang and Zhao Guoliang stood up when Feng Yu enters.

“Come and wash your hands before dinner.”

Zhang Ruiqiang’s wife ate very fast and finished her dinner within ten minutes. She says the drama series she is following is starting soon, and she will be in the room to watch TV. Before she leaves, she prepared a pot of tea.

“Feng Yu, tell us how we can develop Bing City Beer stronger and faster? Guoliang is currently overseeing the City’s economy, and he will be executing the orders.”

Zhao Guoliang looks at Feng Yu. “Manager Feng, I look forward to your guidance.”

“This is only a discussion. I will be sharing how a smaller company acquire a bigger company from a businessman’s perspective.”

Smaller company acquiring a bigger company? Zhang Ruiqiang and Zhao Guoliang exchanged looks. How come this sounds similar to the proverb, ‘a snake tries to swallow an elephant?’

“It is very easy for a listed company to expand. When they require funds, they can just issue shares to raise funds. They can also exchange shares for having the controlling stake in the other company. When I was in the US, a company had used this strategy. It grew from a company worth a few hundred million USD into a conglomerate worth almost 20 billion USD within a few years.”

“What happens next?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked.

“Next? That company becomes bankrupt.” Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders.

Zhang Ruiqiang: “…….”

Zhao Guoliang is confused. The solution you are telling us is from a bankrupt company?!

“There are several reasons why that company went bust. Firstly, they want to become the world’s biggest company using this strategy. Before that, they are already one of the top three companies internationally. It is a miracle for them to achieve this result within a few years. The second reason is their management had made a mistake. They tried to complete it in one step and expanded beyond their abilities. They wasted their resources and did not receive the returns they should have gotten, resulting in cash flow issues. The third reason is they fabricated their financial report, and I got my men to expose them. Investors start to dump their shares, and their shares crashed.”

Zhao Guoliang thought to himself. You are using a company that went bankrupt because of you as an example?! Manager Feng doesn’t seem reliable.

“Putting these three main reasons aside, this company’s expansion model can be considered a classic because they didn’t spend any cash every time they expand. They either issue new shares or exchange shares for expansion. They did not buy out other companies completely. They only get the controlling stake of those companies, and it’s enough.”

“One thing we must take note of is we are not going to take over or monopolize the entire market. That’s why we will not face suppression, and we must not fabricate our accounts and financial reports. This is taboo for listed companies, and the company might bankrupt if anyone finds out.”

“Manager Feng, why can’t we think of taking over the entire market? I heard from the Leader that we would not acquire Qingdao Beer, Beijing Beer, etc. Why?”

“This is because these two companies are the best-selling beers in China previously. They are not only doing well in China, but they are also selling well overseas. Also, many State-level investment companies had invested in these two companies. Simply put it. These two companies don’t lack money, and they will ask for a ridiculous amount of money if we are going to acquire them. Even if we exchange shares, they will demand an astronomical number of shares from us. They will never allow us to owe the controlling stake. Most importantly, the higher-ups will interfere.”

Zhao Guoliang thought about it and nodded. If Qingdao Beer wants to merge with Bing City Beer, he will also stop them.

“There is another important reason. Such expansion will increase the company’s debts. It is not good for a company to have a high debt ratio, as the company might become bankrupt if they encounter cashflow issues.”

WorldCom has borrowed money to invest and borrow again to continue with their expansion. They might have expanded, but they don’t any cash in hand.

Although cash might not be necessary for a company’s growth, it is impossible to grow without cash.

“Then how should we expand? Start acquiring from the South to the North, and increase our issued shares?” Zhang Ruiqiang asked for more details.

“Why should we expand from the south to the North? We should target those bigger breweries and acquire them. Beidacang can continue to inject funds into Bing City Beer, and you all can get loans. Of course, issuing shares is the easiest way to raise funds, but you all should not issue shares blindly.”

“When you all are going to issue shares, let me have some private placement, or I can help you all find buyers. I believe many people will be interested in Bing City Beer’s expansion. You all must remember to be fast when you are acquiring other breweries, and don’t give them time to negotiate with other companies. This will raise the prices.”

“Try to buy out the brewery entirely if possible. If not, get the controlling stake. Even if you all cannot get the controlling stake, some shares will be fine, but they must agree to produce Bing City Beer. This way, Bing City Beer will be available in all provinces, and we will become the most famous beer with the most distribution channels.”

“Talking about sales distribution channels, you all can speak to Zhong Qingxian. I think if you allow Tai Hua Holdings to invest in Bing City Beer, Tai Hua Holdings will not mind sharing their beverage sales channels with you all. We have the best beverage sales channel in China, and no other companies can compete with us. With TV and online advertisements, Bing City Beer will become the most well-known beer brand in China.”

Zhang Ruiqiang looks at Zhao Guoliang. They could see the decision in each other’s eyes. They must write a detailed proposal and start Bing City Beer’s expansion as soon as possible.

Chapter 1302 – Beer Festival’s opening

Two days later, Bing City Beer Festival started.

Feng Yu and Li Na sat in the limousine as the car drives forward.

“I had said I would be fine in the car. There is an air conditioner here, and you can see the opening ceremony. There are fireworks show at night. Can we go back after that?”

Li Na has anticipation in her eyes. “Can?”

“Is it alright, Doctor Li?”

“It’s alright with me watching over her. Furthermore, your wife is very healthy. Just let her rest for a while in the afternoon.”

Feng Yu’s parents are worried when Feng Yu and Li Na are going out. So, Feng Yu brought along a confinement nurse. But his parents are still worried and asked Feng Yu’s Sister, Feng Danying, to send an obstetrician from her hospital.

They are more concerned about Li Na’s safety than Feng Yu.

Bing City’s Mayor stood on the stage to give the opening address. Since this is Bing City’s Beer Festival and is named after Bing City, the Bing City Government leader should give the opening address. Zhang Ruiqiang will be giving the closing address as the Provincial Government has also contributed.

The opening ceremony is specular. Other than floats, and parades, there is even a beer fountain!

Of course, the beer in the fountain is not fresh, but written-off beer. With some adjustments by the technicians, the color and smell are almost the same as fresh beer.

The City had wanted to use real beer but gave up on this idea after Feng Yu warned them.

Feng Yu told the City Government that if they used real beer, it would be wasteful. With the internet getting more developed now, Bing City will be attacked by the netizens. People might even call for a boycott on Bing City Beer.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Bing City Beer Festival had used real beer once and was scolded by Netizens. Bing City Beer Festival becomes more well-known because of this incident, but negatively!

This beer festival is more than just exhibiting beers. It includes cultural performances, food festivals, travel exhibitions, car shows, Beidacang’s agriculture product fair, clothing sales, real estate sales, alcohol culture exchanges, etc.

Feng Yu suggest this to Zhang Ruiqiang. This event should be limited to beer. The City Government should use this opportunity to make it into a carnival with many programs. This will increase the leisure activity of Bing City’s residents.

Bing City Government takes up Feng Yu’s suggestions and turns this beer festival into a carnival. They even held a beauty pageant, and the winner will star in Bing City Beer’s TV advertisement.

Bing City’s residents participated in the pageant, and it has attracted many models from other provinces. This is a rare opportunity, and several movie stars started from TV commercials. Who knows, they might become the next movie star?!

Furthermore, Bing City Beer will be hiring several celebrities for endorsements. If any of the celebrities gave those models a hand, they might have an opportunity.

Ten years ago, Bing City’s girls were wearing skirts covering their knees. But now, all of them are willing to participate in beauty pageants. People’s mentality changes fast.

Many well-known singers and dancers are invited to perform in the opening ceremony, and the programs are exciting. The audiences are more excited than attending some popular singers’ concerts.

After all, most concert venues are around ten to twenty thousand people. It cannot be compared to this open ceremony.

Also, the organizers had invited some overseas dancers and singers to perform. The songs sound like French or German, and Feng Yu doesn’t understand a word.

But there is a bizarre phenomenon in China now. The more they don’t understand, the more people like it. These few foreigners received louder applause than the top Chinese singers.

Feng Yu could not recognize any one of these singers. This means that these few people are not popular singers as Feng Yu has not seen them in both lives.

Not only the youngsters like these performances. Even the older generation also likes it. Li Na explains to Feng Yu that those elder folks are joining in for the fun of it. After all, they seldom get to see foreigners performing.

Those older folks didn’t like these songs and couldn’t even remember the tune. But these foreigners’ performances are quite suitable to liven the crowd.

More than 70 beer brands with over 200 products are participating in this festival. The City Government is quite creative this time. There are promotions for different brands every day for them to raise their brand awareness.

Of course, this is not free, and the brands need to pay. Some major Chinese breweries and overseas brands had participated in the bidding. The revenue from this covered a large portion of the expenses.

This Beer festival carnival includes many other exhibitions, and the exhibition booths are rented out. The charges are not low, and Zhang Ruiqiang learned this from Feng Yu. When Feng Yu organized the China electronics consumer products exhibition, Zhang Ruiqiang saw that the bigger the event, the easier it can make money.

Why did many cities want to hold such exhibitions? This is not only to promote the city, but it is also to generate income.

Other than the vendors, the visitor volume also hit record-high.

The tourists will not only visit the beer festival. They will also visit Bing City’s famous Northeast tiger sanctuary and other attractions, stimulating Bing City’s tourism industry.

Also, these tourists need lodgings and food. The F&B and hotel industry can benefit from it and bring in high income for Bing City Government. Even the transport, venues, etc., will generate high returns for the city.

The previous beer festivals are not so grand and have a minimum impact on the city. But this year, the economic benefits will be much higher than last year and will be greater in the future.

Feng Yu is quite impressed with Old Zhang’s intelligence. He had raised Bing City Beer Festival to a state-level beer festival, which is a political achievement.

With the experience from this beer festival, the ice festival during winter will be very grand.

Zhang Ruiqiang had not only developed industries, agriculture, and business. He has also developed the tourism industry. He is a qualified and good leader and had kept to his words to let Longjiang residents get better lives!

At night, when Feng Yu and Li Na are watching the fireworks, Bing City Beer’s Chairman received a special guest.

Chapter 1303 – Joint Venture

“Feng Yu, do you know about a company called Busch? I heard they own the world’s biggest brewery.”

Feng Yu was about to sleep when he received Zhang Ruiqiang’s phone call. He looks at the clock. It’s almost midnight, and Old Zhang is still so energetic.

“Busch? Are you talking about the company that produces Budweiser?” Feng Yu thought for a while and replied. The world’s biggest beer brand now is Budweiser.

“That’s right. It is this company.”

“I have heard about it. What’s wrong? Aren’t they one of the overseas brands participating in our beer festival?” Feng Yu is puzzled. Why is Old Zhang asking him about this company?

“Their representative had just look for our Bing City Beer’s Chairman, saying they want to invest in Bing City Beer.”

What? Does Budweiser want to invest in Bing City Beer?

Feng Yu suddenly remembers Budweiser had acquired Bing City Beer in his previous life. Besides the person-in-charge of Bing City Beer, who owns less than 1% shares, Budweiser owns more than 99% of Bing City Beer. A state-owned enterprise had become a private company.

“What did they say? How much are they going to invest?”

“Huh? You also think we should let them invest?” Zhang Ruiqiang is anxious.

Bing City Beer’s Chairman and the City felt it’s alright to accept their investment. Beidacang and Bing City are still the controlling shareholders.

Currently, Beidacang is the biggest shareholder of Bing City Beer, and Bing City is a shareholder. If Bing City wants to sell its shares to Budweiser, the Provincial Government and Beidacang cannot stop them. Bing City can choose not to follow the Provincial Government as it is a Municipality with Independent Planning Status.

“I am only asking how much they are offering, and I still don’t know what is going on. Furthermore, do you know what time is it now? Can’t you call me tomorrow?” Feng Yu yawned.

Zhang Ruiqiang noticed it is quite late now. After Beidacang’s boss reported to him, he had thought about this for a while and forgotten the time when he called Feng Yu.

The next day, Feng Yu went to Zhang Ruiqiang after breakfast. This is also his first time going to Old Zhang’s new office.

“Eh? You changed your secretary?” It was not Xiao Liu who prepared tea for Feng Yu, and the person brewing tea doesn’t know about his taste. Why are there so few tea leaves?!

“No. Xiao Liu had gone out to do some work for me.”

Feng Yu shook his head. “You all are so much better than me. You have a group of secretaries working for you.”

Zhang Ruiqiang is speechless. “You are the one who brings a group of bodyguards with you! Also, who tells you that I have a group of secretaries working for me? That is the secretariat division!”

“I know about secretariat division. Why must you be so loud?” Feng Yu rolled his eyes and crossed his legs. “Alright. What is going on with Bing City Beer?”

Zhang Ruiqiang told Feng Yu what happened and looks at him, hoping for a reply.

“It’s normal for the City to have this thought. Also, Budweiser had made a good offer, and they are the biggest brewery and distributor in the world. They have the best technologies. Of course, the pure draft beer we developed is quite good and has received raving reviews. But everyone’s taste is different, and we can increase the variety. It will be beneficial to Bing City Beer.”

“Are you saying that we can agree? Are you agreeing to Bing City selling their shares or letting Budweiser invest?” Zhang Ruiqiang frowned. If Feng Yu says they can agree, that means it will be commercially viable. But how should they do this?

“It’s not worth to sell the shares. Bing City Beer’s profits are quite good and will get better in the future. How can we sell the shares? We can discuss letting them invest, but Bing City Beer must own Budweiser’s shares. We must exchange shares.”

“Exchange shares? Err… will Budweiser agree?”

“See… you got the wrong attitude. They are the ones who want to invest in our Bing City Beer, and we are not the ones who needed the investment. So what if they are the biggest brewery in the world? Their market share in China is behind Bing City Beer, right? We are the market leaders in the three northeastern provinces, right? Also, beer sales are much higher in the three northeast provinces compared to the coastal regions.”

“Another thing to note. Budweiser wants the Chinese market, and they need an old beer company as their partner. Our Bing City Beer is China’s oldest brewery and first Chinese beer brand. Even Qingdao and Beijing Beer are our juniors.”

“Budweiser only has a factory in Jiang City (Olden name for Wuhan). Among all the beer brands in China, Budweiser is not selling well. Carlsberg and Heineken are more popular than Budweiser in pubs and clubs. There are also many foreign brands with breweries in China. Some of them are shareholders of more than a dozen breweries in China. Budweiser is nothing in China now.”

Feng Yu shook his head. How come when people get scared when they hear the best in the world? It still boils down to the market. In China, Budweiser is not even at the top!

Feng Yu had asked his men to prepare all this information last night. They understood the market after reading his email in the morning.

“But Budweiser is much bigger than us. It will be disadvantageous to us if we exchange shares.” Zhang Ruiqiang replied.

“That’s right. Their brand value is much higher than Bing City Beer’s total assets, and our brand is not fully developed. But we can use cash. Each party will take out 10%, and we will top up with cash.”

“But where can we get the cash? Wait! Are you thinking of getting involved?” Zhang Ruiqiang finally understood why Feng Yu had come to his office so early today.

“What’s right? If the Provincial Government or the City can continue to invest with cash, I can stay out of it.”

Feng Yu had only asked his men to look into the Beer market. Still, Kameda Masao thought Feng Yu wants to invest in Budweiser and felt it is worth investing in.

Feng Yu thought for a while and felt it’s alright to invest too. He remembered Budweiser would merge with InBev to become a giant MNC brewer. The returns will be high regardless of him holding on to the shares or selling them then.

“How about I help you all with the negotiations? I believe the other party will give up on the idea of acquiring Bing City Beer. Also, it will be beneficial to Budweiser with my investment, and they will be more ready to accept it. After all, my name is worth a lot. If I invest in Budweiser, their shares will shoot up, and their shareholders will profit from that!”

Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV

Sub-provincial division

Chapter 1304 – Many benefits of a cooperation

Budweiser’s Asia President, Schneider, had come to Bing City Beer to negotiate. They had done their research, and Bing City Beer is the market leader in the Northeast. They are also the oldest beer brand in China. If they can acquire Bing City Beer, they can easily take over the Chinese market.

Controlling the Chinese market is equivalent to controlling the whole Southeast Asia market. This will be advantageous for their sales in Asia.

Budweiser planned to get a stake in Bing City Beer and then slowly acquire them. Their target is full ownership or at least own the controlling shares.

Budweiser has strong financial backing and should have no problem acquiring a brewery worth around three to four hundred million USD.

Schneider was enjoying his coffee in the meeting room when a few men entered. How come there is a young man among them? Is he a translator? But why is the translator walking in front, and Bing City Beer’s Chairman seems to be looking at him respectfully? Is he not a translator?

Feng Yu sat opposite Schneider, who is in his fifties and is slightly plump. He looks gentle and friendly but has sharp eyes.

“Are you Schneider? Budweiser’s representative for this negotiation?”

Schneider is unhappy as he felt this young man is rude and arrogant. Other than addressing his name directly, his tone is also unpleasant.

“Zheng, who is this? What is his position?” Schneider looks at Bing City Beer’s Chairman, Zheng Jiawei.

“Let me introduce myself. This is Feng Yu. He is also going to invest in Bing City Beer. I believe I don’t need further introductions as you should have heard of him.”

Feng Yu? Who is that? Schneider was about to ask when he remembered this name. Feng Yu? The World’s Richest Man?

There are rumors that the World’s Richest Man is in his thirties and comes from China, Bing City. This guy must be him. No wonder he sounds so arrogant.

Schneider quickly stood up and extended his hand. “I didn’t expect to meet you here. Sorry for not recognizing you earlier.”

Feng Yu shook Schneider’s hand. “Stop with the greetings. You want Budweiser to enter into a cooperation with Bing City Beer, right? I will tell you my conditions and see if you all can accept them. First, this cooperation between Budweiser and Bing City Beer will be strategic alliance cooperation. Both parties will exchange 10% shares. We will also exchange techniques, sales channels, management, branding, production, and other cooperation.”

Schneider is confused. “Mr. Feng, I don’t mean to be disrespectful. But swapping shares is unfair. Budweiser’s market value is almost 12 billion USD, and Bing City Beer’s value is less than 400 million USD. Our value is 30 times more than you all, and how are we going to exchange shares?”

“Simple. I will use cash to top up the difference. Tai Hua Holdings will make up for the differences. It’s only around 1 billion USD.” Feng Yu replied casually as if 1 billion USD is 10 USD.

Schneider is speechless. To the World’s Richest Man, 1 billion USD is nothing. He had heard Feng Yu’s Wind and Rain Consulting in Hong Kong owns tens of billion USD worth of futures and shares and has tens of billion USD reserves.

“Mr. Feng, we are here to discuss Budweiser’s investment into Bing City Beer, and we have no intentions of letting others invest in our company. We are the world’s biggest brewery and have the world’s top brand, Budweiser. Our profits…”

“Your shares had fallen 22% last year and 19% the year before. Bing City Beer’s share prices had increased by 31% and 17% the year before. This shows that investors are not confident of Budweiser and choose to dump your shares during the financial crisis. But our Bing City Beer is different. During that financial crisis, most people still hold on and buy our shares.” Feng Yu interrupts Schneider’s boasting.

What profits? Budweiser’s sales had been declining in North America over the past two years. This is also the reason why they want to enter the Asia market to increase their profits.

Schneider is slightly embarrassed. He did not expect Feng Yu to be so prepared and got all the figures. But all these are not secret, and he is facing Feng Yu.

“Mr. Feng, although our share prices have fallen, our profits and sales had increased. So, we have no intentions to sell our shares.”

“Yes. Your profits and sales are increasing, but the growth rate has slowed, and the profit margin is falling. All these are the truth, and you should know what will happen to your company’s shares after I invest in you all. Whatever shares Buffett buys, that company’s share price will shoot up. This is because of his and the investors’ trust in him. Who do you think investors will trust? Buffett or me? Most of the people’s assets on <Forbes> list had shrunk in the past two years, and I am the only person whose assets have increased.”

Schneider thought for a while. If Feng Yu invested in Budweiser, it would be beneficial to all the shareholders and investors.

“I also own the best beverage sales channel network in China and Asia. Even Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s combined sales in China cannot be compared to one of my subsidiaries. If we swap shares, I can let Budweiser and Bing City Beer reach out to every Province in China. You all will need to invest a sum of money and at least three years to achieve this.”

“Mr. Feng, are you a shareholder of Bing City Beer? I thought Beidacang and Bing City Government are the only shareholders of Bing City Beer.

“I am a shareholder of Beidacang. Also, Bing City Beer is going to issue shares and acquire other breweries in China. I have the priority for private placement.”

Schneider finally understands what is going on. Feng Yu is closely related to Bing City Beer, but he doesn’t dare to decide. This can only be decided by the Board of Directors or even the shareholders!

“Mr. Feng, can we stop the negotiations temporarily? I need to report to my headquarters first and wait for their decision.”

“Then you better hurry up. Budweiser is not the only overseas brewery that wants to cooperate with us. Heineken also wants to work with us.” Feng Yu hinted.

“Sure… sure…” Schneider knew Budweiser’s sales in China would be seriously affected if Bing City Beer and Heineken cooperate. They might even be kicked out of the Chinese market.

Chapter 1305 – Beverage Empire

Feng Yu’s decision to invest in Budweiser is not a rash decision. Budweiser is the biggest brewery in North America and is currently the no. 1 brewery globally. But beer prices still have not risen, and the profits are not as high as before his rebirth.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, AB InBev is the world’s beer market leader. They own 20% of the global market share, and their profits reached 40%!

That means they had increased the whole beer industry’s profits, which is the advantage of being a market leader. Other breweries will not oppose them as no one will reject higher profits.

Most importantly, Budweiser owns a powerful sales distribution network in the West. They might be a brewery, but they are also one of the world’s top consumer products companies.

Their company focuses on the consumers and profits from its sales. Budweiser is also one of the giants in the beverage industry. Although they cannot be compared to Coca-Cola and Pepsi, they are still top beverage companies.

The beverage alliance had reached a plateau, and Feng Yu is unhappy about it. They still have not opened up the market entirely, and they should be growing.

There is still room for growth in the domestic market. The Beverage Alliance had taken over the cities, but they can still expand into the villages. Who says villagers don’t like to drink beverages? Who says villagers must be poor?

Other than the overseas supermarket chains’ channel opened up by Feng Yu initially, the Beverage Alliance is not successful in opening up new channels.

Budweiser is experienced in alcohol and beverages sales and has good sales channels. Once Feng Yu invest in Budweiser successfully, he can open up a better sales channel for the Beverage Alliance.

Budweiser is currently the top beer brand in the world. Their parent company, Anheuser-Busch, owns the second amusement park in the US and America’s biggest cold-beer chain. They are also the second-biggest producer of cans in North America.

Canned drinks are popular in amusement parks, and canned drinks do not only include beer. There are other beverages available.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Anheuser-Busch was acquired by InBev. But why can’t Feng Yu acquire this company in this life? With Budweiser’s technologies and brand, and better sales network and market, they might be the ones who acquire InBev instead.

Feng Yu would be overjoyed if he can acquire the world’s top beer brand. A smaller company can acquire a bigger company.

…….

“Manager Feng, did Budweiser agree to let you invest?” Zhong Qingxian asked excitedly.

Lehaha and Jianlibao will benefit greatly if Feng Yu can get a stake in Budweiser. Suppose they can get Budweiser’s sales channels and advanced sales and management experiences. In that case, Lehaha can easily become Asia’s top beverage producer.

“If Budweiser’s shareholders are not stupid, they will agree to let me invest. The pros outweigh the cons. Also, they are not suffering any losses from my offer. Once we cooperate with Heineken or Carlsberg, Budweiser will lose the Chinese market completely. They might even lose the whole Asia market. They cannot afford these losses.”

More importantly, Feng Yu is not asking for a lot of shares. 10% shares will not affect the company’s operation. But he will get a place on the Board of Directors.

“Manager Feng, I remember you do not like foreign brands to enter the Chinese market. Why do you want to enter into a cooperation with Budweiser this time? Is it because of our Lehaha and Jianlibao?” Zhong Qingxian is puzzled.

“This is only temporary cooperation, and it is beneficial to us. Also, with Budweiser’s technologies, Bing City Beer can improve its quality. But it will not be easy for Budweiser to do well in China. Don’t forget that people from different countries have different tastebuds. Budweiser can do well in North America, but Heineken and Carlsberg are selling better than them in Europe. Even in China, other foreign brands are selling better.”

“Budweiser’s biggest competitors are Carlsberg and Heineken. Our Bing City Beer and other traditional breweries will not be affected much. They are targeting the high-end market, and other breweries are targeting other segments. We can target the high-end market, but Budweiser doesn’t know how to produce ordinary beer.”

Zhong Qingxian’s eyes brighten up. That’s right. Although Budweiser’s sales will increase after entering into a cooperation with Bing City Beer, both companies’ competitors are different. Bing City Beer can also enter into Budweiser’s market, but Budweiser cannot do the same to Bing City Beer.

“There are several good breweries in Malaysia, Korea, and Japan, and we can use Budweiser’s brand to start joint ventures with them. Once all these breweries fall into our hands, our market share will be massive. We can also make use of these joint ventures to acquire Budweiser’s shares. If Budweiser becomes one of our subsidiaries in the future, we can earn those foreigners’ money.”

Zhong Qingxian did not expect Feng Yu wants to acquire Budweiser. That is the no. 1 brewery in the world. But Budweiser’s market value is not high, and Feng Yu can easily afford to do this.

But Zhong Qingxian felt it would not be easy to acquire Budweiser.

“Manager Feng, is it possible?”

“It will be impossible if you don’t even dare to think about it. I will increase my Budweiser’s shares slowly, and we will gain control over them when I become the major shareholder!”

Even if Feng Yu cannot acquire Budweiser, he can still buy the shares from other shareholders. Budweiser’s share prices are not high currently, and many shareholders will agree if he increases his offer slightly.

The most difficult part is Budweiser’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch.

It will be boring without some difficulties. Furthermore, Feng Yu’s assets will increase if one of his internet companies got listed in the future. If two or three of his companies got listed, Feng Yu would have the funds to acquire Anheuser-Busch easily!

Anheuser-Busch, including Budweiser, is only worth around 20 billion USD currently.

“Manager Feng, from what you mentioned, it seems Bing City Beer will benefit greatly from this deal.” Zhong Qingxian frowned.

“That’s why I asked you to acquire other breweries. After we acquired them, we can merge with Bing City Beer to get more shares.”

Feng Yu will not help Bing City Beer for free. If they want to expand, they must acquire other breweries. Tai Hua Holdings can increase its Bing City Beer’s shares through mergers.

Tai Hua Holdings also owns Beidacang’s shares, and their influence over Bing City Beer will increase.

Feng Yu’s beverage empire dream is not too far.

Chapter 1306 – Busch’s Representative

Feng Yu’s men will do all the work after giving out the orders, and Schneider had informed Budweiser’s headquarters about Feng Yu’s conditions.

As Feng Yu expected, his name is worth a lot.

If Feng Yu owns Budweiser’s shares, the share prices will surely shoot up. Also, Feng Yu can help Budweiser increase its market share in China quickly and help them become the no.1 foreign beer in China.

Currently, the top beer in China is Snow. It is a joint venture between CR Snow and South African Breweries. Both companies have invested over 12 billion HKD over the years, and South African Breweries owns 49% of the company.

CR Snow has to share almost half of the profits with South African Breweries. South African Breweries had just merged with US’s Miller Brewing Company to form SABM. They quickly become the world’s second-biggest brewery.

China’s beer industry is taken over by joint venture companies and foreign companies, except for Qingdao Beer and Beijing Beer. Carlsberg, Heineken, and other breweries set up multiple factories in China and slowly increase their joint venture companies’ shares. In the end, they become the controlling shareholder.

The Chinese government had supported Qingdao and Beijing Beer. Although foreign investors managed to become shareholders, they do not own any voting shares. The major shareholder is still State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration.

SABM is a threat to Budweiser’s status in North America now. This company had increased its market share to more than 205. Of course, Budweiser is still the market leader in North America, with almost 50% of the market share.

But it is the opposite in China. Snow is expanding like crazy, and if Budweiser does nothing, they will lose the vast Chinese market forever. Heineken and Carlsberg have already started their moves in China, and they are Budweiser’s strongest competitors.

Being the world’s no. 1 beer brand has given Budweiser a significant advantage. The impact will be great if they lose this title.

Feng Yu’s conditions are not harsh, as he only wanted 10% of the shares and a director position. These are not an issue.

On the third day, Schneider appeared in front of Feng Yu with two Caucasians.

“Mr. Feng. This is our Budweiser’s President and CEO, Mar Andorf. This is one of the directors, Johnson Schmitz, from our parent company, Anheuser-Busch. They are representing Budweiser to discuss our cooperation.”

Schneider looks slightly disappointed as the company had sent two high-level executives to replace him in this negotiation. He thought he could get a promotion if he can complete the deal.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Feng.”

“Nice to meet you all too. Have a sit.” Feng Yu nodded as greetings and did not shake their hands.

Those two had not extended their hands for a handshake, and Feng Yu will not lower his status to offer a handshake.

Feng Yu has never heard of these two men in his previous life, which means they are nobodies. Maybe they have some assets, but they are nothing compared to him. He even thinks that Kameda Masao is doing better than them.

Andorf and Schmitz exchanged looks. The World’s Richest Man is not easy to get along with, and he did not even stand to receive them.

“Mr. Feng. We will not beat around the bush. Our Anheuser-Busch welcomes you to invest in Budweiser. It will be our honor to cooperate with you.”

Feng Yu nodded. All these pleasantries are not important. What’s important is the conditions.

Schmitz maintained his facial expression despite Feng Yu’s attitude. “Mr. Feng, Budweiser’s current market value is around 12 billion USD, and Bing City Beer’s market value is less than 400 million USD. We will be swapping 10% of our shares, including voting shares. You will pay the difference with cash, right?”

“I believe you understand that acquiring another company’s shares, the price will be slightly higher. Budweiser is currently doing well, and we will not accept the price based on the current market rate.” Andorf added.

“So?”

Feng Yu knew they would not agree to swap shares based on the current market rate. The shareholders will not get their dividends if they sell the shares, and they will want to get some returns if they are selling.

“We are not asking for a lot. 120 million USD, 10% of Bing City Beer shares, including voting shares, and a director position. We will offer 10% off Budweiser’s shares, including voting shares and a director position.”

This is a reason the price is less than a 4% increase from the market rate. But Feng Yu is not satisfied. He is more concerned about other conditions like sales channels, brewing techniques, etc.

“How are we going to split the sales, and what about our cooperation in other areas?” Feng Yu asked.

Schmitz knew Feng Yu could accept the prices he mentioned.

Their Board of Directors had discussed this pricing for two days.

Once they reveal the news of this cooperation, Budweiser’s share prices will sure shoot up. They also considered releasing the news now, and Feng Yu will have to pay more for the 10% shares.

But if they do that, this cooperation will fail, and it will severely affect Budweiser’s shares. They are also worried Bing City Beer will cooperate with Heineken, Carlsberg, or Snow, as it will stop Budweiser’s development in China.

“We have the strongest sales channels in North America and have lots of sales channels in Europe. We can share it with Bing City Beer. However, Bing City Beer’s sales channel in China is average. But one of your subsidiaries, Beverage Alliance, has the best distribution channel in China. We want you all to share it with us.”

“We can also sign an OEM contract to produce each other’s beer to lower our production and transportation cost,” Andorf replied.

“Since you all want our Beverage Alliance’s sales channel, then you all must also share your sales channels with Beverage Alliance. Also, we need new recipes. I hope this cooperation will not be limited to production and sales. We should also look into developing new beers together.” Feng Yu said.

Schmitz did not expect Feng Yu to ask for recipes. Budweiser’s recipe is confidential and must not be shared with others. Feng Yu is too greedy!

Chapter 1307 – Shocking news during the closing ceremony

The two weeks beer festival has come to an end, and today is the closing ceremony. After the closing ceremony, the exhibition halls and booths will be demolished.

Of course, the demolition and material costs have all been recovered.

Zhang Ruiqiang stood on the stage to give the closing speech. He thanked lots of people, companies, and departments who had contributed to this festival.

When everyone thought Zhang Ruiqiang’s speech is ending, he made an announcement. “There is another good news to announce today. Bing City Beer and Tai Hua Holdings will be swapping shares with Budweiser, and they will be cooperating on production, sales, technologies, management, and several other areas…”

Wa~~~~

All the breweries in the audience were stunned.

Bing City Beer will be cooperating with Budweiser? How are they going to cooperate, and what has Tai Hua Holdings got to do with it?

Many people among the audience quickly take out their mobile phones to contact their headquarters. They must inform their company immediately.

Bing City Beer is China’s first brewery and the market leader of the three Provinces in the Northeast. The other is the world’s no.1 brewery.

This cooperation will change China’s beer industry.

Snow’s representative quickly reported this information to his company. Snow must speed up their expansion. They are not afraid of Budweiser, but everything changed when Tai Hua Holding is involved.

That is Feng Yu’s company, and they have strong financial backing. If they decided to expand, they would be Snow’s direct competitors.

Feng Yu is too scary, and no one has ever heard he had failed to acquire any company. Also, none of his investments had failed. Bing City Beer is going to succeed!

Qingdao Beer’s representative had also relayed the news back. They had planned to enter the Northeastern market as the three northeast Provinces have the highest beer consumption in China. Just look at the number of breweries there. Almost every city has a brewery.

If Bing City Beer is cooperating with Budweiser, then they will become much stronger. It will not be easy to enter the northeastern markets. Qingdao Beer must relook into their strategies and make changes.

Beijing Beer is the most worried. Bing City Beer is already the market leader in the Northeast, and Snow is expanding from Shenyang towards the north. Qingdao Beer has also entered the Beijing market, and Beijing Beer is facing the highest threat.

Once Bing City Beer starts to expand towards the south, Beijing will be the first to be targeted.

Beijing Beer’s market is only in one Province and two cities. If so many breweries are entering their turf, it will be hard for them to maintain their market share, and they might not survive.

Overseas beer brands’ representatives from Heineken, Carlsberg, Singha, etc., are also troubled. They had been suppressing Budweiser in the Chinese market, and it will be impossible after this cooperation is formed.

But they are not very worried as Bing City Beer’s positioning is different from them, especially Heineken and Carlsberg, who are targeting the high-end market.

Those foreign breweries, who planned to set up factories in China, are also troubled. China already has lots of top foreign beer brands, and Budweiser is cooperating with China’s oldest brewery. Heineken and Carlsberg will surely implement measures against Budweiser.

Mortals will suffer when the gods fight. These small breweries are in trouble.

Regardless of branding, popularity, or funds, they are way behind these few international top breweries. If they also enter the war, they will be the first to die.

But this cooperation gave these foreign breweries an idea. They can also seek cooperation with Chinese breweries. They just need to work with a Province’s market leader and slowly expand from there. With their experience, it should not be a problem to secure a province market.

On the day the announcement was made, Bing City Beer’s share prices shot up by 7%, and at night, which is US’s day time, Budweiser’s share prices raised by 5%.

Almost all investors felt the cooperation between these two breweries would benefit both parties.

Everyone is curious about the conditions in this cooperation.

The next day, both companies suspended trading because of their cooperation.

Other foreign breweries also started to contact the Chinese beer brands. But they realized Tai Hua Holdings has already invested or own the controlling stake in several breweries.

Although the shares are not swapped, the agreement had been signed, and Tai Hua Holdings has prepared the funds.

Everyone realized that they could not stop Bing City Beer and Budweiser from expanding in China after Tai Hua Holdings got involved.

…….

“Feng Yu, you are quite fast.” Zhang Ruiqiang laughed.

“If I am slower, I will need to use more funds. If those breweries know we will expand, they will raise their demands, and Snow will also compete. When that happens, we will have to spend much more.” Feng Yu explains.

“Let me remind you that the annual production of top global breweries is at least millions of tons.”

Zhang Ruiqiang gave Feng Yu an unhappy stare. “Can’t you let me be happy for a while more?”

“Alright. Just treat it as I have not said anything.”

Zhang Ruiqiang: “……” You had said it!

“Oh, do Beidacang and Bing City Government object to Bing City Beer’s plan to issue new shares?” Feng Yu asked.

“No. This is an opportunity to expand, and they will not miss it. The private placement we promised you is also not a problem.”

“Good. After getting the shares of these few breweries, Bing City Beer’s assets should double. We will be exporting our beer to western countries and other regions. Our Bing City Beer is going to be famous worldwide. Oh, have you all decided about letting Bing City Beer becoming one of the sponsors for the 2008 Olympic Games? It will be great for beer sales and marketing.”

“I had informed my men. But you had raised the benchmark for sponsorship, and we need to spend a lot more. “Zhang Ruiqiang grumbled.

“The money will still go to our country, and those foreign companies need to spend more for the sponsorship. This will greatly benefit us. Alright. I need to hurry home. My wife is due soon.”

Chapter 1308 – I am not doing this business

Li Na had successfully given birth to a pair of healthy twins, and when Feng Yu was accompanying her at home, he received a call from Ralph telling him a VIP wants to meet him.

This person might not have a high net worth, but his family is powerful and influential in the US. Although they are not as powerful as the Bush family, they control a few States in the US.

Do not think that the US election system is more advanced. If you look carefully at the nominated candidates, they are all supported by their families. Two members of the Bush family had become the President, and there might be a third one in the future.

Many other families are like the Bush Family. Their family members will become the State Governors, Congressmen, etc. Every few terms and the US electoral system represent the interests of the rich.

The US citizens might have voted in the elections, but as long as the candidates can offer some benefits to the poor, they can win their votes. The campaign fund is not much different from buying votes.

No matter which candidate the poor chooses, it will still represent the rich, and the poor only have limited benefits.

The US boasts of having an adequate healthcare system, but why is their healthcare system so expensive? Their health insurance doesn’t cover all many medical conditions, and their private hospital charges are much higher than in China. They also claim that anyone can hire lawyers to fight for their rights, but the lawyer fees are astronomically high. Legal aid and Community legal clinics? Forget about it. They can only help in minor cases and will lose in bigger cases.

Look at the rich. Even if they had committed crimes, they could hire a legal team to drag it out and remain out of bail.

The person who wanted to meet Feng Yu is a member of such families and represents his generation. He is also a senator.

Feng Yu asked Ralph what does this Senator wants, and Ralph stuttered and could not answer him. He just said it’s inconvenient to say it over the phone and hope Feng Yu can come to the US. After all, it is inconvenient for the Senator to appear in China.

…….

“Ralph, how did you know Senator Sanders?”

Ralph quickly explained. “Boss, I had only met him twice before. He had come to me to raise funds for his campaign, but I did not agree, as you mentioned, that we will not get involved in politics. He doesn’t even want to meet Chairman Kameda and specifically ask to see you for business.

This guy doesn’t even want to meet Kameda Masao?

Feng Yu frowned. This seems to be an issue as Feng Yu had gave Kameda Masao high authority, and he can make most of the decisions in Wind and Rain Holdings.

Kameda Masao is the CEO and Chairman of Wind and Rain Holdings, and this Senator doesn’t even want to speak to him?! Could it be he wants to invest in Wind and Rain Holdings?

If he wants to invest, then Kameda Masao is not the right person to speak to. Why can’t he discuss this business over the phone?

“What business is it? Have you informed Kameda Masao?” Feng Yu is unhappy.

Feng Yu had appointed Kameda Masao to be the Wind and Rain Holdings’ Chairman and CEO. Although Ralph had worked for Feng Yu for some time, he is still not as capable as Kameda.

Is Ralph thinking of replacing Kameda Masao?

“Boss, I had reported to Chairman Kameda, and he also cannot decide. Amazon is going to be listed, and he is very busy now.” Ralph doesn’t want to lose Feng Yu’s trust.

Those that Feng Yu trusted are doing well with high salaries and authority. Ralph might not be fired if he loses Feng Yu’s trust, but his dream of taking over Kameda Masao will be over.

“Even Kameda cannot decide? Is he thinking of investing into the Wind and Rain Holdings?”

“Boss, how did you come to this conclusion? Every businessman knows our company does not allow anyone to invest because we have unlimited potential. Once Amazon is listed, our company’s value will increase by billions, and not many can afford this price. We still have not included other subsidiaries with high potential.” Ralph replied.

Although Ralph is exaggerating, most of it is true. Feng Yu will surely not sell Wind and Rain Holdings’ shares if the other party uses cash. But he might consider if someone is using JPMorgan Chase’s shares to swap.

“Boss, the other party wants to buy equipment. Military equipment from China!”

Huh?!

Does someone want to buy firearms from me?! No wonder this is not suitable to be discussed over the phone.

Feng Yu is stunned. Why do these people think he has access to these things? He has never gotten involved in such business. Does Senator Sanders think that he has a relationship with the Chinese military because he is China’s richest man?

China has been selling some firearms, but those are small firearms. The ones with bigger firepower are restricted and cannot be sold.

Feng Yu will not know even if China did sell powerful weapons as this has nothing to do with him. He is not in the firearms trade!

That’s right. Many tycoons in the US are in the arms trade. Still, Feng Yu is not interested despite this business is one of the most lucrative businesses.

This business does not require high capital, and Feng Yu has enough funds for it. He does not even need to spend 100 million to acquire some small factories to produce firearms.

Feng Yu is not someone who claimed he wants peace and not war. He believes that war is still necessary against certain people. For example, those terrorists!

Feng Yu does not want to enter into this business because of the high risks.

Since Feng Yu can make money from other businesses, why should he touch the firearms trade?

“Ralph, I might not have told you about this in the past. But I want you to remember this. Our company will not do weaponry business!” Feng Yu replied sternly.

“Boss, this is a good opportunity to get connected with Senator Sanders and will benefit our business. His family is quite influential in the House.” Ralph explained.

“No need. If we want to look for partners, then we should be speaking to the President directly!”

“I understand. I will reply to Senator Sanders now.”

Chapter 1309 – Big business

Ralph hangs up the phone and looks at Feng Yu embarrassedly. “Boss, Senator Sanders says he is in New York and wishes to speak to you. He is on his way over and will be arriving soon.

Feng Yu is very unhappy. Sanders is arriving soon means he had received information when Feng Yu’s private jet touchdown at the airport.

They are monitoring my movements!

Feng Yu decided that he must teach this Sanders a lesson!

“Fine. I will wait for him here and see how he is going to convince me.”

Less than ten minutes later, the security guards downstairs reported that Mr. Sanders had arrived.

Ralph saw Feng Yu nodded and asked the security guards to let him enter.

Sanders is very excited. He is going to meet the World’s Richest Man and have connections to China through him. This will be great for his political career.

The XXX family has a strong influence within the House because they have ties with Moscow.

Sanders even felt that if Feng Yu is willing to support his campaign with funds, he might even run for the President next term!

Sanders had sent his men to watch the airport closely, and when Feng Yu’s plane requested to land in New York, he rushed to the Wind and Rain Empire State Building.

If it wasn’t for some issues on the road, Sanders should arrive around the same time as Feng Yu.

But it’s not too late now. Sanders felt he had shown enough sincerity. China needs to build a good diplomatic relationship with the US now, and Feng Yu has lots of investments in the US. It will be a win-win situation for them if they can cooperate.

“Sir, please stand here and stop moving. We need to conduct a body search to ensure our Boss’s safety.”

Sanders is mad. “Do you all know who I am!? how dare you all want to search me?!”

He is a Senator! How can these people do this to him?!

“I’m sorry, but we have to protect our hirer. Please don’t make things difficult for us. We are from the Blackwater Company!”

Blackwater claimed to be the world’s top private security company globally and has businesses all over the world. Although such claims are exaggerated, this company owns planes and tanks.

Sanders might be a Senator, but the Blackwater Security Officers are not afraid of him because of their company’s background!

“I want to speak to you, Boss.” Sanders took a step back. He doesn’t want to clash with these crazy men from Blackwater Security. Everyone knows that they will only listen to their hirers!

“Sir, I will repeat to you again. Let us search you, and we will let you enter, or you can leave now. We will escort you down. This is private property, and we have the right to remove you, even if you are the US President!” The Security team leader firmly replied.

Sanders’s face turned red, and he knows his two bodyguards are no match for them.

Sanders raised his arms and allowed the Blackwater officers to search him. This is an insult! Feng Yu’s bodyguards searched him thoroughly.

Sanders felt like shouting to them. Do you think I can hide a gun in my ass?! I also don’t have any reason to attack Feng Yu. Even if we didn’t reach a deal, we could still be friends. Do you all need to treat me this way?!

Sanders’s bodyguards are stopped outside as Feng Yu is only willing to meet him. Only Feng Yu’s bodyguards are allowed in his office.

Feng Yu and Ralph were in Feng Yu’s office when Sanders entered, and Feng Yu is listening to music and enjoying freshly brewed tea.

“Mr. Feng…”

“Shh….” Ralph gestured to Sanders to keep quiet.

Sanders is stunned. What is the meaning of this? Does he need to wait until Feng Yu finishes listening to this song? Also, these two men were treating him as someone invisible and did not even offer him a seat.

But Sanders wants to befriend Feng Yu and chose to tolerate this.

When Feng Yu is listening to the song, he is also observing Sanders. He is quite surprised to see Sanders did not lose his temper and did not sit down.

It’s hard to deal with someone who knows when to yield and when not.

After the song ended, Feng Yu stopped the music player with a remote. “You are Mr. Sanders?”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Feng. My name is Ray Sanders. I am a Senator and also a businessman.

“You say you want to discuss firearms business with me?”

Sanders could tell Feng Yu is not interested in this business from his expression and had heard about it from Ralph during their phone call.

“Mr. Feng, I know many people don’t like to touch this business, but I only need you to introduce China’s representative to us. Also, we are not going to buy China’s top military equipment. We only want to buy the ordinary and consumable items.”

Sanders saw Feng Yu frowning and continued. “The US is in a war now, but we are not purchasing China’s weapons and equipment for the US military, and the US government is not involved in this business. Wars are happening around the world. For example, many countries in Africa have been in war for years, and guns, bullets, and bulletproof vests are in high demand in the world.”

“US, Russia, and a few European countries’ guns are the most popular. Although I am not willing to admit it, AK is the world’s best-selling gun. But now, most of the AKs are not produced by Russia or other former Soviet Union countries. It’s those Arabic countries that are producing. China’s bullets are the most popular as they are famous for being cheap and stable. But your country doesn’t have any arms dealer, and it’s the Chinese government and military controlling them.”

“Among the bulletproof vests, the most popular lightweight vests are produced by China too. You all have sold to some countries, but most of it ended up in Africa and other warzones, and the prices had tripled there!”

“Feng, think about the profits in this business. Even if we include the shipping and high production costs, our profits will be more than 100%! We can also reach some political agreements to get the local government to protect our citizens there.”

“Of course, China’s grenades and other equipment are also very popular, but it’s hard to get them. Mr. Feng, you might not be interested in this business, but are you sure your country is not interested?”

Feng Yu did not expect China’s military products to be so popular despite having a weak military and R&D.

Sanders is right. Feng Yu is not sure if the higher-ups are interested in this deal. After all, Feng Yu had heard from Bing City Aviation’s Old Hou that China is also thinking of selling military equipment to make money. The money earned will be used to research and develop newer weapons. But the Western counties had monopolized this market.

Should I inform the higher-ups about this?

Chapter 1310 – Don’t get involved

Sanders said a lot, and Feng Yu couldn’t remember everything. But he sounded very professional, and Feng Yu only remember some of China’s consumable military products are very popular around the world.

“Mr. Sanders, I understand what you are talking about. But I am curious, since the profits are so high, why should I let my country cooperate with you?”

If businessmen don’t lack funds, they will not tell others the secret of how they make money. Even to their business partners, they will not reveal everything.

“Mr. Feng, I think you might have misunderstood me. I know what you are trying to ask. You are saying that you all can do without me and get all the profits. But let me remind you one thing. Sales channel.”

“You are a successful businessman and can be considered the most successful businessman in the world. You should understand the importance of sales channels. One of my partners is a famous company, and I think you should have heard of them. Colt!”

Colt!”

Feng Yu has heard of them. Although he is not a military enthusiastic, he had heard of this name. Many people even claim Colt represents all revolver and handguns.

This might be exaggerated, but it showed Colt’s status in the industry.

Also, this firearms manufacturer has over one hundred years of history and is renown around the world. Feng Yu also heard this company is a supplier of the US army.

Of course, these western firearms manufacturers are not only supplying their weapons to the government. For example, the Blackwater Security and African and many countries’ warlords had also bought lots of weapons from them.

Weapons are like machines. Once the production reaches a certain scale, the cost will be lowered. At the same time, the profits will also increase. Feng Yu had heard these firearms manufacturers support the Bush family, and wars are beneficial to them.

If Sanders and the Colt family have a good relationship, then they should be good sales channels. This also means he might be on the same side as the Bush family. Of course, these are only Feng Yu’s guesses.

“Sanders, what can you do even if you are the Boss of the Colt Company? You had just told me that much of China’s equipment are popular around the world. If I have the supply, I will not worry about the sales, right? Even without your help, many people will be willing to work with us.”

“Mr. Feng, I can tell you have never been involved in this industry. If you want these products to sell well, there must be warzones. It is risky for our representatives to negotiate in these regions.”

“A successful businessman can bring the weapons to the clients in the shortest time. Since you have hired Blackwater Security as your bodyguards, you should know many of them are formerly international mercenaries. Not many people can supply and sell our equipment to these people.”

“Also, you have not realized that China’s products are not common outside because you all have difficulties selling them. This is not in line with what your country’s claim to be a pacifist…”

Sanders continued to persuade Feng Yu confidently. This has nothing to do with whether a country is a pacifist or not. It has to do with the Western countries blocking others from buying equipment from China.

If not, China can become the world’s biggest supplier of ammunition. Their other durable and cheaper products will affect these companies’ profits too.

China has not thought of selling initially, but they realized they could not sell later.

Feng Yu extended his hand to stop Sanders. “Mr. Sanders, I understand what you are thinking. You are saying that we cannot sell our ammunition and equipment without you all, right? If we want to make money, we must work with you.”

“Yes. This will be a win-win situation for us.” Sanders replied proudly.

Feng Yu leans back on the sofa. “Ralph! Send him out!” After knowing what Sanders is trying to say, he doesn’t want to speak to him anymore.

Sanders’ face changed. What’s going on? Their conversation had been going smoothly, and why did Feng Yu change his attitude suddenly?

“Mr. Ralph, what does Mr. Feng mean by this? I still have not talked about the prices.”

Ralph looked at Sanders and shook his head. “Mr. Sanders, our Boss, has never given in to others. You are too overbearing earlier, and I think he will not work with you. You should know about the former World’s Richest Man, Bill Gates, right? He had fallen out with our Boss, and his net worth shrunk after that.”

“I know you are a Senator, but when Bush is running for the Presidency, my Boss said Bush would win. Do you think he doesn’t have friends in the US?”

Sanders had come here proudly but left with disappointment.

That’s right. How can the World’s Richest Man don’t have friends in politics? Is this deal off, and there’s no possibility to work with him? Also, what Ralph said earlier sounded like a threat, and he is very worried.

Feng Yu took out his satellite phone and called Hou Haitao. “Old Hou, I’m Feng Yu.”

“Oh, Manager Feng. Why are you calling a newly retired old man?”

“Hahaha…. I am not calling you to chat. It’s about this…”

After Feng Yu finished, Hou Haitao said. “Manager Feng, even someone like you who is not in this trade knows about this. Do you think the higher-ups will not think of it?”

That’s right. If he can think of this, someone from the higher-ups should have thought about it. Maybe Feng Yu and that Sanders are unaware that someone is already working on it.

Feng Yu laughed. “Seems like I worried for nothing.”

“No. Your information is still very useful to the higher-ups. This means our products had threatened their interest.”

Although Hou Haitao had retired, he had just retired recently. He might not be holding a high rank, but these are not top secret.

Although China does not export lots of military products, they export lots of products under police equipment.

Also, China is currently contacting these sales channels actively. China has not been involved in war for many years, and their obsolete equipment can be sold to other countries.

“Manager Feng, you don’t need to be involved in this.”

Chapter 1311 – If you are not interested, I will do it

Feng Yu does not know and doesn’t want to know what China will do, as he is not interested in this business.

Feng Yu is not interested, but that does not mean others are not interested.

“Feng, I heard a Senator had come to look for you and was searched thoroughly by your bodyguards,” Kirilenko asked excitedly.

“That’s right. I wanted to teach him a lesson.” Feng Yu replied.

Kirilenko laughed. “That’s right. We must teach these people a lesson! He thinks he is someone important just because he is a Senator?! Maybe we cannot bring down his family, but we can easily let his family replace him. Most families do not have only one successor.”

“Alright. Let’s not talk about that clown. Amazon is going to be listed, and have they talk to you about private placement?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes. I will buy regardless of the price. I know Amazon’s shares will surely shoot up like a rocket without you telling me.”

Feng Yu is curious. Kirilenko is a noob in finance, and how can he be so sure?

“Why are you so sure? If Amazon’s share prices did not shoot up, and your returns are not as much as your investments in gold, you will lose a lot.” Feng Yu asked.

“Hahaha… Feng, are you belittling me? I don’t know about others, but my team told me that Amazon’s users had increased a lot and had started making profits two years ago. At that time, eBay is still losing money. Moreover, you are this company’s major shareholder. Do you think the share prices will fall? We can also pull up the share prices. Most importantly, I trust you, and I know you will never let me down.”

Feng Yu laughed. “That’s right. Amazon requires the fund to continue its expansion and needs to be a listed company to increase its influence. A company that is worth a few billion USD might not be noticeable. But if they are worth over a hundred billion USD, their sales will also increase.”

The bigger a company, the more it can attract customers. This is because most people will think bigger companies are more stable. For example, suppose a big developer develops two houses with the same size, designs, at the same location, and prices. Still, one of them is developed by a small company. In that case, most people will pick the one built by the big developer.

The more well-known a company is, the more customers it can attract.

Now, Amazon has reached the stage where they need to expand quickly, and they needed funds. The easiest way to raise funds is to get listed. Anyway, Feng Yu is holding on to most voting shares and still has control over the company. After the company is listed for a while, Feng Yu can also liquidate some of his non-voting shares.

It’s just like that time when Softbank invested in Yahoo. They used 100 million to buy a third of its shares and sold 2% for 400 million USD later. The rest are all profits.

Feng Yu will also do the same to recover his investments by selling some of his non-voting shares.

Most importantly, Feng Yu knew the US stock markets’ down period ended, and some large institutions started to acquire shares now. When Amazon gets listed now, it will catch on to the wave, and share prices will continue to rise.

Whether Feng Yu decided to sell or hold his shares, he will still profit from it.

After Amazon got listed, Feng Yu’s assets will still be much more than Bill Gates even if Microsoft’s share prices recovered. Bill Gates will be behind him forever!

Another advantage of Amazon getting listed and the stock market recovery is that Feng Yu’s Chinese internet companies will be listed in Hong Kong next year. They can raise more funds.

It’s not easy for a delisted company to raise funds by getting listed again. But it will be different if the investors felt tech stocks would rise again.

Why did Feng Yu pick Hong Kong? It is safer, and he can react quickly if anyone tries to manipulate these companies’ shares.

“Alright. I must admit that your analysis is right, and I think you will move up a few spots next year.”

Just eBay’s shares can increase Kirilenko’s net worth by a lot, and that does not include his investments in gold and gold futures. The Polar Bear Mineral Company’s value is increasing.

“Feng, will my net worth exceed Bill Gates in the future?”

“I believe you will surely exceed him!”

With Kirilenko’s eBay shares, his net worth will increase by a lot. During the 2008 financial crisis, they can stir up a storm in the US financial markets and profit from it. His net worth can easily exceed Bill Gates to Become World’s Second Richest man.

Yes. He can only become second and can never exceed Feng Yu.

Kirilenko laughed. “Hahaha… The US Richest Man will be a Chinese and a Russian! Oh, I heard you had invested in a Minsheng bank in China. Can I also invest?”

Feng Yu shook his head. “Sorry, Brother Ki. You cannot invest in this bank. A few Chinese businessmen and I set this up, but we can work together with you.”

“It’s fine. I will invest in other banks. I only felt that it is safer to invest in your bank.” Kirilenko replied. He has researched about Minsheng bank, and it is not making money yet. They are not doing as well as other Chinese banks and the leading international banks.

Kirilenko and Feng Yu had dinner together and started talking about Sanders again.

“Sanders wants to do firearms business with me, but I am not interested. What is he thinking? Why did he come to me to talk about this business? I can easily make money from other businesses. Why should I get involved in this risky industry?” Feng Yu laughed.

Kirilenko is stunned. “Feng, what business did Sanders want to do with you?! Firearms?!”

“Yes. He says he is very close with the Colt family and wants to buy some ammunition and other perishable equipment. But I am lazy to verify his claims.”

“You are not interested in this business? The profits are very high.”

“How high can it be? You will know the returns from the financial market is much higher once Amazon is listed.”

“Feng, are you not interested in this business?” Kirilenko asked again.

“No. What’s wrong?”

“Feng, you are not interested, but I am!” Kirilenko replied seriously.

It’s been a while since Feng Yu saw Kirilenko so seriously. But the profits from this business are not attractive, and the risks are too high. It’s not worth it.

“Brother Ki, have you considered this properly? The profits might seem to be high, but it is nothing compared to the returns from the financial markets.”

“Feng, there are reasons why I must do this business. I want to contact Sanders tomorrow.”

Is it because of Kirilenko’s family? Feng Yu does not know the reason, but he didn’t ask.

“Go ahead, but I suggest you better get someone to represent you and don’t let yourself get involve too deep.”

Chapter 1312 – Huh? Aircraft carrier’s technologies?!

Feng Yu thought since China has its considerations about weapons, he does not need to worry about it anymore. But he received a call from Hou Haitao.

“Manager Feng, why are you still awake at this time?”

“Old Hou, what’s wrong? Did the higher management mention anything?” The time zone in Beijing and New York is very different. It’s night in New York and morning in Beijing.

“Are you talking about that matter? Nothing has changed. The higher-ups had their considerations, and the US had belittled us. Do they think they can block us from this trade? Many countries in the world don’t care about the US.” Hou Haitao replied.

That’s right. The US claims to have the world’s no.1 military, but why are they still under attack? Also, why didn’t the US win their current war after so long?

The US might not even win against Russia now.

“Then why are you calling me now?”

Feng Yu does not think Hou Haitao is calling him to chat, as they are that close to call each other so often.

“Manager Feng, I remember you are close to a Russian, who is Europe’s Richest Man. We had bought the aircraft technical drawings from him in the past, right?”

“Are you talking about Kirilenko? That’s right. We are good friends and are partners in many of our businesses. He is the one who helped me get my first pot of gold.” Feng Yu recalls the time when he sold the bear to Kirilenko.

Brother Ki should know that he had spent more for that bear, but he did not mention it even after becoming partners.

Even if Feng Yu told Kirilenko that the bear fur is only worth 100 Rubles, he would also laugh it off. Although Feng Yu had taken advantage of him then, he had made much more with Feng Yu’s help.

“Manager Feng, is Kirilenko’s that man’s son?” Hou Haitao mentioned Kirilenko’s father’s name.

“That’s right. What’s wrong?” China and Russia’s relationship had improved recently, and there should be no tensions. Why is Hou Haitao asking about this?

“Will Kirilenko’s father listen to him? I heard he has another son who is doing quite well.”

“Old Hou, go straight to the point. Are you thinking of asking Kirilenko for help or his father?”

“Kirilenko might not help in this matter, but he is suitable to be the middleman. You should have heard that our country had just bought an obsolete aircraft carrier from that Macau businessman, who had wanted to turn it into a floating casino.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Everyone can tell that was just a front. Do they think he is an idiot to believe these lies?

Does a floating casino need to be so big? Also, why did they sell it to the Chinese Military at the same purchase price? That was four years ago, and even if they don’t include inflation, they should also include the interests.

That’s right. This empty hulk might be old, but it’s a bit of a problem for them to sell it. Furthermore, the original price is only a front, and China had paid much lesser than that.

But the Casino King had benefited from it. The Chinese government had wanted to introduce a law forbidding Chinese nationals to gamble in Macau as it is still considered part of China. But now, they did not bring it up again.

This deal had protected that Casino King’s casinos and also gained recognition from the higher-ups. After all, without his help, China will never get that aircraft carrier’s hulk.

China had tried to buy aircraft carriers in the past. The first aircraft carrier’s hulk they bought is an obsolete carrier from the UK, and they dismantled it once they got it.

The other two they bought are two former Soviet Union Kiev-class aircraft carriers. They arrived in China in 1998 and 2000 after much difficulty. But these two carriers are not refurbished.

These two carriers have heavy firepower and are a combination of cruiser and aircraft carrier. It also has anti-aircraft carrier missiles.

But the biggest issue with these two carriers is it needs the original carrier-based aircraft. The runways on these two carriers are too short because of their firepower, and China’s carrier-based aircraft cannot fly from it. In the end, they are dismantled after using it for training purposes a few times.

It was until China bought an aircraft carrier, Varyag, that can meet their demands. But they met lots of issues to get it.

This Varyag belonged to Ukraine originally, and Ukraine had reached a deal with China to sell it to them.

But the US intervened. If Ukraine doesn’t want to be sanctioned, all the weapons and equipment must be removed, leaving only the hulk.

Even if it’s the hulk, China still wants it for research purposes. But during transportation, the US stopped it again.

Turkey, which wanted to join NATO, had denied permission to pass through their waters and delayed it for more than one and a half years.

To get the hulk back, China spent more than 30 million USD, and the price of it is only 20 million USD. The transportation cost more than the hulk!

But Feng Yu knows this hulk will help China a lot. China can build its aircraft carrier is because of this hulk.

“Old Hou, isn’t that aircraft carrier brought back to China? Is the government still going to buy another one? I can sponsor some money if they want.” Feng Yu said generously. An aircraft carrier without any weapons only costs tens of million USD, and it is nothing to him!

“No., Manager Feng, I think you did not get it. We are not going to buy new carriers, and we need to learn the technology behind them. We still lack the technologies in this area. For example, the weapons and equipment which was removed from the carrier.”

Feng Yu is shocked. “Old Hou, are you asking me to buy these weapons and equipment technologies? You all think too highly of me. Those are weapons for aircraft carriers!”

Feng Yu had bought many technologies and equipment from the former Soviet Union in the past, but those are unimportant technologies. Even Kirilenko doesn’t dare to sell those important technologies.

It is more difficult now as Russia is under Putin. Those people who dare to do anything for money had either retired, migrated, or arrested. It’s hard to bribe those Russians now.

“Manager Feng, if it’s easy, why would I call you? Furthermore, Kirilenko’s family is very powerful. Even if we cannot get the weapon and equipment technologies, we can also buy the aircraft carrier’s basic technologies. This will save us a lot of time. Manager Feng, can you try asking for the sake of our country?”

Try? Feng Yu is troubled.

Chapter 1313 – This is not easy

Feng Yu agreed to consider it, but he is hesitating.

Feng Yu can donate a few billion USD to the country, but they might not develop the technologies they require.

Without these technologies, China’s military will forever be second-class. Many people say China’s Navy can only be considered third-class and can never be the strongest in Asia.

Other than Japan, Singapore, and many Asian countries’ Navy is stronger than China. This is sad for a big country.

So what if China has the strongest ground forces in the world? Unless they are fighting their neighbors, the Navy will be the main fighting force, followed by the air force. Ground forces are in the last position. Also, the aircraft carrier can bring their air force to their enemies’ doorstep.

China only has the biggest ground forces in terms of numbers. Their equipment is still second-class.

Since World War 1, a strong Navy represents a powerful country. If not, you will only wait for others can attack you, and you cannot retaliate by attacking their countries.

This saying disappeared since intercontinental missiles appeared. But intercontinental missiles are the same as nuclear weapons and are considered strategic offensive weapons. It will not be used easily, or else the US will not take such a long time against Afghanistan. They can send their intercontinental missiles over.

If China’s Navy is improved, it will be a significant upgrade to its military. When China is stronger, Feng Yu’s business will be better. How many super tycoons can small countries produce?

TV and movies have always shown the same scenarios. Americans will always shout “I am an American!” whenever they are in trouble overseas.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the Chinese have always been decimated until China grew stronger.

Feng Yu hopes that day will come earlier, even though he is the World’s Richest Man and many people started to respect China.

Feng Yu represents Chinese businessmen and China’s economy. But this is not enough. If China’s military is not strong enough, its economic development will be affected.

For example, the US can often sanction other countries is because they have a stronger military.

There is a joke going around. The US can attack whoever they want, and Russia will attack whoever attacked them.  The UK will attack whoever the US attacks, and China is the one whom everyone can attack.

This is not true. The US will also not dare to declare war on China because they know China will never start a war.

China’s current policy is not to get involved in wars and concentrate on building their economy to raise the living standards for their people.

The former Soviet Union has a strong military, but its people are starving. That type of life is much worse than now. Filling the stomach should be the priority before anything else.

That’s why China’s economy can grow so fast in the past few years. With money, the government can spend more on its military development and research. Suppose they only focus on military developments even when they have no money. In that case, they might follow the former Soviet Union’s footsteps.

The Soviet Union was dissolved in the end. Although China is not a federation, if its economy crash, it can forget about building a strong nation!

It would be best if China can develop its economy and military at the same time.

The best solution is to get the advanced technologies and learn from them. This is better than starting from zero.

Once China’s military is stronger and can reach Russia’s level, the US will not provoke them again.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, China became the world’s second-biggest economy. It will be faster in this life with his help, and they might even become the world’s biggest economy.

When that happens, it will not be China and Russia working together against the US. It will be Russia and China suppressing the US!

China’s status in Asia will also change! They will suppress Japan, India, and Korea.

Feng Yu thought for a while. Buying the technologies from Russia might bring troubles to Kirilenko. But what if he can get it from Ukraine and Belarus?

These two countries had inherited lots of technologies from the former Soviet Union. But their economies are not doing well because they are poor! China’s aircraft carrier is bought from Ukraine.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin and felt he might get some technologies from these two countries, but he needs a middleman. He is unsure if Brother Ki is willing to help.

…….

“What? Feng, did I hear it correctly? You want to buy aircraft carrier’s technologies, and it includes the hull, engine, and weapons?” Kirilenko jumped up in shock.

Kirilenko had just negotiated about a firearms deal and felt he is putting himself at risk. But compared to Feng Yu, his deal is nothing.

“Have a seat. Why are you so excited? You are the one who said this is a good business.”

“I am talking about selling guns and ammunition. I don’t even plan to sell heavy firearms. You are the one who skipped planes and tanks to aircraft carriers. Wait… are you representing China?” Kirilenko suddenly realizes Feng Yu must be doing this for his country because those technologies are useless.

Feng Yu nodded as he has nothing to hide. He is going to buy those technologies to donate to his country.

“That’s right. I am planning to buy some technologies to donate to my country. You should know that our Chinese Navy is too weak. Can you help?”

Kirilenko is troubled. “Feng, this is out of my league. I can’t help you.”

Kirilenko wants to help Feng Yu, but… this is beyond him!

Feng Yu said the script he planned earlier. “Brother Ki, I don’t need to get it from Russia. Ukraine and Belarus have more advanced technologies than China too. Lithuania and some other countries are not doing well, and I happen to have some spare cash.”

“Are you thinking of getting it from these countries? This… I am not sure if it will work. Let me help you ask around. But these technologies will be more expensive than an aircraft carrier.”

The finished products have protective measures, and you will not get anything out of them even if you dismantle them. But the technical drawings, etc., will be more detailed than the actual item. Most importantly, much time will be saved from researching the actual item.

Feng Yu laughed. “No problem. I am not afraid of high prices!”

Chapter 1314 – Minsk

Feng Yu finally heard from Kirilenko after waiting for two days.

“Feng, do you have the time to go to Minsk with me?”

Feng Yu is overjoyed. This means there is a possibility of getting the technologies he wanted. Although this is not confirmed, it’s better than nothing.

“Yes. I can leave anytime.”

Feng Yu might consider again if he is going to Minsk alone. But with Kirilenko going with him, there shouldn’t be any safety issues.

Feng Yu told Hou Haitao about this and asked him to inform the higher-ups. He will try to speak to them, and if he can get it, he will pay for it and donate it to China.

Some people have a lack of identity towards their country, and some are the opposite. But the Chinese are a race, and no matter which country you are from, people will still see you as Chinese.

Feng Yu has a high sense of identity towards his country. When doing business, he prefers to deal with the Chinese. Of course, if the other party refuses to identify themselves as Chinese, then he will not give them any business.

This is a great opportunity. If Feng Yu succeed, the Chinese military will become more powerful. Just look at the Afghanistan war. Although the US does not have any airports there, they can use their carriers to launch air raids and support their ground troops.

Aircraft carriers are floating airports and are critical in modern warfare. If a country does not have any aircraft carriers, it will never be a superpower.

Even if China has nuclear weapons, it will be useless. No one dares to use it, and they can only use other military weapons and equipment to go against other countries. This is where their disadvantage lies.

…….

The plane landed. Feng Yu and Kirilenko walks out of Minsk airport.

A Bentley limousine is parked outside the airport. A young man alighted from it and ran to Kirilenko with open arms.

Feng Yu is surprised because that young man is younger than him.

Kirilenko and that young man hugged and introduced him to Feng Yu. “Feng, this is Alexander, which I was telling you. Alexander, this is the World’s Richest Man, which you had always wanted to meet. Feng Yu.”

Feng Yu extended his hand for a handshake, but Alexander pulled him over and hugged him.

Luckily, Alexander is around Feng Yu’s size, and his hug is not as strong as Brother Ki’s.

“Kirilenko, Feng, please get on board.”

Feng Yu looked at the interior of the Bentley and noticed it is an older model. This is not as comfortable as Songjiang’s limousine.

This guy’s net worth should be much lesser than Brother Ki. This is not surprising as Ukraine’s economy is much better than Belarus.

This is the former Soviet Union’s third country, and they will not even enter the world’s top 50 countries. When the Soviet Union dissolved, Belarus had gotten much lesser benefits compared to Ukraine.

“Feng, try this alcohol. This is China’s imported Huangjiu. The alcohol content is very low, and I heard you don’t like to drink high alcohol content drinks.”

Feng Yu smiled and took a sip. The alcohol content is very low and should be around the same alcohol content as red wine. But Feng Yu stopped after one sip.

Feng Yu does not like to drink before any business negotiations. Smart businessmen must be alert at all times. Those that drink and sign contracts are not up to standard.

“Not bad. It’s rare to taste my country’s wine overseas. Thanks.”

“Hahaha… Feng, you are just like what Kirilenko said. You will not take big gulps of wine. Don’t worry about this. I will not laugh at you.”

Feng Yu looks at Kirilenko. Why should I be laughed at when I don’t like to drink?

“Alexander, you are quite impressive to get to where you are at your age.”

“Feng, stop mocking me. I am nothing when compared to you. Also, I got my father’s support, unlike you. I heard from Kirilenko that you had started from scratch.”

Alexander is also a second-generation in Belarus. He can be friends with Kirilenko means his father must also be a high-ranking official in Belarus.

But Feng Yu does not know a lot about Belarus. If not, he can guess who his father or grandfather is.

“Alexander, you don’t need to say this. We had been working well all this while, right?” Kirilenko laughed.

“Of course. If you had not asked me to set up the supermarket chain with you, I would not have my fortune now.”

Feng Yu did not know that Alexander is Polar Bear Supermarket Group’s partner.

Kirilenko can choose this person to be his partner means his family is influential in Belarus.

All of Kirilenko’s partners in the former Soviet Union countries have strong and influential backgrounds.

“Feng was the one who suggested the supermarket business. China’s biggest supermarket chain, which is also the world’s fourth-biggest supermarket chain, is set up by him.” Kirilenko laughed.

Even though the Tai Hua Supermarket Group had become the world’s fourth-biggest supermarket chain, its assets are still far from the top supermarket chains. If the supermarket chains are ranked according to their assets only, they will not even enter the top ten.

But if they compare their market size, Tai Hua Supermarket is ranked third, behind Walmart and Carrefour. They also have stronger potential than the first and second.

“Of course, I must thank Feng. According to your Chinese customs, I must host a banquet to welcome you. I had made arrangements to let you try our Minsk cuisine. It is a Chinese tradition to drink in banquets, right?”

Feng Yu’s face changed. Is this Alexander an alcoholic like Kirilenko?

Minsk

Huangjiu

Chapter 1315 – Big Appetite

Feng Yu had tried Soviet Union cuisine a long time ago. Although Minsk is different from Moscow, there is not much difference.

Furthermore, Feng Yu is not here for a holiday or food. He is here to buy some aircraft carrier technologies to repay his country.

Most importantly, Alexander kept toasting Feng Yu during dinner. Although he doesn’t mind Feng Yu taking a sip every time they toast, Feng Yu still feels uncomfortable.

“Alexander, this food is delicious. Thank you. Let’s start with our business negotiation.” Feng Yu is worried Alexander had arranged other programs.

Alexander is glad that Feng Yu is so anxious. This means he can charge Feng Yu a higher price.

“Of course. Let’s go to my study room to discuss it.”

The three of them walked to Alexander’s study, and his helpers closed the door behind them after serving them tea.

“Feng, Kirilenko told me that you are interested in our Belarus’s shipbuilding technologies.”

Feng Yu nodded. “That’s right. I am very interested, and I plan to build a shipyard. That’s why I want to purchase some shipbuilding technologies.”

All three know that shipyard is only an excuse as no shipyard requires the technologies to build an aircraft carrier.

“I happen to have these technologies. I think you should know that you will not get these technologies from Russia since Kirilenko brought you to see me.”

Alexander tells Feng Yu that since you all can’t get it in other places except me, it will be more expensive.

Feng Yu is prepared. He knows he cannot save on this, but he doesn’t mind spending a bit more.

“That’s why we are here to meet you. I heard you have your ways.”

Alexander proudly replied. “Not only I have ways. I can surely get it!”

“Great. What technologies can you get?” Feng Yu asked.

The former Soviet Union’s military shipbuilding technologies are not bad. Still, Belarus had not developed more advanced technologies in recent years. This is because Belarus is not by the sea! Feng Yu wonders if these technologies are still the original technologies given to them from the Soviet Union.

China’s shipbuilding technologies had been improving these few years. Although they are still far from being the most advanced globally, they still made significant improvements.

Feng Yu does not want to pay a significant amount for some outdated technologies.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Russia had only kept an aircraft carrier. They can build new ones, but it’s too costly.

As China’s military spending increases, many of its technologies reached world-class standards. Other countries mocked China for spending a fortune on it, and their production cost of an aircraft carrier is doubled of the US.

The most advanced technologies are all developed from money. Sometimes, they might get a brilliant idea and save some of their research funds, but such scenarios are rare.

Luck is important in technology development, and the most common solution is to use the money to develop it.

Alexander asked Feng Yu back. “What type of technologies do you want?”

Feng Yu heard this and felt Alexander talks big. Are you sure you can get whatever I want?

The former Soviet Union owns many advanced aircraft carrier technologies that are still some of the most advanced technologies in the world now. After all, the Soviet Union had spent massively on their military in the past. Almost all the elites in the Soviet Union were deployed to develop new weapons and military technologies.

This is also the reason why the Soviet Union’s economy crash.

“I am interested in all technologies that are more advanced than ours, relating to aircraft carrier battle group.” Feng Yu replied.

Alexander’s eyes nearly pop out. “What did you say? You are interested in all aircraft carrier battle groups?!”

“It’s all the technologies that are more advanced than ours. Although Belarus owns many former Soviet Union technologies, most of them have not been improved, right? Not only do you all lack the talents to improve the technologies, but you all also lack the funds. Some of our China’s technologies are more developed than the former Soviet Union.”

The Soviet Union has been dissolved for more than a decade. China had spent massively and hire people from overseas to develop their technologies. It will be a problem if China has not made any improvements.

Alexander did not expect Feng Yu to have such a big appetite.

Feng Yu is interested in all aircraft carrier battle group’s technologies, and technologies cost more than the actual battle group.

This is why many countries are willing to sell advanced weaponry and not their technologies. One of them is wool, and the other is sheep. With a sheep, you can get unlimited wool.

All weapons will have measures to prevent you from using reverse engineering to protect the technology. For example, some core components will be destroyed when you dismantle them. That’s why the US is willing to sell some of their more advanced equipment.

“Feng, I need to remind you that you are buying the technologies and not the actual ships. Shipbuilding technologies are more expensive than the ships!” Alexander’s breathing becomes rapid, and he tried to control himself not to look too excited.

Feng Yu looks at Kirilenko. “Brother Ki, someone doubts my ability.”

Kirilenko looks at Alexander and laughs. “Don’t worry. Feng had more money than you can imagine. Also, I can be his guarantor. If he couldn’t pay up after you sold the technologies, come and look for me!”

Feng Yu is moved. “Thanks, Brother Ki.”

Kirilenko smiled and did not continue. From his understanding of Feng Yu, he knows Feng Yu is determined to get these technologies.

Feng Yu had told Kirilenko the importance of a good reputation more than once. One can create wealth with a good reputation, and no one will want to deal with you if you have a bad reputation.

Alexander noticed Kirilenko is closer to Feng Yu than he expected. He is even willing to be Feng Yu’s guarantor.

“Feng, you have a big appetite.”

“I always have big appetites. As long as I am satisfied with your technologies, I will give you a reasonable price for it!”

Alexander looks at Feng Yu and Kirilenko and knows they are not joking from their expression.

But Belarus’s economy is not doing well. If Alexander still cannot find ways to make money, it will be more troublesome in the future.

Alexander wants to see how big is Feng Yu’s appetite!

Chapter 1316 – Everyone is exhilarated

Alexander told Feng Yu that he needs to check the technologies he can sell and give him a checklist.

Belarus has plans to sell some technologies but did not find any buyers. It is not because their technologies are outdated. It is because of the sanctions from Russia and the US.

This time, Kirilenko had brought Feng Yu over, which means Russia had agreed to let them sell their technologies.

Feng Yu is also glad because he doesn’t know anything about these technologies. He needs to get someone who knows about all these to tell him which are worth buying.

That night, Feng Yu called Hou Haitao to get him to inform the higher-ups. It would be best if they can send a team of experts to prevent unnecessary spending. But the team of experts should not be a lot and must be confidential.

Hou Haitao immediately reported this to the higher-ups, and they called for a meeting at night.

“Xiao Hou, tell the rest what happened.”

Hou Haitao is in his sixties, but he can only be Xiao Hou in front of this Leader.

Hou Haitao said. “Leaders, I had just received information that Belarus is willing to sell all of their aircraft carrier battle group’s technologies to us. It is the aircraft carrier battle group and not just the aircraft carrier technologies!”

“Wait! Xiao Hou, how did you get this information?” Someone asked.

How come they are unaware of such important news, and Hou Haitao gets to know about it first?

“This information is not from our side. It is a patriot businessman who told me that, and I believe all of you have heard of him. He is Feng Yu.”

“Feng Yu? That World’s Richest Man?” Someone asked.

“Yes. Most of you might not know that I worked in Bing City Aviation before, and Feng Yu is from Bing City. I can get promoted because Bing City Aviation bought the more advanced aircraft technologies from the Soviet Union with Feng Yu’s help.”

“Those technologies had saved our aviation sector lots of research funds and time. You should know that our helicopter manufacturing technologies can reach world-class standards because of these technologies. We even exported some helicopters overseas last year.”

“Feng Yu is a patriot and has donated astronomical amount to the country annually. When we won the Olympics bid, his companies and he sponsored a large sum. Their sponsorship is the highest in history.”

“Most importantly, Feng Yu told me that he would be paying for all these technologies, and the country doesn’t need to pay anything!”

Wow….

All the generals gasped in shock. They can imagine how much those technologies will cost, and Feng Yu will be paying everything for the country!

It’s rare to find a businessman who is so patriotic.

“What did you say? Did Feng Yu say he is going to pay for everything?” The Leader sitting at the head of the table asked.

He also doesn’t know about this.

“This is what Feng Yu said. From my understanding of him, he will not let us pay a single cent unless he becomes bankrupt from this transaction!”

“Haha… if he can become bankrupt so easily, he will not become the World’s Richest Man with over 60 billion USD assets.” Someone laughed.

“General Lin, you have not to work in companies before. Assets and cash are different. He can own 60 billion USD assets, but that does not mean he has 60 billion USD cash. It’s just like our Bing City Aviation. We have high assets, but how much cash do we have? That’s why we must not think this is a small price for Feng Yu. Many companies had been bankrupted because of cashflow issues.” Hou Haitao spoke up for Feng Yu.

“Xiao Hou, we know Feng Yu will be paying a high price in this deal. But he is doing this for the country, and the country will not let him suffer any losses.” The Leader sitting at the head of the table said. “His companies are paying high taxes in China, right? I can speak to the higher-ups to give him some tax reliefs.”

Everyone in this meeting is smart. They know Feng Yu is willing to help the country now, which means he will help again in the future. They will not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

If they had done something to repay Feng Yu now, they would not worry that Feng Yu will not help them in the future. He might even increase his donations to the country. After all, he can’t finish spending his money for the next few generations.

Hou Haitao did not expect the leaders to do this for Feng Yu.

Everyone at the meeting also felt this is the right thing to do. All these will not be deducted from their military expenses. They do not know much about the economy, but they know money is required to increase their military power.

“Xiao Huo, who else knows about this?” Someone asked.

“No one. I had only reported this matter to you all.” Hou Haitao quickly replied.

“Good. This matter must be kept confidential, or the US or Russia will interfere. I will report this to the Premier. Lin Jianxin, form a team of experts and fly to Minsk. Feng Yu needs experts to verify the technologies. Yuan Xinwu set up a business delegation and let our expert team mixed among them to prevent suspicions.”

“Lastly, this matter must be kept among the few of us here. I don’t think you should blame me for punishing you all if news of this matter is leaked! Old Hou, we will remember your contributions.”

Hou Haitao suppressed his excitement. “Sir, I am only a messenger and had not done anything to deserve this. I also must contribute to the nation, and I don’t need any rewards!”

“Good! You are not greedy and not proud. The organization is lucky to have you, but we must still reward you. This reward will be given to you after the deal is completed. Now… let’s move!”

When one of the top leaders knows about this, he is also very excited. He did not expect a businessman to get the technologies that the country could not get.

The Chief Architect had not picked the wrong person. He had said Xiao Feng is a good comrade.

The top Leader immediately approved. “Agree. Do this as discretely as possible We must respect Feng Yu!”

Chapter 1317 – Business delegates

“Welcome Tai Hua Holdings business delegation to Minsk!”

Yuan Xinwu and ten engineers boarded Feng Yu’s private jet to fly to Minsk.

They are supposed to come as a team of business delegates, and they were troubled about how to do that. But Feng Yu told them that he would make the arrangements.

This business delegation visit is under Tai Hua Holdings. Their purpose is to look at Minsk’s light industries and trade. Also, Feng Yu is here personally, and it’s normal to receive a grand welcome.

Feng Yu’s title as the World’s Richest Man allows him to receive the grandest welcome in any country.

Feng Yu’s private jet can easily enter Belarus with Alexander’s help, and everyone, including Yuan Xinwu, used normal passports. All of their identities are confidential.

Tai Hua Holdings’ business delegation had saved them lots of troubles. They had wanted to use a state-owned enterprise as a front for them to fly to Belarus. But Feng Yu’s solution is much faster and easier.

Yuan Xinwu saw Feng Yu at the hotel.

“You must be Feng Yu. I am the team leader, and my name is Yuan Xinwu. You can call me Manager Yuan.” Yuan Xinwu extended both his hands for a handshake.

Feng Yu also extended both his hands for the handshake. “Nice to meet you, Manager Yuan. Have you instructed the rest of your members? They are here to help my company buy shipbuilding technologies, and all of them are engineers working for my company. They must forget their previous identities.”

“Don’t worry. They are all informed. The higher-ups had also instructed us to listen to you. We only hope to get as many useful technologies as possible. We are also willing to pay a portion of the cost.”

Feng Yu waved his hand. “Don’t worry about money. I can settle it. I can never finish spending my money, and it’s right for me to donate to the nation. We will work together, and I will do my best to get all technologies. But let me handle the business negotiation, and you all will handle the technical aspects.”

“No problem. We will do our best to coordinate with you.”

“Alright. Then let me tell you the current situation, and you should let me know your situation.”

“From what I understand, Belarus is not by the sea and does not own many Navy technologies. They don’t even have a Navy. Their Navy equipment technologies are from the former Soviet Union, and they have not been developing them. Their air force and army are more developed.”

“Of course, I don’t know much about the military, and I cannot verify this information. But I am sure Belarus had gotten the aircraft carrier battle group’s technologies from the former Soviet Union. I heard they had saved a copy of these technologies when they traded with Russia and Ukraine.”

“My contact person is from an influential family. His father is Belarus’s President and is planning to extend his presidency for the fourth term. To do that, he needs to do something for their economy. That’s why they wanted to trade with us as they need money, and I have money.”

Feng Yu did not expect Alexander to be the youngest son of Belarus’s President, and his father gave him this name.

Of course, Alexander’s full name is very long.

After knowing this information, Feng Yu understood why Alexander dares to say he can get whatever technologies he wanted. Feng Yu suspects that Alexander is representing his father to deal with him.

The senior Alexander is in his early fifties, and he kept a mustache like Hitler. Many people said this shows how overbearing the senior Alexander is.

Yuan Xinwu listened to Feng Yu and nodded. He added. “I will tell you a bit more about President Lukashenko. He is very authoritative and become the President when he was forty. He also opposed corruption and had even accused senior government officials, including the former Prime Minister, for corruption.”

“Wait… you are saying he is anti-corruption?” Feng Yu interrupted.

If that’s true, why would Alexander set up a company with Kirilenko?

“That’s right. He is anti-corruption, and he had changed the Belarus government. He can win the presidency with high votes is also because of this reason. What’s wrong?” Yuan Xinwu asked.

“Nothing. Please carry on.” Feng Yu decided to call Brother Ki to ask him about the Polar Bear Supermarket Group’s shares later.

Feng Yu thought Alexander loves money and he can use the money to entice him. He must change his strategy if Alexander does not like money.

“You are saying Lukashenko will win the third term? We had analyzed the situation and had come to the same conclusion. Belarus does not have anyone else who is as popular as him. The people will receive his policy of improving the economy and the people’s life.”

“But there’s one thing you might not know. Belarus has a bad reputation with many western countries, especially the US and those that restricted them from exporting their weapons. They claimed Belarus had sold weapons to those evil countries, like Afghanistan, and the US imposed sanctions on them because of human rights violations. But Lukashenko had denied all these claims.”

“In fact, we had already contacted Belarus, and we have over 200 million USD worth of trades. But the trades are mainly focused on minerals and light industries.”

“We have wanted to work with Belarus military. After all, Russia does not have much military cooperation with us and prefers to work with India.

The strategy of associating with distant countries and attack the nearby ones have been used since ancient times. If the US has not been targeting us, our relationship with Russia would have deteriorated a long time ago.”

“I had received a piece of information which I think is very important. The number of retirees had increased this year in Belarus, and their government requires a large amount of money. I think this is one of the reasons why Belarus wants to sell its technologies. There is other information which I can’t remember. But I had brought much information with me. You can take a look too.”

Feng Yu took the materials. “Alright. I will read it later. You should tell the rest to behave like business delegates and go out for site inspections tomorrow. Leave the rest to me.”

Alexander Lukashenko

Chapter 1318 – Making the best out of a bad situation

After leaving Yuan Xinwu, Feng Yu went to look for Kirilenko.

“Brother Ki, what is your relationship with Alexander?”

Kirilenko looks at Feng Yu puzzledly. “We are just business partners, and he is the President’s youngest son. What’s wrong with me partnering with him? Why should I look for others instead of him?”

“No. I mean, his father is anti-corruption, and how can he allow his son to do business? Furthermore, his son is one of the top tycoons in Belarus. This will have an impact on his father’s political career.” Feng Yu asked.

“Hahaha…. Feng, I think I had not made myself clear. Alexander’s company is a state-owned enterprise, and he is only the representative of this company. Oh, he is considered a leader now. Didn’t you notice that his house is not very big, and we are staying in a Government hotel?”

Huh?

Kirilenko is partnering with Belarus’s state-owned enterprise, and Alexander is only a representative? No wonder Alexander’s car and house are too lousy for a tycoon.

“Feng, many of our partners are state-owned enterprises. Of course, there are a lot more like Brother Ke. You should understand that the situation in different countries is different.”

Feng Yu replied. “I know. I was asking.”

Feng Yu realized that he must change his strategy. He had planned to give Alexander some money to lower the price of the technologies. But it seems this strategy will not work.

Feng Yu is not very confident in this negotiation as his team is not allowed to get involved. He can only negotiate this transaction himself, and it will be very tough.

Alexander will be bringing his team, and the ones from China are all engineers. Feng Yu even wonders if those engineers know how to evaluate how much those technologies are worth.

All these technologies and information are priceless to these engineers, but businessmen will evaluate them based on the prices.

Feng Yu regretted not asking the higher-ups to send at least two people who had participated in such negotiations as a reference.

Although Feng Yu does not mind the prices, he does not want to benefit others for no reason.

Even if he donates his money, he should donate to China and let his fellow countrymen benefit from it. Feng Yu doesn’t know why he is so narrow-minded, but he doesn’t want to change.

Yes. He will never change!

“Feng, I am only a middle man and will only introduce them to you. I hope you will understand that I will not get involved in this transaction.”

“Brother Ki, you don’t need to explain yourself. I am grateful to you for introducing him to me. Also, you know that I am willing to spend on the things I like and don’t mind spending more on it.”

Kirilenko kept quiet for a few seconds and looked at Feng Yu in his eyes. “Feng, I will inform my father about this transaction after you leave, and my father might report to his higher-ups. I hope you can understand.”

Feng Yu knew what Kirilenko mean. He must let the Russian Government know about this transaction, but it will be after the deal is completed.

Kirilenko is Russian, and Feng Yu understood him well. He is grateful for Kirilenko’s help and does not hide anything from him.

“Don’t worry, Brother Ki. Our relationship will only get better, and I believe the diplomatic relations between our countries will improve.”

China and Russia seldom have conflicts, and they will never go into war because of the US.

Of course, some minor clashes still happened once in a while and cannot be avoided.

…….

Feng Yu returned to his room to look at the materials given to him by Yuan Xinwu.

After reading for a while, Feng Yu put it down and started thinking about Alexander.

If it was like what he analyzed, Lukashenko needs money to continue his Presidency. Alexander might be representing him to sell these technologies.

No wonder Alexander agreed immediately when Kirilenko approached him. Feng Yu even suspects Lukashenko wanted to sell these technologies as Belarus is not by the sea and does not have a Navy. All these technologies are useless to them.

Belarus can stop their ships at other countries’ ports, but not warships. Although the former Soviet Union countries had been working together, their cooperation does not cover everything.

Furthermore, it is expensive to maintain a Navy force, and it will be a burden for a small country with a population of tens of millions. The country’s annual income is only a few billion USD.

Hong Kong’s income is several times more than Belarus, although the former’s population is much lower. Also, Hong Kong does not need to spend on the military, and their Government can spend more on their people.

Belarus is a developing country, and its people are not happy.

Lukashenko announced to his people that they would get retirement funds when they reached retirement age to get their support. He also increased the government spending in education, medical, cultural, etc., to gain supporters.

But all these require money.

Without money, these are all empty talk. If Lukashenko wants to win the next term, he must do something to let his people believe he can improve their lives.

Feng Yu suddenly remembered Yuan Xinwu telling him that China had spoken to Belarus a few times before. Then they must have talked about this before China bought that aircraft carrier from Ukraine. But China only got an empty aircraft carrier hulk without weapons.

Could it be Alexander agreed to negotiate with Feng Yu because he thought Feng Yu is representing China?

Feng Yu thought for a while and felt this is possible because no one will believe he will buy these technologies to donate to his country.

No tycoons in this world had done this before.

Since Alexander thought Feng Yu is representing China, then let them carry on. Feng Yu will make use of this misunderstanding in his favor in this negotiation.

Chapter 1319 – Poor and Unreasonable

Alexander gave Feng Yu a file when they meet. This file contains the name of the technologies they want to sell.

Feng Yu took the file and passed it to China’s expert team. He knows how to read but does not know what those technologies are from the names.

The experts gathered and started crossing out the technologies China already has. The ones China requires urgently are circled and ticked the others.

The circled ones must be bought, and the ones with the ticks are not very important. Those that are crossed out are not required. Of course, the best scenario is to get everything, and they can have another set of data as a reference.

Feng Yu looks at the document. There are around a dozen technologies that are circled and about a dozen with ticks. More than a few dozens are crossed out.

Feng Yu does not believe China’s technological development is so advanced. The circled technologies are the critical technologies, and the ones with ticks are not that important. For example, those are the technologies for other ships in the battle group.

Although the warships and the aircraft carrier are nuclear-powered, the technologies involved are still different.

It’s just like what the foreign media says. China might have the ability to build an aircraft carrier. Still, the construction cost is several times higher than in the US. The US can build one billion, but China needs to spend several billion USD on building one.

Also, China does not have experience in building aircraft carriers, and any mistakes will be costly.

“Are these the technologies you all need?” Feng Yu asked.

An older engineer passed Feng Yu a piece of paper with a few technologies written on it.

“Feng, this is the list of technologies we need and is not included in that document. They should have these technologies, but they did not include them in the list. They should be thinking of selling these technologies again in the future.”

Feng Yu raised his brows. He did not expect Alexander to do this. If he had not called the Chinese engineers over, he would be at a disadvantage.

If there are missing technologies, China cannot build its aircraft carrier, and Feng Yu will need to spend more money. Of course, Feng Yu might not need to pay for those missing technologies as China will think of ways to get them.

Another possibility is Belarus does not want to sell these technologies, or they do not have them.

“Alright. I will consolidate the list and speak to Alexander again.”

When Feng Yu meet Alexander again, he gave him a list of missing technologies. “Alexander, my company is interested in these technologies. Are you boasting when you said you could get the full package of technologies?”

Alexander smiled. “You also need these technologies? I thought your country already has them. Alright. I will ask again. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

The next time they meet, Alexander told Feng Yu that he could get most of the technologies on the list except for two types of weapons.

Feng Yu told him that those two technologies must be included or the value of the other technologies will be discounted.

Both sides continued back and forth, and Alexander appeared in front of Feng Yu one week later.

“Feng, I have gotten everything you need. It’s not easy to get them.”

Feng Yu laughed. “I will give you a reasonable price. I will never let my friends suffer any losses. I believe it must be a win-win situation between friends, right?”

Alexander’s face twitched. He wanted to tell Feng Yu that they are not considered friends.

But Feng Yu, or China, is the only buyer, and Alexander does not want to miss this opportunity. His father need funds urgently for his people’s infrastructure and to retain his presidency.

His father will lose the people’s support if he cannot fulfill his promises and lose his next term.

“Of course. I will also not allow my friends to suffer any losses. But Feng, I remember you say you want all the aircraft carrier battle group’s technologies, right?”

Feng Yu corrected him. “I said I want all the more advanced technologies. Your Belarus’s technologies had not made any improvements and are all from the former Soviet Union. These technologies are more than a decade old, and some are even more than twenty years old. You should understand that outdated technologies are not valuable.”

“No… Feng, although these technologies are old, it still has value. Can you guarantee that these outdated technologies are not helpful?” Alexander replied.

Alexander is right. These old data and information are useful to China to develop newer technology. Maybe China’s researchers might get inspired by them.

Feng Yu shook his head. “No. Weapon and equipment technologies are separated into several categories. Even revolvers and semi-automatic pistols are different. If we have the semi-automatic pistol’s technology, why should we research the older outdated revolvers?

“We already have the technology to displace 3 tons of water. Why should we research the technology to displace one ton? Even if it is helpful, but how helpful can it be?”

“Feng, the technologies we have are in a package. If you all are only buying a portion of it, how are we going to sell the rest?” Alexander replied unhappily.

“I have heard a rumor that you all had used Navy technologies to exchange for the air force and army technologies. Since you all had kept a copy, why can’t you all do that again? We are also not asking to be the exclusive buyer. You all can still sell the full package to others. For example, India. They are very interested in the Former Soviet Union technologies.

Feng Yu is sure Belarus will keep a copy of the technologies after selling them to China and continue to sell them to other countries. After all, these technologies are useless to them.

As for the US sanctions, Belarus doesn’t care because the US doesn’t dare to attack any former Soviet Union countries. Also, Belarus is just beside Russia, and they only need to worry about Russia imposing sanctions on them.

But China had bought the aircraft carrier from Ukraine, and Belarus can claim that these technologies are from Ukraine. Belarus doesn’t care if others believe it or not.

They are behaving just like that Fatty Kim, as both countries are both poor and unreasonable!

Chapter 1320 – Package price

Feng Yu guessed what Alexander is thinking correctly, and the latter felt slightly embarrassed. Luckily they are talking about trade and not their children’s marriage. Their daughter cannot get married to several husbands, but the technologies can be sold to many parties.

“Feng, you are too smart. Let’s talk about the prices of these technologies. This engine technology is worth…”

Alexander read out the prices from a document but did not show Feng Yu the document. Feng Yu is sure Alexander’s prices are much higher than what was written in the document.

Feng Yu calculated the total in his mind, and it is over 5 billion USD!

The construction cost of a medium carrier battle group will not be so expensive. Furthermore, many of the technologies are outdated, and some can even be replaced.

The aircraft carrier technologies are the most important. The construction cost of an aircraft carrier is around 1 billion USD, and 5 billion USD is too expensive for these non-exclusive technologies.

Belarus’s GDP is only around 3 billion USD. Are they trying to make a fortune from this deal?

Although Feng Yu has money and is willing to spend it, it is different from wasting his money!

“Alexander, do you think I am rich and looks like a fool? You should know from Kirilenko that I don’t like to waste time in business negotiations. I will always let the other party profit from the deal. But it will be too much if you are thinking of getting more than 100% profits.”

Alexander replied calmly. “Feng, you are wrong. Our technologies are worth this price. We had spent lots of funds to develop these, and I had not include inflation into it.”

You all had spent a lot to developed these technologies? Fine. Even if you had spent more than 5 billion USD to develop these technologies, you all are also not selling them to us only. These technologies are useless to you all.

Also, you all had these technologies for decades and had built several aircraft carriers. The value of these technologies should depreciate.

Alexander, if you are still going to speak like this, I think I will contact Ukraine’s Brother Ke. We have deal with them more than once. Maybe we might not get all the technologies we want, but the prices will be reasonable.”

“Feng, you can’t fool me. Ukraine will never sell you these technologies.” Alexander confidently replied.

“Are you sure?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

Alexander suddenly lost his confidence after seeing Feng Yu’s expression. Ukraine is close with China and has military cooperation. If it weren’t for the US interference, Ukraine would not sell an empty hulk to China.

Ukraine had made lesser profits from their deal, and they also lack funds urgently. All former Soviet Union countries are very poor now.

Russia, followed by Ukraine and Belarus, had benefited the most from the former Soviet Union. The rest of the countries, like Lithuania, etc., did not get anything. But Lithuania is by the sea, and they have lots of ship technologies. If Feng Yu contacted the other countries, he might get all the technologies he wants.

When that happens, Belarus’s technologies will be worthless.

That’s right. India also wants these technologies, but India is close with Russia and Russia can sell their old carriers. They might not need these technologies as they also have many top engineers.

“Feng, even if Ukraine is willing to sell the technologies to you all, you all will also not get the full package from them.”

“But it will be much cheaper.” Feng Yu replied.

“Alright. What price do you think is reasonable?”

“I think 2 billion USD is quite reasonable.”

“Impossible!” Alexander almost jumped up. How can so many technologies be worth only 2 billion USD? He wants to tell Feng Yu that even if China invested 5 billion USD, they might not develop them.

Sometimes, technologies cannot be developed is not because of the research funds. They still need the top talents! The former Soviet Union has the top scientists and engineers.

“Feng, even if these technologies have depreciated, but it will not depreciate by so much. We are not selling apples in the market.”

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. “But I only have so much cash. It is either I buy everything, or I will not buy it at all. I can use 2 billion USD to pick some technologies from Ukraine.”

“You are the World’s Richest Man. How can you only have 2 billion USD?”

“The World’s Richest Man will also not have so much cash. Most of my assets are in the form of shares, and these cannot be liquidated so fast.”

“We can also accept shares.”

Feng Yu shook his head. “Alexander. Although these technologies are not bad, we are not in a hurry to get them. Also, this information will continue to depreciate next year, and my companies’ shares are still rising. Do you think I will use an appreciating share to exchange for your depreciating technologies?”

Alexander is dumbfounded before he realized Feng Yu almost fooled him. These technologies can increase China’s military power and shorten their gap from the US. The value of these cannot be measured by money.

“Feng, you better give me a better offer. I cannot and don’t dare to accept this price. Even if you don’t have sufficient cash, I believe someone else can help you.”

Alexander is representing his father for this deal and is also getting political credits. If he can sell the technologies at a good price, he will have good career prospects. But if he cannot get a good price, not only will his father be affected, his career will also be affected.

“How about you tell me a reasonable price? I might borrow some cash from Kirilenko if it is acceptable.”

Feng Yu pretended to be not anxious as he can get it from other sellers. Alexander is troubled as not many people can afford these technologies.

Furthermore, Feng Yu is right to say these technologies are depreciating, and it is useless to hold on to them.

Belarus also needs this sum of money urgently. Although China also needs these technologies, they can spend money to develop them.

“Feng, I can sell all the carrier battle group technologies at a package price of 4 billion USD!”

Package price? Feng Yu is tempted, but he will not agree immediately. He still needs to discuss with the rest first.

“Everything for 4 billion USD? It is still expensive. Let me consider about it first.”

Chapter 1321 – Payment Method

Feng Yu returned to the hotel and discussed with those experts. After that, they called China using their satellite phone to ask about their research cost. In the end, they valued the technologies at 3.3 billion USD. This price is reasonable as it includes the aircraft carrier’s weapon technologies.

If it was two years ago, all those technologies might be worth 4 billion USD at most.

After three days of grueling negotiations, Feng Yu managed to lower the prices to 3.4 billion USD.

“Alexander, how do you want us to pay you? Transfer the money to your company’s Swiss account, or transfer to your country’s bank account?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

“What’s the difference?”

“There’s no difference if you all can explain where did you all get this sum of money? Suppose the US know you all had sell the aircraft carrier battle group technologies to us. In that case, they will surely impose sanctions on Belarus. You all might not be afraid of the US and felt their sanctions would not affect you, but what about Russia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet Union countries?”

Alexander frowned. Belarus might not be scare of the US. Still, they are concern about Russia and other former Soviet Union Countries’ attitudes.

Even Russia did not sell these technologies to China, and how can they allow Belarus to sell them? Although Kirilenko had acted as the middleman in this transaction, Alexander knows he is just helping Feng Yu and not representing Russia.

It will be troublesome if Russia finds out about the deal.

Although China’s delegates had come to Belarus secretly, Belarus told others they are here for investments. But many people are watching them close because Feng Yu lead the team of delegates.

“What do you mean?”

“I can settle this problem for you, but the price must be lowered to 3.3 billion USD!”

Alexander doesn’t dare to agree immediately as the difference is 100 million SUD.

“Tell me how you are going to settle this issue first.”

“Simple. What am I here for? Investments. I can sign a series of investment contracts with Belarus, and your profits from my investments will be at least 3.3 billion USD.”

“What business can let us make 3.3 billion USD? Furthermore, we must also give you something in return for this deal. What are we going to give you?”

“Belarus has lots of mines, right? I am very interested in mines. There is a gold mine, copper mine, and a Molybdenite mine here. You all can evaluate the value of these mines, and I will buy them with an additional 3.3 billion USD!”

“This will be too fake. Which mine will worth so much?” Alexander looked at the map and noticed those are the biggest mines in their country.

Feng Yu had drawn circles on the map, indicating that he wants the mine and the surrounding region.

“Feng, our Belarus’s mines are not rich, and if we sell three mines and its surrounding region to you all, our people might not agree.”

“I am paying you all 3.3 billion USD more than the mines’ actual value. Why would people still object? Also, it will be hard for me to explain if I had not bought so many of mines. Like what you mentioned earlier, it will be too obvious. We are not afraid of troubles after buying these technologies. But you all are different. Your country will be in trouble if international trade stops.”

Feng Yu crossed his legs and waits for Alexander’s reply.

“Feng, I need to discuss with the rest and cannot give you an answer now.”

“Go ahead.:

Feng Yu knew Alexander is tempted by his expression. It’s hard to cover up such a big amount of money through small trades. China’s total trade with Belarus is only around 200 million USD annually. How long must the contract duration be to cover up 3.3 Billion USD?

Furthermore, no one will make advance payments for long-term contracts.

The next day, Alexander contacted Feng Yu to tell him their conditions.

Belarus can sell those mines to Feng Yu, but it’s not perpetual mining rights. The duration will only be 20 years. Of course, this will lower the price of the mines. Still, they want Feng Yu to provide some light industries’ products, like textile, apparel, food, and other commodities.

The prices of these products must be very low, and Feng Yu have to pay for the differences. These contracts will last for a few years.

Because of the longer duration and considering the interest of 3.3 billion USD, Feng Yu will have to pay more than 3.5 billion USD. But the good thing about this arrangement is he does not need to fork out 3.3 billion USD at once.

Feng Yu considered for a while and asked. “Alexander, I can provide these goods to you all for five years. But have you considered what will happen after that? You all will not get such cheap products from us, and it will cause severe inflation.”

Alexander laughed. “We are getting these goods at this price but will be selling them to our people at normal prices. It will not affect our people. Five years later, I believe our country’s economy will be improved and even if these product cost increases, we can also afford it.”

“Alright. Then let’s discuss the details of our contract.” Feng Yu had wanted to sign a long-term contract with Belarus and try to earn back the money he spent. But he knew Alexander had thought this out carefully from his attitude. But Feng Yu believes that Belarus will be used to Chinese products and will continue purchasing these products after five years.

……

“Prepare 3 billion USD cash.”

Kameda Masao received Feng Yu’s call and was shocked. What business is Feng Yu going to invest in? Three billion USD cash is not a small amount.

But Feng Yu’s words are orders. Kameda Masao immediately got Wind and Rain Consulting to settle some of their gold futures contracts for 3 billion USD. After that, he transferred the money into Feng Yu’s Swiss bank account.

Feng Yu also use his overseas company to sign a contract with Belarus for his purchase of those mines. The deal is worth over 6 billion USD and split into two payments.

After that, Belarus signed a series of trading agreements with Feng Yu, but the prices are much lower than the cost.

After getting the ownership of those mines, Feng Yu immediately transfer them to Polar Bear Mining Enterprise at a loss of 1 billion USD from the transacted price. This is to compensate Kirilenko’s losses as the mines were bought from Belarus at a premium price.

Kirilenko will also help Feng Yu to settle with the Polar Bear Mining Enterprise minor shareholders for their losses.

The money Feng Yu got from selling those mines is used for the second payment to Belarus. The remaining amount will be transferred to a new trading company, and the company will send out its first batch of goods.

After settling all these, Feng Yu flew back with the Chinese experts and some more important technologies in his private jet. The remaining technologies will be flown back to China through the trading company’s cargo plane later.

The plane touched down at an airport, and Feng Yu saw a VIP, who always appear on TV, waiting for him.

“Thank you for your hard work!”

Molybdenite

Chapter 1322 – Worries

After boarding the Leader’s car, the car drove towards a place surrounded by armed guards.

“Manager Feng, what would you like to drink?” The Leader asked with a smile.

“Anything. Plain water is fine.”

“Then let’s have some red tea with me. The weather had become cold now, and hot tea will warm our body.”

Feng Yu is surprised to see the Leader pouring tea for him. Although it’s just normal tea, it symbolized a lot.

Feng Yu received the teacup with both hands. “Thank you.”

“Manager Feng, I should be the one thanking you. I am thanking you on behalf of China for your contributions.” The Leader said and bowed slightly.

Putting the Leader’s status aside, he is old enough to be Feng Yu’s grandfather. Feng Yu cannot accept his bow.

Feng Yu quickly stand up and step aside. “Leader, please don’t do this.”

“Have a seat. Do you smoke?”

“I seldom smoke.”

“Oh, you are always flying to the US, and I think you should like cigars. I have some cigars with me. Do you want to try?”

Feng Yu accepted the cigar and started cutting and roasting it before passing it to the Leader. After that, he does the same for the second cigar.

Feng Yu had done this out of respect for an old man who had devoted his whole life to the country. If he is in this Leader’s position, he will never be as good as him.

Many netizens had complained about the country’s policies. But if you put them in the leader’s position, they might not know what to do.

Feng Yu knows about politics but is not good at it. If politics and the economy are not related, he would not even care about it.

If Feng Yu has the time to worry about politics, he might as well do something useful. Look at all those Leaders. Which one of them is slim? They must eat all sorts of tonics to supplement their health, and Feng Yu does not want to experience that!

“Manager Feng, you had made significant contributions to our country. I had asked those engineers, and they said our aircraft carrier developments could speed up by three to five years with the technologies you bought!”

Feng Yu felt speeding up the developments by three years for 3 billion USD is worth it.

“We will be equipping our training aircraft carriers’ hulk with these technologies, and we will have our aircraft carrier soon. Our Navy will become much stronger.”

With a stronger Navy, China will be much stronger, and it’s the economy will get better.

In the past, pirates had been targeting Chinese ships. But after China’s Navy got stronger, they will have to think twice.

Also, China’s say in Asia will become stronger, and Taiwan will not create any problems.

Taiwan’s economy had not been doing well these few years. Their leaders had been visiting the US and the United Nations. This made China very angry.

One day is enough for China to occupy Taiwan. After all, Taiwan is small, and its military cannot be compared to China.

But China does not want to do this as the US and other countries will not sit back and watch this happen. Another reason is they are also Chinese.

However, China does not want to see that Taiwanese Leaders continue to create problems. After China’s aircraft carrier is ready and with economic sanctions, Taiwan will be more obedient.

Taiwan will know who is the one that is good for them. The US and Japan will never make any sacrifices for them.

“Good to know that. I don’t know about all these technologies or politics. I only know how to make some money.”

“Hahaha… who else in the world can make money as good as you? Our country lacks people like you.”

Feng Yu smiled and did not say anything.

“You had asked the state fund to invest in gold futures some time ago. We had made some profits, but the profits are not as high as you. Have you considered helping the country to head our state-owned investment institution?”

It is this topic again, and Feng Yu has some hesitations.

“Leader, I don’t mind donating money to the country, but I have my worries if you want me to manage our state funds.”

“What worries do you have? Tell me! I will settle it for you!” The Leader waved his hand as he said this.

“Investments have risk, and it will not be a problem if I make money for the country. But what if there are losses? What will people say? They will say I am filling my pockets with the public funds, creating the country’s assets, etc.”

“Just look at this transaction. After news of the contracts I signed is released, what did the netizens say? They scolded me for being stupid to spend more than 6 billion USD for mines and selling them to a Russian company at a loss of more than 1 billion USD. They scolded me for worshiping the west and even accused me of funding our enemies.”

Netizens like to criticize others, and most of them have grudges against the wealthy. Most of them will dream of striking the lottery and becoming rich overnight.

Feng Yu had made significant contributions to the country, and everyone will benefit from it. But some people will complain about him not donating to them. They are poor and were rejected by Feng Yu when they asked for donations.

Some people said Feng Yu’s assets are not from legal sources and must be in cahoots with corrupted officials. There are even rumors about Feng Yu being the illegitimate son, grandson, etc., of XXX’s leader.

Feng Yu is speechless about these people. Although he had asked his men to ban these accounts, new accounts will continue to appear.

The more you ignore these people, the more rumors they will start. Many netizens like to imagine things and believe what they want.

The Leader becomes quiet after what Feng Yu said.

When the State assets invest, they will also suffer losses, and they can accept Feng Yu for making losses. They are confident he can recover the losses in the future.

But there is no way for the government to stop Feng Yu’s worries. Feng Yu’s status is different, and no leaders from the state assets are hired from outside. There will be strong objections to it.

“Then let’s put this aside for now. Let’s talk about this transaction. The country will not forget about what you did this time, and we will be offering Tai Hua Holdings three years tax exemptions and two years 50% tax subsidies to repay you.”

“Do you have any other request? Tell me.” The Leader dares to say this because he knows Feng Yu will not make any ridiculous demands.

Feng Yu smiled. “Thank you. I don’t have any request.”

Chapter 1323 – Position will determine the mindset

“Eh, where did you go the past few days? You sounded so secretive when I called.” Wen Dongjun asked.

“Other than business, what else can I do? I had gone to negotiate a huge business deal. Firearms!” Feng Yu said proudly.

“Firearms?! Stop boasting. You are so timid. Do you even dare to touch those things? Even those newspaper sellers are claiming to be in the media business. Those selling ear picks are saying they are doing steel trading. Let me guess. Are you selling bulletproof cars?” Wen Dongjun asked with a ‘you cannot fool me’ expression.

Feng Yu almost choked after hearing what Wen Dongjun said. From his logic, do toothpick sellers and disposable chopsticks sellers call themselves timber traders?

“Never mind. You will not understand even if I tell you. How can you be compared to me? I am now the World’s Richest Man, and many people depend on me for a living!” Feng Yu retorted.

“I still need to manage the 2008 Olympics, and the whole world is watching my performance.”

“Oh, what is your duty in the Olympic Committee?” Feng Yu curiously asked.

“Err… let’s not talk about it. Come, cheers!” Wen Dongjun’s face changed, and he raised his beer mug.

Feng Yu got more curious after seeing Wen Dongjun’s expression. “Tell me about it. Are you tasked to wash the toilets?”

“You are the one who is sent to wash the toilets! I am a graduate, and I will be getting my Master’s next year. I am a highly qualified intellectual!”

“Then what are you doing now?”

“Supervisor!”

Hahaha…. Feng Yu imagined a sulking Wen Dongjun standing at a construction site with a yellow safety helmet and could not stop laughing.

Wen Dongjun is someone who cannot stay still. He will be bored to death if he must remain at the same place every day.

“Don’t your department have people who are suited for this role?”

“My Leader said I am suited for it because I majored in management for my Masters. If I know this will happen, I should listen to my father-in-law to study philosophy.”

“Don’t say this. Your position is very important. Furthermore, even security guards have their value. Come… cheers!” Feng Yu purposely poke fun at him.

“Bullshit. I don’t even know what I am doing there. I don’t understand the drawings and have to listen to the foreman. The last time I said something, I was scolded by the foreman. I am a goddamn Master’s degree holder, and that foreman did not even graduate from middle school! When I told Zhang Han about this, she laughed at me for the whole night!”

“Never mind. Stop thinking about it. Your foreman has years of experience, and this is his expertise. He will not be as good as you in your area of expertise. For example… playing computer games!”

Wen Dongjun is speechless as he thought Feng Yu was about to praise him. How is playing games consider expertise?

“Eh, what will happen if our Olympics did not do well after spending so much money?” Wen Dongjun asked.

“You also said that we had spent so much money. Suppose we still cannot host the Olympics well. In that case, you all, the General Administration of Sport of China, will be scolded by everyone. All of you will be punished, and the most lenient punishment will be demoting. But if you all had done a good job, all of you will benefit from it. Maybe your rank will be equivalent to Uncle Wen.”

“Are you saying that I will be promoted to Deputy Bureau Director? I am currently a Divisional Chief. Although I don’t have any authority, it is still my rank. My father took quite a several years to reach my current rank.” Wen Dongjun replied proudly.

Feng Yu looks at Wen Dongjun. It is because you have a good father-in-law. Without Zhang Han’s father, you might not even become a Section Chief with your attitude!

Both of them chatted while eating, and Feng Yu felt at ease when chatting with him.

Feng Yu does not have any friends who can ignore his status as the World’s Richest Man.

But Wen Dongjun is different. They grew up together, and Wen Dongjun is the type who has no ambitions. He does not care about money and has never treated Feng Yu as the World’s Richest Man. He even defeated Feng Yu at Warcraft 3 in the afternoon.

Feng Yu felt the most relaxed when chatting with Wen Dongjun. This is what he wanted.

Feng Yu can also relax when he is with Kirilenko, but he will want to drink every time they dine together.

Fu Guangzheng had become more focused on his business and is more matured now. Feng Yu felt it had become boring to have fun together.

Feng Yu’s dreams in his previous life are to be a landlord so that he can laze around. But in this life, he has more money than he can spend, but he is always busy.

As others said, you will have a different mindset when you are in a different position.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he only wishes for a peaceful life. But it is different now. He is not satisfied after becoming the World’s Richest Man, especially when he saw those multi-billion MNCs.

Feng Yu noticed that he is the most useless and free person in his companies. No wonder people will say that the bigger the company, the more useless, the higher management executives are. Some even say that anyone can run the World’s Top 500 companies if they have the connections.

Although Feng Yu disagrees with these people, he realized it is happening now. He does not need to do anything, and his company will continue to grow.

But Feng Yu does not want to stop. He wants his companies to grow faster.

He had dreamed of retiring at 30 years old and travel around the world.

Feng Yu felt that he should find something to do or else his life will be too boring.

…….

“Old Zhong, is everything fine in the company?”

“Everything is fine here.”

Feng Yu: “…….”

How can everything in the company is fine? At least ask me to do something. I can go to work at Tai Hua Holdings too.

“Oh, there is a small problem within the company.”

Feng Yu immediately become interested. “What is it? Tell me, and I will settle it for you!”

“Our handheld Digital Video Camera is not selling well. The DV market is not good overall, and we are thinking of ways to improve it.”

“Leave this to me! I will go over to Shanghai tomorrow!”

Chapter 1324 – Many issues with the new product

Feng Yu flew to Shanghai and understood the situation. To capture the market share, they had introduced their HD video cameras simultaneously as Sony. But Wind and Rain Electronics and Aiwa Electronics have never sold Digital Video Cameras (DV) before.

Feng Yu had only given some suggestions and did not participate in the new product testing. That’s why this DV’s sales are doing badly in China and overseas.

If the DV is not sold under the Wind and Rain brand, it might be worse. Those Japanese companies had worked together and increased their marketing to beat Wind and Rain.

Wind and Rain Electronics’ partners, Philips, Thomson, etc., are also not doing well.

Feng Yu looks at the DV. It is not the handheld DV he wanted, and it looks bulky. The screen is small and can only rotate 90 degrees.

The battery capacity is not bad and can last longer. But the storage capacity is only 1GB, and it is using a storage card. The user can change it anytime.

Feng Yu tested the DV and noticed a few more issues.

First, the image stabilization is very poor. Xu Lihua also knows about this, and the Japanese DVs have better stabilization than them. Secondly, the focus and optical zoom are not good. Sony’s high-end DVs have ten times optical zoom, and their smaller model have five times optical zoom. But theirs only have three times.

Furthermore, the first DV in the world is produced by Sony, and they have better brand recognition.

Most reporters and TV producers are using Japanese digital cameras, and most of them are from Sony. Sony is no doubt the market leader in the digital camera industry.

There are several tiers of digital cameras. The top tier is those used in TV stations, movie makers, and news interviews. Next is the professional level, which is used to film TV series. Lastly, it is the entry-level and consumer level. The digital video cameras in this tier target the mass market and mainly use for making family videos.

Yes. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Teacher Chen uses professional equipment, but those are equivalent to the broadcasting equipment now.

Feng Yu knew why Wind and Rain, Phips, and Amazon failed because this product belongs to the mass market tier but is sold at high-end tier’s prices.

“Old Xu, what is the production cost of this product?”

“Around 10,000 RMB and our retail price are slightly above 20,000 RMB. This price is about the same as Sony’s latest model.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. The production cost is around 1,000 USD, and you want to sell it at 3,000 USD. No wonder the sales are not doing well.

You can sell your products higher than others, but the quality must be better. Our competitors are better in optical zoom and focus, design, branding, storage, etc. and our advantage is only the battery.

How are you going to compete with others? Also, they are using cassette tapes for storage and have lower production costs.

It’s not that Xu Lihua’s storage technologies are not good. In fact, Feng Yu felt this storage technology is similar to the handheld DV he saw in his previous life and makes reading the data easier.

But most people are used to the current video format, and their DV only supports HDV format.

“Old Xu, I remember telling you all that all new products must be include the old product’s features. Sony’s product supports DV format, but why do we only have HDV format? Why can’t we be compatible with them?”

“Also, don’t you think the storage of 1GB is too small? Although the memory card can be changed, it is too troublesome. What if it runs out of capacity during filming? Didn’t I tell you all to produce a micro hard disk? This can be used, but we have better flash technologies with higher storage. Why are we using 1 GB?”

“The screen is also too small. If you extend your hand, you cannot see what you are filming. The screen must be bigger, and the rotation should be 360 degrees. What can you do with 90 degrees?! I had mentioned several times that product design is very important to attract consumers. Look at the size of this product. It is too heavy to be held in one hand, and it’s too stupid to be holding it with both hands.”

“Why can’t we use five times optical zoom for it? The image stabilizing is too lousy. Have you tried filming with it? Who’s hands will not shake? This technology must be improved. If necessary, buy it from Thomson.”

“Lastly, I have not seen the commercials for this product on TV. Have you all forgotten about the importance of advertising?” Feng Yu asked.

“Manager Feng, we planned to buy the advertising slots for next year. The auction for next year’s advertising slots is happening soon. As for the overseas commercial, we planned to release it at the same time, and we will hire celebrities to endorse it.” Xu Lihua explained.

“Manager Feng, we still don’t have any ideas for the advertisements. Even if we advertised, it might not sell well. Also, our DV is different from the traditional video cameras, especially for the storage.” Jiang Wanmeng added.

“That’s why our target audience is those that have not used video cameras before. We will also be marketing our cameras as having clearer images and position them as family consumer products. In the future, we will introduce more professional video cameras for the professional and broadcasting tiers. But it is still not possible with our current technologies. When can our technologies catch up with Japan?”

Xu Lihua and Jiang Wanmeng stuttered after hearing what Feng Yu said.

“Then we should concentrate on the consumer and professional market. We must get this market share. Although the profits for this tier are low, the sales volume is much higher. You all must lower our production cost and retail prices and let the mass-market consumers like our products.”

These people had grown to be overconfident these years. They thought their products could sell well if it is sold under the Wind and Rain brand. But they don’t know that a failed product will tarnish the brand.

Luckily, they had just started producing this DV and had sold it at high prices. That’s why they have not suffered any losses. But without sales, they will not recover the development cost!

Chapter 1325 – Introducing DV video footages

Feng Yu is thinking about how he will promote his handheld DV, and he wonders if he had made a mistake to introduce HD DV so early.

Feng Yu remembers many Chinese TV stations had advertised many handheld DV cameras’ advertisements on their channels in his previous life.

But those advertisements can only work in China and the local TV stations. It will not work in other countries.

Feng Yu suddenly remembers a movie which is filmed entirely with handheld DV cameras. It is also because of this movie many families went to buy a handheld DV camera.

The production cost of this movie is less than 50,000 USD, but its box-office sales in 1999 reached 300 million USD.

This movie is called The Blair Witch Project.

Three students film this film, and a film company bought it for 200,000 USD. After that, the film company spent over 10 million USD to market the film and made over 100 million USD.

This film also made a lot from its DVDs and other merchandise. At that time, many people thought that DV could film ghosts!

Many companies started learning the filming techniques from this film and got their directors to film these low-budget films. If any of these films become successful, they will get high returns.

Feng Yu had also watched some of these films, but the images are too blurry and unclear. Of course, this has something to do with the DV technologies at that time.

But currently, there is an HD DV camera. Why can’t they film an HD movie with it? Even if they don’t have a good script, there will be someone with a good script out there.

Also, Feng Yu has many good scripts.

Feng Yu had watched many movies in his previous life and can make it into a short film.

Posting a short video around five minutes to half an hour on the internet and letting people know a handheld DV film. This will let people know the DV footage is clear and will attract many people to buy it.

Feng Yu suddenly realized that he had only wanted to make an advertisement. Still, he is thinking of making a movie now.

Feng Yu thought about the short films that handheld DVs can film. Martina Hill’s <Knallerfrauen>, Da Peng’s <Diors Man>, Yu Shasha’s < Wonder Lady>, Chopstick Brothers’ <Father>, etc. He also remembers some Hong Kong and Taiwanese films.

Feng Yu still have many ideas, but he just can’t remember them now.

This type of handheld DV camera is most suitable for filming documentaries. Feng Yu had not watched many documentaries in his previous life. The documentaries he can remember are <A Bite of China> and <Man vs. Wild>. But these two documentaries require good editing and other stuff which Feng Yu does not know. Since he has this idea, he will just get the professionals to handle the rest.

……

“Manager Feng, you want to film a movie with our handheld DV cameras? Not many people are interested in <The Blair Witch Project> types of movies anymore. Furthermore, they had used Sony’s products to film it.”

Feng Yu waved his hand. “They are going after that blurry effect, and we will be going for the clear footages. I am thinking of filming a romantic comedy and a documentary.”

“Documentary? We don’t need HD footage for documentaries. Are you going to film insects? Not many people are interested in those documentaries.” Xu Lihua felt Feng Yu is heading in the wrong direction. Most documentaries are filmed with a normal DV camera.

“I am not going to film bugs. I want to film food. I decided to introduce a documentary series called <A Bite of China>, and it must be filmed with an HD camera for the best effect.”

A food documentary? Xu Lihua wonders who will like to watch it? There are many cooking shows on TV, and all of them are filmed in a studio. They don’t need such high-quality footage.

If it were not for Feng Yu who said this, Xu Lihua would have asked him to shut up!

“Manager Feng, are you sure this is a good idea?”

Feng Yu also doesn’t know if anyone will like to watch <A Bite of China> now. After all, the current living standards are very different when this show was broadcasted in his previous life.

“What about a show about surviving in the wild? People who like to explore will be interested. We can get a man to film everything with a handheld DV camera, and it will look more realistic. With our HD DV camera, the footage will be clearer, and it is easy to bring it around.”

“Manager Feng, how many people in our country like exploring the wild? But you gave me an idea. We can make a travel show, and many people should like it.”

Feng Yu frowned. There might not be many Chinese interested in surviving in the wild, but it is different overseas. Overseas viewers should be interested as they are more adventurous.

Xu Lihua’s idea is good for China. But Feng Yu does not want a traditional travel program. He wants to make it like a couple of road trip vlog. There should be high ratings, and he can even sell it overseas. Many people in other countries are quite curious about China.

The couple, who is also the host of this show, will film from the point of view of ordinary folks. That will be easily acceptable by the audiences.

Feng Yu patted Xu Lihua’s shoulder. “This is a good idea, Old Xu. We will include product placement in this show, and many people will notice our product. You just need to upgrade our technologies, and we will also enter into a price war with Sony and the rest. We must get back the market share!”

Xu Lihua is speechless. He had only made a casual remark, and Feng Yu felt it would work!

Since Manager Feng thinks it will work, then it should work. Xu Lihua’s strength is in technology development and is not good in other areas.

Feng Yu starts thinking about who to pick as the host of these shows. <Man vs. Wild> is easy. He will just get Bear Grylls to host it. Anyway, this TV series had not started, and Bear Grylls is still in the UK now.

Who should Feng Yu get as the host for the travel show? The hosts’ must have a good image, athletic, and good at talking.

Suddenly Feng Yu slapped his forehead. He had almost forgotten Huayi Brothers. They have lots of artists and should have no problem getting two not-so-famous people.

Chapter 1326 – The Dismissive Sony

“President, the Wind and Rain brand had lowered their digital video camera prices.”

Norio Ohga asked without even lifting his head. “How much did they lower?”

“They lowered their retail price of 1,499 USD by half.”

Huh? They lowered it by so much? Never mind. Sony has digital video cameras in all tiers. From more than 100,000 USD broadcasting cameras to over 1,000 USD entry-level cameras.

Sony is the world’s market leader when it comes to the digital video camera. Even the Wind and Rain, Philips, and Thomson’s total cannot be compared to them.

Sony not only has high sales, but their profits are also high.

Although these two companies had snatched away some Chinese market shares, they are not good at digital video cameras.

Look at the Wind and Rain’s product. There are lots of issues and not many outstanding features. How can they compete with Sony? Both products are launched simultaneously, at around the same pricing, and Wind and Rain are surrendering now.

Wind and Rain’s sales must not be good, and that’s why they lowered their prices to attack the low-end market segment. But even if you all lower your prices, you all will not win Sony.

“Never mind. We have also launched our entry-level video cameras, and we can compete with them. Since they want to target the entry-level video camera segment, we will show them we can produce much cheaper cameras. We will introduce our latest entry-level video camera to the market and sell them below 1,000 USD!”

Norio Ohga’s assistant left to convey his instructions, and Norio Ohga lit a cigar. The Wind and Rain had always been against Sony in the past two years.

Do you think setting the HDV standards will guarantee you to make money? Even if you had set the standards, you must be able to sell your products. Standard is not patent, and what’s the point of setting it if you all don’t have any products?

Sony is unbeatable when it comes to digital video cameras!

This time, Sony will beat Feng Yu and re-enter the Chinese market with its digital video camera.

With Sony’s optical zoom technologies, other patent technologies, and experiences, they will surely succeed!

Others might say Feng Yu is a business genius and had suffered any losses before. This time, Sony will show the world that Feng Yu is not invincible! Sony and Norio Ohga will beat him!

……

“President, Wind and Rain brand had introduced a new digital video camera model, and it is positioned as an entry-level camera. They are selling it at 499 USD!”

“What? Why are they selling it at this low price?! Does that mean they had not to use any advanced technologies on it?” Norio Ohga does not think Wind and Rain can lower their HD digital video camera cost to so low.

“Their latest product is not HD digital video camera. It is a normal DV, and it’s very small. It is only palm-size, and it is easy to carry it around.”

Norio Ohga frowned. Why did Feng Yu introduce such a low-cost product? How can the footage from this DV be clear? It can only reach the standards three to four years ago.

Also, what’s the use of making it so small? The battery capacity and the circuit board inside will be small, and the footage will not be good.

“Are their footages in Standard-definition?”

“Yes. Their camera can only film in standard definition, and the battery can only last two hours. But the batteries can be changed or charged with a power bank. They have also increased their storage to 2GB. It is still using its flash drive and three times optical zoom. But they had added three times digital zoom.”

“Why do you think they introduce such a small digital video camera?” Norio Ohga asked.

“They should have realized they cannot compete with us in other tiers, and they focus on the low-end tier. The Wind and Rain brand will be known as a low-end digital video camera in the future!” Norio Ohga’s assistant exclaimed excitedly.

Norio Ohga looked at his assistant unhappily. “Did you forget about Wind and Rain Mobile phones? Don’t you know that they are the first company that combines digital cameras and mobile phones?”

The assistant thought for a while, and his eyes almost popped out of his sockets. “President, are you saying they are going to introduce a mobile phone with digital video camera functions? Is this product only a transition product? But how are they going to integrate a digital video camera into a small mobile phone?”

“If they are not going for video quality and are only personal uses, do you think the consumers will be interested? Even if the footage is blurry and cannot even reach Standard-definition, their phones will reach another level with this feature!”

Sony has also been researching combining digital video and mobile phones, but it isn’t easy. They still have not made any breakthroughs, and they are already lagging behind Wind and Rain Mobile when it comes to camera phones.

But Sony has a new idea. They want to combine digital cameras and digital video cameras. It is not using the digital video camera to take screenshots as photographs. It is combining both cameras.

This is inspired by Wind and Rain Mobile. If Sony can introduce this feature first, they can secure their position in the consumer digital camera market.

This will be a two-in-one product. This camera is equivalent to two cameras, and it will be more convenient and cost-saving for the consumers.

But it is extremely difficult to combine both technologies. They had no idea before, but they discover the way to do it now. They will lower the resolution of their video footage to make it work.

As long as the camera can take short video footage, they can improve on the quality later. After all, digital camera sales and demand are greater than a video camera. Of course, the cost of the digital video camera is much higher than the digital camera.

Hmph! Feng Yu is trying to combine technologies again, but he doesn’t know Sony had already started working on it. Our camera resolution, optical focus, etc., are so much better than you. Sony will be the consumer’s first choice when it comes to camera phones in the future!

Among the camera phones, another company has the potential to succeed. Sharp. If it weren’t for their other phone features suck, their sales would be much better.

The world’s first 1 million pixels camera phone is introduced by Sharp this year, and Sony is negotiating with Sharp to cooperate on developing a camera phone. This is to beat the Wind and Rain Mobile.

Norio Ohga firmly believes that they will surely win Wind and Rain Mobile!

Chapter 1327 – Dominating the low-end market

“Manager Feng, why are we moving backward? We can produce professional digital video cameras, and you say we should target the lower tier for higher sales volume. But this camera is only entry-level.”

Zhong Qingxian said and felt new products should have newer technologies. But their new product is getting worse. Although the new video camera is the smallest among all video cameras globally, its features are lousier.

“Don’t be anxious. This product is only an experimental product.”

Zhong Qingxian is relieved. This means they are only trying to clear some older components.

“We will be going to introduce cheaper DVs in the future, and we will sell it for less than 400 USD.”

“What? Did I hear it correctly? You are going to make it cheaper?! Manager Feng, will this tarnish our brand? We claimed to be ‘Often imitated, but NEVER exceeded!’ and this will let others think we can only make low-end products.” Zhong Qingxian is getting anxious.

Aiwa Electronics and Wind and Rain Electronics had poured so many resources into developing their technologies. But instead of improving their products, they are starting to go into low-end products.

“No. Didn’t you hear what Xu Lihua said during the product launch? Our target is to let every family own an affordable handheld DV! We don’t need to worry about the high-end market as we will continue to introduce professional video cameras.”

“Every family to own an affordable DV?! Will there be so many people buying it?”

“Old Zhong, you don’t know how ordinary families feel. They also want to go on vacations and take videos as keepsakes. It is like taking photographs when I was young during festivals. At that time, not many families can afford cameras. But now, our mobile phones can take pictures, and they can take pictures any time they want for printing. Which do you think is better? Videos or photographs?”

“This… should be videos as it has moving pictures and sound.”

“That’s right. The audio is very important, and the people in the videos are alive… Err… are moving. Another reason for introducing this cheap video camera is to dominate the market.”

“Many people, who buy this video camera, are not looking for clear footage because their TV at home is not HD. Our LED TV does not have high resolution and cannot even reach Standard-definition. Why do we need to take HD videos? The videos will be about the same on most TVs. Unless we increase the screen size, there will be no difference. How many people will watch the videos on large screens? HD standard is for the professional video cameras.”

“If the video quality of a 500 USD video camera is about the same as a 1,000 USD video camera, which do you think the consumer will pick? When they buy our product, Sony’s sales will slow down, and after we dominated the market, they will not get any market share.”

“After a few years, when this entry-level digital video camera is obsolete, our consumer-level digital video camera can replace it. A few more years later, the market for consumer digital video cameras will shrink, and the ones who will buy digital video cameras will buy professional cameras.”

“The consumer will switch to professional cameras? Professional video cameras cost around 3,000 to 4,000 USD. Will people buy a digital video camera that costs more than a Songjiang Genie?”

“Three years ago, how many people can afford to buy a mobile phone? How many people are using mobile phones now? Who says professional video cameras’ prices will not fall? Furthermore, most families’ income is increasing, and who says they will not buy it?”

The market for entry-level video cameras will get smaller in the future because mobile phones will have video features. Many mobile phones will have more than 10 million pixels with good focus, stabilization, red eyes reduction, etc. With these functions, who will buy those entry-level video cameras?

The consumer-level video camera market will also be reduced in the future. But its footages are not clear, and it’s not cheap. People who like to take videos will prefer to get the cheaper professional-level video cameras, and others will stick to their mobile phones.

Zhong Qingxian is overwhelmed and replied in a daze. “I think you are right. But who knows what will happen in the future?”

“I know.” Feng Yu replied confidently.

Are you kidding me?! I am rebirth, and if I don’t even remember the trend, I will be wasting my second chance.

Zhong Qingxian: “……”

“Oh, during Christmas, Wind and Rain Mobile will be introducing a cheap phone. The slogan will be similar. We will let everyone afford a mobile phone. Small profit through quick turnover can also be applied to electronic products.”

The impression most people have of electronic products is high-end and expensive. But Feng Yu is going to change this mindset by introducing products with basic functions.

“Is this the reason why you ask them to acquire those almost obsolete electronic components? Is this mobile phone the strategic flagship product you mentioned?” Zhong Qingxian suddenly remembered it.

Feng Yu snapped his finger. “That’s right. This mobile phone will be recorded in history, and it will be the best-selling mobile phone in the world. In the future, whenever people mention mobile phones, they will remember Wind and Rain. This might be easier to remember than launching the first camera phone and first MP3 phone.”

“Really? If we can become the World’s first, it will benefit our brand greatly. Are you thinking of having the best sales in the world when you got them to introduce this cheap DV?”

“That’s right. It doesn’t matter what features a product has or which tier it is targeting. The best product is the product that can meet the market demand. They are targeting professionals, and we are targeting ordinary families. But everything will be different if we have the highest sales volume in the industry.”

Wind and Rain brand cannot compete in the professional video camera tier currently, and they will focus on making it big in the mass market segment. The Japanese companies are not interested in the mass market and gave Feng Yu an opportunity.

Feng Yu believes that these cheap electronic products will shock many people!

Chapter 1328 – Sudden surge in sales

“President, the Wind and Rain’s new entry-level handheld DV sales had exceeded 100,000 units!”

“What did you say? It’s not even one month, and their sales exceeded 100,000 units?! Didn’t we expose that camera’s issues on the media?” Norio Ohga is shocked. This does not want he had expected.

After knowing Wind and Rain had launched a low-performance handheld DV, Norio Ohga got his men to release the test data and pointed out the DV issues to the media.

But Norio Ohga had forgotten one thing. They are using professional magazines and newspapers to attack this product. The ones who will buy entry-level video cameras are not professionals and are ordinary folks.

Most consumers will be influenced by advertisements and Wind and Rain’s brand. They will test it and will buy it if the price is reasonable.

Some, who had wanted to buy Sony, Panasonic, etc. products, saw Wind and Rain’s low-priced video camera and made a comparison. They found there’s not much difference and picked the cheaper one.

The sales assistants have also played a part. They told the consumers that digital products would be outdated very fast. A new product might be obsolete in three to five years, and there’s no need to buy the best. Just get the most suitable product.

Furthermore, Philips, Thomson, and other companies started promotions for their consumer-level products against the Japanese companies.

“They have not started any advertising campaigns. Why are their cameras selling so fast?”

“They are advertising online, and their focus is on the price. They had also promoted their video camera on shopping channels which attracted a lot of consumers. They have sold a lot on shopping websites like Amazon, and this figure is still rising quickly.”

Feng Yu does not only have retail stores. He also has a powerful sales channel, eCommerce websites. Look at the number of registered users on Amazon, Taobao, and Polar Bear Online shopping websites, which does not include other smaller online shopping sites. Online sales are much higher than retail sales.

Feng Yu is not afraid to compete on sales channels. Even a retail giant like Walmart does not have better sales channels than him.

Most importantly, the whole world was affected by the US financial crisis two years ago, and most consumers had cut their spending.  Expensive products are not selling now, and this cheap product from Wind and Rain happens to fill this gap to meet the market demand.

“They had introduced a cheap black and white screen mobile phone during Christmas. How many units have they sold?”

Norio Ohga suddenly has a bad feeling. Do these cheap and low-end products have such a big market?

“Err… we don’t have the figures. But it’s only been a week. How many can they sell?”

“Don’t take it lightly and got someone to find out. If this low-end phone is really selling well, then we must also introduce one to challenge them!”

“President, that phone is only selling for 49 USD. How much profit can they make from it? Is that even consider a mobile phone? What will people think of Sony if we are going to introduce phones in this range?” The assistant is shocked.

“Do you think people will think lightly of us when everyone on the streets is using our Sony phone? Even if the profits for one phone is 2 to 3 USD, we can get more than ten million USD profit if we sold a few million units.”

“But it’s not worth the effort for ten million USD profits.” The assistant disagreed.

After all, Sony owns Ericson shares, and they must give half of their profits to them. The profits will only be a few million USD, and how much is left if they deduct the marketing cost?

Also, this low-end phone will affect Sony’s brand image. Sony’s mobile phone market share had been reducing, which will let people think they will focus on the low-end market.

Norio Ohga starts to hesitate, and he also has the same worries as his assistant.

“Alright. Notify the rest of the higher executives to have a meeting in an hour. We will discuss if we should enter the low-end market.”

…….

“Manager Feng, I didn’t expect our DV sales to exceed 100,000 units within a month, and the market feedback is quite good. Although our profits are lowered, we increased our market share by a lot. This will have a good impact on our future products.” Xu Lihua reported to Feng Yu excitedly.

“What’s there to be happy with just 100,000 units? I expect it to exceed 5 million units!” Feng Yu showed his palm.

“How many? 5 million units?! How is it possible?”

“Why not? You also said our sales are continuing to rise. When we can lower our production cost further, we can also lower our retail prices. Also, don’t forget that we can enter the village markets after we conquer the cities’ markets. Although Aiwa is in charge of the Chinese market, overseas also have cities and villages. Are you telling me those overseas villagers don’t want to buy DV?”

“I understand. I will get them to increase their marketing for the less developed countries and try to gain control of these markets.”

“Have those Japanese companies introduce low-end DV?”

“Not yet, and Philips and Thomson have no intentions of entering this segment. It seems they have some hesitations and are afraid it will affect their brand image.”

Feng Yu smacked his lips. Philips also has shavers ranging from a few hundred USD to ten USD. Products with different pricing are targeting different segments. What’s the problem with it? As long as the product is positioned clearly, there’s no need to worry about all these.

“It will be terrific if they want to give up this market segment. We will dominate it ourselves!”

“Manager Feng, although those big brands from Japan and Europe are not producing this low-end DV, some smaller manufacturers are. Their retail prices and features are about the same as us.”

“It’s fine. They don’t have good sales channels. Without good sales channels, their sales will not go up, and they will not make much profit. Our production cost has been lowered further, right? We will lower the price in a few months and push some of them out of business. As for the rest… we are continuing with our expansions, and I think we can acquire them to be our factories!”

Chapter 1329 – Zhikang, you will endorse it

“Boss, our latest Wind and Rain Mobile phone is not selling well. The city dwellers felt it is too cheap and is embarrassing to use it. We still have not penetrated the villages’ market.” Wu Zhigang reported.

Aiwa did not introduce this low-cost mobile phone, as they want to limit the sales to Wind and Rain brand to break records.

Feng Yu rubbed his chin. This is not what he expected. Why are people not buying this cheap mobile phone? In his previous life, even a homeless guy along the streets are using mobile phones. Did he introduce it too early?

But even if it’s slightly early, they should still market it well.

Feng Yu suddenly remembers reporters had photographed a US company’s top executive for using a basic mobile phone in his previous life, and that was already in the smartphone era.

People’s comments about this incident are, ‘The type of mobile phone does not determine the person’s success. It is about who’s number is stored inside and who he calls.’

Feng Yu felt this could be used to introduce this low-cost mobile phone. If someone people look up to uses this mobile phone, it will not be embarrassing to use it.

It will be most effective if Feng Yu, the World’s Richest Man, is using this phone. Many people want to imitate him, but he does not want to appear before the media.

Feng Yu must find someone reputable and related to Tai Hua Holdings for this advertisement.

Zhong Qingxian is old and is reluctant to appear on the screen now. Furthermore, he was photographed using his latest Wind and Rain mobile phone by magazine reporters. It will be too fake if he switches to this phone now. Shi Dazhu doesn’t mind appearing in front of the media, but his image is…

Feng Yu thought about Tai Hua Holdings’ higher executives. They realized he had forgotten about the person in front of him.

Wu Zhigang suddenly felt a chill down his spine, and he notices Feng Yu looking at him. “Boss, why are you looking at me like this?”

“Zhigang, have you ever thought of becoming a celebrity?” Feng Yu asked.

“Me? Celebrity? Stop joking with me. I cannot act or sing. I sang during last year’s company event, and many people laughed at me.”

“No. I am talking about an advertising celebrity. It’s very simple. All you need to do is to pose.”

“Ah? You want me to star in an advertisement? Boss, I have never tried before. Furthermore, I am not a superstar and not handsome. Who would want to watch me?” Wu Zhigang hesitated.

Feng Yu could tell Wu Zhigang does not reject this idea from his tone. He should not mind appearing in front of the media.

As Tai Hua Holdings’ Deputy President, Wu Zhigang is not as famous as the rest. Even reporters are not interviewing him.

Some people avoid the media, but some prefer to flaunt their fame.

Wu Zhigang belongs to the second type. He wants to show off his success.

“Don’t worry. If I say you can do it, you can do it.”

“Then which product are we going to advertise? Songjiang Motor’s latest model?”

“No. It’s Wind and Rain’s latest mobile phone.”

“S2? Didn’t we decide to use that overseas celebrity to endorse it? The contract is signed, and I was the one who signed it.”

“No. Not S2. It’s this model.” Feng Yu picks up the 49 USD mobile phone.

Wu Zhigang’s eyes opened wide. “Boss, what did I do wrong? Why are you asking me to endorse this phone? Is there a need to endorse a 400 RMB mobile phone?”

“Zhigang, you are the first few people who joined me. Have I ever tricked you? You are most suitable to endorse this phone. But it is not those types of TV advertisements. It will be those advertorials, and I promise you will not regret it. When this phone becomes the world’s top-selling mobile phone and enters the history books, you will be remembered as the person who endorsed it.”

Wu Zhigang looks at Feng Yu, depressed. “Boss, advertorials are also considered endorsements? If I endorse this phone, does that means I can only use this in the future?”

“No. You can use our company’s latest mobile phone too. Don’t you have two phones? Just change one of it to this model will do.”

Wu Zhigang had joined Feng Yu since the start of his career and knows what soft advertising is. But that is not considered a real endorsement. But he understands that if Feng Yu wants to push this product, his exposure in front of the media will be high.

“Boss, how are we going to do this?”

…….

“Oh, Huazhi, you bought a mobile phone? Why did you get this model? The screen is still black and white.”

“What’s wrong with this phone? I can make calls and send SMS. It also has Snake and Tetris games in it. You don’t even have a phone.” Huazhi retorted.

Huazhi is a university student, and it’s not easy for him to save up to buy a mobile phone. The phone he wants costs a few thousand, and he cannot afford it.

“If it is me, I would rather not get any phone than use this. It will be an embarrassment to be seen using this model!”

“Who says? Look at the brand. It’s Wind and Rain brand, and even the wealthy people are using this phone!” Huazhi argued.

“Wealthy people are using this lousy phone? Do you know who is considered wealthy? They will only buy the most expensive items. Tell me, which wealthy person will buy this? The richest man in your village?!”

Huazhi’s face turns red with anger. “It’s Tai Hua Holdings’ Deputy President! He is using this phone!”

“Which company? Tai Hua Holdings? Do you mean the World’s Richest Man, Feng Yu’s company? Their company is paying their staff well, and their Deputy Presidents are getting more than 10 million RMB annually. Why would he use this phone? Even their Deputy Department head will not use this.”

Huazhi is mad. “Why should I lie? It’s reported on the internet and in newspapers. There are even photographs of him using it. When reporters ask him about his phone, he replied. Using an expensive phone will not show one’s status. What’s most important is the contacts on the phone and who do you call!”

“Are you serious?”

“Let’s go to the internet café. Sina should have this report, or you can search for it on Baidu. I am not lying. You should also get this phone. It’s only 400 RMB, and your parents will give you the money.”

These two students went to an internet café and entered to Sina news website. They immediately saw this article, and it is even the most searched article.

“Tai Hua Holdings’ Deputy President Wu Zhigang uses a 399 RMB Wind and Rain Mobile Phone!”

“Wu Zhigang says: This 399 RMB Wind and Rain Mobile phone is good.”

“Wu Zhigang said he is not testing this phone and is using it. He is using this 399 RMB phone.”

Articles of Wu Zhigang using this phone are on almost all the news websites, and many people are discussing this phone on the online forums.

Many people said they are thinking of getting a mobile phone and they will get this model. This Wind and Rain phone is of good quality and cheap.

This mobile phone becomes popular suddenly!

Chapter 1330 – Bear Grylls

Bear Grylls is a UK retired army officer, and he is famous as the author of a best-seller book.

His books talked about his various adventures and experiences. This year, he led a team to cross the North Atlantic in an inflatable boat.

Feng Yu felt this guy is seeking his death, but he just can’t die. Hmmm… he should have the MC’s BUFF.

Today, Bear Grylls had come to Shanghai. Amazon’s Director Ralph invited him to discuss a TV program.

Bear Grylls’ book is selling well on Amazon, and he intends to write his second book about his crossing of the North Atlantic next year.

But Bear Grylls did not expect Amazon’s Director to invite him to Shanghai and tell him that they have a job, which he will be interested in him.

“Mr. Ralph, when is the program’s producer arriving?”

“He will be here soon. I dare to guarantee that you will never expect who he is.” Ralph had a mysterious smile.

Bear Grylls wants to ask Ralph for more details but noticed the latter does not want to chat with him.

After a while, the door opens, and a Chinese man in his thirties entered without knocking.

Bear Grylls frowned as he felt this guy is rude. There are people in the room, and how can he enter without knocking?

But before Bear Grylls could say anything, Mr. Ralph stood up and bowed slightly. He looks like a subordinate meeting his superior. Who is this young Asian man?

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Grylls. I am Feng Yu.”

“Hi. Are you the producer of this show?”

Producer? Feng Yu turns to Ralph. Is this how you introduce me?

Feng Yu had only provided the concept and idea of this program. He does not know anything about TV production despite watching a lot of TV programs. Many people had watched movies, but how many dare to claim they can direct a movie? They might not even know how to write the script.

Ralph added. “Mr. Grylls, this is my Boss, Feng Yu. Don’t you find his name familiar?”

Bear Grylls thought for a while. He had heard of Feng Yu before…, and he suddenly exclaimed. “You are the World’s Richest Man, Feng Yu?!”

Feng Yu smiles and nods. He thought Bear Grylls doesn’t care about his status earlier, but it turns out that he was not told who he is meeting.

“You… are going to produce a TV program and wants me to be the host?!” Bear Grylls asked again.

“What’s wrong? Are you not confident?” Feng Yu asked.

“I had hosted a TV program before. I don’t know if you have watched it, but my program is different from what you imagine.” Bear Grylls replied.

“Hahaha… it’s fine. What I want is different. This is the concept and basic plan for this program. Take a look and tell me if you are interested.”

Feng Yu took out a proposal in English and gave it to Bear Grylls while he relaxes and enjoys his tea on the sofa.

Bear Grylls does not have high hopes for this program and had come to Shanghai because Ralph told him he could get sponsorships for his next expedition.

But after seeing the concept and plans for this program, Bear Grylls’s eyes become brighter.

This program is what he has in mind. He wants to host this program, and even if he cannot host it, he also wants to participate in it!

“Mr. Feng Yu.”

“Feng is my surname.”

“Mr. Feng, I am very interested in this program. Please hand it over to my team and me. I promise we can do a good job. But this proposal is quite brief. Can I look at the detailed proposal?” Bear Grylls excitedly asked.

“You are interested? Terrific. But did you notice that all the filming for this program must be filmed by you all? I will provide the HD Digital Video Cameras for you all. It’s an HD DV about the size of a shoe, and we will provide all the expenses. In exchange, you all must give me good footage, and I will get someone to edit it before selling it to TV stations or websites to air it.”

“Let me know how much salary you and your team want. I will give you the total amount, and you all can split it among yourselves. I will not interfere. We are still working on the detailed proposal, and you should see the first episode’s plan after you signed the contract. I believe this program will make you famous.”

Filming themselves is not an issue with Bear Grylls and his team, and they can get a few days of rest after every episode. But the proposal states that they can only use the equipment provided by the production team. He cannot agree to this as their lives depend on the equipment.

“Mr. Feng, I will provide a list of equipment, and if you all are going to promote your equipment, it must be checked and approved by my team first.”

Promoting equipment is only part of Feng Yu’s plan. His main purpose is to promote his HD DV. Although his DVs are not as good as Sony’s, it is sufficient to film this program.

“No problem. If the equipment we provided does not meet your requirement, you can let us know. We will purchase the equipment you ask for. Oh, if possible, we would want to print our logos on you and your team’s clothing. Of course, we can discuss if you must tear your clothes during the show.”

A TV program can have many product placements and advertisements. For example, no one will find it weird when the main actor and actress meet at McDonald’s in a movie. But McDonald’s had just advertised in the movie.

“Also, the footage must show these logos clearly. I am a businessman and not a philanthropist.”

“These are not a problem. As for the payments, I would need to discuss them with my team. But don’t worry. I will sign up for this show.” Bear Grylls replied earnestly. He is afraid others might snatch away this opportunity.

“Then I shall wait for your good news. According to our Chinese custom, I should prepare a feast tonight to welcome you. Ralph, please send Mr. Grylls to his hotel, and we can chat over dinner later.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Bear Grylls is the man at the top of the food pyramid and dares to eat everything.

Feng Yu wants to see if Bear Grylls dares to eat this scary Chinese food tonight. Yes, maybe he can prepare some raw food for him to try.

If this documentary is successful, many filmmakers will notice Wind and Rain’s HD DV. Although some features are not as good as the Japanese DVs, they are smaller and more durable. This show should increase DV’s sales.

Chapter 1331 – Settled

Bear Grylls spoke to his team for a long time over a satellite phone given to him, and he left his room for dinner with a list of equipment on a piece of paper.

When he saw Ralph, he passed the piece of paper to him. “Mr. Ralph, these are the basic equipment we need. If we bring anything more than these, it will not be considered survival.”

Ralph looks at the list, and it was not a long list. But he is unsure if Feng Yu can provide the items that can meet Bear Grylls’s requirement.

When they reached the restaurant, Ralph passed the list to Feng Yu. Feng Yu took a glance and noticed it is much lesser than he expected. But most of the items are easily available. Even if none of his companies produce the items, he can replace them with Chinese products to promote Chinese brands.

Feng Yu passed the paper to Wu Zhigang’s assistant, and everything will be sent over tomorrow morning.

“Mr. Grylls, I heard you are formerly from the Special Forces, and you all will try to look for food that can replenish your energy when food is scarce, right?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

“That’s right. We trained on a desert island, and I know how to differentiate what is edible and what’s not. But some of the food does not taste good.”

“That means you dare to eat anything as long as it is food?”

“Yes. I have even eaten insects.”

“That’s great. I was still worried that you would not get used to the dishes tonight.” Feng Yu clapped. “Serve the dishes!”

Bear Grylls is speechless when he saw what was served.

Are these what the Chinese eats? People will only eat these things when there is no other food available.

Bear Grylls had seen most of the food on the table except for some. Also, some of the food is still alive!

Bear Grylls knows this is a test from Feng Yu’s expression.

The program proposal states that no food will be provided to him, and he needs to look for his food. He also mentioned that he dares to eat everything, and it’s time to prove his words.

Wait… why is Feng Yu also eating these? Is this not a test for him, and is it really what the Chinese eat every day?

Feng Yu smiled when he saw Bear Grylls’s shocked expression. “Many people in China eat these. Of course, there are also many people who don’t dare to eat. Try some.”

Bear Grylls picks an item from each dish into his plate and sniffs it. Huh?! Smells delicious, and it seems deep-fried.

Bear Grylls puts the insect into his mouth, and his eyes opened wide.

He had eaten these insects before, but it was not so delicious!

Soon, he finishes all the insects on his plate and starts to eat the live food.

Feng Yu dares to eat some insects, but he did not touch those live food. Other than being alive, there is no sauce available. It’s too gross.

“This insect is high in protein. I had seen it in the Yunnan region.” Bear Grylls said and swallowed the worm alive!

It’s Feng Yu’s turn to feel disgusted. Even Ralph, who was sitting next to Bear Grylls, moved his chair towards Feng Yu. Is Bear Grylls a barbarian? How come he dares to eat anything?!

He had just swallowed a wriggling worm!

“When we eat this octopus, we must chew it carefully. Or else, you will choke when if the suckers stick to your throat.”

Bear Grylls explained to Feng Yu while he eats.

This is the first time Feng Yu saw someone eating live octopus without any sauce. These are not fruits, and he should at least put some salt on them.

Ralph almost puke when he saw Bear Grylls chewing and swallowing the live octopus.

“The energy level is very high in the fats….”

Feng Yu saw Bear Grylls eating a piece of raw meat!

When Bear Grylls was about to continue, Feng Yu quickly stop him. “Ok, Mr. Grylls. I believe you are a survivor specialist!”

Damn! It’s too gross. If Feng Yu lets him continue, he will lose his appetite for dinner

Feng Yu got the waiters to remove the raw food and served some normal food. He decides just to eat vegetables tonight.

“Mr. Feng, the taste is not important when we are in the wild. We only care we can get enough energy for survival. We must stay alive until we can find a way out or wait for rescuers.” Bear Grylls explained.

……..

“This is our Chinese military-grade backpack. Of course, it is also available to the civilians now. The capacity is 52 liters, and it uses an outer frame structure. It will not affect our body’s heat and can carry all the necessities. You can also hang a sleeping bag here….”

“This is a 20 meters mountain climbing rope. It is used for professional rock climbing, and this carabiner can hold up to 400 kg.”

“This is Tai Hua Brand of the flashlight. It can shine up to XX meters and through the fog. There is a flashing function for SOS, and this light stick can more than two hours….”

“This is our Chinese-produced military multipurpose spade, and this is the multifunctional knife. Our military uses these.”

“This satellite phone has 8 hours of talk time and 72 hours of standby time. This sleeping bag….”

“Lastly, these are the filming equipment. There will be four sets, and all of them are our Wind and Rain HD DV with three times optical zoom. The battery can last for 2 hours of continuous filming. There will be two spare batteries for each and a Wing and Rain power bank. It can be used to charge the DV and mobile phone.”

Bear Grylls checked all the equipment and noticed they are all of the good quality. Also, Feng Yu had prepared items outside of the list. For example, the power banks, which are very important for their filming.

Bear Grylls also noticed all the equipment, including the boots, clothing, etc., are manufactured in China.

These are all military-grade equipment, but it is available to the civilians now. Feng Yu had contacted the higher-ups and them willing to sponsor these items. Under normal circumstances, Feng Yu will ask them for product placement fees, but he did not ask the government this time.

“Mr. Feng, there is no problem with the equipment. I had discussed this with my team. Your requirement is for us to stay at least three days and at most seven days at a location. Then we will charge based on the time. My team and I will charge 8,000 GBP per day.”

“I will give you 10,000 USD and an additional bonus if the show’s ratings are high!”

Feng Yu did not expect Bear Grylls’s charges is so low. Bear Grylls charged an astronomical amount for his participation in a Chinese reality show in his previous life. But this is because he is not so famous, and the fees for such programs are not very high now. He heard that an ordinary mercenary in Africa only costs 100 USD per day!

“Thank you, Mr. Feng. I think I am ready to sign the contract now.”

Chapter 1332 – A different type of show

Feng Yu got Ralph to follow up with Bear Grylls and offered some suggestions for this program. Bear Grylls and his team will do the final planning. They also hired a few people from the Discovery Channel to offer their professional advice.

The people from the Discovery Channel find the concept of this show very interesting. Still, they want to wait until they have seen the first episode before deciding if they want to buy the broadcasting rights. They had wanted to buy the full rights over this program but were rejected by Feng Yu.

Feng Yu can continue with other spinoffs with the full rights of a program and sell the show to other TV stations. These are all money.

Also, with full control over the program, Feng Yu can include multiple product placements to cover the production costs and even make profits.

Huayi’s Wang Zhongjun had called Feng Yu to inform him that he had picked the candidates for the hosts for the travel show and had sent their particulars to his email. Feng Yu can pick the hosts he likes from the candidates.

Tai Hua Consulting is a shareholder of Huayi, and Wang Zhongjun acted immediately after receiving Feng Yu’s call. They wanted to pick two artists who they think are more suitable but felt too few. What if Feng Yu dislike the artists they picked?

So, Wang Zhongjun quickly signs a few young actors and actresses. The actors must be handsome and outgoing, and the actress must be pretty and gorgeous. Most importantly, their mandarin must be good.

Feng Yu had said that he does not mind new actors or actresses. But Wang Zhongjun felt it should be safer to get young actors with some acting experiences or had appeared on TV before.

Feng Yu entered his mailbox and looked at the information Wang Zhongjun sent.

The first guy is a model. He does have an outgoing feel but lacks muscles and is too skinny.

The second guy is a young actor, but he looks old. He is only twenty but looks like someone in his forties.

When Feng Yu saw the third guy, he immediately picks him without looking at his information. Feng Yu had seen this guy in his previous life, and he is buffed and handsome.

Li Chen is also known as Black Bull by the netizens in Feng Yu’s previous life. But he is not as buff now and needs to increase some mass now.

Feng Yu looks through all the female actresses and felt two of them are quite suitable. But he picks the younger actress, Song Jia because she is from Bing City!

Feng Yu picked up his phone and called Wang Zhongjun. “Tell Li Chen and Song Jia to get ready. I am going to Beijing tomorrow and can meet them.”

Wang Zhongjun immediately got his assistant to inform them and felt these two are too lucky to be picked by Manager Feng. They are going to be popular.

Li Chen was not an artist from Huayi but was transferred over recently. Although he has some popularity, he does not have any work currently.

When Li Chen’s manager told him that their Boss would bring him to meet the Company’s big Boss, he felt this is his opportunity!

Song Jia was also poached from other companies by Wang Zhongjun, and she only has minor roles in TV series. She is supposed to start on a new role with more lines, but her manager rejected that role.

…….

Sister Hua, which famous director are we meeting this time?” Song Jia is curious. Why is Sister Hua bringing them over? She is in charge of those superstars in the company.

Li Chen, who had gotten some fame from the <Seventeen Year-Olds Don’t Cry> TV drama two years ago, and acted in several other TV series, is more famous than Song Jia.

“I am not bringing you two to meet any directors. You all will be meeting an investor and also someone you two will never expect. Be careful with your words later. He is also our company’s shareholder.”

These two are poached from other companies and do not know who the company’s shareholders are. But they know why a big company like Huayi poaches them, and the company even pays off their compensation for them. They are not famous, and the penalty for breaking their previous contracts is not high.

The room’s door opened suddenly, and the company’s Boss, Wang Zhongjun, entered another man. Why is their Boss looks like he is trying to please that man? Even if that man is the company’s shareholder, Manager Wang is still the company’s Boss.

“Manager Wang.” Li Chen and Song Jia stood up to greet him.

“This is also our company’s shareholder, but he has another identity. He is the World’s Richest Man, Mr. Feng Yu!”

Li Chen and Song Jia’s jaws dropped, and they quickly try to suppress their excitement. They had never imagined they can sit in the same room with the World’s Richest Man.

“I had asked you two to come is because I want to make a TV show. Actually, I can get my subordinates to meet you instead, but I am afraid they cannot convey what I want to say. I want to do a travel show, but it’s a different type of travel show!”

“First, this show will be based on a road trip. That means you two will have to drive yourselves and there will be no other drivers. Second, you two will have to film everything yourselves. There will not be other cameras, directors, production crews, etc. You two will have to take care of everything.”

“Of course, the route and itinerary will be planned by someone else. You two will be the hosts, cameramen, and also the director of this show. Maybe Li Chen will also need to double up as the driver, porter, and other roles. Can you all do it?”

Li Chen and Song Jia are stunned. Do they have to do everything themselves?! There will be no director, production crew, and cameras? Are they able to do it? Also, no one had filmed travel shows this way.

But they know this is an opportunity. If they can succeed, they will surely become popular. Also, other artists are similar to them within the company who can replace them if they reject this offer.

Li Chen thought for a while and replied carefully. “I have no problems being the driver or porter, and I will learn how to film with the video camera. I can also host, as I had hosted my school’s events when I was studying.”

“No. This hosting will be different from the hosting you see in Gala Nights and award ceremonies. Have you watched <Zheng Da Variety>? It will be different from their outdoor hosting too. You all must film all the scenery and also interact with the viewers. This show will not only be aired on our local TV stations and the internet but it will also be sold overseas. You all will gain higher popularity if you all can do this well.”

“Manager Feng, we promise we will make it a success!” Song Jia jumped to her feet and shouted.

“After you all filmed the first episode, I will point out the mistakes. This show will surely be a success!”

The Discovery Channel also broadcasts travel shows, but it’s different from the travel show Feng Yu wanted. This travel show will be different from all the travel documentaries in the past.

Chapter 1333 – It should be filmed this way

“Winter is the best season to visit Bing City. Come with us to our most Northern Provincial City, and see what surprises we can find here. Brother Li, you are too exaggerating!”

“This is my first time to Bing City, and I thought everywhere is frozen in ice. That’s why I must keep warm.”

The footage switched to Song Jia holding the camera and started filming Li Chen. Li Chen is wearing a down jacket, cotton hat, gloves, and a thick woolen scarf covering his neck and face. There is only a small slit for his eyes.

But Song Jia is only wearing a down jacket and a pair of cute rabbit ear muffles. Although it’s snow and ice everywhere, she doesn’t seem to be cold.

“Although the temperature is lower in Bing City, there is no wind, and the sun is out today. That’s why it’s not that cold. Even if we feel cold, we can just walk around or enter any shop for five minutes to warm ourselves up. Everyone, can you see this river behind me? This is the Songjiang river. Our famous Songjiang Motors, also the car we pick for our road trip, is named after it. This is also our Bing City’s pride….”

Feng Yu looks at the unedited footage on the PC screen. They had understood what he wanted and treated this show like it’s not a TV show.

They must introduce the places of attractions, and also chat like friends between them. This hosting style is very casual and natural.

Bing City is picked as their first stop because it is also Song Jia’s hometown. She can become the tour guide here, and her itinerary is more interesting than what the production crew prepared.

They started from Bing City’s most famous Central Street towards the riverside and then drove to the river’s north. At night, they visited the newly opened Bingxue Big World.

The colorful lights lit up Bingxue Big World at night, and Li Chen got onto a deer sled for the first time. His expression is like a big kid.

A few TV producers and directors sitting behind Feng Yu frowned. This is different from all the travel documentaries they had watched.

“Everyone, what do you all think after watching this footage?” Feng Yu asked.

“Manager Feng, no one had ever tried filming a road trip as a TV show before, and the hosts got to host and film themselves. But I find this concept quite interesting.” A senior Director from CCTV replied with a frown.

“Road trip had only become popular in the recent years, and I had never tried it myself. I can’t say much about this, but their footages are not stable and need to be improved.”

“No. I have a different view from you. I think such footage is more realistic. This show is called <China’s Travel Guide>, and the selling point of this show is to look at tourist attractions from a tourist’s point of view. The hosts are also not professional hosts. If the footages are too stable, viewers might find it an issue.” Someone retorted.

“These two’s filming techniques are too lousy, and they should go for more training. Their conversation is too casual and said too many unnecessary things. Also, that girl had even criticized some of the theme park facilities are unsafe and even hinted that many of the products sold there are overpriced. How can she say these?!” Another senior Producer criticizes.

“No. This is the style this show should have! What she said is the truth, and she is saying it as a tourist. But I agree she is too direct, and my suggestion is to get her to tone down, or it might not be suitable to be aired overseas.” The Sohu’s representative said.

Feng Yu also agrees with Sohu’s representative. What’s the point of this show when it is full of praises? This shows the real experiences of these two hosts as tourists.

This is what makes this show unique, and it is the selling point to attract viewers.

Very few people like to watch traditional travel shows. What’s so interesting about the footage of attractions and a voice-over? Once in a while, a host will pop up and start talking about legends, myths, and modified versions of the history of that area.

The local authorities will go all out to increase their tourism, and Feng Yu can still remember the different cities fighting to be the birthplace of Qin Hui!

Claiming to be the birthplace of characters like Guan Yu and Wu Dalang is fine. But what are those cities thinking when they claim to be Nezha and Erlang Shen’s birthplace?!

How did they find out the birthplace of these folk tales’ characters?! Do the people there have three eyes or three heads and six arms!? Why don’t they claim to be Sun Wukong’s birthplace?!

Many people can’t tell the difference between historical novels and actual history. For example, many people thought the <Romance of the Three Kingdoms> is the actual history of China. But that is a novel based on history.

Just look at the weapons of Liu Bei and his oath brothers. Iron swords will break against a wooden pole with the blacksmithing technologies at that time, and the Green Dragon Crescent Blade does not exist. Even if anyone manages to make it, the blade will break when it is swung about a few times. The Serpent Head Spear is also fake as there are no such weapons in that era!

The funniest part is people worshipping a character from the novel, Guan Yu, as a deity.

People start making up stories and myths about their cities to attract tourists, and as time passes, even they believe their own lies!

The hotels, shops, restaurants around the attractions are too expensive, and the food sucks!

Many people thought it would not be costly to go on holiday. But when they are there, they will realize that they need to pay for everything.

They might budget 1,000 RMB to spend at a tourist attraction but ended up spending more than 2,000 RMB. If they are tricked into buying souvenirs, they might spend more than 20,000 RMB.

As the few producers and directors are arguing, Feng Yu suddenly said. “This program is not bad. I think it will be popular.”

Everyone quiets down. Feng Yu has already decided, and what’s there to argue anymore?

“Manager Feng, should we delete those comments about the overpriced items at attractions?”

“We will have two versions. One will keep the comments, and the other will be deleted. The deleted version can be aired on local and overseas TV stations. The other version can be broadcast on the internet. Tell them to tone down slightly for the next episode.”

Feng Yu told Sohu’s representative that he could air the deleted part on the internet first as part of the program’s trailer. This will raise the program’s popularity before it is even aired.

Viewers will see a different kind of travel show with a unique filming style.

Chapter 1334 – Unexpected Ratings

After the first episode was edited, CCTV agreed to air it on CCTV 2 and their newly launched digital channel simultaneously.

But they wanted Song Jia’s comments about the overpriced items removed. They said those comments are not good for the City’s image.

But CCTV did not pay Sohu for this show. Instead, they used the 1-minute advertisement slots before and after the show as payment.

These slots are immediately purchased by the brands that had product placements in the show. For example, Songjiang Motors, Bing City Pharmaceutical Group, Wind and Rain Electronics, Lehaha Group, Yue Lai Inn, Sina, Baidu, and Lenovo.

Each brand has 15 seconds, and eight of them make up exactly two minutes.

The production cost for this show is low as there is no production crew following the hosts around, and the hosts are not superstars. Sohu is already making a profit from the product placement fees and advertisement fees. If they can sell this show overseas, their profits will get higher.

The hosting style Feng Yu taught Li Chen, and Song Jia is the popular outdoor live streaming hosting style in his previous life. Live streaming is still not available now, and they cannot interact with their fans. But this new hosting style is unique to the viewers.

A hosting style that can become popular must have its reasons. Feng Yu told them that this hosting style would become popular because they speak from a tourist point of view, and viewers will feel closer.

They must place the interest of the tourists first and don’t need to worry about offending the Cities and attractions. As long as they are not making things up, everything will be fine.

Whoever dares to find trouble with them, Feng Yu will step forward and settle it for them!

Regardless of which Province Feng Yu went to, the Province Government’s No. 1 and No. 2 will go all out to receive him because they hope he will invest in their Province.

Look at the Provinces Feng Yu invested in. All of them had benefited from the low employment rates and stimulated economy.

No one will dare to offend Feng Yu.

The production for this show is very fast. A TV show ended in the last week of January 2004, and this show started airing.

Feng Yu had gotten Sohu Channel to promote this show and released that cut footage as a trailer. He had asked Song Jia if she is afraid of offending others. But she is not afraid because she had emailed Bing City’s Mayor about the overpriced items that day and got a reply on the same day.

Feng Yu realized this girl is very smart, unlike her image of being careless and unconcerned. If Bing City Government her feedback seriously and acted on it, it will reflect well on them.

No one had seen Cities that are willing to accept tourists’ feedback and change the tourist attractions.

Most tourist attractions will claim to put the interest of tourists first, but the reality is different.

Which City will point out their attractions’ flaws in their promotion?

Bing City’s reaction is very smart.

Bing City’s Leaders had wanted to cover up this issue, but when they heard Feng Yu produce this show, they immediately change their plans. After consulting their higher-ups, they quickly implemented measures in a high-profile way and even used them to promote their tourism.

When Sohu Channel aired that footage to promote this show, Sina News reported that Bing City had restructured its tourist attractions due to tourist feedback. Sohu Channel also aired an interview with Bing City Leader about the City takes tourists’ feedback seriously and welcoming tourists to email their feedback to the Mayor’s mailbox.

This bad incident had become good news for Bing City. After the news was reported about this incident, Bing City gained a better reputation.

…….

“Mum, why are you watching this channel? Watch XX channel. It is showing the <Young Justice Bao> re-run.” A student asked.

“What’s so nice about that drama? This show is more interesting.”

“What’s this? Isn’t this a travel show? Eh? I have seen this girl. She is the one who criticized Bing City tourism.”

“Who is criticizing the City’s tourism? They are just the hosts of this show. Look at that ice lantern and sculpture. It’s so beautiful.”

“No, Mum. She said some of the shops at the tourist attractions are overcharging tourists, and some rides don’t even have good safety features.”

“She is not wrong. Do you still remember when we went there last year? That hotel is very expensive.”

Both chatted as they continued to watch the show, and that student forgot that he wants to watch the drama re-run.

……

“Why are you switching the channel? I am still watching this program.”

“Dad, watch CCTV 2. There is a new program, <China’s Travel Guide>. The internet says it is nice.”

“What is so interesting about that new program? I want to watch this show.”

“You can watch the re-run tomorrow. Today is the first broadcast, and I don’t want to miss it. Oh, Li Chen is hosting this show. You said you like to watch him.”

“Nonsense. You are the one who likes him. I will be glad if you can find a husband like him. Alright. Let’s just watch this show.”

……

“What program is this? The production is too lousy, and the footages are not stable.”

“This is filmed by themselves. How can you compare to those professional cameras? Furthermore, they said they are using two sets of Wind and Rain DV to film their travels. Look at the footage. It’s still very clear.”

“You are saying that this is recorded on a normal DV and not those TV stations’ video cameras? Honey, let’s buy one too. I can record our travels next time, and I guarantee it will be better than this show.”

“Stop boasting. But we should get one to record our son growing up.”

…….

“Eh, that female host is very pretty, and I heard she is from Bing City.” A guy said.

“That male host is better looking and tall. He is also a TV star.” A girl retorted.

“They look compatible.”

“Nonsenses. They are just colleagues.”

“Who knows? They are the only ones filming this show and are together every day. Maybe they will start having feelings for each other.”

“You are not allowed to talk about Li Chen like this!” The girl got mad.

“Fine… fine… I still stop saying all these. Let’s go to Bing City this Lunar New Year holidays. I still have not seen real snow.”

“But it will be expensive.”

“It will not be expensive. They had shared their itinerary, and we will just follow it.”

“Alright. Let’s get two down jackets this weekend. It’s cold over there.” The girl started talking about what they should get for this trip.

The guy smiled in his heart. They are going on a holiday alone, and something good might happen during this trip.

…….

“Is yesterday’s rating out?”

“Yes. You can never guess the rating for <China’s Travel Guide>. It’s too surprising.”

Station Chief Jia looks at the rating report. This show’s rating is even higher than the CCTV 1 program in the same time slot!

Chapter 1335 – Good Reviews

“Manager Feng, you are a genius. The ratings for our <China’s Travel Guide> and the online views are very high.” Zhang Chaoyang said.

“We had spent so much to promote this show. If no one is watching it, that means this show sucks. But our money is well spent based on the ratings.”

Feng Yu has some hesitations as this show is a new concept and is worried viewers might not accept it.

Luckily, this show did not disappoint Feng Yu, and there are no other interesting shows in the same time slot. That’s why he is not very surprised to see it has such high ratings.

“Manager Feng, do you know that after this show is aired, we received many invitations from local governments to film in their Cities. Some even contacted Li Chen and Song Jia to ask them to promote their tourist attractions. They are willing to sponsor the entrance fees and lodging for them.”

“That’s good. Remember to contact the local authorities before we go there to film. Those who want to be featured in our show must pay a fee. We are promoting their tourism for them, and they should not be taking advantage of us!”

“What? Manager Feng, they allow us to film for free and are sponsoring our lodging, food, and travel expenses. We are still going to collect money from them?”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. “What’s wrong? How much are the entrance tickets, lodging, etc.? Didn’t we include those in our budget? How much will it cost for them to feature their tourist attractions on CCTV to attract tourists? Can they afford to advertise on TV?”

“Let our people contact those attractions’ government. They benefit from this and tell them that we will skip them if they are not willing to pay. China has a lot of attractions, and we don’t mind skipping them.”

Zhang Chaoyang nodded. He had never thought about what Feng Yu said, but he felt it made sense. One minute of advertising on CCTV is too expensive for those attractions. Even if they get reporters to interview them, they also need to give them money.

“How are the reviews on the show online?”

“There are not many reviews, but this show is a trending topic for discussion online. Many people talk about the show on our Sohu forums, Sina blogs, Baidu Ba Tie, etc. Many people say this show is very close to reality, unlike previous travel shows. Some even said they are considering going to Bing City during the holidays.”

Zhang Chaoyang opened a Lenovo laptop and placed it in front of Feng Yu. Feng Yu clicked on Sohu forums and saw the thread about the show has the most replies.

Feng Yu entered the thread to read the comments.

“This should be the way travel shows should be filmed. Those travel shows in the past are trash. They are just talking about history and culture. I only care whether if the place is fun or not when I go on holiday. Who cares about history?”

“How come I didn’t see Song Jia’s negative comments about the attractions on TV? Is it censored by the higher-ups? Those leaders only know about covering up their flaws!”

“It is not included in the TV station version. But I saw it online, on the Sohu Channel’s version. I support what Song Jia said.”

“That’s right. She told the truth, and at the end of the program, Bing City Government had taken correction measures after hearing her feedbacks. This is what the government should do.”

“I am from Bing City and had gone to Bingxue Big World yesterday. Safety measures had been implemented for the dangerous rides mentioned by Song Jia, and the shops there had adjusted their prices. Although it is still slightly expensive, it is not overcharging people like before.”

“Those above me are just saying the good things. How can only two people film this show? It must be fake!”

…….

Sohu Channel set up a Baidu Ba Tie for this channel before it was aired and arranged their staff to monitor it.

“I heard the idea for this show is from Feng Yu. Do you think it’s possible?”

“Bullshit. Do you know who Feng Yu is? Why will the World’s Richest Man be focusing on a TV show? He can afford to go anywhere for a holiday. I think this is only a gimmick by the production team to promote this show!”

“Wah… Li Chen is so handsome!” A girl posted.

“He is only average looking and not as handsome as Jay Chou.”

“I prefer Aaron Kwok.”

“Why are you all discussing this? I find this show quite interesting and will continue watching other episodes. Even if I cannot afford to go on holiday, but I can still watch it. This is filmed from a tourist point of view.”

There is all sort of posts on this Tie Ba, but most of it is not related to the show.

As long as these posts are not against the regulations, they don’t need to delete them.

Li Chen and Song Jia had registered Sina accounts some time ago, and their followers increased a lot these two days. They were shocked and wondered why they had become so popular overnight?

Li Chen and Song Jia thought only movie stars could get so many followers, and they had never expected to gain fame from hosting a travel show.

Everyone likes these two cheerful young couples and started following them. Some even asked if they are in a relationship.

Li Chen and Song Jia are speechless over this question. They only got to know each other before the start of this program and are not attracted.

Even their parents thought they are a couple and called to ask them about it.

Both of them explained on their Weibo and hope the viewers will focus on the show instead of them. They promised to show viewers the real side of them and the attractions.

Their popularity increases further after making this statement, and they have more fans than some superstars. Some even ask them to reveal their next destination and wish to join them.

Some people and government staff even tried to invite them to their hometown and cities for filming.

But most of the comments are praising this show for being real, and one episode per week is too slow. They want to watch an episode every day.

Feng Yu switched off the laptop. He does not need to read any more comments.

Although there is some negative feedback, most of the reviews are positive.

Chapter 1336 – Purchasing Chinese Brands

“Manager Feng, our people had reported that our latest Wind and Rain Mobile phone sales are doing well these few days. Many people feedback that they are satisfied with our upgraded camera features. Oh, Aiwa’s mobile phone sales had also increased. Many of the sponsors’ products are also selling well. It seems that having product placement in a good show is very effective, and it’s only two episodes. If more than ten episodes are aired, the sales will be better!” Zhong Qingxian laughed.

“Our phones have good quality, and it’s not surprising for this latest model to sell well with all the advertisements. Product placement is to embed the brand into people’s subconscious minds. When people are shopping for similar products, they will think of this brand first.” Feng Yu explained.

The Wind and Rain Mobile and Aiwa Mobile are advertising together in China, and people know these two phones are the same except for the brand.

Although the Aiwa brand is the main focus in China, Wind, and Rain brands are also available. This travel show’s name had included Wind and Rain Mobile because Feng Yu wants to sell the show overseas.

Only Discovery had contacted them and will decide if they will buy the broadcasting rights, depending on the ratings of the first four episodes. They are very satisfied with the show’s current ratings.

But the Discovery’s people are curious. Are the Chinese rich enough to go on road trips? Also, why are there so many skyscrapers in the cities?

Many foreigners’ impression of China is backward and poor. Although China had produced Feng Yu, the World’s Richest Man, most people on the Forbes List are Americans.

Also, most of Feng Yu’s assets are located outside of China and are mainly focused on the US and Hong Kong. This means China’s development is not doing well.

The Chinese movies had only shown mountainous and poor places. Even the Chinese government claims to be a developing country themselves.

Such impressions have nothing to do with those Chinese movies. Movies are only a form of cultural product to spread cultures. Many people can understand a country’s economic status from its movies.

For example, the US had made lots of sci-fi movies about alien invasions, robots, mutants, etc. We gave others the impression that US technologies are very advanced.

The former Soviet Union was tricked and dragged into the arms race. In the end, their economy collapsed and got disintegrated.

Are there any poor places in the US? Of course, there are. Many districts in the US are dirty and poor. Some of their agricultural states are also not doing well. Many of the farms there still have no access to electricity.

It’s fine to stay in those areas for one or two days as a vacation. But not many people are willing to live there. Most tycoons prefer to live in City suburbs and not in those deserted areas.

No matter how well the US marketed itself, the gap between the rich and poor is wide. Many people don’t even dare to go near the African-American neighborhoods in the day, and many don’t dare to go out at night in some districts. Maybe Las Vegas is the only exception.

These are all not reported in the media. If all these are reported, how many people will want to visit the US? All those talks about fairness and equality are jokes. The Whites have a superiority complex and can easily get approval for social security benefits.

Many African Americans cannot even get a proper education. They are still fighting for equal rights when they are not working hard themselves.

Many people said that Chinese movies must show the poverty and hardships to get awards at film festivals. The judges will think that giving these movie awards is a form of encouragement for filming in those conditions!

The Chinese are considered one of the most hardworking races by many countries. But the Chinese government had not marketed themselves previously. Now, China had noticed the importance of marketing.

Because of a lack of marketing, China could not attract a lot of foreign investors. The majority of their foreign investments are using their quality assets to exchange for investments by the US and Japanese firms.

For example, China’s most popular daily necessity a few years ago is a brand of washing powder called, Huoli 28. It owned more than 70% of China’s market share. But the company followed the higher-ups’ directives to attract foreign investments.

In the end, Huoli 28’s brand disappeared, and the factory produced a new brand of washing powder called Qiaoshou.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many companies, like Le Bashi, Lehaha, Shuang Hui, Xi An Yang Shen, Zhong Hua Toothpaste, Nanfu Batteries, Ha Er Bing Beer, etc. are China’s national brands. But after they allowed foreign investors to invest in them, they were slowly taken over by the foreign companies.

These former national brands had become a tool to make money for those foreigners.

Some companies had retaliated in Feng Yu’s previous life. For example, Zhong Qingxian had fallen out with Danone. He still owns the brand, and he slowly transfers his company’s operations to a new company under his daughter’s name and goes separate ways with Danone later.

China’s Xuehua had also bought back their shares and escaped from the control of foreign companies.

Currently, many companies in China are the same. They will market themselves as Chinese brands, but their major shareholder is foreign companies.

Feng Yu does not object to joint ventures or even selling state-owned companies to foreigners. But these companies should not market themselves as Chinese National brands to use the consumers’ national complex. This is too disgusting.

This is considered a fraud! Using people’s national complex to swindle money!

This is worse than cheating other people’s money!

Feng Yu made a decision. “Old Zhong, get your men to investigate and see how many top-selling brands are owned by foreign companies, or their biggest shareholders are foreigners.”

Zhong Qingxian looks at Feng Yu curiously. “Manager Feng, why are you interfering in this? Are you thinking of buying those brands?”

Zhong Qingxian knows Feng Yu can be xenophobic sometimes and does not like to see foreigners earning money from the Chinese.

“Why not? Go and find out the brands. Many local companies also want to buy back their shares, but they don’t have money. We can give them a hand. We cannot sit back and see those foreign brands becoming big in China and form an invisible monopoly!”

Chapter 1337 – Blocking the marketing channels

Feng Yu wants to purchase those national brands controlled by foreign companies but does not want to spend a lot for it. The simplest method is to lower the value of these brands before acquiring them and market them again.

An example will be Jianlibao. Lehaha had taken over Jianlibao as the market leader in China. Still, the netizens voted Jianlibao as their favorite drink last year. That’s because many people grew up drinking Jianlibao.

The simplest way to suppress a brand’s value is to lower its brand awareness. But Feng Yu does not want to dig up those companies’ dark history or tarnish their brands. He has no intentions of destroying those brands. He will just lower the brands’ exposure to let people slowly forget about their existences.

How is Feng Yu going to lower these brands’ exposures?

First, Feng Yu must stop CCTV and those popular websites from airing these brands’ advertisements. But he must pay high compensations to these brands if he forcibly removes their advertisements. He has to make use of the contracts’ loopholes to avoid the compensations.

All along, it was those foreign companies who used loopholes in contracts to take advantage of Chinese companies. But it will be different this time. Feng Yu will let these companies know that they are not the only ones who know how to take advantage of loopholes in contracts!

…….

“Station Chief Jia, I think these brands’ advertisements should be taken down.” Feng Yu passed a list to Chief Jia.

“Manager Feng, these companies’ products are not your competitors, and even if they are your competitors, you also cannot force them to take down their advertisements. We need to compensate them.” Chief Jia frowned. CCTV might have a good relationship with you, but you cannot simply order us to do your bidding.

“Why should you compensate them?! We are the ones who should be getting compensations from them!” Feng Yu replied.

Huh? We are going to take down their advertisements and still seek compensation from them?! They had paid for the advertisements, and we are the ones breaking the contract now.

“How are we going to seek compensations from them?” Chief Jia asked.

“Their advertisements had violated our advertising laws. They are cheating the consumers and doing false advertisings, and we can remove their advertisements. Their advertisements had tarnished CCTV’s reputation, and we can seek compensation from them.” Feng Yu replied.

“Their advertisements had violated the advertising laws? Impossible. We had reviewed their advertisements.”

“That is because you all are fooled during the review and not because you all had not reviewed it thoroughly.” Feng Yu said to find an excuse for Chief Jia. “For example, this Qiaoshou washing detergent advertisement. It states the clothes will be as good as new after washing. But the clothes are still old clothes after washing. Isn’t this false advertising?”

“Look at this advertisement. It states that intelligence will increase after eating their product. Does that mean my kids don’t need to go to school after eating it?”

“This Zhonghua toothpaste claims to be Chinese. But this company had been taken over by a foreign company.”

“This shampoo advertisement claims to remove all dandruff after washing. This is impossible. No shampoo can remove dandruff completely.”

“All these advertisements have problems. They are cheating the consumers, and we can remove their advertisements without compensating them, and even demand compensations from them.”

Chief Jia’s jaw dropped. It’s normal for advertisements to be slightly exaggerated. Everyone knows that clothes will not become new after washing, and you are unreasonable.

But what Feng Yu said made sense too. These advertisements had made exaggerated claims, but what have these got to do with Feng Yu? Do you need more advertising slots for your companies? Tai Hua Holdings is the only company that CCTV allows to change advertisements anytime. Even those state-owned enterprises are not allowed to do that!

You are not satisfied with this benefit and still want to get others into trouble? If they remove these advertisements, who will dare to advertise in CCTV in the future?

“Manager Feng, what do you want from us?” Chief Jia asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? I am helping your TV station to make money.”

“Manager Feng… Stop beating around the bush. Have they offended you? It shouldn’t be. They will not dare to offend you.” Chief Jia asked.

“That’s right. They had offended me. But it’s not what you are thinking. The list of brands I gave you is all advertisements for foreign companies’ products.”

“Foreign companies’ products? These are all our old Chinese brands. Zhong Hua Toothpaste has been around for decades. Doesn’t our Beijing Pharmaceutical factory produce this medicine? This shampoo is from a company in Guangdong. How can they be foreign companies?”

“Furthermore, what has it got to do with you if they are foreign companies? Are you thinking of killing off all the foreign companies in China?” Chief Jia laughed.

“That’s right. I am going after them. Not only will I seal off all the marketing channels, but I will also seal their sales distribution channels. Tai Hua Supermarket Group will remove all these brands from the shelves.”

“It’s fine to be foreign companies, and I am working with several foreign companies. I welcome them to invest in China, but they should not use our national sentiments to make money. They are selling their products under our national brands and taking away all the profits!”

Chief Jia shook his head. “Manager Feng, you are too extreme. You can go overseas to make money, but don’t allow foreign companies to make money in China. Furthermore, if you force these companies to close down, what will happen to those workers and the local economy?”

“I will take over and rebuild their brands. I can also let these companies’ products step out of China. Although I have businesses in several countries, I have never made use of their people’s nationalistic sentiments to sell my products.”

Station Chief Jia hesitated. These companies are quite disgusting. You are a foreign company, and why are you claiming to be our Chinese national brand? This is a scam.

“You might be right, but isn’t it too much to remove these companies’ advertisements suddenly? Furthermore, you still want to seek compensation from them. This will make people think CCTV is unreasonable.”

“We are following the law, and not only China had advertising laws. It is the same everywhere. They should make a disclaimer in their advertisements before airing it.”

“Chief Jia, CCTV will not suffer any losses by doing this. If you all cannot sell your advertisement slots next year, I will buy out all the slots!” Feng Yu announced.

Station Chief Jia looks at Feng Yu. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“We must do it!”

Chapter 1338 – What are they trying to do?

“What? Our advertisements which we bought the advertising slots at high prices are taken down?! Why?!”

“Mr. John, CCTV’s replied that our advertisements are false advertising and had violated the advertising laws.”

“Damn! I demand CCTV compensate us! We will blow up this matter. This way, our products will gain more exposure and also get compensation of double the advertising fees!” John shouted.

“This has already blown up because CCTV is demanding compensation from us. According to the contract, if CCTV’s reputation is affected because our advertisements had violated the advertising laws, they can demand compensations from us.”

John is speechless. How can CCTV do such things?! They are a foreign company, and this might affect diplomatic relations.

Isn’t China trying to attract foreign investors to develop its economy? Who will dare to invest in China if they do this? Is this what CCTV wanted, or is it the higher-ups who gave this order?

“Oh, many other companies are in the same situation as us. They include daily necessity chemical products, food, medicine, health supplements, etc.”

John frowned as these products are from different industries.

“Are those products’ advertisements taken down because they had also violated the advertising laws?”

“Yes. CCTV had issued a statement on their website, and Sina, Sohu, and many other internet companies had also taken down our advertisements and are demanding compensation from us.”

John clenched his fist, snapping the pen he was holding into two.

“Inform our legal team to prepare. We will challenge CCTV and those internet companies in court. Also, get in touch with those companies who are affected. We must team up with them.”

After John’s subordinate left, he immediately called his headquarters to report this matter. This matter is too big for him to handle, and he needed his company’s headquarter support.

After reporting, John went to the City Government to seek the local authority’s support. If the company is affected, the local government will also suffer from lower taxes and unemployment.

John doesn’t believe the local authorities will not support him. If he is pissed, he will shift the company to other cities. Many local governments had wanted him to set up the company in their cities. He had picked Shanghai because the local government had offered good subsidies in the past. But many cities are making better offers now.

The other companies that were affected are also doing the same thing. None of them had expected this to happen.

…….

“Manager Feng, can we win this lawsuit?” Wang Zhixi asked worryingly.

Wang Zhixi is not familiar with the law, but he felt it was unreasonable to do this.

“Don’t worry. We will not lose. We will turn it into a long-term lawsuit and drag it to three to five years. It will be enough to kill them. Maybe, it will not take that long. These companies cannot withstand such losses.”

“Losses? Why would there be losses? They can play victims to gain sympathy from the netizens and get the local government to pressure us. Are we going to fight against the government?” Ma Huateng asked with a frown.

“Who says we are going to fight against the government? We can also speak to the local governments. Do you think the local government will listen to them or me? I can also give the local governments what they promised, but they might not give the local governments what I offered.”

“Also, these companies had played dirty tricks in their joint ventured contracts to gain control or shelved our domestic brands. Do you think the local governments are not angry over this? Do you think they did not regret to hand over the national brands to foreigners?”

“We had no choice during that time because we need to get foreign investments. But did those foreigners fulfill what they promised? Those leaders, whom they tricked in the past, all want to kick these capitalists out.”

During the time, these foreign companies had promised the Chinese Government Officials for the joint venture. But they had not stuck to their words and used the loopholes in the contracts, threaten the local government, and other ways to force the government to give in.

Since you all had done these, we will also do that to you!

“Furthermore, who says we are unreasonable? We are doing this according to the law. What’s wrong with demanding compensation according to the contract when they had violated the regulations? I will handle this lawsuit with my legal team. I will let them know the Chinese are also capable of using the law against them!”

“Manager Feng, if you forced them to withdraw their investments, what will happen to those companies and their workers?”

“I will take over the companies, and I can guarantee that they will not close down. They will even do better than now.”

They looked at each other and shook their heads. Feng Yu is not doing these to acquire those companies. With his wealth, he can just buy them at high prices without all these troubles. All of his companies had done this when they are expanding.

They don’t know what’s there to gain for Feng Yu from doing all these. Going through all these troubles to acquire these companies? It’s not worth it.

The representatives from those foreign companies had gone to look for the local government leaders. Still, none of them managed to see them. The leaders claimed they are too busy to meet them.

The representatives can tell the local government knew about this before it happened, which made things more complicated. Why are the local governments willing to give up their companies’ taxes and jobs and force them to shut down?

If their companies shut down, the local government will also suffer losses. They must take care of the mess the company created.

Hmph! You all tried all means to please us to get our investments, but now, all of you are avoiding us!

These foreign companies’ representatives had forgotten they had not fulfilled any of the promises they made in the contracts and slowly take over those companies’ assets. This had crossed the line.

Those leaders are afraid the employees and people know they had sold the factory away. Many employees still thought they are working in a joint venture company, and it’s the City Government who calls the shots. But the factory is already fully owned by a foreign company!

Do the local government leaders think they can avoid the representatives? The representatives have ways to force them to meet them!

Chapter 1339 –

“Boss, it has blown up. Those companies had gone on strike!” Wu Zhigang reported. Although he is panicking, he can still report without stuttering.

Wu Zhigang had worked for Feng Yu for a long time and had gone through many ups and downs. He can still keep his composure when something happens.

“Which company?” Feng Yu asked calmly.

“All of them. The companies who had their advertisements taken down had all gone on strike at the same time. It seems it is coordinated. The companies’ management had led their employees to go on strike, and they demand to meet the Mayor and Party Secretary.”

Feng Yu frowned for a second and smiles. “Terrific! Get Sina, Tencent, and the rest, to report about this. Let everyone know why they are on strike and who had organized the strikes.”

“Boss, are you saying we are going to blow it up further?” Wu Zhigang opens his eyes wide.

“That’s right. I find this matter is not big enough.” Feng Yu is not worried about things being blown out of proportion. He will use it to his advantage.

You all want to blow things up to gain attractions? Then I will give you a hand and let more people know about this. Feng Yu does not mind taking responsibility for this.

Anyway, Feng Yu was scolded by many foreigners for not donating in other countries. But his donations in China are the highest in history, and no one might exceed him in the future.

Things had gotten out of hand, and Feng Yu will give these companies a killing blow!

…….

“Eh, have you saw the news on Sina? Shanghai Ri Hua workers are on strike, and it’s quite serious.”

“Tsk… that’s old news, and I knew about it an hour ago. Also, that is not the only company that is on strike. More than a dozen companies are on strike, and I heard they are treated unjustly.”

“It must be the local authorities who don’t care about the workers’ welfare. My father had worked in a factory in the past, and after he retired, he set up a small restaurant. His earnings are much more than his previous salary.”

This person’s thinking is similar to many others. Whenever something happens, they will make assumptions based on their own experiences.

Most people will claim to be objective, but they will side with their family members or friends when something happens.

When the incident has nothing to do with them, they will be affected by their emotions and side with the victims.

But many victims are not the real victims, and people will judge based on what they see.

Feng Yu had seen such incidents in his previous life. A woman laid on the ground, crying and shouting that the police officer had hit her, and people started scolding the police. But when they turn around, the woman is gone. Someone in the crowd said that he had called the police because that woman had given him counterfeit money.

That officer had not hit anyone and only wanted to bring that woman back for investigation. But after the woman created a scene, she escaped. The crowd realized that woman must be guilty or else she will not run away.

That’s why what you see might not be the truth, but most people only believe what they see.

If what they see is real, then how are you going to explain magic tricks?

Feng Yu is sure that those workers are misled into going on strike. They don’t know what is going on and are instigated by others.

……..

“Secretary, something is not right. Why are the online news websites reporting on the strike? We had suppressed it on our side, but we cannot do anything about the news on the internet.”

“That’s right. Feng Yu has shares in those internet companies, but why is he not stopping them from reporting? If this incident blows up, it will not benefit him.”

“Don’t be anxious. Maybe this is instructed by Feng Yu. Although this incident will affect us, he will also be implicated. He will have ways to settle this, and we don’t need to worry about anything.”

These companies realized that they could only meet the Deputy Mayor after going on strike. No other higher-ranking government officials are willing to meet them. It’s as if the authorities are not concern about their strikes.

Something is wrong. A strike is a big issue in any country, and even the media had reported it. Are they not scared of the higher-ups questioning them?

These companies had played victims to gain sympathy. Relatives of the employees are voicing their support for them.

Those relatives don’t know what is happening. They only know the companies cannot pay their employees because someone had cheated their money.

All these are lies. The advertisements are taken down, and the companies need to pay compensation. But they had not paid, and why are they unable to pay their workers?

The local government knew about this, and that’s why the leaders continued to avoid them.

The higher-ups noticed this issue three days later and called to question the local companies. If the strikes continue, news of it will spread to other countries!

Feng Yu’s retaliation had just started.

…….

“XX company had made false advertisement and violated the advertising laws. Not only did they not reflected on themselves, they even instigate their workers to go on strike. They told their workers that the Government had confiscated their money! This is ridiculous!”

“XX company was a state-owned company, but it becomes a joint-venture after foreign investors invested in it. But the foreign company breached their contract and took over our brand. They took over the company when they have management rights. Our national brand had become theirs, and they are still advertising themselves as a domestic brand. This is cheating!”

“They had made it seem legal when they took over the company at that time. But they had breached the contract and exploited the loopholes in the contract. Now, they are being punished, and they instigated their workers to go on strike. This is against the law!”

“The workers should think rationally. The Government is working things out with those companies, and the companies should not owe the workers their salaries. They are all being used by the company!”

News articles started appearing on the internet, and government agencies even issue some. Even the local TV stations started reporting about the strikes. The workers realized those foreigners had used them!

Chapter 1340 – Gained support

“Damn! Things had turned around dramatically. Those cunning foreigners had fooled those workers!”

“They are foolish. How many foreigners are good people? Most of them are evil!”

“Hey, the one above is too extreme. At least, I think Mutou Ran, Asuka, Yui… are good people.”

“Share the link, please.”

“Link +1”

This online thread started going in the wrong direction. Still, everyone found out it was not the local Government that had exploited the workers. It is the Government trying to get back the things that should belong to them.

Suddenly, the local Government gained more supporters, and lesser people support those companies. Although many people complain about the Chinese Government, their Government is always right when it comes to foreigners.

This is similar to parents scolding and beating their children. But if someone scolded their children, they will fight it out with them.

Feng Yu smiles when he saw the online forums. The people are on his side now, and those companies can no longer play victims!

Those companies are the weaker side in this incident. Feng Yu had contacted the local Government, CCTV, media and used the internet against those companies.

These foreign companies also planned to make use of international media to force China to give in.

They are confident that the Chinese Government will not sit back and see their reputation affected.

If others think the Chinese Government had confiscated foreign companies’ assets, who would dare to invest in China in the future? The Chinese economy will collapse.

This won’t be good for China’s international reputation and diplomatic relations with other countries.

……..

“What do you all think of this incident?”

“This incident is created by Feng Yu, and he is not someone rash. I think he will have a way to settle this. Let’s contact him and see if he needs our help.”

“But this will be equivalent to us admitting we are trying to cheat those foreign investors. This will harm our reputation, and our economy will be affected.” Someone said.

They want to get back their national brands, but they cannot take them back by force.

“I also think we should speak to Manager Feng. We cannot say CCTV and the local governments are wrong, as they will be slapping us. But the local governments should be given a warning as they had not reported such a big issue to us.”

“We can discuss that another time. I think we should do something about the international media. We cannot let those companies tarnish our reputation.”

The top leaders discussed for a long time, and one of them is picked to contact Feng Yu. They hope this incident can be settled as soon as possible.

…….

“Committee Member Bao, I know what you mean. But don’t worry. I am also Chinese, and this will never change. I will never harm my motherland’s interest. Look at the information I prepared. My retaliation is going to start, and it will be more effective if the country can assist!”

Feng Yu gave some documents to Party Committee Member Bao. The documents contain information on similar cases that happened overseas, and it proved China had done nothing wrong.

Instigating workers to go on strike in any country will incur the wrath of the Government. It will affect the economy and can be considered creating unrest in the country!

“Manager Feng, these documents are saying we are right in taking down their advertisements and demanding compensation from them, right?”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Stop stating the obvious. Are you all thinking that I am unreasonable?

“The laws in our country are not comprehensive, and they can exploit the loopholes. But this is not uncommon overseas, especially in the West. We had done nothing wrong if you look into previous cases!”

“This information will be sent to the media, and everyone will know we had followed the law. This is also a warning to other foreign investors. If they want to invest in China, they must follow the laws and don’t start any trouble!”

Party Committee Member Bao is worried. “Manager Feng, will this stop other foreign investors from investing in China?”

Feng Yu sighed. “Party Committee Member Bao, it is our policies and market those investors are interested in. China is the biggest market in the world, and it is bigger than the North American market. Just look at our population.”

“10% of our market is equivalent to the US market, and 20% is equivalent to the whole North American market. Who is willing to give up on such a vast market? You should know many products are selling at different prices here and in North America. But don’t think that things are cheaper here. If you check the prices, many products are selling cheaper in the US!”

Party Committee Member Bao is shocked. “You are saying that their products are selling more expensive here? But we are a developing country, and our GDP per capita is lesser than those developed countries.”

“You also say it is GDP per capita. But our country’s policy is to encourage a portion of people to get wealthy first. This means we have a lot of wealthy people now. They had purposely created this impression as they can increase the profits of certain products and brand awareness. For example, McDonald’s. It is a fast-food restaurant and is similar to our bun shops. But do the people think so? When McDonald’s first appeared here, some people even hold their weddings there.”

Feng Yu is feeling helpless over this. It’s the level of education that created this gap. Who would hold their wedding in McDonald’s now? But the fast-food chains are targeting the younger market by marketing in schools. They even introduce group meals to encourage them to hold gatherings at their restaurants.

Those are only burgers, fries, Coke, etc. How can you call it a gathering?

But it’s hard for those fast-food chains to fool the grown-ups.

Party Committee Member Bao clenched his teeth. “Alright. The State will stand on your side. But can you inform us beforehand if you are going to do such things in the future?!”

Chapter 1341 – An Army of Lawyers

Those companies thought the Chinese Government would give in and get compensation after they criticized China internationally. Even if the compensation is not in monetary terms, they can get some subsidies.

But the Chinese Government rejected their demands and even ordered them to stop the defamation and issue an apology.

Those companies are speechless. When did the Chinese Government become so firm? These companies are from the US, UK, France, Singapore, etc., yet China is willing to offend all of them?!

…….

“I represent the Chinese Government to issue this statement. This is a legal affair between companies and should not be escalated to diplomatic levels. China will not compromise!”

Everyone is shocked when China’s spokesperson made this announcement.

When did China become so firm? Just because they bought an empty aircraft carrier hull?! So what if China does have an aircraft carrier? These countries have more aircraft carriers than China.

Legal affairs between companies? Why is the Chinese media only reporting one-sided facts? We cannot even issue our statements on your media.

Fine. Since you want to battle it out in the courts, we will sue the CCTV, those internet companies, and your local governments!

If it’s one company, the company might not dare to offend the Chinese Government, as they still want to do business there.

But the companies are powerful when all of them become united.

……

“Manager Feng, it seems that this matter had blown out of proportion. Those companies are suing CCTV now!” Station Chief Jia sounded furious. He did not expect these companies to sue them in China.

“Oh.”

Station Chief Jia is going mad. What do you mean by ‘Oh?’ are suing us because of what you started, and your reply is just an ‘oh?’

“Calm down. You must not tell the courts to reject their lawsuit. Let them go through the proper procedures, and we will fight them in courts!”

“What do you mean? You want CCTV to have a lawsuit with them? What did you tell me initially? You said you could handle this, and we are being sued now!” Station Chief Jia is furious. Feng Yu is not reliable at all!

“They can sue you. Why can’t you sue them back? We had agreed to demand compensation from them based on the contracts. The courts should accept their lawsuit, and this should not be a problem with you. Let me handle the rest, and you should not block off their news. We will continue to expose them and let everyone see how unreasonable they are!”

Sue them? That’s right. I can sue them for compensation.

“Chief Jia, you must remember to sue them for a large amount. Just ten times of the advertising fees will do.”

Huh? Ten times the advertising fees? Those companies’ advertising fees are at least 10 million RMB, and some are more than 70 million RMB. Their total is over 300 million, and you are asking me to demand 3 billion RMB?! It’s around 400 million USD!

“Manager Feng, is the compensation amount too high? It’s over 400 million USD!”

“Eh? So little?! Then it should be over 3 billion RMB, right? Change it to USD. We will demand 3 billion USD!” Feng Yu replied.

Chief Jia almost choked. 3 billion USD?! Even 3 billion RMB is a lot, but Manager Feng still thinks it is not enough?!

“Feng… Manager Feng, is it too high?” Although Chief Jia is used to seeing big figures, he had never experienced this before. Even compensation of 2 billion RMB is a record high in China.

“How can this be too high? Such cases are common in the US and other capitalist countries. We are only demanding this amount, but the actual compensation is another amount. This is just like you going to the market to buy vegetables. The vegetable seller will bargain with you.” Feng Yu explained.

Chief Jia is speechless. How can both be the same?

“Just listen to me. Those foreigners will think we were digging our graves when we demanded a large amount. Which TV channel in the world has more viewers than us? TV stations with more than 100 million viewers are considered successful, and we have more than a billion viewers.”

“We can be considered the world’s number one TV station, and CCTV 1 is the world’s number one channel! Of course, our main market is China. But we can ignore this, and we have the right to demand a large compensation because we have the most viewers. TV stations with only a tens of million viewers can demand a few hundred million USD as compensation.”

Chief Jia got brainwashed by Feng Yu successfully. He felt that demanding this amount is reasonable based on the number of viewers!

“But what about our lawyers? Can we win the lawsuit?” Chief Jia is still worried.

“Don’t worry about this and leave it to me. I have hired the best lawyers in China, Europe, and the US and have been waiting for them to start the lawsuit. I promise we will gain the support of our people too!”

Feng Yu had told Wilson to get ready, and he had contacted some of the top law firms in the World.

This way, the lawyers from these law firms cannot accept the other parties’ cases.

Wilson told Feng Yu that a strong legal team is required to win a lawsuit. Some lawyers are responsible for collecting information, some are doing the paperwork, some are good at attending courts, and some are just there to carry the bags.

The bigger the legal team with top lawyers, the higher the winning possibility is. Those famous lawyers can give the other party pressure.

Those are big companies, and they will surely send a team of lawyers each. Their lawyers will team up with the rest to form a bigger legal team.

Feng Yu heard it and decided. It’s just a legal team. We will also hire a big team, and half of the compensation will go to the team as legal fees. If they can demand 1 billion USD, they will get 500 million USD!

Wilson is thrilled and quickly contacts other law firms to firm a stronger and bigger legal team. It can no longer be called a legal team. It’s more like an army of lawyers!

Chapter 1342 – Come, let’s see who has more money to burn

“President, the courts have accepted our lawsuit against CCTV.”

“Hmph! If they don’t accept, everyone will be scolding them! What did CCTV say? Are they willing to accept our conditions and go for a private settlement with us?” John gloated.

After the companies join forces, John had been selected to be their representative because of his capability. The company he represents is the biggest.

The companies do not want to fall out with CCTV completely, as it is an important marketing channel for their products. They only want CCTV to give in and get some benefits like discounts for next year’s advertising slots or additional slots.

“President, there’s something else I need to report. Although the courts have accepted our lawsuit, it’s still under process. I received this when I was at the courts.”

John glanced at that paper and was shocked. He snatched it and looks at it carefully.

“This… is a notice from the People’s Court? Are we being sued? What are you doing? We are supposed to be the plaintiff!” John is furious.

“President, they are suing us for this case, and the Court says both cases will be registered separately. Their lawsuit was processed earlier, and the court will handle it first. Also, both cases are on the same issue and will be combined. However, they had submitted all the materials, and we are still preparing.”

“What? All their materials are prepared?! This is too much. Is CCTV only suing us?” John thought CCTV has only prepared the materials to sue them.

“No. They are suing all the companies, and all the materials against them are submitted.”

How is it possible for them to prepare all the materials against the companies?!

They must have plotted this in advance, and they have a strong legal team. But how can CCTV afford a massive legal team to sue so many companies at the same time? They must have plotted this!

“Fine! We will fight them to the end! Our legal team will defeat CCTV and embarrass them if they don’t back down!” John shouted. He had worked in China for more than a decade and understood the culture well.

…….

“Boss, these are the representatives from all the law firms, and they are famous lawyers specializing in such cases. They have won numerous cases and helped their clients get the most benefits.” Wilson introduced more than a dozen men to Feng Yu in a meeting room.

“Do you all understand Mandarin?” Feng Yu asked.

The representatives looked at each other. They had been working in Europe and the US, and none of them can speak Mandarin.

Feng Yu frowned and turned to Wilson. “What are you doing?! This lawsuit is in China, and how are they going to attend court if they don’t understand Mandarin. Bring a translator with them?!”

Wilson quickly explains. “Boss, their job is supporting us from outside. The lawyer appearing in the courts will be from my law firm. We will be using the media and press to influence the judges’ verdict. They have experience in this. Although China and the West’s laws are different, public opinions can still influence the outcome.”

Feng Yu nodded. The severity of many sentencings is based on public opinions.

Even when one does not commit a serious crime, the courts might give out harsh sentencing because of public opinion.

For example, the Li Gang incident in Feng Yu’s previous life. He was sentenced with the severest punishment because of public outrage.

Feng Yu is confident of winning because those companies had hired overseas lawyers. Those lawyers are useless as they don’t understand Mandarin, and not many Chinese lawyers dare to go against CCTV.

The famous Chinese lawyers will not dare to go against any government entities. Those companies can only hire new or problematic Chinese lawyers. Feng Yu’s lawyers can retire if they lose against the case.

“I have told you all my conditions. It will be up to your capabilities to win this case. The more capable you are, the more money you will earn. Don’t blame me if any of you try to get money by not doing anything!” Feng Yu warned.

Those lawyers quickly express they will influence the public’s opinion in their countries to make those companies pay. This is only a business to these lawyers and has nothing to do with their nationalities. In their countries, people can sue their governments.

These lawyers are only interested in money, and that’s why they are called bloodsuckers in many countries.

Although these lawyers charge high rates, they have never received such high payments. The compensation this time might amount up to a few billion USD. CCTV is demanding more than 3 billion USD, and the other online companies are also making high demands. They can only get 3 billion USD of compensation in the end, and the lawyers will get 1.5 billion. Each of them will get at least 15 million USD!

Most importantly, the lawyers don’t need to do much for this case. They only need to provide information on sentencing for similar cases and influence overseas media and public opinion. They are experts in this.

High pay and less work. What’s there to complain?

Furthermore, the World’s Richest Man, Feng Yu, might notice them if they did a good job. Look at Wilson. He was not doing as well compared to them in the past. But after he started working for Feng Yu, his assets shoot up, and he set up many law firms.

Wilson had gotten lots of clients because of his status as Feng Yu’s top legal counsel.

People will look at the law firm differently if they know the World’s Richest Man hired the firm!

…….

“President, I heard the lawyer representing CCTV is called Wilson. He is British and is the legal consultant for Feng Yu.”

“What? Why is Feng Yu getting involve in this case? But what’s there to be afraid of? We have a strong legal team consisting of a few dozen lawyers. We will win this case!”

“President, I had received news that Wilson had hired the top law firms in China and around the world. Their legal team has more than 100 famous lawyers!”

“Huh?! More than 100 lawyers?!” John is speechless. Is there a need for so many lawyers?! He had heard of legal teams but had never seen such a big legal team. Don’t they know lawyers are expensive?!

What is CCTV trying to do? Why is the Chinese Government not stopping them? This is burning money!

Li Gang incident

Chapter 1343 – Changing mindsets

“Manager Feng, can we make money this time?”

“Don’t worry. The lawyers I hired are the best in the world. Although I can’t say they can twist the facts, they can change everything to benefit with any slight opening! Their lawyer fees are not a small amount. I told them they would be getting half of the compensation as their fees. If you don’t agree, I can pay them from my pocket.”

“No need. How can I ask you to pay for us? Furthermore, it will be deducted from the compensation.” Station Chief Jia is smart, and he knows the lawyers will do their best to get the highest compensation from those companies.

Also, they have no reason to ask Feng Yu to pay the lawyer fees, as CCTV will gain from this.

“Chief Jia, CCTV has sold those companies’ advertising slots to others to prevent rumors. But you all must give us discounted price next year.” Feng Yu looks at Station Chief Jia.

“Hahaha… no problem. Other than the primetime slots, you can pick any slots you want. I will give you a 5% discount!”

Feng Yu smacked his lips. Is 5% a lot?! How can you make it sound like it’s so generous? But he also knows the money will not go to Chief Jia, and that’s the most he can offer within his authority. Anything more, he will be investigated.

“Oh, you all should put in more effort when inspecting advertisements. You all should not be looking at how much the other party offers. You should be thinking of protecting our domestic brands’ interests. Our domestic brands can only venture overseas after they secure a good footing here.”

For example, the local chemical products are suppressed by overseas brands. It’s fine for foreign companies to advertise in China. Still, Feng Yu does not like those brands portraying themselves as superior to the local brands.

This is a serious issue if people are caught in this mindset. In Feng Yu’s previous life, more than 60% of China’s chemical product market share are own by foreign companies.

It can be considered a monopoly, and Feng Yu does not want to see it happening again in this life. Those products are daily necessities and must be own by local companies.

Chief Jia also understands this, and the higher-ups have started to support China’s local brands and companies. Although they had not announced they would be boycotting overseas brands, it is very obvious.

Stopping these overseas companies from advertising their products on CCTV will lower their exposure and increases the local companies’ competitiveness.

“Chief Jia, all the advertising expenses will be paid by the consumers at the end. The money CCTV earned from the advertisers is from our people. A bottle of shampoo might cost 15 RMB. But after advertising, it becomes 24 RMB. Advertising will increase the profits and cover the advertising cost.”

Chief Jia realized that he had been helping foreign companies make money from their people.

Chief Jia also doesn’t know that advertising on CCTV can increase the value of a product by so much.

Those companies will introduce a new ‘formula,’ repackage an old brand with nicer packaging and sell their products at higher prices. The new ‘formula’ only increases the foam and scent and is not much different from its previous version.

Many people buy products that are advertised because they think the products from big brands are better. How can the products that are advertised on TV have problems? In fact, many smaller brands’ products have better quality, but they just cannot afford to market them.

If the foreign companies are restricted from advertising, the local brands will have an opportunity to succeed.

When people started to realize domestic products are better, they will change the mindset of foreign brands.

“I will tell my staff to check the company when selling advertising slots. Although we cannot stop those companies from advertising, we can secretly stop them from winning the bids for the slots.”

Chief Jia looks at Feng Yu. He had learned this trick from Feng Yu.

Look at those two Cola giants, Tong Yi, Kang Shifu, etc. They were doing well initially, but their development slowed down drastically after losing the most important marketing channel. Although their sales are still rising steadily, they have lost the opportunity to become the market leaders. They are currently not even in the top five companies of their industry.

Lehaha alone can crush them. Kang Shifu and Tong Yi, one of the earliest instant noodle brands in China, are surpassed by Lehaha. An instant noodle company took over the No. 2 spots under Beidacang Group. The third spot went to another Chinese state-owned company. The fourth and fifth spots went to two private companies focusing on low-cost strategies. Their instant noodles only cost 1 RMB.

These companies were market leaders in China in Feng Yu’s previous life, but in this life, they are suppressed. These few companies’ values keep dropping.

The brand value of a market leader is several times more than a brand in the seventh spot. Although their sales are increasing, the rate is getting slower. Other brands can overtake them easily, and their brand value is falling.

Once a brand’s value falls, the profits will also drop.

“Chief Jia, you all are critical to our domestic brands. A brand can be successful if they have good products and marketing. CCTV will play a major role in this.”

“This is nothing compared to you. Tai Hua Supermarkets is badly affected after removing those companies’ products from the shelf, right?” Chief Jia asked.

“There is some impact, but it is also an opportunity. We can establish our supermarkets’ value. We are also going to seek compensation for their false advertising. Our Tai Hua Supermarket Group is huge, and the amount we are seeking will be very high. Tai Hua Supermarket Group will sue them after the internet companies.”

Forcefully removing those brands’ products from the shelves had made many people angry. But the public opinion on the internet is all on China’s side. Anyone who speaks up for those foreigners is called a traitor!

Tai Hua Supermarket Group had earned praises from the people for removing these products. News of Tai Hua Supermarket Group rejecting those companies’ offer of high payments to sell their products had spread.

Three days later, the hearing for this case started.

Chapter 1344 – Backing off

“According to XX law, Section XX, and the contract terms, I represent my client, CCTV, to demand 3.8325008 billion USD compensation.”

John and the other representatives are stunned when they heard the compensation amount read out by Wilson!

They only know CCTV is seeking a large compensation but don’t know the actual figure. When they heard the amount now, they realized the amount is astronomical!

Wilson continues with the justification of this amount. These are the losses incurred by CCTV because of these companies’ false advertising. He also used overseas cases as references and the Chinese laws to justify this amount.

The defendants’ lawyers were stunned for a while and started arguing. Those overseas examples should not be used as references as the situation and laws are different for each country.

Secondly, this compensation is not legal as they are the victims. CCTV had forcefully removed their advertisement and affected their companies’ and brands’ reputations.

Both sides started arguing. But the defendants’ lawyers are not famous, and one of them even stuttered.

Wilson might be British, but he spoke Cantonese for years and worked in China for some time. His Mandarin might not be perfect, but it’s understandable. Most importantly, he showed the confidence of a winner, and it intimated his opponents.

There will be no outcome from the first hearing, but everyone can tell Wilson is winning from the arguments.

A group of reporters, from overseas and local, are waiting outside the court.

This is the headline. A Chinese State-owned enterprise is fighting a lawsuit with a group of foreign companies. All eyes are on this case, especially after news of this case has been blown up overseas.

“Mr. Zhang, how was the hearing?”

“Mr. Zhang, can you tell us how you feel about representing foreign companies to fight against CCTV?”

“Mr. Zhang, the netizens call you a traitor. What do you have to say about this?”

……

The lawyers representing John and other companies cannot answer these reporters’ questions, and those foreign reporters are not interviewing them… because they cannot speak English!

Wilson, on the other hand, is smiling and speaking to the reporters.

“Mr. Wilson, how does it feel to represent a Chinese client in China as a Queen’s Counsel?”

“Mr. Wilson, when did you get your Chinese Lawyer License?”

“One of the companies you are suing is a UK company. Do you have anything to say about this?”

……

Wilson answered the questions with ease and criticized those companies for trying to twist the facts.

It’s hard to deal with reporters, but they are nothing compared to paparazzi in Hong Kong. Wilson is used to such situations.

Wilson saw Lawyer Zhang and the other lawyers panicking in front of the reporters and walks over. Those reporters, who were interviewing Lawyer Zhang, stopped and started interviewing him.

“Mr. Wilson, Mr. Zhang says you all will lose at the next hearing. What do you have to say about this statement?”

“Mr. Wilson, is it true that you could not answer Mr. Zhang’s question during the hearing earlier?”

“Mr. Wilson, Mr. Zhang says they are going to seek compensation from you all for making this unreasonable demand. Do you have anything to say?”

……

Wilson smiles. “I understand everyone’s question, and I shall just say two things. First, we will win this case because we are right. Secondly, Mr. Zhang was investigated for a long time in the past for bribing a witness.”

All the reporters look at Lawyer Zhang, and his face turned red. “That incident is over, and I am innocent!”

Wilson shrugged his shoulders and left. He doesn’t know if Lawyer Zhang is innocent or not. Even if he is innocent, will the people believe him?

The reporters swarm around Lawyer Zhang, asking for his explanation for that incident.

That afternoon, online news reported about this hearing and included Lawyer Zhang was formerly suspected of bribing a witness.

Lawyer Zhang was formerly a famous lawyer, and he went silent after he was suspected of bribing a witness. He will never accept this case in the past, but he needs a prominent case to make a comeback. Also, John had promised to help him migrate to the US after they won.

But Lawyer Zhang’s dreams are about to shatter. The netizens were scolding those companies, and they found started scolding him and the other lawyers in his team.

Before evenings, some lawyers in his team resigned with all sorts of excuses.

Even the parents of the lawyers called them to scold them for representing those foreigners.

Only the foreign lawyers remained in the team to help Lawyer Zhang. But he loses confidence after comparing his team to his opponents.

Overseas media started to publish similar cases and the payouts as a reference to this case, and the demanded compensation is reasonable.

Lawyer Zhang scoff. Reasonable, my ass! Such high compensation has never happened in China!

Even if he loses this case, the compensation will be twice the advertising cost at most. The courts won’t agree to such a ridiculous compensation amount.

Lawyer Zhang suddenly realized that he has started to think about losing, which means he had lost confidence.

Maybe he should not have accepted this case in the first place.

Chapter 1345 – Firm response

“Mr. John, we might stand a chance if we can retaliate on overseas media. You should also notice the situation in China now. The local media dares to report articles in our favor.” Lawyer Zhang said.

John smiled wearily. They had tried using foreign media to retaliate, but Wilson’s team had already taken over them.

John wonders how did Wilson gather so many top law firms. The only resort is through political means!

“Leave this to me. I will settle the public opinions, but you must win this case, or you will not get a single cent!”

…….

“Boss, according to the Chinese laws, there is a limit to the compensation amount. We can get around 2 billion RMB at most, and I am referring to the total of CCTV, the internet companies, Tai Hua Supermarket Group, etc. But this is because there are no precedents of higher compensations. Maybe we will get higher compensation this time. If this happens in the US, I am sure we can get more than ten times this amount.” Wilson explained.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he had heard the Chinese compensation system is conservative and cannot be compared to overseas.

An overseas old lady slipped and fell in a McDonalds’. She sued them for 5 million USD because they did not display any signatures about the slippery fall.

A shoe company claimed wearing their shoes feels like having a pair of wings in their advertisement. The company was sued for a few million because there are no wings on their shoes.

Everyone knows this is the creativity in the advertisement. However, the court still melted out this harsh compensation amount because the jury felt the advertisement do have some problems.

“No problem. Just do what you can to get the highest amount. If not, you can lower it a bit. You did mention that some compensations are not restricted by the Chinese laws, right?”

“Some people overseas had found out that I am our companies’ legal consultant and felt you are the one behind this lawsuit. This will harm your reputation.” Wilson replied with some hesitations.

“Hahaha… my reputation? When Tai Hua Supermarket Group or those internet companies start suing them, I will still be involved in it.” Feng Yu said in his heart. They are not wrong as I am the one who started this.

“Then… I am confident to raise the compensation amount. But it will take some time as the Chinese courts do pass judgments based on overseas cases.”

“It’s fine. We can afford it.”

Feng Yu also want to drag this for as long as possible. Those companies will suffer heavier losses the longer this lawsuit is, and they will have no choice but to bow down!

Suddenly, someone knocks on the door, and Wu Zhigang entered in a rush after Feng Yu said, ‘come in.’

“Boss, some overseas government had started to interfere!”

Feng Yu frowned. What can the overseas Government do?

Some Chinese Government top leaders are also discussing this incident.

The majority of them are on Feng Yu’s side and felt commercial litigation and politics should not get involved. But some felt this incident had already been escalated to a political event, and they cannot ignore it.

Of course, they need to discuss how the Chinese Government should respond to this incident. They want to support CCTV, and the current situation is too big for Feng Yu to handle alone.

Many countries had joined forces against the Chinese Government and might escalate if they did not handle it well.

Some felt they should take the initiative and go for a private settlement. CCTV will forgo the compensation and let the matter rest.

Others felt this is giving in to the other party, and they will be greedier. Don’t forget that they are the ones who wanted to sue CCTV for compensation first.

It must be the other party to initiate private settlements. The compensation amount can be lowered slightly as 3 billion USD is too high, but they cannot forgo the compensation!

This incident had escalated to another level, and the Chinese Government must do something.

The overseas and local public opinions are on the CCTV side, and the Chinese Government has no reason to give up on the opportunity.

The conclusion from the meeting is the Government will support CCTV to sue those foreign companies. China needs foreign investments to stimulate its economy, but it should not give them special privileges.

In ancient times, China has practiced the “First-class westerners, second-class officials, third-class minorities, fourth-class Han” system, and it was an insult to them. China is different now. Although they are not one of the superpowers in the world, they are no longer pushovers.

Also, it’s been a while since China made a stand internationally.

……

“Let me answer Mr. Brown’s question on the recent CCTV lawsuit against those foreign companies. It is a commercial compensation claim. If you all think there are issues with our jurisdiction system, we can release the court hearings videos. You all can see if the hearing is fair and unbiased.”

“We had told CCTV to be more forgiving towards our international friends, and that’s why the compensation amount is lowered. If not, the amount CCTV is demanding will be higher. China does not have precedent cases and will reference other similar cases overseas during the verdict. I shall not talk about the compensation of similar cases that happened overseas as you all can search for it online. You all must also note that China’s CCTV has hundreds of million viewers, and this incident had tarnished its reputation greatly!”

“I will respond to those companies threatening to withdraw their investments in China because of this incident. China does not welcome companies that broke our law and refused to admit their mistakes! Even if you don’t withdraw your investments, we will also expel you all!”

This statement is firm but not overbearing.

When China’s media release this statement, the people celebrated. This should be the response from a strong nation.

Overseas media were shocked. When did China become unyielding? After the Chief Architect passes away, they have been weak.

The overseas media had belittled this generation of Chinese leaders.

Feng Yu switches off the TV with a smile. With the State showing such a firm stance, he will surely win this lawsuit!

Chapter 1346 – Showing the graciousness of a strong nation

After the Chinese Government made the statement, John and the representatives of the other companies received instructions from their headquarters to settle for a private settlement with CCTV immediately.

China is a massive emerging market and has high potential. The companies must not give up this vast market. Many companies felt the Chinese market would grow bigger, and this is a critical market for them.

How can they withdraw from the market they spent years opening up? Threatening to withdraw from China is only a bluff.

China has always given in to such threats in the past, but this trick did not work this time.

Some representatives were replaced by their companies immediately.

This shows the companies’ attitude of trying to downplay this incident to the Chinese Government.

“Boss, their lawyers, want to meet us for a private settlement,” Wilson reported. “This is to our benefit. We can save on the lawyer fees and get the most out of it.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. We have promised to pay them this amount. How can we take back our words? Furthermore, we are not the ones paying.

“The representatives of those law firms must also be there for the private settlement. We cannot shortchange them, and you should speak to Station Chief Jai instead of me. You are representing CCTV now.”

Wilson quickly replied. “Someone has reported to Mr. Jia, and I believe you have your inputs for the settlement.”

Station Chief Jia called. “Manager Feng, the other party wants to settle this privately. Should we agree?”

“We can agree and come together to discuss. The compensation amount can be lowered but cannot be too low as we need to pay our lawyers. You can tell them that the internet companies and Tai Hua Supermarket Group will not sue them if they are willing to compensate. The compensation can be lesser.”

“Ah… then you are at a disadvantage.” Station Chief Jia replied.

Chief Jia is willing to accept this outcome as CCTV stands to gain from it and show its powers. He knows Feng Yu does not mind getting lesser compensation as his annual earnings are much more than that.

“Alright. You don’t need to be so modest. But do you know how to negotiate for the private settlement?” Feng Yu asked.

“Shouldn’t it be our lawyers negotiating about the settlement?” Station Chief Jia asked.

They had spent so much money to hire the lawyers. Why should he attend the negotiations himself? He can just show his face and let the lawyers handle the rest. Furthermore, he cannot face those overseas bloodsuckers, although CCTV has to negotiate numerous contracts annually. Those lawyers were unfazed when they heard CCTV is trying to claim 3 billion USD from those companies, unlike him.

“Chief Jia, have you asked the higher-ups for their opinions?” Feng Yu hinted.

“I asked. They say this is a commercial dispute and will support us as long as we did break any laws.”

“But the higher-ups still need foreign investments, and we should give them some slack.”

Chief Jia understood what Feng Yu is saying. “Are you asking me to play good cops, bad cops, with the lawyers? The lawyers will force them, and I step in as the good guy?”

“Of course. You must be the good guy. You are not only representing CCTV. You are also representing China. We must show the graciousness of a big nation.”

Chief Jia: “……”

You demanded such a high amount, and you are talking about being gracious?!

You are the one who started this, and why did you sue them if you want to be gracious?

“How much compensation is suitable?” Chief Jia asked.

He is concern about how much money he can get out of this settlement, as this is considered his political achievements.

“Chief Jia, I will offer you a small suggestion. It would be best if you surrendered the compensation to the higher-ups. Don’t forget the purpose why we sued them. It is to get back our domestic brands, and we need money to buy back the shares from them.” Feng Yu hinted.

“Manager Feng, are you saying that you did all these is to get the money to buy back our domestic brands?”

“Of course. I am doing this for our nation.” Feng Yu rubbed his nose. He had only wanted to create some trouble for those companies to lower their brand value initially.

But Zhong Qingxian reminded Feng Yu not to get involved immediately after things blown up. He should let others buy back those brands. The Chinese Government has started to pay attention to domestic brands recently, and they should know how to handle it.”

Tai Hua Holdings will ‘help’ only when the Government doesn’t have the money to buy those brands. This will prevent from being seen as trying to compete with the Government to gain benefits.

Feng Yu thought about this, and he doesn’t want the higher-ups to think he stirred up all these to acquire a few companies.

He had done this in good faith and did not want to be misunderstood.

“I know what to do. I will discuss this with the higher-ups, but this will lower the compensation amount further.”

“You must make sure that the compensation of at least one company is not lowered by too much. That company will be used as an example for other companies in the future. Of course, you can give them some benefits privately.”

Those foreign companies will think twice if they are going to acquire Chinese assets in the future. Feng Yu will also not continue to find faults with those companies if they don’t profit from nationalist sentiments.

Foreign investments are welcomed if they do not have ulterior motives. Feng Yu has also expanded his overseas businesses aggressively, and no one had targeted him.

Feng Yu told Wilson to coordinate with Chief Jia to show China’s graciousness as a big county towards those companies.

Also, those companies must learn from this lesson and return the things that are not supposed to be theirs!

Chapter 1347 – We should own the controlling shares

“Chief Jia, you all are not sincere for this private settlement. Why is the compensation amount so high?” John asked angrily.

Station Chief Jia sat there, sipping on his tea. “It’s better for the lawyers to handle the legal issues. I don’t know much about laws, and I should not interfere in this.”

John is furious. Are you implying that I am interfering?

The lawyers are only our representatives, and we should be the decision-makers!

Wilson interrupted. “Mr. John, please don’t show such attitude during our negotiation. If you continue to behave this way, we will stop the negotiations and settle this in courts.”

Lawyer Zhang nudged John lightly and shook his head. They are losing, and private settlement is the best outcome.

“Chief Jia, Mr. Wilson, we should settle this amicably since you all are willing to negotiate. But 2 billion USD is out of our league. All our companies will be bankrupt if we compensate this amount, and those workers will lose their jobs.”

“Workers losing their job is your problem. Your companies cannot afford the compensation, but your parent company can afford it. Maybe we should try getting the compensation from your parent companies, and I believe the odds are against them.” Wilson glared at Lawyer Zhang. You all cannot afford it?! Bankrupt?! What has it got to do with us?!

Although Wilson knows Feng Yu does not want to see, these companies go bankrupt. But he knows it’s alright for these companies to close down. They can use their factories and brands to repay their debts, and Feng Yu can save money on their acquisitions.

Chief Jia felt it’s about time to step in. “Mr. John and other representatives. Have you all thought about it? CCTV can settle privately with you all, but what about those internet companies, Tai Hua Supermarket, etc.? How much are you all going to compensate them?”

John and the other representatives’ faces changed. They had not expected things to turn out this way. So this private settlement is only with CCTV, and the other companies will sue them?

“How about I be the mediator? I will settle this for you all, and we can lower the compensation amount. After all, you all are our friends who had invested here. Although you all had done something wrong, we will still take care of you.”

“Asking you all to fork out 2 billion USD as compensation at once is a lot. Each of you will need to compensate at least a few hundred million, but this amount is reasonable. We cannot lower it by too much. Alright. How about you all compensate 200 million USD each. CCTV will get half of it, and the other half will go to those online companies and Tai Hua Supermarket Group. I am confident I can persuade them.”

Chief Jia said in an “I am helping you all” tone, but his expression pissed them off.

“200 million USD each? This amount is too high! I think it should be 200 million RMB.” Someone grumbled.

“Eh… Mr. Wilson, I think we should end this private settlement negotiation, and there’s no point in such negotiations in the future. My time is precious as our TV station has over a billion viewers. We are the biggest TV station in the world, and I’m very busy. So let’s settle this in courts. I believe you all can win and help us get the reasonable compensation, right?” Chief Jia looks at Wilson with an impatient expression.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Jia. We are confident of winning, and those internet companies and Tai Hua Supermarket Group had contacted us. I think they also believe we can help them get the reasonable compensation.”

John and the other representatives are speechless when they heard Wilson and Chief Jia’s conversation. They are acting and is threatening them.

But this is telling them that if they don’t agree to the compensation amount, the incident will be escalated further.

“Chief Jia, we really can’t afford the compensation. Even if we include our fixed assets, we are unable to raise this amount. We will surely be bankrupt. It’s not nice for others to know a few foreign companies are sued bankrupt in China, right? Our companies also intend to increase our investments in China, and our tax contribution will increase.” John said after a short discussion with the other representatives.

Chief Jia smacked his lips. So who cares about your taxes?! If you all lose your companies, the taxes and profits will still be ours.

Chief Jia puts down his teacup slowly. “What have these got to do with me? I am only the Chief of a TV station. Does your country’s different departments can interfere in each other businesses?”

John is speechless. He wants to reply that he would rather drown in the cup of coffee in front of him than believe the Chinese Government is not involved!

Your higher-ups had expressed their support for you openly, and you still dare to claim they are not involved? If they are not involved, why is CCTV the first to sue them?

The Chinese Government is behind all this. But John and the other representatives can only tolerate it now.

“Chief Jia, I believe you can help us. Can you tell those companies to lower their demands?”

“Mr. Jia, it’s not right for you to interfere with other lawsuits when we are discussing our case. We can talk about other companies another time.” Wilson purpose said this.

John gave Wilson an angry stare. This damn lawyer is after their money. He knows many lawyers charge a percentage of the claims, and Wilson does not want to lower the compensation amount.

“Mr. Wilson, China is a big country, and we should be more forgiving even towards someone who had made mistakes. We should give them a chance to turn over a new leaf. But this will also depend on the other party. If they are not sincere, I don’t mind using the law to handle them.” Chief Jia replied.

John and the other representatives exchanged looks. They had been working in China for years and understood the meaning of ‘sincerity.’

“Chief Jia, we will treat you as our buddies, and we will let our friends….”

“Are you trying to bribe me?!” Chief Jia interrupted them.

Lawyer Zhang quickly reply. “Chief Jia, what they mean is they will try their best to agree to your conditions.”

Lawyer Zhang scolded in his heart. These idiots… how can they hint they will bribe Chief Jia openly? If this is recorded, he will never become a lawyer again!

Chief Jia smiles. “Oh… Since joining venture companies is in China, it should be better for China to own the controlling shares. What do you all think?”

Chapter 1348 – I am willing to help

The representatives finally understood the cause of this incident. It is because they had slowly become the controlling shareholders of their joint venture with the local firms. Some even became the overall owners, and China wants to recover those firms now.

Although these foreign companies had paid for those shares, they can buy them because of their control over the shareholders. This might seem like a normal business transaction, but they had not kept their promises.

Now, China is getting back at them for not keeping to their words. This is karma.

The representatives knew how to carry on with the negotiations after finding out what China wants. But this must be decided by their head offices, and they cannot make the decisions.

As Wilson is pressing and threatening those representatives, the other lawyers attack these companies on international media. These companies had no choice but to start negotiations with Chief Jia again.

The representatives still one big worry. They are unsure if Chief Jia will keep to his words. What if Tai Hua Supermarket Group and other companies sue them after they agree with Chief Jia?

Some smaller companies might also sue them, and they will face endless lawsuits.

Wilson told the representatives that most Chinese companies would not sue state-owned companies. All problems will be solved if the Chinese State Assets have a controlling stake in their companies.

Those companies have high assets and exaggerate when they say they will be bankrupt if the compensation is 200 million USD. But 200 million USD will break their cash flow chain.

These companies thought of an idea. They can use the companies’ assets as collateral to get loans for the compensations. You all want are after this company’s shares, right? Sure. Get ready to take over a company with negative assets.

I shall see if your Chinese Government can afford to fill this gap. Even if the Chinese Government can pay the company’s debts, they will still have the controlling shares. All the representatives believe the Chinese Government will not try this again. It will affect their reputation and scare other investors away.

The representatives also want Tai Hua Supermarket Group and those internet companies to sign an agreement with them not to sue them.

“Station Chief Jia, this is not an issue. I can agree and is willing to help you.”

Chief Jia told Feng Yu what happened, and he agreed because he did not want to sue them. Like what Wilson said. Most companies will not sue state-owned enterprises.

Chief Jia is worried that Feng Yu will get someone to sue those companies again and further blow up this matter.

Chief Jia smiles after Feng Yu agrees. He will get credit for this incident and might get a promotion. The higher-ups will also note his contributions and have no problem getting one more promotion before his retirement.

Both parties want to end this incident fast, and the negotiation went smoothly. John and other representatives were assured after getting Feng Yu’s promise.

Feng Yu will not go back on his words, and the representatives felt his assurance carries more weight than Chief Jia.

But the representatives told Chief Jia that the companies’ shares must be bought with cash. They will not accept share exchange, and the buyout price must be reasonable. The Chinese Government cannot suppress the share prices.

Chief Jia and the representative from State Assets agreed. This State Assets representative had come to negotiate the shares buyback with them.

Of course, the State Assets will not be buying all the companies’ shares. They must give some to the Local Government. But their total shares must be over 50% and have more representatives on the board of directors.

Those foreign companies can continue to manage the operations as they are better at corporate management. But the Chinese Government will have the overall control of the company. This is to prevent these foreign companies from creating trouble again.

One of the companies, which is also the weakest companies, was used as an example in the media. They have to pay 100 million USD, and the other companies’ compensations are less than 50 million USD. The total compensation is less than 500 million USD. Still, it set the highest compensation from a single lawsuit record in China.

Wilson and the other lawyers felt this amount is too low compared to CCTV’s high viewership. But they know this is Feng Yu’s instruction. He has signed some cooperation agreements with those law firms, and all of them are satisfied.

Furthermore, the lawyers are paid more than 200 million USD. From their understanding, compensations in China are very low. There are no compensations more than 10 million RMB, let alone over 100 million USD. They had created history.

This case also let them have an opportunity to enter the Chinese market. The trading companies will be interested in working with them.

This lawsuit ended quickly, and both parties chose for private settlement. At the same time, these companies signed the shares purchase agreement with the State Assets.

After the State Assets signed the agreement with those companies with the funds they get from CCTV, they realized something was off.

First, those companies’ products are not selling in the past month, and their production stopped. The companies also owe their workers a one-month salary.

Secondly, these companies do not have money in their accounts and cannot restart production. They cannot even afford the raw ingredients. They also found another problem. These companies are heavily in debt, and the State Assets had spent money to buy a burden.

When the State Assets’ representative questioned those companies’ representatives, they gave all sorts of excuses. They claimed they cannot afford the compensations and must get loans. They had also paid their workers and wired the profits to their head companies with their liquid assets.

These companies do not have money to restart production, and all of them should pump in the money based on the share’s proportions. The companies cannot repay their debts in their current situation and try to raise money now.

The State Assets’ representative had underestimated these foreign companies. He was ecstatic to purchase those shares but forgotten to check the accounts. The other party had played dirty tricks in their contracts again.

The Chinese Government cannot freeze those companies’ accounts during the lawsuit as it will escalate the conflict further. Nevertheless, the Chinese Government had gotten the shares they wanted, and the companies are not empty shells. The brand, skills, and workers are still around.

The State Assets do not have money to increase investment into those companies. They had used the money given to them by CCTV and their money to buy those shares, and the most frustrating part is those lawyers are paid half of the compensation. Why are they paid so much?

Feng Yu heard Wu Zhigang’s report and nodded. “They are tricked by the contract again and allowed the other party to exploit the loopholes. But it’s fine. I am willing to help. Zhigang, contact XX State Assets and tell them we are willing to invest in those companies.”

Chapter 1349 – Giving the Leader a lesson

These few companies, which foreign companies formerly controlled, had developed well in China, especially their branding. With good branding, marketing, and sales channels, the product will be profitable even with poor quality. If the product’s quality is good, it will be more profitable.

Feng Yu would not have the opportunity to invest in these companies if those foreign companies did not exploit the loopholes. This is an opportunity for Tai Hua Consulting to invest in those companies.

Although the State Assets shares of these companies will be lowered, the overall shares owned by the Chinese Government and Tai Hua Consulting will be over 67%.

This means both parties can work together to force those foreign companies out. Of course, they will not do it now as they need to consider their public image.

China had sued these foreign companies for taking over Chinese brands and kicking the State Assets aside. They cannot chase those foreign companies out immediately after they regain control of the companies. This will affect foreign investors from investing in China.

Feng Yu had spent a lot on this lawsuit, but he did not suffer any loss. Most of the money is paid by those foreign companies. The joint venture companies’ assets had returned to China’s State Assets and Feng Yu.

Those foreign companies did not lose the Chinese market completely and had taken some of the companies’ profits away. Or else, things will not end so easily.

……

“Manager Feng, you had done it. The county must learn from you when it comes to business.” Committee Member Bao laughed.

“Don’t mention it. We are doing what we can, and it’s not all my credit. Furthermore, the outcome might be different without the country’s support. Did this incident affect our country’s policy of attracting foreign investors?”

“There is some impact. Some investors changed their minds, but it’s fine. We cannot continue to please those investors to get them to invest. I had checked the data. Those companies were doing well in the past, and the foreign companies took over it slowly.” Committee Member Bao sighed.

“This is normal. We are not sure of those contract terms in the past, and the way we Chinese conduct business is different from them. We accept verbal agreements, but those foreigners prefer everything to be stated in the contracts. We are learning at that time, and we should just treat it as school fees. Now, we had learned our lesson and must not commit the same mistakes again.” Feng Yu replied.

“School fees? This is a good analogy! We have been reflecting on our decisions at that time. But all these had happened, and we cannot turn back time. At least our economy is better now, and we realized the importance of branding after seeing you become successful.”

“Don’t be modest as this is the truth. We have started to realize the importance of our former national brands and want to rebuild their brand image. We have lots of popular products in the past. Still, we don’t know about brand management and protecting the technologies behind them. As a result, our competitors caught up and overtook us.”

“We finally understand the importance, and we will be supporting our local brands from now! Our brands will be known all over the world!”

Feng Yu laughed in his heart. You all have not even occupied the local market share, and you are thinking of the overseas markets? Although it’s possible, it will give up your advantages and compete in the areas you are weak in.

As China’s national brands, you all should consider the Chinese market first. You all might not need to kick those foreign brands out, but you should become the market leader first.

Feng Yu’s Wind and Rain Brand, Songjiang Brand, is the same. They had occupied most of the Chinese market before venturing overseas. After all, they are most familiar with the Chinese market most and have an advantage in marketing and sales.

This will increase the companies’ profits. The profits can be used to develop new products, marketing, and lower their competitors’ sales. In the long run, the gap between them and their competitors will be widened.

For example, Jianlibao. Why did they venture overseas? It was because they were unbeatable in the local market. Which overseas distributor is willing to sell your products if your products are not the best in China?

“Committee Member Bao, I feel we should let these brands establish a strong foothold in China first before venturing overseas. It’s not good to take such a big step.” Feng Yu is telling them not to be too ambitious.

Committee Member Bao nodded. “I understand. You are more experienced in business, and we will follow your suggestion. Which brand should rebuild first?”

“That will depend on which industry’s market leader is a foreign brand. For example, Songjiang Motors is the market leader for our automobile sector. Other automobile manufacturers have started to introduce new cars under their brand. Beidacang, China Food, etc., are the top agriculture brands in China and Asia. But our daily chemical products, apparel, sports brand, fast food, etc., are all owned by foreign brands. These foreign brands are more competitive and famous. It will take time to build up our local brands in these industries.”

“But you all can rebuild some old brands or develop new brands. With better marketing and sales channels, you all can quickly increase the market share. During the initial phase, you all can give up on making profits in exchange for the market share. With a bigger market share, the future profits will not be too low.”

Committee Member Bao nodded. “We need to do some research. But what if we are not competitive in that particular industry?”

Many companies are not successful overnight, and they might suffer losses if the outcome is not in their favor.

Feng Yu points to himself. “I can help if you all face any difficulties. If our technologies are too far behind our competitors, we can purchase more advanced technologies from overseas. If we lack development funds, I can provide them. Although our former closed-door policy had failed, we are still self-sufficient. We only need to be wary not to be too far behind our competitors.”

“Seems like rebuilding our national brands should be our country’s main focus now. I have learned a lot from you and will let the Leaders know. Please do not reject us if we need your help in the future.”

Feng Yu replied and is feeling proud in his heart. It feels good to give lessons to a leader.

Chapter 1350 – The importance of the market

“Oh, I have a question lingering in my mind. Why are you so confident those companies will not withdraw their investment and will pay the compensation?” Committee Member Bao asked.

Feng Yu briefly explained. “The market. The easiest way to determine if a company is profitable or not is based on their sales.”

“Other factors like the cost, etc., are important. But a company’s profitability is still based on the products’ sales. Products can come in physical and non-physical forms. For example, cars and design concepts. All these must be sold to get profits.”

“Not only we must consider the products’ sales, but we must also factor in the profit ratio. For example, Wind and Rain Mobile’s 399 RMB mobile phone. The sales volume of this model is extremely high. The one-month sales volume is higher than another model’s annual sales volume. But the profit ratio is very low.”

“Price, quality, brand awareness, sales channels, etc., will determine a product’s sales volume. Pricing has the least impact on the sales volume, and quality, brand awareness, and sales channels are more important. Quality comes last among these factors.”

“We keep talking about market economy, and this shows the importance of the market. A market is a market place and companies focus on something called market share. The market share is the proportion of a product sales in a market against similar products in the market.”

“We discover the companies with higher market share have high profits. So when they become the market leader, brand awareness and profits will increase significantly. This will help the company to better market their products and increase their products’ quality, forming a cycle.”

“It is still the product’s sales that determine the market share. But markets have limits. For example, suppose you send 500,000 bicycles to a city with a 300,000 population. In that case, you can’t sell all of them even if prices are lowered below cost. Very few people will buy two bicycles. Some families own cars, and some prefer to travel in public transportation. There will also be some people who don’t know how to ride bikes.”

“Then what will happen to the unsold bicycles? First, you need to develop new markets. For example, neighboring cities or nearby districts. A developed brand will face saturated markets and need to open up new markets to maintain and increase their sales.”

“Many people’s impression of Africa is poor, but Mercedes Benz, Volvo, and many top automobile companies are opening up the African market. That’s because it is a blank market. They can receive high profits once Africa’s economy developed in the future.”

“When mobile phones entered the Chinese market, China’s economy is not doing well. We have few wealthy people at that time, but people started noticing mobile phones through them. When the rest of the people becomes wealthier, they also start to buy mobile phones.”

Feng Yu heard of a joke in his previous life. A Coal Tycoon had come to Beijing and bought a Jaguar sportscar. Then, a few days later, he bought a Mercedes Benz. Why? Because no one has heard of Jaguar and people felt successful businessmen should drive Mercedes Benz. This is the power of branding.

“Motorola and Ericsson had owned Chinese mobile phone market and made high profits. They are doing very well at that time. After that, our Wind and Rain Mobile and Aiwa Mobile appeared, and their sales started dropping. Now, Ericsson is forced to work with Sony to maintain their mobile phone business.”

“Let’s talk about those Japanese companies who were forced to exit the Chinese market. Why are they trying to re-enter again? That’s because we have a vast market, and has better conditions than Africa. Our economy is developing at an alarming rate, and our people’s purchasing power is increasing. Our market potential is growing every day. For example, we sold more mobile phones in a month compared to the total annual sales a few years back.”

“When we own the biggest market share, we can get the most benefits when the market mature. A bigger market share can increase our income, but we can also create intangible assets like brand value. A listed company with a high market share, share prices will shoot up even when they don’t have high profits. That’s because investors believe the company will make high profits after they control the market.”

“After Japan’s economy crash more than a decade ago, they started to develop our Chinese market. During that period, our relationship with Japan had improved. They are willing to invest and help us upgrade our technologies. In return, we allowed them to import their products.”

“During that period, our electrical appliances, machinery, are mostly from Japan. Many people even think Japanese products are the best. If it wasn’t for our domestic companies developed in the later years and snatched back the market share, our markets will be filled with Japanese brands. This will affect our country’s development, and the longer it drags, the bigger the impact.”

“They are after our market and are using us to improve their economy. Other countries saw this and noticed our markets’ potential. Entering the Chinese market might not guarantee profits. Still, not entering means they can never make profits from this vast market.”

“No companies will give up a high potential market like us. Look at our population and our economic growth.”

“That’s why those companies will never give up the Chinese market and don’t dare to withdraw their investments. Which company is willing to give up this market? Even if their company changed from fully-owned to a joint venture, they would still get access to the sales channel, and they can bring in other products.”

“We can be firm during our negotiations with overseas companies in the future because we own one of the biggest markets in the world!”

Committee Member Bao’s eyes brighten up after hearing from Feng Yu. He had decided in his heart.

Chapter 1351 – Pilot Episode

“Come, Son. Call Daddy… Daddy…” Feng Yu played with his son.

“Our children are still young. You still need to wait a while before they can call you.” Li Na carried her son from Feng Yu, who is throwing him up and down. She rolled her eyes. How can you toss your son so high? What if he falls?

“But they know how to call you Mummy.” Feng Yu replied.

“Who ask you not to spend time at home? You should be glad they are not crying when you carry them.”

“Who am I?! I am their Dad. They will not treat me as a stranger. Am I right? My pretty girl? Ah… Dear, she wet herself!”

“Let me carry her and get her diapers.” So Li Na carried their daughter and started to change her diapers.

Feng Yu went to get a diaper and said. “Don’t worry. I should be free these few days and will accompany you all.”

As they were chatting, Feng Yu’s phone rang. It’s Kameda Masao. He looks at Li Na embarrassingly.

“Go ahead if you are busy.”

Li Na is used to it. At least Feng Yu is not as busy as her colleagues’ family members. Her colleague’s husband is making sales, and he spends less than three days a month at home when he is busy.

“Kameda, what’s wrong?”

“Boss, Discovery had watched our first two episodes of <Wind and Rain – Man VS. Wild>, and they will be airing a pilot episode to see the response. If the response is good, they will buy the broadcasting rights at a higher price. So the second option is to sell the pilot episode broadcasting rights directly, but it will be at a lower price.”

Kameda Masao had watched the episodes, but he has never seen such concepts before, and he doesn’t know how to rate them. Personally, he is not interested in such shows and had asked others for their opinions. Some said it’s nice, and some dislike it.

If Kameda Masao had produced this show, he will choose the second option and sell the rights. This is the best option as what Discovery is paying them can cover their cost. In addition, they will get profits from selling the broadcasting rights to other Chinese TV stations and the internet.

But Feng Yu is very confident of this show, and Kameda Masao is worried he will be unhappy if he sells it at a lower price.

“Let them go ahead, and we will air the first episode on the internet simultaneously. We will use them how popular this show is. Kameda, you must be confident of this show. Firstly, Bear Grylls’s status as a best-selling author retired special force soldier, and explorer can attract many viewers. Many people dream of being like him. Secondly, the contents of this show are not what you can see in other programs. It’s more realistic than those movies, and people love them.”

Someone said Military Enthusiasts are the most loyal fans, and all of them dream of being an explorer. Explorer is a cool occupation!

“Boss, I will let them air the pilot episode then. Oh, do you want to watch the show first? Then, I will send the download link to your mailbox. After that, you can download it.”

“Sure. Send it to me.”

Feng Yu also want to see how Bear Grylls will fare in this life. The footage should be poorer, but it should be more realistic.

It’s easier to attract viewers if it is more realistic. This show will be successful if it can attract a group of loyal fans.

The viewers will recommend this show to their friends if they enjoy it.

After hanging up, Feng Yu checked his mailbox and downloaded the show. Yes. He needs to use a proxy server to download it.

“Dear, are you busy now? Do you want to watch a new show with me?” Feng Yu asked.

“I am coaxing those two to sleep. What is this new show?” Their nanny is on rest today, and Feng Yu’s parents had gone for a vacation. That’s why Li Na has to do everything herself.

“I had gotten someone to produce it, and I guarantee you have never seen anything like this before!” Feng Yu proudly replied.

The show had finished downloading when the kids fell asleep. Feng Yu is speechless about the internet speed in China. He is using the fastest internet speed and staying in the best neighborhood in Beijing.

Feng Yu must speak to the telecommunication departments to increase the internet speed. They don’t need to be as fast as Korea, but they must not be so slow.

The Korean broadcasting website acquired by Sohu Channel is doing well. Still, users have to wait for hours to download the video in China.

“Huh? This is an overseas show in English?”

“Yes. It is filmed by an English team and will be aired on Discovery. It will also be aired on our CCTV and Sohu Channel.”

The program started and immediately caught Li Na’s attention. Two people, who look like tourists, are lost in a desert, and they only have some commonly seen items in their backpacks.

Feng Yu is curious. Where is the equipment he prepared for them? Those are what Bear Grylls requested, and why is he not using it?

But Feng Yu understood it after watching for a while. This is to make it more realistic. Ordinary tourists will not bring survival gears with them.

“We need to conserve our water. If possible, we need to find a water source. Water loss is higher in the desert, and we can get dehydrated fast….”

Bear Grylls explained the situation in front of the camera. His partner will hold the DV, and sometimes, he will hold it himself.

This is an 8-men team, but only two of them appeared in front of the camera. The rest should be standing outside of the frame.

The rest of the team should be carrying the equipment. But, unfortunately, they do not have any modern transportation and must carry the survival gears with them.

“These two are trying to cross the desert by themselves? Didn’t he say it will take two days to cross it? How are they going to spend the night there? Will they fall into a quicksand pit?” Li Na asked nervously.

Feng Yu looks at Li Na speechlessly. But, of course, this is only a show. Can you don’t be so serious? But this also means this show is not bad. The editor had done a good job.

“Don’t worry. They should be able to cross the desert successfully, and they are an 8-men team. So although they are not carrying too many things, they have all the necessary survival tools.” Feng Yu replied.

Feng Yu called Kameda Masao after watching the show and told him it’s nice and realistic. If the rest of the episodes are as exciting as this, the viewership will be high!

Chapter 1352 – The business from TV shows

Kameda Masao played a little trick. He asked everyone in Wind and Rain Holdings to watch <Wind and Rain – Man VS. Wild> during the timeslot. Wind and Rain Holdings own lots of factories and have lots of employees. All of them will surely push up the ratings.

He also hired a group of online ghostwriters to promote this show and the products in it.

Although it will increase the production cost, it is very effective.

One week after the first episode was aired on Discovery, the Discovery staff contacted Kameda Masao. They want to buy the broadcasting rights of this show!

Kameda Masao increased the price. He did not know about the popularity of this show before it was aired. But now, he can raise it.

Kameda Masao also demanded air Wind and Rain Mobile and Wind and Rain DV advertisements before and after the show.

Discovery buys good shows is to earn money from advertisements, but you are demanding the best two advertising slots now. How are we going to make money? They rejected Kameda Masao’s conditions but are willing to increase their offer.

Kameda Masao rejected their counter-offer as he doesn’t want more money for the broadcasting rights. However, the advertising slots are a must. If the slots before and after are not available, then they must insert two advertisements during the show.

Discovery will never agree to this demand as the advertisement slots during the show is prime-time slots. However, this show is very suitable for the Discovery channel and can make money for them.

“Mr. Kameda, this is a good show, and our channel is the best channel to air it. Working with us will bring out the most influence for this show. But our channel also needs to make money. How are we going to make money if we give you the advertisement slots?”

“Thomas, we are only asking for 15 seconds advertisement slots before and after the show. This is not a lot. Discovery might be a good channel, but we have other ways to increase this show’s influence. Do you know who is the producer of this show?”

Thomas frowned. “Who? Mr. Jeff? Mr. Jason?”

Thomas mentioned a few top producers’ names. But he noticed the disdained look on Kameda Masao as if those producers are nothing.

“Don’t tell me it’s Spielberg?” Thomas sneered.

“Spielberg? He still needs to queue up to meet my Boss. This show is produced by my Boss. You should know who my Boss is, right?!”

“The Chairman of Wind and Rain Holdings, the World’s Richest Man, Mr. Feng Yu?!” Thomas’s jaw dropped.

If Feng Yu produce this show, it will be a good selling point. Many people will be interested in the show. Just look at Trump. He is only a real estate tycoon in New York, and all of his TV shows are popular.

The World’s Richest Man will attract a lot of viewers!

Kameda Masao nodded. “Do you still think the viewership will be lower if we air it on other channels?”

“Will Mr. Feng be promoting this show?” Thomas asked excitedly.

“Of course not. The production cost of this show is not high, and even if the cost is 1 billion USD, my Boss will also not promote it. His time is precious, and who can afford to hire him to do promotions?! But you can put his name as the producer. I had gotten his approval, and you should know how to promote the show better than me.” Kameda Masao crossed his legs.

Kameda Masao is not only selling this program. He is more concerned about marketing the products showcased in the show.

“This… can we discuss the pricing again?”

“The price cannot be lowered. You have seen the quality of this show, but I can offer you other benefits.”

“I can let you all produce this show’s merchandise, and we will split the profits. We will get 60%, and the merchandises include books, phone, games, apparels, etc.”

TV show merchandise is highly profitable, and Kameda Masao had seen too many examples in Japan and the US. Furthermore, Feng Yu had specially mentioned this.

“You are letting us handle the merchandise? But we have our clothing brand, and it is different from your product placement.”

“This is not negotiable. The clothing must be ours, but we can give you all the overseas distribution rights. So you don’t need to worry about the clothing’s quality and design. We can also help with the game’s development and sales, and it will not affect our profits agreement.”

“We are Amazon’s biggest shareholder and have a saw in the book sales. So we will let you handle the figurines, models, etc., but you all will have to handle the marketing at your own cost.”

Kameda Masao is clear. We are giving you the rights and part of the development, production, and sales. You must also handle the marketing, development, production, and sales with us to get your share of the profits.

This show will be aired on Discovery, and they are the best party to market the show’s related merchandise. They have experience in this, or Kameda Masao will not use this to negotiate with them.

“The marketing cost will be very high. Shouldn’t your side also provide some assistance too? For example, bundling the merchandise together with the online broadcasting rights?”

Kameda Masao agreed without hesitation. Although it will lower the broadcasting rights’ prices, they can earn back through the merchandise.

Feng Yu had only thought of selling DV and showing its picture quality and convenience through this show.

Now, he can use this show to create an industrial chain and get higher profits.

Those world-class conglomerates are not focusing on one industry. They own the whole business ecosystem. This will guarantee their profits and not be affected by any disruption in the supply chain.

Feng Yu is starting to build his business ecosystem now.

Chapter 1353 – Business Ecosystem

“Old Zhong, you can discuss with your men about these issues and see if it is implementable.” Feng Yu gave Zhong Qingxian a document he wrote.

Businesses are most concerned about the industry chain. Businesses of different industries are closely related, forming a chain.

This is a disadvantage to businesses. If any part of the chain cannot keep up, the whole supply chain will collapse.

For example, the industrial chain of an automobile company is parts manufacturing, development, and assembly of the automobile, sales, and after-sales services. This is a complete industrial chain.

If there are problems with the sales stage, other parts of the chain will be affected. The cars cannot be sold. There will be no more after-sales services, and parts manufacturing, development, and assembly of cars will stop.

That’s why most businesses will have two systems as a contingency plan. The upstream and downstream of a business should not have one partner. They must have at least two or more partners. At the same time, their partners must also have more than one partners to prevent any issues from arising.

This will form a tightly knitted interrelated network of companies.

This is not a bad model, but it’s hard for businesses to grow rapidly.

If the businesses in the upstream join forces, they can limit the company’s growth. The easiest way to prevent such risk is to form your business ecosystem.

This means you have to do everything yourself.

Using the automobile industry as an example again, the company must handle the parts manufacturing, development and assembly, sales, and after-sales services.

But this is not a complete cycle. It must include the scrapping of vehicles, recycling and processing the steel and using the recycled steel to produce automobile parts.

Songjiang Motors’s cycle is not completed, and it’s very hard to form a chain. For example, when steel prices rise, the parts’ cost will also rise, and the selling price of their cars must also rise.

There are significant impacts from the up and downstream. To prevent the company from being at the mercy of others, they must control all the related businesses.

Songjiang Motors handled the parts manufacturing to the after-sales services. Feng Yu had settled the part for raw materials. The Polar Bear Mining Enterprise has started producing steel, and they have control over the basic material.

Feng Yu wants all of his current businesses to expand to their up and downstream and form an ecosystem.

Another advantage of forming a business ecosystem is the related business will benefit when the value of any one stage increases.

This forms a win-win situation for all companies within the chain and reinforces the bonds between them.

A business ecosystem can let all participants benefit from the industry growth, better position themselves, and increase their adaptiveness.

Feng Yu owns a lot of businesses. Some had already formed their business ecosystem. For example, Beidacang. They own the agricultural land, processing factories, and sales. Their factories also produce animal feed to feed their pigs, chickens, etc. These animals’ waste is used as fertilizers for their farms.

The chicken waste is also made into fish feed, and the fishes are processed into food or other animals’ feed.

The agriculture industry ecosystem is easier to complete. The production and sales are also simpler, and such a system can give consumers peace of mind.

But other industries are more complicated to form a business ecosystem.

Feng Yu is trying his best to complete it. For example, he had invested in a Crystalline silicon factory, one of the raw materials for electronic components. The assembly of electronic components, system development, product development, sales, and after-sales services are all completed.

Feng Yu still does not control the raw crystalline silicon and does not own any electronics recycling plant. That’s why this cycle is not completed. It can only be considered a business chain and is affected by raw crystalline silicon prices.

Feng Yu has a partner for crystalline silicon but not for recycling plants. There are only a handful of people doing this in China. He got his men to check out the electronics recycling industry and found that most companies are located in two regions. Japan and Taiwan.

These regions are formerly Asia’s top crystalline silicon industries. After Feng Yu’s raw crystalline silicon plant started production, Wind and Rain crystalline silicon have become the world’s biggest crystalline silicon company in the world. They supply almost half of the world’s supply.

They could easily exceed this figure, but they stopped. Anything more than 50% might be considered a monopoly, and they will face lawsuits.

Some Chinese crystalline silicon companies started to revamp their production lines and technologies after seeing Feng Yu entering this industry. Very soon, China’s crystalline silicon companies will be supplying more than half of the global demand. These companies’ total production is no where close to Wind and Rain crystalline silicon, and Wind and Rain crystalline silicon has the final say in the crystalline silicon prices!

The business ecosystem Feng Yu wants to set up the most is the financial industry ecosystem. In his previous life, the only digital financial ecosystem is Ma Yun’s Ant Group. All other companies, who tried to imitate their model, cannot be compared to them.

Ma Yun’s companies’ biggest asset is this Ant Group. Its core is Alipay. Many people speculate that if Ant got listed, he would become the World’s Richest Man!

Many people are puzzled. Most of Alibaba’s shares are owned by foreign investors. Although Ma Yun and his team have the final say in the company, the Chinese Government should not be supporting them.

This is because the most profitable business, Alipay, is owned by Ma Yun and his team. Although Alibaba’s other businesses are doing well, those are nothing compared to Alipay and Ant.

Look at those banks’ assets after they got listed, and you will know how great Ant’s potential is. This is a real digital bank, and it includes all bank services. Most importantly, it has the most valuable transaction history!

“Manager Feng, I will discuss with the rest. But I think it should not be a problem. Even if we cannot do it ourselves, we can exchange shares to get the controlling stake. This way, we will lower our risks!”

“Go ahead. If you require Wind and Rain Holdings help, let me know. I will get Kameda Masao to assist you.”

Chapter 1354 – How are we going to do this with an Entertainment Company?

All of Feng Yu’s companies are working on their strategic product strategy since he mentioned it previously. All had achieved good progress, as they have flagship products but did not know how to use them to their advantage.

This time, Feng Yu brought up a business ecosystem. His subsidiaries’ representatives treated this seriously. He felt this strategy would make them self-reliant, but it’s not as easy as they thought.

Feng Yu’s companies had been developing their supply chain, but the strategy he mentioned confused them.

It’s fine for those manufacturing and sales-focus companies, as they know what to do. But the Hua Yi Brothers faced difficulties.

Hua Yi Brothers is an entertainment management company. How are they going to create a business ecosystem? They manage artists, and what is their upstream? Artistes? What about their downstream? Is it their works?

Zhong Qingxian could not answer Wang Zhongjun as he is not sure about the business ecosystem too. He only felt it sounds more sophisticated than the supply chain.

So, Zhong Qingxian went to Beijing to ask Feng Yu. Feng Yu decided to meet Hua Yi Brothers as they are in Beijing.

…….

“Manager Wang, our Hua Yi Brothers is doing well recently. I heard many of the popular TV artists are from our company.”

“It’s a coincidence.” Wang Zhongjun laughed.

Feng Yu replied. “It might be a coincidence if you succeed once. But it is not a coincidence if you are successful so many times. This is also part of the business ecosystem I mentioned.”

“What is our core asset? Artistes. The most popular artist, the artist with the good acting, singers, dancers, etc. We must develop towards the up and downstream from them. We will be successful if we have a say in all related companies.

Wang Zhongjun listened attentively. “Manager Feng, please carry on.”

“Let’s talk about movies. Actors, directors, scriptwriters, make-up, editing, market, and many more industries are involved in a movie. We need all these companies to come together to film a movie. Do you agree the box-office sales will be affected if any part of them failed to live up to expectations?

“That’s right.” A movie with unknown actors might not sell despite having a good script. The same script will have different results based on the actors. Ordinary and famous directors will affect the box-office sales too.

“If we want to make money through artists, their movies must have high box-office sales before their value can increase. Why don’t we handle everything from the start of that movie?”

“Handle everything? What do you mean?”

“The story, scriptwriters, directors, actors, the distribution and marketing of the movie are all our people. It would be better if we have our own cinema chain. This will let us gain control over every stage of the movie. This is the same for TV series, stage plays, record labels, etc.”

“We are going to handle everything from the start?! This means we will take charge of collecting scripts and work with famous scriptwriters?”

“We can also let the scriptwriters adapt from novels. It will be easier to succeed as these novels have their fans. But the movie must not be too far apart from its original, as it will attract bad reviews.”

“Adapt from novels? The novels nowadays are not suitable to be adapted into movies. The majority of them are more suitable for TV series, and we can target older audiences. Also, not many people will want to watch movies adapted from novels. Most cinema-goers are youngsters, and we can only recover our cost from selling DVDs.”

“TV series is fine. A good TV series is easier to let viewers remember the actors. TV series’ broadcasting is longer, and you can take note of online novels.”

“Online novels? What do you mean?” Wang Zhongjun is confused.

“Have you heard of <The First Intimate Contact>?” Feng Yu gave an example of the most famous online novel in this era.

“Oh, you are talking about that? Is that an online novel? I heard it was adapted into a movie, but the box office sales are pathetic. The movie starred Chen Xiaochun, Shu Qi, Zhang Zheng, and many well-known actors. Some low-cost productions had fared better.” Wang Zhongjun replied.

Wang Zhongjun does not like online novels and felt it’s just a virtual novel. It will never be as influential as real books. They can only be considered writers if they published physical books!

“That is a movie produced in 2000. How many years has it been? Also, how can the online influence then be compared to now? The box office sales had performed better than expected after it was promoted on the internet. That movie had picked the wrong actors. The characters in the novel are in their twenties, but the actors are much older and matured. This is what I meant by picking the wrong actors.”

“Don’t belittle online novels. <The First Intimate Contact> is a best-seller. Online literature will play an important role in the future. My suggestion is to invest in an online literature website and prioritize rights to adapt the novels into movies or TV series. This might become the future of the media market.”

Wang Zhongjun felt Feng Yu is exaggerating and doesn’t believe it. Online literature?! How can the internet and literature have in common? How can those people who publish their stories online be considered writers?

“Manager Feng, I will consider and discuss this with my managers.” Wang Zhongjun replied.

Feng Yu does not mind whether Wang Zhongjun believes him or not. He decides to speak to Wang Zhixi, Zhang Chaoyang, and the rest to see if they are interested. If they are not interested, he will let Tai Hua Consulting invest and keep the cake for himself.

“I should not continue about this. You can learn from Creative Artists Agency on artist management. They don’t have movie companies or cinemas, but all cinema chains and movie companies have to suck up to them.”

“I have heard rumors that this company will enter the Chinese market these few years. They are the No. 1 artist management company in the world. If we can work and learn from them, we can speed up our development. You might understand the business ecosystem of the entertainment company from their operating model.”

Chapter 1355 – No foresight

Feng Yu had started to read online novels, and most novels are still available for free.

Early last year, Qidian started the first VIP paid reading model, and Feng Yu can be considered one of the first paid readers. There are not many good novels are available now on the site. The novels are not too bad, but most of them suck for someone who had read years of online novels in his previous life.

Feng Yu had left some comments and affected the endings of many novels. His account, “No. 6 of Central Plains,” is named the best commentator by many readers and writers.

How do online novel websites make money now? After the novels gained popularity, the sites will publish books to make money. The main traditional Chinese market in Taiwan. Also, the publishing rights fees for online writers are lower than other writers.

The simplified Chinese novels are harder to sell because of piracy. Some publishers might be interested in some novels, but realized it is available in the market. Some writers had contacted publishers, but their novels are available free online. Why should they publish it?

Advertising is another source of income for these websites and has nothing to do with the writers.

But everything changed since the paid model is implemented. This model had led to an increase of many online writers. More importantly, more publishers are interested in simplified Chinese publishing rights. Readers cannot read the rest of the novels, and they should buy or read the books.

The rental market for novels had focused only on Wuxia and comics, but it is different now. There are more interesting novels online which people like to read.

Feng Yu knows Chinese online novels will become famous overseas. Of course, it’s only a handful of them. But online novels are very popular among Chinese circles worldwide, with a few hundred million readers. The number of readers and subscriptions increased further after reading these sites become available on mobile phones.

Currently, such sites and writers are not making much money.

Many of the Chinese dramas and movies are adapted from online novels in the future. Many online games, mobile games, comics, anime, etc., are also based on online novels, and it is a massive market.

It’s normal for Wang Zhongjun not to see the future of online novels as he is not in the internet business. Feng Yu felt Zhang Chaoyang, and the rest should see it.

…….

“Ah? You are not interested?!” Feng Yu is slightly shocked.

“Manager Feng, how much profits are there from this subscription model? The cost of running this website is too high, and pirated copies appear immediately after new chapters are updated. How many subscribers can they attract? This industry will be overrun by piracy soon. Even overseas do have such sites.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. What are you saying? Overseas are always better?! Some overseas websites are better than China sites, but they don’t represent they are better overall. Just look at the Chinese Web. It is doing very well in China, and overseas had just started to imitate it.

“But what if we can stop piracy through technology?”

“This is not easy. We do have some novel series on our blogs, but those are casual works, and it’s not worth anything.”

“Alright. I will ask someone else.”

……

“Manager Feng, investing in an online novel website has not much future. Although our website is also involved in managing rights, we are dealing with broadcasting rights. This is different from novels. Since you think this has potential, I will invest personally.” Zhang Chaoyang replied with some hesitations.

“It’s alright. I shall not force you.”

“Don’t worry, Manager Feng. I will give you the lowest price in the industry if you need us to promote your website.”

……

Ding Lei is also troubled after hearing about this from Feng Yu. He could not tell how this industry will prosper in the future. It might be profitable, but it’s exaggerating to say it will be highly profitable.

Ding Lei, Zhang Chaoyang, and the rest decided to wait and see. These online novel websites are not worth a lot. If it is proven that they have potential, they can still invest or set up their website.

Li Yanhong also hesitated when Feng Yu approached him. Baidu’s Tieba does have several online novel series, but they are not making any money. Websites need some technical expertise to implement subscription features. Those sites only need a server, and it’s easy to be imitated. How are they going to make money?

Although China has started to look into intellectual property rights, it’s hard to catch those infringing online. Also, the perpetrators are not doing it for profit, and it’s hard to pursue it.

Fine. Got rejected again.

Feng Yu asked Ma Yun, but he is too busy with Alibaba and doesn’t have time for online novels.

Shi Dazhu is interested, but he also did not think it will be as prosperous as Feng Yu claims. He felt Feng Yu is optimistic. The return rate will not be high, but he is willing to invest if Feng Yu needs more shareholders.

Feng Yu is mad. Shi Dazhu thinks he is going to get the online novel website listed for money.

Lastly, Feng Yu asked Ma Huateng. He had owned more than half of the Chinese online literature empire in his previous life. He should be interested. Also, it will be easier to market the site if it is partnering with QQ.

Ma Huateng told Feng Yu that he doesn’t have time. Most of the company’s fundss and resources had been invested into developing QQ Space. He does think highly of online novels but will not invest in the meantime. He might consider it in the future.

Ma Huateng is telling Feng Yu that he will observe the situation first. His company has massive users, and he can use it to set up his website in the future.

No companies are interested in online novel sites after asking around.

Feng Yu picked up the phone and called Sun Lijie. “Old Sun, go and check out a Chinese website call Qidian. Ask them if they need investments.”

Sun Lijie immediately went to this website and assigned his men to find out more details about it.

This is a website for online novels?! This… Is this worth investing in?

But since Manager Feng mentioned it, then it should be fine. He has never been wrong when it comes to investment. This website might really be profitable.

Chapter 1356 – Investing in Qidian

Qidian had already been acquired by a company called Shanda Group. Qidian’s founders kept some shares for themselves and gotten a large amount of cash.

To invest in Qidian, Feng Yu must approach Shanda.

Sun Lijie made a few calls and fixed an appointment with the Boss of Shanda.

……

Shanda Group’s Boss is Chen Daqiao, and he is waiting in his office for Tai Hua Consulting’s CEO, Sun Lijie. Sun Lijie is one of the influential investors in China’s investment circle. He likes to invest in internet and technology-related companies. Is he going to invest in Shanda?

Shanda group had just ended their first round of financing and had invested everything. After the second round of financing, they should be getting the profits of their initial investments. The company will be on track. They might get listed within two years.

A middle-aged man is brought into the office by Chen Daqian’s secretary. He quickly walks over to welcome him. “Nice to meet you, Manager Sun.”

“I am here for a reason. I am here to discuss a business deal with you.”

Chen Daqiao is jumping with joy in his heart. Manager Sun is here to invest in our company.

“Are you going to invest in our company?”

“That’s right. We are interested in a website under your company, and we can purchase it if you are willing to sell.” Sun Lijie replied directly.

“Which website?”

Although Shanda is set up recently, they had several websites, including gaming distributorships, novel websites, online services, etc.

“You all have acquired Qidian recently, and we are very interested in this industry.”

Chen Daqiao thought Sun Lijie is interested in their gaming distributorships. After all, Tai Hua Holdings own Wind and Rain Games. They are also a distributor for Wind and Rain Games.

Shanda’s Online services are also more advanced, and he thought Sun Lijie would be interested. But he is interested in that novel website!

“Manager Sun, we had just acquired this site like what you mentioned and have no intentions of selling it now.”

“We will offer 20% more than your purchase price!”

20% return is considered high for a website acquired not long ago. But Chen Daqiao and his team also thought highly of this industry. They felt it would be a revolution for China’s novel industry.”

“Sorry, Manager Sun. We can’t sell this website.”

“Alright. Then we will invest in it. We want the controlling shares of this website, or we can have the controlling shares of Shanda.” Sun Lijie immediately makes another proposal.

“We will not let others own the controlling shares of our company. Other shareholders will also not agree. But if Tai Hua Consulting is interested in investing in us, we can continue with the discussion.”

Chen Daqiao will never sell his company. At most, he will go for another round of financing, but he must own the controlling stake.

“Our investment will not be high if we are just getting a minor stake.” Sun Lijie replied with a frown.

Sun Lijie had mentioned that the controlling stake is because he wants to suppress the price. He is willing to accept a higher price if he can get the controlling shares. But if it is only a minor stake, it will be a lower price.

Both parties had reached an agreement, and the negotiation is easier. One party wants to invest and the other needs funding.

Sun Lijie represented Tai Hua Consulting to invest a sum of money in exchange for 33% of Qidian and a top executive position.

Honestly, Sun Lijie and his team do not know anything about this online novel website. Maybe Hu Ran knows something, as his work is related to publishing.

……

“Boss, we have invested in Qidian and owns a third of the company’s shares. Is it enough?” Sun Lijie asked through the phone.

“It doesn’t matter how many shares. Do we have the priority adaptation rights of the novels?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes. It is included. But it seems that there are no good web novels to be adapted now.”

“There isn’t any now, but there will be in the future. Don’t forget we also own gaming companies. Our future game’s background stories can be written by these online novel authors, increasing our games’ exposures. In return, if they have good stories, we can adapt it into games.” Feng Yu replied.

Sun Lijie finally understood what Feng Yu’s motive is. But he still felt an online novel couldn’t be adapted into a game. A novel is only a longer story, and it’s more suitable to be adapted into films or TV series rather than games.

Sun Lijie and the rest had never read online novels and did not know the future potential. Also, who says novels have never been adapted into games? Harry Potter has its own PC game.

What about manga, anime, movies, adaption to PC games? Nothing is impossible.

Currently, there are no Xian Xia and Xuan Huan novels, and most stories are modern genre. But online novels’ readers are diverse, and these genres will appear soon.

The online novel is still transiting from the stone age to the bronze age era now, but Feng Yu is confident he can speed up the transition.

For example, suppose someone writes a novel similar to The Legend of Sword and Fairy. In that case, it can be adapted into a fantasy sword fighting online game. If someone writes a novel about a modern mercenary, it can be adapted into a shooting and adventure game. If someone writes a novel about football, it can be adapted into an online football game.

There are too many types of novels that can be adapted into video games, but it still depends on the popularity.

“Boss, which novels are suitable to be adapted into games? Wind and Rain Games do not have any experience.”

Feng Yu thought for a while. “It’s fine. I will select and find a suitable novel. There are some issues with the payment and subscription system. We must find ways to attract readers. No matter how well-written the novels are, they will be useless without readers.”

Sun Lijie suddenly felt more confident with this novel website when he heard Feng Yu pick the novel himself. Feng Yu has a 100% track record of zero losses in his investments. This website will make high profits!

Translator’s note:

Shanda Group

Xianxia (genre)

The Legend of Sword and Fairy

Chapter 1357 – Online novel website should be like this

“Manager Sun, who is this?”

Chen Daqiao knows Sun Lijie is coming to train Qidian’s editors and is disdainful.

This industry is new, and its website is one of the pioneers. They can be considered the most experienced in the field. Where did Sun Lijie find this guy to advise them? Even those editors from established publishers don’t dare to do it.

But Chen Daqiao still waited for them as he wants to see who will train Qidian’s editors.

“Mr. Chen, this is Mr. Feng Yu.”

Feng Yu has too many titles and doesn’t need any introductions. Everyone knows who he is.

“Feng… Mr. Feng Yu?! The Chairman of Tai Hua Holdings, and the World’s Richest Man, Mr. Feng Yu?!” Chen Daqiao had never expected to meet Feng Yu. He is a legend among the Chinese.

“It’s me. What’s wrong? Are you not going to invite me in?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

“Ah! Please come in! Xiao Zhao! Prepare the tea!”

Chen Daqiao’s office is not big, as his company is very new and needs to save money. But it is nicely renovated.

“Mr. Chen, Manager Feng will be training Qidian’s editors today.”

What!? It’s him?!

Chen Daqiao never imagines the expert Sun Lijie mentioned is Feng Yu. But even if it’s Feng Yu, he should not be qualified as a trainer in this industry. He is not in this line after all!

Feng Yu saw Chen Daqiao’s expression and smiles. “I am one of the first paid subscribers of Qidian, and my ID ‘No. 6 of Central Plains’ is quite famous.”

“No. 6 of Central Plains”?! The famous reviewer respected by authors and readers?!

Qidian’s staff had suggested to Chen Daqiao to invite “No. 6 of Central Plains”. This person has great foresight and splendid views. With his help, Qidian will progress quickly and become the best in the industry.

They are disappointed when “No. 6 of Central Plains” rejected them. They are unable to offer a high salary and only can try to entice him with prospects. But it did not work. Qidian’s editors felt this person should be wealthy as the first batch of paid subscribers is all rich!

But no one had expected “No. 6 of Central Plains” to be the World’s Richest Man!

No one in this world is wealthier than him. Their offer, which might be considered good to them, is only a joke to Feng Yu.

Chen Daqiao quickly calls those people from Qidian to come over immediately.

……

“All of you can be considered the leaders in this industry. You all are one of the pioneers, and many of you had started your career as an online writer. That’s why you all can understand the hardship of being an online novel writer. The benefit of this occupation is the low barrier of entry. Anyone with a PC and who knows how to type can become an online novel writer. But they are not part the industry yet.”

“Only when there is the income can they be considered to have joined this industry, and they can call themselves writers after their works are published. Writers can only earn from publishing their works in the past. They are being paid much lesser than traditional literary works. But everything will change with VIP paid subscribers’ model.”

“My question to you all is, ‘what is our core?’”

Someone replied. “Writers. Those famous and good writers.”

“That’s right. We are similar to an entertainment artist management company. The writers are equivalent to artists. If an artist management company doesn’t have artists, how are they going to survive? An artist management company with lots of artists will make the most profits even if they are charging the lowest commission!”

“Manager Feng, you are saying that we should poach those good online writers to our website?” Someone asked.

“We don’t need to poach. We can make them join us.”

Make them join us?! Everyone is confused. How are they going to attract those writers? Their website is still not No. 1 in their industry.

“Look, we are the first website to introduce VIP paid subscribers’ model, and it will increase the writers’ income. Previously, they had published their works online without getting paid. We are also working with some publishers.”

“Ah?! Manager Feng, it’s hard for online novels to get published in Simplified Chinese. Some publishers had approached us, but the publishing rights are too low, and the writers are not satisfied.”

“We have new partners now. For example, Wind and Rain Publishing. The publisher who publish <Wind and Rain Business Magazine>.”

Tai Hua Holdings have its own publishing company, and why can’t they publish these online novels? Although the sales might be low, they should not make any losses if they planned well. At least, the rental bookstores will buy it.

The writers will get famous slowly, and after they have established a fan base, the sales will rise.

“Wind and Rain Publishing will publish our books in Simplified Chinese? That’s terrific.  This way, our influence will increase and will attract more writers and readers.” Someone exclaimed excitedly.

“We lack in marketing now, and we can use those forums, Tieba, etc., to promote us and let those writers know our benefits are better. At the same time, readers will know we have more and better writers, more titles, and our pages are cleaner without advertisements or trojan links.”

“No advertisements? If there are no advertisements, how are we going to make money?” Someone asked.

“I am saying that we will minimize our advertisements and not removing all of them. However, the advertisements must not affect the readings. We provide a platform for the writers, promote their works, and helping them charge their readers. We should commission for it, right? We are equivalent to artists’ managers and shouldn’t be working for free. I heard that the website is not getting a share from your VIP model.”

“We had just launched this system and did not have many subscribers. If we still get a share, the writers’ income will drop significantly.” Someone explained.

“This is fine for the initial phase, but not in the future, as the website’s maintenance cost is not low. Also, we need to filter the recommendations and include a feature to rate the novels. This will let readers know which are the more popular novels.”

“What should we do if people buy votes to give a good novel rating?”

“The votes need to be purchased or given to readers who had paid a certain amount. If anyone is going to buy votes, the writers will also get a share. Just let them be.”

“Also, you all can use our Alipay as a payment system. This is more convenient than other online banking transactions. We can also work with QQ to increase our marketing efforts to get more readers!”

Chapter 1358 – Shocking the industry

Feng Yu told them the various online novel websites’ operating models he encountered in his previous life. All these models are the surviving models after many years in the industry.

Qidian’s editors were dumbfounded after listening to Feng Yu. They did not know novel websites can be operated in so many ways.

None of them had thought of the different operating models Feng Yu mentioned. Reviews, recommendations, update notifications, tipping the writers, etc. All these will bring income to the writers, and no one had thought of it before.

They had never considered benefits for the writers, and Feng Yu labeled these benefits as insurance!

Qidian’s editors can understand recommending different novels based on the sales. But Feng Yu said the website must introduce mobile reading in the future. This mean reader can read novels on their mobile phones. All of them are stunned.

Currently, mobile phones can surf the net, but there are high data charges. The wordings are small and the data charges made reading novels very expensive.

Qidian is offering downloads to make it more convenient for readers now.

Feng Yu knows that this concept is too futuristic and the current smartphones have limited functions. In his previous life, some top-tier smartphones are faster than PCs now.

These might not be possible now, but what about ten years later? Maybe it can be achievable in five years.

Feng Yu continued to point out some areas to note. For example, they must offer the best benefits for their top writers. It’s just like an artist management company. Those superstars are getting better perks than ordinary artists.

Even if the commission for a superstar is 10%, it will be higher than other ordinary artists with 90% commission.

This will also give the top writers a sense of belonging and prevent them from being poached by other websites. These top writers must not be handled by one editor. If the editor decides to join their competitors, he might bring the writer along with him.

Lastly, they must monitor the novels closely. The quality must be there, and more importantly, it must not break the law!

Many websites publish ‘those’ types of novels, and Feng Yu also saw some on Qidian. This is not allowed as it is against the law in China.

This is allowed if the website is from other countries. In some countries, such websites are legal, but Feng Yu does not suggest them doing this as it will bring a bad reputation.

Like anti-government and violence, some sensitive topics cannot be published as they might break the law. If the higher-ups implemented some new rulings, the website would be greatly affected.

There is also no need to worry about having not enough writers or books. They can buy online publishing rights from some writers to increase their varieties.

For example, the website can publish Jin Yong’s Wuxia novels. Although Jin Yong had retired, all of his previous works are extremely popular. Huang Yi’s novel <The Chronicles of Finding Qin> is another classic. It can be considered the iconic representative of the transmigration novel!

They must also consider the readers. There must be one type of payment model for the readers, and multi-tier membership must be added. Like supermarkets’ membership, the paid subscribers must have discounts, and VIP members should have higher discounts.

Additional tiers should be added between ordinary members and VIPs. Topping up a certain amount into their accounts will have gifts and free upgrades to members with higher spending.

This will attract some readers to top up their accounts and raise funds for the website’s development.

Feng Yu said a lot, and the editors wrote everything down. They realized Feng Yu is a genius and respected him highly. No wonder he can become the World’s Richest Man.

……

A few online novel writers noticed a pinned thread posted on a novel forum they frequent. Qidian’s benefits for writers.

What is this? An online novel website is giving writers benefits?

Some entered the thread and found the benefits attractive. They had heard about this website introducing a paid model. Although there are not many paid readers currently, it is another form of income for them. A few writers, who had wanted to publish their novels online, signed up with Qidian after seeing their terms.

Qidian is working with many publishers, including Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and English publishers. The novels might also get adapted into movies or TV series, and authors can participate in the script. Wind and Rain Games will also adapt novels into online games or hire authors to write novels based on their games.

The contract also includes an Accident Insurance policy. Although the payout is not high, it’s heartwarming to the writers. They also have many channels to get income.

Every year there will be writers gathering. The top writers will share their experiences with other writers and editors. The website will pay for all lodging, transportations, and expenses. In the future, writing courses by literature professors will be available to top writers.

All these benefits are too enticing, and some writers who were about to publish their works on another website changed their minds. They decided to publish at Qidian.

Some even cut short their current novels on other websites to start a new novel with Qidian.

These advertisements did not only appear on forums. It also appears on some popular websites, giving the writers confidence in Qidian’s influence. A company that had spent so much on advertisement should be powerful.

Lastly, Qidian released a piece of shocking news. Tai Hua Consulting is investing in them, and Tai Hua Consulting’s parent company is Tai Hua Holdings. That is Feng Yu’s company! The World’s Richest Man is investing in Qidian!

……

“What is going on? Why are those few popular writers on our website ending their novels? What about their new books? Are they going to stop writing?”

“Manager Wang, they had quit and are joining Qidian.”

“Huh? We are the No. 1 in this industry with the most readers. Why are those writers joining Qidian? I thought they do not have many subscribers with their paid model?”

“They had introduced benefits for writers and claimed some novels might be adapted into TV series, online games, and the works might be published in Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. Writers will get a higher income, and these writers had joined them for money.”

“Can they do that? Impossible. We are the biggest in the industry, and we can’t even do these. Are they boasting?”

“I heard that Mr. Feng Yu had invested in that website. Should we offer some money to bring back those authors?”

“No need. They will realize their mistakes soon. Do you think Feng Yu, the World’s Richest Man, will invest in that pathetic website? Even if he is going to invest, he should pick us. We are the best in this industry! Some of our writers are stirring up troubles, asking us to charge on our websites now. This will teach them a lesson. They only have themselves to blame for picking the wrong path!”

Huang Yi

Chapter 1359 – I will tell you the outline, and you just write accordingly

Qidian doubled their writers during this period. Some of them are well-known writers who had published their works in Traditional Chinese before.

Although the writers are not as famous as the writers before Feng Yu’s rebirth, they still have many fans.

Feng Yu sat in front of his PC, looking through the new titles on Qidian. To his disappointment, he did not find anything interesting.

The online novels now are mainly in modern settings, followed by Wuxia, online gaming, or some horror stories. Unfortunately, Feng Yu could not find the Xian Xia or Xuan Huan novels he likes.

The only genre related to the Xuan Huan genre is the Xi Huan (Western Fantasy) novels. Most of it about knights, magicians, etc., from western folklore.

This is the most popular genre now, and there are no ‘systems’ or ‘leveling’ stories out there. The titles are also not different from the story, and it’s tiring to read them.

Feng Yu is bored as he has nothing to read.

During the weekend, Feng Yu met Wen Dongjun for a game of table tennis. Both of them are amateurs with similar standards.

In the end, Feng Yu lost 2:3 to Wen Dongjun. Both threw their bats aside and sat on the floor.

“Eh, why did you ask me out to play table tennis today? You should call me out more often for such activities. I had never won against my colleagues at table tennis. Not even once!” Wen Dongjun said.

Feng Yu rolled his eyes. Did you forget where you are working at? Which Chinese sportsmen don’t know how to play table tennis? Yet, you still dare to play against them?

But Feng Yu kept quiet as he cannot even win against him.

“I’m bored.”

“What’s wrong? I noticed you had not been playing online games now.” Wen Dongjun asked.

“I cannot keep up with the leveling and kept getting killed.” Online games must be played in groups, and it’s hard to form groups. Most players have a fixed group, and Feng Yu is bored of playing alone.

“Then you can read some online novels. I thought you had invested in Qidian? There are more than 10,000 titles there.”

“I had finished reading those I am interested in. Their updates are too slow!” Feng Yu remembered those top writers in his previous life. They can update a few thousand to ten thousand words every day. Once in a while, they will post additional chapters. The writers now can only manage around 3,000 words at most!

“You always have many things to say when you are chatting with me. Why don’t you write a novel if you are not interested in other people’s novels?”

Feng Yu looks at Wen Dongjun. Why does this sound so familiar? He had seen this comment countless times in his previous life. ‘Write it yourself if you think you are good. If not, stop criticizing others!’

Writing a few thousand words is not a problem for Feng Yu. Ten to twenty thousand words might be possible, but a hundred thousand to one million words are impossible.

Feng Yu thought for a while. He cannot write it, but that does not mean others cannot do it. He can provide the outline of the story and let those writers write out the story.

“Dongjun, do you think I cannot write a novel?” Feng Yu looks at Wen Dongjun.

“I know you too well. I can even tell what you have eaten from your poo!”

“Get lost. I will let you know what is call a best-selling novel! That’s enough for today. I am going back.” Feng Yu stood up.

“Eh, you are not playing anymore? One more game. I will go easy on you.”

…….

Feng Yu went straight to his study room once he got home.

“I thought you are playing table tennis with Dongjun today? Why are you back so early?” Li Na asked curiously.

“I have something to do.” Feng Yu continued to type furiously without looking up.

Li Na thought Feng Yu is working and did not disturb him. She left the freshly brewed tea on the table and left.

Two hours later, Feng Yu printed a rough story outline and looked at it. Finally, he is satisfied with it. Hmmm… almost every author is satisfied with their first work.

Feng Yu contacted Qidian and knew a few well-known writers had just finished their novels and are coming up with their story for their next book. So, he picks the fastest writer among them and added his QQ.

“Hi, the editor asked me to contact you. Can I know what do you need from me?” The other party typed.

“I have a novel story outline, and I want you to write it.”

“I had finished my last novel, but I had an idea for my next book. Furthermore, how are we going to settle the remuneration if you are providing the story?”

“You can take everything. I don’t need that. Oh, my Qidian’s ID is No. 6 of Central Plains.”

The other party was surprised to know he talked to “No. 6 of Central Plains”. This is the best online novel reviewer, and every novel he reviewed is popular.

“You are ‘No. 6 of Central Plains’? Why don’t you write it yourself?” The other party asked.

“No time.” Feng Yu lied. He has time but doesn’t have the skills. Writing a novel might seem easy, but one will realize how difficult it is to start writing one.

The other party accepted Feng Yu’s reason. He heard “No. 6 of Central Plains” is a rich man, and he must be busy with work.

“Can I look at the story before I decide?”

Feng Yu immediately send his story outline to the other party’s QQ mailbox. The QQ chat still cannot send files through the chat unless it is between members. The other party is not a paid member of QQ.

About ten minutes later, the other party replied. “No. 6, your story is very creative, and I have never heard of anything like this! Which genre is it?”

“This should be considered Xian Xia. You can consider this as an upgraded version of Wuxia. The characters in Xian Xia can fly like deities. You can also call it cultivation.” Feng Yu replied.

“This is terrific. I had never heard of these before. Are you trying to create a new genre?! Aren’t you afraid that I will not do a good job with your story?”

Feng Yu is worried, but there’s no one else to help him. Also, after someone started this genre, many others will start to write novels in this genre, and many splendid novels will appear soon.

“I am not afraid. Just go ahead and write it, and you can contact me if you have any questions. I believe you will be famous because of this novel!”

Many years later, this writer will reply proudly that it was “No. 6 of Central Plains” who gave him this story when asked how did he create this genre. Without “No. 6 of Central Plains” guidance, he will not have his first best-seller!

Chapter 1360 – Cultural significance

“Mr. Feng, the writer, Lao Si, had contacted me and showed me your story outline. It’s… errm… very unique. It doesn’t fall under any of the current genres, and it might be a hit.” Qidian’s Chief Editor, Bao Jianfeng, told Feng Yu over the phone.

Feng Yu smacked his lips. What do you mean by it might be a hit?! It will surely be a hit if the marketing is done right.

Everyone is used to stories about knights and magicians and interested in Eastern Xian Xia novels. After all, this is China. People had been hearing stories about deities since young and had never heard of knights and magicians here.

“After Lao Si starts posting this novel, other writers will be inspired and will start writing novels in this genre. I dare to say these novels will be extremely popular in the next few years. Have you heard of fairy swords? This novel is similar to it, but there are some differences. The story is set entirely in the East, and it’s suitable for our culture.”

“Online novels should not be treated as a pastime. It should have some significance, and Qidian has an important role.”

“Ah? What significance can online novels have? It’s all about romance, war, fights, etc., and people read it to past time. Very few people will read traditional literature online.” Although Bao Jianfeng wants to increase online novels’ status, he could not see any significance in it.

“No. Our online novels are also online literature, and literature is a form of culture. Why are there so many novels about knights, magicians, saints, aliens, and monsters? That is because we are affected by external cultural influences. For example, anime, manga, video games, etc.”

“Our novels are spreading classic culture like Taoist, Buddhist, and even Confucianism cultures. This includes some classical literature works, like legends and folktales. All these represent our Chinese culture.”

“We used to call ourselves Descendants of the Dragon, but how many people will say this now? The dragon represented a form of culture and was passed down by our ancestors since ancient times. How many years has it been? Are we going to wait until those western big belly winged lizards replace our dragons?”

“We are one of the greatest ancient civilizations, and our culture is being invaded and replaced by the Western culture. Different countries have different cultures and values. If we allow our culture to be replaced, will China be the same?”

Feng Yu starts to exaggerate. Of course, he is not trying to scare Bao Jianfeng. The US had been using its culture to influence other countries’ citizens’ values. They showed their best to the rest of the world and hid their ugly side.

The cultures of different countries are different and do not share the same value. In the US, people value individualism. But in some monarchies, or China’s neighbor, N. Korea, people put their country above themselves. Their assets belong to the country, and some countries don’t even have the concept of personal wealth. Everything belongs to their king!

The US promotes its culture, and values can be easily understood through a business perspective. They are setting the standard, and other countries have to follow them. This way, they can maintain their status.

In ancient China, the ones who occupied the Central Plains will call themselves the Heavenly Kingdom and start pushing their cultures and values to the surrounding countries. All powerful nations will do this.

Suppose you want to become a powerful nation. In that case, you must not let other cultures and values influence your people unless you are participating and one of the core members of setting this standard.

China and the US cultures and values are very different. If the western cultures and values influence them, they will slowly become the other party’s lackey.

When Japan occupied Northeast China, they started pushing their culture by forcing everyone to learn Japanese. This includes Japan importing a large amount of manga, anime, films in recent years. This is another form of cultural invasion. When people start to imitate the characters, Chinese culture will be doom.

“Manager Feng, you are making it sound too serious. This is only a novel. Although it can be considered a cultural product, it does not represent all the cultures.”

Feng Yu seriously replied. “Dripping water wears through a stone. Most people will not care initially and will think nothing about it. It will be too late when you realize the seriousness of it. The cultural invasion might influence a generation. If it influenced three to five generations, it would be impossible to get back our culture!”

“We can learn from other cultures but must never forget our own. The US had done well in some areas, but they also have a dark side that many do not know.”

“Every American is promoting their culture and values everywhere. Some of them think their culture and values are the best, while others are just tagging along. They claimed to be proud to be Americans, even when they faced discrimination in the US. But when they are overseas, they will have a sense of superiority.”

Many foreign teachers in China don’t even know how to teach. Many of them are people who can’t survive in the US. Some are on welfare and have never received a proper education.

But after they come to China, they become English teachers. Many women flock to them, offering their bodies. The US culture brainwashes these women. China doesn’t need these women, and they should leave. They will also not make any significant contributions if they remain.

“Then I will let the editors contact some writers to write novels on this topic.”

“Yes. You can organize a classic cultural writing competition. I will provide the prizes. The top stories will get at least 50,000 RMB, and the top prize will get 300,000 RMB!”

Bao Jianfeng is overjoyed. “Thank you, Mr. Feng. I believe many people will start writing such novels and attract more writers to our website. We are not far from becoming the No. 1 in the online novel industry!”

Promoting classic culture will boast online literature to another level. It will be accepted easily as a form of mainstream literature.

Translator’s note: Lol, the author is getting more racist and extreme. No wonder this book is removed from Qidian. Let’s hope all there will be no more nonsense chapters like this in the future.

Chapter 1361 – Seeking assistance from alma mater

It is extremely difficult to develop online literature. The most difficult part is the publishing rights. Almost all countries’ laws did not regulate the replication of novels on the internet, and it’s hard to demand copyright infringement.

The author could claim compensation from another party if they profited from his works. But it’s hard to evaluate the compensation amount because there are no laws about this.

It is also hard to gather evidence. That’s why those doing piracy had become bolder. They are also the ones who made many aspiring writers leave online literature.

Feng Yu does not want to see this happening again in this life. China is the first in the world to develop online literature and set an example for others. He wants this operating model to spread globally and let anyone start writing novels.

Anyone who can speak will know how to tell stories. But only some can make the story exciting and interesting.

The majority of the people like to listen to stories, and everyone has their preferences. Different generations, cultures, and environmental changes will affect people’s preferences. For example, Harry Potter was rejected several times, but it becomes successful in the end.

Feng Yu wants to let the Eastern culture influence the West and not stop the West from invading the Chinese with their culture. Online literature is not enough. He needs to increase the influence further!

……

“Oh, Manager Feng. Why are you here to see me?”

“What are you saying, Principal Li? You are my teacher, and I have to visit you. Furthermore, I had been donating to my alma mater all these years.” Feng Yu replied with a laugh.

Feng Yu intends to use his donations to Beijing University and Principal Li’s connection to helping him promote Chinese Culture.

“Do you think I don’t know what is happening? All the results from those researches had gone into your hands.”

“I had donated the money I earned from those results back into education.” Feng Yu argued.

“Alright. I will never win against you. You have all sorts of reasons when you are studying here. But I know you have a good character.” Principal Li laughed. “What are you here for? I’m surprised the World’s Richest Man is coming to me for help.”

“Principal Li, I am here to visit you. This bottle of Royal Jelly is for you.:

“If you are not going to say, I will have no time for you later. I have other matters to attend.”

“Wait. I need your help on some small matters. It’s like this….” Feng Yu told Principal Li his plan.

Principal Li frowned. “It’s good to hear that you want to promote our Chinese culture. This is something our Beijing University graduates should do. But hosting a national writing competition is not an easy task. It will be fine if our university holds a writing competition for middle and high school students. But you want it to be open to all ages and nationalities. This is too difficult. Just going through all the submissions will take ages.”

“Principal Li, I have thought of a solution. All the submissions will have an electronic copy posted on a website, and everyone can read it on the PC. At least three judges will grade each submission, and each judge will give from 0 to 5 points. After that, we will pick winners from them.”

“No. Many people my age have poor eyesight and can’t see the wordings on the monitor screen. Also, many people don’t know how to use PC.”

“Principal Li, the PCs are easy to operate nowadays. All you need to do is move the mouse and click. You can also adjust the character size bigger. It will be clearer than reading it on a piece of paper. Furthermore, some people’s handwriting is hard to read.” Feng Yu explained.

“Messy handwriting is because he did not work hard at school. I remember your handwriting is ugly.”

Feng Yu: “……” Why are you talking about me now?

“Principal Li, we can use a second option. We can contact other universities and let people in their region submit their essays to them. They will do the preliminary screening, and the shortlisted essays will go into the next round. At the same time, we can accept online submissions. This will shorten the time greatly.” Feng Yu replied.

“It’s fine even if it takes a long time. We can use the time to promote this competition. What’s wrong? Are you not willing to spend more money?” Principal Li looks at Feng Yu with a smile.

“How much can this cost? It’s not even a fraction of what I donated to our school each year! I can wait. Most importantly, I can do my part for our traditional culture!” Feng Yu slapped his chest.

“We have lots of outstanding students, and you are considered the most special one. No one had expected the World’s Richest Man is a Chinese and a graduate of Beijing University! You had made us proud! You also did not forget your alma mater and the country after you become rich.”

“I don’t care what your motives are for holding this writing competition. I only hope you can make it a success. Leave the communications with other schools and government agencies to me! I will settle it for you!” Principal Li announced.

“Thank you. I believe this competition will be a success with your help! Beijing University will become the leader of the revival of our Chinese culture and will be recorded in history!”

“Let’s not talk about whether we can be recorded in history. I am honored to do something for our nation, and I will be retiring in a few years. I am glad I have this opportunity to do something before I retire. Like what you mentioned, I am also upset because our traditional culture is disappearing slowly. Some bad culture should be given up slowly, but we should be following and learning from most of it.”

“It’s time for us to take a serious look into reviving our culture! Our Chinese culture is unique, and it will strengthen our nation. This way, our people’s lives will be prosperous!”

Chapter 1362 – English is a skill

Feng Yu and Principal Li start to chat after finalizing the details of the competition. Principal Li mentioned that most of his students could not pass their English Level 4 exams. Some universities had linked it to their degree to increase its passing rate.

Principal Li felt this is a good solution, but he noticed Feng Yu has a disdained look.

“What’s wrong? You seem to have other opinions.”

“Nothing. I don’t know much about education.” Although Feng Yu said this, he showed more contempt through his facial expression.

Feng Yu had heard about this from Li Na. Many High Schools had used this method in their previous life. Still, most of them abolished this system because the higher-ups noticed the consequences.

“Oh, there’s something which our Manager Feng doesn’t know.” Principal Li joked.

“Since you mention this, then I shall share my shallow views.”

“What is English? It is a language that originated from England and the official language of several countries. The most powerful country, the US, is also using English as its official language. But what is English’s nature? It is only a language.”

“We are Chinese, and our language is Mandarin. Why is Mandarin not linked to the graduation certificate? I am also curious why most faculties in the universities are not teaching Mandarin as a subject and students are required to learn English, and even need to link English Level 4 to their graduation certificate?”

“What can level 4 mean? Does that mean you know this language? Or does it mean you know recognize some words? Do you think knowing a lot of words means you understand the meaning of a sentence?”

Principal Li heard Feng Yu’s tone and retorted. “I remembered you got into our university because you are good at English and Russian. Since you think so little of English, why did you learn it in High School?”

“I am not belittling English. English is one of the world’s most commonly used languages because England was a superpower in the past and colonized many countries. Even now, many countries like Canada, India, Australia still listen to them.”

“I learned English is because I need to use it. Language is a skill. It can help people to communicate and overcome communication barriers. I want to do business overseas, and that’s why I learned it. It will help during negotiations and meetings with my overseas partners.”

“But what about other students? How many of them will use English? I’m afraid more than 90% of them will not use it again in their lives. Do you think those who passed level 4 or even level 6 can listen, read and speak? Can they use English to communicate with others easily like me?”

“I remember many of our school’s Professors do not understand English. They might not even know another foreign language. But did it affect them? Do you know how much money those students spent just to learn a language they might not use in their lives? Study materials, references, English newspapers, listening to English radio channels, watching English movies and TV series, and all these brought in a more serious problem.”

Principal Li frowned. “What problem?”

“Spreading of ideas. The English movies, TV series, novels, newspapers, etc., are spreading western ideologies like the US’s individualism, capitalism, etc. this will affect many students’ mindsets.”

“Why are so many students looking forward to studying abroad? Is the overseas education system better? Why are they looking forward to living overseas? Is life overseas better? All these are because of what the media portray. Those countries had only shown others their best image and will never show their dark side.”

“Many students became interested after they learned English. They are forced to read these materials by their teachers and parents, and started looking forward to going overseas.”

“They felt the learning environment is less stressful and they can get a degree easily. Life there is also better, and jobs are available everywhere. Everyone has equal rights, and there are no corrupted government officials. But all these are just one-sided, or what those countries want to portray.”

“It is easy to enter the US’s colleges. Almost all of our university students can enter because many of the colleges are private schools. The entry requirement is low, and students can pass the entry exams easily. But it is not easy to get a degree, and they might not find any jobs after they graduate. Many Americans will not study in these schools. The crime rate in the US is several times higher than in China, and corruption is also present there. But it’s only because they have two parties, and they will supervise each other. So, it’s not easy for them to be accepting bribes openly.”

“Many of our overseas students are attending those private colleges or those that accept them as long as they can afford the high tuition fees. These schools are specially catered to students from developing countries. How many of them can be successful? Some of them cannot even speak English well.”

Principal Li is slightly upset. “Are you saying that we should cancel the English classes?”

“No. I mentioned earlier that English is a skill. It’s just like carpenters. Those who know how to saw wood cannot call themselves carpenters. Only the ones who know how to make furniture can be called a carpenter, and only those who can make sophisticated furniture can be considered skilled carpenter. Students can learn English, but they must be good at it. At the minimum, they must know how to interact with others. Or else, it is only a certificate stating this student had learned English before. Learned English and knows English is very different!”

“Not everyone needs to learn English. We can’t even master Mandarin, let alone learn a language that we might not even use in our lifetime. Look at the number of English schools increasing their fees after English Level 4 is tied to the student’s graduation. Do you think those foreign teachers in the language schools are qualified to teach? Have they undergone proper training?”

“That’s why I feel it is ridiculous for junior, and even kindergartens, to teach English. Even our middle schools are treating English the same as Mandarin and Mathematics. Do you think it is reasonable to treat English as important as Mandarin?”

Principal Li lowered his head and thought deeply. Feng Yu does make a point. Many Chinese scholars had been saying that English should not be treated so importantly. But their arguments are different from Feng Yu’s.

Principal Li needs to think about this issue properly and bring it up for discussion during the next education meeting. How can the parents treat English results as more important than Mandarin in China?! This is ridiculous!

Maybe English should be treated as another ordinary subject.

Chapter 1363 – Chinese Classics and Feudalism Teachings

Wind and Rain Chinese Classics Essay Cup is open for registration, and something unexpected happened during the promotion.

“What Chinese Classic literature?! That’s spreading superstitious beliefs. This is feudalism!” A writer who claimed to be an American Chinese wrote in the papers.

China’s ancient deities are all fake and teach people to reap without sowing. All the Chinese classics are talking about demons and ghosts, scholars falling in love with female ghosts, and more are talking about fox spirits. This is evidence that those people are lecherous!

This is the 21st century, and how can they promote feudalism teachings? What are they trying to do?

Many Chinese Government cultural departments, newspaper agencies, publishers, and universities will hold this competition now, which reflects civilization regression. Especially Feng Yu, the person who started this!

What does a businessman, who stank of money, knows about literature?! He is just trying to attract attention and use it to make money!

…….

Feng Yu puts down his newspaper. He can’t remember who this person is, Xue Hai Fan Zhou. He didn’t remember offending such a person.

“Zhigang, did we offend this person?” Feng Yu asked.

“I also don’t know this person. But that newspaper agency that published his article is not one of our Classic Essay Competition’s partners. It is a private newspaper.” Wu Zhigang explained.

It is not an issue if it is only one newspaper publishing this article. But many other newspaper agencies who are not the organizers started to share online and publish this article.

If it wasn’t for Sina and the major Chinese websites had censored all articles criticizing Feng Yu, the influence will be greater. After all, Sina and the major Chinese websites have high traffic. But another website, Yahoo China, is not under Feng Yu’s control.

“What books did this person read, or does he have any famous articles?”

“He is not famous, and I can’t find him on Baidu.” Wu Zhigang replied.

Wu Zhigang felt this Xue Hai Fan Zhou is trying to attract attention. If he is an American, then he is utterly shameless to try to gain fame in China!

……

Xue Hai Fan Zhou is sitting in front of his PC, looking at the news about his article with a smile. He is going to be famous this time. Using the World’s Richest Man, Feng Yu, as a stepping stone is a great move!

Xue Hai Fan Zhou’s article is published by many newspapers and shared by many online websites. His pen name kept popping up, and searches for him on Baidu are higher than those superstars!

So what if you are the World’s Richest Man?! You will still become my stepping stone to fame.

Most people now are ignorant, and Xue Hai Fan Zhou will get support for whatever he wrote. He is waiting for the organizing committee to retort his article as it will be free publicity.

Xue Hai Fan Zhou is going to release his book after millions of people notice him. Regardless of how badly written his book is, people will still be buying it. He is going to be a best-seller author!

One million copies is not an issue!

That’s right. Xue Hai Fan Zhou has no relation or grudges with Feng Yu, and he is only jealous of Feng Yu’s wealth like many others.

Xue Hai Fan Zhou knows he can never reach Feng Yu’s level even if he wins the lottery every week in his lifetime.

Xue Hai Fan Zhou thought of this idea to use Feng Yu’s fame to increase his reputation. But Feng Yu is too low profile and seldom appears on the news. He couldn’t even find a picture of Feng Yu online. His original plan is to create a digitally altered photo of him and Feng Yu.

When news of the Essay competition is released, Xue Hai Fan Zhou knows he will not win. He had written a book before, but it sold less than 10,000 copies.

So, Xue Hai Fan Zhou came up with this plan to attack this essay competition and Feng Yu to gain fame. He doesn’t care if he gets a good or bad reputation and only wants to be famous. How many Chinese doesn’t know Qin Hui or Empress Dowager Cixi? They are also famous with bad reputations, and the items they used are priceless antiques!

Xue Hai Fan Zhou will become a best-selling author once he becomes famous, and his readers and fans will treat him as a hero who is not afraid of power.

Furthermore, Xue Hai Fan Zhou claimed to be an American Chinese. Feng Yu will not dare to go against the Americans because of the international diplomatic relationship.

…….

As expected, some people start to retort Xue Hai Fan Zhou’s article.

“Chinese Classics are not like what Xue Hai Fan Zhou mentioned. Putting the four classic masterpieces aside, Hua Mulan is another classic. Tang and Song Dynasty poetries are also masterpieces. Confucianism is also teaching us to be kind-hearted, brave, wisdom….”

Such articles started appearing online, and most of them are written by universities’ Professors and famous scholars. How dare a Chinese American attack China’s tradition and culture?!

It’s fine if you have evidence to support your argument. But you are quoting out of context and generalizing all the classics!

The universities’ Professors and scholars did not realize they are helping Xue Hai Fan Zhou gain fame when they retort.

No one notices this except for Feng Yu. But he did not stop it because this will also increase the popularity of this writing competition. This is better than news about the organizing committee’s universities and the Professors on the judging panel.

Feng Yu decides to let them debate and argue, as he believes those Professors will win.

Feng Yu is more concerned about Xue Hai Fan Zhou’s information. He traced his IP address and found out who is this person. But he did not call the Police to arrest him.

Feng Yu only let his men secretly released Xue Hai Fan Zhou’s information to the reporters and let these people expose him!

Qin Hui

Empress Dowager Cixi

Chapter 1364 – There’s a price to pay for a publicity stunt

Xue Hai Fan Zhou is feeling proud to see the argument happening online. He had contacted a publisher privately, and the publisher agreed to publish his novel, which he had worked on for two years.

Of course, the publisher has a condition. Xue Hai Fan Zhou will bear the initial cost. If the novel sells well, the publisher will increase the printing and refund him the initial cost. This is because the publishing firm’s editor read the novel and finds the quality ordinary.

But Xue Hai Fan Zhou is confident his book will be a best-seller.

Xue Hai Fan Zhou had secretly sent that article to a newspaper agency without his address. He is not worried the other party can find him.

After that, he started to voice his opinions online, and the newspaper picked up his views and shared them. He felt online is faster and safer.

Today, Xue Hai Fan Zhou got online after he wakes up.

News about him became the headlines of Sina, Yahoo, and other major news websites again. His news had gotten more views than the Country’s leaders visiting other countries.

Xue Hai Fan Zhou lit a cigarette and clicked on the article to read it. His face changed after reading two sentences. What is going on? The content of the article is not what he expected!

Xue Hai Fan Zhou thought this was an article about another Professor refuting his article. He was looking forward to it. Any discussion about his article is giving him fame.

Who doesn’t know Xue Hai Fan Zhou now? His real identity is still anonymous.

But things have changed now. An anonymous netizen had guessed his identity on Sina Web and even stated his particulars.

Although the website censored some sensitive particulars, Sina Web knows he is not a Chinese American or a well-known author.

His article should have pissed Feng Yu off. Will Feng Yu send people to beat him up?

Xue Hai Fan Zhou doesn’t know about IP addresses, and he is traceable through it. He also doesn’t know how bored and skillful netizens are.

Feng Yu had only gotten his men to reveal Xue Hai Fan Zhou’s IP address and some vague information online. The rest of his details were exposed by netizens. Sina Web had covered some important details about him, but some smaller websites did not care. They just release everything they have!

Xue Hai Fan Zhou’s particulars are also exposed on Baidu Baike. It states he is doing this as a publicity stunt and had already committed a crime.

Xue Hai Fan Zhou just found out what he did is a crime. He thought this was only an online debate. But what he wrote about Feng Yu is considered slander.

Xue Hai Fan Zhou quickly log into his Sina Blog and saw countless comments.

Xue Hai Fan Zhou has fans supporting him, and his fans thought he is noble for voicing his views.

But after Xue Hai Fan Zhou’s real identity and lies are exposed, all the comments on his blog are all scoldings!

“Idiot. Feudalism?! You are the biggest feudal!”

“Get lost! Best selling author?! You had only published a book and only sold a few thousand copies.”

“The guy upstairs doesn’t know anything. I guess those few thousand copies were given out free, and maybe only less than a thousand copies are sold! Hey, the public toilets east of my village had run out of toilet paper. When can you send your books over?”

“That’s right. Our school’s toilets also need toilet paper.”

“What do you all mean his books can only be toilet paper? I think it is also suitable to use it as padding for a pigsty.”

“Someone who slanders others as a publicity stunt should be arrested.”

“That’s right. Arrest and sentence him to death!”

“Whoever buys his books are considered funding our enemies! He still wants to pretend to be an American?! Get out of China and look for your US daddy!”

……

Xue Hai Fan Zhou looks through the comments, and none is supporting him. Those that supported him in the past had switched sides and started scolding him.

Some even call him a traitor!

Xue Hai Fan Zhou never imagine things will take such a drastic change. His reputation had gone down the drain.

He panics and wonders if Police will show up at his house.

Xue Hai Fan Zhou’s phone suddenly rang and shocked him. He looked at the number and realized it is the Publishing company’s editor. Suddenly, he has a bad feeling.

“Hello, Editor Li.”

“I am representing the Publishing company to inform you that we will not be publishing your book. Our Chief Editor decided this.”

“Why?! But you said your Chief Editor had agreed, and I will pay the initial cost.”

“Why? Do you still need me to explain? Even if people are queuing to buy your books, we will also not dare to publish them. I had already notified you, and that’s it. Bye.”

Xue Hai Fan Zhou is dumbfounded. That’s right. His identity was a mystery and had many supporters previously. That’s why he is confident people will buy his book.

But now, who will buy them? Some even said buying his book is considered funding their enemies!

This is a serious accusation!

Knock… knock… knock…

Xue Hai Fan Zhou felt his veins is about to burst when he heard someone knocking. He shouted. “Who is it?”

“Xiao Han, it’s me. Auntie Yang from the estate community.”

Xue Hai Fan Zhou is relieved to hear it’s Auntie Yang and went over to open his door. “Auntie Yang, what… who are you all?! What are you doing?!”

“Don’t move! We are bringing you back for investigation, spreading rumors, and creating trouble. The rest of you all, go in and gather evidence!”

Xue Hai Fan Zhou looks at Auntie Yang angrily, but Auntie Yang returned his stare with a disgusted expression. The estate’s reputation is tarnished because of him.

…….

“Boss, that Han Dabao, which is the real name for Xue Hai Fan Zhou, is arrested by the Police and will spend at least three years in jail.” Wu Zhigang reported.

“Ok.” Feng Yu nodded. “We will not get involved and let him face the law. Oh, how is the essay writing competition?”

“We received lots of online submissions today, and we estimate there will be more sending in through letters. This essay writing competition will break any other writing competition records and create history!” Wu Zhigang replied excitedly.

Feng Yu gave Wu Zhigang a side glance. Records are meant to be broken. You might think the submission volume now is massive, and you will be shocked to know this volume is nothing in a few years.

“Alright. I will be going to Shanghai. Help me to monitor the situation here.”

Chapter 1365 – Kexin’s Parents

Zhou Kexin stood by the roadside and kept checking her watch and looking around. Why is he not here yet?

After a while, an old Songjiang Olympic stopped in front of Zhou Kexin. The driver, wearing a big pair of sunglasses, winds down the window.

“Why are you so late?” Zhou Kexin grumbled.

“The neighborhood you are staying in is out of the way, and the traffic is heavy. Why don’t you move to that apartment I bought for you? It’s near to your workplace too.”

“I agreed to be your second wife, but not your kept woman. Alright. Hurry up and drive in. My parents are waiting.” Zhou Kexin entered the front passenger seat.

Feng Yu had rushed to Shanghai is because Zhou Kexin told him that her parents are going to introduce a boyfriend to her. He was shocked and afraid she would agree.

Luckily, Zhou Kexin had told her parents that she has a boyfriend in Shanghai. But because he has to travel most of the time for work, she did not tell them.

Zhou Kexin’s parents hear it and flew to Shanghai. They insist on meeting her boyfriend, and she had no choice but to call Feng Yu over.

“Is my dressing alright? Don’t worry. I will remove my sunglasses later.”

Feng Yu still remembers the first time he met Zhou Kexin’s parents. He had worn a pair of sunglasses and left a bad impression on them. Her parents felt only hooligans wear sunglasses, and he will not repeat the same mistake this time.

Feng Yu also knows what Kexin’s mother likes and dislikes. Although some things might change in their life, most of her habits and tastes should remain the same.

Feng Yu parked the car and carried two bags of fruits and two bottles of wine from the backseat.

“Eh? How do you know my mother likes durian?”

Feng Yu looks at Zhou Kexin. “Did you forget that I am your husband in your previous life? How can I don’t know about this? I still know that your mother’s birthdate on her identification card is wrong. Her actual birthday is 9th March of the lunar calendar.”

Zhou Kexin sticks out her tongue. “Alright. Then I don’t need to remind you of anything. You must remember your identity!”

Zhou Kexin told her parents that Feng Yu is working for a special department, and it’s confidential to let others know which department!

Feng Yu thought for a while and felt this identity would prevent lots of trouble. He can also tell Kexin doesn’t mind being his second wife from this gesture!

The moment Zhou Kexin opens the door, Feng Yu saw two familiar faces. They are much younger now.

“Hello, Uncle and Auntie. I’m Kexin’s boyfriend, Feng Yu. I didn’t know you all are coming and are working outside. I had to take time off from my leaders and rushed here. That’s why I’m late.”

It takes more than one lie to cover up a lie, but Feng Yu is good at lying.

“Come in and have a seat. Oh, you even brought durians. How do you know I like this?”

Old Zhou voiced out his displeasure. “Only you like to eat these smelly things.” Do you still need to ask? It must be our daughter who told him.

“What do you know? The TV says these fruits have the most nutrients.” Zhou Kexin’s mother retorted.

“Those fruits are nice smelling fruits. The one you like smells like stinky tofu!”

“Uncle, I brought two bottles of wine for you. These are given to me by my Leader, and I don’t drink. I hope you will like it.”

“Ah… Maotai! This is good! I love it!” Old Zhou smiles.

“Xiao Feng, come and have a seat. Oh, what are you working as?” Zhou Kexin’s mother asked.

“Mum… didn’t I tell you that you cannot ask, and he can’t tell you? It is confidential.” Zhou Kexin quickly interrupts.

“I am talking to Xiao Feng. Stop interrupting! Xiao Feng, it’s fine if you can’t tell me. I am just asking. But what should I tell my neighbors if they ask?”

Feng Yu thought to himself. Is this what you mean by it’s fine not to tell you? If I don’t say anything, you will be mad.

“Auntie, you can just treat me as working for the State Security. Our job nature is quite similar, but not as dangerous as them. We are focusing on financial crimes.” Feng Yu starts to lie.

“Financial crimes? What’s there to be so secretive?” Zhou Kexin’s mother asked suspiciously.

“How can you not be secretive if you are going to catch those corrupted officials? If they do it openly, those criminals will go into hiding! Just tell our neighbors that he is working in an ordinary company as an accountant!” Old Zhou added.

The best lie is to keep it simple and short. This will let the other party fill-up the gaps through their imagination and avoid being caught.

Feng Yu did not expect Kexin’s father is so imaginative!

“Xiao Feng, how is your income? Is it enough?” Kexin’s mother asked.

“It’s quite stable, and we have bonuses. My workplace also provides apartments and cars for our work.”

“Ah, your unit is so good. Not many workplaces give out apartments nowadays. Where is your apartment, and how big is it?” Kexin’s mother continued with her questions.

“It’s in Shanghai. It was supposed to be a two-bedroom unit, but I changed it to a three-bedroom unit after I top-up with money.”

Kexin’s parents exchanged looks. This young man is a good catch. He has a three-bedroom apartment in Shanghai and a car provided by his workplace. His job and income are also stable.

Kexin’s parents felt they had made a wise decision to send their daughter to Shanghai for studies. If not, she will never meet Feng Yu.

Most mothers-in-law are pleased with their son-in-law. Kexin’s mother is already treating Feng Yu as her future son-in-law now. His conditions are much better than the guy she wants to introduce to Kexin.

“Xiao Feng, what are your parents working as? How many family members do you have?”

“My parents’ jobs are also confidential. I have an older sister, and she is a nurse.”

Kexin’s mother looks at her husband. Did you see it? Xiao Feng’s family must be some bigshot, and they can pass their jobs to the next generation. This way, our future grandson doesn’t need to worry about his career.

“Xiao Feng, do you smoke?” Old Zhou took out his cigarettes and offered them to Feng Yu.

“Sorry, Uncle. I don’t smoke and drink because of the nature of my job.”

“That’s good. He is always smoking and kept coughing at night!” Zhou Kexin’s mother added.

“Why are you talking about me? I am busy with my work. I am a section chief now!”

“It’s deputy chief in charge of logistics. What power do you have? Can you compare yourself with Xiao Feng?”

Zhou Kexin looks at Feng Yu with a smile. Her father was supposed to retire. But the factory he was working in suddenly revive, and he was promoted to deputy section chief suddenly. She doesn’t believe Feng Yu is not involved.

“Mum, let’s go and prepare dinner, and let Dad play chess with him.”

Chapter 1366 – Daughter, it’s him

“Xiao Feng, come and play a game of chess with me.” Old Zhou took out a box of new chess sets from under the coffee table.

Feng Yu laughed in his heart. He might not be good at Chinese chess, but Kexin’s father is worse than him. Yes… I should give in a little, or he will chain smoke.

“Xiao Feng… do you know that Kexin has a birthmark on her butt?” Old Zhou asked suddenly.

Feng Yu paused for a second. Does Kexin have a birthmark on her butt? How come I don’t know about this? Did something change in this life? Impossible. Nothing had changed so far. He suddenly realized this is a test from Kexin’s father. He wants to know how far had they progressed.

“Ah? I don’t know about this.”

“Hahaha… she has a birthmark when she was young. Maybe it disappeared after she got older.” Old Zhou laughed it off.

Feng Yu felt it was a close shave. This is a trap!

“Oh, she likes to kick her blanket when she sleeps. It must be troublesome for you to cover her.”

“Uncle, we are not staying together.” Feng Yu replied. Is there an end to all these tests?

“I am talking about the future. Hurry up. It’s your turn.”

To prevent being tested again, Feng Yu decides to change the topic.

“Uncle, I heard from Kexin that you are a well-respected leader.”

“Hahaha… I was formerly a worker too and had worked with the rest. Maybe I am more serious and older at work, and that’s why they respected me.”

Although Zhou Kexin’s father tried to be modest, his facial expression had betrayed him. Feng Yu had sucked up to him successfully.

Old Zhou is someone who likes praising himself! He loves to boast and show off.

Although Feng Yu is not good at sucking up to others, many people suck up to him. Especially Kameda Masao. He is an expert in sucking up. Feng Yu only need to learn one or two tricks from him, and it’s enough to handle Kexin’s father.

The conversation afterward centered around Kexin’s father, and he is overjoyed.

If Feng Yu is not his daughter’s boyfriend, he will make him his sworn brother. It’s rare to see someone good at chatting.

Kexin’s mother asked while washing the vegetables. “Kexin, is his family government officials?”

“No. Why are you asking?”

“Silly child. I need to ask about his family. Is his family very rich? He must top up a lot of money to upgrade from a two-bedroom to a three-bedroom apartment.”

“He earned his money himself.”

Kexin’s mother is pleased after hearing this. This means Xiao Feng had made a lot of money these few years.

Eh… wait. Xiao Feng is investigating financial crimes. Did he receive some benefits from others? He is still young and might enter the wrong path. Most important, her daughter might be implicated.

“Kexin, tell me the truth. Is his money from legitimate sources? Did he receive bribes? Listen to me. You must not marry someone like this. Your high school friend, Li Juan, married a government officer, and her husband was arrested! Other than being a widow, she was also looked down on by others.”

“Mum… what are you talking about? He had earned his money legally.” Zhou Kexin thought to herself. Why would Feng Yu accept bribes? He cannot even finish spending his money.

If you all know his true identity, you all will be shocked to death.

“Then tell me, how far have you two progress?”

“Mum… the vegetables are burnt!” Zhou Kexin shouted.

…….

Half an hour later, dinner is ready.

“Uncle, I cannot drink. I am driving.”

This young man doesn’t want to drink such good Maotai? Great! I will drink it myself.

Old Zhou doesn’t know this bottle of Maotai is more than 30 years old and is expensive. If he knows, he will not bear to drink it.

“Xiao Feng, we were shocked when we heard your name earlier. You have the same name as the World’s Richest Man. But there are many people with the same names. My factory has two guys named Zhang Wei.” Old Zhou is talking louder, and his face is red.

Feng Yu laughed embarrassedly. “That’s right. There are too many people with the same name.”

Zhou Kexin also laughed secretly. Same name? It’s the same person.

“But if Kexin picks that Feng Yu, we will not agree. He might be very rich and cannot finish spending his money in a few lifetimes, but wealthy people are crappy. A big boss in our city divorced his wife after he has gotten rich and married his mistress. That’s why all wealthy people are unreliable!”

Feng Yu smiled more embarrassedly. I am that Feng Yu you are talking about.

“Dad, what are you saying?” Zhou Kexin interrupted.

Old Zhou laughed and continued to eat. Everyone enjoyed this meal, and Feng Yu left a good impression on Kexin’s parents.

After dinner, Zhou Kexin walked Feng Yu downstairs. “I didn’t know you are so good at chatting. My parents are satisfied with you.”

“What about you? Are you satisfied with me?” Feng Yu asked.

“So-so. What else can I do? Who else can I find with a big boss like you around? You will surely let that person suffer if I look for someone else.”

“Hmph! I will not allow anyone to touch you. If anyone touches you, I will break their arms” Feng Yu made an angry expression.

“Alright. Go home.”

“Then… give me a kiss.” Feng Yu replied.

Zhou Kexin blushed and gave Feng Yu a peck on his cheeks before running upstairs. Feng Yu stood there smiling as he knows he had won her heart.

……

“Kexin, where is his apartment?” Kexin’s mother asked the moment she steps in.

“It’s not far from my workplace. It is around a five-minute walk away.”

“So near? Did he buy it on purpose and wants you to move over?”

“Now you mention it, this place is too far from her workplace. She needs to travel almost an hour to work. You might as well move over to his place, and you can save on rental. It is also convenient for you to go to work.” Old Zhou replied.

“Nonsense. They are not married, and how can she move into his apartment? Which father will say such things like you?”

After scolding her husband, Zhou Kexin’s mother turns to her daughter. “Eh, daughter. You have good eyes. I like this Xiao Feng, and he will be my son-in-law!”

Chapter 1367 – Decision

Zhou Kexin’s parents bought the train tickets for the next day, and Feng Yu sent them to the train station.

Before they left, they continued to praise Feng Yu. Zhou Kexin can tell that they like Feng Yu a lot. But when they say they want to meet Feng Yu’s parents, he kept quiet.

On the way to send Zhou Kexin back, Feng Yu said. “Kexin, I promised I would give you a grand wedding, but it might not be in China.”

“It’s alright. Who ask me to choose you. My Mum told me that I was lucky to have undergone the operation. If not, you might dump me if you know I am infertile. She also asked me to keep it from you.”

“They will never expect that you arrange all those. Actually, don’t you think that it would be better if I were not treated? We can save a lot of trouble if we cannot have children. Your wife will also not think of me as a threat, and my parents might accept me being your second wife.”

It’s a red light, and Feng Yu stopped the car. He turned to Zhou Kexin and said. “I have never regret anything, and I know you like children.”

“Also, I didn’t think too much at that time. I only want to get you treated, and the doctor says your condition should be treated early. Are you regretting going for that operation?”

“No. I don’t regret it, but I have some regrets about agreeing to be your second wife. But I am someone who keeps my promises, and it’s too late to regret.”

“Hahaha… it’s too late to regret. Alright. I will bring you to try some Sichuan cuisine. There’s a very good Sichuan restaurant.”

After dinner, they went to watch a movie. But the movies in this era are boring. It is another movie that had won awards overseas. No one likes to watch these artistic movies.

Feng Yu doesn’t like these artistic films. A good film should be a box office hit and can attract viewers.

The artistic films these days are all about families and lives which most people seldom experience. It’s just like those teen dramas in Feng Yu’s previous life. Those students can travel overseas as and when they please. How is it possible? He is sure that more than 90% of the students in China had never experienced it.

Feng Yu only know art is a lifestyle, and it’s an expensive lifestyle. Ordinary families have nothing to do with it!

The filmmakers will then tell the audience that this should be everyone’s lifestyle and youth. They made it sound like everyone should get into trouble during their school days!

They are telling 99% of the people how to live like the 1%. This is like those fashion magazines telling those people who earn 8,000 to 10,000 RMB how to dress like someone who earns 50,000 RMB a month and which accessories to match.

But Feng Yu notices Zhou Kexin is watching attentively as if this is a good movie.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the netizens claim that only those award judges know how to appreciate these movies!

After the movie ended, Zhou Kexin leans her head on Feng Yu’s shoulder as they walk out of the cinema. He felt ticklish from her breath.

“Kexin, why don’t you move to that apartment? It will not be so tiring going to and fro from work.”

Zhou Kexin looks at Feng Yu with a smile. She is not a little girl and knows what will happen if she moves into Feng Yu’s apartment.

Feng Yu felt slightly embarrassed by Zhou Kexin’s stare, but he still continues. “That estate is safer, and it’s more prosperous.”

“Really? But how do I explain to my colleagues that I am renting a three-bedroom apartment in that high-end estate?”

“Err… you can tell them that it is given to you by your boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend? Who’s boyfriend will be so generous as to buy such an expensive apartment for his girlfriend? They will surely say I am a millionaire’s kept woman.”

Feng Yu rubbed his nose, but he is a tycoon.

“Then you can say it is your boyfriend’s apartment, and you are living with him now. This is not uncommon nowadays.”

“Are you going to meet my colleagues? All of them know you. Boss!”

Feng Yu is stunned. This is indeed troublesome. He wants to say that no one will dare to spread rumors even if they know. But he knows Kexin doesn’t like those weird stares.

“How about you change to a new job?” Feng Yu asked.

Everything can be solved if Zhou Kexin changes jobs. Feng Yu can easily let her be a boss or give her whichever job she wants. Even if she wants to be a queen, Feng Yu will also fulfill this wish in Africa. There are too many small countries there.

Zhou Kexin rolled her eyes. That’s right. She can just change jobs or get a transfer.

Wind and Rain Business Magazine had set up a branch in Hong Kong, publishing a traditional Chinese version for the Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia market. The company is also looking for someone to run the operations there. It will not be weird for Zhou Kexin to be transferred over.

Although it will be a change of environment, it’s fine. No one will know her, and she doesn’t need to worry. Furthermore, Feng Yu has a Hong Kong passport, and it’s not troublesome for him to visit her. She smiles after she made up her mind.

Feng Yu also smiles as he knows Zhou Kexin had accepted his suggestion.

Zhou Kexin told Feng Yu that she wants to be transferred to Wind and Rain Business Magazine’s Hong Kong Branch, and Feng Yu felt it’s a good idea, although it is quite far. But this is the best arrangement.

“Fine. I will call Hu Ran and let him arrange it. What position do you want over there?”

“I will be going so far away from home, and it’s not too much to get a small promotion, right? Deputy editor should not be too obvious.” Zhou Kexin said after thinking for a while.

“Alright. Hu Ran will arrange for your transfer, and you will be the Deputy Editor there. The person in charge of that branch will not dare to belittle you. I will make you the editor a few years later and then become the head of that branch!”

Chapter 1368 – Zuckerberg

Feng Yu planned to remain in Shanghai for a few days and get closer to Zhou Kexin as she had warmed up to his feelings. But Kameda Masao’s call disrupted his plan. Kameda Masao called to inform him that Zuckerberg had started developing Facebook. He insisted on meeting Feng Yu when they approached him to invest. Or else, he will not negotiate!

Feng Yu is interested in Zuckerberg and does not mind meeting him. He called his family to inform them he will be going to the US and flew to New York on his private jet.

“Boss, I had let you down. Is that young man that important? We can support someone else who is better.” Kameda Masao apologized to Feng Yu for failing to invest in Facebook.

Kameda Masao thought Zuckerberg would agree to Wind and Rain Holdings investing in Facebook, as he made a lucrative offer. The initial investment is more than 100 million, and Zuckerberg will get 5% of Facebook’s shares. The shares are worth 5 million USD, and it should be enough.

Zuckerberg is only 20 years old, and not everyone is a genius like Feng Yu at this age. But he insisted on meeting Feng Yu before he decided. Many investment institutions had approached him, and it gave him more negotiation power.

Feng Yu had instructed he must be notified immediately if anyone creates a website similar to the Chinese Web. They must try to acquire it at all costs.

“No. This young man has high potential. This website is currently targeting youngsters, and he has his ideas for promoting this website. He is from Harvard, and this is good marketing material. Of course, if he is too greedy, we can find ways to curb him.”

Feng Yu had thought about setting up Facebook in the US after the Chinese Web is successful in China. But he knows it is hard to monopolize the market. All the top global companies require partners.

That’s why Feng Yu’s investments in the US, and some investments in China, have partners. He doesn’t mind not getting the controlling shares as long as the company is making money.

Feng Yu also wants to see history will change if he did not interfere. Very obvious, it did happen according to what happened in his previous life.

“Boss, we have to meet that kid in Boston because of his school.”

“It’s alright as I want to visit Boston too. I heard it is renowned for its universities and our Wind and Rain Team also has a match with the Celtics there in a few days. I can watch that game while I am there.”

……

Zuckerberg is a Harvard student and had started a social website from his hostel. This website is Facemesh, and it compares female students’ pictures to let visitors decide who is more attractive.

But not everybody likes to have their pictures used for comparison, and it attracted some flacks. Zuckerberg refused to apologize, and his school’s server cannot support the huge traffic to his website. It was forced to shut down.

As Zuckerberg was about to give up this idea, someone unexpected approached him. It’s Wind and Rain Holdings’ President, Kameda Masao. This is the World’s Richest Man’s company!

Zuckerberg had wanted to continue with this website, but he lacks funds. He had wanted to contact his seniors who had graduated to get them to invest. Alumni start many businesses.

For example, Bill Gates had approached a top Yahoo executive, his schoolmate, for investment when he just started.

Kameda Masao’s offer is very attractive, but Zuckerberg’s shares are too little. He is the founder of this website, and how can he own only 5%? Although this 5% share is worth a lot.

Zuckerberg heard many stories about Feng Yu. He knows Feng Yu is someone who values people and is very generous. That’s why he wishes to meet Feng Yu and try to get more out of this deal. He is also curious about this self-made billionaire, who is less than thirty years old!

Many young people are worshipping Feng Yu as their idol. Feng Yu is very mysterious and seldom appears in the media. He always wears a pair of sunglasses and face masks in pictures, and no one can see his face.

Zuckerberg is puzzled over this. If he becomes a billionaire, he will want to be under the spotlight and let everyone remember his face. Maybe this will make the Chinese girl he likes agree to be his girlfriend.

Today, Zuckerberg had rushed over from Cambridge City to Boston. He is very excited as the World’s Richest Man, Feng Yu, will be meeting him.

Although Zuckerberg’s website had attracted many investment institutions’ attention, he hopes he can get Feng Yu’s investment. He admires Feng Yu deeply, and Wind and Rain Holding’s offer is slightly better than other offers. Of course, he wishes he can get more out of this deal.

…….

“Mr. Kameda, am I late?” Zuckerberg entered a hotel room and looked at his watch. At the same time, he noticed a young Chinese man beside Kameda Masao. Is this person the World’s Richest Man? He looks quite ordinary and not overbearing.

“Mark, this is our Wind and Rain Holding’s Chairman, Feng Yu. He is also the World’s Richest Man you wanted to meet.”

Zuckerberg rushed over with open arms and then changed to extend his right arm for a handshake. He almost forgets that the Chinese seldom hug during their first meetings.

“Mr. Feng, it’s great to see you. This is unbelievable. I am shaking hands with the World’s Richest Man!” Zuckerberg is overly excited.

Feng Yu is laughing in his heart because the World’s Youngest Billionaire in his previous life is so excited to meet him.

“Nice to meet you. I heard from Kameda Masao that you wanted to meet me to discuss our investment. That’s why I’m here.”

Chapter 1369 – Persuading Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg started ranting off about his website and ideas. He was so excited until he didn’t notice his saliva was flying across.

Kameda Masao interrupted Zuckerberg. “Mr. Zuckerberg, I had told you that China has a Chinese Web, which is similar to your ideas. It was set up around a year and had more than 10 million registered users. The number of users is still increasing.”

Zuckerberg’s smile froze. How can he forget about this? That means his ideas are not new and might even be misunderstood as copying others.

Feng Yu waved his hand to stop Kameda Masao and turns to Zuckerberg. “It’s alright. You can continue.”

Zuckerberg continued to talk about the future and ideas of his website. But he had slowed down significantly and was not as excited as before. He seems like he had taken a serious blow.

After Zuckerberg finished, he looks at Feng Yu weakly, hoping to see an approval look on his face. Feng Yu is very calm, and it’s like listening to his subordinates reporting their work to him.

“Is that it?”

“These are all the ideas I have now. But I guarantee I can come up with more ideas to make this website make more money. Also, we can get listed. Internet and Tech companies’ share prices and the US market are recovering. We can surely make a grand profit.”

Kameda Masao sneered. “Are you sharing your experiences of doing business with us?”

Zuckerberg kept quiet. He doesn’t have any experience and only knows about theory. These two people in front of him are world-renowned businessmen. What he said is a joke to them.

Feng Yu calmly asked. “What are the terms you want?”

Zuckerberg looks at Feng Yu in shock. Mr. Feng is asking him to name his terms. Does this mean there is still room for negotiations?

Zuckerberg had wanted 25% of the shares. Still, after he knows his website is not the only one in the world, and the other party had already developed a similar website, he lowered his demands.

“Can I have 15% of the shares?”

“Are you joking? We are planning to invest at least 100 million USD, and you are asking for 15 million? Tell me, why do you think you are worth so much? You are not irreplaceable, and you have not graduated. There are many more software developers out there better than you. We can also set up a new website and hire some software developers to write the codes, and it doesn’t even cost 5 million USD!” Kameda Masao said sarcastically.

“But my website is famous now,” Zuckerberg argued.

“It is only within Harvard campus, and this is considered famous?!”

“No. It’s not only in Harvard. It is also popular in many schools.”

“They only know a Harvard student had created a website to rate women and refused to apologize for it. Maybe you are famous as a joke.” Kameda Masao said.

Feng Yu puts down his coffee slowly. He still cannot get used to drinking coffee.

“Enough, Kameda. Zuckerberg, the situation is like this. You can get others to invest in your website, but you are still inexperienced with website investment. I dare to tell you that if you get others to invest and compete with me, you will lose! But I am interested in your website as we intend to enter the North American market. That’s why we are going to invest at least 100 million USD in your website.”

“Do you still think your skills and ideas are worth 15% of the shares? From what I know, you are not the only creator of Facebook. Eduardo and a few others are co-founders. Do you think they will refuse our recruitment?”

Zuckerberg’s face changed. Feng Yu is right. He is not the only founder of Facebook, and if the rest join Feng Yu, this website will stop operations. Who can resist the World’s Richest Man’s offer?

“I can take out 15%, but it is not for you. It is for your team, and I don’t care how you all divide it. My only condition is all the founders must not leave the team and must continue to develop Facebook.”

15% of 100 million USD might seem a lot, but internet companies spend lots of money. Facebook requires more than a few hundred million or even billions worths of investment in the future. Zuckerberg and his teams’ shares will be diluted when it happens.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Zuckerberg had treated his co-founders this way. He idolized Bill Gates and followed his actions by letting everyone knows Facebook belongs to him.

“Mr. Feng, 15% shares will be worth nothing after a few rounds of investment,” Zuckerberg replied.

“The 15% shares are voting shares, and it will not be diluted. This is my promise to you all, and these shares will guarantee your status in the company. Unless you all are willing to give up, I will not forcefully acquire your shares. As the founders, shares will be included as bonuses on top of your salaries. If you all can make significant contributions, your proportion of shares might still increase.”

The proportion of the shares can still increase? Is this possible?

Kameda Masao saw Zuckerberg’s disbelief look and said. “My proportion of shares in Wind and Rain Holdings had increased, and it’s not only me. The Deputy President and other top executives also have more shares now. You don’t need to worry about not getting a reward if you work hard under Boss.”

The proportion of shares does not include voting shares, and Kameda Masao’s increase is small. But it’s worth a lot. No matter how many shares Feng Yu gave out, he will still have the company’s overall control.

“Mr. Feng, I need to discuss with the rest, but I still have one more request. Can the founders of Facebook be the top executives of the company?”

Kameda Masao has a disdainful look. Which one of you has experience in managing a company?

But Feng Yu replied. “I can even let you be the CEO if you all performed well!”

Chapter 1370 – Google is also going to do Video sharing

“Boss, you want to let him be this company’s CEO? He doesn’t have any experiences!” Kameda Masao asked worryingly.

“What’s wrong? Is there any problem with this? Sergey and his team had been doing well too, and Google’s traffic is only behind Yahoo and Microsoft.” Feng Yu replied.

Although the other party is young and inexperienced, Feng Yu can send some experienced staff to guide him. Youngsters are more creative than the older staff, and as people get older, they are more reluctant to take risks.

Many places in China have younger officials as the top Government official and an older official as the Party Secretary. Also, Wind and Rain Holdings will assign Facebook’s CEO. What’s there to worry about?

The Board of Directors decides the CEO’s appointment, and Zuckerberg will be replaced if he cannot perform.

“Boss had made a wise decision to invest in Google. Google has become the world’s number one search engine company and has established monopolies in many countries. They are not sued because Google is available to everyone for free.” Kameda Masao knows Feng Yu had decided and started to suck up to him.

“Google has already entered Japan, right? How is it?”

“Google is also the number one search engine in Japan. They are the top in all English-speaking countries, and also many of the none English-speaking countries. They are only facing difficulties with Mandarin, Russian, and Korean.”

The world’s top four countries with search engine core technology are the US, China, Russia, and Korea. They have the most traffic in their country because it is based on their own language.

“See, they are doing well. That’s why we should allow others to prove ourselves. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Oh, I saw in your report that Google is planning to be listed.”

“Yes. Google is expanding and is facing massive financial pressure. They will develop French, German, Arabic, Russian, etc., versions requiring funds. Sergey and his team also have a new idea based on GPRS. They want to create a navigation map, and it requires Global Positioning System and telecommunications. That’s why they want to get listed.”

“Also, the US markets are showing signs of recovery. Their share prices will peak three years later if they are listed now, and we can sell some of the non-voting shares then. The returns will be high.”

“Ok. This is a good plan. Contact the top investment institutes. I believe they will be interested in Google’s shares.” Letting these institutions issue the shares will allow them to buy some of the shares to gain profits.

Google’s market share is very high, and many people will be interested. Roping in some major investment institutions can help to share the burden and use their connections for Google’s development.

Selling the shares three to four years later when the share prices are peak is most worthwhile. Anyway, Feng Yu still have full control over this company.

The dividends will never be more than the stock market increase. They can wait until the share price falls and buy it back.

Feng Yu had planned to let Amazon, Google, Baidu, and other internet companies be listed in the next two years because of the bullish market.

Some core industries’ assets will remain and will not be listed. For example, Alipay and Paypal.

After Feng Yu amassed a large amount of cash, he will increase his shares in Min Sheng Bank and let it expand overseas!

Feng Yu will combine fintech and traditional banking to form a mega-conglomerate. This will let him catch up with those Global conglomerates and allow him to stand on top of the pyramid!

“Don’t worry, Boss. With Google’s branding, many institutions will be interested. We will only work with the top, and some of them had approached me to invest in Google. A few top managers had expressed interest to become our Google’s directors.”

“We can pick two to three people from those institutions to become our directors, but we will not sell voting shares to them.”

This will allow them to enjoy the dividends. The company’s core voting shares must be controlled by Feng Yu, as he does not trust those investors. They might use underhand methods to gain control over Google.

“Some people are interested in Amazon too. Are we going to sell them some shares and give them a director position?”

Feng Yu nodded. “No problem. They can help the companies to develop faster. But you must be careful when picking the directors. You got to take note of their nationality. They should be from Europe as we are going to expand there. As for the US, once is enough.”

The company’s CEO and top executives are all Americans, and it’s not a good idea to have too many Americans on the board of directors.

“I understand. Google’s recent report states that they will set up a video streaming website to allow people to share videos with their friends. The functions are quite similar to China’s Sohu Channel.”

Feng Yu raised his brows. Is Google going to set up a video-sharing website? This is a good idea. After these video-sharing websites appeared, DV sales will increase. The market will be bigger. Wind and Rain DV and those Japanese DVs will see a bigger demand.

Wind and Rain DV is cheaper and smaller, and Feng Yu felt its market share and sales would increase more than those Japanese companies.

“This is a good idea. Who is going to handle it?”

“Three former employees of Paypal, who are top software developers, and some people from Google’s team.”

Feng Yu nodded. “Alright. But you must note that the videos must be original and must not infringe any copyrights. We must filter out MV, movies, and TV programs and work with some movie companies to buy their broadcasting rights. We must not allow them to sue us.”

Google had developed very fast, and many people are eyeing them.

In the US, many lawsuits target wealthy and successful companies. For example, a tycoon had knocked into a poor man, and they will demand compensations up to millions, citing discrimination as a reason. But if an ordinary citizen knocked into the same man, he might walk away without doing anything. This is because he knows he might not win even if he is asking for compensation for a few thousand.

“Yes. I will pass the message to Sergey. Oh, Boss. I have something personal and hope to seek your advice.”

Feng Yu looks at Kameda Masao curiously. What is it that made him want to seek advice?

Chapter 1371 – Softbank’s Director

“Have a sit first. What is it?” Feng Yu asked.

“A company had invited me to be their independent outside director!” Kameda Masao avoided Feng Yu’s eyes as he said.

Without Feng Yu, he will never get to where he is today. He is Japan’s second Richest Tycoon and is very grateful to Feng Yu. Feng Yu also trusted him to be the President and CEO of Wind and Rain Holdings. He felt he is betraying Feng Yu if he becomes another company’s director.

Feng Yu laughed. “It’s common for top executives to become independent outside directors of another company. What’s wrong? Which company is it?”

Feng Yu might look pleased, but he is not happy in his heart. He had given Kameda Masao authority, and shares are to let him work for him wholeheartedly.

If Kameda Masao becomes another company’s director, he will be distracted. But since he brought this up to Feng Yu, he should be interested. That’s why Feng Yu did not stop him.

Feng Yu is also curious which company had invited Kameda Masao. By right, they should have invited him.

Suppose Kameda Masao had rejected that company for Feng Yu without telling him because he wants to be the director. In that case, it will be very serious.

“It’s our Japan’s Softbank.”

Softbank? Sun Zhengyi!

Feng Yu is not surprised that this company did not invite him because he had snatched away many of the companies they wanted to invest in. This move had lowered Softbank’s profits greatly, and Sun Zhengyi hates him.

Also, Softbank does not like outsiders. Their directors are mostly Japanese, and only one or two Americans. There are no Chinese on their board of directors, despite Sun Zhengyi’s claims to be a Chinese descendant in China.

There are many Chinese descendants in the US, but how many of them identify themselves as Chinese? Most of them call themselves Americans and don’t even speak Mandarin.

Sun Zhengyi is the same. He cannot speak Mandarin and claims to be Chinese. There are too many Chinese descendants in this world.

“Why did he invite you to be their independent outside director? Does this mean you had bought Softbank’s shares?”

“Not!” Kameda Masao quickly replied. “I know I can get to this position is because of you. If I am not the President of Wind and Rain Holdings, he will not invite me.”

“I think he wants to invite you, but Sun Zhengyi denied when I asked him. Maybe he feels that he is not good enough to invite you.’

Feng Yu shook his head and smiled. Kameda Masao is a master at sucking up to him!

“Alright. I had snatched many investment opportunities from Sun Zhengyi and made money from those companies. This had lowered his investments in China, and he should hate me. It is normal for him not to invite me. Furthermore, why will I agree if he invites me? Do you think I care about being Softbank’s independent outside director?”

Softbank is one of the most famous investment companies globally. They have the most investments in IT-related companies in the world.

They invested in more than 500 companies globally and owned more than 30% shares in nearly 300 IT companies. Before the dot.com crisis, Sun Zhengyi was not only Japan’s Richest Man, and he is also one of the top ten billionaires in the world.

But Softbank’s shares plunged after the dot.com bubble burst, and some of the companies they own went bust, causing heavy losses. Despite this, Sun Zhengyi is still Japan’s Richest Man above Kameda Masao!

Sun Zhengyi is similar to Kameda Masao. Both do not have deep roots in Japan and cannot be compared to those Japanese MNC with a long history.

Those MNC do not have any super tycoons, but the wealth they control through shares exchanges is shocking.

This is also why Feng Yu does not think his status as the World’s Richest Man is that important. Those large conglomerates are extremely wealthy, and their assets are still far from them.

Suppose Morgan Financial Group invited Feng Yu to become their independent outside director. In that case, he might be interested because they control trillions of USD worth of assets.

But Feng Yu thinks nothing of Softbank!

Kameda Masao heard what Feng Yu said and added. “That’s right. Your assets are more than Softbank. Why should you become their director? I think they know this, and that’s why they did not invite you.”

“But I am different. Although I had made some money, and my declared assets are second in Japan, my roots are not deep in Japan. My family’s status is also not high.”

If I can become Softbank’s director, it will increase my family’s status. Boss, please believe me. I am not betraying you. If you don’t agree, I will reject Sun Zhengyi immediately!”

Feng Yu waved his hand. “No. I didn’t say I don’t agree. You can accept his invitation as this will be helpful to your family. I appreciate people who place their family’s interest first.”

“Wind and Rain Holdings do not have many assets in Japan, and the influence is not that great. It will not help in increasing your social status. If Wind and Rain Holdings is located in Japan, your status will increase by several folds. It can stand shoulder to shoulder with the Presidents from other conglomerates.”

“But he should have some conditions for asking you to be Softbank’s director, right?”

“He wants to use Wind and Rain Holdings and my connections to help with Softbank’s and other directors’ companies’ development.” Kameda Masao did not hide anything from Feng Yu.

As expected, they are after Kameda Masao’s influence as Wind and Rain Holdings’ President. If one of Softbank’s directors is Yahoo Japan’s CEO, and another director is from Goldman Sachs, it will benefit Softbank greatly.

These people can help with Softbank’s investment and expansion after they entered the Board of Directors. Kameda Masao can also benefit Wind and Rain Holdings after he becomes a Softbank director. He should know which side can benefit him more, and he will never betray Feng Yu.

Why is Sun Zhengyi doing this? What is his motive?

Chapter 1372 – Same Motives

Less than three days later, Softbank announced that Wind and Rain Holding’s President and CEO, Kameda Masao, had become their director. This announcement pushed up the share prices of Softbank’s listed companies.

Feng Yu is wondering what Sun Zhengyi’s motive is. Is he using Kameda Masao to get in touch with Feng Yu and stimulate his companies’ share prices?

But this person is Sun Zhengyi, also known as the No. 1 IT investor globally. This should not be so simple.

Soon, Feng Yu knows what is going on. Sun Zhengyi or Softbank’s other shareholders do have other motives.

“What did you say? Yahoo China wants to work with Google to open China’s market?”

Yahoo, the former world’s no.1 web portal, had expanded too fast, forming a monopoly. They were forced to break up into several companies.

Yahoo China is one of them.

Currently, Yahoo China is sharing the Chinese market with Sina, Netease, Sohu, and others, but they have the biggest market resource.

They have the best news sources, mailbox, forums, or other web portal products, but it is not enough. Sun Zhengyi and his shareholders want Yahoo to become China’s No.1 web portal. They want to be the No.1 website of China.

Softbank is one of the major shareholders of Yahoo, and it is one of their most successful investments. Their return is more than 100 times their initial investment.

Due to the dot.com bubble, Yahoo’s market value fell significantly, but Softbank is still getting high returns. They planned to invest in China’s IT companies, but most of the IT companies were snatched away by Feng Yu.

Softbank still managed to invest in some Chinese IT companies, but the dot.com bubble burst before getting them listed. They sold away some of the companies to recover the cost, and some went bankrupt.

Sun Zhengyi and his shareholders were frustrated when they saw the companies like Sina, Netease, Sohu, etc., did very well. These companies profited when they got listed in the US, and after they got delisted, they got listed in Hong Kong. Their share prices also soared.

If Softbank could invest in these companies, their market value will continue to rise, and Sun Zhengyi’s assets will increase further.

More importantly, Softbank will have control over the Chinese web portals, and they don’t need to use Yahoo to compete with them.

Sun Zhengyi wants to compete with Feng Yu again. Yahoo China will trample all over your portals!

The Government controls the majority of China’s traditional marketing resources. It is difficult for Softbank to sway the public’s opinion through this channel. But the internet is different. China’s laws on the internet are vague. They can manipulate the public’s opinion through it and gain monetary and even political benefits.

They believe Kameda Masao should have some influence in China, given the relationship between Wind and Rain Holding and Tai Hua holdings. They had offered many attractive terms for him, like selling some Yahoo shares to him, increasing his family’s status in Japan, etc.

Softbank also wants to bring Japanese clothing brands into the Chinese market. They wish to work with Tai Hua Supermarket, as their previous requests were rejected. They need Kameda Masao’s help.

They also hope Kameda Masao can help them open up the Chinese market for Japanese PCs, software, telecommunications, etc.

Sun Zhengyi thought Kameda Masao is Japanese and will surely be on his side. Even if he is indecisive, he will give in because of the attractive offers.

But Sun Zhengyi did not expect Kameda Masao to be so loyal to Feng Yu. When he was down many years ago, no Japanese helped him. It was Feng Yu who helped him, and Sun Zhengyi had thought nothing about the benefits Feng Yu gave him. Kameda Masao knows clearly that he can get much more when those subsidiaries got listed.

So, Kameda Masao became a traitor!

Kameda Masao told Feng Yu about Softbank’s plan and is willing to find out more. He is not anxious about his family’s status in Japan. He felt Sun Zhengyi and his shareholders are no match for Feng Yu.

Feng Yu realized that Softbank uses Kameda Masao to enter the Chinese market and has plans to attack the US market.

Feng Yu also wants to use Kameda Masao to gather Softbank’s intel and use the info to acquire their market.

Feng Yu called Wang Zhixi and the rest first to inform them about Softbank’s plans. After that, he called Liu Zhixuan and the rest to start their plans to enter the Japanese market.

The Japanese market is very difficult to enter, even for the electronic brands from the West. This is because Japanese home appliances are the best in the world.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Lenovo’s market share in Japan is very low even after they become the biggest PC manufacturer in the world. Another market that is difficult to penetrate is the Korean market.

Feng Yu believes it will be different in this life. The Japanese know AIWA is a subsidiary of Wind and Rain Holdings, but they are still the No.1 music player brand and own the biggest market share.

Since AIWA can do it, Lenovo, Wind and Rain Brand, etc., can also do it. At the minimum, Feng Yu can let Aiwa enter the Japanese market. Aiwa is only the Chinese pronunciation and version of AIWA.

Softbank wants to enter the Chinese market, and Feng Yu also want to enter the Japanese market and other regions controlled by them. Let’s see who will emerge as the winner.

As Sun Zhengyi and his shareholders dreamed of winning against Feng Yu and controlling the Chinese market, a plot targeting Softbank started.

Softbank, one of the world’s top investment companies, will suffer a heavy blow because of this incident. And all these are because of the independent outside director, Kameda Masao, they hired.

Chapter 1373 – Ralph’s thoughts

“Hello, Zekai. Why are you calling? Huh? You are in the US?” Feng Yu received Li Zekai’s call when he was in the US, thinking about his plot against Softbank and investing in FB. Li Zekai knows Feng Yu is in the US.

“My brother and I are going over. We want to discuss something with you.”

Feng Yu knows it must be about business because of Li Zekai’s tone and coming with Li Zeju. Li Zeju is considered Superman Li’s representative now.

“Ok. I will be going to Boston tomorrow and will be back the day after. Is it fine with you?”

“No problem. We will talk when we meet.”

Feng Yu is going to Boston because Zuckerberg had replied to him. He agreed to Feng Yu’s investment of 100 million USD in exchange for 85% FB shares. That means Wind and Rain Holdings will acquire FB.

The three other co-founders will get 2% shares each, while Zuckerberg gets 9%. Feng Yu doesn’t know how they negotiated and doesn’t care. They had also signed an agreement to remain working in FB.

It is 100 million USD now, but who knows how much it will be worth in two years. FB had become one of the top brands in Feng Yu’s previous life, and it will be the same in this life. Maybe it will be easier.

FB had entered most countries and regions, except for China and independent States, in Feng Yu’s previous life. With his help in this life, it will develop faster.

But Feng Yu does not want FB to cover the whole world. A different social website must be used for China and the CIS to prevent FB from being sued for monopolization.  This will prevent them from being forced to break up like Yahoo.

The companies can still cooperate after being forced to break up, but there’s a major difference. It’s like ten separate chopsticks and ten chopsticks tied together.

Zuckerberg and his partners were excited when they saw Feng Yu signing the contract with them. All of them are looking forward and feeling confident of this company.

Although Feng Yu had assigned some management staff and someone to monitor the company’s finance department, Zuckerberg and his partners are still the CEO and other top executives.

The four of them had also entered the Board of Directors. There are nine members on the Board, and the Chairman is Wind and Rain Holding’s Deputy CEO, Ralph.

Kameda Masao is busy in Japan and had handed all US matters to Ralph. Although he has more responsibility, he is overjoyed.

More responsibility means he can make more money. All the top executives in the subsidiaries can get some shares, and it is more attractive than getting a salary.

For example, Ralph’s Amazon shares value increased after Amazon was listed. His net worth also shot up.

Ralph planned to sell his shares at the highest point and use the money to follow his Boss to invest.

When Ralph knows Kameda Masao had become Softbank’s Independent Director, he was overjoyed. He felt his capabilities are about the same as Kameda Masao, and he knows Kameda Masao will not cope.

Ralph felt it’s time for him to get more power in Wind and Rain Holdings. Kameda Masao can continue to be the President, and he can be the CEO. Many companies have Presidents and CEO.

Also, Ralph and Wu Zhigang are considered Feng Yu’s disciples. The way they do things is very similar to Feng Yu. Furthermore, he had done a lot for Feng Yu and should be promoted.

“Boss, 100 million USD will not be enough. It might be enough for North America, but it will not be sufficient if they expand overseas. Also, new forms of charges should be implemented to get profits. Are we only going to depend on these people?” Ralph asked.

“This is the first investment, and 100 million USD is enough for them to take over the North American market. Also, they are not thinking of getting profits immediately. We will continue to invest two years later, and it will be easier to make profits when they lots of users.”

Users are the most important aspect of an internet company. Without users, everything else is useless. With a large user base, they can make high profits just from advertising alone.

“Boss, let me tell you about Amazon’s latest situation.”

“Alright.”

Feng Yu looks at Ralph. He knows why he is so hardworking today. It must be Kameda Masao had taken on the director position at Softbank.

Kameda Masao had told Feng Yu that Ralph’s responsibilities could be increased after two years. He even suggested separating Wind and Rain Holding’s CEO and President positions.

Heitaro Nakajima is getting old, and his health is failing recently. Kameda Masao will take on the role of AIWA’s Chairman until Heitaro Nakajima appoints a successor.

Kameda Masao thinks that he will focus on Asia while Ralph handles the US businesses. This will balance out the company’s internal power, and it will be more efficient.

Although their US companies have high potential, Wind and Rain Holding’s top subsidiary is Wind and Rain Consulting. That is their Boss’s most important company, and it’s located in Hong Kong. Kameda Masao felt that this will gain more trust and can remain closer to Feng Yu.

Another reason for this arrangement is Kameda Masao can take over the US operations easily. Still, Ralph will have difficulties taking over the work in Asia. This is why Kameda Masao is confident that he can still retain his position if he doesn’t betray Feng Yu.

After reporting about Amazon, Ralph continues to report about Google and other businesses. He even reported LA Wind and Rain Team’s progress in detail.

“Ralph, take note of our company’s business in Europe.”

Ralph’s eyes brighten up. President Kameda has always handled the European markets. Is Boss going to give him more power?

Ralph paused for a second and asked. “Boss, President Kameda has been in charge of the work there. Did something happen to him?”

Feng Yu looks at Ralph. “Something happens? Everything is fine. Are you referring to him being Softbank’s director? I had agreed to let him do that. If any companies want you to be their independent director, and it will not affect your work at Wind and Rain Holdings, you can let me know. I will not stop you.”

Feng Yu’s words touch Ralph.

Feng Yu returned to New York. Why are the Li Brothers here to meet him?

Chapter 1374 – The Li Family wants to invest

“Mr. Feng, thank you for coming to receive us.” Li Zeju said.

Li Zekai interrupted. “Brother, we are friends. Why are you treating Feng Yu as an outsider?”

“That’s right. Zekai and I are old friends. Let’s just address each other by names.”

Feng Yu used to call Li Zejai (Big) Brother Kai. Still, after becoming the World’s Richest Man, Li Zekai stop addressing him as (Younger) Brother Feng and don’t allow him to call him (Big) Brother Kai.

In the past, Li Zekai has an air of superiority because his father is Asia’s super tycoon. But after Feng Yu’s net worth exceeded Superman Li by a lot, his superiority disappeared.

Only Wen Dongjun dares to address Feng Yu as Xiao Feng or Xiao Yu, other than his family.

In the car, Li Zekai said. “We are representing our family to meet you. We want to invest in some of your business.”

Invest in my business? Feng Yu wished to work with Superman Li. He is the king of Ports, and many people are lining to cooperate with him. Sea freight is still the main form of goods transportation.

“Which company is your father interested in?” What can make Superman Li send both his sons to the US to discuss with him? Could it be my US companies?

“I heard from Guangzheng that Amazon is entering its second round of financing and is going to be listed?”

“That’s right. We are getting companies to quote, and this might be Amazon’s last financing. What’s wrong? Is your family interested?”

Li Zekai looks at Li Zeju, and he said. “Hutchison and us have a retail business, and Amazon is the leader in eCommerce. If we can cooperate, it will be a win-win situation. That’s why Hutchison and us are interested in Amazon’s financing. We hope we can buy some shares.”

How are they going to buy the shares? Of course, it will be through private placement.

Li Zekai flies to Canada often and has been monitoring the North American market closely. That’s why he knows Amazon’s potential. Amazon is the World’s No.1 eCommerce website!

Everyone can foresee the share prices of a World’s No.1 company shooting up after it was listed. Furthermore, the Li family is interested in eCommerce and wants to try it. Their Watsons might also use eCommerce in the future, and they can learn from Amazon.

“I shall be honest with you. We will not be issuing many shares this time, and we had signed agreements with those investment companies. It might be difficult for them to issue private placement notes to you at lower prices.”

“We don’t need lower prices. We are willing to accept the issue price. After several rounds of inquiry, I believe the issue price is finalized now. You can help to inform them to issue a private placement note to us.” Li Zeju explained.

“Oh. This is not a problem. Maybe when the share prices stabilized after two years, I can exchange some shares with Hutchinson.”

Exchanging shares between two companies is a form of cooperation. There are many advantages of doing this. It will improve the relationship between the two companies and increase investors’ confidence.

This is very common between subsidiaries of the same holding company. This will also prevent others from a hostile takeover.

It is also common for a company to exchange shares with another company with close ties to the major shareholders. For example, members of a business association will often exchange shares for increasing trust. This will form stronger bonds to achieve their business goals.

Suppose Tai Hua Holdings, or Wind and Rain Holdings, or their subsidiaries, can exchange shares with Hutchinson. In that case, it will be a win-win situation. Both parties’ share prices will soar.

Li Zeju agreed on behalf of Hutchinson without hesitation. He is currently Hutchinson’s Director and CEO. It’s very obvious who will be Superman Li’s successor.

This discussion went smoothly, and they had settled all the details when they reached the Wind and Rain Empire State Building.

But after they went upstairs, Li Zeju asked. “Is Google going to be listed?”

This is not hard to guess. Getting listed at Google’s current scale will benefit all of Google’s shareholders, especially Feng Yu.

“What’s wrong? Are you all also interested in Google?” Feng Yu laughed.

“This is the World’s No.1 search engine company. How can we not be interested? Although Hutchinson and we are not familiar with IT, Zekai is doing not bad in this area.”

Li Zekai had used a technology park concept to package real estate development and increased Pacific Century Group share prices. He is indeed a genius, and he also has lots of investments in Japanese tech companies. He can be considered one of the prominent figures in the IT industry.

“That right. Google is going to be listed, but it will not be a small amount if you all are going to invest in both companies.”

Feng Yu wants to ask them if the Li family will invest under Hutchinson’s name or their accounts. If they are using the company to invest, this amount is not a problem. These two years, property prices had started to rise, and Superman Li’s land parcel in China rose a lot.

They can just sell a few plots of land and get a massive amount of cash. Furthermore, Hutchinson also has high reserves. They can use it to buy these shares with no problems.

But it will be hard for the Li family to buy the shares by themselves unless they are willing to sell some shares. If not, they will not have so much cash.

The Li family is different from the Fu family. They are more focused on physical business, and the Fu family is into financial markets. That’s why the Li family cannot cash out their assets so fast and doesn’t have as much cash reserve as the Fu family.

“We will be investing in Amazon with Hutchinson, and my father and brother will be investing in Google. This will be their personal investment and has nothing to do with the company.”

Superman Li and Li Zekai will be investing in Google? This means Superman Li is going to give these shares to Li Zekai.

“Alright. This is not a problem. I would rather be selling these shares to my friends for them to make money than selling them to others.” Feng Yu agreed.

“Thank you. May we have a pleasant cooperation.”

“Pleasant cooperation.”

Chapter 1375 – Brother Ki’s rhetoric

“Feng, why didn’t you call me when you are back?” Feng Yu heard Kirilenko shouting from a distance.

“You are here, Kirilenko? We are about to call you in a while.” Li Zekai stood up and laughed.

“Zekai, Zeju, you all are also here! Terrific! Let’s go for a drink tonight!” Kirilenko smiled happily.

It’s boring to drink with Feng Yu, and more interesting to drink with Li Zekai. Although Li Zekai cannot drink much, they shared a common interest after drinking.

Li Zeju is the same as Feng Yu, who doesn’t drink or party like them. That’s why Kirilenko doesn’t like him.

“I had just returned, and we are discussing Amazon and Google listing. They want to buy some shares.” Feng Yu explained.

“I came here for the same purpose. I can raise a sum of money for the shares too. Can you sell some to me? How about I use my eBay shares to exchange with you?” Kirilenko said.

“Brother Ki, Amazon cannot cooperate with eBay. If both companies cooperate, we will be sued for monopolizing the market. We cannot exchange shares, but I can sell the shares to you. It will be too troublesome for our companies to own each other shares.”

Kirilenko scratches his head. This Anti-trust law is too troublesome. If Amazon, the world’s No.1, can cooperate with eBay, World’s No.2, they will have no competitors in Europe. After all, Kirilenko is one of the major shareholders of the eCommerce site in the former Soviet Union countries.

“What about Google?”

“Brother Ki, did you forget about your Lenko search engine? It owns more than 70% of the market share in Eastern Europe. We can’t exchange shares, but I can sell the shares to you.”

Kirilenko had named this search engine using part of his name.

If Google and Lenko can cooperate, it will be English, Mandarin, and Russian search engines. They will defeat even the Korean search engine.

The other search engine websites, like Yahoo, are second-tier, and they will be kicked out of this market. But these companies cannot merge or cooperate.

Ordinary share trading is not affected by this restriction, and Kirilenko can purchase the newly issued shares of these two companies. Exchanging shares between both companies and entering each other’s board of directors are not allowed.

Even if they don’t exchange shares, their interests were tied together a long time ago. Also, both of them will not allow cut-throat competition between both companies.

Li Zekai and Li Zeju exchanged looks. They are curious about why Kirilenko sounded like he does not have much cash?

Kirilenko is Europe’s Richest Man and should have hundreds of millions of spare cash sitting around.

They are unaware that Kirilenko had invested most of his money into gold futures. Gold prices are still rising, and he is making high returns when he settles his contracts.

The gold futures contracts were very cheap when they purchase them, and gold prices raised to 430 USD per ounce earlier this year. But since the start of last month, gold prices start to fall. Luckily, Kirilenko had listened to Feng Yu and did not use high leverage. He also kept some reserves for him to hedge against the risks.

Feng Yu remembers gold prices will continue to rise despite the fluctuations and did not expect it to fall suddenly. It fell from 430 USD to 375USD.

Luckily Feng Yu is prepared. Wind and Rain Consulting has sufficient reserves, and they managed to settle some contracts in time and started shorting gold. They did not suffer any losses and still maintained high returns.

When gold prices fell to around 380 USD, they started buying in. They managed to buy gold at an average of 378 USD per ounce.

As expected, gold prices started to rise again, and it is almost 400 USD now.

Kirilenko does have cash. Although he still has debts with the banks, the interest rate is lower than his returns from his stocks and futures contracts. That’s why he is repaying the banks’ high interests and continues to enjoy high returns.

Kirilenko had raised cash from the Polar Bear Supermarket Group and Polar Bear Mining Enterprise’s profits.

Kirilenko got a fright when gold prices plunged suddenly because he had thought of using high leverage some time ago. But he decided to listen to Feng Yu’s advice and uses leverages between two to five times.

The future market is too volatile, and Feng Yu is worry about the butterfly effect. What if gold prices suddenly plunge and they cannot react in time?

Even with lower leverages, their returns are more than 20% annually. This is considered very high, as most financial institutions are getting much lesser!

They had made a lot during the past year, and Kirilenko’s net worth increased to Forbes Top Ten this year!

Kirilenko is overjoyed when he entered Forbes’ Top Ten Billionaires. Every billionaire on the list will receive a free copy of <Forbes>, and his copy was sent to his Russian home last year. He does not know at that time and still made a fuss.

Kirilenko has been high-profile during this period and even mocked the eight billionaires above him. Of course, they do not include Feng Yu.

Kirilenko announced that he would become the World’s Second Richest Man within three years. That means his net worth of around 10 billion USD must be doubled during this period, and Bill Gates’s net worth must remain the same.

All other billionaires, especially Paul Allen, laughed when they heard him. But Bill Gates did not say anything because he knows the potential of Kirilenko’s businesses.

EBay’s shares alone had increased Kirilenko’s net worth by a lot. He mentioned that <Forbes> had undervalued his assets. How much is his real net worth?

Chapter 1376 – Sports Mogul

Feng Yu, and the other three, are eating and chatting in New York’s top Italian restaurant. Although the Li brothers were taught not to speak during meals since young, it’s different when dining with friends.

Maybe it was because Feng Yu and Kirilenko like to chat over meals.

Li Zeju is good at chatting. He knows Kirilenko had invested in a basketball team and is targeting a football club in Europe recently. So, he started chatting about sports with him.

It’s the Olympics this year, and the whole world is more interested in sporting events.

“Kirilenko, I heard your basketball team had started to make profits after two years and even won the NBA championships. This is impressive.”

“Hahaha… This is nothing compared to Feng. His team starts to profit in one year and won the championships earlier than my team. But my team is making more than him now. His team might be in LA, but mine is in New York!”

Brooklyn’s ticket prices are higher because there are more wealthy people in New York. Although LA is prosperous too, there are too many low-income people there.

“I saw in the news that you want to buy a football club in Europe.” Li Zeju asked.

“I find sports clubs are interested and can make money. I can also use it to promote my companies’ brands. But not many club owners are willing to sell. The ones selling are lousy teams, and some are only willing to sell some of the club’s shares. What a joke! Those people don’t have much money, and how can they be the major shareholder?”

Kirilenko replied with a disdainful expression. He is the top billionaire in Europe, and how can someone inferior to him manage his club? If anyone is going to be his company’s major shareholder, it must be someone like Feng Yu!

Those ordinary billionaires… psst!

“Brother Ki, are you interested in managing a football club?” Feng Yu asked.

“It’s fun. Are you also interested? Can you offer some suggestions? Which team do you think is better? I will buy it regardless of how much it costs!” Kirilenko looks at Feng Yu with sparkling eyes.

“Which team do you prefer, or should I say, which country’s club are you buying? I need to remind you that many clubs in Europe do not only have football. They also have basketball, volleyball, teams. Even the football clubs have men, women, and youth teams.”

Feng Yu is not lying because he was shocked when he heard Bayern Munich Basketball team in his previous life.

Bayern Munich… is a basketball team?!

Feng Yu found out later that some large sports clubs in Europe have multiple teams in different sports. But most of their football clubs are more famous.

The clubs do not only have men teams. They also have a women’s team, but women’s teams are not profitable. At least, the youth team can groom the youths for the senior team. Feng Yu heard this is because they want to prevent women from accusing them of discrimination.

Feng Yu felt this is nonsense. No one watches women’s football, and no one is buying the tickets and broadcasting rights. The female football stars cannot attract any advertisers, and they are a burden to the club.

But these are the regulations, and Feng Yu cannot do anything about it.

Of course, Kirilenko can buy the football club’s shares from the team. But he will be restricted when it comes to managing the team. This is worthwhile, and he doesn’t need to get involved with those loss-making entities of the club.

But the clubs are not stupid. They will not sell their most valuable football club and keep the rest of the loss-making teams. How are they going to make money?

The most valuable sports team will be football in the future, followed by baseball and basketball.

The sports clubs are not worth a lot now because it has not reached its peak. Two years later, football teams’ jersey sponsorships, TV and online broadcasting rights, etc., will reach their peak, and the players’ value will sky-rocket. That’s the time when football clubs’ value reaches its peak.

Buying a team now and selling it ten years later is a good deal. Ten years is enough to let a good team’s market value increase by ten folds.

“Feng, I will not buy those integrated sports clubs. I just want to buy a football team, and I prefer a German or an English team. Do you have any recommendations?”

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. “You think too highly of me. I don’t know much about football, especially those with long history and influence. It’s not easy to buy them, and it’s not worth paying a premium price for them. My suggestion is to invest. But after you invested in the club, you can request to be the Chairman of the team. I believe no one can win you with your influence.”

The Chairman of the team needs to be capable and influential. Kirilenko is Europe’s Richest Man, and other shareholders will support him because they want to make more money.

Of course, they might not agree if they know about Kirilenko’s true management skills.

Some clubs are membership-based. That means the shareholders are their members, and the club will issue shares despite not being listed. The shareholders will enjoy dividends, and the head coach manages some English clubs.

Feng Yu is telling Kirilenko to invest in such clubs and become the biggest shareholders. He doesn’t need to have the controlling stake and let the members vote him to be the club’s Chairman.

This will lower the cost, and Kirilenko might not even need to spend 100 million USD to control the team.

Feng Yu had also thought of buying a football team in Europe to let some Chinese players play there for the experience. But he gave up this idea because he realized it’s hard to revive China’s football. The players’ attitudes are a serious problem.

Feng Yu explained, and Li Zeju also added his views. He is also a football club member and minor shareholder. If Kirilenko is interested, he can recommend the shareholders to him. The team he had invested in is a German team, and it fits Kirilenko’s requirements.

This team is FC Bayern Munich!

If Kirilenko can invest successfully, he will become one of the biggest Sports Moguls in the world!

Chapter 1377 – Will not merge

Although Feng Yu cannot offer Kirilenko any suggestions, he can suggest a few top players. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney, etc., are still unknowns now. If he can buy these players, he will get high returns in the future.

They had a good dinner, and Feng Yu is not drunk after drinking two glasses of red wine. It’s an achievement not to get drunk while dining with Brother Ki.

As the four of them were about to leave, they saw someone familiar also leaving.

The smile on this person’s face disappears when he saw Feng Yu, and he walks away with his head held high.

Kirilenko smacked his lips. What’s there to be proud of? This person’s position on the Forbes Billionaires list had been sliding down every year.

“Paul, are you leaving without saying hi to your friend?” Feng Yu shouted. He is also not happy with Paul Allen’s attitude.

Paul Allen stopped and turned. “When are we friends?”

Kirilenko said in his Russian accent English. “That’s right. Feng, how can anyone be our friends?”

Paul Allen could not hold back his anger. “Kirilenko! What do you mean?!”

“What’s wrong? Did you think you are my friend? Feng was only trying to be nice.”

Feng Yu patted Kirilenko to stop him. “Paul, Bill, and I have a meeting in Seattle the day after tomorrow. Did you tell you about it?”

Paul Allen is shocked. This must be an important business meeting for Feng Yu to visit Microsoft, and he is unaware of it.

Bill Gates has more trust in Ballmer and others than him, and he is very unhappy about it. He is the second shareholder of Microsoft and one of the co-founders. Bill Gates should discuss with him first before meeting Feng Yu.

Why didn’t Bill Gates tell Paul Allen about his meeting with Feng Yu? It is because Feng Yu told Bill Gates that he is visiting him for a chat as friends. Why should he tell Paul Allen when he knows they have a bad relationship?

After they left, Kirilenko asked. “Feng, why are you meeting Bill Gates? Are you going back to Microsoft?”

“No. Bill Gates has always wanted to talk to me about the mobile phone operating system, but I didn’t have time. I am meeting him since I’m here.” Feng Yu replied.

“Mobile phone operating system, HOS? Are you going to merge with Microsoft’s mobile phone system?” Kirilenko is surprised.

Kirilenko knows Feng Yu should not make such a decision. He had planned to go against all other companies with his PC hardware and software since last year. Why is he thinking of merging with Microsoft now?

“Merge? I had never thought about this. I only want to ask Bill Gates if he has any intention of selling Microsoft’s mobile phone operating system.”

Kirilenko’s jaw dropped. Feng Yu is going to acquire one of Microsoft’s businesses? This is the first time he heard someone wants to acquire Microsoft’s business.

But this person is Feng Yu, and Kirilenko is not very surprised. Everyone thought Feng Yu is mad when he asked Lenovo to acquire IBM’s PC business.

Lenovo had started negotiation with IBM now, and IBM does have intentions to sell their PC business. If this deal is successful, Lenovo will become the World’s No.1 PC manufacturer and might form an oligopoly.

“Feng Yu, are you saying Microsoft is going to sell their smartphone operating system?” Li Zekai is shocked.

Most of Li Zekai’s focus is on the IT industry, and he is interested if Microsoft is going to sell it.

“I don’t know. But I think Bill Gates should not sell it. Microsoft, Symbian, Blackberry, and our HOS are the only mobile phone operating systems in the market. Although our speed is the fastest, the winner is still not decided. He will not admit defeat. I guess he wants to work with us to kick Symbian out and attack Blackberry!”

Li Zekai frowned. It will be hard for him to get involved if this is the case. He doesn’t have enough capital to cooperate with the other party.

Li Zeju patted his brother’s back to console him. This is not as easy as buying a stake with money. That’s why the Li family cannot help.

“Feng, are you going to work with Microsoft?”

“I will welcome them if Bill Gates is willing to give up developing their operating system and join our HOS system development. He can forget it if he wants us to join them. We still have room for negotiations if he only wants to form an alliance.”

HOS is Feng Yu’s operating system and will be used on tablets in the future. He will never give it up.

Feng Yu is willing to give China some stake in it, but not Microsoft. He is still thinking of trashing Microsoft. Why would he give in?

In Feng Yu’s previous life, the Android operating system had developed the fastest to become the most popular phone operating system in the World. It exceeded Microsoft, Apple, Blackberry and kicked Symbian out of the market.

Android can be successful is because its source code is free for everyone to use. All mobile phone manufacturers or software developers can use it to develop variants of Android.

Most mobile phone APPs support Android systems, and even some Apple Apps have Android versions. Symbian was obsolete because of this reason.

In this life, Feng Yu invested heavily in HOS development and doesn’t intend to release the source codes yet.

Feng Yu wants to let Microsoft and other companies think they can beat the HOS system before releasing the source code. That will be a devastating blow to these mobile phone operating system developers.

It’s just like Linux. Its source code is open-source and free, and it had snatched away some of the market share from Microsoft in Feng Yu’s previous life.

“Feng, I wish you success.” Kirilenko doesn’t know what to say and could be of any help. Of course, he can get a share of the profits if HOS is successful, and he can’t wait to see HOS acquire Microsoft’s operating system.

Feng Yu smiles. “I believe I will be successful.”

Chapter 1378 – It’s fine to cooperate this way

“Hi, Bill. Sorry to keep you waiting.” Feng Yu greeted Bill Gates with a smile.

It’s been a while since Feng Yu came to Microsoft’s headquarters, which is very different from when he left.

The moment Feng Yu steps into the office building, many people greeted him with respect. Some staff, who doesn’t know Feng Yu, were curious who he is. Why are so many people greeting him? Is he one of the company’s higher executives?”

How come they have never seen him before? Is he new?

The new staff asked their senior colleagues and found out Feng Yu’s identity. They were all shocked. This World’s Richest Man is different from what they imagined.

Many staff were shocked and sympathized Feng Yu left this place previously. They thought he was kicked out of Microsoft. But he has returned as the World’s Richest Man now.

Bill Gates’s assistant opens the office door without knocking when he saw Feng Yu. His Boss has been waiting for him for a while and even postponed all other meetings.

This meeting with Feng Yu is more important than other tasks.

“Feng, have a sit.”

Feng Yu sat opposite Bill Gates, and Paul Allen entered the office when the assistant served a cup of tea.

Bill Gates frowned but did not say anything. He asked his assistant to serve coffee to Paul.

“Feng, I had invited you over is to discuss something with you. We had some misunderstandings in the past, and it resulted in you leaving and selling Microsoft shares. I hope our misunderstanding had been cleared after so long.” Bill Gates said.

Misunderstanding? Feng Yu took a sip from his teacup and did not reply.

“Feng, I would like to invite you to be our Microsoft Director again. What do you think?”

Paul Allen looks at Bill Gates in shock. How come he is unaware of such an important decision? Regardless of whether it is replacing one of the directors or adding a new director on the board, it will affect the company’s management. He should be informed beforehand as the second major shareholder.

Bill Gates is too much!

Many people know Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft, but can the company grow to this extent without Paul Allen? Without him, there might not be Microsoft!

Paul Allen can tolerate Bill Gates becoming the front of Microsoft. Still, he can’t tolerate Bill Gates making such an important decision without discussing it with him.

“Bill, how come no one informs me that the company is going to invite Feng back on the board of directors? The shareholders should decide all decisions regarding the board of directors.”

Feng Yu smiled and did not say a word. He is enjoying seeing Paul Allen and Bill Gates argue.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen have different characters. For example, Bill Gates prefers to dress casually and focuses more on comfort than appearance. Most of the time, his hair is in a mess.

But Paul Allen is different. He will spend a long time in front of the mirror to take care of his appearance. His suit, tie, hair, and shoes, must be very clean and tidy.

Bill Gates loves to travel with his wife, go for hikes and enjoy doing whatever they like. But Paul Allen spends most of his time at work. Other than Microsoft, he still has his own software company, which is not doing well.

This is also why Kirilenko looks down on Paul Allen. Without Microsoft, he is nothing!

It’s weird for two people with different characters to come together and set up Microsoft. Maybe both of them have some ideas that are in line with each other.

“Paul, this is not the time to argue about this. I will explain to you later if you are willing to listen.”

Paul Allen kept quiet and nodded. This made Feng Yu very disappointed.

Feng Yu was still looking forward to seeing both of their quarrel and fight. If he can record it on video and air it in the cinema, it will be a box-office hit!

Feng Yu will reserve at least 1,000 cinemas to show his support.

“Feng, what do you think of my invitation?”

Feng Yu shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry. I am not interested in being a director in someone’s company.”

Feng Yu implies that if you are willing to let me be Microsoft’s Chairman, I will surely be interested! But being a director will cause Microsoft shares to rise, and it will be Bill Gates and the rest to benefit from it. He has nothing to gain from it.

Paul Allen was about to say something but forced himself to keep quiet. He is extremely unhappy with Feng Yu’s tone. He sounded like a Microsoft Director is nothing to him.

“Feng, I feel we can avoid unnecessary competition and can cooperate in several areas.” Bill Gates continued.

“For example?”

“For example, we can develop the Office software, smartphone’s operating system, mobile phone software, and other software.”

Bill Gates had mentioned all of Lenovo Kingsoft’s businesses, which is the same as Microsoft.

“Eh… Bill. All the businesses you mentioned are all from Lenovo Kingsoft. I am not holding any position in this company, and you had approached the wrong person.” Feng Yu replied.

Bill Gates was stunned for a moment as he did not expect Feng Yu to reject him so quickly. The excuse given by Feng Yu is too lame. Even if he is not that company’s controlling shareholder or holds any position, he still has a huge influence.

Bill Gates doesn’t believe Liu Chuanzhi will disagree with Feng Yu.

Are the conditions not attractive enough, or are there other reasons?

“Feng, we had good cooperation in developing G-Box. Why can’t we work together on other projects?”

“Oh… if it is the same cooperation model as G-Box, I might be able to persuade Liu Chuanzhi.”

The smile on Bill Gates’s face froze. The same cooperation model as G-Box? How is that possible? Feng Yu has the controlling stake in that project, and Microsoft is only a minor shareholder.

G-Box is a new business, and Bill Gates is willing to give in because Feng Yu has a bigger advantage. But it is different this time. Office software, smartphone operating system, application software are all Microsoft’s advantages. How can he let Feng Yu own the controlling stake?

Seems like Feng Yu is not interested in negotiating.

Chapter 1379 – Let’s see who will be finished first

Bill Gates is unhappy with Feng Yu’s attitude.

Damn. If you are unwilling to negotiate, why are you here to meet me? You should know why I wanted to meet you. Are you here to tease me?

“Feng, doing business is not a solo activity. You must have a partner, and a good partner can help you save time and improve your business.”

Feng Yu looks at Bill Gates. Are you hinting that you are that ‘Good partner?’

“Bill, none of my business is owned entirely by me, and I always have partners. I believe Paul also knows my biggest business partner.”

Paul Allen immediately knows who Feng Yu is referring to. It must be that damn Russian drunkard!

“Feng, we are doing business is because of profits, and no one should reject any opportunity to make more money. We are not and should not be enemies. Maybe your company had grown these few years rapidly, but your foundations are not stable. You don’t know how powerful those large consortiums are. You might be the World’s Richest Man, but how much wealth can you control?”

“I shall not mention Rockefeller or Morgan’s family. Just Warren Buffett can make a huge influence. Hong Kong’s Superman Li also has a strong influence globally. You are nothing compared to them.”

“You are also investing heavily in the IT industry and entered PC hardware, software, internet, telecommunication, etc. businesses. Don’t you know this will offend many people?”

“Microsoft is so powerful, but why didn’t we manufacture our PCs or invest in this industry? That’s because there are only two outcomes. If you succeed, you will be sued for monopolizing the market, and your company will be forced to break up. Secondly, you will be attacked by everyone in the industry, and your company will be destroyed.

Bill Gates sounds like he is giving Feng Yu bits of advice, but it is a threat. That’s right. Feng Yu had invested too heavily into the IT-related industries.

But these companies will attract lots of problems if they are owned by Feng Yu alone. No company can go against the whole industry, especially so many MNCs.

Feng Yu looked at Bill Gates and asked. “Do you think I will fail? Do you think you can suppress me by working with Intel? No one can acquire my company by force. Microsoft is not bad, but you all are not the industry leader. Maybe in the near future, your main profit from the PC operating system will be affected.”

Bill Gates looks at Feng Yu sharply. What does this mean? Is Lenovo Kingsoft still developing their PC operating system?

They had been developing smartphone operating systems, Office software, application software, electrical and robotic AI systems, etc… How can they still have the resources to develop a PC operating system?

This must be a bluff.

Bill Gates knows the difficulties of developing an operating system. He is an expert in this field and Microsoft’s top software engineer!

Microsoft had invested a lot of money to hire sufficient enough manpower to develop their operating system. Lenovo Kingsoft might have done well in Asia and Eastern Europe. Still, the income from those markets cannot be compared to Microsoft. Just look at their retail software prices, and you will know the difference.

A Windows operating system is selling at 199 USD, and only 20 USD in China. The Office software price difference between Microsoft and Lenovo Kingsoft’s WPS is more than ten times.

Microsoft can easily make more than 10 billion USD of profits in a year, but what about Lenovo Kingsoft? Even if Microsoft invested 10% of its profits into R&D, it is also around 1 billion USD. But how much can Lenovo Kingsoft make in a year?

Microsoft has the best software engineers in the world, and Lenovo Kingsoft is no match for them! No one in the world is Microsoft’s match!

Bill Gates is a proud person, and these people tend to think highly of themselves in certain areas. To him, only IBM is Microsoft’s worthy rival, and he thinks nothing of Lenovo Kingsoft!

Feng Yu must be bluffing. Which company in this world dares to claim they are stronger than Microsoft in developing PC operating systems?

Paul Allen could not hold back and said sarcastically. “Feng, did you get overconfident after becoming the World’s Richest Man? You can become the World’s Richest Man is because you own the most shares in your companies. That does not mean your companies are strong. Both your companies’ value is not even a third of Microsoft! Do you think you all can develop your PC operating system?”

Microsoft’s market value had started to recover, and it is nearing 40 billion USD. Wind and Rain Holding and Tai Hua Holding’s market value is only around 10 billion USD.

Feng Yu might be rich, but the combined wealth of Bill Gates and Paul Allen will be higher than him. The World’s Richest Man is only a title! How dare he become so arrogant?!

Bill Gates didn’t think much of Feng Yu’s two companies. He only felt Feng Yu’s companies have high potential and want to cooperate with him.

Since Feng Yu is unwilling to cooperate and is acting arrogantly, he must teach him a lesson! He will make him understand how powerful a large corporation is!

Currently, Microsoft’s market value is one of the highest in the World and the top IT industry!

“Are you looking down on me or us, the Chinese? I had wanted to speak to you all nicely but forget it. You had pissed me off. Bill, I feel sorry for you and Microsoft to have a partner like this.”

Feng Yu stood up and shook his head. He straightened his clothes and was about to leave.

“Feng, are you sure you want to compete with Microsoft?” Bill Gate asked.

Feng Yu stopped and replied without turning. “From tomorrow onwards, Microsoft’s Office software will be stuck on the shelves in China. No one in China will be buying your software unless you lower the retail price by 50%. Also, no one will be interested in your Microsoft’s smartphone system in a few years because Symbian might be willing to join my HOS system.”

“Oh, if you all regret saying those things, come and apologize to me. I might forgive you all. If not, let’s see which one of us has more money to burn. Let’s see if Microsoft can last before I become bankrupt!”

Chapter 1380 – Raising the standards

The negotiations failed. Feng Yu had wanted to work with Microsoft initially, as they are still the giants in the software industry. But Bill Gates hinted he would fail, and he cannot tolerate it. Furthermore, Paul Allen had made the situation worse.

Feng Yu admits that Microsoft’s value is double of his companies combined. But Microsoft does not belong to Bill Gates alone, and Feng Yu’s companies’ assets are not a small amount. Even if it cannot be compared to Microsoft, but the gap is not that big.

If Feng Yu added Kirilenko, the Fu family, Li family, and other friends, they would exceed Microsoft.

But the Fu family and Li family can only help Feng Yu’s assets not to be acquired by those big institutions. They are not powerful enough to acquire those institutions.

Feng Yu knows Kirilenko will help him fight this war against Microsoft but is unsure about the Fu and Li families.

Business partners are also differentiated into close and distanced partners. Kirilenko is Feng Yu’s close partner.

Of course, this has something to do with Feng Yu’s help in increasing Kirilenko’s wealth. Without Feng Yu, the Fu and Li families will still be Asia’s top influential families. But without Feng Yu’s help, Kirilenko will never be Europe’s Richest Man. He might not even become Russian’s Richest Man.

…….

“Manager Feng, are you saying that we can start selling our WPS foreign language version overseas? That’s great. I have wanted to do this for a long time ago. That Office is not as good as us, and the functions are lousy. Yet, they are still so popular despite their high price. I am confident we can gain a large part of the market share within a month.”

Microsoft had just released a new version of its Office software, and they are selling it now. But their older versions are still usable, and not many people are buying the new version.

As more people switched to the latest version and the older version is no longer compatible, people will buy it and increase sales.

This is the best time to snatch the market share from Microsoft.

Feng Yu had stopped Qiu Bojun from releasing the foreign language version overseas. He wants to negotiate with Bill Gates on how they are going to split this market. If they can conclude, they will set the barriers for other software companies.

But Feng Yu did not bring this up after seeing their attitude. Even if he brought it up during their meeting, Bill Gates would demand a larger market share based on the current situation. This will put Lenovo Kingsoft at a disadvantage.

Microsoft felt they are very big and belittled Lenovo Kingsoft. They don’t know that although Lenovo Kingsoft did not snatch Microsoft’s market share during this period, they had partnered with many software companies in other countries to develop a multi-language version.

This is not as simple as using translation software. It must consider the language’s characters, grammar, etc., and see if it will affect the program. If there are technical issues, they will not create waves on this launch.

Microsoft has high profits because its software is user-friendly. This helped them with their sales, and they can sell millions of copies for each product.

But now… a competitor has appeared.

…….

“WPS had made a breakthrough in their latest version. Compared to Microsoft’s Office, we have added new functions like… and fixed some bugs. Our Lenovo Kingsoft’s anti-virus has also added a Macro virus scanning ability. Currently, this new function only supports WPS.”

A macro virus is a powerful PC virus that can spread fast and is difficult to detect. It can cause massive damage and is hard to stop. Until Feng Yu’s rebirth, many people’s PC is still infected with this virus accidentally.

The virus might have come from someone else’s documents or email, and it will cause the PC to stop functioning. It is very annoying.

If someone’s PC got infected, it might spread to the whole company.

This virus will also have a great impact on the person’s files’ security.

Now, this virus can be detected in WPS files and will increase the user’s security. Also, the latest version has included several languages, and many overseas companies are interested.

Microsoft Office is powerful because it has become the standard of office software. WPS’s standard is different, and many people will not be used to it.

But WPS had raised its standards and increased its functions, making it more user-friendly and secure. This will become a threat to Microsoft.

Microsoft had never thought that another company would challenge the standards it set. They don’t dare to claim they have monopolized the market, but their software sales are the top in the world. All other software in other countries had to be compatible with Microsoft’s Office.

Bill Gates and the rest were disdained when WPS is compatible with Office. They felt this company is only trying to imitate their products.

Do you think selling at a lower price will make money? The profits we get from selling 100,000 copies is more than you all selling 1 million copies! Also, our brand is more famous, and you all are abiding by our standards.

The biggest advantage of setting the standard is raising the barrier to stop competitors from entering the market.

But now, Lenovo Kingsoft had raised the standards, and it is starting to affect Microsoft.

Microsoft had set the standard, but they are affected by it now.

Someone said that the Chinese create macro Viruses and first appeared on pirated software before spreading overseas. Some said it was from overseas, and it was created to steal confidential documents.

Regardless of whether you are using original or pirated software versions, Macro Virus can still affect your PC. Microsoft’s Office can only warn its user, and most anti-virus software cannot remove it.

Now, Lenovo Kingsoft’s anti-virus software can detect and delete this virus, but it is only available for WPS. This is a huge issue.

In terms of security, WPS has overtaken Office, and most people will choose WPS now. After all, WPS has better functions and is cheaper.

WPS has announced they had overtaken Office and is the leading office software.

Microsoft’s Office software’s sales in China stopped, and their overseas sales are also affected. Many foreign companies also switched to WPS because of the foreign language feature.

Microsoft’s person in charge in China quickly report to his headquarters. It was then he found out that the situation is more severe than he thought.

Chapter 1381 – Microsoft’s strategy

“Lenovo Kingsoft’s office software has added several foreign languages, and there’s not much different from ours. Their selling prices are also half of ours. How are we going to handle this situation?” Bill Gates asked.

“Feng is a shareholder of Lenovo Kingsoft, right? We should speak to him and prevent this vicious competition. If we can work together, we can raise the barriers and share the market. A healthy competition will give us the highest profits.” A director said.

Paul Allen waved his hand. “Why are we holding a Board of Directors meeting if it is so simple? Feng had dropped by two days ago, but he refused to cooperate with us. The next day, he started targeting our market, catching us off guarded.”

Paul Allen felt his face burning with embarrassment when he said this. Feng Yu had warned them that he would compete with them before he left. But they thought it was only the Chinese market.

Although the Chinese market is huge, it created the lowest profit for Microsoft. That’s why they are not worried. They had the time to take precautions, but they are too complacent.

That Director did not continue. That’s right. Feng was kicked out of Microsoft in the past and had become the World’s Richest Man now. It’s normal for him to be arrogant.

Furthermore, Feng Yu is young, and people his age are rash and stubborn. It’s not a surprise for him to suffer losses to compete with Microsoft.

To that Director, everyone at Feng Yu’s age is the same, including the World’s Richest Man.

Ballmer frowned and asked. “Since Feng wants to compete with us, then we will accept his challenge. With our cash reserves, we don’t need to worry about that company.”

“Steve, do you know what you are saying? We are talking about money now. If we lower the retail price by half, our profits will plunge. Our share prices will also be affected if we do this, and we will lose the investors’ trust!” Paul Allen shouted.

“Then what do you suggest? Do you have a better solution, or can you persuade Lenovo Kingsoft to raise their price? Can you sell our products when our product is inferior to theirs and priced doubled of theirs? I need to remind you that you are in charge of our R&D department now!”

“What do you mean? Are you saying that the R&D department had failed after I took over?! Some of that WPS’s functions had exceeded us when I took over!”

Paul Allen is furious because Ballmer is pinning the blame on him. Did he think that he is superior after becoming the President and CEO? He should be given any shares and let him enter the Board of Directors in the first place!

“Since WPS had already exceeded us when you took over, why is the gap not narrowed after so long, and it had widened further? Do you even know what you are saying now? Is this the time to talk about our selling prices and share prices? We should focus on retaining our users and protect our market share now.”

“Our Office has the most users globally, and all other office software has to follow our standards to be compatible with us.”

“But now? A new product with better functions than us has appeared. This product is not inferior to ours, and what does this represent? It means the standards had been raised, and we are not the ones who raised them! This is the fault of the R&D department under your charge! What have you been doing these few years?!”

“You have your own company but still want to hold on to your authority in Microsoft. Did you fulfill your responsibility? You had spent most of your time on your company, and you should bear the responsibility for this situation!”

Ballmer had shocked other Directors. This is a fallout between Paul Allen and him, and he is forcing Paul to give up his authority in the company.

Ballmer has already become the President and CEO of Microsoft. What else does he want? That’s right. He has become the top person of the company, but Paul’s department doesn’t listen to his orders. Coupled with their previous grudges, it’s not a surprise for them to fallout now.

The other Directors are surprised that Bill Gates did not stop them. Did he agree with Ballmer?

Paul Allen also notices something. No one is supporting him and everyone, including Bill Gates, looks at him with disapproving looks.

But Paul Allen will not hand over his authority, and the easiest solution is to divert everyone’s attention.

“Alright. Then tell me, what should we do now? Lowering our selling price by half can get back our market share? Do you think they will not lower their prices further? Look at their selling price in China, and you will know Lenovo Kingsoft’s production cost.”

“No. We still have an advantage in the English-speaking market. Although their Chinese developers are cheaper than us, their mother tongue is Mandarin. They have to work with other companies to develop other languages. That means their cost for foreign language version will be higher.”

“We are different. We have branches in many countries and hired many employees. Many of our versions are developed by ourselves, and our cost is lower. We might not be their match in China, but we are still advantageous in other markets.”

Before Ballmer can continue, a Director interrupts. “Who says we will lose in the Chinese market?”

Everyone looks at that Director. Did they miss anything that can turn things around?

“What will happen if we stop piracy protection and stop using activation codes?”

Everyone is shocked. This will increase piracy, and no one will buy their original version anymore. Wait a minute. He says that we can use pirated software to snatch the market share, just like what they did in the past.

This solution will harm the other party without benefiting Microsoft.

“We can stop the upgrades to this version and introduce a new version in three years. This will cause Lenovo Kingsoft to have no profits and suffer losses. It will be a devastating blow to them if no one is buying their software after investing so much into it.”

“2 to 3 billion losses annually is nothing to us. We can recover the losses in the future if we still own the market share!”

Chapter 1382 – Microsoft’s strategy

“Old Lei, how is it? Is our office software selling well these few days?” Feng Yu called Lei Jun and asked.

“It is selling well in the first three days, but something happened the day before yesterday. There is a sharp increase of pirated Microsoft users, and it affected our product sales.”

Huh? An increase of pirated Microsoft users? How is this possible? Microsoft’s latest version of Office is cracked so fast?

If the codes are cracked, they can only be used for a month without the activation code. Also, it will be recorded in the users’ Microsoft operating system, and the user must reinstall the operating system before they can use the pirated version again. This is too troublesome, and many people don’t know how to reinstall it.

WPS’s office software’s promotion price is only 69 RMB, and most people should be willing to buy it. Did someone crack Microsoft’s latest Office entirely?

“What happened? Do you know who had cracked their code? Can you hire this person secretly? This guy is a genius.”

The ones who can create computer viruses like trojan, etc., are all coding experts. They are valuable if they used their talents properly.

“Manager Feng, this incident is very weird. A software called Office’s activation code generator suddenly appeared in the market. It can generate the codes for the pirated version. The pirated version is the same as the original version with no limitations!”

“We traced this software. It appeared suddenly on the internet two days ago and was shared on all the major websites in China for free downloads within a short time. The first uploaded address is in an internet café.”

“It’s understandable for someone to upload this program from an internet café, but it was shared to multiple websites within two hours. This is very suspicious. Someone is purposely promoting it!”

Feng Yu also finds it suspicious after Lei Jun’s explanation. Why would one not try to make money after cracking Microsoft’s Office codes? Many people will be interested even if he is selling 10 RMB per download. He can also write a protection code for this program and limit the generator to generate three activation codes. This way, he can make more money.

This person can make a few hundred thousand easily.

Even if this person doesn’t want to profit from this program, he shares it with everyone on the internet. It seems he is targeting Microsoft, but why is Microsoft keeping quiet about it?

All companies will warn consumers that using pirated versions of their software is against the law and is infringing copyright. Microsoft’s Office sales are not as good as Kingsoft’s, but some people still buy them.

Even if Microsoft sold 100,000 copies, it is about 2 million USD with their selling price of 169 RMB per copy.

Furthermore, how can Microsoft’s sales be only 100,000 copies?

“Are you saying that this has something to do with Microsoft?” Feng Yu asked.

“Manager Feng, we are not making this up. Microsoft’s security protection is one of the best globally, and this activation code generator should be one of its cores. How can it be cracked so easily? The only possible explanation is one of the developers had cracked it and developed this activation code generator.”

“Also, Microsoft is ignoring this, and it’s obvious they are turning a blind eye to it. More users will download the pirated version and use the activation code.”

“Although our office software has some features better than Microsoft, the difference is not that great. The more complicated functions are better than them, but most people will not use these functions. We are already selling at a low price, but who is willing to buy it when there is a free version around?”

“But we don’t understand why this Microsoft staff has done this. He must have deep grudges with them for him to do this. Still, Microsoft should have reacted to this unless Microsoft is purposely allowing piracy to thrive. This can affect our product sales, but what’s there to benefit for them?”

Feng Yu thought for a while and replied. “Microsoft does have some benefits from this incident. First, they can sue those pirated version users, especially the companies and even governments. They can get a sum of compensation and increase their influence.”

“Secondly, they can increase their software users, and block our office software. We had put in considerable resources to promote and introduce our software. If users don’t buy our original software, we will not recover our cost and will suffer heavy losses.”

“Although Microsoft will also suffer losses by doing this, they can afford one to two billion USD of losses, and Lenovo Kingsoft cannot afford one to two billion RMB of losses.”

Feng Yu understood Microsoft’s motive. They are trying to create a lose-lose situation.

Microsoft wants to use its scale and resources to beat Lenovo Kingsoft. They want to make Lenovo Kingsoft suffer losses. Their PC operating system and other software development will be affected without the profits from the software sales.

“Old Lei, have we recovered our development cost?” Feng Yu asked.

“Our overseas market is not making any profits, and if we can’t sell it in our domestic market, we will suffer some losses. But we forecast we should get more than 500 million USD of profits from this software. Without this profit, our other software development plans will be affected.”

“Our PC operating system has reached a critical stage and requires a large fund. Our smartphone operating system is only used by Wind and Rain Mobile and Aiwa Mobile. We are not getting many profits from it. The Anti-virus market is too competitive, and we can only make some profits from enterprises’ security. The ordinary anti-virus is only breaking even.”

Lenovo Kingsoft’s development plans are all in a mess now.

But Microsoft had belittled Lenovo Kingsoft and Feng Yu. This is just a matter of who can afford to burn more money.

“I will be back tomorrow. Notify Old Liu, Old Qiu, and the rest for a meeting. We will declare war on Microsoft!”

Chapter 1383 – Fighting for markets

“Feng, what’s there to discuss? Microsoft wants to compete with us to see whose money can last longer!” Kirilenko heard what Lei Jun said.

Kirilenko doesn’t care about Microsoft and thought nothing about them.

“Mr. Kirilenko, it’s this easy. Microsoft’s assets are tens of billion USD, and it’s from their office software. If they beat us, they can easily make tens of billion USD in the future.”

“Our products had just entered other markets. Other than our Chinese market and East European market, we are not making profits. Even if we invested a large amount of money in stabilizing the market, when can we recover the losses? The return on investment is not worth it.” Qiu Bojun explained.

Microsoft’s products are selling at a high price and had opened up the markets. Consumers’ and users’ acceptance rate of them is also very high.

Lenovo Kingsoft’s office software has just entered those markets. Despite selling at half of Microsoft’s price, they still have to work with the local software companies. On top of that, they still have to spend a sum of marketing fees. Suppose their sales cannot meet their forecast, they will not make any money.

Qiu Bojun also felt burning money is not a good move because they might not get the market share and waste lots of money. Even if they succeed, the returns might not be as high as expected in the future.

An activation code generator was released for the latest Microsoft Office. Who can guarantee if anyone can develop one for their software in the future? If this software cannot make money, they will suffer a massive loss.

Of course, if they can get more users and provide some add-on paid services, they can still get some profits.

“Did you all notice that Microsoft’s activation code generator is only for our Chinese and East European market? Why is this generator not available for other markets?” Feng Yu knocks on the table and asked.

“Are you saying that we should create an activation code generator code for other countries’ versions?” Lei Jun felt this is unethical and might be illegal.

“Why should we create it? We only need to let this Microsoft staff create it and post it on the overseas website. We don’t need to care whether it is suitable and how they will upgrade in the future. If this is successful, Microsoft will suffer massive losses. Their development cost is not lower than us.”

Although Microsoft has many branch offices in many countries and all of their different language versions are translated by their internal staff, their wages are very high. Especially the American software engineers.

Lenovo Kingsoft might have partnered with other software companies for their foreign language versions. Their initial development cost is much lower. Their developers’ wages might be the highest in China, but they are still much lower than Microsoft.

Lei Jun and the rest brightened up.

That’s right. Microsoft had created this activation code generator, and it is digging its own grave.

But this will also affect Lenovo Kingsoft’s office software sales. They had just entered Europe and the US markets, and they might not even recover their advertising cost.

This will be a lose-lose situation.

“Microsoft is relying on their high selling prices to generate high profits. If their high profits are gone, their share prices will plunge.”

“Microsoft had controlled Europe and the US markets, and we had entered these markets late. Even if we can get 10% of the market share, it will be a success. But if they lose 10% of their market share, it will be considered a failure, and their shareholders will be upset.”

Bill Gates might own the highest voting shares and has the support of the other shareholders. Still, the shareholders will leave him if Microsoft suffers losses.

The shareholders might not have enough shares to remove Bill Gates, but they will dump Microsoft shares. This will result in mass dumping, and the share prices will plunge again.

Microsoft’s share prices had just started to recover, which will definitely be a heavy blow to them!

With the share prices plunging and Microsoft burning money to compete with Lenovo Kingsoft, the share prices will fall faster.

“Then what other countermeasures should we do?” Qiu Bojun asked.

“I think since we had spent so much on introducing our software, why don’t we increase our spending? Even if we cannot make money, but we can get the market share. Under normal circumstances, Microsoft will introduce a new version within three years to make money. They will not allow these pirated versions to continue.” Liu Chuanzhi said.

“I also agree with Manager Liu. Since we will not make money and might suffer losses, we should snatch the market share and users. This will help our sales when we introduced our next version, and recover our cost.” Lei Jun agreed.

Feng Yu looks at the rest, and all of them agreed. Kirilenko also added that since they are going to increase their marketing, they might have suppressed Microsoft on marketing. This will let everyone knows that Lenovo Kingsoft has the best office software in the world!

“Alright. Since you all agreed, we shall declare war on Microsoft and rob them of their market share. Our marketing efforts are not aggressive previously. This time, we will increase our marketing budget by 100 million RMB in China and 100 million USD overseas first. If it’s insufficient, we will increase it!” Feng Yu decided.

Although Lenovo Kingsoft’s Chairman is Qiu Bojun, this is a shareholders meeting. Feng Yu is the biggest shareholder, and Lenovo Group is Kirilenko.

No one will oppose Feng Yu’s decisions, and no one dares to override him.

“Manager Feng, this will delay our other projects’ development. We will not have enough funds.” Lei Jun reminded.

Feng Yu waved his hand. “No need. Go and get a loan from Min Sheng Bank. They will approve it.”

“Manager Feng, should we get listed to raise funds?” Qiu Bojun said.

Feng Yu realized this wants they wanted.

Getting listed is also a good option.

Chapter 1384 – Pushing closer

“President, after that activation code generator appeared, Lenovo Kingsoft’s office software sales are greatly affected. It has stopped.” The person in charge of the China market reported to Ballmer.

Ballmer is unhappy. What’s there to be proud of? Don’t you know that our Microsoft Office software is also not selling?

But the number of Microsoft Office users had increased. They can slowly introduce some new features that are not compatible with Lenovo Kingsoft office software. This will push them out of the market, and they can gain back the market share again.

Three years later, the users will be used to Microsoft Office, and Microsoft will release a new version to gain profits. They will stop upgrading the current version to force users to switch to the new version.

“Ok. But you all must still try to sell our software. We can target those major corporations and the Chinese Government. Those people might not doubt the security of the free software.” Ballmer reminded.

After hanging up, Ballmer is still quite satisfied with this result. Although Microsoft will suffer some losses, they had gotten some of the Chinese market shares.

It is about the same for the Eastern Europe market. They will use the same strategy to gain the market share there.

The rest of Europe and other regions are Microsoft’s turf. Despite Lenovo Kingsoft is selling their office software at half of their selling price, the major companies doesn’t trust their security.

Many people have the mindset that cheap things are not good.

Also, many people’s impression of China software is lousy.

Are there any good software engineers in China? Even if there is, they are working for Microsoft’s branch office in China or other regions. The software companies in China are weak!

Lenovo Kingsoft is not as famous, and its brand awareness cannot be compared to Microsoft. They might have affected Microsoft Office’s sales, but it’s not that serious. Ballmer felt that if they can win against Lenovo Kingsoft, they will regain all their lost market share.

There are many types of office software in different countries and regions, but none of them can compete with Microsoft. Even if some are good enough to challenge Microsoft, they must also abide by Microsoft’s standards. In other words, they are just imitations.

If Microsoft cannot even control its imitators, it will not be the industry leader.

Microsoft’s biggest enemy now is Lenovo Kingsoft and its smartphone operating system.

I will block one of your revenue sources and see how are you all going to develop yourself? Microsoft is never afraid of competing with others in terms of funds.

Microsoft’s current sources are their operating system, office software, instant messenger, browser, and media player.

Other than media players, all of their major products are industry leaders. Microsoft can even suppress IBM, let alone a small Chinese company.

They don’t even care if Feng Yu has shares in this company!

Microsoft can give Lenovo Kingsoft pressure with just their office software, and they still have anti-virus and operating system businesses. We will give you a heavy blow in these businesses as well!

…….

“Microsoft has announced their latest smartphone operating system. The controls are upgraded, and many functions had exceeded the previous version. They had also added an application download feature, and users can download the applications from their official website for free.”

“Samsung mobile, HTC, Motorola, and many other companies had expressed interest. Even Japan’s Sony Ericsson wants to join them. This will increase their influence, and more manufacturers will start using their operating system. Users will get used to their system, and it will not be good for us.”

Xu Lihua asked Qiu Bojun when will HOS upgrade be ready. They are lagging behind Microsoft too much, affecting Wind and Rain Mobile and Aiwa Mobile’s smartphone sales. Aiwa Mobile still has a plan to use the AIWA brand to enter the Japanese market!

If the response towards AIWA phones in Japan is good, they will start to enter the Korean and Taiwanese markets.

Qiu Bojun felt this is a serious matter. How did Microsoft develop a new generation of smartphone operating systems so fast?

“Don’t worry, Manager Xu. We are prepared and can introduce the upgrades now. Although it is not a major upgrade, it is as good as Microsoft’s. We will continue to introduce upgrades later this month, and I promise our technology will not lose to them.”

Qiu Bojun consoled Xu Lihua, but he is still worried. They might maintain the lead this time, but can they hold on to it if Microsoft gets serious and invested massive funds to develop it.

Very few manufacturers had used the Microsoft smartphone operating system in the past, and their profits from this business are low. But now, their profits will increase with so many manufacturers using it. They will have more funds to invest in their development.

“Since you say so, I am assured. I will speak to Wind and Rain Electronics, Old Jiang. We should also develop more application software. It’s too little now.”

Qiu Bojun thought in his heart. You are making it sound simple. Although Lenovo Kingsoft is the biggest software company in China, it has too much on its plate.

Almost all the resources are invested in developing the PC operating software. How are they going to find people to develop software applications?

“I will try.”

……

“Chairman, Trend Micro had released their latest anti-virus software, and they had reached agreements with several major corporations. We have lost many big clients.”

Trend Micro is a Japanese company and is the top anti-virus company in the world. Not only are they a listed company, but they are also a constituent stock of Nikkei.

This company focused on enterprise security, and they are the strongest enterprise security software company. However, they are not famous for personal anti-virus software.

Qiu Bojun rubbed his brows. It’s all bad news these few days.

“I know. Is there anything else?”

“They have also introduced personal anti-virus in Chinese. They are targeting us.”

Trend Micro had introduced a Chinese version of personal anti-virus?! This will be troublesome, and it will affect the Chinese anti-virus market.

Lenovo Kingsoft had finally got the lead in the Chinese market, and a strong competitor has appeared.

Qiu Bojun doesn’t know that Microsoft and another company had played a part in this.

Trend Micro

Chapter 1385 – Break them up

When Qiu Bojun and the rest are having headaches, Feng Yu is in his office listening to Kameda Masao’s report.

“You are saying that you had rejected the cooperation between Google and Yahoo, using Google is getting listed as an excuse. Now, they are offering new terms?”

“Yes. Softbank has plans to enter the Chinese IT market. They felt that if they can control the PC, software, internet, telecommunication, etc., they can get endless high profits.” Kameda Masao replied.

Feng Yu burst out laughing. They want to control the Chinese market?! Am I invisible?

“They planned to work with several major corporations to attack the Chinese market together. They target major Chinese companies, like Lenovo Group, Wind and Rain Electronics, Sina, and many other companies.”

“Oh? Which companies have they contacted?”

Feng Yu got a fright when Kameda Masao reads out a long list.

Softbank is indeed the top IT investment company. Many top IT companies are willing to cooperate with them.

“You are saying that Softbank is working with Microsoft too?”

“Yes. Softbank is Microsoft’s distributor, and they also own some of Microsoft Japan’s branch shares. They are involved in Microsoft’s recent moves towards the Chinese market recently.”

Microsoft and Softbank had joined hands, which is not good news for Feng Yu. Both are powerful companies, and it’s not as simple as one plus one equals two.

“Alright. Carry on with your work, and let me know firsthand if you have any new information. Oh, can AIWA mobile phone be introduced to the Japanese market?”

Aiwa Electronics has been producing a batch of AIWA brand mobile phones for the Japanese market. After all, AIWA has many retail outlets and has a group of loyal fans. This phone model is also focused on music. It has strong music features, like bigger storage, better music quality, longer usage time, etc.

“Alright. I will use my status as Softbank’s Director to stop our competitors from suppressing us. We are not afraid of fair competition.”

Feng Yu is satisfied with Kameda Masao’s attitude. AIWA will disrupt the Japanese mobile phone market, and it should be interesting. Although he might not make money, this move will affect Sony Ericsson, Sharp, and other Japanese phone manufacturers. Anyone will panic if their home ground is invaded.

It’s just like Feng Yu always says the Chinese market is the most important. Although overseas markets are good, the company must gain a strong foothold in China before venturing out.

Whenever Feng Yu’s companies introduce a new product, it will be launch in China first. It will either launch at the same time or later in other markets.

The Chinese market is Feng Yu’s roots and must never be taken away.

…….

“Manager Feng, Lenovo Kingsoft is facing a lot of difficulties. Many competitors had appeared suddenly. Some are even unheard companies, and they introduced many good products. We suspect someone is behind this.”

Liu Chuanzhi is worried as Lenovo Kingsoft’s potential might be higher than Lenovo PC within the group. IBM is also switching its focus from hardware to software.

Lenovo Group focuses on both hard and software, and any issues with either side will affect the whole company.

“I know about this. The company behind this is Japan’s Softbank group. They should be supporting those unknown companies you mentioned. Oh, Softbank and Microsoft have always been partners. We had overlooked this in the past.”

Softbank and Microsoft are working together? Liu Chuanzhi suddenly felt frustrated after hearing this. Lenovo Kingsoft is growing rapidly, and they appeared suddenly to stop them.

“But don’t worry. Kameda Masao is one of Softbank’s Directors and will provide the latest information to us. Softbank and Microsoft are trying to enter the Chinese market with their software and internet companies. But what if their interests collide?” Feng Yu asked with a smile.

Both cooperating companies have overlapping businesses, and who should give in? Microsoft is used to be the market leader, and they will never give in.

But Softbank has a wide range of businesses in different industries. For example, they are better at the Internet than Microsoft. They will also not give in.

Cracks will form in their cooperation. Even if this is a minor crack, Kameda Masao can make stir up troubles between them.

It’s hard to get two companies to cooperate, but there are many ways to break them up.

Feng Yu will not worry about any companies if these two companies are not in cooperation. This is his home ground!

“What overlapping businesses do they have?”

“They are competitors for Mobile phone application software, video player, internet browsers, and PC application software. Whoever’s browser can dominate the market can receive high traffic and advertisement profits. It will be a large amount. We shall start with the internet browser. We will compete with them.”

“Internet browsers? But Lenovo Kingsoft does not have an internet browser.” Liu Chuanzhi is confused.

“Lenovo Kingsoft does not have, but Baidu has. I had persuaded Li Yanhong, Wang Zhixi, and the rest to develop an internet browser without using IE core. Our concept is stronger than IE and will be much better than Yahoo’s browser. Oh, Yahoo’s latest browser is also not using IE core.”

“Will Yahoo help them If we publicize IE browser’s flaws? What if Yahoo joins in to trash Microsoft at this time? Do you think they can carry on with their cooperation?”

“But why would Yahoo join in against Microsoft at this time?”

“Because of Kameda Masao.”

Kameda Masao might not achieve more difficult matters. Still, it’s not a problem for him to represent Softbank to criticize Microsoft. As for a reason, it’s because Paul Allen had humiliated Kameda Masao in public previously.

Although Kameda Masao will be issuing this statement in his capacity, his Softbank Director status will make it different.

If no one raises an issue about it, Feng Yu will arrange someone to blow it up.

“Then I don’t need to worry this much. Oh, we have new buyers for our Lenovo Kingsoft smartphone operating system. We intend to give them the authorization rights.”

“A new buyer? Which company is it?”

“Korea’s LG Group, Siemens Group, and a new National-level State-owned mobile phone manufacturer call Hua Xin. They are manufacturing Walkie-talkie in the past.”

“Authorize them. This will also expand our faction and give us some profits. You should attend Baidu’s browser launch the day after tomorrow. Old Zhong and Kameda Masao will be attending, and there will be foreign reporters.”

Chapter 1386 – IE is outdated

“Our Baidu browser is using our core technology. We had developed this browser with Sina, Sohu, NetEase, Tencent, Alibaba, Yandex, and other companies. It has a quick start-up, faster browsing…. It also supports multiple bookmarks, giving users more convenience….”

The current IE is still at a single page mode, and this browser is attractive because it can open multiple pages at once. Most internet users will open more than one website.

IE’s start-up and loading speed are slower, and Baidu’s browser has more applications.

Baidu has acquired HAO123 recently, and this is China’s top online listing portal currently. Most Chinese set it as their homepage to browse the web.

Many navigation websites have imitated HAO123’s navigation portal. It has become China’s navigation website standard.

This is why Baidu spent 50 billion RMB and a portion of Baidu shares to acquire it.

HAO123’s traffic is as high as Sina, Yahoo, and other top websites. With Baidu’s resources, they might become China’s No. 1 website in the future.

Li Yanhong stood on the stage to announce the launch. Although Baidu is set up later than Sina and other internet companies, their core search engine technology is inferior to them. With Baidu’s acquisition of HAO123 and their new browser, their influence will become greater.

Baidu will be listed in Hong Kong soon. Its value will surely exceed Sina and other companies to become China’s No. 1 Internet company!

Li Yanhong has thought of this jointly developed browser’s idea. But he was worried the other companies would not agree, and he went to look for Feng Yu. Feng Yu supported his idea and helped him call the person in charge of other companies to invite them.

The browser’s development went smoothly with many companies’ support.

Other than the Chinese reporters, many foreign reporters are there to cover this launch. Some overseas internet companies had also sent their representatives to this launch.

Some of the audiences are invited Li Yanhong, and some are invited by Zhong Qingxian, Liu Chuanzhi, and the rest. Kameda Masao also invited some.

After Li Yanhong introduced his browser’s features, the reporters started to ask questions. Of course, some companies’ representatives also ask questions.

Microsoft’s China top software engineer raised his hand and asked loudly. “Which one of you had developed internet browsers before?”

Li Yanhong asked him back. “Has Microsoft developed any companies’ browser before you all developed IE?”

Are you saying that only Microsoft can develop web browsers and we can’t? The first version of IE is nowhere near our browser.

“You mentioned that you had compared the stats with other browsers. Are you comparing to only IE?”

“No. We had compared our browser to IE and other browsers. I need to remind you that the IE browser’s market share is not high globally. We had compared our browser to all the mainstream browsers globally, like Yahoo, Google… etc. IE is only one of them.”

This Microsoft engineer implies that their IE browser is the industry standard, and all browsers should be compared to them.

Maybe IE is only one type of standard, but many other browsers’ standards are not inferior to them. IE is only slightly above average, but it is not the top browser.

Today, Baidu will trample all over IE and let everyone what is considered the best browser. A browser that can surf the internet is not considered a good browser. Some browsers are destined to be obsolete.

That Microsoft engineer still wants to ask questions, but Kameda Masao stood up. “You had asked two questions, and it should be our turn. You are not the only one with questions.”

Kameda Masao made that engineer quiet. No matter how successful that engineer is, he is still an employee. But Kameda Masao is Japan’s Second Billionaire and the President of Wind and Rain Holdings.

“Mr. Kameda, what is your question?” Li Yanhong starts to act with Kameda Masao.

“I feel that Yahoo’s browser is the best, and its browsing speed is the fastest. We don’t even need to compare to IE because they are nowhere close!”

Kameda Masao’s statement shocked all the reporters. How can someone criticize Microsoft products in public? The reporters start to take pictures.

News… this is a piece of big news!

Kameda Masao did not mention anything about Google and only talk about the Yahoo browser.

Yahoo China’s person in charge is struggling. He should be happy to hear people praising his company’s browser, especially someone with a higher social status.

But why must you mention IE? Although we also think IE cannot be compared to us, you should not say this publicly. This will offend Microsoft, and we are partners now.

Microsoft’s engineer is furious until his lips tremble. Kameda Masao is too arrogant!

What do you mean by nowhere close? Our IE has the highest market share in the market! Although the percentage is not that high, we are still the highest!

New browsers appear almost every few months, and the competition is stiff. IE can get the highest market share is an amazing feat.

Even if you point out IE flaws and all have more features, you cannot change the fact that we own the highest market share. How dare you all belittle Microsoft?!

Yahoo is only the World’s No.1 web portal, but you all are also forced to break up because of monopolizing the market. We had been sued for anti-trust too, and we settled it with a few hundred million USD.

How dare Yahoo belittle Microsoft?! We shall see which browser will emerge as the winner!

That Microsoft engineer stood up angrily and was about to leave when Kameda Masao added. “IE is outdated and is destinated to be obsolete!”

The engineer stopped for a second and continued his way without turning back.

Outdated? Obsolete? We shall see who will be obsolete!

Chapter 1387 – Enmity increases

“Yang, you must give Microsoft an explanation for this incident. Why is Yahoo attacking us? We had an agreement!” Ballmer questioned Yang Zhiyuan over the phone.

“Mr. Ballmer, this is a misunderstanding. We did not attack Microsoft.” Yahoo’s CEO Yang Zhiyuan explained.

“Fine. Why is the news all reporting about this? Are you telling me that all the reporters had misunderstood this?”

“Ballmer, you can watch the video footage of that day or ask others what happened. It’s Kameda Masao who had made that statement, and he is Wind and Rain Holding’s President. You should know what that means.” Yang Zhiyuan reminded.

“Hmph! He is also Softbank’s new Director. I might believe he made that statement because of Wind and Rain Holdings if he praised Google’s browser. But he is praising your Yahoo browser. He can’t be helping to promote Yahoo for no reason.” Ballmer shouted.

“That’s their plot. Can’t you see it? This is a simple plot to make us turn against each other and let Google browser develop quickly.” Yang Zhiyuan explained.

“A plot? Who will use such a lousy plot? I would believe you if Softbank removed his director status.”

“First, I cannot represent Softbank to give you any answer. I am not Sun Zhengyi. Secondly, even if you look for Sun Zhengyi, he will not kick him out of the board of directors. This will affect Softbank’s listed companies.”

Kameda Masao had just joined as Softbank’s Director. It will affect their listed subsidiaries’ share prices if they fire him now. Softbank’s shareholders will suffer losses, and they will never agree to it.

Furthermore, Yang Zhiyuan knows the reasons why Softbank got Kameda Masao on board. It is to raise their share price and use their connections to enter the Chinese market.

Kameda Masao’s status will not change until Softbank’s plan succeed. Also, Softbank wants to invest in Wind and Rain Holdings’ IT-related companies through him.

“Yang, I will offer an alternative. Yahoo will issue a statement saying Kameda Masao is wrong.”

Yang Zhiyuan rejected again.

Are you kidding me? If I issue a statement saying Kameda Masao is wrong, our browser is inferior to IE. As Yahoo CEO, Yang Zhiyuan will never do this.

Ballmer slams down the phone.

There are too many news reports about Kameda Masao’s statement because Baidu’s new browser launch happened. IT reporters from all over the world were watching this.

That Microsoft engineer did not retort at the product launch, and a rumor appears on the internet. They felt that the Microsoft engineer had agreed with Kameda Masao that IE is not as good as Yahoo’s browser.

IE users start to fall, and Yahoo’s browser’s downloads increased.

Browsers are free software, but they can profit from other areas. For example, advertisements. They can also use their back-end data to profit from it.

Many companies develop their browsers to promote their brand and technologies.

Yahoo’s previous browser is based on IE, but they had developed their technologies.

This is equivalent to Yahoo moving away from Microsoft’s standard and created their standard. They had become competitors.

Microsoft and Yahoo had cooperated well, especially in the Chinese market, and Yahoo is strong in working with major corporations. After all, Yahoo is the world’s No. 1 web portal.

Yahoo is the best platform for advertising, website links, interactions, etc.

Microsoft was negotiating with Yahoo to develop Chinese version software in China to snatch Lenovo Kingsoft’s market. They even planned to develop a smartphone operating system together.

Microsoft will be leading, and Yahoo will assist in developing the smartphone operating system. The bigger share of profits will go to Microsoft, and it will be named one of their brand.

But now, all these are impossible.

The Board of Directors decided Ballmer’s terms to Yang Zhiyuan, and Yahoo’s rejection means no longer on their side.

Microsoft is wary of Yahoo because it has Softbank and its IT companies’ support. Who knows if they can develop a product to challenge them in the future?

Is Softbank supporting Yahoo to snatch Microsoft’s browser market share?

If Microsoft gives in on this matter, Softbank might demand more the next time. One of Softbank’s subsidiaries is also developing a PC operating system and trying to overtake Microsoft.

Video player is another software product Softbank is working on. Softbank has the most IT products in the world because it had invested in many IT companies.

Microsoft stopped their smartphone operating system negotiations and other cooperation with Yahoo suddenly.

When Softbank was asking Yahoo what happened, Microsoft’s cooperation with Softbank’s subsidiaries was also canceled.

Microsoft is taking action against Softbank.

Microsoft’s confidence comes from its status as the World’s No. 1 software company, and all its partners will be noticed. If it is a listed company, its share price will rise. This is due to the profitability of Microsoft’s products.

That’s why Microsoft dares to impose sanction measures against Softbank. Many companies are queuing to work with Microsoft, and Softbank’s subsidiaries are not the only ones.

Those small companies will surely suffer massive losses once they leave Microsoft, and Microsoft’s losses are minimal. Based on their overbearing contract terms, most of the research data will go to them.

Microsoft’s actions had put Softbank in a terrible spot.

Sun Zhengyi must do something now.

Chapter 1388 – Softbank is in trouble

Sun Zhengyi quickly contact Ballmer, but Ballmer refused to speak to him. Microsoft is used to be overbearing and will never give Softbank face.

Although Softbank is Microsoft’s partner in Japan, they can also manage on their own. They will not suffer heavy losses without Softbank.

This is also another opportunity to show other IT companies who’s the boss in this industry!

Sun Zhengyi called Bill Gates, but Bill Gates told him that Ballmer is managing the company now.

Sun Zhengyi is furious. Microsoft might be strong, but Softbank is not a pushover either. At its peak, Softbank’s value is not lower than them.

Microsoft’s products are also Softbank’s competitors. Since you are so arrogant, we will work with other companies.

Softbank started to contact other companies, especially those European IT corporations, to attack the North American market. But another problem arises in Japan.

…….

“Manager Sun, Sony, Panasonic, and many electronic companies had contacted us, questioning us why are we helping AIWA.”

“Help AIWA? What are they saying? We did not participate in AIWA’s product developments. Where did this accusation come from?” Sun Zhengyi is puzzled.

AIWA is a consumer electronics company and focused on music-related electronic products. What has Softbank got to do with them?

Did AIWA start to produce PCs? AIWA’s Heitaro Nakajima had approached him for investment in the past. Still, he did not invest because he did not see any future in AIWA.

“AIWA has just launched a new Music mobile phone and is advertising aggressively. They had engaged a popular singer to endorse it, and it is selling well.”

“What do you mean? What has their mobile phone got to do with us? Also, what is a Music mobile phone?”

“The phone can play MP3 and has good music quality. More importantly, AIWA is a subsidiary of Wind and Rain Holding.”

“Wind and Rain Holding? Are you saying this is related to Director Kameda?” Sun Zhengyi understood what happened.

“That’s right. This is related to Director Kameda. He had bought AIWA’s mobile phone technology from Aiwa Mobile, and our software companies develop the phone’s operating system and some application software.”

Sun Zhengyi is getting frustrated. What’s wrong with our companies supplying the operating system and software to other companies? Are Sony and those companies saying that we can only work with them?

Sony can work with Ericsson. Why can’t we work with AIWA?

Furthermore, what can this mobile phone do? Japan has so many mobile phone manufacturers, and this is AIWA’s first mobile phone. How good can it be? Sony and those companies are only upset because they feel AIWA is taking away their market share.

“Tell them that this is just a normal commercial activity. Also, contact Director Kameda… never mind. I will call him.”

Sun Zhengyi rubbed his nose bridge. He felt exhausted as he picks up his phone to call Kameda Masao. “Director Kameda, are you in Tokyo? If you are free, can you come to my office? I have something to discuss with you.”

Kameda Masao arrives at Sun Zhengyi’s office in the afternoon.

“Manager Sun, what is it?” Kameda Masao asked.

“Director Kameda, I heard AIWA had just launched a mobile phone. Congratulations.”

“Yes. It’s just a new revenue source for the company. Furthermore, we had just started and didn’t even know if we can profit from it.”

Although this is the first phone, Heitaro Nakajima had tested it. All of them felt this phone is suitable for the younger adults and female market. This phone includes all the MP3 player’s features and is not expensive. It is also available in bright colors.

AIWA is a strong brand in the music electronic product industry. There’s nothing wrong with them calling their phone a Music phone. AIWA’s fans will surely buy this phone. With their aggressive advertising, their sales will not be too bad.

Heitaro Nakajima had always wanted to develop a mobile phone, but Feng Yu and Kameda Masao disagreed. Now, they agreed and designed a model that suits the AIWA brand. If this phone cannot sell, AIWA will give up on mobile phones in the future.

That’s why Heitaro Nakajima is using all ways to increase AIWA’s Music phone sales.

“Director Kameda, are AIWA’s phone operating system and application software are developed by our Softbank’s subsidiaries?”

“Of course. I am Softbank’s director. Why would I let other companies do it? What’s wrong? Am I wrong? I was under tremendous pressure when I made this decision. Tai Hua Holding’s Zhong Qingxian was questioning me why I did not use Lenovo Kingsoft’s operating system.” Kameda Masao replied with an annoyed tone.

“No. You misunderstood me. I am very happy about this. As for Softbank Directors, we should work together. For example, our employees’ uniform is all Uniqlo, and Yahoo is handling our online marketing. We can be stronger when we work together.”

“I also think so. Should Softbank order a batch of phones for our employees as gifts? Oh, I still have not thanked you for helping my cousin to enter the Government. I have bought a nice bottle of red wine from Europe. I will bring it over another time.” Kameda Masao smiled.

Kameda Masao is laughing in his heart. This phone is not considered a smartphone, and other than its operating system, it has very little application software. It is also very cheap, and Wind and Rain Holdings will profit if it sells well.

Sun Zhengyi hesitated for a moment. But when he thinks he still needs Kameda Masao’s help, he nodded. “Alright. We will purchase 10,000 units. But it must be the latest model.”

“Of course. I will not trash AIWA’s reputation.”

“You mentioned that our Yahoo’s browser is better than IE, and it had caused cracks in our cooperation with Microsoft.”

“I am not lying. I am using Yahoo’s browser, and it is much better than Microsoft. Am I wrong to promote Yahoo’s browser? Just ignore those online comments. I don’t have any grudges with Microsoft, except with that Paul Allen. I just dislike him. Did what I said affected Softbank? Do you want to explain?”

Sun Zhengyi smiled. “It’s fine. You don’t need to do any explanation.”

Softbank had fallen out with Microsoft, and there’s nothing to explain anymore. Also, an explanation will give the impression that they are afraid of Microsoft.

Suddenly, Sun Zhengyi’s secretary entered the office. He whispered something to him, and his face changed.

Chapter 1389 – Devastating blow

Sun Zhengyi’s secretary came with a piece of bad news. Sony and other companies’ ordinary mobile phone operating systems were developed by Softbank’s subsidiaries, including the applications. But now, Sony and other companies announced they would be letting Microsoft handle their operating systems.

Microsoft had given Softbank another blow, and Softbank’s subsidiaries are finished without these orders. They will not cover their operating cost.

Sun Zhengyi did not expect these companies to do this to him, and he realized AIWA’s mobile phone had placed Softbank in big trouble.

Sun Zhengyi’s only solution is to speak to those companies. Those companies can use Microsoft’s mobile phone operating system, but what about the applications? Microsoft might not have enough resources to develop applications. Even if they cannot get the meat, they must at least get the soup.

Sun Zhengyi does not have time to speak to Kameda Masao and quickly contacted Sony and other companies’ Chairmen. Kameda Masao overheard this and quietly left.

…….

“Oh? Sony and other companies had switched to Microsoft’s operating system for their mobile phones? That means Softbank is going to suffer massive losses.” Feng Yu smiled when he heard this piece of news.

Softbank thought they had gotten a good deal by recruiting Kameda Masao as their director. They did not know they would suffer a great loss instead.

Even if Softbank suspect Kameda Masao had done this on purpose, they would not fire him. After all, he had represented Softbank to contact some IT-related companies in China to invest in them.

“Boss, Microsoft’s profits will increase. Although the profit is not that high, their mobile phone operating system’s market share will increase. This is disadvantageous for us.” Kameda Masao replied.

“It’s alright. Those are ordinary phones, and the system is not complicated. It will be the smartphone era in the future, and we must focus on mobile phone operating system development. Of course, we are not going to give up ordinary phones’ system development. After all, the smartphone still has not replaced the ordinary phone, and its sales are not as good.”

The current mobile phone is not using high-end components, and it limits the phone’s operating system. Also, most people are using mobile phones to call or send SMS now, and the mainstream phone is still an ordinary mobile phone.

For example, Wind and Rain Mobile’s low-cost mobile phone sales had exceeded 30 million units worldwide.

This model might even break Nokia’s record in Feng Yu’s previous life.

“Softbank had asked me to contact several Chinese IT-related companies to invest or cooperate with them. They plan to use them as stepping stones to enter the Chinese market. They also want to bring in their apparel products through me. I am afraid I cannot drag it for too long, as I will resign at year-end.”

“Let’s talk about this another time. Just do your best to drag them out by acting with Zhong Qingxian. But you must remember this. You can resign from Softbank but must not be fired by them!”

Kameda Masao is Wind and Rain Holding’s President. If he is fired by Softbank, Wind and Rain Holding’s reputation will be affected.

“Don’t worry, Boss. Oh, our AIWA Music phones are selling well. Heitaro Nakajima is managing the sales. Although a lot is spent on marketing, the results are good. However, it caused AIWA’s MP 3 players sales to drop, and Sony’s MP3 player’s sales are worse than us.”

Feng Yu had warned Heitaro Nakajima that MP3 players’ sales would be affected after Music mobile phone is launched. But he insisted on letting AIWA manufacture mobile phones. Furthermore, AIWA’s phone is only sold in Japan now, and Japan’s MP3 players’ sales are not high in the first place. The first batch of MP3 players is not obsolete, and new users’ growth is not high.

The profit from mobile phones is higher than MP3 players.

AIWA is also working on a video player MP3 player based on Feng Yu’s suggestion. MPEG-4 had been introduced a few years ago, but it can only be played on PCs. Why can’t it be played on a small MP3 player?

Someone mentioned that if the small device can play videos, can it still be an MP3 player?

Who cares what is it called as long as the users like it? Feng Yu told Heitaro Nakajima that Wind and Rain Electronics, Aiwa Electronics, and other companies would buy the technology if this product is developed successfully.

Feng Yu had given lots of suggestions to his subsidiaries’ researchers. With these two functions combined, it will become a new product.

For example, combining CD player and recorder, recorder and radio, or these three products and selling it as a new product.

AIWA is trying to combine other product’s functions with MP3 players. For example, an MP3 player with a voice recording function. Heitaro Nakajima even thought of combining MP3 and digital cameras. This way, MP3 players can take and browse pictures, read e-books, etc.

If a product has multiple functions with good quality, consumers will surely buy it.

“Take note of the situation in Japan, and ask Ralph to take note of Microsoft’s actions. I want to know their every move.”

Microsoft is currently suppressing Lenovo Kingsoft. After posting it on overseas websites, Feng Yu thought that some IT experts would develop the activation code generator for overseas versions. But until now, there is no news.

Feng Yu doesn’t know someone had developed this English version of the activation code generator, but it was sold to Microsoft.

Microsoft had offered 5 million USD, and that developer couldn’t resist the offer.

Microsoft knows that if they don’t offer a high price for it, that person will release the activation code generator online, and it will cause heavier losses for them.

Although 5 million USD is a lot, it is nothing compared to Microsoft’s profits.

When Microsoft thought everything is over and they can continue to suppress Lenovo Kingsoft, their German version of the Office activation code generator is released.

This product activation code generator spreads rapidly. It was already downloaded more than 100,000 times when Microsoft noticed it.

Soon after, a universal version of the activation code generator appeared. It can work in all languages of Microsoft Office software.

Microsoft realized that things had blown out of proportion. Their Office software is going to be devastated!

Chapter 1390 – Cooperation and plotting

“I’m happy, I’m happy, three thousand dollars is going into my pocket….”

“Ahem!” Feng Yu stood behind Wu Zhigang and cleared his throat. “You are so happy because of three thousand dollars? Who dares to give our Tai Hua Holding’s Deputy President such low-value gift?”

Wu Zhigang smiled embarrassedly. “Boss, are you not happy about this? Microsoft Office is finished! Someone had developed a universal activation code generator, and their original version’s sales had plunged. From what we gathered, their sales fell by more than 90%, and I estimate it will fall to zero in a few days!”

“Do you think our office software is sellable when they can’t sell their Office software? Everyone is going to use the free version, and we are also affected. This is a double-edged sword. Don’t forget that we had also invested a lot in marketing.” Feng Yu reminded.

That’s right. Microsoft’s Office had suffered a devastating blow, but Lenovo Kingsoft is also affected. Other countries’ piracy is not as serious as China. Not many users will buy or download pirated software.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, very few people use free software overseas. First, it’s troublesome to download. Secondly, they are concerned about security. In China, it is the opposite. Very few people use paid software because why should they pay if they can get it for free?

If someone sold the pirated software, Microsoft could get the local government to take action. Profiting from pirated software is against the law.

But piracy also has an advantage. It will eliminate those smaller office software developers. These companies will not profit from their products, and users will not even use them when free.

Smaller companies will not have sufficient funds to take this blow, and they will be kicked out of the market. This is fine if it’s only a few months, but the current situation will last for at least two to three years.

Microsoft’s losses will be the greatest, followed by Lenovo Kingsoft and Softbank.

Softbank had invested in many IT-related companies, and many of them are office software companies. No one will be using these companies’ products, and they might even go bankrupt.

Feng Yu and the rest know that they and Microsoft will dominate the market in the future.

When the World’s No. 1 and No. 2 start fighting, the rest will suffer massive losses. For example, Coca-Cola and Pepsi fought over the Chinese market in Feng Yu’s previous life. Both companies advertised aggressively and launched all sorts of promotions.

This caused Fen Huang Cola, Fei Chang Cola, and other Chinese Cola brands to disappear. During the time when Jia Duobao and Wang Laoji fought for market share, a local beverage brand, Qizheng, also disappeared.

This is like squeezing the people behind you out and raise the ladder. Those companies without sufficient funds will fall and might even disappear.

“Alright. We had already spent on advertising, and we should continue with it. Maybe many people will try both software. After all, our software is cheap, and they will not use the free Microsoft Office for too long because they might download trojans. Those who use original software will continue to buy original copies, especially those companies. They will be worried about security.” Feng Yu said.

“Yes. We think so too. We will try to get more users these two to three years to gain the upper hand when they and Microsoft launch new office software versions then.”

Gain the upper hand? Quite ambitious. Users had gotten used to Microsoft Office for more than ten years. They had set the standards for at least five years, and it’s not realistic to beat them so easily.

Microsoft has a reserve of technologies and is very powerful. They had caught them off guarded and spent lesser on R&D this time. But two years later, Lenovo Kingsoft employees’ wages will increase, and they will lose their cost advantage.

Luckily, Feng Yu had thought about this before. Tai Hua Holdings and Wind and Rain Holding have a long-time partner, Tata Group, and they are a super conglomerate in multiple industries. They are also India’s biggest conglomerate.

Tata Consultancy Services is also very strong in software. India is one of the top countries in the IT industry.

How are they going to drag the leader off his throne? The easiest way is to work with the rest to drag him down and share the loot.

Most importantly, Feng Yu has many cooperations with Tata Group. Automobile, electronics, IT, trade, chemicals, etc. As India’s top conglomerate, they have business in the same industries as Feng Yu. They have around 100 subsidiaries, and this is more than Feng Yu.

Feng Yu does not have any suitable partners in the US. He had wanted to work with Bill Gates, but it seems it is impossible.

Feng Yu need to look for a new suitable partner. He is partnering with Philips, Thomson, etc., in Europe. Although these companies are not in as many industries as Tata Group, they are the best in their respective industries.

Bill Gates felt Feng Yu’s roots are not deep, and the latter will prove him wrong.

Tata Group’s Tata Communication had bought India’s Karbonn Mobile shares, but their mobile phone technologies are slightly outdated. Nokia is No. 1 in India’s mobile phone market, followed by Samsung, Motorola, Karbonn, Wind and Rain Mobile, and Sony Ericsson.

But Tata Communications want to establish their brand, and they entered into a cooperation with Tai Hua Holding.

They are interested in Wind and Rain Mobile’s supercheap phone and smartphone technologies. The cheap phone technology refers to low-cost production and materials, and Wind and Rain Mobile cooperated with Karbonn Mobile.

The title of World’s Factory will shift from China to India in the future. Foxconn, the world’s top contract manufacturer, will also shift its factories because of low labor costs.

Feng Yu plans to use India as China’s contract manufacturer. The Chinese should not focus on manufacturing and should focus on R&D.

One day, those developed countries will manufacture for China.

Feng Yu only knows of one company that had achieved this. Galanz, the leader in the microwave industry. Wind and Rain Electronics had researched microwave and convection ovens. But later, they used their technologies to invest in Galanz directly.

Galanz quickly moved out of China, and become the World’s top-selling home appliances, and redefine microwave. They lowered the microwave oven from 2,000 to less than 500.

This company impressed Feng Yu because it had hired a Japanese firm as their OEM. They paid this Japanese company 5 USD per oven produced. All along, the Japanese brands hired Chinese factories as their OEM, but Galanz did the opposite.

Feng Yu also want to let Japan, the US, and other countries by China’s OEM.

“Manager Feng, Ballmer is calling.”

Chapter 1391 – The Market is the King

“Transfer it in.”

Feng Yu picks up the phone on his desk. “Hello, Steve. Why are you so free to call me? Have you considered my offer for you to come and work in Wind and Rain Holdings or Tai Hua Holdings?”

Ballmer is capable and had worked in Microsoft for many years. If he can join Feng Yu, Lenovo Kingsoft’s sales will increase with his connections. He also knows about Microsoft’s strategies. Although he cannot reveal it based on his contract with Microsoft, he can still contribute in other ways.

Feng Yu knows Ballmer will not join him. He is the President and CEO of Microsoft. He can only be the CEO or President of either Wind and Rain Holdings or Tai Hua Holdings. Furthermore, Microsoft is paying him well.

“Feng, I am representing Microsoft to inform you. Bill will be going to China next week, and your country’s Leaders are welcoming his visit. I think we should continue to cooperate again.”

China State-owned Assets Administration is a shareholder of Lenovo Kingsoft, and China’s political influence is stronger than the US. As the former World’s Richest Man, and the Head of the World’s No. 1 software company, all Country Leaders will meet him.

Microsoft will use China’s top Leaders to pressure Lenovo Kingsoft to force Feng Yu to give in.

Of course, it will be better if Feng Yu can surrender now, as they can save money.

“Bill is coming to China? Haha… Is this the way you all negotiate for cooperation? Don’t forget that one of the terms in the G-box contract allows me to forcibly acquire Microsoft’s share at 1.5 times the market rate. Since you all had shown this attitude, Microsoft will have nothing to do with G-box in the future.”

Although 1.5 times the market rate sounds a lot, Aiwa Little Tyrant’s share prices will double once it got listed. Feng Yu can recover his losses through the market.

Aiwa Little Tyrant is prepared to be listed, but Microsoft wants them to be listed in Nasdaq. Feng Yu wants it to be listed in China or Hong Kong. Both have conflicting opinions, and the listing was stalled.

It doesn’t matter where the company is listed. Feng Yu only wants to tell Microsoft that he has the final say in G-box!

“Feng, you better reconsider this! If you do this, there will be no turning back!” Ballmer raised his voice.

“Do you think we can turn back now? Unless one party admits defeat, this war will not stop. You all had use despicable means to get market share, and what’s the point of talking about all these now?”

Microsoft is rich and can afford to spend money to get a market share. But they were prepared to burn a box of cash and ended up burning the whole car!

“What do you mean by despicable mean? You all are the ones who created that software in the European and US markets! You all are the despicable ones!” Ballmer shouted.

“We did not develop that software, and I can tell you that none of our employees had done it. It’s up to you whether to believe it or not.”

Ballmer kept quiet. He knows Feng Yu well. If he does it, he will dare to admit it.

Microsoft had only wanted to suppress Lenovo Kingsoft in the Chinese and East European markets. But it spirals out of control, and the whole Microsoft Office market is affected. Luckily, they still provide updates and new services for their previous Office versions and didn’t lose too many users.

Microsoft can only hold on, but their market share had increased, and the smaller players were all kicked out of the industry.

Markets are critical to every business. Even Walmart had made a statement about controlling the market and setting the game’s rules to get the maximum gains.

Why is Microsoft being sued for monopolization? They want to use their PC operating system to let their other products gain market share. They initially offer these products for free, but once they controlled the market, they will start to profit from additional services or advertisements.

After Ballmer ends the call, he passed Feng Yu’s message to Bill Gates.

Bill Gates paused for a few seconds and waved Ballmer to leave. He can’t be bothered with these anymore. His only solution is to get the Chinese government to intervene to recover the market.

…….

“Committee Member Bao, I’m Feng Yu. Sorry for the sudden call. Am I bothering you?”

“Hahaha… what do you need from me?” Committee Member Bao laughed.

Committee Member Bao knows his relationship with Feng Yu is not that close for him to call him unless important.

“I heard Bill Gates would be coming two days later. Which official will be meeting him?”

“Oh, it should be Premier Wei. Why? Do you also want to attend the meeting? That’s right. He is one of the top businessmen in the world, and we should have someone who can match his status to accompany him.”

Premier Wei? It should be Deputy Premier. Committee Member Bao made it sound like Bill Gates is VIP, and it’s an honor for anyone to accompany him!

“It doesn’t matter if I attend or not. Can you help me fix an appointment with Premier Wei? I need to discuss something with him.”

About five minutes later, Committee Member Bao called to tell Feng Yu that Premier Wei can spare twenty minutes to meet him at 6.30 pm.

……

“Good evening, Premier Wei.”

“Nice to meet you, Manager Feng. I believe this is our first meeting. I have always wanted to meet you all who had made significant contributions to our nation’s economic growth. This is a good start. Did you look for me because of Bill Gates’s visit?” Premier Wei asked with a smile.

Feng Yu did not beat around the bush. “Bill Gates’s Microsoft is currently fighting with our Lenovo Kingsoft company for the market share. They want to penetrate our Chinese market to gain higher profits, and to compete with us. Lenovo Kingsoft is the top software developer in China, Asia, and East Europe. We are confident of winning against Microsoft.”

“Are you saying Lenovo Kingsoft is stronger than Microsoft?” Premier Wei is not convinced as Microsoft is the no. 1 software company in the world.

“We have strengths in different areas. Lenovo Kingsoft is working on a PC operating system and have some breakthroughs. We will be introducing our operating system later this year and challenging Microsoft for the market share. Even now, we are competing with them on smartphone operating systems and office software.”

“Bill Gates will have some requests during his visit. I hope the government will support our domestic company and not be fooled by Microsoft’s offer. They are just trying to snatch our market and resources. No matter how attractive their offers are, it will not be better than developing our own company. Also, Lenovo Kingsoft is undervalued. We must not agree to them investing in us….”

Feng Yu is relaxed after leaving Premier Wei’s office, as Premier Wei will support Lenovo Kingsoft. He also told Feng Yu that the government would not agree to Microsoft’s offer immediately. They will discuss this over a meeting and will invite him to participate.

Bill Gates’s China trip will fail!

Chapter 1392 – Bill’s China visit

Feng Yu sighed as he looks at the Policemen and rolls of flowers along the roads. Some places and even schools are getting children to practice cheering with flowers.

Bill Gates is only a businessman and not a political figure. At most, he represents Microsoft and not a country. Is there a need to do all these to welcome him?

Also, why must children be forced to do these welcome cheers by the roadside whenever there are important guests? These children are our country’s future, and they should have better things to do.

“Boss, do you want me to make a detour?”

“No need. We can wait for them to pass by first. What’s wrong? Are you eager to go home to accompany your wife?” Feng Yu joked.

“Stop poking fun at me, Boss. Li Li is pregnant, and my in-laws had come over to accompany her. But I want to spend more time with her.” Mei Zhigao blushed and explained.

“Oh? You have just gotten married for half a year, and your wife is pregnant? Are you happy or frustrated?” Feng Yu purposely asked. The newly-wed pair should still be in their honeymoon period, but he can’t touch his wife now as she is pregnant.

“Boss, please don’t joke with me.”

“Haha… Alright. Take a week off after you sent me back. You can get Xiao Su to replace you temporarily, and you can impress your in-laws during this period.”

“Thank you, Boss.” Mei Zhigao smiles.

Mei Zhigao’s job is Feng Yu’s driver in Beijing, and he has the least work among his colleagues as Feng Yu is always not in Beijing. Feng Yu is also different from other people. He has never stay outside later than 11 pm.

Mei Zhigao is satisfied with his current life. His former comrades work as drivers for the Bosses or as security managers at the logistics centers. All these are because of Feng Yu.

……

“Mr. Wei. Nice to meet you.”

Premier Wei shook hands with Bill Gates and invited him to board the car.

“You all are so welcoming. There are so many people welcoming me, and your traffic condition is very good.”

The corner of Premier Wei’s lips twitched and did not reply. The local Government arranged those welcoming banners, people by the roadside, and smooth traffic.

Bill Gates’s reaction sounded like sarcasm to Premier Wei. He decides to inform the people on the ground to do away with the welcoming ceremony in the future.

“Mr. Wei, I would have visited China last year if not for some delays. I like China and hope I can play a part in China’s economic growth by contributing through taxes.”

Compared to the US, China’s taxes are nothing. The IRS imposed higher taxes than China, and Bill Gates plans to “donate” his assets to the charity fund set up by him and his wife. This can help him avoid paying taxes and let his son inherit his wealth without paying estate duties.

What happens if his son doesn’t have enough money to spend? Easy. Bill Gates will start transferring his assets to his son when he reaches 18 using various reasons. For example, setting up a company to do business with his son, etc.

When Bill Gates is old, his son will be at least a billionaire and inherit the charity trust fund.

Premier Wei smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Gates, for contributing to China’s economy.”

Premier Wei thought in his heart. You made it sound nice, but the taxes are only a small portion of what you made from the Chinese.

It’s just like what Feng Yu said. If there is no money to be made, will Bill Gates come?

Paying taxes is the same for every country. Are you saying that the US doesn’t collect tax?

Bill Gates could not tell Premier Wei is giving him a superficial reply. Premier Wei’s translator is in the front passenger seat, and it’s hard for him to translate. So, both did not speak much until they reach their destination.

“Mr. Gates, you mentioned that you want to invest in China. What industry are you going to invest in?” Premier Wei asked.

If Bill Gates did not mention investing a large sum of money, Premier Wei would not meet him. He hopes this investment will attract other businessmen to invest in China and stimulate China’s economy further.

The US economy can grow rapidly is because of many foreign investments.

“Microsoft is the Global software industry’s leader, and we are going to invest in software companies. We have a branch in China, and we hope to expand its operations. We have two strategies. Firstly, we will acquire and merge with some companies. Secondly, we will invest in some companies. Regardless of which strategy, we planned to invest at least 1 billion USD!”

Without Feng Yu’s warning, Premier Wei will be overjoyed. One billion USD is a large amount.

But Feng Yu had told him that Bill Gates is planning to take over the Chinese software market, which will stop Chinese software companies from growing. Premier Wei felt Feng Yu is not lying, and Bill Gates does have this ambition.

“Which company are you looking at?” Premier Wei asked.

“We have studied some internet, software, and telecommunication companies. For example, Baidu, Tencent, Sohu, Lenovo Kingsoft, and Jiang Xin Software. We plan to acquire or buy a stake in these companies, and our offer will be higher than the market rate.

The companies Bill Gates mentioned are the top IT companies in China.

China has a five-year plan for the IT industry and had implemented many policies to assist the industry growth. These western capitalists are trying to acquire these companies and stop their development!

These outsiders must be eliminated!

“The companies you mentioned are joint ventures between private and state-owned entities. I can help to introduce the person in charge but will not interfere.”

“Mr. Wei, we know the Chinese Government has a state in Lenovo Kingsoft. How about letting Microsoft invest 1 billion USD in this company for 51% shares? This price is much higher than the market value, and we can help groom more IT talents. Our Microsoft software engineers are the best in the world.”

Premier Wei sneered in his heart. Feng Yu is right. Bill Gates is trying to swallow Lenovo Kingsoft with 1 billion USD. Feng Yu had told him the company’s value would rise to over 10 billion USD in five years after it is listed!

Bill Gates is trying to take advantage of them!

The Chinese had been fooled by you Americans several times in the past. Do you think you all can continue to take advantage of us now? Dream on!

“Mr. Gates can speak to them yourself, and the Government will not interfere with the company’s development.”

Chapter 1393 – Coincidence?

Things did not go as Bill Gates expected. Didn’t the Chinese Officials have the reputation of money-grubbing and will do anything to score political points?

Ten billion USD for 51% shares is more than 20% of the market value. Why is he not satisfied?

Furthermore, they are Microsoft. Many companies are more than eager to get their investments, and it’s not even investing using their technologies.

Bill Gates didn’t expect the Chinese to be so greedy.

Bill Gates had asked Ballmer to call Feng Yu is because he doesn’t want to spend too much money. If he can get Feng Yu to agree to cooperation between Lenovo Kingsoft and Microsoft, he can save a lot of money and stop the war.

But Premier Wei still ask his secretary to bring Bill Gates over.

Bill Gates is still satisfied with this arrangement. He had heard that the Chinese Officials are very powerful, and it should be easy to reach a deal with the secretary around.

However, Bill Gates did not notice that Premier Wei is not interested in speaking to him and asking his secretary to send him away.

……..

“Qiu, Lei, after Microsoft has invested in the company, I will increase your salaries and increase your company’s shares.” Bill Gates said.

These two are the founders of Lenovo Kingsoft. If they agree to Microsoft investing in the company, it will be much easier. Even if it is unsuccessful, Bill Gates will also try to poach him to Microsoft.

These two will bring a team of elites to Microsoft, and Microsoft can quickly gain a foothold in China.

Qiu Bojun and Lei Jun looks at each other. They have heard that Microsoft has a strong management team, but Bill Gates is not good at management. This seems to be true.

The Leaders of a major corporation do not need to think of any solution. They can let their subordinates come up with a list of solutions and just pick one of them.

The heads of the S&P 500 companies are not picked because of their abilities. They are picked because of their connections. Even a child can be the head of a company because of an effective planning and management team.

Of course, it will be better if the company’s head is capable. For example, eBay’s Ms. Whitman. Many companies are fighting for her.

Qiu Bojun is the Chairman, and Lei Jun is the President of Lenovo Kingsoft. But they are minor shareholders of the company. After a few rounds of restructuring and share exchanges, Lenovo Group owns 30%, Tai Hua Holding owns 35%, Polar Bear Holdings owns 25%, Qiu Bojun owns 3%, and Lei Jun owns 2%. Some senior employees and management team own 5%.

A shareholder with 3% shares of the company is the Chairman, and another is the President with 2% shares. This is because Feng Yu promise them in the past.

Although it is not written in the contract, Feng Yu kept his promise.

Can they still hold on to their position if Microsoft owns the controlling stake? Microsoft will have full control of the company, and they cannot make any decisions without going through them.

Qiu Bojun and Lei Jun will not give up their power in exchange for higher salaries. Furthermore, their enjoying high income, and Lenovo Kingsoft will be listed next year. Their shares will shoot up, and they do not need to worry about money.

Bill Gates thought his offer is very attractive, but it’s not to the other party. They had set up Kingsoft in the first place is to beat the overseas software companies.

Kirilenko can get to invest in the company is because he invested using technologies, funds, and market shares. He also promises he will not interfere with the companies’ management.

Kirilenko kept his promise after so long, and his staff is good in software development. They had helped a lot in their operating system, anti-virus software development.

Bill Gates is different. He wants to control Lenovo Kingsoft and turn it into an American company. How can they agree?

Mr. Gates, our reply is still the same. We can negotiate if Microsoft wants to merge with one of our subsidiaries.” Qiu Bojun replied.

Bill Gates almost vomit blood. I am here to acquire you all, but do you all want to acquire my branch office? We are Microsoft, and only we can acquire other companies. No one can acquire us!

The Microsoft China Branch Office President, who is accompanying Bill Gates, said. “Manager Qiu, Manager Lei, our Chairman is your Government’s top Leaders’ guest. Your Chinese Government also supports our investment into your company, or else, why is Director Yu here with us?”

Premier Wei’s secretary, Director Yu, interrupted. “I am only bringing Mr. Gates here, and I am leaving. The Government will not interfere in business dealings.”

Damn! It’s fine if you migrate to the US and holds their citizenship. How dare you keep saying ‘your’ country and ‘your’ Government? Where are you born?!

Qiu Bojun and Lei Jun are worried that the Government will interfere. But it seems they are not involved.

They looked at Bill Gates with a smile and made Bill Gates embarrassed. Didn’t this idiot say the Chinese Government will help them? Why is this happening?

Bill Gates thought he could invest easily with his status, and he had done the same thing in many European countries.

Everyone is thrilled when they heard Bill Gates is going to invest. But why is China behaving differently?? Isn’t China desperate for foreign investment? Isn’t the Chinese Officials will do anything to gain political points?

At this moment, someone who Bill Gates doesn’t want to see appears.

“Oh, Bill. What a coincidence?”

Feng Yu raised his brows with a smile.

Feng Yu must know that he failed in investing in Lenovo Kingsoft and is here to mock him. But Bill Gates is determined to succeed.

“Feng, this is not a coincidence. I am here to invest in Lenovo Kingsoft. I want 51% of the company’s shares. Name a price. I know you can do this.”

Feng Yu puts on a shocked expression. “Ah? Are you going to buy Lenovo Kingsoft’s shares? What a coincidence. I am wondering if you are selling your Microsoft’s China branch. I am not looking at getting a stake in the company. I want a full acquisition. Name a price.”

Chapter 1394 – Crazy Expansion

Bill Gates left with anger. He is a proud person, and this is a huge humiliation.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Microsoft’s gaming console suffered losses of over 1 billion USD. But Bill Gates still insisted on continuing with it. Microsoft has never failed, and he will not give up on any projects.

When Bill Gates is thinking of dealing with Lenovo Kingsoft, he received news that Tai Hua Holdings had forcibly acquired Aiwa Little Tyrant’s shares with an additional 50% of the market value. This was one of the terms in their contract.

Although an additional 50% is a lot, and Microsoft will not suffer any losses, this is an insult to them. When have Microsoft businesses been acquired by someone else?

Bill Gates returned to Microsoft headquarters the same day. He announced he would teach Feng Yu and Lenovo Kingsoft a painful lesson!

On the other hand, Feng Yu is discussing with Kameda Masao on bringing G-box into Japan. Suddenly, Liu Chuanzhi told him that Lenovo Kingsoft is in trouble.

“Old Liu, what is it that had made you so anxious? Did something happen to Lenovo Kingsoft’s software?”

“No, but Microsoft China branch had announced they had acquired five software companies, and these are outstanding software application companies.”

Feng Yu frowned. Why did Microsoft suddenly acquire China’s software companies? Are they going to set up a computer software engineering lab here?

“Just let them be. Bill Gates had announced that he would invest 1 billion USD when he visited China, and he would be lying if he did not invest in anything. He is a proud person who will never admit defeat. Oh, how much did they spend to acquire those five companies?” Feng Yu is not concerned about this.

“Less than 50 million USD.”

Less than 50 million USD? This means those companies are not big. Did they develop some special application software that attracted Microsoft?

“What’s wrong? Are you suspecting there are some problems with this acquisition?”

“These five companies are not worth that much, and Microsoft is paying a premium to acquire them. Qiu Bojun and the rest also heard that Microsoft China Branch had contacted all the software companies in China!”

What? Contacted all the software companies in China?!

Is Microsoft going to take over the whole China software market? Are they not afraid of getting sued for monopolization?

Oh, there’s still Lenovo Kingsoft and other State-owned companies.

This will not be considered a monopoly, and it’s not a problem.

It’s just like Intel and AMD in Feng Yu’s previous life. Intel owned the majority of the market share and had formed a monopoly. But they did not let AMD go out of business to prevent getting sued and forced to break up.

“We should also do something to help raise those companies’ value.” Feng Yu replied.

“Manager Feng, did you don’t get what I am saying? Microsoft will take over all the software companies in China to form a giant software company to suppress us.” Liu Chuanzhi anxiously replied.

“I know. But a huge company with a lot of employees doesn’t mean it can make money. I had seen many huge corporations going bankrupt. What is the most important element for a software company? It’s the software engineers!”

Liu Chuanzhi finally understood what Feng Yu meant. “Are you saying that we will let them acquire those companies at high prices, and we poach their software engineers?”

“That’s right. Microsoft can buy those companies, and we will hire these companies’ top talents. Even if we can’t hire all of them, the State-owned technology companies, Hong Kong technology companies, and other foreign technology companies can hire them. I don’t believe they will sit around and do nothing when Microsoft is trying to become the biggest in China!”

China is a vast market with over 1 billion population. Any company that can open up this market will gain high profits.

No software companies will give up on the Chinese market, and Microsoft happens to be the public enemy of all software companies because they are No. 1.

……..

“Mr. Gates, many software MNC in the Chinese market have started to expand. Some of the companies we spoke to had increased their prices.” The person in charge of Microsoft China reported.

“I said we would invest more than 1 billion USD in China. We will meet their demand. What’s there to worry about?”

Bill Gates is unhappy with Microsoft China’s President because he had not reported about Lenovo Kingsoft. If Microsoft is aware of Lenovo Kingsoft’s potential earlier, they would have taken precautions against them.

Although Ballmer and the rest advice Bill Gates that Microsoft will have to spend a lot of money to expand like this. But he firmly believes this method will allow him to own at least half of the Chinese market and many IT elites.

No one can change Bill Gates’s decision. Although Paul Allen felt this is not a good move, he still supported it to snatch Feng Yu’s market share.

One should be rational when investing, but sometimes it’s not a bad thing to be impulsive. Furthermore, the Microsoft team had analyzed the Chinese software industry. One billion USD is enough for Microsoft to become China’s top software corporation.

There’s another benefit. Investors will think Microsoft had gained a foothold in the Chinese market, and their share prices will rise. Their profits will surely rise with such a vast market, and more investors will start buying Microsoft shares.

So, the Chinese software market suddenly attracted the attention of all major software companies.

Many people were shocked when many Chinese software companies were acquired and merged so quickly. Of course, Lenovo Kingsoft had also joined Microsoft to acquire those companies.

This incident attracted the attention of China’s top leaders. The IT industry is one of the key industries in their Five-years plan. Why is this happening so suddenly?

Liu Chuanzhi explained what happened to the Leaders. The government will not interfere as the Chinese companies will suffer no losses.

It would be embarrassing if the Chinese companies suffered losses in China.

…….

“Manager Feng, we had acquired a few companies which are quite good. They are developing similar products as us, and they can increase our strength.” Liu Chuanzhi said.

“Good. Anyway, we still have not finished spending the money we got from the loan. I think it’s about time to start poaching people!”

Chapter 1395 – Suing Microsoft

Something drastic happened when Bill Gates thought he could use the Chinese market to suppress Lenovo Kingsoft with his acquired software companies.

“What are you doing?! How can you not sign a new contract with those companies’ elites when you acquire them? The valuation reports you have given us include the value of these people. Where are these people now?!”

Ballmer threw a stack of documents on the floor. He will have thrown the documents on that person’s face if it is not a crime.

They had spent a lot to acquire these overvalued companies because of the IT elites there, but all of them had quit!

They had wasted all their money. Without these elites, these companies’ value will be halved!

“I also did not expect their contracts will have this issue. Their compensation when they leave the company is very little.”

Chinese employees’ compensation to the company when they break their contract is very little compared to other countries. Furthermore, most of these software companies were set up by a group of friends. They didn’t need to compensate the company when they resign.

Many of the contracts didn’t even state the compensation amount when employees leave, and there are many loopholes.

It would not be a problem if Microsoft used these loopholes. But others are using the contracts’ loopholes to let Microsoft suffer losses.

Ballmer felt his future is gloomy. Bill Gates had supported him to be the President and CEO, but he should be losing one or even both positions now.

This will affect Ballmer’s income and future career prospects.

Who would hire someone that had made this grave mistake?

“President, I had asked my men to sign a new contract with them and managed to retain some of them. It’s mainly the Chinese companies that are poaching them, and I suspect they had planned it!”

“Even if they had planned it, it’s still your fault. Why didn’t you discover this earlier? If you had noticed this, will it happen? Also, why are you not in China to settle this crisis? Get back and start poaching people from Lenovo Kingsoft and other companies!”

“If you cannot even do this, you will be replaced with someone more capable!”

Microsoft China Branch had just expanded, and it will be a great loss if the person in charge loses his position. He immediately guarantees he complete this task and left.

…….

“Old Lei, how many people have we hired from Microsoft newly acquired companies? Did they implement any countermeasures?”

“They quickly sign new contracts with their employees and offered high salaries to retain some of the people we wanted. But this did not affect us much as we had hired almost one-third of the people we wanted.”

So fast? Feng Yu is satisfied with Lei Jun and the rest’s performance.

Of course, not only Lenovo Kingsoft is poaching these people. Wang Zhixi, Ma Huateng, Ma Yun, Li Yanhong, and the rest had also hired some internet experts from those companies.

Other than the staff of the acquired companies are leaving, some of Microsoft China Branch’s staff had also left after their contracts ended. They can’t stand those arrogant foreigners.

The almighty Microsoft had become a stepping stone and helped the Chinese companies groom talents.

Microsoft had spent a lot to acquire many IT companies but suffered a heavy loss.

Money cannot buy talents!

“Well done. Microsoft might have suffered losses, but don’t let down your guard. One billion USD is nothing to them and will not affect them. We must be careful of their retaliation.”

Microsoft will not accept defeat easily. They will surely come up with some countermeasures.

“Microsoft has started to poach our companies’ staff. But we are prepared, and our corporate culture has been good. Although a few staff had joined them, the core staff is still around. None of them had left!”

It’s not easy to retain all the core staff. Letting Qiu Bojun and Lei Jun manage Lenovo Kingsoft is right! They had set a target for the company and lead everyone to work towards it.

“Good. But Microsoft’s expansion in China is an issue for us. China is our base, and this will affect our share prices when we got listed.”

When Feng Yu and Liu Chuanzhi were discussing, the phone rang. Wilson is here.

Why is Wilson coming at this time?

Wilson immediately reported when he steps into Feng Yu’s office. “Boss, I noticed a problem and might help us to give Microsoft a heavy blow.”

Wilson had noticed a problem?! That means it must be a legal issue.

Feng Yu brightens up. If they can sue Microsoft and win, it will be a great blow to them.

“Tell us about it.”

“China had approved the anti-monopoly law yesterday, and there is a clause stating companies with dominant positions cannot eliminate or restrict competition.”

Feng Yu is overjoyed. The anti-monopoly law has been approved.

If Feng Yu had not suggested this to the Government, who knows when this law will be implemented? The Leaders were surprised when they heard about this from Feng Yu because many of his companies are considered monopolies.

But after the Government studied overseas antitrust laws and China’s situation, they did not find anything wrong with Feng Yu’s subsidiaries.

This law will help Feng Yu against Microsoft.

“Boss, Microsoft’s operating system will force the user to install IE browser and their video player. This is a way to eliminate competition, and had broke China and the US laws.”

Microsoft was sued in Europe because of bundle sales, and this two software are free. But even if it is available to users for free, Microsoft profited from advertisements. There’s nothing wrong with calling it a bundle sale.

“Are you confident of winning?” Feng Yu asked.

“Yes. We can win this lawsuit. We can let the Chinese Government give them a hefty fine, at least. I believe that this will be a heavy blow to Microsoft in the Chinese market.” Wilson laughed.

Feng Yu patted Wilson’s back excitedly. “Good job! I will pay for this lawsuit! Sue them!”

Chapter 1396 –Microsoft is sued all over the world

Currently, Microsoft is being sued by Korea, Japan, the EU, the US, and many other countries for antitrust.

In the past, Microsoft was sued for bundling IE with their operating system, and they are being sued for bundling MSN and video player software. This is not only happening in China. It is happening around the world.

Microsoft argued they had bundle IE with their operating system because users need a browser to surf the internet. They are only providing a free service, and users can opt not to use it.

But Microsoft’s IE is unable to be uninstalled or deleted. That’s why Microsoft’s agreement is not accepted.

In 1997, the US government had sued Microsoft for this reason, and Microsoft agreed to pay over 1 billion USD of bonds as a settlement.

If the users did not redeem the bonds, they would be donated to some public schools. However, the schools must use half of the bonds to purchase Microsoft products.

Microsoft might have lost, but it strengthens its monopoly status. This settlement also made children get used to their products.

Apple and many other companies objected to this settlement, and many states in the US don’t recognize this judgment. They continued with their lawsuits against Microsoft.

This year, the EU sued Microsoft for monopolization again. Their negotiation with Microsoft, which spans over five years, had not concluded. But Microsoft had used these five years to control the European market.

Microsoft is not afraid of lawsuits as it will help them gain publicity and appear in headlines worldwide. They can also drag out the lawsuit and continue to sell their products.

What if Microsoft loses the lawsuit and is fined by the country? The fines are nothing compared to their profits. Even if they are fined is higher than their IE and other software’s profits, they had also increased their market share by kicking out their competitors. The fines can be recovered within two to three years.

Microsoft quickly expands its market share in developed countries using bundle sales, and many countries are unhappy with it.

The EU refused to allow Microsoft to drag it out through another round of negotiation. They immediately passed the judgment and fined Microsoft 500 million Euros. It is equivalent to around 670 million USD.

At the same time, they ordered Microsoft to separate their operating system with the bundled software, and release their codes, including their Office software, to their competitors.

Microsoft appealed but was rejected.

If it’s not, for this reason, the universal activation code generator will not be developed so quickly.

After seeing the EU’s victory against Microsoft, Korea, Japan, and other countries sue Microsoft for the same reasons. Even the US starts to sue them again.

However, the Chinese market, which Microsoft values the most, is silent.

China’s Anti-monopoly law had just been implemented. They had not done anything against Microsoft in the past because they didn’t have any laws regulating monopolies.

…….

“What did you say? You want us to sue Microsoft for monopoly?” Party Member Bao was shocked.

“That right. We can fine them. Didn’t you see the news? The EU had fined Microsoft 500 Euros. If we calculate the amount by population, we can also fine them 500 million Euros. Even if we calculate base on their sales figures, the fine will be at least tens of million Euros.” Feng Yu replied.

“How much?! At least tens of million Euros? But Microsoft had just invested 1 billion USD here.” Party Member Bao hesitated.

This doesn’t seem to be right. They had just invested here, and we are going to fine them immediately afterward.

“Party Member Bao, investments and breaking the law are separate issues. We cannot let them off just because they had invested here. Also, don’t you think that using Microsoft as an example will show those foreign companies that China is not a place for them to do whatever they want?”

“Furthermore, Korea and Japan had sued Microsoft. Why can’t we sue them? Even the US government is suing them.”

“Huh? The US government is also suing Microsoft? Isn’t Microsoft a US company?” Party Member Bao is puzzled.

It’s just like China’s Lenovo Kingsoft. The Chinese government will do everything to support it, and why would they sue them?

“Microsoft is not the only software company in the US. They still have Apple, IBM, and many other companies. But Microsoft’s operating system is the best among them, and the US government is suing them. What are we waiting for? What would others think of us when our neighbors, Korea, Japan, and the Commonwealth of Independent States had sued them?”

“The internet will start saying our Chinese government is too weak and is inferior to Japan and other countries. Oh, I had helped you all find the lawyer. He is the one who helped CCTV sue those dishonest companies.”

“Tell me the truth. Why are you so eager to sue Microsoft? Is it because they are your competitors?” Party Member Bao looks at Feng Yu in the eyes.

“There’s no point of talking anymore if you think like this. Regardless of whether you sue Microsoft, we are still competitors, and we will not get a cent if they are fined. Moreover, I own some of Lenovo Kingsoft’s shares, but its profit is below average compared to my other companies.”

Feng Yu continued. “I am doing this for our country. Microsoft had suddenly acquired most of our software companies, and it’s obvious they want to control the market. Some overseas software companies also took this opportunity to acquire some of our software companies. Our software industry will be under their control in the future.”

“Microsoft China branch is second to their US headquarters. This shows how important our market is to them. Also, Microsoft cannot afford to pay so many countries and will most likely opt for private settlement. But we must not accept it. We must show everyone our stance against monopolies!”

Party Member Bao rolled his eyes. Is Feng Yu trying to teach him what to do?

“Are you sure we can win?” It will be embarrassing if the Chinese government sued Microsoft and loses.

“Of course. Microsoft would have been fined in other countries. Our country will be a laughing stock if we allow them to do whatever they want here. We are a big country and must show them our firm stance!”

……

Three days later, China’s Trade Committee officially announced they were suing Microsoft for monopoly and requested the courts to issue a 2.3 billion RMB fine!

When this announcement is released, there was an uproar on the internet.

This is the first time the Chinese Government issue such a hefty fine, and it’s against a foreign company!

Chapter 1397 – Times are different now

When China’s Trade Committee Member Bao announced, they would be suing Microsoft for monopoly and demanded compensation of 2.3 billion RMB, China’s online forum went crazy.

“Did I read it wrongly? When did China become so overbearing to sue Microsoft?”

“What’s so special about this? Did you all forget that CCTV had just sued those foreign companies recently? This generation of Leaders is firm!”

“I am working in the IT industry, and I know Microsoft was sued in many countries except for China in the past. Now, we are finally doing something against them!”

“You all don’t know this. I am a lawyer, and it is because China doesn’t have anti-monopoly laws in the past. The anti-monopoly law had just been implemented a few days ago, and we can sue them now.”

“Eh, are you saying that this anti-monopoly law is implemented because of Microsoft?”

“Haha… This is an honor for Microsoft. Our country had implemented a law just to sue them!”

“Anyway, I support our country. If we can sue companies for this amount eight to ten times a year, it will be an additional income source!”

“But that is Microsoft. Can we win against them? Also, they had just invested a large sum of money here. Suing them now seems to be ungrateful. Furthermore, it is an American company.”

“I can confirm the one above me is a traitor!”

“So what if it is Microsoft or an American company? Do you think China is afraid of them? We fight it out anytime. I am ready to go to war!”

…….

Feng Yu read the comments on the internet about this incident. Most people had expressed support for China’s actions, and only a few speak up for Microsoft.

Those few might be Microsoft’s employees, or they are posting to gain attraction. But their comments are buried by other comments quickly.

China’s government staff are monitoring the online forums. They are relieved to see the majority of the people are supporting them.

They had worried for nothing. Anyone should know this lawsuit is beneficial to China.

While China is celebrating, Microsoft is like an ant on a hot pan.

Microsoft had just lost the lawsuit against the EU, and Japan, Korea, and other countries started to sue them. These countries refuse private settlements.

When Microsoft is thinking of how to handle the lawsuits, China appears and sued them.

This is not the end of their troubles. An organization called the Eastern Europe Business Alliance appeared and represented East European countries to sue Microsoft.

Some countries that had agreed to have a private settlement with Microsoft changed their minds. They are not signing the settlement agreements and made more demands. Or else they will continue to sue Microsoft.

These countries know Microsoft will try to settle with them as soon as possible because they face multiple lawsuits worldwide.

Microsoft’s bundle sales strategy had been around for years and are effective. It is not a problem for them if they stop bundling their products now.

But why would they stop if they can continue bundling their products to grow their market share and profits?

If Microsoft stopped all bundling sales, many users might switch to their competitors’ products. They don’t dare to guarantee that other companies’ products are not as good as theirs, as all products have unique points.

If Microsoft cannot bundle their products, they cannot maintain their advantage, and their market share might fall anytime.

That’s why Microsoft would rather defend themselves in courts and pay compensations than remove the bundling.

…….

“China and Eastern Europe have started to sue us for monopolization. How are we going to handle it?” Bill Gates asked.

“Our sales in China and Eastern Europe are not doing well, especially in China. Our Windows operating system was sold at ridiculously low prices, and many of them are using pirated versions. How can they sue us?”

“Some of them are using pirated copies, but that doesn’t mean they cannot sue us. This is a reminder for us. Why can’t we sue China instead? They are using pirated versions, and there’s nothing wrong for us to demand compensation.” A Director replied.

“Compensation? How are you going to demand compensation? How do you determine others are using the original version or pirated version? Do you think they will let us check their PCs?”

“We can add a system patch to automatically detect whether if the operating system is original or pirated. If it is pirated, it will display a black screen, and this will force the user to purchase the original version.”

“Black screen? This is too serious, and many potential users will have a negative impression of our brand. Some users might even counter sue us if they incur losses because of our patch. They can claim they don’t know their PCs are installed with pirated versions of the operating system. We will be involved in more lawsuits.” Someone retorted.

“No, we can use pop-ups to remind the user that their operating system is pirated. The patch can also detect if they are using other Microsoft pirated software. One hour after the reminder, the screen will blackout. This blackout is not a total blackout and can be resumed after a restart. This will not have any negative impact except for some inconveniences to the user.”

“I agree to this suggestion.” Ballmer said.

This pushes the user to switch to their original operating system and detect the number of pirated users for negotiation with the Chinese government. If the Chinese government refuses a private settlement, they will sue them for copyright infringement.

Bill Gates thought for a while and nodded. “This is a good solution. How long will it take to develop this patch?”

“It should be ready before year-end.” Paul Allen replied proudly.

Hmph! Other than my R&D department, none of you can solve this problem. How can Microsoft survive without me?!

…….

“Eh, did you see that? Microsoft’s representative had said they don’t admit to the accusations. They are shameless!”

“Ah? They claim they are offering a better choice to the users. This is implying their products are the best. Their office software is not as good as Lenovo Kingsoft’s!”

“Huh? Are you exaggerating? Lenovo Kingsoft is better than Microsoft? Microsoft is the best software company in the world. Are you sure?”

“What exaggerating? Bill Gates was still the former World’s Richest Man, and China’s Manager Feng replaced him. Stop having the mindset of overseas have better technologies. Our China’s technology is developing rapidly, and times are different now!”

Chapter 1398 – The new system is almost ready

“Boss, the lawsuit against Microsoft has started. But their lawyer seems to be going to drag it out. We have two options now. First, accepting a private settlement to prevent harming their brand image and received a sum of money. Secondly, we refuse the private settlement and get the courts to pass the judgment. The compensation amount will be lesser, but it will be a heavy blow to them.”

The first option is a win-win option. Although Microsoft might have to spend more, they get to retain their brand’s reputation. The Chinese will get lesser compensation in the second option, but Microsoft’s losses are greater.

“Wilson, I had said this before. You must persuade the Chinese Government not to accept a private settlement.” Feng Yu replied.

“I understand. We are confident of winning, and I will do my best to get more compensation. I even hired the two EU law firms that had sued Microsoft. The odds of us winning is higher!”

“Good job. I will keep to my words and pay you all handsomely.”

Wilson knows Feng Yu is very generous when he can finish the tasks given to him.

Wilson’s law firm is famous now, and he no longer accepts other cases. He only works for Feng Yu and hands other cases to his other lawyers.

“Oh, Boss. One of my partners told me that when Microsoft is negotiating a private settlement with another country, they found evidence of that country infringing their IP rights. They used it to threaten that country’s Government during the negotiation, and they didn’t need to pay anything.”

Feng Yu raised his brows and knew what happened.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Microsoft had used this trick on China once. They discovered some state-owned enterprises and government agencies are using pirated versions of their operating system and software. This incident tarnished the Chinese Government’s international reputation.

But things are different in this life. When Feng Yu got Lenovo Group to distribute Microsoft’s Windows operating system, he priced it very low. The Government also conducted anti-piracy checks several times. The majority of the State-owned enterprises and government agencies are using the original version.

After Microsoft got back the distribution rights, their software and operating system are still selling much cheaper than other countries. They also gave corporations discounts to use their operating system to stimulate their sales.

But Microsoft slowly raises the prices of their products after that. The prices are about the same as in other developing countries.

Some “experts” have also cracked Microsoft’s operating system. Many people chose to install pirated versions as there are no differences.

Nevertheless, the number of pirated users is much lesser than Feng Yu’s previous life. However, this number will grow if no one does anything to stop it.

Luckily, Lenovo Kingsoft’s operating system is almost ready.

Microsoft is also developing its new operating system, VISTA currently. This is the version that flopped in Feng Yu’s previous life.

Other than the poor sales, the reviews for this operating system are poor because of compatibility issues between hardware and software.

Microsoft had used a hard approach by stopping the XP system upgrade and force users to switch to Vista. This approach failed, and they had no choice but to launch Win 8 earlier. After much trouble, they took three years to replace XP.

Microsoft had spent billions and five years to develop this system, but it flopped. This is a heavy blow to them.

Feng Yu is planning to use this gap to launch Lenovo Kingsoft’s operating system. He doesn’t dare to claim he can replace Microsoft, but he should not have a problem getting part of the market share.

Feng Yu’s instructions to Lenovo Kingsoft are that the system must be small, simple, and compatible with other software and hardware. This will let Microsoft users like and switch to their system.

But the new operating system modeled after Win 7 had failed because the hardware requirements are too high.

However, Lenovo Kingsoft developed another simpler system that meets Feng Yu’s requirements and has reached the final stages of beta testing. They planned to launch it at year-end.

Luckily Lenovo Kingsoft has the experience of developing HOS and knows how to simplify an operating system. But the HOS system is a smartphone operating system and is different from a PC system.

Lenovo Kingsoft had invested all their profits over the years and took loans to develop this simplified PC operating system.

Qiu Bojun and the rest are very confident. The Chinese formerly develop China’s PC operating systems, and Microsoft has nothing to do with it.

But that batch of software developers had either joined other companies or set up their own companies. The Leaders refused to invest funds to continue their development. They caused the Chinese operating system to be replaced by Microsoft.

Qiu Bojun was one of the most prominent Chinese operating system developers. He had always wanted to develop an operating system that is used by everyone worldwide.

Many people had objected when Lenovo Kingsoft is going to develop the smartphone operating system. Although the finished product has some issues, many users are still well-loved, and Wind and Rain’s S1 and S2 phones are selling well. They managed to suppressed Symbian developments and forced Microsoft to increase its development funds.

Since Lenovo Kingsoft’s HOS system can succeed, why can’t their PC system succeed?

Both systems are based on free Linux codes. It is an open-sourced system code developed by many software companies. It is also the system Microsoft hated the most. Qiu Bojun, Lei Jun, and the rest believe they can develop an operating system that can rival and beat Microsoft.

Most importantly, Feng Yu is supportive of them. They were worried about the development funds, but it is not an issue with Feng Yu’s financial support.

Manager Feng had said that if the company doesn’t have the development fund, they can set up a subsidiary and fully fund it.

This gave the shareholders confidence, and they supported Qiu Bojun and the rest. Lenovo Kingsoft managed to get loans from Min Sheng Bank with Liu Chuanzhi’s help and using Lenovo Group as guarantor.

Their operating system is almost completed, and they are waiting to see if users are willing to use it.

Chapter 1399 – AMD is challenging Intel

AMD invested in a factory in China last year, located in the western region. Of course, this is the result of Feng Yu’s influence and cheaper labor costs.

Feng Yu doesn’t know anything about the central processing unit manufacturing process, but he knows its future development path.

So, Feng Yu painted a big picture to AMD’s President, not limited to PCs only. However, he doesn’t know about the future development of servers as he was not in this industry in his previous life.

Feng Yu only told AMD that CPI should increase more cores. For example, the single-core should be upgraded to double cores or even up to four cores. This will improve its performance in PCs.

Under Feng Yu’s influence, Lenovo Group signed a long-term contract with AMD and had introduced a few PCs using their CPU.

Because AMD’s brand value is lower than Intel’s, their CPUs of the same specs are cheaper, and the market responded well.

This is especially so for the DIY market. Many people realized AMD’s motherboard is a few hundred RMB cheaper than Intel, and the specs are similar to Intel.

The PC component sellers told their customers that the PC technology is developing very fast. Components will be outdated in one year, and there’s no point buying the most expensive parts. They should focus on the specs rather than the brand.

AMD’s motherboard, Nvidia’s graphics card, Lenovo’s hard disk… etc. You can save almost 1,000 RMB to DIY a PC with good specs.

One year later, you can use the 1,000 RMB to upgrade your PC, which is more worthwhile.

Lenovo, Asia’s top PC manufacturer, chose to work with AMD and Nvidia, which increased their sales by a lot. This led to increased profits, and they have sufficient funds to invest in developing new products.

Other PC manufacturers also started to order from these two companies.

That’s why these two companies set up more branches and factories recently.

Nvidia had grown to a scale that can challenge the established market leader, ATI. Nvidia’s market share had grown from one-fifth of ATI’s market share three years ago to almost equal of them now.

Nvidia is also voted to be the company with the highest potential for several years and had gotten other awards like the best company to work for, etc.

Nvidia’s rise caused ATI to fall. ATI’s market share had plunged more than one-third, and their profits dropped.

ATI also didn’t launch any great graphics cards in the recent two years, while Nvidia kept introducing new products. This gave them more media exposure, resulting in more orders from PC manufacturers.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, ATI was acquired by AMD. This is also the reason that resulted in AMD having cash flow issues. They don’t have sufficient funds to develop both CPU and graphics cards.

The CPU market share between Intel and AMD is too big, and AMD invested more into ATI’s graphics card development. They hope ATI can suppress Nvidia to become the market leader. Until Feng Yu’s rebirth, Nvidia and ATI are fighting to be the market leader.

AMD used the profits from their graphics card to invest in their CPU development. This is their strategy. Using their better products to pull up other products. AMD’s graphics card often has high performance, but it is not compatible with Intel’s motherboard.

But Nvidia manages to grow because of this, and Feng Yu wonders if AMD had profited or suffered losses.

In this life, AMD and Nvidia had become one big family. Feng Yu had changed history again.

Luckily, these two companies are separated. Although they have some cooperation, it’s not a lot. Both are operating independently from each other. AMD’s CPU development will not fluctuate like what happened in Feng Yu’s previous life, and he is confident to speed things up.

Nvidia’s graphics card performance kept improving, and upgrades are faster. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Nvidia had gone through several rounds of investments to have the funds to develop quickly. But in this life, Feng Yu provided the funds to let them continue developing new products.

But Nvidia development fund kept increasing, and Kameda Masao suggested Feng Yu stop investing. It’s time to let Nvidia get listed.

Using other people’s money to make money is the best investment.

Feng Yu agreed. It’s too expensive for a hardware manufacturer to develop new technologies!

AMD is a listed company and doesn’t lack funds. After Feng Yu acquired most of the voting shares, he didn’t need to invest anymore. To his surprise, AMD’s development is much faster than he expected.

…….

“Boss, you mentioned that we could use AMD’s double core CPU to challenge Intel as a promotion. We have tested the specs, and our AMD’s performance is indeed better. The board of directors has agreed to this. Where are we going to hold this comparison? The US, China, or Europe?” Ralph called to report.

“Oh? The new double core CPU is ready? Terrific. If we are going to test it in public, do it in China. This will let more IT-related companies notice us.” Feng Yu thought for a while and replied.

“Alright. Is it fine to set the venue in Beijing? I will get AMD to issue a challenge to Intel now.”

“Sure. I will arrange the venue. I think Wind and Rain Building is quite suitable.”

The news reports will mention Wind and Rain Building, and this is free publicity. Feng Yu will not miss any opportunity to promote his companies. Furthermore, the other equipment involves in the test is sponsored by Lenovo Group. This is a good way to promote Lenovo’s brand.

……..

“What? AMD had issued a challenge to us through media?! They want to compare the performance of double core CPU?!” Intel’s CEO, Benjamin, felt frustrated. If they dare to issue a public challenge, that means they are confident of winning.

Benjamin is furious. They are using Intel as a stepping stone to promote their products!

We are competitors, and you can promote your products through advertising. Why must you challenge us?

Intel had been focusing on servers recently, and their CPU is slightly outdated. They did not expect AMD to make use of this opening!

Benjamin has a bad headache. Intel will lose if they accept the challenge, and AMD’s product will be selling well. But if they don’t accept the challenge, AMD will use it as a promotion tool, and their products will also be selling well.

Regardless of whether Intel accepts the challenge or not, they will not gain anything out of it.

Which bastard thought of this scheming strategy?!

Chapter 1400 – Is this possible?

“Since AMD will benefit regardless if we participate or now, we might as well ignore them and speed up our development. We must develop a new dual-core processor that can win them.”

Benjamin frowned. “Ignore them? This will affect our Intel’s brand value.”

“I think we can use a different approach. If AMD wants to compete with us, it should not compete with one type of product. We will compete with them with different types of products. It doesn’t matter if we lose in one competition as long as most of our products win. This will lower the negative impact on us.” A Director suggested.

Benjamin brightens up. That’s right. They should not be competing with one product. Intel has more product varieties than AMD, and many of them are better. Using multiple products to compete with them will let more people know about us.

…….

“Manager Feng, AMD, and Intel’s competition will be held in Beijing and had gain lots of attention. Did you see the forums? Many netizens are saying these two CPU giants are coming to China to show off.” Liu Chuanzhi said.

“I saw the news. These netizens are just worried for the nation. But this can be easily settled. I will ask Zhong Qingxian to get the various internet companies to reveal Wind and Rain Holding is AMD’s shareholder. I believe the netizens will know who to support.”

Liu Chuanzhi nodded. “They will support AMD after they know about this, and AMD sales in China will increase exponentially.”

“AMD’s CPU is not inferior to Intel, and it is cheaper. Most ordinary PC users will pick AMD, and their latest processor is much better than Intel’s. They will slowly take over part of Intel’s market share and control the market in the future.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, AMD did not fulfill this goal, but it might be possible in this life. AMD had been working on a new motherboard called Bulldozer since last year. This is their most important project, and they will overtake Intel if they succeed.

“But Intel had picked several types of processors to compete with AMD. Other than AMD’s dual-core processor, none of their other products can win.” Liu Chuanzhi reminded.

“So what? They can compare the prices. Intel’s chips might be better, but we are cheaper. Didn’t I am mentioned that AMD will focus on the low-end market and let Intel control the high-end market? This is to let consumers have the mindset that PC hardware technology is developing very fast, and they should buy components base on pricing.”

A DIY top-tier desktop PC with the highest specs can cost up to 20,000 RMB. The LCD costs a few thousand, and a good graphics card is not cheap.

Most people do not need such high-end specs, and a DIY PC around 5,000 to 6,000 RMB can last for years.

Those high-end PCs are for wealthy people, large corporations, or government agencies.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, he heard many government agencies had bought PCs that are more expensive than the market rate. It seems that those unwanted products are all bought by the Government or state-owned enterprises.

No one knows if there is any corruption involved.

Liu Chuanzhi thought about what Feng Yu said. Should Lenovo also use this method to showcase and promote their products?

Lenovo PC had been working with IBM’s PC department for a while. They are selling each other’s PCs in their markets.

But IBM is not satisfied with the results because Lenovo’s sales are much better. They realized that the PC business is not profitable and plans to sell their PC division away.

At the same time, Lenovo wants to expand, and they started negotiating with IBM. Sell us your PC division, and we will pay you a sum of money and Lenovo Group’s shares. This will be a win-win situation for both, and we will become the World’s Number 1 PC manufacturer.

At first, IBM was swayed by this offer, and Liu Chuanzhi is very excited.

IBM had been one of the leaders in the PC industry. If Lenovo can acquire their PC division and some technologies, it will be a huge upgrade. Most importantly, they can get IBM’s PC sales channels, improving their sales in North America and Europe.

But IBM’s attitude changed suddenly for unknown reasons.

Liu Chuanzhi thinks he should hold a similar competition in the US to raise Lenovo’s brand awareness or his offer to IBM.

“Manager Feng, do you think it’s a good idea for Lenovo to acquire IBM’s PC division?” Liu Chuanzhi asked.

“That would depend on how you see it. There are pros and cons for acquiring and not acquiring them. But my suggestion is not to acquire them until we beat them.” Feng Yu replied with a smile.

“Beat IBM? Is this possible? They have lots of large orders from the US Government and corporations. Although our PC’s specs are better, our aftersales services cannot keep up, and it affected our sales.”

Everyone’s PC might break down, but IBM has the advantage in the US. They have lots of repair centers but not Lenovo. Lenovo had tried to get IBM to handle their aftersales services but was rejected.

“IBM has orders from their Government is because of security reasons, and we might not get those orders. Corporations’ orders are different. Other than IBM, are there no more companies that are willing to handle our aftersales services? We will overtake them within three years with our high-performance PC. At that time, they will beg to sell us their PC division!”

IBM will beg us to buy their PC division?! Is… this possible?

Table of Contents

- Table Of Contents -
Chapter 1 – Rebirth to 1988
Chapter 2 – Tragedy must not happen again
Chapter 3 – Bear
Chapter 4 – Returning home
Chapter 5 – Selling the bear
Chapter 6 – Future brother-in-law
Chapter 7 – Foreign currency exchange
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11 – Treasury Bonds
Chapter 12 – All the money is gone
Chapter 13 – Increase manpower
Chapter 14 – School
Chapter 15 – Video Lounge
Chapter 16 – The real Director Xu
Chapter 17 – Top student?
Chapter 18 – Rich man
Chapter 19 – The news is out
Chapter 20 – The price rises
Chapter 21 – The excited Li Shiqiang
Chapter 22 – Li Shiqiang is quitting
Chapter 23 – News from Brother Ki
Chapter 24 – Can’t refuse
Chapter 25 – A lovely Kirilenko
Chapter 26 – Registering a Company
Chapter 27 – Sentiments
Chapter 28 – The lost Wen Dongjun

Chapter 29 – Business negotiations (Lowering prices)

Chapter 30 – Buying cars
Chapter 31 – Who’s earning more?
Chapter 32 – The approval
Chapter 33 – Isn’t this?
Chapter 34 – Fan

Chapter 35 – No one wants to use their trademark

Chapter 36 – Wind and Rain fan
Chapter 37 – Consignment
Chapter 38 – Sales of Wind and Rain fans
Chapter 39 – Arrogant Workers
Chapter 40 – An even more arrogant boss
Chapter 41 – Setting the rules
Chapter 42 – Continuing Orders
Chapter 43 – Mom and Dad are here
Chapter 44 – choosing a House
Chapter 45–shopping at the mall
Chapter 46 – Brother Ki’s team
Chapter 47 – Importing secondhand luxury cars
Chapter 48 – Cars Assembly
Chapter 49 – The wait
Chapter 50 – Playing by the riverbank
Chapter 51 – The idiot Wen Dongjun
Chapter 52 – Increasing the brand recognition
Chapter 53 – Song Xiaofeng
Chapter 54 – Nightclub
Chapter 55 – Yuan Yuan
Chapter 56 – Too much!
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59 – Opportunities to create trouble
Chapter 60– Amulet
Chapter 61 – Small tricks
Chapter 62 – Everyone can act
Chapter 63 – War (Part 1)
Chapter 64 – War (Part 2)
Chapter 65 – Serious Issue
Chapter 66 – History had changed?
Chapter 67 – Eunuch Song
Chapter 68 – Year 1 Freshman
Chapter 69 – A Nouveau Riche’s face
Chapter 70 – An Arrogant Freshman
Chapter 71 – Changing the School Culture
Chapter 72 – Drunken Rage
Chapter 73 – Infamous
Chapter 74 – Fu Guangzheng

Chapter 75 – This Incense Burner is an Antique

Chapter 76 – Antique Seller

Chapter 77 – The popular farming machines (Part 1)

Chapter 78 – The popular farming machines (Part 2)

Chapter 79 – The Company was suspended

Chapter 80 – From Farming Machinery to Production Facilities

Chapter 81 – The Harvest
Chapter 82 – The Woes of borrowing money
Chapter 83 – Raise Funds
Chapter 84 – Choosing the factory location
Chapter 85 – Money is not a Problem
Chapter 86 – Premium Oil
Chapter 87 – Soft-sell advertising
Chapter 88 – Specially Catered For
Chapter 89 – Television Advertisement
Chapter 90 – Technology is most profitable
Chapter 91 – An unexpected invitation

Chapter 92 – Using Technology to Exchange for Shares

Chapter 93 – Feng Xingtai is setting up a company again

Chapter 94 – Successfully becoming a shareholder

Chapter 95 – Partnering Fu Guangzheng
Chapter 96 – Hong Kong Businessman (Part 1)
Chapter 97 – Hong Kong Businessman (Part 2)

Chapter 98 – Tai Hua Factory’s Future Development

Chapter 99 – Settling the Sales Channels
Chapter 100 – Asking for too much
Chapter 101 – General in Heavens
Chapter 102 – Obsoleted Trucks

Chapter 103 – The Development of the Machinery Company

Chapter 104 – Wen Dongjun and Fat Chick
Chapter 105 – Tian Peng pig
Chapter 106 – Selling Pork
Chapter 107 – Humidifier
Chapter 108 – The Influence of Leaders
Chapter 109 – Noble and Prestige
Chapter 110 – 3 Parties Cooperation (Part 1)
Chapter 111 – 3 Parties Cooperation (Part 2)
Chapter 112 – Pager
Chapter 113 – The kid who sued a foreigner
Chapter 114 – Wind and Rain Logistics
Chapter 115 – The Man who can eat in a pigsty
Chapter 116 – Ice hole
Chapter 117 – Bad luck
Chapter 118 – A New Start for the New Year
Chapter 119 – The Grand Wedding
Chapter 120 – Wedding Banquet
Chapter 121 – Development Plan
Chapter 122 – Every fatty has potential
Chapter 123 – Constant Good News
Chapter 124 – Registering the Patent
Chapter 125 – Product placement (Part 1)
Chapter 126 – Product placement (Part 2)

Chapter 127 – Foreign businessman came knocking on the door

Chapter 128 – Kameda? On your knees?
Chapter 129 – CCTV Advertising Division
Chapter 130 – Program Sponsor

Chapter 131 – China’s style business negotiations

Chapter 132 – Giving lessons to the people at CCTV

Chapter 133 – The rich can speak loudly
Chapter 134 – Business blooming everywhere
Chapter 135 – One-time business

Chapter 136 – Clouds thinking of beautiful clothes; flowers thinking of countenance

Chapter 137 – I want to be a secretary
Chapter 138 – Peaceful and Stable life
Chapter 139 – Bladeless fans
Chapter 140 – An Invitation Letter
Chapter 141 – International Summer Camp
Chapter 142 – Fighting for the places
Chapter 143 – Voluntarily withdraw?

Chapter 144 – The Teachers who jumped the queue

Chapter 145 – First time aboard
Chapter 146 – Just landed and disappeared
Chapter 147 – Famous
Chapter 148 – The theme is Arts
Chapter 149 – Soviet Union’s light industries
Chapter 150 – The strange teachers from China
Chapter 151 – Soviet Union’s Motorcycles
Chapter 152 – Returning Home

Chapter 153 – The Golden Period of the Stock Market

Chapter 154 – I want everything!
Chapter 155 – Sweeping the Stock Markets
Chapter 156 – Loans
Chapter 157 – Getting Dad to sign
Chapter 158 – Continue to Raise Money
Chapter 159 – Getting more loans

Chapter 160 – Light Industrial equipment wholesales

Chapter 161 – Seed germination
Chapter 162 – Money makes the mare go
Chapter 163 – Unexpected help
Chapter 164 – Swiftness
Chapter 165 – Nothing to do with me
Chapter 166 – The Dust Settles
Chapter 167 – Motorcycle Factory
Chapter 168 – Completion of the first step
Chapter 169 – News that were brought forward
Chapter 170 – Brainwashing
Chapter 171 – Donation to build schools
Chapter 172 – Master Designer?

Chapter 173 – This is the real Master Designer!

Chapter 174 – Investing in a Design Company

Chapter 175 – New Motorcycle Model

Chapter 176 – Reselling CCTV advertisement slots

Chapter 177 – Celebrities endorsements Part 1
Chapter 178 – Celebrities endorsements Part 2
Chapter 179 – Filming Starts
Chapter 180 – Celebrity Influences 1
Chapter 181- Celebrity Influences 2
Chapter 182 – Distributors Part 1
Chapter 183 – Distributors Part 2
Chapter 184 – The Second Step of the Plan
Chapter 185 – Annual Meeting
Chapter 186 – Alarmist Part 1
Chapter 187 – Alarmist Part 2
Chapter 188 – Alarmist Part 3
Chapter 189 – The Rich Old Feng
Chapter 190 – Changes in the New Year
Chapter 191 – Bladeless fans
Chapter 192 – Talks for the New Factory
Chapter 193 – Aggressive
Chapter 194 –Reassignment or Profits
Chapter 195 – A major event
Chapter 196 – Brainwashing Brother Ki
Chapter 197 – Upright Character
Chapter 198 – Sleight of hand tricks

Chapter 199 – Tender for advertising slots at CCTV Part 1

Chapter 200 – Tender for advertising slots at CCTV Part 2

Chapter 201– Tender for advertising slots at CCTV Part 3

Chapter 202 – Buying into Le Ha Ha Part 1

Chapter 203 – Buying into Le Ha Ha Part 2

Chapter 204 – Astronomically Priced Electric Fans Part 1

Chapter 205 – Astronomically Priced Electric Fans Part 2

Chapter 206 – Child Endorsement

Chapter 207 – Major Shareholder of Machinery Company

Chapter 208 – Meeting at the City Government

Chapter 209 – Meeting at the City Government Continued

Chapter 210 – Killer Move Part 1
Chapter 211 – Killer Move Part 2
Chapter 212 – Subduing Li Mingde
Chapter 213 – Audio Cassette Tape Shop Part 1
Chapter 214 – Audio Cassette Tape Shop Part 2
Chapter 215 – Calling the shots
Chapter 216 – From the big to small
Chapter 217 – Xiao Feng is Giving Gifts Again
Chapter 218 – Brother Ki is here again
Chapter 219 – Brother Ki’s future business

Chapter 220 – Getting loans with Brother Ki’s help

Chapter 221 – Uncle
Chapter 222 – Concerns of Zhang Ruiqiang
Chapter 223 – Kameda looking for a job
Chapter 224 – Aiwa Co.

Chapter 225 – The opportunity to get the controlling stake

Chapter 226 – Sony Vice President
Chapter 227 – Even if it is at Premium Price
Chapter 228 – Good News
Chapter 229 – Shares of Aiwa
Chapter 230 – The Fu Family acted fast
Chapter 231 – Going to the Soviet Union again
Chapter 232 – Special treatment

Chapter 233 – The generous Kiev Second Generation

Chapter 234 – Should I agree?

Chapter 235 – There are no problems with High Interests

Chapter 236 The Soviet Union Ball (Part 1)
Chapter 237 The Soviet Union Ball (Part 2)
Chapter 238 – Brother Ki’s misunderstanding
Chapter 239 – Shooting (Part 1)
Chapter 240 – Shooting (Part 2)
Chapter 241 – Driving a Tank
Chapter 242 – Dealing with the Bank Manager
Chapter 243 – Loans (Part 1)
Chapter 244 – Loans (Part 2)
Chapter 245 – Setting the trap
Chapter 246 – The Greedy Fu Rongjing
Chapter 247 – Exchanging Rubles for USD
Chapter 248 – Sixth Sense
Chapter 249 – London Gold Exchange
Chapter 250 – Lehaha becomes Popular
Chapter 251 – Shanghai’s stock exchange opens
Chapter 252 – Fu Rongjing broke down
Chapter 253 – Fu Rongqi
Chapter 254 – The Fu family Apologized?
Chapter 255 – Going to Hong Kong again
Chapter 256 – Be friends with him
Chapter 257 – Sichuan Airlines
Chapter 258 – Leader of headquarters
Chapter 259 – Two good news

Chapter 260 – The Civil Aviation Procurement Team

Chapter 261 – Which side are you on?!
Chapter 262 – Good Friend of the Soviet Union
Chapter 263 – Zhang Ruiqiang’s Questioning
Chapter 264 – Believe him or not?
Chapter 265 – Playing in the Snow
Chapter 266 – Selling the stocks
Chapter 267 – Shorting Crude Oil
Chapter 268 – Interview with the University
Chapter 269 – Zhang Han’s background
Chapter 270 – Advice for Zhang Ruiqiang
Chapter 271 – Tycoon Feng Xingtai
Chapter 272 – Oil Prices plunged

Chapter 273 – Getting a stake in Mining Enterprise

Chapter 274 – Feng Yu’s Investment

Chapter 275 – High-profile Feng Xingtai

Chapter 276 – Celebrating Lunar New Year in Hometown

Chapter 277 – Feng Xingtai’s family is not Simple

Chapter 278 – Technologies exchange (Part 1)

Chapter 279 – Technologies exchange (Part 2)

Chapter 280 – I want to manufacture automobiles

Chapter 281 – Going through the Back Door

Chapter 282 – Building cars behind closed doors

Chapter 283 – The furious First Automobile Works (FAW)

Chapter 284 – Heavy Industrial Facilities’ Sales (Part 1)

Chapter 285 – Heavy Industrial Facilities’ Sales (Part 2)

Chapter 286 – Special Enlistment?

Chapter 287 – Military to Civilian, Civilian to Military

Chapter 288 – The Great Bull Market
Chapter 289 – Jealousy
Chapter 290 – Master Lu’s Invitation
Chapter 291 – The Automobile Dream

Chapter 292 – Current status of China’s Automobile industry

Chapter 293 – City’s Marketing
Chapter 294 – Bing City Government Meeting
Chapter 295 – A National Brand
Chapter 296 – Change of Attitude
Chapter 297 – Li Dafu

Chapter 298 – Come, let’s talk about our dreams

Chapter 299 – Everybody has dreams
Chapter 300 – Increased investment in Lehaha
Chapter 301 – Flying kites (Part One)
Chapter 302 – Flying kites (Part two)
Chapter 303 – Fu Guangzheng
Chapter 304 – Graduation

Chapter 305 – Wen Deguang’s promotion to the Chief of Farm department.

Chapter 306 – Dad, you should develop this way

Chapter 307 – Aiwa’s positioning
Chapter 308 – All of you are not interested?
Chapter 309 – AIWA Walkman is a learning tool

Chapter 310 – AIWA Walkman, learning languages anytime

Chapter 311 – Sony’s Retaliation (Part One)
Chapter 312 – Sony’s Retaliation (Part Two)
Chapter 313 – What? AIWA repaid the debts?
Chapter 314 – Get Sony out of China
Chapter 315 – Beating Sony in the home ground
Chapter 316 – Catching the Train

Chapter 317 – Taking precautions against Feng Yu

Chapter 318 – University, a small-scale society

Chapter 319 – Skipping Military Training
Chapter 320 – Negotiating with the Professor
Chapter 321 – Last Batch of equipment
Chapter 322 – Sponsorship is for making money
Chapter 323 – Dream big, Kameda Masao

Chapter 324 – Out of Asia, Set your sights on the world

Chapter 325 – 10 Billion Yen Goal

Chapter 326 – AWIA, Master of Core Technologies

Chapter 327 – Friend, you must be brave
Chapter 328 – Bringing her home
Chapter 329 – Let’s watch a movie

Chapter 330 – The next stage of the relationship

Chapter 331 – Energetic
Chapter 332 – Peaceful school life
Chapter 333 – Developing VCD
Chapter 334 – Dreams
Chapter 335 – Money + Dreams
Chapter 336 – Preparations

Chapter 337 – Huh, suing us for monopolizing the market?

Chapter 338 – Alliance

Chapter 339 – Multi-functional

Chapter 340 – We did not get an award? We shall organize one ourselves

Chapter 341 – The awards ceremony will be a gala dinner?

Chapter 342 – Convincing CCTV

Chapter 343 – Formation of the Judging panel

Chapter 344 – Dad, you want to show your face on CCTV?

Chapter 345 – Getting the Performers

Chapter 346 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 1)

Chapter 347 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 2)

Chapter 348 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 3)

Chapter 349 – Giving CCTV lessons again (Part 4)

Chapter 350 – Trouble at the Association

Chapter 351 – Close the door, release Master Lu

Chapter 352 – Getting a 2nd generation follower?

Chapter 353 – Piracy beating originals

Chapter 354 – The Little Tyrant Video Games Console

Chapter 355 – Girl, make me happy

Chapter 356 – Cheers and placards on Gala Dinner (Part 1 of 3)

Chapter 357 – Cheers and placards on Gala Dinner (Part 2 of 3)

Chapter 358 – Cheers and placards on Gala Dinner (Part 3 of 3)

Chapter 359 – Meeting the in-laws?

Chapter 360 – This was the only usable version?

Chapter 361 – Gathering

Chapter 362 – Broadcast of the Awards Ceremony

Chapter 363 – The after-effects of the award ceremony (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 364 – The after-effects of the award ceremony (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 365 – Super Fan enters the market

Chapter 366 – The higher-ups’ attention? (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 367 – The higher-ups’ attention? (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 368 – Tian Peng Pig Farm wins
Chapter 369 – The Post-Soviet era
Chapter 370 – Taken advantage of
Chapter 371 – Since it had already happened……
Chapter 372 – The evil mining company’s boss
Chapter 373 – Shortage of farmers in Russia?
Chapter 374 – Supplying Farmers?
Chapter 375 – Perplexed Zhang Ruiqiang
Chapter 376 – Everything is for Bing City!
Chapter 377 – You will still need me
Chapter 378 – I had also contacted Australia
Chapter 379 – Something’s wrong

Chapter 380 – You must be a determined traitor

Chapter 381 – Double spy

Chapter 382 – Life is like a play, it all depends on your acting skills (Part 1 of 3)

Chapter 383 – Life is like a play, it all depends on your acting skills (Part 2 of 3)

Chapter 384 – Life is like a play, it all depends on your acting skills (Part 2 of 3)

Chapter 385 – Old Xu, I am disappointed with you

Chapter 386 – Hard to set up a hospital

Chapter 387 – We had owned a hospital all this while

Chapter 388 – Why can’t the hospital make money?

Chapter 389 – The best hospital in Bing City
Chapter 390 – Petition
Chapter 391 – Meeting
Chapter 392 – Give an inch and take a mile
Chapter 393 – Employees general meeting

Chapter 394 – External Grandson is not as good as our own grandson

Chapter 395- The district should develop this way

Chapter 396 – This is how you play Mahjong.

Chapter 397 – It is actually simple to ask the farmers to return their fields

Chapter 398 – Lend him the money
Chapter 399 – Deceiving Li Shiyou
Chapter 400 – How do we cooperate?
Chapter 401 – Small batteries, big business
Chapter 402 – Buying a computer
Chapter 403 – Useless computer

Chapter 404 – How can I forget about Ningbo Bird?

Chapter 405 – Ningbo Bird in poverty

Chapter 406 – Fast Acquisition

Chapter 407 – You will become a multi-millionaire

Chapter 408 – VCD player Prototype
Chapter 409 – Sony’s outraged
Chapter 410 – Learning Machine

Chapter 411 – Why does he want to sell medicine?

Chapter 412 – Persuading Zhang Ruiqiang

Chapter 413 – Wu Zhigang’s superiority

Chapter 414 – Speaking with facts!

Chapter 415 – The formulas are worthless?

Chapter 416 – These medical formulas are valuable!

Chapter 417 – Everyone has their uses
Chapter 418 – Stock up
Chapter 419 – Disgustingly in love
Chapter 420 – Buying advertisement spaces
Chapter 421 – The Complacent Duan Yongping
Chapter 422 – Compete with yourself

Chapter 423 – Aiwa learning machine, learn at your own pace

Chapter 424 – The Little Tyrant’s premature death

Chapter 425 – Buying the Little Tyrant
Chapter 426 – Everyone is cursing Aiwa
Chapter 427 – Brand Killer
Chapter 428 – Military Training
Chapter 429 and 430 – Organize an exhibition
Chapter 431 – Songjiang Concept Car

Chapter 432 – Opening Ceremony of the Exhibition

Chapter 433 – Making comparisons
Chapter 434 – Taking a step too far
Chapter 435 and 436 – Penpal
Chapter 437 – Pirated VCD appeared
Chapter 438 – Someone named Song
Chapter 439 – How do we sell cars?
Chapter 440 – Visiting CCTV
Chapter 441 – Test drive
Chapter 442 – National Automobile Brand
Chapter 443 – Recover the capital first

Chapter 444 – Brother Ki, do you want to buy cars?

Chapter 445 – Brother Ki is a foodie?

Chapter 446, 447 and 448 – Buying hen and selling eggs

Chapter 449 – I took that seriously
Chapter 450 – The City does not need to pay
Chapter 451 – Major Crackdown in the City

Chapter 452 – Sufficient funds were raised in one day

Chapter 453 – Taught a lesson by Zhang Ruiqiang

Chapter 454 – Brother Ki, think about your Russian army

Chapter 455 – Old Hou, do you have friends in the army?

Chapter 456 – Bargain?
Chapter 457 – This is also my product
Chapter 458 – Huh? That person is coming?
Chapter 459 – The Leader knows me?
Chapter 460 – Questions (Part 1 of 3)
Chapter 461 – Questions (Part 2 of 3)
Chapter 462 – Questions (Part 3 of 3)
Chapter 463 – Exchange Student
Chapter 464 – Rigged Auctions
Chapter 465 – Product placement in Gala night

Chapter 466 – Come to Beijing to watch the Gala night

Chapter 467 – The never-ending product placement (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 468 – The never-ending product placement (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 469 – Export tax rebate
Chapter 470 – Brothers in bad mood
Chapter 471 – He is finally here
Chapter 472 – Hao Haitao’s fustrations
Chapter 473 – Good Cop Bad Cop
Chapter 474 – Good Cop Bad Cop (Part 2)
Chapter 475 – Aggression

Chapter 476 – Everybody wants to be exchange students (Part 1 of 3)

Chapter 477 – Everybody wants to be exchange students (Part 2 of 3)

Chapter 478 – Everybody wants to be exchange students (Part 3 of 3)

Chapter 479 – Feng Hua VCD (Part 1of 2)
Chapter 480 – Feng Hua VCD (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 481 – Network access license
Chapter 482 – China’s own pager (Part 1 of 3)
Chapter 483 – China’s own pager (Part 2 of 3)
Chapter 484 – China’s own pager (Part 3 of 3)

Chapter 485 – Ministries and Commissions recommendations (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 486 – Ministries and Commissions recommendations (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 487 – Sudden increase in sales

Chapter 488 – Sports Meet

Chapter 489 – Overrun of health products in the market

Chapter 490 – Ma Family Army’s reputation

Chapter 491 – Persuading Deputy Station Chief Jia

Chapter 492 – Groundbreaking news
Chapter 493 – National uproar
Chapter 494 – The Leader’s attitude

Chapter 495 – Sixth Sense is going to be listed

Chapter 496 – Are you familiar with the TV stations?

Chapter 497 – Old Ma’s grudge

Chapter 498 – I am the one who caused the Ma Family Army to be disbanded?

Chapter 499 – Name sponsor of training grounds

Chapter 500 – Team endorsement
Chapter 501 – Household medications
Chapter 502 – Suboptimal health status
Chapter 503 – Instilling new ideas
Chapter 504 – Every Chinese lacks nutrient
Chapter 505 – All these honor should be mine
Chapter 506 – We are the ones!
Chapter 507 – All Japanese lacks Zinc
Chapter 508 – Hong Kong University
Chapter 509 – I am gay
Chapter 510 – Stupid Mainlander
Chapter 511 – Surpassing in all aspects
Chapter 512 – Fu Rongbing’s invitation
Chapter 513 – Matchmaking?
Chapter 514 – Fu Mengying’s resentment
Chapter 515 – Meeting Liu Chuanzhi
Chapter 516 – Opportunity to invest in Lenovo
Chapter 517 – Heard of Self-assembled PC?
Chapter 518 – I also have technologies
Chapter 519 – Inducements (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 520 – Inducements (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 521 – Liu Chuanzhi’s hard work
Chapter 522 – Stupid rich man
Chapter 523 – Losses or gain?
Chapter 524 – Successfully invested in Lenovo
Chapter 525 – I want to set up a TV station

Chapter 526 – Wind and Rain – Happy Dictionary

Chapter 527 – The two devise a plan
Chapter 528 – Drawing lots
Chapter 529 – Bullying the customer
Chapter 530 – Going out to Sea
Chapter 531 – Little Superman
Chapter 532 – The Little Superman’s ambitions
Chapter 533 – The Fustrated Little Superman
Chapter 534 – Because he is investing
Chapter 535 – You can’t cheat me
Chapter 536 – Superman Li’s guess
Chapter 537 – Making friends
Chapter 538 – Supermarket idea

Chapter 539 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 1 of 6)

Chapter 540 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 2 of 6)

Chapter 541 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 3 of 6)

Chapter 542 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 4 of 6)

Chapter 543 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 5 of 6)

Chapter 544 – Multilateral cooperation (Part 6 of 6)

Chapter 545 – Issues of a partnership (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 546 – Issues of a partnership (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 547 – Little Superman was reprimanded

Chapter 548 – Discussion of the Gold Market with Fu Rongqi

Chapter 549 – Wind and Rain Consulting Company’s developments

Chapter 550 – Huge investment
Chapter 551 – The Fu Family
Chapter 552 – Charity Ball (Part 1 of 3)
Chapter 553 – Charity Ball (Part 2 of 3)
Chapter 554 – Charity Ball (Part 3 of 3)
Chapter 555 – Charity Auction
Chapter 556 – They had come to invest

Chapter 557 – Recording of Happy Dictionary starts

Chapter 558 – Professor lost to a worker?

Chapter 559 – Professors are applying as participants

Chapter 560 – Wen Dongjun also want to take part

Chapter 561 – Quanjude

Chapter 562 – Creating a Hero from the Police force

Chapter 563 – Jiang Xianjun
Chapter 564 – Let me be a shareholder
Chapter 565 – Looking for connections

Chapter 566 – No Choice but to agree (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 567 – No Choice but to agree (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 568 – Entering the F&B industry
Chapter 569 – One year had passed again
Chapter 570 – The Fu Family went crazy
Chapter 571 – Hotpot
Chapter 572 – Cargo Vans
Chapter 573 – Pub in the Embassy Area
Chapter 574 – Elena’s feelings

Chapter 575 – Key shareholder of a Mining Company

Chapter 576 – Human Ham

Chapter 577 – The third-party benefits from the tussle

Chapter 578 – The third-party benefits from the tussle (Part 2)

Chapter 579 – CCTV’s report (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 580 – CCTV’s report (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 581 – Tai Hua Ham
Chapter 582 – Heard of Supermarket?

Chapter 583 – Our Supermarkets are extraordinary

Chapter 584 – Free repainting of the public buses

Chapter 585 – Veterans placement
Chapter 586 – Celebrity Wen Dongjun
Chapter 587 – Liu Jichuan’s return
Chapter 588 – Questions
Chapter 589 – Come and work for me
Chapter 590 – I want all of them

Chapter 591 – Lunar New Year visit to Li Na’s house

Chapter 592 – Wind and Rain Private Security
Chapter 593 – Testing their capabilities
Chapter 594 – Huh? Bodyguard?
Chapter 595 – Eye protection device?
Chapter 596 – The Furious Zhang Ruiqiang
Chapter 597 – Mother******!
Chapter 598 – The poor Sun Fulin

Chapter 599 – Bing City Pharmaceutical developments

Chapter 600 – Medical plaster (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 601 – Medical plaster (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 602 – Exclusive Supplier
Chapter 603 – Medical Plaster strategy

Chapter 604 – Partnership with Quanjude (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 605 – Partnership with Quanjude (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 606 – China’s food chart

Chapter 607 – The frustrated Li Dafu

Chapter 608 – To be the market leader (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 609 – To be the market leader (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 610 – How do you want to invest?

Chapter 611 – Having the same views (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 612 – Having the same views (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 613 – Changes to the ownership structure

Chapter 614
Chapter 615 – The Dismal Li Zekai
Chapter 616 – Superman Li is impressed
Chapter 617 – The nosy Li Zekai
Chapter 618 – Super VCD

Chapter 619 – Philips request for collaboration

Chapter 620 – Thomas’s surprise

Chapter 621 – Setting the Industry standards together (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 622 – Setting the Industry standards together (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 623 – The Amazing show flat
Chapter 624 – Full cooperation
Chapter 625 – Full cooperation continued
Chapter 626 – Industry Standards race

Chapter 627 – Giving out authorization like crazy (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 628 – Giving out authorization like crazy (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 629 – VCD brands
Chapter 630 – Nurturing the market
Chapter 631 – Returning back to China
Chapter 632 – Promotions (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 633 – Promotions (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 634 – Separating from the rest

Chapter 635 – Opening of the Supermarket (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 636 – Opening of the Supermarket (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 637 – Iron-fist Zhu shopping in a supermarket

Chapter 638 – Immediate success
Chapter 639 – Mutual benefits
Chapter 640 – Channels sharing
Chapter 641 – Advertising campaign
Chapter 642 – One thing leads to another
Chapter 643 – DVD Forum (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 644 – DVD Forum (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 645 – The era of two formats
Chapter 646 – The long-awaited letter

Chapter 647 – Thieves in the Supermarket (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 648 – Thieves in the Supermarket (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 649 – Tricks (Part 1 of 3)
Chapter 650 – Tricks (Part 2 of 3)
Chapter 651 – Tricks (Part 3 of 3)

Chapter 652 – Killing many birds with one stone

Chapter 653 – Selling cards for money (Part 1 of 4)

Chapter 654 – Selling cards for money (Part 2 of 4)

Chapter 655 – Selling cards for money (Part 3 of 4)

Chapter 656 – Selling cards for money (Part 4 of 4)

Chapter 657 – Teachers’ Day, Teachers’ Day Suffering

Chapter 658 – It’s easy to get a postgraduate recommendation

Chapter 659 – Everyone is giving shopping cards

Chapter 660 – Everyone is giving shopping cards part 2

Chapter 661 – Huh? Setup a bank?

Chapter 662 – Meeting Liu Yonghao

Chapter 663 – Guangcai Program

Chapter 664 – Do these companies qualify?

Chapter 665 – The supermarket have competitors!

Chapter 666 – Adolf’s frustrations
Chapter 667 – Beverage wars (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 668 – Beverage wars (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 669 – Young spokesperson
Chapter 670 – Meeting the Little Tigers
Chapter 671 – My Good Mood
Chapter 672 – Does your company needs money?
Chapter 673 – Should we acquire them?
Chapter 674 – Creative Person

Chapter 675 – Suppliers’ headaches (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 676 – Suppliers’ headaches (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 677 – Milk Tea promotion
Chapter 678 – Refusal
Chapter 679 – Got sued again
Chapter 680 – Support
Chapter 681 – The man behind the curtain
Chapter 682 – War of words on Media
Chapter 683 – Pollution

Chapter 684 – The fire spread to home (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 685 – The fire spread to home (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 686 – Hitting someone when he is down
Chapter 687 – The Higher-ups acted
Chapter 688 – Iron Fist Zhu’s conditions
Chapter 689 – Tomiichi Murayama’s Decision
Chapter 690 – Public Apology
Chapter 691 – The world’s shock
Chapter 692 – Buying out at bottom prices
Chapter 693 – Taking part
Chapter 694 – A wealthy fool (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 695 – A wealthy fool (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 696 – The Enthusiastic Victor (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 697 – The Enthusiastic Victor (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 698 – Chartering a flight
Chapter 699 – The lucky Victor
Chapter 700 – The plan
Chapter 701 – It’s too little
Chapter 702 – Bluff (Part 1 of 2)
Chapter 703 – Bluff (Part 2 of 2)
Chapter 704 – Got it

Chapter 705 – Using a medical formula to invest again?

Chapter 706 – Zhang Ruiqiang’s decision

Chapter 707 – Didn’t come in vain

Chapter 708 – Can we change the name of the village?

Chapter 709 – Use money

Chapter 710 – Start selling

Chapter 711 – Some laughs, other cries (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 712 – Some laughs, other cries (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 713 – Everyone loves Teacher Li
Chapter 714 – Who will teach who a lesson?
Chapter 715 – The pathetic Zhao Yan
Chapter 716 – Cordless phone
Chapter 717 – Getting listed?
Chapter 718 – It’s not the time yet
Chapter 719 – The troubled Zhang Ruiqiang
Chapter 720 – Refusal
Chapter 721 – Social Security
Chapter 722 – Merger
Chapter 723 – Decision
Chapter 724 – Conditions
Chapter 725 – Domineering Xu Changyou
Chapter 726 – Agricultural Industry Plan
Chapter 727 – Huh? Beidacang?
Chapter 728 – Let the farms invest
Chapter 729 – Crying babies get the milk
Chapter 730 – “168” Strategy
Chapter 731 – Capital usage
Chapter 732 – Thesis Defence
Chapter 733 – Fighting over him

Chapter 734 – My ambition is to be a businessman

Chapter 735 – Goodbye University
Chapter 736 – Different Treatment
Chapter 737 – Beidacang Group was set up
Chapter 738 – Good Strategy
Chapter 739 – Brand Cooperation
Chapter 740 – You think I am a fool?!
Chapter 741 – On my terms!
Chapter 742 – Special Privileges!
Chapter 743 – Are you all regretting now?
Chapter 744 – Future plans

Chapter 745 – Sixth Sense Company’s developments

Chapter 746 – Wait and See
Chapter 747 – Market Opens
Chapter 748 – Losses
Chapter 749 – Ambitions
Chapter 750 – Hi, Bill!
Chapter 751 – Two conditions
Chapter 752 – Win-win situation
Chapter 753 – Bill Gates’ decision
Chapter 754 – Agreeing to the conditions
Chapter 755 – Tony’s surprise

Chapter 756 – Microsoft Board of Directors meeting

Chapter 757 – Steve’s doubts

Chapter 758 – Another Steve

Chapter 759 – How did you get your money from?

Chapter 760 – I would like to buy a house
Chapter 761 – Seattle
Chapter 762 – I want both of them
Chapter 763 – Advertising message and Reality
Chapter 764 – Housekeeping staffs
Chapter 765 – High salaries
Chapter 766 – When did it start?
Chapter 767 – Price war
Chapter 768 – The effects of position
Chapter 769 – Tu Hao (Rich man)
Chapter 770 – Surprise
Chapter 771 – Ballmer’s request
Chapter 772 – Jeff
Chapter 773 – Investing in dreams
Chapter 774 – Change in attitude
Chapter 775 – Jeff decision
Chapter 776 – “Chance meeting.”
Chapter 777 – Brother Ki comes to America
Chapter 778 – Meeting Elena again
Chapter 779 – The proud Kirilenko
Chapter 780 – Cooperation
Chapter 781 – Set up a museum?
Chapter 782 – Liu Chuanzhi’s decision
Chapter 783 – Lenovo Kingsoft
Chapter 784 – The Irresponsible Director

Chapter 785 – You don’t need to make any reservations at this restaurant

Chapter 786 – Don’t ever buy it.
Chapter 787 – Analytics software
Chapter 788 – Comparison
Chapter 789 – You still need to hire people
Chapter 790 – Empire State Building

Chapter 791 – Change it to China State Building

Chapter 792 – Donald’s decision
Chapter 793 – Kameda Masao
Chapter 794 – For your sons
Chapter 795 – Wolf of Wall Street
Chapter 796 – No dividends
Chapter 797 – Lenovo Kingsoft is set up
Chapter 798 – Forever
Chapter 799 – Must have an open mind
Chapter 800 – Sponsors
Chapter 801 – Child of Wealth
Chapter 802 – Journey to Olympics

Chapter 803 – With an excuse, there will be a Gala night

Chapter 804 – You have been conned again
Chapter 805 – Want Respect?
Chapter 806 – Old Brands are treasures
Chapter 807 – Grain storage
Chapter 808 – Grain depots become Warehouses
Chapter 809 – Little Nephew
Chapter 810 – Repairing the Dam
Chapter 811 – No one can understand him
Chapter 812 – Province is going all out
Chapter 813 – Exposed
Chapter 814 – Master Lu’s danger
Chapter 815 – Secret

Chapter 816 – Acquisition for the Empire State Building completed

Chapter 817 – Conspiracy theories
Chapter 818 – Invitation for cooperation
Chapter 819 – BML
Chapter 820 – Li Jingwei’s troubles
Chapter 821 – New investment’s direction
Chapter 822 – Mortgage Loan
Chapter 823 – Gift from heaven
Chapter 824 – Li Jingwei’s plan
Chapter 825 – Strategy and conditions
Chapter 826 – Crisis
Chapter 827 – Foreign Business Group
Chapter 828 – Capable person
Chapter 829 – Beverage industry association
Chapter 830 – Conditions
Chapter 831 – Fu Guangzheng’s decision
Chapter 832 – I want a specialized counter
Chapter 833 – Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s shock
Chapter 834 – Lucky draw promotion
Chapter 835 – Fire in the backyard
Chapter 836 – The ones holding them back
Chapter 837 – Spokesperson
Chapter 838 – Combination punches
Chapter 839 – Endless troubles
Chapter 840 – Who’s backing is stronger?
Chapter 841 – Sudden invitation
Chapter 842 – Sudden invitation

Chapter 843 – The disgraceful opening ceremony

Chapter 844 – This will not end
Chapter 845 – Changing history
Chapter 846 – Sued for Discrimination
Chapter 847 – Broadcasting stopped
Chapter 848 – Anywhere except for that place!
Chapter 849 – Olympic Games bombing
Chapter 850 – Disappointment
Chapter 851 – Clinton apologized
Chapter 852 – Who is the best?
Chapter 853 – They really won the gold medal
Chapter 854 – Aggressive advertising
Chapter 855 – Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao
Chapter 856 – Everyone wants to cooperate

Chapter 857 – The markets must be based on population

Chapter 858 – It’s the opposite
Chapter 859 – Weird Japanese
Chapter 860 – Curiosity kills the cat
Chapter 861 – Mobile phone
Chapter 862 – Obsolete within 5 years

Chapter 863 – They will be doomed if they don’t invest in technological developments

Chapter 864 – Aiwa is here again

Chapter 865 – The wolf is here

Chapter 866 – Brother Ki, this phone is for you

Chapter 867 – Futuristic product

Chapter 868 – Heitaro Nakajima wants to be listed

Chapter 869 – Looking at the future

Chapter 870 – Different types of handphone flip cover

Chapter 871 – Voice recorder
Chapter 872 – Impenetrable new market
Chapter 873 – Finding another way
Chapter 874 – The letter
Chapter 875 – Not winning a single bid
Chapter 876 – Complain
Chapter 877 – The Old Man wants to meet you
Chapter 878 – Try this
Chapter 879 – KTV
Chapter 880 – Southeast Li Jiaxing
Chapter 881 – Invitation
Chapter 882 – Some places cannot be touched
Chapter 883 – So, that’s the reason
Chapter 884 – Fundraising
Chapter 885 – The higher-up’s attention

Chapter 886 – Dad is going to be a government official

Chapter 887 – Problems with State-Owned Enterprise reforms

Chapter 888 – Get listed
Chapter 889 – I am patriotic
Chapter 890 – Lots of problems

Chapter 891 – Representing the Country to thank you

Chapter 892 – Green lights all the way
Chapter 893 – How do we sell?
Chapter 894 – Internet Advertising
Chapter 895 – Meeting Professor Liang again
Chapter 896 – Operation Starts
Chapter 897 – Preach to Deaf Ears
Chapter 898 – Starting to lose money
Chapter 899 – The future Head of the family
Chapter 900 – Thailand’s economic situation
Chapter 901 – Many reasons
Chapter 902 – Full-fledged Attack

Chapter 903 – Sudden closure of Futures Contracts

Chapter 904 – Ah… My phone is out of battery again

Chapter 905 – Thailand’s retaliation
Chapter 906 – Professor Liang’s worries
Chapter 907 – Shocking news
Chapter 908 – Irritating Soros
Chapter 909 – Extreme Policies
Chapter 910 – Boss, we are at our limits
Chapter 911 – The Proud Thai Central Bank
Chapter 912 – Chris Patten
Chapter 913 – Rejection
Chapter 914 – Start from the daughter
Chapter 915 – Comeback
Chapter 916 – Defending the backyard
Chapter 917 – Leading them on
Chapter 918 – Nibble
Chapter 919 – Haha, we still have money
Chapter 920 – Rekindling hope
Chapter 921 – Resignation
Chapter 922 – Family comes to Hong Kong
Chapter 923 – Hong Kong’s Return
Chapter 924 – Floating Rates
Chapter 925 – Thai Baht dives
Chapter 926 – Abnormal Hang Seng Index
Chapter 927 – Invest rationally
Chapter 928 – Fu Rongqi can’t wait
Chapter 929 – Hang Seng Index dives

Chapter 930 – Joint venture automobile manufacturing

Chapter 931 – Volunteering to be the scapegoat

Chapter 932 – Launching of the New mobile phone

Chapter 933 – Strong Competitor
Chapter 934 – Choices
Chapter 935 – We are friends
Chapter 936 – Switching of position
Chapter 937 – Harvesting Chives
Chapter 938 – Soros’s motives
Chapter 939 – Hang Seng Index Battle
Chapter 940 – First win against Soros
Chapter 941 – Hidden worries
Chapter 942 – Be a hero
Chapter 943 – Copying Song
Chapter 944 – Requesting for Song
Chapter 945 – Fu Rongqu’s mistake
Chapter 946 – New battleground
Chapter 947 – If we had known
Chapter 948 – Why must it be here?
Chapter 949 – Fight
Chapter 950 – He will ask for a truce
Chapter 951 – Fame and Profits
Chapter 952 – Dividing the loot
Chapter 953 – How much did he make?
Chapter 954 – Crystalline silicon industry
Chapter 955 – I am in the retail business
Chapter 956 – Celebration dinner
Chapter 957 – Internet + Physical business
Chapter 958 – Expanding the mining industry
Chapter 959 – Meet in 1998
Chapter 960 – Wind and Rain Design
Chapter 961 – New Joint venture vehicles
Chapter 962 – Building low-cost cars
Chapter 963 – Technology export to Russia?
Chapter 964 – Watching from afar
Chapter 965 – Hesitation
Chapter 966 – Joint-venture
Chapter 967 – Small cars’ performance
Chapter 968 – Genie
Chapter 969 – Li Mingde’s retaliation
Chapter 970 – Old Zhang will be promoted
Chapter 971 – Marketing
Chapter 972 – Differences
Chapter 973 – Another invitation
Chapter 974 – Forbes evaluation
Chapter 975 – Allen’s rage

Chapter 976 – Buying a basketball team for fun

Chapter 977 – Another Donald
Chapter 978 – Buying Clippers
Chapter 979 – Building a team
Chapter 980 – Staples
Chapter 981 – Naming Rights
Chapter 982 – Page and Sergey
Chapter 983 – Brother Ki loves to imitate
Chapter 984 – Yen starts to fall
Chapter 985 – Japan’s tragedy
Chapter 986 – Feign attack on Hong Kong
Chapter 987 – Pot calling the Kettle black
Chapter 988 – Weird interview
Chapter 989 – This is not right
Chapter 990 – Trap
Chapter 991 – The Proud Soros
Chapter 992 – How did this happen?

Chapter 993 – Western countries are implicated

Chapter 994 – Plans to buy at low prices
Chapter 995 – Quantum Fund Crisis
Chapter 996 – The Happy Brother Ki
Chapter 997 – Business planning in Russia

Chapter 998 – Brother Ki also has his troubles

Chapter 999 –Technology firms
Chapter 1000 – Nothing to worry
Chapter 1001 – Tai Hua Consultancy
Chapter 1002 – Tai Hua Consultancy
Chapter 1003 – That’s him?

Chapter 1004 – Entrepreneurship Support Program

Chapter 1005 – Tai Hua Holding Corporation
Chapter 1006 – Restructuring starts
Chapter 1007 – Stop hiding
Chapter 1008 – What’s your name again?

Chapter 1009 – Setting up a business magazine agency

Chapter 1010 – Wind and Rain Business Magazine

Chapter 1011 – Three prominent tech firms

Chapter 1012 – Receiving treatment

Chapter 1013 – Is it him?

Chapter 1014 – Is it you?

Chapter 1015 – It is hard to meet, but hard to part too

Chapter 1016 – Shi Dazhu

Chapter 1017 – The rise and fall of an industry

Chapter 1018 – The frustrated Sun Zhengyi
Chapter 1019 – South Korea trip
Chapter 1020 – Legend of Mir’s company
Chapter 1021 The game is full of bugs!

Chapter 1022 – You have gotten yourself a bargain

Chapter 1023 – Guidance on game development

Chapter 1024 – Recreating the classics from his previous life

Chapter 1025 – If we cannot buy them, poach their staff

Chapter 1026 – Kameda’s dream

Chapter 1027 – Wind and Rain Games start operation

Chapter 1028 – Gbox
Chapter 1029 – Overbearing
Chapter 1030 – Feng Yu’s advantage
Chapter 1031 – Microsoft’s internal conflicts
Chapter 1032 – Given an inch, want a mile
Chapter 1033– Jensen Huang
Chapter 1034– Hardware
Chapter 1035 – Problem
Chapter 1036 – Demon and monsters
Chapter 1037 – Reality
Chapter 1038 – Buying technology
Chapter 1039 – Mobile phone’s development
Chapter 1040 – Too expansive
Chapter 1041 – Legend of Mir’s Public Beta
Chapter 1042 – Industry Leader
Chapter 1043 – We can also assemble
Chapter 1044 – Lenovo wants to be listed
Chapter 1045 – Public Beta ended
Chapter 1046 – One Million online players
Chapter 1047 – Reported on the news
Chapter 1048 – Making it on the list
Chapter 1049 – Getting belittled
Chapter 1050 – Scapegoat
Chapter 1051 – LA Wind and Rain
Chapter 1052 – Start Running
Chapter 1053 – We can win the Blazers

Chapter 1054 – All the teams are thrashing the Blazers

Chapter 1055 – Allen’s plan
Chapter 1056 – On what grounds?
Chapter 1057 – Going separate ways
Chapter 1058 – The excited Allen
Chapter 1059 – The excited Allen
Chapter 1060 – Aiwa is being sued
Chapter 1061 – MP3 players
Chapter 1062 – High Compensation
Chapter 1063 – Sony was sued
Chapter 1064 – Product launch
Chapter 1065 – Hunger marketing
Chapter 1066 – Sony’s defective products

Chapter 1067 – MP3 and Data storage technologies

Chapter 1068 – Let them sell
Chapter 1069 – Being a good host
Chapter 1070 – Black sesame wine
Chapter 1071 – Try the dishes

Chapter 1072 – I promise there are no bugs this time

Chapter 1073 – I will not eat anything even if I starve to death

Chapter 1074 – Investing in Xiao Ma
Chapter 1075 – Bundle Sales
Chapter 1076 – Meeting in the game again
Chapter 1077 – Destiny
Chapter 1078 – Zhou Kexin’s new job

Chapter 1079 – Microsoft Office is not selling

Chapter 1080 – Lenovo is getting listed

Chapter 1081 – Getting listed one after another

Chapter 1082 – Get ready to dump your shares
Chapter 1083 – He sold his Microsoft shares
Chapter 1084 – The Furious Allen
Chapter 1085 – Microsoft’s share prices fell
Chapter 1086 – Everything is ready
Chapter 1087 – Meeting Allen again
Chapter 1088 – The bubble burst
Chapter 1089 – Share prices are inflated
Chapter 1090 – Financial Fraud
Chapter 1091 – This is the evidence
Chapter 1092 – Fall, fall, fall…
Chapter 1093 – <Fortune> is a joke
Chapter 1094 – Winners and losers
Chapter 1095 – A bubble had formed in China
Chapter 1096 – Qiandu

Chapter 1097 – Shi Dazhu returning to his peak again

Chapter 1098 – Frustrated Sun Zhengyi

Chapter 1099 – The forums must be regulated

Chapter 1100 – Multi parties’ cooperation (Part one of two)

Chapter 1101 – Multi parties’ cooperation (Part two of two)

Chapter 1102 – China’s internet Summit
Chapter 1103 – Where are the awesome people?!
Chapter 1104 – Who do you want to interview?
Chapter 1105 – Old Sun, Stop him!
Chapter 1106 – The stunned Alibaba!
Chapter 1107 – Got the wrong script?!
Chapter 1108 – Using people to decide
Chapter 1109 – Ma Yun asking for advice
Chapter 1110 – the Lucky Zhou Kexin
Chapter 1111 – Fate
Chapter 1112 – Everyone is smart
Chapter 1113 – Going to Moscow again
Chapter 1114 – Fengshui
Chapter 1115 – Elena loves to sing
Chapter 1116 – Genius
Chapter 1117 – Meeting Brother Ke again
Chapter 1118 – Throw him out!

Chapter 1119 – He is more important than anyone else!

Chapter 1120 – The fish swallowed the bait
Chapter 1121 – Logistics Development
Chapter 1122 – Exchanging shares
Chapter 1123 – Third-Party payment software
Chapter 1124 – Internet Bank

Chapter 1125 – Art pieces which are hard to appreciate

Chapter 1126 – Chance Encounter
Chapter 1127 – Ah… I made the wrong bid
Chapter 1128 – I am helping you
Chapter 1129 – The marriage of Pierrette
Chapter 1130 – National Treasure?
Chapter 1131 – Master Lu returns to Beijing
Chapter 1132 – Mobile Phone’s new feature

Chapter 1133 – They are not our match even if they join forces

Chapter 1134 – Apple had launched its MP3 players

Chapter 1135 – Conquest of the Three Formats
Chapter 1136 – Isn’t this Little Med?
Chapter 1137 – Launch of Gbox
Chapter 1138 – Sony’s cooperation intention
Chapter 1139 – Not interested
Chapter 1140 – Price War

Chapter 1141 – The Little Tyrant is getting listed

Chapter 1142 – Mobile Power Bank
Chapter 1143 – Battery Pack and Car Battery
Chapter 1144 – Amazon is making profits
Chapter 1145 – Direct funding
Chapter 1146 – Something Fishy

Chapter 1147 – One man’s meat is another man’s poison

Chapter 1148 – Probing
Chapter 1149 – Paypal is also mine
Chapter 1150 – Mobile Payments and Paypal
Chapter 1151 – Sharing their cakes
Chapter 1152 – Payment software
Chapter 1153 – Email marketing
Chapter 1154 – Everyone wants to invest
Chapter 1155 – Sa Wukong
Chapter 1156 – Know-It-All
Chapter 1157 – Break up
Chapter 1158 – Conditions
Chapter 1159 – Fighting for power
Chapter 1160 – I have the final say here!
Chapter 1161 – Northern Construction
Chapter 1162 – It’s you?!
Chapter 1163 – Complicated feelings
Chapter 1164 – Impersonating Feng Yu?!
Chapter 1165 – Rock paper scissors
Chapter 1166 – Change
Chapter 1167 – Yue Lai Inn
Chapter 1168 – Industry Standard
Chapter 1169 – Members
Chapter 1170 – Nvidia
Chapter 1171 – WorldCom’s downfall
Chapter 1172 – Another scandal
Chapter 1173 – Arthur Andersen
Chapter 1174 – The proud Jerry Sanders
Chapter 1175 – Exchange
Chapter 1176 – Allen’s resentment
Chapter 1177 – Ah… we won again
Chapter 1178 – Let the Nets win next year
Chapter 1179 – Cooperation with IBM
Chapter 1180 – Lenovo’s competitiveness
Chapter 1181 – Who is in charge?
Chapter 1182 – Conspiracy theory resurfaced
Chapter 1183 – E-cigarette
Chapter 1184 – National Debate
Chapter 1185 – Smoke rings competition
Chapter 1186 – Suspicion
Chapter 1187 – A story
Chapter 1188 – Proposal
Chapter 1189 – Unable to keep it simple
Chapter 1190 – Tragic event

Chapter 1191 – Stock Markets crash, Gold rises

Chapter 1192 – Making Soros the scapegoat again

Chapter 1193 – Even making money have worries

Chapter 1194 – Gold prices will rise during troubled times

Chapter 1195 – War
Chapter 1196 – Sky-high consulting fees
Chapter 1197 – Real color screen
Chapter 1198 – Imitation phone design
Chapter 1199 – Leading the trend
Chapter 1200 – LCD vs. Plasma
Chapter 1201 – HD DVD
Chapter 1202 – The fight over members
Chapter 1203 – Teaching Fatty Huang

Chapter 1204 – Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) must also set standards

Chapter 1205 – Portable DVD

Chapter 1206 – The frustrated Li Zekai

Chapter 1207 – The Zheng family wants to cooperate

Chapter 1208 – Big Customer
Chapter 1209 – Buy, buy, buy
Chapter 1210 – Undrafted NBA players
Chapter 1211 – Europe’s Top Billionaire
Chapter 1212 – The benevolent Brother Ki

Chapter 1213 – The Current Situation of the Beverage alliance

Chapter 1214 – Setting sights on their future celebrity endorsers

Chapter 1215 – Internet TV Station
Chapter 1216 – Sohu Channel
Chapter 1217 – Talent search
Chapter 1218 – Huayi Brothers
Chapter 1219 – Sending Artistes overseas
Chapter 1220 – Need to tell a story
Chapter 1221 – High ratings
Chapter 1222 – Start-up Heroes

Chapter 1223 – Do you dare to watch a movie with me?

Chapter 1224 – Someday
Chapter 1225 – Imitation Electric bikes
Chapter 1226 – Two-pronged approach
Chapter 1227 – Influencing the public opinion

Chapter 1228 – Turning bad things into a good one

Chapter 1229 – Electric Skateboard

Chapter 1230 – Self-balancing personal transporter

Chapter 1231 – The Arrogant Brother Ki
Chapter 1232 – Brother Ki’s way of winning
Chapter 1233 – Developing World of Warcraft
Chapter 1234 – PC games era
Chapter 1235 – Football League
Chapter 1236 – Setting up a Company
Chapter 1237 – Must start from young

Chapter 1238 – The Olympics Games lacks funding

Chapter 1239 – Increasing the sponsorship’s benchmark

Chapter 1240 – The speechless Coca Cola
Chapter 1241 – Double Happiness
Chapter 1242 – Technology breakthrough
Chapter 1243 – Toyota’s anger
Chapter 1244 – Automobile Industry Conference

Chapter 1245 – Not talking about relationships

Chapter 1246 – Crash Test Laboratory
Chapter 1247 – Test Laboratory Park
Chapter 1248 – Shot himself in the foot
Chapter 1249 – Internal and External Troubles
Chapter 1250 – New car model authorization

Chapter 1251 – These are all weakened versions

Chapter 1252 – Olympic Games Partner
Chapter 1253 – Another Forbes Interview
Chapter 1254 – Becoming the Richest Man
Chapter 1255 – The regretting Steve
Chapter 1256 – Tai Chi
Chapter 1257 – Undervalued
Chapter 1258 – Intentions to delist
Chapter 1259 – Talks
Chapter 1260 – Rejection
Chapter 1261 – Delist
Chapter 1262 – Minor issue
Chapter 1263 – Corporate Email Account
Chapter 1264 – Fake Tycoon
Chapter 1265 – Tencent games
Chapter 1266 – Stimulating Consumer Spending
Chapter 1267 – The invading Tencent

Chapter 1267 – An opportunity during a gathering

Chapter 1269 – Chinese Web
Chapter 1270 – Real-name system
Chapter 1271 – Pilot test
Chapter 1272 – Taobao
Chapter 1273 – One Month
Chapter 1274 – Whitman
Chapter 1275 – Persuasion

Chapter 1276 – How are we going to market this?

Chapter 1277 – Emotions
Chapter 1278 – This is called ‘Like.’
Chapter 1279 – Oh, Tie Ba

Chapter 1280 – China’s Top Ten IT influential men

Chapter 1281 – Buying a Satellite for fun

Chapter 1282 – The Satellite Market’s Current Situation

Chapter 1283 – Help me get one too
Chapter 1284 – TV Set-top box
Chapter 1285 – Name
Chapter 1286 – Domestic made is also fine
Chapter 1287 – Similarities and differences
Chapter 1288 – Being busy is good
Chapter 1289 – Dumbfounded Donald
Chapter 1290 – Play until the seventh match
Chapter 1291 – Star-studded New York
Chapter 1292 – Unexpected Ending
Chapter 1293 – smartphone

Chapter 1294 – The most expensive and the cheapest

Chapter 1295 – Smartphone race
Chapter 1296 – HDV
Chapter 1297 – Different Camps
Chapter 1298 – Strategic Product
Chapter 1299 – Every company should have
Chapter 1300 – Bing City Beer’s Development

Chapter 1301 – Smaller Company Acquiring Bigger Companies

Chapter 1302 – Beer Festival’s opening
Chapter 1303 – Joint Venture
Chapter 1304 – Many benefits of a cooperation
Chapter 1305 – Beverage Empire
Chapter 1306 – Busch’s Representative

Chapter 1307 – Shocking news during the closing ceremony

Chapter 1308 – I am not doing this business
Chapter 1309 – Big business
Chapter 1310 – Don’t get involved

Chapter 1311 – If you are not interested, I will do it

Chapter 1312 – Huh? Aircraft carrier’s technologies?!

Chapter 1313 – This is not easy
Chapter 1314 – Minsk
Chapter 1315 – Big Appetite
Chapter 1316 – Everyone is exhilarated
Chapter 1317 – Business delegates

Chapter 1318 – Making the best out of a bad situation

Chapter 1319 – Poor and Unreasonable
Chapter 1320 – Package price
Chapter 1321 – Payment Method
Chapter 1322 – Worries

Chapter 1323 – Position will determine the mindset

Chapter 1324 – Many issues with the new product

Chapter 1325 – Introducing DV video footages
Chapter 1326 – The Dismissive Sony
Chapter 1327 – Dominating the low-end market
Chapter 1328 – Sudden surge in sales
Chapter 1329 – Zhikang, you will endorse it
Chapter 1330 – Bear Grylls
Chapter 1331 – Settled
Chapter 1332 – A different type of show
Chapter 1333 – It should be filmed this way
Chapter 1334 – Unexpected Ratings
Chapter 1335 – Good Reviews
Chapter 1336 – Purchasing Chinese Brands

Chapter 1337 – Blocking the marketing channels

Chapter 1338 – What are they trying to do?
Chapter 1339 –
Chapter 1340 – Gained support
Chapter 1341 – An Army of Lawyers

Chapter 1342 – Come, let’s see who has more money to burn

Chapter 1343 – Changing mindsets
Chapter 1344 – Backing off
Chapter 1345 – Firm response

Chapter 1346 – Showing the graciousness of a strong nation

Chapter 1347 – We should own the controlling shares

Chapter 1348 – I am willing to help
Chapter 1349 – Giving the Leader a lesson
Chapter 1350 – The importance of the market
Chapter 1351 – Pilot Episode
Chapter 1352 – The business from TV shows
Chapter 1353 – Business Ecosystem

Chapter 1354 – How are we going to do this with an Entertainment Company?

Chapter 1355 – No foresight

Chapter 1356 – Investing in Qidian

Chapter 1357 – Online novel website should be like this

Chapter 1358 – Shocking the industry

Chapter 1359 – I will tell you the outline, and you just write accordingly

Chapter 1360 – Cultural significance

Chapter 1361 – Seeking assistance from alma mater

Chapter 1362 – English is a skill

Chapter 1363 – Chinese Classics and Feudalism Teachings

Chapter 1364 – There’s a price to pay for a publicity stunt

Chapter 1365 – Kexin’s Parents
Chapter 1366 – Daughter, it’s him
Chapter 1367 – Decision
Chapter 1368 – Zuckerberg
Chapter 1369 – Persuading Zuckerberg

Chapter 1370 – Google is also going to do Video sharing

Chapter 1371 – Softbank’s Director
Chapter 1372 – Same Motives
Chapter 1373 – Ralph’s thoughts
Chapter 1374 – The Li Family wants to invest
Chapter 1375 – Brother Ki’s rhetoric
Chapter 1376 – Sports Mogul
Chapter 1377 – Will not merge

Chapter 1378 – It’s fine to cooperate this way

Chapter 1379 – Let’s see who will be finished first

Chapter 1380 – Raising the standards
Chapter 1381 – Microsoft’s strategy
Chapter 1382 – Microsoft’s strategy
Chapter 1383 – Fighting for markets
Chapter 1384 – Pushing closer
Chapter 1385 – Break them up
Chapter 1386 – IE is outdated
Chapter 1387 – Enmity increases
Chapter 1388 – Softbank is in trouble
Chapter 1389 – Devastating blow
Chapter 1390 – Cooperation and plotting
Chapter 1391 – The Market is the King
Chapter 1392 – Bill’s China visit
Chapter 1393 – Coincidence?
Chapter 1394 – Crazy Expansion
Chapter 1395 – Suing Microsoft

Chapter 1396 –Microsoft is sued all over the world

Chapter 1397 – Times are different now
Chapter 1398 – The new system is almost ready
Chapter 1399 – AMD is challenging Intel
Chapter 1400 – Is this possible?